Chapter Seven.

Chapter Seven.Despite her growing indifference towards neighbouring festivities, Katrine could not resist a thrill of excitement in preparing for the Barfield Garden Party, which was in truth no ordinary local function, but an important, almost a national, fête. Among the guests royalty itself might appear; foreign potentates, ambassadors, distinguished politicians, disciples of the arts and sciences would be on show on the wide lawns, and within the splendid rooms of the old Castle. It would be, as Katrine herself had said, a very Zoological Garden of lions, among whom an insignificant spinster from a country town must of necessity appear the smallest of small fry.Martin, of course, owned a roar of his own, a minor roar, but still distinguishable among the rest, but his sister had no claim to celebrity. Her aim was theoretically to see, not to be seen, but the theory did not prevent a lengthy and painstaking toilette.It was only a simple ninon dress, it was only a home-made hat, she owned neither jewels nor laces, nor valuable accessories of any sort to give acachetto the whole, but considering these deficiencies there was the more reason for being thankful for a graceful figure, for a face with well-cut features, and deep, level eyes.Surveying the completed toilette in her glass Katrine first smirked and then sighed. “Very praiseworthy considering, but when I see Grizel, she will knock the conceit out of me!” she said to herself as she put the dressing-table in order with a few swift touches, and crossed the passage to tap at the door of the guest chamber.“May I come in?”“What ho!” sounded cheerily from within, and Katrine entered to behold a Romney picture in grey chiffon pirouetting before the glass, a ridiculous buckram bandeau pressed turban-like on her head, to which she was endeavouring to anchor a vast hat, encircled by sweeping white feathers. The feathers swept, they did not soar, a Grizel-like distinction between beauty and fashion; there was not a touch of colour about her, except for the coral brightness of her lips. Katrine felt an instant conviction that ninon was heavy, that colour was vulgar, that every item of her own toilette was detestable and ill-chosen. She stood staring in the doorway, and even as she stood the door of Martin’s room opened, at the opposite side of the passage.He would have passed on without a glance towards the opened room; Katrine in her friend’s place would have dodged hastily into a corner rather than have been discovered in the unbecoming stage of bandeausanshat, but Grizel hailed him with a cheerful cry:“Halloa, you man thing! Look upon me, and thank your stars you are not a woman. I’vegotto balance this tent upon my head, and nothing short of clamps will do it. And there’s one hairpin, a fiendish anarchist of a hairpin, simply stacking into my scalp! ... Which would you rather,—keep the car waiting while I take it down and do it again, or have me scratching at my head all the afternoon, at the most compromising moments? Put your fingers in, Katrine! Prod about! Can you feel it? Not that one, no! For the land’s sake don’t scatter my curls on the floor. That’s him! That’s him! Good girl! ... What a mussiful relief... Now for the skewers... Deadly, ain’t they? But I have screws for the ends, so you can be aisey... The question of the hour is, Martin—doyou love me better in a veil, or without?”She faced him, holding before her face lengths of filmy white, no disfiguring scrolls, no shadows, such as the fashion of the day forces on an unoffending public, but a gossamer tulle, invisible at a few yards’ distance, yet lending a becoming softness to the features. Martin, however, gallantly refused to see the improvement, and gave the verdict “Without!” in unhesitating accents, whereupon Grizel beamed upon him, and deliberately proceeded to swathe the folds round the wide brim of the hat.“Sweet pusson! But you wouldn’t, after a long drive, when the ends were flying! No woman can look distinguished with tousley hair. I’m ready, my loved ones! If you’ve any remarks to make, make ’em now, or else for ever hold your peace. As for Katrine—she’s quite unnecessarily good-looking—no objections to make there. My hobject is—if you can understand,—to appear as if I were ‘Somebody,’ and have a train of admirers following wherever I go!—If you didn’t know any better, do you think you could mistake me for ‘Some one in Particular,’ and hang around to stare?”The brother and sister smiled indulgently.“Isn’t Grizel Dundas Somebody?” Martin enquired.“She’s a goose anyway!” corrected Katrine, but she said it with a laugh, and in a voice which held no trace of the ordinary snap. Martin’s eyes turned upon her quickly; he also seemed to be infected with an unusual gentleness and amenity of manner.“How nice you look, dear—how very nice!” he said genially. In the way of definite approval it was more than he had said to Grizel herself. Katrine flushed with pleasure, and brushed his arm with a caressing touch. Each was conscious of a longing to make up for the growing disloyalty of the past months. The position remained unchanged, but there was a different attitude towards it; they had grown suddenly softer, kindlier; in each mind was a conviction of personal responsibility, a disinclination to blame the other. “I haven’t considered her enough. She’s had a desperately dull time.” ... “I’ve been so narrow-minded—so blind. I didn’t understand!” Each heart made its own confession of shortcomings, and felt lightened of a load. It was in the happiest of moods that the trio started on their ten-mile drive through the wooded country which stretched between Cumly and Barfield Castle.In the matter of rural scenery England stands unsurpassed in the kingdoms of the world, and a stranger to our isle could not have had a better introduction to its beauties than the drive through that southern county. Long avenues of beeches gave entrance to the most picturesque of villages, with the traditional duck-pond and green; thatched cottages showed a blaze of flowers in their trim gardens; the smooth white road curved through the heart of a great forest, dived through the precipitous High Street of a quaint old town, and climbed steeply to a breezy down. Everywhere there was a wealth of greenery, a universal air of prosperity, of order, of well-being, good to behold on this brilliant summer morning.Within a few miles of Barfield Castle, however, all peacefulness vanished from the scene. The converging roads were filled with an unending stream of vehicles, and the dust rose in clouds above the hedgerows. The women wrapped themselves closely in dust cloaks and motor-veils, the pace slackened to a crawl, and at frequent intervals ceased altogether as the congested lines merged together near the castle gates. When once that point had been passed, progress was sure though slow, and the dust of the high roads was replaced by refreshing shade from the great avenue of trees. The wrappings were thrown aside, to display the brave toilettes of men and women; and the pedestrians who, having travelled by train, had been disappointed of finding conveyances at the station, gazed enviously, curiously, at the occupants of the various carriages and cars, and were in their turn as mercilessly scrutinised.“Everybody is dying to know who everybody else is!” whispered Grizel gleefully. “Buck up, Katrine, and look haughty. You may be mistaken for a Duchess, or a variety actress,—you never know your luck! When we pass the next group, watch me heave, to show off the effect of my massed gems!”The “massed gems” consisted of a diamond brooch and a small heart-shaped pendant to match, which nestled together in the folds of chiffon at Grizel’s breast. It was a charming and ludicrous sight to behold her inflate her slight form at the prescribed moment, but sure enough, the stones flashed in response, catching a passing sunbeam and blazing with a brilliance altogether out of proportion to their size.“There!” cried Grizel triumphantly, achieving a double chin in her effort to admire her own splendour. “Never say again that I don’t do you credit!”The first part of the afternoon was spent pleasantly enough in strolling about the gardens, or in sitting down to watch the kaleidoscopic brilliance of the scene. At intervals Martin was hailed by a fellow-writer or club acquaintance, or Grizel by a friend from town, but Katrine was never so addressed. Other girls less attractive than herself flitted about with attendant cavaliers, or formed the centres of merry groups. What was the use of being “unnecessarily good-looking,” if no one were influenced thereby?Across the sunshine of the scene shot grey shadows of depression. In the midst of a crowd one could be so horribly alone! Among the hundreds of guests crowding the green lawn, not one cared to pause by her side. Even Martin and Grizel.—It was a hateful thought, Katrine fought against it, but her heart acknowledged its truth,—they would be happier without her! It was inevitable that the mind should leap to the remembrance of the one man whowouldhave cared; who, entering by those great gates, would have come swiftly forward, unsatisfied, unseeing, till he had gained her side!Across the intervening miles went out a warm, glad thought: “He would have cared!” said Katrine’s heart, and at the thought the sun shone again.“Excuse me one moment!” cried Martin hurriedly. “That man over there.—I’ve been wanting to catch him for months...”He darted across the lawn, and the two girls subsided into chairs, afraid to leave the spot, lest in the crowd he might not be able to find them on his return. Already Grizel was looking tired and spent; the little face beneath the sweeping hat was white as a tired rose, but the whimsical light shone bright as ever in the golden eyes as she turned them on the passing throng, and from her lips bubbled an endless stream of nonsense. It was difficult for a listener to preserve a due decorum of manner as each group passed by, heralded by biographical sketches in those low, rich tones.”—Aunt Hepsibah and her niece Jane... County family. Redooced, but proud. ‘A lace shawl,’ says Auntie, ‘isalwaysle mode! And Jane shall wear my bertha.’ ... Mrs Ponsonby de Tompkins. Left cards regularly for years past, angling for an invitation, and at long last one arrived. A handsome new dress for the occasion! The verybestsatin, and everything to match, Husband excepted! Ponsonby wishes to goodness he’d never come! ... Rich Mr Stock-broker on the point of proposing to Emily Maud. Emily’ll have him. Observe the smirk! Ialwaysrefuse men who propose to me at garden parties... Ha! whom have we here? Looks like a Duchess, but probably isnot. Old lady in puce probablyis, and has no right to be... Long-haired pus-son probably an Anabaptist, or a Poet, or something of that ilk.”“It’s all very well, but I want toknow!” objected Katrine in tones of strong disapproval. “It’s the dullest thing in the world to be surrounded by celebrities, and not to recognise a single one. Martin goes about so little that he is no use as a guide. The dozens and dozens of interesting invitations which he has refused these last years! I think he might introduce us to some of his friends whodoknow! It’s the literary people who interest me most. And the artists. It’s too tiresome!”“Keep calm, Sweet One! We’ll ask him when he comes back, and,” Grizel smiled, a slow, sweet smile, “Imight know one or two myself! If we sit here patiently, some one is sure to pass. I’ll keep a bright look-out.”“Oh, do! Yes, of course, you meet all kinds of people. I’ve lived in a rut. Grizel, do you know, I’m gettingtired!”The words were used in their deeper sense, and Grizel’s long glance proclaimed her understanding. Grizel alwaysdidunderstand, Katrine acknowledged ungrudgingly, but the deep, contemplative glance aroused a remembrance of the parting of the night before, and to her annoyance she felt the blood once more stain her cheeks. Now if Grizel proceeded to joke, question, insinuate, she felt she couldnotendure it, but Grizel was silent, and spoke no word. They sat together for a long five minutes without exchanging a remark, then suddenly strolling towards them came a strikingly handsome woman followed at a few yards’ distance by a man and a girl, evidently members of the same party, whom for the moment she chose to ignore. She wore a trailing gown of a deep rose pink, and over it a cloak of chiffon, elaborately embroidered in silks. Her head was swathed in turban-like folds, on the front of which a diamond bosque held the end of a rampant plume. Her expression was as unusual as her appearance, the blankness on most of the passing faces being replaced in her case by a radiant audacity which proved her to be no ordinary character. So striking and queenly a figure attracted instant attention, and Katrine’s melancholy reflection that thismustbe one of the many unrecognised celebrities, was followed by a thrill of joy, as Grizel rushed forward with friendlyempressement.“Grizel Dundas, by all that is charming! And who broughtyouhere, dear person?” enquired the tall lady warmly, at which question Grizel’s eyes turned upon Katrine, with a twinkling gleam. One hand still rested on her friend’s arm, pressing upon it as with a special significance; with the other she made a sweeping gesture of introduction.“I drove over from Cumly. I am staying with my friends, the Martin Beverleys. Let me introduce you... This is Miss Beverley, and she has been lamenting all afternoon that she does not know Who’s Who, and is surrounded by celebrities, whom she can’t recognise. Now she’s going to have a treat. Providence has been kind in sending you to our aid, for you are one of her special heroines. Prepare yourself, Katrine! Youarea lucky girl! If you’ve had to wait, you’ve got a big catch at the end... Guess what is the name of this fine, this very fine, this superfine lady whom you now behold before you.”Katrine smiled, blushed, waited, agape with curiosity; so—it would have appeared to the eye of a beholder—did the superfine lady also. Grizel gave another sweep of the small gloved hand, and pronounced a name in a tone of triumph:“Mrs—Humphrey Ward!”“Oh-h!” an irresistible exclamation burst from Katrine’s lips, her attitude became on the moment instinct with deference, with the most transparent and whole-hearted adulation. The lady on her part cast a rapid glance at Grizel, from Grizel to Katrine, simpered, attitudinised, and gently coughed.“So pleased!” she murmured softly. “So happy; sobraced! In the midst of this alien throng to meet a Kindred Soul,—that is refreshment indeed!” She held Katrine’s hand between both of her own, gazing at her with a fond affection. “Tell me, dear; I am so pining to know,—whichof my books do you cherish most?”That “cherish” struck a jarring note, but Katrine’s answer came none the less promptly. She had no hesitation in pronouncing her preference forEleanor; it was her hearer who for a moment looked blank and vague.“Ah-h!” she said thoughtfully, then with a sudden radiant smile, “I call her Nellie! We mothers have pet names for our children. Dear little Nell! She was a sweet thing. Hard on her, wasn’t it, while still so young? So dear of you to love her... Well, dear, I shall always remember you, and love you for your sweet sympathy. And you want my autograph, of course? Don’t mind asking—I shall be onlytoopleased!”Katrine’s flush deepened to rose. Bewilderment, embarrassment, and a chilling disillusion seemed for the moment to have deprived her of speech. The gorgeous figure towered over her, the brilliant eyes blazed relentlessly upon her face. Grizel stood meekly in the background, her face all infantile sweetness.“I,—thank you! I don’t collect autographs, but I shall be—honoured to have yours. Miss Dundas can give you my address.”“That’s quite all right. I’ll send it soon, with an appropriate quotation for your dear little album. ‘Be good, sweet maid, All lame dogs aid,’ With best wishes from Nellie’s Mother...”She smirked once more. Katrine was breathlessly demanding of herself if this could indeed be the woman who had written such masterly books, when the girl who had been standing at a discreet distance during the short interview, came forward and spoke in an apologetic voice:—“Mrs Singleton! I’m sorry, but father has an appointment to meet a friend in the rose garden, I’m afraid we must really move on.”“Singleton... Incognito! The name she travels by, don’t you know,” naughty Grizel mumbled in explanation, as the little party turned away, but the truth burst upon Katrine in an all-illuminating flash, and she was not to be caught again.“Grizel, you horror! To make me a laughing stock... What a fool she must have thought me, standing gaping with admiration! ‘Nellie’s Mother’ indeed! An idol toppled at that moment. Iwasdisillusioned, but living in the same house with an author prepares one for so many eccentricities, that I still believed... Well! it came off very well that time, but don’t try it again!”Grizel continued to chuckle in soft, retrospective enjoyment.“Oh, it was grand! Mrs Singleton is a capital actress, and she played up like a man. Itwasdelicious to see you standing there, all humility and adulation, such a douce, modest, young woman, burning incense to a master mind. If only that tiresome girl had not come up at the wrong moment, I might have faked all the wig bigs in turn, and had the time of my life!”Katrine’s lips twisted in an enigmatical smile. She was feeling gay and young; the prickly dignity which had made her resent any approach to a joke at her own expense, had given place to a humorous enjoyment. Mentally she stood beside Grizel, looking on at the little scene which had just been enacted, appreciating the alertness of Mrs Singleton, and enjoying the spectacle of her own credulity.Meantime each passing moment brought with it a fresh picture. Now it was a group of Chinamen, attired in the gorgeous colourings of the East, conversing with friendly cordiality with their black-coated friends; again it was a slender, dark-skinned woman, moving to the jingle of innumerable bangles, her timid eyes alight with childlike curiosity; anon, it was an ecclesiastic of the Church, or a group of court officials. The kaleidoscopic groups streamed in and out of the great house, passing each other on the marble staircase of the terrace, while the strains of massed bands sounded from a discreetly-arranged distance.Presently Martin returned, and was duly regaled with an account of the Singleton episode, which being done Grizel laid upon him her own commands.“Let’s go into the house and be fed! Eating is my one solace on these occasions,” she said, yawning. “One sees so many better-looking women than oneself.—I rather believe I am going to faint!”The threat brought her companions to their feet. Martin offered his arm, and Grizel hung upon it with an air of exhaustion, her reed-like form and misty draperies investing her with an almost ghostly air of fragility. She made her way towards the house, followed by eyes of commiserating admiration, but once seated in the great hall she displayed an appetite for, and appreciation of the dainties provided, which put her more robust friends in the shade. Martin hovered around her with a solicitude which provoked Katrine to the bluntness of truth.“There’s not much wrong with her when she can eat those cakes! She’s not half so bad as she pretends. I wish I had half her appetite.”“Do you grudge me my humble board!” Grizel grimaced with the air of a cheeky schoolboy, oblivious of the stare of a haughty flunky who was at the moment supplying her with cream. She sipped luxuriously at the delicious coffee, and proceeded reflectively:—“Last time I was here was at the Ball of the Creases. Such a tragic occasion, Katrine! It was the hour of wool-satins; no other material had a look in, and every mortal woman had clothed herself therein. Most of them had a railway journey, or a long drive across country, and oh, the shock when they alighted, and took off their wraps in the cloak room!!! Creases, creases, nothing but creases! It was a pitiful scene; mothers afume, daughters in tears, rows of dowagers turning themselves before the fire, like turkeys on a spit; plaintive pleadings for flat-irons. When we got upstairs to the ballroom, it was worse than ever, with the great electric chandelier blazing down, and showing up every deficiency. And we revolved beneath them looking like so many rag-bags. I have never seen so many badly-dressed women in my life.”“Serve you right,” was Martin’s comment. “Sheep! Sheep! Whywillyou all dress alike? I can never see the fascination of being a replica of a hundred other women, when one might be a woman by oneself.”Certainly the female portion of the crowd which continually surged in and out of the great door formed an admirable illustration of Martin’s indictment. Old and young, tall and small, fat and thin, all hobbled within the same tight folds, and hid their hair beneath enormous hats which descended on the shoulder, entirely concealing both hair and neck. Viewed from the front the costume achieved on occasions a not unbecoming effect, but the back!“Oh would some power the giftie gie them, To see their backs as others see them!” chanted Grizel softly, as a distinguished party crossed the floor at a few yards’ distance. She laughed as she spoke, her deep, gurgling laugh, at the sound of which the colour rose in Martin’s cheek. He looked at her and said quickly:“Grizel! didn’t you want to see the picture gallery? Shall I take you now?” As he spoke, his expression seemed to take a significance apart from the words; delicately but unmistakably his eyebrows rose, asking a secret question, and as delicately Grizel’s eyes met his, and signalled a reply.Katrine saw, guessed, was in the act of defiantly fighting against the suggestion, but Grizel was before her.“Presently. There’s plenty of time. Katrine was wishing, Martin, that you could introduce her to some one who could act as guide, and point out the celebrities. It’s dull for her dragging about with us.”“Of course. Certainly! I saw old Deeds a minute ago. There could be no one better. I’ll bring him along.”Martin dashed off with a haste seldom characteristic of altruistic enterprises, while Katrine sat rigid on her seat, consumed with anger.“Us!” That word was the crux of the offence. “Us!” having for its meaning Martin and Grizel, leaving herself coldly outside the pale. Katrine hardly realised it at the time, but in reality another word had cut almost as deep. “Old!” Old Mr Deeds. “No one could be better!” The first old man who came within reach appeared a fitting companion for her, the while her companions went their unhindered way.She sat rigid, her lips pressed in a hard, straight line. By her side Grizel cast sorrowful glances. On occasions it is almost as disagreeable to do good, as to be the object of benevolent designs!

