^^ ^A^ t UNDER SEALED ORDERS VOL. I. NEW NOVELS AT ALL LIBRAEIES. BEYOND THE DREAMS OF AVARICE. By Waltkk I'.KSAN r. I vol. UNDER SEALED ORDERS. I'.y Chant Allkn. 3 vols. THE CHARLATAN. Hy Roiikkt HuciiANANand Henkv MiKNAV. 2 vols. Second Kdition. A LONDON LEGEND. By Justin Hi nti.v McCarthy. 5 vols. THE GREY MONK. By T. W. Spkkiht. 3 vols. MR. JERVIS. By B. M. Ckokkk. 3 vols. THE MINOR CHORD : A Story of a Prima Donna. I'.y |. M. Chai'I'Lk. I vol. PUDD'NHEAD WILSON. By Mark Twain, i vol. THE PHANTOM DEATH. By W. Ci.auk Russkli.. 1 vol. MADAME SANS-GENE. By E. Lkiki.i.ktieij. i vol. THE BELL-RINGER OF ANGEL'S. I'.y Bkei' Haktk. I vol. VERNON'S AUNT. By Sara Jeannkttk Duncan, i vol. RENSHAWFANNING'S QUEST. By Bektkam Mitkoku. I vol. LOURDES. By E.MiU'. Zola, i vol. ROMANCES OF THE OLD SERAGLIO. By H. N. Ckkli.in. I vol. HIS VANISHED STAR. By Chakles Egbert Craduock. I \ol. London: CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly. UNDER SEALED ORDERS a Hovel BY GRANT ALLEN AUTHOR OK 'the TKNTS ok SHEM,' 'the OL'CIIKSS ok I'OWYSLANU, ' THE SCALLYWAG,' ICTC. IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. L H II tl U CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1895 HocH V, I CONTENTS OF VOL. I. PAfi V CUAFIEH I. THE ItKD COTTAdK - - - - 1 II. A MYSTERIOUS VlSITOll - " - 15 III. GUAEDIAX ANT) WAUD - - - uJ IV. DIPLOMATIC DISCII'LINE V. ' CHEKCHEZ LA FEMME ' VI. A CllITICAL lOVKNING VII. A PHOTOGKAPHIC STUDY VIII. DANGEK AHEAD IX. FAMILY BUSINESS XI. MAN PROPOSES XIL FINE ART 50 63 80 97 114 133 X. AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER - - 151 167 182 vi CONTENTS (MAI'lKIl I'AtiK Xlll. THE mOHKll KDUCATIOX OF WOMKN - 1 9G XIV. lONft IN ENGLAND - - - - 211 XV. AN INVITATION .... 229 XVI. AT LADY HEA'JMONT's - - - 242 UNDER SEALED ORDERS CHAPTEIl I. THE RED COTTAGE. All these fine things were to be seen in Sacha's studio. Now, Sacha's studio was allowed to be the prettiest room in all the house. Sacha said so herself, indeed, and she was an authority on decoration. And she said the truth. Such a queer little lop-sided, five-cornered, irregular nook of a room you never saw in all your life. It was built out from one angle of the external wall, and lighted up from the VOL. I. 1 3 UNDKK si:alki) orders iKH'th side by a \n^ scjuare bay - window, wbicb proji^ctcul conujrwise, aiiybow, into the lawn and orchard. It was (juaint because it never aimed at qiiaintness; it achieved it unconsciously. And the outlook was charm- ing, too, over the brook and tlie hillside ; no more satisfying view, Sacha held, among the Surrey hills than the larches above, and the pear-ti'ees below as seen across the fore- ground of lavender and poppies fi'om her studio window-seat at the Tied C^ottage. Throw in an easel or two, carelessly posed, a few soft Liberty draperies, a Lewis Day wall- paper, an Oriental rug, a great Japanese screen, and Aunt Julia's black silk irown (with Aunt Julia inside it) to give dignity to the foreground, and there, as well as this poor hand can draw it, you have a fair rough sketch of Sacha Cazalet's sanctum. ' For my part,' said Owen, straightening his arm and then bending it so as to display the biceps, * I shouldn't mind a little rain. THE RED COTTAGE 3 Tlio heavier tlic tj;'r()iiiKl Is, tii(^ better my chances.' Sacha lookcfl up at hiin in his hecoinins;' ruiinint; suit ; he'd \)v,en sittiiitj^, or I'ather posing', for lier as joint winner at the tape in her spirited picture of 'A Dead Heat — the Finish,' and slie thou^^lit to herself as ^he looked, though he was her own brother, that a handsomer or finer-built or stronger-looking^ yc»ung man wasn't to be found that day in the leuii-th and breadth of Entifland. She drew a deep breath, and added a delicate touch to the stiffened muscle of the straining- forearm. ' But it'd be a pity,' she said, stepping back a pace and surveying her own work critically, ' if it rained wliile we're actually on the ground to-morrow. You men have no thouglit. Consider our nice new gowns, and hats, and feathers.' ' It's a dreadful waste of time,' Aunt Julia interposed, smoothing her immaculate white hair behind her blameless lace head-dress. 4 UNDER SEALED ORDERS ' I shall be glad when it's all over, I'm sure, and you get back to your books again, Owen. Young men of twenty ought to have some- thing else to busy themselves about in the world, it seems to me, besides high jumps, and hundred yards, and half- miles, and hurdle races.' Aunt Julia mentioned the very names of those offensive exercises Avith a certain high-sniffing dislike, and as if between unwilling quotation marks. A model district visitor, Aunt Julia, if ever there was one ; a distributor of tracts and g-ood counsel gratis ; a pillar of orthodoxy ; a prop of the University Central African Mission. ' Mr. Hayward approves of them,' Owen answered with the air of a man who stiHes opposition by citing a crushing authority. ' I suppose you don't want me to neglect Mr. Hayward's wishes. He says what he desires above all things is to see me a typical English gentleman. Now, there's nothing more English than athletics, you'll admit, THE RED COlTACxE 5 Aunt Julia. He's always delighted when he finds me going in hot and strong for cricket and football and boating. " Be cosmopolitan in your ideas," he says to me always — " as cosmopolitan as you can make yourself; but be Englisli in your pursuits, your costume, your iiai)its. 'I don't think he need be much afraid of that,' Sacha put in with a smile, washing her brush out in chloroform. ' You're English to the backbone, Ow^en ; I could tell by the very build and set of your limbs you had true English blood in you.' ' Well, if it rains to-night,' Owen went on, releasing himself from his fatiguing pose, and flinging himself down like a young giant on the capacious window-seat, ' I shall pull ofl' the mile, and, after all, that's the only event of the whole lot I really care twopence about.' Aunt Julia's curiosity was so fully aroused by this unexpected avowal that she deigned 6 UNDER SEALED ORDERS for a moment to display a passing interest in athletics. ' Why, 1 thought,' she cried, astonished, 'you were certain of the long jump, and the half-mile, and the cricket ball." ' That's just it,' Owen replied, stretching his left arm in turn and then retracting it suddenly. ' I'm safe as houses for those, and so I don't mind a bit about 'em. But I'm no vrood at all for the mile unless the round's heavy. On light ground, Charlie Skene's sure to beat me. If it rains there'll be a good race — like Sacha's picture there — and that's just what I love : won by a neck at the finish.' And he glanced at his own shapely limbs on his sister's canvas with not unnatural approbation of her handicraft or her model. • Better go and put on your other clothes now,' Aunt Julia remarked with an under- current of doubt. She was never quite sure in her own mind whether it was exactly right for Sacha to paint even her own THE RED COTTAGE 7 brother, let alone the professional model, in so light and airy a costume ; besides which, those short sleeves nmst be conducive to rheumatism. Aunt Julia pinned her faith on the protective virtues of red flannel. If she'd had her own way, she'd have cased Owen from head to foot in that triple armour aL^ainst assailino- chills. But there ! what can one do ? Young people nowadays are so self-willed and obstinate ! Owen rose from the window-seat and shook himself like a big dog just released from the kennel. 'Well, they are rather chilly to sit in,' he admitted, reading Aunt Julia's mind, which, for the rest, was an open book with very few pages in it. ' I don't mind if I do go and put on my toggeries ; but I'll just take a sharp trot first round the meadows to warm me.' He stood with his hand on he door, on the point of starting, when a timid knock outside made him open it suddenly. Martha 8 UNDER SEALED ORDERS was standing there with an envelope on the salver. A well-trained servant, Martha. She knew it was as much as her place was worth to burst into the studio without leave while Miss Sacha was painting there. If there's anything on earth that's destructive to a work of art, in pigments or words, it's continual interruption in the midst of your working hours. And to disturb a model's pose, Sacha often remarked, is nothing short of criminal. ' What is it V Owen asked, taking the envelope from the salver. ' Telegram, sir,' Martha replied. ' Boy's waitinpf below in the 'all for the answer.' Owen read it, and bit his lips. ' Well, this is just annoying !' he cried. ' Who do you think's coming down ? Mr. Hayward himself — and at twelve o'clock to-morrow.' A sudden silence fell all at once upon the little listening group. They looked at one another and bit their liT)s in embarrassment. THE RED COTTAGE 9 Clearly, some unexpected damper had been put at once upon all Owen's plans. Sacha was the first to break the awkward pause. ' At twelve,' she said musingly. ' And the sports, I think, begin at ten, don't they V ' Nominally ten,' Ov^en answered, still regarding the telegram with a very rueful face; 'but that always means practically half- past ten or thereabouts. Punctuality's a virtue that hasn't been yet evolved. They take such a precious long time clearing the course and so forth.' Sacha consulted the card of the sports and then the local time-table. 'You'd have time, if you liked, for the hundred yards, and perhaps the long jump, too, before his train gets in,' she said, with as deep an interest as if thousands were at stake ; •and even then you could go down to the train in your flannels to meet him. But you'd miss the mile, and that you say's the only event of the lot you care about.' lo UNDER SEALED ORDERS Sacha had lived loiiix enou' in his hand but a stout untrimmed stick, which he had evidently cut for himself on some blackthorn-covered C(mimon ; but he was none the less a gentle- man confessed for all that : blue blood shone clear in his face, his walk, his tone, his gestures. The noticeable man took Sacha's hand cordially, with a certain stately condescension, yet as one who liked her. A MYSIKRIOUS VISITOR 17 ' So you came to meet ine, Alexjiiidrji !*' lie Siiid, siniHiit»'. 'That was awfullv m)0(l of you. Vovr plan, of* course. You did ([uite rii^ht to let ( )\ven t^^o off to his sjioits un- molested. I appreciated your telegram. But there ! that's your way — you can always be depended upon.' ' 1 wish you wouldn't call nie Alexandra,' the iiirl answered with a little shudder, vet taking- his hand as cordially as he t^'ave it. 'You know 1 hate the name. I always so much prefer to be known as Sacha.' Mr. Hayward turned towards the gate and gave up his ticket. 'Alexandra's so nmcli better, though,' he said slowly, in his soft, musical voice. ' It's good English now, since a princess brought it over. All Entrlish names come across to us in the last resort with a prince or princess. We haven't got a native one. William and Henry and John and Robert came over with the Conqueror ; Ernest and Augustus and VOL. I. 2 i8 UNDER SEALED ORDERS Caroline and Sophia came over witli the Georges ; Alexandra and Olga and Christian and Dagmar came over with the very latest royal importations. But English snobbery seizes on them and adopts them at once. That's the English fasliion. Whereas Sacha carries date, as you say about your gowns. People are sure to inquire when they hear it in what country of Europe Sacha's short for Alexandra. And that,' he paused a second, ' would interfere with my views for Owen's future.' ' I prefer the name I've always been called by myself,' Sacha interposed quietly, and then closed her lips short. It was diamond against diamond with those two, both firm as a rock in their own fixed opinions. Mr. Hay ward answered nothing — at least, not directly. ' Owen Cazalet,' he murmured with a sigh, as if half to himself, rolling it over on his A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 19 ^Qj^o'ue — ' Owen C'azalet, Owen Cazalet. (Vmldn't liave anytliing that would sound much more Britisli than that, I Hatter myself. Though Owen's Welsh, to be sure, when one goes to the l)ottom of things, and (Jazalet's Huguenot. But British enough as times go nowadays— British enough, Owen Oazalet.' ' For myself, I confess, if it weren't for business purposes,' Sacha replied obliquely, * I should much prefer in many ways my own fam.ily name. I hate disguises. But of course, as I've got to be known now as Sacha Cazalet to picture-buyers and publishers, I must stick to it for tlie future. As an illustrator my i)ractice depends largely on tlie name. It's a good trade-mark for the purpose, thank Heaven ! distinctive and striking. And I can't change it now unless some amiable vountj man chooses to offer me his, which doesn't seem likely in the present state of society.' •^ 20 UNDER SEALED ORDERS * Well, I'm glad you can't change it, my child,' Mr. Haywaid said, not unkindly, looking down at her with eyes of unfeigned admiration. He was old enough to be her father, and he spoke to her alwaj's with a certain old-fashioned paternal courtesy, much as a Louis Quinze marquis of the stately type might have spoken before the Court to mademoiselle his daughter. ' It would be a pity if any such suggestion of un-English antecedents were to stand in the way of my plans for your brother's advancement.' ' It would,' Sacha replied. ' I adiiiit it. I acquiesce in it.' Thev walked on together to the cricket- field, where the sports were to be lield, Mr. Hayward stopping every now and then with genuine delight in the country to admire some pretty spray of young bramble or cluster of hart's-tono-ue in the hedirerow. He had an artist's eye for nature, like Sacha's own. The tangled richness of the A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 21 stitch worts and red-robins by the wayside seemed to charm and impress liim. ' It's sweet country,' he said at last, paus- uio' and g-azing deep into the recesses of the l)Ush-grown bank. ' What exquisite depths of sliade ! What hiscious richness of fohage !' ' Yes,' Sacha rephed, in the same tone ; ' such a struggle for life, too, isn't it ? Each Huhtino- for his own hand ; each craning and straining to overtop the other. Like the world we live in.' ' As it stands now,' Mr. Hay ward assented LTravelv — 'a tanoled maze, a mere un- organized thicket. Yet some day it might become an ordered and orderly garden.' ' That would be so much less picturesque, though,' Sacha suggested, sighing. 'Less picturesque? Yes, perhaps,' Mr. Hay ward cried, like one who sees some vision of deliu-ht. ' But, oh ! Sacha, what of that ? More useful and more hopeful !' As they reached the cricket-field, Sacha 22 UNDER SEALED ORDERS glanced aroniul foi' a moment to see when^ among the crowd of spectators Aunt Julia was seated. Her ([uick eye soon picked out the immaculate wliite liair among a little group of local dignitai'ies near the centre l)y the ])avilion. Mr. Hay ward advanced and lifted his hat to Miss Cazalet with that indescribable air of courtly chivalry that was well-m'gh inse])arable from his smallest action. Aunt Juli!sh. And how he trills his r's, too ! Have you noticed that trick of his ? He says B'rome, per'rhaps, Sor'r'ento, char'rming.' ' He lived a good deal abroad as a boy, 1 believe,' Sacha answered, in the tone of one not anxious to continue the subject. ' He was partly brought up in Sweden, li I re- member right ; and he caught the trille^d r there, and has never got over it since. But his English in all other ways is as good as yours and mine is.' She might truthfully have added, as far as Lady Beaumont was concerned, ' and a great deal better, too ; but she was prudent, and restrained herself. 