} THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. u^MMMtaaaMM THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL I I 1 BY OLIVE PRATT RAYNER ^ \ J /i;X'-''-' /. LONDON C. ARTHUR PEARSON LIMITED HENRIETTA STREET W.C. 1897 5 TO THEODORE RAYNER AND OLIVER WENDELL PRATT, A wife's HOMAGE, A SISTER' LOVE. i ^ If 7 CONTENTS. CHAP. PACE I. -Introduces a Latter-day Hkkoink ... g II.— ThK SlRUOdLE FOR LiFE l8 III.— Environment Wins 29 IV.— The CHOic',i of a Patron 41 v.— Vive l'Anarchie ! 47 VI.— The Inner Brotherhood 60 VII.— A Mutinous Mutineer 68 VIII.— Called "Of Accidents" 83 IX.— I PLAY Carmen 95 X.— Sic me .servavit Apollo! 104 XL— A Sail on the Horizon 114 XII.— A Cavalier makes Advances 131 XIIL— Concerning Romeo 137 XIV.— "Now Barabbas was a Publisher" ... 145 XV.— Fresh Light on Romeo 155 XVI.— I try Literature 165 XVII.— A Drawn Battle 176 XVIIL— An Autumn Holiday 194 XIX.— "O Romeo, Romeo!" 203 XX.— " Wherefore art thou Romeo.'" ... 223 XXL— Envoy Plenipotentiary 242 XXI I.— I Cling to the Rkjging 253 NEW 3s. 6d. BOOKS. (TO APPEAR SHORTLY.) The Invisible Man. By H. G. VVem.s. Fortune's Footballs. By G. B. BuRGiK. The Skipper's Wooing. By W. W. Jacobs. John of Strathbourne. By R. D. Chetwooe. 1 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCES A LATTER-DAY HEROINE. I WAS twenty-twO; and without employ- ment. I would not say by this that I was without occupation. In the world in which we live, set with daisies and kingfishers and unde- ciphered faces of men and women, I doubt I could be at a loss for something to occupy me. A swallow's back, as he turns in the sunshine, is so full of meaning. If you dwell in the country, you need but pin on a hat and slip out into a meadow, and there, in some bight of the hedgerow, you shall see spring buds untwisting, sulphur butterflies coquetting ; hear nightingales sing as they sang to Keats, and streamlets make madrigal as they wimpled for Marlowe. Nay, even here in London, where life is rarer, how can I cruise down the Strand without encounter- c 10 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. ing Strange barks — mysterious argosies that attract and intrigue mc ? That living stream is so marvellous ! Whence come they, these shadows, and whither do they go ? — ;- in- numerable, silent, each wrapped in his own thought, yet each real to himself as I to my heart. To me, they are shooting stars, phantoms that flash athwart the orbit of my life one second, and then vanish. But to themselves they are the centre of a world — of the world ; and I am but one of the meteors that dart across their horizon. I cannot choose but wonder who each is, and why he is here. For one after another I invent a story. It may not be the true story, but at least it amuses me. Every morning I see them stream in from the Unknown, by the early trains, and disperse like sparks that twinkle on the thin soot of the chimney-back — men with small black bags, bound for mysterious offices. What happens in those offices I have no idea : they may lend money, or buy shares, or promote Christian know- ledge. I only know I see them come in the morning and flit again at night, sometimes the same figures, recognisably identical. They rush back, absorbed, to catch the train to the Unknown, as they rushed up from it earlier. ., ^ INTRODUCES A LATTER-DAY HEROINE. II So, day after day, the tide sets and ebbs; while I stand on the shore of the vast sea of London like a child that watches. And Commissioner Lin guards me. I have always been grateful to Mr. Samuel Butler for his eccentric theory that a woman wrote the Odyssey. I do not say that I agree with him ; if I did, I am not aware that any critic would attach the least importance to my opinion. But it is a soothing theory for us latter-day women. Without thinking it true, I love to believe it. The Odyssey, you will grant, is the epic of the imagination. It is the epic of mystery. In the Iliad, which is the epic of fact, everything is clear-cut, dis- tinct, commonplace. I do not conceive that a woman could have written the Iliad. Its theme would fail to interest her. That hard handplay of battle counts for nought to our sex. Clang of bronze sword on ringing shield rouses no echo in our heart or brain. It is a masculine poem. How practical it is, how cold, how everyday, how mannish ! Con- sidering its august age, how little it gleams with the glamour of antiquity ! Ulysses in the Iliad is just a shifty politician, an adroit public speaker. Achilles is just a petulant, ill-disciplined young warrior — I hav ^ met him B 2 12 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. in London, fresh home from the Transvaal. The whole mighty saga is a saga of men's ideas, so sharp is it in its outlines, so his- torical, so definite. But the Odyssey ! Yes, I read in it clearly the fine hand of a woman. It has the vagueness, the elusive- ness, the melting, hazy charm of feminine craft. It thrills with mystery ; and woman is the mystic. Look at its glorious dimness. You descry its geography in veiled outline only, as one beholds the Paps of Jura on a day of sea-fog through swaying sheets of white cloud from a fisherman's boat on the Bay of Oban. It is a Celtic dreamland. From morning to night, in that enchanted poem, on and on we sail, past uncertain isles or dubious blue headlands, begirt with fan- tastic forms, and in perils of the sea more awesome than the real. Architects have re- constructed Priam's palace, I believe, from the description in the Iliad. That is man's way of describing. But who could reconstruct, from the rapt words of the Odyssey, Circe's island or the gardens of Alcinous ? Peering and prying Schliemann found in the battle- epic a whole plan of the Troad ; or, at least, read one into it : fancy even imagining you could construct a chart of the Mediterranean INTRODUCES A LATTER-DAY HEROINE. 1 3 to show the homeward maze of the much- travelled wanderer from Ilion to Ithaca ! The bare idea would indicate a misconception of the Odyssey. For those are the seas and islands that never were ; they live but in the ghost-geography of poets and women. As arguments, indeed, the proofs adduced seem to me preposterous. It is nonsense to say that in the Odyssey the chief role is played by women. Do women's books deal exclu- sively, or even mainly, with their own sex ? Is not the Titan man, the strong, sardonic, woman-quelling hero, a recognised common- place of women's fancy ? I do not believe an Ithacan lady wrote the Odyssey because of the relative importance of Penelope and Nausicaa. Surely even a man might have set Penelope at her web, or Nausicaa at her tennis. In that I see nothing occult or esoterically feminine. Men must be aware that every Circe has the power of turning men into swine. They ought to know; they have seen it done daily. No, those are not the reasons that weigh with me. It is the wonder, the magic, the pu/ple mystery, of the Odyssey that tells to rny mind in favour of its female authorship. And though I know Mr. Samuel Butler's theory is not true, 1 thank God I 14 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. am woman enough none the less to embrace it. But what has all this to do with my story — the story I am setting out in my own fashion to tell you ? A great deal ; and besides, unless you let me tell it in my own wayward way, I can never get through with it. In that respect also I hold myself true woman. And this is the connection. "If only we could have lived in those days ! " people say. I answer, " You are living in them." It is not the days, not the places, not the things that change, but we who see them otherwise. Consider, the Medi- terranean is the same sea to-day as when the Ithacan lady who wrote the Odyssey looked out upon its blue zones to behold it peopled with strange forms and wizard shadows. For that nameless Sappho, that prehistoric Charlotte Bronte, that inchoate Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the Ionian main swarmed alive with Gorgons and Harpies as Loch Fyne with herrings. Sirens sang on every rock to lure the seaman ; promon- tories glowed red at set of sun with the forges of the Cyclops. You may steam down the prosaic Adriatic to-day in an Austrian Lloyd steamer — a fearsome Behemoth, bel- INTRODUCES A LATTER-DAY HEROINE. 1 5 lowing, snorting, flame-breathing — and identify those charmed shores of Hellenic fancy, as laid down, with soundings, in the Admiralty surveys. But that is your blindness. Scylla and Charybdis are there as of old : 'tis you who turn them into the Straits of Messina. Polyphemus still haunts his seaward cave : 'tis you who transform him into a custom- house officer. Adventures are to the ad- venturous. Go through the world in search of Calypso, and you will surely find her. Be modern, and you will find only Willesden Junction. That may suffice for you. I live in " those days," as all lovers oi the mystical have always lived in them. And I will go forth into the world in search of adventures. They are sure to come to me ; for faith moves mountains. In every age, when the Princess Cleodolind is sent out from the city as a prey for the dragon, some youthful St. George, in celestial armour, rides by in the nick of time, on his snow-white steed, and draws his trusty blade, and fights for her, and rescues her from the loathly thing. Else what were the use of faith and of poetry ? In every age we fashion the story anew in our passing manner, dressing it up in our own clothes, and fitting it to our l6 THE TV1'E-\VRITER (JIKL. particular modes and morals. But 'tis the same to the end through all disguises. The Greeks told it as the tale of Perseus and Andromeda ; they made their hero purely Greek, a triumphant young son of immortal Zeus, who rescues a beautiful princess, with fair nude limbs like Parian marble, from the devouring sea-monster. Mediaeval Italy made the sign of the cross, turned the son of Danae into a Christian martyr, and clad the beautiful nude maiden in clinging silk robes, as it would fain have clad Melian Aphrodite herself when it converted her image into a crowned Madonna. The Renaissance came, and Cellini unclothed her again, in his revived paganism, to set her polished bronze limbs, where every eye might see and stare, in the Piazza at Florence. Our modern novelists dress her up afresh in the princess robe of the day (sage green or crushed strawberry), and turn her loose on that slimy old dragon the world, till Prince Charming comes by, as a baronet in a tennis suit, to lay at her feet ten thousand a year and the title of My Lady. But 'tis the old tale still, and who lists to tell it may trick it out once more in his own heart's fashion. For though there be nothing new under the sun, the old wonder INTRODUCES A LATTER-DAY HEROINE. 1/ is there, as marvellous as ever, if you choose to marvel at it. Each spring brings it back, a perpetual miracle. So I set forth into the world, a Princess Cleodolind of the nineteenth century, ready to face the dragons that, as I well know, abound in it, and full of faith in the St. George who will come to rescue me. I mean to sail away on my Odyssey, unabashed, touching at such shores as may chance to beckon, yet I hopeful of reaching at last the realms of Alcinous. From all which you may guess that I am a Girton girl. CHAPTER II. THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. You may guess it, I say ; for it is no part ol my plan to tell you. Being a woman, I throw out this hint to pique your curiosity. Let us return to the point that I was twenty-two, and had no employment. Com- missioner Lin and I were alone and friend- less. Four months earlier I had suffered a great loss. How great a loss I am not careful to assure you. It is far from my desire to make capital out of my inmost heart. I cannot spin phrases about my dead father. But by this time the first fierce numbness of my sorrow had worn away ; I was no longer a stone ; I was beginning to smile, and to feel the sunshine. A certain quicksilver light-heartedness in the veins of my race helps to conceal a back- ground of feeling. Besides, I had my live- lihood to earn. That is a great resource. The need for bread served to edge out my Mm mm k,. * » THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 19 grief. My first four months had been assured ine beforehand in the Settlement ; for we paid in advance, half-yearly, our Warden being a prudent soul who disliked bad debts, and preferred the safe side. But when the four months of my deepest mourning were over, it was absolutely necessary for me to find employment. How it all came about I need not inform you : the bank that broke, the electric light that failed : I was told the details in terms so crabbed that if I tried to repeat them I could but show my ignorance. It was not hard for me to be poor ; for in the Settlement we lived as the other East- Enders live, and I had learned from my match-girls how to be hungry and merry. But my poverty hitherto had been that of the amateur; I had now to learn professional indigence. When I shook hands with Sister Phyllis and Sister Agatha at the door of the guild, leaving Commissioner Lin in their charge for the moment, and went forth into the world to earn my living, I had six and elevenpence as available assets. I was a capitalist in my way. That formed my capital. " Under these circumstances," I said to myself, " the first thing for a prudent girl to 20 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. do is to look out for lunch ; the second thing is to look out for a situation." I do not pretend to prevision ; on the con- trary, I was born to take no heed for the morrow. I belong to the tribe of the grass- hopper, not that of the ant. But I had been so deeply impressed by Sister Phyllis's ex- hortations during my last four months in the guild that I had taken pains to learn short- hand and type-writing. I did not then know that every girl in London can write short- hand, and that type-writing as an accom- plishment is as diffused as the piano ; else I might have turned my hand to some honest trade instead, such as millinery or cake-making. However, a type-writer I was, and a type-writer I must remain. So I set forth on my Odyssey by walking down the phantom-haunted channel of the Strand, and cast anchor for my first halt in an aerated bread shop. Luxury, we are told, demoralises this age, and (while I remain a type-writer) I am ab- solute to set my face against it. But a cup of coffee and a slice of seed-cake (not too luxuriously sweetened) lay well within the compass of my capital. I am a poor arith- metician, but I arrive by finger-lore at the net THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 21 result that fourpence from six and elevenpence leaves six and seven. I took up an evcninj; paper, which some recklessly extravagant cus- tomer had bequeathed to his successors, and my eye scanned the advertisements. Hands that waved a signal seemed to catch my glance. "A sail on the horizon!" I cried to myself. And this is what I read — " Shorthand and Type-writer wanted (female). Legal work. — Apply Flor and Fingelman, 2'jn, Southampton Row." I felt myself already on the road to fortune. A glance at the date : it was to-day's paper ! In matters of business, promptitude is every- thing. I would be the first to apply. I tossed off my hot coffee with unbecoming haste, and, deeply impressed with the fact that in this age the struggle for existence has become one of the rights of woman, I hurried with all speed to Flor and Fingelman's. I was a Shorthand and Type-writer (female) ; and I was fully prepared to be as legal as they desired of me. I do not say that " female " is a poetical description. I have never heard it applied to Heloise or to Ophelia — not even by the grave-digger ; though Touchstone, to be sure, uses it once of Audrey. But the nineteenth 32 THE TYrE-WRITER GIRL, century has a chivalry all its own, which I scruple to depreciate. If it speaks of us as females, it has given us the bicycle, and it almost admits that we are as fit for the fran- chise as the forty-shilling lodger. It puts us a little lower than the navvies. I call that magnanimity. I had made haste to run up Charing Cross Road, and when I reached Southampton Row, impressed by the importance of the Struggle for Existence, I believe I was absolute win- ner in the race against time for the position of Shorthand and Type-writer (female). Up two pair of stairs, where a notice led, I entered the Outer Office. Its keynote was fustiness. Three clerks (male), in seedy black coats, the eldest with hair the colour of a fox's, went on chaffing one another for two minutes after I closed the door, with osten- tatious unconsciousness of my insignificant presence. No doubt they inferred that I was a can- didate for the post of Shorthand and Type- writer (female), and they treated me as such persons may look to be treated. Their talk turned upon that noble animal, the horse. They spoke also of the turf; by which I understood them to allude, not so much to THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 23 the greensward of the downs, as to the im- perceptible moral turf of Fleet Street. The two younger were indeterminate young men, with straight black hair, and features modelled on an oyster's. As they appeared to be loftily unaware of my intrusion, I signified my presence by coughing slightly. It was the apologetic cough that stands for " I beg your pardon, but will you kindly attend to me ? " They did not permit even the cough, how- ever, to hurry them unduly. The youngest of the three, a pulpy youth, adjusted his cuffs, and completed some deep remarks upon two-year-old form before he turned to stare at me. I suppose he was kind enough to be satisfied with my personal appearance, for after a while he wheeled round on his high stool, and broke out with the chivalry of his age and class, "Well, what's your business?" My voice trembled a little, but I mustered up courage and spoke. " I have called about your advertisement for a Shorthand and Type-writer (female)." He eyed me up and down. I am slender, and, I will venture to say, if not pretty, at least interesting-looking. " How many words a minute ? " he asked after a long pause. 24 thb: type-writer girl. I stretched truth as far as its elasticity would permit. " One ninety-seven," I an- swered with an affectation of the precisest accuracy. To say "Two hundred " were com- monplace. The pulpy youth ran his eyes over me as if I were a horse for sale. I was conscious of my little black dress and hat ; conscious also of a fiery patch in the centre of my cheek; but if you struggle for life you must ex- pect these episodes. " That's good enough," he said slowly, with a side-glance at his fellow-clerks. I had a painful suspicion that the words were intended rather for them than for me, and that they bore reference more to my face and figure than to my real or imagined pace per minute. The eldest clerk, with the foxy head, wheeled round, and took his turn to stare. He had hairy hands and large gogg'e-eyes. " Got your own machine ? " he asked. "Yes." "What sort?" " A Barlock." "That'll do," he said, eyeing the rest. And again I detected an undercurrent of double meaning. He seemed to be expressing modi- fied satisfaction at my outer personality. THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 2$ They questioned me for some minutes with equal grace and charm. Then the eldest rose slowly. "I'll tell the governor," he mur- mured, and disappeared through a dingy door marked in large letters "Mr. Fingelman." In a short time he came back and beckoned me mysteriously. I followed him, trembling. He waved his hairy hand to- wards me as if to show me off to the man at the table. I felt disagreeably like Esther in the presence of Ahasueru.s — a fat and oily Ahasuerus of fifty. " This is the young person," he said, by way of intro- duction. Ahasuerus — otherwise Mr. Fingelman — inspected me in turn. I quailed before his glance; he was a commissioner for oaths, and wore large round spectacles. " Had ex- perience ? " he asked at last. In person he was rotund and obviously wealthy, though 'twas a third-rate solicitor's. "A little," I replied. I had made up my mind to say "Lots" beforehand; but when it came to the pinch, the ingrained bad habit of speaking the truth reasserted itself par- tially. Ahasuerus stared. " What name ? " he asked, after a long stony gaze. 26 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. I Stammered out "Juliet Appleton." " Age ? " "Twenty-two." He perused me up and down with his small pig's-eyes, as if he were buying a horse, scru- tinising my face, my figure, my hands, my feet. I felt like a Circassian in an Arab slave- market. I thought he would next proceed to examine my teeth. But he did not. Having satisfied himself as to externals, he went on to put me through my paces. " S down there," he said, pointing to a scat. "Have you pen and note-book?" I produced my stylograph. He grunted approbation, and dictated for a few minutes a short business-letter. Then he waved me to the type-writer. " Tran- scribe," he said curtly. I sat down and transcribed. The chief clerk meanwhile stood by, with his hairy hands crossed in a curved attitude of ostentatious servility, which contrasted strangely with his Outer Office manner. When I had finished, he peered at my work, nodded, and handed it over to Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus ran his eye up and down, grunt- ing again. " She'll do ? " he said interroga- tively. THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 2^ The chief clerk signed jv3-writer girl." His eyebrows moved up at the words. 1 could see they produced a favourable im- pression. He was accustomed to the formula " a lady to type-write for you." " Exactly," he answered, folding his hands, and trying to assume the official tone of a man of business ; though I was aware that he 120 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. was unobtrusively observing my dress and appearance, not as Ahasuerus had done, like a cross between an Oriental monarch and a horse-dealer, but like a gentleman of keen insight, accustomed to take things in at a glance without disconcerting the object of his scrutiny. He put me a few stereotyped questions as to speed and qualifications, which I was for- tunately able to answer to his satisfaction. Then he went on in a deprecat^ory way, " I must ask you, I am afraid, to w i . .e a little to my dictation, and then transcribe what you have written. Excuse this detail. One must test your ability." " Of course," I assented, producing my stylograph. " We have had applicants already who did not suit my requirements. One left as you arrived. I — I was sorry not to be able to engage her ; for I judged her to be in want ; but — she was quite incompetent." He spoke apologetically. " I met her on the stairs," I replied. " She appeared to be downcast." He gave me a hurried glance, for there was pity in my tone. " It is so unfortunate," he said, " that one must insist on competence ! A SAIL ON THE HORIZON. 