MISS CAYLEY'S ADVENTURES "Y ■■!• MISS CAYLEY'S ADVENTURES BY GRANT ALLEN WIT 1 EIGHTY ILLUSTRATIONS BY (jORDON BROWNE THIRD IMPRESSION G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK & LONDON ^be ■RiUchcibocker press 1899 AUTHORIZED EDITION First Edition printed May, 1899 Reprinted July, 1899 Reprinted August, 1899 Vbe Itnickerboclier press, Dew JiJorli CONTENTS CHAPTER I.— Thk II.— Thk III.— Thk IV.— Thk v.— Thk VI.— Thk VII.— Thk VIII.— Thk IX.— Thk X.— Thk XI.— Thk XII.— The Adventure of Adventurk of Adventure of Adventure of Advknturk of Advkntukk of Adventure of Adventure of Adventure of Adventure of Adventure of Adventure of PAGR THE Cantankerous Old Lady . i THE SUI'ERCILIOUS AtTACH£ . . 3I THE Inquisitive American . . 62 THE Amateur Commission Aoent . 8g the Imi'romi'tu Mountaineer . 120 THE Urkane Old Gentleman . 147 THE Unobtrusive Oasis . . .177 THE PKA-(iRKEN PaTRICIAN . . 207 THE Macnificknt Maharajah . 232 THE Cross-Eykd Q. C. . . . 263 THE Oriental Attendant . . 293 THE Unprofessional Detective . 318 111 ILLUSTRATIONS "Am, Anor, to Teach the Higher Mathematics" Frontispiece "I AM Going Out, Simply in Search ok Adventure " . "Oui, Madame; Merci Beaucoup, Madame" . "Excuse Me," I Said, "hut I Think I See a Way out ok Your Difkiculty" A Most Urbane and Obliging Continental Gentleman "Persons of Miladi's Temperament Are Always Youncj " "That Succeeds?" the Shabby-Looking Man Muttered I Put Her Hand Back Firmly He Cast a Hasty Glance at Us "Harold, You Viper, What do You Mean by Trying to Avoid Me?" "Circumstances Alter Cases," He Murmured "Miss Cayley," He Said, "You are Playing with Me" I Rose of a Sudden, and Ran Down the Hill "I was Going to Oppose You and Harold" . He Kept Close at My Heels I was Pulled up Short by a Mounted Policeman . "Seems I didn't Make Much of a Job of it" "Don't Scorch, Miss; don't Scorch" .... "IIow far Ahead the First Man?" "I Am Here behind You, Herr Lieutenant". "Let Them Boom or Bust on it" His Open Admiration was Getting quite Embarrassing Minute Inspection PAGE 5 8 II i8 21 25 32 37 39 45 53 57 59 66 f'7 6y 82 86 87 QO 96 lOI VI Illustrations I Felt a Pkrfect Littlk IlYi'ocRiTE She Invited Elsie and Myself to Stop with Her . The Count I Thought it Kinder to Him to Remove it Ai.tocether Inch hyInch He Retreated "Never Leave a House to the Servanis, My Dear!" "I MAY Stay, mayn't I?" I Advanced on My Hands and Knees to the Edge of the Precii'ice I Grii'I'ed the Rope and Let Myself Down "I Rolled and Slid Down" I Flung Myself Wildly on My Bed. "There's Enterprise for You!" Paintinc; the Sign-Bijard .... The Urhane Old Gentleman He Went on Dictating for Just an Hour He Bowed to Each of Us Separately I Waited, Breathless "What, You Here!" He Cried. He Read Them, Cruel Man, hefore My Very Eyes " 'T IS Dr. Maclogiilen," He Answered .... Too Much Nile . Emphasis Riding a Camel does not Greatly Dh'Fer from Sea-Sickness Her Agitation Was Evident Crouching hy the Rocks Sat Our Mysterious Stk an(;er An Odd-Looking Young Man He Turned to Me with an Inane Smile ..... Nothing Seemed to Put the Man Down .... "Yah don't Catch Me Going so fah from Newmarket" "Wasn't Era Diavolo also a Composah?" "Take My Word for it. You're, Staking Your Money on THE Wrong Fellah" "I Am the Maharajah of Moozuffernuogar" "Who's Your Black Friend?" "A Tiger Hunt Is nut a Thing to he Got up Lightly" PAGE 103 108 112 118 123 128 142 146 160 163 181 1 84 188 192 194 197 202 209 214 219 223 226 230 236 241 249 Illustrations Vll It Went off Unexi'ectkdi.y I Saw Him Now the Oriental Desi'ot "It's 1 Who Am the Winnah " He Wrote, " I Exi'Ect You to Come Back to Enclano Marry Me" It Was Endlessly Weakisome 'I'liE Cross-Eyei) Q. C. Beoced Him to he very Carefui I Was a ("iRotesqie Failure The Jury Smiled "The Question Reql'ires nas a startling innovation. You terrified us so. And yet, after all, there is n't much harm in you." " I hope not," I said devoutly. " I was before my time, that was all ; at present, even a curate's wife may blame- lessly bicycle." " But if you don't teach," Elsie went on, gazing at me with those wondering big blue eyes of hers, " what ever will you do. Brownie?" Her horizon was bounded by the scholastic circle. " I have n't the faintest idea," I answered, continuing to paste. " Only, as I can't trespass upon your elegant hospi- tality for life, whatever I mean to do, I must begin doing this morning, when we 've finished the papering. I could n't teach " (teaching, like mauve, is the refuge of the incompe- tent) ; " and I don't, if possible, want to sell bonnets." "As a milliner's girl ? " Elsie asked, with a face of red horror. " As a milliner's girl ; why not ? 'T is an honest calling. Earls' daughters do it now. But you need n't look so shocked. I tell you, just at present, I am not contemplating it." " Then what do you contemplate ? " I paused and reflected. "I am here in London," I an- 4 Miss Cayley's Adventures swered, gazing rapt at the ceiling ; " London, whose streets are paved with gold — though it looks at first sight like muddy flagstones ; London, the greatest and richest city in the world, where an adventurous soul ought surely to find some loophole for an adventure. (That piece is hung crooked, dear ; we shall have to take it down again.) I devise a Plan, therefore. I submit myself to fate ; or, if you prefer it, I leave my future in the hands of Providence. I shall stroll out this morning, as soon as I 've ' cleaned myself,' and embrace the first stray enterprise that offers. Our Bag- dad teems with enchanted carpets. Let one but float my way, and, hi ! presto ! I seize it. I go where glory or a modest competence waits me. I snatch at the first offer, the first hint of an opening." Elsie stared at me, more aghast and more puzzled than ever. " But how ? " she asked. " Where ? When ? You are so strange ! What will you do to find one ? " " Put on my hat and walk out," I answered. " Nothing could be simpler. This city bursts with enterprises ana surprises. Strangers from east and west hurry through it in all directions. Omnibuses traverse it from erd to end, even, I am told, to Islington and Putney ; within, tolk sit face to face who never saw one another before in their lives, and who may never see one another again, or, on the con- trary, may pass the rest of their days together." I had a lovely harangue all pat in my head, in much the same strain, on the infinite possibilities of entertaining angels unawares, in cabs, on the Underground, in the Aerated Bread shops ; but Elsie's widening eyes of horror pulled me up short, like a hansom in Piccadilly when the inexorable upturned hand of the policeman checks it. ' ' Ob, Brownie" The Cantankerous Old Lady 5 she cried, drawing back, " you don' t mean to tell me you 're going to ask the first young man you meet in an omnibus to marry you ? " I shrieked with laughter. " Elsie," I cried, kissing her dear yellow little head, " you are impayable. You never I AM GOING OUT, SIMPLY IN SEARCH OF ADVENIURE. will learn what I mean. You don't understand the lan- guage. No, no ; I am going out, simply in search of ad- venture. What adventure may come, I have not at this moment the faintest conception. The fun lies in the search, the uncertainty, the toss-up of it. What is the good of being penniless — with the trifling exception of twopence — unless 6 Miss Cayley's Adventures you are prepared to accept your position in the spirit of a masked ball at Covent Garden ? " " I have never been to one," Elsie put in. " Gracious heavens, neither have I ! What on earth do you take me for ? But I mean to see where fate will lead me." " I may go with j^ou ? " Elsie pleaded. " Certainly not^ my child," I answered — she was three years older than I, so I had the right to patronise her. " That would spoil all. Your dear little face would be quite enough to scare away a timid adventure." She knew what I meant. It was gentle and pensive, but it lacked initiative. So, when we had finished that wall, I popped on my best hat, and popped out by myself into Kensington Gardens. I am told I ought to have been terribly alarmed at the straits in which I found myself — a girl of twenty-one, alone in the world, and only twopence short of penniless, without a friend to protect, a relation to counsel her. (I don't count Aunt Susan, who lurked in ladylike indigence at Black heath, and whose counsel, like her tracts, was given away too profusely to everybody to allow of one's placing any very high value upon it.) But, as a matter of fact, I must admit I was not in the least alarmed. Nature had endowed me with a profusion of crisp black hair, and plenty of high spirits. If my eyes had been like Elsie's — that liquid blue which looks out upon life with mingled pity and amazement — I might have felt as a girl ought to feel under such con- ditions ; but having large dark ej^es, with a bit of a twinkle in them, and being as well able to pilot a bicycle as any girl of my acquaintance, I have inherited or acquired an outlook on the world which distinctly leans rather towards cheeriness The Cantankerous Old Lady 7 than despondency. I croak with difficulty. So I accepted my plight as an amusing experience, affording full scope for the congenial exercise of courage and ingenuity. How boundless are the opportunities of Kensington Gar- dens — the Round Pond, the winding Serpentine, the mys- terious seclusion of the Dutch brick Palace ! Genii swarm there. One jostles possibilities. It is a land of romance, bounded on the north by the Abyss of Bayswater, and on the south by the Amphitheatre of the Albert Hall. But for a centre of adventure I chose the Long Walk ; it beckoned me somewhat as the North- West Passage beckoned my sea- faring ancestors — the buccaneering mariners of Elizabethan Devon. I sat down on a chair at the foot of an old elm with a poetic hollow, prosaically filled by a utilitarian plate of galvanised iron. Two ancient ladies were seated on the other side already — very grand-looking dames, with the haughty and exclusive ugliness of the English aristocracy in its later stages. For frank hideousness, commend me to the noble dowager. They were talking confidentially as I sat down ; the trifling episode of my approach did not suffice to stem the full stream of their conversation. The great ignore the intrusion of their inferiors. " Yes, it 's a terrible nuisance," the eldest and ugliest of the two observed — she was a high-born lady, with a dis- tinctly cantankerous cast of countenance. She had a Roman nose, and her skin was wrinkled like a wilted apple ; she wore coffee-coloured point-lace in her bonnet, with a com- plexion to match. " But what could I do, my dear? I simply couldn't put up with such insolence. So I looked her straight back in the face — oh, she quailed, I can tell you — and I said to her in my iciest voice — you know how icy I 8 Miss Caylcy's Adventures can be when occasion demands it" — the second old lady nodded an nngrndginj; assent, as if perfectly prepared to ad- mit her friend's rare gift of iciness — " I said to her, ' Ccles- tine, you can take your month's wages, and half an hour to **oui, maoamk; MF.RCI BKAUrorP, madamk. get out of this house.' And she dropped me a deep rever- ence, and she answered : ' Qui, viadavic ; vicrci beaucoup, viadame ; jc ne disirc pas micux, viadamc' And out .she flounced. So there was the end of it." " Still, 3'ou go to Schlangenbad on Monday ? " " That 's the point. On Monday. If it were n't for the The Cantankerous Old Lady 9 journe)', I should have been glad enough to be rid of the minx. I 'm glad as it is, indeed ; for a more insolent, up- standing, independent, answer-you-back-again j-oung wo- man, with a sneer of her own, /never saw, Amelia — but I must get to Schlangenbad. Now, there the difficulty comes in. On the one hand, if I engage a maid in London, I have the choice of two evils. Either I must take a trapesing Knglish girl — and I know by experience that an English girl on the Continent is a vast deal worse than no maid at all : yotr have to wait upon Iwr, instead of her waiting upon j'ou ; she gets seasick on the crossing, and when she reaches France or Germany, she hates the meals, and