Chapter Nine.

Chapter Nine.The Man who Wished for Success.Success was the passion of John Malham’s life, mediocrity was his bane. The ordinary commonplace life which brings happiness and content to millions of his fellow men filled him with a passion of disgust. As he left the Tube station morning and night, and filed out into the street among the crowd of black-coated, middle-class workers, an insignificant unit in an insignificant whole, a feeling of physical nausea overcame him. There were grey-haired men by the hundred among the throng, men not only elderly, but old, working ceaselessly day by day at the same dull grind, returning at night to small houses in the suburbs. From youth to age they had toiled and expended their strength, and this was their reward! In a few years’ time they would die, and be buried, and the great machine would grind on, oblivious of their loss. Slaves, puppets, automata who were content to masquerade in the guise of men! John Malham squared his great shoulders and drew a deep breath of contempt. Not for him this dull path of monotony. By one means or another, he had vowed to his own heart to rise to the top of the tree, and make for himself a place among men.Malham was a barrister by profession; a barrister, without influence, and with a private income of a hundred a year. His impressive personality, and unmistakable gift of argument had brought him a moderate success, but while others congratulated him, his own feeling was an ever-mounting discontent. He was waiting for the grand opportunity, and the grand opportunity did not come. Like an actor who finds no scope for his talent in the puny parts committed to his charge, but feels ever burning within him the capacity to shine as a star, so did Malham fret and chafe; intolerantly waiting for his chance.As an outlet for his energies Malham had plunged into politics, and here success had been more rapid. As an apt and powerful speaker he was much in request, and his circle of influential acquaintances grew apace. He was asked to dinner, on visits to country houses where he was entertained with cordiality, as aquid pro quofor a speech at the County Hall. Politicians began to say to him with a smile: “We must have you in the House, Malham.” “I shall be speaking foryouanother day, Malham!” “A man like you, Malham, ought to be in the Cabinet.” Steadily, slowly, the conviction had generated that in politics lay his best hope of success.But he must have money. Even in the days of paid members a man without private means was handicapped in the race. Once again he could not be content to be a unit in a crowd. He wished to be known; to make himself felt. To do this it would be necessary to entertain, to have a home of which he could be proud. A home, and—a wife.At this point Malham’s hard face would soften into the tender, humorous smile which was reserved for but one person on earth—for Celia Bevan, a high school mistress to whom he had been engaged for five long years. Pew of his friends, and none of his acquaintances, had heard of his engagement, for Malham was a secretive man, and Celia was not in his own set. He had met her on a fishing holiday when they happened to be staying in the same small inn, and for the first and only time in his life had been carried away on a wave of impulse.Five years ago, and—this was the extraordinary thing!—his heart had never regretted the madness. Celia was poor, unknown, getting perilously near thirty, but there was an ageless charm about Celia, an ever-new, ever-changing, ever-lovable charm, which held him captive, despite the cold remonstrances of his brain. Nowadays he met dozens of wealthy and distinguished women, but no duchess in her purple had for him the charm of Celia in her shabby blouses, seated in her shabby lodging, wrestling with the everlasting pile of exercise books.She loved him—heavens! how she loved him. There was nothing tepid about Celia. Even eight years’ teaching at a high school had been powerless to beat down her individuality, or damp the ardour of her spirit. She loved him with a passion which was her very being, and he loved her in return as devotedly as it was in his nature to love. She was his mate, the one woman in the world who could understand, and sympathise, and console.But—there was Lady Anne! Lady Anne was the unmarried daughter of his most influential political patron, and of late it had been impossible for Malham to disguise from himself the fact that Lady Anne had fallen a victim to his powerful personality and clever, versatile tongue. She was a pitiful creature, this scion of a noble house, a thin, wizened woman of thirty-seven, plain with a dull, sexless plainness which had in it no redeeming point, so diffident as to be almost uncouth in manner, overwhelmed with the consciousness of her own social failure. Wealthy and influential as was her family, no one had ever wished to marry “poor Anne,” yet hidden within the unattractive exterior lived a loving, sensitive heart, which had gone hungry from the hour of her birth.Now as it happened Lady Anne’s brother was nursing a certain constituency in the neighbourhood of his father’s place, and being neither clever nor fluent he was thankful to avail himself of the services of an eloquent young barrister, who was ever ready to run down from town for a few days’ visit, and deliver a rousing address in furtherance of his cause. So it came about that during the summer and autumn John Malham was a frequent visitor at Home Castle, and at each visit the secret of Lady Anne became more and more apparent to the eyes of onlookers.Lady Anne wished to marry Malham. Her father recognised as much, and decided resignedly that for “poor Anne” no better match could be expected. Malham was a gentleman, came of a good stock, and—given a start—was the type of man who was bound to come to the front. “We could find him a seat,” the Earl said to his son, “and Anne’s jointure would keep them going till he found his feet. If he proposes for her, there’ll be no trouble from me. At this time of day we must be thankful for what we can get.”Cautiously, guardedly, in after-dinner confidences the young man was allowed to infer that the coast was clear. At first he had thrust aside the suggestion with a laugh, as something preposterous and impossible, but the poison worked. He began to dally with the thought, to project himself into an imaginary future when the circumstances of life should make in his favour, instead of acting as a handicap. Slowly and surely the poison worked.One evening he took his way to Grosvenor Square in a frame of mind bordering on desperation. For months past he had been building on the possibility of securing a brief in a case which promised to afford one of the sensations of the year. He had a chance, a promising chance it had appeared, but that afternoon he had received the news that the brief had gone past him in favour of another man, no whit more capable than himself. There were reasons for the choice of which he was ignorant, but in his morbid depression, the only explanation lay in his own insignificance, in the higher social standing of his rival. He had known many such disappointments, and had smarted beneath them, but this was the final straw which broke down his remaining strength, and as it chanced he was left alone with Lady Anne after dinner, and she ventured a timid question as to the cause of his depression.Of what happened next he had no clear recollection; he answered, and she sympathised, faltered out a wish that she might help; he thanked her, and—what did he say next? He could not remember, but he knew that he had accepted the offered help, and with it the hand of the donor.There were tears in Lady Anne’s eyes as she plighted her troth. It was the one desire of her heart to share his life. He was the most wonderful, the most gifted of men. To be able to smooth his way would be the proudest privilege which the world could afford. She held out her thin hand as she spoke, and Malham pressed it in his own, and bent over it in elaborate acknowledgment. The chill of those fingers struck to his heart; he left the house and, walking along the streets, the question clamoured insistently at his heart:Would she expect him to kiss her?He had made an early retreat, and now went straight to Celia’s lodgings. It was part of the strength of his character that he never deferred a difficult duty, and to-night he knew himself faced with the most painful ordeal of his life.Celia was sitting as usual before a pile of exercise books in her shabby little parlour. Her white blouse was mended in several places, but it was daintily fresh, and her auburn hair flamed into gold beneath the hanging lamp. She did not rise as he entered, but tilted herself back on her chair, and stretched her tired arms with a sigh of welcome.“Oh, dearest and best, is that you? Oh, how lovely it is when you don’t expect, and the good things come! I was never more happy to see you... Kiss me several times!”But he stood stiff and straight on the shabby hearth-rug, and delivered himself of his message:“I am going to many Lady Anne Mulliner.”Celia rose from the chair, and seated herself on the side of the table. She had grey eyes fringed with dark lashes, and a large, well-shaped mouth with lips which tilted agreeably at the corners what time she was amused. They tilted now, and the grey eyes danced. Malham was jesting in the good old way in which he used to jest before he grew so silent and preoccupied. It had pleased them then to make believe, and act little plays for the other’s benefit. How good it was to jest again!Celia hunched her shoulders to her ears, and pointed at him with a dramatic finger. Her voice rang in loud, stagey accents:“False caitiff, wouldst thou indeed betray my innocent trust? Pull many a year have I waited in love and fealty, and wouldst thou spurn the poor maiden’s heart?” She pulled her handkerchief out of her belt, flourished it to her eyes, then suddenly subsided into laughter, and an easy: “The poor old scarecrow! Jack! it’s not kind... What about that kiss?”“I am going to marry Lady Anne Mulliner,” repeated Malham once more. Celia put her head on one side, and looked at him with her winsome look, the look he most loved to see.“All right, ducky doo! Why shouldn’t you? She’ll bemostpleased. But for to-night, you see, you belong to me, and—er—I haven’t seen you for three whole days!”“Celia, you must believe me. I mean it. I proposed to Lady Anne an hour ago, and she accepted me. We are engaged. I came straight here to tell you.”The smile faded from Celia’s face. She looked startled and grave, but there was no serious alarm on her face.“Jack—why?”He threw out his arms with a gesture of despair.“Because I can’t endure this life. I’ve missed that case; it has gone past me as usual, to a fellow with influence. There is no hope for a man who has no position, no one behind. It would drive me mad to go on year after year with this hopeless struggle. It is driving me mad now. To-night I felt desperate. I would have given anything in the world to buy my chance, and the opportunity came. I took it. I had not the power to refuse.”“Poor Jack!” she said softly. “Poor Jack!”He had expected reproaches, tears, wild protestations. Celia was impetuous by nature, and the peace between them had not been unbroken by storms. He was prepared for violence, but this gentleness played havoc with his composure. His face twitched, he turned towards her with passionate entreaty.“Celia, I’m a brute, a coward. Nothing that you can say of me is bad enough. You’ve been an angel, and I know, I knew all the time that I hurt you by delaying our marriage. You would have been satisfied with a small beginning; it was I who was not content. I’ve kept you waiting year after year, and now at the end I have sold myself to another woman.”“You can’t sell what is not your own. You can’tgivewhat is not your own. You belong to me. I’m not going to give you up!”She rose, and going up to him clasped both hands round his arm. Her face was white, but she smiled still; on her pale cheek a dimple dipped and waned.“You were tired and depressed. You saw the chance, and for a moment it seemed the easiest way, but you can’t do it, Jack; you can’t do it! There’s something else that you had forgotten. There’sme! You love me, Jack.”She raised her face to his with a wooing smile, and a groan burst from his lips. This was torture. His heart was torn, but his resolution remained unchanged.“Heaven knows I do. You are the only woman I can ever love. I love you more dearly than anything on earth. Except one!”“And that?”“Myself. Success. The career that Lady Anne can give—”“Poor Jack!” sighed Celia again. She leaned her head on his shoulder with her old movement of confiding love. For five long years those broad shoulders had been her resting-place, a bulwark between herself and the outer world. She drew him with her to the sofa, and rested there now. It was impossible to thrust her away.“If you loved another woman, darling, if you had grown tired of me, I’d let you go without a word. I’dwantyou to go, but I’m not going to let you spoil your life. I haven’t loved you all these years without knowing your faults as well as your virtues. The outside world sees your cleverness and charm, but the best in you, the very best Jack—that belongs to me! If you lost me, it would die. There’d be nothing left but the husk of John Malham. The cold, hard husk with nothing inside.”“You may be right, Celia. I expect you are right, but I have made my choice. You can’t understand, no woman could understand how men can put ambition before love, but they do it. It is done every day. I don’t say I shall not suffer—you know I shall suffer!” His voice broke suddenly. “Celia,darling!”She was silent for a moment, lying motionless against his heart, then she spoke in a soft murmur of reminiscent tenderness.“D’you remember, Jack, the evening we were engaged? You walked about all night because you were afraid you might go to sleep and think it was a dream, and you scribbled a letter in pencil beneath a lamp-post, and put it into the letter-box so that I might have it at breakfast. I’ve got it yet—in tissue paper, to keep the pencil fresh.”“Celia—don’t! You torture me. Of course I remember.”“D’you remember that day up the river when we quarrelled, and I cried all over the tea? When I got home at night my face was all smudged. I’d been handling the kettle, and then dried my eyes, and you had never said a word about it, but had been solovelyto me all the way home. Ididlove you for that, Jack!”“I had made you cry to start with. I’ve made you cry too often. Don’t cry for me now, Celia! I’m not worth it. You will be better without me.”Then for the first time there came a flash of anger. She sat up suddenly and faced him with flashing eyes.