121 For often the incompetent most need em- ployment." " There is a beautiful story," I answered, " about Robert Owen, when somebody patted the head of a very pretty child at his school at Harmony Hall. ' You are like all the rest,' said Owen; 'you pat the prettiest. But it is the ugly ones that need encouragement.' That was true philanthropy." He looked me through and through. I took out my note-book, and assumed a busi- ness-like air. He reached down a volume of some History of Greece, and began dictating rapidly. The passage, chosen of set purpose, was full of Greek names, and rather recondite words of technical import, I saw he had selected it as a test of knowledge as well as of speed. I was glad I had been at But that would be confessing. I wrote rapidly and well — more rapidly, I think, than I had ever before done ; and I knew why : he was a Romeo. " Do I go too fast ? " he asked at last, looking up at me suddenly with a gentle smile. " Not at all," I replied. " You might try a little faster, if you like, as you really wish to test me." I 122 THE TYl'E-WRITER GIRL. " And you know the names ? " he inquired with an incredulous accent. " Perfectly. Please go on ; ' the hegemony of Thebes * was the last clause you dictated." He continued to the end. ' Boeotia thus lost the flower of her hoplites,' were the words with which he finished. I wrote it all out in long-hand, very clearly and distinctly. He ran his eye over it. " But this is excellent ! " he said at last, glancing at it close. " You have all the words right. You must have studied Greek, haven't you ? " I temporised. " A little." He paused again. Then, after a few ques- tions to draw me out, especially as to attain- ments, he began rather timidly. "This is precisely what I want. I require a lady of education, who can take down instructions and write letters to authors on the subject- matter of their works, without need for correction. But — I'm afraid the post would hardly suit you. If you will excuse my saying so, you are too good for the place. I do not mean as to salary — that, no doubt, I could arrange ... in accordance . with qualifications." He glanced quickly at my black dress again. " But I fear — I fear you will find the work beneath you." A SAIL ON THE HORIZON. 1 23 " You can set your mind entirely at rest on that score,' I answered frankly. "I will tell you the plain truth — I am in need of a situation, and shall be glad to get one." He hesitated once more. " Still, I feel doubts of conscience," he went on. " I will be quite open with you. You may think me quixotic, but I have ideas of my own — social ideas — some people might even say socialistic. Here is this work, which I have it in my hands to bestow ; which I hold as a trust, almost. It would suffice to keep some poor lady's wants supplied — some lady who is in need of actual necessaries. Now, I do not think it right that young gentlewomen who have all they need already found them at home should compete in the market against poor girls in search of a bare subsistence. They ought not to deprive such girls of bread in order to add to their own pin-money. This movement for ' doing something' on the part of well-to-do women is pressing hard on the girls of the lower middle-class. Pardon my putting it so ; but 3 ou come from a home, no doubt, where you have all you require ; and you seek this work just to increase your income." I 3 124 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. 1 thought it was sweet of him. I could see I was exactly the person he wanted ; yet for a matter of principle he was prepared to take someone possibly less suited to his special re- quirements. I was glad that I could answer with the ring of truth, " There, you are quite mistaken. I am one of the class whom you desire to employ — in fact, a girl in search of a bare subsistence. I do not say so in order to appeal to your generosity ; I only wish to obtain work on my merits for what my ser- vices are worth in the open market But if, as you say, I prove a suitable person for your purpose in other respects, you need have no scruple on the grounds you suggest about employing me. I have nothing to live upon save what I can earn by type-writing." He blushed like a girl of eighteen. He was distressed that he had driven me into making this avowal. " Oh, forgive me," he said, rising again from his chair. " I — it was awkward of me to put it thus bluntly. But you are so evidently a lady of education that I took it for granted — you will understand my natural error, I only hesitated to give a post which might be filled by a person in need of employment to an amateur who wanted occupation and pocket-money." A SAIL ON THE HORIZON. 12$ "I quite understand," I answered. "Out bicycling last week, I passed a common where shaggy donkeys, with unkempt coats, stood in the sunsliint; dejected, hanging their heads as if they had been reading Schopenhauer." (He looked up suddenly at the name with an inquiring glance.) " But their mood was justified ; for geese were tugging at the short grass hard by, nibbling it close to the root ; and I felt the four-footed beasts might well be melancholy at the struggle for life when birds, winged creatures that may career over the world, took to competing with them by grazing like cattle, and snatched the bread out of the donkey's mouth." His face wore an amused smile. " But you are learned," he put in. "You might obviovtsly be engaged in so much higher work — a teacher's, for instance." " I should hate teaching ! " I cried vehe- mently, " I prefer freedom. I am prepared for th<: drudgery of earning my livelihood in a house of business. But I must realise myself." "I understand that," he answered; "and — and sympathise with it. Well, I apologise for my mistake. Under the circumstances, we need only proceed to arrange the business part of this transaction." 126 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. He named a weekly sum. It was my turn to blush. "That is too much," I exclaimed. I could see he was fixing it, not by the market price, but by what he thought a suffi- cient income for a person of my presumed position in society. It was all so alien from Ahasuerus's way of hiring a Shorthand and Type-writer (female). " Not for so competent an assistant," he answered, still nervous. Awkward as it might be to begin one's relations with a new employer by an apparent contest of generosity, yet I could not accept the sum he proposed. I told him so in plain words ; he insisted : I beat him down. After a brief but well-contested skirmish, I camped on the field as victor, though we compromised for a wage a little less than half-way between what he wished to give and what I was pre- pared to accept. It did not escape me at the time, however, that such a first step almost of necessity entailed a certain sentimental tinge in our relations : they would scarce be those of employer and employed, as regulated by custom and political economy. When all protocols were settled he went on, "Can you come in at once ?" "To-day, if you wish it." A SAIL ON THE HORIZON. 1 27 "Oh, that would be such a convenience to me ! I have matters to settle which I do not wish to hand over just now to my clerks ; it was my desire that you sliould act as confidential letter-writer in my dt alings with authors, quite outside the business." "I will begin this afternoon," I said. " Our type-writing machine — the one I in- tended for you — is " I forget precisely which make he mentioned, but it was one to whose keyboard I was unaccustomed. " Can you work with it ? " " No," I answered. " But I have my own. I will bring it." " How kind of you ! Though you must not continue to use it, of course. We have no right to impose upon you the wear and tear. If you will tell me which sort you prefer, it shall be here to-morrow. Meanwhile, for to- day, if you would bring round your own, I should be greatly obliged to you." " I will go and fetch it," I said, remember- ing that it lay close by in St. Nicholas's safe keeping. " How ? In a cab ? " I smiled. His politeness positively embar- rassed me. " No ; in my hands," I replied. " I am accustomed to carry it." 128 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. " But type-writers are so heavy," he remon- strated. (I felt his anxiety to treat me like a lady was leading: to complications, and I half regretted the Grand Vizier's lofty sense of masculine superiority.) " Had you not better take a cab ? " "No," I answered with firmness ; for I felt I must put a stop to this strain at the out- set. An employer should know his place. " I can carry it easily, thank you." He looked at me with a curious look. I suppose I have the average endowment of feminine intuition ; and I felt sure he was debating in his own mind whether or not he should tell me to call a hansom and charge it to the office. It was my own old duologue of Inclination and Duty, Inclination said, " Make her take it " ; Duty interposed, " You must begin as you mean to go on. This is an office matter. If she cannot work your machine, and wishes to bring her own, she must convey it at her own expense. You have no ground to stand upon." After a pause in which, as I could see, either impulse got the upper hand alternately, he compromised the matter. " Is it far ? " he enquired. "Close by. I can fetch it in five minutes." A SAIL ON THE HORIZON. I29 " Then one of my clerks will step round with you and carry it for you." I blushed bright crimson. I iiad imagined shyness to be (like " sensibility," hysterics, and fainting) an obsolete disease of tiie early Victorian epoch. I now knew that it survived into our own time. I could feel the hot blood flooding my ears and cheeks, and running dovv^n my neck. What on earth could I answer ? How let the clerk see where I had left my machine ? How confess to Romeo to whose keeping I had confided it ? He could never understand that, to a girl of my temperament, those golden balls were but the mystic symbol of the saint of Myra. I knew not what to answer. I stood still and blushed ; and my blush it was that betrayed, yet saved me. Lifting my eyes one second in a mute appeal, I saw right into his soul as he stood there, facing me, more nervous, more em- barrassed than ever. I saw he divined that I lived in some poor quarter, or had a drunken mother, or something equally discreditable, and was ashamed to let his clerk know it. But he withdrew, like a gentleman that he was to the finger-ends. " How stupid of me! " he went on. "I see, of course, it would 130 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. be unpleasant for you to walk down the street with one of my clerks — though they are nice young men, all of them. Excuse my gamheric. Hut — you are coming in at once to oblige me ; I ought to have arranged to have a machine here to suit you. Won't you please take a cab, and allow me to — to charge it to the office?" He had got it out at last. I changed colour once more. To hide my shyness — for to my vast surprise, I was speechlessly shy by this time — I pulled out my handkerchief. As fate would have it — fate that mocks at human souls — I drew with it from my pocket a little square of blue paper which fell, face down- ward, on the floor. How can I confess the truth ? It was — the counterfoil or ticket I had received for my machine from the repre- sentative of )6i. Nicholas. CHAPTER XII. A CAVALIER MAKES ADVANCES. I GRIEVE to hint a doubt of my chosen patron, but enlarged experience of St. Nicholas has led me to believe that he lacks consistency. His action is jerky. Though he will often sweep down, as of old, in a pale haze of glory, to rescue some votary from instant shipwreck, he is hardly a saint in whom a girl can repose implicit confidence. At tight places of social trial he is apt to fail one. I had but one consolation. The ticket had fallen on the floor face downward. I stooped to pick it up. My cheeks, I feel sure, must have glowed with crimson. Shame tingled in my ears. But Romeo was beforehand with me. He raised the scrap of paper and handed it to me, still face down- ward, with a faint inclination. I lifted my lowered eyelids. My swimming eyes par- ' leyed with his for a second. I cannot say whether he was aware what manner of thing 1 su^^iU^^iiimMSM 132 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. he was passing me ; but I fancy he did know. Yet if he knew I felt sure he interpreted the episode aright, for his glance was one of mute respect and symi)at]iy. I crushed the unspeakable pasteboard into my pocket, never uttering a word, and rushed, hot and red, from the room, without daring to speak to him. On the stairs I debated whether I could ever come back. Prudence and Shame fought it out between them. Prudence won. I de- termined to go on as if nought untoward had happened. I might have failed, even so, in my resolu- tion, had it not chanced that my road to the Depository of my machine lay past the eating- house where I was wont to retire for bodily refreshment from Flor and Fingelman's. As I reached the door a hand touched my arm. I looked round, startled, and saw the Grand Vizier, outward bound from luncheon, with his hairy hands, his goggle eyes, his shiny black coat grown green on the seams, and his false diamond pin shaped like a shoe of the noble animal. "Good-morning, miss," he said in a pert tone. I echoed his salute, and made as though I would pass on hurriedly. But I noted in A CAVALIER MAKES ADVANCES. 1 33 his accent, even from the three words he had spoken, a change of mien ; he was almost what for him might be deemed re- spectful. " Look here," he went on, striding after me, and keeping abreast of me against my will. " That was a devilish clever letter of yours — to the governor, you know — a devilish clever letter ! " " I am proud to have earned the approba- tion of so competent a critic," I answered in my chilliest voice. " Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley " He glanced at me with suspicion. I think his first and most flattered idea was that I mistook him for a distinguished baronet ; his second, neutral in tint, that I was mad ; his third, and most reluctant, that I was poking sly fun at him. " Look here," he began again — it was his formula for introducing a fresh paragraph in his converse — " I've got an invitation for you. I've been looking about for you everywhere. Will you come with me on Thursday night, dress circle, at the Olympic ? " He rolled it out impressively, as one who felt sure that the solemnity of the dress circle would subdue my stubborn neck. 134 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. " No, thanks," I answered ; " I never go to theatres with casual acquaintances." Then I walked on still faster, for I foresaw that I must often meet him in future, since our offices lay close together ; and I judged it best to let him see at once I did not crave the honour of his society. '* Oh, but this is on the square," he went on. "You don't understand. You think I don't mean right by you because ! am a gentleman in a position of Trust and Re- sponsibility, and you are " — he was about to say "a type-writer girl," but he checked him- self in time and substituted for it the phrase " a lady stenographer." " While you were at the office," he went on, " I couldn't treat you on equal terms, of course, because of my official position- But when I read that letter I saw at one glance you had brains ; and I like a girl with brains, and I mean to walk out with one." " Indeed ? " I answered. " Then I advise you not to waste your valuable time on a woman who does not pant for that privilege," He let his mouth drop open. " But it's a ticket for two," he expostulated, " given me by a friend of mine who takes a part in the piece. You'd better think twice. It isn't A CAVALIER MAKES ADVANCES. 1 35 every day one gets a chance of a seat in the dress circle. And if I go at all I like to take a young lady." This marked advance. I had gone up in the world. At Southu. oton Row I had been "a young person." He continued to talk, and I continued to turn my coldest shoulder. At last we reached the door of the Deposi- tory, The goggle eyes ogled me. I saw that some violent act was needful if I were to escape persecution at the man's hands in future. I paused by the step. " I am going in here," I said, bravely. The Vizier did not observe the peculiar character of the shop as a shrine of St. Nicholas. "I will wait for you," he answered, waving one hairy hand with cheerful prompti- tude. I braced myself up for a deadly thrust. "I have left my machine here," I went on in a cold clear voice, " and I am going in . . . to redeem it. I shall then carry it home. A Gentleman in a position of Trust and Respon- sibility will not like to be seen by my side as I carry it." He glanced up at the mystic sign — one glance, no more. I saw his face grow pale. 136 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. To SO respectable a man such conduct was inexplicable. Refuse a ticket for the dress circle, and yet I darted in, with the same fierce flush of shame and repugnance as before. But this time the need for getting rid of him had given me false courage. When I emerged with the machine, a limp flaccid creature, half-dead with disgust, the Grand Vizier had melted away, disappeared among the phantoms. So again Apollo or St. Nicholas had saved me. Our courses crossed afterwards in the street many times. But his tolerance of type-writer girls had its proper limits. He tacked across to the other side as I hove in sight lest he should be exposed to the risk of having to acknowledge a salute from so compromising a person I will say for St. Nicholas that though he has curious methods of bringing about the deliverance of those who trust him, he is a gentleman at heart, and he usually succeeds in the end in giving efl'ect to his benevolent intentions. CHAPTER XIII. CONCERNING ROMEO. It is a far cry from Verona to London. The ways of the Corso are not the ways of Pall Mall. Therefore, when I admit that my heart cried " A Romeo ! " you are not to infer that I had fallen in love with him. I merely mean that I recognised in my new friend the type of man who might conceivably command my heart and me, should fate so will it. When Romeo of Verona first saw his Juliet at the Capulets' masque, 'tis on record that, at first sight of her, he forgot fair Rosaline (for whose sake but one hour earlier he was dying to die), and seizing his new goddess's hand, assured her, without preamble or introduction, that his lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stood to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss; while Juliet, in return, was prepared to avow at a glance that if the stranger were married her grave was like to be her wedding bed. Those be the modes of Verona, as vouched by 138 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. Shakespeare. Our northern hearts, however, have not the instant electric responsiveness of Italian breasts. Love with us is the child, not the mother of acquaintance. And though I thought of my Romeo as Romeo from the first moment I beheld him, never calling him in my soul by any other name, yet 'twas but some prophetic fancy on my part. For many weeks he figured as no more than my em- ployer. Juliet of Verona, if I recollect aright, when she flung herself upon Romeo, was not yet full fourteen till Lammas night ; at her age our northern maid, with her fair hair down, has conceived a romantic attachment for chocolate- creams and the prettiest of her governesses. I was twenty-two; and twenty-two, that mature age, takes time to consider. Moreover, it waits till its Romeo asks it. For, pretend as we will, the plain truth is this: woman is plastic till the predestined man appears; then she takes the mould he chooses to impose upon her. Men make their own lives, women's are made for them. Why, one of my dearest friends at the Guild — an ethereal being — was wont to pace the garden with a vellum-covered Rossetti or Pater in her pocket, composing chants-royal Lo the moon CONCERNING ROMEO. I 39 and to divine love, till a man loomed on the horizon — a man in a Norfolk jacket, with a commission in the Guards and estates in the Midlands; whereupon she exchanged the Ros- setti all at once for a blear-eyed ferret, and strolled about the lanes accompanied by a fox- terrier and a Cuban bloodhound. This is not poetical, but 'tis life as I have noted it. To cut moralising short, I settled down at once to work at my Romeo's. When I arrived there with my machine, more dead than alive with shame, the good- looking clerk carried it upstairs for me reverently. He was a comely youth, with a clean round face, Devonshire apple cheeks, and pleasant parsonage manners ; he came, indeed, as I discovered later, from an Exmoor rectory. A table was set for me in Romeo's own room. I feared to invade that sanctum. "Am I to sit right here?" I asked. He smiled and answered, " Right there." So I took my place under protest. Thenceforth, I was part of the furniture of his study. My life at Romeo's was a life of routine. Now routine (varied by outbreaks) is ex- cellent for the nerves ; but it does not afford material for romance. It is the drab of life : art insists rather on the purple and scarlet. K 2 140 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. So I make no apology for dealing with it here only in a few brief episodes. All our history is episode, with blanks between, which just serve conveniently to divide the chapters. At home, my social circle was limited to Mr. Commissioner Lin : my conversation to " Did 'ums, then ? did 'ums ? " At occa- sional intervals I dined with my aunt, who abode at Paddington : but I did not j'^earn to make that joy too common. M3' revered relation has all the vices of the decayed gentlewoman : unheroic vices, which interest nobody. She hoards bits of string, and half- sheets of note-paper. Her table, her ideas, and her discourse are meagre. She entertains angels, disguised as curates, and is a prop of the Deaconesses' Institute. At the office, I had my seat in Romeo's own room. Poverty emancipates. It often occurred to me how different things would have been had my dear father lived, and had I remained a young lady. In that case, I could have seen Romeo at intervals only, under shelter of a chaperon ; as it was, no one hinted the faintest impropriety in the fact that the type-writer girl was left alone with him half the day in the privacy of his CONCERNING ROMEO. 