DorianGray.txt

The Picture of Dorian Gray

by

Oscar Wilde




THE PREFACE

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.  To reveal art and
conceal the artist is art's aim.  The critic is he who can translate
into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful
things.

The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without
being charming.  This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the
cultivated.  For these there is hope.  They are the elect to whom
beautiful things mean only beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.  Books are well
written, or badly written.  That is all.

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing
his own face in a glass.

The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban
not seeing his own face in a glass.  The moral life of man forms part
of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists
in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.  No artist desires to prove
anything.  Even things that are true can be proved.  No artist has
ethical sympathies.  An ethical sympathy in an artist is an
unpardonable mannerism of style.  No artist is ever morbid.  The artist
can express everything.  Thought and language are to the artist
instruments of an art.  Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for
an art.  From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is
the art of the musician.  From the point of view of feeling, the
actor's craft is the type.  All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.  Those who read
the symbol do so at their peril.  It is the spectator, and not life,
that art really mirrors.  Diversity of opinion about a work of art
shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.  When critics disagree,
the artist is in accord with himself.  We can forgive a man for making
a useful thing as long as he does not admire it.  The only excuse for
making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

               All art is quite useless.

                            OSCAR WILDE




CHAPTER 1

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light
summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through
the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate
perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was
lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry
Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured
blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to
bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then
the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long
tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window,
producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of
those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of
an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of
swiftness and motion.  The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their
way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous
insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine,
seemed to make the stillness more oppressive.  The dim roar of London
was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.

In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the
full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty,
and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist
himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago
caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many
strange conjectures.

As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so
skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his
face, and seemed about to linger there.  But he suddenly started up,
and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he
sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he
feared he might awake.

"It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done," said
Lord Henry languidly.  "You must certainly send it next year to the
Grosvenor.  The Academy is too large and too vulgar.  Whenever I have
gone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been
able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that
I have not been able to see the people, which was worse.  The Grosvenor
is really the only place."

"I don't think I shall send it anywhere," he answered, tossing his head
back in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at
Oxford.  "No, I won't send it anywhere."

Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through
the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls
from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette.  "Not send it anywhere?  My
dear fellow, why?  Have you any reason?  What odd chaps you painters
are!  You do anything in the world to gain a reputation.  As soon as
you have one, you seem to want to throw it away.  It is silly of you,
for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,
and that is not being talked about.  A portrait like this would set you
far above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite
jealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion."

"I know you will laugh at me," he replied, "but I really can't exhibit
it.  I have put too much of myself into it."

Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed.

"Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same."

"Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know you
were so vain; and I really can't see any resemblance between you, with
your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young
Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why,
my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you--well, of course you have an
intellectual expression and all that.  But beauty, real beauty, ends
where an intellectual expression begins.  Intellect is in itself a mode
of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face.  The moment one
sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something
horrid.  Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions.
How perfectly hideous they are!  Except, of course, in the Church.  But
then in the Church they don't think.  A bishop keeps on saying at the
age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen,
and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful.
Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but
whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks.  I feel quite sure of
that.  He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be always
here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in
summer when we want something to chill our intelligence.  Don't flatter
yourself, Basil:  you are not in the least like him."

"You don't understand me, Harry," answered the artist.  "Of course I am
not like him.  I know that perfectly well.  Indeed, I should be sorry
to look like him.  You shrug your shoulders?  I am telling you the
truth.  There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual
distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the
faltering steps of kings.  It is better not to be different from one's
fellows.  The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world.
They can sit at their ease and gape at the play.  If they know nothing
of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat.  They
live as we all should live--undisturbed, indifferent, and without
disquiet.  They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it
from alien hands.  Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they
are--my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks--we
shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly."

"Dorian Gray?  Is that his name?" asked Lord Henry, walking across the
studio towards Basil Hallward.

"Yes, that is his name.  I didn't intend to tell it to you."

"But why not?"

"Oh, I can't explain.  When I like people immensely, I never tell their
names to any one.  It is like surrendering a part of them.  I have
grown to love secrecy.  It seems to be the one thing that can make
modern life mysterious or marvellous to us.  The commonest thing is
delightful if one only hides it.  When I leave town now I never tell my
people where I am going.  If I did, I would lose all my pleasure.  It
is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great
deal of romance into one's life.  I suppose you think me awfully
foolish about it?"

"Not at all," answered Lord Henry, "not at all, my dear Basil.  You
seem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that
it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.  I
never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing.
When we meet--we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go
down to the Duke's--we tell each other the most absurd stories with the
most serious faces.  My wife is very good at it--much better, in fact,
than I am.  She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do.
But when she does find me out, she makes no row at all.  I sometimes
wish she would; but she merely laughs at me."

"I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry," said Basil
Hallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden.  "I
believe that you are really a very good husband, but that you are
thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues.  You are an extraordinary
fellow.  You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing.
Your cynicism is simply a pose."

"Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,"
cried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into the
garden together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that
stood in the shade of a tall laurel bush.  The sunlight slipped over
the polished leaves.  In the grass, white daisies were tremulous.

After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch.  "I am afraid I must be
going, Basil," he murmured, "and before I go, I insist on your
answering a question I put to you some time ago."

"What is that?" said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.

"You know quite well."

"I do not, Harry."

"Well, I will tell you what it is.  I want you to explain to me why you
won't exhibit Dorian Gray's picture.  I want the real reason."

"I told you the real reason."

"No, you did not.  You said it was because there was too much of
yourself in it.  Now, that is childish."

"Harry," said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, "every
portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not
of the sitter.  The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion.  It is
not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on
the coloured canvas, reveals himself.  The reason I will not exhibit
this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of
my own soul."

Lord Henry laughed.  "And what is that?" he asked.

"I will tell you," said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity came
over his face.

"I am all expectation, Basil," continued his companion, glancing at him.

"Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry," answered the painter;
"and I am afraid you will hardly understand it.  Perhaps you will
hardly believe it."

Lord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from
the grass and examined it.  "I am quite sure I shall understand it," he
replied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk,
"and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it
is quite incredible."

The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy
lilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the
languid air.  A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a
blue thread a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze
wings.  Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart
beating, and wondered what was coming.

"The story is simply this," said the painter after some time.  "Two
months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's. You know we poor
artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to
remind the public that we are not savages.  With an evening coat and a
white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain
a reputation for being civilized.  Well, after I had been in the room
about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious
academicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at
me.  I turned half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time.
When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale.  A curious sensation
of terror came over me.  I knew that I had come face to face with some
one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to
do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art
itself.  I did not want any external influence in my life.  You know
yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature.  I have always been my
own master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray.
Then--but I don't know how to explain it to you.  Something seemed to
tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life.  I had
a strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys and
exquisite sorrows.  I grew afraid and turned to quit the room.  It was
not conscience that made me do so:  it was a sort of cowardice.  I take
no credit to myself for trying to escape."

"Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil.
Conscience is the trade-name of the firm.  That is all."

"I don't believe that, Harry, and I don't believe you do either.
However, whatever was my motive--and it may have been pride, for I used
to be very proud--I certainly struggled to the door.  There, of course,
I stumbled against Lady Brandon.  'You are not going to run away so
soon, Mr. Hallward?' she screamed out.  You know her curiously shrill
voice?"

"Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty," said Lord Henry,
pulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers.

"I could not get rid of her.  She brought me up to royalties, and
people with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras
and parrot noses.  She spoke of me as her dearest friend.  I had only
met her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me.  I
believe some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at
least had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the
nineteenth-century standard of immortality.  Suddenly I found myself
face to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely
stirred me.  We were quite close, almost touching.  Our eyes met again.
It was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him.
Perhaps it was not so reckless, after all.  It was simply inevitable.
We would have spoken to each other without any introduction.  I am sure
of that.  Dorian told me so afterwards.  He, too, felt that we were
destined to know each other."

"And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?" asked his
companion.  "I know she goes in for giving a rapid _precis_ of all her
guests.  I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and red-faced old
gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my
ear, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to
everybody in the room, the most astounding details.  I simply fled.  I
like to find out people for myself.  But Lady Brandon treats her guests
exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods.  She either explains them
entirely away, or tells one everything about them except what one wants
to know."

"Poor Lady Brandon!  You are hard on her, Harry!" said Hallward
listlessly.

"My dear fellow, she tried to found a _salon_, and only succeeded in
opening a restaurant.  How could I admire her?  But tell me, what did
she say about Mr. Dorian Gray?"

"Oh, something like, 'Charming boy--poor dear mother and I absolutely
inseparable.  Quite forget what he does--afraid he--doesn't do
anything--oh, yes, plays the piano--or is it the violin, dear Mr.
Gray?'  Neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at
once."

"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far
the best ending for one," said the young lord, plucking another daisy.

Hallward shook his head.  "You don't understand what friendship is,
Harry," he murmured--"or what enmity is, for that matter.  You like
every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one."

"How horribly unjust of you!" cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back
and looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins of
glossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the
summer sky.  "Yes; horribly unjust of you.  I make a great difference
between people.  I choose my friends for their good looks, my
acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good
intellects.  A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
I have not got one who is a fool.  They are all men of some
intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me.  Is that
very vain of me?  I think it is rather vain."

"I should think it was, Harry.  But according to your category I must
be merely an acquaintance."

"My dear old Basil, you are much more than an acquaintance."

"And much less than a friend.  A sort of brother, I suppose?"

"Oh, brothers!  I don't care for brothers.  My elder brother won't die,
and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else."

"Harry!" exclaimed Hallward, frowning.

"My dear fellow, I am not quite serious.  But I can't help detesting my
relations.  I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand
other people having the same faults as ourselves.  I quite sympathize
with the rage of the English democracy against what they call the vices
of the upper orders.  The masses feel that drunkenness, stupidity, and
immorality should be their own special property, and that if any one of
us makes an ass of himself, he is poaching on their preserves.  When
poor Southwark got into the divorce court, their indignation was quite
magnificent.  And yet I don't suppose that ten per cent of the
proletariat live correctly."

"I don't agree with a single word that you have said, and, what is
more, Harry, I feel sure you don't either."

Lord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard and tapped the toe of his
patent-leather boot with a tasselled ebony cane.  "How English you are
Basil!  That is the second time you have made that observation.  If one
puts forward an idea to a true Englishman--always a rash thing to
do--he never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong.
The only thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes
it oneself.  Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do
with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.  Indeed, the
probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely
intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured
by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices.  However, I don't
propose to discuss politics, sociology, or metaphysics with you.  I
like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no
principles better than anything else in the world.  Tell me more about
Mr. Dorian Gray.  How often do you see him?"

"Every day.  I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day.  He is
absolutely necessary to me."

"How extraordinary!  I thought you would never care for anything but
your art."

"He is all my art to me now," said the painter gravely.  "I sometimes
think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the
world's history.  The first is the appearance of a new medium for art,
and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also.
What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of
Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will
some day be to me.  It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from
him, sketch from him.  Of course, I have done all that.  But he is much
more to me than a model or a sitter.  I won't tell you that I am
dissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such
that art cannot express it.  There is nothing that art cannot express,
and I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good
work, is the best work of my life.  But in some curious way--I wonder
will you understand me?--his personality has suggested to me an
entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style.  I see
things differently, I think of them differently.  I can now recreate
life in a way that was hidden from me before.  'A dream of form in days
of thought'--who is it who says that?  I forget; but it is what Dorian
Gray has been to me.  The merely visible presence of this lad--for he
seems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over
twenty--his merely visible presence--ah!  I wonder can you realize all
that that means?  Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh
school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic
spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek.  The harmony of
soul and body--how much that is!  We in our madness have separated the
two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is
void.  Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me!  You remember
that landscape of mine, for which Agnew offered me such a huge price
but which I would not part with?  It is one of the best things I have
ever done.  And why is it so?  Because, while I was painting it, Dorian
Gray sat beside me.  Some subtle influence passed from him to me, and
for the first time in my life I saw in the plain woodland the wonder I
had always looked for and always missed."

"Basil, this is extraordinary!  I must see Dorian Gray."

Hallward got up from the seat and walked up and down the garden.  After
some time he came back.  "Harry," he said, "Dorian Gray is to me simply
a motive in art.  You might see nothing in him.  I see everything in
him.  He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is
there.  He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner.  I find
him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of
certain colours.  That is all."

"Then why won't you exhibit his portrait?" asked Lord Henry.

"Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression of
all this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, I have never
cared to speak to him.  He knows nothing about it.  He shall never know
anything about it.  But the world might guess it, and I will not bare
my soul to their shallow prying eyes.  My heart shall never be put
under their microscope.  There is too much of myself in the thing,
Harry--too much of myself!"

"Poets are not so scrupulous as you are.  They know how useful passion
is for publication.  Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions."

"I hate them for it," cried Hallward.  "An artist should create
beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.  We
live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of
autobiography.  We have lost the abstract sense of beauty.  Some day I
will show the world what it is; and for that reason the world shall
never see my portrait of Dorian Gray."

"I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you.  It is only
the intellectually lost who ever argue.  Tell me, is Dorian Gray very
fond of you?"

The painter considered for a few moments.  "He likes me," he answered
after a pause; "I know he likes me.  Of course I flatter him
dreadfully.  I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I
know I shall be sorry for having said.  As a rule, he is charming to
me, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things.  Now and
then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real
delight in giving me pain.  Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away
my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put
in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a
summer's day."

"Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger," murmured Lord Henry.
"Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will.  It is a sad thing to think
of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty.  That
accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate
ourselves.  In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have
something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and
facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place.  The thoroughly
well-informed man--that is the modern ideal.  And the mind of the
thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing.  It is like a
_bric-a-brac_ shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above
its proper value.  I think you will tire first, all the same.  Some day
you will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little
out of drawing, or you won't like his tone of colour, or something.
You will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and seriously think
that he has behaved very badly to you.  The next time he calls, you
will be perfectly cold and indifferent.  It will be a great pity, for
it will alter you.  What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance
of art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind
is that it leaves one so unromantic."

"Harry, don't talk like that.  As long as I live, the personality of
Dorian Gray will dominate me.  You can't feel what I feel.  You change
too often."

"Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it.  Those who are
faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who
know love's tragedies."  And Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty
silver case and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious and
satisfied air, as if he had summed up the world in a phrase.  There was
a rustle of chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the ivy,
and the blue cloud-shadows chased themselves across the grass like
swallows.  How pleasant it was in the garden!  And how delightful other
people's emotions were!--much more delightful than their ideas, it
seemed to him.  One's own soul, and the passions of one's
friends--those were the fascinating things in life.  He pictured to
himself with silent amusement the tedious luncheon that he had missed
by staying so long with Basil Hallward.  Had he gone to his aunt's, he
would have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and the whole
conversation would have been about the feeding of the poor and the
necessity for model lodging-houses. Each class would have preached the
importance of those virtues, for whose exercise there was no necessity
in their own lives.  The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift,
and the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour.  It was
charming to have escaped all that!  As he thought of his aunt, an idea
seemed to strike him.  He turned to Hallward and said, "My dear fellow,
I have just remembered."

"Remembered what, Harry?"

"Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray."

"Where was it?" asked Hallward, with a slight frown.

"Don't look so angry, Basil.  It was at my aunt, Lady Agatha's.  She
told me she had discovered a wonderful young man who was going to help
her in the East End, and that his name was Dorian Gray.  I am bound to
state that she never told me he was good-looking. Women have no
appreciation of good looks; at least, good women have not.  She said
that he was very earnest and had a beautiful nature.  I at once
pictured to myself a creature with spectacles and lank hair, horribly
freckled, and tramping about on huge feet.  I wish I had known it was
your friend."

"I am very glad you didn't, Harry."

"Why?"

"I don't want you to meet him."

"You don't want me to meet him?"

"No."

"Mr. Dorian Gray is in the studio, sir," said the butler, coming into
the garden.

"You must introduce me now," cried Lord Henry, laughing.

The painter turned to his servant, who stood blinking in the sunlight.
"Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker:  I shall be in in a few moments." The
man bowed and went up the walk.

Then he looked at Lord Henry.  "Dorian Gray is my dearest friend," he
said.  "He has a simple and a beautiful nature.  Your aunt was quite
right in what she said of him.  Don't spoil him.  Don't try to
influence him.  Your influence would be bad.  The world is wide, and
has many marvellous people in it.  Don't take away from me the one
person who gives to my art whatever charm it possesses:  my life as an
artist depends on him.  Mind, Harry, I trust you."  He spoke very
slowly, and the words seemed wrung out of him almost against his will.

"What nonsense you talk!" said Lord Henry, smiling, and taking Hallward
by the arm, he almost led him into the house.



CHAPTER 2

As they entered they saw Dorian Gray.  He was seated at the piano, with
his back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of Schumann's
"Forest Scenes."  "You must lend me these, Basil," he cried.  "I want
to learn them.  They are perfectly charming."

"That entirely depends on how you sit to-day, Dorian."

"Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don't want a life-sized portrait of
myself," answered the lad, swinging round on the music-stool in a
wilful, petulant manner.  When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint
blush coloured his cheeks for a moment, and he started up.  "I beg your
pardon, Basil, but I didn't know you had any one with you."

"This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine.  I
have just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now you
have spoiled everything."

"You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray," said Lord
Henry, stepping forward and extending his hand.  "My aunt has often
spoken to me about you.  You are one of her favourites, and, I am
afraid, one of her victims also."

"I am in Lady Agatha's black books at present," answered Dorian with a
funny look of penitence.  "I promised to go to a club in Whitechapel
with her last Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it.  We were to
have played a duet together--three duets, I believe.  I don't know what
she will say to me.  I am far too frightened to call."

"Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt.  She is quite devoted to you.
And I don't think it really matters about your not being there.  The
audience probably thought it was a duet.  When Aunt Agatha sits down to
the piano, she makes quite enough noise for two people."

"That is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me," answered Dorian,
laughing.

Lord Henry looked at him.  Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome,
with his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp
gold hair.  There was something in his face that made one trust him at
once.  All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth's
passionate purity.  One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from
the world.  No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him.

"You are too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Gray--far too
charming." And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan and opened
his cigarette-case.

The painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes
ready.  He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry's last
remark, he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said,
"Harry, I want to finish this picture to-day. Would you think it
awfully rude of me if I asked you to go away?"

Lord Henry smiled and looked at Dorian Gray.  "Am I to go, Mr. Gray?"
he asked.

"Oh, please don't, Lord Henry.  I see that Basil is in one of his sulky
moods, and I can't bear him when he sulks.  Besides, I want you to tell
me why I should not go in for philanthropy."

"I don't know that I shall tell you that, Mr. Gray.  It is so tedious a
subject that one would have to talk seriously about it.  But I
certainly shall not run away, now that you have asked me to stop.  You
don't really mind, Basil, do you?  You have often told me that you
liked your sitters to have some one to chat to."

Hallward bit his lip.  "If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay.
Dorian's whims are laws to everybody, except himself."

Lord Henry took up his hat and gloves.  "You are very pressing, Basil,
but I am afraid I must go.  I have promised to meet a man at the
Orleans.  Good-bye, Mr. Gray.  Come and see me some afternoon in Curzon
Street.  I am nearly always at home at five o'clock. Write to me when
you are coming.  I should be sorry to miss you."

"Basil," cried Dorian Gray, "if Lord Henry Wotton goes, I shall go,
too.  You never open your lips while you are painting, and it is
horribly dull standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant.  Ask
him to stay.  I insist upon it."

"Stay, Harry, to oblige Dorian, and to oblige me," said Hallward,
gazing intently at his picture.  "It is quite true, I never talk when I
am working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious
for my unfortunate sitters.  I beg you to stay."

"But what about my man at the Orleans?"

The painter laughed.  "I don't think there will be any difficulty about
that.  Sit down again, Harry.  And now, Dorian, get up on the platform,
and don't move about too much, or pay any attention to what Lord Henry
says.  He has a very bad influence over all his friends, with the
single exception of myself."

Dorian Gray stepped up on the dais with the air of a young Greek
martyr, and made a little _moue_ of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he
had rather taken a fancy.  He was so unlike Basil.  They made a
delightful contrast.  And he had such a beautiful voice.  After a few
moments he said to him, "Have you really a very bad influence, Lord
Henry?  As bad as Basil says?"

"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray.  All influence
is immoral--immoral from the scientific point of view."

"Why?"

"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul.  He does
not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions.  His
virtues are not real to him.  His sins, if there are such things as
sins, are borrowed.  He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an
actor of a part that has not been written for him.  The aim of life is
self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly--that is what each
of us is here for.  People are afraid of themselves, nowadays.  They
have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to
one's self.  Of course, they are charitable.  They feed the hungry and
clothe the beggar.  But their own souls starve, and are naked.  Courage
has gone out of our race.  Perhaps we never really had it.  The terror
of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is
the secret of religion--these are the two things that govern us.  And
yet--"

"Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good
boy," said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look
had come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before.

"And yet," continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with
that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of
him, and that he had even in his Eton days, "I believe that if one man
were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to
every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream--I
believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we
would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the
Hellenic ideal--to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it
may be.  But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself.  The
mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial
that mars our lives.  We are punished for our refusals.  Every impulse
that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us.  The body
sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of
purification.  Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure,
or the luxury of a regret.  The only way to get rid of a temptation is
to yield to it.  Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for
the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its
monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.  It has been said that
the great events of the world take place in the brain.  It is in the
brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place
also.  You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your
rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid,
thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping
dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame--"

"Stop!" faltered Dorian Gray, "stop! you bewilder me.  I don't know
what to say.  There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it.  Don't
speak.  Let me think.  Or, rather, let me try not to think."

For nearly ten minutes he stood there, motionless, with parted lips and
eyes strangely bright.  He was dimly conscious that entirely fresh
influences were at work within him.  Yet they seemed to him to have
come really from himself.  The few words that Basil's friend had said
to him--words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox in
them--had touched some secret chord that had never been touched before,
but that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses.

Music had stirred him like that.  Music had troubled him many times.
But music was not articulate.  It was not a new world, but rather
another chaos, that it created in us.  Words!  Mere words!  How
terrible they were!  How clear, and vivid, and cruel!  One could not
escape from them.  And yet what a subtle magic there was in them!  They
seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to
have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute.  Mere
words!  Was there anything so real as words?

Yes; there had been things in his boyhood that he had not understood.
He understood them now.  Life suddenly became fiery-coloured to him.
It seemed to him that he had been walking in fire.  Why had he not
known it?

With his subtle smile, Lord Henry watched him.  He knew the precise
psychological moment when to say nothing.  He felt intensely
interested.  He was amazed at the sudden impression that his words had
produced, and, remembering a book that he had read when he was sixteen,
a book which had revealed to him much that he had not known before, he
wondered whether Dorian Gray was passing through a similar experience.
He had merely shot an arrow into the air.  Had it hit the mark?  How
fascinating the lad was!

Hallward painted away with that marvellous bold touch of his, that had
the true refinement and perfect delicacy that in art, at any rate comes
only from strength.  He was unconscious of the silence.

"Basil, I am tired of standing," cried Dorian Gray suddenly.  "I must
go out and sit in the garden.  The air is stifling here."

"My dear fellow, I am so sorry.  When I am painting, I can't think of
anything else.  But you never sat better.  You were perfectly still.
And I have caught the effect I wanted--the half-parted lips and the
bright look in the eyes.  I don't know what Harry has been saying to
you, but he has certainly made you have the most wonderful expression.
I suppose he has been paying you compliments.  You mustn't believe a
word that he says."

"He has certainly not been paying me compliments.  Perhaps that is the
reason that I don't believe anything he has told me."

"You know you believe it all," said Lord Henry, looking at him with his
dreamy languorous eyes.  "I will go out to the garden with you.  It is
horribly hot in the studio.  Basil, let us have something iced to
drink, something with strawberries in it."

"Certainly, Harry.  Just touch the bell, and when Parker comes I will
tell him what you want.  I have got to work up this background, so I
will join you later on.  Don't keep Dorian too long.  I have never been
in better form for painting than I am to-day. This is going to be my
masterpiece.  It is my masterpiece as it stands."

Lord Henry went out to the garden and found Dorian Gray burying his
face in the great cool lilac-blossoms, feverishly drinking in their
perfume as if it had been wine.  He came close to him and put his hand
upon his shoulder.  "You are quite right to do that," he murmured.
"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the
senses but the soul."

The lad started and drew back.  He was bareheaded, and the leaves had
tossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded threads.
There was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have when they are
suddenly awakened.  His finely chiselled nostrils quivered, and some
hidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left them trembling.

"Yes," continued Lord Henry, "that is one of the great secrets of
life--to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means
of the soul.  You are a wonderful creation.  You know more than you
think you know, just as you know less than you want to know."

Dorian Gray frowned and turned his head away.  He could not help liking
the tall, graceful young man who was standing by him.  His romantic,
olive-coloured face and worn expression interested him.  There was
something in his low languid voice that was absolutely fascinating.
His cool, white, flowerlike hands, even, had a curious charm.  They
moved, as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a language of their
own.  But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being afraid.  Why had
it been left for a stranger to reveal him to himself?  He had known
Basil Hallward for months, but the friendship between them had never
altered him.  Suddenly there had come some one across his life who
seemed to have disclosed to him life's mystery.  And, yet, what was
there to be afraid of?  He was not a schoolboy or a girl.  It was
absurd to be frightened.

"Let us go and sit in the shade," said Lord Henry.  "Parker has brought
out the drinks, and if you stay any longer in this glare, you will be
quite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again.  You really must
not allow yourself to become sunburnt.  It would be unbecoming."

"What can it matter?" cried Dorian Gray, laughing, as he sat down on
the seat at the end of the garden.

"It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray."

"Why?"

"Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing
worth having."

"I don't feel that, Lord Henry."

"No, you don't feel it now.  Some day, when you are old and wrinkled
and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and
passion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you
will feel it terribly.  Now, wherever you go, you charm the world.
Will it always be so? ... You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr.
Gray.  Don't frown.  You have.  And beauty is a form of genius--is
higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation.  It is of the
great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the
reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon.  It
cannot be questioned.  It has its divine right of sovereignty.  It
makes princes of those who have it.  You smile?  Ah! when you have lost
it you won't smile.... People say sometimes that beauty is only
superficial.  That may be so, but at least it is not so superficial as
thought is.  To me, beauty is the wonder of wonders.  It is only
shallow people who do not judge by appearances.  The true mystery of
the world is the visible, not the invisible.... Yes, Mr. Gray, the
gods have been good to you.  But what the gods give they quickly take
away.  You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly,
and fully.  When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then
you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or
have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of
your past will make more bitter than defeats.  Every month as it wanes
brings you nearer to something dreadful.  Time is jealous of you, and
wars against your lilies and your roses.  You will become sallow, and
hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed.  You will suffer horribly.... Ah!
realize your youth while you have it.  Don't squander the gold of your
days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure,
or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar.
These are the sickly aims, the false ideals, of our age.  Live!  Live
the wonderful life that is in you!  Let nothing be lost upon you.  Be
always searching for new sensations.  Be afraid of nothing.... A new
Hedonism--that is what our century wants.  You might be its visible
symbol.  With your personality there is nothing you could not do.  The
world belongs to you for a season.... The moment I met you I saw that
you were quite unconscious of what you really are, of what you really
might be.  There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must
tell you something about yourself.  I thought how tragic it would be if
you were wasted.  For there is such a little time that your youth will
last--such a little time.  The common hill-flowers wither, but they
blossom again.  The laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now.
In a month there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year after
year the green night of its leaves will hold its purple stars.  But we
never get back our youth.  The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty
becomes sluggish.  Our limbs fail, our senses rot.  We degenerate into
hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were
too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the
courage to yield to.  Youth!  Youth!  There is absolutely nothing in
the world but youth!"

Dorian Gray listened, open-eyed and wondering.  The spray of lilac fell
from his hand upon the gravel.  A furry bee came and buzzed round it
for a moment.  Then it began to scramble all over the oval stellated
globe of the tiny blossoms.  He watched it with that strange interest
in trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import
make us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion for which we
cannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays
sudden siege to the brain and calls on us to yield.  After a time the
bee flew away.  He saw it creeping into the stained trumpet of a Tyrian
convolvulus.  The flower seemed to quiver, and then swayed gently to
and fro.

Suddenly the painter appeared at the door of the studio and made
staccato signs for them to come in.  They turned to each other and
smiled.

"I am waiting," he cried.  "Do come in.  The light is quite perfect,
and you can bring your drinks."

They rose up and sauntered down the walk together.  Two green-and-white
butterflies fluttered past them, and in the pear-tree at the corner of
the garden a thrush began to sing.

"You are glad you have met me, Mr. Gray," said Lord Henry, looking at
him.

"Yes, I am glad now.  I wonder shall I always be glad?"

"Always!  That is a dreadful word.  It makes me shudder when I hear it.
Women are so fond of using it.  They spoil every romance by trying to
make it last for ever.  It is a meaningless word, too.  The only
difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice
lasts a little longer."

As they entered the studio, Dorian Gray put his hand upon Lord Henry's
arm.  "In that case, let our friendship be a caprice," he murmured,
flushing at his own boldness, then stepped up on the platform and
resumed his pose.

Lord Henry flung himself into a large wicker arm-chair and watched him.
The sweep and dash of the brush on the canvas made the only sound that
broke the stillness, except when, now and then, Hallward stepped back
to look at his work from a distance.  In the slanting beams that
streamed through the open doorway the dust danced and was golden.  The
heavy scent of the roses seemed to brood over everything.

After about a quarter of an hour Hallward stopped painting, looked for
a long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long time at the picture,
biting the end of one of his huge brushes and frowning.  "It is quite
finished," he cried at last, and stooping down he wrote his name in
long vermilion letters on the left-hand corner of the canvas.

Lord Henry came over and examined the picture.  It was certainly a
wonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well.

"My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly," he said.  "It is the
finest portrait of modern times.  Mr. Gray, come over and look at
yourself."

The lad started, as if awakened from some dream.

"Is it really finished?" he murmured, stepping down from the platform.

"Quite finished," said the painter.  "And you have sat splendidly
to-day. I am awfully obliged to you."

"That is entirely due to me," broke in Lord Henry.  "Isn't it, Mr.
Gray?"

Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture
and turned towards it.  When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks
flushed for a moment with pleasure.  A look of joy came into his eyes,
as if he had recognized himself for the first time.  He stood there
motionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was speaking to
him, but not catching the meaning of his words.  The sense of his own
beauty came on him like a revelation.  He had never felt it before.
Basil Hallward's compliments had seemed to him to be merely the
charming exaggeration of friendship.  He had listened to them, laughed
at them, forgotten them.  They had not influenced his nature.  Then had
come Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric on youth, his
terrible warning of its brevity.  That had stirred him at the time, and
now, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full
reality of the description flashed across him.  Yes, there would be a
day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and
colourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed.  The scarlet
would pass away from his lips and the gold steal from his hair.  The
life that was to make his soul would mar his body.  He would become
dreadful, hideous, and uncouth.

As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a
knife and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver.  His eyes
deepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears.  He felt
as if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart.

"Don't you like it?" cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the
lad's silence, not understanding what it meant.

"Of course he likes it," said Lord Henry.  "Who wouldn't like it?  It
is one of the greatest things in modern art.  I will give you anything
you like to ask for it.  I must have it."

"It is not my property, Harry."

"Whose property is it?"

"Dorian's, of course," answered the painter.

"He is a very lucky fellow."

"How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon
his own portrait.  "How sad it is!  I shall grow old, and horrible, and
dreadful.  But this picture will remain always young.  It will never be
older than this particular day of June.... If it were only the other
way!  If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was
to grow old!  For that--for that--I would give everything!  Yes, there
is nothing in the whole world I would not give!  I would give my soul
for that!"

"You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil," cried Lord
Henry, laughing.  "It would be rather hard lines on your work."

"I should object very strongly, Harry," said Hallward.

Dorian Gray turned and looked at him.  "I believe you would, Basil.
You like your art better than your friends.  I am no more to you than a
green bronze figure.  Hardly as much, I dare say."

The painter stared in amazement.  It was so unlike Dorian to speak like
that.  What had happened?  He seemed quite angry.  His face was flushed
and his cheeks burning.

"Yes," he continued, "I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your
silver Faun.  You will like them always.  How long will you like me?
Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose.  I know, now, that when one
loses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything.
Your picture has taught me that.  Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right.
Youth is the only thing worth having.  When I find that I am growing
old, I shall kill myself."

Hallward turned pale and caught his hand.  "Dorian!  Dorian!" he cried,
"don't talk like that.  I have never had such a friend as you, and I
shall never have such another.  You are not jealous of material things,
are you?--you who are finer than any of them!"

"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die.  I am jealous of
the portrait you have painted of me.  Why should it keep what I must
lose?  Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives
something to it.  Oh, if it were only the other way!  If the picture
could change, and I could be always what I am now!  Why did you paint
it?  It will mock me some day--mock me horribly!"  The hot tears welled
into his eyes; he tore his hand away and, flinging himself on the
divan, he buried his face in the cushions, as though he was praying.

"This is your doing, Harry," said the painter bitterly.

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  "It is the real Dorian Gray--that
is all."

"It is not."

"If it is not, what have I to do with it?"

"You should have gone away when I asked you," he muttered.

"I stayed when you asked me," was Lord Henry's answer.

"Harry, I can't quarrel with my two best friends at once, but between
you both you have made me hate the finest piece of work I have ever
done, and I will destroy it.  What is it but canvas and colour?  I will
not let it come across our three lives and mar them."

Dorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and with pallid
face and tear-stained eyes, looked at him as he walked over to the deal
painting-table that was set beneath the high curtained window.  What
was he doing there?  His fingers were straying about among the litter
of tin tubes and dry brushes, seeking for something.  Yes, it was for
the long palette-knife, with its thin blade of lithe steel.  He had
found it at last.  He was going to rip up the canvas.

With a stifled sob the lad leaped from the couch, and, rushing over to
Hallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to the end of
the studio.  "Don't, Basil, don't!" he cried.  "It would be murder!"

"I am glad you appreciate my work at last, Dorian," said the painter
coldly when he had recovered from his surprise.  "I never thought you
would."

"Appreciate it?  I am in love with it, Basil.  It is part of myself.  I
feel that."

"Well, as soon as you are dry, you shall be varnished, and framed, and
sent home.  Then you can do what you like with yourself." And he walked
across the room and rang the bell for tea.  "You will have tea, of
course, Dorian?  And so will you, Harry?  Or do you object to such
simple pleasures?"

"I adore simple pleasures," said Lord Henry.  "They are the last refuge
of the complex.  But I don't like scenes, except on the stage.  What
absurd fellows you are, both of you!  I wonder who it was defined man
as a rational animal.  It was the most premature definition ever given.
Man is many things, but he is not rational.  I am glad he is not, after
all--though I wish you chaps would not squabble over the picture.  You
had much better let me have it, Basil.  This silly boy doesn't really
want it, and I really do."

"If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I shall never forgive you!"
cried Dorian Gray; "and I don't allow people to call me a silly boy."

"You know the picture is yours, Dorian.  I gave it to you before it
existed."

"And you know you have been a little silly, Mr. Gray, and that you
don't really object to being reminded that you are extremely young."

"I should have objected very strongly this morning, Lord Henry."

"Ah! this morning!  You have lived since then."

There came a knock at the door, and the butler entered with a laden
tea-tray and set it down upon a small Japanese table.  There was a
rattle of cups and saucers and the hissing of a fluted Georgian urn.
Two globe-shaped china dishes were brought in by a page.  Dorian Gray
went over and poured out the tea.  The two men sauntered languidly to
the table and examined what was under the covers.

"Let us go to the theatre to-night," said Lord Henry.  "There is sure
to be something on, somewhere.  I have promised to dine at White's, but
it is only with an old friend, so I can send him a wire to say that I
am ill, or that I am prevented from coming in consequence of a
subsequent engagement.  I think that would be a rather nice excuse:  it
would have all the surprise of candour."

"It is such a bore putting on one's dress-clothes," muttered Hallward.
"And, when one has them on, they are so horrid."

"Yes," answered Lord Henry dreamily, "the costume of the nineteenth
century is detestable.  It is so sombre, so depressing.  Sin is the
only real colour-element left in modern life."

"You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry."

"Before which Dorian?  The one who is pouring out tea for us, or the
one in the picture?"

"Before either."

"I should like to come to the theatre with you, Lord Henry," said the
lad.

"Then you shall come; and you will come, too, Basil, won't you?"

"I can't, really.  I would sooner not.  I have a lot of work to do."

"Well, then, you and I will go alone, Mr. Gray."

"I should like that awfully."

The painter bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the picture.
"I shall stay with the real Dorian," he said, sadly.

"Is it the real Dorian?" cried the original of the portrait, strolling
across to him.  "Am I really like that?"

"Yes; you are just like that."

"How wonderful, Basil!"

"At least you are like it in appearance.  But it will never alter,"
sighed Hallward.  "That is something."

"What a fuss people make about fidelity!" exclaimed Lord Henry.  "Why,
even in love it is purely a question for physiology.  It has nothing to
do with our own will.  Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old
men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say."

"Don't go to the theatre to-night, Dorian," said Hallward.  "Stop and
dine with me."

"I can't, Basil."

"Why?"

"Because I have promised Lord Henry Wotton to go with him."

"He won't like you the better for keeping your promises.  He always
breaks his own.  I beg you not to go."

Dorian Gray laughed and shook his head.

"I entreat you."

The lad hesitated, and looked over at Lord Henry, who was watching them
from the tea-table with an amused smile.

"I must go, Basil," he answered.

"Very well," said Hallward, and he went over and laid down his cup on
the tray.  "It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had
better lose no time.  Good-bye, Harry.  Good-bye, Dorian.  Come and see
me soon.  Come to-morrow."

"Certainly."

"You won't forget?"

"No, of course not," cried Dorian.

"And ... Harry!"

"Yes, Basil?"

"Remember what I asked you, when we were in the garden this morning."

"I have forgotten it."

"I trust you."

"I wish I could trust myself," said Lord Henry, laughing.  "Come, Mr.
Gray, my hansom is outside, and I can drop you at your own place.
Good-bye, Basil.  It has been a most interesting afternoon."

As the door closed behind them, the painter flung himself down on a
sofa, and a look of pain came into his face.



CHAPTER 3

At half-past twelve next day Lord Henry Wotton strolled from Curzon
Street over to the Albany to call on his uncle, Lord Fermor, a genial
if somewhat rough-mannered old bachelor, whom the outside world called
selfish because it derived no particular benefit from him, but who was
considered generous by Society as he fed the people who amused him.
His father had been our ambassador at Madrid when Isabella was young
and Prim unthought of, but had retired from the diplomatic service in a
capricious moment of annoyance on not being offered the Embassy at
Paris, a post to which he considered that he was fully entitled by
reason of his birth, his indolence, the good English of his dispatches,
and his inordinate passion for pleasure.  The son, who had been his
father's secretary, had resigned along with his chief, somewhat
foolishly as was thought at the time, and on succeeding some months
later to the title, had set himself to the serious study of the great
aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing.  He had two large town
houses, but preferred to live in chambers as it was less trouble, and
took most of his meals at his club.  He paid some attention to the
management of his collieries in the Midland counties, excusing himself
for this taint of industry on the ground that the one advantage of
having coal was that it enabled a gentleman to afford the decency of
burning wood on his own hearth.  In politics he was a Tory, except when
the Tories were in office, during which period he roundly abused them
for being a pack of Radicals.  He was a hero to his valet, who bullied
him, and a terror to most of his relations, whom he bullied in turn.
Only England could have produced him, and he always said that the
country was going to the dogs.  His principles were out of date, but
there was a good deal to be said for his prejudices.

When Lord Henry entered the room, he found his uncle sitting in a rough
shooting-coat, smoking a cheroot and grumbling over _The Times_.  "Well,
Harry," said the old gentleman, "what brings you out so early?  I
thought you dandies never got up till two, and were not visible till
five."

"Pure family affection, I assure you, Uncle George.  I want to get
something out of you."

"Money, I suppose," said Lord Fermor, making a wry face.  "Well, sit
down and tell me all about it.  Young people, nowadays, imagine that
money is everything."

"Yes," murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; "and
when they grow older they know it.  But I don't want money.  It is only
people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay
mine.  Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly
upon it.  Besides, I always deal with Dartmoor's tradesmen, and
consequently they never bother me.  What I want is information:  not
useful information, of course; useless information."

"Well, I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, Harry,
although those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense.  When I was in
the Diplomatic, things were much better.  But I hear they let them in
now by examination.  What can you expect?  Examinations, sir, are pure
humbug from beginning to end.  If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite
enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him."

"Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle George," said
Lord Henry languidly.

"Mr. Dorian Gray?  Who is he?" asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy
white eyebrows.

"That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George.  Or rather, I know
who he is.  He is the last Lord Kelso's grandson.  His mother was a
Devereux, Lady Margaret Devereux.  I want you to tell me about his
mother.  What was she like?  Whom did she marry?  You have known nearly
everybody in your time, so you might have known her.  I am very much
interested in Mr. Gray at present.  I have only just met him."

"Kelso's grandson!" echoed the old gentleman.  "Kelso's grandson! ...
Of course.... I knew his mother intimately.  I believe I was at her
christening.  She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret
Devereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless
young fellow--a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot regiment, or
something of that kind.  Certainly.  I remember the whole thing as if
it happened yesterday.  The poor chap was killed in a duel at Spa a few
months after the marriage.  There was an ugly story about it.  They
said Kelso got some rascally adventurer, some Belgian brute, to insult
his son-in-law in public--paid him, sir, to do it, paid him--and that
the fellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon.  The thing was
hushed up, but, egad, Kelso ate his chop alone at the club for some
time afterwards.  He brought his daughter back with him, I was told,
and she never spoke to him again.  Oh, yes; it was a bad business.  The
girl died, too, died within a year.  So she left a son, did she?  I had
forgotten that.  What sort of boy is he?  If he is like his mother, he
must be a good-looking chap."

"He is very good-looking," assented Lord Henry.

"I hope he will fall into proper hands," continued the old man.  "He
should have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso did the right thing
by him.  His mother had money, too.  All the Selby property came to
her, through her grandfather.  Her grandfather hated Kelso, thought him
a mean dog.  He was, too.  Came to Madrid once when I was there.  Egad,
I was ashamed of him.  The Queen used to ask me about the English noble
who was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares.  They
made quite a story of it.  I didn't dare show my face at Court for a
month.  I hope he treated his grandson better than he did the jarvies."

"I don't know," answered Lord Henry.  "I fancy that the boy will be
well off.  He is not of age yet.  He has Selby, I know.  He told me so.
And ... his mother was very beautiful?"

"Margaret Devereux was one of the loveliest creatures I ever saw,
Harry.  What on earth induced her to behave as she did, I never could
understand.  She could have married anybody she chose.  Carlington was
mad after her.  She was romantic, though.  All the women of that family
were.  The men were a poor lot, but, egad! the women were wonderful.
Carlington went on his knees to her.  Told me so himself.  She laughed
at him, and there wasn't a girl in London at the time who wasn't after
him.  And by the way, Harry, talking about silly marriages, what is
this humbug your father tells me about Dartmoor wanting to marry an
American?  Ain't English girls good enough for him?"

"It is rather fashionable to marry Americans just now, Uncle George."

"I'll back English women against the world, Harry," said Lord Fermor,
striking the table with his fist.

"The betting is on the Americans."

"They don't last, I am told," muttered his uncle.

"A long engagement exhausts them, but they are capital at a
steeplechase.  They take things flying.  I don't think Dartmoor has a
chance."

"Who are her people?" grumbled the old gentleman.  "Has she got any?"

Lord Henry shook his head.  "American girls are as clever at concealing
their parents, as English women are at concealing their past," he said,
rising to go.

"They are pork-packers, I suppose?"

"I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor's sake.  I am told that
pork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America, after
politics."

"Is she pretty?"

"She behaves as if she was beautiful.  Most American women do.  It is
the secret of their charm."

"Why can't these American women stay in their own country?  They are
always telling us that it is the paradise for women."

"It is.  That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively
anxious to get out of it," said Lord Henry.  "Good-bye, Uncle George.
I shall be late for lunch, if I stop any longer.  Thanks for giving me
the information I wanted.  I always like to know everything about my
new friends, and nothing about my old ones."

"Where are you lunching, Harry?"

"At Aunt Agatha's. I have asked myself and Mr. Gray.  He is her latest
_protege_."

"Humph! tell your Aunt Agatha, Harry, not to bother me any more with
her charity appeals.  I am sick of them.  Why, the good woman thinks
that I have nothing to do but to write cheques for her silly fads."

"All right, Uncle George, I'll tell her, but it won't have any effect.
Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity.  It is their
distinguishing characteristic."

The old gentleman growled approvingly and rang the bell for his
servant.  Lord Henry passed up the low arcade into Burlington Street
and turned his steps in the direction of Berkeley Square.

So that was the story of Dorian Gray's parentage.  Crudely as it had
been told to him, it had yet stirred him by its suggestion of a
strange, almost modern romance.  A beautiful woman risking everything
for a mad passion.  A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a
hideous, treacherous crime.  Months of voiceless agony, and then a
child born in pain.  The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to
solitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man.  Yes; it was an
interesting background.  It posed the lad, made him more perfect, as it
were.  Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something
tragic.  Worlds had to be in travail, that the meanest flower might
blow.... And how charming he had been at dinner the night before, as
with startled eyes and lips parted in frightened pleasure he had sat
opposite to him at the club, the red candleshades staining to a richer
rose the wakening wonder of his face.  Talking to him was like playing
upon an exquisite violin.  He answered to every touch and thrill of the
bow.... There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of
influence.  No other activity was like it.  To project one's soul into
some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's
own intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of
passion and youth; to convey one's temperament into another as though
it were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume: there was a real joy in
that--perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited
and vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and
grossly common in its aims.... He was a marvellous type, too, this lad,
whom by so curious a chance he had met in Basil's studio, or could be
fashioned into a marvellous type, at any rate.  Grace was his, and the
white purity of boyhood, and beauty such as old Greek marbles kept for
us.  There was nothing that one could not do with him.  He could be
made a Titan or a toy.  What a pity it was that such beauty was
destined to fade! ...  And Basil?  From a psychological point of view,
how interesting he was!  The new manner in art, the fresh mode of
looking at life, suggested so strangely by the merely visible presence
of one who was unconscious of it all; the silent spirit that dwelt in
dim woodland, and walked unseen in open field, suddenly showing
herself, Dryadlike and not afraid, because in his soul who sought for
her there had been wakened that wonderful vision to which alone are
wonderful things revealed; the mere shapes and patterns of things
becoming, as it were, refined, and gaining a kind of symbolical value,
as though they were themselves patterns of some other and more perfect
form whose shadow they made real:  how strange it all was!  He
remembered something like it in history.  Was it not Plato, that artist
in thought, who had first analyzed it?  Was it not Buonarotti who had
carved it in the coloured marbles of a sonnet-sequence? But in our own
century it was strange.... Yes; he would try to be to Dorian Gray
what, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter who had fashioned
the wonderful portrait.  He would seek to dominate him--had already,
indeed, half done so.  He would make that wonderful spirit his own.
There was something fascinating in this son of love and death.

Suddenly he stopped and glanced up at the houses.  He found that he had
passed his aunt's some distance, and, smiling to himself, turned back.
When he entered the somewhat sombre hall, the butler told him that they
had gone in to lunch.  He gave one of the footmen his hat and stick and
passed into the dining-room.

"Late as usual, Harry," cried his aunt, shaking her head at him.

He invented a facile excuse, and having taken the vacant seat next to
her, looked round to see who was there.  Dorian bowed to him shyly from
the end of the table, a flush of pleasure stealing into his cheek.
Opposite was the Duchess of Harley, a lady of admirable good-nature and
good temper, much liked by every one who knew her, and of those ample
architectural proportions that in women who are not duchesses are
described by contemporary historians as stoutness.  Next to her sat, on
her right, Sir Thomas Burdon, a Radical member of Parliament, who
followed his leader in public life and in private life followed the
best cooks, dining with the Tories and thinking with the Liberals, in
accordance with a wise and well-known rule.  The post on her left was
occupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of considerable
charm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence,
having, as he explained once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he
had to say before he was thirty.  His own neighbour was Mrs. Vandeleur,
one of his aunt's oldest friends, a perfect saint amongst women, but so
dreadfully dowdy that she reminded one of a badly bound hymn-book.
Fortunately for him she had on the other side Lord Faudel, a most
intelligent middle-aged mediocrity, as bald as a ministerial statement
in the House of Commons, with whom she was conversing in that intensely
earnest manner which is the one unpardonable error, as he remarked once
himself, that all really good people fall into, and from which none of
them ever quite escape.

"We are talking about poor Dartmoor, Lord Henry," cried the duchess,
nodding pleasantly to him across the table.  "Do you think he will
really marry this fascinating young person?"

"I believe she has made up her mind to propose to him, Duchess."

"How dreadful!" exclaimed Lady Agatha.  "Really, some one should
interfere."

"I am told, on excellent authority, that her father keeps an American
dry-goods store," said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious.

"My uncle has already suggested pork-packing, Sir Thomas."

"Dry-goods! What are American dry-goods?" asked the duchess, raising
her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb.

"American novels," answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some quail.

The duchess looked puzzled.

"Don't mind him, my dear," whispered Lady Agatha.  "He never means
anything that he says."

"When America was discovered," said the Radical member--and he began to
give some wearisome facts.  Like all people who try to exhaust a
subject, he exhausted his listeners.  The duchess sighed and exercised
her privilege of interruption.  "I wish to goodness it never had been
discovered at all!" she exclaimed.  "Really, our girls have no chance
nowadays.  It is most unfair."

"Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered," said Mr.
Erskine; "I myself would say that it had merely been detected."

"Oh! but I have seen specimens of the inhabitants," answered the
duchess vaguely.  "I must confess that most of them are extremely
pretty.  And they dress well, too.  They get all their dresses in
Paris.  I wish I could afford to do the same."

"They say that when good Americans die they go to Paris," chuckled Sir
Thomas, who had a large wardrobe of Humour's cast-off clothes.

"Really!  And where do bad Americans go to when they die?" inquired the
duchess.

"They go to America," murmured Lord Henry.

Sir Thomas frowned.  "I am afraid that your nephew is prejudiced
against that great country," he said to Lady Agatha.  "I have travelled
all over it in cars provided by the directors, who, in such matters,
are extremely civil.  I assure you that it is an education to visit it."

"But must we really see Chicago in order to be educated?" asked Mr.
Erskine plaintively.  "I don't feel up to the journey."

Sir Thomas waved his hand.  "Mr. Erskine of Treadley has the world on
his shelves. We practical men like to see things, not to read about
them. The Americans are an extremely interesting people. They are
absolutely reasonable. I think that is their distinguishing
characteristic. Yes, Mr. Erskine, an absolutely reasonable people. I
assure you there is no nonsense about the Americans."

"How dreadful!" cried Lord Henry.  "I can stand brute force, but brute
reason is quite unbearable.  There is something unfair about its use.
It is hitting below the intellect."

"I do not understand you," said Sir Thomas, growing rather red.

"I do, Lord Henry," murmured Mr. Erskine, with a smile.

"Paradoxes are all very well in their way...." rejoined the baronet.

"Was that a paradox?" asked Mr. Erskine.  "I did not think so.  Perhaps
it was.  Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth.  To test
reality we must see it on the tight rope.  When the verities become
acrobats, we can judge them."

"Dear me!" said Lady Agatha, "how you men argue!  I am sure I never can
make out what you are talking about.  Oh!  Harry, I am quite vexed with
you.  Why do you try to persuade our nice Mr. Dorian Gray to give up
the East End?  I assure you he would be quite invaluable.  They would
love his playing."

"I want him to play to me," cried Lord Henry, smiling, and he looked
down the table and caught a bright answering glance.

"But they are so unhappy in Whitechapel," continued Lady Agatha.

"I can sympathize with everything except suffering," said Lord Henry,
shrugging his shoulders.  "I cannot sympathize with that.  It is too
ugly, too horrible, too distressing.  There is something terribly
morbid in the modern sympathy with pain.  One should sympathize with
the colour, the beauty, the joy of life.  The less said about life's
sores, the better."

"Still, the East End is a very important problem," remarked Sir Thomas
with a grave shake of the head.

"Quite so," answered the young lord.  "It is the problem of slavery,
and we try to solve it by amusing the slaves."

The politician looked at him keenly.  "What change do you propose,
then?" he asked.

Lord Henry laughed.  "I don't desire to change anything in England
except the weather," he answered.  "I am quite content with philosophic
contemplation.  But, as the nineteenth century has gone bankrupt
through an over-expenditure of sympathy, I would suggest that we should
appeal to science to put us straight.  The advantage of the emotions is
that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is
not emotional."

"But we have such grave responsibilities," ventured Mrs. Vandeleur
timidly.

"Terribly grave," echoed Lady Agatha.

Lord Henry looked over at Mr. Erskine.  "Humanity takes itself too
seriously.  It is the world's original sin.  If the caveman had known
how to laugh, history would have been different."

"You are really very comforting," warbled the duchess.  "I have always
felt rather guilty when I came to see your dear aunt, for I take no
interest at all in the East End.  For the future I shall be able to
look her in the face without a blush."

"A blush is very becoming, Duchess," remarked Lord Henry.

"Only when one is young," she answered.  "When an old woman like myself
blushes, it is a very bad sign.  Ah!  Lord Henry, I wish you would tell
me how to become young again."

He thought for a moment.  "Can you remember any great error that you
committed in your early days, Duchess?" he asked, looking at her across
the table.

"A great many, I fear," she cried.

"Then commit them over again," he said gravely.  "To get back one's
youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies."

"A delightful theory!" she exclaimed.  "I must put it into practice."

"A dangerous theory!" came from Sir Thomas's tight lips.  Lady Agatha
shook her head, but could not help being amused.  Mr. Erskine listened.

"Yes," he continued, "that is one of the great secrets of life.
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and
discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are
one's mistakes."

A laugh ran round the table.

He played with the idea and grew wilful; tossed it into the air and
transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent
with fancy and winged it with paradox.  The praise of folly, as he went
on, soared into a philosophy, and philosophy herself became young, and
catching the mad music of pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her
wine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bacchante over the
hills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober.  Facts fled
before her like frightened forest things.  Her white feet trod the huge
press at which wise Omar sits, till the seething grape-juice rose round
her bare limbs in waves of purple bubbles, or crawled in red foam over
the vat's black, dripping, sloping sides.  It was an extraordinary
improvisation.  He felt that the eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him,
and the consciousness that amongst his audience there was one whose
temperament he wished to fascinate seemed to give his wit keenness and
to lend colour to his imagination.  He was brilliant, fantastic,
irresponsible.  He charmed his listeners out of themselves, and they
followed his pipe, laughing.  Dorian Gray never took his gaze off him,
but sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips
and wonder growing grave in his darkening eyes.

At last, liveried in the costume of the age, reality entered the room
in the shape of a servant to tell the duchess that her carriage was
waiting.  She wrung her hands in mock despair.  "How annoying!" she
cried.  "I must go.  I have to call for my husband at the club, to take
him to some absurd meeting at Willis's Rooms, where he is going to be
in the chair.  If I am late he is sure to be furious, and I couldn't
have a scene in this bonnet.  It is far too fragile.  A harsh word
would ruin it.  No, I must go, dear Agatha.  Good-bye, Lord Henry, you
are quite delightful and dreadfully demoralizing.  I am sure I don't
know what to say about your views.  You must come and dine with us some
night.  Tuesday?  Are you disengaged Tuesday?"

"For you I would throw over anybody, Duchess," said Lord Henry with a
bow.

"Ah! that is very nice, and very wrong of you," she cried; "so mind you
come"; and she swept out of the room, followed by Lady Agatha and the
other ladies.

When Lord Henry had sat down again, Mr. Erskine moved round, and taking
a chair close to him, placed his hand upon his arm.

"You talk books away," he said; "why don't you write one?"

"I am too fond of reading books to care to write them, Mr. Erskine.  I
should like to write a novel certainly, a novel that would be as lovely
as a Persian carpet and as unreal.  But there is no literary public in
England for anything except newspapers, primers, and encyclopaedias.
Of all people in the world the English have the least sense of the
beauty of literature."

"I fear you are right," answered Mr. Erskine.  "I myself used to have
literary ambitions, but I gave them up long ago.  And now, my dear
young friend, if you will allow me to call you so, may I ask if you
really meant all that you said to us at lunch?"

"I quite forget what I said," smiled Lord Henry.  "Was it all very bad?"

"Very bad indeed.  In fact I consider you extremely dangerous, and if
anything happens to our good duchess, we shall all look on you as being
primarily responsible.  But I should like to talk to you about life.
The generation into which I was born was tedious.  Some day, when you
are tired of London, come down to Treadley and expound to me your
philosophy of pleasure over some admirable Burgundy I am fortunate
enough to possess."

"I shall be charmed.  A visit to Treadley would be a great privilege.
It has a perfect host, and a perfect library."

"You will complete it," answered the old gentleman with a courteous
bow.  "And now I must bid good-bye to your excellent aunt.  I am due at
the Athenaeum.  It is the hour when we sleep there."

"All of you, Mr. Erskine?"

"Forty of us, in forty arm-chairs. We are practising for an English
Academy of Letters."

Lord Henry laughed and rose.  "I am going to the park," he cried.

As he was passing out of the door, Dorian Gray touched him on the arm.
"Let me come with you," he murmured.

"But I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go and see him,"
answered Lord Henry.

"I would sooner come with you; yes, I feel I must come with you.  Do
let me.  And you will promise to talk to me all the time?  No one talks
so wonderfully as you do."

"Ah!  I have talked quite enough for to-day," said Lord Henry, smiling.
"All I want now is to look at life.  You may come and look at it with
me, if you care to."



CHAPTER 4

One afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a luxurious
arm-chair, in the little library of Lord Henry's house in Mayfair.  It
was, in its way, a very charming room, with its high panelled
wainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-coloured frieze and ceiling
of raised plasterwork, and its brickdust felt carpet strewn with silk,
long-fringed Persian rugs.  On a tiny satinwood table stood a statuette
by Clodion, and beside it lay a copy of Les Cent Nouvelles, bound for
Margaret of Valois by Clovis Eve and powdered with the gilt daisies
that Queen had selected for her device.  Some large blue china jars and
parrot-tulips were ranged on the mantelshelf, and through the small
leaded panes of the window streamed the apricot-coloured light of a
summer day in London.

Lord Henry had not yet come in.  He was always late on principle, his
principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.  So the lad was
looking rather sulky, as with listless fingers he turned over the pages
of an elaborately illustrated edition of Manon Lescaut that he had
found in one of the book-cases. The formal monotonous ticking of the
Louis Quatorze clock annoyed him.  Once or twice he thought of going
away.

At last he heard a step outside, and the door opened.  "How late you
are, Harry!" he murmured.

"I am afraid it is not Harry, Mr. Gray," answered a shrill voice.

He glanced quickly round and rose to his feet.  "I beg your pardon.  I
thought--"

"You thought it was my husband.  It is only his wife.  You must let me
introduce myself.  I know you quite well by your photographs.  I think
my husband has got seventeen of them."

"Not seventeen, Lady Henry?"

"Well, eighteen, then.  And I saw you with him the other night at the
opera."  She laughed nervously as she spoke, and watched him with her
vague forget-me-not eyes.  She was a curious woman, whose dresses
always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a
tempest.  She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion
was never returned, she had kept all her illusions.  She tried to look
picturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy.  Her name was
Victoria, and she had a perfect mania for going to church.

"That was at Lohengrin, Lady Henry, I think?"

"Yes; it was at dear Lohengrin.  I like Wagner's music better than
anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other
people hearing what one says.  That is a great advantage, don't you
think so, Mr. Gray?"

The same nervous staccato laugh broke from her thin lips, and her
fingers began to play with a long tortoise-shell paper-knife.

Dorian smiled and shook his head:  "I am afraid I don't think so, Lady
Henry.  I never talk during music--at least, during good music.  If one
hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation."

"Ah! that is one of Harry's views, isn't it, Mr. Gray?  I always hear
Harry's views from his friends.  It is the only way I get to know of
them.  But you must not think I don't like good music.  I adore it, but
I am afraid of it.  It makes me too romantic.  I have simply worshipped
pianists--two at a time, sometimes, Harry tells me.  I don't know what
it is about them.  Perhaps it is that they are foreigners.  They all
are, ain't they?  Even those that are born in England become foreigners
after a time, don't they?  It is so clever of them, and such a
compliment to art.  Makes it quite cosmopolitan, doesn't it?  You have
never been to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray?  You must come.  I
can't afford orchids, but I spare no expense in foreigners.  They make
one's rooms look so picturesque.  But here is Harry!  Harry, I came in
to look for you, to ask you something--I forget what it was--and I
found Mr. Gray here.  We have had such a pleasant chat about music.  We
have quite the same ideas.  No; I think our ideas are quite different.
But he has been most pleasant.  I am so glad I've seen him."

"I am charmed, my love, quite charmed," said Lord Henry, elevating his
dark, crescent-shaped eyebrows and looking at them both with an amused
smile.  "So sorry I am late, Dorian.  I went to look after a piece of
old brocade in Wardour Street and had to bargain for hours for it.
Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing."

"I am afraid I must be going," exclaimed Lady Henry, breaking an
awkward silence with her silly sudden laugh.  "I have promised to drive
with the duchess.  Good-bye, Mr. Gray.  Good-bye, Harry.  You are
dining out, I suppose?  So am I. Perhaps I shall see you at Lady
Thornbury's."

"I dare say, my dear," said Lord Henry, shutting the door behind her
as, looking like a bird of paradise that had been out all night in the
rain, she flitted out of the room, leaving a faint odour of
frangipanni.  Then he lit a cigarette and flung himself down on the
sofa.

"Never marry a woman with straw-coloured hair, Dorian," he said after a
few puffs.

"Why, Harry?"

"Because they are so sentimental."

"But I like sentimental people."

"Never marry at all, Dorian.  Men marry because they are tired; women,
because they are curious:  both are disappointed."

"I don't think I am likely to marry, Harry.  I am too much in love.
That is one of your aphorisms.  I am putting it into practice, as I do
everything that you say."

"Who are you in love with?" asked Lord Henry after a pause.

"With an actress," said Dorian Gray, blushing.

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  "That is a rather commonplace
_debut_."

"You would not say so if you saw her, Harry."

"Who is she?"

"Her name is Sibyl Vane."

"Never heard of her."

"No one has.  People will some day, however.  She is a genius."

"My dear boy, no woman is a genius.  Women are a decorative sex.  They
never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly.  Women
represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the
triumph of mind over morals."

"Harry, how can you?"

"My dear Dorian, it is quite true.  I am analysing women at present, so
I ought to know.  The subject is not so abstruse as I thought it was.
I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain
and the coloured.  The plain women are very useful.  If you want to
gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down
to supper.  The other women are very charming.  They commit one
mistake, however.  They paint in order to try and look young.  Our
grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly.  _Rouge_ and
_esprit_ used to go together.  That is all over now.  As long as a woman
can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly
satisfied.  As for conversation, there are only five women in London
worth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent
society.  However, tell me about your genius.  How long have you known
her?"

"Ah!  Harry, your views terrify me."

"Never mind that.  How long have you known her?"

"About three weeks."

"And where did you come across her?"

"I will tell you, Harry, but you mustn't be unsympathetic about it.
After all, it never would have happened if I had not met you.  You
filled me with a wild desire to know everything about life.  For days
after I met you, something seemed to throb in my veins.  As I lounged
in the park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used to look at every one
who passed me and wonder, with a mad curiosity, what sort of lives they
led.  Some of them fascinated me.  Others filled me with terror.  There
was an exquisite poison in the air.  I had a passion for sensations....
Well, one evening about seven o'clock, I determined to go out in search
of some adventure.  I felt that this grey monstrous London of ours,
with its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins,
as you once phrased it, must have something in store for me.  I fancied
a thousand things.  The mere danger gave me a sense of delight.  I
remembered what you had said to me on that wonderful evening when we
first dined together, about the search for beauty being the real secret
of life.  I don't know what I expected, but I went out and wandered
eastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black
grassless squares.  About half-past eight I passed by an absurd little
theatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills.  A hideous
Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was
standing at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar.  He had greasy
ringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled
shirt. 'Have a box, my Lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took off
his hat with an air of gorgeous servility.  There was something about
him, Harry, that amused me.  He was such a monster.  You will laugh at
me, I know, but I really went in and paid a whole guinea for the
stage-box. To the present day I can't make out why I did so; and yet if
I hadn't--my dear Harry, if I hadn't--I should have missed the greatest
romance of my life.  I see you are laughing.  It is horrid of you!"

"I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you.  But you
should not say the greatest romance of your life.  You should say the
first romance of your life.  You will always be loved, and you will
always be in love with love.  A _grande passion_ is the privilege of
people who have nothing to do.  That is the one use of the idle classes
of a country.  Don't be afraid.  There are exquisite things in store
for you.  This is merely the beginning."

"Do you think my nature so shallow?" cried Dorian Gray angrily.

"No; I think your nature so deep."

"How do you mean?"

"My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really
the shallow people.  What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity,
I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.
Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life
of the intellect--simply a confession of failure.  Faithfulness!  I
must analyse it some day.  The passion for property is in it.  There
are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that
others might pick them up.  But I don't want to interrupt you.  Go on
with your story."

"Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with a
vulgar drop-scene staring me in the face.  I looked out from behind the
curtain and surveyed the house.  It was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and
cornucopias, like a third-rate wedding-cake. The gallery and pit were
fairly full, but the two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and
there was hardly a person in what I suppose they called the
dress-circle.  Women went about with oranges and ginger-beer, and there
was a terrible consumption of nuts going on."

"It must have been just like the palmy days of the British drama."

"Just like, I should fancy, and very depressing.  I began to wonder
what on earth I should do when I caught sight of the play-bill.  What
do you think the play was, Harry?"

"I should think 'The Idiot Boy', or 'Dumb but Innocent'.  Our fathers
used to like that sort of piece, I believe.  The longer I live, Dorian,
the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is
not good enough for us.  In art, as in politics, _les grandperes ont
toujours tort_."

"This play was good enough for us, Harry.  It was Romeo and Juliet.  I
must admit that I was rather annoyed at the idea of seeing Shakespeare
done in such a wretched hole of a place.  Still, I felt interested, in
a sort of way.  At any rate, I determined to wait for the first act.
There was a dreadful orchestra, presided over by a young Hebrew who sat
at a cracked piano, that nearly drove me away, but at last the
drop-scene was drawn up and the play began.  Romeo was a stout elderly
gentleman, with corked eyebrows, a husky tragedy voice, and a figure
like a beer-barrel. Mercutio was almost as bad.  He was played by the
low-comedian, who had introduced gags of his own and was on most
friendly terms with the pit.  They were both as grotesque as the
scenery, and that looked as if it had come out of a country-booth. But
Juliet!  Harry, imagine a girl, hardly seventeen years of age, with a
little, flowerlike face, a small Greek head with plaited coils of
dark-brown hair, eyes that were violet wells of passion, lips that were
like the petals of a rose.  She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen
in my life.  You said to me once that pathos left you unmoved, but that
beauty, mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears.  I tell you,
Harry, I could hardly see this girl for the mist of tears that came
across me.  And her voice--I never heard such a voice.  It was very low
at first, with deep mellow notes that seemed to fall singly upon one's
ear.  Then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a
distant hautboy.  In the garden-scene it had all the tremulous ecstasy
that one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing.  There
were moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of violins.  You
know how a voice can stir one.  Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane
are two things that I shall never forget.  When I close my eyes, I hear
them, and each of them says something different.  I don't know which to
follow.  Why should I not love her?  Harry, I do love her.  She is
everything to me in life.  Night after night I go to see her play.  One
evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen.  I have
seen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from
her lover's lips.  I have watched her wandering through the forest of
Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap.
She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and
given him rue to wear and bitter herbs to taste of.  She has been
innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reedlike
throat.  I have seen her in every age and in every costume.  Ordinary
women never appeal to one's imagination.  They are limited to their
century.  No glamour ever transfigures them.  One knows their minds as
easily as one knows their bonnets.  One can always find them.  There is
no mystery in any of them.  They ride in the park in the morning and
chatter at tea-parties in the afternoon.  They have their stereotyped
smile and their fashionable manner.  They are quite obvious.  But an
actress!  How different an actress is!  Harry! why didn't you tell me
that the only thing worth loving is an actress?"

"Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian."

"Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces."

"Don't run down dyed hair and painted faces.  There is an extraordinary
charm in them, sometimes," said Lord Henry.

"I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane."

"You could not have helped telling me, Dorian.  All through your life
you will tell me everything you do."

"Yes, Harry, I believe that is true.  I cannot help telling you things.
You have a curious influence over me.  If I ever did a crime, I would
come and confess it to you.  You would understand me."

"People like you--the wilful sunbeams of life--don't commit crimes,
Dorian.  But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same.  And
now tell me--reach me the matches, like a good boy--thanks--what are
your actual relations with Sibyl Vane?"

Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes.
"Harry!  Sibyl Vane is sacred!"

"It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian," said
Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice.  "But why
should you be annoyed?  I suppose she will belong to you some day.
When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one
always ends by deceiving others.  That is what the world calls a
romance.  You know her, at any rate, I suppose?"

"Of course I know her.  On the first night I was at the theatre, the
horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and
offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her.  I was
furious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds
of years and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona.  I
think, from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the
impression that I had taken too much champagne, or something."

"I am not surprised."

"Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers.  I told him I
never even read them.  He seemed terribly disappointed at that, and
confided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy
against him, and that they were every one of them to be bought."

"I should not wonder if he was quite right there.  But, on the other
hand, judging from their appearance, most of them cannot be at all
expensive."

"Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means," laughed Dorian.
"By this time, however, the lights were being put out in the theatre,
and I had to go.  He wanted me to try some cigars that he strongly
recommended.  I declined.  The next night, of course, I arrived at the
place again.  When he saw me, he made me a low bow and assured me that
I was a munificent patron of art.  He was a most offensive brute,
though he had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare.  He told me
once, with an air of pride, that his five bankruptcies were entirely
due to 'The Bard,' as he insisted on calling him.  He seemed to think
it a distinction."

"It was a distinction, my dear Dorian--a great distinction.  Most
people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose
of life.  To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honour.  But when
did you first speak to Miss Sibyl Vane?"

"The third night.  She had been playing Rosalind.  I could not help
going round.  I had thrown her some flowers, and she had looked at
me--at least I fancied that she had.  The old Jew was persistent.  He
seemed determined to take me behind, so I consented.  It was curious my
not wanting to know her, wasn't it?"

"No; I don't think so."

"My dear Harry, why?"

"I will tell you some other time.  Now I want to know about the girl."

"Sibyl?  Oh, she was so shy and so gentle.  There is something of a
child about her.  Her eyes opened wide in exquisite wonder when I told
her what I thought of her performance, and she seemed quite unconscious
of her power.  I think we were both rather nervous.  The old Jew stood
grinning at the doorway of the dusty greenroom, making elaborate
speeches about us both, while we stood looking at each other like
children.  He would insist on calling me 'My Lord,' so I had to assure
Sibyl that I was not anything of the kind.  She said quite simply to
me, 'You look more like a prince.  I must call you Prince Charming.'"

"Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl knows how to pay compliments."

"You don't understand her, Harry.  She regarded me merely as a person
in a play.  She knows nothing of life.  She lives with her mother, a
faded tired woman who played Lady Capulet in a sort of magenta
dressing-wrapper on the first night, and looks as if she had seen
better days."

"I know that look.  It depresses me," murmured Lord Henry, examining
his rings.

"The Jew wanted to tell me her history, but I said it did not interest
me."

"You were quite right.  There is always something infinitely mean about
other people's tragedies."

"Sibyl is the only thing I care about.  What is it to me where she came
from?  From her little head to her little feet, she is absolutely and
entirely divine.  Every night of my life I go to see her act, and every
night she is more marvellous."

"That is the reason, I suppose, that you never dine with me now.  I
thought you must have some curious romance on hand.  You have; but it
is not quite what I expected."

"My dear Harry, we either lunch or sup together every day, and I have
been to the opera with you several times," said Dorian, opening his
blue eyes in wonder.

"You always come dreadfully late."

"Well, I can't help going to see Sibyl play," he cried, "even if it is
only for a single act.  I get hungry for her presence; and when I think
of the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, I
am filled with awe."

"You can dine with me to-night, Dorian, can't you?"

He shook his head.  "To-night she is Imogen," he answered, "and
to-morrow night she will be Juliet."

"When is she Sibyl Vane?"

"Never."

"I congratulate you."

"How horrid you are!  She is all the great heroines of the world in
one.  She is more than an individual.  You laugh, but I tell you she
has genius.  I love her, and I must make her love me.  You, who know
all the secrets of life, tell me how to charm Sibyl Vane to love me!  I
want to make Romeo jealous.  I want the dead lovers of the world to
hear our laughter and grow sad.  I want a breath of our passion to stir
their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.  My God,
Harry, how I worship her!"  He was walking up and down the room as he
spoke.  Hectic spots of red burned on his cheeks.  He was terribly
excited.

Lord Henry watched him with a subtle sense of pleasure.  How different
he was now from the shy frightened boy he had met in Basil Hallward's
studio!  His nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of
scarlet flame.  Out of its secret hiding-place had crept his soul, and
desire had come to meet it on the way.

"And what do you propose to do?" said Lord Henry at last.

"I want you and Basil to come with me some night and see her act.  I
have not the slightest fear of the result.  You are certain to
acknowledge her genius.  Then we must get her out of the Jew's hands.
She is bound to him for three years--at least for two years and eight
months--from the present time.  I shall have to pay him something, of
course.  When all that is settled, I shall take a West End theatre and
bring her out properly.  She will make the world as mad as she has made
me."

"That would be impossible, my dear boy."

"Yes, she will.  She has not merely art, consummate art-instinct, in
her, but she has personality also; and you have often told me that it
is personalities, not principles, that move the age."

"Well, what night shall we go?"

"Let me see.  To-day is Tuesday.  Let us fix to-morrow. She plays
Juliet to-morrow."

"All right.  The Bristol at eight o'clock; and I will get Basil."

"Not eight, Harry, please.  Half-past six.  We must be there before the
curtain rises.  You must see her in the first act, where she meets
Romeo."

"Half-past six!  What an hour!  It will be like having a meat-tea, or
reading an English novel.  It must be seven.  No gentleman dines before
seven.  Shall you see Basil between this and then?  Or shall I write to
him?"

"Dear Basil!  I have not laid eyes on him for a week.  It is rather
horrid of me, as he has sent me my portrait in the most wonderful
frame, specially designed by himself, and, though I am a little jealous
of the picture for being a whole month younger than I am, I must admit
that I delight in it.  Perhaps you had better write to him.  I don't
want to see him alone.  He says things that annoy me.  He gives me good
advice."

Lord Henry smiled.  "People are very fond of giving away what they need
most themselves.  It is what I call the depth of generosity."

"Oh, Basil is the best of fellows, but he seems to me to be just a bit
of a Philistine.  Since I have known you, Harry, I have discovered
that."

"Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his
work.  The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his
prejudices, his principles, and his common sense.  The only artists I
have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists.  Good
artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly
uninteresting in what they are.  A great poet, a really great poet, is
the most unpoetical of all creatures.  But inferior poets are
absolutely fascinating.  The worse their rhymes are, the more
picturesque they look.  The mere fact of having published a book of
second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible.  He lives the
poetry that he cannot write.  The others write the poetry that they
dare not realize."

"I wonder is that really so, Harry?" said Dorian Gray, putting some
perfume on his handkerchief out of a large, gold-topped bottle that
stood on the table.  "It must be, if you say it.  And now I am off.
Imogen is waiting for me.  Don't forget about to-morrow. Good-bye."

As he left the room, Lord Henry's heavy eyelids drooped, and he began
to think.  Certainly few people had ever interested him so much as
Dorian Gray, and yet the lad's mad adoration of some one else caused
him not the slightest pang of annoyance or jealousy.  He was pleased by
it.  It made him a more interesting study.  He had been always
enthralled by the methods of natural science, but the ordinary
subject-matter of that science had seemed to him trivial and of no
import.  And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by
vivisecting others.  Human life--that appeared to him the one thing
worth investigating.  Compared to it there was nothing else of any
value.  It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of
pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass,
nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the
imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams.  There
were poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken
of them.  There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through
them if one sought to understand their nature.  And, yet, what a great
reward one received!  How wonderful the whole world became to one!  To
note the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional coloured life
of the intellect--to observe where they met, and where they separated,
at what point they were in unison, and at what point they were at
discord--there was a delight in that!  What matter what the cost was?
One could never pay too high a price for any sensation.

He was conscious--and the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into his
brown agate eyes--that it was through certain words of his, musical
words said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray's soul had turned
to this white girl and bowed in worship before her.  To a large extent
the lad was his own creation.  He had made him premature.  That was
something.  Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its
secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were
revealed before the veil was drawn away.  Sometimes this was the effect
of art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately
with the passions and the intellect.  But now and then a complex
personality took the place and assumed the office of art, was indeed,
in its way, a real work of art, life having its elaborate masterpieces,
just as poetry has, or sculpture, or painting.

Yes, the lad was premature.  He was gathering his harvest while it was
yet spring.  The pulse and passion of youth were in him, but he was
becoming self-conscious. It was delightful to watch him.  With his
beautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at.
It was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end.  He was like
one of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem
to be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one's sense of beauty,
and whose wounds are like red roses.

Soul and body, body and soul--how mysterious they were!  There was
animalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality.
The senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade.  Who could
say where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began?
How shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists!
And yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various
schools!  Was the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin?  Or was the
body really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno thought?  The separation of
spirit from matter was a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter
was a mystery also.

He began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a
science that each little spring of life would be revealed to us.  As it
was, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others.
Experience was of no ethical value.  It was merely the name men gave to
their mistakes.  Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of
warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation
of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow
and showed us what to avoid.  But there was no motive power in
experience.  It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself.
All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same
as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we
would do many times, and with joy.

It was clear to him that the experimental method was the only method by
which one could arrive at any scientific analysis of the passions; and
certainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed to
promise rich and fruitful results.  His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane
was a psychological phenomenon of no small interest.  There was no
doubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire
for new experiences, yet it was not a simple, but rather a very complex
passion.  What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of
boyhood had been transformed by the workings of the imagination,
changed into something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote from
sense, and was for that very reason all the more dangerous.  It was the
passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most
strongly over us.  Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we
were conscious.  It often happened that when we thought we were
experimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves.

While Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the
door, and his valet entered and reminded him it was time to dress for
dinner.  He got up and looked out into the street.  The sunset had
smitten into scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite.
The panes glowed like plates of heated metal.  The sky above was like a
faded rose.  He thought of his friend's young fiery-coloured life and
wondered how it was all going to end.

When he arrived home, about half-past twelve o'clock, he saw a telegram
lying on the hall table.  He opened it and found it was from Dorian
Gray.  It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl
Vane.



CHAPTER 5

"Mother, Mother, I am so happy!" whispered the girl, burying her face
in the lap of the faded, tired-looking woman who, with back turned to
the shrill intrusive light, was sitting in the one arm-chair that their
dingy sitting-room contained.  "I am so happy!" she repeated, "and you
must be happy, too!"

Mrs. Vane winced and put her thin, bismuth-whitened hands on her
daughter's head.  "Happy!" she echoed, "I am only happy, Sibyl, when I
see you act.  You must not think of anything but your acting.  Mr.
Isaacs has been very good to us, and we owe him money."

The girl looked up and pouted.  "Money, Mother?" she cried, "what does
money matter?  Love is more than money."

"Mr. Isaacs has advanced us fifty pounds to pay off our debts and to
get a proper outfit for James.  You must not forget that, Sibyl.  Fifty
pounds is a very large sum.  Mr. Isaacs has been most considerate."

"He is not a gentleman, Mother, and I hate the way he talks to me,"
said the girl, rising to her feet and going over to the window.

"I don't know how we could manage without him," answered the elder
woman querulously.

Sibyl Vane tossed her head and laughed.  "We don't want him any more,
Mother.  Prince Charming rules life for us now." Then she paused.  A
rose shook in her blood and shadowed her cheeks.  Quick breath parted
the petals of her lips.  They trembled.  Some southern wind of passion
swept over her and stirred the dainty folds of her dress.  "I love
him," she said simply.

"Foolish child! foolish child!" was the parrot-phrase flung in answer.
The waving of crooked, false-jewelled fingers gave grotesqueness to the
words.

The girl laughed again.  The joy of a caged bird was in her voice.  Her
eyes caught the melody and echoed it in radiance, then closed for a
moment, as though to hide their secret.  When they opened, the mist of
a dream had passed across them.

Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at
prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name
of common sense.  She did not listen.  She was free in her prison of
passion.  Her prince, Prince Charming, was with her.  She had called on
memory to remake him.  She had sent her soul to search for him, and it
had brought him back.  His kiss burned again upon her mouth.  Her
eyelids were warm with his breath.

Then wisdom altered its method and spoke of espial and discovery.  This
young man might be rich.  If so, marriage should be thought of.
Against the shell of her ear broke the waves of worldly cunning.  The
arrows of craft shot by her.  She saw the thin lips moving, and smiled.

Suddenly she felt the need to speak.  The wordy silence troubled her.
"Mother, Mother," she cried, "why does he love me so much?  I know why
I love him.  I love him because he is like what love himself should be.
But what does he see in me?  I am not worthy of him.  And yet--why, I
cannot tell--though I feel so much beneath him, I don't feel humble.  I
feel proud, terribly proud.  Mother, did you love my father as I love
Prince Charming?"

The elder woman grew pale beneath the coarse powder that daubed her
cheeks, and her dry lips twitched with a spasm of pain.  Sybil rushed
to her, flung her arms round her neck, and kissed her.  "Forgive me,
Mother.  I know it pains you to talk about our father.  But it only
pains you because you loved him so much.  Don't look so sad.  I am as
happy to-day as you were twenty years ago.  Ah! let me be happy for
ever!"

"My child, you are far too young to think of falling in love.  Besides,
what do you know of this young man?  You don't even know his name.  The
whole thing is most inconvenient, and really, when James is going away
to Australia, and I have so much to think of, I must say that you
should have shown more consideration.  However, as I said before, if he
is rich ..."

"Ah!  Mother, Mother, let me be happy!"

Mrs. Vane glanced at her, and with one of those false theatrical
gestures that so often become a mode of second nature to a
stage-player, clasped her in her arms.  At this moment, the door opened
and a young lad with rough brown hair came into the room.  He was
thick-set of figure, and his hands and feet were large and somewhat
clumsy in movement.  He was not so finely bred as his sister.  One
would hardly have guessed the close relationship that existed between
them.  Mrs. Vane fixed her eyes on him and intensified her smile.  She
mentally elevated her son to the dignity of an audience.  She felt sure
that the _tableau_ was interesting.

"You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl, I think," said the
lad with a good-natured grumble.

"Ah! but you don't like being kissed, Jim," she cried.  "You are a
dreadful old bear."  And she ran across the room and hugged him.

James Vane looked into his sister's face with tenderness.  "I want you
to come out with me for a walk, Sibyl.  I don't suppose I shall ever
see this horrid London again.  I am sure I don't want to."

"My son, don't say such dreadful things," murmured Mrs. Vane, taking up
a tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it.  She
felt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group.  It would
have increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the situation.

"Why not, Mother?  I mean it."

"You pain me, my son.  I trust you will return from Australia in a
position of affluence.  I believe there is no society of any kind in
the Colonies--nothing that I would call society--so when you have made
your fortune, you must come back and assert yourself in London."

"Society!" muttered the lad.  "I don't want to know anything about
that.  I should like to make some money to take you and Sibyl off the
stage.  I hate it."

"Oh, Jim!" said Sibyl, laughing, "how unkind of you!  But are you
really going for a walk with me?  That will be nice!  I was afraid you
were going to say good-bye to some of your friends--to Tom Hardy, who
gave you that hideous pipe, or Ned Langton, who makes fun of you for
smoking it.  It is very sweet of you to let me have your last
afternoon.  Where shall we go?  Let us go to the park."

"I am too shabby," he answered, frowning.  "Only swell people go to the
park."

"Nonsense, Jim," she whispered, stroking the sleeve of his coat.

He hesitated for a moment.  "Very well," he said at last, "but don't be
too long dressing."  She danced out of the door.  One could hear her
singing as she ran upstairs.  Her little feet pattered overhead.

He walked up and down the room two or three times.  Then he turned to
the still figure in the chair.  "Mother, are my things ready?" he asked.

"Quite ready, James," she answered, keeping her eyes on her work.  For
some months past she had felt ill at ease when she was alone with this
rough stern son of hers.  Her shallow secret nature was troubled when
their eyes met.  She used to wonder if he suspected anything.  The
silence, for he made no other observation, became intolerable to her.
She began to complain.  Women defend themselves by attacking, just as
they attack by sudden and strange surrenders.  "I hope you will be
contented, James, with your sea-faring life," she said.  "You must
remember that it is your own choice.  You might have entered a
solicitor's office.  Solicitors are a very respectable class, and in
the country often dine with the best families."

"I hate offices, and I hate clerks," he replied.  "But you are quite
right.  I have chosen my own life.  All I say is, watch over Sibyl.
Don't let her come to any harm.  Mother, you must watch over her."

"James, you really talk very strangely.  Of course I watch over Sibyl."

"I hear a gentleman comes every night to the theatre and goes behind to
talk to her.  Is that right?  What about that?"

"You are speaking about things you don't understand, James.  In the
profession we are accustomed to receive a great deal of most gratifying
attention.  I myself used to receive many bouquets at one time.  That
was when acting was really understood.  As for Sibyl, I do not know at
present whether her attachment is serious or not.  But there is no
doubt that the young man in question is a perfect gentleman.  He is
always most polite to me.  Besides, he has the appearance of being
rich, and the flowers he sends are lovely."

"You don't know his name, though," said the lad harshly.

"No," answered his mother with a placid expression in her face.  "He
has not yet revealed his real name.  I think it is quite romantic of
him.  He is probably a member of the aristocracy."

James Vane bit his lip.  "Watch over Sibyl, Mother," he cried, "watch
over her."

"My son, you distress me very much.  Sibyl is always under my special
care.  Of course, if this gentleman is wealthy, there is no reason why
she should not contract an alliance with him.  I trust he is one of the
aristocracy.  He has all the appearance of it, I must say.  It might be
a most brilliant marriage for Sibyl.  They would make a charming
couple.  His good looks are really quite remarkable; everybody notices
them."

The lad muttered something to himself and drummed on the window-pane
with his coarse fingers.  He had just turned round to say something
when the door opened and Sibyl ran in.

"How serious you both are!" she cried.  "What is the matter?"

"Nothing," he answered.  "I suppose one must be serious sometimes.
Good-bye, Mother; I will have my dinner at five o'clock. Everything is
packed, except my shirts, so you need not trouble."

"Good-bye, my son," she answered with a bow of strained stateliness.

She was extremely annoyed at the tone he had adopted with her, and
there was something in his look that had made her feel afraid.

"Kiss me, Mother," said the girl.  Her flowerlike lips touched the
withered cheek and warmed its frost.

"My child! my child!" cried Mrs. Vane, looking up to the ceiling in
search of an imaginary gallery.

"Come, Sibyl," said her brother impatiently.  He hated his mother's
affectations.

They went out into the flickering, wind-blown sunlight and strolled
down the dreary Euston Road.  The passersby glanced in wonder at the
sullen heavy youth who, in coarse, ill-fitting clothes, was in the
company of such a graceful, refined-looking girl.  He was like a common
gardener walking with a rose.

Jim frowned from time to time when he caught the inquisitive glance of
some stranger.  He had that dislike of being stared at, which comes on
geniuses late in life and never leaves the commonplace.  Sibyl,
however, was quite unconscious of the effect she was producing.  Her
love was trembling in laughter on her lips.  She was thinking of Prince
Charming, and, that she might think of him all the more, she did not
talk of him, but prattled on about the ship in which Jim was going to
sail, about the gold he was certain to find, about the wonderful
heiress whose life he was to save from the wicked, red-shirted
bushrangers.  For he was not to remain a sailor, or a supercargo, or
whatever he was going to be.  Oh, no!  A sailor's existence was
dreadful.  Fancy being cooped up in a horrid ship, with the hoarse,
hump-backed waves trying to get in, and a black wind blowing the masts
down and tearing the sails into long screaming ribands!  He was to
leave the vessel at Melbourne, bid a polite good-bye to the captain,
and go off at once to the gold-fields. Before a week was over he was to
come across a large nugget of pure gold, the largest nugget that had
ever been discovered, and bring it down to the coast in a waggon
guarded by six mounted policemen.  The bushrangers were to attack them
three times, and be defeated with immense slaughter.  Or, no.  He was
not to go to the gold-fields at all.  They were horrid places, where
men got intoxicated, and shot each other in bar-rooms, and used bad
language.  He was to be a nice sheep-farmer, and one evening, as he was
riding home, he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a
robber on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her.  Of course,
she would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would get
married, and come home, and live in an immense house in London.  Yes,
there were delightful things in store for him.  But he must be very
good, and not lose his temper, or spend his money foolishly.  She was
only a year older than he was, but she knew so much more of life.  He
must be sure, also, to write to her by every mail, and to say his
prayers each night before he went to sleep.  God was very good, and
would watch over him.  She would pray for him, too, and in a few years
he would come back quite rich and happy.

The lad listened sulkily to her and made no answer.  He was heart-sick
at leaving home.

Yet it was not this alone that made him gloomy and morose.
Inexperienced though he was, he had still a strong sense of the danger
of Sibyl's position.  This young dandy who was making love to her could
mean her no good.  He was a gentleman, and he hated him for that, hated
him through some curious race-instinct for which he could not account,
and which for that reason was all the more dominant within him.  He was
conscious also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother's nature,
and in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl's happiness.
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge
them; sometimes they forgive them.

His mother!  He had something on his mind to ask of her, something that
he had brooded on for many months of silence.  A chance phrase that he
had heard at the theatre, a whispered sneer that had reached his ears
one night as he waited at the stage-door, had set loose a train of
horrible thoughts.  He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a
hunting-crop across his face.  His brows knit together into a wedge-like
furrow, and with a twitch of pain he bit his underlip.

"You are not listening to a word I am saying, Jim," cried Sibyl, "and I
am making the most delightful plans for your future.  Do say something."

"What do you want me to say?"

"Oh! that you will be a good boy and not forget us," she answered,
smiling at him.

He shrugged his shoulders.  "You are more likely to forget me than I am
to forget you, Sibyl."

She flushed.  "What do you mean, Jim?" she asked.

"You have a new friend, I hear.  Who is he?  Why have you not told me
about him?  He means you no good."

"Stop, Jim!" she exclaimed.  "You must not say anything against him.  I
love him."

"Why, you don't even know his name," answered the lad.  "Who is he?  I
have a right to know."

"He is called Prince Charming.  Don't you like the name.  Oh! you silly
boy! you should never forget it.  If you only saw him, you would think
him the most wonderful person in the world.  Some day you will meet
him--when you come back from Australia.  You will like him so much.
Everybody likes him, and I ... love him.  I wish you could come to the
theatre to-night. He is going to be there, and I am to play Juliet.
Oh! how I shall play it!  Fancy, Jim, to be in love and play Juliet!
To have him sitting there!  To play for his delight!  I am afraid I may
frighten the company, frighten or enthrall them.  To be in love is to
surpass one's self.  Poor dreadful Mr. Isaacs will be shouting 'genius'
to his loafers at the bar.  He has preached me as a dogma; to-night he
will announce me as a revelation.  I feel it.  And it is all his, his
only, Prince Charming, my wonderful lover, my god of graces.  But I am
poor beside him.  Poor?  What does that matter?  When poverty creeps in
at the door, love flies in through the window.  Our proverbs want
rewriting.  They were made in winter, and it is summer now; spring-time
for me, I think, a very dance of blossoms in blue skies."