she detests the hotel servants, and she can't speak the language, vSo that she 's always calling you to interpret for her in her private differences with i\\Q fillc-dc-cliafnbrc Si\\6. the landlord ; — or else I must pick up a French maid in London, and I know equally by experience that the French maids one engages in London are invariabl}- dishonest — more dishonest than the rest even ; they 've come here because they have no character to speak of elsewhere, and they think you are n't likely to write and enquire of their last mistress in Toulouse or St. Petersburg, Then, again, on the other hand, I can't wait to get a Gret- chen, an unsophisticated little Gretchen, of the Taunus at Schlangenbad — I suppose there are unsophisticated girls in Germany still — made in Germany — they don't make 'em any longer in England, I 'm sure — like everything else, the trade in rustic innocence has been driven from the country. I can't wait to get a Gretchen, as I should like to do, of course, because I simply dare n't undertake to cross the Channel alone and go all that long journey by Ostend or Calais, Brussels and Cologne, to Schlangenbad." lo Miss Cayley's Adventures " You could get a temporary maid," her friend suggested, in a lull of the tornado. The Cantankerous Old Lady flared up. " Yes, and have ray jewel-case stolen ! Or find she was an English girl with- out one word of German. Or nurse her on the boat when I want to give my undivided attention to my own misfortunes. No, Amelia, I call it positively unkind of you to suggest such a thing. You 're so unsympathetic ! I put my foot down there. I will Jioi take any temporary person." I saw my chance. This was a delightful idea. Why not start for Schlangenbad with the Cantankerous Old Lady ? Of course, I had not the slightest intention of taking a lady's-maid's place for a permanency. Nor even, if it comes to that, as a passing expedient. But t/ 1 wanted to go round the world, how could I do better than set out by the Rhine country ? The Rhine leads you on to the Danube, the Danube to the Black Sea, the Black Sea to Asia ; and so by way of India, China, and Japan, you reach the Pacific and San Francisco ; whence one returns quite easily by New York and the White Star Liners. I began to feel like a globe-trotter already ; the Cantankerous Old Lady was the thin end of the wedge — the first rung of the ladder ! I pro- ceeded to put my foot on it. I leaned around the corner of the tree and spoke. ' ' Ex- cuse me," I said, in my suavest voice, " but I think I see a way out of your difficulty." My first impression was that the Cantankerous Old Lady would go off in a fit of apoplexy. She grew purple in the face with indignation and astonishment, that a casual out- sider should venture to address her ; so much so, indeed, that for a second I almost regretted my well-meant interpo- The Cantankerous Old Lady II sitioii. Then she scanned me up and down, as if I were a girl in a mantle shop, and she contemplated buj-ing either me or the mantle. At last, catching my eye, she thought better of it, and burst out laughing. " What do you mean by this eavesdropping ? " she asked. EXCUSE ME," I SAID, " BUT I THINK I SEE A WAY OUT OF YOUR DIFFICULTY. I flushed up in turn. " This is a public place," I replied, with dignity ; " and you spoke in a tone which was hardly designed for the strictest privacy. If you don't wish to be overheard, you ought n't to shout. Besides, I desired to do you a service. ' ' The Cantankerous Old I^ady regarded me once more from 12 Miss Cayley's Adventures head to foot. I did not quail. Then she turned to her com- panion. " The girl has spirit," she remarked, in an encour- aging tone, as if she were discussing some absent person. " Upon my word, Amelia, I rather like the look of her. Well, my good woman, what do you want to' suggest to me?" " Merely this," I replied, bridling up and crushing her. " I am a Girton girl, an officer's daughter, no more a good woman than most others of my class ; and I have nothing in particular to do for the moment. I don't object to going to Schlangenbad. I would convoy you over, as companion, or lady-help, or anything else you choose to call it ; I would remain with you there for a week, till you could arrange with your Gretchen, presumably un.sophisticated ; and then I would leave you. Salary is unimportant ; my fare suffices. I accept the chance as a cheap opportunity of attaining Schlangenbad." The yellow- faced old lady put up her long-handled tortoise- shell eyeglasses and inspected me all over again. " Well, I declare," she murmured. " What are girls coming to, I wonder ? Girton, you say ; Girton ! That place at Cam- bridge ! You speak Greek, of course ; but how about Ger- man ? " " lyike a native," I answered, with cheerful promptitude, '* I was at school in Canton Berne ; it is a mother tongue to me. ' ' " No, no," the old lady went on, fixing her keen small eyes on my mouth. " Those little lips could never frame themselves to ' schlccht ' or ' ivundcrschbn ' ; they were not cut out for it." " Pardon me," I answered, in German. " What I .say, ■.^),\<:- :> The Cantankerous Old Lady 13 that I mean. The uever-to-be-forgotten music of the Father- land's-speech has on my infant ear from the first-beginning impressed itself. ' ' The old lady laughed aloud. " Don't jabber it to me, child," she cried. " I hate the lingo. It 's the one tongue on earth that even a pretty girl's lips fail to render attractive. You yourself make faces ovei it. What 's your name, young woman ? " "LoisCayley." " Lois ! JV/mf a name ! I never heard of any Lois in my life before, except Timothy's grandmother. Vou 're not anybody's grandmother, are you ? " " Not to my knowledge," I answered, gravely. She burst out laughing again. " Well, 3'ou '11 do, I think," she said, catching my arm. " That big mill down yonder has n't ground the originality altogether out of you. I adore originality. It was clever of you to catch at the suggestion of this arrangement. Lois Cayley, you say ; any relation of a madcap Captain Cayley whom I used once to know, in the Forty-second High- landers ? " " His daughter," I answered, flushing, for I was proud of my father. " Ha ! I remember ; he died, poor fellow ; he was a good soldier — and his "—I felt she was going to say " his fool of a widow," but a glance from me quelled her — " his widow went and married that good-looking scapegrace, Jack Watts- Mcft-gan. Never marry a man, my dear, with a double- barrelled name and no visible means of subsistence ; above all, if he 's generally known by a nickname. So you 're poor Tom Cayley 's daughter, are you ? Well, well, we can 14 Miss Cay ley's Adventures settle this little matter between us. Mind, I 'ni a person who always expects to have my own way. If you come with me to Schlangenbad, you must do as I tell you." ** I think I could manage it — for a week," I answered, den- irely. She smiled at my audacity. We passed on to terms. They were quite satisfactory. She wanted no references. " Do I look like a woman who cares about a reference? What are called characters are usually essays in how not to say it. You take my fancy ; that 's the point ! And poor Tom Cayley ! But, mind, I will not he contradicted." " I will not contradict your wildest misstatement," I an- swered, smiling. " And your name and address? " I asked, after we had settled preliminaries. A faint red spot rose quaintly in the centre of the Can- tankerous Old Lady's sallow cheek. " My dear," she mur- mured, " my name is the one thing on earth I 'm really ashamed of. My parents chose to inflict upon me the most odious label that human ingenuity ever devised for a Chris- tian soul ; and I 've not had courage enough to burst out and change it." A gleam of intuition flashed across me. "You don't mean to say," I exclaimed, " that you 're called Geor- gina ? " The Cantankerous Old Lady gripped my arm hard. ** What an unusually intelligent girl ! " she broke in. " How on earth did you guess ? It is Georgina." "Fellow-feeling," I answered. " So is mine, Georgina Lois. But as I quite agree with you as to the atrocity of such conduct, I have suppressed the Georgina. It ought to ' ■• ■*, The Cantankerous Old Lady 15 be made penal to send innocent girls into the world so burdened." " My opinion to a T ! You are really an exceptionally sensible young woman. There 's my name and address ; I start on Monday." I glanced at her card. The very copperplate was noisy. " L,ady Georgina Fawley, 49 Fortescue Crescent, W." ' It had taken us twenty minutes to arrange our protocols. As I walked off, well pleased, Lady Georgina's friend ran after me quickly. " You must take care," she said, in a warning voice. " You 've caught a Tartar." " So I suspect," I answered. " But a week in Tartary will be at least an experience." " She has an awful temper." " That 's nothing. So have I. Appalling, I assure you. And if it comes to blows, I 'm bigger and younger and stronger than she is." " Well, I wish you well out of it." " Thank you. It is kind of you to give me this warning. But I think I can take care of myself I come, you see, of a military family." I nodded my thanks, and strolled back to Elsie's. Dear little Elsie was in transports of surpirse when I related my adv^enture. " Will you really go? And what will you do, my dear, when you get there ? " " I have n't a notion," I answered ; " that 's where the fun comes in. But, anyhow, I .shall have got there." " Oh, Brownie, you might starve ! " ■-■^ 1 6 Miss Cayley's Adventures " And I might starve in London. In either place, I have only two hands and one head to help nie. ' ' " But then, here you are among friends. You might stop with me forever." I kissed her fluffy forehead. ' ' You good, generous little Elsie ! " I cried ; " I won't stop here one moment after I have finished the painting and papering. I came here to help you. I could n't go on eating j'our hard-earned bread and doing nothing. I know how sweet you are ; but the last thing I want is to add to your burdens. Now let us roll up our sleeves again and hurry on with the dado." " But, Brownie, you '11 want to be getting your own things ready. Remember, you ' re off" to Germany on Monday. ' ' I shrugged my shoulders. 'T is a foreign trick I picked up in Switzerland. " What have I got to get ready ? " I asked. " I can't go out and buy a complete summer outfit in Bond Street for twopence. Now, don't look at me like that : be practical, Elsie, and let me help you paint the Jado." For unless I helped her, poor Elsie could never have finished it herself. I cut out half her clothes for her ; her own ideas were almost entirely limited to differential calculus. And cutting out a blouse by differential calculus is weary, uphill work for a high-school teacher. By Monday I had papered and furnished the rooms, and was ready to start on my voyage o^ exploration. I met the Cantankerous Old Lady at Charing Cross, by appointment, and proceeded to take charge of her luggage and tickets. Oh my, how fussy she was ! * ' You will drop that basket ! I hope you have got through tickets, via Malines, nol by Brussels — I won't go by Bru.ssels. You have to change there. Now, mind you notice how much the luggage The Cantankerous Old Lady 17 weighs in English pounds, and make the man at the office give you a note of it to check those horrid Belgian porters. They '11 charge you for double the weight, unless you reduce it at once to kilogrammes. / know their ways. Foreigners have no consciences. They just go to the priest and con- fess, 5'ou know, and wipe it all out, and start fresh again on a career of crime next morning. I 'm sure I don't know why I ever go abroad. The only country in the world fit to live in is England. No mosquitoes, no passports, no — good- ness gracious, child, don't let that odious man bang about my hat-box ! Have you no immortal soul, porter, that you crush other people's property as if it was black-beetles ? No, I will not let you take this, Lois ; this is my jewel-box — it contains all that remains of the Fawley family jewels. I positively decline to appear at Schlangenbad without a dia- mond to my back. This never leaves my