14I Study. Not that this freedom gave me much occasion (at first) for talk with Romeo. He was courtesy itself, and by nature conversible : but his chivalrous feelings, and his sense of my isolation, made him chary of speaking. He dictated all day, or left me to transcribe ; but he seldom broke silence save on matters of business. Nevertheless, from the outset, he was markedly kind to me. I had two nice boys at hand to run errands and carry my notes ; one, a skimpy London imp, compact of saucy humour ; I called him Puck : the other, a slender lad of fifteen, pale, delicate, girlishly pretty, with long straw-coloured hair and a distracted manner, whom I rechristened Ariel. Romeo gradually adopted this trick of speech from me. It is a habit of mine (as you may have observed) to invent names for my friends ; and these generally stick — I suppose because I borrovr them as a rule from the poets, who have classified us into types which recur perennially. After I had been at the office a few weeks, I happened one day to slip into some Ameri- canism. Though I have seen little of America (having gone there but once on a visit to my father's folk at Salem when I was not quite 142 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. fifteen) I have inherited from my ancestry not a few Massachusetts idioms, one or other of which I sometimes let drop, unconsciously to myself, in the course of conversation. Romeo snapped at the word at once. " Why, you must be a New Englander ! " " Not quite," I answered, flushing. " My father was born at Salem, an American citizen ; but he became naturalised in England young, and was a British officer." " Not in the army ? " Romeo cried, sur- prised. "Yes," 1 answered. " Why not? A colonel." I grew hot as I spoke. For the first and only time, I think Romeo doubted me. "Then you — must have — a pension," he broke out, slowly. It was partly desire to avoid telling the truth, partly a certain native love of mystifica- tion — or rather of piquing other people's curiosity ; but I answered with a touch of defiance, "An officer's daughter loses her pension on marriage. I may be married, perhaps — or separated — or a widow." And I bent down over my work to hide my heightened colour. He gazed at me for a second ; his eye fell on my left hand ; then he glanced away. CONCERNING ROMEO. I43 I could see him saying to himself he had no right to cross-question me. But interest in me prevailed. He drew near, and stood over me. "You must forgive my persistence," he said, gently, in his modulated voice — each syllable clear as crystal — "but I feel con- strained to ask you. Have you really a pension ? . . . . For if so, you have misled me." I looked up at him with proud eyes. My father's blood rose hot in me. " I must tell you the truth," I said, " or you will think I am ashamed of my father. I am not ashamed; I am proud of him. He was an English colonel ; but I have no pension. He was a very brave man. He threw up his commis- sion, in time of war, at a moment of danger, almost in face of the enemy, because he would not carry out orders which seemed to him unjust. And he died of anxiety and fever just after, on the West Coast of Africa." " I remember the case. Pray forgive me. It was cruel of me to drive you." " Not at all. I am glad you did. Now you will understand better." I rose, flushed, and faced him. " They say a soldier should resign his conscience into the keeping^ of the Queen's advisers. My father 144 THE TYPE-WUITER GIRL. could not. He felt wrong v/as being done. He would not make his judgment blind. He left me poor by it ; and I am proud of it — proud of him." "You have reason to be proud," Romeo answered. "I recall it all now. His previous record showed it was courage, not cowardice. I honoured him for it at the time — though the world thought otherwise." "Thank you," I said in a low voice. "May I go now ? It is nearly five. And I feel, after this, I can do no more work this even- ing." He opened the door for me and bowed even more respectfully than usual. There was sympathy in every movement. I felt he understood. I felt I had made a friend. I felt, still more surely than before, that this was my Romeo. CHAPTER XiV. "NOW DARAIiBAS WAS A PUBLISHER. I REGRET to say that from that day forth Romeo was more marked in his courtesy to me than ever. His manner had always a tinge of sweet antique courtliness ; but now he surpassed himself I regret it, I say, because I was afraid I recognised in this courtesy some lingering undercurrent of class feeling. The dear fellow would have been polite to a type-writer girl from the dregs of the people, no doubt — he did not know how to be less than polite to anyone ; but he was politer still when he understood that I was an officer's daughter, and (as he learned a week later) that my mother had sprung from a great Anglo-Indian family. This was treason to his principles ; for Romeo, as he had said, was more than half a socialist ; but I condoned that fault for the sake of his unvarying kindness. Besides, I think he thought well of me because I was loyal to my father's memory. 146 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. As though anyone who had known my dear father could have been otherwise ! Romeo published for Sidney Trevelyan. From the moment when I first noticed "An Heir of the Fiantagenets" among the rows of books in glazed paper covers in the pigeon- holes, I had always longed to be present some day when the famous novelist came in to discuss royalties or editions de luxe with his publisher. Sidney Trevelyan's name was like Charing Cross or Hyde Park Corner — a familiar piece of public property. One after- noon I had my will. I was seated at my table, clicking away at some letters, when I heard on the stairs a rich strident voice, diffusing itself very loud in clear shrill accents, I know lot which struck me most, its richness or its stridency. It was a sonor- ous voice, which one turn of a note would have made unendurable. "He is in his lair?" it said, filling the room. " Plotting schemes to suck my blood ? Then I will track him to his earth — the young vampire. My dear Barabbas, how are you ? " He burst into the sanctum, a whirlwind of a man — large, loose-limbed, masterful, with a restless grey eye, and a huge mop of brown hair, shot with thread- of russet. Romeo "NOW BARABBAS WAS A PUBLISHER." I47 rose to greet him. He flung himself into a chair. It creaked beneath his elephantine weight. I left off clicking at once, and went on with a piece of long-hand transcription. Or rather, to be frank, I feigned to transcribe, though my pen was inkless. As a rule, when authors came, 'twas my place to leave the study for awhile, and take refuge with Puck and Ariel in the anteroom. But as the great man entered — two yards of humanity, double width — Romeo signed to me to remain, with a quick movement of the eyebrow. He knew my wish, and was kind enough to remember it. I counted it to him for righteousness. Sidney Trevelyan sniff'ed, and scanned the room, with its Oriental hangings, and its scent of cedar-wood. "A nice den, Barabbas, a nice den ! " he observed, in a condescending tone; "an Ali Baba's cave, rich with bones of authors; vastly improved since the days of the old robber ! " Romeo winced. Like myself, he respected his father. " You have garnished it afresh," the great novelist continued, "from the spoils of the Egyptians. You have decked yourself in purple and fine linen ! Well, 'tis well you 148 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. should be comfortable in this world, no doubt: for in the next But I refrain from painting a Tartarean picture. Dante has done it so well before me that, like the grocer in my street, he de^es competition. I see you, my dear Barabbas," he raised his voice still louder, almost lapsing into a falsetto, "I see you lolling here in Eastern opulence, bathed in Cyprian perfumes, and fanned by obsequious Circassian odalisques" — I/^//him glance my way, though my eyes were fixed on my paper ; " I see you,)ike the sultan in Shelley's //(?//a5, surrounded by large-eyed houris, of volup- tuous bosoms, who strew your restless pillow with opiate flowers — I call your pillow rest- less, my dear fellow, partly because that was Shelley's epithet, if memory serves me, but partly also because a publisher (especially a young one) can scarcely expect to enjoy sound slumber ; later on, no doubt, as he becomes hardened in crime, he sleeps as well as a digestion impaired by old port permits ; but at first, remorse must disturb his fitful rest — I see you, I say, with opiate flowers on your couch stripped — what was the rhyme ? — ah, yes, 'flowers,' 'pillow' — stripped from orient bowers by the Indian billow. That is the picture — here. But at last comes the "NOW RARABBAS WAS A rUBLISHER." I49 awakening." He struck a dramatic attitude, and held up one hand , he had impressive fat hands, which seemed always in evidence. " You start from your sleep like Mahmood. ' Man the seraglio — guard ! Make fast the gate ! ' You dream yourself still lapped in Eastern magnificence. Then . . . . ha ! what's this ? An odour of brimstone — a pallid whiff of blue flame — Mephistopheles smiling grimly on the victim he has landed — you know where you are — unlike the current hero of music-hall romance — you stretch dim hands of fear and grope — j^ou sink down, down, down, on a couch of liquid fire. 'All is lost ! Why was I ever a publisher ? ' In which of his circles did Dante place publishers? Was it not close between the avaricious and the prevaricators ? But aloft in the empyrean, pillowed on purple cloud, meanwhile, I enjoy that delight upon which Tertullian insisted as a prime element in the ecstasy of the Blest — the delight of beholding you But your satellites overhear me ! Sense of discipline forbids ! Barabbas," he waved his hand, " I draw a veil over your future condition ! " He paused for want of breath. Most fat men are sluggish : this mountain of flesh was alive and volcanic in every atom. Romeo 150 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. began in his soft voice, "And on what par- ticular conspiracy of crime have you come to- day to consult the habitual criminal ? " Sidney Trevelyan smiled. He liked to be taken in his mood. " Well, my business," he said, "is, as you anticipate, a fresh raid against the purses of the Philistines. We must spoil them, my dear Barabbas ; we must spoil them, in unison. Here, our interests are identical. They have taken two thousand, I see, of the three-volume 'Mahatmas,' That's not enough ; you must issue at once a six- shilling edition. Grovelling beasts, prone in the mud they love, what do they mean by rejecting this so great salvation? Let Mudies see to it ! I shall answer their neglect by flinging back ' Mahatmas' in their teeth for six shillings. I know whence it comes, this re- buff: those ignorant parrots, the critics. They toss at me ever their parrot cry of ' Artificial, artificial ! ' Their own thoughts grub and grunt in the mud of their sty, and they blame it to the eagle that he should circle about gleaming icy peaks in clear ether. ' Un- natural,' they say; 'Overloaded.' That man Snigg, or Snagg, or Snogg — something Teu- tonic and unlovely — I decline to remember his honoured name — he reviewed me in the "NOW BARABBAS WAS A PUBLISHER." 151 Parthenon. He has no wings himself, and therefore he thinks flight an indecent gambol- Hng. But what do I care for the whole crew ? Not an obolus, not a doit — neither for Snagg nor Bagg, neither for Archer nor Parcher." He paused again to catch breath. In the lull, Romeo put in quietly, " It is too soon, in my opinion, for a cheap edition." " No, Barabbas, it is not; it is the pyscho- logical moment. The world awaits it with hushed breath. Six shillings — bound in cloth — Irish linen — dark green — a subtle shade — a shade I have in my mind's eye — like laven- der leaves in spring, when the sap mounts emerald through sea-hoary stems. You catch my idea? A green not wholly green, not altogether blue, not grey, not glaucous, but something of all, and more than all; with a cunning design by that mad young Belgian — withy-bands that twist into interlacing dragons ; the title in their midst, in some- v/hat Celtic letters." He broke off abruptly. Once more I could feel him glance my way. I seemed to see through the back of my head. I was sensitive to his movements. Suddenly, he burst out in a quite different voice, snorting like a war-horse : " Send that r52 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. ''' young woman away ! " he cried, executing a sort of ponderous rhinoceros-dance before me. " Send her away ! I tell you I can't stand her. I won't have her scribbling there and making notes of all I say. She's a para- graphist — a paragraphist : the vilest spawn on God's earth, a paragraphist ! What do you mean by setting spavined shorthand writers to report my obiter dicta ? " He advanced towards me, striding : I had risen hurriedly. "Go off!" he cried, waving his hands at me as if I were a gadfly. " Go off! I won't be listened to and paragraphed. I could feel you paragraphing me. Away, young woman : away with you." And by dint of sheer bulk, he drove me before him. Romeo opened the door for me. He spoke with deference. " I think, Miss Appleton," he said, " you had better take a seat in the ante- room for the moment, as your presence here seems to disturb Mr. Trevelyan." I went out, mystified. As the door closed behind me, I heard the great man snort again. " Now, really, Barabbas, if you choose to keep dubky Samian slaves chained in your lair for your hours of leisure, you should have the decency to unchain them when fellow- "NOW BARABBAS WAS A PUBLISHER." I S3 conspirators come in with proposals for a joint campaign against Askelon." I sat in the anteroom for half an hour. Ariel gazed in my face with sympathetic inquiry. " The old bear was rude ? " he asked at last, in a low voice. "I might almost call him so." "It is his way," Ariel replied. "He seems to wipe his shoes on one." " But he's not a bad old chap, either," Puck put in. " He chucked me half-a-crown once for going a message for him." "And called you a Tartar-nosed imp," Ariel added ; " and hit you in the eye with it." " He is a very great genius," I observed, sententiously, half to salve my own offended dignity. " But a genius is a man," Ariel remarked. And I felt he had reason. Twenty minutes later, the famous writer emerged. He cast a scowl at me in pass- ing. " Change your type-writer woman ! " he said curtly to Romeo. " Good-bye, my dear Barabbas. Rob on, rob ever." His broad back vanished down the staircase like a sink- ing hippopotamus. " Well ? " Romeo asked, with an anxious face, as I returned to my post when the tor- 5 4 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. nado had passed. " Nov^ you have seen him, what do you think of Sidiey Trevelyan ?" " I think," I said, " I would rather be a Barabbas than a Byron. ' :i CHAPTER XV. FRESH LIGHT ON ROMEO. "Sidney Trevelyan is a great man," Romeo said to me later ; " but his ideas are too great — especially his idea of his own greatness. This taints life for him : he moves in an at- mosphere of social suspicion^ 'Tis his fixed belief that all the world is always thinking of him, when it is really doing as he does — thinking of itself. He imagines reporters as a sultan imagines poison, or as a tsar imagines nihilists ; he scents a paragraphist in every hedge, and a critic in every stranger." Which explains, I suppose, his odd behaviour. But my own opinion is that he needed an audience ; I could catch it in his voice that he meant me to overhear ; because I affected to be absorbed in my work he thought I was not listening, and that made him angry. Romeo was kindness itself to me ; yet I dare say I might never have grown to know him better had it not been for the special L 2 156 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. providence of an accident — or the accident of a special providence ; put it whichever way best suits your philosophy. Straying one afternoon through the Cretan labyrinth of Soho, I happened to note a young girl, very poorly dressed, but with the air of a lady, staring in at a confectioner's. Her lace struck a chord. I ransacked my memory for it in vain. Then I recalled in a flash where I had met her before ; she was the girl whom I had passed on the stairs at Romeo's on the day when I went to apply for the situation ; the girl whom I had sup- planted in the struggle for existence. Her shrinking figure, her whipped air, made me turn to ask an inevitable question : " Have you found work yet ? " " No, none," she said dejectedly. " How came you to know I wanted it ? " I explained where I had seen her, and how I had heard or guessed her errand. She seemed unduly grateful. My heart was touched, for though I doubt not you think me, on my own evidence, a heartless young woman, I have a heart, after all, when aught occurs to rouse it. I reflected at once how even my gentle Romeo had said of this poor child that she was hope- FRESH LIGHT ON ROMEO. 1 57 lessly incompetent. Still, the incompetent have mouths to feed, and bodies to clothe, and possibly, also, souls to save, like the rest of us. The struggle for life has not quite choked out my soul (if I have one). I invited her to my room for a cup of tea, and an ounce of sympathy. Her gratitude was a satire on Christian charity in this town of London. I found she could type fairly well, though quite unintelligently, like a well- trained Chinaman ; but she had no machine of her own, and no money to buy one ; nor could she undertake work where dictation was necessary ; though, given a copy, she could reproduce each word with mechanical fidelity. It flashed across me at once that all day long I was away at Romeo's, and did not need my machine. " Better come here," I said, " and use it. I will find you manu- scripts to transcribe ; we have plenty of such work to give away at the office." She fawned on me like a dog accustomed to ill-treatment, and for once used kindly. The ravenous way in which she ate bread and butter would have satisfied even the Charity Organisation Society as to the genuineness of her hunger. She was pain- 158 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. fully grateful. Her gratitude distressed me. After that we became fast friends. It is true, she was terrified at the first smell of tobac But I forget ; that delinquency I have hitherto concealed from you. How- ever, she used my machine every day, and I helped her in the evenings. Pale, blue- eyed, colourless, with thin hair tied up in a knot the size of a nutmeg, she was built on the same lines as Michaela (whom I always remembered), but with this trifling diff'erence — that Michaela was rich, while my now little friend had not a cent to bless herself with. One was bound in Morocco, with gilt edges ; the other, a cheap edition, in paper covers. Her name was Elsie, her front name, that is to say ; for she had another, I sup- pose, a surname ; but I took no heed of it. Surnames lie on the surface of things, and do not interest me. They are of this age, utili- tarian ; while I, who dwell ever in Once- upon-a-time, care little save for the pe'-sons and dates of fairyland. We give each otl.^r surnames, indeed, only so long as we are mutual phantoms ; once pierce to the under- lying realities of human life, and we call one another by pet names, like so many children. FRESH LFJIIT ON ROMEO. 159 In time Elsie became to me a sort of adopted daughter. She was older than I to be sure ; but her helplessness and incom- petence inspired in me at last that sense of motherliness which we women love — does it not come out in us even toward our dolls in childhood ? Her affection was canine. I found work for her from a type-writing office hard by — simple work, selected with a special eye to her limitations. She toiled at it with that patience which one observes in the squirrel who turns the unceasing treadmill of his cage ; for minds of a certain calibre prefer routine, which would kill a thinking animal, to any task that calls for the slightest exercise of intelligence. As long as she was permitted to go on copying like a machine, Elsie was perfectly happy : a doubt or a query seemed (as she said) to comb her brain ; she lost heart before an alternative. I spent little time in my room myself, save for the strict necessaries of sleep and break- fast ; at other times I was driven out of it by a work of art on the walls — the Portrait of a Locket. It represented, or rather repre- sents (for doubtless it still exists), a gold locket and chain, reposing on an ample black silk bosom, with a woman's face and l60 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. hands in the background. The face and hands, so far as can be seen, are fat and placid ; the hands crossed ; the face feature- less. Flesh-tints and modelling, however, cast much rude work upon the imagination. I had not courage enough to suggest the removal oi this gem to my landlady, who valued it highly as "a real oil-painting"; but it, and two vases, drove me out, I will not say to the public-house, but to the public buildings. I retired at odd moments to my drawing-room in the National Gallery, or to the hospitable electric light of the British Museum. Elsie, on the other hand, was not repelled by the locket or the lady. I had now no use for my machine, and she worked on it constantly. She and the Commissioner struck up a violent friendship. It did her good to have some living creature at hand in the room to whom she could talk in the inter- vals of click-clicking. To enlarge her circle I added in time a starling and a canary, whom we christened Beef and Mustard. The canary was Mustard because of his colour, and the starling Beef because there was so much more of him. One of the points which had barred Elsie's way in the matter of obtaining employment, FRESH LIGHT ON ROMEO. l6l she felt profoundly convinced, was her reli- gious opinions, which were soundly narrow. This happily enabled her, like Rothenburg, to gild her penury with the halo of the martyr. For myself, I suspect that incompetence had more to do with her failure than religious prejudice ; but that is a private conviction. She was a Positivist, or a Plymouth Sister, or a member of some other uncanny small sect ; I will plead guilty to discriminating ill these minor brands of creed ; I am hazy as to the true distinction between General and Particular Baptists (though, perhaps, a Particuhir Baptist uses soap) ; and I always mix up Sweden- borgians with Irvirgites. It was a surprise to Elsie to find that her form of faith seemed to me a question of small import either way. I hold that most men are human, and, still more, most women. My tolerance astonished her. When 1 suggested that perhaps at that very minute Swedenborg and Irving, John Knox and Thomas a Kempis, might perchance be gazing down upon us with kindly eyes and an amused smile from some sequestered garden bench in one of the spacious pleasure- grounds of the Celestial City, where they sat in rapt converse with the soul of John l62 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. Glas, who first prospected her own strictly provincial path to Paradise, she turned her face to me with mingled delight and terror. My view seemed to her sweet but highly heterodox. She refused to her God a breadth of sympathy which she instinctively admired in a fellow-creature. One evening I came home and found Elsie at work on a piece of transcription which was evidently too deep for her. It was poetr}', she said, in an awed whisper : she had been given it at the office under a promise of secrecy. But the arrangement of the long and short lines of complicated stanzas, which needed some care in the adjustment of margins, was evidently beyond her. She looked tired and worried, and was mildly tearful. " Besides, dear," she said, smooth- ing my hair, " there are such difficult words in it — words nobody could spell ; not even you, I believe — such as myrrh with two r's and an h. I can't manage them anyhow." "Dictate to me," I said; "I can write for a bit. I've not done much to-day, and I'm hardly the least bit tired." She dictated several strophes. I was not surprised that she found the words hard. " Chrysoprase " " mandragora," " anaglyph," FRESH LIGHT ON ROMEO. 