The chapel doors were open, and a bright light streamed across the gravelled enclosure on to the dreary street beyond. People were flocking in, talking and laughing, in eager anticipation of pleasures to come; and a number of hungry-eyed children clung to the railing, and gazed at the promise of good things within.
And indeed the promise was a very palpable one. Mona had scarcely entered the outer door when she was presented with a large earthenware cup and saucer, a pewter spoon, and a well-filled baker's bag.
"What am I to do with these?" she asked, aghast.
"Take them in with you, of course," said Rachel. "You can look inside the bag, but you mustn't eat anything till the interval."
Mona thought she could so far control her curiosity as to await the appointed time, but her strength of mind was not subjected to this test. A considerable proportion of the assembled congregation were children, and most of them were engaged in laying out cakes, sweet biscuits, apples, pears, figs, almonds, and raisins, in a tempting row on the book-board, somewhat to the detriment of the subjacent hymn-books.
"They ordered three hundred bags at threepence each," said Rachel, in a loud whisper. "It's wonderful how much you get for the money; and they say Mr Philip makes a pretty profit out of it too. I suppose it's the number makes it pay. The cake's plain, to be sure; I always think it would be better if it were richer, and less of it. But there's the children to think of, of course."
At this moment a loud report echoed through the church. Mona started, and had vague thoughts of gunpowder plots, but the explosion was only the work of an adventurous boy, who had tied up his sweets in a handkerchief of doubtful antecedents, that he might have the satisfaction of blowing up and bursting his bag. This feat was pretty frequently repeated in the course of the evening, in spite of all the moral and physical influence brought to bear on the offenders by Mr Stuart and the parents respectively.
The chapel was intensely warm when the speakers took their places on the platform, and Mona fervently hoped that Mr Stuart had failed to find a stopgap, as the programme was already of portentous length. It seemed impossible that she could sit out the evening in such an atmosphere, and still more impossible that the bloodless, neurotic girl in front of her should do so.
The first speaker was introduced by the chairman.
"Now for the moral windbags!" thought Mona resignedly.
She felt herself decidedly snubbed, however, when the speeches were in full swing. The gift of speaking successfully at asoiréeis soon recognised in the world wheresoiréesprevail, and the man who possesses it acquires a celebrity often extending beyond his own county. One or two of the speakers were men possessing both wit and humour, of a good Scotch brand; and the others made up for their deficiencies in this respect by a clever and laborious patchwork of anecdotes and repartees, which, in the excitement of the moment, could scarcely be distinguished from the genuine mantle of happy inspiration.
In the midst of one of the speeches a disturbance arose. The girl in front of Mona had fainted. Several men carried her out, shyly and clumsily, in the midst of a great commotion; and, after a moment's hesitation, Mona followed them. She was glad she had done so, for fainting-fits were rare on that breezy coast, and no one else seemed to know what to do. Meanwhile the unfortunate girl was being held upright in the midst of a small crowd of spectators.
"Lay her down on the matting," said Mona quietly, "and stand back, please, all of you. No, she wants nothing under her head. One of you might fetch some water—and a little whisky, if it is at hand. It is nothing serious, Mrs Brander and I can do all that is required."
All the men started off for water at once, much to Mona's relief. She loosened the girl's dress, while the matron produced smelling-salts, and in a few minutes the patient opened her eyes, with a deep sigh.
"Surely Kirkstoun is not her home," said Mona, looking at the girl's face. "Sea-breezes have not had much to do with the making of her."
"Na," said the matron. "She's a puir weed. She's visiting her gran'faither across the street. I'll tak' her hame."
"No, no," said Mona. "Go back to thesoirée, I'll look after her."
"Ye'll miss your tea! They're takin' roun' the teapits the noo."
"I have had tea, thank you," and, putting a strong arm round the girl's waist, Mona walked home with her, and saw her safely into bed.
She hurried back to the chapel, for she knew Rachel would be fretting about her; but the night breeze was cold and fresh, and she dreaded returning to that heated, impure air. When she entered the door, however, she scarcely noticed the atmosphere, for the laughing and fidgeting had given place to an intense stillness, broken only by one rich musical voice.
"So my eye and hand,And inward sense that works along with both,Have hunger that can never feed on coin."
Mr Stuart's stopgap was filling his part of the programme.
Mona hesitated at the door, and then quietly resumed her place at the end of the pew beside Rachel. The reader paused for a moment till she was seated, a scarcely perceptible shade of expression passed over his face, as her silk gown rustled softly up the aisle, and then he went on.
It was a curious poem to read to such an audience, but even the boys and girls forgot their almonds and raisins as they listened to the beautiful voice. For Mona, the low ceiling, the moist walls, and the general air of smug squalor vanished like a dissolving view. In their place the infinite blue of an Italian sky rose above her head, the soft warm breeze of the south was on her cheek; and she stood in the narrow picturesque street listening to the "plain white-aproned man," with the light of the eternal in his eyes.
"'Tis God gives skill,But not without men's hands: He could not makeAntonio Stradivari's violinsWithout Antonio. Get thee to thy easel."
It was over. There was a long breath, and a general movement in the chapel. Dudley took an obscure seat at the back of the platform, shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked at Mona.
Again and again in London he had told himself that it was all illusion, that he had exaggerated the nobility of her face, the sensitiveness of her mouth, the subtle air of distinction about her whole appearance; and now he knew that he had exaggerated nothing. His eye wandered round the congregation, and came back to her with a sensation of infinite rest. Then his pulse began to beat more quickly. He was excited, perhaps, by the way in which that uncultured audience had sat spellbound by his voice, for at that moment it seemed to him that he would give a great deal to call up the love-light in those eloquent eyes.
"She is a girl," he thought, with quick intuition. "She has never loved, and no doubt she believes she never will. I envy the man who forces her to own her mistake. She is no sweet white daisy to whom any man's touch is sunshine. There are depths of expression in that face that have never yet been stirred. Happy man who is the first—perhaps the only one—to see them! He will have a long account to settle with Fortune."
And then Dudley pulled himself up short. Thoughts like these would not lead to success in his examination. And even if they would, what right had he to think them? Till his Intermediate was over in July, he must speak to no woman of love; and not until his Final lay behind him had he any right to think of marriage. And any day while he was far away in London the man might come—the man with the golden key——
Dudley turned and bowed to the speaker in considerable confusion. Some graceful reference had evidently been made to his reading, for there was a momentary pause in the vague droning that had accompanied his day-dreams, and every one was looking at him with a cordial smile.
"Who would have thought of Dr Dudley being here?" said Rachel, as the cousins walked home. "It is a great pity his being so short-sighted; he looks so much nicer without his spectacles. I wonder if he remembers what good friends we were that day at St Rules?—I declare I believe that's him behind us now."