hands. It 's hard enough nowadays to keep body and skirt together. Have you secured that coupe at Ostend ? " We got into our first-class carriage. It was clean and comfortable ; but the Cantankerous Old Lady made the porter mop the floor, and fidgeted and worried till we slid out of the station. Fortunately, the only other occupant of the compartment was a most urbane and obliging Continental gentleman — I say Continental, because I could n't quite make out whether he was French, German, or Austrian — who was anxious in every way to meet Lady Georgina's wishes. Did madame desire to have the window open ? Oh, certainly, with pleasure ; the day was so sultry. Closed a little more ? Parfaitetnejit, that was a current of air, il faut Vadmertre. Madame would prefer the corner ? No ? Then perhaps she would like this valise for a footstool ? Permeates— just thus. i8 Miss Cayley's Adventures A cold draught runs so often along the floor in railway car- riages. This is Kent that we traverse ; ah, the garden of England ! As a diplomat, he knew every nook of Europe, and he echoed the mot he had accidentally heard drop from A MOST URUANE AND OBLIGING CONTINENTAL GENTLEMAN. madame's lips on the platform : no country in the world so delightful as England ! "Monsieur is attached to the Embassy in I^ondon ? " Lady Georgina inquired, growing affable. He twirled his grey moustache — a waxed moustache of great distinction. " No, madanie ; I have quitted the diplo- matic service ; I inhabit Eondon now pour mo?i agrement. The Cantankerous Old Lady 19 Some of my compatriots call it tristc ; for me, I find it the most fascinating capital in Europe. What gaiety ! What movement ! What poetry ! What mystery ! " " If mystery means fog, it challenges the world," I inter- posed. He gazed at me with fixed eyes. " Yes, mademoiselle," he answered, in quite a different and markedly chilly voice. *' Whatever your great country attempts — were it only a fog — it achieves consummately." I have quick intuitions. I felt the foreign gentleman took an instinctive dislike to me. To make up for it, lit; talked nuich, and with animation, to Lady Georgina. They ferreted out friends in common, and were as much surprised at it as people always are at that inevitable experience. ' ' Ah j^es, madame, I recollect him well in Vienna. I was there at the time, attached to our Legation. He was a charming man. You read his masterly paper on the Central Problem of the Dual Empire ? " " You were in Vienna then ! " the Cantankerous Old Lady mused back. "Lois, my child, don't stare" — she had covenanted from the first to call me Lois, as my father's daughter, and I confess I preferred it to being Miss Cayley'd. ** We must surely have met. Dare I ask your name, monsieur ? ' ' I could see the foreign gentleman was delighted at this turn. He had played for it, and carried his point. He meant her to ask him. He had a card in his pocket, con- veniently close ; and he handed it across to her. She read it, and passed it on : " M. le Comte de Laroche-sur-Loiret." " Oh, I remember your name well," the Cantankerous 20 Miss Cayley's Adventures Old I^ady broke in. " I think you knew my husband, Sir Evelyn Fawley, and my father, Lord Kynaston." The Count looked profoundly surprised and delighted. " What ! you are then Lady Georgina Fawley ! " he cried, striking an attitude. " Indeed, miladi, your admirable hus- band was one of the very first to exert his influence in my favour at Vienna. Do I recall him, cc chcr^xx Evelyn ? If I recall him ! What a fortunate rencounter ! I must have seen you some years ago at Vienna, miladi, though I had not then the great pleasure of making your acquaintance. But j'our face had impressed itself on my sub-conscious self! " (I did not learn till later that the esoteric doctrine of the sub-conscious self was Lady Georgina's favourite hobby.) " The moment chance led me to this carriage this morning, I said to myself, ' That face, those features : so vivid, so striking : I have seen them somewhere. With what do I connect them in the recesses of my memory ? A high-bora family ; genius ; rank ; the diplomatic service ; some un- nameable charm ; some faint touch of eccentricity. Ha! I have it. Vienna, a carriage with footmen in red livery, a noble presence, a crowd of wits — poets, artists, politicians — pressing eagerly round the landau.' That was my mental picture as I sat and confronted you ; I understand it all now ; this is Lad}' Georgina Faw y ! " I thought the Cantankerous Old Lady, who was a shrewd person in her way, must surely see through this obvious patter ; but I had under-estimated the average human capacity for swallowing flattery. Instead of dismissing his fulsome nonsense with a contemptuous smile, Lady Georgina perked herself up with a conscious air of coquetry, and asked for more. " Yes, they were delightful days in Vienna," she The Cantankerous Old Lady 2 1 said, .simpering ; " I was young then, Count ; I enjoyed life with a zest." " Persons of miladi's temperament are always young," the Count retorted, glibly, leaning forward aud gazing at PERSONS OF MILADIS TEMPERAMENT ARE ALWAYS YOUNG, her. " Growing old is a foolish habit of the stupid and the vacant. Men and women of esprit are never older. One learns as one goes on in life to admire, not the obvious beauty of mere youth and health " — he glanced across at me disdainfully — " but the profounder beauty of deep character in a face — that calm and serene beauty which is imprinted on the brow by experience of the emotions." 22 Miss Cayley's Adventures " I have had my iiionients," lyady Georgina murmured, wilh her head on one side. " I beUeveit, miladi," the Count answered, and ogled her. Thenceforward to Dover, they talked together with cease- less animation. The Cantankerous Old Lady was capital company. She had a tang in her tongue, and in the course of ninety minutes she had flayed alive the greater part of London society, with keen wit and sprightliness. I laughed against my will at her ill-tempered sallies ; they were too funny not to amuse, in spite of their vitriol. As for the Count, he was charmed. He talked well himself, too, and between them, I almost forgot the time till we arrived at Dover. It was a very rough passage. The Count helped us to carry our nineteen hand-packages and four rugs on board ; but I noticed that, fascinated as she was with him, Lady Georgina resisted his ingenious efforts to gain possession of her precious jewel-case as she descended the gangway. She clung to it like grim death, even in the chops of the Channel. Fortunately I am a good sailor, and when Lady Georgina's sallow cheeks began to grow pale, I was steady enough to supply her with her shawl and her smelling-bottle. She fidgeted and worried the whole way over. She would be treated like a vertebrate animal. Those horrid Belgians had no right to stick their deck-chairs just in front of her. The impertinence of the hussies with the bright red hair — a grocer's daughters, she felt sure — in venturing to come and sit on the same bench with her — the bench " for ladies only," under the lee of the funnel ! " Ladies only," indeed ! Did the baggages pretend they considered themselves ladies ? Oh, that placid old gentleman in the episcopal gaiters was The Cantankerous Old Lady 23 their father, was he ? Well, a bishop should bring up his daughters better, having his children in subjection with all gravity. Instead of which — " Lois, my smelling-salts !" This was a beastly boat ; such an odour of machinery; they had no decent boats nowadays ; with all our boasted im- provements, she could remember well when the cross-Channel service was much better conducted than it was at present. But that was before we had compulsory education. The working classes were driving trade out of the country, and the consequence was, we could n't build a boat which did n't reek like an oil-shop. Even the sailors on board were French — jabbering idiots ; not an honest British Jack-tar among the lot of them ; though the stewards were English, and very inferior Cockney English at that, with their offhand ways, and their School Board airs and graces. She 'd School Board them if they were her servants ; she 'd show them the sort of respect that was due to people of birth and education. But the children of the lower classes never learnt their cate- chism nowadays ; they were too much occupied with litera- toor, jography, and free-'and drawrin'. Happily for my nerves, a good lurch to leeward put a stop for a while to the course of her thoughts on the present distresses. At Ostend the Count made a second gallant attempt to capture the jewel-case, which Lady Georgina automatically repulsed. She had a fixed habit, I believe, of sticking fast to that jewel-case ; for she was too overpowered by the Count's urbanity, I feel sure, to suspect for a moment his honesty of purpose. But whenever she travelled, I fancy, she clung to her case as if her life depended upon it ; it con- tained the whole of her valuable diamonds. We had twenty minutes for refreshments at Ostend, during 24 Miss Cay ley's Adventures which interval my old lady declared with warmth that I must look after her registered luggage ; though, as it was booked through to Cologne, I could not even see it till we crossed the German frontier ; for the Belgian douanicrs seal up the van as soon as the through baggage for Germany is unloaded. To satisfy her, however, I went through the formality of pretending to inspect it, and rendered myself hateful to the head of the douane by asking various foolish and inept questions, on which lyady Georgina insisted. When I had finished this silly and uncongenial task — for I am not by nature fussy, and it is hard to assume fussiness as another person's proxy — I returned to our coupe vi\\\Q\\ I had arranged for in London. To my great amazement, I found the Cantankerous Old Lady and the egregious Count com- fortably seated there. " Monsieur has been good enough to accept a place in our carriage," she observed, as I entered. He bowed and smiled. " Or, rather, madame has been so kind as to offer me one," he corrected. " Would you like some lunch, Lady Georgina ? " I asked, in my chilliest voice. " There are ten minutes to spare, and the buffet is excellent." " An admirable inspiration," the Count murmured. *' Permit me to escort you, miladi." " You will come, Lois ? " Lady Georgina asked. ** No, thank you," I answered, for I had an idea. " I am a capital sailor, but the sea takes away my appetite." " Then you '11 keep our places," she said, turning to me. " I hope you won't allow them to stick in any horrid for- eigners ! They will try to force them on you unless you insist. / know their tricky ways. You have the tickets, I trust? And the bulletin for the coupi? Well, mind you The Cantankcfous Old Lady 25 don't lose the paper for the registered higgage. Don't let those dreadful porters touch my cloaks. And if anybody attempts to get in, be sure you stand in front of the door as they mount to prevent them." The Count handed her out ; he was all high courtly polite- THAT SUCCKEDS? TUK SHABBY- LOOKINd MAN MUTTERKD. ness. As Lady Georgina descended, he made yet another dexterous effort to relieve her of the jewel-case. I don't think she noticed it, but automatically once more .she waved him aside. Then she turned to me. " Here, my dear," she said, handing it to me, " you 'd better take care of it. If I lay it down in the dif//it while I am eating my soup, 26 Miss Cayley's Adventures some rogue may run away with it. But mind, don't let it out of your hands on any account. Hold it so, on your knee ; and, for Heaven's sake, don't part with it." By this time my suspicions of the Count were profound. From the first I had doubted him ; he was so blandly plausible. But as we landed at Ostend I had accidentally overheard a low, whispered conversation when he passed a shabby-looking man, who had travelled in a second-class carriage from London. "That succeeds?" the shabb)'^- looking man had muttered under his breath in French, as the haughty nobleman with the waxed moustache brushed by him. " That succeeds admirably," the Count had answered, in the