Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу автора  A Girl of the North. A Story of London and Canada

Susan Jones

Helen Milecete
A Girl of the North / A Story of London and Canada

CHAPTER I

The world called it failure: he called it success, and the thought evolved itself into happiness for a time.

George Archer was a man of unusual talent and power. He had translated the most recent book by a celebrated Danish naturalist, besides which he had acquired some fame as a naturalist on his own account; and the small world of men, who trouble about such things, mentioned his name with a certain amount of respect as that of one to whom mysteries are revealed.

He was rich. He had travelled all over the world. At last, wishing to go to Canada, the idea of writing a book on the different varieties of Canadian fish came to him with the charm of inspiration, of freedom, and of novelty.

He was singularly unpractical, and given to great enthusiasms.

The glamour of Canada fell upon him; he was fascinated by the long cold winter, with its tempests and swinging winds, its drifting snow, and the endless battle with the princes and powers of the air: by the spring, too, with its force when all the brooks ran and overflowed with the melting of the snow in the hot sun, and the glorious long, light, glowing days, when everything broke into life with suddenness. After this came a gorgeous summer, with hot vibrating days, which brought magnificent flowers into blossom; and then autumn with its Indian summer and stillness – a sort of grey stillness, as if the dear dead came back for a space. The wind died then, and there was only a movement of the air laden with sweetness as it passed over blueberry barrens and lonely stretches of black, still lakes, which possessed the charm of the unknown, the fascination of the forest crowded with moose and bears. George Archer loved the country with its colouring of triumph – trees, sky, and water, all shared in the same glory.

When he came out, he brought letters to various people in Canada, and he collected many important facts for his piscatorial work during his first summer – in the autumn he met Naomi Fontaine, one quarter French, more than a quarter English (her enemies added one half Indian). Archer loved her and married her.

They settled down in an old house, which he rebuilt and made more than comfortable. It stood near an arm of the sea, about two miles from a town called Musquodobit, and in the middle of woods, of salmon rivers, and lakes.

They were happy – perfectly, gloriously happy. They made no plans for the future. To-day was theirs; they loved it, and for three years their happiness lasted. Then Naomi died of pneumonia, and left him alone with their daughter Launa.

Mr. Archer stayed at Musquodobit, for he had no desire to return to England, his relations having received the news of his marriage with certain questions – was Naomi a native? Their idea of natives was hazy, and ran to wild orgies, cannabalism, and no clothing. Had she any relations? George said she was a Roman Catholic and a Canadian, then the letters grew fewer and fewer. Archer did not remember his people. He loved his life; the freedom of it enthralled him. He fished and hunted at the same time he pursued the research about bones, which brought him many letters, much contradiction, and labour.

He could not bear to leave the land which Naomi had loved, whilst dwelling there without her was misery and torment, and yet he loved it too. That land exercises an indescribable fascination over impressionable folk; its intenseness, its wild beauty and passion, the rapid, boiling rivers full of fish, and the quiet, still lakes; the grandeur of the granite rocks, the hills, and vast forests of pine, fir, and maple; and, above all, the turbulent rapture and stormy joy of the sea, crashing against the iron-bound coast. Archer’s home was situated about one hundred yards from the shore. The bay was well sheltered, and two miles below lay the open sea. It was near enough to be within reach when Archer wearied of the calm of the bay; and near enough for them to hear it surge, moan, and roar at times, and to be always in sun and storm – altogether loveable.

Launa Archer was an ugly baby. When her mother died she was a year old, and soon became intelligent enough to interest her father. He was often away, and left her in charge of her nurse Eliza, who loved her; and the child grew from babyhood into a sprite of mischief, always cheerful, always laughing, often naughty, and fond of forgiving Eliza, with much kindness and bounteousness, when she reproved her.

Mr. Archer’s house, “Solitude,” was a large building, with an appearance of care and comfort. There were neighbours three and four miles away. But he cared little for them while Naomi lived, and less after her death. So Launa grew from infancy into childhood alone. She played with the dogs, and in summer let them run among the long grass, which was for hay, and which their wild bounding did not improve. How she loved to see them tearing through it and chasing each other. And then she spent days by the brook, sailing boats and paddling and splashing. Many mighty fleets she launched, which sailed away and never came back, drifting down the current to the sea. She played with the big white daisies in the pasture, and gathered them with huge yellow buttercups. She dabbled in the salt water, and ran up and down the beach, while the dogs hunted the kingfishers and yapped in vain at the crows. It was a heavenly life for a child – lonely never, solitary, perhaps, for she had but frequent glimpses of her father, who journeyed north, south, east, and west, seeking many things, principally forgetfulness, or rather a memory that should revive no pain.

CHAPTER II

When Launa Archer was ten years old her father realised that she must be taught; so he went forth to seek a governess.

Mr. Archer had grown into a silent man, as is often very naturally the case with men who spend much of their lives in the woods. But Launa found him an excellent companion, full of knowledge about all the beasts of the field and fowls of the air, and able to tell wonderful stories of “Ring, the king’s son,” Norwegian fairy stories, and Indian legends. Archer found the governess problem hard to solve. For once in his life he distrusted his own inclinations, and asked advice of Mrs. Butler, the wife of one of his neighbours. She had no children, but she longed to be consulted about Launa, on the principle that childless women know most about children. Mrs. Butler disapproved of Launa, for she was shy, had retired under the table during one of Mrs. Butler’s visitations, and refused to come forth until the lady had left, giving as an excuse that Mrs. Butler shook hands too much and too often.

Mrs. Butler grew voluble, and George Archer somewhat distressed. She strongly advised school; indeed, it was her war-cry. School would endow Launa with lady-like habits. Her listener frowned. School would give her pleasant companionship, and a knowledge of all those things which it was necessary for young ladies to acquire.

“Is not curiosity, the hereditary tendency of Mother Eve strongly inherent in all women?” asked Mr. Archer. “Launa will learn for herself.”

“Yes, perhaps,” vaguely murmured Mrs. Butler. “Still, if I were you I would send her to school.”

George Archer immediately became conscious of many things he did not want his Launa to become or to learn. She would either be miserable at school or dislike “Solitude” on her return thither; either result would be disagreeable. He wanted Launa to remain natural; consequently he did not advertise for a governess. He had an idea he might meet a suitable teacher. Mrs. Butler told him that in all probability he would marry such a paragon as he desired, and he smiled without contradicting her.

He visited his friends at Baltimore, New York, and Halifax, which was near where he lived, and in New York he found what he sought. Her name was Black; she was a German-American. Her age was thirty, though her face suggested forty and her figure twenty. When she played the piano Archer almost worshipped her talent. He had found the long-looked-for solace – in the music he saw Naomi; they were together again. And whenever Miss Black played he seemed to lose himself in a heavenly dream. If she could teach the wild little lady at “Solitude” to play! Miss Black could row and paddle; she had read, and did read; she could walk far, and play tennis. She was full of intelligence, and her German was good.

It seemed to the perplexed parent that the day of the millennium was about to dawn when he went, home with this trophy. If the dogs and Launa liked her then he could dare to be content.

Launa had never known anyone she did not like except Mrs. Butler, who reciprocated the feeling. The idea of a governess had no dreaded associations for her; a companion was her greatest desire. Eliza had grown too fat to climb fences and to go out in the canoe – a form of pleasure she dreaded and detested, for Eliza could not swim, nor would she learn.

Miss Black – Launa christened her “Whitey” – was a success. When Mrs. Butler heard of her she said the world would talk, but when she saw Whitey’s livid face and weather-beaten countenance, she wanted to know what her history was, and talked about Mr. Archer’s lonely and defenceless situation as though he were a castle facing north-east.

The dogs loved Miss Black; her sitting-room was always a haven of refuge when they were wet and tired, also when Launa had steeplechases and Fatsey, an old dog, would not and could not jump over a broomstick three feet from the ground, then, he too, sought sanctuary with Whitey.

Whitey taught Launa music, and the child worked earnestly, undismayed by the drudgery, with the hope of some day being able to play like her teacher, and her reward always came in the form of freedom for a while. With Whitey, she read many books, stories, history, and poetry. And as Miss Black had travelled far and wide she made all she taught interesting.

This odd couple were very happy together. In the winter they snowshoed, going for long tramps through the woods. They were frequently out in stormy weather, for Miss Black loved the wind as much as Launa did, and the wild turmoil of snow and tempest attracted them both. They explored the whole surrounding country together. Miss Black and Launa were also very fond of wandering to the far away lakes – the big black lakes with long shadows and deep reflections of trees and rocks – lakes whose solitude and silence filled one with a sort of apprehension, that whispered of horrors, past or to come – the ghosts of dead braves might wander there as a foretaste of the happy hunting ground. The hills were high and steep, covered with brushwood which was very thick, and at intervals there were rocks and holes that made climbing perilous, but Launa and Miss Black did not mind difficulties. On one occasion Mr. Archer took them to camp out for a week and to fish. How they loved it! The queer smell of the wood smoke, the joy of cooking in the ashes, and the talk round the fire in the twilight before bedtime, when the stars came out and the moon hung half-way up in the sky, while the firelight threw shadows all around, making the white birch trees look ghostly in the dim light, while in the distance the little stream rushed on to the sea.

CHAPTER III

When Launa, who had a queer, passionate temper, a horror of restraint of any kind, and a great dislike to being disappointed or thwarted, was fifteen, she was tall, and slight, all arms and legs, with long thin fingers, and well-shaped feet. Her skin was tanned, with a tinge of red in her cheeks, her eyes were brown, as was her hair. She could paddle, and walk on snowshoes like an Indian, her voice had a low soft richness in it that reminded Mr. Archer of a squaw – which made him wonder whether there had been Indian blood in Naomi or not?

But Launa had a stronger look than her mother; she was less of the dainty French girl, and she possessed a greater desire to rise, to achieve something, possessing a less sublime acquiescence in fate or destiny than Naomi, who had been sweeter, more yielding, and fulfilling Mr. Archer’s preconceived, primeval idea of a woman. Sometimes he feared for his daughter, and that curious belief in herself, which she displayed with a half-expressed idea, that she would be able to command fate, an early sign of her masterful independence.

“When I am big,” Launa said to her father one day, “I shall write a book about the woods and the Indians; no one writes about them, or seems to know how.”

Her father smiled.

“You must learn to keep still.”

“The arranging and selecting of ideas must be difficult,” she said, “and I always come to grief over commas. I love full stops, but Whitey says my sentences are jerky. It must be difficult to disguise one’s mood when writing books, to write when one is tired or weary; I could not do it.”

“You will perhaps be glad to do it some day.” Then changing the subject, he said, “I am going to the Reserve to-day, will you come?”

“What time shall we go?”

“At three,” he answered.

Launa rushed off to order tea to take with them, as well as some tea and sugar for presents to the Indians.

They drove about six miles to the Reserve. It was a desolate piece of country, and lay along the side of a large lake, from which ran a little trout stream. The Indians lived in cottages, poorly built shanties, and they welcomed the Archers with joy. There was an old grandmother, a terrible old person in a red flannel bed-jacket, a very short skirt, and a short pipe, which she smoked with fervour. Her grey hair hung down on both sides of her brown face, and she waved her long thin fingers as she related tales of her magic cures, for she was a doctor and made herb decoctions for anyone who was ailing. She talked in a low mysterious voice.

“I give him little medicine, yer know,” she said, with a leer and a drawl, nodding her funny old head with an air of confidence in her listener’s understanding and belief.

Miss Black was afraid of her, and always felt sure that Mrs. Andrew would not be too good to omit mixing poison with her medicine, if she considered it desirable the sick person should not recover.

Launa listened to the old grandmother’s stories with rapt attention, until Andrew, the witch’s husband, came to say he had lighted a fire by the lake, and that Abram had launched his canoe to take Launa in it after tea.

Andrew and Launa caught some trout, which they cooked at the wood fire, and Launa made tea. She presented Mrs. Andrew with a large parcel of it to that lady’s joy, though she merely grunted her thanks, and then offered Launa a cup out of her own tea-pot. But as the Indians seldom or never empty the tea-pot (they consider it a waste to throw away the old leaves, and keep on adding a few new ones, which they let boil to get their full flavour), Launa knew better than to drink it. It was, in truth, a deadly concoction.

Abram pushed his canoe into the water, and taking a paddle in one hand started with a little run and then jumped into the end of the canoe, which shot out into the middle of the lake. It was a wonderful jump, and Launa never tired of seeing it.

“There is no one who can do that as Abram does,” she said with admiration. “He is splendid, isn’t he, Andrew? Abram, Abram!” called Launa. “Take me up to the end of the lake!”

He brought the canoe in again, and she took her paddle and knelt in the bow. They went off together, her firm figure, with its graceful arm movement, erect, muscular, and supple. Oh! the joy of those days! The joy of living and of doing! The rapid, firm strokes, and the movement!

Launa paid her visit to the opera house in New York, whither her father took her with Miss Black for a winter, and then her dreams were realised. She heard the “Nibelungenlied,” “The Meistersinger,” “Tannhauser,” besides selections from “Parsifal”; she also attended numerous concerts. Music took the place of her out-of-door life, and she became so absorbed in it that she only occasionally missed and regretted her former wanderings. It was as if she had experienced its wonderful power for the first time, and drank from a cup of intoxicating sweetness.

She went to dances, and discovered that men found her attractive, and naturally she soon learned how to make herself agreeable. At the same time she realised that most men love a woman for her bodily charm.

“Men are very animalish, Whitey,” said Launa one day, after having made a successful appearance at an evening reception.

Miss Black gasped. She had ignored the existence of men as lovers, except in history and in books, while teaching Launa.

“All men are not alike,” she said vaguely.

“No, of course not. Father is perfect. Few men are like him.”

When they returned to “Solitude,” Launa worked with renewed ardour, and practised with joy – she wanted to play well. She read all sorts of books, and after a course of lectures on Greek literature, she turned with avidity to Plato, to Epictetus. Of German books she read many; to Miss Black’s regret she had outgrown Marlitt. For a woman who could do things, who did not fear storm or rain, Miss Black was singularly afraid of the knowledge of good and evil. Evil belonged especially to the poor and low, and to men, who gave it up when they put on dress-clothes, and were in the society of ladies – the humanising influence of ladies! A dress suit was the veneer that completely covered the brute-beast in a man.

About this time Launa turned affectionately to her father. She found him sympathetic, for he understood her, and he never gasped.

“You remind me of your mother,” he said one day to her.

“Tell me about her,” she said, flushing with pleasure.

“She was very sweet – how can I tell you? I loved her; half of me, the best, the happy half died with her; it was as if I were killed… And we were so happy.”

“It was terrible,” said Launa. “Life, father, seems sometimes to be horribly, terribly sad.” She said this with the air of one who has made a new discovery, and it amused her father.

“Why is it?” she asked.

“I do not know.”

“And what is the good?”

He did not answer.

It dawned upon the small world round “Solitude” that Launa was attractive, and so the inhabitants came to visit and to criticise. They all went to Quebec, and they stayed several nights at different houses, where she enjoyed herself, and where she was admired – especially at one of the balls she attended.

Among all the men she met, English as well as Canadian, for there was a garrison in Halifax, a man named Paul Harvey interested her most. He was a Canadian, who possessed a place about twenty miles from “Solitude.” He was tall and dark. His skin was tanned from the out-of-door life he led; he had a peculiarly high forehead, and high cheek bones, and his body had the lithe look common to men who spend their lives in doing, and who are never troubled with superfluous flesh. His keen eyes glanced into one’s inner consciousness, and seemed hard, until he smiled. He walked with the Indian stride, which is quick and quiet. Of course he could ride, and he had the strong capable hands of a man who has been brought up to do things, and who could do them well. Paul Harvey and Launa soon became firm friends, for they understood each other. They loved the same things; the witchery of the woods, of the canoe, and of the sea was real and tangible to them both, and he loved music, as did she. In the long spring days they often met, and he was full of admiration for this girl, who was so strong and so fearless.