Despite her growing indifference towards neighbouring festivities, Katrine could not resist a thrill of excitement in preparing for the Barfield Garden Party, which was in truth no ordinary local function, but an important, almost a national, fête. Among the guests royalty itself might appear; foreign potentates, ambassadors, distinguished politicians, disciples of the arts and sciences would be on show on the wide lawns, and within the splendid rooms of the old Castle. It would be, as Katrine herself had said, a very Zoological Garden of lions, among whom an insignificant spinster from a country town must of necessity appear the smallest of small fry.

Martin, of course, owned a roar of his own, a minor roar, but still distinguishable among the rest, but his sister had no claim to celebrity. Her aim was theoretically to see, not to be seen, but the theory did not prevent a lengthy and painstaking toilette.

It was only a simple ninon dress, it was only a home-made hat, she owned neither jewels nor laces, nor valuable accessories of any sort to give acachetto the whole, but considering these deficiencies there was the more reason for being thankful for a graceful figure, for a face with well-cut features, and deep, level eyes.

Surveying the completed toilette in her glass Katrine first smirked and then sighed. “Very praiseworthy considering, but when I see Grizel, she will knock the conceit out of me!” she said to herself as she put the dressing-table in order with a few swift touches, and crossed the passage to tap at the door of the guest chamber.

“May I come in?”

“What ho!” sounded cheerily from within, and Katrine entered to behold a Romney picture in grey chiffon pirouetting before the glass, a ridiculous buckram bandeau pressed turban-like on her head, to which she was endeavouring to anchor a vast hat, encircled by sweeping white feathers. The feathers swept, they did not soar, a Grizel-like distinction between beauty and fashion; there was not a touch of colour about her, except for the coral brightness of her lips. Katrine felt an instant conviction that ninon was heavy, that colour was vulgar, that every item of her own toilette was detestable and ill-chosen. She stood staring in the doorway, and even as she stood the door of Martin’s room opened, at the opposite side of the passage.

He would have passed on without a glance towards the opened room; Katrine in her friend’s place would have dodged hastily into a corner rather than have been discovered in the unbecoming stage of bandeausanshat, but Grizel hailed him with a cheerful cry:

“Halloa, you man thing! Look upon me, and thank your stars you are not a woman. I’vegotto balance this tent upon my head, and nothing short of clamps will do it. And there’s one hairpin, a fiendish anarchist of a hairpin, simply stacking into my scalp! ... Which would you rather,—keep the car waiting while I take it down and do it again, or have me scratching at my head all the afternoon, at the most compromising moments? Put your fingers in, Katrine! Prod about! Can you feel it? Not that one, no! For the land’s sake don’t scatter my curls on the floor. That’s him! That’s him! Good girl! ... What a mussiful relief... Now for the skewers... Deadly, ain’t they? But I have screws for the ends, so you can be aisey... The question of the hour is, Martin—doyou love me better in a veil, or without?”

She faced him, holding before her face lengths of filmy white, no disfiguring scrolls, no shadows, such as the fashion of the day forces on an unoffending public, but a gossamer tulle, invisible at a few yards’ distance, yet lending a becoming softness to the features. Martin, however, gallantly refused to see the improvement, and gave the verdict “Without!” in unhesitating accents, whereupon Grizel beamed upon him, and deliberately proceeded to swathe the folds round the wide brim of the hat.

“Sweet pusson! But you wouldn’t, after a long drive, when the ends were flying! No woman can look distinguished with tousley hair. I’m ready, my loved ones! If you’ve any remarks to make, make ’em now, or else for ever hold your peace. As for Katrine—she’s quite unnecessarily good-looking—no objections to make there. My hobject is—if you can understand,—to appear as if I were ‘Somebody,’ and have a train of admirers following wherever I go!—If you didn’t know any better, do you think you could mistake me for ‘Some one in Particular,’ and hang around to stare?”

The brother and sister smiled indulgently.

“Isn’t Grizel Dundas Somebody?” Martin enquired.

“She’s a goose anyway!” corrected Katrine, but she said it with a laugh, and in a voice which held no trace of the ordinary snap. Martin’s eyes turned upon her quickly; he also seemed to be infected with an unusual gentleness and amenity of manner.

“How nice you look, dear—how very nice!” he said genially. In the way of definite approval it was more than he had said to Grizel herself. Katrine flushed with pleasure, and brushed his arm with a caressing touch. Each was conscious of a longing to make up for the growing disloyalty of the past months. The position remained unchanged, but there was a different attitude towards it; they had grown suddenly softer, kindlier; in each mind was a conviction of personal responsibility, a disinclination to blame the other. “I haven’t considered her enough. She’s had a desperately dull time.” ... “I’ve been so narrow-minded—so blind. I didn’t understand!” Each heart made its own confession of shortcomings, and felt lightened of a load. It was in the happiest of moods that the trio started on their ten-mile drive through the wooded country which stretched between Cumly and Barfield Castle.

In the matter of rural scenery England stands unsurpassed in the kingdoms of the world, and a stranger to our isle could not have had a better introduction to its beauties than the drive through that southern county. Long avenues of beeches gave entrance to the most picturesque of villages, with the traditional duck-pond and green; thatched cottages showed a blaze of flowers in their trim gardens; the smooth white road curved through the heart of a great forest, dived through the precipitous High Street of a quaint old town, and climbed steeply to a breezy down. Everywhere there was a wealth of greenery, a universal air of prosperity, of order, of well-being, good to behold on this brilliant summer morning.

Within a few miles of Barfield Castle, however, all peacefulness vanished from the scene. The converging roads were filled with an unending stream of vehicles, and the dust rose in clouds above the hedgerows. The women wrapped themselves closely in dust cloaks and motor-veils, the pace slackened to a crawl, and at frequent intervals ceased altogether as the congested lines merged together near the castle gates. When once that point had been passed, progress was sure though slow, and the dust of the high roads was replaced by refreshing shade from the great avenue of trees. The wrappings were thrown aside, to display the brave toilettes of men and women; and the pedestrians who, having travelled by train, had been disappointed of finding conveyances at the station, gazed enviously, curiously, at the occupants of the various carriages and cars, and were in their turn as mercilessly scrutinised.

“Everybody is dying to know who everybody else is!” whispered Grizel gleefully. “Buck up, Katrine, and look haughty. You may be mistaken for a Duchess, or a variety actress,—you never know your luck! When we pass the next group, watch me heave, to show off the effect of my massed gems!”

The “massed gems” consisted of a diamond brooch and a small heart-shaped pendant to match, which nestled together in the folds of chiffon at Grizel’s breast. It was a charming and ludicrous sight to behold her inflate her slight form at the prescribed moment, but sure enough, the stones flashed in response, catching a passing sunbeam and blazing with a brilliance altogether out of proportion to their size.

“There!” cried Grizel triumphantly, achieving a double chin in her effort to admire her own splendour. “Never say again that I don’t do you credit!”

The first part of the afternoon was spent pleasantly enough in strolling about the gardens, or in sitting down to watch the kaleidoscopic brilliance of the scene. At intervals Martin was hailed by a fellow-writer or club acquaintance, or Grizel by a friend from town, but Katrine was never so addressed. Other girls less attractive than herself flitted about with attendant cavaliers, or formed the centres of merry groups. What was the use of being “unnecessarily good-looking,” if no one were influenced thereby?

Across the sunshine of the scene shot grey shadows of depression. In the midst of a crowd one could be so horribly alone! Among the hundreds of guests crowding the green lawn, not one cared to pause by her side. Even Martin and Grizel.—It was a hateful thought, Katrine fought against it, but her heart acknowledged its truth,—they would be happier without her! It was inevitable that the mind should leap to the remembrance of the one man whowouldhave cared; who, entering by those great gates, would have come swiftly forward, unsatisfied, unseeing, till he had gained her side!

Across the intervening miles went out a warm, glad thought: “He would have cared!” said Katrine’s heart, and at the thought the sun shone again.

“Excuse me one moment!” cried Martin hurriedly. “That man over there.—I’ve been wanting to catch him for months...”

He darted across the lawn, and the two girls subsided into chairs, afraid to leave the spot, lest in the crowd he might not be able to find them on his return. Already Grizel was looking tired and spent; the little face beneath the sweeping hat was white as a tired rose, but the whimsical light shone bright as ever in the golden eyes as she turned them on the passing throng, and from her lips bubbled an endless stream of nonsense. It was difficult for a listener to preserve a due decorum of manner as each group passed by, heralded by biographical sketches in those low, rich tones.

”—Aunt Hepsibah and her niece Jane... County family. Redooced, but proud. ‘A lace shawl,’ says Auntie, ‘isalwaysle mode! And Jane shall wear my bertha.’ ... Mrs Ponsonby de Tompkins. Left cards regularly for years past, angling for an invitation, and at long last one arrived. A handsome new dress for the occasion! The verybestsatin, and everything to match, Husband excepted! Ponsonby wishes to goodness he’d never come! ... Rich Mr Stock-broker on the point of proposing to Emily Maud. Emily’ll have him. Observe the smirk! Ialwaysrefuse men who propose to me at garden parties... Ha! whom have we here? Looks like a Duchess, but probably isnot. Old lady in puce probablyis, and has no right to be... Long-haired pus-son probably an Anabaptist, or a Poet, or something of that ilk.”

“It’s all very well, but I want toknow!” objected Katrine in tones of strong disapproval. “It’s the dullest thing in the world to be surrounded by celebrities, and not to recognise a single one. Martin goes about so little that he is no use as a guide. The dozens and dozens of interesting invitations which he has refused these last years! I think he might introduce us to some of his friends whodoknow! It’s the literary people who interest me most. And the artists. It’s too tiresome!”