same soft undertone. " p? reussit h nicrvcillc.'" I understood him to mean that he had prospered in his attempt to impose on Lady Georgina. They had been gone five minutes at the biiffd, when the Count came back hurriedly to the door of the coupi with a nonchalant air. " Oh, mademoiselle," he said, in an off- hand tone, " Lady Georgina has sent me to fetch her jewel- case. ' ' I gripped it hard with both hands. " Pardon^ M. le Comte," I answered ; " Lady Georgina intrusted it to my safe-keeping, and, without her leave, I cannot give it up to any one." "You mistrust me?" he cried, looking black. "You doubt my honour ? You doubt my word when I say that niiladi has sent me ? " " Du tout,''' I answered, calmly. " But I have Lady Georgina's orders to stick to this case ; and till Lady Georgina returns I stick to it." The Cantankerous Old Lady 27 He murmured some indignant remark below his breath, and walked off. The shabby-looking passenger was pacing up and down the platform outside in a badly made dust-coat. As they passed their lips moved. The Count's seemed to mutter, " C'est un coup manqiiiy However, he did not desist even so. I saw he meant to go on with his dangerous little game. He returned to the buffet and rejoined Lady Georgina. I felt sure it would be useless to warn her, so completely had the Count succeeded in gulling her ; but I took my own steps. I examined the jewel-case closely. It had a leather outer covering ; within was a strong steel box, with stout bands of metal to bind it. I took my cue at once, and acted for the best on my own re- sponsibility. When Lady Georgina and the Count returned, they were like old friends together. The quails in aspic and the spark- ling hock had evidently opened their hearts to one another. As far as Malines they laughed and talked without ceasing. Lady Georgina was now in her finest vein of spleen ; her acid wit grew sharper and more caustic each moment. Not a reputation in Europe had a rag left to cover it as we steamed in beneath the huge iron roof of the main central junction. I had observed all the way from Ostend that the Count had been anxious lest we might have to give up our conpi at Malines. I assured him more than once that his fears were groundless, for I had arranged at Charing Cross that it should run right through to the German frontier. But he waved me aside with one lordly hand. I had not told Lady Georgina of his vain attempt to take possession of her jewel- case ; and the bare fact of my silence made him increasingly suspicious of me. 28 Miss Cayley's Adventures " Pardon me, mademoiselle," he said, coldly ; " you do not understand these lines as well as I do. Nothing is more common than for those rascals of railway clerks to sell one a place in a coupe or a tvagon-lit, and then never reserve it, or turn one out half-way. It is very possible miladi may have to descend at Malines." Lady Georgina bore him out by a large variety of selected stories concerning the various atrocities of the rival com- panies which had stolen her luggage on her way to Italy. As for traitis dc hixc, they were dens of robbers. So when we reached Malines, just to satisfy Lady Georgina, I put out my head and inquired of a porter. As I antici- pated, he replied that there was no change; we went through to Verviers. The Count, however, was still unsatisfied. He descended, and made some remarks a little farther down the platform to an official in the gold-banded cap of a chcf-de-gare, or some such functionary. Then he returned to us, all fuming. " It is as I said," he exclaimed, flinging open the door. ' ' These rogues have deceived us. The coupe goes no farther. You must dismount at once, miladi, and take the train just opposite." I felt sure he was wrong, and I ventured to say so. But Lady Georgina cried, " Nonsense, child ! The chef-de-garc must know. Get out at once ! Bring my bag and the rugs ! Mind that cloak ! Don't forget the sandwich-tin ! Thanks, Count; will you kindly take charge of my umbrellas? Hurry up, Lois ; hurry up ! the train is just starting ! " I scrambled after her, with my fourteen bundles, keeping a quiet eye meanwhile on the jewel-case. We took our seats in the opposite train, which I noticed The Cantankerous Old Lady 29 was marked "Amsterdam, Bruxelles, Paris." But I said nothing. The Count jumped in, jumped about, arranged our parcels, jumped out again. He spoke to a porter ; then he rushed back excitedly. " Milk pardons, miladi," he cried. " I find the chcf-de-gare has cruelly deceived me. You were right, after all, mademoiselle ! We must return to the coupi!'' With singular magnanimity, I refrained from saying, " I told you so. ' ' Lady Georgina, very flustered and hot by this time, tum- bled out once more, and bolted back to the coupe. Both trains were just starting. In her hurry, at last, she let the Count take possession of her jewel-case. I rather fancy that as he passed one window he handed it in to the shabby- looking passenger; but I am not certain. At any rate, when we were comfortably seated in our own compartment once more, and he stood on the footboard j ust about to enter, of a sudden he made an unexpected dash back, and flung him- self wildly into a Paris carriage. At the selfsame moment, with a piercing shriek, both trains started. Lady Georgina threw up her hands in a frenzy of horror. " My diamonds ! " she cried aloud. " Oh, Lois, my dia- monds ! " " Don't distress yourself," I answered, holding her back, or I verily believe she would have leapt from the train. " He has only taken the outer shell, with the sandwich- case inside it. Here is the steel box ! " And I produced it triumphantly. She seized it, overjoyed. *' How did this happen ? " she cried, hugging it, for she loved those diamonds. Very simply," I answered. " I saw the man was a <( 30 Miss Cayley's Adventures rogue, and that he had a confederate with him in another carriage. So, while you were gone to the buffet at Ostend, I slipped the box out of the case, and put in the sandwich- tin, that he might carry it off, and we might have proofs against him. All you will have to do now is to inform the conductor, who will telegraph to stop the train to Paris. I spoke to him about that at Ostend, so that everything is ready." She positively hugged me. " My dear," she cried, " you are the cleverest little woman I ever met in my life ! Who on earth could have suspected such a polished gentleman ! Why, you 're worth your weight in gold. What the dickens shall I do without you at Schlangenbad ? " CHAPTER II THE ADVENTURE OF THE SUPERCILIOUS ATTACH:^ THE Count must have been an adept in the gentle art of quick-change disguise ; for though we telegraphed full particulars of his appearance from Louvain, the next station, nobody in the least resembling either him or his accomplice, the shabby-looking man, could be unearthed in the Paris train when it drew up at Brussels, its first stop- ping-place. They must have transformed themselves mean- while into two different persons. Indeed, from the outset, I had suspected his moustache — 't was so very distinguished. When we reached Cologne, the Cantankerous Old Lady overwhelmed me with the warmth of her thanks and praises. Nay, more ; after breakfast next morning, before we set out by slow train for Schlangenbad, she burst like a tornado into my bedroom at the Cologne hotel with a cheque for twenty guineas, drawn in my favour. " That 's for you, my dear," she said, handing it to me, and looking really quite gracious. I glanced at the piece of paper and felt my face glow crim- son. " Oh, Lady Georgina," I cried; " you misunderstand. You forget that I am a lady." " Nonsense, child, nonsense ! Your courage and prompti- tude were worth ten times that sum," she exclaimed, posi- 31 32 Miss Cayley's Adventures tively slipping her arm round my neck. " It was your courage I particularly admired, Lois ; because you faced the risk of my happening to look inside the outer case, and find- ing you had abstracted the blessed box ; in which case I I PUT HER HAND BACK FIRMLV. might quite naturally have concluded you meant to steal it." " I thought of that," I answered. " But I decided to risk it. I felt it was worth while. For I was sure the man meant to take the case as soon as ever you gave him the opportunity." " Then you deserve to be rewarded," she insisted, press- ing the cheque upon me. VJ\ The Supercilious Attache 33 I put her hand back firmly. " Lady Georgina," I said, " it is very amiable of you. I think you do right in offering me the money ; but I think I should do altogether wrong in accepting it. A lady is not honest from the hope of gain ; she is not brave because she expects to be paid for her bravery. You were my employer, and I was bound to serve my employer's interests. I did so as well as I could, and there is the end of it. ' ' She looked absolutely disappointed ; we all hate to crush a benevolent impulse ; but she tore the cheque up into very small pieces. " As you will, my dear," she said, with her hands on her hips ; "I see you are poor Tom Cayley's daughter. He was always a bit Quixotic." Though I be- lieve she liked me all the better for my refusal. On the way from Cologne to Eltville, however, and on the drive up to Schlangenbad, I found her just as fussy and as worrying as ever. " Let me see, how many of these horrid pfennigs make an English penny ? I never ca7i remember. Oh, those silly little nickel things are ten pfennigs each, are they ? Well, eight would be a penny, I suppose. A mark 's- a shilling ; ridiculous of them to divide it into ten pence in- stead of twelve ; one never really knows how much one 's paying for anything. Why these Continental people can't be content to use pounds, shillings, and pence, all over alike^ the same as we do, passes 7ny comprehension. They 're glad enough to get English sov^ereigns when they can ; why, then, don't they use them as such, instead of reckoning them each at twenty-five francs, and then trying to cheat you out of the proper exchange, which is always ten centimes more than the brokers give you ? What, rev use their beastly decimal system ? Lois, I 'm ashamed of you. An English 3 34 Miss Cayley's Adventures girl to turn and rend her native country like that ! Francs and centimes, indeed ! Fancy proposing it at Peter Robin- son's ! No, I will not go by the boat, my dear. I hate the Rhine boats, crowded with nasty selfish pigs of Germans. What /like is a first-class compartment all to myself, and no horrid foreigners. Especially Germans. They 're burst- ing with self-satisfaction — have such an exaggerated belief in their * land ' and their ' folk.' And when they come to England, they do nothing but find faul*" with us. If people are n't satisfied with the countries they trav^el in, they 'd better stop at home — that 's my opinion. Nasty pigs of Germans! The very sight of them sickens me. Oh, I don't mind if they do understand me, child. They all learn Eng- lish nowadays ; it helps them in trade — that 's why they 're driving us out of all the markets. But it viust be good for them to learn once in a way what other people really think of them — civilised people, I mean ; not Germans. They 're a set of barbarians." We reached Schlangenbad alive, though I sometimes doubted it, for my old lady did her boisterous best to rouse some peppery German officer into cutting our throats incon- tinently by the way ; and when we got there, we took up our abode in the nicest hotel in the village. Lady Georgina had engaged the best front room on the first floor, with a charming view across the pine-clad valley ; but I must do her the justice to say that she took the second best for me, and that she treated me in every way like the guest she de- lighted to honour. My refusal to accept her twenty guineas made her anxious to pay it back to me within the terms of our agreement. vShe described me to everybody as a young friend who was travelling with her, and never gave any one The Supercilious Attache 35 the slightest hint of my being a paid companion. Our ar- rangement was that I was to have two guineas for the week, besides my travelHng expenses, board, and lodging. On our first morning