163 " Libitina " — these lay some miles outside poor little Elsie's vocabulary. At first I noticed only the rare richness of the language, the many-faceted words, set like jewels so as to show their full beauty; gradually, as she dictated, I began to be aware that the verses she read aloud to me in her infantile sing-song were not merely rhyme but also poetry. I do not pretend to the name of critic ; but I judged them to be written with limpid felicity. They had that artlessness which comes of the apt use of the perfect word without show of effort. Each noun and adjective fell so naturally into its place that one fancied the writer could have used no other— till one began to reflect that only studious care results in so absolute a sense of inevitability. And the poems were statuesque ; they had none of the tropical exuberance of our time ; they were Greek in their austerity. " Who is the author ? " I asked, curious to know the name of the poet with this Ionic note, new to our English Helicon. " They didn't tell me. They wished me not to know. He particularly desired that his verses should be kept secret." She went on dictating in her mechanical 1 64 THE TYPE- WRITER GIRL. way. My hand struck the keys rapidly. At last she paused, near the close of a curious variant on the Spenserian stanza. " There's a word I can't make out," she murmured. "'True woman has the magic' some- tJiing " I took the manuscript from her hands. " True woman has the magic Midas gift ; Touched by her hand, dull clay transmutes to molten gold." But that was not what made me give a sudden cry of surprise, and then turn red as a peony. The verses were written in Romeo's hand. And Romeo was their author. In a second I was buried in them, like a bee in a crocus. I felt he was even more to me than before. I had believed him a pub- lisher; now I knew him a poet. No Barab- bas, but a Byron. How long I lay awake in my garret that night — thinking of whom but of Romeo ! UHAPTER XVI. I TRY LITERATURE. Next morning at lunch time, as I crossed Long Acre, I caught a glimpse of Michaela, in the gondola of London, steering rapidly northward. A big summer hat, all wild roses and gossamer, half hid her face, like a wuld rose itself, pink and white and delicate. At sight of me she recognised me, and stopped her hansom short for a second to grasp my hand. I was pleased at her remem- brance. She had come from Waterloo, she said, and was hurrying now to catch a train at Euston. She looked radiantly happy ; I told her so. Her face flushed with pleasure ; she leaned forward and confided to me in a thrilling whisper that she was to be married in the autumn to the friend whom she had lost on the day I first met her. I wished her joy, and waved my hand. She vanished, smiling, towards Euston and the Unknown, a phantom once more among the flickering phantoms. l66 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. Happy at her happiness, I tripped back to Flomeo's. She was an airy little thing of gauze and bergamot, like a breath of fairy- land. That afternoon Romeo's talk to me was more human than usual. It was always plain that he wan*-ed to talk, but a sense of the official nature of our relation restrained him often. To-day he spoke much of woman's place in literature. So many women, he said, wrote of life with a note of personality rare among men. They put more heart in it. Even squalor or crime grew less base when they handled it. Half unconsciously to myself, I murmured under my breath, "True woman has the magic Midas gift ; Touched by her hand, dull clay transmutes to molten gold." I murmured it quite low ; but he caught at the words with a sharp gasp. " Where did you see that ? " he asked quickly. I was forced to confess, "The lines oc- curred in some verses a little friend of mine — I told you of her some days since — had for copy yesterday from a type-writing office." I tried not to let him know more ; but, for a woman, I am a poor dissembler ; my colour or the trembling of my lips betrayed me. I TRY LITERATURE. 167 " Did you see the manuscript ? " he in- quired. "Yes ; I helped her to transcribe it." " They promised secrecy ! " he cried. " And you shall have it," I answered. He paused a moment. " But yoti were the last person I would have v/ished to see them," he went on, his face twitching. I knew why. In some of them an allusion, a description — here, a blue-veined eyelid; there, a gloss like a swallow's wing on a woman's smooth hair — had seemed to me familiar. He paced up and down the tawny carpet for awhile. Then he broke out once more. " I have written verse since I was a boy," he said. " It has ever been my ambition to be found worthy of the crown of poet. But if I printed these lyrics under my own name, what use ? I could but give a handle for Sidney Trevelyan to ask in the Saturday Review ' Is Barabbas also among the prophets?' Nobody will take a publisher's rhymes seriously. So I decided to issue mine under an assumed name, and with another firm, that critics might at least be rude to them on their merits. For that purpose I had them type-written — and not by you. I am sorry you have seen them." 1 68 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. "And I am glad," I answered. "You may not care for my opinion ; but these verses are masterpieces of handicraft. You have the rare gift of reticence. Besides, you understand the fitness of words ; you appreciate their melt- ing shades of tcne ; you feel the emotional atmosphere with which each is girdled." " Thank you, " he said, checking himself. " Andjj'c?» are o.ie of the few whose praise I value. You speak well of my work for the qualities I strive to have, not for those I know I have not." From that day forth he was much more at home with me. You see, we shared a Secret in common. When his >'olume came out, several months later, it made no stir in the world ; but it gained the approbation of five or six out of the twenty-three men and women in England who love poetry It will yet be known, I think ; for though the public often fiock together like sheep after some noisy impostor, true poetry is always forced upon them from above by the chosen few who can discover and impose it. The few are frequently obscure, and bear no hall-mark ; but they know one another by the two gifts which make a critic — insight and foresight. 1 TRY LITERATURE. 169 My knowledge of this book drew me nearer to Romeo. Having once accepted the fact that I knew of his work, he consulted me time and again as to type and paper — sometimes also as to the choice of an epithet or a point of cadence, when two equally-balanced alter- natives divided his preference. Should it be lurid or livid ? was ruddy or russet the better? This led us into talks not altogether official. Though always reticent, he began to treat me less as a type-writer and more as a woman. This quality of reticence, which I observed in Romeo's self no less than in his work, impressed me profoundly. I admired his quiet strength, his calm, his urbanity. I am not urbane myself, and I fear I must grant that I am rather vehement than strong; there- lore I respected all the more these traits in Romeo. One honours one's complement above one's counterpart. He never spoke strongly; he reserved strength for action. A week or two after Sidney Trevelyan's visit I asked him one day whether the cheap edition of "Mahatmas" was going forward. He smiled his restrained smile, and answered, " No, certainly not ; I never intended it." " But Mr. Trevelyan was so urgent, so instant ; he had quite made up his mind." M 170 THE TVI'E-WKITKK CilRL. " Yes ; that is unimportant. The moment had not arrived, and 1 told him so, cahnly. He is a rock when opposed ; but cahnness, like faith, can move mountains. I did not oppose him at the time ; opposition just then could only have irritated him. I saw the state of his soul ; he came to me, seething internally with suppressed wrath at the critics. I let him blow off steam ; in such circumstances I judge it unwise to sit upon the safety-valve. lie opened his heart and had it out, flinging many hard jibes at me and at the public. That relieved the tension. I let three days pass ; then I wrote an ulti- matum, stating quietly what I thought. He gave in at once. The cheap edition shall not appear till the autumn." Such masculine absence of fussiness pleased me. Once or twice when I discussed with him he asked me seriously why I had never written. I laughed off his assault. He re- turned to the charge ; so much racy material going to waste in my own adventures. I told him of my work among the East-End slop-makers ! " Ready-made stories," was his verdict. I doubted my own faculty. He was sure I possessed it. T TkV LITKRATUKK. r;! Tliis encouraged me to narrate my ex- perience at Pinfold. " Anarchists ! — and they blamed me because I could not fall in love to order ! " "You are an intrepid young lady," Romeo said. " Do you know, I doubt if you quite realise always in what galleys you have embarked." "I think I do," I answered : "but I have confidence in myself and my guardian angel." He urged me to try my hand at a short story of the modern girl who earns her own living in London — "for example, this little friend who uses your type-writer," he added with a clever side-thrust ; I was grateful to him for thus diverting the theme from my own personality : " there is no more pathetic figure in our world to-day than the common figure of the poor young lady, crushed be- tween classes above and below, and left with scarce a chance of earning her bread with decency." " I fear," I said, " I have no knack of pathos ; even at difficult turns I am apt to see rather the humorous than the tragic side of things." " So I note. But why not try ; your own late adventures, for instance ? " M 2 172 THK TYPK-WKITKR CilRL. I felt that that romance had not yet reached its dcnou})iciit ; but I refrained from telling him so. I promised to make an attempt, however, with one of my earlier East-Knd reminiscences, or else with a little vignette of the infant anarchists, unsullied by soap, pulling Commissioner Lin's tail, while their sisters turned the House that Jack built into Czech and Yiddish. For a week or two I worked hard in my stray moments at this my poor little literary first-born. I put its phrases in curl-papers till I was sick of twisting them. When it was ripe for the birth, I confess I thought meanly of it. Mine own, but a poor thing, to reverse Touchstone's saying : I brought it to Romeo, trembling. He read it and was enthusiastic. For the first time now I felt sure he really cared for me ; what else could so have blinded his critical faculty ? For he was a judicious reader. He praised it as if it were the work ol a consummate artist. His encouragement was unstinted. I will not repeat what he said as to my style ; you, who are reading my second effort in that line, would be painfully aware how much personal partiality must have warped his judgment. I TRY LITERATURE. I73 " It is SO breezy," he said. " You write open-air English." " I learnt it on the moors, among the whins," I answered. " This eclogue must go into the magazine ! " he cried ; for, like most other great houses, the firm published one of its own. I drew a line at that. " Oh, no," I cried, flushing. "You are too kind, too generous. I will not allow it to be printed where — where personal acquaintance and your recom- mendation may disturb the editor's calmer opinion. I must send it to someone else. Then it will be weighed for what it is worth, and if it is accepted, I shall know on what grounds." " But I shall be sorry to lose it," he ex- claimed ; " for the magazine's own sake. When one discovers a new writer, one wishes to keep the full credit of the dis- covery." I looked down to hide my burning cheeks. " No, no," I said firmly. " You are too flattering — too good. Your" — ^I paused to think how I could best word it; "your knowledge of me predisposes you too much in my favour." He looked at me and hesitated. " Not my 174 THE TVPE-WRITER GIRL. knowledge alone," he corrected; "my . . . friendship, my " He did not say " affection " ; but we raised our eyes in unison ; and in a flash of those eyes each knew that he meant it. There was a long pause. I was aware ot my heart, which called attention to its ex- istence by a violent throbbing. I went back to my machine and began typing mechani- cally. Then he added all at once, " But quite apart from that, I ivmit this story ; I want the honour of publishing it, because I see it is a good one." I went on clicking. " You cannot sepa- rate these things," I said, without look- ing up. " A person is a totality. We do not knoW; ourselves, how much of any feeling is due to this cause, and how much to that. Nothing ever goes wholly free from either fear or favour. But I have made up my mind. I shall send it to The Pimlico.'" I sent it in the end ; and, to my great joy, not unmixed with surprise, the editor ac- cepted it, in a chastening letter. He did not say, like Romeo, " a gem cf English " ; he called it on the contrary, "high-spirited if flippant"; but he printed it none the less, and forwarded me a cheque for twelve guineas. I TRY LITERATURE. 1 75 Twelve guineas ! Such wealth seemed to me almost incredible. I felt like an Argo- naut. Still, Romeo was vexed. "We ought to have had it," he said; "for, after all, you were my discovery." ^flr^^Xl.^*'' CHAPTER XVII. A DRAWN BATTLE. It was about this time, if I recollect aright (for / am the girl who does not keep a diary), that Romeo invited me to dinner. I have two reasons for my avoidance of the besetting sin of diary-writing. The first is that I am usually dog-tired with work when evening comes, so that to ask me to fill in a journal with the day's events is like asking a galley-slave to take a scull in a pleasure-boat after his toil is over. The second is that if you keep no diary it cannot be used in evidence against you. As yet, 'tis true, by rigid self-exam.ination, I have steered clear of capital crimes ; but I remember always Ophelia's wise saw, " We know what we are; we know not what we may be." Romeo invited me with caution, and teiita- tively. He began by remarking, as if for no special reason, that he was giving a dinner next week at the Savoy — a dinner devised for A DRAWN BATTLE. 1/7 a particular purpose. Then he added after a while that his mother would be there. This to inspire confidence, dear fellow ! as though I ever doubted him. Next he inquired in a rather timid voice whether, if his mother picked me up by the way in her brougham, 1 would mind joining the party. " My mother has not called upon you yet," he murmured in an apologetic parenthesis, looking up at me askance from under his ridged eyebrows with an interro- gative lid ; " but — perhaps you would waive that." From the way he said it I could read much. I felt instinctively she was a black-satin old lady of the straightest sect ; Romeo had implored her to call ; she had refused point- blank to go and see a type-writer girl who lived in one room in an impossible street in Soho. Romeo had begged and prayed ; the mother had presented the true stiff neck of the black-satin order. Then Romeo had planned this dinner as a means of introducing me, con- fident (dear boy) that if once we were brought together, his mother — well, would think as much of me as he did. Poor purblind Romeo ! I pitied him for that. How little had he fathomed black-satin psychology ! I hesitated a moment. Not on Romeo's account, nor even on the mother's — I do not 178 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. fear the smoothest black satin ; but because of the mere material difficulty of a gown, which just at first rose insuperable. Otherwise I thought so much of Romeo now — he had begun to play so large a part in the unwritten dramas of my future with which I lulled my- self to sleep — that I felt at all costs I must be present at this dinner and face the mother. A mother is almost inevitable ; the sooner one gets over her, like measles, the better. I had one evening dress, or the ghost of one, which had descended to me from the days when I was a lady. Its sleeves carried date ; but the bodice and skirt were of that fanciful kind which is above the fashion, and therefore never either in it or out of it. The colour was sweet — white, shot with faint streaks of the daintiest pink, like the first downy stage of budding willow catkins. On the other hand, I was still in mourning for my dear father. Had I loved him less I should have shrunk from wearing that gown ; but my sorrow was not of the sort that measures itself by yards of crape, which is why I have troubled you with it so little in this narrative. I reflected a moment ; then I answered, "Yes ; it will give me great plea- sure." A DRAWN BATTLE. 179 That it gave Romeo great pleasure was visibly written on iiis face. He liad expected a no, and was delighted at my acceptance. I knew by his eyes he had anticipated and even exaggerated the dress difficulty. I did not misinterpret his pleased look, however. I never thought Romeo was in love with me ; I knew he was interested in me, both per- sonally and as a possible authoress ; and I saw he wished much to bring me officially into his mother's circle. More than that, I did not believe, or rather, if I am to tell you the precise truth, 1 thought Romeo was fall- ing in love with me by slow steps, but mis- taking his love for mere interest and friendli- ness. For a week I was a woman, not merely a type-writer. I worked hard at that gown, first planning, then executing my alterations. Dear little Elsie helped me with it like a Trojan. Nay, in cutting out and fitting she displayed or developed unexpected talent. When dress was in question she was no longer stupid ; the woman in her grew ; she showed taste and skill ; indeed, I have noted in life, throughout, that taste has no necessary connection, direct or inverse, with intelligence or stupidity ; it is a native endowment which l80 THE TYI'E-WRITER GIRL. may break out anywhere. She was glad it was a dinner, not a dance ; her religious opinions would not have sanctioned her assisting me with a ball-dress. But all sects alike ap- prove the habit of feeding. I must admit that when it came to the details of my gown she showed herself at once moA frankly worldly. Elsie had little chance of making dresses for herself, poor child; but she aided me with her needle and her advice till I was truly grateful. The way she reorganised the sleeves to a Parisian model made one believe in alchemy. We spent a few shillings on new tulle and lining. Every evening we had an orgy of dressmaking : whole packets of pins, snippets of silk on the floor. Before the end of the week we had transformed that old gown of mine into a joy for ever. It was better than new ; as it fell in soft folds the blush showed on the ridge and cream-white in the hollows. When I tried it on, Elsie bent over me enrap- tured. "You dear thing!" she cried, hugging me (to the danger of the tulle), " I always knew you were pretty, but I never knew till now you were splendidly beautiful." And I will honestly admit that the frock became me. The day arrived at last. Elsie came round A DRAWN ISATTLE. l8l to help me dress my hair Wc made more of this dinner than I should have made of being presented in the days of my grandeur — such as it was. Dear little Elsie had brought me some flowers from a friend's garden at Ealing, choice sweet-scented flowers, with a back- ground of maidenhair. If I had believed her, I would have thought no fairy princess ever looked more radiant than 1 looked that even- ing; and, indeed, our joint efforts on the gown repaid us with interest. When the last touch had been given Elsie kissed me on both cheeks. " He will propose to-nigiit," she whispered. " I know he will : he can't help himself, dear. You are so captivating!" I blushed, for I had never mentioned his name to Elsie; but then, I forgot that Elsie too was a woman. At ten minutes to eight the brougham arrived at the door. Never before had our street beheld so distinguished an equipaj^e. This was unfortunate, for the children next door came to gaze at me with dirty faces and unaffected interest, exclaiming, "Oh, my, don't she look a reel lidy ?" as I made a rush for the carriage. Romeo's mother was precisely what 1 had painted her — a Lady Montague of the 1 82 THE TVPE-WRITLR GIRL. severest, with coffee-coloured point-lace, a Cornelia one shade too stout for the mother of the Gracchi. Her smooth white hair looked not gentle, but forbidding; she listened to what I said with well-bred reserve: too stiff to acquiesce, too polite to contradict, too stony to show interest. At the hotel, we were ushered into a hand- some private room, most gracefully decorated with crimson arabesques on white panelling. The party consisted of Romeo and his mother with some six or eight more (including a pre- bendary), among whom the chief guests seemed to be a certain amiable-faced Lady Donisthorpe and her husband, Sir Everard. I name them in this order, for though the husband was a man of some force and character — early English, comfortable — Lady Donis- thorpe, like Paul, was the chief speaker. She seemed what is called "a womanly woman " — one of those tranquil women with soft, rounded outlines, who look like wax, but within are flint. She reminded me most of all of a pouter pigeon. She apologised much because dear Meta could not come. It was such a disappoint- ment. The poor child had been taken ill — nothing serious she was glad to say — but im- A DRAWN HATTLE. 