IMAGE EVAI.UATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) V /. {/ /% i .^ ji ^'f /#j 1 W.r :/. % (./, 1.0 I.I "' ll|M 40 ilM [2.2 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 ^ 6" ► "/a & /a /a /^ <$> =■? J y Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. MS80 (716) 872-4503 \ ^Hff ///// ^^ \ \ ^ o V .^<' ^ CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut canadien de microreproductions historiques Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. □ Coloured covers/ Couverture de couleur n Covers damaged/ Couverture endommagde □ Covers restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restaurde et/ou pellicul^e n n n v n D Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque Coloured maps/ Cartes gdographiques en couleur Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur Bound with other material/ Relid avec d'autres documents Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/ La reliure serr6e peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge intdrieure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajoutdes lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais, lorsque cela dtait possible, ces pages n'ont pas 6t6 filmdes. Additional comments:/ Commentaires suppldmentaires: L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une modification dans la mdthode normale de filmage sont indiquds ci-dessous. □ Coloured pages/ Pages de couleur □ Pages damaged/ Pages endommagdes I I Pages restored and/or laminated/ Pages restaur^es et/ou pellicul^es Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ Pages d^color^e^, tachet6es ou piqu^es Pages detached/ Pages d^tach^es 0Showthrough/ Transparence □ Quality of print varies/ Quality indgale de {'impression □ Includes supplementary material/ Comprend du materiel supplementaire I — I Only edition available/ D Seule Edition disponibie Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image/ Les pages totalement o'j partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc., ont 6t6 film^es d nouveau de facon d obtenir la meilleure image possible. This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est filmd au taux de reduction indiqud ci-dessous. 10X 14X 18X 22X 26X 30X y 12X I6X 20X 24X 28X 32X tails du Ddifier une mage The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generosity of: National Library of Canada The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications. Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impression. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol — »> (meaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol y (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: L'exemplaire film6 fut reproduit grfice d la g^n^rositi 09: Diudothdque nationale du Canada Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et de la nevtetd de l'exemplaire filmd, et en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en papier est imprimde sont film^s en commenpant par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont film6s en commenpant par la premidre page qu; comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre pavie qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole -^ signifie 'A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent atre filmds d des taux de reduction diff6rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6, 11 est film^ d partir de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n6cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. trrata to pelure, n d U 32X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 S Y R I, I N T OR POSITION AUTHOR OF "UNDER TWO FLAGS," «' GUILDEROY," ETC, ETC. Printed from Advance Sheets purchased from the Author MONTREAL : JOHN LOVELL AND SON, 1890. Tnhf^T^ii*^!*?"^ .*** ^"^ **^ Parliament in the year 1890. by John Lovell &- Son, in the office of the Minister of Agricohuii •nd SutiBtic* at Ottawa. POSITION. CHAPTER I. It was a Drawing-room Day. London was looking its brigl est and best. There was a blue sky and a strong north wind. March was waning, and the crocuses starred the turf in Hyde Park, although the spring buds had not yet ventured forth on the black boughs of the elm-trees. The usual dingy and good- tempered crowd stood about before Buckingham Palace, waiting to see the equipages pass by ; waiting, with that willingness to be amused by trifles, and that interest in a world with which they have nothing to do, which is characteristic of the London populace, and lends facility to their government, although it is unhappily a quality most lamentably neglected, indeed entirely ignored, by those who call themselves their rulers. It was between three and four of the clock, and the ladies were leaving the Palace as fast as they were able to do so : smart broughams with sleek horses and dark, well- fitting liveries ; closed landaus, with billows of gauze and enormous bouquets partially seen through their glass windows ; here and there, the real old magnificent fashion of a state carriage, with coachman in full-bottomed wig and three-cornered hat seated alone in his glory, and glit- tering footmen, gorgeous as flamingoes, swinging behind, p:issed in turn through the ranks of the good-natured and for the most part admiring crowd. Disparaging comments were occasionally uttered as the equipages rolled by, and the gold lace shone, and the horses pranced along the Mall. "There goes an old ewe decked lamb fashion ! " cried a butcher's boy .is a dowager, very much undressed and very POSITION. badly rouged, loomed large through the glass of her car- riage windows. " There's a naked woman sittin' in soap-suds," remarked a small shoeblack, as a famous beauty with clouds of white tulle rising all around her eagerly-displayed bust was borne by in her blazoned coach. " Lord ! when they can clothe 'emsells as they choose, why do they go bare like that, in this here wind ?" said a sorrowful and thinly-clad woman, with entire unconscious- ness of any satire in her words. But far more frequently the comments on the Court pa- geantry were favorable and friendly; and the coachmen in the periwigs were hailed with admiration and delight; the quiet-col(jrcd broughams with their sober liveries were received with disappointment and disfavor. "What did I tell you? "said Wilfreda, Lady Avillion, to her husband as their carriage, which had a coachman in a periwig, and two lackeys behind, with enormous bou- quets and white wands, was hailed with a shout of ap- plause that almost became a cheer ; *' what did I tell you ? The people delight in us when we are splendid. If we only always made ourselves worth looking at we should always have influence. They are perfectly enchanted with Sykes's wig." "Damn them and their delight," said Lord Avillion, drowsily. He had got his sword uncomfortably entangled between his legs, and he hated the scent of the gardenias of his wife's bouquet, and her train was covering and smothering him, and he had been imprisoned three hours with no possibility of a cigarette, and he did not know whicli iie would like the best — whether to see Bucking- ham Palace sacked and burnt, and all this rubbish of cer- emony made impossible forever, or to have a Government with the ideas of the first Duke of Wellington, and to see the crowd dispersed by a cavalry charge or by a volley of grape-shot. "We ought to have much more pageantry," continued his wife. "The people like it. And more music, too. There ought to be military music constantly heard in Lon- don, just as there is in Dresden, Vienna, or Munich; music everywhere, in the parks, in the churches, at the corners of the streets, costing nothing to the multitude, and warming and gladdening the soul of the sorriest beggars. There should be martial music all day long in London, if I had the ruling of it." ho rOS/T/OA'. " The bandsmen would require a large outlay in water- proofs and cough h^zcnges," remarked lu;r cousin, the Duke of Beaufront, wiio sat opposite to her. "But at such rare intervals as their fingers would be unfrozen the effect would, I admit, be very exhilarating." Exhilarating, yes; and the best of all education," said Ladv Avillion. I would have music evervwhere, and I would gild all the railings, and I would plant trees all along the streets, and I would wash the statues every week, and I would have fireworks on the top of the Marble Arch very often — because nothing amuses a whole popula- tion like fireworks — and I would have coffee with plenty of milk in it sold at a half farthing a cup, under Govern- ment supervision, in thousands of places ; and I would absolutely forbid all advertisements on hoardings and posters and the backs of serving-men ; and I would pass a law to compel every London tradesman to go to Paris, Florence, or Dresden, to see how shops ought to be set out." "And I hope you would abolish Drawing-rooms," saicl her husband. " I should have them held in the evening, and everyone would be delighted." "That arrangement would necessitate something to eat ; tea and ices, at least ; it would impoverish the Crown. With what rapture that sweep is grinning at you — I hope you enjoy your popularity." "The sweep is a very nice man." " Yet I always thought you a proud woman, Freda," said her cousin. " I believe I am, in some ways." " I believe you are the greatest contradiction that ever a woman was. All women are contradictions — their theories are so good and their practice is so bad." " That contradiction is not confined to our sex," remarked Lady Avillion, while the March wind ruffled her feathers and laces as it blew in through the window, which good- nature had made her leave open for the multitude to ad- mire her. Their carriage stopped at the mansion facing the Green Park which belonged to the Avillion family, and its mis- tress descended anii(bt an admiring little crowd of gazers as warmly appreciative as tlie sweep. Her husband and her cousin followed her; thedoois of the great house closed on them, and their gorgeous equipage, with the be- POSlTlON^. wiggcd coachman and the bouquets and the white wands, went away to their mews in a side street. " How thirsty I am ! " said Lady Avillion, as she went upstairs. A lot more peacocks will come to tea to show us their trains ; you'll stay and see them, won't you, Ralph?" '* Who's coming to you ? " asked Beaufront, also mount- ing the staircase, while the master of the house disappeared into some apartments on the ground tloor belonging es- pecially to himself. "Oh, most of tlic smart people," replied Lady Avillion, as she cast her train, in all its glory of gold embroideries and silver lilies and bordering of pale pink feathers, be- hind her upon the carpet of her own favorite room. " No, thanks ; I think I will go home at once and get out of this toggery," said Beaufront— meaning his Court dress — but he hesitated and lingered as he looked round the apartment. It was a fascinating room, artistic, interesting, inspiring, a mixture of every style, but a successful mixture, a room suggestive of intimacy, confidence, and repose. Its atmos- phere was warm and fragrant; its hues subdued yet bril- liant, candles burned in little groups under rosy shades, and flowers were there in myriads, from crowds of the stateliest odontoglossum to bowls of the dear little violet whose home is the coppice and whose companion is the redbreast. Lady Avillion stooped over one of these bowls of violets and buried her face in it. *' They are not real hedge violets though, you know ; at least I am afraid no^" she said regretfully. "The garden- ers grow them in liorrible long straight rows just as they grow parsley or peas, on purpose for sale. Do you re- member hunting for violets in the meadows for me at Bel- lingham, when I was a baby ? " " Yes, I remember everything about Bellingham," replied Beaufront, throwing his sword on a sofa. " It was the only place where I was really happy." ** Surely you are happy now ? " i "Not in the least ; wliy should I be ?" "Well — well — 1 really don't know ; but why should you not ? Most people expect you to be so. Most things and people have lost their prestige nowadays, but Dukes haven't just yet." Beaufront lighted a cigarette at one of the wax-candles. POSITION. "Really, Freda," he replied as he did so, "what the world thinks our gain is generally our loss. I am not half so free as I used to be, and 1 am iiHinitely more bored. I am supposed to be a very rich man now, hut I am not even that. Succession duties, and charges on this estate and that estate, and falling rents and mortgaged lands, and all the rest of it, and three large houses to keep up coiite t look upon Avillion House as a mere stopping place tor a few feverish and detested weeks of hurry and ennui, as so many great ladies do look upon their London mansions. At Brakespeare, and at her other houses in the country, she was never alone. She had always a large party stay- ing with her, which she disliked, though to Avillion it was a necessity of existence. In London, absurd as it sounds, she found more tran- quillity than in the country, and she could be more alone whenever she chose to be so. At her doors sat the janitor who had for his seat a paint- ed and gilded sedan chair of George the Second's time ; and by those doors and that sedan chair no rag-tag and j bobtail passed, even though it had just brushed against her at a State concert, or had brought all the silver mines |of Potosi to its own mansion in Park Lane. * . Nothing resists wealth. Nothing is respected except loney. These are the two lines from the gospel which Society writes at the head of the copy-books of its pupils. But Lady Avillion did not subscribe to them. She :ould never understand what charm other people's money :ould possess for you. " One doesn't want to borrow it, md if one did wr.nt to, one couldn't," she had observed )nce. 1.5 X \\ \\ I; 34 POSITION "Ah! but lots of people want to, and lots of people do," her cousin Heaufront had replied with much philoso- phy ; and she had sighed, thinking of her brother's extrav- agances with impatience and disgust. She was one oi those women who keep their affairs in strict order ; and, whilst knowing how to display all the brilliancy of a great fortune, would know equally w*^ll, were they put to it, how to keep wiliiin a small income. She loved Bollingham with an affection born of many happy childish memories of sports and pastimes with a father who had idolized her, and she hated to see it drift- ing to ruin for sake of the training stable, the kennels, the forcing houses, tiie racing stud, the vast establishment, the endless series of guests, the lavish London expendi- ture, which drain the fortunes of English gentlemen, imtil they sell to the Jews and fly the country. " Have we any right to lecture