The Lion's Share

MR. FOULGER

Half an hour later the woman and the girl, still in the study and severely damaged by the culminating events of Mr. Cowl’s visit, were almost prostrated by the entirely unexpected announcement of the arrival of Mr. Foulger. Mr. Foulger was the late Mr. Moze’s solicitor from Chelmsford. Audrey’s first thought was: “Has heaven telegraphed to him on my behalf?” But her next was that all the solicitors in the world would now be useless in the horrible calamity that had befallen.

It is to be noted that Audrey was no worse off than before the discovery of the astounding value of the Zacatecas shares. The Moze property, inherited through generations and consisting mainly in farms and tithe-rents, was not in the slightest degree impaired. On the contrary, the steady progress of agriculture in Essex indicated that its yield must improve with years. Nevertheless Audrey felt as though she and her mother were ruined, and as though the National Reformation Society had been guilty of a fearful crime against a widow and an orphan. The lovely vision of immeasurable wealth had flashed and scintillated for a month in front of her dazzled eyes—and then blackness, nothingness, the dark void! She knew that she would never be happy again.

And she thought, scornfully, “How could father have been so preoccupied and so gloomy, with all those riches?” She could not conceive anybody as rich as her father secretly was not being day and night in a condition of pure delight at the whole spectacle of existence. Her opinion of Mathew Moze fell lower than ever, and fell finally.

The parlourmaid, in a negligence of attire indicating that no man was left alive in the house, waited at the door of the study to learn whether or not Miss Moze was in.

“You’ll have to see him,” said Miss Ingate firmly. “It’ll be all right. I’ve known him all my life. He’s a very nice man.”

After the parlourmaid had gone, and while Audrey was upbraiding her for not confessing earlier her acquaintance with Mr. Foulger, Miss Ingate added:

“Only his wife has a wooden leg.”

Then Mr. Foulger entered. He was a shortish man of about fifty, with a paunch, but not otherwise fat; dressed like a sportsman. He trod very lightly. The expression on his ruddy face was amiable but extremely alert, hardening at intervals into decision or caution. He saw before him a nervous, frowning girl in inelegant black, and Miss Ingate with a curious look in her eyes and a sardonic and timid twitching of her lips. For an instant he was discountenanced; but he at once recovered, accomplishing a bright salute.

“Here you are at last, Mr. Foulger!” Miss Ingate responded. “But you’re too late.”

These mysterious words, and the speechlessness of Audrey, upset him again.

“I was away in Somersetshire for a little fishing,” he said, after he had deplored the death of Mr. Moze, the illness of Mrs. Moze, and the bereavement of Miss Moze, and had congratulated Miss Moze on the protective friendship of his old friend, Miss Ingate. “I was away for a little fishing, and I only heard the sad news when I got back home at noon to-day. I came over at once.” He cleared his throat and looked first at Audrey and then at Miss Ingate. He felt that he ought to be addressing Audrey, but somehow he could not help addressing Miss Ingate instead. His grey legs were spread abroad as he sat very erect on a chair, and between them his dependent paunch found a comfortable space for itself.

“You must have been getting anxious about the will. I have brought it with me,” he said. He drew a white document from the breast-pocket of his cutaway coat, and he perched a pair of eyeglasses carelessly on his nose. “It was executed before your birth, Miss Moze. But a will keeps like wine. The whole of the property of every description is left to Mrs. Moze, and she is sole executrix. If she should predecease the testator, then everything is left to his child or children. Not perhaps a very businesslike will—a will likely to lead to unforeseen complications, but the sort of will that a man in the first flush of marriage often does make, and there is no stopping him. Your father had almost every quality, but he was not businesslike—if I may say so with respect. However, I confess that for the present I see no difficulties. Of course the death duties will have to be paid, but your father always kept a considerable amount of money at call. When I say ‘considerable,’ I mean several thousands. That was a point on which he and I had many discussions.”

Mr. Foulger glanced around with satisfaction. Already the prospect of legal business and costs had brought about a change in his official demeanour of an adviser truly bereaved by the death of a client. He saw the young girl, gazing fiercely at the carpet, suddenly begin to weep. This phenomenon, to which he was not unaccustomed, did not by itself disturb him; but the face of Miss Ingate gave him strange apprehensions, which reached a climax when Miss Ingate, obviously not at all at ease, muttered:

“There is a later will, Mr. Foulger. It was made last year.”

“I see,” he breathed, scarcely above a whisper.

He thought he did see. He thought he understood why he had been kept waiting, why Mrs. Moze pretended to be ill, why the girl had frowned, why the naively calm Miss Ingate was in such a state of nerves. The explanation was that he was not wanted. The explanation was that Mr. Moze had changed his solicitor. His face hardened, for he and his uncle between them had “acted” for the Moze family for over seventy years.

He rose from the chair.

“Then I need not trouble you any longer,” he said in a firm tone, and turned with real dignity to leave.

He was exceedingly astonished when with one swift movement Audrey rose, and flashed like a missile to the door, and stood with her back to it. The fact was that Audrey had just remembered her vow never again to be afraid of anybody. When Miss Ingate with extraordinary agility also jumped up and approached him, he apprehended, recalling rumours of Miss Ingate’s advanced feminism, that the fate of an anti-suffragette Cabinet Minister might be awaiting him, and he prepared his defence.

“You mustn’t go,” said Miss Ingate.

“You are my solicitor, whatever mother may say, and you mustn’t go,” added Audrey in a soft voice.

The man was entranced. It occurred to him that he would have a tale to tell and to re-tell at his club for years, about “a certain fair client who shall be nameless.”

The next minute he had heard a somewhat romantic, if not hysterical, version of the facts of the case, and he was perusing the original documents. By chance he read first the letter about the Zacatecas shares. That Mathew Moze had made a will without his aid was a shock; that Mathew Moze had invested money without his advice was another shock quite as severe. But he knew the status of the Great Mexican Oil Company, and his countenance lighted as he realised the rich immensity of the business of proving the will and devolving the estate; his costs would run to the most agreeable figures. As soon as he glanced at the testament which Mr. Cowl had found, he muttered, with satisfaction and disdain:

“H’m! He made this himself.”

And he gazed at it compassionately, as a cabinetmaker might gaze at a piece of amateur fretwork.

Standing, he read it slowly and with extreme care. And when he had finished he casually remarked, in the classic legal phrase:

“It isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”

Then he sat down again, and his neat paunch resumed its niche between his legs. He knew that he had made a tremendous effect.

“But—but——” Miss Ingate began.

“Not worth the paper it’s written on,” he repeated. “There is only one witness, and there ought to be two, and even the one witness is a bad one—Aguilar, because he profits under the will. He would have to give up his legacy before his attestation could count, and even then it would be no good alone. Mr. Moze has not even expressly revoked the old will. If there hadn’t been a previous will, and if Aguilar was a thoroughly reliable man, and if the family had wished to uphold the new will, I dare say the Court might have pronounced for it. But under the circumstances it hasn’t the ghost of a chance.”

