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Title: The Londoners
        an absurdity

Author: Robert Hichens

Release date: August 22, 2022 [eBook #68809]
                Most recently updated: October 19, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: Germany: Bernhard Tauchnitz

Credits: Tim Lindell, Graeme Mackreth and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONDONERS ***
THE LONDONERS

AN ABSURDITY


BY

ROBERT HICHENS

AUTHOR OF "THE GARDEN OF ALLAH," "THE FRUITFUL VINE," ETC.


_COPYRIGHT EDITION_


LEIPZIG

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ

1912




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER I.                                          Page

  "Not Elliman"                                         7


  CHAPTER II.

  Boswell as Chaperon                                  21


  CHAPTER III.

  Negotiations with the Bun Emperor                    36


  CHAPTER IV.

  The Tweed Suit                                       47


  CHAPTER V.

  Chloe waits for her Trousers                         67


  CHAPTER VI.

  Fatimah was under the Influence of Haschish          82


  CHAPTER VII.

  The Bun Emperor and Empress at Home                 100


  CHAPTER VIII.

  Arrival of the Londoners at Ribton Marches          121


  CHAPTER IX.

  Mrs. Verulam's Idea of Agag                         142


  CHAPTER X.

  Mr. Rodney Screams                                  159


  CHAPTER XI.

  Mr. Harrison's Night-Watch                          182


  CHAPTER XII.

  The Consequences of Lady Drake's Supper             203


  CHAPTER XIII.

  The Six Self-Conscious Gardeners                    222


  CHAPTER XIV.

  The Duchess in Aspic                                233


  CHAPTER XV.

  Cup Day                                             247


  CHAPTER XVI.

  Cup Night                                           267


  CHAPTER XVII.

  The True Life                                       301


  CHAPTER XVIII.

  The Innocent Lady                                   321




THE LONDONERS.




CHAPTER I.

"NOT ELLIMAN."


Mrs. Verulam came into her drawing-room slowly and rather wearily.
It was a sultry afternoon in May—indeed, the papers were quite in a
ferment about the exceptional heat-wave that was passing over London;
and a premature old General, anxious apparently to be up to time,
had just died of tropical apoplexy in Park Lane. Possibly it was the
weather that had painted the pallor on Mrs. Verulam's exceedingly
pretty face. Beneath her mist of yellow hair her dark-grey eyes
looked out pathetically, with the sort of pathos that means nothing
in particular—the grace of an indefinite sorrow. She was clad in a
pale-pink tea-gown, elaborately embroidered in dull green and gold,
and she was followed by her maid, the faithful Marriner, whose hands
were full of bright-coloured cushions. The windows of the drawing-room,
which faced Park Lane, and commanded a distant view of the Parade on
Sunday mornings, stood open, and striped awnings defied the sunbeams
above them. London hummed gently in the heat; and an Admiral in the
next house but one might almost be heard ordering his valet, with many
terrible expressions of the sea, to get out his ducks, and be quick
about it.

"Oh, Marriner!" said Mrs. Verulam, in the voice which all self-respecting
men worshipped and compared with Sarah Bernhardt's—"oh, Marriner, how
terribly hot it is!"

"The heat is severe, ma'am, for the season of the year," replied
Marriner.

Mrs. Verulam sat down on an immense sofa near the window, and Marriner
proceeded to bank her up with cushions. She glanced into a tiny
hand-mirror which hung by a silver chain at her side.

"I am as pale as a Pierrot," she murmured.

"I beg pardon, ma'am."

"Pierrot, Marriner, is the legendary emblem of—but it is too hot for
history."

Marriner, who was ever athirst for information, looked disappointed.
She had been on the eve of improving her mind, but the heat precluded
the sweet processes of further education, so the poor soul was
downcast. She bit her lip, secretly imitating a well-known actor whom
she worshipped, and wondered why life is so full of misery. Mrs.
Verulam lay back on the cushions and glanced wearily around. Her eyes
fell upon an oval table that stood near by. Various notes and cards lay
on it, and an immense bouquet of dull-red roses.

"What is all that?" she asked, with a fatigued gesture towards the
table.

Marriner wheeled it forward till it stood beside the sofa, then she
lifted the bouquet and turned it in her hands.

"From Mr. Hyacinth Rodney, ma'am," she said.

A thin smile curved Mrs. Verulam's lips. She took the flowers, glanced
at their dusky beauty, touched their velvet petals with her fingers,
then laid them down carelessly.

"They are remarkably fine specimens, ma'am," said Marriner. "I often
think——" she checked herself.

"Yes, Marriner; what do you think?"

"That we are like the flowers, ma'am: we fade and die so soon."

"Dear me, Marriner, what original thoughts you have!"

"I can't help them coming, ma'am. They seem to take me like a storm,
ma'am."

"Oh! more cards: General and Mrs. Le Mesurier, Lord Simeon, the Prince
and Princess of Galilee—what curious names people are born with!—Mr.
Marchington. Why will so many people call?"

"I think they wish to see you, ma'am."

"I know. But that's just it, Marriner; that is the problem."

"I like problems, ma'am."

"Then resolve me this one. Why do people with immortal souls spend
their lives in leaving tiny oblongs of pasteboard on other people with
immortal souls whom they scarcely know and don't care a straw about?
Why do they do it, Marriner?"

"Might I speak, ma'am?"

"I ask you to."

"I don't feel convinced that their souls are immortal, ma'am. I have my
doubts, ma'am."

"Then you are in the fashion. But that makes it all the more strange.
If we have only one life, Marriner, why should we waste it in leaving
cards?"

"Very true, ma'am."

A certain excitement had crept into Mrs. Verulam's grey eyes. She
raised herself on her cushions dramatically.

"Marriner, we are fools!" she cried; "that is why we do it. That is why
we do a thousand things that bore us—a thousand things that bore other
people. Give me all those notes."

Marriner collected the envelopes which lay upon the table and handed
them respectfully to her mistress. Mrs. Verulam tore them open one by
one.

"'To have the honour to meet the Prince and Princess of——' 'Lady
Emily Crane at home; conjuring and acrobats. Eleven o'clock.' 'Mr.
Pettingham at home; the Unattached Club. Views of the Holy Land and a
lecture. Supper, midnight.' 'Lady Clondart at home. Dancing. Eleven
o'clock.' 'Mrs. Vigors at home. Sartorius will exhibit his performing
panthers. Ten o'clock.' 'Sir Algernon Smith at home. The Grafton
Galleries. Madame Melba will sing. Eleven o'clock.' 'Mrs.——' Oh! I
can't open any more. Heavens! are we human, Marriner? Are we thinking,
sentient beings that we live this life of absurdity? Acrobats,
conjurors, the Holy Land, panthers, Melba. Thus do we deliberately
complicate our existence, already so complicated, whether we will or
no. Ah, it is intolerable! The season is a disease. London is a vast
lunatic asylum."

"Oh, ma'am!"

"And we, who call ourselves the smart world, are the incurable
patients. Give me something to read. Let me try to forget where I am
and what I am."

She lay back trembling. Marriner handed to her the _World_. She opened
it, and her eyes fell upon these words: "I really think that Mrs.
Verulam is the smartest woman in town. Her mother, Lady Sophia Tree,
is famous for her knowledge of the art of dress, but Mrs. Verulam
surpasses even Lady Sophia in her understanding of what to wear and how
to wear it. I met her driving in the Park on Friday in an exquisite
creation of cinnamon canvas with touches of blue, that suited her
dark-grey eyes and her exquisite golden-brown hair to——"

"Marriner, why do you give me this to read?"

"I thought you had not seen it, ma'am."

Mrs. Verulam threw the paper down.

"Leave me, Marriner," she said in a low voice.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Wait. Is Mrs. Van Adam's room quite ready for her?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Take Mr. Rodney's roses, unfasten them, and put them in vases about
the room."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Now spray me, Marriner."

Marriner took up a silver bottle, pressed a minute bladder, and
scattered a shower of tiny scented drops over the pretty face as pale
as a Pierrot; then, carrying the burden of dull-red roses, she withdrew
from the room as softly as a cat.

Mrs. Verulam lay back on the coloured cushions, and closed her eyes
so tightly that her forehead was wrinkled in a frown. The Admiral who
lived in the next house but one was just setting bravely forth in his
ducks, on which the sun shone approvingly. At the doors of many houses
stood carriages, and many pretty women were stepping into them dressed
for dining, concerts, or drums. The Row was fairly full of crawlers,
whose dull eyes—glazed with much staring—glanced eternally around in
search of food for gossip. Flowers flamed along the Park railings from
the Corner to the Marble Arch, and a few unfashionable people, who were
fond of plants, examined the odorous pageant in botanical attitudes
that seemed strangely out of place in London. And the concert of the
town continued. Its music came faintly to the ears of Mrs. Verulam, as
it had come now for so many seasons. For she was twenty-nine, and had
not missed a London summer since she was eighteen, except that one,
eight years ago, which followed the sudden death of a husband with whom
she had never been really in love.

Lying there alone, Mrs. Verulam said to herself that she was utterly
sick of this concert, which each succeeding year persistently encored.
She heard the distant wheels, and thought of the parties to which
they were rolling. She heard the very remote music of a band; and
that reminded her of the quantities of cotillons she had led, and of
the innumerable faces of men that she had wiped out of mirrors with
her lace handkerchief. How curiously they flashed and faded on the
calm surface of the imperturbable glass, their eyes full of gay or of
languid enquiry, their mouths gleaming in set society smiles!

Was it a property of cotillon mirrors, she wondered, to make all men
look alike, neat, vacuous, self-satisfied? Half unconsciously she
fluttered her tiny handkerchief as if she passed it across an invisible
mirror. And now the surface was clean and clear, empty of masks for a
moment. Then there was borne on it a big and bearded countenance. It
seemed too large almost to be called a face. Hair flourished upon that
countenance as prickles upon the porcupine. Large and ox-like eyes of
a reddish-brown hue stared heavily out beneath brows that seemed like
thatched eaves. Mrs. Verulam, in fancy, gazed upon this apparition in
the mirror and laid her handkerchief aside. She would not wipe the
red-brown eyes, the thick lips, the intrusive hair away. And then,
suddenly, she laughed to herself, thinking of the dancing sequel to her
deed of the cotillon, and of what it would be like in reality.

"Poor fellow!" she thought. "He would die in a valse. That is why I
will not, dare not, wipe him out of the mirror from which I long to
eliminate for ever the other faces."

And she thought of a far-off cabbage-garden somewhere on the outskirts
of Berkshire, where life was surely peaceful, contemplative, and more
worthy than in London. Fruits ripened there. Pears hung upon the tree
and cherries slept in the sun. And the bearded face was often bent
wrathfully above the hapless snail or erring maggot. At least, so Mrs.
Verulam supposed. For she had never yet visited this sweet Eden of
vegetables and manly labours. Some day, perhaps, she would go there.
Some day! Some day! She opened her eyes and glanced up. They fell upon
a pet of hers, a ruddy squirrel with a bushy tail, which scrambled in a
revolving cage such as squirrels are supposed to love. Persistently the
squirrel scrambled and the golden cage went round. Mrs. Verulam watched
it, and her mind sprang to the obvious comparison. She saw London, the
cage, herself the squirrel turning in it and longing to be free. And
how she pitied the squirrel! What woman has not bowels of mercy for
herself? She had revolved through so many seasons. Would she revolve
through many more? Suddenly an expression of stern resolve came into
the pretty Pierrot face clouded by bright hair. Mrs. Verulam thrilled
with a great determination. Her manner was almost Napoleonic as she
sat upright and clasped her hands together in a gesture of negation.
She swept the cards on the table into a heap. She flung the notes
of invitation aside. She sprang up and went over to the squirrel. He
peered at her with his bright and beady little eyes.

"Tommy," she said, "listen to me. Do you know that you are like me?
Do you know that I, too, am in a cage—that I, too, am turning and
turning in a prison that is monotonous as a circus, in which everyone
and everything must go round and round and round? I am so tired of it,
Tommy; so tired of my cage. And yet, do you know, half the world is
trying to get into it—and can't! Isn't that absurd? To try to get into
society! Oh, Tommy——"

"Mrs. Van Adam!" said the footman at the door.

Mrs. Verulam turned as a tall, slim, boyish-looking creature in a red
gown and a red-and-black hat came upon her with a sweet rush and took
her in strong arms of affection.

"Dearest Daisy!"

"Darling Chloe!"

The footman looked pleased beneath his powder. Perhaps it was his
agreeable smile which drew Mrs. Verulam's attention to him.

"Francis, say 'not at home' this afternoon," she murmured, with a
gesture of dismissal.

"Yes, ma'am."

And Francis took his smile below-stairs, leaving the two friends alone.
They stood for a moment by the squirrel's cage, watching each other
with kind eyes that were yet alight with sparks of criticism. For
all sweet women are critics, just as all sweet babies are like their
fathers. The laws of nature are so strangely immutable. Then Mrs. Van
Adam said, in a low contralto voice that was almost manly:

"I believe you are sweeter here than you were in Paris. How do you
manage it? America would love you."

"I am not a Duke."

"That's true, but you would come right next."

"And you! Oh, Chloe, in that hat! But why is your hair cut short?"

Mrs. Van Adam laughed, and took off the scarlet and black hat.

"It was so hot on our plantation in Florida that I wanted to have as
little about me as possible," she said.

"It makes you look just like a boy!"

"I'll grow it again here."

"Have you brought a maid?"

"No. I want to engage a London woman."

"Come and sit down. It is so strange for us to be together again. How
many years is it since we were schoolgirls in Paris, getting education
instead of gowns? And now——"

"You're a little widow, and the darling of London!"

"And you——By the way, how is Mr. Van Adam?"

"I am told he is quite well."

Mrs. Verulam raised her eyebrows.

"You are told, Chloe!" she said. "You are told!"

But Mrs. Van Adam was looking about the room with eager dark eyes.

"Your house is delicious!" she exclaimed. "I shall love to be here.
Florida is lonely, and New York is—well, it has no aristocracy. And a
capital without an aristocracy is like a town man without a silk hat.
The toilet is incomplete. It was cool of me to cable you that I was
coming. But you don't mind?"

"I am delighted. I have been wanting you to come for so long."

"And the season is just beginning?"

The weariness that had died in Mrs. Verulam's eyes sprang up in them
again.

"Yes," she said; "it is just beginning."

Mrs. Van Adam made an ecstatic gesture. There was in her manner
something of the vivacity of a colt: a frolicsome readiness for bodily
movement, a quickness of limb that goes with gaiety, and a sweeping
appreciation of the luxury of joy. Her eyes danced and brimmed over
with light, and expectation of pleasure turned her appearance almost to
that of a child who sees a vision of sugar-plums.

"That's lucky!" she cried. "Daisy, you don't know how I feel about your
society; I have never been in it, but I have heard of it ever since I
was a girl in Paris. You told me a little then."

"I knew very little then."

"Well, you told me just all you knew, and it sounded perfect."

"Chloe, when I was in Paris I was a little fool." But Mrs. Van Adam did
not seem to hear the remark; she was bent upon speaking, and she went
on: "Since then I've heard the travellers' tales of the Holy Land."

"The Holy Land!"

"London, dear. Some of our travellers abuse the old town, it's true;
but they want to go back to it when April comes round, all the same.
I think it gets into their blood, as the East gets into the blood of
lovers of the picturesque; anyhow, it's got into mine. Daisy, you think
I'm pretty still, don't you?"

"Pretty—yes; lovely with that short hair."

"And I'm immensely rich, of course; and I'm an American. Give me London
to play with."

"But, my dear Chloe——"

"Yes. Now do. You can give it me. I know that. Our papers are full of
your triumphs. You are the pet of society."

"Nonsense, Chloe!"

"But you are; you go everywhere."

"Yes; that is why I am so tired—that is why——"

"Let me go with you. Oh, Daisy, if you only knew how I long to get into
London society!"

"Oh, Chloe, if you only knew how I long to get out of it!"

Mrs. Van Adam looked quite petrified by this exclamation. She drew
her black brows together, screwed up her eyes, and scrutinised Mrs.
Verulam with a merciless curiosity, such as a child displays before a
strange and ineffable monster. Her scrutiny was silent, exhaustive, and
apparently conclusive, since she closed it with the remark:

"You little joker, you haven't altered a bit since Paris!" Then,
without giving Mrs. Verulam time to assert the truth of her announced
feeling, Chloe turned to the table that stood beside the sofa: "Cards!"
she said. "What a heap! All yesterday's?"

"Or to-day's."

"And notes—invitations?"

Mrs. Verulam nodded.

"May I look at them?"

"If you like. They're stupid things."

"Stupid! They beat diamonds." She took one up with reverent fingers.
"'To have the honour to meet the Prince and Princess of——'"

Mrs. Van Adam read the words aloud in a voice that shook with emotion.
Her eyes glowed behind a veil of moisture as they gazed upon the
sacred pasteboard. It seemed for a moment as if she would bend her
pretty head and touch it with her pretty lips; but she was a woman of
strong character, and she refrained. What that silent struggle cost her
the world will never know. After a period of profound silence she laid
the card down gently, as one lays down a blessed relic. Then she sprang
upon Mrs. Verulam and passionately embraced her.

"Oh, you darling!" she cried.

Before Mrs. Verulam could either acquiesce or protest Mrs. Van Adam
had fallen upon the other invitations, as the drowning man falls upon
the straw. She rifled the big envelopes of their contents. She tore
Lady Emily Crane from her modest concealment, brought Sir Algernon
Smith into the sunlight in the twinkling of an eye, laid Lady Clondart
upon the table like a Patience, and put Mrs. Vigors on end against a
flower-vase. The acrobats, the conjuror, the Holy Land, Madame Melba,
the panthers of Sartorius—she faced them all, and drew a deep breath
that was like a sob. Heaven opened out before her, and she lay back
against a cushion prostrated and overwhelmed. In great moments such
as these the human creature feels its smallness, and hears the mighty
inexorable pulse beating in the huge and mysterious heart of life.
These two women were pale and silent while you could have counted a
hundred, the one laid low by ennui, occasioned by the same cause that
laid the other low by ecstasy. Thus do even the closest friends differ.
At last Mrs. Van Adam lifted herself up, and spoke in a low voice as of
an Anglican in Westminster Abbey:

"Take me with you, Daisy—oh, do—do take me with you!"

"Where?"

"To Lady Emily Crane's, to Mr. Pettingham's, to Lady Clondart's, Mrs.
Vigors', Sir Algernon Smith's, and—oh, Daisy!—to have the honour to
meet the—you know, I can't say it. Let me see the panthers, and the
Holy Land, and the Prince and Princess."

"They are not in the least good-looking."

"The panthers, Daisy?"

"No; the royalties. Those I mean—they are foreign and plain."

"That doesn't matter. It is so unnecessary for them to take the trouble
to be handsome; for us it's quite—quite different."

Mrs. Verulam smiled; but the smile flitted, and the bored expression
returned.

"If I did take you, Chloe, you would find it all terribly dull,
especially Mr. Pettingham's."

"Doesn't he know good people—not religious, you know, but good?"

"Oh yes—everybody in London; but his parties are dreadful. You sit in
the pitch dark while he describes to you how he discovered Venice or
Vienna, and shows you the Lido or Lowndes Square, upside down as often
as not. His coloured slides are really agonising."

"But his guests?"

"Oh! they're all right, of course, so far as any—any smart people are
all right."

Mrs. Van Adam was about to utter a fervent protest, but Mrs. Verulam
displayed sudden energy. She sat straight up, planted her little feet
firmly on a tiny satin footstool, clasped her soft hands, and said:

"No; hear me, Chloe. You don't understand things. It is my duty to
tell you what this London society is. It is a cage, like the cage of
my squirrel Tommy, and those who are in it are captives—yes, yes,
wretched captives—for I speak of us, of the women. The men are not
so bound. They can escape from a ball directly after supper without
being thought greedy; they can leave invitations unanswered, and be
considered well-bred; they can forget a dinner-party, and retain
respect; they can commit a thousand outrages, and yet remain gentlemen.
How it is so nobody knows, but everybody knows that it is so; but
we—we women! What is London society to us?"

"Heaven."

"Purgatory. We have to look pretty when we should like to rest and be
quietly plain; we have to talk when we have nothing to say to men who
talk and have nothing to say to us; we have to take exercise—in the
way of smiling—that would knock up an athlete; we have to be made love
to——"

"Charming! Exquisite!"

"When we long to be left alone with our neuralgia, and to listen to
music when all our nervous system is quivering for silence. We have to
flirt through 'Tristan' and laugh through 'Lohengrin.' We have to eat
when we are not hungry, watch polo when we are longing for sleep, go to
Ranelagh instead of to bed, and stand like sheep in a pen for hours at
a stretch."

"Yes, but the other sheep!"

"All baa in the same way and on the same note; all jump over the same
imaginary fence, because one has jumped over a real one; are all
branded with the same mark, washed in the same pool and shorn with the
same scissors."

"Mercy, darling! Are you a farmer?"

A tender smile dawned in Mrs. Verulam's eyes.

"No," she murmured softly. "It was James Bush who taught me all about
sheep."

"James Bush!"

"Yes. If you want to stop a ewe from coughing——"

"Daisy!"

Mrs. Verulam flushed a lovely rose colour.

"His knowledge is wonderful," she cooed. "He cured a calf which had the
staggers with a preparation of his own—not Elliman."

"Who is he?"

"Some day I'll tell you; but it was not Elliman, and it was more
effective."

And she fell into a beautiful reverie—one of those strange and
mysterious trains of thought so apt to be suggested by an embrocation.




CHAPTER II.

BOSWELL AS CHAPERON.


But Mrs. Van Adam cared nothing for such high matters. Though a
charming, she was perhaps not strictly an intellectual woman. And,
besides, at the moment she was full of purpose.

"Daisy—Daisy dear!" she cried, gently and persuasively shaking her
dreaming friend. "Is Mr. Bush in society?"

Mrs. Verulam turned pale.

"He—never!" she exclaimed.

"Oh," said Mrs. Van Adam, losing all interest in him, "then don't let
us talk about him any more. But, Daisy, you will—you will take me out,
won't you? You can, I know."

"Yes, I can. People will like you. But——"

"Then it's settled. Oh, how happy I am!"

She sprang up and almost danced round the room.

"But, Chloe, only for the next two months, or indeed less. For you must
know that I have come to a great resolution."

Chloe choked a pirouette, which left her posed on tiptoe, with the
skirt of her red gown swinging like a poppy in a wind.

"What is it?"

"Simply that this season is my last. Wait!" She held up one hand to
check her friend's exclamation. "And," she added, "that I shall leave
town at least by the first of July, if not sooner."

Chloe's face fell for a moment. But then she recovered from the shock.

"The first of July. Oh, by that time I shall know everybody, and——"

"Be as weary of everybody as I am."

"Be able to manage for myself. Besides, you darling, society won't let
you leave it."

At these words Mrs. Verulam's face became almost as deplorable
in expression as that of an undertaker who is obliged by cruel
circumstance to attend to business on a Bank Holiday.

"That is what I fear," she said. "That is the terror which pursues
me night and day. But it must, Chloe—it shall! And yet nobody
knows—except those who have tried it—how terribly, how appallingly
difficult it is to get out of society. To get into it is nothing. There
are a thousand ways of doing that. Be a German Jew or a brewer, and you
are there. I knew a man who got into it by merely going out to South
Africa and coming back at once in the disguise of a millionaire. And he
only spent a couple of hours at Cape Town. But once you are in society
and popular, the cage-door is shut. And then what can the squirrel do?"

Tears flooded her dark grey eyes. Chloe pressed her friend's hand
with forced sympathy for a misfortune which she found it difficult to
understand. Mrs. Verulam cleared her throat and continued:

"I have made many attempts, but each one seems to give me a more secure
footing in the great world. Once I lost all my money."

"What?"

"Gave out that I had, you know."

"And what happened?"

"Oh, it was so dreadful. My acquaintances rallied round me. Have you
ever been rallied round?"

"I don't know that I have."

"It is most fatiguing. It is worse than the Derby, although, of
course, you avoid the coaches. Another time I tried to become
unfashionable—did my hair on the nape of my neck, wore a pelerine and
elastic-sided boots."

"Surely they let you go then?"

"No. On the contrary, the Park was full of pelerines, and you met
elastic-sided boots everywhere, even at Marlborough House."

"Marlborough House! You visit there?"

"Oh, naturally! Then, as a last resource, I took a really desperate
step."

"What was that?"

"I went to live in St John's Wood."

Mrs. Verulam gazed firmly at Mrs. Van Adam, as if expectant of a fit on
her friend's part. But Mrs. Van Adam merely repeated:

"St. John's Wood! Where is that?"

"Well, where it oughtn't to be, you understand."

"Oh!"

The word expressed mystification. Chloe was evidently at sea. Mrs.
Verulam did not shed light through the clouds, but continued rapidly:

"The only effect of that was that I founded a colony."

"I thought only Mr. Chamberlain did that sort of thing."

"You don't understand. I mean that others followed me there, instead of
leaving me there. Lady Crichton came to Selina Place. Lord Bray and his
girl settled in Upsilon Road, and the old Duchess of Worcester sat down
just round the corner in Maud Crescent. Oh, it was monstrous!"

Chloe's eyes shone.

"What would I give to be you?" she cried. "A Duchess sitting down just
round the corner for one! How glorious!"

She spoke as Wagnerians of "Parsifal," and at that moment she
worshipped her friend. But Mrs. Verulam made a petulant _moue_ and
said, almost with acrimony:

"I really believe there is only one way in which I could do what I
wish; that is, without going to live in some other country, which I
don't care to do."

"What way is that?"

"If I were to compromise myself seriously. Now, if I were married, I
should have a weapon against the assaults of society."

"I don't quite see how."

"Dear Chloe, really you are not quite clever. I could be divorced,
don't you see?"

A shadow came suddenly into Mrs. Van Adam's dark and boyish face.

"Divorced," she faltered. "Would—would that help you much?"

"Help me? It would save me. Nothing further would be needed. I should
be out of everything at once, and in the most perfect peace and quiet."

The shadow deepened perceptibly, and Mrs. Van Adam moved rather
uneasily on her sofa. However, she made no further remark, and Mrs.
Verulam continued:

"Circumstances render that route to what I long for one which I can't
take. And besides, in any case, I doubt if I should have been equal to
it. For I was born respectable, and I shall certainly remain so. Yet,
do you know, Chloe, if there were any way—if only I could compromise
myself in the eyes of the world without compromising myself in my own
eyes, I would do it. I would do anything to get out of my cage."

"As I would do anything to get into it."

Mrs. Verulam sighed deeply, put her handkerchief to her eyes, took it
down, and then seemed with an effort of will to recover herself and to
dismiss the problem that perplexed her. For she sat in a more flexible
attitude, and, turning to Chloe, said ingenuously:

"And now, dear, about Mr. Van Adam."

Chloe jumped, and Mrs. Verulam, observing this, continued:

"Tell me all about him, when he will follow you, how happy you are
together, and why he did not accompany you."

"Well, you see," Mrs. Van Adam said rather faintly, "his oranges."

"Oranges?"

"Yes. You know he grows them on a gigantic scale."

"Well?"

"And—and they can't always be left."

"Chloe, remember I was at school with you in Paris."

The words were very simple, but Mrs. Verulam uttered them without
simplicity, and Chloe flushed quickly.

"I know," she said. "But it is—it is true. Oranges require a great
deal of looking after."

"Oh, dear, if you prefer to keep me in the dark, of course I sha'n't
say another word. Now I am sure you would like to see your room, so I
shall ring for Marriner."

Mrs. Verulam leaned forward to touch the bell, but Chloe suddenly
sprang up, sat down close beside her, and took her hand.

"You are right, Daisy. It's not the oranges."

"Of course not."

"No. It—I—Mr. Van Adam——"

"Yes?"

"Mr. Van Adam and I have parted."

"Parted!"

"We are separated."

"Legally?"

"Yes. We are—divorced."

Mrs. Verulam kissed Chloe pitifully.

"Oh, my poor Chloe! And so soon! How dreadful to have to divorce one's
husband almost before the honeymoon was over."

Chloe's cheeks flushed more darkly.

"How rapidly you jump to conclusions, Daisy!" she said, almost
irritably. "I remember now you used to do the same thing in Paris."

"Jump! But——"

"I did not say I divorced Mr. Van Adam. Now did I? Did I? Oh, I do
dislike these imputations!"

Mrs. Verulam opened her pretty mouth to gasp, shut it without gasping,
and then remarked, severely: "I hope he divorced you for something
American, Chloe."

"Now, what do you mean?"

"For one of those American actions that are considered culpable in
married people in your country: wearing your hair the wrong colour, or
talking without an American accent, or disliking clams or Thanksgiving
Day, or something of that kind."

"No, it was not clams. Besides, I like them rather. No, Daisy, it was
an—an English action I was divorced for."

Mrs. Verulam began to look exceedingly grave.

"English! Then it must have been something bad!"

"No, it wasn't! It was all a mistake. Mr. Van Adam was terribly
jealous. You have never seen him, Daisy. But he is one of those men
with a temperament. Never marry a man with a temperament—that's to
say, if he loves you. And Huskinson did love me."

She drooped pensively. But Mrs. Verulam's severity of expression
increased.

"A temperament!" she said. "Now, Chloe, please don't abuse a man for
not being deformed. I'm afraid you've done something dreadful."

"I haven't. I've done nothing. But I wouldn't defend the case. I was
too proud. Huskinson——"

"Why is your husband's name Huskinson?"

"Ah! that's one of the things I've often and often wondered. It does
seem so unnecessary. I feel that, too."

She checked the natural tendency to muse created by this strange
problem, and went on:

"At first we were only pleasantly unhappy together. I liked his fury,
and when he was good-tempered I bitterly resented it, and tried to
check it by every means in my power. I generally succeeded in doing so.
We women can do these things, you know, Daisy; and that's something."

"Yes."

"But as time went on, Huskinson——"

"I wonder why that's his name," Mrs. Verulam murmured uncontrollably.

"Got so accustomed to being angry that it became very monotonous. There
was no variety in him at all. And one does look for variety in a man."

"Not if he's a London man."

"Huskinson isn't."

"Oh, with his name—no! Go on, darling."

"We were in New York at first, you know. And while we were there it
was all right. I like a man angry in the street very well, or in a
hotel. It shows people he's really fond of you. But then we went to the
oranges—Florida, you see. And it was understood between us that we
were to live an idyllic life there. The climate was suited to that sort
of thing, and Huskinson's——"

"I do wonder——"

"Bungalow was specially constructed for peace, with verandas and
rocking-chairs and a pet monkey, all complete. It was pretty."

She sighed.

"I never saw a pretty monkey yet," said Mrs. Verulam meditatively.

"Boswell was."

"Who on earth was Boswell?"

"Huskinson's monkey. It fed out of his hand."

"How greedy!"

"He didn't think so. Well, I meant Huskinson to become good-tempered
now. He had been angry for two months or more, and it was right there
should be a little change. Besides, we were to be quite alone, we and
Boswell, so that I didn't require him to be jealous, as I had in New
York City. But Huskinson is the sort of man who can't stop when once he
has got into the way of a thing. He must go right on with it, wherever
he is. That isn't artistic. Now, is it, Daisy dear?"

"I suppose not—no."

"Well, in Florida he was just as he was in New York. That man would
sit in a rocking-chair with Boswell on his knee or in his hair, and be
as furiously jealous as Othello. Even that monkey couldn't soothe him.
It was too monotonous. I told him so. But he didn't seem to see it. I
said being abused and watching oranges grow was all right for a certain
time, but if it continued for eternity I should wish I hadn't married."

"That was rather cruel."

"That was what he said. He beat Boswell with a cane, and cried, and
told the men on the plantation that if I said such a thing again he
should cut down their wages. That set them against me. And Boswell took
a hatred for me, too. I was beginning to grow quite weary of it all
when Bream Rockmetteller came."

"Bream Rockmetteller!"

"Huskinson's dearest chum, Bream Rock——"

"I do wonder——"

"——Metteller was to sympathise with Huskinson; that was why he was
invited. He travelled nearly two thousand miles to do it, but as soon
as he was in the bungalow Huskinson became furiously jealous of him.
You see, Bream didn't think me ugly; that was his first mistake. Oh,
how that man did blunder! He admired the way I put my clothes on too,
and thought it suited me quite well to wear my hair short. In fact, he
went from one crime to another—so Huskinson considered."

"Then, was Bream the——"

"Yes. Oh, Daisy, a little man with one of those beards you see in a
nonsense book, and a voice that shook him when he spoke, it was so much
too large for him, and feet as small as yours, and stocks and shares in
all his pockets, and even up his sleeves. How could anyone suppose that
I——"

"Then, why didn't you defend it?"

Chloe put her lips together. When she did that she looked like a very
determined boy.

"Because I was in the right."

"I see," said Mrs. Verulam, accepting a good reason in the usual sweet
womanly way.

"I was perfectly innocent. I had to sit with Bream while Huskinson was
seeing about the oranges."

"Of course."

"And when Huskinson attacked Bream it was my duty to say that Bream was
harmless."

"Certainly."

"But my doing this brought Huskinson to the verge of madness. He went
away suddenly for a week."

"Leaving Bream?"

"Yes. And then he came back, and said that we had deceived him by being
together alone."

"How unreasonable!"

"That the whole plantation was talking about us, and that Boswell was
nothing at all in the way of a chaperon. This was too much. While Bream
was in the billiard-room, arguing with Huskinson and locking up the
revolvers, I packed my trunks, got into the buggy, and proceeded. I
thought that my woman's dignity required it of me. The next thing was
that Huskinson sued for a divorce. I wouldn't defend it, for I was real
angry. Bream was down with fever. And the end of it was that Huskinson
got the case."

"Dreadful!"

Chloe, who had been looking very emotional during the latter part
of her tragic narrative, changed her expression to one of calm
indifference at this remark.

"Why dreadful? I don't think so. It was all done very quietly, right
away from New York. Nobody will hear of it over this way. Even in New
York they don't know it, for Huskinson turned sulky when he'd done it,
went back to his oranges, and won't say a word to anyone. Bream's still
down with fever somewhere in California. And though he's got that big
voice he scarcely ever speaks. Besides, I'm innocent."

She looked hard at Mrs. Verulam.

"Yes, dear; I know that."

Chloe winked away something that might have been the usual thing that
is winked away on such an occasion. Then she said with a gay smile:

"So I've packed my trunks, and come over here to forget it all and have
a good time."

Mrs. Verulam gazed at her meditatively, and said "Oh!"

Chloe, her narrative over, seemed to desire movement. She got up
and wandered about the room in a slightly reckless manner, touching
ornaments with fingers that seemed deliberately dare-devil, and
examining pictures with eyes that were self-consciously bold.
Occasionally she shot a side-glance towards Mrs. Verulam, who remained
with her feet planted on the satin footstool in an attitude of profound
and rather grievous thought. Presently, in her peregrinations, Chloe
reached the _World_, which Mrs. Verulam had flung down in her wrath of
ennui. Chloe bent and picked it up.

"Ah, this is your great paper!" she cried. "I love it. I want to see my
name in it some day."

While she spoke, she had been idly turning the pages. And now she gave
a great cry, such as Marguerite gives over the dead body of Valentine
in the fourth act of "Faust."

Mrs. Verulam started round on her sofa, and saw that Chloe's face was
pale as death, and that the _World_ was fluttering upside down in her
nerveless hand.

"Chloe, what is the matter? Are you ill? Oh, I must ring for Marriner!"

But Chloe pointed to the paper.

"Read—read!" she muttered.

Mrs. Verulam snatched the _World_ from her, and read this innocent
little paragraph:

"'A considerable sensation has been caused in the neighbourhood of
Florida by the Van Adam divorce, the details of which have only just
become generally known. They are, unfortunately, very unfavourable
to the beautiful Mrs. Van Adam, from whom the famous orange-grower
and millionaire has been freed by the action of the court. A great
deal of sympathy is expressed for Mr. Van Adam, whose honeymoon had
scarcely concluded when the sad circumstances arose which obliged him
to condemn, not merely his wife, but also his trusted friend, Mr. Bream
Rockmetteller, the well-known stockbroker. Mr. Van Adam is staying at
present at his bungalow in the midst of his orange-groves in Florida.
His only companion is said to be the monkey which used in former days
to accompany him on all his wanderings.'"

"That's Boswell," Chloe murmured hysterically.

Mrs. Verulam laid the paper down rather impressively.

"Chloe," she said, "you can never get into the cage now, that is
certain."

Chloe sobbed. It was a bitter moment for her. She looked at the
invitation-cards. She thought of the panthers and of the Prince and
Princess, and became rapidly, and very naturally, hysterical.

"Is it—oh, is it quite impossible?" she said in a broken voice.

"Quite. If you were a man, now!"

Chloe lifted her head.

"If you were a man," Mrs. Verulam continued, in the voice of a
philosopher, "that paragraph might open the cage-door for you. London
is very fond of wicked men—forgive me, darling!—of men who are
supposed, and hoped, to be wicked. With your wealth, your history, and
a different sex, you would be a great success this season."

"Oh, why am I not a man?"

"Marriner—she's my maid, and marvellously well informed about
everything—Marriner might know. I can't tell."

"And I have been a man. How cruel it all is!"

Mrs. Verulam was really surprised this time. For a moment she thought
that Chloe's brain was turned by Huskinson's action and its results.

"Chloe dear, collect yourself," she said firmly. "Pull yourself
together, darling. Don't deceive yourself even for a moment You have
always been what you are now—a woman."

"No, no!" Chloe repeated doggedly; "I was a man. They all thought so."

Mrs. Verulam became seriously alarmed.

"I think, dear, you had better lie down quietly, and put on a cold
compress. I shall send you up some strong tea in a few minutes, and——"

"Don't be foolish, Daisy. I was a man at a fancy ball in Chicago once,
just before I married Huskinson. I went in a man's ordinary morning
costume, and took in everyone. Even Huskinson didn't know me! Ah, that
suit—it was such a neat tweed, Daisy!—it reminds me of happy days. I
carry it everywhere with me."

She spoke sentimentally, and Mrs. Verulam was led to observe:

"I'm afraid you love Bream—I mean Huskinson?"

"No, I don't; no, no!" Chloe said vehemently. "No, I don't!"

"Oh, I'm glad to hear it, under the circumstances."

"But naturally I look back to the days before—before——"

"Yes, yes, dear. I know, I know!"

Mrs. Verulam patted Chloe's hands gently. Then she smiled, and said:

"You should have come over in the tweed suit, Chloe, then London would
have been at your feet."

She spoke without definite intention, merely anxious to tide over an
awkward moment. She heard no strange echo of her remark replying from
the future in tones to mock her. She saw no little cloud rising upon
the horizon. She thrilled with no convulsive premonition of a marching
destiny approaching stealthily with slippered feet. And when Chloe
looked at her fixedly for the space of three minutes, and then said
slowly, "Should I? Should I?" she thought nothing of it. Nor did she
specially remark her friend's sudden absence of mind, or the expression
of curious whimsicality that stole into her face. The human soul is
sometimes strangely unobservant in great crises.

"Are you at home this afternoon?" Chloe remarked abruptly.

"No, not to anyone."

"I'm glad. Let me go upstairs and change my dress, and then I want to
talk to you ever so much more. Oh, that horrible, wicked paragraph!"

Mrs. Verulam touched the bell. Francis answered it.

"Please send Mrs. Marriner to me," she said.

Francis retired smiling, and in a moment the faithful Marriner appeared
sedately in the aperture of the door.

"Marriner," said Mrs. Verulam, "this is Mrs. Van Adam. I want you to
take great care of her. She has come from Florida."

"A long distance, indeed, ma'am. I trust the oranges are doing well,
ma'am?"

Chloe turned paler, and Mrs. Verulam said hastily:

"Never mind the oranges, Marriner. Mrs. Van Adam is going to engage a
maid in London. Meanwhile I know you will see that she is perfectly
comfortable in every way."

"Certainly, ma'am."

"Marriner will show you your room, Chloe; and tea will be ready as soon
as you are."

Mrs. Van Adam followed the faithful Marriner towards the door. Reaching
it, she looked back at Mrs. Verulam, exclaimed, "I am going to put on a
tailor-made costume," and vanished.

Just as the door shut, Mrs. Verulam heard the voice of Marriner saying:

"I trust, ma'am, the stairs will not inconvenience you. In Florida I am
aware that the one-storey residence and the ample veranda are quite the
mode."




CHAPTER III.

NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE BUN EMPEROR.


When Mrs. Verulam was alone once more she fell into deep and earnest
thought. She was a little pleased, a little vexed, a little agitated,
a little excited, and a little perplexed. She found herself in a
novel situation, that was also, in a degree, an awkward situation.
An hour ago she had been sighing for a means of escape from society;
she had even been yearning to be compromised, in order that she might
be shunned, and, being shunned, might find that peace which she had
so long desired. Now she was shut up with a divorced woman, whose
story was told in the weekly issue of the best-known society paper
of the day; and this divorced woman, innocent certainly, but guilty
in the eyes of the world and of the law, was her intimate and old
school friend, knew scarcely a soul in England except herself, and had
arrived to make a long stay with her just as the season was beginning.
Here was food for thought, indeed. That paragraph rendered it quite
impossible for Mrs. Van Adam to obtain any footing whatever in society;
that paragraph also rendered it quite impossible for Mrs. Verulam to
introduce her to charming friends. If Mrs. Verulam stirred abroad with
Chloe, the most awkward complications must ensue; if she stayed at home
with her, people would call and introductions would be inevitable. As
Mrs. Verulam sat there, it began to seem to her that Providence had
at length heard her cry, and had made the necessary arrangements for
her exit from society—at any rate, for one summer. If Chloe stayed
on with her in Park Lane, she would—she could have no season at all.
For even these dear friends who so clung to her, who rallied round
her in her supposed poverty, who assumed pelerines and elastic-sided
boots in her imitation, who even followed her into the wicked Wood,
and there abode like disciples in the desert, even these would not be
able to visit or to receive her when she had for close companion the
now infamous, although so innocent, Mrs. Van Adam. Should she keep
Chloe? That was the problem which Mrs. Verulam was now debating. The
sacred duties of hospitality, the yet more sacred duties of friendship,
ought surely to decide that question in the affirmative. And yet Mrs.
Verulam could not hide from herself the fact that she had intended her
exit from society—desired, certainly—to be made more gradually than
was possible under the new circumstances so suddenly arisen. She had
intended, as it were, to make an effective farewell speech, to see
around her not a single dry eye while she made it, to hear the murmur
of uncontrollable regret, and to note personally the devastation caused
by her brilliant and unalterable decision, persisted in despite so many
difficulties. She had, in fact, intended, like an actress, to have a
good-bye season; but Fate seemed about to dispose matters otherwise.
And so Mrs. Verulam bit her pretty lip and sighed a gentle sigh.

In the midst of these pathetic evolutions the drawing-room door opened,
and James, the second footman, showed in a tall, thin, fiddle-faced
man of about forty-two, whose rather plaintive eyes and agreeable
expression quarrelled mildly with a sinister moustache of the
tooth-brush persuasion, and whose neat black hair and soothing gait
diffused around him an atmosphere of scented repose and aristocracy.
This was Mr. Hyacinth Rodney, whose claim upon our notice is that he
believes he loves Mrs. Verulam.

On seeing him Mrs. Verulam started, for she was "not at home," and to
be forced by a careless flunkey to be what you are not, "doth work
like madness in the brain." But James was gone, and Mr. Rodney was
reposefully approaching. So Mrs. Verulam was true to her order and
smiled at him.

"Thank you for your roses," she said, "a thousand times."

Mr. Rodney was seated. It would scarcely be true to say that he sat
down, so imperceptibly, so noiselessly, so adroitly, was the manœuvre
executed. He took Mrs. Verulam's hand into his as a botanist takes a
wondrous orchid.

"Happy roses," he said, in a low voice full of music as soft as
Berlioz's ballet of sylphs; "they came from Mitching Dean." Mitching
Dean was Mr. Rodney's place in Hampshire. Almost everything he
possessed, gave away, or thought much about, seemed to come from there.
"But I did not come to be thanked for giving myself a pleasure," he
added; "I came to bring glad tidings."

"I shall think of you as a herald angel."

"Flying ever to my heaven in Park Lane."

"Charming! But your tidings?"

"Are of Ascot, or, rather, of Sunninghill. My mission has been
successful: the house is yours."

Mr. Rodney glanced at his long feet modestly. This was his way of
concealing pride in his own resource and gratification at his own
diplomacy.

"Ascot, Sunninghill!" Mrs. Verulam said, with an intonation of pretty
bewilderment which was not assumed.

Mr. Rodney withdrew his eyes from his feet rather suddenly and looked
at Mrs. Verulam.

"Surely you have not forgotten that in the early spring you
commissioned me to get you Ribton Marches for the race week," he
murmured, with a sort of soporific reproach.

"Oh! did I? Of course; now I remember."

"Only now?" He contrived a sigh that was an art product, and resumed:
"I opened delicate negotiations about the matter on February the
fourteenth, and have been proceeding carefully ever since. One false
step would have been instant destruction."

"My dear Mr. Rodney——"

"Instant destruction," he repeated, with a slight sforzando, "owing to
the temper of the owner, Mr. Lite, the Bun Emperor."

"The Bun Emperor!"

"He is universally named so by the children of the British Isles, for
whom he—caters, I think they call it."

"Dear me! how many words there are in the dictionary that one never
hears in society."

"Mercifully—most mercifully! Mr. Lite is a man of very peculiar
proclivities. I have made a minute study of them in order to carry out
your instructions successfully."

"It is most good and industrious of you."

"Oh, I shrink from nothing in such a cause. He is, I must tell you, a
man of violent temper and enormous means, devoted to home life, and
extremely suspicious of strangers."

"What a terrible combination of idiosyncrasies!"

"Precisely. My difficulty was to dislodge a man of such a character
from his 'temple of domesticity,' as he calls it, even for one week.
There were, I confess it, moments in which despair seized me, and I
could have cried aloud, like an Eastern pilgrim, 'Allah has turned his
face from me!'"

"I am quite ashamed to have given you so much trouble. Is that really
what Eastern pilgrims say?"

"When the desert is waterless and the camels die like flies."

"Imitative even to the last. But, then, how did you ever persuade
the—the Bun Emperor to leave his home? It sounds like the 'Arabian
Nights.'"

Mr. Rodney looked at his feet again, and seemed to grow thin with
self-appreciation, for he never swelled with pride, any rotund
exhibition being against his nature.

"Well, after many attempts, I found that I could only manage the affair
in one way. Mr. Lite is very susceptible to titles—for advertising
purposes, you understand."

Mrs. Verulam's face was a mask of perplexity.

"In reference to his buns."

"In reference to his buns! I'm really afraid——"

"This was literally the only string I could play upon, the only hold I
could obtain over his inordinate passion for what he calls 'the home.'
As soon as I had made sure of the fact, I ventured"—his voice sank in
a deprecatory diminuendo—"I ventured, I hope not unduly, to make a
promise on your behalf."

"Indeed!"

"Indeed. I said that if Mr. Lite would consent to let 'the home' to you
for the race week, I would persuade you to use your influence with Lady
Sophia——"

"Mamma!"

"With regard to the—well, in fact, the buns. Did I go too far?"

"And what is poor mamma to do? I can't ask her to eat a bun, Mr.
Rodney, I really can't do that."

Mr. Rodney's fiddle face reddened with horror at the idea.

"Pray, pray don't! Such a shocking notion would never have occurred to
me. I trust that my natural delicacy could not go so far astray. No,
I only pledged myself that you would persuade Lady Sophia to sign her
name at the bottom of a word in praise—only a word—in praise of the
buns. I have the form here with me."

Mr. Rodney took a silver case from his pocket, and extracted therefrom
a sheet of note-paper.

"Mr. Lite drew this up under my supervision," he said. "It reads
thus: 'I beg to say that I have every confidence in your buns. They
look inviting on a counter, they should be nourishing, and they seem
desirable in every respect. Your influence upon the digestions of our
children is, I feel almost certain, such as will commend itself to
all who have the desire ebullient within them to advance the cause
of humanity.' Place for signature: 'Lady Sophia Tree.' I think Mr.
Gladstone could scarcely improve upon that."

And Mr. Rodney again observed his boots.

"Mamma has only to sign that? She needn't eat anything?"

"Only to sign, I assure you."

"Then I am sure she will do it. She likes to see herself in print, and,
as you know, has a fancy for authorship. You may have seen her name in
the _Pall Mall Magazine_ and _The Lady's Realm_?"

Mr. Rodney bent his head.

"Often. Then that is happily arranged. I am dining with Mr. Lite
to-night at the Crystal Palace to clinch the matter finally."

Mrs. Verulam's eyes filled with tears.

"You are dining at the Crystal Palace for me? Oh, Mr. Rodney!"

For a moment she was quite overcome. Nor was he entirely unmoved,
although, manlike, he rigidly controlled the expression of a feeling
that did him honour. He cleared his throat twice, it is true, but when
he spoke again his voice was perfectly calm and natural.

"You will send this by messenger to Lady Sophia?"

"I will."

"And now as to your Ascot house-party."

At these words Mrs. Verulam was recalled to all her perplexities, and
she involuntarily murmured:

"Chloe Van Adam!"

"Ah!" said Mr. Rodney, manifesting sudden animation, "did I hear
you say Van Adam? Then you recognised my style? You read my little
paragraph?"

"Your style? Your little what?"

"My little word in _The World_ this week with reference to that sad
American matter."

"Oh, then it was you who put it in?"

"I have a friend in New York, Lord Bernard Roche, who sends me news of
that world with which the White Star Line and the ties of brotherhood
connect us. He wrote to me full of poor Huskinson's—as he calls
him—matrimonial misfortunes."

"He calls him Huskinson, too?"

"Too! That is his name. In America they have names like that."

"And Bream?"

Mr. Rodney's face expressed a cultivated surprise.

"You know about Bream? Oh, but of course, in my paragraph I——"

"And Boswell? Oh!"

"You know about Bos—but I never mentioned its name in my——"

"Her Grace the Duchess of Southborough and the Lady Pearl McAndrew!"
announced James.

Mrs. Verulam, whose mind was now fastened upon the presence of
Chloe in the house, and her imminent advent into the room, rose up
distractedly as two ladies slowly advanced, one smiling, and one on
the contrary. The former was the Duchess, the latter was her only
child. Her Grace was tall, elderly, large and respectable-looking. Lady
Pearl was a trifle shorter, a trifle less elderly, a trifle narrower,
and a trifle—but only a trifle—less respectable-looking. The family
likeness was marked, and the Southborough family was not one in which a
family likeness was an unmixed benefit.

"So glad to find you at home, dear Mrs. Verulam," the Duchess said
suavely, greeting Mr. Rodney also with marked cordiality. "We quite
thought you would have been out on such a lovely day. What do you say?
What?"

This to James, who had suddenly returned into the room to whisper
respectfully in the ducal ear.

"Not enough! An extra sixpence! Certainly not. Tell him to go."

Exit James.

"But I know," her Grace continued, "that you are quite independent of
the weather. In that respect you are like Southborough. He always——
What? What do you say? He won't go?"

This to James, who had made a flushed re-entry accompanied by more
emphatic whisperings.

"No, I sha'n't. Tell him so. Not another penny. We only took him from
Whiteley's. He knows that. What?"

Whispers from James.

"It isn't more than two miles. No, no! Certainly not."

"Can I be of any service?" murmured Mr. Rodney, seeing the footman
remaining blankly.

"Oh, thank you! It is only an extortionate cabman. If you will send him
away."

"Certainly."

Mr. Rodney and James departed. The Duchess, the Lady Pearl and Mrs.
Verulam sat down.

"Southborough always defies the weather. He is like—was it Ajax,
Pearl? you ought to know."

"I quite forget," Lady Pearl said mournfully.

Mr. Rodney came in again.

"It is quite right. Lord Birchington has gone," he said.

"Birchington! You don't mean to tell me the fellow was my brother?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I fancied I knew his face. Then that quite accounts for the
attempt at extortion. Birchington is always in difficulties, and I
daresay cab-driving doesn't pay too well. I hope, Mr. Rodney, you
didn't give in to his demands?"

"Well, really—he seemed so convinced, that I—just a sixpence, you
know."

"Dear, dear! That's the way to become poor, Mr. Rodney. You ought to
take more care of your money, and not let my worthless brother prey on
you. It's only two miles—not a step more. I'm so glad you are back
from St. John's Wood, Mrs. Verulam. You were so difficult to get at
there—even by omnibus."

"It was rather far out."

"And then the neighbourhood is hardly—— However, the Duke likes it,
so I mustn't say a word against it. I believe he had rooms there or
something, when he was only an eldest son. And he's always going to see
them, for 'auld lang syne,' you know. Yes, I will have some tea, thank
you. No sugar! Gout, you know; gout! We all have it, even poor Pearl!
That's what depresses her so much."

"No, mother, it is not the gout—it is the sorrows of life."

"We must all feel that at times, I am sure," said Mr. Rodney
sympathetically.

"Not if we go to Carlsbad at regular intervals," said the Duchess, who
was essentially a materialist. "But one can't always afford that."

"I would rather try a sisterhood," said the Lady Pearl.

"It would be cheaper," said the Duchess appraisingly.

"It would be more retired—most apart, mother. That is the point."

Mrs. Verulam glanced in an attracted manner at Lady Pearl.

"Ah," she said; "you, too, feel the hollowness of society?"

Mr. Rodney looked painfully shocked.

"Society hollow!" he almost whispered.

"As a drum," said Lady Pearl, in a sepulchral voice. "I envy the woman
to whom its doors are closed. That Mrs. Van Adam, for instance, of whom
everyone is talking."

Mrs. Verulam turned scarlet, and Mr. Rodney looked gratified.

"My little paragraph seems to have been read," he murmured.

"Pearl," said the Duchess severely, "what should you know about such a
person? My dear, you forget yourself."

Mrs. Verulam gasped and looked towards the door, through which at every
instant she expected to see Chloe enter the room.

"Oh, Duchess!" she said in agitated protest. "Perhaps, after all, there
is something to be said on her side. Mr. Van Adam may have——"

"Huskinson Van Adam is a splendid fellow, from all I can gather,"
Mr. Rodney ventured to suggest, a little anxious lest Mrs. Verulam's
unexpected charity should compromise her in the eyes of the Duchess.
"I have been at some pains to learn the truth of the matter, and I am
afraid that the evidence of the Crackers could leave no doubt in any
unprejudiced mind."

"The Crackers, Mr. Rodney!" cried the Duchess in her loud voice. "What
had the fifth of November to say to it?"

"Crackers, Duchess, answer to your Crofters in Florida, I believe."

"Really. How very absurd!"

"Oh, but," Mrs. Verulam interposed, losing her head in the agitation
and apprehension of the moment, "it was Mr. Van Adam who set the
Crackers, or Crofters, or whatever you call them, against his wife.
Why, and even Boswell——"

She paused, confronted by faces of unutterable amazement. And in the
pause the drawing-room door was flung open, the prim soprano voice of
the faithful Marriner announced "Mr. Van Adam!" and in walked a dark
young man in a tweed suit.

Mrs. Verulam half rose from her sofa, leaned one trembling hand upon
the back of it, and, gasping quite audibly, stared at the figure in
the doorway as a sceptic might stare when a ghost rises to convince
him. The Duchess put up her eyeglasses with keen interest to take stock
of the newcomer. The Lady Pearl looked decidedly less gouty than she
had a moment before. And as for Mr. Rodney, he sat as if petrified with
surprise at finding the veracity of his paragraph thus impugned in
full publicity, and in his very presence. Meanwhile there was a sound
of violent scrabbling upon the staircase as the faithful Marriner,
for once entirely dismissed from composure, made haste to gain the
seclusion of a back attic, in which she could go, without delay, into
a supreme fit of hysterics. And the young gentleman in the tweed suit,
his hands thrust into his pockets, surveyed the assembled multitude
with eyes that seemed as if about to fall out of his head.




CHAPTER IV.

THE TWEED SUIT.


How long the silence lasted Mrs. Verulam was never able to determine.
Nor in after-days could she remember by which member of the party it
was broken. As a matter of fact, however, it was the young gentleman in
the tweed suit who spoke first. He took his hands out of his pockets
with a sort of deliberate carefulness, walked jauntily into the room,
and sharply whispered, in passing near the sofa against which poor
little Mrs. Verulam was hopelessly reared up:

"Introduce me as my husband!"

Mrs. Verulam's lips were dry. Her head swam, and she saw various
shapes, extremely bright in colour, dancing a sort of appalling polka
before her eyes. Gazing steadily at these dancing shapes, she said in a
piercing voice:

"Duchess—Mr. Van Adam!"

Then she sat down upon the springy sofa in such wise that she moved
several times up and down like a cork buoyed upon the waves of the sea.
And all the time she thus emulated a cork she kept her eyes fixed upon
the young man in the tweed suit, who appeared to rise and fall, or
rather to elongate and to diminish in telescope fashion, while he bowed
before the Duchess, and received in return a dignified and smiling
salutation. But the sofa subsided into a calm, and Mrs. Verulam was
obliged to collect herself. Mr. Rodney was addressing her in an excited
murmur:

"I had no idea, no notion at all, that you knew Mr. Van Adam."

"Oh yes."

"Besides, I fully understood he was in Florida."

"Oh no."

"This makes my paragraph all wrong."

"Oh yes."

"It is really most unfortunate."

"Oh no."

Mrs. Verulam felt like a pendulum, and that she would go on helplessly
alternating affirmatives and negatives for the next century or two. But
Mr. Rodney, who, being of a very precise habit, was seriously upset by
being given the lie direct—in tweed, too, on a London afternoon of
May!—repeated "Oh no!" in accents of such indignant amazement that
Mrs. Verulam was obliged to recover her equilibrium.

"Oh yes, I mean," she said. "Oh yes, yes, yes!"

This repetition signified the approach of hysteria. The young gentleman
in the tweed suit rapidly intervened.

"My kind hostess's invitation lured me from my orange-groves," he
said, in his deep contralto voice, fixing his large dark eyes with a
hypnotic expression upon Mrs. Verulam.

