'O'CONNOR, you are to do my hair plain to-day,' said the mistress dreamily, as she sat before her glass. 'Plain, miss! Plain!' exclaimed the maid, in astonishment. 'Are you going to sit in your room all day?' 'No. I am going down to breakfast, and after breakfast I am going to see Westminster Abbey,' said Miss Gordon, with a sigh. 'I will wear my light-blue silk. O'Connor groaned. 'And my pearl-grey hat with the blue feathers.' O'Connor sat down and looked uneasily at her mistress. After a few seconds she asked,-- 'And wouldn't you like to put green paint on your eyebrows and a blue stripe down your nose?' 'Come, O'Connor, and do my hair, or I shall be late.' 'I'll have no hand, act, or part in it,' said the maid quietly, as she folded her arms and stared with scrupulous sincerity at the window. 'Come at once, I say, O'Connor; no more nonsense. You really must learn to do what I tell you at once, or you and I shall part.' For a moment the maid remained immoveable. Suddenly she rose to her feet, turned round, and placed herself between her mistress and the glass, and said excitedly,-- 'I often helped to make you look what you are--the loveliest lady I ever saw. And I will not now help you to make a fool of yourself. You know your hair plain does not suit you; you know that dress you never wore, for it does not suit you; you know that hat only made you laugh when you put it on. You can dress as you like and do your hair as you like; but if you think I'll do what you say, you're mistaken.' 'O'Connor, I will have no more of your impertinent nonsense. Do what I tell you!' 'Is that the way you treat me after all I've done for you? Give me what you owe me and I'll go back to Cork.' 'Leave the room at once!' cried Miss Gordon excitedly. 'Not till you give me my money,' replied the girl vehemently, at the same time holding out her hand. 'Leave the room, I say, at once. How dare you stay when I tell you to go?' 'I am waiting for my money. I want to go back to Cork before you disgrace me.' 'O'Connor, I will take no further notice of you. Your conduct is unpardonable. Go, or I shall have to ring the bell.' 'Ring the bell! Ring the bell! Is that what you say after all I've done and suffered for you, and all the outlandish victuals I have eaten, and all the outlandish gibberishes I have listened to--is that my thanks?' 'If you don't go at once, I'll ring.' 'Pay me my money and I'll go.' Miss Gordon rose and went towards the bell. 'Pay me my money, or I'll call in the police.' Miss Gordon rang the bell. All at once the manner of the maid changed. Her lips trembled, she put her hand before her face, walked towards the door, and left the room sobbing. The chambermaid appeared in a few minutes. To her Miss Gordon said,-- 'I shall be late for the table d'hôte breakfast. Get me a little for myself in about three-quarters of an hour.' When the chambermaid came down to the kitchen she found Judith O'Connor moving about the place restlessly. 'What did my mistress ring for?' asked Judith. 'To say she'd want breakfast for herself in three-quarters of an hour.' 'She did not say anything else?' 'No.' Judith sat down and sighed. In a few moments she said to the chambermaid,-- 'Isn't my missis beautiful?' 'She is.' 'The most beautiful lady you ever saw here?' 'We've had no one so good-looking lately.' 'You never had,' said Judith firmly. 'Oh yes; there's Mrs Loftus.' 'Yes, I know what Mrs Loftus is like, all frills and tuckers, and frizzed hair and paint.' 'Mrs Loftus didn't wear frills or tuckers; she wears her hair flat: and as to paint, well, I never saw any sign of it about her. Did you?' 'No; and I don't want to see Mrs Loftus, or any other missis but my own. Mrs Loftus may be a very handsome lady--and I am sure she is when you say it--but there isn't a finer missis in all England than mine.' 'How do you mean? Mrs Barclay is as good a missis as any servant could have.' 'Yes; but my missis doesn't know she's a missis at all.' As Miss Gordon had predicted, she was late for breakfast that morning. All the guests had left the table, and Mrs Barclay had risen and gone out of the room. Two gentlemen were seated on the couch farthest from the table, looking at newspapers. As Miss Gordon entered, each lowered his newspaper, looked at the girl for a moment, and resumed reading without breaking silence. One was the solid-looking gentleman, the other George Osborne. The light in the room was dull. Miss Gordon, too, kept silence. Her breakfast was soon over; she rose and left the room. In a few minutes the solid-looking man went out also, and George Osborne was left to himself. He looked at the clock on the chimney-piece. He looked at his watch. He put awayThe Times, and walked slowly up and down the room. He sat down, took upThe Timesagain, and thought resolutely to himself,--'I'll read a column, and make myself think of it. That will pass away the minutes until she comes. It is sickening to be looking at the door every time it opens, and see the way blocked by commonplace people seeking something or other, or expressing wonder as to what they shall have for dinner.' The door opened twice, but he kept his resolution. It was hard to be obliged to look down at this white sheet and these dark words, and try to fix the mind on the dreary drone of a leading article, when raising the eyes might reveal to him a feast of colour and a charm of grace that would make the heart rich and life a poem. The door opened a third time. A light, swift footstep approached where he sat. He deliberately waited to finish reading the sentence before looking up. He had been in haste as long as there was doubt; now that he was certain he delayed. He had been a poor man, anxiously expecting wealth; now he was opulent, and squandered recklessly to convince himself his fortune was real. He could feel the beauty of her presence surrounding him and intoxicating him. The moment he raised his eyes he started to his feet with an exclamation of displeased surprise. 'Miss Gordon! Miss Gordon, pray excuse me! I did not recognise you until now. You have altered your appearance so--' 'So much for the worse,' she concluded the sentence, smiling. 'Well, I cannot say I see an improvement.' 'I did not intend you should think it an improvement.' 'Why?' he asked, contracting his brows, and looking at her in a puzzled way. 'You said yesterday you wanted to look your best; you say you do not want to look your best to-day, although--' He paused. She added,--' Although I am going out with you to-day also. Well, I have altered my mind since. I am jealous of that hat and dress and tunic. You did nothing yesterday but stare at my hat.' 'Miss Gordon--' 'Silence! You did nothing, I say, yesterday, but stare at my hat, and I won't have that. I have put on all the most hideous things in my baggage, to see if you will give poor me a look to-day.' 