“But won’t the National Reformation Society make trouble?” demanded Miss Ingate faintly.

“Let ’em try!” said Mr. Foulger, who wished that the National Reformation Society would indeed try.

Even as he articulated the words, he was aware of Audrey coming towards him from the direction of the door; he was aware of her black frock and of her white face, with its bulging forehead and its deliciously insignificant nose. She held out her hand.

“You are a dear!” she whispered.

Her lips seemed to aim uncertainly for his face. Did they just touch, with exquisite contact, his bristly chin, or was it a divine illusion? ... She blushed in a very marked manner. He blinked, and his happy blinking seemed to say: “Only wills drawn by me are genuine.... Didn’t I tell you Mr. Moze was not a man of business?”

Audrey ran to Miss Ingate.

Mr. Foulger, suddenly ashamed, and determined to be a lawyer, said sharply:

“Has Mrs. Moze made a will?”

“Mother made a will? Oh no!”

“Then she should make one at once, in your favour, of course. No time should be lost.”

“But Mrs. Moze is ill in bed,” protested Miss Ingate.

“All the more reason why she should make a will. It may save endless trouble. And it is her duty. I shall suggest that I be the executor and trustee, of course with the usual power to charge costs.” His face was hard again. “You will thank me later on, Miss Moze,” he added.

“Do you mean now?“ shrilled Miss Ingate.

“I do,” said he. “If you will give me some paper, we might go to her at once. You can be one of the witnesses. I could be a witness, but as I am to act under the will for a consideration somebody else would be preferable.”

“I should suggest Aguilar,” answered Miss Ingate, the corners of her lips dropping.

Miss Ingate went first, to prepare Mrs. Moze.

When Audrey was alone in the study—she had not even offered to accompany her elders to the bedroom—she made a long sound: “Ooo!” Then she gave a leap and stood still, staring out of the window at the estuary. She tried to force her mood to the colour of her dress, but the sense of propriety was insufficient for the task. The magnificence of all the world was unfolding itself to her soul. Events had hitherto so dizzyingly beaten down upon her head that she had scarcely been conscious of feeling. Now she luxuriously felt. “I am at last born,” she thought. “Miracles have happened.... It’s incredible.... I can do what I like with mother.... But if I don’t take care I shall die of relief this very moment!”

THE DEAD HAND

Audrey was wakened up that night, just after she had gone to sleep, by a touch on the cheek. Her mother, palely indistinct in the darkness, was standing by the bedside. She wore a white wrap over her night attire, and the customary white bandage from which emanated a faint odour of eau-de-Cologne, was around her forehead.

“Audrey, darling, I must speak to you.”

Instantly Audrey became the wise directress of her poor foolish mother’s existence.

“Mother,” she said, with firm kindness, “please do go back to bed at once. This sort of thing is simply frightful for your neuralgia. I’ll come to you in one moment.”

And Mrs. Moze meekly obeyed; she had gone even before Audrey had had time to light her candle. Audrey was very content in thus being able to control her mother and order everything for the best. She guessed that the old lady had got some idea into her head about the property, or about her own will, or about the solicitor, or about a tombstone, and that it was worrying her. She and Miss Ingate (who had now returned home) had had a very extensive palaver, in low voices that never ceased, after the triumphant departure of Mr. Foulger. Audrey had cautiously protested; she was afraid her mother would be fatigued, and she saw no reason why her mother should be acquainted with all the details of a complex matter; but the gossiping habit of a quarter of a century was too powerful for Audrey.

In the large parental bedroom the only light was Audrey’s candle. Mrs. Moze was lying on the right half of the great bed, where she had always lain. She might have lain luxuriously in the middle, with vast spaces at either hand, but again habit was too powerful.

The girl, all in white, held the candle higher, and the shadows everywhere shrunk in unison. Mrs. Moze blinked.

“Put the candle on the night-table,” said Mrs. Moze curtly.

Audrey did so. The bedroom, for her, was full of the souvenirs of parental authority. Her first recollections were those of awe in regard to the bedroom. And when she thought that on that bed she had been born, she had a very queer sensation.

“I’ve decided,” said Mrs. Moze, lying on her back, and looking up at the ceiling, “I’ve decided that your father’s wishes must be obeyed.”

“What about, mother?”

“About those shares going to the National Reformation Society. He meant them to go, and they must go to the Society. I’ve thought it well over and I’ve quite decided. I didn’t tell Miss Ingate, as it doesn’t concern her. But I felt I must tell you at once.”

“Mother!” cried Audrey. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” She shivered; the room was very cold, and as she shivered her image in the mirror of the wardrobe shivered, and also her shadow that climbed up the wall and bent at right-angles at the cornice till it reached the middle of the ceiling.

Mrs. Moze replied obstinately:

“I’ve not taken leave of my senses, and I’ll thank you to remember that I’m your mother. I have always carried out your father’s wishes, and at my time of life I can’t alter. Your father was a very wise man. We shall be as well off as we always were. Better, because I can save, and I shall save. We have no complaint to make; I should have no excuse for disobeying your father. Everything is mine to do as I wish with it, and I shall give the shares to the Society. What the shares are worth can’t affect my duty. Besides, perhaps they aren’t worth anything. I always understood that things like that were always jumping up and down, and generally worthless in the end.... That’s all I wanted to tell you.”

Why did Audrey seize the candle and walk straight out of the bedroom, leaving darkness behind her? Was it because the acuteness of her feelings drove her out, or was it because she knew instinctively that her mother’s decision would prove to be immovable? Perhaps both.

She dropped back into her own bed with a soundless sigh of exhaustion. She did not blow out the candle, but lay staring at it. Her dream was annihilated. She foresaw an interminable, weary and futile future in and about Moze, and her mother always indisposed, always fretful, and curiously obstinate in weakness. But Audrey, despite her tragic disillusion, was less desolated than made solemn. In the most disturbing way she knew herself to be the daughter of her father and her mother; and she comprehended that her destiny could not be broken off suddenly from theirs. She was touched because her mother deemed her father a very wise man, whereas she, Audrey, knew that he was nothing of the sort. She felt sorry for both of them. She pitied her father, and she was a mother to her mother. Their relations together, and the mystic posthumous spell of her father over her mother, impressed her profoundly.... And she was proud of herself for having demonstrated her courage by preventing the solicitor from running away, and extraordinarily ashamed of her sentimental and brazen behaviour to the solicitor afterwards. These various thoughts mitigated her despair as she gazed at the sinking candle. Nevertheless her dream was annihilated.

THE YOUNG WIDOW

It was early October. Audrey stood at the garden door of Flank Hall.

The estuary, in all the colours of unsettled, mild, bright weather, lay at her feet beneath a high arch of changing blue and white. The capricious wind moved in her hair, moved in the rich grasses of the sea-wall, bent at a curtseying angle the red-sailed barges, put caps on the waves in the middle distance, and drew out into long horizontal scarves the smoke of faint steamers in the offing.

