And Mr. Rodney again observed his boots.
"Mamma has only to sign that? She needn't eat anything?"
"Only to sign, I assure you."
"Then I am sure she will do it. She likes to see herself in print, and, as you know, has a fancy for authorship. You may have seen her name in thePall Mall MagazineandThe Lady's Realm?"
Mr. Rodney bent his head.
"Often. Then that is happily arranged. I am diningwith Mr. Lite to-night at the Crystal Palace to clinch the matter finally."
Mrs. Verulam's eyes filled with tears.
"You are dining at the Crystal Palace for me? Oh, Mr. Rodney!"
For a moment she was quite overcome. Nor was he entirely unmoved, although, manlike, he rigidly controlled the expression of a feeling that did him honour. He cleared his throat twice, it is true, but when he spoke again his voice was perfectly calm and natural.
"You will send this by messenger to Lady Sophia?"
"I will."
"And now as to your Ascot house-party."
At these words Mrs. Verulam was recalled to all her perplexities, and she involuntarily murmured:
"Chloe Van Adam!"
"Ah!" said Mr. Rodney, manifesting sudden animation, "did I hear you say Van Adam? Then you recognised my style? You read my little paragraph?"
"Your style? Your little what?"
"My little word inThe Worldthis week with reference to that sad American matter."
"Oh, then it was you who put it in?"
"I have a friend in New York, Lord Bernard Roche, who sends me news of that world with which the White Star Line and the ties of brotherhood connect us. He wrote to me full of poor Huskinson's—as he calls him—matrimonial misfortunes."
"He calls him Huskinson, too?"
"Too! That is his name. In America they have names like that."
"And Bream?"
Mr. Rodney's face expressed a cultivated surprise.
"You know about Bream? Oh, but of course, in my paragraph I——"
"And Boswell? Oh!"
"You know about Bos—but I never mentioned its name in my——"
"Her Grace the Duchess of Southborough and the Lady Pearl McAndrew!" announced James.
Mrs. Verulam, whose mind was now fastened upon the presence of Chloe in the house, and her imminent advent into the room, rose up distractedly as two ladies slowly advanced, one smiling, and one on the contrary. The former was the Duchess, the latter was her only child. Her Grace was tall, elderly, large and respectable-looking. Lady Pearl was a trifle shorter, a trifle less elderly, a trifle narrower, and a trifle—but only a trifle—less respectable-looking. The family likeness was marked, and the Southborough family was not one in which a family likeness was an unmixed benefit.
"So glad to find you at home, dear Mrs. Verulam," the Duchess said suavely, greeting Mr. Rodney also with marked cordiality. "We quite thought you would have been out on such a lovely day. What do you say? What?"
This to James, who had suddenly returned into the room to whisper respectfully in the ducal ear.
"Not enough! An extra sixpence! Certainly not. Tell him to go."
Exit James.
"But I know," her Grace continued, "that you are quite independent of the weather. In that respect you are like Southborough. He always—— What? What do you say? He won't go?"
This to James, who had made a flushed re-entry accompanied by more emphatic whisperings.
"No, I sha'n't. Tell him so. Not another penny. We only took him from Whiteley's. He knows that. What?"
Whispers from James.
"It isn't more than two miles. No, no! Certainly not."
"Can I be of any service?" murmured Mr. Rodney, seeing the footman remaining blankly.
"Oh, thank you! It is only an extortionate cabman. If you will send him away."
"Certainly."
Mr. Rodney and James departed. The Duchess, the Lady Pearl and Mrs. Verulam sat down.
"Southborough always defies the weather. He is like—was it Ajax, Pearl? you ought to know."
"I quite forget," Lady Pearl said mournfully.
Mr. Rodney came in again.
"It is quite right. Lord Birchington has gone," he said.
"Birchington! You don't mean to tell me the fellow was my brother?"
"Yes."
"Oh, I fancied I knew his face. Then that quite accounts for the attempt at extortion. Birchington is always in difficulties, and I daresay cab-driving doesn't pay too well. I hope, Mr. Rodney, you didn't give in to his demands?"
"Well, really—he seemed so convinced, that I—just a sixpence, you know."
"Dear, dear! That's the way to become poor, Mr. Rodney. You ought to take more care of your money, and not let my worthless brother prey on you. It's only two miles—not a step more. I'm so glad you are back from St. John's Wood, Mrs. Verulam. You were so difficult to get at there—even by omnibus."
"It was rather far out."
"And then the neighbourhood is hardly—— However, the Duke likes it, so I mustn't say a word against it. I believe he had rooms there or something, when he was only an eldest son. And he's always going to see them, for 'auld lang syne,' you know. Yes, I will have some tea, thank you. No sugar! Gout, you know; gout! We all have it, even poor Pearl! That's what depresses her so much."
"No, mother, it is not the gout—it is the sorrows of life."
"We must all feel that at times, I am sure," said Mr. Rodney sympathetically.
"Not if we go to Carlsbad at regular intervals," said the Duchess, who was essentially a materialist. "But one can't always afford that."
"I would rather try a sisterhood," said the Lady Pearl.
"It would be cheaper," said the Duchess appraisingly.
"It would be more retired—most apart, mother. That is the point."
Mrs. Verulam glanced in an attracted manner at Lady Pearl.
"Ah," she said; "you, too, feel the hollowness of society?"
Mr. Rodney looked painfully shocked.
"Society hollow!" he almost whispered.
"As a drum," said Lady Pearl, in a sepulchral voice. "I envy the woman to whom its doors are closed. That Mrs. Van Adam, for instance, of whom everyone is talking."
Mrs. Verulam turned scarlet, and Mr. Rodney looked gratified.
"My little paragraph seems to have been read," he murmured.
"Pearl," said the Duchess severely, "what should you know about such a person? My dear, you forget yourself."
Mrs. Verulam gasped and looked towards the door, through which at every instant she expected to see Chloe enter the room.
"Oh, Duchess!" she said in agitated protest. "Perhaps, after all, there is something to be said on her side. Mr. Van Adam may have——"
"Huskinson Van Adam is a splendid fellow, from all I can gather," Mr. Rodney ventured to suggest, a little anxious lest Mrs. Verulam's unexpected charity should compromise her in the eyes of the Duchess. "I have been at some pains to learn the truth of the matter, and I am afraid that the evidence of the Crackers could leave no doubt in any unprejudiced mind."
"The Crackers, Mr. Rodney!" cried the Duchess in her loud voice. "What had the fifth of November to say to it?"
"Crackers, Duchess, answer to your Crofters in Florida, I believe."
"Really. How very absurd!"
"Oh, but," Mrs. Verulam interposed, losing her head in the agitation and apprehension of the moment, "it was Mr. Van Adam who set the Crackers, or Crofters, or whatever you call them, against his wife. Why, and even Boswell——"
She paused, confronted by faces of unutterable amazement. And in the pause the drawing-room door was flung open, the prim soprano voice of the faithful Marriner announced "Mr. Van Adam!" and in walked a dark young man in a tweed suit.