She was right, and he was accompanied by no less a person than the Baptist minister.
"I would ask you to walk out and have a bachelor's supper with me, Stuart, by way of getting a little pure air into your lungs," Dudley had said, as he threw on his heavy Inverness cape; "but it is a far cry, and I suppose you have a guest at your house to-night."
The minister had accepted with alacrity. He was tired, to be sure, but he would gladly have walked ten miles for the sake of a conversation with one of his "intellectual peers."
"I have no guest," he had said eagerly; "it was my man who failed me. I would ask you to come home with me, but there are things we cannot talk of before my wife. 'Leave thou thy sister,'—you know."
A faint smile had flitted over Dudley's face at the thought of Mr Stuart's "purer air."
So they set out, and in due course they overtook Rachel and Mona.
Mr Stuart could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw Dr Dudley actually slackening his pace to walk with them. It was right and Christian to be courteous, no doubt, but this was so utterly uncalled for.
Dudley did not seem to think so, however. He exchanged a few pleasant words with Rachel, and then, regardless alike of her delight and of the minister's irritation, he very simply and naturally walked on with Mona in advance of the other two.
Many a time, when hundreds of miles had separated them, Mona and Dudley had in imagination talked to each other frankly and simply; but, now that they were together, they both became suddenly shy and timid. What were their mutual relations? Were they old friends, or mere acquaintances? Neither knew.
The silence became awkward.
"Your reading was a great treat," said Mona, somewhat formally at last.
Anybody could have told him that. He wanted something more from her.
"I am glad if it did not bore you," he said coldly.
She looked up. They were just leaving the last of the Kirkstoun street-lamps behind them, but in the uncertain light they exchanged a smile. That did more for them than many words.
"It is not poetry of course," he said. "It is only a magnificent instance of what my shaggy old Edinburgh professor would call 'metrical intellection.'"
"And yet, surely, in a broader sense, it is poetry. It seems to me that that magnificent 'genius of morality' produces art of a kind peculiarly its own. It is not cleverness; it is inspiration—though it is not 'poesie.' In any case, you made it poetry for me. I saw the sunny, glowing street, and the blue sky overhead."
"Did you?" he said eagerly. "Truly? I am so glad. I had such a vivid mental picture of it myself, that I thought the brain-waves must carry it to some one. It is very dark here. Won't you take my arm?"
"No, thank you; I am well used to this road in the dark. By the way, I must apologise for disturbing your reading. I would have remained at the door, but I was afraid some man would offer me his seat, and that we should between us kick the foot-board and knock down a few hymn-books before we settled the matter."
"I was so relieved when you came forward and took your own place," he said slowly, as though he were determined that she should not take the words for an idle compliment "I had been watching that vacant corner beside Miss Simpson. How is Castle Maclean?"
"It is pretty well delivered over to the sea-gulls at present. I am afraid it must be admitted that Castle Maclean is more suited to a summer than to a winter residence. I often run down there, but these east winds are not suggestive of lounging."
"Not much," he said. "When I picture you there, it is always summer."
"Oh," said Mona suddenly, "there is one thing that I must tell you. You remember a conversation we had about the Cooksons?"
"Yes."
"Matilda and I are great friends now, and I have had good reason to be ashamed of my original attitude towards her. I think it was you who put me right."
"Indeed it was not," he said warmly. "I, forsooth! You put yourself right—if you were ever wrong."
"I was wrong. And you—well, you took too high an estimate of me, and that is the surest way of putting people right. You have no idea how much good stuff there is in that child. She is becoming quite a German scholar; and she has readSesame and Lilies, has been much struck by that quotation from Coventry Patmore, and at the present moment is deep inHeroes. What do you say to that?"
"Score!" he said quietly. "How did she come to know you?"
"Oh, by one of the strange little accidents of life. She has done me a lot of good, too. She is very warm-hearted and impressionable."
There was a lull in the conversation. Across the bare fields came the distant roar of the sea. They were still nearly half a mile from home, and a great longing came upon Mona to tell him about her medical studies. Why had she been such an idiot as to make that promise; and, having made it, why had she never asked her cousin to release her from it? She drew a long breath.
"My dear," said Rachel's voice behind them, "Mr Stuart wants to have a little conversation with you. Well, doctor, I hope Mistress Hamilton is not worse, that you are here just now?"
Mr Stuart's wrongs were avenged.
For one moment Dudley thought of protesting, but the exchange of partners was already effected, and he was forced to submit.
"Our conversation was left unfinished this morning, Miss Maclean," said the minister.
"Was it? I thought we had discussed the subject in all its bearings. You are to be congratulated on the substitute you found."
"Am I not?" he answered warmly. "It was all by accident, too, that I met the doctor, and he was very unwilling to come. He had just run down for one day to settle a little business matter for his aunt; but I put him near the end of the programme, so that he might not have to leave the house till near Mrs Hamilton's bedtime."
For one day! For one day!
The minister sighed. Miss Simpson had left him no choice about "speaking to" her cousin; but he did not feel equal to an encounter to-night; and certainly he could scarcely have found Mona in a less approachable mood.
"You are not a Baptist, Miss Maclean?"
"No."
"Have you studied the subject at all?"
"The Gospels are not altogether unfamiliar ground to me;" but her tone was much less aggressive than her words.
"And to what conclusion do they bring you?"
"I think there is a great deal to be said in favour of the Baptist view; but, Mr Stuart, it all seems to me a matter of so little importance. Surely it is the existence, not the profession, of faith that redeems the world; and the precise mode of profession is of less importance still."
"Do you realise what you are saying?" Mr Stuart began to forget his fatigue. "God has declared that one 'mode of profession,' as you call it, is in accordance with His will, but you pay no heed, because your finite reason tells you that it is of so little importance."
"It is God who is responsible for my finite reason, not I," said Mona; and then the thought of where this conversation must lead, and the uselessness of it, overwhelmed her.
Her voice softened. "Mr Stuart," she said, "it is very kind of you to care what I think and believe—to-night, too, of all times, when you must be so tired after that 'function.' I believe it is a help to some people to talk, but I don't think it is even right for me—at least at present. When I begin to formulate things, I seem to lose the substance in the shadow; I get interested in the argument for the argument's sake. Believe me, I am not living a thoughtless life."
Mr Stuart was impressed by her earnestness in spite of himself. "But, my dear young lady, is it wise, is it safe, to leave things so vague, to have nothing definite to lean upon?"
"I think so; if one tries to do right."