"He is a gentleman," said the lad sullenly.

"A prince!" she cried musically.  "What more do you want?"

"He wants to enslave you."

"I shudder at the thought of being free."

"I want you to beware of him."

"To see him is to worship him; to know him is to trust him."

"Sibyl, you are mad about him."

She laughed and took his arm.  "You dear old Jim, you talk as if you
were a hundred.  Some day you will be in love yourself.  Then you will
know what it is.  Don't look so sulky.  Surely you should be glad to
think that, though you are going away, you leave me happier than I have
ever been before.  Life has been hard for us both, terribly hard and
difficult.  But it will be different now.  You are going to a new
world, and I have found one.  Here are two chairs; let us sit down and
see the smart people go by."

They took their seats amidst a crowd of watchers.  The tulip-beds
across the road flamed like throbbing rings of fire.  A white
dust--tremulous cloud of orris-root it seemed--hung in the panting air.
The brightly coloured parasols danced and dipped like monstrous
butterflies.

She made her brother talk of himself, his hopes, his prospects.  He
spoke slowly and with effort.  They passed words to each other as
players at a game pass counters.  Sibyl felt oppressed.  She could not
communicate her joy.  A faint smile curving that sullen mouth was all
the echo she could win.  After some time she became silent.  Suddenly
she caught a glimpse of golden hair and laughing lips, and in an open
carriage with two ladies Dorian Gray drove past.

She started to her feet.  "There he is!" she cried.

"Who?" said Jim Vane.

"Prince Charming," she answered, looking after the victoria.

He jumped up and seized her roughly by the arm.  "Show him to me.
Which is he?  Point him out.  I must see him!" he exclaimed; but at
that moment the Duke of Berwick's four-in-hand came between, and when
it had left the space clear, the carriage had swept out of the park.

"He is gone," murmured Sibyl sadly.  "I wish you had seen him."

"I wish I had, for as sure as there is a God in heaven, if he ever does
you any wrong, I shall kill him."

She looked at him in horror.  He repeated his words.  They cut the air
like a dagger.  The people round began to gape.  A lady standing close
to her tittered.

"Come away, Jim; come away," she whispered.  He followed her doggedly
as she passed through the crowd.  He felt glad at what he had said.

When they reached the Achilles Statue, she turned round.  There was
pity in her eyes that became laughter on her lips.  She shook her head
at him.  "You are foolish, Jim, utterly foolish; a bad-tempered boy,
that is all.  How can you say such horrible things?  You don't know
what you are talking about.  You are simply jealous and unkind.  Ah!  I
wish you would fall in love.  Love makes people good, and what you said
was wicked."

"I am sixteen," he answered, "and I know what I am about.  Mother is no
help to you.  She doesn't understand how to look after you.  I wish now
that I was not going to Australia at all.  I have a great mind to chuck
the whole thing up.  I would, if my articles hadn't been signed."

"Oh, don't be so serious, Jim.  You are like one of the heroes of those
silly melodramas Mother used to be so fond of acting in.  I am not
going to quarrel with you.  I have seen him, and oh! to see him is
perfect happiness.  We won't quarrel.  I know you would never harm any
one I love, would you?"

"Not as long as you love him, I suppose," was the sullen answer.

"I shall love him for ever!" she cried.

"And he?"

"For ever, too!"

"He had better."

She shrank from him.  Then she laughed and put her hand on his arm.  He
was merely a boy.

At the Marble Arch they hailed an omnibus, which left them close to
their shabby home in the Euston Road.  It was after five o'clock, and
Sibyl had to lie down for a couple of hours before acting.  Jim
insisted that she should do so.  He said that he would sooner part with
her when their mother was not present.  She would be sure to make a
scene, and he detested scenes of every kind.

In Sybil's own room they parted.  There was jealousy in the lad's
heart, and a fierce murderous hatred of the stranger who, as it seemed
to him, had come between them.  Yet, when her arms were flung round his
neck, and her fingers strayed through his hair, he softened and kissed
her with real affection.  There were tears in his eyes as he went
downstairs.

His mother was waiting for him below.  She grumbled at his
unpunctuality, as he entered.  He made no answer, but sat down to his
meagre meal.  The flies buzzed round the table and crawled over the
stained cloth.  Through the rumble of omnibuses, and the clatter of
street-cabs, he could hear the droning voice devouring each minute that
was left to him.

After some time, he thrust away his plate and put his head in his
hands.  He felt that he had a right to know.  It should have been told
to him before, if it was as he suspected.  Leaden with fear, his mother
watched him.  Words dropped mechanically from her lips.  A tattered
lace handkerchief twitched in her fingers.  When the clock struck six,
he got up and went to the door.  Then he turned back and looked at her.
Their eyes met.  In hers he saw a wild appeal for mercy.  It enraged
him.

"Mother, I have something to ask you," he said.  Her eyes wandered
vaguely about the room.  She made no answer.  "Tell me the truth.  I
have a right to know.  Were you married to my father?"

She heaved a deep sigh.  It was a sigh of relief.  The terrible moment,
the moment that night and day, for weeks and months, she had dreaded,
had come at last, and yet she felt no terror.  Indeed, in some measure
it was a disappointment to her.  The vulgar directness of the question
called for a direct answer.  The situation had not been gradually led
up to.  It was crude.  It reminded her of a bad rehearsal.

"No," she answered, wondering at the harsh simplicity of life.

"My father was a scoundrel then!" cried the lad, clenching his fists.

She shook her head.  "I knew he was not free.  We loved each other very
much.  If he had lived, he would have made provision for us.  Don't
speak against him, my son.  He was your father, and a gentleman.
Indeed, he was highly connected."

An oath broke from his lips.  "I don't care for myself," he exclaimed,
"but don't let Sibyl.... It is a gentleman, isn't it, who is in love
with her, or says he is?  Highly connected, too, I suppose."

For a moment a hideous sense of humiliation came over the woman.  Her
head drooped.  She wiped her eyes with shaking hands.  "Sibyl has a
mother," she murmured; "I had none."

The lad was touched.  He went towards her, and stooping down, he kissed
her.  "I am sorry if I have pained you by asking about my father," he
said, "but I could not help it.  I must go now.  Good-bye. Don't forget
that you will have only one child now to look after, and believe me
that if this man wrongs my sister, I will find out who he is, track him
down, and kill him like a dog.  I swear it."

The exaggerated folly of the threat, the passionate gesture that
accompanied it, the mad melodramatic words, made life seem more vivid
to her.  She was familiar with the atmosphere.  She breathed more
freely, and for the first time for many months she really admired her
son.  She would have liked to have continued the scene on the same
emotional scale, but he cut her short.  Trunks had to be carried down
and mufflers looked for.  The lodging-house drudge bustled in and out.
There was the bargaining with the cabman.  The moment was lost in
vulgar details.  It was with a renewed feeling of disappointment that
she waved the tattered lace handkerchief from the window, as her son
drove away.  She was conscious that a great opportunity had been
wasted.  She consoled herself by telling Sibyl how desolate she felt
her life would be, now that she had only one child to look after.  She
remembered the phrase.  It had pleased her.  Of the threat she said
nothing.  It was vividly and dramatically expressed.  She felt that
they would all laugh at it some day.



CHAPTER 6

"I suppose you have heard the news, Basil?" said Lord Henry that
evening as Hallward was shown into a little private room at the Bristol
where dinner had been laid for three.

"No, Harry," answered the artist, giving his hat and coat to the bowing
waiter.  "What is it?  Nothing about politics, I hope!  They don't
interest me.  There is hardly a single person in the House of Commons
worth painting, though many of them would be the better for a little
whitewashing."

"Dorian Gray is engaged to be married," said Lord Henry, watching him
as he spoke.

Hallward started and then frowned.  "Dorian engaged to be married!" he
cried.  "Impossible!"

"It is perfectly true."

"To whom?"

"To some little actress or other."

"I can't believe it.  Dorian is far too sensible."

"Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then, my dear
Basil."

"Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do now and then, Harry."

"Except in America," rejoined Lord Henry languidly.  "But I didn't say
he was married.  I said he was engaged to be married.  There is a great
difference.  I have a distinct remembrance of being married, but I have
no recollection at all of being engaged.  I am inclined to think that I
never was engaged."

"But think of Dorian's birth, and position, and wealth.  It would be
absurd for him to marry so much beneath him."

"If you want to make him marry this girl, tell him that, Basil.  He is
sure to do it, then.  Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it
is always from the noblest motives."

"I hope the girl is good, Harry.  I don't want to see Dorian tied to
some vile creature, who might degrade his nature and ruin his
intellect."

"Oh, she is better than good--she is beautiful," murmured Lord Henry,
sipping a glass of vermouth and orange-bitters. "Dorian says she is
beautiful, and he is not often wrong about things of that kind.  Your
portrait of him has quickened his appreciation of the personal
appearance of other people.  It has had that excellent effect, amongst
others.  We are to see her to-night, if that boy doesn't forget his
appointment."

"Are you serious?"

"Quite serious, Basil.  I should be miserable if I thought I should
ever be more serious than I am at the present moment."

"But do you approve of it, Harry?" asked the painter, walking up and
down the room and biting his lip.  "You can't approve of it, possibly.
It is some silly infatuation."

"I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now.  It is an absurd
attitude to take towards life.  We are not sent into the world to air
our moral prejudices.  I never take any notice of what common people
say, and I never interfere with what charming people do.  If a
personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality
selects is absolutely delightful to me.  Dorian Gray falls in love with
a beautiful girl who acts Juliet, and proposes to marry her.  Why not?
If he wedded Messalina, he would be none the less interesting.  You
know I am not a champion of marriage.  The real drawback to marriage is
that it makes one unselfish.  And unselfish people are colourless.
They lack individuality.  Still, there are certain temperaments that
marriage makes more complex.  They retain their egotism, and add to it
many other egos.  They are forced to have more than one life.  They
become more highly organized, and to be highly organized is, I should
fancy, the object of man's existence.  Besides, every experience is of
value, and whatever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an
experience.  I hope that Dorian Gray will make this girl his wife,
passionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become
fascinated by some one else.  He would be a wonderful study."

"You don't mean a single word of all that, Harry; you know you don't.
If Dorian Gray's life were spoiled, no one would be sorrier than
yourself.  You are much better than you pretend to be."

Lord Henry laughed.  "The reason we all like to think so well of others
is that we are all afraid for ourselves.  The basis of optimism is
sheer terror.  We think that we are generous because we credit our
neighbour with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a
benefit to us.  We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account,
and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare
our pockets.  I mean everything that I have said.  I have the greatest
contempt for optimism.  As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but
one whose growth is arrested.  If you want to mar a nature, you have
merely to reform it.  As for marriage, of course that would be silly,
but there are other and more interesting bonds between men and women.
I will certainly encourage them.  They have the charm of being
fashionable.  But here is Dorian himself.  He will tell you more than I
can."

"My dear Harry, my dear Basil, you must both congratulate me!" said the
lad, throwing off his evening cape with its satin-lined wings and
shaking each of his friends by the hand in turn.  "I have never been so
happy.  Of course, it is sudden--all really delightful things are.  And
yet it seems to me to be the one thing I have been looking for all my
life." He was flushed with excitement and pleasure, and looked
extraordinarily handsome.

"I hope you will always be very happy, Dorian," said Hallward, "but I
don't quite forgive you for not having let me know of your engagement.
You let Harry know."

"And I don't forgive you for being late for dinner," broke in Lord
Henry, putting his hand on the lad's shoulder and smiling as he spoke.
"Come, let us sit down and try what the new _chef_ here is like, and then
you will tell us how it all came about."

"There is really not much to tell," cried Dorian as they took their
seats at the small round table.  "What happened was simply this.  After
I left you yesterday evening, Harry, I dressed, had some dinner at that
little Italian restaurant in Rupert Street you introduced me to, and
went down at eight o'clock to the theatre.  Sibyl was playing Rosalind.
Of course, the scenery was dreadful and the Orlando absurd.  But Sibyl!
You should have seen her!  When she came on in her boy's clothes, she
was perfectly wonderful.  She wore a moss-coloured velvet jerkin with
cinnamon sleeves, slim, brown, cross-gartered hose, a dainty little
green cap with a hawk's feather caught in a jewel, and a hooded cloak
lined with dull red.  She had never seemed to me more exquisite.  She
had all the delicate grace of that Tanagra figurine that you have in
your studio, Basil.  Her hair clustered round her face like dark leaves
round a pale rose.  As for her acting--well, you shall see her
to-night. She is simply a born artist.  I sat in the dingy box
absolutely enthralled.  I forgot that I was in London and in the
nineteenth century.  I was away with my love in a forest that no man
had ever seen.  After the performance was over, I went behind and spoke
to her.  As we were sitting together, suddenly there came into her eyes
a look that I had never seen there before.  My lips moved towards hers.
We kissed each other.  I can't describe to you what I felt at that
moment.  It seemed to me that all my life had been narrowed to one
perfect point of rose-coloured joy.  She trembled all over and shook
like a white narcissus.  Then she flung herself on her knees and kissed
my hands.  I feel that I should not tell you all this, but I can't help
it.  Of course, our engagement is a dead secret.  She has not even told
her own mother.  I don't know what my guardians will say.  Lord Radley
is sure to be furious.  I don't care.  I shall be of age in less than a
year, and then I can do what I like.  I have been right, Basil, haven't
I, to take my love out of poetry and to find my wife in Shakespeare's
plays?  Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their
secret in my ear.  I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and
kissed Juliet on the mouth."

"Yes, Dorian, I suppose you were right," said Hallward slowly.

"Have you seen her to-day?" asked Lord Henry.

Dorian Gray shook his head.  "I left her in the forest of Arden; I
shall find her in an orchard in Verona."

Lord Henry sipped his champagne in a meditative manner.  "At what
particular point did you mention the word marriage, Dorian?  And what
did she say in answer?  Perhaps you forgot all about it."

"My dear Harry, I did not treat it as a business transaction, and I did
not make any formal proposal.  I told her that I loved her, and she
said she was not worthy to be my wife.  Not worthy!  Why, the whole
world is nothing to me compared with her."

"Women are wonderfully practical," murmured Lord Henry, "much more
practical than we are.  In situations of that kind we often forget to
say anything about marriage, and they always remind us."

Hallward laid his hand upon his arm.  "Don't, Harry.  You have annoyed
Dorian.  He is not like other men.  He would never bring misery upon
any one.  His nature is too fine for that."

Lord Henry looked across the table.  "Dorian is never annoyed with me,"
he answered.  "I asked the question for the best reason possible, for
the only reason, indeed, that excuses one for asking any
question--simple curiosity.  I have a theory that it is always the
women who propose to us, and not we who propose to the women.  Except,
of course, in middle-class life.  But then the middle classes are not
modern."

Dorian Gray laughed, and tossed his head.  "You are quite incorrigible,
Harry; but I don't mind.  It is impossible to be angry with you.  When
you see Sibyl Vane, you will feel that the man who could wrong her
would be a beast, a beast without a heart.  I cannot understand how any
one can wish to shame the thing he loves.  I love Sibyl Vane.  I want
to place her on a pedestal of gold and to see the world worship the
woman who is mine.  What is marriage?  An irrevocable vow.  You mock at
it for that.  Ah! don't mock.  It is an irrevocable vow that I want to
take.  Her trust makes me faithful, her belief makes me good.  When I
am with her, I regret all that you have taught me.  I become different
from what you have known me to be.  I am changed, and the mere touch of
Sibyl Vane's hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating,
poisonous, delightful theories."

"And those are ...?" asked Lord Henry, helping himself to some salad.

"Oh, your theories about life, your theories about love, your theories
about pleasure.  All your theories, in fact, Harry."

"Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about," he answered
in his slow melodious voice.  "But I am afraid I cannot claim my theory
as my own.  It belongs to Nature, not to me.  Pleasure is Nature's
test, her sign of approval.  When we are happy, we are always good, but
when we are good, we are not always happy."

"Ah! but what do you mean by good?" cried Basil Hallward.

"Yes," echoed Dorian, leaning back in his chair and looking at Lord
Henry over the heavy clusters of purple-lipped irises that stood in the
centre of the table, "what do you mean by good, Harry?"

"To be good is to be in harmony with one's self," he replied, touching
the thin stem of his glass with his pale, fine-pointed fingers.
"Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others.  One's own
life--that is the important thing.  As for the lives of one's
neighbours, if one wishes to be a prig or a Puritan, one can flaunt
one's moral views about them, but they are not one's concern.  Besides,
individualism has really the higher aim.  Modern morality consists in
accepting the standard of one's age.  I consider that for any man of
culture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest
immorality."

"But, surely, if one lives merely for one's self, Harry, one pays a
terrible price for doing so?" suggested the painter.

"Yes, we are overcharged for everything nowadays.  I should fancy that
the real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but
self-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege
of the rich."

"One has to pay in other ways but money."

"What sort of ways, Basil?"

"Oh!  I should fancy in remorse, in suffering, in ... well, in the
consciousness of degradation."

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  "My dear fellow, mediaeval art is
charming, but mediaeval emotions are out of date.  One can use them in
fiction, of course.  But then the only things that one can use in
fiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact.  Believe me,
no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever
knows what a pleasure is."

"I know what pleasure is," cried Dorian Gray.  "It is to adore some
one."

"That is certainly better than being adored," he answered, toying with
some fruits.  "Being adored is a nuisance.  Women treat us just as
humanity treats its gods.  They worship us, and are always bothering us
to do something for them."

"I should have said that whatever they ask for they had first given to
us," murmured the lad gravely.  "They create love in our natures.  They
have a right to demand it back."

"That is quite true, Dorian," cried Hallward.

"Nothing is ever quite true," said Lord Henry.

"This is," interrupted Dorian.  "You must admit, Harry, that women give
to men the very gold of their lives."

"Possibly," he sighed, "but they invariably want it back in such very
small change.  That is the worry.  Women, as some witty Frenchman once
put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always
prevent us from carrying them out."

"Harry, you are dreadful!  I don't know why I like you so much."

"You will always like me, Dorian," he replied.  "Will you have some
coffee, you fellows?  Waiter, bring coffee, and _fine-champagne_, and
some cigarettes.  No, don't mind the cigarettes--I have some.  Basil, I
can't allow you to smoke cigars.  You must have a cigarette.  A
cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure.  It is exquisite,
and it leaves one unsatisfied.  What more can one want?  Yes, Dorian,
you will always be fond of me.  I represent to you all the sins you
have never had the courage to commit."

"What nonsense you talk, Harry!" cried the lad, taking a light from a
fire-breathing silver dragon that the waiter had placed on the table.
"Let us go down to the theatre.  When Sibyl comes on the stage you will
have a new ideal of life.  She will represent something to you that you
have never known."

"I have known everything," said Lord Henry, with a tired look in his
eyes, "but I am always ready for a new emotion.  I am afraid, however,
that, for me at any rate, there is no such thing.  Still, your
wonderful girl may thrill me.  I love acting.  It is so much more real
than life.  Let us go.  Dorian, you will come with me.  I am so sorry,
Basil, but there is only room for two in the brougham.  You must follow
us in a hansom."

They got up and put on their coats, sipping their coffee standing.  The
painter was silent and preoccupied.  There was a gloom over him.  He
could not bear this marriage, and yet it seemed to him to be better
than many other things that might have happened.  After a few minutes,
they all passed downstairs.  He drove off by himself, as had been
arranged, and watched the flashing lights of the little brougham in
front of him.  A strange sense of loss came over him.  He felt that
Dorian Gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the
past.  Life had come between them.... His eyes darkened, and the
crowded flaring streets became blurred to his eyes.  When the cab drew
up at the theatre, it seemed to him that he had grown years older.



CHAPTER 7

For some reason or other, the house was crowded that night, and the fat
Jew manager who met them at the door was beaming from ear to ear with
an oily tremulous smile.  He escorted them to their box with a sort of
pompous humility, waving his fat jewelled hands and talking at the top
of his voice.  Dorian Gray loathed him more than ever.  He felt as if
he had come to look for Miranda and had been met by Caliban.  Lord
Henry, upon the other hand, rather liked him.  At least he declared he
did, and insisted on shaking him by the hand and assuring him that he
was proud to meet a man who had discovered a real genius and gone
bankrupt over a poet.  Hallward amused himself with watching the faces
in the pit.  The heat was terribly oppressive, and the huge sunlight
flamed like a monstrous dahlia with petals of yellow fire.  The youths
in the gallery had taken off their coats and waistcoats and hung them
over the side.  They talked to each other across the theatre and shared
their oranges with the tawdry girls who sat beside them.  Some women
were laughing in the pit.  Their voices were horribly shrill and
discordant.  The sound of the popping of corks came from the bar.

"What a place to find one's divinity in!" said Lord Henry.

"Yes!" answered Dorian Gray.  "It was here I found her, and she is
divine beyond all living things.  When she acts, you will forget
everything.  These common rough people, with their coarse faces and
brutal gestures, become quite different when she is on the stage.  They
sit silently and watch her.  They weep and laugh as she wills them to
do.  She makes them as responsive as a violin.  She spiritualizes them,
and one feels that they are of the same flesh and blood as one's self."

"The same flesh and blood as one's self!  Oh, I hope not!" exclaimed
Lord Henry, who was scanning the occupants of the gallery through his
opera-glass.

"Don't pay any attention to him, Dorian," said the painter.  "I
understand what you mean, and I believe in this girl.  Any one you love
must be marvellous, and any girl who has the effect you describe must
be fine and noble.  To spiritualize one's age--that is something worth
doing.  If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without
one, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have
been sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and
lend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of
all your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world.  This
marriage is quite right.  I did not think so at first, but I admit it
now.  The gods made Sibyl Vane for you.  Without her you would have
been incomplete."

"Thanks, Basil," answered Dorian Gray, pressing his hand.  "I knew that
you would understand me.  Harry is so cynical, he terrifies me.  But
here is the orchestra.  It is quite dreadful, but it only lasts for
about five minutes.  Then the curtain rises, and you will see the girl
to whom I am going to give all my life, to whom I have given everything
that is good in me."

A quarter of an hour afterwards, amidst an extraordinary turmoil of
applause, Sibyl Vane stepped on to the stage.  Yes, she was certainly
lovely to look at--one of the loveliest creatures, Lord Henry thought,
that he had ever seen.  There was something of the fawn in her shy
grace and startled eyes.  A faint blush, like the shadow of a rose in a
mirror of silver, came to her cheeks as she glanced at the crowded
enthusiastic house.  She stepped back a few paces and her lips seemed
to tremble.  Basil Hallward leaped to his feet and began to applaud.
Motionless, and as one in a dream, sat Dorian Gray, gazing at her.
Lord Henry peered through his glasses, murmuring, "Charming! charming!"

The scene was the hall of Capulet's house, and Romeo in his pilgrim's
dress had entered with Mercutio and his other friends.  The band, such
as it was, struck up a few bars of music, and the dance began.  Through
the crowd of ungainly, shabbily dressed actors, Sibyl Vane moved like a
creature from a finer world.  Her body swayed, while she danced, as a
plant sways in the water.  The curves of her throat were the curves of
a white lily.  Her hands seemed to be made of cool ivory.

Yet she was curiously listless.  She showed no sign of joy when her
eyes rested on Romeo.  The few words she had to speak--

    Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
        Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
    For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
        And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss--

with the brief dialogue that follows, were spoken in a thoroughly
artificial manner.  The voice was exquisite, but from the point of view
of tone it was absolutely false.  It was wrong in colour.  It took away
all the life from the verse.  It made the passion unreal.

Dorian Gray grew pale as he watched her.  He was puzzled and anxious.
Neither of his friends dared to say anything to him.  She seemed to
them to be absolutely incompetent.  They were horribly disappointed.

Yet they felt that the true test of any Juliet is the balcony scene of
the second act.  They waited for that.  If she failed there, there was
nothing in her.

She looked charming as she came out in the moonlight.  That could not
be denied.  But the staginess of her acting was unbearable, and grew
worse as she went on.  Her gestures became absurdly artificial.  She
overemphasized everything that she had to say.  The beautiful passage--

    Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face,
    Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek
    For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night--

was declaimed with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been
taught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution. When she
leaned over the balcony and came to those wonderful lines--

        Although I joy in thee,
    I have no joy of this contract to-night:
    It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
    Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
    Ere one can say, "It lightens."  Sweet, good-night!
    This bud of love by summer's ripening breath
    May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet--

she spoke the words as though they conveyed no meaning to her. It was
not nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she was absolutely
self-contained. It was simply bad art. She was a complete failure.

Even the common uneducated audience of the pit and gallery lost their
interest in the play. They got restless, and began to talk loudly and
to whistle. The Jew manager, who was standing at the back of the
dress-circle, stamped and swore with rage. The only person unmoved was
the girl herself.

When the second act was over, there came a storm of hisses, and Lord
Henry got up from his chair and put on his coat.  "She is quite
beautiful, Dorian," he said, "but she can't act.  Let us go."

"I am going to see the play through," answered the lad, in a hard
bitter voice.  "I am awfully sorry that I have made you waste an
evening, Harry.  I apologize to you both."

"My dear Dorian, I should think Miss Vane was ill," interrupted
Hallward.  "We will come some other night."

"I wish she were ill," he rejoined.  "But she seems to me to be simply
callous and cold.  She has entirely altered.  Last night she was a
great artist.  This evening she is merely a commonplace mediocre
actress."

"Don't talk like that about any one you love, Dorian.  Love is a more
wonderful thing than art."

"They are both simply forms of imitation," remarked Lord Henry.  "But
do let us go.  Dorian, you must not stay here any longer.  It is not
good for one's morals to see bad acting.  Besides, I don't suppose you
will want your wife to act, so what does it matter if she plays Juliet
like a wooden doll?  She is very lovely, and if she knows as little
about life as she does about acting, she will be a delightful
experience.  There are only two kinds of people who are really
fascinating--people who know absolutely everything, and people who know
absolutely nothing.  Good heavens, my dear boy, don't look so tragic!
The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is
unbecoming.  Come to the club with Basil and myself.  We will smoke
cigarettes and drink to the beauty of Sibyl Vane.  She is beautiful.
What more can you want?"

"Go away, Harry," cried the lad.  "I want to be alone.  Basil, you must
go.  Ah! can't you see that my heart is breaking?"  The hot tears came
to his eyes.  His lips trembled, and rushing to the back of the box, he
leaned up against the wall, hiding his face in his hands.

"Let us go, Basil," said Lord Henry with a strange tenderness in his
voice, and the two young men passed out together.

A few moments afterwards the footlights flared up and the curtain rose
on the third act.  Dorian Gray went back to his seat.  He looked pale,
and proud, and indifferent.  The play dragged on, and seemed
interminable.  Half of the audience went out, tramping in heavy boots
and laughing.  The whole thing was a _fiasco_.  The last act was played
to almost empty benches.  The curtain went down on a titter and some
groans.

As soon as it was over, Dorian Gray rushed behind the scenes into the
greenroom.  The girl was standing there alone, with a look of triumph
on her face.  Her eyes were lit with an exquisite fire.  There was a
radiance about her.  Her parted lips were smiling over some secret of
their own.

When he entered, she looked at him, and an expression of infinite joy
came over her.  "How badly I acted to-night, Dorian!" she cried.

"Horribly!" he answered, gazing at her in amazement.  "Horribly!  It
was dreadful.  Are you ill?  You have no idea what it was.  You have no
idea what I suffered."

The girl smiled.  "Dorian," she answered, lingering over his name with
long-drawn music in her voice, as though it were sweeter than honey to
the red petals of her mouth.  "Dorian, you should have understood.  But
you understand now, don't you?"

"Understand what?" he asked, angrily.

"Why I was so bad to-night. Why I shall always be bad.  Why I shall
never act well again."

He shrugged his shoulders.  "You are ill, I suppose.  When you are ill
you shouldn't act.  You make yourself ridiculous.  My friends were
bored.  I was bored."

She seemed not to listen to him.  She was transfigured with joy.  An
ecstasy of happiness dominated her.

"Dorian, Dorian," she cried, "before I knew you, acting was the one
reality of my life.  It was only in the theatre that I lived.  I
thought that it was all true.  I was Rosalind one night and Portia the
other.  The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia
were mine also.  I believed in everything.  The common people who acted
with me seemed to me to be godlike.  The painted scenes were my world.
I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real.  You came--oh, my
beautiful love!--and you freed my soul from prison.  You taught me what
reality really is.  To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw
through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in
which I had always played.  To-night, for the first time, I became
conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the
moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and
that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not
what I wanted to say.  You had brought me something higher, something
of which all art is but a reflection.  You had made me understand what
love really is.  My love!  My love!  Prince Charming!  Prince of life!
I have grown sick of shadows.  You are more to me than all art can ever
be.  What have I to do with the puppets of a play?  When I came on
to-night, I could not understand how it was that everything had gone
from me.  I thought that I was going to be wonderful.  I found that I
could do nothing.  Suddenly it dawned on my soul what it all meant.
The knowledge was exquisite to me.  I heard them hissing, and I smiled.
What could they know of love such as ours?  Take me away, Dorian--take
me away with you, where we can be quite alone.  I hate the stage.  I
might mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that
burns me like fire.  Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you understand now what it
signifies?  Even if I could do it, it would be profanation for me to
play at being in love.  You have made me see that."

He flung himself down on the sofa and turned away his face.  "You have
killed my love," he muttered.

She looked at him in wonder and laughed.  He made no answer.  She came
across to him, and with her little fingers stroked his hair.  She knelt
down and pressed his hands to her lips.  He drew them away, and a
shudder ran through him.

Then he leaped up and went to the door.  "Yes," he cried, "you have
killed my love.  You used to stir my imagination.  Now you don't even
stir my curiosity.  You simply produce no effect.  I loved you because
you were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect, because you
realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the
shadows of art.  You have thrown it all away.  You are shallow and
stupid.  My God! how mad I was to love you!  What a fool I have been!
You are nothing to me now.  I will never see you again.  I will never
think of you.  I will never mention your name.  You don't know what you
were to me, once.  Why, once ... Oh, I can't bear to think of it!  I
wish I had never laid eyes upon you!  You have spoiled the romance of
my life.  How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art!
Without your art, you are nothing.  I would have made you famous,
splendid, magnificent.  The world would have worshipped you, and you
would have borne my name.  What are you now?  A third-rate actress with
a pretty face."

The girl grew white, and trembled.  She clenched her hands together,
and her voice seemed to catch in her throat.  "You are not serious,
Dorian?" she murmured.  "You are acting."

"Acting!  I leave that to you.  You do it so well," he answered
bitterly.

She rose from her knees and, with a piteous expression of pain in her
face, came across the room to him.  She put her hand upon his arm and
looked into his eyes.  He thrust her back.  "Don't touch me!" he cried.

A low moan broke from her, and she flung herself at his feet and lay
there like a trampled flower.  "Dorian, Dorian, don't leave me!" she
whispered.  "I am so sorry I didn't act well.  I was thinking of you
all the time.  But I will try--indeed, I will try.  It came so suddenly
across me, my love for you.  I think I should never have known it if
you had not kissed me--if we had not kissed each other.  Kiss me again,
my love.  Don't go away from me.  I couldn't bear it.  Oh! don't go
away from me.  My brother ... No; never mind.  He didn't mean it.  He
was in jest.... But you, oh! can't you forgive me for to-night? I will
work so hard and try to improve.  Don't be cruel to me, because I love
you better than anything in the world.  After all, it is only once that
I have not pleased you.  But you are quite right, Dorian.  I should
have shown myself more of an artist.  It was foolish of me, and yet I
couldn't help it.  Oh, don't leave me, don't leave me." A fit of
passionate sobbing choked her.  She crouched on the floor like a
wounded thing, and Dorian Gray, with his beautiful eyes, looked down at
her, and his chiselled lips curled in exquisite disdain.  There is
always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has
ceased to love.  Sibyl Vane seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic.
Her tears and sobs annoyed him.

"I am going," he said at last in his calm clear voice.  "I don't wish
to be unkind, but I can't see you again.  You have disappointed me."

She wept silently, and made no answer, but crept nearer.  Her little
hands stretched blindly out, and appeared to be seeking for him.  He
turned on his heel and left the room.  In a few moments he was out of
the theatre.

Where he went to he hardly knew.  He remembered wandering through dimly
lit streets, past gaunt, black-shadowed archways and evil-looking
houses.  Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after
him.  Drunkards had reeled by, cursing and chattering to themselves
like monstrous apes.  He had seen grotesque children huddled upon
door-steps, and heard shrieks and oaths from gloomy courts.

As the dawn was just breaking, he found himself close to Covent Garden.
The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed
itself into a perfect pearl.  Huge carts filled with nodding lilies
rumbled slowly down the polished empty street.  The air was heavy with
the perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an
anodyne for his pain.  He followed into the market and watched the men
unloading their waggons.  A white-smocked carter offered him some
cherries.  He thanked him, wondered why he refused to accept any money
for them, and began to eat them listlessly.  They had been plucked at
midnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them.  A long
line of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of yellow and red
roses, defiled in front of him, threading their way through the huge,
jade-green piles of vegetables.  Under the portico, with its grey,
sun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled bareheaded girls,
waiting for the auction to be over.  Others crowded round the swinging
doors of the coffee-house in the piazza.  The heavy cart-horses slipped
and stamped upon the rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings.
Some of the drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks.  Iris-necked
and pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds.

After a little while, he hailed a hansom and drove home.  For a few
moments he loitered upon the doorstep, looking round at the silent
square, with its blank, close-shuttered windows and its staring blinds.
The sky was pure opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like
silver against it.  From some chimney opposite a thin wreath of smoke
was rising.  It curled, a violet riband, through the nacre-coloured air.

In the huge gilt Venetian lantern, spoil of some Doge's barge, that
hung from the ceiling of the great, oak-panelled hall of entrance,
lights were still burning from three flickering jets: thin blue petals
of flame they seemed, rimmed with white fire.  He turned them out and,
having thrown his hat and cape on the table, passed through the library
towards the door of his bedroom, a large octagonal chamber on the
ground floor that, in his new-born feeling for luxury, he had just had
decorated for himself and hung with some curious Renaissance tapestries
that had been discovered stored in a disused attic at Selby Royal.  As
he was turning the handle of the door, his eye fell upon the portrait
Basil Hallward had painted of him.  He started back as if in surprise.
Then he went on into his own room, looking somewhat puzzled.  After he
had taken the button-hole out of his coat, he seemed to hesitate.
Finally, he came back, went over to the picture, and examined it.  In
the dim arrested light that struggled through the cream-coloured silk
blinds, the face appeared to him to be a little changed.  The
expression looked different.  One would have said that there was a
touch of cruelty in the mouth.  It was certainly strange.

He turned round and, walking to the window, drew up the blind.  The
bright dawn flooded the room and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky
corners, where they lay shuddering.  But the strange expression that he
had noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to linger there, to be
more intensified even.  The quivering ardent sunlight showed him the
lines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking
into a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing.

He winced and, taking up from the table an oval glass framed in ivory
Cupids, one of Lord Henry's many presents to him, glanced hurriedly
into its polished depths.  No line like that warped his red lips.  What
did it mean?

He rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and examined it
again.  There were no signs of any change when he looked into the
actual painting, and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression
had altered.  It was not a mere fancy of his own.  The thing was
horribly apparent.

He threw himself into a chair and began to think.  Suddenly there
flashed across his mind what he had said in Basil Hallward's studio the
day the picture had been finished.  Yes, he remembered it perfectly.
He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the
portrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the
face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that
the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and
thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness
of his then just conscious boyhood.  Surely his wish had not been
fulfilled?  Such things were impossible.  It seemed monstrous even to
think of them.  And, yet, there was the picture before him, with the
touch of cruelty in the mouth.

Cruelty!  Had he been cruel?  It was the girl's fault, not his.  He had
dreamed of her as a great artist, had given his love to her because he
had thought her great.  Then she had disappointed him.  She had been
shallow and unworthy.  And, yet, a feeling of infinite regret came over
him, as he thought of her lying at his feet sobbing like a little
child.  He remembered with what callousness he had watched her.  Why
had he been made like that?  Why had such a soul been given to him?
But he had suffered also.  During the three terrible hours that the
play had lasted, he had lived centuries of pain, aeon upon aeon of
torture.  His life was well worth hers.  She had marred him for a
moment, if he had wounded her for an age.  Besides, women were better
suited to bear sorrow than men.  They lived on their emotions.  They
only thought of their emotions.  When they took lovers, it was merely
to have some one with whom they could have scenes.  Lord Henry had told
him that, and Lord Henry knew what women were.  Why should he trouble
about Sibyl Vane?  She was nothing to him now.

But the picture?  What was he to say of that?  It held the secret of
his life, and told his story.  It had taught him to love his own
beauty.  Would it teach him to loathe his own soul?  Would he ever look
at it again?

No; it was merely an illusion wrought on the troubled senses.  The
horrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it.
Suddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck that
makes men mad.  The picture had not changed.  It was folly to think so.

Yet it was watching him, with its beautiful marred face and its cruel
smile.  Its bright hair gleamed in the early sunlight.  Its blue eyes
met his own.  A sense of infinite pity, not for himself, but for the
painted image of himself, came over him.  It had altered already, and
would alter more.  Its gold would wither into grey.  Its red and white
roses would die.  For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck
and wreck its fairness.  But he would not sin.  The picture, changed or
unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience.  He would
resist temptation.  He would not see Lord Henry any more--would not, at
any rate, listen to those subtle poisonous theories that in Basil
Hallward's garden had first stirred within him the passion for
impossible things.  He would go back to Sibyl Vane, make her amends,
marry her, try to love her again.  Yes, it was his duty to do so.  She
must have suffered more than he had.  Poor child!  He had been selfish
and cruel to her.  The fascination that she had exercised over him
would return.  They would be happy together.  His life with her would
be beautiful and pure.

He got up from his chair and drew a large screen right in front of the
portrait, shuddering as he glanced at it.  "How horrible!" he murmured
to himself, and he walked across to the window and opened it.  When he
stepped out on to the grass, he drew a deep breath.  The fresh morning
air seemed to drive away all his sombre passions.  He thought only of
Sibyl.  A faint echo of his love came back to him.  He repeated her
name over and over again.  The birds that were singing in the
dew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her.



CHAPTER 8

It was long past noon when he awoke.  His valet had crept several times
on tiptoe into the room to see if he was stirring, and had wondered
what made his young master sleep so late.  Finally his bell sounded,
and Victor came in softly with a cup of tea, and a pile of letters, on
a small tray of old Sevres china, and drew back the olive-satin
curtains, with their shimmering blue lining, that hung in front of the
three tall windows.

"Monsieur has well slept this morning," he said, smiling.

"What o'clock is it, Victor?" asked Dorian Gray drowsily.

"One hour and a quarter, Monsieur."

How late it was!  He sat up, and having sipped some tea, turned over
his letters.  One of them was from Lord Henry, and had been brought by
hand that morning.  He hesitated for a moment, and then put it aside.
The others he opened listlessly.  They contained the usual collection
of cards, invitations to dinner, tickets for private views, programmes
of charity concerts, and the like that are showered on fashionable
young men every morning during the season.  There was a rather heavy
bill for a chased silver Louis-Quinze toilet-set that he had not yet
had the courage to send on to his guardians, who were extremely
old-fashioned people and did not realize that we live in an age when
unnecessary things are our only necessities; and there were several
very courteously worded communications from Jermyn Street money-lenders
offering to advance any sum of money at a moment's notice and at the
most reasonable rates of interest.

After about ten minutes he got up, and throwing on an elaborate
dressing-gown of silk-embroidered cashmere wool, passed into the
onyx-paved bathroom.  The cool water refreshed him after his long
sleep.  He seemed to have forgotten all that he had gone through.  A
dim sense of having taken part in some strange tragedy came to him once
or twice, but there was the unreality of a dream about it.

As soon as he was dressed, he went into the library and sat down to a
light French breakfast that had been laid out for him on a small round
table close to the open window.  It was an exquisite day.  The warm air
seemed laden with spices.  A bee flew in and buzzed round the
blue-dragon bowl that, filled with sulphur-yellow roses, stood before
him.  He felt perfectly happy.

Suddenly his eye fell on the screen that he had placed in front of the
portrait, and he started.

"Too cold for Monsieur?" asked his valet, putting an omelette on the
table.  "I shut the window?"

Dorian shook his head.  "I am not cold," he murmured.

Was it all true?  Had the portrait really changed?  Or had it been
simply his own imagination that had made him see a look of evil where
there had been a look of joy?  Surely a painted canvas could not alter?
The thing was absurd.  It would serve as a tale to tell Basil some day.
It would make him smile.

And, yet, how vivid was his recollection of the whole thing!  First in
the dim twilight, and then in the bright dawn, he had seen the touch of
cruelty round the warped lips.  He almost dreaded his valet leaving the
room.  He knew that when he was alone he would have to examine the
portrait.  He was afraid of certainty.  When the coffee and cigarettes
had been brought and the man turned to go, he felt a wild desire to
tell him to remain.  As the door was closing behind him, he called him
back.  The man stood waiting for his orders.  Dorian looked at him for
a moment.  "I am not at home to any one, Victor," he said with a sigh.
The man bowed and retired.

Then he rose from the table, lit a cigarette, and flung himself down on
a luxuriously cushioned couch that stood facing the screen.  The screen
was an old one, of gilt Spanish leather, stamped and wrought with a
rather florid Louis-Quatorze pattern.  He scanned it curiously,
wondering if ever before it had concealed the secret of a man's life.

Should he move it aside, after all?  Why not let it stay there?  What
was the use of knowing? If the thing was true, it was terrible.  If it
was not true, why trouble about it?  But what if, by some fate or
deadlier chance, eyes other than his spied behind and saw the horrible
change?  What should he do if Basil Hallward came and asked to look at
his own picture?  Basil would be sure to do that.  No; the thing had to
be examined, and at once.  Anything would be better than this dreadful
state of doubt.

He got up and locked both doors.  At least he would be alone when he
looked upon the mask of his shame.  Then he drew the screen aside and
saw himself face to face.  It was perfectly true.  The portrait had
altered.

As he often remembered afterwards, and always with no small wonder, he
found himself at first gazing at the portrait with a feeling of almost
scientific interest.  That such a change should have taken place was
incredible to him.  And yet it was a fact.  Was there some subtle
affinity between the chemical atoms that shaped themselves into form
and colour on the canvas and the soul that was within him?  Could it be
that what that soul thought, they realized?--that what it dreamed, they
made true?  Or was there some other, more terrible reason?  He
shuddered, and felt afraid, and, going back to the couch, lay there,
gazing at the picture in sickened horror.

One thing, however, he felt that it had done for him.  It had made him
conscious how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Sibyl Vane.  It was not
too late to make reparation for that.  She could still be his wife.
His unreal and selfish love would yield to some higher influence, would
be transformed into some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil
Hallward had painted of him would be a guide to him through life, would
be to him what holiness is to some, and conscience to others, and the
fear of God to us all.  There were opiates for remorse, drugs that
could lull the moral sense to sleep.  But here was a visible symbol of
the degradation of sin.  Here was an ever-present sign of the ruin men
brought upon their souls.

Three o'clock struck, and four, and the half-hour rang its double
chime, but Dorian Gray did not stir.  He was trying to gather up the
scarlet threads of life and to weave them into a pattern; to find his
way through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was
wandering.  He did not know what to do, or what to think.  Finally, he
went over to the table and wrote a passionate letter to the girl he had
loved, imploring her forgiveness and accusing himself of madness.  He
covered page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of
pain.  There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we
feel that no one else has a right to blame us.  It is the confession,
not the priest, that gives us absolution.  When Dorian had finished the
letter, he felt that he had been forgiven.

Suddenly there came a knock to the door, and he heard Lord Henry's
voice outside.  "My dear boy, I must see you.  Let me in at once.  I
can't bear your shutting yourself up like this."

He made no answer at first, but remained quite still.  The knocking
still continued and grew louder.  Yes, it was better to let Lord Henry
in, and to explain to him the new life he was going to lead, to quarrel
with him if it became necessary to quarrel, to part if parting was
inevitable.  He jumped up, drew the screen hastily across the picture,
and unlocked the door.

"I am so sorry for it all, Dorian," said Lord Henry as he entered.
"But you must not think too much about it."

"Do you mean about Sibyl Vane?" asked the lad.

"Yes, of course," answered Lord Henry, sinking into a chair and slowly
pulling off his yellow gloves.  "It is dreadful, from one point of
view, but it was not your fault.  Tell me, did you go behind and see
her, after the play was over?"

"Yes."

"I felt sure you had.  Did you make a scene with her?"

"I was brutal, Harry--perfectly brutal.  But it is all right now.  I am
not sorry for anything that has happened.  It has taught me to know
myself better."

"Ah, Dorian, I am so glad you take it in that way!  I was afraid I
would find you plunged in remorse and tearing that nice curly hair of
yours."

"I have got through all that," said Dorian, shaking his head and
smiling.  "I am perfectly happy now.  I know what conscience is, to
begin with.  It is not what you told me it was.  It is the divinest
thing in us.  Don't sneer at it, Harry, any more--at least not before
me.  I want to be good.  I can't bear the idea of my soul being
hideous."

"A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian!  I congratulate you
on it.  But how are you going to begin?"

"By marrying Sibyl Vane."

"Marrying Sibyl Vane!" cried Lord Henry, standing up and looking at him
in perplexed amazement.  "But, my dear Dorian--"

"Yes, Harry, I know what you are going to say.  Something dreadful
about marriage.  Don't say it.  Don't ever say things of that kind to
me again.  Two days ago I asked Sibyl to marry me.  I am not going to
break my word to her.  She is to be my wife."

"Your wife!  Dorian! ... Didn't you get my letter?  I wrote to you this
morning, and sent the note down by my own man."

"Your letter?  Oh, yes, I remember.  I have not read it yet, Harry.  I
was afraid there might be something in it that I wouldn't like.  You
cut life to pieces with your epigrams."

"You know nothing then?"

"What do you mean?"

Lord Henry walked across the room, and sitting down by Dorian Gray,
took both his hands in his own and held them tightly.  "Dorian," he
said, "my letter--don't be frightened--was to tell you that Sibyl Vane
is dead."

A cry of pain broke from the lad's lips, and he leaped to his feet,
tearing his hands away from Lord Henry's grasp.  "Dead!  Sibyl dead!
It is not true!  It is a horrible lie!  How dare you say it?"

"It is quite true, Dorian," said Lord Henry, gravely.  "It is in all
the morning papers.  I wrote down to you to ask you not to see any one
till I came.  There will have to be an inquest, of course, and you must
not be mixed up in it.  Things like that make a man fashionable in
Paris.  But in London people are so prejudiced.  Here, one should never
make one's _debut_ with a scandal.  One should reserve that to give an
interest to one's old age.  I suppose they don't know your name at the
theatre?  If they don't, it is all right.  Did any one see you going
round to her room?  That is an important point."

Dorian did not answer for a few moments.  He was dazed with horror.
Finally he stammered, in a stifled voice, "Harry, did you say an
inquest?  What did you mean by that?  Did Sibyl--? Oh, Harry, I can't
bear it!  But be quick.  Tell me everything at once."

"I have no doubt it was not an accident, Dorian, though it must be put
in that way to the public.  It seems that as she was leaving the
theatre with her mother, about half-past twelve or so, she said she had
forgotten something upstairs.  They waited some time for her, but she
did not come down again.  They ultimately found her lying dead on the
floor of her dressing-room. She had swallowed something by mistake,
some dreadful thing they use at theatres.  I don't know what it was,
but it had either prussic acid or white lead in it.  I should fancy it
was prussic acid, as she seems to have died instantaneously."

"Harry, Harry, it is terrible!" cried the lad.

"Yes; it is very tragic, of course, but you must not get yourself mixed
up in it.  I see by _The Standard_ that she was seventeen.  I should have
thought she was almost younger than that.  She looked such a child, and
seemed to know so little about acting.  Dorian, you mustn't let this
thing get on your nerves.  You must come and dine with me, and
afterwards we will look in at the opera.  It is a Patti night, and
everybody will be there.  You can come to my sister's box.  She has got
some smart women with her."

"So I have murdered Sibyl Vane," said Dorian Gray, half to himself,
"murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife.
Yet the roses are not less lovely for all that.  The birds sing just as
happily in my garden.  And to-night I am to dine with you, and then go
on to the opera, and sup somewhere, I suppose, afterwards.  How
extraordinarily dramatic life is!  If I had read all this in a book,
Harry, I think I would have wept over it.  Somehow, now that it has
happened actually, and to me, it seems far too wonderful for tears.
Here is the first passionate love-letter I have ever written in my
life.  Strange, that my first passionate love-letter should have been
addressed to a dead girl.  Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent
people we call the dead?  Sibyl!  Can she feel, or know, or listen?
Oh, Harry, how I loved her once!  It seems years ago to me now.  She
was everything to me.  Then came that dreadful night--was it really
only last night?--when she played so badly, and my heart almost broke.
She explained it all to me.  It was terribly pathetic.  But I was not
moved a bit.  I thought her shallow.  Suddenly something happened that
made me afraid.  I can't tell you what it was, but it was terrible.  I
said I would go back to her.  I felt I had done wrong.  And now she is
dead.  My God!  My God!  Harry, what shall I do?  You don't know the
danger I am in, and there is nothing to keep me straight.  She would
have done that for me.  She had no right to kill herself.  It was
selfish of her."

"My dear Dorian," answered Lord Henry, taking a cigarette from his case
and producing a gold-latten matchbox, "the only way a woman can ever
reform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible
interest in life.  If you had married this girl, you would have been
wretched.  Of course, you would have treated her kindly.  One can
always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.  But she would
have soon found out that you were absolutely indifferent to her.  And
when a woman finds that out about her husband, she either becomes
dreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart bonnets that some other woman's
husband has to pay for.  I say nothing about the social mistake, which
would have been abject--which, of course, I would not have allowed--but
I assure you that in any case the whole thing would have been an
absolute failure."

"I suppose it would," muttered the lad, walking up and down the room
and looking horribly pale.  "But I thought it was my duty.  It is not
my fault that this terrible tragedy has prevented my doing what was
right.  I remember your saying once that there is a fatality about good
resolutions--that they are always made too late.  Mine certainly were."

"Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific
laws.  Their origin is pure vanity.  Their result is absolutely _nil_.
They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions
that have a certain charm for the weak.  That is all that can be said
for them.  They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they
have no account."

"Harry," cried Dorian Gray, coming over and sitting down beside him,
"why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to?  I
don't think I am heartless.  Do you?"

"You have done too many foolish things during the last fortnight to be
entitled to give yourself that name, Dorian," answered Lord Henry with
his sweet melancholy smile.

The lad frowned.  "I don't like that explanation, Harry," he rejoined,
"but I am glad you don't think I am heartless.  I am nothing of the
kind.  I know I am not.  And yet I must admit that this thing that has
happened does not affect me as it should.  It seems to me to be simply
like a wonderful ending to a wonderful play.  It has all the terrible
beauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but
by which I have not been wounded."

"It is an interesting question," said Lord Henry, who found an
exquisite pleasure in playing on the lad's unconscious egotism, "an
extremely interesting question.  I fancy that the true explanation is
this:  It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such
an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their
absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack
of style.  They affect us just as vulgarity affects us.  They give us
an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that.
Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of
beauty crosses our lives.  If these elements of beauty are real, the
whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect.  Suddenly
we find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the
play.  Or rather we are both.  We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder
of the spectacle enthralls us.  In the present case, what is it that
has really happened?  Some one has killed herself for love of you.  I
wish that I had ever had such an experience.  It would have made me in
love with love for the rest of my life.  The people who have adored
me--there have not been very many, but there have been some--have
always insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them,
or they to care for me.  They have become stout and tedious, and when I
meet them, they go in at once for reminiscences.  That awful memory of
woman!  What a fearful thing it is!  And what an utter intellectual
stagnation it reveals!  One should absorb the colour of life, but one
should never remember its details.  Details are always vulgar."

"I must sow poppies in my garden," sighed Dorian.

"There is no necessity," rejoined his companion.  "Life has always
poppies in her hands.  Of course, now and then things linger.  I once
wore nothing but violets all through one season, as a form of artistic
mourning for a romance that would not die.  Ultimately, however, it did
die.  I forget what killed it.  I think it was her proposing to
sacrifice the whole world for me.  That is always a dreadful moment.
It fills one with the terror of eternity.  Well--would you believe
it?--a week ago, at Lady Hampshire's, I found myself seated at dinner
next the lady in question, and she insisted on going over the whole
thing again, and digging up the past, and raking up the future.  I had
buried my romance in a bed of asphodel.  She dragged it out again and
assured me that I had spoiled her life.  I am bound to state that she
ate an enormous dinner, so I did not feel any anxiety.  But what a lack
of taste she showed!  The one charm of the past is that it is the past.
But women never know when the curtain has fallen.  They always want a
sixth act, and as soon as the interest of the play is entirely over,
they propose to continue it.  If they were allowed their own way, every
comedy would have a tragic ending, and every tragedy would culminate in
a farce.  They are charmingly artificial, but they have no sense of
art.  You are more fortunate than I am.  I assure you, Dorian, that not
one of the women I have known would have done for me what Sibyl Vane
did for you.  Ordinary women always console themselves.  Some of them
do it by going in for sentimental colours.  Never trust a woman who
wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who
is fond of pink ribbons.  It always means that they have a history.
Others find a great consolation in suddenly discovering the good
qualities of their husbands.  They flaunt their conjugal felicity in
one's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins.  Religion
consoles some.  Its mysteries have all the charm of a flirtation, a
woman once told me, and I can quite understand it.  Besides, nothing
makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.  Conscience makes
egotists of us all.  Yes; there is really no end to the consolations
that women find in modern life.  Indeed, I have not mentioned the most
important one."

"What is that, Harry?" said the lad listlessly.

"Oh, the obvious consolation.  Taking some one else's admirer when one
loses one's own.  In good society that always whitewashes a woman.  But
really, Dorian, how different Sibyl Vane must have been from all the
women one meets!  There is something to me quite beautiful about her
death.  I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen.
They make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with,
such as romance, passion, and love."

"I was terribly cruel to her.  You forget that."

"I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more
than anything else.  They have wonderfully primitive instincts.  We
have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their
masters, all the same.  They love being dominated.  I am sure you were
splendid.  I have never seen you really and absolutely angry, but I can
fancy how delightful you looked.  And, after all, you said something to
me the day before yesterday that seemed to me at the time to be merely
fanciful, but that I see now was absolutely true, and it holds the key
to everything."

"What was that, Harry?"

"You said to me that Sibyl Vane represented to you all the heroines of
romance--that she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other; that
if she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen."

"She will never come to life again now," muttered the lad, burying his
face in his hands.

"No, she will never come to life.  She has played her last part.  But
you must think of that lonely death in the tawdry dressing-room simply
as a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy, as a wonderful
scene from Webster, or Ford, or Cyril Tourneur.  The girl never really
lived, and so she has never really died.  To you at least she was
always a dream, a phantom that flitted through Shakespeare's plays and
left them lovelier for its presence, a reed through which Shakespeare's
music sounded richer and more full of joy.  The moment she touched
actual life, she marred it, and it marred her, and so she passed away.
Mourn for Ophelia, if you like.  Put ashes on your head because
Cordelia was strangled.  Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of
Brabantio died.  But don't waste your tears over Sibyl Vane.  She was
less real than they are."

There was a silence.  The evening darkened in the room.  Noiselessly,
and with silver feet, the shadows crept in from the garden.  The
colours faded wearily out of things.

After some time Dorian Gray looked up.  "You have explained me to
myself, Harry," he murmured with something of a sigh of relief.  "I
felt all that you have said, but somehow I was afraid of it, and I
could not express it to myself.  How well you know me!  But we will not
talk again of what has happened.  It has been a marvellous experience.
That is all.  I wonder if life has still in store for me anything as
marvellous."

"Life has everything in store for you, Dorian.  There is nothing that
you, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do."

"But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled?  What
then?"

"Ah, then," said Lord Henry, rising to go, "then, my dear Dorian, you
would have to fight for your victories.  As it is, they are brought to
you.  No, you must keep your good looks.  We live in an age that reads
too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.  We
cannot spare you.  And now you had better dress and drive down to the
club.  We are rather late, as it is."

"I think I shall join you at the opera, Harry.  I feel too tired to eat
anything.  What is the number of your sister's box?"

"Twenty-seven, I believe.  It is on the grand tier.  You will see her
name on the door.  But I am sorry you won't come and dine."

"I don't feel up to it," said Dorian listlessly.  "But I am awfully
obliged to you for all that you have said to me.  You are certainly my
best friend.  No one has ever understood me as you have."

"We are only at the beginning of our friendship, Dorian," answered Lord
Henry, shaking him by the hand.  "Good-bye. I shall see you before
nine-thirty, I hope.  Remember, Patti is singing."

As he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, and in
a few minutes Victor appeared with the lamps and drew the blinds down.
He waited impatiently for him to go.  The man seemed to take an
interminable time over everything.

As soon as he had left, he rushed to the screen and drew it back.  No;
there was no further change in the picture.  It had received the news
of Sibyl Vane's death before he had known of it himself.  It was
conscious of the events of life as they occurred.  The vicious cruelty
that marred the fine lines of the mouth had, no doubt, appeared at the
very moment that the girl had drunk the poison, whatever it was.  Or
was it indifferent to results?  Did it merely take cognizance of what
passed within the soul?  He wondered, and hoped that some day he would
see the change taking place before his very eyes, shuddering as he
hoped it.

Poor Sibyl!  What a romance it had all been!  She had often mimicked
death on the stage.  Then Death himself had touched her and taken her
with him.  How had she played that dreadful last scene?  Had she cursed
him, as she died?  No; she had died for love of him, and love would
always be a sacrament to him now.  She had atoned for everything by the
sacrifice she had made of her life.  He would not think any more of
what she had made him go through, on that horrible night at the
theatre.  When he thought of her, it would be as a wonderful tragic
figure sent on to the world's stage to show the supreme reality of
love.  A wonderful tragic figure?  Tears came to his eyes as he
remembered her childlike look, and winsome fanciful ways, and shy
tremulous grace.  He brushed them away hastily and looked again at the
picture.

He felt that the time had really come for making his choice.  Or had
his choice already been made?  Yes, life had decided that for
him--life, and his own infinite curiosity about life.  Eternal youth,
infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder
sins--he was to have all these things.  The portrait was to bear the
burden of his shame: that was all.

A feeling of pain crept over him as he thought of the desecration that
was in store for the fair face on the canvas.  Once, in boyish mockery
of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those painted lips
that now smiled so cruelly at him.  Morning after morning he had sat
before the portrait wondering at its beauty, almost enamoured of it, as
it seemed to him at times.  Was it to alter now with every mood to
which he yielded?  Was it to become a monstrous and loathsome thing, to
be hidden away in a locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that
had so often touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of its hair?
The pity of it! the pity of it!

For a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that
existed between him and the picture might cease.  It had changed in
answer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to a prayer it might remain
unchanged.  And yet, who, that knew anything about life, would
surrender the chance of remaining always young, however fantastic that
chance might be, or with what fateful consequences it might be fraught?
Besides, was it really under his control?  Had it indeed been prayer
that had produced the substitution?  Might there not be some curious
scientific reason for it all?  If thought could exercise its influence
upon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon
dead and inorganic things?  Nay, without thought or conscious desire,
might not things external to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods
and passions, atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity?
But the reason was of no importance.  He would never again tempt by a
prayer any terrible power.  If the picture was to alter, it was to
alter.  That was all.  Why inquire too closely into it?

For there would be a real pleasure in watching it.  He would be able to
follow his mind into its secret places.  This portrait would be to him
the most magical of mirrors.  As it had revealed to him his own body,
so it would reveal to him his own soul.  And when winter came upon it,
he would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of
summer.  When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid
mask of chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood.
Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade.  Not one pulse of
his life would ever weaken.  Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be
strong, and fleet, and joyous.  What did it matter what happened to the
coloured image on the canvas?  He would be safe.  That was everything.

He drew the screen back into its former place in front of the picture,
smiling as he did so, and passed into his bedroom, where his valet was
already waiting for him.  An hour later he was at the opera, and Lord
Henry was leaning over his chair.



CHAPTER 9

As he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown
into the room.

"I am so glad I have found you, Dorian," he said gravely.  "I called
last night, and they told me you were at the opera.  Of course, I knew
that was impossible.  But I wish you had left word where you had really
gone to.  I passed a dreadful evening, half afraid that one tragedy
might be followed by another.  I think you might have telegraphed for
me when you heard of it first.  I read of it quite by chance in a late
edition of _The Globe_ that I picked up at the club.  I came here at once
and was miserable at not finding you.  I can't tell you how
heart-broken I am about the whole thing.  I know what you must suffer.
But where were you?  Did you go down and see the girl's mother?  For a
moment I thought of following you there.  They gave the address in the
paper.  Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn't it?  But I was afraid of
intruding upon a sorrow that I could not lighten.  Poor woman!  What a
state she must be in!  And her only child, too!  What did she say about
it all?"

"My dear Basil, how do I know?" murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some
pale-yellow wine from a delicate, gold-beaded bubble of Venetian glass
and looking dreadfully bored.  "I was at the opera.  You should have
come on there.  I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry's sister, for the first
time.  We were in her box.  She is perfectly charming; and Patti sang
divinely.  Don't talk about horrid subjects.  If one doesn't talk about
a thing, it has never happened.  It is simply expression, as Harry
says, that gives reality to things.  I may mention that she was not the
woman's only child.  There is a son, a charming fellow, I believe.  But
he is not on the stage.  He is a sailor, or something.  And now, tell
me about yourself and what you are painting."

"You went to the opera?" said Hallward, speaking very slowly and with a
strained touch of pain in his voice.  "You went to the opera while
Sibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging?  You can talk to me
of other women being charming, and of Patti singing divinely, before
the girl you loved has even the quiet of a grave to sleep in?  Why,
man, there are horrors in store for that little white body of hers!"

"Stop, Basil!  I won't hear it!" cried Dorian, leaping to his feet.
"You must not tell me about things.  What is done is done.  What is
past is past."

"You call yesterday the past?"

"What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it?  It is only
shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion.  A man who
is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a
pleasure.  I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions.  I want to
use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them."

"Dorian, this is horrible!  Something has changed you completely.  You
look exactly the same wonderful boy who, day after day, used to come
down to my studio to sit for his picture.  But you were simple,
natural, and affectionate then.  You were the most unspoiled creature
in the whole world.  Now, I don't know what has come over you.  You
talk as if you had no heart, no pity in you.  It is all Harry's
influence.  I see that."

The lad flushed up and, going to the window, looked out for a few
moments on the green, flickering, sun-lashed garden.  "I owe a great
deal to Harry, Basil," he said at last, "more than I owe to you.  You
only taught me to be vain."

"Well, I am punished for that, Dorian--or shall be some day."

"I don't know what you mean, Basil," he exclaimed, turning round.  "I
don't know what you want.  What do you want?"

"I want the Dorian Gray I used to paint," said the artist sadly.

"Basil," said the lad, going over to him and putting his hand on his
shoulder, "you have come too late.  Yesterday, when I heard that Sibyl
Vane had killed herself--"

"Killed herself!  Good heavens! is there no doubt about that?" cried
Hallward, looking up at him with an expression of horror.

"My dear Basil!  Surely you don't think it was a vulgar accident?  Of
course she killed herself."

The elder man buried his face in his hands.  "How fearful," he
muttered, and a shudder ran through him.

"No," said Dorian Gray, "there is nothing fearful about it.  It is one
of the great romantic tragedies of the age.  As a rule, people who act
lead the most commonplace lives.  They are good husbands, or faithful
wives, or something tedious.  You know what I mean--middle-class virtue
and all that kind of thing.  How different Sibyl was!  She lived her
finest tragedy.  She was always a heroine.  The last night she
played--the night you saw her--she acted badly because she had known
the reality of love.  When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet
might have died.  She passed again into the sphere of art.  There is
something of the martyr about her.  Her death has all the pathetic
uselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty.  But, as I was saying,
you must not think I have not suffered.  If you had come in yesterday
at a particular moment--about half-past five, perhaps, or a quarter to
six--you would have found me in tears.  Even Harry, who was here, who
brought me the news, in fact, had no idea what I was going through.  I
suffered immensely.  Then it passed away.  I cannot repeat an emotion.
No one can, except sentimentalists.  And you are awfully unjust, Basil.
You come down here to console me.  That is charming of you.  You find
me consoled, and you are furious.  How like a sympathetic person!  You
remind me of a story Harry told me about a certain philanthropist who
spent twenty years of his life in trying to get some grievance
redressed, or some unjust law altered--I forget exactly what it was.
Finally he succeeded, and nothing could exceed his disappointment.  He
had absolutely nothing to do, almost died of _ennui_, and became a
confirmed misanthrope.  And besides, my dear old Basil, if you really
want to console me, teach me rather to forget what has happened, or to
see it from a proper artistic point of view.  Was it not Gautier who
used to write about _la consolation des arts_?  I remember picking up a
little vellum-covered book in your studio one day and chancing on that
delightful phrase.  Well, I am not like that young man you told me of
when we were down at Marlow together, the young man who used to say
that yellow satin could console one for all the miseries of life.  I
love beautiful things that one can touch and handle.  Old brocades,
green bronzes, lacquer-work, carved ivories, exquisite surroundings,
luxury, pomp--there is much to be got from all these.  But the artistic
temperament that they create, or at any rate reveal, is still more to
me.  To become the spectator of one's own life, as Harry says, is to
escape the suffering of life.  I know you are surprised at my talking
to you like this.  You have not realized how I have developed.  I was a
schoolboy when you knew me.  I am a man now.  I have new passions, new
thoughts, new ideas.  I am different, but you must not like me less.  I
am changed, but you must always be my friend.  Of course, I am very
fond of Harry.  But I know that you are better than he is.  You are not
stronger--you are too much afraid of life--but you are better.  And how
happy we used to be together!  Don't leave me, Basil, and don't quarrel
with me.  I am what I am.  There is nothing more to be said."

The painter felt strangely moved.  The lad was infinitely dear to him,
and his personality had been the great turning point in his art.  He
could not bear the idea of reproaching him any more.  After all, his
indifference was probably merely a mood that would pass away.  There
was so much in him that was good, so much in him that was noble.

"Well, Dorian," he said at length, with a sad smile, "I won't speak to
you again about this horrible thing, after to-day.  I only trust your
name won't be mentioned in connection with it.  The inquest is to take
place this afternoon.  Have they summoned you?"

Dorian shook his head, and a look of annoyance passed over his face at
the mention of the word "inquest."  There was something so crude and
vulgar about everything of the kind.  "They don't know my name," he
answered.

"But surely she did?"

"Only my Christian name, and that I am quite sure she never mentioned
to any one.  She told me once that they were all rather curious to
learn who I was, and that she invariably told them my name was Prince
Charming.  It was pretty of her.  You must do me a drawing of Sibyl,
Basil.  I should like to have something more of her than the memory of
a few kisses and some broken pathetic words."

"I will try and do something, Dorian, if it would please you.  But you
must come and sit to me yourself again.  I can't get on without you."

"I can never sit to you again, Basil.  It is impossible!" he exclaimed,
starting back.

The painter stared at him.  "My dear boy, what nonsense!" he cried.
"Do you mean to say you don't like what I did of you?  Where is it?
Why have you pulled the screen in front of it?  Let me look at it.  It
is the best thing I have ever done.  Do take the screen away, Dorian.
It is simply disgraceful of your servant hiding my work like that.  I
felt the room looked different as I came in."

"My servant has nothing to do with it, Basil.  You don't imagine I let
him arrange my room for me?  He settles my flowers for me
sometimes--that is all.  No; I did it myself.  The light was too strong
on the portrait."

"Too strong!  Surely not, my dear fellow?  It is an admirable place for
it.  Let me see it."  And Hallward walked towards the corner of the
room.

A cry of terror broke from Dorian Gray's lips, and he rushed between
the painter and the screen.  "Basil," he said, looking very pale, "you
must not look at it.  I don't wish you to."

"Not look at my own work!  You are not serious.  Why shouldn't I look
at it?" exclaimed Hallward, laughing.

"If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honour I will never
speak to you again as long as I live.  I am quite serious.  I don't
offer any explanation, and you are not to ask for any.  But, remember,
if you touch this screen, everything is over between us."

Hallward was thunderstruck.  He looked at Dorian Gray in absolute
amazement.  He had never seen him like this before.  The lad was
actually pallid with rage.  His hands were clenched, and the pupils of
his eyes were like disks of blue fire.  He was trembling all over.

"Dorian!"

"Don't speak!"

"But what is the matter?  Of course I won't look at it if you don't
want me to," he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel and going over
towards the window.  "But, really, it seems rather absurd that I
shouldn't see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in
Paris in the autumn.  I shall probably have to give it another coat of
varnish before that, so I must see it some day, and why not to-day?"

"To exhibit it!  You want to exhibit it?" exclaimed Dorian Gray, a
strange sense of terror creeping over him.  Was the world going to be
shown his secret?  Were people to gape at the mystery of his life?
That was impossible.  Something--he did not know what--had to be done
at once.

"Yes; I don't suppose you will object to that.  Georges Petit is going
to collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition in the Rue de
Seze, which will open the first week in October.  The portrait will
only be away a month.  I should think you could easily spare it for
that time.  In fact, you are sure to be out of town.  And if you keep
it always behind a screen, you can't care much about it."

Dorian Gray passed his hand over his forehead.  There were beads of
perspiration there.  He felt that he was on the brink of a horrible
danger.  "You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it," he
cried.  "Why have you changed your mind?  You people who go in for
being consistent have just as many moods as others have.  The only
difference is that your moods are rather meaningless.  You can't have
forgotten that you assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world
would induce you to send it to any exhibition.  You told Harry exactly
the same thing." He stopped suddenly, and a gleam of light came into
his eyes.  He remembered that Lord Henry had said to him once, half
seriously and half in jest, "If you want to have a strange quarter of
an hour, get Basil to tell you why he won't exhibit your picture.  He
told me why he wouldn't, and it was a revelation to me."  Yes, perhaps
Basil, too, had his secret.  He would ask him and try.

"Basil," he said, coming over quite close and looking him straight in
the face, "we have each of us a secret.  Let me know yours, and I shall
tell you mine.  What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my
picture?"

The painter shuddered in spite of himself.  "Dorian, if I told you, you
might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me.  I
could not bear your doing either of those two things.  If you wish me
never to look at your picture again, I am content.  I have always you
to look at.  If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden
from the world, I am satisfied.  Your friendship is dearer to me than
any fame or reputation."

"No, Basil, you must tell me," insisted Dorian Gray.  "I think I have a
right to know."  His feeling of terror had passed away, and curiosity
had taken its place.  He was determined to find out Basil Hallward's
mystery.

"Let us sit down, Dorian," said the painter, looking troubled.  "Let us
sit down.  And just answer me one question.  Have you noticed in the
picture something curious?--something that probably at first did not
strike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?"

"Basil!" cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling
hands and gazing at him with wild startled eyes.

"I see you did.  Don't speak.  Wait till you hear what I have to say.
Dorian, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most
extraordinary influence over me.  I was dominated, soul, brain, and
power, by you.  You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen
ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream.  I
worshipped you.  I grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke.  I
wanted to have you all to myself.  I was only happy when I was with
you.  When you were away from me, you were still present in my art....
Of course, I never let you know anything about this.  It would have
been impossible.  You would not have understood it.  I hardly
understood it myself.  I only knew that I had seen perfection face to
face, and that the world had become wonderful to my eyes--too
wonderful, perhaps, for in such mad worships there is peril, the peril
of losing them, no less than the peril of keeping them....  Weeks and
weeks went on, and I grew more and more absorbed in you.  Then came a
new development.  I had drawn you as Paris in dainty armour, and as
Adonis with huntsman's cloak and polished boar-spear. Crowned with
heavy lotus-blossoms you had sat on the prow of Adrian's barge, gazing
across the green turbid Nile.  You had leaned over the still pool of
some Greek woodland and seen in the water's silent silver the marvel of
your own face.  And it had all been what art should be--unconscious,
ideal, and remote.  One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I
determined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are,
not in the costume of dead ages, but in your own dress and in your own
time.  Whether it was the realism of the method, or the mere wonder of
your own personality, thus directly presented to me without mist or
veil, I cannot tell.  But I know that as I worked at it, every flake
and film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret.  I grew afraid
that others would know of my idolatry.  I felt, Dorian, that I had told
too much, that I had put too much of myself into it.  Then it was that
I resolved never to allow the picture to be exhibited.  You were a
little annoyed; but then you did not realize all that it meant to me.
Harry, to whom I talked about it, laughed at me.  But I did not mind
that.  When the picture was finished, and I sat alone with it, I felt
that I was right.... Well, after a few days the thing left my studio,
and as soon as I had got rid of the intolerable fascination of its
presence, it seemed to me that I had been foolish in imagining that I
had seen anything in it, more than that you were extremely good-looking
and that I could paint.  Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a
mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really
shown in the work one creates.  Art is always more abstract than we
fancy.  Form and colour tell us of form and colour--that is all.  It
often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than
it ever reveals him.  And so when I got this offer from Paris, I
determined to make your portrait the principal thing in my exhibition.
It never occurred to me that you would refuse.  I see now that you were
right.  The picture cannot be shown.  You must not be angry with me,
Dorian, for what I have told you.  As I said to Harry, once, you are
made to be worshipped."

Dorian Gray drew a long breath.  The colour came back to his cheeks,
and a smile played about his lips.  The peril was over.  He was safe
for the time.  Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the
painter who had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered
if he himself would ever be so dominated by the personality of a
friend.  Lord Henry had the charm of being very dangerous.  But that
was all.  He was too clever and too cynical to be really fond of.
Would there ever be some one who would fill him with a strange
idolatry?  Was that one of the things that life had in store?

"It is extraordinary to me, Dorian," said Hallward, "that you should
have seen this in the portrait.  Did you really see it?"

"I saw something in it," he answered, "something that seemed to me very
curious."

"Well, you don't mind my looking at the thing now?"

Dorian shook his head.  "You must not ask me that, Basil.  I could not
possibly let you stand in front of that picture."

"You will some day, surely?"

"Never."

"Well, perhaps you are right.  And now good-bye, Dorian.  You have been
the one person in my life who has really influenced my art.  Whatever I
have done that is good, I owe to you.  Ah! you don't know what it cost
me to tell you all that I have told you."

"My dear Basil," said Dorian, "what have you told me?  Simply that you
felt that you admired me too much.  That is not even a compliment."

"It was not intended as a compliment.  It was a confession.  Now that I
have made it, something seems to have gone out of me.  Perhaps one
should never put one's worship into words."

"It was a very disappointing confession."

"Why, what did you expect, Dorian?  You didn't see anything else in the
picture, did you?  There was nothing else to see?"

"No; there was nothing else to see.  Why do you ask?  But you mustn't
talk about worship.  It is foolish.  You and I are friends, Basil, and
we must always remain so."

"You have got Harry," said the painter sadly.

"Oh, Harry!" cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter.  "Harry spends
his days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing what is
improbable.  Just the sort of life I would like to lead.  But still I
don't think I would go to Harry if I were in trouble.  I would sooner
go to you, Basil."

"You will sit to me again?"

"Impossible!"

"You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian.  No man comes
across two ideal things.  Few come across one."

"I can't explain it to you, Basil, but I must never sit to you again.
There is something fatal about a portrait.  It has a life of its own.
I will come and have tea with you.  That will be just as pleasant."

"Pleasanter for you, I am afraid," murmured Hallward regretfully.  "And
now good-bye. I am sorry you won't let me look at the picture once
again.  But that can't be helped.  I quite understand what you feel
about it."

As he left the room, Dorian Gray smiled to himself.  Poor Basil!  How
little he knew of the true reason!  And how strange it was that,
instead of having been forced to reveal his own secret, he had
succeeded, almost by chance, in wresting a secret from his friend!  How
much that strange confession explained to him!  The painter's absurd
fits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his
curious reticences--he understood them all now, and he felt sorry.
There seemed to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured
by romance.

He sighed and touched the bell.  The portrait must be hidden away at
all costs.  He could not run such a risk of discovery again.  It had
been mad of him to have allowed the thing to remain, even for an hour,
in a room to which any of his friends had access.



CHAPTER 10

When his servant entered, he looked at him steadfastly and wondered if
he had thought of peering behind the screen.  The man was quite
impassive and waited for his orders.  Dorian lit a cigarette and walked
over to the glass and glanced into it.  He could see the reflection of
Victor's face perfectly.  It was like a placid mask of servility.
There was nothing to be afraid of, there.  Yet he thought it best to be
on his guard.

Speaking very slowly, he told him to tell the house-keeper that he
wanted to see her, and then to go to the frame-maker and ask him to
send two of his men round at once.  It seemed to him that as the man
left the room his eyes wandered in the direction of the screen.  Or was
that merely his own fancy?

After a few moments, in her black silk dress, with old-fashioned thread
mittens on her wrinkled hands, Mrs. Leaf bustled into the library.  He
asked her for the key of the schoolroom.

"The old schoolroom, Mr. Dorian?" she exclaimed.  "Why, it is full of
dust.  I must get it arranged and put straight before you go into it.
It is not fit for you to see, sir.  It is not, indeed."

"I don't want it put straight, Leaf.  I only want the key."

"Well, sir, you'll be covered with cobwebs if you go into it.  Why, it
hasn't been opened for nearly five years--not since his lordship died."

He winced at the mention of his grandfather.  He had hateful memories
of him.  "That does not matter," he answered.  "I simply want to see
the place--that is all.  Give me the key."

"And here is the key, sir," said the old lady, going over the contents
of her bunch with tremulously uncertain hands.  "Here is the key.  I'll
have it off the bunch in a moment.  But you don't think of living up
there, sir, and you so comfortable here?"

"No, no," he cried petulantly.  "Thank you, Leaf.  That will do."

She lingered for a few moments, and was garrulous over some detail of
the household.  He sighed and told her to manage things as she thought
best.  She left the room, wreathed in smiles.

As the door closed, Dorian put the key in his pocket and looked round
the room.  His eye fell on a large, purple satin coverlet heavily
embroidered with gold, a splendid piece of late seventeenth-century
Venetian work that his grandfather had found in a convent near Bologna.
Yes, that would serve to wrap the dreadful thing in.  It had perhaps
served often as a pall for the dead.  Now it was to hide something that
had a corruption of its own, worse than the corruption of death
itself--something that would breed horrors and yet would never die.
What the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image
on the canvas.  They would mar its beauty and eat away its grace.  They
would defile it and make it shameful.  And yet the thing would still
live on.  It would be always alive.

He shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had not told Basil
the true reason why he had wished to hide the picture away.  Basil
would have helped him to resist Lord Henry's influence, and the still
more poisonous influences that came from his own temperament.  The love
that he bore him--for it was really love--had nothing in it that was
not noble and intellectual.  It was not that mere physical admiration
of beauty that is born of the senses and that dies when the senses
tire.  It was such love as Michelangelo had known, and Montaigne, and
Winckelmann, and Shakespeare himself.  Yes, Basil could have saved him.
But it was too late now.  The past could always be annihilated.
Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that.  But the future was
inevitable.  There were passions in him that would find their terrible
outlet, dreams that would make the shadow of their evil real.

He took up from the couch the great purple-and-gold texture that
covered it, and, holding it in his hands, passed behind the screen.
Was the face on the canvas viler than before?  It seemed to him that it
was unchanged, and yet his loathing of it was intensified.  Gold hair,
blue eyes, and rose-red lips--they all were there.  It was simply the
expression that had altered.  That was horrible in its cruelty.
Compared to what he saw in it of censure or rebuke, how shallow Basil's
reproaches about Sibyl Vane had been!--how shallow, and of what little
account!  His own soul was looking out at him from the canvas and
calling him to judgement.  A look of pain came across him, and he flung
the rich pall over the picture.  As he did so, a knock came to the
door.  He passed out as his servant entered.

"The persons are here, Monsieur."

He felt that the man must be got rid of at once.  He must not be
allowed to know where the picture was being taken to.  There was
something sly about him, and he had thoughtful, treacherous eyes.
Sitting down at the writing-table he scribbled a note to Lord Henry,
asking him to send him round something to read and reminding him that
they were to meet at eight-fifteen that evening.

"Wait for an answer," he said, handing it to him, "and show the men in
here."

In two or three minutes there was another knock, and Mr. Hubbard
himself, the celebrated frame-maker of South Audley Street, came in
with a somewhat rough-looking young assistant.  Mr. Hubbard was a
florid, red-whiskered little man, whose admiration for art was
considerably tempered by the inveterate impecuniosity of most of the
artists who dealt with him.  As a rule, he never left his shop.  He
waited for people to come to him.  But he always made an exception in
favour of Dorian Gray.  There was something about Dorian that charmed
everybody.  It was a pleasure even to see him.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Gray?" he said, rubbing his fat freckled
hands.  "I thought I would do myself the honour of coming round in
person.  I have just got a beauty of a frame, sir.  Picked it up at a
sale.  Old Florentine.  Came from Fonthill, I believe.  Admirably
suited for a religious subject, Mr. Gray."

"I am so sorry you have given yourself the trouble of coming round, Mr.
Hubbard.  I shall certainly drop in and look at the frame--though I
don't go in much at present for religious art--but to-day I only want a
picture carried to the top of the house for me.  It is rather heavy, so
I thought I would ask you to lend me a couple of your men."

"No trouble at all, Mr. Gray.  I am delighted to be of any service to
you.  Which is the work of art, sir?"

"This," replied Dorian, moving the screen back.  "Can you move it,
covering and all, just as it is?  I don't want it to get scratched
going upstairs."

"There will be no difficulty, sir," said the genial frame-maker,
beginning, with the aid of his assistant, to unhook the picture from
the long brass chains by which it was suspended.  "And, now, where
shall we carry it to, Mr. Gray?"

"I will show you the way, Mr. Hubbard, if you will kindly follow me.
Or perhaps you had better go in front.  I am afraid it is right at the
top of the house.  We will go up by the front staircase, as it is
wider."

He held the door open for them, and they passed out into the hall and
began the ascent.  The elaborate character of the frame had made the
picture extremely bulky, and now and then, in spite of the obsequious
protests of Mr. Hubbard, who had the true tradesman's spirited dislike
of seeing a gentleman doing anything useful, Dorian put his hand to it
so as to help them.

"Something of a load to carry, sir," gasped the little man when they
reached the top landing.  And he wiped his shiny forehead.

"I am afraid it is rather heavy," murmured Dorian as he unlocked the
door that opened into the room that was to keep for him the curious
secret of his life and hide his soul from the eyes of men.

He had not entered the place for more than four years--not, indeed,
since he had used it first as a play-room when he was a child, and then
as a study when he grew somewhat older.  It was a large,
well-proportioned room, which had been specially built by the last Lord
Kelso for the use of the little grandson whom, for his strange likeness
to his mother, and also for other reasons, he had always hated and
desired to keep at a distance.  It appeared to Dorian to have but
little changed.  There was the huge Italian _cassone_, with its
fantastically painted panels and its tarnished gilt mouldings, in which
he had so often hidden himself as a boy.  There the satinwood book-case
filled with his dog-eared schoolbooks.  On the wall behind it was
hanging the same ragged Flemish tapestry where a faded king and queen
were playing chess in a garden, while a company of hawkers rode by,
carrying hooded birds on their gauntleted wrists.  How well he
remembered it all!  Every moment of his lonely childhood came back to
him as he looked round.  He recalled the stainless purity of his boyish
life, and it seemed horrible to him that it was here the fatal portrait
was to be hidden away.  How little he had thought, in those dead days,
of all that was in store for him!

But there was no other place in the house so secure from prying eyes as
this.  He had the key, and no one else could enter it.  Beneath its
purple pall, the face painted on the canvas could grow bestial, sodden,
and unclean.  What did it matter?  No one could see it.  He himself
would not see it.  Why should he watch the hideous corruption of his
soul?  He kept his youth--that was enough.  And, besides, might not
his nature grow finer, after all?  There was no reason that the future
should be so full of shame.  Some love might come across his life, and
purify him, and shield him from those sins that seemed to be already
stirring in spirit and in flesh--those curious unpictured sins whose
very mystery lent them their subtlety and their charm.  Perhaps, some
day, the cruel look would have passed away from the scarlet sensitive
mouth, and he might show to the world Basil Hallward's masterpiece.

No; that was impossible.  Hour by hour, and week by week, the thing
upon the canvas was growing old.  It might escape the hideousness of
sin, but the hideousness of age was in store for it.  The cheeks would
become hollow or flaccid.  Yellow crow's feet would creep round the
fading eyes and make them horrible.  The hair would lose its
brightness, the mouth would gape or droop, would be foolish or gross,
as the mouths of old men are.  There would be the wrinkled throat, the
cold, blue-veined hands, the twisted body, that he remembered in the
grandfather who had been so stern to him in his boyhood.  The picture
had to be concealed.  There was no help for it.

"Bring it in, Mr. Hubbard, please," he said, wearily, turning round.
"I am sorry I kept you so long.  I was thinking of something else."

"Always glad to have a rest, Mr. Gray," answered the frame-maker, who
was still gasping for breath.  "Where shall we put it, sir?"

"Oh, anywhere.  Here:  this will do.  I don't want to have it hung up.
Just lean it against the wall.  Thanks."

"Might one look at the work of art, sir?"

Dorian started.  "It would not interest you, Mr. Hubbard," he said,
keeping his eye on the man.  He felt ready to leap upon him and fling
him to the ground if he dared to lift the gorgeous hanging that
concealed the secret of his life.  "I shan't trouble you any more now.
I am much obliged for your kindness in coming round."

"Not at all, not at all, Mr. Gray.  Ever ready to do anything for you,
sir." And Mr. Hubbard tramped downstairs, followed by the assistant,
who glanced back at Dorian with a look of shy wonder in his rough
uncomely face.  He had never seen any one so marvellous.

When the sound of their footsteps had died away, Dorian locked the door
and put the key in his pocket.  He felt safe now.  No one would ever
look upon the horrible thing.  No eye but his would ever see his shame.

On reaching the library, he found that it was just after five o'clock
and that the tea had been already brought up.  On a little table of
dark perfumed wood thickly incrusted with nacre, a present from Lady
Radley, his guardian's wife, a pretty professional invalid who had
spent the preceding winter in Cairo, was lying a note from Lord Henry,
and beside it was a book bound in yellow paper, the cover slightly torn
and the edges soiled.  A copy of the third edition of _The St. James's
Gazette_ had been placed on the tea-tray. It was evident that Victor had
returned.  He wondered if he had met the men in the hall as they were
leaving the house and had wormed out of them what they had been doing.
He would be sure to miss the picture--had no doubt missed it already,
while he had been laying the tea-things. The screen had not been set
back, and a blank space was visible on the wall.  Perhaps some night he
might find him creeping upstairs and trying to force the door of the
room.  It was a horrible thing to have a spy in one's house.  He had
heard of rich men who had been blackmailed all their lives by some
servant who had read a letter, or overheard a conversation, or picked
up a card with an address, or found beneath a pillow a withered flower
or a shred of crumpled lace.

He sighed, and having poured himself out some tea, opened Lord Henry's
note.  It was simply to say that he sent him round the evening paper,
and a book that might interest him, and that he would be at the club at
eight-fifteen. He opened _The St. James's_ languidly, and looked through
it.  A red pencil-mark on the fifth page caught his eye.  It drew
attention to the following paragraph:


INQUEST ON AN ACTRESS.--An inquest was held this morning at the Bell
Tavern, Hoxton Road, by Mr. Danby, the District Coroner, on the body of
Sibyl Vane, a young actress recently engaged at the Royal Theatre,
Holborn.  A verdict of death by misadventure was returned.
Considerable sympathy was expressed for the mother of the deceased, who
was greatly affected during the giving of her own evidence, and that of
Dr. Birrell, who had made the post-mortem examination of the deceased.


He frowned, and tearing the paper in two, went across the room and
flung the pieces away.  How ugly it all was!  And how horribly real
ugliness made things!  He felt a little annoyed with Lord Henry for
having sent him the report.  And it was certainly stupid of him to have
marked it with red pencil.  Victor might have read it.  The man knew
more than enough English for that.

Perhaps he had read it and had begun to suspect something.  And, yet,
what did it matter?  What had Dorian Gray to do with Sibyl Vane's
death?  There was nothing to fear.  Dorian Gray had not killed her.

His eye fell on the yellow book that Lord Henry had sent him.  What was
it, he wondered.  He went towards the little, pearl-coloured octagonal
stand that had always looked to him like the work of some strange
Egyptian bees that wrought in silver, and taking up the volume, flung
himself into an arm-chair and began to turn over the leaves.  After a
few minutes he became absorbed.  It was the strangest book that he had
ever read.  It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the
delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb
show before him.  Things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly
made real to him.  Things of which he had never dreamed were gradually
revealed.

It was a novel without a plot and with only one character, being,
indeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian who
spent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the
passions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his
own, and to sum up, as it were, in himself the various moods through
which the world-spirit had ever passed, loving for their mere
artificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue,
as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin.  The
style in which it was written was that curious jewelled style, vivid
and obscure at once, full of _argot_ and of archaisms, of technical
expressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes the work
of some of the finest artists of the French school of _Symbolistes_.
There were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids and as subtle in
colour.  The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical
philosophy.  One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the
spiritual ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid confessions
of a modern sinner.  It was a poisonous book.  The heavy odour of
incense seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain.  The
mere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their music, so
full as it was of complex refrains and movements elaborately repeated,
produced in the mind of the lad, as he passed from chapter to chapter,
a form of reverie, a malady of dreaming, that made him unconscious of
the falling day and creeping shadows.

Cloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a copper-green sky gleamed
through the windows.  He read on by its wan light till he could read no
more.  Then, after his valet had reminded him several times of the
lateness of the hour, he got up, and going into the next room, placed
the book on the little Florentine table that always stood at his
bedside and began to dress for dinner.

It was almost nine o'clock before he reached the club, where he found
Lord Henry sitting alone, in the morning-room, looking very much bored.

"I am so sorry, Harry," he cried, "but really it is entirely your
fault.  That book you sent me so fascinated me that I forgot how the
time was going."

"Yes, I thought you would like it," replied his host, rising from his
chair.

"I didn't say I liked it, Harry.  I said it fascinated me.  There is a
great difference."

"Ah, you have discovered that?" murmured Lord Henry.  And they passed
into the dining-room.



CHAPTER 11

For years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence of
this book.  Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he never
sought to free himself from it.  He procured from Paris no less than
nine large-paper copies of the first edition, and had them bound in
different colours, so that they might suit his various moods and the
changing fancies of a nature over which he seemed, at times, to have
almost entirely lost control.  The hero, the wonderful young Parisian
in whom the romantic and the scientific temperaments were so strangely
blended, became to him a kind of prefiguring type of himself.  And,
indeed, the whole book seemed to him to contain the story of his own
life, written before he had lived it.