Audrey was dressed in black, but her raiment had obviously not been fashioned in the village, nor even at Colchester, nor yet at Ipswich, that great and stylish city. She looked older; she certainly had acquired something of an air of knowledge, assurance, domination, sauciness and challenge, which qualities were all partly illustrated in her large, audacious hat. The spirit which the late Mr. Moze had so successfully suppressed was at length coming to the surface for all beholders to see, and the process of evolution begun at the moment when Audrey had bounced up and prevented an authoritative solicitor from leaving the study was already advanced. Nevertheless, at frequent intervals Audrey’s eyes changed, and she seemed for an instant to be a very naive, very ingenuous and wistful little thing—and this though she had reached the age of twenty. Perhaps she was feeling sorry for the girl she used to be.

And no doubt she was also thinking of her mother, who had died within eight hours of their nocturnal interview. The death of Mrs. Moze surprised everyone, except possibly Mrs. Moze. As an unsuspected result of the operation upon her, an embolism had been wandering in her veins; it reached the brain, and she expired, to the great loss of the National Reformation Society. Such was the brief and simple history. When Audrey stood by the body, she had felt that if it could have saved her mother she would have enriched the National Reformation Society with all she possessed.

Gradually the sense of freedom had grown paramount in her, and she had undertaken the enterprise of completely subduing Mr. Foulger to her own ends.

The back hall was carpetless and pictureless, and the furniture in it was draped in grey-white. Every room in the abode was in the same state, and, since all the windows were shuttered, every room lay moribund in a ghostly twilight. Only the clocks remained alive, probably thinking themselves immortal. The breakfast things were washed up and stored away. The last two servants had already gone. Behind Audrey, forming a hilly background, were trunks and boxes, a large bunch of flowers encased in paper, and a case of umbrellas and parasols; the whole strikingly new, and every single item except the flowers labelled “Paris via Charing Cross and Calais.”

Audrey opened her black Russian satchel, and the purse within it. Therein were a little compartment full of English gold, another full of French gold, another full of multicoloured French bank-notes; and loose in the satchel was a blue book of credit-notes, each for five hundred francs, or twenty pounds—a thick book! And she would not have minded much if she had lost the whole satchel —it would be so easy to replace the satchel with all its contents.

Then a small brougham came very deliberately up the drive. It was the vehicle in which Miss Ingate went her ways; in accordance with Miss Ingate’s immemorial command, it travelled at a walking pace up all the hills to save the horse, and at a walking pace down all hills lest the horse should stumble and Miss Ingate be destroyed. It was now followed by a luggage-cart on which was a large trunk.

At the same moment Aguilar, the gardener, appeared from somewhere—he who had been robbed of a legacy of ten pounds, but who by his ruthless and incontestable integrity had secured the job of caretaker of Flank Hall.

The drivers touched their hats to Audrey and jumped down, and Miss Ingate, with a blue veil tied like a handkerchief round her bonnet and chin—sign that she was a traveller—emerged from the brougham, sardonically smiling at her own and everybody’s expense, and too excited to be able to give greetings. The three men started to move the trunks, and the two women whispered together in the back-hall.

“Audrey,” demanded Miss Ingate, with a start, “what are those rings on your finger?”

Audrey replied:

“One’s a wedding ring and the other’s a mourning ring. I bought them yesterday at Colchester.... Hsh!” She stilled further exclamations from Miss Ingate until the men were out of the hall.

“Look here! Quick!” she whispered, hastily unlocking a large hat-case that was left. And Miss Ingate looked and saw a block toque, entirely unsuitable for a young girl, and a widow’s veil.

“I look bewitching in them,” said Audrey, relocking the case.

“But, my child, what does it mean?”

“It means that I’m not silly enough to go to Paris as a girl. I’ve had more than enough of being a girl. I’m determined to arrive in Paris as a young widow. It will be much better in every way, and far easier for you. In fact, you’ll have no chaperoning to do at all. I shall be the chaperon. Now don’t say you won’t go, because you will.”

“You ought to have told me before.”

“No, I oughtn’t. Nothing could have been more foolish.”

“But who are you the widow of?”

“Hurrah!” cried Audrey. “You are a sport, Winnie! I’ll tell you all the interesting details in the train.”

In another minute Aguilar, gloomy and unbending, had received the keys of Flank Hall, and the procession crunched down the drive on its way to the station.

THE CIGARETTE GIRL

Audrey did not deem that she had begun truly to live until the next morning, when they left London, after having passed a night in the Charing Cross Hotel. During several visits to London in the course of the summer Audrey had learnt something about the valuelessness of money in a metropolis chiefly inhabited by people who were positively embarrassed by their riches. She knew, for example, that money being very plentiful and stylish hats very rare, large quantities of money had to be given for infinitesimal quantities of hats. The big and glittering shops were full of people whose pockets bulged with money which they were obviously anxious to part with in order to obtain goods, while the proud shop-assistants, secure in the knowledge that money was naught and goods were everything, did their utmost, by hauteur and steely negatives, to render any transaction possible. It was the result of a mysterious “Law of Exchange.” She was aware of this. She had lost her childhood’s naive illusions about the sovereignty of money.

Nevertheless she received one or two shocks on the journey, which was planned upon the most luxurious scale that the imagination of Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son could conceive. There was four pounds and ninepence to pay for excess luggage at Charing Cross. Half a year earlier four pounds would have bought all the luggage she could have got together. She very nearly said to the clerk at the window: “Don’t you mean shillings?” But in spite of nervousness, blushings, and all manner of sensitive reactions to new experiences, her natural sang-froid and instinctive knowledge of the world saved her from such a terrible lapse, and she put down a bank-note without the slightest hint that she was wondering whether it would not be more advantageous to throw the luggage away.

The boat was crowded, and the sea and wind full of menace. Fighting their way along the deck after laden porters, Audrey and Miss Ingate simultaneously espied the private cabin list hung in a conspicuous spot. They perused it as eagerly as if it had been the account of a cause célèbre. Among the list were two English lords, an Honourable Mrs., a baroness with a Hungarian name, several Teutonic names, and Mrs. Moncreiff.

Audrey blushed deeply at the sign of Mrs. Moncreiff, for she was Mrs. Moncreiff. Behind the veil, and with the touch of white in her toque, she might have been any age up to twenty-eight or so. It would have been impossible to say that she was a young girl, that she was not versed in the world, that she had not the whole catechism of men at her finger-ends. All who glanced at her glanced again—with sympathy and curiosity; and the second glance pricked Audrey’s conscience, making her feel like a thief. But her moods were capricious. At one moment she was a thief, a clumsy fraud, an ignorant ninny, and a suitable prey for the secret police; and at the next she was very clever, self-confident, equal to the situation, and enjoying the situation more than she had ever enjoyed anything, and determined to prolong the situation indefinitely.