Mrs. Verulam half rose from her sofa, leaned one trembling hand upon the back of it, and, gasping quiteaudibly, stared at the figure in the doorway as a sceptic might stare when a ghost rises to convince him. The Duchess put up her eyeglasses with keen interest to take stock of the newcomer. The Lady Pearl looked decidedly less gouty than she had a moment before. And as for Mr. Rodney, he sat as if petrified with surprise at finding the veracity of his paragraph thus impugned in full publicity, and in his very presence. Meanwhile there was a sound of violent scrabbling upon the staircase as the faithful Marriner, for once entirely dismissed from composure, made haste to gain the seclusion of a back attic, in which she could go, without delay, into a supreme fit of hysterics. And the young gentleman in the tweed suit, his hands thrust into his pockets, surveyed the assembled multitude with eyes that seemed as if about to fall out of his head.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TWEED SUIT.
Howlong the silence lasted Mrs. Verulam was never able to determine. Nor in after-days could she remember by which member of the party it was broken. As a matter of fact, however, it was the young gentleman in the tweed suit who spoke first. He took his hands out of his pockets with a sort of deliberate carefulness, walked jauntily into the room, and sharply whispered, in passing near the sofa against which poor little Mrs. Verulam was hopelessly reared up:
"Introduce me as my husband!"
Mrs. Verulam's lips were dry. Her head swam, and she saw various shapes, extremely bright in colour, dancing a sort of appalling polka before her eyes. Gazing steadily at these dancing shapes, she said in a piercing voice:
"Duchess—Mr. Van Adam!"
Then she sat down upon the springy sofa in such wise that she moved several times up and down like a cork buoyed upon the waves of the sea. And all the time she thus emulated a cork she kept her eyes fixed upon the young man in the tweed suit, who appeared to rise and fall, or rather to elongate and to diminish in telescope fashion, while he bowed before the Duchess, and received in return a dignified and smiling salutation. But the sofa subsided into a calm, and Mrs. Verulam was obliged to collect herself. Mr. Rodney was addressing her in an excited murmur:
"I had no idea, no notion at all, that you knew Mr. Van Adam."
"Oh yes."
"Besides, I fully understood he was in Florida."
"Oh no."
"This makes my paragraph all wrong."
"Oh yes."
"It is really most unfortunate."
"Oh no."
Mrs. Verulam felt like a pendulum, and that she would go on helplessly alternating affirmatives and negatives for the next century or two. But Mr. Rodney, who, being of a very precise habit, was seriously upset by being given the lie direct—in tweed, too, on a London afternoon of May!—repeated "Oh no!" in accents of such indignant amazement that Mrs. Verulam was obliged to recover her equilibrium.
"Oh yes, I mean," she said. "Oh yes, yes, yes!"
This repetition signified the approach of hysteria. The young gentleman in the tweed suit rapidly intervened.
"My kind hostess's invitation lured me from myorange-groves," he said, in his deep contralto voice, fixing his large dark eyes with a hypnotic expression upon Mrs. Verulam.
"Oh," the Duchess said, "then you are staying with Mrs. Verulam?"
"Yes," said the young gentleman, still looking at Mrs. Verulam.
"Oh yes," she began feebly. "Oh yes, yes——"
"Might I ask for a cup of tea, Mrs. Verulam?" he exclaimed, in what might, with but slight exaggeration, be called a voice of thunder.
"Certainly," she answered, putting about fifteen lumps of sugar with a shaking hand into the nearest cup. "You don't take sugar, I think?"
"Gouty?" said her Grace. "Ah, you and Pearl would sympathise. Let me introduce you to my girl. Mr. Van Adam—Lady Pearl McAndrew."
Bows.
"I am not gouty, mother," Lady Pearl said, in her morose voice. "I am only melancholy. And that"—she addressed herself to the tweed suit—"is because I cannot, I will not, blind myself to the actual condition of the world I see around me."
"Oh, my dear," said the Duchess, "Carlsbad would cure you. But," she added to the tweed suit, "unfortunately, I can't afford to send her there just at present."
The Lady Pearl grew large with vexation, as people of sensitive nature will when, having elaborately surrounded themselves with an interesting atmosphere, they find it ruthlessly dissipated by a Philistine allusion to uric acid. She seemed about to make some almost apoplectic rejoinder when Mr. Rodney mellifluously chipped in.
"I believe in the climate of Florida gout is practicallyunknown," he said, speaking obliquely towards the tweed suit. "My friend, Lord Bernard Roche"—he paused, expectant of some eager exclamation from the person whom Lord Bernard in his letters called "poor old Huskinson." But none came. "Lord Bernard Roche, now in New York—City"—he again paused, and once more in vain—"tells me so."
His conclusion was a trifle flurried. When we don't get what we want, in conversation, we are apt to be put to confusion. Mr. Rodney looked very hard indeed at the tweed suit, and then, although not introduced, added to it:
"I think you know Lord Bernard? He tells me so in his very charming and entertaining letters."
"Oh yes—Lord Bernard—oh yes, certainly," exclaimed the tweed suit, with a sudden flaring vivacity.
"A very sympathetic nature," Mr. Rodney continued, in softest music. "I am sure that you have found it so. A man to go to confidently in any trouble."
"Oh, certainly. Most undoubtedly yes."
The Duchess had caught Mr. Rodney's gracious innuendo, and she now chimed in, with her most basso-profondo manner:
"Ah, Mr. Van Adam! but in London you must forget all your troubles. London is the most cheerful place imaginable."
"Oh, mother!"
"Yes, Pearl, it is for a healthy person. No doubt," to the tweed, "you are staying for the season?"
The tweed looked towards Mrs. Verulam, and then, after a perceptible pause, answered:
"Yes."
"Well, then," continued her Grace, who was aware ofHuskinson Van Adam's millionaire propensities, "you will soon be quite cheerful again, I'll warrant. You have been over before, I suppose?"
"In Paris. I know Paris quite well, but not London."
"Paris is horrible," said the Lady Pearl. "The Bois de Boulogne makes me sick."
Mr. Rodney's smooth hair nearly stood on end. Hearing Paris decried was to his social and orthodox nature like blasphemy to the ears of an exceptionally pious Pope. Such sayings ran in his veins like ice-cold water, and almost gave him pneumonia. But, ere he could utter his illness, another personality was added to the group in Mrs. Verulam's drawing-room. This was a round and swart young man, with spectacles, short legs, and a conceited manner. Probably he was announced by the footman. But he seemed simply to be in the room, to have greeted everyone except the tweed suit, to have sat down, taken a cup of tea, and said, "Paris is the only place in the world!" before a person desirous of doing so could exclaim "Knife!"