“Keep calm, Sweet One! We’ll ask him when he comes back, and,” Grizel smiled, a slow, sweet smile, “Imight know one or two myself! If we sit here patiently, some one is sure to pass. I’ll keep a bright look-out.”

“Oh, do! Yes, of course, you meet all kinds of people. I’ve lived in a rut. Grizel, do you know, I’m gettingtired!”

The words were used in their deeper sense, and Grizel’s long glance proclaimed her understanding. Grizel alwaysdidunderstand, Katrine acknowledged ungrudgingly, but the deep, contemplative glance aroused a remembrance of the parting of the night before, and to her annoyance she felt the blood once more stain her cheeks. Now if Grizel proceeded to joke, question, insinuate, she felt she couldnotendure it, but Grizel was silent, and spoke no word. They sat together for a long five minutes without exchanging a remark, then suddenly strolling towards them came a strikingly handsome woman followed at a few yards’ distance by a man and a girl, evidently members of the same party, whom for the moment she chose to ignore. She wore a trailing gown of a deep rose pink, and over it a cloak of chiffon, elaborately embroidered in silks. Her head was swathed in turban-like folds, on the front of which a diamond bosque held the end of a rampant plume. Her expression was as unusual as her appearance, the blankness on most of the passing faces being replaced in her case by a radiant audacity which proved her to be no ordinary character. So striking and queenly a figure attracted instant attention, and Katrine’s melancholy reflection that thismustbe one of the many unrecognised celebrities, was followed by a thrill of joy, as Grizel rushed forward with friendlyempressement.

“Grizel Dundas, by all that is charming! And who broughtyouhere, dear person?” enquired the tall lady warmly, at which question Grizel’s eyes turned upon Katrine, with a twinkling gleam. One hand still rested on her friend’s arm, pressing upon it as with a special significance; with the other she made a sweeping gesture of introduction.

“I drove over from Cumly. I am staying with my friends, the Martin Beverleys. Let me introduce you... This is Miss Beverley, and she has been lamenting all afternoon that she does not know Who’s Who, and is surrounded by celebrities, whom she can’t recognise. Now she’s going to have a treat. Providence has been kind in sending you to our aid, for you are one of her special heroines. Prepare yourself, Katrine! Youarea lucky girl! If you’ve had to wait, you’ve got a big catch at the end... Guess what is the name of this fine, this very fine, this superfine lady whom you now behold before you.”

Katrine smiled, blushed, waited, agape with curiosity; so—it would have appeared to the eye of a beholder—did the superfine lady also. Grizel gave another sweep of the small gloved hand, and pronounced a name in a tone of triumph:

“Mrs—Humphrey Ward!”

“Oh-h!” an irresistible exclamation burst from Katrine’s lips, her attitude became on the moment instinct with deference, with the most transparent and whole-hearted adulation. The lady on her part cast a rapid glance at Grizel, from Grizel to Katrine, simpered, attitudinised, and gently coughed.

“So pleased!” she murmured softly. “So happy; sobraced! In the midst of this alien throng to meet a Kindred Soul,—that is refreshment indeed!” She held Katrine’s hand between both of her own, gazing at her with a fond affection. “Tell me, dear; I am so pining to know,—whichof my books do you cherish most?”

That “cherish” struck a jarring note, but Katrine’s answer came none the less promptly. She had no hesitation in pronouncing her preference forEleanor; it was her hearer who for a moment looked blank and vague.

“Ah-h!” she said thoughtfully, then with a sudden radiant smile, “I call her Nellie! We mothers have pet names for our children. Dear little Nell! She was a sweet thing. Hard on her, wasn’t it, while still so young? So dear of you to love her... Well, dear, I shall always remember you, and love you for your sweet sympathy. And you want my autograph, of course? Don’t mind asking—I shall be onlytoopleased!”

Katrine’s flush deepened to rose. Bewilderment, embarrassment, and a chilling disillusion seemed for the moment to have deprived her of speech. The gorgeous figure towered over her, the brilliant eyes blazed relentlessly upon her face. Grizel stood meekly in the background, her face all infantile sweetness.

“I,—thank you! I don’t collect autographs, but I shall be—honoured to have yours. Miss Dundas can give you my address.”

“That’s quite all right. I’ll send it soon, with an appropriate quotation for your dear little album. ‘Be good, sweet maid, All lame dogs aid,’ With best wishes from Nellie’s Mother...”

She smirked once more. Katrine was breathlessly demanding of herself if this could indeed be the woman who had written such masterly books, when the girl who had been standing at a discreet distance during the short interview, came forward and spoke in an apologetic voice:—

“Mrs Singleton! I’m sorry, but father has an appointment to meet a friend in the rose garden, I’m afraid we must really move on.”

“Singleton... Incognito! The name she travels by, don’t you know,” naughty Grizel mumbled in explanation, as the little party turned away, but the truth burst upon Katrine in an all-illuminating flash, and she was not to be caught again.

“Grizel, you horror! To make me a laughing stock... What a fool she must have thought me, standing gaping with admiration! ‘Nellie’s Mother’ indeed! An idol toppled at that moment. Iwasdisillusioned, but living in the same house with an author prepares one for so many eccentricities, that I still believed... Well! it came off very well that time, but don’t try it again!”

Grizel continued to chuckle in soft, retrospective enjoyment.

“Oh, it was grand! Mrs Singleton is a capital actress, and she played up like a man. Itwasdelicious to see you standing there, all humility and adulation, such a douce, modest, young woman, burning incense to a master mind. If only that tiresome girl had not come up at the wrong moment, I might have faked all the wig bigs in turn, and had the time of my life!”

Katrine’s lips twisted in an enigmatical smile. She was feeling gay and young; the prickly dignity which had made her resent any approach to a joke at her own expense, had given place to a humorous enjoyment. Mentally she stood beside Grizel, looking on at the little scene which had just been enacted, appreciating the alertness of Mrs Singleton, and enjoying the spectacle of her own credulity.

Meantime each passing moment brought with it a fresh picture. Now it was a group of Chinamen, attired in the gorgeous colourings of the East, conversing with friendly cordiality with their black-coated friends; again it was a slender, dark-skinned woman, moving to the jingle of innumerable bangles, her timid eyes alight with childlike curiosity; anon, it was an ecclesiastic of the Church, or a group of court officials. The kaleidoscopic groups streamed in and out of the great house, passing each other on the marble staircase of the terrace, while the strains of massed bands sounded from a discreetly-arranged distance.

Presently Martin returned, and was duly regaled with an account of the Singleton episode, which being done Grizel laid upon him her own commands.

“Let’s go into the house and be fed! Eating is my one solace on these occasions,” she said, yawning. “One sees so many better-looking women than oneself.—I rather believe I am going to faint!”

The threat brought her companions to their feet. Martin offered his arm, and Grizel hung upon it with an air of exhaustion, her reed-like form and misty draperies investing her with an almost ghostly air of fragility. She made her way towards the house, followed by eyes of commiserating admiration, but once seated in the great hall she displayed an appetite for, and appreciation of the dainties provided, which put her more robust friends in the shade. Martin hovered around her with a solicitude which provoked Katrine to the bluntness of truth.

“There’s not much wrong with her when she can eat those cakes! She’s not half so bad as she pretends. I wish I had half her appetite.”

“Do you grudge me my humble board!” Grizel grimaced with the air of a cheeky schoolboy, oblivious of the stare of a haughty flunky who was at the moment supplying her with cream. She sipped luxuriously at the delicious coffee, and proceeded reflectively:—

“Last time I was here was at the Ball of the Creases. Such a tragic occasion, Katrine! It was the hour of wool-satins; no other material had a look in, and every mortal woman had clothed herself therein. Most of them had a railway journey, or a long drive across country, and oh, the shock when they alighted, and took off their wraps in the cloak room!!! Creases, creases, nothing but creases! It was a pitiful scene; mothers afume, daughters in tears, rows of dowagers turning themselves before the fire, like turkeys on a spit; plaintive pleadings for flat-irons. When we got upstairs to the ballroom, it was worse than ever, with the great electric chandelier blazing down, and showing up every deficiency. And we revolved beneath them looking like so many rag-bags. I have never seen so many badly-dressed women in my life.”

“Serve you right,” was Martin’s comment. “Sheep! Sheep! Whywillyou all dress alike? I can never see the fascination of being a replica of a hundred other women, when one might be a woman by oneself.”

Certainly the female portion of the crowd which continually surged in and out of the great door formed an admirable illustration of Martin’s indictment. Old and young, tall and small, fat and thin, all hobbled within the same tight folds, and hid their hair beneath enormous hats which descended on the shoulder, entirely concealing both hair and neck. Viewed from the front the costume achieved on occasions a not unbecoming effect, but the back!

“Oh would some power the giftie gie them, To see their backs as others see them!” chanted Grizel softly, as a distinguished party crossed the floor at a few yards’ distance. She laughed as she spoke, her deep, gurgling laugh, at the sound of which the colour rose in Martin’s cheek. He looked at her and said quickly:

“Grizel! didn’t you want to see the picture gallery? Shall I take you now?” As he spoke, his expression seemed to take a significance apart from the words; delicately but unmistakably his eyebrows rose, asking a secret question, and as delicately Grizel’s eyes met his, and signalled a reply.

Katrine saw, guessed, was in the act of defiantly fighting against the suggestion, but Grizel was before her.

“Presently. There’s plenty of time. Katrine was wishing, Martin, that you could introduce her to some one who could act as guide, and point out the celebrities. It’s dull for her dragging about with us.”

“Of course. Certainly! I saw old Deeds a minute ago. There could be no one better. I’ll bring him along.”

Martin dashed off with a haste seldom characteristic of altruistic enterprises, while Katrine sat rigid on her seat, consumed with anger.

“Us!” That word was the crux of the offence. “Us!” having for its meaning Martin and Grizel, leaving herself coldly outside the pale. Katrine hardly realised it at the time, but in reality another word had cut almost as deep. “Old!” Old Mr Deeds. “No one could be better!” The first old man who came within reach appeared a fitting companion for her, the while her companions went their unhindered way.

She sat rigid, her lips pressed in a hard, straight line. By her side Grizel cast sorrowful glances. On occasions it is almost as disagreeable to do good, as to be the object of benevolent designs!

Chapter Eight.“Lebong,June 20, 19—.“Katrine,“Very well. Very well indeed. I understand, and I agree. My birthday is next month, so it fits in all right. Rather a special birthday this time, for I shall be twenty-five. Last year I wasthirty-five. These things happen sometimes; I’ve heard of them. When it comes to one’s own turn, it’s jolly good work. You’ll just have time to catch that birthday, if you write off at once. Awfully good of you to worry about my sufferings in being obliged to reply to your—problematically—boring letters! I’ll risk it, Katrine! I’ll do more than that, I’ll promise to own up, and tell you straight, not only when I reach the bored stage, but long before it is even approximately approached. If there is no other advantage in this thundering distance, there is at least this, that we can be honest to the verge of brutality, and there’s no earthly sense in a correspondence—(beg pardon!—occasional exchange of letters)—if it is not for our mutual pleasure and profit. Wherefore, Miss Sensitive Conscience, kindly understand that so long as I don’t say I am bored I am to be the superlative, the other thing!“As to your first question, you are not only justified, but it’s your bounden duty to open your life to every fresh interest which comes along. There’s no greater mistake than to believe that any work can be done the better for deliberately closing the shutters on all other claims. You have a duty to yourself, as well as to that precious Martin, and it is even conceivable that he might fare the better for a little less attention!“So far as I have gathered facts from Dorothea, Martin lost his wife eight years ago. She was his wife for six short months, and she has been dead eight years. He was a boy at that time; since then he has grown into a man, and a reputation. The Martin who came to you in his grief, and to whom you mortgaged your life, is dead too; as dead as the poor little wife! So long as he was alive, you were a big help to him. He was miserable enough no doubt, poor beggar, but the last extremity of despair was spared him by your love and care. I’d swear to that! But that Martin died, and with him your power.“Thus far, and no farther! There’s a wall, Katrine, between the soul of every brother and sister who was ever created, and sooner or later they come up against it. All the love, and the care, and the patience, and the trying and crying can never scale it. And then one day comes along a vagrant whodoesn’tcry, doesn’t try, perhaps doesn’t even care, and before that stranger is an open road. Which is a mystery, dear, and a commonplace. Likewise cussedly unfair.“Do you mind if I call you ‘dear’? It’s only on paper, and it’s so long since I’ve had any one to endear. It takes off a bit of the loneliness to feel that there is some one in the world to whom one can occasionally show a glimpse of one’s heart. It’s the only bit of me that has a chance of feeling cold out here—but it’s petrifying fast enough. If you object, if it shocks your sense of decorum, well!—I’ll write it all the same, but I’ll blot it out afterwards. You needn’t know anything about it. Penswillblot on this thin paper!“Don’t worry yourself because you are not the world and all to Martin. He would be an odd fellow if you were. It’s not in nature that a sister should satisfy a man’s heart, and it’s no use bucking against nature. Neither need you worry because of his discontent. If you’d ever suffered from a big wound, you’d understand that at the first, one is numbed by the shock; it’s only when the knitting up and rebuilding begin that the pain bites deep. Look upon his restlessness and depression as growing pains, and the beginning of his cure. Poor little Katrine! but this sort of thing is confoundedly hard on the looker-on.“You want to know about myself—and why your eyes look sorry as they watch me turn out on my lone. Well, you know, Katrine—I am—Iwas, thirty-five last birthday; only child, parents gone, relations scattered, strangers to me in all but name. Outside the regiment there is not a soul to count in my life, and at the end of four years, unless the impossible happens, I must leave the regiment and say good-bye to my friends. They offered me a majority in the Blankshire a year ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to face the wrench, but as anything is preferable to idleness and the shelf, I shall have to start life again among strangers before I’m forty, with two or three captain fellows swearing vengeance at me for being promoted over their heads! It’s not exactly a glowing vista, and the prospect of that forty makes a man think. When he sits alone on a sweltering Indian night, and compares his lot with that of fellows like Middleton, for instance, it is depressing work!“In one or other department of life a man must have success, if he is to know content. Work counts for a lot, but it must be successful work to make up a whole. A big career appeals to all men—the sense of power, the consciousness that one particular bit of the world’s work depends upon him, and would suffer from his absence, but that sort of success hasn’t come my way. It’s the jolliest regiment in the world, the best set of fellows, but it’s been our luck to be ‘out of things,’ and we are hopelessly blocked.“Then there’s the home department! Middleton (I use him as a type) can never ask himself ‘what is the good,’ while he has his wife and that stunning little lad. He has his depressed moods like the rest, but when they come on, Dorothea makes love to him, and the little chap sits on his knee. At such times any nice feeling young photograph ought to sympathise with a lonely fellow who sits by and—looks on!“What do you suppose made up my last Christmas mail? A bill from the stores, and a picture postcard from an old nurse. This year there’ll be a letter from you! I have theories about Christmas letters—especially Christmas letters to fellows abroad. Christmas is a time of special kindliness and love; people who are as a rule most reserved and dignified let themselves go, and show what is in their hearts. I’ve a fancy just for once to ‘pittend’ as the children say, and write a real Christmassy letter. A fellow in the regiment—Vincent—is just engaged. He met her when he went to S— for his last leave. Prom his descriptions you would imagine she was another Helen of Troy, but I’m told she’s quite an ordinary nice girl. The airs he gives himself! A fellow might never have been engaged before. After listening to him steadily for two hours on end the other night, I ventured one on my own account.“‘I wonder,’ I said tentatively, ‘if any girl will ever care enough to be willing to be engaged to me?’“He ruminated, and sucked his pipe: ‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘you’re not such a bad old beast!’“Rather beastly of me all the same to bore you with all this. Forgive me! As Vincent has appointed me his confidant I hear such a lot about the affair that I turned on to it without thinking... The wedding won’t come off for another year. WhenI’mengaged, I’ll be married sharp!“Now here’s a subject for discussing in your next letter—Love and marriage! It’s a big bill, and—be discursive, please! You can’t possibly discuss such questions on one sheet. We know, of course, that you are never to many. You are doomed to dry-nurse Martin for life, whether he wants you or no. (Brutal! Sorry, dear!) Things being as they are at the moment, we may premise that I also am doomed to celibacy, but as onlookers see most of the game, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t wag our heads together over the follies of lovers, and expatiate on how much better we should have managed things ourselves.“There’s no Cranford reason, I suppose, why a young female should not discuss these things with a person of the opposite sex? Even vowed to celibacy asyouare, I expect there are moments when you have dreamed dreams, and seen as in a vision the not impossible He.“Tell me about him, Katrine! I’ve a fancy to hear.“Now the sort of girlIshould choose... But this scrawl is too long already. That must keep for another day.“Salaams!“Jim Blair.”

