As soon as the Heavenly Twins were safely settled at Morne, Mr. Hamilton-Wells played them a huge trick. He made Lady Adeline pack up and set off with him for a voyage round the world without them. When their parents were well on the way, and the news was broken to the children, the people at Morne expected storm and trouble; but the Heavenly Twins saw the joke at once, and chuckled immoderately.
"I wonder how long it took him to think it out?" said Diavolo.
"It must have been a brilliant impromptu," Angelica supposed—"because, you know, our coming here was all arranged in a moment. If you remember, we came because they looked so sure that we shouldn't. I expect as soon as we had gone, it was such a relief, that papa said: 'Adeline, my dear, we must prolong this period of peace.' And he's just about hit on the only way to do so."
"I should like to have seen him, though, popping in and out of the train whenever it stopped. He must have been in a perfect fever until they were safe on board and out at sea, fearing we might have heard that they were off, and found some means of following them."
"We might do so still," said Angelica thoughtfully.
"No. Too much bother," said Diavolo. "And, besides, there is good deal going on here, you know," he added significantly. "But, I say," he demanded, becoming parent-sick suddenly, "do you understand how they could go off like that without saying good-bye to us? I call it beastly unnatural."
"Oh, give them their due!" said Angelica. "They did say good-bye to us. Don't you remember how particularly affectionate they were the last time they came? And all the good advice they gave us? 'Do attend to Mr. Ellis'; 'Don't worry your grandfather,' and that sort of thing. They must have relieved their own feelings thoroughly."
"Well, then, they didn't consider ours much," Diavolo grumbled; "and they might have allowed us, poor grass-orphans, the comfort of bidding them farewell,"
"We'll write them a letter," said Angelica.
Diavolo grinned.
And this was how it happened that the Heavenly Twins, who had only gone to Morne for a month, remained a year there, and one of the most important years of their lives, as was afterward evident. It was during this time that they managed to identify themselves completely with their grandfather in the estimation of the people of Morningquest. Charming manners were a family trait, and the Heavenly Twins had always been popular in the city on their own account; their spontaneity and extreme affability having usually been held to balance their monkey tricks. Hamilton House, however, was ten miles distant from Morningquest, and they had hitherto been thought of as Hamilton-Wells; but after that year at the Castle, they became identified with the old stock, the alien Hamilton-Wells being dropped out of sight altogether.
The duke himself had always been popular. He had, like his ancestors, lived much in his castle on the hill overlooking the city, and had dominated the latter by his personality as well as by his place, so that the people, predisposed by the pressure of hereditary habit to recognize the pre-eminence of one of his family, and being no longer subject to the authority of their duke as in the old days when he was a ruler who must be obeyed, looked up to him involuntarily as an example to be followed.
Which was how it came to pass that, for the last half century, there had been two influences at work in Morningquest: that of the chime, full fraught with spiritual suggestion; and that of the duke, which was just the opposite. They were the influences of good and evil, and, needless to say, the effect of the latter was much the more certain of the two.
A great change, however, came over the duke toward the end of his life. In his youth he had filled the place with riot and debauchery; in middle age he had concealed his doings under respectable cloaks of excuse, such as the County Club and business; but now he was old and superstitious, and sought to sway the people in another direction altogether. For when his youngest daughter, the beautiful Lady Fulda, became a Roman Catholic, she wrought upon him by her earnestness so as to make him fear the flames, and drove him in that way to seek solace and salvation in the Church as well; and when he had done so himself, he rather expected, and quite intended, that everybody else should do likewise. But the people of Morningquest who had adopted his vices did not fear the flames themselves, and would have nothing to do with his piety. They were like the children in "Punch," who, when threatened with the policeman at the corner, exclaimed in derision: "Why, that's father!" And, besides, the times were changing rapidly, and the influence which remained to the aristocracy was already only dominant so long as it went the way of popular feeling and was human; directly it retrograded to past privileges, ideas, superstitions, and tastes, the people laughed at it. They knew that the threatened rule of the priest was a far-fetched anachronism which they need not fear for themselves in the aggregate, and they therefore gave themselves up with interest to the observation of such evidences of its effect on the individual as the duke should betray to them from time to time. Their theory was that, having grown too old for worldly dissipation, he had entered the Church in search of new forms of excitement, and to vary the monotony generally, as so many elderly coquettes do when they can no longer attract attention in any other way. This, the people maintained, was the nature of such religious consolation as he enjoyed; and upon that supposition certain lapses of his were accounted for uncharitably.
But, in truth, the duke was perfectly sincere. He had turned so late in life, however, that he was apt, by force of habit, to get muddled. His difficulty was to disconnect the past from the present, the two having a tendency to mix themselves up in his mind. The great interest of his old age was the building of a Roman Catholic Cathedral in Morningquest, but occasionally—and always at the most inconvenient times—he would forget it was a cathedral, and imagine it was an opera house he was supporting; and when he went to distribute the prizes in the schools, he would compliment the pretty girls on their good looks, instead of lecturing them on the sin of vanity; and promise that they should sing in the chorus, or dance in the ballet if their legs were good, when he should have been discoursing about the dangers of the vain world, and pointing the moral of happy humble obscurity. On these occasions, Lady Fulda, who was always beside him, suffered a good deal. She would pull him up in a whisper which he sometimes made her repeat, until everyone in the place had heard it but himself, and then, at last, when he did understand, he would hasten to correct himself. But, of course, it was the mistake and not the correction which made the most lasting impression.
Lady Fulda was not at all clever. In the schoolroom she was always far behind her sisters, Lady Adeline and Lady Claudia, and before his conversion, her father used to say that she had the appearance of a Juno, and the cow-like capacity one would naturally expect from the portraits of that matron now extant. But this was not fair to her intelligence, for she had a certain range which included sympathetic insight, and the knack of saying the right thing both for her own purpose and for the occasion.
She had a full exterior of uncrumpled, lineless, delicately tinted flesh; a voice that made "Good-morning" impressive when she said it; a sincerity which paused upon every expression of opinion to weigh its worth. She would hardly say; "It is a fine day," without first glancing at the weather, just to be sure that it had not changed since she decided to make the remark. And she had a great loving heart. If she did not sigh for husband and children, it was because she was never In the presence of any creature for many minutes without feeling a flood of tenderness for them suffuse her whole being, so that her affections were always satisfied. Because of her grand presence people expected great things of her, and none of them ever went disappointed away. She filled their hearts, and nobody ever complains of the head when the heart is full. Love was the secret both of her beauty and her power.