“Howdareyou say it? How dare you say such a lie?Withoutyou? What would be left to me if you went? Youaremy life. There has been no room for anyone else; you have demanded everything for yourself,—all my care, all my thought, all interest, all my love,—and I have given them to you, till there is nothing left, and I am powerless to live alone. You know it is true!”“You think so now, Celia, but you will find life easier without me. This hopeless waiting is hard on a woman, and I’ve drawn on you all these years, always asking, always needing. It’s a wrench, but it will be better for us both. Celia, I haven’t given you up without a struggle. I make no defence. I know I am treating you abominably, but this thing is stronger than myself. Icannotgo on. I must go my own way.”“I willnevergive you up!” said Celia firmly. She held out her left hand the third finger of which was encircled by the engagement ring, an inexpensive trifle in turquoise and pearls. “You put that ring there, and made me swear that it should never come off until the wedding-ring was put in its place. It never shall! It’s no use giving me back my promise. You don’t realise what you are asking. It is an impossibility. I can never believe that you seriously intend to marry another woman until I see her walking out of church on your arm. And then—”“Then—”“It would kill me, Jack. I could not live.”Malham rose hastily, and strode across the room. His endurance was at an end. Of what use to prolong the agony? His mind was made up, it was useless to go on torturing Celia and himself.“It is too late, the thing is done. There is no drawing back. We are engaged.”“Will you walk about all night, Jack, in case you fall asleep and find it is a dream? Will you write a letter in pencil and slip it into her letterbox so that she may have it at breakfast?”“Celia, don’t! For God’s sake, don’t... I can’t stand this!”“Will you quarrel with her, Jack, and kiss, and make it up? Will she stroke your head when you are tired, to take away the pain, and will you lie and look up in her face, and make up little verses about her eyes? I’ve got all your verses, Jack, dozens of them, locked away in my desk.”“You know I won’t. That sort of thing is over for ever. It is the price I shall have to pay. One can’t have the one big thing, and everything else into the bargain. I have made my choice, and the rest must go.”“But we must make quite sure whatisthe big thing.Iam your big thing, Jack. You are tired and discouraged, and when people are discouraged things look out of proportion. To-day you put success first, and Celia second, but you will find out your mistake. You can’t live without me, Jack, any more than I can live without you. It’s gone deeper than you think.”Malham’s hand was on the door, but he turned at that last word and looked at her across the room. She sat as he had so often seen her, leaning forward from the waist, her chin cupped in her hand, her grey eyes bent on him with an intensity of love. Among the drab furnishings of the room, the glowing mass of her hair shone with a burnished splendour. The sight of her represented all that was gracious and beautiful—his thought leaped to that other woman from whom he had parted but an hour before, he saw the two faces side by side, and for a moment he wavered. Only a moment, then he hardened himself, and turned once more.“It is too late. I have made my choice. Goodbye, Celia.”“Au revoir, Jack.MyJack! You will come back to me!”Her voice rang strong and valiant. In just that voice she had put courage into him time and again when he had come nigh to despair. In just that voice had she breathed her undying confidence in the future. But this time when he was lost to sight, and the thud of the closing door sounded through the little house, Celia laid her bright head on the table, and her tears fell fast on the scattered papers.In aristocratic circles engagements are of short duration. Malham was thankful of the fact, and acceded eagerly to a proposed date less than six weeks ahead. A furnished flat was secured in which he and Lady Anne could set up housekeeping, leaving the choice of a permanent residence to be made at leisure. He welcomed that decision as a relief from a painful ordeal. It had been a favourite amusement of Celia’s to go house-hunting on holiday afternoons, and under her guidance it had proved a beguiling occupation. When luck was in the ascendant she would put on her best hat, obtain orders to view mansions in West End squares, and give herself airs to the caretaker on the subject of ball-room accommodation. When luck waned she would escort him to garden suburbs, and gush over a sitting-room four yards by five. And the furniture for mansion and villa alike had been chosen a hundred times over from a point of vantage outside shop windows. It would have been molten torture to go house-hunting and furnishing with Lady Anne!In a quiet unobtrusive fashion Lady Anne was exacting. She expected daily visits, which were periods of acute misery to her fiancé. Her uncouth efforts to worm herself into his confidence shamed and exasperated; he was disagreeably conscious of disappointing her expectations, yet more and more did it become impossible to act the lover’s part. Conversation would lag between them and finally come to an end, then Anne’s small eyes would redden as from unshed tears, she would lay her chill hands on his, and ask wistfully:“Is anything the matter, John? Have I offended you in any way?”“How could you offend me, Anne? You are everything that is good and generous. I am most grateful for all you have done.”“But you must love me, too. I want you to love me. Youdolove me, John?”Once or twice at such questioning, a flood of anger and loathing, almost maniacal in its fury, rushed through Malham’s veins, urging him on until it was all he could do to refrain from bursting into cruel laughter, into bitter, gibing words. Loveher! That pitiful, sexless thing—he who had known Celia, and held her in his arms. Was Anne blind that she could not see what manner of woman she was? Had she no sense that she could not realise the nature of the bargain between them?And every week of that endless six a letter came to him from Celia bearing the same message:“I have seen it in the paper, Jack, but I know it is not true. You will never do it. You can’t do it, Jack. You belong to me. Dear, it will be harder with every day that passes. Be brave and end itnow! I know you better than you know yourself. Nothing that she can give you will make you happy apart from me. It’s been hard for you—I know it too well, and you shall never hear a word of reproach, but—come soon, Jack! It’s weary waiting. I have given you so much that I’ve no power to live alone. Your Celia.”Each letter said the same thing in different words, and each time that one arrived the struggle between love and ambition was fought afresh in Malham’s mind. Never before had he realised all that Celia had counted for in his life; never had he yearned so passionately for her presence. A dozen times over he started with rapid footsteps to answer her appeal in person, but never once did he arrive at his destination. The very sight of the mean streets through which he was obliged to pass, served to chill his enthusiasm and awake the remembrance of all that a reconciliation must entail. To break off his engagement with Lady Anne Mulliner at the eleventh hour would be to alienate his political patrons and ring the death knell of his hopes. He would be obliged to drag on year after year waiting for a chance of distinguishing himself at the Bar, living meantime in one of these mean little houses, in one of these mean little streets, turning out morning after morning to make his way to the Tube, among the crowd of black-coated, middle-class workers.The struggle ended each time in the victory of ambition. He turned and retraced his steps towards his own chambers.The last letter arrived on the morning of the marriage. Its message was the same, but the valiant confidence had waned, and a note of wildness took its place. Yet even now Celia would not, could not, believe that his decision was irrevocable. Even now she adjured him to reflect, to remember, to be warned! The handwriting was rough and untidy, hardly recognisable as Celia’s dainty calligraphy; in every line, in every word there were signs of agitation and despair, but as Malham recognised with a pang, there was still no word of reproach.He kissed the letter and held it passionately to his lips, before he dropped it into the fire. The husband of the Lady Anne Mulliner must not treasure love letters from another woman. The paper flamed orange and blue, then shrivelled into blackened ashes. Malham, looking on, read into the sight a simile with his own life. The beauty, the splendour of it were burnt out; nothing but ashes remained.It was a curious reflection for a man who would that day plant his foot firmly on the ladder of success!The fashionable church was filled to overflowing; reporters seated in points of vantage jotted down the names of the aristocratic guests with other details of public interest. “Marriage of an Earl’s Daughter.”“Romantic Marriage.”“Marriage in High Life.” The titles were already drawn out awaiting the following description. “The Duchess of A. looked charming in amber velvet with a sable cloak. The Marchioness of B. looked charming in green, with a hat with white plumes. The bridesmaids, eleven in number, were a charming group in grey satin and silver veils. They carried charming bouquets of azaleas, which with charming gold and pearl bangles were the gift of the bridegroom. Their names were —. The bride wore a gown of white satin covered with old English point lace, the court train was draped with the same valuable lace, and lined with silver tissue. She carried a bouquet of orchids.” There were a dozen reporters in the church, and they used the word “charming” many, dozens of times collectively, but not one of them ventured to apply it to the bride!Lady Anne cried in a softly persistent fashion throughout the ceremony, and the sight of her tears awoke a smouldering fury in Malham’s heart. Why need she cry? She had gained her desire. It was he who should cry! In the vestry a young married relative came forward, and with deft hands straightened the twisted wreath and arranged the folds of the veil. “Really, Anne!” she cried impatiently, “you positivelymustthink of your appearance. My dear, if you could see yourself! For goodness’ sake pull yourself together.” As she turned away, she shot a glance at Malham, standing tall and impassive beside the table, and there came into her eyes a cold comprehending gleam. “There,” said her eyes, “stands a man who has sold his soul!” There were eyes all round him, studying him where he stood, and in them all he read the same condemnation, the same scorn.The organ blared; the bridesmaids ranged themselves behind the bridal couple, the procession left the vestry, and proceeded down the aisle. Now there were more eyes, hundreds of eyes, staring with merciless gaze. The bride was trembling with nervousness, her chin shaking like that of a frightened child. All her life she had been snubbed and kept in the background; terror of her conspicuous position for the time being swamped her joy in her handsome spouse. The sound of her panting breath came to Malham’s ears; he hurried his pace in fear of another breakdown, and the laces of the bridal train caught in the carved woodwork of a pew.There was a momentary pause while a bridesmaid came to the rescue, and Malham, turning to discover the nature of the hindrance, felt an icy chill spread down his spine. In the pew by his side, within touch of his hand, stood Celia, tall and slim, gazing straight into his face. Her hair glowed like flames round her colourless face, her lips were parted, showing a gleam of teeth, her head was thrown back on the white column of her throat,—each cherished detail of her beauty smote on Malham with a separate pang, but it was the expression in her eyes which chilled his blood.What was the expression in her eyes?Malham’s heart beat in sickening thuds. Was it a moment, or an hour, during which he stood and stared back into those terrible eyes? To the onlookers the pause was barely perceptible; to him it seemed endless as eternity.It was only when he was seated beside his bride in the carriage, and Anne was sobbing against his shoulder, that Malham realised the meaning of Celia’s eyes.They were dead eyes. They hadnoexpression!The reception was a nightmare, but it came to an end at last, and Malham and his bride bade good-bye to their friends, and started on the first stage of their honeymoon. It had been arranged that they should remain in town until the next morning, when they were to make an early start for the Continent. They drove to a fashionable hotel, where a suite of rooms had been secured for their use, and after a couple of hours’ rest, went through the ordeal of their firsttête-à-têtemeal.Malham felt like a man in a dream. He moved, he spoke, he ate, and drank as might a machine wound up to perform certain actions, but he was conscious of nothing but a pair of dead eyes gazing at him out of a living face. There was only one feeling of which he was capable—a feeling of fear—of deadly, overmastering fear.Dinner over, Malham excused himself, and repaired to the great lounge of the hotel. Anne had recovered her composure, and had embarked upon a series of sentimental reminiscences which bade fair to drive him demented. At all costs he must escape from her presence.He seated himself at one of the small tables and automatically lifted an evening paper. The first thing that met his eye was his own name at the head of a column. “Marriage of Mr John Malham and Lady Anne Mulliner.” He crushed the sheet with a savage hand, and thrust it back on the table, and as he did so another paragraph separated itself from the context and smote upon his brain.“Suicide of a High School Teacher. A well-dressed young woman was drowned in the Serpentine at five o’clock this afternoon. The life-saving apparatus was put in operation with all possible speed, but when the body was recovered, life was found to be extinct. The deceased had letters in her possession addressed to Miss Celia Bevan, 19 Wrothesley Street, Maida Vale. It is believed to be a case of premeditated suicide.”Across the hall two young men were whispering to each other behind their papers.“That fellow over there, by the big palm,—that’s Malham! Reading an account of his own wedding. Clever fellow, but poor as a rat. Been dragging along for years at the Bar, but that’s all over now! With a father-in-law like Lord Fluteson to give him a push, he’ll soon romp ahead. Jolly good day’s work this has been for him!”His companion looked across the lounge.“Some fellows,” he said grudgingly, “have all the luck!”