In one point he was more fortunate than the novel's fantastic hero.  He
never knew--never, indeed, had any cause to know--that somewhat
grotesque dread of mirrors, and polished metal surfaces, and still
water which came upon the young Parisian so early in his life, and was
occasioned by the sudden decay of a beau that had once, apparently,
been so remarkable.  It was with an almost cruel joy--and perhaps in
nearly every joy, as certainly in every pleasure, cruelty has its
place--that he used to read the latter part of the book, with its
really tragic, if somewhat overemphasized, account of the sorrow and
despair of one who had himself lost what in others, and the world, he
had most dearly valued.

For the wonderful beauty that had so fascinated Basil Hallward, and
many others besides him, seemed never to leave him.  Even those who had
heard the most evil things against him--and from time to time strange
rumours about his mode of life crept through London and became the
chatter of the clubs--could not believe anything to his dishonour when
they saw him.  He had always the look of one who had kept himself
unspotted from the world.  Men who talked grossly became silent when
Dorian Gray entered the room.  There was something in the purity of his
face that rebuked them.  His mere presence seemed to recall to them the
memory of the innocence that they had tarnished.  They wondered how one
so charming and graceful as he was could have escaped the stain of an
age that was at once sordid and sensual.

Often, on returning home from one of those mysterious and prolonged
absences that gave rise to such strange conjecture among those who were
his friends, or thought that they were so, he himself would creep
upstairs to the locked room, open the door with the key that never left
him now, and stand, with a mirror, in front of the portrait that Basil
Hallward had painted of him, looking now at the evil and aging face on
the canvas, and now at the fair young face that laughed back at him
from the polished glass.  The very sharpness of the contrast used to
quicken his sense of pleasure.  He grew more and more enamoured of his
own beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul.
He would examine with minute care, and sometimes with a monstrous and
terrible delight, the hideous lines that seared the wrinkling forehead
or crawled around the heavy sensual mouth, wondering sometimes which
were the more horrible, the signs of sin or the signs of age.  He would
place his white hands beside the coarse bloated hands of the picture,
and smile.  He mocked the misshapen body and the failing limbs.

There were moments, indeed, at night, when, lying sleepless in his own
delicately scented chamber, or in the sordid room of the little
ill-famed tavern near the docks which, under an assumed name and in
disguise, it was his habit to frequent, he would think of the ruin he
had brought upon his soul with a pity that was all the more poignant
because it was purely selfish.  But moments such as these were rare.
That curiosity about life which Lord Henry had first stirred in him, as
they sat together in the garden of their friend, seemed to increase
with gratification.  The more he knew, the more he desired to know.  He
had mad hungers that grew more ravenous as he fed them.

Yet he was not really reckless, at any rate in his relations to
society.  Once or twice every month during the winter, and on each
Wednesday evening while the season lasted, he would throw open to the
world his beautiful house and have the most celebrated musicians of the
day to charm his guests with the wonders of their art.  His little
dinners, in the settling of which Lord Henry always assisted him, were
noted as much for the careful selection and placing of those invited,
as for the exquisite taste shown in the decoration of the table, with
its subtle symphonic arrangements of exotic flowers, and embroidered
cloths, and antique plate of gold and silver.  Indeed, there were many,
especially among the very young men, who saw, or fancied that they saw,
in Dorian Gray the true realization of a type of which they had often
dreamed in Eton or Oxford days, a type that was to combine something of
the real culture of the scholar with all the grace and distinction and
perfect manner of a citizen of the world.  To them he seemed to be of
the company of those whom Dante describes as having sought to "make
themselves perfect by the worship of beauty."  Like Gautier, he was one
for whom "the visible world existed."

And, certainly, to him life itself was the first, the greatest, of the
arts, and for it all the other arts seemed to be but a preparation.
Fashion, by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment
universal, and dandyism, which, in its own way, is an attempt to assert
the absolute modernity of beauty, had, of course, their fascination for
him.  His mode of dressing, and the particular styles that from time to
time he affected, had their marked influence on the young exquisites of
the Mayfair balls and Pall Mall club windows, who copied him in
everything that he did, and tried to reproduce the accidental charm of
his graceful, though to him only half-serious, fopperies.

For, while he was but too ready to accept the position that was almost
immediately offered to him on his coming of age, and found, indeed, a
subtle pleasure in the thought that he might really become to the
London of his own day what to imperial Neronian Rome the author of the
Satyricon once had been, yet in his inmost heart he desired to be
something more than a mere _arbiter elegantiarum_, to be consulted on the
wearing of a jewel, or the knotting of a necktie, or the conduct of a
cane.  He sought to elaborate some new scheme of life that would have
its reasoned philosophy and its ordered principles, and find in the
spiritualizing of the senses its highest realization.

The worship of the senses has often, and with much justice, been
decried, men feeling a natural instinct of terror about passions and
sensations that seem stronger than themselves, and that they are
conscious of sharing with the less highly organized forms of existence.
But it appeared to Dorian Gray that the true nature of the senses had
never been understood, and that they had remained savage and animal
merely because the world had sought to starve them into submission or
to kill them by pain, instead of aiming at making them elements of a
new spirituality, of which a fine instinct for beauty was to be the
dominant characteristic.  As he looked back upon man moving through
history, he was haunted by a feeling of loss.  So much had been
surrendered! and to such little purpose!  There had been mad wilful
rejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose
origin was fear and whose result was a degradation infinitely more
terrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance,
they had sought to escape; Nature, in her wonderful irony, driving out
the anchorite to feed with the wild animals of the desert and giving to
the hermit the beasts of the field as his companions.

Yes:  there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new Hedonism
that was to recreate life and to save it from that harsh uncomely
puritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival.  It was
to have its service of the intellect, certainly, yet it was never to
accept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any
mode of passionate experience.  Its aim, indeed, was to be experience
itself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they might
be.  Of the asceticism that deadens the senses, as of the vulgar
profligacy that dulls them, it was to know nothing.  But it was to
teach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is
itself but a moment.

There are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either
after one of those dreamless nights that make us almost enamoured of
death, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through
the chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality
itself, and instinct with that vivid life that lurks in all grotesques,
and that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, this art being, one
might fancy, especially the art of those whose minds have been troubled
with the malady of reverie.  Gradually white fingers creep through the
curtains, and they appear to tremble.  In black fantastic shapes, dumb
shadows crawl into the corners of the room and crouch there.  Outside,
there is the stirring of birds among the leaves, or the sound of men
going forth to their work, or the sigh and sob of the wind coming down
from the hills and wandering round the silent house, as though it
feared to wake the sleepers and yet must needs call forth sleep from
her purple cave.  Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by
degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we
watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern.  The wan
mirrors get back their mimic life.  The flameless tapers stand where we
had left them, and beside them lies the half-cut book that we had been
studying, or the wired flower that we had worn at the ball, or the
letter that we had been afraid to read, or that we had read too often.
Nothing seems to us changed.  Out of the unreal shadows of the night
comes back the real life that we had known.  We have to resume it where
we had left off, and there steals over us a terrible sense of the
necessity for the continuance of energy in the same wearisome round of
stereotyped habits, or a wild longing, it may be, that our eyelids
might open some morning upon a world that had been refashioned anew in
the darkness for our pleasure, a world in which things would have fresh
shapes and colours, and be changed, or have other secrets, a world in
which the past would have little or no place, or survive, at any rate,
in no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance even of
joy having its bitterness and the memories of pleasure their pain.

It was the creation of such worlds as these that seemed to Dorian Gray
to be the true object, or amongst the true objects, of life; and in his
search for sensations that would be at once new and delightful, and
possess that element of strangeness that is so essential to romance, he
would often adopt certain modes of thought that he knew to be really
alien to his nature, abandon himself to their subtle influences, and
then, having, as it were, caught their colour and satisfied his
intellectual curiosity, leave them with that curious indifference that
is not incompatible with a real ardour of temperament, and that,
indeed, according to certain modern psychologists, is often a condition
of it.

It was rumoured of him once that he was about to join the Roman
Catholic communion, and certainly the Roman ritual had always a great
attraction for him.  The daily sacrifice, more awful really than all
the sacrifices of the antique world, stirred him as much by its superb
rejection of the evidence of the senses as by the primitive simplicity
of its elements and the eternal pathos of the human tragedy that it
sought to symbolize.  He loved to kneel down on the cold marble
pavement and watch the priest, in his stiff flowered dalmatic, slowly
and with white hands moving aside the veil of the tabernacle, or
raising aloft the jewelled, lantern-shaped monstrance with that pallid
wafer that at times, one would fain think, is indeed the "_panis
caelestis_," the bread of angels, or, robed in the garments of the
Passion of Christ, breaking the Host into the chalice and smiting his
breast for his sins.  The fuming censers that the grave boys, in their
lace and scarlet, tossed into the air like great gilt flowers had their
subtle fascination for him.  As he passed out, he used to look with
wonder at the black confessionals and long to sit in the dim shadow of
one of them and listen to men and women whispering through the worn
grating the true story of their lives.

But he never fell into the error of arresting his intellectual
development by any formal acceptance of creed or system, or of
mistaking, for a house in which to live, an inn that is but suitable
for the sojourn of a night, or for a few hours of a night in which
there are no stars and the moon is in travail.  Mysticism, with its
marvellous power of making common things strange to us, and the subtle
antinomianism that always seems to accompany it, moved him for a
season; and for a season he inclined to the materialistic doctrines of
the _Darwinismus_ movement in Germany, and found a curious pleasure in
tracing the thoughts and passions of men to some pearly cell in the
brain, or some white nerve in the body, delighting in the conception of
the absolute dependence of the spirit on certain physical conditions,
morbid or healthy, normal or diseased.  Yet, as has been said of him
before, no theory of life seemed to him to be of any importance
compared with life itself.  He felt keenly conscious of how barren all
intellectual speculation is when separated from action and experiment.
He knew that the senses, no less than the soul, have their spiritual
mysteries to reveal.

And so he would now study perfumes and the secrets of their
manufacture, distilling heavily scented oils and burning odorous gums
from the East.  He saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not
its counterpart in the sensuous life, and set himself to discover their
true relations, wondering what there was in frankincense that made one
mystical, and in ambergris that stirred one's passions, and in violets
that woke the memory of dead romances, and in musk that troubled the
brain, and in champak that stained the imagination; and seeking often
to elaborate a real psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several
influences of sweet-smelling roots and scented, pollen-laden flowers;
of aromatic balms and of dark and fragrant woods; of spikenard, that
sickens; of hovenia, that makes men mad; and of aloes, that are said to
be able to expel melancholy from the soul.

At another time he devoted himself entirely to music, and in a long
latticed room, with a vermilion-and-gold ceiling and walls of
olive-green lacquer, he used to give curious concerts in which mad
gipsies tore wild music from little zithers, or grave, yellow-shawled
Tunisians plucked at the strained strings of monstrous lutes, while
grinning Negroes beat monotonously upon copper drums and, crouching
upon scarlet mats, slim turbaned Indians blew through long pipes of
reed or brass and charmed--or feigned to charm--great hooded snakes and
horrible horned adders.  The harsh intervals and shrill discords of
barbaric music stirred him at times when Schubert's grace, and Chopin's
beautiful sorrows, and the mighty harmonies of Beethoven himself, fell
unheeded on his ear.  He collected together from all parts of the world
the strangest instruments that could be found, either in the tombs of
dead nations or among the few savage tribes that have survived contact
with Western civilizations, and loved to touch and try them.  He had
the mysterious _juruparis_ of the Rio Negro Indians, that women are not
allowed to look at and that even youths may not see till they have been
subjected to fasting and scourging, and the earthen jars of the
Peruvians that have the shrill cries of birds, and flutes of human
bones such as Alfonso de Ovalle heard in Chile, and the sonorous green
jaspers that are found near Cuzco and give forth a note of singular
sweetness.  He had painted gourds filled with pebbles that rattled when
they were shaken; the long _clarin_ of the Mexicans, into which the
performer does not blow, but through which he inhales the air; the
harsh _ture_ of the Amazon tribes, that is sounded by the sentinels who
sit all day long in high trees, and can be heard, it is said, at a
distance of three leagues; the _teponaztli_, that has two vibrating
tongues of wood and is beaten with sticks that are smeared with an
elastic gum obtained from the milky juice of plants; the _yotl_-bells of
the Aztecs, that are hung in clusters like grapes; and a huge
cylindrical drum, covered with the skins of great serpents, like the
one that Bernal Diaz saw when he went with Cortes into the Mexican
temple, and of whose doleful sound he has left us so vivid a
description.  The fantastic character of these instruments fascinated
him, and he felt a curious delight in the thought that art, like
Nature, has her monsters, things of bestial shape and with hideous
voices.  Yet, after some time, he wearied of them, and would sit in his
box at the opera, either alone or with Lord Henry, listening in rapt
pleasure to "Tannhauser" and seeing in the prelude to that great work
of art a presentation of the tragedy of his own soul.

On one occasion he took up the study of jewels, and appeared at a
costume ball as Anne de Joyeuse, Admiral of France, in a dress covered
with five hundred and sixty pearls.  This taste enthralled him for
years, and, indeed, may be said never to have left him.  He would often
spend a whole day settling and resettling in their cases the various
stones that he had collected, such as the olive-green chrysoberyl that
turns red by lamplight, the cymophane with its wirelike line of silver,
the pistachio-coloured peridot, rose-pink and wine-yellow topazes,
carbuncles of fiery scarlet with tremulous, four-rayed stars, flame-red
cinnamon-stones, orange and violet spinels, and amethysts with their
alternate layers of ruby and sapphire.  He loved the red gold of the
sunstone, and the moonstone's pearly whiteness, and the broken rainbow
of the milky opal.  He procured from Amsterdam three emeralds of
extraordinary size and richness of colour, and had a turquoise _de la
vieille roche_ that was the envy of all the connoisseurs.

He discovered wonderful stories, also, about jewels.  In Alphonso's
Clericalis Disciplina a serpent was mentioned with eyes of real
jacinth, and in the romantic history of Alexander, the Conqueror of
Emathia was said to have found in the vale of Jordan snakes "with
collars of real emeralds growing on their backs." There was a gem in
the brain of the dragon, Philostratus told us, and "by the exhibition
of golden letters and a scarlet robe" the monster could be thrown into
a magical sleep and slain.  According to the great alchemist, Pierre de
Boniface, the diamond rendered a man invisible, and the agate of India
made him eloquent.  The cornelian appeased anger, and the hyacinth
provoked sleep, and the amethyst drove away the fumes of wine.  The
garnet cast out demons, and the hydropicus deprived the moon of her
colour.  The selenite waxed and waned with the moon, and the meloceus,
that discovers thieves, could be affected only by the blood of kids.
Leonardus Camillus had seen a white stone taken from the brain of a
newly killed toad, that was a certain antidote against poison.  The
bezoar, that was found in the heart of the Arabian deer, was a charm
that could cure the plague.  In the nests of Arabian birds was the
aspilates, that, according to Democritus, kept the wearer from any
danger by fire.

The King of Ceilan rode through his city with a large ruby in his hand,
as the ceremony of his coronation.  The gates of the palace of John the
Priest were "made of sardius, with the horn of the horned snake
inwrought, so that no man might bring poison within." Over the gable
were "two golden apples, in which were two carbuncles," so that the
gold might shine by day and the carbuncles by night.  In Lodge's
strange romance 'A Margarite of America', it was stated that in the
chamber of the queen one could behold "all the chaste ladies of the
world, inchased out of silver, looking through fair mirrours of
chrysolites, carbuncles, sapphires, and greene emeraults." Marco Polo
had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-coloured pearls in the
mouths of the dead.  A sea-monster had been enamoured of the pearl that
the diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned
for seven moons over its loss.  When the Huns lured the king into the
great pit, he flung it away--Procopius tells the story--nor was it ever
found again, though the Emperor Anastasius offered five hundred-weight
of gold pieces for it.  The King of Malabar had shown to a certain
Venetian a rosary of three hundred and four pearls, one for every god
that he worshipped.

When the Duke de Valentinois, son of Alexander VI, visited Louis XII of
France, his horse was loaded with gold leaves, according to Brantome,
and his cap had double rows of rubies that threw out a great light.
Charles of England had ridden in stirrups hung with four hundred and
twenty-one diamonds.  Richard II had a coat, valued at thirty thousand
marks, which was covered with balas rubies.  Hall described Henry VIII,
on his way to the Tower previous to his coronation, as wearing "a
jacket of raised gold, the placard embroidered with diamonds and other
rich stones, and a great bauderike about his neck of large balasses."
The favourites of James I wore ear-rings of emeralds set in gold
filigrane.  Edward II gave to Piers Gaveston a suit of red-gold armour
studded with jacinths, a collar of gold roses set with
turquoise-stones, and a skull-cap _parseme_ with pearls.  Henry II wore
jewelled gloves reaching to the elbow, and had a hawk-glove sewn with
twelve rubies and fifty-two great orients.  The ducal hat of Charles
the Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy of his race, was hung with
pear-shaped pearls and studded with sapphires.

How exquisite life had once been!  How gorgeous in its pomp and
decoration!  Even to read of the luxury of the dead was wonderful.

Then he turned his attention to embroideries and to the tapestries that
performed the office of frescoes in the chill rooms of the northern
nations of Europe.  As he investigated the subject--and he always had
an extraordinary faculty of becoming absolutely absorbed for the moment
in whatever he took up--he was almost saddened by the reflection of the
ruin that time brought on beautiful and wonderful things.  He, at any
rate, had escaped that.  Summer followed summer, and the yellow
jonquils bloomed and died many times, and nights of horror repeated the
story of their shame, but he was unchanged.  No winter marred his face
or stained his flowerlike bloom.  How different it was with material
things!  Where had they passed to?  Where was the great crocus-coloured
robe, on which the gods fought against the giants, that had been worked
by brown girls for the pleasure of Athena?  Where the huge velarium
that Nero had stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, that Titan sail
of purple on which was represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a
chariot drawn by white, gilt-reined steeds?  He longed to see the
curious table-napkins wrought for the Priest of the Sun, on which were
displayed all the dainties and viands that could be wanted for a feast;
the mortuary cloth of King Chilperic, with its three hundred golden
bees; the fantastic robes that excited the indignation of the Bishop of
Pontus and were figured with "lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests,
rocks, hunters--all, in fact, that a painter can copy from nature"; and
the coat that Charles of Orleans once wore, on the sleeves of which
were embroidered the verses of a song beginning "_Madame, je suis tout
joyeux_," the musical accompaniment of the words being wrought in gold
thread, and each note, of square shape in those days, formed with four
pearls.  He read of the room that was prepared at the palace at Rheims
for the use of Queen Joan of Burgundy and was decorated with "thirteen
hundred and twenty-one parrots, made in broidery, and blazoned with the
king's arms, and five hundred and sixty-one butterflies, whose wings
were similarly ornamented with the arms of the queen, the whole worked
in gold."  Catherine de Medicis had a mourning-bed made for her of
black velvet powdered with crescents and suns.  Its curtains were of
damask, with leafy wreaths and garlands, figured upon a gold and silver
ground, and fringed along the edges with broideries of pearls, and it
stood in a room hung with rows of the queen's devices in cut black
velvet upon cloth of silver.  Louis XIV had gold embroidered caryatides
fifteen feet high in his apartment.  The state bed of Sobieski, King of
Poland, was made of Smyrna gold brocade embroidered in turquoises with
verses from the Koran.  Its supports were of silver gilt, beautifully
chased, and profusely set with enamelled and jewelled medallions.  It
had been taken from the Turkish camp before Vienna, and the standard of
Mohammed had stood beneath the tremulous gilt of its canopy.

And so, for a whole year, he sought to accumulate the most exquisite
specimens that he could find of textile and embroidered work, getting
the dainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought with gold-thread palmates and
stitched over with iridescent beetles' wings; the Dacca gauzes, that
from their transparency are known in the East as "woven air," and
"running water," and "evening dew"; strange figured cloths from Java;
elaborate yellow Chinese hangings; books bound in tawny satins or fair
blue silks and wrought with _fleurs-de-lis_, birds and images; veils of
_lacis_ worked in Hungary point; Sicilian brocades and stiff Spanish
velvets; Georgian work, with its gilt coins, and Japanese _Foukousas_,
with their green-toned golds and their marvellously plumaged birds.

He had a special passion, also, for ecclesiastical vestments, as indeed
he had for everything connected with the service of the Church.  In the
long cedar chests that lined the west gallery of his house, he had
stored away many rare and beautiful specimens of what is really the
raiment of the Bride of Christ, who must wear purple and jewels and
fine linen that she may hide the pallid macerated body that is worn by
the suffering that she seeks for and wounded by self-inflicted pain.
He possessed a gorgeous cope of crimson silk and gold-thread damask,
figured with a repeating pattern of golden pomegranates set in
six-petalled formal blossoms, beyond which on either side was the
pine-apple device wrought in seed-pearls. The orphreys were divided
into panels representing scenes from the life of the Virgin, and the
coronation of the Virgin was figured in coloured silks upon the hood.
This was Italian work of the fifteenth century.  Another cope was of
green velvet, embroidered with heart-shaped groups of acanthus-leaves,
from which spread long-stemmed white blossoms, the details of which
were picked out with silver thread and coloured crystals.  The morse
bore a seraph's head in gold-thread raised work.  The orphreys were
woven in a diaper of red and gold silk, and were starred with
medallions of many saints and martyrs, among whom was St. Sebastian.
He had chasubles, also, of amber-coloured silk, and blue silk and gold
brocade, and yellow silk damask and cloth of gold, figured with
representations of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ, and
embroidered with lions and peacocks and other emblems; dalmatics of
white satin and pink silk damask, decorated with tulips and dolphins
and _fleurs-de-lis_; altar frontals of crimson velvet and blue linen; and
many corporals, chalice-veils, and sudaria.  In the mystic offices to
which such things were put, there was something that quickened his
imagination.

For these treasures, and everything that he collected in his lovely
house, were to be to him means of forgetfulness, modes by which he
could escape, for a season, from the fear that seemed to him at times
to be almost too great to be borne.  Upon the walls of the lonely
locked room where he had spent so much of his boyhood, he had hung with
his own hands the terrible portrait whose changing features showed him
the real degradation of his life, and in front of it had draped the
purple-and-gold pall as a curtain.  For weeks he would not go there,
would forget the hideous painted thing, and get back his light heart,
his wonderful joyousness, his passionate absorption in mere existence.
Then, suddenly, some night he would creep out of the house, go down to
dreadful places near Blue Gate Fields, and stay there, day after day,
until he was driven away.  On his return he would sit in front of the
picture, sometimes loathing it and himself, but filled, at other
times, with that pride of individualism that is half the
fascination of sin, and smiling with secret pleasure at the misshapen
shadow that had to bear the burden that should have been his own.

After a few years he could not endure to be long out of England, and
gave up the villa that he had shared at Trouville with Lord Henry, as
well as the little white walled-in house at Algiers where they had more
than once spent the winter.  He hated to be separated from the picture
that was such a part of his life, and was also afraid that during his
absence some one might gain access to the room, in spite of the
elaborate bars that he had caused to be placed upon the door.

He was quite conscious that this would tell them nothing.  It was true
that the portrait still preserved, under all the foulness and ugliness
of the face, its marked likeness to himself; but what could they learn
from that?  He would laugh at any one who tried to taunt him.  He had
not painted it.  What was it to him how vile and full of shame it
looked?  Even if he told them, would they believe it?

Yet he was afraid.  Sometimes when he was down at his great house in
Nottinghamshire, entertaining the fashionable young men of his own rank
who were his chief companions, and astounding the county by the wanton
luxury and gorgeous splendour of his mode of life, he would suddenly
leave his guests and rush back to town to see that the door had not
been tampered with and that the picture was still there.  What if it
should be stolen?  The mere thought made him cold with horror.  Surely
the world would know his secret then.  Perhaps the world already
suspected it.

For, while he fascinated many, there were not a few who distrusted him.
He was very nearly blackballed at a West End club of which his birth
and social position fully entitled him to become a member, and it was
said that on one occasion, when he was brought by a friend into the
smoking-room of the Churchill, the Duke of Berwick and another
gentleman got up in a marked manner and went out.  Curious stories
became current about him after he had passed his twenty-fifth year.  It
was rumoured that he had been seen brawling with foreign sailors in a
low den in the distant parts of Whitechapel, and that he consorted with
thieves and coiners and knew the mysteries of their trade.  His
extraordinary absences became notorious, and, when he used to reappear
again in society, men would whisper to each other in corners, or pass
him with a sneer, or look at him with cold searching eyes, as though
they were determined to discover his secret.

Of such insolences and attempted slights he, of course, took no notice,
and in the opinion of most people his frank debonair manner, his
charming boyish smile, and the infinite grace of that wonderful youth
that seemed never to leave him, were in themselves a sufficient answer
to the calumnies, for so they termed them, that were circulated about
him.  It was remarked, however, that some of those who had been most
intimate with him appeared, after a time, to shun him.  Women who had
wildly adored him, and for his sake had braved all social censure and
set convention at defiance, were seen to grow pallid with shame or
horror if Dorian Gray entered the room.

Yet these whispered scandals only increased in the eyes of many his
strange and dangerous charm.  His great wealth was a certain element of
security.  Society--civilized society, at least--is never very ready to
believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and
fascinating.  It feels instinctively that manners are of more
importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability
is of much less value than the possession of a good _chef_.  And, after
all, it is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has
given one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private
life.  Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold _entrees_, as
Lord Henry remarked once, in a discussion on the subject, and there is
possibly a good deal to be said for his view.  For the canons of good
society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art.  Form is
absolutely essential to it.  It should have the dignity of a ceremony,
as well as its unreality, and should combine the insincere character of
a romantic play with the wit and beauty that make such plays delightful
to us.  Is insincerity such a terrible thing?  I think not.  It is
merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.

Such, at any rate, was Dorian Gray's opinion.  He used to wonder at the
shallow psychology of those who conceive the ego in man as a thing
simple, permanent, reliable, and of one essence.  To him, man was a
being with myriad lives and myriad sensations, a complex multiform
creature that bore within itself strange legacies of thought and
passion, and whose very flesh was tainted with the monstrous maladies
of the dead.  He loved to stroll through the gaunt cold picture-gallery
of his country house and look at the various portraits of those whose
blood flowed in his veins.  Here was Philip Herbert, described by
Francis Osborne, in his Memoires on the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and
King James, as one who was "caressed by the Court for his handsome
face, which kept him not long company."  Was it young Herbert's life
that he sometimes led?  Had some strange poisonous germ crept from body
to body till it had reached his own?  Was it some dim sense of that
ruined grace that had made him so suddenly, and almost without cause,
give utterance, in Basil Hallward's studio, to the mad prayer that had
so changed his life?  Here, in gold-embroidered red doublet, jewelled
surcoat, and gilt-edged ruff and wristbands, stood Sir Anthony Sherard,
with his silver-and-black armour piled at his feet.  What had this
man's legacy been?  Had the lover of Giovanna of Naples bequeathed him
some inheritance of sin and shame?  Were his own actions merely the
dreams that the dead man had not dared to realize?  Here, from the
fading canvas, smiled Lady Elizabeth Devereux, in her gauze hood, pearl
stomacher, and pink slashed sleeves.  A flower was in her right hand,
and her left clasped an enamelled collar of white and damask roses.  On
a table by her side lay a mandolin and an apple.  There were large
green rosettes upon her little pointed shoes.  He knew her life, and
the strange stories that were told about her lovers.  Had he something
of her temperament in him?  These oval, heavy-lidded eyes seemed to
look curiously at him.  What of George Willoughby, with his powdered
hair and fantastic patches?  How evil he looked!  The face was
saturnine and swarthy, and the sensual lips seemed to be twisted with
disdain.  Delicate lace ruffles fell over the lean yellow hands that
were so overladen with rings.  He had been a macaroni of the eighteenth
century, and the friend, in his youth, of Lord Ferrars.  What of the
second Lord Beckenham, the companion of the Prince Regent in his
wildest days, and one of the witnesses at the secret marriage with Mrs.
Fitzherbert?  How proud and handsome he was, with his chestnut curls
and insolent pose!  What passions had he bequeathed?  The world had
looked upon him as infamous.  He had led the orgies at Carlton House.
The star of the Garter glittered upon his breast.  Beside him hung the
portrait of his wife, a pallid, thin-lipped woman in black.  Her blood,
also, stirred within him.  How curious it all seemed!  And his mother
with her Lady Hamilton face and her moist, wine-dashed lips--he knew
what he had got from her.  He had got from her his beauty, and his
passion for the beauty of others.  She laughed at him in her loose
Bacchante dress.  There were vine leaves in her hair.  The purple
spilled from the cup she was holding.  The carnations of the painting
had withered, but the eyes were still wonderful in their depth and
brilliancy of colour.  They seemed to follow him wherever he went.

Yet one had ancestors in literature as well as in one's own race,
nearer perhaps in type and temperament, many of them, and certainly
with an influence of which one was more absolutely conscious.  There
were times when it appeared to Dorian Gray that the whole of history
was merely the record of his own life, not as he had lived it in act
and circumstance, but as his imagination had created it for him, as it
had been in his brain and in his passions.  He felt that he had known
them all, those strange terrible figures that had passed across the
stage of the world and made sin so marvellous and evil so full of
subtlety.  It seemed to him that in some mysterious way their lives had
been his own.

The hero of the wonderful novel that had so influenced his life had
himself known this curious fancy.  In the seventh chapter he tells how,
crowned with laurel, lest lightning might strike him, he had sat, as
Tiberius, in a garden at Capri, reading the shameful books of
Elephantis, while dwarfs and peacocks strutted round him and the
flute-player mocked the swinger of the censer; and, as Caligula, had
caroused with the green-shirted jockeys in their stables and supped in
an ivory manger with a jewel-frontleted horse; and, as Domitian, had
wandered through a corridor lined with marble mirrors, looking round
with haggard eyes for the reflection of the dagger that was to end his
days, and sick with that ennui, that terrible _taedium vitae_, that comes
on those to whom life denies nothing; and had peered through a clear
emerald at the red shambles of the circus and then, in a litter of
pearl and purple drawn by silver-shod mules, been carried through the
Street of Pomegranates to a House of Gold and heard men cry on Nero
Caesar as he passed by; and, as Elagabalus, had painted his face with
colours, and plied the distaff among the women, and brought the Moon
from Carthage and given her in mystic marriage to the Sun.

Over and over again Dorian used to read this fantastic chapter, and the
two chapters immediately following, in which, as in some curious
tapestries or cunningly wrought enamels, were pictured the awful and
beautiful forms of those whom vice and blood and weariness had made
monstrous or mad:  Filippo, Duke of Milan, who slew his wife and
painted her lips with a scarlet poison that her lover might suck death
from the dead thing he fondled; Pietro Barbi, the Venetian, known as
Paul the Second, who sought in his vanity to assume the title of
Formosus, and whose tiara, valued at two hundred thousand florins, was
bought at the price of a terrible sin; Gian Maria Visconti, who used
hounds to chase living men and whose murdered body was covered with
roses by a harlot who had loved him; the Borgia on his white horse,
with Fratricide riding beside him and his mantle stained with the blood
of Perotto; Pietro Riario, the young Cardinal Archbishop of Florence,
child and minion of Sixtus IV, whose beauty was equalled only by his
debauchery, and who received Leonora of Aragon in a pavilion of white
and crimson silk, filled with nymphs and centaurs, and gilded a boy
that he might serve at the feast as Ganymede or Hylas; Ezzelin, whose
melancholy could be cured only by the spectacle of death, and who had a
passion for red blood, as other men have for red wine--the son of the
Fiend, as was reported, and one who had cheated his father at dice when
gambling with him for his own soul; Giambattista Cibo, who in mockery
took the name of Innocent and into whose torpid veins the blood of
three lads was infused by a Jewish doctor; Sigismondo Malatesta, the
lover of Isotta and the lord of Rimini, whose effigy was burned at Rome
as the enemy of God and man, who strangled Polyssena with a napkin, and
gave poison to Ginevra d'Este in a cup of emerald, and in honour of a
shameful passion built a pagan church for Christian worship; Charles
VI, who had so wildly adored his brother's wife that a leper had warned
him of the insanity that was coming on him, and who, when his brain had
sickened and grown strange, could only be soothed by Saracen cards
painted with the images of love and death and madness; and, in his
trimmed jerkin and jewelled cap and acanthuslike curls, Grifonetto
Baglioni, who slew Astorre with his bride, and Simonetto with his page,
and whose comeliness was such that, as he lay dying in the yellow
piazza of Perugia, those who had hated him could not choose but weep,
and Atalanta, who had cursed him, blessed him.

There was a horrible fascination in them all.  He saw them at night,
and they troubled his imagination in the day.  The Renaissance knew of
strange manners of poisoning--poisoning by a helmet and a lighted
torch, by an embroidered glove and a jewelled fan, by a gilded pomander
and by an amber chain.  Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book.  There
were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he
could realize his conception of the beautiful.



CHAPTER 12

It was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eighth
birthday, as he often remembered afterwards.

He was walking home about eleven o'clock from Lord Henry's, where he
had been dining, and was wrapped in heavy furs, as the night was cold
and foggy.  At the corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street,
a man passed him in the mist, walking very fast and with the collar of
his grey ulster turned up.  He had a bag in his hand.  Dorian
recognized him.  It was Basil Hallward.  A strange sense of fear, for
which he could not account, came over him.  He made no sign of
recognition and went on quickly in the direction of his own house.

But Hallward had seen him.  Dorian heard him first stopping on the
pavement and then hurrying after him.  In a few moments, his hand was
on his arm.

"Dorian!  What an extraordinary piece of luck!  I have been waiting for
you in your library ever since nine o'clock. Finally I took pity on
your tired servant and told him to go to bed, as he let me out.  I am
off to Paris by the midnight train, and I particularly wanted to see
you before I left.  I thought it was you, or rather your fur coat, as
you passed me.  But I wasn't quite sure.  Didn't you recognize me?"

"In this fog, my dear Basil?  Why, I can't even recognize Grosvenor
Square.  I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I don't feel
at all certain about it.  I am sorry you are going away, as I have not
seen you for ages.  But I suppose you will be back soon?"

"No:  I am going to be out of England for six months.  I intend to take
a studio in Paris and shut myself up till I have finished a great
picture I have in my head.  However, it wasn't about myself I wanted to
talk.  Here we are at your door.  Let me come in for a moment.  I have
something to say to you."

"I shall be charmed.  But won't you miss your train?" said Dorian Gray
languidly as he passed up the steps and opened the door with his
latch-key.

The lamplight struggled out through the fog, and Hallward looked at his
watch.  "I have heaps of time," he answered.  "The train doesn't go
till twelve-fifteen, and it is only just eleven.  In fact, I was on my
way to the club to look for you, when I met you.  You see, I shan't
have any delay about luggage, as I have sent on my heavy things.  All I
have with me is in this bag, and I can easily get to Victoria in twenty
minutes."

Dorian looked at him and smiled.  "What a way for a fashionable painter
to travel!  A Gladstone bag and an ulster!  Come in, or the fog will
get into the house.  And mind you don't talk about anything serious.
Nothing is serious nowadays.  At least nothing should be."

Hallward shook his head, as he entered, and followed Dorian into the
library.  There was a bright wood fire blazing in the large open
hearth.  The lamps were lit, and an open Dutch silver spirit-case
stood, with some siphons of soda-water and large cut-glass tumblers, on
a little marqueterie table.

"You see your servant made me quite at home, Dorian.  He gave me
everything I wanted, including your best gold-tipped cigarettes.  He is
a most hospitable creature.  I like him much better than the Frenchman
you used to have.  What has become of the Frenchman, by the bye?"

Dorian shrugged his shoulders.  "I believe he married Lady Radley's
maid, and has established her in Paris as an English dressmaker.
Anglomania is very fashionable over there now, I hear.  It seems silly
of the French, doesn't it?  But--do you know?--he was not at all a bad
servant.  I never liked him, but I had nothing to complain about.  One
often imagines things that are quite absurd.  He was really very
devoted to me and seemed quite sorry when he went away.  Have another
brandy-and-soda? Or would you like hock-and-seltzer? I always take
hock-and-seltzer myself.  There is sure to be some in the next room."

"Thanks, I won't have anything more," said the painter, taking his cap
and coat off and throwing them on the bag that he had placed in the
corner.  "And now, my dear fellow, I want to speak to you seriously.
Don't frown like that.  You make it so much more difficult for me."

"What is it all about?" cried Dorian in his petulant way, flinging
himself down on the sofa.  "I hope it is not about myself.  I am tired
of myself to-night. I should like to be somebody else."

"It is about yourself," answered Hallward in his grave deep voice, "and
I must say it to you.  I shall only keep you half an hour."

Dorian sighed and lit a cigarette.  "Half an hour!" he murmured.

"It is not much to ask of you, Dorian, and it is entirely for your own
sake that I am speaking.  I think it right that you should know that
the most dreadful things are being said against you in London."

"I don't wish to know anything about them.  I love scandals about other
people, but scandals about myself don't interest me.  They have not got
the charm of novelty."

"They must interest you, Dorian.  Every gentleman is interested in his
good name.  You don't want people to talk of you as something vile and
degraded.  Of course, you have your position, and your wealth, and all
that kind of thing.  But position and wealth are not everything.  Mind
you, I don't believe these rumours at all.  At least, I can't believe
them when I see you.  Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's
face.  It cannot be concealed.  People talk sometimes of secret vices.
There are no such things.  If a wretched man has a vice, it shows
itself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the
moulding of his hands even.  Somebody--I won't mention his name, but
you know him--came to me last year to have his portrait done.  I had
never seen him before, and had never heard anything about him at the
time, though I have heard a good deal since.  He offered an extravagant
price.  I refused him.  There was something in the shape of his fingers
that I hated.  I know now that I was quite right in what I fancied
about him.  His life is dreadful.  But you, Dorian, with your pure,
bright, innocent face, and your marvellous untroubled youth--I can't
believe anything against you.  And yet I see you very seldom, and you
never come down to the studio now, and when I am away from you, and I
hear all these hideous things that people are whispering about you, I
don't know what to say.  Why is it, Dorian, that a man like the Duke of
Berwick leaves the room of a club when you enter it?  Why is it that so
many gentlemen in London will neither go to your house or invite you to
theirs?  You used to be a friend of Lord Staveley.  I met him at dinner
last week.  Your name happened to come up in conversation, in
connection with the miniatures you have lent to the exhibition at the
Dudley.  Staveley curled his lip and said that you might have the most
artistic tastes, but that you were a man whom no pure-minded girl
should be allowed to know, and whom no chaste woman should sit in the
same room with.  I reminded him that I was a friend of yours, and asked
him what he meant.  He told me.  He told me right out before everybody.
It was horrible!  Why is your friendship so fatal to young men?  There
was that wretched boy in the Guards who committed suicide.  You were
his great friend.  There was Sir Henry Ashton, who had to leave England
with a tarnished name.  You and he were inseparable.  What about Adrian
Singleton and his dreadful end?  What about Lord Kent's only son and
his career?  I met his father yesterday in St. James's Street.  He
seemed broken with shame and sorrow.  What about the young Duke of
Perth?  What sort of life has he got now?  What gentleman would
associate with him?"

"Stop, Basil.  You are talking about things of which you know nothing,"
said Dorian Gray, biting his lip, and with a note of infinite contempt
in his voice.  "You ask me why Berwick leaves a room when I enter it.
It is because I know everything about his life, not because he knows
anything about mine.  With such blood as he has in his veins, how could
his record be clean?  You ask me about Henry Ashton and young Perth.
Did I teach the one his vices, and the other his debauchery?  If Kent's
silly son takes his wife from the streets, what is that to me?  If
Adrian Singleton writes his friend's name across a bill, am I his
keeper?  I know how people chatter in England.  The middle classes air
their moral prejudices over their gross dinner-tables, and whisper
about what they call the profligacies of their betters in order to try
and pretend that they are in smart society and on intimate terms with
the people they slander.  In this country, it is enough for a man to
have distinction and brains for every common tongue to wag against him.
And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead
themselves?  My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land
of the hypocrite."

"Dorian," cried Hallward, "that is not the question.  England is bad
enough I know, and English society is all wrong.  That is the reason
why I want you to be fine.  You have not been fine.  One has a right to
judge of a man by the effect he has over his friends.  Yours seem to
lose all sense of honour, of goodness, of purity.  You have filled them
with a madness for pleasure.  They have gone down into the depths.  You
led them there.  Yes:  you led them there, and yet you can smile, as
you are smiling now.  And there is worse behind.  I know you and Harry
are inseparable.  Surely for that reason, if for none other, you should
not have made his sister's name a by-word."

"Take care, Basil.  You go too far."

"I must speak, and you must listen.  You shall listen.  When you met
Lady Gwendolen, not a breath of scandal had ever touched her.  Is there
a single decent woman in London now who would drive with her in the
park?  Why, even her children are not allowed to live with her.  Then
there are other stories--stories that you have been seen creeping at
dawn out of dreadful houses and slinking in disguise into the foulest
dens in London.  Are they true?  Can they be true?  When I first heard
them, I laughed.  I hear them now, and they make me shudder.  What
about your country-house and the life that is led there?  Dorian, you
don't know what is said about you.  I won't tell you that I don't want
to preach to you.  I remember Harry saying once that every man who
turned himself into an amateur curate for the moment always began by
saying that, and then proceeded to break his word.  I do want to preach
to you.  I want you to lead such a life as will make the world respect
you.  I want you to have a clean name and a fair record.  I want you to
get rid of the dreadful people you associate with.  Don't shrug your
shoulders like that.  Don't be so indifferent.  You have a wonderful
influence.  Let it be for good, not for evil.  They say that you
corrupt every one with whom you become intimate, and that it is quite
sufficient for you to enter a house for shame of some kind to follow
after.  I don't know whether it is so or not.  How should I know?  But
it is said of you.  I am told things that it seems impossible to doubt.
Lord Gloucester was one of my greatest friends at Oxford.  He showed me
a letter that his wife had written to him when she was dying alone in
her villa at Mentone.  Your name was implicated in the most terrible
confession I ever read.  I told him that it was absurd--that I knew you
thoroughly and that you were incapable of anything of the kind.  Know
you?  I wonder do I know you?  Before I could answer that, I should
have to see your soul."

"To see my soul!" muttered Dorian Gray, starting up from the sofa and
turning almost white from fear.

"Yes," answered Hallward gravely, and with deep-toned sorrow in his
voice, "to see your soul.  But only God can do that."

A bitter laugh of mockery broke from the lips of the younger man.  "You
shall see it yourself, to-night!" he cried, seizing a lamp from the
table.  "Come:  it is your own handiwork.  Why shouldn't you look at
it?  You can tell the world all about it afterwards, if you choose.
Nobody would believe you.  If they did believe you, they would like me
all the better for it.  I know the age better than you do, though you
will prate about it so tediously.  Come, I tell you.  You have
chattered enough about corruption.  Now you shall look on it face to
face."

There was the madness of pride in every word he uttered.  He stamped
his foot upon the ground in his boyish insolent manner.  He felt a
terrible joy at the thought that some one else was to share his secret,
and that the man who had painted the portrait that was the origin of
all his shame was to be burdened for the rest of his life with the
hideous memory of what he had done.

"Yes," he continued, coming closer to him and looking steadfastly into
his stern eyes, "I shall show you my soul.  You shall see the thing
that you fancy only God can see."

Hallward started back.  "This is blasphemy, Dorian!" he cried.  "You
must not say things like that.  They are horrible, and they don't mean
anything."

"You think so?"  He laughed again.

"I know so.  As for what I said to you to-night, I said it for your
good.  You know I have been always a stanch friend to you."

"Don't touch me.  Finish what you have to say."

A twisted flash of pain shot across the painter's face.  He paused for
a moment, and a wild feeling of pity came over him.  After all, what
right had he to pry into the life of Dorian Gray?  If he had done a
tithe of what was rumoured about him, how much he must have suffered!
Then he straightened himself up, and walked over to the fire-place, and
stood there, looking at the burning logs with their frostlike ashes and
their throbbing cores of flame.

"I am waiting, Basil," said the young man in a hard clear voice.

He turned round.  "What I have to say is this," he cried.  "You must
give me some answer to these horrible charges that are made against
you.  If you tell me that they are absolutely untrue from beginning to
end, I shall believe you.  Deny them, Dorian, deny them!  Can't you see
what I am going through?  My God! don't tell me that you are bad, and
corrupt, and shameful."

Dorian Gray smiled.  There was a curl of contempt in his lips.  "Come
upstairs, Basil," he said quietly.  "I keep a diary of my life from day
to day, and it never leaves the room in which it is written.  I shall
show it to you if you come with me."

"I shall come with you, Dorian, if you wish it.  I see I have missed my
train.  That makes no matter.  I can go to-morrow. But don't ask me to
read anything to-night. All I want is a plain answer to my question."

"That shall be given to you upstairs.  I could not give it here.  You
will not have to read long."



CHAPTER 13

He passed out of the room and began the ascent, Basil Hallward
following close behind.  They walked softly, as men do instinctively at
night.  The lamp cast fantastic shadows on the wall and staircase.  A
rising wind made some of the windows rattle.

When they reached the top landing, Dorian set the lamp down on the
floor, and taking out the key, turned it in the lock.  "You insist on
knowing, Basil?" he asked in a low voice.

"Yes."

"I am delighted," he answered, smiling.  Then he added, somewhat
harshly, "You are the one man in the world who is entitled to know
everything about me.  You have had more to do with my life than you
think"; and, taking up the lamp, he opened the door and went in.  A
cold current of air passed them, and the light shot up for a moment in
a flame of murky orange.  He shuddered.  "Shut the door behind you," he
whispered, as he placed the lamp on the table.

Hallward glanced round him with a puzzled expression.  The room looked
as if it had not been lived in for years.  A faded Flemish tapestry, a
curtained picture, an old Italian _cassone_, and an almost empty
book-case--that was all that it seemed to contain, besides a chair and
a table.  As Dorian Gray was lighting a half-burned candle that was
standing on the mantelshelf, he saw that the whole place was covered
with dust and that the carpet was in holes.  A mouse ran scuffling
behind the wainscoting.  There was a damp odour of mildew.

"So you think that it is only God who sees the soul, Basil?  Draw that
curtain back, and you will see mine."

The voice that spoke was cold and cruel.  "You are mad, Dorian, or
playing a part," muttered Hallward, frowning.

"You won't? Then I must do it myself," said the young man, and he tore
the curtain from its rod and flung it on the ground.

An exclamation of horror broke from the painter's lips as he saw in the
dim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him.  There was
something in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing.
Good heavens! it was Dorian Gray's own face that he was looking at!
The horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that
marvellous beauty.  There was still some gold in the thinning hair and
some scarlet on the sensual mouth.  The sodden eyes had kept something
of the loveliness of their blue, the noble curves had not yet
completely passed away from chiselled nostrils and from plastic throat.
Yes, it was Dorian himself.  But who had done it?  He seemed to
recognize his own brushwork, and the frame was his own design.  The
idea was monstrous, yet he felt afraid.  He seized the lighted candle,
and held it to the picture.  In the left-hand corner was his own name,
traced in long letters of bright vermilion.

It was some foul parody, some infamous ignoble satire.  He had never
done that.  Still, it was his own picture.  He knew it, and he felt as
if his blood had changed in a moment from fire to sluggish ice.  His
own picture!  What did it mean?  Why had it altered?  He turned and
looked at Dorian Gray with the eyes of a sick man.  His mouth twitched,
and his parched tongue seemed unable to articulate.  He passed his hand
across his forehead.  It was dank with clammy sweat.

The young man was leaning against the mantelshelf, watching him with
that strange expression that one sees on the faces of those who are
absorbed in a play when some great artist is acting.  There was neither
real sorrow in it nor real joy.  There was simply the passion of the
spectator, with perhaps a flicker of triumph in his eyes.  He had taken
the flower out of his coat, and was smelling it, or pretending to do so.

"What does this mean?" cried Hallward, at last.  His own voice sounded
shrill and curious in his ears.

"Years ago, when I was a boy," said Dorian Gray, crushing the flower in
his hand, "you met me, flattered me, and taught me to be vain of my
good looks.  One day you introduced me to a friend of yours, who
explained to me the wonder of youth, and you finished a portrait of me
that revealed to me the wonder of beauty.  In a mad moment that, even
now, I don't know whether I regret or not, I made a wish, perhaps you
would call it a prayer...."

"I remember it!  Oh, how well I remember it!  No! the thing is
impossible.  The room is damp.  Mildew has got into the canvas.  The
paints I used had some wretched mineral poison in them.  I tell you the
thing is impossible."

"Ah, what is impossible?" murmured the young man, going over to the
window and leaning his forehead against the cold, mist-stained glass.

"You told me you had destroyed it."

"I was wrong.  It has destroyed me."

"I don't believe it is my picture."

"Can't you see your ideal in it?" said Dorian bitterly.

"My ideal, as you call it..."

"As you called it."

"There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful.  You were to me such
an ideal as I shall never meet again.  This is the face of a satyr."

"It is the face of my soul."

"Christ! what a thing I must have worshipped!  It has the eyes of a
devil."

"Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil," cried Dorian with a
wild gesture of despair.

Hallward turned again to the portrait and gazed at it.  "My God!  If it
is true," he exclaimed, "and this is what you have done with your life,
why, you must be worse even than those who talk against you fancy you
to be!" He held the light up again to the canvas and examined it.  The
surface seemed to be quite undisturbed and as he had left it.  It was
from within, apparently, that the foulness and horror had come.
Through some strange quickening of inner life the leprosies of sin were
slowly eating the thing away.  The rotting of a corpse in a watery
grave was not so fearful.

His hand shook, and the candle fell from its socket on the floor and
lay there sputtering.  He placed his foot on it and put it out.  Then
he flung himself into the rickety chair that was standing by the table
and buried his face in his hands.

"Good God, Dorian, what a lesson!  What an awful lesson!" There was no
answer, but he could hear the young man sobbing at the window.  "Pray,
Dorian, pray," he murmured.  "What is it that one was taught to say in
one's boyhood?  'Lead us not into temptation.  Forgive us our sins.
Wash away our iniquities.'  Let us say that together.  The prayer of
your pride has been answered.  The prayer of your repentance will be
answered also.  I worshipped you too much.  I am punished for it.  You
worshipped yourself too much.  We are both punished."

Dorian Gray turned slowly around and looked at him with tear-dimmed
eyes.  "It is too late, Basil," he faltered.

"It is never too late, Dorian.  Let us kneel down and try if we cannot
remember a prayer.  Isn't there a verse somewhere, 'Though your sins be
as scarlet, yet I will make them as white as snow'?"

"Those words mean nothing to me now."

"Hush!  Don't say that.  You have done enough evil in your life.  My
God!  Don't you see that accursed thing leering at us?"

Dorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly an uncontrollable
feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him, as though it had
been suggested to him by the image on the canvas, whispered into his
ear by those grinning lips.  The mad passions of a hunted animal
stirred within him, and he loathed the man who was seated at the table,
more than in his whole life he had ever loathed anything.  He glanced
wildly around.  Something glimmered on the top of the painted chest
that faced him.  His eye fell on it.  He knew what it was.  It was a
knife that he had brought up, some days before, to cut a piece of cord,
and had forgotten to take away with him.  He moved slowly towards it,
passing Hallward as he did so.  As soon as he got behind him, he seized
it and turned round.  Hallward stirred in his chair as if he was going
to rise.  He rushed at him and dug the knife into the great vein that
is behind the ear, crushing the man's head down on the table and
stabbing again and again.

There was a stifled groan and the horrible sound of some one choking
with blood.  Three times the outstretched arms shot up convulsively,
waving grotesque, stiff-fingered hands in the air.  He stabbed him
twice more, but the man did not move.  Something began to trickle on
the floor.  He waited for a moment, still pressing the head down.  Then
he threw the knife on the table, and listened.

He could hear nothing, but the drip, drip on the threadbare carpet.  He
opened the door and went out on the landing.  The house was absolutely
quiet.  No one was about.  For a few seconds he stood bending over the
balustrade and peering down into the black seething well of darkness.
Then he took out the key and returned to the room, locking himself in
as he did so.

The thing was still seated in the chair, straining over the table with
bowed head, and humped back, and long fantastic arms.  Had it not been
for the red jagged tear in the neck and the clotted black pool that was
slowly widening on the table, one would have said that the man was
simply asleep.

How quickly it had all been done!  He felt strangely calm, and walking
over to the window, opened it and stepped out on the balcony.  The wind
had blown the fog away, and the sky was like a monstrous peacock's
tail, starred with myriads of golden eyes.  He looked down and saw the
policeman going his rounds and flashing the long beam of his lantern on
the doors of the silent houses.  The crimson spot of a prowling hansom
gleamed at the corner and then vanished.  A woman in a fluttering shawl
was creeping slowly by the railings, staggering as she went.  Now and
then she stopped and peered back.  Once, she began to sing in a hoarse
voice.  The policeman strolled over and said something to her.  She
stumbled away, laughing.  A bitter blast swept across the square.  The
gas-lamps flickered and became blue, and the leafless trees shook their
black iron branches to and fro.  He shivered and went back, closing the
window behind him.

Having reached the door, he turned the key and opened it.  He did not
even glance at the murdered man.  He felt that the secret of the whole
thing was not to realize the situation.  The friend who had painted the
fatal portrait to which all his misery had been due had gone out of his
life.  That was enough.

Then he remembered the lamp.  It was a rather curious one of Moorish
workmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques of burnished
steel, and studded with coarse turquoises.  Perhaps it might be missed
by his servant, and questions would be asked.  He hesitated for a
moment, then he turned back and took it from the table.  He could not
help seeing the dead thing.  How still it was!  How horribly white the
long hands looked!  It was like a dreadful wax image.

Having locked the door behind him, he crept quietly downstairs.  The
woodwork creaked and seemed to cry out as if in pain.  He stopped
several times and waited.  No:  everything was still.  It was merely
the sound of his own footsteps.

When he reached the library, he saw the bag and coat in the corner.
They must be hidden away somewhere.  He unlocked a secret press that
was in the wainscoting, a press in which he kept his own curious
disguises, and put them into it.  He could easily burn them afterwards.
Then he pulled out his watch.  It was twenty minutes to two.

He sat down and began to think.  Every year--every month, almost--men
were strangled in England for what he had done.  There had been a
madness of murder in the air.  Some red star had come too close to the
earth.... And yet, what evidence was there against him?  Basil Hallward
had left the house at eleven.  No one had seen him come in again.  Most
of the servants were at Selby Royal.  His valet had gone to bed....
Paris!  Yes.  It was to Paris that Basil had gone, and by the midnight
train, as he had intended.  With his curious reserved habits, it would
be months before any suspicions would be roused.  Months!  Everything
could be destroyed long before then.

A sudden thought struck him.  He put on his fur coat and hat and went
out into the hall.  There he paused, hearing the slow heavy tread of
the policeman on the pavement outside and seeing the flash of the
bull's-eye reflected in the window.  He waited and held his breath.

After a few moments he drew back the latch and slipped out, shutting
the door very gently behind him.  Then he began ringing the bell.  In
about five minutes his valet appeared, half-dressed and looking very
drowsy.

"I am sorry to have had to wake you up, Francis," he said, stepping in;
"but I had forgotten my latch-key. What time is it?"

"Ten minutes past two, sir," answered the man, looking at the clock and
blinking.

"Ten minutes past two?  How horribly late!  You must wake me at nine
to-morrow. I have some work to do."

"All right, sir."

"Did any one call this evening?"

"Mr. Hallward, sir.  He stayed here till eleven, and then he went away
to catch his train."

"Oh!  I am sorry I didn't see him.  Did he leave any message?"

"No, sir, except that he would write to you from Paris, if he did not
find you at the club."

"That will do, Francis.  Don't forget to call me at nine to-morrow."

"No, sir."

The man shambled down the passage in his slippers.

Dorian Gray threw his hat and coat upon the table and passed into the
library.  For a quarter of an hour he walked up and down the room,
biting his lip and thinking.  Then he took down the Blue Book from one
of the shelves and began to turn over the leaves.  "Alan Campbell, 152,
Hertford Street, Mayfair."  Yes; that was the man he wanted.



CHAPTER 14

At nine o'clock the next morning his servant came in with a cup of
chocolate on a tray and opened the shutters.  Dorian was sleeping quite
peacefully, lying on his right side, with one hand underneath his
cheek.  He looked like a boy who had been tired out with play, or study.

The man had to touch him twice on the shoulder before he woke, and as
he opened his eyes a faint smile passed across his lips, as though he
had been lost in some delightful dream.  Yet he had not dreamed at all.
His night had been untroubled by any images of pleasure or of pain.
But youth smiles without any reason.  It is one of its chiefest charms.

He turned round, and leaning upon his elbow, began to sip his
chocolate.  The mellow November sun came streaming into the room.  The
sky was bright, and there was a genial warmth in the air.  It was
almost like a morning in May.

Gradually the events of the preceding night crept with silent,
blood-stained feet into his brain and reconstructed themselves there
with terrible distinctness.  He winced at the memory of all that he had
suffered, and for a moment the same curious feeling of loathing for
Basil Hallward that had made him kill him as he sat in the chair came
back to him, and he grew cold with passion.  The dead man was still
sitting there, too, and in the sunlight now.  How horrible that was!
Such hideous things were for the darkness, not for the day.

He felt that if he brooded on what he had gone through he would sicken
or grow mad.  There were sins whose fascination was more in the memory
than in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified the pride
more than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quickened sense of
joy, greater than any joy they brought, or could ever bring, to the
senses.  But this was not one of them.  It was a thing to be driven out
of the mind, to be drugged with poppies, to be strangled lest it might
strangle one itself.

When the half-hour struck, he passed his hand across his forehead, and
then got up hastily and dressed himself with even more than his usual
care, giving a good deal of attention to the choice of his necktie and
scarf-pin and changing his rings more than once.  He spent a long time
also over breakfast, tasting the various dishes, talking to his valet
about some new liveries that he was thinking of getting made for the
servants at Selby, and going through his correspondence.  At some of
the letters, he smiled.  Three of them bored him.  One he read several
times over and then tore up with a slight look of annoyance in his
face.  "That awful thing, a woman's memory!" as Lord Henry had once
said.

After he had drunk his cup of black coffee, he wiped his lips slowly
with a napkin, motioned to his servant to wait, and going over to the
table, sat down and wrote two letters.  One he put in his pocket, the
other he handed to the valet.

"Take this round to 152, Hertford Street, Francis, and if Mr. Campbell
is out of town, get his address."

As soon as he was alone, he lit a cigarette and began sketching upon a
piece of paper, drawing first flowers and bits of architecture, and
then human faces.  Suddenly he remarked that every face that he drew
seemed to have a fantastic likeness to Basil Hallward.  He frowned, and
getting up, went over to the book-case and took out a volume at hazard.
He was determined that he would not think about what had happened until
it became absolutely necessary that he should do so.

When he had stretched himself on the sofa, he looked at the title-page
of the book.  It was Gautier's Emaux et Camees, Charpentier's
Japanese-paper edition, with the Jacquemart etching.  The binding was
of citron-green leather, with a design of gilt trellis-work and dotted
pomegranates.  It had been given to him by Adrian Singleton.  As he
turned over the pages, his eye fell on the poem about the hand of
Lacenaire, the cold yellow hand "_du supplice encore mal lavee_," with
its downy red hairs and its "_doigts de faune_."  He glanced at his own
white taper fingers, shuddering slightly in spite of himself, and
passed on, till he came to those lovely stanzas upon Venice:

     Sur une gamme chromatique,
       Le sein de peries ruisselant,
     La Venus de l'Adriatique
       Sort de l'eau son corps rose et blanc.

     Les domes, sur l'azur des ondes
       Suivant la phrase au pur contour,
     S'enflent comme des gorges rondes
       Que souleve un soupir d'amour.

     L'esquif aborde et me depose,
       Jetant son amarre au pilier,
     Devant une facade rose,
       Sur le marbre d'un escalier.


How exquisite they were!  As one read them, one seemed to be floating
down the green water-ways of the pink and pearl city, seated in a black
gondola with silver prow and trailing curtains.  The mere lines looked
to him like those straight lines of turquoise-blue that follow one as
one pushes out to the Lido.  The sudden flashes of colour reminded him
of the gleam of the opal-and-iris-throated birds that flutter round the
tall honeycombed Campanile, or stalk, with such stately grace, through
the dim, dust-stained arcades.  Leaning back with half-closed eyes, he
kept saying over and over to himself:

     "Devant une facade rose,
        Sur le marbre d'un escalier."

The whole of Venice was in those two lines.  He remembered the autumn
that he had passed there, and a wonderful love that had stirred him to
mad delightful follies.  There was romance in every place.  But Venice,
like Oxford, had kept the background for romance, and, to the true
romantic, background was everything, or almost everything.  Basil had
been with him part of the time, and had gone wild over Tintoret.  Poor
Basil!  What a horrible way for a man to die!

He sighed, and took up the volume again, and tried to forget.  He read
of the swallows that fly in and out of the little _cafe_ at Smyrna where
the Hadjis sit counting their amber beads and the turbaned merchants
smoke their long tasselled pipes and talk gravely to each other; he
read of the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde that weeps tears of
granite in its lonely sunless exile and longs to be back by the hot,
lotus-covered Nile, where there are Sphinxes, and rose-red ibises, and
white vultures with gilded claws, and crocodiles with small beryl eyes
that crawl over the green steaming mud; he began to brood over those
verses which, drawing music from kiss-stained marble, tell of that
curious statue that Gautier compares to a contralto voice, the "_monstre
charmant_" that couches in the porphyry-room of the Louvre.  But after a
time the book fell from his hand.  He grew nervous, and a horrible fit
of terror came over him.  What if Alan Campbell should be out of
England?  Days would elapse before he could come back.  Perhaps he
might refuse to come.  What could he do then?  Every moment was of
vital importance.

They had been great friends once, five years before--almost
inseparable, indeed.  Then the intimacy had come suddenly to an end.
When they met in society now, it was only Dorian Gray who smiled:  Alan
Campbell never did.

He was an extremely clever young man, though he had no real
appreciation of the visible arts, and whatever little sense of the
beauty of poetry he possessed he had gained entirely from Dorian.  His
dominant intellectual passion was for science.  At Cambridge he had
spent a great deal of his time working in the laboratory, and had taken
a good class in the Natural Science Tripos of his year.  Indeed, he was
still devoted to the study of chemistry, and had a laboratory of his
own in which he used to shut himself up all day long, greatly to the
annoyance of his mother, who had set her heart on his standing for
Parliament and had a vague idea that a chemist was a person who made up
prescriptions.  He was an excellent musician, however, as well, and
played both the violin and the piano better than most amateurs.  In
fact, it was music that had first brought him and Dorian Gray
together--music and that indefinable attraction that Dorian seemed to
be able to exercise whenever he wished--and, indeed, exercised often
without being conscious of it.  They had met at Lady Berkshire's the
night that Rubinstein played there, and after that used to be always
seen together at the opera and wherever good music was going on.  For
eighteen months their intimacy lasted.  Campbell was always either at
Selby Royal or in Grosvenor Square.  To him, as to many others, Dorian
Gray was the type of everything that is wonderful and fascinating in
life.  Whether or not a quarrel had taken place between them no one
ever knew.  But suddenly people remarked that they scarcely spoke when
they met and that Campbell seemed always to go away early from any
party at which Dorian Gray was present.  He had changed, too--was
strangely melancholy at times, appeared almost to dislike hearing
music, and would never himself play, giving as his excuse, when he was
called upon, that he was so absorbed in science that he had no time
left in which to practise.  And this was certainly true.  Every day he
seemed to become more interested in biology, and his name appeared once
or twice in some of the scientific reviews in connection with certain
curious experiments.

This was the man Dorian Gray was waiting for.  Every second he kept
glancing at the clock.  As the minutes went by he became horribly
agitated.  At last he got up and began to pace up and down the room,
looking like a beautiful caged thing.  He took long stealthy strides.
His hands were curiously cold.

The suspense became unbearable.  Time seemed to him to be crawling with
feet of lead, while he by monstrous winds was being swept towards the
jagged edge of some black cleft of precipice.  He knew what was waiting
for him there; saw it, indeed, and, shuddering, crushed with dank hands
his burning lids as though he would have robbed the very brain of sight
and driven the eyeballs back into their cave.  It was useless.  The
brain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made
grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain,
danced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving
masks.  Then, suddenly, time stopped for him.  Yes:  that blind,
slow-breathing thing crawled no more, and horrible thoughts, time being
dead, raced nimbly on in front, and dragged a hideous future from its
grave, and showed it to him.  He stared at it.  Its very horror made
him stone.

At last the door opened and his servant entered.  He turned glazed eyes
upon him.

"Mr. Campbell, sir," said the man.

A sigh of relief broke from his parched lips, and the colour came back
to his cheeks.

"Ask him to come in at once, Francis."  He felt that he was himself
again.  His mood of cowardice had passed away.

The man bowed and retired.  In a few moments, Alan Campbell walked in,
looking very stern and rather pale, his pallor being intensified by his
coal-black hair and dark eyebrows.

"Alan!  This is kind of you.  I thank you for coming."

"I had intended never to enter your house again, Gray.  But you said it
was a matter of life and death."  His voice was hard and cold.  He
spoke with slow deliberation.  There was a look of contempt in the
steady searching gaze that he turned on Dorian.  He kept his hands in
the pockets of his Astrakhan coat, and seemed not to have noticed the
gesture with which he had been greeted.

"Yes:  it is a matter of life and death, Alan, and to more than one
person.  Sit down."

Campbell took a chair by the table, and Dorian sat opposite to him.
The two men's eyes met.  In Dorian's there was infinite pity.  He knew
that what he was going to do was dreadful.

After a strained moment of silence, he leaned across and said, very
quietly, but watching the effect of each word upon the face of him he
had sent for, "Alan, in a locked room at the top of this house, a room
to which nobody but myself has access, a dead man is seated at a table.
He has been dead ten hours now.  Don't stir, and don't look at me like
that.  Who the man is, why he died, how he died, are matters that do
not concern you.  What you have to do is this--"

"Stop, Gray.  I don't want to know anything further.  Whether what you
have told me is true or not true doesn't concern me.  I entirely
decline to be mixed up in your life.  Keep your horrible secrets to
yourself.  They don't interest me any more."

"Alan, they will have to interest you.  This one will have to interest
you.  I am awfully sorry for you, Alan.  But I can't help myself.  You
are the one man who is able to save me.  I am forced to bring you into
the matter.  I have no option.  Alan, you are scientific.  You know
about chemistry and things of that kind.  You have made experiments.
What you have got to do is to destroy the thing that is upstairs--to
destroy it so that not a vestige of it will be left.  Nobody saw this
person come into the house.  Indeed, at the present moment he is
supposed to be in Paris.  He will not be missed for months.  When he is
missed, there must be no trace of him found here.  You, Alan, you must
change him, and everything that belongs to him, into a handful of ashes
that I may scatter in the air."

"You are mad, Dorian."

"Ah!  I was waiting for you to call me Dorian."

"You are mad, I tell you--mad to imagine that I would raise a finger to
help you, mad to make this monstrous confession.  I will have nothing
to do with this matter, whatever it is.  Do you think I am going to
peril my reputation for you?  What is it to me what devil's work you
are up to?"

"It was suicide, Alan."

"I am glad of that.  But who drove him to it?  You, I should fancy."

"Do you still refuse to do this for me?"

"Of course I refuse.  I will have absolutely nothing to do with it.  I
don't care what shame comes on you.  You deserve it all.  I should not
be sorry to see you disgraced, publicly disgraced.  How dare you ask
me, of all men in the world, to mix myself up in this horror?  I should
have thought you knew more about people's characters.  Your friend Lord
Henry Wotton can't have taught you much about psychology, whatever else
he has taught you.  Nothing will induce me to stir a step to help you.
You have come to the wrong man.  Go to some of your friends.  Don't
come to me."

"Alan, it was murder.  I killed him.  You don't know what he had made
me suffer.  Whatever my life is, he had more to do with the making or
the marring of it than poor Harry has had.  He may not have intended
it, the result was the same."

"Murder!  Good God, Dorian, is that what you have come to?  I shall not
inform upon you.  It is not my business.  Besides, without my stirring
in the matter, you are certain to be arrested.  Nobody ever commits a
crime without doing something stupid.  But I will have nothing to do
with it."

"You must have something to do with it.  Wait, wait a moment; listen to
me.  Only listen, Alan.  All I ask of you is to perform a certain
scientific experiment.  You go to hospitals and dead-houses, and the
horrors that you do there don't affect you.  If in some hideous
dissecting-room or fetid laboratory you found this man lying on a
leaden table with red gutters scooped out in it for the blood to flow
through, you would simply look upon him as an admirable subject.  You
would not turn a hair.  You would not believe that you were doing
anything wrong.  On the contrary, you would probably feel that you were
benefiting the human race, or increasing the sum of knowledge in the
world, or gratifying intellectual curiosity, or something of that kind.
What I want you to do is merely what you have often done before.
Indeed, to destroy a body must be far less horrible than what you are
accustomed to work at.  And, remember, it is the only piece of evidence
against me.  If it is discovered, I am lost; and it is sure to be
discovered unless you help me."

"I have no desire to help you.  You forget that.  I am simply
indifferent to the whole thing.  It has nothing to do with me."

"Alan, I entreat you.  Think of the position I am in.  Just before you
came I almost fainted with terror.  You may know terror yourself some
day.  No! don't think of that.  Look at the matter purely from the
scientific point of view.  You don't inquire where the dead things on
which you experiment come from.  Don't inquire now.  I have told you
too much as it is.  But I beg of you to do this.  We were friends once,
Alan."

"Don't speak about those days, Dorian--they are dead."

"The dead linger sometimes.  The man upstairs will not go away.  He is
sitting at the table with bowed head and outstretched arms.  Alan!
Alan!  If you don't come to my assistance, I am ruined.  Why, they will
hang me, Alan!  Don't you understand?  They will hang me for what I
have done."

"There is no good in prolonging this scene.  I absolutely refuse to do
anything in the matter.  It is insane of you to ask me."

"You refuse?"

"Yes."

"I entreat you, Alan."

"It is useless."

The same look of pity came into Dorian Gray's eyes.  Then he stretched
out his hand, took a piece of paper, and wrote something on it.  He
read it over twice, folded it carefully, and pushed it across the
table.  Having done this, he got up and went over to the window.

Campbell looked at him in surprise, and then took up the paper, and
opened it.  As he read it, his face became ghastly pale and he fell
back in his chair.  A horrible sense of sickness came over him.  He
felt as if his heart was beating itself to death in some empty hollow.

After two or three minutes of terrible silence, Dorian turned round and
came and stood behind him, putting his hand upon his shoulder.

"I am so sorry for you, Alan," he murmured, "but you leave me no
alternative.  I have a letter written already.  Here it is.  You see
the address.  If you don't help me, I must send it.  If you don't help
me, I will send it.  You know what the result will be.  But you are
going to help me.  It is impossible for you to refuse now.  I tried to
spare you.  You will do me the justice to admit that.  You were stern,
harsh, offensive.  You treated me as no man has ever dared to treat
me--no living man, at any rate.  I bore it all.  Now it is for me to
dictate terms."

Campbell buried his face in his hands, and a shudder passed through him.

"Yes, it is my turn to dictate terms, Alan.  You know what they are.
The thing is quite simple.  Come, don't work yourself into this fever.
The thing has to be done.  Face it, and do it."

A groan broke from Campbell's lips and he shivered all over.  The
ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to him to be dividing
time into separate atoms of agony, each of which was too terrible to be
borne.  He felt as if an iron ring was being slowly tightened round his
forehead, as if the disgrace with which he was threatened had already
come upon him.  The hand upon his shoulder weighed like a hand of lead.
It was intolerable.  It seemed to crush him.

"Come, Alan, you must decide at once."

"I cannot do it," he said, mechanically, as though words could alter
things.

"You must.  You have no choice.  Don't delay."

He hesitated a moment.  "Is there a fire in the room upstairs?"

"Yes, there is a gas-fire with asbestos."

"I shall have to go home and get some things from the laboratory."

"No, Alan, you must not leave the house.  Write out on a sheet of
notepaper what you want and my servant will take a cab and bring the
things back to you."

Campbell scrawled a few lines, blotted them, and addressed an envelope
to his assistant.  Dorian took the note up and read it carefully.  Then
he rang the bell and gave it to his valet, with orders to return as
soon as possible and to bring the things with him.

As the hall door shut, Campbell started nervously, and having got up
from the chair, went over to the chimney-piece. He was shivering with a
kind of ague.  For nearly twenty minutes, neither of the men spoke.  A
fly buzzed noisily about the room, and the ticking of the clock was
like the beat of a hammer.

As the chime struck one, Campbell turned round, and looking at Dorian
Gray, saw that his eyes were filled with tears.  There was something in
the purity and refinement of that sad face that seemed to enrage him.
"You are infamous, absolutely infamous!" he muttered.

"Hush, Alan.  You have saved my life," said Dorian.

"Your life?  Good heavens! what a life that is!  You have gone from
corruption to corruption, and now you have culminated in crime.  In
doing what I am going to do--what you force me to do--it is not of your
life that I am thinking."

"Ah, Alan," murmured Dorian with a sigh, "I wish you had a thousandth
part of the pity for me that I have for you." He turned away as he
spoke and stood looking out at the garden.  Campbell made no answer.

After about ten minutes a knock came to the door, and the servant
entered, carrying a large mahogany chest of chemicals, with a long coil
of steel and platinum wire and two rather curiously shaped iron clamps.

"Shall I leave the things here, sir?" he asked Campbell.

"Yes," said Dorian.  "And I am afraid, Francis, that I have another
errand for you.  What is the name of the man at Richmond who supplies
Selby with orchids?"

"Harden, sir."

"Yes--Harden.  You must go down to Richmond at once, see Harden
personally, and tell him to send twice as many orchids as I ordered,
and to have as few white ones as possible.  In fact, I don't want any
white ones.  It is a lovely day, Francis, and Richmond is a very pretty
place--otherwise I wouldn't bother you about it."

"No trouble, sir.  At what time shall I be back?"

Dorian looked at Campbell.  "How long will your experiment take, Alan?"
he said in a calm indifferent voice.  The presence of a third person in
the room seemed to give him extraordinary courage.

Campbell frowned and bit his lip.  "It will take about five hours," he
answered.

"It will be time enough, then, if you are back at half-past seven,
Francis.  Or stay:  just leave my things out for dressing.  You can
have the evening to yourself.  I am not dining at home, so I shall not
want you."

"Thank you, sir," said the man, leaving the room.

"Now, Alan, there is not a moment to be lost.  How heavy this chest is!
I'll take it for you.  You bring the other things."  He spoke rapidly
and in an authoritative manner.  Campbell felt dominated by him.  They
left the room together.

When they reached the top landing, Dorian took out the key and turned
it in the lock.  Then he stopped, and a troubled look came into his
eyes.  He shuddered.  "I don't think I can go in, Alan," he murmured.

"It is nothing to me.  I don't require you," said Campbell coldly.

Dorian half opened the door.  As he did so, he saw the face of his
portrait leering in the sunlight.  On the floor in front of it the torn
curtain was lying.  He remembered that the night before he had
forgotten, for the first time in his life, to hide the fatal canvas,
and was about to rush forward, when he drew back with a shudder.

What was that loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and glistening, on
one of the hands, as though the canvas had sweated blood?  How horrible
it was!--more horrible, it seemed to him for the moment, than the
silent thing that he knew was stretched across the table, the thing
whose grotesque misshapen shadow on the spotted carpet showed him that
it had not stirred, but was still there, as he had left it.

He heaved a deep breath, opened the door a little wider, and with
half-closed eyes and averted head, walked quickly in, determined that
he would not look even once upon the dead man.  Then, stooping down and
taking up the gold-and-purple hanging, he flung it right over the
picture.

There he stopped, feeling afraid to turn round, and his eyes fixed
themselves on the intricacies of the pattern before him.  He heard
Campbell bringing in the heavy chest, and the irons, and the other
things that he had required for his dreadful work.  He began to wonder
if he and Basil Hallward had ever met, and, if so, what they had
thought of each other.

"Leave me now," said a stern voice behind him.

He turned and hurried out, just conscious that the dead man had been
thrust back into the chair and that Campbell was gazing into a
glistening yellow face.  As he was going downstairs, he heard the key
being turned in the lock.

It was long after seven when Campbell came back into the library.  He
was pale, but absolutely calm.  "I have done what you asked me to do,"
he muttered. "And now, good-bye. Let us never see each other again."

"You have saved me from ruin, Alan.  I cannot forget that," said Dorian
simply.

As soon as Campbell had left, he went upstairs.  There was a horrible
smell of nitric acid in the room.  But the thing that had been sitting
at the table was gone.



CHAPTER 15

That evening, at eight-thirty, exquisitely dressed and wearing a large
button-hole of Parma violets, Dorian Gray was ushered into Lady
Narborough's drawing-room by bowing servants.  His forehead was
throbbing with maddened nerves, and he felt wildly excited, but his
manner as he bent over his hostess's hand was as easy and graceful as
ever.  Perhaps one never seems so much at one's ease as when one has to
play a part.  Certainly no one looking at Dorian Gray that night could
have believed that he had passed through a tragedy as horrible as any
tragedy of our age.  Those finely shaped fingers could never have
clutched a knife for sin, nor those smiling lips have cried out on God
and goodness.  He himself could not help wondering at the calm of his
demeanour, and for a moment felt keenly the terrible pleasure of a
double life.

It was a small party, got up rather in a hurry by Lady Narborough, who
was a very clever woman with what Lord Henry used to describe as the
remains of really remarkable ugliness.  She had proved an excellent
wife to one of our most tedious ambassadors, and having buried her
husband properly in a marble mausoleum, which she had herself designed,
and married off her daughters to some rich, rather elderly men, she
devoted herself now to the pleasures of French fiction, French cookery,
and French _esprit_ when she could get it.

Dorian was one of her especial favourites, and she always told him that
she was extremely glad she had not met him in early life.  "I know, my
dear, I should have fallen madly in love with you," she used to say,
"and thrown my bonnet right over the mills for your sake.  It is most
fortunate that you were not thought of at the time.  As it was, our
bonnets were so unbecoming, and the mills were so occupied in trying to
raise the wind, that I never had even a flirtation with anybody.
However, that was all Narborough's fault.  He was dreadfully
short-sighted, and there is no pleasure in taking in a husband who
never sees anything."

Her guests this evening were rather tedious.  The fact was, as she
explained to Dorian, behind a very shabby fan, one of her married
daughters had come up quite suddenly to stay with her, and, to make
matters worse, had actually brought her husband with her.  "I think it
is most unkind of her, my dear," she whispered.  "Of course I go and
stay with them every summer after I come from Homburg, but then an old
woman like me must have fresh air sometimes, and besides, I really wake
them up.  You don't know what an existence they lead down there.  It is
pure unadulterated country life.  They get up early, because they have
so much to do, and go to bed early, because they have so little to
think about.  There has not been a scandal in the neighbourhood since
the time of Queen Elizabeth, and consequently they all fall asleep
after dinner.  You shan't sit next either of them.  You shall sit by me
and amuse me."

Dorian murmured a graceful compliment and looked round the room.  Yes:
it was certainly a tedious party.  Two of the people he had never seen
before, and the others consisted of Ernest Harrowden, one of those
middle-aged mediocrities so common in London clubs who have no enemies,
but are thoroughly disliked by their friends; Lady Ruxton, an
overdressed woman of forty-seven, with a hooked nose, who was always
trying to get herself compromised, but was so peculiarly plain that to
her great disappointment no one would ever believe anything against
her; Mrs. Erlynne, a pushing nobody, with a delightful lisp and
Venetian-red hair; Lady Alice Chapman, his hostess's daughter, a dowdy
dull girl, with one of those characteristic British faces that, once
seen, are never remembered; and her husband, a red-cheeked,
white-whiskered creature who, like so many of his class, was under the
impression that inordinate joviality can atone for an entire lack of
ideas.

He was rather sorry he had come, till Lady Narborough, looking at the
great ormolu gilt clock that sprawled in gaudy curves on the
mauve-draped mantelshelf, exclaimed:  "How horrid of Henry Wotton to be
so late!  I sent round to him this morning on chance and he promised
faithfully not to disappoint me."

It was some consolation that Harry was to be there, and when the door
opened and he heard his slow musical voice lending charm to some
insincere apology, he ceased to feel bored.

But at dinner he could not eat anything.  Plate after plate went away
untasted.  Lady Narborough kept scolding him for what she called "an
insult to poor Adolphe, who invented the _menu_ specially for you," and
now and then Lord Henry looked across at him, wondering at his silence
and abstracted manner.  From time to time the butler filled his glass
with champagne.  He drank eagerly, and his thirst seemed to increase.

"Dorian," said Lord Henry at last, as the _chaud-froid_ was being handed
round, "what is the matter with you to-night? You are quite out of
sorts."

"I believe he is in love," cried Lady Narborough, "and that he is
afraid to tell me for fear I should be jealous.  He is quite right.  I
certainly should."

"Dear Lady Narborough," murmured Dorian, smiling, "I have not been in
love for a whole week--not, in fact, since Madame de Ferrol left town."

"How you men can fall in love with that woman!" exclaimed the old lady.
"I really cannot understand it."

"It is simply because she remembers you when you were a little girl,
Lady Narborough," said Lord Henry.  "She is the one link between us and
your short frocks."

"She does not remember my short frocks at all, Lord Henry.  But I
remember her very well at Vienna thirty years ago, and how _decolletee_
she was then."

"She is still _decolletee_," he answered, taking an olive in his long
fingers; "and when she is in a very smart gown she looks like an
_edition de luxe_ of a bad French novel.  She is really wonderful, and
full of surprises.  Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary.
When her third husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief."

"How can you, Harry!" cried Dorian.

"It is a most romantic explanation," laughed the hostess.  "But her
third husband, Lord Henry!  You don't mean to say Ferrol is the fourth?"

"Certainly, Lady Narborough."

"I don't believe a word of it."

"Well, ask Mr. Gray.  He is one of her most intimate friends."

"Is it true, Mr. Gray?"

"She assures me so, Lady Narborough," said Dorian.  "I asked her
whether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and
hung at her girdle.  She told me she didn't, because none of them had
had any hearts at all."

"Four husbands!  Upon my word that is _trop de zele_."

"_Trop d'audace_, I tell her," said Dorian.

"Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear.  And what is Ferrol
like?  I don't know him."

"The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes,"
said Lord Henry, sipping his wine.

Lady Narborough hit him with her fan.  "Lord Henry, I am not at all
surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked."

"But what world says that?" asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows.
"It can only be the next world.  This world and I are on excellent
terms."

"Everybody I know says you are very wicked," cried the old lady,
shaking her head.

Lord Henry looked serious for some moments.  "It is perfectly
monstrous," he said, at last, "the way people go about nowadays saying
things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely
true."

"Isn't he incorrigible?" cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair.

"I hope so," said his hostess, laughing.  "But really, if you all
worship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry
again so as to be in the fashion."

"You will never marry again, Lady Narborough," broke in Lord Henry.
"You were far too happy.  When a woman marries again, it is because she
detested her first husband.  When a man marries again, it is because he
adored his first wife.  Women try their luck; men risk theirs."

"Narborough wasn't perfect," cried the old lady.

"If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady," was the
rejoinder.  "Women love us for our defects.  If we have enough of them,
they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.  You will never
ask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough,
but it is quite true."

"Of course it is true, Lord Henry.  If we women did not love you for
your defects, where would you all be?  Not one of you would ever be
married.  You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors.  Not, however,
that that would alter you much.  Nowadays all the married men live like
bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men."

"_Fin de siecle_," murmured Lord Henry.

"_Fin du globe_," answered his hostess.

"I wish it were _fin du globe_," said Dorian with a sigh.  "Life is a
great disappointment."

"Ah, my dear," cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, "don't
tell me that you have exhausted life.  When a man says that one knows
that life has exhausted him.  Lord Henry is very wicked, and I
sometimes wish that I had been; but you are made to be good--you look
so good.  I must find you a nice wife.  Lord Henry, don't you think
that Mr. Gray should get married?"

"I am always telling him so, Lady Narborough," said Lord Henry with a
bow.

"Well, we must look out for a suitable match for him.  I shall go
through Debrett carefully to-night and draw out a list of all the
eligible young ladies."

"With their ages, Lady Narborough?" asked Dorian.

"Of course, with their ages, slightly edited.  But nothing must be done
in a hurry.  I want it to be what _The Morning Post_ calls a suitable
alliance, and I want you both to be happy."

"What nonsense people talk about happy marriages!" exclaimed Lord
Henry.  "A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love
her."

"Ah! what a cynic you are!" cried the old lady, pushing back her chair
and nodding to Lady Ruxton.  "You must come and dine with me soon
again.  You are really an admirable tonic, much better than what Sir
Andrew prescribes for me.  You must tell me what people you would like
to meet, though.  I want it to be a delightful gathering."

"I like men who have a future and women who have a past," he answered.
"Or do you think that would make it a petticoat party?"

"I fear so," she said, laughing, as she stood up.  "A thousand pardons,
my dear Lady Ruxton," she added, "I didn't see you hadn't finished your
cigarette."

"Never mind, Lady Narborough.  I smoke a great deal too much.  I am
going to limit myself, for the future."

"Pray don't, Lady Ruxton," said Lord Henry.  "Moderation is a fatal
thing.  Enough is as bad as a meal.  More than enough is as good as a
feast."

Lady Ruxton glanced at him curiously.  "You must come and explain that
to me some afternoon, Lord Henry.  It sounds a fascinating theory," she
murmured, as she swept out of the room.

"Now, mind you don't stay too long over your politics and scandal,"
cried Lady Narborough from the door.  "If you do, we are sure to
squabble upstairs."

The men laughed, and Mr. Chapman got up solemnly from the foot of the
table and came up to the top.  Dorian Gray changed his seat and went
and sat by Lord Henry.  Mr. Chapman began to talk in a loud voice about
the situation in the House of Commons.  He guffawed at his adversaries.
The word _doctrinaire_--word full of terror to the British
mind--reappeared from time to time between his explosions.  An
alliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory.  He hoisted the
Union Jack on the pinnacles of thought.  The inherited stupidity of the
race--sound English common sense he jovially termed it--was shown to be
the proper bulwark for society.

A smile curved Lord Henry's lips, and he turned round and looked at
Dorian.

"Are you better, my dear fellow?" he asked.  "You seemed rather out of
sorts at dinner."

"I am quite well, Harry.  I am tired.  That is all."

"You were charming last night.  The little duchess is quite devoted to
you.  She tells me she is going down to Selby."

"She has promised to come on the twentieth."

"Is Monmouth to be there, too?"

"Oh, yes, Harry."

"He bores me dreadfully, almost as much as he bores her.  She is very
clever, too clever for a woman.  She lacks the indefinable charm of
weakness.  It is the feet of clay that make the gold of the image
precious.  Her feet are very pretty, but they are not feet of clay.
White porcelain feet, if you like.  They have been through the fire,
and what fire does not destroy, it hardens.  She has had experiences."

"How long has she been married?" asked Dorian.

"An eternity, she tells me.  I believe, according to the peerage, it is
ten years, but ten years with Monmouth must have been like eternity,
with time thrown in.  Who else is coming?"

"Oh, the Willoughbys, Lord Rugby and his wife, our hostess, Geoffrey
Clouston, the usual set.  I have asked Lord Grotrian."

"I like him," said Lord Henry.  "A great many people don't, but I find
him charming.  He atones for being occasionally somewhat overdressed by
being always absolutely over-educated. He is a very modern type."

"I don't know if he will be able to come, Harry.  He may have to go to
Monte Carlo with his father."

"Ah! what a nuisance people's people are!  Try and make him come.  By
the way, Dorian, you ran off very early last night.  You left before
eleven.  What did you do afterwards?  Did you go straight home?"

Dorian glanced at him hurriedly and frowned.

"No, Harry," he said at last, "I did not get home till nearly three."

"Did you go to the club?"

"Yes," he answered.  Then he bit his lip.  "No, I don't mean that.  I
didn't go to the club.  I walked about.  I forget what I did.... How
inquisitive you are, Harry!  You always want to know what one has been
doing.  I always want to forget what I have been doing.  I came in at
half-past two, if you wish to know the exact time.  I had left my
latch-key at home, and my servant had to let me in.  If you want any
corroborative evidence on the subject, you can ask him."

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  "My dear fellow, as if I cared!
Let us go up to the drawing-room. No sherry, thank you, Mr. Chapman.
Something has happened to you, Dorian.  Tell me what it is.  You are
not yourself to-night."

"Don't mind me, Harry.  I am irritable, and out of temper.  I shall
come round and see you to-morrow, or next day.  Make my excuses to Lady
Narborough.  I shan't go upstairs.  I shall go home.  I must go home."

"All right, Dorian.  I dare say I shall see you to-morrow at tea-time.
The duchess is coming."

"I will try to be there, Harry," he said, leaving the room.  As he
drove back to his own house, he was conscious that the sense of terror
he thought he had strangled had come back to him.  Lord Henry's casual
questioning had made him lose his nerve for the moment, and he wanted
his nerve still.  Things that were dangerous had to be destroyed.  He
winced.  He hated the idea of even touching them.

Yet it had to be done.  He realized that, and when he had locked the
door of his library, he opened the secret press into which he had
thrust Basil Hallward's coat and bag.  A huge fire was blazing.  He
piled another log on it.  The smell of the singeing clothes and burning
leather was horrible.  It took him three-quarters of an hour to consume
everything.  At the end he felt faint and sick, and having lit some
Algerian pastilles in a pierced copper brazier, he bathed his hands and
forehead with a cool musk-scented vinegar.

Suddenly he started.  His eyes grew strangely bright, and he gnawed
nervously at his underlip.  Between two of the windows stood a large
Florentine cabinet, made out of ebony and inlaid with ivory and blue
lapis.  He watched it as though it were a thing that could fascinate
and make afraid, as though it held something that he longed for and yet
almost loathed.  His breath quickened.  A mad craving came over him.
He lit a cigarette and then threw it away.  His eyelids drooped till
the long fringed lashes almost touched his cheek.  But he still watched
the cabinet.  At last he got up from the sofa on which he had been
lying, went over to it, and having unlocked it, touched some hidden
spring.  A triangular drawer passed slowly out.  His fingers moved
instinctively towards it, dipped in, and closed on something.  It was a
small Chinese box of black and gold-dust lacquer, elaborately wrought,
the sides patterned with curved waves, and the silken cords hung with
round crystals and tasselled in plaited metal threads.  He opened it.
Inside was a green paste, waxy in lustre, the odour curiously heavy and
persistent.

He hesitated for some moments, with a strangely immobile smile upon his
face.  Then shivering, though the atmosphere of the room was terribly
hot, he drew himself up and glanced at the clock.  It was twenty
minutes to twelve.  He put the box back, shutting the cabinet doors as
he did so, and went into his bedroom.

As midnight was striking bronze blows upon the dusky air, Dorian Gray,
dressed commonly, and with a muffler wrapped round his throat, crept
quietly out of his house.  In Bond Street he found a hansom with a good
horse.  He hailed it and in a low voice gave the driver an address.

The man shook his head.  "It is too far for me," he muttered.

"Here is a sovereign for you," said Dorian.  "You shall have another if
you drive fast."

"All right, sir," answered the man, "you will be there in an hour," and
after his fare had got in he turned his horse round and drove rapidly
towards the river.



CHAPTER 16

A cold rain began to fall, and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly
in the dripping mist.  The public-houses were just closing, and dim men
and women were clustering in broken groups round their doors.  From
some of the bars came the sound of horrible laughter.  In others,
drunkards brawled and screamed.