'I not look atyou?' he cried. 'What do you mean?' He did not know what he meant by asking this question. He did not care what he meant. He meant nothing at all, but to look at that warm young face now, and lose his mind in the alluring depths of those dark soft eyes. 'Mad or drunk or love,' he thought. 'God keep me thus a little while, and I shall die content.' 'What are you looking at now?' she asked. 'At you,' he answered. 'Ah,' she laughed,' is this to compensate for your neglect yesterday?' 'It would compensate me,' he said, 'for a whole life of labour and pain.' 'Let us go,' she said, 'or you will be proposing to me, and I am weary of that kind of thing--that is, unless you have a great novelty. I am glad you intend to be better behaved to-day than yesterday, and givemesome of your attention. But do you know even to-day you have not said good-morning to me? I change my dress and do up my hair in a different way from yesterday, and when I come down to breakfast you do not know me. Then when you do recognise me, you do not even hold out your hand and say good-morning. Ah, it is all very well when I remind you of it,' she added, placing her hand in his. Why, why was she flippant when he wanted to be calm and quiet, or rash and mad--anything but flippant? Why did she undo the spell of her beauty by the triviality of her words and ways? Such words and ways profaned the sanctuary of her loveliness as riot would a church. He not take her hand! If he dared, he would hold it and place it on his breast, and cover it with both his hands, and cherish it there for ever. Or cherish it until he could no longer hold it, but let it go to clasp that marvel to his breast, and cry into her ear the passion that shook him. She took her hand away and said briskly,-- 'I think it's time for us to go if we are to walk along the Embankment and do the Abbey.' They left Mrs Barclay's and moved south. 'Mind,' she said, as she took his arm and they turned out of Peter's Row, 'I am not going to be dull and stupid and proper to-day, like you.' 'Why not to-day?' he asked, with a weary smile. This struggle was trying. 'It is only when I wear my prettiest things I can afford to be proper. You can't expect me to be a guy and a frump at the same time. It's not reasonable of you to expect that of me.' 'I assure you I do not expect it of you.' 'Then whatdoyou expect of me?' 'A little mercy,' he said, looking gravely, sadly at her. 'Well, let us have a truce. It won't last long, I know. Tell me, which do you prefer me, as a guy or a frump?' 'I have not thought of it.' 'Look and think, and tell me.' 'I think I prefer the grey sober style of yesterday.' 'And the hat?' 'And the Bellini hat.' 'Do you intend taking me out to see any tombs or vaults, or crypts or catacombs, or anything lively tomorrow?' 'You will make me very happy if you will let me.' 'Very good. I want to try another experiment.' 'With what view?' he asked wearily. 'With a view to getting your opinion. You are the only poet I ever met, and I am curious to know what poets think.' 'You have already got more than my opinion; you have got all my--' 'What!' she exclaimed, interrupting him. 'On the Thames Embankment, before luncheon, and with the thermometer at ten degrees of frost! I never heard of such a thing. As you are a poet I'll forgive you this time. But the next time you want to say anything pretty or sentimental to me, be more careful. You are a poet, and ought to know you should not make love except when the birds are singing and the flowers blowing. The only thing that's blowing here is the east wind and the penny steamer. For shame, sir!' 'But when the flowers have come, you will have gone away?' Silence. 'You will have gone away, Miss Gordon?' Silence. 'Will you not?' 'Oh, perhaps.'
'Is not coming in here,' he whispered to her, when they had been a few minutes in the Abbey, 'like listening to a prayer for man that must be heard.' 'Yes,' she whispered back; 'it may be heard, but it can't be seen. Why don't they clean the windows?' 'It is, you know, the spirit of the Gothic to be gloomy. You, of course, also know the gloom is increased by the legends on the glass,' he whispered. He had never whispered to her, nor she to him, before. What new delight lurked in these whispers? It was that she or he was for the first time deliberately limiting to one what the other had to say. He was speaking to her, and to her only; she to him, and to him only, as though they had gone out of the general bustle of a ballroom into the seclusion of a grotto. 'But,' she said, 'it was all very well for folk of the dark ages to keep out the light with tall gawky windows and stained glass. They could not read, and they had no costumes worth looking at. If I were at the head of affairs here, I should take down all this blinking, blinking glass, widen the windows, and let plenty of the wholesome sunlight in.' He said nothing. He turned away and sighed. What she would sweep away he would guard with his life. The poetry, the romance, the depth of historical tone, were indebted for much to the narrow high windows and dim light. He and she were not getting on nearly as pleasantly as they might in that grotto of whispers. How sadly different to-day was from yesterday! She had been then so silent and unobtrusive. She had let him talk to her in St Paul's as he loved best to talk, as he had talked to his mother and sisters often, but never until that day to any strange woman. 'I know it's not poetical. I am not a bit poetical, although I like to hear a poet talk, for I think one should know all the weaknesses of human nature. Don't you agree with me?' 'Yes,' he said; 'certainly.' 'So poetry is a weakness of human nature to her mind,' he thought bitterly. 'Poetry, the perfume of earth, the odour that sanctifies man; poetry, which is at the base of every noble emotion in human nature; and this poetry a weakness of human nature! I am sorry I came out with her to-day.' 'Mr Osborne.' He looked down. Her face was turned up to his. His eyes met hers. 'And what place on all earth could I choose, if not that by her side?' he asked himself helplessly. Aloud he said merely, 'Yes.' 'You are not nearly so amusing as yesterday. If you keep on this dreary, woebegone look, I shall walk away and leave you to your musings. Why are you so silent?' 'I have a different audience to-day, and I am not clever enough for it.' 'I don't want you to be clever. I hate clever men. They are always too stuck-up and smart. You're not a bit clever.' 'I really don't know what to say or do. This is not a good place to discuss such subjects. Shall we leave, and talk the matter over as we walk round the Abbey?' 'No, no. I want to go over this place with you. We will drop that subject if you wish, and stay here. Tell me about the place.' 