"Oh," the Duchess said, "then you are staying with Mrs. Verulam?"

"Yes," said the young gentleman, still looking at Mrs. Verulam.

"Oh yes," she began feebly. "Oh yes, yes——"

"Might I ask for a cup of tea, Mrs. Verulam?" he exclaimed, in what
might, with but slight exaggeration, be called a voice of thunder.

"Certainly," she answered, putting about fifteen lumps of sugar with a
shaking hand into the nearest cup. "You don't take sugar, I think?"

"Gouty?" said her Grace. "Ah, you and Pearl would sympathise. Let me
introduce you to my girl. Mr. Van Adam—Lady Pearl McAndrew."

Bows.

"I am not gouty, mother," Lady Pearl said, in her morose voice. "I
am only melancholy. And that"—she addressed herself to the tweed
suit—"is because I cannot, I will not, blind myself to the actual
condition of the world I see around me."

"Oh, my dear," said the Duchess, "Carlsbad would cure you. But," she
added to the tweed suit, "unfortunately, I can't afford to send her
there just at present."

The Lady Pearl grew large with vexation, as people of sensitive nature
will when, having elaborately surrounded themselves with an interesting
atmosphere, they find it ruthlessly dissipated by a Philistine allusion
to uric acid. She seemed about to make some almost apoplectic rejoinder
when Mr. Rodney mellifluously chipped in.

"I believe in the climate of Florida gout is practically unknown,"
he said, speaking obliquely towards the tweed suit. "My friend, Lord
Bernard Roche"—he paused, expectant of some eager exclamation from the
person whom Lord Bernard in his letters called "poor old Huskinson."
But none came. "Lord Bernard Roche, now in New York—City"—he again
paused, and once more in vain—"tells me so."

His conclusion was a trifle flurried. When we don't get what we want,
in conversation, we are apt to be put to confusion. Mr. Rodney looked
very hard indeed at the tweed suit, and then, although not introduced,
added to it:

"I think you know Lord Bernard? He tells me so in his very charming and
entertaining letters."

"Oh yes—Lord Bernard—oh yes, certainly," exclaimed the tweed suit,
with a sudden flaring vivacity.

"A very sympathetic nature," Mr. Rodney continued, in softest music. "I
am sure that you have found it so. A man to go to confidently in any
trouble."

"Oh, certainly. Most undoubtedly yes."

The Duchess had caught Mr. Rodney's gracious innuendo, and she now
chimed in, with her most basso-profondo manner:

"Ah, Mr. Van Adam! but in London you must forget all your troubles.
London is the most cheerful place imaginable."

"Oh, mother!"

"Yes, Pearl, it is for a healthy person. No doubt," to the tweed, "you
are staying for the season?"

The tweed looked towards Mrs. Verulam, and then, after a perceptible
pause, answered:

"Yes."

"Well, then," continued her Grace, who was aware of Huskinson Van
Adam's millionaire propensities, "you will soon be quite cheerful
again, I'll warrant. You have been over before, I suppose?"

"In Paris. I know Paris quite well, but not London."

"Paris is horrible," said the Lady Pearl. "The Bois de Boulogne makes
me sick."

Mr. Rodney's smooth hair nearly stood on end. Hearing Paris decried
was to his social and orthodox nature like blasphemy to the ears of an
exceptionally pious Pope. Such sayings ran in his veins like ice-cold
water, and almost gave him pneumonia. But, ere he could utter his
illness, another personality was added to the group in Mrs. Verulam's
drawing-room. This was a round and swart young man, with spectacles,
short legs, and a conceited manner. Probably he was announced by the
footman. But he seemed simply to be in the room, to have greeted
everyone except the tweed suit, to have sat down, taken a cup of tea,
and said, "Paris is the only place in the world!" before a person
desirous of doing so could exclaim "Knife!"

Such was the rapidity of that ardent creature—Mr. Ingerstall, artist
and egoist.

"Paris, I repeat," he reiterated, looking all round him, and speaking
with a clipping utterance, "is the only place in the world."

And he began to drink his tea with extraordinary swiftness of
absorption. No man on earth could assimilate a liquid in a shorter
space of time than Mr. Ingerstall. In his hands the commonest actions
assumed the dignity of feats. In his mouth the most ordinary remarks
took on an aspect of Mount Sinai.

Mr. Rodney breathed again. Paris had found a defender. The Lady Pearl
did not appear angry at being contradicted. She was accustomed to it,
and custom is everything. She looked mildly at Mr. Ingerstall and said:

"Really!"

Mr. Ingerstall handed his cup to Mrs. Verulam in order that it might
be refilled. Then, staring hard at the tweed suit, towards whom, as
a stranger, he thought it fit to address his educational remarks, he
cried:

"Really! There is no art except in Paris, no possibility of dining out
of Paris, no good dressmaker beyond the limits of Paris, no perfect
language except the perfect language of Paris, no gaiety, no nerve, no
acting, no dancing, no love-making worthy of the name, but in Paris!"

"Then, Mr. Ingerstall, why on earth do you always live in London?" the
Duchess said heavily.

"Because I find more caricatures there," said Mr. Ingerstall, taking
the second cup of tea from Mrs. Verulam's hands with the manner of a
conjurer at the head of his profession.

And again he stared at the tweed suit; then he turned to Mrs. Verulam
and exclaimed:

"Please introduce me to that gentleman."

"Mr. Ingerstall—Mrs.—Mr. Van Adam," said Mrs. Verulam.

It seemed to her that everybody in London was in her drawing-room
intent on the acquaintance of the hybrid friend who had brought her to
such confusion. Nevertheless, she found some comfort in the fact that,
so far, the tweed suit was accepted as genuine. But Mr. Ingerstall's
eyes were terribly sharp; and, then, he wore spectacles. And what
can be hidden from a vision naturally acute, and aided by glasses of
enormous power? Mrs. Verulam trembled.

"You know Paris?" said Mr. Ingerstall to the tweed suit.

"Yes; quite well."

"You agree with me, then?"

"Certainly," said the tweed suit, moving rather uneasily under the
piercing gaze of the artist.

Mr. Ingerstall's swart face was irradiated with a triumphal grin, which
was distinctly simian. He turned to the Duchess: "There, your Grace,"
he said; "you see there are others of my opinion."

"Ah! but Mr. Van Adam doesn't know London yet," the Duchess retorted.

"Then I'll show it him!" cried Mr. Ingerstall, with a glee that was
diabolic. "I'll show him Madame Tussaud's, the Piccadilly fountain, the
mosaics—heaven preserve us all!—in St Paul's, "glowing with life and
colour," as the poor dear Chapter expresses it, the Royal Academy—at
its very best this year—the sublime architecture of Buckingham Palace,
the restaurants out of which you are turned at half-past twelve, after
mumbling the final course of your abbreviated supper by the light of a
tallow-candle. Oh, I'll show Mr. Adams London!"

"Van Adam," interposed Mr. Rodney restoratively.

"Mr. Van Adam, London. Will you come with me?"

He thrust this last remark at the tweed suit, which replied in a rather
muffled voice:

"Thank you very much."

"That's settled, then," said Mr. Ingerstall, hastily devouring a
lozenge-shaped cake covered with pink sugar; "and then we'll see,
Duchess, whether this gentleman doesn't swear by blessed Paris to the
end of his life."

"Oh, really, Mr. Ingerstall, you ought to go to the Morgue instead of
to heaven when you die," her Grace rejoined tartly, as she turned
with great deliberation to Mrs. Verulam. "What are your plans for the
season, Mrs. Verulam? Are you going to Ascot?"

Mr. Rodney looked at his boots and endeavoured modestly to conceal
the simple and unostentatious fact that he felt himself a hero. Mrs.
Verulam hesitatingly replied:

"I haven't thought much about it as yet."

But this was too much for Mr. Rodney. To be snatched suddenly from
the summit of a candlestick and incontinently shovelled away under a
bushel is an event calculated to rouse the temper of the very mildest
_flaneur_ who ever wore polished boots. Mr. Rodney's fiddle face
assumed a sudden look of stern resolution, and in a voice a trifle
louder than usual he almost exclaimed:

"Mrs. Verulam has secured through me the finest house in the
neighbourhood of the course."

"If you want to go racing, you really ought to run across the Channel
and go to Longchamps," began Mr. Ingerstall with intense rapidity.

But the Duchess had had enough of him, and when the Duchess had had
enough of anybody, she could be like a park of artillery and a stone
wall combined. She could both decimate and offer a blank and eyeless
resistance to attack. On the present occasion she preferred to become
a stone wall to the chattering artist, and, presenting to him the
entirety of her back, she said with animation to Mr. Rodney:

"Indeed! Which house d'you mean?"

"Ribton Marches," that gentleman responded, in a way that was nearly
unbridled.

"The Bun Emperor's palace!" exclaimed her Grace in a thrilling bass.
"Mrs. Verulam, you are a public benefactor. Is Mr. Van Adam to be of
your party?"

Mrs. Verulam looked helplessly across at the tweed suit as if for
orders. Apparently she received them, for she suddenly said, "Yes,"
with a jerk.

The Duchess glanced from the sombre countenance of the Lady Pearl to
the tweed suit. It was evident from her protuberant eyeballs that her
mind was busily at work.

"Ribton Marches is a palace," she continued; "it would hold a regiment."

"Oh!" interposed Mr. Rodney, "I scarcely think that Mr. Lite would care
to entertain a——"

"I know Mr. Lite very well," the Duchess interrupted; "a most worthy,
generous man. He has given me thousands of buns from time to time."

"Does your Grace eat so many?" said the rasping voice of Mr. Ingerstall
from behind. "If you wish to get a really perfect bun, go to the
Maison——"

"For the school-children on the Duke's estates," the Duchess continued
inflexibly. "It has been a very great saving for us; and, in return,
all we have had to do is to let the good man use our names in his
advertising processes. 'Your buns are exquisite'—the phrase was mine.
You can see it in the _Daily Telegraph_ any day."

At the phrase, "your buns are exquisite," the phantom of a superior
smile flitted beneath the shadow of Mr. Rodney's sinister moustache.
He was thinking of the choice bit of prose to which the name of Lady
Sophia Tree was so soon to be appended.

"Have you made up your house-party yet?" the Duchess proceeded blandly
to Mrs. Verulam.

"Not yet. Indeed"—here Mrs. Verulam shot a rather cruel glance out
of her grey eyes at Mr. Rodney—"indeed, the matter of my having the
house——"

"The palace," interjected the Duchess.

"Is scarcely finally settled yet."

"I clinch it to-night at the Crystal Palace," murmured Mr. Rodney
through his teeth.

"The Crystal Palace!" cried Mr. Ingerstall; "there's a glass house
at which everybody should throw stones. Burmese warriors made of
chocolate, or something of the kind, plaster statues of Melancholy,
sardines in boxes mixed up with jet bracelets and bicycle exhibitions,
a concert-room like a fourth-rate swimming-bath, a—but you shall see
it," he cried to the tweed suit, who again replied hastily:

"Thank you very much."

"If your party is not made up, Mrs. Verulam," the Duchess resumed, "I
am sure the Duke and I and Pearl will be most happy to join it."

"Indeed, mother," said the Lady Pearl grievously, "I do not wish——"

"My dear, nonsense; it will do your gout a great deal of good,
breathing the pine-laden air, if Mrs. Verulam can find room for you——"

"I shall be delighted," said Mrs. Verulam, whose mental condition at
the moment rendered her quite prepared to accept any proposition, even
of murder or arson, that might be made to her.

"Then that is settled," the Duchess said briskly, rustling the skirt
of her gown as a signal of her imminent departure. "It will be an
advantage to you to have me at Ribton Marches, because I know all the
ins and outs of the place. The Duke and I lunched there with Mr. Lite
to sign our little token of approbation of his buns, and he showed me
everything. Well, really, we must be getting on. Come, Pearl——"

The Lady Pearl rose wearily. Her face still expressed either a tendency
to gout or an understanding of life; but it must be confessed that,
as she looked towards the tweed suit and bowed a dignified farewell,
a trace of animation crept into her manner, and she looked more
distinctly less respectable than the Duchess than she had on her entry
into Mrs. Verulam's drawing-room. The Duchess cordially shook the tweed
suit's hand at parting.

"Come and see us," she said vigorously.

"Many thanks."

"Come to-morrow."

The reply was a rather faint, "With pleasure."

"Mrs. Verulam will give you our address—Belgrave Square. You can get
a bus from the corner of Hamilton Place that will put you down at—oh,
but of course that doesn't matter to you. I wish the Duke had an
orange-grove. Good-bye, Mr. Ingerstall."

She looked him over meditatively; then she said:

"Perhaps you won't mind just coming out with us to hail a—thank you
very much. Good-bye."

She proceeded out of the room, followed by Lady Pearl and Mr.
Ingerstall, the latter of whom turned sharply at the door to say to the
tweed suit:

"Very well, then; I'll come to-morrow morning to show you London,
and increase your commendable love of Paris. Ah! when you see the
mosaics—mercy on us!"

He shot out of the room with his short arms raised towards heaven. A
moment later they heard his voice piercingly hailing a bus outside for
the Duchess.

Meanwhile Mr. Rodney was being terribly _de trop_. Mrs. Verulam had now
come to what is called the end of the tether. She wanted to bounce up
from her sofa, take Mr. Rodney by the shoulders, thrust him forcibly
out of the house, and then go into violent hysterics. This was what she
wanted to do. What she had to do was to sit quiet and see him becoming
suspicious, and, finally, jealous of the tweed suit, which also wanted
to go into hysterics. Mr. Rodney was considerably exercised, first by
finding that he had apparently told a lie in the _World_, secondly, by
being made suddenly aware that Mrs. Verulam had a male friend of whom
she had never spoken to him, and, moreover, a friend so intimate that
she summoned him from the orange-groves of Florida to stay alone with
her in London, all divorced as he was. All this greatly perturbed him,
and so soon as the Duchess was gone he promised himself the pleasure
of probing, with his usual exquisite dexterity, into the problem so
abruptly presented to him. He therefore sat tight, and began to look
very observant. Mrs. Verulam was gripped by the cold hands of despair.
She forced a faded smile.

"You mustn't forget your engagement at the Crystal Palace, Mr. Rodney,"
she said, with a terrible effort after sprightliness.

Mr. Rodney grew wrinkled, a habit of his when forced into painful
thought.

"I am not likely to forget any detail of my service to you," he said,
with a pressure that tended in the direction of emphasis. "But we do
not dine till half-past eight."

"The trains are very slow on that line, I believe," Mrs. Verulam added,
with a vagueness as to the different railway systems that would have
made her fortune as a director.

"Still, they do not take three hours to do the six miles," said Mr.
Rodney, with a distinct approach to sarcasm.

Mrs. Verulam collapsed. There was no more fight left in her. She shut
her eyes very tightly and tried not to breathe hard. When she opened
them again Mr. Rodney was looking at the tweed suit in a very crafty
manner.

"I have heard much of you, Mr. Van Adam," he said slowly.

"Indeed!"

"Yes. I have even had the pleasure of writing a little word about you."

The tweed suit started.

"May I ask where?"

Mr. Rodney laid his long white hand gently upon the _World_.

"Here."

The word dropped from him like a pebble. The tweed suit flushed
scarlet, and its dark eyes darted a look of boyish fury upon the demure
writer of paragraphs. But it only said, in a voice that slightly shook:

"Indeed!"

"May I have the pleasure of showing you?" said Mr. Rodney, gently
unfolding the journal for men and women, and laying one finger upon
the Van Adam paragraph. The tweed suit pretended to read it carefully.
"You will notice a slight mistake at the close," Mr. Rodney continued
in a resentful voice, and glancing from the tweed suit to Mrs. Verulam
and back again. "It would not have crept in" (errors have no other gait
than that generally attributed to the insect world) "had I known that
we were to have the unexpected pleasure of welcoming you to London."

"Thank you very much."

Mr. Rodney had now set foot upon the path of magnanimity. He bit his
lower lip, and took another step upon it.

"I shall be glad to rectify my error next week," he said.

"I am obliged to you."

"In the meanwhile, anything that I can do to render your short"—he
paused interrogatively; there was no rejoinder, and he continued—"stay
among us agreeable, I shall be only too happy to accomplish."

The tweed suit bowed convulsively, and Mrs. Verulam began to breathe
audibly upon her sofa.

"Mitching Dean," Mr. Rodney added, with a sense of glorious martyrdom,
"Mitching Dean is entirely at your service."

"Mitching Dean!" the tweed suit repeated, with a befogged intonation.

"Yes. Its butter, its roof, its roses——"

"Roses!" said the suit, as if trying to break an intolerable spell.
"Ah! the English roses are exquisite! I have some dark-red ones in my
room here."

Mrs. Verulam coughed sharply. Mr. Rodney's face grew a dull brick-red.

"Dark-red roses in your room?" he said. He looked rapidly at all the
drawing-room vases, and then cast a pale and reproachful glance at Mrs.
Verulam. Then he got up slowly. He felt that his investigation into the
relations of the pretty widow and the divorced American orange-grower
could not be pursued satisfactorily in such a moment of confusion and
despair. He must have time for thought. To-night he would free himself
as early as might be from the thraldom of the Bun Emperor. He would
wander amid the japanned-tin groves of the Crystal Palace. He would
seek the poetical solitude afforded by an exhibition of motor-cars, or
plunge into the peaceful villages of the chocolate-hued and inanimate
Burmese. To-night! to-night! He must think; he must collect himself;
he must reason; he must plan.

"My train," he murmured a little frantically; "I must catch it. I must
go! I must indeed!"

He spoke as if multitudes were endeavouring to hold him, and keep him
back from a stern purpose. He pressed Mrs. Verulam's hand. "Cruel!" he
murmured. He bowed to the tweed suit. "Au revoir!" He was at the door.
"My train! Good-bye!" He was gone, and instantly Mrs. Verulam on her
sofa, the tweed suit on its chair, were in violent hysterics.

Had Mr. Rodney left his hat behind by mistake and returned to fetch
it, he must have stood on the threshold petrified. As there is often
a method in madness, so there is sometimes a hilarity in hysteria.
There is the frantic laughter of the human soul making a sudden
and distracted exit from the prison in which it has been gradually
accumulating a frightful excess of emotion. It leaps out with hyæna
cry, and with the virulent cachinnations of a thing inhuman. Mrs.
Verulam's shriek of laughter as the hall-door closed behind Mr.
Rodney's thin back was far more terrible than Chloe Van Adam's burst
of tears. It flew up like a monstrous and horrible balloon, seeming to
take form, to sway, to swell as a gas-filled bladder, to burst with
a tearing desperation, to die down in a chuckle of agony. And as the
laughter of Mrs. Verulam faded with the sharp swiftness of hysteria
into a flood of tears, the tears of Chloe Van Adam bloomed into a
shriek of laughter. The two women took it in turns, as the children
say, to leap to the opposite poles of emotion, until the footman James,
below stairs, the faithful Marriner above, heard and trembled.

But all things must have an end, and at last the waves of tumult
receded and receded, the laughter leaped lower, the sobs subsided, and
presently an awful silence reigned, broken only by the sound of female
pants—not the rustle of rational dress, but the murmur of escaping
breaths, long, bronchial, and persistent. And then even these died
away, till you might have heard the note of the falling pin upon the
receptive carpet.

"Chloe!"

"Daisy!"

"Oh, oh, oh!"

"Ah, ah, ah!"

"Oh, don't—don't, or I shall begin again."

"So shall I! Oh, let us keep quiet! Oh, do let us—oh, do let
us—oh——"

"Hush!" cried Mrs. Verulam. And suddenly she sprang up, went over to
the tweed suit, clasped it in her arms and kissed it. "There, there!"
she said; "it's all over now. Oh, but why did you do it?"

"But why did you say that nobody would be let in?"

"I told Francis I was out. He must have forgotten to tell James. He
shall leave me to-morrow."

"And I thought I would give you a little surprise."

"You did! You did! When I saw you at the door I thought I should have
died!"

"And I wanted to be elsewhere."

"And Marriner! The extraordinary noise she made running upstairs. She
fell down twice. I heard her."

Mrs. Verulam leaned against Chloe and laughed till the tears ran down
her cheeks, but this time with honest merriment. And Chloe echoed her
with a delicious emulation. That gaiety did them good. A sense of
humour is often salvation. And, indeed, they might have been laughing
now had not their silver joviality been arrested by a flat-handed
thump on the drawing-room door. They stopped and looked at each other.
The flat-handed thump was repeated.

"Who on earth can this be?" whispered Mrs. Verulam apprehensively.
"Come in!"

The door stole open and the faithful Marriner appeared, with twisted
features, red eyes, and betouzled hair.

"Oh, ma'am!" she said. "Oh, my! Oh, dear, oh!"

She advanced into the room with her poor feet turned in, and wringing
her horrified hands. Her black dress was torn at the knees, showing how
she had fallen as she scrambled atticwards. Mrs. Verulam looked at the
dress, remembered once more the noise of the tumbles, and laughed again
till the tears ran out of her eyes.

"Poor Marriner!" she said. "Poor dear Marriner! Mr. Van Adam,
Marriner!" (She mimicked the voice of announcement.) "Mr. Van Adam!"

The faithful Marriner's complexion turned a blackish grey.

"Oh, ma'am, forgive me—forgive me!" she cried.

In another minute she might have been led to go back upon the whole
course of her education, and to utter some such damning exclamation as
"I didn't go for to do it!" but mercifully Chloe averted that imminent
calamity by saying:

"There, there, Marriner! Never mind. I made you. It was all my fault.
Besides, there is no serious harm done. At least, is there, Daisy?"

And she turned reflectively to Mrs. Verulam.

"Please shut the door, Marriner," Mrs. Verulam said.

The faithful Marriner did so, and then returned, still on turned-in
deplorable feet.

"And now let us be quite calm, and consider," Mrs. Verulam said.
"Marriner, you may sit down for a moment."

Marriner sank upon the edge of a chair, and tried to fold her hands
respectfully, but failed. She could not so soon command her body.

"Nobody recognised you, Chloe," said Mrs. Verulam; "not even Mr.
Ingerstall?"

"Horrid little man! No!"

"They all think you your husband?"

"Yes, they take me for Huskinson." A light sprang up in her eyes. "In
fact, so far as they are concerned, I am a man!"

"Tcha, tcha, tcha!" clicked Marriner, making the condemnatory noise so
dear to limited natures in moments of tension or surprise.

"Oh, Daisy, I wonder, would it be possible——"

She stopped and looked doubtfully at Marriner.

"Marriner is absolutely to be trusted," Mrs. Verulam answered to the
look.

"Oh yes, ma'am!" said the faithful one, beginning gradually to recover.

"Well, then—could I not? No, Daisy, I must speak to you alone! I know
that Marriner will keep the secret of this afternoon."

"Oh, ma'am, with my best blood!" cried Marriner, vaguely quoting from
historical novels, but meaning well.

She got up, gained the door, turned, repeated in a high voice "With my
best blood, ma'am!" and went softly out.

"Well, Chloe, what is it?"

"Didn't you tell me you longed to get out of society and couldn't?"

"Yes. I long to get out gracefully, and—er—just a little bit later
on in the season. You see, dear, there's the Ascot house, and the Duke
and Duchess coming. I must stay in the cage till the race week's over."

And Mrs. Verulam looked at Chloe a little awkwardly, all the problems
presented by the Florida divorce suit returning upon her.

"And I must stay in it, too, just—just till that lovely week's over,"
Chloe said with a coaxing accent. "Just till then, Daisy. I must see
the Bun Emperor's palace, and Mr. Pettingham's coloured slides, and the
Prince and Princess, and Sartorius—oh, I must! I must!"

"But how?"

"As Huskinson."

"What?"

Mrs. Verulam's voice grew shrill. But Chloe was persistent.

"Why not?" she urged with tender cunning. "You see I can do it. Nobody
will recognise me. Huskinson has never been in London, and has no
London friends. Women have lived as men before me. I read of one in the
papers who was a sailor for forty years without being discovered, and
of another who fought in battles, and got drunk, and swore, and was a
man in every way."

"My dear Chloe, you mustn't drink! Oh, but it's impossible!"

"No; but listen. It's heaven-sent—this mistake, I mean. I only
intended to show you alone I could be a man. But now, Daisy, you
want to get out of society! I want to get into it. We can do it
together—one go in, one get out, like the little man and woman in the
cardboard barometer. Let me stay here as Huskinson. You can compromise
yourself harmlessly with me, and I can have a good time just for a
month or two, just till after Ascot, anyway."

"You will have to see the mosaics!" said Mrs. Verulam.

"I'll bear that. I'll bear anything. The game is worth the candle.
Oh yes, it is. And then, after Ascot, I'll vanish—you'll perhaps be
dropped. It's a perfect plan. Now, isn't it? Isn't it?"

"Really, it is not bad," said Mrs. Verulam. "Yes, I might get out of
the cage through you, and yet preserve my self-respect."

"Of course you might. I say it's heaven-sent."

"Heaven-sent—but Francis!"

This sudden _cri de cœur_ alarmed Chloe for her friend's reason.

"Heaven—Francis!" she said helplessly.

What could such words mean but that poor Daisy's reason was tottering
upon its throne?

"The footman who let you in when you arrived! The footman who shall
leave my service to-morrow. How to keep his mouth shut! Wait! Did
anyone else see you?"

"Not a creature."

Mrs. Verulam knit her pretty brows.

"Francis loves Marriner," she said, in an inward voice of subtle
meditation. "Francis loves Marriner."

She paused.

"Does he? Why?"

"I can't think, but he does. It isn't only that Marriner told me so,
but he did himself; so I suppose it's true. Chloe, if we are to do this
dreadful thing, Francis' affection must be played upon."

"It sounds like a flower and a hose."

"It's a footman's heart and a woman's cleverness. Marriner shall
accept Francis on the condition of his keeping our secret from
everyone, especially from James."

"I see. It's all perfect. Oh, except my clothes!"

"Your clothes! Why, you've got them on!"

"But only these! I must have frock-coats, lavender pants—trousers, I
mean—silk hats, clawhammers, and—and—well, you know, Daisy—other
things. I can't have a man to measure me; at least, can I?"

Mrs. Verulam thought silently for a moment. Then she said: "You must be
ill."

"Why?"

"For a day or two. Your tweed shall go to a first-rate tailor.
Francis—Francis has been valet to the Marquis of Greenbank. He'll know
all about that. We'll measure your head in bed, and get the hats. Yes,
yes, we'll manage it all. Poor Mr. Rodney!"

A mischievous smile, the true little grin of the coquette, curled her
sweet lips.

"They were his roses I put into your room, Chloe," she said.

And Chloe laughed and echoed, "Poor Mr. Rodney!" Then she added, "And
James Bush, dear?"

Mrs. Verulam blushed.

"Come, dear, it is time for you to be ill," she said hastily. And she
took the tweed suit affectionately by the waist and led it from the
room.




CHAPTER V.

CHLOE WAITS FOR HER TROUSERS.


"Kindly tell Mr. Van Adam that I have come to take him to St Paul's
Cathedral to see the mosaics," cried Mr. Ingerstall, at three o'clock
on the following afternoon, to the smiling Francis.

"Mr. Van Adam is ill in bed, sir."

"Ill in bed!" shrieked Mr. Ingerstall. "What with?"

"I couldn't say, sir."

And the smile of Francis widened till it nearly touched the ears on
either side of his head. Mr. Ingerstall looked very angry indeed. When
he had arranged to show a man an atrocity at a certain fixed hour, he
considered that man ought to be well enough to see it.

"I don't understand this at all," he snapped. "When did Mr. Van Adam go
to bed?"

"Yesterday afternoon, sir. Very soon after you left, sir."

"He looked quite well."

"That was an accident, sir."

"An accident! What d'you mean?"

"His looking well when he was ill, sir."

Mr. Ingerstall glared up at Francis through his enormous spectacles,
as if he would read the footman's soul. Having read it, he could make
nothing of it. So he darted one fat hand into his pocket, snatched
out a card-case, extracted a card with lightning dexterity, gave it
to Francis, exclaimed, "I shall call to show Mr. Van Adam the mosaics
to-morrow at three precisely!" and marched away with immense rapidity,
throwing sharp glances around him at all the passers-by, and rolling
his broad little body as if accommodating himself to the turbulent
waters of the Bay of Biscay. Francis went on smiling upon the doorstep
for the space of a moment, and was just about to retreat into the hall
and close the front door, when a private cab, painted very dark green
and black, drove up, and the long face of Mr. Rodney peered forth over
the apron.

"Is Mrs. Verulam at home?" he asked plaintively.

Francis stepped out to the pavement.

"She is not at home, sir, but I can ask if she will see you, sir."

"Please do so," said Mr. Rodney. "I have some important news for her."

Francis retired, and came back in a moment to say that Mrs. Verulam
would receive Mr. Rodney. The latter released himself from his hansom,
bearing a quantity of carnations from Mitching Dean, and ascended the
stairs, wearing on his countenance a carefully prepared expression of
almost defiant resignation. He found Mrs. Verulam, in a delightful robe
of palest primrose silk, sitting at her writing-table, and holding in
her hand a pen which had that moment traced the magic words, "My dear
Mr. Bush." She smiled at him in her most cordial manner as she accepted
his flowers.

"Carnations!" she said.

"From Mitching Dean."

"They are lovely. Thank you so much!"

"Not at all. May I venture to hope that—that they are worthy of a
place in your own room?"

"I will have them put in water there at once."

She rang the bell and gave the bouquet to Francis, with orders that the
faithful Marriner was at once to dispose the flowers about her boudoir.
Mr. Rodney's face expressed a gentle relief. He almost permitted
himself the luxury of a cheerful smile as he sat down and prepared to
unfold his last new mission.

"I was just writing the invitations for my Ascot party," Mrs. Verulam
said lightly.

"Ah, it was about that I ventured to call," said Mr. Rodney, with a
thin animation. "Last night I succeeded in my endeavour. I put the
corner-stone to my temple of negotiations. I clinched the bargain with
Mr. Lite."

"How good of you! What was the dinner like?"

Mr. Rodney went a little pale, and hurried on:

"But there are one or two conditions. I wanted to speak with you about
them."

"Oh," said Mrs. Verulam, going to a drawer and taking out an envelope.
"Here is mamma's signature to the praise of the buns. There was nothing
else, was there?"

"Thank you very much," said Mr. Rodney, taking it carefully. "It
will be all right. But I must tell you"—he lowered his voice
impressively—"that Mr. Lite is a man of singularly tenacious
affections."

"Indeed!"

"I scarcely knew how tenacious until—well, until we were wandering
among the steel-knife exhibits last night after dinner."

Mrs. Verulam involuntarily shuddered.

"For it was only then that he was moved fully to unbosom himself to me,
fully to reveal the depths of a peculiar—I may say a very peculiar
character."

Mr. Rodney paused, as if to choose his words, and then resumed:

"I gathered then that the soul of Mr. Lite is the—the residence of two
masterful passions, the one a keen desire to obtain the very best names
in England as signatures in praise of his—er—his wares, the other an
affection amounting—yes, really, I may say amounting almost to fury,
for what he calls 'the home.' Now, as you may suppose, on an occasion
such as that of last evening, these two extraordinary passions found
themselves in opposition—in acute opposition."

"How terrible!"

"It really was. There were moments, I must confess, in which I should
have been relieved if the present exhibition at the Crystal Palace had
been of a somewhat different nature. However, nothing of that kind
happened, I am thankful to say."

Mrs. Verulam assented, and he continued softly:

"And, indeed, Lady Sophia's name won the day. That I may tell you at
once. But having indulged the former of his two passions, Mr. Lite
became suddenly the slave—to some extent, only to some extent—of the
latter. And this is what I wish to consult you about."

"Yes."

"He will, with his devoted wife—'the wife,' as he somewhat exclusively
calls her; he has no family—turn out of 'the home' for the space of
six clear days, Monday to Saturday inclusive; but he cannot bring
himself to leave the neighbourhood or to allow a strange staff of
servants to intrude into Ribton Marches. Therefore he makes, or
wishes to make, these conditions: that you retain his servants—there
are plenty of them, I may tell you—to wait upon your party, and
that you permit him and 'the wife' to lodge for the week in a small
fishing-cottage that stands at the edge of a piece of artificial water
beyond the small pine-wood at the outskirts of the grounds."

"Oh, Mr. Rodney, but——"

"He promises that they will regard the grounds as yours, and that under
no circumstances whatever will they emerge from the seclusion of the
fishing-cottage."

Mrs. Verulam brightened up.

"Oh, under those conditions I have no objection. But it would be very
unpleasant to have a man of violent temper prowling about and spying
upon what my guests were doing in his garden or conservatories."

"Intolerable! intolerable! But the Bun Emperor is a man of his word, I
feel sure; and, indeed, he offers to accept these conditions in black
and white, and to sign his name to them if you wish it."

"Oh dear, no!" Mrs. Verulam said hastily, with all a woman's usual
dislike to anything business-like.

"Then that's comfortably arranged," Mr. Rodney said.

He looked at his boots for a couple of minutes, then glanced away and
added:

"I hope your guest, Huskinson Van Adam, is well?"

Mrs. Verulam concealed a smile by looking very miserable suddenly.

"Indeed, I am sorry to say he is not at all well."

"Dear, dear!"

"In fact, he is in bed. He is not able to be up."

"I am grieved. What is the matter?"

"Nervous prostration."

"Following upon the shock of his wife's dreadful conduct, I suppose?"

"Possibly."

Mrs. Verulam stole a glance at Mr. Rodney, and continued with gentle
artfulness:

"I think he must love her still."

At these words Mr. Rodney brightened up wonderfully.

"Poor fellow!" he said; "poor fellow! I must get him up some melons
from Mitching Dean. Americans like them. And the Mitching Dean melons
are marvellously nourishing."

"It will be like your usual kind self."

Mr. Rodney bloomed into absolute vivacity under these gentle breezes of
good-nature.

"And now," he said, "about the party. Ribton Marches will, as the
Duchess says, hold a regiment. There are dozens of bedrooms, and the
reception-rooms are very large."

"Oh," Mrs. Verulam said, "I only mean to have quite a little
party—eight in all, including myself—four women and four men."

"Yes?"

"The Duchess, Lady Pearl, myself, the Duke, you, dear Mr. Rodney"—Mr.
Rodney bowed happily—"Mr. Ingerstall, to worry the Duchess—you know
how overwhelming she is if there is nobody about to worry her—Mr.
James Bush, and Mr. Van Adam."

Mr. Rodney calculated gravely.

"But that is three ladies and five men," he said.

"No, indeed!" Mrs. Verulam grew red under the swift knowledge of
her absurd mistake, and cried: "Oh yes, of course. How stupid of
me! That won't do, will it? Never mind; I'll ask Miss Bindler, Lord
Kingsbridge's sister—you know how fond she is of racing—and someone
else."

She was obviously confused for a moment. Mr. Rodney attributed her
condition to a wrong cause, prompted by the jealousy that almost
habitually preyed upon him in regard to Mrs. Verulam. His mind
instantly fastened upon the only name in the list that was totally
unfamiliar to him.

"Mr. James Bush?" he murmured enquiringly.

Mrs. Verulam recovered herself promptly, but a curious shining look
came into her grey eyes as she answered:

"Of the Farm, Bungay Marshes, Lisborough."

"Of the Farm, Bungay Marshes, Lisborough?"

"You have not heard of him?"

"I don't think so. Which are his clubs?"

"His clubs? Oh, he doesn't belong to any."

Mr. Rodney looked almost prostrated. A man who didn't belong to any
clubs joining Mrs. Verulam's select little Ascot party at Ribton
Marches!

"James Bush does not care for anything of that kind," Mrs. Verulam went
on, with a thrill of something very like enthusiasm.

"Indeed!" said Mr. Rodney, with a frosty intonation of wonder.

"Oh no; he never comes to London. Did I never mention him to you?"

"Never."

"I met him some time ago in the country, quite by chance," Mrs. Verulam
said airily.

"Really?"

"Yes. We fraternised."

"Oh!"

"I found him a most interesting, intelligent man; full of enthusiasm."

"Enthusiasm! How very odd!" Mr. Rodney said, as if to be full of
enthusiasm were to be full of some extraordinary disease.

"For his work."

"He is a workman?"

"He is a gardener—that is to say, he has a garden and a small farm,
as he tells me. And he attends to them himself, with the help of an
elderly labourer, Jacob Minnidick."

If it were possible for Mr. Rodney's long and sallow face to
become more astounded than it had been during the progress of this
conversation, it became so at the mention of this name.

"Jacob Minnidick!" he repeated in tones of flagrant amazement. "Jacob
Minnidick!"

The name really laid him low, like a blow from the shoulder. He had
never heard one like it before, and it seemed to take him straight into
a different and dreadful world.

"Yes. Isn't it a pretty name? I am very much interested in Mr. Bush. It
is he who has made me wish to give up society."

In her excitement Mrs. Verulam had spoken incautiously. She had hardly
meant to go so far so soon. Mr. Rodney's veins suddenly swelled. His
mouth opened, and he looked as if he were going to have some dreadful
fit. He clenched his hands, and seemed to struggle for air. Mrs.
Verulam was really terrified.

"Oh, Mr. Rodney, Mr. Rodney! what is it? what is it?" she exclaimed.

Mr. Rodney put up one long hand to his high collar, intruded a couple
of fingers within its circle, and pulled it outwards, at the same time
screwing his head rapidly from side to side. Mrs. Verulam was about to
rush to the bell in terror when, with a convulsive effort, he collected
himself.

"Please don't," he said.

Mrs. Verulam didn't, but she was still very much alarmed.

"What is it? what is it?" she repeated. "Oh, please do tell me."

Mr. Rodney got up, walked to the window, and back again, and then stood
still.

"Made you wish to give up society!" he said in a sepulchral voice. "Do
you really mean that?"

"But surely that was not the reason of your seizure?"

"Indeed it was. Nothing else could have so affected me."

He spoke with the deepest feeling. Mrs. Verulam was almost touched.

"I am so sorry. But I thought it was physical."

He sat down again.

"An access occasioned by horror of mind," he said. "That you—that
anyone, but most especially that you—should wish to give up society!
What an appalling notion!" He put his hand up again to his collar, but
withdrew it. "Horrible! Unnatural!" he murmured.

"I cannot agree with you," Mrs. Verulam said, recovering her composure.

He looked at her almost with fear.

"What—what is the meaning of this possession?" he said. "Who is this
man, this person—Bush?"

Mrs. Verulam flushed angrily.

"Please don't speak of my friends like that," she said.

"I beg your pardon. I will go. I had better go. I must have air—I must
have air."

And he rose and tottered out, leaving Mrs. Verulam in a state of
mingled indignation and alarm. She went to the window, and saw Francis
assisting him into the black-and-green cab. His upward movements to
reach the step were like those of one decrepit with age. When the cab
had driven slowly away in the direction of Piccadilly, she sat down at
the writing-table and went on with her interrupted note.

 "My dear Mr. Bush,

 "I remember very well, when we met at Basildene on that unforgettable
 day when you were helping my friend Mrs. Ringden to swarm her
 bees—is that the right expression?—you told me of your righteous
 hatred against the doings of society, and expressed your unalterable
 determination never to enter what is, ridiculously enough perhaps,
 called the gay world. Nevertheless, I want to persuade you to take
 a little holiday from your noble labour of working in your garden,
 and seeing after your farm at Bungay, and to join me at Ascot in
 June for the race week. I see a 'No' rising to your lips. But wait
 a moment before uttering it. Let me tell you first that, moved by
 weariness of my empty life in town, and stirred by your example and
 your maxims—'There's nought like pea-podding,' etc.—I intend to
 retire from society at the end of June, and to emulate your beautiful
 intimacy with Mother Nature. This Ascot party is practically my
 farewell, and my beginning of better things. Confidently, therefore,
 I summon you to be present at Ribton Marches, Sunninghill, Berks,
 from Monday to Saturday, June the — to the —, to support me in my
 determination, and assist me with your advice as to my future and more
 useful and fruitful life. Do not refuse. Mr. Minnidick will, I am
 certain, look after everything carefully in your absence, and I shall
 be really hurt if you say no. With kindest regards,

 "Believe me,
 "Yours very truly,
 "Daisy Verulam.

 "P.S.—How is the garden looking, and how are the sheep? No more ewes
 coughing, I hope? But that marvellous preparation of yours—'Not
 Elliman,' I always call it—has prevented all that, I know."

Mrs. Verulam put this note into an envelope with an eager hand,
addressed it to "The Farm, Bungay Marshes, Lisborough," sent it to the
post, and then hastened, with glowing cheeks and bright eyes, to Chloe
Van Adam's bedroom.

Chloe was in bed, attended by the faithful Marriner, who had attained
to that useful and beautiful age which permits a female to administer
to a (supposed) suffering youth without the tongue of detraction being
set instantly a-wagging. Nor could Mrs. Verulam's household, who
laboured under the delusion that Chloe was her orange-growing husband,
find much food for injurious gossip in the short and occasional
visits—always chaperoned by Marriner—that the pretty hostess made to
the chamber of her invalid guest. Having entered the room and carefully
shut the door, Mrs. Verulam sat down by Chloe's bedside.

"Will those trousers never come?" cried the latter with energy. "Oh,
Daisy, it is dreadful to feel that I might be calling on a Duchess and
that I am under a coverlet! This bed is like a grave. Do send Francis
to tell that tailor to hurry up."

"Patience, dear. I am sure you will be able to go out to-morrow. I
expect Mr. Ingerstall was in a fearful state of fury at your being too
ill to see the mosaics to-day. He is afraid that you will grow to like
London if you are snatched away from his influence."

"Horrid little creature! Oh, do tell me some news. It is so dreadful
lying here. Has anything happened?"

"Marriner," said Mrs. Verulam, "you may go on reading 'Studies in
Pessimism,' if you like."

"I thank you, ma'am," said the faithful Marriner, eagerly opening her
pocket Schopenhauer.

"Well, Chloe," pursued Mrs. Verulam; "in the first place, Mr. Rodney
has just been having a sort of fit downstairs."

"Gracious! Is he epileptic?"

"No, only conventional."

"Does conventionality make people foam at the mouth?"

"Not exactly. But he really had a sort of convulsion when I told him
that I intended to give up society. I was quite alarmed."

"You told him that?"

"Yes. I was carried away. You see, we had been speaking"—Mrs. Verulam
lowered her voice—"of James Bush."

Chloe plunged on her pillows so as to get a clearer view of her
friend's face, on which she fixed her sparkling, boyish eyes with a
merciless scrutiny.

"Ah!" she said. "Now tell me all about him. Who is he? What is he?
Where is he?"

Mrs. Verulam clasped Chloe's hand on the quilt softly.

"Chloe," she said, "he is a man!"

"I gathered that. Very few women are called James."

"That's not enough. It is not a christening that makes a man, it is
life."

The faithful Marriner looked up from her pocket Schopenhauer with
respectful appreciation of this reasoned truth.

"Well, then, what life does he lead?" cried Chloe.

"A life of wholesome labour, of silent communion with the earth—a life
devoid of frivolity and devoted to meditation and sheep and bees and
things of that kind."

The conclusion was a little vague, but the intention to praise was
obvious, and Chloe was deeply interested.

"Meditation, sheep, bees," she repeated—"isn't all that what is called
small culture?"

"Oh, indeed, there is nothing small about James Bush!" exclaimed Mrs.
Verulam. "Oh no! He is immense, powerful, calm! He is my idea of Agag!"

The faithful Marriner again glanced up. The word "Anak" trembled upon
her well-informed lips, but respect for her mistress held her mum. Only
a slight rustle betrayed the thrill of deep learning that ran through
her.

"Really!" said Chloe. "Go on, dear."

"I met James Bush in the country at a time when I was just beginning
fully to feel the emptiness of society."

"Emptiness! Oh, how can you!"

"I remember our first meeting so well," Mrs. Verulam continued with a
soft rapture of romance. "He came towards me with his head in a sort
of meat-safe, holding in his strong hands the lid of a saucepan, upon
which he beat with a wooden spoon with all his might and main."

Chloe sat up in bed and gasped.

"But why—why was he dressed so?" she asked.

"To protect him in his duties."

"What duties—among the sheep?"

"No, oh no! He was swarming bees. Ah, how beautifully he swarms! If
only these London creatures who call themselves men could see him!"

"I didn't know one person could swarm alone before. Go on, dear. Did he
raise his meat-safe to you?"

"No. He took no notice of me at all, except to tell me to get out of
the way. That struck me directly. It was so different from what a
London man would do!"

"I should say so. Gracious!"

"It was only afterwards that we talked, and that I learned what a man's
life can and should be."

She glowed tenderly, and Chloe's suspicions were confirmed. She
shuffled on the sheet towards her friend, and whispered in her right
ear:

"Daisy, you're in love with Mr. Bush!"

The faithful Marriner hastily fluttered the pages of Schopenhauer's
monumental work, endeavouring not to hear, and failing in the
endeavour. Mrs. Verulam replied, after a short pause:

"I'm not sure."

"I am!"

"Hush! I shall know at Ascot."

"Is he coming to Ribwick——? What is the palace called?"

"Ribton Marches. Yes."

"How exciting! Oh, to think that you——"

She stopped and sighed, and, with woman's marvellous intuition, Mrs.
Verulam knew that her mind was Huskinson-bound for the moment; that
she saw once again the sands, the oranges, the crackers, and the
razor-backs of far-off Florida; that she heard again the rattlesnakes
of her sweet native land singing their serenades to the peaceful
alligator; that she played once more upon the wide veranda with the
errant Boswell, and watched the sunset behind the curly pines with the
baleful Bream. Yes, Mrs. Verulam divined all this, and, clasping her
friend's hand, was silent, thinking of the many mysteries by which we
are all surrounded, whether our lot be cast in Margate or in Maryland.
When she spoke again, she said in a very low voice:

"I will confess to you that James Bush is a hero in my eyes. Whether he
can ever be anything more to me I cannot tell. To me, Chloe, he is the
embodiment of the life I mean to lead, the life of simplicity, in which
everything has its value; the—the passing of—of a butterfly, the
agony of a grasshopper, the swarming of a bee, the—the murmur of even
the—the meanest owl that lives——"

"Are owls mean?"

"Yes. James Bush is the embodiment of the earth, from which we come, to
which we go; the earth that we ought all to till and love, to delve in
and to delight in. The earth! Dear Mother Earth!"

The faithful Marriner coughed discreetly, and Mrs. Verulam shut up, but
not before Chloe had cried:

"I don't think I like a man to be too earthy!"

Mrs. Verulam rose to go to her room and put some eau-de-cologne upon
her forehead.

"Wait," she whispered as she went. "Wait till you see him!"

"Marriner," said Chloe, "would you mind going to Francis, and asking
him when I may expect my pants?"




CHAPTER VI.

FATIMAH WAS UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF HASCHISH.


Mr. Rodney's condition of mind during, and for some time after, his
drive from Mrs. Verulam's door in the black-and-green cab would
scarcely afford fit subject for minute description. When a thoroughly
estimable man ceases to take an interest in his "little place in the
country," forgets whether he has put on the same pair of lavender
gloves on two successive evenings or not, is careless about the set of
his white tie, and totally unaware that his hair is unevenly parted
when he is setting forth to the "crush" of a Countess, analysis
should hold its merciless hand, psychology should veil its piercing
eye. Suffice it, then, to say that Mr. Rodney was indeed sore smitten
and afflicted by the terrible revelation of Mrs. Verulam's maniacal
determination. To a man of his nature, life is society and society
is life; the mode is to him what the burning bush was to Moses; the
fashion of the day is the god in the car under whose wheels he loves
to lie. Men, women, sorrows, joys, all people, all things, are but
food for the sustenance of the deity whose rouged and powdered face
looks down, like Jezebel's, from the lattices of a meretricious heaven,
intent only on gaining an empty compliment, or a sly _œillade_ from
the worshipping world below. The thought that a woman who was not only
in the fashion, but literally the fashion, a woman with whom he was
in love, should suddenly fall under an influence with a ridiculous
name, hobnailed boots, and no club, rendered him almost imbecile with
impotent agitation; and it is on record that he was seen in the late
afternoon of the day of Mrs. Verulam's appalling deliverance furiously
pacing the Thames Embankment, and that at night he—how was never
known—in some manner made his way to Clapham Common, upon which
preposterous portion of the earth he wandered alone for nearly an hour
and a half, uttering exclamations of despair, and making crude and
tragic gestures.

Such deeds as these sufficiently proclaim the extraordinary condition
to which he was reduced. But there was more to come. Three days later
he departed to Mitching Dean, in the very top of the season, and he
might perhaps have been there at this moment, forgotten and clean gone
out of recollection, had not a violent telegram from Mr. Lite, the Bun
Emperor, summoned him back to town. The telegram ran as follows:

 "Where the devil is Lady Sophia Tree's bun praise?—Perry Lite."

On receipt of this despairing cry, Mr. Rodney started from the
hammock in which he was sulking upon the Mitching Dean lawn like one
distraught. He remembered his obligations, and to him obligations were
sacred things. In his despair he had thrust Lady Sophia's delicate
tribute—his tribute, indeed!—to the Lite buns into the pocket of
one of his frock-coats, and there it doubtless remained in darkness,
instead of blazing forth, heavily "leaded," in the most popular
paper of the day. Now, this frock-coat was up in town. Accordingly,
Mr. Rodney ordered round the brougham, drove to the Mitching Dean
station—often alluded to by him in conversation as "my bijou station
at Mitching Dean"—and took the train to town to do his duty by Mr.
Lite. Once there, he remained. Upon his hall table in Grosvenor Place
he found a sacred assemblage of invitations to the very best houses. He
looked into his vellum-bound and silver-clasped "engagement" book, and
discovered that Mr. Pettingham summoned him to the Unattached Club to
see views of the Holy Land and to hear a lecture that very night. And
he heard all around him the murmur of the monster that he loved licking
its lips over its repast of pleasure. His procedure, therefore, was as
follows: He extracted the bun praise from the frock-coat and forwarded
it at once to Ribton Marches, with many an explanation and apology. He
then accepted "with pleasure" all the invitations which he had found
upon his table, and, finally, he made a careful toilet, dined quietly,
and, stepping into the green-and-black cab, ordered his coachman to
drive him to the Unattached Club.

As he rolled thither on indiarubber tyres he wondered whether he
should meet Mrs. Verulam. She used to go there. And, indeed, everybody
invariably went to Mr. Pettingham's parties, which were intensely
smart, as well as slightly educational in tone. But the deadly
influence that emanated from the Farm, Bungay Marshes, Lisborough,
might have deterred the pretty widow from adhering to her usual habit
upon this occasion. Mr. Rodney's long limbs trembled in the cab until
the horse began to gallop, under the impression that only the most
rapid motion could save it from an earthquake imminent at its back. If
Mrs. Verulam should have already yielded to the baleful and hypnotic
powers of the man Bush, should have already died to the only life worth
living!

The galloping horse was thrown violently upon its haunches. The
brilliant light above the door of the Unattached Club shone upon the
twisted face of Mr. Rodney. He was compelled to recollect himself, and
to get out. Still trembling with unwonted agitation, he made his way
downstairs to the magnificent suite of apartments in the area retained
by the enthusiastic Mr. Pettingham for his popular gatherings. A door
was thrown open, and he found himself in the pitch dark, and in an
atmosphere of heat that was almost suffocating. By this atmosphere
Mr. Rodney knew that the room was packed with women of title. He
could not see them, but the very great difficulty he experienced in
drawing breath proved to him that they were there in this black well
on the threshold of which he was standing. He realised them, and he
also realised that he had arrived rather late, more especially when
he perceived at some distance off a pale circle of light, rather
resembling a theatrical moon that had sat up late too many nights
running, and heard a small and quacking voice say:

"I very much regret that, owing to a slight accident, resulting in
serious injury to my Jerusalem, I am unable to show my views of the
Holy Land this evening. I shall therefore substitute for them my slides
of Morocco, and shall tell you a few of my recent experiences while
travelling with my very good friends Prince Carl of Schmelzig-Heinstein
and the Duke of Drigg through the far-famed land of the Moors."

The quacking voice paused to allow a murmur of "Charming! charming!" to
rise like incense out of the darkness, and then added:

"The Palestine soup, which you will presently find upon the supper
menu, will, I fear, not strike you as appropriate in the changed
circumstances. I regret that there has been no time to substitute for
it some potage Tetuan. You will now see the Prince, the Duke and myself
as we appeared when in the act of _landing at Tangier_."

The quacking voice hurled out these last three words with impressive
emphasis. Under cover of them Mr. Rodney, who, from old experience,
knew the plan of the room, glided down the two steps from the door,
and crawled with infinite precaution among the invisible duchesses
in search of a seat. For Mr. Pettingham's lectures were long, and
his slides were often slow to appear when summoned with a duck-like
"Hey, presto!" Now, as Mr. Rodney crawled, like Jean Valjean in the
sewers of Paris, he heard upon every side the slow breathing of almost
suffocated society. Here he recognised the familiar snort of the Lady
Jane Clinch, famous for her luncheons, there the piping sigh of the old
Countess of Sage, who was born on the day of the Battle of Waterloo,
and talked of the Crimean War as a recent event. He heard the Baroness
Clayfield-Moor shuffling her feet, according to her immemorial custom,
and recognised, with a happy thrill of instant knowledge, the stifled
cough of Mrs. Brainton Gumm, the Banana Queen, who had taken society
by storm two seasons ago, and still kept her footing by paying it
with persistent entertainments. A little further forward the familiar
sneeze of the Duchess of Southborough broke upon his listening ear, and
his bosom heaved with the exultant satisfaction of the hare with many
friends. There was, indeed, no atmosphere in which Mr. Rodney felt more
thoroughly like a fish in water than the atmosphere of Mr. Pettingham's
delightful gatherings. The utter darkness in which they invariably
took place lent them a peculiar charm, obliging the acute society man
to rely on an unusual sense for the discovery of those known to him.
The eye was rendered useless; the guns of vision were, for the moment,
spiked. Success and comfort depended upon the senses of hearing and of
touch. Never did Mr. Rodney feel more completely the rapture of the
sleuth-hound than when he followed the trail of one attractive to him
through the dense human jungle of the Unattached Club.

To-night, however, he was a little bit off-colour, owing to the
agony of mind which he had been enduring for the last few days. In
consequence, perhaps, of this fact, his feet forgot for an instant
their ancient cunning, and when he heard the Duchess of Southborough
sneeze a second time in his immediate vicinity he started, and trod
heavily upon a neighbouring Marchioness. Of course he knew her.
Directly she screamed he discovered an old and valued friend, and
poured forth a complete apology into the blackness, an apology which
was whisperingly accepted. But this painful misadventure slightly
flurried him, and caused him to commit a solecism the memory of which
haunted him to the last days of his life. For, after making his
peace with the Marchioness, he inadvertently sat down in the Duchess
of Southborough's lap, just as Mr. Ingerstall was vehemently hissing
into her ears, "The only thing that makes Tangier possible is the fact
that there is a French Consulate there. That cursed thing, British
influence——" It was at this point that the Duchess suddenly began
to struggle feebly, and to catch her breath beneath the unexpected
imposition of Mr. Rodney. He got up immediately. Any gentleman would
have done so, much more our friend from Mitching Dean. But the Duchess,
partly from surprise, since she had not heard anyone approaching her in
the darkness, partly from the physical collapse very naturally brought
about in an elderly lady who is suddenly called upon to support a
weight of some twelve stone or thereabouts, continued to gurgle in a
very alarming manner. Mr. Pettingham, who, rod in hand, was in the very
act of pointing to a small figure relieved in colours upon the sheet,
and saying, "There you will perceive my excellent friend the Prince
stepping into the first boat to go ashore," was brought up short in his
informing discourse.

"I hope nothing is the matter? No one is taken ill?" he quacked
anxiously.

The perspiration broke out in a cold cloud upon Mr. Rodney's face. He
bent down to the darkness from which he had just risen, and murmured
with a pungent agony, and a disregard of grammar that did him credit:

"Duchess, it's only me! I do assure you it's only me, Mr. Rodney! Pray,
pray forgive me! Oh, pray do recover! Be all right! Oh, Duchess, for
our old friendship's sake be all right, or they'll turn on the lights!"

This tragic appeal was not without its effect upon her Grace. She
good-naturedly came to, and Mr. Rodney, fortunately discovering
an unoccupied seat on her off-side, sat down and hastily went on
apologising, while Mr. Pettingham proceeded with his discourse.

"I cannot—I can never tell you how grieved and shocked I am," Mr.
Rodney whispered.

"What is your weight?" whispered back the Duchess.

"My—I beg your pardon!"

"How much do you weigh? You are monstrously heavy for your size."

"I am very sorry. I am quite ashamed—only just twelve stone, I do
assure you—I am really——"

"My dear man, never mind. If Mr. Pettingham will keep the room so dark
we must all expect to be sat on. Where have you been all this long
time? I haven't seen you anywhere for the last three days."

"I have been at Mitching Dean."

"What, at this time of year?"

"I have not been at all well."

"Gout? Carlsbad would do you more good than Mitching Dean."

"It was not the gout; it was more painful than that," Mr. Rodney
hissed, with genuine emotion. "Is Mrs. Verulam here to-night?"

"Yes, in pale green—charming little creature!"

Mr. Rodney thrilled.

"Mr. Van Adam is with her," continued the Duchess. "They are about
eighteen rows behind us, and Pearl is sitting with them."

"Indeed!"

"Yes. Mr. Van Adam has quite cheered her up, poor child; or else it
is Dr. Spencer Hill's new spray treatment that she is trying. But I
really am inclined to think it is Mr. Van Adam. He is a great success
in London."

"Really!"

"Oh, a great success!" By the sound of her whisper Mr. Rodney knew
that the Duchess had turned her head to the near side. "Isn't he, Mr.
Ingerstall?"

"I really don't know. I only know that he liked the mosaics—actually
admired them!" snapped that gentleman, in the distance; "and yet he has
lived in Paris. He has seen the——"

"How did Mrs. Verulam get to know him?" continued her Grace to the
off-side.

The palpitations of jealousy seized Mr. Rodney.

"I have no idea," he whispered.

"Was she ever in Florida?"