The twins arrived late one day at Morne, and immediately afterward the whole castle was pervaded by their presence, and signs of them appeared in the most unlikely places. A mysterious packet, rolled up in a sheet of theTimes, considerably soiled, and known as "Angelica's work," which nobody had ever seen opened, was found in the oriel room on the seat of the chair sacred to the duke himself; and a cricket cap of Diavolo's was discovered on one of the tall candles which stood on the altar in the private chapel of the castle, as if it had been used as an extinguisher, A peculiar intentness was also observed in the expression of the children's countenances which was thought to betoken mischief, because always hitherto it had been noticed that when the gravity of their demeanour was most exemplary, the wickedness of the design upon which they were engaged was sure to be extreme. But all the old symptoms were misleading at this time, for the twins settled down at once, with lively intelligent interest, to the innocent occupation of studying the ways of the household, their own conduct being distinguished for the most part by a masterly inactivity. For the truth was they were thinking. They had lately taken to reading the books and papers and magazines of the day, which they found in the library at Hamilton House; and at Morne they followed the same occupation, and thus had an opportunity of seeing the questions which interested them treated from different points of view. At home all had been Liberal, Protestant, and progressive; but at Morne the tendency of everything was Roman Catholic, Conservative, and retrograde; and they were doing their best, as their conversations with different people at this time showed, to discover the why and wherefore, and right and wrong of the difference. Angelica was naturally the first to draw definite conclusions for herself, and having made up her own mind she began to instruct Diavolo. She was teaching him to respect women, for one thing; when he didn't respect them she beat him; and this made him thoughtful.
"You wouldn't strike me if you didn't know that I can't strike you back, because you're a girl," he remonstrated.
"And you wouldn't say that if you didn't know that the cruellest thing you can do to a woman is to hurt her feelings," she retorted.
"Oh, feelings!" exclaimed Diavolo. "You've got castanets that clack where you should have feelings."
Angelica raised her hand, and then dropped it by her side again, and looked at him.
"What do you mean by this nonsense?" she demanded. "We alwayshavefought everything out ever since we were born."
"Yes," he said regretfully, "and you used to be as hard as nails. When I got a good hit at you it made my knuckles tingle. But now you're getting all boggy everywhere. Just look at your arms!"
Angelica ripped her tight sleeve open to the shoulder with one of her sudden jerks, and looked at her arm. "Now, see mine," said Diavolo, taking off his coat, and turning his shirt sleeve up in his more deliberate way.
Angelica held out her arm beside his to compare them. Hers was round and white and firm, with every little blue vein visible beneath the fine transparent skin; his was all hard muscle and bone, burnt brown with the sun, and coarse of texture compared with hers.
"You see, now!" he said.
Angelica slowly drew down the tattered remains of her sleeve, and then she looked at Diavolo thoughtfully, and from him to a full-length reflection of herself in a long mirror on the wall.
"We're growing up!" she said, in a surprised sort of tone.
"Youare," he said, "Iseem to be just about as young as ever I was."
"All the more reason that I should teach you, then," said Angelica. "Education matures the mind, and the principal instrument of education for your sex has always been a stick. Women are open to reason from their cradles, but men have to be whopped. They are thrashed at school, that being, as they have always maintained themselves, the best way to deal with them. 'He that spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.' And 'Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.' It is only the boys, you see, that have their minds enlarged in that way, because, if you tell a girl a thing, she understands it at once. And when men grow up and things go wrong, they still think they ought to thrash each other. That is also their primitive way of settling the disputes of nations; they just hack each other down in hundreds, sacrificing the lives which are precious to the women they should be loving, for the sake of ideas that are always changing. You certainlyarethe stupid part of humanity!" she concluded. "And how you ever discovered the way to manage each other, I can't imagine. But it was the right one. 'A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool's back.'"—and so saying, she flounced out of the room, without, however, administering the parting slap of another kind which he expected.
But the episode made a lasting impression on Diavolo, as was apparent in much that he said, and particularly in some remarks which he made during a conversation he had with his grandfather toward the end of the year.
A capital understanding had always existed, between Diavolo and his grandfather, a fact which caused Lady Adeline's heart to sink every time she observed it, but had an opposite effect on the duke himself—a quite exhilarating effect, indeed, which was the cause of certain of those lapses which Lady Fulda had so often to deplore—as when, for instance, he aided and abetted Diavolo in some of his worst tricks, and then had to sit sheepishly by, saying nothing, when the boy was found out and corrected. Lady Fulda was puzzled by the intelligent glances that passed between the two at such times, but Diavolo was perfectly loyal, and never once got his grandfather into trouble.
One of the dreams of the old duke's life was to make a good Catholic of Diavolo, and to that end his conversation was often directed— intermittently it is true, because Diavolo was skilled in the art of beguiling him into other subjects when it suited himself.
The duke was turning his attention at this time, under Lady Fulda's direction, to the spiritual welfare of that class of women which in former times he had been accustomed to countenance in quite another way. Lady Fulda had established a refuge for these in Morningquest, and her father was deeply interested in the success of the undertaking. The Heavenly Twins were also much interested. At first they could not make out why their Aunt Fulda so often breakfasted in her outdoor dress, and whether she had just come in or was just going out.
If there were no visitors staying at the castle, the party at breakfast was small, there being only the old duke, Father Ricardo, Mr. Ellis, and the Heavenly Twins, as a rule. When Lady Fulda did appear the meal was usually half over.
The duke sat at the end of the long table, with the twins on either side of him, but he was generally limp and querulous in the morning, and more kindly disposed toward Father Ricardo than to his own flesh and blood, as Angelica pointed out on one occasion.
When Lady Fulda came in she always went up to her father and kissed him. He did not rise to receive the salute, but he invariably held her hand some seconds, and asked: "Any news?" anxiously; to which she always answered "Yes" or "No"; and then he would say: "You must tell me afterward. Go to your seat now. Take plenty of rest and refreshment Both are necessary; both are necessary!"
The Heavenly Twins were inclined to regard this scene with the scorn and contempt of ignorance at first; but when Lord Dawne came to the castle for a few days, with their widowed aunt Lady Claudia and Ideala, and all these paid the same reverent attention to Lady Fulda's report as the duke and Father Ricardo did, they reserved judgment until they should know more about the matter.
They asked Mr. Ellis for an explanation, but he told them bluntly to mind their own business, and further puzzled them by a remark which they chanced to hear him make about Lady Fulda to Dr. Galbraith. They did not overhear what Dr. Galbraith had said to lead up to it, but Mr. Ellis answered: "Grasp her character? She is not a character at all! She's a beautiful abstraction. Now Ideala is human."
Although the twins were Protestants by education—and also by nature, one may say—it had pleased them to go regularly to certain services in the chapel from the day of their arrival at the castle.
"We enjoy them very much," Angelica said, to the great delight of her aunt and grandfather.
"I am sure the atmosphere of devotion in which we live will have its effect upon the children," the latter said several times.
And so it had. It was never the low mass, however, at which they appeared, but the more sensuous, sumptuous functions, when there was music, of which they both were exceedingly fond, both of them being excellent musicians.
Soon after her arrival at the castle Angelica bought a big drum. She said she couldn't express her feelings on any other instrument on Sunday, her spiritual fervour was so excessive. Her behaviour in chapel, however, was for the most part exemplary. Her aunt noticed that she often knelt all through the service with a book before her, thoroughly absorbed. Lady Fulda was anxious to know what the book was, and on one occasion, when Angelica remained on her knees after the congregation had dispersed, with her handkerchief pressed to her face, apparently deeply moved, her aunt stole up behind her softly, and peeped over her shoulder, expecting to see a holy "Imitation," or something of that kind; but, to her horror, she found that the book was Burnand's "Happy Thoughts," and that Angelica's gurglings were not tears of repentance, but suppressed explosions of hearty laughter.