40 UNDER SEALED ORDERS When a man sees there's any subject you don't want to talk about, he avoids it instinc- tively, as a natural point of good manners. When a woman sees the same thing her curiosity's aroused at once, and she compels you to go on with it exactly in proportion as she finds you desire to evade her questions. Lady Beaumont saw Sacha didn't want to talk about Mr. Hayward, so, of course, she pressed her hard with more direct inquiries. That's what's known as feminine tact. ' He's your brother's guardian,' she said musingly, after a moment's pause. ' I sup- pose, then, he was a very great friend of your poor father's V Sacha winced almost imperceptibly, but Lady Beaumont was aware of it. ' Not exactly his guardian,' the girl answered, after a short internal conflict. ' Not by my father's will, that is to say. He felt an interest in Owen, on poor papa's GUARDIAN AND WARD 4i account, and he's done what he could tor hmi ever since, so we call him his guardian.' ' Oh, indeed ! Is he rich V Point-blank at Sacha's head, as only a woman of good society would dare to pose the question. ' I don't know ; he never showed me his income-tax return. I should say that was a question entirely between himself and the Commissioners of Inland Eevenue.' It was straight from the shoulder, as Sacha knew how to hit. But Lady Beaumont sat still and took it smiling, not being quick enough or agile enough, indeed, to dodge it lightly. ' Well, does he seem rich, then V she per- sisted, as unperturbed as if Sacha were charmed with her conversation. ' Does he spend money freely ? Does he live well and handsomely V ' He spends very little on himself, I should say,' Sacha answered somewhat curtly, ' and a great deal upon other people. But he's 4a UNDER SEALED ORDERS not a coininunicative man. If you want to know all alxuit liini, why not ask him direct ? You did, you know, about the photographer's shoj) in Bond Street.' Lady Beaumont looked up at her with a face of impassive scrutiny. For so young a woman, this painting girl was really most self-possessed. But the county member's wife was not to be sat upon by an artist, however large and well built. ' Owen's going into the diplomatic service, I think Miss Cazalet told me,' she began again after a strategic pause. ' Into the diplomatic service. Yes. If he can get in,' Sacha admitted grudgingly, for she hated to let out any further information. Lady Beaumont poked her parasol into the turf at her feet, and egged out a root of grass or two in a meditative fashion. ' It's a curious service for a young man to go in for, unless he's really rich, or at the very least has expectations in the future,' she GUARDIAN AND WARD 43 remarked iu tU- uir, abstruotedly. ' They get no pay at all, y<>« know, for the first two or three years, and they nmst spend more as attac/w.'< than their salary amounts 'So I believe,' Sacha replied, without moving a muscle of that handsome roui>d face of hers. ' It's a service for vicli young men I've always been given to understand. A career, not a livelihood. Honour and glory, not filthy lucre.' " 'Then, why does Owen go in for '* •' Lady Beaumont asked, straight out, with that persistent Inquisitiveness which some women of the world think so perfectly be- coming. ' I don't know,' Sacha replied. ' He is of age. Ask him. Perhaps^ it may be because Mr. Hayward wishes it." ' Oh !' Lady Beaumont said shortly. She'd got what she wanted now. A rich relation, no doubt, of whom they were all iBBiC 44 UNDLR SEALED ORDERS ashameJ, and whose money they expected to get, while disownhig his business. The talk glided ofK by degrees into other cliannels. By-and-by Ainit Julia and Mr. Hay ward retui-ned. They brought with them a third person — that Brazilian from Bahia witli the very curly hair, who was stopping with the Fergussons at Asliley Towers. Mr, Hay ward was discoursing with him in very fluent French. At that Lady Beaumont pricked her ears up to hear what he said. She couldn't follow it all — her ear for spoken French was still a trifle un- trained ; but she heard a good deal, and took the rest in instinctively (which is why women learn languages so much quicker than men). ' Perfectly, monsieur,' the mys- terious photographer was remarking in that clear, bell-like voice of his. ' This is an age of trains de luxe. To live in the world to-day you must follow the world as it flits across four flying continents. It's a common GUARDIAN AND WARD 45 Hritisli mlstiike of ours to su|)))<).st» the universe st()i)S short at the Kiii^'hsh Chainiel. Rrror, error, error I It even extends beyond I'ai-Is and Switzerland. Most Knjilishnien fancy they know the world if they know London, Bri(j;hton, Ascot, Scarl)orou«;h, and Newmarket. For my part, M. le Conte, early acquaintance with the (continent saved me, haj)[)ily, from that inexact idea. I know that if you Avant to keep up with the movement you must march with it as it marches at Vichy to-day, at Baden- Baden to-morrow, at Nice, Monte Carlo, Pau, Carlsbad, the next day. So I took the hint and followed up your ex-Emperor from Cannes to Algiers, till 1 caught him at last on the slope of Mustaj)ha Superieur.' The rest she couldn't hear. It was but a passing snatch as he strolled by her chair. But it was enough, at least, to impress Lady Beaumont profoundly with a sense of Mr. Hayward's prodigious mastery of col- 46 UNDER SEALED ORDERS loquial French, and astonishing ease in framing: his thouti^hts into words in all lan- es o guages equally. Was he a Frenchman, then, she wondered, and was that why liis ^''s had that peculiar trill in them ? To be sure, an acute Parisian ear (like yours and mine, dear reader) might have noticed at once that, as in English Mr. Hayward trilled his r's, so in French his em's, his ens, and his ons, were very ill distinguished. But, then. Lady Beaumont hadn't had our educational advantages. To her dull English ear his spoken French was exactly a Frenchman's. As she sat and pondered, Owen strolled up to the group, looking glorious in his running clothes — a young Greek god, hot and flushed from his victories. Even on Sacha's placid face a ruddy spot of pleasure glowed bright as her brother drew near, like a statue come to life ; while, as for GUARDIAN AND WARD 47 Mr. Haywarcl, he stepped forward to meet the hero of the day with such graceful cordiahty as a prince might show to one of his nohlest subjects. ' My dear boy,' he said, laying his hand on the young man's shoulder with a half- caressing movement, ' you won that mile splendidly. 'Twas a magnificent spurt. I was proud of you as I looked at you, Owen —very proud of you as I looked at you.' Lady Beaumont's steely eyes were turned on the pair, watching warily. 'Thank you, Mr. Hay ward,' the young man answered in a modest tone, but with genuine pleasure, as an affectionate boy might answer his father. ' If you're pleased, that's all I want; but I hope you didn't mind my not meeting you at the station ?' 'Mindl' Mr. Hay ward repeated quickly. 'Mind! Why, I should have been most grieved, my boy, if you'd missed one fraction of these sports on my account. But Sacha 48 UNDER SEALED ORDERS knew best. One can always trust Sacha ; she explained to me when we met, and I agreed with her entirely. To see you win such a magnificent lot of prizes as this is all I ask of you.' ' But his work V Aunt Julia suggested, aghast — ' his books, his reading, Mr. Hay- ward ? Don't you think these things tend to unsettle, a young man for examinations V Mr. Hayward turned round and gazed blandly and benignly at her. ' I should have read Owen's character very ill indeed,' he said with a curious smile, ' if I thought anything could unsettle him from a resolve once made. He's true as steel, is Owen. If you want men to do well, first begin by trusting them. That's the freeman's way. The other is both the curse and the Nemesis of despotism.' ' What a very odd man !' Lady Beaumont thought to herself ; ' and how sententiously he spoke ! What a bore, too, if you saw GUARDIAN AND WARD 49 much of him !' For women of Lady Beau- mont's type invariably think anybody a dreadful bore who makes a generalized re- mark, or who talks about anything else in heaven or earth but the gossip of the narrow little set they mix in. VOL. I. CHAPTER IV. DIPLOMATIC DISCIPLINE. An hour or two later they were taking tea together in Sacha's sacred studio, at the round table made out of the Cairene wood- work stand, surmounted by the old Moorish chased brass tray that Mr. Hayward had brought hesr on one of his voyages to Tunis. The treasures of the household, indeed, had been ransacked to do honour to Mr. Hayward. Aunt Julia had brought out the best silver teapot with the Cazalet arms on it, and the George III. apostle spoons that belonged to her grandmother fifty years ago in Devonshire. Cook had produced some of DIPLOMATIC DISCIPLINE 5» her famous brown rolls, and had surpassed her well-known skill In the home-made rusks and buttered Canadian tea-cake. Martha's little French cap was crimped and starched with unwonted care, and her apron with the white lace was even more spotless than usual. Sacha herself had put the very daintiest of her sketches on the easel by the square bay-window, and festooned fresh sprays of trailing clematis and long stems of wild bryony from the Venetian bowl m hammered copper that hung by a wrought- iron chain from a staple in the corner. The studio, in short, was as picturesque as Sacha knew how to make it ; for Mr. Hayward's visits were few and far between, and all the household made the more of them for the rarity of their occurrence. Yet a certain visible constraint brooded over the whole party none the less while they drank their tea out of Sacha's Satsuma cups ; for it was -an understood thing that 52 UNDER SEALEO ORDERS Mr. Hayward never came down to Moor Hill except for some good and suiBcient reason ; and what that reason might be nobody Hked to ask him, though, till he chose to disclose it himself, they sat on tenterhooks of painful expectation. At last, however, Mr. Hayward laid down his cup, and turned for a moment to Owen. ' And now, my boy,' he said quietly, as though everybody knew beforehand the plan he was going to propose, ' will you be ready to set out with me to-morrow morning V ' Certainly,' Owen answered at once, with a great air of alacrity. 'To-night, if you like. I can go and pack my portmanteau this minute, if necessary, or start with- out it.' Mr. Hayward smiled approval. ' That's right,' he said, nodding assent. ' Quite right, as far as it goes, and shows promptitude in some ways. I'd half a mind DIPLOMATIC DISCIPLINE 53 to telegraph to you yesterday to come up then and there, just to test your obedience. But I'm glad now I didn't. It would have grieved me to have done you out of this morning's triumphs. This is all so good for you.' * If you had; Owen said simply, ' I'd have come straight up, of course, though it ^vould have been a wrench, I don't deny. But it's wrenches, after all, that are the true test of discipline.' Mr. Hayward smiled once more. 'Quite so,' he answered, with evident pleasure. ' You're a good boy, Owen-a boy after my own heart. And in most things I approve of you. But remember, point de zele. Zeal often spoils everything. That was^ un- necessary that you said just now, " to-night, if you like"; nobody asked you to go to- night. I said to-morrow morning. A well- trained subordinate answers, "Certainly; at what hour?" but never suggests to-night. 54 UNDER SEALED ORDERS • That's no part of his province.' He paused for a moment, and gazed hard with searching eyes at Sacha. ' These thhigs are important,' he added, musing, ' as discipHnary preparation for the diplomatic service.' ' I'll remember it, Mr. Hay ward,' Owen answered submissively. ' For the diplomatic service,' Mr. Hay ward went on, * a man needs for the most part not zeal, but discretion. Zealous subordinates you can find any day in the streets by the dozen ; a discreet one you may search for over two-thirds of Europe. Obedience you've learnt already, my boy ; discretion you've got to learn now. No offering to go and pack your portmanteau at once — it isn't demanded of you — still less, protestations of willingness to start without one.' He spoke austerely, but kindly, with a tender, fatherly ring in his voice, like one who would correct a fault without giving needless pain to the pupil. DIPLOMATIC DISCIPLINE 55 ' I see ' Oweu answered, abashed. ' I was wrong, of course. I ought to have gone without a portmanteau at once, if you sum- moned me ; but not have effusively offered to go without one when I wasn't called upon to do so.' Mr Hayward's eyes sparkled with sup- pressed pride and pleasure. A very apt pupil, this quick to accept reproof where he saw it was deserved, and to mend his ways accordingly. He laid that friendly hand upon the young man's shoulder again. ' Quite right, Owen,' he said. 'You 11 make a diplomat yet ! ... We shall see him am- bassador at Constantinople before we die Miss Cazalet. ... But you haven't asked yet where you're to go to, my boy. Dont you want to know about it V Owen hesitated a moment. ' I thought discretion dictated that I should wait till I was told,' he answered, after a long mmgssS S6 UNDER SEALED ORDERS pause, during which Sacha's eyes were fixed firmly upon him. The Bond Street photographer smiled that strange smile of success and satisfaction once more. ' Right again, my boy,' he said, well pleased. * You answer as you ought to do. Then you shall know your destination to-morrow even- ing.' Aunt Julia gave a little start of surprise and regret. ' But aren't we to know where he's going, Mr. Hay ward V she cried. ' Aren't we to know where we can write to him V Mr. Hayward turned round upon her with a coldly contemptuous look in his keen brown eyes. His manner towards Aunt Julia was always markedly different from his manner to Owen and Sacha. Its stately courtesy never quite succeeded in concealing the undercurrent of contempt for the district visitor within her. DIPLOMATIC DISCIPLINE 57 * It was in our bargain,' he said, * Miss Cazalet — which Owen, at least, has always loyally kept — that I might take him for a month at a time, twice a year, when I chose, to live with me, or travel with me wherever I liked, in order to retain such a hold as I desired both over his education and over his character and affections. It was never speci- fied that I should tell you beforehand when or where it suited me he should pass those two months with me. It was only arranged that at the end of each such holiday I should restore him once more to your own safe keep- ing. Two months out of twelve is surely not excessive for me to ask for myself, especially as Owen is happiest when he's away on his trips with me.' The tears came up into Aunt Julia's eyes. Long since she had repented of that most doubtful bargain. She even wondered at times whether Mr. Hayward was some modern embodiment of Mephistopheles, and 58 UNDER SEALED ORDERS whether she had sold Owen's soul to Inm, as Esau sold his hirthright for a mess of pot- tage. It frightened her when she heard him talk so nmch of running about Europe in trains de luxe. It reminded her always of the Book of Job, and of the high personage who presented himself at the court of heaven ' from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.' * I should certainly have liked to know where Owen was likely to be,' Aunt Julia murmured, struggling hai'd with her voice and her tears. * It's a pull to give him up without even knowing where he's gone to.' Owen turned to her tenderly. * Well, but, auntie,' he said in his manly voice, always full of English cheer iness, ' you know I won't get into any harm with Mr. Hayward ; and for myself, I really like best the element of adventure and surprise — the never knowing till I get there where it is I'm going to.' DIPLOMATIC DISCIPLINE 59 The love of adventure and surprise, how- ever, Is poorly developed in the British old maid or in the Britisli matron. But Mr. Hayward had carried his point, and could afford to relent now. ' Go upstairs, (3wen,' he said, * and put your things together at once. I'm not sure, after all, I won't start off this evening.' ' And we've got dinner for you, and every- thing !' Aunt Julia exclaimed appealingly. She'd made a cream pudding. Her house- wifely heart was stirred to its depth by this bitter disappointment. But Owen ran upstairs with cheerful promptitude. It was clear Mr. Hayward had a very firm hold over him — a hold gained not so much by command as by affec- tion. As soon as he was gone their visiior closed the door behind him. * Miss Cazalet,' he said in that clear and very musical voice of his, ' I've never been unreasonable. I made a bargain with you 6o UNDER SEALED ORDERS and Owen for Owen's clear advantage, but I've never abused it. While he was at school I took care not to break in upon his terms ; I even allowed his schooling to take precedence of his education ; I only claimed him in the holidays, and then he learned more from me in those two short months than in the other ten from his books and his masters. Since he left school I've been more irregular, but always for a good reason. I've a good reason now, though I don't choose to communicate it. However, I don't mind telling you privately where I'm going, if you and Alexandra — I beg your pardon, my child, Sacha I mean — won't mention it to Owen before we start. . . . I'm contemplating a month's tour in the mountains of Morocco.' Aunt Julia drew a deep breath of relief. She knew nothing about Morocco, to be sure, except the bare name ; and she had a vague idea that the majority of its inhabitants were engaged in the book-binding trade and DIPLOMATIC DISCIPLINE 6i the exportation of leather ; but it was a com- fort to her, all the same, to know exactly on the map where Owen was going to. ■Morocco,' she reflected, much consoled. ■Morocco. Morocco. And shall we be able to write to him while he's gone ? Will you give us your address there V ' There will be m address,' Mr. Hayward answered curtly. 'No addresses of any sort.' i T V ' Not even paste restante f Aunt Juha interposed. Mr. Hayward smiled, a broad smile. ' Not even poste restante; he replied, un- bending at the bare idea. ' We shall be up in the mountains all the time, among pathless wilds and in small native villages. Posts are unknown, and inns of any sort unheard of I want to do some photography of the untouched Moorish world, so I shall make at once for the remotest interior.' ' Owen will like that !' Saccha put m, well 63 UNDER SEALED ORDERS pleased. 