Lying back in the hansom, with his hat pulled over his forehead, Dorian
Gray watched with listless eyes the sordid shame of the great city, and
now and then he repeated to himself the words that Lord Henry had said
to him on the first day they had met, "To cure the soul by means of the
senses, and the senses by means of the soul."  Yes, that was the
secret.  He had often tried it, and would try it again now.  There were
opium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the
memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were
new.

The moon hung low in the sky like a yellow skull.  From time to time a
huge misshapen cloud stretched a long arm across and hid it.  The
gas-lamps grew fewer, and the streets more narrow and gloomy.  Once the
man lost his way and had to drive back half a mile.  A steam rose from
the horse as it splashed up the puddles.  The sidewindows of the hansom
were clogged with a grey-flannel mist.

"To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of
the soul!"  How the words rang in his ears!  His soul, certainly, was
sick to death.  Was it true that the senses could cure it?  Innocent
blood had been spilled.  What could atone for that?  Ah! for that there
was no atonement; but though forgiveness was impossible, forgetfulness
was possible still, and he was determined to forget, to stamp the thing
out, to crush it as one would crush the adder that had stung one.
Indeed, what right had Basil to have spoken to him as he had done?  Who
had made him a judge over others?  He had said things that were
dreadful, horrible, not to be endured.

On and on plodded the hansom, going slower, it seemed to him, at each
step.  He thrust up the trap and called to the man to drive faster.
The hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him.  His throat burned
and his delicate hands twitched nervously together.  He struck at the
horse madly with his stick.  The driver laughed and whipped up.  He
laughed in answer, and the man was silent.

The way seemed interminable, and the streets like the black web of some
sprawling spider.  The monotony became unbearable, and as the mist
thickened, he felt afraid.

Then they passed by lonely brickfields.  The fog was lighter here, and
he could see the strange, bottle-shaped kilns with their orange,
fanlike tongues of fire.  A dog barked as they went by, and far away in
the darkness some wandering sea-gull screamed.  The horse stumbled in a
rut, then swerved aside and broke into a gallop.

After some time they left the clay road and rattled again over
rough-paven streets.  Most of the windows were dark, but now and then
fantastic shadows were silhouetted against some lamplit blind.  He
watched them curiously.  They moved like monstrous marionettes and made
gestures like live things.  He hated them.  A dull rage was in his
heart.  As they turned a corner, a woman yelled something at them from
an open door, and two men ran after the hansom for about a hundred
yards.  The driver beat at them with his whip.

It is said that passion makes one think in a circle.  Certainly with
hideous iteration the bitten lips of Dorian Gray shaped and reshaped
those subtle words that dealt with soul and sense, till he had found in
them the full expression, as it were, of his mood, and justified, by
intellectual approval, passions that without such justification would
still have dominated his temper.  From cell to cell of his brain crept
the one thought; and the wild desire to live, most terrible of all
man's appetites, quickened into force each trembling nerve and fibre.
Ugliness that had once been hateful to him because it made things real,
became dear to him now for that very reason.  Ugliness was the one
reality.  The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of
disordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more
vivid, in their intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious
shapes of art, the dreamy shadows of song.  They were what he needed
for forgetfulness.  In three days he would be free.

Suddenly the man drew up with a jerk at the top of a dark lane.  Over
the low roofs and jagged chimney-stacks of the houses rose the black
masts of ships.  Wreaths of white mist clung like ghostly sails to the
yards.

"Somewhere about here, sir, ain't it?" he asked huskily through the
trap.

Dorian started and peered round.  "This will do," he answered, and
having got out hastily and given the driver the extra fare he had
promised him, he walked quickly in the direction of the quay.  Here and
there a lantern gleamed at the stern of some huge merchantman.  The
light shook and splintered in the puddles.  A red glare came from an
outward-bound steamer that was coaling.  The slimy pavement looked like
a wet mackintosh.

He hurried on towards the left, glancing back now and then to see if he
was being followed.  In about seven or eight minutes he reached a small
shabby house that was wedged in between two gaunt factories.  In one of
the top-windows stood a lamp.  He stopped and gave a peculiar knock.

After a little time he heard steps in the passage and the chain being
unhooked.  The door opened quietly, and he went in without saying a
word to the squat misshapen figure that flattened itself into the
shadow as he passed.  At the end of the hall hung a tattered green
curtain that swayed and shook in the gusty wind which had followed him
in from the street.  He dragged it aside and entered a long low room
which looked as if it had once been a third-rate dancing-saloon. Shrill
flaring gas-jets, dulled and distorted in the fly-blown mirrors that
faced them, were ranged round the walls.  Greasy reflectors of ribbed
tin backed them, making quivering disks of light.  The floor was
covered with ochre-coloured sawdust, trampled here and there into mud,
and stained with dark rings of spilled liquor.  Some Malays were
crouching by a little charcoal stove, playing with bone counters and
showing their white teeth as they chattered.  In one corner, with his
head buried in his arms, a sailor sprawled over a table, and by the
tawdrily painted bar that ran across one complete side stood two
haggard women, mocking an old man who was brushing the sleeves of his
coat with an expression of disgust.  "He thinks he's got red ants on
him," laughed one of them, as Dorian passed by.  The man looked at her
in terror and began to whimper.

At the end of the room there was a little staircase, leading to a
darkened chamber.  As Dorian hurried up its three rickety steps, the
heavy odour of opium met him.  He heaved a deep breath, and his
nostrils quivered with pleasure.  When he entered, a young man with
smooth yellow hair, who was bending over a lamp lighting a long thin
pipe, looked up at him and nodded in a hesitating manner.

"You here, Adrian?" muttered Dorian.

"Where else should I be?" he answered, listlessly.  "None of the chaps
will speak to me now."

"I thought you had left England."

"Darlington is not going to do anything.  My brother paid the bill at
last.  George doesn't speak to me either.... I don't care," he added
with a sigh.  "As long as one has this stuff, one doesn't want friends.
I think I have had too many friends."

Dorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such
fantastic postures on the ragged mattresses.  The twisted limbs, the
gaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him.  He knew in
what strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were
teaching them the secret of some new joy.  They were better off than he
was.  He was prisoned in thought.  Memory, like a horrible malady, was
eating his soul away.  From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of
Basil Hallward looking at him.  Yet he felt he could not stay.  The
presence of Adrian Singleton troubled him.  He wanted to be where no
one would know who he was.  He wanted to escape from himself.

"I am going on to the other place," he said after a pause.

"On the wharf?"

"Yes."

"That mad-cat is sure to be there.  They won't have her in this place
now."

Dorian shrugged his shoulders.  "I am sick of women who love one.
Women who hate one are much more interesting.  Besides, the stuff is
better."

"Much the same."

"I like it better.  Come and have something to drink.  I must have
something."

"I don't want anything," murmured the young man.

"Never mind."

Adrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar.  A
half-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous
greeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of
them.  The women sidled up and began to chatter.  Dorian turned his
back on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton.

A crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of
the women.  "We are very proud to-night," she sneered.

"For God's sake don't talk to me," cried Dorian, stamping his foot on
the ground.  "What do you want?  Money?  Here it is.  Don't ever talk
to me again."

Two red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman's sodden eyes, then
flickered out and left them dull and glazed.  She tossed her head and
raked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers.  Her companion
watched her enviously.

"It's no use," sighed Adrian Singleton.  "I don't care to go back.
What does it matter?  I am quite happy here."

"You will write to me if you want anything, won't you?" said Dorian,
after a pause.

"Perhaps."

"Good night, then."

"Good night," answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping
his parched mouth with a handkerchief.

Dorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face.  As he drew
the curtain aside, a hideous laugh broke from the painted lips of the
woman who had taken his money.  "There goes the devil's bargain!" she
hiccoughed, in a hoarse voice.

"Curse you!" he answered, "don't call me that."

She snapped her fingers.  "Prince Charming is what you like to be
called, ain't it?" she yelled after him.

The drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly
round.  The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear.  He
rushed out as if in pursuit.

Dorian Gray hurried along the quay through the drizzling rain.  His
meeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered
if the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, as
Basil Hallward had said to him with such infamy of insult.  He bit his
lip, and for a few seconds his eyes grew sad.  Yet, after all, what did
it matter to him?  One's days were too brief to take the burden of
another's errors on one's shoulders.  Each man lived his own life and
paid his own price for living it.  The only pity was one had to pay so
often for a single fault.  One had to pay over and over again, indeed.
In her dealings with man, destiny never closed her accounts.

There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or
for what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of
the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful
impulses.  Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their
will.  They move to their terrible end as automatons move.  Choice is
taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at
all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobedience its
charm.  For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are
sins of disobedience.  When that high spirit, that morning star of
evil, fell from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell.

Callous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for
rebellion, Dorian Gray hastened on, quickening his step as he went, but
as he darted aside into a dim archway, that had served him often as a
short cut to the ill-famed place where he was going, he felt himself
suddenly seized from behind, and before he had time to defend himself,
he was thrust back against the wall, with a brutal hand round his
throat.

He struggled madly for life, and by a terrible effort wrenched the
tightening fingers away.  In a second he heard the click of a revolver,
and saw the gleam of a polished barrel, pointing straight at his head,
and the dusky form of a short, thick-set man facing him.

"What do you want?" he gasped.

"Keep quiet," said the man.  "If you stir, I shoot you."

"You are mad.  What have I done to you?"

"You wrecked the life of Sibyl Vane," was the answer, "and Sibyl Vane
was my sister.  She killed herself.  I know it.  Her death is at your
door.  I swore I would kill you in return.  For years I have sought
you.  I had no clue, no trace.  The two people who could have described
you were dead.  I knew nothing of you but the pet name she used to call
you.  I heard it to-night by chance.  Make your peace with God, for
to-night you are going to die."

Dorian Gray grew sick with fear.  "I never knew her," he stammered.  "I
never heard of her.  You are mad."

"You had better confess your sin, for as sure as I am James Vane, you
are going to die."  There was a horrible moment.  Dorian did not know
what to say or do.  "Down on your knees!" growled the man.  "I give you
one minute to make your peace--no more.  I go on board to-night for
India, and I must do my job first.  One minute.  That's all."

Dorian's arms fell to his side.  Paralysed with terror, he did not know
what to do.  Suddenly a wild hope flashed across his brain.  "Stop," he
cried.  "How long ago is it since your sister died?  Quick, tell me!"

"Eighteen years," said the man.  "Why do you ask me?  What do years
matter?"

"Eighteen years," laughed Dorian Gray, with a touch of triumph in his
voice.  "Eighteen years!  Set me under the lamp and look at my face!"

James Vane hesitated for a moment, not understanding what was meant.
Then he seized Dorian Gray and dragged him from the archway.

Dim and wavering as was the wind-blown light, yet it served to show him
the hideous error, as it seemed, into which he had fallen, for the face
of the man he had sought to kill had all the bloom of boyhood, all the
unstained purity of youth.  He seemed little more than a lad of twenty
summers, hardly older, if older indeed at all, than his sister had been
when they had parted so many years ago.  It was obvious that this was
not the man who had destroyed her life.

He loosened his hold and reeled back.  "My God! my God!" he cried, "and
I would have murdered you!"

Dorian Gray drew a long breath.  "You have been on the brink of
committing a terrible crime, my man," he said, looking at him sternly.
"Let this be a warning to you not to take vengeance into your own
hands."

"Forgive me, sir," muttered James Vane.  "I was deceived.  A chance
word I heard in that damned den set me on the wrong track."

"You had better go home and put that pistol away, or you may get into
trouble," said Dorian, turning on his heel and going slowly down the
street.

James Vane stood on the pavement in horror.  He was trembling from head
to foot.  After a little while, a black shadow that had been creeping
along the dripping wall moved out into the light and came close to him
with stealthy footsteps.  He felt a hand laid on his arm and looked
round with a start.  It was one of the women who had been drinking at
the bar.

"Why didn't you kill him?" she hissed out, putting haggard face quite
close to his.  "I knew you were following him when you rushed out from
Daly's. You fool!  You should have killed him.  He has lots of money,
and he's as bad as bad."

"He is not the man I am looking for," he answered, "and I want no man's
money.  I want a man's life.  The man whose life I want must be nearly
forty now.  This one is little more than a boy.  Thank God, I have not
got his blood upon my hands."

The woman gave a bitter laugh.  "Little more than a boy!" she sneered.
"Why, man, it's nigh on eighteen years since Prince Charming made me
what I am."

"You lie!" cried James Vane.

She raised her hand up to heaven.  "Before God I am telling the truth,"
she cried.

"Before God?"

"Strike me dumb if it ain't so.  He is the worst one that comes here.
They say he has sold himself to the devil for a pretty face.  It's nigh
on eighteen years since I met him.  He hasn't changed much since then.
I have, though," she added, with a sickly leer.

"You swear this?"

"I swear it," came in hoarse echo from her flat mouth.  "But don't give
me away to him," she whined; "I am afraid of him.  Let me have some
money for my night's lodging."

He broke from her with an oath and rushed to the corner of the street,
but Dorian Gray had disappeared.  When he looked back, the woman had
vanished also.



CHAPTER 17

A week later Dorian Gray was sitting in the conservatory at Selby
Royal, talking to the pretty Duchess of Monmouth, who with her husband,
a jaded-looking man of sixty, was amongst his guests.  It was tea-time,
and the mellow light of the huge, lace-covered lamp that stood on the
table lit up the delicate china and hammered silver of the service at
which the duchess was presiding.  Her white hands were moving daintily
among the cups, and her full red lips were smiling at something that
Dorian had whispered to her.  Lord Henry was lying back in a
silk-draped wicker chair, looking at them.  On a peach-coloured divan
sat Lady Narborough, pretending to listen to the duke's description of
the last Brazilian beetle that he had added to his collection.  Three
young men in elaborate smoking-suits were handing tea-cakes to some of
the women.  The house-party consisted of twelve people, and there were
more expected to arrive on the next day.

"What are you two talking about?" said Lord Henry, strolling over to
the table and putting his cup down.  "I hope Dorian has told you about
my plan for rechristening everything, Gladys.  It is a delightful idea."

"But I don't want to be rechristened, Harry," rejoined the duchess,
looking up at him with her wonderful eyes.  "I am quite satisfied with
my own name, and I am sure Mr. Gray should be satisfied with his."

"My dear Gladys, I would not alter either name for the world.  They are
both perfect.  I was thinking chiefly of flowers.  Yesterday I cut an
orchid, for my button-hole. It was a marvellous spotted thing, as
effective as the seven deadly sins.  In a thoughtless moment I asked
one of the gardeners what it was called.  He told me it was a fine
specimen of _Robinsoniana_, or something dreadful of that kind.  It is a
sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to
things.  Names are everything.  I never quarrel with actions.  My one
quarrel is with words.  That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in
literature.  The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled
to use one.  It is the only thing he is fit for."

"Then what should we call you, Harry?" she asked.

"His name is Prince Paradox," said Dorian.

"I recognize him in a flash," exclaimed the duchess.

"I won't hear of it," laughed Lord Henry, sinking into a chair.  "From
a label there is no escape!  I refuse the title."

"Royalties may not abdicate," fell as a warning from pretty lips.

"You wish me to defend my throne, then?"

"Yes."

"I give the truths of to-morrow."

"I prefer the mistakes of to-day," she answered.

"You disarm me, Gladys," he cried, catching the wilfulness of her mood.

"Of your shield, Harry, not of your spear."

"I never tilt against beauty," he said, with a wave of his hand.

"That is your error, Harry, believe me.  You value beauty far too much."

"How can you say that?  I admit that I think that it is better to be
beautiful than to be good.  But on the other hand, no one is more ready
than I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly."

"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly sins, then?" cried the duchess.
"What becomes of your simile about the orchid?"

"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly virtues, Gladys.  You, as a good
Tory, must not underrate them.  Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly
virtues have made our England what she is."

"You don't like your country, then?" she asked.

"I live in it."

"That you may censure it the better."

"Would you have me take the verdict of Europe on it?" he inquired.

"What do they say of us?"

"That Tartuffe has emigrated to England and opened a shop."

"Is that yours, Harry?"

"I give it to you."

"I could not use it.  It is too true."

"You need not be afraid.  Our countrymen never recognize a description."

"They are practical."

"They are more cunning than practical.  When they make up their ledger,
they balance stupidity by wealth, and vice by hypocrisy."

"Still, we have done great things."

"Great things have been thrust on us, Gladys."

"We have carried their burden."

"Only as far as the Stock Exchange."

She shook her head.  "I believe in the race," she cried.

"It represents the survival of the pushing."

"It has development."

"Decay fascinates me more."

"What of art?" she asked.

"It is a malady."

"Love?"

"An illusion."

"Religion?"

"The fashionable substitute for belief."

"You are a sceptic."

"Never!  Scepticism is the beginning of faith."

"What are you?"

"To define is to limit."

"Give me a clue."

"Threads snap.  You would lose your way in the labyrinth."

"You bewilder me.  Let us talk of some one else."

"Our host is a delightful topic.  Years ago he was christened Prince
Charming."

"Ah! don't remind me of that," cried Dorian Gray.

"Our host is rather horrid this evening," answered the duchess,
colouring.  "I believe he thinks that Monmouth married me on purely
scientific principles as the best specimen he could find of a modern
butterfly."

"Well, I hope he won't stick pins into you, Duchess," laughed Dorian.

"Oh! my maid does that already, Mr. Gray, when she is annoyed with me."

"And what does she get annoyed with you about, Duchess?"

"For the most trivial things, Mr. Gray, I assure you.  Usually because
I come in at ten minutes to nine and tell her that I must be dressed by
half-past eight."

"How unreasonable of her!  You should give her warning."

"I daren't, Mr. Gray.  Why, she invents hats for me.  You remember the
one I wore at Lady Hilstone's garden-party?  You don't, but it is nice
of you to pretend that you do.  Well, she made it out of nothing.  All
good hats are made out of nothing."

"Like all good reputations, Gladys," interrupted Lord Henry.  "Every
effect that one produces gives one an enemy.  To be popular one must be
a mediocrity."

"Not with women," said the duchess, shaking her head; "and women rule
the world.  I assure you we can't bear mediocrities.  We women, as some
one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if
you ever love at all."

"It seems to me that we never do anything else," murmured Dorian.

"Ah! then, you never really love, Mr. Gray," answered the duchess with
mock sadness.

"My dear Gladys!" cried Lord Henry.  "How can you say that?  Romance
lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art.
Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved.
Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion.  It merely
intensifies it.  We can have in life but one great experience at best,
and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as
possible."

"Even when one has been wounded by it, Harry?" asked the duchess after
a pause.

"Especially when one has been wounded by it," answered Lord Henry.

The duchess turned and looked at Dorian Gray with a curious expression
in her eyes.  "What do you say to that, Mr. Gray?" she inquired.

Dorian hesitated for a moment.  Then he threw his head back and
laughed.  "I always agree with Harry, Duchess."

"Even when he is wrong?"

"Harry is never wrong, Duchess."

"And does his philosophy make you happy?"

"I have never searched for happiness.  Who wants happiness?  I have
searched for pleasure."

"And found it, Mr. Gray?"

"Often.  Too often."

The duchess sighed.  "I am searching for peace," she said, "and if I
don't go and dress, I shall have none this evening."

"Let me get you some orchids, Duchess," cried Dorian, starting to his
feet and walking down the conservatory.

"You are flirting disgracefully with him," said Lord Henry to his
cousin.  "You had better take care.  He is very fascinating."

"If he were not, there would be no battle."

"Greek meets Greek, then?"

"I am on the side of the Trojans.  They fought for a woman."

"They were defeated."

"There are worse things than capture," she answered.

"You gallop with a loose rein."

"Pace gives life," was the _riposte_.

"I shall write it in my diary to-night."

"What?"

"That a burnt child loves the fire."

"I am not even singed.  My wings are untouched."

"You use them for everything, except flight."

"Courage has passed from men to women.  It is a new experience for us."

"You have a rival."

"Who?"

He laughed.  "Lady Narborough," he whispered.  "She perfectly adores
him."

"You fill me with apprehension.  The appeal to antiquity is fatal to us
who are romanticists."

"Romanticists!  You have all the methods of science."

"Men have educated us."

"But not explained you."

"Describe us as a sex," was her challenge.

"Sphinxes without secrets."

She looked at him, smiling.  "How long Mr. Gray is!" she said.  "Let us
go and help him.  I have not yet told him the colour of my frock."

"Ah! you must suit your frock to his flowers, Gladys."

"That would be a premature surrender."

"Romantic art begins with its climax."

"I must keep an opportunity for retreat."

"In the Parthian manner?"

"They found safety in the desert.  I could not do that."

"Women are not always allowed a choice," he answered, but hardly had he
finished the sentence before from the far end of the conservatory came
a stifled groan, followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall.  Everybody
started up.  The duchess stood motionless in horror.  And with fear in
his eyes, Lord Henry rushed through the flapping palms to find Dorian
Gray lying face downwards on the tiled floor in a deathlike swoon.

He was carried at once into the blue drawing-room and laid upon one of
the sofas.  After a short time, he came to himself and looked round
with a dazed expression.

"What has happened?" he asked.  "Oh!  I remember.  Am I safe here,
Harry?" He began to tremble.

"My dear Dorian," answered Lord Henry, "you merely fainted.  That was
all.  You must have overtired yourself.  You had better not come down
to dinner.  I will take your place."

"No, I will come down," he said, struggling to his feet.  "I would
rather come down.  I must not be alone."

He went to his room and dressed.  There was a wild recklessness of
gaiety in his manner as he sat at table, but now and then a thrill of
terror ran through him when he remembered that, pressed against the
window of the conservatory, like a white handkerchief, he had seen the
face of James Vane watching him.



CHAPTER 18

The next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed, spent most of the
time in his own room, sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet
indifferent to life itself.  The consciousness of being hunted, snared,
tracked down, had begun to dominate him.  If the tapestry did but
tremble in the wind, he shook.  The dead leaves that were blown against
the leaded panes seemed to him like his own wasted resolutions and wild
regrets.  When he closed his eyes, he saw again the sailor's face
peering through the mist-stained glass, and horror seemed once more to
lay its hand upon his heart.

But perhaps it had been only his fancy that had called vengeance out of
the night and set the hideous shapes of punishment before him.  Actual
life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the
imagination.  It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet
of sin.  It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen
brood.  In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor
the good rewarded.  Success was given to the strong, failure thrust
upon the weak.  That was all.  Besides, had any stranger been prowling
round the house, he would have been seen by the servants or the
keepers.  Had any foot-marks been found on the flower-beds, the
gardeners would have reported it.  Yes, it had been merely fancy.
Sibyl Vane's brother had not come back to kill him.  He had sailed away
in his ship to founder in some winter sea.  From him, at any rate, he
was safe.  Why, the man did not know who he was, could not know who he
was.  The mask of youth had saved him.

And yet if it had been merely an illusion, how terrible it was to think
that conscience could raise such fearful phantoms, and give them
visible form, and make them move before one!  What sort of life would
his be if, day and night, shadows of his crime were to peer at him from
silent corners, to mock him from secret places, to whisper in his ear
as he sat at the feast, to wake him with icy fingers as he lay asleep!
As the thought crept through his brain, he grew pale with terror, and
the air seemed to him to have become suddenly colder.  Oh! in what a
wild hour of madness he had killed his friend!  How ghastly the mere
memory of the scene!  He saw it all again.  Each hideous detail came
back to him with added horror.  Out of the black cave of time, terrible
and swathed in scarlet, rose the image of his sin.  When Lord Henry
came in at six o'clock, he found him crying as one whose heart will
break.

It was not till the third day that he ventured to go out.  There was
something in the clear, pine-scented air of that winter morning that
seemed to bring him back his joyousness and his ardour for life.  But
it was not merely the physical conditions of environment that had
caused the change.  His own nature had revolted against the excess of
anguish that had sought to maim and mar the perfection of its calm.
With subtle and finely wrought temperaments it is always so.  Their
strong passions must either bruise or bend.  They either slay the man,
or themselves die.  Shallow sorrows and shallow loves live on.  The
loves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plenitude.
Besides, he had convinced himself that he had been the victim of a
terror-stricken imagination, and looked back now on his fears with
something of pity and not a little of contempt.

After breakfast, he walked with the duchess for an hour in the garden
and then drove across the park to join the shooting-party. The crisp
frost lay like salt upon the grass.  The sky was an inverted cup of
blue metal.  A thin film of ice bordered the flat, reed-grown lake.

At the corner of the pine-wood he caught sight of Sir Geoffrey
Clouston, the duchess's brother, jerking two spent cartridges out of
his gun.  He jumped from the cart, and having told the groom to take
the mare home, made his way towards his guest through the withered
bracken and rough undergrowth.

"Have you had good sport, Geoffrey?" he asked.

"Not very good, Dorian.  I think most of the birds have gone to the
open.  I dare say it will be better after lunch, when we get to new
ground."

Dorian strolled along by his side.  The keen aromatic air, the brown
and red lights that glimmered in the wood, the hoarse cries of the
beaters ringing out from time to time, and the sharp snaps of the guns
that followed, fascinated him and filled him with a sense of delightful
freedom.  He was dominated by the carelessness of happiness, by the
high indifference of joy.

Suddenly from a lumpy tussock of old grass some twenty yards in front
of them, with black-tipped ears erect and long hinder limbs throwing it
forward, started a hare.  It bolted for a thicket of alders.  Sir
Geoffrey put his gun to his shoulder, but there was something in the
animal's grace of movement that strangely charmed Dorian Gray, and he
cried out at once, "Don't shoot it, Geoffrey.  Let it live."

"What nonsense, Dorian!" laughed his companion, and as the hare bounded
into the thicket, he fired.  There were two cries heard, the cry of a
hare in pain, which is dreadful, the cry of a man in agony, which is
worse.

"Good heavens!  I have hit a beater!" exclaimed Sir Geoffrey.  "What an
ass the man was to get in front of the guns!  Stop shooting there!" he
called out at the top of his voice.  "A man is hurt."

The head-keeper came running up with a stick in his hand.

"Where, sir?  Where is he?" he shouted.  At the same time, the firing
ceased along the line.

"Here," answered Sir Geoffrey angrily, hurrying towards the thicket.
"Why on earth don't you keep your men back?  Spoiled my shooting for
the day."

Dorian watched them as they plunged into the alder-clump, brushing the
lithe swinging branches aside.  In a few moments they emerged, dragging
a body after them into the sunlight.  He turned away in horror.  It
seemed to him that misfortune followed wherever he went.  He heard Sir
Geoffrey ask if the man was really dead, and the affirmative answer of
the keeper.  The wood seemed to him to have become suddenly alive with
faces.  There was the trampling of myriad feet and the low buzz of
voices.  A great copper-breasted pheasant came beating through the
boughs overhead.

After a few moments--that were to him, in his perturbed state, like
endless hours of pain--he felt a hand laid on his shoulder.  He started
and looked round.

"Dorian," said Lord Henry, "I had better tell them that the shooting is
stopped for to-day. It would not look well to go on."

"I wish it were stopped for ever, Harry," he answered bitterly.  "The
whole thing is hideous and cruel.  Is the man ...?"

He could not finish the sentence.

"I am afraid so," rejoined Lord Henry.  "He got the whole charge of
shot in his chest.  He must have died almost instantaneously.  Come;
let us go home."

They walked side by side in the direction of the avenue for nearly
fifty yards without speaking.  Then Dorian looked at Lord Henry and
said, with a heavy sigh, "It is a bad omen, Harry, a very bad omen."

"What is?" asked Lord Henry.  "Oh! this accident, I suppose.  My dear
fellow, it can't be helped.  It was the man's own fault.  Why did he
get in front of the guns?  Besides, it is nothing to us.  It is rather
awkward for Geoffrey, of course.  It does not do to pepper beaters.  It
makes people think that one is a wild shot.  And Geoffrey is not; he
shoots very straight.  But there is no use talking about the matter."

Dorian shook his head.  "It is a bad omen, Harry.  I feel as if
something horrible were going to happen to some of us.  To myself,
perhaps," he added, passing his hand over his eyes, with a gesture of
pain.

The elder man laughed.  "The only horrible thing in the world is _ennui_,
Dorian.  That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness.  But we
are not likely to suffer from it unless these fellows keep chattering
about this thing at dinner.  I must tell them that the subject is to be
tabooed.  As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen.  Destiny
does not send us heralds.  She is too wise or too cruel for that.
Besides, what on earth could happen to you, Dorian?  You have
everything in the world that a man can want.  There is no one who would
not be delighted to change places with you."

"There is no one with whom I would not change places, Harry.  Don't
laugh like that.  I am telling you the truth.  The wretched peasant who
has just died is better off than I am.  I have no terror of death.  It
is the coming of death that terrifies me.  Its monstrous wings seem to
wheel in the leaden air around me.  Good heavens! don't you see a man
moving behind the trees there, watching me, waiting for me?"

Lord Henry looked in the direction in which the trembling gloved hand
was pointing.  "Yes," he said, smiling, "I see the gardener waiting for
you.  I suppose he wants to ask you what flowers you wish to have on
the table to-night. How absurdly nervous you are, my dear fellow!  You
must come and see my doctor, when we get back to town."

Dorian heaved a sigh of relief as he saw the gardener approaching.  The
man touched his hat, glanced for a moment at Lord Henry in a hesitating
manner, and then produced a letter, which he handed to his master.
"Her Grace told me to wait for an answer," he murmured.

Dorian put the letter into his pocket.  "Tell her Grace that I am
coming in," he said, coldly.  The man turned round and went rapidly in
the direction of the house.

"How fond women are of doing dangerous things!" laughed Lord Henry.
"It is one of the qualities in them that I admire most.  A woman will
flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on."

"How fond you are of saying dangerous things, Harry!  In the present
instance, you are quite astray.  I like the duchess very much, but I
don't love her."

"And the duchess loves you very much, but she likes you less, so you
are excellently matched."

"You are talking scandal, Harry, and there is never any basis for
scandal."

"The basis of every scandal is an immoral certainty," said Lord Henry,
lighting a cigarette.

"You would sacrifice anybody, Harry, for the sake of an epigram."

"The world goes to the altar of its own accord," was the answer.

"I wish I could love," cried Dorian Gray with a deep note of pathos in
his voice.  "But I seem to have lost the passion and forgotten the
desire.  I am too much concentrated on myself.  My own personality has
become a burden to me.  I want to escape, to go away, to forget.  It
was silly of me to come down here at all.  I think I shall send a wire
to Harvey to have the yacht got ready.  On a yacht one is safe."

"Safe from what, Dorian?  You are in some trouble.  Why not tell me
what it is?  You know I would help you."

"I can't tell you, Harry," he answered sadly.  "And I dare say it is
only a fancy of mine.  This unfortunate accident has upset me.  I have
a horrible presentiment that something of the kind may happen to me."

"What nonsense!"

"I hope it is, but I can't help feeling it.  Ah! here is the duchess,
looking like Artemis in a tailor-made gown.  You see we have come back,
Duchess."

"I have heard all about it, Mr. Gray," she answered.  "Poor Geoffrey is
terribly upset.  And it seems that you asked him not to shoot the hare.
How curious!"

"Yes, it was very curious.  I don't know what made me say it.  Some
whim, I suppose.  It looked the loveliest of little live things.  But I
am sorry they told you about the man.  It is a hideous subject."

"It is an annoying subject," broke in Lord Henry.  "It has no
psychological value at all.  Now if Geoffrey had done the thing on
purpose, how interesting he would be!  I should like to know some one
who had committed a real murder."

"How horrid of you, Harry!" cried the duchess.  "Isn't it, Mr. Gray?
Harry, Mr. Gray is ill again.  He is going to faint."

Dorian drew himself up with an effort and smiled.  "It is nothing,
Duchess," he murmured; "my nerves are dreadfully out of order.  That is
all.  I am afraid I walked too far this morning.  I didn't hear what
Harry said.  Was it very bad?  You must tell me some other time.  I
think I must go and lie down.  You will excuse me, won't you?"

They had reached the great flight of steps that led from the
conservatory on to the terrace.  As the glass door closed behind
Dorian, Lord Henry turned and looked at the duchess with his slumberous
eyes.  "Are you very much in love with him?" he asked.

She did not answer for some time, but stood gazing at the landscape.
"I wish I knew," she said at last.

He shook his head.  "Knowledge would be fatal.  It is the uncertainty
that charms one.  A mist makes things wonderful."

"One may lose one's way."

"All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys."

"What is that?"

"Disillusion."

"It was my _debut_ in life," she sighed.

"It came to you crowned."

"I am tired of strawberry leaves."

"They become you."

"Only in public."

"You would miss them," said Lord Henry.

"I will not part with a petal."

"Monmouth has ears."

"Old age is dull of hearing."

"Has he never been jealous?"

"I wish he had been."

He glanced about as if in search of something.  "What are you looking
for?" she inquired.

"The button from your foil," he answered.  "You have dropped it."

She laughed.  "I have still the mask."

"It makes your eyes lovelier," was his reply.

She laughed again.  Her teeth showed like white seeds in a scarlet
fruit.

Upstairs, in his own room, Dorian Gray was lying on a sofa, with terror
in every tingling fibre of his body.  Life had suddenly become too
hideous a burden for him to bear.  The dreadful death of the unlucky
beater, shot in the thicket like a wild animal, had seemed to him to
pre-figure death for himself also.  He had nearly swooned at what Lord
Henry had said in a chance mood of cynical jesting.

At five o'clock he rang his bell for his servant and gave him orders to
pack his things for the night-express to town, and to have the brougham
at the door by eight-thirty. He was determined not to sleep another
night at Selby Royal.  It was an ill-omened place.  Death walked there
in the sunlight.  The grass of the forest had been spotted with blood.

Then he wrote a note to Lord Henry, telling him that he was going up to
town to consult his doctor and asking him to entertain his guests in
his absence.  As he was putting it into the envelope, a knock came to
the door, and his valet informed him that the head-keeper wished to see
him.  He frowned and bit his lip.  "Send him in," he muttered, after
some moments' hesitation.

As soon as the man entered, Dorian pulled his chequebook out of a
drawer and spread it out before him.

"I suppose you have come about the unfortunate accident of this
morning, Thornton?" he said, taking up a pen.

"Yes, sir," answered the gamekeeper.

"Was the poor fellow married?  Had he any people dependent on him?"
asked Dorian, looking bored.  "If so, I should not like them to be left
in want, and will send them any sum of money you may think necessary."

"We don't know who he is, sir.  That is what I took the liberty of
coming to you about."

"Don't know who he is?" said Dorian, listlessly.  "What do you mean?
Wasn't he one of your men?"

"No, sir.  Never saw him before.  Seems like a sailor, sir."

The pen dropped from Dorian Gray's hand, and he felt as if his heart
had suddenly stopped beating.  "A sailor?" he cried out.  "Did you say
a sailor?"

"Yes, sir.  He looks as if he had been a sort of sailor; tattooed on
both arms, and that kind of thing."

"Was there anything found on him?" said Dorian, leaning forward and
looking at the man with startled eyes.  "Anything that would tell his
name?"

"Some money, sir--not much, and a six-shooter. There was no name of any
kind.  A decent-looking man, sir, but rough-like. A sort of sailor we
think."

Dorian started to his feet.  A terrible hope fluttered past him.  He
clutched at it madly.  "Where is the body?" he exclaimed.  "Quick!  I
must see it at once."

"It is in an empty stable in the Home Farm, sir.  The folk don't like
to have that sort of thing in their houses.  They say a corpse brings
bad luck."

"The Home Farm!  Go there at once and meet me.  Tell one of the grooms
to bring my horse round.  No. Never mind.  I'll go to the stables
myself.  It will save time."

In less than a quarter of an hour, Dorian Gray was galloping down the
long avenue as hard as he could go.  The trees seemed to sweep past him
in spectral procession, and wild shadows to fling themselves across his
path.  Once the mare swerved at a white gate-post and nearly threw him.
He lashed her across the neck with his crop.  She cleft the dusky air
like an arrow.  The stones flew from her hoofs.

At last he reached the Home Farm.  Two men were loitering in the yard.
He leaped from the saddle and threw the reins to one of them.  In the
farthest stable a light was glimmering.  Something seemed to tell him
that the body was there, and he hurried to the door and put his hand
upon the latch.

There he paused for a moment, feeling that he was on the brink of a
discovery that would either make or mar his life.  Then he thrust the
door open and entered.

On a heap of sacking in the far corner was lying the dead body of a man
dressed in a coarse shirt and a pair of blue trousers.  A spotted
handkerchief had been placed over the face.  A coarse candle, stuck in
a bottle, sputtered beside it.

Dorian Gray shuddered.  He felt that his could not be the hand to take
the handkerchief away, and called out to one of the farm-servants to
come to him.

"Take that thing off the face.  I wish to see it," he said, clutching
at the door-post for support.

When the farm-servant had done so, he stepped forward.  A cry of joy
broke from his lips.  The man who had been shot in the thicket was
James Vane.

He stood there for some minutes looking at the dead body.  As he rode
home, his eyes were full of tears, for he knew he was safe.



CHAPTER 19

"There is no use your telling me that you are going to be good," cried
Lord Henry, dipping his white fingers into a red copper bowl filled
with rose-water. "You are quite perfect.  Pray, don't change."

Dorian Gray shook his head.  "No, Harry, I have done too many dreadful
things in my life.  I am not going to do any more.  I began my good
actions yesterday."

"Where were you yesterday?"

"In the country, Harry.  I was staying at a little inn by myself."

"My dear boy," said Lord Henry, smiling, "anybody can be good in the
country.  There are no temptations there.  That is the reason why
people who live out of town are so absolutely uncivilized.
Civilization is not by any means an easy thing to attain to.  There are
only two ways by which man can reach it.  One is by being cultured, the
other by being corrupt.  Country people have no opportunity of being
either, so they stagnate."

"Culture and corruption," echoed Dorian.  "I have known something of
both.  It seems terrible to me now that they should ever be found
together.  For I have a new ideal, Harry.  I am going to alter.  I
think I have altered."

"You have not yet told me what your good action was.  Or did you say
you had done more than one?" asked his companion as he spilled into his
plate a little crimson pyramid of seeded strawberries and, through a
perforated, shell-shaped spoon, snowed white sugar upon them.

"I can tell you, Harry.  It is not a story I could tell to any one
else.  I spared somebody.  It sounds vain, but you understand what I
mean.  She was quite beautiful and wonderfully like Sibyl Vane.  I
think it was that which first attracted me to her.  You remember Sibyl,
don't you?  How long ago that seems!  Well, Hetty was not one of our
own class, of course.  She was simply a girl in a village.  But I
really loved her.  I am quite sure that I loved her.  All during this
wonderful May that we have been having, I used to run down and see her
two or three times a week.  Yesterday she met me in a little orchard.
The apple-blossoms kept tumbling down on her hair, and she was
laughing.  We were to have gone away together this morning at dawn.
Suddenly I determined to leave her as flowerlike as I had found her."

"I should think the novelty of the emotion must have given you a thrill
of real pleasure, Dorian," interrupted Lord Henry.  "But I can finish
your idyll for you.  You gave her good advice and broke her heart.
That was the beginning of your reformation."

"Harry, you are horrible!  You mustn't say these dreadful things.
Hetty's heart is not broken.  Of course, she cried and all that.  But
there is no disgrace upon her.  She can live, like Perdita, in her
garden of mint and marigold."

"And weep over a faithless Florizel," said Lord Henry, laughing, as he
leaned back in his chair.  "My dear Dorian, you have the most curiously
boyish moods.  Do you think this girl will ever be really content now
with any one of her own rank?  I suppose she will be married some day
to a rough carter or a grinning ploughman.  Well, the fact of having
met you, and loved you, will teach her to despise her husband, and she
will be wretched.  From a moral point of view, I cannot say that I
think much of your great renunciation.  Even as a beginning, it is
poor.  Besides, how do you know that Hetty isn't floating at the
present moment in some starlit mill-pond, with lovely water-lilies
round her, like Ophelia?"

"I can't bear this, Harry!  You mock at everything, and then suggest
the most serious tragedies.  I am sorry I told you now.  I don't care
what you say to me.  I know I was right in acting as I did.  Poor
Hetty!  As I rode past the farm this morning, I saw her white face at
the window, like a spray of jasmine.  Don't let us talk about it any
more, and don't try to persuade me that the first good action I have
done for years, the first little bit of self-sacrifice I have ever
known, is really a sort of sin.  I want to be better.  I am going to be
better.  Tell me something about yourself.  What is going on in town?
I have not been to the club for days."

"The people are still discussing poor Basil's disappearance."

"I should have thought they had got tired of that by this time," said
Dorian, pouring himself out some wine and frowning slightly.

"My dear boy, they have only been talking about it for six weeks, and
the British public are really not equal to the mental strain of having
more than one topic every three months.  They have been very fortunate
lately, however.  They have had my own divorce-case and Alan Campbell's
suicide.  Now they have got the mysterious disappearance of an artist.
Scotland Yard still insists that the man in the grey ulster who left
for Paris by the midnight train on the ninth of November was poor
Basil, and the French police declare that Basil never arrived in Paris
at all.  I suppose in about a fortnight we shall be told that he has
been seen in San Francisco.  It is an odd thing, but every one who
disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco.  It must be a
delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world."

"What do you think has happened to Basil?" asked Dorian, holding up his
Burgundy against the light and wondering how it was that he could
discuss the matter so calmly.

"I have not the slightest idea.  If Basil chooses to hide himself, it
is no business of mine.  If he is dead, I don't want to think about
him.  Death is the only thing that ever terrifies me.  I hate it."

"Why?" said the younger man wearily.

"Because," said Lord Henry, passing beneath his nostrils the gilt
trellis of an open vinaigrette box, "one can survive everything
nowadays except that.  Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in
the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.  Let us have our
coffee in the music-room, Dorian.  You must play Chopin to me.  The man
with whom my wife ran away played Chopin exquisitely.  Poor Victoria!
I was very fond of her.  The house is rather lonely without her.  Of
course, married life is merely a habit, a bad habit.  But then one
regrets the loss even of one's worst habits.  Perhaps one regrets them
the most.  They are such an essential part of one's personality."

Dorian said nothing, but rose from the table, and passing into the next
room, sat down to the piano and let his fingers stray across the white
and black ivory of the keys.  After the coffee had been brought in, he
stopped, and looking over at Lord Henry, said, "Harry, did it ever
occur to you that Basil was murdered?"

Lord Henry yawned.  "Basil was very popular, and always wore a
Waterbury watch.  Why should he have been murdered?  He was not clever
enough to have enemies.  Of course, he had a wonderful genius for
painting.  But a man can paint like Velasquez and yet be as dull as
possible.  Basil was really rather dull.  He only interested me once,
and that was when he told me, years ago, that he had a wild adoration
for you and that you were the dominant motive of his art."

"I was very fond of Basil," said Dorian with a note of sadness in his
voice.  "But don't people say that he was murdered?"

"Oh, some of the papers do.  It does not seem to me to be at all
probable.  I know there are dreadful places in Paris, but Basil was not
the sort of man to have gone to them.  He had no curiosity.  It was his
chief defect."

"What would you say, Harry, if I told you that I had murdered Basil?"
said the younger man.  He watched him intently after he had spoken.

"I would say, my dear fellow, that you were posing for a character that
doesn't suit you.  All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime.
It is not in you, Dorian, to commit a murder.  I am sorry if I hurt
your vanity by saying so, but I assure you it is true.  Crime belongs
exclusively to the lower orders.  I don't blame them in the smallest
degree.  I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us,
simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations."

"A method of procuring sensations?  Do you think, then, that a man who
has once committed a murder could possibly do the same crime again?
Don't tell me that."

"Oh! anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often," cried Lord
Henry, laughing.  "That is one of the most important secrets of life.
I should fancy, however, that murder is always a mistake.  One should
never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.  But let us
pass from poor Basil.  I wish I could believe that he had come to such
a really romantic end as you suggest, but I can't. I dare say he fell
into the Seine off an omnibus and that the conductor hushed up the
scandal.  Yes:  I should fancy that was his end.  I see him lying now
on his back under those dull-green waters, with the heavy barges
floating over him and long weeds catching in his hair.  Do you know, I
don't think he would have done much more good work.  During the last
ten years his painting had gone off very much."

Dorian heaved a sigh, and Lord Henry strolled across the room and began
to stroke the head of a curious Java parrot, a large, grey-plumaged
bird with pink crest and tail, that was balancing itself upon a bamboo
perch.  As his pointed fingers touched it, it dropped the white scurf
of crinkled lids over black, glasslike eyes and began to sway backwards
and forwards.

"Yes," he continued, turning round and taking his handkerchief out of
his pocket; "his painting had quite gone off.  It seemed to me to have
lost something.  It had lost an ideal.  When you and he ceased to be
great friends, he ceased to be a great artist.  What was it separated
you?  I suppose he bored you.  If so, he never forgave you.  It's a
habit bores have.  By the way, what has become of that wonderful
portrait he did of you?  I don't think I have ever seen it since he
finished it.  Oh!  I remember your telling me years ago that you had
sent it down to Selby, and that it had got mislaid or stolen on the
way.  You never got it back?  What a pity! it was really a
masterpiece.  I remember I wanted to buy it.  I wish I had now.  It
belonged to Basil's best period.  Since then, his work was that curious
mixture of bad painting and good intentions that always entitles a man
to be called a representative British artist.  Did you advertise for
it?  You should."

"I forget," said Dorian.  "I suppose I did.  But I never really liked
it.  I am sorry I sat for it.  The memory of the thing is hateful to
me.  Why do you talk of it?  It used to remind me of those curious
lines in some play--Hamlet, I think--how do they run?--

    "Like the painting of a sorrow,
     A face without a heart."

Yes:  that is what it was like."

Lord Henry laughed.  "If a man treats life artistically, his brain is
his heart," he answered, sinking into an arm-chair.

Dorian Gray shook his head and struck some soft chords on the piano.
"'Like the painting of a sorrow,'" he repeated, "'a face without a
heart.'"

The elder man lay back and looked at him with half-closed eyes.  "By
the way, Dorian," he said after a pause, "'what does it profit a man if
he gain the whole world and lose--how does the quotation run?--his own
soul'?"

The music jarred, and Dorian Gray started and stared at his friend.
"Why do you ask me that, Harry?"

"My dear fellow," said Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows in surprise,
"I asked you because I thought you might be able to give me an answer.
That is all.  I was going through the park last Sunday, and close by
the Marble Arch there stood a little crowd of shabby-looking people
listening to some vulgar street-preacher. As I passed by, I heard the
man yelling out that question to his audience.  It struck me as being
rather dramatic.  London is very rich in curious effects of that kind.
A wet Sunday, an uncouth Christian in a mackintosh, a ring of sickly
white faces under a broken roof of dripping umbrellas, and a wonderful
phrase flung into the air by shrill hysterical lips--it was really very
good in its way, quite a suggestion.  I thought of telling the prophet
that art had a soul, but that man had not.  I am afraid, however, he
would not have understood me."

"Don't, Harry.  The soul is a terrible reality.  It can be bought, and
sold, and bartered away.  It can be poisoned, or made perfect.  There
is a soul in each one of us.  I know it."

"Do you feel quite sure of that, Dorian?"

"Quite sure."

"Ah! then it must be an illusion.  The things one feels absolutely
certain about are never true.  That is the fatality of faith, and the
lesson of romance.  How grave you are!  Don't be so serious.  What have
you or I to do with the superstitions of our age?  No:  we have given
up our belief in the soul.  Play me something.  Play me a nocturne,
Dorian, and, as you play, tell me, in a low voice, how you have kept
your youth.  You must have some secret.  I am only ten years older than
you are, and I am wrinkled, and worn, and yellow.  You are really
wonderful, Dorian.  You have never looked more charming than you do
to-night. You remind me of the day I saw you first.  You were rather
cheeky, very shy, and absolutely extraordinary.  You have changed, of
course, but not in appearance.  I wish you would tell me your secret.
To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take
exercise, get up early, or be respectable.  Youth!  There is nothing
like it.  It's absurd to talk of the ignorance of youth.  The only
people to whose opinions I listen now with any respect are people much
younger than myself.  They seem in front of me.  Life has revealed to
them her latest wonder.  As for the aged, I always contradict the aged.
I do it on principle.  If you ask them their opinion on something that
happened yesterday, they solemnly give you the opinions current in
1820, when people wore high stocks, believed in everything, and knew
absolutely nothing.  How lovely that thing you are playing is!  I
wonder, did Chopin write it at Majorca, with the sea weeping round the
villa and the salt spray dashing against the panes?  It is marvellously
romantic.  What a blessing it is that there is one art left to us that
is not imitative!  Don't stop.  I want music to-night. It seems to me
that you are the young Apollo and that I am Marsyas listening to you.
I have sorrows, Dorian, of my own, that even you know nothing of.  The
tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.  I am
amazed sometimes at my own sincerity.  Ah, Dorian, how happy you are!
What an exquisite life you have had!  You have drunk deeply of
everything.  You have crushed the grapes against your palate.  Nothing
has been hidden from you.  And it has all been to you no more than the
sound of music.  It has not marred you.  You are still the same."

"I am not the same, Harry."

"Yes, you are the same.  I wonder what the rest of your life will be.
Don't spoil it by renunciations.  At present you are a perfect type.
Don't make yourself incomplete.  You are quite flawless now.  You need
not shake your head:  you know you are.  Besides, Dorian, don't deceive
yourself.  Life is not governed by will or intention.  Life is a
question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which
thought hides itself and passion has its dreams.  You may fancy
yourself safe and think yourself strong.  But a chance tone of colour
in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once
loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten
poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music
that you had ceased to play--I tell you, Dorian, that it is on things
like these that our lives depend.  Browning writes about that
somewhere; but our own senses will imagine them for us.  There are
moments when the odour of _lilas blanc_ passes suddenly across me, and I
have to live the strangest month of my life over again.  I wish I could
change places with you, Dorian.  The world has cried out against us
both, but it has always worshipped you.  It always will worship you.
You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is
afraid it has found.  I am so glad that you have never done anything,
never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything
outside of yourself!  Life has been your art.  You have set yourself to
music.  Your days are your sonnets."

Dorian rose up from the piano and passed his hand through his hair.
"Yes, life has been exquisite," he murmured, "but I am not going to
have the same life, Harry.  And you must not say these extravagant
things to me.  You don't know everything about me.  I think that if you
did, even you would turn from me.  You laugh.  Don't laugh."

"Why have you stopped playing, Dorian?  Go back and give me the
nocturne over again.  Look at that great, honey-coloured moon that
hangs in the dusky air.  She is waiting for you to charm her, and if
you play she will come closer to the earth.  You won't?  Let us go to
the club, then.  It has been a charming evening, and we must end it
charmingly.  There is some one at White's who wants immensely to know
you--young Lord Poole, Bournemouth's eldest son.  He has already copied
your neckties, and has begged me to introduce him to you.  He is quite
delightful and rather reminds me of you."

"I hope not," said Dorian with a sad look in his eyes.  "But I am tired
to-night, Harry.  I shan't go to the club.  It is nearly eleven, and I
want to go to bed early."

"Do stay.  You have never played so well as to-night. There was
something in your touch that was wonderful.  It had more expression
than I had ever heard from it before."

"It is because I am going to be good," he answered, smiling.  "I am a
little changed already."

"You cannot change to me, Dorian," said Lord Henry.  "You and I will
always be friends."

"Yet you poisoned me with a book once.  I should not forgive that.
Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to any one.  It
does harm."

"My dear boy, you are really beginning to moralize.  You will soon be
going about like the converted, and the revivalist, warning people
against all the sins of which you have grown tired.  You are much too
delightful to do that.  Besides, it is no use.  You and I are what we
are, and will be what we will be.  As for being poisoned by a book,
there is no such thing as that.  Art has no influence upon action.  It
annihilates the desire to act.  It is superbly sterile.  The books that
the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
That is all.  But we won't discuss literature.  Come round to-morrow. I
am going to ride at eleven.  We might go together, and I will take you
to lunch afterwards with Lady Branksome.  She is a charming woman, and
wants to consult you about some tapestries she is thinking of buying.
Mind you come.  Or shall we lunch with our little duchess?  She says
she never sees you now.  Perhaps you are tired of Gladys?  I thought
you would be.  Her clever tongue gets on one's nerves.  Well, in any
case, be here at eleven."

"Must I really come, Harry?"

"Certainly.  The park is quite lovely now.  I don't think there have
been such lilacs since the year I met you."

"Very well.  I shall be here at eleven," said Dorian.  "Good night,
Harry."  As he reached the door, he hesitated for a moment, as if he
had something more to say.  Then he sighed and went out.



CHAPTER 20

It was a lovely night, so warm that he threw his coat over his arm and
did not even put his silk scarf round his throat.  As he strolled home,
smoking his cigarette, two young men in evening dress passed him.  He
heard one of them whisper to the other, "That is Dorian Gray." He
remembered how pleased he used to be when he was pointed out, or stared
at, or talked about.  He was tired of hearing his own name now.  Half
the charm of the little village where he had been so often lately was
that no one knew who he was.  He had often told the girl whom he had
lured to love him that he was poor, and she had believed him.  He had
told her once that he was wicked, and she had laughed at him and
answered that wicked people were always very old and very ugly.  What a
laugh she had!--just like a thrush singing.  And how pretty she had
been in her cotton dresses and her large hats!  She knew nothing, but
she had everything that he had lost.

When he reached home, he found his servant waiting up for him.  He sent
him to bed, and threw himself down on the sofa in the library, and
began to think over some of the things that Lord Henry had said to him.

Was it really true that one could never change?  He felt a wild longing
for the unstained purity of his boyhood--his rose-white boyhood, as
Lord Henry had once called it.  He knew that he had tarnished himself,
filled his mind with corruption and given horror to his fancy; that he
had been an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible
joy in being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his own, it had
been the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to
shame.  But was it all irretrievable?  Was there no hope for him?

Ah! in what a monstrous moment of pride and passion he had prayed that
the portrait should bear the burden of his days, and he keep the
unsullied splendour of eternal youth!  All his failure had been due to
that.  Better for him that each sin of his life had brought its sure
swift penalty along with it.  There was purification in punishment.
Not "Forgive us our sins" but "Smite us for our iniquities" should be
the prayer of man to a most just God.

The curiously carved mirror that Lord Henry had given to him, so many
years ago now, was standing on the table, and the white-limbed Cupids
laughed round it as of old.  He took it up, as he had done on that
night of horror when he had first noted the change in the fatal
picture, and with wild, tear-dimmed eyes looked into its polished
shield.  Once, some one who had terribly loved him had written to him a
mad letter, ending with these idolatrous words: "The world is changed
because you are made of ivory and gold.  The curves of your lips
rewrite history."  The phrases came back to his memory, and he repeated
them over and over to himself.  Then he loathed his own beauty, and
flinging the mirror on the floor, crushed it into silver splinters
beneath his heel.  It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty
and the youth that he had prayed for.  But for those two things, his
life might have been free from stain.  His beauty had been to him but a
mask, his youth but a mockery.  What was youth at best?  A green, an
unripe time, a time of shallow moods, and sickly thoughts.  Why had he
worn its livery?  Youth had spoiled him.

It was better not to think of the past.  Nothing could alter that.  It
was of himself, and of his own future, that he had to think.  James
Vane was hidden in a nameless grave in Selby churchyard.  Alan Campbell
had shot himself one night in his laboratory, but had not revealed the
secret that he had been forced to know.  The excitement, such as it
was, over Basil Hallward's disappearance would soon pass away.  It was
already waning.  He was perfectly safe there.  Nor, indeed, was it the
death of Basil Hallward that weighed most upon his mind.  It was the
living death of his own soul that troubled him.  Basil had painted the
portrait that had marred his life.  He could not forgive him that.  It
was the portrait that had done everything.  Basil had said things to
him that were unbearable, and that he had yet borne with patience.  The
murder had been simply the madness of a moment.  As for Alan Campbell,
his suicide had been his own act.  He had chosen to do it.  It was
nothing to him.

A new life!  That was what he wanted.  That was what he was waiting
for.  Surely he had begun it already.  He had spared one innocent
thing, at any rate.  He would never again tempt innocence.  He would be
good.

As he thought of Hetty Merton, he began to wonder if the portrait in
the locked room had changed.  Surely it was not still so horrible as it
had been?  Perhaps if his life became pure, he would be able to expel
every sign of evil passion from the face.  Perhaps the signs of evil
had already gone away.  He would go and look.

He took the lamp from the table and crept upstairs.  As he unbarred the
door, a smile of joy flitted across his strangely young-looking face
and lingered for a moment about his lips.  Yes, he would be good, and
the hideous thing that he had hidden away would no longer be a terror
to him.  He felt as if the load had been lifted from him already.

He went in quietly, locking the door behind him, as was his custom, and
dragged the purple hanging from the portrait.  A cry of pain and
indignation broke from him.  He could see no change, save that in the
eyes there was a look of cunning and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of
the hypocrite.  The thing was still loathsome--more loathsome, if
possible, than before--and the scarlet dew that spotted the hand seemed
brighter, and more like blood newly spilled.  Then he trembled.  Had it
been merely vanity that had made him do his one good deed?  Or the
desire for a new sensation, as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mocking
laugh?  Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do things
finer than we are ourselves?  Or, perhaps, all these?  And why was the
red stain larger than it had been?  It seemed to have crept like a
horrible disease over the wrinkled fingers.  There was blood on the
painted feet, as though the thing had dripped--blood even on the hand
that had not held the knife.  Confess?  Did it mean that he was to
confess?  To give himself up and be put to death?  He laughed.  He felt
that the idea was monstrous.  Besides, even if he did confess, who
would believe him?  There was no trace of the murdered man anywhere.
Everything belonging to him had been destroyed.  He himself had burned
what had been below-stairs. The world would simply say that he was mad.
They would shut him up if he persisted in his story.... Yet it was
his duty to confess, to suffer public shame, and to make public
atonement.  There was a God who called upon men to tell their sins to
earth as well as to heaven.  Nothing that he could do would cleanse him
till he had told his own sin.  His sin?  He shrugged his shoulders.
The death of Basil Hallward seemed very little to him.  He was thinking
of Hetty Merton.  For it was an unjust mirror, this mirror of his soul
that he was looking at.  Vanity?  Curiosity?  Hypocrisy?  Had there
been nothing more in his renunciation than that?  There had been
something more.  At least he thought so.  But who could tell? ... No.
There had been nothing more.  Through vanity he had spared her.  In
hypocrisy he had worn the mask of goodness.  For curiosity's sake he
had tried the denial of self.  He recognized that now.

But this murder--was it to dog him all his life?  Was he always to be
burdened by his past?  Was he really to confess?  Never.  There was
only one bit of evidence left against him.  The picture itself--that
was evidence.  He would destroy it.  Why had he kept it so long?  Once
it had given him pleasure to watch it changing and growing old.  Of
late he had felt no such pleasure.  It had kept him awake at night.
When he had been away, he had been filled with terror lest other eyes
should look upon it.  It had brought melancholy across his passions.
Its mere memory had marred many moments of joy.  It had been like
conscience to him.  Yes, it had been conscience.  He would destroy it.

He looked round and saw the knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward.  He
had cleaned it many times, till there was no stain left upon it.  It
was bright, and glistened.  As it had killed the painter, so it would
kill the painter's work, and all that that meant.  It would kill the
past, and when that was dead, he would be free.  It would kill this
monstrous soul-life, and without its hideous warnings, he would be at
peace.  He seized the thing, and stabbed the picture with it.

There was a cry heard, and a crash.  The cry was so horrible in its
agony that the frightened servants woke and crept out of their rooms.
Two gentlemen, who were passing in the square below, stopped and looked
up at the great house.  They walked on till they met a policeman and
brought him back.  The man rang the bell several times, but there was
no answer.  Except for a light in one of the top windows, the house was
all dark.  After a time, he went away and stood in an adjoining portico
and watched.

"Whose house is that, Constable?" asked the elder of the two gentlemen.

"Mr. Dorian Gray's, sir," answered the policeman.

They looked at each other, as they walked away, and sneered.  One of
them was Sir Henry Ashton's uncle.

Inside, in the servants' part of the house, the half-clad domestics
were talking in low whispers to each other.  Old Mrs. Leaf was crying
and wringing her hands.  Francis was as pale as death.

After about a quarter of an hour, he got the coachman and one of the
footmen and crept upstairs.  They knocked, but there was no reply.
They called out.  Everything was still.  Finally, after vainly trying
to force the door, they got on the roof and dropped down on to the
balcony.  The windows yielded easily--their bolts were old.

When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait
of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his
exquisite youth and beauty.  Lying on the floor was a dead man, in
evening dress, with a knife in his heart.  He was withered, wrinkled,
and loathsome of visage.  It was not till they had examined the rings
that they recognized who it was.


          CHAPTER I


Fishpingle’s room at Pomfret Court challenged the interest of visitors
to that ancient manor-house. It had been part of the original Pomfret
House destroyed by fire in the first decade of the seventeenth century.
Walls, floor, and ceiling were of stone quarried on the estate and laid
by a master-builder, who, obviously, had revelled in the eccentricities
of his craft. The general effect was that of a crypt, although a big
window, facing south, and looking into a charming courtyard, had been
cut out of the wall in 1830. This window, however, was Psuedo-Gothic in
character, and not too offensive to the critical eye. And the furniture,
also, waifs and strays from all parts of the house, stout time-mellowed
specimens, presented a happy homogeneity, as if they, at least, were
content with this last resting-place. A Cromwellian table upon which
Cavaliers had cut their initials, faced the wide open fireplace. In the
alcoves flanking the hearth stood two Queen Anne tallboys, much
battered. Opposite to them was a Sheraton bookcase and bureau roughly
restored by the village carpenter. The chairs were mostly eighteenth
century. But oak, walnut and mahogany twinkled at each other
harmoniously, polished by unlimited elbow-grease to a rich golden
sameness of tint, the one tint which the faker of old furniture is,
happily, unable to reproduce.

This room had been known as the Steward’s Room in the time of Sir
Geoffrey Pomfret’s predecessor and father. Fishpingle came into
possession when he was installed as butler long after Sir Geoffrey’s
accession to the family honours. Some forty years had passed since then
but the room retained its ancient uses, inasmuch as Fishpingle was
recognised and even acclaimed as steward rather than butler, whose
stewardship was the more real because it concerned itself loyally with
cause and disdained effect. Sir Geoffrey boasted with good reason that
he was the most approachable of squires. He may not have been aware that
Fishpingle soaped the ways upon which importunate tenants slid from
cottage to hall. Fishpingle served as an encyclopædia of information
concerning the more intimate details of estate management. He kept a big
diary. In the tallboys were filed papers and memoranda. Sir Geoffrey’s
only son, Lionel, and Lady Pomfret shared a saying which had mellowed
into a crusted family joke: “Fishpingle knows.”

Upon the stone walls were some fine heads of fallow deer, and half a
dozen cases of stuffed birds and fish. Fishpingle, it might be inferred,
was something of an angler and naturalist. A glance at his bookcase
revealed his interest in horse and hound. Beckford was there, and
Daniel’s “Rural Sports,” and Izaac Walton. In the place of honour shone
conspicuous a morocco-bound, richly-tooled, gilded volume—“Stemmata
Pomfretiana.” This genealogical work had been compiled, regardless of
expense, by Sir Geoffrey’s grandfather, who had wasted time and money in
pursuit of other and less harmless interests. It was he indeed, who
encumbered a fine estate with a large and crippling mortgage.

Into Fishpingle’s room came Alfred Rockley, the first footman, carrying
a handsome tankard in one hand and a “chammy” leather in the other.
Alfred was a good-looking young fellow, racy of the Wiltshire soil, born
and bred upon the Pomfret estates and quite willing to serve a master
who lived upon those estates and did not own (or lease) a house in town.
A reason for this contentment will appear immediately.

Alfred placed the tankard, bottom uppermost upon the Cromwellian table,
and stared at it intently with a slight frown upon his ordinarily
pleasant countenance. Then he picked it up, rubbed it softly, and began
to inspect himself in its shining surface. This agreeable task so
engrossed him that he failed to notice the sly approach of a
maid-servant, who followed a tip-tilted nose into the room. The nose
belonged to Prudence Rockley, a cousin of Alfred and the stillroom maid
of the establishment. She carried a feather duster and a smile which, so
Sir Geoffrey affirmed, was worth an extra five pounds a year in wages.

“Boo!” said she.

Alfred dropped the tankard and caught it again deftly. The Squire
encouraged cricket. Prudence laughed. Alfred displayed some irritation.

“There you go again.”

He spoke with the Wilts accent, an accent dear to the Squire and his
lady, as being the unmistakable voice of “his” people. Prudence shrugged
a pretty pair of shoulders as she answered with the same rising
inflection:

“I’ll go, Alfred, if so be as I’m disturbing you at your—_work_.”

“I came nigh on droppin’ the bloomin’ mug.”

As he spoke, he rubbed it caressingly, but his eyes dwelt even more
caressingly upon the stillroom maid, who, noting his glance, began
dusting the articles upon the table. As she moved from the young man,
she murmured interrogatively:

“Why ever have ’ee brought it in here?”

“I’ll tell ’ee, if you’ll give us a kiss, Prue.”

“Don’t ’ee be silly!”

Alfred retorted with conviction.

“If it be silly to want to kiss ’ee, I be the biggest fule in the
parish. ’Ee didn’t want coaxin’ las’ night, Prue.”

To this Prudence replied with alluring directness and simplicity.

“Be good, Alfie. If you kiss me afore ‘elevenses’ my cheeks ’ll be red
as fire, and Uncle Ben ’ll ask questions.”

Alfred let this soak in, as he rubbed the shining tankard. Then he spoke
decisively.

“I want un to ask questions. Sooner the better. Our gettin’ wed depends,
seemin’ly, upon your Uncle Ben.”

The significance of his tone was not lost upon the maid. Her straight
brows puckered slightly as she asked:

“But—why? You said that las’ night, you did.”

Alfred laid down the tankard and held aloft a handsome silver inkstand.

“It is here, Prue.” Then he read aloud an inscription. “‘Presented to
Benoni Fishpingle, after fifty years’ service, by his affectionate
friends, Sir Geoffrey and Lady Pomfret.’ _Affectionate!_ Ah-h-h-h! They
do think the world o’ Benoni Fishpingle, they do. Now, Prue, you coax
your Uncle Ben, and then he’ll downscramble Squire. Tell un that we be a
fine up-standin’ couple, a credit to Nether Applewhite.”

“That don’t need tellin’, Alfie.”

Alfred put down the inkstand and approached the maid, smiling at her. He
wagged his head knowingly.

“They got on to it at dinner las’ night. Yas, they did.”

He chuckled and took her hand in his.

“Got on to—what?”

“Eugannicks.”

He spoke so solemnly that Prudence was vastly impressed.

“Eugannicks,” she repeated, “what’s that?”

Alfred hesitated.

“Eugannicks be—eugannicks.”

“You’re a oner at explainin’ things to a pore young maid, you be.”

Alfred stiffened, but he pressed her hand softly.

“It’s like this, Prue. I can’t explain eugannicks to a young maid, rich
or pore—see?”

“No, I don’t. S’pose,” she dimpled with mischief, “s’pose you try.”

Alfred’s face brightened. Inspiration illumined it.

“You ask your Uncle Ben. Never so happy he be as when enlightenin’
ignorance.”

She withdrew her hand.

“Ignorance? Thank you. I will ask un.”

Alfred sighed with relief.

“Do. All the same, if you think red bain’t so becomin’ early in the
marning, do ’ee put off askin’ un till after tea.”

Prudence betrayed a livelier interest.

“Mercy! Why should eugannicks make me blush?”

Alfred chuckled again.

“You ask your Uncle Ben.”

Prudence nodded, satisfied that interrogation could not be pushed
further. Her eyes were caught by the gleaming tankard.

“That be a be—utiful mug, Alfie.”

“Don’t ’ee touch it. I’ll tell ’ee why I brought un in here, and take
payment after supper. The story be a kind o’ parryble.”

Prudence laughed.

“What big, brave words!”

Alfred pointed at the tankard. Unconsciously, he began to understudy the
tone and manner of the village parson. We shall meet this gentleman
presently. For the moment it is enough to say that he was a man of
character and influence. He had taught Alfred in Sunday school and
prepared him for Confirmation.

“The parryble o’ that there tankard’ll learn ’ee——”

“Teach me, Alfie——”

Prudence had reason to believe herself better educated than her cousin.
She used the country dialect because it would have been “grand” to speak
otherwise. But her uncle, Benoni Fishpingle, spoke English as free from
accent as Sir Geoffrey’s, and expressed himself with even greater
lucidity.

“Will learn ’ee what sort of an old fusspot your Uncle Ben be. When I
first comes here, ten years ago, ’twas well rubbed into me that this
yere tankard,” he held it up again, “was worth its weight in gold.
William an’ Mary.”

“William and Mary?”

“King William and Queen Mary. Bloody Mary he called her.”

“My! What ever did she call him?”

Alfred was unable to answer this question. Gazing solemnly at the
tankard, he continued in the same impressive tone:

“I dunno. In them ancient days I warn’t allowed to touch the damn thing.
Not worthy accordin’ to your Uncle Fusspots. But when I becomes first
footman it was my duty—an’ privilege—to clean un once a week. Now,
Prue, you mark well what follers. I cleaned un yes’dy afternoon, an’ put
un back in pantry safe. Fusspots was there, a-watchin’ me out o’ the
corner of his eye. Then I had to answer the library bell. When I comes
back to pantry this yere tankard was sittin’ bottom-up on floor!”

Prudence gave an astonished gasp as she repeated his words:

“Bottom-up on floor?”

Alfred nodded, almost pontifically. He had caught and held the pretty
maid’s interest in his narrative. His tone dropped mysteriously.

“Knowin’ my man, so to speak, and his lil’ endearin’ ways I says never a
word, but I picks up the mug and cleans un all over again. I puts it
back in safe an’ presently Fusspots sends me in here to fetch his specs.
When I gets back, I’m a liar if that there tankard warn’t wrong side up
on floor again.”

He paused dramatically. Prudence’s blue eyes were sparkling; a brace of
dimples played hide and seek upon her rosy cheeks.

“Well, I never!”

Alfred just touched the shining silver with his “chammy.”

“I looks at tankard, an’ Fusspots he looks at me with that queer grin o’
his. I’d half a mind to kick the mug into next parish, but I remains
most handsomely calm—yas, I did. Then I goes to work on a teapot.
Presently the old un says blandly, ‘Alferd, where’s my specs?’ I give
him his specs and he shoves him on. Then he just looks at me over the
top of ’em, and he says, ‘My lad,’ he says, ‘whatever is that settin’ on
floor?’ I answers up, just as innocent as you be, Prue——”

Prudence pouted, looking prettier than ever.

“I bain’t innocent, Alfie.”

Alfred glanced through the window and kissed her.

“I answers then, just so full o’ sauce as you be, ‘Why, Mr. Fishpingle,’
I says, ‘’tis the tankard what I cleaned so be—utiful five minutes
ago.’ ‘Hold hard,’ he says, ‘are you sure, my lad, that it is clean?’
That fair madded me, Prue, an’ I lets go my left——”

Prudence gasped again.

“Alferd Rockley, you never hit Uncle Ben surely?”

“Figure o’ speech, my maid. I says: ‘I be just so sure ’tis clean, as
you be o’ salvation.’”

“What a nerve!” murmured Prudence.

“I thought I’d fair landed un. Not a bit! He answers up, very
quiet-like: ‘Alferd,’ he says, ‘I bain’t sure o’ my salvation. Pick up
that tankard, my lad, and put it in safe. You can clean it properly
to-morrow marnin’. At a quarter to eleven, you put un on the table in my
room—_bottom up_.’ Now I asks you, Prue, is that tankard cleaned a fair
treat, or is it not? Don’t ’ee touch un!”

As he ended his amazing narrative, Alfred solemnly placed the tankard,
bottom up, on the table, inviting Prudence to inspect its immaculate
surface. She bent down, staring at it. Alfred kissed the nape of her
neck. As he did so, he sprang sharply to attention, and so did the maid.
She moved swiftly and silently to the fireplace.

Sir Geoffrey Pomfret entered.

He belonged to a type of country gentleman now almost extinct. His
round, rosy, clean-shaven face suggested John Bull. To accentuate this
resemblance he wore breeches and gaiters, very well cut, a rough
shooting-coat, a canary waistcoat and a bright bird’s-eye blue cravat.
Every movement and word proclaimed the autocrat. He advanced a couple of
steps, glanced about him with a genial smile, and addressed the
obsequious Alfred.

“Where’s Mr. Fishpingle?”

“In stable-yard, I think, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire crossed to the chimney-piece, eyeing Prudence with much
approval. He said pleasantly:

“Don’t let me disturb you, my dear. Bless me! Your skirts have come down
and your hair’s gone up.”

Prudence curtsied.

“If you please, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Well, well, the flight of Time does not please me. How’s your good
mother, Prudence?”

“Very nicely, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire nodded his massive head.

“Healthy family, you Rockleys. Most of my people, thank the Lord! are
healthy.” Alfred grinned acquiescence. “What the doose are you grinnin’
at?”

“I beg pardon, Sir Geoffrey.”

“I like grins. A good grin is worth money to any young man. Speak up,
sir! Always share a joke with a friend. I hope, b’ Jove! you regard me
as a friend?”

Man and maid answered simultaneously:

“Oh, yes, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Certainly, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire squared his broad shoulders and laughed.

“Then out with it, Alfred.”

Alfred, thus encouraged, and sensible that he was appearing to advantage
in the eyes of Prudence, said boldly:

“I was remembering, Sir Geoffrey, what you was sayin’ las’ night about
they eugannicks.”

The Squire laughed again.

“Took it all in, did you?” Alfred bobbed. “Capital! If I had my way,
eugenics should be taught in every school in the kingdom.” He spoke to
Alfred, but he looked kindly at Prudence.

“If you please, sir——”

“Yes, my pretty maid?”

“What are—eugannicks?”

Sir Geoffrey hesitated and coughed, but he was not the man to crane long
at an awkward fence.

“Well, well, how can I put it plainly to an intelligent child?”

“I be nineteen, Sir Geoffrey, come Michael-mas.”

“And my god-daughter, b’ Jove!”

“Yes, Sir Geoffrey.”

She curtsied again. The question had been asked and answered many times.
The Squire was now at his best—“in touch,” as he put it, with his own
people. He stroked an ample chin.

“I have sixteen god-daughters in Nether Applewhite, and the welfare of
all of ’em is near and dear to my heart. Nineteen, are yer?” He surveyed
her critically. “And one of ten, too?” She smiled. “All alive and doin’
well?” Prudence nodded; the Squire rubbed his hands together. “Capital!
The crop that never fails. How many in your family, Alfred?”

“Seven, Sir Geoffrey. No—eight.”

Alfred grinned deprecatingly.

Instantly the Squire’s voice grew testy.

“What d’ye mean, sir, by your ‘seven, no eight’?”

“I forgot my twin brother, Sir Geoffrey, him as died afore I was
christened. I was only a lil’ baby at the time.”

“Yes, yes, I remember. Sad affair. Diphtheria. Cost me a pretty penny.
Drains—damn ’em.”

For a moment silence imposed itself, broken by the soft, coaxing voice
of Prudence.

“And—eugannicks, Sir Geoffrey?”

The Squire pulled himself together, inflating his chest, astride a
favourite hobby. He began glibly enough:

“Drains, my girl, are a vital part of eugenics, but it begins—it
begins——Um! It’s not easy to make myself perfectly plain to a young
girl.”

Alfred grinned again, Prudence said reflectively:

“That’s what Alferd said, Sir Geoffrey.”

Alfred’s grin vanished as the Squire’s keen eyes rested upon him.

“Bless my soul? Have you been discussing eugenics with my god-daughter?”

Alfred moved uneasily.

“She did ask for information, Sir Geoffrey; and I made so bold as to
refer her to Mr. Fishpingle.”

The Squire’s face indicated relief.

“Yes, yes, Mr. Fishpingle will explain. Dear me! Is that the William and
Mary tankard?”

“Yes, Sir Geoffrey.”

“What the doose is it doin’ there—upside down?”

“Mr. Fishpingle’ll explain that, Sir Geoffrey. His very particular
orders. I—I think I hear him coming, Sir Geoffrey.”

Prudence began dusting again as Fishpingle came into the room. He was a
slightly older man than the squire and bore his years less lightly. He
was something of the Squire’s build, a fine figure of a man—so the
women said—and he bore upon a thinner, more refined face, the same look
of authority. As soon as he saw his master he smiled delightfully. Sir
Geoffrey growled out:

“You ought to be a policeman, Ben.”

“A policeman, Sir Geoffrey?”

“You’re never about when you’re most particularly wanted. Have you
looked at the mare?”

Fishpingle answered easily with the respectful assurance of an old
servant who had gone rabbiting with his master when they were boys
together.

“You won’t ride her again this season, Sir Geoffrey. She never was quite
up to your weight, and this spring hunting on hard ground is cruel work
on the hocks. She’ll have to be fired, the pretty dear.”

“Turn her out into the water-meadows.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And now, pray tell me, what is the meaning of—that?”

He indicated the tankard. Fishpingle smiled.

“A small matter of discipline, Sir Geoffrey, which concerns Alfred and
myself.”

“But why, man, is it placed upside down?”

“Merely as an object lesson, to test a young man’s powers of
observation.”

As he spoke, with a certain quaint deliberation, he glanced
affectionately at the fine piece of silver. Then, in a sharper tone, he
spoke to Alfred:

“Take it away, my lad, and clean it properly.”

Alfred picked up the tankard, somewhat sullenly. His face brightened as
the Squire exclaimed irritably:

“But, damn it, Ben, the tankard is clean. Here—give it me.”

Alfred handed over the tankard, which the Squire examined carefully.

“Nothing wrong that I can see.”

Alfred betrayed a momentary triumph. Fishpingle said quietly:

“Please inspect the bottom of it, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire did so, and chuckled.

“Yes, yes, I take you, Ben. Inculcate your object lesson, my friend.”

Fishpingle obeyed this injunction in his own deliberate fashion. Perhaps
this was the essential difference between two men who had so much else
in common. The Squire, obviously, acted upon impulse. Inheriting a large
estate early in life, and with it those _droits de seigneur_ which, to
do him credit, he had exercised both leniently and with an honest regard
for the feelings of others, he had learned to control everybody upon his
domain except himself. Fishpingle, on the other hand, with a much
stronger will and an intelligence far above the average, habitually
looked before he leaped. Having done so he was quite likely to leap
farther than his master. He took the tankard from Sir Geoffrey’s hand,
and slowly tapped the bottom of it.

“Hall marks full of plate powder. A guest sees this fine tankard on Sir
Geoffrey’s dining-table. If he is a connoisseur he asks leave to look it
over. And the one thing which gives him the information he’s
after—_pedigree_—has been hidden by your carelessness. Off with you!”

Alfred, much crestfallen, took the tankard and left the room. Sir
Geoffrey sat down in Fishpingle’s big armchair. He smiled pleasantly at
Prudence.

“Run along, my little maid,” he said, in his most genial voice.

Prudence hesitated, fiddling with her apron.

“What is it, my dear?”

She blushed a little.

“Eugannicks, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire threw back his head and laughed.

“Ha—ha! What a nose for a hunted fox!”

Prudence, thus compared to a hound, had wit enough to “speak” to a good
scent.

“If it ought to be taught in the schools——”

The Squire was delighted. As a rule, the stupidity of some of his people
exasperated him.

“You sly little puss! I say, Ben——”

“Sir Geoffrey?”

“Your little niece wants to know the meaning of eugenics.”

“Please, uncle.”

Fishpingle glanced from the beaming face of the Squire to the demure
Prudence standing at attention between them. The light from the big
window fell full upon her trim, graciously rounded figure. Here, indeed,
was the concrete presentment of what eugenics might achieve. A faint
smile flickered about his lips; his eyes softened. As a matter of fact,
Prudence was not his niece, but a cousin, a first cousin once removed.
But he gazed at her with the proud and affectionate glance of a father.
Then he said slowly:

“Eugenics, Prudence, is the new science which deals with conditions
which make for the improvement of the human race.”

The Squire nodded complacently.

“Couldn’t have put it better myself b’ Jove!”

Fishpingle bowed.

“That is exactly what you said last night, Sir Geoffrey, to her
ladyship.”

“So I did—so I did. But my lady failed to understand me.”

“I don’t understand neither,” murmured Prudence.

“Have another go, Ben,” the Squire enjoined.

Fishpingle took his time, choosing his words carefully.

“You are a strong healthy girl, Prudence.”

“Aye—that I be, thank the Lard!”

Sir Geoffrey was not the man to let pass such an opportunity. It may be
mentioned here that he had made sacrifices for his people, amongst which
may be counted the giving up of a town house, foreign travel, and the
riding of less expensive hunters not quite up to his weight. He said
gravely:

“You can thank me, too, Prudence. The sanitary condition of Nether
Applewhite put that fine colour into your cheeks, my girl.” Prudence
curtsied. “Go on, Ben. Forrard away!”

If the Squire was swift to grasp his opportunities, as much and more
could be said of Fishpingle. He had reason to believe that love passages
had taken place between Alfred and Prudence, and a marriage between
these young people would be, in his opinion, the real right thing. Would
the Squire encourage such a match?

“Alfred,” he said, looking at the Squire as he spoke, “is also a fine
specimen of what a young man ought to be. And a marriage between you two
young persons would be, from the point of view of eugenics——”

“Disastrous!”

Sir Geoffrey, sitting bolt upright, snapped out the adjective.

“Oh-h-h!” exclaimed Prudence. Fishpingle was surprised also.

“I beg your pardon, Sir Geoffrey.”

“They are first cousins, man. Had you forgotten that?”

Prudence interrupted hastily.

“Father an’ mother was second cousins.”

“Were they, b’ Jove! That makes the matter ten times worse.”

“But—why?” Prudence insisted.

Sir Geoffrey, fairly cornered, growled out:

“You explain, Ben.”

“Not now, Sir Geoffrey, if you please. Later.”

“Yes, yes; you can leave us, Prudence.”

The maid went out quickly. As the door closed behind her a gulp was
heard. The Squire frowned.

“Ben?”

“Sir Geoffrey.”

“That little dear was upset.”

“Young females are subject to frustrations.”

“Shush-h! She wouldn’t listen at the door, would she?”

“My niece—eavesdropping?”

“She ain’t your niece, if it comes to that. And the best of ’em do it.
Why was the child upset?”

Fishpingle answered directly.

“Because Alfred and she hope to get married.”

The Squire exploded, shaking a minatory forefinger at his butler.

“You knew this? And not a word to me? Tchah!”

The resentful sparkle in the Squire’s eyes might have been detected also
in the eyes of Fishpingle, but there was no irritability in his tone as
he said respectfully:

“I haven’t had a word from them yet, Sir Geoffrey, but I guessed what
was up.”

“Well, well, I count on you to nip this. It must be nipped—nipped.”

He stood up. Fishpingle remained silent. In a louder voice, with a
peremptory gesture, Sir Geoffrey continued:

“Did you hear me, Ben? I said—_nipped_. No in-and-in breeding on my
property.”

Fishpingle observed blandly:

“It worked well enough with the Suffolk punches and the hounds you had
from the Duke of Badminton.”

“Damn you, Ben, it is just like your impudence to argue with me. Now—I
leave this little matter in your hands. Have you seen that fool Bonsor
this morning?”

Bonsor was the bailiff and a source of chronic irritation to his
employer. Fishpingle had seen him and spoken to him about some ailing
sheep. The Squire listened, frowning and nodding his head. When
Fishpingle had finished, he burst out irrelevantly:

“Don’t forget what I said just now. You share my views about breedin’.
All you know you’ve got from me, you ungrateful old dog!”

“I owe much to your family, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Pay your debts. There are moments, Ben, when you disappoint me. When
you try to—a—_down_ me with my own carefully digested arguments.
You’re a match-makin’ old woman, you are. You’ve encouraged Prudence to
become engaged to her double first cousin.”

Fishpingle smiled disarmingly.

“Double first cousins, Sir Geoffrey, if you’ll pardon me, are the
children, let us say, of two brothers who happen to have married two
sisters.”

The Squire fumed, tapping his gaiters with the riding switch which he
carried.

“There you go again! Trying to crow over me with knowledge gleaned, b’
Jove! from me. You tell Prudence to find another young man.” He stumped
to the door and opened it. “You make that perfectly plain to the little
baggage. I’m counting on her for half a dozen healthy kids at the least.
You hear me? That’s the irreducible minimum.”

“I’ll make a mental note of it, Sir Geoffrey.”

Sir Geoffrey relaxed a little.

“I’m sorry if I’ve made you lose your temper, Ben.”

“Pray don’t mention it, Sir Geoffrey.”

“And if Bonsor comes bobbing round again about those damned sheep, tell
him what you think—I mean what I think.”

He went out, slamming the door. Fishpingle whistled softly to himself.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                               CHAPTER II


Fishpingle sat down to his desk and busied himself with some papers. He
thought it likely that Prudence might return, but she didn’t. The butler
lit a pipe, rose from his chair, and crossed to the fireplace. Upon the
mantel-shelf, framed alike in handsome leather frames, stood three
photographs—Sir Geoffrey, in hunting kit, which became him admirably,
Lady Pomfret, and Lionel Pomfret in the uniform of the Rifle Brigade.
Fishpingle gazed intently at the portrait of his mistress. It happened
to be an admirable likeness, recently taken. Fishpingle’s face softened,
as he murmured something to himself. Perhaps he was thinking that here
indeed was that rare bird—a lady of quality, the porcelain clay of
human kind. The gracious curves of face and person, the kind, thoughtful
eyes, heavily lidded, the sweet mouth, the delicately cut nose—all
these attributes indicated race. One glance at such a portrait would
inform any observer that Sir Geoffrey had been fortunate in his choice
of a wife. And the same observer might have hazarded the conjecture that
the lady was well content with her husband and life. Obviously, too,
that life had been sheltered, lavender-scented, fragrant with all odours
of woods and fields, untainted by what is offensive and cruel and urban.

“Bless her!” ejaculated Fishpingle.

He turned to the portrait of her son, a smiling stripling, who had
inherited the delicate features of his mother, and, apparently, none of
his father’s rugged health and massive physique. Fishpingle frowned a
little. But he smiled again when he glanced at the Squire’s bluff, jolly
face. Meanwhile his pipe had gone out. He relit it, walked to the door,
called for Alfred, at work in the pantry, and then sat down in the big
armchair.

Alfred’s voice was heard humming a tune. He stopped humming as he came
in.

“Sit down,” said Fishpingle.

Alfred, rather surprised, perched himself upon the edge of a chair.
Fishpingle puffed at his pipe. After a moment or two, he removed it from
his lips, saying abruptly:

“So you want to marry Prudence?”

Alfred betrayed astonishment.

“The lil’ besom told ’ee?”

Fishpingle shook his head.

“How did ’ee find out?”

“Never mind that! The powers of observation, my lad, so singularly
lacking in you, are sharpened to a finer edge in me.”

In dealing with his subordinates, Fishpingle’s copious vocabulary and
choice of English never failed to astonish and confound. It was known,
of course, that he had been educated above his station because his
mother had been the favourite maid of Sir Geoffrey’s grandmother, and
later he had served as valet to his present master. But even these
well-established facts were inadequate to the bucolic intelligence. A
spice of mystery remained. Fishpingle ended on a sharper note:

“You want her?”

Alfred leant forward, speaking very emphatically:

“Aye—that I do. She be the sweetest lil’ maid in Wiltsheer, she be.”

“Um! And Prudence wants you, hey?”

Alfred grinned. Beneath the crust of an upper-servant’s manner, he
caught a glimpse of that rare and refreshing fruit—sympathy. And he was
well aware of the butler’s affection for his kinswoman.

“Ah-h-h! When she were a settin’ on my knee las’ night, with her dinky
arms roun’ my neck, and her lil’ mouth——”

“That will do,” said Fishpingle, drily. “Obviously, the maid wants you.
Now, let me see—your grandfather lived to a ripe old age, didn’t he?”

Alfred nodded eagerly.

“Granfer, he lived to be a hundred an’ two. Yas, he did. An’ he could
carry more ale, an’ mead, an’ cider, wi’out showing it, than any man in
Nether Applewhite. An’ smokin’ like a chimbley all the time. A most
wonnerful man was granfer.”

Fishpingle pursed up his lips, judicially, and his tone became
magisterial.

“But your father is dead, Alfred. What killed him?”

Alfred laughed incredulously. Let it not be imputed to him for
heartlessness.

“You ain’t never forgotten how pore dear father died. Mother killed un.”

“Nonsense, my lad.”

“’Tis true as true. Mother, pore soul, she put carbolic acid in an ale
bottle. Father—you mind he was Sir Geoffrey’s shepherd?” Fishpingle
inclined his head. “Well, he come home-along tarr’ble thirsty, an’, dang
me! if he didn’t take a swig out o’ ale bottle. Doctor said ’twould have
killed any other man in two jiffs, but father he lived two hours in most
tarr’ble agony. ’Twas a very sad mishap.”

Alfred sniffed, overcome by his emotions. Fishpingle nodded.

“I’m sorry, my boy. My memory is not quite what it was. Well, it seems
that Prudence wants you and that you want her.”

Alfred smiled again. He began to plead his case excitedly.

“I’ve money in bank, I have. And strong arms to work and fend for her.
God A’mighty knows I be fair achin’ for her. I earns good wages, I do.
And when you retire, sir, I be countin’ on steppin’ into your shoes.”

“You’ll never quite fill them.”

“That be sober truth. I’ve a dinky lil’ foot I have.”

“You can go.”

Alfred jumped up.

“Then it be right and tight seemin’ly?”

Fishpingle looked at him.

“Suppose Sir Geoffrey objected?”

Alfred laughed gaily.

“You can get round un. We all knows that. ’Tis the common sayin’ that
you be lard o’ the monor of Nether Applewhite in all but name.”

“Off with you!”

Alfred burst into song.

        “And now I’ll marry my own pretty maid,
         So handsome, and so cle—ver!”

Fishpingle held up his hand.

“Don’t sing! And—not a word of this to Prudence till I’ve spoken to
her.”

Alfred nodded and withdrew.

Alone, once more, Fishpingle moved restlessly about the room. He was
sensible of some premonition of trouble, some lurking doubt of his power
to smooth the path of these simple lovers, some fear that interference
on his part might be obstinately resented. Work might have distracted
him, but for the moment there was not work enough for two able-bodied
footmen, not to mention the odd man, who laboured more abundantly than
them all.

He sat down at the Sheraton bureau, and took from a drawer a much
battered tin box, which he opened with a small key attached to his watch
chain. The box held some letters and a miniature. In his less robust
moments, when any really pressing appeal happened to be made to his
sentimental side, a side carefully hidden from Nether Applewhite,
Fishpingle was in the habit of opening this box, and looking at the
miniature. He might, if the necessity were really importunate, read a
letter or two. He had picked up the miniature when a tap at the door was
heard.

“Come in.”

Prudence appeared. Fishpingle was not deceived by her self-composed and
almost valiant deportment. He knew that she had missed “elevenses” and
had spent at least a quarter of an hour crying in her room, and as much
time again in repairing the ravages wrought by tears. As he was
expecting her, and didn’t wish her to know it, he expressed a mild
surprise.

“Is everybody as idle as I am in this house?”

She perched herself upon his knee, put one arm round his neck, and
kissed his forehead.

“Dear Uncle Ben,” she cooed.

“Cupboard love, my dear. I know why you are here. I know what you
want—Alfred.”

“What a man you be!”

“Don’t you want him? Speak up!”

She put her lips to his ear and whispered. “Yes, I do. There!”

“And you came here to tell me this?”

“N—no.”

“Then why did you come?”

“Because of what Sir Geoffrey said. What did he mean? What _did_ he
mean?”