at Schlangenbad, Lady Georgina sallied forth, very much overdressed, and in a youthful hat, to use the waters. They are valued chiefly for the com- plexion, I learned ; I wondered then why Lady Geoigina came there — for she had n't any ; but they are also recom- mended for nervous irritability, and as Lady Georgina had visited the place almost every summer for fifteen years, it opened before one's mind an appalling vista of what her tem- per might have been if she had not gone to Schlangenbad. The hot springs are used in the form of a bath. " You don't need them, my dear," Lady Georgina said to me, with a good-humoured smile ; and I will own that I did not, for nature had gifted me with a tolerable cuticle. But I like when at Rome to do as Rome does ; so I tried the baths once. I found them unpleasantly smooth and oily. I do not freckle, but if I did, I think I should prefer freckles. We walked much on the terrace — the inevitable dawdling promenade of all German watering-places, — it reeked of Serene Highness. We also drove out among the low wooded hills which bound the Rhine valley. The majority of the visitors, I found, were ladies — Court ladies, most of them ; all there for their complexions, but all anxious to assure me privately they had come for what they described as ' ' nervous debility." I divided them at once into two classes : half of them never had and never would have a complexion at all ; the other half had exceptionally smooth and beautiful skins, of which they were obviously proud, and whose pink-and- white peach-blossom they thought to preserve by assiduous 36 Miss Caylcy's Adventures bathing. It was vanity working on two opposite bases. There was a sprinkling of men, however, who were really there for a sufficient reason — wounds or serious complaints ; while a few good old sticks, porty and whisty, were in at- tendance on invalid wives or sisters. From the beginning I noticed that I diplomatic memory fails at 42 Miss Cayley's Adventures times to recollect them all. But I do better ; I dissemble. I will plead forgetfuluess now of Captain Cayley, since you force it on me. It is not likely I shall have to plead it of Captain Cayley's daughter." And he bowed toward me gallantly. The Cantankerous Old Lady darted a lightning glance at him. It was a glance of quick suspicion. Then she turned her Rontgen rays upon my face once more. I fear I burned crimson. " A friend ? " he asked. " Or a fellow-guest ? " " A companion." It was the first nasty thing she had said of me. " Ha ! more than a friend, then. A comrade." He turned the edge neatly. We walked out on the terrace and a little way up the zig- zag path. The day was superb. I found Mr. Tillington, in spite of his studiously languid and supercilious air, a most agreeable companion. He knew Europe. He was full of talk of Rome and the Romans, He had epigrammatic wit, curt, keen, and pointed. We sat down on a bench ; he kept Lady Georgina and myself amused for an hour by his crisp sallies. Besides, he had been everywhere and seen every- body. Culture and agriculture seemed all one to him. When we rose to go in, Lady Georgina remarked, with emphasis, " Of course, Harold, you '11 come and take up your diggings at our hotel ? " " Of course, my dear aunt. How can you ask? Free quarters. Nothing would give me greater pleasure." She glanced at him keenly again. I saw she had expected him to fake up some lame excuse for not joining us ; and I fancied she was annoyed at his prompt acquiescence, which The Supercilious Attache 43 had done her out of the chance for a family disagreement. " Oh, j'ou '11 come then ? " she said, grudgingl}'. " Certainly, most respected aunt. I shall much prefer it." She let her piercing eye descend upon me once more. I was aware that I had been talking with frank ease of manner to Mr. Tillington, and that I had said several things which clearly amused him. Then I remembered all at once our relative positions. A companion, I felt, should know her place ; it is not her role to be smart and amusing. " Per- haps," I said, drawing back, " Mr. Tillington would like to remain in his present quarters till the end of the week, while I am with you, lyady Georgina ; after that, he could have my room ; it might be more convenient." His eye caught mine quickly. " Oh, you 're only going to stop a week, then. Miss Cay ley ? " he ^^ut in, with an air of disappointment. " Only a week," I nodded. " My dear child," the Cantankerous Old Lady broke out, " what nonsense you do talk ! Only going to .stop a week ? How can I exist without you ? " " That was the arrangement," I said, mischievously. " You were going to look about, you recollect, for an un- sophisticated Gretchen. You don't happen to know of any warehouse where a supply of unsophisticated Gretchens is kept constantly in stock, do you, Mr. Tillington ? " " No, I don't," he answered, laughing. " I believe there are dodos' and auks' eggs, in very small numbers, still to be procured in the proper quarters ; but the unsophisticated Gretchen, I am credibl}'^ informed, is an extinct animal. Why, the cap of one fetches high prices nowadays among collectors. " . 44 Miss Cayley's Adventures " But you will come to the hotel at once, Harold ? " Lady Georgina interposed. *' Certainly, aunt. I will move in without delay. If Miss Cayley is going to stay for a single week only, that adds one extra inducement for joining you immediately." His aunt's stony eye was cold as marble. So when we got back to our hotel after the baths that afternoon, the concierge greeted us with : " Well, your noble nephew has arrived, high-well-born countess ! He came with his boxes just now, and has taken a room near your honourable ladyship's." Lady Georgina's face was a study of mingled emotions. I don't know whether she looked more pleased or jealous. Later in the day, I chanced on Mr. Tillington, sunning himself on a bench in the hotel garden. He rose, and came up to me, as fast as his languid nature permitted. " Oh, Miss Cayley," he said, abruptly, " I do want to thank you so much for not betraying me. I know you spotted me twice in the town yesterday ; and I also know you were good enough to say nothing to my revered aunt about it." " I had no reason for wishing to hurt Lady Georgina's feelings," I answered, with a permissible evasion. His countenance fell. " I never thought of that," he interposed, with one hand on his moustache. " I — I fancied you did it out of fellow-feeling." " We all think of things mainly from our own point of view first," I answered. " The difference is that some of us think of them from other people's afterwards. Motives are mixed." He smiled. " I did n't know my deeply venerated rela- tive was coming here so soon," he went on. " I thought The Supercilious Attache 45 she was n't expected till next week ; my brother wrote me that she had quarrelled with her French maid, and 't would take her full ten days to get another. I meant to clear out "circumstances alter cases, he murmured. before she arrived. To tell you the truth, I was going to- morrow. ' ' " And now you are stopping on ? " 46 Miss Cayley's Adventures He caught my eye again. " Circumstances alter cases," he murmured, with meaning. "It is hardly polite to describe one as a circumstance," I objected. " I meant," he said, quickly, " my aunt alone is one thing; my aunt with a friend is quite another." " I see," I answered, " There is safety in numbers." He eyed me hard. *' Are you mediaeval or modern ? " he asked. " Modern, I hope," I replied. Then I looked at him again. "Oxford?" He nodded. " And you ? " half joking. " Cambridge," I said, glad to catch him out. " What college ? " " Merton. Yours?" " Girton." The odd rhyme amused him. Thenceforth we were friends — " two 'Varsity men," he said. And indeed it does make a queer sort of link — a freemasonry to which even women are now admitted. At dinner and through the evening he talked a great deal to me, Lady Georgina putting in from time to time a char- acteristic growl about the tablc-d'hdte chicken — " a special breed, my dear, with eight drumsticks apiece" — or about the inadequate lighting of the heavy German salo7t. She was worse than ever ; pungent as a rule, that evening she was grumpy. When we retired for the night, to my great surprise, she walked into my bedroom. She seated herself on my bed : I saw she had come to talk over Harold. " He will be very rich, my dear, you know. A great catch in time. He will inherit all my brother's money." The Supercilious Attache 47 "Lord Kynaston's?" " Bless the child, no. Kynaston 's as poor as a church mouse with the tithes unpaid ; he has three sons of his own, and not a blessed stiver to leave between them. How could he, poor dear idiot ? Agricultural depression ; a splendid pauper. He has only the estate, and that 'sin Essex ; land going begging ; worth nothing a year, encumbered up to the eyes, and loaded with first rent-charges, jointures, settle- ments. Money, indeed ! poor Kynaston ! It 's my brother Marmaduke's I mean ; lucky dog, //^ went in for speculation — began life as a guinea-pig, and rose with the rise of soap and cocoa. He 's worth his half- million." " Oh, Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst." Ie7is/on — " for ladies only," Frau Bockenheimer assured me — at very moderate rates, in a pleasant part of the Linden- strasse. It had dimity curtains. I will not deny that as I entered the house I was conscious of feeling lonely ; my heart sank once or twice as I glanced round the luncheon table at the domestically unsympathetic German old maids who formed the rank-and-file of my fellow-boarders. There they sat — eight comfortable fraus who had missed their vo- cation ; plentiful ladies, bulging and surging in tightly- stretched black silk bodices. They had been cut out for such housewives as Harold Tillington had described, but found themselves deprived of their natural sphere in life by the unaccountable caprice of the men of their nation. Each was a model Teutonic matron vianquic. Each looked capa- ble of frying Frankfort sausages to a turn, and knitting 64 Miss Cayley's Adventures woollen socks to a remote eternity. But I sought in vain foi one kindred soul among them. How horrified they would have been, with their fat pudding-faces and big saucer-eyes, had I boldly announced myself as an English adventuress ! I spent my first morning in laborious self-education at the Ariadneu'm and the Stadel Gallery. I borrowed a catalogue. I wrestled with Van der Weyden ; I toiled like a galley- slave at Meister Wilhelm and Meister Stephan. I have a confused recollection that I saw a number of stiff mediaeval pictures, and an alabaster statue of the lady who smiled as she rode on a tiger, taken at the beginning of that interest- ing episode. But the remainder of the Institute has faded from my memory. In the afternoon I consoled myself for my herculean efforts in the direction of culture by going out for a bicycle ride on a hired machine, to which end I decided to devote my pocket-money. You will, perhaps, object here that my con- duct was imprudent. To raise that objection is to misunder- stand the spirit of these artless adventures. I told you that I set out to go round the world ; but to go round the world does not necessarily mean to circumnavigate it. My idea was to go round by easy stages, seeing the world as I went as far as I got, and taking as little heed as possible of the morrow. Most of my readers, no doubt, accept that philo- sophy of life on Sundays only ; on week-days they swallow the usual contradictory economic platitudes about prudential forethought and the horrid improvidence of the lower classes. For myself, I am not built that way. I prefer to take life in a spirit of pure enquiry. I put on my hat ; I saunter where I choose, so far as circumstances permit ; and I wait to see what chance will bring me. My ideal is breeziness. The Inquisitive American 65 The hired bicycle was not a bad machine, as hired bicycles go ; it jolted one as little as you can expect from a common hack ; it never stopped at a bier-garten ; and it showed very few signs of having been ridden by beginners with an un- conquerable desire to tilt at the hedgerow. So off I soared at once, heedless of the jeers of Teutonic youth who found the sight of a lady in skirts riding a cycle a strange one — for in South Germany the " rational " costume is so universal among women cyclists that 't is the skirt that provokes un- favourable comment from those jealous guardians of female propriety, the street boys. I hurried on at a brisk pace past the Palm-garden and the suburbs, with my loose hair stray- ing on the breeze behind, till I found myself pedalling at a good round pace on a broad, level road, which led towards a village, by name Fraunheim. As I scurried across the plain, with the wind in my face, not unpleasantly, I had some dim consciousness of somebody unknown flying after me headlong. My first idea was that Harold Tillington had hunted me down and tracked me to my lair ; but gazing back, I saw my pursuer was a tall and ungainly man, with a straw-coloured moustache, apparently American, and that he was following me on his machine, closely watching my action. He had such a cunning ex- pression on his face, and seemed so strangely inquisitive, with eyes riveted on my treadles, that I did n't quite like the look of him. I put on the pace, to see if I could outstrip him, for I am a swift cyclist. But his long legs were too much for me. He did not gain on me, it is true ; but neither did I outpace him. Pedalling my very hardest — and I can make good time when necessary — I still kept pretty much at the same distance in front of him all the way to Fraunheim. 