'It'll exactly suit him. There'll be mountain-climbing, of course, and, as he says, an element of excitement and adven- ture V ' Precisely,' Mr. Hay ward answered ; ' just why I'm taking him there. I want to train his body and mind to flimiliarity with danger. Your father was a brave man, Sacha. I want Owen to be like him.' ' Owen is,' Sacha said proudly. ' As brave as they're made. He takes after his father in that. Or else your training's been suc- cessful.' 'Well, it's a comfort to think, anyhow, that if anything goes wrong in Morocco while he's there,' Aunt Julia said with a sigh, 'we shall know at least that dear Owen's in the midst of it.' Which is a feminine form of delight, but a very common one. CHAPTER V. 'CHERCHEZ LA FEMMB. Guardian and ward stood on the deck of a Cunard Mediterranean liner before Owen had an inkling of their real destmation. This uncertainty, indeed, exactly suited his adventurous athlete mind. He liked to set out not knowing whither he was bound, and to wake up some fine morning m a new world of wonders. Overflowing with hfe and youth and health and spirits, he found in such a tourist surprise party an irresistible attraction. He was wafted to his Bagdad as on some enchanted cai-pet. It would have spoilt half the fun for him if he knew beforehand where he was going, or why ; 64 UNDER SEALED ORDERS and, besides, with Mr. Hayward he was always happy. He preferred this saiHng under sealed orders. Oh, the change to him, since boyhood upwards, from Aunt Julia's petticoat regime and perpetual old-maidish restraint at the Eed Cottage to the freedom and breeziness of Mr. Hayward s holiday ! For Mr. Hay- ward had designed it so, and had succeeded admirably. A boy hates to live under a woman's restrictions, and loves to have a man in authority over him. Mr. Hayward took advantage of that natural instinct of boy psychology to bind Owen to himself by strong ties of affection and gratitude. With Aunt Julia, education was one long cate- gorical ' Don't ' ; her sole part of speech was the imperative negative. Don't try to climb trees ; don't speak in that voice ; don't play with those rude boys ; don't wear out your shoes, or the knees of your knickerbockers. With Mr. Hayward, on the contrary, 'CHERCHEZ LA FEMME ' 65 education consisted in a constant endeavour to find out and encourage every native instinct. If that pleases you, my boy, why, do it by all means ; if that irks you, never mind: you can get on in the end very well without it. From Mr. Hayward, or with Mr. Hayward, Owen had learnt French at odd times without being conscious of learn- ing it; he had learnt history and politics, and knowledge of common things ; optics and photography, and all the allied arts and sciences ; geography in action ; a mass of general information taken in at the pores, and all the more valuable because acquired con amove. That was what Mr. Hayward meant by 'not allowing his schooling to interfere with his education.' The boy had learnt most and learnt best in his holidays. Obedience, if you will ; yes, Mr. Hayward desired the promptest obedience. But it was the willing obedience the disciple renders of his own accord to the master VOL. I. 5 66 UNDER SEALED ORDERS he adores, not the slavish obedience a broken spirit tenders to a despotic martinet. Liberty first, order afterwards. Mr. Hay- ward would rather ten thousand times see Owen rebel than see him give in \yithout a struggle to unreasonable authority. As a matter of ftict, Owen often rebelled against Aunt Julia's strict rules ; and when he did so Mr. Hay ward upheld him in it stoutly. On this particular journey, even after they got outside the bar of the Mersey, Owen had still no idea whither on earth they were bound, save that their destination was some- where in the Mediterranean. He learnt the exact place by accident. A fellow-passenger, leaning over the taifrail, asked Mr. Hay- ward carelessly, ' Alexandria ?' ' No, Tangier,' the mysterious man answered. 'My friend and I are going on a tour in the Morocco mountains. I want to do a little photography there — take un- hackneyed Islam.' 'CHERCHEZ LA FEMME' $7 Owen's heart leapt up at the sound, but he gave no overt token. Mountaineering in Morocco ! How delightful ! How romantic! Arabs, Atlas, adventure ! The very thing to suit him. 'Dangerous work,' the fellow - passenger observed with a languid yawn — ' sketching and photographing. Shock these fellows' religious prejudices ; and Jedburgh justice is the rule. " Off with his head," says the Cadi.' * So I hear,' Mr. Hay ward answered calmly. ' They tell me you mustn't try to take a snap at a mosque, in particular, unless you can do it unobserved. If the natives catch you at it, they're pretty sure to resent the insult to their religion, and cut your throat as a work of unobtrusive piety.' 'What larks!' Owen thought to himself. ' This is just what I love. A spice of danger thrown in! And I've always heard the Morocco people are fanatical Mohammedans.' 68 UNDER SEALED ORDERS And, indeed, he enjoyed his first week or two on African soil immensely. From the moment he set foot in Tangier — that tangled Tangier — he found himself at once in a fairy- land of marvels. More Eastern than the East, Morocco still remains free from the vulgarizing admixture of a foreign element, which spoils Algiers and Cairo and Con- stantinople. But Owen had never touched on Islam at all before ; and this sudden dij) into pure Orient at one plunge was to him a uni(|ue and glorious experience. He was sorry to tear himself away from the pictur- esque narrow alleys and turbaned Moors of Tangier even for the promised delights of the wild interior. But Mr. Hayward's arranp'ements for his tour in the Atlas were soon completed ; the protection of the Shereefian umbrella was granted in due form, and they set out, after three days, for the mountains of the back country. Owen was not at all surprised to find, as 'CHERCHEZ LA FEMME' 69 they journeyed iiilciiid, that Mr. Hayward spoke Arabic fluently. On the contrary, it would have astonished him much more if his guardian had proved ignorant of any known language, Oriental or Western. Mr. Hay- ward chatted easily with their Moorish escort, a soldier of the Sultan's, as they marched along single file, each mounted on a good native saddle-horse, through the narrow bridle-paths which constitute the sole roads in Morocco. The British Consul at Tangier had procured them the services of an official escort, and had further supplied them with a firman from his Shereefian Majesty, enjoining on all and sundry to show them on their way every respect and kindness. Travelling was safe in the in- terior just now, the escort assured them ; for, Allah be praised 1 the Sultan's health was excellent. When the Sultan was ill, of course it was very different ; things got unsettled up country then, and it was dangerous 70 UNDER SEALED ORDERS for forelirners to venture too far from the coast and tlieir consuls. In Ramadan, too, durino- tlie montli of fasting, Europeans found it risky to travel about freely. The faithful of the town got crusty with their enforced abstinence, and their religious feel- ings were deeply stirred at that time ; they let them loose, the escort remarked witli engaging frankness, on the passing infidels. Up country, you see, the people are so little accustomed to foreign eftendis. At Tangier we are more civilized ; we have learned to make trade with them. It had been hot at Tangier, for it was full summer in England ; but U}) on the high mountains of the interior they found the season cool, with a spring-like freshness. Owen never enjoyed anything better than that free, wild life, climbing crags through the long day, camping out in quaint Berber huts through the short nights, with none but natives and their cattle for society. ♦CHERCHEZ LA FEMME' 7^ And the danger gave it zest, for, in spite of the Sultan's firman, they could only photograph by stealth or inider constant peril of angry and hostile expostulation. About their fifth evening out from Tangier, [in hour before sunset, as they were sitting in the courtyard of a rude native inn at a place called Ain-Essa, where they proposed to pass the night as guests of the village, they were surprised by the approach of a pair of travellers in the costume of the country. One was a handsome young man in an embroidered Moorish jacket and loose white trousers, wearing a fez on his head, around which protruded great flufty masses of luxuriant chestnut hair, reminding one somewhat of the cinque-cento Florentines. Though not more than the middle height, the stranger yet looked tall and well made, and Owen remarked at once with a pro- fessional eye that he had in him the makings of a very tolerable athlete. The other, who 72 UNDER SHALKI) ORUKRS seemed his servant, was an older and heavily-bearded man, clad in the common irreen coat and dirty white turban of the Moorisli ^aoom or stable-boy. The younger traveller of the two jumped from his horse very lit^htly ; he rode well, and s[)rang with ease, like an accomplished gynniast. As he flung his reins to his servant, he said in decent French : * Tiens, take my horse, Ali ; I'll go into the aub(ii(j(\ and see if they can give us acconnnodation this evening.' The sound of a Euro})ean tongue in that remote mountain village took Mr. Hayward aback. He rose from the divan where he sat, and, lifting his hat to the young man, crossed over to the servant, while the new- comer, with easy assurance, strolled into the front-room of the native inn. ' Monsieur est Fran9ais ?' he asked the man who had been addressed as Ali. The Arab shook his head. •CHERCHKZ LA FEMME' 73 ' Non, An^^ljiise,' he answered curtly. ' Anglais V Mr. Hay ward corrected, think- ing Ali's command of French didn't extend as far as genders, and that he had sub- stituted the feminine for the masculine in error. But Ali was not to be shaken so lightly from his first true report. ' Non, non,' he repeated, ' Anglaise, vous dis-je ; Anglaise, Anglaise, Anglaise. It's a woman, not a man. It pleases her to ride about through the interior that way.' Owen looked up quite crestfallen. * You don't mean to say she travels alone, without an escort, with nobody to take care of her except you ?' he asked the man in French. The Algerian — for he was one — nodded a quiet assent. • 'Tis mademoiselle's fancy,' he said ; ' she likes to go her own way. And she goes it, I can tell you. Nobody would ever get 74 UNDER SEALED ORDERS mademoiselle to do anything she didn't want to.' Owen gazed appealingly at his guardian. ' This is too bad, Mr. Havward !' he cried. 'AVe've a soldier to protect us, and a girl goes alone. We must dismiss our escort. It's a shame for us to be beaten like that by a woman.' ' You're quite right,' Mr. Hay ward an- swered. 'If she can go alone, why, so can we. I'll dismiss our man to-morrow, and I'm glad you took it so.' In a few minutes more the stranger strolled out casually into the courtyard again. She had a frank, free face, yet not really masculine, when one came to look into it, and the great crop of loose chestnut hair, blowing about it in the breeze, gave it a very marked air of loose grace and care- lessness. ' I beg your pardon,' she said in pure English, her voice betraying at once the 'CHERCHEZ LA FEMME' 75 open secret of her sex, 'but I hear from the man who keeps this place you've got his only two rooms. I'm sorry to interfere with you, but would you mind occupying one together, just this evening, to let me have the other? It's a long pull at this hour of night to Taourist, the next station.' She spoke as calmly and familiarly as if she were in an English hotel, and as if a lady got up in male Arab costume were everywhere a common object of the country. Mr. Hayward glanced at her and smiled, raisincr his hat the while with his usual stately courtesy. 'With pleasure,' he said, motioning her to a seat on the divan by the door. 'If there's anything at all we can do for you we shall be only too happy. You're English, of course, as I gather from your accent.' The problematical young person took a seat on the divan in the shade, and removed her fez for coolness, displaying as she did 76 UNDER SEALED ORDERS SO all the wealth of chestnut hair that had before been but vaguely suspected by the fringe that escaped from it. ' More English than anything else, I suppose/ she said brightly, leaning back as she spoke and loosening her native slippers, * though I haven't a drop of English blood in my body, if it comes to that ; but I'm a British subject, any way, and my native tongue's Englisli. I'm a little bit of every- thing, I believe — except Turk, thank heaven! — but my name's mostly Greek ; it's lone Dracopoli.' ' A very pretty name, too,' Owen put hi, half abashed. ' My friend's is Hayward, and mine's Owen Cazalet.' ' Why, then, you must be Sacha's brother!' Miss Dracopoli cried, enchanted. ' You are ? How delightful ! Sacha and I used to go to the School of Art together. You never heard her speak of me, did you — lone Dracopoli ?' 'CHERCHEZ LA FEMME' 77 ' No, never,' Owen answered. * But she knows so many girls in London, of course,' he added apologetically. 'You don't mean to say you're travelling alone in Morocco like this ? You've come all the way from Tangier with nobody but this servant ?' ' Not from Tangier,' Miss lone answered, enjoying his amazement immensely ; * much further than that. All the way from Oran, in French Algeria. Yes, I've ridden across the mountains on my own hired horse, just with Ali to take care of me. The French people at Oran talked a pack of nonsense about its being impossible for anybody to get along beyond the frontier without an escort. " Very well, then," said I to che sous-prefet or somebody — a fat, smiling old gentleman with a red ribbon in his button-hole and a perfect genius for shrugging his shoulders and saying, " Mais, non, mademoiselle ; im- possible"— "I never care to attempt any- thing myself unless it's impossible. What's 78 UNDER SEALED ORDERS possible's easy. What's impossible's amus- ing." He shruggfid his shoulders again, and said, " Another of these mad English. Thank heaven, if she's killed it'll be beyond tlie frontier." But he let me go, all the same.' And lone smiled, triumphant at the memory of the encounter. ' And you've had no difficulties by the way V Mr. Hay ward asked, astonished. lone threw her head back and showed a very pretty neck. Her face was daintily rounded, and her teeth, when she smiled, were two rows of pure ivory. ' ' Difficulties ?' she echoed. ' Difficulties ? Dear me, yes ; thank goodness I've had nothing but difficulties. Why, what else do you expect ? Where'd be the fun of coming so far and facing so much discomfort, I should like to know, if it were all plain sailing, like a canter across the Brighton downs ? It was the difficulties that drew me, and I've not been disappointed.' 'CHERCHEZ LA FEMME' 79 Owen stared hard at her, and listened with profound interest and admiration. Mr. Hay- ward, gazing alarmed, noted the sparkle in his eye. This was indeed a girl after Owen's own heart, he felt sure. So he registered a solemn resolution in his own mind to find out that night which way Miss Dracopoli was going on the morrow, and to start himself on the opposite one. For there's nothing more likely to turn a man from any fixed resolve in life than that first stumbling-block of our race, from Adam downward— a woman. And Mr. Hayward had far other designs in his head for Owen Cazalet than to let him fall a victim betimes to any lone Dracopoli. CHAPTER YI. A CRITICAL EVENING. They sat there some time and talked, the pretty stranger in the Moorish costume de- taihng to them meanwhile in further outline her chief adventures by the way — how she'd been refused at every native hut in the village here, and made to sleep in the open air, under the fig-trees, there, and turned away alto- gether from whole tribal lands elsewhere. It was a curious eventful tale, and once or twice it grew exciting ; but Miss lone her- self, overflowing with youthful spirits, told it all, from the humorous side, as a capital joke, and now and again made them laugh heartily by the quaint drollness of her comments. A CRITICAL EVENING 8i At the end of it all slie rose, (pilte iiiiabaslied and niitroubhM] by her wide Turkish trousers, and, with an airy wave of* tlie hand, ol)- served : 'I nnist go inside now, and see M'liat our landlord can do for nie in the way of supper. I'm hot and dusty with my ride. 1 nmst liave a u'ood wash. There's nothing; on earth so delicious, after all, when you've got beyond the Southern limit of tubs, as a big bowl of cold water at the end of a, long day's journey.' As soon as she was gone Mr. Hayward looked at Owen. ' Well ?' he said slowly. 