Fishpingle felt her cheek rubbed softly against his. The little witch
meant to abuse her powers. And her sweetness, the artlessness of her
avowal, were irresistible. Indecision took to its heels. Then and there
he registered a vow to fight on the lover’s side, to fight, if need be,
to a finish. He said tentatively:

“About eugenics?”

She slipped from his knee, fetched a foot-stool, and sat down upon it,
clasping his hand in hers.

“Tell about eugannicks, Uncle Ben.”

For the second time that morning he noticed that the maid was in
sunlight, whereas he sat in shadow. And her voice, eager, youthful,
vibrant with feeling, seemed to ring out of the sunlight, whereas his
own grave inflections floated quietly out of the shadowy past.

“It would come better from your mother, Prue.”

“Mother be manglin’ to-day. ’Tis easier to talk to ’ee than her, so busy
she be from marnin’ till night. An’ I brought my troubles to ’ee, Uncle
Ben, when I was a lil’ maid. Squire said that a marriage ’atween cousins
’d be dis—_astrous_. If he were talkin’ eugannicks, why then I hate an’
despise eugannicks—yas, I do.”

“He was talking eugenics. Sir Geoffrey is a great gentleman, Prue. There
are not many left like him. He lives on his own land, he spends all his
money amongst his own people.”

Prudence said sharply:

“Squire ain’t too much to spend, seeminly.”

“True enough. He’s land poor. It’s been a struggle ever since I can
remember. And I’ve been here all my life. And I know Squire
better—better than he knows himself.”

Prudence observed more cheerfully:

“We all says that.”

He pressed her hand. She divined somehow that he was speaking with
difficulty, speaking rather to himself than to her, conjuring up a
picture which she beheld but dimly.

“You are little more than a child, but have you ever thought of what it
means when two persons live together and work together for fifty years?”

“I have thought o’ that lately, Uncle Ben.”

“Eugenics begin there, my maid. Two persons living together and working
together, not entirely for themselves but for others. Now, Prue, have
you thought of the others?”

“What others?” she whispered.

“Your—children.”

“Ye—es. But I hope there won’t be too many o’ they, uncle.”

“Mind your grammar. You speak well enough before the quality. Now,
child, I’ve broken the ice for a modest maid. Eugenics mean care and
thought for those who come after us. Sir Geoffrey looks upon all of you
as his children. He gave up the hounds to build more cottages. He takes
a real interest in every colt and lamb and calf and child born in Nether
Applewhite.”

Prudence considered this, with her head on one side.

“He must get fair dazed and mazed, pore man,” she declared.

“Occasionally he does. Look at me, Prue.”

She lifted her clear eyes to his, listening attentively as he went on—

“Rightly or wrongly, Sir Geoffrey dislikes marriages between folk who
are near of kin.”

Prudence pouted.

“’Tis right and proper that a maid may not marry her granfer, but
cousins——”

Fishpingle tried to explain that any taint, any predisposition to
disease, is likely to come out with greater virulence in the children of
those persons who are of kin. Prudence, however, remained unconvinced.
She jumped up and stood proudly before him.

“But, Uncle Ben, we be strong and hearty as never was, me and Alfie.”

“If I can make that clear to Sir Geoffrey——”

“To be sure you can, and you will.”

To her amazement and distress his tone, as he answered her, sounded
unconvincing and troubled.

“Perhaps. I—I hope so. He can be very—obstinate.”

“You be more obstinate than he.”

Tears formed in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. Fishpingle was
not proof against this. Suddenly she flung herself into his arms,
sobbing passionately. Between her sobs he could hear a strangled voice
repeating miserably:

“I can’t live without Alfie, no, I can’t.”

He stroked her head till she grew calmer. He was wondering, not for the
first time, at the force of love, its violence in primitive natures, its
effect upon such an artless maid as this, and lastly the danger involved
in thwarting and diverting from its normal channel so devastating a
stream. And the resolution to help this confiding, helpless creature
gathered increasing will-power and direction. When she grew calmer, he
said softly:

“You can’t live without Alfred? Come, come, I have lived all these years
without a wife.”

As he spoke, he was sensible that an older, more experienced woman might
have turned upon him fiercely, asking him if such an abstention, whether
voluntary or forced, was to be commended. And when Prudence left his
encircling arm and lifted widely-opened eyes to his, he almost winced
before their mute interrogation. But the maid only murmured gently:

“That be true. Uncle Ben, dear, whatever made ’ee stay single? Do tell!”

Should he speak or hold his peace? Her violence had affected him most
strangely, broken down barriers of silence, self-imposed. The wish to
speak gripped him. And the right word at such a moment might be a
warning now and a solace hereafter if—if his plans went agley. He said
very quietly:

“My Christian name is Benoni.”

Prudence observed promptly—

“Benoni, so mother tells me, come slam-bang out o’ the Holy Book.”

“Yes. Did your mother tell you what Benoni means?” She shook her head.
“It means in Hebrew—a son of sorrow.”

She stared at him, trying to interpret a new and strange kinsman. Pity
informed her face, and then she smiled, recalling the old and familiar
Uncle Ben.

“But you bain’t sorrowful, dear heart.”

“I hope not. I count myself, Prue, a happy man. But sorrow brought me
into the world, sorrow brought me to Nether Applewhite.”

As her imagination grappled with his calm statement, Fishpingle sat
down. She knelt beside him, forgetting her own troubles as she gazed
anxiously into his kind face.

“Surely your mother has given you some—hint?”

Prudence affirmed positively that this was not the case. She added
proudly that her mother was no talker; one who kept herself to herself
as became a respectable mother of ten. Fishpingle continued:

“Your grandmother was my mother’s sister.”

“I know that.”

“My mother was the prettiest maid in Nether Applewhite; clever, too,
quick with her tongue, as you are—and quick with her needle, as you
aren’t.”

“Now, Uncle Ben!”

His voice lost its more familiar intonations and became impersonal and
dreamy.

“She became lady’s maid to Sir Geoffrey’s grandmother, Lady Alicia
Pomfret. She went about with her everywhere. She ran away with my
father. And when I was born she—died.”

Prudence shivered.

“Oh, dear! You never saw your own mother?”

He picked up the miniature.

“This, child, is her portrait.”

Prudence looked at it and kissed it.

“Thank you, Prue,” said Fishpingle. He took the miniature from her and
placed it with the letters in the tin box.

“Before my mother died, she sent for Lady Alicia, her old mistress. Her
ladyship took charge of me and brought me here.”

“But your father, Uncle Ben? Didn’t he want you?”

“He was not his own master. He married again later on. A small provision
was made for me, not much. That is all. What I have told you is between
our two selves. Promise?”

“I promise and vow! But why didn’t you marry? A man must love somebody.”

“I have loved Sir Geoffrey, Master Lionel, her ladyship and you.”

He kissed her tenderly, and she rose to her feet. In his ordinary tone
he said:

“Be off to your work. If Mrs. Randall asks any questions, you can say
that I had need of you.”

She hesitated.

“I have need of you, Uncle Ben. I shan’t eat nor sleep unless you tell
me that I shall get Alfie.”

“Sir Geoffrey instructed me just now to tell you something very
different. You are to find another young man.”

Her face fell dolorously. Fishpingle’s eyes twinkled, and his square
chin obtruded itself.

“But I tell you, Prudence, to do nothing of the sort.”

She laughed.

“I shall obey you, uncle.”

Like Alfred, she burst into song as she flitted down the corridor.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Fishpingle locked the tin box and put it away. Then he saw to it that
Alfred and the second footman, a singularly raw youth, were diligently
at work in the pantry. The second footman had been taken, so to speak,
from the plough-tail because Sir Geoffrey had stood sponsor for him, and
it was an idiosyncrasy of the Squire’s to keep an eye upon his
god-children, rather to the disgust of Fishpingle, who set an inordinate
value upon old plate, and much to the amusement of Lady Pomfret. Having
rated the second footman soundly, Fishpingle went into the dining-room,
where a small table in the big oriel window was laid for two. Upon the
walls hung portraits of dead and gone Pomfrets, and in the centre of the
room stood the great mahogany table at which many of them had made
merry. Fishpingle frowned as his eyes rested upon the portrait of Sir
Guy Pomfret, the present baronet’s grandfather, a gentleman of fashion,
who had played skittles with a fine fortune. Beside him, painted by the
same artist, hung the portrait of Lady Alicia, his kind friend and
protector. He owed his education to this stately dame, and much else
beside. Fishpingle smiled pleasantly at her.

Having satisfied himself that the luncheon table was in order, he opened
one of the casement windows and gazed placidly at the park, which sloped
with charming undulations to the Avon. His glance lingered with
affection upon the ancient yews thriving amazingly upon a thin, chalky
soil. They had been here before the Pomfrets! There was a particular yew
in Nether Applewhite churchyard mentioned in Doomsday Book. Out of some
of these yews had been fashioned the bows of Crécy and Agincourt.

He wondered whether the old order of landed gentry were doomed. The
parson, Mr. Hamlin, a bit of a Radical, held iconoclastic views.
According to this reverend gentleman, who much enjoyed an argument,
great estates, and in particular those which suffered from lack of ready
money, would share the fate of similar properties in France, and be duly
apportioned amongst a triumphant democracy to the betterment of the
majority. Fishpingle loathed such a possibility, the more so because the
parson’s arguments were hard nuts to crack. Such a man, upon such an
estate, provoked surprise and exasperation. Fishpingle knew that he had
been offered the living because he was famous as a cricketer. The Squire
believed in muscular Christianity. After the irreparable event came the
soul-shattering discovery that the parson supported Mr. Gladstone. A
three acres and a cow fellow!

A May sun illumined the landscape. The dining-room faced due east, and
to the west, beyond the woods which fringed the park, stretched the New
Forest. Sir Geoffrey hunted with both fox-hounds and buck-hounds, and
Fishpingle could well remember the days, not long passed, when the house
at this spring season was hospitably full of “thrusters” from the
shires, keen to kill a May fox in the most beautiful woodlands in
England. Economy prohibited such lavish entertainment now that rents
were falling with the price of corn and the rate of living steadily
rising.

A soft voice put to flight these reflections.

“Ah, Ben, I thought I should find you here.”

Fishpingle turned hastily to behold his mistress smiling at him.

Fishpingle never looked at her without reflecting that no artist could
possibly do her justice. Others, but no better judges, shared this
conviction. A delicate bisque figure, moulded by Spengler, would lose
its charm if painted. Lady Pomfret suggested the finest bisque, and yet
colour radiated from her, those soft tints which seem to defy
reproduction. She was past fifty, matronly in person, but youth
remained, an inalienable possession. The consciousness that she was
beloved may have kept ardent this dancing flame, for love is the supreme
beauty doctor. To this great gift some fairy godmother had added a
lively sense of humour constantly exercised by the wife of Sir Geoffrey.
And, in every way, she was his happy complement. He believed, honest
fellow, that he ruled his wife. Fishpingle knew that he became as wax
beneath her slender, pliable fingers. Long ago, she had accepted his
disabilities as part and parcel of the man she loved. His quick temper,
his prejudices and predilections growing stronger with advancing years,
his too hasty conclusions and judgments endeared the Squire to her. And
she knew that he adored her, had remained the gallant lover of her
girlhood, prodigal in attentions which delight women. Invariably he saw
her to her carriage; he rose when she entered a room; he brought her
flowers and such simple oblations; he paid her compliments. He exacted
from others the respect which he rendered so spontaneously to her.

Lady Pomfret approached Fishpingle and said confidentially:

“The Squire is upset this morning.”

Fishpingle, slyly aware that this was the thin edge of the wedge, and
that Sir Geoffrey had attempted to enlist his wife upon his side and
against the lovers, assigned to the Squire’s discomposure what he knew
to be the wrong reason.

“I told him the mare was not up to his weight.”

“That distressed him; it wasn’t that.”

“Might have been the sheep, my lady.”

“It might have been, but it wasn’t. I think, Ben, that you are well
aware of the real reason. Now, why have you made this match?”

Fishpingle made a gesture of repudiation. Lady Pomfret laughed.

“I can guess that Nature was the matchmaker, not you. It is unfortunate
that they are cousins.”

“Why so, my lady? There is no danger in such matches, where the strain
on both sides is clean and sound. That is Sir Geoffrey’s own view.”

Lady Pomfret held up a protesting finger.

“My dear Ben, I cannot talk eugenics with you, because I should be
confounded by your superior knowledge. What I want to ask you is this:
are the young people deeply attached to each other, or is it a mere
passing flirtation?”

He answered her positively.

“They are deeply attached, my lady. I can assure you that it is no
passing fancy, but the real thing.”

“Does an old crusty bachelor flatter himself that he knows the real
thing?”

“He does, my lady.”

Lady Pomfret laughed gaily. The freedom and familiarity of her
intercourse with this faithful servant were the greater because she knew
that he was incapable of abusing his privileges.

“Ben,” she continued, “I am quite sure that your fighting instincts have
been aroused. Don’t shake your head! I know you, and you know me. The
Squire is thinking of sending Alfred away, but I ventured to point out
to him that he was a most excellent servant, who understood our ways,
and that poor Charles, his godson”—she chuckled—“was hardly ready for
promotion. That gave him pause. Now I suggest to you the propriety of
marking time. Youth can wait, and so can Age. This tempest in our teapot
will blow over. And— strictly between ourselves—we must give undivided
attention to a match which more seriously concerns the fortunes of our
family.”

Fishpingle became alert instantly.

“Master Lionel is coming home,” he exclaimed. “This is great news, my
lady, wonderful news.”

“We don’t know for certain, Ben. It is probable. And then——!”

“And then?”

She recovered her sprightliness, which had vanished at mention of her
son. He was with his regiment in India. He had exchanged from an English
battalion because his lungs were none too strong. The dreadful word was
never spoken, but Fishpingle knew that a slight but unmistakable
tendency to consumption had manifested itself. There was reason to
believe that the young fellow had grown more robust in the Punjab. But
the taint, the predisposition, had been inherited from his mother’s
family, the Belwethers.

Lady Pomfret’s eyes twinkled.

“He has not been allured by any girl in India. I have his positive
assurance on that.”

Fishpingle made no reply. He was wondering whether his mistress could
assign a reason for this indifference, a reason divined rather than
known to himself. From the guileless expression of her face, he could
draw no inference save this: that she was less guileless, where her own
flesh and blood might be concerned, than she appeared. He waited
patiently for further enlightenment. He perceived, moreover, that Lady
Pomfret was in a rarely expansive mood.

“If we could pick and choose for him!”

“Ah!”

“Money is sadly needed, Ben.”

Each sighed, thinking of necessary things left undone—sterile acres
that cried aloud for fertilisers; farm-buildings falling into disrepair;
grumbling tenants; the long, dreary catalogue of “wants” upon an
impoverished estate.

“You have great influence with the Squire, Ben.”

She spoke with significance. Fishpingle smiled. The dear lady had sought
him with a definite object in view, which she would reveal after her own
fashion. In this case, it was revealed sooner than she had intended, for
she “gave herself away” by allowing her eyes to linger upon the finest
picture in the dining-room, a magnificent Sir Joshua, a full-length
portrait of a Pomfret beauty. At once Fishpingle stiffened and became
impassive.

“You don’t approve?”

Her feminine quickness of apprehension on such occasions as these always
disconcerted him. He realised that he, in his turn, had “given himself
away.”

“Sell that? Never, my lady.”

She shrugged her shoulders, regarding him ironically, reflecting with
ever-increasing amazement that long service with the Pomfrets had
positively turned him into a Pomfret, that he had become blind, like his
master, to what was so crystal clear to her—the necessity of sacrifice,
of lopping off superabundant growth to save a splendid tree.

“It is worth twenty thousand pounds, Ben.”

He remained silent. Undismayed, she tried again.

“That outlying strip of building property, eh? Would it be missed?”

Fishpingle grunted. It was futile to discuss such matters with a
Belwether. Everybody knew that their estates had melted away by just
such a process of constant disintegration. He said vehemently:

“Your ladyship knows that the most valuable pictures are heirlooms.”

“That could be got over with Master Lionel’s consent.”

So, she had taken expert opinion! A sweet lady, but a crafty.

“All the land is strictly entailed.”

“So you have told me before, but that, too, could be arranged, if the
necessity of breaking the entailment were made plain.”

Fishpingle let himself go. To the amusement of his mistress, he became
for the moment the Squire, using the Squire’s familiar gestures, taking
words often in his mouth.

“My lady, Sir Geoffrey may be right about this, or he may be wrong, but
what he inherited from his father cannot be sold. He will pass it on to
his son. That is part of his religion.”

“And yours?”

The sharp question, so quietly spoken, took him aback. She continued
quickly:

“You feel as he does about this supremely important matter, but
why—why? That is a mystery to me. I can understand his feelings about
his own property, not yours. Have you no sense of detachment, Ben? Can
you not see, as I see, the issues involved?”

Her voice faltered. Fishpingle became acutely distressed. He said
entreatingly:

“My lady, I would do anything, anything, to serve you and yours, but not
this one thing. It would mean the beginning of the end. Every Pomfret
before Sir Guy added to this property till it became what it is. You
know that the Squire would give his right hand if he, too, would carry
on the family tradition and buy, not sell. As for the issues involved, I
think I see them plainly. Sir Geoffrey sees them. He does not shrink
from them. Nor do you, I know.”

“Ah! you don’t quite know, but go on.”

“Expenses must be cut down. Economy in management, better organisation
and better prices, which must come, will pull us through.”

She retorted sombrely:

“Better prices may not come, and my son is coming home.”

“Master Lionel, my lady, will think as his father thinks.”

“Ben, you make things hard for me.”

She sat down, folding her hands upon her lap. Her expression indicated
resignation, feminine weakness. Fishpingle was not deceived. The battle
was not over, but beginning. Her ladyship had cleared her decks for
action.

“I can’t quite follow you, my lady.”

“You will in a moment,” her tone brightened. Outside, she could hear Sir
Geoffrey rating a retriever. That meant freedom from interruption. In
five minutes the faithful Ben would be enlightened. She asked him to sit
down. He did so with a premonition of defeat.

“Has it occurred to you, my dear old friend, that the simplest solution
of our problem might be found if Lionel married money?”

Fishpingle flushed a little. The delicate flattery of leaving out the
formal pretext to her son’s son, the tacit assurance that she suspended
for a moment the difficult relationship between mistress and man,
produced its intended effect.

“I have often thought of it, my lady.”

“Then you will admit that Lionel is placed in a false position?”

Fishpingle winced. She had pierced, at the first thrust, the joint in
his armour.

“He might be,” he admitted.

“He is in it already. God forbid that direct pressure should be used.
The Squire is incapable of that. Because we should not use such
pressure, the dear fellow might apply it himself. And if—if, Ben, he
happened to fall in love with a charming, penniless girl——”

Her voice died away. Fishpingle tried to read her thoughts and failed
helplessly. Did she suspect that there was such an attachment already?
After a pause she went on:

“That would be a great trial and disappointment to his father.”

Fishpingle opened his mouth and closed it.

“You know that, Ben, as well as I do. There are many nice girls with
money. Sir Geoffrey, poor dear man, is picking and choosing half a dozen
such, but our son can be trusted to make his own choice.”

“Yes,” said Fishpingle.

“If you had to choose, Ben, between the selling of that Reynolds and the
building land _and_ Lionel’s future happiness would you hesitate a
moment?”

“Not a moment, my lady.”

“I was quite sure of that.”

She rose, smiling placidly. Fishpingle rose with her. Nothing more was
to be said. The conqueror held out her hand.

“You are a true friend, Ben, loyal and—discreet.”

With that Parthian shot, she went her way.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              CHAPTER III


Nether-Applewhite Vicarage, which adjoined the small church, lay snugly
within the park, less than half a mile from Pomfret Court. Below it was
the village through which flowed the placid Avon. In the days of Mr.
Hamlin’s predecessor, a cadet of the Pomfret family, the proximity of
vicarage to hall had been regarded as an advantage. The Squire shot and
hunted with his parson, who was assuredly not the worse parson for being
a sportsman, and each strolled in and out of the other’s house half a
dozen times a week. This pleasant and profitable intercourse lasted till
the death of the parson. It has been said that Mr. Hamlin was a Radical,
but in justice to the Squire it must be added that political differences
might easily have been overcome, inasmuch as Sir Geoffrey disliked all
politicians, and, although a staunch supporter of the Conservative
Association in his Division, confessed handsomely that political
arguments bored him to tears. And when his old friend and kinsman passed
away, he had sought diligently for his successor and believed fondly
that he had found him. Even now, after fifteen years of bickering and
increasing estrangement, Sir Geoffrey would have admitted frankly that
Hamlin had justified his selection. He was a hard worker and
popular—perhaps a shade too popular—in a large straggling parish.
More, he preached short rousing sermons which concerned themselves more
with conduct than dogma. Since his incumbency, there had been less
drunkenness, obscenity, and scandal-mongering. Indeed, in weightier
matters, the Squire and he saw eye to eye. They differed hopelessly
about non-essentials. Hamlin, a High Churchman, had introduced certain
harmless practices, genuflections and the like, into the Ritual. Lady
Pomfret was amused at these antics upon the part of a big fellow who
could hit a cricket ball for six. Not so the Squire. He rocked with
rage. Finally, he rose from his knees, and stumped out of church. A
letter was despatched, worded not too temperately. Mr. Hamlin became
less acrobatic in front of the altar. The Squire realised that he had
behaved hastily. The two men might have become friends after this
regrettable incident had the rabbits on the estate been less prolific.
As a matter of fact, they increased and multiplied against the
particular orders of the Squire. The parson, unhappily, was not aware of
this. Most indiscreetly, he took upon himself to write a letter to Sir
Geoffrey making a personal matter of it. He received what the autocrat
of Nether-Applewhite called a “stinger.” Hamlin apologised, but the
mischief had been done. Lastly—one hesitates to record such a
trifle—the parson was a total abstainer, not a bigot, nor one to force
his opinions instead of wine down a guest’s throat, but all the same, a
man who passed the decanter with a certain air of superiority. Mrs.
Hamlin, who had helped to keep the peace, was dead. Hamlin was left with
four stout sons and a pretty daughter.

Some few days after the events recorded in the last chapter, Joyce
Hamlin was sitting at breakfast with her father. Hamlin, black-a-vized,
with pale, clear skin, big but gaunt, gobbled up his food with that
indifference to it so common to men of his character. Joyce ministered
to him faithfully. Since his wife’s death, Hamlin had become even more
absorbed in his work, and talked of little else. Joyce served as
housekeeper and curate. When he rose and filled his pipe she said
cheerfully:

“Any particular orders, daddy?”

“You might see Bonsor about those repairs in the chancel. We shall have
the roof falling in before we know where we are.”

“Mr. Bonsor has referred the matter to the Squire.”

“Perhaps a word to old Fishpingle would expedite things.”

“If I see him, I’ll mention it.”

“Or, better still, attack Lady Pomfret.”

Joyce laughed.

“Same thing, daddy.”

“Eh?”

“Lady Pomfret manipulates the Squire through Fishpingle.”

Hamlin saw no humour in this. Strategy exasperated him. He practiced
direct methods, frontal attack, with the accompanying heavy artillery of
argument.

“Letters late, as usual,” he said testily. “Postman chattering at the
hall when he ought to be half way through the village. How long, O Lord,
how long?”

He broke out into sharp criticism and condemnation of the old order,
stigmatised as selfish, domineering, and negligent. Joyce listened
deferentially. It was a real grief to her that parson and squire pulled
against each other, because she saw clearly how much might have been
achieved had they pulled together. Anyway, the Pomfrets had been
charming to her and her brothers.

A bouncing parlourmaid entered with the belated letters and the
_Westminster Gazetter_, which arrived by post, some three hours ahead of
the daily papers—another Hamlin grievance. Hamlin took the letters from
the servant, who went out. One letter, with a Rawal-Pindi postmark upon
the envelope, was addressed to Joyce. Her father said carelessly:

“Who is your Indian correspondent?”

Joyce answered as carelessly:

“Lionel Pomfret.”

Hamlin opened his _Westminster_ and became absorbed in a leading
article. Joyce opened her letter, read it, and re-read it. She sat in
her late mother’s place at the head of the table. Hamlin was standing
near the window. She started slightly when she heard his voice.

“What does young Pomfret say for himself?”

“He is coming home. Oh, dear!”

Hamlin raised his dark brows. Joyce explained, less calmly:

“He begged me not to mention it.”

“How absurd! How could his coming home concern anybody except himself
and his people? Obviously a Pomfret, saturated with a sense of his own
importance.”

Joyce had plenty of spirit. She retorted pleasantly but incisively:

“You are mistaken, daddy, it might be better for Lionel if he had a
greater sense of his own importance. Unless he has changed very much, he
is altogether too modest and unassuming.”

“Then why this ridiculous mystery about his comings and goings?”

“Because, I fancy, he may have told me first.”

Her father nodded and left the dining-room. Alone in his small study he
whistled softly to himself. He was no fool, and assuredly he was no
snob. It had never occurred to him that Lionel Pomfret had more than a
brotherly interest in his girl. Before he went to India, the pair had
played tennis together, but what of that? Lionel had been far more
intimate with Joyce’s brothers.

Why should he write to her first?

Why shouldn’t he?

But Joyce had blushed a little as he left the dining-room. He attempted
for the first time to envisage her as a wife, a mother. Everything that
was hard in the parson softened as he beheld his daughter with a child
in her arms, mistress in her own house, independent of him altogether.

Upon second thoughts, he decided finally that he was leaping to
unwarrantable conclusions. She would have read a love-letter alone in
her room. And she was incapable of deceit.

Still, her blush worried him, and the artless avowal that Lionel had
written to her first. Yes, yes; something might come of this. A great
joy, perhaps a great sorrow. One conviction troubled him. Sir Geoffrey
would make himself intolerably unpleasant.

Meanwhile, Joyce’s blush lingered upon her cheeks. Her father’s hasty
exit disturbed her. She was quite aware of what she had done, of the
thoughts which her indiscreet words must have provoked. She wondered if
she could allay such thoughts by showing him the letter. It was a jolly
letter, a sincere reflection of the writer, so that it seemed to be the
spoken rather than the written word. It might have been dashed off by
one subaltern to another. Joyce had half a dozen such epistles upstairs.
It may be added here that no love passages, in the literal sense, had
taken place between these two correspondents.

But—she had blushed.

And she was the first to be told that he was coming home.

Joyce put away the letter with the others, and set forth on her common
round. Such as it was, it sufficed her. She held her head high, and
little of interest escaped her brown eyes. Town girls would have pitied
her. She pitied them. Not to know the names of birds and flowers and
butterflies, to be detached from interest in humbler neighbours, to be
denied the privilege of small ministrations, must surely take from life
much of the joy in living. Her sense of the present, so vivid and acute,
her happy ignorance of life outside her tiny circle, prevented her from
traffics, voyages and discoveries into the future.

Beside the river, she dawdled a little, having marked down several trout
which might, later on, be captured by a Green Jacket. She hoped that
Lionel would not miss the big May-fly rise in June. If he left India at
once he would arrive in the nick of time. She recalled his tremendous
triumph beneath the bridge, a thirteen pounder caught with a lump of raw
beef. _The Field_ had a paragraph about it. He was a boy of sixteen at
the time, and she a fat child of ten. She had scampered at his bidding
to the Pomfret Arms to get a landing net.

Halfway down the village she met Bonsor, who tried to escape from her.
He “bobbed”—the Squire’s descriptive word—when she mentioned the
chancel. And he evaded searching questions concerning the thatching of
certain cottages. Joyce inquired politely after the Squire, and learned
that he was furious because a local sanitary inspector had condemned
some pigsties. Bonsor speculated vaguely as to the future of a world
where such interference was possible, and then went his solitary way,
grumbling and growling. Joyce wondered why the Squire employed Bonsor.
Her father scrapped him as hopelessly out of touch with modern
conditions. But Bonsor, although a Hampshire man, had married in Nether
Applewhite. He had become, accordingly, one of Sir Geoffrey’s people.
The Squire would never scrap him.

By noon, she had reached the Hall. As she approached the front door she
saw Lady Pomfret busily engaged on the lawn clipping obtruding twigs
from a topiary group of hen and chickens cunningly fashioned out of box.
Her delight and satisfaction in such tiny accessories to a great place
appealed deeply to Joyce, constrained, as she was, to find her pleasure
in similar insignificant things. Lady Pomfret kissed her, and at touch
of her lips the girl guessed that the great news had reached the mother.

“Lionel is coming home,” said Lady Pomfret. “I believe, my dear, that I
am the happiest woman in England.”

To Joyce’s surprise she was kissed again.

“How splendid,” said Joyce.

Lady Pomfret glanced at her keenly, but no blush stole into Joyce’s
cheeks.

“You must stay to luncheon, child. At this moment, Fishpingle, I
believe, is decanting a bottle of our ‘Yellow Seal’ port, and the Squire
is assisting him. We were a little put out this morning about some
condemned pigsties, but we have forgotten that. And, by the way, have
you walked up here to see a lonely old woman, or is your
visit—parochial?”

“Both,” said Joyce.

“Ah! Well, under the special circumstances, shall we decide to
side-track—I learnt that word from dear Lionel—the parochial part. If
you like you can tell me.”

“Father wanted so much to know about the chancel repairs. He believes
that the roof may fall in.”

The Pomfret family pew happened to be in the chancel, another bone of
contention between parson and squire. Lady Pomfret’s kind eyes perceived
that Joyce was ill at ease, unhappy at mentioning one of many things
left undone. She tapped her cheek.

“How nice of your father to be thinking of me. He, brave man, would
stand erect if the heavens fell. Now, I promise you that the roof shall
be put in order.”

Joyce thanked her, much relieved. Lady Pomfret continued gaily:

“Fortified by you, I feel encouraged to spy upon the Squire. Walk with
me to Fishpingle’s room. I will bet you a pair of gloves that we shall
find those two wicked men drinking port as well as decanting it.”

“Before luncheon?”

“And when I think what I went through at Harrogate last year!”

They strolled along so leisurely that we will take the liberty of
preceding them.

The information that pigsties in his village had been condemned by some
Jack in-Office had reached the Squire overnight. And the vials of his
wrath had been poured upon Bonsor before breakfast. At breakfast Sir
Geoffrey heard from his son. Straightway woes and tribulations melted
like snowflakes in front of a roaring fire. The boy affirmed that he was
hard as nails, and ready for the time of his life. He should have it, b’
Jove! His leave would last over the cubbing and possibly the opening
meet in November. And the buck-hounds would be hunting in August. Why
had that damned mare lamed herself? Lionel was just the weight for her.
But the boy should be mounted if his father went afoot. Would it be a
decent fishing season? Of course they must entertain, fill the old house
with the right sort, do the thing well. Girls, too, the pick of the
county, with a sparkler or two from Mayfair?

Thus the Squire, giving tongue to a breast-high scent.

Lady Pomfret smiled and nodded.

From his wife, the Squire hurried to Fishpingle. All that he had said to
his wife he repeated, with additions, to his dear old Ben. And then,
together, they went “down cellar.”

The cellars at Pomfret Court were holy ground, entered taper in hand, a
sanctuary, where none save the elect might wander. The Squire believed,
of course, in laying down wine. And, oddly enough, what the unthinking
might have indicted as extravagance and superfluity had turned out a
sound investment. The Squire had a palate, and he bought his wine from
first-rate people. He boasted that his port and champagne cost him
nothing. He laid down double the quantity he needed and sold half when
the wine matured. He had been not so successful with claret.

The main feature of the Pomfret cellars was a stone chamber in the form
of a pentagon, from which branched five passages lined with bins. The
chamber and passages, either by design or happy chance, registered the
right temperature all the year round. In Sir Guy’s day—in his hot
youth—orgies had taken place in this pentagonal chamber. A round table,
glittering with plate and glass, was laid for four choice spirits.
Acolytes brought bottle after bottle from the adjoining bins. Upon one
of these occasions, so the legend ran, four men consumed twelve magnums
of Château Lafite! Sir Guy was the friend of the First Gentleman in
Europe.

Solemn as this great occasion was, the Spirit of Comedy illumined it.
Charles, the second footman, carrying two winebaskets, was in
attendance. Fishpingle, need it be said, would have perished at the
stake rather than entrust one bottle of the precious “Yellow Seal,”
Cockburn’s 1868 vintage, to such a hobbledehoy. The wine-cupboard
upstairs, which held the wine in everyday use, needed replenishing.
Hence the presence of Charles, trembling with excitement at the
privilege vouchsafed him. To fill his baskets and despatch their carrier
was Fishpingle’s first and easiest task. Then, in silence, Squire and
butler approached the sacred bin. At this moment such a crash as is
rarely heard except in farce or pantomime rang through the vaulted
chambers. Fishpingle spoke first to his startled master.

“Charles has fallen from the top of the stairway to the bottom.”

Sir Geoffrey could be trusted to show his quality in such emergencies.
He knew that every bottle of wine was smashed, and the wine was good
wine. He said suavely:

“I hope, Ben, that the boy has not hurt himself.”

Fishpingle was not at his best. He said almost rancorously:

“I hope, Sir Geoffrey, that he has broken his neck, but I’ll go and
inquire.”

He returned with the information that Charles had pitched on his head,
and therefore none the worse for his misadventure.

Two bottles of the “Yellow Seal” were taken to Fishpingle’s room. Sir
Geoffrey led the way with one, Fishpingle followed with t’other. Alfred
brought old Waterford glass decanters from the pantry.

The rites began. After carefully drawing the corks, Fishpingle inserted
into the necks of the bottles two fids of cotton-wool soaked in alcohol.
The alcohol—according to Fishpingle—destroyed any fungus growth
between the neck of the bottle and the cork. A small quantity of wine
was then poured into a glass, and solemnly smelt by each man in turn.
They smiled ecstatically. Two fresh glasses were filled to the brim, and
held up to the light.

“Beautiful,” murmured the Squire.

“Brilliant,” added Fishpingle.

“Master Lionel, God bless him!” said the Squire.

Fishpingle’s voice quavered, as he repeated the toast.

“Master Lionel, God bless him!”

They sipped the wine, winking at each other.

“What a breed, Ben!”

“What vinosity, Sir Geoffrey!” He looked at the nectar with a melancholy
smile, as he continued: “There was a time, Sir Geoffrey, when a
gentleman drank a decanter of this after dinner. And now, one bottle
amongst four men.”

“Not if I’m of that party,” replied the Squire briskly. “Sit ye down,
Ben, sit ye down. We’ll have a second glass presently and another
toast.”

They sat down at the Cromwellian table, with the decanter between them.
A full week had elapsed since Fishpingle’s confidential talk with Lady
Pomfret, and, so far, the Squire had not spoken a word about Alfred and
Prudence. Probably—so Fishpingle reflected—her ladyship had assured
Sir Geoffrey that it was wiser to leave the young people alone. Upon the
other and more important matter of selling the Reynolds Fishpingle had
kept silence, biding the right opportunity. At this moment he wondered
whether it was about to present itself.

Sir Geoffrey harked back to his son.

“He has six months’ leave, Ben.”

“Good. Master Lionel will be back in India, by December.”

Sir Geoffrey did not misunderstand this.

“Pooh, pooh! He’s grown into a strong man.”

“From the bottom of my heart I hope so.”

Sir Geoffrey sipped his wine, glancing at Fishpingle out of the corner
of his eye. He was growing ripe for confidences. He began blusterously:

“Damn you, Ben, you’ve given me a nasty taste in the mouth. Master
Lionel will make old bones. I feel that in _my_ bones. Enough of that.
We must give him the welcome he deserves, but I could wish, for his
sake, that we had more shots in the locker—what?”

Fishpingle inclined his head. The opportunity had come. But he waited
for the Squire to plunge deeper into his difficulties.

“‘The little more, and—and——’”

Fishpingle completed the quotation.

“‘And how much it is; And the little less, and what miles away!’”

“Yes, yes—what a memory you’ve got, Ben.

“I forget these confounded jingles. Where were we? You’ve put me off
with your rhymes.”

“The empty locker,” suggested Fishpingle, sipping his wine.

“Just so. A very few hundreds added to my shrinking income would make
such an immense difference to this dear lad’s home-coming.”

Fishpingle picked his way warily.

“The income, for instance, from twenty thousand pounds.”

“Tchah! Why do you jaw about specific sums? Twenty thousand pounds! Is
such a sum as that likely to drop from heaven on me! Talk practical
politics, you old ass. Can we scrape up a few tenners and fivers?”

“You can put your hand on twenty thousand pounds, Sir Geoffrey.”

Sir Geoffrey lay back in his chair, staring at his butler.

“Are you going dotty, Ben?”

“That particular sum hangs in the dining-room.” He leant forward,
meeting the Squire’s eyes. For a moment the Squire failed to catch his
meaning. When that meaning percolated to his marrow, he swore
prodigiously, as our Army, long ago, was said to have sworn in Flanders.
His glance become congested. With a gulp, he tossed off his wine.

“There!” he spluttered, “you’ve made me choke over the best wine in the
world. Sell the Sir Joshua, which, by the way, isn’t mine to sell? Sell
the finest picture in the house? Dammy, you are mad. What d’ye mean,
hay?” He glared fiercely at the one man living whom he could have sworn
to be incapable of making such an amazing suggestion.

Fishpingle paid no attention to his ebullition of indignation.

“Heirlooms, very valuable heirlooms, can be sold, Sir Geoffrey, under
certain conditions.”

The Squire exploded again.

“This is the limit. You’ve thought of this—you—_you_! I supposed, dash
it! that you were drawing a bow at a venture, firing into the ‘brown.’
Not a bit of it! You really mean it.” Fishpingle bowed. “It’s a
deliberate suggestion. Why not put a halter about my lady, and sell her
at auction in Salisbury market-place? Ha—ha! Why not start an old
curiosity shop with the family plate and furniture? We should do a
roarin’ trade. However, there it is. You’re not a Pomfret. We might sell
some land, hay?”

“Yes. That outlying strip—for building purposes.”

“My God! The man _is_ dotty.”

His old master looked so genuinely concerned and distressed that
Fishpingle melted. His voice quavered; he held out his hands
entreatingly.

“Sir Geoffrey, I know how you feel. We were boys together. I am, I hope,
part of the family, and as—as proud of it as you are. But this—this
sacrifice would put things right for you—and Master Lionel.”

“Much you know about him,” the Squire growled out, “if you think he
would be a party to such a—a violation, yes, violation, of all our
traditions. Not another word!” He raised his hand peremptorily. “I shall
overlook this outrageous suggestion, Ben, because you mean well—you
mean well. I lost my temper, I admit it, because I thought you knew me,
through and through, and shared my feelings about this property and what
goes with it, which, mark you, is a sacred trust for which—a—I deem
myself _a_ccountable. Finish your wine, man!” Fishpingle drained his
glass. “Now”—the Squire’s voice rang out cheerily—“we will forget all
this. I’ve another toast. Fill your glass and mine. We’ll drink it
standing.”

Fishpingle obeyed his instructions. The two men stood up. Sir Geoffrey
laughed, as he held up his glass.

“The toast, Ben, is worthy of the wine. I give you: Master Lionel’s
wife!”

Fishpingle nearly dropped his glass.

“What!” he exclaimed. “Is Master Lionel married?”

The Squire chuckled.

“Had you there, Ben. You rose like a fat trout at a May-fly. I give the
toast again: Master Lionel’s future wife!”

“He’s found her?”

“Not yet, but I think I have. Drink, man, drink.”

Fishpingle repeated the words of the toast. “Master Lionel’s future
wife.”

The Squire added firmly:

“May God bless her and her children!”

“May God bless her and her children!”

The toast was drunk, and the men sat down again. The Squire chuckled as
he went on sipping his port. His face radiated good humour and happy
expectations. He lowered his voice and his glass.

“Now, Ben, I am going to tell you something. I met the other day a most
charming young lady, a dasher, sir, a dasher, clean bred, in the Stud
Book, best stock in the kingdom, pretty, intelligent, and an heiress.
Better still, she has no big place of her own.”

“Might I ask the name Sir Geoffrey?”

“Lady Margot Maltravers, the late Lord Beaumanoir’s only child.”

“An only child?” Fishpingle repeated the words reflectively.

“Why do you sit there lookin’ like an owl in an ivy bush? By the luck of
things, Lady Margot is an only child. What of it? What of it?”

“Nothing. Master Lionel is an only child.”

“Don’t rub that in! Why did Providence send my parson four sons? I ask
such questions, but, b’ Jove, I can’t answer them. Can you?”

It will never be known whether Fishpingle could have answered the
Squire’s question, because, at this moment, Lady Pomfret floated into
the room, followed by Joyce Hamlin. The two men rose. Instantly the
Squire became the gentleman of the old school. He greeted Joyce as if
she were a duchess. He smiled charmingly at his wife. Lady Pomfret
raised her hand and pointed whimsically at the decanters. Then she
looked at Ben reproachfully.

“Oh, Ben, I thought you knew better than to allow Sir Geoffrey to drink
port before luncheon. And when I remember what I went through at
Harrogate——!”

“I went through it, not you, my dear Mary.”

He took a lovely rose from his buttonhole and presented it to his wife
as a propitiatory offering. She accepted it, shaking her head and
smiling.

“You will go there alone, Geoffrey, next time.”

“A glass of port would do you good, Mary.”

She declined with thanks. Sir Geoffrey turned to Joyce.

“Well, Joyce, my dear, you look blooming this morning. What a colour! No
air like our air. And, of course, you have heard our news,
which—a—justifies, ha! a glass of port before luncheon.”

Lady Pomfret noted what was left in the decanter.

“Our news justified, perhaps, one glass, Geoffrey, not two.”

“Tut, tut! Well, Joyce, I’ll wager that my lady surprised you, hay?”

Joyce hesitated and was lost. A town girl might have dissembled, but
George Hamlin’s daughter had inherited her father’s uncompromising code.
Nevertheless, she replied with self-possession.

“Not surprised exactly, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Bless my soul! Why not—why not?”

“You see I had a letter from Lionel by the same post.”

Obviously, the Squire was taken aback, Lady Pomfret raised her delicate
brows. Joyce continued hastily:

“He does write a jolly letter, so like himself, so full of fun.”

“Um! Quite—quite.”

Lady Pomfret said placidly:

“Dear Joyce is staying to luncheon. We are going into the garden. Do you
wish to come with us, Geoffrey?”

“Join you presently,” replied the Squire. “Ben and I are talking over a
little business—ways and means, ways and means, and more ways than
means, worse luck!”

The ladies withdrew. Sir Geoffrey moved to the fireplace, standing in
front of it, facing Fishpingle and frowning.

“Ben?”

“Sir Geoffrey?”

“I’m a bit worried. You know, none better, that I’ve a nose.” He stroked
that well-formed feature as he spoke. “So have you. It’s a devilish odd
thing, but your nose—after pokin’ itself into my affairs for a thousand
years—has shaped itself after my pattern.”

“I dare say, Sir Geoffrey. It’s a good pattern.”

“You heard that young lady just now, and you must have been surprised,
as I was, although you stood like a graven image. She had a letter from
Master Lionel this morning. Now, why does he write to her? As between
man and man, as between stout old friends, what d’ye make of it—hay?”

Fishpingle was not prepared to say what he made of it. Knowing his
master, he temporised.

“Why shouldn’t Master Lionel write to her?”

“Tchah! The boy doesn’t write too often to me. I don’t like this, Ben, I
tell you I don’t like it.”

“Miss Hamlin is a very sweet young lady.”

“Daughter of a Rad. Never knew that when I gave him the livin’. And who
are the Hamlins, I ask you, spelt with an ‘i’?”

“Mrs. Hamlin was a sweet lady, too.”

“Sugary adjectives. You are damnably sentimental, Ben, and,
and—a—saccharine. Good word that! Where was I? Your confounded
interruptions always put me out of my stride. Yes, yes, I’m not a snob
but Mrs. Hamlin, if my memory serves me, was the daughter of an
auctioneer. The girl is hairy at the heel, b’ Jove.”

“She isn’t.”

“You have the impudence to contradict me?”

“I thought we were speaking as man to man, as friends.”

“So we are, so we are. But it was a slap in the face all the same. And,
damn it, sir, any pretty girl can twist you round her finger. Keep your
temper, Ben! Between you all my morning has been wrecked. I shall go and
hearten myself up with a squint at the new litter of pigs—fifteen
little darlings. That old sow does her duty, b’ Jove!”

He clapped his hat upon his head and strode to the door. There he stood
still for a moment, pulling himself together. His voice had quite
recovered its geniality as he said in parting:

“With your hasty temper, old friend, you oughtn’t to touch port.”

Fishpingle heard his voice once more in the courtyard, Sir Geoffrey was
speaking to his retriever.

“Good dog! Fine handsome doggie! Best dog in England, what? Come and
look at the piggy-wiggies with master.”

Fishpingle crossed to the bookcase, and took out a well-used Peerage.
Then he put on his spectacles. He sat down at the table and opened the
ponderous tome. His fingers turned a few pages. He found “Beaumanoir”
and read on.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                               CHAPTER IV


The few weeks before Lionel’s arrival passed pleasantly and without
incident. Prudence may have sat on Alfred’s knee, or wandered with him
on Sunday afternoon’s but the Squire was unaware of such doings. He
remained engrossed in his preparations to provide entertainment for his
son and heir, in Sir Geoffrey’s eyes a dual personality. His son he
regarded as a jolly boy, a st’un or two below right weight; his heir
bulked larger above the horizon. Like all men of his kidney, he thought
pessimistically of the future. We are writing of pre-war days, at a time
when a now famous statesman was attacking the dukes, who, perhaps, of
all men in exalted positions, least deserved such assaults. The Squire
was keenly aware that the greater included the less, and that he, too,
was assailed. How could he answer such attacks? He, and thousands in his
position, writhed in secret because pride prohibited a recital of what
had been done, the innumerable sacrifices, the paring down and remitting
of rents, the private charities, the cheerful renunciation of luxuries,
as a “set off” against much left undone through want of means. Could a
gentleman of unblemished lineage toot any horn other than that carried
by him as M.F.H.? Could he touch the pitch of public controversy and not
be defiled?

Nevertheless Sir Geoffrey carried a high head and a conviction that
things would mend. Almost furtively, he would steal into his dining-room
to stare with melancholy eyes at the Reynolds’ beauty. A neighbouring
county magnate had sold just such a masterpiece, and in its honoured
place hung a copy of the original. “No copy for me,” growled Sir
Geoffrey to himself, thinking of awkward questions put by
unsophisticated guests.

Fishpingle and he overhauled the estate accounts. The Squire employed no
expert land agent. Possibly, what he gained in a saved salary was lost
twice over owing to the management of an amateur. He employed his own
people, a phrase ever in his mouth, and the Wiltshire peasant in the
more remote districts is a blunted tool, quite unfit for the finer uses
of high farming. Bonsor had no executive ability whatever. Fishpingle,
on the other hand, had an instinct, almost infallible, about
stock-breeding. His heart and soul were in it, like the Squire’s.
Fishpingle may have known what he had saved and made for his friend and
master. The Squire, serenely unconscious of his debt, took the credit
_en bloc_ and whistled complacently.

We get a further glimpse of this honest gentleman, when we mentioned the
fact that he stood out valiantly against motor cars till the last gasp
from his wife. To please her, he bought a limousine, and forthwith
extolled it, because it was his, as the best car on the market, which it
wasn’t.

Night and day his thoughts wandered, in happy vagabondage, to Lady
Margot Maltravers.

She spent a flying week-end before Lionel arrived.

Some description of the young lady must be attempted. The late Lord
Beaumanoir had left his only child the freehold of a handsome house in
London, some valuable town property, and a round sum securely invested
in gilt-edged securities. The Beaumanoir estates and title passed to a
distant kinsman. When she came of age, Lady Margot announced her
intention of going “on her own.” Having plenty to “go on,” this
announcement was acclaimed by poorer relations as indicating spirit and
intelligence. Under cover of this chorus of praise, a few private loans
were impetrated. Lady Margot lavished _largesse_ with amusing cynicism.
“I must pay for my whistle,” she remarked to her intimates. “If I
whistle the wrong tune, the poor dears will hold their tongues.”

However, despite predictions to the contrary, she conducted herself
circumspectly. It was true that minor poets were to be seen in her
drawing-room and about her dining-table, with a sprinkling of artists,
politicians, barristers, musicians, and novelists. She said that she
liked to be amused. She had more than one flirtation. The “poor dears”
feared that she had not treated her lovers well. She was accused of
luring them on and then laughing at them. When reproached she replied
modestly: “Really, you know, they are hunting comfortable board and
lodging rather than little me.”

Little she was, although _mignonne_ is a happier word. Her feet and
hands were exquisite. It was said—perhaps truly—that Lady Margot
bought her footwear from that mysterious personage who lives in Paris,
and who has the effrontery to demand from his clients a big premium,
cash on the nail, before he consents to supply them with shoes at a
fabulous price. Her frocks were beyond compare, and she especially
affected, in the evening, a vivid translucent emerald green that set off
admirably the dead white of her complexion and her dark sparkling eyes
and hair. Her portrait, by one of her admirers, was hung upon the line
in the Royal Academy, and made the artist’s reputation while enhancing
hers.

About the time when she encountered our Wiltshire squire, Lady Margot
was getting “fed up” with clever young men consumed by their own
ambitions. In fine, they had ceased to amuse her. They ground their
little axes too persistently. Indeed, she had captivated Sir Geoffrey at
once by saying candidly: “You know, they wouldn’t be missed. The real
world would wag on without them.”

Sir Geoffrey was quite of her opinion.

“Popinjays, my dear young lady, popinjays.”

This queerly contrasted pair, the reactionary squire and the
twentieth-century maiden, met at a big Hampshire house, where the
partridge driving is superlatively good. Sir Geoffrey happened to be a
fine performer, a little slow with his second gun, but quick enough to
shoot in the best company. To the humiliation of the younger men, Lady
Margot accompanied the veteran, and highly recommended his performance
and his retriever’s. He amused her more than the young men, because he
was absolutely sincere. And she succumbed instantly to the gracious
personality of Lady Pomfret, accepting with alacrity an invitation to
visit Pomfret Court, openly chagrined when no early date was set.

She arrived in May, driving her Rolls-Royce, and accompanied by a
chauffeur and a French maid.

Sir Geoffrey, as was his wont, received her at the front door. The
warmth of the reception rather astonished her. But it was quite in
keeping, so she reflected, with the hospitable air of the house, a fine
specimen of late Elizabethan architecture. To luxury in its myriad
phases she was accustomed; comfort, as the Pomfrets interpreted the
word, might be more restful. She promised herself fresh and diverting
experiences in studying types which she had supposed to be extinct.

This first visit was an enormous success.

She beheld, of course, half a dozen different photographs of the
Rifleman, and asked many questions concerning him.

“He is no popinjay,” affirmed Sir Geoffrey.

“Do you call him clever?” she asked the proud father.

“Clever! Now, my dear, what the doose d’ye mean by ‘clever’?”

“Quite frankly, Sir Geoffrey, I ask for information.”

“Am I clever?” demanded the Squire.

“Oh no, dear Geoffrey,” said his wife, tranquilly.

The three persons were at tea in what was known as the Long Saloon, a
charming room with two great oriel windows, similar to those at
Montacute, embellished by innumerable achievements, escutcheons setting
forth in stained glass the armorial bearings of the families that had
intermarried with the Pomfrets. The walls were panelled in oak palely
golden with age. Against these walls stood cabinets of Queen Anne and
the Georges filled with English porcelain. There were lovely bits of
Chinese lacquer, many chintz-covered sofas and chairs, two well-worn
Persian carpets, and tables of all sizes and shapes. Every article
looked as if it had stood still for generations. Lady Margot said
happily that here was exactly the right setting for her hosts. The room
shone with the same soft lustre that gleamed from the silver of the tea
equipage two centuries old.

Sir Geoffrey laughed.

“Are _you_ clever, Mary?”

“Here and there, Geoffrey, where my own interests are vitally
concerned.”

Lady Margot stuck to her point.

“Is your son interested in art and literature?”

Her listeners failed to detect a slight accent of derision.

“Um! He’s an outdoor man, as I am. I can tell you this. He is interested
in persons. He is the most popular fellow in Nether-Applewhite.”

“Really? I look forward to making his acquaintance.”

At this the Squire chuckled.

He would have laughed aloud, had he realised that his guest was indeed
more interested in his son than she was prepared to admit, even to
herself. The photographs captivated her. She made certain that Lionel
Pomfret was utterly different from the young men who frequented her own
house. She recognised in him the _preux chevalier_. With such parents
could he be anything else? Leaping to quite unjustifiable conclusions,
she decided, also, that this only son must have taken from father and
mother what was best in each. Perhaps, for the first time in her
variegated life, she became romantic. Nobody, as yet, had whetted her
imagination.

If Sir Geoffrey had divined all this!

Presently, when many of Prudence’s fancy cakes had been eaten, Sir
Geoffrey led his guest to the farther window.

“Do you see anything familiar?” he asked.

“Of course. How exciting! Our coat. Have our families intermarried?”

“In 1625, when Charles the First ascended his throne.”

“I must look that up.”

“We will do so together.”

Upon the following Monday morning she whirled away, leaving a gap behind
her. Sir Geoffrey waxed a thought too enthusiastic. Lady Pomfret
admitted her intelligence and good-breeding.

“Mary, you are lukewarm.”

“I suspend judgment. What does Ben say?”

“Ben—Ben? I haven’t asked Ben. I needn’t ask him. Quality is everything
with the old fellow. He will bore me stiff raving about her. She was
uncommonly civil to him. A witch, my dear, a witch.”

“You burn her alive with this excess of praise.”

Fishpingle, however, who went fishing with the Squire that same Monday
afternoon, did not rave about Lady Margot Maltravers. The Squire did so
for him, and believed that what he said had been said by his faithful
henchman. He caught more trout than Fishpingle, and returned home in
exuberant spirits.

Whether by accident or design, Joyce Hamlin was not asked to meet the
“dasher.”

The problem of ways and means for an heir’s suitable entertainment was
solved triumphantly by the Squire, without a hint from either my lady or
old Ben. Sir Geoffrey went to town alone. He returned, next day,
inflated with a sense of his own cleverness and craft. He had let the
shooting! Fishpingle was visibly impressed and touched. In the memory of
man the Pomfret shootings had been rigorously preserved by and for the
Pomfret squires. The sacrifice almost matched that of Abraham.
And—unlike the Patriarch—the Squire had measured what that sacrifice
meant to his son—practically nothing.

“Our partridges are never driven till early November, and by that time
Lionel will be in the Red Sea. Well, well, I hope my old pals will keep
my guns warm.”

Lady Pomfret kissed him. He had brought her a trinket from Cartier’s, a
tiny brooch as dainty as herself. As he was pinning it into a lace
jabot, she asked anxiously:

“Oh, Geoffrey, did you remember to order a new dress suit?”

“I remembered not to order it. I prefer old togs.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

In the good old days before rents fell and prices rose, Sir Geoffrey had
owned a small cutter, which lay in Southampton Water, and with which he
had won several races. All that was left of this gallant craft might be
found in a stout oak box under the stairs in the hall, a box full of
flags, gay bunting wherewith the Squire decorated his house upon great
occasions. You may be sure that all these little flags were strung out
upon the afternoon of Lionel’s arrival. The father met his son at
Salisbury; the mother, and a goodly number of the Squire’s “people,”
assembled on the lawn. Perhaps the boy himself, after he had kissed his
mother, said all that can be said on such delightful occasions. After an
absence of four years, an absence that had turned him from a delicate
stripling into a healthy man, he stood upon the steps of his old home
and gazed affectionately at the honest, beaming faces upturned to his.
The welcoming cheers died away. There was no sound save the cawing of
the rooks in the beeches behind the house. Lionel said impulsively:

“I say, it is jolly to be at home again. It’s the jolliest moment of my
life.”

That was all and quite enough. The Squire led the way into the
dining-room, and his people followed to drink health and prosperity to
the heir. The oldest tenant made a short speech, Lionel replied in a
dozen words. The visitors soon drifted away. Father, mother, and son
were left alone.

“He’s a man,” said the Squire.

The mother smiled happily, noting subtler changes than the merely
physical. He had grown into a man, true. India had burnt him brown. Hard
work and exercise had taken away a certain boyish immaturity, but in
essentials he remained much the same—impulsive, affectionate, and
ingenuous. His clear eyes met hers with no reservations. His laugh had
the same joyous spontaneity. But in his voice were new inflections. He
spoke with a crisper decision, with something of his sire’s authority.
He carried himself with an air——! Lady Pomfret divined instantly that
he had ceased to be an echo of family traditions and predictions. He
would take his own line across any country. She decided, as quickly,
that he was still heart-whole. No woman stood between mother and son.

That first evening became an imperishable memory. The two men she loved
best were at their best. She sat silent, looking at them, listening to
ancient family jokes, revelling in the present and yet conscious that
her thoughts were straying into the future. Lionel just touched upon his
health. The regimental doctor, a capital chap, pronounced him sound.

“He vetted me before I left. Clean bill.”

“Thank God!” exclaimed the Squire heartily.

Lionel talked much of soldiering. The Squire nodded portentously, not
quite at his ease. He wanted his boy to be “keen.” At the same time,
soldiering with Lionel was intended to be a means rather than an end.
For five pleasant years Sir Geoffrey had served in the Brigade of
Guards. Straitened fortunes had prevented the Squire from putting his
son into his old regiment, but he had no regrets about that. Foreign
service had done the trick. Nevertheless, the time was coming swiftly
when the boy must take up other interests and responsibilities. An
infusion of pipeclay was in his marrow. Pomfrets had served their
sovereigns by land and sea, but the heir of the family—in his
opinion—could render better service on his own land. For the moment he
kept such thoughts to himself.

Lady Pomfret went upstairs at eleven. The Squire and Lionel sat together
till after midnight. Alone with his son, the father—not a man of great
perspicacity—became oddly sensible of the change which the mother had
divined so quickly. Obviously, Lionel did not see eye to eye with his
senior upon certain matters. To the Squire, need it be said, life
generally, his life, was a cut-and-dried affair. He believed devoutly in
his own order; he detested perplexing compromises; a thing b’ Jove! was
right or wrong. Being an ardent fox-hunter, an ex-master of hounds, he
pursued his objectives without much regard for obstacles, although he
availed himself of gaps in stiff fences. And till very lately he had
ridden first-class horses—which makes a tremendous difference to a
man’s “going.” Lionel, he perceived, had a touch of the “trimmer” in
him. When the Squire—as was inevitable—spoke of the increasing
troubles of the landed gentry, Lionel was not disposed to take for
granted, what the Squire did, that the landowners were the unhappy
victims of circumstance and democratic tendency. The boy hinted
unmistakably that even county potentates had something to learn about
organisation and economy. He spoke incisively of his own profession,
tactfully shifting the ground from Wiltshire to India.

“We have to work harder,” he remarked cheerfully. “But we don’t yet work
hard enough. We shall find that out if there is a big row and we come up
against fellows who work harder than we do.”

“Um!”

Lionel continued with more diffidence:

“It seems to me, father, that it is always a case of the survival of the
fittest. If the landed gentry can’t hold their own, they’ll be
scrapped.”

“Good God!”

“You can’t get away from it. There it is.”

“Scrapped! What a word!”

“Beastly. But, as I said just now, some neighbours of ours, your own
intimate friends, are tackling jobs they don’t understand. You stick to
the old acres. Do they? And take your own case and mine. Is life in a
jolly regiment really the right training for a man who must make his
land pay or go under?”

“Do you want to leave the Rifle Brigade and go to an Agricultural
College?”

“Not much. I’ve had a topping time, thanks to your generosity, sir, but,
I ask you, when you were in the Coldstream what did you and your pals
talk about?”

The Squire exploded, not loudly.

“I tell you this, sir: we didn’t talk socialism.”

Lionel laughed.

“I’ll bet you didn’t. I know what you talked about.”

“We jaw on about the same good old subjects still, but half the fellows
in our mess are in much the same position that I am. Their fathers, like
you, own properties with decreasing rent-rolls. We have to talk about
that sometimes.”

“I should like to hear your conclusions.”

“Right O! But they must be your own, more or less. The thing whittles
itself down to efficiency. The very biggest men, the dukes, for
instance, employ experts. The smaller men can’t afford that.”

“Go on,” growled Sir Geoffrey, half-pleased, half-resentful. He was
agreeably surprised to find that his boy possessed opinions which at any
rate challenged attention. He was disagreeably aware that those opinions
might clash with his own.

Lionel went on:

“If the smaller men can’t afford experts to run their estates, they must
supply the necessary knowledge themselves. That means hard work and at
best small pay. _And_—more intelligence in the working.”

“We’ll go to bed,” said the Squire.

He rose, looking affectionately at his son.

“By the way,” he said lightly, “I’ve let the shootin’ this year, but
that won’t affect you.”

“Let the shooting?”

The Squire nodded. Lionel’s disconcerted face rather pleased him. The
boy was a chip of the old block. He added curtly:

“I shan’t make a habit of it. The extra money comes in handy.”

Lionel hesitated and flushed.

“Are you really hard up?”

“Well—yes. Let’s leave it at that.” His voice became genial. “I told
you to-night, because old Ben would be sure to blurt it out to you
to-morrow morning. No complaints! You’re at home again, and as fit as a
fiddle. Don’t worry! We shall pull through.”

Lionel’s expressive face remained pensive and distressed. An awful
thought flitted into Sir Geoffrey’s head. To banish it was instinctive.
He clutched his son’s arm.

“I take it, my boy, that you ain’t entangled with any woman or girl out
there—what?”

Lionel laughed.

“Lord, no. What an idea!”

The Squire beamed at him.

“Well, well—these things happen. We must find you a nice little wife,
old chap, with a bit o’ money—a bit o’ money. Yes, yes, God forbid that
any son of mine should marry for money, but why not follow the Quaker’s
advice to his son, and go where money is.”

“Why not?” said Lionel, smiling back at his father.

They went arm-in-arm through the hall, and then to bed.

                 *        *        *        *        *

When the Squire reached the big room in which Lionel had been born he
found Lady Pomfret still up and wide awake. The Squire chided her, but
confessed that he was not feeling sleepy himself.

“It’s been a day of great excitement. Mary, my dear, we have reason to
be proud and grateful. The boy has turned into a fine young fellow. I
wish you could have seen his face when I told him about the shootin’. He
stared at me as if the heavens had fallen. And his concern, of course,
was entirely on my account. Very gratifying—very. Another thing. No
entanglements. I hinted at marriage, a nice little girl with a bit o’
money. He laughed and replied: ‘Why not?’ Of course, there must be no
pressure, not a pennyweight. But I warn you, he has ideas. He
marches—a—with the times.”

“Do you mean away from—us?”

“That remains to be seen. He is keen about his profession.”

“You regret that?”

“Yes, and no. Our grandchildren, Mary, will wean him from pipeclay.”

As he spoke, he kissed her tranquil face and whispered a compliment.

“You looked so young and pretty to-night. I hardly see you as a
grandmother.”

She touched his arm softly.

“We won’t count those blessed chicks till they’re hatched.”

Something in her tone arrested the Squire’s attention. He said sharply:

“Why not, Mary? Anticipation in such a vital matter is a joy that I,
most certainly, shall not renounce.”

“If—if there should be disappointment?”

“Why apprehend anything so unlikely?”

“Because Lady Margot—if your dreams come true—is the last of her
branch of the family. I have never seen her in _my_ dreams with a baby
in her pretty arms.”

“Nonsense, Mary, nonsense. Sitting up late is always bad for you. To bed
with you! I shall go to my dressing-room.”

He moved to the dressing-room door, and then came back, half-smiling,
half-frowning.

“I see the fly in your ointment. Lady Margot is _petite_. And what of
it? Large women do not necessarily have large families. Mrs. Hamlin was
no bigger than Lady Margot, and she presented Hamlin with four whoppin’
big boys. I have often wondered, my dear Mary, why the wives of poor
parsons are so needlessly prolific.”

Lady Pomfret smiled ironically.

“The doctrine of Compensation, Geoffrey.”

“Perhaps. Now—pop into bed!”

In the bachelor’s wing Lionel was smoking the last cigarette before
turning in. He stood at the widely open window, staring at the park,
lying silver-white beneath a waning moon. Against the silvery spaces of
turf the yews stood out sharply black—_sable_ upon _argent_. The fallow
deer were grazing just beyond the lawn. In the distance he could see the
winding line of the river.

But he frowned as he looked out upon that goodly heritage which in the
fullness of time would be his. The significant fact that the shooting
had been let festered him. He remembered, going back to the old Eton
days, that his father had always “groused” about lack of cash, other
fellows’ fathers did the same. It had never occurred to him to take such
grumblings too seriously. Indeed, comparing his comfortable, beautiful
home with other homes, he had felt a little sore. To keep such an
establishment as Pomfret, to entertain handsomely, to hunt and shoot,
meant an income not far off five figures. It might have shrunk, no
doubt, but enough and to spare was left.

But letting the shooting——!

“Damn!” he exclaimed.

Why had his father not confided in him? The question was easily
answered. The Squire had old-fashioned ideas. Quite probably his own
wife did not know the exact amount of his income. More—grouse as he
could and did to neighbours and friends Sir Geoffrey’s cherished code
prevented him from sharing money anxieties with his wife. She would
know, of course, that money was not so plentiful, but he would be
punctilious in keeping from her actual details.

And that hint about marrying a nice girl with money——

Lionel swore softly again, and again. He realised that his home-coming
was less joyous, and he had something to confess to his sire on the
morrow which assuredly would detract from the merry-makings. He decided
that he would talk things over with old Fishpingle first.

However, being young and healthy he went to bed and fell asleep within a
few minutes. The Squire in his big four-poster slept as soundly. Lady
Pomfret lay awake till the small hours.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                               CHAPTER V


Lionel awoke early. He was lying in his own bed—at home. For the moment
nothing else mattered. Soon he would get up, and scurry round his old
haunts before breakfast. He felt an Eton boy again, back for the
holidays, with no confounded first school ahead of him. His eye rested
upon certain framed photographs by Hills and Saunders. He had not
distinguished himself very greatly at Eton, either in the classrooms or
in the playing fields, but he had enjoyed himself and held his own. At
Sandhurst, later on, he had been even happier, although his health had
provoked anxieties.

He glanced out of the window. A capital morning for fishing! He knew
that the Squire had duties, never neglected, upon the bench of
magistrates. Old Fishpingle would be available as a companion. They
would make a day of it. His mother would come down to the river for
luncheon. Then his thoughts flitted to the Vicarage. What a jolly girl
Joyce Hamlin was! No nonsense about her. Rosy as a Ribstone pippin and
as sound at core. She might make a fourth at luncheon and square a
charming circle. He had half expected to see her on the lawn to welcome
him, but she was full of tact—bless her! She guessed, of course, that
his father and mother would want him to themselves, and she couldn’t be
dismissed like a tenant. He’d just nip in and shake her hand before
breakfast.

With this happy thought percolating through his mind, he jumped out of
bed, and rang for Alfred, who appeared grinning as usual. Lionel chaffed
him, asking innumerable questions, amongst them this: “Had he secured a
sweetheart?” Alfred, who bore to his young master something of the
affection which had linked together the Squire and Fishpingle, unbosomed
himself promptly. Yes; he and Prudence had made it up to get married,
but the Squire was hostile. Lionel, much surprised, asked more
questions, and elicited all the story.

“He’ll come round,” affirmed Lionel, alluding to his father. “And,
perhaps, I can slip in a word. First cousins be damned! You and little
Prue are the star couple of Nether-Applewhite.”

“Thank ’ee, Master Lionel. We be fair achin’ to earn money.”

“What d’ye mean, Alfred?”

“Sir Geoffrey, he give a pound for every child born in parish, an’ five
pounds so be as God A’mighty sees fit to send twins.”

“I say, the sooner you earn that money, the better.” Half an hour
afterwards, he was inhaling deep breaths of air fresh from the downs.
The usual round engrossed him. A visit to the stables, a glance at the
cricket pitch in the park, a squint at the river, and lastly—the
Vicarage.

He found Joyce where he expected to find her, in the garden. No
embarrassment showed itself on either side. They met, as they had
parted, good friends, pals, as Lionel put it. He was as unaffectedly
glad to see the maid, as she was to see him. But from her, without
design on her part, came further corroboration of straitened means.

Lionel had said ingenuously: “I do hope, Joyce, that Squire and Parson
pull together a little better than they did?”

Joyce answered as frankly: “As to that, Lionel, you can judge for
yourself. Father thinks, as he always has thought, that if something is
really wanted, he has only to ask for it, without”—she laughed not too
mirthfully—“without any preliminary beating of bushes.”

“Your father is dead right about that. He’s the last man to ask for what
isn’t really wanted.”

When Lionel insisted upon concrete information, Joyce told him the story
of the chancel repairs, now in hand, thanks to Lady Pomfret’s promise.
She ended dismally:

“Father, somehow, won’t realise that Sir Geoffrey is terribly cramped
for ready money.”

Lionel muttered as dismally:

“Is it as bad as that?”

She nodded.

He went on excitedly: “This is a nasty jar, Joyce. I swear to you that
it’s bad news for me. I never suspected it. He ought to have told me.”

A faint derision informed her next words.

“You ought to have guessed.”

“Ought I?”

He considered this, frowning. Then they talked of lighter matters, each
enchanted to note the changes in the other. Betore they parted, after a
half promise from Joyce that she might wander to the river, Lionel said
abruptly:

“You are happy, Joyce? You look happy, but——”

“But?”

“There isn’t much to amuse you here.”

“I love the place and the people.”

This statement of fact was weighed and not found wanting as Lionel
hastened back to the Hall. Joyce was now a woman of twenty, but she
retained the freshness and bloom of a girl of seventeen. Lionel guessed
that she had filled her mother’s place admirably. He compared her to his
own mother. When a young man does this, he ought to see and recognise
the road he is travelling. Lionel had no such sense of direction. He
decided hastily that Joyce, being often in his mother’s company, had
grown delightfully like her.

He whistled as he strode along.

At breakfast, he told the tale of his wanderings. At mention of the
Vicarage, the Squire remarked irritably:

“Joyce is well enough, a good girl, but Hamlin is gettin’ impossible. He
does a lot of mischief in the village.”

Lionel retorted warmly: “Father, he is incapable of that.”

Lady Pomfret winced. But she hastened to add:

“Your dear father doesn’t accuse Mr. Hamlin of making mischief
deliberately.”

At that, the Squire “took the floor.” He spoke vehemently, with a
feeling and emotion that surprised and confounded his son. Hamlin, first
and last, was a Rad, with a Rad’s pestilent notions about property. He
stuck his nose into every pie in the parish. He positively exuded
Socialism. The fellow was of the people and with the people. All his
ideas were impossible and Utopian. Did he do mischief deliberately?
Perhaps not. But, unconsciously, he set class against class. He was
importunate in his demands—demands, b’ Jove! which no landowner could
grant without hostilising his farmers. Take wages. Concede, if you like,
that wages were low in Wiltshire, about as low as the intelligence of
the peasants. Concede, also, that in special cases a landowner might pay
higher wages to his own outdoor servants, under-gardeners and the like.
Concede all that, and then try it! And every farmer on your property
would besiege you with protests, because they—poor devils!—couldn’t
pay higher wages. Outsiders never understood these things. It was like
arguing about sport with fellows who weren’t sportsmen. Hamlin had
played cricket for his ’Varsity, but he wasn’t a sportsman. There you
had it in a nutshell.

Under the table, Lady Pomfret gently pressed her son’s foot. Wisely, he
attempted no defence of the parson. The Squire recovered his good humour
with a second rasher of home-cured bacon. As he rose from the table, he
smiled genially at wife and son.

“I spoke my mind just now, the more strongly because I have to suppress
such feelings. It comes to this, Lionel, when a fellow is making
sacrifices, when he is paring down expenses right and left, when he is
doing his damndest to ‘carry on,’ it is exasperating to be pestered for
the extra inch when you have cheerfully given the ell.”

He blew his nose with violence and left the dining-room.

“Dear fellow!” murmured Lady Pomfret. “He has been horribly worried
during the last four years.”

Lionel looked and felt dazed. He supposed that Lady Pomfret invariably
sided with her husband. Not out of any insincerity or moral weakness,
but because she was of his generation and shared his views which were in
all honesty focussed upon his duties and responsibilities. As much could
be said of Hamlin. Lionel’s mind remained quite clear on this point.
What confused and distressed him was the sudden realisation of
cheese-paring, of sacrifice, of anxieties which he had ignored till this
moment.

“Then it is true,” he murmured.

“What is true, my dear?”

“That we are much less well off than I had ever suspected.”

“I am afraid that is true, Lionel.”

“Surely you know, mother?”

“Not everything.”

“Good Lord!”

“The mortgage has always eaten into his peace of mind.”

“The mortgage? I never knew there was a mortgage.”

“That is why I sit with my back to the portrait of your
great-grandfather.”

She explained matters to a wondering son. He listened impatiently,
tapping the carpet with his foot, irritated perhaps unduly because of
his own ignorance and impotence. When Lady Pomfret had finished, he
tried, for her sake, to speak lightly—

“If I had known all this, mother, I might have helped him.”

“How?”

“I could have worried along on a less generous allowance. As it is——!”
He broke off, with a gesture. She reassured him gently:

“Your father put you into a good regiment, and he has allowed you what
he decided was necessary. If you asked him to give you less, he would
refuse.”

Lionel exhibited a trace of his father’s obstinacy.

“We shall see about that,” he muttered. Then he kissed her tenderly,
stroking her delicate hand.

“It has been beastly for both of you. And you two have always looked so
comfy and prosperous.”

Lady Pomfret laughed.

“Call us mummers, Lionel. We have been forced to keep up appearances.
Most of our friends are in the same boat. I see the comic side of it all
and the tragic.”

Lionel smoked an after-breakfast pipe alone. Tobacco, however, failed to
soothe him.

At half-past ten, Fishpingle and he took the path leading to the river.
Fishpingle, in a very sporting coat and knickerbockers (which had been
discarded by the Squire), might have been mistaken at a short distance
for that potentate. He was doubtful about the prospects. The sun had
risen high above the clouds and the breeze was dying down. To his
astonishment, Lionel displayed indifference, saying incisively:

“I want to have a long yarn with you, old chap. If the trout aren’t on
the rise, so much the better.”

Fishpingle stared at him keenly.

“That doesn’t sound like you, Master Lionel.”

“I’m not myself this morning. I’ve a big load that I must get off my
chest. We’ll sit under a willow while I do it.”

The trout were not feeding, as Fishpingle had predicted. There might be
a nice “rise” later on. Lionel glanced up and down the stream. Joyce was
not on the “rise” either. A clump of willows was found, and the men sat
down, Lionel wasted no time.

“I’ve had a shock, Fishpingle. I never knew till this morning that there
was a crippling mortgage on this property. I never knew that father was
pinched and pinching. What did he get for the shooting, eh?”

Fishpingle, who knew the exact amount, answered cautiously:

“Several hundred pounds.”

“Now, sit tight! I’m going to give you a shock, I owe several hundred
pounds, and I must tell father at the first decent opportunity.”

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Fishpingle. “Several hundred pounds!”

“No excuses to you, you dear old man! I raced a bit out there and backed
losers. I played polo. And bridge. I spent last year’s leave in Kashmir.
Between ourselves, I had no idea I was so dipped. The bets had to be
settled on the nail; so I went to the natives. Before I started for home
they dunned me. I had to tell my colonel. Before I go back these debts
must be settled in full. Believing my father to be a comparatively rich
man, I assured my chief that they would be. I’ve had a thumping good
allowance and I feel this morning about as sick as they make ’em.
Now—you’ve got it.”

“Several hundred pounds,” repeated Fishpingle.

“Call it five—a monkey.”

“Oh, dear—oh, dear!”

“Don’t look so miserable! I can get the monkey from Cox’s, my agents,
but they insist upon a guarantee from my father. Of course I could go to
the Jews!”

“No, no, Master Lionel. But this will upset the Squire terribly.”

“Don’t rub that in!”

Fishpingle got up, shaking his head dolorously and making gestures with
his hands, a habit of his when distressed. At any other time, Lionel
would have laughed, and with his powers of observation whetted to a
finer edge in India might have deduced from these antics that here was
an old friend of the family, who—by virtue of his relation to that
family—had been constrained all his life to suppress speech which found
expression in these very gestures. He not aware that a struggle against
other habits was raging. But he knew—had he recalled it—that
Fishpingle had the reputation of being what servants called “close.” He
saved his money. Nobody guessed how much he had saved, or what he had
done with his savings. Only Fishpingle himself realised that the habit
of saving had taken a grip of him. He was curiously dependent, and yet
independent of the Pomfrets.

He could not envisage life apart from the family whom he had served so
devoutedly, but his mind could and did dwell with satisfaction upon the
securely invested money which assured to him, in extremity, ease
approximating to affluence. In a big way, he could be generous. He had
helped the mother of Prudence Rockley and others, but he had never
touched the ever-increasing main hoard.

He said in a strangled voice:

“Don’t tell the Squire, Master Lionel. He has trouble enough. I—I will
give you the money gladly.”

Lionel leapt up. Many surprises, during the past twenty-four hours, had
prepared him for others, but this was the greatest.

“You dear old chap,” he gasped, “what are you saying? Give me five
hundred pounds?”

“With all my heart.”

Volubly, he continued, protesting with uplifted finger against
interruption. Lady Alicia Pomfret had left him a thousand pounds. He had
never touched the interest on this nest egg, reinvesting it year after
year. For a man in his position he was rich—_rich_! He wanted to help.
It was his pleasure and his duty to help those to whom he owed
everything. Lionel, for the second time that morning, felt dazed and
stupid. He could understand, easily enough, Fishpingle’s wish to help,
but his ability to do so involved other issues. If he were rich, if, for
example, the nest egg were four times its original size, why, in the
name of the Sphinx, had he remained in his present position? Why hadn’t
he cut loose long ago, married, and set up a snug business of his own?
These thoughts chased each other through his mind till Fishpingle
stopped speaking. Lionel grasped his hand.

“I shall remember this all my life,” he began. “But I couldn’t take five
hundred from you, Fishpingle, either as a gift or a loan. And, believe
me, I shall have no difficulty in raising the money with a guarantee
from my father. I made a clean breast of it to you, because I thought
that together we might work out the best way of breaking beastly news to
him. It is beastly to find out that he has been pinching while I have
been squandering. He put the thing in a phrase at breakfast. Wait! Let
me get his own words. They sunk in. I can promise you. Yes; I have ’em.
‘It is exasperating to be pestered for the extra inch, when you’ve given
the ell cheerfully.’ Asking for his guarantee is just that extra inch
clapped on to the ell of my allowance. Now—tackle him I must. Together
we’ll settle the where and the when and the how. But you’re a topper,
the very best in the world!”

He gripped his hand fiercely.

Fishpingle accepted the situation. He perceived that here was a point of
honour and principle. No Pomfret could be swerved from that. So he said
simply:

“If the Squire must be told, Master Lionel, tell him to-night, after
dinner, when he is sipping his port.”

“Right! I will.”

“You made no excuse to me, make none to him.”

“Right again, you, you—sage.”

Fishpingle pointed to the river. “A trout is rising just beyond that
stump. He lies under it, a whopper.”

“Is he? Do you know, Fishpingle, there are moments when sport seems to
me a poor substitute for other and more exciting things. You’ve excited
me. You have come up from under your stump, and you’re a whopper. And I
want to throw my fly over you.”

Fishpingle betrayed slight uneasiness. The young man confronting him
with keen sparkling eyes had lost his look of irresolution. His firm
chin stuck out aggressively, he spoke with the authority of his father.

“As you please, Master Lionel.”

Lionel hesitated, picking his words, but joyously sensible that his mind
had become clear again.

“I suppose,” he began tentatively, “that the truth is just this. I have
changed, not you dear people. I used to take certain things and persons
for granted, you, for instance. It seemed to me, before I went to India,
that you were part of the general scheme, a sort of keystone to the
arch. I really thought that you wallowed in being our butler and general
factotum.”

“So I do.”

“Fishpingle—that’s a whopper, too. I’m not quite the innocent fool I
was. Men serve others, cheerfully enough, if they’re the right sort, but
they do it because they have to. I never met a fellow yet, old or young,
who didn’t want to be his own, if he could manage it. I supposed that
you couldn’t manage it. But you can. More, you could have managed it
long ago. That’s as clear as our water is to-day.”

“I wanted to stay on.”

“But why—why?”

“This is my home, Master Lionel.”

“You’re a wily old trout, you are. But it isn’t your home. If anything
happened to father and me, where would you be? You ought to have married
and had some jolly kids. Nether-Applewhite is famous for its pretty
girls.”

Fishpingle was cornered, but his humour rescued him. He said slyly:

“Pretty, yes; but not very highly educated, Master Lionel.”

“I see. We’re getting to grips now. My great-grandmother, so I have
heard, made a bit of a pet of you. She saw to it that you got a better
education than our girls. Obviously, she intended you to profit by that
and cut loose. For some inscrutable reason you didn’t. If that
education, old chap, made a bachelor of you, it was rather a
questionable blessing, eh?”

“Perhaps.”

Fishpingle’s face had assumed the impenetrable mask of the highly
trained English servant. Lionel glanced at him.

“Ah! You refuse to rise?”

“The trout, Master Lionel, are fairly on the feed now.”

He pointed to the river, with many rippling circles upon its surface.
Lionel had tact enough to say no more. He picked up his rod, sticking
out of the ground beside him.

“Try a May fly,” suggested Fishpingle.

Lionel did so. The pair separated, Fishpingle taking the upper reaches,
above the village. Lionel fished diligently without much success,
possibly because his heart was not in his work. From time to time he
glanced down stream at a spot where the road shone white above the
meadowsweet and rushes. Joyce Hamlin might float into sight at any
minute, but she didn’t. Lionel felt slightly piqued as the sun rose to
the zenith. Surely, upon his first day at home, she might have come. His
Colonel, a man of the world, had impressed this maxim, upon his
subaltern: “Women do what they like. Many of ’em undertake thankless
jobs. That is because the spirit of self-sacrifice warms ’em to the
core.”

Was Joyce that sort of woman?

He began to think of her as a woman. A pal, so he interpreted the word,
would have joined another pal. And if some definite duty kept her from
him, she would have mentioned it before breakfast. Deliberately, she had
let him think that she would come. And she hadn’t. Some woman’s reason
accounted for her absence.

At luncheon Lady Pomfret joined the anglers. Fishpingle had grassed two
brace of fat trout. Lionel had only one fish. The luncheon was very
jolly, the sort of thing you gloated over during hot, sleepless nights
in India. Below the willows, where the lobster and other good things
were spread upon a snowy cloth, gurgled the weirs to the north of the
village. Lionel remembered a famous run of the buckhounds from Bramshaw
Telegraph to Nether-Applewhite, an eight-mile point. The buck had swum
the Avon and the big hounds followed. Half a dozen had just escaped
drowning in the sluices. Lionel helped to rescue them. Behind the
willows stretched the water-meadows, where he had learnt to hit snipe.
He recalled the Squire’s injunction: “Say to yourself—_Snipe on
toast_—before you pull trigger. That’ll steady your nerves.” On the
rising ground bordering the park, just where hill met sky, was a low
belt of firs, the best stand of that particular partridge beat, where
the “guns” could take the birds as they topped the belt. Lionel had
covered himself with glory at that stand, downing two in front and two
behind, a notable performance in any company. And when his father had
acclaimed this feat with proud insistence, Lionel had to confess that
the two behind had fallen to one shot! Look, in fine, where he would,
the young man could recall some happy or amusing incident of his youth,
and never once, during those rosy hours, had he reflected that he was
amazingly fortunate, that the lines of his life meandered, like the
placid Avon, through pleasant places. As he put it to Fishpingle, he had
taken things and persons for granted. He had ranked sport as a pursuit
of the first magnitude.

Fishpingle, you may be sure, was asked to join the party at luncheon.
Lionel, watching him, noted his good manners, or rather his unstudied
ease of manner. He displayed, too, for Lady Pomfret’s benefit, a
remarkable fund of Arcadian lore, that intimate knowledge of wild birds
and beasts gained at first hand. Lionel decided that he talked better
than the Squire, who prided himself upon his powers of speech.

Why had such a man been content to serve the Pomfrets?

After luncheon, at Fishpingle’s earnest request, the anglers changed
beats. Lady Pomfret accompanied her son to the upper reaches. But he
showed little keenness although more fly was on the water, and the
prospects of good sport much better. The mother remarked this:

“Are you tired, my dear?”

His laugh allayed that anxiety.

“Tired? I’m consumed with curiosity—that’s all.”

“What is biting at you?”

“Fishpingle.”

“Oh!”

“Mother, read the riddle of Fishpingle to me.”

She shook her head. The riddle of her son challenged attention. How
greatly he had changed, this boy who had been so absurdly boyish and cut
to pattern, who had accepted everything and questioned nothing. Long
after he had joined his regiment, she looked in vain for any shades of
expression in him. If he liked a play or a book, it was “priceless” or
“tophole.” If he disliked it, one word flew from his lips like a
projectile—“Tosh!” She remembered taking him to a concert, where a
famous virtuoso had entranced a large audience. Lionel announced
presently that he was bored to tears. She had said gently, “Do you
think, Lionel, that is your fault or the fault of Pachmann?” And he had
stared at her, startled out of his complacency but utterly
misapprehending the humour and purpose of her question.

She said tranquilly:

“I can’t read that riddle. I have always believed that poor Ben’s father
was a gentleman. Your great-grandmother may have known who he was. If
she did, she carried the secret to her grave. Anyway, she educated Ben,
and left him some money. She was very fond of Ben’s mother, her maid.
Ben became your father’s servant. You know, Lionel, that men and women
run in grooves. And the longer you remain in a groove, the harder it is
to get out of it. Above and beyond all this remains the fact of Ben’s
affection for us. I have never doubted the enduring quality of that. For
the rest, I know no more than you do.”

“It’s a mystery,” declared Lionel.

After this talk, fishing really engrossed him. He returned home to tea
in high spirits with five good fish in his creel. Alone in his room,
changing his clothes, he remembered that he had not spoken to his mother
about Joyce. And he had intended to do so, to invite her judgment upon
the riddle of sex. As he pulled off his wet boots, he thought with keen
anticipation of many delightful talks with her. What a gift she had of
inviting confidence! And withal, a woman of exasperating reserves. It
was not easy to “get at her.” Her graciousness, her tranquillity,
disarmed attack.

The Squire had returned from the Bench, when Lionel sauntered into the
Long Saloon. He greeted his son boisterously and listened to a recital
of the day’s sport. Each fish had to be hooked and played all over
again. And then, as he proposed a stroll round the Home Farm, he said to
Lady Pomfret:

“By the way, I have heard from Lady Margot. She will be happy to come to
us after the Eton and Harrow match. That will be about three weeks from
now.”

“And who is Lady Margot?” asked Lionel.

The Squire chuckled:

“You wait and see, my boy. She’s a dasher—a dasher.”

Lionel wondered whether this was the nice little girl with a bit of
money.

“What does she dash at?” he asked.

Lady Pomfret answered him:

“Everything and everybody.”

The Squire, not quite satisfied, hastened to assure Lionel that the
young lady was perfectly charming in face, figure, and intelligence.

Lionel’s eyes twinkled, but he asked gravely enough:

“Has she money, father?”

The Squire flushed, as he answered quickly: “A hatful.”

Presently, father and son took the road to the Home Farm. The Squire
noticed that Lionel seemed slightly preoccupied, that he praised
perfunctorily the Shorthorns and Suffolk Punches. Being an impassioned
optimist—except upon the subject of estate management—the Squire hoped
that his heir’s thoughts had flown away in the direction of Lady Margot.
We may hazard the conjecture that Lionel was concerned rather with the
difficulties of breaking “beastly” news to a generous but choleric sire.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                               CHAPTER VI


Fishpingle had given Lionel sound advice. The Squire was generally at
his best after dinner, provided, of course, that the cook had done her
duty. Upon this occasion, in honour of the heir, she had surpassed
herself. And a glass of vintage port, after champagne, has a mellowing
effect. Throughout dinner, the Squire’s mercurial spirits rose steadily.
Indeed, as he was sipping his port, he said, with a jolly laugh, that
the Hamlins must be invited to dine—and the sooner the better, b’ Jove!
Parson Pomfret had tucked stout legs under his mahogany once a week. A
rare old bird—that! He related anecdotes about Hamlin’s predecessor.
The family rat-catcher, Bob Nobs by name, sung lustily in the village
choir. But he raised his stentorian voice high above Parson Pomfret’s
endurance. One Sunday morning, after the first hymn, the Parson
addressed him sharply: “Look ye here, Bob Nobs, the angels will like
your singing just as well if you don’t sing so loud.”

“Did you laugh, father?” asked Lionel.

The Squire was scandalised.

“Laugh, sir? Laugh in God’s House! Certainly not, but I fairly split my
sides in the churchyard.”

As soon as Lady Pomfret left the dining-room, the Squire said briskly:

“Another glass of wine, Lionel? It won’t hurt you, my boy,” and he
pushed the decanter across the table.

“Thanks, no.” He hesitated, flushed, and plunged.

“The truth is, sir, I do need Dutch courage. But with your permission
I’ll drink another glass of wine after I’ve told you something.”

The Squire whacked the table.

“Damn it all!” he roared. “Have you told me a lie? Are you in love?”

“No,” said Lionel.

The Squire’s face indicated immense relief.

“Pass the wine, sir. If you think you’ll need stiffening after your
story, I shall do well to fortify myself before.”

He poured out a bumper, and said curtly:

“Forrard! Forrard!”

“I owe five hundred pounds.”

He waited for the outburst, but none came. Lionel went on hastily. He
stated his case, the nature of the debt, and how it could be met by an
advance from his agents, with a written guarantee from the Squire. He
finished gallantly:

“I can pay up by instalments, out of my allowance. And when I join the
regiment, I am reasonably sure of being made adjutant, if I work for it.
The C.O. half promised that.”

The Squire said solemnly:

“Will you give me your word of honour that your debts do not exceed the
sum you mention?”

“Yes.”

“Then fill your glass. I shall make arrangements that my bankers pay
£500 into your account at Cox’s. This is a first offence, and if I know
you it will be the last. Your allowance is about right. You can’t pay
instalments out of it. Have you spoken to your dear mother of this
debt?”

“Not yet.”

“Then—mum’s the word. I impose that condition. I can’t have my blessed
woman worried. Well, well, you frightened me out of my wits. From your
face I made cocksure of some cursed entanglement with a petticoat.”

“Father, this is most awfully generous. I—I don’t know what to say.
And, believe me, if I had guessed that things were a bit tight with you,
I should have gone slower. When you told me about the shooting I had a
fit.”

“There, there, you’re a good boy, and perhaps I ought to have taken such
a son into my confidence. The shooting was let for a specific purpose. I
haven’t entertained decently since you left home. We must cut down our
celebrations—what? And you must do without a clinking good horse which
I know of. Why the devil doesn’t Ben bring the coffee?”

“He knows I’m tackling you. I told him.”

“Did you? What did the old dog say? He lifted his tongue, I’ll be
bound.”

“He offered to give me the monkey.”

“What?”

“It’s a great and glorious fact. He told me he was rich.”

“Rich? Rich? The old pincher! I’ve often wondered what Ben did with his
money. Saved every bob, I expect. Were you tempted to take that monkey?”

“No.”

“Good! Ben is a faithful and loyal soul.”

“Isn’t he more than that, father?”

“Hay? What d’ye mean, boy?”

“It seems to me that he must have the most astounding affection for us.
I’m quite rattled about it. Why hasn’t he gone on his own?”