Success was the passion of John Malham’s life, mediocrity was his bane. The ordinary commonplace life which brings happiness and content to millions of his fellow men filled him with a passion of disgust. As he left the Tube station morning and night, and filed out into the street among the crowd of black-coated, middle-class workers, an insignificant unit in an insignificant whole, a feeling of physical nausea overcame him. There were grey-haired men by the hundred among the throng, men not only elderly, but old, working ceaselessly day by day at the same dull grind, returning at night to small houses in the suburbs. From youth to age they had toiled and expended their strength, and this was their reward! In a few years’ time they would die, and be buried, and the great machine would grind on, oblivious of their loss. Slaves, puppets, automata who were content to masquerade in the guise of men! John Malham squared his great shoulders and drew a deep breath of contempt. Not for him this dull path of monotony. By one means or another, he had vowed to his own heart to rise to the top of the tree, and make for himself a place among men.

Malham was a barrister by profession; a barrister, without influence, and with a private income of a hundred a year. His impressive personality, and unmistakable gift of argument had brought him a moderate success, but while others congratulated him, his own feeling was an ever-mounting discontent. He was waiting for the grand opportunity, and the grand opportunity did not come. Like an actor who finds no scope for his talent in the puny parts committed to his charge, but feels ever burning within him the capacity to shine as a star, so did Malham fret and chafe; intolerantly waiting for his chance.

As an outlet for his energies Malham had plunged into politics, and here success had been more rapid. As an apt and powerful speaker he was much in request, and his circle of influential acquaintances grew apace. He was asked to dinner, on visits to country houses where he was entertained with cordiality, as aquid pro quofor a speech at the County Hall. Politicians began to say to him with a smile: “We must have you in the House, Malham.” “I shall be speaking foryouanother day, Malham!” “A man like you, Malham, ought to be in the Cabinet.” Steadily, slowly, the conviction had generated that in politics lay his best hope of success.

But he must have money. Even in the days of paid members a man without private means was handicapped in the race. Once again he could not be content to be a unit in a crowd. He wished to be known; to make himself felt. To do this it would be necessary to entertain, to have a home of which he could be proud. A home, and—a wife.

At this point Malham’s hard face would soften into the tender, humorous smile which was reserved for but one person on earth—for Celia Bevan, a high school mistress to whom he had been engaged for five long years. Pew of his friends, and none of his acquaintances, had heard of his engagement, for Malham was a secretive man, and Celia was not in his own set. He had met her on a fishing holiday when they happened to be staying in the same small inn, and for the first and only time in his life had been carried away on a wave of impulse.

Five years ago, and—this was the extraordinary thing!—his heart had never regretted the madness. Celia was poor, unknown, getting perilously near thirty, but there was an ageless charm about Celia, an ever-new, ever-changing, ever-lovable charm, which held him captive, despite the cold remonstrances of his brain. Nowadays he met dozens of wealthy and distinguished women, but no duchess in her purple had for him the charm of Celia in her shabby blouses, seated in her shabby lodging, wrestling with the everlasting pile of exercise books.

She loved him—heavens! how she loved him. There was nothing tepid about Celia. Even eight years’ teaching at a high school had been powerless to beat down her individuality, or damp the ardour of her spirit. She loved him with a passion which was her very being, and he loved her in return as devotedly as it was in his nature to love. She was his mate, the one woman in the world who could understand, and sympathise, and console.

But—there was Lady Anne! Lady Anne was the unmarried daughter of his most influential political patron, and of late it had been impossible for Malham to disguise from himself the fact that Lady Anne had fallen a victim to his powerful personality and clever, versatile tongue. She was a pitiful creature, this scion of a noble house, a thin, wizened woman of thirty-seven, plain with a dull, sexless plainness which had in it no redeeming point, so diffident as to be almost uncouth in manner, overwhelmed with the consciousness of her own social failure. Wealthy and influential as was her family, no one had ever wished to marry “poor Anne,” yet hidden within the unattractive exterior lived a loving, sensitive heart, which had gone hungry from the hour of her birth.

Now as it happened Lady Anne’s brother was nursing a certain constituency in the neighbourhood of his father’s place, and being neither clever nor fluent he was thankful to avail himself of the services of an eloquent young barrister, who was ever ready to run down from town for a few days’ visit, and deliver a rousing address in furtherance of his cause. So it came about that during the summer and autumn John Malham was a frequent visitor at Home Castle, and at each visit the secret of Lady Anne became more and more apparent to the eyes of onlookers.

Lady Anne wished to marry Malham. Her father recognised as much, and decided resignedly that for “poor Anne” no better match could be expected. Malham was a gentleman, came of a good stock, and—given a start—was the type of man who was bound to come to the front. “We could find him a seat,” the Earl said to his son, “and Anne’s jointure would keep them going till he found his feet. If he proposes for her, there’ll be no trouble from me. At this time of day we must be thankful for what we can get.”

Cautiously, guardedly, in after-dinner confidences the young man was allowed to infer that the coast was clear. At first he had thrust aside the suggestion with a laugh, as something preposterous and impossible, but the poison worked. He began to dally with the thought, to project himself into an imaginary future when the circumstances of life should make in his favour, instead of acting as a handicap. Slowly and surely the poison worked.

One evening he took his way to Grosvenor Square in a frame of mind bordering on desperation. For months past he had been building on the possibility of securing a brief in a case which promised to afford one of the sensations of the year. He had a chance, a promising chance it had appeared, but that afternoon he had received the news that the brief had gone past him in favour of another man, no whit more capable than himself. There were reasons for the choice of which he was ignorant, but in his morbid depression, the only explanation lay in his own insignificance, in the higher social standing of his rival. He had known many such disappointments, and had smarted beneath them, but this was the final straw which broke down his remaining strength, and as it chanced he was left alone with Lady Anne after dinner, and she ventured a timid question as to the cause of his depression.

Of what happened next he had no clear recollection; he answered, and she sympathised, faltered out a wish that she might help; he thanked her, and—what did he say next? He could not remember, but he knew that he had accepted the offered help, and with it the hand of the donor.

There were tears in Lady Anne’s eyes as she plighted her troth. It was the one desire of her heart to share his life. He was the most wonderful, the most gifted of men. To be able to smooth his way would be the proudest privilege which the world could afford. She held out her thin hand as she spoke, and Malham pressed it in his own, and bent over it in elaborate acknowledgment. The chill of those fingers struck to his heart; he left the house and, walking along the streets, the question clamoured insistently at his heart:

Would she expect him to kiss her?

He had made an early retreat, and now went straight to Celia’s lodgings. It was part of the strength of his character that he never deferred a difficult duty, and to-night he knew himself faced with the most painful ordeal of his life.

Celia was sitting as usual before a pile of exercise books in her shabby little parlour. Her white blouse was mended in several places, but it was daintily fresh, and her auburn hair flamed into gold beneath the hanging lamp. She did not rise as he entered, but tilted herself back on her chair, and stretched her tired arms with a sigh of welcome.

“Oh, dearest and best, is that you? Oh, how lovely it is when you don’t expect, and the good things come! I was never more happy to see you... Kiss me several times!”

But he stood stiff and straight on the shabby hearth-rug, and delivered himself of his message:

“I am going to many Lady Anne Mulliner.”

Celia rose from the chair, and seated herself on the side of the table. She had grey eyes fringed with dark lashes, and a large, well-shaped mouth with lips which tilted agreeably at the corners what time she was amused. They tilted now, and the grey eyes danced. Malham was jesting in the good old way in which he used to jest before he grew so silent and preoccupied. It had pleased them then to make believe, and act little plays for the other’s benefit. How good it was to jest again!

Celia hunched her shoulders to her ears, and pointed at him with a dramatic finger. Her voice rang in loud, stagey accents:

“False caitiff, wouldst thou indeed betray my innocent trust? Pull many a year have I waited in love and fealty, and wouldst thou spurn the poor maiden’s heart?” She pulled her handkerchief out of her belt, flourished it to her eyes, then suddenly subsided into laughter, and an easy: “The poor old scarecrow! Jack! it’s not kind... What about that kiss?”

“I am going to marry Lady Anne Mulliner,” repeated Malham once more. Celia put her head on one side, and looked at him with her winsome look, the look he most loved to see.

“All right, ducky doo! Why shouldn’t you? She’ll bemostpleased. But for to-night, you see, you belong to me, and—er—I haven’t seen you for three whole days!”

“Celia, you must believe me. I mean it. I proposed to Lady Anne an hour ago, and she accepted me. We are engaged. I came straight here to tell you.”

The smile faded from Celia’s face. She looked startled and grave, but there was no serious alarm on her face.

“Jack—why?”

He threw out his arms with a gesture of despair.

“Because I can’t endure this life. I’ve missed that case; it has gone past me as usual, to a fellow with influence. There is no hope for a man who has no position, no one behind. It would drive me mad to go on year after year with this hopeless struggle. It is driving me mad now. To-night I felt desperate. I would have given anything in the world to buy my chance, and the opportunity came. I took it. I had not the power to refuse.”

“Poor Jack!” she said softly. “Poor Jack!”

He had expected reproaches, tears, wild protestations. Celia was impetuous by nature, and the peace between them had not been unbroken by storms. He was prepared for violence, but this gentleness played havoc with his composure. His face twitched, he turned towards her with passionate entreaty.

“Celia, I’m a brute, a coward. Nothing that you can say of me is bad enough. You’ve been an angel, and I know, I knew all the time that I hurt you by delaying our marriage. You would have been satisfied with a small beginning; it was I who was not content. I’ve kept you waiting year after year, and now at the end I have sold myself to another woman.”

“You can’t sell what is not your own. You can’tgivewhat is not your own. You belong to me. I’m not going to give you up!”

She rose, and going up to him clasped both hands round his arm. Her face was white, but she smiled still; on her pale cheek a dimple dipped and waned.

“You were tired and depressed. You saw the chance, and for a moment it seemed the easiest way, but you can’t do it, Jack; you can’t do it! There’s something else that you had forgotten. There’sme! You love me, Jack.”

She raised her face to his with a wooing smile, and a groan burst from his lips. This was torture. His heart was torn, but his resolution remained unchanged.

“Heaven knows I do. You are the only woman I can ever love. I love you more dearly than anything on earth. Except one!”

“And that?”

“Myself. Success. The career that Lady Anne can give—”

“Poor Jack!” sighed Celia again. She leaned her head on his shoulder with her old movement of confiding love. For five long years those broad shoulders had been her resting-place, a bulwark between herself and the outer world. She drew him with her to the sofa, and rested there now. It was impossible to thrust her away.

“If you loved another woman, darling, if you had grown tired of me, I’d let you go without a word. I’dwantyou to go, but I’m not going to let you spoil your life. I haven’t loved you all these years without knowing your faults as well as your virtues. The outside world sees your cleverness and charm, but the best in you, the very best Jack—that belongs to me! If you lost me, it would die. There’d be nothing left but the husk of John Malham. The cold, hard husk with nothing inside.”

“You may be right, Celia. I expect you are right, but I have made my choice. You can’t understand, no woman could understand how men can put ambition before love, but they do it. It is done every day. I don’t say I shall not suffer—you know I shall suffer!” His voice broke suddenly. “Celia,darling!”

She was silent for a moment, lying motionless against his heart, then she spoke in a soft murmur of reminiscent tenderness.

“D’you remember, Jack, the evening we were engaged? You walked about all night because you were afraid you might go to sleep and think it was a dream, and you scribbled a letter in pencil beneath a lamp-post, and put it into the letter-box so that I might have it at breakfast. I’ve got it yet—in tissue paper, to keep the pencil fresh.”

“Celia—don’t! You torture me. Of course I remember.”