the poor about thrift, when our own people are letting their estates drift into the market because they have not the common-sense to look into their affairs in time, and pull themselves to- gether ?" she said once to Lady Greatorex, the premier's wife, who disliked the remark, and said something vague about the obstinacy of the poor in eating bacon, so bad for them, so dear, and so very nasty. " I have never been able to make out what you feel for Avillion," said Beaufront to her one day. She smiled, a vague, agreeable smile, which might mean anything. She thought to herself that she really felt nothing at all. She had neither liking nor disliking for him. He was an accepted fact in her life, and she never rebelled against what was unchangeable. Sometimes when she heard in society the praises of women given to his charming manners, his fascinating in- fluence, his unusual charm, she smiled bitterly, knowing how selfish and narrow and poor a nature that social charm concealed, how shallow was the amiability, how tainted with insincerity the apparent geniality, how brief and cal- lous and valueless the swiftly passing passions of the man whom they adored. He was charming — when he was amused ; he was kind — when it cost him nothing ; he was devoted — when hi^ devotion had the attraction of being also novelty and in- constancy. But she knew well that tiiis was all : that, at heart, no| one on earth ever found in Avillion a single impulse thalf ',\\| ■»'* In POSITION, 35 of people ch philoso- cr'scxtrav- r affairs in ilay all the liuiUy vv'^U, I income. ,rn of many mes with a see it drift- kcnnels, the tablishment, ion expendi- tlemen, until about thrift, ;es drift into imon-sense to lemselves to- the premier's etiiing vague on, so bad for ,t you feel for Ishe smiled, a nything. nothing at all. He was an idled against hie praises of] fascinating in- 1 ierly, knowing [t social charm! ^, how taintedj r'brief and cal-j tns of the man^ he was kind [■ed — when his lovelty and in-i was unselfish, a single sentiment that was deeper rooted than vanity, or a single motive that was higher or more lasting than self-indulgence. When she watched him in the World with his graceful courtesies, his ardent liomage, and his apparent mtmifi- cence, it seemed to her that she saw the most polished per- fection of high comedy. "And to think that his brittle spun sugar can break their hearts," she thought with profound contempt of the victims of his bonnes fortunes. In reality lie was no conscious impostor. He was simply a man wholly iieartless and self-centred, who had the gift of pleasing women, and was wholly indifferent if those whom he had thus pleased broke their lives in pieces after- ward on the rack of his egotism. He would have said, had any one reproached him, that he had never invited them tosucli suicide. lie had never suffered himself, and he could not see for the life of him why other persons should do so. Everything bored him, and he thought that was the I fault of his wife. He had married her for her beauty, and had tired of it, land he disliked her intelligence, which had developed jsince her marriage ; then she was a political woman, and ihe did not like political women ; and for these reasons, [and other reasons, he saw as little of her as he could, having due regard to the fact that Society believed their narriage to be a very happy one, and that he did not wish )Ociety to think otherwise. Society is always willing to believe that a marriage is r'ell assorted. Marriage is its own cherished institution, the dearest to [t as the most completely artificial, and the one which it jonsiders most necessary to its own continuance and pros- )erity. Their world always said that Lord and Lady Avillion rere so perfectly suited ; the world dined at the great louse in Piccadilly, and stayed at the great house in York- [hire, and went to shoot and stalk over the great moors in [nverness-shire, and being extremely well entertained and rell amused, said in return very willingly that the mar- iage had been an admirable one. Now and then Lady Avillion herself heard this remark. ) i M It, at heart, no| le impulse tha^^ id smiled, whether with pleasure, or irony, or acquies- mce, or disdain, no one would have known, for she had 3* POSITION, that same smile about many things which moved her to very opposite emotions. *' How many wuincu you must have made sufTcr lior- ribly ! " she said to iiim once. Avillion looked astonished. "Suffer? Oh, no ; women don't suffer, at least they like it. When they can't suffer they don't love, and that is worse for them, because if they don't love they can't enjoy." " What do you do when a woman still cares for you of whom you have tired ? " " I go away." •'And forget her ?" " Of course one forgets what one is tired of ; that goes without saying." "But suppose she writes to you ? " " I don't read what she writes. That is very simple." She looked at him and smiled ; she gauged the immen- sity of the absolute selfishness wiiicii was so instinctive in him that it was scarcely blamable. "What a happy thing I never really loved him," she thought. " He would have broken my heart. To appeal , to that intense egotism would be like asking warmth from the Mer de Glace ! " "And do you never give them a thought," she said aloud, " those poor dclaissces whose letters you don't read ? " " I never think of anything disagreeable," he replied with entire sincerity : "anything one has left is disagree- able, whether one wants it or doesn't want it. Byron al- ways looked back at the steeple with regret, or so he says, whenever he left the most unpleasant place or people. That is r esprit du clocher. I have not V esprit du clocher in my wanderings, whether on the face of tlie ::;,lobe or on the carte tend re ! " CHAPTER V. Ten days after there was a second reception at the For| eign office, as important and as numerous as that at whicl; the Maharajah Zadar and the Rao of Nautch had first bee| present. It was at a moment when the Government dcf sired the presence of all its supporters in demonstration of the union of its party which some troublesome rumorj and some disagreeable events had of late made moif doubtful than was agreeable to the leaders of it. Thin? J'OS/T/UX. 37 lovcd her to z suffer bor- i, no ; women ly can't suffer jcausc if they res for you of of ; that goes 'ciV suTiple." ed'the iuuncn- o instinctive in oved him," she art. To appeal ig warmth f romj ucrht," she saidj don't read? ,' he repUedj eft is disagrec- it. Byron al-1 t, or so he says, ice or people. 'frit du clocher in^ plobe or on the| C3 ou ,tion at the FoiJ as that at whiclf ch had first beerj [Government del \ demonstration Iblesome rumorj [late made rnorj >s of it. Thing' as yet were quite safe in every way, hut tliere was agita- tion in the air, aucl bns be hcalthv, or his political subscriptions be large. It was a matter of per- sonal pride with him. "She is extremely g()od-l(3oking and has great distinc- tion," he thought, as he surveyed her liirougli his half-shut eyelids. " 1 wonder whatever 1 saw in her once ; — but then that one alwavs does with all of them after a little while." With which melancholy reflection he closed liis eyes quite, and did not unclose them till the can iage door was pulled open with that violence which the L(jndon lackey deems necessary to his own importance. Tiie large courtyard of the Foreign Office was full of equipages ; and the throng on tlie staircases was already densely packed. Within the icception-rcjoms above the stairs there was everybody who was anybody, and alas, a good many who were not anybody at all. A London fashionable crcnvd is like the evei-moving iracundior Hadria of Horace ; it is always irritated and in- cessantly restless. All alike desire and pine to see and be seen, to hear news and to tell it, and to be the first to do both, to stare at any fresh notability there may be pres- ent, and then to get away to their carriages as quicklv as they can, and agree how dull it has been, and what a crush, and how ill everything is alwavs managed in that great house. Any house wiiicli they have just quitted is always the especial house at Avhich everything is managed most dreadfully, and where everybody is dullest and most mis- erable in all England As no hospitaUty Ci ! jrs into the nuUives of giving, so no gratitude enters into the receiving, of social entertain- ments in these years of the century's decrepitude. It is a mere question of expediency with both the givers and the takers of invitations, and criticism is as hargely visited on the results as it is exercised in the prejiaration of those long lists of names with which the head servants supply the reporters of the piess. It was a pretty scene, like all these affairs to which the beautv of flowers and of women contribute so much ; the political importance of the moment had brought all the people to town who would not otherwise have been seen POSITION. 39 at his Dut he ini ; it Kit his thv, or of pcr- listinc- ilf-shut ;— but a little lis eyes e dcjor London ; full of ulieady Dvc the i alas, a -moving and in- ti and be si to do be pies- ickly as a crush, u great s always icd most ost niis- ig, so no itertain- It is a land the uted on )f those supply lich the Icli ; the all the ten seen in it until after Whitsuntide, and the gathering of the Tory clans was S(j unanimous that scarcely any family of note to the party was absent that night. Conspicu(Mis among tlie crowd was the Indian Mahara- jah, wiili Ids Mentor anxiousiv iiovcriiig near, and another voung Oriental ptjtcniale, tiie Rao cjf Xautch, both of them blazing with sun-like jewels and watching with impassive countenances the bare-bosomed beauties crowding around them. "Tiiere is tiie best of them all," said Zadar in Ilindu- stanee to his countryman tiie Rao, and the dusky gleam- ing eyes of both j^rinces foUowetl admiringly the stately and graceful figure cjf l^ady Aviliion as she ])assed through the rooms, the silver tissues of her train ri ippli nir m th e light and the diamonds of her tiara crowning iier small and shapely head. '* Yes; she is," thought another person, who understood Ilindustanee, overhearing. "Ralph, is not that lady whom these natives admire, your cousin, Lady Aviliion?" "It is," said Beaufront. "I will take you to her when she has made her tmes gold ; gold of some sort, real or fairy gold. You know nothing of the miseries of an ordinary Englishman living on straitened means and mortgaged lands with the in- cessant demands of Society round him like so many sharks." "That is onlv conventif)nal misery," said Syrlin, impa- tiently. " It ceases at once tlic moment the man leaves r OS IT I on: 45 arc in issc one rry, but 1 beside occupy. ' Let us He has the two 1 Svrlin. proud (> i ■ appcar- s genius 3 beauty, c. Were ukedom ? ontented notliino- le wood- )uo;h the id." nd smil- man bc- liini." lot one's )iness or tat artist, becc>nies )U know m hvini;- h the in- 5() many |in, im pa- in leaves Society. In those old days I used to say so to your cousin. I used to sav to him, '' Vou are so iiarasscd because you cannot brins^ yourself to give up all you arc accustomed to ; if you lived as I live you would no more feel yourself poor." But habit was too strong for him and he went on ■ with his cab and his c!ubs and his conventionalities, and he was always burdened with debts accordingly. Now lie has got the opposite conventionalities of an immense '^ social position, and of great riches, and he likes them no better. Indeed, he likes them less." "Are you a great philosopher?" *' I endeavor to be, because I see other men miserable through not being so." i; "You do not look it; you look like Faust, Werner, --1 Manfred, Hamlet " " That is only because you associate me with romantic characters on the stage." " No, it is not.^ You have in your countenance " " Why do you hesitate ? " "Well, you have what Vandyke saw in the cast of I Charles the First's." "Misfortune? Very possibly. I have had great suc- f cesses in life, they are usually followed by their avengers. I I have had sorrows, but they have not been irremediable ■■ as yet. Very likely some will come to me which will have ^no remedy." % He rose as a great personage approached, bowed low V and left her circle. " He is interesting, and he can be refreshingly rude," Ishe said to Beaufront a little later. " Bring him to me some day, or tell him to come to-morrow." " I suppose it is the rudeness which interests you," said [Beaufront, with a little jealousy. "He is always very [insolent, but I did not think even he would dare to be so [to you." "He was certainly not insolent," said Freda, "and I [affronted him without intending it. You know if you Icompliment an artist on his art he always thinks that you jmean to allude to the Foundling Hospital, or the travel- ling show, or the parish school which saw his first efforts." "All artists are not educated at parish schools or reared [in foundling hospitals ; that is a remark quite unworthy )f you, Freda." " Most of them are ; and who was he ? " " Oh, that is a very long story." ' n I 'I ' >i ■ 1 m t ^^1 I. . ■ _ . t in ij"-! 46 position: "Well, come and lunch, and tell it me to-morrow." "I will come and lunch, and I dcjn't suppose you will remember to ask for the story. A great lady's day is so very full of small things." CHAPTER VI. "You do not look much amused, M. de Syrlin,*' she said with an indulgence in her tone as to a spoilt child, as she met Syrlin an hour later in the music-room. "I am never amused in society," he replied. "It is a disgusting spectriclc." " Rather a strong expression, is it not ? " said Lady Avillion, much diverted and thinking to herself: "How odd they are, these people, always dying to push them- selves into our world, and ahvavs uneasy when they get there ! " " Perhaps not a polite expression in the presence of one who should reconcile the greatest boor to it. But I think a true expression. What a mass of insincerity, of intrigue, of unkindness, of envy, of discontent, of inflated vanity, of embittered failure, is a great gatiicring like this one. From the place-hunters who make their bow because it is useful to them to be seen at the Premier's, to the innocent de- butantes who are dying to sell themselves for a dowry and a coronet to Lord Floddcn or your cousin Ralph, who is there here that is not moved by secret motives which they would be ashamed to have to avow ?" "Well, I don't know," said Freda, still diverted. " I am sure I have no motive in going to places myself, except perhaps to see and to be seen, and because everybody else comes. I imagine a great many people are like that, mere sheep, you know ; and Lord Avillion is too lazy, and one of us must show. And you yourself, M. de Syrlin, what motive have you ?" " 1 came to be presented to Lady Avillion." " Oh, oh ! That sounds very well, but it is a little con- ventional, isn't it, for one who despises conventionalities?" "It is at least quite true. Beaufront promised me that honor if I would come here to-night." " My cousin has always the good-natured, if not always successful desire to make people he is attached to ac- quainted with each other. It is not his fault if you and I position: 47 )rrow. sc you will y's day is so n,'' she said ;hild, as she d. "It is a said Lady self : " How push theni- en they get sence of one But I think , of intrigue, ed vanity, of s one. From e it is useful innocent dc- a dowry and ilph, who is which they ted. " I am '^self, except irybody else e that, mere zy, and one Syrlin, what % a little con- ionalities?" sed me that not always .