But, to this question, the Squire could offer no adequate answer. He
mumbled out: “Dear old Ben, we rabbited together. We had rare larks as
boys.” Evidently the Squire thought that this accounted for everything.
Lionel thought otherwise. But he kept his reflections to himself. Alfred
entered with the coffee. Fishpingle followed with the old brandy. The
Squire motioned to his butler to remain in the room. It was cheery to
hear his mellow tones, as he said superbly:

“A glass of wine with us, old friend. Master Lionel has told me of your
offer. It was worthy of you, Ben. My hand on it.”

Master and man shook hands. Fishpingle drank his wine, was questioned
and cross-questioned about his day on the river, and most graciously
dismissed. Lionel thought: “This is the Old School, with a vengeance.”
Once more, he wondered at the change in himself, which enabled him to
see so plainly that others had not changed.

When they joined Lady Pomfret, the Squire sank cosily into an immense
armchair and soon dozed off. Lionel watched his mother playing
“Patience.” She sat upright at a small satin-wood card-table, her
delicate hand poised above the cards, her head very erect. All her
movements were graceful and deliberate. One could not imagine her
running to catch a train. As a small boy, Lionel believed that she went
to bed fully dressed, although really, he had proof positive to the
contrary. When he sat beside her, she smiled and caressed his hand. She
was playing “Miss Milligan,” an old favourite. Lionel lifted her hand
and kissed it, as he said chaffingly:

“Toujours Mademoiselle Milligan!”

Lady Pomfret answered with perfect gravity:

“Millie is so jealous, when I forsake her.”

“But I am jealous that you don’t.”

She swept the cards into a heap.

“There! What a mother I am!”

They began to talk, lowering their voices. But she still sat erect. It
was Lionel who relaxed. And gazing at her, the son observed an air of
vigilance, something new and arresting. Was she watching him, on the
alert for changes which she must discover? He whispered to her:

“Father is asleep, but you look so wide-awake.”

“Perhaps I am straining my eyes to see you.”

“Do I still seem small to you?”

“No, no,” she smiled at him; “a colossus, my dear; you bestride my tiny
world.”

“Now you’re humbugging me, you wicked, satirical woman. I feel very
small. Call me your Mighty Atom, if you like. I say, I wish I wasn’t
quite such a mug where your elusive sex is concerned.”

“Oh! Who is eluding you, Lionel?”

He answered without embarrassment:

“Joyce Hamlin. We used to be such good pals. And I like to pick up
palship where I leave it. She half promised to join us by the river
to-day. Is it true that women always do what they like, what pleases ’em
best?”

She was too kind and too clever to laugh at him. Her tone, as she
replied, became as serious and sincere as his.

“Some women, Lionel, and nearly all men, do what pleases them, or what
they think, at the time, pleases them. Joyce, I can assure you, is not
one of those. But whether you can pick up palship, as you call it, with
her just where you left off is another matter entirely and quite outside
my knowledge.”

She paused a moment, and once more her soft fingers stroked his hand.
Then she continued quietly:

“Palship, between Joyce and you, may seem simple and desirable to you.
To her, probably, it presents difficulties and perplexities.”

“You are fond of Joyce, mother?”

“I am very fond of her. I should be most unhappy, if unhappiness came to
her.”

Then she began to talk about India. Lionel told himself that his mother
was, perhaps, more elusive than Joyce.

                 *        *        *        *        *

By the luck of things, during the days that followed Lionel and Joyce
never met. Lionel had to go to London to replenish his wardrobe. He
suggested a Salisbury tailor as good enough for an economising
subaltern, but the Squire insisted upon a London snip. Lionel wondered
whether Lady Margot Maltravers flitted into his father’s mind when he
said, “Smarten yourself up, boy. You fellows from India come back
looking confoundedly provincial.” Probably Lady Margot would not dash at
a pair of trousers that bagged at the knee. He spent three days in town
and “did” a play or two. After that the Pomfrets visited some
neighbours—a many-acred squire and his wife—old friends who lived
handsomely if not luxuriously. But their town house had been let, and
the stables had fewer horses in them. Lionel listened to his host in the
smoking-room, as he talked with Sir Geoffrey about the same eternal
question of falling rents. It was pathetic to hear them, to know—as
Lionel did—that such fine specimens of the race were passing—never to
return. Could England spare this particular type? Could the old landed
gentry be saved? If such a devout consummation depended upon their own
unaided efforts the chance of salvage might be deemed negligible. Lionel
met the son of the house, an old school-fellow, who was in the Blues.
The young men talked together. They agreed solemnly that the deuce was
to pay. Lionel confessed his inability to solve the problem. Tom
Challoner said blandly:

“We’re up against it. I’m chasing a jolly little Yank with a barrel of
dollars. If I pull it off, Lionel, the old place is safe for a
generation or two. That’s how they’ve kept together the big properties
in France.”

Lionel replied bluntly:

“It seems a rotten way of doing it.”

“Tell me some other dodge.”

Lionel remained silent.

Next day the four men of the party played golf—singles in the morning
and a foursome in the afternoon. Age played with Age and Youth with
Youth. In the foursome, Age triumphed. During the morning, Lionel said
carelessly to his companion:

“I wonder if you know Lady Margot Maltravers?”

“Know her, my dear fellow? Everybody knows La Reine Margot.”

“You call her that, do you?”

“I don’t. Her Majesty doesn’t bother with the likes of me.”

Lionel tried to disguise his astonishment. At Eton his companion had cut
“a wide swath.” He was in “Pop,” and a member of the School XI, a bright
star, shining high above Lionel. And now, when they met again, Lionel
was well aware that in Mrs. Grundy’s shrewd eyes, and in the eyes of
marriageable young women, a handsome captain of the Household Cavalry
loomed larger than a Green Jacket subaltern.

“What do you mean, Tom?”

“Just what I say. She’s a clever nut is Margot. She consorts with the
highbrows. Know her? Why, your old governor met her in our house. She’s
took an uncommon shine to him. He cut us all out.”

“She is coming to stay with us in a fortnight.”

“Is she?” He glanced sharply at Lionel. “Then look out! She’ll keep her
hand in with you. Her weapons don’t get rusty from not usin’ ’em.”

“Flirtatious—eh?”

“The most abandoned coquette in London.” Then seeing Lionel’s eyebrows
go up, he added quickly, “I’m not crabbin’ her. Personally, I believe
she’s as cold as Greenland’s icy mountains. Her vitality is mental, not
physical. She’s had a dozen affairs. Comes out of ’em cool as a
cucumber. I predict that she’ll make a big marriage—take on a Serene
Highness. Pots of money! Go easy with her, old lad. Hide your feelings.”

Lionel laughed.

“I shall have to, Tom.”

“Eh?”

“I mean that I particularly dislike that sort of girl. But father cracks
her up no end. For his sake, not mine, I _shall_ hide my feelings.”

“If she whistles, you’ll come to heel.”

Lionel returned from this visit slightly depressed, and unable to
analyse his own incohate emotions and sensibilities. His father had
treated him so generously that he was positively tingling with
impatience to make some return. He was in the mood, in fine, to lead a
nice girl, with a bit o’ money, to the altar, but not such a “dasher” as
Lady Margot. Being a modest youth, he jumped to the conclusion that she
would not dash at him. If she did——! Well, in that unlikely
contingency he could retreat, tactically.

The sight of Joyce, whom he met by accident in the village, heartened
him up. He reproached her for faithlessness in not coming to the river
upon his first day at home; but she replied simply that her father had
despatched her on some errand to a house at the farther end of the
parish. He murmured a faint protest—

“Parson’s unpaid curate, are you?”

“Father pays me, as—as your mother pays you.”

“Jolly little I do for her.”

Joyce laughed.

“Really? If you’ve grasped that Lionel, it’s well with you.”

“It isn’t altogether well with me. I’m a bit moithered. It would do me
good to have a heart-to-heart talk with you.”

“Thanks.” She smiled demurely. “But why especially with me?”

“Because you’re such a practical little dear.”

“Am I? I wonder. Perhaps I am only practical where others are
concerned.”

They were walking along the high-road which follows the river for a few
hundred yards. And this bit of road happened to be almost the centre of
the Pomfret property. So far as eye could see every acre—good, bad and
indifferent—belonged to the Squire. Lionel said eagerly:

“Just so. And as this matter concerns me, you could give sound advice,
couldn’t you?”

Obviously he firmly believed her to be wholly unconcerned in his
affairs. And she wasn’t. Her quickening pulses told her that. But she
said lightly:

“I could try. What bothers you?”

He burst into fluent speech. Ought he to chuck the army? His father had
made a jest of it, but—facing disagreeable facts—was it not his duty
to begin some sort of preparatory work to fit himself for a job he knew
nothing about. Fellows like Bonsor were simply hopelessly out of date.
Take the Home Farm—the Squire’s joy and pride. It was run at a loss.
And all the tenant farmers needed “binging up.” The old order was doomed
if it persisted in running things on old, worn-out lines. All this, and
much more, he poured into Joyce’s attentive and sympathetic ears. When
he paused for a second, she said quietly:

“What does Sir Geoffrey say?”

He laughed derisively.

“Father? I can’t talk with him about this. And, between ourselves, how
can he talk with me, being the man he is? Every word I’ve said to you is
an indictment of his policy and management. And I can’t talk with
mother, either, because any criticism of his methods would hurt her
horribly. I did talk to Tom Challoner. We’ve been stayin’ with ’em. Tom
is in the same tight place, but he’s found a way out.”

“Captain Challoner must be cleverer than I gave him credit for. What is
his way?”

“Dishonourable marriage.”

“Oh-h-h!”

“All the same, his way doesn’t seem dishonourable to him. And from his
point of view, mind you, if he marries money to save the old place it is
a sacrifice. But he doesn’t think of the girl at all.”

“Do men think of a girl, as a rule?”

Something in her soft voice arrested his attention. He looked at her.
Her cheeks were pinker than usual. That, however, might be due to a warm
day and exercise.

“Are you cynical about men?” he asked abruptly.

“Oh, no. But I suppose—I think——”

“Come on! Heart-to-heart, Joyce. No skrimshanking!”

“I don’t know many men. I’ve met Captain Challoner. I’ve read about men
like him. He’s a type, isn’t he? He might want a girl, either for
herself or her money, but he wouldn’t ask himself if he could make her
happy and contented, would he?”

Lionel was too busy with his own affairs to throw pebbles at a pal. He
professed ignorance. Tom Challoner was a good sort. Any girl would have
an easy time with him.

“Some of us want more than that.”

She stopped, smiling pleasantly. Her destination, a small cottage, was
reached. Lionel offered to wait for her.

“I shall be busy for an hour at least.”

He grumbled, unwilling to go.

“What are you doing in there?”

“The mother of five children is in bed with a sixth. I play housemaid
and nurse. We shall meet to-night. Father and I dine with you.”

“Yes, I know. Joyce, you must wear your prettiest frock. Have you a very
pretty frock?”

“I think so. I made it myself.”

She nodded and vanished.

Walking on, Lionel remembered that he had asked for her advice, but
somehow he had not got it.

That afternoon he rode with the Squire. Father and son were very
friendly together, although each shrank from discussion of subjects next
his heart. This intercourse, so intimate—up to a point—revealed the
Squire in a new light. Really the Squire revealed himself, accepting his
boy, at long last, as man and comrade. To his dismay, however, Lionel
did not share his feelings about the family heirlooms. Sir Geoffrey
approached them warily, sincerely anxious to know where an up-to-date
young soldier stood.

“We have some valuable stuff in the old house,” he said.

“Have we?” Lionel asked.

“The Sir Joshua, for instance. With your consent, my boy, it might be
sold.”

“Would it fetch much?”

“Possibly twenty thousand, if the right people were bidding.”

Lionel whistled. Then he said, tentatively:

“I love the picture, but I’d let it go gladly if the mortgage could be
diminished by that big sum, or——”

“Or?”

“If the money could be laid out on the estate. Fishpingle says——”

“Don’t quote old Ben to me, boy. He transmits my ideas. Well, well, you
surprise me. I have regarded our heirlooms as sacred.”

“But the mortgage, father?”

“Tchah! You find that nice little girl. Snug dowries have cancelled many
a mortgage.”

“Yes; that is what Tom Chanoller says.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

The dinner was pleasant enough. Squire and Parson tacitly avoided
subjects upon which they might differ. Joyce looked charming in the
simple frock of her own making. Some tennis was arranged. Hamlin
mentioned that his eldest son was coming home and bringing with him a
friend. Of this friend, Joyce, somewhat to Lionel’s chagrin, spoke with
enthusiasm. He had distinguished himself at Cambridge, was now a Fellow
of his college, and regarded as a rising chemist.

“A chemist?” exclaimed Lionel.

“Not a druggist. His line is coal-tar products. He says the Germans have
that field almost to themselves, but he is digging deep into it. Mr.
Moxon has imagination. That is what is wanted in an inventor.”

“Moxon?” said the Squire. “Let me see. One of the Moxons of Wooton?”

Hamlin answered drily:

“I don’t think so. Moxon’s father, I believe, made a fortune in jute.”

“What is jute?” asked Lady Pomfret.

Hamlin explained. Moxon _père_ had begun life sweeping out an office in
Dundee. Moxon _fils_ might end—anywhere. Already he was quite
independent of a rich father.

“Very creditable,” said the Squire majestically. Everybody present knew
that Sir Geoffrey would have shown much greater interest in a Moxon and
Wooton. Nevertheless, he continued in the same tone, with a sweeping
gesture:

“I am told that our tennis courts are in order. We shall be delighted to
see your young people using them. Possibly Mr. Moxon has studied
artificial fertilisers. If so, I shall be happy to have a word with
him.”

Hamlin’s face stiffened. Lionel could read his thoughts. The Squire was
not above accepting a tip from the son of a jute-manufacturer. Otherwise
he might be regarded as an outsider. And, struggle as he did against
inherited prejudices, Lionel, in his heart, was unable to regard this
distinguished chemist as a social equal. Joyce, he reflected, could be
reckoned as a jolly little sister. Joyce, evidently, had been swept off
her feet by young Moxon. Suppose, too, that Moxon, a clever chap, had
been captivated by her? Could he attend their wedding with satisfaction?
Most emphatically—no! He did not ask himself what his feelings would be
if Tom Challoner were leading Joyce to the altar.

After dinner a round game was played, so Lionel had no chance of getting
Joyce alone. The guests left early, and the Squire said, with a sigh of
relief:

“That’s well over. Hamlin drank lemonade. Depend upon it, lemonade
irrigates his perversity. Beastly sour stuff! Joyce seems to like this
jute-manufacture’s son. We may have a wedding in the village. Very
suitable match.”

Lady Pomfret nodded. She observed, out of the corner of her eye, that
her son was pulling savagely at a small moustache.

Lionel played one game of billiards with his father, and was handsomely
beaten. Then he went to bed, but not to sleep. He tossed uneasily
between his lavender-scented sheets, growing more and more irritable.
Had Joyce gone out of his life? In India, upon a night much warmer than
this, he had lain awake thinking of jolly hours spent alone with Joyce.
They would fish and ride together, with lashin’s of tennis. Did she
avoid him purposely? In the old days, she popped in and out of the Hall
like a kitten. Was she waiting now to be asked formally to come to
luncheon or tea? Could it be possible that she was engaged to this
chemist? No, no, Hamlin was the last man to countenance a secret
engagement; and Joyce was incapable of keeping a fact of such importance
from her father. Moxon—confound him!—and Joyce were not engaged, but
they might be in a few days or so.

He got out of bed, lit a pipe, and cooled himself by the open window. A
nightingale trilled a few notes, the broken song of late June. Lionel
was in no sentimental mood. The nightingale singing to his mate provoked
an absurd image of Moxon talking to Joyce about coal-tar products.

He cursed Moxon; and ordered the nightingale to “shut up.”

Then he laughed himself into a happier humour. Why should he care? Ten
to one, he had found a mare’s nest. Girls were not enthusiastic about
fellows they were fond of. Rather the contrary! Six to four Moxon was
engaged to some freckle-faced lassie in Dundee. He felt remorse when the
nightingale stopped singing. He leaned far out of the window and said
clearly:

“I’m sorry, old chap; you go on singing to your missus.”

But the nightingale was huffed—and didn’t.

Owls hooted and hunted through the darkness. Male and female hunted
together; for the first brood, now feathering nicely, were hatching out
the second lot of eggs with their soft, warm little bodies. From the
shrubberies came the hoarse cry of the nightjar, who moves the babies
each night to a different nursery. Lionel felt more at ease in mind and
body. The night was so still that he could just hear the rumble of a
distant train speeding towards Salisbury. He thought of the people in
the train, rushing on to adventures and misadventures, to new joys and
old sorrows. Pace—progress—change! What a trinity!

He found himself yawning. He was almost dozing. The sand from the
suburbs of slumber tingled in his eyes. The nightingale, still silent,
may have heard his last words just audible to the sensitive ear:

“Good night, you jolly old world.”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              CHAPTER VII


Many persons, profoundly ignorant of lives other than their own, believe
that country gentlemen have easy billets. They read of big “shoots” with
no understanding of the anxieties involved. They may be surprised to
learn that often the host carries a stick instead of a gun. Indeed a
“battue” (a favourite word amongst journalists) exacts as careful
generalship as a battle. The same people imagine fox-hunting to be plain
sailing over a grass country and the successful training of hounds—a
pastime. A glance at “Beckford” would enlighten them. But, apart from
sport, which engrosses less time on the part of a big land-owner than is
popularly supposed, there remain the Bench, the County Council, the
District Council, the Parish Council, and innumerable petty claims upon
the leisure of men like Sir Geoffrey Pomfret. He worked hard all the
year round, and much of that work was done gratuitously for the welfare
of others.

Lionel had always been aware of this. Many a “shoot,” many a hunt had
the Squire cheerfully given up in the prosecution of county and
parochial duties. What Lionel did not know, what he soon learnt on his
return from India, was that his father actually neglected his own
affairs in the public interest. Fishpingle, fortunately, had filled the
breach. And the Squire remained, possibly, the only man upon his estates
who was not cognisant of the fact.

But Lionel was quite unable to measure the extent of Fishpingle’s
influence and power because the dear old chap effaced himself. Lionel
smoked many pipes with him, and, day by day, he marvelled at
Fishpingle’s ability and devotion. He might have made a mark anywhere.
Why had he remained a butler?

During the fortnight which elapsed before the arrival of the “dasher,”
Lionel saw Joyce nearly every afternoon, but rarely alone. She played
tennis with him, for Lionel and she were a match for Hamlin’s eldest son
and Moxon. Between the sets she would chatter unconcernedly. It jumped
to the eye that Moxon was paying her attention. And Lionel couldn’t help
liking Moxon, although he described the hounds, when they visited the
kennels, as “a nice lot of dogs wagging their tails.” Moxon, however,
talked admirably, and Joyce listened with exasperating deference. He had
brought his motor to the Vicarage, and appeared to be a man of ample
means. When Lionel said as much to the Squire, that hypercritic
perpetrated a joke.

“If his means are as large as his ends, he must be very rich.”

This was in allusion to Moxon’s hands and feet, points about which the
Squire was particular. But he, too, liked Moxon, who proved to be
“knowledgable” about fertilisers and intensive culture, and amiably
willing to impart information whenever he was asked for it. Moreover,
the possibility of any wedding in Nether-Applewhite brought out all that
was best in the Squire. He kept on repeating to Lionel:

“A very suitable match. I hope it will come about.”

“I don’t,” said Lionel, spurred to protest by this repetition. “Joyce
might do better than Moxon. He’s clever as he can stick, and not a bad
chap, but—well, he’s Moxon. And I should think his people in Dundee are
as sticky as their own marmalade.”

“I dare say. I repeat again—a very suitable match for Joyce. Her father
is sticky. Now don’t argue with me, Lionel! It is nothing to us whom
Joyce marries.”

He glanced keenly at his son, watching the effect of this sly thrust.
Lionel riposted imperturbably:

“That won’t do, father, coming from you. Everybody knows what a
matchmaker you are. And, by the way, that reminds me. Alfred confided to
me that he wanted to marry Prudence, and that you objected. Can’t you
see your way to withdraw your objection.”

“Most certainly not. Bless my soul! What are we coming to? I settled
that affair with Ben before you came home. I sent a message to the
little baggage through Ben. No mutiny in my house.”

“But, father, if they really love each other, poor dears!”

“Love! Tchah! I tell you this, boy, any healthy young man can love a
dozen young women.”

“All at once, father?”

“You know what I mean. This ‘sighing and yearning and clinging and
burning’ for one person of the opposite sex is
ridiculous—preposterous.”

“I see. If you hadn’t captured mother, any other young woman would have
done just as well.”

This disarmed the Squire. He laughed heartily and clapped Lionel on the
shoulder.

“That was a good ’un, my boy. Dammy! you stuck me through the heart. But
I wasn’t speaking of the quality. It doesn’t do to say it in these
democratic times, but, between you and me, our Wiltshire labourers are
not far removed from animals. I speak of what I know.”

“And whose fault is that?”

The Squire frowned. It was confounding that his son should ask such
questions. He said sharply:

“Have you been talking with Hamlin?”

“I talk with Tom, Dick, and Harry. I want to know what people really
think. If it irritates you, father, to discuss the conditions in our own
county, I’ll shut up.”

The Squire fumed a little, but he was not ill-pleased. The boy expressed
himself well and modestly. And he had inherited from his dear mother an
ironical humour which tickled him. Whether, also, he had inherited her
tact remained to be seen.

“Whose fault is it?” he repeated slowly. “That’s a bit of a stumper,
boy. One can’t answer a big question like that—off hand.”

“Is it their fault? A lot of ’em herd together like animals.”

“Not on my property, Lionel.”

“I know. You’ve been awfully decent about that, but elsewhere. Within a
radius of ten miles, we both know of conditions that beat the London
slums. Is that their fault?”

“No.”

“Things are changing slowly for the better, but why can’t they be
speeded up? If our labourers could be made more intelligent, we should
profit as much as they. You’ve looked after their bodies jolly well. You
believe in eugenics.”

“I do, b’ Jove! I don’t believe in clap-trap education, never did. Our
old gaffers, who signed their names with their thumbs did a better day’s
work than their half-educated sons.”

Lionel laughed.

“Father, I can roll you in the dust. I hate to do it.”

“Do it, if you can, you young rascal. I defy you!”

He laughed, more loudly than Lionel.

“How about Fishpingle?”

“Ben? What the doose has he got to do with it?”

“He has been a tower of strength to you, simply because he is educated.
He shines brighter than Bonsor. Where would you be without him?”

“Um! You think you’ve downed me, boy. You quite forget that Ben is the
exception that proves the rule. I’ve trained Ben. What he knows he’s got
from me, b’ Jove! And I’ll admit that because his confounded memory
happens to be better than mine he is able, once in a while, to get the
upper hand by quoting me against myself. That’s a little trick of his
which always exasperates me. Ben has understudied me, so to speak, to
his own advantage and mine. He could take Bonsor’s place, and I
sometimes think I shall let him have it. But, I repeat, Ben is
exceptional. As to that, everybody knows that real ability always pushes
itself out of the ruck. And—there it is! With the ruck, you can do so
little practically nothing—nothing. If you have finished your cigar,
we’ll join your mother.”

Lionel followed his sire into the Long Saloon. Lady Pomfret was playing
“Patience” as usual. Lionel decided that he must do the same. His jolly
old father couldn’t be pressed, as many a young man had discovered out
hunting, when the Squire carried a Master’s horn. “Don’t ride in my
pocket, sir,” he would roar out. “Am I hunting hounds or are you?”

But, happily, they could talk together without much heat—a significant
sign. What encouraged the young man to persevere was the conviction that
the Squire desired, heart and soul, the true welfare of his people. All
of them were well housed, well fed, medically supervised—in a word,
“protected” against their own ignorance. And Lionel’s ever-increasing
conviction that such protection defeated its honest aims was instinctive
rather than practical. He had no cut-and-dried scheme of reconstruction
to offer to his father, or anybody else. His disabilities oppressed him.
As a matter of fact, he did talk with Hamlin, and came away from such
talks much discouraged. Hamlin was iconoclastic by temperament and
training, a John Knox of a fellow! He advocated sweeping reforms, and
after such a clear-up as he demanded Lionel wondered vaguely what would
be left. The squires of England might be scrapped!

                 *        *        *        *        *

At the end of the week Moxon left. If he said anything to Joyce before
his departure, the maid kept it to herself. Her friendly aloofness went
on puzzling Lionel. She seemed the same jolly pal, but she wasn’t.
Something, or somebody, stood between them. It might be Moxon; it might
be the Parson, who certainly gave his unpaid curate plenty of work. The
fact that she was at work, when he was fishing, riding, and playing golf
or tennis, took some zest from these amusements. He said frankly to the
Parson:

“Why can’t Joyce play about with me, as she used to?”

Hamlin answered rather grimly:

“Joyce hasn’t stood still.”

As he spoke he eyed Lionel sharply, so sharply that the young man felt
uncomfortable. Hamlin went on in a very uncompromising tone:

“I give my daughter a free hand, Lionel. I trust her absolutely.”

“But, of course, sir.”

“There is no ‘of course’ about it. She happens to have earned that
trust. ‘Playing about with you’ sounds harmless enough, and I trust you
unreservedly, too; but tongues will wag in country villages, and I don’t
want them wagging about my girl. That’s all.”

Lionel accepted this as satisfactory. The Parson had given a hint to
Joyce. He smiled pleasantly, so pleasantly that the Parson took his arm
and pressed it.

“You’re a good fellow, Lionel, but rather dense.”

“Thank you, sir. Have another shot.”

All the grimness went out of Hamlin’s voice, as he explained:

“You are only dense like so many worthy folk, where others are
concerned. When I prepared you for confirmation, when we read together
before you went up for Sandhurst, I discovered joyfully your modesty.
Don’t squirm! We’ll have this out. You’re not the swaggering sort. I’ve
never caught you preening yourself. It is quite likely that you are
unaware of your attractiveness.”

Lionel did squirm, but the Parson held him tightly.

“Oh, I say, sir——!”

“More—you exercise the faculties that have been well exercised already.
I didn’t get my ‘blue’ that way. At first I was a hopeless duffer at
cricket. I believed that I wasn’t built for cricket. But something
inside of me bit at my vitals, and I went to work with my brains—and
after much tribulation I got there.”

“By Jove! you did!”

“Well, suppose you profit by my experience. Try harder to measure your
own potentialities. Joyce has lost her mother. I try, very
ineffectively, to take her place. In a word, Lionel, playing about with
Joyce may be fun for you, regarding her as you do almost as a sister,
but it might be disastrous for her. What it has cost me to say this you
may realise when you have a daughter of your own.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Lionel, in a different tone.

This talk with a man who detested mere chatter opened Lionel’s eyes. Was
it possible that little Joyce could care for him in another way?

It is humorous to reflect that Hamlin—acting according to his
lights—had brought about the one consummation he wished to avoid. He
had underrated Lionel’s modesty, and indicated possibilities which
hitherto had been beyond the young fellow’s horizon. Probably, Mrs.
Hamlin—had she been alive—would have handled the same subject
differently. The mere idea that Joyce might regard him other than as a
pal made Lionel think of her, tenderly and chivalrously, as a woman
abundantly equipped to inspire a warmer sentiment than friendship. But
when he put the straight question to his inner consciousness: “Am I in
love?” he couldn’t answer it.

But he obeyed the letter of the Parson’s injunction. He made no further
effort to secure those pleasant heart-to-heart talks which he had missed
so confoundedly. And here again—as the judicious will agree—he was
playing Cupid’s game. Joyce felt piqued by the subtle change in him. She
wondered if she had offended him.

We are at liberty to divulge one secret. Moxon had proposed. And she had
refused him. Possibly, the Parson divined the reason. As a rule,
penniless daughters of poor clergymen do not say “No” to eligible young
men, unless their affections are otherwisely engaged. It is certain that
Joyce—with her old-fashioned upbringing—was incapable of frankly
admitting to herself that she loved a man whose feelings were agreeably
fraternal. If, in maiden meditation, she dared to envisage Lionel as a
lover, it is equally certain that she shrank, tremblingly, from the
issues involved. Love passages with Sir Geoffrey Pomfret’s son and heir
meant—ructions.

Moxon behaved with discretion and cleverness. He went away with the
Parson’s permission to return after a decent interval. He perceived that
he had “rushed” Joyce, and apologised so handsomely that she felt
absurdly sorry for him, and inclined to blame herself. Indeed, having
said “No” with unmistakable emphasis, she spent a sleepless but not
altogether disagreeable night in speculating what her future might have
been had she said “Yes.”

We have observed that Lionel obeyed the letter of the Parson’s
injunction. It was not so easy to obey the spirit, unless he kept away
from the young lady altogether. When they did meet, he was consumed by
curiosity and excitement. He tried to read the virgin page, so
immaculate to his eye. And then, through Fishpingle—a confirmed gossip
about such affairs,—he learnt of poor Moxon’s rejection. Prudence
pumped the facts out of the bouncing parlourmaid at the Vicarage.

“He means to try again,” said Fishpingle.

“Does he? I wonder why she refused him.”

Fishpingle remained exasperatingly silent.

It is significant that Lionel did not pass on this bit of gossip either
to the Squire or his mother. When he next met Joyce, he decided that she
looked a thought pale. Did this lack of colour indicate vigils? Why on
earth couldn’t she confide in him? What would account adequately for her
silence? A nice regard for poor Moxon, or——! He blushed as he
confronted the more obvious hypothesis.

Under such circumstances, conversation, between an ingenuous pair, is
likely to become artificial and constrained. They met and parted acutely
ill at ease. The curare poison into which Cupid dips his darts paralyses
action and stimulates sensation. They began to suffer abominably. Of the
two, Lionel may have endured sharper pangs, because Joyce had her work,
whereas time hung heavily upon his hands. Neither, as yet, had squarely
faced the fact that they were in love.

Cupid laughed, as he fashioned more darts.

Meanwhile the Squire’s bankers had paid £500 into Lionel’s account at
Cox’s. The actual payment of the money, promptly despatched to settle
his debts, sent a fresh tidal wave of gratitude through Lionel’s mind.
And he felt mighty uncomfortable when the importunate Bonsor clamoured,
in his presence, for grants in aid of the Home Farm. On top of this came
disconcerting news. Three young men in Nether-Applewhite announced their
intention of emigrating. Upon many neighbouring estates depopulation was
causing anxiety to farmers and landowners. The Squire was very hot about
it, and sent his son with powers plenipotentiary to deal with the
deserters. Lionel knew them well. They played cricket and were sober,
respectable fellows, in the prescient eyes of the Squire potential
fathers of large families. To lose them would be a disaster.

Lionel interviewed the Mucklows upon the Sunday preceding Lady Margot’s
arrival.

He tried chaff first, and then serious remonstrance. The youngest of the
three, so Lionel remembered, had announced his wish of becoming a
gamekeeper, a calling for which he had special aptitudes. Lionel said to
him:

“I thought, George, you wanted to be a keeper?”

George, somewhat to the consternation of his elder brethren, replied
with a grin:

“Lard love ’ee, Master Lionel, it looks, seemin’ly, as if keepers an’
game-preservin’ won’t last another ten years. Where would I be then?”

“Rubbish!” exclaimed Lionel.

George accepted this deferentially, adding, as if in excuse:

“I’d a mind to be a policeman, I had, bein’—so to speak —so fine a
figger of a man, but policemen bain’t wanted in Nether-Applewhite.”

“You say that as if you regretted it.”

“’Tis tarnation dull here, Master Lionel.”

An interminable discussion followed. The young men pursued many
avocations, harvesting, cutting poles, bark-stripping, hurdling, and
thatching. Month in and month out each could earn about eighteen
shillings a week, a good wage in Wiltshire. They lived with their
parents, but helped with the rent and paid board and lodging. So far as
Lionel could gather, they were seeking change and amusement—livelier
times.

“You fellows won’t get that in Canada.”

Western Canada had been mentioned as their future home.

“Ah-h-h! Have ’ee bin back there, Master Lionel?”

“No, but I know something about it. When the winter sets in, fifty
degrees of frost, and you find yourselves frostbitten and forty miles
from a doctor, you’ll be thinking of this snug cottage.”

But none of them budged from his determination to leave England. George,
who might be reckoned the fool of the family, said finally:

“Us do hear tell there be no quality over there. Every tub a-stanin’ on
its own bottom.”

“You’ll be standing on your head, George.”

Lionel returned to his father, rather discomfited. The Squire frowned,
as he listened to his son’s report.

“I’ll see ’em,” he declared. “Hounds that run riot must be rated.”

“You told me to use tact.”

Eventually, Fishpingle saw the brethren and persuaded them to remain in
Nether-Applewhite. He elicited the truth. Two of the brothers were
engaged to be married and wanted cottages. Bonsor had told them to
remain single, because no cottages were vacant. Fishpingle promised them
new cottages, whereat the Squire grumbled and growled. He said to
Lionel:

“Where is the money to come from?”

Lionel winced, thinking of the draft on its way to India. The Squire
tapped him on the shoulder—

“Lionel, my boy, that nice little girl with something in her stocking is
house-warming in my heart.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

Lionel nodded, not too enthusiastically.

The Squire was so full of his plan for cancelling the family mortgage
and rebuying the land sold by his grandfather that he could not keep it
from Fishpingle. As a rule, they spent an hour together each morning,
going over estate accounts which, properly considered, were Bonsor’s
business. Fishpingle, however, had kept such accounts for fifteen years,
burning much midnight oil over them.

“Ben,” said the Squire, “that little lady is coming to us next week.”

“You mean Lady Margot, Sir Geoffrey.”

“I do. What d’ye think of her—hay?”

“Very urban Sir Geoffrey.”

“What d’ye call her? Urban? God bless my soul! What words you use! Where
d’ye get your vocabulary from?”

Fishpingle answered deprecatingly:

“From you, Sir Geoffrey, from my lady, and from the dictionary.”

“Urban—eh? Well, why not? When you and I were her age, we liked
London—what? I know I did. And I should like to see Master Lionel in
Parliament. Between ourselves, Ben, I am hoping and praying that Master
Lionel and Lady Margot will take a shine to each other. She liked his
photograph, b’ Jove? And if I do say it, there isn’t a nicer young
fellow in England. You’re starin’ at me like an owl. Can’t you say
something?”

“I took the liberty of looking Lady Margot up in the Peerage.”

“Did you? Well, you found a thumpin’ good pedigree. No better stock
anywhere.”

“What there is of it, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Hay.”

Fishpingle rose slowly, crossed the room to the bookcase and took down
his “Burke.” The Squire watched him with impatience.

“Your slow ways irritate me. Where did ye get that Peerage?”

“I bought it, Sir Geoffrey.”

Fishpingle opened the big book, and put on his spectacles. Having found
the page, entitled “Beaumanoir,” he pushed the volume across to the
Squire, who adjusted his pince-nez.

“Not much stock left,” said Fishpingle.

The Squire frowned, running his forefinger up the page.

“You’ve been talking to my lady,” he snapped out.

“No, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Then she’s been talking to you.”

“Not about the Maltravers family.”

“Um! The stock has worn thin, but what of it—what of it? An infusion of
fresh, healthy blood is needed.” He closed the Peerage with a bang.
“Take the damned book away!” Fishpingle replaced it, and came back. “Sit
you down man,” Fishpingle obeyed. “I take you unreservedly into my
confidence.” Fishpingle bowed solemnly. “I want to bring about this
match. As I told my lady—no pressure. It must come about naturally. I
haven’t asked anybody to meet Lady Margot here. The young people will be
thrown together, and there you are!”

Fishpingle remained obstinately silent. The Squire glared at him.

“You don’t share my wish, you crusty old dog? What’s in your mind. Speak
out freely!”

“I was thinking, Sir Geoffrey, of young Lord Fordingbridge.”

“Then your wits are wool-gathering. He married a year ago, and what a
marriage, b’ Jove! His agent’s daughter.”

“A fortnight ago,” said Fishpingle, with a faint smile, “her ladyship
was safely delivered of twin sons. His lordship and his lordship’s
father were only sons. That stock had worn thin.”

Light came to the Squire and blazed in his blue eyes.

“I take you, Ben, I take you. I suppose, if you had your way, you’d
arrange a marriage between my son and a prolific milkmaid.”

“It would be sound eugenics.”

“Damn eugenics! I’d sooner see my boy dead in his coffin than marrying
out of his own class. What d’ye say to that?”

“Nothing, Sir Geoffrey. What wine will you drink to-night?”

“Champagne,” roared the Squire, getting up. “I shall need a bottle to
myself after this.”

“Certainly, Sir Geoffrey.”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              CHAPTER VIII


Leaving Fishpingle, the Squire walked down the passage which led past
the pantry into the housekeeper’s room, where he knew he would find his
wife. During the hour when he did accounts with his butler, Lady Pomfret
passed the same time with housekeeper and cook. The Squire was so
ruffled, as he stumped down the passage, that he broke one of his own
inviolate rules, and called out “Mary, Mary,” as if he were shouting for
a housemaid. Lady Pomfret’s clear tones came back. “I am here,
Geoffrey.” Her smile, as she answered him, delighted the cook, an old
and privileged retainer. It said so unmistakably: “Poor dear man! He
can’t help it. When he gets excited he wants—_me_.” The cook’s
answering smile was broader but as easily read as Lady Pomfret, who
interpreted it thus: “Yes, my lady, the men are all alike, we have to
drop our jobs, when they need—_us_.”

Sir Geoffrey appeared, red of face, and congested of eye, but he minded
his manners.

“Good morning, Mrs. Mowland. How are you? As well and hearty as ever, I
hope?”

The cook curtsied. She was one of his own people. The Squire’s
civilities were greatly appreciated in the “room” and in the servant’s
hall. He knew the names of everybody, high and low, in his
establishment, and could talk familiarly with a scullery-maid, asking
politely after her brothers and sisters, and sure to pay her a
compliment if her cheeks were sufficiently rosy. In his own dining-room,
were the potatoes not to his liking, he might instruct Fishpingle to
throw them at Mrs. Mowland’s head, but such extravagance of behaviour
endeared him to his household. The autocrat was so very human. He spoke,
not quite so pleasantly, to his wife:

“Mary, my dear, I want a word with you.”

“Certainly, Geoffrey. In your own room, I suppose?”

“In my own room.”

He led the way to the library, which contained a vast number of
calf-bound volumes which nobody disturbed. Here, above the book-cases,
hung portraits of favourite hunters and hounds. Between them grinned the
masks of half a dozen foxes, and on the mantel-shelf might be seen two
hunting-horns brilliantly polished by Alfred, although much dented. The
Squire found a chair for Lady Pomfret, but remained standing.

“Mary, I am upset.”

“Dear Geoffrey, I am so sorry. What has upset you?”

“Ben.”

“Dear me! Not wilfully, I am sure.”

“Don’t be too sure,” he snapped out. “Ben presumes upon my friendship
and forbearance. I was fool enough to take him into my confidence this
morning.”

“In my humble opinion that is not a foolish thing to do.”

“Isn’t it, b’ Jove! You wait. I spoke to him of our little plan, our
little match-making plan.”

Lady Pomfret smiled ironically. The use of the possessive pronoun
tickled her humour. He made so sure that his little plan was hers. And,
really, that was very sweet of him. The Squire saw no derision in her
smile; he was too much perturbed.

“Ah! What did Ben say?”

The Squire repeated what Ben had said, with pardonable accretions. Lady
Pomfret remained perfectly calm. He continued vehemently:

“Ben has the impudence to disapprove. He would like to see Lionel
marrying a milkmaid.”

“Surely he never said that?”

“I think he said it, or I said it. No matter! He flung at my head that
ignominious marriage of young Fordingbridge.”

“Was it ignominious? The end—twins—seems to have justified the means.”

“Tchah! Well, Mary, you think as I do, bless you! so I shan’t ask for
your opinion. Ben has great influence with Lionel.”

“Has he?”

“Of course he has. Ben—damn him!—I beg your pardon, Mary!—might
conceivably queer our pitch.”

“Oh dear, no!”

“You reassure me. But you know, Mary, I have always had an odd
presentiment that Lionel might stick a knife into me.”

Lady Pomfret lost her composure for an instant. She said emphatically:

“That presentiment is preposterous.”

The Squire continued at an easier pace, ambling forward to his
objective.

“I mean this, my dear. We know our dear Lionel. He is a good boy, a nice
affectionate son:——”

“That and much more,” murmured the mother.

“I quite agree, but I am not blind to his—a—limitations. He talks with
Tom, Dick, and Harry. I have his word for it. He talks with that
pestilent parson.”

Lady Pomfret protested. Protest, she was well aware, might be wasted,
but, being the woman she was, she had to make it.

“Mr. Hamlin is not pestilent. He is like you—”

“What?”

“He has the courage to speak his opinions regardless of the effect
produced on his listeners.”

“Um! You accuse me of that? I am astonished. I flatter myself that I
don’t impose my opinions upon others. However, let that pass. Where was
I? Yes, yes, pray don’t interrupt me for a minute! Lionel is too
absorbent, a bit of a chameleon, what? He likes to hear both sides. I
don’t blame him, but there it is. Having heard both sides, poor boy! he
gets rather dazed. Conditions in our rural districts daze him—and no
wonder. He asks where he is?”

“Surely you can tell him.” She smiled again.

“I’m dashed if I can. That’s the trouble. He’s a weathercock out of
order. And he can’t, as yet, get at the root of things. He failed with
those Mucklows. It is humiliating to reflect that Ben found out the
trouble at once, and put it right. I gave the boy a free hand. Why
didn’t he dig out the truth? Now, I’ve lost my point. I was heading for
what?”

“You said something absurd about Lionel sticking a knife into you.”

“So I did. Lionel, with his too loose ideas——You know, Mary, the army
is not what it was in my time. Even in good regiments you’ll find a
taint of demagogy, the trail of the serpent. Have I lost my point again?
No. Lionel wrote regularly to little Joyce Hamlin. She wrote to him.
She’s a deuced pretty girl.”

“So Mr. Moxon thought.”

“I hope Moxon will get her. But—this is my point—I want to hammer it
well home—Lionel might fall in love with just such a bread-and-butter
miss as Joyce.”

“That doesn’t describe the child quite fairly, Geoffrey.”

“Well, well, you know what I’m driving at. It is his duty not to marry
for money, but to find a nice girl with money. There are plenty of ’em.
God forbid that I should force Lady Margot down his throat! It is quite
likely she won’t cotton to him——”

“Or he to her?”

“As to that, I am not alarmed. You charmers,” he smiled genially at her,
“lead us poor fellows where you will. Practically, Mary, you proposed to
me.”

“I didn’t.”

“You lured me on and on, you witch! If this little lady wants Lionel,
she’ll lure him on. I don’t worry about that. He gave me his word that
he was heart-whole.”

“Then he is, or was, when he said so.”

“Was—was? You don’t think——?”

“I think lots of things. I know very little. Till quite lately Lionel
has been transparently friendly with Joyce and she with him. During the
past few days I have noticed a slight change in him. I have hardly set
eyes on her. He is a trifle absent-minded with me, and not quite so
jolly. I am sure of this—he shares your anxieties. He would like to
help you, but cannot find a way. He did just hint to me that he would
leave the army, if he knew enough to take Bonsor’s place.”

“Rubbish! I have indicated the way for him, a broad and easy path. Well,
I have a lot to do, but I had to have this chat with you. You are sure
of Ben’s loyalty—hay?”

Her eyes did not meet his, but she answered quietly:

“I am sure that dear Ben has the true interests of all of us next his
heart.”

He paused at the door, smiling at her.

“I am off to the Home Farm. I shall pass through the rose garden, and I
shall pick the best rose for you. Where is Lionel?”

“I don’t know.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

Lionel happened to be at the Vicarage.

He had definitely made up his mind that he could say to Joyce what he
kept from his own mother and father, and he knew, instinctively, that
her advice, at such a moment, would help him enormously. He could, it is
true, have laid his case before the Parson, a sound adviser, but he
shrank from such an ordeal. Hamlin was too brutally outspoken. To place
his perplexities before him meant listening to a one-sided indictment of
landed gentry in general and the Squire in particular.

Chance, so often complaisant to lovers, ordained that Lionel should find
Joyce alone. The Parson was attending a Diocesan Conference in
Salisbury, and his eldest son had accompanied him. Also, it happened to
be raining; so Joyce received Lionel in her own den, where she kept a
lathe, a sewing-machine, rolls of flannel and long-cloth, many books,
and her collections of eggs and butterflies. Lionel was invited to sit
down and light his pipe.

“This is like old times,” he remarked.

“Isn’t it?”

While he was filling his pipe, she went on with her sewing. He looked at
her small, capable hands and deft fingers, her workmanlike kit, and the
shining coils of her brown hair, a shade lighter than her eyes.

Then he plunged into his troubles.

“We had a talk the other day, Joyce, but I never discovered till I was
walking home that I had asked for your advice and never got it. I’m here
to get it this morning.”

Unconsciously, thinking of the Parson’s injunctions, he laid stress upon
this last sentence. It was plain to the girl that he had not come for
anything else. He went on hurriedly.

“I owe my father five hundred pounds. This is strictly between
ourselves. I got into debt to that tune, and he paid up like a trump. He
never slated me at all. Mother doesn’t know. Now, I’ll say to you that I
should have kept out of debt, if I had even suspected that he was really
hard up. I swear that, Joyce.”

“You needn’t. I am sure of it.”

“And I’ll tell you something else. Generous and jolly as he’s been, I do
feel sore and hurt because he couldn’t take me into his confidence. Once
more, most strictly between ourselves,” she nodded, “there’s a big
mortgage on the property, a plaster applied by my great-grandfather.
Perhaps you knew it.”

She answered simply:

“I thought everybody knew it. I’m sure our parlourmaid does.”

“Just so. Well, I didn’t know. I’ve been treated like a child.”

She tried to console him.

“But, Lionel, the old school are like that. They never tell their
nearest and dearest what most intimately concerns them. Look at those
Ocknell girls.” (The Ocknell estate marched with the Pomfret property.)
“They were given every advantage except those which teach women to earn
a living. They hunted, they wore pretty frocks, and had a gorgeous time,
till their father died. The son has the property, heavily mortgaged, and
the girls have seventy-five pounds a year apiece.”

“Beastly for them!”

“I should think so. If misery loves company, you are not alone.”

The sympathy in her voice moved him to further confidence.

“Now, what bothers me is: how can I repay my father? If I’d known what I
know to-day, when I left Eton, horses wouldn’t have dragged me into the
army, although soldiering suits me down to the ground. As a soldier I’m
an encumbrance on my people. They have to stint, by Jupiter! to keep me
in clover. I ought to be earning money, not spending it.”

She assented with decision. He continued, not so fluently:

“With all the good will in the world, I can’t help father now. I made a
mess of a small job the other day. If father died to-morrow, I should be
hopelessly at sea on this big property. I should probably drop pots of
money through sheer inexperience. You’ve listened to your father. You
know what he thinks on these subjects. I want to ask you a straight
question. What is to become of the landed gentry of this country, if
they go on educating their children to spend money instead of making
it?”

Joyce took her time, picking her phrases carefully:

“The landed gentry will go, Lionel, unless necessity forces them to face
things as they are, instead of as they were. Father makes hay of the
assertion that big properties can’t pay. They can pay, and pay well, if
they are handled intelligently, scientifically. Mr. Moxon says just the
same.”

Lionel laughed a little nervously.

“Moxon said that, did he? Probably about this very property? Ah! I
thought so. Please go on.”

“What applies to our great manufacturing industries, so Mr. Moxon says,
applies also to the land question. Manufacturers who refuse to scrap
obsolete machinery are scrapped themselves. The inventive genius of this
country is marvellous. What made the Germans rich?”

“I’m hanged if I know.”

“Mr. Moxon told me. A process for reducing refractory iron ores which
was invented by an Englishman. This estate has been worked upon the same
conservative lines for generations. These lines are worked out.”

Her voice died away. Lionel was tremendously impressed. What a clever
little woman it was, to be sure! But a jealous pang pierced him. If he
could talk, like Moxon——! And how closely she must have listened to
the beggar to repeat, as she did, his very words; for he divined that
they were not her words. And Moxon was coming back, confound him! He
felt absurdly cheap and small, when he compared himself to Moxon. Unable
to answer Moxon out of his own pitiful inexperience, he found himself
repeating words often in the Squire’s mouth.

“Of course, Joyce, this scrapping process is costly. Intensive culture,
on any large scale, means a large output of capital. Reconstruction
isn’t quite as easy as Moxon thinks.”

“You had better talk to Mr. Moxon about that.”

“I will. Is—is he coming back soon?”

“I don’t know.”

As she answered him she blushed. Lionel drew false inferences from that
blush. She continued hurriedly:

“Anyway, if something isn’t done, and soon, by the country gentlemen, we
shall live to see a few immense properties owned by plutocrats, and all
the other estates split up into small holdings.”

Lionel groaned.

“I can’t think of that, Joyce. It tears me horribly. Does your father
hope for that?”

“No. Father detests slackness and inefficiency, because he knows how
terribly they affect others. Labourers, for instance, at the mercy of
farmers and landlords, men who can’t be sure of keeping the same roof
over their heads. He may be biassed—I don’t know—because he does
interest himself in the wrongs of the poor. Shocking cases come to his
notice, grievances that cry to Heaven for redress. Not on this property,
but even here so much more might be done.”

Lionel made no attempt to contradict her. He had heard enough.

“We come to grips now, Joyce. What can I do? What ought I to do? We are
very old friends, and, listening to you, I realise with mortification
that you are far ahead of me because my blinds have been down, and yours
up during these last four years. Give me your advice, you dear old
thing!”

He leaned towards her, and she saw that tears were in his eyes, that he
was torn, as he said, by an emotion and sensibility for which she had
not given him credit. Everything that was best and most womanly in her
welled up in flood. At that moment she knew that she loved him because
he had come to her in his hour of need. But her self-control was greater
than his. She looked at him with undimmed eyes, although tears gushed
into her heart. And the swift thought flashed through her brain that if
this was a representative of country gentlemen they could ill be spared.
Another thought as swiftly took its place. She had wondered more than
once why such a woman as Lady Pomfret had devoted her life to such a man
as the Squire. Not that she underestimated what was fine in him. But he
seemed a coarser clay, too massive a personality, too autocratic, for a
gentlewoman of superlative quality. Now she knew instinctively. The
Squire, as a young man, had been like Lionel—sincere, impulsive, full
of vitality, and with that same appeal radiating from him, the appeal
for guidance, the stronger the more appealing, when the woman recognises
her ability to supply what is lacking, a lack of which the man himself
may be quite unconscious. Prosperity had changed Sir Geoffrey, not for
the better. What effect would adversity have upon him and his son?

But he had asked for advice. What counsel could she give him?

She laid down her sewing, clasping her hands upon her lap.

“I am afraid,” she said. “You put upon me a responsibility. Father says
people ought to be careful of giving advice because so often it is
taken.”

“I shall at least try to follow your advice, Joyce.”

“What is my advice?” she asked with almost passion. “What is it
worth—nothing. I am only an echo. You asked me the other day if you
ought to leave the army. I have lain awake trying to answer that
question.”

It was a dangerous admission, and he leapt eagerly upon it.

“Have you? Lain awake, eh?” His voice thrilled. “That was sweet of you.”

Her tone became normal—practical. She held herself well in hand,
smiling faintly.

“I repeat I am an echo. I remember what others say, and what I have
read. Work will save you and yours, Lionel, undivided energies
concentrated upon problems which are far beyond me. There has been one
steadfast worker upon the Pomfret property—Fishpingle.”

“I know. He’s amazing.”

“Your father,” she continued, treading delicately, “has kept the
traditions of his order. He has not neglected county and parish duties.
Father gives him unstinted credit for that. He has worked very
faithfully for others, but——”

“But——”

“How can I criticise him to you? It seems such impertinence.”

“Joyce, if you are a true friend, you will say everything that is in
your heart.”

“Everything? Hardly! I am skating over thin ice. Has your father’s work
for others really helped them? Has it not taken the form of charity?
Doesn’t it make his people more dependent upon him? Doesn’t it lead to
helplessness in the end?”

“Joyce, dear, I believe it does. What would you have him do?”

“Him? If I could speak impersonally! Your father is not likely to alter
much, unless he went through some great character-changing experience.
The labourers in Wiltshire will remain much as they are so long as the
squires remain as they are. What is needed is a shining example. The
greatest thing that could happen, and which may happen, would be the
object-lesson of science triumphant over our thin soil. The land owner
who makes his land pay handsomely will do more for his people than all
the District and Parish Councils put together.”

Lionel said humbly:

“I suppose that is undiluted Moxon?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. I like him, Joyce. He is a fine fellow. I—I hate to tell
you, but I’ve been a snob about Moxon, and listening to you I wish, with
all my heart, that I were Moxon.”

“Do you?” She hesitated. Then she said slowly, “I am glad that you are
just—you.”

“Bless you!” he exclaimed fervently.

But she declined to answer his definite question about giving up the
army.

“You might be wanted there, Lionel. You are a keen soldier. If there
should be war?”

The talk drifted to India. Presently Lionel went back to the Hall.

                 *        *        *        *        *

He was a prey to conflicting emotions, chewing a bitter-sweet cud. Three
conclusions were in his mind: Joyce’s friendship for him had not
diminished; she had lain awake trying to solve his problems; in her kind
eyes he had read sympathy and affection. That was the pleasant first
conclusion. The others, as convincing to him, were not so palatable. She
had repeated Moxon’s words. His _ipsissima verba_. Joyce was not a
phrase-maker, although she talked well and to the point. Does any woman
listen attentively to any man unless she is interested in him? Obviously
Lionel was too modest and too dense (as the Parson had divined) to
consider the possibility of a girl listening, keenly alert, to talk that
might profit another man. Lastly, when speaking of Moxon, she had
blushed! She wanted him to come back, and he would come back, this
clever, able fellow, to turn a doubtful “No” into a glad “Yes.”

With an effort he left Joyce and Moxon standing together at the altar.

He harked back to his own affairs doggedly. What could he do? A talk
with Fishpingle might help.

He found that encyclopædia of rural knowledge in his room, still busy
with Pomfret accounts, spectacles on nose. Fishpingle greeted him
joyously. The rain had stopped, and the river would be in fine order.
Master Lionel, of course, wanted his rod, a split-cane affair built by a
famous maker, which the old man guarded jealously. But Lionel sat down
and refilled his pipe, which had gone out during his conversation with
Joyce. Being a “thruster,” like his father, he rode straight at the big
fence—

“Ought I to chuck the service?”

Fishpingle looked astounded. Lionel, without pausing, set forth his
difficulties. Unconsciously, he, too, quoted Moxon.

“Tell me, Fishpingle, do you think that science can triumph over our
thin soil?”

“What a question, Master Lionel!”

“You jolly well answer it, if you can.”

“This is a grazing county. Science is teaching us every day better
methods of getting more milk from our cows, and a finer quality of
butter and cheese. Sheep and pigs pay well where there is no wastage of
food.”

“Is there much wastage on our farms?”

He shot his questions at Fishpingle with a slight air of defiance. Would
this old chap take him seriously?

“There is too much wastage.”

“How can it be checked?”

“The labourers are very careless. One can’t watch them all the time. And
they love the old slipshod ways. What are you getting at, Master
Lionel?”

He replied impatiently, with a toss of his head.

“You. I’m a fool, and luckily I know it. The Squire laughs at my idea of
leaving the army. He likes to think that I’m treading in his steps. So I
am. But where do they lead—backwards or forwards?”

Fishpingle polished the lenses of his spectacles. He couldn’t quite see
this young man who enfiladed him right and left with questions which had
baffled the wisest in England for five and twenty years. This sprig from
a fine tree was shooting too fast for him. He evaded a direct reply.

“Evidently, Master Lionel, you’ve made up your mind not to go
backwards.”

“I have. But standing still won’t help much, and I don’t know how to get
‘forward.’”

“One lives and learns. It’s slow work. All over the country the land
system, generally, is the nation’s weak spot. I believe in the land. I
hate to see strong young men emigrating.”

Lionel laughed, but not too mirthfully.

“How did you get the truth out of those Mucklows? I did my little bit
with ’em. By George, it was little.”

Fishpingle disclaimed any credit.

“I know ’em, Master Lionel. I knew that Ezekiel Mucklow has been walking
out with Mr. Hamlin’s parlourmaid for five years. They just stand it so
long. Then they want cottages in a hurry. To deal with ’em you must know
’em—all the ins and outs of their queer minds. Half the young men from
Ocknell Manor have gone. That estate is a disgrace. And many others.
It’ll be in the market soon. And the Ocknells have been there for five
hundred years.”

“But you believe in the land.”

Fishpingle might have been repeating the Apostles’ Creed, as he answered
solemnly:

“’Tis the backbone of England, Master Lionel. I’ve always thought that.
And it ought to supply the nation with all the food it needs, and more
too. We’ve ceased to be an island. Everybody admits it. Yes, I believe
in the land.”

“Do you believe in the landowners?”

“In some of them.”

He sighed; lines puckered his face. He held out his hands, palms upward,
as if he were weighing landowners, and finding the weight short.

Lionel said reflectively:

“You’ve answered my question. I ought to leave the army and put myself
under Mr. Moxon.”

“Mr.—Moxon?”

“Didn’t you know? He’s an expert, grappling with this very problem. He
gave the Squire some priceless tips, but will he take ’em?”

Fishpingle shook his head. Lionel assumed a more cheerful manner and
deportment.

“This talk has cleared the air. I haven’t wasted my time this morning. I
shall tackle my father next.”

“Not to-day, Master Lionel.”

“Why not?” the young man asked impatiently. “Does he think I’m going to
waste all my leave playing tennis and fishing?”

“Go slow!” counselled the sage. “You can’t rush the Squire. Mr. Moxon,
if he is an expert, would tell you to read up the subject, to—to see
the thing as a whole, to find out what is ahead of you, Master Lionel.”

Lionel’s face darkened again. He said moodily:

“I’m such a mug that I don’t even know the title of one book dealing
with land in an up-to-date way.”

“I could lend you some books and pamphlets.”

“You?”

Fishpingle rose and went to his bureau. Out of a drawer he selected two
books and half a dozen pamphlets.

“This bangs Banagher!” exclaimed Lionel, as he glanced at the titles.
“Upon my soul, you’re a wonder! But, you sly old fox, you don’t keep
these in the bookcase. And I promise you that I shan’t leave ’em lying
about in father’s room.”

“Thank you, Master Lionel. Some of the pamphlets are one-sided. You must
salt ’em. But the stuff you want is there.”

“Hot stuff, too!” He glanced at one of the pamphlets. “Sport isn’t
spared, I see.” He read aloud a title—

“‘_Tyranny of Sport._’ Is sport a tyranny?”

“Sometimes. You know more about it than the man who wrote that pamphlet.
But he gives his views. Lots of people think as he does. When you’ve
read all that, Master Lionel, it will be time enough to talk to Sir
Geoffrey.”

Lionel tucked the books under his arm and stuffed the thin pamphlets
into his coat pocket.

“You’re right, as usual, old chap.” He held out his hand, with a
delightful smile. “You know, I look upon you as a sort of second father.
Many thanks.”

Fishpingle listened to his firm step, as he strode down the
stone-flagged passage, whistling “Garryowen.” Then he crossed to the
hearth, staring long and frowningly, not at the photographs of Squire
and son, but at the gracious, tender face of Lady Pomfret.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                               CHAPTER IX


The little lady, as the Squire affectionately termed her, arrived at
Pomfret Court a few days later. She brought with her many wonderful
frocks, a habit (if the breeches and apron of the modern Amazon may be
so called), and the shoes fashioned by the “One and Only” in Paris. Thus
armed, cap-à-pie, she sparkled into view. Urban she was, and urbane. Her
delight in the quiet countryside had no taint of insincerity. She was
tired of Mayfair and said so unaffectedly. And she met Lionel, for the
first time, as he came across the lawn after a ride through the Forest.
Instantly she decided that he surpassed expectation. His tall, slender
figure lent itself admirably to riding kit; his cheeks were flushed by
exercise; he looked, every inch of him, what he was—the son of an
ancient house, and a gallant soldier. Nor was it possible to suspect
from his manner any prejudice, instinctive or otherwise. Lady Margot was
his guest. Indeed, the mere fact that he did feel a certain prejudice
against “dashers” who had “affairs” made him the more courteous and
pleasant outwardly.

At tea Lionel said little. He listened attentively to Lady Margot’s
London gossip, nicely spiced to the Squire’s taste. She chattered to Sir
Geoffrey, but at his son. Lionel expected some “swanking” from a young
lady whose portrait appeared constantly in the illustrated papers. But
Lady Margot didn’t “swank.” Her methods of attracting attention were
more subtle. She imposed herself as a personage indirectly. Lady Pomfret
may have divined this, because her methods were not dissimilar. Lionel
admitted frankly to himself that the visitor had charm. The word “chic”
had been used so often by reporters that Lionel tried to find a better
label, and failed with “mondaine.” He knew that she drove her own motor
and could ride hard to hounds. Beaumanoir Chase, where she had been
brought up, was in the Belvoir country. The Squire, you may be sure,
wanted first-hand information about that stately pile. Lady Margot was
outspoken about her kinsman, now in possession of her former home.

“Poor Beau ought to have married me. He wished it, and so did I, till I
noticed that he was prematurely bald, a long three-storied head, full of
Victorian furniture. He is very hard up, and several thousands ought to
be spent upon the house alone. Unhappily, father and he hated each
other.”

From her soft voice and candid glances you might infer that here was the
most guileless creature in the world. She continued gently, as she
nibbled at a sandwich:

“It is heart-breaking to go there and see things falling to pieces.”

“Horrible!” the Squire agreed.

“Your fences and gates are in apple-pie order.” She smiled at the
Squire, who beamed back at her.

“You notice these trifles, my dear?”

His tone was almost paternal.

“At once,” she answered crisply. Then she turned to Lady Pomfret. That
shrewd observer detected a subtle change in her manner, a caressing
deference slightly feline.

“Don’t you think, Lady Pomfret, that we are sharper than men in noticing
significant trifles?”

“You are, I am sure.”

“A lone orphan has to be. Perhaps you disregard things and focus your
attention upon persons?”

“Yes; I think I do.”

Lady Margot turned to Lionel, addressing him quite easily, as if she had
known him for years.

“Have you a cigarette? My case is in the motor.”

“If you like Turkish.”

She lay back, puffing contentedly, surveying the Pomfrets through
half-closed eyes. They were sitting under a big walnut tree, said to be
a sanctuary from gnats and midges. The great lawn, bordered by beeches,
stretched far away into the distance till it melted into the park.
Beyond the undulating park and below it lay the Avon valley now
embellished by a soft haze—the finest view in Wiltshire, according to
the Squire. Visitors praised this view. Lady Margot, guessing as much,
said nothing. However, her attitude, her air of being contentedly at
home, might be considered better than any compliment. She murmured
lazily:

“How delicious it is here!”

She blew a tiny circle of smoke, and watched it melt away, smiling like
a child. The Squire said heartily:

“We shall measure your approval by the length of your visit. A
fortnight, at least.”

Presently Fishpingle and Alfred approached to take away the tea. Lady
Margot greeted the butler by name.

“How do you do, Mr. Fishpingle?”

“I am quite well, my lady, thank you.”

She smiled pleasantly at Alfred, who knew his place and remained
impassive. Her cleverness in speaking to an old retainer delighted Sir
Geoffrey. He glanced at his son, as if saying, “She’s the right sort,
you see—a pleasant word for everybody.”

As the men-servants moved away, she said to Lionel:

“Your butler is a dear.”

“You remembered his name,” chuckled the Squire. “That pleased him. I
could hear the old boy purring.”

“But who could forget his name? Where did he get it? Is it a local
name?”

The Squire stiffened. Lady Margot perceived that she had been
indiscreet. He answered formally:

“It is not a local name. How he came by it I can’t tell you.”

She wondered vaguely if her host could tell, but wouldn’t. Swiftly she
changed the conversation, with a glance at Lionel’s trim gaiters and
breeches.

“I have brought a habit.”

“We can _mount_ you,” said Lionel. “If you were staying on till August,
we could give you a day with our buckhounds.”

“Oh, why, why didn’t I come to you in August? I have never been out with
buckhounds. Tell me all about it.”

Lionel obeyed. The Squire slipped away, followed by Lady Pomfret. As
soon as they were out of hearing, he whispered to his wife:

“A good start, my dear. And, mark me, she’ll make the running.”

“I think she will, Geoffrey.”

“Just as clever as they make ’em, Mary. Was it mere luck her pickin’ out
a subject which the boy can talk really well about?”

“Oh, no.”

“Do you think she likes him?”

“Ask me that the day after to-morrow.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

Alone with Lionel, Lady Margot kept him talking, upon the sound
principle that young men, as a rule, do not use speech to disguise
thought and action. Also, she was interested in his theme. The chase, in
its many phases, excited her. Half an hour passed swiftly. At the end of
an hour she thought that she had his measure. She summed him up,
temporarily, as “the nicest boy I’ve ever met.” Of her many instincts
the maternal was probably the least developed, and yet, at this first
meeting, she did feel motherly towards Lionel Pomfret. She owned as much
to herself, and was much amused and indeed tickled by a new sensation.
Lionel, she made sure, was plastic clay to the hand of a potter. His
modesty and sincerity made a deep impression upon a young lady who, for
some years, had carefully picked her cavaliers from men who were neither
modest nor quite sincere. More unerringly she judged him to be no fool.
He exhibited alertness and vitality—an excellent combination. He might,
under discreet guidance, go far—as far as the Upper Chamber, for
example. To be the wife of a peer may be a paltry ambition, but it must
be remembered that Lady Margot was the only child of a great country
magnate. Much that pertains to such a position had passed to her
kinsman. Secretly she resented this. Her solicitors told her that a
barony in abeyance might be terminated in her favour. No steps had been
taken in such a direction. She made up her mind to wait till she was
married.

It is not so easy to describe Lionel’s judgment of her. Humbled after
his experience with Moxon, he was willing to admit that his prejudice
against an unknown girl had been absurd. Tom Challoner was big enough
and stupid enough to shoulder the blame of that. The little lady, whose
notoriety frightened him, was delightfully approachable. Already, he had
slid into an easy intimacy. But did he like her? Would he get to like
her? That question remained unanswered.

They were alone together for a few minutes before dinner. He had noted
the perfection of her motoring kit; he was not quite prepared for the
fresh frock which she wore that first evening. When she sailed into the
Long Saloon, he blinked. She came towards him laughing.

“Tell me! Am I too smart?”

Her quickness of wit disarmed him. She had seen him blink. And she knew
that the frock was a thought too smart for a family party.

He lied like a gentleman.

“Too smart? Of course not.”

She displayed it, making a pirouette. She might have been an ingénue
gowned for her first ball, an artless nymph of seventeen. No nymph,
however, of tender years could have thought out her next sentence—

“I wanted my frock to be worthy of this lovely room.”

“By George! it is.”

“Very many thanks. Is that a Reisener cabinet?”

“I don’t know. It’s French, I believe.”

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! And you don’t know?”

Her sprightliness infected him.

“Perhaps, like my mother, I prefer persons to things.”

“Thanks again. But, frankly, I’m amazed. This room is full of beautiful
furniture—all of different periods, too. But that doesn’t matter.
Really good bits, if they have age to them, never bark at each other.
Those pastels are adorable.”

Lionel flushed a little.

“I know nothing of them, either.”

She shrugged her shoulders. In her hand was a fan, for the night was
hot. She tapped his arm with the fan, and then opened it deftly,
glancing at him over the edge of it.

“But, positively, I must teach you. It will be great fun. We’ll play
‘swaps.’ I could write an article on ‘tufting’ and ‘slots’ and ‘laying
on the pack.’ But I don’t know growing wheat from barley.” (She did.)
“I’ll go to school with you, if you’ll go to school with me?”

“Done,” said Lionel. “My hand on it.”

They were shaking hands, as Sir Geoffrey came in. Lady Pomfret followed
with a murmured apology:

“My dear, forgive me! The Squire and I are seldom late for dinner.”

The Squire added a few words.

“You see we don’t treat you too ceremoniously.”

Fishpingle’s sonorous tones were heard.

“Dinner is served, Sir Geoffrey.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

During dinner, and afterwards, Lady Margot made herself vastly agreeable
to the three Pomfrets. If effort underlay her sprightly civilities, it
was not visible. Her enemies—and she had some—affirmed that her
consistent good temper and wish to please were indications of
selfishness. Any deviation from the broad and easy path which she trod
so gaily meant personal discomfort. But if her tact in avoiding
conversational brambles provoked gibes from cynics, her _joie de vivre_
disarmed them. And coming, as she did, to Pomfret Court at a moment when
Lionel was feeling exasperatingly hipped and bored with himself she
served alike as tonic and narcotic. She lulled to sleep nervous
introspections; she stimulated energies which found expression in sport
and games. He had wanted some one to “play about with.” Lady Margot
presented herself.

He soon decided that she was not flirtatious, as that word is
interpreted in India. Physically, she kept men at a respectful distance,
disdaining furtive pressures of the hand, languishing glances—all the
cheap wiles of the provincial beauty. Mentally, so to speak, she
“nestled up.” Lionel felt more and more at his ease with her. She
laughed derisively when he touched hesitatingly upon his perplexties.
Such worries, she assured him lightly, were the common heritage of
eldest sons of magnates. She propounded her own easy philosophy, so
practical in its way, so alluring. Position had its responsibilities. It
existed, if you like, on sufferance. But authorty—for which by birth
and training she was a stickler—would be disastrously weakened and in
the end wrecked, if it indulged too freely in sentimental vagabondage.
Their caste repudiated sentiment, scrapped it ruthlessly.

For the masses—“panem et Circenses.”

She touched airily upon marriage, citing the “affair” with the present
head of her family, setting forth her case and his with incisive
finality.

“We realised that we couldn’t pull together. I think it was a real grief
to both of us. Physically, he repelled me; intellectually, I repelled
him. A sad pity! Of course he will find somebody else, because
Beaumanoir must be saved. Poor dear Beau knows that he is not
attractive, and a title, nowadays, fetches much less in the open
market.”

Lionel felt sorry for poor Beau. He said slowly: “You can pick and
choose, if he can’t.”

She accepted the challenge calmly and candidly.

“My choice is limited, I can assure you. When I came into my tiny
kingdom I thought otherwise. And some odd spirit of contrariety to which
all women fall victims whirled me into misadventures with the wrong men.
Most young girls set an inordinate value on brains, especially their
own, if they have any. I tried to establish a sort of ‘salon’ in
Grosvenor Square. The cheek of it! I used to admire Madame Recamier. All
that is _vieux jeu_. My brains are not of the most solid order, but,
such as they are, they will constrain me to marry a man of my own class.
So you see I am fairly up against it.”

But he didn’t see.

“Up against what?” he asked.

She laughed joyously.

“Up against the stupidity of our class. I bar stupid gentlemen and
clever bounders. Some of the cleverest bound like kangaroos. Now you
see, Mr. Lionel Pomfret, that my choice is very much limited. Probably I
shall die an old maid, and leave my money to found an Institution for
brightening Aristocratic Wits.”

They were riding together when this talk took place. They rode out each
day, making for the moors of the New Forest, where a horseman can gallop
for miles and not leave heather or grass. Upon this occasion they had
strayed further afield than usual, and were likely to be late for
luncheon. Lionel glanced at his watch, and said so, adding “I can show
you a short cut through the woods.”

They turned their horses’ heads homewards and passed through a Forest
Enclosure, where Lionel pointed out some fallow-bucks. Crossing a
“gutter,” where the clayey soil was soft, he found deer-tracks, and
taught her the difference between the slot of a buck and a doe.
Information of any sort, she assimilated quickly and gratefully. But a
little more time was wasted over this object lesson. Beyond the
enclosure was some open ground and another enclosure. After that the
forest was left behind, and the riders were on private property. A line
of gates led to the high-road to Nether-Applewhite. Unfortunately the
last gate was padlocked. Lionel glanced at the fence, a stiff but not
very formidable obstacle.

“Can my horse jump?” asked Lady Margot.

“I don’t know,” he replied, doubtfully.

“We’ll soon find out.”

Before he could stop her, she put her mare at the fence, and popped
over. Lionel joined her, delighted with her pluck. Without a lead, in
cold blood, on a strange mount, she had negotiated triumphantly a rather
nasty place. When he complimented her, she said carelessly:

“I love excitements.”

For the first time he beheld her as the “dasher.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

A meeting between Joyce and the little lady duly took place. Joyce, of
course, was at a slight disadvantage. In Lady Margot she beheld Lionel’s
probable wife. In Joyce Lady Margot beheld a pretty, intelligent girl,
the parson’s daughter, more or less cut to approved pattern. She was
perfectly charming to Joyce, and came to the instant conclusion that she
must be reckoned with seriously. Joyce’s first talk alone with her
confirmed this. Lady Margot said chaffingly:

“I hear you are the ministering angel, carrying soup and tea and
sympathy to the villagers. Do tell me all about it. I have never been
able to do that. At Beaumanoir, when I was seventeen, I made the effort.
I remember reading the Bible to an old woman. She went to sleep, poor
old dear. I discovered later that she was very deaf. She listened to the
Bible when she was awake in the hope of getting something more
material.”

Joyce laughed and nodded; she knew the type. But she said quietly:

“I don’t carry soup and tea to them. Father is dead against that, except
in emergency cases.”

“Please tell me what you do.”

“I have been through a simple course of village cookery. I try to teach
the mothers how to make their own soup, a _pot-au-feu_, how to cook
vegetables, and grow them. All the little dodges which save time and
fuel and money. Very poor people are astoundingly extravagant and
thriftless. It’s uphill work. I move about as fast as the hour hand of a
clock.”

“What else?”

“Oh, other little dodges to secure ventilation and hygiene. Anything
which makes them learn to help themselves, to rely upon themselves
rather than upon charity. Father has worked steadily along those lines.
We have started one or two tiny industries, basket-weaving, mat-making.”

“You like all that?”

“I love it, when one gets a glimpse of—results.”

“Will you take me round with you?”

“With pleasure.”

That evening, Lady Margot wrote to a friend, describing Joyce:

“The parson’s daughter here is a striking combination of the useful and
ornamental, as clear as her skin. She has an abundance of brown wavy
hair with golden threads in it, and eyes to match, features good
enough— everything about her well-proportioned, including, so far as I
can judge, the mind. She is healthy, but not aggressively bouncing. I am
told that a Cambridge Don is much enamoured. Everybody likes her, and so
do I, perhaps because she is my antithesis in every way. Happy blood
ebbs and flows in her cheeks. I envied a brace of dimples. . . .”

The two girls met at tennis and golf. Apart from the discussion of
games. Lionel was amused to notice that their visitor pursued Joyce with
eagerness, “pumping” her dry about work in the parish, insatiable in her
thirst for information. Joyce slaked this thirst, wondering what lay
behind such questionings: merely curiosity, or a desire upon the part of
a future châtelaine of Pomfret Court to acquaint herself with the
internal condition of the small kingdom over which, some day, she might
reign. Lady Pomfret, listening placidly, inclined to the latter
hypothesis. Several days had passed, nearly a week, and she had duly
informed her lord that Lady Margot did “like” Lionel. She was not of the
generation that uses lightly the word “love.” And she guessed that
“liking” might be enough for their visitor, who openly disdained intense
emotions. She dashed at experiences and from them when they threatened
to disturb her peace of mind. But she told Lady Pomfret, perhaps
designedly, that she got on “swimmingly” with her son. And, apparently,
Lionel got on swimmingly with her. The Squire, summing up the situation
to his wife, said, with a jolly laugh:

“No complaints, my dear Mary, no complaints.”

He took for granted that she shared his complacency and prayed night and
morning that his desires should be accomplished.

Let us admit candidly that Lionel was drifting down-stream. The current
of circumstances swirled too strongly for him. He told himself, with
futile reiteration, that he must “do his bit.” And the easiest way to do
that “bit” was to marry Margot, _if she would have him_, which he
thought was most unlikely. He had been asked to call her Margot, and did
so. But she remained singularly aloof from the point of view of a
prospective lover. This aloofness might be reckoned her “Excalibur,” a
naked blade which she deliberately interposed between herself and her
cavaliers. Even the clever bounders, with rare exceptions, had not
bounded over that. Being human, Lionel felt piqued, recalling Tom
Challoner’s words. Was she really cold as Greenland’s icy mountains?
But—what a companion!

At the end of the first week, Lady Margot learnt through her maid that
Mr. Moxon had been refused by Joyce Hamlin. She had heard much of Moxon
from Lionel, rather too much, for she had no sympathy with his views,
and dismissed them contemptuously as academic and Utopian. Finally, she
had silenced Lionel by saying:

“I dislike schoolmasters. I regard them as necessary evils, like
inspectors of nuisances. They ought never to be seen in society. I
always behold them cane in hand, hectoring and lecturing. Enough of your
Professor Moxon.”

Nevertheless, she knew that he was well-to-do and clever, clever enough
to have turned Lionel, neck and crop, out of a snug groove, leaving him
hung up to dry amongst windy theories and problems yet unsolved. She had
no notion that Moxon’s doctrines had been filtered through Joyce.

Why had Joyce refused Moxon?

She dashed at the only conclusion possible to an enlightened student of
life.

Joyce was in love with Lionel.

Poor Joyce!

She surveyed her tranquilly with sincere pity. Why were girls such
hopeless, helpless fools? According to Mrs. Poyser, God Almighty had
made the women fools to match the men. Was Lionel a fool, too?
Obviously, as yet he could not read Joyce, but such transparent
documents might be read at any moment. What then? Love bred love. She
reflected, quite dispassionately, that Joyce and Lionel were a pretty
pair, romantically considered. Passion slumbered in each. A word, a
glance, a touch, and it would burst into flame.

Her maid had left the room. Lady Margot was alone in the virginal,
chintz-calendered blue and white bower which had been assigned to her.
She lay in bed, with an electric light above her. A book, not a novel,
was beside her. Memoirs were her favourite reading, not faked memoirs
written by ingenious compilers, but the genuine article.

She laid the book upon a table, turned out the electric light, and
engaged in her particular form of prayer—rigorous self-examination and
analysis.

If she wanted Lionel, she must act.

Did she want him?

He had most engaging qualities. His manner with his mother was
illuminating; such a devoted son might be reckoned sure to make a loyal
and attentive husband. He had a sweet, sunny temper. He was intelligent,
enthusiastic, and pleasant to look at. Greatest of assets, he was an
agreeable companion.

And she wished to marry. She regarded marriage as an adventure, a
tremendous experience. No unmarried woman could boast that she had lived
fully. Again and again, lying wide-awake in the darkness, she had
visualised herself as the wife of a successful barrister, or painter, or
novelist. Such men, she knew, made indifferent husbands if they were at
the top of their several trees. Success imposed intolerable burdens.
Goethe had been wise in marrying a simple hausfrau. And brilliant men
were so subject to moods, such slaves to temperament. Life with Lionel
would be a delightful pilgrimage through sunny places. . . .

She thrilled.

An enchanting languor crept upon her. Perhaps at that moment she was
almost in love. Her busy little brain stopped working. She beheld
herself, as in a dream, alone with her lover. His lips were on hers. His
arms were about her. She yielded joyously to his embrace. As if in a
trance, she murmured his name—Lionel. And she hardly recognised her own
voice. She moved, and the spell was broken. But her heart throbbed;
every pulse had quickened; her cheeks burned. . . .

Then her brain began to calm and control the senses. She felt
half-ashamed, half-proud of her emotions. Often she had wondered if she
were quite normal. Many women, and some men, had told her that she
wasn’t. Never in her twenty-five years of life had she been so
physically thrilled and excited.

Yes—she wanted him.

It will be noted that different causes had brought about the same effect
in two young women. Joyce realised her love for Lionel at the moment
when she knew that he had need of her; Lady Margot was thrilled into
what she believed to be love because she felt the need of him. Let
psychologists determine whether or not this differentiates true love
from its counterfeit presentment.

She awoke, next day, quite herself, and capable of smiling mockingly at
the momentary triumph of body over mind. But her resolution to marry
Lionel remained fixed—a positive determination. Cool, matutinal
reflection made her reconsider the over-night conviction that Joyce must
necessarily be in love with Lionel merely because she had refused
another man. The first thing to do was to put this conclusion to the
test. Sooner or later an unsophisticated parson’s daughter would “give
herself away.” To her credit, let it be recorded, she resisted the
temptation to “pump” her maid. Gossip with servants was a violation of
her code. And, invariably, it led to familiarity, which she abhorred.
Moxon’s love story was told to her incidentally and inadvertently. Happy
Chance had given her a clue.

At breakfast Lady Pomfret became sensible of a subtle change in her
guest. She sparkled as usual, but with a more vital scintillation. That
might be the effect of country air upon a Mayfair maiden. Allowing for
this, Lady Pomfret decided that Margot was “tuned up”—fully charged
with electricity, ready to take the road to a definite destination. She
proposed golf, a foursome—Sir Geoffrey, Lionel, Joyce and herself. With
all her cleverness she was unable to speak Joyce’s name without an
inflection of pity. Lady Pomfret caught that inflection and drew certain
inferences. She said tentatively:

“Yes, yes, dear Joyce has rather a dull time of it. Pray ask her, and
bring her back to luncheon.”

Sir Geoffrey seconded this. In his mind comparisons between Joyce and
Margot (they all called her Margot) were inevitable, and much in favour
of the little lady. Let Lionel see them together, the oftener the
better!

Accordingly, the four motored to Bramshaw, a New Forest course,
fascinatingly pretty, set in the heart of the deep woods, where William
of Orange planted the oaks which he designed in the fulness of time to
become ships of the line. Sir Geoffrey being the best player, Lady
Margot chose him as her partner. She wanted to watch Joyce with Lionel!

The course was in excellent condition, and the fairway not too hard
after July rains. The Squire remarked upon this, because it meant August
hunting. Indeed, the first meet of the buckhounds had been fixed, and
Lady Margot, without much pressure, had consented to prolong her visit.
To Sir Geoffrey’s great satisfaction she cancelled a Scotch engagement,
observing candidly:

“I should be bored to tears up there.”

The Squire asked jovially: “Does that mean, Margot, that you are not too
bored with us?”

“Bored?” she echoed. “Do I look bored? I’m perfectly happy. It is dear
of you to keep me on.”

Sir Geoffrey took the honour, and drove his ball well down the course.
Lionel fluffed his shot. The Squire chuckled. At golf the mistakes of
our nearest and dearest are not altogether displeasing to us.

“We shall down em,” he predicted.

They did at first. Lionel happened to be badly off his game. Joyce
played well and steadily. The young man’s mortification deepened as he
hit ball after ball into the rough, which, of course, made Joyce’s
following stroke all the more difficult. A couple of balls were lost in
the heather and whins. On each occasion Lady Margot left the Squire to
help her opponents to find their ball. Lionel’s ever-increasing
depression amused and pleased her. She liked men to be “keen”—up to a
point. That point must not be a “vanishing point.” For instance, the
keenness of clever novelists kept them locked up, inaccessible,
invisible. She rallied Lionel gaily:

“What does it matter?”

He answered irritably:

“Nothing to you, Margot. But I’m wrecking Joyce’s game, spoiling her
morning, confound it!”

Joyce looked at him. Lady Margot’s eyes twinkled. What she had
confidently expected came to pass. The parson’s daughter “gave herself
away.” Her fleeting glance at a worried and apologetic partner was
unmistakable. It flashed its message upon the ambient air, and was gone!
Her voice, however, remained under control.

“You are not wrecking my game, Lionel. I like difficult shots.”

“Do you?” murmured Margot. “And perhaps you regard golf as a sort of
epitome of life?”

Joyce flashed another glance at her.

“I suppose I do.”

“If you found yourself ‘bunkered,’ you would not lose heart?”

At last Joyce had a glimpse of claws, but she answered quietly:

“I should take my niblick and try to get out.”

Lionel’s voice interrupted them.

“Here’s the beastly ball, and quite unplayable.”

“What will you do?” asked Margot of Joyce.

“Play it out.”

Her caddy presented a niblick. Joyce concentrated her attention upon the
ball, deeply imbedded in heather. The ball was _almost_ unplayable. The
Squire sauntered up, slightly impatient of the delay, thinking of his
luncheon.

“Chuck this hole,” he suggested. “We’ll walk to the next tee.”

“Shall we chuck the game?” said Lionel to his partner. “This is not my
day out.”

“We’re four up and six to go,” added the Squire.

“Chuck the game?” repeated Joyce. “Never!”

Lionel pulled himself together. All trace of irritation vanished. He
laughed, squaring his shoulders, sticking out his chin.

“Joyce is a stayer and so am I. Father, I’ll take four to one in
half-crowns?”

“Done!” said the Squire.

“I’ll give the same odds,” remarked Margot.

“Right,” replied Lionel. “Go it, Joyce! Smite and spare not! Get on to
the fairway, if you can.”

“Get on to the green,” exclaimed the Squire derisively.

Margot frowned. An absurd thought harassed her, clawing savagely at
something she despised, a rigorously suppressed sense of the
superstitious. Had a mocking speech been taken seriously? Was this game,
so much in her favour already, to be regarded as an epitome of the
greater game to be played to a finish between herself and Joyce? By
something of a coincidence, the Squire, who shared her desires, was her
partner——!

Joyce planted her feet firmly in the heather—and smote.

“Bravo!” exclaimed Lionel. “The luck has turned. This puts ginger into
me.”

Sir Geoffrey and Margot applauded generously. The ball pitched in the
fairway, and lay, nicely teed up, upon a tuft of grass. Lionel took his
brassey.

“That ball,” he declared solemnly, “is going on to the green. I know
it.”

He made a beautiful shot.

“Dead, b’ Jove!” growled the Squire.

“Not quite,” said Joyce.

Lionel and his partner had played “two more.” When they reached the
thirteenth green, each side had played three strokes. Margot had to play
her ball from the edge of the green. Joyce had a six foot putt. If
Margot could lie “dead,” the hole would be halved. It was not very
likely that Joyce would hole her putt over a roughish green. Margot took
her time, playing with extraordinary care. Her ball trickled within a
foot of the hole.

“Down ours,” enjoined Lionel to his partner. “You’ll do it, Joyce. It’s
a sitter.”

Joyce played as carefully as Margot, scrutinising the lie of the ground.
Lionel did the same, adding a last word:

“Bang for the back of the hole!”

“I think so,” said Joyce.

She holed out with a smile.

“Three up and five to go,” proclaimed the Squire.

“Want to double the bet?” asked Lionel.

“No, boy, no.”

“I will, Lionel,” said Margot.

“Right again. Your drive, Joyce.”

The fourteenth at Bramshaw is a short hole, an easy mashie shot, if
properly played. A topped shot rolls into thick whins. Joyce, still
smiling, pitched her ball on the green and overran it. Margot got too
much under her ball, which fell short of the green into the bunker
guarding it.

“Two and four,” said Lionel. “We’re getting on, Joyce. I love playing
with you.”

The Squire stared at his ball, and then failed to get it out of the
bunker. He picked it up, looking sadly at a deep cut in its surface.

“My drive,” he said gloomily, fishing a new ball out of his pocket.

The fifteenth was halved. The Squire smiled again. Joyce had the honour.
She drove steadily, keeping well to the left. Margot felt disagreeably
nervous, as she addressed the ball. Going back too quickly, she stabbed
down, topping it badly. The Squire whistled.

“We’re in trouble, my dear.”

They were. The luck had changed. Margot had to play two more after the
Squire’s shot. She achieved a fine stroke too late to save the hole. One
up and two to play.

“Close finish,” said Lionel cheerily.

The seventeenth hole is only easy for an accomplished golfer. If you
take a driver for the tee shot you go too far; unless you are a fine
“iron” player you fall lamentably short. Lionel took his cleek, and was
short, but well in the fairway. The Squire selected that old and trusty
servant—a spoon.

“This does the trick,” he observed to his partner. “There you are,
Margot—a possible two, my dear.”

He chuckled complacently, taking Margot’s arm. He believed the match was
over. The ball he had just driven lay some three yards from the hole.

Lionel said to Joyce: “If you want to wipe your shoes on me, Joyce, I’ll
lie down and let you do it.”

Joyce asked her caddie for a mashie.

The shot presented no great difficulties, except that it was necessary
to lay the ball dead at a distance of forty yards. To Lionel’s delight
she succeeded famously, leaving her partner a putt of three feet upon a
level green.

At this crisis, Margot failed lamentably. She ought, of course, to have
laid her ball within a foot of the hole. Joyce, with the same shot,
bearing in mind the score, would have played for safety. Instead, Margot
putted boldly for the hole and overran it six feet. The Squire made
light of this misdemeanor, for it was quite obvious that the little lady
had lost her temper.

“I shall down it,” he assured her. But his ball lipped the hole and ran
round it. Lionel holed out in three.

“All square,” said the Squire. “Now, Margot, we’ll give ’em a taste of
our real quality.”

She smiled faintly, irritated with herself, irritated with Lionel, who
was much too cock-a-whoop. In silence she followed her partner to the
eighteenth tee. Joyce drove off as steadily as ever, no pressing, a nice
full swing. Margot followed with a fair shot, but many yards short of
Joyce’s ball. This left the Squire a very dangerous stroke. If he played
for the “pin,” he might land in a ditch. If he “skrimshanked,” Margot
would have to play a difficult approach on to the most tricky green on
the course.

“What shall I do?” he asked.

“Go for it,” replied Margot, curtly.

Sir Geoffrey took out his brassey, shaking his head, as he noted a
“cuppy” lie. But he knew himself to be a good and steady player, and
this was “a corking good match.”

To his immense satisfaction he played the shot of the day, carrying the
ditch and running on to the green. Lionel congratulated him heartily:

“You’re a marvel, father. That shot has cost me seven and sixpence.”

“Not yet,” said Joyce. “Play well to the left.”

Fired by his father’s example, Lionel made an excellent shot. When they
reached the green the Squire’s ball lay below the hole. Lionel’s was
above. The odds, therefore, were at least two to one against Lionel and
his partner. Joyce had to putt downhill upon a slippery surface.

Lionel wondered whether her nerve would fail her. A fairy’s touch was
needed. If the ball overran the hole it must trickle on down the slope.
Joyce, however, did exactly the right thing at the right time.

“It’s a halved match,” said the Squire, “and one of the best I’ve ever
played.”

Margot had the easiest of approach putts, but her blunder at the
seventeenth lay heavy on her mind. She was terrified of overrunning the
mark. She putted feebly; the ball quivered upon the crest of the slope,
and rolled back. When it stopped it was further from the hole than
before.

“Um!” said the Squire. “An inch more and you’d have done it. Cheer up!”

She was biting her lip with vexation.

The Squire putted for the hole and missed it.

“I’ve this for the match,” said Lionel.

The ball lay some twenty inches from the hole. Lionel popped it in, and
turned to Joyce.

“I could hug you, Joyce,” he said gaily.

Lady Margot shrugged her shoulders.

“I must give up golf,” she said tartly. “It exasperates me.”

The Squire laughed at her, as he handed his son half a sovereign.

“We can’t always win, my dear.”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                               CHAPTER X


Margot recovered her temper and spirits as the motor sped homeward. The
benedictions of the countryside fell like dew upon her, the soft air,
the fragrance of pines, the leafy glades where the deer wandered, the
great open spaces of moorland. Swift motion exhilarated her. She had
paid many fines for exceeding the speed limit. She decided that she
could think better in the country, and her thoughts, like bees amongst
lime blossom, buzzed busily. Joyce had asked to be dropped at the
Vicarage. The Squire hospitably entreated her to lunch at the Hall;
Lionel insisted upon it; but Joyce told them that her father was alone.
That settled the matter. Margot feigned a civil disappointment. At heart
she was glad. The morning, after all, had not been wasted. The
information she sought was hers.