66 Miss Cayley's Adventures Gradually I began to feel sure that the weedj'-looking man with the alert face was really pursuing me. When I went faster, he went faster too ; when I gave him a chance to pass me, he kept close at my heels, and appeared to be keenly watching the style of my ankle-action. I gathered that he was a connoisseur ; but why on earth he should persecute me I could not imagine. My spirit was roused now— I pedalled with a will; if I rode all day I would not let him go past me. «ei=?te HK KKPT CLOSK AT MY HEELS. Be5'^ond the cobble-paved chief street of Fraunheim the road took a sharp bend, and began to mount the slopes of the Taunus suddenly. It was an abrupt, steep climb ; but I flatter myself I am a tolerable mountain cyclist. I rode sturdily on ; my pursuer darted after me. But on this stiff upward grade my light weight and agile ankle-action told ; I began to distance him. He seemed afraid that I would give him the .slip, and called out suddenly, with a whoop, in English, " St(^p, mi.ss ! " I looked back with dignity, but The Inquisitive American 67 answered nothing. He put on the pace, panting; I pedalled awa}'^ and got clear from him. At a turn of the corner, however, a.s luck would have it, I was pulled up short by a mounted policeman. He blocked the road with his horse, like an ogre, and asked me, in a I WAS PULLET) UP SHORT HY A MOUNTF.n roMCF.MAN. very gruff v'^wabian voice, if this was a licensed bicycle. I had no idea, till he spoke, that any license was required ; though to be sure I might have guessed it ; for modern Ger- many is studded with notices at all the street corners, to in- form you in minute detail that everything is forl)idden. I stammered out that I did not know. The mounted police^ 68 Miss Caylcy's Adventures man drew near and inspected nie rudely. " It is strongly undersaid," he began, but just at that moment my pursuer came up, and, with American quickness, took in the situa- tion. He accosted the policeman in choice bad German. ' ' I have two licenses, ' ' he said, producing a handful. ' ' The Fraulein rides with me. ' ' I was too much taken aback at so providential an interposition to contradict this highly im- aginative statement. My highwayman had turned into a protecting knight-errant of injured innocence. I let the policeman go his way ; then I glanced at my preserver. A very ordinary modern St. George he looked, with no lance to speak of, and no steed but a bicycle. Yet his mien was reassuring. " Good-morning, miss," he began — he called me " miss " ev^ery time he addressed me, as though he took me for a bar- maid. " Ex-cuse mc, but why did you want to speed her?" " I thought you were pursuing me, ' I answered, a little tremulous, I will confess, but avid of incident. " And if I was," he went on, " you might have con- jectured, miss, it was for our nuitual advantage. A busi- ness man don't go out of his way unless he expects to turn an honest dollar ; and he don't reckon on other folks going out of theirs, unless he knows he can put them in the way of turning an honest dollar with him." " That 's reasonable," I answered ; for I am a political economist. " The benefit should be mutual." But I won- dered if he were going to propose at sight to me. He looked me all up and down. " You 're a lady of con- siderable personal attractions," he said, musingly, as if he were criticising a horse ; ' ' and I want one that sort. That ' s The Inquisitive American 69 jest why I trailed you, see ? Besides which, there 's some style about you." "Style !" I repeated. SEEMS I DIU N T MAKE MUCH OK A JOU OF IT. " Yes," he went on ; " you know how to use your feet ; and you have good understandings." I gathered from his glance that he referred to my nether limbs. We are all vertebrate animals ; why seek to conceal the fact ? 70 Miss Cayley's Adventures " I fail to follow you," I answered frigidly ; for I really did n't know what the man might say next. " That 's so ! " he replied. " It was /that foil o wed jj/^?< m a u ao The Amateur Commission Agent 119 spoke another word. The ro<;iie backed out by degrees. Then he sprang down-stairs, and before they could decide was well out into the open. Lady Georgina was the first to break the silence. " After all, my dear," she murmured, turning to me, " there was a deal of sound English common-sense about Dogberry ! " I remembered then his charge to the watch to apprehend a rogue. " How if 'a will not stand ? " " Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go ; and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave." When I remembered how Lady Georgina had hob-nobbed with the Count from Ostend to Malines, I agreed to a great extent both with her and with Dogberry. CHAPTER V THE ADVENTURE OF THE IMPROMPTU MOUNTAINEER THE explosion and evaporation of Dr. Fortescue-Iyangley (with whom were amalgamated the Comte de Laroche- sur-Loiret, Mr. Higginson the courier, and whatever else that versatile gentleman chose to call himself) entailed many results of var3Mng magnitudes. In the first place, Mrs. Evelegh ordered a Great Manitou. That, however, mattered little to " the firm," as I loved to call us (because it shocked dear Elsie so) ; for, of course, after all her kiiidness we could n't accept our commission on her purchase, so that she got her machine cheap for fifteen pounds from the maker. But, in the second place — I declare I am beginning to write like a woman of business — she decided to run ov^r to England for the summer to see her boy at Ports- mouth, being certain now that the discoloration of her bangle depended more on the presence of sulphur in the india-rubber bottle than on the passing state of her astral body. 'T is an abrupt descent from the inner self to a hot-water bottle, I admit ; but Mrs, Evelegh took the plunge with grace, like a sensible woman. Dr. Fortescue-Langley had been annihi- lated for her at one blow: she returned forthwith to common- sense and England. The Impromptu Mountaineer 121 " What will you do with the chalet while j'ou 're away ? " Lady Georgiiia asked, when she announced her intention. " You can't shut it up to take care of itself. Every blessed thing in the place will go to rack and ruin. Shutting up a house means spoiling it for ever. Why, I 've got a cottage of my own in the best part of Surrey that I let for the summer — a pretty little place, now vacant, for which, by the < way, I want a tenant, if you happen to know of one — and when it 's left empty for a month or two " " Perhaps it would do for me? " Mrs. Evelegh suggested, jumping at it. "I 'm looking out for a furnished house for the summer, within easy reach of Portsmouth and London^ for myself and Oliver." Lady Georgina seized her arm, with a face of blank horror. " My dear I " she cried. " For you ! I would n't dream of letting it to you. A nasty, damp, cold, unwholesome house, on stiff clay soil, with detestable drains, in the dead- liest part of the Weald of Surrey, — why, you and your boy would catch your deaths of rheumatism." "Is it the one I saw advertised in the Times this morn- ing, I wonder? " Mrs. Evelegh enquired in a placid voice. " ' Charmingly furnished house on Holmesdale Common ; six bedrooms, four reception-rooms ; splendid views ; pure air; picturesque surroundings; exceptionally situated.' I thought of writing about it." " That 's it ! " Lady Georgina exclaimed, with a demon- strative wave of her hand. " I drew up the advertisement myself. Exceptionally situated ! I should just think it was ! Why, my dear, I would n't let you rent the place for worlds ; a horrid, poky little hole, stuck down in the bottom of a boggy hollow, as damp as Devonshire, with the paper 122 Miss Cayley's Adventures peeling off the walls, so that I had to take my choice between giving it up myself ten years ago or removing to the ceme- tery; and I 've let it ever since to City men with large fami- lies. Nothing would induce me to allow you and your boy to expose yourself to such risks." For Lady Georgina had taken quite a fancy to Mrs. Evelegh. " But what I was just going to say was this : you can't shut your house up ; it '11 all go mould3\ Houses always go mouldy, shut up in summer. And you can't leave it to your servants ; / know the baggages ; no conscience — no conscience ; they '11 ask their entire families to come up and stop with them en bloc, and turn your place into a perfect piggery. Why, when I went away from my house in town one autumn, did n't I leave a policeman and his wife in charge — a most respectable man — only he happened to be an Irishman ? And what was the consc-j^uence ? My dear, I assure you, I came back un- expectedly from poor dear Kynaston's one day — at a mo- ment's notice — having quarrelled with him over Home Rule or Education or something — poor dear Kynaston 's what they call a Liberal, I believe — got at by that man Rosebery — and there did n't I find all the O' Flanagans, and O' Flaherty's, and O'Flynns in the neighbourhood camping out in my draw- ing-room ; with a strong detachment of O'Donohues, and O'Doherty's, and O'Driscolls lying around loose in possession of the library ? Never leave a house to the servants, my dear ! It 's positively suicidal. Put in a responsible caretaker of whom j'ou know something — like Lois here, for instance." " Lois ! " Mrs. Evelegh echoed. " Dear me, that 's just the very thing. What a capital idea ! I never thought of Lois ! She and Elsie might stop on here, with Ursula and the gardener." The Impromptu Mountaineer 123 I protested that if we did it was our clear duty to pay a small rent; but Mrs. Evelegli brushed that aside. " You 've robbed yourselves about the bicycle," she insisted, " and I 'm delighted to let you have it. It 's I who ought to pay, for you '11 keep the house dry for me." I remembered Mr. Hitchcock — " Mutual advantage : " NKVKR LEAVE A HOUSE TO THE SERVANTS, MY DEAR!" benefits you, benefits me" — and made no bones about it. So in the end Mrs. Evelegh set off for England with Cecile, leaving Elsie and me in charge of Ursula, the gardener, and the chdlct. As for Lady Georgina, having by this time completed her " cure " at Schlangenbad (complexion as usual ; no guinea yellower), she telegraphed for Gretchen — " I can't do with- out the idiot " — and hung round Lucerne, apparently for no 124 Miss Cayley's Adventures other purpose but to send people up the Briinig on the hunt for our wonderful new machines, and so put money in our pockets. She was much amused when I told her that Aunt Susan (who lived, you will remember, in respectable in- digence at Blackheath) had written to expostulate with me on my " unladylike" conduct