George Archer frequently invited Paul to “Solitude,” without the least idea of encouraging any feeling on Paul’s part for Launa, who in her father’s eyes was still a child; that any man should think of her as a possible wife never occurred to him, but then Archer’s idea of a wife (the other man’s wife) was a submissive woman, and Launa was not that.

One day in May Mr. Archer had gone to Chezettcook to fish, and Launa was anxious to pay him a visit. Paul expressed himself desirous of driving her down to the river which her father owned.

So the two left “Solitude” at two o’clock on a still day, very sultry and hot; a haze lay thick over the land, and the sun shone red with a lurid glare, for the haze was the smoke of fires in the woods.

They drove along very rapidly, not talking much, though occasionally Paul would look at her and she at him, and they smiled with a sense of well-being and mutual bliss.

“I think,” said Paul at last, “that the Bible makes a mistake when it says, ‘Godliness with contentment is great gain’; it should be love.”

“Oh, Paul,” she exclaimed. “The smoke! it is getting so thick.”

Paul was holding his head down.

“Shall we turn back? The fire is crossing the road in front of us. I am afraid we can’t get through it.”

He turned his horse quickly.

“Launa, it seems as if it were cutting us off.”

They were in a winding road, a crosscut. He started Micmac at a gallop. If the fire were before them! There was a long hill to climb.

The trap swayed and jolted, for the road was bad. They were tearing along; the wind was behind them, and they could hear the crackle which was getting nearer, rising to a hideous roar. A river crossed the road below the hill – had they time to get to it?

Paul wrapped the rug round his companion, put it over her head, and covered her mouth.

“Keep it tight,” he exclaimed, “and sit still.”

Then he began to use his whip, having tied his own handkerchief over his mouth. Micmac was going more slowly in spite of the whip; it seemed as if he were terrified and paralysed by the pursuing fiend.

“You are not afraid,” said Paul with difficulty, through his handkerchief.

“No,” gasped Launa, “not with you.”

He put his hand on her shoulder.

“Keep your mouth well covered; the fire is before us. We must go through it.”

On, on they tore; the smoke almost choked her. It was so terribly thick that Paul could not see Micmac, though his eyes burnt, and he kept them open with difficulty. Then the flames ran up a dead pine tree in front of him, and shed a lurid light through the smoke. The heat was intense; he shut his smarting eyes, and trusted Micmac would keep the road.

“Oh, if the bridge – a wooden bridge – were not down!” “Were not down!” repeated itself; “Were not down!”

They were in the midst of the fire now; the roaring was tremendous, and the trees were flaming and crackling on all sides. Paul covered his eyes with one hand, and used the whip with the other. It was like the finish of a race, a race for life, down the hill at a gallop. But the bridge? It had already caught, and the wood was smoking, when Micmac stopped with a jerk, and Paul jumped out and took hold of him.

“You must, old boy, you must,” he murmured. “Once over we are pretty safe. Good horse, good horse!”

The trembling Micmac refused again; the bridge was hot, and frightened him. Then he went at it with a rush, with Paul still at his head, half-running, half-dragged by the horse. The river was wide, and the wind was from the north, blowing the fire down on them over the road, but not across the stream in the direction in which they were going.

Paul got into the trap quickly, and Micmac galloped on and on and on until, though the smoke was still thick, they were safe. At last Paul pulled up, and looked back. The road along which they had come was a sheet of flame, and he shuddered as he thought of what might have happened. There were so many pine trees to burn, and to fall burning, while the side of the river on which they were was covered with alder bushes and rocks, and the wind, too, was blowing that way.

“Now!” he gasped hoarsely, for his throat was dry and parched. “Now!”

And Launa threw off her rug. Paul was black, his face was flaming and smutty, his cap had blown off, and his hair stood on end. Her rug was singed. Micmac had a burn, where a piece of wood had fallen on him, and he was trembling when Launa got out and patted him, talking while she did it.

“My darling,” murmured Paul, going up to her, “you are safe; you behaved like an angel.”

He looked at his hands and did not touch her.

“So did Micmac. Look at him, and you – you are burnt, your hands are sore. Oh, I am so sorry! Do, do drive back to ‘Solitude,’ and – and – ”

“Yes?”

“Oh, drive back!” she said.

They took a short cut across a half made road, and so got behind the fire. Paul talked very little, and she not at all, though she heard “My darling” over and over again, and wondered.

Paul stayed at “Solitude,” and after dinner Launa, Whitey, and he sat on the veranda and watched the fire, still burning in the distance. The whole sky was in a blaze, but luckily the wind was dying down. They could see the flames running from tree to tree; they could hear the roar, but they were quite safe, for the water was between them. In the dark, Paul silently, secretly took her hand, and they talked to Miss Black of the annual regatta, and of Canadian ferns. A few stars blazed high up in the sky, the others were dimmed by the lurid glow, and the aspen tree quivered in the dying breeze, while the waves of the incoming tide tapped the boats gently below.

Launa felt in that state of happiness, which says, “Last, last, last.”

The annual regatta came off that year in July. Everyone knows the St. Aspenquid Regatta. There were the usual boat races, and excitements and innocent fooleries; but the best of all was the canoe race for the championship of Canada. Paul Harvey had entered for it with his friend Jack Howston.

Before the start they both came to the steam launch, from which Launa was viewing the races. Harvey, with his strong half-brown, half-white arms bare above his elbows, looked like work. After a word or two with Launa, as she leaned down to him, they paddled away to the start. She heard the pistol shot and the hoarse murmur of the crowd, proclaiming the race had begun. Far away in the distance the brown canoes could be seen; Launa watched breathlessly as they came nearer. The paddles flashed in the sun and on the gleaming dancing water. To Launa, the long, strong, slow strokes with the absence of haste was maddening; she stood, not daring to move, watching the white forms as they came nearer, nearer, the iron muscles in each man showing up as he paddled on and on. Paul’s canoe was third in the contest.

“Third,” announced Launa. Her voice sounded level, she was just able to hide her apprehension lest he might fail, and her longing for his success, which, nevertheless, made her desirous of burying her face in her hands until the race was over. Her hostess, Mrs. Montmorency, stood near her, serene, alert, and slight, enjoying her successful party with a little interest in the races, and a little curiosity as to Launa’s attitude towards Paul Harvey.

The men ahead were doing their utmost; in the second canoe, too, they were working hard; but the men in the dark canoe seemed to be dead, dull – what was it?

The crowd shouted “St. John, St. John!” for the canoe owned by that town was in front. Disappointment was in the cry. But suddenly the third canoe gave a spring; it shot forward with a leap, and a bound, and a swirl through the water, and then on and on. The two men were working, straining. They passed the second canoe, and the finish was near; the strong sinews under the arms of the two men showed up clearly. Had they waited too long?.. On they crept, and at last with a final, splendid rush – oh, the ease of it, the seeming lack of effort – the brown canoe shot ahead of the other. They had won, won. Amid shrieks, cheers, and waving of handkerchiefs the heroes, the winners paddled away to change.

Launa had been on the verge of tears, caused by excitement, fear, apprehension, and heaven knows what besides. She was unable to drink her tea because of a lump in her throat. Paul paddled alone over to her, and climbed on board the Lethe.

“You’ve won,” she said. “I am very glad.”

“And so am I – glad. I am more than glad. It means good luck; it means I shall win my heart’s desire; it means – ” he almost said “You.”

Launa did not answer; she gave him her hand as if they had met for the first time, and he held it longer than a man does when saying, “How do you do?” It was like an involuntary childish caress.

He stayed with her until it was time for the single canoe race, for which he was acting umpire. She was sweet, with a delightful unexpectedness which fascinated him, as did her varying good looks, her firm, lithe body.

“I wish they had a ladies’ canoe race,” he said. “You would enter for it, would you not?”

“Oh yes.”

“They will certainly have one next year, and you will win.”

Launa laughed.

“I must go,” he said with regret. “But I shall soon come back.”

“We shall leave soon now,” said Mrs. Montmorency. “Will you come and dine at Paradise to-morrow, Paul? We are going over there, and shall drive home by moonlight. Perhaps you will come and meet us?”

“Thank you,” he replied. “I will.”

Then he got into his canoe, and Launa watched him paddle away with slow strokes – regretful strokes they seemed to her. His paddling was so unlike that of the other men, so strong, and his body swayed to the motion. Mrs. Montmorency brought up a Mr. Evans and introduced him to Launa. He was a young Englishman, with a respect for the institutions of his country, a love for his dinner, and for pretty women.

He began by asking whether Launa considered Miss Montmorency pretty, and whether she liked Wagner. His theories were that a man can tell a woman’s character most quickly from her ideas on the subject of other women, as well as from the music she affects.

Near them sat Mr. Archer and the hostess talking. Launa heard a word here and there as she listened to Mr. Evans’ agreeable remarks, and then she heard her father say:

“Harvey is a fool or worse. The Indians will not stand it. Peter Joe came to me about it; he says he would kill him, only that he is sure he would be hanged for it.”

“You think they will take some quiet revenge,” said Mrs. Montmorency, “and more deadly.”

“Yes, I do.”

“In their mind a child constitutes marriage?”

“If its father does not want to marry anyone else,” he answered. “They will be satisfied if he lets things alone, but he won’t.”

“He does want to marry?”

“I think so. Money will considerably improve his house, and pay off some of the mortgages; he will, I expect, take a wife with money.”

“It is terrible, and such a pity. I always liked Mr. Harvey for his mother’s sake, and I have ever made him welcome.”

“I advised him to marry her – the squaw,” said Mr. Archer. “It will finish him socially, but in other ways it will make a man of him. Harvey is – ”

Here they walked away to the bow of the Lethe, and Launa’s companion talked on, and she answered him.

She impressed him with her interest, her air of being fascinated by him, and all the while she was in torment. Harvey had held her hand! She took off her pale tan suede glove and threw it into the water. It burnt her; her hands felt hot.

Her quick action puzzled Mr. Evans.

“Miss Archer, your glove! Is it a challenge? Do you mean me to go after it?”

“No, no,” she answered. “I hate it; I do not want it. Oh, we are going.”

The Lethe had steam up, and was puffing and moving slowly.

“I am so glad. It is very hot. How cool the air is.”

They passed Paul in his canoe. He waved his hand to Launa, who was staring into the water, and appeared absorbed in the depths or in her companion.

CHAPTER IV

That night Launa could not sleep. She was so angry with Paul Harvey and with herself; she loathed herself. Her ideas of men and their passions were those of a young girl, to whom passion is unknown, to whom men appear as gods. She considered a man must love a woman by whom he has a child. Love, love! Paul was the father of a squaw’s child – of a squaw’s child; it reiterated in her brain until she almost writhed with anguish. She had thought of him as always her own. The shame of it! And worse than shame, the pain, because she would have to give him up. Oh, to get home! To be able to wander about alone! Away on the big barrens where she could move as she liked, and tire herself out. Their wind-laden sweetness would revive her, their vastness would bring peace; she was so tired of the life away from “Solitude.” She forgot how much joy hope had always given to her. She had hoped. The past tense is easily conjugated once, but to live in the past for ever, to regret for ever is torment, death-like torment. She resolved not to regret, not to suffer, and so she read Carlyle until daylight.

Next day Mrs. Montmorency’s party drove to Paradise. There were wonderful beech woods in which to walk. Paul met them there. His first look was for Launa; she was standing talking to two men, and he joined them and waited with patience, until at last he asked her to go for a walk.

“No, thank you,” she said. “I am too tired to walk.”

“I want to show you the trees. Come into the wood and sit down, you can rest there.”

“Well, I will walk,” she answered.

She looked at him with an involuntary air of appeal. She was not afraid of him, she assured herself, only afraid of herself. Some day he might tell her things, ask her questions, and she, through weakmindedness, might answer. They started to walk, and she still meditated. Why should she think he cared for her? Ah yes, and why did she want him to care? These questions opened an endless vista of ideas and feelings before her. She felt indifferent for the moment, as no doubt he did.

“The view is lovely,” she exclaimed at last. “Let us go to the village.”

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, coming nearer and looking at her.

“Of many things. I think in heaven I should miss the sweetness of the air which is here.”

“So should I.”

They walked down the road past a cluster of Indian cottages. A young squaw with a baby in her arms sat in front of one of them. Launa looked at her and at the child; its hair was more curly, and not quite so black as the long, straight locks of Indian children.

“What a queer baby!” she exclaimed.

She looked at her companion. He was digging with his stick in the red clay of the road; his eyes were hidden; a red flush mounted to his forehead, and he was singularly embarrassed. She turned away and walked slowly on, followed by him in silence.

“What is that noise?” she said.

They heard a sound like a moan quite near them, and it grew louder; something – some animal – was suffering intensely.

“Look!” she cried.

In a ditch by the roadside lay a horse, thin, so thin that his bones seemed as if they would come through his skin. A few children clustered round, throwing stones at it at intervals and poking it with sticks. Blood slowly oozed from a wound in its head, and its poor body was covered with sores.

“Do something,” she said, and her voice quivered with the horror of it. “Can’t we put it out of its misery? Whose horse is it?”

Paul had driven away the children, and gone close to it.

“Someone has half shot it; it must be in torture.”

“Go and borrow a rifle,” she said. “I will stay here and keep away those little fiends. Do go.”

“You are not afraid?”

“Afraid? No, only so sorry. What horrible, unavailing suffering! Go, and be quick.”

He walked briskly away, and she strolled up and down. The children came near to stare at her, but they ceased to torment the horse. She could not bear its eyes; they seemed to beg of her to kill it, and she could do nothing. She clasped her hands together with such force that they hurt her as she longed and longed for Paul’s return. It began to grow dusk. She had forgotten tea, and the rest of the party – would they be looking for her, and imagining all sorts of things? Meanwhile the horse’s moans grew louder; the young squaw with the baby came slowly down the road – the baby was crying.

Launa asked if she knew who owned the horse.

“A man named Morris, who lives down the road four miles away. He turned him out to die; he is too old to work or eat.”

The baby wailed.

“Your child is ill,” said Launa.

“Yes,” grunted the girl, who was so young and almost pretty; “my grandmother cursed him.”

“Cursed him?”

“Because of his father, he – ”

“Oh,” interrupted the other, “will Paul never come? If he would only be quick.”

She could not bear these revelations. The moans of the horse and the shrill misery of the child were torturing her.

Someone suddenly threw a stone from behind the shelter of a spruce tree; it struck the horse, which gave a sharp scream. In the distance Launa heard footsteps. She ran down the road. It was Paul.

“I am so glad you have come,” she said breathlessly, quickly. “Hurry. Did you get a rifle?”

“Are you glad?” his voice changed. “Yes, I have it.”

“The horse is suffering so terribly.”

He looked at her with a certain wistfulness which was unusual.

He is going to tell me he is sorry for that, she thought, remembering the squaw and the child who had come near them.

“Go, go and put him out of his misery,” she said, with quick anger and excitement. “There is so much torture, so much suffering for animals, women, and children. Oh, God! it is awful!”

He turned and saw the Indian girl.

“You,” he said merely, but with bitterness, almost hatred, in his tone. “Go away.”

“You are a brute,” said Launa, “to talk to her in that way. What has she done? Go and kill the horse.”

“Not until you are further away,” he said, with gentleness. “He may, and probably will, scream. That woman is not fit for you to talk to or to touch.”

For one moment Launa felt afraid, and she wanted to ask him to come with her down the road out of earshot, away from it all. The twilight was growing dense. The horse would scream; ugh! how horrible the suffering! There were witches abroad in the night – witches of selfishness, of pain, of terror. She wanted Paul to put his arms round her, to kiss her, even with the girl near with his child in her arms. She felt degraded, and yet loath to let him leave her, until she remembered the horse.