'I don't know what to say. I am afraid I shall not find anything likely to please you.' 'I don't want you to talk with a view to pleasing me. I hate a man who does. I want you to say things that I shall demolish.' 'What am I to speak of?' 'This place. Tell me what was your first feeling on coming in.' 'I thought I should like to have been born in the time of the Medicis, when there were only two thoughts in days of peace--religion and the arts.' 'Do you mean you would like to have been born under the Medicis, in Italy?' 'Yes; in Florence or Venice. Venice by preference.' 'But the religion of Venice was not the religion you now hold.' 'No; but it was the best religion of those days; and if I had lived and died then, I should most likely never have felt any perplexity.' 'Oh, then you have felt perplexities?' 'Yes, now and then. Not in essentials, but in small matters; and perplexities of this kind wear one down.' She looked at him with scornful compassion for a few seconds, and then said,-- 'You are very young; you are no more than fourteen or fifteen. I can see what your fate will be.' 'Can you? What?' 'Rome.' He looked at her with quick trouble in his eyes. 'I have often wondered if there is any danger of that.' 'As sure as your name is George Osborne, that is what your fate will be.' He shrank back from her. 'I think I should rather die,' he whispered, 'than desert the pure simple faith I was brought up in.' 'Then,' she said, with a bright smile, 'it will be with you as it was with the Italian patriots, a case ofRoma o morte.' She sang the last words under her breath, to the air of the 'Inno Nazionale.' He looked around in horror, to ascertain if anyone had heard her. No one was near. 'Pray, Miss Gordon, don't sing. The people here have great ideas of the sanctity of this place, and anything like a profanation would be badly received.' 'Then take me away from this place. I am not good enough to be here.' He looked down at her. The expression of alarm and reproach faded from his eyes, to be succeeded by one of wonder, followed by that yearning regard of unperfected love. When he spoke, his voice was thick. 'You not good enough to be here that are beautiful enough for heaven!' 'Come,' she said, archly, 'if I may not sing, you shall not bow down and worship a graven image here. I have had plenty of heavy matters; and as for compliments, he must be a very original man who pays me one I have not had already. I see a lot of names I know about here. Is this the Poets' Corner?' He shook himself, and glanced to either side. 'Yes, this is the Poets' Corner.' 'I daresay it is not the only corner the poets were ever in.' 'I think it is. I do not know that they were buried elsewhere, and have been shifted to this place.' She looked and shook her head at him, and sighed comically. 'Now,' she said, 'what name of all those here do you think most of?' 'Edmund Spenser.' 'Have you read the "Faerie Queene" right through?' 'Not quite through, but almost.' 'I can't bear him.' 'Can't bear Spenser! Why, he is one of the richest poets of all! He is the laureate of the forest. I am astonished to hear you say you don't like Spenser.' 'The allegory is killing.' 'Do you think so? His handling of it is masterful.' 'Well, I don't think so, that's all.' 'You remember what you said yesterday about resting from travel for awhile, and giving your mind to serious matters?' 'Yes, but to-day I am not quite sure of it.' He looked at her wistfully, painfully. She turned away from him. 'Has my staying or going anything to do with the Poets' Corner or the tomb of Spenser?' 'It recalls a favourite stanza at the end of the first book, which is the legend of the "Knight of the Red Cross, or Holiness." It runs: "Now strike your sails, ye jolly mariners, for we be come unto a quiet road, where we must land some of our passengers, and light this weary vessel of her load. Here she awhile may make her safe abode, till she repaired have her tackles spent and wants supplied; and then again abroad on the long voyage whereto she is bent; well may she speed and finish her intent!" The ashes of the man who, three hundred years ago, wrote the lines that figure forth your spiritual position of to-day lie here. Three centuries he is behind the Great Veil. He says himself; "But after death the trial is to come when best shall be to them that lived best." Three centuries ago he foreshadowed the position you stand in to-day. Three centuries ago he foreshadowed more than this; he foreshadowed the charms of a woman, and sang: "Upon her eyelids many graces sate, under the shadow of her even brows." He knew of other things too--sweet things. He tells us, "Sweet is the love that comes alone with willingness?" Do you believe in this sweet love that comes alone with willingness?' She shook her head archly, looked up and whispered,-- 'This is not a good place to discuss such subjects. Shall we go out and talk the matter over as we walk round the Abbey?' His face, which had been flushed, grew grey and sad. 'Will you laugh at everything, Miss Gordon?' 'Yes, until someone convinces me of the value of tears.' He turned away. 'Come,' he said, 'I have never been here before; but you find the place dull, this sanctuary for memories, this incense of worship. Come away.' 'I am not so much tired of the place as of the guide.' 'Then by all means let us go back. I am most unfortunate if I am the cause of dulness in you; for I am sure, under average circumstances, you could not fail to be interested in this place. Let us go back, I beg.' She dropped her brows slightly over her eyes and looked fixedly at him for awhile. 'What new surprise and disappointment are in store for me?' he thought. 'What unexpected onslaught is she going to make on my esteem for her? How beautiful she is in this unbecoming wear! fine feathers may make fine birds, but plain ones cannot mar her.' 'Are you hungry?' she asked, still keeping her careful eyes upon him. He started. Had she, with her wonderful sharpness, seen some shadow on his face, betraying a want of which he was unconscious? Most marvellous of women! What keen penetration! He said,-- 'May I ask you why?' 'Because your reply interests me.' 'In what way?' He looked confounded. How on earth could it matter to her whether he was or was not hungry? 'Because I am. I am tired of tombs and sermons. Come away, get a hansom, and take me to the Criterion and give me a cosy luncheon. I am tired of graves. Do, please.' She said this in a low, rich, tender, pleading voice. Suddenly a smile came over his face. 'The first smile to-day,' she murmured complainingly; 'and that because I have told him I am hungry!' with a shadowy smile. 'No,' he answered; 'but because physical causes have broken down the hardness of your manner, and restored your womanhood.' 