This happened during what proved to be rather a trying time for Lady Fulda, It was while Lord Dawne, Lady Claudia, and Ideala were at the castle, and the old duke was, as Lady Fulda delicately phrased it to her sister Claudia in private, "inclined to be tiresome." It was at this time that he had several relapses. One of these happened in chapel during benediction.
The choir had been singingO Salutaris, Hostia!at the conclusion of which everybody was startled by a senile cheer from the stalls. The duke had dosed off into a dream of the opera, and had awakened suddenly, under the impression that a wooden image of the Blessed Virgin opposite had just completed a lovely solo, and was unexpectedly following it up by an audaciouspas seul.
"Aren't our ancestors like us?" Diavolo whispered to Angelica enthusiastically. But Angelica dampened his ardent admiration of thecoupby refusing to believe that the diminutive duke had "done it on purpose."
The next day Diavolo happened to stroll into the oriel room about tea-time, and finding his grandfather sitting there alone, looking down upon Morningquest from his accustomed seat in the great deep window, which was open, he carefully chose a soft cushion, placing it on the low sill so that he could rest his back against it, and stretching himself out on the floor, looked up at the old gentleman sociably.
"You're growing a big fellow, sir," the latter observed.
"But not growing so fast as Angelica is," said Diavolo.
"Ah, women mature earlier," said the duke. "But their minds never get far beyond the first point at which they arrive."
"I suppose you mean when they marry at seventeen, or their education is otherwise stopped short for them, just when a man is beginning his properly?" Diavolo languidly suggested.
The duke frowned down at him. "Where is your sister?" he asked.
"That I can't tell you," Diavolo answered.
"Don't you know?" the duke said sharply.
"Yes," was the cool rejoinder; "but I don't happen to have my sister's permission to say."
The old man's face relaxed into a smile: "That's right my boy, that's right," he said, "Loyalty is a grand virtue. Be loyal to the ladies"—he shook his head in search of an improving aphorism, but only succeeded in extracting a familiar saw. "Kiss, but never tell," he said, "it's vulgarly put, my boy, but there's a whole code in it, and a damned chivalrous code, too. I tell you, men were gentlemen when they stuck to it."
There was a sound of stealthy footsteps in the room at this moment, and the old duke glanced over his shoulder apprehensively, while Diavolo bent to one side to peer round the chair his grandfather was sitting in, which was between him and the door.
"It's one of the dogs," he said carelessly. "Father Ricardo is out, I think."
The duke looked relieved.
"Well," Diavolo resumed, reflectively, "I should have thought myself that it was playing it pretty low down to sneak on a woman. But, I say, sir," he asked innocently, "how would you define a lady-killer?"
"Lady-killer," said the little old gentleman, taking hold of his collar to perk himself up out of his clothes, as it were, on the strength of his past reputation: "A lady-killer is a—eh—a fellow whom ladies—eh—admire."
"Do you mean real ladies, or only pretty women?" said Diavolo.
"Both, my boy, both," the duke answered complacently. He was beginning to enjoy himself.
"You were one once, were you not, sir?" said Diavolo. "I suppose you had a deuced good time?"
"Ah!" the duke ejaculated, with a sigh of retrospective satisfaction. Then, suddenly remembering his new role, he pulled himself up, and added severely. "But keep clear of women, my boy, keep clear of women. Women are the very devil, sir."
"But supposing they run afteryou?" said Diavolo. "Nowadays, you know, a fellow gets so hunted down—they say."
"Oh—ah—then. In that case, you see," said the duke, relapsing, "the principle has always been to take the goods the gods may send you, and be thankful."
There was a pause after this, during which the duke again recollected himself.
"We were talking about women," he sternly recommenced, "and I was warning you that their wiles are snares of the evil one, who finds them ever ready to carry out his worst behests. Women are bad."
"Are they, now?" said Diavolo. "Well, I should have thought, taking them all round, you know, that they're a precious sight better thanweare."
"It was a woman, my boy," the duke said solemnly, "who compassed the fall of man."
"Well," Diavolo rejoined, with a calmly judicial air, "I've thought a good deal about that story myself, and it doesn't seem to me to prove that women are weak, but rather the contrary. For you see, the woman could tempt the man easily enough; but it took the very old devil himself to tempt the woman."
"Humph!" said the duke, looking hard at his grandson.
"And, at any rate," Diavolo pursued, "it happened a good while ago, that business, and it's just as likely as not that it was Adam whom the devil first put up to a thing or two, and Eve got it out of him—for I grant you that women are curious—and then they both came a cropper together, and it was a case of six of one and half a dozen of the other. It mostly is, I should think, in a business of that kind."
"Well, yes," said the duke. "In my own experience, I always found that we were just about one as bad as the other"—and he chuckled.
"Then, we may conclude that there is a doubt about that Garden of Eden story whichever way you look at it, and it's too old for an argument at any rate," said Diavolo. "But there is no doubt about the redemption. It was a woman who managed that little affair. And, altogether, it seems to me, in spite of the disadvantage of being classed by law with children, lunatics, beggars, and irresponsible people generally, that, in the matter of who have done most good in the world, women come out a long chalk ahead of us."
"Why the devil don't you speak English, sir!" the duke burst out testily.
Diavolo started. "Good gracious, grandpapa!" he began with his customary deliberation, "how sudden you are! You quite made me jump. Is it the slang you don't like?"
"Yes sir, itisthe slang I don't like."
"Then you've only got to say so," said Diavolo in a tone of mild remonstrance. "You really quite upset me when you're so sudden. Angelica will tell you I never could stand being startled. She's tried all kinds of things to cure me. You can't frighten me, you know. It's just the jump I object to."
"Oh, you object, do you?" said the duke, bending his brows upon him. "ThenI apologise."
"Oh, no! pray don't mention it, sir," said Diavolo. "I didn't mean you to go so far as that, you know. And it's over in a minute."
Angelica burst into the room at this point, followed by two or three dogs, and immediately took up her favourite position on the arm of her grandfather's chair.
"I want some tea," she said.
"It's coming," said Diavolo.
"You say that because you don't want the trouble of getting up to ring,"Angelica retorted.
Diavolo looked at her provokingly, and she was about to say something tart, when a footman opened the door wide, and two others entered carrying the tea-things, and at the same time the rest of the party began to assemble.
Lady Fulda was the first to arrive with her widowed sister, Lady Claudia. They presented a great contrast, the one being so perfectly lovely, the other so decidedly plain. Lady Claudia was a tall gaunt woman, hard in manner, with no pretension to any accomplishments; but wise, and of a faithful, affectionate disposition, which deeply endeared her to her friends.
Lord Dawne came in next, with Dr. Galbraith and Mr. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe, and these were followed by Father Ricardo and Mr. Ellis, after whom came Ideala herself, alone.