^^ Lched to ac- ^^ f you and I have not licard so much of each other that wc arc quite ready with any runoiiiit of sympathy or of riiuipathy.'" " I fear the former tlie more," said Syrliii, a little ah- riiptlv, while his great thuk eyes dwelt on hers with niedilativc admiration. She smiled still witii a certain kindly (X)ndescension as to a person {)rivilege(l to be eccentric, and with a tiny nod of the head took the arm of one (jf the Ministers who was passing and left him. *' He is dans Ic blcii^ as they say in his Paris," she thought, as she tnrned away. " But I hope he will not continue to make me this soil of spec^ches, or 1 shall remind him that he is not in his green-rooms." Syrlin bowed hnv. Ilis eyes followed her as she went throu2:h the o-littering crowd, and followed with the same meditative admiration in them the undulatino- movement of her admirable form, the gleam of the diamond tiara on her small stately head, the whiteness of her beautiful shoulders. "Your cousin is a lovely woman, but she only lives for herself," he said to Beaufront, who said impatiently : "My dear boy, what should you know of who or what she lives for ? On the contrary, there are few women, I think, who occupy themselves with so many impersonal interests as Lady Avillion does." " That is not at all what I meant," said wSyrlin, with some disdain. "I meant that she has never loved anyone." " Mow can vou possibly presume to judge of her in any way?" replied Beaufront, witli rising angc-r. "She cer- tainly loves her children and her country, and all her duties in it. English women have wholesome and simple- affections and find them quite sufficient." "Pshaw!" said Syrlin, with a delicate intonation of supreme contempt, as he stood a moment in the portals of the Foreign Office to close his fur coat around him, for this spring night in London seemed chilly to a man born where the warm waves of ocean wash the sunny shores of Morocco. CHAPTER VII. "Who is he, really?" she inquired of her cousin the next day, in her own house, after luncheon. " Nobody asks who artists are," grumbled Avillion, who il » i Hi ■■it M- t.4n ¥ 48 position: was present. "What the deuce does it matter what hole they conic out of ? It's all one, whether the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick-maker had the honor of their procreation." " Yes," said Bcaufront, angrily. "It does not matter in the very least what soil the reed that Pan cuts grow in ; it is the music that matters." "When it is music!" said Avillion, drearily. "But there is not any nowadays : it is all drumming on frying- pans, and letting off cannon ; you never, by any chance, hear any melody now unless the train breaks down in Italy, and you have to get out at some beggarly country town and go into a theatre, lighted with a little petroleum flaring in tins, and hear dear old Donizetti or Bellini for half a franc ; I heard Crispino c la Coinare last December that way, in the Romagna. Such delicious harmonies, all rippling and laughing, likt a brook in the sun ; and the prima donna ran behind the scenes to suckle her child, and the baritone had a pot boiling in the dressing-room with a hare and some fennel and garlic in it, which he assured me was a dish for the gods." And Avillion laughed, enjoying the recollection as he had enjoyed the reality, because it had been something unfamiliar and out of England. " Ralph, you don't tell me who he was," said Freda, who never relinquished a point. "Well, he was a natural son of the late Due d'Alger," replied Beaufront, " by a Spanish woman, the daughter of a tradesman, who lived in a suburb of Ceuta. The Prince was travelling in Morocco, and was struck by her beauty. It was a mere little flirtation for him, but Valencia Hur- tado was tenacious and of long memory (there is generally one of the two who remembers). She brought the boy up to think himself of royal birth, and had him highly edu- cated by some Spanish Dominicans who had a mission at Tripoli. When he was about fifteen years old she died of cholera, after two hours' illness, and in her dying moments, she said to him, *Go to your father in France, and claim your place,' Now comes the dramatic part of it, as dram- atic as Avillion's baritone with his hare soup." " Do not spoil your story. Well, this boy went to France? I remember the Due d'Alger very well ; he was a charming person and of very artistic tastes." " Yes ; his artistic tastes have been transmitted to his son,//«j- genius. The boy went to France. He was a ■ what hole )utcher, the or of their )t matter in grow in ; it •ily. ''But on frying- any chance, ^s down in irly country 2 petroleum Bellini for t December irmonies, all in ; and the 2 her child, essing-room it, which he ection as he 1 something i Freda, who uc d'Alger," daughter of The Prince her beauty. encia Hur- ls generally the boy up highly edu- mission at she died of ig moments, and claim it, as dram- it to France? a charming itted to his He was a POSIT/OX. 49 -a young man in appearance and in passions, but a mere child, a more baby, in all knowlccigc except of books. He had passed his life with a superstitious Spanish woman, who had been wedded to iier religion and her memories, and a monastery full of studious devcuU recluses, shut in behind their aloe hedges and their adobe walls. He has often told me; — but I ought not, perhaps, to ^peak of this, for I believe he never speaks himself of it willingly." " Oh, pray go on." "Woman'has no honor when she is curious," murmured her lord. " But go on ; the old prince is dead and it can't matter." "Well," continued Beau front, "the lad set out for France. He knew the language well, but his accent was foreign ; his enemies will tell you that it is so still. lie had money, for his mother had been fairly rich. He made his way easily enough by sea and land to Paris, and thence to the gates of the Chateau d'Elbceuf, which you all know so well, and there asked straightway for the 13uc d'Alger. He was refused an entrance, naturally enough. On his persisting, they asked him who he was, and he answered simply that he was the son of the Due d'Alger ; he said so quite innocently, and with frank pride. They shut the gates on him, and talked of sending for the police. Me was beside himself with indignation. ' I am his son, I tell you ; I am a child of France,' he cried to them like a ro- mantic young simpleton, iniconscious (jf all ridicule. At last, though the gates were closed to him, he managed to get in, unarrested, to the forest, and thence into the inner park, and hid lumsclf under the trees and waited his op- portunity ; his heart ready to break with rage and pride, and pain and helplessness. At last, after a night and two days spent in the woods, he saw the Prince approach, rid- ing down one of the drives with a number of gentlemen. He recognized his father's face from a portrait he had seen, and also by the fact of his riding in advance of the suite and alone. He came out of his hiding place, and ran out before the Duke's horse and caught its bridle. * She is dead, and she told me to come to you,' he said, between his sobs, clinging madly to the horse's mane and expect- ing Heaven knows what romantic recognition." "Poor d'Alger! What a bore," murnuired Avillion. "It was not much of a bore," said Beaufront, "for d'Alger did not see any necessity to make it one. He asked one of his gentlemen who this lad was ; he had no m ■ii -{ \ Ml] m i p so position: ■k remembrance of the brief romance of Cetita. 'I am your son,' said tiie boy. 'I am your son and Iicms, and she is dead. She bade me come to you.' *VVho was your mother?' asked d' Alger, who no doubt was not well pleas- ed at this scene at the opening of a hunting party. Tiie lad let go of his bridle and stared at him, growing red and white by turns. 'Do you disown me?' he said, with all his heart in his mouth. 'I do not disown you, I do not know you,' said the Prince. *If you want anything done for you, go to my almoner, and tell him what it is.' And he shook his rein free, and would have ridden on, but the boy had fallen down insensible on the ground right under his horse's hoofs," Beaufront paused a moment ; his cousin was listening earnestly. "I shall tire Avillion," he said ; "he liates romance." "Oh, no," said Avillion, "I rather like it, unless it has anything to do with myself, and worries me." He had had many stormy scenes made him by deserted ladies, and had deserted not a few. "Go on," he continued. " It was a horrid nuisance for poor d'Alger, after all those years " "It was a nuisance which soon came to an end," said Beaufront. "When the boy recovered his senses the Prince's chaplain was with him, in a room in the castle, and his mother's letters and his own certificate of birth having been found in his pockets, had been taken to the Prince, who, with very great difficulty, had brought to his recollection the name and memory of Valencia Hurtado. The chaplain, with all delicacy and kindness, made the boy acquainted with his real position, and assured him of the future protection of the Prince, which would be given on one condition, that he should never allude to his par- entage or approach his father. But the lad had been too deeply wounded to consider his own interests, or listen to any reason. *If he will have none of me, I will have none of him,' he said violently; infuriated and profound- ly hurt. And no forces could soothe or retain him. He escaped at night out of one of the windows, and slid down a buttress on to the grass, and got away into Spain and back again to Morocco. " D'Alger, who was distressed by the whole affair, and felt some remorse at the boy's disappearance, caused him to be sought out and found by his agents ; by them he made various munificent offers, but they got no other an- r OS/ '/'/OAT. 51 swcr and made no otlicr impression tlian the cha|)lain of I'21b'e nature ; a sculptor only in a n^ibility to all forms of plastic beauty. I have not the woi- of creating art. I can only represent what others I ■'s\: 1'' \ m 11 n k in [■■ HI.. Ill Miml I'll < Hill 58 POSITION. describe. It is folly to speak of an actor creating a part ; the poet or the dramatist has created it ; the actor is the lute over which the hand of the creator passes to call forth the air already composed." "That is a very modest definition of your calling." " It is a true one. I have never regarded it in any other light. We are of use to convey the images and ideals of men greater than ourselves to tlic ccjinmon multitudes. In a social condition of perfect and universal culture there would be no place lor the theatre. The imaginations and apprehensions of men would be too delicate and acute to endure physical embodiment of their finest fancies." " We are certainly neither delicate nor acute in our generation. But I think you are scarcely just to yourself or the public whom you move. Racine and Corneille, Hugo and Musset, seemed to me mere dry bones rattling in their coffins, until I saw your impersonation of these characters." He bowed with a smile. '* But you are not imaginative, Madame ; the world has been with you too early and too much. It has intensified the perceptive, but it has destroyed the receptive and | creative faculties, in you." Freda Avillion felt unreasonably offended and displeased"^ at this frank analysis of her qualities of mind. She had always fancied that she was a person of imagin- ation and susceptibility, dwelling in considerable mentall isolation in a society which possess neither. She had said! that she had not understood Racine and Corneille, Hiigoi and Musset, as a pretty compliment to himself ; but shel had been far from meaning it, or supposing that he woul(i| think she meant it. "Of course one's lives here are the most unpoetic livi'| in the world, I know that," she said with a rising sensa] tion of anger, " and society is always about us, as you sayj it is like the fog, it gets into one, and colors everything dull gray ; but still one is not really satisfied — one missej something, one cannot tell what it is, or what it shoull be — and then one hears some music, or reads a poem, oi sees your Fortunio or your Hypolite, and one gets into fairer air, for a moment, only it never lasts." It was not so clear or so clever a speech as her speecl usually was, but Syrlin understood its suggestion of in adequacy and of vague desire in a life which appeared t| observers to be even insolently perfect. ss "en POSITION. 