Such was the rapidity of that ardent creature—Mr. Ingerstall, artist and egoist.
"Paris, I repeat," he reiterated, looking all round him, and speaking with a clipping utterance, "is the only place in the world."
And he began to drink his tea with extraordinary swiftness of absorption. No man on earth could assimilate a liquid in a shorter space of time than Mr. Ingerstall. In his hands the commonest actions assumed the dignity of feats. In his mouth the most ordinary remarks took on an aspect of Mount Sinai.
Mr. Rodney breathed again. Paris had found a defender. The Lady Pearl did not appear angry atbeing contradicted. She was accustomed to it, and custom is everything. She looked mildly at Mr. Ingerstall and said:
"Really!"
Mr. Ingerstall handed his cup to Mrs. Verulam in order that it might be refilled. Then, staring hard at the tweed suit, towards whom, as a stranger, he thought it fit to address his educational remarks, he cried:
"Really! There is no art except in Paris, no possibility of dining out of Paris, no good dressmaker beyond the limits of Paris, no perfect language except the perfect language of Paris, no gaiety, no nerve, no acting, no dancing, no love-making worthy of the name, but in Paris!"
"Then, Mr. Ingerstall, why on earth do you always live in London?" the Duchess said heavily.
"Because I find more caricatures there," said Mr. Ingerstall, taking the second cup of tea from Mrs. Verulam's hands with the manner of a conjurer at the head of his profession.
And again he stared at the tweed suit; then he turned to Mrs. Verulam and exclaimed:
"Please introduce me to that gentleman."
"Mr. Ingerstall—Mrs.—Mr. Van Adam," said Mrs. Verulam.
It seemed to her that everybody in London was in her drawing-room intent on the acquaintance of the hybrid friend who had brought her to such confusion. Nevertheless, she found some comfort in the fact that, so far, the tweed suit was accepted as genuine. But Mr. Ingerstall's eyes were terribly sharp; and, then, he wore spectacles. And what can be hidden from a vision naturally acute, and aided by glasses of enormous power? Mrs. Verulam trembled.
"You know Paris?" said Mr. Ingerstall to the tweed suit.
"Yes; quite well."
"You agree with me, then?"
"Certainly," said the tweed suit, moving rather uneasily under the piercing gaze of the artist.
Mr. Ingerstall's swart face was irradiated with a triumphal grin, which was distinctly simian. He turned to the Duchess: "There, your Grace," he said; "you see there are others of my opinion."
"Ah! but Mr. Van Adam doesn't know London yet," the Duchess retorted.
"Then I'll show it him!" cried Mr. Ingerstall, with a glee that was diabolic. "I'll show him Madame Tussaud's, the Piccadilly fountain, the mosaics—heaven preserve us all!—in St Paul's, "glowing with life and colour," as the poor dear Chapter expresses it, the Royal Academy—at its very best this year—the sublime architecture of Buckingham Palace, the restaurants out of which you are turned at half-past twelve, after mumbling the final course of your abbreviated supper by the light of a tallow-candle. Oh, I'll show Mr. Adams London!"
"Van Adam," interposed Mr. Rodney restoratively.
"Mr. Van Adam, London. Will you come with me?"
He thrust this last remark at the tweed suit, which replied in a rather muffled voice:
"Thank you very much."
"That's settled, then," said Mr. Ingerstall, hastily devouring a lozenge-shaped cake covered with pink sugar; "and then we'll see, Duchess, whether this gentleman doesn't swear by blessed Paris to the end of his life."
"Oh, really, Mr. Ingerstall, you ought to go to the Morgue instead of to heaven when you die," her Gracerejoined tartly, as she turned with great deliberation to Mrs. Verulam. "What are your plans for the season, Mrs. Verulam? Are you going to Ascot?"
Mr. Rodney looked at his boots and endeavoured modestly to conceal the simple and unostentatious fact that he felt himself a hero. Mrs. Verulam hesitatingly replied:
"I haven't thought much about it as yet."
But this was too much for Mr. Rodney. To be snatched suddenly from the summit of a candlestick and incontinently shovelled away under a bushel is an event calculated to rouse the temper of the very mildestflaneurwho ever wore polished boots. Mr. Rodney's fiddle face assumed a sudden look of stern resolution, and in a voice a trifle louder than usual he almost exclaimed:
"Mrs. Verulam has secured through me the finest house in the neighbourhood of the course."
"If you want to go racing, you really ought to run across the Channel and go to Longchamps," began Mr. Ingerstall with intense rapidity.
But the Duchess had had enough of him, and when the Duchess had had enough of anybody, she could be like a park of artillery and a stone wall combined. She could both decimate and offer a blank and eyeless resistance to attack. On the present occasion she preferred to become a stone wall to the chattering artist, and, presenting to him the entirety of her back, she said with animation to Mr. Rodney:
"Indeed! Which house d'you mean?"
"Ribton Marches," that gentleman responded, in a way that was nearly unbridled.
"The Bun Emperor's palace!" exclaimed her Grace in a thrilling bass. "Mrs. Verulam, you are a public benefactor. Is Mr. Van Adam to be of your party?"
Mrs. Verulam looked helplessly across at the tweed suit as if for orders. Apparently she received them, for she suddenly said, "Yes," with a jerk.
The Duchess glanced from the sombre countenance of the Lady Pearl to the tweed suit. It was evident from her protuberant eyeballs that her mind was busily at work.
"Ribton Marches is a palace," she continued; "it would hold a regiment."
"Oh!" interposed Mr. Rodney, "I scarcely think that Mr. Lite would care to entertain a——"
"I know Mr. Lite very well," the Duchess interrupted; "a most worthy, generous man. He has given me thousands of buns from time to time."
"Does your Grace eat so many?" said the rasping voice of Mr. Ingerstall from behind. "If you wish to get a really perfect bun, go to the Maison——"
"For the school-children on the Duke's estates," the Duchess continued inflexibly. "It has been a very great saving for us; and, in return, all we have had to do is to let the good man use our names in his advertising processes. 'Your buns are exquisite'—the phrase was mine. You can see it in theDaily Telegraphany day."
At the phrase, "your buns are exquisite," the phantom of a superior smile flitted beneath the shadow of Mr. Rodney's sinister moustache. He was thinking of the choice bit of prose to which the name of Lady Sophia Tree was so soon to be appended.
"Have you made up your house-party yet?" the Duchess proceeded blandly to Mrs. Verulam.
"Not yet. Indeed"—here Mrs. Verulam shot a rather cruel glance out of her grey eyes at Mr. Rodney—"indeed, the matter of my having the house——"
"The palace," interjected the Duchess.
"Is scarcely finally settled yet."
"I clinch it to-night at the Crystal Palace," murmured Mr. Rodney through his teeth.