This was before she made her name, but already people spoke of her; and theoretically men were supposed not to like her "because of her ideas, don't you know," which were strongly opposed in some circles, especially by those who either did not know or could not understand them. There is no doubt that mankind have a rooted objection to be judged when the judge is a woman. If they cannot in common honesty deny the wisdom of her decisions they attack her for venturing to decide at all.
"Now," said Angelica, skipping over to a couch beside which Mr. Kilroy was sitting, "now, we shall have a little interesting conversation!"
"I hope you will kindly allow us to have a little interesting tea first," said Diavolo, who had risen politely when the other ladies entered the room, a formality which he omitted in Angelica's case because he insisted that she wasn't a lady.
When the tea was handed round, and the servants had withdrawn, he lounged over to the couch where she was, in his deliberate way, sat down beside her, and put his tea cup on the floor; and then they put their arms round each other, slanted their heads together, and sat expectant. This had been a favourite position of theirs from the time they could sit up at all, and when there was a good deal of gossip going on about them it had always been a treat to see them sitting so, with blank countenances and ears open, collecting capital doubtless for new outrages on public decency.
"What do you want to talk about. Angelica?" Ideala asked, smiling.
"Oh, a lot of things," Angelica exclaimed, straightening herself energetically, and giving Diavolo's head a knock with her own to make him move it out of the way. "I've been reading, you know, and I want you to explain. I want to know how people can be so silly."
"In what way?" Ideala asked.
"Well, I'm thinking of Aunt Fulda," said the candid Angelica. "You know, she very much wants to make a Roman Catholic of me, and she gave me some books to read, and of course I read them. They were all about the Church being the true church and all that sort of thing. And then I got a lot of books about other churches, and each said thatitwas the true church just as positively, and Aunt Fulda told me that anyone who would read aboutherchurchmustbe convinced that it is the true church, but the difficulty is to get people to read; so when I found these other books I took them to her to show her all about the other true churches, and I told her she ought to read them, because if there were truth in any of them, we could none of us possibly be saved unless we belonged toallthe different churches. But do you know, she wouldn't look at a book! She said she wasn't allowed to! Now! what do you think of that? and after telling me what a mistake it was not to read!"
Lady Fulda and her father were talking together in the window, and did not therefore overhear these remarks, but Father Ricardo was listening, and Ideala flashed a mischievous glance at him as Angelica spoke.
"Then," the latter continued before anyone could answer her, "Aunt Fulda is just as good as she possiblycanbe, and Father Ricardo says it is because she has submitted tohisHoly Church; and Mrs. Orton Beg and mamma are also as good as they possibly can be, and the Bishop of Morningquest says that Mrs. Orton Beg is a holy woman because she is a humble follower of Christ, but he rather shakes his head about mamma. Uncle Dawne, however, and Dr. Galbraith both maintain that mamma is admirable, because she doesn't trouble her head about churches and creeds any longer. She used to do so once, but now she thinks only of what ismorallyright or wrong, and leaves the ecclesiastical muddle for the divines to get out of as best they can. Mamma used to dread bringing us to Morne when we were younger; we were always so outrageous here; and we told her it was Aunt Fulda who made us so, because she is too good, and the balance of nature has to be preserved. But, now, I am sure Aunt Claudia is quite as good as she is, and so are you, and mamma, and Mrs. Orton Beg."
Ideala smiled at her. "And so you are puzzled?" she said. "Well, now, I will explain. Your aunts and mother, and Mrs. Orton Beg, are all of those people born good, who would have been saints in any calendar, Buddhist, Christian, or Jewish. They come occasionally—these good people—to cause confusion on the subject of original sin, and overthrow the pride of professors who maintain that their own code of religious ethics must be the right one because it produces the best specimens of humanity. There was a Chinese lady living at Shanghai a few years ago, a devout Buddhist, who, in her habits of life, her character, her prayers, her penances, and her sweetness of disposition, exactly resembled your Aunt Fulda, the only difference between them being the names of the ideal of goodness upon whom they called for help. Their virtues were identical, and the moral outcome of their lives was the same."
"I see what you mean!" Angelica burst out. "And you wouldn't say either 'convert' or 'pervert' yourself, would you?"
"Well, no," Ideala acknowledged, "I always adopt a little pleonasm myself to avoid Christian controversy, and say 'when So-and-so became' a Roman or Anglican Catholic, a Protestant, Positivist, or whatever else it might be; and I let them say 'convert' or 'pervert,' whichever they like, to me, because I know that it really cannot matter, so long as they are agreeable—not that anybody ever expects them to be, poor little people! although they know quite well that they should never let their angry passions rise. They have no sense of humour at all! But just fancy, how silly it must seem to the angels when Miss Protestant throws down a book she is reading and shrieks, 'Convert, indeed!' while Miss Catholic at the same moment groans,'Pervert,' indignantly! Must be 'something rotten in the state of Denmark,' surely, or one or other of them would have proved their point by this time. Or do you suppose," she added, looking at Lord Dawne, "that the opposition is mercifully preordained by nature to generate the right amount of heat by friction to keep things going so that we do not come to a standstill on the way to human perfection? It is very wonderful any way," she added—"to the looker on; wonderfully funny!"
"I did not know that Lady Adeline had definitely left the Church ofEngland," Mr. Kilroy observed, "and I am surprised to hear it."
"Are you?" said Ideala. "Now, we were not. Adeline has always been of a deeply religious disposition; but it was not bound to be, and it was never likely to be, the religion of any church which would secure her lasting reverence."
"I wonder what the religion of the future will be?" Mr. Kilroy remarked.
"It will consist in the deepest reverence for moral worth, the tenderest pity for the frailties of human nature, the most profound faith in its ultimate perfectibility," Ideala answered. "The religion of the future must be a thing about which there can be no doubt, and consequently no dispute. It will be for the peace and perfecting of man, not for the exercise of his power to outwit an antagonist in an argument; and there are only the great moral truths, perceived since the beginning of thought, but hard to hold as principles of action because the higher faculties to which they appeal are of slower growth than the lower ones which they should control, and the delights they offer are of a nature too delicate to be appreciated by uncultured palates; but it is in these, the infinite truths, known to Buddha, reflected by Plato, preached by Christ, undoubted, undisputed even by the spirit of evil, that religion must consist, and is steadily growing to consist, while the questionable man-made gauds of sensuous service are gradually being set aside. The religion of the future will neither be a political institution, nor a means of livelihood, but an expression of the highest moral attribute, human or divine—disinterested love."
She sat for some time, looking down at the floor, and lost in thought when she had said this; and then, rousing herself, she turned to Father Ricardo, "I had a fit of Roman Catholicism once myself," she said to him, pleasantly, "I enjoyed it very much while it lasted. But you do a great deal of harm, you clergy! In the first place you begin by setting up Christ as an ideal of perfect manhood, and then you proceed to demolish him as a possible example, by maintaining that he was not a man, but a God, and therefore a being whom it is beyond the power of man to imitate! Oh, you terrible, terrible clergy! You preach the parable of the buried talents, and side by side with that you have always insisted that women should put theirs away; and you have soothed their sensitive consciences with the dreadful cant of obedience—not obedience to the moral law, but obedience to the will of man; for what moral law could be affected by the higher education of women?"