"It is all very well while you are young, and life seems long; but trouble will come, and sickness, and death——"
Rachel and Dudley had reached the gate of Carlton Lodge, and were waiting for the other two. But Mr Stuart did not think it necessary to break off, or even to lower his voice.
"——and when the hour of your need comes, and you can no longer grapple with great thoughts, will you not long for a definite word, a text——?"
Dudley's face was a picture. Mona underwent a quick revulsion of feeling. How dared any one speak to her publicly like that! She answered lightly, however, too lightly—
"'Denn, was man schwarz auf weiss besitzt,Kann man getrost nach Hause tragen'"!
Of course she knew that Dr Dudley alone would understand, and of course Dudley keenly appreciated the apt quotation.
"Holloa, Stuart!" he said, "you seem to be figuring in a new and alarmingrôle. I am half afraid to go in with you. I wish you could come and join in our discussion, Miss Maclean. 'Nineteenth Century Heretics' is our topic. Stuart takes the liberal side, I the conservative."
"Do you think it expedient," said the minister reproachfully, as the two men crunched the gravel of the carriage-drive beneath their feet, "to talk in that flippant way to women on deep subjects?"
"Oh, Miss Maclean is all right! She could knock you and me into a cocked-hat any day."
And he believed what he said—at least so far as the minister was concerned.
"She really is very intelligent," admitted Mr Stuart. "I quite miss her face when she is not at church on Sunday morning; but you know she does put herself forward a little. What made her go out after that fainting girl, when so many older women were present? Oh, I forgot, you had not arrived——"
"It was well for the fainting girl that she did," interrupted Dudley calmly. "When I was going to the vestry some one rushed frantically against me, and told me a woman had fainted. I arrived on the scene a moment after Miss Maclean, but fortunately she did not see me. By Jingo, Stuart, that girl can rise to an occasion! If ever your chapel is crowded, and takes fire, you may pray that Miss Maclean may be one of the congregation."
It gave him a curious pleasure to talk like this, but he would not have trusted himself to say so much, had it not been for the friendly darkness, and the noise of the gravel beneath their feet.
Mr Stuart suspected nothing. Dr Dudley and Rachel Simpson's cousin! People would have been very slow to link their names.
"Yes, she is very intelligent," he repeated. "I must try to find time to have some more talks with her."
"I wish you joy of them!" thought Dudley. "I should like to know how you tackle a case like that, Stuart," he said. "Tell me what you said to her, and what she said to you."
Action and reaction are equal and opposite.
Dudley was back in his den in London. For the first day after his return, he had thought of nothing but Mona; her face had come between him and everything he did. Now it was bending, grave and motherly, over the fainting girl, now it was sparkling with mischief at the quotation fromFaust, now it vibrated to the words ofStradivarius, and now—oftenest of all—it looked up at him in the dim lamplight, with that enquiring, inexplicable smile, half friendly, half defiant.
And the evening and the morning were the first day.
But now the second day had come, and Dudley was thinking—of Rachel Simpson.
He pushed aside his books, and tramped up and down the room. How came she there, his exquisite fern, in that hideous dungeon? And was she indeed so fair? Removed from those surroundings, would she begin for the first time to show the taint she had acquired? In the drawing-room, at the dinner-table, in asolitude à deux, what if one should see in her a suggestion of—Rachel Simpson?
And then Mona's face came back once more, pure, high-souled, virgin; without desire or thought for love and marriage. There was not the faintest ruby streak on the bud, and yet, and yet—what if he were the man to call it forth? Why had she refused his arm? It would have been pleasant to feel the touch of that strong, self-reliant little hand. It would be pleasant to feel it now——
There was a knock at the door, and a fair-haired, merry-eyed young man came in.
"Holloa, Melville!" said Dudley. "Off duty?"
"Ay; Johnston and I have swopped nights this week."
"Anything special on at the hospital?"
"No, nothing since I saw you. That Viking is not going to pull through, after all."
"You don't mean it!"
"Fact. I believe that bed is unlucky. This is the third case that has died in it. All pneumonia, too."
"I believe pneumonia cases ought to be isolated,"
"I know you have a strong theory to that effect. I did an external strabismus to-day."
"Successful?"
"I think so. I kept my hair on. By the way, you remember that duffer Lawson?"
"Yes."
"He has hooked an heiress—older than himself, but not so bad-looking. He will have a practice in no time now. I met him bowling along in his carriage, and there was I trudging through the mud! It's the irony of fate, upon my soul!"
"True," said Dudley; "but you know, when we have all the intellect, and all the heart, and all the culture, we don't need to grudge him his carriage."
"I'll shy something at you, Ralph! And now I want your news. How is the way?"
"Thorny."
"And the prospect of the anatomy medal?"
"Dim. But what are medals to an 'aged, aged man' like me?"
"You are hipped to-night. What's up?"
Dudley did not reply at once. He was intensely reserved, as a rule, about his private affairs, but a curious impulse was upon him now to contradict his own character.
"You and I have been chums for twenty years, more or less, Jack," he said irrelevantly.
"True, O king! Well?"
"I want to ask your advice on an abstract case."
"Do you? Fire away! I am a dab at medical etiquette." Dudley had been paying a few professional visits for a friend.
"It is not a question of medical etiquette," he said testily. "Suppose," he drew a long breath—"suppose you knew a young girl——"
"Ah! My dear fellow, I never do know a young girl! It is the greatest mistake in the world."
"Suppose," went on Dudley, unheeding, "that physically, mentally, and morally, she was about as near perfection as a human being can be."
"Oh,of course!"
"I don't ask your opinion as to the probability of it. I don't say I know such a person. Man alive! can't you suppose an abstract case?"
"It is a large order, but I am doing my level best."
"Suppose that, so far as she was concerned, it was simply all over with you."
"Oh, that is easy enough. Well?"
"Would you marry her, if——"
"Alack, it had to come! Yes. If——?"
"If she was a—a tremendous contrast to her people?"
"Oh,thatis it, is it?" Melville sprang to his feet, and spoke very emphatically. "No, my dear fellow, upon my soul, I would not! They grow into their heredity with all the certainty of fate. I would rather marry agaucheand unattractive girl because her mother was charming."
This was rather beside the point, but it depressed Dudley, and he sighed.
"But suppose—one has either to rave or make use of conventional expressions—suppose she was infinitely bright, and attractive, and womanly?"
"Oh, they are all that, you know."
"If you knew her——"
"Oh, of course. That goes without saying. Now we come back to the point we started from. As I told you before, I never do know them, and it keeps me out of a world of mischief."
Melville seated himself by the fire, and buried his hands in his curly hair.
"Ralph, while we are at it," he said, "I want to give you a word of advice.Verb. sap., you know. If any man knows you, I am that man. As you were remarking, you have lain on my dissecting-board for twenty years."