“Come with me,” said Paul, and he took her hand and led her down the road. “There is a big rock here. You will wait for me? Sit down and I will wrap your cloak round you; you are cold.”

Her teeth chattered with apprehension as he walked firmly back. She listened with her fingers in her ears, hearing only the thump of her heart beating. One, two sharp reports and a sort of checked scream told her it was over before he came back.

They walked quickly to the hotel, where the rest of the party were waiting dinner. They were curious as well as hungry, and anxious to hear the result of all this wood walking. They discovered nothing; neither Launa nor Paul appeared happy, or at ease. He ate his dinner with indifference; she ate nothing, and felt as if all her body, beginning with her teeth, was beyond her control.

Before they left to drive home he said: —

“You misunderstood me to-night. I want to tell you about that squaw.”

“I know it. Do not tell me.”

“You are angry with me because of her. I could not help it.”

“I despise a man who could not help it,” she answered. “I am sorry for her and for you. You could shoot the horse.”

“You are angry about her?” he asked again.

“I am outraged, not merely angry. Why,” she continued suddenly, “should there be one law for me and one for her? I could not bear anyone who treated her claim as nothing. She will belong to you, be one of you – ” she paused.

“I would never treat her claim as of no value,” he said quickly, “but – ”

“You will never come again to me,” she said.

Had she said too much? Would he understand? She continued:

“Do not explain. Be careful – they may think of revenge.”

“That is enough. And so it is good-bye? Good-bye, then.”

Mrs. Montmorency took Launa home with her in the brougham. They talked about clothes, while Launa remembered the queer dark evening, the half-pretty Indian girl, and heard the wailing sobs of her baby, and then she saw Paul’s face full of anger. Love was there, hatred as well, as he said, “Go away,” to the girl. She shuddered, and he thought her angry – simply angry – good that he could think she felt so slight an emotion. Women are angry every day with their maids, and their dressmakers, and their rivals, and it leaves no impression, not even a wrinkle; there remains no ache whatever, unless it be weariness.

“I love crepon,” she said to Mrs. Montmorency. “It is so soft and graceful.”

Paul Harvey did not go again to “Solitude.” Miss Black lamented his absence loudly. From inquiries she made she learned that he had gone away to the Restigouche with some Englishmen to fish.

Launa took up shorthand as a sedative, and worked with great diligence. But she learned nothing. However, as neither her father nor Miss Black was aware of this, because of their utter ignorance of shorthand, its failure as an attainable subject caused no surprise to them.

Mr. Archer went to New York, and then Launa frequently took long wandering walks – over stretches of rocky country with narrow, gloomy, cuttings full of granite boulders, where there were caves.

One day she went, in her canoe, up a stream, until she reached a chain of lakes where she could paddle on and on – far away into space – where the stillness was maddening yet restful.

The peace of autumn, of approaching death, lay on the woods. The maples, with their gorgeous colouring, shone and flamed in the bright sun; the birches were yellow, almost gold, in the brilliant light; occasionally a leaf fell slowly, it reminded Launa of a ghost of the end; there was dread in the creeping slowness, as of the invincible, powerful march of a quiet enemy. The breeze sprung up gently, it rippled the water, and stirred the tall pine trees slowly with a rhythmic movement, and the sun began to sink. She gazed again and again at the warm rapturous colouring, the triumph of the trees at the end of their summer life, for the leaves have a glorious finish, and then she turned her canoe round and paddled swiftly back to “Solitude.”

Everything there was in confusion; Miss Black had been taken suddenly ill. She was still unconscious, and they had sent for the doctor, who arrived only to tell them she was dead.

Launa did not know her father’s address. Miss Black’s relations were merely cousins, to whom her death and funeral were matters of indifference.

So Launa stayed alone with the dead woman weeping tears of sorrow – some tears were for the loss of companionship, some for the love and never ceasing care. The idea of a funeral was terrible to her; death meant earth and creepy things. At last Mr. Archer got his telegram, and came home.

Launa felt as if the end had come to her. Death, the intruder, had entered into her life; he was a powerful enemy, and hitherto she had only regarded him as a sleeping brother.

Mr. Archer’s grief was not perfunctory, he grieved honestly and really. Miss Black was his friend – if any longing for a nearer and perhaps dearer connection (the dearness thereof is wont to depart when the nearness is an accomplished fact) had ever crossed his mind, it had crossed only and never taken root. The constancy of man is more frequently attributable to circumstances than to everlasting love.

Mr. Archer observed that Launa had grown different – older, more absorbed in something, more sympathetic. Always a child of deep emotions, she had developed into a woman. But because her heart was not navigable to floundering old women, the world near “Solitude” called her cold, unfeeling, and indifferent.

Her father regretted this alteration. She had been a child, but apparently death had stepped in and changed her.

He studied her gravely and with attention. “Solitude” was dreary. Launa’s admirers grew weary of vain visits, of fruitless attempts to see her, and they ceased to come. They said she was in love with an unknown man; they had to account for her refusal to see them, and pique and vanity suggested this solution.

After a long, cold winter, spring was beginning. All life was breaking out again. The world was glad, triumphant, new, and Mr. George Archer’s mind turned to England. Launa must go there for change of scene and air, so they left Canada on the first of May.

Launa and Paul had never met since the memorable day he had shot the horse. Mr. Archer casually mentioned that Paul was in Montreal. Launa had a burning desire to hear tidings of him, but she repressed it; she pushed it back, back, back in her mind, far away into those cupboards everyone has, and keeps locked and sealed always, by sheer force of will.

CHAPTER V

The long streak of smoke from the steamer’s funnel lay black on the calm sea; the strong throb of the engines sounded like the measure of a waltz to Launa. She sat on deck every day after the first woe of sea-sickness was over, and felt utterly and completely miserable. She wanted to go back again, for the ache of unconquered pain remained in her heart. She gave herself a little shake and tried to make herself agreeable to a young man who was returning to England to be married. He told her happily that the engines were playing the “Wedding March”; to her it was a hateful discord, with the refrain of a waltz to which she had danced with Paul. The young man hummed Mendelssohn, and she heard Paul’s voice, and fancied his kisses on the warm cheek of the squaw.

“When I am married I would rather have the ‘Dead March in Saul’ played than that,” said Launa at last.

The triumphant whistler gazed incredulously at her. He found her irresponsive, so he left her alone, and went to get a whisky and soda. No doubt the poor girl was feeling sick. She would not argue about anticipation and realisation, or time and love. She seemed so cold. He could imagine her sailing on through life alone. She evidently did not care for men; anyhow she did not encourage him.

Launa was occupied with her thoughts. She was trying to seal up her life as if it were a book and could be put away. The long, uneventful days were good for reflection, but they were trying and full of remorse and regret.

“I am young,” she said to herself; “only nineteen, and I will forget,” said her mind, “and I wish for Paul,” said her heart, which was like the ship’s engines – an essential part of movement and life.

“Hearts,” she said to the young man with anticipations, when he returned, “are only necessary to one’s being as the engines are to a steamer.”

She considered herself very wise.

“You are so young,” he answered, wondering why she should mention her heart.

Just then Mr. Archer appeared at the companion door to breathe the air. He was writing a paper on the intestines of salmon and grayling. The young man turned to him and said:

“Miss Archer compares our hearts to the engines.”

“A very good way,” murmured the father.

The young man left them and went to play poker; they were an unsuitable pair. Mr. Archer came over to Launa, who turned quickly to him.

“Father, I heard you talking to Mrs. Montmorency that day on the Lethe– about Mr. Harvey – was it true?”

Mr. Archer frowned.

“What did you hear?”

“Something about – a squaw and a child.”

“It was quite true about the squaw and the child,” he answered slowly.

“Ah!” she exclaimed with a little gasp. “Then a man can think of two women at the same time.”

Then he turned and looked at her.

“Men are very brutal.”

“You said he was thinking of marriage?”

“He is.”

She turned her face away from him, for his kind, penetrating look hurt her, and just then she needed him to be cross to her.

“Why do you ask me these questions, child?”

“Because it seemed so strange to me – I could not understand him.”

“Merely strange and not brutal? Nothing to you? Well, you hardly knew him, Launa.”

“Nothing to me,” she repeated, and her father returned to his writing.

The young man with anticipations saw his departure, and hastened to talk to Launa. He was singularly anxious to realise the pleasure of Miss Archer’s society; she was quite original.

“You look pale,” he said, with solicitude.

“Do I?”

“And worried. As if someone were dead.”

“Some one is dead.”

“Relations of yours? Cheer up. Wait until you get to London.”

“And then?”

“Then? Oh, you can have a good time. You can have the best of good times in London – the very best – and forget everything disagreeable, too. I give you my word, it is just like morphia. When I am in a hole, and feel down on my luck, I go to town.”

“Is that the fog? I think I should not like the after effect of morphia.”

“Fog?” he asked. “No, it isn’t fog, and yet it is fog, too; it deadens the brain. When someone threw me over, you bet I felt bad. I went up to town and forgot for a week. I did, really.”

“A week! It lost its effect in a week, so quickly?”

“Well, she wrote then and forgave me, and I hadn’t done anything wrong; she flirted. But she took me back, and I just licked her boots.”

“But suppose she had not taken you back?”

“Then I should have lived and forgotten her; I’m hanged if I wouldn’t,” he said, with energy. “Life does it.”

“Life? – you mean time.”

“I mean living it down.”

“But suppose you could not forget? Suppose you were so fond that you thought of her always?”

“I would forget. I mean – Well, I couldn’t, you know,” he said, and laughed. “Now I’ve got her, you see, and don’t need to try. I do not mind telling you – you seem so interested, and are so sympathetic to-day – that I only forgot her when it was noisy and all that. But when I was alone and quiet – at night, you know – I was miserable. You have nothing like that to worry you, Miss Archer? It is very kind of you to take so much interest in my trouble. You won’t think of your relations when you get to town. Are they in Canada?”

“Yes.”

“And one died – a girl, I suppose? And the others want to interfere with you; they want you to be dull because they are? Relations always do that. Now, I have an aunt – she’s a caution; she thinks I ought not to marry. But I would not stand that. Have you any aunts in town?”

“No. My father has a cousin; Mrs. Carden is her name.”

“She won’t bother you, I expect. You are lucky. Your father adores you. You have plenty of money, and are young. My Aunt Maria is a – Oh, the very deuce.”

Here he launched forth into anecdotes of his relations, and Launa murmured a polite accompaniment to his reminiscences until the bell rang for dinner.

“We’ll meet after dinner, won’t we, and finish our talk? It’s very jolly,” he said. “You have such a nice voice, too.”

“You have done me a great deal of good,” she answered. “Time is all one wants.”

“And life, amusement, and love,” he added softly, with a glance at her, which, considering the state of his feelings for another lady, was unnecessarily kind.

“Leave out love,” she answered. “I am hungry.”

On deck after dinner when he looked for her she was not to be seen, so he concluded she was tired and had gone to bed, wherefore he played poker.

But Launa was not tired. She had hidden from him. His talks about his Aunt Maria had no interest for her, except when she regarded them as a narcotic, and then his musings were soothing. That evening she wanted to think and to be alone.

Her father had insisted on her drinking champagne at dinner. Mr. Archer said a voyage was exhausting, and he looked weary. He had not recovered from the surprise which his daughter’s questions had produced. Were they caused merely by curiosity – the curiosity of an ignorant girl – or by interest? Curiosity is merely an inheritance from Eve; interest is the first instinct towards a man when a woman loves him or is going to love him.

“Launa must drink champagne to-night,” he decided. “And soon we shall be in London. But why did she ask those curious questions?”

Launa took some cushions and rugs and went forward behind the boats. The steamer was surging on, the wind was rising, and the waves were breaking below with big white heads of foam. She began to think; she drew a picture of it all for herself in her mind and called herself a fool. Suppose Paul were there on the steamer, suppose he came to her with love in his eyes, and he were hers for the time – and that was it, that was what hurt – for the time, perhaps only for a time. Would she be willing to take him at the price of another woman’s shame? And to know and to remember what was between her and him, like a bar, or a hand – the warm soft hand of a woman! No, it was over. She would shut up the book. Paul was dead, her Paul, the Paul she loved – she would think of him as she did of her dead mother – sometimes. But her mother was with the angels, and Paul was alive. She shivered a little; it was cold and damp, and the swirl of the waves as the steamer rushed through them was cruel.

She resolved to begin again, to rub out the writing of the first episode of life – such a new book to her – and to make the page ready for London and fresh impressions.

When the Archers arrived in London they took a flat near the Thames Embankment, and Launa revelled in new clothes, music, and horses. Her father soon had many friends. His wee world was exciting itself about the question of bones of fish, and he flung himself with ardour into the controversy.

After some days of continual absence on his part, and loneliness on Launa’s, she went to him and said: —

“I want to know some women. I love nice women. Don’t you know some?”

He looked surprised.

“There is your cousin, Lavinia Carden; she lives in town. I will take you to see her. Her husband is dead; poor man, he never was happy. He yearned for the country and for pigs – Lavinia only appreciated bacon, and would not live out of Bayswater. A month at the seaside was all poor Carden got in the way of country.”

“I shall not like her.”

“She will give you good advice, Launa,” he said, laughing. “You don’t like that.”

Mrs. Carden lived in a semi-detached house, beyond Bayswater, far from the region of the fashionable, in the heart of cheap villadom, where twelve pennies had to make a little over a shilling. Endeavouring to save a farthing on one’s rolls or one’s fire-lighters is an absorbing occupation, and it seems to have most interest for those to whom it is immaterial whether they do save their farthing or not. Mrs. Carden had one son. When he was at home she saw what she considered life – an occasional visit to the theatre, or a dull dinner party, both reached with due propriety in a four-wheeler.

Mrs. Carden was a selfish woman, with a firm belief in her own opinions, and her own importance; anyone who contradicted her or disagreed with her was at once a detestable person. Her affection for her son was expressed in long letters, and the frequent use of “dearest.” But her love was variable, and when he was at home he disturbed her breakfasts, while her nights were made feverish by his late hours, which kept the hall gas a-light until sometimes past twelve o’clock. Her servants assumed a more frivolous demeanour on his arrival, and it seemed to her that while their caps were coquettishly crooked and smart, her stiff house became sometimes slightly untidy.

Charlie Carden was in a line regiment stationed at Malta, with one hundred and fifty pounds a year besides his pay. His mother wondered why he never became dashing, or soldier-like, or anything of a hero, with a sprinkling from the pepper-pot of wickedness – to possess this is the bounden duty of every man when he puts on a red coat or a sword. Carden remained dull, and his mother almost despised him; he was not even selfish, nor did he bully her.

George Archer and Lavinia Carden were second cousins, she was the only relation left whom he had known as a boy. His recollections of her were hazy. In these she figured as a muslin-fichued, sandy-haired girl, in whose face piety and cruelty struggled for mastery; now she parted her hair deliberately in the middle, and indulged in them both. In her youth she had regarded George as a possible husband, and, not loving him, had forgotten him, therefore when reminded of his existence she felt angry with him. Was it not his fault that she had married a man whose only inclinations were to have a farmyard, against which she had had to struggle all her life?

The day before the Archers went to 52 Lancaster Road a note was sent to Lavinia to prepare her for their visit. Mrs. Carden therefore left off her cap for the afternoon, braving the smile of her parlourmaid with the fortitude of a widow who has given up hope of a second marriage, and who suddenly finds the wonderful idea returning with unwonted sweetness – brought back to her by the visit of a man who was long ago considered a possibility. His fondness for a walk from church on Sunday evenings with her had more than proclaimed this fact. She forgot he had a daughter, and that it was five and twenty years since they had met.