"The Anglican Church is rather countenancing the higher education of women, is it not?" said Mr. Kilroy.
"You don't put it properly," Ideala answered. "Women, after a hard battle, secured for themselves their own higher education, and now that it is being found to answer, the churches are coming in to claim the credit. Dear, how rapidly reforms are carried out when we take them in hand ourselves!" she exclaimed. "All the spiritual power is ours, and while we refuse to know, it must be wasted for want of direction."
"But that is what you reject," said Father Ricardo. "The Church is ever ready to direct her children."
"For her own advantage, and very badly," Ideala answered. "Does her direction ever benefit the human race generally, or anybody but herself in particular? Every great reform has been forced on the Church from outside. Just consider the state of degradation, and the dense ignorance of the people of every country upon which the curse of Catholicism rests! 'Wherever churches and monasteries abound the people are backward' it is written. Just lately, there has been a little revival of Catholicism, a flash in the pan, here in England, due to Cardinal Newman and Cardinal Manning, who introduced some good old Protestant virtues into your teaching; but that cannot last. You carry the instrument of your own destruction along with you in the degrading exercises with which you seek to debase our beautiful, wonderful, perfectible human nature."
"But the Church has done all that is possible for the people," Father Ricardo began lamely. "The Church has always taught, for one thing, that the labourer is worthy of his hire."
"But the Church never used its influence to make the hire worthy of the labourer; instead of that, it has always sought to grind the last penny out of the people, and then it pauperized them with alms," said Ideala.
"Why have the priests done so little good, Uncle Dawne?" Diavolo asked.
"Because they are no better than other people," was the answer, "and when they get money they use it just as everybody else does, to strengthen their own position, and make a display with."
"Ah, the terrible mistake it has been, this making a paid profession of the doing of good!" Ideala exclaimed.
Angelica, who had put her arm round Diavolo again, and was sitting with her head against his, listening gravely, now looked at Ideala: "I want to know where the true spirit of God is," she said.
"I can tell you," Ideala answered fearlessly. "It is in uswomen.Wehave preserved it, and handed it down from one generation to another of our own sex unsullied; and very soon we shall be called upon to prove the possession of it, for already"—she turned to Father Ricardo here, and specially addressed him, speaking always in gentle tones, without emphasis—"already I—that is to say Woman—am a power in the land, while you—that is to say Priest—retain ever less and less even of the semblance of power.
"Pardon me, dear lady," the priest replied; "but it shocks me to hear you assume such an arrogant tone."
"I don't think the tone was in the least arrogant," Angelica put in briskly; "and, at any rate, it's your own tone exactly, for I've heard you say as much and more, speaking of the priesthood."
"Not exactly," Diavolo corrected her. "Father Ricardo always says: 'Heaven, for some great inscrutable purpose, has mercifully vouchsafed this wondrous power to us, poor'—or humble or unworthy; the first adjective of that kind he can catch—'priests.' I like the short way of putting it myself."
"But why do you always try to make out that it is our duty to bemiserablesinners?" Angelica asked.
"If we taught ourselves to be happy in this world, we should grow to love it too much, and then we should not strive to win the next."
"And that would impoverish the Church?" Diavolo suggested.
"But why not letusbe happy, and you raise money in some other way?" Angelica wanted to know. "Miracles—now I should try some miracles; a miracle must be much better than a bazaar to raise the funds."
"Oh, but you forget the nunneries Father Ricardo was telling us about the other day," Diavolo said; "the austere orders where they only live a few years, you know."
"I had forgotten for the moment, but I read up the subject at the time, and found out that when the nuns die all their money remains in the Church; is that what you mean?" said the practical Angelica.
"Yes," said Diavolo. "You see, it would hardly cost ten shillings a week to keep a nun, and of course," he said to Father Ricardo, "the more fasting you counsel the less outlay there would be; so I don't wonder you promise them more goodies in the next world, the more austerities they practise in this."
"It must really work like a provision of nature for the enrichment of Holy Church—so many nuns worked off on the prayer and fasting mill per annum, so many unencumbered fortunes added to the establishment," Angelica observed.
"Jerusalem!" said Diavolo. "How easy it is to gull the public!"
The Heavenly Twins had been speaking in a confidential tone, as if they were behind the scenes with Father Ricardo, and now they watched him, seeming to wait for him to wink—at least, that was how Dr. Galbraith afterward interpreted the look. Nothing of this kind coming to pass, however, they, both got up, and both together strolled out of the room, yawning undisguisedly.
"That child, Angelica, will be one of us," Ideala whispered to Lord Dawne.
"Yes," he answered gravely; "They will both be of us eventually; only we must make no move, but wait in patience 'Until the day break, and the shadows flee away.'"
There was much high talk of doing good and living for others at Morne in these days, to which the twins listened attentively. It is evident from the thoughts they expressed at this time that the minds of both were in a state of fermentation, and that the more active pursuits in which they still indulged occasionally were the mere outcome of habit. When the conversation was interesting, they would sit beside Father Ricardo (whom they insisted on classing with themselves as an inferior being) and watch the speakers by the hour together, and Father Ricardo too, gauging his moral temperature, and noting every sigh of pity or shiver of disapprobation that shook his sensitive frame.
"Where does it hurt you,dear?" Diavolo asked him once. "I know you are a bad, bad man, because you say so yourself—"
"I never said so!" Father Ricardo exclaimed with a puzzled air.
"Well, you said you were a miserable sinner, not worthy,et cetera, and it comes to the same thing," Diavolo rejoined; "and I don't wonder you are disheartened when you see how impossible it is for you to be as disinterestedly good as Uncle Dawne and Dr. Galbraith. I feel so myself sometimes."
"Oh, I hope I am disinterested," Father Ricardo protested.
"I can't make it out if you are," said Diavolo, shaking his head. "You don't seem to love goodness for its own sake, but for the reward here and hereafter. The whole system you preach is one of reward and punishment."
Father Ricardo had an innocent hobby. He was fond of old china, and had made a beautiful collection, with the help of such friends as Lord Dawne, Dr. Galbraith, and Lady Adeline Hamilton-Wells, who never failed to bring him back any good specimen they might find in the course of their travels.