59 ting a part ; actor is the to call fortli ailing." in any other ind ideals of multitudes, p culture there I rinations and 'and acute to^ ancles." acute in our St to yourself nd Corneille, )ones rattling ition of these the world 1ms has intensified receptive and and displeased d. son of imagui- erablc nienia She had said! rneille, Hugof Inself ; but she! that he vvouW] unpoetic livej rising sensnj Jus, as you say I Is everything jd — one missej Iwhat it shoulj ]ads a poem, oi )ne gets into >» as her specci Iggestion of ii Th appeared H He was about to reply, when the tapestries were again Irawn aside, and there came in a gay piirty ; the Duchess )f (.)ueensto\vn, Lady Gh.ucester, l^ady Wiiitby, the JRussian Ambassador, the Rao of Nautch, and several young men of fashion ; tiiey were full of news, specula- tion, laughter, and idleness, and wore charmed to find _§vrliii in her drawing-rooms, thougli he limited himself to owing over the hands of the ladies whom he knew ready, and standing beside the fireplace in silence. He gretted his interrupted tcte-a-tcte^ and as he listened to cir chatter, what fools they seemed to him, good cavens ! What fools ! The Rao of Nautch, with his three months of Europe, csh from his rhinoceros duels, and his elephant hunts, lid his marble mosques, and his monkey-filled temples der the palm-groves, was not farther removed from the irit of the society around him than was Syrlin ; was arer to it indeed, for the Rao of Nautch was a cheerful d pleasure-loving young man, who thought this superior pvilization to which they had brought him was amusing ough, though extremely absurd, with its perpetual eat- g, its admirable wines, its frightful architecture, its very |nveiled ladies, and its funny pretences of regarding hu- ^an life and property as sacred, while it made its big jiuns at Woolwich, and gathered its taxes throughout his :Mwn kingdom of Nautch. % A succession of people followed these, and Freda Avil- )n was never alone until it was time to dress for dinner, le was going to a very ceremonious dinner that night, d to show herself to two parties after it. As her woman cssed her, she thought of Syiliii's words with dispropor- nate irritation. "Why did he take for granted that she had no imagina- n ? Why did he seem to fully understand that the poets d dramatists had been a dead letter to her until his own personation had aroused her comprehension of them ? rtists were always like that; they always spoke as if they [one were of the elect, as if thev alone could see, or hear, feel! Talk of the pride of birth!" she thought, here was there any pride like intellectual pride? All e Pharisees of Jerusalem were not so stiff-necked as one an of genius can be. Look at Henry Irving, all sweet- ss and suavity, yet how plainly thinking himself much eater and better than any king or kaiser. She did not me them for it. They were quite right to be insolent •ti h J 11;: { r '1 ♦ i*! i^ii M 6o POSIT/O.V. lii 11 P ' to a world whicli would have been as insolent to them if they iiad failed as it was servile and sycophantic to their success. Slic did not blame them, only sh-^ did not see wliy they should make so sure that they had such an en- tire monopoly of all the higher qualities or warmer sym- pathies. On pent etrc reine et aimer son miochey' she thought, " but that is what they will never allow ; it can only be the fisherman's or the beggar's wife alone qui aime son mioche according to them ; you can see the stars just as well from the White Tower at Windsor as from the top of Eddystone Lighthouse, but tiiey will never admit it ; if you are not out uncomfortably in the midst of the black- ness of the water they think you cannot possibly have eyes for Orion and the rest. That is their form of preju- dice, though they think they have no prejudices," " They " were very odd persons in Freda Avillion's mind. She tolerated them because they amused her, but she saw their vanities, their contradictions, and their shortcomings very plainly, and regarded them with the same kind of half-contemptuous indulgence which Mary Stuart proba- bly felt toward her minstrels and poets. Minstrels and poets and queens have none of them changed their natures, though their places have altered since the days of Amboise and of Holyrood. When Syrlin left the house a few minutes later he overtook Beaufront, who instead of going to the Lords was strolling toward Wilton Street ; they walked in silence toward the Park and along the Drive. They had reached Albert Gate with scarcely any words being ex-, changed between them ; at last he said abruptly, with- out any prelude : " Is she happy ?" " Who ? " asked Beaufront very astonished. " Your cousin." "Lady Avillion ?" said Beaufront, stiffly. "Certainly Why not ? And what affair of yours would it be if she were not?" Syrlin was absorbed in his own thoughts and did not resent the rudeness of the rebuke. "Why did she marry him?" he inquired ; pursuing his meditations. " I don't know, I am sure. Because she liked him I suppose. My consent was not asked," said Beaufront crossly; and whistled to his coUey dog who was barking at a horse and kicking up the tan of the Ride. J'OSJTJOiV. 6i n\ CHAPTER IX. I.' "Freda has fads," said Avillion one morning in his own house to Hcaufront. "All kinds of fads. They do no good, not the slightest good. You don't stave off the deluge because you stick primroses under your horse's ears. You don't check the horrible growth of population because you send a wagon-load of ragged children into Epping Forest. Women take politics with their lives nowadays, just as they sprinkle salt on their muffins. It's all play. I understand an ugly woman taking to it, but in a handsome woman it's preposterous. My wife is an (fh'gante, and a beauty, and all the rest of it ; what has she got to do with politics ? She might as well try to stop a runaway horse with her fan. Nothing will alter anything. All the world over the democracy is getting bigger and bigger, stronger and stronger, but I think the country here will last out our time. If it doesn't she can't bale out the rising tide with her parasol. I wish you would make her understand that. Beau." "Not I. I admire her earnestness," said Beaufront. " It shows that a woman thinks." "Why should a woman think?" said Avillion. "And besides, it doesn't show that she thinks, it only shows she repeats the cackle she hears." "And what else do we do ?" replied Beaufront. " Haven't we all got primroses at our horses' ears to-day ? The primroses make one shiver a little ; it's rather like gather- ing flowers on the brink of the bottomless pit, it rather savors of the white lilies soaked in the sea of blood, but still they mean something ; they mean that the great lady and the laborer's wife may have a common bond in a common country." " Oh, yes," said Avillion. " I daresay they have a common bond, especially when the laborer's wife digs the roots up for nothing out of somebody else's field, and the great lady buys them at six shillings a dozen. But if you think that Freda and her friends and their little yellow flowers will stave the seizure of land off for a single half- century you will believe anything." " She will find plenty of men to believe everything she tells them, even if it be still more improbable than that," said Beaufront, as he advanced to meet his cousin, who 4 ] ' ' ' " ■ iii 4i ' t 1 1- * ,♦ ■I i 'f ! I mm' ' 6a POSITION. liad a great bouquet of primroses in her hand and was dressed for driving. "Won't you come to the meeting?" she aslced her hus- band. "I !" " He did not deign any further reply. He grumbled at giving, but he gave his money to the Carlton regularly and liberally ; he grumbled at going, but he went down to the Lords when there was any important decision ; he subscribed to any political feasts or any elections that went on in his own county, and he bored himself to be civil to the county members. But for all the fuss and fiddle- faddle of the party, all the rose-water with which it sought to quench the sulphur fumes of a seething naphtha pool Avillion had nothing but contempt ; the contempt of a clever, selfish, keen-sighted, and very indolent man for the toil and trouble with which others tried to weave ropes of sand, and to fill bottomless vessels, and to persuade those who hooted and hated them that they were the salt of the earth. ** Lord Flodden is coming here to go to Battersea," she said with a smile, half amused, half triumphant. ** Really ? " said Bcaufront. *' Well that is clever of you. What an advertisement ! He cannot draw back after that." "On the contrary, he is coming because I have con- vinced him that to do so does not pledge him at all," she replied with some offence, conscious of the integrity of her motives and the candor of her explanations. "Oh, of course," said Beaufront, dryly. " We always say that to the ephebes. Well, anyhow, you are always right, Freda, for those to whom you condescend to be charming." " I hope that we are right, that the interests of the country and the people are much safer with us than they ever can be with the other side." Avillion laughed : " My dear Freda, you don't seriously go in for all those fadaiscs^ do you ? To be sure, your neophyte is very young." " The fadaises are at all events the political programme of the Carlton, so they are or they ought fo be yours," said his wife, with coldness. "As for this poor boy, he is really in earnest in his desire to do what is right, and it would be wicked to let him stray over to the Radicals' ranks unwarned for want of a word in time." position: 63 ''Not to speak of the immense chagrin which Lady Wiltshire will feel whrn she sees him with primroses in his hiitton-hole ! Amiable as you are, my lady, you will grant that her suffering will be nut without amusement for you." "It is a matter surely of general principles, not of per- sonal malignity or gratification." *' Oh, of course, we know that no personal feeling ever does enter into politics ! But it is really very clever of you to have enticed that lad from the creed of his fathers. A Tory Flodden will be something like a mute Irish mem- ber." "Lord Flodden," announced the groom of tlie cham- bers, and a well-made youth over six feet in height, and carrying himself half awkwardly, lialf gracefully, entered the room, his eyes very eagerly seeking Lady Avillion. He was a good-looking boy, with something unlike other boys in his appearance. His education at once cloistral and classic, his ignorance of English life, his timidity, which was not without grace, and his delightful abhor- rence of all sport, made him as totally unlike the youth of the day as his crisp rippling golden curls were unlike the shaven pates of the mashers. They called him the new Lothair (behind iiis back), and (to his face) men courted him and women caressed him. The boy was astonished, dazzled, disgusted, all in one ; but he had a good deal of sound sense which counterbalanced his simplicity, and saved him alike from vanity and deception. He perceived that everyone wanted to use him in some way or another, and his natural candor and trustfulness drew back from their snares and sophisms as a sea anemone draws back into itself at the touch of a human finger. There had been great speculation in the world of polit- ics when the young Marquis of Flodden had attained his majority six months before. His father had been a hy- pochondriac, a recluse, living in southern climates, and wholly indifferent to all which went on at home. The boy had been brought up in the strictest seclusion, and no- thing was known in London of his tastes, habits, or views. It was thought that his sympathies would be Whig, be- cause every bearer of the title had been a Whig ever since the Lord Flodden of that time had marched again§t Charles Edward, to the amazement and fury of all the Western Highlands, fiiit the boy's mother had been of an old Tory family, and it was possible that she might have iu' II t ■ »' n m. 1 m ■'t'i t r- 1 . -t r^', 11 64 ros/TfO/v. clined him thrit way. There was at least an open field for speculation, and when the young man descended at his long unoccupied mansion in St. James's Square, there was between the two parties an open rivalry to secure him, which Avillion viewed with mild derision, and Bcaufront with profound contempt. But the inertia of her cousin and her husband were amply atoned for by the energy and decision which Lady Avillion had thrown into the matter. " Yes ; certainly we must go for Lothair," she had said to lierself after the request of I^ord Greatorex in Downing Street ; a boy with no ready-made ideas, whose mind would be a slieet of white paper on which to write her own views, was a delighlful thing to secure, whilst his large fortune and his territorial inlluence would make him the most valuable of supporters. F'loddenhad not been a dozen hours in town befor(^ the card of Lord Avillion was left on him, nnd had not been a week before Lady Avillion's boudoir had become to him the one place in this astonishing Babylon wiiere he felt happy and safe. He knew no more of the world than if he had kept sheep on one of his own strathsides all his life ; he had been brought up by a simple and pious mother, and grave tutors who represented life to him as a morass of temptation and a mire of despond. He had scarcely understood anything of his own powers and standing in the world, until all at once he found himself in the be- wildering, intoxicating, enervating atmosphere of fashion- able London, at the beginning of the Parliamentary 'Ses- sion. That world secretly compared him to a goose, an nss, and a lamb, and wanted to pluck the goose, to lead the ass, and to tether the lamb. But Freda Avillion said to him in the rose light of her favorite room as she gave him some tea : " Don't let anyone get hold of you. Come to me when you want to understand anything. You know your mother and my mother were such great friends." Thev had been so in girlhood for a vear or two, and this fact lost nothing under her delicate management of it. Why should this boy go to the Radicals, when by a little care and caressing bestowed on him he might so easily be brought to wear primroses? And indeed wear them he did in his buttonhole as he now entered the library of Avil- lion House on the anniversary of Disraeli's death. "They don't bind you to anything, you know," she said rosiTioN. 65 with a smile as slie saw tiicm. '* Numbers of Radicals wear thetn ; they say it is because tiiey hoin^r Lord Bcacons- tield's genius, but I am sure it is only because they like to try and be in tiie swim." Fl(Klden looked grave, as he always did when he did not understand. " Disraeli was at heart a Radical," he said with hesita- tion, for he had so few opinions that he advanced any of tiicni very timidly, as a man who has only a few shillings in the world cannot tender one without anxiety. Lord Avillion laughed. "LOon't say that where you're going." "Why shouldn't he say it if he thinks it?" said Beau- front. "If Disraeli were a Radical he couldn't have serv- ed his purpose better than by joining the Tories, for no man ever belonged to them that did so much damage to their cause." " My dear Ralph ! " said Freda with considerable annoy- ance, "why will vou say those things.'' You don't mean them." "I certainly mean that, and I will prove it out of his books, and out of his speeches. If you \\'\\\ read 'Sybil,' and remember the Household Suffrage, you cannot dis- pute it." " He certainly approved the principle of aristocracy." ''But did his best to prevent its application. Besides, what must an aristocracy, which thinks it grand to go back as far as Magna Charta, which is generally incapable of going back as far as tlie Stuarts, and which is largely composed of enriched tradesmen of the Victorian era, ap- pear to a Venetian Jew or to a high-caste Hindoo? The terrible irony of 'Sybil,' indeed of all his novels, harrows and hacks the T^nglish peerage like a steam-saw." '•Itliinl we must g) to Battersea, or we shall be too late f' ' >»rd Greatorex's address," said Freda, who did not ^ her new .othair to her house to hear this kind of I \'ersati(3n. lie could hear enough of it, if he liked, ac Jane Wi' shire's. Flodden a as gazing at her with all his young soul in his eyes, not in the least consc' us of all which his gaze ex- pressed, and lost in a dreamy adoration, infinitely amusing to the two other men. Avillion looked at him, smiled, and lighted a cigarette. He could cast the youth' lioroscope without any diffi- culty. , , ■ .