The Parson came out to meet his daughter, and stood talking to the
Squire—a tall, grim, gaunt figure. The deep tones of his voice
impressed Margot. As they glided on again, she said to the Squire:

“Mr. Hamlin is a remarkable personality.”

“Man of too many angles,” growled Sir Geoffrey. “I bark my shins against
’em.”

Margot nodded, too discreet to press an interesting subject further.
Lionel had hinted that relations were strained between two autocrats,
each intent upon having his way in the same parish. She wondered if
Joyce inherited her sire’s personality. Men obtruded that priceless
possession; wise women hid it. Joyce might be wiser than she seemed,
more determined, more resouceful. If she, too, wanted Lionel, would she
fight for him as steadily and strenuously as she had played golf that
morning? Another question for Time to answer.

At luncheon, telling Lady Pomfret a vivacious story of the defeat at
golf, she obliterated the memory of her loss of temper by owning up to
it.

“I made an idiot of myself,” she confessed. “I lost the match, and eight
fat half-crowns—and my temper. Sir Geoffrey was adorable. I saw that
Lionel hated me, but not so furiously as I hated myself.”

“I thought you took it jolly well,” affirmed the young man.

“No complaints, my dear, no complaints. We’ll take ’em on again any
day.” Thus the Squire.

Lionel beamed. She knew that he was thinking: “Margot is the right sort.
She _was_ tried rather high this morning.” He said ingenuously:

“I lost _my_ temper, mother. Joyce played like a book.”

Margot added demurely:

“In very pretty binding.”

If she expected a compliment from the young man, she was disappointed.
He merely nodded, adding after a pause:

“You wouldn’t believe it, but Joyce makes her own clothes.”

Margot hadn’t a doubt of that, but she expressed suitable surprise and
commendation. Sir Geoffrey changed the conversation.

The afternoon passed pleasantly. After tea Lionel went down to the river
to try for a fish, a fat trout that defied capture. Lady Pomfret and
Margot sat under the trees and talked. Sir Geoffrey stumped off to the
Home Farm with Fishpingle.

By this time Margot had established intimacy with her host’s butler. She
felt towards him as Lionel did to the fat trout. She wanted to land him,
to weigh him, to hold him in her small hand. Mystery encompassed
Fishpingle. She tried to read his history between the lines upon a
discreet face. That was her method of learning French history from
“_mémoires à servir_.” But Fishpingle eluded her. She could find him at
any time in his room; he received her courteously; he talked
delightfully about old plate, and birds, and Nether-Applewhite, but
never, never of himself.

As the Squire and his faithful henchman walked off together, Margot said
lightly:

“You have many precious possessions in your dear old house, but it seems
to me that of all of them Fishpingle is the most priceless.”

Lady Pomfret became alert. At moments, Margot’s cleverness frightened
her. Not her sprightliness in small talk. Lady Pomfret could discount
that, and did. But the little lady exhibited, in flashes, powers of
intuition and characterisation which were certainly remarkable.

“Tell me what you mean, my dear.”

“I speak of him as a possession. In the last few years I have had three
butlers, each of them highly recommended. I pay a little more than is
usual to my upper servants, because I want to keep them. And I think I
am consistently nice to them. That pays, doesn’t it? And yet, to my
intense annoyance, they leave me. They are not possessions, as they used
to be. Fishpingle showed me that handsome inkstand. I was consumed with
envy when I read the inscription—‘Fifty years’ service!’”

“He became page to Lady Alicia Pomfret when he was ten. His duties, I
fancy, were not too onerous. She had him educated.”

“Ah! But, obviously, he has gone on educating himself.”

Another flash. Lady Pomfret assented. Margot continued—

“How do you do it? Your cook, Mrs. Mowland, is another possession, and
your housekeeper, Mrs. Randall. It’s wonderful.”

“They are our own people, part of the soil, and we live in the country
all the year round. London makes servants restless. Change excites them.
We have been fortunate in these—possessions. You are right, Margot,
they are priceless.”

“I see you can’t whisper your secret to me.”

“There is no secret.”

Margot laughed, with a little gesture of resignation. Evidently, Lady
Pomfret was not to be coaxed or flattered into talking about her amazing
butler. Skilfully, she selected and cast another fly.

“Your stillroom maid, Prudence, Fishpingle’s niece, is charming. I
ventured to ask for the recipe of those melting griddle cakes we have at
tea. She said that the recipe was yours.”

“You are most welcome to it.”

“Thank you so much. Prudence is the apple of Fishpingle’s eye, but you
have chief place in his heart.”

Lady Pomfret “sat up,” in every sense of that slangy phrase.

“Bless me! He told you that?”

“Not he. I guessed. You reign supreme.”

Margot sighed. Not without reason had an inspired minor poet given her
the nickname—La Reine Margot. She wished to reign, not merely over men,
but with a wider dominion over all—something difficult of achievement
in London. As the _châtelaine_ of Beaumanoir Chase this dominating
instinct might have been gratified. She could say bitter things about
the Salique law. Lady Pomfret wondered why such a visitor, so “smart”
(to use an odious word), had settled down contentedly at Pomfret Court,
where the entertainment of a town guest must be considered hum-drum. At
this moment light came to her. She divined that Margot was studying
intelligently conditions which made petty sovereignty possible. She
remembered the “pumping” of Joyce, which amused her at the time. Purpose
underlay the many questions. She remembered, also, that Margot missed no
opportunity of ingratiating herself with Bonsor and others at the Home
Farm. She supposed that this was Margot’s “way” (which paid!), and part
of a sincere desire to please the Squire. Lastly, regarding her own son
with a fond mother’s eye, she had been shrewd enough to realise that,
matrimonially, he was no great “catch” for an heiress of quality. In her
heart, whilst humouring her husband, she had confidently expected a
“_débâcle_.” A dasher had dashed at a new experience. Very soon, such a
personage would be bored and flit elsewhere, a case, in fine, of Marie
Antoinette milking cows!

And now, swiftly, she was modifying these premature conclusions. To make
assured her new foundations, she, too, cast a fly. As a fisherman, she
was quite as adroit as Margot.

“I reign happily over a small establishment. My rule, such as it is,
imposes penalties. In my place, Margot, you would be bored.”

Margot “rose” instantly. The fly stuck fast in her throat. And the
moment had come, she decided, when sincerity would best serve her
purpose. She replied eagerly—

“Dear Lady Pomfret, you are so clever, but indeed you are mistaken. Sir
Geoffrey, oddly enough, this very morning, seemed surprised when I told
him that I was not bored. I ask you, as I asked him—do I look bored?”

Lady Pomfret laughed, partly because it was pleasant to reflect that her
hand had not lost its cunning.

“I have read somewhere, my dear, that you are an accomplished amateur
actress. We have never entertained a visitor so easily. Indeed, you have
entertained—us! At least, we might have invited some of our neighbours
to meet so agreeable a guest.”

“I feared that. I dared to hint as much to the Squire.”

“The wretch never told me.”

“I wanted to rest, to gloat in this quiet paradise. To fortify myself.”

“For what?”

The quiet question brought a faint flush to Margot’s pale cheeks, but
she replied vivaciously:

“Against my autumn visits, a dreary round, which no longer sufficies me.
The people I know are too aggressive, too neurotic, too jumpy. I have
chosen my friends—if you can call them that—not very wisely. My own
fault. This last season was trying. One must keep up with the
procession, and it simply races along.”

Lady Pomfret felt sorry for her, pity welled into her kind eyes and
suffused her voice. Margot looked so small, so frail. Take from her the
trappings of her position, and what was left? A motherless young woman,
who, admittedly, had chosen the wrong friends. She murmured softly—

“Poor little Margot! You make me sad. But I am glad that you think of
this,” her glance wandered round the peaceful garden, “as a sanctuary.”

“I do. I do. Why didn’t we meet before?”

                 *        *        *        *        *

During the two days that followed this confidential talk with her
hostess, Margot spun webs in that dainty parlour, her heart, now swept
and garnished for the reception of Lionel. She encouraged him to talk
freely, ever watchful and ready to steer him out of the troubled waters
of introspection and windy conjecture into the snug harbourage of a
practical prosperity. Lionel had read the books and pamphlets lent by
Fishpingle. And Fishpingle had warned him that they were one-sided,
written by men who had suffered abuses, who card-indexed flagrant
instances with something of the same gusto which animates collectors of
pornographic engravings. It was quite easy for Margot to deal with such
propaganda. More, her knowledge impressed him. She presented the other
side with a suavity in pleasing contrast to the acerbity of the
pamphleteers. If she stickled for Authority, as she did, she garbed it
in motley. Very cleverly, she laid stress upon the necessity of loyalty
to their own order.

“You can’t destroy your own nest, Lionel. Make no mistake! These
demagogues mean to wipe us out, if they can. If they do,” she shrugged
her shoulders, “it will be largely due to our indolence and
indifference. We may have to fight with their bludgeons. My father
advocated a Union of Landed Gentry.”

“Why not?” asked Lionel.

“Because, my child, Authority detests co-operation. You see that in
politics. The heads of different departments won’t pull together. People
talk of a united Cabinet. A Cabinet is never united.”

The surprise in his face amused her. What fun enlightening such an
innocent! She went on, more suavely than ever:

“Before I put my hair up, in my father’s lifetime, the Mandarins used to
foregather at Beaumanoir. Our chef was a great artist.”

“Chinaman?”

“England’s statesmen. I beheld them with awe—the Olympians! The awe
soon went after I got to know them. Their very ordinary talk shattered
my illusions. Believe me, Lionel, they are well called representative
men. They represent most faithfully the Man in the Street, whom they
study to please and satisfy after—_bien entendu_—they have ground
their own little axes. Heavens! how they disappointed me. No
imagination! No enthusiasm! No real sympathy! Just commonplace party
politicians with a gift of the gab and ears pricked to catch the Voice
of the People.”

“This is a staggerer for me, Margot.”

She laughed at his sober face.

“Come to my house, and you shall meet some of them. There are rare
exceptions, of course. I speak generally. I want to warn you and prepare
you. Heaven has sent me to your rescue. You were thinking of chucking
the army, studying chemistry as applied to land, and turning yourself
into your father’s bailiff.”

“Something of that sort.”

“A fine programme, if it could be carried out. But, suppose it couldn’t?
You might fail. What a situation then! Will your father co-operate with
you? Will he supply the sinews of war? Experimental chemistry is costly,
as my father found out. Success might come after many failures. Would
your father stand the strain of those failures?”

“No—he wouldn’t. But I must do something. Better to try and fail than
to sit still and trust to luck. You are not very encouraging. Give me a
lead, if you can.”

She answered seriously:

“I think I can. I like you, Lionel; I like your people; I love this dear
old place. It is far nicer than Beaumanoir, and I loved that. Yes, I
should be proud to help you, but the obvious way is so seldom obvious to
the traveller himself. You have come back from India to face conditions
which I have heard discussed ever since I was fifteen. And I have heard
both sides. Personally, I have made my choice. I stick to my order, sink
or swim.”

“I feel like that, too.”

“Well, I have warned you that you can’t expect too much from Authority.
If it comes to a real fight, we shall stand together. Meanwhile, every
man in your position should prepare for that fight.”

“You talk well, Margot.”

“I repeat what I have heard.”

Joyce had said the same. He remembered that in the mythologies Echo is a
nymph.

“How am I to prepare?”

“You ought to be in Parliament. _Punch_ may well call it The House of
Awfully Commons, but there is no other place for such as you.”

He muttered gloomily—

“Sit up late, and do as I’m told.”

She laughed.

“It’s not quite as bad as that. In Parliament you would get the training
you need. If I know you, you’d forge ahead. At any rate, you would be in
the movement. And your chance would come.”

Lionel answered her sharply, with incisive curtness:

“You have not painted a flattering portrait of politicians, yet you urge
me to become one of them.”

“I described them as I see them, because you are so preposterously
modest. You look up to them. Many of them could look up to you. Place
and power are easily within your grasp. Men with half your advantages
have climbed high.”

Her flattery tickled him, but he stuck doggedly to his point.

“Parliament would mean a bigger allowance. Father couldn’t afford it.”

Her tone became light again.

“As to that, you are like poor Beau. You must make the right sort of
marriage. Unlike poor Beau, you are well able to do it.”

He moved uneasily.

“Margot—have you talked this over with Father?”

“On my honour—no. Why do you ask?”

“Your views are his views. He put it to me within a few hours of my
return home. ‘You must marry a nice little girl with a bit of money.’”

The adjective “little” may have caused her embarrassment. And his voice,
as he spoke, was low and troubled. He seemed, too, to be deliberately
looking away from her. She saved an awkward situation with a ripple of
laughter.

“Why, of course,” she went on, quite herself again. “I could find you
half a dozen nice girls. Do you prefer them—little?”

He stammered out a reply:

“I—I d-don’t know. You see I—I haven’t quite got to father’s point of
view. I mean to say I never thought of marrying at all. It wasn’t
exactly beyond my horizon, but——!” He broke off, raising troubled eyes
to her.

She handled him with extreme delicacy and patience.

“I understand perfectly. Young men of your type don’t think of marriage
till—till love imposes the thought of it on them. But is it possible,
Lionel, that you have never been in love?”

“Never—in the sense you mean.”

“Really? What a sensation to come! But—how shall I put it?—wouldn’t
you like to be? Every girl worth her salt thinks of a possible
husband—generally a quite impossible man. Have you never thought of a
possible wife?”

“In the abstract—yes. Are you pulling my leg, Margot?”

“Heaven forbid! I am nearly, not quite, as solemn as you are.”

But she laughed gaily, contradicting her own words. Her laughter was so
infectious that Lionel laughed with her. The ice between them broke and
drifted away. He chuckled, like his father.

“I say, you must think me a mug.”

“I feel,” she paused, meeting his glance roguishly, “I feel old enough
to be your mother, and really I’m one year younger than you.”

“One year and three months.”

“You looked me up?”

“I did.”

She inferred, possibly, more than was strictly warrantable. Suddenly the
dressing gong boomed out. Margot got up. Lionel protested:

“You don’t take half an hour to shove on a frock, do you?”

“Sometimes. I am wearing a new frock to-night. I hope you will like it.”

“You must spend a lot on your clothes.”

“I do. Why not? I have money to burn. _A tout à l’heure._”

She waved her hand and departed.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Lionel sat on under the trees, gazing at the lengthening shadows as they
stole across the velvety lawn, and letting his thoughts project
themselves into the future. No man likes to think that he is being
pursued by a woman, however charming she may be. But such a probability
didn’t occur to him. His father was wiser in such matters. Lionel
accepted Margot’s advice as impersonal. And she had not been “primed” by
the squire. The pair, such a contrast to each other in most respects,
happened to think alike, independently and sincerely, upon a subject
which they had not discussed together.

What would it mean to him, if he captured Margot? For the first time he
thought of her not as the wife chosen for him by a fond and ambitious
sire, but as _the woman_ chosen by himself out of all the world. Any man
might be proud to possess a creature so distinguished, so sought after,
so attractive physically and mentally. Other men would envy him. In the
regiment his pals would congratulate him warmly on “landing” a big
“fish.” No young fellow is independent of public opinion, least of all
an old Etonian, a subaltern in a crack corps. Men he knew had been
caught by enterprising spinsters in India, swishing tempestuous
petticoats of the wrong cut. He remembered what was said at mess
concerning such matches. Fordingbridge had gone a “mucker.” Young
Ocknell, too, the silly ass, had married a second-rate actress. And
Ocknell Manor was offered for sale in _Country Life_!

He heard the clock in the stable-yard strike a quarter to eight. The
short cut to his room lay through the shrubberies, and a side door not
far from the pantry. He happened to be wearing tennis shoes. As he
approached the side door, he saw Prudence and Alfred. Their faces might
have been three inches apart, not more. Prudence giggled and flitted
indoors. Alfred stood his ground, grinning sheepishly.

“Very close out here,” said Lionel.

Alfred assented, adding nervously—

“’Ee won’t tell tales out o’ school, Master Lionel, will ’ee? ’Tis as
much as my place be worth, if Squire caught Prue an’ me mumbud-gettin’,
he be so tarr’ble set on eugannicks.”

“Trust me,” smiled Lionel. “The Squire will come round, Alfred. I said a
word to him, as I promised, but I spoke too soon. Don’t worry! By
George, you _are_ a lucky fellow. Prue is a little dear. And you both
looked as happy as larks. I say, I shall be late for dinner.”

He rushed into the house, followed more leisurely by Alfred, still
grinning.

Hastily dressing, Lionel was sensible of an emotion which might or might
not be the quickening of love. He found himself envying Alfred. It must
be jolly to have a pretty girl look at a fellow as Prudence looked at
her lover. The world was going round and round for them. Had little
Margot such a glance in her battery? Had she ever looked at a man like
that?

Had Joyce?

When he appeared in the Long Saloon, the last of the party, Margot was
wearing her new frock, fashioned out of chiffon of the particular
emerald green she affected and so bespangled that it looked as if dusted
with tiny diamonds. About her white neck shimmered her famous pearls.
She wore no other jewelry. Lionel, as he approached her, shaded his
eyes. The Squire chuckled.

“A bit of a dazzler, eh, boy?”

“Quite stunning,” said Lionel.

Margot flashed a glance at him, which the Squire and Lady Pomfret,
standing just behind her, couldn’t see. Long afterwards Lionel described
this glance as a “crumpled.” The question, so doubtfully propounded
whilst he was dressing, had been answered. Tom Challoner was a fool.
Lady Margot Maltravers might be cold as Greenland’s icy mountains to
him—and serve him right! To a friend, at the psychological moment, her
heart revealed itself enchantingly—warm as India’s coral strand.

They went into dinner.

The talk settled upon a cricket-match to be played, next day, upon the
Squire’s ground—Nether-Applewhite _v._ Long-Baddeley, a neighbouring
village. The Parson captained his XI. The Squire, in a long white
kennel-overcoat, officiated as umpire. Margot wanted to play games.
Looking on bored her. But the Squire promised entertainment. Obviously,
he had set his heart upon a victory. Lionel was quite as keen. To hear
the two discussing the “form” of different village champions, one might
suppose that an international match impended. Sir Geoffrey mentioned a
bowler, Joel Tibber, who put the fear of the Lord into timid batsmen.
Joel could pitch a ball with deadly accuracy at the batsman’s head.
Having established the right degree of “funk,” he bowled with equal
accuracy at the wicket. Joel belonged to Long-Baddeley, but his mother
had been born in Nether-Applewhite. The Squire felt that he owned a
half-interest in Joel. Margot hoped that Fishpingle would take the
field, and Lionel told her that he kept wicket. She learnt later that
the Parson batted with a thick broomstick, about the right handicap for
a man who had made his “century” for the Gentlemen of England. The
Squire said solemnly:

“If Lionel is in form we shall romp home.”

“Do you feel in form?” asked Margot.

“Ra-_ther_! But if that beast Joel picks me off, as he did last time, I
shall want ‘first aid.’ Can you give it?”

Lady Pomfret observed mildly, “I take a little arnica and lint on to the
battlefield.”

Margot said, as solemnly as Sir Geoffrey:

“This is a serious affair.”

She was assured of it. Any jesting upon the national game would be
unseemly. It might be permissible to laugh at the cricketers, not at
cricket. This from Lady Pomfret, with a sly twinkle in her eye. Twice
she essayed to turn the ball of talk from the wickets. Twice the Squire
returned that ball to his son—and the great game went on.

Was Margot bored?

No. Such talk in her own house amongst her own set might be deemed
impossible. The first ball would have gone to the boundary and stayed
there. But here, in this panelled dining-room, with the scent of
new-mown hay stealing through the open windows, with the pitch itself to
be seen from those windows, lying smooth as silver in the moonlight,
what cleaner, better theme could be chosen? It smelt of the countryside.
It presented humours delightfully Arcadian.

After dinner, Lionel proposed piquet. Given equal cards, Margot was
incomparably the better player. Lady Pomfret, watching her noticed, that
she played to the score, played, in short, to win. She noticed, too,
that Lionel seemed to be studying his opponent rather than the game. He
discarded carelessly; he forgot to score points. In her own mind smiling
to herself, the mother perpetrated a mild pun. “He looks at her hands
instead of his own.” Lionel, let us admit, was watching and waiting for
another dynamic glance. He might have guessed that a second would not be
forthcoming too soon. A second might have weakened the first.
Nevertheless, what was carefully hidden from Lionel revealed itself
unmistakably to Lady Pomfret. She beheld Truth before the nymph left her
well.

“Margot means to have him.”

The Squire, dozing in his big armchair, sat bolt upright.

“Bless my soul!” he exclaimed. “It’s past eleven. To bed with you, boy!
And take a pinch of bi-carbonate of potash.” He turned to his guest.
“Nothing like it to clear the eye.”

“Take two pinches, Lionel,” counselled the little lady.

Lady Pomfret read her and smiled.

The Squire rang the bell, a signal that meant “Lights out!” With his
hand on the old-fashioned bell-pull, he turned to his son.

“By the way, I heard a bit of news this afternoon. The Professor has
turned up again.”

“Moxon, father?”

“Yes, Moxon.” He added for Margot’s benefit, “Not a Moxon of Wooton, my
dear, but a very presentable and knowledgable young man.”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                               CHAPTER XI


Cricket matches of the first magnitude are played of a Saturday in
Nether-Applewhite. At ten punctually, an aged and yellow bus, drawn by
two stout horses, rolled through the lodge gates of Pomfret Court and
drew up at the marquee. A young, fresh-faced man, sitting by the driver,
tootled a tandem horn. Fishpingle said to the Squire:

“His lordship is with them.”

Long-Baddeley formed part of Lord Fordingbridge’s property.

The Squire and Lionel advanced to greet their visitors. They shook hands
with Fordingbridge, Joel Tibber, and those members of XI whom they knew
personally. Mild chaff was exchanged. The Squire inquired after the
twins.

“Two big bouncing boys,” proclaimed the father. “It would do your heart
good to see them, Sir Geoffrey.”

“The more the merrier. Never expected to see you.”

“I’m not playing, but I had to come. Lionel looks as fit as a fiddle.”

“Yes, yes; India’s made a strong man of him.”

Lionel bandied pleasantries with Mr. Tibber, the captain of
Long-Baddeley—

“I’ve put on chain armour under my flannels, Joel.”

“Ah-h-h! Pitch won’t be so nice an’ bumpy, seemin’ly, after them there
rains.”

He spoke with sincere regret. A hard, bumpy pitch meant many wickets for
Mr. Tibber. He preferred village greens for his deadly work. The
Parsons, wearing his Cambridge “blue,” joined the group. In the cricket
field he looked ten years younger. Lionel couldn’t see either Moxon or
Joyce. But the onlookers had not yet arrived. Margot and Lady Pomfret
were expected at noon.

Joel won the toss and elected to bat. Hamlin and his merry men took the
field. Fordingbridge and the Squire served as umpires. The two elder
Mucklows went on to bowl. George, the youngest of the brethren,
approached his captain.

“I can bowl a wicked ball,” he said. He pronounced “bowl” as if it
rhymed with “jowl.”

“No, you can’t,” replied the Parson, decisively.

“I thinks I can,” urged George. “God A’mighty made us Mucklows bowlers,
He did.”

“You stand in the deep field, George. If you miss a catch, you can go to
Canada and never return.”

He patted him pleasantly on the shoulder. George retired, grumbling. One
of the Long-Baddeley batsmen asked for a trial ball. After heated
discussion this was conceded as a favour, not a right. Fishpingle quoted
the law, upholding the rigour of the game, like Mrs. Battle. Another
discussion followed the first delivery, “no-balled” by his lordship.
Fishpingle sustained the decision.

Lionel was fielding at square leg, and between the overs and
opportunities of chatting with Fordingbridge, who, matrimonially, as
deemed by the county to have gone a “mucker.” Lionel, however, noticed
that he seemed the better for it.

“You must come and see my missis, Lionel. She’s a topper. We’re farmers.
Rise with the lark, my boy. I feel another man. It came to this—I had
to take hold or let go. Now I save all the money which I used to spend
away from home. And I’m on the spot to check wastage.”

“The simple life, Johnnie, agrees with you.”

“Lord love you, I was slidin’ downhill when you went to India. Couldn’t
look an egg in the face at breakfast, and bored with everything and
everybody.”

The game went on with varying fortune. The star batsman ran himself out,
and hotly disputed the Squire’s decision, daring to affirm that his
lordship would have rendered another verdict. The Squire treated such
incidents humourously, as not the least amusing part of village cricket.
Fordingbridge rebuked the misdemeanant, saying in a loud voice:

“Don’t be a damned fool, Dave Misselbrook! I’m ashamed of you.”

Dave retreated. The batsman at the other end observed apologetically:

“Dave ain’t hisself. His young ’ooman give him the chuck las’ week.”

Fordingbridge took this bit of gossip seriously—

“Did she? I must have a talk with the baggage.”

Lionel laughed, but he was much impressed. Fordingbridge, as he recalled
him, a man who raced, and hunted from Melton, and kept late hours and
loose company, had indeed changed. Curiosity consumed him to see the
“topper,” surely a worker of miracles. Then his thoughts wandered to
Joyce. Was she sitting upon the Vicarage lawn with Moxon? Why had Moxon
returned so quickly? Had she whistled? _Confound it!_ Thinking of Joyce,
an easy catch was missed. Loud cheers from Long-Baddeley. “You duffer!”
growled the Squire. Fishpingle shook his head sorrowfully.

                 *        *        *        *        *

At midday the spectators began to arrive. Margot and Lady Pomfret
wandered round the ground, talking to the village fathers and mothers,
who sat placidly beneath the oaks and beeches. Lady Pomfret anticipated
diversion where it was likely to be met.

“This,” she murmured to Margot, “is a character.” They were approaching
an old woman, who had been wheeled on to the ground in a bath-chair. She
sat erect, tremendously interested in a game she did not understand. A
grandson was fielding hard by.

“How are you, Mrs. Parish? Isn’t this a little venturesome?”

“I’m the same as usual, my lady. My pore heart goes on a-flutterin’ like
an old hen tryin’ for to fly. Doctor says ’twill stop sudden-like any
minute, night or day. I ain’t afeard. Maybe ’tis presumption to say
that. I’d like to go—quick, wi’out givin’ too much trouble. What fair
worrits me is the fear o’ poppin’ off in public. If I dropped dead, so
to speak, in village street, ’twould scare the little ’uns.”

“I see your grandson is playing.”

“That he be, an’ proud as King Garge on his throne. Scared too, the gert
silly! I told ’un to carry a stiff tail, I did. It mads me, yas, it do,
when I see boys an’ girls meetin’ trouble halfway. Nice, religious lad,
too. This very marning he makes me promise to pray so be as he bain’t
bowled out fust ball.”

“And did you?” asked Margot.

The old woman looked keenly at her. Village gossip had spread far and
wide the Squire’s plans.

“This is Lady Margot Maltravers, Mrs. Parish.”

“Ah-h-h! I guessed that. Did I pray, my lady? Yas—I did.”

“I am quite sure your prayer will be answered,” said Margot.

“I baint so sure,” retorted the dame, sharply. “God A’mighty’s ways be
past findin’ out. I mind me prayin’ as never so for a second husband,
bein’ lucky with Job Parish, but that prayer went on t’ muck-heap.”

After a few more words, they passed on.

“A gallant old soul!” Margot observed.

Lady Pomfret nodded, saying reflectively—

“I think I must pray for young Charley Parish.”

Margot considered this.

“If you do,” she predicted, “he will carry out his bat.”

By the time they had circled the field, Joyce and Moxon had arrived. The
Professor was duly presented to her little ladyship, who engaged him
forthwith in talk, strolling on with him, whilst Joyce sat by Lady
Pomfret. Moxon’s face and figure pleased Margot. He looked that happy
combination, a man of thought and action. His grey eyes were clear as
his complexion; the nose was delicately modelled; his chin indicated
resolution. When he smiled, he showed white even teeth. Margot said
easily—

“Lionel Pomfret has talked to me about you. He is rather absorbent. I
managed to squeeze your ideas out of him. They interested me, although
they conflict with my own.”

Moxon showed some surprise.

“Ideas, Lady Margot? What do you conceive to be my ideas?”

“The regeneration of the land, the amelioration of rural conditions, a
clean sweep of—us.”

She laughed, exhibiting no trace of malice. Moxon perceived, none the
less, that he was challenged. He answered her quietly—

“I never said that to Pomfret.”

“You must be mistaken.”

“I am positive.”

“I have it. You talked to Miss Hamlin and her father.”

“Oh yes.”

“Miss Hamlin repeated what she heard to Mr. Pomfret. Perhaps she failed
to report to you quite accurately.”

Moxon hastened to defend Joyce. Inaccuracy was not her weakness. His
views were public property. He repudiated warmly any desire upon his
part to sweep away anything of value. Margot was constrained to withdraw
the last indictment.

“All the same, Mr. Moxon—ought I to call you ‘Professor’?”

“Most certainly not.”

“All the same,” she continued, “that underlies your programme. I am well
aware that we rule, to-day, on sufferance. As yet, the country people,
particularly the people in such counties as this, are singularly free
from disaffection. You and your friends are stirring them up.”

“To help themselves,” he interrupted; “to make them realise that they
are practically parasites, living for you and on you.”

“I dare say. These good fellows,” she indicated the Nether-Applewhite
XI, “don’t look like parasites.”

“This parish is exceptional. Even here—I hesitate to offend.”

“Pray go on!”

“Even here the condition is that of stagnant dependence. The labourers
are at the mercy of farmer and landowner. Power is not abused on this
state, but it might be. At Ocknell Manor the conditions are atrocious.
Everything is left to an ignorant agent, who skins ’em alive.”

Margot shrugged her slender shoulders.

“I repeat, if you stir them up, if you transfer the power to them—we
go. I leave it to you to say whether you are honestly convinced that the
masses will succeed where the classes have failed.”

By this time they had strolled back to the marquee, and joined the
others. Margot had no wish to prolong a futile discussion. As Moxon had
said, his views were public property. She had listened to them, at first
hand, from the more radical statesman who preached them in and out of
season. Her particular object had been accomplished. Moxon, as she had
guessed, was a man of parts. No girl would dismiss such a lover lightly.

But he had come back.

The rival teams lunched very fraternally together, and much shandygaff
was consumed. Just before luncheon, Long-Baddeley was dismissed with
ninety-two runs to their credit. Nether-Applewhite had lost one wicket.
After luncheon, Alfred Rockley covered himself with glory. Joel Tibber
had no terrors for him. Prudence applauded his feats with hands and
voice. When Lionel and he got “set,” runs came swiftly—four after four.
Spectators from Long-Baddeley enlivened the contest. Old gaffers left
the ale-house to prattle together about matches played two score years
ago, but never forgotten. To many an innings kindly Time had added runs.
Finally, Alfred was caught in the deep field, and, as so often happens
when a partnership is dissolved, Lionel playing forward at a
short-pitched ball, was clean bowled. One hundred and fifty-seven for
four wickets.

Lionel, flushed by exercise and triumph, joined Margot. He looked his
best. To his amazement, she fussed over him. He was very hot; he must
put on a coat. A southerly breeze blew fresh from the Solent. He mustn’t
sit down yet. Why not take a turn with her?

Lady Pomfret was much amused.

The pair wandered off, but Lionel insisted upon watching the game.

“You will see Hamlin bat with a stump—a real treat.”

“Not after you.”

“Good Lord! And you are training me to appreciate fine bits. He’s a fine
bit, and I’m a cheap reproduction.”

Under her schooling, he was learning much about Pomfret furniture and
pictures.

“As to that, Lionel, you hold yourself too cheap.”

Hamlin and Fishpingle were now batting. The old Cambridge “blue”
exhibited form in its highest manifestation. Upon a pitch, now none too
good, he stopped or struck every ball with absolute accuracy, timing
them perfectly. Fishpingle presented the village “stone-waller,” intent
only upon keeping up his wicket and letting the Parson score. Runs came
slowly. Lionel told Margot that amateur bowlers lost their length
against a stubborn defence. Then he said abruptly:

“But, of course, you are bored.”

“No, very much the contrary. I have seen nothing like this for years. I
like it—the enthusiasm is infectious. As for the villagers, I wouldn’t
change them for the world. That dear old woman, Mrs. Parish—! The row
of granfers on the bench—! Two of the darlings are wearing smocks. Your
professor would change all that; give him a free hand, and he would
people the countryside with men and women cut to pattern, all aping
their betters, and all discontented.”

“Why do you call him my professor?”

“He nearly got you. I suppose he belongs to Miss Hamlin.”

“Not yet, I fancy.” Lionel replied stiffly.

“Ah, well, she will be foolish, if she lets him slip through her
fingers. Mr. Moxon and I have agreed to disagree, but I like him. He
will make his mark. What are they cheering for?”

“Fishpingle is out. Now we may have some fun. The village slogger takes
his place.”

The slogger rolled out of the marquee, disdaining pads or gloves.
Nether-Applewhite cheered, anticipating much leather-hunting.

“You hit ’un, Joe!”—“Stretch their legs for ’un, lad!”—“Ah-h-h! Now
for a bit o’ sport.”

Encouraged by these remarks, the object of them strode to his wicket and
took block. Lionel explained what was needed:

“We haven’t time to finish the match. Hamlin may declare our innings
closed if we touch the double century. Then our great chance is to get
’em all out before time is called.”

“Where do we stand now?”

“We’ve made about a hundred and ninety.”

The slogger brandished the willow. Joel hurtled forward. A deep groan
came from the bench of granfers as a judicious “yorker” knocked two
stumps out of the ground. The discomfited batsman glared at a mocking
field.

“I warn’t ready,” he shouted. “You hear me?”

“Tut, tut!” said the Squire. “They can hear you in Salisbury, my man.
Better luck next time.”

One of the Mucklow brethren took his place. Joel delivered a terrific
ball, which seemed to whiz straight at the batsman’s head. Mucklow
bobbed; the bails flew. Long-Baddeley howled with joy. Adam Mucklow
scratched his head. He was assured by Point that it was still on his
shoulders. Sadly, sighing deeply, he went his weary way. Lord
Fordingbridge said jovially: “Joel, if you do the hat trick, order one
of the best at my expense.” George Mucklow advanced.

“Don’t ’ee be afeared, Garge!”

“I ain’t afeared,” declared George, valiantly; but he was. His knees
were as wax.

“No flowers at his funeral,” said the wit of Long-Baddeley.

“Keep your eye on the ball,” counselled the Parson.

Joel delivered the third ball. The unhappy George shut both eyes and
flinched. A derisive roar went up, so did the bails. George gazed about
him.

“You be out,” said the wicket-keeper.

“So I be. ’Tis sartin I didn’t know it. I can bowl a bit, but this ain’t
cricket, ’tis murder.”

He vanished.

A few more runs were added to the score before the last wicket fell.
Charles Parish achieved three singles and carried out his bat. The
prayers of two righteous women had availed that much. Total score for
Nether-Applewhite, two hundred and three. Long-Baddeley went in with one
hundred and twelve runs to make in less than two hours. If they failed,
and ten wickets fell, they would suffer ignominious defeat. Strategy
demanded careful play. Fordingbridge congratulated the Squire upon his
pitch, a batsman’s wicket, which accounted for big scores rare in
village cricket.

Margot went back to Lady Pomfret and tea. She sat next to Joyce and
talked to her. Joyce seemed preoccupied—not herself. Her interest in
the game struck Margot as feigned. Her face, too, was paler than usual,
faint shadows encircled her eyes. Was she sorry that Moxon had come
back? It appeared, however, that Moxon’s visit was incidental, almost
accidental. He had to leave on the Monday.

“Have you a headache?” asked Margot.

“Yes.”

Margot, under the same circumstances, would have said “No.” She decided
that Joyce’s sincerity might be reckoned her _cheval de bataille_. She
expressed sympathy, offering to send her maid to fetch some aspirin
tabloids from the Hall. Joyce made light of a petty ailment. The sun was
rather hot. Her headache would pass. As the two girls talked one of the
village mothers passed by, dragging a toddler of her own. The child
caught her foot in the ropes of the marquee, fell heavily, and began to
howl. Joyce jumped up, snatched the child from the ground, crooned over
it, hugged it, made it laugh, whilst the young mother stood sheepishly
looking on.

“Leave her with me for a few minutes,” said Joyce.

The mother moved on, the child cuddled up to Joyce, and then fell
asleep. Margot said in a whisper.

“That was amazing. How do you do it?”

“I am fond of children.”

“And this one is a special favourite?”

“No; I don’t think I know this child. The mother is from Ocknell. She
married a Nether-Applewhite man, but they have only come here lately.”

“It’s magic.”

Presently the mother came back, but the child left Joyce reluctantly.
Margot thought that she had guessed the riddle.

“She must ill-treat the child.”

Joyce smiled.

“Oh no. Village mothers rather spoil their children. Didn’t you know
that?”

Margot confessed that she didn’t. Joyce continued:

“But, of course, there is the reaction, when they are tired and fussed.
That mother was fussed. I saw it at once. To come here this afternoon
means more work to-night.”

“How is your headache?”

“Gone!”

“Really, you know, you’re rather an amazing person. But you hide your
light. I don’t. Yours burns with a steadier beam.”

“A farthing dip,” said Joyce.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Stumps were to be drawn at seven promptly. As the minutes slipped by,
Nether-Applewhite realised sorrowfully that Time had ranged himself with
the enemy. Long ago, they had abandoned the hope of scoring runs. Each
batsman was instructed to block the bowling, to hold the fort
defensively. Five wickets had fallen for some sixty runs, and the best
batsmen were out. Could the tail of the team wag on for twenty minutes?
Hamlin put himself on to bowl lobs, twisting, curling, underhand balls.
At Cambridge, long ago, the head of his College, the illustrious Master
of Trinity, had made a jest upon Hamlin’s bowling. Presenting a prize
set of books, he had remarked blandly, “Hamlin, you are the only
undergraduate I know who has combined underhand practices with stainless
integrity.”

“Sneaks!” said Long-Baddeley.

Hamlin waved his field in nearer. Lionel, at square leg, drew so near
the batsman that Margot trembled for his safety. And Hamlin, delivering
his ball, followed it valiantly halfway up the pitch. Point stationed
himself four yards from the crease. The mighty Tibber fell to these
tactics. Point took the ball almost from the bottom of the bat, and said
politely, “Thank you.” Four wickets to fall and sixteen minutes to go!

The seventh wicket fell five minutes later to a ball that pitched three
feet wide of the stumps on the off side and then nicked off the leg
bail.

Three and eleven!

The granfers had shouted themselves thirsty and hoarse. One patriarch
announced his intentions, “if so be as we win, I’ll carry more good ale
to-night than any man o’ my years in Wiltsheer.”

Excitement gripped Margot and Joyce. Every stroke was cheered and
counter-cheered. Derisive comment winged its way to the pitch from every
point of the compass, and from every mouth, male and female. Lady
Pomfret discovered that she had split a new pair of gloves. Above the
Squire’s white coat glowed a face red as the harvest sun, now declining
through a haze. Fordingbridge exhorted his men to endure patiently to
the end.

Three wickets to fall and seven minutes to go!

At this crisis Lionel distinguished himself and wiped out the grievous
memory of a dropped catch in the first innings. A stalwart son of
Long-Baddeley smote hard at a ball pitched too short, pulling it
savagely to leg. Lionel held it convulsively.

“Good boy,” said the Squire, wiping his forehead.

Even the ranks of Tuscany cheered.

Two and five!

Could it be done? Candour compels us to state that Fabian tactics might
have succeeded, had not Fordingbridge been present. He, good sportsman,
suffered no exasperating delays. Batsmen dared not tarry, drawing on
their gloves.

One and three!

George Mucklow took heart of grace. Funk exuded from every pore of the
tenth batsman’s skin as he, like George, tremblingly asked the umpire
for block.

“Block be damned!” shouted his lordship. “Hit the next ball to the
boundary, and I’ll give you a fiver.”

This counsel of perfection undid the unhappy youth. Hamlin bowled
straight and true for the middle stump. The youth smote and missed.

“Bif!” yelled Lionel.

All out and one minute to spare. As the Nether-Applewhite team carried
the Parson shoulder high to the marquee, the stable clock tolled
solemnly the defeat of Long-Baddeley. Fishpingle and Alfred hurried to
the house, but the Squire’s voice roared after them—

“Ben!”

“Sir Geoffrey?”

“Champagne to-night.”

“Yes, Sir Geoffrey.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

Margot inquired tenderly after Lionel’s hands. He had anticipated “first
aid”; it was his, even to the sacrifice of a tiny handkerchief. Lionel
demanded nothing more romantic than a tankard of shandygaff. Margot
fetched it, for the moment his obedient slave. Joyce ministered as
faithfully to her father with ginger beer.

When the yellow ’bus was full, inside and out, the Squire made a short
speech to which Fordingbridge responded. How pleasant it is to hear such
simple rhetoric! How invidious the task of setting it down! The better
team had won. A jolly day was over.

Three cheers for Sir Geoffrey Pomfret!

And three cheers for his “lardship”!

Lionel said to Margot—

“This is the sort of thing we dream of on the Plains. The whole scene
rises out of the desert, like a mirage.”

“I wonder if it is a mirage?”

“Eh?”

“_Tout passe._” She sighed.

Lionel looked at her uneasily, wondering if a vein of cynicism, seldom
displayed, was merely superficial. At any rate Joyce and she had forced
him to think, to analyse his thoughts, to draw inferences from them. He
said slowly:

“I took it all for granted before I went to India. It never occurred to
me then that I was fortunate in my home or in anything else. I remember
‘grousing’ if a cog in the machinery slipped. Machinery! That’s the
word. I reckoned this to be machinery. By George! I hadn’t wit enough to
reflect that machinery doesn’t last for ever and ever.”

She made no reply.

Her sprightly brain was busy, applying what he had said to herself. For
her the past fortnight had been a fresh experience, and perfectly
delightful. The peaceful atmosphere, the rest to her own over-stimulated
nerves, her courteous hosts, her ever-increasing interest in the young
man beside her, so different from the strivers and pushers of the
metropolitan market-place—these had sufficed. Would they suffice if she
held them in perpetuity?

Frankly, she didn’t know; an odd misgiving assailed her. Was she a
creature of change, incapable of finding happiness in stable conditions?

She heard Lionel’s voice coming back to her, as if from a distance. He
was talking of Fishpingle.

“The dear old boy kept wicket jolly well, and he looked so ripping on
his flannels.”

“Yes. The moment I saw him—I knew. The mystery was solved.”

“What did you know?”

“He is a gentleman—all through. His story—the little I have heard of
it—confirms that. Lady Alicia had a pretty maid, who went about with
her. _Une petite faute._ We can guess the rest.”

“You are very sharp, Margot. That is mother’s opinion.”

“Is it? Then the thing is settled. Your dear mother is sharper than I
am.”

Lionel was astounded.

“Mother—sharp?”

“As a Damascus blade, and as finely tempered. I must look up the
directories. I never heard of a gentle family with the
name—Fishpingle.”

“Nor I.”

“It sounds like the name of a place.”

“So it does.”

They joined the others on the lawn. Joyce, Moxon, the Parson, and Lady
Pomfret were listening to the Squire as he dwelt at length upon the
vicissitudes of the day. Alfred stood high in his favour. He gazed
affectionately at the Parson. Lionel was welcomed with winged words;
even so Nestor may have acclaimed Achilles.

“Is it a mirage?” thought Margot, as she went up to her pretty room.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              CHAPTER XII


Church parade at Pomfret Court was something of a function. The Squire
assumed the silk hat and black coat of Mayfair, with shepherd’s plaid
continuations and spats. Lady Pomfret affected soft grey silk. Lionel
could remember the day, shortly after he had joined his regiment, when,
greatly daring, he had appeared before his sire in blue serge, topped by
a billy-cock! The Squire stared at him, but said nothing. Had he
despatched his son to his bedroom, with orders to appear in regulation
kit Lionel would have obeyed. Visitors, need it be said, were expected
to answer the roll call. In winter and rainy weather the house-party
assembled in the hall; in summer they foregathered on the lawn. At the
right moment the Squire would glance at his massive watch. Then Lady
Pomfret and he would walk majestically down the path which led to the
church, at a pace sanctified by immemorial custom. The visitors
followed, chastened, let us trust, by such an example.

It has been mentioned that the family pew was in the chancel, at the
back of the choir. It held a curious collection of prayer-books with
Pomfret names upon the fly-leaves, and as often as not suitable
inscriptions. Margot, discarding her own tiny manual, opened a
much-battered specimen. In faded Italian handwriting were these lines—

“To my dear little son, from his loving mother, Selina Pomfret.”

The date, upon the title-page, told Margot that this prayer-book had
belonged to Sir Geoffrey. As a boy, he must have used it habitually,
have taken it to school with him, and brought it back. Now the Squire
used the great calf-bound manual, emblazoned with the Pomfret arms, and
never touched save by the head of the family. Margot turned over
well-thumbed pages. The Morning Service, the Catechism, the Litany, and
the Communion testified to much use and abuse. Obviously, the Squire had
learnt by heart the Collects. Amongst the Psalms she found a dried
poppy-leaf, and elsewhere a rose-petal. Obviously, too, the owner of the
book had memorised his tasks with difficulty, possibly with
exasperation, for some of the pages were torn. At the back of the book,
upon a blank page, were penciled three entries in round hand—

_Two ferrets._

_Twelve nets._

_Butter Scotch._

These, evidently, related to some rabbiting expedition, planned possibly
during a dull sermon.

The little church was full of mural tablets and such memorials of the
departed. In the windows were achievements. Here the Pomfrets had
worshipped for centuries; here they were laid to rest.

Would she lie down amongst them?

The choir-boys sang lustily the _Venite_. In the nave, occupying two
front seats, stood the girls, under the charge of Joyce. They sang
better than the boys.

She saw Moxon further down the nave, standing by himself, gravely
impassive. Did he want to sweep away this? It was hardly possible that
he could be a Churchman. Margot herself accepted the Church of England
as an institution which lent power and prestige to her order. It served
admirably the purposes to which, designedly, it had been warped. It
sustained authority and discipline. It stimulated loyalty. It enjoined
those of low degree to rest content in the station assigned to them by
an All-Wise and Loving Providence. Strictly speaking, it had become
political—Church and State, an ideal partnership. Just so a Grandee of
Spain accepts and reveres his Holy Mother Church, which, admittedly, is
better organised and equipped.

Hamlin put to flight these thoughts when he read the Second Lesson.

His personality gripped her attention. He positively forced her to
listen. Presently he would preach. Would the presence of Moxon, himself
an instructor, a Dominie, and a man of advanced views, influence the
Parson in his selection of a theme?

At the end of the Lesson, during the singing of the canticle, she
noticed that the Squire was “ticking off” the congregation, making notes
of absentees. Woe betide them if no reasonable excuse were proffered! He
might well congratulate himself upon his people. The farmers and their
families were conspicuous. Behind them sat the labourers, bovine, ruddy,
with well-lined stomachs. The Pomfret servants filled two pews. Since
the exposition of eugenics in Fishpingle’s room, Alfred had deemed it
discreet not to sing out of the same hymn-book with Prudence. He sat
with the under-servants, but wisely apart from the stillroom maid.

Everybody looked smugly pious and respectable.

The sermon surpassed Margot’s expectation. Hamlin spoke extempore,
disdaining notes, talking to his flock simply, in words easily to be
understood by a child. His thin, capable hands rested upon an ancient
cushion of red brocade. This cushion was all that was left of the
three-decker pulpit removed when Hamlin first came to Nether-Applewhite.
Long ago, in the Squire’s boyhood, old Mr. Pomfret, in a moment of
excitement, had pushed the cushion from him. It fell upon the sexton’s
head. The sexton replaced it, interrupting the flow of the Parson’s
discourse. Whereupon the Parson hurled the cushion into the aisle,
saying loudly:

“Do you suppose, Abel Whitehorn, that I can’t preach without a cushion?”

Margot recalled this story, one of the Squire’s time-ripened anecdotes,
as her eyes rested upon the nervous hands upon the same cushion.
Hamlin’s hands betrayed his feelings.

His theme concerned itself with cleanliness. He took the text from
Zechariah: “Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and
I will clothe thee with change of raiment.”

Hamlin was at his best when he dealt with matters of common interest to
his parishioners. At his worst, like most parsons, when he expounded
dogma and doctrine. Margot perceived that the Squire was composing
himself to enjoy the sermon. Cleanliness was next to godliness in his
opinion.

Hamlin began with soap and water. Members of the congregation, too racy
of the soil, stirred uneasily in their seats. Those who were fresh from
the Saturday night tub smirked complacently. From bodies, the Parson
moved easily to houses, and thence to the soil, much to the interest and
gratification of Bonsor and the Squire. Then he paused. When he spoke
again, his tone had deepened. He leaned forward, sweeping the church
with his keen glance.

“_Are your minds clean?_”

He went on temperately, delicately, but unmistakably. The children
listened to every word.

“_The Divine Spirit cannot dwell in an unclean mind._”

And then the last injunction.

“_The clean mind must be kept clean._”

The congregation filed soberly out of church. Joyce marshalled the
children. Moxon joined her. The Squire and his party lingered near the
yew tree mentioned in Doomsday Book, exchanging greetings with all and
sundry. Margot said to Moxon:

“A fine sermon, Mr. Moxon.”

He assented quietly.

“When I saw you in church, I wondered whether you belonged to us.”

“I am a Presbyterian.”

“Another Established Church. And yet, surely, you disapprove of
establishments?”

He laughed.

“Of some. Powdered lacqueys arouse my worst feelings.”

“Do they? Over-dressed maidservants have that effect on me. Shall we see
you this afternoon?”

“I think not.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

Lionel, with a Sunday luncheon slightly oppressing him, went for a long
tramp by himself, seeking the high moorland, where he hoped that an
ampler æther would clear his befogged wits. He was uncomfortably
sensible of his limitations, as thinker and speaker, when he talked with
Margot. She had characterised him as “absorbent.” He “took in” her talk,
but found it indigestible and clogging. Her experience, so variegated,
produced a kaleidoscopic effect upon his mental vision, dazzling
judgment. He was quick enough to grasp the elemental fact that she
belonged to the “loaves and fishes” school. She had fighting instincts.
She could and would fight in defence of property, and all it included.
And she would use, ruthlessly, her own weapons—the rapier of her wit,
the heavy sceptre of sovereignty.

After luncheon, while he was smoking a cigar with his father, Sir
Geoffrey had spoken a seasonable word.

“My boy,” he said, “the little lady likes you. Now—go for her! Go for
her!”

“You have had her in your eye all along, father?”

The Squire winked, laughing jovially.

“Spotted her at once. A dasher.”

“I know. But why should she dash at me?”

“Tchah! If you come to that, why did your dear mother cotton to me? B’
Jove! that bowled me over, I can tell you. She was a dasher, too. Sharp
as a needle in those ancient days.”

“Margot says she is just as sharp now.”

“Rubbish! The most guileless woman I know. You ask a direct
question—why does Margot take to you? I’ll tell you. She knows a good
thing when she sees it. I read her easily.”

“I’m hanged if I do.”

“She gave me a hint when we first met. She’s dashed at the wrong sort,
run riot a bit with a pack of half-bred hounds, clever riff-raff. Old
Challoner told me that nice boys like his son were frightened of her.
Being independent, she chose to trot out of her own class. Girls of her
quality soon trot back. I caught the little witch at the right moment.
It’s time she settled down—and she knows it. She knew, also, what I was
up to when I asked her here. She came, she saw—and you’ve conquered.
When she accepted our invitation to stay on, the matter was nearly
clinched. Now—go for her!”

Lionel sat silent.

“Dammy, boy, have you nothing to say?”

“I like her most awfully, father. I’ve never been so pally with any
girl, except Joyce.”

“Why lug in Joyce?” growled the Squire. “She’s canoodlin’ with the
Professor at this moment, I’ll be bound.”

Lionel experienced a pang. Jealousy ravaged him. The Squire went on less
testily:

“No pressure! On you, I mean. These things must come about naturally.
But—there it is.”

“I’ll think it over.”

Every word of this confidential talk stuck aggressively into a not
unretentive memory as Lionel breasted the hills above Nether-Applewhite.
And he knew that his father was right. If he “went” for Margot, he might
capture her. Very slowly that conviction came home to him. And she had
said that she loved Nether-Applewhite. A carefully directed shaft which
made a bull’s eye.

When he reached the high ground, he sat down and filled his pipe. He
began to think about Hamlin’s sermon. Was his mind clean? Judged by
ordinary standards—yes. But he was no Sir Galahad. Certain moral lapses
engrossed his attention. Margot would laugh at them and him, but they
obtruded themselves.

How was a mind kept clean?

The Parson had dealt faithfully with this. But he was addressing an
audience of farmers and villagers. Handling the same theme before a
London congregation from a West End pulpit, Hamlin might have touched
upon prosperity in its more tainting manifestations. The material side
of life, its increasing luxury, its excitements, would have been
presented inexorably. Lionel thought of Fordingbridge cleansed and
rejuvenated by poverty and hard work. Fordingbridge must have been
tempted to marry a nice little girl with a bit of money. Had he done so,
what effect would it have had upon his mind? Lionel returned to his own
moral lapses. They had come about when he happened to be on leave, with
“money to burn”—at a “loose end.” What a descriptive expression! On
duty with his regiment, working hard, temptation passed him by.

Not possessing a vivid imagination, he was unable to evoke a clear
picture of a future passed with Margot. It lacked what photographers
call “definition.” Outlines were blurred. He had, however, an uneasy
feeling that this little Queen would reign over him, and rule his life
in lines parallel with hers. The rôle of Prince Consort was not too
enviable. More, he had no love of London, no belief in himself as an
M.P. Her assurance that he could hold his own with the mandarins failed
to convince him.

By this time he was about as unhappy and perplexed as a healthy young
man can be. His desire to please and help his father, his acute sense of
what Margot’s fortune could accomplish, his growing affection for the
little lady, his belief that his mother shared the Squire’s wishes,
stood out saliently against—what? A naked fact. He didn’t love Margot.
If she consented to marry him, the marriage would be one of convenience.
It may be maintained by sentimentalists that recognition of such a fact
by an honourable man is in itself a ban. Moxon, for example, would have
deemed it so. But Moxon was not the son of an ancient house, nor part of
a system. Moxon was capable of immense sacrifice. Like Palissy, he would
have burned his bed to keep alight a furnace, if some vital discovery
depended upon a few extra sticks of firewood. He would have perished at
the stake rather than recant his convictions. And yet, with all his
cleverness and sympathy, he couldn’t understand the point of view of men
like Sir Geoffrey. To marry to save an estate, he would have condemned
as contemptible.

Lionel’s thoughts travelled downhill to Joyce, to the Vicarage garden,
where Moxon and she were sitting together. The certainty that on the
morrow he would hear of their engagement piled the last straw upon his
burden. And yet, with jealousy tearing at him, he failed to realise that
love, not friendship, gave the green monster a strangle hold.

He returned to Nether-Applewhite. Passing the Vicarage, he saw Moxon
walking up and down the lawn with the Parson. He hurried on, now doubly
assured that Joyce had “whistled.” Moxon, no doubt, was receiving the
paternal blessing. The green monster gripped her victim tighter. With a
gasp, with a quickening of every pulse, Lionel beheld the truth shining
blindly upon him. He loved her; he had always loved her, since they were
boy and girl together, and—wonder of wonders—Pelion upon Ossa—he had
never known it till too late. Fool, idiot that he had been, in love and
blinded by love, the plaything of the gods.

The animal instinct to hide turned his steps from the carriage drive,
across the park, and into a small wood about two hundred yards from the
Vicarage. He stumbled on, making for a summer-house, a tiny temple built
by Lady Alicia Pomfret. It stood by the edge of a miniature lake, upon
which water-lilies floated—gold and silver cups on round green plates.
Lionel approached the temple from behind, silently, for his feet sank
into softest moss. Suddenly he stood still, hearing a strangled sob, an
attenuated wail of sorrow. Some woman in sore trouble was weeping.
Irritated, yet loth to intrude, he swung on his heel. Who could it be?
The villagers had free access to the park on Sunday. The Squire liked to
see couples wandering, hand in hand, beneath his lordly trees. But this
wood was taboo, because wild fowl haunted the pool. A
servant-maid—little Prudence, perhaps—crying for her lover? No. The
wood was out of bounds for her.

Could it be Joyce?

And, if it were, why was she weeping?

He must satisfy himself that it was not Joyce.

Cautiously he peered round the corner of the temple, glimpsing a pretty
hat with no pretty head in it. He craned forward. Upon a stone seat,
encircling a round table, sat Joyce. Her face was bowed upon her hands,
which lay palm-down wards on the table. Her attitude—the relaxed body,
the slender, rounded shoulders, the trembling fingers, were eloquent of
overpowering distress. Lionel stood staring at her, petrified by pity
and surprise. What had happened to make a dear creature, normally so
calm, so serenely mistress of herself, this piteous spectacle?

He whispered her name.

She raised her head swiftly. Through a mist of tears she beheld the man
she loved gazing eagerly at her with the shining eyes of a lover.

For a breathless eternity of seconds the spell remained unbroken. Then
Lionel sprang at her—ardent, avid, aflame to hear from her lips the
silent message of her melting glance. He held her in his arms; he
pressed her yielding body to his; he kissed her hair, her brow, her
cheeks. She remained passive, almost swooning under this revelation of
his feelings and hers. Presently she heard his voice—broken, quavering,
almost inarticulate:

“Joyce darling, I l-love you. I w-want you more than all the world.
And—and you love me, don’t you? Say it—say it quickly, my own sweet
Joyce.”

Whirled away upon the rapid current of his emotion and her own, twin
streams racing together, she whispered the words tremblingly.

He took her head between his hands, kissing away a tear, a dew-drop upon
dark lashes.

“If you love me, Joyce, give me your lips. I want the very breath of
your spirit. I didn’t know it, dear, till to-day, but always, always my
soul has been yours.”

She hesitated. The colour stole back into her pale cheeks. She sought
his eyes, delving deep into their honest, clear depths. He met the
challenge of that searching glance, holding his head erect.

She smiled and kissed him.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Presently, holding her hand, he asked tenderly:

“Why were you crying? What has happened?”

She answered simply:

“Mr. Moxon asked me to marry him. I like him so much, Lionel. I felt so
sorry for him. Then he went away. I knew that he would come back,
because, being the man he is, so strong and clever, he couldn’t believe
what I said to him. It was my fault. My ‘no’ sounded, I dare say, weak
and unconvincing. This afternoon he asked me again. I knew that father
wanted it. I—I thought—I—I was so sure that you were utterly beyond
me, somebody else’s——”

“Heavens! You accepted him!”

“Very nearly, not quite. If I had——! It was a dreadful ordeal for both
of us. I told him that I didn’t love him. He said he would make me. He
pleaded desperately. At last I escaped. I ran here—here where we played
as children, where we have talked together so often, where I read your
letters. And then, I gave way. I cried—for you. And God had pity on me,
and sent you.”

Lionel said solemnly:

“May God deal with me, Joyce, as I deal with you.”

Soon they wandered from the rosy present into a future dark with clouds.
Lionel made sure that he could tackle the Parson. He spoke with entire
frankness of his father.

“He will be disappointed, dearest; we must face that. He may withhold
his consent, growl and bark, but he will come round.”

“And Lady Margot? She wants you, Lionel. She couldn’t hide that from
me.”

Lionel blushed.

“If she wants me, and I won’t admit it, either to myself or you, it is
because she loves excitement and change. She may _think_ she wants me.
She ought to marry a swell—a personage. I shall tell her about you
to-morrow. We are hunting together.”

“When will you tell the Squire and Lady Pomfret?”

His face grew distressed.

“Joyce, darling, I hate to ask this of you. I—I hope I’m not a coward.
But I must seize the right moment. I shall talk with dear old
Fishpingle, who knows father better than he knows himself. And because
it would be such folly not to use ordinary discretion will you, too,
keep this wonderful news from your father till I have spoken to mine?”

She remained silent, troubled as he was, trembling a little. He
continued urgently:

“For both our sakes, Joyce—please! Your father is a proud man,
quick-tempered. He couldn’t endure the thought of his daughter being
unwelcome anywhere. I should feel as he does. And he would insist upon
an immediate recognition of our engagement. There might be a scene, a
rupture between Parson and Squire. Think of that!”

“I do—I do.”

“I dare not speak to mother first, but something tells me she will help
us. She loves you. But she would think it her duty to tell father.
Indeed, he would never forgive her if she kept such a secret from him.”

“Yes, yes, but Lionel, I _must_ tell father. I hate to refuse the first
thing you have asked me, but father has been more than father to me.
Ever since mother’s death he has tried to take her place. Often I have
laughed at him, when he came fussing to my room about my wearing warmer
clothes and all that, but I loved him the more for his fidgeting. I must
tell him to-morrow morning, after Mr. Moxon has gone.”

“He may forbid you to see me.”

“You don’t know him. He is proud, yes, but he will sacrifice his pride
for me. If I ask him, he will help us. We may have to wait. Do you think
I cannot wait for—you?”

They parted, and returned to each other. The man exacted pledges from
the maid. She would remain true if the winds whistled and the tempest
roared? She swore it, as she clung to him, hearing the raging blast
already, shrinking from it, revealing herself adorably as weak only in
this: the gnawing fear that her love might bring trouble and suffering
to her lover. Gallantly, he reassured her. Let the storm, if it came,
rage itself out! They would glide afterwards into a snugger harbourage.
He turned to leave her, but looked back. Tears filled her eyes. He
kissed them away.

“I found you crying. Let me leave you smiling. Your smiles, Joyce, are
your dowry. I shall work to win those dear little smiles.”

She told him that she was happy. Did he grudge her tears of joy?

“Smile, smile! Let me kiss your dimples. Where are they—those dimples?”

They revealed themselves and vanished. He tore himself away. Looking
back again and again, he saw her erect and smiling bravely.

She smiled till he was out of sight.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Protest met him from three sets of lips, as he came back to his family.
Where had he been? Why had he skipped tea? The Squire said jovially:

“Very sound! Tea, after a Sunday luncheon, is an insult to one’s dinner.
The walk has done the boy good. Our air on the high ground is the best
in England. Look at the rascal! His eyes are sparkling. But we missed
you. Didn’t we?”

He appealed to Margot. She assented, with less sprightliness than usual,
trying to account for the light in the absentee’s eyes. Lady Pomfret
remained silent, lacking the Squire’s faith in Nether-Applewhite air.
She divined that something had happened. What? Exercise might have
quickened friendship for their visitor into love. Lionel radiated
resolution. His laugh rang out crisply. He stood facing them, with his
chin at a conqueror’s angle. He wanted to tell the truth then and there.
He told it in his own way.

“I have had a wonderful afternoon.”

Margot said quickly, with a derisive inflection:

“There are moments when Lionel cannot bear the society of women.”

Lionel retorted emphatically:

“A clean miss!”

“Who is she?” asked Margot. “Name—name?”

He met her instantly. Never had she seen him so alert, so joyous.

“Ah! Our Forest has its nymphs. They show themselves to the Faithful.
They dance with the pixies down our glades. Perhaps I met Euphrosyne.”

The Squire was delighted. He made sure that a seasonable word had fallen
upon fruitful soil. And any allusion to poets whom he had read—Milton
was one amongst few—provoked capping. He chuckled:

“Euphrosyne, b’ Jove! Heart-easing Mirth. I met the nymph,” he glanced
at Lady Pomfret, “in a London ball-room, and grabbed her.”

“And tore her gown,” added Lady Pomfret.

“She forgave me sweetly, tearing my heart in two.”

Margot beckoned to Lionel, who sat down beside her. She said mockingly:

“If your Euphrosyne wore a gown, describe it to me. Obviously Sir
Geoffrey has begun to make love to his own wife.”

“I’ve never stopped, my dear.”

Lionel knew that this was true. And the fact illumined his horizon. His
father had married for love, and remained in love. Such a true lover
would warm to all lovers. Just then he remembered Prudence and Alfred.
Unconsciously he frowned.

“Why do you frown?” asked Margot.

The Squire was bantering his wife. Under cover of that jolly voice,
Lionel said softly:

“I happened to think of two hapless lovers with a barbed wire fence
between them and marriage.”

“Really? Can’t they cut it?”

“No—it must be cut for them.”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              CHAPTER XIII


Lionel awoke gaily to the consciousness that he was in love, and
beloved, and going hunting in Arcadia. What young man could expect more
of the gods? True, Joyce remained at home. But absence, after the first
intoxicating avowal, does indeed make the heart grow fonder.
Nevertheless, he “funked” his confession to Margot. Had he been less
ingenuous and modest that “funk” might have been greater. But he
couldn’t bring himself to believe that Margot really wanted him, as he,
for example, wanted Joyce. And it must be self-evident by this time that
such non-belief was justified. Men and women have so much energy. Some
have more than others, but the underlying principle is constant. Energy
can be conserved or dissipated. Margot squandered vital force upon many
people and many things. Let the sages decide whether she had received
value or not. Assuredly she had eaten many cakes.

Alfred assisted at the drawing on of boots, polished till they shone
like glass.

Lionel said to him: “Prudence and you must mark time, Alfred.”

“Ah-h-h! That be gospel truth. And ’tis true, too, that stolen kisses be
sweet, but I fair ache for more of ’em. Mr. Fishpingle do say: ‘Enough,
’tis as good as a feast!’ but I be hungry for the feast, Master Lionel.”

“You leave it to me.”

“But can you downscramble Squire, Master Lionel?”

“‘Downscramble’ is good. Keep a stiff upper lip. She’s worth waiting for
and fighting for.”

“That she be, the dinky dear.”

“I say, Alfred, scent ought to be good to-day.”

That, also, was the Squire’s opinion, expressed thrice at breakfast.
Hounds met at twelve about six miles from Nether-Applewhite. The horses
were to be sent on, a motor would convey Margot, Sir Geoffrey and Lionel
to the meet. A second horse was generously provided, for Margot in case
the tufting were prolonged. The Squire said to her:

“I want you to see the real thing from start to finish, a wild buck
scientifically hunted and killed.”

“I don’t want it killed, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire was shocked. Such a remark from Moxon would have amused him.
He thought this lady of quality knew better.

“Hounds must have blood, or they won’t hunt. These deer wouldn’t exist
if it wasn’t for the huntin’. They do a lot of mischief, the artful
dodgers. And they lead a glorious life for many years, with a sporting
finish. For myself, I ask nothing better.”

“Have you been hunted?”

“Oh—ho! You ask my lady that? She ran me down in the open, broke me up,
b’ Jove!”

He made a hunting breakfast—fish, grilled kidneys, ham of his own
curing—solemnly commended to visitors—and a top dressing of marmalade.
“Tell me what a man eats for breakfast,” he would say, “and I’ll tell
you what he is.”

After breakfast, the Squire was busy with Bonsor in his own room. Lionel
burned to tell his tale to Fishpingle, to read his face, to set about
planning a sly campaign against the Squire. Joyce stood high in the old
fellow’s esteem. After a night’s rest and half an hour’s snug thinking
in bed, Lionel came to the conclusion that his lady-love was
irresistible. Fishpingle would share and fortify this opinion. Together
they would leap to the assault. If a true lover does not entertain such
high faith in the beloved, is he worth a pinch of salt? And when she is
his, when that tender assurance has percolated to his marrow, with what
enhanced value he regards the priceless possession. We have heard a
collector “crab” a Kang He blue-and-white bottle as he bartered with a
dealer, and, next day, rave about it when it stood in his cabinet.
Lionel had never “crabbed” Joyce, but he had described her to friends as
a “ripper,” a “real good sort,” and “bang out of the top drawer.” Now,
in a jiffey, she became Euphrosyne. He intended to ransack the poets for
satisfying epithets. With any encouragement, he might have essayed
a—sonnet. The metrical difficulties would not have daunted him.

In this exalted mood, he sped, hot-foot, to Fishpingle’s room. Finding
him alone, he held out both hands:

“Congratulate me, you dear old chap, I’ve got her.”

To his amazement Fishpingle remained luke-warm. He said almost
awkwardly:

“I wish you and her ladyship all happiness, Master Lionel.”

“Her ladyship!”

Lionel laughed as loudly and jovially as the Squire. Then he slapped
Fishpingle hard on the shoulder.

“Her ladyship be—blowed for a shining bubble! I’ve hooked and landed
Miss Joyce.”

Fishpingle beamed speechless with emotion. It was a tremendous moment, a
soul-satisfying pause as if the whole world stood still. Then he said
fervently:

“God bless you both! I have prayed for this day. Here, in this very
room, just before you came back, the Squire and I drank a toast: ‘Master
Lionel’s future wife.’”

Lionel stared at him.

“What? Father was thinking of—her?”

“No,” said Fishpingle grimly; “but I was.”

Lionel sat upon the edge of the Cromwellian table.

“Sit down, old chap. What d’ye think father will say to this?”

“Sir Geoffrey will say a great deal. I hardly dare think what he will
say.”

Lionel betrayed distress. Fishpingle’s expression brought back the
qualms which kindly sleep had banished.

“She’s so sweet,” he murmured.

Fishpingle nodded.

“She is, Master Lionel. You’ve chosen a wife, sweet as a field the Lord
has blessed. She’ll make your life and the lives of others as fragrant
as her own.”

“If you feel that, why can’t father feel the same, after—after the
first disappointment? Of course, you guessed his little plan. Everybody
did. When I passed round the field with that little plan on Saturday, I
heard snickers—and so did she.”

“That clean bowled me, Master Lionel. I saw you together. It was too
much for me. I missed an easy ball, because one eye was on you.”

“How shall we break this to father?”

“We?”

“You old humbug. I measure your power with the Squire.”

Fishpingle answered with dignity:

“I have never measured that power or abused it, such as it is. And I owe
everything, everything, to your family.”

“And what do we owe you?” Lionel spoke warmly. “You have devoted
yourself to us.”

“Most gladly.”

“And my father doesn’t quite see it. He takes what you have done for
granted—as I did. It hurts me.”

“Your father is dear to me as a brother, Master Lionel. I venture to
hope that I am more than a faithful servant to him.”

“Of course you are. Am I a coward because I ask your help?”

“I am the coward.”

“You?”

Fishpingle spread out his hands. When he spoke his voice was low and
troubled.

“I am quaking with fear.”

He held out a trembling hand. Lionel seized it and pressed it. Then he
went on, confidently:

“Joyce, the blessed honey-pot, has everything except money.”

“Which is so badly needed here.”

“I’m hanged if you’re not depressing me.”

Fishpingle made another gesture before he replied, selecting carefully
each word:

“If you ask for my help, it’s yours. But the Squire may resent
interference on the part of his butler. It might lead to a breach,
to—to my dismissal from his service. That possibility, Master Lionel,
makes a coward of me. And if such a dreadful thing happened, it would
make matters ten times as hard for you. You are dependent on him.”

“Not absolutely. I could exchange into another regiment. I——” he broke
off suddenly. “I won’t admit that father’s heart is flint. But, rain or
shine, my Joyce will stick to me, and I to her.”

“Amen, to that.”

“Now, what do you advise? When I was in debt, you said: ‘Tackle him at
once!’ What do you say now?”

Fishpingle got up, and began to pace the floor, a trick of the Squire’s
when much perturbed. Lionel appraised that perturbation too lightly. He
said gaily:

“You and I must downscramble Squire.”

Fishpingle stood still.

“And her little ladyship?”

“I deal with her to-day, out hunting. We are good friends. So far as she
is concerned, my hands are clean. She has stayed on for this hunt. She
leaves on Wednesday.”

“We must wait till then, Master Lionel.”

“Agreed! Between now and then we’ll collogue.”

A small field assembled at Bramshaw Telegraph, small but select, true
lovers of the game, such as you meet on noble Exmoor. Hounds and
hunt-servants were awaiting the Master. Presently he dashed up in a
motor car, one of the finest horsemen in the kingdom, a lover of hounds
and beloved by them. As he walked towards the pack, the veterans, the
fourth and fifth season hounds, rushed at him. He greeted them by name:
“Ravager, old boy!—Down Hemlock, down!—Sportsman, you sinner, you’re
rolin’ in fat!” Then he approached a group of men standing back from the
hounds. They touched their hats. These, for the most part, were forest
keepers acting as “harbourers.” One, riding a pony,—the head keeper of
Ashley Walk—reported three In the New Forest a “stag” means a red deer,
bigger, speedier, with more endurance than his fallow kinsmen. The
Master, who hunted his own hounds, shook his head. Margot heard him say:
“Ah, they must wait for a day or too, I’ve too many young ’uns out.”
Lionel told Margot that a red deer might make a fifteen mile point. The
Master talked with the under-keepers. One, not a servant of the Crown,
had seen very early in the morning, a herd of four bucks in Pound
Bottom, including a “great buck” (over seven years old).

“I allows he’s that buck, zir, you had that tarr’ble run wi’ las’ year,
when he fair diddled ’ee in Oakley.”

The master laughed. “We’ll diddle him to-day.”

He returned to the pack, and instructed three men to couple-up and hold
them, selecting three couple of “tufters,” hounds that will hunt a herd
of deer, throw their tongues, and if they get a buck warmed up “stick”
to him. Tufters must draw well, and be fine tryers on a cold scent.

Whilst the hounds were being coupled-up the keeper walked on to where he
had harboured the deer. The Master mounted his first horse, a sage
beast, handy in thick timber, a gentleman with manners and experience.
Then he jogged on with the tufters. The pack bayed, loath to be left
behind. The whips followed the tufters. Lionel impressed upon Margot the
necessity of trotting about quietly, and not “riding in the Master’s
pocket.” He must be left alone, so that he can hear as well as see.
Those of the field who go tufting can best help by watching the rides to
see if any deer slip across.

The Squire, on such occasions, generally joined the Master till they
reached the cover. He knew every yard of the New Forest, having hunted
in it since he was a boy of six. Before riding on, he said an emphatic
word to Margot:

“This is not Leicestershire, my dear. You stick to Lionel. He’ll pilot
you. Go slow at doubtful places. You mustn’t let that horse out in
woodlands. If you try to take your own line, you’ll be bogged to a
certainty.”

He touched his mare with the spur and joined the master.

“Sir Geoffrey looks his best outside a horse,” said Margot, “and so do
you.”

“Do you like to see hounds work?” asked Lionel.

Margot preferred a “quick thing,” a rousing gallop. Lionel hoped that
this would be forthcoming. Meanwhile, he dwelt affectionately upon the
superlative merits of certain tufters who knew their job. Really, to
enjoy hunting in the Forest, it was necessary to watch individual
hounds, whether good or bad. The duffers of the pack running a fresh
deer told the tale of a false scent as unerringly as the body of the
pack lagging behind, with heads up, mutely protesting. His enthusiasm
infected Margot as he talked on about the arts and crafts of deer. She
didn’t know that buckhounds were big foxhounds, with inherited instincts
to hunt foxes instead of deer, instincts which had to be whipped and
rated out of them.

Some of the field remained with the pack. Lionel explained this. A
“tuft” might be better fun than the hunt afterwards, and _vice versâ_.
With one horse out, unless he happened to be a clinker, it was sound
policy to keep him fresh for the hunt proper.

Meanwhile, they had reached the spot where the herd of bucks had been
harboured that morning—the “great” buck, a smaller five-year-old, and
two prickets. Lionel pointed out their slots to Margot. The Master,
leaving the green ride, waved his tufters into the woodland. Lionel
trotted on to a corner which commanded two rides.

“We may see the deer cross,” he said. “There is no prettier sight,
except when we rouse them in the open.”

A hound spoke in cover.

“That’s old Sportsman,” said the Squire, who had joined them. “I’ll nip
on to the next ride.”

The rest of the field hung about with Lionel. The horses, very fresh,
and full of corn, fidgeted and pulled at their bits.

“There they go.”

The herd crossed the ride some fifty yards away, Music arose behind
them.

“Now comes the real job,” said Lionel to Margot. “That big buck must be
separated from the herd, and driven, if possible, into the open. Then he
will gallop away fast and far, making his point. Meanwhile, he’ll try
every dodge known to his tribe.”

An excellent and typical tuft followed. The “great” buck, an old deer
with finely palmated horns, left the others, but refused to break cover.
He prodded up an outlying deer and lay down in its couch, he took to a
“gutter” and travelled down it, he found some does and ran with them for
a few minutes. Margot saw “the real right thing” and was properly
impressed.

A whistle came from the whip on ahead.

“He’s away,” said Lionel, galloping on.

They reached the edge of the cover just in time to see the buck trotting
over the Salisbury Road, heading for the finest galloping ground in the
Forest. The tufters followed.

“Hold hard, old boys!” roared the whip.

The Master, very hot and red in the face, emerged from the woodlands. He
collected his tufters and jogged back with them to the pack, about half
a mile distant. The Squire joined Lionel.

“We lay the pack on here,” he said to Margot. “We shall have a gallop,
and I shan’t see the end of it unless I nick in somewhere. You stick to
Lionel like wax. If he doesn’t ride at the top of the hunt, I’ll disown
him.”

Lionel dismounted and loosened his horse’s girths. Margot nibbled at a
sandwich, as she waited for her second horse and the pack. Soon the
Master appeared with hounds trotting at his heels. The buck had a start
of about fifteen minutes.

“He’ll need it,” predicted Lionel, as he tossed the little lady on to
her fresh mount. “The going is good at first, but if we get to Hasleys’
look out for ruts. Sit well back and go at ’em slow and at right angles.
If your gee pecks he may save himself.”

“Sounds thrilling!”

“A gallop over heather is thrilling. And you’ll be with hounds as long
as we’re in the open. I’ve seen thrusters from your country go very
pawky over our moors. But your horse can be trusted.”

“I trust him and you.”

Instantly his thoughts flew to Joyce, who was not a horsewoman. She
could not share this tremendous pleasure with him. Nevertheless, his
soul sang within him, as he vowed not to be too selfish about sport.
Riding home, after this jolly day, he would square things with Margot.

The Master waved his hand. Hounds swung upon the line of the deer.

“Give ’em time, gentlemen!”

With a crash of music they were racing away. A good holding scent in
purple heather! The big dog-hounds settled down to their work in rare
style.

Lionel thrust his feet home into the stirrups, with a last injunction to
Margot:

“Keep a fair twenty-five yards behind me. We’re in for a fast thing.”

Men threw away their cigars; women tossed their sandwiches into the
heather. The Master tooted his horn.

“Forrard! Forrard!”

The Squire, and others of the heavy brigade, fetched a compass, hoping
to save distance and horses. Lionel rode a little to the left of hounds.

Leaving Island Thorns on his left and Pitt’s woods on his right, the
buck headed straight for Letchmore Stream. Here hounds threw up. The
Master cast them a quarter of a mile down water, hitting the line again
at the spot where the buck took to dry land.

“Look how the leading hounds drive,” said Lionel to Margot. “He’s not
far ahead. He tarried as long as possible.”

The pace was now terrific. An August sun blazed down. The pace was
hotter than the sun.

“If this lasts,” thought Lionel, “he’ll beat us.”

They sped past Hasleys’ over holes and ruts. To the right of Margot one
young fellow took an appalling toss, hurled from the saddle like a stone
from a catapult, as his horse rolled end over end. He jumped up,
shouting cheerily: “I’m all right. Go on!” Another thruster, a stranger,
was bogged near Broomy Water. Lionel steered a little to the left, which
brought him to the ford. Here the Master had expected the buck to soil.
But the leading hounds flung themselves across the stream, picked up the
line without a check and raced into Broomy.

“Ware rabbit-holes!” yelled Lionel, looking over his shoulder.

Margot’s horse jumped half a dozen cleverly.

“Forrard! Forrard!”

Out of Broomy on to the heather again, through Milkham, where the buck
had passed a half-dried-up stream, and into Roe. Here the quarry soiled.
On and on to Buckherd Bottom. Coming through this, Lionel caught a
glimpse of ten bucks cantering away across the open, but too far off to
determine whether the hunter deer was amongst them or not. The Master
divined, happily, that he wasn’t. He picked up his hounds, jogged on
steadily, hounds casting themselves well in front of him, and before he
had gone three hundred yards, four or five couple began throwing their
tongues.

“They’ve hit the line again,” said Margot.

“Have they?” wondered Lionel, watching the Master. “Some of the old ’uns
don’t think so.”

Margot heard the Master talking confidentially to Ravager:

“That won’t do, old boy, will it?” He roared out to his Whip: “Stop
’em!” So well-broken were the hounds that as soon as the Whip called
“Hold hard!” they streamed back to the Master, looking rather ashamed of
themselves. He rated them kindly: “Silly beggars! Think you can catch a
fresh deer, do you? Let’s see what you can do with a half-cooked ’un.”

“Have we lost him?” Margot asked Lionel.

“We shall hit him off all right.”

The Master held hounds on till they spoke to the true line a hundred
yards beyond the false.

“They’re away,” said Lionel. “Look at the three- and four-season hounds
racing to the front. Oh, you beauties!”

The Master touched his horn—one melodious note.

“Forrard!”

But the buck was too spent to go very far. He soiled again in Handy
Cross Pond. Just beyond the Ringwood Road a forest-keeper was seen
carrying his gun.

“Don’t shoot the deer!”

“Ah-h-h! I seed ’un—a gert buck with his jaw out, an’ not gone six
minutes, seemin’ly. Turnin’ left-handed, zur, to Ridley. There’s a herd
o’ bucks afore ’un, too.”

“Forrard on!”

Ravager and Whistler, who had been leading, now gave pride of place to
Welladay and Armlet. Old hounds know full well when their quarry is
sinking. The gallant buck turned again, right-handed, and swung between
Picket Post and Burley upon an open plain where hounds got a view of
him. They coursed him, running mute, for nearly a mile, and at last
rolled him over in the open. A ten-mile point from where the pack was
laid on and eleven from the couch where he was roused. Time—one hour
and forty minutes!

“A clinker,” said Lionel to Margot.

After the last rites had been swiftly performed, the Master took Lionel
aside.

“Who is the little lady? She went like a bird.”

When he heard her name he laughed and winked knowingly. Evidently the
Squire had been talking indiscreetly. The Master chuckled and winked
again as he said:

“This deer’s head, set up by Rowland Ward, would make a corkin’ wedding
present—what?”

Hounds went back to kennels.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The Squire had jogged home by himself. His horse was out of condition,
and, probably, he wished to give Lionel a chance. Marriages may or may
not be made in heaven, but many are comfortably arranged in the
hunting-field, and most of these, we fancy, bud and blossom when a man
and a maid ride home together after a good run.

Long before Lionel began his tale, Margot’s intuition warned her that
the expected would not come to pass. His too cheery manner, revealing
rather than concealing nervousness, betrayed him. She remembered the
round of golf, and her premonition that Joyce would win the greater
game.

Joyce was Euphrosyne.

It is difficult to analyse her feelings at this moment, because she
failed to analyse them herself. Nor was this a first experience. She had
seen men she liked, men whom she had deliberately considered as possible
Prince Consorts, men who had pursued her, grow cold in the chase and
drop out. And always she had accepted this philosophically, with a
disdainful shrug of the shoulders. Unlike most women, she could shift
her point of view with disconcerting swiftness and adroitness.
Disconcerting to herself and to others! Boredom inevitably followed
fresh excitements. Lionel’s word “mirage” had kept her awake on the
night after the cricket match. Was life, for her, a succession of
mirages? Would the charm of Pomfret Court fade and vanish if she married
Lionel?

She had not answered such questions. Perhaps the kindly sprites whom
old-fashioned folk still speak of as “guardian angels” were soaping the
ways by which Lionel’s tale might slide into her mind. Nevertheless it
would be fatuous to deny that her pride escaped humiliation, although
pride saved an unhappy situation for Lionel.

He began hesitatingly:

“You and I are good pals, Margot.”

At this opening doubt vanished. Instantly, with a ripple of laughter,
she said quickly:

“You have something to tell me.”

“Yes.”

“A secret to share with a pal.”

“How amazingly quick you are!”

“I can guess your secret, my dear young friend.”

He flushed at a faintly derisive inflection. She continued in the same
tone:

“The nice little girls whom I had picked out for your inspection and
selection may be left in peace, so far as you are concerned.”

“How did you guess?”

“You have a delightfully ingenuous face, Lionel. It is at once an asset
and a liability. Let me do some more guessing. Put me right, if I am
wrong. Poor Mr. Moxon might be a happy man to-day if you had stayed in
India. Well, my dear,” her tone became maternal, “you have chosen a
pretty, good, amiable girl, but can I—can I congratulate you with all
my heart?”

The adjectives rankled, but he remained silent. Margot was reflecting
that revenge, so dear to slighted women, was a weapon that would be
wielded quite adequately by Sir Geoffrey Pomfret. She continued sweetly:

“I want to congratulate you, but I see so plainly all the obstacles. You
rode straight to-day. I am wondering how you will negotiate the fences
between your father and his parson’s daughter.”

“They look big enough to me, I can assure you.”

The paramount desire to please herself by pleasing others rose strong
within her. Why be “cattish” with a jolly boy? Let him think of her for
ever and ever as a pal. All trace of claws vanished as she said softly:

“If I can help you I will.”

He responded affectionately:

“You are a good sort. Help me? Of course you can. I—I think mother will
side with me.”

Almost she betrayed herself. The words flew to her lips, “Lady Pomfret
didn’t side with me.” Fortunately they remained unspoken. She said
instead:

“Probably. Joyce Hamlin is dear to her. Frankly, I feel most sorry for
your mother. What a poignant position! If she sides with you she
declares war against her husband, who boasts that he is still her
lover.”

Lionel grew more and more depressed. His next remark had humour in it,
not intended by him.

“You aren’t helping me much, Margot.”

She saw the humour and laughed.

“Cheer up! You are an only child. Your father loves you. In the end he
will climb down, but the fences are there, and you are still on the
wrong side of them.”

“I dare say you would dash at ’em.”

“I am I. I’ve ridden for a fall before now, and had it. You are you. A
fall over these particular fences might be disastrous. Go canny! Creep!
Crane! That is my advice.”

“I feel that way myself, although I hate creeping and craning. Did
father say anything to you about Johnnie Fordingbridge?”

“You mean the man who tootled the tandem horn?”

“Yes. He married his agent’s daughter. He was going fast to the bowwows
before I went to India. I never saw such a change in a fellow—never.”

“Sir Geoffrey did say something. What was it? Oh, yes. He pointed him
out as a man who had paid a preposterous price for twins.”

“I wonder what father would be willing to pay for another son?”

“Or a grandson,” murmured Margot.

She was very nice and sympathetic after this, the more so, perhaps, as
unconsciously he made plain his position—that of dependence on his
father. Margot smiled when he prattled of living on his pay in another
regiment. And yet the boy’s unworldliness, his faith in true love and
hard work (which he knew so little about), caught oddly in her heart.
She knew that she had been right in one thing, her “flair” had not
failed her—he sat upright in his saddle, a gallant gentleman, a credit
to his Order.

We must admit that she dealt kindly with him under considerable
provocation to be unkind. Sensible of this, he showed his gratitude,
almost too effusively. But he had wit enough not to praise his ladylove.
The adjectives still rankled—pretty—good—amiable.

They rode into the stable-yard.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              CHAPTER XIV


“Creep—crane—go canny!”

This policy was not to Lionel’s taste. Hamlin, too would abhor it, wax
sour under it, suppress pride and wrath till they might break bonds and
run amok. Under the suspense of waiting, Euphrosyne would languish.

But what else could be done?

The Fates, not Lionel, answered the insistent question.

Upon the Tuesday afternoon the Squire went a-fishing by himself, too
perturbed of mind to seek any companion save that of his own thoughts.
One thing—quite enough—he knew. The boy had not “gone for” Margot.
None the less, they remained on easy, intimate terms with each other.
But at dinner, after the hunt, Margot had spoken of leaving on the
following Wednesday. The Squire was a stickler for keeping social
engagements; such engagements were made, of course, by a young lady of
quality many weeks ahead. Had he received from Lionel, over their wine,
some intimation that all was well, he would have been quite satisfied.
But why did the boy hold his tongue? What ailed him? Lady Pomfret was
solemnly interrogated. Let her hazard some reasonable conjecture! She
presented one, tentatively, placidly, and exasperatingly. The young
people might wish to remain simply and enduringly—_friends_. The Squire
was much ruffled, purged his mind drastically, dropped an oath, and
apologised. He kept on repeating himself: “She wants him, I tell you.
She was ripe for the pluckin’ a week ago. That my son should be a
laggard——!” His wife consoled him with the assurance that no man could
read a maid’s heart. “I read yours,” he affirmed. She smiled at him. He
kissed her and went his way.

Lionel caught Joyce alone for a few blessed minutes. She had told the
Parson.

“What did he say, my angel?”

“He was wonderful,” she sighed. “I was right to tell him.”

“Of course you were,” he exclaimed fervently. “Will it hurt you to tell
me exactly what he said about—about me—and father?”

“He anticipates grave trouble. I’ll tell you every word, when——”

“When?”

“When the trouble is over. He would rather not see you yet. His position
is——”

“Humiliating! When I look at you——!”

“I don’t look my best this morning, a bedraggled thing!”

To this he replied vehemently:

“Joyce, my blessed girl, nothing can cheapen you or your father. Not
prejudice, nor discourtesy—if it should come to that—nor injustice. I
have told Margot. She was very sympathetic. Of course, she always
regarded me as a friend. She will help, if she can. Her advice—and,
mind you, she’s a dasher—is: _Creep—crane—go canny!_ Father’s absurd
position can’t be carried by storm. I shall undermine the fortress. That
will take time.”

“Yes; but I warn you father won’t wait too long.”

“I count on Fishpingle. If you could have seen his dear old face when I
told him! We shall collogue, I promise you.”

He returned home, champing the curb which circumstances imposed.

After tea, when the Squire betook himself to the river, Margot sat, as
usual, upon the lawn, with Lady Pomfret. Lionel slipped away to
Fishpingle’s room. “Colloguing,” in his present feverish condition,
soothed him. To Fishpingle he could exhibit flowers of speech, nose-gays
of pretty sentiment. And he could talk emphatically of the future, the
simple life full of costless pleasures, dignified by steady work, by the
determination to solve Moxon’s problem, to make Pomfret land pay.
Fishpingle nodded approvingly, making happy suggestions, collaborating
whole-heartedly.

In this agreeable fashion an hour or more may have passed away. Suddenly
they heard the Squire’s voice in the courtyard, loud and clear. He was
rating the egregious Bonsor.

“I tell you, man, this is your damned carelessness. Unless I give my
personal attention to every detail, things go to blazes. I am surrounded
by a pack of fools.”

Bonsor’s voice mumbled a reply. Fishpingle said quietly:

“The Squire has not caught any fish.”

Sir Geoffrey stumped in, fuming and fussing. Fishpingle rose to relieve
him of rod, creel, and landing-net. Lionel said pleasantly:

“Anything wrong, father?”

“Everything,” snapped the angry man. “Tuesday is my unlucky day. I
believe I was born on a Tuesday.”

Fishpingle politely corrected him.

“No, Sir Geoffrey. You were born on a Wednesday, at 1.45 a. m.”

The Squire turned to Lionel.

“I lost two beauties, and broke the tip of my rod.”

Fishpingle assured him that the tip could be mended in ten minutes. The
Squire fumed on:

“Four thoroughbred pigs out of the new litter are dead. Mother overlaid
’em. There are moments when I wish my mother had overlaid me. Bonsor
tells me we are nearly out of coal, Ben.”

“I warned you, Sir Geoffrey, that we were running short a fortnight
ago.”

“You didn’t. If you had, I should have ordered a fresh supply by return
of post. Bonsor says that no coal has been ordered, which proves
conclusively that you did not tell me.”

Lionel interrupted.

“But he did, father. Fishpingle told you in my presence, just after
luncheon, as you and I were going to look at the horse I rode
yesterday.”