"The Crystal Palace!" cried Mr. Ingerstall; "there's a glass house at which everybody should throw stones. Burmese warriors made of chocolate, or something of the kind, plaster statues of Melancholy, sardines in boxes mixed up with jet bracelets and bicycle exhibitions, a concert-room like a fourth-rate swimming-bath, a—but you shall see it," he cried to the tweed suit, who again replied hastily:
"Thank you very much."
"If your party is not made up, Mrs. Verulam," the Duchess resumed, "I am sure the Duke and I and Pearl will be most happy to join it."
"Indeed, mother," said the Lady Pearl grievously, "I do not wish——"
"My dear, nonsense; it will do your gout a great deal of good, breathing the pine-laden air, if Mrs. Verulam can find room for you——"
"I shall be delighted," said Mrs. Verulam, whose mental condition at the moment rendered her quite prepared to accept any proposition, even of murder or arson, that might be made to her.
"Then that is settled," the Duchess said briskly, rustling the skirt of her gown as a signal of her imminent departure. "It will be an advantage to you to have me at Ribton Marches, because I know all the ins and outs of the place. The Duke and I lunched there with Mr. Lite to sign our little token of approbation of his buns, and he showed me everything. Well, really, we must be getting on. Come, Pearl——"
The Lady Pearl rose wearily. Her face still expressed either a tendency to gout or an understanding of life; but it must be confessed that, as she looked towards the tweed suit and bowed a dignified farewell, a trace of animation crept into her manner, and she looked more distinctly less respectable than the Duchess than she had on her entry into Mrs. Verulam's drawing-room. The Duchess cordially shook the tweed suit's hand at parting.
"Come and see us," she said vigorously.
"Many thanks."
"Come to-morrow."
The reply was a rather faint, "With pleasure."
"Mrs. Verulam will give you our address—Belgrave Square. You can get a bus from the corner of Hamilton Place that will put you down at—oh, but of course that doesn't matter to you. I wish the Duke had an orange-grove. Good-bye, Mr. Ingerstall."
She looked him over meditatively; then she said:
"Perhaps you won't mind just coming out with us to hail a—thank you very much. Good-bye."
She proceeded out of the room, followed by Lady Pearl and Mr. Ingerstall, the latter of whom turned sharply at the door to say to the tweed suit:
"Very well, then; I'll come to-morrow morning to show you London, and increase your commendable love of Paris. Ah! when you see the mosaics—mercy on us!"
He shot out of the room with his short arms raised towards heaven. A moment later they heard his voice piercingly hailing a bus outside for the Duchess.
Meanwhile Mr. Rodney was being terriblyde trop. Mrs. Verulam had now come to what is called the end of the tether. She wanted to bounce up from her sofa, take Mr. Rodney by the shoulders, thrust him forciblyout of the house, and then go into violent hysterics. This was what she wanted to do. What she had to do was to sit quiet and see him becoming suspicious, and, finally, jealous of the tweed suit, which also wanted to go into hysterics. Mr. Rodney was considerably exercised, first by finding that he had apparently told a lie in theWorld, secondly, by being made suddenly aware that Mrs. Verulam had a male friend of whom she had never spoken to him, and, moreover, a friend so intimate that she summoned him from the orange-groves of Florida to stay alone with her in London, all divorced as he was. All this greatly perturbed him, and so soon as the Duchess was gone he promised himself the pleasure of probing, with his usual exquisite dexterity, into the problem so abruptly presented to him. He therefore sat tight, and began to look very observant. Mrs. Verulam was gripped by the cold hands of despair. She forced a faded smile.
"You mustn't forget your engagement at the Crystal Palace, Mr. Rodney," she said, with a terrible effort after sprightliness.
Mr. Rodney grew wrinkled, a habit of his when forced into painful thought.
"I am not likely to forget any detail of my service to you," he said, with a pressure that tended in the direction of emphasis. "But we do not dine till half-past eight."
"The trains are very slow on that line, I believe," Mrs. Verulam added, with a vagueness as to the different railway systems that would have made her fortune as a director.
"Still, they do not take three hours to do the six miles," said Mr. Rodney, with a distinct approach to sarcasm.
Mrs. Verulam collapsed. There was no more fightleft in her. She shut her eyes very tightly and tried not to breathe hard. When she opened them again Mr. Rodney was looking at the tweed suit in a very crafty manner.
"I have heard much of you, Mr. Van Adam," he said slowly.
"Indeed!"
"Yes. I have even had the pleasure of writing a little word about you."
The tweed suit started.
"May I ask where?"
Mr. Rodney laid his long white hand gently upon theWorld.
"Here."
The word dropped from him like a pebble. The tweed suit flushed scarlet, and its dark eyes darted a look of boyish fury upon the demure writer of paragraphs. But it only said, in a voice that slightly shook:
"Indeed!"
"May I have the pleasure of showing you?" said Mr. Rodney, gently unfolding the journal for men and women, and laying one finger upon the Van Adam paragraph. The tweed suit pretended to read it carefully. "You will notice a slight mistake at the close," Mr. Rodney continued in a resentful voice, and glancing from the tweed suit to Mrs. Verulam and back again. "It would not have crept in" (errors have no other gait than that generally attributed to the insect world) "had I known that we were to have the unexpected pleasure of welcoming you to London."
"Thank you very much."
Mr. Rodney had now set foot upon the path of magnanimity. He bit his lower lip, and took another step upon it.
"I shall be glad to rectify my error next week," he said.
"I am obliged to you."
"In the meanwhile, anything that I can do to render your short"—he paused interrogatively; there was no rejoinder, and he continued—"stay among us agreeable, I shall be only too happy to accomplish."
The tweed suit bowed convulsively, and Mrs. Verulam began to breathe audibly upon her sofa.
"Mitching Dean," Mr. Rodney added, with a sense of glorious martyrdom, "Mitching Dean is entirely at your service."
"Mitching Dean!" the tweed suit repeated, with a befogged intonation.
"Yes. Its butter, its roof, its roses——"
"Roses!" said the suit, as if trying to break an intolerable spell. "Ah! the English roses are exquisite! I have some dark-red ones in my room here."
Mrs. Verulam coughed sharply. Mr. Rodney's face grew a dull brick-red.
"Dark-red roses in your room?" he said. He looked rapidly at all the drawing-room vases, and then cast a pale and reproachful glance at Mrs. Verulam. Then he got up slowly. He felt that his investigation into the relations of the pretty widow and the divorced American orange-grower could not be pursued satisfactorily in such a moment of confusion and despair. He must have time for thought. To-night he would free himself as early as might be from the thraldom of the Bun Emperor. He would wander amid the japanned-tin groves of the Crystal Palace. He would seek the poetical solitude afforded by an exhibition of motor-cars, or plunge into the peaceful villages of the chocolate-hued and inanimate Burmese.To-night! to-night! He must think; he must collect himself; he must reason; he must plan.
"My train," he murmured a little frantically; "I must catch it. I must go! I must indeed!"