The cabin was very spacious, yet not more so than was proper, considering that the rent of it came to about sixpence a minute. There was room, even after all the packages were stowed, for both of them to lie down. But instead of lying down they eagerly inspected the little abode. They found a lavatory basin with hot and cold water taps, but no hot water and no cold water, no soap and no towels. And they found a crystal water-bottle, but it was empty. Then a steward came and asked them if they wanted anything, and because they were miserable poltroons they smiled and said “No.” They were secretly convinced that all the other private cabins, inhabited by titled persons and by financiers, were superior to their cabin, and that the captain of the steamer had fobbed them off with an imitation of a real cabin.

Then it was that Miss Ingate, who since Charing Cross had been a little excited by a glimpsed newspaper contents-bill indicating suffragette riots that morning, perceived, through the open door of the cabin, a most beautiful and most elegant girl, attired impeccably in that ritualistic garb of travel which the truly cosmopolitan wear on combined rail-and-ocean journeys and on no other occasions. It was at once apparent that the celestial creature had put on that special hat, that special veil, that special cloak, and those special gloves because she was deeply aware of what was correct, and that she would not put them on again until destiny took her again across the sea, and that if destiny never did take her again across the sea never again would she show herself in the vestments, whose correctness was only equalled by their expensiveness.

The young woman, however, took no thought of her impressive clothes. She was existing upon quite another plane. Miss Ingate, preoccupied by the wrongs and perils of her sex, and momentarily softened out of her sardonic irony, suspected that they might be in the presence of a victim of oppression or neglect. The victim lay Half-prone upon the hard wooden seat against the ship’s rail. Her dark eyes opened piteously at times, and her exquisite profile, surmounted by the priceless hat all askew, made a silhouette now against the sea and now against the distant white cliffs of Albion, according to the fearful heaving of the ship. Spray occasionally dashed over her. She heeded it not. A few feet farther off she would have been sheltered by a weather-awning, but, clinging fiercely to the rail, she would not move.

Then a sharp squall of rain broke, but she entirely ignored the rain.

The next moment Miss Ingate and Audrey, rushing forth, had gently seized her and drawn her into their cabin. They might have succoured other martyrs to the modern passion for moving about, for there were many; but they chose this particular martyr because she was so wondrously dressed, and also perhaps a little because she was so young. As she lay on the cabin sofa she looked still younger; she looked a child. Yet when Miss Ingate removed her gloves in order to rub those chill, fragile, and miraculously manicured hands, a wedding ring was revealed. The wedding ring rendered her intensely romantic in the eyes of Audrey and Miss Ingate, who both thought, in private:

“She must be the wife of one of those lords!”

Every detail of her raiment, as she was put at her ease, showed her to be clothed in precisely the manner which Audrey and Miss Ingate thought peeresses always were clothed. Hence, being English, they mingled respect with their solacing pity. Nevertheless, their respect was tempered by a peculiar pride, for both of them, in taking lemonade on the Pullman, had taken therewith a certain preventive or remedy which made them loftily indifferent to the heaving of ships and the eccentricities of the sea. The specific had done all that was claimed for it—which was a great deal—so much so that they felt themselves superwomen among a cargo of flaccid and feeble sub-females. And they grew charmingly conceited.

“Am I in my cabin?” murmured the martyr, about a quarter of an hour after Miss Ingate, having obtained soda water, had administered to her a dose of the miraculous specific.

Her delicious cheeks were now a delicate crimson. But they had been of a delicate crimson throughout.

“No,” said Audrey. “You’re in ours. Which is yours?”

“It’s on the other side of the ship, then. I came out for a little air. But I couldn’t get back. I’d just as lief have died as shift from that seat out there by the railings.”

Something in the accent, something in those fine English words “lief” and “shift,” destroyed in the minds of Audrey and Miss Ingate the agreeable notion that they had a peeress on their hands.

“Is your husband on board?” asked Audrey.

“He just is,” was the answer. “He’s in our cabin.”

“Shall I fetch him?” Miss Ingate suggested. The corners of her lips had begun to fall once more.

“Will you?” said the young woman. “It’s Lord Southminster. I’m Lady Southminster.”

The two saviours were thrilled. Each felt that she had misinterpreted the accent, and that probably peeresses did habitually use such words as “lief” and “shift.” The corners of Miss Ingate’s lips rose to their proper position.

“I’ll look for the number on the cabin list,” said she hastily, and went forth with trembling to summon the peer.

As Audrey, alone in the cabin with Lady Southminster, bent curiously over the prostrate form, Lady Southminster exclaimed with an air of childlike admiration:

“You’re real ladies, you are!”

And Audrey felt old and experienced. She decided that Lady Southminster could not be more than seventeen, and it seemed to be about half a century since Audrey was seventeen.

“He can’t come,” announced Miss Ingate breathlessly, returning to the cabin, and supporting herself against the door as the solid teak sank under her feet. “Oh yes! He’s there all right. It was Number 12. I’ve seen him. I told him, but I don’t think he heard me—to understand, that is. If you ask me, he couldn’t come if forty wives sent for him.”

“Oh, couldn’t he!” observed Lady Southminster, sitting up. “Couldn’t he!”

When the boat was within ten minutes of France, the remedy had had such an effect upon her that she could walk about. Accompanied by Audrey she managed to work her way round the cabin-deck to No. 12. It was empty, save for hand-luggage! The two girls searched, as well as they could, the whole crowded ship for Lord Southminster, and found him not. Lady Southminster neither fainted nor wept. She merely said:

“Oh! All right! If that’s it....!”

Hand-luggage was being collected. But Lady Southminster would not collect hers, nor allow it to be collected. She agreed with Miss Ingate and Audrey that her husband must ultimately reappear either on the quay or in the train. While they were all standing huddled together in the throng waiting for the gangway to put ashore, she said in a low casual tone, à propos of nothing:

“I only married him the day before yesterday. I don’t know whether you know, but I used to make cigarettes in Constantinopoulos’s window in Piccadilly. I don’t see why I should be ashamed of it, d’you?”

“Certainly not,” said Miss Ingate. “But it is rather romantic, isn’t it, Audrey?”

Despite the terrific interest of the adventure of the cigarette girl, disappointment began immediately after landing. This France, of which Audrey had heard so much and dreamed so much, was a very ramshackle and untidy and one-horse affair. The custom-house was rather like a battlefield without any rules of warfare; the scene in the refreshment-room was rather like a sack after a battle; the station was a desert with odd files of people here and there; the platforms were ridiculous, and you wanted a pair of steps to get up into the train. Whatever romance there might be in France had been brought by Audrey in her secret heart and by Lady Southminster.