The outside of Lavinia’s house was grey. Inside her drawing-room suggested the past and dust, which was constantly being removed; its mark was on the carpet, the walls and the furniture. Only the red blinds shed a little cheerful light, which the drab curtains chastened and subdued.

Mrs. Carden began by relating reminiscences of the family, and then pitied George Archer for his long residence among Colonists. He explained that his residence was quite voluntary, and that he regarded it as the happiest period of his life.

“Did you think my father was obliged to live in Canada whether he liked it or not?” asked Launa; “that he was suffering an unwilling exile?”

“Not exactly that,” said Mrs. Carden. “Where are you staying?”

When she heard of the flat, and contemplated Launa’s boots and dress, she murmured to herself, “Money.”

“George, sometimes when you are busy I should be so glad to take care of Launa; I would take her to – ” She paused. Where could she take Launa? “We might go to the Zoo.”

“Thank you very much,” said Launa politely. She did not press Mrs. Carden to name the day for this expedition; she was not favourably impressed by her relative.

“You will come and dine with us, Mrs. Carden,” said Launa.

“Call me Lavinia,” said Mrs. Carden.

“Come any evening next week; which one will suit you?” asked Mr. Archer.

“Next Thursday,” answered Lavinia.

Then they talked of Mr. Archer’s old home, and looked at photographs of the whole of the family.

“Those happy days,” murmured Mrs. Carden, not without an uneasy feeling that her hair was growing thin at the parting; besides, she began to feel cold without her cap.

They drank weak tea, and Lavinia asked Launa her impressions of England.

“I think London is perfectly delightful,” she answered. “I don’t like the horses much. You use bearing reins. The river is quite perfect, and so different from ours. And yet sometimes I long for a stretch of rocky country, for more freedom. But the music and the life are so interesting. Yes, I love London.”

“Horses, river, life,” repeated Mrs. Carden.

A horse to her was a vehicle of locomotion, like an engine; it conveyed her to the station or to a party. Some deluded beings owned horses; she preferred hers hired, with no responsibility as to legs or grooms.

“You love boating and freedom,” remarked Mrs. Carden. “They are both often dangerous.”

“In this country, yes – where freedom frequently ends in trespassing,” answered Launa.

“Or worse – the loss of one’s reputation,” Lavinia said with decision.

Then she turned to George and told him anecdotes. She conversed rapidly and loudly; when she was a girl her family had told her she was arch.

When they rose to go she said: “George, my dear son will be at home in a few days. May I bring him to dine? Launa, he is your cousin.”

“Do bring him,” said Mr. Archer; “Launa will be glad to see him, I know.”

What a name – Launa! reflected Lavinia after their departure. What a fatality there is in our annexing the Colonies! Still, there is money behind the girl, and she is young.

By which reflection we may infer that Mrs. Carden thought of her son in connection with the money and Launa.

The Archers went home in a hansom.

“You call her a woman, daddy; now I call her a fossil,” said Launa. “She is not the sort of woman friend I need. I want a living woman – not one who has existed on husks until she withers everyone who goes near her.”

“She is a type,” he answered vacantly.

“She is an imitation. Show me some one who is brave – who has or knows life.”

“Would you like Mrs. Phillips to come and see you? She is Sir John Blomfield’s daughter, a widow and young. She wants to know you.”

“I am doubtful, not whether she will like me,” with sublime conceit, “but whether I shall like her.”

“You must try her,” he laughed.

His daughter amused him with her odd ideas.

However, when Mrs. Phillips did come, Launa approved of her.

All this time Launa was learning. She was filled with a desire to know and see more; people and life were so interesting. It was like a new play. She noticed how differently her father, herself, and the others were affected by it, and the noise was soothing, even at times deadening.

Launa found Mrs. Phillips entertaining. She explained some of the parts in this vast human drama. She found Miss Archer absurdly young in many of her notions, and absurdly old in others.

“I want to see everything,” said Launa, “and to live myself. It is terrible to feel oneself growing old. It will soon be over, and I haven’t done what I meant to do.”

Mrs. Phillips laughed.

“Go on. What did you mean to do?”

“I should like,” said Launa, “to be happy.”

“So should we all. Tell me more.”

“I want to play a little first, and then – to make the world a little brighter for someone.”

“If I were you, I would simply play myself and leave the others alone. Playing is real and not difficult. Once you begin to mix other people in your life, with your or their happiness depending on you, you will probably be very miserable.”

The admiration of one woman for another is sincere when it is felt when with her, and not merely expressed to a man.

Mrs. Phillips admired Launa for her youth, for her length of limb, and for her slight, graceful body and her warm brown skin. Launa’s mind was attractive. She made friends quickly; she seemed very adaptable; everyone interested her. Some men adored her as they had done at Musquodobit. To others, with a taste for sensuality, she was an indefinite slight girl, while to the few she was wholly desirable – madly desirable. Of course to the crowd she was just a girl.

Music exercised all its old fascination for her. She practised with diligence, and she listened greedily. It transported her to “Solitude,” to the wild sea there, to the rivers and lakes, the life which she loved and missed, which life and Paul she strove every day to forget. And in music she was with him. It was a dream life – she lived in it. Paul was dead to her, but for all that he existed sometimes. She was stared at in her canoe on the river, her paddling was so strong and vigorous, her body so lithe, her arms so round and firm as she took long, almost masculine, strokes, and nowhere did she miss Paul so much as she did there.

CHAPTER VI

The Cardens both went to dinner.

Captain Carden was a nondescript. He might have been attractive if he had ever appeared interested. He was tall, fair, with grey eyes, and very ugly hands, which were forced into notice because of his constant endeavour to hide them. Launa regarded mother and son with curiosity, for they were English and new, and reminded her of the characters in Trollope’s novels. Neither Charlie Carden nor his mother appeared to have found much to interest them in this world. They were ignorant as well as superior, and gloried in knowing nothing, unlike Mrs. Phillips’s friends, who were anxious to know everything, and to impress outsiders with their knowledge.

The Archers talked first about the opera. Mrs. Carden’s ideas of it were limited to “Pinafore” as new and “Martha” as old. German opera and Wagner were nothing to her, nor did she care about books.

Captain Carden talked about horses to Launa, who gathered that he fancied his own opinion as well as his own horses and prowess.

Mrs. Carden thought George should ask her to take the head of the table; she considered Launa too young. She was disappointed when she found the table was round.

Mrs. Phillips and Mr. Herbert were the other guests. Mr. Herbert was an ugly, short man, with a square face, and a stubbly black moustache. He was a journalist – besides which he was clever. Shortly he was going to Canada to write articles for some papers on the country and its resources.

“You are going to write to me, too,” said Mrs. Phillips.

“Yes,” he replied, with a glance, full of – what?

Launa saw it; here was a man and a woman who clearly were of moment to each other. Launa was so absolutely ignorant of men; she knew only one man, and she tried to forget him. She had believed in them all as a class, and in their chivalrous respect for women – indefinite women – and in their everlasting love for one particular woman at last, but her belief was tottering.

That all men were brave she believed, too, it was part, an essential part, of her idea of a man, as all women are lovely and good. Of course she knew women existed with protruding teeth, who have no attraction, but men do not love them. Mrs. Carden she classed among them.

Captain Carden talked to her with assiduity. He told her he found London dull.

“I hate the people; they are so difficult to know. I have called over and over again on the Huntingdons. You know who he is? Lord Huntingdon in the War Office. And I go often to the club for billiards, but no one is friendly, and society is very difficult to get into.”

“But do you not go in for something? Don’t you ride, or row, or play golf? I think all men should care for things of that sort, even for making love.”

“I never make love; that means marriage, and I have no money.”

“Do you ride?” she asked, feeling perfectly indifferent as to his reply. “All soldiers do.”

This conversation was so profoundly insipid.

“Sometimes; but I hate it. I am always afraid of falling off. I go in for it because the regiment would not think much of me if I didn’t. But I hope I have not bored you,” with a sudden change of tone. “We are cousins, you know, and it is so funny how intimate I can be with you; there are so few women I like, or with whom I can be confidential.”

Launa ate an almond with deliberation.

“Perhaps some day you will come for a drive with me. I might hire a safe horse.”

“Oh, no, thank you. Please do not trouble, I do not like safe horses.”

Mr. Archer turned to Captain Carden and asked about Malta, and Launa watched Mrs. Phillips, who was talking very little, while Mr. Herbert’s conversation was incessant. His air was persuasive, his eyes eager, ardent, full of desire.

At ten the Cardens departed. Charley Carden had time to assure Launa again that she was the only woman with whom he could be confidential. Mrs. Phillips was to stay the night. Launa and she had bedrooms adjoining, with a door of communication. They both put on dressing-gowns, and Lily Phillips went into Launa’s room.

“You are not sleepy, are you? Shall we talk?”

“Sit here,” said Launa, “in this comfortable chair.”

There was a small fire.

“I am always cold,” said Launa. “I love a fire.”

“What do you think of Mr. Herbert?”

“I think him clever, and he evidently likes you.”

“Yes, he is clever. But tell me, Launa, are you modern?”

“In what way?”

“Would you ask a man who loved you if he had a past? Would you object to it if he had?”

“If a past were a present I would object. Can’t men be without past? Is there always a woman they have loved first?”

She seemed to hear the wailing of a child and the rustling of the trees, and to feel the fresh breeze. She shuddered. Mrs. Phillips observed the shudder and the look.

“I do not object. Men are different; they are coarse. They like kissing – indiscriminate kissing.”

Launa laughed, and said, “Go on.”

“If I love a man I shall not care what he has – past, present, anything, if he loves me. I would like one man to really love me.”

“You have been married,” suggested Launa.

“But not loved. My husband was nice; we never quarrelled, but we never made it up. Nice men do not love women; they ask us to marry them, to be mothers to their children. Devils love us and often leave us.”

For some time there was silence.

“You like Mr. Herbert?” again asked Mrs. Phillips.

“He wants to marry you,” said Launa.

“He thinks he does. I am afraid of marriage. I am four-and-twenty and I feel fifty; he is thirty and seems twenty.”

“If I were a man,” said Launa, “I would love you. You are not merely beautiful; you are more – not only attractive, you will never grow old.”

“Thank you, dear,” said Mrs. Phillips; “that is a compliment.”

Mrs. Phillips was small and slight; her hair was a very dark brown, her lips were red, her eyes large and dark blue. Her mouth was the most beautiful part of her face. Her fascination was great; men loved her, went mad over her, and loved her still. She was not good-tempered; a man would never have chosen her for his friend merely. She was variable; not the least of her attraction was that men never could tell how she would treat them. Some women lose their power by their variableness; Mrs. Phillips gained hers. She was cold, yet she could have been passionately fond; but she worshipped self-control, and considered a man ceases to care for a woman when once he is sure of her.

“I shall marry him,” she said. “I think I shall. He is not poor, but I shall never live with him.”

“Why not? What will you do?”

“Though he cares for me, he will grow tired of marriage, and so shall I. The accessibility of a wife is so dull. I shall live in my own flat, and he can keep his rooms. Our marriage notice in all the papers will be followed by a week’s honeymoon, and then he can go back to his work, and I can play. He must love me better for not being sure of me at breakfast, weary of me at dinner, and asleep in the drawing-room at night. All the attraction of the – ” she paused – “of the others will be mine. I shall be his wife. We can entertain, and he will be sure of me.”

“Do men always grow tired of us?” asked Launa, “even if or when they love us?”

“Not always tired, but secure. If they were merely tired, they would let us alone. They cease to desire to please us; we belong to them. Ah, my dear, love! do men love us? Yes, they love us, but do they love one woman?”

Launa’s clock struck twelve.

“I must go to bed,” said Lily Phillips. “I shall not kiss you. Women should never kiss each other. Good-night.”

“Good-night,” repeated Launa.

“That Carden man will want to marry you, Launa. Beware of them both. He is a worm, and has awful legs!”

A few nights after this, Mrs. Phillips took Launa to a ball given by some bachelors – eligible, delightful young men – whose reputation for wickedness was wholly obliterated by their fortunes or the want thereof.

Captain Carden was there. He had procured his invitation with great difficulty. The mother of one bachelor had cause for gratitude towards him. Her son was in his regiment, and when his reputation promised to become inconveniently large, Captain Carden for once used his wits, saved him from the consequences thereof, and the family felt they owed Captain Carden something. Mrs. Carden rejoiced. She thanked Providence for having delivered the sons of the enemy into her hand, and piously glanced at the ceiling (where a brass chandelier hung, symbolic of the worship of light, also brass) when Charlie related his success. He disliked Mrs. Phillips. She circumvented him by introducing several men to Launa before Captain Carden could demand more dances than he had a right to expect. But then she could give him only two.

“Mr. George will amuse you, dear,” said Mrs. Phillips to Launa. “He is clever, and will tell you about his books.”

Mr. George appeared young, and looked not more than two-and-twenty. He was tall, with a pink and white skin, yellow hair, and an infantile smile. He seemed to have vacated the pinafores of the nursery only the day before; but this was not the case, for he had really left them long ago, and he was thirty years old. He told Miss Archer he was writing a book.

“About what? Is it a novel?” she asked.

“About Beginnings,” he replied; “they are so neglected. Everyone writes about Pasts and Probable Futures, but Beginnings are so interesting. The first love-making is a joy, afterwards it palls. The Beginning – the doubt of how she will take it, and how one can make it – is rapture.”

“You think there is joy in uncertainty?” she said.

“I do,” he replied.

“But when men love, they – ”

George interrupted her.

“Dear Miss Archer, I have taken to you at once. I notice you do not use that detestable expression ‘in love.’ This is our Beginning. You were saying – ?”

“I was going to say, when men love they are never happy until they discover whether she loves them in return; uncertainty gives them no joy.”

“It does, they think it does not. That is just what I want to illustrate; when a man does know it, and she does love him, then he marries her, he is certain of her. He may become resigned, but he is not happy, and then – ”

“Yes, and then?”

“He is forever dissatisfied.”

“I thought women only were dissatisfied.”

“Men are, too,” said Mr. George; “I want to show the unhappiness of certainty. I know it.”

“This is our dance, Launa,” said Captain Carden, standing before her and endeavouring to show his proprietorship.

She did not rise. She looked at him and resented his calling her “Launa” as he did. He was not her friend. She disliked him. His jerky manner and his shifty eyes repelled her.

“Launa,” murmured Mr. George, “your name? and it was surely not given by your godfathers and godmothers?”

“Our dance,” said Captain Carden again.

“I will tell you about my name,” she said, “by and by.”

The band was playing a waltz. In spite of herself she felt gay, inspirited. To Captain Carden it was as all other waltzes. He was tired of dancing with young ladies who bored him, and equally weary of ladies who plainly showed they thought him not worthy of a look or a word.

Launa came as a change and a relief. She had intense vitality and energy; a waltz always affected her; it made her glad or sad. She loved the music, the motion, and she looked so desirable.

Captain Carden was not sure whether she was beautiful or not. He wanted to hear someone else say it; he distrusted his own opinion; he had no self-confidence. She was eligible, virtue of virtues; he was a man, she a woman, and as such glad to get him. Did a woman ever refuse a man with his advantages? Never.

Dancing gave Launa more colour. She waltzed several times round the room with him. He danced badly, and held her too close. They stopped. Her hair was ruffled. She stood near him, and he longed to possess her, to own her, to kiss her until she was breathless. His eyes shone as he looked at her. How he would reform her. She would long for his words; she would yearn for his caresses.

“Isn’t that a reviving waltz?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied almost impulsively.

Her presence was reviving, not the music. After this she danced with Mr. George, and explained her captivating name to him. He said he adored it.

“As a Beginning,” she suggested.

“Yes,” he answered instantly.