- - • '% m i I i ■ ■1 \ \ M H; 66 POSITION, "You're going to belong to us, I see," said Avillion to to him with a slow, cynical little smile ; but neither the meaning nor the inference contained in his remark was visible to the boy. He never dreamt that his adhesion to the Carlton, and his addition to the Tory Premier's supporters, was the conquest of the moment on which Lady Avillion's soul was set as on a matter of personal pique and supremacy. •'You are going to a heaven of prim.roses and plati- tudes," said Beaufront to him. ''Happily for you there will be some pretty women to look at " "And to hear," added his cousin. "Violet Guernsey is going to speak" " I am glad I am not Guernsey," said Avillion. "My husband is very old fashioned in some ideas. He doesn't like women to do anything," she said to Flodden, in explanation and attenuation of these dangerous re- marks, as they descended the staircase. Beaufront saw her to her carriage, lifted his hat, and walked away toward Pall Mall. The boy went alone with her, to his own unutterable ecstasy and embarrassment, with the faint, sweet odor of her primroses wafted to him as they drove, and her delicate profile his to contemplate as lie would, in the gray, cloudy air of a London afternoon. There were primroses in the horses' frontlets ; primroses in the coats of the servants ; primroses everywiiere, on the pavement, in the shop windows, in the button-holes of gentlemen, in the hands of the crowds. Flodden thought of babyish days when he had gathered them under the birch-woods of his old Scottish ho ne, Brae-eden, with the gray sea shining beyond the silvered trunks ; and Freda thought of the undulating turf of her own old home at Bellingham, with the primrose roots clustering round the bog beeches, and the rooks flying silently to and fro the elm-trees by the lake, where they made their nests. " People always think of their childhood when they see primroses," she said, as the carriage rolled past Hyde Park Corner. "It is the most innocent of all the flowers, and it was cruel to make it into a party emblem ; only the cause is so good ! " " If I were quite sure of that," said Flodden, and he colored, being afraid that the expression of his doubts might offend her. London made a strong impression on the young man ; it at once depressed and excited him. Its want of artifi- POSITION fi7 cial and natural charm, its melancholy architecture, and its gray atmosphere, were painful to him, used as his eyes were to the beauties of Nature and of Art ; but, at the same time, the exhilaration of its endless life, the anima- tion of its ceaseless society, and the attraction of its agreeable interiors, gave iiim a sense at once of confusion and of gratification. Everything was new and strange to him ; and he was divided between a strong sense of aes- thetic disappointment and an equally strong instinct of youthful amusement. Though they thought him so sim- ple, he was keen-sighted, and, whilst as innocently trustful as any antelope wliich has never seen humanity, he had perceptions which were not easily led astray. He felt that everyone in England wanted to use him, for some reason or other, financial, political, or social, and the knowledge saddened him. He thought that Lady Avillion alone actually liked him for himself ; she was so kind : she, a beauty, a wit, a great lady, who wanted nothing of anybody in existence : and the conviction attached him to her with intense gratitude. Of the rivalries of Primrose Dames, of the acerbities and jealousies of Party, of the pleasure of out-manoeuvring and forestalling Jane Wilt- shire, this innocent from the shores of Sicily dreamed nothing ; he was only sensible of his Lady's kindliness. She sympathized now with his mingling of depression and excitation. " I feel just like that myself wlien T am in London," she said to him. "Everything is so ugly, and so absolutely without charm, and the life one leads is so mere a routine, and so hurried and so material, and so gross under all its varnish, that one feels any soul one has is dying inch by inch every day in such an atmosphere. And yet there is such a fascination in it, in the intense movement, in the incessant intrigue, in tlie endless conflict of minds, in the ceaseless varieties of character, in the sense of being in the very centre of the world's axis, as it were, that one cannot resist its influences; and when I go away from it down to my own houses, or other people's houses in the country, or to Cannes, or Carlsbad, or Como, I miss even the boys crying the evening newspapers in the streets, as I drive out of my gates to go to a dinner party. One knows one will hear at the dinner party what the town won't hear till the morning papers are out : that is the great charm of London. Everybody in it is always asking quid novi? and it is the only place on earth where «very- '■•vf ; 1^^i i ■ * t ii i ! ill f ii'i m ■I'M . mi' 3 „ -i 68 position: body is quite sure to get an immediate answer. Of course the wish for news is vulgar in itself ; of course it is much better and finer to be reading Pindar or Thomas a Kempis all by one's self in a library, than to be fishing for tit-bits of haute politique as one eats a truffle or an oyster. But it is life, movement, interest ; it is one's generation and one's epoch ; and as somebody wrote, you know, 'Whatever my mood is, I love Piccadilly.' " With such light and irrelevant discourse did she beguile the way to Battersea that her object in their pilgrimage never once showed its cloven foot of political purpose amongst the carelessly scattered flowers of her charms and fancies. "How kind she is ! How sweet she is ! " thought Guv, with all a boy's enthusiasm ; "and, oh, how fair she is!" he thought as he noted the upward curl of her long eye- lashes in the dim light. It seemed wonderful that she could take so much trouble about him, and care to admit him to her intimacy ; and an ecstatic worship, of which the humility was even greater than the devotion, filled his empty, wistful, boyish heart for this great Sovereign who stooped to him and spared his shyness so many trmors, and spared his ignorance so many errors. She criticised her own leaders and their policy so frankly, and with such utter absence of all trace of 'a parti pris, tiiat he felt quite safe in her society, and in its freedom from ail ulterior motive. "You are so exceptionally free," she said to him ; " most young men, when they come of age, are already irrevoc- ably pledged to one side or another by their family, their traditions, or their education. But you have lived out of England. Your father had no politics at all, one of your uncles was a Radical, the other a Liberal-Conservative, as ran the jargon of those dnvs; (we say Unionist ; //«.f (a change y plus c'est la f/i'/iie cliose) \ your grandfather was a Whig, and his grandfallicr before hiir.. But your mother's people all belonged to us ; and your maternal grandfather was Privy Seal in the late Lord Derby's Administration. You really are not bound by family respect to either side. Take time, and look around you before you decide." And he, poor boy, replied with timid entiuisiasm : "Don't think me a prig, Lady Avillion ; but you know I do feel one ought to bring one's conscience into these things ; I feel that political life ought to be a matter of real conviction, not a mere mechanical repetition of what Ill lli P0Sn70A\ 69 one's own family has tbouglit and done. I know it sounds presumptuous and silly to say so, but I have thought about it a good deal, and I do so want to do what is right." "That is very sweet of you, and so rare in these days ! But it is because I wish you to be guided wholly by your own ideas of right and wrong, that I ask you dispassionately to listen to our best exponents of our views," replied Fi'eda Avillion, in her sweetest tones. " I would not for worlds bias you in the very least. If you like to be true to the traditions of your family, why should you not? Serine men think it a point of honor to sacrifice their own con- victions to that sort of family consistency. But this I must remind you of, — 'the Liberalism of your father's youth would be the Conservatism of to-day." *' Pray go on " — murmured Flodden, little conscious of the arguments, so melodious was the voice which urged them, of which the clear, low melody was audible above the roar of traffic in Sloane Street. "Oh, you will hear better arguments than mine," she said with a sigh. "And I don't even 7cnsh to persuade you. Such singleness of purpose and honesty of search as yours are things too good in themselves for me to seek to change them into any rash or blind acceptance of our policy. You are young, free, sincere, and you have the world before you ; why should you be in a hurry to pledge or promise away any part of yourself ? " " It is so kind of you not to be angry uith me," mur- mured Guy, with color in his cheeks. " Lady Wiltshire al- ways gets so irritable because I do not make u my mind, and do something decisive." Freda Avillion smiled and thought to herself, "What a goose Jane Wiltshire always is ! As the American girl said to Beau when they were out fly-fishing, 'She's put the wrong bug on her pole.'" Aloud, she replied as they rolled, on toward the squalor and aesthelicism, ihe furnace chimneys and the blue china, the dusky streets and the glovv'ing red brick of Chelsea : '* I do so lespect you ; how could I be angry ? There is so very little earnestness in political feelings ; people talk a great deal, but in their hearts they all think they are just patching the country up to last their own time, and they care very little about anything else that may come after- wards. Now you, on the contrary, think, and think for yourself, and wish to be of use in your generation, and to do nothinu: that shall be harmful in an after time. You arc ■ 1 "ii ' t hll n ir ■ ; 1 \ iiiii A m 70 POSIT 1 01^. w li I !*• 1 1 **■ i i'i .jil your own master and have a great stake in the game wliich we are playing at Westminster ; you arc so entirely right not to join either side of the players in a hurry which you would repent at leisure. How nice those (jueen Anne houses are, are they not ? When London is all red brick, Prout may come out of his grave and take pleasure in it. And the big bay windows are nice, if they would only learn to drape them properly inside ; English people never know how to drape windows well." They were now passing through Chelsea, which tries so painfully to be an artistic suburb, and finds its prospect of factory chimneys and penny steamers agree so ill with its indoor decoration of lilies and sunflowers and sixpenny Japanese fans and parasols. "And to think it was once calk<^ Shingle-Ea!" said Freda, whose thoughts never considered themselves bound to follow any regular sequence. " And they say the river was widespread like a lagoon in those early ages ; some- times I am wicked enough to wish it would become a lagoon again and swallow up all the gas 'vorks and the soap manufactories and the dust consumers, and all the 'desir- able residences' with electric Lells, and modern sanitation. What a fearful word that is ! how intensely modern in its priggishness, its pomposity, its ugliness, its scientific wind- baggishness ! By the bye, did you ever notice, Lord Flodden, that nobody ever had diphtheria till people began to get frightened about their drains ? It wasn't even in the world at all, I believe, until chemistry taught us that it was our duty to poison our fields." "Is the weather often like this?" he asked. "I have been in England a month, and I have not yet seen the sun." " Be thankful if you see him in two months' time. He is like Syrlin— he rarely crosses the Channel. Two years ago I came from a winter in Egypt, and 1 saw a dusky mottled red orange hanging above the chimneys of Apsley House as I drove home. I thought it was a railway sig- nal, but they called it tlie sun. I told the Astronomer Royal that it was impossible it could be the same sun that I had seen shine dazzling as a god above niv dahabieh for five months, but he assured me that in our solar system there are not two. After all, I suppose the Nile sun and the Piccadilly sun are not more different than we are our- selves when we are pleased and good-humored, and when we are discontented or cross." POSITION. 