'Well?' Owen answered, })erusing his boots. ' What do you think of her (' Mr. Hay- ward asked, trembling. ' She's certainly pretty,' Owen adnn'tted, hot and red. And neither said a word more. But Mr. VOL. I. 6 83 UNDKK SKAI.KI) ()KI)1:RS HavANiird felt an unwonted thrill of pre- monitory discoinfiture. Half an hour later, Tone enieri;ed again. She had taken off lier emhroidered jacket meanwhile, and now displayed underneatii it a sort of loose white shirt, of some soft silky material, which mive her a more feminine air, and showed off to greater advantage that full, smooth, snowy neck of hers. Her short but flowing hair rippled gracefully round her tenn)les. She came out to them, trilling to herself a few bars of a joyous French song, ' C'est ya-tarra-larra.' ' Well, this is better,' she cried, looking aronnd at the pink glow of the Southern sun- set on the bare wliitewashed walls, and shaklnu" her locks free from her forehead on the faint mountain breeze. ' I'm cool again now. They'll give us something to eat out here before long, I supj^ose. Better here than in that stuffy little living-room inside. I'm not particular as to furniture, or A CRITICAL EVENING 83 food either, tluink ooodness ! but fVesli air seems to come rather expensive in Morocco.' She was like fresli ;iir lier self, Owen felt instinctively. Something so open and breezy about her fuce, her voice, her walk, her manner. The ideal of young Hellas come to life again by a miracle in our workaday, modern, iiuhistrial world. She looked as if no taint of this sordid civilization of ours had ever stained or sullied her Greek Naiad nature. ' I've asked tliem to serve us what they can m the open court,' Mr. Hayward said dubiously. ' You're used to their fare by this time, no doubt, so I won't apologize for it.' ' I should think so !' the girl answered, pulling her shirt loose as she spoke, witli another sunny smile. ' Very good fare, too, in its way, though not luxurious : dried figs and milk, and olive-oil, and cous-cous. It's such a comfort to feel one's left fish-knives e 84 UXDEK SKA LEI) ORDERS and doilies jilto^ctlicr lu'liind one, and that there isn't n paii- of asparayus-toni^s any- where nearei- than ( )ran.' ' IVrhaps,' Owen hegan, rising from his seat, and looking' timidly towni'ds Mr. Hay- ward, 'Miss Dracopoli wonld pivfei- ' ' I heg your pardon,' their new acquaint- ance [)ut in (juickly, interrupting him, ' I'm not Miss Dracopoli. I object to tl ese meaning- less pure courtesy titles. My name's lone.' ' But I can't say lone to a lady I never met in my life before to-night,' Owen responded, almost blushing. ' Why not V the pretty stranger answered, with most engaging frankness, * especijdly as you'll most likely never see me again in your life, after to-morrow.' Mr. Hayward looked up sharply. He was glad to hear that welcome suggestion. But Owen only bowed, and received the hint in regretful silence. ' Well, if I were a man, you see,' lone went A CKITICAL KVKNIXri 85 oil, composini;' herself il1a>' ; but I was brought up on them, and I liked them.' ' And then you sj)eak Arabic so well,' Owen went on enthusiastically. ' That's the Greek in you again, I suppose ? Can you S})eak many languages ? Most Eastern Euro})eans have such a natural taste for them.' ' Oh yes, pretty well,' lone replied, with the careless air of a person who describes some unimportant accomplishment. ' English, and French, and German, of course ; those come by nature — one hears everybody speak- ing them ; and then modern Greek — papa's business friends always spoke that in the house, and we picked it up unconsciously ; A CRITICAL l':VENING 89 and ancient Greek — papa liked us to know enough, you see, to read the New Testament and follow the service at church. Papa was orthodox, of coiu'se, and we went to Peters- hurg Place ; and it was such fun to spell out Herodotus and Aristophanes and rEschylus. Men tliink you're clever; tliough, when you speak modern Greek fluently, you know, it isn't the least bit liard to pick out the sense of Thucydides and Plato ; but I'm not learned, you must understand. I've only skimmed them through, just as Pd skim Shakespeare, or a French novel, or Dante's Inferno.' And she helped lierself to some curds with her fingers daintily. ' Then you know Italian, too ?' Owen inter- posed, still more open-mouthed. ' To read, not to talk — that is to say, not well. But I'd soon joick it uj) if I was a week in the country. That's how I speak Arabic, as she is spoke, you know — no better. I took lessons for a fortnio^ht at Oran before I started 90 UXDHR SEALED ORDERS from such ii funny old Moor, with a French wife and three native ones ; they boarded me in the liarem, and we jib-jabbered to- gether from morning to niglit, and I get along splendidly now. So would you if you took the trouble, and if you've a turn for lano'uages.' ' I have,' Owen [inswered modestly. ' 1 suppose that runs always with East European blood.' He paused and faltered, for, in the midst of the amines conversation, Mr. Hay ward's keen eyes liad darted a warning glance at him. Then he went on more quickly, as if to cover the slip : 'Your Other's dead, I gather, from what you say ; but have you a mother living ?' ' Oh dear, yes,' lone replied frankly, with- out a shade of false reserve. ' A dear old duck of a mother. She's Norse, my mother is, but orthodox — Greek Church, I mean, you know. Papa married her at Bergen, when A CRITICAL EVENING 91 he was there in business, and she was received into the Church in London, after he was made a partner. That's why, though I'm practically English, I haven't a drop of English blood in my veins — thank Heaven ! for 1 prefer to be oritrinal. I'm a cross between Nora Helmer and the Athenian of the age of Pericles, Sacha always tells me ; and I'm proud of the mixtuie. Stay-at-home English people are so conven- tional — too Philistine, too afraid to trust their own winp's. Pm not like that. Pm wild on freedom.' And she shook her straggling locks again, standing out wavily on all sides, and let her full white shirt purse itself out as it would over her uncorseted bosom. ' So I should think,' Owen answered, with a slight twinkle in his eye, though he ad- mired her boldness immensely. ' But does your mother ' — ' know you're out,' he was half tempted to add, though he restrained himself with an effort, and finished the sentence — 92 UNDER SEALED ORDERS ' aj)pr()ve of your coining away all alone l)y yourself like this to Morocco?' Tone drew in lier rich red lips with ex- pression, and wi])ed them internally — since the feast knew no naj)kins. ' I'm an Individualist,' she said hriskly ; ' above everything, an Individualist. I believe — it's a simple creed — in personal freedom, and I'm luckv in liavinijf a mother who's an Individualist too, and who shares my con- fession of faith. When I was coming here, I said to her, " Well, I'm going to Morocco." ''■ All right, dear," she said ; " alone ?" " Yes, alone, mother." " How '11 you travel — on foot ?" '' No ; if possible, on horseback." "When do you start ?" " To-morrow." "Very well, dear ; take care of yourself" There's a mother for you, if you like. I think I've reason to be proud of her. I'm not conceited, I hope, but I flatter myself I've brought up my mother splendidly.' Mr. Hayward, glancing sideways, would A CRITICAJ. EVKNINC; 93 have given ;iiiyt]iiiiii shot she nodded gcjod-uight to them both, and tripped uracefully away into the narrow doorway of the sleeping- room. Before they retired for the night to roll themselves u]) in their own rugs (jn the smooth, mud -paved floor, Mr. Hay ward whispered ^br a moment in a low voice to Owen. ' My boy,' he said, not angrily, but like one grieved and surprised, laying his hand on the young man's shoulder with that kindly paternal air of his, ' what a terrible slip about your East European blood ! It took my breath away to hear you. How on earth did you ever come to do it V ' I'm sure I don't know,' Owen answered, abashed and penitent. ' It slipped from me unawares. I suppose I was off my guard, hand, they say — not the bulk of the document. Only the signature's his ; the rest's type-written, or copied by an amanuen- sis, or dictated, or in cipher. His sub- ordinates have nothing to go upon but those two mysterious words, " Ruric BrassofF," at the bottom of an order. But they obey it as implicitly as if It fell upon them from heaven. Most of them have never set eyes upon the man himself in their lives at all ; nobody on earth has set eyes upon him for ten years past ; yet there he is still, wrapped in the clouds as it were, but pulling all the strings just as clearly as ever. It's a most mysterious case. Though, after all, as a diplomat, one can hardly help admiring him.' General Selistoft* looked up sharply at her in a surprised sort of way. Born bureaucrat that he was, he couldn't understand how FAMILY BUSINESS i43 anyone could admire even the cleverest and most audacious of rebels. ' Well, that's a matter of opinion,' he said slowly, pressing his thumb very tight on the edge of his desk. ' For my part, if I'd Euric Brassoff's neck under here this minute ' The thumb was raised for one second and then squeezed down again significantly. General SelistoflP paused once more. His eyes looked away into the abysses of space. ' Ruric Brassoif,' he repeated slowly, ' Ruric Brassoflf, Ruric Brassoff. If only we could catch that one shigle man, we wouldn't take long to crush out the whole infernal conspiracy.' ' You think so V Madame inquired, looking up. ' He's its head; the bureaucrat answered impatiently. ' No organization on earth can possibly go on when it's head's cut off.' And he had had experience, too, in the results of decapitation. 144 UNDER SEALED ORDERS ' We L^ot on somehow after our late beloved Czar was murdered by these wretches,' Madame put in, very gravely. The General sat up stiff. He didn't like this turn. 'Twas beneath him to bandy words and aro-uments with a woman. ' Well, you'll not relax your efforts, at any rate,' he said, more coldly, ' to gel some clue to Prince Iluric Brassoff's whereabouts. Ke- member, five hundred thousand roubles and the title of Princess. Ceaseless vigilance is our only resource. Leave no stone imturned. Under one or other of them, we know, must lurk the scorpion that bit us.' ' True,' Madame answered, relapsing into pure submissiveness, for she saw it was wisest. ' And there's one other point I want to suggest to you,' the General went on, some- what mollified. ' A very painful point ; but I must bring myself to speak of it. I've often thought of mentioning it to you, dear y FAMILY BUSINESS M5 Madame, before, and when it came to the point I've always been naturally reluctant.' He dropped his voice suddenly. 'You'll understand why,' he went on, ' when I tell you it relates to my unhappy and misguided brother, Sergius Selistoff.' Madame Miretf bowed her head with a sympathetic inclination. She let a rhetorical pause of some seconds elapse l)efore she answered tlie General, whose own eyes fell abashed, as is natural when one mentions some disgraceful episode in one's fannly history. Then she murnmred in a lower key: ' I understand perfectly. 1 never expected to hear that name mentioned in this room au-ain, and unless you had brought it uj) yourself, you can readily believe. Excellency, I wouldn't have dared to allude to it.' ' No, no,' the General continued, forcing himself to speak with difficulty. 'But I'm anxious to find out something about his VOL. I. 10 146 UNDER SEALED ORDERS family and nfVairs, and you're the only person on earth, dear Madanie, to whose hands I i could endure to confide the inciuh-y. To no one else but yourself could I brino- myself to speak about it. Sergius had a boy, you know — in fact, two children, a boy and a girl. Before he was sent to Siberia, after his treachery became known,' and the old bureaucrat spoke like one weighed down with sliame, ' those children were spirited away somehow out of the country. You know their history, I suppose ? You know the circumstances of that unfortunate mar- 0' riage ': ' Not in full,' Madame answered, all re- spectful sympathy. 'And when one's en- o-ao-ed on a matter of the kind it's best, of course, to know all. I've only heard that Sergius Selistoff married an English- woman.' The General bowed his head once more. ' Yes, an Englishwoman,' he answered. FAMILY BUSINESS i47 'But that's not all. A public sinorer at Vienna, wlio, as we have reason to believe, for her family's sake sang under an assumed name, and whose relations in England we've never been able to trace since Sergius . . . went to the fate reserved for traitors. (Jn the morning when the administrative order was issued from this office for my brother's arrest— I signed it myself— Madame Selistolf and the children disappeared from Petersburg as if by magic. My sister-in-law, as you must have heard, was discovered, raving mad, a few weeks later, in the streets of Wilna, though how or why she got there nobody ever knew, and from that day till her death, some seven months afterwards, she did nothing but cry that her children at least must be saved ; her children at least must get away safe from that awful place to Eng- land.' The old man stroked his moustache. ' It was terrible,' he said slowly—' terrible ,48 UNDER SEALED ORDERS what suffering Sergius brouolit upon us all, and on that unhappy woman !' 'It was terrible indeed,' Madame Miretf answered with a look of genuine liorror. ' Well, what I want just now,' tlie General continued, rising up in all the height of his great Russian figure, and going to a little cui)l)oar(l, from which he brought forth a small bundle of brown and dusty pai)ers— ' what I want just now is that you should find out for me in England whether tliose children are there still, and in wliose keep- mg. ' Perfectly ,' Madame answered. ' You wish , perhaps, to be of service to the boy-— to brin<»- your brother's son back to llussia again, give him the rank of a Selistoff, and make him a loyal subject of our beloved Emperor.' The old man brought his fist down on his desk with a resounding blow. ' No, no r he cried fiercely, his face lighting FAMILY BUSINESS 149 up witli liidigimtion. ' Ten thousand times no ! I renounce Sergius SelistoflP and all his works for ever. . . . The boy's no nephew of mine — no true-born Selistofi' — an English half-breed by a rebel father. I'd send him to the mines, as I sent my brother before him, if only I could catch him. As Sergius died, so his son should die in turn. ... A Selistoff, did you say ? Our blood disowns the whole brood of the traitor.' ' I see,' Madame answered, with true Russian impassiveness. Not a muscle of her face moved. Not a quiver passed over her. Only the long, black lashes drooped above the great childlike eyes. ' And you want me to find out where they're living now ? Well, if anybody in England can track them, I can promise it will be I. Names, ages, and de- scriptions — I see you have them there all pat in your dossier.' The General undid the bundle with an un- wonted trembling in those iron fingers. Then 150 UNDER SKAI-KI) OKDKKS he stretched out the })apei's before Madiime Mireff's keen eyes. ' Alexiuuhii, aoed four at the time of her flight, would now be twenty-five, or there- abouts,' he said, cjuiverinu-. ' Sergius, a baby in arms, would be between twenty and twenty-one. Here, you see, are their de- scriptions and such details as we could recover of the mother's family. But it was a mesalliance, you must understand, for a Russian nobleman — a complete niesalliance. She gave her name at the ceremony as Aurora Montmorency, but we believe it to have been lalse, and we don't know the real one. Your business will be only to hunt up these people ; mine, to crush them, when found, as one would crush beneath one's heel a brood of young vipers.' ' Perfectly,' Madame answered, with a charming smile. ' I understand my mission, Excellency. I will obey your instructions.' CHAPTER X. AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER. And wliile in St. Petersburg, General Selis- toff was uttering those words to his trusted associate, on the mountain path near Bern- Mengella, in Morocco, Mr. Hayward was ex- claiming enthusiastically to Owen Cazalet : ' It's a glorious w^ork, my boy, and it's laid upon you in due course by your glorious in- heritance.' ' And yet,' Owen murmured, musing, ' it's a terrible one, too, when one comes to think of it.' Mr. Hayward eyed him hard with a quick, half-startled air. ' Yes, terrible, certainly,' he answered, with 152 UNDKK seaij:i) okdkks the raj)t air of a j)ro|)lit't, ' l)iit iiu'\ital)l<', for all that -a stt.'rn duty Imposi'd upon you by your hirtli and training'. ( 'onsidcr, Owen, jiot only that unha[)])y country, a brute bulk, bearing-, lialf loath, upon hor myriad siiouldcrs the burden of one miserable horror-haunted man the most wretched of mankind- but your own ])art in it as well, your own callini;' and election to avenm' aud assist her. lie- mtMiiber vour father, sent to sicken and die by inches in a Siberian mine ; remember your mother, (biveu mad in the streets of Wiliia in her frantic endeavours to carry you and her daughter in safety beyond the Russian frontier. All these things the Ilonianofis have done to you and yours in your very own household. What justice can there be for them except in the angry vengeance of their outraged serfs ? On you falls that honoui'. You are summoned to this great woi'k. You should accept it Avith pride, with gratitude, with aspiration.' AN UNi:\PRCTi:i) i:XCOUNTEK 153 'So I do,' <>NV<^i» answered, 51 ieelini'- of slmine breaking over him like a wave at even so tiansieiit aii (^v^pj-essioii of doubt and hesitancy. 