"Oh dear, no!"

"Of course, people are talking——"

"Might I venture to request silence?" quacked the irritated voice of
Mr. Pettingham at this juncture. "It is almost impossible for me to
bring my friend the Duke of Drigg's adventure in the Soko vividly
before you if I do not have the kind assistance of your complete
attention. Well, as I was saying, it was very evident to me that
Fatimah was decidedly under the influence of haschish." He struck a
bell. "Here you see Fatimah under the influence of haschish."

"These adventures of Drigg's are very uninteresting," continued the
Duchess, resuming her conversation in a louder whisper. "People are
talking, you know, Mr. Rodney."

"Talking—what about?"

"Oh, Mrs. Verulam and Mr. Van Adam. But I take a more charitable view.
After all, she's twenty-eight."

"Oh, surely not more than twenty-seven!"

"Englishwomen always look more than their age," Mr. Ingerstall
whispered violently. "It's an extraordinary thing! Now, a Parisian——"

"Twenty-eight, Mr. Rodney; and getting on towards twenty-nine. And he
looks a mere boy. You have heard all about him? Did Bernard Roche ever
tell you his age?"

"No, never!" said Mr. Rodney, suddenly registering a vow to write on
the morrow to New York and find out a great deal about Huskinson,
against whom he was rapidly conceiving a most deadly hatred.

"He seems very young to have got a divorce," her Grace whispered
reflectively. "However, in America I suppose they begin earlier than we
do over here. People develop more rapidly, I believe."

"Yes, Duchess; but about Mrs. Verulam and Mr. Van Adam. What are people
saying?"

Mr. Rodney's note was hoarse.

"Oh, the usual thing. And certainly it is a little strange, his coming
all the way from Florida to stay with her—alone in the house, too.
A little injudicious, certainly. Old Martha Sage is terribly shocked
about it. She declares it is the most extraordinary affair she has
known since the Crimean War!"

Mr. Rodney turned pale in the darkness. On what a precipice was Mrs.
Verulam walking. And James Bush, too! But Lady Sage and the Duchess
knew nothing yet of him. The darkness became to Mr. Rodney like a
spinning ball, in whose interior he violently revolved through space.
He was recalled to himself by hearing the Duchess say:

"Are you going on to the panthers?"

"The panthers?"

"Of Sartorius, at Mrs. Vigors' in Brook Street?"

"Oh yes, I believe I am, if there is time. Pettingham is a little
lengthy to-night."

"Terribly!"

She listened for a moment.

"Dear! Fatimah is still evidently under the influence of haschish. This
is endless!"

She agitated her enormous fan in the darkness. All around might now
be heard a rustling as of wings. The Dowagers, half suffocated, were
doing likewise. Mr. Pettingham sipped at a glass of water, and calmly
continued:

"When the Duke said this to Fatimah, the Prince and I were convulsed. I
got down off my donkey——"

"This is wonderfully interesting," Chloe murmured to Mrs. Verulam
eighteen rows back.

Mrs. Verulam, who was lost in a reverie, through which James Bush moved
with all the dignity of her idea of Agag, started and replied:

"D'you think so? I think it appalling! Even the Holy Land must have
been better than this. If he takes us into the interior, I shall faint."

"I shall now proceed to show you some views of the interior," continued
Mr. Pettingham, with a quacking complacency. "First try to imagine
yourselves in one of the filthy alleys of the Jewish quarter of
Tetuan." He struck the bell again. "Here you see one of the filthy
alleys faithfully reproduced."

"If only somebody would open a window," murmured Mrs. Verulam
distractedly. "Oh, but I forgot; we are in the basement of the club,
and there are none."

"Is it really true that the Princess of Galilee is here?"

"Yes, poor thing, in the front row. Oh, Chlo—oh, Mr. Van Adam, if you
only knew how I long to be quietly away from all this, sitting in some
sweet garden, with the quiet marshes stretching away all round me on
every side, and——"

"Oh, not marshes; they are horrible! You should see the swamps in
Florida!"

"An English marsh is quite, quite different. Mr. Bush has lived in
one all his life at Bungay." She sank her voice on the last romantic
word, and breathed a gentle sigh. "He will tell us of his life—of the
true, best life—when he comes to Ribton Marches," she added softly.
"For he has accepted my invitation in his own dear, characteristic
manner. I meant to have told you. I got his letter—or, rather, his
postcard—to-night, just before we were starting."

"What did it say?"

"'Coming.—J. Bush.'"

"Isn't that a little short—for an answer to you, I mean?"

"Yes, short and to the point. How much better than filling sheets and
sheets of letter-paper with empty phrases and meaningless compliments."

"Yes?" said Chloe rather doubtfully, as she settled her shirt-front,
and slightly pulled up her trousers to prevent them getting into
"knees." And then her attention was claimed by the Lady Pearl, who
murmured in her ear:

"How terrible must be the sufferings of these poor Moorish infidels! It
is impossible to escape from agony, mental and physical, in any part of
the world."

Meanwhile, Mrs. Verulam suffered under a very delightful infliction
of the darkness. At Mr. Pettingham's parties people very often heard
themselves talked about, as the want of light rendered it impossible
to see who was who and who was where. Therefore the injudicious were
constantly prone to allow their opinions to be known by those whom
they most nearly concerned. While the Lady Pearl was pouring her very
creditable heart-woes, or secret consciousness of gouty tendency, into
the ears of the supposed Mr. Van Adam, a woman's voice broke upon Mrs.
Verulam's unoccupied ears.

"Did you see them come in?" it whispered, apparently carrying on an
already begun conversation.

"Yes," replied another murmuring female voice.

"Did you like her gown?"

"Pretty well. I am certain it must have come from Violette's."

"Oh, I thought she got all her gowns in Paris!"

"My dear, she _says_ so."

"She does her hair well."

"Yes. But I am not sure whether it suits her broadened out so very
much over the temples. I thought it looked a little exaggerated, but I
daresay the men like that."

"Men always admire her."

"Oh, men admire anybody! They have nothing else to do. Mrs. Verulam
does as well as you or I, or anyone else."

"I hear Mr. Hyacinth Rodney is simply furious about this Mr. Van Adam.
They say he has left town and gone away to Mitching Dean."

"Where everything comes from. I don't wonder. Mrs. Verulam seems to
have taken leave of her senses. To have a man only just divorced—a
mere boy, certainly, but so handsome—over from America to spend the
season with her! It's the most extraordinary proceeding! I don't think
people will stand it. She's taken Ribton Marches because he has never
seen an Ascot. Lady Sage is trotting about everywhere expressing her
private opinion of the matter."

"What is it?"

"Oh, too straightforward to quote here. But I fancy if Mrs. Verulam
isn't very careful she will get to know what the cold shoulder is at
last. One can't fly in the face of—oh, what's that?"

A crash in Mr. Pettingham's direction startled the suffocating titles.
Providence had been kind, and, taking pity on their increasing
breathlessness, had caused the hand of the slide-manager to slip
at a critical moment. The interior of Morocco strewed the floor in
fragments, and the adventures of "my excellent friends, Prince Carl of
Schmelzig-Heinstein and the Duke of Drigg," were brought to an abrupt
and merciful termination. A blaze of electric light revealed a panorama
of hot faces, heaving shoulders, gleaming tiaras, and waving fans.
Mr. Pettingham stepped down, with many apologies for the unfortunate
accident, into the room, offered his arm to the Princess of Galilee,
and escorted her towards the supper-room, quacking loudly as he went.
Conversation burst forth as if a dam had been pierced. Dowagers rose
up, groups formed and dispersed. The two words "Palestine soup" floated
on the surface of every mind, and a general move was made in the
direction taken by the host and the Princess.

In the midst of the confusion Mrs. Verulam saw the tall and thin form
of Mr. Rodney carefully—remembering the Marchioness—threading his way
towards her through the throng. His eyes were fixed reproachfully upon
her. And he had assumed the self-conscious air of a man recovering from
a long and dangerous illness. The Duchess of Southborough followed,
escorted by the shouting Mr. Ingerstall. Mrs. Verulam found herself
overtaken by a shudder of boredom. She looked away, and saw the two
women who had been discussing her so incautiously get up and exchange
glances of dull and strangled horror on perceiving that she had been
sitting so near to them. And while she felt that she hated them, she
almost loved their scandal, for it seemed to set the cage-door ajar.
And she fancied that she could see the squirrel—no longer Tommy,
but Daisy—cease from its everlasting scramble upon the revolving
gilded bars, and turn bright eyes upon the door pushed ever so little
outwards, and move to it, and put his nose—just outside. That was
lovely! And since it was most certainly the young gentleman in the
tweed suit, now in orthodox evening-dress, who had accomplished this
good beginning of a miracle, Mrs. Verulam turned to him with a quick
and expressive movement of gratitude and graciousness. More than one
well-bred starer noticed it, and the Verulam and Van Adam scandal
marched another step onward, while Mr. Rodney began to look as if the
poor, self-conscious man was rather relapsing into than recovering from
his illness. However, he approached, trying not to glare at Chloe, who
looked marvellously young and handsome in her man's costume, took Mrs.
Verulam's hand, and said softly:

"I have just returned from Mitching Dean."

"Indeed! I didn't know you had been away until to-night."

"I felt that I must have rest—change—time to think and to recover."

"From what, Mr. Rodney?"

"From the blow; the blow dealt me by a cherished hand."

Mrs. Verulam tried not to look too obviously bored.

"I hope you are better?"

"That I have to find out; that I must know. It is a question to me
whether I shall ever be better."

He glanced again at the radiant Huskinson, now in animated conversation
with Lady Pearl and the Duchess, thought again of James Bush, and was
nearly feeling himself the most unhappy of men. He could not hide from
himself the horrible fact that Huskinson looked well in evening-dress,
and the man who looks well in evening-dress looks well in anything. Mr.
Rodney surveyed the slim form of the orange-grower, his curly black
hair, his bright and merry dark eyes, noted his animated and youthful
manner, perceived that he went to a first-rate tailor—Francis did
know all about it!—and felt a sort of prostration stealing over him.
He mentally went back upon his resolve to hold out the right hand of
fellowship to Huskinson by a present of melons from Mitching Dean. One
does not heap melons upon an adversary. Human charity has its limits.
Mr. Rodney, casting a pale and jaundiced glance upon the bright and
successful youth so lightly bearing his recent trouble, resolved, and
resolved with real firmness, that the beds of Mitching Dean should not
be denuded of their mellow and tender-hued fruit. No, no!

Meanwhile, Chloe was in high feather. She had lost all fear of
discovery, and gave herself ardently to the bosom of that wonderful
thing society, which received her with that strange and bizarre
passion of receptive protection and coaxing ecstasy reserved for
the millionaire. Only the millionaire fully knows the greedy love
of the monster, its tenacious anxiety to please, its skipping and
self-conscious lures, its readiness for self-humiliation, its grand and
ample abandonments of dignity. Only the millionaire sees in perfection
those fawning attitudes of the monster, supple and engaging, which no
new-fledged puppy dog can ever surpass, or even emulate, when creeping
with flattened ears about the feet of a worshipped master. Chloe knew
at last the smiles of Duchesses as she could never have known them,
had she not slipped into an evening coat, pumps, silk socks, and "the
newest thing in waistcoats." The lethargy of a forgetful footman had
opened for her the very gates of heaven. She had the animal spirits to
enter in with an intrepid gladness. At present she was cheering up the
melancholies of the Lady Pearl, who blossomed into a sort of sepulchral
hilarity beneath her warming rays. The Duchess of Southborough smiled
upon the sunny transformation. But soon her Grace, business-like even
in beatitude, remembered that there were even more important matters
afoot than the gradual dispersion of a daughter's gout, and, advancing
upon Mrs. Verulam, she exclaimed in her friendly bass:

"And what about Ascot, Mrs. Verulam? Is it all settled? The Duke is
enchanted at the idea of a week in the Bun Emperor's palace; for Ribton
Marches is forbidden ground to everybody. Mr. Lite never has visitors,
except to lunch to sign an advertisement. He thinks the sanctity of the
home should not be intruded upon. Have you really got the house?"

"Mr. Rodney says 'really,'" Mrs. Verulam said, looking at him.

Mr. Rodney bowed towards his boots.

"Dear me! How delightful! A large party?"

"Very small."

Mrs. Verulam mentioned its items. Her Grace, although her magnificent
jaw fell slightly at the name of Mr. Ingerstall, was pleased to say
that it was cosy.

"And Mr. Van Adam will keep us all going," she added, flinging in
Chloe's direction a weighty smile of approbation.

Mr. Rodney squirmed.

"But who is this Mr. Bush, dear Mrs. Verulam?" she continued. "Does one
know his name?"

"He is a country friend; he lives in retirement in Bungay Marshes."

"Sounds a rather damp existence. I hope he will not give us all cold.
Pearl, my darling, you may go in to supper now with Mr. Van Adam.
Remember to drink nothing but lime-juice cordial. Mr. Van Adam, I trust
you to see that my child does not touch champagne. With her tendency,
it would be fatal."

The Lady Pearl flushed with vexation. To have one's mental malady
drenched with lime-juice—one's soul treated like the body of a
North Pole explorer—is to swallow a bitter pill. She looked at her
large mother with a dawning defiance. Then she took Chloe's arm, and
whispered loudly in her ear:

"I shall drink champagne to-night. I will not be treated like a"—she
had nearly said "child," but, recollecting herself, substituted "gout
patient." The words, tremulous and tragic, seemed to come from the very
depths of a nature profound as a well. Chloe received them with the
smile that had enthralled Huskinson, and whispered back:

"I'll get you two glasses."

It was innocently said, but that it was strictly judicious cannot be
admitted. Such tender treatment was surely calculated to stir too
wildly a character like the Lady Pearl's. And, moreover, it led her
into subterfuges, for, half an hour later, when the Duchess, Mrs.
Verulam, Chloe, Mr. Rodney, Mr. Ingerstall, and others, were gathered
in the hall of the Unattached Club, waiting for the carriages which
were to take them all "on" to the panthers, she replied to her Grace's
question, "You kept to lime-juice, Pearl darling?"—"Oh, mamma, I drank
two glasses," and her accompanying glance at Chloe was almost in the
nature of a tiny wink.




CHAPTER VII.

THE BUN EMPEROR AND EMPRESS AT HOME.


As the rabbit, in moments of danger, has a passion for the little
hole into which it darts with the speed of lightning, so, in moments
both of safety and danger, has the properly-constituted Englishman a
passion for "the home." Even the most middle-class owner of a tiny
semi-detached "villa residence," looking out over a network of railway,
is prepared to defend it and its clothes-line, and that mysterious
barrel which always stands on end at its back-door, with his heart's
best blood. Now, this is very creditable. But even a very beautiful and
noble instinct may be carried too far. And the Englishman's passion for
the home was, in the Bun Emperor's case, carried very far indeed.

Mr. Lite was a remarkable man in many subtle ways. Of course he had
risen from the gutter. Everybody does do that nowadays. There is
nothing original in the feat. His gutter was an exceedingly small, and
exceedingly dingy, pie-shop in Camberwell, the sort of miscellaneous
pie-shop which exhibits to the street a terrace on which things of meat
and things of jam, the saveloy and the marmalade puff, air themselves
side by side in a fly-blown amity of meek endurance. And it was this
fact which had eventually obtained for worthy Mrs. Lite, who had
assisted in the shop, the sobriquet of "the raised pie," a title
suitable to her changed social condition.

In the old days, Mr. Perry Lite had been devoured by a passion for
the Camberwell home. He had worshipped the terrace on which the pies
lethargically leaned. He had adored the stuffy back-parlour, divided
from the shop by a half-glass door, on which a cracked bell tinkled.
The man who had dared to invade the privacy of that parlour would have
found himself face to face with a fury, inflexibly set on ejection.
The small bedroom above-stairs was, at that time, Mr. Lite's idea of
heaven, and he considered the attic in which the servant—had there
been one, which there was not—would have slept a fit receptacle for a
goddess. In fact, Mr. Lite's heart sent out tendrils, which climbed,
like creepers, all over the Camberwell pie-house. But in due time he
had to cut the creepers down.

Either Mrs. Lite was unusually clever at making pies, buns, sweetmeats,
and cakes, or Mr. Lite had extraordinary business capacity, or Fortune
was determined that there should be a Bun Emperor in Britain, and that
Mr. Lite looked the part better than anybody else. In any case, money
came, and with it changes. The Camberwell residence was exchanged for
Bayswater; Bayswater was given up, in its turn, for Oxford Street.
Then followed Piccadilly, with branch establishments all over the
place. And, finally, Mr. and Mrs. Lite found themselves settled in
the palace near Ascot which was known far and wide to a wondering
world as Ribton Marches. And it was in Ribton Marches that Mr. Lite
allowed the old passion to develop into a disease. At Camberwell he
had been very fond of the home. At Sunninghill he adored it with his
whole heart and body, preferring it to Windsor Castle, and strong in
a belief that her Most Gracious Majesty, who occasionally passed near
his gates while on her afternoon carriage expeditions, sickened with
envy when her royal eyes beheld the cupolas which made the roof-tree of
the palace bulbous in every imaginable direction. Ribton Marches had
been built according to Mr. Lite's own ideas, which took the form of a
huge erection combining many of the peculiar merits of the Leicester
Square Alhambra and the Crystal Palace. Wherever you expected to find
stone you came upon glass; wherever you anticipated glass you came upon
stone. If you looked for a flat roof, your eye met a cupola; if you
glanced up in search of a cupola, you probably missed it and saw a flat
roof. The palace continually "had" you. It was full of winter gardens,
and in all these winter gardens there were talking parrots. The palace
was crammed with echoes, and as you explored it, under the careful
and most suspicious supervision of Mr. Lite, its mighty walls seemed
to breathe out to you from every side such mysterious expressions
as "Hallelujah! Bow-wow-wow!" "Polly, go to bed!" and "Polly very
drunk; naughty Polly!" the latter statement being usually succeeded
by a loud noise as of the drawing of dozens of champagne corks. There
were several libraries in the palace, and several boudoirs; but the
boudoirs were on the ground-floor, and the libraries were upstairs. In
the picture-gallery the Dutch-oven school was well represented, and
in the purple drawing-room there was a new species of orchestrion, to
the hullabaloo of which Mr. and Mrs. Lite were wont to fall gently
asleep each evening after dinner. A remarkable feature of the palace
was the large number of machines, constructed on the penny-in-the-slot
principle, which stood about in the different apartments, prepared
to yield to the influence of the enquiring copper an assortment of
cigars, stamps, cigarettes, surprise packets, chocolate drops, Dutch
dolls, perfume squirts, luggage-labels, and other like necessaries.
Of these Mr. Lite was very proud: their mechanism, which no fellow
was ever able to understand, was devised by him, and was different in
important respects from that of the graceful erections which have been
so artistically placed in many of the more beautiful parts of England.
Whenever any guests came to lunch with him—he seldom had anyone to
stay the night—he would always invite them to set his machines in
motion, and the disappearing pennies went to assist in the founding of
the Lite Home for Elderly Bun-makers who had got past their work.

In the centre of the palace was a large hall, baronial here and
there, containing a staircase which had been conveyed at a vast cost
from somewhere abroad, an oak ceiling, an organ, and other necessary
furniture. At the first glance this hall looked rather more suitable
for the accommodation of Handel Festivals than for a simple home
life. But the Bun Emperor and Empress, looking—as to size—like a
couple of peas in the vast immensity of unutterable space, often took
afternoon tea there in sweet domestic solitude, or sat there by the
hour listening to the distant voices of the parrots resounding from the
adjacent winter gardens. Other inhabitants of the palace were certain
pugs—Dinah, Sam, Gog and Magog—retained by Mrs. Lite to give an air
of aristocracy to the establishment; various footmen, powdered and
unpowdered; and a very large and scorbutic individual, by name Mr.
Harrison, who enjoyed the title of "groom of the chambers," and the
advantage of doing nothing whatsoever from morning till night.

On a certain evening in June the Bun Emperor and Empress rose at about
eight o'clock from their late dinner in the cedar-wood dining-parlour,
decorated with the heads of stags shot by nobody knows who, engravings
of popular pictures, and china from different portions of the habitable
globe, and proceeded to the purple drawing-room to listen to the
cooling orchestrion, whose tremendous strains so soothed their souls
and stimulated their digestive processes. They went arm-in-arm,
preceded by a footman, and followed by the pugs in waddling procession.
The Bun Emperor was short, with exceedingly rounded contours, features
resembling those of the first Napoleon, fierce dark eyes, and the
gait of a man who has won a great many battles. His Empress was also
short and rounded, with grey hair elaborated into many little curls
about her forehead, neat features of the nut-cracker type, and, as a
general rule, a slightly fatuous expression of eager self-complacency.
To-night, however, her face was decorated with the flames of temper,
and she gained the purple drawing-room on rather tremulous feet.

Arrived there, she sharply withdrew her hand from the Emperor's fat
arm, sat down in a brocaded chair, and turned upon the respectful
flunkey who had shown the way.

"Frederick," she said, "turn on the orchestrion."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And set it at 'They Never do That to Me.'"

She darted a glance at the Emperor as she said the last words.

"Yes, ma'am," replied Frederick.

The pugs sat down. Frederick obeyed orders, and in a moment the big
room was crammed with the beautiful and classical strains of the song
already alluded to, given out by the expensive instrument with an
unflinching power and a stentorian sweetness that must surely have
compelled the most unmusical person to do homage, if not to melody,
at least to strength. Frederick made his exit, and the Bun Emperor
collapsed in silence by his wife's side. He looked less violent than
usual, and, indeed, the expression upon his face might almost have
been called an expression of apprehension. The song ran on. The
pugs declined from a sitting into a sidelong posture, and with four
simultaneous sighs gave way to the charms of snoring with open eyes.
The Emperor's two thumbs began rapidly to revolve one over the other.

"Don't do that, Perry," said the Empress; "it spoils the music."

The Emperor desisted, apparently very much to his wife's vexation, for
she pursed her lips, screwed her brow, and arranged her curls with
a trembling hand. "For they nev-arr do that _to_ me!" shouted the
orchestrion for the dozenth time.

"D'you hear that, Perry?" said the Empress viciously.

The Emperor jerked an affirmative with his head.

"And d'you feel it?" pursued the Empress. "D'you feel it as you ought?"

"My dear!" said the Emperor. "My dear!"

"Oh, I daresay," said the Empress, flaunting her head passionately
sideways. "I daresay. But what's the good of that? What's the good of
affection, and 'my dear' this, and 'my dear' that, when it's done and
can't be undone?"

"I can't go back upon my word, Henrietta."

"Then why give it? That's what I say. Why give it?" cried the Empress.
"And all for a paltry bit of bun-praise that won't sell half a million
of buns when all's said and done!"

And she kicked Magog sharply in his third rib. The dog sent forth a cry
of anguish, but the Empress was in no way concerned; on the contrary,
the utterance seemed to nerve her for fresh exertions.

"No, nor a quarter of a million," she continued. "Let it be in every
paper in Christendom."

"I think you underrate Lady Sophia's influence, Henrietta," said the
Emperor meekly; "I do indeed. She will have great weight in infant
circles, I feel sure—very great weight, my dear. That 'they should be
nourishing' will go home to the mothers, too. Oh, there can be no doubt
at all about it, no doubt in the world."

"That's what you think?"

"It is, my darling, it is indeed!"

"Well, and if she does sell half a million, or a million either, it
ain't worth it. No, Perry, it ain't!"

At this juncture the Empress was visibly affected. Her "ain't" was
really tragic, not merely on account of the stress with which it was
given out, but still more on account of its employment by the lady;
for both the Emperor and Empress were in calm moments very particular
in speech. They not merely refrained from dropping their h's and from
putting them in wrongly, they went further than that. They dealt very
tenderly and impressively with aspirates, sounding them in a marked
and highly deliberate manner when they occurred, and even leaving them
out when they did not occur, in a way that could scarcely escape the
attention of the keen grammarian or finished orator. The Emperor was
greatly moved by his wife's avoidance of the customary "is not." But
he was a tenacious man, and still held to his point.

"If I had not secured Lady Sophia's bun-praise when I had the
opportunity, my dear," he said, "it would have haunted me to the
last day of my life. It would have been going against the principles
of a lifetime; them as have—those which have made us what we are,
Henrietta. Go for the names—that has been my motto in the trade. Go
for the names."

"Yes; go for the names, and go out of the home!" cried the Empress.
"Oh, Perry, Perry!"

The orchestrion drowned her wail, but the Emperor felt it, divined it,
nevertheless. He was sincerely moved.

"Don't, my dear, don't!" he ejaculated.

"I will! I must!" said the Empress. "To leave the old home at our time
of life! To be turned out into the streets! Oh! oh!"

This statement of the Empress contained at least two fallacies, which
might almost be called thumping lies. For Ribton Marches was only
about five years old, and the fishing-cottage to which Mr. Rodney had
persuaded the worthy couple presently to retire was backed by a pine
wood and fronted by a charming little pond, generally called "the
lake." However, the Emperor did not contradict his spouse. He only
patted her gently on her heaving back, while his own features became
contorted with agitation at the prospect conjured up by her pictorial
remarks.

"And these Londoners," continued the Empress, very nearly qualifying
them with the contemptuous epithet "'ere,"—"these Londoners! Oh, what
may they not do to the home! What may they not do! I can't bear it! No,
I can't!"

The Emperor's face assumed an expression such as may well have been
observed upon Napoleon's immediately before the battle of Waterloo.

"Do to the home!" he said, striking one fat hand down upon his knee.
"Let them try it on! Mr. Harrison has his orders."

The Empress looked up.

"What d'you mean, Perry?" she asked.

"What I say, Henrietta. Mr. Harrison has his orders."

Had the Emperor been speaking of certain secret commands laid by
him upon a professional assassin his voice could not have been more
fiercely sinister. The blood of the Empress almost ran cold.

"No, they never do that to me!" bellowed the orchestrion.

"What orders, Perry? Orders to do what?"

"Ah!" said the Emperor, wagging his massive head passionately from one
side to the other, while his eyes stared as if in contemplation of some
terrible picture. "Let them try it on! Let them only try it, and they
will repent it, Henrietta, to the last day of their natural lives!"

"Perry!" said the Empress impressively, "what are you going for to do?"

"My duty to you and to the home."

"What! then the Londoners ain't coming?"

"Are not, my dear," said the Emperor in courtly correction. "Yes, come
they must, for I've given my word to the fiddle-faced feller. But, as I
say, Mr. Harrison has his orders to keep his eye on them, day in, day
out, morning, noon and night."

"Night, Perry!" ejaculated the Empress. "What—the ladies?"

"Only till they retire, Henrietta, of course. If they damage the
bedrooms they shall answer for it, though!"

The Emperor delivered the last sentence with the sudden rapidity and
power of a thunder-clap. The Empress, who was now beginning to take a
back seat, looked admiringly at her lord.

"Ah, Perry, what a man you are!" she murmured.

"They shall find out what sort of a man I am, if they try on any of
their tricks here," said the Emperor. "If so much as a bit of wood's
chipped off, or so much as a parrot's missing, they'll regret it—to
their lives' end, they will!"

But now, with the inconsistency of woman, the Empress returned to her
former complaining.

"Yes, I daresay," she said, in a whining voice; "but having it out of
them in the end won't make up to us for all we have to go through.
Think of it, Perry! You and me not able to be in the home, not able to
sit at tea in the hall, not able to hear that"—she waved her plump
hand sorrowfully at the orchestrion—"of an evening! Oh, Perry, think
of the silence—think of the silence!"

And here the Empress wept as women weep at the silence of the grave.
The Emperor looked at the orchestrion.

"We might take it with us, perhaps," he said musingly. "It would be a
comfort to us, Henrietta, that can't be denied."

"It's too big for the cottage," wept the Empress. "No, it must be left
for the Londoners to hear; they'll listen to 'em, Perry—to all our
tunes. They'll hear 'em sitting where we sit now—'What's the Odds as
Long as we're Young?' and 'I Didn't Go for to Cheese my Pal,' and 'My
Old Dutch,' and all the rest of 'em! And we shall be sitting, you and
me, and nothing but silence for us to hear!"

The poor lady became epic. She beat her hands in her emblazoned lap,
and her features seemed to disappear behind her expression as the
features in an agonised face sometimes do.

"It's only for six days," faltered the Emperor, almost overwhelmed by
the realisation of what was before them.

"It'll seem six years—it'll seem a lifetime! And the size of the
cottage, too! Why, it was only made to hold a fisherman!"

This argument was so unanswerable that the Emperor could only say:

"My dear, the house in Camberwell was small."

"And so was we when we lived there," retorted the Empress. "But we're a
bit bigger now, I hope."

Who could stand up against such merciless logic? Not the Emperor,
certainly. He began to feel as if they would have to spend their
week in the fishing-cottage crouching upon all-fours, in attitudes
formed to attract the cramp. And meanwhile that pernicious race, "the
Londoners," as the Empress always called them in the voice of one
alluding to the Hairy Ainu, or any other peculiarly savage tribe—the
Londoners would be couching in the partially baronial hall, wandering
through the vistas of boudoirs, reading in the libraries, listening to
the light conversation of the parrots in the winter gardens, dining
among the stags' heads in the cedar-wood parlour, possibly even
dancing, or dicing, or following some other cannibal custom in the
purple drawing-room. All these ideas, thronging upon him in a grisly
crowd, so weighed upon the Emperor's spirit that he let his head drop
on his breast, and allowed to escape from him this awful sentence of
self-condemnation:

"I do believe I've been a fool!"

"You never spoke a truer word, Perry," rejoined the pitiless Empress.
"And if I'd been at the Crystal Palace that night things would have
been different. All I say is, don't let that Mr. Rodney come near me,
or I may forget as I'm a lady, and let him feel on his face what I
think of him."

"He over-persuaded me. He said, Lady Sophia's word would bring in every
mother in the kingdom."

"May it prove so," said the Empress, with biting sarcasm—"may it prove
so, Perry! Do they bring their own linen?" she added sharply, "or do
they sleep between our very sheets?"

"I'm afraid, my love, that we have to provide everything, excepting
food. They pay extra for that—and drink."

The Empress lay back in a suffering position, as one who thinks of a
strange and unknown tribe sleeping between her private sheets, and
resting their dreadful heads upon her gently-nurtured pillow-slips.
This announcement of the Emperor's seemed to be the last straw.
She struggled no more; she resorted no longer to the weapons of
argumentative brilliancy, cunning sarcasm, fiery logic, or tender
pathos. She simply lay back and endured the devastating blows of Fate,
as prepared for her by the husband to whom she naturally looked for
tenderness and protection. And the Emperor, gazing furtively upon his
consort, was wrung to the very heart. And all the time the orchestrion,
as if in a mood of diabolic raillery, thundered out persistently "They
Never do That to Me!" The noise of the refrain got upon the Emperor's
nerves. It seemed to chide him for a base deed. For had he not done
the wrong thing by the Empress in striking his fearful bargain among
the glittering steel knives with Mr. Rodney? Surely, surely, yes. But
we do not like to have our faults brought home to us by a machine. The
Emperor suddenly stamped his foot furiously upon the floor. This motion
rang an electric bell let into the carpet beside his armchair. The
powdered Frederick instantly appeared.

"Stop it!" cried the Emperor in a fearful voice—"stop it!"

"Sir?"

"Stop that tune!"

Frederick induced the instrument to be quiet.

"And now," said the Emperor, throwing a compassionate and ashamed
glance upon his wife—"now set it at—let's see"—he paused, in deep
thought—"at the 'Dear Old Home.'"

Frederick obeying, the purple drawing-room was quickly pervaded
by a strain so soft and heartrending that it might have melted an
actor-manager to modesty, or persuaded a tigress to be tame. It had
its effect even upon the Empress. She started, glanced around her with
agitation as the melody smote—or rather glided—upon the porches of
her ears, composed herself to inflexibility, started again, regarded
the orchestrion with an air of distracted enquiry, turned to the
Emperor, and finally, with a wild and poignant cry of "Oh, Perry,
Perry, that it should come to this!" fell upon his breast, and bedewed
his frilled shirt-front with wifely tears.

There are scenes that must not be described, circumstances that must
not be depicted, situations that must not be intruded upon. One of the
chief of these is surely an Emperor and Empress in hysterics. Let the
veil close. Let privacy immerse the prostrated couple.

Yet we must meet them again in circumstances perhaps even more tragic.
We must follow them through ways foggy with misfortune.

The Sunday immediately preceding the Monday of Ascot week was a
black-letter day indeed for Mr. and Mrs. Lite. No potentates on the
eve of being thrust out from their kingdom ever suffered under a sense
of greater indignity than did they as they saw their boxes being
packed by valet and maid for departure, and wandered through the
palace taking a last farewell of the many objects that they loved so
dearly. Mrs. Lite was become entirely lachrymose under the weight of
unmerited misfortune, but her husband could in almost all circumstances
rely with certainty upon the support of his naturally violent temper,
and on this, as on many other less terrible occasions, it buoyed
him up, and prevented him from sinking into a condition of unmanly
despondency. Instead of being simply sad, he was also furious, and
although depression unutterable attacked his bleeding heart as the hour
drew near when he must leave the home, the passionate antagonism which
he increasingly felt against "the Londoners" kept him from breaking
down, and even assisted his habitual vitality till it burnt with the
fierceness of a flame fed by petroleum. Especially hot was his wrath
against poor innocent Mr. Rodney, the unsuspicious cause of all this
trouble. And one circumstance which increased the Bun Emperor's anger
against the gentle owner of Mitching Dean was that Lady Sophia Tree's
bun-praise, although it had been duly advertised in almost every paper
in the kingdom, had not as yet occasioned any very unusual rush of
infants upon the provender by the sale of which the Emperor and Empress
lived. The sale had kept up, had even slightly increased, but that
was all that could be said. Therefore the Emperor's troubled waters
were not mingled with a sufficient quantity of oil to quiet them. And
on this fateful Sunday his passion mounted to a climax. The veins
of his ample forehead were already swelled at breakfast—in Winter
Garden number one. His cheeks were flushed at lunch-time, and as the
afternoon drew on he seemed perpetually on the verge of an ebullition
of ungovernable fury. His large, gipsy-like eyes stared about him at
all the familiar objects which he had collected in the home, objects
hitherto only beheld by the very few persons—aristocratic bun-praisers
and others—whom the Emperor honoured with his personal friendship. He
held in one fat hand, and frequently referred to, a list, forwarded
according to agreement by Mr. Rodney, of the members of the vile tribe
who on the morrow were to take possession of his beautiful palace. The
list was as follows:

 Mrs. Verulam.
 The Duchess of Southborough.
 The Lady Pearl McAndrew.
 Hon. Miss Bindler.
 Lady Drake.
 Mr. Van Adam.
 Mr. Hyacinth Rodney.
 The Duke of Southborough.
 Mr. Ingerstall.
 Mr. James Bush.

Over and over again did the Emperor con this list, and endeavour to
conjure up an idea of what manner of women and men these unknown
strangers might be. Over and over again did he read the names aloud
to the Empress with a hard and guttural intonation. The only members
of the tribe personally known to him were the Duke and Duchess of
Southborough and Mr. Rodney. The latter he now loathed with all his
soul. The two former he respected as thoroughly useful and efficient
bun-praisers. What of the others? What of Mrs. Verulam, the Lady Pearl,
Miss Bindler? What of Mr. Van Adam, Mr. Ingerstall, and Mr. James
Bush? Names are sometimes suggestive, and call up pictures before the
eyes of the imaginative. The Bun Emperor became imaginative under the
combined influences of sorrow and temper, and, summoning the Empress
to him in the hall built for the accommodation of Handel Festivals, he
proceeded to go through a performance that was somewhat like a public
school "call-over," without any answers from the boys.

"Sit down, Henrietta," he said in a loud and quivering voice.

The Empress sat on a chair just under the great organ, and in the
shadow of the enormous staircase. The Emperor remained standing, as if
at a desk.

"Mrs. Verulam!" he cried, and looked from his list to the Empress,
consulting furiously her intuitions.

The Empress shook her curly head.

"You don't like it, Henrietta?" said the Emperor anxiously.

"It's a silly-sounding name," said the Empress.

"It is, my dear. She's the one that pays the rent."

The Empress pursed her lips, and two tears trickled slowly over her
rounded cheeks.

"That don't make her name any less silly-sounding," she gulped. "Oh, to
think——"

"Mr. Van Adam!" cried the Emperor hastily, consulting the list again.

This time he did not ask the Empress for her opinion, but gave his own.

"I call that a low name," he said. "Bible names I never could abide
since I was done by Ezekiel. You remember how I was done by Ezekiel
over the pork pies?" The Empress nodded miserably. "Never trust a man
with a Bible name," continued the Emperor impressively. "If you do,
he'll round on you. Ezekiel, Adam, Hezekiah—they're all alike, as
downy as they're made. Give a child a Bible name, and he'll grow up a
hypocrite. The Duchess of Southborough!"

"She's better."

"Yes; her Grace does know a good bun," rejoined the Emperor. "'Your
buns are exquisite'—you remember, Henrietta? That bit of bun-praise
did us more good than ever that Lady Sophia's will, I'll lay. Hon. Miss
Bindler?"

No response from the Empress. No comment from the Emperor.

"Lady Drake!"

Ditto.

"Mr. Hyacinth Rodney! Fiddle-faced beast! Mr. Ingerstall! What d'you
think of him, my dear?"

"Not much," said the Empress. "Not much, Perry. He sounds to me like
one of those nasty little fellers that go worming themselves about in
places where they've no business."

"He'd better let Mr. Harrison catch him worming himself about when he's
here!" cried the Emperor with a sudden explosion of passion. "There
shall be no worming here, Henrietta, if I have to go against my word
and turn them all out neck and crop into the street."

In moments of emotion the imperial minds instinctively returned to
early Camberwell days, and fell into the dear old Cockney habit of
supposing that on making an exit from any building whatsoever, the
person so doing must immediately find himself in a street. As a matter
of fact, Ribton Marches stood majestically in its own grounds of some
sixty acres, or thereabouts.

"Mr. James Bush!" cried the Emperor, partially recovering self-control.

There was a long pause, during which the couple regarded each
other with staring eyes, that seemed turned inward in vehement
self-examination. It appeared as if this name, the last on the list,
carried with it a strange luggage of perplexity and confusion.

"Bush," the Emperor said at length—"James Bush. Well, Henrietta?"

"I don't know what to think of it," said the Empress. "I don't like it,
Perry, I can't say I do. It's not a name I should have ever cared to
marry, even when I was a foolish thing, before I took up with you and
the pie-shop. No, it's not a name to marry."

The Emperor seemed greatly struck with these illuminative remarks. Yet
he passed over the matrimonial demerits of Mr. Bush's name, and, with
that power of coming straight to the point so characteristic of great
minds, said:

"Is it a name to have in the home, Henrietta? That's the thing for us.
Is it a name to have sleeping in our beds, eating off our linen, and
listening to the instrument of an evening?"

The Empress wagged her head morosely in reply.

"Ah!" she said, "is it?"

"I have my doubts," the Emperor continued. "Shall we ask Mr. Harrison,
my dear? We can always rely on him. He is a man that has seen the
world, and can judge of a name at a first hearing."

"We might do worse," responded the Empress lachrymosely.

The Emperor pommelled the bell.

"Request Mr. Harrison to step this way," he said firmly to the footman.

In about five minutes the groom of the chambers appeared within the
precincts of the hall. Mr. Harrison was remarkably well grown, and of
a certain age. His hair had left him in his youth, but he retained a
very red complexion, a heavy manner, and a habit of throwing out his
feet, like a horse, on either side of him as he went along, which he
seldom did, since he was peculiarly addicted to repose. Apparently he
had been disturbed while in the active enjoyment of this peculiarity,
for he entered the presence with half-open eyes, a somewhat touzled
and distressed whisker, and one side of his face an entirely different
colour from the other. Where ordinary menials have their "day out," Mr.
Harrison had his day in bed. This day was the Sabbath; and it must be
confessed that he looked ill-pleased at the tour which he had been so
unexpectedly obliged to take.

"Mr. Harrison," the Emperor said, casting on the groom of the chambers
a searching glance, "I believe you are a man of the world."

"I am, sir," said Mr. Harrison, half allowing and half suppressing
a yawn, a circumstance which made his countenance suddenly full of
contradictory expressions.

"You can judge of a name at a first hearing, Mr. Harrison, I presume?"
said the Emperor.

"Sir?" said Mr. Harrison, still under the influence of slumber.

"You can tell what you think about a name the first time you hear it, I
say?" rejoined the Emperor, raising his voice.

"Oh, certainly, sir!" said Mr. Harrison, arranging the whisker
which had been next to the bolster with an unerring hand—"oh, most
certainly!"

"Very well, then. Now, Mr. Harrison, give me your attention, if you
please. I have here"—the Emperor pointed to Mr. Rodney's list—"the
name James Bush." The Emperor paused, and Mr. Harrison tried to emerge
from his last dream. "James Bush," repeated the Emperor.

"Indeed, sir!" said Mr. Harrison, feeling like a novice entangled in
some complicated game—"indeed!"

"Well, Mr. Harrison?" said the Emperor with growing emphasis—"well?"

The groom of the chambers felt that a statement of some kind about
something was undoubtedly required of him; he made a violent effort
to summon his mind, and, partially succeeding, was able presently to
exclaim with a good deal of determination:

"Not at all, sir—oh dear no; not at all—by no means!"

This seemed to him a remark that was adroit, and one that covered a
considerable number of interrogative possibilities. Unfortunately,
however, it did not appear to satisfy the requirements of the Emperor,
who with some ferocity remarked:

"And what d'you mean by that, Mr. Harrison? Hah!"

The groom of the chambers was at length fully aroused by the very
complex situation in which he now found himself, and, being really a
man of considerable resource, he put two and two together with the
swiftness of a Maxim gun.

"James Bush, sir," he said very emphatically; "oh dear no, sir! James
Bush—not at all—by no means—on no account whatever!"

He had not the smallest idea what he meant, or what he was being asked,
and nobody could have been more surprised than himself at the effect
which his vociferous jargon created. The Emperor turned to the Empress
with the manner of a man who has received his quietus.

"There, Henrietta!" he said hoarsely—"there! You see what Mr. Harrison
thinks of him! And that he should come into the home! A feller like
that—a feller that——" He broke off, and turned to the astounded
groom of the chambers. "Mr. Harrison," he said, "we depend upon you in
this affair entirely."

Mr. Harrison inclined himself in unutterable perplexity.

"Keep your eye upon him."

"Sir?"

"I say, keep your eye especially upon that feller James Bush."

"Certainly, sir."

"Don't let him be too much for you, Mr. Harrison. He may have ways;
he may be such a man as Ezekiel, there's no knowing. But I hold you
responsible—Mrs. Lite and me, we hold you entirely responsible for
everything that man may do in the home."

The groom of the chambers, having now gathered that a person of the
name of James Bush was coming into Ribton Marches, doubtless as a
member of the Londoners' tribe, and that he was to be specially watched
by order of the Emperor, was comparatively at ease. He inclined himself
again.

"I shall see to him, sir. Depend upon me."

"We do depend upon you, Mr. Harrison—we do, don't we, Henrietta?"

"Mercy knows—we do!" sobbed the Empress.

"I shall not disappoint you, madam," said Mr. Harrison. "I shall know
how to act."

"I believe that, Mr. Harrison," said the Emperor. "And I may add that
if you should cop—if you should catch this feller, James Bush, at any
of his games—you understand?"

"Certainly, sir."

"And if you should, as we expect, be one too many for him, we shall not
forget it. You will have no reason to regret hereafter any steps that
you may take. You understand?"

"Quite so, sir. I shall take them, sir, you may depend."

"Thank you, Mr. Harrison. You may go."

Mr. Harrison left the presence with dignity, and was soon back again
in bed. As he laid his whisker once more on the bolster, he said to
himself:

"I must take care to cop that there James Bush at some game or another,
or where does the perquisite come in? Where is it?"

And murmuring thus he slept.




CHAPTER VIII.

ARRIVAL OF THE LONDONERS AT RIBTON MARCHES.


If the expulsion of our first parents from the Garden of Eden was a
depressing business, what can be said of the final expulsion of the
Emperor and Empress from Ribton Marches? It took place very early on
the Monday morning. Originally they had been going overnight, but the
Empress had so implored her husband to allow her to have one last
Sunday night in the old home that he had not the necessary strength to
refuse her, although, according to the strict letter of the agreement
come to between him and Mr. Rodney, the palace belonged to Mrs. Verulam
from the Monday to the Saturday inclusive.

At earliest dawn, then, behold the wretched couple "on the move," in
terrible agitation having their last pet chattels placed reverently
by menials in their trunks, in fearful confusion hastily gathering
together any little things likely to be of solace to them in the
period of excruciating exile that lies before them. The Emperor,
now the moment of departure had actually arrived, was in a boiling
passion. Steam might almost have been seen escaping from him as he
gave directions to his servants, and laid a thousand last injunctions
upon Mr. Harrison, who, rendered almost impotent by having had to get
up from bed in that dead hour which precedes the rising of the sun,
received them with a grievous courtesy and the bending knees that so
plainly betoken the deepest dejection of the human soul.

"Mr. Harrison!" shouted the Emperor.

"Sir!" replied that wretched functionary.

"Remember they are not to feed the parrots. On no account are they to
tamper with Mrs. Lite's favourites."

"Certainly not, sir."

"If you see any symptom of a desire to do anything of that kind, you
are to check it, Mr. Harrison."

"If I see any symptom of a desire to tamper with any of the parrots, I
am to check it—yes, sir."

"If a single parrot goes wrong, Mrs. Lite will hold you responsible,
Mr. Harrison. You understand that?"

Mr. Harrison bowed feebly, and thought of his empty bed.

"The pugs we shall take with us, Mr. Harrison."

"The pugs you will take——"

"Don't echo me, Mr. Harrison—don't echo me; I will not allow myself to
be echoed."

"Certainly not, sir. Oh no, by no means."

The Emperor stared furiously around him, fearful lest he might leave
any necessary behind. His eyes fell upon a large field-glass in a case,
which reclined upon a neighbouring bureau.

"Pack that glass!" he cried to his valet in a voice of thunder.

The valet packed it with trembling rapidity. The Emperor turned again
to the groom of the chambers.

"Through that glass I shall be able to command a considerable portion
of the grounds," he exclaimed. "If I see anything going on there of
which I disapprove, I shall summon you by the telephone, Mr. Harrison.
You will hold yourself in readiness to fly to me at any moment of the
day or night."

Mr. Harrison found himself feebly wondering which known bird he should
be likely most nearly to resemble when he winged his way, as described
by the Emperor, from the palace to the fishing-cottage.

"I shall do so, sir," he said.

"Each morning," continued the Emperor, with blazing eyes and gathering
excitement, "you will be round by eight o'clock with the report which
you will have drawn up overnight, as arranged by me."

"By eight, sir?" cried Mr. Harrison, his voice vibrating with a music
that was almost piercing.

"Well, seven, if you prefer it. I shall be up—I shall be ready."

"Oh, eight will suit me, sir, very well; I shall be round by eight."

"Be careful to omit nothing from that report. Make it ample; for I
shall have damages out of these people—heavy damages—if they dare to
exceed in any way, or to behave in any unseemly manner. You have your
own ideas of what is unseemly, Mr. Harrison?"

"Oh, decidedly so, sir."

"Then I shall hold you responsible."

Mr. Harrison's knees began visibly to tremble, doubtless under
the weight of responsibility that rested, like the globe, upon his
slightly-rounded shoulders. He said nothing, only bowed once again,
badly, as if the mechanism was getting out of order.

The dawn was now beginning to grow bright in the eastern sky above
the fir-trees and the pines. The Emperor observed it through the
lattice-pane, and knew that the hour was at hand. He called to the
Empress:

"Henrietta!"

"Perry!" replied a broken voice, which might indeed almost be described
as wet with tears.

"Henrietta, my dear, are you—are you nearly ready?"

"Oh, Perry, is it time? Oh, to think that——"

The Empress appeared in the aperture of the door fully dressed for
eviction, wearing a large black bonnet, and carrying in one hand a
small but bulging bag. Her face was disfigured, even corrugated, with
emotion.

"Is it time? Oh, is it really, really time?" she wailed.

The Emperor was greatly affected. He turned away for a moment and gazed
towards the sunrise. Then he said: "Mr. Harrison!"

"Sir!"

"Is it time? Have you the paper?"

The groom of the chambers extracted a crested sheet from his left-hand
pocket.

"Read it out," said the Emperor hoarsely.

Mr. Harrison read as follows:

"Arrivals, Monday, June the —: At 12.30, Mrs. Verulam, Mr. Rodney, and
Mr. Van Adam, with Mrs. Marriner, maid, and one valet."

A loud sob from the Empress.

"At 3.15, Mr. James Bush."

"Go on, Mr. Harrison—go on."

"At between four and five, the Duke and Duchess of Southborough, the
Lady Pearl McAndrew, Lady Drake, Miss Bindler, Mr. Ingerstall, with
four maids and one valet."

Mr. Harrison paused, and the Emperor, looking with terrible enquiry at
the Empress, repeated:

"Four maids and one valet."

"Oh, what may they not do—what may they not do, Perry?" wailed his
consort feebly.

The Emperor bit his lips to prevent himself from breaking down.

"Mr. Harrison!" he said.

"Sir!"

"Mr. Harrison, I warn you—I give you warning——"

"Give me warning, sir! Am I to go, sir?"

The groom of the chambers was so much overwhelmed that he suddenly sat
down in the presence on a small occasional chair—one of those chairs
which are seldom equal to the occasion. His agitation and surprise
perhaps rendering him heavier than usual, the chair was unable to
withstand the full bulk of his fourteen stone of horror. It gave way,
and Mr. Harrison attained the floor with a noise like a drum-tap. He
remained in a seated posture, gazing at the Emperor with eyes that
looked sightless, although they were very wide open indeed. The Emperor
and Empress backed from this vision with the rapidity of two crabs.

"Oh, that it should come to this!" cried the latter, putting the mind
of the groom of the chambers into words.

"Mr. Harrison!" cried the Emperor, recovering himself near the door,
"get up! get up from the floor, sir!"

But that gentleman was beyond movement, and was indeed at that moment
vaguely considering whether he did not owe it to himself to be taken
with a paralytic seizure. The Emperor, observing his meditative but
complete prostration, condescended to approach him and to lend him a
hand.

"Come, come, Mr. Harrison! Rise, I beg. Be a man, Mr. Harrison! Come,
come! There, there! Lean against the wall. A glass of water, my dear!"
(To the Empress.)

The Empress ran, bearing a tooth-glass brimful.

"There, there, Mr. Harrison! You're spilling it! That's right! You
mistook my meaning."

"Sir?"

"I meant that I give you warning that we, Mrs. Lite and me, will hold
you responsible for the maids and the valets."

Relief ran over the recovering groom of the chambers in a complete
flood.

"Oh, certainly, sir! I beg pardon! Oh, by no—by all means!"

The sun was beginning to pour in. The Emperor turned and offered his
arm to the Empress. She shrank away with a whimper.

"My darling—my love—be firm! Remember, Henrietta, we are not alone."

He drew her trembling arm through his, and patted it violently with one
fat hand.

"It must be done," he said in a heroic voice. "I've give my word. It
must be done."

They moved in procession from the private apartments, followed by Mr.
Harrison, who threw his feet out on either side as he went with a noble
attempt after his habitual dignity. The household, by order of the
Emperor, were grouped in the hall in front of the organ. It has not
been recorded whether the women were weeping, but no doubt they were.
The Emperor and Empress paused at the foot of the grand staircase in
a baronial portion of the hall. The Emperor cleared his throat loudly
not once nor twice. Between the clearings a pin was heard to drop, so
intense was the silence. The third housemaid stooped to pick it up, and
keeps it still as a memento of the occasion. Then the Emperor spoke in
a sad, and at the same time very angry, manner.

"The time has come," he said, "when we must leave you; when me and Mrs.
Lite must go."

There was a subdued murmur of regret from the crowd.

"We go," continued the Emperor, "with breaking hearts."

"We do! we do!" from the Empress.

More murmurs.

"But we feel that—that—we feel, I may say, that those we leave behind
us in the home will not desert their master and missus; that they will
do their duty by us, as we have done ours by them."

"True, true! Oh, indeed!" deep-mouthed from Mr. Harrison.

"Thank you, Mr. Harrison. We, me and Mrs. Lite, shall not forget that."

An inclination from the groom of the chambers.

"Others," proceeded the Emperor, in a loud and aspen-like voice,
"others will come after us. Others will take our places. So it must
ever be—bear up, Henrietta, my love, bear up!—so, I say, it must be.
Things is—are like that in this world. Never a one can deny it. Do
your duty by them!"

"No, no, Perry! Oh no, no!" from the now sodden Empress.

"Hush, my dear! Do your duty one and all in those places into which
they have been pleased to call you." Here the Emperor gingerly
approached the wording of the catechism. "Do it, I say, but don't be
put upon."

Loud murmurs of assent, more especially from those engaged in the
kitchen department of the establishment.

"Don't be put upon. Don't be slaves."

"Hear, hear!" from Mr. Harrison.

"And"—here the Emperor obviously faltered—"don't go for to forget
the—old faces. Mr. Harrison——" His voice suddenly burst out in a
trumpet-note of forcible resolution.

"Sir!"

"Is the pony-shay at the door?"

"It is, sir! Oh, most decidedly!"

The massive portals were flung open, and outside in the gay summer
sunlight there appeared a basket-chaise drawn by a fat white pony,
and led by a little groom. The four pugs stood round it barking
vociferously. The Emperor threw one last distracted glance around,
then shut his eyes, took hold of the Empress, and, pioneered by Mr.
Harrison, moved slowly forward. The Empress, as one in a ghastly
dream, accompanied him. In a moment she would have been placed in the
chaise and driven from the dreadful scene, calm, blank, practically
unconscious of her doom. But this was not to be. Fate willed it
otherwise. Seized by a sudden, and it must be confessed a very noble,
impulse, the powdered Frederick had run like a lamplighter to the
purple drawing-room. The orchestrion stood before him. He leaped
upon it as the wild beast leaps upon its prey. He caught at it. An
instant! Then there was the sound of a click, and suddenly the wild and
thrilling uproar of Tosti's "Good-bye!" poured violently through the
reverberating palace.

The Empress heard it. She paused. She trembled. She opened her mouth.
Something with her brain seemed to go snap. She shrieked aloud. The
Emperor saw what was coming.

"Mr. Harrison!" he shouted.

"Sir!"

"Help me with Mrs. Lite! Get hold of her, Mr. Harrison, get hold of
her!"

Mr. Harrison got hold of her, and, yelling, kicking, laughing, crying,
and throwing her rounded limbs furiously abroad, the Empress was
carried down the steps, placed in the "shay," and rapidly driven off.
Then Mr. Harrison returned into the hall.

"Prepare for the Londoners!" he said sternly to the household, and
hurried instantly off to bed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Soon after the big clock over the Ribton Marches stables had boomed out
the half-hour after twelve, a carriage drove rapidly up to the palace,
followed by a second, and succeeded by a private omnibus covered with
luggage. The tribe were arriving. In the first carriage sat Mrs.
Verulam, pale, but full of an animation that approached excitement;
Chloe, clad in a delicious suit of tweed, with perfectly-falling
trousers, the newest thing in collars, a red tie, and a straw hat; and
Mr. Rodney playing cicerone and looking mightily serious. Why will
presently be revealed. In the second carriage was placed the faithful
Marriner, amid a cloud of wraps, dressing-cases, hat-boxes, parasols,
and jewel-caskets. In the omnibus sat Mr. Rodney's valet, a pale
gentleman with an under-sized manner, the features of a rat, and very
thin legs. Thus the vanguard approached. Chloe was apparently in fine
spirits. She was talking incessantly, showing white teeth, and gazing
about her with black eyes that sparkled with animation.

"Oh, is this really Ascot?" she cried. "Where is the course?"

"My dear Van Adam!" gently corrected Mr. Rodney; "the course is at some
distance. This is Sunninghill."

"What a number of cupolas!" said Mrs. Verulam. "And what an enormous
house! We shall be lost in it!"

"I assure you it is quite cosy inside," said Mr. Rodney, who considered
the last remark as a sort of reflection upon him for engaging the house
for the week. "The Lites consider it most home-like, I assure you; and
they are very particular. Here is the entrance."

The gravel flew up beneath the hoofs of the high-stepping horses.
The front door of the home opened wide, and discovered two footmen,
behind and between whom were visible the large body and red face of
Mr. Harrison, his features being decorated with an expression which
it would be tame indeed to call one of suspicion. Imagine a London
policeman who observes a ragged ruffian stealing out of the Tower
of London with his hands full of the Crown jewels, and you may form
some slight notion of the groom of the chambers' demeanour and facial
attitudes on the entry of the Londoners into the hall of Ribton
Marches. He had evidently been sleeping to some purpose, for he was
now preternaturally wide awake, and not a person descended from the
carriages, not a thing was removed therefrom, without having to run the
gauntlet of his piercing and most extraordinary observation.

"What a very remarkable-looking man," Mrs. Verulam remarked to Mr.
Rodney, as she removed her dust-wrap and walked towards the purple
drawing-room. "He seems anxious. Is he ill?"

"Oh no; I think not. I fancy he superintends the servants," said Mr.
Rodney.

"Or us," said Chloe, flicking the dust off her patent-leather boots in
a way that was hardly Englishmanly. "He appears to me like a detective
who hasn't mastered the first principle of his profession."

"And may I ask what this is?" blandly enquired Mr. Rodney.

"Certainly, old chap—not to look like one. See?"

Mr. Rodney did see, and secretly writhed. When he was called "old chap"
he felt much as the maiden lady did when Mr. Pickwick appeared from the
four-post bed, and recently Huskinson's familiarities had tried him
deeply.

"What a very purple room!" said Mrs. Verulam, glancing round. "What
is that thing over there—not a sideboard, nor a bureau, nor a
writing-table?"

"That, madam," bayed a sudden voice, "is the instrument. Mr. and Mrs.
Lite are very partial to it, but do not allow it to be employed during
their absence."