He spoke as if multitudes were endeavouring to hold him, and keep him back from a stern purpose. He pressed Mrs. Verulam's hand. "Cruel!" he murmured. He bowed to the tweed suit. "Au revoir!" He was at the door. "My train! Good-bye!" He was gone, and instantly Mrs. Verulam on her sofa, the tweed suit on its chair, were in violent hysterics.
Had Mr. Rodney left his hat behind by mistake and returned to fetch it, he must have stood on the threshold petrified. As there is often a method in madness, so there is sometimes a hilarity in hysteria. There is the frantic laughter of the human soul making a sudden and distracted exit from the prison in which it has been gradually accumulating a frightful excess of emotion. It leaps out with hyæna cry, and with the virulent cachinnations of a thing inhuman. Mrs. Verulam's shriek of laughter as the hall-door closed behind Mr. Rodney's thin back was far more terrible than Chloe Van Adam's burst of tears. It flew up like a monstrous and horrible balloon, seeming to take form, to sway, to swell as a gas-filled bladder, to burst with a tearing desperation, to die down in a chuckle of agony. And as the laughter of Mrs. Verulam faded with the sharp swiftness of hysteria into a flood of tears, the tears of Chloe Van Adam bloomed into a shriek of laughter. The two women took it in turns, as the children say, to leap to the opposite poles of emotion, until the footman James, below stairs, the faithful Marriner above, heard and trembled.
But all things must have an end, and at last thewaves of tumult receded and receded, the laughter leaped lower, the sobs subsided, and presently an awful silence reigned, broken only by the sound of female pants—not the rustle of rational dress, but the murmur of escaping breaths, long, bronchial, and persistent. And then even these died away, till you might have heard the note of the falling pin upon the receptive carpet.
"Chloe!"
"Daisy!"
"Oh, oh, oh!"
"Ah, ah, ah!"
"Oh, don't—don't, or I shall begin again."
"So shall I! Oh, let us keep quiet! Oh, do let us—oh, do let us—oh——"
"Hush!" cried Mrs. Verulam. And suddenly she sprang up, went over to the tweed suit, clasped it in her arms and kissed it. "There, there!" she said; "it's all over now. Oh, but why did you do it?"
"But why did you say that nobody would be let in?"
"I told Francis I was out. He must have forgotten to tell James. He shall leave me to-morrow."
"And I thought I would give you a little surprise."
"You did! You did! When I saw you at the door I thought I should have died!"
"And I wanted to be elsewhere."
"And Marriner! The extraordinary noise she made running upstairs. She fell down twice. I heard her."
Mrs. Verulam leaned against Chloe and laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks, but this time with honest merriment. And Chloe echoed her with a delicious emulation. That gaiety did them good. A sense of humour is often salvation. And, indeed, they might have been laughing now had not their silver joviality been arrested by aflat-handed thump on the drawing-room door. They stopped and looked at each other. The flat-handed thump was repeated.
"Who on earth can this be?" whispered Mrs. Verulam apprehensively. "Come in!"
The door stole open and the faithful Marriner appeared, with twisted features, red eyes, and betouzled hair.
"Oh, ma'am!" she said. "Oh, my! Oh, dear, oh!"
She advanced into the room with her poor feet turned in, and wringing her horrified hands. Her black dress was torn at the knees, showing how she had fallen as she scrambled atticwards. Mrs. Verulam looked at the dress, remembered once more the noise of the tumbles, and laughed again till the tears ran out of her eyes.
"Poor Marriner!" she said. "Poor dear Marriner! Mr. Van Adam, Marriner!" (She mimicked the voice of announcement.) "Mr. Van Adam!"
The faithful Marriner's complexion turned a blackish grey.
"Oh, ma'am, forgive me—forgive me!" she cried.
In another minute she might have been led to go back upon the whole course of her education, and to utter some such damning exclamation as "I didn't go for to do it!" but mercifully Chloe averted that imminent calamity by saying:
"There, there, Marriner! Never mind. I made you. It was all my fault. Besides, there is no serious harm done. At least, is there, Daisy?"
And she turned reflectively to Mrs. Verulam.
"Please shut the door, Marriner," Mrs. Verulam said.
The faithful Marriner did so, and then returned, still on turned-in deplorable feet.
"And now let us be quite calm, and consider," Mrs.Verulam said. "Marriner, you may sit down for a moment."
Marriner sank upon the edge of a chair, and tried to fold her hands respectfully, but failed. She could not so soon command her body.
"Nobody recognised you, Chloe," said Mrs. Verulam; "not even Mr. Ingerstall?"
"Horrid little man! No!"
"They all think you your husband?"
"Yes, they take me for Huskinson." A light sprang up in her eyes. "In fact, so far as they are concerned, I am a man!"
"Tcha, tcha, tcha!" clicked Marriner, making the condemnatory noise so dear to limited natures in moments of tension or surprise.
"Oh, Daisy, I wonder, would it be possible——"
She stopped and looked doubtfully at Marriner.
"Marriner is absolutely to be trusted," Mrs. Verulam answered to the look.
"Oh yes, ma'am!" said the faithful one, beginning gradually to recover.
"Well, then—could I not? No, Daisy, I must speak to you alone! I know that Marriner will keep the secret of this afternoon."
"Oh, ma'am, with my best blood!" cried Marriner, vaguely quoting from historical novels, but meaning well.
She got up, gained the door, turned, repeated in a high voice "With my best blood, ma'am!" and went softly out.
"Well, Chloe, what is it?"
"Didn't you tell me you longed to get out of society and couldn't?"
"Yes. I long to get out gracefully, and—er—just alittle bit later on in the season. You see, dear, there's the Ascot house, and the Duke and Duchess coming. I must stay in the cage till the race week's over."
And Mrs. Verulam looked at Chloe a little awkwardly, all the problems presented by the Florida divorce suit returning upon her.
"And I must stay in it, too, just—just till that lovely week's over," Chloe said with a coaxing accent. "Just till then, Daisy. I must see the Bun Emperor's palace, and Mr. Pettingham's coloured slides, and the Prince and Princess, and Sartorius—oh, I must! I must!"
"But how?"
"As Huskinson."
"What?"
Mrs. Verulam's voice grew shrill. But Chloe was persistent.
"Why not?" she urged with tender cunning. "You see I can do it. Nobody will recognise me. Huskinson has never been in London, and has no London friends. Women have lived as men before me. I read of one in the papers who was a sailor for forty years without being discovered, and of another who fought in battles, and got drunk, and swore, and was a man in every way."
"My dear Chloe, you mustn't drink! Oh, but it's impossible!"
"No; but listen. It's heaven-sent—this mistake, I mean. I only intended to show you alone I could be a man. But now, Daisy, you want to get out of society! I want to get into it. We can do it together—one go in, one get out, like the little man and woman in the cardboard barometer. Let me stay here as Huskinson. You can compromise yourself harmlessly with me, and I canhave a good time just for a month or two, just till after Ascot, anyway."