'And,' she asked, turning weary eyes upon him,' do you think nothing but physical causes could break down the hardness of my manner and restore my womanhood?' 'Mad and drunk, and love though it is,' he thought, 'I cannot take her in my arms here.' He said, 'I do not know. What do you think?' 'I am not at present capable of thought. It is half-past two, and I am desperately hungry; that is all I am sure of now, as far as my thoughts go.' Nothing more was said until they had got into the open air. 'Ah,' she sighed, 'what a relief!' 'But, though you have got out of the church, you still have the gloomy spectre by your side.' 'Yes, but you look quite jovial in the air compared to the figure you cut as expounder of monumental jokes. Then, too, you have undertaken, I infer (you were as careful as a lawyer not to commit yourself to words) you have undertaken to give me a luncheon in a cheerful place. As with you, this is my first visit to London; and although I have not seen the Criterion, from what I have heard, I have formed the conclusion it bears little or no resemblance to Westminster Abbey.' 'I wish you were always as you now are,' he said, as he handed her into the hansom. 'What!' she cried, in amazement, 'famished?' 'No,' he answered. 'I mean in your present semi-serious, non-aggressive humour.' 'But would it not be enough for you if I kept my temper for the few hours we shall be together?' 'No.' He was looking fixedly at her, and she demurely at him, as they drove rapidly up Whitehall. 'Why?' 'I cannot tell you that now.' 'But perhaps I may never come out with you again.' 'Then I shall keep my secret as an inducement to make you come.' 'What! Could you tolerate me again?' 'Again! Again! Ay, for ever and ever!' 'Mr Osborne!' 'I know! I know! But what can I do? I know I never met you until a few days ago. But what good is that to me? I cannot help myself! will you help me?' 'How can I help you?' 'By telling me you are not offended.' 'I am not offended.' 'And by permitting me to hope you will let me renew this subject on a more fitting occasion.' 'In an omnibus, or on the saloon deck of a penny steamboat?' 'For God's sake don't laugh at me, Miss Gordon!' Above the noise of the traffic her ear caught something in his voice that made her start and raise her eyes. She held out her hand to him frankly, and said,-- 'No, Mr Osborne, I will not laugh at you. I have been very thoughtless. And you are not to say anything more to me of this subject for awhile.' 'How long?' 'A month.' 'And during that month you will stay where you are now staying, and you will let me see you often, and be with you, and speak to you, and hear of you, and hear you, and touch your hand--now and then?' 'Yes.' 'And do you think there is likely to be any reason for hope?' 'Now,' she said, 'the subject is closed for a month. Let it rest. The cab has stopped. This must be the Criterion.'
Osborne helped his companion out of the hansom, and took the number of it, and paid the driver. When they turned their backs upon the street and walked towards the hall, he offered her his arm. She took it, with a quiet smile, remarking, while she kept her eyes fixed upon the causeway,-- 'Only yesterday you were displeased when I took your arm, and now you offer it quickly.' 'But there is a great difference between this day and yesterday.' 'Do you really think so? Well, I did not notice it; but now you call my attention to it, I do think it is colder.' He drew up, and looked reproachfully into her face. 'Miss Gordon, you promised not to laugh at me.' 'And you promised to say nothing more of what has passed for a month.' At that moment the driver of the cab stood in front of Osborne, and dropping the brass butt of his whip within an inch of Osborne's toes, said, in a tone of insolent menace, 'No, you don't, my blooming lad! No,youdon't!' 'What is the matter? Get out of the way;' quietly, firmly. 'No, I won't! Why did you take the number of my cab?' 'That is my own affair,' answered Osborne, growing confused and crimson. A crowd collected, and two policemen were sailing slowly down upon the scene. 'It's something of my affair as well,' said the driver vehemently. 'I'm not a-going to be hauled up for any of your tricks and plants. I'm only a poor man, and it isn't right and just. Pay me my honest fare.' 'I shall give you no more,' said Osborne, becoming still more confused. 'What is wrong?' asked a man of the driver. 'I took him and the lady up at Broad Sanctuary,' explained the driver to the crowd; 'and I drove them here, and he takes the number of my cab, and slips a sovereign into my hand, and walks away without asking for his change.' He held out his open hand with the yellow sovereign shining in the middle of his dirty palm like the sun through a London fog. 'But I know his game. He wants me to drive off, and then he'd have me lagged for his blooming change; and I with a wife and family of children looking to me!' 'Shame!' cried the crowd. 'I intended the sovereign for you,' said Osborne, more composedly. 'Please let me pass.' 'Oh, did you, sir? Thank you, sir,' said the man, touching his hat to Osborne and Miss Gordon. 'Much obliged to you, and I'll drink the lady's health and your own.' He backed to his cab, looked at them as they entered the hall, and said confidentially to the off-wheel, 'You don't often pick up a fare like that about the Abbey. You get your half-crown, and maybe a crown now and then. I didn't see they was spoons at first. I'm not half sharp enough for picking up a living in this world, I ain't. You never know what luck you are going to get out of the railway stations; but out of the Abbey a sovereign for a shilling! Well, I'm blowed!' When they were in the vestibule Miss Gordon turned to Osborne, and said,-- 'Why did you take that man's number, and why did you give him a sovereign?' 'You told me the other evening I was a poet. I mean to try to be a poet now and then; and the first thing I shall write will be "A Sonnet to Hansom Cab No. 1136." Does that answer both questions?' 'Yes; but the sovereign was extravagant. 'But poets are never prudent; and when a poet falls in--' 'A hansom.' They had gained the dining-room and sat down. 'When a poet falls in a hansom, why, you cannot expect him to peddle like a second-hand-clothes dealer.' 'Still I think the sovereign too much. How much a year have you?' 'About fifteen hundred, out of money recently left me,' he answered. He thought: 'What other girl in all the world would ask a man such a question under the circumstances?' 