Audrey had come to France, and she was going to Paris, solely because of a vision which had been created in her by the letters and by the photographs of Madame Piriac. Although Madame Piriac and she had absolutely no tie of blood, Madame Piriac being the daughter by a first husband of the French widow who became the first Mrs. Moze—and speedily died, Audrey persisted privately in regarding Madame Piriac as a kind of elder sister. She felt a very considerable esteem for Madame Piriac, upon whom she had never set eyes, and Madame Piriac had certainly given her the impression that France was to England what paradise is to purgatory. Further, Audrey had fallen in love with Madame Piriac’s portraits, whose elegance was superb. And yet, too, Audrey was jealous of Madame Piriac, and especially so since the attainment of freedom and wealth. Madame Piriac had most warmly invited her, after the death of Mrs. Moze, to pay a long visit to Paris as a guest in her home. Audrey had declined—from jealousy. She would not go to Madame Piriac’s as a raw girl, overdone with money, who could only speak one language and who knew nothing at all of this our planet. She would go, if she went, as a young woman of the world who could hold her own in any drawing-room, be it Madame Piriac’s or another. Hence Miss Ingate had obtained the address of a Paris boarding-house, and one or two preliminary introductions from political friends in London.

Well, France was not equal to its reputation; and Miss Ingate’s sardonic smile seemed to be saying: “So this is your France!”

However, the excitement of escorting the youngest English peeress to Paris sufficed for Audrey, even if it did not suffice for Miss Ingate with her middle-aged apprehensions. They knew that Lady Southminster was the youngest English peeress because she had told them so. At the very moment when they were dispatching a telegram for her to an address in London, she had popped out the remark: “Do you know I’m the youngest peeress in England?” And truth shone in her candid and simple smile. They had not found the peer, neither on the ship, nor on the quay, nor in the station. And the peeress would not wait. She was indeed obviously frightened at the idea of remaining in Calais alone, even till the next express. She said that her husband’s “man” would meet the train in Paris. She ate plenteously with Audrey and Miss Ingate in the refreshment-room, and she would not leave them nor allow them to leave her. The easiest course was to let her have her way, and she had it.

By dint of Miss Ingate’s unscrupulous tricks with small baggage they contrived to keep a whole compartment to themselves. As soon as the train started the peeress began to cry. Then, wiping her heavenly silly eyes, and upbraiding herself, she related to her protectresses the glory of a new manicure set. Unfortunately she could not show them the set, as it had been left in the cabin. She was actually in possession of nothing portable except her clothes, some English magazines bought at Calais, and a handbag which contained much money and many bonbons.

“He’s done it on purpose,” she said to Audrey as soon as Miss Ingate went off to take tea in the tea-car. “I’m sure he’s done it on purpose. He’s hidden himself, and he’ll turn up when he thinks he’s beaten me. D’you know why I wouldn’t bring that luggage away out of the cabin? Because we had a quarrel about it, at the station, and he said things to me. In fact we weren’t speaking. And we weren’t speaking last night either. The radiator of his—our—car leaked, and we had to come home from the Coliseum in a motor-bus. He couldn’t get a taxi. It wasn’t his fault, but a friend of mine told me the day before I was married that a lady always ought to be angry when her husband can’t get a taxi after the theatre—she says it does ’em good. So first I told him he mustn’t leave me to look for one. Then I said I’d wait where I was, and then I said we’d walk on, and then I said we must take a motor-bus. It was that that finished him. He said: ‘Did I expect him to invent a taxi when there wasn’t one?’ And he swore. So of course I sulked. You must, you know. And my shoes were too thin and I felt chilly. But only a fortnight before I was making cigarettes in the window of Constantinopoulos’s. Funny, isn’t it? Otherwise he’s behaved splendid. Still, what I do say is a man’s no right to be ill when he’s taking you to Paris on your honeymoon. I knew he was going to be ill when I left him in the cabin, but he stuck me out he wasn’t. A man that’s so bad he can’t come to his wife when she’s bad isn’t a man—that’s what I say. Don’t you think so? You know all about that sort of thing, I lay.”

Audrey said briefly that she did think so, glad that the peeress’s intense and excusable interest in herself kept her from being curious about others.

“Marriage ain’t all chocolate-creams,” said the peeress after a pause. “Have one?” And she opened her bag very hospitably.

Then she turned to her magazines. And no sooner had she glanced at the cover of the second one than she gave a squeal, and, fetching deep breaths, passed the periodical to Audrey. At the top of the cover was printed in large letters the title of a story by a famous author of short tales. It ran:

“MAN OVERBOARD.”

Henceforward a suspicion that had lain concealed in the undergrowth of the hearts of the two girls stalked boldly about in full daylight.

“He’s done it, and he’s done it to spite me!” murmured Lady Southminster tearfully.

“Oh no!” Audrey protested. “Even if he had fallen overboard he’d have been seen and the captain would have stopped the boat.”

“Where do you come from?” Lady Southminster retorted with disdain. “That’s an omen, that is"—pointing to the words on the cover of the magazine. “What else could it be? I ask you.”

When Miss Ingate returned the child was fast asleep. Miss Ingate was paler than usual. Having convinced herself that the sleeper did genuinely sleep, she breathed to Audrey:

“He’s in the next compartment! ... He must have hidden himself till nearly the last minute on the boat and then got into the train while we were sending off that telegram.”

Audrey blenched.

“Shall you wake her?”

“Wake her, and have a scene—with us here? No, I shan’t. He’s a fool.”

“How d’you know?” asked Audrey.

“Well, he must have been a fool to marry her.”

“Well,” whispered Audrey. “If I’d been a man I’d have married that face like a shot.”

“It might be all right if he’d only married the face. But he’s married what she calls her mind.”

“Is he young?”

“Yes. And as good-looking in his own way as she is.”

“Well—”

But the Countess of Southminster stirred, and the slight movement stopped conversation.

The journey was endless, but it was no longer than the sleep of the Countess. At length dusk and mist began to gather in the hollows of the land; stations succeeded one another more frequently. The reflections of the electric lights in the compartment could be seen beyond the glass of the windows. The train still ruthlessly clattered and shook and swayed and thundered; and weary lords, ladies and financiers had read all the illustrated magazines and six-penny novels in existence, and they lolled exhausted and bored amid the debris of literature and light refreshments. Then the speed of the convoy slackened, and Audrey, looking forth, saw a pale cathedral dome resting aloft amid dark clouds. It was a magical glimpse, and it was the first glimpse of Paris. “Oh!” cried Audrey, far more like a girl than a widow. The train rattled through defiles of high twinkling houses, roared under bridges, screeched, threaded forests of cold blue lamps, and at last came to rest under a black echoing vault.

Paris!

And, mysteriously, all Audrey’s illusions concerning France had been born again. She was convinced that Paris could not fail to be paradisiacal.

Lady Southminster awoke.