183 possible to go out. She hoped Romeo would excuse her. Romeo expressed most courteous regret at dear Meta's enforced absence; though 1, who knew him now so well, and was used at the office to note the varying degrees of cordiality or boredom in his reception of authors, inferred at once from his eyes that he was somewhat relieved at heart by dear Meta's non-appearance. It was clear to me, too, that Lady Donisthorpe flung Meta in- artistically at his head ; twenty times during the evening she referred with a rigid smile and a pufT of the pouter bust to one of dear Meta's sweet ways or to something delightful that dear Meta had said or done for some- body. The impression she left upon me was that Meta must be an insipid paragon, with all the virtues and their concomitant insup- portability. Romeo's absent smile at each such advertisement of Meta's charming quali- ties— " so gentle," "so unaffected" — made me feel convinced that he was of the same opinion. To put it plainly, Lady Donisthorpe showed want of tact in her crude mode of placarding Meta. She had another trick Oi '-nanner which disturbed my peace of mind ; like most of the 1^4 THE TVPE-WRITKk fllKL. iK-wly-LMirichecl, she attached an excessive importance to the after all somewhat negative quality of ladylikencss. The highest praise she could accord to each aciiromatically charming girl of her accpiaintance was that of being " a perfect lady." She flung the phrase in my teeth. Apart from the fact that it seems to imply a somewhat narrow standard, I always suspect women who insist upon this point of being themselves otton-backed ladies. I knew her type : she belonged to an aristocracy recruited by the names of all the best-known brands of beer, soap, and whis- key. I protest, however, that just at first I began by treating Romeo's mother and Lady Donis- thorpe with the utmost cordiality. For had 1 not good reasons for desiring to conciliate them ? But their treatment chilled me. I could see they had come prepared to dislike me for a conceited upstart. In return, I soon found I disliked their texture. Cornelia was cold ; I felt she regarded my humour as ill- timed. Lady Donisthorpe had the vulgar fear of vulgarity. I do not share it ; nature is vulgar enough ; we can only be " perfect ladies " on the Donisthorpe pattern by shut- A nUAWN KATTLK. 185 ting our eyes, shutting our cars, and shutting our noses to most things around us. Now, I will not shut my eyes nor my mouth either. If facts obtrude themselves, I recognise them. I fear Lady Donisthorpe thought it painfully unladylike of me to have lived in the East- Knd, and positively rude to tell stories of slop-makers. She raised her tortoise-shell glasses at the very word as a mute protest. In fine, both were conscious of a social barrier. So was I — with a difference. Lady Donisthorpe moved in what calls itself "good society," but genteel would have been scarce too hard a word to describe her. Romeo's mother swept in to dinner on Sir Everard's arm, a three-decker under full sail. Romeo offered me his ; I gathered it was because Meta hnJ not arrived as expected. Always handsome, he looked handsomer in evening dress. A waxy white flower lay on each plate: Romeo pinned mine on my bodice. Lady Donisthorpe's placid eyes did not let the action pass unnoticed. The dinner —by which you shall understand the food — was the best I ever tasted. The champagne, in the judgment of one who is no judge, was a thought too dry, but delicious. The mousse dc jamboii was an epicure's dream. N 1 86 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. I really enjoyed myself. Besides, I was conscious that Romeo liked my dress and felt some mild surprise to see how well I looked in it. He had hitherto known me in my black office gown alone. I forgot my poverty and was once more a lady. It suits me better. I blossom under it. I did not even object to Sir Everard for being a millionaire; it was hardly his fault; million- aires, after all, are an outcome of the age : one can but regret that they absorb its income. Lady Donisthorpe's talk leeked of wealth till I felt it would be dviiightful to get home at night and spc somethmg cheap again. My seat VvdS between Romeo and a clever young man, with keen eyes and pince-nez, a rising physiologist. It relieved me to learn he was not an electrical engineer ; all the young men I used to meet in my prae-type-writing days had been given over to riotous electrical engineering. My neighbour's hobby was a cheerful one — the identity of genius and mad- ness. He took Paradise Lost and the Vatican frescoes for premonitory symptoms of acute mania ; he held the steam-engine to be a by- product of the insane temperament. Yet he urged his thesis so well that, on his own showing, I foresaw he must be qualifying A DRAWN BATTLE. 1 8/ for residence in an asylum. Wi-.en I told him so, he cavilled at my graceful compliment. To escape his retort, I turned to the other side and joined talk with Romeo and the pre- bendary. I do not know what a prebendary does ; his functions are more mysterious than even the archidiaconal ; but I have said I love mystery ; and I found the prebendary a capital talker. Romeo was charming, as always — more charming to me that night, I fancied, than ever. Perhaps it was because he had never seen me dressed like a human being before ; but also, I think, he was conscious of his mother's keen eyes and Lady Donisthorpe's steely glance ; smiling ever her set smile, she felt Meta's chances were slipping from her visibly. She was an ox-eyed Hera, a little run to seed, and now almost cow-faced, but cat-like in her watchfulness. To counteract the chilling effect of the two mothers — one a feather-bed, the other a poker — and to put me at my ease, Romeo behaved with the sweetest courtes3^ He talked to me ; he drew me out; if I ever can be brilliant (which 'tis not for me to judge) I was brilliant that evening. I flashed to my own surprise ; Romeo's admiration, and the two elder N 2 1 88 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. women's scarcely concealed hostility, put me on my mettle. I was not angry with his mother ; it was comprehensible, of course ; mothers are made like that. We erect each other into a class, and judge accordingly. Could any woman with an aquiline nose, and white hair neatly dressed by an immaculate maid, sit by unper- turbed while her only son paid open court to a type-writer girl ? I suppose I should have felt as she did, had I been put in her place. Being put in my own, I naturally did my best to let myself be seen to the greatest advan- tage. So did Romeo. Having brought me there, he was determined I should be treated with proper respect. He insisted on talking to me; Lady Donisthorpe's cat-like graciousness, Cornelia's Roman austerity, only increased his anxiety to do me honour. The more his mother froze, the more Lady Donisthorpe, smiling her mechanical smile, and gently crushing, raised her tortoise-shell eye-glasses to decide whether I was human, the more did Romeo draw me out, and the more did I scintillate, till at last all the table was talking to me or listening to me. I laughed and raised laughter; I ^ sparkled and parried. A DRAWN BATTLE. 1 89 When Lady Donisthorpe interposed sweetly, "And so you type-write at the office! How fatiguing it must be ! " on purpose to discon- cert me, I had my repartee ready : " At least it preserves me from being a perfect lady." I could see Romeo was pleased. I was a social success. I had justified his temerity. In the midst of our fencing, of a sudden, Cornelia drew out a gold pencil, wrote some- thing on a card, and handed it across to him. Romeo glanced at it and crumpled it up ; I could guess by his face her note had not pleased him. "As you will," he answered across the table ; then he turned to me once more. "That was delicious,' he said; "and what did you reply to him ?" I went on with my story. Still, I could gather that he was annoyed ; not only annoyed, indeed, but perplexed and troubled. Dinner solemnised, we withdrew to the comfortable divans of the balcony for Turkish coffee. All the party crowded round me, save the two mammas ; they did not sit apart, but, joining our group, they preserved an austere moral aloofness. The rest, however, redeemed their abstention. Even Sir Everard was untrue to poor Meta's chances. I was flushed by this time, and the men's eyes told me I was look- IQO THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. ing my prettiest. The two other girls of the party chimed in and encouraged me. So did the prebendary ; I talked easily and brightly. Sir Everard laughed again and again at my sallies. He was a portly old gentleman with a massive white waistcoat, very like a toad as he leaned back on the ottoman. His voice, too, was a purr; he was a toad, not a natter- jack. But Romeo had stolen away to give some mysterious orders. I felt rather than saw that something had gone wrong somewhere with the machinery. We were to adjourn to a theatre. We drove round in state. Our stalls were near the centre; Lady Donisthorpe in claret- coloured velvet looked truly imposing. In one of the interludes I looked round at the pit. Directly behind me, in the front row, sat a foxey-headed man staring open-eyed towards me. It was the Grand Vizier, accom- panied by a lady (no doubt "with brains") and concealing but imperfectly the fact that he had been dining. For a moment — a rare moment — I felt really disconcerted. Under any other circum- stances it would only have amused me had the Vizier leaned forward and shouted, " Good A DRAWN BATTLE. I9I evening, miss," in his own dialect. But to- night, with the eyes of those two mothers fixed stonily on my face, I confess I trembled lest he should rise in his seat, wave one hairy hand, and call out loudly across the inter- vening rows, " Allow me to introduce my fee- on-say to you. Miss Appleton!" 1 looked away hastily, not before he had caught my eye. I expected to see his goggle eyes fall out and drop upon the floor : he was so evidently surprised at my transfigured appear- ance. The last time he had parted from me it was beneath the golden symbol of St. Nicholas at the shop in the Strand ; to light upon me there that night, dressed like a lady, surrounded by a little court, made much of by the men, and flushed from the Savoy, might naturally astonish him. However, he behaved with better taste than I could have anticipated. He nudged his companion, and whispered in her ear, but kept his face averted. He was puzzled, I felt sure ; still he had sense enough to know that this greeting would be ill-timed, and good feeling enough to prevent him from forcing himself upon my notice. When the play was over Romeo led me to the door. I was still hot and uncertain. So 192 THE TVPE-WRITER GIRL. far as he was concerned this evening was for me a great triumph ; every man and woman there, save only the two mothers, had paid me much attention, and, I will even venture to add, admired me. I had looked and talked my best, and I was satisfied with my per- formance. But the two elder women hung like black clouds lowering in the rear ; 1 could feel them disapproving of me with various degrees of rancour. One feared for her son, the other for her daughter. Very natural, I knew ; but so too was my own attitude. No woman is born to be merely a type-writer. At the door Romeo led me by myself into a well-appointed brougham. Then I knew what had happened. Cornelia had written across to him that she declined to take me back in her carriage to Soho ; and Romeo, to save me the knowledge of that slight, had slipped away at the hotel, and ordered another carriage to await me at the theatre. He held my hand in his own for a brief space after he put me into it. "It was so good of you to come," he said. " I have so much enjoyed this talk with you." But the two mothers hardly gave me the tips of their fingers, and bowed distantly A DRAWN BATTLE. 1 93 as I drove away alone, with chilly polite- ness. When I got back to my room my feelings were mixed. The jealous Gods thus alloy our triumphs. Romeo had seen me at last as I really was. But I had innocently disturbed the peace of two families. I did what every other woman would have done in my place — sat down to a good cry and thought about Romeo. CHAPTER XVIII. AN AUTUMN HOLIDAY. I HAVE large estates in Hertfordshire and the adjoining counties, free of land tax. Some noble marquis, I am assured, lays claim to the bare loam, the ploughed fields, the turnips; but who counts mere mud? The rest is mine, to do as I will with. He may keep his rents : 'tis for me to enjoy the green lawns, the huge buttressed beech-trees, the broad circles of shade where drowsy sheep lie huddled : I own the stripling streams that break agamst sharp stones in the sloping stickles, or expand on the shallows between into placid pools, skimmed over by water- beetles who dart and dance nimbly in inter- lacing whirligigs. The sky overhead is mine, mine the road under foot ; the scent of rain-wetted earth ; the broken song of the thrushes, the startled scream of the jay as he bursts through the rustling oak-leaves, the long sweep of the swift launching himself on AN AUTUMN HOLIDAY. 1 95 the air from the battlements of the church- tower. All these I own, by virtue of my freehold in the saddle of my bicycle. Such a Sabine farm costs nought to manage ; it gives pure delight without counter- poise of trouble. I visited mine often, both on summer evenings and on Saturday after- noons or Sundays. Early in my time at Romeo's a whimsical fancy seized me (being ever irresponsible) to spend my Sabbath mornings in such churches within easy reach of London as were dedicated to my chosen ally, St. Nicholas. I ran them down with care in an Anglican Directory. If the day were doubtful, I strayed no farther afield than to St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, in the City, where in a dark bay of the aisle I prayed the prayer now nearest to my heart, which I leave you to guess. Often as my patron had failed me at a pinch, still oftener had he proved kind ; I was prepared to give him one more chance of distinguishing him- self. But if the day promised to be fair, I got under weigh betimes, and was spinning down the roads that lead northward out of town while the smocked milkman still stood balanced by frothing pails in the meadows. London lay, a vast blur, behind 196 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. me. Cows on the common chewed the cud of penury. Their eye was pensive. Com- missioner Lin showed a nasty Jack-in-office disposition to disturb them. He was called to heel with difficulty. Then I would seek some country church, with low tower and wooden lych-gate, where St. Nicholas still bore sway, spite of iconoclast or Puritan, to pour out my heart's wish to I know not what Power that compels the universe. It was my wont to lean the bicycle mean- while against the churchyard yew or some convenient tombstone, leaving the Com- missioner in charge. He was well fitted for the task by his unregenerate monopolist views on private property, backed up by a fine row of persuasive white arguments. These weekly trips made me careless of holiday. I waited to take my summer outing till it should suit Romeo's convenience. I was so much his personal secretary that I must delay my vacation till he could take his; and it had long been arranged that he should put it off till late September — his partner having desired to go away in August. Romeo never alluded again to that evening at the Savoy ; but I knew it had brought him nought but disappointment. He had desired AN AUTUMN HOLIDAY. I97 to include me within his mother's sphere, and Cornelia, gathering up her Roman robe, had declined. Yet from that time he was more deferential and more courteous, if possible, than even his wont. It was decided that his holiday should begin on the fifteenth of September. As the time drew near, Romeo grew visibly distressed and depressed. The spring failed in his step. I fancied he was suffering some in- ternal conflict. His manner was distraught; he sat at times as if he hardly heard what was passing. It was plain to see he was struggling within himself ; irreconcilable feelings drew him alternately in opposite directions. On the fourteenth he came down to the office as usual, but sat gloomy and moody. He did not tell us whither he was bound : nay, more, he gave orders that no letters should follow him. He made some mys- tery of his destination. At three o'clock he went home, bidding me good-bye with more reserve than was his wont. He kept his glance averted. I could see he was fighting hard to avoid breaking down. This holiday must mean much to him. He could not look me in the face to bid me good-bye. The 198 THE TYFE-WRITER GIRL. tremor of his eyelids was as of one who holds back tears with difficulty. I wished him a pleasant trip. He answered a hurried " Thank you," and rushed out to his carriage. If I had known where he was going I think I should have followed him. As the thought passed through my mind, Puck came in for some money out of hand. It was my duty to keep the petty cash for Romeo's personal office expenditure. " I want nine shillings, miss," the boy said ; "Baedeker's 'North Italy' and Hare's 'Venice.'" My heart gave a quick bound. I had sur- prised his objective. I am an erratic creature. In one second my mind was made up. I should follow him. I had still the twelve guineas I had re- ceived for my story. Thank heaven, I am improvident. The bourgeois vice of thrift is one from which my family has never suffered : the Puritan blood in our veins must have been too generously diluted. Besides, have I not learned from more modern political economy that saving is the source of all the evils of capitalism? — and do I not give thanks daily that I show not the faintest tendency to develop in that direction ? I have made up AN AUTUMN HOLIDAY. 1 99 my mind never to be a capitalist ; and, up to date, I see every chance of my keeping my resolution. So I decided to spend my twelve guineas like a man, to please myself, leaving Providence or St. Nicholas to make good the deficiency. This is called faith, and is a car- dinal virtue. I gave Romeo two clear days* start, lest I should travel along with him and seem to be dogging him ; then I set out alone on my way to Venice. I am nothing, if not frank. Therefore I do not seek to deny the truth that I went to Italy on purpose to follow Romeo. " Unwomanly ! " you say. What a false convention ! Yes, I am always frank ; I think the day has almost come for frankness. Men novelists have depicted us as men wish us to be ; we have meekly and obediently accepted their portrait : to some extent, even, we have striven, against the grain, to model ourselves upon it. A man's ideal is the girl that shrinks ; the sweetly unconscious girl, who scarce knows she loves, till his strong arm glides round her, and he clasps her to his heart : then, with a sudden awakening, she awakens to the truth, and knows she has 200 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. loved him long, loved him from the beginning. That, I say, is a man's woman. Her purity, her maidenly modesty, are quite unapproach- able by concrete feminine humanity. She is too delicate in mind ever to dream that she can love spontaneously, of her own mere motion. She loiters in the shade ; she waits to be wooed ; she is coy, undecided, shrink- ing, timid. There was a time, I suppose, when such women were common. I do not know — for have I not Shakespeare to the contrary ? But the type was once true, I dare say, and widely distributed. Still, has not time altered it ? In the world in which we live men are no longer ardent. We scarce affect to conceal the fact that they grow shy of marriage. As a necessary consequence, women have changed too ; the woman of this age often knows she loves, knows it poig- nantly, breathlessly, and must use those weapons which the world allows her if she would gain the affection of the man who has taken her maiden fancy. She cannot by open means pursue him, I admit ; but she has re- course to the immemorial feminine devices of ruse and stratagem. I have Shakespeare on my side, I say. AN AUTUMN HOLIDAY. 