One day at this time, after the talk had been running, as usual, upon self-sacrifice and living for others, he invited the whole party to inspect his collection; and they all went, with the exception of the Heavenly Twins, who were not to be found at the moment. When the others reached the room in which Father Ricardo kept his treasures, however, they were surprised to find the cabinets comparatively speaking bare, and with great gaps on the shelves as if someone had been weeding them indiscriminately. The good Father looked very blank at first; but the windows were wide open, and before he could think what had happened, a noise on the lawn below attracted everybody's attention, and on looking out to see what was the matter, they beheld the Heavenly Twins apparently intent upon organizing a revel. They were very busy at the moment, and had been for some hours evidently, for they had collected an organ man with a monkey; a wandering musician with a harp; a man with a hammer who had been engaged in breaking stones; a Punch and Judy party, consisting of a man, woman, and boy, with their Toby-dog; five christy minstrels in their war paint; a respectable looking mechanic with his wife and three children who were tramping from one place to another in search of work; and a blind beggar; and all these were seated in more or less awkward and constrained attitudes on easy-chairs, covered with satin, velvet, or brocade, about the lawn, with little tables before them on which was spread all the cooked food, apparently, that the castle contained. When their admiring relatives first caught sight of the twins, Angelica—who had coiled up her hair, and wore a long black dress, borrowed from her Aunt Fulda's wardrobe; a white apron with a bib, and a white cap like a nurse's, the property of one of the lady's maids—was pouring tea out of a silver urn, and Diavolo, in his shirt sleeves, with a serviette under his arm like a waiter in a restaurant, was standing beside her with a salver in his hand, waiting to carry it to the mechanic's lady.
"What on earth are you children doing?" Lord Dawne exclaimed.
"Feeding the hungry, sir," Diavolo drawled cheerfully.
"Well," groaned the poor priest, "you needn't have taken all my best china for that purpose."
"We did that, sir," Diavolo replied with dignity, "in order that you, all unworthy as you are, might have the pleasure of participating in this good work. But, there!" he said to Angelica, "I told you he wouldn't appreciate it!"
To the credit of the Heavenly Twins and their guests, it must be recorded that no harm happened either to the china or the plate.
The next day was a Saint's day, and the children announced at breakfast that they intended to keep it. They said they were going to compose a religion for themselves out of all the most agreeable practices enjoined by other religions, and they proposed to begin by making that day a holiday.
Mr. Ellis would have remonstrated at the waste of time, and Father Ricardo at the absence of proper intention, but the way the twins had put the proposition happened to amuse the duke, and therefore they gained their point. But, having gained it, they did not know very well what to do with themselves. Angelica wouldn't make plans. She was thinking of the long dress she had worn the day before, and feeling a vague desire to have her own lengthened; and she wanted also to take that mysterious packet known as her "work" to her Aunt Fulda's sitting room, where the ladies usually spent the morning, so as to be with them, but she knew that Diavolo would scorn her if she did; and the outcome of all this vagueness of intention was a fit of excessive irritability. She wanted sympathy, but without being aware of the fact herself, and the way she set about obtaining it was by being excessively disagreeable to everybody. There was a rose in a glass beside her plate, and she took it out, and began to twiddle it between her fingers and thumb impatiently, till she managed to prick herself with the thorns, and then she complained of the pain.
"Oh, that sort of thing doesn't hurt much," Diavolo declared.
"Itdoeshurt," she maintained aggressively; "and pain is pain, whether the seat of it be your head, heart, or hind-quarters."
"Angelica!" Lady Fulda exclaimed with tragic emphasis. "Someone must really talk to youseriously!you are positivelyvulgar!"
"Thank Heaven!" Angelica ejaculated fervently. "I knew I was going to be something!"
She get up as she spoke, and walked out of the room with her head in the air, affecting a proud consciousness of having had greatness suddenly thrust upon her.
Lady Fulda looked helplessly, first at Father Ricardo, then at Mr. Ellis.
"Can't you do something?" she said to the latter.
Mr. Ellis replied by an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders. "We know better than to interfere when she's in one of her bad-language tantrums," Diavolo explained.
When his grandfather left the table, he followed him uninvited on a tour of inspection around the castle and grounds, and, finally, retiring with him to the library, whither the old duke usually went to rest, read, or meditate sometime during the morning, he coiled himself up in an armchair, took a small book out of his pocket, and began to study it dilligently.
His grandfather glanced at him affectionately and with interest, from time to time. He was lonely in his old age, and liked to have the boy about. He had nobody left to him now who could touch his heart or take him out of himself as Diavolo did, for nobody else attached themselves to him in the same way, or showed such an unaffected preference for having him all to themselves,
"What are you reading, sir?" he asked him at last.
"'Euripides,' sir," Diavolo answered, glancing over the top of his book for a moment as he spoke. "I'm just where Hippolytus exclaims: 'O Jove! wherefore indeed didst thou place in the light of the sun that specious evil to men—woman?'"
"Are you reading 'Euripides' with a 'Key'?" his grandfather asked sternly.
"No, I am reading a key to 'Euripides,'" Diavolo answered,
"Don't you know your Greek, sir?" his grandfather demanded.
"I'm just looking to see, sir," Diavolo rejoined, returning to his book.
When he had finished the page, he looked up at his grandfather, who was sitting with his hands folded upon a large volume he held open on his knee, meditating, apparently.
"Beastly bad tone about women in the Classics," Diavolo remarked; "don't you think so, sir?"
"Ah, my boy, you don't know women yet!" the old duke responded.
"Then I've not made the most of my opportunities," Diavolo said with a grin, "for we meet with a fine variety in the houses about here! But what I object to in these classical chaps," he resumed, "is the way they sneaked and snivelled about women's faults, as if they had none of their own! and then their mean trick of going back upon the women, and reproaching them with their misfortunes."
"What do you mean by that?" his grandfather asked.
"Well, sir, I suppose you would call old age a misfortune to a pretty woman?" Diavolo answered. "And just look at the language in which that fellow Horace taunts Lydia and Lyce when they grow old, and after the sickening way he fawned upon them when they were young, too! And here again," he said, holding up his book, "is that fellow Hippolytus. Just because one woman has shocked him, he says '… Never shall I be satisfied in my hatred against women…. For in some way or other they are always bad.' And a little further back, too"—he scuffed the leaves over—"he says that woman is a great evilbecausemen squander away the wealth of their houses upon them. If the men were such superior beings, why don't they show it somehow? Horace was as spiteful himself as any old woman; we should have called him a cad nowadays. And all this abuse"—he shook his 'Euripides'—"is beastly bad form whichever way you look at it." He ruffled his thick tow-hair as he spoke, and yawned in conclusion.
"Then you are coming out as a champion of women?" said the duke.
"Oh, by Jove, no!" Diavolo exclaimed, straightening himself. "I haven't the conceit to suppose they would accept such a champion, and besides, I think it's the other way on now;weshall want champions soon. You see, in the old days, women were so ignorant and subdued, they couldn't retaliate or fight for themselves in any way; they never thought of such a thing. But, now, if you hit a woman, she'll give you one back promptly," he asseverated, rubbing a bump on his head suspiciously. "She'll put you inPunch, or revile you in the Dailies; Magazine you; write you down an ass in a novel; blackguard you in choice language from a public platform; or paint a picture of you which will make you wish you had never been born. Ridicule!" he ejaculated, lowering his voice. "They ridicule you. That's the worst of it. Now, there's Ideala, she can make a fellow ridiculous without a word. When old Lord Groome came back from Malta the other day, he called, and began to jeer at Mrs. Churston's feet for being big and ugly. Ideala let him finish; and then she just looked down at his own feet, and you could see in a minute that he wished himself an Eastern potentate with petticoats to hide them under; for they were ugly enough to be indecent."