“D’you remember that day up the river when we quarrelled, and I cried all over the tea? When I got home at night my face was all smudged. I’d been handling the kettle, and then dried my eyes, and you had never said a word about it, but had been solovelyto me all the way home. Ididlove you for that, Jack!”

“I had made you cry to start with. I’ve made you cry too often. Don’t cry for me now, Celia! I’m not worth it. You will be better without me.”

Then for the first time there came a flash of anger. She sat up suddenly and faced him with flashing eyes.

“Howdareyou say it? How dare you say such a lie?Withoutyou? What would be left to me if you went? Youaremy life. There has been no room for anyone else; you have demanded everything for yourself,—all my care, all my thought, all interest, all my love,—and I have given them to you, till there is nothing left, and I am powerless to live alone. You know it is true!”

“You think so now, Celia, but you will find life easier without me. This hopeless waiting is hard on a woman, and I’ve drawn on you all these years, always asking, always needing. It’s a wrench, but it will be better for us both. Celia, I haven’t given you up without a struggle. I make no defence. I know I am treating you abominably, but this thing is stronger than myself. Icannotgo on. I must go my own way.”

“I willnevergive you up!” said Celia firmly. She held out her left hand the third finger of which was encircled by the engagement ring, an inexpensive trifle in turquoise and pearls. “You put that ring there, and made me swear that it should never come off until the wedding-ring was put in its place. It never shall! It’s no use giving me back my promise. You don’t realise what you are asking. It is an impossibility. I can never believe that you seriously intend to marry another woman until I see her walking out of church on your arm. And then—”

“Then—”

“It would kill me, Jack. I could not live.”

Malham rose hastily, and strode across the room. His endurance was at an end. Of what use to prolong the agony? His mind was made up, it was useless to go on torturing Celia and himself.

“It is too late, the thing is done. There is no drawing back. We are engaged.”

“Will you walk about all night, Jack, in case you fall asleep and find it is a dream? Will you write a letter in pencil and slip it into her letterbox so that she may have it at breakfast?”

“Celia, don’t! For God’s sake, don’t... I can’t stand this!”

“Will you quarrel with her, Jack, and kiss, and make it up? Will she stroke your head when you are tired, to take away the pain, and will you lie and look up in her face, and make up little verses about her eyes? I’ve got all your verses, Jack, dozens of them, locked away in my desk.”

“You know I won’t. That sort of thing is over for ever. It is the price I shall have to pay. One can’t have the one big thing, and everything else into the bargain. I have made my choice, and the rest must go.”

“But we must make quite sure whatisthe big thing.Iam your big thing, Jack. You are tired and discouraged, and when people are discouraged things look out of proportion. To-day you put success first, and Celia second, but you will find out your mistake. You can’t live without me, Jack, any more than I can live without you. It’s gone deeper than you think.”

Malham’s hand was on the door, but he turned at that last word and looked at her across the room. She sat as he had so often seen her, leaning forward from the waist, her chin cupped in her hand, her grey eyes bent on him with an intensity of love. Among the drab furnishings of the room, the glowing mass of her hair shone with a burnished splendour. The sight of her represented all that was gracious and beautiful—his thought leaped to that other woman from whom he had parted but an hour before, he saw the two faces side by side, and for a moment he wavered. Only a moment, then he hardened himself, and turned once more.

“It is too late. I have made my choice. Goodbye, Celia.”

“Au revoir, Jack.MyJack! You will come back to me!”

Her voice rang strong and valiant. In just that voice she had put courage into him time and again when he had come nigh to despair. In just that voice had she breathed her undying confidence in the future. But this time when he was lost to sight, and the thud of the closing door sounded through the little house, Celia laid her bright head on the table, and her tears fell fast on the scattered papers.

In aristocratic circles engagements are of short duration. Malham was thankful of the fact, and acceded eagerly to a proposed date less than six weeks ahead. A furnished flat was secured in which he and Lady Anne could set up housekeeping, leaving the choice of a permanent residence to be made at leisure. He welcomed that decision as a relief from a painful ordeal. It had been a favourite amusement of Celia’s to go house-hunting on holiday afternoons, and under her guidance it had proved a beguiling occupation. When luck was in the ascendant she would put on her best hat, obtain orders to view mansions in West End squares, and give herself airs to the caretaker on the subject of ball-room accommodation. When luck waned she would escort him to garden suburbs, and gush over a sitting-room four yards by five. And the furniture for mansion and villa alike had been chosen a hundred times over from a point of vantage outside shop windows. It would have been molten torture to go house-hunting and furnishing with Lady Anne!

In a quiet unobtrusive fashion Lady Anne was exacting. She expected daily visits, which were periods of acute misery to her fiancé. Her uncouth efforts to worm herself into his confidence shamed and exasperated; he was disagreeably conscious of disappointing her expectations, yet more and more did it become impossible to act the lover’s part. Conversation would lag between them and finally come to an end, then Anne’s small eyes would redden as from unshed tears, she would lay her chill hands on his, and ask wistfully:

“Is anything the matter, John? Have I offended you in any way?”

“How could you offend me, Anne? You are everything that is good and generous. I am most grateful for all you have done.”

“But you must love me, too. I want you to love me. Youdolove me, John?”

Once or twice at such questioning, a flood of anger and loathing, almost maniacal in its fury, rushed through Malham’s veins, urging him on until it was all he could do to refrain from bursting into cruel laughter, into bitter, gibing words. Loveher! That pitiful, sexless thing—he who had known Celia, and held her in his arms. Was Anne blind that she could not see what manner of woman she was? Had she no sense that she could not realise the nature of the bargain between them?

And every week of that endless six a letter came to him from Celia bearing the same message:

“I have seen it in the paper, Jack, but I know it is not true. You will never do it. You can’t do it, Jack. You belong to me. Dear, it will be harder with every day that passes. Be brave and end itnow! I know you better than you know yourself. Nothing that she can give you will make you happy apart from me. It’s been hard for you—I know it too well, and you shall never hear a word of reproach, but—come soon, Jack! It’s weary waiting. I have given you so much that I’ve no power to live alone. Your Celia.”

Each letter said the same thing in different words, and each time that one arrived the struggle between love and ambition was fought afresh in Malham’s mind. Never before had he realised all that Celia had counted for in his life; never had he yearned so passionately for her presence. A dozen times over he started with rapid footsteps to answer her appeal in person, but never once did he arrive at his destination. The very sight of the mean streets through which he was obliged to pass, served to chill his enthusiasm and awake the remembrance of all that a reconciliation must entail. To break off his engagement with Lady Anne Mulliner at the eleventh hour would be to alienate his political patrons and ring the death knell of his hopes. He would be obliged to drag on year after year waiting for a chance of distinguishing himself at the Bar, living meantime in one of these mean little houses, in one of these mean little streets, turning out morning after morning to make his way to the Tube, among the crowd of black-coated, middle-class workers.

The struggle ended each time in the victory of ambition. He turned and retraced his steps towards his own chambers.

The last letter arrived on the morning of the marriage. Its message was the same, but the valiant confidence had waned, and a note of wildness took its place. Yet even now Celia would not, could not, believe that his decision was irrevocable. Even now she adjured him to reflect, to remember, to be warned! The handwriting was rough and untidy, hardly recognisable as Celia’s dainty calligraphy; in every line, in every word there were signs of agitation and despair, but as Malham recognised with a pang, there was still no word of reproach.

He kissed the letter and held it passionately to his lips, before he dropped it into the fire. The husband of the Lady Anne Mulliner must not treasure love letters from another woman. The paper flamed orange and blue, then shrivelled into blackened ashes. Malham, looking on, read into the sight a simile with his own life. The beauty, the splendour of it were burnt out; nothing but ashes remained.

It was a curious reflection for a man who would that day plant his foot firmly on the ladder of success!

The fashionable church was filled to overflowing; reporters seated in points of vantage jotted down the names of the aristocratic guests with other details of public interest. “Marriage of an Earl’s Daughter.”

“Romantic Marriage.”

“Marriage in High Life.” The titles were already drawn out awaiting the following description. “The Duchess of A. looked charming in amber velvet with a sable cloak. The Marchioness of B. looked charming in green, with a hat with white plumes. The bridesmaids, eleven in number, were a charming group in grey satin and silver veils. They carried charming bouquets of azaleas, which with charming gold and pearl bangles were the gift of the bridegroom. Their names were —. The bride wore a gown of white satin covered with old English point lace, the court train was draped with the same valuable lace, and lined with silver tissue. She carried a bouquet of orchids.” There were a dozen reporters in the church, and they used the word “charming” many, dozens of times collectively, but not one of them ventured to apply it to the bride!

Lady Anne cried in a softly persistent fashion throughout the ceremony, and the sight of her tears awoke a smouldering fury in Malham’s heart. Why need she cry? She had gained her desire. It was he who should cry! In the vestry a young married relative came forward, and with deft hands straightened the twisted wreath and arranged the folds of the veil. “Really, Anne!” she cried impatiently, “you positivelymustthink of your appearance. My dear, if you could see yourself! For goodness’ sake pull yourself together.” As she turned away, she shot a glance at Malham, standing tall and impassive beside the table, and there came into her eyes a cold comprehending gleam. “There,” said her eyes, “stands a man who has sold his soul!” There were eyes all round him, studying him where he stood, and in them all he read the same condemnation, the same scorn.

The organ blared; the bridesmaids ranged themselves behind the bridal couple, the procession left the vestry, and proceeded down the aisle. Now there were more eyes, hundreds of eyes, staring with merciless gaze. The bride was trembling with nervousness, her chin shaking like that of a frightened child. All her life she had been snubbed and kept in the background; terror of her conspicuous position for the time being swamped her joy in her handsome spouse. The sound of her panting breath came to Malham’s ears; he hurried his pace in fear of another breakdown, and the laces of the bridal train caught in the carved woodwork of a pew.

There was a momentary pause while a bridesmaid came to the rescue, and Malham, turning to discover the nature of the hindrance, felt an icy chill spread down his spine. In the pew by his side, within touch of his hand, stood Celia, tall and slim, gazing straight into his face. Her hair glowed like flames round her colourless face, her lips were parted, showing a gleam of teeth, her head was thrown back on the white column of her throat,—each cherished detail of her beauty smote on Malham with a separate pang, but it was the expression in her eyes which chilled his blood.What was the expression in her eyes?

Malham’s heart beat in sickening thuds. Was it a moment, or an hour, during which he stood and stared back into those terrible eyes? To the onlookers the pause was barely perceptible; to him it seemed endless as eternity.

It was only when he was seated beside his bride in the carriage, and Anne was sobbing against his shoulder, that Malham realised the meaning of Celia’s eyes.

They were dead eyes. They hadnoexpression!

The reception was a nightmare, but it came to an end at last, and Malham and his bride bade good-bye to their friends, and started on the first stage of their honeymoon. It had been arranged that they should remain in town until the next morning, when they were to make an early start for the Continent. They drove to a fashionable hotel, where a suite of rooms had been secured for their use, and after a couple of hours’ rest, went through the ordeal of their firsttête-à-têtemeal.

Malham felt like a man in a dream. He moved, he spoke, he ate, and drank as might a machine wound up to perform certain actions, but he was conscious of nothing but a pair of dead eyes gazing at him out of a living face. There was only one feeling of which he was capable—a feeling of fear—of deadly, overmastering fear.

Dinner over, Malham excused himself, and repaired to the great lounge of the hotel. Anne had recovered her composure, and had embarked upon a series of sentimental reminiscences which bade fair to drive him demented. At all costs he must escape from her presence.

He seated himself at one of the small tables and automatically lifted an evening paper. The first thing that met his eye was his own name at the head of a column. “Marriage of Mr John Malham and Lady Anne Mulliner.” He crushed the sheet with a savage hand, and thrust it back on the table, and as he did so another paragraph separated itself from the context and smote upon his brain.