Almost simultaneously a young man very well dressed passed along the corridor. Lady Southminster, with an awful start, seized her bag and sprang after him, but was impeded by other passengers. She caught him only after he had descended to the platform, which was at the bottom of a precipice below the windows. He had just been saluted by, and given orders to, a waiting valet. She caught him sharply by the arm. He shook free and walked quickly away up the platform, guided by a wise instinct for avoiding a scene in front of fellow-travellers. She followed close after him, talking with rapidity. They receded. Audrey and Miss Ingate leaned out of the windows to watch, and still farther and farther out. Just as the honeymooning pair disappeared altogether their two forms came into contact, and Audrey’s eyes could see the arm of Lord Southminster take the arm of Lady Southminster. They vanished from view like one flesh. And Audrey and Miss Ingate, deserted, forgotten utterly, unthanked, buffeted by passengers and by the valet who had climbed up into the carriage to take away the impedimenta of his master, gazed at each other and then burst out laughing.

“So that’s marriage!” said Audrey.

“No,” said Miss Ingate. “That’s love. I’ve seen a deal of love in my time, ever since my sister Arabella’s first engagement, but I never saw any that wasn’t vehy, vehy queer.”

“I do hope they’ll be happy,” said Audrey.

“Do you?” said Miss Ingate.

EXPLOITATION OF WIDOWHOOD

The carriage had emptied, and the two adventurers stood alone among empty compartments. The platform was also empty. Not a porter in sight. One after the other, the young widow and the elderly spinster, their purses bulging with money, got their packages by great efforts down on to the platform.

An employee strolled past.

“Porteur?” murmured Audrey timidly.

The man sniggered, shrugged his shoulders, and vanished.

Audrey felt that she had gone back to her school days. She was helpless, and Miss Ingate was the same. She wished ardently that she was in Moze again. She could not imagine how she had been such a fool as to undertake this absurd expedition which could only end in ridicule and disaster. She was ready to cry. Then another employee appeared, hesitated, and picked up a bag, scowling and inimical. Gradually the man, very tousled and dirty, clustered all the bags and parcels around his person, and walked off. Audrey and Miss Ingate meekly following. The great roof of the station resounded to whistles and the escape of steam and the clashing of wagons.

Beyond the platforms there were droves of people, of whom nearly every individual was preoccupied and hurried. And what people! Audrey had in her heart expected a sort of glittering white terminus full of dandiacal men and elegant Parisiennes who had stepped straight out of fashion-plates, and who had no cares—for was not this Paris? Whereas, in fact, the multitude was the dingiest she had ever seen. Not a gleam of elegance! No hint of dazzling colour! No smiling and satiric beauty! They were just persons.

At last, after formalities, Audrey and Miss Ingate reached the foul and chilly custom-house appointed for the examination of luggage. Unrecognisable peers and other highnesses stood waiting at long counters, forming bays, on which was nothing at all. Then, far behind, a truck hugely piled with trunks rolled in through a back door and men pitched the trunks like toys here and there on the counters, and officials came into view, and knots of travellers gathered round trunks, and locks were turned and lids were lifted, and the flash of linen showed in spots on the drabness of the scene. Miss Ingate observed with horror the complete undoing of a lady’s large trunk, and the exposure to the world’s harsh gaze of the most intimate possessions of that lady. Soon the counters were like a fair. But no trunk belonging to Audrey or to Miss Ingate was visible. They knew then, what they had both privately suspected ever since Charing Cross, that their trunks would be lost on the journey.

“Oh! My trunk!” cried Miss Ingate.

Beneath a pile of other trunks on an incoming truck she had espied her property. Audrey saw it, too. The vision was magical. The trunk seemed like a piece of home, a bit of Moze and of England. It drew affection from them as though it had been an animal. They sped towards it, forgetting their small baggage. Their porteur leaped over the counter from behind and made signs for a key. All Audrey’s trunks in turn joined Miss Ingate’s; none was missing. And finally an official, small and fierce, responded to the invocations of the porteur and established himself at the counter in front of them. He put his hand on Miss Ingate’s trunk.

“Op-en,” he said in English.

Miss Ingate opened her purse, and indicated to the official by signs that she had no key for the trunk, and she also cried loudly, so that he should comprehend:

“No key! ... Lost!”

Then she looked awkwardly at Audrey.

“I’ve been told they only want to open one trunk when there’s a lot. Let him choose another one,” she murmured archly.

But the official merely walked away, to deal with the trunks of somebody else close by.

Audrey was cross.

“Miss Ingate,” she said formally, “you had the key when we started, because you showed it to me. You can’t possibly have lost it.”

“No,” answered Winnie calmly and knowingly. “I haven’t lost it. But I’m not going to have the things in my trunk thrown about for all these foreigners to see. It’s simply disgraceful. They ought to have women officials and private rooms at these places. And they would have, if women had the vote. Let him open one of your trunks. All your things are new.”

The porteur had meanwhile been discharging French into Audrey’s other ear.

“Of course you must open it, Winnie,” said she. “Don’t be so absurd!” There was a persuasive lightness in her voice, but there was also command. For a moment she was the perfect widow.

“I’d rather not.”

“The porteur says we shall be here all night,” Audrey persisted.

“Do you know French?”

“I learnt French at school, Winnie,” said the perfect widow. “I can’t understand every word, but I can make out the drift.” And Audrey went on translating the porter according to her own wisdom. “He says there have been dreadful scenes here before, when people have refused to open their trunks, and the police have had to be called in. He says the man won’t upset the things in your trunk at all.”

Miss Ingate gazed into the distance, and privately smiled. Audrey had never guessed that in Miss Ingate were such depths of obstinate stupidity. She felt quite distinctly that her understanding of human nature was increasing.

“Oh! Look!” said Miss Ingate casually. “I’m sure those must be real Parisians!” Her offhandedness, her inability to realise the situation, were exasperating to the young widow. Audrey glanced where Miss Ingate had pointed, and saw in the doorway of the custom-house two women and a lad, all cloaked but all obviously in radiant fancy dress, laughing together.

“Don’t they look French!” said Miss Ingate.

Audrey tapped her foot on the asphalt floor, while people whose luggage had been examined bumped strenuously against her in the effort to depart. She was extremely pessimistic; she knew she could do nothing with Miss Ingate; and the thought of the vast, flaring, rumbling city beyond the station intimidated her. The porteur, who had gone away to collect their neglected small baggage, now returned, and nudged her, pointing to the official who had resumed his place behind the trunks. He was certainly a fierce man, but he was a little man, and there was an agreeable peculiarity in his eye.

Audrey, suddenly inspired and emboldened, faced him; she shrugged her shoulders Gallically at Miss Ingate’s trunk, and gave a sad, sweet, wistful smile, and then put her hand with an exquisite inviting gesture on the smallest of her own trunks. The act was a deliberate exploitation of widowhood. The official fiercely shrugged his shoulders and threw up his arms, and told the porteur to open the small trunk.

“I told you they would,” said Miss Ingate negligently.

Audrey would have turned upon her and slain her had she not been busy with the tremendous realisation of the fact that by a glance and a gesture she had conquered the customs official—a foreigner and a stranger. She wanted to be alone and to think.

Just as the trunk was being relocked, Audrey heard an American girlish voice behind her:

“Now, you must be Miss Ingate!”

“I am,” Miss Ingate almost ecstatically admitted.