“Lebong,June 20, 19—.

“Katrine,

“Very well. Very well indeed. I understand, and I agree. My birthday is next month, so it fits in all right. Rather a special birthday this time, for I shall be twenty-five. Last year I wasthirty-five. These things happen sometimes; I’ve heard of them. When it comes to one’s own turn, it’s jolly good work. You’ll just have time to catch that birthday, if you write off at once. Awfully good of you to worry about my sufferings in being obliged to reply to your—problematically—boring letters! I’ll risk it, Katrine! I’ll do more than that, I’ll promise to own up, and tell you straight, not only when I reach the bored stage, but long before it is even approximately approached. If there is no other advantage in this thundering distance, there is at least this, that we can be honest to the verge of brutality, and there’s no earthly sense in a correspondence—(beg pardon!—occasional exchange of letters)—if it is not for our mutual pleasure and profit. Wherefore, Miss Sensitive Conscience, kindly understand that so long as I don’t say I am bored I am to be the superlative, the other thing!

“As to your first question, you are not only justified, but it’s your bounden duty to open your life to every fresh interest which comes along. There’s no greater mistake than to believe that any work can be done the better for deliberately closing the shutters on all other claims. You have a duty to yourself, as well as to that precious Martin, and it is even conceivable that he might fare the better for a little less attention!

“So far as I have gathered facts from Dorothea, Martin lost his wife eight years ago. She was his wife for six short months, and she has been dead eight years. He was a boy at that time; since then he has grown into a man, and a reputation. The Martin who came to you in his grief, and to whom you mortgaged your life, is dead too; as dead as the poor little wife! So long as he was alive, you were a big help to him. He was miserable enough no doubt, poor beggar, but the last extremity of despair was spared him by your love and care. I’d swear to that! But that Martin died, and with him your power.

“Thus far, and no farther! There’s a wall, Katrine, between the soul of every brother and sister who was ever created, and sooner or later they come up against it. All the love, and the care, and the patience, and the trying and crying can never scale it. And then one day comes along a vagrant whodoesn’tcry, doesn’t try, perhaps doesn’t even care, and before that stranger is an open road. Which is a mystery, dear, and a commonplace. Likewise cussedly unfair.

“Do you mind if I call you ‘dear’? It’s only on paper, and it’s so long since I’ve had any one to endear. It takes off a bit of the loneliness to feel that there is some one in the world to whom one can occasionally show a glimpse of one’s heart. It’s the only bit of me that has a chance of feeling cold out here—but it’s petrifying fast enough. If you object, if it shocks your sense of decorum, well!—I’ll write it all the same, but I’ll blot it out afterwards. You needn’t know anything about it. Penswillblot on this thin paper!

“Don’t worry yourself because you are not the world and all to Martin. He would be an odd fellow if you were. It’s not in nature that a sister should satisfy a man’s heart, and it’s no use bucking against nature. Neither need you worry because of his discontent. If you’d ever suffered from a big wound, you’d understand that at the first, one is numbed by the shock; it’s only when the knitting up and rebuilding begin that the pain bites deep. Look upon his restlessness and depression as growing pains, and the beginning of his cure. Poor little Katrine! but this sort of thing is confoundedly hard on the looker-on.

“You want to know about myself—and why your eyes look sorry as they watch me turn out on my lone. Well, you know, Katrine—I am—Iwas, thirty-five last birthday; only child, parents gone, relations scattered, strangers to me in all but name. Outside the regiment there is not a soul to count in my life, and at the end of four years, unless the impossible happens, I must leave the regiment and say good-bye to my friends. They offered me a majority in the Blankshire a year ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to face the wrench, but as anything is preferable to idleness and the shelf, I shall have to start life again among strangers before I’m forty, with two or three captain fellows swearing vengeance at me for being promoted over their heads! It’s not exactly a glowing vista, and the prospect of that forty makes a man think. When he sits alone on a sweltering Indian night, and compares his lot with that of fellows like Middleton, for instance, it is depressing work!

“In one or other department of life a man must have success, if he is to know content. Work counts for a lot, but it must be successful work to make up a whole. A big career appeals to all men—the sense of power, the consciousness that one particular bit of the world’s work depends upon him, and would suffer from his absence, but that sort of success hasn’t come my way. It’s the jolliest regiment in the world, the best set of fellows, but it’s been our luck to be ‘out of things,’ and we are hopelessly blocked.

“Then there’s the home department! Middleton (I use him as a type) can never ask himself ‘what is the good,’ while he has his wife and that stunning little lad. He has his depressed moods like the rest, but when they come on, Dorothea makes love to him, and the little chap sits on his knee. At such times any nice feeling young photograph ought to sympathise with a lonely fellow who sits by and—looks on!

“What do you suppose made up my last Christmas mail? A bill from the stores, and a picture postcard from an old nurse. This year there’ll be a letter from you! I have theories about Christmas letters—especially Christmas letters to fellows abroad. Christmas is a time of special kindliness and love; people who are as a rule most reserved and dignified let themselves go, and show what is in their hearts. I’ve a fancy just for once to ‘pittend’ as the children say, and write a real Christmassy letter. A fellow in the regiment—Vincent—is just engaged. He met her when he went to S— for his last leave. Prom his descriptions you would imagine she was another Helen of Troy, but I’m told she’s quite an ordinary nice girl. The airs he gives himself! A fellow might never have been engaged before. After listening to him steadily for two hours on end the other night, I ventured one on my own account.

“‘I wonder,’ I said tentatively, ‘if any girl will ever care enough to be willing to be engaged to me?’

“He ruminated, and sucked his pipe: ‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘you’re not such a bad old beast!’

“Rather beastly of me all the same to bore you with all this. Forgive me! As Vincent has appointed me his confidant I hear such a lot about the affair that I turned on to it without thinking... The wedding won’t come off for another year. WhenI’mengaged, I’ll be married sharp!

“Now here’s a subject for discussing in your next letter—Love and marriage! It’s a big bill, and—be discursive, please! You can’t possibly discuss such questions on one sheet. We know, of course, that you are never to many. You are doomed to dry-nurse Martin for life, whether he wants you or no. (Brutal! Sorry, dear!) Things being as they are at the moment, we may premise that I also am doomed to celibacy, but as onlookers see most of the game, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t wag our heads together over the follies of lovers, and expatiate on how much better we should have managed things ourselves.

“There’s no Cranford reason, I suppose, why a young female should not discuss these things with a person of the opposite sex? Even vowed to celibacy asyouare, I expect there are moments when you have dreamed dreams, and seen as in a vision the not impossible He.

“Tell me about him, Katrine! I’ve a fancy to hear.

“Now the sort of girlIshould choose... But this scrawl is too long already. That must keep for another day.

“Salaams!

“Jim Blair.”

Chapter Nine.“Cumly,July 10, 19—.“Dear Captain Blair,“I’m in a grumbly mood this morning. Do you mind? Something annoyed me yesterday, and this is the lachrymose aftermath. I’m sorry, for your sake as well as my own, for it’s mail day, and it’s now or never to catch that birthday! Perhaps a morning’s writing will work it ‘off’ better than any other distraction which this place affords. It’s easy for you away at the other side of the world to sentimentalise over my ‘Cranford’ home, but if I had been asked to state the spot of all others in which I wouldnotchoose to live, it would be just such a derelict little hamlet as that in which fate has dumped me. It’s a pretty little place, built on the side of a hill, with a precipitous High Street which is dangerous to drive down, and puffy to walk up. There is a church at the top, a chapel at the bottom, and a bank half-way; likewise a linen draper’s shop, which serves the purpose of a lady’s club, for no self-respecting woman allows a morning to pass without popping in at ‘Verney’s.’ If the stock does not supply what one wants (it rarely does!) there is always ‘a startling line’ in something else, and a smell of flannel thrown in. ‘We are out of white gloves this morning, but I have a very fine line in unbleached calico!’ Mr Verney is a deacon of the chapel; Mrs Verney was in the millinery, and has hankerings after the church. We notice a general tendency among the maidens of dissent to appear at the parish church, what time they possess new garments or hats... After we have bought our packets of needles, or a box of pins, we meet our friends in the front shop, and gossip. Such a lot of talk, about such little, little things! There are days when it’s amusing enough; days when it’s the driest dust. Last year a friend of mine started a ‘Thankfulness Society,’ as a cure for the grumbling and discontent which is apt to engulf spinsters in a country place. Each member was presented with a little book, and was bound to inscribe therein the special causes of thankfulness which had occurred during each day. I refused to join. I said if I ceased to grumble it would have a demoralising effect on my character. No use to grumble? Fiddlesticks!Everyuse! As a dear old American friend used to say: ‘When you feel like scratching, it’s not a mite of use rolling your eyes, and trying to be a saint—just let yourself go, and be right downuglyfor a few minutes, and it will be a heap better for you, and every one concerned!’ The secretary was shocked. She said if one realised one’s blessings, one would notwishto grumble... I said that considered as a trial the grumbler was not in it, compared with the persistent optimist. Nothing on earth is more embittering than to live with a persistently amiable person. Imagine living with a certificated optimist bound over to be thankful through thick and thin, when the soot falls, the soup is singed, and the new dress doesnotcome home! ... Imagine the conversation, the maddening serenity of the smile! Optimists are admirable in calamity, but in the simple aggravations of daily life they are just the most depressing creatures upon earth!“Well, I’m sorry! Now I’ve had my growl, and (Yankee again!) feel as ‘good as pie,’ You might as well know what a grumbling, discontented wretch I am, and if you ask me why this special fit attacked me just this special morning, well, Iknow, but I’m not going to tell. I’ll answer another question instead—“You ask me what I think about love, getting engaged, married, all the rest of it. I am only a looker on, and must always be, but itdoesinterest me all the same! I have marvelled with every one else over the nature of that indefinable something which draws two people together, and which has nothing on earth to do with suitability as understood by the people. John may be a model of excellence; amiable, rich, handsome, devoted, but on their first meeting it is settled in Louisa’s mind as irrevocably as the trump of doom that he would neverdo! She knew it at a flash, the moment he entered the room; the second he touched her hand. And Tom is poor; he is plain, he looks as though on occasion he might be abominably disagreeable. Louisa looks upon his cross face, and acknowledges to herself ‘My Lord and King!’—It’s afeelthat decides it, not a fact. In the great, big choice of life, reason doesn’t count. Two men have asked me to marry them (You wouldn’t know their names, even if you heard them, so I am betraying no confidence); I should have said ‘no’ in any case, but I might havewantedto say ‘yes’! I didn’t! I felt that as a choice a jump into the river would be preferable, yet from a sane, sensible point of view there was no reason why I should not have fallen in love—and—especially in one case! every obvious reason why Ishould! I couldn’t for my life tell you what was wrong, except—Everything! I should have hated his very virtues by my own fireside. His ‘littleways’ would have driven me daft, but I can imagine wrapping up those self-same little ways right in the middle of my heart, as the dearest things, the sweetest, the most winsome, if they had belonged to another man!“Engaged people are a bore to outsiders, but for themselves it must be a good time. To be able to speak out, after bottling it all in; to be left alone in peace, instead of living on odd snatches of conversation in the midst of crowds; to feelsure; to be done with ‘I’,—and become for ever ‘We.’—It must feel so warm, and restful, and rich! It isn’t so much the mere happiness that impresses me; it’s therest. I wish it were possible to get engaged without being married, then I should arrange it with indecent haste, with an orphan, with a motor car, and wewouldbe happy! He should be clean shaven, and rather plain, but it must be just my special fad in the way of plainness—a trim, slim, sinewy sort. Nothing flabby, an’ you love me!“I’ve thought of his name sometimes; names count for a good deal. There are moods when I dream of Ralph and feel a fascination for Peter; moods when I have a secret hankering for Guy; moods again when he could not possibly be any one but Jack. People say that if you really love a man, his name does not matter. I’ve known a woman to settle down with ‘Percy,’ and live happily ever after. I’ve heard of another who espoused a ‘Samuel,’ and was apparently content. It is conceivable that I might do the same, but ‘Alfred’ gives me a crawl. It is settled, firm, as the everlasting hills, that I can never belong to Alfred!“If there is one thing more than another for which I bless my parents, and praise them in the gate, it is that they called me by a durable Christian name. Katherine! It is not beautiful; it is not poetic, but it is at least seemly and discreet. You may take liberties with Katherine, and it will never disgrace you. When you are small and curly-headed you can pose as ‘Kitty Clover’ with beguiling effect. I did myself, for quite a long run. Later on, dropping the Clover, you may be known to schoolmates as Kitty or Kate. There’s a snap about Kate which keeps Pearls and Rubies in their place. Katrine is, as you observe, quite attractive for the days of youth; Katherine is a refuge for old age. Can you imagine anything more appropriate for a spinster lady in a country town?“The only married couple whom I have studied from theinsidewas my brother and his wife during that little six months. It seemed quite a perfect thing at the time, but looking back from the sober height of twenty-six, it seems more like a play, than real, serious life. She was only nineteen; a pretty thing; such a babe; poor little, happy Juliet! and Martin was a boy with her. Now, as you say, he is a man. I wonder sometimes—“We have a visitor staying with us just now. Her name is Grizel Dundas, and she is twenty-eight, and very beautiful or rather plain, according to the hour of the day, and her own mood and intention. Sometimes I suspect that she deliberatelymakesherself plain, for the fun of confounding people with her beauty an hour later on. Also she may probably turn out to be one of the greatest heiresses in London, or be left with a few hundreds a year, and she is very lazy, and very energetic, and talks like a schoolboy, and looks like a fay, and dresses, oh, Lonely Man! in the most ra-vishing clothes! And she knocks at the door of Martin’s study in his writing hours, and walks bang in.And he doesn’t turn her out!“That’s Grizel. And if I tried a hundred years I couldn’t describe her better. We were at school together, and she is my most intimate friend, next to Dorothea, but—“I wish I were a generous, humble-minded person wholikedstanding aside, and seeing other people succeed where I have failed, and being praised where I’m snubbed, and run after when I’m ignored, but I’m not, and if you think I am, you’d better know once for all that you’re mistaken. There have been times this last week when I’vehatedGrizel, and her works!“Yesterday we went to a garden party, she, Martin, and I, and they schemed to send me off with a snuffy old man, so that they could be alone. I saw them look at each other, a quick, signalling look, which meant, ‘Get rid of her!’ and he was the first person who came along. Poor, snuffy person, with a termagant on his hands! If you were sitting here, face to face—I should be too proud to tell you this; even to write it to Dorothea would hurt, but to a ghostly shape whom one has never seen, and probably never shall see, it is a relief to blurt out one’s woes!“Martin looks at Grizel with a look in his eyes which,—which isnotlike a sorrowing widower! and when I see it I am filled with seventeen contending emotions, like the heroines in the newspaperfeuilletons. Jealousy—hideous, aching jealousy, for Juliet, and the past, for myself and the future; disillusionment, in the breaking of an ideal, which, if impracticable, was still beautiful and sweet, the illusion of a lifelong loyalty and devotion; also, and this is worst of all,—something horribly approaching contempt! My love for Martin is as great as ever, but he is no longer the hero, the strong, silent man who loved once and for ever, and went through life waiting patiently for a reunion. He has stepped down from his pedestal and become flesh and blood, and I—oh, Lonely Man!—I amtryingto be glad, but it’s a big, big effort! Self looms so large; the self thatwillintrude into every question. I wanted him to be happy,but in my own way!“I’m going to stop this minute. You’ll be horrified at the length of this budget, but it’s your own fault. Give a woman an inch, and she’ll take an ell. Wade through it this time, and tell me what you think, but don’tpreach! Preaching does me such a lot of harm. Methinks I descry in you a latent tendency to preach; nevertheless, somehow—I can’t think how—you’ve comforted me to-day and so I’m grateful.“Many happy returns of your twenty-fifth birthday. I am a year older, and feel pleasantly superior.“Yours sincerely,“Katrine Beverley.“PS.—Please go on about ‘The girl you would fancy’ ... I have a fancy to hear!”