“Suicide of a High School Teacher. A well-dressed young woman was drowned in the Serpentine at five o’clock this afternoon. The life-saving apparatus was put in operation with all possible speed, but when the body was recovered, life was found to be extinct. The deceased had letters in her possession addressed to Miss Celia Bevan, 19 Wrothesley Street, Maida Vale. It is believed to be a case of premeditated suicide.”

Across the hall two young men were whispering to each other behind their papers.

“That fellow over there, by the big palm,—that’s Malham! Reading an account of his own wedding. Clever fellow, but poor as a rat. Been dragging along for years at the Bar, but that’s all over now! With a father-in-law like Lord Fluteson to give him a push, he’ll soon romp ahead. Jolly good day’s work this has been for him!”

His companion looked across the lounge.

“Some fellows,” he said grudgingly, “have all the luck!”

Chapter Ten.The Girl who Wished for Work.Norah Boyce was one of numerous young women who have seen better days. During the seven years which had elapsed since she had bidden farewell to a Parisian boarding-school, she had enjoyed all the sweets of existence which fall to the lot of a girl whom nature has endowed with beauty and a deceased parent with an income of five hundred pounds a year. And then, of a sudden, catastrophe overtook her. Societies collapsed, banks failed, labourers went on strike and brought down dividends on railway investments. The five hundred pounds was reduced to something considerably under one, and Norah spent her nights in tears, and her days in studying the newspapers in search of “something to do.”Being still young in experience, she started by spending a small fortune on advertisements in which she expressed her willingness to undertake secretarial duties, to act as companion to an invalid lady—as governess to young children, or as instructress in the arts of poker-work, marquetry, and painting on china; then as time went on and the public continued to treat her overtures with contempt, she abandoned this mode of procedure, and contented herself with reading the notices for whichotherpeople had paid, and in wasting postage-stamps in reply.It was when this occupation had been continued for several months and her spirits had fallen to the lowest possible ebb that her eye was attracted by a paragraph which awakened new hopes. A lady wished to meet with a young person of good principles and cheerful disposition, who would accompany her to church on Sundays, spend some hours of every morning in reading aloud, playing upon the harmonium, and making herself useful and agreeable; and applicants were directed to apply in person at Number 8 Berrington Square, between three and five o’clock in the afternoon.“I shall try for it!” cried Norah instantly. “It will be horribly humiliating. I shall be shown into the dining-room, and expected to take a seat between the sideboard and the door, as servants do when they are applying for a situation, but anything is better than sitting here, doing nothing! I don’t feel remarkably cheerful at present, but it is in the old lady’s power to put me in the wildest spirits, if she is so inclined. She must be old—no human creature under sixty could have written that advertisement. She can’t have any children, or she would not be advertising for a companion; she must be well off, or she could not afford to pay for ‘extras’ in this rash fashion; she would have to put up with being dull as I have done the last month. Heigho! It would be very pleasing if she took a fancy to me, and adopted me as her heir! I don’t in the least see why she shouldn’t! I can be very charming when I choose. I shall put on my sealskin coat, and my best hat!”A few hours later, Miss Boyce knocked at the door of Number 8 Berrington Square, was informed that Mrs Baker was at home, and shown into a room on the right of the entrance hall. It was the dining-room. “Of course! I knew it!” said Norah to herself, and straightway proceeded to take stock of her surroundings. A red flock wall-paper, a heavy mahogany sideboard, on which were flanked an imposing array of biscuit-boxes and cruets; mahogany chairs upholstered in black haircloth; an india-rubber plant in the centre of the table, and an American organ in the corner! The visitor rolled her eyes to the ceiling, and went through an expressive pantomime of despair, for she was an artistic, beauty-loving creature, whose spirits were sensibly affected by the colour of a wallpaper, and to whom it was a real trial to live in ugly surroundings.She had barely time to compose herself before the door opened, and the mistress of the house made her appearance.Mrs Baker was an old lady of the white rabbit type, weak-eyed, anaemic, and kindly, and evidently unaccustomed to the engagement of “young persons,” for she shook hands with Norah, seated herself in an easy chair by the fire, and waited developments with a blandly inquiring smile.It was evident that Norah was expected to advertise her capabilities without the aid of the usual cross-questionings, so, taking her courage in both hands, she launched forth into explanations, prefaced, it must sorrowfully be admitted, by a reference to better days; confessed to a passion for reading aloud and playing on the harmonium, and dwelt at length on the advantages of her scholastic training. When at last she paused for breath, after having talked for a good five minutes on end, the old lady blinked her eyes, and said:“What, love?—I didn’t quite catch what you were saying. I am a little hard of hearing!”“I might have known it!” Norah told herself reproachfully. “Deaf, of course! It just completes the character,” and in a heightened voice she proceeded to repeat every word of her former statement. Signs of impatience became visible on the listener’s face as she proceeded, and she hurried on in order to announce the name of her musical professor before she should be interrupted by the question which was evidently hovering on the old lady’s lips.“Did you ever happen to meet a family named Henstock, who lived in Finsbury Park? A corner house it was—white, with green posts at the gate?” queried Mrs Baker, bending forward with an expression of breathless curiosity.Norah gasped, and shook her head. The connection between the family of Henstock in the corner house in Finsbury Park, and her own application for the post of companion, was so exceedingly remote as to reduce her to a condition of petrified silence.“How very extraordinary! You are so like Mary Ellen, the very image of Mary Ellen! She was a great favourite of mine, was Mary Ellen, and she married a very worthy young man, an assistant in a bank at Bradford. Yes! She had two lovely little boys. It was very good of you to come and see me, my dear, and I should like very much to have you with me. I am reading a most interesting biography at present, and I take in several periodicals. Yes! Perhaps you could come on Monday morning. At eleven o’clock.”Three months’ experience of answering advertisements had left Norah so little prepared for this speedy acceptance of her services, that she was surprised into protest.“But I do not wish to hurry your decision! Perhaps you would like to have references, or to consult your—”“No, love! I have no one to consider but myself, and you have such a strong resemblance to Mary Ellen! It is in this way: My nephew has been in the habit of going to church with me. I cannot hear very much; but I like to go all the same, and John was in the habit of repeating the sermon to me in the afternoon. Yes! He is a very estimable-minded young man, and very good to his old aunt! It was he who suggested that I should advertise for a companion. He said it would be so lonely for me if he ever went out of town, but he will be very pleased when I tell him that I have found someone so like Mary Ellen. He has such a dislike for these new-fashioned, strong-minded girls who are always calling out for their rights. I am sure, my dear, that you have too much sense for such notions. You look far too pretty and amiable. Now about the little matter of remuneration! ... Would half a crown a day be agreeable?”Norah gasped again, with a sensation as if a pail of water had been suddenly douched over her head. Half a crown a day! It was what people paid to charwomen. Good Gracious! She tried to calculate what sum was represented by seven half-crowns, and the delay which took place before she succeeded in settling the point convinced her that, after all, she would be wise to accept Mrs Baker’s offer, since in another situation she might possibly be required to teach arithmetic and mathematics! She perjured herself, therefore, by declaring that half a crown would be very agreeable indeed, and returned home undecided between hilarity and depression.For the next three weeks Norah earned her half-crown a day with equal satisfaction to herself and her employer. The biographies were a trifle dull, it is true, and the harmonium decidedly creaky and out of tune, but the old lady was kindly and affectionate, and her companion had the pleasure of feeling that her services were appreciated. By this time, however, she had fully grasped the fact that seven half-crowns equal seventeen-and-six, and in the conviction that further effort was required to secure herself from anxiety, had recommenced the daily searchings of the newspaper columns. Then it was that she discovered an advertisement which filled her with a sense of delighted amusement, because of its strange likeness and yet contrast to the one of a month before. Another lady, it appeared, was desirous of finding a companion, but this time the advertiser was a champion of women’s rights, who wished to meet with someone of like opinions, who would walk with her in the afternoons and discuss the problems and difficulties of the sex.“‘Curiouser and curiouser!’” quoted Norah to herself. “What a droll coincidence. Now, if I had not—but of course as Ihave, I could not possibly... And yet, why not? I am sure after being shut up in that stuffy room all morning reading those dull, old-fashioned books, I am in a most daring and revolutionary mood in the afternoons. I should not be pretending to take an interest in the suffrage question; I should really and truly feel it... It would be instructive to hear what this lady has to say for herself, and then, after marching about the country listening to her tirades, I should probably be quite thankful to get back to medievalism and my dear old lady in the morning.—I’ll do it! I will! I’ll go and see her without an hour’s delay...”The advertisement had not asked for a personal application, but Norah had gained experience by this time, and was perfectly aware of the advantage possessed by Miss Boyce in her sealskin coat and best hat, over the “young persons” who, as a rule, applied for situations. She intended to be not only heard but seen.The advanced lady lived in a flat which was as artistic as the house in Berrington Square was commonplace. She was a spinster of uncertain age, tall and angular, and so formidable in appearance that at the sight of her Norah was overcome with a panic of nervousness.“Good afternoon,” she stammered. “I—I saw your advertisement in theDaily News, and thought that I would—that is to say, that I would apply—that I would try to—to.—I hope I have not inconvenienced you by calling in person!”“Not at all, not at all. I have already received several replies, but it is far more satisfactory to have a personal interview,” returned the spinster, staring very hard at Norah’s hat, and craning her neck to see how the bows were arranged at the back. “I am ordered to take a certain amount of outdoor exercise daily, and as my friends are not able to accompany me, I wish to meet with a lady who is interested in the same subjects as myself, and with whom I can enjoy exchange of ideas as we walk. You look rather young, but I gather from the fact of your having replied to my advertisement, that you are—”“I am very much interested. I should enjoy hearing your views, and, though I am young, I have seen a great deal of life. I have travelled more than most people, and am now alone in the world, and obliged to earn my own living.”Norah had been in haste to reply, in order to avoid a more compromising statement, but now she stopped short, surprised by a flash of delight which illumined the listener’s face.“Ah-h!” cried Miss Mellor, in the rapturous tone of one who has suddenly been granted a long-craved-for opportunity. “Then you have had experience! Youknow! Youfed! You agree with me that the history of the human race, the throng of events, the multifarious forms of human life are only the accidental form of the Idea; they do not belong to the Idea itself, in which alone lies the adequate objectivity of the Will, but only to that phenomenon which appears to the knowledge of the individual, and which is just as foreign and unessential to the Idea itself as the figures which they assume are to the clouds, or the foam flakes to the brooks! So true! So deeply true! You agree with me, I feel sure!”“Certainly. Quite so. I mean to say—naturally! Oh, yes. By all means!” gasped Norah weakly, and her head fell back against the chair. She was not to know that the speaker had discovered her little speech in a book only one short half-hour before, and had learned it off by heart in the fond hope of being able to introduce it incidentally into conversation, and she felt faint and dizzy with the effort of trying to understand.Miss Mellor saw that she had made an impression, and beamed with complacent delight.