'Oh, I did not think you had so much! A bachelor with fifteen hundred a year ought not to wear such clumsy clothes and such long hair. You must get your hair shortened, wear a dark-blue frock-coat made by a good man, and an Oxford-blue tie. Blue suits you. I don't insist on patent-leather boots and gaiters, but they make an improvement. Your dress and hair led me to think you had not more than four or five hundred a year. You'd look very well in evening dress. All you light-bearded, high-foreheaded, square-faced, light-haired men look well in evening dress. My horror is a dark man--a man with black hair, a low forehead, heavy eyebrows, and black hair all over his face--in an open waistcoat and tailed coat. He looks as if the black of his coat had crawled up his poll and run down his face.' 'Will you have some potato?' 'No, thank you. I never eat potato with sole. The idea is barbarous. Have you never observed that potato and sole are very like in flavour? They are, and the idea of drowning two delicate flavours in one another is atrocious. It would be like helping seakale and vegetable-marrow as fish and vegetable. The art of eating is in its infancy.' There was a long silence, 'All the world is made of my joy,' thought Osborne. 'This great room, these bright tables, these polite waiters--all are made of my joy. My joy lifts the desolation of winter from the land, and floods the world with the warm level sunshine of evening. My joy, my glory, my fate, my love! My Jove! What were all the argosies of Hamburg or of Venice compared to you? What are all the riches of London compared to you? The value of riches is in spending them; this joy I have neither diminishes nor changes. It builds heavens above the skies, and glorifies the sordid things of earth.' 'Are you aware you are attracting a good deal of attention towards us?' she asked, breaking in suddenly on his thoughts. 'Good gracious, no! How?' he exclaimed, in great discomfiture. 'By staring at me in that way.' 'I beg your pardon. I am sorry. Pray forgive me?' 'I do not mind it in the least. I am used to being stared at, and don't mind it a bit; but I thought you would not like it.' 'I am very much obliged to you for telling me. I promise you not to do it again.' 'Oh, I don't mind it at all! I rather like it.' 'Rather like being stared at, so as to attract the attention of a common room like this! You are not serious?' 'Perfectly,' she said, with a placid smile. 'But what earthly pleasure can it give you to have a number of eyes fixed upon you?' 'Did you ever notice that people are disposed to stare at a pretty woman?' 'Certainly. That goes without saying.' 'When a handsome man and woman, like you and me, are in a public place like this, people cannot help staring.' 'I wish you would give up saying such things.' 'All I have said is quite true. Well, when there are a good-looking man and woman in a room like this, and all the people are looking at them, if the man lifts his head and looks round, all the men drop their eyes, because they do not wish to displease the man by staring at his companion; if the woman looks up, all the women drop their heads, because they do not wish to let her see how they envy her.' 'Envy her! How can you say such an uncharitable thing, Miss Gordon?' he asked, with an expression of serious disturbance on his face. 'Ah,' she sighed, 'you are very young! Wait until you are as old as I am, and you will know what I have said is true. You may take my word for it in the meantime.' She looked lazily around her, and when she had completed a survey of the room, she said, 'I do feel so much better than when I was in that chilly Abbey. Don't you?' 'I feel much happier. But you must not hold such very unpleasant views of your sex. I reverence it, and I must teach you to think as I think.' 'I wish you could. It is much more pleasant to think well than to think poorly of people. But what are you to do when you are sure you are right?' 'Keep your mind still open to conviction.' 'I do. There is no one in the world less bigoted than I.' 'I know very few women. The few I do know are, I am sure, above such a feeling of vulgar jealousy.' 'I congratulate you if it is so. It may be, perhaps, that you have had no opportunity of getting at the real character of women. You may not have been brought close enough to them for a long enough time.' 'I am perfectly sure,' he said gravely; 'you, for instance, are incapable of such a paltry sentiment.' 'You are quite right. But I am an exception, a very rare exception.' 'And why are you an exception? What is the cause of your being an exception?' 'Because,' she said, with deliberation, 'the homage of no man has up to this interested me; and I always feel quite independent of men; and if I do flirt it is only because I have not an amusing book, or a liking to play and sing, or fine castles to build in the air.' He looked at her with pain mingled with astonishment. 'I don't like you to say such things. There is an ungentleness about them that does not become you. I wish you would adopt a more sober style. Believe me, all the world cannot be wrong and you right; and nearly all the world--all the wisdom of the world, at all events--is against you.' 'But am I to be a hypocrite, or am I to be what I am?' 'You should try to be what you ought to be.' 'Conventional?' 'Well, I would rather see you conventional than as you are. Conventionalism is the accumulated tradition of vast experience; and anyone who throws it over runs a great risk of falling into ways he has no knowledge of, and through which he can find no guide.' Osborne was scarcely looking at her as he spoke. She was looking at him intently, with all the faculties of her nature fixed on him. 'Do you know,' she said, 'you are talking awful rubbish? But you look your best when you maunder.' He started, coloured, glanced around him hastily, and taking up the bill of fare, said,-- 'I am the worst of caterers, Miss Gordon. What sweet do you like? Will you look at the bill and select?' She turned her grave, sweet eyes upon him, and whispered softly,-- 'If you please, Mr Osborne, as this must serve for my dinner, I should like a small piece of joint. I have had only one tiny piece of sole and a little soup since breakfast, and it's now nearly four o'clock.' 'Good gracious, I must have been dreaming! Waiter!' 'You look very well asleep.' Osborne said to the waiter, 'Roast beef.' 'When the waiter has brought the beef are you likely to fall asleep again?' 'I thought you said I talked nonsense.' 'Yes, you did. But I don't mind what you say. I like to look at you when you talk that kind of rubbish. It's like seeing a panorama to music. You look at the panorama, and don't mind the music a bit.' His eyes dwelt on her with a wistful sadness. She was looking like a woman whose heart would melt at the first touch of enthusiasm or love, and she was talking like a machine. How was this? What could it mean? What could cause the antagonism between the spirit in the eyes and the spirit in the words? He shook his head sadly, and was silent awhile. She spoke again,-- 'You told me you had sisters: how many?' 