201 because I remember Rosalind. A man drew her; yet I see in her pure woman. She loves ; she knows she loves ; she longs frankly for her lover. And that is the way with women as I have found them. Why did I follow Romeo ? Why did Roralind fly to the forest of Arden ? Only once — scarcely once — had Romeo seen me as I was : that evening of the dinner. At the office, what was I but the type-writer girl ? If I could meet him in Italy, he would know me as myself; we could talk more freely ; he might pluck up heart of grace to break the ice, and tell me he loved me. For I knew he was fond of me. I could not now doubt it. When he talked to me, it was with those unmistakable sidelong glances which a woman's heart can interpret. Often he broke off suddenly. But his mother was against me ; his mother wished him to marry Lady Donisthorpe's dear Meta. In London, I knew, I had little chance to prevail over that perfect lady. But in Venice — ah, what miracles may not happen in Venice! Mirage of the lagoons, yt u show men everything ! I had not set foot in the enchanted city si'ice my father took me when I was a girl of o 202 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. sixteen ; but I remembered it well ; I knew every refluent ditch of it. I could have found my way, on foot, through little aimless lanes that wander in and out, from the Piazza to the Ghetto. If Romeo met me there by accident — if we loitered together among those churches and galleries — if I told him of my saints, if I pointed him out my best-beloved pictures, surely the struggle within him would be settled in my favour. He would prefer my wayward Gypsy-American fantasy to dear Meta's insipid graces of the perfect lady. He would know which he preferred, in spite of his mother and Lady Donisthorpe's crude advertisements. M3' one regret was, that I could not take Mr. Commissioner and Elsie with me CHAPTER XIX. "O, ROMEO, ROMEO!" When Linnaeus first saw gorse in blossom he fell on his knees and thanked God. Our modern Pharisees, who say grace before meat, never, I fancy, say grace before Venice. And yet there is only one Venice. From the moment you arrive in the dusk at the station, and stroll down slippery steps to your gondola, to glide with stealthy move- ment along the lesser canals, under mysterious bridges where mysterious bystanders lean over to watch you, unknown forms that creep from dark doors in unknown streets — do you not thank God, like Linnaeus, that he has brought you to Venice ? And does not this feeling of gratitude and wonder for that living romance deepen on you each day that you remain ? Do you not long to float for ever down those noiseless ways, to gaze up for ever at those water-stained palaces, to dream for all time among those innocent-faced St. O 2 204 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. Ursulas ? Mint, anise, and cumin, indeed, when God has given us Venice ! The country or the south ! I pine in London. I had loitered on my way out, breaking my nights at Lucerne and Milan, that Romeo might have time to reach his journey's end with certainty before my arrival. And on my first morning of freedom by the motionless lagoons, I set out early to renew my acquain- tance with Venice. 1 did not know where Romeo was stopping; nor did I seek to find out. I left everything to St. Nicholas. If chance should throw me in my Romeo's way, well and good ; if chance chose to be unkind, better so than that I should track him. Besides, in Venice, you cannot long fail to meet whoever else is there. All the world gravitates towards the centre of the Piazza. Sooner or later, you must needs cross the path of everyone in the city. I set out from my hotel on foot ; I love footing it in Venice ; I love the intricate tangle of narrow paved alleys, overhung by stone sills and rusty iron balconies, by which the walker threads his way through the mazes of the city. Millionaires in gondolas never know it. You must ramble to see Venice. " O, ROMEO, ROMEO ! " 20$ Past little dim shops where red water-melons, sliced open, and strings of yellow carrots adorn the slabs ; past odours of salt fish and rank whiffs of garlic ; past cavernous recesses where, from murky Tintoretto-like gloom, the light of a little lamp just serves to throw up the tinsel crown of Our Lady. So suddenly at once, under the columns of a portico, into the open sky of the great square, the thronging turmoil of pigeons, the liberal flood of southern sunshine, the strong shadow of the campanile flung like a fallen obelisk on the floor of the Piazza, the mighty flagstaff's of the dead republic, and beyond them all, low and squat, a riot of white domes, the fantastic, many- pinnacled carven front of St. Mark's, glowing golden in the pellucid air of morning. I stood still and drew a deep breath. It was even as I thought. Grace before St. Mark's: " For what we are about to re- ceive " There is but one Venice. Holding my breath all the while, I drew near the great porches, with their round- arched tops, and gazed up at the mosaics. My soul steeped herself in beauty. I revelled in an orgy of jasper and porphyry. How gross to give thanks for beef and pudding, but none for Carpaccio, Bellini, Titian ! 2o6 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. Slowly, out of the great dream of form and colour, bit by bit, as 1 gazed, distinct visions framed themselves — palm-leaves and lilies, robed shapes of angels, half-translucent ala- baster shafts or capitals, rich foliage of acanthus, wandering lines of tracery. In the midst of it all, one little relief held my eye at last — aflat relief of quaint Romanesque work- manship, beautiful with the winning beauty of infantile art; two birds that faced one another, and pecked at a bunch of grapes — when, all at once, 1 was aware of a start of surprise beside me. I turned round. My heart flut- tered for a second. It was Romeo. Venice faded. Though I had come out to him, I was taken aback at his presence. He gave a little gasp. " What, you here," he faltered out — " Miss Appleton — Juliet ? " "Yes," I answered assuming an air of uncon- cern ; " I thirsted for a breath of Italy again. It is nearly five years since I have been out of England." " But — this is fate ! " he blurted out. " I — I came here — to avoid you." I was in a mischievous mood. " I can go away again," I answered, looking deep into his eyes, and half curtseying. " It is not for me to interfere with my employer's holiday." " O, ROMEO, ROMEO ! " 20/ He cast me an imploring look. "Juliet," he cried, " do not jest. Do not break my heart. This is no time for pleasantry. My child, my child, I have suffered." I saw it in his face. And yet I could not conceive what was his trouble. Could a mother count for so much ? I had never known mine. " You look ill," I said ; " so different from what you looked last week in London. Can I do anything for you ? I — I will really go away — at once — if you desire it." He restrained himself with an effort from seizing my hands, then and there, in the open Piazza. " Go azvay ? " he cried. " Go aivay ? No, that is not my trouble. I wish you not to go away. I wish you to stay with me always. Juliet, you must have guessed it ; you must have known it in London. Do not tell me you did not know. You saw that I loved you ! " " I thought so, at times," I answered in a very low voice. " But — why then did you wish to run away from me ? " He glanced about him with uneasy eyes. "Now this has come," he burst forth, "I must fight it out boldly. I must face it like a man. Juliet, where can we go? I must talk — alone — with you." 208 THE TYPK-WRITER GIRL. " Let US take a gondola," I suggested, my heart throbbing high with joy ; for I felt I had triumphed now ; his mother, and dear Meta, and ox-eyed Lady Donisthorpe were wholly forgotten. "A gondola!" he echoed. "A gondola! Ah, how clever you are ! Of course! I never thought of that. There we can talk unin- terrupted." We moved towards the Molo. I hailed a gondolier. " Put up the felze," I said, " so that we may not be overlooked." The man raised the little black box, and shut us in as in a sedan-chair. Romeo gazed admiration again. "And you talk Italian!" " Whither, signore ? " the gondolier asked. " Where shall we go ? " Romeo inquired, turning to me. " Where you will," I answered; "it is all Venice." I did not add that with him by my side all the world would be Venice. He pointed towards the open, where we would be less observed. The gondolier nodded. Then the old fancy seized me. " To San Nicolo di Lido ! " I cried. It seemed like an omen. My patron saint had always brought me luck, and his church lay before " O, ROMEO, ROMEO ! " 209 me. In this crisis of my fate I would com- mend myself to his favour. I told Romeo why I chose that way. He smiled, a little sadly. " May it turn out as you wish," he exclaimed. " May St. Nicholas help us ! " I sat by his side on the soft black cushions, never uttering a word — placidly, quietly happy. I was in no hurry to speak ; the sense that I had Romeo alone to myself at last was joy enough for me. He took my hand in his. I let it lie there, unresisting. Words only spoil such first thrills of frui- tion. Touch is the mother-sense of love ; it needs no interpreter At last Romeo broke the charmed silence. I gave a little sigh as he broke it. "Oh, why so soon ? " I asked. But, like a man, he was eager to speak and explain himself. They are so precipitate ! " What am I to do, Juliet ? " he cried, bury- ing his face in his hands. " Your coming has thrown me back upon my first resolve ; it has driven me from my stronghold. When I tore myself away from you in London and no longer saw your eyes — those great magnetic uncom- plaining eyes of yours, those eyes that have bewitched me — I made up my mind that I 2 JO TIIK TYPK-WKITKK GfK!.. must go through with it now, and try to I'or- get you. Not try, but pretend ; for it would be all pretence. Since the first day you came, daily and daily you have meant more and more to me. It was hard to break away from you, but I broke away and came here, so that I might be free from the spell ; for while I saw your eyes I could think of nothing else ; and now chance has thrown you in my path again, and — I cannot go through with it." "Not chance," I murmured low; "not chance — but St. Nicholas ! I have come with the money that my story brought me." He smiled at my little conceit, for I had told him in London of my half-fanciful cult of the poor maids' saint, and I had called my little tale "A Ward of St. Nicholas." " You are a brownie ! " he cried, gazing at me. " You wild thing, what brought you here ? " I laughed. "The Gotthard railway — and my love of adventure. I was sickening of England ; I had a migratory instinct, like birds when they gather on the telegraph wires in autumn, or restless Spanish sheep in spring, when they herd and leap, uneasy to be driven to their pastures in the mountains." " O, ROMEO, UOMEO ! " ail " What a wild thing you are ! " he repeated. "A brownie, a brownie! I wonder where you got it from ? " " From my gypsy ancestry, I suppose," I answered. " Gypsy — but I thought you told me you were American ? " " On my father's side, yes ; but on my mother's Lowland Scot or Anglo-Indian. She was a Baillie of the Borders; and I suspect all borderers of sharing the blood of the Faas and the Petulengros. There was plenty of intermarriage." " No doubt," he mused. " The difference must have been slight between a moss- trooper and a gypsy. Each had much the same gentility. And, indeed, I remember the ' Lord and Earl of Little Egypt * was sum- moned to Edinburgh as a peer of parliament." "At any rate," I said gaily, "whether 'tis true or false, it accounts, to my mind, for the Meg Merrilies vein in me. I was born a random vagrant in the world, a peripatetic philosopher. I love movement, I love free- dom — Bohemia. Why, I could tell your for- tune now if you cared to cross my hand with silver." He gazed into my eyes. " I do not doubt 212 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. it," he answered, " for it lies in your hands to-day." I thrilled and was still. The gondola glided over the glassy water. Soon he began again. " Gypsy, I want your help. You must make my fortune, not tell it. Show me how to act. Show me how to get free. What can 1 do in this crisis, Juliet — my Juliet ? " " How can I answer ? " I replied. " Tis for your own heart to say. I know you are fond of me. But — your mother has money, I sup- pose, and you prefer your mother." He withdrew the arm that lay half round me, and sat up facing me in surprise. " My mother ! " he cried. " My mother ! Why, Juliet, my child, what do you mean ? It is not my mother I think of — not her, but poor Meta ! " A pang darted through me. " Then you love her !" I exclaimed ; " that woman's daughter !" " Love her ? I do not say that. Yet, Juliet, consider ; put yourself in her place : I have been five years engaged to her ! " It burst upon me like a thunderbolt. Why had I never guessed it ? From the first day we met I had taken it for granted — unre- servedly, unthinkingly — that Romeo was " O, ROMEO, ROMEO ! " 213 heart-free and unfettered as I was. Even when I met Lady Donisthorpe I imagined too fast that she was flinging Meta openly at his head, but not that he was betrothed to her. My own heart must have blinded me. Now that I realised it all, 1 stood aghast at the way woman's instinct had failed me. How had I managed to misunderstand ? I saw in a flash that the conflict I had observed in Romeo before he left London was a conflict in his soul between love and honour. He seized my hand again. " It is that that made it so difficult," he whispered. "From the first day you came I began to love you. I fought against it hard, oh ! so hard ; I tried to talk little with you. Day after day I felt you sitting there, with your great gypsy eyes fixed ever steadily on your sheet of paper, and your heart going forth to me. I knew it went forth to me. I could feel it in the room. A subtle v/ave or thrill throbbed ever between us. I began to love you ; and still I fought hard. But the more we talked together the more did I feel you were the woman God made for me, and that Meta was not. At last I had a great struggle — ^a great struggle with my heart, and came out of it as I thought victorious. I fled from you here; 214 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. where the Donisthorpes had come, to remain with Meta till the day I married her. It was what honour demanded ; I made love yield to honour." I withdrew my hand slowly. " Give me time to think this out. It has burst upon me so suddenly. Oh, Romeo, till this mo- ment I never dreamt you were engaged to her." " Why Romeo ? " I smiled, though my heart was aching. I remembered that he did not know what I had always called him. Now I told him my fancy. " You have never been anything but Romeo to me," I murmured. He seized my hand again. "Juliet, I am your Romeo. I felt it from the first. We were meant for one another." " I know it ! " I cried. " I know it ! And this woman, who is not yours, has stolen you from me. You are mine by natural fitness ; and she took you, she took you ! " We leaned back on the seats and mused. The gondolier sang low to himself a soft Venetian love-song. After some minutes I began again. " Of course," I murmured, " it is Lady Donis- thorpe's daughter." *' O, ROMEO, ROMEO ! " 2 1 5 " Of course. Five years ago I proposed to her." " Then zvliy did you not marry ? " I cried vehemently. "I hate these long engagements I They are vile for everybody ! " " Her stepfather v^ould not permit it till she came of age. She is a ward in Chancery, and he has influence with the court. Till her marriage her mother has some interest in the property, and Sir Everard, to preserve it, being fabulously rich already, made an excuse that a publisher was hardly the person to whom she might expect to aspire — though he per- mitted, or rather encouraged the engage- ment." " And she is not yet of age ? " " In October." I gave an impatient wave of the h md. " But she was a child when you proposed to her ! " "A child? We were both children. We did not know our own minds. The Nemesis of it is that I know mine now, while she remains still at the childish standpoint." "^She loves you ?" " In her baby way — yes ; else it were all easy. But it would break her poor heart. Such a trusting little creature ! " 2l6 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. " And you love her? " " Juliet, I thought I did once. But then, I had not learnt what love meant. She was only my Rosaline. I did not know the world of difference between a sweet little wax doll, with masses of light yellow tow for hair, and a woman, a thinking woman, with heart, soul, brain, courage — a woman who could face life full of intrepid self-reliance ; a woman with nerve, audacity, spirit; a woman with Homeric love of danger and adventure ; a woman made dearer by her sense of humour, the merry twinkle of her eye, her gay laugh at mis- fortune. I feel now that I need a comrade and a help, meet for me. Someone who could brace me up for the battle of life ; someone with great thoughts, fine fibre, noble impulses. I cannot go back to Meta. I could have done it last night. This morning, with you by my side, I feel it, I know it, im- possible." He drew a long breath. I lay back on the cushion. " Romeo," I said, pleading my rival's cause, "you must go back to her." " Never ! " he answered, " never ! " I temporised. " This is not a question to decide all at one. Let us think it over slowly; let us lay it — before St. Nicholas ! " " O, ROMEO, ROMEO ! " 2 1 7 " If I lay it before St. Nicholas," he cried, " with you beside me, the oracle can give but one answer, I warrant. For I want 3'ou ; I need you ; my whole being cries out for you." We paused again. The water was cat's- eye green. The inexorable gondola glided on towards the Lido. We talked it over clause by clause. A light began to break upon me. The nearer I drew to San Nicolo the clearer grew the light. Ought a man to wreck two lives — his own and the girl's whom he means to marry (for my private fate I ignored) — in order to satisfy a false sense of honour? What, after all, was this honour ? A bugbear dressed up to frighten us from the truth. And what was the truth ? That Romeo was rushing madly into marriage with a girl for whom he was not fit, and who was not fit for him. " Romeo," I said at last, " could you make her happy ? " " That's ^.he rub," he answered. " It could hardly be for long. I could give her my hand, but not my heart ; for my heart, my heart, Juliet, is yours — yours only." " Then for her sake set her free," I cried. p 21 8 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. "The whole man — body, soul, and spirit — or nothing." "So I thinl<," he murmured. "The ques- tion is, when one has made a mistake, a mis- take that involves final ruin for two lives, which is the better, after all: to repair it before- hand, while repair is still possible, or bow to an antiquated ideal of honour, an ideal that comes to us from an age when women were toys, all alike, and run one's head into a noose from which there will be no escaping ? For her sake, as well as my own and yours, ought I not to tell her, frankly but gently, that this marriage she desires must mean misery for both of us ? " I tried to be impartial, though impartiality is hard when your own love and life lie trembling in the balance. " You ought," I answered, " if you feel sure you cannot truly love her." "Juliet, I can never love anyone but you. I know you for my counterpart. My love did not come suddenly ; it grew up by degrees from living so near you ; and it has grown, grown, grown, like a vast growth in my heart, till it has absorbed my nature. I have watched you every day, talked with you, listened Lo you. You know me and " O, ROMEO, ROMEO I " 219 you understand me. But Meta, dear little soul, she seems to me like a child. I cannot share life with her, I can only take care of her. You have originality, initiative ; Meta's soul has the shape that her mother has put upon it. Look how you loved and appreciated my verses ! Your criticism, your help, were of infinite use to me. In each word that you altered I felt you were right. Your sug- gestion of ' harmonious ' in that last line where I had written ' consistent ' made a full close for the sonnet, in sonorous organ music, and turned my prose into poetry. Whereas, when I gave Meta my book she read it through, and then kissed me. 'How clever of you, you dear boy, to be able to write verses!* Would such a help be meet for me ? " I clung to his hand ; it was hard to decide; but in a very low voice I faltered out, " I think not, Romeo." He talked of my poor attempts at writing stories ; he praised them, as he had always done. " You will be famous yet, my child ; and I shall be proud, whatever comes, that I was the first to encourage you." He appre- ciated me, I appreciated him ; surely, if mar- riages are made in heaven, we two were moulded for one another. Not alike, but com- p 2 220 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. plementary.- And then, how rash to dream of marrying one woman when, even before marriage, you love another better ! Is tJiat the way to insure a happy home ? Is that the safe path to a life of wedded confidence ? We drew near to San Nicolo at last. "Let us go in," I said seriously, " and submit our- selves to the saint. His body lies within. We will kneel together before it." " But I thought you told me St. Nicholas lay throned in a gorgeous shrine at Bari?" he objected. " Why, of course," I answered. " What is the use of being a saint if you cannot have two bodies, and be in two places at once ? And what is the use of faith if it does not enable you to believe the impossible?" "I do believe it," he answered; "since I came to Venice to be out of your enchant- ment, and found you here, more deliciously enchanting than ever. The fascination of your eyes " I cut him short with a gesture ; but I was glad he praised them. We landed by the steps, and entered the sailors' church. I led Romeo up to a scal- loped niche by the tribune, where I had often prayed as a girl with my father. Wc knelt " O, ROMEO, ROMEO ! " 221 down, side by side, before the jewelled shrine that contains the blessed dust of St. Nicholas of Myra, I hope not irreverently. I may be what the Warden at our Guild was fond of calling me, " an amiable heathen," but at least I am sincere. Tears stole down my cheek. I asked with an earnest heart for light, for guidance. We know not, indeed, whose saintly bones repose at peace within that sculptured marble altar-tomb ; nor does it matter to me much whether they be or be not those of the benign bishop of Myra. I ac- cepted them as the symbol of that Power, above ourselves, to which our hearts go forth at moments of doubt, of fear, of anguish ; and to such a Power I prayed unfeignedly, that at this turning-point of my life I might be led aright, might form the just judgment, un- biassed by self-profit, holding an equal scale between myself and my rival. As I knelt there a single flashing ray of light beat down through a little window above upon San Nicolo's altar-slab. It gilt the niche for a moment ; it fell in gold on the tes- sellated floor; then it passed away as a cloud covered the sun. Rightly or wrongly, I ac- cepted the omen. Tears stood in my eyes still, but they were tears of gladness. "St. 222 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. Nicholas has answered," I whispered. "Wliat did he say to you, Romeo ? " Romeo looked me in the face solemnly as he made reply. " He said, ' Better tell her early than tell her too late. Save her while she can be saved, and let three hearts be lightened.'" Venice hung like a haze. The row back to the Molo was a lane in Paradise. CHAPTER XX. "WHEREFORE ART THOU ROiMEO?" At the Molo we parted. The Donisthorpes, Romeo said, must long have been expecting him, fidgeting that he did not arrive ; he knew not what lame excuse he could rake up to satisfy them. It was agreed on both sides, however, and impressed with last words, that he must not break poor Meta's heart prema- turely, by too abrupt an avowal of his new decision. We were to break it by degrees — to give her three days of purgatory. Mean- while, Romeo promised he would not see me again, at least to speak together ; though he asked leave, wistfully, to pass under my window once each morning and smile at me, just so as to make sure oi my presence. I wanted this interval ; I wished to see whether he would remain firm to his purpose when he was removed for a day or two from that " magnetism " of my eyes on which he dwelt so strongly. 