in becoming a bicycle com- mission agent. ' ' Unladylike ! ' ' the Cantankerous Old Lady exclaimed, with warmth. " What does the woman mean ? Has she got no gumption ? It 's ' ladylike,' I suppose, to be a companion, or a governess, or a music-teacher, or some- thing else in the black-thread-glove way, in London ; but not to sell bicycles for a good round commission. M3' dear, be- tween you and me, I don't see it. If you had a brother, now, he might sell bicycles, or corner wheat, or rig the share market, or do anything else he pleased, in these days, and nobody 'd think the worse of him — as long as he made money; and it 's my opinion that what is sauce for the goose can't be far out for the gander — and vice versa. Besides which, what 's the use of trying to be ladylike ? You are a lady, child, and you could n't help being one ; why trouble to be like what nature made you ? Tell Aunt Susan from me to put that in her pipe and smoke it ! " ,1 did tell Aunt Susan by letter, giving Lady Georgina as authority for the statement ; and I really believe it had a consoling effect upon her ; for Aunt Susan is one of those innocent-minded people who cherish a profound respect for the opinions and ideas of a Lady of Title. Especially where questions of delicacy are concerned. It calmed her to think that though I, an officer's daughter, had declined upon trade, I was mixing at least with the Best People ! We had a lovely time at the chdlet — two girls alone, mess- The Impromptu Mountaineer 125 ing just as we pleased in the kitchen, and learning from Ursula how to concoct pot-au-feic in the most approved Swiss fashion. We pottered, as we women love to potter, half the day long ; the other half we spent in riding our cycles about the eternal hills, and ensnaring the flies whom Lady Georgina dutifully sent up to us. She was our decoy duck ; and, in virtue of her handle, she decoyed to a marvel. In- deed, I sold so many Manitous that I began to entertain a deep respect for my own commercial faculties. As for Mr. Cyrus W. Hitchcock, he wrote to me from Frankfort : " The world continues to revolve on its axis, the Manitou, and the machine is booming. Orders romp in daily. When you ventilated the suggestion of an agency at Limburg, I con- cluded at a glance you had the material of a first-class busi- ness woman about you ; but I reckon I did not know what a traveller meant till you started on the road. I am now en- larging and altering this factory, to meet increased demands. Branch offices at Berlin, Hamburg, Crefeld, and Diisseldorf. Inspect our stock before dealing elsewhere. A liberal dis- count allowed to the trade. Two hundred agents wanted in all towns of Germany. If they were every one of them like yoic, miss, — well, I guess I would hire the town of Frankfort for my business premises." One morning, after we had spent about a week at the chdld by ourselves, I was surprised to see a young man with a knapsack on his back walking up the garden path towards our cottage. " Quick, quick, Elsie ! " I cried, being in a mischievous mood. " Come here with the opera-glass ! There 's a Man in the offing ! " "A what?'' Elsie exclaimed, shocked as usual at my levity. 126 Miss Cayley's Adventures " A Man," I answered, squeezing her arm. " A Man ! A real live Man ! A specimen of the masculine gender in the human being ! Man, ahoy ! He has come at last — the loadstar of our existence ! " Next minute, I was sorry I spoke ; for as the man drew nearer, I perceived that he was endowed with very long legs and a languidly poetical bearing. That supercilious smile — that enticing moustache ! Could it be ? — yes, it was — not a doubt of it— Harold Tillington ! I grew grave at once ; Harold Tillington and the situation were serious. "What can he want here?" I exclaimed, drawing back. " Who is it ? " Elsie asked ; for, being a woman, she read at once in my altered demeanour the fact that the Man was not unknown to me. " Lady Georgina's nephew," I answered, with a telltale cheek, I fear. " You remember I mentioned to you that I had met him at Schlangenbad. But this is really too bad of that wicked old Lady Georgina. She has told him where we lived and sent him up to see us." " Perhaps," Elsie put in, " he wants to charter a bicycle." I glanced at Elsie sideways. I had an uncomfortable sus- picion that she said it slyly, like one who knew he wanted nothing of the sort. But at any rate, I brushed the sugges- tion aside frankly. " Nonsense," I answered. " He wants me, not a bicycle." He came up to us, waiting his hat. He did look hand- some ! " Well, Miss Cayley," he cried from afar, " I have tracked you to your lair ! I have found out where you abide ! What a beautiful spot ! And how well you 're looking ! " The Impromptu Mountaineer 127 " This is an unexpected — " I paused. He thought I was going to say, " pleasure," but I finished it, " intrusion." His face fell. " How did you know we were at Lungern, Mr. Tillington?" *' My respected relative," he answered, laughing. " She mentioned — casually — " his eyes met mine — " that you were stopping in a ch&let. And, as I was on my way back to the diplomatic mill, I thought I might just as well walk over the Grimsel and the Furca, and then on to the Gothard. The Court is at Monza. So it occurred to me . . . that in passing ... I might venture to drop in and say how- do-you-do to you." " Thank you," I answered, severely — but my heart spoke otherwise — " I do very well. And you, Mr. Tillington ? " " Badly," he echoed. ** Badly, since _y^?< went away from Schlangenbad." I gazed at his dusty feet. " You are tramping," I said, cruelly. " I suppose you will get forward for lunch to Meiringen ? " " I — I did not contemplate it." "Indeed?" He grew bolder. " No ; to say the truth, I half hoped I might stop and spend the day here with you." " Elsie," I remarked firmly, " if Mr. Tillington persists in planting himself upon us like this, one of us must go and in- vestigate the kitchen department." Elsie rose like a lamb. I have an impression that she gathered we wanted to be left alone. He turned to me imploringly. " Lois," he cried, stretch- ing out his arms, with an appealing air, " I may stay, may n't I ? " 128 Miss Cayley's Adventures I tried to be stern ; but I fear 't was a feeble pretence. ** We are two girls, alone in a house," I answered. " Lady Georgina, as a matron of experience, ought to have pro- tected us. Merely to give you lunch is almost irregular." "I MAY STAY, MAY N'T I?" (Good diplomatic word, irregular.) " Still, in these days, I suppose you may stay, if you leave early in the afternoon. That 's the utmost I can do for you." " You are not gracious," he cried, gazing at me with a wistful look. The Impromptu Mountaineer 129 I did not dare to be gracious. " Uninvited guests must not quarrel with their welcome," I answered severely. Then the woman in me broke forth. " But, indeed, Mr. Tillington, I am glad to see j'ou." He leaned forward eagerly. " So you are not angry with me, lyois ? I may call you Lois f " I trembled and hesitated. " I am not angry with you. I — I like you too much ever to be angry with you. And I am glad you came — just this once — to see me. . . . Yes — when we are alone — you may call me Lois." He tried to seize my hand. I withdrew it. " Then I may perhaps hope," he began, " that some day " I shook my head. " No, no," I said regretfully. " You misunderstand me. I like you very much ; and I like to see you. But as long as you are rich and have prospects like yours, I could never marry you. My pride would n't let me. Take that as final." I looked away. He bent forward again. " But if I were poor ? " he put in eagerly. I hesitated. Then my heart rose, and I gave way. " If ever you are poor," I faltered, — " penniless, hunted, friend- less — come to me, Harold, and I will help and comfort you. But not till then. Not till then, I implore you." He leaned back and clasped his hands. " You have given me something to live for, dear Lois," he murmured. " I will try to be poor — penniless, hunted, friendless. To win you I will try. And when that day arrives, I shall come to claim you." W^ sat for an hour and had a delicious talk — about nothing. But we understood each other. Only that arti- ficial barrier divided us. At the end of the hour, I heard 130 Miss Cayley's Adventures Elsie coming back by judiciously slow stages from the kitchen to the living-room, through six feet of passage, discoursing audibly to Ursula all the way, with a tardiness that did honour to her heart and her understanding. Dear, kind little Elsie ! I believe she had never a tiny romance of her own ; yet her sympathy for others was sweet to look upon. We lunched at a small deal table on the veranda. Around us rose the pinnacles. The scent of pines and moist moss was in the air. Elsie had arranged the flowers, and got ready the omelette, and cooked the cutlets, and prepared the junket. " I never thought I could do it alone with- out you. Brownie ; but I tried, and it all came right by magic, somehow." We laughed and talked incessantly. Harold was in excellent cue ; and Elsie took to him. A livelier or merrier table there was n't in the twenty-two Cantons that day than ours, under the sapphire sky, looking out on the sun-smitten snows of the Jungfrau. After lunch, Harold begged hard to be allowed to stop for tea. I had misgivings, but I gave way — he was such good company. One may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, says the wisdom of our ancestors; and, after all, Mrs. Grundy was only represented here by Elsie, the gentlest and least censorious of her daughters. So he stopped and chatted till four ; when I made tea and insisted on dismissing him. He meant to take the rough mountain path over the screes from I/Ungern to Meiringen, which ran right behind the chdlet. I feared lest he might be belated, and urged him to hurry. " Thanks, I 'm happier here," he answered. I was sternness itself. " Yo\x promised me ! " I said, in a reproachful voice. The Impromptu Mountaineer 131 He rose instantly, and bowed. " Your will is law — even when it pronounces sentence of exile." Would we walk a little way with him ? No, I faltered ; we would not. We would follow him with the opera-glasses and wave him farewell when he reached the Kulm. He shook our hands unwillingly, and turned up the little path, looking handsomer than ever. It led ascending through a fir- wood to the rock-strewn hillside. Once, a quarter of an hour later, we caught a glimpse of him near a sharp turn in the road ; after that we waited in vain, with our eyes fixed on the Kulm ; not a sign could we discern of him. At last I grew anxious. " He ought to be there," I cried, fuming. " He ought," Elsie answered. I swept the slopes with the opera-glasses. Anxiety and interest in him quickened my senses, I suppose. " Look here, Elsie," I burst out at last. " Just take this glass and have a glance at those birds, down the crag below the Kulm. Don't they seem to be circling and behaving most oddly?" Elsie gazed where I bid her. " They 're wheeling round and round," she answered, after a minute ; " and they cer- tainly do look as if they were screaming." " They seem to be frightened," I suggested. ** It looks like it. Brownie," " Then he 's fallen over a precipice ! " I cried, rising up ; " and he 's lying there on a ledge by their nest. Elsie, we must go to him ! ' ' She clasped her hands and looked terrified. * ' Oh, Brownie, how dreadful ! ' ' she exclaimed. Her face was deadly white. Mine burned like fire. 132 Miss Caylcy's Adventures " Not a moment to lose ! " I said, holding my breath. " Get out the rope and let us run to him ! " " Don't you think," Elsie suggested, " we had better hurry down on our cycles to Lungern and call some men from the village to help us ? We are two girls, and alone. What can we do to aid him ? " " No," I answered, promptly, " that won't do. It would only lose time — and time may be precious. You and I must go ; I '11 send Ursula off to bring up guides from the village." Fortunately we had a good long coil of new rope in the house, which Mrs. Evelegh had provided in case of accident. I slipped it on my arm, and