'Trust me, Mr. Hayward, L will be ready wljen the time comes. Don't fear for my lid.'lity. 1 won't fail you in the strui;'<;'le.' And, indeed, that manly young English- man, for such in all essentials he was, really meant it and felt it. Not for nothing had Mr. Hayward taken charge of his youth, and slowly, l)y tentative degrees, as he found his pupil's mind ripe for change, instilled int(» him all the principles of the fiercest Ilussian Nihilism. Everything had worked with that cheery, vigorous, enthusiastic English lad m the direction of accepting the faith thus forced upon him. His reverence for Mr. Hayward, at once the gentlest and most powerful mind he had ever known ; his horror at the fiite of his own father and mother ; his native love of freedom, of indi- 154 UxNDEK SEALED ORDERS vidiuility, of adventure ; his sterling English honesty of purpose ; his inherited Russian fatalistic tendency— all led him alike to em- brace with fervour the strange career Mr. Hayward sketched out for his future. Nihi- lism had become to him a veritable religion. He had grown up to it from his cradle ; he had heard of it only from the lips of its ad- herents ; he had been taught to regard it as the one remaining resource of an innocent people ground down to the very earth by an intolerable tyranny. So it came to pass that Owen Cazalet, who, from one i)oint of view, as his friends and companions saw him at Moor Hill, was nothing more than a strong and pleasing athletic young Englishman, was, from another point of view, by Mr. Hayward's side, a convinced and unflhiching Russian Nihilist. All day they rode on across the volcanic hills; towards evening they reached the dubious village of Beni-Mengella, whose in- 'I AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER i55 habitants even their tolerant Moorisli ser- vant had described to them as very devout and fanatical Mohammedans. At the out- skirts of the hamlet three Berbers, clad each in a single loose white robe, not nmcli difter- ino- from a nightshirt, met them full in the path. ' Peace be with you,' Mr. Hayward cried out, accosting them in the usual Moslem formula. ' Peace be with all true believers,' the men answered in a surly tone. The alteration was significant. It meant that even the protection of the Serene She- reefian Umbrella didn't entitle such open rebels against the will of Allah to peace in that village. ' This is ominous,' Mr. Hayward muttered quietly to Owen. 'We may have trouble here. These men refuse to give us peace as we pass. That always means in Islam more or less chance of danger.' 1 156 UNDER SEALED ORDERS 'So much the better,' Owen tliought to himself, reddening visibly with excitement. They rode on in silence up to the amine' s house. A handsome young Moor, in an em- broidered jacket, lounged in a graceful atti- tude against the richly-carved doorpost. He started as tliey ai)proached, and then burst into a merry laugh. But — the laugh was lone's 1 ' Well, this is odd,' the stranger cried aloud in Englisli, in a very feminine voice. ' You said you were going to Ouarzin. You changed your minds suddenly. What on earth brought you on here V ' Well — yes ; we changed our minds,' Mr. Hayward answered, with a slight stammer, looking decidedly sheepish ; ' we altered our route when we reached the fork in the roads. We heard . . . this village was more likely to afford us something really good in the way of adventure. But you? we've fair reason to question you as well. Didn't you AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER 157 tell us this morning you meant to sleep at Taoui'ist V I0116 laughed once more that merry nuisical laugh of hers, and tossed her fluffy hair off* lier ears at the same time with an easy move- ment of her head. ' What fun !' she cried, delighted at the absurd contrctcinps, in spite of herself. ' Why, I came here, if you must know, on purpose to avoid you. Not out of rudeness, you understand ; if it were in England, now% I'd have been most pleased to accept your kind companionship. But, you see, I've come out here all this way to do this journey alone; the whole point of it naturally con- sists in my ridhig through Morocco by my- self in native clothes, and perhaps getting killed on the way— which would be awfully romantic. So, of course, if I'd allowed you to come on with me, or to follow me up, it'd have spoilt the game ; there'd have been no riding alone; it'd have been a persomdly Is 158 UNDER SEALED ORDERS conducted tour, just the same as the Cookies. Well, that made me turn otf at a tangent to i Beni-Mengella, for I thouglit perhaps you two men might he afraid to let me go on by myself, or might go ahead to Taourist on purpose to make sure I got into no trouble. And that, you must see for yourselves, would have put an end at once to my independence. The value of this experiment consists entirely in my going through Morocco alone on my own hired horse, and comino- out alive and unhurt at the other end of it.' Mr. Hayward gazed at her with a some- what comical ruefulness. ' It is unfortunate,' he said slowly. ' But we must put up with it now. I'm sorry we've incommoded you. It's too late to go anywhere else at this hour, I'm afraid, even if there were anywhere else in the neighbour- hood to go to.' ' Oh, well, now you're here,' lone answered AN UNFA'PECTEl) ENCOUNTER 159 with o-ood-lminoured condescension, ' you may as well stay, fbi-, after all, ANe had a very jolly evening together yesterday at Ain-Essa, hadn't we? Besides, you know, it's lucky for you in some ways I'm here ; for I can tell you these are just ahout the liveliest and most ac»"t'Tessive Mohammedans I've met anv- where yet ; they're war to the knife on in- fidels, and if you'd come among them alone — without a lady to protect you, I mean — I helieve they'd have nmrdered you as soon as look at vou. One or two of them seemed half hiclined at first to doubt about the i)ro- priety of murdering even ^nc ; but they've got over that now ; I've made things all square wdth them, I've repeated enough verses from tlie Koran to satisfy the amine himself as to my perfect orthodoxy ; and I've Mash-Allah'd till I'm hoarse at every man, woman, and child in the village. Besides, I've made up to the mollah of the mosque. If I say to him, " These are friends of mine," i6o UNDER SEALED ORDERS not a soul ill the place will dare to touch you; As for Owen, in spite of Mr. Hayward's warnin<,^s, he didn't pretend to conceal from himself the obvious iact that he was very ulad indeed to come again upon lone. Not wholly from the point of view of personal liking, either— he had a better reason than that, a more serious reason. It was a point of honour. Tlieir last few words together at Ain-Essa, where tliey had spent the pre- vious niglit, had left an abiding sense of terror on his inmost soul. Nobody but lone Dracopoli had ever suggested in his hearing the latal idea that Mr. Hayward was a Russian. And he hadn't had time to im- press upon her in full (before lie left) the profound necessity of keeping that idea a secret. All day long his conscience had been pricking him for that unwilling disclosure. Had he assented too openly? Had he be- trayed Mr. Hayward's trust by too easy an AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER i6i acquiescence? He'd been longing every hour of that tedious march for the chance of see- ing lono alone once more, to beg her to keep silence; and now that chance had come he was profoundly grateful for it. To him the suspense had in many ways been a terrible one. He had never had a secret from Mr. Hay- ward in his life before. That feeling of itself gave him a sense of guilt. But he couldn't pluck up courage to make a clean breast of it, either. Mr. Hayward would think he might have parried the thrust better. To say the truth, he was ashamed to let his guardian see the painful fact that a girl had got the best of him in a very brief encounter. Mr. Hayward strolled into the guest-house to arrange about accommodation. While he was gone Owen was left alone at the door for one minute with lone. There was no time to be lost. He must seize the oppor- VOL. I. ^^ 1 02 UNDER SEALED ORDERS tunlty. Such a chance to spt^ak might not occur again. Mustering up all liis courage suddenly (for he was a l)ashful young man), he turned to her at once, and said, in a very earnest tone : * Miss Dracopoli, I thank heaven I've met you again. 1 wanted — I needed — I required one word more witli you. 1 daren't tell you wliy. To do that would he a crime. But 1 want you to promise me as faithfully as you can you'll never mention to anyhody your suspicion that Mr. Hay ward's a Russian. It miirht he death to him if it were known, and death to me, too. I've no time to explain more. He mustn't come out and see me talking to you so. But, for heaven's sake, I beg of you, promise me — do promise me you'll never mention the matter as long as you live to anyone.' He spoke with concentrated earnestness, like one who really means most profoundly what he says. lone glanced at him for a AN UNEXPKCTF,!) ENCOUNTER 163 minute, lialf in doubt, half in amusenient, with those big", laughing- eyes of hers. She didn't quite know whether to take it as a very good joke or not. Most things in life were very good jokes to lone. Then she sobered down suddenly. < Why--this— is— Nihilism,' she said, word by word, in a very surprised voice. ' No wonder you're alarmed. Yes, this is— just— Nihilism. But you needn't be afraid, Owen Cazalet. 1 give you my promise. I'll never say a word of it as long as I live to any- one. ' She spoke now as seriously as he had spoken himself. She said it, and she meant it. In a moment the laughing girl saw the full magnitude of the issue at stake, and for once was sobered. Owen glanced at her timidly, and their eyes met again. ' Thank you,' he said, very low in a very timid voice. 'Ten thousand times, thank you.' i64 UNDKR SEALED ORDERS * But what's his Kussijin name V lonO asked after a brief pause, half coaxingly, and with true feminine curiosity. * You might tell me that, now. You've as good as admitted it.' * Ah, but I don't know it !' Owen answered very earnestly, without one second's hesita- tion. * I haven't heard it myself He's never once told me.' His voice had a ring of truth in it. lone felt sure from its tone he meant just what he said. She gazed at him curiously once more. ' Never a word of it to anyone,' she re- peated, with solemn assurance, wringing his hand in her own. ' I'll cut my tongue out first, for I see you mean it.' At that moment, as she spoke, Mr. Hay- ward's face loomed up at the far end of the passage from the courtyard inside. lond saw it and was wise. She let Owen's hand drop suddenly. AN UNEXPKCTKI) KNCOUNTKK 1O5 ' And such a funny old Moor with a green turban on Ins hoad,' she went on quite loud, in her gayest and most natural voice, as if continuing a conversation on some perfectly hanal point, 'you never saw in your life. He was fat and dark, and had a mole oil his forehead, and he called Allah to witness at every second word he was letting me have that horse dirt cheap for my beautiful eyes, at rather less than half its value.' ' They're dreadful old cheats,' Owen echoed in the same voice ; but lie felt, all the same, most horribly ashamed of himself These petty social deceits sit much heavier on us men than on the lips of women, where they spring spontaneous. And it cut him to the heart to think he was employing such mean feminine wiles-against Mr. Hayward. After that night, he thought to himself bitterly, he'd take very good care never to meet lone Dracopoli anywhere again. Though, to be sure, she was the nicest girl i66 UNDER SEALED ORDERS he'd ever met in his life, and the fVeeKt in the true sense of all h«^ suhnired in freedom. But still — the cause ! the caus(^ ! — for the Bake of the cause he'd avoid her like poison. She was a dani^erous woman. More dangerous even than he knew ; for of all possihle links to hind a man and a woman together for life, almost in sj)ite of themselves, commend me to a secret shared in common. (JHAPTEU XI. MAN niorosEs. That nit^^lit at Beiii-Mengella was Owen's last meeting with l(>n6 Dracopoli in Morocco, and he enjoyed it innnensely. All through the evening, indeed, lone was as gay, as conmuniicative, as frankly confidential, as she had been at Ain-Essa ; Owen even fancied she was possibly pleased to meet him again ; but if so, it was a pleasure she didn't desire to let pall by too freipent repetition, for next morning, after their native breakfast of fried cakes and cous- cous, lone turned one merry forefinger up- lifted to Mr. Hayward. 'Now, mind; she said imperiously, 'this 1 68 UNDER SEALED ORDERS time, no reconsiderations. First thoughts are best. Tell me your tour, and I'll tell you mine. Let's hold by them rigidly. You stick to yo\u's, and I'll stick to my own ; then we won't go running up against one another, head foremost, like the people in. a farcv^ — exit Mr. Hay ward and Owen Cazalet left, enter lono Dracopoli, Il.U.E., and all that sort of thing. I want to be able to say I rode through Morocco alone " from kiver to kiver." I've almost done it now. Five or six evenings will bring me down to Mogador. Look here : this is my route as far as one can trace it, where there are no proper maj)S.' And she un- folded Joseph Thomson's rough chart of the Atlas range before him, and indicated, as far as possible, with one plump, white finger, the general idea of her future stop- ping-places. Mr. Haywarti acquiesced, and took the opposite direction. For his own part, if MAN PROPOSES 169 lone were anxious to avoid hin\, lie was ten times more anxious to avoid lone. Of the two tours, therefore, the indepen- dent young- lady's was finished first. Mr. Hayward and ( )wen were still riding slowly up steep mule-paths of the mountains in the interior long after Ion6 had changed her Turkish trousers and her embroidered Moorish jacket for the tailor-made robe of Regent Street and Piccadilly. As to Owen's later feats in the Atlas, I shall say no more of them here. The untrodden peaks that he climbed, the steep clifis that he scaled, the strange insects he discovered, the rare plants he brought home— how he withstood the natives at the shi'ine of Sidi Salah of the High Peak— how he insisted on photo- graphing the Mosque of Abd-er-Rahman, with the Two Tombs in the chief seat of Moslem fanaticism in the far interior— are they not all written with appropriate photogravures in Haywards ' Mountaineering in Southern 170 UNDER SEALED ORDERS Morocco ' ? Who lists may read them there. For the purposes of this present history they have lio further importance ; enough to say that at the end of two weeks Owen Cazalet returned by the Cunard steamer to London, a travelled man, and an authority on the vexed points of Atlantic topography. Immediately on liis return, Sacha met him at Euston with important news. A domestic revolution had occurred at Moor Hill durinof his short absence. Sacha met him at once with uinisual excitement for that placid nature. ' You mustn't go down to auntie's to- night,' she said, as soon as he stepped on to the platform ; ' you must come to }ny lodgings and sleep. I want to have a good long talk with you as soon as possible, Owen ; I've such lots of things to tell you.' ' Your lodgings !' Owen cried, astonished. ' You're in rooms up in town, then ? Why, how's that, Sach.t ?' MAN PROPOSES i?! •Oh, it's a long story to tell,' Saclia answered, somewhat flushed herself out of her wonted composure. ' You see, you're six weeks in arrears. We haven't been able to write to you. And ever so many (lueer things have happened in England meanwhile. In the first place— that's the beginning of it all—I've sold my Academy picture.' 'You don't mean to say so!' Owen ex- claimed, overjoyed. ' But not at your own price, surely, Sacha. You know you told us it was quite prohibitive yourself. You put it so high just for the dignity of art, you said.' Sacha's not unbecoming blush mantled deeper Avith conscious success. 'Well not exactly that,' she answered. 