'Two,' he answered wearily, keeping his glance on the cloth. He thought, 'How different they are from you! How shocked they would be to see any girl act and speak as you do! And yet--and yet I--I have asked this woman to be my wife, and in a month I shall know whether she will or not! They never could endure her. They would not walk with her, or sit with her. They would be horrified at every trait in her character. What am I doing? What have I done? Two days ago I told myself I did not want her or her love, and I have proposed to her to-day! What is the matter with me? I used to be a firm man; now I am as fickle as the wind. Perhaps she will refuse me after all. There is one thing certain, whether I marry her or not, I can never introduce her at home.' 'Busy on that sonnet to No. 1136?' He raised his face quickly. She was smiling gently, confidentially at him. This 1136 was a lover's joke, a lover's secret, the first of the kind he had ever had. What a warmth ran through all his nature, at the thought of having a secret with the owner of that soft figure, the owner of that beautiful face, and with the spirit of those dark eyes! They two, she and he, intimate already; bound round by a secret; separated from all the rest of the world by a trivial secret! They two in the innermost bowers of personality! What affluence and prodigality of happiness! What rich tumult! What bewildering joy! 'Ah,' he said, looking at her with eyes dancing with happiness, 'I must think of that sonnet.' 'But were you not thinking of it when I spoke?' 'No.' 'Pray, of what were you thinking behind that gloomy face?' 'I was thinking of my sisters.' 'Are they so very, very dreadful, that when you think of them you must look like a bankrupt gambler coming from the gaming-table?' 'No. They are considered good-looking. Miss Gordon--' 'You must not say that.' 'What?' 'What you were going to say. I saw it on your face, and you have promised not to speak of the matter for a month. I want to talk to you about your sisters. Are they like you?' 'Kate, the elder, is like me.' 'Fair and handsome?' 'She is fair.' 'How old is she?' 'Twenty-four.' 'Ah, my age! And what is your other sister like?' 'Alice is dark.' The girl paused awhile and kept her eyes fixed on the table. She raised her finger for his attention, and said, 'I shall be a month in London. I don't like any of the women at Mrs Barclay's. I am not likely to like any of them. The probability is, no chance arrival will be better than the set now there. Write to-night and ask your sister Kate up for a month.' She raised her eyes to his and looked into his face. He was in dismay. 'She--she would not come!' he cried hastily. 'Why?' 'I know she would not come. She has been more home-staying than I.' 'All the more reason why she should come up now. You don't intend keeping her in a place like Stratford all her life?' 'There would not be the least use in my asking her.' 'You decline to write?' 'I know it would be in vain.' 'Then I will write to-night to her, asking her to come up and stay with me.' 'You, Miss Gordon! You! You would not dream of doing such a thing!' cried Osborne, in terror. 'I'm not a poet, and I never dream except in sleep. If you will not write for your sister to-night, I will.' 'But what would she think of it? She would not come. Of course she would not leave home.' 'I shall try. Once I have fully decided upon anything I never bother about detail.' 'If you do this I should be greatly displeased; I, who want to be so close a friend of yours.' 'Then why do you refuse so small a favour? It is myfirstrequest.' She uttered the latter sentence with her eyes turned into his, and all the beauty of her face gathered into a smile for him. She laid an emphasis on the wordfirst. Oh, delicious significance of that emphasis! It meant that other requests were to follow. Requests of her to him now would mean hope. Think of having the right to hold her for ever to his breast. What a hope! She was giving him encouragement. There could be no doubt that, by asking him for favours and wishing to know his sister, she did not intend to treat his suit lightly. If he finally declined to write, and she wrote, his mother and sisters would not hear her name mentioned again; they would be cruelly shocked. What had he been thinking a while ago about his sisters and her? Never mind now. Who could look at that face and see that smile and hear that voice asking for afirstfavour and deny it? He spoke,-- 'Even if I do write I am almost sure she will not come.' 'But you must write in a way that will leave no option. Your mother will not object.' 'If I fail?' 'You must not fail. You must not fail to obtain the first favour I ask. Promise me you will succeed.' 'I will do my best' 'Now pay the bill and let us go.' As he was handing her into a hansom,' he said, 'May I ask you why you are so anxious my sister should come up?' 'That is my affair,' she whispered to him, as she curled herself up daintily in the corner.
'I am sure, mother, I cannot understand what he wants of me in London. He knows I do not like going about, and the idea of living in a hotel is hateful. What can he want of me?' On the round, pale, sweet face of the girl there was a look of perplexity and pain as she raised her soft hazel eyes to her mother's, when Mrs Osborne had finished reading the letter addressed by her son to her daughter Kate. 'My dear Kate,' said the stout, silver-haired matron, laying down her gold-rimmed spectacles on the open page of her son's letter, and fixing her mild, contented eyes on her elder daughter, 'we know George has always good reasons for what he does and says, and I think we need not fear he is wrong in this case. He says he wants you in London very particularly, and no doubt he does. Now, if he wants you very particularly, of course you will go.' 'But, mother, I do not like to go. I'd much rather not. What can he want me for?' The old woman took up the letter and spectacles again, set her spectacles on her nose, and read the letter from beginning to end. When she had finished she sat silent awhile, swinging her spectacles with one hand and keeping the letter open on the table before her with the other. 'He does not,' she said, 'give any reason for his wishing you to go to London; but, no doubt, Kate, he feels lonely and strange in that great place where he has no friends, and it may be he wants to give the place a look of home by having you with him. George is a good son and a good brother; and when we were not nearly so well off as we are now, he stood by us and denied himself many luxuries and amusements young men look for, in order that we might have everything in reason we could desire. So that altogether, Kate, you ought not to make any objection to going.' The soft hazel eyes of the girl were cast down upon the cloth. She said nothing for a few seconds, and then, in a tone of profound resignation, only,-- 'If I must I must.' 