“Cumly,July 10, 19—.

“Dear Captain Blair,

“I’m in a grumbly mood this morning. Do you mind? Something annoyed me yesterday, and this is the lachrymose aftermath. I’m sorry, for your sake as well as my own, for it’s mail day, and it’s now or never to catch that birthday! Perhaps a morning’s writing will work it ‘off’ better than any other distraction which this place affords. It’s easy for you away at the other side of the world to sentimentalise over my ‘Cranford’ home, but if I had been asked to state the spot of all others in which I wouldnotchoose to live, it would be just such a derelict little hamlet as that in which fate has dumped me. It’s a pretty little place, built on the side of a hill, with a precipitous High Street which is dangerous to drive down, and puffy to walk up. There is a church at the top, a chapel at the bottom, and a bank half-way; likewise a linen draper’s shop, which serves the purpose of a lady’s club, for no self-respecting woman allows a morning to pass without popping in at ‘Verney’s.’ If the stock does not supply what one wants (it rarely does!) there is always ‘a startling line’ in something else, and a smell of flannel thrown in. ‘We are out of white gloves this morning, but I have a very fine line in unbleached calico!’ Mr Verney is a deacon of the chapel; Mrs Verney was in the millinery, and has hankerings after the church. We notice a general tendency among the maidens of dissent to appear at the parish church, what time they possess new garments or hats... After we have bought our packets of needles, or a box of pins, we meet our friends in the front shop, and gossip. Such a lot of talk, about such little, little things! There are days when it’s amusing enough; days when it’s the driest dust. Last year a friend of mine started a ‘Thankfulness Society,’ as a cure for the grumbling and discontent which is apt to engulf spinsters in a country place. Each member was presented with a little book, and was bound to inscribe therein the special causes of thankfulness which had occurred during each day. I refused to join. I said if I ceased to grumble it would have a demoralising effect on my character. No use to grumble? Fiddlesticks!Everyuse! As a dear old American friend used to say: ‘When you feel like scratching, it’s not a mite of use rolling your eyes, and trying to be a saint—just let yourself go, and be right downuglyfor a few minutes, and it will be a heap better for you, and every one concerned!’ The secretary was shocked. She said if one realised one’s blessings, one would notwishto grumble... I said that considered as a trial the grumbler was not in it, compared with the persistent optimist. Nothing on earth is more embittering than to live with a persistently amiable person. Imagine living with a certificated optimist bound over to be thankful through thick and thin, when the soot falls, the soup is singed, and the new dress doesnotcome home! ... Imagine the conversation, the maddening serenity of the smile! Optimists are admirable in calamity, but in the simple aggravations of daily life they are just the most depressing creatures upon earth!

“Well, I’m sorry! Now I’ve had my growl, and (Yankee again!) feel as ‘good as pie,’ You might as well know what a grumbling, discontented wretch I am, and if you ask me why this special fit attacked me just this special morning, well, Iknow, but I’m not going to tell. I’ll answer another question instead—

“You ask me what I think about love, getting engaged, married, all the rest of it. I am only a looker on, and must always be, but itdoesinterest me all the same! I have marvelled with every one else over the nature of that indefinable something which draws two people together, and which has nothing on earth to do with suitability as understood by the people. John may be a model of excellence; amiable, rich, handsome, devoted, but on their first meeting it is settled in Louisa’s mind as irrevocably as the trump of doom that he would neverdo! She knew it at a flash, the moment he entered the room; the second he touched her hand. And Tom is poor; he is plain, he looks as though on occasion he might be abominably disagreeable. Louisa looks upon his cross face, and acknowledges to herself ‘My Lord and King!’—It’s afeelthat decides it, not a fact. In the great, big choice of life, reason doesn’t count. Two men have asked me to marry them (You wouldn’t know their names, even if you heard them, so I am betraying no confidence); I should have said ‘no’ in any case, but I might havewantedto say ‘yes’! I didn’t! I felt that as a choice a jump into the river would be preferable, yet from a sane, sensible point of view there was no reason why I should not have fallen in love—and—especially in one case! every obvious reason why Ishould! I couldn’t for my life tell you what was wrong, except—Everything! I should have hated his very virtues by my own fireside. His ‘littleways’ would have driven me daft, but I can imagine wrapping up those self-same little ways right in the middle of my heart, as the dearest things, the sweetest, the most winsome, if they had belonged to another man!

“Engaged people are a bore to outsiders, but for themselves it must be a good time. To be able to speak out, after bottling it all in; to be left alone in peace, instead of living on odd snatches of conversation in the midst of crowds; to feelsure; to be done with ‘I’,—and become for ever ‘We.’—It must feel so warm, and restful, and rich! It isn’t so much the mere happiness that impresses me; it’s therest. I wish it were possible to get engaged without being married, then I should arrange it with indecent haste, with an orphan, with a motor car, and wewouldbe happy! He should be clean shaven, and rather plain, but it must be just my special fad in the way of plainness—a trim, slim, sinewy sort. Nothing flabby, an’ you love me!

“I’ve thought of his name sometimes; names count for a good deal. There are moods when I dream of Ralph and feel a fascination for Peter; moods when I have a secret hankering for Guy; moods again when he could not possibly be any one but Jack. People say that if you really love a man, his name does not matter. I’ve known a woman to settle down with ‘Percy,’ and live happily ever after. I’ve heard of another who espoused a ‘Samuel,’ and was apparently content. It is conceivable that I might do the same, but ‘Alfred’ gives me a crawl. It is settled, firm, as the everlasting hills, that I can never belong to Alfred!

“If there is one thing more than another for which I bless my parents, and praise them in the gate, it is that they called me by a durable Christian name. Katherine! It is not beautiful; it is not poetic, but it is at least seemly and discreet. You may take liberties with Katherine, and it will never disgrace you. When you are small and curly-headed you can pose as ‘Kitty Clover’ with beguiling effect. I did myself, for quite a long run. Later on, dropping the Clover, you may be known to schoolmates as Kitty or Kate. There’s a snap about Kate which keeps Pearls and Rubies in their place. Katrine is, as you observe, quite attractive for the days of youth; Katherine is a refuge for old age. Can you imagine anything more appropriate for a spinster lady in a country town?

“The only married couple whom I have studied from theinsidewas my brother and his wife during that little six months. It seemed quite a perfect thing at the time, but looking back from the sober height of twenty-six, it seems more like a play, than real, serious life. She was only nineteen; a pretty thing; such a babe; poor little, happy Juliet! and Martin was a boy with her. Now, as you say, he is a man. I wonder sometimes—

“We have a visitor staying with us just now. Her name is Grizel Dundas, and she is twenty-eight, and very beautiful or rather plain, according to the hour of the day, and her own mood and intention. Sometimes I suspect that she deliberatelymakesherself plain, for the fun of confounding people with her beauty an hour later on. Also she may probably turn out to be one of the greatest heiresses in London, or be left with a few hundreds a year, and she is very lazy, and very energetic, and talks like a schoolboy, and looks like a fay, and dresses, oh, Lonely Man! in the most ra-vishing clothes! And she knocks at the door of Martin’s study in his writing hours, and walks bang in.And he doesn’t turn her out!

“That’s Grizel. And if I tried a hundred years I couldn’t describe her better. We were at school together, and she is my most intimate friend, next to Dorothea, but—

“I wish I were a generous, humble-minded person wholikedstanding aside, and seeing other people succeed where I have failed, and being praised where I’m snubbed, and run after when I’m ignored, but I’m not, and if you think I am, you’d better know once for all that you’re mistaken. There have been times this last week when I’vehatedGrizel, and her works!

“Yesterday we went to a garden party, she, Martin, and I, and they schemed to send me off with a snuffy old man, so that they could be alone. I saw them look at each other, a quick, signalling look, which meant, ‘Get rid of her!’ and he was the first person who came along. Poor, snuffy person, with a termagant on his hands! If you were sitting here, face to face—I should be too proud to tell you this; even to write it to Dorothea would hurt, but to a ghostly shape whom one has never seen, and probably never shall see, it is a relief to blurt out one’s woes!

“Martin looks at Grizel with a look in his eyes which,—which isnotlike a sorrowing widower! and when I see it I am filled with seventeen contending emotions, like the heroines in the newspaperfeuilletons. Jealousy—hideous, aching jealousy, for Juliet, and the past, for myself and the future; disillusionment, in the breaking of an ideal, which, if impracticable, was still beautiful and sweet, the illusion of a lifelong loyalty and devotion; also, and this is worst of all,—something horribly approaching contempt! My love for Martin is as great as ever, but he is no longer the hero, the strong, silent man who loved once and for ever, and went through life waiting patiently for a reunion. He has stepped down from his pedestal and become flesh and blood, and I—oh, Lonely Man!—I amtryingto be glad, but it’s a big, big effort! Self looms so large; the self thatwillintrude into every question. I wanted him to be happy,but in my own way!

“I’m going to stop this minute. You’ll be horrified at the length of this budget, but it’s your own fault. Give a woman an inch, and she’ll take an ell. Wade through it this time, and tell me what you think, but don’tpreach! Preaching does me such a lot of harm. Methinks I descry in you a latent tendency to preach; nevertheless, somehow—I can’t think how—you’ve comforted me to-day and so I’m grateful.

“Many happy returns of your twenty-fifth birthday. I am a year older, and feel pleasantly superior.

“Yours sincerely,

“Katrine Beverley.

“PS.—Please go on about ‘The girl you would fancy’ ... I have a fancy to hear!”