Then he asked leave to call upon her father to explain his recently published book of Proverbs. He offered to bring a copy with him, and she accepted his offer, for he greatly amused her.

She met another man, called Wainbridge. He also expressed his intention of calling at Victoria Mansions. He called himself a musician, though he did not play any instrument; she promised to play for him.

“He will be Lord Wainbridge some day,” said Mrs. Phillips, as they drove home together. “His uncle has no children by this wife. If she were to die!” Lily Phillips shuddered, “there is another, a young woman with sons.”

“He must be a beast,” said Launa.

“No, not necessarily, only a victim to circumstances, and she is very pretty. I think Mr. Wainbridge knows her. Lady Wainbridge is a horror; she is a Plymouth sister, and wears bombazine always, and a front. She was only evangelical when he married her, and he considered she possessed the possibilities of the good wife, and he expected an heir. He has suffered intensely.”

“Rubbish,” said Launa, “the other woman suffers.”

“You may be sure he has settled all he can on her,” said Lily Phillips, “for I suppose she does suffer, principally because she is not his wife. I often wish I knew her. I wonder if she feels wicked. It would be interesting to know any one living on a volcano, as she does. His wife might die, he might marry a young and innocent girl. Men like their wives to be ignorant of their vices and peculiar passions until after marriage – then – Well, good-night. It was a very cheery ball. You liked it?”

“Immensely,” answered Launa.

“You are very young, Launa. You think men love once. You would not care for a man who could love you and kiss another woman?”

“He could not love me then.”

“My dear, men are different. There is passion and love, and not always felt for the same woman. Love and passion last; passion alone – Bah! it is nothing.”

“Nothing,” repeated Launa.

“It is an impulse; it goes, and they love you again.”

Some days after the ball they were all at tea at Mrs. Phillips’s – Mr. Wainbridge, Launa, Mr. George, and others. The two men had already called on Mr. Archer, and had been invited to dine.

“I want above all things in the world,” said Launa slowly, “to drive a hansom, to sit up high and see the world.”

“I bet you five pounds you can’t,” said Mr. George. “I beg your pardon. But I am sure you can’t.”

She laughed. “I will.”

“How will you climb up?” asked Mrs. Phillips.

“Easily. I will do it at night.”

“And drive me,” Mr. George said. “I will pay you. Don’t overcharge.”

“Take me too,” said Mr. Wainbridge.

“You may both come,” answered Launa gaily.

“You must all dine here to-morrow night,” said Lily Phillips. “Launa, make your arrangements, and get it over.”

It was after dinner. Launa and Mr. George had been delightful. Mr. Wainbridge was suffering from his feelings for her; he could not be frivolous. The carriage came for Miss Archer, who sent it away.

“Come,” she said. “Good-night, Lily, I am going to drive. Jacobs got me a hansom, and has arranged it all for me. Do hurry,” she said to Mr. George. “I feel so excited.”

She put on a long driving coat, a little cap, and a very large silk handkerchief, which went round her neck, and covered the lower part of her face completely.

Mrs. Phillips came out to the door.

“We can’t start here,” said Launa; “the hansom is in a narrow street close by.”

They found it waiting just round the corner.

“Get in quickly,” she said.

“I won’t,” said Mr. Wainbridge, “until you are up. Don’t do it. I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Rubbish,” she replied. “I am going by the back streets. I know the way, so does the mare. I am driving Nell, you know.”

She climbed up and arranged the rugs.

“It is splendid, it gives one such a grip. Let her go.”

They dashed off with a clatter. The mare evidently was pulling.

“I never thought she would do it,” said Mr. George.

“I wish to Heaven she had not tried,” said the other.

“Get out, then,” said Mr. George. “Shall I stop her?”

“No! If she is killed, I’ll be killed too!”

Mr. George laughed quietly with intense enjoyment. They drove through dark streets. Launa had been coached by Jacobs which way to go. In one place where it was brightly lighted there was a public-house and a policeman. She drove slowly. Mr. Wainbridge glanced with apprehension at the stalwart supporter of law.

Then they turned a corner, and stopped in front of Victoria Mansions. Jacobs was waiting. Launa got down.

“It was perfectly celestial,” she said. “I never enjoyed anything so much in my life.”

“Nor I,” said Mr. George, “though I owe you five pounds. There is something romantic in being driven by a woman, and that woman you, and you drive so well. I am callous when I remember that five pounds, though I was alarmed about you.”

“Of course I would not take it,” she said.

Mr. Wainbridge looked white. He helped her to take off her coat.

“You will never do it again,” he said. “Promise – never.”

She laughed softly.

“I shall do it perhaps if I want to.”

“Only with me.”

The tone was beseeching.

“No, no, with anyone I choose.”

After they left, Launa went into her father’s work-room.

“I drove to-night,” she said. “Mr. George and Mr. Wainbridge came in the hansom, and I drove it.”

“You drove a hansom cab?”

“Yes, I feel very proud, so don’t tell me I ought not to be.”

“You should be ashamed, and I must scold you.”

“Ah, no. You are a dear.”

“Was it a successful party? You like Mrs. Phillips?”

“I like her very much… Do men love women – often?”

Her father looked at her, but it was evidently a problem question, not as it affected herself, but others.

“Yes,” he replied.

“They talk so much about it.”

“I suppose so. You have.. no theories, no experience, I suppose?”

“No, I think a man in love must be rather a bore. Good-night, I am very sleepy.”

“Don’t drive any more hansoms, Launa.”

“Very well, father, I won’t.”

CHAPTER VII

Mr. Archer had gone on a trip to Norway.

Mrs. Phillips was at Marlow with some friends, Mr. Herbert was there also.

Mrs. Phillips had written to Launa telling her the new shirts were becoming and the new punt a success. From this Launa gathered that Mr. Herbert, as well as the punt, was agreeable. Lily had too much experience to give in to his supplications at once, or to agree with him that love was of any avail in life. She said marriage rhymed with carriage very properly, and love with nothing. Besides, she was aware that after a woman has said “I love you” frequently there is nothing left to say.

Launa was all alone.

This particular afternoon she had arrayed herself in a wonderful tea-gown – a combination of Greece and Paris with flashes of audacity thrown in, green and cream and gold – it was loose where it is pretty to be loose, and tight where it showed the curves of her figure.

She was playing to herself – Chopin and Wagner. Her wrists had gained in strength, her tone in volume, and her mind – that, too, had gained in experience and insight. The world was opening to her – undreamt of possibilities intruded sometimes – but Lily’s ideas of taking the goods the gods give to-day while never thinking of to-morrow, were attractive. Yet Launa could not forget Paul; in her heart she believed in the future “Goldene Zeit” which must come.

It was impossible for her to realise that she could not command fate – destiny. She had assumed the command once, that day with Paul, and now she regretted it. She could not write to him; everything was against that, and if he were to come over, as she often hoped he would, how much better would it be? The Indian girl came between them. She knew her father would never consent to any marriage between herself and Paul. Launa had cultivated an ideal of women’s behaviour to other women; they should always support the wronged woman, even when it means losing a hearts desire. Until it meant losing her own heart’s desire she had derived much joy from this theory, now she realised that no one can be happy on a theory.

She played a Chopin study: relentless fate – a chilling, creeping fiend of Impossibility – went through it, which mocked the delusive sound of far-away joy and happiness somewhere – the indefinite somewhere.

She heard a faint rustle of a portière behind her, but she played on. When it was over she put her head in her hands, then let her hands fall with a crash upon the keys. The sound expressed her feelings, the discord was a relief.

“How do you do?” said some one softly behind her.

She started and turned round to see Mr. Wainbridge. There were tears in her eyes enough to soften them as she looked up at him. She did not rise hurriedly, or look startled as the majority of women would have done, but held out her hand, which he took.

“Shall I go away?” he asked. He admired every detail of her appearance, and the look in her eyes surprised him. “You would like to be alone and I cannot bear to leave you,” he said slowly, while still holding her hand.

His expression and intonation were not lost on her – they meant power in herself; he could not leave her; and the desire of power comes after love in the aspirations of some women.

“No, stay,” she said. “Sit down.”

He chose a chair near her and the silence was restful – most women consider it fatal. He had begun to compare her with other women.

“You heard my discord?”

“I heard it,” he replied.

“And interpreted it?”

“No, I cannot say that.”

“I will play to you,” she said, rising with a quick litheness which reminded him of a serpent.

She played Liszt’s arrangement of Mendelssohn’s “Auf Flügeln des Gesanges.”

“Thank you; I have enjoyed it intensely,” he said, when she had finished. “ ‘Thank you’ is poor – it cannot express my meaning. You play magnificently.”

“I am glad you think so,” she replied. “When you came I was wishing I could do nothing. You understand? To acquiesce is happiness if one knows no better.”

“But if one does know? Believe me, acquiescence is misery. The wings of song carried you somewhere far away?”

“How do you know?” she asked suddenly. “To fight, to be, and to do, are the best.”

“Like our childish friend the verb; you have left out to suffer,” he suggested softly.

She laughed, and he felt baffled.

“Let us go and have tea.”

“On the principle of feed a man when he bores you,” Mr. Wainbridge said with irritation.

“No, not at all. I love my tea, and it will be cold. Tell me first how you like my music-room? It is my own particular abode; you were admitted by mistake.”

“May I be admitted again?”

“Perhaps – tell me about my room?”

He had forgotten to look at the surroundings. The room was long, and rather high – the walls were a dull rich cream colour; quantities of flowers were arranged everywhere, principally irises with their long leaves, in immense dull brown jars. Standing near the piano was a eucalyptus tree, its dull grey-green leaves hung over Launa. Green, brown, and cream were the colours in the room, with red here and there – the warm red of autumn leaves.

“The room suits you,” he replied.

Mr. Wainbridge found personal conversation was over with the change of room. She talked of the last new book, and of bicycling. He made himself agreeable. He was a prudent young man, and well received everywhere; plain daughters of dukes and marquises were glad to talk to him – he was a Possibility; there was a doubt owing to his uncle and the Plymouth Sister. There was a legend about Mr. Wainbridge that he once had loved someone of the lower classes – the someone was indefinite – it was supposed she had died or married. Some people gave Mr. Wainbridge credit for the virtue of forsaking her.

They had finished tea when Mr. George was announced. He had a large book with him. It was his own book of proverbs, and he brought it to present to Launa.

“Precept is better than example,” he began. “Don’t you think so, Wainbridge? I always have set a good example, but – ”

“Mrs. Carden,” said the maid, and the rest of Mr. George’s sentence was lost in the rustle of that lady’s entrance.

She was arrayed principally in bugles. She looked war-like, and as if she might suddenly sound the call to battle on one of her ornaments.

Launa introduced the men to her. Mrs. Carden accepted tea, and observed that George was away.

“I am here,” whispered Mr. George softly. “Does she want me?”

Launa frowned at him.

“Yes,” she replied; “he is in Norway. I heard from him to-day.”

“I am sure Mrs. Carden will agree with me,” said Mr. George agreeably, “about proverbs. Precept is better than example. Miss Launa, your father plainly thinks so. He is away enjoying himself. He sets you a bad example, but his precepts are excellent. My edition of the proverbs is so convincing.”

Mrs. Carden gazed at him, her cake in her hand half-way to her mouth, which was open.

“Is it really precept is better than example? Did Solomon say it? I only know his proverbs. I brought my son up on them.”

She was rather at sea as to Mr. George’s position, he seemed so self-assured and so moral. Could he be the head of a new sect, or the editor of a paper?

“Solomon says, ‘The lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb,’ ” said Mrs. Carden. “He is a very wise man.”

“That is not a mere precept,” said Mr. Wainbridge softly. “He said it from experience.”

“Solomon’s example was variable,” said George.

“But he was very wise,” observed Mrs. Carden.

“Very,” said George solemnly. “Precept is better than example.”

“What?” she asked, “surely you have made a mistake, and the true version is ‘example is better than precept.’ ”

She wore an air of triumph, and glanced proudly round her.

“Mr. George is writing a book,” said Launa, “on proverbs. He is – ”

“Correcting the faults of the world,” said Mr. George, humbly.

“A necessary task,” said Mrs. Carden, “in these degenerate days. Mr. McCarthy, who preaches at St. Luke’s, Launa (I advise you to go and hear him), is a son of Dr. Willis, in the faith – ”

“What a good name. I did not know that was what they called it,” said Mr. George softly; “but add in love – in faith and love.”

“Miss Archer was playing to me,” said Mr. Wainbridge. “Have you heard her?”

He addressed his question to Mrs. Carden, who appeared perturbed.

“No. I am sure she can play. But I dislike music excessively. I played myself once; and my son has a flute. I find it disturbing.”

“There is so much wind needed for the flute,” said Mr. George. “It is an instrument which reminds one of a hurricane.”

“I love a penny whistle,” said Launa. “I can play ‘Honey, my honey,’ on mine.”

“Play it now,” said Mr. George. “Please, Miss Archer. I really cannot call you Miss Archer any longer. Miss Launa is so much prettier; and Launa is the prettiest name in the world.”

“You may call me Launa if you like. I never was called Miss Archer as much as I have been since I came to England. I will play the penny whistle for you some day. Mrs. Carden would not like it now.”

“Pray do not mind me; I must go. I am always at home at half-past five; I dine at six. I came, my dear Launa, to ask you to come and spend a few quiet days with me while your father is away. Charlie is also away.”

“Thank you. It is very kind of you to think of me,” replied Launa. “I cannot come and stay, for I promised my father I would not leave the flat just now. You see all our servants are new, and he would not like me to leave them alone.”

“How terrible if they danced in your music room,” said Mr. Wainbridge, with a smile.

“Terrible,” said Launa.

“There is no reason why we should not dance there,” observed Mr. George. “Example! precept! Let us dance.”

“I think, Launa, it would be much better for you to come to the shelter of an English home, during the time of your father’s absence. It is not proper for you to remain here alone.”

“I prefer a Canadian shelter,” said Launa, with sweetness.

“Are you having music lessons, dear Launa?” asked Mrs. Carden. “And have you taken up any serious study, yet?”

“I go to Herr Winderthal’s twice a week and play for him, and with him. He has two other men for the violin and the ’cello; we play trios and quartettes. You know the quartette with ‘Die Forelle,’ motif by Schubert?”

“Alone?” inquired Mrs. Carden, with apprehension.

“Alone? No. Three people play in a trio, and four in a quartette,” said Launa.

Mr. George laughed, and said: —

“No one will listen to me. And I do so want to explain my proverb to you, Miss Launa. You see, if a woman has a brutal temper she does absolutely as she likes, and never sets an example; her precepts are obeyed, she has a good time, the best; and you see a saint whose example is quite heavenly, does any one imitate her? No, they only make her do more, work harder, and set a better example. Then they admire her.”

“You have met that woman?” said Mr. Wainbridge.

“Several of them,” said the other.

“Good-bye,” began Mrs. Carden. “I am disappointed in you, Launa.”

Launa did not inquire the reason of her disappointment, but shook hands with her, accompanying her to the door, followed by the two men.

“Come to me when you are in difficulties,” said Mrs. Carden. “Your housemaids – ”

She waved her parasol as the lift bore her down, and went home in a state of agitation; for in the future Launa would have great possessions, and the Carden exchequer was low. Could it be that the young man with the proverbs had discovered this? That he would desire Launa?

She resolved to invite herself to lunch with Launa the next Sunday, and to make Charlie call the day of his return.

CHAPTER VIII

Mrs. Carden drove home in a hansom, a strange and unusual extravagance. At Launa’s she had been bewildered – the conversation was so difficult to understand, so full of proverbs and of Solomon.