"You will have to see the mosaics!" said Mrs. Verulam.
"I'll bear that. I'll bear anything. The game is worth the candle. Oh yes, it is. And then, after Ascot, I'll vanish—you'll perhaps be dropped. It's a perfect plan. Now, isn't it? Isn't it?"
"Really, it is not bad," said Mrs. Verulam. "Yes, I might get out of the cage through you, and yet preserve my self-respect."
"Of course you might. I say it's heaven-sent."
"Heaven-sent—but Francis!"
This suddencri de cœuralarmed Chloe for her friend's reason.
"Heaven—Francis!" she said helplessly.
What could such words mean but that poor Daisy's reason was tottering upon its throne?
"The footman who let you in when you arrived! The footman who shall leave my service to-morrow. How to keep his mouth shut! Wait! Did anyone else see you?"
"Not a creature."
Mrs. Verulam knit her pretty brows.
"Francis loves Marriner," she said, in an inward voice of subtle meditation. "Francis loves Marriner."
She paused.
"Does he? Why?"
"I can't think, but he does. It isn't only that Marriner told me so, but he did himself; so I suppose it's true. Chloe, if we are to do this dreadful thing, Francis' affection must be played upon."
"It sounds like a flower and a hose."
"It's a footman's heart and a woman's cleverness.Marriner shall accept Francis on the condition of his keeping our secret from everyone, especially from James."
"I see. It's all perfect. Oh, except my clothes!"
"Your clothes! Why, you've got them on!"
"But only these! I must have frock-coats, lavender pants—trousers, I mean—silk hats, clawhammers, and—and—well, you know, Daisy—other things. I can't have a man to measure me; at least, can I?"
Mrs. Verulam thought silently for a moment. Then she said: "You must be ill."
"Why?"
"For a day or two. Your tweed shall go to a first-rate tailor. Francis—Francis has been valet to the Marquis of Greenbank. He'll know all about that. We'll measure your head in bed, and get the hats. Yes, yes, we'll manage it all. Poor Mr. Rodney!"
A mischievous smile, the true little grin of the coquette, curled her sweet lips.
"They were his roses I put into your room, Chloe," she said.
And Chloe laughed and echoed, "Poor Mr. Rodney!" Then she added, "And James Bush, dear?"
Mrs. Verulam blushed.
"Come, dear, it is time for you to be ill," she said hastily. And she took the tweed suit affectionately by the waist and led it from the room.
CHAPTER V.
CHLOE WAITS FOR HER TROUSERS.
"Kindlytell Mr. Van Adam that I have come to take him to St Paul's Cathedral to see the mosaics," cried Mr.Ingerstall, at three o'clock on the following afternoon, to the smiling Francis.
"Mr. Van Adam is ill in bed, sir."
"Ill in bed!" shrieked Mr. Ingerstall. "What with?"
"I couldn't say, sir."
And the smile of Francis widened till it nearly touched the ears on either side of his head. Mr. Ingerstall looked very angry indeed. When he had arranged to show a man an atrocity at a certain fixed hour, he considered that man ought to be well enough to see it.
"I don't understand this at all," he snapped. "When did Mr. Van Adam go to bed?"
"Yesterday afternoon, sir. Very soon after you left, sir."
"He looked quite well."
"That was an accident, sir."
"An accident! What d'you mean?"
"His looking well when he was ill, sir."
Mr. Ingerstall glared up at Francis through his enormous spectacles, as if he would read the footman's soul. Having read it, he could make nothing of it. So he darted one fat hand into his pocket, snatched out a card-case, extracted a card with lightning dexterity, gave it to Francis, exclaimed, "I shall call to show Mr. Van Adam the mosaics to-morrow at three precisely!" and marched away with immense rapidity, throwing sharp glances around him at all the passers-by, and rolling his broad little body as if accommodating himself to the turbulent waters of the Bay of Biscay. Francis went on smiling upon the doorstep for the space of a moment, and was just about to retreat into the hall and close the front door, when a private cab, painted very dark green and black, drove up, and the long face of Mr. Rodney peered forth over the apron.
"Is Mrs. Verulam at home?" he asked plaintively.
Francis stepped out to the pavement.
"She is not at home, sir, but I can ask if she will see you, sir."
"Please do so," said Mr. Rodney. "I have some important news for her."
Francis retired, and came back in a moment to say that Mrs. Verulam would receive Mr. Rodney. The latter released himself from his hansom, bearing a quantity of carnations from Mitching Dean, and ascended the stairs, wearing on his countenance a carefully prepared expression of almost defiant resignation. He found Mrs. Verulam, in a delightful robe of palest primrose silk, sitting at her writing-table, and holding in her hand a pen which had that moment traced the magic words, "My dear Mr. Bush." She smiled at him in her most cordial manner as she accepted his flowers.
"Carnations!" she said.
"From Mitching Dean."
"They are lovely. Thank you so much!"
"Not at all. May I venture to hope that—that they are worthy of a place in your own room?"
"I will have them put in water there at once."
She rang the bell and gave the bouquet to Francis, with orders that the faithful Marriner was at once to dispose the flowers about her boudoir. Mr. Rodney's face expressed a gentle relief. He almost permitted himself the luxury of a cheerful smile as he sat down and prepared to unfold his last new mission.
"I was just writing the invitations for my Ascot party," Mrs. Verulam said lightly.
"Ah, it was about that I ventured to call," said Mr. Rodney, with a thin animation. "Last night I succeededin my endeavour. I put the corner-stone to my temple of negotiations. I clinched the bargain with Mr. Lite."
"How good of you! What was the dinner like?"
Mr. Rodney went a little pale, and hurried on:
"But there are one or two conditions. I wanted to speak with you about them."
"Oh," said Mrs. Verulam, going to a drawer and taking out an envelope. "Here is mamma's signature to the praise of the buns. There was nothing else, was there?"
"Thank you very much," said Mr. Rodney, taking it carefully. "It will be all right. But I must tell you"—he lowered his voice impressively—"that Mr. Lite is a man of singularly tenacious affections."
"Indeed!"
"I scarcely knew how tenacious until—well, until we were wandering among the steel-knife exhibits last night after dinner."
Mrs. Verulam involuntarily shuddered.
"For it was only then that he was moved fully to unbosom himself to me, fully to reveal the depths of a peculiar—I may say a very peculiar character."
Mr. Rodney paused, as if to choose his words, and then resumed:
"I gathered then that the soul of Mr. Lite is the—the residence of two masterful passions, the one a keen desire to obtain the very best names in England as signatures in praise of his—er—his wares, the other an affection amounting—yes, really, I may say amounting almost to fury, for what he calls 'the home.' Now, as you may suppose, on an occasion such as that of last evening, these two extraordinary passions found themselves in opposition—in acute opposition."