"I wish you had done me under water. You would have made a neater thing of it."
"So I would, old fellow, but you were too big. The difficulty was to get you into my mental laboratory at all."
Dudley bowed.
"Don't bow. It was well earned. You fished for it uncommon neatly. But you know, Ralph, I am serious now. Let me say it for once—you are awfully fastidious, awfully sensitive, awfully over-cultured. Few women could please you. It matters little whether you marry a good woman or a bad,—I don't know that there is much difference between them myself; the saints and the sinners get jumbled somehow,—but you must marry a woman of the world. Gretchen would be awfully irresistible, I know—for a month; she would not wear. Marry a woman full of surprises, a woman who does not take all her colour from you, a woman who can keep you dangling, as it were."
"It sounds restful."
Melville laughed. "Restful or not, that's the woman for you, Ralph. You are not equal to an hour at the Pavilion, I suppose? Well, ta-ta."
Dudley sat in silence till the echo of his friend's steps on the pavement had died away. Then he rose and tramped up and down the room again.
"After all, Miss Simpson is only her cousin," he said. "If I routed about I might find some rather shady cousins myself. But then I don't live with them. If her parents were a decided cut above that, how comes she there? And being there, how can she have escaped contamination? I wonder what Miss Simpson's dinner-table is like? Ugh! Is it as squalid as the shop? And why is the shop so squalid? Does Miss Simpson allow no interference in her domain? And yet I cannot conceive of Miss Maclean being out of place at a duchess's table."
He dropped into a chair, clasped his hands behind his head, and spoke aloud almost indignantly in his perplexity.
"How can a provincial shop-girl be a woman of the world? And yet, upon my soul! Miss Maclean seems to me to come nearer Melville's description than any woman I ever knew. Alack-a-day! I must be besotted indeed. Oh, damn that examination!"
Ralph returned to his books, however, and tried hard to shut out all farther thoughts of Mona that night.
"Holloa, Jones! going home?"
"I am going to lunch; I may be back in the afternoon."
"Please yourself, my dear fellow, but if you don't finish that axilla to-day, I shall be under the painful necessity of reflecting the pectorals, and proceeding with the thorax, at 9 A.M. to-morrow."
"Oh, I say, Dudley, that is too bad."
"I fail to see it. You have had one day too long as it is."
"But you know I did cut my finger."
"H'm. I have not just the profoundest faith in that cut finger. You know itdidhappen on the day of the football-match."
The boy laughed. "And Collett will never manage that sole of the foot without you," he said.
"Collett must." Dudley smiled up at the eager face that was bending over his dissection. "I only undertook to find the cutaneous branch of the internal plantar," and he lifted the nerve affectionately on the handle of his scalpel. "Come, Jones, fire away.Ce n'est pas la mer à boire. Half an hour will do it."
"Oh, I say! It would take me four hours. You know, Dudley, there is such a lot of reading on the axilla. I am all in a muddle as it is. I'll sit up half the night reading it, if you will give me another day."
"Very sorry, old man.Ars longa. I must get on with my thorax. It will do you far more good to read in the dissecting-room. Preconceived ideas are a mistake. Get a good lunch, and come back. That's your scalpel, I think, Collett."
"Oh, bother! I only wish I had ideas of any kind! I wish to goodness somebody would demonstrate the whole thing to me, and finish the dissection as he goes along!"
"I will do that with pleasure, if you like, to-morrow. The gain will be mine—and perhaps it will be the best thing you can do now. But don't play that little game too often, if you mean to be an anatomist."
"I don't," cried the boy vehemently. "I wish to heaven I need never see this filthy old hole again!"
Dudley glanced round the fine airy room, as he stood with his hands under the tap.
"I know that feeling well," he said.
"You, Dudley! Why, somebody said the other day that the very dust of the dissecting-room was dear to you."
"So it is, I think," said Ralph, smiling. "But it was very different in the days when I stroked the nettle in the gingerly fashion you are doing now."
"You mean that you think I should like it better if I really tucked into it," said the boy ruefully.
"I don't think at all; I know. 9 A.M. to-morrow sharp, then."
Dudley stepped out briskly into the raw damp air. The mud was thick under foot, and the whole aspect of the world was depressing to the hard-worked student. One by one the familiar furrows took possession of his brow, and his step slackened gradually, till it kept pace with the dead march of his thoughts. He was within a stone's-throw of his rooms, when a dashing mail-phaeton came up behind him. A good horse was always a source of pleasure to him, and he noted, point by point, the beauties of the two fine bays, which, bespattered with foam, were chafing angrily at the delay caused by some block in the street. Suddenly Ralph bethought himself of Melville's story about the "irony of fate," and he glanced with amused curiosity at the occupant of the carriage.
There was no irony here. The reins lay firmly but easily in the hands of a man who was well in keeping with the horses,—fine-looking, of military bearing, with ruddy face, and curly white hair. He, too, seemed annoyed at the block, for there was a heavy frown on his brow.
At last the offending cart turned down a side-street, and the bays dashed on. Immediately in front of them was a swift heavy dray, and behind it, as is the fashion among gamins, sublimely regardless of all the dangers of his position, hung a very small boy. The dray stopped for a moment, then suddenly lumbered on, and before either Dudley or the driver of the phaeton had noticed the child, he had fallen from his precarious perch, and lay under the hoofs of the bays.
With one tremendous pull the phaeton was brought to a standstill, while Dudley and the groom rushed forward to extricate the child.
"I think he is more frightened than hurt," said Ralph, "but my rooms are close at hand. If you like, I will take him in and examine him carefully. I am a doctor."
"Upon my soul, I am very much obliged to you! I am leaving town for the Riviera to-night, and it would be confoundedly awkward to be detained by a business of this kind. Step up, will you? Charles will hand up the child after you are in."
The boy lay half stunned, drawing little sobbing breaths. When they reached the house, Dudley handed the latch-key to his companion, and, raising the boy in his strong arms, he carried him up the steps.
"Bless me, you are as good as a woman!" said the man of the world, in amused admiration, as he opened the door. "It was uncommonly lucky for me that you happened to be passing."
Dudley showed his new acquaintance into his snuggery, while he examined the boy. The snuggery was a room worth seeing. There was nothing showy or striking about it, but every picture, every book, every bit of pottery, had been lovingly and carefully chosen, and thetout ensemblespoke well for the owner of the room.
"A man of culture clearly," said the visitor, after making a leisurely survey; "and what a life for him, by Gad!—examining dirty littlegamins! He can't be poor. What the deuce does he do it for?"