Mr. Harrison was the speaker. Mr. Rodney was outraged by his intrusion
into the conversation.

"Thank you," he said. "Kindly leave us."

Mr. Harrison hesitated visibly, but Mr. Rodney meant to be obeyed, so
the groom of the chambers very deliberately decamped, casting his feet
abroad after his manner.

"What a most extraordinary person!" said Mrs. Verulam.

"Oh, I daresay Mr. Lite has made a friend of him," said Mr. Rodney
hastily. "These _nouveaux riches_ do strange things."

"Hallelujah, bow-wow-wow!" murmured a distant voice; to which another
voice responded: "Polly dreadful drunk. What's o'clock, Polly?" Then
innumerable corks were drawn with apparently supernatural swiftness.

Mr. Rodney reddened.

"Pray don't be alarmed," he said to Mrs. Verulam, who was visibly
startled.

"Is it the same man?" she said. "Why, he must be mad."

"No, no. They are only Mrs. Lite's parrots talking in one of the winter
gardens. It must be nearly lunch time. Would you not like to see your
rooms?"

"Perhaps it would be as well. I feel as if you were my kind host."

Mr. Rodney beamed with pride and pleasure.

"I hope some day—at Mitching Dean—from which, by the way, I have
ventured to order up a supply of grapes for the week. The Mitching Dean
grapes are remarkably fine. Here is Mrs. Marriner," as the faithful
Marriner appeared, apparently hypnotised by the orchestrion; "she will
conduct you. By the way," Mr. Rodney added, turning to Huskinson, "I
trust you will allow my man Harry to valet you during the week, since
you've not yet succeeded in finding a man to your liking. Harry is——"

"No, no, thank you. You're awfully good; but it's not necessary,"
replied Chloe with some haste.

"Most efficient," calmly pursued Mr. Rodney, intent on benevolence to
the man he heartily hated. "He shaves better than any——"

"Thank you, I always shave myself," said Chloe—"morning and evening."

"So often?" said Mr. Rodney, with a glance of surprise at the smooth
face above the tweed coat.

"Once a month—once a week, I mean. Well, I'll go and have a
wash;" and she scurried off, leaving Mr. Rodney alone in the purple
drawing-room.

He sat down on a purple chair, placed his thin feet on a purple stool,
and fell into deep meditation. Since we first met him, in early May,
perplexity had almost continually attended him. Mr. Rodney's mainspring
was propriety, touched up with the adjective "smart." He believed
devoutly in conventionality and titles. Respectability and pedigrees
were necessaries to him, and as yet he had never been without them.
It is true that he could accept the "right sort of man—or woman,"
even if he were aware that their lives were not ordered entirely on
Nonconformist principles. In fact, he knew a great many rascals of
both sexes, but they were rascals who knew everybody and were known by
everybody. The women were all received at Court; the men all belonged
to the right clubs, and so, according to Mr. Rodney's code, they were
eminently respectable. Mr. Rodney had no special objection to people
who broke the Ten Commandments, but he had a very great and very
deeply-seated horror of people who outraged society. And this was what
Mrs. Verulam—whom he admired, after Mitching Dean, more than anything
on earth—seemed bent upon doing.

As he sat in the purple drawing-room with his eyes fixed moodily on
the orchestrion, he reviewed the events of the last few weeks without
gaining any comfort from them. Undoubtedly Mrs. Verulam had succeeded
in making herself the talk of the town with the Van Adam. She had never
moved without the divorced orange-grower in her pocket. She had taken
him to every party; she had continually been alone with him in her
opera-box; she had supped with him at the Savoy and at Willis's; she
had driven down with him to Ranelagh, and returned after the moon was
up; she had been with him on the river, and even in it, for Chloe had
caught a crab near Athens, and been rescued by the steam-launch of a
Cabinet Minister. All London was talking of her strange indiscretions.
All London was talking—would all London presently be acting? That
was the horrid thought, the grisly idea, which turned Mr. Rodney cold
on the purple brocade and set the orchestrion dancing in front of
his eyes. Even his jealousy faded before the spectre of Mrs. Verulam
abandoned by society; "out of it," a person reduced to "first nights"
and supper parties in shady restaurants. To be obliged to depend on
"first nights" for one's gaiety was, to Mr. Rodney, much the same thing
as having to keep house in the valley of dry bones. It was immolation.
It was more: it was interment. He heard the earth pattering upon Mrs.
Verulam's coffin. And the terrible thing was that some evil spirit
seemed to have entered into Mrs. Verulam, a spirit that rejoiced in
this threatening of disaster. She was with her own hands cutting
through the cables that moored her to all that makes life worth living.
And for an American! A man mixed up with oranges, the commonest of
all fruits, the yellow thing that may be seen on the breakfast-tables
of the lower middle classes, the abomination that is sucked in pits,
whose pips are flung in showers from a thousand galleries a night! Mr.
Rodney turned almost faint at the thought. If this Van Adam had even
cultivated nectarines, or made his money in medlars. But no. It might
have been nuts, certainly. But even this reflection brought little
solace. Mr. Rodney had long since written to his old and valued friend,
Lord Bernard Roche, asking a thousand discreet questions about "poor
dear old Huskinson." But he had received no reply, no satisfaction
to his very natural curiosity about the man so suddenly plunged into
the very heart of his heart's life. And though this grave matter so
afflicted Mr. Rodney, there was something further to perplex him.

There was James Bush. He was still in a measure shrouded in mystery.
Yet Mr. Rodney had sometimes felt his influence upon Mrs. Verulam
as one feels a thing in the dark. Since that afternoon when Mr.
Rodney practically had a fit on hearing of her intention to abandon
society, Mrs. Verulam had not again openly alluded to it, or referred
pointedly to Mr. Bush. She thought that to do so might be dangerous,
so long as high collars were in fashion for men. Had Mr. Rodney worn
a scarf, like a costermonger, she would have been troubled by no such
delicacy. But perhaps she had hardly considered that, if Mr. Rodney
were seized with convulsions on appreciating the possibility of her
abandoning society, he would most probably be attacked by an enemy
still more dreadful if he beheld society abandoning her, as now seemed
possible. Women are so careless. Mr. Rodney, thinking of Mr. James
Bush, drew forth his watch. In something less than a couple of hours
that mysterious figure from the Marshes of Bungay, that figure first
seen shrouded in the romantic privacy of a reversed meat-safe, was due
at the palace. What then? What then? Mr. Rodney, forgetful of lunch,
forgetful of his duties as cicerone of Ribton Marches, forgetful of the
passing hour that may never return, forgetful even of the orchestrion,
and of a life-size and life-like portrait of the Bun Empress in an
orange-coloured tea-gown which stared upon him from the opposite wall
of the purple drawing-room, plunged into the most solemn meditation,
with his chin sunk down upon an opal breast-pin presented to him by an
Austrian Archduchess. At length, coming once more to the surface, he
recalled the fact that he had not arranged his hair since travelling,
and that lunch was imminent. He therefore rose with a sigh to seek the
"green bedroom," in which apartment he was to be accommodated during
his stay in the palace. But owing to his ignorance of the building,
or his absence of mind, or both, he strayed from the right path, and
endeavoured to make his way into the upper regions through a side door,
and up a staircase which, not having been brought from abroad at an
immense cost, was dedicated to the uses of the Bun Emperor's menials.
As Mr. Rodney vaguely ascended this staircase, and when he was not
quite half-way up, his attention was attracted by the tiny but sharp
tinkling of a bell in some hidden place below. He stopped, as one stops
when arrested by some triviality in a dream. The tinkling was renewed,
and then the following monologue broke upon Mr. Rodney's listening ear:

"Yes, sir—yes, sir. Mr. Harrison, sir—Mr. Harrison. Because I
didn't hear the bell, sir. I didn't hear the bell, sir. I didn't hear
the—— Because I was in the hall, sir—watching, sir, according to
your directions. Yes, sir, they have arrived—the ones on the paper,
sir—Mrs. Veddleham, Mr. Rodney, and Mr. Van Adams, sir. What do you
say, sir?—one maid and one valet, sir—one maid and one—— Not much
to look at, sir. Which, sir—the valet or the maid? Oh, rather like a
rat, sir. Rather like a ra—— No, not the maid, sir, the valet. Yes,
sir, I know I am—I know I'm responsible, I say, sir. Poke their noses?
oh, on no account, sir—by no means—not at all—by no means, sir—not
at—— Now, sir? Mr. Rodney is in the purple drawing-room, sir——"

"Am I?" murmured that gentleman vaguely to himself on the stairs.

"The purp—— Mrs. Veddleham, sir? She has retired, sir, to—— Not
fatigued, sir, retired.—Seems very quiet, sir, so far. Not Mr. Adams,
Mrs. Veddleham, sir. He has gone upstairs, sir—to his bedroom,
sir—to brush his hair, I presume, sir—I presume to bru—— I didn't
take partic'lar notice, sir—I didn't take partic—— I will, sir;
oh, indeed you may depend—— Rely on me, sir—till I drop, sir—I
say till I dr—— I beg pardon, sir—the what, sir?—the what do
you say, sir?—Partridges, sir?—Parliament do you say, sir?—I beg
pardon—peppermint, sir?—pepperm—oh, parrots! Oh dear no, sir—oh
dear no, they shall not be tamp—— I say, sir, they shall not be,
while I am here, sir.—Thank you, sir, and the same to Mrs. Lite,
sir.—Mr. Rodney, sir? Makes himself quite at home, sir—makes himself
qui—— I says they do not allow it to be employed in their absence,
sir—they do not al—— I thought you would, sir—I am glad I have done
ri—— Which, sir?—the which do you say, sir?—the parrots, sir? Do
you say the parr—— Oh, quite theirselves, so far, sir—I say they
seem quite theirselves so far. A little quiet p'raps, sir—a little
quieter than usual p'raps, sir.—Only twice, sir, as I heard—only
Hallelujah twice, sir, and rather low if anything, sir—lower than
usual if anything, sir. I will notify you, sir—certainly, I will
take care to noti—— What, sir? Lame, sir, do you say? Which of 'em,
sir? None of 'em are lame, sir—I say none of 'em are lame so far as
I've—— Not lame, sir! Not lame! James, sir—oh, I under—— Mr. James
Bush, sir!"

Mr. Rodney pricked up his ears at this point, and leaned a little
lower upon the balustrade towards the hidden voice of the groom of the
chambers.

"Mr. Bush, sir—oh, I will indeed—a special eye on him—certainly,
sir. If he should I will indeed, sir—I say I will indeed if he
should.—I believe at three-fifteen, sir. If you will give me a mo—a
moment I will see, sir——"

Here there was a pause, and a sound of paper rustling.

"It is three-fifteen, sir. In the hall, sir, I will indeed. Rely on——
He shall not, sir—I say he shall not, if I have to—— Night, sir—do
you say at night, sir? Very well, sir—I say ver—— I will endeavour
not to let him know it, sir. Softly, sir? Oh, most deci—— Mr. Bush,
sir? Do you say Mr. Bu—— Rather him, sir, than the rest I see—I say
I see, sir. At all times after Mr. Bush, sir—yes."

Just at this point Harry, Mr. Rodney's man, appeared abruptly on the
staircase, coming down, and almost ran into his bent-double master. Mr.
Rodney hastily reared himself up to his full height.

"Kindly show me my room, Harry," he said; "I am looking for it."

"Certainly, sir," said Harry, wondering very much why his master was
looking for it over the balusters of the servants' staircase. He turned
back to usher his master to the green bedroom, and Mr. Rodney followed
him in the deepest perplexity. What was this about James Bush? What was
the man's record? Of what nature was his history? Did the exiled Bun
Emperor know more of him than met the eye? Did——

"This is your room, sir," said Harry, throwing open a green door.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Verulam and Chloe had secured a moment to themselves in
one of the winter gardens.

"I say," said the latter, "Mr. Rodney's getting very officious, almost
as bad as that horrid little Mr. Ingerstall. He wants Harry to shave
me!"

"What?" cried Mrs. Verulam, dropping a lump of sugar, by means of which
she was tampering with one of the Bun Empress's favourites, much to the
gratification of that individual.

"He does!"

"Harry!"

"His man."

"Don't let him, Chloe. Don't be shaved. Let me imp——"

"My dear, is it likely? I told him I always did it myself. But still,
these offers are afflicting."

"I wonder Mr. Rodney hadn't more tact," began Mrs. Verulam. Then she
recollected herself and laughed. "When shall I remember that you're a
man?" she said.

"Perhaps when you get no more invitation cards," said Chloe with
solemnity.

"Oh yes, yes!" cried Mrs. Verulam ecstatically. "It has nearly come to
that; the goal is in sight at last."

"I believe it is," said Chloe rather grimly. "You don't mean to tell
me, Daisy, that you really are in earnest, that you really do want to
be put out of this heavenly life?"

"Indeed, indeed I do! This week, perhaps, the cage door will open. Oh!"
she clasped her hands in rapture. "This week!"

"Well, you are the most extraordinary creature! But I believe this week
will decide it. Daisy, the Duchess means mischief."

"I know."

"I almost thought at the last moment she wouldn't come, that she would
think you were too compromised and compromising."

"You don't know her. She hadn't got another invitation for Ascot; she
is obliged to use me as a sort of hotel. Besides, you are here, and
she's a woman of courage and resource. In spite of all, she still has
hopes of you for Lady Pearl."

"It's rather a shame—that part, I mean; but it couldn't be helped.
Well, at any rate, I've played the time-honoured _rôle_ of Carlsbad.
I've cured her daughter of the gout. That should be counted unto me for
righteousness."

"It will, dear. It must. Oh, Chloe, I'm so excited!"

"Why?"

"How forgetful you are! In two hours _he_ will be here. How wonderful
it seems!"

"He? Oh, of course, Mr. Bush. Now, Daisy, if you really do wish to get
out of society, don't spoil everything by flirting with James Bush
instead of with me."

"Flirting!" cried Mrs. Verulam indignantly. "James Bush never flirts;
he doesn't know the meaning of the word."

"Then he ought to get one of those explanatory dictionaries—they're
only half a dollar apiece."

"Don't, Chloe. Don't be flippant about Mr. Bush. It—it isn't suitable.
When you see him you'll understand that in a moment. James Bush has a
lofty nature, a little reserved, perhaps. He is apt to be reticent with
strangers."

"Does that mean that he never opens his mouth to anyone who isn't a
blood relation?"

"I should not go so far as to say that. Still, he is reticent."

"Then don't put him next to me at dinner. Oh, I forgot, of course I
shall sit between two women. What's Miss Bindler like?"

"Oh, one of those women who is so much more respectable than she looks
that men always find her disappointing."

"I know, now that I've been in London a month."

"She lives by what she makes racing."

"How much is that?"

"A few hundreds a year, I fancy. She is quite a good soul really."

"And Lady Drake? She's the only other one whom I haven't seen, except,
of course, the paragon."

Mrs. Verulam blushed softly.

"Lady Drake? Well, she's a widow, you know."

"That tells me all, naturally."

"Nonsense. Her being a widow is really only a sort of accident in her
life. Her husband was a V.C."

"What's that?"

"A brave man."

"What odd epithets you have over here. Well?"

"He's been dead thousands of years. She's intensely old."

"Why did you ask her, then?"

"Only because she worries the Duke."

"As Mr. Ingerstall worries the Duchess?"

"Oh no, quite differently."

"Well, but why is the Duke to be worried, too? I don't know him yet;
I've only caught sight of him at Hurlingham. Why must he be worried?"

"If he isn't, he is apt to get obstreperous—in quite, quite a
different way from the Duchess. I can't explain, really. You'll soon
find out. Oh, I forgot, though, you're a man at present, so you won't."

Chloe smiled a rather charming smile of comprehension. But Mrs. Verulam
was looking at her with a sort of dawning expression that seemed to
mingle alarm with amusement.

"Unless," she added slowly, "unless he should chance to confide in
you—in the smoking-room after _we've_ all gone to bed."

"Gracious heavens! I shall go to bed, too."

"Yes, perhaps that would be better."

"I'm quite certain it would. I don't want to feel like Daniel in the
lions' den. There's the gong! Oh, I'm so hungry! That's one advantage
of being a man—one can eat more if one wishes to."

"Come along, then. But where's—oh, here you are, Mr. Rodney."

Mr. Rodney at this moment entered, looking far more solemn than any
owl, and, indeed, with knitted brows and a face almost entirely covered
with an artistic disposition of wrinkles.

"Yes, I am here," he said abstractedly. "Yes, here I am."

And they walked into the cedar-wood parlour to lunch.




CHAPTER IX.

MRS. VERULAM'S IDEA OF AGAG.


That curious cerebral condition which we call excitement affects men
and women in very different ways. At 3.15 on this Monday afternoon it
caused a nervous restlessness in Mrs. Verulam, a hectic calm in Mr.
Rodney, and an apoplectic irritability in Mr. Harrison. The first of
these victims of the nervous system talked incessantly; the second
said nothing at all; the third abused the powdered Frederick, had a
"few words"—fifty thousand or thereabouts—with the cook of Ribton
Marches, and fell foul of the second housemaid, with whom, in moments
of condescension, he was rather apt than otherwise to keep company.
And all these circumstances were brought about by Mr. James Bush, at
that very moment driving from the Sunningdale station to the palace,
with his very large feet up on the cushions of the carriage, and his
very small bag of necessaries up on the box. However, he was kept awake
by no warning instinct which told him of the turmoil cast before him
by his personality, but, on the contrary, slept profoundly, and even
snored, with his great head well back on the hood of the barouche. He
was awakened by the stoppage of the carriage before the palace door.
Inside, in the baronial hall, the crunching of the gravel was heard,
and Mrs. Verulam had just said with elaborate indifference:

"Dear me! Can this be Mr. Bush already?"

Mr. Rodney had looked at his watch, and answered:

"I fancy so."

And Chloe had exclaimed:

"By Jove! Bungay Marshes to the front!" a remark which she considered
manly, and calculated to impress Mr. Rodney, which it did—with horror.

The palace menials advanced at the double, accompanied by Mr. Harrison,
who proceeded with an air of extraordinary precaution, and the drawn
expression of one who believes himself to be on the point of catching
a murderer red-handed. The mighty portals flew slowly open, and the
carriage was revealed, with Mr. Bush laid out in it, his mouth wide
open in a yawn, and his fists in his eyes rubbing the slumber out of
them, while his snort of astonishment at the sudden interruption of
his delicious reveries was distinctly audible in the still summer air.

"What's all this? What the devil is it all?" he said in a huge and
rumbling voice to the menials who came forward to assist him from the
barouche.

"Ribton Marches, sir," said the powdered Frederick, while Mr. Harrison
looked as if doubtful whether it were not his duty to run Mr. Bush in
upon the spot without further ado.

"Marchuss?" retorted Mr. Bush—"Marchuss?"

"Yes, sir. Won't you get out, sir?"

Mr. Bush rolled out, rather as a barrel rolls out of a dray down an
inclined plane into a vault. Planting his feet upon the marble steps,
he turned round and said:

"Lay hold of that bag!"

Frederick laid hold of it with the arms of a man anticipating a
considerable weight. As the bag, however, appeared to contain nothing
of much greater bulk than a collar-stud, the footman was nearly thrown
down by the unexpected triviality of his labour. He almost dropped the
bag.

"You'd better!" said Mr. Bush—"you'd better!"

The alarmed menial met the Bungay Marshes eye, and apparently thought
he had better not, for he ascended the steps with some rapidity, and
vanished into the interior of the palace in the twinkling of an eye.

Mr. Bush lethargically moved onward into the baronial hall, in which
Mrs. Verulam, Mr. Rodney, and Chloe were seated.

"Oh, Mr. Bush," cried the former, rising with a lovely blush, and
coming forward to meet him, "I am so glad to see you!"

That gentleman grunted, and permitted her to take his hand.

"It is so good of you to come and leave your lovely garden, and all
your sheep, and—and bees. Let me introduce you to Mr. Rodney and Mr.
Van Adam. The rest of the party come this afternoon."

Mr. Bush threw a couple of nods at Mr. Rodney and Chloe. Then he
abruptly exclaimed:

"What are you after, eh?"

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Bush," said Mrs. Verulam in some surprise.

"What are you after?" pursued her gracious guest, with a very sinister
intonation.

"Oh, nothing, sir, not at all, by no means!" replied a rather hurried
voice, and Mr. Harrison somewhat hastily retreated from a shadowy nook
in which he had been taking observations, until that moment erroneously
supposed by him to be secret.

"Really, Mr. Rodney," said Mrs. Verulam rather petulantly, "that man is
becoming very unnecessary. Can't you keep him in order?"

"I will endeavour—I will certainly endeavour to do so," returned Mr.
Rodney in some disorder, turning to pursue Mr. Harrison. Mrs. Verulam
had a way of behaving as if he were responsible for everything and
everybody in the palace which he began to find distinctly trying.

"Yes, please do," said Mrs. Verulam. "Would you like to go to your room
at once, Mr. Bush, or will you rest a little first?"

"I'll rest there. I'll have a lay down," he replied, yawning—"a good
lay down."

And, without further parley, he set out for the upper regions of the
palace, his boots squeaking as he walked. When the squeaking had died
away, Mrs. Verulam turned rapturously to Chloe.

"Well, dear?" she said—"well?"

"Well," responded Chloe, with a good deal of hesitation.

"Isn't he simple? Isn't he straightforward and natural?"

"Oh, quite—quite."

"Yes. And isn't it a relief to find a man like that after all the shams
and hypocrisies of society? One is never in doubt about what Mr. Bush
is thinking, or what he means. One _knows_ it."

"I should think so."

"Yes; I knew you would agree with me. Oh, how delightful it is to have
one friend who feels in all things as one does oneself!"

"Daisy, don't! You forget—you mustn't kiss me."

"Oh, heavens! Could anybody have seen?"

She glanced apprehensively round.

"No; it is all right. But I knew you would. A large, frank nature like
that seems to go straight to all that is good and right in one. Oh, do
let us take advantage of our opportunity this week! Do—do let us make
the most of it."

"Do you mean that Mr. Bush is our opportunity?"

"Yes—yes."

"Well, dear, I don't mind, I'm sure. But the most of Mr. Bush is a
great deal. I think he is the largest human being I have ever seen. Now
I'm going to wander about the garden and see what the Bun Emperor's
plants are like."

And Chloe went off wondering greatly at her friend's enthusiasm for
the gentleman from Bungay. She herself could at present see nothing
in him but a mountain of humanity, with that face, head, beard,
and expression already described as appearing to Mrs. Verulam in
the imaginary mirror of the cotillon of her fancy. Nor could his
manner—essentially truthful as no doubt it was—be called precisely
pleasing. Chloe picked a rose or two and lost herself in wonder.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Verulam wandered ecstatically about the palace. Mr.
Harrison was busy with the Bun Emperor at the telephone. Mr. Rodney was
plunged once more in terrible meditation in the purple drawing-room,
and Mr. Bush was enjoying to the utmost his good lay down on one of the
Empress's largest spring-mattresses. He woke soon after the arrival
of the rest of the party, and strolled heavily forth alone into the
grounds to take the air, which had not circulated very freely beneath
the quilt with which his head had been completely covered during the
last hour and a half.

Meanwhile the baronial hall looked fuller of people than it had ever
looked before. Tea was going on, but Mrs. Verulam had declined to allow
Mr. Bush to be disturbed.

"He will come in his own good time," she said, "I don't wish to bother
him. He is accustomed to perfect liberty."

She addressed the company generally. The Duke of Southborough, who
resembled an unusually tall pantaloon in appearance, but was not
entirely unlike a clown in manner, said in reply:

"Ah, then, I suppose he's a bachelor."

"Oh, of course," said Mrs. Verulam, with a secret glance at Chloe.

"Poor chap! poor chap!" said the Duke, with his funny demeanour of an
actor being remarkably successful in his part. "What a sad business
this anti-matrimonial bias that is growing up in the present generation
of Englishmen is! Eh, Lady Drake?"

Lady Drake, who was the human equivalent of the most perfect sort
of acid-drop that the power of the sugar-plum manufacturer has yet
produced, shook her head, on which the hair reposed in bandeaux.

"Men are more selfish than the lower animals, I fear," she said,
sweetening her tea with some modern preparation which she always
carried about with her in a good-sized phial.

"Oh, Mr. Bush is a most self-sacrificing man, I assure you," said Mrs.
Verulam quickly.

"Then why is he a bachelor? That's what Lady Drake means," said the
Duke, with a Drury Lane pantomime wink at the company.

"I think the French way of doing things by far the best," cried Mr.
Ingerstall, lifting a muffin to his mouth as a juggler poises a
billiard-ball on the rounded tip of a cue. "The Frenchman marries as
a matter of course, and with no more intention of curtailing his full
liberty of action than——"

"The French point of view in that matter is scarcely a suitable subject
for discussion, Mr. Ingerstall," said the Duchess of Southborough
very severely, while the Duke chuckled to himself. "Full liberty of
action! Very good! very good indeed! Ha, ha, ha!" Mr. Ingerstall
violently engaged her Grace—began to worry the Duchess, as Chloe said
to herself—while Miss Bindler, a wiry lady of about five-and-thirty,
who had a face like a horse, a tailor-made manner and boots with spats,
turned to Mr. Rodney and asked him what he was going to back on the
following day.

"I expect to make a bit on Cubicle in the first race," she said.

"Indeed!" said Mr. Rodney. "I trust I may do the same."

"Did you get a good price?"

"What for?" said Mr. Rodney. "Did I say that I had sold anything?"

This remark shows that the pressure of circumstances was becoming
rather too much for the owner of Mitching Dean. In fact, he was
considerably agitated. Since her arrival the Duchess had taken him
aside and indulged him with some very dreadful confidences. Her Grace
had been pleased to tell him, "as an old friend," that she had been on
the very point of telegraphing at the last moment to Mrs. Verulam to
give up her visit.

"She has been going too far, Mr. Rodney," said the Duchess in a
whispering bass. "She has disgusted London."

"Disgusted London!" cried the appalled confidant. "Oh, no; impossible!"

"You think nothing could; but you are wrong. There is a limit even in
our world, and she has overstepped it. You will see that to-morrow in
the enclosure. Old Martha Sage intends to cut her."

"Impossible!" reiterated Mr. Rodney, the perspiration starting in beads
upon his narrow forehead.

"Nothing is impossible to Martha Sage. I assure you it is the fact."

"It must be prevented," cried Mr. Rodney. "It must, it shall!"

He felt as Curtius probably did when he found that he really was in the
gulf.

"I don't see how it can be," said the Duchess. "You don't know Martha
Sage."

"But indeed I do," said Mr. Rodney. "She has often dandled me in her
arms."

"What, recently?"

"Yes, yes," he rejoined distractedly; "often and often."

"Possibly you may have some influence over her then," said the Duchess;
"and, indeed, if what you say is true, I hardly think Martha Sage has
the right to take the initiative in such an affair."

"When I was a little boy—when I was a child," said Mr. Rodney,
recovering himself in time to save Lady Sage's vanishing reputation
with the Duchess.

"Oh, that's nothing. She has dandled everybody at that age. But she
doesn't allow anybody to influence her decisions for all that."

"Then Mrs. Verulam must be kept out of the enclosure," cried Mr.
Rodney, wringing his hands together. "She must and shall!"

"That will only delay the matter," said her Grace calmly. "In fact,
Mr. Rodney—but this I tell you in the strictest confidence—if I
don't observe a very great change in Mrs. Verulam's behaviour during
this week, I am very much afraid that I shall be obliged to agree with
Martha Sage. Oh, is it tea-time?"

It was this terrible conversation which had reduced Mr. Rodney to
making a _mal-àpropos_ reply, a thing he had scarcely ever done before
in the whole course of his social life. He was immersed in thought,
considering whether he ought not solemnly to warn Mrs. Verulam of her
danger, or whether, on the other hand, he should go privately to Lady
Sage, recall the dandling incident to her Crimean War recollection,
and implore her, for her old intimacy's sake, to be merciful, and to
bow to the Ribton Marches party on the morrow. He could not decide.
He could not come to a conclusion. And Miss Bindler very soon gave
him up in despair, and took to a close and exhaustive study of her
betting-book. This study, Mr. Rodney's gloomy agonies, the Duke's
jokes, Mr. Ingerstall's recollections of Parisian life and art, and,
indeed, everything that was going on in the baronial hall, was,
however, interrupted very shortly by the sudden entry of Mr. James
Bush, with disordered and earthy costume, breathing stertorously, and
looking rather puffy about the cheeks. Mrs. Verulam greeted him with a
delighted smile, and was about to make him known to the fresh arrivals,
when he broke in upon her "Oh, Mr. Bush, let me intro——" with the
loud and rather startling exclamation, uttered in evident bitter
sarcasm, "You've got nice company here!"

"What!" said Mrs. Verulam, while the assembled magnates joined in a
simultaneous start of astonishment.

"Well, I'm blowed!" continued Mr. Bush. "You've got nice company!"

"I hope so, indeed!" murmured Mrs. Verulam. "Let me make you known to
them. Mr. Bush—the Duchess of Southborough, Lady Pearl McAndrew——"
She named her guests.

Mr. Bush plunged his head in their direction, without deigning to
glance at them.

"Mad, I s'pose!" he resumed to Mrs. Verulam. "Mad as Moses!"

Consternation now reigned among the inmates of the palace, who began
to fear that Mr. Bush was giving a name to his own private affliction.
Even Mrs. Verulam felt a certain diffidence steal over her at so
definite an inclusion of all her party within the sad circle of a
supposititious lunacy. But she guessed Mr. Bush to be a bit of a wag,
like most great men. Doubtless he was only having his little joke.
Still, she felt quite definitely that this fact should be made apparent
to the Duchess and others with as short a delay as possible, so she
hastened to reply:

"Ah, Mr. Bush, you mustn't make a joke on so serious a subject as
madness."

"Joke! There's no joke! Where's the joke of being potted at like a rook
in January? Joke, indeed—joke!"

He blew forth a perfect volume of angry breath.

"A rook in January?" said poor Mrs. Verulam, in consummate perplexity,
and really beginning to have her fears for her guest's reason.

"Aye. If I'd have stayed he'd have had me. I wasn't eight paces off
him."

"Unless the other gentleman was an unusually indifferent shot,"
remarked the Duke, glancing at Mr. Bush's gigantic bulk, "I must say I
think Mr. Bush must have stood in some slight danger. Did you not stay,
then?" his Grace added, addressing himself to the narrator.

"Stay? Not I! I just ducked down on all fours, and came back like a
beast through the rhododendrons."

"Indeed!" continued the Duke pleasantly. "A very sensible posture and
mode of exit under the circumstances. Who's your sportsman?" he added,
turning to Mrs. Verulam.

"I have no idea, indeed!" she replied, in perplexity unutterable. "Oh,
Mr. Bush!" she added, with a most tender accent of commiseration, "I
can scarcely tell you how grieved, how horrified I am that you should
have been so nearly murdered—and so soon after your arrival, too!"

"I should think so!" Mr. Bush rejoined angrily. "A nice thing to happen
to a respectable man!"

His tacit refusal to be mollified reacted upon his hostess, who, as
usual in untoward circumstances, turned instantly upon the man who she
thought loved her.

"Mr. Rodney," she said with bitter reproach, "you never told me there
was a murderer living in this neighbourhood."

"I never knew it!" cried Mr. Rodney. "It never occurred to me, I
do assure you. Where were you?" he exclaimed to Mr. Bush, with the
poignant accent of a man whose reputation is at stake.

"I was walkin' in the garden, a-lookin' at the mistakes the gardener
here's been makin'," said Mr. Bush sulkily.

"Yes, yes!" chorused the company.

"Presently I came to a bit of a pond, with flowers a-floatin' on it."

"Ah!" suddenly cried Mr. Rodney, in an illuminated manner. "And a
cottage on the farther side?"

"Aye; where he fires from."

"The Bun Emperor!" exclaimed Mr. Rodney, as if the matter was settled.

"Very unsportsmanlike behaviour," said Miss Bindler, "to shoot from
such cover as that. The game haven't a ghost of a chance."

"You're right, mum," said Mr. Bush, "they haven't—not unless they're
as quick at droppin' on all fours as I am."

"But I can't understand it even yet," pursued Mr. Rodney. "The
Emperor's really not a bad sort of man, as a general rule. Did you do
anything in particular by the pond, Mr. Bush?"

"Not I. I only stood a-lookin' at the little house. I saw a fattish,
smallish feller, with a fattish, smallish woman by his side, starin'
out——"

"The Empress, too!" said Mr. Rodney. "Well, Mr. Bush?"

"But I didn't take any account of them at first. I put out my stick
across the water to lay hold of some of the lilies, when what does the
fattish man do but shout out, "If you do it, I'll skin you!" I didn't
choose to notice his nonsense, and I'd just got hold of a lily, when
what do I see but him with a gun at his shoulder firin' straight at me.
So, as I say, I came away like a beast through the bushes."

Mr. Rodney seemed perfectly at ease.

"Mr. Lite always is a little hasty," he said. "The matter is perfectly
clear to me. He doesn't like anything being interfered with."

"A defender of the rights of property," said the Duke approvingly. "A
good Conservative."

"Still, he goes too far," said Mrs. Verulam, in considerable agitation.
"Mr. Rodney, I must ask you to be kind enough to tell Mr. Lite that I
cannot have my house-party shot at. Make it perfectly clear, please. As
a hostess, I cannot and will not permit anything of that kind."

"Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Rodney; "I see your point of view."

"If you won't have any more tea, it would be very good of you to go
to the fishing-cottage at once," said Mrs. Verulam. "Some of us might
like to stroll about the grounds presently, and I am sure we shall all
prefer to have Mr. Lite's solemn promise of amendment before we do so."

These words were received with an emphatic chorus of unfeigned assent,
so poor Mr. Rodney, who had only half finished his first cup, was
obliged to get up and fare forth into the afternoon. He went gloomily,
feeling that his Ascot this year was evidently to be a period of hard
labour, and that Mrs. Verulam, like many women, was inclined to make
mountains out of mole-hills. Not that James Bush could be accurately
described as a mole-hill. Nevertheless, under the circumstances, Mr.
Rodney's sympathies lay very decidedly with Mr. Lite. Indeed, as he
walked tealess in the sun, he gradually worked himself up into a
perfect fever of perfervid pity for the wrongs of the outraged exile,
practically homeless by the waterside, and forced to behold the
assaults of such an enemy as the man who had so foully influenced Mrs.
Verulam against society. Moved by this wild access of emotion, Mr.
Rodney burst into the fishing-cottage like a well-bred volcano, leapt
into the tiny parlour which for the moment accommodated the unfortunate
Lites, and, seizing Mr. Lite by the hand, exclaimed in a voice that
trembled with feeling:

"You have all my sympathy; I am entirely—entirely on your side. If you
had hit him, I don't think I could blame you—I don't, indeed!"

The Bun Emperor, who had an enormous pair of strong field-glasses in
one hand, and was in the very act of ringing the telephone-bell to
summon Mr. Harrison with the other, looked for an instant petrified
by this intrusion; and the Empress cried out in shrill alarm from her
station in the minute bay-window built to fit a fisherman. Mr. Rodney
breathlessly continued:

"I know what you—what any man worthy of the name—must feel on seeing
such a—such a—a spectacle, yes, as that man daring to make away
with the flowers that have been floating on those waters perhaps for
centuries."

The pond was exactly two years and three months old.

"What d'you mean?" gasped Mr. Lite, at length getting in an ejaculation
edgewise. "Are you mad?"

"I wish you had shot him—yes, I do!" cried Mr. Rodney, frantically
eulogising British assassination; and he threw himself into an adjacent
wicker-chair in a most Corsican manner.

The Empress wailed again from her embrasure.

"Oh, Perry, save me—save me!" was her natural cry.

"I will, Henrietta—I will, my love," said the Emperor. "Keep up."
After these reassuring words he advanced in a threatening manner upon
Mr. Rodney, and remarked: "Give over! D'you hear me? Give over!"

"I beg your pardon," murmured Mr. Rodney, exhausted by his unwonted
vocal exertions.

"Give over, or I'll lay my hands on you—I will."

"But I am sympathising with you—I am——"

"Sympathising!" said the Emperor, still maintaining a posture of
protection and defence; "what for? what over?"

"Your manly attempt to shoot James Bush," said Mr. Rodney, giving
himself away with extraordinary indifference to the opinion of the
civilised world on criminal affairs.

At the name the Emperor's manner changed. His black eyes blazed, and he
shook the field-glass as if it had been a fist.

"It was him, then," he cried—"it was him as I saw through the
telescope!"

"The telescope!" said Mr. Rodney, suddenly penetrated by a ray of light.

He turned rapidly in the wicker-chair, and threw a distracted glance
towards the embrasure. In it, reposing upon a window-seat, was an
enormous telescope. Mr. Rodney began to comprehend, and to see the
necessity of reconsidering his position under these much less violent
circumstances.

"Then you didn't fire at him?" he said, with an abrupt lamb-like
serenity.

"Fire at him!" said the Emperor. "What are you talking about? When he
went for Mrs. Lite's lilies I said I'd skin him; and so I would have,
or telephoned Mr. Harrison to, if he hadn't dropped into the ground for
all the world like a mole or a badger. I don't know where he went to,
though I had my eye to the telescope, and Mrs. Lite she was looking
through the field-glasses."

"He behaved like vermin," remarked the Empress at this juncture. "Like
a rat he went, he did. Never did I see a Christian demean himself so
till this day—never, no!"

"The man's a coward," said Mr. Rodney with firmness—"an arrant coward.
I shall inform Mrs. Verulam."

And he suddenly broke from the Emperor and Empress and absconded
towards the palace, leaving them immersed in helpless astonishment.

Returning with rapid steps into the baronial hall, he found the party
preparing to set forth into the grounds on receiving his assurances
that the Emperor had laid aside his gun for the time being.

"You are perfectly safe," said Mr. Rodney, with unwonted sarcasm, and
calmly waving one white hand towards the estate; "you will not be hurt,
I can promise you. Nobody will attempt to injure you."

The guests were obviously relieved, and they began at once to
evaporate, Mr. Ingerstall escorting the Duchess, the Duke with Lady
Drake, Chloe accompanying the Lady Pearl, and Miss Bindler bringing
up the rear in sturdy solitude. Mr. Bush remained because he had not
nearly finished munching his tea, and Mrs. Verulam stayed because she
loved to see him munch.

"You have persuaded him, then?" she said approvingly to the
ambassador. "I knew you would have weight with him."

But even this compliment could not divert Mr. Rodney from his purpose
of unmasking the man who had behaved like a badger in the moment of
supposed peril.

"My dear lady," he said, glancing with elaborate pity towards Mr.
Bush, who was closely engaged with a tea-cake, "there was nothing to
persuade. I am happy to say that you have been totally misinformed as
to the circumstances."

"Eh?" growled Mr. Bush, stirring his spoon vigorously in his
tea-cup—"eh?"

"Totally and absolutely misinformed," repeated Mr. Rodney with the
greatest decision.

"Really, Mr. Rodney," said Mrs. Verulam, preparing to fire up, "what
are you saying? Mr. Bush has been shot at."

"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Rodney very blandly—"I beg your pardon."

"If I hadn't a dropped, I shouldn't be here now," said Mr. Bush, in a
voice whose timbre was slightly obscured by tea-cake.

Mr. Rodney turned towards him.

"I assure you, my dear Mr. Bush," he said, "that you are labouring
under an entire delusion; you might with perfect safety have retained
an upright posture. It's true that Mr. Lite made use of some hasty,
inconsiderate words about skinning."

"There!" roared Mr. Bush; "what did I say?"

"But even they were no doubt rather metaphorical than strictly
truthful. As to the firing, however, you were quite mistaken. What
you took for a gun was merely a telescope. When you thought you were
being shot at, you were only being looked at. There is an appreciable
difference between the two operations. I think you will allow that."

And the owner of Mitching Dean calmly dropped into a chair, and
prepared to continue his interrupted tea. Mr. Bush looked remarkably
sulky under this light of truth.

"Telescope, indeed!" he muttered; "telescope—I daresay!"

"So you see, Mr. Lite can hardly be blamed after all," said Mr. Rodney
cheerfully to Mrs. Verulam.

"Perhaps not," she said, a little doubtfully. "However, he should be
more careful how he looks at people."

And then she rather hastily dropped the subject. In her secret heart
she was sorry to find that the Emperor was not so given to murder as
Mr. Bush had led her to suppose. Women love their heroes to stand
uprightly even in moments of imminent danger. They infinitely prefer
them not to quail before a telescope, however suddenly handled.

Mrs. Verulam could not entirely banish from her heart the uneasy
conviction that on this occasion Mr. Bush had scarcely lived up to what
she confidently expected of the man who was her idea of Agag.




CHAPTER X.

MR. RODNEY SCREAMS.


That evening in the hall after dinner the Duke chanced to say:

"Another top-hat Ascot! I wish the Prince would set the fashion of
billycocks. What do you say, Mr. Bush? Wouldn't you rather have a low
hat in the heat? Anything low is always so pleasant—between you and
me. Eh? What—what?"

The paragon observed the grinning pantaloon face solemnly, and then
answered:

"Top-hats are rubbish. I've only brought a straw."

Mr. Rodney turned as pale as ashes.

"I sha'n't wear nought but a straw to-morrer," proceeded the paragon
with heavy calmness.

"A savage custom?" squeaked Lady Drake enquiringly.

"I hate a man to be over-dressed," ejaculated Miss Bindler approvingly.

"I beg your pardon," Mr. Rodney said suddenly, in a trembling voice—"I
beg your pardon, but I must venture to say that I feel certain Major
Clement will turn a—a straw off the lawn. Knowing him as I do, I
feel confidently certain of it." And he cast a glance of passionate
beseeching upon Mrs. Verulam.

For once she came to his rescue.

"I quite agree with Mr. Bush," she said; "a straw is much more
sensible—"

"Merciful heavens!" in an under cry of acute anguish from Mr. Rodney.

"In every way. But at the same time, Mr. Bush, don't you think that
custom should occasionally be adhered to?"

"Eh?"

"Every man will be wearing a top-hat to-morrow."

Mr. Bush began to look very sulky.

"I've hoed and I've planted in a straw for thirty year," he muttered,
"day in, day out."

"There's no hoeing and planting on a racecourse," said Mr. Rodney, with
vehement sarcasm.

"It'd make the going a bit heavy," said Miss Bindler reflectively.

"I fancy, Mr. Bush," said Mrs. Verulam very gently, "that, as you will
not have any opportunity of hoeing at the races to-morrow, owing to all
the silly rules and regulations, you will find it really pleasanter
to be as everyone else is—I mean only, of course, as regards your
head-covering."

"I haven't a-brought one," he mumbled; "I say I've only brought a
straw."

"We must send a man to Windsor," said Mr. Rodney, with a sudden
piercing decision, and he pushed eighteen times at an electric bell.
The powdered Frederick appeared.

"Kindly bring us a yard measure," said Mr. Rodney.

"A what, sir?" exclaimed the man.

"A yard measure, and order a dogcart round; there is much to do
to-night."

The powdered Frederick dropped his lower jaw like one confronted with
the mysteries of Udolpho, and fled to execute these sinister commands.
He returned, accompanied by Mr. Harrison, who had impounded a yard
measure with his left hand, and whose eyes were starting out of his
head with suspicion. The house-party were now tense with excitement as
medical students gathered to witness the operation of the century. Only
Mr. Rodney was wrapped in a white and still calm; he held out his long
thin hand for the yard measure, but Mr. Harrison showed a bold front.

"Mr. Lite's last orders to me, sir," he began, shaking his bald head
emphatically—"his last orders to me was: 'On no account, Mr. Harrison,
is the carriages to be measured. Oh, by no means must it be so
done—oh, indeed, on no account whatever!'"

"The carriages!" said Mr. Rodney, getting very red at this speech for
the defence—"the carriages! It is this gentleman's head!" He pointed
to the paragon.

"I understood, sir, from Frederick that the dogcart—oh, indeed, was
ordered to be——"

But at this point Mr. Rodney snatched the tape from the protecting
hand that secluded it, advanced heroically upon the paragon, measured
the circumference of his enormous cranium, wrote the measurement down
with a gold pencil on a sheet of writing-paper, gave it to the powdered
Frederick, said: "Have that taken at once to Windsor, rouse up the best
hatter in the royal borough, buy a top-hat of that size, and bring it
back as fast as the horse can gallop," and then sank down on a sofa
with the air of a man who, having stormed the heights, dies of his own
bravery as he grasps the standard of the enemy.

"A glass of water," he murmured.

It was brought. He recovered, and shortly afterwards the spectators
of the operation of the century retired to their respective bedrooms,
conscious that they had been assisting at a historical event, but a
little divided as to the complete tact and generalship shown by Mr.
Rodney.

That night, when the faithful Marriner came into the primrose bedroom
to brush Mrs. Verulam's pretty hair before the latter went to bed, she
found her mistress in a very serious mood. And, on her side, Marriner
was also unusually grave, although her demeanour, chastened as it was
by Schopenhauer and an acquaintance with Nordau which might almost be
termed intimate, was invariably and at all times sedate and thoughtful.
Chloe had adroitly avoided the smoking-room, in which the Duke was now
telling stories to Mr. Ingerstall; while Mr. Rodney wrote up his diary,
and Mr. Bush dreamed over a whisky and soda of gigantic proportions.
Mr. Harrison, above stairs, was with much tribulation and uncurled
whiskers preparing his report to lay before the Emperor at eight
o'clock on the following morning. The Duchess was asleep. Miss Bindler
was considering the chances of the morrow. The Lady Pearl was dreaming
softly of the person whom, in secret, she now named Huskinson; and Lady
Drake, who though acid had an extraordinarily sweet tooth, was eating
chocolate creams in a dressing-gown made from an Indian shawl presented
to her by a very great personage indeed.

The faithful Marriner removed a hairpin and breathed a sigh
simultaneously. Mrs. Verulam echoed the sigh, and hearing that she had
been honoured with an echo, Marriner ventured to say:

"Oh, ma'am!"

"Why do you say 'Oh,' Marriner?" said Mrs. Verulam. "What should you
have to say 'oh' about?"

"Many things, ma'am—many, many things," responded Marriner in a
doleful voice.

"Have any more thoughts been taking you like a storm, Marriner?"

"They have indeed, ma'am."

"If you think so much you ought to keep a lifeboat by you," said Mrs.
Verulam dreamily.

For her hair was now being brushed and was giving off electricity, and
the process soothed her.

"Might I speak, ma'am?" said Marriner, making use of her habitual
formula when she had anything special to say.

"You may, certainly."

"Ma'am," said Marriner, "I've heard a dreadful thing this night."

"Dreadful! What about?"

"Oh, ma'am, that I should have to say it—about you!" replied the
faithful creature, with every outward sign of extreme dejection.

Mrs. Verulam started beneath the brush.

"A dreadful thing about me, Marriner! Who from?"

"From Mrs. Crouch, ma'am, her Grace's woman."

"Why, what should Mrs. Crouch say about me?"

"Oh, ma'am, she says, ma'am, that Lady Sage is—is——"

"Don't break down, Marriner, you'll wet my hair. Please go on."

Thus adjured, Marriner continued in a fragmentary voice, as one
relating something almost too improper to be given tongue to:

"She says that—oh, that Lady Sage is going to have nothing at all to
do with you in the Enclosure to-morrow, ma'am—oh dear, dear me!"

Mrs. Verulam sat still in silence for a moment. It must be confessed
that during the moment she felt as if she was being whipped.

"Oh, ma'am, don't go—don't go there!" continued Marriner. "We should
not place ourselves between the feet of our enemies, ma'am; no, no, we
should not!"

"Be careful with the brush, Marriner, please," said Mrs. Verulam in a
rather low voice.

"But that's not all, ma'am—there is worse, ma'am—there is treachery,
indeed, and there is treason, ma'am."

"Really, one would think that Guy Fawkes was staying in the house,"
rejoined Mrs. Verulam, recovering herself a little.

"No, ma'am, indeed it is not him."

"Then who is it?"

"Oh, ma'am—her Grace."

"The Duchess!" said Mrs. Verulam in slight surprise.

"Yes, ma'am; Mrs. Crouch says, indeed, that her Grace will do as her
Ladyship—Lady Sage—does, when the week is over, ma'am. And it is all
because of Mrs. Van Adam—taking her for a man, ma'am. Oh, do—please,
please do tell them, ma'am!"

"The teeth of the comb! Be careful, Marriner, please!"

"Yes, ma'am, I will. But I do implore you, ma'am, if I might——"

"Hush!" cried Mrs. Verulam suddenly; "let me think! Brush softly,
Marriner, if you have any regard for me."

Marriner brushed softly, and Mrs. Verulam thought for a long while,
hating Lady Sage and the Duchess for themselves, womanlike, yet
half-inclined—or tricking herself to think so—to love their coming
deed. James Bush, too, and the squirrel Tommy, and the cage door, and
the different, the true, earnest, sincere, unaffected life—thoughts of
all these ran through that pretty head beneath the shining hair, until
the weary brusher ceased, and Mrs. Verulam said, "You may go to bed,
Marriner; good night."

In consequence of Marriner's revelation, when, on the following
morning, shortly before the Ribton Marches party started for the
course, Mr. Rodney mysteriously begged to be allowed to speak with
Mrs. Verulam alone, she was not much surprised by what he had to say,
although, for some perhaps feminine reason, she pretended to be so.

"Could I have just a word with you?" Mr. Rodney said, in a voice not
wholly unlike that of a sucking dove.

"Certainly," replied Mrs. Verulam. "Where?"

"I think there is no one in the pink boudoir."

"Let us go there, then."

They went, furtively watched by Mr. Harrison, who had just returned
from the fishing-cottage in possession of that rather unacceptable
belonging usually called a flea in the ear. For he had found the
Emperor in a terrible condition of fury over the James Bush business
and various other incidents of the preceding day. When Mrs. Verulam and
Mr. Rodney had gained the pink boudoir, the latter carefully closed the
pink door, walked very gently up to Mrs. Verulam, and said:

"Where do you think of watching the races from, may I venture to ask?"

"Where from? The Enclosure, of course!"

"Shall we sit down for a moment?" replied Mr. Rodney, with a consummate
endeavour after genial ease.

They sat down on a couple of flesh-coloured chairs and he proceeded
with extraordinary blandness:

"The Enclosure! Don't you think it is likely to be excessively hot?"

Mrs. Verulam instantly guessed that Mr. Rodney knew what the faithful
Marriner knew.

"Hot," she said, "why specially hot in the Enclosure?"

"Well, you know, in consequence of its being so difficult to gain
admission to, it is so very much more crowded than any other part of
the course. Don't you think so?"

"Well, but where else shall I go?"

"I have ventured to take a couple of excellent boxes. You see one or
two of our party, Mr. Ingerstall and Mr. Bush, have not got cards for
the Enclosure."

Mr. Rodney just glanced at his boots. Mrs. Verulam had never liked him
better than at this moment. Nevertheless, she was a woman, and, as all
her sex, sweetly mischievous.

"It is very good and thoughtful of you; still, I think I shall go to
the Enclosure. Mr. Van Adam is anxious to see what it is like."

Mr. Rodney stiffened.

"Indeed!"

"And then there are all one's friends there—Lady Clondart and Lady
Sage, and——"

Mr. Rodney became as cold as the adventurer who approaches the Pole. He
saw Mrs. Verulam rushing headlong to her doom, and he did not know how
to stop her.

"Lady Sage grows a little wearisome, I fancy," he murmured dissuasively.

"Do you think so? Oh, I love her recollections!"

"I think her too historical for hot summer weather, I confess,"
continued Mr. Rodney; "and then her insatiable appetite for dates."

"Oh, surely she wouldn't eat them in the Enclosure!" cried Mrs.
Verulam. "The Master of the Buckhounds would never permit it!"

"The dates of battles, dear lady, not dried fruits. Really, if you
prefer to go to the Enclosure, I strongly—very strongly—advise you
to avoid Lady Sage. She is agreeable in a drawing-room, but very, very
Crimean, I do assure you, on a racecourse. Do give me your word; I
cannot bear to see you bored!"

"You are all kindness," said Mrs. Verulam, secretly longing to pat
this kind and true friend upon his anxious face. "I must go to the
Enclosure, but I shall probably not see Lady Sage. Now, the carriages
must be round."

Mr. Rodney, in his usual soft manner, opened the pink door, and was
instantly confronted by Mr. Harrison, who, with tightly-shut eyes,
was revealed in a crouched attitude with his left ear glued to what,
had the door been shut, would doubtless have been the keyhole. This
surprising vision caused Mr. Rodney to start, and the groom of the
chambers, in some obvious confusion, assumed a less attentive posture,
and added:

"I was about to inform you, sir—in the temporary absence of all the
men-servants—that the carriages are now before the door—oh, most
certainly!"

He then proceeded to retire with a deliberate but distinct celerity.

"That man is really of a very original turn of body," remarked Mrs.
Verulam, as they went downstairs.

"He carries it too far, in my opinion," replied Mr. Rodney, with
considerable severity.

That day was to Mr. Rodney a day of trial and of acute anxiety. It
might truly be said that he did not have one moment's peace during
the whole course of it. He attended Mrs. Verulam into the Enclosure,
which was, as he had foreseen, most uncomfortably full and crowded, and
spent his time there in a faithful endeavour to emulate the procedure
of the trained private detective. His eye, to which he tried to give
that unmarkable acuteness attributed to the eye of the lynx, was ever
upon the look-out for the approach of Lady Sage, and when he saw that
redoubtable survival of pre-Crimean days moving afar off beneath a huge
bonnet in form like a helmet, he ingeniously glided Mrs. Verulam into
some other part of the royal pen, engaging her the while vigorously
in conversation, and leading unsuspecting countesses and others to
cover up her tracks in a masterly manner. Being a man, he thought that
she was quite unaware that for four hours she was subtly being dodged
about, and when at length the last race was over, and he placed her in
the barouche, he fancied that the sigh of triumph which he could not
help breathing was supposed by her to be merely a tribute to the heat.

The great lawn that stretched before the glittering windows of the
palace; the mighty cedar-tree beneath which the powdered Frederick and
his fellow menials now arranged the tea-tables—these works of Nature
appeared exceedingly charming to the dusty eyes of the Ribton Marches
house-party as they flocked anxiously out to refresh themselves after
the torments of a day of pleasure. But not all had returned. Mr. James
Bush and Mr. Ingerstall were absent. Lady Drake, exceedingly acidulated
in airy black; the Duchess, full of bass conversation about the events
of the day, but ever watchful of Chloe and Mrs. Verulam; Miss Bindler
and the Duke talking racing; Chloe and the Lady Pearl—all these
gathered round and sank in various attitudes of marked prostration into
garden chairs. But the hero from the Bungay Marshes and the thickset
person from Paris were nowhere to be seen.

"Where are Mr. Bush and Mr. Ingerstall?" said Mrs. Verulam, looking
round.

"I can't imagine," said Mr. Rodney peacefully, as Frederick placed the
magnificent grapes from Mitching Dean upon one of the little tables
near a rose-bush.

"I daresay Mr. Bush is on a roundabout," said the Duchess. "You say he
is fond of being rustic, Mrs. Verulam?"

"Yes; but not in that way, I hope."

"It all goes together, love of the country and a passion for riding
wooden horses painted yellow to the sound of comic songs. Depend upon
it, Mr. Bush is on a roundabout."

Mrs. Verulam began to look very anxious.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed, turning towards Mr. Rodney, "I do hope—Mr.
Rodney, don't you think, perhaps——"

Now, Mr. Rodney, beneath all his breeding, was human. He didn't know
it, but he was, and upon this occasion he revealed the fact.

He was at this moment, when Mrs. Verulam addressed him, very busily
engaged in being happy, and he was determined not to be interrupted
in this activity. His tired limbs were caressed by a charming chair,
into which he fitted quite perfectly. A soft breeze played about his
carefully-parted hair. His eyes were dazzled by the beautiful grapes
grown in his own hot-houses, and his heart was cradled in the arms
of success. Dreamlike he felt, softly rapturous, as the tired but
triumphant gladiator. The desperate past, haunted by Lady Sage, lay
behind him; tea, sugar, bread-and-butter, a future tenderly bright,
lay before. And should he allow even the woman whom he loved to send
him forth again to those arid stretches of dusty landscape, there to
quest among the perspiring vulgar for a great rustic bumpkin astride an
orange or blue horse, revolving furiously in the heat to the sound of
the music of the lower spheres? No, no. Rather annihilation.

Under the stress of this definite determination, therefore, he said
with unusual firmness:

"If Mr. Bush is fond of horse-exercise, I certainly think he should be
permitted to enjoy it in all freedom. Probably it is his custom to ride
on a roundabout every day. Dear me, tea is very refreshing on these
occasions!"

Mrs. Verulam was checkmated. She had never seen Mr. Rodney so masterful
before.

"There's a great deal of knack in sitting a wooden horse," said the
Duke. "Some people can never acquire it. I knew a very excellent
clergyman who was thrown three times running by a deal cob which his
cook rode perfectly at the very first try."

"You ought always to give a horse of that material his head," said Miss
Bindler, taking out a hunting-flask and pouring something yellow into
her tea. "If you try to hold him in you're done. Had a good day?" she
added to Mr. Rodney.

"Perfect!" said that gentleman celestially—"quite, quite perfect!"

"What, after backing Cubicle?"

"Absolutely perfect!"

"How much did you clear on all the results?"

"Clear?"

"Yes—pouch."

"Pouch?" said Mr. Rodney as in a happy dream—"pouch?"

"Did you have anything on Lambton and Try your Luck? Did you go for
Mulligatawney?"

"No, no; I didn't go for Mulligatawney."

"Well, then, I'm—I don't see how you had a good day," said Miss
Bindler, giving him up and turning again to the Duke.

"Do you like Ascot, Mr. Van Adam?" said the Lady Pearl, with unusual
vivacity.

"It's heavenly," cried Chloe; "it's like a dream."

"Have you nothing of the kind in America?"