The duke stretched out one of his own miniature models of feet upon this, and glanced at it complacently.
"Where do you get all these ideas?" he asked. "At your age I never had any; and if I had, I should have been ashamed to own it. You'll be a prig, sir, if you don't mind."
"Idon't mind," Diavolo rejoined. "I've heard you say that ladies dearly love a prig, and therefore I rather think of cultivating that tone."
"You should have been sent to a public school," his grandfather said. "It would have made a man of you."
"Oh, time will do that just as well," Diavolo answered encouragingly.
At that moment the door opened, and Lady Fulda entered.
"Papa, may I speak to you now?" she asked, and Diavolo got up politely and lounged off to look for Angelica. He did not succeed in finding her, however, because she had driven into Morningquest to do some shopping with her Aunt Claudia and Ideala. She hated shopping as a rule, and could seldom be persuaded to do any; but that morning, after breakfast, she had gone to Lady Fulda's room, where the three ladies were sitting, and after fidgeting them to death by wandering up and down, doing nothing, with a scowl on her face, and an ugly look of discontent in her fine dark eyes, she had burst out suddenly: "Aunt Fulda! I want some long dresses." Lady Fulda looked up at her in blank amazement; but Lady Claudia, who was all energy, rolled up her work on the instant, rang the bell, ordered the carriage, and answered: "Come, then, and get what you like."
And ten minutes afterward they had started.
Several unsuccessful attempts had been made to persuade Angelica to wear long dresses, and Lady Claudia felt that now, when she proposed it herself, it would never do to check the impulse; and accordingly, in less than a week from that day, Angelica, the tom-boy, was to all appearance no more, and Miss Hamilton-Wells astonished the neighbourhood.
She came down to the drawing room quite shyly in her first long dinner dress, with her dark hair coiled neatly high on her head. She had met Mr. Kilroy on the stairs, and he had looked at her in a strange, startled way, but he said nothing; and neither did anybody else when she entered the room. Her grandfather, however, opened his eyes wide when he saw her, and smiled as if he were gratified. Lord Dawne gave her a second glance, and seemed a little sad; and Ideala went up to her and kissed her, and then looked into her face for a moment very gravely, making her feel as if she were on the eve of something momentous. But Diavolo would not look at her a second time. One glimpse had been enough for him, and during the whole of dinner he never raised his eyes.
His uncle Dawne saw what was wrong with the boy, and glanced at him from time to time sympathetically. He meant to talk to him when the ladies had left the table, but Diavolo escaped unobserved before he could carry out his intention.
Mr. Ellis, however, had seen him go, and followed him. He found him in the schoolroom, crying as if his heart would break, his slender frame all shaken with great convulsive sobs, and the old books and playthings which had suddenly assumed for him the bitterly pathetic interest that attaches to once loved things when they are carelessly cast aside and forgotten, scattered about him. Mr. Ellis sat down beside, him, and touched his hand, and tried to comfort him, but the tutor was sad at heart himself.
Before very long, however, Angelica burst in upon them, with her hair down, and in the shortest and oldest dress she possessed. Her passionate love for her brother had always been the great hopeful and redeeming point of her character, and if she did show it principally by banging his head, she never meant to hurt him. Almost any other sister would have owed him a grudge for not admiring her in her first fine gown, and so spoiling her pleasure; but Angelica saw that he was thinking that the old days were over, and there had come a change now which would divide them, and she thought only of the pain he was suffering on that account. So, when she found that he was not going to join the ladies in the drawing room, she rushed upstairs to her own room, which her maid was arranging for the night, and relieved her feelings by tearing off her dinner dress, rolling it in a whisp, and throwing it at the woman. Her petticoats followed it, and then she kicked off her white satin shoes, one of which lit on the mantelpiece, the other on the dressing table; and, tearing out her hairpins, flung them about the floor in all directions.
"My old brown gown, Elizabeth," she demanded, stamping.
"What's the matter, Miss—"
But Angelica had snatched the gown from the wardrobe, put it on, and was halfway downstairs, buttoning it as she went, before the maid could finish the sentence.
When she entered the schoolroom, she threw herself on her knees beside Diavolo, and hugged him tight, as if she been going to lose him altogether, or he had just escaped from a great danger.
"I won't wear long dresses if you don't like them," she protested.
"Well, you can't go about like that," he grumbled, recovering himself the moment he felt her close to him again, and struck by a sense of impropriety in her short skirt after the grown-up appearance she had presented in the long one. "You look like a beggar."
"Well, if Idowear a long one," she declared, "it shall only be a disguise. I promise you I'll be just as bad as ever in it," and she drew a handkerchief out of her pocket, which had been left there for months and was frowsy, and wiped her own eyes and Diavolo's abruptly, "Your feelings are quite boggy, Diavolo," she said, giving a dry sob herself as she spoke. "You can't touch them at all without coming to water. You cry when you laugh."
Mr. Ellis had stolen softly out of the room as soon as he could do so unobserved, and now the twins were sitting together in their favourite position on the same chair, with their arms around each other, and Angelica's dark head slanted so as to lean against Diavolo's fair one.
He had rewarded her last remark with a melancholy grin; but the clouds had broken, and it now only required time for them to roll away.
"You'll get a moustache in time," Angelica proceeded, in her most matter-of-fact tone. "I can see signs of it now in some lights, only it's so fair it doesn't show much."
"I'll shave it to make it darker," he suggested.
"No, you mustn't do that," she answered, "because that'll make it coarse, and I want you to have one like Uncle Dawne's. But when it comes it will make you look as much grown up as my long dresses do me, and then we'll study some art and practise it together, and not be separated all our lives."
"We will," said Diavolo.
"But I think we ought to begin at once," Angelica added thoughtfully. "Just give me time to consider. And come out into the grounds for a frolic. I feel smothered in here; and there's a moon!"
Edith Beale had now been married for more than a year to Sir Mosley Menteith, and the whole of their life together had been to her a painful period of gradual disillusion—and all the more painful because she was totally unprepared even for the possibility of any troubles of the kind which had beset her. Parental opinion and prejudice, ignorance, education, and custom had combined to deceive her with regard to the transient nature of her own feeling for her lover; and it was also inevitable that she should lend herself enthusiastically to the deception; for who would not believe, if they could, that a state so ecstatic is enduring? Even people who do know better are apt to persuade themselves that an exception will be made in their favour, and this being so, it naturally follows that a girl like Edith, all faith and fondness, is foredoomed by every circumstance of her life and virtue of her nature, to make the fatal mistake. But, as Evadne told her, passion stands midway between love and hate, and is an introduction to either; and there is no doubt that, if Menteith had been the kind of repentant erring sinner she imagined him, her first wild desire would have cooled down into the lasting joy of tranquil love. Menteith, however, was not at all that kind of man, and, consequently, from the first the marriage had been a miserable example of the result of uniting the spiritual or better part of human nature with the essentially animal or most degraded side of it. In that position there was just one hope of happiness left for Edith, and that was in her children. If such a woman so situated can be happy anywhere it will be in her nursery. But Edith's child, which arrived pretty promptly, only proved to be another whip to scourge her. Although of an unmistakable type, he was apparently healthy when he was born, but had rapidly degenerated, and Edith herself was a wreck.