71 1 tries so And Flodden listened, enthralled and enchanted, whether her theme was moral conscientiousness or the Tite Street houses, political obligations or old Chelsea china. From Hyde Park Corner through Chelsea to Battersea Park is as ugly a drive as any civilized city can show in its midst, but to Fl(;ddcn it was all transfigured ; for him the red brick houses had the glow of a Venetian street scene ; the college garden grounds had the beauty of the Lido acacia-woods, the railway bridge had the stateliness of the Rialto, the factory chimneys were as the slender bell towers which are mirrowed in the silver surface of the la- goons, and the clouds of dust which rose in the gray and melancholy air were lovely as the white steam of surf that is breaking on the bar of Malamocco. She was silent and he was happy as they drove at Baitcrsea up to the entrance of t!ie Albert Ilall amidst the handsome equipages, the pushing pedestrians, and the hot and hoarse policemen. "How ugly it all is!" sr>id his companion. "And what a funny idea it is of the last years of the century, that to build a remarkably hideous structure of glass, iron, and bricks, painted in violent colors, and mew the people up in it, is to advance culture and education ! It really don't advance anything except a few pushing gentlemen who get C.B.'s by doing it." When Lady Avillion took her calm graceful deliberate way toward the places reserved for the great ladies and leaders of the Primrose League, followed by Flodden with his little bouquet in his buttonhole and a tlush on his frank fair boyish face, there was a rustle and a murmur of excitement in all those spectators who knew enough of the great world to know the importance in it of the great Scotch Marquisate. "She has actually got him," thought the chief of the party, and felt that Prcjvidence was indeed on his side when it gave him such an assistant as Lady Avillion. She had not put the "wrong bug on the pole." Flodden, not bv anv means aware of the weight and significance of his appearance there in the eyes of all, received with some embarrassment the greetings and congratulations showered on him from the gentlemen on the platform, and watched with enraptured eyes the grace with which she saluted her friends, exchanged a confiden- tial whisper with the Prime Minister, and then sank on to her chair while the organ sent forth the last strains of the National Anthem, and the body of people in the iiall ^■„)Vl my i li 72 rosiTiox. cheered and stamped and waved their handkerchiefs in a magnetic frenzy of wholly unintelligible excitement. Everyone there present who knew anything, knew that the young Lord Flodden was irrevocably committed to the party there gathered ; he himself alone did not know it. Had she not told him that the little pale flowers in his buttonhole bound him to nothing? If she had told him that they were blue flowers or black flowers and not yellow flowers at all, he would have believed her. CHAPTER X. li The Athene who had brought him to Battersea meanwhile watched him with amusement. She knew that she could lead him wherever she liked, and she rather dis- dained the facility of her dominion ; but it diverted her to see how seriously he took all the comedy of the meeting, with what admirable attention he listened to the various orations, and how painfully he was endeavoring to turn his thoughts from herself to the political themes of the speeches. '* He is indeed conscientious ! He thinks we come here to listen and learn ! " she thought with a little irreverent smile which she hid in her bouquet, for the Premier was speaking. He did listen with painstaking care and honesty, the crude light falling through the glass roof onto his blue questioning candid eyes, while interest, wonder, and per- plexity, and finally disappointment, passed over a counte- nance which had not learned the art of concealing impres- sions and emotions. " I have put the right fly on my rod, but the fish may not bite after all," thought Freda, whose candor to her- self was never obscured by any vain refusal to recognize what she saw was true. And yet it would be hardly possi- ble for him to go to the other side now, after sitting here in the very innermost circle and holiest of holies of the Primrose party. "Well, what did yoti think of us?" she asked as they were driving back again through Chelsea. Flodden grew red and hesitated. "There were a great many ])latitudcs,'* he said, timidly. "Of course there were. Wiiat else would a m<;nstcr lir^ J 'OS/ 77 ox. 73 meeting at Baltcrsca understand? The food must be suited to the eater. V(.)U cannot feed a babe on venison or a navvy on turbot." " But he said," Hodden contended, meaning the Prime Minister, "he said 'My policy is, appeal to tiie people.' He said that twice over." Well?" said Freda, impatiently. Well," said Flodden with deference and timiditv, "I do not call that Conservatism. The demagogue can say that. The Radical says it. If I am only t(j appeal ttj the people and not to lead them, what difference is there in me whether I be a Radical or a Tory?" Freda's delicate evebrows drew together in a little frown. She was ncjt patient of rebelhon ; and l:er own secret opinions leaned toward agreement with him. "You want an Oligarchy ? We can't have an Oligarchy? we should like one immensely, but it is impossible. '. m And all submitted to a people's will. That is Tennyson's line, and we have all got to repeat it after him. After all, what else is parliamentary govern- ment based upon if not on the mutations of the national will ? " " But the great Statesman bends that will to his own." "Yes, he does ; but the great Statesman doesn't say so, my dear Lord Flodden. Have you never iieard an old peasant woman tell you that if you wish a pig or a donkey to go your way, you must always let him think that he goes his own ? " The youth was silent ; the silence of that dejection which must come over every ingenuous and aspiring mind when it first is brouglit in contact with the realities of political life and fmds that what it expected was a battle of the Gods is but little more than a game of drawpoker. "You know, I myself," continued Freda, "should in- finitely prefer it if one could throw the glove down, and have a new war of King and Commonwealth. Or at least I should much prefer it if we could make an absolute stand against electoral representation, and the dominance which it brings about, either of the Mob or of the Caucus. But it is impossible to do so at tiiis time. To talk of it is to dream like Lisette, and break all the eggs in our basket. We must rule through and by the multitude. The only difference is that we rule, or try to do so, disinterestedly •itr I 1!;m 1 1.* !.» , *i ' ■ : ' . i ' : • Jti 74 POSIT10h\ ii!i;;::i-: jiMi; iiji i^- :hu1 iiatrioticall}' ; the other side thifMii^h opportunism ntul by liattcry. If you object to the phrase * appeal to the people,' will you tell me what other programme is' pos- sible under the system of government by Representa- tion ? "It is very diflicult to know what is best," said Flodden, witii a sigh. " Indeed it is ; and that is why a young man does well to give his conscience in some measure into the keeping of his political chief. Vou have no chief as yet. You are standing aloof and looking on. There is no hurry for you to choose one. But when you do chcxjse, you will, I think, come to us, because you will recognize that if, to get ourselves undei'stood, we are driven to use conven- tional language, which docs not seem to you quite sincere enough, or quite spirited enough, to please you, we arc at least honest in our ilealings, and disinterested and patri- otic in our clTorts. But you will judge for yourself. Not for the world would I persuade you, and have you repent afterwards. It always looks so bad to have to change sides, doesn't it, whatever excellent reasons we may have for doing it ? And now let us go and wash all this dust and heat out of our throats at Violet Guern- sey's. You must at least compliment her on her speech. It was very clever, I thought, atul besides, she is so pretty. If she had told them any kind of rubbish they would have cheered her." The carriage stopped at a mansion by Prince's Gate ; and Flodden went obediently and made his bow and paid his compliments at Ladv (Guernsey's, who was receiving such homage from right and left as, still wearing the tall plumed hat in which she liad made her oration, and with a large bunch of primroses stuck in her lace waistcoat, she was smoking a ciQ-arette and standing over a tea-table. "Lord Flodden thinks we were prosy, my dear," said Freda Avillion. "And he can't distinguish us from demagogues." "We are demagogues when we arc popular enough," replied Lady Guernsey. "I thought you had made him quite safe? Surely he can't draw back nowV she whispered anxiously, when Flodden was momentarilv out of hearing. "Oh, one never knows with boys," said Freda, care- lessly. "So often with a very young man it is la derniere venue qui a raison." ii'lil I'' r OS I II ON. 75 vm "1 m "Not when yoM have been la premiere zw/« rosjTJo\\ ing article, and his adhesion to the Conservative cause was taken for granted. " But I have not in the least decided," he said piteously to Freda, who answered : •* Of course you haven't ; why should you ? But the journalists always decide our fate for us, and know what we are going to do long before we know it ourselves." "You recollect," she added, "I have always told you to make no rash engagement ; but I am sure that you care for the dignity of England, don't you ?" " Indeed I do," he answered with all his soul in his eyes and all his heart in his tone, like a boy reared on Scott and Macaulay. " Then you see you couldn't very well join them?" swa said, dreamily; "they will withdraw an army under do- feat if it save them putting a penny more on the income tax, and will give up every coaling station round the whole world if they can keep in office by pleasing the ratepayers. Only remember one thing: nothing can be more unlike the old Whigs than the new Liberals. My- self, I do not mind much what any man's politics are, pro- vided they permit him consistency and manliness. It is not consistent to be a great noble and a rank democrat in one ; and it certainly is not manly. Do you think it is ?" " How different," thought Floddcn as he heard, "how different this open candid way of speaking, tliis freedom from all bias, this sweet calm wide-minded frankness, to the severe dogmatism of tone, the dictatorial conviction of infallibility in principle with which Lady Wiltshire drove her opinions into him, and trod contemptuously upon his own." Flodden was very young, and politics were to him a motive of conscience ; he could forgive no one who viewed them in any lesser light. Unlike Lady Wiltshire, who had shown him her aim at the onset, and had wearied and alarmed him witli eulogies of her party, Freda had admirably concealed her drift, had treated him with candor and carelessness, and had earnestly recommended him not to be hastily led into doing or thinking, accepting or declining, anything whatever, and beyond this sort of suggestive remark, had never approached persuasion. She had made her politics lovely to him by her person, as saints should make their religion ; and she had rendered her opponents absurd by well-timed and delicately worded depreciation of them, couched in phrases which remained in her hearer's mind. ros/T/o.Y. 77 'f comprehensive and port.'iblc to the memory as a line of Pope's or Ptiblius Synis. Jane Wiltshire \v(juld sliiit him up in a corner and ham- mer at him for half-an-hcjiir, leavini;^ nothing witli him beiiind her but a sense of tedium and attempted tyranny. The Innnan mind resists compulsion at all times, and even against persuasion is obdurate. When the success of such persuasion is taken for granted it is adamant. From the first day wlicn he had c-alled on her, and lie had seen her come toward him with a little smile, and lieard her say, *'Ah, howl pity you, Lord Fk)dden, to exchange the sound of the sea and of h^tna for the roar of our cabs and omnibuses ! " Freda Avillion had taken complete possession of his fancy and his feelings. He was but a boy, with the narrow views and exalted feel- ings of a lad reared by a sentimental woman in a sylvan seclusion ; and had anvone told him that lie was in love with Lord Avillion's wife he would have been horror- stricken as at the imputation of some unpardonable sin. But he was in love without knowing it, wliich was of the two the more dangerous for him, and everv hour of his day was numbered solely by the hope of seeing, or by the fear of not seeing her, which it might bring to him. It was the exalted natural, spiritual, and timid adoration, which is only possible to extreme youth, and if he had seen her profile as she drove down Grosvenor Place or had had from her a little smile of recognition at a crowded party, it sufficed to make his happiness for the morning or the evening thus distinguished. '* You are doing that boy an immense deal of mischief," said Beaufront. "What absurd things you can say, for a clever man !" " He worships you already," said Beaufront, irritably. "Already! How long should it take ?" " Oh, I know you pride yourself on dealing coups de foudre ! " "I pride myself on nothing, except, perhaps, on having a fairly good temper, which all my relatives are agreed to try to the uttermost ! " "Seriously, my dear Freda, can you say that the honor and glory of belonging to the Tory party will compensate to that lad for all you mean to make him suffer ?" " He must belong to some party, and he must be tneni en laisse by somebody ; he can't run alone at his age " " But when it pleases you to drop the leash ? " ■Hi '^ . n if I ': i 1 ( !f \ i . ^'1 ;i. 78 POSITION imnii'i WW lliliiiii a "Somebody will take it up. Young men can always find guardian angels." "Young peers can always find Mentors in petticoats and political Calypsos," said Beanfrc^iit, very crossly. That evening, Flodden, who had hitherto refused all din- ner invitations, drew aside the ciii tains of one window of his dining-room and looked out into the street, llis man- sion was in Grosvcnor Street, and, considering its fashion, tliere is no didler or drearier thoroughfare in fashionable London. It was a moonless, rainy night ; broughams and cabs were hurrying by, the thinks of their horses steaming, and the water running off the waterproofs of tlieircoachmen and drivers ; boys were bawling out some newspaper news of an earthquake in Bolivia and a minder in Tipperary ; a dog went by, timid and alone; some nigged women talked to- gether under a gas lamp. The y(Muig man sighed. When he had looked out of his windcnv in Sicily iu* iiad seen the sea, moonlit or phosphorescent, or gorgeous in storm ; Etna with forests of snow about his siunmit, magnificent against a luminous sky ; orange and almond orchards sloping down to meet ilex and tamarisk woods, cloud-like in shadow. He rang the bell. To the stately servant, who answered the summons, he said : *' There is a stray dog in the street, bring it in. There are some wretched women under tiic lamp ; ask where they live, and what is the matter with them." " But, my lord " stammered the servant, amazed and aghast. *' But your lordship " " Do what I tell you," said Flodden. ** If you are afraid of the dog I will go myself. Perhaps it will be best that I should go." And he went. The four men standing in Ids ante-cham- bers looked at each other, and felt that they were in the service of a madman. Tiie dog, a gentle, honest, rough- coated nondescript, lost and unhappy, trembled very much, but trusted and accepted his hospitality. The women told liini long contradictory, improbable stories, and smelt filthily of drink, and disappointed inm. They were whin- ing and servile, coarse and obsequious. The men in the entrance hall looked out after him through the open door- way, and seeing him stand there in the rain, grinned across at one another. What a poor young fool he seemed to them ! He took down the addresses of the women, gave each of them a little money, and came indoors with the stray dog. POSITION Thouc;li it wns n rainy nio;lit riiul \;\\.'.\ iho spectacle of a young pt'i^'i", bare-headed in the street, before the lighted facade of his own mansion, iiarl began to attract a little crowd. Me brought in the muddy, diij)ping dog, and or- dered it some food ; then he read over the addresses of tlio women ; then he sighed. They liad stnid< so of gin, and they had crammed sucii a number of trausp:uent lies into four or live sentences of speech. Poor wretches ! they were the products of civilization. "If my lord want mongrels and tramjis, he won't have far to go to get 'em," said one of the powdered lackeys to another. They were all of them stalely, j)()lished London servants, who knew what was proper, and each of them despised their new master with all tiic force of a vulgar soul which had been varnished in an artificial ward. "What a nice creature you are!" said b'lodden to the dog, whose clear brown eyes were looking up at him gratefully through very dirty sliaggy hair. " I am glad I saw you out of the window. What do yoii think we can do for those women ? Nothing. Drink and dirt are what they love ; how is one to persuade them that drink and dirt are their destruction ? 