"How can we, when we have no aristocracy? Oh, I should like to make
it my life's mission to create a grand American aristocracy, with
grades, a Debrett, and everything complete. I would travel, I would
hold meetings, I would stir up the splendid class feeling that makes
England what it is, I would leave no stone unturned, I would begin by
getting baronets for my dear native land—they should be the thin end
of the wedge, and everything else would follow."

Her cheeks flushed with enthusiasm, and her eyes sparkled as she
unbuttoned her frock-coat, and flung it open with the gesture of a born
orator. The Lady Pearl caught the infection of the missionary spirit.

"Mr. Van Adam," she said, "you should have lived in the olden days. You
should have led Crusaders."

"To Burke instead of battle, an army to armorial bearings. Oh!"

She drank her tea in a soft frenzy, which went straight to the heart of
the Lady Pearl.

The Duchess, who had observed these noble raptures with satisfaction,
looked narrowly at Mrs. Verulam.

"Is Mr. Van Adam to be much longer with you?" she asked.

"I am afraid not in London," said Mrs. Verulam. "But we may go over to
Paris together in a week or two."

"Indeed!" said her Grace, flushing with respectable fury—"indeed!"

"Or on the Continent," continued Mrs. Verulam, with pretty malice, as
she thought of the faithful Marriner's midnight remarks.

Her Grace heaved, and Mr. Rodney woke suddenly from his dreams, and
spilt some tea over his boots. Was Mrs. Verulam mad? For a moment he
dreaded that the Duchess would lose her head and make a scene, for the
famous features became enlarged with passion. Her Grace's form was
agitated like an enormous flower in a strong wind, and she opened her
capacious mouth as if to allow egress to a stream of eloquent remarks
of an opprobrious nature.

But, unfortunately, her curses were lost to an enquiring world, for at
this moment Mr. Bush and Mr. Ingerstall emerged from the palace and
came towards the group on the lawn with a demeanour which attracted
the attention of all. The artist looked wildly hilarious. His enormous
spectacles were dimmed with tears of laughter, and his frantic bow-tie
streamed abroad in a manner suggestive of unbridled licence. Mr. Bush's
gigantic countenance, on the other hand, was marked by its usual solid
gravity. But the hat from Windsor perched on the side of his head like
a wounded bird, battered and forlorn; his clothes seemed to have been
hurriedly put on during the active progress of an earthquake; one or
two buttons had burst off his boots, and he carried in his hands what
appeared at a distance to be a large number of cannon-balls, but as he
approached resolved themselves into various cocoanuts, such as grow so
plentifully in all places where the sinews of Great Britain assemble
to have a good time. All eyes were now riveted upon these nuts, two or
three of which Mr. Bush let drop on Mr. Rodney's toes as he gained the
tea-table. Miss Bindler was the first to break the awed silence which
reigned beneath the cedar-tree.

"Been betting in kind?" she said to Mr. Bush. "Taking the odds in
fruit? Not a bad idea, if you're keen on it. I shouldn't mind having a
bit on Kiss Me to-morrow—say in gooseberries."

Mr. Bush sat down in silence in a wicker chair and nursed his nuts,
while Mr. Rodney, with an approach to violence, kicked away that
portion of the winnings which had bruised his delicate feet.

"I would give one year—yes, one whole year—of my caricaturing life,"
shrieked Mr. Ingerstall, "to take Mr. Bush round the side-shows of
Montmartre. How he would appreciate their subtle beauty! He has the
artistic sense; he understands the exquisite poetry of vulgarity, the
inwardness of the cocoanut-shy, the extraordinary elements of the
picturesque which appear in the staring face of Madame Aunt Sally,
open-mouthed to receive the provender shot at her by Hodge and Harriet.
He knows well the bizarre and beautiful effect upon the nervous system
of that strange combination of the arts of music and motion—the
roundabout! He——"

"The roundabout?" interrupted the Duchess. "Didn't I say so?"

"You've been riding?" said the Duke to Mr. Bush. "Good exercise—good
for the liver! good for the muscles! Did you get a decent horse?"

Mr. Bush burst forth into a loud guffaw.

"Splendid animal!" cried Mr. Ingerstall. "I rode a pink, he a
delicate—a really very delicate—apple-green, with sulphur-coloured
spots. The music was that extremely pathetic composition 'Write me a
letter from home.' I should have preferred 'Quand les amoureux s'en
vont deux par deux'; still, the other really did very well. After
dismounting—Bush was thrown, by the way—we spent half an hour in a
tent with the bottle imp. Paris would like it. And then we passed on to
the two-faced lady, ending up with a cocoanut-shy, which Whistler would
love to paint. I really never enjoyed an Ascot so much—never!"

He swallowed a cup of tea as a Soudanese miracle-worker swallows an
impromptu bonfire, and leaned back, extending his short legs towards
the west, as if in compliment to the approaching sunset. Mrs. Verulam
looked with glistening approval at Mr. Bush.

"How original you are," she murmured; "and how bravely simple!" She
turned to the house-party. "Should we not all learn to find pleasure
in—in what Nature provides for us," she exclaimed, "instead of
creating artificial amusements to—to titillate our baser appetites?"

"Does Nature provide apple-green animals with sulphur-coloured spots?"
asked Chloe innocently, stroking the place where she was supposed to
shave meditatively with her forefinger.

"Nature," said Mr. Rodney, in a voice that quivered and was hoarse with
horror—"Nature is—is really scarcely decent."

Mrs. Verulam's approval of Mr. Bush's abominable and Neronic orgy shook
him to the soul. That she should praise bottle imps, two-faced females,
and speak of the royal Enclosure as ministering to our baser appetites!
Even the Mitching Dean grapes lost their colour, their peculiar
sweetness, for the moment.

"And all the better for that," began the Duke in his most St. John's
Wood manner.

"Lady Drake," said Mrs. Verulam a little hastily, "have you seen the
fish-pond? I believe it is lovely; and I know how fond you are of
fish-ponds. I wonder if the Duke——"

The hint was sufficient. Lady Drake immediately began to worry the
Duke, and the situation was saved.

All the party were now in that condition of physical refreshment which
leads human beings to think complacently of gentle movement. They
rustled like leaves in a forest, and this rustling was a preliminary
to a general uprising. Lady Drake carried off the Duke as the chariot
and horses carried off Elijah. The Duchess, under the stress of some
sudden mental prompting, swooped in a dignified manner upon Chloe. Mr.
Bush composed himself to rest with a cake in each hand. Lady Pearl,
Miss Bindler, and Mr. Ingerstall formed a somewhat unsympathetic trio,
and trundled towards an adjoining orchid-house; and Mr. Rodney, still
trembling and horror-stricken, strolled tragically forward with Mrs.
Verulam into the Bun Emperor's rose garden, Number 4. (All the rose
gardens were numbered at Ribton Marches.)

Mrs. Verulam was glowing, Mr. Rodney glowering. The former was full of
James Bush, the latter of intense and shrinking disgust. These feelings
rather clashed in the soft light which now began to fall over the
scented garden.

"The true path of pleasure," began Mrs. Verulam in an inward voice,
"lies where we never seek it—far, far away from the shams and the
conventions with which we surround our little lives. Oh! why—why are
we so blind?"

"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Rodney; "I can see perfectly well, and I
must really venture to say that——"

"You think you can see," interrupted Mrs. Verulam in soft rebuke, "as
the blind man does when he mistakes men for trees walking."

"I never made any such mistake," Mr. Rodney rejoined with unwonted
vivacity; "I never in my life supposed that I saw a tree taking active
exercise. Really, I must protest——"

"Your very protestations prove your sad condition, and the sad
condition of all in our world," Mrs. Verulam went on intellectually;
"but I, at least, will be blind no longer. Mr. Bush shall open my eyes."

Mr. Rodney gasped. He felt that the time had indeed arrived for him to
speak out.

"Mrs. Verulam," he began—"Mrs. Verulam, I must—forgive me."

"For what?" she sweetly queried.

"I must, indeed—I must speak. Are you—can you be aware of
what society will inevitably say if you permit a—a man—of Mr.
Bush's—er—appearance, or, indeed, any man to open your eyes? Society
will not permit these—these unwarrantable—forgive me—unwarrantable
liberties. The line will be drawn—it will, indeed. Let me implore you
to realise this before it is too late—let me implore you, if I have
any influence!"

He quite broke down, and trod on a valuable verbena.

"Society calls crimes virtuous, and virtues criminal," said Mrs.
Verulam.

"Oh, pardon me—pardon me!" he babbled.

"Yes, it does. True virtue is simple, frank, unashamed."

"Ah, ah! unashamed in the—the very shocking way of Eve before her very
desirable—if I may say so—fall," cried Mr. Rodney.

"Mr. Bush stands to me for virtue," added Mrs. Verulam irrepressibly.

This was too much for Mr. Rodney. He stood stock still like one struck
with paralysis.

"Mr. Bush!" he stuttered. "Then what does Mr. Van Adam stand for?"

"Chloe—er—Mr. Van Adam! What has he to say to the matter?"

"Oh, Mrs. Verulam, everything, everything! It is time, I see—it is
time—I must—I ought to tell you the truth."

"Please do so."

He hesitated for a moment, passing a cambric pocket-handkerchief across
his pallid lips; then he said:

"At least, let us come into the shade."

That "at least" gave the man's soul in a couple of words. He felt all
the terror of his coming revelation. Mrs. Verulam assented, and they
moved to a little grove of shrubs, monkey-trees, and other indigenous
plants which grew near by. Here the sun was less ardent; here a soft
breeze blew kindly; but here also something else occurred, which gave
Mr. Rodney time to compose himself a little. As they came into this
seclusion, artificially induced by the genius of the Bun Emperor's
landscape-gardener, an unexpected vision burst upon their eyes. Beneath
a monkey-tree of superb proportions, in a hammock suspended between
substantial supports, they beheld Mr. Harrison laid out at full length
smoking a large cigar in semi-unconsciousness, while the faithful
Marriner alternately rocked him gently the while she hummed a crooning
lullaby, and stroked the surface of his bald and dome-like head with
the palm of her delicate hand. For a moment the charm of this quite
unexpected fairy scene so enervated Mrs. Verulam and Mr. Rodney that
they remained motionless in contemplation of it. The rhythmically
rocking groom of the chambers, the shrill and monotonous cry of the
lady's-maid in the sultry summer evening, created a sort of magical,
unreal atmosphere. The slanting light, too, caught the bald head, and
transformed it almost into the likeness of a globe of some glittering
material. And as it swayed solemnly to-and-fro like the pendulum of a
clock, in obedience to the motion given by the faithful Marriner to the
hammock, it laid a hypnotic spell upon these two who gazed at it.

 "Sleep, oh, sleep! it's never too late for that;
 Sleep, yes, sleep, with your head upon the mat!
 For the workman's train is passing nigh,
 And the early milkman gives his cry,
 You'll be taken to quod when the copper comes by,
 So sleep, yes, slee-eep!"

sang Marriner tenderly, and Mr. Harrison did all he knew to be
obedient. He dozed, and was rapidly proceeding towards the most
profound condition of slumber, when Mr. Rodney, whether by accident
or design, coughed rather loudly. At this unearthly sound, Marriner,
who was half dreaming while she sang, was greatly startled. Surprise
released her limbs from her control, and the arm that rocked the
hammock shot suddenly forward with such violence that Mr. Harrison was
ejected from his delicious position, and, executing a clever turn in
the air, alighted at full length upon the ground, face downwards, with
a noise that was surprising. Mrs. Verulam looked reproachfully at Mr.
Rodney, while the faithful Marriner fell on her knees beside the groom
of the chambers.

"Oh, he's dead!" she wailed. And she, too, turned on Mr. Rodney.
"You've killed him, sir!" she shrieked respectfully.

"I am very sorry," said Mr. Rodney. "I didn't intend."

At this juncture Mr. Harrison lifted his face from the earth, sat
round so that they could see his indignant expression, heaved himself
forward upon his knees, and then, planting his hands, palms downwards,
upon the ground, and using them as a lever, straightened his legs very
deliberately, and was presently successful in standing upon his feet.
He made no remark after this elaborate acrobatic performance, but gave
Mr. Rodney a markedly malignant glance, and then shambled away among
the monkey-trees till he was lost to sight. Marriner, meanwhile, stood
by looking downcast.

"I am sure, ma'am," she said at length, "if I had surmised that the
races would conclude so early, I should never——"

"You can go, Marriner," said Mrs. Verulam. "I had no idea you had such
a pretty singing voice."

"If I might speak, ma'am."

"Certainly, Marriner."

"I learnt from going to hear Madame Albani, ma'am, at the Albert Hall
on my evenings out."

And she slipped away, carrying with her an atmosphere of curious
cultivation.

"That man is very offensive, very!" said Mr. Rodney with feeling.

"For being thrown out of the hammock?"

"He had no business to be in it. Servants should not go about sleeping
all over the place in their masters' gardens. This sort of thing is
never permitted at Mitching Dean."

"Oh, I like to see the humble enjoying themselves," said Mrs. Verulam
with vague beneficence, a little forgetful, perhaps, of Mr. Harrison's
natural self-importance and late severe accident. "But what were you
going to say to me?"

And she sat down on a rustic seat made from the trunk of a tree all
knobs. Mr. Rodney perched in a distressed manner upon one of the
branches, and said dolefully:

"Really, all this—this tumult has quite put it out of my head."

"You wished, I think, to tell me the truth about something," said Mrs.
Verulam in an assisting voice.

"I believe so—yes, I thought it my duty," began Mr. Rodney.

He was now in cold blood, owing to the late hammock episode, and found
it difficult to say what would have been easy enough when he was in
what was for him a passion. He ran one long hand over a dozen or so of
the knobs, feeling them like a phrenologist.

"I really considered it my bounden duty," he continued very
plaintively, with an accent on the "bounden."

"Yes?" said Mrs. Verulam with calm innocence.

"To—to tell you what—what the world is saying," said Mr. Rodney in
marked discomfort.

"About me?"

"About you and—and Mr. Van Adam."

"Indeed! What should it say?"

"Very, very dreadful things!" said Mr. Rodney, almost blushing.

"Dear me! How very absurd!" she cried lightly.

"Indeed!" said Mr. Rodney, with more courage. "It is not absurd." He
thought of his hours of furtive precaution in the royal Enclosure.
"Far, far from it! I hardly like to tell you——"

"Please do."

"Well," commenced Mr. Rodney, with the manner of a budding anarchist
throwing his first bomb, "Lady Sage and one or two others—leading
la——" he thought of the _Era_, and hastily substituted "leading
women, take the matter so seriously that—oh, my dear Mrs. Verulam, do
pray forgive me! they are actually intending not to see you—when you
are there, you understand."

"They want to cut me, in fact?"

Mr. Rodney really blushed and was silent, giving consent.

"If they do so, what will follow?" said Mrs. Verulam, with a great deal
of apparent composure.

"Follow!" cried Mr. Rodney, with all his force and eloquence. "Death!"

"Indeed! Is Lady Sage to be the corpse, or am I?"

"You!" he exclaimed. "Oh, Mrs. Verulam, think of it! Social death,
ostracism, exile—er—er——" He tried to think of further words
bearing a similar signification, but failing, added: "Do you realise
my meaning? Do you see the gulf that is opening out beneath your very
feet?"

"Indeed I do, with very great pleasure."

"Pleasure!"

The word rose from him in a male scream.

"Who is being murdered?" remarked the deep voice of the Duchess, who at
this instant became visible threading her way through the shrubs with
Chloe at her side.




CHAPTER XI.

MR. HARRISON'S NIGHT-WATCH.


From this terrible moment despair began to grip Mr. Rodney, and the
worst of it was, that besides being in despair, he was in confusion.
He now fully recognised that Mrs. Verulam was suffering under a
"possession," as he called it to himself. What he could not decide was,
which of those two demons, Huskinson Van Adam and James Bush, it was
who possessed her with demoniacal influence. Lady Sage was about to cut
Mrs. Verulam because of Mr. Van Adam. Society would certainly follow
Lady Sage's lead on the same account. But Mr. Rodney's penetration
had almost convinced him that the man from Bungay was, in truth, the
Svengali to this Trilby. It was surely his enormous shadow in which
Mrs. Verulam now walked. It was his fatal rusticity which she envied,
his sheep-washing, bee-swarming, cabbage-digging, pea-podding existence
she aimed at. This was so. But then, why should she compromise
herself with this divorced Huskinson? Why should she lead him about
whithersoever she went? Poor Mr. Rodney began "turning, turning in
mazes of heat and sound." He yearned for the informing letter from Lord
Bernard Roche which tarried so long upon the way. Nevertheless, when it
came, this letter only increased the darkness in which events moved—at
the first.

In fact, all things tended towards complication in and about the
palace at this time. And although Mr. Rodney, in the usual manner
of men, flattered himself that he alone of all the universe was
truly troubled in spirit, he was entirely mistaken. Mrs. Verulam was
secretly exercised at the apparent success which was about to crown
her endeavours to leave the _milieu_ in which Heaven had placed her.
The Lady Pearl was, or imagined herself to be, swept by the mysterious
tremors of a budding affection. The Duchess was in a simmering state
of fury against her hostess, and of match-making anxiety on her
daughter's behalf. And before the week was out Chloe was struck by a
thunder-bolt—metaphorically. At the moment, however, Mr. Rodney was
to some extent correct in considering himself the most unhappy person
within the precincts of the palace. On this Tuesday night he probably
was, as he sat down to dinner, pale, seedy, and bemuddled.

Her Grace was in a certain mental confusion. That afternoon in the
shrubbery she had been "sounding" Chloe, as she called it. That is to
say, she had been asking Chloe a very large number of extremely leading
questions in a very determined bass voice. Chloe had been obliged to
hear herself characterised as a very rascally woman, and to receive to
herself the flood of pity intended for her ex-husband. She had also
been informed that the victim of one unfortunate marriage should
instantly seek for happiness in another and more judicious union.
And she had learned the catalogue of the Lady Pearl's perfections.
According to her mother, the Lady Pearl's only fault was a slight
tendency to hereditary gout, and that, as her Grace very justly
observed, was glorified in a manner by the fact that it was distinctly
filial.

"The Duke has always been a victim to it, Mr. Van Adam," she exclaimed
with undoubted force, "and Pearl has been accustomed from a child to
look up to her father as to a being almost sacred."

The apparent deduction to be drawn from this sound reasoning was, that
if from childhood you look up to a sacred being—who has the gout—you
will be rewarded by receiving the sacred being's complaint; a somewhat
unsatisfactory state of things, which, however, has this advantage,
that it places you in the excellent position of being an undoubted
martyr. Chloe had done her best not to give any encouragement to the
determined hopes of the Duchess, but her gay delight in titles made it
so difficult for her to resist the seductions of one so venerable as
the title of Southborough, that she left upon her Grace an impression
that there was nothing in the Verulam business on her side. This made
the Duchess highly generous to Chloe, but hardly blunted her anger
against Mrs. Verulam, who was, no doubt, deliberately trying to snatch
the American away from the Lady Pearl. The Duchess's spirit was up in
arms against such paltry kleptomania. She was resolved to protect the
supposed orange-grower from such wicked designs; and on Tuesday night
her bosom swelled with mingled determination and enmity as she solaced
her spirit with mayonnaise and '84 champagne.

Mrs. Verulam paid but little heed to the Duchess's physical indications
of mental excitement. To-night she was engrossed with the desire to
show James Bush, her hero, off to this world ignorant of what a real
man can be. So far, Mr. Bush had borne himself bravely and naturally on
the whole, the telescope episode alone excepted. His treatment of Ascot
had been specially fine and noble. It is not every man, indeed, who has
the courage to forsake the gaieties of a box close to the winning-post,
the glories of the lawn, for the retired tent of the two-faced lady
and the painted charms of the roundabout. It is not every man who has
the intrepidity to give the ring the cold shoulder, and the beautiful
simplicity to return to a palace at eventide, laden, like the spies of
old, with the ripe fruits of Mother Earth—the cocoanuts of a Land of
Promise. Already James Bush had betrayed the grandeur of his nature,
but Mrs. Verulam was anxious to display every side of this character,
so multifarious in beauty. And accordingly, that night after dinner,
when the men came into the hall, she began to address herself rather
pointedly to her hero, while Mr. Rodney sat writhing with jealousy in
the immediate neighbourhood.

"Duchess," she said, "Mr. Bush, you must know, is full of maxims."

"Dear me! Is he related to a copy-book?" replied her Grace
lethargically.

"Oh no! Not maxims of that kind. His are founded upon observation of
life and knowledge of the world—that is to say, of the beautiful
earth. Aren't they, Mr. Bush?"

"There's nought like pea-poddin'," replied that gentleman judicially.

Attired in a dress suit of strikingly original conception and cut, some
sizes too small for his large frame, but well adapted to emphasise its
enormous bulk, he was spread out upon a huge settee in an attitude
of brilliant abandonment. The Duke was beside him, and Lady Drake
close by. Mrs. Verulam saw that everybody, reduced to a readiness for
comtemplative silence by much dinner, was listening with apparent
attention. A bright resolve came to her. She would induce James Bush to
show fully his true grand self, to illuminate them all with the light
that flamed from a great soul.

"Yes?" she said encouragingly. "Yes?"

Thus adjured, Mr. Bush added, after a moment of deep thought:

"Look after the sheep, and the sheep'll look after you!"

"It sounds like 'Diana of the Crossways,'" piped Lady Drake in her
acidulated manner.

"I don't know that I should care to be looked after by a sheep," said
Miss Bindler practically, as she lit a small cigar. "I don't consider a
sheep to be an efficient animal."

"They want a deal of mindin'," said Mr. Bush—"a deal of mindin'."

"Because they have no minds," said the Duke, yawning as a mask yawns in
a pantomime. "The same remark applies to the same class of the human
animal. Ask the Government of the day if it isn't so."

But Mrs. Verulam had no intention of permitting her hero to be involved
in a commonplace political discussion.

"Oh, I feel sure that even a sheep is deeply, deeply interesting, if
properly studied," she said.

"Aye," said Mr. Bush.

"It's what we bring to a thing, isn't it?" she added, greatly
encouraged.

"What would you bring to a sheep?" said Miss Bindler.

"Swedes," said Mr. Bush, before Mrs. Verulam could make reply.

All this time Mr. Rodney sat petrified, rendered inert and almost
idiotic by the turn the conversation was taking. What such remarks
meant he scarcely knew; but they seemed to him highly improper and
indelicate. He wondered that ladies could hear them without a blush!
That Mrs. Verulam could deliberately lead up to them was terrible to
him.

Mr. Bush was by this time growing expansive, aware that the
conversation which was now in progress depended mainly upon him.

"Swedes to a sheep, the stick to a woman," he ejaculated with a
rumbling chuckle.

The Duke looked delighted with this philosophy, which rather
overwhelmed Mrs. Verulam for the moment.

"You believe in the rights of man, Mr. Bush?" he said. "Eh? eh? You
stick to the old dispensation, the walnut-tree cure? What? what?"

"I should be very sorry for the man who laid a finger upon me, very!"
said Miss Bindler calmly, but with emphasis.

"Oh, Mr. Bush is only joking," said Mrs. Verulam hastily; while Mr.
Rodney lay back, closed his eyes, and permitted his entire face to
become a mass of wrinkles.

"A great many young men would be the better for a good whipping
nowadays," bellowed the Duchess from her sofa. "I would begin by
applying the bastinado to those who refuse to answer invitations. Susan
Barrington asked three hundred and two dancing men to her ball the
other night. Thirty-two answered, and thirty turned up. The ball was a
fiasco."

This restorative brought Mr. Rodney to. Lady Barrington was, of course,
one of his oldest and most valued friends.

"The question of answering invitations is certainly one of vital
importance," he began with soft animation. "For my part, as a citizen
of the world, I cannot help thinking that——"

"Never give a bullock sulphur," said Mr. Bush, now fully roused to
epigram—"never do it, or you'll repent of it."

Mr. Rodney was seldom in his life nearer making use of the foolish and
tiresome monosyllable "damn."

"And how about the bullock?" said his Grace, assuming the helplessness
of his appearance, and laying aside the usual grimacing geniality of
his manner. "If the bullock has the sulphur, and you repent of it, what
will be the exact mental condition of the swallower?"

All now prepared to hang upon the man from Bungay's words—all, that
is, except Mr. Rodney, who again closed his eyes, and Mr. Ingerstall,
whose silence is accounted for by the fact that all this time he
was sitting in a corner and drawing an elaborate caricature of the
paragon. But Mr. Bush was not of a temper to give satisfaction to
impertinent questioning; he suddenly turned sulky, and, after muttering
heavily "Let the bullock alone, and the bullock 'll let you alone!" he
appeared to fall asleep. Mrs. Verulam was very angry with the Duke for
thus spoiling a delightful evening, so she smiled with extraordinary
sweetness, and set Lady Drake at him while she devoted herself to the
Duchess. The latter, lethargic though she was, became suspicious of her
hostess's extraordinary affability, and of the perfectly free hand
which the Van Adam was being allowed with the Lady Pearl. She could
not realise that Mrs. Verulam's sudden access of seraphic sweetness
was occasioned solely by the fury of a woman who sees her hero balked
by a blunderer in the very hour of his triumph. It therefore suddenly
occurred to her Grace that possibly Mrs. Verulam and Mr. Van Adam
were trying to blind her and the world, that possibly they were even
using her precious, her gouty and innocent Pearl after the manner of
a stalking horse. Under the seizure of these black surmisings, she
replied to Mrs. Verulam's blandishments rather plethorically, and her
eyes became enormously prominent, as was their custom in moments of
acute mental strain. Mrs. Verulam was at first too angry to notice the
rather abrupt assumption by the Duchess of a private enquiry agent's
manner when in converse with a suspected party, but possibly she would
have been forced to observe it had not Mr. Ingerstall suddenly shot
forward from his corner, obtruded his squat form between them, and
hissed, in a pattering whisper:

"He's asleep, isn't he?"

"Asleep! Who?" cried the Duchess, startled.

For Mr. Ingerstall's proceedings were intensely rapid, and were always
carried forward with a masterly disregard of other people's feelings.
Mr. Ingerstall, with incomparable agility, indicated Mr. James Bush,
who at that moment emitted a reassuring snore.

"Yes, he is. I've got something to show you."

"Oh, what is it?" said Mrs. Verulam, hastily withdrawing her
skirts—"what is it? Is it alive?"

"In Paris I flatter myself they would say it was," he gabbled under
his breath. "For in Paris art is alive, breathing, vitalised,
full-blooded, fearless, sensuous, daring. God knows what they would
call it in England! Look at it!"

He popped out his hand under their noses, holding a sheet of paper,
upon which was drawn a thing as fat as a pig and as hairy as a
porcupine, lying on its back, with feet, as big as houses, pointing to
the sky, while from its mouth, wide as a witches' cavern, floated on a
scroll the following legend: "Never give a bullock sulphur!"

"It's very like," remarked her Grace, after a moment of
contemplation—"very true to life. Don't you think so, Mrs. Verulam?"

"I don't know what it is," said Mrs. Verulam, in great perplexity; "is
it meant for a bullock, then—after the sulphur?"

Mr. Ingerstall's monkey-like face was suffused with indignant blood.

"A bullock!" he cried poignantly. "It's Bush!"

The shrillness of the exclamation thus wrung from outraged genius not
only made all the awake members of the house-party jump, but even
pierced through the hide of the paragon's tough sleep.

"Bush!" he said, sitting up with a snort; "who's a-wantin' me? Is it
time to begin hoein'?"

There was a dead silence. Nobody grasped the inner meaning of the final
query.

"Who wants Bush?" continued the owner of the name. "Eh?"

"I do!" suddenly shrieked Mr. Ingerstall, protruding his caricature
beneath the eyes of Mrs. Verulam's ideal. "I do! I ask you, I ask you
confidently, is that a bullock, or is it you?" And, thrusting the
paper between Mr. Bush's fists, Mr. Ingerstall flung himself back in
his chair, puffing with all the generous indignation of insulted and
misunderstood genius.

The Duke with very great difficulty restrained himself from a nasal
"Joey!" succeeded by the time-honoured "Here we are again!" which is
the proper prelude to jokes of the more practical order. Mr. Rodney
opened his eyes and sat a little forward on his chair; and Mrs.
Verulam, speechless with horror at Mr. Ingerstall's named outrage,
gazed steadily at the Turkey carpet of the hall, and wished it might
engulf her. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush stared upon the work of art with his
goggling red-brown eyes and said nothing.

"Is it, I ask you once more with perfect confidence," snapped Mr.
Ingerstall with rising excitement—"is it a bullock or is it you? Come,
come!" And he slapped his fat hands with great violence down on his
knees.

"Me!" mumbled Mr. Bush at length. "Me! What d'yer mean?"

"What I say, Heaven preserve us all! What I say!" screamed the artist.

Mr. Bush looked from the outrage to its committer, and appeared to be
measuring the latter with his eye. Having done so, and apparently found
the result to be satisfactory as compared with his own measurements,
he remarked: "This me!" and made a movement suddenly as though he were
about to get up.

"Go it!" said Miss Bindler sharply, planting a single eye-glass rapidly
under her left eyebrow, and screwing up her cheek. "Time!"

Mrs. Verulam became breathless with excitement. Her gaze was fastened
upon her hero. A thrill ran through the house-party. With his huge
hands upon the arms of the chair, Mr. Bush lolled forward towards Mr.
Ingerstall and became brilliant.

"I ask _you_ with confidence," he bawled slowly, "is this here a
bullock, or is it me?"

Mr. Ingerstall looked at him for an instant, and then cried like
something whipped:

"It's a bullock!"

Mr. Bush glanced around with the air of a successful prize-fighter
about to retire from the ring.

"That's all right!" he ejaculated, and leaning back he fell asleep
again.

This incident, trifling enough in itself, was by no means trifling
in its consequence. For it turned the scale in which Mrs. Verulam's
heart was trembling. Down came the scale on Mr. Bush's side. The
feminine confidence that had been ever so slightly shaken by the hero's
beast-like retreat before the telescope of the Bun Emperor was now
entirely restored. That retreat had been a lapse from the brave custom
of a noble life, not an illustration from the existence of a coward.
Mrs. Verulam knew from this moment that she was worshipping before
a shrine that was really sacred, a shrine that deserved, that had
earned, its incense. As the conqueror fell so calmly and confidently
asleep, reposing, as it were, upon the very field of battle, she
looked across at Chloe with eyes that claimed her tender sympathy. The
Duchess intercepted the look, and darted indignant enquiry upon Mrs.
Verulam, while Chloe, observing the accident, softly smiled with a
pretty mischief. Unfortunately, her Grace, driven by dread suspicion,
turned sharply towards Chloe, and surprised the smile at its climax.
The Duchess swelled with fury. She now felt certain that she was
being tricked by this abandoned couple. Her Pearl was being made a
cat's-paw. Old Martha Sage was right. For a moment she sat shaking
like a jelly in her armchair. Then she rose up, uttered a general "good
night," that sounded like notes from a bass tuba, called the Lady
Pearl, and swept in a distinctly frenzied manner up the staircase to
bed.

"The Duchess is very quick on her pins," said Miss Bindler, looking
after her. "Did she ever enter for a walking race?" she added to the
Duke.

"Not since I married her," his Grace replied.

"She should; she'd stand a ten to one chance. Well, I'll be off to my
loose-box, too, I think."

There was a general movement, through which Mr. Bush calmly slept. Lady
Drake was just at the foot of the staircase when her sharp little eye
was attracted by a pillar, something like a tiny Cleopatra's needle in
shape, but bristling with handles and small knobs and buttons, which
stood in a far corner of the hall.

"What's that?" she asked, in her thin voice that was like a squeeze of
lemon-juice, pointing with her skeleton finger towards it.

"Oh," said the Duke, "that's one of Lite's patent automatic machines,
full of sweets, chocolates, and horrors of that kind. Put in a penny,
and out bursts a slab of butter-scotch or a stick of peppermint."

"Dear me!" said Lady Drake meditatively, and almost languishingly;
"what an excellent idea!"

And she walked slowly upstairs, occasionally turning her
virtuous-looking head to shoot an affectionate glance at the machine.
Miss Bindler had already vanished. Of all the women—recognised as
such—only Mrs. Verulam still lingered, gazing at the majestic form of
her sleeping hero. She longed to see it clothed in armour, helmeted,
with sword by its side and all the emblems of ancient chivalry and
valour, resting like a Crusader, only alive and on a sofa instead of on
a tomb. She breathed a gentle sigh, and suddenly became aware that Mr.
Rodney was observing her with a white glare of scrutiny over the top of
the _World_, the last number of which had arrived at the palace that
afternoon. She blushed and vanished. Mr. Rodney ground his teeth, a
proceeding which till that moment he had always regarded as the special
prerogative of the lower classes. Chloe heard the grating sound. She
was just resisting the urging of the Duke to "stay and have a smoke,
and hear some damned good stories!"

"Can't to-night," she answered, with a successful effort at
young-mannishness; "infernally tired!"

She forced a prodigious yawn and moved towards the staircase. Mr.
Rodney meanwhile was desperately reading the paper. Just as Chloe had
got her foot on the first stair, she heard him utter an exclamation of
surprise.

"Van Adam!" he said.

"Yes."

"Here's another paragraph about you—oh no, your brother. Did you
expect him?"

Chloe stopped dead.

"My brother?"

"Yes; look here."

Mr. Rodney rose, and softly approaching, put the paper into her hands.

"Mr. Van Adam, a brother, we believe, of Mr. Huskinson Van Adam, who
is now staying with Mrs. Verulam at Ribton Marches, Sunninghill, has
just arrived from America on board the _Arethusa_. His destination
is believed to be also Ascot. The race week promises to be the most
successful on record."

Chloe nearly let the paper fall.

"Dear me!" she said slowly, and looking steadily at Mr. Rodney. "Dear
me! I had no idea that—that"—she searched her mind hurriedly for an
appropriate American name—"that Vancouver intended to come over this
summer."

"I hope we shall see something of him," said Mr. Rodney, with a
slightly forced politeness.

"Oh, thanks! he's—Vancouver's rather shy—retiring. Well, good night."

She made off, taking boyish strides towards the friendly shelter of her
bedroom.

That night she was almost as much awake as the average owl is in
the dark and silent hours. Indeed, she was seldom in bed, being for
the most part engaged in searching the advertisement columns of the
_Daily Telegraph_ for the names of private enquiry agents who, for
a consideration, were ready to "watch" any living person from the
nineteenth century until the Judgment Day. Having compiled a full
list of these worthy persons, towards dawn Chloe wrote to the larger
number of them, expressing an ardent desire to have the newly-arrived
Vancouver shadowed. Just as she was directing the last of these
missives, her attention was attracted by a sound as of a loud and
heavy voice at some distance, uttering an enormous quantity of slow
remarks with pauses between them. She listened for some minutes. The
sound continued. Chloe was not naturally a nervous woman, but she was
a rather curious one, and she began to wonder what on earth could be
happening.

She got up from her writing-table and gently opened her bedroom door.
The palace was plunged in profound darkness, and somewhere, away in the
darkness, somebody was apparently delivering a recitation in snatches.
Who could it be? And where? Chloe took her candle, and, turning up her
trousers instinctively for fear they should rustle, made softly in
the direction of the sound. It chanced that her bedroom was very near
the servants' staircase, from which, on Monday morning, Mr. Rodney
had heard Mr. Harrison's anxious confidences poured into the distant
ear of his imperial master. Chloe knew nothing about this staircase,
but, searching for the sound, she presently arrived at a swing-door
which opened upon it, and stood on almost the self-same stair as that
previously pressed by the feet of the attentive Mr. Rodney. She then
heard something that at first absolutely amazed and confounded her.

When the women of the house-party, among whom we will include Chloe,
had gone to bed, the Duke, balked of his attempt to engage Chloe as a
listener, fastened on Mr. Ingerstall, and led away that unhappy and
seething victim of a Providence which sees fit unevenly to distribute
muscular development and size to be smoked over and anecdoted at. Mr.
Rodney proceeded to go on grinding his teeth and cursing himself as the
most miserable of men, and Mr. James Bush went on reposing. He did not
hear the powdered Frederick, with sweetly tinkling sounds by his left
elbow adjust the drink his soul loved upon an oaken table. He did not
hear the persistent grating which betokened the supreme mental agony
of the admirable owner of Mitching Dean. He was far away in the land
where all things are either forgotten or remembered in a manner more
fantastic than the trickery of blank oblivion. And in this land he
elected to remain until the Duke's last tale was told, Mr. Ingerstall's
last recollection of Paris Quartier Latin days was hissed, Mr. Rodney's
last groan was hushed. In short, everybody went off to bed, except Mr.
Bush, who had a nasty habit of going to sleep anywhere except in the
proper place for such a performance. Even the menials, after watching
hopelessly for awhile by the reposing warrior, in hopes to see him
wake, placed a lighted candle by his side, switched off the electric
light, and skedaddled to the luxuriously-furnished attics provided for
them by a thoughtful master. When at length Mrs. Verulam's hero woke,
he was alone, in almost total darkness. He heaved himself round, spread
forth his arms and clasped the cold, smooth sides of a decanter. The
object roused an instinct always latent, when not active, within his
heart. Mechanically he took measures to transfer the contents of the
decanter to another receptacle, and then, refreshed, he rose, grasped
the candle, and made off, a little vaguely, with some fragmentary
recollections of bed floating hazily through his mind. Missing the
grand staircase, he presently found himself at the foot of another, and
was about to ascend, when he heard, as Mr. Rodney had heard, the shrill
tinkle of the bell of the Bun Emperor's patent telephone. Mr. Bush
paused and scratched his enormous head. The bell rang again. Directing
his large eyes towards it, Mr. Bush, who had never before been made
known to a telephone, approached his face to it with a view merely of
examining it closely, and was suddenly startled by hearing a voice of
most extraordinary thinness and spiritualistic quality say, "Are you
there? Damn you! are you or aren't you there?"

Mr. Bush paused and endeavoured to reflect, but, failing, again
permitted his ear to approach the vehicle, and again heard the same
question, afflicted with the same and an additional oath. The gentleman
from Bungay was not of very susceptible temperament, but this shadowy
voice of the night, speaking so genially and so colloquially, rather
fascinated him, and, placing his candle upon the floor, he proceeded to
listen attentively.

"Damn you! are you there?" continued the voice. "Did I or did I not
tell you you was to watch all night, and be at the tube at three
o'clock to the moment? Did I tell you or did I not?"

Silence fell. Mr. Bush remained in an attitude of entrancement.
Presently once more the tiny voice took up the wondrous tale.

"If you aren't at the tube in another five minutes, to-morrow you shall
be turned into the street, as sure as you're a living man! Into the
street you shall go, bag and baggage! Do you hear, you——"

More words of a highly unmentionable character followed, and another
but shorter pause, through which Mr. Bush smiled with a solemn
appreciation of wide vocabularies. The bell rang violently again.

"—— you, go to the tube directly minute!" resumed the voice. "Go to
the tube and answer me, or you'll repent it to the last minute of your
natural life, you will!"

These repeated references to a tube, and to the earnest desire of the
voice to receive a reply, at length began to take effect on Mr. Bush.
He picked up his candle from the floor and let its light fall on the
voice, or rather on the voice's near neighbourhood. A tube started to
his eye. He slowly unhooked it, and again listened to the voice, which
meanwhile had again rung the bell about five-and-fifty times.

"Are you there? Where are you? Where the —— are you? —— you, are
you or aren't you there? Why aren't you there? What do you mean by it?
Did I or did I not tell you to be there at three o'clock? I say, did
I tell you or did I not tell you to be there? You ——, did I or did
I——"

"No," said Mr. Bush into the tube.

"Oh, you're there at last, are you?" (More words.) "I wonder you have
the impidence to come. Yes, I do, and Mrs. Lite says similar. She
wonders, she says, you have the blasted impidence to come at all after
keeping me dancing here for an hour and more. What? Dancing here, I
say. I've been dancing here for an hour and more."

"Keep on dancing!" roared Mr. Bush to the tube. "Keep it up!"

He did not in the least comprehend what the telephone was, or what
was happening. All he knew was that a voice was insulting him with a
refreshing grossness, and that he seemed able, by means of this tube,
to insult it back again. This pleased him very well, and he carefully
laid his candlestick down on the floor with a view to thorough ease and
equality in the ensuing combat. Then he once more seized the tube, and
reiterated, "Dance away, and be ——!"

There was a long pause. Apparently the voice, obedient to the command,
was engaged in dancing away and being treated according to Mr. Bush's
prescription. That gentleman began to be afraid that the game was up,
and that he had shown his valour too abruptly, when his ear was again
tickled by the reassuring utterance:

"To-morrow I'll skin you!" (Pause.) "D'you hear what I say?—to-morrow,
when you come round with your report, I'll skin you!"

Mr. Bush scratched his head, trying to invent an appropriate rejoinder
to this pleasantry.

"When you come round with the report, skin you I will, as sure as
you're a living man," tickled the voice once more.

"I sha'n't come round," said Mr. Bush. "Go to blazes!"

At this rejoinder the voice appeared to become a raving lunatic. It
poured forth a stuttering volley of impossible words, some peculiar to
Camberwell, others borrowed from a more Whitechapel dialect, and others
again that are in ordinary use among the groom race, the able-seaman
tribe, and the aborigines of the British army in all parts of the
world. Mr. Bush heard them with a relish that was almost voluptuous.
He now began to regard the affair as a thundering good joke—the sort
of joke that his rustic mind could well appreciate, and his desire
was to urge the voice on to further efforts in the fine profession of
blasphemy. He therefore applied himself heartily to the tube just as
Chloe appeared, walking gingerly at the summit of the staircase. Seeing
the flicker of Mr. Bush's candle, she extinguished hers exactly as he
bawled this varied monologue:

"Keep your hair on! There's nought like pea-poddin'. Look after the
sheep, and the sheep'll look after you. Never give a bullock sulphur,
or you'll repent of it. Keep on dancin'. Go to blazes—go!"

Chloe's first idea was that Mr. Bush had gravely exceeded, and that
he was now squatting somewhere below her in a basement of the palace,
and delivering his soul to some imaginary recipient of such articles.
She cautiously descended some steps, and perceived the paragon at the
telephone, listening with a rapt attention to the voice's reply to his
rural adjuration. It cannot be printed here. In truth, the imperial
occupant of the fishing-cottage, who supposed himself to be conversing
with Mr. Harrison, drew near to apoplectic convulsions with a rapidity
which seriously alarmed the Empress.

"How's yourself?" continued Mr. Bush, making a strong intellectual
effort. "Has the dancin' done for yer? Would you like to skin me now?
Come on; I'm waitin' to be skinned. Yes, I am; I'm ready for it. Come
and skin me—come!"

To Chloe these words were totally inexplicable. To whom this invitation
was addressed so cordially she had no idea. She found herself entranced
as by the progress of a nightmare, and was just racking her brain
to summon a vision of the person who was at the other end of the
telephone, when she heard above her a creaking footstep.

This was the groom of the chambers. Poor Mr. Harrison possessed that
useful knowledge, the knowledge of which side his bread was buttered.
He would almost as soon have died as have lost his post in the palace,
which, usually so easy and agreeable, was now become so onerous and
complicated, therefore he was intent on obeying as many of the Bun
Emperor's increasing commands as possible. But Mr. Harrison, being
human, was subject to fatigue. Naturally of a lazy habit, his present
unwonted exertions were beginning seriously to tell upon him, and he
had therefore disregarded his potentate's commands to watch all night,
had set an enormous alarum clock to explode punctually at a quarter
to three o'clock in the morning, and had then flung himself fully
dressed upon his feather four-poster to refresh himself with a three
hours' nap. The alarum, he surmised, would enable him to be at the
telephone ready with a lie at the appointed hour. Unfortunately, his
calculations, excellent in themselves, were vitiated by the malign
proceedings of the alarum, which chose to misbehave itself and to
remain silent till three thirty, at which time it made an ejaculation
like the last trump. Without glancing at the clock, the trustful groom
of the chambers extricated himself from the deep valley in which he had
been reposing between two ranges of lofty mountains of heaped-up down,
and hastened towards his post, inventing a great number of admirable
lies as he went. As he arrived at the top of the stairs, Mr. Bush, now
tiring of the joke, restored the tube to its place, and, perceiving
that he had wandered into a strange portion of the palace, made
slowly off in search of the baronial hall. Chloe, hearing approaching
footfalls above her, crept down after him; and thus it happened that
Mr. Harrison, wholly unaware of what had passed, presently gained
the telephone, and, smiling to himself at the ingenious fable of his
night-watch which he was about to unfold, stood listening for the
Emperor's ring. It came with violence, and, lending ear, Mr. Harrison
found himself welcomed with:

"If you don't come round, as sure as you're a living man, at the end of
the week I'll tear you limb from limb, I will."

"Sir!" cried Mr. Harrison into the tube, with an accent of unmitigated
terror.

"If you don't come round, I say, to-morrow by eight, at the end of the
week I'll tear you limb from limb."

"But, sir, I shall be round, depend upon me; I shall be there to the
moment. Oh, most decidedly—without fail I will be round; rely on me."

"Oh, you're coming, are you?"

"Oh, most certainly, sir! Could you doubt it?"

"Then as soon as you come I'll skin you."

"Sir!"

"At eight I'll skin you—to the moment I will; and Mrs. Lite says
exactly similar."

On hearing this appalling decision as to his future fate, Mr.
Harrison's fortitude gave way. His knees knocked together like
castanets. He dropped the tube, and, uttering a dismal wail, turned
and slowly fled, scarcely knowing whither, though as a matter of fact
his feet mechanically carried him towards that hall in which he had
so often held sweet converse with the beloved lady and gentleman who
were now so anxious to possess his hide. Still reiterating his fearful
wail, like some mournful night-bird, he flapped out into the open, and
suddenly found himself within the circle of illumination cast by two
bedroom candles, which lit up the following spectacle: Mr. James Bush,
with his hands on his knees, guffawing with all his might, and Lady
Drake seated on the floor in an Eastern position, attired in an Indian
shawl, with her lap full of cigars, brandy-balls, coppers, luggage
labels, boxes of pills, sticks of chocolate, rolls of curl-papers,
pear-drops, and sealing-wax.




CHAPTER XII.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF LADY DRAKE'S SUPPER.


Lady Drake was a woman of the very strictest propriety. It seems
necessary to state the fact at this juncture. She was a woman of the
strictest propriety, and, indeed, was inclined to carry respectability
to excess, but she was of a hungry disposition. The descendant of an
ancient family of large feeders, she very naturally possessed their
main characteristic. Her temperament required a good deal of food to
be administered to it at frequent intervals, and even in the watches
of the night she was by no means certain to be exempt from sudden
accesses of what in a man might have been called voracity. To combat
these effectually, she usually kept a large supply of biscuits,
potted meats, and other necessaries by her bedside, and if she woke
at any time, would apply herself to these, banish by their means the
promptings of heredity, and then, turning over, fall quietly to sleep
again, calmed, nourished, and altogether built up. In the hurry of her
departure to Ribton Marches, however, she had omitted to provision
herself as was her habit, and, being of a highly sensitive disposition,
she did not care to disclose the emptiness of her nocturnal larder to
those in charge of the commissariat of the palace. On the Monday night
she had managed to secrete a dozen or so of chocolates at dessert, and
this booty had secured her from actual starvation, although it had not
prevented her from suffering severely during the dark hours. But on
Tuesday, the chocolates having given out, and her position at dinner
precluding the possibility of another successful raid, her case was sad
indeed, and something very like starvation stared her in the face.

Under these circumstances Lady Drake became more acidulated than
usual, and worried his Grace during the evening with even more than
her normal pertinacity and success. And yet it was her victim who
eventually heaped coals of fire upon her neat bandeaux, for it was the
Duke who explained to her, in the very moment of her despair, those
beautiful inventions placed by the Bun Emperor about his palace for the
mechanical feeding of the hungry, and the solace of those who wandered
abroad in search of luggage-labels and the reviving pill. Lady Drake
went up to bed greatly comforted, and fully resolved that, when the
palace was wrapped in slumber, she would fare forth, penny-wise, in
search of that sustenance which she would most certainly be requiring
long before the men dropped their cigar-ends and went up to their
rooms. The men were late in going, and Lady Drake, after one or two
furtive expeditions to the head of the stairs, rewarded by hideous
visions of Mr. Bush resting beside a glass of whisky-and-water, in
despair lay down, and, to her extreme surprise, fell fast asleep.

She woke soon after three, feeling heredity strong upon her.
Accordingly she got up, wrapped herself in the Indian shawl
dressing-gown that was her patent of courtly breeding, took a
candlestick in one hand and three shillings and fourpence worth of
coppers in the other, and set bravely forth upon her adventure. Down
the mighty stairs she tripped, her heart beating high with pleasant
anticipations, careless of the gloomy solitude in which the mighty
hall was wrapped, intent only upon the satisfaction of an inherited
appetite. She gained the bottom of the stairs. All was silent. But
the friendly candle flickered upon the blessed machine in whose
interior lay hid, as in a mine, such golden dainties—soft, succulent
butter-scotch, the pale and rounded peppermint, the crunching bar of
cocoanut-ice, and the insidious but rewarding brandy-ball. Her ladyship
trembled with rapture as she surveyed it. For one brief instant she
devoured it with her tiny eyes like pin-points. Then she placed her
candle carefully down, grasped her forty coppers, and crept ravenously
forward on slippered feet. She was about to enjoy a supper of some
forty courses. The thought shook her to the very soul.

She gained the machine, and her glance ran passionately over its
pretty knobs, its delicate buttons, the minute let-in labels which
indicated the lairs of its various inhabitants. Which sweet should
she treat like the wily badger and "draw" first? After a period of
profound meditation, she resolved to open her banquet with a packet of
"golden candy." She therefore advanced, placed a penny in the slot,
and promptly received a parcel of luggage-labels with pink insertions
full of twine. Lady Drake was staggered. Although a traveller, she had
never accustomed herself to support life on addresses. But her ardour
was only dashed for a moment. Reasoning that one mistake should only
lift her on stepping-stones to higher things, and acutely surmising
that if luggage-labels occupied the home of "golden candy," "golden
candy" should fill the place of luggage-labels, she placed another
penny in the slot, and grasping the drawer marked "luggage-labels," was
the prompt recipient of yet another parcel of those useful articles.
Her ladyship was now irritated. These delays increased her already
sharp-set appetite. With a bitter exclamation she thrust a third copper
into the slot, attacked a drawer marked "peppermints, extra strong,"
and was instantly the proud possessor of a neat black button-hook
with a cork handle. Many persons of weak character would now have
desisted from further perseverance, and have retired, depressed and
supperless, to bed. But Lady Drake had not been married to a V.C.
without catching the complaint of courage. She had now lost threepence,
and was still famishing. Her situation seemed desperate, but she
rose to the occasion. A dogged expression came into her tiny, peaked
countenance. She seized a chair, placed it before the machine, and
sat down with the fixed determination of pressing every button and
pulling every knob before she left the battle-field. She meant to have
it thoroughly out with the machine. She was resolved to fight to the
death. A thousand button-hooks should not turn her from her purpose.
In went another copper—another knob was pulled, but this time with a
result so remarkable that Lady Drake almost screamed aloud. For all
of a sudden an immense jet of pennies spouted forth into her lap and
well-nigh submerged her. She was drenched in the coinage of departed
generations of sugar-plum seekers, and was rendered breathless by
their proved determination to be fed. She nearly succumbed under this
wave of misfortune and coppers, but her grit saved her, and, beating
aside the flood with her tiny hands as one that swims, she pressed
button after button, attacked knob after knob, with all the frenzy of a
passionate nature in arms, reckless of danger, heedless of death. Lady
Drake "saw red," and had the judgment-day suddenly dawned behind the
lattice-windows of the hall, she would still have fought on, still have
pressed forward, headlong to glory—and food. A crash of cigars did not
daunt her. A cloud of pills nearly blinded but could not deter her.
Dutch dolls beset her, but she overcame them. Showers of cherry-blossom
broke over her from collapsible squirts, stamps flew round her like
falling leaves in autumn—she scarcely knew it. And at last she had her
reward. The sweets began to come, heralded by the exquisite eruption
of a sugar pig, with a string tail and pink eyebrows all complete.
With a piping cry she greeted it and its lovely following, a crowd of
all the wonders known to a greater than Fuller. They poured upon the
tiny dauntless creature with a passionate ardour, filling her lap to
the very brim, until the last knob was grasped, the last button had
yielded to her frantic thumb. And just at this moment Mr. James Bush
laid an enormous hand on Lady Drake's shoulder, and, with a scream of
surprise, she turned round, slipped from her chair, and assumed that
Eastern posture in which she was discovered by Mr. Harrison as he fled
from the cursing telephone.

Now the Duke, who was a heavy man but a light sleeper, heard Lady
Drake's scream in his dreams. It was followed by the bang of a door
as Chloe, unobserved by the engrossed couple in the hall, gained her
bedroom and flung herself in a fit of laughter upon her pillow. The
bang decided the Duke to wake up. He carried out his decision with
manly promptitude, and, bounding out upon the landing, protruded his
head over the oaken balustrade and beheld Lady Drake seated upon the
floor in a dressing-gown, apparently engaged in friendly intercourse
with the man from Bungay. His Grace did not perceive Mr. Harrison, who
had not yet emerged into the circle of light. Therefore, after a moment
of careful contemplation, the Duke returned chuckling to his apartment,
and, murmuring something vague about "not spoiling sport," and a
mumbling conviction that he had always thought that fellow Bush was "a
bit of a dog," lay down again to laugh.

Meanwhile, the courage which had supported Lady Drake during her fight
with the machine was ebbing away under a stress of circumstances
sufficient to appal the stoutest heart. Although her temper had given
her a great victory over the Bun Emperor's patent, her respectability
took serious umbrage at being discovered at four o'clock in the
morning, immodestly draped in an Indian shawl, by an immense rustic of
whom she knew nothing. Still, the little thing was grown so intrepid by
association with the late deceased V.C. that she might have borne up
against Mr. Bush. But the apparition of the groom of the chambers in
full flight, the sound of his wailing cry, the sight of his disordered
appearance and starting eyes, upset a mind and body naturally fatigued
in the reaction that invariably succeeds a great crisis. Lady Drake
remained upon the floor for about a couple of minutes, gazing fixedly
at Mr. Bush and Mr. Harrison, and mechanically grasping in each hand
two melting fragments of Turkish delight, vaguely thought of by her
as defensive weapons against wicked men. Then, either forced to the
conviction that such confections could hardly avail her much in a
physical contest, or moved by some unreasonable fancy of the mind
feminine, she got up very suddenly, and covering her retreat by a
volley of edibles and miscellaneous articles of steel, wood and
papier-mâché, she walked upstairs, having hysterics all the way, and
vanished in a piping yell like the note of a toy terrier under the
spell of music.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Harrison, their persons and hair decorated with a
thousand sugar-plums, remained staring at each other aghast. Then Mr.
Bush, extracting from his beard a surprise packet, two brandy balls and
a penknife, solemnly turned and walked away to bed without deigning to
speak to the groom of the chambers, who was left to make the best of
his way to his apartment in a condition nearly bordering upon homicidal
mania. Indeed, he knew not whether he waked or dreamed, whether he was
in a nightmare, or whether he had merely become unexpectedly delirious.
Only in the morning, when he woke to find his whiskers full of Everton
toffee, did he realise that in very truth the Londoners had been
holding their unhallowed revels in the sacred palace of the Emperor,
and that it was incumbent upon him to get up if he was to be in time to
be skinned by eight o'clock, according to the agreement made overnight
with his imperial master.

The early beams of the bright and cheerful summer sun shone gaily over
the Ribton Marches domain as the wretched Mr. Harrison, carrying in
one hand the enormous volume containing his "Report of the Conduct
of the Londoners on Tuesday, the — of June, 18—," set forth to the
fishing-cottage to meet his doom. He walked very slowly, with that
lingering gait peculiar to men in his dreadful circumstances, and
occasionally rent the delicious morning atmosphere with lamentations
which might have moved a heart of stone. But even the slowest walker
arrives at the skinning post at last, and, as the clocks struck eight,
Mr. Harrison's protruding eyes beheld the glittering sheet of water on
whose verge stood the small pavilion where dwelt his banished master.

The Bun Emperor was up and already stationed in the embrasure examining
the horizon through the telescope which had so alarmed Mr. Bush. His
visage was empurpled. His hands, when not employed, clenched and
unclenched themselves with threatening vivacity. Already, in fancy,
they seemed to be at work on Mr. Harrison's outer integument. The groom
of the chambers paused beside the pond and looked across its waters
with an expression of wild entreaty. The Emperor dashed the window open.

"Come on!" he bawled.

"Sir!" cried Mr. Harrison, in a failing voice.

"Come on directly minute!" shouted the Emperor, as the small
and rounded form of the Empress joined him, gazing through the
field-glasses at the agitated menial. "Come on, or you'll repent of it
to the last hour of your mortal life, you will!"

"Oh, by all means, most certainly—oh, most decidedly yes!" faltered
Mr. Harrison, wavering very slowly around the pond in the direction of
the cottage. "Oh, indeed—rely—on——"

"Make haste!" yelled the Emperor in a voice of thunder.

"Oh, you wicked, ungrateful man!" squeaked the Empress. "Oh, to think
that it should come to this!"

Mr. Harrison was now upon the gravel path before the cottage and
between it and the pond. He stood still again.

"Come in this moment!" said the Emperor fiercely.

But Mr. Harrison did not obey this behest. Terror rooted him to the
spot. He shook his head despairingly some dozen times or more.

"Come in!" reiterated the Emperor. "Do you dare to defy me?"

"Wicked, wicked man!" cried the Empress.

"Let me explain, sir! Oh, indeed, I will explain!" murmured Mr.
Harrison, trying to gain time.

"Coward!" said the Emperor, with scathing bitterness. "You know I can't
come out to get at you! You know I've given my word to the fiddle-faced
feller. Coward!"

"Cowardy custard!" added the Empress with feminine force, and a manner
of the keenest vituperation.

But Mr. Harrison was turned into cast-iron by fear.

"I will not come in, sir, to be skinned—no, I will not! by no means,
on no account whatever," he explained. "No, I will not, if I stays here
till the Doomsday—no, indeed!"