"How terrible!"
"It really was. There were moments, I must confess, in which I should have been relieved if the present exhibition at the Crystal Palace had been of a somewhat different nature. However, nothing of that kind happened, I am thankful to say."
Mrs. Verulam assented, and he continued softly:
"And, indeed, Lady Sophia's name won the day. That I may tell you at once. But having indulged the former of his two passions, Mr. Lite became suddenly the slave—to some extent, only to some extent—of the latter. And this is what I wish to consult you about."
"Yes."
"He will, with his devoted wife—'the wife,' as he somewhat exclusively calls her; he has no family—turn out of 'the home' for the space of six clear days, Monday to Saturday inclusive; but he cannot bring himself to leave the neighbourhood or to allow a strange staff of servants to intrude into Ribton Marches. Therefore he makes, or wishes to make, these conditions: that you retain his servants—there are plenty of them, I may tell you—to wait upon your party, and that you permit him and 'the wife' to lodge for the week in a small fishing-cottage that stands at the edge of a piece of artificial water beyond the small pine-wood at the outskirts of the grounds."
"Oh, Mr. Rodney, but——"
"He promises that they will regard the grounds as yours, and that under no circumstances whatever will they emerge from the seclusion of the fishing-cottage."
Mrs. Verulam brightened up.
"Oh, under those conditions I have no objection. But it would be very unpleasant to have a man of violent temper prowling about and spying upon what my guests were doing in his garden or conservatories."
"Intolerable! intolerable! But the Bun Emperor is a man of his word, I feel sure; and, indeed, he offers to accept these conditions in black and white, and to sign his name to them if you wish it."
"Oh dear, no!" Mrs. Verulam said hastily, with all a woman's usual dislike to anything business-like.
"Then that's comfortably arranged," Mr. Rodney said.
He looked at his boots for a couple of minutes, then glanced away and added:
"I hope your guest, Huskinson Van Adam, is well?"
Mrs. Verulam concealed a smile by looking very miserable suddenly.
"Indeed, I am sorry to say he is not at all well."
"Dear, dear!"
"In fact, he is in bed. He is not able to be up."
"I am grieved. What is the matter?"
"Nervous prostration."
"Following upon the shock of his wife's dreadful conduct, I suppose?"
"Possibly."
Mrs. Verulam stole a glance at Mr. Rodney, and continued with gentle artfulness:
"I think he must love her still."
At these words Mr. Rodney brightened up wonderfully.
"Poor fellow!" he said; "poor fellow! I must get him up some melons from Mitching Dean. Americans like them. And the Mitching Dean melons are marvellously nourishing."
"It will be like your usual kind self."
Mr. Rodney bloomed into absolute vivacity under these gentle breezes of good-nature.
"And now," he said, "about the party. RibtonMarches will, as the Duchess says, hold a regiment. There are dozens of bedrooms, and the reception-rooms are very large."
"Oh," Mrs. Verulam said, "I only mean to have quite a little party—eight in all, including myself—four women and four men."
"Yes?"
"The Duchess, Lady Pearl, myself, the Duke, you, dear Mr. Rodney"—Mr. Rodney bowed happily—"Mr. Ingerstall, to worry the Duchess—you know how overwhelming she is if there is nobody about to worry her—Mr. James Bush, and Mr. Van Adam."
Mr. Rodney calculated gravely.
"But that is three ladies and five men," he said.
"No, indeed!" Mrs. Verulam grew red under the swift knowledge of her absurd mistake, and cried: "Oh yes, of course. How stupid of me! That won't do, will it? Never mind; I'll ask Miss Bindler, Lord Kingsbridge's sister—you know how fond she is of racing—and someone else."
She was obviously confused for a moment. Mr. Rodney attributed her condition to a wrong cause, prompted by the jealousy that almost habitually preyed upon him in regard to Mrs. Verulam. His mind instantly fastened upon the only name in the list that was totally unfamiliar to him.
"Mr. James Bush?" he murmured enquiringly.
Mrs. Verulam recovered herself promptly, but a curious shining look came into her grey eyes as she answered:
"Of the Farm, Bungay Marshes, Lisborough."
"Of the Farm, Bungay Marshes, Lisborough?"
"You have not heard of him?"
"I don't think so. Which are his clubs?"
"His clubs? Oh, he doesn't belong to any."
Mr. Rodney looked almost prostrated. A man who didn't belong to any clubs joining Mrs. Verulam's select little Ascot party at Ribton Marches!
"James Bush does not care for anything of that kind," Mrs. Verulam went on, with a thrill of something very like enthusiasm.
"Indeed!" said Mr. Rodney, with a frosty intonation of wonder.
"Oh no; he never comes to London. Did I never mention him to you?"
"Never."
"I met him some time ago in the country, quite by chance," Mrs. Verulam said airily.
"Really?"
"Yes. We fraternised."
"Oh!"
"I found him a most interesting, intelligent man; full of enthusiasm."
"Enthusiasm! How very odd!" Mr. Rodney said, as if to be full of enthusiasm were to be full of some extraordinary disease.
"For his work."
"He is a workman?"
"He is a gardener—that is to say, he has a garden and a small farm, as he tells me. And he attends to them himself, with the help of an elderly labourer, Jacob Minnidick."
If it were possible for Mr. Rodney's long and sallow face to become more astounded than it had been during the progress of this conversation, it became so at the mention of this name.
"Jacob Minnidick!" he repeated in tones of flagrant amazement. "Jacob Minnidick!"
The name really laid him low, like a blow from the shoulder. He had never heard one like it before, and it seemed to take him straight into a different and dreadful world.
"Yes. Isn't it a pretty name? I am very much interested in Mr. Bush. It is he who has made me wish to give up society."
In her excitement Mrs. Verulam had spoken incautiously. She had hardly meant to go so far so soon. Mr. Rodney's veins suddenly swelled. His mouth opened, and he looked as if he were going to have some dreadful fit. He clenched his hands, and seemed to struggle for air. Mrs. Verulam was really terrified.
"Oh, Mr. Rodney, Mr. Rodney! what is it? what is it?" she exclaimed.
Mr. Rodney put up one long hand to his high collar, intruded a couple of fingers within its circle, and pulled it outwards, at the same time screwing his head rapidly from side to side. Mrs. Verulam was about to rush to the bell in terror when, with a convulsive effort, he collected himself.
"Please don't," he said.
Mrs. Verulam didn't, but she was still very much alarmed.
"What is it? what is it?" she repeated. "Oh, please do tell me."
Mr. Rodney got up, walked to the window, and back again, and then stood still.
"Made you wish to give up society!" he said in a sepulchral voice. "Do you really mean that?"
"But surely that was not the reason of your seizure?"
"Indeed it was. Nothing else could have so affected me."
He spoke with the deepest feeling. Mrs. Verulam was almost touched.