224 '"l-: TVPE-WKITKK GIKL. I spent the three days of grace in wander- ing about Venice. For the most part, I avoided the great square, St. Mark's, the Academy — all the familiar tourist haunts — because I did not desire collision with the Donisthorpes. Most of my time I devoted to the out-of-the-way streets and the out- of-the-way sights, which are so infinitely amusing; the funny little alleys where the true Venetians stroll ; the funny little cainpi, where old men and children lie stretched in the shade on the north side of some small church, as fallow-deer huddle on the north side of the domed oaks in a park at noontide. Every turn revealed some pass- ing picture. As 1 had said to Romeo, it was all Venice. Not a remote sunless lane, with walls of peehng plaster, tufted with pellitory, that is not dear to my heart ; not a sluggish side canal, into whose stagnant green water branches of acacia and trailing sprays of Vir- ginia creeper hang from beyond the moulder- ing garden grill, but I love and cherish it. Little Romanesque windows, high up on some red-washed steeple, with twin round arches, tall and narrow, held apart in the midst by one twisted column ; great patches of sunlight falling through quater-foils in dazzling relief "WHEREFORE ART THOU UOMEO ? " 225 on the deep recessed gloom of the loggia; wee bridges that rise, arched like a cat's back, over streams strewn with cabbage-leaves, where market boats from Meh^tre, laden high with pumpkins, crawl slowly down the channel — do I not know them all ? Are they not etched on my brain by some fadeless process of mental photography ? In spite of my haunting these remoter by- ways, however, 1 did once by accident catch sight of the Donisthorpes. They were seated with the prebendary at a cafe in the great Piazza, as 1 crossed it one afternoon on my way home from San Zaccaria, where I had been feasting on saints in the placid enjoy- ment of every form of martyrdom. Sir Everard, leaning back on his chair and sip- ping black coffee, with a small brown cap pushed well off his forehead, a brown tourist suit, and a capacious yellow waistcoat, amply displayed in front of him, looked more ab- surdly like a fat toad than ever. Lady Donisthorpe, smiling sweetly upon Venice in general, with her ladylike softness, her mechanical amiability, her pouter-pigeon suavity, yet showed marks about the eyes of some inner dissatisfaction. They did not ob- serve me ; 1 stole close behind them, anxious 226 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. to see the immaculate colourless Meta ; 1 wished to know for myself what manner of girl she might be ; but she was not with them — gone off, no doubt, for a stroll round the square with Romeo. That thought drove me quickly home ; like a frightened rabbit, I rushed under the clock-tower and along the thronged Merceria to my hotel on a side canal ; I could not have endured to see them together like lovers. Had I no qualms meanwhile ? Aye, marry, had I ? Do you think I slept much through those three long nights of suspense and torture ? If I tramped from church to church and picture to picture during the day, 'twas but to escape from my own stinging thoughts for a moment. I argued it all out over and over again with myself. When we two had been seated side by side in the gon- dola — Romeo's arm half stealing round my waist, my head half pillowed one second on Romeo's shoulder — the question of ethics had been translucent as crystal. We saw quite clearly our course was mapped out for us by eternal equities. Even in Meta's interest, I was advising him for the best. "The whole man," I had said — " body, soul, and spirit — or else nothing ! " That was woman's full "WHEREFORE ART THOU ROMEO?" 227 gospel of the new dispensation. Less than that could be no true marriage. And " is it not better, under such conditions, to change one's mind early than to change it too late ? Is it not better for you to speak the truth, even at great risk of pain and humiliation to a wom.an you have loved, than to tie her for life to a man who cannot give her his whole heart unreservedly, enthusiastically ? Is it not better for her to be made miserable once than to be made miserable for ever ? " In advising Romeo to break off this one-sided engagement, was I not advising him most of all in Meta Donisthorpe's interest ? At times I even felt as if I had suc- ceeded in doing a great favour, unasked, to Meta. But in the dead hour of night, when all Venice slept, and the last " Stall ! " had answered the last " Preme !" under my bed- room window, one stanza of " In Memoriam " kept ever recurring most inopportunely to my mind ; I heard it in the creaking of the vane on the Dogana, in the lap of the water against the honeycombed walls, in the sigh of the wind through the arches of the belfry. It was a reproachful sound — the voice of that conscience which I flattered myself the 228 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. generation of whom I am one had analysed away for ever. " Hold thou the good ; define it well ; For fear divine Philosophy Should push beyond her mark, and be Procuress to the Lords of Hell." The Lords of Hell ! The Lords of Hell ! It clanged with the hour from the great Cam- panile ! V\'^as that where my sophisms were taking me, I wondered ? The Lords of Hell ! The Lords of Hell ! Had I advised Romeo aright, as the woman who loves a man should strive to advise him at dangerous passes ? On the third day of the three I rose early from my sleepless bed — tired of tossing off the quilt — and wandered out by myself east- ward through the tortuous labyrinth of elbow- bending streets that spreads between St. Mark's and St. George of the Slavonians. I was bound no whither in particular ; I let each narrow flagged alley, each canal-side causeway, lead me onward where it would ; but, without design on my part, I found my- self at last ;on the small paved platform with the slimy green steps that catches the morn- ing sun, in front of San Giorgio degli Schia- voni. "San Giorgio ! " I thought to myself; "1 must stray in here for awhile for rest and " WHEREFORE ART THOU ROMEO ? " 229 meditation. After Nicholas of Myra, has not the ever-blessed George been most of all my patron ? Let me lay before him my doubts — a poor maiden' doubts ; it may be that the courteous young saint will resolve them." I pushed aside the padded curtain, and sat down on one of the seats. Venetian women were there with their babies, praying — dark- haired, dusky-eyed, poorly-clad, eager-spirited. For a while my eyes strayed to those ever- exquisite Carpaccios, high ranged on the left- hand wall, which tell the pretty tale of the tutelary saint with naive Venetian idealistic realism. I scarce knew which of the two chief actors I admired the more — in the episode of the slaying of the dragon, so familiar to me from my own life, the beautiful, graceful youth, with his loose golden hair rippling free on the wind ; or, in the scene of the baptism, the kneeling Princess Cleodolind, her long, fair tresses flowing richly down her back as she bends to receive the sacrament of the font at the hands of her chivalrous and devout deliverer. St. George, I fancied, in his earnest, clear face, somehow recalled my Romeo ; but the Princess — I shuddered : what ill-omen was this ? The Princess whom he baptised was a fair-haired maiden. I knew Meta was fair — 230 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. had he not spoken of her "masses of yellow tow " ? A cold thrill ran down my spine. Oh, St. Nicholas — oh, St. George, avert the omen ! I pulled out my little silver crucifix, and, clasping it tight, decided to lay my case before the Madonna herself, who reigns in the altar- piece. Am I a Catholic, then ? you ask. That is alien to this story. There are three subjects which I decline to discuss : bi- metallism, the sex question, and my religious convictions. As I bent my knee before Our Lad}' on the shrine a low sob by my side distracted my at- tention. It came from a young girl a little apart in the gloom. Her face lay hidden in her hands — small gloved hands, like a lady's ; but her fine-fibred hair was golden and luxuri- antly abundant. I glanced from her to the Carpaccio, and from the Carpaccio to her. Yes, it could not be gainsaid — this was the Princess Cleodolind. Had her St. George proved untrue ? She was crying bitterly. I knew at once that was the right explana- tion. The sound of her sobs betrayed it. For there are species in crying. There is the cry of the mother for the loss of her son ; "WHEREFORE ART THOU ROMEO?" 23 1 there is the cry of the wife for the faith- lessness of her husband ; there is the cry of the maiden for the defection of her lover. Each has its own note, recog- nisable at the first sound to those who have once heard it We talk in such cases of woman's intuition ; it were truer, I think, to call it inference, for inference it is from delicate observation. All women observe keenly the symptoms of emotion; at moments of exaltation or passion they observe them with an almost miraculous acuteness. I knew in a second that Cleodolind had lost her lover's heart ; and I guessed in a flash that Cleodo- lind was Meta. She was dressed like a lady ; and out at this early hour; when she and I, alone of our class, driven from our beds by alternative aspects of the self-same problem, were abroad among the fisherwomen. I gazed at her with the respect one always accords to sorrow. My heart misgave me. How easy it was in the gondola to philoso- phise in the abstract ; but here, on dry land, and in sight of this poor child with the break- ing heart — philosophy in the concrete seemed to present its own fresh difficulties. Of a sudden she raised her face, and glanced 232 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. across at me, piteously. Her eyes met mine. I started. The wisp of a figure, the pathetic blue eyes, the sunny fluff of hair : it was Michaela. I took it in with a great gulp. Michaela was Meta, then, and Meta Michaela. I could not understand it, for the inscription on her card said, not Donisthorpe, but " Miss Allardyce"; and had she not told me that her Christian name was Margaret ? But I had no time to think it out just then. With a little cry of pleasure, she came over to me, still weeping. " You dear thing ! " she whispered, holding out her gloved hand, "what a comfort to see you ! I want to have a talk with you. You were so good to me at Holmwood." I saw it was inevitable. I must face Meta now. I took her hand in mine, with a deep sense of repentant treachery. " Come out with me, dear," I said, for she melted my heart. ** Tell me all your trouble." She pressed my hand in return. "I knew you would be good to me," she answered. " You are odd, but oh, so good. I saw it in your big eyes the first day 1 met you. Do you know, your eyes are magnetic; they seem to draw one." '• WHEREFORE ART THOU ROMEO ? " 233 " So I have been told," I answered bitterly. " Where can we go to talk ? " she asked. She had a caressing voice. " I am sure you will do me good. And I do so want to talk this over with somebody else besides mamma. Mamma is like a feather-bed. She is kind in her way, but so soft and comfortable. Noth- ing seems to make a dint in her." Inventiveness forsook me. I had no sug- gestion to offer except another gondola. And even at that moment, when the world whirled round madly with myself for pivot, I was dimly conscious, as one is often conscious of such tr'fles at a great crisis, that always in Venice, when people wanted a tetc-a-tctc, they must have taken a gondola. Nowhere else in that tangle of narrow streets and small squares could one go unobserved for a second. We called a gondolier. " Where shall we tell him to take us ? " Michaela asked. It was not in her nature to suggest a route spontaneously. " Out on the open," I replied. " We shall be less overlooked there." Then I added a little morosely, " If you are not afraid I shall drown you." She smiled through her tears. " You were always so queer," she said, " but so kind." Q 234 THE TYPE-WRITER GIKL. She did not guess how much more reason I had now for drowning her. She jumped hghtly into the boat ; she was a light httle atomy ; you could have blov/n her away with a good puff, like thistledown. The gondolier took us across by San Giorgio Maggiore. Michaela sat by my side, holding my hand in hers. If ever in my life, I felt guilty that minute. So all those months I had been doing in earnest what I had said in jest — unconsciously playing Carmen to her Michaela. 1 had stolen away her Don Jose — and had never known it ! She told me hurriedly how the man to whom she was engaged had always seemed to love her, oh, so much — till five months ago ; how, since that time, his love had been gradually fading; how it had faded all away, till she was wretched, hopeless ! She cried so intensely that I laid her head on my shoulder. 'Twas a soft little head. I felt like a man to her as I tried to comfort her. " Five years," she sobbed out : " five years — all forgotten ! " " You must have been a child at the time when you began to love him," 1 murmured. "WHEREFORE ART THOU ROMEO?" 235 She raised her head. " Yes, a child. That's what makes it so much worse ! We have loved and been loved since we were both children. Every thought, ever3^ plea- sure, we have shared with one another. I was cycling with him that day when I first met you. We have grown up together. He has grown into my heart — ever closer and closer." " What is his name ? " I asked, trembling. She told me. I hardly needed to ask it. "Why, 1 know him a little," I said. " But I thought — he was engaged to a daughter of Lady Donisthorpe's." " Yes, of course. Lady Donisthorpe is my mother." "But — her name is Meta ; and you are Margaret Allardyce ? " " Mamma married again ; I told you I had a stepfather." She went on with her story. She loved him more and more. Her heart was bound up with him. After so long a time, too ! If he had told her three years ago But five years — you could never make five years seem nothing. " And can you account for it ? " I inquired, Q 2 236 THE TYPE WRITER GIRL. to see how much she knew, stroking her sunny hair with my hand as I did so. "You dear thing! How sweetly sympa- thetic you are ! Oh, yes, but it is ahuost too dreadful to tell. A hateful woman — a type- writer girl at his office ! Could you ever have believed a person like that would come be- tween us ? " " Perhaps," I ventured to suggest, "she did not mean it." "Did not mean it? Oh, she did: the dread- ful creature, she has bewitched him ! He loves Jier best now. And yet, you would think that the years must count ; the years must count ! " She sobbed, and became in- audible. " Has he told you of her ? " I faltered. " Oh ! no ; he says nothing. He only lets me feel it. But mamma met her once at a dinner Toto gave at the Savoy — a hateful vulgar creature! Mamma and his mother both spoke to him of the way he treated her — the attention he paid her — bringing a woman like that to dine with ladies, it was unpar- donable." "Some type-writers are ladies, Michaela," I put in softly. "I am a type-writer myself." "Ah ! yes, but that is different ! you are so "WHEREFORE ART THOU ROMEO?" 237 sweet, so gentle. You know so much ; you have been brought up like a lady; you have sympathy and magnetism. Tliis other crea- ture — mother said it was horrid to be in the some room with her. So loud, so noisy ! And she's here now, she's here ; she has fol- lowed him to Venice on purpose to thwart us. He came out to stay with me till the day we were to be married. And this woman, when she saw her hold on him was failing, rushed after him to prevent it. Can you believe such wickedness ? Mamma saw her with him in a gondola. Oh ! I can't bear to say it, dear, in a gondola, near the Riva, with his arm around her ! " " Perhaps," I hazarded, " when she came here she did not know he was engaged. Per- haps, if we could speak to her we might play upon some chord in her better nature." Michaela looked up at me admiringly. "You beautiful, broad-minded person," she cried ; "how good you are, how tolerant! You make allowances and excuses for everyone, I declare ! How I wish I was like you ! But she has no better nature, I believe. Mamma says she is a person lost to all sense of shame. Why, the stories she told at that dinner of Toto's about the places she had been in and 238 THE TVPE-WKITER CIKT.. thn people she had mot were quite beyond, yon know, quite be^'ond ; oh, too drradf'd foi- anytliing." I risked another card, "My dear little friend," I said, "I speak of the tiling tiiat I know: she has a better nature." (Oh, God, how it was battling now against love of Romeo in her heart ; how it was grappling and strug- gling ! ) "I am almost sure I have met this girl of whom you speak. There is a type- writer stopping at the same hotel as myself, and I think she was out in a gondola the other day with 3'our Romeo —let us call him Romeo; it is 'more real and agreeable,' as Dick Swi- veller said to the Marchioness, and 'tis the only wa}^ in which I can talk about people." I maundered on, to gain time, for though outwardly I was jesting, within I was fight- ing wild beasts at Ephcsus. "Now, she has talked to me of your Romeo, and I assure you solemnl}', when she arrived in Venice she had not an idea he was engaged — of that I am confident." "Ah, but she knows it now, I am sure; and yet, she bewitches him ! " I played one card still, a more doubtful and dangerous card than an}'. " Perhaps," I answered. " But the years must count. You " WIIKKKFOKK AKT TIIOL' KOMKO?" 239 arc right in that. Remember, as you say, I am (I hope) broad-minded. I try to sec tilings from everybody's point of view. From yours, I see now liiat Koukm) is beiiaving — cruelly. From tiie type-writer girl's, I sec that she loves him deeply, very deeply ; but 'tis a new love, fresh grown ; however firmly it may have rooted itself, it has no claim on the score of age as against yours ; and if she is told so calmly and frankly, she may per- haps realise it. From Romeo's, I see — well, more than I like to tell you." T paused and hesitated. The effort to gain time made me didactic. " Life is the interaction of indi- vidualities," 1 said, "each seeing things its own way. justice is the attempt to reconcile them. Let us try here if we can make this type-writer girl see something a little beyond her own point of view — see, as you say, that the years must count. She is not wholly bad, whatever Lady Donisthorpe may tell you. I will be your ambassador. I will speak to her; I w^ill speak to Romeo. I will try to make them feel what you have made me feel — that the years should count. And I will come to San Giorgio of the Slavonians to tell you what success 1 have had in my em- bassy at this time to-morrow." 240 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. She brightened up at the idea. She thanked me profusei}', " He loves me still," she said, "a little; only, this girl bewitches him. Oh, I have read about her eyes and her hair in his verses. He thought no one knew ; he put it so darkly — all wrapped up in words ; but I could see they were hers, though he thinks me so silly. I am clever enough where one's heart is concerned ; I can catch at a straw then. But if she were once away, I am sure he would come back to me." She nestled into my shoulder. "You dear thing ! " she cried again, grinding her teeth with affection, " you have put fresh hope in me." "Thank you, dear," I answered. " Do you remember at Holmwood I called you Michaela, because you were so fair, like the girl in the opera ? Now, f-his type-writer girl is dark, and she has bc.i playing Carmen to you — stealing your love away from you by her clever ways and her blandishments. She has gypsy attractiveness. But, Michaela, I am sure she did not mean it. if she had known of you, if she might have seen you, she could not have wronged you. Do you recollect what I said to you in the train that day — ' You dear little thing, no v^ne could ever "WHEREFORE ART THOU ROMEO?" 241 hurt you ! * ? Well, I am sure the type- writer woman would feel as I do — if she knew you. But I want to make you promise me one thing — if I bring you back your Romeo, you will forgive her ? — you will never again call her a horrid creature ? " She soothed my hand in turn. " I could promise you anything," she said. "I never knew anyone so tender and helpful." We bid the gondolier turn. She held my hand still ; blue sky in her eyes shone after the rain. " Only to think," she cried, " I have met you three times — no more ; and yet I feel you are a dear friend — the sort of friend who would do anything for one." "You have reason," I answered. We returned to the Molo. A crushed heart and a doubtful one had embarked in that gon- dola ; a crushed heart and a doubtful one disembarked from it again. But they had changed places. Three days ago I had seen through the gates of Paradise. To-day an angel with a flaming sword stood to bar my entrance. And, worst of all, I knew his name was Justice. CHAPTER XXI. ENVOY PLENIPOTENTIARY. I TRAir.ED back to my hotel, surely the most abject soul in Venice. Michaela's misappre- hension of my motives I did not resent ; the American eagle in my breast had scarce a flap left — a more draggle-plumed bird I had seldom seen. But all was at an end. I had lost my Romeo. My interview with the first of the two delinquents whom I had engaged to lure back to the path of rectitude I got over quickly on my way home. It was not a hard one. The culprit, sitting meekly on the penitent's bench, listened to all my blame with a contrite heart ; and in consideration of her contrition I con- doned her evil deeds. It was easy to con- done, for here I knew all, and to know all is to forgive all. Michaela would have forgiven had she seen into that poor mangled heart as I did. Looking back over my life dispassionately ENVOY PLENIPOTENTIARY. 