'I knew the price was prohibitive— or, at least, I believed so ; but I reckoned its value in accordance with what anybody was likely to crive for it. It was icorfh a hundred and flfty, so I asked a hundred and fifty for it. And a great Manchester buyer snapped it up 172 UNDER SEALED ORDERS like a shot, payln^- the price down without a word ; and he told me afterwards he'd got it on the advice of a famous critic — he wouldn't say who, hut I think I know — and that if I'd asked for two hundred I should have had it.' ' You don't mean to say so !' Owen cried, pleased and proud. 'Well, that's splendid news ! Tliough you deserve it, Sacha, you know ; I'm sure you deserve it. I've always said myself you'd be a very great artist one of these days — a very, very great artist — like Madame Lebrun or Ilosa Bonheur.' Sacha smiled demurely. It was no small joy to her to get such praise from Owen, for she believed in her brother. ' Well, then, dear,' she went on, ' you see, ' that made me a rich woman outright all at once, for he gave me a cheque for the whole of the money in a lump — a hundred and fifty pounds at a single go, and all earned by mvself, too. Isn't it just delightful ? Is this MAN PROPOSES '73 your bag ? Then put it in a hansom and come with me to my rooms. I'm in lodgings close by, while we look after the papering and furnishing in Victoria Street.' 'The whatf Owen cried, throwing his portmanteau in front as if it weighed a pound or two, and taking his seat by her side, bewildered and astonished. ' Oh, I forgot ; that's part of the history,' Sacha answered, running on. 'Why, the foct of it is, Owen, being a rich woman now, I've left Moor Hill for good, and Aunt Julia too, and determined to come and live in town on my own scale in future.' 'And give up the studio!' Owen cried regretfully. ' Oh, I shall have a studio in our flat, of course,' Sacha replied, with a slight sigh. ' Though, naturally, it was a wrench— I don't deny it— to give up the dear old five-cornered nook at the Bed Cottage. But I felt it was necessary. For a long time I have realized 174 UNIJER SEAJ.El) OKDKKS the fact that it was artistic stao^natlon to live down where we did — in the depths of Surrey. In art, you know, Owen, one wants constant encouraireinent, stiniuhition, criticism. One ought to he dropping perpetually into other men's rooms ' — Saclia said it as naturally as if she were a man herself — ' to see how they're getting on, how tliey're developing their ideas, and whether tliey're improving them or spoiling them in the course of the painting. One ought to have other men dropping })erpetually into one's own rooms to look on in return, and praising one or slang- ing one as the case demands, or, at any rate, observing, discussing, suggesting, modifying. I felt 1 was making no progress at all in my art at Moor Hill. 1 stuck just where I'd got to when I left Paris. So, when this great stroke of luck came, I said to myself at once, " Now I'm a painter launched. I shall be rich in future. I must do justice to my art, and live in the very thick of the artistic MAX PROPOSES 175 woild 1 must move in the swim. 1 must tro up to London." And that's how we decided ontiiis Hat in Victoria Street, which we're now engaged in furnishing and de- corating.' ' But what does Aunt Juha say ^' Owen exclaimed, a little taken ahack hy so much unexpected precipitancy. Sacha suppressed a slight smile. ' Dear old Aunt Julia !' she said, with a taint undercurrent of amusement in her earnest voice. ' Well, you know just what she'd say, Owen! Aunt Julia can never understand us modern girls. She thinks the world's turned topsy-turvy in a lump, and that everything w^omanly's gone and vanished clean out of it. She puts it all down, thou<4i, to dear mother's blood. Aurora, she says, was always flighty. And no doubt she's right, too, in her way. It's from mother, I expect, Owen, that I inherit the artistic tendency and many other things in 176 UNDKR SEALED ORDERS my nature. In lier It cmne out In the form of music ; in me it comes out in the form of painting. But it's the same impulse at bottom, you know, whichever turn it takes. There's nothing of the sort about Aunt JuHa, certainly.' ' They must have been singularly different in type, no doubt,' Owen mused, with a sigh. ' Of course I can't remember poor mother myself, Sacha ; but from all you've told me, all I've heard from Mr. Hayward, she must have been the opposite pole from poor dear Aunt Julia.' ' Well, they were only half-sisters, you see,' Sacha answered in an apologetic tone. ' And I fancy ou7' grandmother must have been a very different person indeed from the first Mrs. Cazalet. Certainly, you can't imagine Aunt Julia going off on her own account as a public singer to Berlin and Vienna, or marry- ing a Russian like poor father, or trying to escape with us under a feigned name, or, in MAN PROPOSES 177 fact, doing iiiiytliiiig else that wasn't [)ei'- fcctly British and ordinary and commonplace and uninteresting.' ' Aunt .Juha was ))(>rn to be a decorous Knglish old maid,' Owen interposed, laughing. ' She'd have missed her vocation in life if any body 'd ha])})ened to propose to her and married her.' ' Yes, and when she heard we were iroiuir to take a flat in town totifether — three i^'irls alone — and have latchkeys of our own and nobody to chaperon us — why, 1 thought, poor dear thing I she'd have fainted on the spot. But what horrified her most was our grandest idea of all — -that we're to be inde- pendent and self-supporting — self-sufficient, In fact, or at least self-sufficing. We mean to do our own work and to keep no ser- vants.' ' That's good !' Owen exclaimed, seized at once with the idea, in the true vein of tbe family. ' That's splendid, I declare ! 80 VOL. I. 12 178 UNDER SKALKh DKDKRS ndvanot'cl ! so SooiMllstic ! Only 1 s;iy, SjicIiji, you'll wjiiit soineoiic to do tlit' heavy work of the house. I expect I'll have to come up to town ns well niid live with you as hall- port(M*.' * L don't think so,' Sacha answered, oa/Jn^' admiringly as always at that fresh strong- frame of his. ' I'm pretty ahle-hodicd myself, you know ; the Selistotfs were always a race of giants, Mr. Haywai'd says; and though Blackbird's a tiny feeble wee thing — you've heard me speak of I^lackhird— Hope Braith- waite, you know, that })oor little girl with a soul and no body who composes sucli sweet songs — thougli Blackbird's not up to much, lone Dracopoli's (piite strong enough, I'm sure, to do the W(n'k of a household.' ' lonr Dracopoli !' Owen ci'ied, in an ahnost ironical agony of mingled surprise and despair. ' You don't mean to say lone Dracopoli's going to live with you ?' ' Oh, didn't I tell you that at first V Sacha MAN PROPOSES 179 excLiinu'd, suddenly ivnicinbcrliio' liersclf. ' I supj)ose, havlni; lieiird from hvv a lively aoeount of liow she met yon In lier Turkish costume on top of some hi_i;h mouiitaiii lu Morocco sonunvhere. 1 forgot you hadn't learned all about it from herself already. She was ;uished con- sideration. ' What a shame, Sacha !' a full rich voice broke out from the depths of the chair, where Owen at lirst hadn't iioticed anybody sitting ; ' fancy introducing one that way ! This is your brother, T suppose ? But please don't let him think my name's really Black- bird.' Owen peered into the long chair whence the voice proceeded, and saw a frail little woman stretched out in it lazily — a frail little woman who ouo'ht to have been eighteen, to judge by her development, but who, as Sacha had already informed him, was really twenty-seven. She was tiny, like a doll — not short, but small and dainty ; and as she lounged there at full length with two THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 199 pallid liaiuls clasped loose behind lier shapely head, and neck thrown back carelessly, she looked too fragile for this earth— a mere deli- cate piece of semi-transparent Dresden china. Blackbird was dark and large-eyed ; her eyes, indeed, though by no means too prominent, seemed somehow her most distinct and salient featm-e. Such eyes Owen had never seen in his life before. They were black and lustrous, and liquid like a gazelle's ; and; they turned upon him plaintively and flooded him with sad light every time she spoke to him. Otherwise, the frail little woman was neither exactly pretty nor yet what one could fau'ly describe as plain. She was above all tilings interesting. A profound pity for her evident feebleness was the first feeling she inspired. ' Poor wee little thing !' one felt inclined to say as one saw her. A fatherly instinct, in- deed, would have tempted most men to lay one hand caressingly on her smooth black hair, as they took lier pale thin fingers in 200 UNDER SEALED ORDERS their own with the other. But her smile was sweet, though very full of penslveness. A weary little soul, Owen thought to himself as he gazed, weighed down by the burden of this age's complexity. ' No, her name's not really Blackbird, of course,' Sacha responded c|uietly. In her matter-of-fact tone, looking down with a motherly glance at the shrinking figure in the low wicker chair. ' Her name, to be official, is Hope Merle Bralthwaite. There, now — is that definite enough ? Mr. Cazalet — Miss Bralthwaite. You know her songs, Owen — and so you know herself. She is all one song. She evaporates In music. That's why I call her Blackbird, you see ' — and Sacha smoothed her friend's head lovingly ; ' she's so tiny and so dark, and she's got so much voice in her for such a wee little bit of a thing. When she sings, she always reminds me of a blackbird on a thorn-bush, pouring Its full throat in a song a great deal too big THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 201 for it. You know the way their throats seem to swell and burst with the notes ( Well, Blackbird's throat does just the same. She wastes herself in music' Blackbird unclasped her hands from behind her neck, and shook her head solemnly. Owen observed now it was well shaped, and covered with strait glossy hair, as black and as shiny as her namesake's plumage. ' Pure poetical fancy, evolved after the fact,' she said, smiling sadly, with the air of a woman who shatters against the grain one more cherished delusion. ' The reality's this : My parents were good enough to christen me Merle, after my Swiss relations, the Merle d'Aubignes ; and I'm called Merle at home, though I was Hope at Oxford. And when Sacha heard the name, she thought it extremely appropriate to my dark hair and eyes, and she Englished it as Blackbird. That's the whole truth of the matter. All this other imaginative nonsense about pour- 202 UNDER SKALi:!) OKDF-RS iii^ my throat in song came cr j)<)sf farfo. It has nothincr to do with the name. So there's how myth orows.* And she folded tli(^ two pale hands re- signedly in front of her, Owen noted that ' ex 2^ost facto ' with becomino- awe. Not for nothin^r had Black- bird stndied dead tonaues at Oxford. ' Well, what do you think of the flat V Sacha asked, with a comj)assionate glance at the poor weak little pessimist. ' We've got it up nicely into form now, haven't we ? Take a good look round the room, and then come and see my studio.' ' You've done wonders,' Owen answered, gazing about him, well pleased. ' And it's charming — charming ! How lovely you've made that corner there, with those draperies and pipkins, and my Morocco mud -ware, too ; so deliciouslv Oriental. That's Miss Braith- waite's, I suppose, the grand piano in the corner V THK HIGHKK F.DUCATIOX OF WOMEN 203 ^riic frail ^ii'l looked up at liini with those iireiit sjicl eves. ' Not Miss Braithwaite,' she said calmly. And Owen noticed now at once a certain obvious disparity, as Sacha had suggested, between the full innsical voice and the slender frame that pro(hiced it. 'Not Miss Braithwaite, if you })lease. Sacha's arranged all that already. She's a s])len(lid hand at arrano-inu' thing's — Sacha ; she ]x)sses the show, lone says, and 1 nnist admit she bosses it beautifully. So nice to have all the bother of living taken off your hands by a ca])able, masterful, practical person. That's what I admive so in Sacha. Well, she's decided that we're all to be one family here — a pantisocracy, lone calls It ; no Miss and no Misters. You're to be Owen, and I'm to be Blackbird. lone's cook — she's out market- ing now; and Sacha and I've just washed up the breakfast things. So, of course, it's absurd, in such a household as this, to think 204 UNDER SKA LED ORDERS of callliii: out' aiiotlier Mr. Wluit's-ljlH-iiamei or Miss S()-jiM(l-S().' 'T don't sec wliy, I'm sure,' Owen answered, inncli amused. 'A lady's none the less a lady, sin-ely, because she can do something- useful about her own house, as our grand- mothers used to do.' * But our t^randmothers knew no Greek,' Blackbird rejHied, t^^oini;* off at a most illo^ncal tangent. ' It's the combination that kills us, you know — Greek and household drudgery.' ' Come and see my studio,' Sacha inter- posed cheerily, leading the way to the next room. It was Sacha's business to cut the little pessimist short whenever possible. And when the studio had been duly inspected they went on to the dining-room, and the bedrooms, and the kitchen, and the pantry, and the little scullery at the back, and a stone-floored office behind, full of chemical apparatus. THE HI(;HER education of women 205 ' Wliy, what's this?' Owen jiskt'd, sur- prised. * Is Miss Dracopoli scientific, then, as well as literary ?' ' Oh dear no !' Blackhird answered with a languid drawl hut always in that same rich voice ; * lone's nothing on earth. Like l)u Maurier's Postlethwaite, she's content to "exist beautifully." This is ;//// laboratory, this room. But I've promised the girls never to make any drcddffilhj odorous stews in it. T couldn't tret alonu' without a laboratory, you know. I must have some- where to do my chemical experiments.' Owen scanned the frail little body from head to foot, alarmed. Was this what female education was leading our girls to ? ' Greek — music — chemistry !' he exclaimed, gazing down upon her five feet two from the calm height of his own towering masculine stature. ' You don't mean to say you com- bine them all in your own sole person !' * And not much of a person at that !' 2o6 UNDER SEALED ORDERS Blackbird answered, with a faint sigh. * Yes, that's how I was brought up. It's the fault of the system. My raw material all went off in brain and nerves, I'm afraid. I worked those so hard, there was nothing at all left to build up blood and bone and flesh and muscle.' ' But why on earth did you do it i" Owen couldn't help exclaiming ; for Blackbird's frank remark was so obviously true. It might be rude of him to admit it, but he didn't feel inclined to contradict a lady. ' I did let do it,' Blackbird answered pite- ously. ' It was my people who educated me. You see, they thought I was clever — perhaps I was, to start with ; and they crammed me with everything on earth a girl could learn. Latin, Greek, modern languages, mathe- matics, natural science, nmsic, drawing, dancing, till I was stuffed to the throat with them. Je suis jusque la/ and she put her hand to her chin with some dim attempt at THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 207 feminine playfulness. ' Like Strasbourg geese,' she added slowly in a melancholy after- thought; ' it may be good for the brain, but it's precious bad for the body.' Owen stretched his big shoulders back, and expanded his cliest involuntarily. The mere sight of that weak frame seemed to make him assert his own physical prowess by automatic contrast. ' But why do you go ori with it now V he asked simply. ' Why continue to work at this chemistry, for example ? In poky London rooms you want all the fresh air you can get, surely. How infinitely better, now, instead of chemistry, to join a lawn-tennis inexpressihly. He retreated down tliepassat^e with a h()l)l)ledehov's awkwardness, leaviuiT the two men standi ni^- sheepish at the opeu door, and said, in a loud voice, more plaiidy than politely, as he laid down the cards ou the drawino'-rooni tahle : ' Two fellows outside, come to call upon Blackhird.' ' Show them in !' Sacha replied, with as much dignity as if he were her footman instead of her brotlier ; and Owen ushered them promptly into the bright little drawing- room. Mr. Gardener, with the gardenia, was, like Paul, the chief speaker. To be sure, he'd never met Blackbird before, that was clear, nor had his friend either. They both bowed 2i8 UNDER SKALEI) ORDERS (llstaiitly witli a certain awed ivspect as tlu^y took tlicir seats, and as BlacUhiid introduced tlieni iid'ornially to the remainder ot* the Company. Iiul for a miinite or two they talked society small - talk about flats in general, and this tlat in [)articular, without explaining the special business that had brought them there that afternoon. They b(gan well, indeed, by admiring everything in the rooui, I'rom floor to ceiling. But Owen noticed now, somewhat appeased, that in spite of their fiats and coats they were dis- tinctly nervous. They seemed to have some- thing they wanted to say, without being able to muster up the needful courage for saying it. At last the man witli the gardenia ven- tiu'ed to turn to Blackbird with a point-blank remark. ' I dare say you're wondering, Miss Braith- waite, what made us come to call upon you.' lOiNK IN KNOLANI) 219 ' Well. I cniircHS,' m;ickl)il'(l SJlid lilMi;wi(lly, ill that rich, clear voice of herw, ' I did nither ask myself what on enrtb you wanted with me.' Mr. Trevor (hardener paused, and looked straight into her bit;" eyes. He was more nt'rvous than ever ; but he made a clean breast of it. ' ['in at the Stock Exchange,' be said at last, after a long-drawn interval. * In point of fact, I'm . . . I'm a broker.' ' That's bad I' lone put in, with a twinkling eve full of mischief. Mr. Gardener turned full upon her a look of most obvious relief. His face briti'htened visibly. ' Why, just so,' be said, more at his ease. ' That's precisely what I always say myself. That's the reason I've come. A stockbroker's bad. Most useless excrescence on the com- munity, a stockbroker.' ' Exactly,' Sacha interposed, with her 220 UNDER SEALED ORDERS grave, quiet voice. 