"He is all right," said Dudley emphatically, re-entering the room. "He has been much interested in my manikin, and at the present moment is tucking vigorously into bread-and-marmalade. I have assured him that ninety-nine drivers out of a hundred would have gone right over him. You certainly are to be congratulated on the way you pulled those horses up."
"Do you think so? I am very glad to hear it. Gad! I thought myself it was all over with the little chap. The fact is—it is a fine state of affairs if I can't manage a horse at my time of life; but I confess my thoughts were pretty far afield at the moment. It is most annoying. I have taken my berth on the Club Train for this afternoon, and I find I shall have to go without seeing my niece. I wrote to make an appointment, but it seems she has left her former rooms. By the way, you are a doctor. Do you happen to know any of the lady medical students?"
Dudley shook his head. "I am sorry I have not that honour," he said.
His visitor laughed harshly.
"You don't believe in all that, eh?"
"Oh, I don't say that. I am very far from being conservative on the subject of women's work. I am inclined on the whole to think that women have souls, and, that being so, and the age of brute force being past, it is to my mind a natural corollary that they should choose their own work."
"I don't see that at all, sir. I don't see that at all," said the elderly gentleman, throwing himself into a chair, and talking very warmly. "Souls! What have souls got to do with it, I should like to know? Can they do it without becoming blunted? That is the question."
"I confess I think it is a strange life for a woman to choose, but I know one or two women—one certainly—who would make far better doctors than I ever shall."
"Oh, they are a necessity! Mind, sir, I believe women-doctors are a necessity; so it is a mercy they want to do it; but why the devil should my niece take it up? She is not the sort of woman you mean at all. To think that a fine-looking, gentle, gifted girl, who might marry any man she liked, and move in any society she chose, should spend her days in an atmosphere of—what is the smell in this room, sir?"
Dudley laughed. "Carbolic, I suppose," he said. "I use a good deal of it."
"Carbolic! Well, think of a beautiful woman finding it necessary to live in an atmosphere of—carbolic!"
Dudley laughed again, his visitor's voice was so expressive.
"There are minor drawbacks, of course," he said. "But I strongly agree with you, that there is a part of our work which ought to be in the hands of women; and I, for one, will gladly hand it over to them."
"I believe you! Oh, when all is said, it's grimy work, doctoring—grimy work!"
"You know, of course, that I join issue with you there."
"You don't find it so?"
"God forbid!"
"Tell me," said the stranger eagerly, running his eye from Dudley's cultured face to his long nervous hands, "you ought to know—given a woman, pure, and good, and strong, could she go through it all unharmed?"
"Pure, and good, and strong," repeated Dudley reflectively. "Given a woman like that, you may safely send her through hell itself. I think the fundamental mistake of our civilisation has been educating women as if they were all run in one mould. She will get her eyes opened, of course, if she studies medicine, but some women never attain the possibilities of their nature in the shadow of convent walls. Frankly, I have no great fancy for artificially reared purity."
"Artificially reared!" exclaimed the other. "My dear sir, there are a few intermediate stages between the hothouse and the dunghill! If it were only art, or literature, or politics, or even science, but anatomy—the dissecting-room!"
"Well," said Dudley rather indignantly, his views developing as he spoke, "even anatomy, like most things, is as you make it. Many men take possession of a 'little city of sewers,' but I should think a pure and good woman might chance to find herself in the 'temple of the Holy Ghost.'"
His visitor was somewhat startled by this forcible language, and he did not answer for a moment. He seemed to be attentively studying the pattern of the carpet. Presently he looked full at Dudley, and spoke somewhat sharply.
"Knowing all you do, you think that possible?"
"Knowing all I do, I think that more than possible."
The man of the world sat for some time in silence, tapping his boot with a ruler he had taken from the writing-table.
"I'll tell you what I can do for you," said Dudley suddenly. "I can give you the address of the Women's Medical School. Your niece is probably there."
"Oh Lord, no! I am a brave man, but I am not equal to that. I would rather face a tiger in the jungle any day. Well, sir, I am sure I am infinitely obliged to you. I wish I could ask you to dine at my club, but I hope I shall see you when I am next in London. That is my card. Where's the little chap? Look here, my man! There is a Christmas-box for you, but if you ever get under my horses' feet again, I will drive right on; do you hear?"
He shook hands cordially with Dudley, slipped a couple of guineas into his hand, and in another minute the impatient bays were dashing down the street.
"Sir Douglas Munro," said Dudley, examining the card. "A magnificent specimen of the fine old Anglo-Indian type. I should like to see this wonderful niece of his!"
A world of palm-trees and pines, of aloes and eucalyptus, of luxuriant hedges all nodding and laughing with gay red roses, of white villas gleaming out from a misty background of olives, of cloudless sky looking down on the deep blue sea—a vivid sunshiny world, and in the midst of it all, Miss Lucy, to all appearance as gay and as light-hearted as if she had never dissected the pterygo-maxillary region, nor pored over the pages of Quain.
The band was playing waltzes in the garden below, and Lucy, as she dressed, was dancing and swaying to and fro, like the roses in the wind.
"Entrez!" she cried, without moderating her steps, as she heard a knock at the door.
It was Evelyn, fair, tall, and somewhat severe.
"You are not very like a medical student," she said gravely.
"I should take that for an unmixed compliment, if I did not know what it meant."
"What does it mean?"
"That I am not in the least like Mona."
"Well, you are not, you know."
"True,ma belle. It was you who fitted on the lion's skin, not I. But did you come into my room just to tell me that?"
"I came to say that if you can be ready in ten minutes, Father will take us all to Monte Carlo."
"Ten minutes! Oh, Evelyn, and you have wasted one! What are you going to wear?"
"This, of course. What should I wear?"
Lucy selected a gown from her wardrobe. "But is not Sir Douglas still awfully tired with the journey?" she asked, looking over her shoulder to get a back view of her pretty skirt in the pier-glass.
"He has rested more or less for two days, and he is anxious to see the Monteiths before they go on to Florence."
She did not add, "I told him you were pining to see Monte Carlo before you go home."
"The Monteiths," repeated Lucy involuntarily. And as she heard the name on her own lips, the healthy flush on her cheek deepened almost imperceptibly.
Evelyn seated herself on a hat-box.
"I don't believe you will ever be a doctor," she remarked calmly.
"What do you bet?" Lucy did not look up from the arduous task of fastening her bodice.
"I don't bet; but if you ever are, I'll—consultyou!"
And having solemnly discharged this Parthian dart, she left the room.