In the hansom Mrs. Carden would think well. She turned the situation over in her mind and stopped at a telegraph office to send Charlie a telegram. He was fishing with some uninteresting cousins in Kent. Mrs. Carden sent for her friend and confidante, Miss Sims. Miss Sims had been fat, she now was thin, and weighed only seven stone – she gloried in thin arms and a scraggy neck, and told everybody about herself in a sad voice. It is better to be poor and lean than poor and fat, the rich ask one to dine more frequently.

Mrs. Carden told her lean friend as much of the subject as was necessary for her to know.

Mrs. Carden’s principles were good – on principle. She was firmly persuaded that Charlie was deeply, virginly in love with Launa, and that Launa was wandering – was being attracted by strange men who talked of books and pianos with intimacy, and of proverbs. At first she had an idea that Mr. George was a leader of some kind. From the sheltered seclusion of beyond Bayswater she had read the papers, and had heard that at one fashionable church the clergyman lectured on dress in the pulpit, while his wife wore a becoming cassock in the chancel. Miss Sims and Mrs. Carden took counsel together, and the result thereof was that Charlie loved Launa, and Launa must see the advantage of such affection.

Mrs. Carden sent Launa a post-card, saying she would go to lunch the next Sunday at two o’clock. If Launa was obliged to go out, she must leave lunch for her relative, and empty rooms – Mrs. Carden adored rooms without their owners.

Mrs. Phillips was still staying at Marlow; Mr. Herbert, too, was there. She was in the uncomfortable situation of indecision; he in an equally uncomfortable one. He had made up his mind, but a solitary mind which has determined on its own course of action is weariness, because for happiness it requires the acquiescence of the other person, and Lily would not agree that what would make him happy would necessarily make her so.

Her doubt had not spoiled her appetite, the arrangement of her neckties, nor any one of those details to which a well-dressed woman is always attentive, but it did spoil the sunshine and the river; the wind in the rushes made her shiver, and the backwaters were lonely and too convenient for episodes. The locks and people were delightful; the puffing of steam launches was a sound of joy. She took to rowing, and suffered tortures afterwards from stiff arms and a stiffer back. When she did not row, Mr. Herbert did; she sat in the stern and discoursed to him, and he enjoyed her conversation. The boat was delightful: it was quite cranky, and neither person dared to move about; conversation with three yards between them must be of the day and not of the feelings, or if feelings are mentioned, one means those delightful, unexplainable sensations which are merely useful as subjects of conversation, and do not agitate one sufficiently to make one uncomfortable.

At the end of a month Mrs. Phillips went up to Paddington. Mr. Herbert accompanied her; they sat in opposite corners of the carriage, and she read the Lady’s Pictorial while he smoked. At Paddington they parted, and she drove to Victoria Mansions to stay with Launa.

Mr. Wainbridge was there, and they were having tea. Mrs. Phillips found it cool and restful, and the sensation of being not the first and only woman was novel and possessed a reposeful charm. They were arguing about music, and the room was full of flowers.

When Launa received Mrs. Carden’s post-card she threw it to her friend Lily.

“There,” she said.

Mrs. Phillips groaned.

“I cannot endure that woman. Who are you having to lunch as well?”

“Mr. Herbert, Mr. Wainbridge, you and I.”

“Shall I ask papa? He is so cheerful.”

“Do, if you think he will not be bored.”

“My dear, he admires you immensely.”

Sir John Bloomfield was a cheerful old gentleman; he took this world as it treated him, and that was well. He had been married twice. The second lady, Lily’s stepmother, had money, and did not live long. She had taken life seriously, and it killed her. Sir John’s curly hair was white, and also his moustache; he wore his hat with a gentle incline to one side of his head. It gave him a rakish air of joviality; he affected the society of young married women, all except his daughters – he took no interest in either of them. He came to lunch on Sunday, fresh from a stroll with a delightful young woman, after an hour’s contemplation of the smartest bonnets in church, and having listened to the cleverest preacher in London, whose sermons lasted ten minutes only. He was a brilliant man.

They were all in the drawing-room when Mrs. Carden rustled in.

Sir John attached himself to Launa as he objected to elderly ladies, because they were so apt to take it for granted that his opinions were like theirs – middle-aged – and Sir John was quite modern.

At lunch Mrs. Carden sat between Mr. Herbert and Sir John, who devoted himself to Launa. There was another reason to account for his youthful air – he had not the gluttonous enjoyment of food the middle-aged and old acquire.

Mr. Herbert was absorbed in his lunch. Mrs. Carden began to talk. She was hungry, but the waves of Sir John’s anecdotes threatened to engulf her and to reduce her to silence.

She talked of music halls and of morality. In those days both were subjects of conversation and of argument.

“I hate morality,” said Launa. “It means nothing. It is only a name. Maud is so fond of talking of it. Maud is very vulgar.”

Mrs. Carden pushed away her plate with impatience. She ate the pudding afterwards, for it was excellent. She was horrified.

Sir John helped himself to cream with deliberation. Mr. Wainbridge looked at Launa. Mrs. Phillips saw the look and interpreted it.

“My dear Miss Archer,” said Sir John, “the world is very hard; its rules are firm and not easily broken.”

“I do not agree with you,” said Mrs. Carden. “They are broken with impunity very easily.”

“Probably you do not agree with me,” said Sir John. “I haven’t tried to break any. I do not speak from experience.”

“The world does not mind its rules being broken,” said Mrs. Phillips. “It minds only when it discovers the hole and is obliged to notice it.”

“There are saints to whom the good people would not, could not speak,” said Sir John.

“Purity and morality are often mistaken,” said Launa, “by the world. It is unjust, and justice is cruelty.”

“It is law,” observed Mr. Wainbridge, with a sigh.

“Law and the promises,” said Sir John.

“Prophets,” corrected Mrs. Carden.

“Promises are interesting,” he continued, talking rapidly because he knew he had made a mistake. “A man should always keep a promise.”

“No,” said Launa.

“Yes,” said Mr. Wainbridge.

“I would rather hear the truth,” said Launa, “even if it hurt. One moment’s pain would be better than days of regret.”

Mrs. Carden shook her head and waved her hands. Pantomime was her only resource.

Sir John assumed his spritely air.

“We are too sad; we are discussing such uninteresting subjects. No man ever breaks a promise to such charming ladies as there are here. Lily, tell us about your river adventures.”

“Ask Jack.”

Mr. Herbert smiled.

“We went out in the boat every day – Lily rowed occasionally and I rowed frequently. We disagreed on various subjects every day, on the marriage question and on – on – ”

“On what?” said Launa.

“On that – ”

They laughed together.

“What is ‘that’?” said Mrs. Carden.

“A preposition,” answered Mr. Herbert shortly.

“Oh, no,” said Lily, “it’s a pronoun.”

“ ‘That’ is an adverb,” said Mrs. Carden. “Launa, I shall tell Maud that you called her – vulgar.”

“Oh! do.”

“Women always tell,” said Mr. Herbert. “I told a woman something once and she told. She – ”

“I am not a woman,” said Mrs. Carden, “who carries tales.”

“But you are going to tell someone what Miss Archer said of her,” observed Mr. Herbert. “Men don’t do that.”

“Ah!”

“Nobody tells, really.”

“I did not tell, Jack,” said Mrs. Phillips.

“Tell us now,” said Sir John. “If you get the credit of telling we may as well derive some amusement from the story. Miss Archer, what do men usually tell you.”

“Different things. They do not confide in me. I am not sympathetic enough.”

“Are you not?” inquired Mr. Wainbridge. “I think you are. I should love to confide in you.”

He looked again at her, so did Mr. Herbert, and Lily observing both looks concerned herself with Mr. Herbert’s, which was one of admiration – developing admiration.

It was then that marriage with him appeared desirable, or rather the owning of him would be pleasant. Mrs. Phillips imagined her wedding and the wedding dress! He could admire another woman!

They got up from the table, and Mrs. Phillips stayed with the men to smoke. After his cigarette Sir John went to the Club. Mrs. Carden seated herself on a sofa and demanded a footstool, then when Launa announced an engagement for the afternoon, Lavinia arose and took her departure. Launa and Mr. Wainbridge drove off in a hansom.

“Do you think they are really going to hear music?” asked Mr. Herbert, when Lily and he were alone.

“Why not?”

“Because it is so hot, and because I would much rather talk to you here, so I naturally suppose every other man would rather talk to the woman he loves than listen to any music. I have made up my mind to marry you in a month.”

She smiled enigmatically.

“Very well. You know my bargain. I cannot live with my sister; she swamps me. Her mind and her life are like a bog. It is dull living alone; you would provide an element of excitement.”

“You say marriage is not love. Is it exciting?” he asked.

“A husband should be reviving,” she answered, “and should endeavour to be – a lover – always.”

Mr. Herbert came over to her.

“I shall always be your lover.”

“And you agree to my conditions?”

“You are to keep your rooms; I am to keep mine. Is that it?”

“Yes. What else?”

“We are seldom to have breakfast together.”

“Very seldom,” she answered.

“After our honeymoon?”

“After our – after that – yes,” she said.

“But dinner always.”

“Dinner often,” she corrected.

“Take off your rings,” he said.

Mrs. Phillips frowned.

“You are too commanding.”

“Please.”

“You do it,” and she held out her hand.

He gravely pulled off first one with two large turquoises – he had given it to her – next a small one with a diamond, then her wedding ring which he put in his pocket, and replaced it with one almost exactly like it.

“With my body I thee worship,” he said, and he added a ring with three large sapphires in a light gold setting. The stones were set high and they shone.

“You do not wear his ring now.”

“How beautiful the stones are,” she answered.

“I have always been jealous of that ring,” he said.

“Have you? ‘Jealousy is as cruel as the grave,’ saith Solomon. Do not be cruel.”

“I could not be anything with you but kind,” he replied, with a sort of unsteadiness, for though she was not lovely she was alluring, fascinating. He could have followed her away from everything, through disasters and fire without feeling it, until she left him.

“The honeymoon was invented for Adam and Eve before the Fall,” she said slowly, “and before the appearance of the serpent. Is there necessarily a serpent now?”

“You spoil everything by analysing it,” he replied. “You should look on things as a whole, and not dissect them; that is one of your own maxims. You told it to me when I asked of what your new hat was made. You said it was a whole and a creation.”

“But honeymoons are not wholes, nor are emotions. Everything is largely constituted of them.”

“They are moments. Live for one moment.”

“It passes so quickly,” she said, and sighed.

“Then, in a month,” he suggested, with an outward air of boldness, though inwardly he was doubtful and quaking, “you will marry me.”

“In a month! How soon!”

“How far away. Where shall we go for our tour?”

“Not to Paris. I hate Paris.”

“Shall we stay in London?”

“No, no! How commonplace! We shall live in London. Suggest something new.”

“Shall we go into the country? To the real country, where there are nightingales and roses?”

She sang softly:

 

“The nightingale in fervent song

Doth woo the rose the whole night long.”

 

“Rubinstein, isn’t it?” he asked. “Well, will you come?”

“Yes, it is risky, but I will for once hear the nightingales and feel young again.”

“I love you.”

“Do you? Love – it is so old, so new, so impossible.”

“For always,” he said, not answering her, only following the train of thought in his own mind.

“No, not for always,” she said sadly, “Love me really for a week, a day, a year – while the nightingales sing. I would rather have a man’s whole love for one day, than his toleration for years, his agreeable acceptation of my presence.”

“A man usually loves his wife.”

“Does he? Does he? You know that is rubbish. You love me now, and you think you will always. A wife is associated with a man’s disagreeable pleasures, his duty dinners, his dull breakfasts. When he goes to dine at his Colonel’s, or with the man who has influence, and runs the papers, she goes and bores him too. If you were compelled to take the other man’s wife out to dinner you would appreciate the attributes of your own when you returned to her.”

“A man loves his future wife before matrimony. But, Lily, afterwards I think it is your own fault.”

“Mine?” she exclaimed. “Mine – you forget – you – ”

“Dearest, I did not mean you. I meant indefinite woman. It will never be your fault.”

She looked at him.

“You apologised in time – I was haughty. Sit there, near, but not too near me.”

He seated himself in a little chair.

“That chair will break. Sit somewhere else.”

“To return to the subject of matrimony,” she said.

“Of breakfast.”

“A woman lets her husband see too much of her, and know too much about her. She frequently looks ugly. Oh, Dr. Jaegar, thou art answerable for much woe! Breakfast is a disturbing meal, for we sometimes are weary at breakfast and – you may have yours alone.”

“I would like it better with you.”

“That is it,” she exclaimed. “Now you would. Soon you would not. You must make a man do without what he loves, to keep his love. Men are so unreasonable.”

“Do you believe in anyone, Lily?”

“No. Yes, I do.”

“Tell me,” he asked eagerly, “in whom do you believe?”

“In myself.”

CHAPTER IX

Launa and Mr. Wainbridge drove to the concert – a private one – where Herr Donau was going to play the piano for his hostess – Lady Blake, Launa, and a friend.

The day was hot, terribly so. The heat rose from the ground, the houses, and the pavement; it struck one like a fiery draught from a furnace. Launa and Mr. Wainbridge were silent; they knew each other well enough to be so. He was pondering. Though he found her interesting he did not agree with her at all about many things, but therein lay her power of attracting him, for she did not care whether she did or not. She did not pretend this as many women do, when men always are aware of it.

“I am hot,” she said.

“And you look cool.”

“I am wishing to be where I could hear the river ripple, and hear the sound of the water as it curls over the rocks. I wish I could see the big lake where it widens, where the pines and the maples grow. Oh, the smell of the wind there!”

“Why won’t you come and sit in the park instead of going to hear Donau?”

“Because I can imagine myself in that far-off land when Donau is playing,” she answered. “I can shut my eyes and feel the wind; I see the water just rippled and then still. In the park it is civilised and hot; the trees are beautiful, but not like those I love. The grass is green, but the wind is parching, and it is town-laden; it is – ” She stopped. “Who is that?”

He started at the tone of her voice. It was full of apprehension, of a sort of cold joy, as if she had fought, and was glad to be beaten.

He asked, “Where?”

“I thought I saw someone – someone I knew – someone – Oh, I want to stop, to get out. It is stifling here.”

“There are so many people,” he replied. “I did not notice anyone. Was it a woman? We are nearly there now. Do not get out.”

“No – never mind. It was imagination. I thought I saw – it could not have been really.”

“Ah,” he said, “imagination is deceiving and becoming. You have grown most beautifully flushed. You are very good to look at, Miss Archer.”

“You must talk to Lady Blake,” said Launa. “I am tired.”

The room into which they were shown was dark, cool, and flower-scented. Lady Blake was dressed in black. She was a woman men loved for an hour, a dance, or a day. Sir Godfrey Blake had married her after a short acquaintance. Immediately afterwards he went into Parliament, and now sat out all the debates, and was seldom at home. Men pitied her, women shook their heads, while she loudly lamented a cold husband, and was consoled by other men.

“We have been waiting for you,” she said. “Herr Donau is ready to begin.”

She gloried in her riches, and she was musical, though in the days of her poverty she had not been. Shilling seats and deprivations did not suit her; but to be able to pay the most expensive successful pianist in London for a whole afternoon to play to her and one or two chosen ones, what a triumph! That was success. And if she did not enjoy the music she did derive great satisfaction from saying, “Donau played for us on Sunday; he played marvellously. Of course we paid him.”

“Miss Archer’s imagination has been causing her to see people – a person,” said Mr. Wainbridge, as he shook hands with Lady Blake.

He wanted to see Launa grow red again, as well as to discover who she thought she had seen.

She laughed.

“Was it a ghost?” asked Lady Blake.

She looked uncomfortable. She had some ghosts behind her – a brother and sister who were poor, and who lived at Clapham. They worked, and she ignored them.

“A ghost!” repeated Wainbridge. “Do you believe in ghosts, Miss Archer?”