1 can put them into clean houses with good water-pipes, but 1 cannot make them drink the water, or keep the houses clean with it. What an abject thing is modern life seen in a London street ! Was there any life ever lower ? I douljt it." Tlie dog went to sleep at his feet, he looked over the evening papers. There were the earthquake and the mur- der in big type ; there were details of burglaries, bigamies, and adulteration of food ; there were two columns about Irish outrages and a paragraj^h stating that there were three hundred and fifty private bills waiting to be brought forward between Easter and Whitsuntide. The news- papers produced on him the same sensation of dreariness and hopelessness that the rainy street had done ; life seemed a coil of care without any object or issue. "If only one could do anything," he thought. It did not seem to him that anything was being done or even could be done. He remembered the speeches he had heard that day at Battersea, and they seemed to him like Nero's fiddling while Rome was burning. The airs played were pretty enough, but they were inappropriate to the smouldering fires and the roaring flames, to the tottering palaces and the menaced Forum. Huge blind uncontrol- lable forces were brewing and moving and rising, with ■' ;\. !.i I. I ' ' I !': 1^1 • ; I'f f;^:^ So pos/tion: their one motive-power Envy, and their one master-key Want ; and these dear hidics (jf fashion smiled and wore their primroses and talked of their Habitations ; and these good ministers turned well-known phrases about the in- domitable spirit of the nation and the unity and prosperity of the empire ! Flodden was young, and he liad that diffidence in judg- ment which is as be :oming as it is rare in youth ; but his studious sc^litarv hi yhood had taught him to think for himself, an(l '.e was depressed and alarmed by what he saw aroi:- a him in this London which was so new to him, bu*" whi.h seemed to him as inconceivably careless and credulous as ever Paris had been on th^ eve of the great stcjrm. The clock on his mantel-piece struck eleven as he sat thus in his reverie, and even as it did so one of his men entered and presented him with a little note. The handwriting, which he already knew from any other, made the color come intc his face. On a card in- side were written two lines : "Mind that you come to Arlington Street to-night;" and it was signed by an intricate iMeroglyph intended to mean W. A., while in the corner of the card was a coronet stamped in silver. He rose joyously to his feet and bade his servant call a hansom. "Good-night, my friend; you are at home you know now," he said with a kindly caress of the dog's shaggy head, and then he ran lightly upstairs to his rooms to have a touch or two added to his evening dress ; in five min- utes he was on his way to Arlington Street, forgetful of political economy and patriotic foreboding ; he was only a youth very much in love, who knew he was going whither he would in a few moments meet the lady of his dreams. His presence in Arlington Street in the evening, com- bined with his attendance at the Battersea gathering in the afternoon, was a significant fact to the party in partic- ular, and society in general. But Flodden was unconscious of that at the reception as at the meeting ; he only saw Freda Ayillion's eyes. ** If the Garter were not so unga'lantly confined to the ugly sex, you would have the blue ribbon to-morrow, Freda, or at least at the first vacancy," said Beaufront to his cousin that night. mm POSI'/'IOX. Si "And I should say, like the creator of the order, JIoni soit (]ni »ial y pcnsc,'' replied J.adv Avillion, who had a crown of real primroses on her i^raceful head, and wore a necklace of large dianicjnds set in primrose shape. She had never looked handsonu;r. Floddf'n felt ctnitent to take the political gcjspel, or any- thing ei:^e, from her hands ; and would have signed, blind- fold, any charters which she might iiave dictated. CHAPTER XI. " Hew docs your idol Syrlin like our world ?" she asked of Beaufront on the followincf UK^rning. " He looks exceedingly discontented in it." "Women flatter him so uublushinglv." "That he blushes instead of tiiem ? That is exceedingly kind." " He was very happy down at Hercjnsmere. He hates all cities." "Ah! Tiiere are pecjple whom society makes melan- choly, just as music makes dogs howl ; — one doesn't know why." ' "I should not liken Syrlin to a howling dog myself, nor should I compare society to music — unless to such music as they have in Dahomev, wheie logs of wood are persist- ently beaten by wooden hammers." Lady Avillion laughed. "I wonder if I am a hammer or a log. A hanimer, I think. How cntete vou are about your Syrlin ; but it is the fashion to cfo mad over actors. Our society is so like French society before the Revolution in everything. In nothing more than in its insane adoration of the theatre. Our pecple are stage struck, just as the French society was in the days of Guimard and Clairon. It is always a sign of decadence ; just as the abundance of our literature is, with its ten thousand writers of mediocrity, under whose verbiage any genius which there may be is smotli- ered as a piece of agate is smothered under the sands of a beach." "I know you think we are in a very bad way." "Has not every nation been 'in a bad way,' to use your Americanism, when it has come to be unable to distinguish between originality and imitation ? That is I 'i. '\t ' t 8 rl i ft'' !:■:■ Ii:, 7,7' i'i h;5''".!i', 8j POSIT/ OAT. where we are now. We have a multitude of copyists, and we arc so vain, or so ignorant, that we greet them as geniuses. We do not even exact anytliiiig apprcjacliing style from them. As a people, we have ceased even to know what stvle means." " I have seen you pale with excitement before his Hip- polyte and his Flernani." "Oh, he is a great artist! No one could deny that. But I think it is always better not to know people of genius socially. One'expects so much of them, and one is so annoyed to find them smoke and eat and grumble, and Io(jk like anybody else. Artists are like the Greek oracles, all their power lies in keeping unseen in their shrines. If an oracle had dined out, nobody would have listened to its decrees. ** Syrlin, is a man of geniur," ** I never said he was not ; but it would not matter if he had not a grain of genius ; he is an actor, and they will ask him everywhere, from the garden parties at Lambeth Pal- ace to the garden parties at Buckingham Palace. With all their entctonent in France in the last century, they wouldn't give a player the Sacraments; but nowadays he may dine with an Archbishop, and even build a church.' " And be churchwarden of it ! What glory ! Syrlin will answer Archbishops much like Gil Bias; and he would be more likely to build an Invalides for poor players than a church. He might have realized an immense fortune if he chose, but he gave it all away as he made it. " He is the only person about whom you are enthusias- tic. 'Will you make all France weep?' said the actor Lekain, when somebody stamped on his foot. M. Syrlin's foot would seem just as sacred to you — perhaps so, too, to himself." Lady Avillion abhorred oddness. She always thought that real genius had infinitely better ways of displaying itself than by wearing queer waistcoats and uncombed hair on its shoulders. If you were eccentric, she thought, you might be cracked ; you could not possibly be really strong. "Look what a gentleman Mozart always was, and Mendels- sohn and Chopin," she would say. " Look how soign^ ?cci6, nice Raphael was, and Leonardo, and Milton even in his blindness ; and Dante must, I am sure, have dressed well ; you know he holds a pomegranate branch in that portrait of him by Giotto." She was perhaps right, and she was perhaps wrong ; at twentv ; an iff I" •mm posirior^. 83 all events, Dr. Johnson would liave obtained no tea at her hands, and Theophile Gautier and Berlioz would never have passed her portals. Syrlin did not offend her in these respects ; he was used to the great world, and knew its ways and habits an.l de- mands ; altliough his physiognomy was rather tiiat of some caballero painted by Valasquez than a man of his time, iiis appearance and iiis manners were those of any t>ther per- son used to the most jjolished society in Europe. But, at times, in his spr h, he viohxted those rules of well-bred inanity whi. h .ch society lays down; and he spoke his opinions strcjiigly a'.ul brusquely, wliilst he never disguised either liis disapproval or liis ennui. Tiie world of London thought tiiis deiiglitful and adora- ble, because it was someihing new ; Lady Avillion did not like it at all. "He is 'A poseur," she said con'stantly. "What do you n c:an by a poseur ^^ asked Beaufront once. " What do I mean ? What anybody means, I suppose. Look in the dictionary." "Dictionaries define a poseur as a Mayer of stones.' We, by it, mean a mass of affectation. Now I have known Syrlin ever since he first came out in Paris, a lad of twenty ; and J can declare that a more ingenuous, natural, and sincere character I have never met. He never affects to be pleased when he is not so, and when he is displeased he does not scruple to show it." " That is exceedingly rude." *'It may be so ; but it is not a pose.'' " How can you tell ? Diogenes was exceedingly rude ; but his tub was only a pose, a very studied pose, too : so were Swift's brutalities, and Thackeray's sneers, and Tur- ner's boorishness ; genius may grumble and growl as it likes if it keeps to its garret, but when it couies into our drawing-rooms it should be civil like other people find wear gloves." "What a Philistine you arc, Freda ! " "You have told me so often before; I know ycju only fii'd sweetness and light in all those wild, savage, spon- tareous persons, but I am quite sure many of them are great impostors. I sat at dinner last week, next to that man who writes n.bout the soul, and the Renaissance, and the spiritual life, and the ()l)ligati<>n to deny one's appe- tite : and all he said was, oiice, ' Do you prefer thick soupa 84 POSITION. ■m: or clear?* and, once, * Do yon like white or black Irnf- fles?' — and he picked tlie biggest ones for himself out of the napkins." " He probably then writes his Essays wlicn he is suffer- ing from indigestion, nnd thinks tiie gratification of fleshly instincts not worth tiieir cost. Syrlin won't offend you in that way ; he is an anchorite ! " " F(?us membctez with your eternal Syrlin," said his cousin, impatiently. What was mucii praised before her always irritated her ; and she was in this instance the more irritated because the person praised at once attracted and offended her. ** I wish you had not invited this French actor to Brake- speare," she said to her husband, wiio answered pet- ulantly : " Of course you say that just because I like iiim," "I often ask many persons you like," said Freda with some significance; many a lovely lady had been bidden to Brakespeare whom its mistress might well have refused to invite. "Hang your insinuations," murmured Avillion, inaudi- bly. *' Why don't you like the man ? " he said aloud. " I thought all women went mad about him." " It is perliaps because they have done so that he has become so insufferably dictatorial and conceited." " (9« a les defauts de scs qiialitcs^^' said her husband. " He is a great artist and lie has tiie insolence of one, and it amuses me immensely, because you know it isn't so many years ago that actors were a kind of pariahs, and had no civil rights ; and now we treat them, on my soul, as if each of them were Wales himself." "You mean to let him come, then?" " Of course I do ; and if you don't rub him up the wrong way I daresay you'll end by adoring him." "I am sorry to say I have no faculty of adoration ; I never had any," said his wife, coldly. " No, you never had," thought Avillion ; he likv d women to adore himself when they did not give him t^o much of it. His wife was a cold woman ; he had decided that in the very first weeks of their union, and he had never al- tered his opinion ; it was excellent that it should be so ; It prevented scenes, reproaches, and espionage on his movements ; and it never occurred to him that thf*re might be many phases in her temperament which he, fr.>u] indifference, had never observed, rosr/7i).\'. 85 What irritated her now was that she found herself look- ing at Syrlin and listening to him, when s!u^ had no knowl- edge that she was doing so. The first might he (hie to his unusual physical beauty, and the second to his celebrity ; but the fact that her eyes and car were thus magnetized Lv him when she did not even like him was an annoyance to her. London had gone down before him with that sudden and complete prostration of itself before a new idol which is characteristic of it, and is sometimes very misleading to the idols involved, who imagine that their apotheosis will be eternal. Syrlin resisted the tide of adulation, and was never for a moment swept away by it, but he could not be in London and remain invisible. lie went pcrfcjrce to all the best houses. He knew the great world iiuimatclv; he had no illusions about it ; he remaitied alwavs at heart aloof from it, as Abd el Kader remained a stranger in the solendor of that French chateau which was his prison ; but this only added to his charm for wt)men, and the cold- ness, sometimes almost brutal, with which he repulsed them, only excited more keenly the fancy of those sated with success. He was used to live amongst them, and such habit becomes second nature : no great lady in Paris would have thought her cifi!/ hcitrcs perfect unless Syrlin had been there under the palms of her salon at least once a week. He sought solitude often, but when he was in the world it adored him and enchained him despite him- self. "Well, he is the god of the moment of English society," said Lady Avillion. "I hope he appreciates it. He is raised to the same level with the Missoiu-i Juliet, the St. Louis circus-manager, aiid the Professor of Tweedlodee and Tweedlediun from Boston, who have alternatciv been set up on high and asked out to dinner from Portland Place to Lowndes Square. What a fiauiy book might be written about the divinities of London societv, onlv it would have to be published every quarter, for three months is the longest reign of anv of them I " Beaufront heard her with impatience, he did not like jests at his friend's expense. " Syrlin's reign will last as longashe is in the world at all." he said, angrily, "and why should you laugh at London if it tries to shake off its moKi^ue and make itself pleasant to people of talent .'' It is verv tiui^h h.tter than 1 r soci'-ty to sulk behind a chevaux do fri.