The trio in cloaked fancy dress were surrounding Miss Ingate like a bodyguard.

LIFE IN PARIS

Miss Thompkins and Miss Nickall were a charm to dissipate all the affrighting menace of the city beyond the station. Miss Thompkins had fluffy red hair, with the freckles which too often accompany red hair, and was addressed as Tommy. Miss Nickall had fluffy grey hair, with warm, loving eyes, and was addressed as Nick. The age of either might have been anything from twenty-four to forty. The one came from Wyoming, the other from Arizona; and it was instantly clear that they were close friends. They had driven up to the terminus before going to a fancy-dress ball to be given that night in the studio of Monsieur Dauphin, a famous French painter and a delightful man. They had met Monsieur Dauphin on the previous evening on the terrace of the Café de Versailles, and Monsieur had said, in response to their suggestion, that he would be enchanted and too much honoured if they would bring their English friends to his little “leaping"—that was, hop.

Also they had thought that it would be nice for the travellers to be met at the terminus, especially as Miss Ingate had been very particularly recommended to Miss Thompkins by a whole group of people in London. It was Miss Thompkins who had supplied the address of reliable furnished rooms, and she and Nick would personally introduce the ladies to their landlady, who was a sweet creature.

Tommy and Nick and Miss Ingate were at once on terms of cordial informality; but the Americans seemed to be a little diffident before the companion. Their voices, at the introduction, had reinforced the surprise of their first glances. “Oh! Mrs. Moncreiff!” The slightest insistence, no more, on the “Mrs."! Nothing said, but evidently they had expected somebody else!

Then there was the boy, whom they called Musa. He was dark, slim, with timorous great eyes, and attired in red as a devil beneath his student’s cloak. He apologised slowly in English for not being able to speak English. He said he was very French, and Tommy and Nick smiled, and he smiled back at them rather wistfully. When Tommy and Nick had spoken with the chauffeurs in French he interpreted their remarks. There were two motor-taxis, one for the luggage.

Miss Thompkins accompanied the luggage; she insisted on doing so. She could tell sinister tales of Paris cabmen, and she even delayed the departure in order to explain that once in the suburbs and in the pre-taxi days a cabman had threatened to drive her and himself into the Seine unless she would be his bride, and she saved herself by promising to be his bride and telling him that she lived in the Avenue de l’Opéra; as soon as the cab reached a populous thoroughfare she opened the cab door and squealed and was rescued; she had let the driver go free because of his good taste.

As the procession whizzed through nocturnal streets, some thunderous with traffic, others very quiet, but all lined with lofty regular buildings, Audrey was penetrated by the romance of this city where cabmen passionately and to the point of suicide and murder adored their fares. And she thought that perhaps, after all, Madame Piriac’s impression of Paris might not be entirely misleading. Miss Ingate and Nick talked easily, very charmed with one another, both excited. Audrey said little, and the dark youth said nothing. But once the dark youth murmured shyly to Audrey in English:

“Do you play at ten-nis, Madame?”

They crossed a thoroughfare that twinkled and glittered from end to end with moving sky-signs. Serpents pursued burning serpents on the heights of that thoroughfare, invisible hands wrote mystic words of warning and invitation, and blazing kittens played with balls of incandescent wool. Throngs of promenaders moved under theatrical trees that waved their pale emerald against the velvet sky, and the ground floor of every edifice was a glowing café, whose tables, full of idle sippers and loungers, bulged out on to the broad pavements.... The momentary vision was shut off instantly as the taxis shot down the mouth of a dark narrow street; but it had been long enough to make Audrey’s heart throb.

“What is that?” she asked.

“That?” exclaimed Nick kindly. “Oh! That’s only the grand boulevard.”

Then they crossed the sombre, lamp-reflecting Seine, and soon afterwards the two taxis stopped at a vast black door in a very wide street of serried palatial façades that were continually shaken by the rushing tumult of electric cars. Tommy jumped out and pushed a button, and the door automatically split in two, disclosing a vast and dim tunnel. Tommy ran within, and came out again with a coatless man in a black-and-yellow striped waistcoat and a short white apron. This man, Musa, and the two chauffeurs entered swiftly into a complex altercation, which endured until Audrey had paid the chauffeurs and all the trunks had been transported behind the immense door and the door bangingly shut.

“Vehy amusing, isn’t it?” whispered Miss Ingate caustically to Audrey. “Aren’t they dears?”

“Madame Dubois’s establishment is on the third and fourth floors,” said Nick.

They climbed a broad, curving, carpeted staircase.

“We’re here,” said Audrey to Miss Ingate after scores of stairs.

Miss Ingate, breathless, could only smile.

And Audrey profoundly felt that she was in Paris. The mere shape of the doorknob by the side of a brass plate lettered “Madame Dubois” told her that she was in an exotic land.

And in the interior of Madame Dubois’s establishment Tommy and Nick together drew apart the curtains, opened the windows, and opened the shutters of a pleasantly stuffy sitting-room. Everybody leaned out, and they saw the superb thoroughfare, straight and interminable, and the moving roofs of the tram-cars, and dwarfs on the pavements. The night was mild and languorous.

“You see that!” Nick pointed to a blaze of electricity to the left on the opposite side of the road. “That’s where we shall take you to dine, after you’ve spruced yourselves up. You needn’t bother about fancy dress. Monsieur Dauphin always has stacks of kimonos—for his models, you know.”

While the travellers spruced themselves up in different bedrooms, Tommy chattered through one pair of double doors ajar, and Nick through the other, and Musa strummed with many mistakes on an antique Pleyel piano. And as Audrey listened to the talk of these acquaintances, Tommy and Nick, who in half an hour had put on the hue of her lifelong friends, and as she heard the piano, and felt the vibration of cars far beneath, she decided that she was still growing happier and happier, and that life and the world were marvellous.

A little later they passed into the café-restaurant through a throng of seated sippers who were spread around its portals like a defence. The interior, low, and stretching backwards, apparently endless, into the bowels of the building, was swimming in the brightest light. At a raised semicircular counter in the centre two women were enthroned, plump, sedate, darkly dressed, and of middle age. To these priestesses came a constant succession of waiters, in the classic garb of waiters, bearing trays which they offered to the gaze of the women, and afterwards throwing down coins that rang on the marble of the counter. One of the women wrote swiftly in a great tome. Both of them, while performing their duties, glanced continually into every part of the establishment, watching especially each departure and each arrival.

At scores of tables were the most heterogeneous collection of people that Audrey had ever seen; men and women, girls and old men, even a few children with their mothers. Liquids were of every colour, ices chromatic, and the scarlet of lobster made a luscious contrast with the shaded tints of salads. In the extreme background men were playing billiards at three tables. Though nearly everybody was talking, no one talked loudly, so that the resulting monotone of conversation was a gentle drone, out of which shot up at intervals the crash of crockery or a hoarse command. And this drone combined itself with the glittering light, and with the mild warmth that floated in waves through the open windows, and with the red plush of the seats, and with the rosiness of painted nymphs on the blue walls, and with the complexions of women’s faces, and their hats and frocks, and with the hues of the liquids—to produce a totality of impression that made Audrey dizzy with ecstasy. This was not the Paris set forth by Madame Piriac, but it was a wondrous Paris, and in Audrey’s esteem not far removed from heaven.