“Ah, yes; I see that we are at one!” she cried. “And is it not a comfort to feel that, having once grasped this idea, we shall now be able to distinguish between the Will and the Idea, and between the Idea and its manifestation? The events of the world will now have significance for us, inasfar only as they are the letters out of which we may read the Idea of man. We can never again believe with the vulgar—”“Oh, my goodness!” cried Norah to herself. “To think that it should have come to this! I’m vulgar! I must be; and I never knew it! I don’t understand onewordshe is saying. If I ever get out of this room alive—”She sank still farther back in her chair and stared at Miss Mellor with fascinated, unblinking eyes, like a poor little rabbit beneath the spell of the boa-constrictor. In a dim, far-off way, she heard the stream of unmeaning eloquence, but her one supreme longing was to bring the interview to an end, to crawl home and lie down upon the sofa, and put wet cloths on her head, and go to sleep and forget all about her sufferings... Suddenly the dock chimed, and she awoke to the fact that it was over half an hour since she had entered the room. She rose to her feet, and was about to falter forth apologies for her ignorance, when, to her astonishment, the advanced lady bore down upon her, and grasping her hand in fervent fashion, declared that she was enchanted to have discovered a kindred spirit, and that, suffering as she did from constant coldness and misunderstanding, it was soul-refreshing to meet with one whose mind was as her own, and that she would henceforth live in anticipation of their afternoon communions!For one moment Norah was stupefied with amazement, the next her eyes shone, and the dimples dipped in her cheeks, for with a flash of intuition she had grasped the significance of the situation! What the advanced lady really desired was not a companion who would talk and air her own opinions, but a dummy figure to whom she herself could lay down the law; a target at which she could let fly the arrows of her newly-acquired wisdom. An occasional murmur of assent would therefore be the extent of the companion’s duties, which feat Norah felt herself well able to accomplish.For the next few months the enterprising Miss Boyce fulfilled her two daily engagements with equal satisfaction to herself and her employers. In the morning, within the fusty confines of Number 8 Berrington Square, she read aloud extracts from antiquated volumes which had been the favourites of the old lady’s youth; likewise retrimmed caps, sprayed the leaves of the india-rubber plant, retrieved dropped stitches in knitting, droned out voluntaries and national airs on the wheezy old harmonium, and listened to endless reminiscences of the Henstock family, and other worthies equally unknown.In the afternoons Norah roamed the different parks in company with Miss Mellor, preserving an attentive silence while that good lady quoted the opinions of her friends, or paraphrased the leading articles in the Radical press. Her first feeling towards this, the second of her employers, had been largely tinged with impatience and lack of sympathy, but as time went on, she relented somewhat in the hardness of her judgment, and felt the dawning of a kindly pity. She was a very lonely woman—this tall angular spinster who talked so loudly of her rights; love had never come into her life, and in all the breadth of the land she had hardly a relation whom she could take by the hand.Once, in the middle of a heated argument on the suffrage, Miss Mellor paused to look longingly at a curly-headed baby toddling across the path; and beside the duck-pond in Regent’s Park she invariably lost the thread of her argument in watching the crowds of merry children feeding their pets. Norah reflected that had Miss Mellor been a happy wife and mother she might not have troubled her head about a vote. All the same, the result of education on the woman’s question had been to convince Norah that the demand for “rights” had been founded on some very definite wrongs. After the long walk the two ladies would return to tea in the flat, where the companion consumed the wafer-like bread and butter and dainty cakes with Philistine enjoyment, and even Miss Mellor herself descended from her high horse, and inquired curiously:“Where do you get your hats?”Of her two employers Norah had distinct preference for the old lady, Mrs Baker. She was of a more lovable nature than the voluble Miss Mellor, and, moreover, as she herself had announced—she had a nephew! The nephew was a handsome, well-set-up man of thirty, who possessed considerable culture and refinement, and a most ingratiating kindliness of demeanour towards his homely old aunt.The first Sunday after Norah entered upon her duties, young Mr Baker did not call at Berrington Square; on the second Sunday he came to midday dinner; on the third, he met the two ladies at the church door after morning service, and remained with them for the whole of the afternoon; on the fourth, he was already seated in the pew when they entered the church, and he persisted in these good habits until it became a matter of course that he should spend the whole day in Berrington Square, as Norah herself had done from the beginning of her engagement. In the afternoon Mrs Baker would invariably make the hospitable suggestion that “if John liked” he could descend to a chill, fireless room in the basement to indulge in an after-dinner weed, but John refused to move until Miss Boyce had given her repetition of the morning’s service. He said that he was afraid she might forget an important point, in which case he should be at hand to jog her memory. “John is so thoughtful!” said his aunt proudly.As a matter of fact, John never once volunteered a suggestion on any one of these occasions. He seemed to be fully occupied in using his eyes and ears, and in truth it was both a pretty and touching sight to see the young fresh face bent close to the withered countenance of the deaf old woman, and to listen to the thrush-like tones of the girl’s voice, as with a sweet and simple eloquence she gave her brief résumé of the morning’s sermon. The old lady nodded and wagged her head to enforce the points, while the tears trickled down her cheeks. From time to time John also would take a promenade to the window, and clear his throat loudly as he stared at the dusty trees. Strange how much more powerful those sermons appeared in the repetition!After the recital was over, young Mr Baker would take Miss Boyce to examine the ferns in the tiny conservatory, while his aunt enjoyed her forty winks; in the evening he escorted her back to her lodgings. He was a most attentive young man!In Mrs Baker’s opinion “John” was infallible, and by and by Norah became so much infected with this view that her afternoon’s occupation became fraught with misery, as she thought of what “John” would say if he knew to what heresies she was lending her ears. One Sunday afternoon returning to the Berrington Square drawing-room after a short absence, she overheard a few words which sent an added pang through her heart.”—Most fortunate indeed!” John was saying. “You might have searched the world over, and not found another like her. I had begun to fear that the type was extinct. A sweet, modest, old-fashioned girl!”That evening Norah wet her pillow with her tears, and astonished the advanced lady the next afternoon by contradicting assertions, and raising up objections in a most unprecedented fashion. These signs of backsliding were very distressing to Miss Mellor, who had been encouraged by her companion’s unfailing acquiescence to imagine herself unanswerable in argument, but she was encouraged to believe that example might perhaps accomplish what precept had failed to inspire.“You will, I know, rejoice with me on a great honour which has been conferred upon me by my fellow-workers,” she announced proudly one day. “I have been promoted from the reserves to a foremost position in the fighting line. I am nominated for active service on Friday next!”Norah’s eyes were exceptionally large and expressive, and the saucer-like stare of curiosity which she turned upon the speaker was very gratifying to that good lady’s feelings.“On Friday evening. At the Albert Hall. The Chancellor is to speak. We shall be there. Twenty are nominated for service.Iam Number Nine!”Norah stared harder than ever. This sounded rather perilously like the story of a Nihilist Plot which she had read in a shilling shocker some weeks before. She had visions of bomb explosions and wholesale arrests, and, as ever, the thought of John obtruded itself into the foreground of her mind. What would John think if Miss Mellor were arrested, and gave the name of Norah Boyce as her chosen friend and confidante?“Number Nine, forwhat?” she gasped nervously, and Miss Mellor was hurried into unthinking reply:“For screaming—I mean protesting. The first eight champions will raise their voices in rotation. They will be silenced, probably ejected. Then it will be My Turn.”“Ejected!” Norah looked scared. “Turned out. Oh-h! How dreadful! They will seize hold of you—men will seize hold of you, and pull and drag. They will pinch your arms... It must be horrid to be pinched!”“What would have become of the world if other great reformers had ceased their struggles through dread of being pinched?” demanded Miss Mellor sternly; and Norah felt snubbed, and looked it. She had no courage left for further argument.On the next Friday afternoon Norah took her way to the flat to accompany her fighting employer on the walk abroad which should invigorate her for the evening’s fray, but to her dismay found the good lady stretched upon the sofa, very flushed as to face, and husky as to voice.“It is quinsy,” she announced. “I’m subject to it. I felt it coming on, but I would not give in. I have gargled and fomented all morning, but it is too late. I couldn’t scream to save my life. It’s a terrible, terrible disappointment, but I am thankful that I need not upset the Committee’s plans. You shall take my place!”“I?” cried Norah shrilly. “No, no—I can’t! I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—not for anything in the whole wide world! Call out before a whole meeting, have them all staring at me, strange men catching hold of me, dragging my sleeves, crushing my hat—never! I’d sooner die!”“Then,” croaked Miss Mellor hoarsely, “I shall go myself!” And from this point she refused to budge. She was ill; in the natural course of events she would grow worse; if she went out into the damp and the cold, and endured the excitement of a crowded political meeting, she would most certainly be very ill indeed; but she had promised; she could not disappoint the Committee at the eleventh hour; she had no energy to seek further for a substitute. Then her voice took a pathetic turn, and she sighed feebly.“I have been kind to you, Norah. I have tried to be your friend. Danvers (the maid) would accompany you to the Hall. You have nothing to do but to sit still and interrupt when your turn arrives. How can you be so selfish and unkind?”As time went on and argument and appeal alike failed to move Miss Mellor from her position, a paralysis of helplessness seized Norah in its grip. She knew that in the end she would be compelled to consent, for of two horrifying alternatives it seemed the least to dare a certain amount of buffeting for herself, rather than allow another woman to run the risk of serious, even fatal, consequences. At nine o’clock that evening, then, behold a trembling and faint-hearted Number Nine seated at the end of one of the rows of stalls at the Albert Hall, the faithful Danvers by her side, listening with all her ears, not to the eloquence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but to the shrill interruptions from feminine tongues which punctuated his utterances. Numbers One and Two had been escorted from the gallery by indulgent, if somewhat contemptuous, stewards. Numbers Pour and Five had received less consideration; Number Six had been undeniably hustled; Number Seven had squealed aloud. Norah realised with a dread sinking of the heart that the temper of the meeting was rising, and that each fresh disturber of the peace would receive less consideration. Only one more, and then... The great building whirled before her eyes, the faces on the platform became faint and blurred, her heart pounded so loudly that it seemed impossible that her neighbours should not hear its thuds. She turned her head to look at the nearest door and examine the faces of the group of stewards waiting in readiness at its portal. Were theyverybig,veryfierce,veryformidable? Which of the number would be the first to tear her from her seat? Her pretty face was blanched and drawn beneath her flower-wreathed hat; one of the stewards meeting her glance moved forward to her side with a stifled exclamation of dismay. He bent low over her, whispering in her ear:“Miss Boyce! what are you doing here? Are you alone? You ought not to be here without a man to look after you. It is getting too noisy—too excited. If there are any more interruptions things will become dangerous. Let me take you out quietly, while there is time—”John Baker, by all that was confounding and terrible! John, the last man on earth whom she would have wished to witness her humiliation! John, who had called her a “modest, old-fashioned girl.” ... It was the last straw to poor Norah’s composure; her fluttering heart gave one sickening leap, and then appeared to stop altogether; she held out her hands with a feeble, despairing gesture, and collapsed in a limp little heap in John Baker’s arms.When Norah came back to consciousness she was lying on a form in a bare, boarded room, and John was engaged in sprinkling water from a water-jug over the front of her best silk blouse. She sat up hastily, brushed the hair from her forehead, and stared around with bewildered eyes. A roar of applause from the great hall broke the silence, and brought back struggling remembrance.“Did you—did you turn me out?”“Icarriedyou out! You fainted, and I brought you in here. It was no wonder; you were not accustomed to such sights. Did you imagine in your faintness that you had been turned out like those other screaming women, you poor little frightened girl?” asked John’s big voice in its most caressing tones.Norah shivered with dismay.“I was—I am—I mean Ishouldhave been, if I had stayed five minutes longer! I’m Number Nine!” she cried; and then seeing John’s stare of stupefied dismay, promptly threw up her hands to her face, and burst into weak-minded tears.“Oh—oh! Whatwillyou think of me—whatwillyou say!—I was obliged to earn some money—and half a crown a day was not enough,—Mrs Baker gives me half a crown. I—I go to another lady in the afternoons, and she is a Suffragette. She is very kind to me, and very patient, because I’m stupid, and can’t understand, and—and I don’t seem to care! I don’twanta vote, but she was Number Nine to-night, and she is ill—her throat is very bad, she might be dangerously ill if she came out. She would only stay at home if I promised to take her place, and, she has been very kind.—I promised, and now I’ve failed. I was too terribly frightened. And then I saw your face... Oh, whatdoyou think of me?”But John Baker refused to give any expression of opinion. All he said was:“Half a crown a day! She offered youthat! Oh, my poor little girl!” And his voice was so low and tender that at the sound of it Norah sobbed afresh.“Don’t cry. Put on your hat. I will take you into the air, and drive you home in a taxi. You will feel better in the air,” said John quietly.He gave her his arm, and escorted her into the corridor, and as they walked along, another roar sounded from within the precincts of the hall, and through an open doorway shot a dishevelled female form, struggling in the grasp of half a dozen stewards. Danvers herself! The faithful Danvers, who, seeing the collapse of her mistress’ proxy, had gallantly taken upon herself the duties of Number Nine. Norah shuddered, and grasped more tightly John’s protecting arm.“Oh, whatmustyou think of me?” she demanded once more; and John, looking down at her as they reached the cool air of the street, replied sturdily:“I think that no woman can serve two masters. Can’t you make up your mind to takeoneinstead?”