Chapter Ten.It was a week after the garden party. A persistent rain was drenching the trees in the garden, and turning the gravel path into miniature torrents. The atmosphere in the low, panelled rooms was damp and chilly. Katrine, in a flannel shirt of her favourite rich blue, was busy with account books at the centre table. Grizel, in a white gown, and a red nose, was miserably rubbing her hands together, and drumming her small feet on the floor.“Katrine!”“Yes.”“I’m cold.”Katrine glanced over the rim of the grocer’s book.“Naturally! Who wouldn’t be? A muslin gown, this morning! If you’d an ounce of sense, you’d go upstairs and change it at once.”Grizel’s face fell, like that of a small disappointed child. She shivered, and her nose looked redder than ever.“I was hinting,” she sighed softly, “for a fire.”“Iknowthat, my dear, perfectly well, but you are not going to get it.”“If you were a kind, polite hostess—”“No, I shouldn’t, because in an hour’s time the rain will stop, and the room would be close and stuffy all day. Besides, we are going out. If you will be quiet for ten minutes, I shall have finished these books, and we’ll go out shopping. So you’llhaveto change.”Grizel stared, a glimmer of interest struggling with dismay.“What are you going to buy?”“Vegetables for dinner, and bacon, and pay the books.”“You expect me to walk out in a torrent forthat! Iwon’t go. I won’t change my frock either. I’ll go to bed.”There was not the least note of offence in Grizel’s voice. It preserved its deep note of good-nature, but it sounded obstinate, and her little face was fierce in its militance. Katrine, unabashed, went on checking off figures.“Nonsense. It will do you good. Rain is good for the complexion. Your face looks tartan, and your nose is red.”“I like it red,” said Grizel serenely. She sat another moment nursing her cold hands. “And I won’t buy cabbages either,” she added defiantly. “It’s no use trying to brace me, for I won’tbebraced. I’ll go upstairs, and complain to Martin.”That threat roused Katrine to whole-hearted attention. She shut the little red book—the butcher’s book, this time, swept it and its companions into a neat pile, and sprang to her feet.“You’ll do nothing of the sort.Nobodyinterrupts Martin when he is at work. We are forbidden even to knock at the door for anything short of a fire or an earthquake. It might spoil his work for the whole morning.”Grizel stared at her thoughtfully.“That reminds me,” she soliloquised slowly. “Ipromisedto help him, and it’s four whole days, and I’ve never been near! It’s my duty to go at once, and I’ll tell him my brain can’t work unless I’m warm. We’ll light a fire and roast, while you swim home with the cabbage. Why on earth didn’t I think of that before?”She smiled into her hostess’s face with an easy assurance which brought a spark into the dark blue eyes. Katrine was honestly trying not to be angry. Before now she had had experience of Grizel in a perverse mood, and knew that it was not by force that one could move her from her purpose. She adopted an air of resignation, and approached the bell.“Very well, then, you shall have your fire, and you can read comfortably beside it, or write letters, while I’m away. And I’ll tell Mary to bring you a cup of chocolate. You are a spoiled baby, Grizel; when you’ve taken it into your head to do a thing, one might as well give in first as last.”“Yes,” agreed Grizel calmly. “I’m going to Martin.”She rose in her turn and strolled towards the door, while Katrine stood helpless, her hand on the bell.“Grizel!”“Yes.”“Don’t go!”There was a look on her face, a tone in her voice, which arrested Grizel’s attention. Half-way across the room she paused, and studied her hostess with those eyes which looked so lazy, but which saw so uncommonly well. There was dread as well as annoyance on Katrine’s face.“What will happen if I do? What is it you are afraid of?”“He’ll be furious. Terribly angry.” But in her heart Katrine knew that this was not her fear. Her fear was lest Martin shouldnotbe angry.Grizel considered, a slow smile curving her lips.“But that,” she said, “would be amusing. Much more amusing than buying cabbages. I’d like to see Martin angry!”She turned and continued her way. From her position by the bell Katrine could watch her progress up the staircase, could note the grace of the slim white form. “Her nose is red!” chanted the inner voice. “Her nose is red!” Amongst a medley of disagreeable reflections the thought appeared to stand out in solitary comfort. It was hardly more than a week since Grizel had arrived, eight days to be exact, yet to Katrine standing alone in the dark old room, it appeared that the whole structure of life had in that time undergone a radical change. It was not a change which could be registered infacts; the days had been spent in ordinary happenings, tea parties in neighbouring gardens, drives through the country lanes, small dinner parties, a day on the river. There was no single incident on which she could lay a finger and declare that here or there stood the dividing mark between past and present. The change was in the air; impalpable yet real; Katrine’s sensitive nature felt it in every fibre, inhaled it with every breath. Behind the peaceful, smiling exterior she divined a smouldering passion. The atmosphere was flecked with fire; it flamed beneath the most trivial words, the most trivial deeds. From an ice-bound solitude she looked on, understanding with a keenness of vision, as new as it was bitter. During the last days her mind had been incessantly occupied reviewing the past, searching it in the light of the present. Juliet, Grizel, and herself had been schoolmates at a French boarding-school. Grizel had accompanied her on a short visit to the married couple in the autumn after their marriage. That was the first time that Martin had seen her, and even in the midst of his bridegroom’s joy, he had been attracted, impressed. Then came two long, black years, at the end of which, taking her courage in both hands, she had enquired if Martin would object if Grizel came down for a few days. The mysterious storehouse of the brain had registered the moment, so that she could still see her brother’s face before her, as he lifted it from his book—the young, drawn face, with the haggard eyes. Something approaching a light of interest dawned in the wan depths.“Grizel Dundas?” he queried slowly; and after a pause. “Certainly! Why not? I’d like to see her!”So Grizel had come. Memory again registered the fact that it was in response to one of her sallies that Martin had laughed for the first time: an honest, wholesome laugh. She had come again the next year, and had been warmly welcomed. Then had followed an interval. Lady Griselda’s health had begun to fail, she was much abroad, and when at home, disinclined to spare her niece. It was not until the fifth year of Martin’s widower-hood that Grizel again visited The Glen, but since then every six or seven months had brought about more or less fleeting visits. Questioning herself, Katrine realised that while at the beginning she herself had been the one to suggest a fresh invitation, for the last two years Martin had taken the initiative, while she, with an instinctive unwillingness, had sought excuses.Could it be that subconsciously she had divined this ending; had known that slowly, surely, Martin’s heart was passing into Grizel’s keeping? She had held fiercely to the remembrance of Juliet; to the ideal of lifelong faithfulness; held to it the more fiercely as doubt grew, but now it was no longer doubt, it was certainty. Martin loved Grizel with the love of a full-grown man, compared with which that pretty idyll of the past had been child’s play. And Grizel? Who could say! That she would not marry while her aunt lived had for years been an accepted fact, but Lady Griselda’s days were numbered. In a few months the question of Grizel’s future position would be decided, and then—Katrine’s mind had a flashlight realisation of two alternatives, Martin refused, despairing, Martin accepted, aglow. For one black moment of involuntary selfishness, each seemed equally obnoxious. Then with a stifled sob, she shut the door, and buried her face in her hands.Throughout the silent house travelled the sound of an imperative rap.“Who’s there?”The sharp, impatient voice was enough to quell the courage of an ordinary intruder. Grizel chuckled, and knocked once more, a trifle more loudly than before.“Who’s—there?”“Me!”It was the tiniest of squeaks, and the irate author, shouting back an imperious “Go away!” settled himself to his task, but the knock sounded yet again, and in a fury of impatience he dashed to the door and stood scowling upon the threshold.“What the—”“Devil—” concluded Grizel calmly, “but it isn’t. It’s me. Let me in, Martin! It’s a choice between you and buying cabbages in the rain. Katrine says so, and I should catch my death of cold.”But the change in the man’s face was startling to behold. The scowl had vanished, had been wiped out of being at the first swift glance, and with it the fret, and the tire. The deep-set eyes glowed upon her, the hands stretched out.“Grizel! Come in! Come in! I was just thinking. Wishing—”Grizel floated past into the forbidden room, her glance as easily avoiding his as her hands escaped his grasp. There was nothing curt or forbidding in the evasion, she seemed simply oblivious of anything but a friendly warmth of manner; engrossed in an interested survey of the study itself. Her eyes roved round the book-lined walls, and rested brightening upon the old-fashioned hearth. The fire was laid. In a basket on one side of the hearth reposed a pile of resined logs. A copper vase obviously contained coal.“Martin!” she cried eagerly, “let’s light up! I’ve been perished all morning. Katrine says I’m unsuitably dressed. I am, but I never dress to suit rooms. I heat them to suitme! Would you think the room unbearably stuffy if we had a fire?”“Not a bit of it! I often do. Sitting at a desk is chilly work.”He was already on his knees, posing logs scientifically over the paper and wood, balancing small pieces of coal on the top. In an incredibly short time a cheerful blaze was illuminating the room, and Grizel, kicking off small brown shoes, was crinkling her toes before the fire. Martin drew forward a second chair and seated himself beside her, in apparent forgetfulness of the papers scattered over the desk.“What a shame that you should be so chilled! Why haven’t you had a fire downstairs?”“Katrine preferred exercise. She recommended a flannel shirt, and an expedition to buy cabbages. British and bracing. Can you imagineme, Martin, buying cabbages, in the rain, in a flannel shirt?”He looked at her; an eloquent glance. There were two feelings warring in his breast, indignation against his sister for her callousness and lack of consideration, and a rush of protective tenderness towards the sweet martyr so abused, for it is one of the injustices of life that the woman who smiles and looks beautiful will always take precedence in a man’s heart over the assiduous purchaser of cabbages. For a moment sympathy engrossed Martin’s mind, then he smiled; a somewhat difficult smile.“It is hardly yourmétier! Still, if it happened that you were in Katrine’s position; if it came in your day’s work—”“If the garden were properly managed you would notneedto buy cabbages! I’d dismiss the gardener!” pronounced Grizel briskly, and once again a dangerous moment had come, and gone. She cowered over the fire, holding out her hands, hitching her shoulders to her ears. Her nose was still red; if Katrine had been present she would have told herself that no man could possibly admire a woman with a red nose, but Martin had not so much as noticed the fact, and if he had, would have felt it to be a wonderful and beautiful thing that Grizel’s nose could be red, like that of an ordinary mortal. It would have appeared to him the most endearing of traits.“I wonder,” he said thoughtfully. “I wonder Grizel, how you would stand poverty! Comparative poverty, I mean, of course. You have never realised the meaning of money. You have wanted a thing, and it has been yours. You have not adapted yourself to circumstances, circumstances have been made to adapt themselves toyou. It is the fashion to decry the power of riches, but in the case of a woman like yourself, young, and strong, and beautiful, and sane, it is folly to pretend that they are not a valuable asset. You have been happy—”“Yes!” assented Grizel thoughtfully. “Yes!” She stared into the fire, her small face very grave. “I like money; so much money that one need not have the thought of it always before one. It would seem to me debasing to be always considering costs, planning and contriving. It would hold one’s thoughts down. And I have never felt burdened by responsibility. That’s what they say, you know,—the dear, serious folks,—they call wealth a burden and responsibility, but I’ve loved to be able to give and to help. I’ve my own little way about giving...” (The listener smiled. When had Grizelnother own way!) “The public charities must be supported, of course, that’s mechanical; a mere signing of cheques, but the interesting part is to get hold of private cases, and see them through! Will you be shocked, Martin, when I tell you that my particularforteis helping people who have failed through—their own fault! Not misfortune, but drink, gambling, other things, of which they might have kept free, but—didn’t! It’s a kind old world; every one is ready to help the unfortunate, but when a man has had a chance, and thrown it away, when it’s ‘nobody’s fault but his own,’then,” she shrugged her slight shoulders, “he goes into outer darkness! People have ‘enough to do’ helping those who ‘deserve it,’ and so I do the other thing! My old Buddy has never limited me as to money; the only time when she is annoyed, is when I’ve not spent enough. I have quite a battalion of lost causes dependent on me now. It would hurt to give them up.”There was a moment’s silence, then:“And have younoidea?” asked Martin tentatively. “None at all, whether in the end—?”Grizel laughed. It was rare indeed that she was serious for more than a minute at a time.“Not—one! Isn’t it odd? Like a position in afeuilleton. Never once has the subject been mentioned between us. I have had, as I said, command of unlimited money since I left school, but she dreads the idea of death; it must never be mentioned in her presence, or anything approximately suggesting it. For the last few years she has been, of course, increasingly irresponsible, but before that we lived always as if the present would last for ever... She has never even alluded to the time when I should be alone.”“But surely there must have been,—I know, Grizel, that there have been men,—many men!”“Ah!” cried Grizel deeply, and chuckled with reminiscent enjoyment. “Just so. Therewasone, a bold one, who questioned her point blank on her intentions. He lived; he came out of the room alive, but that was as much as one could say. He got the best dressing down ofhislife, but that was all he did get. And he didn’t trouble me any more.”“Cur! But they were not all so mercenary?”“No.” Grizel looked thoughtful once more. “Certainly not. I like men. They are nice things; not really mercenary unless they’re obliged. But it’s a difficult position to saddle yourself with a wife whomayturn out a colossal heiress, or on the other hand—a pauper! It complicates the position, and in one way or other is pretty well bound to lead to trouble. The man who would appreciate the one, is bound to object to t’other, and it’s such a contrary world, that the t’other it would almost certainly be... When you are making a choice for life, you ought to understand where you are. You see, Martin,” she turned towards him with a smile, “it would notbe fair!”“And—” he said hoarsely, “wasthatthe reason why you never—?”Grizel put her head on one side, and stared thoughtfully into the blaze.“Partly. Mostly. Yes! And my old Buddy. She won’t live long, and I owe her so much. But mostly the idea of playing the game. Most of the men I have met have positions to maintain, and expect their wives to lend a hand. They can’t afford a love marriage, and I’m proud in my own little way. I shouldn’t like to turn out a disappointment.”“There are some men who are old-fashioned enough to prefer to provide for their own wives, who would dread the fortune even more heartily than others do the lack of it.”“There are. I realise that. Bless their dear hearts! Butnotthe majority! There’s an heir to a Dukedom hovering round now, Martin; not compromising himself, you understand, but by steady attention to business laying the foundation of a claim. If the old Buddy died and left me her heir, he’d tell me that he had forborne tointrude, had valiantly subdued his impatience, etc., etc., I never want the money quite so badly as when I imagine that interview! I’m not spiteful as a rule, but I shall think fate treats me hardly if I never have a chance of scorching that young man... Well! we’ll see—!”“You want then,—you will be disappointed if you don’t get the money?”She turned her eyes full upon him, distended in the widest of stares.“Well, I should justfartherthink Ishould! T-errifically disappointed! Squelched. Flum-macked. Laid out flat. For the hour, that is. I couldn’t go on being worried, for all the fortunes on earth. It will be a case of adapting myself to a new sort of happiness—c’est tout! That’s easily done.”The joy of the lover, the keen, appraising interest of the artist, were both eloquent in Martin’s glance as he considered her eloquent face.“Yes! One cannot imagine Grizel less than happy and content. And yet to an ordinary nature, your life during these last years, for all its luxuries, would have seemed a poor thing. You have made your happiness by managing to love a very unlovable character. It’s a big feat, Grizel; a very big feat!”Grizel rubbed her nose, a slow, thoughtful rub with a raised forefinger. The homely movement seemed ridiculously out of character with the ethereal form and the transparent hand, on which the firelight woke the gleam of flawless diamonds.“Can a ‘feat’ be something for which you have never tried? I nevertryto love any one. Either I love ’em, or—I don’t bother! Disliking, hating,—it’s too much trouble! I wipe ’em out... Same way with things; therefore, as a logical conclusion nothing remains but what Idolike. Therefore,—logical inference again!—one must be happy, because there’s nothing to make oneun-happy. Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?”Martin’s lip curled.“I wonder,” he said. “I wonder what Katrine would say if you propounded that theory to her? I fancy, poor girl, that the very opposite of your programme would come nearer to her outlook on life. She finds it as difficult to be happy as you do to be miserable. And yet—she’s had her chance!”“Martin, she hasnot! What chance has she had? Tucked away in this dark old house, with you shut up in your study all day, and in your moods all night? My old Buddy loves me; it’s not an ordinary form of loving perhaps, but shedoes! I’m more to her than the whole world. And I’ve had my fling... Poor old Katrine has had no love, and no fling, nothing but duty, and brotherly affection, and home-made clothes. It’s enough to make any woman snap. I’m glad sheisdiscontented. I’ll make her more discontented still, before I’ve done. She’s pot-bound, like your stale old ferns, and needs uprooting, and shaking, and planting in fresh, strong earth. Then she’ll bloom, and you, poor bat! will be amazed at what a fine big bloom it is. It isn’t a sign of greatness, Martin, to blink in the sun, because one is too lazy too move, and is content to bask, and be stroked, and lick up cream. That’s me! Katrine is bigger; it needs more to fill her life, but she’s only just beginning to grow. You don’t know, Martin, how sweet a woman Katrine is going to be!”Martin smiled; a smile of serene, unshakable conviction. He knew his sister. She was a good girl, well meaning, if a little difficult by nature; he, of all people on earth, would be the last to deny Katrine’s good points, but—to compare her with Grizel, to account to her a greatness of nature above that of the sweetest, kindliest, most loving of women,—that was a flight of fancy beyond even his well-trained powers!“And who,” queried Grizel, with sudden energy, “is Katrine thinking of, when she sits smiling into space, and giving silly answers to obvious questions, and putting horrid sugar into my tea,—tell me that, if you can! It is your profession in life to study men and women, and analyse their thoughts. What do you make of the mystery of the woman upon your hearth?”Martin smiled superior.“There is none. She is thinking of the grocer, and determining to hurl another complaint at his head, because he will insist upon sending us sandy grit, instead of honest West Indian sugar, or of the butcher, whom she suspects of frozen meat, or—or of the Y.W., who has left smudges on the plates... Nothing more romantic, I assure you.”“Blind bat of a man! that’s allyouknow. I’ll take to novel-writing myself at this rate. If this is the insight and inner vision of ‘one of the most popular of our young writers’ there’s room for Grizel Dundas! I have not been in the house a week, but I know two things—Some oneis making love to Katrine, and—Katrine enjoys the process! By a process of elucidation I know also that it is not the doctor with the beard, nor the curate with the smile, nor the Caldecote squire who rides the white horse, nor the squeaky person who sings. It isn’t this neighbourhood which holds the treasure. She has an air of calmness and detachment in partaking of your rural joys. Not a flicker of ‘Will he come?’ ... Methinks my friend, he lives afar!”The smile broadened upon Martin’s lips. Women, the most sensible of women, had a way of searching for sentimental reasons for the most prosaic happenings; it was an interesting trait, and from the altitude of a man’s sound common-sense, attractive enough. It pleased him to hear Grizel imagining love stories with Katrine as heroine, without foundation as they were.“Can’t you go a little further and discover his name and address? It would be interesting to know.”“Jim. India,” replied Grizel with a promptness which startled her hearer into attention at last. The face which confronted him was full of triumph, and a malicious delight in his discomfiture. He stared discomfited, amazed, subtly aggrieved.“Jim, India! Thereisno Jim! She knows no one there, not a soul, except Jack Middleton and Dorothea. What put it into your head to fancy such a thing? Has she—?”“Thereisa Jim, and the Middletons know him. Dorothea wrote about some commissions, and Katrine showed me the note—wanting my advice. There was a reference to one ‘Jim,’—she’d forgotten that, quite a colourless reference, but when I questioned, sheblushed!” Grizel covered her cheeks with her hands, in eloquent gesture. “Oh,sucha blush! I looked away, but I thought: ‘Why should one blush at a name?’ and after that I wentonthinking. It’s Jim, India—Martin, you may take my word for it, though how, and why, and when, I have no more idea than you have yourself. There’s a new interest in her life; any one with two eyes can see that, and she writes huge, huge letters...”“To Dorothea! She’s done that for years. I’ve often wondered what she finds to say.”Grizel rolled eloquent eyes to the ceiling.“I have been young,” she declaimed dramatically, “and now am old, yet have I never seen a woman staring into space, smirking, and looking silly, considering how she can best turn a sentence, to another woman! I tell you that which I do know and, Martin dear, it’s not disloyalty... I wouldn’t have breathed a word, if it had not been for the hope of helping both. Keep your own eyes open, andact! Katrine’s conscience is of the good, old-fashioned, Nonconformist type which urges her on to do the thing she most dislikes, out of a deluded idea that it must needs be right! She’s quite capable of playing suttee with her life.Don’t let her do it!”“How can I help it? I know nothing. I am not consulted. I believe the whole thing is imagination. If there had been anything real she would surely have confided in you.”“Me? I’m the last person,—the last person in the world—”The words were spoken on the impulse of the moment, and apparently regretted as soon as they were pronounced. Grizel flushed; obviously, unmistakably, even in the glow of the firelight. She flushed, and pushing back her chair rose hurriedly to her feet.“Whew! That fire! Katrine was right,—itdoesget close. And I believe it is going to clear.—I’ll go and see.”“Why are you the last?Why?”Martin had followed her, was questioning with a new light in his eyes—eager, curious, anticipatory. On her way towards the door her progress was blocked by his tall form.“Why the last, Grizel?” he repeated urgently. “Tell me! I want to know. Why should Katrine—?”Never before had he seen a trace of embarrassment break the lazy serenity of Grizel’s mien. The sight of it, and the possibility of an intoxicating explanation of her statement, fired his blood. For the last two years he had been fighting against this love, fighting it as a forbidden thing, a thing of which to be ashamed, but lately, subtly, the mental position had changed. Life was forcibly pushing him from one standpoint after another, proving its untenability, sending him forth to find fresh fields.“Why should Katrine—?” he cried, and at that moment the door opened and Katrine herself stood upon the threshold.Her face was pale, her eyes grave and gentle, the picture of her as she appeared at that moment dwelt in Martin’s mind, and brought with it a startled recognition of his sister’s charm, then in a flash, she stiffened; the softness passed from the eyes, and was replaced by a chilly scorn. This was a love scene upon which she had intruded,—Grizel flushed, protesting, Martin flushed, appealing, and her own name “Katrine” bandied upon his lip—no doubt to be waved aside, as an obstacle blocking the way.It was in a voice icily bereft of expression that she delivered her message:“I have just taken a message for you, Grizel. They have rung up to say that Lady Griselda is worse. You are wanted at home at once.”