This intrepid reply evidently took the Emperor aback. He hesitated and
held a whispered parley with his consort. Then he cried:

"You'd better come in!" with ferocity.

"Oh no, sir—no, indeed, not at all! I will not, indeed, you may
depend upon me! Rely on me, I will not!" said Mr. Harrison with brazen
timidity.

The Emperor again consulted with his helpmeet, who evidently urged a
compromise, for he finally said:

"I'll keep my hands from you, but come in you shall!"

"Sir!" said Mr. Harrison, preparing to make conditions.

"Come in, I say, and I'll keep my hands off you!"

"And Mrs. Lite, sir?" said the cautious menial. "She will not attempt
to injure me—oh dear no, on no account whatever!"

The Empress gave her word, and Mr. Harrison proceeded to the front
door, and was quickly in the audience parlour. Now, extreme fear lends
to some men brains. Mr. Harrison's fear was extreme, so extreme that,
during his passage from the pond to the parlour, his mind became
brilliant, and he formed a plan of campaign, which he at once proceeded
to carry out with the skill of an accomplished general and actor.
Instead of merely entering the parlour then, he burst into it with this
remarkable utterance:

"Lord, sir, Lord! The doings of the Londoners! Lord, sir! The behaviour
of them as is in your place! Their goings on! Their treatment of your
inventions! Their tampering with Mrs. Lite's parrots! Their violence
to me! Their manners with the telephone—Lord! Lord! To see them with
the orchestrion! Only to see them! It is awful! Lord, sir, Lord! Their
proceedings of a night-time! Sweet-eating! Getting at your labels!
Flying at me with your button-hooks! Assaulting of me because I
carry out your orders! Lord, sir, Lord! If I am driven mad, it is no
wonder—oh no, indeed! by no means, on no account whatever!"

And he sank down upon a chair, as if in the very extremity of horror,
as indeed, from other causes than those mentioned, he truly was. The
Emperor and Empress turned ghastly pale as they surveyed him, and they,
too, sat down abruptly.

"The worst has come!" said the Emperor, in a broken voice. "Henrietta,
the worst has come along!"

"And worse than that, sir, you may depend upon me," said Mr. Harrison,
plucking up courage and invention as he perceived the success of his
wily ruse.

"And worse, Henrietta!" said the Emperor with intense emotion.

"The home! Our little home!" the Empress wailed, forgetting the size of
Ribton Marches. "They are breaking up the home!"

"They are indeed, ma'am! They are. Oh yes—most certainly they are!"

"What did I say?" eloquently rejoined the Empress. "What did I always
and ever say?"

Nobody seeming to have any idea, she repeated her question six or eight
times, and burst into a flood of tears. The Emperor pressed her fat
hands with his own, and endeavoured not to choke before a servant.
He failed, however, and Mr. Harrison saw that he had won his day and
secured the safety of his person. With remarkable conviction, and a
fine choice of language, he therefore began to amplify.

"It begun yesterday, sir, I might say," he remarked, wringing his
hands in an ostentatious manner. "It begun with them throwing me, sir,
from one of your private hammicks, in which I was concealed to watch,
according to your orders—throwing me out on my face, sir, flat, and
laughing at what they done."

"The brutes!" sobbed the Empress. "The inhuman things! The brutes!"

"Yes, ma'am, it was nearly being my death, the heavy fall and shock. It
was Mr. Rodney, I should say, what done it, with his own hands, Mrs.
Veddleham standing by and laughing fit to split her sides."

"Hussy!" murmured the Empress. "Thieving hussy!"

"Exactly, ma'am. But there was worse to come. Being thrown down I could
have stood, but could not stand being run at of a night-time when doing
my duty according to your and Mr. Lite's directions, which was: "Be
about, Mr. Harrison, here and there, and keep an eye, a special eye,
on that there Mr. Bush, and at the telephone punctual to the moment at
three," and then to be to and fro till morning; which I would have till
I dropped, and was, though her ladyship, when caught by me with Mr.
Bush a-tampering with one of your machines, sir, made for me, sir, him
helping of her, and she only in a shawl, ma'am, and he anyhow, with his
beard all a-full of your belongings, sir, as I took from him, though
nearly laid low; and she screaming up the stairs with her hands that
full of your Turkish delight as she could hardly walk, and me following
after, and would have got it from her, but Mr. Bush took me unawares
from behind, sir, like a coward; and if I escaped with my life, ma'am,
it is a wonder—oh, most decidedly; yes, indeed, at all times it is a
wonder!"

The groom of the chambers, having perorated, paused. There was a
dead and awful silence. The stricken couple were rendered dumb by
the magnitude of their horror. That the world should contain such
wickedness, and that the Emperor, for a paltry bit of bun-praise,
should have let the home to it! Even the Empress forgot to wail.
She rested her head against the telescope, and closed her eyes as if
to shut out the visions conjured up by Mr. Harrison's recital. Some
minutes must have elapsed before she opened them and whispered, with a
blush that did her the greatest credit, "And her only in a shawl!"

"My dear," said the Emperor, "my love, remember the presence of Mr.
Harrison."

The Empress remembered it, and blushed again. The Emperor now turned
towards the man he had intended to skin, and said, with all the frank
readiness to own a fault which is only found in a noble nature:

"Mr. Harrison, I was mistook. You have done your duty, and myself and
Mrs. Lite shall not forget it. You will receive those perquisites which
are your bounden due."

Mr. Harrison got up and inclined himself.

"Though whatever you meant through the telephone," added the Emperor,
clouding over again, "mercy only knows!"

"Yes, mercy knows!" concurred the Empress.

Mr. Harrison had no idea to what his master was alluding, but he
thought it right and proper to say:

"Through the telephone, sir? I was mad, sir. They had drove me
mad—most decidedly, yes, they had."

"Was you mad when you says, 'Dance away and be damned'?" said the
Emperor.

"Sir!" cried Mr. Harrison, cold with surprise.

"Was you mad when you says to Mrs. Lite, 'Go to blazes'?"

"Oh, most decidedly—oh, undoubtedly I was, sir!"

"And when you tells me to give a bullock sulphur?"

"Did I, sir?" said Mr. Harrison, beaded with perspiration.

"Mr. Harrison, you did," said the Emperor, with pathetic
impressiveness; "and that I was to keep my hair on, look after the
sheep and again be damned, Mr. Harrison."

"It was madness, sir; it was indeed, it must have been; oh, not a doubt
of it! There can be no question—a bullock, sulphur, dance and be——Oh
dear! oh dear! It was madness—oh, most certainly."

"Enough, Mr. Harrison!" said the Emperor with benign condescension.
"Enough! Mrs. Lite and me, believing that you was driven mad, will
overlook the expressions which should not have come from you to such as
us. Enough, Mr. Harrison, enough!"

If Mr. Harrison, touched to the quick by this sublime expression of
pardon, fell at his master's feet, who shall blame him? Who shall
call him servile? Only greatness and gratitude can properly worship
greatness. In the council of war which followed potentate and subject
consulted together on equal terms as to what should be done in
consequence of the dreadful circumstances which had arisen in the
palace from Lady Drake's hereditary instinct for suppers. Measures
were concerted, plans were laid, and the groom of the chambers retired
from the presence at about ten o'clock, primed with so many orders and
injunctions that the madness to which he had falsely sworn seemed not
unlikely soon to come upon him in stern reality.

Meanwhile, although Tragedy flapped one sable wing above the
fishing-cottage, she managed to flap the other over some portion of the
adjacent palace. In the Emperor's magnificent halls, various members of
the wicked tribe which so afflicted the worthy owner were in a state of
agitation. Mr. Rodney, of course, was one. If there was any agitation
going, he was generally in it. That morning he had received a letter
from his excellent friend and most amusing correspondent, Lord Bernard
Roche. From this communication it appeared that Lord Bernard had been,
and still was, away from New York, which accounted for his delay in
replying to Mr. Rodney's letter. But it was not this absence which
agitated Mr. Rodney, and caused those impressive wrinkles which now
seemed permanent dwellers in his long face. No, Lord Bernard went on to
discuss the Van Adam affair, and to say:

"I fail to understand your remarks about poor dear old Huskinson. You
seem to imply that you have met him in England, although you do not
actually say so. But as far as I know he is still in Florida, with the
beloved Boswell for his only companion. Perhaps you have met a relation
of the same name. There are, I fancy, several Huskinson Van Adams.
Huskinson is a family name, and the family are very fond of it, and so
it figures at many Van Adam christenings. My old friend is the best
known of the clan, a fine, strapping fellow, very American, but none
the worse for that—indeed, all the better for it. They are a grand
nation. Just as I am posting this I hear an amazing piece of news,
that Huskinson is just sailing for England with Boswell. It seems that
he has discovered that his wife is innocent of the charge on which he
got his divorce. The Crackers who gave evidence perjured themselves
because they thought he wanted to get rid of his Chloe, and would make
it all right for them. Having found out their mistake, and that poor
old Huskinson only acted hastily in a fit of temper, they have now been
telling the truth with amazing vigour. Mrs. Van Adam is believed to be
in England, and Huskinson means to find her and try to persuade her to
re-marry him. Heaven knows how it will all end."

Reading this missive over a bit of dry toast at breakfast, Mr. Rodney
was mightily perplexed. Huskinson a strapping fellow, and very
American! Huskinson accompanied by Boswell! Huskinson despairingly
searching for his Chloe! Huskinson just sailing for England! What
could this mean? Lord Bernard must be mistaken in some of his items
of information, and must be of an imaginative turn of mind if he
regarded the very slight youth now in Ribton Marches who knew Paris so
intimately, and talked English so like an Englishman, as "strapping"
and "very American." Besides, where was the monkey? Where was the
faithful and fondled Boswell? Mr. Rodney glanced across from his letter
to Chloe, who sat opposite to him eating a poached egg calmly. They
were the only breakfast-eaters.

"A monkey must be a great solace in moments of depression, I imagine,
Van Adam," murmured Mr. Rodney gently.

"Pardon?" said Chloe, drinking some tea.

"I imagine that the companionship of a monkey must be of great
assistance when—when a man has to face a world of—of trouble."

"Gracious me! I hate the little brutes!" cried Chloe, taken off her
guard.

Mr. Rodney jumped, and glanced again at Lord Bernard's letter. "The
beloved Boswell!" There it stood in black and white. What did this mean?

"You hate Boswell?" said Mr. Rodney, fixing his indefinite eyes on
Chloe, and, without knowing it, touching with a tapping forefinger
like a Queen's Counsel the open letter of Lord Bernard. Chloe saw the
gesture, recognised her mistake, and had a cold shiver as she wondered
whom the letter was from.

"Boswell! Oh, he's different!" she said hastily. "He's more like a
monkey than a friend—I mean more like a friend than a monkey. Dear
little Boswell! Oh, he's quite different."

"I almost wonder you could bring yourself to part from him," said Mr.
Rodney smoothly.

"By Jove! so do I. But climate, you know. What suits one monkey doesn't
suit another. If you bring a monkey up in Florida, he can't live over
here. It's what they're accustomed to—like people, you know!"

The close was vague, and, feeling this, Chloe pushed back her chair,
and murmuring something about a "cigarette in the garden," hurried out
of the room. Mr. Rodney observed her confusion, and an awful thought
flashed through his brain-pan. Could it be that Mrs. Verulam was being
tricked by an adventurer? Could——Lady Drake pattered in to breakfast,
followed almost immediately by the Duke of Southborough.

Lady Drake, who looked, if possible, even more acidulated and demure
than usual, was ravenous after the frustrated purpose of the previous
night. She perched upon her chair, and stretched her small hands for
various foods, with difficulty concealing cannibal instincts. The Duke
reposed his lanky frame beside her, and placed his tongue in his cheek
as the clown does when he conceals the red-hot poker from the policeman
who will presently be frizzled. He had long been worried by Lady Drake.
Now he meant to worry her.

"I hope you had a good long night, Lady Drake?" He spoke with sinister
geniality.

"Very," piped Lady Drake, cutting into a cutlet with a knife that
seemed trembling with eagerness.

"You slept well?" said Mr. Rodney, unconsciously backing up his Grace.

"Beautifully. I've got a quiet conscience."

She threw this last at the Duke with a tiny sneer, which curled her
little withered face grotesquely. The Duke got the red-hot poker ready.

"Someone in the house hasn't, I fancy," he said, drawling out his
words, and fixing his eyes like an actor about to make a point to the
gallery; "someone in the house is of a very restless temperament."

Lady Drake looked at him with the sudden sharpness of a mouse on the
alert.

"Oh!" she cried, "there are always noises in a big house at
night—furniture cracks."

"Yes," said the Duke, bringing the poker forward. "And armchairs
scream, don't they? I've often noticed it."

Lady Drake winked her little eyes rapidly, and the pale yellow of her
complexion began to change to a very delicate green, like the leaf of a
blanched lettuce.

"And," his Grace continued, with most delicate raillery, "sofas sit
on the floor, and then run upstairs like express trains if they're
startled, don't they? I should like to see Wardour Street at—let us
say half-past three to four in the morning."

The policeman was frizzling. Lady Drake let her cutlet get as cold as
she was.

"I see you believe in table-turning," said Mr. Rodney to the Duke.
His mind was still in a confusion, and he was only half following the
conversation. "Animal magnetism is very remarkable—very," he added
mildly.

"It is indeed," said the Duke; "if only you touch hands, eh, Lady
Drake?"

"I think there's nothing in it; and if there is, it's exceedingly
wrong," she said, with a violent effort to go on seeming respectable
under the gaze of a Duke who, she now felt, believed her otherwise.

"Your cutlet is cold," the Duke said. "Let me—bring her ladyship a
slice of broiled ham," he added to a footman.

The footman obeyed. Lady Drake pecked at it; even her hunger was
deserting her before she had gratified it.

"Mr. Bush would make a fine medium, I fancy," continued the Duke—"a
fine, steady medium. What do you say, Lady Drake?"

The little creature writhed. She was now quite certain that his Grace
had suffered from insomnia the night before.

"I don't know anything about Mr. Bush," she said, letting her fork drop
with a clatter.

"You have never 'sat' with him?"

"Oh dear no!"

"On the floor?" added the Duke.

Lady Drake laid down her knife and trembled, while Mr. Rodney, smoothly
unaware that anything was wrong, said:

"Is that the last new thing in spiritualism—to sit on the floor?"

"Lady Drake will inform you," said his Grace.

And then, satisfied with his revenge for many an hour of irritation,
and many a searching query into those little matters which he preferred
to keep secret, he applied himself to his breakfast, pleased that the
wretched little old person beside him was now quite unable to manage
hers.




CHAPTER XIII.

THE SIX SELF-CONSCIOUS GARDENERS.


Although Lady Sage, owing to temporary indisposition and the fact
that Wednesday at Ascot is comparatively an "off day," did not honour
the Wednesday races with her venerable presence, it was apparent
both to Mrs. Verulam and to the now appalled owner of Mitching Dean
that her tongue had been very busy on the preceding afternoon, and
that she had doubtless proclaimed the intentions which she had not
yet been able to carry out. For Mrs. Verulam was cold-shouldered by
various good people, both in the Enclosure, in the paddock, and on
the lawn. The Lady Jane Clinch, famous for her luncheons, snorted
at her twice in a manner to attract attention and evoke imitation.
Baroness Clayfield-Moor, kindliest of women, shuffled her feet as Mrs.
Verulam drew near, and assumed an expression of rapt abstraction, such
as may be seen upon the faces of seraphs in an oleograph. And Mrs.
Brainton Gumm, the Banana Queen, upon whom Mrs. Verulam had never left
cards—disliking bananas, which she considered tasted medicinal—Mrs.
Gumm bridled violently at Mrs. Verulam, and tossed her head in most
West Indian fashion, murmuring something mysterious about "the manner
in which that sort of thing would have been treated in the old days
at Spanish Town." Mr. Rodney heard this last remark, and was all of
a tremble. He resolved, directly he found himself again at Mitching
Dean, to consult his library, and look up ancient Spanish Town customs.
Visions of Mrs. Verulam thrown to the tigers and alligators, which
he vaguely considered to swarm in all distant settlements, haunted
him perpetually, and his distress was greatly complicated by the
extraordinary letter of Lord Bernard. During the afternoon Mrs. Verulam
and he found themselves for a moment in a quiet corner at the back of
the Royal Enclosure, and Mr. Rodney seized the opportunity to utter a
few fragments of his confusion and suspicion.

"Let me speak, Mrs. Verulam," he began with unwonted agitation, and a
manner as if she had been holding a pillow over his mouth for the last
few days—"let me—oh, do let me speak!"

Mrs. Verulam put up a pale-blue parasol.

"Certainly," she said, idly watching Lady Cynthia Green, who was making
puns to Sir Brigham Lockbury in the middle distance—"certainly."

"Mrs. Verulam," he continued, without much subtlety of exposition, "you
are marching to your doom—you are indeed! And all for what?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, all for which—whom?" he cried in an under voice, seeking
grammar. "Do you know? Are you not being deceived?"

"My dear friend, that lunch in the Guards' Enclosure has not suited
you. You ought to be more careful."

"It is not lunch. It is you—it is him—it is Lord Bernard's letter,"
said Mr. Rodney, stating facts with extraordinary rapidity and looking
distracted.

"Lord Bernard's letter?" said Mrs. Verulam, who had not succeeded in
being alone with Chloe since breakfast.

"I heard from him this morning," said Mr. Rodney. And he proceeded to
condense his lordship's information. Mrs. Verulam listened in silence.
"What does this mean?" concluded Mr. Rodney, passionately flicking a
speck of dust from his left coat-sleeve. "Is Lord Bernard mad? Is he
misinformed?"

"Both, very probably," murmured Mrs. Verulam, wondering what the
conversation of a misinformed madman would be like.

"Or," proceeded Mr. Rodney in a voice that quivered with suspicion,
"can it be that—that——"

"Yes?"

"I can hardly force myself to say it—that an adventurer has crept over
your threshold? That a monster in mortal guise has dared to take the
name of——"

"Huskinson! Now, Mr. Rodney, you are a man of the world. I ask you, can
you bring yourself to believe that any human being not christened so
would for any purpose whatever assume such a name as Huskinson?"

This was a poser.

"It does not seem very likely," truth compelled him to reply.

"I knew your intellect would not desert you," she said kindly. "Now
take me back to the Enclosure."

"But—but Lady Jane Clinch, Mrs. Brainton Gumm—they—they are——"

"They are endeavouring to be offensive," said Mrs. Verulam, with a
slightly rising colour, but endeavouring to support herself with
thoughts of her desire for the true life and Mr. James Bush. "But if
they only knew how I long to be allowed to escape from this cage, they
would try to shut the door which they are opening."

Mr. Rodney stared upon her with a white face.

"You think I am mad and misinformed, as well as Lord Bernard?" she
said, smiling. "Come, take me back."

Mr. Rodney took her, endeavouring to prevent his agony from appearing
in colours that would be perceptible to his world. He could not have
been entirely successful in this endeavour, for several Countesses
remarked towards the end of the day that "really Mr. Rodney began to
look very old."

Meanwhile Chloe was becoming reckless, as people do when they know that
the Cinderella clock of time will shortly strike, and a transformation
of rags and a pumpkin take the place of silken attire and gilt coach
and horses. If the _World_ paragraph were true, if Huskinson were
really in England, her game was nearly up; her hour was at hand.
This Ascot was the closing revel, and even this Ascot might be
interrupted—might be cut off short for her. Good-bye then to ducal
circles and the pomp of English society, bristling with ancient names.
In fancy, she heard the tick-tick of the Cinderella clock; she heard
the warning buzz that precedes its announcement of the dreary midnight.
She saw the tall hat, the frock-coat and trousers vanish in a mist of
tears, and with it how much ecstasy! And a devil-may-care mood took
possession of her soul. She would squeeze the inmost essence out of
these last flying golden moments; she would drink her little wine-cup
to the lees. And so, when Mrs. Verulam and Mr. Rodney returned to the
Enclosure, they found her the centre of a group of smart women, and
watched with glittering eyes by the Lady Pearl, talking with amazing
vivacity, laughing in a gaiety that was almost fierce, and making
herself slightly more conspicuous than was altogether _comme il faut_.
Mr. Rodney, governed by his feelings and so endowed with a distorted
vision, considered that Van Adam was behaving outrageously—if he
was Van Adam at all. And even Mrs. Verulam was a little surprised at
Chloe's intense vivacity, and at the stream of audacious conversation
that flowed so incessantly from her lips. When Chloe joined them, Mr.
Rodney felt as if the eyes of the universe were directed upon the group
they formed, and that even his proved and universally-accepted social
standing and pre-eminent respectability could not save Mrs. Verulam
from instant and eternal condemnation. He saw the small and attentive
green eyes of Lady Jane Clinch observing them persistently beneath
the shadow of her huge black parasol. He noted the plantation-song
pantomime of the Banana Queen, who, attired in flame-coloured brocade,
was being wooed by the impecunious members of the British aristocracy.
And, worse than all, he perceived the indignant colour flood the large
face of the Duchess of Southborough as she marked Chloe bend familiarly
to Mrs. Verulam and pour into her really shell-like ear the tale of
a dozen reckless and immoderate wagers. For Chloe had been betting
wildly, and had lost a good deal of money. He was thankful indeed when
the races were over, and the party drove home in the dust to Ribton
Marches. On arriving, and strolling forth into the garden to rest and
be thankful, they found various men dotted here and there—to the
number of perhaps half a dozen—busily engaged among the Bun Emperor's
plants and shrubs, or rolling and watering the lawns.

"Dear me, what an influx of gardeners!" said the Duchess. "It gives the
grounds quite a crowded appearance. This must be a terribly expensive
place to keep up."

Mr. Bush, who had cut off his roundabout for one day, turned his large
eyes upon the busy labourers.

"If they keep on as they're a-keepin' now," he said, "there won't be a
bloomin' flower within fifty mile this time to-morrow."

And he rolled towards the tea-tables. Miss Bindler put up her eye-glass
and surveyed the scene. One man was apparently trying to pluck up a
fine rose-tree by the roots; another was behaving with almost inhuman
levity among some sunflowers; a third seemed to be having a stand-up
fight with a laurustinus; a fourth was watering nothing at all with
an enormous hose directed at a small cloud which was coming up from
Sunningdale; and the remaining two were furiously trying to roll a
tiny gravel walk with a roller, which managed them to such an extent
that it seemed certain they would soon present the thin appearance of
a film of flour fresh from the pressure of the rolling-pin. Away in
the far distance the Bun Emperor's head-gardener stood weeping and
wringing his horny hands beneath a copper beech, while Mr. Harrison was
addressing to him what might be either oaths or words of comfort. It
was impossible to discover which without the aid of a telescope. Miss
Bindler dropped her eye-glass. It struck one of the huge buttons that
sat about on the corduroy coat she wore and tinkled in a manly manner.

"If those men were my gardeners," she remarked, "I should have them up
before the nearest magistrate for damaging my property. No tea, thanks.
A whisky-and-seltzer, a biscuit, and a lump of ice."

"How self-conscious they look!" said the Lady Pearl, with a languishing
air.

"Gardeners always do," said Lady Drake; "they think themselves the only
artistic people among the wage-earning classes. Silly!"

She accepted a crumpet, despite the great heat.

"A gardener can be very attractive, though—eh, Lady Drake?" said the
Duke, glancing from her withered face to Mr. Bush in an ostentatious
manner.

Lady Drake suddenly remembered Mr. Bush's amiable profession, and was
unable to give the crumpet its due and swallow it.

"I think that gardening is a high-minded and beautiful occupation. Oh!"
cried Mrs. Verulam.

This last exclamation was occasioned by the behaviour of the gentleman
with the hose, who, suddenly turning his attention from the Sunningdale
cloud to the house-party, sprayed the tea-table nearest to him, at
which were peacefully seated Mrs. Verulam, Mr. Ingerstall, and Mr.
Rodney. The two former were only slightly watered, but the latter
received about a ton and a half of cold liquid upon his head and down
his delicate back. He uttered a cry like that which rises to heaven
from a sinking ship with a large load of emigrants aboard.

"Wet?" said Miss Bindler. "Much better take your liquids internally."

"Wet? I am saturated! I am drenched!" cried the owner of Mitching Dean;
while the gentleman with the hose ran off in the direction of London as
fast as his legs would carry him. "I must go in and—these liberties
are really unpardonable. The gardeners at Mitching Dean would never
dare to treat a visitor with such gross familiarity!"

He hastened away, presenting the distressed back of a man whose every
movement floods his spinal cord with sudden showers of displaced cold
water.

"Mr. Rodney's wrong," Miss Bindler said, with her usual short decision.

"Wrong?" said the Duchess. "To sit at tea under a hose without knowing
it? Anyone might do the same with such gardeners. Mr. Lite ought not to
engage them."

"Don't abuse the man," said Miss Bindler; "he didn't do it on purpose."

"Then why did he run away?" asked Lady Drake.

"Because he's a coward and a quick sprinter," said Miss Bindler. "He
was watching us and forgot his hose. All the gardeners are watching us."

The house-party started slightly, and, looking about them with opened
eyes, were soon aware that Miss Bindler had followed her usual habit
of speaking the truth. The self-conscious artists of the wage-earning
world were, indeed, very intent upon those assembled about the
tea-tables. The man who was disturbing the rose-tree in its home of
years had his head set round like a deformity in a frantic effort to
keep his eye on Lady Drake. The person who had been acting with levity
among the sunflowers was now pretending to clip a diminutive box-hedge,
and was in reality snapping the air while he gazed steadily at Mr.
Bush. The individual who was fighting with the laurustinus had one eye
fastened in a most expressive manner on Mr. Ingerstall, while the other
seemed anxious to do sentry duty over Mrs. Verulam. And the gentlemen
with the roller were staring at the whole party with a pertinacity and
resolution which prevented them from observing that their enormous
instrument was now doing its fell work upon an elaborately-conceived
pattern of red, pink, and white geraniums.

"How very strange!" said the Duchess. "Are they a party of mesmerists,
do you think? Really, it can scarcely be mere idle curiosity."

"The chap who's carving the atmosphere looks to me like a third-rate
detective," observed Miss Bindler, munching a captain's biscuit.

"They all look like third-rate detectives," said the Duke, who was well
acquainted with that class of society, having been shadowed off and
on for years by agents acting for anxious husbands suspicious of his
clown's manner with their wives.

These words, at which most of the company were good enough to laugh,
sent a cold shiver down Chloe's back. Detectives! She glanced at the
gardeners, and in an instant sprang to the conclusion that they were
the emissaries of Huskinson, who had bribed the Bun Emperor's servants
to let them in, disguised, to the domain of Ribton Marches. Were not
their ten eyes fastened upon her? Her legs trembled in their trousers.
The Cinderella clock seemed striking. She felt that she was pale, and
the laughter of those around her sounded hollow and mirthless. Did
these men, skulking in their disguise of gardeners, recognise her
for what she was—a woman? The idea made her hot. She fancied she
saw the laurustinus man smile. He knew. The rose-tree man passed his
hand across his face—to hide a laugh, no doubt. The roller couple
bent down, and sent their machine over a quantity of blowing pinks.
Chloe felt certain that their attitude was one of ridicule making for
concealment. Had she been underneath the copper beech, her mind would
have been relieved, for she would have heard the voice of Mr. Harrison
saying to the Emperor's head-gardener:

"Them is Mr. Lite's orders, and must be carried out—oh, indeed!"

"I cawn't abear it—I cawn't abear it!" sobbed the head-gardener. "Only
look at 'um a rolling of the jerryaneeums and a rooting up of the
roses! I cawn't abear it!"

"You must abear it, Gummill," rejoined Mr. Harrison, with stern
resolution. "Mr. Lite says to me: 'Mr. Harrison, get down
detectives—oh, most decidedly—by all means, get 'em down! Plant them
here and there about the garden, place them to and fro about the house,
and don't let them be knowst. If them Londoners,' he says, 'get up to
their tricks, I'll have the law on 'em, I will, and on you I depend,
Mr. Harrison, to get proper witnesses as will convict judge and jury.'
Them men"—he pointed to the gardeners—"will convict any judge and
jury; so abear it you must, Gummill—oh, most certainly, indeed, on
every account whatever."

And with this exhortation he turned from the sobbing under-strapper and
walked towards the palace, turning out his feet as he proceeded, and
assuming, as he threaded his way among the detectives, a solemn dignity
that was undoubtedly Jove-like.

The Duke of Southborough, when he had closely observed the Duchess's
party of mesmerists, felt quite certain as to their calling, but, being
a vain man, he mistook the reason of their presence; and while Chloe
supposed them to be at Ribton Marches on her account, he had no doubt
that they were watching him. He had a notion now that he had seen them
at the races hovering about his steps. Honest men! He enjoyed such
little attentions, and could not resist tipping Mr. James Bush the wink
as the party rose from tea, and Mr. Bush lumbered at his side smoking a
huge cigar presented to him by one of the men-servants; therefore the
Duke nudged the paragon slyly in the ribs with his elbow, and said:

"See those men?"

"Eh?" said Mr. Bush.

"See those men who watered Rodney?"

Mr. Bush broke into a large laugh.

"Rodney'll be sproutin'," he said—"Rodney'll be sproutin'!"

"They are detectives," said the Duke—"Scotland Yard fellows."

Mr. Bush stared at the gardeners as if they were wild animals.

"What are they a-doin' of?" he asked. "What are they here for?"

"I'll let you into the secret," said the Duke, whispering with great
elaboration, and leaning to Mr. Bush's ear in a dramatic manner:
"they're here for me."

Mr. Bush made no reply, but turned his heavy eyes slowly from the
Duke to the gardeners, and back again. The Duke again prodded him in
the ribs, at the same time throwing up his left leg to a considerable
height.

"You're a bit of a dog, you know, yourself," he whispered; "you want
watching, too. What? The husband that would trust you would soon find
himself in Queer Street—eh, eh?"

And he went off sniggering to the billiard-room, leaving Mr. Bush in
some perplexity. The paragon, unaware of his Grace's insomnia on the
previous night, did not comprehend these delicately masked allusions
to the Lady Drake episode. He sat down heavily to consider them on a
garden-seat, and before he fell into the doze which always eventually
followed his assumption of a sitting posture, he had put two and two
together with this result: Detective police were swarming about the
garden. They were there for the Duke. The Duke considered that he,
James Bush, was a bit of a dog and wanted watching, and held the
opinion that the husband who would trust him, James Bush, would soon
find himself in Queer Street. Ergo the Duke had engaged gardeners to
spy on him and her Grace of Southborough. It took the paragon exactly
half an hour to reason all this out, having done which he fell asleep,
murmuring gently, "Here's a rum go! Here's a bit of fun!" and proceeded
to dream that gardeners were always detectives.

And the six self-conscious gardeners, now reduced to five, went on
rooting up respectable plants and rolling innocent flowers till
the twilight glided into night, and the Londoners went indoors and
presently sat down to dinner.




CHAPTER XIV.

THE DUCHESS IN ASPIC.


When ten people, eight of whom are labouring under delusions or
suffering from engrossing mental complications, dine in company, and
the banquet is supervised by a gentleman who is almost off his head,
complete calm and the perfection of easy gaiety are not certain to
ensue. There was, in fact, a good deal of constraint prevalent that
night at Ribton Marches, constraint, however, varied by strange
outbursts that kept things going, but scarcely kept them going in
the average way of ordinary society. Only Miss Bindler and Mr.
Ingerstall were fairly fancy-free that Wednesday night. Mrs. Verulam
was abstracted because she wanted terribly to speak in private to
Chloe, and inform her of Lord Bernard's letter to Mr. Rodney and of
its strange contents. Chloe was abstracted because of the paragraph
in the _World_, and the probable presence of the fatal Huskinson in
England. The Duchess of Southborough was glowering with respectable
fury against her hostess, and solicitude over the supposed wrongs of
her gouty girl. The Lady Pearl was in a condition of highly-wrought
sensibility to the fascinations of Chloe. Lady Drake was petrified
by the knowledge that the Duke thought her what she wasn't, and that
Mr. Bush had beheld her in an Indian shawl at half-past three in the
morning. The Duke could think of nothing with any comfort except the
five self-conscious gardeners now engaged, as he supposed, in ruining
the Emperor's domain. Mr. Rodney, who believed himself to be in the
incipient stage of rheumatic fever, looked like a corpse whose mind
was seriously affected, and spoke like a voice reverberating from a
sepulchre. And Mr. James Bush, who was seated next to the Duchess, was
rent asunder by two contending passions, a desire to hint delicately to
her Grace that she was supposed to be in love with him, and a desire to
flee at once from the machinations of policemen to the marshy solitudes
of peaceful Bungay. Pride and cowardice in fact contended in the
paragon's mighty bosom, and almost succeeded in rendering him slightly
volcanic. To crown the tragic humours of the feast, Mr. Harrison, very
near to madness, stood during its progress with his feet turned out in
the first position in the neighbourhood of an enormous sideboard, his
face contorted into an expression of hysterical vigilance, his hands
straying hither and thither among the glittering knives and forks which
the Bun Emperor always had displayed as dining-room ornaments, even if
Mrs. Lite were only eating a piece of thin bread and butter alone in
the cedar-wood parlour.

The conversation round the dinner-table languished at first, then rose
in fitful and confusing gusts. Only Mr. Ingerstall chatted continuously
to Miss Bindler about Art and Paris, and she talked incessantly to him
about bets and racing stables.

"I hope you are none the worse for your immersion at tea this
afternoon?" said Mrs. Verulam to Mr. Rodney, with her eyes fixed
steadily on Chloe.

"I fear I cannot hope to escape rheumatic fever," he answered. "To do
so would indeed be foolish optimism."

"Quite so," she answered; "you are perfectly right."

"It is not every man who can say, with truth, that he has been followed
by detectives almost continuously for five-and-forty years," said the
Duke with unusual dignity to Lady Drake.

Unable to meet his eyes, she piped in return: "It is not every man who
can say anything at all with truth."

"Do you doubt my word?" he asked her, pursuing his train of thought.

She suddenly thought she perceived an opening into which she might
insert an explanation of the preceding night's affair.

"I'll believe yours if you'll believe mine!" she cried.

"What!" said the Duke, "then you're followed by detectives, too!"

At this appalling corollary her ladyship collapsed. Evidently nothing
on earth would ever convince his Grace that she was sinned against and
not a sinner, if he thought her conduct so outrageous that she was
habitually shadowed by the police! Although almost starving, she could
not eat another morsel.

"Do you think it right to be happy, Mr. Van Adam?" asked the Lady
Pearl, in her cooing, thunderous voice, inherited from her mother. "Do
you think we are meant to have any joy here? Oh, tell me, tell me!"

"Oh dear no!" Chloe replied, thinking of her hour of triumph—so soon
to be over.

She shook her head mournfully.

"No, no! When we think all is going well we are sure to see the
gardeners. The gardeners are certain to come upon us."

"Gardeners!" said the Lady Pearl, mystified. "Do you think that the
misery of the world is caused by gardeners?"

"I do, indeed," answered Chloe, intent on her fate, and speaking with
poignant conviction; "I am perfectly certain of it now."

"How strange! I wonder why it should be so; but perhaps we are not
meant to know here."

"I do know; I know very well," said Chloe.

"Then why is it?" asked the Lady Pearl.

"Because"—Chloe suddenly recollected herself and paused—"because we
are all gardeners," she said, assuming the portentous air of one who
deals in allegories. "Do we not garden in each other's souls?"

"How exquisitely thoughtful you are!" said the Lady Pearl with ecstasy;
"so different from a Guardsman!"

"Well, Mr. Bush," the Duchess said heavily, while she ate a cutlet,
"how do you like the great world?"

Her Grace had heard Mrs. Verulam say that this was the paragon's first
experience of that remarkable collection of absurdities.

"Eh?" said Mr. Bush, thrusting a cautious glance at the Duke—"eh?"

"Do you find it very different from your marshes?" continued the
Duchess. "I suppose there are only frogs there?"

"When I catch a frog about," replied Mr. Bush, "I go for it."

"Indeed!" said her Grace, trying to seem amiably interested in these
rustic pursuits. "And where does the frog go?"

"Not far," rejoined the paragon—"not far!" And he laughed like
Fee-faw-fum.

"Dear me!" said the Duchess, "I am afraid you're quite a bloodthirsty
person, like most men. But you're all the same; you must kill
something. One man stalks a deer, another a—a frog. You shoot, I
suppose?"

"No, I don't," said Mr. Bush. "Frog-shootin' wouldn't pay; they go too
slow."

At this point in his dissertation on English sport, her Grace suddenly
started, caught hold of the table with both hands, and passionately
struggled for breath.

"Got the staggers?" enquired Miss Bindler, who was sitting just
opposite. "Keep your head up."

Mr. Rodney hastily began to pour cold water into a champagne glass,
with a view to using it medicinally.

"Take it away!" gasped the Duchess. "Oh, take it away!" And she moved
as a serpent moves when it thinks of casting its skin.

"Take what?" said Mr. Rodney. "What is it?"

"The aspic on my left shoulder—oh, take it away!"

"The asp on your left shoulder!" he cried, preparing for flight.

"No, no! The cutlet in aspic. Oh!"

A rapid search enabled Mr. Rodney to discover a jellied cutlet lodged
upon her Grace's person. He endeavoured hastily to remove it with a
fork, and in doing so nearly inflicted a severe wound.

"Use your hands, man!" said Miss Bindler, "always use your hands in
such cases."

She spoke with authority, having attended many veterinary classes. Mr.
Rodney hesitated; he had never handled a cutlet in his life, and he
feared to begin a new career in middle age.

"Oh, take it away!" reiterated the Duchess; "it has been in ice! Oh,
take it from me!"

"I—really——" stammered poor Mr. Rodney, while the Duchess leaned far
forward, bending down her head and shutting her eyes in anticipation of
the operation. "Duke, I think it would be better if you——"

But the Duke was busily engaged in having fits of laughter, so Mr.
Rodney, flushing a brick red, hovered his long white hands above the
unwelcome intruder.

"Oh, be quick!" cried the Duchess. "For Heaven's sake be quick; it
feels like leeches."

"Here, clear out!" bellowed Mr. Bush to Mr. Rodney, who still shrank
from clasping an edible, and seizing her Grace with his huge hands, he
tore the cutlet from her with manly resolution. The Duchess breathed
again, while Mrs. Verulam's eyes became dewy with happy tears that
sprang unbidden at this fresh instance of her hero's valour. How
different from Mr. Rodney's pusillanimity! Mr. Bush threw the cutlet
to a manservant and burst out a-guffawing. It seemed he really had a
delicate sense of humour. The Duchess turned to him.

"Thank you!" she said with genuine emotion. "It would have killed me in
another moment. Thank you—thank you, Mr. Bush!"

Mr. Bush still roared with all the grand simplicity of a homely nature.

"But how did it happen?" said Mrs. Verulam.

"One of the servants did it," said the Duchess, sending her eye among
the menials in search of the culprit.

"T't! t't!" said Mr. Rodney, with all the testiness of a man who has
failed in the moment of danger; "it is as bad as the gardener. Mr. Lite
really should get proper characters with his servants."

The conversation here became general, and so when the Duchess suddenly
exclaimed to Mr. Bush, her sonorous outcry was only heard by him.

"Heavens!" she said, "it was a gardener! The gardeners are all waiting
at table."

Mr. Bush bounced; he rolled his eyes upon the servants in much
confusion.

"They are," continued her Grace; "that creature with the sauce-boat was
managing the roller, and that——"

"Hush!" said the paragon in a heavy whisper; "give over!"

"Why? They——"

"Give over, I tell yer!" Mr. Bush repeated, with an assumption of
portentous mystery.

Dominated by his manhood, her Grace gave over, and whispered:

"What is it?"

The paragon, with gestures of secrecy such as might well have attracted
the attention of a universe, impended over her, and mumbled into her
ear:

"They ain't gardeners."

"What! They are really footmen? Then why do they dig, and——"

"They ain't footmen."

"Not footmen! Then what sort of servants are they?"

"They ain't servants. Give over! Don't talk so loud," said Mr. Bush,
talking very loud himself.

Her Grace was now growing alarmed, but she endeavoured to force her
bass voice to become tenor as she whispered:

"Not servants? Then what are they here for?"

"They're here for us," he rumbled.

"For us?"

"You and me—me and you!"

"Me and you!" said the Duchess, with the accent of petrification.

"Aye, it's a go, ain't it?" And he shook his head at her heavily.

"But what on earth are they? Not—not——" She searched for a possible
profession, and could only think of dentists.

"They're coppers!" he puffed in her ear. "Don't holler!"

She nearly did, never having been waited upon by anything of the kind
before.

"Coppers?" she gasped.

"Policemen!"

"Policemen?"

"A-watching of you and me—detectives! Give over now; here's one
a-comin'."

At this moment, indeed, a detective handed her Grace ice-pudding. She
took it as if it was handcuffs, and trembled.

"But who put them to watch us?" she whispered in a hoarse voice.

"It's his doin'," rejoined the paragon, shovelling his head at the Duke.

"The Duke!"

Mr. Bush leant right over her as he uttered the fearful answer:

"He thinks you and me is a-goin' on together."

At this point the Duchess uttered a note such as proceeds from a
thirty-foot organ-pipe, and burst into a heavy swoon.

Now, the Duke had been observing the extraordinary secrecy of the
colloquy that preceded the Duchess's seizure, the heavy pantomime of
the paragon, and his elaborate efforts to remain unheard. All this,
succeeded as it was by her Grace's shout and collapse, and added to
the Duke's belief that Mr. Bush was a wicked dog and up to any amount
of secret rascality—witness the Lady Drake affair—worked together
in the ducal mind, and gave rise to a large number of sudden and
terrible suspicions, such as had never marred the Southboroughs'
married life until this moment. In short, the Duke believed that Mr.
Bush had been whispering soft words into his wife's ear, and that she,
overwhelmed with emotion, had uttered her soul in one tremendous and
unpremeditated note, and fainted away. He therefore sat considering
whether he should at once seize the nearest carving-knife and acquaint
Mr. Bush of his surmises, or whether he would be more ingenious if
he governed himself for awhile and allowed these disgraceful vipers
to take their course. While he was working out this problem, the
five detectives, Mr. Harrison, and the house-party were taking all
possible measures to recover the Duchess from her swoon, which was
of the most determined character. Her Grace, never accustomed to do
things by halves, for a long time resisted every blandishment that Miss
Bindler's wide knowledge of veterinary surgery, Mr. Bush's intimate
acquaintance with the sudden illnesses of cattle, and Mr. Ingerstall's
violent appreciation of French methods of recovering the drowned could
suggest. Indeed, it was only when the groom of the chambers made an
application of cold iron, in the form of the Ribton Marches cellar-key,
to her person that she struggled feebly, heaved some dozen sighs,
and, after requiring to be told where she was in the orthodox manner,
sat up and opened her eyes. They fell on the five detectives, and she
nearly shrieked again. Indeed, had not Mr. Bush given her a secret but
exceedingly powerful shove, there is no saying what course hysteria
might not have led her to take. The Duke observed that secret shove,
and his veins swelled with the decent fury of the outraged husband.
But he controlled himself until the Duchess had been supported to the
purple drawing-room, accompanied by the other ladies. Then, unable
to remain any longer inactive under the insult which he supposed
was being offered to his ancient name and honour, he rather curtly
released himself from Mr. Ingerstall, who was just saying, "It is a
most extraordinary thing to me that anybody can be found to go to the
Royal Academy when the Art Nouveau is within a few hours' journey of
London," and proceeded to carry out a little plan which he had formed
in his head. This plan led him to call a footman, which he did in the
baronial hall, at present deserted. A very thin man, with a grey face
and small eyes like marbles, responded to his summons. The Duke assumed
an affable air:

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Bliggins, sir," was the rather unexpected reply.

The Duke found it decidedly curious. The man gave his surname and did
not say "Grace." However, these were petty details in this stress of
terrible circumstance.

"Very well, Bliggins," said the Duke. "Can you keep a quiet tongue in
your head?"

He chanced to show the gleam of a sovereign under the electric
light—Bliggins may have noticed it. At any rate, he suddenly looked
very hungry, and replied:

"I can be dumb, sir, when necessary."

"How nice to command infirmities at will!" said the Duke. "You don't go
blind when you go dumb, eh?"

"I can prevent it, sir, if I try hard," responded Bliggins.

"Do you know which of the gentlemen here is Mr. James Bush?" said the
Duke, lowering his voice to a whisper.

"Ain't he the thin gent as Smithers set to and soaked this afternoon,
sir?" murmured Bliggins.

The Duke jumped, and casting a searching glance upon Bliggins, was
suddenly aware that he was the self-conscious gardener who had been
behaving with levity among the sunflowers in the afternoon. His Grace
bit his moustache and pulled his pantaloon's beard. This fact certainly
complicated the situation.

"H'm!" he muttered.

"Beg pardon, sir?"

"Can you serve two masters, Mr. Bliggins?" asked the Duke.

"I can, sir," replied Bliggins, again looking very hungry—"if I'm paid
in a proper manner for so doing, as you might say."

The Duke suddenly made up his mind.

"Very well," he said. "First let me say I know you; you're a detective,
and you've been put here to watch me. Be quiet, man! I ought to know a
third-rate detective by this time, considering that for five-and-forty
years——But that is no matter. Lord Arthur Kempton's your employer,
no doubt, or Sir John Milton. Hold your tongue; I've no time to hear
your lies! Watch me as much as you like, but"—here his Grace let Mr.
Bliggins feel the sovereign—"keep an eye on the gentleman with the red
beard and——"

"Him as pulled the cutlet off the lady as Wilker dropped on her?"

"The very man—watch him!"

"I will, sir."

"Day and night."

"The charge for night duty——"

The Duke allowed the self-conscious gardener to feel a second sovereign.

"I will, sir, day and night."

"Now go away and get dumb," said his Grace, returning softly to the
cedar-wood parlour.

As things did not seem very lively that evening in the purple
drawing-room, Mrs. Verulam sent for the powdered Frederick, and told
him to set the orchestrion going. This order quickly produced Mr.
Harrison, in a state of mania.

"The employment of the instrument, ma'am, is against Mrs. Lite's
orders, oh, most certainly!" he exclaimed in great excitement.

Mrs. Verulam turned to Mr. Rodney.

"Will you please send him away?" she murmured. "I cannot bear this sort
of thing to-night."

Mr. Rodney, whose nervous system was in tatters owing to the
combination of misfortunes through which he had recently passed, faced
round on Mr. Harrison like a hyena.

"Be off with you!" he cried in a piercing manner. "If you dare to argue
with me, I'll—I'll——"

He seized a small wooden paper-knife, and the groom of the chambers
made an exit that called forth the critical approval of Miss Bindler.

"For an old man, he's in good training," she remarked. "I believe he
could still do a mile in under the ten minutes!"

The orchestrion began to deal vigorously with "Cavalleria Rusticana,"
and under cover of the music the company made various attempts to bring
off what Miss Bindler would have called "events." Lady Drake, for
instance, sidled up to the Duke, determined to lead up to her continued
respectability, and Chloe was on the look-out for the chance of a quiet
moment with Mrs. Verulam. But this moment she could not secure, on
account of the tiresome behaviour of the Duchess, who was now in the
irritable stage of incipient convalescence, and was throned on a purple
armchair at Mrs. Verulam's side. Her Grace's horror at the revelation
of James Bush, her amazement that her husband should suspect her of
unchristian flirtation with a man bred up among bees, drove her into
a fit of temper which she proceeded to vent against her hostess. The
suspected respectable woman determined to take it out of the woman
whom she believed to be what Martha Sage affirmed "a baggage, my dear,
an arrant little baggage!" She began by making several ostentatious
double chins at Mrs. Verulam, who received the attention with calmness.
Then, growing exhausted with this physical exercise, for which she was
a little out of training, she resolved to put her vexed and suspected
soul into language.

"I have known you for a long time, Mrs. Verulam," she began; "I
remember you as a toddler."

"Thank you!"

"Not everyone can say as much."

"I daresay not. No."

"Those were innocent days," continued the Duchess, with an attempt at
pathos that resembled the efforts of a partially imaginative elephant
to become a fairy.

"Yes, toddlers are generally innocent, I suppose."

"Innocent and open-hearted."

"Yes. They wear their hearts on their frills, don't they?"

"In after-life it is different."

"What a pity!"

"The respectability of childhood becomes impaired."

"Does it?"

"Does it not?"

And here the Duchess stared hard, first at Mrs. Verulam, then at Chloe,
and then again at Mrs. Verulam who sweetly smiled.

"I don't know."

"I should have thought you did," said the Duchess beginning to bring up
her heavy artillery.

"Why?"

The orchestrion was preparing for the "Intermezzo." The Duchess was
preparing for conflict, rendered reckless by the self-conscious
gardeners, the cutlet and the swoon. If she was to be wrongly suspected
of levity, she would at least take it out of this wicked little person
whom she had known as a toddler.

"Let me give you a piece of advice," she began, with sonorous subtlety.

"With pleasure."

"Get rid of Mr. Van Adam. I speak as a true friend."

And her Grace, purple with true friendship as the furniture on which
she sat, made a really successful double chin, and paused for a reply.

"Why should I get rid of him?" asked Mrs. Verulam, making an angel's
face at the double chin.

"There are many reasons," said the Duchess, with growing fury.

"I know of none. Poor boy! He needs me in his loneliness." And she shot
a tender glance at Chloe.

"Good gracious!" exclaimed the Duchess. "Gracious heavens!"

"We ought to be kind to those whom the world has treated cruelly,"
Mrs. Verulam continued, with high morality and a rather episcopal
demeanour. "Poor dear Mr. Van Adam! Poor dear fellow!" And she breathed
an effective, though quite gentle sigh.

To say that this sigh extracted a snort from the Duchess would be
ridiculous. She expressed her feeling in a blast, suddenly heaved
herself out of her chair, announced like a thunder-clap afflicted with
the _vibrato_: "I'm very ill! I'm much upset!" and marched out of the
purple drawing-room with all the gestures appropriate to an enormous
soul in the accesses of acute affliction.

"Shock to the system," observed Miss Bindler. "I had an Arab once, from
the Crabbet Park stud; it was like the Duchess—behaved just like that
in sudden cold. Give her mustard." And she returned to the "_Pink Un_."

"An application of aspic on the left shoulder must be trying," piped
Lady Drake.

The Duke said nothing; but as he looked towards Mr. Bush he appeared to
be stripped of the tinsel. The pantaloon was merged in the husband. His
expression was like the third act of a melodrama.




CHAPTER XV.

CUP DAY.


"I do so want to tell you something!" Chloe whispered distractedly to
Mrs. Verulam as the house-party separated for the night. "Have you read
the _World?_"

"No; but I have something to——Oh, good night, Mr. Rodney; I hope your
rheumatic fever will be better in the morning."

"You are very good to say so," Mr. Rodney said, looking at Chloe as
Othello used to look at Iago on bad days; "but I am thoroughly prepared
for the worst."

And he remained obstinately between them, as if he meant to grow there
for a century or two. Chloe clenched her little fists and longed to box
with him.

"Good night, Mr. Bush," said Mrs. Verulam to the paragon.

"Night," he muttered, with a heavy nod.

She hesitated at the foot of the staircase.

"I must tell you——" she began, and paused.

"Eh?"

"I must tell you what an impression your conduct at dinner made upon
me."

The paragon, whose wits were slightly sharpened by cowardice,
immediately walked to the conclusion that Mrs. Verulam had observed his
ostentatious secrecy with the Duchess. He therefore replied:

"Go along with yer! Rubbish! She's a deal too old!"

Mrs. Verulam, under the impression that her hero was alluding to his
gallant conduct with the cutlet, answered softly:

"Yes, indeed! Had you not acted so promptly, who can tell what the
result might have been? I honour you for it. Good night, Mr. Bush;" and
she pressed his mighty hand with hers.

"I hope you believe me, Duke?" Lady Drake piped anxiously. "I do assure
you that you have been labouring under a totally wrong impression. Mr.
Bush is nothing to me."

The Duke bowed, and shot a terrible glance at the paragon.

"Mr. Bush is the devil in human form," he muttered.

"Oh dear!" cried Lady Drake. "Oh! but then, why did Mrs. Verulam invite
him for the race-week?"

"Hush!" said the Duke, frowning at her like a tragic actor accustomed
to provincial audiences.

She rustled upstairs in great agitation.

Chloe, according to her timid custom, vanished to bed when the women
went to their rooms. She feared smoking-room stories. And so the
paragon, the Duke, Mr. Rodney, and Mr. Ingerstall sat alone in the
amber smoking-room, which adjoined Winter Garden No. 2, in which Mrs.
Lite's favourites soundly slept. Mr. Rodney sat for about two minutes
looking like a habitually nervous man, who is suddenly confronted with
the last day. Then he hastily swallowed about a pint of brandy.

"Hullo, Rodney!" said the Duke. "Turning teetotaler?"

"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Rodney, with a distracted demeanour.

"Giving up the drink, I see," continued the Duke, with a dismal attempt
at his usual jocose air. "Sousing yourself in water from the crystal
spring."

"I beg your pardon, Duke," said Mr. Rodney, looking deeply hurt and
almost on the verge of tears; "the outrage committed upon me this
afternoon is scarcely matter for jest. I—I——" He drank another pint
of brandy, and muttering something about the "necessity for expelling
cold from the system," and the "terrible results following on rheumatic
fever," hurried from the room, affecting the gait of an old hedger
and ditcher, crippled with that roadside complaint to which he had so
feelingly alluded.

The Duke glared at Mr. Bush, and, lighting a cigar, remarked to Mr.
Ingerstall that Rodney would have D.T. on the course to-morrow if he
didn't take care. Then he seized the _Times_, and buried himself in
the advertisement sheets, through which he took stock of the paragon,
making a hole with his finger in "Wanted, a quiet home for a clergyman
afflicted with homicidal mania, who is subject to fits, but is High
Church, studious, and of a happy disposition."

"Damn it, there's no absinthe!" cried Mr. Ingerstall. "In Paris one is
not deprived of necessities as one is in England. Why don't I live in
Paris?"

He struck a bell. Mr. Bliggins appeared.

"Where the devil's the absinthe?" cried the artist in his piercing
voice.

"Beg pardon, sir," replied Bliggins, ostentatiously indicating to the
Duke that he had his eye on Mr. Bush, and was earning his night-duty
money.

"Ra-ta-ta! _Dieu de Dieu_, where is the absinthe, man? Haven't I
told you night after night that I don't drink these Scotch and Irish
abominations?"

"Certainly not, sir," said Bliggins impudently—"certainly not!"

He had nothing to expect from Mr. Ingerstall; and, besides, he found
politeness as difficult an assumption as the pretence of being a
retired major-general, or a Hungarian count out for a holiday. The
astounded caricaturist snatched off his spectacles, wiped them like a
conjuring trick, replaced them with a dab, and examined the detective
with preternatural scrutiny.

"It's a gardener!" he shrieked, after a busy pause.

Mr. Bush shuffled in his elbow chair. Mr. Bliggins looked foolish and
the Duke angry.

"A gardener, Ingerstall!" he said hastily. "What nonsense!"

"It is; I observed him this afternoon. I remember his nose like a
teapot, his eyes like marbles, his retreating chin and protruding
forehead, perfectly. His arms are too long for his body, and
his legs too short for his height. He would make an admirable
picture—admirable! I remember thinking so."

Overwhelmed with this uncompromising eulogy, Mr. Bliggins went off
night-duty at the rate of twelve miles an hour, and forgot to shut the
door behind him.

"You're a beautiful subject," Mr. Ingerstall cried out after
him—"beautiful!"

The Duke began to look vicious.

"You've frightened the fellow," he said. "Why didn't you leave him
alone?"

"Leave a monstrosity alone! Leave a human grotesque in ignorance of his
superb infirmity!" cried the artist. "I'll draw him this moment."

He followed Bliggins as a bullet follows a bird, caught him in a
pantry, caricatured him in seventeen seconds, and was up in the lemon
bedroom enlarging the original to life size before three minutes had
fallen into the lap of the past. Meanwhile the Duke and the paragon
were left alone among the soda-water bottles. At first they did not
speak. The paragon smoked an immense pipe, whose bowl presented a
carved effigy of the features of Peter Jackson, the pugilist. The
Duke observed him doing so through the homicidal clergyman who
wanted a quiet home; but presently his Grace's intent secrecy caused
an accident. Endeavouring slightly to enlarge his peep-hole with a
cautious finger, he tore a gap through which a circus-rider might have
jumped. The paragon gave him a surly glance, which was rewarded with
an elaborate smile, for the Duke was resolved to know more before he
showed his hand or revealed his suspicions. He laid down the paper and
lit a cigar.

"Nice and quiet here," he said conversationally.

Mr. Bush nodded, without removing Peter Jackson from his mouth.

"Nobody about," continued the Duke, with a jocular demeanour.

Mr. Bush shuffled rather uneasily.

"What if there isn't?" he growled.

"I beg your pardon."

"I says, What if there isn't nobody about?"

"Oh, nothing—nothing! I was only thinking what games might be carried
on in a big house like this, half empty, at night, without anybody
being aware of them."

Mr. Bush goggled his large auburn eyes at the Duke in a manner
suggestive of apprehension partially masked by bumpkin impudence.

"Was you?" he replied, in his usual nervous English.

"Midnight revels, eh? What? what? That big hall's the place for them.
Don't you think so?"

The paragon began to sulk, as was his custom when alarmed or bemuddled.
He did not yet grasp the fact that the Duke was hinting at the Lady
Drake episode, but he dimly felt that something was going on which he
did not understand. So he relaxed his body, wrapped his left hand in
his beard, and began to assume the appearance of a potman preparing for
heavy slumber. But the Duke did not intend to be baffled by sleep. So
he dug the paragon very sharply in the ribs with assumed geniality, and
remarked: "You're a dog!"

"Give over! I ain't a dog!" mumbled the paragon slightly reassured.

"Yes you are. I know you! I know all about it!"

Mr. Bush rolled in his seat.

"Lady Drake's a fine woman," continued the Duke in a rollicking
manner—"a damned fine woman!"