'A middleman who performs no good service of any sort.' Mr. Gardener brightened still more. 'Ah, there it is, you see,' he answered, rubbing his hands together, well pleased. ' I feel it myself, and so does Stokes, who's a barrister. He feels tlie Bar's a fraud. That's what emboldened us to come. We're weighed down by a sense of our own utter uselessness.' 'A very hopeful symptom,' Sacha responded, smiling. ' Conviction of sin comes first, re- pentance afterwards. But how did you happen to hear of us ?' Mr. Gardener pulled up his shirt-collar and rearranged his cufts to hide his em- barrassment. 'Well, we've the pleasure of knowing Mr. Braithwaite,' he answered very tenta- tively. ' Oh, indeed 1' Blackbird replied, in a tone which showed clearly that acquaintance with lONE IN ENGLAND 221 her father was no particular intrcxluction to her. 'Ill business!' Mr. Gardener interposed deferentially, as who would deprecate her criticism. ' And we're musical— very nmsical. We hoped on tliat g-round, at least— though perhaps we're intruding.' And he glanced at Owen, who sat, silent, on the defensive. ' Not at all,' Owen answered, much mysti- fied, though with no very good grace. ' We're pleased, I'm sure, to see you.' ' Well, we were dining at Mr. Braithwaite's club with liim last night,' the man with the gardenia went on, looking askance at Black- bird, who sat hi the long chair toying lan- guidly with a fan, 'and he happened to mention this compound household of yours, and what persons composed it. And it ni- terested us very much, because we've both sung your songs, Miss Braithwaite, and l)oth lovrd your music; and we've read Miss 222 UNDER SEALED ORDERS Dracopoli's delightful tale on Morocco in tlie Bi-weeklij Review with very great interest ; and we've admired Miss (Jazalet's Greek girls at tlie Academy. And though Mr. Braithwaite gave us, perhaps, a somewhat unfavourable version of vonr aims and ideas t/ — indeed, threw cold water upon them — I may venture to say we sym[)atliized with your desire for a simj)ler mode of life.' He glanced down at his spotless shoes witli a sort of mute deprecation, and grew more inarticulate still as the subject closed in upon him. ' In point of fact,' he went on, growing red and stammeiing worse than ever, ' we both admired you all for it immensely.' ' And so ?' Sacha said interrogatively. ' And so ' Mr. Gardener went on, look- ing at his friend for assistance. ' Now then, you help me out, Henley !' Mr. Stokes, thus dragged into it, grew red in the face in turn, and responded in his place : lONE IN ENGLAND 223 ' Well, Trevor said to me, " It's a slianie, if these ladies want to start a new household 011 rational princij)les 1^'ke that, they should have to do all the rougli work of the house them- selves, isn't it, Henley ?" And I said : '' So it seems. It's not woman's place to bear tlie brunt of hard woi'k. I wonder what thev'd say, now, if you and I were to step round and assure them of our — well, our sympatliy with them in this new departure, and ask 'em if tliey'd allow us to call in every morn- ing — before they got up, don't you know — • without necessarily meeting them or knowing them socially at all — -just to light the fires, and clean the grates, and black the boots, and polish the knives, and all that sort of thing." And Trevor said, " Capital !" And so we decided we'd ask. And now — well, now, if you please, we've come round to ask you.' Sacha looked at lone. lone looked at Sacha. Blackbird looked at both. And 224 UNDER S1<:ALE1) ORDERS then all three together burst out laughing unanimously. That laugh saved the fort. Owen joined in, and so did tlie young men, who really seemed, after all, like very good fellows. They laughed for twenty seconds without answering a word. Then Sacha mustered u]) gravity enough to say, with a little burst : ' But, you see, we don't know you I' 'Oh, we're very respectable,' Mr. Gardener put in, gazing down at his gardenia. ' In fact, that's just it ; we're a great deal too respectable. This monotony palls. And we thought it so brave of you to attempt an in- novation. We can give excellent references, too, you know — in the City or elsewhere. My friend's an Oxford man ; I'm a partner myself in Wilson, Gai'dener, and Isenberger — very well-known house, Eve's Court, Old Broad Street.' lONt IN ENGLAND 225 And he folded one gloved hand somewhat beseechingly over the other. ' But cracking the coal, you know T lone suggested, with a merry twinkle. ' You couldn't do that, now, could you, with those light kid gloves oi l V Mr. Gardener began hastily to remove one of the incriminated articles with little nervous tugs. ' Oh, they come off, you know/ he answered, with a still deeper blush. ' They don't grow there, of course. They're mere separable accidents. And, besides, we're so anxious to help. And we know Mr. Braithwaite. We can get letters of introduction — oh, just dozens of them, if you want them.' ' But we thought it best,' Mr. Stokes inter- posed, ' to call at once, and strike while the iron was hot ; for we were afraid — well, like the fellow at the pool of Siloam, don't you know : while we waited, some other might step in before us.' VOL. I. 15 226 UNDER SEALED ORDERS Sacha was practical. She was also not too afraid of saying what she felt. ' The best thing,' she suggested, after a moment's reflection, looking the facts in the face, ' would be for you both to stop to tea and help us get it. Then we might see how far you're likely to suit the place, and whether we can avail ourselves or not of your very kind offer.' ' That's capital !' Mr. Henley Stokes replied, looking across at his friend, and peeling his gloves off instantly. ' If you try us, I'm sure you'll find we're not such a bad sort, after all — not such duffers as we look. We're handy men about a house. And we're tired of being no use in the world to anybody any- where.' And, indeed, before tea was over and dinner well cooked, the two young men had succeeded in making themselves so useful, so agreeable, and so ornamental as well, that even Owen's first prejudice died away by lONE IN ENGLAND 227 degrees, and he voted them both very decent fellows. lone remarked in an audible aside that they were bricks ; and Sacha declared with candour they could do more than she fancied. In the end, it was unanim.ously agreed the community should accept their proffered services for the })resent, and during good behaviour, and that they might begin if they liked ])y lighting the fires and black- ing the boots at half-past six next morn- ing. ' Hooray, Trev !' Mr. Stokes exclaimed in a tone of triumph, looking across at his friend. ' This is something like progress ! This is better than stockbroking.' ' I'm sure we're very much obliged to you indeed,' Mr. Gardener added, with a cheerful glance at a coal mark on his previously spotless cuff. ' And to show you we've no o 228 UNDER SEALED ORDERS intention of intruding upon you in any way beyond what's strictly necessary in the way of business ' — he took up his hat as he spoke — ' we'll now bid you good-evening.' CHAPTER XV. AN INVITATION. In a week or two it was clear to the members of the phalanstery the young men with the frock-coats were an unmitigated success. ' Our Boys,' as lone called, them, turned out trumps in every way. In spite of their kid gloves and their buttonhole bouquets, they weren't afraid of hard work, but buckled to with a will at the rough jobs of the household. As a rule, indeed, the joint mistresses of the flat saw little or nothing of their amateur manservants. They went to bed at night, leaving the ashes in the grates, and their shoes at their doors, and woke in the morning to find everything 230 UNDER SIiALi:i) 0KI)I:RS cleared up, the rooms well Wfirined, and the house swept and garnished as if hy friendly fairies. To he sure, this arrangement neces- sitated the entrusting of a latch-key to Mr. Gardener, the head-servant of the two — -a ste[) as to the wisdom and desirability of which Sacha at first somewhat hesitated. But the young men were so modest, so good-natured, so unobtrusive, and so kindly wdthal, that they very soon felt sure they w^ere perfectly trustworthy. As Blackbird remarked, they were too simple-hearted to make it worth while stickintj- at conventions on their account. Mrs. Grundy was not evolved for such as they were. Still, though the girls saw ' Our Boys ' but at rare intervals, when those willing slaves loitered late over the fires, or when the locks got out of order, or when the windows wanted cleaning, common gratitude compelled them from time to time to ask their benefactors in to afternoon tea, that AN INVITATION 231 mildest Jind most t^^eiiial of London (Miter- tainments. The young men themselves, to be sure, protested with fervour tliat such politenesses were unnecessary ; it was for the sake of the principle they came, they said, not for the sake of the persons. Yet from a very early period of their ac(juaint- ance Sacha fancied she noticed Mr. Henley Stokes betrayed a distinct liking for Black- bird's society ; while Mr. Gardener, with the gardenia (a point of honour to the last), paid particular attention, she observed, if not to herself, at least to her pictures. A nice, honest young man, Mr. Gardener, at least, and as unlike as possible to Sacha's preconceived idea of the eternal and absolute typical stockbroker. So she said to herself, indeed, one day, when from the recesses of Mr. Gardener's light overcoat, hung up in the hall, there tumbled by accident a small russia leather- bound volume. Mr. Gardener, with a blush, 232 UNDER SEALED ORDERS tried to |>ick it up unobservud uiid smut,^^le it back into its place again ; but Sacha's eye was too cjuick for him. She read in a nionii'ut the gilt lettering on the back. ' Why, it's poetry !' she exclaimed in sur- prise. ' It's Keats ! What do you do with him ?' Mr. Gardener stammered like a schoolboy discovered in the flagrant crime of concealing a crib. ' I — er — I read him,' he answered, after a brief pause, with much obvious confusion. ' In the City V Sacha asked, smiling. Mr. Gardener plucked up courage at her smile to confess the shameful truth. ' Well, a stockbroker, you know,' he said, ' has so much time hanging idle on his hands when there's nothing going on in his office, and it's such an unsatisfactory sort of trade at the best, and you feel it does you no good either spiritually or physically, or anybody else, either, for the matter of that ; ^ AN INVITATION 233 so in tlie Intervals of my work I try — er — I try to develop, as far as I can, my own higher nature. And in the mornings I come here to light the fires and all that ; and in the evenings I go down to my boys and ,nrls at Stepney.' ' What's tiiat V Sacha asked quickly, catching the hint at once. ' I haven't heard about them yet.' Mr. Gardener looked modest aofain. * Oh, a fellow must do something, you know,' he said, 'just to justify his existence. And as I'm well off, and strong and healthy and all that, and society does so nmch for me, 1 feel bound in return to give a helping hand v»'ith these poor East- End people of mine, both in the way of organization and in the way of amusement.' Sacha looked at him with some admiration. There was a sturdy honesty of purpose about this modest young man that touched her Russian heart to the core. And she liked 234 UNDER SEALED ORDERS his reading Keats, too; it was a point in his favour. For he wasn't the least Ht nam})y-pamhv with it all, in spite of his blushes and his light kid gloves. She could see when he talked about his gymnasium at Stepney, a few days later, that he was a tolerable athlete ; and he cleaned grates and split coal like no working man in London. When he proposed to lone that she and Sacha and Blackbird should come down to his hall at Stepney one evening to teach his lads to dance, they were all delighted ; and when they went there, and found them- selves among these rough East-End young men, lone, at least, thought it as jolly good fun as any Belgravia ball-room. ' You see, miss,' her first partner explained to her, in a confidential undertone, * we chaps learns this sort o' thing a sight better from a lady than from our own young women. Ladies doesn't larf at us ; and a chap don't like to be larfed at. Our own • AN INVITATION 235 frals, thev calk us " Now then, clumsy," and all such sort o' names. But a lady's more patient-like. You shows us the steps, and we can pay more attention then, coz we knows you ain't a-larhng at us.' ' There's nothing to laugli at,' lon^ an- swered gravely, surveying her stalwart young costernionger with not unapproving eyes. ' We all have to begin. T had to begin myself once. And as for laughing, you should have seen how the people laughed at me over yonder in Morocco when first I dressed up in Moorish costume, like my picture in the paper there, and tried to ride as a man does ! I laughed at myself, for that matter, till I thought I should never catch my breath again.' And she smiled at him so sweetly that that young costermonger went home per- fectly sober that night, and talked to his ' gal ' about the faces of the angels m heaven, which naturally made his young woman 236 UNDER SEALED ORDERS jealous, for she knew at once where the unwonted suggestion had come from. So for four or five weeks events at the flat went on smoothly enough, and Trevor Gardener and Henley Stokes grew gradually on the footing of friends of the family. They even ventured to drop in of an even- ing, when Sacha's w^ork was done, and lone had washed up the dinner-things, to accom- pany Blackbird in one of her own plaintive songs, or to read Austin Dobson and Lang to the assembled household. They introduced Hope indeed to the ' Ballade of Sleep ' ; and the poor girl spent at least a dozen wake- ful nights in composing apt music between the clanging hours for that congenial dirg>^ of dead and buried slumber. At the end of that time, however, an event occurred which stirred the deep heart of the flat to its profoundest recesses. Owen came up one day from Moor Hill, glad of so good an excuse, with a letter from Lady AN INVITATION 237 Beaumont, just received by })()st at the Red Cottage. So gracious a letter from the county mem- ber's wife set them all wondering what on earth the great lady could want witli them. ' My dear Mr. Cazalet,' it began (' Quite aflPectionate,' lone said, shaking out her chest- nut locks round her head) — 'My dear Mr. Cazalet, Sir Arthur wishes me very particu- larly to write and ask you whether you could come up to my At Home on Wednesday next, for which I enclose a card for you and your dear sister. We expect Lord Caistor ; and as I know your desire to enter the diplo- matic service, it can do no harm to make his acquaintance beforehand. Several of our artistic friends are so anxious to meet Sacha, too ; and that, as you know, may be of use to her in future. One should always make friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness as represented on the Hanging Committee. 238 UNDER SEAT.El) ORDERS And if you con id persuade her two com- panions, Miss Dracopoli and Miss Braith- waite, to come with you hoth, we should be so vcru much obliged to you. Many of our young- men want so much to know them. Apologize for me to Sacha ; I would have written to her direct, but I don't know the address of this famous joint-stock "Hat of hers that everybody's talking about. It's made quite a sensation among the advanced woman's rights women. Tliey say it marks an epoch. ' In breathless haste, ' Yours very sincerely, ' Anastasia Beaumont.' ' She wants to lionize us,' lone cried, look- int"- up with her very unleonine soft round face, ' and I refuse to be lionized !' ' I never will sing in houses where I'm asked on purpose,' little Blackbird said wearily. ' It's a rudeness to ask one just AN INVITATION 239 for what they think they can ^^et out of one.' ' But what a clever woman of the world she is !' Sacha put in, with a wise smile. ' She doesn't say a word about what she wants herself, but what she thinks will attract us on the ground of our own interest. Lord Caistor for Owen, possible patrons for me, admiration for you two— it's really very sharp of her.' ' For my part,' Owen interposed, with a side glance at lone in her dainty girlish beauty, ' I think what they want is, first, the girl who rode through Morocco alone, and, second, to be polite to a possible future constituent.' ' The question is, shall we go V Sacha asked, always practical. 