They had been out to Malta for a short time, but had come home, Menteith being invalided, and were now at a bracing sea-side place, trying what the air would do for them all.
It was Edith's habit to send the child out with his nurse directly after breakfast, and having done so as usual one morning, she remained alone with her husband in the breakfast room, which looked out upon the sands. She had her hands idly folded on her lap, and was watching Menteith as she might have watched a stranger about whom she was curious. He sat at some distance from her reading a paper, and there was no perceptible change in him; but she had changed very much for the worse. Why was she not recovering her strength? Why had it pleased Heaven to afflict her? That was what she was thinking, but at the same time she blamed herself for repining, and, in order to banish the thought, she rose, and, going over to her husband, laid her hand gently on his shoulder, courting a caress. He had been lavish enough of caresses at first, but all that was over now, and he finished the paragraph he was reading before he noticed Edith at all. Then he glanced at her, but his eyes were cold and critical.
"You certainly are not looking well," he observed, evidently meaning not attractive, as if he were injured by the fact. He got up when he had spoken, so that in the act of rising he dislodged her hand from his shoulder. Then he yawned and lounged over to the window, which was wide open, the weather being warm; and stood there with his legs apart, and his hands in his pockets, looking out.
One little loving caress or kindly word would have changed the whole direction of Edith's thoughts; but, wanting that, she stood where he had left her for some moments, lost in pained reflection; and then she followed him listlessly, seated herself in a low easy-chair, and looked out also.
There were crowds of people on the sands, and her dull eyes wandered from group to group, then up to the sky, and down again to the sea and shore. The sun shone radiantly; sparkles of light from the rippling wavelets responded to his ardent caress. The sea-sweet air fanned her face. But neither light, nor air, nor sound availed to move her pleasurably.
"Is this to be my life?" she thought.
The tide was coming in over the sands. Some children with their shoes and stockings off were playing close to the water's edge. They had made a castle, and were standing on the top of it, all crowded together, waiting for a big wave to come and surround them; and when at last it came, it carried half their fortress away with it, and they all hopped off into the water, and splashed up through it helter-skelter, with shouts of laughter, to the dry land.
"I should have enjoyed that once," thought Edith.
A party of grown-up people cantered past upon donkeys, driven by boys with big sticks. The women were clinging to the pommels of their saddles, and shrieking as they bumped along, while the men shouted, and beat and kicked the donkeys with all their might.
"Horrid, common, cruel people!" thought Edith. "How dreadful it would be to have to know them!"
A girl came riding past alone on a hired horse. She wore a rusty black skirt over her petticoats. It was gathered in by a drawing string at the waist, and made her look ludicrously bunchy. Her stirrup was too short; and she clung desperately with both hands to whip and reins and saddle, only venturing to guide her horse now and then-in a timid, half apologetic sort of way, as if she were afraid he would resent it. She must have felt far from comfortable, but probably the dream of her life had been to ride, and now that she was riding she admired herself extremely.
Edith involuntarily drew a mental picture of the contrast she herself presented on horseback. "But that girl is well and happy," she objected, to her own disadvantage.
She became aware at this moment of another girl who was passing on foot. She was one of those good-looking girls of the middle class who throng to fashionable watering-places in the season—young women with senses rampant, and minds undisciplined, impelled by natural instinct to find a mate, and practising every little art of dress and manner which they imagine will help them to that end by making them attractive. Their object is always evident in their eyes, which rove from man to man pathetically, pleadingly, anxiously, mischievously, according to their temperaments, but always with the same inquiry: "Will it be you?"
This girl had made herself by tight-lacing into a notable specimen of the peg-top figure, bulgy at the bust and shoulders, and tapering off at the waist. She had also squeezed her feet into boots that were much too small for them, and fluffed her hair out till her head seemed preposterously large—by which means she had achieved the appearance known to her set as "stylish."
When Edith first saw her she was walking along very quickly with a dissatisfied look on her face; but as she approached the window she glanced up, and, seeing Menteith, her countenance cleared; and she slackened her speed, seeming suddenly to become uncertain of the direction she wished to take. First, she half stopped, and appeared to be thinking; then she hastily put her hand in her pocket, and looked back the way she had come, as if she had lost something; then shrugged her shoulders to signify that it didn't much matter, and with a far-away look in her eyes walked slowly into the sea; this was in order that she might spring nimbly out again with a fine pretence of confusion at her affected fit of absent-mindedness.
Menteith watched these manoeuvres attentively, patiently awaiting the inevitable moment when she would look at him again. So far, she had pretended to ignore him, but he understood her tactics, and as he observed them, he twisted first one end and then the other of his little light moustache, with a self-complacency not to be concealed. He had been feeling bored all the morning, but now his interest in life revived. He had only the one interest in life, and when the girl on the beach had done all she could to excite it, she glanced at him again, and saw by the look with which he responded that she had succeeded. Then she sat down on the sand, placing herself so that she could meet his eyes every time she looked up, and taking a letter out of her pocket she began to read it, varying the expression of her countenance the while, to show that she derived great pleasure from the perusal. This was to pique Menteith into supposing that he had a rival.
The girl had not troubled herself about Edith's presence, but the latter had also been watching her wiles—dully enough, however, until all at once a thought occurred to her, a hateful thought.
It was the emotional rather than the intellectual side of her nature which had been developed by early associations. She had been accustomed to feel more than to think, and now, when all food for elevating emotions had been withdrawn from her daily life, others, mostly of a distressing kind, took possession of her mind. She had gone through all the phases of acute misery to which a girl so trained and with such a husband is liable. She had been weakened into dependence by excess of sympathy, and now was being demoralised for want of any. Menteith had hung upon her words at first, had been responsive to her every glance; but latterly he had become indifferent to both; and she knew it, without, however, comprehending the why and wherefore of the change, or of the growing sense of something wanting which was fast becoming her own normal condition. She was still fighting hard to preserve the spiritual fervour which had been the predominant characteristic of her girlhood; but, at this period of their intercourse, she knew better than to attempt to re-arouse in him that semblance of spirituality which had deluded her in their early passion-period. But she had from the first cultivated a passive attitude toward him, and that even when the natural instinct of her womanhood impelled her to war with him. In any case, however, instinct is not safeguard enough for creatures living under purely artificial conditions; they must have knowledge; and Edith had been robbed of all means of self-defence by the teaching which insisted that her only duty as a wife consisted in silent submission to her husband's will. Her intellectual life, such as it was, had stopped short from the time of her intimate association with Menteith; and her spiritual nature had been starved in close contact with him; only her senses had been nourished, and these were now being rendered morbidly active by disease. The shadow of an awful form of insanity already darkened her days. The mental torture was extreme; but she fought for her reason with the fearful malady valiantly; and all the time presented outwardly only the same dull apathy, giving no sign and speaking no word which could betray the fury of the rage within.