In truth, the two girls were excellent friends, although they were continually sparring. Evelyn considered Lucy an absolute fraud in the capacity of "learned women," but she did not on that account find the light-hearted medical student any the less desirable as a companion. As to comparing her with Mona, Evelyn would have laughed at the bare idea; and loyal little Lucy would have been the first to join in the laugh: she had never allowed any one even to suspect that she had passed an examination in which Mona had failed. Mona was the centre of the system in which she was a satellite; she was bitterly jealous of all the other satellites in their relation to the centre, but who would be jealous of the sun?
Lady Munro had taken a great fancy to her visitor. She would not have owned to the heresy for the world, but she certainly was much more at her ease in Lucy's society than she ever had been in Mona's, and how Sir Douglas could find his niece morepiquantethan Lucy Reynolds, she could not even imagine. She knew exactly where she had Lucy, but even when Mona agreed with her most warmly, she had an uncomfortable feeling that a glance into her niece's mind might prove a little startling. She met Lucy on common ground, but Mona seemed to be on a different plane, and Lady Munro found it extremely difficult to tell when that plane was above, and when below, her own.
She would have been not a little surprised, and her opinion of the relative attractions of the two friends might have been somewhat altered, had any one told her that Mona admired and idealised her much more even than Lucy did. If any one of us were unfortunate enough to receive the "giftie" of which the poet has sung, it is probable that the principal result of such insight would be a complete readjustment of our friendships.
But now Sir Douglas had appeared upon the scene, and of course Lucy was much more anxious to "succeed" with him than with either of the others. She had seen very little of him as yet, and she had done her best, but so far the result had been somewhat disappointing. It was almost a principle with Sir Douglas never to pay much attention to a pretty young girl. He had seen so many of them in his day, and they were all so much alike. Even this saucy littleÆsculapia militanswas no exception. As the scientist traces an organism through "an alternation of generations," and learns by close observation that two or three names have been given to one and the same being, so Sir Douglas fancied he saw in Lucy Reynolds only an old and familiar type in a new stage of its life-history.
He had gone through much trouble and perplexity on the subject of Mona's life-work; and Dudley's somewhat fanciful words had for the first time given expression to a vague idea that had floated formless in his own mind ever since he first met his niece at Gloucester Place. It would be ridiculous to apply such an explanation to Lucy's choice, but Sir Douglas had no intention of opening up the problem afresh. He took for granted that Lucy had undertaken the work "for the fun of the thing," because it was novel, startling,outré; and he confided to his wife that "that old Reynolds must be a chuckle-headed noodle in his dotage to allow such a piece of nonsense."
In a very short time after Evelyn's summons to Lucy, the whole party were rattling down the hill to the station, in the crisp, cold, dewy morning air. Evelyn was calm and dignified as usual, but Lucy was wild with excitement. Everything was a luxury to her—to be with a man of the world like Sir Douglas, to travel in a luxurious first-class carriage, to see a little bit more of this wonderful world.
They left Nice behind them, and then the scenery became gradually grander and more severe, till the train had to tunnel its way through the mighty battlements of rock that towered above the sea, and afforded a scanty nourishment to the scattered pines, all tossed and bent and twisted by the wind in the enervating climate of the south. At last, jutting out above the water, at the foot of the rugged heights, as though it too, forsooth, had the rights of eternal nature, Monte Carlo came in view,—gay, vulgar, beautiful, tawdry, irresistible Monte Carlo!
"Is that really the Casino?" said Lucy, in an eager hushed voice.
Sir Douglas laughed. Lucy's enthusiasm pleased him in spite of himself.
"It is," he said; "but, if you have no objection, we'll have something to eat before we visit it."
To him the Casino was a commonplace toy of yesterday; to Evelyn it was a shocking and beautiful place, that one ought to see for once; to Lucy it was a temple of romance. No need to bid her speak softly as she entered the gorgeous, gloomy halls, with their silent eager groups.
"Shall we see Gwendolen Harleth?" she whispered to Evelyn.
On this occasion, however, Gwendolen Harleth was conspicuous by her absence. There were a number of women at the roulette-tables who looked like commonplace, hard-working governesses; there were be-rouged and be-jewelled ladies of the demi-monde; there were wicked, wrinkled old harpies who always seemed to win; and there were one or two ordinary blooming young girls; but there was no Gwendolen Harleth. For a moment Lucy was almost disappointed. It all looked so like a game with counters, and no one seemed to care so very much where the wheel stopped: surely the tragedy of this place had been a little overdrawn.
At that instant her eyes fell on an English boy, whose fresh honest face was thrown into deep anxious furrows, and who kept glancing furtively round, as if to make sure that no one noticed his misery. His eye met Lucy's, and with a great effort he tried to smooth his face into a look of easy assurance. He was not playing, but he went on half unconsciously, jotting down the winning numbers on a slip of paper.
"Messieurs, faites vos jeux."
The boy opened a large lean pocket-book, and drew out his last five-franc piece.
"Le jeu est fait."
With sudden resolution he laid it on the table, and pushed it into place.
"Rien ne, va plus."
"Vingt-sept."
And the poor little five-franc piece was swept into the bank.
The boy smiled airily, and returned the empty book to his pocket.
Lucy looked at her companions, but none of them had noticed the little tragedy. Sir Douglas led the way to another table, and finally he handed a five-franc piece to each of the girls. To his mind it was a part of the programme that they should be able to say they had tried their luck.
Lucy hesitated, strongly tempted. Dim visions floated before her mind of making "pounds and pounds," and handing them over to that poor boy. Then she shook her head.
"My father would not like it," she whispered.
Sir Douglas shrugged his shoulders. Verily, there was no accounting for taste. How a man could allow his daughter to spend years in the dissecting-room, and in the surgical wards of a hospital,—subject her, in fact, to the necessity of spending her life in an atmosphere of carbolic,—and object to her laying a big silver counter on a green cloth, just for once, was more than he could divine.
Evelyn hesitated also. But it would be such fun to say she had done it. She took the coin and laid it on the table. "Where would you put it?" she whispered rather helplessly to Lucy.
Lucy knew nothing of the game, but she had been watching its progress attentively, and her eye had been trained to quick and close observation. Annoyed at Evelyn's slowness, and without stopping to think, she took the cue and pushed the coin into place. It was just in time. In another instant Evelyn's stake was doubled.
"There, that will do," said Sir Douglas, as Evelyn seemed inclined to repeat the performance. "I don't want to see your cheeks like those of that lady opposite."
A gentleman stood aside to let them leave the table, and as they passed he held out his hand to Lucy. She did not take it at once, but looked up at Sir Douglas in pretty consternation.
"There!" she said. "I knew it! This is one of my father's churchwardens."
Sir Douglas was much amused. "Well," he said, "you have at least met on common ground!"