“Do I? Souls of the dead! I wish I could see them.”

“Don’t!” exclaimed Lady Blake. I believe in premonitory warnings. You did not see me walking, did you, Miss Archer? I hope not.”

“No, I only saw an old friend – an old Canadian friend. But it was only in fancy, for the next moment it was gone.”

There was a slight pause when she said “it was gone.” Mr. Wainbridge noticed she used “it.”

Lady Blake said “Oh” sadly, and then continued: “Premonitory warnings are so interesting. Was the friend an old, I mean an ancient grey-headed friend, or only old as regards the time of friendship? Was it a woman?”

“It was a spirit,” said Launa.

“You will hear of a death,” said Lady Blake with solemnity.

“It is already dead,” replied Launa.

“To you?” asked Mr. Wainbridge.

“Are we not going to hear Herr Donau play?” inquired Launa. “You have not forgotten you are to play the Waldstein Sonata for me?” she said to Herr Donau.

“I have not forgotten. Shall I begin?”

“Do,” said Lady Blake, seating herself in a chair covered with cream-coloured material.

Her black dress, yellow hair, and white skin had an ideal, an arranged background. Ideals have to be well arranged, otherwise they are deficient. Launa sat in a dim corner; Mr. Wainbridge chose a chair from which he could observe her.

She was listening intently; she had often played the Waldstein to Paul, and she wanted to see how Donau would play the octave run. Through it all she could think of Paul. Had she really seen him? No, he was not in England. Could he be dead?.. Donau played the run beautifully… Could Paul be dead? Donau played the octaves with one hand – glïssando. Wonderful! Launa glanced round her; no one appeared to have noticed. Lady Blake was keeping time with her head and her foot. Time in the Waldstein! Launa felt a great wave of longing, of desire for the woods, lakes, and the vastness of the real forest, and for the air. Oh! that air! Keen sometimes, sweet, full of the smell of wild flowers, of the pine woods – and where was Paul?

The Waldstein went on and on. To her it meant spring days, movement, hope, but not in the overcrowded old land. To the others it meant different things – music always does – and Launa’s mind returned to the impression of the afternoon. It could not have been Paul alive that she had seen? Could it be that he was dead, and because she loved him, he came to her? Did she love him? She heard the wailing of the Indian child. But if Paul were dead, he was hers – hers – hers —

Her thoughts were interrupted by the ceasing of the piano and the compliments of Lady Blake and Mr. Wainbridge.

“You were asleep,” said Mr. Wainbridge to Launa.

“No. My thoughts were wandering.”

“With more spirits?”

“Mr. Wainbridge, come here,” said Lady Blake. “Come and see this; it is by Herr Donau. Play it, do, Herr Donau, and then Miss Archer has promised to play ‘Warum.’ ”

“There is a history in that,” said Launa, when the great man had finished. “There is an unravelled thread in it.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, “there is. You have understanding, Miss Archer.”

“And now, will you play ‘Warum?’ ” asked Lady Blake.

“To hear Miss Archer play ‘Warum’ is one of the world’s desires,” said Mr. Wainbridge, “because you puzzle it – the world, I mean.”

She did not answer. Lady Blake rehearsed speeches to all her dear and jealous friends while the music lasted. She would say “Donau and Miss Archer played for us during a whole afternoon.” She had triumphed.

Launa drove home alone. Mr. Wainbridge to his regret had an engagement. He said good-bye to her with sorrow, while she was indifferent. There was something in the spirit theory after all.

Mrs. Phillips and Mr. Herbert were still sitting at Victoria Mansions. She had changed her dress for a tea-gown and invited him to dinner. The evening was hot. Launa dressed in white and went to the music-room. Conversation did not appeal to her. She began to play, to work hard at an impossible sonata. The hard work was taking away her weariness, the feeling of misery and longing when the door was opened and Captain Carden came in.

“I did not let your maid announce me. I wanted to surprise you, Launa,” he said, advancing with an air of expectation. “She said you were not at home, but I heard the piano, and I knew you would see me.”

He held out his hand.

“I will finish this page,” she said, not taking the hand thus affably extended, and playing on.

Captain Carden seated himself near and stared at her. She could feel his eyes taking her in, all over, gloating over her, but she finished and sat on the music-stool, turning herself round until she faced him.

“Your mother was here to lunch.”

“Yes, Launa, she told me so.”

“Did you want to see me particularly?” she asked. “I suppose you did, because I said ‘not at home.’ I am very tired and in a musical mood.”

He smiled languidly and leaned back.

“You don’t mean that, Launa.”

His detestable habit of repeating her name irritated her. She looked at him.

“Why do you never call me Charlie? We are relations.”

“Are we?” she asked.

“Yes. That is one reason why I came, and then my mother asked me to come and see you. She and I are both worried. Mother thinks – ”

“Do think yourself; you remind me of Uriah Heep.”

“My mother thinks,” he continued with a sort of leer, “that you are lonely. She fears the friends you have, the contamination of their talk about no morals – she says – ”

Launa got up.

“You will either go away or else you will talk of something else. Speak for yourself, pray. I do not care what your mother thinks.”

Captain Carden looked at her.

“Don’t get cross. You know I am in love with you, and I want to marry you. It will be such an advantage to you, an unknown Canadian, to marry into a good old English family, and to be well looked after.”

She was silent, first from surprise, then from anger. It was as if the words would not come rapidly enough.

“Thank you,” she said. “I decline your insulting offer. Now will you go?”

“Now, Launa, you know it is the best thing you can do. I am really in love with you. You will have some of your own money settled on you, of course, and you will have an excellent position and be thought a great deal of as my wife.”

“I will never be your wife,” she answered. “Never.”

“All girls want to marry; you do. They all do. I like a girl who pretends to be backward, but this is enough, Launa. Give in now, you know how I love you, you – ”

Launa’s cheeks were blazing, she got up and rang the bell violently. He followed, unseen by her, until she felt his arm on her waist; his face was detestably close, his eyes staring into hers, glaring like an animal’s, and his breath was hot against her face. She gave him one firm push; she had not paddled so much in vain; her arms were very strong, and he did not expect it. He staggered across the room, upsetting a little table and breaking some china ornaments which fell with a crash as he sprawled on the floor. Just then the maid opened the door, and Mr. Wainbridge walked in.

“Curtis, show Captain Carden out,” said Launa, apparently with calm indifference.

She looked very tall, slight, and angry, as she stood waiting. Captain Carden gathered himself together with a sheepish look, and advanced towards her.

“Good-bye, Launa.”

“Go,” she said.

“Launa, say good-bye.”

And as the door closed she threw herself into a big chair and laughed. Captain Carden heard it as he left the flat and detected nothing but ridicule in it. Mr. Wainbridge went over to her; he saw she would have cried had she not laughed, and that her nerves were all unstrung.

“Why didn’t you tell me to kick him out? He deserved it.”

“Why didn’t you do it?”

She put her hands over her face, and began to sob. He stroked her hair gently, tenderly, and she liked it.

“I am an idiot! I am an idiot!” she said at last.

“What did he do?”

“How did you come? You were dining at the Grays’, I thought you said?”

“I came because I wanted to see you.”

She dried her eyes and leaned back in her chair and looked out at the night, feeling the curious rest of exhaustion. The greyness of twilight crept into the room, it was peaceful though still sultry. He took her hand and said:

“I am glad I came.”

“So am I,” she said, cheerfully. Her mood had changed. “You saved me from unknown bother. He was most impertinent.”

In the other room Mrs. Phillips was becoming impatient. She was hungry. At tea-time Herbert’s conversation engrossed her, and now where was dinner?

She was also anxious to create a sensation, to surprise Launa and everyone by telling of her speedy marriage, which was to take place in one month exactly. And so she went into the music-room.

“Has that awful Carden man gone? I am so hungry, Launa dear. Do say you are hungry too, Mr. Wainbridge. I am going to be married in a month.”

She sighed.

“No wonder, then, that you are hungry,” said Mr. Wainbridge, “with that awful prospect you need restoratives of all sorts.”

“Lucky Mr. Herbert,” said Launa. “I congratulate him.”

“How nice of you,” said Mrs. Phillips. “I feared you might be small minded enough to congratulate me. He is in the drawing-room – starving too.”

“Let us go, then, to dinner,” said Launa. “Mr. Herbert, you are so lucky.”

“That is good of you,” he answered.

“Merely decent of her,” said Mrs. Phillips. “She knows my worth.”

“How are the spirits?” asked Wainbridge, as Launa and he followed the other two into the dining-room.

“Good. Look at my eyes. Are they red?”

“They are beautiful.”

He took her hand for one moment; it was an involuntary caress.

And they drank to the perfect happiness of Mrs. Phillips and Mr. Herbert.

CHAPTER X

The wedding was over. Mrs. Phillips had become Mrs. Herbert. The accounts were in all the papers, the guests were mentioned, and the bride’s attire was described. She wore mauve, a bonnet, and what was not mentioned, a nervous air. The known dangers of matrimony are worse in anticipation, and more true, than the maiden bride’s assurance of eternal bliss.

“Miss Archer, an American beauty,” said the Chronicler, “accompanied her to the altar, and handed her a smelling-bottle.”

Mr. and Mrs. Herbert departed amid no rice and no old slippers. Lily would not have them. They went to hear the nightingales, and to remember Rubinstein’s song:

 

“The nightingale with fervent song

Doth woo the rose the whole night long.”

 

For one whole week the weather was glorious and unchangeable.

Launa was alone in Victoria Mansions. Mr. George visited her with frequency, and so did Mr. Wainbridge.

Mr. George often came in the morning.

“I am at my worst early, Launa,” he said, “and then I long for strong measures. You are a strong measure. Your name is so perfect, I could not spoil it with a Miss,” he added apologetically.

All the old women would have called her a bold Canadian had they not remembered her money and success. England conquered and annexed her Colonies; do not their maidens annex her young men?

Launa missed her father; between them there was a perfect relationship; their minds were in tune; she was so certain of his love and care that she feared no diminution thereof. He wrote to her often, and she thought of shutting up the flat and going to join him.

On Lily’s wedding day, Mr. Wainbridge told her he was obliged to travel with his uncle for six weeks. The uncle, Lord Wainbridge, had just constructed a novel; it contained a pinch of all the crazes of the day, and was clever, but not moral. Lord Wainbridge became uneasy, and Lady Wainbridge rampant with rage (designated in this case Christian solicitude about his fall) when she read it. She said the want of morals was his own. She said many things which he did not mind when she only gave utterance to them; but he feared ridicule as he feared nothing else; she said he would be laughed at, so he fled to his nephew, who always had sympathy for him.

Launa received the tidings of Mr. Wainbridge’s departure with indifference, though she did feel it. And he decided that her lack of vanity was her one fault. She really appeared as if she did not care whether she attracted him or not. But she thought very much about him. His interest in her was pleasant. It was more. It was necessary to her, as much as anything can be necessary over which we have no control, and without which we must live if it is withdrawn.

The day of his last visit they spent in reading, when he would have much rather talked. But she had a new book.

“How queer it is that the charm of so few poems lasts,” she said. “What I loved at sixteen I loathe now, and I suppose what I love now I shall hate at thirty-five.”

“We change. You do not love a comic song when your heart aches.”

“I have no heart.”

“Because I said that, you think I meant your heart,” he replied. “I did not.”

“Your own then?”

“Perhaps. Do you believe we are responsible for evil?”

“I do not know. Are we responsible for what we cannot help? I could not condemn any one but myself. The existence of evil is true, but how horrible! And how it spoils our lives.”

“Spoils our lives,” he repeated. “You are quite right! Tell me, can a man or a woman love two people at once? Is it possible to love evil and good?”

Launa grew pale.

“No one can love evil.”

“You are right,” he said, with triumph. “It is not love then. To do right, one should love something, someone.”

“Yes,” she half whispered, “love someone, even if they are beyond one’s reach.”

“You have comforted me. I must say good-bye, now. No, I will see you once again, to-night. In six weeks I shall come back, and I shall be glad – glad. What shall you be?”

She did not answer, but stood up and walked across the room to look at a photograph. She would never go back to Canada, never.

“Where did you get that photograph?” he asked. “Is it new? Who is it?”

It was Paul. She had kept it locked up until now.

“It is no one you know. It is only a picture which reminds me of evil.”

“Take it down – shall I?”

“No, no,” she said sharply. “We are terribly in earnest,” she added, and gave a little laugh.

She went to the window and looked out. The lights were flashing, and the roar of the city came up to her.

“Good-bye,” he said, taking her hand. “Good-bye —Behüt dich Gott.”

That night Launa went to a dance, which lasted until three in the morning. She wore pink, and looked beautiful. The lust for slaughter, for conquest, for admiration entered into her. She could not love any man, she assured herself, while she knew that she thought only of Paul. But she possessed power. She could hurt, and for that one night she gloried in it. This was what the man on the steamer had meant; this was deadening; this was life and din; there was no time to think.

Mr. Wainbridge was there; she gave him one dance only, and he was angry, though he rejoiced when Mr. George said to him: —

“Launa is miserable. Her eyes are unhappy; she is feeling something.”

She had expressed herself as yearning for Norway, and that was all; but Mr. Wainbridge thought she wanted him.

The next morning she slept until it was late; she was very tired; When her letters were brought to her she did not open them. She lazily drank her tea and looked at the post-marks, wondering from whom they were. She sent a wire to her father, saying she would like to join him at once.

While she was dressing her maid brought her a telegram. It might be about her new dress, or Lady Blake’s picnic, or the concert at which she was to play.

This was what she read: —

“Your father accidentally shot. Dying.

Come.

“Stevens.”

Stevens was a friend who had joined her father.

Launa looked at it; dying – not dead. She drank her tea. It was, it must be some detestable, horrible dream.

By twelve o’clock her boxes were packed; and Launa and her maid started on their long, almost useless, journey. To sit still and wait was impossible, it was like watching for someone who never came. The train tore along, and the trees seemed to wave their branches like hungry, relentless demons, as if they would clutch all men; the sea was cruel, and the steamer outrageously slow.

And Launa was too late.

After an absence of one week she came back to London, crushed, weary, and heart-sick. Her life seemed to be over. She had seen him again, but he was dead. There was nothing she could do, it was all over. If only she had Paul! She could have screamed with the torture of fate. She realised the disappointment of life, that nothing could be as it had been. A new life might come to her, but she could never gather the old one together again. Perhaps some day she would be reminded of the past when she had forgotten. To be reminded it is necessary to have forgotten. But now she suffered – now she wanted everything she had not. She felt the torture of the vain longing for the impossible; a blister on her body would have been a relief; there was one on her soul. She wished she had told her father about Paul; she wished she could forget Paul; she wished he were there with her, and then she resolved again to forget him.

She wrote to Mr. Wainbridge and told him of her terrible trouble. It was a relief to pour out her mind to someone who understood, and to whom she could say mad things – whether he sympathised or not she did not care.

She was rich, and inundated with letters of sympathy. Each writer considered herself the one consoler Launa required. Men do not write that kind of letter; they merely leave cards.

Mrs. Carden sent pages of lamentation and exhortation, interspersed with demands for one interview, just one, with her dearest Launa.

Lily Herbert came up to town for the day. She was sorry for Launa when she could remember to be so. It was with great difficulty she could disguise the cheerful grin her countenance had assumed since her marriage. She could not understand Launa’s abandonment to grief. If Sir John had died Lily would have wept, when reflecting on her lonely position, and then have smiled over the patterns of new mourning.

Launa remained dumb to her and with her; Lily realised at last, with a certain sort of awe, that Launa was stricken; that she was full of sorrow which was not easily ended, and that she could not bear attempts at consolation, which were merely, and only could be, attempts. Who can raise the dead? Launa passed through the lonely dark valley of nevermore – of hunger for one face, for one word, which is so intense as to be torture, and to which was added the desire for the presence of a man whom she felt was unfaithful to her. Could she bear another man’s kisses? How could he then kiss another woman?