It was a week after the garden party. A persistent rain was drenching the trees in the garden, and turning the gravel path into miniature torrents. The atmosphere in the low, panelled rooms was damp and chilly. Katrine, in a flannel shirt of her favourite rich blue, was busy with account books at the centre table. Grizel, in a white gown, and a red nose, was miserably rubbing her hands together, and drumming her small feet on the floor.

“Katrine!”

“Yes.”

“I’m cold.”

Katrine glanced over the rim of the grocer’s book.

“Naturally! Who wouldn’t be? A muslin gown, this morning! If you’d an ounce of sense, you’d go upstairs and change it at once.”

Grizel’s face fell, like that of a small disappointed child. She shivered, and her nose looked redder than ever.

“I was hinting,” she sighed softly, “for a fire.”

“Iknowthat, my dear, perfectly well, but you are not going to get it.”

“If you were a kind, polite hostess—”

“No, I shouldn’t, because in an hour’s time the rain will stop, and the room would be close and stuffy all day. Besides, we are going out. If you will be quiet for ten minutes, I shall have finished these books, and we’ll go out shopping. So you’llhaveto change.”

Grizel stared, a glimmer of interest struggling with dismay.

“What are you going to buy?”

“Vegetables for dinner, and bacon, and pay the books.”

“You expect me to walk out in a torrent forthat! Iwon’t go. I won’t change my frock either. I’ll go to bed.”

There was not the least note of offence in Grizel’s voice. It preserved its deep note of good-nature, but it sounded obstinate, and her little face was fierce in its militance. Katrine, unabashed, went on checking off figures.

“Nonsense. It will do you good. Rain is good for the complexion. Your face looks tartan, and your nose is red.”

“I like it red,” said Grizel serenely. She sat another moment nursing her cold hands. “And I won’t buy cabbages either,” she added defiantly. “It’s no use trying to brace me, for I won’tbebraced. I’ll go upstairs, and complain to Martin.”

That threat roused Katrine to whole-hearted attention. She shut the little red book—the butcher’s book, this time, swept it and its companions into a neat pile, and sprang to her feet.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort.Nobodyinterrupts Martin when he is at work. We are forbidden even to knock at the door for anything short of a fire or an earthquake. It might spoil his work for the whole morning.”

Grizel stared at her thoughtfully.

“That reminds me,” she soliloquised slowly. “Ipromisedto help him, and it’s four whole days, and I’ve never been near! It’s my duty to go at once, and I’ll tell him my brain can’t work unless I’m warm. We’ll light a fire and roast, while you swim home with the cabbage. Why on earth didn’t I think of that before?”

She smiled into her hostess’s face with an easy assurance which brought a spark into the dark blue eyes. Katrine was honestly trying not to be angry. Before now she had had experience of Grizel in a perverse mood, and knew that it was not by force that one could move her from her purpose. She adopted an air of resignation, and approached the bell.

“Very well, then, you shall have your fire, and you can read comfortably beside it, or write letters, while I’m away. And I’ll tell Mary to bring you a cup of chocolate. You are a spoiled baby, Grizel; when you’ve taken it into your head to do a thing, one might as well give in first as last.”

“Yes,” agreed Grizel calmly. “I’m going to Martin.”

She rose in her turn and strolled towards the door, while Katrine stood helpless, her hand on the bell.

“Grizel!”

“Yes.”

“Don’t go!”

There was a look on her face, a tone in her voice, which arrested Grizel’s attention. Half-way across the room she paused, and studied her hostess with those eyes which looked so lazy, but which saw so uncommonly well. There was dread as well as annoyance on Katrine’s face.

“What will happen if I do? What is it you are afraid of?”

“He’ll be furious. Terribly angry.” But in her heart Katrine knew that this was not her fear. Her fear was lest Martin shouldnotbe angry.

Grizel considered, a slow smile curving her lips.

“But that,” she said, “would be amusing. Much more amusing than buying cabbages. I’d like to see Martin angry!”

She turned and continued her way. From her position by the bell Katrine could watch her progress up the staircase, could note the grace of the slim white form. “Her nose is red!” chanted the inner voice. “Her nose is red!” Amongst a medley of disagreeable reflections the thought appeared to stand out in solitary comfort. It was hardly more than a week since Grizel had arrived, eight days to be exact, yet to Katrine standing alone in the dark old room, it appeared that the whole structure of life had in that time undergone a radical change. It was not a change which could be registered infacts; the days had been spent in ordinary happenings, tea parties in neighbouring gardens, drives through the country lanes, small dinner parties, a day on the river. There was no single incident on which she could lay a finger and declare that here or there stood the dividing mark between past and present. The change was in the air; impalpable yet real; Katrine’s sensitive nature felt it in every fibre, inhaled it with every breath. Behind the peaceful, smiling exterior she divined a smouldering passion. The atmosphere was flecked with fire; it flamed beneath the most trivial words, the most trivial deeds. From an ice-bound solitude she looked on, understanding with a keenness of vision, as new as it was bitter. During the last days her mind had been incessantly occupied reviewing the past, searching it in the light of the present. Juliet, Grizel, and herself had been schoolmates at a French boarding-school. Grizel had accompanied her on a short visit to the married couple in the autumn after their marriage. That was the first time that Martin had seen her, and even in the midst of his bridegroom’s joy, he had been attracted, impressed. Then came two long, black years, at the end of which, taking her courage in both hands, she had enquired if Martin would object if Grizel came down for a few days. The mysterious storehouse of the brain had registered the moment, so that she could still see her brother’s face before her, as he lifted it from his book—the young, drawn face, with the haggard eyes. Something approaching a light of interest dawned in the wan depths.

“Grizel Dundas?” he queried slowly; and after a pause. “Certainly! Why not? I’d like to see her!”

So Grizel had come. Memory again registered the fact that it was in response to one of her sallies that Martin had laughed for the first time: an honest, wholesome laugh. She had come again the next year, and had been warmly welcomed. Then had followed an interval. Lady Griselda’s health had begun to fail, she was much abroad, and when at home, disinclined to spare her niece. It was not until the fifth year of Martin’s widower-hood that Grizel again visited The Glen, but since then every six or seven months had brought about more or less fleeting visits. Questioning herself, Katrine realised that while at the beginning she herself had been the one to suggest a fresh invitation, for the last two years Martin had taken the initiative, while she, with an instinctive unwillingness, had sought excuses.

Could it be that subconsciously she had divined this ending; had known that slowly, surely, Martin’s heart was passing into Grizel’s keeping? She had held fiercely to the remembrance of Juliet; to the ideal of lifelong faithfulness; held to it the more fiercely as doubt grew, but now it was no longer doubt, it was certainty. Martin loved Grizel with the love of a full-grown man, compared with which that pretty idyll of the past had been child’s play. And Grizel? Who could say! That she would not marry while her aunt lived had for years been an accepted fact, but Lady Griselda’s days were numbered. In a few months the question of Grizel’s future position would be decided, and then—Katrine’s mind had a flashlight realisation of two alternatives, Martin refused, despairing, Martin accepted, aglow. For one black moment of involuntary selfishness, each seemed equally obnoxious. Then with a stifled sob, she shut the door, and buried her face in her hands.

Throughout the silent house travelled the sound of an imperative rap.

“Who’s there?”

The sharp, impatient voice was enough to quell the courage of an ordinary intruder. Grizel chuckled, and knocked once more, a trifle more loudly than before.

“Who’s—there?”

“Me!”

It was the tiniest of squeaks, and the irate author, shouting back an imperious “Go away!” settled himself to his task, but the knock sounded yet again, and in a fury of impatience he dashed to the door and stood scowling upon the threshold.

“What the—”

“Devil—” concluded Grizel calmly, “but it isn’t. It’s me. Let me in, Martin! It’s a choice between you and buying cabbages in the rain. Katrine says so, and I should catch my death of cold.”

But the change in the man’s face was startling to behold. The scowl had vanished, had been wiped out of being at the first swift glance, and with it the fret, and the tire. The deep-set eyes glowed upon her, the hands stretched out.