-c of prejudic; and caste. I ) \ i f ? u 86 POSITION. I tliink there is something very generous, ver)' kind, very graceful, in the way in which London receives whatever it thinks is at all out of the common." " Paris did that before the Revolution," said his cousin with significance. " Have you never read in Grimm's memoirs of how all patrician Paris went mad over the old vine-dresser whom he introduced to them ? Do lead it. If you alter the names and dates you would say it was a long-haired backwoodsman being feasted in Belgravia to- day, only the vinedresser kept his senses like a sober old French peasant, and the American loses his — or hers — and takes all the adoration quite seriously." *' You are always down on Americans because you think she is an American," said IJeaufront, incautiously, "and I always tell you she isn't ; I always tell you she is a Creole." "At all events she is 'she' to you, which means every- thing," said Freda, with some disdain. " In this case it means nothing," said Bcaufront, savnge- ly, "except that she is a very dear and old friend." Lady Avillion smiled ; and the smile was as chill as the January sun when it shines on the ice-Hoes on the Neva. She thought it exceedingly bad taste in her cousin to al- ways endeavor to pass off this fable upon her. She had a speaking acquaintance with the "she" who was called Mrs. Laurence, and that was a cijncession by no means agree- able to her; she thought he might have been grateful, and have refrained from bringing up the name of the l.dy a propos of everything and nothing, and trying to impose this nonsense upon her whenever they happened to be alone. The world was nowadays full of adventuresses, and they went to court and everywhere, and there was no help for it ; but she still had the right to say whom her own hall porter should let into her house, and it was a right which she exercised very tenaciously, however loosely others of her friends and neierhbors might relax their con- signe ; you cannot help Tag Rag and Bobtail being accept- ed by the Lord Cljamberlain, but you can tell your own Cerberus not to let them pass your door-mat. She was of opinion that a few women of position, if they ciiose to be firm about it, might still " save society ;" otiiers of this per- suasion did not seem, however, to be anywhere ; but if alone, like the beleaguered chatelaine of Vaudemont, she would not cede Ikm- castle to the ft."\ The doors of Avillion House were of solid oak studded POSIT TOM. 87 I per- Mit if she with steel knobs, nnd that they had never unclosed to ad- mit her was a thorn in the roses with wiiich Mrs. Laurence's path was strewn. There is a tnelancholy truth in Benja- min Constant's lellection : l\ihjct qui /ions A-Jiappc est mitur- ellement tout difftU-ent dc cclui qui nous pour suit. Human nature even at its best is wayward, thankless, and given to yearn after the unattainable. In her heart of hearts she would always feel herself ti dcrlnsse't' so long as she had not passed those great gates which frowned on Piccadilly with the crowned dragons of the Avillion supporters carrying the coronet bet\v(;en them in gilded bronze. It was a social Ilesperides whicli those dragons guarded ; and as season after season had passed and she was still shut out by them, Consuelo Laurence felt that it was an intentional, a very intentional humiliation to her. Many women in her place would have harassed and wearied Beaufront continually to alter this state of things, but she never did. She was a complex union of hiuuility and pride. " I should do as Lady Avillion does if I were she," she said to herself, and contented herself with appearing so unconscious of the slight tliat London society, and even Freda Avillion herself, imagined that she did not perceive or think about it. She was suspected of having such incredibly disgraceful intrigues, and of managing them all so exquisitely, that no one could do otherwise than envy and respect her. A very fair woman, with a colorless skin, a perfect figure, a manner of admirable finish, ease, and sweetness, and eyes which had the candor of a ciiild's, w^th a strange pathos in them which went to the heart of all men, Consuelo Lau- rence, with her great pearls about her throat, the only jewels she ever wore, looked such an incarnation of purity, ethereality, and perfect womanhood, that it was delicious and delightful to everyone to know that she had sold flowers in Broadway, sung at cafes chantants, married a Cuban planter and shot him, been wrecked off Valparaiso, and picked up by a wealthy Mexican whose millions she had annexed and finished, migrated to Brazil, where she had ruined ministers and millionaires, and finally drifted to Paris, where she had brcn rescued just as she was springing off the parapet of the Pont Ncuf to drown herself for want of \\xq francs, whence, none exactly knew how, she had suddenly appeared in London and become the idol of society. 4 >M i' rt .- ■ ! i J I It ss position: People even said that an iMiglisli Prince, cotninc!; out of some naugiity place or another without any gentleman of his suite, had been the person who had saved her fioin jumping over the bridge, and had persuaded her that life was always worth living if cjne were a woman and good- looking. But the English Prince was notoriously poor and in debt, and his homage was always as empty as it was agree- able. He could not be supposed to account for the truffled chickens and the ortolans which were ortolans. Society was disposed to attribute this part of it to Heaufront, who was ricli, generous, cynical, and often seen in llill Street. This rumor in no way lessened the crowd of exclusive ladies who flocked to sip Consuelo Laurence's yellow tea and hear her admirable music. On the contrary ladies liked meeting Beaufront, and they always met him there ; the only person whom it did slightly affect was his cousin Freda. Lady Avillion and Avillion House remained the only person and place of influence not captured by IMrs. Lau- rence. Freda had indeed permitted that Mrs, Laurence should be presented to her, and their cards had been exchanged ; but the acquaintance had gone no farther. When they met, a slight smile was the only recognition they gave each other, and when Mrs. Laurence went to some great dinner at Beaufront's, from that dinner his cousin was in- variably absent. Mrs. Laurence's position was far too completely achieved a thing for her to need to seek the civilities even of Lady Avillion. It was a position about which there was nothing dubi- ous, insecure, or fluctuating. She was one of the powers of societv, and all the dark romance and unsavory melo- drama which was supposed to lie in the remote condi- tions of her past, only served to interest people the more, as the sombre burnt-umber and bistre background of an old Sienese or Perugini panel serves to throw \\\> the sil- very nimbus and the pale gold hair of the Madonna's head which is painted upon it. She had a house in Wilton Street, opposite the sparrow- haunted trees and the gray walls of St. Paul's Church. The church is not old, and the trees are not many, but they give a slightly cloister-like look to that corner of ros//-/ox. 89 Bclgravi.'i, an academic calm and coloring which are pleasant and tranquillizing. When the threshold of this house was crossed, every- thing within it was serene and reposeful, like the church corner in which it was situated. Her servants were old and noiseless, her carpets thick as moss, her windows of the thickest p' ite glass ; even the fog when it stcjle there subdued itself into a religious, dreamy mistiness, and was humanized by the rare trans- parencies through which it had to pass. Her drawing-rooms, with their pale crcam-hued walls, their tempered light, and their screens of growing palms, were often fdlcd with all the "best people "in London. Royalty often bestowed its coveted presence, and the most excellent nuisic was to be heard there, and the most way- ward tenor, the most avaricious prima donna woidd alwavs sing at Mrs. Laurence's aft(Mnoons. She had that power which is as indisputable as it is in- definable. The charm of Consuelo Laurence was in her entire simplicity of manner and expression. " It is so irritating that a creature, come God knows whence, should have such perfect distinction," said the old Duchess of Kincardine and Oronsay when Consuelo Laurence first made her success in London society. Come by it how she might, she had a great distinction, which, united to a DwrbiiL zza and indolence of movement due to her creolc blood, gave her an irresistible charm. " It is all acting," said Freda Avillion, but if it were it was that highest art which perfectly conceals itself, and she had the same sweetness and composure for an old violinist with snuff on his waistcoat as she had for a royal adorer. That appearance of interest in the person with whom she conversed, which Lady Avillion could assume at will, but rarely ever felt, was real in Consuelo Laurence. Her childhood and girlhood had been passed in seclu- sion amongst the savannahs and swamps of the far South ; the great world was fresh and beguiling to her as it can never be t(j women who have been born and bred in it, and her capture of it flattered her as their successes in it can never il.'itter them. " People are so kind," she said often, and meant what she said. Tt) her other people were kind because she was popular, \ A hi r ii if 90 POSITION. attractive, and extremely the fashion, and altliough the quality of the kindness did not deceive her, altlKMigh she knew that if she became jxjor, or blind, or ill, on the morrow very few of them would ever ask where she had gone to or what had become of her, she alhjwed herself to be etherized by that soporific yet stimulating atmos- phere ; it was so pleasant whilst it lasted ! liut she never let it intoxicate her; her temperament was calm and her penetration fine. "They tliink me only an adventuress," she told herself often, "though they have made me a queen — much as they might make a queen of a gypsy, if she could possibly be seen in society, and had large eyes, and a new way of telling fortunes." *' You are a very wise woman," said lieaufront one day to her. "And at heart a very impudent one, perhaps," she said with a smile, "or I should never have dared to become a London fine lady, with all behind me that — that you know." Beaufront smiled. "That is the sort of thing you say when you are in low spirits. One might as well say a dcjc or a gazelle was impudent as you." "Well, the doe or the gazelle would be impudent, I suppose, if they intruded in drawing-rooms and pushed theirway in at State balls — as I do." "Don't talk nonsense," said Beaufront, irritably. "If any of them heard you they would take you at your wc^rd ! " "Why don't you take me at my word? You know what I say is true." '* It's not the least true," he said. " Surely nature made you for the best society the world holds. Bad is the best here, but still, such as it is you are in the swim of it, ami you 'fetch' it more than anybody. Excuse me that ridic- ulous word ; I hate the slang of the day, but one catches it up despite one's self ! " Consuelo Laurence shook her head. " I ' fetch ' it, yes. That I admit. But I am a pariah all the same. Ask your cousin." Beaufront was annoyed. "My cousin has prejudices, and nobody can move hei when she has a prejudice. It is very absurd, because sluj believes herself so very open to ccjnviction and so very dispassionate. But women are a mass of contradictions " **Meii are not very consistent," said Mrs. Laurence, who /'i)S//70.\\ 91 ' i lot the subject pa«;s as it .'innr))^^ him. "Why should liiiman iiatine be consistent? Nature is not. Her earth- (liiakes come on a calm summer day, and I have seen a water-spout rise in a clear sky and :i tornado sweep down on a blue lake and dry it up as it seemed in an instant." "I hope there will never be any more tornadoes in your atmosphere." "Tlianks ; your world here is not tempestuous." She had never deceived herself as to the real value of her special success ; she knew that if she lost her beauty, licr voice, or her fortune, she wcjuld lose her fashion, and that if she lost all three Wilton Street would no longer be hlocked by carriages crowding to her door, and in six niontlis' time her very name would be forgotten in the Lou- dun world. She had been born at Martinique, and had a little mu- latto blood in her ; but wo one would have dreamed of that, her complexion was of the purest and softest pale- ness ; and only her great black eyes under those languid lids spoke of her m/iisse origin. It was all so long ago that it was distant to her like the (hcam of some other earth, some other sky ; but yet it was all so strangely homelike to lier still whenever her thoughts wandered back to that island in the deep blue tropic seas. Her father had been a very rich man, owning vast plan- tations and dwelling in a paradise of palm-groves, banana- trees, tamarind-alleys, marble ftjuntains, marble colon- nades, marble courts, filled with the odors of tropical flow- ers, and looking down from the o-reen cloud-veiled slo pes of Mont Pelee out to the warm lapis-lazuli-colored Bay of St. Pierre. It was all so dim and vet so clear to her, that sweet en- life, ft chanted isle, that far away yet unforgotten lite, wnere ira- grance and light and heat and ever-changing color, and the mirth of the child-like negroes, and the fresh voices of the leaping waves and the sound of tlie church bells chim- ing in the city far below, and the droning hum of the in- sects buzzing in the white bells of the datura flowers, were all blent in one delicious memory, gorgeous and fugitive as the glow of a West Indian sunset. For fourteen years she had lived without care or knov/l- cdge that any care was anywhere in life ; a purely flower- like and exquisite existence in that wilderness of vegeta- tion amidst which the marble and lava-rock walls of her father's house arose. I; 'i . m » J' 1 1 ! ■>%, IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I IIIM IIII25 IM iiiiijj^ ii£ 12.0 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 ^ 6" — ► -3 'm. ■^ vj /. ^ ■> >^a //, J '/ Photographic Sciences Corporation ^ ^ V «v :\ \ ^N-^ 6^ .<'' V- n WEST MAIN STREET WdSTER.NY. 14580 (716) 872-4503 f^ ,