Lucy attempted a feeble explanation of the situation in which she had been caught, and then hastily followed the others to the inner temples sacred toRouge et Noir. Here, at least, there was tragedy enough even at the first glance. Lucy almost forgot the poor lad at the roulette-table, as she watched the piles of gold being raked hither and thither with such terrific speed. One consumptive-looking man, whose face scarcely promised a year of life, was staking wildly, and losing, losing, losing. At lust the piles in front of him were all gone. After a moment's hesitation they were followed by note after note from his pocket-book. Then these too came to an end, but still the relentless wheel went on with that swiftness that is like nothing else on earth. The man made no movement to leave the table. With yellow-white shaking hands he continued to note the results, and while all the rest were staking and winning and losing, he went on aimlessly, feverishly pricking some meaningless design on the ruled sheet before him. And all the time two young girls were gaining, gaining, gaining, and smiling to the men behind them as they raked in the piles of gold.
"Let us go," said Lucy quickly. "I cannot bear this."
"I do think we have had enough of it," Lady Munro agreed. "I am thirsty, Douglas; let us have some coffee."
They strolled out into the bright sunshine.
"Well," said Sir Douglas, "a little disappointing,n'est ce pas?"
"Oh no," said Lucy; "not at all. It is far more real than I thought. The only disappointing thing is that——"
"What?"
She lifted her eyes with an expression of profound gravity.
"All the women trim their own hats."
"Why, Lucy," put in Evelyn, "I saw some very nice hats."
"I did not say none of them trimmed their hatswell," said Lucy severely. "I only said they all trimmed their own."
"We are rather too early in the day fortoilettes," said Sir Douglas. "I confess one does not see many attractive women here; but there was a highly respectable British matron just opposite us at that last table."
"Yes," said Lucy indignantly. "She was the worst of all; sailing about in her comfortable British plumage, with that air of self-satisfied horror at the depth of Continental wickedness, and of fond pride in the bouncing flapper at her heels. She made me feel that it was worse to look on than to play."
"Don't distress yourself," said Sir Douglas quietly; "you did play, you know. Ask the churchwarden."
"I owe you five francs," said Evelyn, "or ten. Which is it?"
"Don't!" said Lucy. "It is no laughing matter for me, I can assure you. Many is the trick I have played on that man. Heigh-ho! He has his revenge."
"Don't be down-hearted. You had at least the satisfaction of winning."
But Lucy was in no humour for being teased, and, to change the subject, she began to tell the story of the different tragedies she had witnessed.
"It is all nonsense, you know," said Sir Douglas good-humouredly. "That is the sort of stuff they put in the good books. People who are really being bitten don't attract attention to themselves by overdone by-play."
Lucy did not reply, but she retained her own opinion. Overdone by-play, indeed! As if she had eyes for nothing more subtle than overdone by-play!
"In the meantime we will have our coffee," said Sir Douglas, "and then I will leave you at the concert, while I look up Monteith. I will come and fetch you at the end of the first part. Here, Maud, this table is disengaged."
The head-waiter came up immediately. Sir Douglas was one of those people who rarely have occasion to call a waiter. He gave the order, lighted a cigar very deliberately, and then turned abruptly to Lucy.
"Where is Mona?" he asked quietly.
Lucy almost gasped for breath.
"She was in London when I saw her last," she said, trying to gain time.
"At her old rooms?"
"No-o," faltered Lucy. "She was sharing my rooms then."
Then she gathered herself together. This would never do. Anything would be better than to suggest that there was a mystery in the matter.
"You see," she said, "I have been away ever since the beginning of term, and I have not heard from Mona for some time. I know she has taken all the classes she requires for her next examination, and reading can be done in one place as well as in another."
"Then why the—why could not she come to us and do it?"
Lucy laughed. She began to hope that the storm was passing over.
"I suppose Mona would reply," she said, "that Cannes, like Cambridge, is an excellent place to play in."
"Then you don't know her address?"
"I don't know it positively. I think it is quite likely that she is with that cousin of hers in the north. She said once that she could do far more work in that bracing air."
"So she has gone there to prepare for this examination?"
"I believe she is working very hard."
"And when does the examination take place?"
"I have not heard her say when she means to go up. You see, Sir Douglas, my plans are Mona's, but Mona's plans are her own. She is not one to rush through her course anyhow for the sake of getting on the register, like—me for instance."
"I can believe that. It seems Mona told her aunt that she was leaving her old rooms, and that it would be well to address letters for the present to the care of her man of business. Is that what you do?"
"I have not written for a long time. I shall send my next to her man of business."
"And won't I just give Mona a vivid account of how I came to do it!" she added mentally.
"Have you seen this lady—Mona's cousin? I don't know anything about her."
"No, I have not. I believe she is very quiet, and elderly, and respectable,—and dull; the sort of person in whose house one can get through a lot of work."
"Humph," growled Sir Douglas. "A nice life for a girl like Mona!"
"I am sure I wish she were here!"
Sir Douglas looked at her. "Some of us," he said quietly, "wish that every day of our lives. I called the other day to take her for a drive in the Park, but found she had left her old rooms." And then he told the story of his little misadventure of a few days before.
"Oh," said Lucy, "what a terrible pity! Mona loves driving in the Park. Do go for her again some day when she is working in London. You have no idea what a treat a drive in the Park is to people who have been poring over their bones, and their books, and their test-tubes."
"Well, what in the name of all that is incomprehensible does she do it for? She might drive in the Park every day if she chose."
"But then," said Lucy, "she would not be Mona."
The muscles of his face relaxed, and then contracted again.
"Even admitting," he said, "that all is well just now, how will it be ten years hence?"
"Ten years hence," said Evelyn, "Mona will have married a clever young doctor. Lucy says the students have several times married the lecturers."
Sir Douglas frowned. "I should just like to see," he flashed out angrily, "the young doctor who would presume to come and ask me for Mona! I hate the whole trade. Why, that young fellow I told you about, who came to my rescue, was infinitely superior to most of them—cultured, and travelled, and that sort of thing—but, bless my soul! he was not a man of the world. I would sooner see Mona in a convent than give her to a whipper-snapper like that!"
"Evelyn is wrong," said Lucy. "Mona will not marry. She never thinks of that sort of thing. Ten years hence she will be a little bit matronly, by reason of all the girls and women she will have mothered. Her face will be rather worn perhaps, but in my eyes at least she will be beautiful."
"And in yours, Douglas," said Lady Munro, "she will still be the bright young girl that she is to-day."
She laughed softly as she spoke, but the laugh was a rather half-hearted one. She had learnt the difference between the fruit that is in a man's hand, and the fruit that is just out of reach.
Sir Douglas had gone to see his friend, but it was still too early for the concert, so Lady Munro and the girls strolled round to the terrace overlooking the sea.