'I wish he had asked me to go,' said Alice, "little Alice" as they called her. 'I wouldn't say no, or take five minutes to make up my mind. There's no one spooning me.' The elder girl blushed and did not raise her eyes. 'Alice,' said Mrs Osborne severely, 'I have forbidden you to speak in a light manner of such matters. If any gentleman, such as Mr Garvage, should offer attentions to Kate, that is nothing to be ashamed of in her or him; for he comes of an honourable family, who have lived at Chatsley Manor for many generations, and honoured the Church and supported the State; for they always have been Conservatives--staunch Conservatives. Alice, you must not. I tell you once for all, you must not. Attend to me! "Spooning!" What abominable slang! When I was your age I should as soon have thought of jumping out of the window as of using such vile language.' 'Kate wouldn't a bit mind jumping out of the window if Mr Garvage was below.' 'Be silent, Alice! How dare you say such things!' Kate looked up in distress and said,-- 'But I assure you, mother, there is nothing at all in what Alice says. Mr Garvage has never said anything that a most distant acquaintance might not say.' 'He carried your umbrella all the way home from church last Sunday, and he kissed the handle before he gave it back to you.' 'Oh, Alice, how can you say such things! He did not kiss the handle, mother; he only put it to his lips idly. Alice, you know very well I do not like Mr Garvage. I have told her so, mother, a hundred times, and she is speaking of him now only to annoy me.' 'There now, old Kitty, don't get cross with little Alice. Little Alice won't be naughty any more. Little Alice is sure her big sister will be delighted to get away to London from the persecutions of Mr Garvage.' Indeed, mother, you must not mind what Alice says. I am quite indifferent to Mr Garvage, and he can have nothing to do with my going or staying.' 'Alice, dear,' said Mrs Osborne, in a tone of rebuke, 'I wish you would be more collected and staid. Well, Kate, what do you propose doing?' 'Really I don't see anything for it but to go. I am sure he must have good reason for asking me.' 'So am I,' said Mrs Osborne. 'Maybe he has met an awfully nice fellow there, Kate,' said the younger girl, looking up with an expression of infantile simplicity. 'And maybe, Kate, he thought Mr Garvage was not nice enough. I will say Mr Garvage's feet are against him. Mother, how do you account for Mr Garvage's feet and hands? You told me Conservatives had always small feet and hands.' Mrs Osborne disregarded the last speech of her younger daughter, and, turning to the elder, asked,--'And when do you think you will be ready to go? He says he wishes you to stay for a few weeks.' 'In a couple of days. I need not go to Birmingham for what I may want; I can get them in London.' 'Ah, Kittie,' cried Alice plaintively, 'I wish I was going to London with you. Think of buying things in London! Kittie, I won't say another nasty thing to you if you only get George to ask me up next time. I know you are the elder and ought to go first. But won't you make him take me? Tell him I am quite reformed, and that I am as demure as a lamb. If he likes, I'll hold his hand when we go out together. I have four pounds ten saved up in my workbox, and I know there are lots of things in London I want desperately. Kittie, won't you get him to ask me?' 'I'll try, little Alice,' answered Kate. The third day from that Kate Osborne was on her way from Stratford to London. She wondered George had not offered to come for her. She did not know the fascination which bound him with bands of steel to London. She disliked travelling alone. She had no desire to see London. She would have been quite content to live her life on the banks of the gentle Avon, and sink into her eternal rest soothed by the soft ripple of the river. She was shy and domestic and home-loving. She delighted most in calm routine and placid ways. Never had she wished to adventure on the troubled waters of life. George was quiet and home-loving like her, but he had at heart a speculative turn she did not own. He had always intended going to London. She had never thought of it, and now she was going against her inclination. To be among strangers, to be stared at by them, hustled about by them, was her horror. She did not like to meet people whom she did not know. A request that anyone might be introduced to her filled her with uneasiness. And yet here she was now travelling alone to the city where the most people were gathered under one roof of smoke, and where there was but one face, George's, she had ever to her knowledge seen before! George was at the terminus to meet her. When he had handed her out he asked her with a smile how she was. 'I am a little frightened, George,' she said timidly, and without an answering smile. 'By what?' he asked uneasily. He wished his sister to like everything and every person in London, especially one person, a girl the very opposite of pale still Kate. 'The idea of being here.' 'That will wear away in a few days, and you will feel as much at home as at Stratford.' 'Oh, George, never! How can you say such a thing? I hope you have not already grown to like this place as well as home. It can't be that in a week you have put this place in the stead of our home?' she asked pathetically. She loved this brother with all her heart and soul, and it hurt her to hear him speak so lightly of that home sanctified by so many memories. He had, when speaking, thought little of London or home. He had thought of only one thing, that girl. He had in a few days grown to like that girl better than anything on earth. In the silent watches of night, when he was alone, and walked up and down his room, intoxicated with the memory of her beauty, he would not, he feared in his inner heart, have bartered her for anything the world contained, for anything the next world might offer. She--she--she only! What music of praise and love and incommunicable ecstasy floated round him when he saw her approaching! What perfumes of all the South flowed in upon him when he heard her speak! What wild visions and splendid castles sprang up before the eyes of his spirit when he touched her hand! This love could not be opposed to the Spirit of God. It must be of the Spirit of God, for it had brought with it charity and greatness. It had deposed the lesser and crowned the ideal man. It had robed mankind in a new radiance. It had dignified human action and sentiment. Things belonging to the tame routine of every-day life had drawn