Sir Geoffrey glared at both butler and son.

“Just like him,” he snorted. “Ben knows perfectly well that a new horse,
if he’s a decently bred ’un, drives everything else out of my head.
Order the coal, Ben. Wire for a truck.”

“Very good, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire crossed to the hearth and sat down in Fishpingle’s big chair.
He frowned portentously, muttering:

“I am most confoundedly upset.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Tchah! I’m not speaking of the coal, nor the pigs. This is Tuesday.
Does Alfred go out on Tuesday?”

“I let him go this afternoon, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Did you know that Tuesday was Prudence Rockley’s afternoon off?”

“No, Sir Geoffrey. Mrs. Randall lets Prudence go out, if there’s no
pressing work.”

The Squire stamped his foot.

“Pressin’ work. Ha—ha! Hit the right word, for once. Very pressin’
work, b’ Jove! In defiance of my orders, I caught Alfred and Prudence
kissin’ each other—under my very nose. Pressin’ work, indeed. They
skedaddled. Hunted cover. Spoiled my sport, I tell you. I couldn’t get
out a clean line. Are they in now?”

“I think so, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Send for ’em—at once. Bring ’em here. Don’t stare at me, boy! I’m not
suffering from suppressed gout, as you think. I’ll stop these
gallivantings.”

“You have often said that you liked our men and maids to have a whiff of
fresh air between tea and dinner.”

Fishpingle had left the room. The Squire stamped again.

“I did. And this is what comes of thinking for others.”

“Father——?”

“What is it?”

“Go easy with them! They love each other dearly.”

“Good God! They’re first-cousins, boy. Not a word! Stay here! You shall
see me deal with ’em.”

“But——”

“Not a word,” roared the Squire.

Lionel lit a cigarette, frowning, conscious that he was being treated as
a child, resenting it, anxious to plead for the lovers, anticipating
“ructions,” and condemned to be present, a silenced witness. Fishpingle
came back, followed by Prudence and Alfred, looking very sheepish and
red. Alfred was in livery. Prudence had not changed a very dainty little
frock.

“Stand there!” commanded the autocrat.

The blushing pair stood still in front of the table, facing the Squire,
who sat erect in his chair, assuming a judicial impassivity, as became a
Justice of the Peace and a Chairman of the Board of Guardians. He
addressed Fishpingle, coldly:

“Now, Ben, did I, or did I not, give you a message some two months ago
to be delivered by you to Prudence?”

“You did, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Kindly repeat it.”

“You instructed me to tell Prudence to find another young man.”

Lionel tried to restrain himself, and failed lamentably.

“Oh, I say!”

The Squire preserved his magisterial tone and deportment.

“You say nothing, Lionel. This is my affair. Now, Ben, I’ll lay ten to
three you never delivered my message.”

“That he did,” whimpered Prudence. “In this very room, too.”

“Um! I beg your pardon, Ben. Don’t sniff, Prudence! And answer my
questions truthfully. If that message was delivered, how dare you kiss
Alfred in my shrubberies?”

Prudence pulled herself together, meeting the Squire’s inflamed glance.

“Me and Alfred’ll be man an’ wife, come Michaelmas.”

“In—deed? Cut and dried, is it?”

He apostrophised Alfred, who may have misinterpreted a derisive but calm
inflection. Alfred brightened, his voice was eager and propitiating.

“If so be, Sir Geoffrey, as you meant what you wrote in the newspapers.
Give me mort o’ comfort. ’Twas in the _Times_. Mr. Fishpingle’ll have
it. He keeps everything you write, he do.”

The Squire stared at his footman. Lionel said quietly:

“What did Sir Geoffrey write, Alfred?”

Alfred assumed a pose acquired in the National schools, head erect,
hands at side, feet close together.

“Sir Geoffrey said that the sooner a man o’ twenty-five and a fine young
maid of eighteen set about providin’ legitimate an’ lawful subjects for
the king, the better. An’ more than that. I got the piece by heart, I
did. He said that in Nether-Applewhite he paid a premium for such there
matches—a lil’ cottage, look, and a lil’ garden, and a fi’-pun’ note,
so be as God A’mighty sent twins.”

Prudence blushingly rebuked him.

“_Alferd!_”

“His brave words, Prue, not mine.”

Sir Geoffrey coughed. That a servant of his should memorise his prose
might be deemed flattering and eminently proper. He said graciously:

“I meant ’em. There is a cottage for you——”

“May the Lard bless ’ee, Sir Geoffrey!”

Sir Geoffrey raised a minatory finger.

“Provided, mark you, that each marries—somebody else.”

This was too much for the feelings of an inflamed maid. Prudence
confronted the autocrat with heaving bosom and sparkling eyes.

“If so be, as I can’t have Alfred, I’ll die a sour old maid, I will.”

Her outburst provoked the Squire to unmagisterial wrath. He raised his
voice and a dominating hand.

“Hold your tongue! We have had quite enough of this. I can’t prevent
Alfred marrying you, you little baggage, but if he does he must find
another place, and a cottage in a parish which doesn’t belong to me.”

Prudence’s courage and defiance oozed from her. With a wailing cry, she
flung herself into Fishpingle’s arms.

“Uncle Ben——!”

Fishpingle comforted her.

“There, there, my maid! You obey me. I tell you to go to your room and
have a nice comfortable cry. Off with you!”

The Squire added a word:

“And keep out of my shrubberies, confound you!”

Prudence left Fishpingle’s arms, and turned to the Squire, with tears
rolling down her cheeks. She said defiantly:

“I know where I be going—quick!”

She bolted, slamming the door.

“The minx! Where is she going?”

Fishpingle couldn’t inform him. Possibly to her mother, who was head
laundry-maid. The Squire addressed Alfred.

“You can go, Alfred, but I warn you not to follow that pert, ungrateful
girl. And—in case you should be tempted to disobey me, bring me at once
a large whisky and soda.”

“Bring two, Alfred,” added Lionel.

Alfred obeyed, crestfallen and sullen. As soon as he left the room,
Lionel began to protest:

“Look here, father, this is too hot, I——”

The Squire smiled blandly.

“Tch! Tch! All this has been intensely disagreeable to me boy, But,
dammy! I must practise what I preach. Sound eugenics. No in-and-in
breeding. Ben here agrees with me, don’t you, old friend?”

“No, Sir Geoffrey.”

The astonished Squire gripped hard the arms of his chair.

“Wha-a-at?” he roared.

Fishpingle replied deliberately:

“I do not agree with you, Sir Geoffrey. I repeat what I said before. The
strain in this case is clean and strong on both sides. In my judgment
Alfred and Prudence are specially designed by Providence to practise
what you preach, and to provide His Majesty in due time with legitimate
and lawful subjects.”

Sir Geoffrey rose majestically. He approached his butler. He surveyed
him from head to heel. Upon his red face amazement wrestled with
incredulity. With an immense effort, he controlled himself, saying
calmly:

“You mean, Ben, that you—_you_ oppose my wishes?”

“In this instance, yes.”

Alfred entered with the cooling drinks. Sir Geoffrey gasped out:

“I have never been so—so——”

“Thirsty, Sir Geoffrey?” suggested Fishpingle, as Alfred presented the
salver.

The Squire seized a glass with a trembling hand, completed the sentence,
“in all my life.”

“Nor I,” said Lionel, taking the other glass.

Alfred withdrew. Sir Geoffrey tossed off his drink, nearly choking. As
he slammed the empty glass upon the table, he exploded.

“You—traitor!”

Lionel slammed down his empty glass.

“_Traitors_, father; I’m with Fishpingle, if an honest opinion is called
treachery.”

“Good God! My own son against me.” But, quickly, he moderated his tone,
saying testily: “There, there! ‘Traitor’ was too strong an expression. I
withdraw it. But I stand firm on the other matter. I repeat: Prudence
and Alfred are too near of kin.”

Lionel answered respectfully:

“You, sir, have proved Fishpingle’s case up to the hilt.”

“Eh? What d’ye mean, boy?”

“Fishpingle will read you an extract from an article written by you on
this subject, won’t you, old chap?”

“With pleasure, Master Lionel.”

He crossed to his bookcase, opened a drawer below it, turned over some
papers, and fished out a scrap-book.

“Something I wrote. All right! I stand by my own words—always have
done. No chopping and changing for me!”

Fishpingle found the page and the clipping. He put on his spectacles.

“Hurry up,” enjoined the Squire. “What an old dodderer!”

Fishpingle began:

“Under date April the first——”

“Is this a stupid joke, Ben?”

“That happens to be the date, Sir Geoffrey. The article was written by
you some fifteen years ago.”

“Um! Ancient history. I refuse to accept unqualified responsibility for
what I wrote fifteen years ago.”

Lionel laughed. He felt that the tension was relieved.

“I say—play cricket, father!”

“Cricket? How the doose, boy, can you remember what I wrote when you
were a lad of ten?”

“Simply because Fishpingle read that clipping to me about a week ago.”

The Squire growled.

“This looks like a damned conspiracy.”

At this moment Lady Pomfret sailed into the room, followed by Margot.
Prudence had fled, weeping to her kind mistress. Regardless of a
visitor, the maid had told her piteous tale, entreating help, first aid
which couldn’t wait. Lady Pomfret had hesitated, knowing her man. Then
Margot had interposed. “L’union fait la force.” Let them seek the
autocrat together. Let women’s wit and tact prevail! She ached for the
encounter. Together they would triumph gloriously. Lady Pomfret yielded
reluctantly to importunity. Prudence raced back to Alfred.

Lady Pomfret smiled at her lord.

“Dear Geoffrey, we have just seen poor little Prudence Rockley.”

Margot, in her sprightliest tone, added incisively:

“Yes; and we’ve nipped in to fight under Cupid’s banner.” She advanced
to the charge gaily. “Now, you must listen to—me.”

But Sir Geoffrey was proof against alluring wiles.

“Must I?” he said stiffly.

“Why, of course, you must. Dear Lady Pomfret was dragged here by me.
Frown at me, not at her. I plead for youth and beauty.”

Just then, Youth and Beauty peered in through the open window. It was
daring, audacious, a violation of inviolate tradition. But what will
you? The hapless pair were beside themselves with misery and despair.
Each gripped the other’s hand.

Sir Geoffrey was hard put to it. Courtesy to a guest strained him to
breaking-point. He bowed silently. Margot continued:

“You are a true lover, Sir Geoffrey. You must know that love is free.”

The Squire shied at the adjective. And this interruption had befogged
him.

“Free love,” he repeated. “God bless my soul! What next?”

Lady Pomfret explained, deprecatingly.

“Margot means, Geoffrey, that love is free to choose, to select——”

Margot continued with animation:

“Jill has the right to pick her Jack. If Jack is willing”—she paused
and looked at Fishpingle—“and I understand that he is—”

Alas! Poor Alfred! The question undid him. Had he remained silent,
Margot might have triumphed. The Squire was melting beneath her fiery
glances. He wanted to please her. He loved to confer a favour royally.
But a voice from outside froze the very cockles of his heart.

“Aye. That I be, my lady.”

Such an interruption, at such a time, from such a source, filled the
Squire with fury. He roared out:

“Ben.”

“Sir Geoffrey?”

“Discharge that impertinent rascal at once.”

Lady Pomfret spoke and looked her dismay.

“Oh, Geoffrey! Who will wait at dinner? Poor Charles is so inefficient.”

Sir Geoffrey lowered his voice.

“Discharge him after dinner. Pay him his wages, and send him packing.”

Another voice floated in through the window.

“I go with Alfie, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire, fulminating, strode to the window, Youth and Beauty had
vanished. He came back, as Lady Pomfret observed disconsolately:

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! We shall soon be left without servants.”

Everybody was upset. For once Margot forgot her tact. She said with
acerbity:

“But really this is—feudal. It reeks of the Middle Ages.” Then,
regaining her sprightliness, she smiled: “Sir Geoffrey, do come back to
the twentieth century.”

Lady Pomfret smiled faintly.

“Please do, dear Geoffrey.”

“Never! What unspeakable insolence!”

“Poor things!” sighed Lady Pomfret. “They forgot us because we had
driven them to think only of themselves.”

Her charming voice, her kind, pleading eyes, her gracious gestures, were
not wasted upon the Squire. Lionel, in a cheerful tone, said to the
company generally:

“Fishpingle was about to read us something of father’s, something
eugenic and relevant.”

Sir Geoffrey protested:

“Um! Ha! In the presence of ladies——” He cleared his throat.

Margot said happily:

“I shall listen with pleasure to anything Sir Geoffrey has written.”

Lionel turned to Fishpingle, who held the clipping in his hand.

“Go ahead, Fishpingle! Please remember, Margot, that my father is
astride his favourite hunter. Now for it!”

Fishpingle, thus adjured, and after a glance at Sir Geoffrey, began to
read aloud: “The question of in-and-in breeding——”

“Gracious!” ejaculated Lady Pomfret.

“I beg your ladyship’s pardon.”

“How well you read!” said Margot. “Pray go on, you delightful person!”

Fishpingle went on: “The question of in-and-in breeding, where the
parent stock on both sides is vigorous and healthy, can only be answered
by experiment. As a successful breeder of cattle, horses, and hounds, I
am strongly in favour of it. If History is to be believed, the Pharaohs
of the earlier dynasties, all of them pre-eminent for strength of mind
and body, married their own sisters.”

Lady Pomfret interrupted quietly:

“I think that will do, Ben.”

“Very good, my lady.”

Lionel, watching his sire’s expression, confident that the clouds were
rolling away, said, with a laugh:

“Father, you’re down and out.”

“I never wrote it,” said the Squire, emphatically.

“Then who did? You signed it.”

“Ben wrote it,” declared the Squire.

“Ben?” echoed Lady Pomfret. “Did you write it, Ben?”

Fishpingle replied modestly:

“The sentence about the Pharaohs is mine, my lady. I happened to be
reading about them at the time. And when I typed Sir Geoffrey’s
manuscript——”

Margot murmured:

“What a paragon! A butler who does typewriting.”

Sir Geoffrey said hastily:

“It amuses Fishpingle. He’s what we call in the Forest a ‘caslety man.’
Yes, yes, I remember. He slipped in that paragraph about the Pharaohs.”

“It hammered your point well home,” said Lionel.

“It did,” said Margot. “Now, Sir Geoffrey, haul down your flag! Make
this nice young couple happy, to please me.”

“And me, Geoffrey.”

The Squire, at bay, pressed too hard, and seeing, possibly, derisive
gleams in more than one pair of eyes, said curtly:

“I propose to be master in my own house.”

Margot compressed her lips. She admitted candidly that any woman may be
snubbed once. It is her own fault if she courts a second rebuff. She
laughed acidulously, said very chillingly, “Oh, certainly,” and left the
room. Lady Pomfret approached her husband, and laid her hand upon his
sleeve.

“Prudence is Ben’s kinswoman, very dear to him. If Ben approves this
match, what business is it of ours?”

Sir Geoffrey answered obstinately:

“They were born and bred in my parish, this impudent couple. They can do
what they like—out of it.”

Lady Pomfret kept her temper admirably. If she travelled along lines of
least resistance, she reached her goal eventually. She turned to
Fishpingle with a little rippling laugh:

“Ah, well, I leave the Squire with you, Ben. We know—don’t we?—how
kind he can be.”

She went out. Lionel opened the door for his mother, closed it behind
her, and came back. Obviously, he was losing control of his temper. His
fingers were clenched; an angry light sparkled in his eyes; he carried a
high head. Sir Geoffrey saw none of this. He was glaring at Fishpingle.
The autocrat addressed his butler:

“I am furious with you, sir. Thanks to you and your precious kinswoman I
have been forced, sorely against the grain, to refuse a guest a favour,
and, worse, to rebuke my dear wife.”

Lionel cast discretion to the void. The Pomfret temper might be deemed
an heirloom. It slumbered in Lionel. Now—it woke.

“This is damnable.”

The Squire could hardly believe his ears. When he turned upon his son,
his eyes, also, seemed hardly to be trusted. Lionel was positively
glaring at him. Rank mutiny! Riot!

“How dare you take this tone, boy?”

Lionel attempted no apology.

“I would remind you, sir, that I am a man, and not only your son, but
your heir. If I survive you, which at one time didn’t seem likely, this
property and its responsibilities must come to me. I have a
right—indeed, sir, it is my duty—to protest against an act of
injustice and cruelty.”

“Leave the room, sir. This is intolerable.”

Lionel boiled over. Behold the creeper at awkward fences! Behold the
craner! Fishpingle, standing behind the Squire, hoisted warning signals.
In vain. A hot-headed youth was riding hard for a fall. He met his
father’s eyes defiantly.

“I am not blind, sir, to your plans for my future. You intended me, your
own son, to be a pawn in your hands.”

Fishpingle groaned.

“Master Lionel——!”

“Fishpingle, I have been a coward. I asked for your help. I wanted you
to plead my cause, to use your influence——”

The Squire started.

“Influence? You asked another man to influence—me. Are you stark mad?
And what cause, pray, is he to plead? Answer me.”

Fishpingle stretched out his hands.

“Master Lionel——”

“Hold your damned tongue, Ben!”

“Please,” said Lionel.

Fishpingle crossed slowly to the window, and looked out over the park.
Two men whom he had loved and served were standing upon the edge of an
abyss and he was powerless to avert disaster. His spirit travailed
within him, bringing forth nothing. He heard Sir Geoffrey say, in a
frozen voice:

“I am waiting, Lionel, for an explanation, and an apology.”

The son answered in the same hard, cold tone:

“I am too proud, father, to explain a fact, which needs no explanation
and no apology. Last Sunday afternoon I asked Joyce Hamlin to become my
wife, and she did me the honour of accepting me.”

Without pausing to watch the effect of this stunning blow, he turned and
left the room. Fishpingle remained at the window.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                               CHAPTER XV


Sir Geoffrey stood still for a moment after his son had left the room.
Then he sat down in the big armchair, staring vacantly at the hearth.
His premonition had come true—the boy had stuck a knife into him.
Almost in a whisper he murmured hoarsely, “Lionel!”

Fishpingle turned. “Shall I call Master Lionel back?”

“No,” said the Squire.

He spoke drearily. The bloom of his fine maturity seemed to fade. He
looked pale and haggard. Fishpingle had a disconcerting glimpse of old
age, of old age in its most sorrowful and touching manifestation,
solitary, disconsolate, apathetic. The Squire leaned his head upon his
hand, as if the weight of thoughts were insupportable.

Outside a bird twittered monotonously—some house sparrow bent upon
disturbing the peace of the swallows, migrants whom he regarded as
trespassers.

“Damn that sparrow!” exclaimed Sir Geoffrey.

He sat upright; the sanguine colour flowed back into his clean-shaven
cheeks. Perhaps the consoling reflection stole into his mind that
matters might be worse: the boy might have married the Parson’s daughter
secretly. He said testily to Fishpingle:

“Don’t gape at me like that! Keep your pity for those who may need it.”

Fishpingle obeyed. His face slowly hardened into the impassive mask of
the well-trained servant. The Squire continued less testily but with
reproachful mockery:

“So you, you, the man I have trusted for fifty years, were chosen by my
son to plead a cause which he hadn’t the pluck to plead for himself.”

“Nothing was settled about that, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Tchah! He went to you, not to his mother—I lay my life on it—nor to
me. Why? Because, obviously, you were on his side, siding, b’ Jove!
against—me.”

“I side with Master Lionel, Sir Geoffrey.”

“That’s honest, at any rate. We know where we are. Now, Ben, you shall
plead his case in his absence. I will listen as patiently as may be.
Begin!” Fishpingle opened his lips and closed them. “Ha! You are silent
because there is nothing to say.”

“No. Because there is so much—all, all that I have learnt during those
fifty years, all that I hold most dear, most sacred——”

His voice died away. The Squire was not unmoved. He cleared his throat
vigorously and said kindly:

“Take your time. This shall be threshed out fairly between us. Sit down!
Keep your hands quiet, Ben. When you fidget, it distracts me.”

“I would rather stand, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Do as you please.” With indulgent irony he added, “The counsel for the
defence addresses the Court standing.”

Fishpingle moved a little nearer. He spoke very slowly, as a man speaks
who has some long-considered message to deliver.

“Master Lionel, before he went to India, did not expect to survive you.”

The Squire moved uneasily. Fishpingle had recalled cruel anxieties never
quite forgotten, what may be termed the unpaid bills of life
pigeon-holed, put aside for Fate and Fortune to settle. He replied,
however, with decision:

“He has grown into a strong man.”

“Has he? Are you quite sure of that? I would give my life to be sure. He
may live long if he marries the right woman. Is Lady Margot the right
woman, Sir Geoffrey?”

“Yes.”

“I wish with all my heart I could think so.”

“How can you know all that such a marriage would mean to me, and this
big property, and him?”

“I have thought of all that, Sir Geoffrey. Indeed, indeed, I have
thought of little else since her ladyship first came here. She is a lady
of quality——”

“Every inch of her.”

“And very clever. She would push the fortunes of her husband. There is a
barony in abeyance which could be terminated in favour of her son, if
she had a son. Her money would lift the mortgage which cripples the
estate. Her money would build new cottages, fertilise our thin soil, put
farming upon a higher plane, transform Nether-Applewhite into what has
been the dream of your life—and mine—a model village.”

The Squire stared at him. Fishpingle’s powers of speech had affected him
before, but never so convincingly. He said curtly:

“You have the gift of the gab, Ben. God knows where you get it from.
More, you have the knack of reading my mind, of echoing my thoughts,
using the very phrases that are mine.”

“Everything I have said is so obvious.”

“Obvious? Um! Is that another stab in the back? Well, I am obvious. I
despise twisting and wriggling. You have left out the most obvious
thing. And I dislike mentioning it. Her little ladyship cottoned to the
boy. She wants him, or she did want him, b’ Jove! And now, this girl,
this Radical parson’s daughter without a bob, without any breeding, not
much better than any blooming, red-cheeked milk-maid, has undone all my
work. What cursed spell has she cast?”

“Nature cast the spell, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire began to fume again, frowning and pulling at his ample chin.

“Nature——! Aided and abetted by you. Rank sentimentalist you are, and
always were. I have the obvious” (the word had rankled) “common sense to
scrap sentiment. Do you remember those cows, that half-bred herd I
inherited with other disabilities? My lady wanted me to keep them.”

“Bless her!”

“And you sided with her.”

“Did I?”

“Of course you did.”

Fishpingle smiled faintly. He crossed to one of the tallboys standing in
an alcove and pulled open a drawer. The Squire growled.

“What are you up to now?”

“I want to look at an old diary.”

He pulled out half a dozen thin books, selected one, and turned over the
pages. The Squire watched him with exasperation.

“What dawdling ways!”

“Here we are, Sir Geoffrey. Five and twenty years ago, when Master
Lionel was short-coated.”

“Get forrard, you skirter!”

Fishpingle put on his spectacles, and read aloud: “‘Heated argument with
the Squire. He and my lady insisted upon keeping our dairy cows. I
floored him with the milk returns——’”

“Floored me?”

Fishpingle continued placidly:

“‘—and enjoyed a small triumph. The cows are to be fattened for the
butcher, and the dairy will show a profit instead of a loss.’”

He replaced the diary and removed his spectacles. The Squire muttered
protest:

“As usual, Ben, you wander from the point, you shifty old fox. Why jaw
about cows? Now—what have you against Lady Margot?”

“Will she be happy here in this quiet back-water?”

“Tchah! My son’s wife—when I’m gone—will live where it’s her duty to
live—amongst her husband’s people.”

“Perhaps. Master Lionel takes after my lady. He’s incapable of
unkindness or selfishness.”

“Thank you, Ben. I’m allowing you great latitude. Go on! Take advantage
of it!”

“If Master Lionel married Lady Margot, he would try to make her happy.
He would live most of the year in London. He would share her life, and
that life is one of constant excitement and change. She has been happy
here for three weeks, because this is a change. Would she ever take my
lady’s place? Never!”

He spoke with fire. The Squire lay back in his chair, gently twiddling
his thumbs. In his opinion no woman could take his wife’s place, but
what of that? None the less, mention of Lady Pomfret smoothed out some
wrinkles. He smiled beatifically, lifted above himself.

“Who could? My lady is unique. Why make these foolish comparisons? As
for London——Well, well, I should like to see the boy in Parliament.
Let him march with these cursed democratic times, and strike a shrewd
blow for his order, a blow for the next generation.”

Fishpingle played his trump card.

“The next generation? Lady Margot has no love of children.”

“What d’ye mean? How dare you say that? How on earth do you know?”

“We have talked together.”

“About her children——!” He held up his hands.

“What are we coming to? I ask Heaven the question.”

“I can answer it, Sir Geoffrey. I know my place, and her ladyship knows
hers—none better. I did take the liberty of trying to interest her in
Nether-Applewhite children. And then she told me quite frankly that
children bored her. I remember her words—yes. ‘I can endure a clean
child for ten minutes. Babies in the mass make me think kindly of
Herod.’”

“Her ladyship, Ben, likes a joke with an edge to it. You wait till she
has babies of her own.”

“One might have to wait long for that. Lady Margot’s family is almost
extinct. A great-uncle died in a private asylum.”

“I see you’ve been nosin’ about. Just like you. All old families have
their skeletons.”

Fishpingle, carried out of himself for a moment, like the hapless
Alfred, forgot his place, as he muttered:

“Yes, yes, her ladyship is very thin.”

The Squire jumped up.

“Damn you, Ben, that is the last straw. I have sat here listening to
your mumbling with a patience and good temper wasted upon a very
thankless fellow. You know best what you owe me and mine.”

He paused. Fishpingle bowed superbly.

“I do, Sir Geoffrey.”

“You are never so irritating as when you force me to say things
intensely disagreeable. I hate to rub it in, but I am Squire of
Nether-Applewhite and you are my butler. As my butler I expect you to
consider my wishes, and to carry them out to the best of your ability.”

“I have tried to do so, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Up to a point—up to a point. I admit it. Let us have the facts, say I!
And then deliver judgment on them. You have aided and abetted two
servants in this establishment who are flagrantly disobeying me. And you
have aided and abetted Master Lionel, with the knowledge and therefore
with the deliberate intention of upsetting other plans which I had
confided to you. If I am wrong, pray correct me.”

Thus the magistrate, using the words and gestures of authority. As he
spoke a quaint benevolent despotism illuminated his sturdy face. How
kind he could be to his dependents when they kow-towed to his rule both
wife and butler knew. And the memory of countless petty sacrifices which
had truly endeared him to “his people” moved Fishpingle profoundly. But
his own intimate knowledge of those people, a knowledge so seldom
gleaned by the Overlord, the vivid, intimate experience of fifty years,
had taught him inexorably that such powers as the Squire and his like
exercised were a wastage of vital force, misdirected energy which, in
the fullness of time, must defeat its own purposes. And this, he had
slowly come to realise, was the underlying tragedy of the countryside.
With this realisation marched its corollary. The authority of the
squire, vested by immemorial custom in him, was, in turn, passed on by
him to the farmers who used it or abused it according to their lights.
And the farmers, with rarest exceptions, united energies to maintain
ever-weakening positions against those beneath them. If prosperity
followed a generous use of such power, the result, even then, was
disastrous to the labourer and his family. He lost initiative,
foresight, any desire to rise and better his humble condition. When he
rebelled, when he decided to tear himself loose from emasculating
influences, what could he do? Emigrate. And England loses a Man.

Fishpingle had studied carefully the books and pamphlets lent to Lionel.
As he admitted, they were one-sided, a compilation of hideous
grievances, valuable as such, almost valueless from the point of view of
reconstruction. The “three acres and a cow” school filled this wise old
man with derisive contempt. To divide great estates into small holdings
of individual ownership might seem a sound solution to economists who
wrote incisive articles in rooms littered with works of reference. The
man on the spot was not so optimistic. He had seen the experiment tried
with allotments. The labourer lacked knowledge; he muddled about with
soils, just as his wife muddled about in the kitchen, spoiling good
food. No reform, so Fishpingle believed, could come from below. Light
must shine from above.

If the Squire could be led to see clearly the issues he had raised.

If Authority, in fine, could impose its own limitations?

Was it possible to answer the stem indictment brought against himself,
as steward and butler? Obviously, the Squire considerd his own position
to be impregnable. And yet, alas! it was built upon foundations now
crumbling away. If such foundations could not be replaced with sound
masonry, the great fabric reared upon them would fall in irretrievable
ruins, serving, like the feudal castles, as a landmark of the past.

He said with dignity:

“You are not wrong in that, Sir Geoffrey. I don’t deny these charges.”

“Good! You are an honest man, Ben. Acknowledge frankly that your
sentiment, your affection for these young people—I include Master
Lionel—have warped your judgment and seduced you from your duty and
loyalty to me, and, dammy! I’ll wipe out the offence. Come, come!”

His tone was genial and persuasive, so kindly that Fishpingle wrestled
with the temptation to “creep” and “crane.” Perhaps the thought of
Lionel’s “lead” over a stone wall fortified him. He drew back from the
proffered right hand of a fellowship he prized inordinately.

“What? You refuse?”

“You called me honest, Sir Geoffrey. I hope humbly that I am so. I am
your butler, but my conscience is my own. I hold firmly to the
conviction that you have no right, granting that you possess the power,
to interfere with these young lives. I say less than I feel out of the
respect and affection I bear you.”

The Squire swore to himself. If Fishpingle had beheld him, not as the
friend of many years, not even as the kindly master, but as an
abstraction, a sort of composite photograph of all overlords, so Sir
Geoffrey beheld Fishpingle as the composite servant, the subordinate,
the underling. To be quite candid, he regarded the Parson, _his_ parson,
in much the same light. There had been moments, few and far between,
when the Squire had taken himself censoriously to task. As a rule, such
disagreeable self-analysis forced itself upon him when he was dealing
with matters outside his particular jurisdiction, county matters rather
than parochial. He had marked the effect of power exercised
misapprehendingly, with insufficient technical knowledge behind it. And
if he happened to be a party to any such blundering, he felt very sore.
Let it be remembered, also, that his father died when he was a boy. He
had come into his kingdom upon his twenty-first birthday. Comparing him
with neighbouring magnates, he shone conspicuous as a man who did his
duty, and was comfortably warmed by the fire of self-righteousness. As a
soldier, let it be added, he would have obeyed any order from his
commanding officer. On Authority’s shoulders be the blame, if such order
were contrary to the King’s Regulations. In this case he assumed full
responsibility before God and man. From the pinnacle upon which, so he
devoutly believed, God and man had placed him, he beheld Fishpingle as a
faithful servant, a rank mutineer.

He said freezingly:

“Very well, sir. I shall deal with my son myself. I shall tell him
to-night that under no circumstances will I consent to his marriage with
an obscure girl whose father doesn’t even bear arms. Ha! I asked him,
when he came here, what his coat was, and he replied, laughing in my
face, ‘My coat, Sir Geoffrey, is _sable_, with collar and cuffs
_argent_.’ Master Lionel can marry without my consent. Thanks to your
encouragement he is quite likely to do so. He must come here after my
death, but not before, sir, not before.”

Fishpingle said entreatingly:

“Sleep over it, Sir Geoffrey, I beg you. Miss Joyce is like my dear
lady.”

“She isn’t.”

“As you said just now, nobody could be quite like her ladyship. But Miss
Joyce has her lamp.”

The Squire tartly requested him to explain. Fishpingle allowed his
glance to stray to the photographs upon the mantelshelf. As he spoke he
saw his mistress as she had revealed herself to him during nearly thirty
years. Her light streamed over the past.

“My lady’s lamp, Sir Geoffrey, has burned so steadily. I have never seen
it flame or flicker. It throws its beams on others, never on herself.
But one knows that she is there, behind her lamp, always the same sweet
gracious lady, serene in all weathers; above us, shining down on us, and
yet of us.”

Sir Geoffrey turned abruptly and went to the window. Fishpingle
perceived that he was agitated, touched. He blew his nose with quite
unnecessary violence. Then he turned.

“You have described my lady better—I admit it—than I could describe
her myself. But Miss Joyce has not her lamp.” His voice hardened. “Now,
Ben, mark me well. I propose to put down this mutiny with a firm hand.”
He held it up. “These rioting servants must be brought to heel. You will
discharge Alfred after dinner and pay him a month’s wages in lieu of
notice. You will send Prudence back to her mother to-night. Alfred can
leave to-morrow morning. You hear me?”

While he spoke, with increasing emphasis, he marked a subtle but
unmistakable change in Fishpingle. The man revealed himself divested of
a butler’s smug trappings. Any air of subserviency vanished. A stranger,
seeing the two men together, facing each other, at issue with each
other, would have marked a resemblance, the stronger because it was of
the spirit, not the flesh. In height and build they were much alike, but
Fishpingle’s head was incomparably the finer.

“I hear you. A hard, cruel man has spoken, not my old master and
friend.”

“Silence, sir!”

“I thought, I believed, that I knew you. And I did know you once. But
you have changed—changed. You are no longer my master. I am no longer
your man. Discharge your own servants, Sir Geoffrey Pomfret!”

With shining eyes and features quivering with agitation, he ended upon a
clarion note of defiance and wrath. Sir Geoffrey was infinitely the
calmer.

“I take you at your word,” he said. “I discharge—_you_. For her
ladyship’s sake, not mine, I ask you to wait upon us at dinner for the
last time. To-morrow morning, at ten-thirty, you can bring your books
and accounts to my room.”

Fishpingle bowed.

Sir Geoffrey waited one moment. Perhaps, at the last, he looked for an
apology. None came. Fishpingle stood erect, but less rigid. His
indignation passed swiftly. His glance lost its fire; his eyes, still
smouldering, assumed a sorrowful expression.

Sir Geoffrey went out. The clock in the stable-yard chimed and then
tolled the hour—seven. Upon the previous Saturday it had rung out with
the same solemn note a delightful day.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              CHAPTER XVI


Lionel was clever enough to realise that he had behaved like a fool
within five minutes of leaving Fishpingle’s room. He hastened to his
mother, and, by the luck of things, found her alone. He could see that
she was infinitely distressed already, inasmuch as a visitor had been
treated with discourtesy. She dwelt on this, not without humour, till
Lionel stopped her. His abrupt manner, so unlike him, alarmed her
instantly. She put out her hand, as if to ward off the coming blow. He
seized it and kissed it. Then she guessed.

But she remained silent, while he told his tale, haltingly, but not
inartistically, for climax came at the end. She murmured softly:

“My dear son——!”

He knelt down and laid his throbbing head on her lap. She stroked his
hair. He looked up at her.

“Mother, I love her.”

She smiled at him.

“So do I. Can you doubt that?”

“No, no. But father——! I have burnt all my boats just when I most
needed them. I meant to go slow, to break my news considerately. I have
behaved like a madman, irritated and offended him past forgiveness.”

He may have hoped that she would deny this. No comforting word dropped
from her lips. Never had he seen her face so troubled.

“Have you nothing to say?” he burst out.

She answered gently: “You mustn’t hurry me, Lionel. I stand between my
husband and my son. I have a duty to each. I tell you this—in small
things I can and do influence your father. Dear old Ben can say as much.
In Matters which touch deeply his pride, his ambition, his inherited
instincts and sensibilities, my influence is—negligible. All my life I
have known this; all my life I have prayed that no issue might arise
between us which would provoke me to—to fight against those instincts,
so strong in him, so ineradicable.”

“And I have raised that issue.”

It was a bitter moment for the young man. Glancing keenly at his mother,
he perceived her delicacy, her physical frailty. From her he had
inherited a like weakness, which a healthy, sane life had almost
eliminated. But he remembered long weary days and sleepless nights when
he had suffered grievously from actual incapacity to do things done by
strong young men. At Eton he had not been allowed to play football.
Later, a long day’s hunting tired him terribly. The work at Sandhurst,
digging trenches, making bridges, route marches, caused him distress.
Perhaps these physical lesions had strengthened his spirit and aroused
his sympathy. Any loss implies some gain. And if the present moment was
bitter, knowing, as he did, that he was inflicting cruel anxiety upon a
mother ill able to bear it, such bitterness may be well deemed trivial
compared to that immeasurable and inexpiable remorse which tears the
hearts of strong men, when they realise that the sympathy and tenderness
long overdue to some beloved creature has been aroused too late, when
the kind familiar tones are hushed for ever.

Lady Pomfret assented.

“I shall have to fight for you, Lionel.”

“Darling mother, can’t you keep out of it?”

“Quite impossible.”

Lionel got up and paced the room, a small room adjoining Lady Pomfret’s
bedroom, much used by her, full of objects which vividly recalled to
Lionel his childhood and youth. A tiny chair in which he had sat
learning to “read without tears” stood in its old place. In one of the
dwarf book-cases were a row of children’s books. Photographs of himself
at all ages met his eye.

Presently he burst out, as she sat thinking before him:

“Father simply can’t resist you.”

“Ah! But this isn’t altogether that. He will have to fight not so much
against you and me, but against himself. Really we are asking him to
change his character, his point of view. It is certain that he will
definitely refuse to sanction this engagement. And you are dependent on
him. Unless I am utterly mistaken he will bring pressure to bear. Mr.
Hamlin will put the same pressure upon Joyce. This is going to be harder
upon her, poor dear, than you, because it will be made plain that
marriage with you may be so disastrous to you from every material side.”

Lionel groaned. Lady Pomfret poured a little balm into his wounds.

“But I will say this. I rejoice, with all my heart, that it is Joyce,
not Margot, whom you love. I feared that you might be tempted to take
the easy way. You might have been allured by her wit and charm. I am
confident that her money did not weigh with you.”

“Thank you, mother.”

“For the rest, we must be patient with your dear father. You tell me
that Margot knows, that she was nice to you. Perhaps, for a few hours,
you had better leave your father to me. You ought to see Joyce at once.”

“Yes, yes.”

“And tell her father frankly the exact position. He will have to fight
_his_ pride.”

They talked on till the stable-clock struck seven. A minute later the
Squire’s heavy step was heard in the corridor. He entered the room.
Probably he expected to find mother and son together. And it says much
for his courtesy and breeding that at such a moment he remembered what
was due to his wife. He said heavily:

“Well, Mary, I suppose that Lionel has told you his story?”

“Yes.”

“He gave me no time to answer him. But I have answered the man whom he
asked to act as go-between. Ben pleaded his case, pleaded it better than
Lionel could have done. Ben will deliver my answer before he goes.”

Lady Pomfret gasped.

“Geoffrey! Is Ben going?”

“Yes.”

“After fifty years——!”

“We reached the breaking-point.”

He ignored his son entirely. Lionel had wit enough to remain silent.
Indeed, the last blow had stunned him, as it had stunned Lady Pomfret.
The Squire continued in the same heavy voice:

“Our guest leaves to-morrow. I take it that we can play our parts at
dinner as usual. When Margot has gone, this matter can be taken up
again.”

Lady Pomfret inclined her head. The Squire left the room.

“See Ben at once,” said Lady Pomfret. Her voice trembled; her eyes were
wet, as she added hastily, “Tell the dear fellow that I am grieved
beyond expression, that I—I count upon his patience and forbearance.”

“All that and more, mother. My God! that my happiness should be bought
at such a cruel price.”

Lady Pomfret answered firmly:

“I should reckon no price too great for that, but your happiness is not
bought—yet. Leave me alone, my dearest, for a few minutes.”

He kissed her tenderly and went.

Dinner was a lamentable affair, although an outsider might have found
food for comedy. Alfred, for example, failed to follow the lead of
Fishpingle, who conducted himself as usual. Charles, the second footman,
looked like a mute at a funeral. Margot, however, shone brilliantly,
lightly bridging chasms of silence. Lionel was not present. Just before
dinner, Lady Pomfret went to Margot’s room, and put before her the
facts. Margot shrugged her shoulders:

“But, really, as I said in Fishpingle’s room, this is feudal.”

“So it is.”

“Sir Geoffrey will have to surrender an untenable position.”

“I am not sanguine.”

That was all, and quite enough, too, as Margot reflected to herself.
Whereupon she purged her mind of any desire that Lionel should suffer at
his father’s hands. Her philosophy, her hatred of what was disagreeable,
her temperamental inability to feel very deeply, hastened to her rescue.
From some high coigne of vantage, she surveyed herself and could smile
at her own discomfiture. If she could calm this tempest in a teapot, if
she, unaided, could persuade her host that his position was untenable,
with what trailing clouds of glory would she speed from Pomfret Court!
Twice, between soup and savoury, she made the autocrat laugh. Lady
Pomfret divined her kind intentions, and smiled derisively.

The almost interminable dinner ended.

Coffee was served in the Long Saloon. The Squire had just finished his
chasse of old brandy, when Fishpingle came in.

“Mr. Hamlin, Sir Geoffrey, wishes to see you. I have shown him into the
library.”

“Um! I will join Mr. Hamlin at once.”

As the door closed behind Fishpingle, the Squire said testily:

“Just like the man. Well, I expected him. And the sooner it’s over the
better.”

He stumped out. Margot, for an instant, wished that she were a
housemaid, with no scruples about eavesdropping. Greek was about to meet
Greek, and a memorable encounter must take place. Lady Pomfret sat,
shading her eyes with her hand, reflecting that men were nearly all
alike. How often she had said to her husband, when he was straining at
the leash to meet and “down” some obstreperous tenant, “Dear Geoffrey,
sleep over it.” And as invariably he had replied, “My dear Mary, I can’t
sleep over this. I shall lie awake all night. I must settle this
pestilent fellow.” In some such a spirit the Parson had come to Pomfret
Court. When had he hesitated to speak his mind? Right was right, so he
maintained, and must prevail. But often, too often, right did not
prevail. A good cause is like a good horse. It must be ridden with
judgment.

“Will there be ructions?” asked Margot, sympathetically.

“I fear so, my dear. How helpless women are at such times!”

“Yes; we co-operate with the forces of gravity, men don’t.”

Meanwhile the Squire was entering his own room. The Parson greeted him
austerely, refusing a cup of coffee and a cigar. He accepted a chair.
The Squire sat down at his big desk.

“Lionel dined with us,” said the Parson. “Your message was duly
delivered to him by Fishpingle.”

“Then we both know where we are,” said the Squire briskly.

“Do we, Sir Geoffrey?”

A suppressed irony, not lost upon the Squire, informed the question. The
Parson had long held the opinion—shared, as we know, by Lady
Margot—that the lay rector of his parish wandered in the Middle Ages.
Sir Geoffrey believed that his vicar kept company with rogues and
vagabonds, whom he described genetically as demagogues.

“I know where I am,” amended the Squire. “I have often said that I
inherited this property with certain disabilities. Amongst them, I take
it, _you_ would reckon a keen sense of trusteeship, a sense of
tradition, a conviction that I must follow where my predecessors have
trod before me.”

Hamlin smiled grimly.

“You are right. I reckon that sense a disability. But I respect any
man’s honest convictions. I will be equally frank with you. Had it
rested with me, I should have chosen for my daughter a husband who was
entirely free from those same crippling disabilities. I should not have
chosen your son.”

“Then I repeat—we know where we are.”

“Not yet. Where _we_ are seems to me of little consequence. I am
concerned with others, the position of my daughter and your son. They
love each other.”

“Can they marry on that alone?”

“Certainly not. I am a proud man, Sir Geoffrey, and I will not inflict
pain upon you and mortification upon myself by asking the obvious
question: What have you got against my child? I can answer that question
myself. I know where she and I stand in your eyes. I remember your
expression when I told you that I didn’t bear arms. I saw that a stupid
jest on my part irritated you. We Hamlins are yeomen. My forefathers
wore leather jerkins when yours rode in mail-armour. You prize your
descent from them; I prize mine. Let that pass. You are you; I am I.
Probably, we shall carry our traditions and predilections to the grave
with us. It comes to this. If I put it bluntly, as a yeoman, forgive me.
Your parson’s daughter is not good enough to marry your son.”

The Squire winced a little, reflecting that a yeoman had indeed spoken
bluntly. He was tempted to state his own case, but wisely refrained. The
Parson—confound him!—chose to put the thing in a nutshell. Let it
remain there. Nevertheless, he said courteously:

“I have a genuine affection and respect for Joyce; but, as you say, I do
prize my descent. And I wish to see it continued unblemished.”

“Then why did you ask my daughter to your house? Why, feeling as you do,
did you expose her to the dangerous possibility of what has actually
taken place? Why didn’t you, a descendant of knights, protect an
innocent, artless girl against the attractiveness and intelligence of
you own son?”

The Squire had not expected this. He frowned, pulling at his chin, a
trick that indicated perplexity. And a better swordsman might have been
sore put to it to parry successfully such a thrust.

The Parson pursued his advantage:

“I hope that I have presented this particular case from a new point of
view. And I am aware that your sense of what is due to me as well as to
yourself may prevent your answering me. You thought, probably, that your
only son shared your sense of what is due to your family. Obviously, he
didn’t. He is friendly with every pretty girl on your estate. You
trusted him, in short.”

The Squire nodded. He was not ungrateful at being spared a reply. Hamlin
continued in a deeper tone:

“You are your boy’s father. I, unhappily, have been constrained to act
as father and mother to my girl. She loves Lionel with all her heart and
mind. I think that I know something of Lionel. Whatever we may do, Sir
Geoffrey, this pair will remain faithful to each other. We meet to-night
upon this common ground: we are two profoundly disappointed men. You
made your plans for your boy’s marriage; I made plans for my girl. Our
hopes are ropes of sand. I urge you solemnly to sanction this marriage,
not, I beg you to believe, because of the worldly advantage to Joyce,
but because Lionel and she, out of all the world, have chosen each
other.”

“No,” said the Squire.

He rapped out the negative, leaning back in his chair. Much of the
starch was out of him; native obstinacy remained. To his credit, let it
be recorded that he was not unmoved by Hamlin’s simple, sincere
statement. He could appreciate—none better—the Parson’s transparent
honesty. And Hamlin’s thrust had almost reached a vital spot. The “no,”
in fine, would have been taken by a keener psychologist and one less
personally interested than Hamlin as a sign of weakness, not strength.
It meant really that the Squire was not prepared to argue his case upon
ground chosen by Hamlin. Joyce had been made welcome in his house; more,
she had worked faithfully and well in his parish; had he foreseen the
possibility of an entanglement, he might have kept her at a distance.
Such thoughts filtered through his mind. Back of them remained the
conviction that he had the _right_ to interfere in such matters, that he
was exercising—reluctantly, if you will—a cherished privilege.
Royalties were constrained by law to marry members of their own caste.
The same law, unwritten, obtained in his order. You broke that law at
your peril. Till now the Pomfrets had held it inviolate.

The judicious will agree that the Parson should have “dug himself in”
after taking by surprise the first trench. Another man would have done
so. Unfortunately, Hamlin’s moral courage was habitually exercised at
the expense of his judgment. The curt “no” provoked him terribly. It
stood for what he despised and condemned in the Squire and others of his
class. It meant the scrapping of argument and reason, the abuse of
Authority. But he was fully prepared for it. His manner changed
instantly. He, too, assumed authority, vested in him by the touch of
Apostolic Hands, an authority he held to be indisputable and omnipotent.

“You say ‘no,’ Sir Geoffrey. Then you force me to speak not as man to
man, but as your vicar who would consider himself recreant to his vows
if he held his peace at such a moment.”

The Squire was “touched,” as fencers put it. What did the fellow mean?
What the devil was he up to now? Hamlin continued austerely:

“You are a member of my congregation, and as such neither greater nor
less than any other in this parish. I tell you plainly that you are in
danger of mortal sin, for such unwarrantable interference with the
welfare of others, an interference which in the case of Alfred and
Prudence Rockley may lead to actual sin, is a crime against God and man.
I charge you to pause before you exercise powers vested in you, as you
admit, and for which you will be held ultimately to strict account.”

The Squire rose.

“I accept that responsibility, Mr. Hamlin. Good night.”

The Parson rose with him. He bowed with grim dignity. The Squire rang
the bell and opened the library door. As Hamlin passed through, he said
quietly:

“Lionel is passing the night at the Vicarage.”

To this the Squire made no reply.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The Parson returned to the Vicarage, where Lionel and Joyce awaited him.
One glance at his grim face sufficed. A strong man had been hit hard in
a weak place. Possibly, he accepted punishment penitentially. But it was
not his way to admit that to others. Joyce flew at him, kissing him
tenderly, holding his hands. Lionel felt more in love than ever as he
watched a pretty display of sympathy and pity. With much feeling he said
regretfully:

“It has been beastly for you, sir.”

The Parson was in no mood to tell a tale even if it reflected credit on
himself. He set forth the fact that mattered:

“Sir Geoffrey refuses his sanction. I say this for him. He accepts full
responsibility. His position is archaic, impregnable on that account to
the assault of reason.”

Lionel flushed, but he replied eagerly:

“My mother will fight for us. I have her word. I wish she could keep out
of it.”

“Lady Pomfret will meet what I have met—ah obstinate faith, a
conscience clearly sincere though perverted. This unconscious abuse of
Authority is basic, racial. It is sapping its own foundations
everywhere, but how can your father be made to see that?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Nor I,” murmured Joyce.

“I suppose,” said Lionel, after a pause, “that you, sir, will refuse
your sanction?”

“Apart from sentimental considerations, I ask you, Lionel, as I should
ask any other man, how do you propose to support a wife if your father
cuts off your allowance?”

This talk took place in Hamlin’s study, lined with books cheaply bound
and constantly read, so different in every aspect from the Squire’s
library. The Parson had sat down at his desk. Joyce sat near him. Lionel
remained standing.

“I am not afraid of poverty,” the young man declared stoutly.

“Nor I,” murmured Joyce.

“But I am,” said the Parson, trenchantly. “It’s a bed of nettles.”

Lionel spent some time and eloquence in describing what “other fellows”
had done in India. With a little “pull” one could get excellent billets,
managerships of tea and rubber plantations, married men preferred. The
Parson raised a cynical pair of eyebrows.

“Have you any qualifications, special knowledge of tea or rubber?”

“He could learn,” pleaded Joyce.

“At another man’s expense?”

Lionel winced and said no more. The possibilities of advancement in his
profession had been already dismissed as negligible. The Parson spoke
less austerely:

“Forgive me, my boy, for putting these questions. I don’t doubt either
your courage or goodwill. Joyce is worth fighting for. Now, let us
suppose that your father surrenders, what then?”

His keen eyes flashed an unmistakable challenge. Lionel answered
eagerly:

“I want to live here, as my father’s agent. I have everything to learn
about the land, but I mean to learn—I can learn. This big property must
be made to pay. Hard work, but it’s work I shall love.”

To the Parson’s amazement, he went on to speak of grievances to be
redressed, of schemes for the bettering of rural conditions, of a more
scientific method of farming. This, as we know, was undiluted Moxon.
When interrogated, Lionel frankly admitted as much. Joyce, echoing
Moxon, had fired him. As he warmed to his theme, he noticed that the
Parson’s thoughts seemed to wander. Had he followed those thoughts he,
too, might have been amazed. For Hamlin, smarting beneath a sharp
disappointment, had wondered why such a man as Moxon had come into
Joyce’s life merely to drift out of it. Now that question was answered.
When Lionel finished, he said simply:

“Good. If you realise the work to be done all is well. But some of you
country gentlemen, with no training other than that of the Public
Schools and Services, seem to think that you can manage big estates
efficiently without training; and you arrogate to yourselves powers
almost of life and death over your people. That is a monstrous vanity.
This blind belief in yourselves will undo you. Why should your so-called
rights be used to inflict wrongs upon others? However, light seems to
have come to you. Follow it! I’ll ask one more question. The application
of scientific methods to such farming as is done here means a large
outlay. Have you thought of that?”

“Yes,” said Lionel, eagerly. “With my consent, father and I could sell
some heirlooms.”

The Parsons eyes and voice softened.

“What? You, a Pomfret, would make that great sacrifice?”

“Gladly.”

“Then I sanction your engagement to Joyce. You will have to win your
wife with hard work of mind and body. Personally, I believe you can do.”

He grasped Lionel’s hand with so convincing a grip that the young man
winced. Then he went to bed, leaving Joyce and Lionel together.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              CHAPTER XVII


Next day, after the shock of battle, Sir Geoffrey felt uncommonly sore
and tired. Never had he made so wretched a breakfast! His wife, screened
by a large silver urn, poured out his tea in placid silence. This
silence was not the least of many flea-bites. After his interview with
the Parson, she had asked no questions. The Squire was unable to
determine whether this could be deemed sympathy or strategy. For his
part, he had said nothing, being well aware that the Parson, in a sense,
had carried off the honours of the encounter. This disagreeable
impression—for it was no more—might be to his credit, but it in no way
bridged the gulf between the two men. Rather the contrary. Nevertheless
to repeat to Lady Pomfret the Parson’s arguments might provoke
discussion of them. Accordingly, when the ladies retired to bed, the
Squire went to his room, where he smoked at least three cigars before
turning in. Margot discreetly did not appear at breakfast. The Squire
marked ravages upon Lady Pomfret’s face, as he choked down his food. She
looked pale; the lines about her mouth and eyes seemed to have deepened;
her hands, as they poised themselves above cream-jug and sugar-basin,
fluttered a little. He tried to read her mind and failed. But he never
doubted her for an instant. She would stand shoulder to shoulder with
him till the end.

Presently she left the room. The Squire got up and examined her plate
and cup. She had eaten nothing, and drunk half a cup of tea! The Squire
swore to himself.

He went to the library and sat down at his desk, littered with papers
and accounts taken from Fishpingle’s room by the ex-butler and placed by
him on the desk. The neat files, row upon row, seemed to stand at
attention like soldiers on parade awaiting the word of command. The
Squire gazed at them frowning helplessly. Presently Fishpingle would
present himself and his books. What happened when a butler left a big
establishment? There ought to be inspections of silver and wine, and the
Lord knows what beside. All that, however, could be taken as done. He
picked up a file of accounts. Under a rubber band was a neat slip of
paper serving as an index of contents. Fishpingle must have sat up half
the night getting these neat files into order.

“Damn!” exclaimed the Squire.

Charles, the second footman, now in supreme command, entered, but
remained grinning sheepishly at the door.

“Come in, you fool,” said his master testily. “Good Lord; haven’t you
been taught how to enter a room properly?”

“Yas, Sir Gaffrey.” He added deprecatingly: “I know that I be raw, Sir
Gaffrey.”

This mild answer had its effect.

“True—true. We’re at sixes and sevens, Charles.”

Much encouraged Charles grinned again.

“Ah-h-h! Flambergasted we all be this marnin.”

“Well, what is it?”

“Mr. Bonsor, Sir Gaffrey.”

“Tell him to wait. I can’t see him yet.”

“Yas, Sir Gaffrey.”

Charles withdrew, still grinning. The Squire muttered to himself: “Yas,
Sir Gaffrey! What an oaf!”

Already he felt uncomfortably warm, so he got up and opened a window,
staring out of it across the park. When he came back to his desk, he
noticed a big ledger upon a chair. He took it up, dipped into it,
frowned, and dropped it with a bang upon the carpet. This enormous tome
was Fishpingle’s petty-cash book. The Squire seized a quill and a sheet
of paper. The quill scratched and spattered ink. Sir Geoffrey hurled it
over his shoulder and selected another. He began a list, headed:
“Secretary—butler—first footman—stillroom maid——”

He laid down his quill, beginning to mutter again, inarticulate
growlings. Whose business was it to attend to these domestic duties? He
must find that out at once. He rang the bell. After an exasperating
delay Charles appeared.

“Why the devil don’t you come when I ring, sir?”

“I be single-handed, Sir Gaffery.”

“Yes, yes, I had forgotten. My compliments to her ladyship and I wish to
see her for a minute.”

“Yas, Sir Gaffrey. Be you wanting her old ladyship or her young
ladyship?”

“My wife you idiot!” roared the Squire.

“Yas, sir Gaffrey.”

The Squire paced up and down the room till Lady Pomfret came in. Beads
of perspiration stood upon his massive forehead. He wiped them away with
an immense bandana. But he smiled pleasantly at his wife as her kind
tones fell like dew upon his heated tissues of mind and body.

“You want me, Geoffrey?”

He met her in the middle of the room, took her hand, and kissed it.

“Mary, my dear, I want you desperately. The whole house is upside down
b’ Jove! And, by the way, that fellow Charles is a disgrace to our
establishment, a clown, an idiot.”

“He is your godson, Geoffrey.”

She smiled faintly.

“He isn’t—_impossible_!”

“I am sure of it.”

“We’ll see about that.” He placed her courteously in a chair, sat down
at his desk, opened a drawer and took out a small notebook in which were
entered his village godchildren’s names. “B’ Jove! you’re right, Mary.
He is my godson. I shall deal faithfully with him.”

Lady Pomfret sighed.

“Please, for my sake, go easy with him. He may give notice, too. I
should like to spare you further worry, Geoffrey, but the kitchen-maid
and two under house-maids are leaving us.”

“What? Why, Mary, why?”

“Out of sympathy, I suppose, for Prudence and Charles. It has never
happened to us before, dear, but these—how shall I put it—these
sympathetic strikes are not uncommon, I fancy.”

Sir Geoffrey’s eyes obtruded; so did his chin.

“Strikes, Mary? Did you say—strikes? Good God!”

“Mrs. Randall and Mrs. Mowland are very tearful. We must exercise the
greatest forbearance.”

The Squire roared out:

“Let the whole ungrateful pack go to blazes. You and I, Mary, will end
our days in a nice comfortable hotel.”

“My dear Geoffrey——! Are there any nice comfortable hotels left?”

The Squire answered mournfully:

“Not one. Mary, I have never felt so sore, so disillusioned, so
profoundly convinced that life under modern conditions is not worth
living.”

Charles appeared, obviously apologetic.

“What is it now?”

“Mr. Bonsor, Sir Gaffrey. He be due at Home Farm. If so be as you won’t
see him——”

The Squire turned to his wife.

“I can’t see Bonsor this morning. You know, Mary, there is something
about Bonsor’s face which irritates me beyond endurance. He invariably
smiles when things go wrong.”

“See him, dear, and get it over.”

“Very well. I’ll see Mr. Bonsor here and now.”

“Yes, Sir Gaffrey.”

“And when you are speaking to me, Charles, kindly remove that imbecile
grin. You would grin at your own mother’s funeral.”

“Yas, Sir Gaffrey; I mean, no. Mr. Fishpingle, he did tell me that you
fancied a cheerful, upliftin’ countenance.”

“You take your orders from me for the future.”

Charles disappeared. The Squire said entreatingly to Lady Pomfret:

“Don’t go, Mary. I’ll get rid of Bonsor in two minutes. The fellow has
no initiative, none. I have much to say to you. Who engages servants?”

“What servants? I suppose that the master of the house engages his
butler. I engage the upper women servants. Mrs. Randall engages the
young maids.”

“What a mess we’re in, confound it!”

“Alas! yes.”

“Have you seen Lionel?”

“No.”

“He has the common decency to keep out of my sight. We must deal with
these refractory servants first. Strikes! In my village! That we should
live to see it. Shush-h-h! I hear Bonsor. His step is heavier than his
wits.”

Bonsor entered, very deprecating. He bobbed his head to Lady Pomfret,
greeted the Squire perfunctorily, and sat gingerly upon a chair near the
desk which the Squire indicated with a wave of his hand.

“Well, Bonsor, I can see by your face that you have something unpleasant
to tell me.”

Bonsor “bobbed” again.

“Don’t bob, man! Out with it!”

“You promised to let me have those estimates for the drainage of the
water meadows.”

“Um! Fishpingle has them. They shall be sent up this afternoon.”

“Thank you, Sir Geoffrey. The coal has been ordered, a truck. Can you
tell me what was paid for the last delivery, per ton?”

“No, I can’t. But I’ll let you know.”

“One more matter, Sir Geoffrey. The bill for the chancel repairs is
heavier than I expected. If you could go over the accounts with Mr.
Hamlin——”

“Later. Not to-day.”

“That is all, I think, for this morning.”

He rose, smiling, bobbed again, and went out. Sir Geoffrey raised hands
and eyes to the ceiling.

“Why, Mary, do I have such a lot of chuckle-headed ignoramuses in my
employ? I ask you—why?”

She replied gravely:

“Because, dear, you love to have your own people about you, which is so
nice and endearing of you.”

“Thankless swine! I feel a draught. Is a window open? Yes. Who opened
it?”

He shut the window and returned to the sofa upon which Lady Pomfret was
sitting. He sat beside her, took her hand in his, and patted it gently.

“Now, Mary, I sent for you because I want you to see Ben and bring him
to his senses.”

“Oh-h-h-h!”

“I am prepared to be magnanimous. I must make allowance for poor Ben’s
irritability and quick temper. I have no doubt whatever that he is
thoroughly ashamed of himself. And well aware as I am of his
shortcomings, I have never questioned his devotion to you. Will you see
him?”

“If you wish it, Geoffrey.”

“I do wish it. You can tell him that I am prepared to accept an apology.
I make this concession for your sake, my dear.”

She smiled at him, with a lift of her delicate brows.

“Oh, thank you, Geoffrey.”

“Not at all. God knows that I’m perfectly content with bread and cheese
and a glass of ale, but I have to think of you and Margot. It is most
unfortunate that our servants should have chosen such a moment to defy
me. As for Lionel, I cannot trust myself to speak of him to you.”

Lady Pomfret attempted no defence of her son. And the thought of the
approaching interview with Fishpingle was distressing her. What could
she say to Ben? What would he say to her? Her attention was distracted,
however, by the appearance of Margot, evidently clothed for the road,
and looking more than ordinarily alert and sprightly. Somehow she gave
the impression of speed, whenever she donned her motoring kit, of excess
speed. Lady Pomfret, looking up at her, said to herself, “We could never
have kept up with her.”

She greeted her hosts gaily, as if nothing had happened. This is a great
gift given to few. No young lady of her years could skate so gracefully
and swiftly over the thinnest ice.

“My Rolls-Royce will be round in five minutes.”

“Bless my soul!” exclaimed the Squire. “Surely you will stay to
luncheon?”

“Dear Sir Geoffrey, how could I put you to the inconvenience of
entertaining me at such a moment? My maid tells me that all your
servants are on strike.”

“All of ’em?” gasped the Squire.

Lady Pomfret murmured soothingly:

“Your maid, dear Margot, is mistaken.”

“I hope so.” She continued briskly, having rehearsed what she spoke of
afterwards as “my little song and dance.” To fly from any storm was
instinctive, but her determination to trail clouds of glory remained
distinctive. “Probably. But the strike is on. It may spread. It may be
declared off. That depends altogether on——”

“Them,” the Squire rapped out.

“You,” she corrected him charmingly. “The situation, however,
lamentable, is in your hands. Really—it is a tremendous opportunity. I
see you, Sir Geoffrey, seizing that opportunity, hugging it to your
heart.”

The Squire stared at her.

“You see that, do you? I see fog—pea-soup fog. Lift that fog, and I
shall be your obliged servant.”

She laughed joyously.

“_You_ will lift the fog. I preach Peace with Honour. This is your
chance to give an admiring world an object lesson. I am speaking, of
course, of this strike in your household, of your decision about
Prudence and Alfred. That decision will become the talk of the
countryside. With the rare exception of half a dozen potentates like
yourself, public opinion will range itself with the young people. Now,
believe me, such authority as you exercise with absolute sincerity and
good faith is being indicated all over the kingdom. You know that, and
deplore it. So do I. But—there we are! And if that authority is
sustained—this is my little point—it must give way under certain
irresistible pressure—_reculer pour mieux sauter_! Send for this
nice-looking pair, rebuke them fittingly for any slight impertinence,
and then forgive them handsomely. Place the responsibility of marriage
upon them. Ease yourself of the odium of preventing such a marriage.
Such a gallant recognition of the rights of others will endear you to
your people. Now, forgive me for speaking my mind.”

Lady Pomfret wondered whether her little ladyship had spoken all her
mind. Was she pleading indirectly for Lionel and Joyce? How clever of
her to leave them out! She glanced at her husband, frowning and ill at
ease. What were his thoughts? He said heavily:

“You mean well, my dear, and I thank you. What you have said will
receive my due consideration.”

“Je ne demande que ça!” She swept him a curtesy, and then turned to Lady
Pomfret. Her voice softened delightfully:

“You have been sweet to me. Thank you for your gracious hospitality. I
hate kissing, but may I kiss you?”

She bent down and kissed the softly tinted cheek. Lady Pomfret answered
tremulously:

“Perhaps another visit, at a happier time, will make you forget what has
passed.”

Margot held out her hand to Sir Geoffrey.

“Good-bye, Sir Geoffrey. You have a charming son. If you will give him
my love, I don’t think he will misunderstand me.”

Sir Geoffrey stood erect, very impassive.

“I will see you to your car.”

“As a favour to me—don’t! I disturbed you just now. Let me pop off
quietly. _Au revoir!_”

Half protesting, he consented, opening the door for her to pass out. She
blew another kiss to Lady Pomfret, just before she vanished. The Squire
came back to his wife, who was reflecting that her visitor had a knack
at exits and entrances.

“Rather a spoiled beauty,” growled the Squire. “These London girls are
all alike. I thought she looked scraggy, Mary. Thin blood—thin blood.
An uncle died in an asylum.”

“Heavens! You never told me.”

The Squire glanced at the clock.

“Now, my dear, Ben is almost due. Tackle—him.”

“What can I say? What _can_ I say?”

“Make him see himself, as you see him.”

Lady Pomfret became alert. Her eyes sparkled as she repeated
reflectively:

“As I see him?”

The Squire answered trenchantly:

“Do that and all will be well. I shall leave you now, and smoke a cigar
on the terrace. Give me a call, if you want me.”

Lady Pomfret looked steadily at him; he smiled at her reassuringly. As
he was selecting a cigar he heard her voice.

“You mean exactly what you say, Geoffrey? I am to make Ben see himself
as I see him?”

“Yes.”

He lit his cigar, puffed at it, and bent down, chuckling, to tap her
cheek. Standing at the door he said a last word:

“When you have pulverised him, put your dear head out o’ window and
beckon to me. I’ll nip in to receive his apology. And don’t forget! I’m
doing this for you.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

Left alone, Lady Pomfret leaned her head upon her hand. She knew what
had passed between master and man, just the bare recital of the facts
from the Squire’s mouth without further comment from him. The fact that
he had invited comment and seemed, indeed, to shrink from it, made
things a little easier for her. Like Lionel, he wished to spare her pain
and anxiety. That was obvious. Also he considered that he could deal
with the situation without her. But had he an inkling of her real
feelings? And when he learnt the truth, how would he take it?

She heard a small clock chime the half-hour.

A minute later Fishpingle and Charles came in. Charles carried several
books. Fishpingle was dressed in a dark grey suit, and she noticed at
once that he had ceased to be the butler. He bore himself with quiet
dignity, but his face indicated vigils, being very pale and haggard.
Charles placed the books upon the desk and retired. Lady Pomfret rose.

“My poor Ben!”

She held out her hand with a gracious gesture. He took it reverently,
bowing over it. She saw that he was too moved to speak. Placidly she
continued:

“You look worn. Did you get any sleep last night?”

“I was busy with the books, my lady,” he replied evasively.

She sighed.

“I have not slept at all. Sir Geoffrey has asked me to see you first.”
She hesitated for a moment, choosing her words slowly. “He has laid upon
me a strange injunction.”

“Strange, my lady?”

“Yes. For the first time in my life, Ben, I shall try to obey not the
spirit but the letter of that injunction. Please sit down! How tired you
look!”

He sat down facing her with his back to the great chimney-piece. As he
did so, she glanced at the only family portrait in the room, a picture
which hung above the mantelpiece, a full-length likeness of Sir Rupert
Pomfret, the Squire’s father, taken in hunting-kit. It had been painted
shortly before his death, when he was still a young man. Lady Pomfret
turned her eyes upon Fishpingle as she sat down upon the sofa.

She murmured almost to herself:

“It’s an extraordinary thing, Ben, but you have served the Pomfrets so
long and faithfully that you have actually come to look like them.”

And again she glanced at the portrait.

Fishpingle replied formally:

“It may be so, my lady.”

“It is so. Have you seen Master Lionel?”

“Last night, my lady. I delivered Sir Geoffrey’s message. I would not
hurt you or distress you for the world——”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

“Master Lionel means to marry Miss Joyce.”

“Ah!” Their eyes met; she smiled faintly. “I seek his happiness.”

“The happiness you have always sought for others, my lady, is reflected
on your face now.”

She said tranquilly: “And on yours, my old friend.”

She paused, still smiling at him. Then, holding up her head, she spoke
the words which he desired to hear above all others:

“My son has chosen the right wife.”

The effect of them upon Fishpingle was startling and disconcerting.
Colour flowed into his cheeks; his eyes sparkled; his voice broke with
emotion.

“You—you say that. And I doubted. I dared to doubt. May God forgive
me!”

“My sympathies are with Alfred, Lionel, and you.”

“Master Lionel let you tell me that. How good of him!”

Her tones deepened:

“But I know my husband. I know his strength and his weakness. He will
not surrender to any arguments or entreaties of mine, although he loves
me dearly. He is saturated with a sense of his own undivided
responsibilities. He believes that he is acting according to his lights.
He believes that I think as he does. He believes, poor dear fellow! that
at this moment I am _pulverising_ you.”

Fishpingle gasped out: “You are.”

“What can you mean, Ben?”

He burst into vehement speech, and again she was oddly reminded of Sir
Geoffrey, who would sit silent, impassive, if he chanced to be deeply
moved, and then suddenly explode.

“At the back of my mind, at the bottom of my heart, I have always feared
that this sad day might dawn. And I knew what bitter strife would mean
to you, who have always loved peace. It does _pulverise_ me that you
should be brought into this misery.”

He covered his face with his hands. Lady Pomfret gave him time.
Presently she went on:

“If I obey Sir Geoffrey literally, I am to try to make you see yourself
as I see you.”

He looked up, puzzled at the delicate irony of her tone. She faltered a
little.

“It’s not an easy task, Ben, for a woman who loves her husband, a woman
who—who shrinks from exalting another man at his expense.”

“Don’t attempt it, my lady!”

“Ah! But I must. I see you so clearly this morning. I see you, not as
you sit there, worn and sad, but as I saw you first when Sir Geoffrey
came courting me. What a handsome fellow you were, Ben, in those far off
days.”

Unconsciously, Fishpingle sat more upright. He lifted his head. For a
moment youth came back to him. Lady Pomfret continued:

“Even then I used to wonder at your devotion to Sir Geoffrey. I have
gone on wondering ever since, although custom tempered that wonder. It
amazed me, I remember, that you didn’t marry. It amazes me still.” As he
remained silent, avoiding her eyes, she went on gently: “I understand.
There must have been somebody, some girl whom you cared for deeply, and
who didn’t return your love.”

“Yes.”

“I guessed so. I trust that I shall never know her name, for if she
belonged to us, I—I should hate her.”

She spoke almost viciously.

“You will never know her name, my lady.”

“Ah! Now I understand your devotion to us. I see you more clearly than
ever, Ben. Out of a great disappointment and sorrow you have risen to
heights. I am proud indeed to be your friend.”

She stood up. He rose with her. Some subtle strength, radiating from
her, infused itself into him. More and more she marvelled that this man
could have been content with a subordinate position. And the wretched
conviction shook her that never could he return to the pantry as a
servant. She heard his voice thanking her with no taint of
obsequiousness. They confronted each other as equals.

“There!”

The exclamation was one of relief. She had spoken, relieved herself of a
responsibility. Her tone became lighter, more persuasive.

“I have obeyed Sir Geoffrey’s injunction in the letter. Now for the
spirit. He will be lost without you. He was lost this morning. I have
never seen him look so wretched. And he will make everybody else as
wretched as himself. To ask you to do what he expects, to apologise, to
take up your faithful service again as if nothing had happened—that is
impossible. Not even to keep you with us would I dare to suggest such a
humiliation. But—can nothing be done?”

To her surprise, he made no response to an appeal which she could see
plainly had moved him tremendously. Her surprise deepened as he half
turned, staring intently at the portrait of Sir Rupert. Then he said
abruptly:

“I will see Sir Geoffrey.”

“Shall I call him now?”

He bowed.

Lady Pomfret went to the window, opened it, and called:

“Geoffrey, Geoffrey!”

His voice came back bluffly, jovially:

“I am here, Mary. I’ll be with you in one moment.”

She shut the window and returned to Fishpingle.

“Do you wish to see the Squire alone, Ben?”

He bowed again. Was he too upset to speak? She hesitated, puzzled by his
manner and expression.

“But—suppose he asks me to stay?” Fishpingle made a gesture. “If he
asks me to stay, Ben, I shall do so.”

He replied formally:

“As your ladyship pleases.”

Sir Geoffrey entered, with a half-smoked cigar between his fingers. He
had assumed a somewhat jaunty deportment. Nether-Applewhite air, fresh
from the downs, had blown away the fog. He was prepared to be
“magnanimous.” Margot’s advice “Forgive them handsomely!” simmered in
his thoughts. He would make the young people happy and grateful, if Ben
apologised. For the moment Lionel’s affair was pigeon-holed. His house
must be put in order without delay.

As he advanced towards his wife, the Squire shot a keen glance at
Fishpingle, standing in the centre of the room. His heart warmed towards
an old friend who looked, b’ Jove! confoundedly down in the mouth, with
a complexion the colour of skilly.

He said pleasantly:

“Good morning, Ben.”

“Good morning, Sir Geoffrey.”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                             CHAPTER XVIII


Lady Pomfret met the Squire before he reached his desk and laid her hand
upon his arm. That familiar touch was the one needful to reassure him.
My lady had made Ben see himself as he was. He smiled at her
complacently:

“Well, Mary?”

“Ben wishes to speak to you alone.”

This information disconcerted the Squire, but only for a moment. Ben, of
course, had his pride. Naturally he would hate “to climb down” in the
presence of his beloved mistress. But that must be considered part of
the penalty imposed by Authority. Without discipline, in a big
establishment—where on earth were you? Nevertheless, he answered very
pleasantly:

“Alone, Mary? There is nothing that Ben can say to me which cannot be
said in your presence. And I hope,” he inflated a little, “that what he
_will_ say will be said handsomely and before you, my dear.”

Lady Pomfret glanced at Fishpingle. He made no sign. With a little shrug
of her shoulders and a tiny lift of the eyebrows, she returned to her
sofa. The Squire stared fixedly at the books brought in by Charles.

“What are these?”

Fishpingle moved nearer to the desk.

“My private books, Sir Geoffrey. The files of accounts and the ledger
you have seen already. These are supplementary, memoranda connected with
stockbreeding, copies of letters, information that will be of service to
Mr. Bonsor. The cellar and plate books are with them, carefully checked.
This is my book.” He indicated a thin red account-book.

Sir Geoffrey sat down, saying curtly:

“I am much obliged. I have no doubt whatever that everything is in
perfect order. To prove that conviction, I shall not trouble to look at
these accounts and memoranda.”

“As you please, Sir Geoffrey.”

Lady Pomfret observed lightly but meaningly:

“Sir Geoffrey, Ben is well aware that for many years you have acted as
his honorary land agent.”

The Squire frowned. He was not, as yet, well aware of this fact.
However, under the circumstances he allowed the remark, not a tactful
one, to pass. Fishpingle said quietly:

“Thank you, my lady.”

Sir Geoffrey pushed aside the books, clearing his desk and his throat at
the same moment. Then he looked at his wife.

“I take it, my dear Mary, that you have done—ahem!—as I asked you.”

Lady Pomfret displayed slight nervousness. Her voice, as she replied,
was not quite under control. But Fishpingle, not the Squire, noticed
this. And he saw, also, that her fingers interlaced upon her lap were
trembling.

“I have done my best, Geoffrey. I think that Ben does, perhaps, have a
glimpse of himself as I see him.” She flashed a glance at Fishpingle.
“Do you, Ben?”

“Yes, my lady.”

The Squire rubbed his hands, leaning forward. The adjustment of his
strained relations with a faithful butler adumbrated the recognition of
his authority by his son. Almost, he was beginning to enjoy himself.

“Capital! I shall not be hard on you, Ben. I flatter myself that I
can—a—stand in another fellow’s shoes. The long and short of it all is
that I want to—a—spare your feelings as much as possible, but—to go
back to the very beginning—you made the wrong start.”

Fishpingle smiled. A sense of humour may be lively in a man who, all his
life, has been constrained to suppress it, but occasionally it crops to
the surface.

“It is perfectly true, Sir Geoffrey. My Christian name was chosen by
your grandmother, Lady Alicia, on that account.”

Sir Geoffrey winced. To cover his confusion he said hastily:

“Did my grandmother choose it? I was not aware of it.”

“Her ladyship was my godmother.”

“So she was—so she was. Well, with the best intention in the world, my
poor grandmother made rather a pet of you, Ben. B’ Jove! she liked you
better than she did me. And that is the marrow of the matter. She
deliberately educated you above your station. Mind you, I don’t blame
you for helping yourself generously of—a—drinking deeply of—a——”

Fishpingle came to his rescue.

“The Pierian Spring, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Just so. A little knowledge, Ben, is a dangerous thing, what?”

Lady Pomfret made another observation.

“Ben has a great deal of knowledge, Geoffrey, He has saved you buying an
Encyclopædia Britannica.”

Again Sir Geoffrey frowned, wondering what my lady was “at.” Why these
tactless interruptions? He admonished her quietly:

“Please, my dear, please! Ben’s knowledge of my affairs has been
dangerous. Proof? It has brought us to this abominable pass. As I smoked
my cigar on the terrace just now——Where is it?” He picked it up.
“Confound it! It’s gone out.” He flung it aside. “Where was I? Yes, yes;
as I smoked my cigar I thought of Cardinal Wolsey, poor fellow, and
bluff King Hal—bless him! Well, well, we mustn’t let our thoughts
wander. There is an Eastern proverb: ‘As the sands of the desert
are—are——’”

Fishpingle finished the quotation:

“‘As the sands of the desert are to the weary traveller, so is overmuch
speech to him who loveth silence.’”

“Quite! Quite! Now, Ben, I am prepared to meet you half-way. Prudence,
all said and done, is your kinswoman not mine. Strongly as I feel about
first cousins marrying, I have made up my mind to abide by what I wrote.
For her ladyship’s sake, I consent to reinstate Prudence and Alfred in
my establishment, and to sanction a marriage——”

“Thank you, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Against which I, personally, protest.”

If the Squire expected effusive gratitude, he was disappointed.
Fishpingle said respectfully:

“The young people have left the house, Sir Geoffrey, but they will be
glad enough to come back.”

“I should think so. We come now to Mr. Lionel. For the future we had
better speak of him as _Mister_ Lionel, till—a—he becomes Captain
Pomfret.” Fishpingle bowed. “So far, you have acted as go-between. You
are aware that he is absolutely dependent on me?”

“He has his pay, Geoffrey,” murmured Lady Pomfret.

“Tchah! He is, I repeat, absolutely dependent on me. Give me time, and I
can deal adequately and temperately with the young hothead. As for Miss
Joyce, Ben, between ourselves, and from my knowledge of her father, that
young lady will not be permitted to enter any family where she is not
heartily welcomed by a majority of its members.”

Having thus expressed himself, magisterially, the Squire relaxed mind
and body. He lay back in his big chair and smiled genially. To his
immense surprise, Fishpingle remained silent. Lady Pomfret spoke:

“There are only three members of our family, Geoffrey, and Joyce will be
heartily welcomed by two of them.”

The Squire stared at her. She met his eyes steadily. Utterly confounded,
he stammered out:

“Did you say, Mary, two of ’em?”

“Yes. Lionel and—myself.”

Sir Geoffrey sprang to his feet, alert and furious.

“Good God!”

Lady Pomfret said mildly:

“I fear this is a shock to you.”

He looked apoplectic. Even now, realisation that his wife sided against
him had not quite come to him.

“A shock,” he repeated, “a shock? It’s positively an—an—what word do I
want?”

By long force of habit, he turned to his faithful henchman.

“An earthquake?” suggested Fishpingle.

“Yes. Thank you, Ben. This is an earthquake. I—I feel as if the
foundations of my life had been—a—undermined. Not a word, I beg you.”

He walked to the window and, for the second time that morning, flung it
wide open. The familiar landscape met his gaze. Vaguely, he became aware
of the smooth lawn, the terrace, the clumps of trees—his beloved
possessions. But the vision of them was blurred. An old hunter, turned
into the park to end his days there, was grazing near the deer. His eyes
dwelt upon this faithful friend. If he went up to old Champion, would
the horse savage him? He felt “savaged” by his wife. That was his first
lucid impression. The animal instinct to “hit back” tore at him. With a
tremendous effort he controlled it. He turned. Fishpingle had not moved.
Lady Pomfret sat still on the sofa, looking down. He approached her.

“You—you are against me in this, Mary?”

“Yes, also!” she sighed.

“You have been conspiring with Ben. You, my wife, have entered into a
cursed league with my—servant?”

She replied tranquilly:

“I obeyed the letter of your injunction, Geoffrey. I tried to make
your—your ‘servant’ see himself as I see him. And I see him more and
more clearly as the one man I know who has subordinated his interests,
his ambitions, his advancement, to ours. I see him exalted far above
us—this friend of many years.”

“My lady!” exclaimed Fishpingle.

Sir Geoffrey remained speechless for some moments. His voice broke as he
answered her:

“I cannot trust myself to reply to you, Mary. But I say this—you have
made a fool of me.” He turned sharply to Fishpingle. “This means that
you are not prepared to offer me an apology?”

“I am not, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire addressed his wife, peremptorily:

“Please leave us, Mary.”

Lady Pomfret stood up. The two men gazed at her, each profoundly moved
in different ways. To each she revealed herself as mistress of the
situation. Never had her quality shone out so unmistakably. Her serenity
came back, and with it an indescribable emanation of power—that
undeniable authority founded not upon tradition and pride of place, but
radiating dazzingly from a pure and sincere heart. To Fishpingle she
seemed transfigured; to Sir Geoffrey, for the moment, she had ceased to
be his wife. She moved slowly to Fishpingle:

“God bless you, my dear Ben.”

Sir Geoffrey opened the door. His courtesy didn’t fail him.

Lady Pomfret paused before she passed through. Her voice was clear and
sweet:

“And may God bless all you do, my dear husband.”

Sir Geoffrey closed the door.

                 *        *        *        *        *

He went back to the open window, hoping, possibly, to inhale inspiration
from Nether-Applewhite air. Really, he was gasping for air, like a boxer
after a stiff bout. And yet, flustered as he was, he remained the slave
of habit. Always he had pigeon-holed affairs of importance, dealing
drastically with little things, purging his mind of them first, so that
he could approach the big thing with a clear brain. Sound policy! At
this crisis, when, as he put it, the foundations of life seemed to be
crumbling, when _his_ wife and _his_ son arraigned _his_ authority, he
returned, like an old hound, to the original line, bent upon pulling
down his quarry. His wife had failed him! The greater reason that he
should not fail. In his own words, “Ben must be downed.” To achieve this
with dignity and courtesy engrossed his energies and attention.

He left the window, and took up a commanding position on the hearthrug,
with his back to the portrait of his father. He began temperately,
sensible that it behooved him to set an example of good temper and
forbearance:

“I have made allowances for you, Ben. I have assumed part of the blame
for what took place yesterday, because it is true that you’ve worked
faithfully for me and mine. But no servant can speak as you spoke to me
and remain in my service. The thing is unthinkable—impossible. And yet,
you offer no apology.”

He spoke so kindly, with such sincere amazement, that Fishpingle evaded
the issue.

“Consider the years I’ve been here, Sir Geoffrey, and all, all that the
dear old place means to me.”

“That, Ben, is a reason for behaving so that you can still belong to
us.”

The Squire felt more at his ease again. He told himself that he was
dealing faithfully with a misguided man. Fishpingle’s next words
confirmed this faith.

“I am grieved to have angered you, deeply grieved.”

“Ah! Now, Ben, we are coming together.”

“Are we, Sir Geoffrey? I wish that it were so. But how—how can I stand
up as a man and say that I’m wrong when I feel here,” he struck his
chest, “that I’m—right?”

The Squire cocked his chin at a more obtuse angle.

“By God! It’s I that am wrong, is it?”

Fishpingle answered very slowly:

“You have been very generous about Prudence and Alfred. But—there’s Mr.
Lionel. He’s your only son, Sir Geoffrey. If he dies unmarried,
strangers will come here. Strangers”—he glanced round the beautiful
room—“will live here. Is it wrong of me to think so much of that?
Wasn’t I brought up at Nether-Applewhite? Didn’t I play with you as a
child—an only child, too?”

“That will do, Ben. What you say moves me, as it moves you. But, if you
are to remain here, we must change our relations.”

Fishpingle murmured almost inaudibly:

“Yes, yes; our relations must be changed.”

There was a long pause. The Squire fidgeted. He repudiated sentiment,
but sentiment was gripping him. The distress upon Fishpingle’s face
pleaded eloquently for him.

“Come, come, Ben. Don’t be an obstinate old fool! Beg my pardon
handsomely, and have done with it. Damn it! Ill bribe you, b’ Jove! You
shall have Bonsor’s billet, and his house, and poke your nose into
everything till—till the end.”

Overcome by his own magnanimity, the Squire blew his nose sonorously.

“I have always wanted that, Sir Geoffrey. It’s a big bribe. But, there’s
Mr. Lionel——”

The Squire lost his temper.

“What has Mr. Lionel got to do with you, Ben? I’ve let you have your way
about Prudence. B’ Jove! I’ll take no more of this from any one out of
my family.”

“You are proud of your family, Sir Geoffrey, and so am I. I’ve a natural
right to speak plainly to you.”

The Squire was arrested by his tone.

“A natural right? What d’ye mean?”

Fishpingle hesitated; he stretched out his hands.

“I want to go fishing and rabbiting with Mr. Lionel’s children.”

“Tchah! So you shall—so you shall. Dammy, don’t I know that you’re
proud of the family; and it shouldn’t be difficult for you to own up
that you’ve treated the head of its shabbily. Here, now—there!”

He smiled again, seeing Fishpingle as a boy. A ferret carried by the
Squire in his coat pocket had bitten him in the throat. Ben had pulled
the beast off. Lady Alicia had ordered that coat to be burnt, because
the polecat scent offended her aristocratic nose. What jolly days those
were, to be sure!

“Yes—I’ve been wrong,” murmured Fishpingle.

“Ah!” The Squire chuckled a little.

Fishpingle added incisively:

“I should have told you long ago, and gone away.”

“Gone away? Is the man daft? Told me—what?”

“Things you have never guessed. Will you sit down at your desk, Sir
Geoffrey?”

The Squire stared at him, amused rather than angry.

“Upon my word,” he said, “this is beginning to look like a case for a
doctor. You ask me to sit down in my own room. Very well!”

He moved to a chair which faced the desk, and sat down.

“Pardon me, Sir Geoffrey, I asked you to sit at your desk.”

“Um! You are evidently not quite in your right mind, Ben. However——”

He crossed to the desk and sat down, staring at Fishpingle, who, to his
amazement, took his place on the hearthrug.

“Does anything strike you, Sir Geoffrey? God knows that I want the light
to come to you not too suddenly.”

“I am helplessly in the dark.”

“Please look at Sir Rupert’s portrait, and then at me.”

Sir Geoffrey did so, and was none the wiser. He said as much. Fishpingle
said quietly:

“I am his son.”

Sir Geoffrey jumped up.

“My father’s son—you. It’s a wicked lie.”

“Is it? Look again!”

Sir Geoffrey glared first at Fishpingle and then at the picture. He said
irresolutely:

“No, no—it can’t be. And yet—and yet, there _is_ a look. My
father’s—son?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you known this?”

“Since Lady Alicia died.”

“My grandmother knew?”

“Everything.”

“Is there evidence to support this—a—affirmation?”

Fishpingle put his hand into his pocket and produced a bundle of
letters.

“These.”

He moved to the desk and handed them to the Squire, continuing in the
same quiet voice:

“They were written by Sir Rupert to my mother. If you glance at one you
will recognise the handwriting.”

Sir Geoffrey untied the silk riband, and took the first letter. He put
on his pince-nez. As he did so, Fishpingle saw that his fingers were
trembling. He took off the pince-nez and rubbed the lenses, but they
were clean and clear.

“It is my father’s writing.”

“Read the beginning and the end.”

Sir Geoffrey did so. The letter fluttered from his hand. He lay back in
his chair, murmuring: “His Dream Wife! His Dream Wife!” Then, as another
thought came to him, he jumped up excitedly.

“My father calls your mother his ‘dream wife.’ Does that mean that he
married her? Are you his lawful son—his eldest son?”

Fishpingle drew himself up.

“No. I am a Son of Sorrow.”

“My God! My God!”

“I would not have you think ill of my mother. Sir Rupert wished to marry
her. It is all in those letters. I am proud of the woman to whom they
were written. This is her miniature.”

He handed the miniature to Sir Geoffrey, who gazed at it long and
searchingly.

“A beautiful creature, Ben, and a good.”

“Yes. She gave to the man she loved everything; she asked nothing. This
letter,” he took another from his pocket, “was written to me by Lady
Alicia. I read it first, standing by her grave.”

“I want no more proof, Ben.”

“Please read it.”

Sir Geoffrey did so. This was the letter:

     “MY DEAR BOY,

    “I have never had the courage to speak to you of your father,
    although, before he died, he made me promise to tell you the
    whole truth. I prefer to write it, so that it may serve, if
    necessary, as evidence. Your father was my eldest son, Rupert.
    It is needless to tell you anything about your mother, because I
    have often spoken to you about her. You will understand her
    better still when you read the letters which my executor will
    give to you after my death and look at the miniature which was
    painted of her for your father. He wished to marry her. She was
    devoted to me, and devoted to your father. She refused to marry
    him steadfastly, but she might have done so had I not exacted a
    sort of pledge from her. And then, they ran away together and
    lived for a year in a queer little village called Fishpingle,
    where you were born, and where your mother died. I promised her
    to look after you and to educate you. That was her great
    wish—that you should rise above her level. I sign myself for
    the first and last time

                                     “Your loving Grandmother,
                                                 “ALICIA POMFRET.”

The Squire replaced the letter in its envelope. As he gave it back to
Fishpingle, he asked hoarsely:

“Have you forgiven our grandmother?”

“There was nothing to forgive. My dear lady, had her son wished to marry
Prudence, would have done the same. I am Pomfret enough to understand
that.”

The Squire nodded, murmuring:

“And yet, if my father had got his way, you would be sitting in this
chair—the Lord of the Manor.”

Fishpingle repeated the words softly:

“The Lord of the Manor.”

Sir Geoffrey stood up. He moved slowly towards Fishpingle, slightly
bent, with bowed head. Then he held out his hand.

“My—brother.” He raised his head and his voice: “And before God, Ben,
you have been my brother. For more than fifty years.”

“Happy years!”

“Ben, what can I do for you—what _can_ I do?”

Fishpingle answered simply:

“The thing nearest my heart is the happiness of your son, who will stand
here when we are gone.”

Sir Geoffrey said hurriedly:

“I know that, I know that. I must call my wife.”

“You mean to tell her?”

“I must.”

“Nobody else.”

“If you insist. But—have I found a brother only to lose him?”

“You know what I wish—to remain here, to help you, to help Mr. Lionel.”

The Squire pressed his hand, too moved to speak. He turned abruptly,
walked to the door, and opened it.

“Mary—Mary—I want you.”

She must have known that she would be wanted, for she had remained near
him. Her voice floated through the open door:

“I am coming, Geoffrey.”

Lady Pomfret entered. She glanced at her husband’s face, and then at
Fishpingle standing erect near the desk. Sir Geoffrey closed the door.
He was not a man to do things grudgingly. The scales had fallen from his
eyes. He saw Fishpingle as clearly as his wife saw him. In a firm voice,
he said to Lady Pomfret:

“Mary—I surrender unconditionally.”

                                THE END