Norah Boyce was one of numerous young women who have seen better days. During the seven years which had elapsed since she had bidden farewell to a Parisian boarding-school, she had enjoyed all the sweets of existence which fall to the lot of a girl whom nature has endowed with beauty and a deceased parent with an income of five hundred pounds a year. And then, of a sudden, catastrophe overtook her. Societies collapsed, banks failed, labourers went on strike and brought down dividends on railway investments. The five hundred pounds was reduced to something considerably under one, and Norah spent her nights in tears, and her days in studying the newspapers in search of “something to do.”

Being still young in experience, she started by spending a small fortune on advertisements in which she expressed her willingness to undertake secretarial duties, to act as companion to an invalid lady—as governess to young children, or as instructress in the arts of poker-work, marquetry, and painting on china; then as time went on and the public continued to treat her overtures with contempt, she abandoned this mode of procedure, and contented herself with reading the notices for whichotherpeople had paid, and in wasting postage-stamps in reply.

It was when this occupation had been continued for several months and her spirits had fallen to the lowest possible ebb that her eye was attracted by a paragraph which awakened new hopes. A lady wished to meet with a young person of good principles and cheerful disposition, who would accompany her to church on Sundays, spend some hours of every morning in reading aloud, playing upon the harmonium, and making herself useful and agreeable; and applicants were directed to apply in person at Number 8 Berrington Square, between three and five o’clock in the afternoon.

“I shall try for it!” cried Norah instantly. “It will be horribly humiliating. I shall be shown into the dining-room, and expected to take a seat between the sideboard and the door, as servants do when they are applying for a situation, but anything is better than sitting here, doing nothing! I don’t feel remarkably cheerful at present, but it is in the old lady’s power to put me in the wildest spirits, if she is so inclined. She must be old—no human creature under sixty could have written that advertisement. She can’t have any children, or she would not be advertising for a companion; she must be well off, or she could not afford to pay for ‘extras’ in this rash fashion; she would have to put up with being dull as I have done the last month. Heigho! It would be very pleasing if she took a fancy to me, and adopted me as her heir! I don’t in the least see why she shouldn’t! I can be very charming when I choose. I shall put on my sealskin coat, and my best hat!”

A few hours later, Miss Boyce knocked at the door of Number 8 Berrington Square, was informed that Mrs Baker was at home, and shown into a room on the right of the entrance hall. It was the dining-room. “Of course! I knew it!” said Norah to herself, and straightway proceeded to take stock of her surroundings. A red flock wall-paper, a heavy mahogany sideboard, on which were flanked an imposing array of biscuit-boxes and cruets; mahogany chairs upholstered in black haircloth; an india-rubber plant in the centre of the table, and an American organ in the corner! The visitor rolled her eyes to the ceiling, and went through an expressive pantomime of despair, for she was an artistic, beauty-loving creature, whose spirits were sensibly affected by the colour of a wallpaper, and to whom it was a real trial to live in ugly surroundings.

She had barely time to compose herself before the door opened, and the mistress of the house made her appearance.

Mrs Baker was an old lady of the white rabbit type, weak-eyed, anaemic, and kindly, and evidently unaccustomed to the engagement of “young persons,” for she shook hands with Norah, seated herself in an easy chair by the fire, and waited developments with a blandly inquiring smile.

It was evident that Norah was expected to advertise her capabilities without the aid of the usual cross-questionings, so, taking her courage in both hands, she launched forth into explanations, prefaced, it must sorrowfully be admitted, by a reference to better days; confessed to a passion for reading aloud and playing on the harmonium, and dwelt at length on the advantages of her scholastic training. When at last she paused for breath, after having talked for a good five minutes on end, the old lady blinked her eyes, and said:

“What, love?—I didn’t quite catch what you were saying. I am a little hard of hearing!”

“I might have known it!” Norah told herself reproachfully. “Deaf, of course! It just completes the character,” and in a heightened voice she proceeded to repeat every word of her former statement. Signs of impatience became visible on the listener’s face as she proceeded, and she hurried on in order to announce the name of her musical professor before she should be interrupted by the question which was evidently hovering on the old lady’s lips.

“Did you ever happen to meet a family named Henstock, who lived in Finsbury Park? A corner house it was—white, with green posts at the gate?” queried Mrs Baker, bending forward with an expression of breathless curiosity.

Norah gasped, and shook her head. The connection between the family of Henstock in the corner house in Finsbury Park, and her own application for the post of companion, was so exceedingly remote as to reduce her to a condition of petrified silence.

“How very extraordinary! You are so like Mary Ellen, the very image of Mary Ellen! She was a great favourite of mine, was Mary Ellen, and she married a very worthy young man, an assistant in a bank at Bradford. Yes! She had two lovely little boys. It was very good of you to come and see me, my dear, and I should like very much to have you with me. I am reading a most interesting biography at present, and I take in several periodicals. Yes! Perhaps you could come on Monday morning. At eleven o’clock.”

Three months’ experience of answering advertisements had left Norah so little prepared for this speedy acceptance of her services, that she was surprised into protest.

“But I do not wish to hurry your decision! Perhaps you would like to have references, or to consult your—”

“No, love! I have no one to consider but myself, and you have such a strong resemblance to Mary Ellen! It is in this way: My nephew has been in the habit of going to church with me. I cannot hear very much; but I like to go all the same, and John was in the habit of repeating the sermon to me in the afternoon. Yes! He is a very estimable-minded young man, and very good to his old aunt! It was he who suggested that I should advertise for a companion. He said it would be so lonely for me if he ever went out of town, but he will be very pleased when I tell him that I have found someone so like Mary Ellen. He has such a dislike for these new-fashioned, strong-minded girls who are always calling out for their rights. I am sure, my dear, that you have too much sense for such notions. You look far too pretty and amiable. Now about the little matter of remuneration! ... Would half a crown a day be agreeable?”

Norah gasped again, with a sensation as if a pail of water had been suddenly douched over her head. Half a crown a day! It was what people paid to charwomen. Good Gracious! She tried to calculate what sum was represented by seven half-crowns, and the delay which took place before she succeeded in settling the point convinced her that, after all, she would be wise to accept Mrs Baker’s offer, since in another situation she might possibly be required to teach arithmetic and mathematics! She perjured herself, therefore, by declaring that half a crown would be very agreeable indeed, and returned home undecided between hilarity and depression.

For the next three weeks Norah earned her half-crown a day with equal satisfaction to herself and her employer. The biographies were a trifle dull, it is true, and the harmonium decidedly creaky and out of tune, but the old lady was kindly and affectionate, and her companion had the pleasure of feeling that her services were appreciated. By this time, however, she had fully grasped the fact that seven half-crowns equal seventeen-and-six, and in the conviction that further effort was required to secure herself from anxiety, had recommenced the daily searchings of the newspaper columns. Then it was that she discovered an advertisement which filled her with a sense of delighted amusement, because of its strange likeness and yet contrast to the one of a month before. Another lady, it appeared, was desirous of finding a companion, but this time the advertiser was a champion of women’s rights, who wished to meet with someone of like opinions, who would walk with her in the afternoons and discuss the problems and difficulties of the sex.

“‘Curiouser and curiouser!’” quoted Norah to herself. “What a droll coincidence. Now, if I had not—but of course as Ihave, I could not possibly... And yet, why not? I am sure after being shut up in that stuffy room all morning reading those dull, old-fashioned books, I am in a most daring and revolutionary mood in the afternoons. I should not be pretending to take an interest in the suffrage question; I should really and truly feel it... It would be instructive to hear what this lady has to say for herself, and then, after marching about the country listening to her tirades, I should probably be quite thankful to get back to medievalism and my dear old lady in the morning.—I’ll do it! I will! I’ll go and see her without an hour’s delay...”

The advertisement had not asked for a personal application, but Norah had gained experience by this time, and was perfectly aware of the advantage possessed by Miss Boyce in her sealskin coat and best hat, over the “young persons” who, as a rule, applied for situations. She intended to be not only heard but seen.

The advanced lady lived in a flat which was as artistic as the house in Berrington Square was commonplace. She was a spinster of uncertain age, tall and angular, and so formidable in appearance that at the sight of her Norah was overcome with a panic of nervousness.

“Good afternoon,” she stammered. “I—I saw your advertisement in theDaily News, and thought that I would—that is to say, that I would apply—that I would try to—to.—I hope I have not inconvenienced you by calling in person!”

“Not at all, not at all. I have already received several replies, but it is far more satisfactory to have a personal interview,” returned the spinster, staring very hard at Norah’s hat, and craning her neck to see how the bows were arranged at the back. “I am ordered to take a certain amount of outdoor exercise daily, and as my friends are not able to accompany me, I wish to meet with a lady who is interested in the same subjects as myself, and with whom I can enjoy exchange of ideas as we walk. You look rather young, but I gather from the fact of your having replied to my advertisement, that you are—”

“I am very much interested. I should enjoy hearing your views, and, though I am young, I have seen a great deal of life. I have travelled more than most people, and am now alone in the world, and obliged to earn my own living.”

Norah had been in haste to reply, in order to avoid a more compromising statement, but now she stopped short, surprised by a flash of delight which illumined the listener’s face.

“Ah-h!” cried Miss Mellor, in the rapturous tone of one who has suddenly been granted a long-craved-for opportunity. “Then you have had experience! Youknow! Youfed! You agree with me that the history of the human race, the throng of events, the multifarious forms of human life are only the accidental form of the Idea; they do not belong to the Idea itself, in which alone lies the adequate objectivity of the Will, but only to that phenomenon which appears to the knowledge of the individual, and which is just as foreign and unessential to the Idea itself as the figures which they assume are to the clouds, or the foam flakes to the brooks! So true! So deeply true! You agree with me, I feel sure!”

“Certainly. Quite so. I mean to say—naturally! Oh, yes. By all means!” gasped Norah weakly, and her head fell back against the chair. She was not to know that the speaker had discovered her little speech in a book only one short half-hour before, and had learned it off by heart in the fond hope of being able to introduce it incidentally into conversation, and she felt faint and dizzy with the effort of trying to understand.

Miss Mellor saw that she had made an impression, and beamed with complacent delight.

“Ah, yes; I see that we are at one!” she cried. “And is it not a comfort to feel that, having once grasped this idea, we shall now be able to distinguish between the Will and the Idea, and between the Idea and its manifestation? The events of the world will now have significance for us, inasfar only as they are the letters out of which we may read the Idea of man. We can never again believe with the vulgar—”

“Oh, my goodness!” cried Norah to herself. “To think that it should have come to this! I’m vulgar! I must be; and I never knew it! I don’t understand onewordshe is saying. If I ever get out of this room alive—”

She sank still farther back in her chair and stared at Miss Mellor with fascinated, unblinking eyes, like a poor little rabbit beneath the spell of the boa-constrictor. In a dim, far-off way, she heard the stream of unmeaning eloquence, but her one supreme longing was to bring the interview to an end, to crawl home and lie down upon the sofa, and put wet cloths on her head, and go to sleep and forget all about her sufferings... Suddenly the dock chimed, and she awoke to the fact that it was over half an hour since she had entered the room. She rose to her feet, and was about to falter forth apologies for her ignorance, when, to her astonishment, the advanced lady bore down upon her, and grasping her hand in fervent fashion, declared that she was enchanted to have discovered a kindred spirit, and that, suffering as she did from constant coldness and misunderstanding, it was soul-refreshing to meet with one whose mind was as her own, and that she would henceforth live in anticipation of their afternoon communions!