“Grizel! Come in! Come in! I was just thinking. Wishing—”

Grizel floated past into the forbidden room, her glance as easily avoiding his as her hands escaped his grasp. There was nothing curt or forbidding in the evasion, she seemed simply oblivious of anything but a friendly warmth of manner; engrossed in an interested survey of the study itself. Her eyes roved round the book-lined walls, and rested brightening upon the old-fashioned hearth. The fire was laid. In a basket on one side of the hearth reposed a pile of resined logs. A copper vase obviously contained coal.

“Martin!” she cried eagerly, “let’s light up! I’ve been perished all morning. Katrine says I’m unsuitably dressed. I am, but I never dress to suit rooms. I heat them to suitme! Would you think the room unbearably stuffy if we had a fire?”

“Not a bit of it! I often do. Sitting at a desk is chilly work.”

He was already on his knees, posing logs scientifically over the paper and wood, balancing small pieces of coal on the top. In an incredibly short time a cheerful blaze was illuminating the room, and Grizel, kicking off small brown shoes, was crinkling her toes before the fire. Martin drew forward a second chair and seated himself beside her, in apparent forgetfulness of the papers scattered over the desk.

“What a shame that you should be so chilled! Why haven’t you had a fire downstairs?”

“Katrine preferred exercise. She recommended a flannel shirt, and an expedition to buy cabbages. British and bracing. Can you imagineme, Martin, buying cabbages, in the rain, in a flannel shirt?”

He looked at her; an eloquent glance. There were two feelings warring in his breast, indignation against his sister for her callousness and lack of consideration, and a rush of protective tenderness towards the sweet martyr so abused, for it is one of the injustices of life that the woman who smiles and looks beautiful will always take precedence in a man’s heart over the assiduous purchaser of cabbages. For a moment sympathy engrossed Martin’s mind, then he smiled; a somewhat difficult smile.

“It is hardly yourmétier! Still, if it happened that you were in Katrine’s position; if it came in your day’s work—”

“If the garden were properly managed you would notneedto buy cabbages! I’d dismiss the gardener!” pronounced Grizel briskly, and once again a dangerous moment had come, and gone. She cowered over the fire, holding out her hands, hitching her shoulders to her ears. Her nose was still red; if Katrine had been present she would have told herself that no man could possibly admire a woman with a red nose, but Martin had not so much as noticed the fact, and if he had, would have felt it to be a wonderful and beautiful thing that Grizel’s nose could be red, like that of an ordinary mortal. It would have appeared to him the most endearing of traits.

“I wonder,” he said thoughtfully. “I wonder Grizel, how you would stand poverty! Comparative poverty, I mean, of course. You have never realised the meaning of money. You have wanted a thing, and it has been yours. You have not adapted yourself to circumstances, circumstances have been made to adapt themselves toyou. It is the fashion to decry the power of riches, but in the case of a woman like yourself, young, and strong, and beautiful, and sane, it is folly to pretend that they are not a valuable asset. You have been happy—”

“Yes!” assented Grizel thoughtfully. “Yes!” She stared into the fire, her small face very grave. “I like money; so much money that one need not have the thought of it always before one. It would seem to me debasing to be always considering costs, planning and contriving. It would hold one’s thoughts down. And I have never felt burdened by responsibility. That’s what they say, you know,—the dear, serious folks,—they call wealth a burden and responsibility, but I’ve loved to be able to give and to help. I’ve my own little way about giving...” (The listener smiled. When had Grizelnother own way!) “The public charities must be supported, of course, that’s mechanical; a mere signing of cheques, but the interesting part is to get hold of private cases, and see them through! Will you be shocked, Martin, when I tell you that my particularforteis helping people who have failed through—their own fault! Not misfortune, but drink, gambling, other things, of which they might have kept free, but—didn’t! It’s a kind old world; every one is ready to help the unfortunate, but when a man has had a chance, and thrown it away, when it’s ‘nobody’s fault but his own,’then,” she shrugged her slight shoulders, “he goes into outer darkness! People have ‘enough to do’ helping those who ‘deserve it,’ and so I do the other thing! My old Buddy has never limited me as to money; the only time when she is annoyed, is when I’ve not spent enough. I have quite a battalion of lost causes dependent on me now. It would hurt to give them up.”

There was a moment’s silence, then:

“And have younoidea?” asked Martin tentatively. “None at all, whether in the end—?”

Grizel laughed. It was rare indeed that she was serious for more than a minute at a time.

“Not—one! Isn’t it odd? Like a position in afeuilleton. Never once has the subject been mentioned between us. I have had, as I said, command of unlimited money since I left school, but she dreads the idea of death; it must never be mentioned in her presence, or anything approximately suggesting it. For the last few years she has been, of course, increasingly irresponsible, but before that we lived always as if the present would last for ever... She has never even alluded to the time when I should be alone.”

“But surely there must have been,—I know, Grizel, that there have been men,—many men!”

“Ah!” cried Grizel deeply, and chuckled with reminiscent enjoyment. “Just so. Therewasone, a bold one, who questioned her point blank on her intentions. He lived; he came out of the room alive, but that was as much as one could say. He got the best dressing down ofhislife, but that was all he did get. And he didn’t trouble me any more.”

“Cur! But they were not all so mercenary?”

“No.” Grizel looked thoughtful once more. “Certainly not. I like men. They are nice things; not really mercenary unless they’re obliged. But it’s a difficult position to saddle yourself with a wife whomayturn out a colossal heiress, or on the other hand—a pauper! It complicates the position, and in one way or other is pretty well bound to lead to trouble. The man who would appreciate the one, is bound to object to t’other, and it’s such a contrary world, that the t’other it would almost certainly be... When you are making a choice for life, you ought to understand where you are. You see, Martin,” she turned towards him with a smile, “it would notbe fair!”

“And—” he said hoarsely, “wasthatthe reason why you never—?”

Grizel put her head on one side, and stared thoughtfully into the blaze.

“Partly. Mostly. Yes! And my old Buddy. She won’t live long, and I owe her so much. But mostly the idea of playing the game. Most of the men I have met have positions to maintain, and expect their wives to lend a hand. They can’t afford a love marriage, and I’m proud in my own little way. I shouldn’t like to turn out a disappointment.”

“There are some men who are old-fashioned enough to prefer to provide for their own wives, who would dread the fortune even more heartily than others do the lack of it.”

“There are. I realise that. Bless their dear hearts! Butnotthe majority! There’s an heir to a Dukedom hovering round now, Martin; not compromising himself, you understand, but by steady attention to business laying the foundation of a claim. If the old Buddy died and left me her heir, he’d tell me that he had forborne tointrude, had valiantly subdued his impatience, etc., etc., I never want the money quite so badly as when I imagine that interview! I’m not spiteful as a rule, but I shall think fate treats me hardly if I never have a chance of scorching that young man... Well! we’ll see—!”

“You want then,—you will be disappointed if you don’t get the money?”

She turned her eyes full upon him, distended in the widest of stares.

“Well, I should justfartherthink Ishould! T-errifically disappointed! Squelched. Flum-macked. Laid out flat. For the hour, that is. I couldn’t go on being worried, for all the fortunes on earth. It will be a case of adapting myself to a new sort of happiness—c’est tout! That’s easily done.”

The joy of the lover, the keen, appraising interest of the artist, were both eloquent in Martin’s glance as he considered her eloquent face.

“Yes! One cannot imagine Grizel less than happy and content. And yet to an ordinary nature, your life during these last years, for all its luxuries, would have seemed a poor thing. You have made your happiness by managing to love a very unlovable character. It’s a big feat, Grizel; a very big feat!”

Grizel rubbed her nose, a slow, thoughtful rub with a raised forefinger. The homely movement seemed ridiculously out of character with the ethereal form and the transparent hand, on which the firelight woke the gleam of flawless diamonds.

“Can a ‘feat’ be something for which you have never tried? I nevertryto love any one. Either I love ’em, or—I don’t bother! Disliking, hating,—it’s too much trouble! I wipe ’em out... Same way with things; therefore, as a logical conclusion nothing remains but what Idolike. Therefore,—logical inference again!—one must be happy, because there’s nothing to make oneun-happy. Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?”

Martin’s lip curled.

“I wonder,” he said. “I wonder what Katrine would say if you propounded that theory to her? I fancy, poor girl, that the very opposite of your programme would come nearer to her outlook on life. She finds it as difficult to be happy as you do to be miserable. And yet—she’s had her chance!”

“Martin, she hasnot! What chance has she had? Tucked away in this dark old house, with you shut up in your study all day, and in your moods all night? My old Buddy loves me; it’s not an ordinary form of loving perhaps, but shedoes! I’m more to her than the whole world. And I’ve had my fling... Poor old Katrine has had no love, and no fling, nothing but duty, and brotherly affection, and home-made clothes. It’s enough to make any woman snap. I’m glad sheisdiscontented. I’ll make her more discontented still, before I’ve done. She’s pot-bound, like your stale old ferns, and needs uprooting, and shaking, and planting in fresh, strong earth. Then she’ll bloom, and you, poor bat! will be amazed at what a fine big bloom it is. It isn’t a sign of greatness, Martin, to blink in the sun, because one is too lazy too move, and is content to bask, and be stroked, and lick up cream. That’s me! Katrine is bigger; it needs more to fill her life, but she’s only just beginning to grow. You don’t know, Martin, how sweet a woman Katrine is going to be!”

Martin smiled; a smile of serene, unshakable conviction. He knew his sister. She was a good girl, well meaning, if a little difficult by nature; he, of all people on earth, would be the last to deny Katrine’s good points, but—to compare her with Grizel, to account to her a greatness of nature above that of the sweetest, kindliest, most loving of women,—that was a flight of fancy beyond even his well-trained powers!

“And who,” queried Grizel, with sudden energy, “is Katrine thinking of, when she sits smiling into space, and giving silly answers to obvious questions, and putting horrid sugar into my tea,—tell me that, if you can! It is your profession in life to study men and women, and analyse their thoughts. What do you make of the mystery of the woman upon your hearth?”

Martin smiled superior.

“There is none. She is thinking of the grocer, and determining to hurl another complaint at his head, because he will insist upon sending us sandy grit, instead of honest West Indian sugar, or of the butcher, whom she suspects of frozen meat, or—or of the Y.W., who has left smudges on the plates... Nothing more romantic, I assure you.”

“Blind bat of a man! that’s allyouknow. I’ll take to novel-writing myself at this rate. If this is the insight and inner vision of ‘one of the most popular of our young writers’ there’s room for Grizel Dundas! I have not been in the house a week, but I know two things—Some oneis making love to Katrine, and—Katrine enjoys the process! By a process of elucidation I know also that it is not the doctor with the beard, nor the curate with the smile, nor the Caldecote squire who rides the white horse, nor the squeaky person who sings. It isn’t this neighbourhood which holds the treasure. She has an air of calmness and detachment in partaking of your rural joys. Not a flicker of ‘Will he come?’ ... Methinks my friend, he lives afar!”

The smile broadened upon Martin’s lips. Women, the most sensible of women, had a way of searching for sentimental reasons for the most prosaic happenings; it was an interesting trait, and from the altitude of a man’s sound common-sense, attractive enough. It pleased him to hear Grizel imagining love stories with Katrine as heroine, without foundation as they were.

“Can’t you go a little further and discover his name and address? It would be interesting to know.”

“Jim. India,” replied Grizel with a promptness which startled her hearer into attention at last. The face which confronted him was full of triumph, and a malicious delight in his discomfiture. He stared discomfited, amazed, subtly aggrieved.

“Jim, India! Thereisno Jim! She knows no one there, not a soul, except Jack Middleton and Dorothea. What put it into your head to fancy such a thing? Has she—?”

“Thereisa Jim, and the Middletons know him. Dorothea wrote about some commissions, and Katrine showed me the note—wanting my advice. There was a reference to one ‘Jim,’—she’d forgotten that, quite a colourless reference, but when I questioned, sheblushed!” Grizel covered her cheeks with her hands, in eloquent gesture. “Oh,sucha blush! I looked away, but I thought: ‘Why should one blush at a name?’ and after that I wentonthinking. It’s Jim, India—Martin, you may take my word for it, though how, and why, and when, I have no more idea than you have yourself. There’s a new interest in her life; any one with two eyes can see that, and she writes huge, huge letters...”

“To Dorothea! She’s done that for years. I’ve often wondered what she finds to say.”

Grizel rolled eloquent eyes to the ceiling.

“I have been young,” she declaimed dramatically, “and now am old, yet have I never seen a woman staring into space, smirking, and looking silly, considering how she can best turn a sentence, to another woman! I tell you that which I do know and, Martin dear, it’s not disloyalty... I wouldn’t have breathed a word, if it had not been for the hope of helping both. Keep your own eyes open, andact! Katrine’s conscience is of the good, old-fashioned, Nonconformist type which urges her on to do the thing she most dislikes, out of a deluded idea that it must needs be right! She’s quite capable of playing suttee with her life.Don’t let her do it!”

“How can I help it? I know nothing. I am not consulted. I believe the whole thing is imagination. If there had been anything real she would surely have confided in you.”

“Me? I’m the last person,—the last person in the world—”

The words were spoken on the impulse of the moment, and apparently regretted as soon as they were pronounced. Grizel flushed; obviously, unmistakably, even in the glow of the firelight. She flushed, and pushing back her chair rose hurriedly to her feet.

“Whew! That fire! Katrine was right,—itdoesget close. And I believe it is going to clear.—I’ll go and see.”

“Why are you the last?Why?”

Martin had followed her, was questioning with a new light in his eyes—eager, curious, anticipatory. On her way towards the door her progress was blocked by his tall form.

“Why the last, Grizel?” he repeated urgently. “Tell me! I want to know. Why should Katrine—?”

Never before had he seen a trace of embarrassment break the lazy serenity of Grizel’s mien. The sight of it, and the possibility of an intoxicating explanation of her statement, fired his blood. For the last two years he had been fighting against this love, fighting it as a forbidden thing, a thing of which to be ashamed, but lately, subtly, the mental position had changed. Life was forcibly pushing him from one standpoint after another, proving its untenability, sending him forth to find fresh fields.

“Why should Katrine—?” he cried, and at that moment the door opened and Katrine herself stood upon the threshold.

Her face was pale, her eyes grave and gentle, the picture of her as she appeared at that moment dwelt in Martin’s mind, and brought with it a startled recognition of his sister’s charm, then in a flash, she stiffened; the softness passed from the eyes, and was replaced by a chilly scorn. This was a love scene upon which she had intruded,—Grizel flushed, protesting, Martin flushed, appealing, and her own name “Katrine” bandied upon his lip—no doubt to be waved aside, as an obstacle blocking the way.

It was in a voice icily bereft of expression that she delivered her message:

“I have just taken a message for you, Grizel. They have rung up to say that Lady Griselda is worse. You are wanted at home at once.”

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