'Apart altogether from their motives, is it worth our while to accept, or isn't it ?' 'Will you go?' lone asked, turning point- blank to Owen. Owen felt his heart throb. Oh, Mr. Hay- 240 UNDER SEALED ORDERS ward, Mr. Hayward, this girl will be too much for you ! ' Yes, I think so,' he said slowly, ' to see Lord Caistor.' • Then I think I'll go, too,' lone answered, with a burst. ' After all, it'll be fun, and I love these big crushes. You always find somebody you can shock in them somewhere. If I was to go in my Moorish costume, now — ^just fancy what a success ! How Lady Beaumont would bless me ! It'd be in all the papers.' Owen's heart beat higher still. He knew lone wanted to go because he would take her. And it made him feel so happy — and so very, very miserable. What would Mr. Hayward say if only he knew ? But is this the metal of which to mould a revolutionist ? For to Owen the cause was a very real and a very sacred thing. And he was im- perilling its future, he knew but too well — for the sake of a woman. AN INVITATION 241 They talked nuicli tliat afternoon, and liazai'ded many guesses as to why Lady Beaunioat had hidden them all to her At Home. But not one of* them came anywhere near the real reason of her invitation. For the truth was that Madame Mireff had said, in the most casual w\ay, thouoh with a sudden macrnetic glance of those great luminous eyes of hers, ' I wish, Anastasia, you'd ask that Sacha Somebody when you have me next at your liouse. Her name puzzles me so much. I want to hmit lier up. I must u-et to the bottom of it.' VOL. I. ^^ CHAPTER XVI. AT LADY BEAIMONT'w. • YoLr'\'E heard of Prince lluric Brassofi*,' Sir Ai'thur was half whisj)eriiig- to a thin Httle lady by his side as Sacha wedged her ^vay into an unobtrusive corner, ' the famous leader of the Nihilists ? You remember ; five hundred thousand roubles set upon his head. Well, they say she's in England now on purpose to ferret him.' ' And if she found him V the thin little lady suggested in reply ; ' she couldn't do anything to him here.' Sir Arthur shrugged his shoulders. It was a foreign trick he'd picked up In Vienna when he was a military attache. AT LADY BEAUMONT'S 243 'Not openly,' he answered, with a dry httle laugh. ' But poison, perhaps ; or a l^iiify_these Ilussians are so unscrupulous.' Sacha's calm eyes flashed fire; for she could remember Petersburg still, and her martyred ftither. But she followed the di- rection which both their glances took, and she saw a large-built woman with very fully- developed charms, who was talking with great animation and wide-open eyes to Lord Caistor by the mantelpiece. Sacha had never seen the Cabinet Minister before, to be sure, but she recognised him at once from the carica- tures in Punch and the photographs in the shop - windows. Or, at least, if not the famous man himself, at any rate his still more famous eyeglass. As for the lady who was chattering with him, a flash of intuition told her somehow, by the aid of Sir Arthur's words, it could be none other than Madame Mireff, the Russian spy or unaccredited agent, currently believed to exert so curious an 244 UNDER SEALi:i) ORDERS infliiencf on Lord Caistor liiinselt', and on that mysterious entity, liis foreign policy. * The Prince is very rich, isn't he V the tliin little lady hy Sir Arthur's side asked curiously. ' Was !' Sir Arthur corrected. ' He had millions at one time. But he flung away half liis fortune on the Cause years and years ago ; and the other half the Government very wisely seized and employed in su])pressing it.' ' And is he known to be in England at all V the thin little lady went on, looking sideways at the presumed Madame Mireff. Sir Arthur shrugged his shoulders again. ' How should I know f he answered with a laugh. ' Quien sabe ( Quien sabe ? Prince Ruric Brassoff takes jolly good care, you may be sure, to keep well out of tlie way. He works like a mole underground. I'm told, indeed, it's fifteen years since his own Nihi- list friends even have ever set eyes on him.' AT LADY BHAUMONT'S 245 'Then, how do they know lie's alive?' the lady asked with languid interest. ' Ah, that's just the odd part of it,' Sir Arthur replied, still gazing across at the stranger with his big speaking eyes. ' They say, though nobody ever sees him, he's still the active head of all the party in Western Europe, and the Russian rTOvernnient has constantly of late years intercepted letters and documents signed in his handwriting. But if he's to be found at all, you may be perfectly sure Madame Mireff will find him. She's keen as a bloodhound, persistent as a beagle. She's clever enough for any- thing.' Sacha rose and moved unobtrusively across the room to Owen, who was standing with lone near the doorway, in the opposite corner. She had just time to murmur low to him ni Russian : ' Owen, beware of the woman who's talking there to Lord Caistor. She's a spy of the 24'> UNi)KK hi: aim: I) ()Ki)i:ks Czar's. Slii'S come over here to look tor some Niliilist refui^ee.' And even as tliese words escaped her lips, Ladv Beaumont sidled across to htir. * Oh, Sacha, my child,' she said, ([uite afl'ectionately, taking;' her iiand witii much warmtli, hke a good society hostess, ' I'm so glad you've come. There's a friend of mine here wlio's just dying to know you. And you have brought Miss Dracopoli, too, I see. 1 recognise you, Miss Dracopoli, by your like- ness in the iJrapJilc. How good of you to come round to mv little gathering ! T know you're so nmch engaged — everybody fighting for you just at present, of course — the tail end of the season ! Come over this way with me, and I'll introduce you to Lord Caistor. And you must come too, Owen. Madame Mireff — one moment — excuse my interrupting you. This is the clever young artist whose picture you admired so much at the Academy the other day — Miss Cazalet, Mr. Cazalet.' AT I.ADV liRAUMONl'S 247 Ow.'ii bowtnl low with iin awkward hA\u^ ofnnwoiited n'straint. Never bet'oiv in I.Ih life had lie stood face to face with an avowed enemy of the (^Muse— one of the bureaucratic rincr_and he felt at ouce the novelty aud difHculty of the position. As for Sacha, she held herself very erect and proud, hardly nodding- her head ; hut iier hreath came and went, and her face flushed crimson. ' I'm o'lad— my work interested you,' she said, with an evident effort. She'd have ^iven millions to ^et away; the strain and stress of it was horrible. But Madame Mireft' only beamed upon her with those famous soft eyes, and said, witli real kindness of tone : ' Yes, it was bejintiful— beautiful. I picked it out at once from all the pictures in the room. It had soul in it— soul in it. It went straight to my Russian he^irt ; for you know, Miss Cazalet,rm before all things a Russian, and everything about Russia always thrills 248 UNDKR SEALKI) ORDKRS me t(. the fin^^er-tips. We Slavs feel the niao-ic of our common Slavonic ancestry far more, 1 believe, than anv Western people. Ilussia holds us by some spell. C/ela nous entraine. Oela nous fascine.' Owen opened his eyes wide at this unex- ])ected ])rofession of faith— the enthusiasm with which Madame spoke i-eminded him so exactly of Mr. Hay ward's own in his moments of deepest patriotic fervour. Was it possible, then, that these bureaucrats even — the despots, the enemy— shared that same un- (luenchable Slavonic zeal that burned bricrht like a fire in the friends of the Cause—the lovers of their country ? But Sacha only answered coldly, in her very driest voice : ' I fail to perceive the connection you draw between my picture and Russia.' Madame glanced back at her, all motherli- ness, with kind melting eyes, in spite of this fii'st rebuff. Her i^^lance was mesmeric. AT LADY BEAUMONT'S 249 'Why, siuvly,' sIk- said, exerting every spell she knew, ' the sph-it at least— tlie spirit is pure liussian. I cried out to Lady Beau- mont the moment I saw it, " There's Slav m that canvas !" and Lady Beaumont answered me, " Oh, that's Sacha Cazalet's picture." So when I heard your name was Sacha, of course I took it for granted at once that your mother at least must have been more or less of a Bussian.' 'You're mistaken,' Sacha replied, in the same hard, dry tone. 'My mother, on the contrary, was a pure-blooded English- woman.' 'Your father, then?' Madame suggested quickly. Sacha parried the blow at once. ' Beally,' she said, ' I don't admit my genea- logical tree has anything at all to do with my pictures.' Madame left the false track sharply with a diplomatist's instinct. 250 UXDI'R SEALED ORDERS ' VVel], the })iiiiitiii^r's n lovely one, jit any nite,' she sjiid sweetly, ' and the qualities in it that strnck me as Slavonic are at least (jualities of hi^h idealism and i)rofoiind moral truth. Wliatever race insi)ires them, one surely can't lielj) admiring tliose, Miss Cazalet. There's a freedom, a gracefulness, a vitality, an unconventional ity, about the lithe figures of your beautiful classical girls that took my fancy immensely. And Aspasia herself— in the centre— what a soulful conception! So vivid and intense! Like our best Russian girls nowadays : free as the air, keen as the wmd, fresh as the morning dew, yet capable, one could feel, of yielding her life like water for any good cause that in after-days might demand it.' Owen listened astom'shed. The voice was the same, though the words were so different. Was this the true Russian note, then ? La vie pour le Tsar, or Death Jot Freedom f AT LADV HliAUMONT'S 251 xMadaiue drew a vacant chair to her side, and motioned Sacha into it. Against her will, as if drawn by some spell, Sacha sat down, burning inwardly. Owen stood by in his big manlhiess, and bent over them, listening. Then Madame began laying herself out as only a trained diplomatist and woman of the world could have done to make a conquest of Sacha. By slow degrees she led round the conversation to Sacha's art and her friends. She discussed h)ne with Owen, praising her beauty enthusiastically ; she discussed Burne- Jones with Sacha, finding something in common between the profounder Celtic and Slavonic temperaments. Gradually, bit by bit, even Sacha gave way. She admitted the fiiscination of the woman who had talked over Lord Caistor and changed a foreign policy. Her conversa- tion was so easy, so alluring, so dmpatica. As for Owen, he bent over her, entranced, 252 UNDHR SKALKI) OKPKKS feeling the nameless attraction to a lad of a ripe woman of the world, ready and willing to deploy all her manifold charms of body and mind in one serried phalanx for his momentary captivation. lone glanced across once or twice from her artlessly girlish self-revelation to that amused Lord ( Vistor, and felt her heart give a jum]) of doubt and fear within lier. That horrid great Russian woman with the big, staring eyes was surely too much for any lad of twenty. What struck Owen more and more, how- ever, the more freely Madame talked, was the absolute identity (in fibre) of her Ilussian enthusiasm with Mr. Hay ward's. Though the Russia of which she spoke was the Russia of the tyrants, yet the devotion with which she spoke of it was the devotion of the patriots. It was Czar and Empress against Land and People. For the first time in his life it dawned upon Owen faintly that what AT LADY BEAUMONT'S 253 lie had here to deal witw was in essence a temperament. Madame jMh-eft' and Mr. Hayward saw the opposite sides of the same shield, according to their different points of view, but were both ec^ually vehement and intense in the idea they formed of it. That's Ilussia all over. Your Slav is, above all thinirs, a dreamer and an enthusiast. At last, after much lono- and cleverly- guided discourse, Madame had succeeded in making even Sacha herself admit grudgingly in her own mind that the Czar's spy, in hei' private capacity at any rate, was an extremely agreeable, nay, well-meaning person. She had a rare gift of insinuating herself into your confidence, somehow ; of taking such a deep interest in your mind and your feelings, that you couldn't help warming up in the end into some responsive expansiveness. Then, suddenly, in the midst of her easy- going talk, Madame turned round to her and fixed her with her glittering eye. 254 UNDER SKALKI) ORDERS ' In fact,' she said, pouncing- ui)on her with a strange foreign tongue, 'as our Russian proverb puts it, "The smooth-worn stone on the river's bed can never understand whv the pebbles on the l)ank find the sun's heat un- pleasant." ' She said it in Russian, as if she expected to be understood ; and even as she uttered the words, she fixed her piercing glance, full of inquiry, on Sacha's face. Owen bent over, still more attentive, wondering whether, thus attacked by so unexpected a flank movement, Sacha — that calm, imperturbable Sacha — would be taken off her guard or not. But the phlegmatic Slavonic temperament, almost Oriental in its passivity, stood her there in good stead. Sacha never moved a muscle of her quiet face, or changed colour for a second. ' What does that mean V she asked lan- guidly. ' Will you kindly translate for us ? As yet, thank heaven, Russian isn't added to AT LADY IJKAUMOXTS 255 Gerniiiii jiiid French as a necessary part of* an Entrlish iiirl's education.' Madanie's keen eye still rested on her like a hawk's. She translated it -wroiii;'. , ' " The polar bear wonders the orizzly should think his climate cold," ' she answered, with a bland smile of child-like innocence. But, even so, Sacha gave no sign. Just the faintest tinge of a contemptuous curl at the corner of her mouth alone betrayed, if at all, her consciousness of the attem})ted decej)- tion. ' Verv true,' she said calmiv. ' We can only sympathize to the full with the troubles and joys we've ourselves experienced.' Madame gave it up again for the present. This girl was too deep for her. It was only at the end of the evening, after talking to many of her willing slaves meanwhile, tliat the unaccredited agent returned to the Cazalets with a charming smile and an out- stretched ha^^d. 256 UNDER S1<:ALK1) ()RI)1:KS ' Well, good-night,' she said. ' .Lk reccir, tliat is — for I must meet you again. You remind me so of dear friends — dear friends of mine in Russia. And your brother — when I saw liim it gave me quite a little start. . . . He's so extraordinarily like poor Sergius Selistoff, of Petersbin-g. ' It was a sliar]) hcnne-thrust -their owu father's name ! — hut Owen h()i)ed he'd avoided it. He blushed and bowed. A young mtin may fairly blush when his per- sonal a])})earance is under discussion. ' Alt irvolr, then,' he said, as frankly and unconcernedly as he was able. ' It's so kind of you to put it so.' As tliey went home to the flat in the cab, an unwonted silence opi)ressed lone. She said nothing for a long time ; then at last she observed, with much seeming insouciance: ' What a talk you had, Owen, with that fat Madame Mireff! She's handsome, too, isn't she — even now. Must have been AT I.ADV BKAUMONT'S 257 beautiful vvlien nhe was yoiin^ ! Am(1 what eyes she made at you, and liow she stuck to you Hke a leech ! It's a ^reat thhig to be six feet two— in llussia — apparently !* But at that self- same moment, Lady Beaumont, wearied out with the duties of her post, was sayino', with a yawn, to her friend in the em))ty drawing-room : ' Well, Olga, I lu)])e you found out what you wanted.' And Madame Miretl' made answer : ' Part, at least ; not (piite all. That is to say, not for certain. They're Russian, of course, as Kussian as they can stand ; but whether they're the particular ])eoj)le I imagine or not, 1 don't feel quite sure just yet. I must make further inquiries.' ' You won't u'et them sent to Siberia, I trust,' Lady Beaumont said, half seriously ; for she rather liked that big, handsome Owen. Msulame drew back a step and surveyed 258 LXDKK si:ai.i:i) ordkks her fVoin head to foot witli ji sort of Innocent siu'|)rise. 'Siberia!' she repeated. ' Sil)eria ! Oh dear, tliat odious ca.hiiiiiiy ! Tliat ridiculous misconception ! Must I exj)lain it every day i Will you never understand us ? Siberia is to llussia what Botany Bay was once to Knti'land. We send our criminals there, it's a penal settlement, not a Bastille nor phice of exile for political ofteiidcrs. But you Kut^lish will never give us credit for anythiui;' of that sort - never, never, never! That's your thick-headed Teuton isn>, my dear. The French have more (spvit. They see through all that hlaijuc. 1 assure you, Anastasia, I might just as well ask you not to let Lord Caistor send me, without reason assioned, to Pentonville or to Port- land.' 2- KXI) OK vol.. I. I1II.I.IN(! AND SONS, I'UINTKKS, (.Ul I.DKUIU).