"How lovely, how lovely!" said Lucy. "I wonder if there is any view in all the world like this?"
"We must find those two statues by Sara Bernhardt and Gustave Doré," said Evelyn, looking up from her Baedeker. "One of them represents——"
"Oh, bother the statues!" cried Lucy. "I want to feel things to-day, not to look at them." Her voice changed suddenly. "Lady Munro," she said very softly, "that is my boy leaning on the stone balustrade. Now, did I exaggerate? Look at him!"
Lady Munro walked on for a moment or two, and then glanced at the lad incidentally; but the glance extended itself with impunity into a very deliberate study. The boy's face was flushed, and he was muttering to himself incoherently as he gazed in front of him with unseeing eyes.
"He looks as if he was going mad," remarked Evelyn frankly.
"He looks a great deal more like an acute maniac than most acute maniacs do," said Lucy, with a proud recollection of a few visits to an asylum. "Oh, Lady Munro, do, do go and speak to him! You would do it so beautifully."
Lady Munro hesitated. She never went out of her way to do good, but this boy seemed to have come into her way; and her action was none the less beautiful, because it was dictated, not by principle at all, but by sheer motherly impulse.
She left the girls some distance off, and rustled softly up to where he stood.
"Pardon, monsieur," she said lightly, "can you tell me where the statue by Gustavo Doré is?"
He started and looked up. One did not often see a gracious woman like this at Monte Carlo.
"I beg your pardon," he said, making a desperate effort to collect his thoughts. Distraught as was his air, his accent and manner were cultured and refined. Lady Munro's interest in him increased.
"Do you know where there is a statue by Gustave Doré?"
He shook his head. "I am sorry I don't," he said, and he turned away his face.
But Lady Munro did not mean the conversation to end thus. "This is a charming view, is it not?" she said.
"Ye-e-s," he said; "oh, very charming."
"I think I saw you at one of the tables in the Casino. I hope you were successful?"
He turned towards her like a stag at bay. There was anger and resentment in his face, but far more deeply written than either of these was despair. It was such a boyish face, too, so open and honest. "Don't you see I can't talk about nothings?" it seemed to say. "You are very kind and very beautiful; I am at your mercy; but why do you torture me?"
"You are in trouble," Lady Munro said, in her soft, irresistible voice. "Perhaps it is not so bad after all. Tell me about it."
A woman more accustomed to missions of mercy would have calculated better the effect of her words. In another moment the tears were raining down the lad's cheeks, and his voice was choked with sobs. Fortunately, the great terrace was almost entirely deserted. Lucy and Evelyn sat at some distance, apparently deep in the study of Baedeker, and in a far-off corner an old gentleman was reading his newspaper.
The story came rather incoherently at last, but the thread was simple enough.
The boy had an only sister, a very delicate girl, who had been ordered to spend the winter at San Remo. He had taken her there, had seen her safely installed, and—had met an acquaintance who had persuaded him to spend a night at Monte Carlo on the way home. From that point on, of course, the story needed no telling. But the practical upshot of it was that the boy had in his purse, at that moment, precisely sixty-five centimes in money, and a twenty-five-centime stamp; he had nothing wherewith to pay the journey home, and he was some pounds in debt to his friend.
Truly, all things are relative in life. While some men were forfeiting their thousands at the tables with comparative equanimity, this lad was wellnigh losing his reason for the sake of some fifteen pounds.
"What friends had he at home?" was of course Lady Munro's first question. "Had he a father—a mother?"
His mother was dead, and his father—his father was very stern, and not at all rich. It had not been an easy matter for him to send his daughter to the Riviera.
"That is what makes it so dreadful," said the lad. "I wish to heaven I had taken a return ticket! but I wanted to go home by steamer from Marseilles. The fatal moment was when I encroached on my journey-money. After I had done that, of course I had to go on to replace it: but the luck was dead against me. Oh, if I could only recall that first five francs! If I could have foreseen this—but I meant——"
"You meant to win, of course," said Lady Munro kindly.
The boy laughed shamefacedly, in the midst of his misery.
"Well, I think my punishment equals my sin," he said. "I would gladly live on bread and water for months, if I could undo two days of my life. I keep thinking round and round in a circle, till I am nearly mad. I cannot write to my father, and yet what else can I do?"
Lady Munro was silent for a few minutes when the lad had finished speaking. She was wondering what Sir Douglas would say. When a married woman is called upon to help her fellows, she has much to think of besides her own generous impulses; and in Lady Munro's case it was well perhaps that this was so. She would empty her purse for the needy as readily as she would empty it for some jewel that took her fancy, sublimely regardless in the one case as in the other of the wants of the morrow. Ah, well! it is a good thing for mankind that a perfect woman is not always essential to therôleof ministering angel!
"I will try to help you," she said at last, "though I cannot absolutely promise. In the meantime here is a napoleon. That will take you to Cannes, and pay for a night's lodging. Call on me to-morrow between ten and eleven." She handed him her card. "I think," she added as an afterthought, "you will promise not to enter the Casino again?"
It was very characteristic of her to ask as a favour what she might have demanded as a condition. The boy blushed crimson as he took the napoleon. "You are very kind," he said nervously. "Thank you. I won't so much as look at the Casino again."
"Well, Miss Lucy, a pretty scrape you have got me into!" said Lady Munro, as she joined the girls. "It will take fifteen pounds to set that boy on his feet again."
"Tell us all about it," said Lucy eagerly. "Who is he?"
"His name is Edgar Davidson, and he is a medical student."
"I knew it! No wonder I was interested in a brother of the cloth! What hospital?"
"I don't know."
"Is he going in for the colleges or for the university?"
"My dear child, how should I think of asking?"
"I suppose mother did not even enquire who his tailor was," said Evelyn quietly.
"I don't mind about his tailor, but it would interest me to know where he gets his scalpels sharpened. What brings him here during term?"
Lady Munro had just time to give a sketch of the lad's story, when they arrived at the door of the concert-hall—wonderful alike for its magnificence and its vulgarity—to find the orchestra already carrying away the whole room with a brilliant, piquant, irresistiblepizzicato.
"Do take a back seat, mother," whispered Evelyn; "we can't have Lucy dancing right up the hall."
Lucy shot a glance of lofty scorn at her friend.
"I am glad at least that Providence did not make me a lamp-post," she said severely.
The last note of the piece had not died away, when a young man came forward and held out his hand to Lady Munro.
"Why, Mr Monteith, my husband has just gone to your hotel."
"Yes; he told me you were here, so I left him and my father together."
He shook hands with the two girls, and seated himself beside Lucy.
"You here?" she said with an air of calm indifference, which was very unlike her usual impulsive manner.