He wished to convince himself that the paragon was a rural Don Juan,
to which shrewd suspicion Lady Drake had been giving him the lie. Mr.
Bush, hearing the name of her ladyship, felt relieved. He had fancied
that the Duchess was secretly in question. Now he forced a guffaw and,
under the impression that he was being mighty clever, vociferated:

"Lady Drake, she's all right—go along with yer! She knows a thing or
two! She's as downy as a goat in autumn, she is."

This remarkable comparison convinced the Duke that Lady Drake had
perjured herself when she explained away the episode of the previous
night. His suspicions of Mr. Bush increased tenfold.

"You like 'em downy, eh?" he said. "You like a crafty one? What?"

"Rather!" said the paragon, nodding his heavy head and rejoicing in his
shrewdness. "Rather!"

"Because you're a downy one yourself? I know you!"

And his Grace forced a cackling laugh and trembled with fury. The
paragon was delighted with the apparent success of his subtle ruse, and
resolved to trick his Grace still further. He therefore endeavoured to
look very sly, and rejoined:

"Look after Lady Drake, and she'll look after you."

"And you did look after her in the hall at three o'clock in the
morning, Mr. Bush. Ha! ha! ha!" cried the Duke, with a passionate burst
of angry laughter. "I saw you both! I saw you! I know all about it!"
Under his breath he added bitterly, "I knew she was lying to me! I knew
the fellow was a regular demon!"

The paragon was considerably taken aback at first by this revelation.
He had no notion that the sugar-plum affair was common property.
However, when he at length realised that the Duke must have been on the
watch the previous night, he rejoiced still more. Lady Drake had no
husband to take vengeance on any man, so Mrs. Verulam's hero gave her
away with the most cheerful alacrity. He laid one enormous hand on the
Duke's arm and remarked impressively:

"She's a rascal!"

"Lady Drake?"

The paragon nodded.

"She's a rascal! Set the gardeners on to her! She wants a-watchin'!"
And he sank back into his chair, thoroughly convinced that he had most
adroitly rescued the Duchess and himself from the unjust suspicions of
his Grace.

The Duke took the matter very differently, however. He was now certain
that Mr. Bush was a most consummate and polished scoundrel, up to
every move on the board, but hiding his address beneath a magnificent
impersonation of glum stupidity and heavy lethargy. For instance, how
brilliantly this apparent bumpkin was now endeavouring to concentrate
suspicion on Lady Drake, doubtless in order that his proceedings with
the Duchess might pass unnoticed and unrevenged. But the Duke was
determined to be equal with him. He could play the game, too, against
the devil himself. So he smiled, as if in a harlequinade, and said
genially:

"You're right. The gardeners should direct their attention to her.
Shall I give them a hint to that effect?"

"Aye!" said Mr. Bush. "Aye! set them on to her. She wants a-watchin'!"

And he shook his sides with rumbling chuckles which took him like an
earthquake. The Duke got up, trying not to glare at this consummate and
exquisitely adroit villain, this monument of evil cleverness.

"I'll take your advice," he said. "I'll set them on to her. Night!" And
he was gone, leaving Mr. Bush to his raptures.

In the hall his Grace encountered Bliggins in a condition of apparent
prostration.

"Watch that red-bearded scoundrel!" the Duke ejaculated. "Watch him!
Never let him from under your eyes, and I'll give you half my for—half
a sovereign!"

"But it's the black gent with the specs as is the dangerous one, sir,"
began Bliggins. "He chased me in the pantry as if I was a rat, and——"

"The red-bearded villain—he's the man! He's the fiend, I tell you!
Stalk him! Dog his footsteps! Creep after him! Run him down! You
sha'n't repent it. Hush! not a word."

The Duke retired up the staircase with the steps of a bandit in
old-fashioned grand opera, while Mr. Bush went on gaily chuckling to
himself in the amber smoking-room.

Cup Day, dawning in an ethereal mist, found Mr. Bliggins wrapped in
a pallid slumber in the hall, and Mr. Harrison setting forth to the
fishing-cottage to confer with the Emperor. The groom of the chambers
roused the sleeping detective with a hasty shake.

"Mr. Bliggins, you was hired to watch; oh, indeed!" he said in stern
rebuke.

"I was watching, Mr. Harrison, sir," replied the creature, confusing
Mr. Harrison's orders with the Duke's. "'The red-bearded man—he's the
fiend! Stalk him! Dog his feet! Creep after him!' you says to me. I
was doing of it."

"Mr. Bliggins," replied Mr. Harrison, with scathing dignity, "them
was no words of mine—oh dear no, on no account whatever! My words to
you was, 'Watch the lot;' oh, most certainly! Go, Mr. Bliggins, plant
yourself in the garden, and don't let yourself be knowst, according to
Mr. Lite's strict orders; oh, indeed!"

The weary detective departed to carry out this horticultural command,
and Mr. Harrison proceeded to lay his grim report of the employment
of the sacred instrument, etc., before the agitated Emperor, whose
passions steadily increased with the lapse of time and the prolongation
of exile.

By the post that morning Chloe received a communication from one of the
private enquiry agents whom she had directed to give her information as
to the proceedings of her ex-husband, if that personage were actually
within the British Isles.

"I beg to inform you," it ran, "that a Mr. Huskinson Van Adam did
arrive at Liverpool by the _Arethusa_, but I have not yet been able to
discover where he went upon disembarking. I have no doubt, however,
that I shall be successful in tracing him within a day or two. Awaiting
your further esteemed orders, I am," etc., etc.

Chloe laid this letter down with an unsteady hand. It filled her
with a cataract of mingled emotions, one of which surprised her by
its happy violence and covered her cheeks with blushes. In the midst
of these blushes she caught sight of her trousers, and the vision
helped her to pull herself together. She was no longer a woman;
she was a man—at any rate for a day or two more. After that the
Deluge! After that no more society! No more Duchesses! No more Lady
Pearls! Did this knowledge horrify her? Did she feel in it the end
of pleasure, the coming of doom? or did she hear faintly the glories
of the dream which she had desired, which she had by a wild stroke
of audacity achieved, rustling down and away into the darkness like
the damp golden leaves of autumn—and hear their rustlings with an
abrupt and strange indifference, child of some hidden, furtive, and
scarcely acknowledged emotion? Chloe herself, perhaps, scarcely knew.
In either case she pulled up her trousers, assumed a jaunty air, and
talked hard all through breakfast—chiefly to the Lady Pearl, of whose
presence, however, she was in truth scarcely aware, being so full
of her own situation, which was half-absurd and surely half-tragic.
After breakfast she tried with all her might to speak a word alone
with Daisy. But both the Duchess of Southborough and Mr. Rodney were
on the watch to prevent any such nefarious attempt from succeeding.
Her Grace, despite her own trouble with the Duke, whose disgraceful
suspicions—although they remained unexpressed in words—she was
increasingly conscious of, was determined to fight her hostess to the
death on behalf of the Lady Pearl. Until Mr. Van Adam was actually
ravished away to Paris, the Duchess would not confess herself beaten,
would not lose all hope. Strung up by unmerited misfortune to the
highest pitch of nervous tension and agitated obstinacy, her eyes
prominent with mental strain, her large and respectable face rigid with
anxiety and outrage, she inflexibly kept at Mrs. Verulam's side. And
the more she observed Chloe's obvious manœuvres to be alone with Mrs.
Verulam, the more was the Duchess determined to frustrate them. In all
her exertions she was backed up by the excellent owner of Mitching
Dean.

When a normally peaceful and conventional man is roused, by the
hammering blows of Fate, into acute distress and warfare, he is
apt to become far more terrific, far more unconventional, than any
swashbuckler or man of deeds whatever. So it was with Mr. Rodney.
Circumstance was gradually working him up into a state of mind compared
with which Gehenna is typically joyous and calm. His imaginary
rheumatic fever was, on this lovely morning, nowise abated. His anxiety
as to the procedure of the Countess of Sage moment by moment increased.
His suspicions of Chloe were advancing rapidly, and his enmity against
the man from Bungay had attained almost to fury. Also he had had a
sleepless night, and Harry, his man, had abrased his skin while shaving
him. If his pulse mounted to 102, is it to be wondered at? If he
resolved not to leave Mrs. Verulam's side for one single instant during
the entire day, shall he be blamed? In vain did Mrs. Verulam endeavour
to get rid of him for a second or two. In vain did she try to invent
some pretext, to design some chivalrous duty which must urge his steps
from her. He was too sharp to go. And the more ardently she tried, the
more ardently did he deny her, opposing his rheumatism to her every
suggestion.

"Would you mind fetching my fan, Mr. Rodney? I believe I left it lying
on the table in the magenta boudoir."

"Forgive me if I send Harry for it. I can scarcely walk this morning,
and the fever seems increasing upon me."

"Dear! dear! Then you must not dream of going to the races."

"The fresh air will do me good."

"I fear not. I am sure you ought to be lapped at once in cotton-wool,
and stay in a darkened room with the temperature kept up to at least
80."

"Possibly, but I understand that the supply of cotton-wool which Mr.
Lite keeps in his patent machines has given out. Besides, I consider it
my duty not to spoil your week by—by——" Here his voice shook with
emotion—"giving way to illness, perhaps even to—to death."

"Quite right, Mr. Rodney," exclaimed the Duchess. "In this world duty
comes first."

And she endeavoured to convey information to him by signs, without
being seen by Mrs. Verulam. Mr. Rodney, never having learnt any
dumb alphabet, was unable to comprehend her Grace, and was indeed
considerably startled by her fleeting grimaces and tortured movements
of the hands and fingers. Politeness, however, compelled him to
respond, which he did by alternately nodding and shaking his head in a
miserable and despairing manner, such as could scarcely reassure the
Duchess or give her comfort.

While this game of cross-purposes was proceeding behind her back, Mrs.
Verulam was inventing a new pretext to get rid of Mr. Rodney, in whose
absence she hoped to be able to disentangle herself from the Duchess
and consult with Chloe.

"Mr. Rodney," she said, with apparent bland solicitude, "I have been
thinking that a cooling draught would probably do wonders for you."

"It is most good of you, but I am perfectly cool, I assure you,
already. And I have always understood that nothing is more dangerous to
the rheumatic than a thorough draught."

"It would be fatal," said the Duchess sonorously, beckoning and
frowning at Mr. Rodney with intense animation, "simply fatal. It would
carry him off in the twinkling of an eye."

"I meant a drink, Duchess, not a breeze. Marriner could mix it for you,
Mr. Rodney."

"You are too kind, but I never take medicine. I prefer to put my trust
in Providence and hope for the best."

And he again shook and nodded his head in vague negative and
affirmative to the Duchess. Mrs. Verulam was in despair. She shot a
last bolt feebly.

"I think even the bishops and clergy would say that we Christians
ought to assist the operations of Providence with—with appropriate
medicine," she said.

"I always understood that an operation took the place of physic,"
growled the Duchess, distressed by Mr. Rodney's entire lack of
pantomimic talent and comprehension.

Mrs. Verulam did not say more. She saw that she was in prison, and
recognised that it was futile at present to attempt to break out.

"I must dress for the races now," she said.

"I'll come up with you," said the Duchess, taking Mrs. Verulam's arm
as if in gentle amity, while at the same time she screwed her face at
Mr. Rodney, and endeavoured to force his dull comprehension to grasp
the simple fact that a frown, one corner of the mouth turned down, a
wrinkled nose and a left hand flapping like a seal must obviously mean,
"I'll look after her, but I depend upon you to keep an eye on Mr. Van
Adam."

Evidently he was nowhere near it, for his long face looked blank as a
white sheet of note-paper as prisoner and gaoler left the room.

All through that weary Cup Day Mr. Rodney was for ever in Mrs.
Verulam's pocket, emotionally sticking to her in a manner that
irritated her till she could have burst into tears. His eyes, usually
so indefinite, now blazed with the fires either of rheumatic fever,
jealousy, or protection. His voice, usually mellifluous as the twilight
murmur of a tideless sea, now rose in harsh intonations, and was set
a-trembling by a _vibrato_ that might have belonged to a fourth-rate
Italian tenor. His wonted soothing demeanour and reassuring Mayfair
gait were exchanged for an animation that savoured of delirious
sick-beds, and a strut of suspicion on the _qui vive_ that might
have become a scout compelled to follow his profession on a pavement
composed of red-hot needles. The Royal Pen gaped at him, and heard his
passionate volubility with unutterable amazement. Again, as on the
preceding Tuesday, he was feverishly intent on dodging, and inducing
Mrs. Verulam to dodge, the venerable Countess of Sage, who, crowned
with a gimp helmet, clothed in chain mail of shining bugles, and
bedizened with ornaments of black bog-oak, grown on the family estate
at Ballybrogganbroth, Ireland, pervaded the enclosure on the arm of a
Commander-in-Chief, with a Field-Marshal on her further side. But Fate,
which was leading him in such slippery places, chose to frustrate his
chivalrous purpose. Soon after the second race, while busily engaged
in manœuvring Mrs. Verulam away from the neighbourhood of Chloe, who
was shooting at her despairing glances demanding an interview, Mr.
Rodney ran her and himself into the very arms of Lady Sage, who was
energetically airing her views on the recent Crimean campaign, and
pointing out certain mistakes in tactics committed by those who were
in charge of the British army in the Crimea. They were, in fact,
practically impaled upon her bog-oak brooches and necklets before they
observed her. Lady Sage paused on the words "If I had been Lord Raglan,
I should certainly have——" stared Mrs. Verulam and the owner of
Mitching Dean full in the face for a minute or more, then remarked in a
piercing voice to the Field-Marshal, "What extraordinary people manage
to get into the Enclosure!" and waddled away, rattling her armour in a
most aggressive manner, and tossing the gimp helmet until it positively
scintillated in the sunshine.

Mr. Rodney's knees knocked together, and he shut his eyes. The worst
had happened. The heavens had fallen. The flood had come again upon the
earth, and there was no ark of refuge. His brain was full of buzzings,
and he felt as if he was being pricked all over. When at last he opened
his eyes and looked at Mrs. Verulam, he perceived that she was rather
pale, and that her expression was slightly more set than usual. Yet she
seemed calm and cool, while he was hot as fire. Glancing away from her,
he beheld the expressive faces of a serried mass of his oldest and most
valued friends, whose lips seemed curling with derision, while their
family and ancestral noses were surely tip-tilted with contempt. He
clasped his hands together mechanically, and, with a hunted demeanour,
turned as if to flee. Vague thoughts of leaving the country, of
endeavouring to make a home and get into a fresh set in Buenos Ayres,
or of retiring to a hermitage in Iceland, ran through his collapsing
mind. There is no saying whether he would not have usurped the place of
the Ascot dog, and run yelping down the cleared course to the golden
gates, if Mrs. Verulam had not murmured to him in her _voix d'or_:

"Shall we go for a little stroll in the paddock?"

He assented with a bow that was scarcely worthy of a yokel, and led her
among the parading horses, getting so entangled with the four legs of
the favourite that it seemed as if his one ambition was to become a
centaur before evening. After being rescued by a swearing trainer, who
addressed him in a long and highly ornate speech, he seemed desirous of
immersing Mrs. Verulam in the jockeys' dressing-rooms, or of having her
incontinently weighed, but she resisted, and at last said:

"Mr. Rodney, your fever makes you act very strangely. I think, perhaps,
we had better be going."

"Going—gone!" he muttered, like a second-rate auctioneer.

"Oh, please do try to compose yourself! All the jockeys are looking at
you."

"Let them look!" replied Mr. Rodney distractedly. "Let all the jockeys
in Christendom look! What does it matter now?"

And he stared wildly about, as if searching for sackcloth and ashes.

Mrs. Verulam flushed.

"Mr. Rodney," she said, and her voice, too, began to tremble, "I must
beg you to find the carriage for me at once."

"But it will not be here until half-past four."

"Very well, then, I shall walk home."

"Walk!" he cried, in as much amazement as if she had suggested going
home in a balloon.

"Yes, and you must please accompany me."

"Certainly! anything! anywhere! What can it matter now?"

In after years that walk often rose before the owner of Mitching Dean
in a vision of dust and anguish. As they went, stumbling among the
vulgar crowd, treading on nuts, elbowing donkeys and negro minstrels
aside, it seemed to Mr. Rodney that he and Mrs. Verulam were as a
modern Adam and Eve, being expelled by a Master of the Buckhounds with
a flaming hunting crop from that garden of the social paradise, the
Royal Enclosure. They did not speak as they surged forward in quest of
the far-off palace of the Bun Emperor. What could they say? Criminals
do not chatter merrily as they wend their way towards the hulks. So
Mr. Rodney put it to himself, although he had not the slightest idea
what the hulks were. Only when, after long wandering in dreadful lanes
between hedges totally unknown in society, they reached Ribton Marches,
footsore, travel-stained, and broken in spirit, did he find a tongue,
and, turning towards his wretched companion, make this cheery remark:
"All is over!"

"Please don't talk nonsense, Mr. Rodney," said Mrs. Verulam sharply, as
she sank into a garden-chair.

"I repeat," he answered, with thrilling emphasis and in a voice that
was exceedingly hoarse, "all is over!"

Mrs. Verulam bit her lips, and looked very much as if she wanted to
burst out crying.

"There is no hope," he went on. "There is no light anywhere. All is
darkness."

The sun was pouring down its golden beams, but no matter.

"It is strange," Mr. Rodney pursued, staring very hard at nothing with
glazed eyes. "It is strange to think that two lives, at one time happy,
peaceful, even honoured, can be broken up in an instant, and turned to
dust and ashes in the twinkling of an eye!"

"My life is not turned to dust and ashes in the twinkling of——Oh, do
please say something more cheerful!"

"Cheerful!" cried the owner of Mitching Dean in hollow
tones—"cheerful!"

And he gave vent to several very distressing groans. Mrs. Verulam
leaned back and shut her eyes. Fatigue and excessive heat, combined
with unexpected groans, may well break even the proudest spirit. Had
Mr. Bush been at hand to inspire confidence, and to impersonate the
true, grand life, Mrs. Verulam might possibly have plucked up courage.
As it was, she felt very miserable, and was devoured with a longing to
give the Countess of Sage into the hands of Chinese torturers, whom she
had read of in a book of travels as exquisitely expert in their trade.
After a quarter of an hour's pause, partially filled in by Mr. Rodney's
exclamations of unutterable despair, she made a great effort to compose
herself, and remarked bravely:

"This is what I have wished for."

Mr. Rodney punctuated the sentence with a piteous outcry.

"This," continued Mrs. Verulam, "has been my dream. For this I have
worked and striven, toiled and——" she had nearly said "moiled,"
but at the last minute substituted "prayed," which certainly raised
the speech onto a higher plane of oratory. "I ought, therefore, to
be thankful," she resumed, the corners of her pretty mouth turning
downward, "and I am."

Mr. Rodney looked at her mournfully.

"It is terrible to see the approach of madness," he remarked, gazing
upon her eventually with a weird and flickering curiosity.

"I am not going mad," said Mrs. Verulam.

"I beg your pardon," he rejoined—"I beg your pardon. You may not—in
fact, you evidently do not know it; but, indeed, you are."

"Really, Mr. Rodney, I think I may be allowed to know my own condition."

"They never do. It is one of the regular symptoms. You will find it in
all the medical books."

And once more he observed her with agonised curiosity.

Mrs. Verulam, perhaps not unnaturally, began to grow very angry.

"Medical books," she said, in a heated tone, "are not only disgusting,
but deceptive. I must really request you to believe me."

"I am sorry, I am very sorry, that I cannot. We must all learn to look
madness bravely in the face," he replied, staring perfectly straight at
her.

Mrs. Verulam made a sudden movement as though to slap him, restrained
herself, puckered her face, drummed her little feet violently in
mid-air, and was about to burst into a flood of wrathful tears when the
powdered Frederick was seen approaching across the lawn, bearing a gold
salver which twinkled and glinted in the sun.

"A telegram for you, ma'am," he said.

Mrs. Verulam took it from him hysterically, tore it open, and read:
"Huskinson Van Adam is somewhere in Berkshire just discovered Yillick."

"I hope it is no bad news," said Mr. Rodney, as if he felt certain that
it announced either plague or strangling.

"It is to say that they have discovered Yillick," answered Mrs. Verulam
in an unemotional voice.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I say they have discovered Yillick," she cried irritably.

"Indeed! What is that?"

"I don't know. One can't know everything."

"True, true!"

She glanced again at the telegram, recovering herself enough to begin
to wonder what it really meant, and why they hurried to inform her
of this, the newest discovery of modern times. Happening to see the
envelope, she now perceived that it was addressed to "Van Adam, Esq."
Evidently the wire was for Chloe. But then why did——? At this instant
voices became audible, and the house-party trooped with determination
across the lawn.




CHAPTER XVI.

CUP NIGHT.


Mrs. Verulam immediately held out the telegram to Chloe.

"They have discovered Yillick," she murmured abstractedly.

"What?" said the Duchess, who was very red in the face. "Yillick, do
you say?"

Chloe took the telegram eagerly, and turned exceedingly pale.

"Is a Yillick an animal?" said the Lady Pearl softly to her.

"No, no; only a—a friend; at least, a sort of acquaintance of mine,"
Chloe stammered.

As a matter of fact, Yillick was the surname of the Private Enquiry
Agent who was looking out for Huskinson.

"You left very early, Mrs. Verulam," said the Duchess sternly.

"I was tired. The heat was so great."

"I did not think so. And I am very susceptible to heat. How did you get
home?"

"I walked."

"Good gracious! What made you do that?"

"I like exercise."

"When you are tired? When you feel the heat so much? How very strange!"

And her Grace, who knew all about the Martha Sage affair, which had
been much cackled of in the Enclosure, glowered heavily at her hostess,
whom she, too, intended to cut at the end of the week, when the fate of
the Lady Pearl had been finally decided for good or evil.

"Did you meet Lady Sage?" she pursued mercilessly, while Mr. Rodney
endeavoured to look at ease, and succeeded in looking like a
constitutionally timid person being led out to the stake.

"Oh yes," answered Mrs. Verulam, with an effort after indifference.

"Well?" remarked the Duchess, after a short and solemn pause.

"Well!" retorted Mrs. Verulam.

"Did you like her gown?" said the Duchess, getting a little confused,
and becoming inept.

"I daresay it was all right, but personally I am not particularly fond
of gimp and bugles, nor do I care specially for oak ornaments in the
day-time," returned Mrs. Verulam, with veiled, but bitter, sarcasm.

"Oh! Still, in these hard times, it is a great saving of expense to
be able to grow one's jewellery on one's own land," said the Duchess,
turning away, and feeling that she was beginning to get the worst of
it. She met the stare of her husband and blenched, suddenly remembering
that she, too, though always so firmly innocent, had her troubles and
was born to suffering. But she little knew what a terrible course
those troubles were about to take, into what a maelstrom of unmerited
misfortune she was about to plunge.

"Daisy, I simply must speak to——Oh, certainly, Lady Pearl, I shall
be delighted to show you the orchid house," cried the distracted Chloe
after tea.

It seemed that she was never to be allowed to unburden her overcharged
heart to her friend, who was now clawed by her Grace and the despairing
Mr. Rodney, while Chloe was obliged to escort the languishing
gout-patient through endless avenues of plants.

Night fell, and with it the weather changed. A small, fine rain
began to rustle among the shrubs around the palace, the moon was
obscured by ragged and slowly floating clouds, and an uncomfortable
and under-sized wind, indefinite of purpose, sluggishly moved about
the garden, fingering the trees and flowers as if uncertain whether
to be violent or go away altogether. Of course, curtains were drawn
within the palace, the electric moons gleamed, the parrots were
softly illuminated, and nobody was supposed to know what the night
was about. Nevertheless, the subtle influence of weather was apparent
among the house-party. Everybody seemed to be superlatively glum. Miss
Bindler had lost forty pounds over Bound to Win, and was considering
whether she would have to put down her bike at the end of the week.
Mr. Ingerstall, having taken her tip, was also a loser, and was
consequently speechless and black with irritated despair. Chloe was in
a strange condition of mingled apprehension and excitement, and as she
could find no opportunity of unburdening herself to Mrs. Verulam, and
could not fix her mind on ordinary matters, she did not talk at all,
and made no response to the murmurings of the Lady Pearl. The Lady
Pearl, therefore, plunged into abysses of despair, and the Duchess,
observant of her daughter's header, and greatly exercised about the
Duke and the detectives—who were again waiting at table—became
plethoric and mum.

Mr. Rodney was in a state of absolute collapse. He ate nothing, said
nothing, and looked like a man who might do anything, from throwing
himself out of a window to murdering all those within his reach. The
Sage affair had totally disorganised him. He was no longer himself; he
was no longer a really responsible being.

The Duke divided his time between glowering at the Duchess and the
paragon and carrying on a secret pantomime with Mr. Bliggins, who
returned affirmative gestures to every face that was made at him,
nodding "Yes" with a lobster salad, implying that the red-bearded
scoundrel was under his observation with a dozen of oysters, or hinting
at an increase of his night-duty salary with a rum-omelette.

Lady Drake ate enormously, and looked grievous.

As to Mr. Bush—although he was reassured about the Duke, who had
doubtless been fed into calm by receiving Lady Drake's reputation to
gnaw—he was sulky, not from any special reason, but because he nearly
always was.

There remained Mrs. Verulam. What of her? She should have been happy,
for her plot had been successful. Chloe's transformation from woman
to man had opened the cage-door to the squirrel. Society, which had
for so long defied the lovely widow's attempts to get out of it,
would now doubtless follow the lead of Lady Sage and bid her go.
She was compromised, and yet retained completely her own secret
self-respect—her knowledge that she had done no wrong. Why, then,
should she feel guilty? Why should she tingle with something that
was surely shame? Why should she grow red under the angry eye of the
Duchess? Probably because she was more sensitive than she had imagined;
because she had that trying sort of soul which inevitably feels ashamed
if it is believed to be shameful. All through dinner Mrs. Verulam sat
deep in distressed thought, immersed in consideration of the present
and solicitude for the future. If only she could have a good talk with
Chloe, she felt that her burden would be lightened. They must meet
somehow; they must draw up some plan of campaign. Mrs. Verulam had not
yet seen the _World_, and Mr. Rodney, buffeted and afflicted sore by
Providence, had forgotten to tell her of the Van Adam paragraph. She
did not know of the real Huskinson's probable presence in Berkshire
at this very moment, for she had not grasped the meaning of the
Yillick communication. But she had heard Lord Bernard Roche's news,
and supposed the orange-grower to be on his way. Chloe would have to
disappear; her work was done; she had been successful, it seemed, in
ruining Mrs. Verulam's reputation. Thinking this, Mrs. Verulam strove
to rejoice, and wanted to cry. To nerve herself, she gazed upon the
paragon's enormous bulk and calm and gluttonous lethargy. She lost
herself in his streaming auburn mane, seeking comfort and sustaining
power. The cage-door was open; the squirrel could leave its prison.
Where should it go? Surely to Bungay Marshes, Lisborough. There must
be other cottages there besides the Farm—other abodes of peace round
which the bees hummed and the sheep bleated in tender tunefulness.
Thither must she go, like some white dove seeking an ark of refuge.
Thither must she flee, and be at rest. But she and Chloe must first
hold a long consultation, concert proper measures for the eternal
concealment from society of the audacious manner in which it had
been tricked and imposed upon. How to do that? How to get rid of the
Duchess and the now frantic and unconventional owner of Mitching Dean?
Marriner—that faithful wretch! She must convey a missive to Chloe; a
meeting must be arranged in the dead of night, when all the house-party
slept. In the darkness the finale of this history must be devised.
It must be settled when Chloe should disappear, how and where. Mrs.
Verulam's future must be discussed. To-night—Marriner—Chloe—Fate.

Dinner was over. As in a dream, Mrs. Verulam accompanied the ladies to
the purple drawing-room. All things seemed to her vague and unreal,
except the hideous vision of the Countess of Sage, stiff with gimp
and fury, insulting the pet of the gay world, ringing the knell of
her butterfly life of pleasure. She sat down on a sofa, and began
vehemently to think of the pale perfection of a Bungay existence
superintended by her idea of Agag.

The Duchess watched her from a distance. Being in a condition of acute
suspicion, her Grace gravely distrusted the concentrated abstraction of
her hostess. No doubt Mrs. Verulam was laying some fresh and horrible
plot against the happiness of the Lady Pearl. It must be frustrated,
whatever it was.

"Mother," said the Lady Pearl at this moment.

"My darling! my only child!" replied the Duchess in her deepest bass.

"I think Mr. Van Adam has something on his mind."

The Duchess started, and surveyed her daughter with protruding eyes.

"What makes you think so, my beautiful Pearl?" she queried.

"He never spoke to me all through dinner, and he kept on looking
towards Mrs. Verulam. I think the world is full of misery."

"Gout, my beloved one, gout! Carlsbad would make you think very
differently," replied the Duchess according to her rule. But she spoke
without conviction; and the Lady Pearl did not think it necessary to
protest, as usual, that her mental condition was governed by the soul
rather than by the body.

Heavily the rainy evening wore on. The statement of the Lady Pearl had
added to the Duchess's conviction that some deep-laid plot was brewing
between Mrs. Verulam and Chloe. Her Grace's knowledge of the world
taught her that Mrs. Verulam must in all probability be a desperate
woman to-night. For had she not been whipped by the Countess of Sage
in the eyes of the whole world? And let a woman be reckless and wicked
as Messalina, her first public scourging does not leave her unmoved;
but, on the other hand, it probably does leave her defiant, careless
of consequences, ready for any fierce and wild adventure. Was not,
perhaps, some fierce and wild adventure afoot to-night? The Duchess
felt like a regiment of sentries as she sat brooding by the silent
orchestrion, her eyes fixed so furiously on Mrs. Verulam that that
wicked little baggage seemed set in mist—seemed blurred as the shining
disc is blurred to the subject being hypnotised.

Only when the men came in from the dining-room, and she met again the
furtive eyes of her husband, did the Duchess feel painfully that over
the watch-dog paradoxically a watch was set.

That night the women went to their rooms early. As good nights were
being exchanged, Chloe and Mrs. Verulam made one last agonised attempt
to take part in a quiet whisper. But the Duchess pounced on Mrs.
Verulam, Mr. Rodney leapt to Chloe's side, and the whisper died almost
ere it was born. Mrs. Verulam ascended the staircase in a somewhat
despairing manner, throwing an occasional glance down into the hall, in
which Mr. Bliggins and other detectives were arranging various silver
spirit-bottles, gold cigar-boxes, malachite ash-trays, and other male
paraphernalia. For Mr. Rodney, now in a nervous fever which rendered
him entirely reckless of conventionalities and consequences, had
suddenly informed Mr. Harrison that the baronial hall must accommodate
the smokers that night, his object being to occupy a post of vantage
in the very centre of the palace, so that he might be on the spot to
prevent any surreptitious conduct on Mrs. Verulam's part. He regarded
her now very strangely as a socially ruined lunatic, whom yet he
adored in a frenzied and unutterable manner, and he was becoming
madly, feverishly jealous. Mrs. Verulam's apparent indifference to
the appalling incident which had taken place that afternoon in the
Enclosure convinced him that she was off her head, but his throbbing
heart forced him to the terrible conclusion that it was a crazy passion
for the supposed orange-grower which had made her so. For his sake
she defied the world; for love of him she lay down in public at a
race-meeting and let the old Countess of Sage go trampling over her.
Van Adam had bewitched her; but he should not escape his surveillance
to-night. On that Mr. Rodney was passionately determined. When,
therefore, Chloe endeavoured as usual to slip away in the wake of the
ladies, Mr. Rodney bounded up with the activity of a panther and placed
himself before her in a jungle attitude.

"You are not going already, Van Adam!" he cried—"so early! Why, it is
only about nine o'clock."

It was really a quarter to eleven.

Chloe yawned.

"I'm dead-beat," she began.

"Then a smoke will do you good. You must have a cigar—you must——"

And he laid hold of her arm with a pretended cordiality, which his
twisted and wrinkled face belied. Chloe stood still and looked at
him. She wanted terribly to get away and, by some stratagem, obtain
an interview with Mrs. Verulam; at the same time, she did not wish
to rouse any suspicion of her desire. She perceived that the owner
of Mitching Dean was painfully excited: the veins stood out on his
narrow forehead, his thin hands fluttered like a bird's wings, his
moustache seemed to bristle with suspicion, and he stared at her like
all Scotland Yard at a malefactor. This convulsed effigy made such
an impression upon her that she took her foot from the staircase
reluctantly and came back with him to the spirit-bottles, where the
Duke was mixing himself a drink, while Mr. Ingerstall fumed in an
armchair over a cigarette sent from a Parisian tobacconist, and Mr.
Bush poured volumes of smoke out of Peter Jackson.

"A drink, my dear Van Adam," cried Mr. Rodney in a very theatrical
manner—"a long drink, a strong drink, and a drink all together."

He was trying to be hilarious, without knowing the way to do it. The
Duke turned round.

"Hullo!" he said. "Van Adam sitting up! Bravo! Have a weed?"

He extended a mighty cigar-case. Chloe meekly rifled it, wondering what
would happen next.

"Have a light?" said his Grace, striking one on his trousers like
Chirgwin, the White-eyed Kaffir.

"Thanks," said Chloe.

"Not that end, my son."

"Oh, I wasn't thinking!"

"You haven't pinched the end off. That's better. What? Won't it draw?"

"No; I don't think it will. I'll—I think I'll have a cigarette,
thanks."

"That's a damned good cigar."

"Splendid! Still, I think after all I will have a cigarette."

"A pipe's the thing," rumbled the paragon—"a pipe and a fistful of
Bristol Bird's-eye."

"Oh no, thanks; not a pipe!" cried Chloe, hastily seizing a cigarette,
which she understood the management of. "That's all right."

"Come and sit here," said the Duke, beckoning her to a divan.

He intended to use her as a stalking-horse, and to lull to sleep any
suspicions which the paragon might have that he was being watched.

Chloe came to the divan puffing at her cigarette. Mr. Rodney
frantically followed, and placed himself erect on a very small upright
cane-chair. He was smoking an unlighted cigar, which he occasionally
removed from his white lips, in order that he might blow rings of
imaginary smoke into the air. The Duke strove to seem larky and at ease.

"Now the women are gone we can say what we like, eh?" he began.

"Yes," faltered Chloe; "we can say what we like now."

"A very good cigar this," cried Mr. Rodney with a jaunty air, that sat
as naturally upon him as a matinée hat on the head of a major-general.

"I daresay it is—when it's lighted," said the Duke, with a prolonged
snigger.

Mr. Rodney got violently red, and lit eight or ten matches all at the
same time.

"Well done, Rodney! Set the place on fire!" cried the Duke. "What the
deuce is that?"

It was merely the noise made by Mr. Harrison as he raced to the
telephone to acquaint the Bun Emperor that Mr. Rodney was at present
engaged in igniting the palace. Concealed among the pedals of the
organ, the groom of the chambers had been doing detective duty.

"It sounded like athletic sports on an oil-cloth," continued the Duke,
while Mr. Rodney held his cigar in the match flames till it glowed like
a furnace. "Well, as I was saying, now we can say what we like. Tell us
a good story, Rodney—one of your rorty ones."

Mr. Rodney shrivelled.

"I fear," he murmured—"I fear I am scarcely in the—the—er—rorty
vein to-night. To-morrow—the next day—perhaps——"

"Well, then, you tip us one, Van Adam. Give us some of your Florida
experiences among the orange-girls. What? Go ahead!"

Thus adjured, Chloe said:

"Some of the girls in Florida do such lovely needlework, you have no
idea."

The Duke raised one eyebrow to a level with his side parting.

"Lovely needlework! That's a funny beginning for a Pink un. Well?"

"Yes; but they do indeed. They sit all day in the sun and——"

"Damned silly girls! Spoil their complexions! They should go into the
shade, eh! What—what?"

"I knew a grisette once who lived on a fourth floor in the Rue des
Martyres," began Mr. Ingerstall in the distance; but nobody heeded him,
and he relapsed passionately into his former moody silence.

"They sit in the sun and work hard for their living," continued Chloe,
trying to look rakish without losing self-respect.

"Deuced tiresome to keep on working hard for one's living in the sun,
eh, Rodney?" cried his Grace.

"I confess I should prefer to be under the trees, Duke—I confess that
frankly," said the owner of Mitching Dean with unnecessary earnestness.

"Well, go on, Van Adam," said the Duke, expectant of some spicy
development in this apparently unpromising plot—"they work for their
living in the sun. Well?"

"Well—er—well, that's all," said Chloe, rather crestfallen.

The Duke's jaw fell several inches.

"All! Oh, come, I say, hang it, you're pulling all our legs!"

"Pulling all your—oh, indeed, I'm not! Why should I do such a thing? I
do assure you, Duke——"

"But, hang it, your story'd do for a school treat or a grandmothers'
meeting. That's not the sort of thing Rodney cares for—eh, Rodney?"
and his Grace was good enough to dig the owner of Mitching Dean in his
eminently respectable ribs. Mr. Rodney started, and broke the frail
back of the small chair on which he was sitting. "Smashing up the
furniture now, after trying to set the whole place on fire," cried the
Duke, just as Mr. Harrison was in course of stealing back cautiously to
his lair among the organ-pedals.

The groom of the chambers heard the sentence with bristling horror,
and immediately made off once more to the telephone, through which he
proceeded to deliver the following remarks to the fishing-cottage:

"After setting fire to the 'ouse—oh, most decidedly, sir!—Mr. Rodney
is now smashing up of Mrs. Lite's own particular chairs—oh, indeed!
And the Duke, ma'am, is splitting his sides with laughture while he
done it. I am keeping an eye on him according to your instructions,
sir, and to my latest breath will do so, though what will become of us
all, ma'am, is more than anyone can say—oh, indeed, I do assure you on
every account whatever!"

On hearing this peaceful catalogue of facts, the Emperor and Empress
engaged Mr. Harrison in animated conversation for the space of perhaps
an hour and a half, during which time events were moving forward in the
palace with some rapidity. In answer to the Duke, Mr. Rodney forced a
ghastly smile, and answered hoarsely:

"An accident! merely an unlucky accident, Duke! I shall make it good to
Mr. Lite."

"If you don't he'll probably skin you," said his Grace. "He's so
tetchy."

"Oh, really," rejoined Mr. Rodney, looking much upset—"really, I
should not submit for a moment to any indignity of that nature."

"Well, I daresay even a moment of being flayed would inconvenience a
chap. But come, give us a Limerick. Cheer us up now! Give us a good
Limerick. You must know thousands."

"I assure you I do not. I have never been in Ireland."

The Duke burst out into a mirthless laugh.

"Well, upon my—what's Ireland got to do with it?"

"Everything, I should suppose," returned Mr. Rodney, trembling with
nervous exhaustion, but trying to look dignified. "Where are you going,
Van Adam?"

"Bed," said Chloe, endeavouring to vanish.

"Bed be damned!" remarked the Duke. "I never saw such fellows for a
carouse. Bed at ten!"

"It is past eleven," said Chloe uncomfortably, while Mr. Rodney looked
eaten up with suspicion.

"Well, what if it is?" exclaimed the Duke. "Does America go to bed at
seven?"

"Oh, I don't say that——"

"I should imagine not. Anyone would think we were a lot of damned old
women. Here, pour some whisky down your throat and look jolly."

Chloe obeyed the first command but not the second. Mr. Ingerstall, at
this point in the carouse, bounced up from his chair, muttered some
French oaths, and suddenly tore upstairs.

"There's another cheery soul!" said the Duke after him. "We might all
as well be Sunday-school teachers at a Methodist funeral at once."

He was proceeding to various other comparisons of a like innocent and
respectable nature, when the air was rent by an exceeding loud uproar.
Mr. Rodney caught hold of the sides of his chair and cried, "What's
that?"

The Duke looked hastily at the organ and Chloe apprehensively at the
ceiling. The uproar was repeated, and then they became aware that it
came from the nose of the paragon, and signified that he was resting.

"Oh, it's only Mr.—it's only Bush asleep," said Chloe.

"Asleep!" said the Duke, with a bitter sneer.

He felt convinced that the paragon's snores were merely a blind to
deceive a doting husband. The demon in human form was doubtless wide
awake, perhaps conceiving some diabolical plot beneath this theatrical
travesty of the gentle music of slumber.

"He sleeps very loud," said Mr. Rodney—"for decent society."

"He does sleep very loud," said the Duke. Then, lowering his voice, he
hummed into Mr. Rodney's ear: "Does anything occur to you, Rodney?"

"I beg your pardon, Duke?" said Mr. Rodney.

"I say, does anything occur to you with regard to it?"

"With regard to what?"

"This damned uproarious sleep?"

"No," said Mr. Rodney. "Nothing at all. Why, what should occur to me?"

"Oh, Lord! I don't know," said the Duke, with keen irritation and
contempt. "I don't know."

He released the owner of Mitching Dean, and, looking round, exclaimed:
"Why, where the deuce is Van Adam?"

Mr. Rodney gazed wildly in every conceivable direction.

"He's gone!" he cried on a piercing note. "He's——"

In his turn he bent down to the Duke and whispered excitedly, "Does
anything occur to _you_, Duke?"

"Eh?"

"I say, does anything occur to you?"

And Mr. Rodney crouched over him, looking far more surreptitious and
knowing than Guy Fawkes.

"What about?"

"About Van Adam's sudden going to bed in this strange manner?"
whispered Mr. Rodney.

"No, except that he's like some damned old woman. What should occur?"

"Oh dear, nothing, nothing at all!" cried Mr. Rodney petulantly.
"I—I——Good night!"

And he suddenly hastened upstairs four steps at a time, displaying the
activity of a wild-cat and the excitement of a van-load of monkeys.

"Well, of all the snivelling, psalm-singing, nonconformist, Salvation
Army sets of fellows that ever I met in my life," said the Duke
irrelevantly, "this one takes the——"

He paused, and sat for a moment listening to the wild symphony of the
paragon, who was sunk deep in his armchair with his huge head plunged
upon his chest.

"That fellow's as broad awake as I am," muttered the Duke to himself,
"and broader! But I'll be even with him, crafty as he is!"

He got up softly, went to the swing-door that led to the detectives'
quarters, put his head through it and hissed, "Bliggins!"

Bliggins appeared, wiping curry, trifle and champagne from his startled
features. The Duke beckoned to him and jerked his chin upwards.

Bliggins approached, assuming his hungry look.

"D'you hear that?" the Duke whispered.

"Which, sir?"

"Which! I told you to be dumb, not deaf! Which! That!"

The paragon snored.

"Yes, sir. Which of 'em is playing the organ, sir?"

"The organ, you fool! It's the red-bearded villain pretending to be
asleep."

"He pretends awful noisy, sir!"

"Yes; he over-does it. He's no artist, deep as he is. Now listen to me.
Go and turn out the lights. Then come back here and watch. If he stops
snoring, crawl up the backstairs to the chocolate room, and let me know
immediately. You understand?"

"I do, sir."

"Very well, not a word."

The Duke retreated up the main staircase on tiptoe, while Mr. Bliggins
proceeded to turn out the lights and leave the paragon in total
darkness.

Although night is the time for sleep, and is usually, in country
places, dedicated to that delightful occupation, circumstances induced
a good many people to sit up in the palace during the hours of
darkness, to listen with a strained attention for any nocturnal sound.
Mr. Harrison, as we know, was busy at the telephone, explaining to his
Emperor that the palace was being set on fire and the furniture reduced
to matchwood by the owner of Mitching Dean. Mr. Bliggins crouched like
a tiger behind the swing-door, solacing himself with a parcel of curry
which he had hastily ravished from the detectives' supper-table and
wrapped in a sheet of brown paper convenient for the pocket. The Duke
sat with his ear to the keyhole of the chocolate bedroom. The Duchess,
who was located in the grey bedroom, was on the alert in a majestic
early Victorian dressing-gown with her hair in curl-papers, to which
she still faithfully adhered, despite the changing fashions of an age
of tongs and pins. Her Grace was determined Mrs. Verulam should make
no expedition, hold no colloquy with the orange-grower unobserved,
uninterrupted. Mrs. Verulam was frantically writing a note to Chloe,
while the faithful Marriner stood by ready to convey it with all speed
and caution to that deception's apartment. As to Mr. Rodney, he had
turned out all the lights in his room, set the door ajar and removed
his pumps, and now sat in his slippered feet and dense darkness waiting
for he knew not what. Only he was confident that something was up, that
Mrs. Verulam and Chloe were desirous of communicating with each other,
and that they would probably endeavour to do so under cover of night.

Upon the cupolas of the palace meanwhile the rain dripped steadily, and
in the mighty hall below the paragon snored on, as the Duke supposed,
in violently pretended slumber. Soon after Chloe had gained her room,
Mr. Rodney heard a gentle rustle near his door.

"Who's there?" he called, in a trembling voice.

He was answered by a slight soprano scream and a sudden violent
scrambling, as the faithful Marriner on terror-stricken feet gained
Chloe's room, into which she cast a note before fleeing in a frenzied
manner to her virgin chamber in an upper storey. The note hit Chloe,
who was at the writing-table, in the eye. She uttered an ejaculation of
surprise, then controlled herself, and tore it open.

 "We must meet to-night," it ran. "Wait till all is quiet, then steal
 down in the dark to the hall, and meet me there. Do not light a
 candle, as I think the Duchess is probably on the look-out, full of
 horrible suspicions. I have extraordinary news to communicate.

 "Daisy."

"When all is quiet," murmured Chloe to herself. "And I, too, have
extraordinary news to communicate."

She sat waiting in a smoking-coat and a pair of Moorish slippers till
the psychological moment should arrive. The minutes wore on in their
usual weary manner on such occasions. The wind sighed against the
casement, announcing the fact that it was an inclement night. Several
times the Duke had crawled to the balustrade of the staircase, and
heard that the paragon was still pretending to be asleep. Several times
Mr. Rodney had said, "Who's there?" without result. Several times
had the Duchess torn her curl-papers in a fury of anger against Mrs.
Verulam, and folded the early Victorian dressing-gown more firmly round
her ample form, anticipating the time of action. But nothing happened.
Both Mrs. Verulam and Chloe, overwhelmed with prudence, prolonged their
vigil, dreading to come forth before the inmates of the palace were
duly plunged in sleep. At length the Duke dropped into a nap with his
ear to the keyhole. Mr. Rodney's slippered feet grew cold, and he lay
down for an instant between the blankets just to get them warm and keep
his rheumatic fever a little quiet. Mr. Bliggins, having finished the
whole of his parcel of curry, retired for a second from his post to put
some trifle up in paper and lay hold of a magnum of champagne. And the
Duchess nodded her head at nothing, and endeavoured to contend with the
trooping dreams that thronged about her weary brain. Then Mrs. Verulam
stole forth upon the landing, holding in one hand an unlighted bedroom
candle, and keeping her draperies quiet with the other. Feeling her
way, and suffering many things from walls and balusters, she softly
descended the staircase to the hall in which Mr. Bush still sat,
although, attacked by a nightmare that paralysed all his faculties,
he had for the moment ceased to snore. Reaching the hall, she paused
and listened. She heard no noise except a patter of the rain on some
distant cupola. But suddenly a cold hand grasped her.

"Oh!" she cried.

"Be quiet, Daisy!" said Chloe's voice. "It's only me. They're all
asleep. Don't wake them."

"I thought it was a ghost!" gasped Mrs. Verulam convulsively. "Oh dear,
I should like to cry!"

"There isn't time. I've got dreadful things to whisper. Can't we sit
down?"

She felt cautiously for a seat.

"Here's a—no, it's an umbrella-stand, we can't sit on that."

"There's something comfortable here," whispered Mrs. Verulam, and she
sank down gently on a large cactus in a porcelain tub.

Her resurrection was instant, and was accompanied by a strangled wail
that reached the ears of the nodding Duchess. Her Grace started,
grasped the curl-papers in a frenzied manner, and tried to recall who
she was and what she was doing. This took time, and meanwhile Mrs.
Verulam and Chloe had at last found a large armchair, in which they
both gingerly ensconced themselves.

"Now," whispered Mrs. Verulam, "I must tell you——"

"And I you, that——"

"Mr. Rodney has heard from Lord Bernard Roche. Don't pinch me. Oh! oh!"

"Lord Bernard! What does he say? Tell me, tell me quickly!"

"That Husk—that your husband is on his way to England to——"

"I know; only he's not on his way—he's here."

"Here! what do you mean?"

"What I say. Yillick wired it. You saw the telegram. He came by the
_Arethusa_, and he's here."

"Not at Ribton Marches? Mercy! Let us go back to our rooms! Oh, why——"

"No, no, but in Berkshire. He may come to Ascot at any moment. What
must I do?"

"Do you want to marry him again?"

"Marry! Daisy! What _do_ you mean?"

"Well, you know, he wants to marry you. That's why he has come. If you
pinch me, I must and will shriek out!"

And she struggled vehemently between Chloe's suddenly clutching hands.

"What do you mean? You shall tell me! I will tear it out of you!"

"Help! help!"

"Be quiet! You'll wake the whole house!"

"I don't care if I do! I won't be murdered without a——"

"There, then! Now be quiet. Marry me again! Huskinson marry me again!"

"Lord Bernard said in his letter to Mr. Rodney that he sailed for
England on purpose to do it. He's discovered that you never—Bream, you
know. The Crackers have acknowledged they perjured themselves. What are
you doing, Chloe? What——"

She listened to a curious little emotional sound that stirred the
blackness in Chloe's direction. It was of a gurgling nature, not
exactly laughter, not precisely weeping, yet partaking of the nature
of both; intense excitement, it seemed, expressing itself in an
inarticulate, but irresistible, music. It went on for about two
minutes, and then Chloe pinched Mrs. Verulam again with all her might
and main in silence. Mrs. Verulam's whispered reply to this fresh
assault was: "I always thought so, Chloe. You could not deceive me."

"Nonsense! It isn't true!"

"But you can't re-marry him in trousers!"

"Oh, don't—don't! I shall take them off! Of course—of course I shall
take them off!"

"Yes. But if you do that, what is to happen to me?"

"You!"

"Yes. Remember I exist."

A kiss from Chloe was the ecstatic reply to this protest—a kiss
vehement, genuine, and rather loud. It was heard by an early Victorian
dressing-gown, which spent the next few minutes in trying to locate it.

"Dear! I'm so glad—for you. But—but it's all very complicated, Chloe."

"Well, but I've done my work. I've saved you from society. Lady Sage
has cut you publicly, and all your friends will follow suit. So you're
all right now, dear."

"Yes, I'm all right now," said Mrs. Verulam in a most dreary and
doleful whisper; "I'm all right now."

"Then I must disappear—to some place where I can change my trousers
quietly, some place remote, deserted. Oh, Daisy, how I shall always
love that place!"

"And give up society?"

"I don't care now. I feel as you do."

"As I do?"

"Yes, that it is hollow, meretricious, morbid, vulgar, empty, futile,
lying, slanderous, loveless, greedy, vain, hid——"

"Oh, stop! It sounds like 'How the water comes down at Lodore.' I never
said all that."

"You said most of it, and you were right. I would rather take off
these trousers and—and—well, you know—Huskinson, than consort with
archduchesses for the rest of my natural life."

"Oh, archduchesses—yes," said Mrs. Verulam, rather doubtfully.
"Viennese society is so very stiff and conventional."

"Love is the only thing," continued Chloe, once more passionately
pinching her friend. "You are right."

"Did I say so?"

"Daisy! Why, about Bungay and Mr. Bush! Why, when you first saw him in
his meat-safe, you——"

"Yes, yes, I remember. But I daresay it wasn't really a meat-safe,
though it was very like one." She started, as if struck by a sudden
idea. "Bungay!" she cried, in an excited whisper. "Bungay! your
trousers. The very place!"

"Bungay, my trousers! What do you mean? Surely it would spoil them!"

"Listen! You want to change them, don't you?"

"Yes, yes, as soon as possible."

"In a quiet, sweet place, full of roses, the hum of bees, the——"

"I don't know that the hum of bees is actually necessary. I might
manage without that."

"And I—I am weary of it all. I am sick of being cut and
cold-shouldered."

"Already? I thought you enjoyed it."

"Yes, just at first. But now I want to get out of it all. I can't go to
the races to-morrow."

"Nor can I. Huskinson may be there. And if he saw me in—well, I should
just expire!"

"And the Duchess is going to cut me, too, as soon as the week is over.
I have no social duty towards her now. I have no social duty to anyone.
Chloe, let us go! Let us creep away!"

"Creep! Where to?"

"To Bungay. There must be cots there; we will take one."

"A cot? What's that?"

"A thing that is smaller than a cottage. We will bury ourselves——"

"Creep away and bury ourselves—it sounds rather earthy."

"You shall change your trousers. I will dream, work, learn the true
life; _he_ shall teach me."

"James Bush?"

"Yes. Let us go."

"When?"

"Now."

"Is there a train at one o'clock in the morning?"

"It is not far, I think; only some miles."

"Some—yes; but how many? Two or twenty?"

"It is in this county somewhere. We will find it."

"I hope so."

"I shall leave a note, saying—er——"

"What lie?"

"That I am called to the sick-bed of a dear mother."

"But Lady Sophia's quite well."

"Of a dying sis—no; I haven't got one—a dying relative. Everybody has
a dying relative, so that will do. Oh, to be away in the free air!"

"The free air's very cold on a wet night."

"Are you a coward, Chloe?"

"I! No!" cried Chloe in a violent whisper. "I'll go now—this instant.
A coward—never!"

"Then away—away!"

"Yes—yes; away!"

At the third "away" Mr. Bush emerged from his nightmare and renewed his
vociferous snoring. Mrs. Verulam and Chloe started and trembled.

"What's that?" said Mrs. Verulam. "Oh! is it a ghost?"

"It sounds like something horrible! Oh, and there's a light flickering!
Daisy—Daisy, let us run!"

And they ran, just as the Duchess, with bristling curl-papers and a
night-light shrouded in a fragment of the Times newspaper, appeared
cautiously at the head of the stairs, the early Victorian dressing-gown
streaming out behind her in a majestic and terror-striking manner.
Her Grace had heard the impact of Chloe's kiss, followed by the sound
of excited whisperings, which she had finally located as emanating
from the baronial hall. Listening with a strained attention, and eyes
becoming far more prominent than those of the average lobster, she had
presently arrived at the awful certainty that the whispering voices
belonged to her hostess and the orange-grower. She therefore fell into
a paroxysm of respectable fury, and, catching up the night-light,
proceeded forth to confront wickedness in its very lair, and force it
to acknowledge itself and to receive a terrible castigation. Unluckily,
the premature snores of the paragon had served as a warning of her
approach by distracting the attention of Mrs. Verulam and Chloe from
their own engrossing concerns; and consequently, before the Duchess had
time to miss her footing, and, stumbling in the labyrinth of the early
Victorian dressing-gown, to fall, and, bounding from step to step of
the Emperor's expensive staircase, to roll, night-light in hand, into
the baronial hall, they were well away among the winter gardens, out of
hearing and almost beyond the reach of pursuit.

The noise of her Grace's close intercourse with the Emperor's oak and
Parian marble not only disturbed the rest of the paragon—which was
perfectly genuine, despite the suspicions of the Duke—but attracted
the painful attention of the owner of Mitching Dean in the green,
and of his Grace in the chocolate, bedroom. Mr. Rodney trembled in a
nervous paroxysm, and the perspiration, as was its custom, stood in
beads upon his narrow brow. The Duke, who had been napping, sprang
up, lit a candle after about eight-and-twenty attempts, seized the
nearest weapon at hand—a cat's-eye breast-pin, with diamond strawberry
leaves, and the Southborough crest, a sheep's head rouge in the cup
of a tulip noir—and made forth upon the landing like one distraught,
exactly as his Duchess rolled to the very feet of the paragon, covered
with bruises and abrasions, the night-light extinguished in her fist.
Feeling in agony for something to stay her barrel-like progress,
her Grace grasped Mr. Bush in the dark, and he, suddenly waked from
sleep, and perhaps under some such impression as that he was beset by
stranglers or attended by phantoms, grappled her in return, greatly
to her terror. She screamed; he grappled all the more. And the Duke,
staring wildly over the balustrade, beheld a picture that might well
shake the faith of the most trusting husband in Christendom—at any
rate, it shook his to its foundations. He protruded the candle over the
balustrade, and roared in a voice of thunder:

"I've caught you at last, have I?"

The question rang through the hall. The paragon heard it, and perceived
the fierce and frenzied countenance of his Grace, then, gazing
downwards, beheld the Duchess in a dressing-gown kneeling at his feet.
This was enough. Under the notion that he must have made an impression
on her Grace, and that the Duke was about to take vengeance on the
guiltless as well as on the guilty party, he cast the Duchess off and
fled he knew not whither.

"You shall not escape me!" shrieked the Duke. "Your blood—I'll have
it!"

And leaping down the remaining stairs, he jumped the Duchess cleverly,
and tore after the paragon with the fixed intention of taking it there
and then. The Duchess fled in an opposite direction just as Miss
Bindler, who had been waked by all this noise and movement, opened
her bedroom door and, suspecting cracksmen, emptied six chambers of
her pocket-revolver over the landing into the hall, at the same time
remarking:

"This sort of thing won't do; it's time someone taught these fellows a
lesson."

Although the Bun Emperor's palace was exceedingly large, it now
contained so many people in full flight that there was some slight
danger of their knocking up against one another. Mrs. Verulam and
Chloe, Mr. James Bush, the Duke and the Duchess, were all stretching
away at full speed in various directions, and to their number were
shortly added Mr. Harrison, Mr. Bliggins, and the owner of Mitching
Dean. The groom of the chambers was disturbed in his operations at the
telephone by being knocked down just as he was saying to the Emperor:

"Oh, most certainly, sir; you may rely on me, and Mrs. Lite, to my
latest breath—oh, indeed! I know I am, sir—I know I am responsible;
and if so much as the house is set afire, or the furniture is broke to
pieces, I shall——"

At this point in his discourse the paragon ran against him like a
charging elephant, and laid him low; and while he was engaged in
endeavouring to get up, the Duke fell over him, and the noise of Miss
Bindler's six shots rang through the palace. Mr. Harrison sat up, and
the Duke began to strangle him, while Mr. Rodney, terrified by Miss
Bindler's behaviour, tore out of the green bedroom, and rushed to the
detectives' quarters, crying in a piercing voice:

"Save yourselves! All is over! Save yourselves!"