"I am so sorry. But I thought it was physical."
He sat down again.
"An access occasioned by horror of mind," he said. "That you—that anyone, but most especially that you—should wish to give up society! What an appalling notion!" He put his hand up again to his collar, but withdrew it. "Horrible! Unnatural!" he murmured.
"I cannot agree with you," Mrs. Verulam said, recovering her composure.
He looked at her almost with fear.
"What—what is the meaning of this possession?" he said. "Who is this man, this person—Bush?"
Mrs. Verulam flushed angrily.
"Please don't speak of my friends like that," she said.
"I beg your pardon. I will go. I had better go. I must have air—I must have air."
And he rose and tottered out, leaving Mrs. Verulam in a state of mingled indignation and alarm. She went to the window, and saw Francis assisting him into the black-and-green cab. His upward movements to reach the step were like those of one decrepit with age. When the cab had driven slowly away in the direction of Piccadilly, she sat down at the writing-table and went on with her interrupted note.
"My dear Mr. Bush,"I remember very well, when we met at Basildene on that unforgettable day when you were helping my friend Mrs. Ringden to swarm her bees—is that the right expression?—you told me of your righteous hatred against the doings of society, and expressed your unalterabledetermination never to enter what is, ridiculously enough perhaps, called the gay world. Nevertheless, I want to persuade you to take a little holiday from your noble labour of working in your garden, and seeing after your farm at Bungay, and to join me at Ascot in June for the race week. I see a 'No' rising to your lips. But wait a moment before uttering it. Let me tell you first that, moved by weariness of my empty life in town, and stirred by your example and your maxims—'There's nought like pea-podding,' etc.—I intend to retire from society at the end of June, and to emulate your beautiful intimacy with Mother Nature. This Ascot party is practically my farewell, and my beginning of better things. Confidently, therefore, I summon you to be present at Ribton Marches, Sunninghill, Berks, from Monday to Saturday, June the — to the —, to support me in my determination, and assist me with your advice as to my future and more useful and fruitful life. Do not refuse. Mr. Minnidick will, I am certain, look after everything carefully in your absence, and I shall be really hurt if you say no. With kindest regards,"Believe me,"Yours very truly,"Daisy Verulam."P.S.—How is the garden looking, and how are the sheep? No more ewes coughing, I hope? But that marvellous preparation of yours—'Not Elliman,' I always call it—has prevented all that, I know."
"My dear Mr. Bush,
"I remember very well, when we met at Basildene on that unforgettable day when you were helping my friend Mrs. Ringden to swarm her bees—is that the right expression?—you told me of your righteous hatred against the doings of society, and expressed your unalterabledetermination never to enter what is, ridiculously enough perhaps, called the gay world. Nevertheless, I want to persuade you to take a little holiday from your noble labour of working in your garden, and seeing after your farm at Bungay, and to join me at Ascot in June for the race week. I see a 'No' rising to your lips. But wait a moment before uttering it. Let me tell you first that, moved by weariness of my empty life in town, and stirred by your example and your maxims—'There's nought like pea-podding,' etc.—I intend to retire from society at the end of June, and to emulate your beautiful intimacy with Mother Nature. This Ascot party is practically my farewell, and my beginning of better things. Confidently, therefore, I summon you to be present at Ribton Marches, Sunninghill, Berks, from Monday to Saturday, June the — to the —, to support me in my determination, and assist me with your advice as to my future and more useful and fruitful life. Do not refuse. Mr. Minnidick will, I am certain, look after everything carefully in your absence, and I shall be really hurt if you say no. With kindest regards,
"Believe me,"Yours very truly,"Daisy Verulam.
"P.S.—How is the garden looking, and how are the sheep? No more ewes coughing, I hope? But that marvellous preparation of yours—'Not Elliman,' I always call it—has prevented all that, I know."
Mrs. Verulam put this note into an envelope with an eager hand, addressed it to "The Farm, Bungay Marshes, Lisborough," sent it to the post, and then hastened, withglowing cheeks and bright eyes, to Chloe Van Adam's bedroom.
Chloe was in bed, attended by the faithful Marriner, who had attained to that useful and beautiful age which permits a female to administer to a (supposed) suffering youth without the tongue of detraction being set instantly a-wagging. Nor could Mrs. Verulam's household, who laboured under the delusion that Chloe was her orange-growing husband, find much food for injurious gossip in the short and occasional visits—always chaperoned by Marriner—that the pretty hostess made to the chamber of her invalid guest. Having entered the room and carefully shut the door, Mrs. Verulam sat down by Chloe's bedside.
"Will those trousers never come?" cried the latter with energy. "Oh, Daisy, it is dreadful to feel that I might be calling on a Duchess and that I am under a coverlet! This bed is like a grave. Do send Francis to tell that tailor to hurry up."
"Patience, dear. I am sure you will be able to go out to-morrow. I expect Mr. Ingerstall was in a fearful state of fury at your being too ill to see the mosaics to-day. He is afraid that you will grow to like London if you are snatched away from his influence."
"Horrid little creature! Oh, do tell me some news. It is so dreadful lying here. Has anything happened?"
"Marriner," said Mrs. Verulam, "you may go on reading 'Studies in Pessimism,' if you like."
"I thank you, ma'am," said the faithful Marriner, eagerly opening her pocket Schopenhauer.
"Well, Chloe," pursued Mrs. Verulam; "in the first place, Mr. Rodney has just been having a sort of fit downstairs."
"Gracious! Is he epileptic?"
"No, only conventional."
"Does conventionality make people foam at the mouth?"
"Not exactly. But he really had a sort of convulsion when I told him that I intended to give up society. I was quite alarmed."
"You told him that?"
"Yes. I was carried away. You see, we had been speaking"—Mrs. Verulam lowered her voice—"of James Bush."
Chloe plunged on her pillows so as to get a clearer view of her friend's face, on which she fixed her sparkling, boyish eyes with a merciless scrutiny.
"Ah!" she said. "Now tell me all about him. Who is he? What is he? Where is he?"
Mrs. Verulam clasped Chloe's hand on the quilt softly.
"Chloe," she said, "he is a man!"
"I gathered that. Very few women are called James."
"That's not enough. It is not a christening that makes a man, it is life."
The faithful Marriner looked up from her pocket Schopenhauer with respectful appreciation of this reasoned truth.
"Well, then, what life does he lead?" cried Chloe.
"A life of wholesome labour, of silent communion with the earth—a life devoid of frivolity and devoted to meditation and sheep and bees and things of that kind."
The conclusion was a little vague, but the intention to praise was obvious, and Chloe was deeply interested.
"Meditation, sheep, bees," she repeated—"isn't all that what is called small culture?"
"Oh, indeed, there is nothing small about James Bush!"exclaimed Mrs. Verulam. "Oh no! He is immense, powerful, calm! He is my idea of Agag!"