243 from the calm height of twenty-three, as if I were looking at some other woman's life, I think I can say I have never acted wrong — grossly and unforgivably wrong — given the circumstances. It is those alone that others iail to understand. If they understood, they must sympathise where now they blame us. Could Michaela have watched, stage by stage, the slow organic growth of my love for Romeo; could she have felt the inevitability, the consecutiveness of the way it unfolded ; could she have realised its foregone certainty as an outcome of two natures, I think, dear little soul, even she would have hesitated to call me " that horrid woman." But it was all past now, and she had re- gained her Romeo. One culprit had recanted. I had still to face my embassy to the second high contract- ing party. I sat by the balconied open window of my bedroom and looked down into the canal. It was almost the hour for Romeo's daily passage. Slow barges with firewood drifted lazily by, then a boat-load of purple egg-fruit and heaped golden melons, with a gondola or two loitering on the look-out for passengers, like our London crawlers, 244 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. At last my heart began to beat, not high as it had beaten the two previous mornings, but with a low foreboding. Another gondola swung with a graceful curve round the huge bosses of the corner palace ; in it, a familiar crush Tyrolese hat, and beneath the hat, Romeo. He gazed up at me, smiled, and waved one hand ; but his look was anxious. I leaned out and called to him : " Romeo, Romeo, Romeo ! " He rose and glanced at me with checked breath and eager eyes. ''Come up here," I faltered; "I want to speak with you." " In your room ? " he cried, hesitating. I felt it was no moment to stand on false convention. " Yes, in my room," I answered. " Have I not told you I have confidence in myself and my guardian angel ? " He waved the gondolier to the steps, leaped lightly out, English athlete that he was, and was with me in a moment. I might have treated the situation melo- dramatically and hissed out at him " Traitor ! " (But then, it is true, I unconsciously shared his treachery.) Instead of that I treated it like a woman, and burst into tears before him. ENVOY PLENIPOTENTIARY. 245 He drew a chair by my side. His white face quivered. "You have seenMeta?"he faltered out. I could feel his heart throb. " Yes," I answered, " I have seen her, and — I find I know her. Romeo, we were all wrong. We were deceiving our own hearts with specious sophisms. She said to me in her soft small voice, all choked with tears, ' The years must count ; the years must count ! ' — and — she was right when she said it ! " He flung himsell upon me. " Juliet ! " he cried, "dear Juliet, I too have suffered. I have battled with my own soul. The beast has fought the angel and the angel the man in me. When I see her, when I am with her — so gentle, so childish, so cruelly hurt by my coldness, or what she thinks my coldness — how can 1 have the heart to break to her the resolution we formed ? Yet the moment I leave her I know it is the right one. It would be wrong of me to marry her now, having found my true mate — wrong for her own sake. * The whole man — body, soul, and spirit — or nothing.' Do not go back on your own words. It would be treason to the eternal cause of woman." 246 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. He spoke so vehemently that I faltered. Then Michaela's pale face, v/ith the gentle blue eyes swollen red from weeping, came up like a mist before me. " You shall not wrong that child ! " I cried. "Much as I love you, Romeo, not even for my sake will I allow you to wrong her. She is right and we are wrong ; the years must count. She has grown up with your love inextricably twined by rootlets and tendrils through the fibre ol her being ; to tear it away now were to tear her very heart out. She lives on your affec- tion. To see is to understand ; before I saw her I thought as we thought at the Lido. Now I know better. I will not allow you to wrong her." He drew away a step and looked me over with his keen eyes from head to foot. I quailed before his glance, so full it was of admiration. " My Juliet ! " he cried. " Why talk ? I love you for tJiis better than I have ever loved you ! That you can contemplate such a sacrifice for honour's sake and for justice — the greater to the less, you to Meta — shows me you are more worthy to be loved than even I thought you. I cannot marry any- one but you. You, you, you ! O, God," he flung himself upon me in an ecstasy, "to ENVOY PLENIPOTENTIARY. 247 think that in a world which holds such a woman as you they should call upon me to content myself with that wax doll of a Mcta ! " I untwined his arms quietly. I was fighting now the battle of my sex, and I almost forgot myself in my advocacy of Michaela. " You shall not speak so of her ! " I cried ; " the girl whom you have loved for years — the girl to whom you have uttered such vows, on whom you have bestowed such kisses. It is an insult to our sex. The years must count — the years and the endearments." He stood away and began again. "Juliet," he murmured, in caressing tones, and in his flute-like voice, as if he loved to repeat my name, " there is one woman in the world supremely fitted for me. She has courage, she has wit, imagination, fancy. She can hold her own ; vivacious, brave, strenuous. One of her stray black elf-locks is worth all Meta's loose gold. Yet she has high purpose enough to plead another woman's cause against her own heart, her own happiness. Her brain is alert ; her eye electric ; her soul womanly. The more she argues, the more does she make me admire her, reverence her, worship her. Go on pleading if you will, dear heart ; I love to hear 3^ou, to watch you ; but 248 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. every word you say, every hand you move, for Meta, only strengthens my resolve that you I will have, or I will have nobody. Against your will, I will make you happy." He sat down by my side again, and bent towards me coaxingly. In his low sweet voice he began to reason. I listened while he said over again every argument we had used together by the shrine of St. Nicholas, with others like them. If he married Meta, how could she hold his heart ? She would be the mistress of his house, a sort of superior pet bird, to be tricked out in fine feathers, to be coaxed, stroked, fondled ; but not a wife. If he married me, we should go through the world together, equally paired, soul-wedded, each mirroring the other's mind, each respect- ing, admiring, reinforcing the other. We two were natural complements. Why seek to throw him back from the higher upon the lower ? I listened and trembled. What he said was so flattering to one's own inner vanity, seemed so exactly what one thought in pri- vate when one dared to be frank with oneself, had such a show of eternal and immutable reason, that the temptation to go back on my word and accept his argument as true was ENVOY PLENIPOTENTIARY. 249 almost irresistible. If I had not seen Michaela, I think I should have yielded. Love, one's own heart, the man one adores at one's feet, these are dangerous assailants. But I closed my eyes, and there Michaela's blue eyes rose up, appealing to me in the gondola, with that piteous cry, " The years must count ; the years must count ! " wailed out ever from her heart ; and I knew I was fighting the com- mon battle of womanhood. If I were to turn traitor now, I should turn traitor to whatever I had within me best worth calling a con- viction. He seized my hand and kissed it. When the lips of the man you love touch you, it is hard to refuse. But I drew the hand away. He followed it up. His breath was warm upon my cheek. My bosom rose in a tumult. I began to fear I had presumed too much upon my guardian angel. If Romeo pressed me hard now, I must throw Michaela over- board — I must forget his honour, the years that count, the battle of my sex, all that is sacred on earth, everything save myself and Romeo. If he asked me, I must say, "Yes; let the white girl go ; I will be yours, my Romeo." Then, conscious of my own weakness — R 250 THE TYl'E-WKITEK GIRL. with an impulse as if from without, of a sudden I flung myself on my knees, and prayed silently and earnestly for strength to do right, strength to refrain from betraying Michaela. Romeo stood off with clasped hands, ob- serving me in dead silence. I rose from my knees another woman. The soul of womanhood found voice within me. " Romeo, dear Romeo," I cried, facing him, and speaking like one inspired, "it is not a question for you; it is a question for me. I love you with all my soul; but I refuse to marry you. I will not be a traitor ; the years must count : go back to Meta ! " He caught my hand in his. I let it lie like a stone. "Dj not send me away," he im- plored. " Let me stop with you a little ! " I sank into a chair. He did the same. "But remember," I gasped, between two sighs, "this is final." Tears rose to his eyes. He began to speak once more. " You must not think, dearest," he said, " I have not felt for Meta. Not all these nights have I slept ; but, honestly, in the dark, I thought it out, and I came to the conclusion it would be best in the end — even for Meta." ENVOY I'LENirOTENTIARY. 25 I " Romeo," I said, raising my eyes, "do you love me ? " He made a hasty gesture as if he would fling himself upon me once more. I waved him off with one open palm. " Then promise me, promise me, you will go back to Meta." " I cannot ! " he cried. " I love you." " Will you go back to Meta ? " It was a hard, long struggle. We parried, thrust, marched, countermarched, evaded; but I had taken it in hand, and I determined to finish it. Inch by inch falling back, but still fighting, he gave way. He saw I was in earnest. Behind each line of defence, each logical hedge, he tried to argue it out again. I cut him short with a hasty gesture. "A man, yes, he can forget the years ; but a woman — never ! " At last, worn out, he promised. In the agony of my excitement I took his yielding as a personal triumph. I had asked of my lover a difficult gift, and by dint of woman's armoury, had prevailed on him to grant it. "But — you will stop on at the office ?" he asked at last, holding his breath. I turned on him. " How could I ? For R 2 252 THE TYl'E-WKITEK (IIKL. Mcta's sake, impossible ; for my own, an infamy." "And — I must never sec you again ?" I bowed my head. " Tiiese things arc made so. It is yes or nu. Uycs, for hfc ; if uo, then never." He advanced towards me, with his lips trembling visibly. " 1 may say good-bye ? " he faltered. My heart leaped to break its strings. I knew not what to say. At last — " Yes, if it is good-bye, and if you go back to Mcta." He seized me in his arms. 1 will not deny that for one whole minute I lay there sobbing, happy. It is little, for a lifetime. Then I moved him away softly. He clung to me, panting. "Now you must go," I whispered. ' Do not tell her it was /. Keep my secret!" I opened the door. For a second he lin- gered. I waved him away. I could endure it no longer. Looking back and breathing hard, he passed through into the passage. I turned the key in the lock to satisfy mysell that that embassy was fulfilled ; then I fell on the bed, and cried a low cry, " Romeo ! Romeo ! " CIIAPTKU XXII. I CLING TO THE RIGGING. So my poor little Odyssey had come to an end in shipwreck ! Mr. Samuel Butler must be wrong, after all. I doubt a woman's ability to handle these sustained epics. I was to get no farther on my way to Ithaca than the episode of Phaeacia. Nor would an}' Nausicaa come forth to aid me. After I had cried my heart's full — cried till that point when you begin to leave off and to laugh like a child at nothing, for pure weari- ness — the humorous element, which inevitably enters into all human tragedy, pressed itscU upon me. On the stage, art never lets these incongruous incidents intervene at critical moments to disturb the current : in real life, they zvill obtrude their faces, like Paul Pry ; and 'tis my misfortune and my good luck that, with some grain of Heine in my com- position, I cannot shut my eyes to them. So here,the comic muse,masqueradingas Common 254 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. Sense,steppedinvvith one grotesque reminder: " You have no money to pay your way back to London." Now, gypsy or American or Anglo-Indian or what you will, I am true Briton in this, that whatever misfortune lowers, I sec one path of safety — the road home to London. " If only I could get back to London ! " is the Briton's heart-felt cry of distress in a foreign land. He can starve in comfort, so he may starve in Piccadilly. I have already explained that I am wholly free from the vile vice of prudence. To take no thought for the morrow is to me an article of religion, though 'tis rare among those who profess to accept it as a divine injunction. Acting on this principle, I had bought a single second-class ticket to Venice, as my funds were insufficient to pay for a return. It was my idea, when I started, to trust for my journey home to the saint who lies at the Lido. Now, however, I found myself in an awkward predicament. St. Nicholas had played me a last bad turn. I had bought perforce a new travelling costume before I left England, for I recognised that my rational dress with the knickerbockers would harmonise ill with the genius of Venice; the rest of my cash in I CLING TO THE RIGGING. 255 hand had gone for beds at Lucerne or Milan, and passing necessaries. I stood face to face with an Italian court of bankruptcy ; liabilities, my hotel bill ; assets, five paper lire. To borrow from Romeo was now clearly impossible. And the canals are so redolent of thirty generations of Venetian refuse that suicide does not offer here its normal allure- ments. This brought the revulsion. I lay on my bed and laughed to think that, broken heart or not, I could not get away from Venice. By evening, I had a headache. I was cry- ing once more. But the worst of headache is that it never kills. Early next morning I woke from a short snatch of sleep with a dull pain in my left side. It was moral, not physical. I rose, to ease it by action. Oubliez ; voyagez ! I had still qualms of conscience — I who fancied I had dissected conscience out of existence : but this time they were reversed. Had I done right, after all, in speeding Romeo to his fate? Would Michaela be a mate for him ? Was it not better as it was before — for the greatest happiness of the greatest number at least ? St. Nicholas, help ! John Stuart Mill, stand by me I 256 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. I dressed, bathed my red eyes, and went out to keep my appointment. I was early at San Giorgio, but Michaela was before me. As I lifted the heavy curtain, her eyes shone happiness. In her radiant countenance I read my doom. She was calmly, serenely joyous. I beckoned her to the campo. She flitted out, and with a charming baby impulse flung her arms around me. Tears rose in my eyes. It was sweet to see her happy. I held her hand and said nothing. "Well, he has explained all," she whispered. "You were a dear to speak to him." " Explained ! " I cried. How true it is that explanations explain nothing ! "Yes, he told mamma he did not know the type-writer girl was coming to Venice. He went out with her in a gondola because he met her by accident — and it was such a surprise to him; and he wanted to avoid mamma. But he is not going to see her again, and I believe he will dismiss her." "No, dear," I said gently, unable to restrain myself, "he will not dismiss her, because — she will go away of her own accord. She does not intend to remain with him. I have seen her, and I can assure you she is better than you think. She did not know Romeo I CLING TO THE RIGGING. 257 was engaged ; and when she fully realised it she relinquished all claim to him, or rather admitted she had never had one. Michaela, dear child, you must not be hard upon her. You promised to forgive her. I feel sure she has suffered, for she loved him devotedly." "How good you are!" Michaela cried. " You sympathise so with everyone ! " " She has promised me," I went on, " that she will never again see him, that she will avoid him with care, that she will not speak to him nor write to him. She will try to forget him, though to forget him is as impossible for her as for you. But she will be true to you ; she will keep her word. I can answer for her as I could answer for myself; she spoke with such earnestness. She is tearing out her heart; but because she thinks it right she will tear it out ruthlessly." Michaela smiled a tranquil smile. " And it is all right now," she said. "We are to be married in October, as we arranged origin- ally." We walked along the canal. We walked side by side, but great gulfs separated us. At last I spoke again. " You forgive her, Michaela?" " Oh ! yes, dear, I forgive her. If she did 258 THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. not know, of course it was natural. He is such a clear ! She could not help falling in love with him ! " "So I feel," I said. She glanced up at me with inquiring blue eyes. I think for a second she half suspected the truth, for I had spoken too deeply. We walked on in silence a little farther. Then Michaela began again, brimming over with her happiness. " I haven't a quarter thanked you. But I am so grateful! You were a sweet to see them both. You will come to my wedding ? " "No, dearest," I answered, driving back the tears with a fierce effort. " If so, I should be breaking a solemn promise." Again she seemed to suspect, and again the doubt went from her. " It was all a mistake," she continued, in a childish, sunny way, " a passing cloud. And Toto seemed so distressed, I couldn't help feel- ing sorry to see him so sorry for me. It has touched him very deep. He cried a great deal. He has been crying all the time. But it is all right now. We shall be quite happy ! " I swallowed a lump. What a child it was ! And there lay the irony. I think I could have spared Romeo better had I felt I was sparing I CLING TO THE RIGGING. 259 him to more of a woman. Self-sacrifice for some great soul would be easy : but for a bit of thistle-down ! And yet I loved her. " I told mamma how kind you had been," Micliacla went on, quite guilelessly, "and she wants to see you so much. You must come and dine with us at our hotel. How long do you stop in Venice ? " I paused and reflected. I had done her a service— a very great service ; what need to stand on trifles ? For I do not share the vulgar dread of putting myself under an obligation. " Dear little Michaela," I said, spanning her arm with one hand — it was so fairy-like and tiny — and drawing iier towards me, " I will confess the truth. I am travelling with that type-writer girl. I know her intimately. Now, I want to spirit her away from Venice at once, so that she may not see Romeo, and that Romeo may not see her. It would be awkward for both of them. But I have no money. I borrowed from you once and re- paid you faithfully ; if I borrow from you again I will repay in like manner. This is a worse strait than Holmwood. I shall need six or seven pounds. My dear, can you lend it to me ? " 26o THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. She drew out the dainty purse. "Why, of course, dear, if I have it. Fifty, a hundred and fifty, two hundred lire ; will that be enough for you ? " "Yes, my child," I gasped out, taking the crumpled notes and crushing them in my folded hand. " If I work my fingers to the bone you shall have it back." We walked on towards the Molo. O grey, grey Venice ! The greatest happiness of the greatest number. Back, back, Stuart Mill ! Get thee behind me, Satan ! A gondola approached. I hailed it. "Where are you going?" she cried, sur- prised. "Away," I said, "at once. It is better — safer! 1 will give the devil no chances." Then to the gondolier, " Hold off a little ! " He held off beyond jumping distance. Michaela hung over on the bridge close by, wondering. " Michaela," I cried, " now I will tell you ! " An impulse came over me; I could no longer resist it. " It was / who stole your Romeo's heart by mistake ! It was / who played Car- men and beguiled your Don Jose. It was / who sent him back. / am the type-writer girl ! " I CLING TO THE RIGGING. 261 " You ! " she cried, waving to me to return. " Oh, you dear thing, come back ! If it was you, how good you have been ! Why, I can see it in your face. You have suffered for my sake ! Come back, and let me kiss you ! " " No, dearest," I said, melting. " I must go. I dare not trust myself. Good-bye for ever ! Good-bye to you ; good-bye to Romeo. Give him that message for me ; I will never again see him." I turned to the gondolier. " Quick, row for all you are worth ! To my hotel first, then on to the railway station ! " If this book succeeds I mean to repay Michaela. Meanwhile, in any case, I am saving up daily every farthing to repay her. For I am still a type-writer girl— at another office. THE END. Makomson &> Co., Ltd., Printers, Kedhill. NEW 38. ed. FICTION. H. Q. WELLS' NEW ROMANCE. By the Author of "The Time Machine." Crown 8vo, cloth. I'ricc 3s. 6d. Otlior writers Imvo treated tlilH theiiiv, but tliuy have (teiK'niHy Blvcti tlic Invlf^llilo man a nowor wlilnh It was fnincthlng niiiro than a catlcfactlon for him to have. Mr. Wolls, liowovcr. Is nrlnlnal In all things, and shows us l?i this story what a dlsadvantago It Is to lioconio Invisible. Ilo dcHcrlbos how, If a man becomes Invisible, It does not follow that the clothes ho wears l)ecomu InvUlblu also, and on this supiMnltlon ha.s woven a Htory that will hold the reader with breathlens Interest from start to linUh. The Duke and the Damsel. By Richard Marsh, Author of the " Devil's Diamonds," &c. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. In this story Mr. RIcliiird Marsh devotes himself to a series of llght-comedjr Incidents, relieved by , few touches of Htrong feellnif. The scoi .... modern men (and women) and manners. a few touches of Htrong feeling. The scone Is laid at Monte Carlo, and the whole talc Is a study of id 1 Fortune's Footballs. By G. B. Buroin, Author of "Old Man's Marriage," &c., &c. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. In this story Mr. Ihirglii forsakes his customary Canadian and Turkl^ili haunts In favour of "ilramntic life" In London. The plot deals with a strolling vagabond who has stolen the half- llnliilied |)Iay of a great dramatic author and afterwards produces It as his own. He Is tra(H