For one moment Norah was stupefied with amazement, the next her eyes shone, and the dimples dipped in her cheeks, for with a flash of intuition she had grasped the significance of the situation! What the advanced lady really desired was not a companion who would talk and air her own opinions, but a dummy figure to whom she herself could lay down the law; a target at which she could let fly the arrows of her newly-acquired wisdom. An occasional murmur of assent would therefore be the extent of the companion’s duties, which feat Norah felt herself well able to accomplish.

For the next few months the enterprising Miss Boyce fulfilled her two daily engagements with equal satisfaction to herself and her employers. In the morning, within the fusty confines of Number 8 Berrington Square, she read aloud extracts from antiquated volumes which had been the favourites of the old lady’s youth; likewise retrimmed caps, sprayed the leaves of the india-rubber plant, retrieved dropped stitches in knitting, droned out voluntaries and national airs on the wheezy old harmonium, and listened to endless reminiscences of the Henstock family, and other worthies equally unknown.

In the afternoons Norah roamed the different parks in company with Miss Mellor, preserving an attentive silence while that good lady quoted the opinions of her friends, or paraphrased the leading articles in the Radical press. Her first feeling towards this, the second of her employers, had been largely tinged with impatience and lack of sympathy, but as time went on, she relented somewhat in the hardness of her judgment, and felt the dawning of a kindly pity. She was a very lonely woman—this tall angular spinster who talked so loudly of her rights; love had never come into her life, and in all the breadth of the land she had hardly a relation whom she could take by the hand.

Once, in the middle of a heated argument on the suffrage, Miss Mellor paused to look longingly at a curly-headed baby toddling across the path; and beside the duck-pond in Regent’s Park she invariably lost the thread of her argument in watching the crowds of merry children feeding their pets. Norah reflected that had Miss Mellor been a happy wife and mother she might not have troubled her head about a vote. All the same, the result of education on the woman’s question had been to convince Norah that the demand for “rights” had been founded on some very definite wrongs. After the long walk the two ladies would return to tea in the flat, where the companion consumed the wafer-like bread and butter and dainty cakes with Philistine enjoyment, and even Miss Mellor herself descended from her high horse, and inquired curiously:

“Where do you get your hats?”

Of her two employers Norah had distinct preference for the old lady, Mrs Baker. She was of a more lovable nature than the voluble Miss Mellor, and, moreover, as she herself had announced—she had a nephew! The nephew was a handsome, well-set-up man of thirty, who possessed considerable culture and refinement, and a most ingratiating kindliness of demeanour towards his homely old aunt.

The first Sunday after Norah entered upon her duties, young Mr Baker did not call at Berrington Square; on the second Sunday he came to midday dinner; on the third, he met the two ladies at the church door after morning service, and remained with them for the whole of the afternoon; on the fourth, he was already seated in the pew when they entered the church, and he persisted in these good habits until it became a matter of course that he should spend the whole day in Berrington Square, as Norah herself had done from the beginning of her engagement. In the afternoon Mrs Baker would invariably make the hospitable suggestion that “if John liked” he could descend to a chill, fireless room in the basement to indulge in an after-dinner weed, but John refused to move until Miss Boyce had given her repetition of the morning’s service. He said that he was afraid she might forget an important point, in which case he should be at hand to jog her memory. “John is so thoughtful!” said his aunt proudly.

As a matter of fact, John never once volunteered a suggestion on any one of these occasions. He seemed to be fully occupied in using his eyes and ears, and in truth it was both a pretty and touching sight to see the young fresh face bent close to the withered countenance of the deaf old woman, and to listen to the thrush-like tones of the girl’s voice, as with a sweet and simple eloquence she gave her brief résumé of the morning’s sermon. The old lady nodded and wagged her head to enforce the points, while the tears trickled down her cheeks. From time to time John also would take a promenade to the window, and clear his throat loudly as he stared at the dusty trees. Strange how much more powerful those sermons appeared in the repetition!

After the recital was over, young Mr Baker would take Miss Boyce to examine the ferns in the tiny conservatory, while his aunt enjoyed her forty winks; in the evening he escorted her back to her lodgings. He was a most attentive young man!

In Mrs Baker’s opinion “John” was infallible, and by and by Norah became so much infected with this view that her afternoon’s occupation became fraught with misery, as she thought of what “John” would say if he knew to what heresies she was lending her ears. One Sunday afternoon returning to the Berrington Square drawing-room after a short absence, she overheard a few words which sent an added pang through her heart.

”—Most fortunate indeed!” John was saying. “You might have searched the world over, and not found another like her. I had begun to fear that the type was extinct. A sweet, modest, old-fashioned girl!”

That evening Norah wet her pillow with her tears, and astonished the advanced lady the next afternoon by contradicting assertions, and raising up objections in a most unprecedented fashion. These signs of backsliding were very distressing to Miss Mellor, who had been encouraged by her companion’s unfailing acquiescence to imagine herself unanswerable in argument, but she was encouraged to believe that example might perhaps accomplish what precept had failed to inspire.

“You will, I know, rejoice with me on a great honour which has been conferred upon me by my fellow-workers,” she announced proudly one day. “I have been promoted from the reserves to a foremost position in the fighting line. I am nominated for active service on Friday next!”

Norah’s eyes were exceptionally large and expressive, and the saucer-like stare of curiosity which she turned upon the speaker was very gratifying to that good lady’s feelings.

“On Friday evening. At the Albert Hall. The Chancellor is to speak. We shall be there. Twenty are nominated for service.Iam Number Nine!”

Norah stared harder than ever. This sounded rather perilously like the story of a Nihilist Plot which she had read in a shilling shocker some weeks before. She had visions of bomb explosions and wholesale arrests, and, as ever, the thought of John obtruded itself into the foreground of her mind. What would John think if Miss Mellor were arrested, and gave the name of Norah Boyce as her chosen friend and confidante?

“Number Nine, forwhat?” she gasped nervously, and Miss Mellor was hurried into unthinking reply:

“For screaming—I mean protesting. The first eight champions will raise their voices in rotation. They will be silenced, probably ejected. Then it will be My Turn.”

“Ejected!” Norah looked scared. “Turned out. Oh-h! How dreadful! They will seize hold of you—men will seize hold of you, and pull and drag. They will pinch your arms... It must be horrid to be pinched!”

“What would have become of the world if other great reformers had ceased their struggles through dread of being pinched?” demanded Miss Mellor sternly; and Norah felt snubbed, and looked it. She had no courage left for further argument.

On the next Friday afternoon Norah took her way to the flat to accompany her fighting employer on the walk abroad which should invigorate her for the evening’s fray, but to her dismay found the good lady stretched upon the sofa, very flushed as to face, and husky as to voice.

“It is quinsy,” she announced. “I’m subject to it. I felt it coming on, but I would not give in. I have gargled and fomented all morning, but it is too late. I couldn’t scream to save my life. It’s a terrible, terrible disappointment, but I am thankful that I need not upset the Committee’s plans. You shall take my place!”

“I?” cried Norah shrilly. “No, no—I can’t! I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—not for anything in the whole wide world! Call out before a whole meeting, have them all staring at me, strange men catching hold of me, dragging my sleeves, crushing my hat—never! I’d sooner die!”

“Then,” croaked Miss Mellor hoarsely, “I shall go myself!” And from this point she refused to budge. She was ill; in the natural course of events she would grow worse; if she went out into the damp and the cold, and endured the excitement of a crowded political meeting, she would most certainly be very ill indeed; but she had promised; she could not disappoint the Committee at the eleventh hour; she had no energy to seek further for a substitute. Then her voice took a pathetic turn, and she sighed feebly.

“I have been kind to you, Norah. I have tried to be your friend. Danvers (the maid) would accompany you to the Hall. You have nothing to do but to sit still and interrupt when your turn arrives. How can you be so selfish and unkind?”

As time went on and argument and appeal alike failed to move Miss Mellor from her position, a paralysis of helplessness seized Norah in its grip. She knew that in the end she would be compelled to consent, for of two horrifying alternatives it seemed the least to dare a certain amount of buffeting for herself, rather than allow another woman to run the risk of serious, even fatal, consequences. At nine o’clock that evening, then, behold a trembling and faint-hearted Number Nine seated at the end of one of the rows of stalls at the Albert Hall, the faithful Danvers by her side, listening with all her ears, not to the eloquence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but to the shrill interruptions from feminine tongues which punctuated his utterances. Numbers One and Two had been escorted from the gallery by indulgent, if somewhat contemptuous, stewards. Numbers Pour and Five had received less consideration; Number Six had been undeniably hustled; Number Seven had squealed aloud. Norah realised with a dread sinking of the heart that the temper of the meeting was rising, and that each fresh disturber of the peace would receive less consideration. Only one more, and then... The great building whirled before her eyes, the faces on the platform became faint and blurred, her heart pounded so loudly that it seemed impossible that her neighbours should not hear its thuds. She turned her head to look at the nearest door and examine the faces of the group of stewards waiting in readiness at its portal. Were theyverybig,veryfierce,veryformidable? Which of the number would be the first to tear her from her seat? Her pretty face was blanched and drawn beneath her flower-wreathed hat; one of the stewards meeting her glance moved forward to her side with a stifled exclamation of dismay. He bent low over her, whispering in her ear:

“Miss Boyce! what are you doing here? Are you alone? You ought not to be here without a man to look after you. It is getting too noisy—too excited. If there are any more interruptions things will become dangerous. Let me take you out quietly, while there is time—”

John Baker, by all that was confounding and terrible! John, the last man on earth whom she would have wished to witness her humiliation! John, who had called her a “modest, old-fashioned girl.” ... It was the last straw to poor Norah’s composure; her fluttering heart gave one sickening leap, and then appeared to stop altogether; she held out her hands with a feeble, despairing gesture, and collapsed in a limp little heap in John Baker’s arms.

When Norah came back to consciousness she was lying on a form in a bare, boarded room, and John was engaged in sprinkling water from a water-jug over the front of her best silk blouse. She sat up hastily, brushed the hair from her forehead, and stared around with bewildered eyes. A roar of applause from the great hall broke the silence, and brought back struggling remembrance.

“Did you—did you turn me out?”

“Icarriedyou out! You fainted, and I brought you in here. It was no wonder; you were not accustomed to such sights. Did you imagine in your faintness that you had been turned out like those other screaming women, you poor little frightened girl?” asked John’s big voice in its most caressing tones.

Norah shivered with dismay.

“I was—I am—I mean Ishouldhave been, if I had stayed five minutes longer! I’m Number Nine!” she cried; and then seeing John’s stare of stupefied dismay, promptly threw up her hands to her face, and burst into weak-minded tears.

“Oh—oh! Whatwillyou think of me—whatwillyou say!—I was obliged to earn some money—and half a crown a day was not enough,—Mrs Baker gives me half a crown. I—I go to another lady in the afternoons, and she is a Suffragette. She is very kind to me, and very patient, because I’m stupid, and can’t understand, and—and I don’t seem to care! I don’twanta vote, but she was Number Nine to-night, and she is ill—her throat is very bad, she might be dangerously ill if she came out. She would only stay at home if I promised to take her place, and, she has been very kind.—I promised, and now I’ve failed. I was too terribly frightened. And then I saw your face... Oh, whatdoyou think of me?”

But John Baker refused to give any expression of opinion. All he said was:

“Half a crown a day! She offered youthat! Oh, my poor little girl!” And his voice was so low and tender that at the sound of it Norah sobbed afresh.

“Don’t cry. Put on your hat. I will take you into the air, and drive you home in a taxi. You will feel better in the air,” said John quietly.

He gave her his arm, and escorted her into the corridor, and as they walked along, another roar sounded from within the precincts of the hall, and through an open doorway shot a dishevelled female form, struggling in the grasp of half a dozen stewards. Danvers herself! The faithful Danvers, who, seeing the collapse of her mistress’ proxy, had gallantly taken upon herself the duties of Number Nine. Norah shuddered, and grasped more tightly John’s protecting arm.

“Oh, whatmustyou think of me?” she demanded once more; and John, looking down at her as they reached the cool air of the street, replied sturdily:

“I think that no woman can serve two masters. Can’t you make up your mind to takeoneinstead?”

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