Miss Ingate, magnificently pale, followed Tommy and Nick with ironic delight up the long passage between the tables. Her eyes seemed to be saying: “I am overpowered, and yet there is something in me that is not overpowered, and by virtue of my kind-hearted derision I, from Essex, am superior to you all!” Audrey, with glance downcast, followed Miss Ingate, and Musa came last, sinuously. Nobody looked up at them more than casually, but at intervals during the passage Tommy and Nick nodded and smiled: “How d’ye do? How d’ye do?” “Bon soir,“ and answers were given in American or French voices.

They came to rest near the billiard tables, and near an aperture with a shelf where all the waiters congregated to shout their orders. A grey-haired waiter, with the rapidity and dexterity of a conjurer, laid a cloth over the marble round which they sat, Audrey and Miss Ingate on the plush bench, and Tommy and Nick, with Musa between them, on chairs opposite. The waiter then discussed with them for five minutes what they should eat, and he argued the problem seriously, wisely, helpfully, as befitted. It was Audrey, in full view of a buffet laden with shell-fish and fruit, who first suggested lobster, and lobster was chosen, nothing but lobster. Miss Ingate said that she was not a bit tired, and that lobster was her dream. The sentiment was universal at the table. When asked what she would drink, Audrey was on the point of answering “lemonade.” But a doubt about the propriety of everlasting lemonade for a widow with much knowledge of the world, stopped her.

“I vote we all have grenadines,” said Nick.

Grenadine was agreeable to Audrey’s ear, and everyone concurred.

The ordering was always summarised and explained by Musa in a few phrases which, to Audrey, sounded very different from the French of Tommy and Nick. And she took oath that she would instantly begin to learn to speak French, not like Tommy and Nick, whose accent she cruelly despised, but like Musa.

Then Tommy and Nick removed their cloaks, and sat displayed as a geisha and a contadina, respectively. Musa had already unmasked his devilry. The café was not in the least disturbed by these gorgeous and strange apparitions. An orchestra began to play. Lobster arrived, and high glasses full of glinting green. Audrey ate and drank with gusto, with innocence, with the intensest love of life. And she was the most beautiful and touching sight in the café-restaurant. Miss Ingate, grinning, caught her eye with joyous mockery. “We are going it, aren’t we, Audrey?” shrieked Miss Ingate.

Miss Thompkins and Miss Nickall began slowly to differentiate themselves in Audrey’s mind. At first they were merely two American girls—the first Audrey had met. They were of about the same age—whatever that age might be—and if they were not exactly of the same age, then Tommy with red hair was older than Nick with grey hair. Indeed, Nick took the earliest opportunity to remark that her hair had turned grey at nineteen. They both had dreamy eyes that looked through instead of looking at; they were both hazy concerning matters of fact; they were both attached like a couple of aunts to Musa, who nestled between them like a cat between two cushions; they were both extraordinarily friendly and hospitable; they both painted and both had studios—in the same house; they both showed quite a remarkable admiration and esteem for all their acquaintances; and they both lacked interest in their complexions and their hair.

The resemblance did not go very much farther. Tommy, for all her praising of friends, was of a critical, curious, and analytical disposition, and her greenish eyes were always at work qualifying in a very subtle manner what her tongue said, when her tongue was benevolent, as it often was. Feminism and suffragism being the tie between the new acquaintances, these subjects were the first material of conversation, and an empress of militancy known to the world as “Rosamund” having been mentioned, Miss Ingate said with enthusiasm:

“She lives only for one thing.”

“Yes,” replied Tommy. “And if she got it, I guess no one would be more disgusted than she herself.”

There was an instant’s silence.

“Oh, Tommy!” Nick lovingly protested.

Said Miss Ingate with a comprehending satiric grin:

“I see what you mean. I quite see. I quite see. You’re right, Miss Thompkins. I’m sure you’re right.”

Audrey decided she would have to be very clever in order to be equal to Tommy’s subtlety. Nick, on the other hand, was not a bit subtle, except when she tried to imitate Tommy. Nick was kindness, and sympathy, and vagueness. You could see these admirable qualities in every curve of her face and gleam of her eyes. She was very sympathetic, but somewhat shocked when Audrey blurted out that she had not come to Paris in order to paint.

“There are at least fifty painters in this café this very minute,” said Tommy. And somehow it was just as if she had said: “If you haven’t come to Paris to paint, what have you come for?”

“Does Mr. Musa paint, too?” asked Audrey.

“Oh no!” Both his protectresses answered together, pained. Tommy added: “Musa plays the violin—of course.”

And Musa blushed. Later, he murmured to Audrey across the table, while Tommy was ordering a salad, that there were tennis courts in the Luxembourg gardens.

“I used to paint,” Miss Ingate broke out. “And I’m beginning to think I should like to paint again.”

Said Nick, enraptured:

“I’ll let you use my studio, if you will. I’d just love you to, now! Where did you study?”

“Well, it was like this,” said Miss Ingate with satisfaction. “It was a long time ago. I finished painting a dog-kennel because the house-painter’s wife died and he had to go to her funeral, and the dog didn’t like being kept waiting. That gave me the idea. I went into water-colours, but afterwards I went back to oils. Oils seemed more real. Then I started on portraits, and I did a portrait of my Aunt Sarah from memory. After she saw it she tore up her will, and before I could get her into a good temper again she married her third husband and she had to make a new will in favour of him. So I found painting very expensive. Not that it would have made any difference, I suppose, would it? After that I went into miniatures. The same dog that I painted the kennel for ate up the best miniature I ever did. It killed him. I put a cross over his grave in the garden. All that made me see what a fool I’d been, and I exchanged my painting things for a lawn-mower, but it never turned out to be any good.”

“You dear! You precious! You priceless!” cooed Nick. “I shall fix up my second best easel for you to-morrow.”

“Isn’t she just too lovely!” Tommy murmured aside to Audrey.

“I not much understand,” said Musa.

Tommy translated to him, haltingly, and Audrey was moved to say, with energy:

“What I want most is to learn French, and I’m going to begin to-morrow morning.”

Nick was kindly confusing and shaming Miss Ingate with a short history and catechism of modern art, including such names as Vuillard, Bonnard, Picasso, Signac, and Matisse—all very eagerly poured out and all very unnerving for Miss Ingate, whose directory of painting was practically limited to the names of Raphael, Sir Joshua, Rembrandt, Rubens, Gainsborough, Turner, Leighton, Millais, Gustave Doré and Frank Dicksee. When, however, Nick referred to Monsieur Dauphin, Miss Ingate was as it were washed safely ashore and said with assurance: “Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes!”