To stay in London was impossible for her, and so she chose to go to a little village in Derbyshire which her father had loved as a boy. The Black Country, with its barren moors and lonely stonewalled hills, attracted her; the warm valleys full of bracken and alder bushes, through which the rushing mountain streams tore, had a wild beauty and a lulling power. It was very lonely and bleak. She could walk for miles without seeing anyone, and the people she did meet were for the most part only villagers. Much as she longed to see “Solitude” again, she felt the impossibility of going there.

During all these long, long days of sorrow and direful longing, Mr. Wainbridge wrote to her. Almost every day a letter came, and she began to look for them and to answer them. At first she had only sent him scrawls, but he had gradually drifted into an intimate – a most intimate friend.

She often re-read his letters, and there was more in them than the actual words said. She gave him credit for an intuition which he did not possess. He loved her, and he divined that she did not love him; she could almost love him for that. Women usually love men for imaginary qualities. She thought him brave and pure; she fancied he loved what she did, instead of which he loved her. Her personality made life interesting; her playing made music an everlasting joy.

The day after she was settled at Fair View she had a long letter from him in answer to her first coherent one.

“Schweitzerhof, Lucerne,

“July 3rd.

“At last! I was so glad to get your letter this morning. First, I am going to thank you from my heart for telling me everything, and please remember that I can never be bored by anything that concerns you. Just believe that, and you will trust me, and I may be able to help you with my sympathy at any rate. Dear, I do sympathise, and it is as if the trouble were my own. I can dimly guess what a terrible loss you have had, and I know that your relationship with him was a perfect one. I am so sorry that the letters I have written since I left London have been so selfish and full of my own feelings, while you are in such grief; forgive them. I should love to hear that the knowledge of my sympathy and care is something to you. I need not tell you that I would spare no trouble and no thought if I could help you in the smallest degree, or if I could save you one ounce of care or pain. I know the hardness of it appals you. Can I say or do anything to make you happier?

“I have just been reading for the tenth time ‘Andrea del Sarto.’ It is wonderful; but how he longed for a soul in his wife, and yet he loved her for her beauty, and she – ‘again the cousin’s whistle.’ It is so sad, but how could she love him when she did not understand him? And I suppose it bored her to sit by the window with him while he talked to her, and all the time she was listening for the cousin’s whistle, and wishing her husband would begin to paint again. Surely ‘a man’s reach does always exceed his grasp.’ If it did not, we should not want a Heaven at all. Browning knew things, didn’t he?

“We are not coming back for some weeks yet, and it makes me sad, for I long to hear your voice again. I love your voice. —

“Yours,

“C. H. W.”

A course of these letters was very comforting. To be necessary to someone is what many women are obliged to be, instead of being loved.

The days were long and full of pain. She did not grow accustomed to it. The wound was as open and sore as at first. It was a relief to be alone, and to be allowed to be sorrowful. There was no peace, no joy anywhere.

CHAPTER XI

Lily Herbert as Lily Phillips had realised the importance of keeping her husband’s love, not his toleration. Mr. Phillips had been affectionate always, and she had tolerated him. She remembered it all; she had been so relieved and glad when he was away from her, his kisses nauseated her.

With Herbert life was joy, and, had she not firmly believed it could not last, real happiness would have been hers.

Their honeymoon had lasted for three weeks, three weeks of absolute happiness, tempered only by her husband’s reflections of sorrow for Launa – for he admired Launa. Lily did likewise, and she feared her, too. Lily wondered whether she was to be the one who cared most; in all marriages one cares more than the other. She had always felt a contempt for women who show they care while their husbands seem indifferent. She blamed them; they were no longer desirable to their husbands; they were within reach. Someone must lead, so she took it: fear lest he should change or grow tired lent terror to all her ideas and movements.

They were staying in Surrey. The house was small, with a garden which was a bower of roses, with beautiful lawns and large cedar trees. They lived out of doors. Mr. Herbert did not work, and she took to embroidery. He told her she looked absolutely lovely when she sewed.

She laughed.

“There is something syren-like about you,” he said. “You will never grow old; you could not become unattractive.”

“Thank you.”

“Is that all – is that all you are going to say to me, only thank you?”

“All,” she said.

He came over by her.

“Your hands are so beautiful. I would like to live like this always.”

“It would not be always June and warm,” she said.

“I love you, love you absolutely – what can change it?”

“What?” she repeated, even while she feared. “Don’t ask, you will spoil it.”

“You never – will not often let me kiss you. Why is it?”

“I hate kissing.”

“I will kiss you,” he said masterfully. “You are mine, mine, mine. You are an enchantress, a witch. When I am with you, or away from you, I think of nothing but you. My life is all you.”

He took her in his arms gently. She remembered with a shudder those horrible embraces of her first marriage. He kissed her lips, those warm red lips which were one of her chief beauties; but it was all done so gently.

“You were afraid of me,” he said. “Heavens! here is someone coming to call.”

“And you have crushed my blouse,” she said reproachfully.

It was Lady Blake.

“How are you both?” she asked, as she rustled towards them, pretty, smiling, and glancing from one to the other.

“Very happy,” said Mr. Herbert. “The nightingales are still singing.”

“Ah,” said Lady Blake, as she seated herself in his chair, and accepted a cushion from him. “Happy – there is something subdued about happiness. I want you to come and stay with me.”

“When is your uncle coming home?” Lily said to her husband.

“In a week,” he replied.

“In a week then,” said Mrs. Herbert, “we would like to come to you.”

After Lady Blake left he said:

“And now it is over.”

“Not over,” she answered, “just beginning. We stay at Blake House for two weeks, and then papa wants us.”

Mr. Herbert acquiesced. He had given in to her conditions, and he knew what she did not or pretended not to believe, that he loved her with all his soul. He would go with cheerfulness to Lady Blake’s, anything to prolong the honeymoon, and he hoped Lily would forget her proposed arrangement when they returned to town. That oblivion might descend on her mind he prayed!

After their visits they went back to London.

They arrived one morning about twelve, and drove to her flat in Sloane Street, he had his luggage sent to his rooms which were two streets further on.

“I think we might take a larger flat,” he suggested. “It would be cheaper and less trouble.”

She laughed and answered:

“By and by. You remember our bargain? We are not to grow tired like other people or to see too much of each other – enough of each other.”

“And so one of us is to be always miserable,” he said.

“Isn’t it better?” she asked. “Isn’t anything better than for either of us to be tired?”

There were tears in her eyes.

“No, my beloved, it is not better. Will you not think it over? Will you – ” he held her hand. “We are so happy, we shall be always. It will last, I swear it will – ”

The cab stopped and she got out.

She gave herself a little shake as she went up in the lift. How perilously near giving in she had been! What would it be to her to lose the lover? A husband is a poor exchange. No, she would be firm.

The little flat looked very pretty, there were flowers everywhere. Her two maids welcomed her with smiles and blushes. Lunch was ready.

Mrs. Herbert went to take off her hat. Her own room was decorated with white flowers; it was a dear little white and green room.

“I should like to wash my hands,” said her husband meekly.

“Yes, you may. I will show you my room. Now that we are married I can show you everything. There is a delightful sensation of freedom as well as of bondage in matrimony.”

She took him into her room and left him there.

“That is my spare room,” she said, and pointed to a door. “It will be your room when I ask you to stay here.”

“There is something unusually novel in being asked to stay with one’s wife. It is as if you had me on approval.”

“Don’t say that,” she suggested. “No, you belong to me now.”

“I wish I did. You are like the angel with the drawn sword at the gate of the Garden of Eden. He was not placed there until after Eve had eaten the apple. I suppose I have had a bite of my apple.”

“You are anticipating. You are borrowing trouble. Wash your hands and come to lunch.”

He looked into the next room. It was yellow and white, and dainty and fresh. A row of his boots would disfigure it. His bachelor quarters seemed so dull in comparison. The faint smell of violets came from her clothes, he used her hair brush, and looked at her shoes lingeringly.

They ate their lunch and smoked afterwards.

“This is lovely!” he said, with a sigh.

“And how unlike matrimony. The average husband likes to use his authority at first, and says he will have the pictures altered, and he cannot sleep in a bed which runs from east to west, or from north to south or – ”

He looked at her rather sadly.

“You are not an average wife, and I am little more than a bachelor even now.”

“You are a very nice one.”

“Will you come and see my abode? You have seen my sitting-room, but Mrs. Grant has it all done up, and so you must pay me a visit.”

“Do you remember one day when I went to have tea with you, and Mrs. Carson disappointed us? How terrified I was that someone might see me, though you told the minion to say you were out. Every time the bell rang I thought it was a man who would force his way in; do you remember?”

“Do I not remember? Put on your hat.”

“I will change my dress. You will wait?”

“For ever,” with a smile and a glance.

So far they both felt matrimony a success; desire had not failed. When would it?

Joy was clouded by apprehension in her mind; in his there was no doubt, no fear. He knew himself better than she did. They walked together to his rooms. He showed her all over them. His housekeeper, Mrs. Grant, welcomed her. She too had arranged flowers in plenty.

“How will you have this room furnished?” he asked, as he threw open the door. It was a large room, the best one in a set of four. It had been his work-room, but he had given it up for another, and a dark one.

“This is to be your room when you come to stay.”

She smiled. There was a touch of genius in his suggestion – more a touch of impropriety – which appealed to her.

“You will ask me to stay?”

“Sometimes,” he replied. “Not too often, lest you grow weary of me and find fault with the housekeeping.”

“Pale pink would be pretty for the room decorations, and also be becoming. I would come more frequently if it were becoming.” She turned to look at his pictures. “Oh! here is a photograph of Launa. She gave it to you?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“She is beautiful, and what a queer girl! I had no idea her father’s death would make her so wretched. She was perfectly crushed. She behaved as if he were her lover.”

“He was very fond of her.”

“He was devoted to her. I cannot quite make her out. She is – there is a history somewhere. I did not know she had given you her photograph. I suppose she gave them to everyone. She did not keep them only for people she cared for. I am glad,” she said suddenly, “that I have enough money to do without yours.”

“I can give you presents.”

“And ask me to stay.”

“For always. I ask you now,” he said. “I beg you. Will you stay always with me? Not in these rooms, but we can have one flat together.”

“You promised,” she answered, with a slightly unsteady voice. “You promised – don’t.”

To remind a man of his promise when he wants to break it, frequently means the woman would not mind if he did, and if he insists she will give in. It betrays weakness. He put his arms round her and said nothing, but he gave no orders for the immediate furnishing of one large flat. Her experiment should be tried. He had no desire or intention of forcing her to give in nor of being master; just then she would have liked him to be master, but how can a man know these things?

They went back to her rooms for dinner. She put on a creamy gown trimmed with lace; he gave her some pale pink roses and fastened them on. He never forgot her flowers.

In the evening they sat in the big window and looked out at the moon – it rose, a big round shining moon. They were silent. At last she said:

“The stars are larger than the moon, but how faint beside it. The moon is nearer.”

“That is what one feels sometimes,” he answered. “One loves the stars, but the moon is nearer.”

“Yes, it is nearer. Would you feel so? Am I the moon or a star? Of what are you thinking?”

“Of you.”

“Of me. Think of something nice.”

“You are not nice. You are original, and that is never nice. How lonely I shall be to-night!”

“And I.”

Here Mr. George walked in.

“I have come,” he said, “to condole with you both on being married.”

“How kind of you!” said Lily.

“And to ask you, Mrs. Herbert, whether the bird in the hand is worth two in the bush? There were two in your bush. Do gratify my desire – my ardent desire – for information.”

“I will,” she replied. “First I must give you some coffee and ask you to look at the moon.”

“Moon,” repeated Mr. George. “There are many moons; this is the old moon, not your kind, and this one is lovely. Was your moon full of honey?”

“No,” replied Mr. Herbert, lighting a cigarette, “ours was without anything sickly or monotonous.”

“Or satiating?”

“Exactly,” answered Mr. Herbert.

“Tell me now, Mrs. Herbert, about the bush. Is it not better to have two in the bush than the bird in your hand?”

“Are you asking merely as a journalist, Mr. George? Or do you honestly desire information?”

“I desire honest information and information honestly.”

“Two in the bush,” she repeated.

“Sir Ralph and Mr. Buxton,” suggested the inquirer softly. “Perhaps you prefer the bird in your hand as well as the two in the bush, for they are still there. They have returned to town, and are looking more cheerful than they appeared at your wedding. If you remember, they left that festive scene early, before your departure for the desert of matrimony.”

“The bird in the hand is enough for me,” said Lily, “enough now.”

“Ah!” said her husband, with an air of abstraction, “now.”

“Yes, now,” she said defiantly.

“Now,” repeated Mr. George, with exaggerated emphasis. “Why are we all talking of now? Tell me about Launa, Mrs. Herbert? Where is she?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Herbert, “where is she?”

“I will make you both a present of her address,” said Lily. “She will not see you; you can both write volumes to her, and you, Mr. George, will at once rush by the night or the morning train to see her.”

“No, time and distance will merely mellow her affection for me. I am very fond of her, too fond, for I love her.”

“Dear me,” said Lily. “In what way do you love her? Hopelessly, madly, platonically, or matrimonially?”

“Not matrimonially, because I could never tire of her; not platonically, platonic people are too clever and enjoy their experiences too much to be indifferent, but they never want to kiss each other. I might – ”

“These are revelations,” said Mr. Herbert.

“Go on,” commanded Lily.

“I can’t. Launa is perfect. I fear she does not love me. When I call her Launa, her eyelids never quiver. Did you ever quiver, Mrs. Herbert?”

“Never.”

“You are intellectual. I am going to write a book and call it ‘Marriage.’ There will be various assortments in it. Platonic matrimony is interesting.”

“Very,” said Lily.

She went away to get the address for him.

“Wainbridge is very fond of Miss Archer,” said George, when he was alone with Herbert.

“She looked ill when I last saw her. I am going to write to her.”

“Tell her – ”

“Tell her what?” asked Lily, returning as he spoke.

“That we are perfectly, indefinitely happy.”

“How unlucky of you, Jack. You never should boast about happiness. It will go. How dreadful of you. I know something will go wrong.”

“You have no nerve,” said Mr. Herbert.

“These connubial differences so early in your matrimonial career are most embarrassing,” said Mr. George. “Later you will seldom or never differ, or differ altogether. Thus do the early quarrels of husband and wife evolve themselves. I must go.”

“Shall we ever become indifferent?” she asked. “Shall we ever grow old and cold and – ?”

“Grey,” interrupted Herbert. “The moon will change and not shine.”

They gazed at each other as if appalled by their remarks.

“Anyway the moon does not shine solely for you,” said Mr. George. “Farewell.”

Mr. Herbert accompanied him to the door, and when he came back to her, Lily said:

“Good-night, you must go home.”

“It is so late for me to be out, and I want to stay with you.”

“No. You must go,” she said.

“May I come to breakfast?”

“At a quarter-past nine.”

“Good-night, my darling, my – good-night.”

He lingered. He was loath to go, and she almost said, “Stay, never go;” but she did not say it, and so he left her.

She missed him. He had gone away indifferently, and had not seemed to mind. She had ordered a special breakfast for him next day. Where had he gone after leaving her? The moon and the star comparison returned to her mind. Then she wrote to Sir Ralph Egerton, telling him to come to see her. Had Jack borne their first parting with indifference?

It was part of the plan that the wife should not worry whether her husband suffered indifference or any other malady. Worry causes sleepless nights and wrinkles. Mrs. Herbert went to bed, but the moon shone in and she could not sleep. She hoped he could not; nor did he.