Four of the detectives were so fast asleep that they took no manner of
notice of this kindly warning; but Mr. Bliggins, dropping his paper
of trifle and tipsy-cake, and letting his magnum fall with a crash,
took to his heels, and, after making the entire circuit of the palace
about eighty-five times at the top of his speed, plunged head-foremost
through a plate-glass window, emerged into the domain, and never
stopped till he reached London, where he at once took up another
profession.

Mr. Harrison was not of a temper to be strangled, even by a Duke,
without making some show of opposition; and on this occasion he exerted
himself to such good purpose that, after about ten minutes of acute
struggling, during which the fortunes of war sometimes inclined to one
side and sometimes to the other, he succeeded in extricating his throat
from his Grace's claws, when, wailing at the top of his voice, he
flapped off into the darkness, and was no more seen. This misadventure
had given the paragon such a start that he gained his bedroom in
safety, turned the key eight or nine times in the lock, and then began
tying the bed-sheets together with a view to instantly escaping to
Bungay by the window. The sheets were, however, too short, and he was
forced to desist from this attempt. Meanwhile the Duke, believing that
he had very nearly killed Mr. Bush, who had probably only escaped
for the moment to die a lingering death in some distant corner of
the palace, got up and hurried away to Mr. Rodney's room, which he
reached just as the owner of Mitching Dean darted back into it, and was
preparing to shut the door on imaginary murderers.

"Don't dare to enter!" cried Mr. Rodney, struggling to bang the door on
the Duke. "I shall certainly kill the first man who enters!"

He meant that the first man who entered would certainly kill him, but
that was his way of putting it.

"Rodney! Rodney!" cried his Grace. "Let me in, Rodney—let me in!"

"If I sell my life, I'll sell it dearly!" replied Mr. Rodney. "I will
not be slain without a struggle."

And he elongated himself against the swaying door, while Miss Bindler,
with rapid precision, reloaded her revolver in the adjoining bedroom,
and the Duchess tore through Winter Garden No. 3.

"Rodney, don't be a fool! Don't be an ass, Rodney!"

"I will! Nothing shall prevent me—nothing on earth! I will! I will!"
replied the owner of Mitching Dean, with an attempt at manly decision
of manner.

But the Duke was desperate, and was also very much stronger physically
than Mr. Rodney. He therefore burst in the door, and added:

"Rodney, you must act for me in this affair—I insist upon it; I
require it of you. Rodney, you must act for me in this affair."

The owner of Mitching Dean, who was busily engaged in trying to get
under the bed before his visitor had time to slay him, made no reply to
this demand, unless the putting of his head and nearly half his trunk
into hiding could be called so. But the Duke had laid aside all sense
of his great position, and now pointed his remarks, and endeavoured
to convey a sense of their real urgency, by seizing fast hold of Mr.
Rodney's left leg, and trying with might and main to eject him from the
position which he had taken up.

"I will die here! I will not be killed in the open! I will die here!"
cried Mr. Rodney in a suffocated voice, passionately endeavouring to
force some more of his person beneath the tester.

"You'll die where I choose!" retorted his Grace, losing his temper and
commencing to handle the unfortunate gentleman rather roughly. "Come
out of it!"

"No, no; I will not come out! I will die here!" shrieked Mr. Rodney,
while Miss Bindler emerged once more upon the landing, and again
started firing about the palace.

"Come out you shall!" shouted the Duke, and he acted with such vigour
that in something less than ten minutes he had forced Mr. Rodney from
his cover and dragged him, smothered with dust and pale with terror,
into the open.

"Do it mercifully! For Heaven's sake, kill me without hurting me!"
began the owner of Mitching Dean, looking at his Grace with eyes that
had retreated far into his head. "What—you, Duke! I thought you were
one of my oldest and most valued—you to fly at me like——"

"Rodney, you're an ass! You're a fool, Rodney! But, all the same, you
must act for me in this affair."

Mr. Rodney, beginning to gather that his slaughter was not so imminent
as he had previously supposed, now endeavoured to assume an air of
dignity.

"Duke, this is strange language," he began stiffly.

"Damned strange! and so's it strange your getting under the bed
directly I try to speak to you. Sit down."

And the Duke thrust the owner of Mitching Dean into a sitting posture
upon the bed, closed the door, turned the key in the lock, returned
to Mr. Rodney—who had meanwhile again gone very pale, suspecting
treachery—and remarked:

"Rodney, I've just been trying to strangle that fellow Bush!"

This was scarcely reassuring, but Mr. Rodney forced a tortured smile,
and stammered, with white lips:

"Did you—did you succeed—in doing so, Duke?"

"Only partially, Rodney—only partially, I fear," returned his Grace.
"He managed to get away from me."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, just as I was on the point of choking the life out of him."

"What—what a pity!" gasped Mr. Rodney in a humouring tone.

The Duke grasped his trembling hand.

"You're a good fellow, Rodney!" he exclaimed. "I knew I could rely on
you."

"Oh, certainly, Duke, certainly. Rely on me, pray!"

"I will. Then you will act for me in this affair?"

"Yes, yes, with the greatest pleasure!" cried Mr. Rodney, feebly
temporising.

"Thank you! You're a man, after all! We'll kill him yet, between us!"

Mr. Rodney gasped. Still, he preferred the _rôle_ of murderer to the
_rôle_ of dead body, on the whole. He therefore thought it best to
reply:

"I hope so—I sincerely hope so."

"My belief is this," continued the Duke, knitting his brows
ferociously, "that the fellow is already more than half dead."

"Dear me!"

"Although he had sufficient strength left to crawl away and hide
himself—Heaven knows where."

"Oh!"

"Either he'll die in some attic or basement, under a pump, or in a sink
or somewhere, like the rat he is, or he'll break out of the place and
make a bee-line for Bungay. In that event, we shall follow him directly
it's dawn."

"Quite so, Duke—quite so!"

"Force a duel on him then and there, and shoot him like a dog in his
own damned cabbage-garden!"

"An excellent plan—excellent!" cried Mr. Rodney, trembling in the
absolute conviction that the Duke was raving mad. "How—how clever of
you to think of it!"

"This sort of business makes a man think," said the Duke moodily.

"It does—it does, indeed!" murmured Mr. Rodney, who had, perhaps,
thought more during the last fifteen minutes than in the whole course
of his previous life.

"Very well, then," said the Duke; "then that's settled?"

"Quite—absolutely!"

"Don't you play me false!"

"Oh, Duke! Could you suppose such a thing possible?" cried Mr. Rodney,
assuming an injured air.

"I shall search for the fellow first. If I find him still here, I'll
finish killing him now. If not, you and I start for Bungay as soon as
it's dawn. That's the bargain?"

"That is the bargain."

"Wait here, then, till I come back."

And his Grace left the room, carrying the door-key with him in an
absent-minded manner. Mr. Rodney remained sitting on the bed in a
convulsed attitude, staring at nothing. He had, of course, intended
to lock and double-lock the door after the Duke's exit. Precluded
from taking this simple measure of precaution, he was reduced to a
jelly, and, as such, was naturally incapable of movement. He therefore
remained where he was, and when his Grace, after a considerable
interval, returned to the room, he found the gentleman who was to act
for him in this affair still crouched in a heap upon the mattress, and
looking far more dead than most ordinary living people can manage.

"Rodney," said the Duke, "he's gone! He's got away!"

Mr. Rodney nodded. He was incapable of speech.

"We shall follow him as soon as it's dawn. Get your coat and hat."

"I—I beg your pardon?"

"Get your coat and hat."

Mr. Rodney began to look for those articles in the tooth-brush dish.
Not finding them there, he again collapsed, perhaps from surprise. The
Duke, seeing his condition, rummaged in the wardrobe, produced his
Ascot silk hat and a travelling ulster, handed them to him, and then
remarked:

"Now follow me. We shall spend the rest of the night in my room
considering the best course to take—pistols or swords—and directly
it's light we'll break into the stables, saddle a couple of horses with
our own hands, and ride across country to Bungay. I've got a map of the
district. We shall go as the crow flies."

"As the crow flies!" murmured Mr. Rodney, imbecile in the presence
of this delightful programme: a few hours with a maniac, succeeded
by horse-stealing, and continuing with twenty or thirty miles across
a difficult country in a top-hat, the whole to conclude with a
cold-blooded murder in a marsh. However, he followed the Duke with
tottering steps, and a tongue which clave to the roof of his mouth.

Meanwhile the paragon had indeed escaped from the palace. After finding
that it was impossible to swarm down the sheets, Mr. Bush took counsel
with himself and resolved to dare all in the effort to reach a place
of safety beyond the vengeance of the Duke. He therefore, choosing a
moment when Miss Bindler was engaged in reloading her burglar-destroyer
for the third time, stole forth from his bedroom and gained the
baronial hall unobserved. Once there, he, with cautious hand, proceeded
to unbar the mighty front door, and found himself presently facing a
wild night. The wind was getting up. The rain was coming down. The
darkness was intense. He hesitated. But death was behind him, and he
resolved to go. Only for one instant did he stay to catch up from the
hall-table a bottle of whisky and a box of cigars, provender for the
journey. In justice to him, it must here be stated that he had no time
to notice that the whisky bottle was of silver, engraved with the
Emperor's crest, a bun couchant on a plate d'or, and that the cigar-box
happened by some oversight to be made of gold set with turquoises, and
surrounded by a legend setting forth that it was presented to Mr. Lite
by the Bun-makers' Company as a mark of their "affection and regard."
Laden thus, the paragon disappeared into the darkness, made his way to
the stables, by a fortunate chance ran across a shed in which the head
coachman—a venerable and a very heavy man—stabled his own private
tricycle, and by the time the Duke was searching for him in the sink,
was tricycling at a good round pace along the highroad that led to
Bungay. He flattered himself that his exit had been unnoticed. It had,
however, been observed by two people, the Duchess, who was at that
moment fleeing through an adjoining boudoir, and Mr. Harrison, who
was running away in a contiguous winter garden. Now, the groom of the
chambers had a stern sense of duty, which did not entirely desert him
even when he was trying to escape from being strangled. He therefore
stayed his flight to inform the Emperor that the paragon had just made
off, loaded with gold and silver, presentation caskets, and other
costly treasure, and then continued running away until his strength was
totally exhausted.




CHAPTER XVII.

THE TRUE LIFE.


As the first pale streak of dawn rose over the peaceful marshes of
Bungay, and touched with palest rose the thatched eaves of the Farm,
Mr. Jacob Minnidick, as was his custom, arose cursing and swearing from
his truckle bed. Mr. Minnidick possessed a temperament which displayed
itself chiefly in personal abuse, and he was quite as ready to direct
this abuse against Nature as against man. Indeed, he was accustomed
to treat the weather as his deliberate enemy, the sun or rain as full
of a spite against him, the very earth itself as emphatically hostile
to him, emphatically set on "getting at him" so far as Providence
permitted.

"Darn it!" remarked Mr. Minnidick, putting on a stocking with a hole in
it. "Darn it all, I say!"

And he proceeded to make a sketchy toilet of a rather corduroy nature,
after which he walked to the narrow window and looked forth across the
marshes. The grass was saturated with rain. Mr. Minnidick viewed it
with sour disfavour.

"A deal of good it'll do us," he muttered. "Didn't I 'ave to drain
the water off only yesterday, and the three-feet-sixer choked up, as I
allers knew 'twould be? Darn the rain, I say!"

He shook a gnarled old fist at it out of the window, and heavily
descended the narrow stairs.

Some threescore and ten summers had passed over Mr. Minnidick's head,
and been darned by him, since he was born, yet still he laboured on
as Mr. Bush's assistant in the grand, true life aimed at by Mrs.
Verulam. His small and thin form was duly bent with years. His legs
were bowed. His scanty grey hair fell adown his stooping shoulders,
and his nut-cracker mouth, fallen in, moved incessantly as if he were
trying to masticate invisible food. In fact, he lived up to his name
and calling most thoroughly, and would have looked quite realistic in
an Adelphi hay-field or Drury Lane cabbage scene. Emerging now into the
garden, he glanced angrily around from under his shaggy eyebrows. He
beheld a flat plot of ground bounded by tough hedges, in one of which
stood a wicket-gate. There were beds of flowers, small paths, a thicket
of trees, and a vegetable domain adorned with melon and cucumber
frames against a moss-grown wall. Cherries were being forced in pots;
beehives stood about; an old-fashioned brick flue had been turned into
accommodation for some mysterious fruit; a small brick house, about as
big as a loose-box with a roof to it, and devoid of windows, sheltered
a pit in which mushroom-spawn was germinating in dense darkness and
dull heat. Elsewhere stood two or three rather ramshackle outhouses.
The Farm itself was a small and plain building, with narrow windows
almost blinded with creepers, a door in the middle, and protruding
eaves like Mr. Minnidick's eyebrows. Flattish land stretched away to
the horizon on every side, steaming now in the gathering light of the
morning. Mr. Minnidick surveyed this prospect and continued:

"Darn it all, I say!"

This sentence had been his morning hymn of praise for more than half a
century, and it was quite certain that he would only cease to uplift
it with the coming of death. His matins completed, Mr. Minnidick took
his way to one of the outhouses, making a slight detour on the journey
to glance at some marl and a pet manure tank, and, selecting from
various implements a favourite hoe, and an enormous spade, returned to
the kitchen-garden, prepared his hands for labour in the usual manner,
and began performing various mysterious rites among the cabbages,
peas, potatoes and other vegetables with which Mr. Bush's estate was
liberally endowed. Now and then he desisted from labour for a moment,
and on these occasions he invariably looked towards the wicket-gate and
muttered, "He's a beauty—darn 'im!" a statement which seemed to bring
with it great satisfaction, and to cause a certain amount of exultation
in Mr. Minnidick's earnest and retiring soul. Towards seven o'clock,
as Mr. Minnidick was looking towards the gate for the twentieth or so
time, and was in the very act of opening his purse-like mouth in his
age-honoured and terse remark, there appeared before him a vision that
seemed to fill him with amazement. For he dropped the favourite hoe
among some sprouts, set his hands over his eyes, let fall his lower
jaw, and stared as one that sees a ghost.

"Darn it all!" he murmured. "If it ain't 'im aback a'ready! Darn it
all, I say!"

"'Im" signified the paragon, who had indeed at that very instant ridden
up to the gate on the Emperor's head coachman's tricycle, and who now
dismounted therefrom with much groaning, and walked unsteadily into the
garden, the pockets of his coat bulging with the silver whisky-bottle
and the gold presentation cigar-box. He approached the sprouts among
which his retainer was standing, and gave the latter a sulky nod of
the head, to which Mr. Minnidick returned a nod that was, if possible,
sulkier.

"How's the vegs?" mumbled Mr. Bush.

"Mortial spoilt by rain—darn 'em!" replied Mr. Minnidick. "Mortial
spoilt."

And he stared harder than ever at Mr. Bush, whose saturated evening
costume was now beginning to steam in the sun.

"What's brought ye back s' soon?" he enquired.

The paragon shuffled his feet.

"What's that to yer?" he replied. "Why don't yer get to hoein'?"

Mr. Minnidick munched and swallowed nothing with considerable vehemence
for some minutes, and then he said with excruciating bitterness:

"Why don't ye git to them as drew ye from hoein'?"

"Shut yer head, I've done with 'em," said the paragon.

"Oh, I dessay," returned Mr. Minnidick, with aggravated grievousness,
"I dessay, but where's the garding been while ye was with 'em? Who's
seen arter the mushrims? Who's a-cared for them there mellings? Who's
been a-watchin' of the cowcumbers? Lawks-a-mussy! Darn it all, I say!"

Mr. Bush deigned no reply to these passionate questions, but proceeded
heavily into the house, from which he presently emerged, clad in more
suitable raiment, still loaded with the Emperor's gold and silver, and
in the act of swallowing a mighty hunch of home-made bread. Without
making any further remark, he laid hold of a spade and began to dig
in gloomy silence, while Mr. Minnidick went on hoeing and muttering
angrily to himself. How long these pastoral occupations would have
continued in ordinary circumstances, it is impossible to say. They
might, perhaps, have been protracted till full noontide, had not a
sound of horses galloping in the adjacent lane suddenly attracted the
attention of the paragon, who rested upon his spade, scratched his huge
head, and began to look rather uneasy.

"Whatever's that?" he muttered.

"'Osses," replied Mr. Minnidick. "A-runnin' away, darn 'em!"

It really seemed as if there were something in this remark, for the
noise upon the highway proclaimed that the animals were approaching at
a tremendous pace, and would soon be in view of the diligent gardeners.
Scarcely had Mr. Minnidick made his last statement, when Mr. Bush went
through a somewhat remarkable performance. He dropped his spade, and
cast himself down on the earth upon his face, at the same time shouting
to Mr. Minnidick:

"Stand before me! Cover me up! Throw sprouts on me! Throw sprouts over
me!"

These suggestions were not carried out, for Mr. Minnidick was of a
leisurely turn of mind, and at no time of a disposition to sacrifice
valuable cabbage growths without good reason. He therefore merely
rested on his hoe and stared, at the same time munching the air with
extraordinary rapidity and determination. And thus he was posed, like
some Shakespearian rustic, when two smoking horses hove in sight, and
the air was rent with the cracking of a hunting-whip, and the furious
cries of one of the riders.

"Give him his head, Rodney! give him his head, I tell you!"

"I have been giving it him for the last three hours, Duke. If I give it
him any more, I shall be killed, I shall indeed!"

"Take your arms from his neck, I tell you!"

"I will not. If I do I shall be thrown. Both the reins have been broken
for hours."

"That's because you held 'em so damned tight. You'd break a six-foot
rope that'd anchor a man-of-war. Why don't you sit straight?"

"Because I can't, because—I—am—dropping!"

The unfortunate owner of Mitching Dean did indeed seem in a parlous
condition. Wrapped in the travelling ulster, his silk hat smashed into
a pulp and fixed, by the edge of a rent, on his left ear, he was laid
out almost flat along his horse with his arms clasped round its neck.
His long white face was smothered in liquid mud, which had only dried
upon the bridge of his nose, forming a sort of forbidding-looking
island in the midst of his wrinkled countenance. His trousers had
been torn into ribbons by the quick-set hedges through which he had
passed and the five-barred gates he had reduced to splinters. One of
his stirrups had gone. His reins, as he had affirmed, fluttered around
his horse's chest in fragments, and he had in some mysterious manner
lost a boot, possibly in a small pond in which his animal had recently
lain down and rolled out of sheer gaiety of disposition. Altogether,
he scarcely looked his best as he reached the hedge of the paragon's
domain. On perceiving the rigid figure of Mr. Minnidick, the Duke
suddenly pulled up, with the result that Mr. Rodney cannoned against
him and promptly bit the mud.

"Damn you, Rodney! Why don't you look where you're going?" said his
Grace crossly. "Here, you—my man, can you tell me the way to the Farm,
Bungay Marshes, Lisborough?"

"Heh?"

"I want the Farm, Bungay Marshes, Lisborough."

"What d'ye want 'un fur?"

"What the deuce is that to you? Get on again, Rodney, or the brute'll
be off."

"I cannot. I am unable; I fear both my legs are fractured."

"Nonsense! The shaking'll do you good—wake you up—put some spirit
into you. Well, my man, don't you know where the Farm is?"

"Yes, I knows," said Mr. Minnidick.

"Where, then?"

"'Ereabouts."

"I know that."

"What did ye arst me fur, then?"

"Shovel the sprouts over me, d'ye hear? Cover me over!" muttered Mr.
Bush, while the Duke angrily rejoined:

"If I have any of your impudence, I'll give you a taste of my whip.
Tell me where the Farm is this moment."

"I have told ye."

"Where is it?"

"'Ereabouts."

"Where the devil's hereabouts?"

"Where I'm a-standing of."

"Where you're standing! Why didn't you say so?"

"I did say so—darn it all!"

"Where's your master?" said the Duke. "Is he back?"

"Heh?"

"Where the deuce is your infernal master?"

"'Ereabouts," replied Mr. Minnidick calmly, despite renewed and furious
whispers of "Throw sprouts over me! Cover me up!" from the paragon.

"Where the deuce is that?"

"Where I'm a-standin' of," replied Mr. Minnidick, indicating Mr. Bush
with the favourite hoe.

The Duke leaped from his horse.

"Here, catch hold, Rodney!" he cried, flinging the reins to the owner
of Mitching Dean, who, failing to grasp them, permitted the animal to
gallop from the spot at the rate of about twenty miles an hour.

"Rodney, you're the ——dest muddler I ever met in the whole course
of my life!" said the Duke witheringly, as he tied up the remaining
horse and proceeded to scramble over the hedge in a most murderous and
determined manner.

The paragon hastily sat up among the sprouts, and raised his arms
before his face in an attitude of awkward defence.

"You rascal!" said the Duke—"you infernal rascal! Then I didn't
strangle you, after all?"

"Eh?" said Mr. Bush sulkily, and still keeping up his arms.

"I didn't strangle you. But I will!"

"Duke, Duke, let me counsel delay!" cried Mr. Rodney from the other
side of the hedge. "Take time, I implore you—take a little time to
think it over."

"Rodney, hold your tongue! I thought I'd killed you," continued his
Grace to Mr. Bush.

"You never touched me!" growled the paragon. "You never caught me; I
went too quick."

At this statement the Duke looked surprised.

"I certainly strangled someone," he said meditatively. "Rodney, I know
I strangled somebody. Who could it have been?"

"Possibly it was merely a footman, Duke," said Mr. Rodney in a relieved
tone of voice. "You ought to be very thankful, I am sure."

"I daresay, a footman; or it may have been only Bliggins. It doesn't
matter. What does matter is, that I'm going to have satisfaction. D'you
hear, sir?" he shouted in Mr. Bush's ear.

"I ain't deaf," retorted that gentleman.

"I'm going to fight you and kill you in your own garden here."

"Darn it all, I say!" from Mr. Minnidick, who was standing calmly by
during this social intercourse.

"Duke, I implore you, be calm!" cried Mr. Rodney, grasping some
brambles oratorically. "Kill him quietly; don't make a scene, Duke—for
Heaven's sake, don't make a scene!"

"He shall have a chance, Rodney; he shall die in fair fight. Choose
your weapons!" he added to the paragon.

"Eh?"

"Choose your weapons! What do you generally fight with here?"

"Hoes," replied Mr. Bush sulkily, while Mr. Minnidick muttered
something about "Allers fight with a 'oe and you won't repint of it."

"Hoes!" said his Grace. "I've never tried them. I shall have to
practise first; that's only fair."

"Yes, yes!" cried Mr. Rodney eagerly—"that's it. Take a week to
practise, and then kill him quietly."

"A week! An hour will be enough," said the Duke. "Very well, hoes let
it be; where can I get one?"

"At the Elephant and Drum," mumbled the paragon.

"What the deuce is that?"

"The inn to Bungay."

"An inn!" exclaimed Mr. Rodney—"an inn! The very place. There are
always plenty of hoes at an inn, and things to eat, and water to wash
in. The Elephant and Drum is the very place for us."

"How far is it?" said his Grace.

"Only a mile, straight on," said Mr. Bush, "as the rooks a-go."

"I shall be back in an hour or two, then; and mind, if you try to get
away, I'll follow you to the ends of the earth and strangle you there.
Now, then——Hulloa! what's that?"

His Grace had perceived the tricycle standing at the wicket-gate. A
crafty look came into his face, such as decorates Dan Leno's when that
marvel is enacting clever Mr. Green.

"Rodney!" he said.

"Duke!"

"Come over the hedge, get on that tricycle, and follow me; I'll ride
the horse."

"But, Duke, I have never tricycled in my life. Indeed, I——"

"Come over the hedge and get on this moment!"

Mr. Rodney feebly crawled sufficiently high up the brambles to be
caught hold of and thrown among the sprouts. He was then picked up,
led to the machine and placed upon it in a nerveless and quivering
heap. The Duke gave him a push, and, as the Farm stood on a slight
eminence, the machine instantly ran off at an increasing pace, till Mr.
Rodney's cries for assistance died down towards the horizon. Then the
Duke mounted the horse, gave Mr. Bush a sinister look, informed him
that the duel would take place within the next two hours—or three, at
latest—and galloped off towards the inn.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Minnidick examined each other's physiognomies for
a moment with some attention. Then Mr. Bush grunted; Mr. Minnidick
replied, "Darn it all, I say!" and they resumed their labours among
the sprouts. It seemed that Mr. Bush considered any attempt at further
flight useless; or possibly he thought that he could hold his own with
a hoe against any living man. In either case, he looked more dogged
and heavier even than usual as he solemnly turned up the damp earth
with his spade, and arranged the lives of various inoffensive and
patient vegetables for them, no doubt entirely to his own satisfaction.
Presently the rattle of a trotting chaise disturbed these processes.
Mr. Bush paused and scratched his head.

"Whatever's that?" he said.

"A kerridge a-comin'," said Mr. Minnidick.

"What should a carriage a-come for?" rejoined the paragon.

Mr. Minnidick uttered his morning hymn, and stared across the hedge
by way of reply, while Mr. Bush looked somewhat inclined to lie down
again among the sprouts. He stood his ground, however, and was rewarded
almost immediately by the appearance of a tub-like chaise chiefly
constructed of basket-work, and drawn by a tottering white pony which
was driven by a small boy with a very sharply-pointed nose, at whose
side—in an attitude of large abandonment and intimate despair—was
spread her Grace the Duchess of Southborough. On seeing the paragon,
her Grace gave vent to a bass screech, and seizing the hands of
the boy with the sharply-pointed nose—much to that individual's
fury—compelled him to bring the white pony to against the hedge.

"Oh, Mr. Bush! Mr. Bush!" cried the Duchess.

"What's brought you a-here?" queried the paragon.

"Oh, Mr. Bush, you have ruined me! You have undone me, Mr. Bush!"
continued the Duchess, on her most piercing lower notes.

"Get along with yer!" said Mr. Bush, while Mr. Minnidick, poised upon
the favourite hoe in a gardening attitude, surveyed the dreadful scene.

"You have, indeed. But you must make reparation! You must and shall!"

And her Grace, who still wore the early Victorian dressing-gown,
surmounted with a waterproof cloak, and crowned by a bonnet and
feathers, began attempting to scramble over the hedge into the
paragon's domain.

"What are yer up to now?" said Mr. Bush. "Where are yer a-makin' for?"

"You!" replied the Duchess, atop of a big bramble interspersed with
stakes. "You, you bad, evil-minded man!"

And she pitched into the mould at Mr. Minnidick's feet, head foremost.

"Darn it all, I say!" quoth Mr. Minnidick, while the small boy with the
sharply-pointed nose broke out incontinently a-laughing.

"You must go to the Duke, Mr. Bush," proceeded her Grace, getting right
end up, and raising her hands towards heaven. "You must go to him and
tell him how innocent I am!"

"Innercent—oh, crikey!" said the small boy, emerging for an instant
from his convulsions and speaking in a very high treble voice.
"Innercent, does she sy?" and he relapsed again into his fit.

Mr. Bush began to look very sulky, and rather as if he were meditating
a nap. The Duchess clasped his knees.

"Oh, Mr. Bush!" she wailed; "do me justice! set me right! Go to my
husband and tell him what a true wife I have always been to him!"

"Give over! Give over now!"

"I will not give over! I have followed you here, for you alone can tell
the Duke that there's nothing between——Oh, hide me! hide me! There's
a carriage coming! Oh, if I am seen here I am lost for ever! Hide me!"

"Give over! Where can yer be a-hid?"

Her Grace sprang up with amazing agility for so large a woman. She
glanced around like a hunted elephant. She heard the noise of rapidly
approaching wheels. Her protruding eye took in the aspect of the place,
ravaging it for its possibilities of concealment. Then, with the wail
of a thing at bay, she fled across the vegetable-garden, fought her way
through a small but dense jungle of gooseberry bushes, and darted into
the mushroom-house just as a hired fly containing Mrs. Verulam, Chloe,
and the faithful Marriner drove up to the wicket-gate.

"She'll a-treadle down the spawn! She'll do a mischief on them
there mushrims! Darn it all, I say!" was Mr. Minnidick's comment
on her Grace's choice of sanctuary, while Mr. Bush, who—perhaps
deliberately—became more and more lethargic with each accumulating
disaster, solemnly started digging again, with the manner of a
labourer totally isolated from all intercourse with human-kind.

The bed of sprouts, which seemed rapidly becoming the centre of a
whirlpool of violent activities, was at some little distance from
the residence of the paragon, and was partially concealed from the
wicket-gate and the flower-garden by a small hedge of yew. For this
reason, perhaps, the occupants of the hired fly did not at first
observe that the garden was tenanted. After enquiring the way to the
nearest inn, and being duly informed of the existence of the Elephant
and Drum, Mrs. Verulam and Chloe descended from the vehicle, in which
the faithful Marriner—looking rather pale—was deliberately driven
away.

Mrs. Verulam approached the wicket-gate, leaned upon it, and breathed a
gentle sigh.

"Ah, Chloe," she murmured; "how exquisitely peaceful it is! Just what
I expected. No harm could happen here. No echoes from the cruel world
could ever pierce to this haven. Here there are no intrigues, no
quarrels, no secrets, no slanders. Here all is rest and happiness."

"Quite so, dear. And here, or at least very near here, at the Elephant
and Drum, I shall be able to change my trousers. It is sweet!"

"It's like heaven!" said Mrs. Verulam ecstatically. "How little Mr.
Bush knows that we are here, looking upon his birthplace"—the paragon
was born at Brixton, but no matter—"breathing the same air he has so
often breathed!"

"You're hardly scientific, Daisy. Besides, by this time Mr. Bush is
reading your note at the palace, and the Duchess and all of them know
of our departure."

"Ah—true; I had forgotten that. I wonder what the Duchess is saying."

Her Grace was at the moment saying, "Oh, I shall be suffocated!" as she
tried to compose herself upon a stack of dibble-holes filled with spawn
that would have rejoiced the heart of Nicol.

"No doubt she is taking away your character," said Chloe.

"I hate those large, respectable women!" said Mrs. Verulam with sudden
energy, and getting very red.

The special large, respectable woman to whom she alluded was furtively
considering the chances of apoplexy, and marvelling at the heroic
endurance displayed by the average mushroom.

"Mr. Rodney will be terribly shocked at my running away like this,"
continued Mrs. Verulam. "He is so neat, so cautious, so deliberate. He
cannot understand a wild impulse, and would rather die than embark on
any fierce adventure."

This chanced to be the very thought passing through the mind of the
owner of Mitching Dean at this moment, as he offered the Duke a choice
of hoes in the backyard of the Elephant and Drum, preparatory to taking
his stand in the shadow of an upturned tub, to be practised upon in
preparation for the duel.

"Poor Mr. Rodney!" said Chloe.

Mrs. Verulam got red again.

"Why poor?" she said.

"Because—oh, Daisy, you know quite well!"

"Please don't be silly, Chloe. I wonder who it was that fired all those
shots last night, and what all the noise was about."

"I can't imagine—burglars perhaps. It covered our escape most
beautifully. Well, Daisy, you're out of your cage now with a vengeance.
Society will never have anything more to do with a hostess who leaves
a Duke and a Duchess stranded in the middle of an Ascot week. You might
have got over a murder safely, or even me, but you can never get over
that."

"I suppose the Duke is furious," said Mrs. Verulam rather wistfully.

She happened to be right. His Grace was furious just then with the
owner of Mitching Dean, who, in endeavouring to defend his person from
the Duke's attack during the rehearsal, had used his hoe in such an
unwarrantable manner as to black his Grace's left eye and very nearly
knock out a couple of his Grace's front teeth.

"It can't be helped if he is," said Chloe, wondering what was the exact
condition of the Lady Pearl.

"Mr. Bush will follow us immediately, I feel sure," continued Mrs.
Verulam, wholly unaware that the paragon had immediately preceded them.
"I can see him here before me in his sweet little home;" and as she
spoke she opened the wicket-gate with a click and advanced into the
garden.

"There doesn't seem to be anybody about," said Chloe, behaving like a
person on the stage, and looking everywhere but in the direction where
there was somebody to be seen; "not a creature, not a soul. Let us sit
down for a moment and rest;" and she took a seat upon a deal bench, of
which the mushroom-house formed the back.

The Duchess trembled on the dibble-holes.

"This is deliciously comfortable," said Mrs. Verulam. "I shall always
sit on plain wood for the future. Shall you be glad to change your
trousers?"

"Little hussy!" thought the Duchess, swelling with angry respectability
at this remark.

"Thankful, darling!" said Chloe. The Duchess nearly fainted. "I am sick
of them; and, besides, I look ever so much better without them."

At this point her Grace was on the point of forgetting her own somewhat
equivocal situation, of bursting out of the mushroom-house, and taking
to the open country, where her ears could not be defiled with such
terrible revelations. Recollecting herself, however, just in time, she
clapped her hands to her ears and endeavoured not to hear another word.
In this effort she was successful, for when Chloe spoke again the words
sounded but a blurred and distant murmur.

"I long for my darling petticoats," said Chloe, "and for my—my——"

"Your darling Huskinson," said Mrs. Verulam.

"Hush, Daisy!"

"Isn't it true?"

"I don't know. Perhaps, when I see him, I—but he may have gone back to
America. He may—ah! ah! ah!"

She suddenly cried out at the very top of her voice, sprang up like one
distraught, and grew as pale as a sheet of paper.

Mrs. Verulam was seriously startled.

"What is it? What is the matter?" she exclaimed.

"There—there!" shrieked Chloe, pointing with a trembling finger to a
remote part of the garden.

"Where? What? Is it a serpent? Is it a monster?"

"Boswell!" cried Chloe—"Boswell! Oh, if he sees me in these—oh! oh!
Daisy, come—come!" and dragging the amazed Mrs. Verulam with her, she
sprang across the garden, and darted into the paragon's house without
so much as knocking at the door.

"They've a-gone inside. Darn it all!" remarked Mr. Minnidick to Mr.
Bush among the sprouts.

The paragon made no reply, but went on digging in a heavy and almost
soporific manner. His calm was so great, so apparently complete, that
it nearly attained to majesty. The sphinx could not have gardened with
a greater detachment in worlds before the sun and before the birth of
Time.

Glancing from Mr. Minnidick's attic-window, Mrs. Verulam saw him, and
cried out in wild astonishment:

"Chloe, there's Mr. Bush! How can he have got here?"

"I see him," said Chloe. "It doesn't matter. The point is that there's
Boswell! There he is—no, not there; more to the left. Now, don't you
see him?"

Mrs. Verulam followed her fluttering indication, and perceived a
good-sized monkey, with a peculiarly plain and missing-link sort of
face, seated upon a red geranium and devouring a very satisfying white
rose.

"Isn't he lovely?" continued Chloe. "Isn't he a perfect specimen?"

"Of monkey beauty, no doubt, dear. But——"

"Oh, if he had seen me in those horrible trousers I should have died!"
exclaimed Chloe, burying her hot face on Mrs. Verulam's shoulder.

"Are American monkeys really so dreadfully particular?"

"Not Boswell. Huskinson! He must be here. Boswell and he are like
brothers."

"Not in appearance, I hope, Chloe?"

"Oh no—no; but in feeling. Huskinson must be close by. What shall I
do?—what shall I do?"

"Keep quiet, and escape as soon as possible to the Elephant and Drum.
Oh, there's a man——"

"Huskinson! Hide me! hide me! Let me get into a cupboard, or——"

"Two men coming up the road."

"Don't say it's Bream! Daisy, for Heaven's sake, don't—don't say it's
Bream!"

"Isn't Bream short?"

"A dwarf, with an immense beard and bow-legs! Is it? is it?"

"No; he has a beard."

"Then it is—it is! What shall I do?"

"But he's tall, and so is——Good heavens!"

"What? what is it?"

"Good heavens!" repeated Mrs. Verulam, falling back from the window as
pale as death.

"It is Bream! I knew it! It is Bream!"

"The Duke and Mr. Rodney!" whispered Mrs. Verulam.

Chloe was dumb with mingled relief and surprise.

"It can't—they can't——"

"It is. They are."

It was. They were. Carrying several hoes, they reached the wicket-gate,
and advanced into the garden of the paragon.

The Duchess, aware of the flight of Mrs. Verulam and Chloe, was just
opening the small door of the mushroom-house in the hope of making good
her escape, when, to her horror, she heard the voice of her lawful
husband say: "I shall kill him, without a doubt."

A second voice, which she also knew too well, replied in a trembling
manner:

"Indeed, I fervently hope so, Duke—I fervently hope so. Still, we can
never tell in these matters. A false step, the breaking of a hoe at a
critical juncture, and—you have made your will, I hope?"

The speakers stood still at the very door of the mushroom-house, and
the Duke said:

"By Jove!"

"I beg your pardon, Duke?"

"By Jove! It's lucky you reminded me. Rodney, have you a sheet of
paper?"

"A sheet of paper?"

"Only a scrap—enough for me to disinherit that false woman upon—and a
pencil."

The Duchess with difficulty repressed an outcry as she sank down upon a
superb specimen of the Black Marsh mushroom.

"I think so, Duke. I have half an envelope."

"Enough. Give it me."

"But—but let me intercede——"

"Not a word. How do you spell 'testament'?"

"With two t's—no, three."

"I know that. Don't be a fool. Is it 'tement' or 'toment'?"

"The latter, I think, I fancy—or the former, one of the two most
certainly."

"Of course it's one of the two. But which? It doesn't matter. There! If
I fall, she's a pauper. That's something."

It was indeed something to the poor lady among the dibble-holes.

"Take charge of that, Rodney."

"Certainly, Duke. Now I see the word written I fancy it may possibly be
'tament.'"

"It doesn't matter. When a man's going to fight to the death to revenge
his honour, one vowel's as good as another."

They advanced towards the bed of sprouts.




CHAPTER XVIII.

THE INNOCENT LADY.


The paragon took no notice whatever of their approach. With an
immovable countenance and half-shut eyes, he continued to job his spade
into the mould, lift it out, throw the excavated earth to either side
of him, knock any lumps that there chanced to be to pieces, level the
surface, and job the spade in again with mechanical regularity, while
Mr. Minnidick hoed in silence at his side, munching the air without
cessation. Beyond the hedge the boy with the sharply-pointed nose lay
back in the basket-work chaise wrapped in a seraph's slumber, while
the white pony nibbled hedgerow grass contentedly in the sunshine. It
was upon this exquisitely peaceful and divinely rustic scene that the
ruthless Duke now murderously advanced, carrying a hoe in each hand,
and attended by the agitated owner of Mitching Dean, who endeavoured
to assume the expression of a fanatic, while his gait suggested abject
fear tempered by creeping paralysis. Such, however, is the influence of
supreme intrepidity upon the soul of man, that even the Duke stopped
short on arriving at the sprouts, and gazed for a moment in astonished
silence at Mrs. Verulam's idea of Agag thus pursuing the chosen
vocation of his existence upon the very edge of the tomb. The rattle of
the falling earth would have recalled to a coward soul the sad music
that accompanies the burial of even the bravest. But Mr. Bush's nerves
were surely made of steel. He did not glance aside. He did not flutter
so much as an eyelid, conscious though he was of the Duchess crouching
among his mushrooms, and of the infuriated husband waiting for him
with the most formidable hoe that the resources of the Elephant and
Drum could afford. In fact, he rather suggested an unusually heavy and
lethargic person on the verge of slumber than a desperate Don Juan on
the point of being slain in a duel.

"Don't you think," whispered Mr. Rodney in the Duke's ear—"don't you
think you'd better put it off for a few hours? It seems almost—almost
indecent to—to kill a man when—when he's laying out his—his garden."

"I intend to lay him out," returned the Duke. "Mr. Bush!"

The paragon calmly dug on.

"Mr. Bush!" repeated the Duke in a very loud voice. "Are you deaf,
sir?—are you deaf and blind, sir?"

"Give over!" muttered the paragon, removing a root and dividing a pink
worm into two parts, both of which hastened to places of comparative
safety.

"How dare you speak to me like that, sir!" said the Duke. "How dare you
do it, sir! Do you suppose that because you have me out here in the
depths of the country you can intimidate me, sir?"

"Get along with you!" muttered the paragon, patting the earth on the
head with majestic condescension.

The visage of the Duke became empurpled.

"I shall do nothing of the kind, sir!" he exclaimed. "Take a hoe,
sir—take a hoe, and stand to your defence this instant!"

"For Heaven's sake, Duke, be calm!" cried Mr. Rodney. "Don't make a
scene!"

"Rodney," said his Grace, "you are an egregious ass! Take a hoe—do you
hear me, sir?"

"Pull up them weeds, Jacob," said the paragon to Mr. Minnidick, "or
they'll choke the rhubub."

"Darn 'em!" rejoined Mr. Minnidick composedly.

"And lay down a bit o' marl along the sparrowgrass."

Mr. Minnidick moved to carry out this last command.

"Lock her in—d'yer hear? Lock her in, and lose the key," whispered Mr.
Bush, as Mr. Minnidick was moving off.

Mr. Minnidick munched violently and answered naught, but as he passed
the mushroom-house he turned the key on the Duchess, who now believed
that her last hour was indeed approaching. Now, Mr. Bush at all times
found it difficult to moderate his voice, and even his whisper as a
rule was powerful and sonorous. Consequently, the Duke heard what he
said, and became even more violently enraged than before.

"Lock her in, d'you say, you villainous ruffian!" he exclaimed. "So
you've trapped some other wretched creature into your clutches, have
you? You can't even stand by your partner in guilt or stick to one
criminal at a time! I daresay," his Grace added, turning sharply on
Mr. Rodney—"I daresay that house is positively swarming with degraded
females at this very moment."

And he pointed up at the windows of the Farm, from one of which the
heads of Mrs. Verulam and Chloe abruptly disappeared.

"Swarming!" said Mr. Rodney deprecatingly. "Oh, Duke, I scarcely
think—the house, indeed, hardly appears to—to swarm. You may be
in—in error. Take time—do pray take a little time to—to learn more
of——"

"Rodney, I am not addressing myself to you!" said his Grace, telling a
fairly obvious lie. "I have nothing to say to you. My business is with
this gentleman. Stop digging this moment, sir, or I shall not wait for
you to fight. I shall kill you where you are gardening without further
parley! Stop digging!"

At this juncture Mr. Minnidick calmly approached with the "bit o' marl."

"Where d'ye wish it a-laid?" he asked his master. "Darn it all! where
d'ye wish it a-laid?"

"Along the sparrowgrass, I tell yer. And then get to mulchin'."

"Mulchin'!" said Mr. Minnidick severely. "Whativer fur? Darn it all!
mulchin' harbours the vermin—mulchin' harbours the vermin. It'll spile
the dahlias, I tell ye!"

All this conversation, in which he had no part, and from which it
seemed that he was almost insolently excluded, drove the Duke to the
very top of his temper.

"Marl and mulching be damned!" he shouted in a passionate voice, and
presenting one of the hoes which he carried, he seemed about to go for
the paragon and slay him where he stood.

"Save yourself!" cried Mr. Rodney, while Mr. Bush moved backwards with
a certain amount of lumbering agility.

"Rodney!" exclaimed his Grace, "how dare you interfere?"

"Duke, I am your second," said Mr. Rodney, pale as ashes, but plucking
up a semblance of spirit. "I act for you at your own request. Fight it
out like—like men, but don't murder a gentleman in cold blood among
his own vegetables."

"I'll murder him where I choose. Will you be killed or will you
fight?" the Duke exclaimed frantically to the paragon.

"I won't be a-killed," replied he sulkily.

"Then order your second to stop mulching or marling, or whatever the
devil he's doing over there. Come out onto the grass, and we'll have it
out fairly."

Mr. Bush scratched his head with his right thumb, looked sleepy, and
then called out in a prodigious voice:

"Jacob! Jacob!"

"Darn it all, I hear ye!" retorted Mr. Minnidick, who was following
some mysterious profession connected with manure in the middle
distance. "What d'ye want a-now?"

"Give over, Jacob!"

Mr. Minnidick gave over, and stood idle with a bitter face.

"Come here, I tell yer!" continued Mr. Bush.

Mr. Minnidick came rheumatically.

"Well?" said the paragon to the Duke—"well?"

"Take your hoe and follow me, sir," said the Duke, and he marched in
grim silence to a plot of grass adjacent to the mushroom-house, slowly
followed by the rest of the party.

"Chloe, what are they going to do?" said Mrs. Verulam anxiously in Mr.
Minnidick's attic. "What are those horrid-looking weapons for? And why
is the Duke so angry?"

"I expect Mr. Bush is going to show them how he gardens," said Chloe.
"They will see Boswell in a moment. He's just eating a stock. Oh, how
shall I manage to change my trousers before Huskinson sees me?"

"But people don't garden on a lawn, do they?"

"Oh yes, anywhere."

"Well, but what's the Duke doing now? He's measuring the ground with a
pocket-handkerchief."

"Oh, that's for drillings, I expect."

"Drillings! But they're none of them in the army."

"I mean making drills for sowing."

"Would a Duke sow in summer?"

"He might. One can never tell what a man will do."

"No, indeed! How Mr. Rodney is trembling! And what an extraordinary
state his hat is in!"

"I suppose it's his gardening hat. I am sure Boswell will be ill if he
mixes his plants like that. And if he's ill Huskinson will go crazy."

"Now Mr. Rodney is handing Mr. Bush a spade. No, it's something else.
What is it?"

"A flail, perhaps, or a spud."

"How they are talking now! I wish I could hear what they're saying. I
am certain the Duke's in a passion. Look how he shakes his head and
clenches his fist. He's lifting his spud now just as if he were going
to hit Mr. Bush. Ah, Chloe, I'm frightened!"

So was the paragon, who was considering where he could run away to,
when the duel was stayed for a moment by Mr. Minnidick, who suddenly
said:

"Darn it all! look at that there monkey a-feedin' on them there
pansies!"

At this speech the duelling party assumed attitudes of distinct
surprise, and Mr. Rodney said nervously:

"A moment, Duke—a moment, I beg! What do you say is eating pansies?"

"That there monkey—darn it all!" replied Mr. Minnidick, pointing to
Boswell with the favourite hoe.

"I will not be interrupted by any monkey!" exclaimed the Duke angrily.
"No doubt it has been purposely introduced to balk me of my vengeance.
Rodney, it was your business, as my second, to clear the ground."

"I—really I—I must positively decline to clear the—ground of
monkeys," said Mr. Rodney, driven to bay at last. "I am ready to—to do
anything in—in reason, but I have never been accustomed to handle wild
animals, and—no, Duke, I will not begin now at my age—no, not even to
oblige you."

And he endeavoured to look dignified and firm.

"Very well, then," cried the Duke. "Then I shall act for myself, since
my friend deserts me."

And, with this unmerited accusation, he furiously made towards Boswell
with his hoe.

"Oh, Daisy," cried Chloe in the attic—"oh, the Duke is going to kill
Boswell—the brute! Oh, it will break Huskinson's heart! What shall I
do—oh, what shall I do?"

And she leaned out of the attic window till she nearly fell into the
garden of the paragon.

"Chloe, for Heaven's sake, don't! You will be seen. They will see you!"

"I don't care. Let them! There! He's struck at Boswell. He's hit him!
Oh, oh! No, Boswell dodged just in time! Now the Duke—oh, he's climbed
up a rose-tree!"

"The Duke! Get out of the way, Chloe! Let me see!"

"And now he's coming down head first!"

"What will the Duchess say? And he used to be a Cabinet Minister!"

"He _is_ agile! I never saw anything go so quick. He's making for the
shrubbery now on all fours!"

"Chloe, I will see him doing it. Make room for me at once!"

"He's up an acacia! Oh, oh! And now he's jumped into an elm!"

"He'll be killed! No Duke can go on so without being killed."

"The Duke! Don't be so absurd! It's Boswell! He's got away! He's
escaped! Heaven be praised! He's got away! How thankful Huskinson will
be! The Duke's returning. He's all over green stuff, and foaming at the
mouth. I'm glad of it—cruel wretch, to hunt an innocent little monkey
so!"

At this point in the panorama Mrs. Verulam forced her way to the window
and beheld his Grace, in the very extremity of baffled fury, cursing
and swearing at the pitch of his voice, returning to the duelling
party, who had been attentively observing his endeavours to clear the
ground of monkeys from the shadow of the mushroom-house—in which,
by the way, the Duchess was now beginning steadily to suffocate. The
noise occasioned by the chase of Boswell had awakened the boy with the
sharply-pointed nose from his seraph's slumber, and, anxious to join in
the larks that seemed going forward, he now proceeded to swarm over the
hedge, and joined the group on the lawn just as his Grace returned to
it, and, with many oaths, assumed a posture of attack and presented his
hoe at Mr. Bush.

"Come on!" cried the Duke. "Your blasted monkeys sha'n't save you! Come
on!"

The paragon honestly believed that his last hour on earth had now
arrived, when another providential interruption took place.

"Help!" cried a feeble, failing bass voice. "Help! Murder! murder!"

"Whatever's that?" said Mr. Rodney, endeavouring to turn paler, but
failing, since Providence has made no provision for any colour whiter
than chalk. "What is it?"

"Help, help!" repeated the bass voice with a fainter accent.

"Crikey!" cried the boy with the sharply-pointed nose, making use of
the emblematic word of extreme childhood—"crikey! if it isn't the
innercent lydy stifling! My eye! what a lark!"

And he gave free vent to the very natural sense of humour roused in
his youthful breast by so auspicious an occurrence. Now, the Duke was
nothing if not chivalrous, and, on hearing the small boy's cheerful
pronouncement, he exclaimed in a voice of thunder:

"An innocent lady stifling! Where—where is she?"

The boy with the sharply-pointed nose was unable to speak for laughing,
but he indicated the mushroom-house with one hand, which he removed for
the purpose from his little right knee, on which he had placed it as an
assistance to his timely mirth.

"In there! An innocent lady in such a hole as that!" cried the Duke.
"You scoundrel!"

And seizing the paragon by the throat, he shook him to and fro a dozen
times or more, and then, throwing him aside, sprang to the door of the
mushroom-house and endeavoured to tear it open.

"It's locked! It's bolted! Where's the key? Rodney, why don't you fetch
the key?"

"Because I don't know where it is!" cried the miserable owner of
Mitching Dean.

"And you call yourself a man!" roared the Duke. "She'll be dead in
another minute!"

And he shook the door furiously.

"Try your hoe, Duke—try your hoe!" cried Mr. Rodney.

"By Jove! I will!"

And so saying, he tried it with such skill, address, and physical
strength that the door gave way, and he beheld his Duchess in the early
Victorian dressing-gown fainting upon the dibble-holes.

"Cleopatra!" he cried, and stood as if changed to stone.

But this was only for a moment. He turned. The paragon saw the
movement, and fled for his life. Across the garden he moved with the
speed and noise of a fire-engine. He gained the house. He leaped up the
narrow stairs. He plunged into the inmost recess of the building, which
chanced to be Mr. Minnidick's attic.

"Get out o' ther way!" he roared to Chloe and Mrs. Verulam, "or I'll
throw yer out o' the winder!"

"Really, Mr. Bush——" began Mrs. Verulam.

"'Really, Mr. Bush,' be blasted!" he roared, and flinging himself upon
the ground with a noise like thunder, he endeavoured to conceal himself
beneath the truckle-bed of his retainer.

But the paragon was large, and the truckle-bed was small, and as the
less cannot contain the greater, Mr. Bush's situation when the Duke
bounded into the chamber was merely that of the ostrich. His head,
it is true, was concealed from sight, but the whole of his gigantic
body was visible and to be got at. The Duke got at it, and despite
Mrs. Verulam's cries of alarm, rolled with it down the staircase into
the garden, just as a large bus, containing the Bun Emperor, Mr.
Harrison, the four remaining detectives and four police-constables in
full uniform, their truncheons drawn in their hands, drove up to the
wicket-gate.

"Help!" roared Mr. Bush, while Mr. Rodney leaned up against the
mushroom-house half dead with terror at the vision of Mrs. Verulam and
the orange-grower fluttering forth from the paragon's abode. "Help!"

"There's your man—oh, indeed; most certainly; by all means—there he
lies!" cried Mr. Harrison to the police-constables, pointing to Mr.
Bush.

"Arrest him! arrest him!" shouted the Bun Emperor. "Take my property
from him!"

The constables pulled the Duke off the paragon.

"Let me kill him!" said his Grace. "Let me kill the scoundrel!"

"Not till he's been hanged for stealing my property!" shouted the
Emperor, ablaze with passion.

"For Heaven's sake, don't make a scene before the ladies!" shrieked Mr.
Rodney.

"Rely on me—oh, indeed, most certainly, in all circumstances rely on
me!" cried Mr. Harrison, doing nothing, with starting eyes.

The police stood firm. They planted the paragon on his feet, held him
by the scruff of his neck, turned out his pockets, and revealed the
silver whisky-bottle and the gold presentation cigar-case.

"What did I say?" cried Mr. Harrison—"what did I at all times and ever
say? Oh, indeed!"

Nobody seemed to know or care, and at this moment attention was
diverted by the appearance of the Duchess from the mushroom-house and
the faithful Marriner from the wicket-gate. The Duchess tottered feebly
forward, grasping the early Victorian dressing-gown with both hands.

"Crikey!" cried the boy with the sharply-pointed nose; "it's the
innercent lydy! She ain't stifled!"

And he nearly dropped with childish disappointment.

"Yes," bellowed her Grace, "I am an innocent lady. Oh, Southborough!"
And she proceeded to explain the cause of her situation. "He wouldn't
speak for me. He fled—the base one fled!" she shouted pathetically,
pointing at the paragon. "He's not a man!"

"No more am I!" cried Chloe, who had been engaged in whispering with
the faithful Marriner, and who now came forward blushing very much and
trying to look very composed.

"Chloe!" said Mrs. Verulam.

"Daisy, it's all up! Huskinson knows everything, and is just coming up
the road. He traced me to Park Lane, and Francis has told him all. He
is staying at the Elephant and Drum, and met Marriner by chance. He
forgives me. And I trust you will," she added, turning to the Duke and
Duchess.

They listened to her succeeding remarks with dropped jaws.

"This gentleman a lady!" cried Mr. Rodney, pressing his hand to his
heart and sitting down in a bed of stinging-nettles.

"This man a woman!" shrieked the Duchess. "But then," she added,
staring at Mrs. Verulam, "you—you are——"

"Respectable," said Mrs. Verulam, with a rather malicious intonation.

"Mr. Van Adam a female!" her Grace reiterated. "But—but—Pearl—I
shall have to afford to send her to Carlsbad this summer, after all,
unless Mr. Ingerstall——" She paused abruptly. "Southborough," she
cried, "come away!"

And she led off the astounded Duke to the pony-carriage, made him
get into it, and drove away with him, followed by the boy with the
sharply-pointed nose, who ran vociferously behind, objurgating those
who thus usurped his position of coachman at the top of his shrill
treble voice.

Meanwhile Mrs. Verulam had begged off the paragon, for the Bun Emperor,
on being confronted with a pretty woman almost in tears, developed
unexpected susceptibilities, and became almost polite.

"Let him go, Mr. Harrison," said the Emperor to the groom of the
chambers, who was nowhere near Mr. Bush—"let the ruffian go!"

"Rely on me, sir," was the groom of the chambers' apt reply.

"We do, Mr. Harrison, we do. Me and Mrs. Lite is not insensible of your
services."

The groom of the chambers inclined himself and stepped into the bus, to
which he was shortly followed by the detectives, the constables, and
the Emperor, who said to Mrs. Verulam in parting:

"Frederick is picking the bullets"—Miss Bindler's—"out of the palace
walls, ma'am. When this is done, me and Mrs. Lite would be obliged if
we could return to the home. Your time is nearly up."

"I consider it quite up," said Mrs. Verulam, who had no very pleasant
recollections of Ribton Marches. "Pray return whenever you please."

The Emperor drove away in high feather, after excusing himself to Mr.
Rodney for breaking his word, and breaking out of the fishing-cottage.
The paragon and Mr. Minnidick had now returned to their interrupted
avocations. Mr. Bush was sulkily digging among the sprouts. Mr.
Minnidick was busy with the mulching and the marl. Mrs. Verulam looked
towards her idea of Agag.

"I suppose I ought to say good-bye to him," she said rather tremulously.

"To a thief and a coward!" murmured Mr. Rodney, in a reproachful and
yet tender tone.

"To a man who wanted to throw you out of the window!" said Chloe.

"He was my guest and my hero."

"Very well."

Mrs. Verulam advanced to the bed of sprouts.

"Good-bye, Mr. Bush," she said.

The paragon turned up a worm.

"Mr. Bush, good-bye."

"Jacob!" called the paragon.

"Darn it all, I hear ye!" piped Mr. Minnidick. "What d'ye want a-now?"

"Get to dressin' the earth round them hornbeam hedges with soap-ash.
D'yer hear?"

Mrs. Verulam turned away and took Mr. Rodney's arm.

"You will not leave society?" he whispered. "You will not take to these
horrible pursuits?"

"Perhaps—perhaps not. I must think. I must ponder."

"Come and ponder at Mitching Dean."

She smiled at him. They joined Chloe and the faithful Marriner. Chloe
had just run to the corner of the lane.

"He's coming, Daisy!" she whispered excitedly. "I've seen him in the
distance. He's coming. Boswell is sitting on his shoulder. Oh, oh!"

"Dear Chloe!" said Mrs. Verulam. "And society?"

"I've had enough of it. I only want Florida and—and him. And you,
Daisy?"

"I'm not particularly anxious for Florida."

And again she smiled at Mr. Rodney.

"Ma'am," said the faithful Marriner to Mrs. Verulam, "might I speak?"

"Certainly, Marriner. What is it?"

"With your permission, ma'am, I desire to enter matrimony."

"Indeed! With Francis, I suppose?"

"No, ma'am; with Mr. Harrison."

"Who is that?"

"The gentleman in the bus with the bald head, ma'am."

"Oh!"

"I feel that I can rely upon him, ma'am," said the faithful Marriner.


THE END.




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