importance from the fact that they might aid or please or be necessary to her--to her! As he and his sister drove to Mrs Barclay's in the cab little was said. She felt dazed and repelled by the great city, by the knowledge that she would have to remain in it for what seemed to her a long time, and by an undefined dread, a vague presentiment of evil, arising insensibly in her mind from what he had said about growing to like London as much as home. He was too uneasy for conversation. Carried away by an infatuation, he had written for his sister at the request of Miss Gordon. Now his sister had arrived, they were driving to the hotel, and what explanation could he give his sister of his wish for her presence in London? Then how would these two girls get on? His heart sank when he came to consider that question. It seemed to him there was no chance of the two agreeing. Kate had no acquaintance with the world; Miss Gordon had had no home but the world. Kate had never met intimately anyone at all like Miss Gordon. His sister would be sure to think his sweetheart intolerably bold. Then again Kate would undoubtedly find out in a few hours, before this time to-morrow, how matters stood. Already some of Mrs Barclay's other guests had begun to be sly, and ready with quiet smiles full of meaning. What would be the outcome of all this? Here he paused for awhile in his thought. When he resumed it was with the passionate cry in his heart, 'There can, there shall, there must be but one outcome from all this: she and I shall never part!' The fire had taken complete hold, and the building must burn down. 'If,' he again thought fervently, 'Marie Gordon will have me, no power on earth shall keep us asunder.' Nothing more was said in the cab. Kate was stunned and dulled by the racket of even the quiet northern squares through which they passed, and he sat brooding over the image of his worship. How would she and Kate get on? No two styles could possibly be more opposed. Marie would think Kate dull and proper and stupid and tell her so; and Kate, gentle Kate, would feel hurt, and the two would give up all thought of friendship. Well, he had tried his best to prevent Kate's coming. Now that she was here, nothing could be done but allow matters to take their course. In about half-an-hour they arrived at Mrs Barclay's, and were received by the lady of the house in the drawing-room. Osborne introduced his sister to the landlady, and then looked round the room hastily. The only other person present was Nevill, who had been turning over the leaves of an album at the end of the room farthest from where Mrs Barclay sat. Upon hearing the words 'my sister' uttered by Osborne, Nevill rose hastily to his feet and approached the group at the other end, saying, while he came,-- 'As an old friend of George's, may I hope to have the honour of an introduction to his sister?' Osborne was somewhat taken aback and confused. He had expected her to be there, and instead of her he had found this irrepressible Nevill. This was the last man staying in the house he should wish his sister to meet so early. Nevill would be sure to frighten gentle retiring Kate out of her wits. There was, however, no alternative but to introduce them. He did so in a bungling, hesitating manner. 'I am delighted to meet you, Miss Osborne. You have just come from Stratford-on-Avon. Take my advice, and never go there again.' 'Why?' she faltered, casting a frightened look at her brother, whose eye she did not catch; he was watching the door. 'What can the meaning of all this be?' she thought. 'This man tells me he is an old friend of George's. Nevill--I never heard his name before. An old friend of George's, whose name I have never heard! And yet it was more surprising of George to say that in a little time I should grow to like London as well as home. Now, here is this strange, ill-favoured man telling me never to go back to Stratford. What can have happened to George? This is like a conspiracy.' 'Because it is an intolerably dull, stupid, dead-and-buried sort of place. It's all very well for a dead poet; but no misfortune on earth could compel me to live there. Nothing.' 'I am sorry you do not like it,' was all she said, and she was not conscious of saying that. She had a dead dull feeling, and would have given all the world to get into a cab, wrap herself up closely so as to keep the very air of London from her, drive back to the railway station, and get into a train for home. If she were at home she could steal away to her own room and cry. Neither in this room nor in any other in London could she cry. Tears could not relieve in a strange room, where nothing had ever witnessed your smiles or your tears before, which had no memory of you, no connection with your history. In the meantime this plain-looking dark-faced man was rattling on in a shocking and distressing manner, and George stood by seemingly unconscious of her presence. His eyes were on the door every five seconds. When she had arrived at the London railway station, she had shrunk from it as a place that put a barrier between her and her home. Now she looked on it with yearning eyes; it had ceased to be a barrier, and had become the link between her and the peaceful past. In the midst of her isolation of spirit and her distress, she became conscious of the approach of someone. She grew conscious that someone was standing over her, and that George was speaking to the newest stranger. But she did not realise what was taking place until she heard George say 'My sister.' Miss Osborne raised her eyes, and looked long into the face bending over her. There was a light of home in those dark eyes. There was a manner of sympathy on that young face. There was a touch of sisterhood in that bending figure. Insensibly Miss Osborne rose, and stretched out her hand to the other girl. 'You look very tired,' said Miss Gordon, in her low, rich, melodious voice. 'I am a little.' 'I should,' said Mrs Barclay, 'have asked Miss Osborne to go to her room before this, but the smoke has not yet cleared away. The flue was cold, and it smoked. Will you go to another room and take off your hat, and have a cup of tea sent up to you, Miss Osborne?' 'Come to mine,' said the soft voice. The two girls were standing face to face, looking earnestly at one another. 'Thank you, I will,' answered Miss Osborne. Still holding her by the hand, Miss Gordon led her out of the room. When they had gone, Nevill turned to Osborne and said,-- 'She is very beautiful.' 'Very.' 'Is she strong?' 'I hope so. I think so,' uneasily, with a questioning look. 'But she is so pale.' 'Pale? Pale? You must be mistaken.' 'Never less likely to be mistaken in all my life.' 'Of whom are you speaking?' 'Your sister.' The two men stood staring mutely into one another's eyes.