set out on foot ; for the path was by far too rough for cycles. I was sorry afterwards that I had not taken Ursula, and sent Elsie to Lungern to rouse the men ; for she found the climbing hard, and I had ditii- culty at times in dragging her up the steep and stony path- way, almost a watercourse. However, we persisted in the direction of the Kulm, tracking Harold by his footprints ; for he wore mountain boots with sharp-headed nails, which made dints in the moist soil, and scratched the smooth sur- face of the rock where he trod on it. We followed him thus for a mile or two, along the regular path ; then of a sudden, in an open part, the trail failed us. I turned back a few yards and looked close, with my eyes fixed on the spongy soil, as keen as a hound that sniffs his way after his quarry. " He went off here, Elsie ! " I said at last, pulling up .short by a spindle bush on the hillside. " How do you know, Brownie ? " " Why, see, there are the marks of his stick ; he had a thick one, you remember, with a square iron spike. These The Impromptu Mountaineer 133 are its dints ; I have been watching them all the way along from the chdlct:' * ' But there are so many such marks ! ' ' " Yes, I know ; I can tell his from the older ones made by the spikes of alpenstocks because Harold's are fresher and sharper on the edge. They look so much newer. See, here, he slipped on the rock ; you can know that scratch is recent by the clean way it 's traced, and the little glistening crys- tals still left behind in it. Those other marks have been wind-swept and washed by the rain. There are no broken particles." " How on earth did you find that out, Brownie ? " How on earth did I find it out ! I wondered myself. But the emergency seemed somehow to teach me something of the instinctive lore of hunters and savages. I did not trouble to answer her. " At this bush, the tracks fail," I went on ; " and, look, he must have clutched at that branch and crushed the broken leaves as the twigs slipped through his fingers. He left the path here, then, and struck off on a short cut of his own along the hillside, lower down. Elsie, we must follow him." She shrank from it ; but I held her hand. It was a more difficult task to track him now ; for we had no longer the path to guide us. However, I explored the ground on my hands and knees, and soon found marks of footsteps on the boggy patches, with scratches on the rock where he had leaped from point to point, or planted his stick to steady himself. I tried to help Elsie along among the littered boulders and the dwarf growth of wind-swept daphne ; but, poor child, it was too much for her; she sat down after a few minutes upon the flat juniper scrub and began to cry. What was I to do ? 134 Miss Cayley's Adventures My anxiety was breathless. I could n't leave her there alone, and I could n't forsake Harold. Yet I felt every minute might now be critical. We were making among wet whortleberry thicket and torn rock towards the spot where I had seen the birds wheel and circle, screaming. The only way left was to encourage Elsie and make her feel the neces- sity for instant action. " He is alive still," I exclaimed, looking up ; " the birds are crying ! If he were dead, they would return to their nest — Elsie, we must get to him ! " She rose, bewildered, and followed me. I held her hand tight, and coaxed her to scramble over the rocks where the scratches showed the way, or to clamber at times over fallen trunks of huge fir-trees. Yet it was hard work climbing ; even Harold's sure feet had slipped often On the wet and slimy boulders, though, like most of Queen Margherita's set, he was an expert mountaineer. Then, at times, I lost the faint track, so that I had to diverge and look close to find it. These delays fretted me. ' * See, a stone loosed from its bed — he must have passed by here. . . . That twig is newly snapped ; no doubt he caught at it. . . . Ha, the moss there has been crushed ; a foot has gone by. And the ants on that ant-hill, with their eggs in their mouths — a man's tread has frightened them." So, by some instinctive sense, as if the spirit of my savage ancestors reviv^ed within me, I managed to recover the spoor again and again by a miracle, till at last, round a corner by a defiant cliff — with a terrible foreboding, my heart stood still within me. We had come to an end. A great projecting buttress of crag rose sheer in front. Above lay loose boulders. Below was a shrub-hung precipice. The birds we had seen from home were still circling and screaming. The Impromptu Mountaineer 135 They were a pair of peregrine hawks. Their iiest seemed to lie far below the broken scar, some sixty or seventy feet beneath us. " He is not ) , dead ! " I cried J ( f/ once more, with ( ,' my heart in my mouth. " If he were, they would have returned. He has fallen, and is lying, alive, below there!" Elsie shrank back against the wall of rock. I advanced on my hands and knees to the edge of the precipice. It was not quite sheer, but it dropped like a sea-cliff, with broken ledges. I ADVANCED ON MY HANDS AND KNEES TO THE EDGE OF THE TRECU'ICE. 13^ Miss Cayley's Adventures I could see where Harold had slipped. He had tried to climb round the crag that blocked the road, and the ground at the edge of the precipice had given way with him ; it showed a recent founder of a few inches. Then he clutched at a branch of broom as he fell ; but it slipped through his fingers, cutting them ; for there was blood on the \vir3' stem. I knelt by the side of the cliff and craned my head over. I scarcely dared to look. In spite of the birds, my heart mis- gave me. There, on a ledge deep below, he lay in a mass, half raised on one arm. But not dead, I believed. " Harold ! " I cried. "Harold!" He turned his face up and saw me ; his eyes lighted with joy. He shouted back something, but I could not hear it. I turned to Elsie. " I must go down to him ! " Her tears rose again. " Oh, Brownie ! " I unwound the coil of rope. The first thing was to fasten it. I could not trust Elsie to hold it ; she was too weak and too frightened to bear my weight ; even if I wound it round her body, I feared my mere mass might drag her over. I peered about at the surroundings. No tree grew near ; no rock had a pinnacle sufiiciently safe to depend upon. But I found a plan soon. In the crag behind me was a cleft, narrowing wedge-shape as it descended. I tied the end of the rope round a stone, a good big water-w^orn stone, rudely girdled with a groove near the middle, which prevented it from slipping ; then I dropped it down the fissure till it jannned ; after which, I tried it to see if it would bear. It was firm as the rock itself. I let the rope down by it, and waited a moment to discover whether Harold could climb. He shook his head, and took a note-book with evident pain The Impromptu Mountaineer i37 from his pocket. Then he scribbled a few words, and pinned them to the rope. I hauled it up. " Can't move. Either severely bruised and sprained, or else legs broken." There was no help for it, then. I must go to him. My first idea was merely to glide down the rope with my gloved hands, for I chanced to have my dog-skin bicycling gloves in my pocket. Fortunately, however, I did not carry out this crude idea too hastily ; for next instant it occurred to me that I could not swarm up again. I have had no practice in rope-climbing. Here was a problem. But the moment suggested its own solution. I began making knots, or rather nooses or loops, in the rope, at intervals of about eighteen inches. " What are they for ? " Elsie asked, look- ing on in wonder. ' ' Footholds, to climb up by. ' ' *' But the ones above will pull out with your weight." " I don't think so. Still, to make sure, I shall tie them with this string, I fnusf get down to him." I threaded a sufficient number of loops, trying the length over the ledge. Then I said to Elsie, who sat cowering, propped against the crag, ' ' You must come and look over, and do as I wave to you. Mind, dear, you must! Two lives depend upon it." •'Brownie, I dare n't! I shall turn giddy and fall over ! ' ' I smoothed her golden hair. " Elsie, dear," I said gently, gazing into her blue eyes, " j'ou are a woman. A woman can always be brave, where those she loves are concerned ; and I believe you love me." I led her, coaxingly, to the edge. " Sit there," I said, in my quietest voice, so as not to alarm her. " You can lie at full length, if you like, and 138 Miss Cayley's Adventures I GRIPPED THE ROPE AND LET MYSELF DOWN. only just peep over. But when I wave my hand, remember, you must pull the rope up." She obeyed me like a child. I knew she loved me. I gripped the rope and let myself down. y'^ not using the loops to '^ descend, but just slid- ing with hands and knees, and allowing the knots to slacken my pace. Half-way down^ I will confess, the eerie feeling of physical suspense was horrible. One hung so in mid-air ! The hawks flapped their wings. But Harold was below ; and a woman can always be brave where those she loves — well, just that moment, catching my breath, I knew I loved Harold. I glided swiftly ■J / The Impromptu Mountaineer 139 down. The air whizzed. At last, on a narrow shelf of rock, I leaned over him. He seized my hand. ' ' I knew you would come ! " he cried. " I felt sure j'ou would find out. Though hoiv you found out, Heaven only knows, you clever, brave little woman ! " " Are you terribly hurt ? " I asked, bending close. His clothes were torn. " I hardly know. I can't move. It may only be bruises." " Can you climb by the.se nooses with my help ? " He shook his head. " Oh, no. I could n't climb at all. I must be lifted, somehow. You had better go back to Lungern and bring men to help you." " And leave you here alone ! Never, Harold ; never ! " " Then what can we do ? " I reflected a moment. "Lend me your pencil," I said. He pulled it out — his arms were almost unhurt, fortun- ately. I scribbled a line to Elsie. " Tie my plaid to the rope and let it down." Then I waved to her to pull up again. I was half surprised to find she obeyed the signal, for she crouched there, white-faced and open-mouthed, watching ; but I have often observed that women are almost always brave in great emergencies. She pinned on the plaid and let it down with commendable quickness. I doubled it, and tied firm knots in the four corners, so as to make it into a sort of basket ; then I fastened it at each corner with a piece of the rope, crossed in the middle, till it looked like one of the cages they use in mills for letting down sacks with. As soon as it was finished, I said, " Now, just try to crawl into it." He raised himself on his arms and crawled in with diffi- HO ^ Miss Cayley's Adventures culty. His legs dragged after him. I could see he was in great pain. But still, he managed it. I planted my foot in the first noose. " You must sit still," I said, breathless. " I am going back to haul you up." " Are you strong enough, Lois ? " " With Elsie to help me, yes. I often stroked a four at Girton." " I can trust you," he answered. It thrilled me that he said so. I began my hazardous journey ; I mounted the rope by the nooses — one, two, three, four, counting them as I mounted. I did not dare to look up or down as I did so, lest I should grow giddy and fall, but kept my eyes fixed firmly always on the one noose in front of me. My brain swam ; the rope swayed and creaked. Twenty, thirty, forty ! Foot after foot, I slipped them in mechanically, taking up with me the longer coil whose ends were attached to the cage and Harold. My hands trembled ; it was ghastly, swinging there between earth and heav^en. Forty- five, forty-six, forty-seven — I knew there were forty-eight of them. At las' •'ter some weeks, as it seemed, I reached the summit. Treniiuous and half dead, I prised myself over the edge with my hands, and knelt once more on the hill be- side Elsie. She was white, but attentive. " What next, Brownie ? " Her voice quivered. I looked about me. I was too faint and shaky after my perilous ascent to be fit for work, but there was no help for it. What could I use as a pulley ? Not a tree grew near ; but the stone jammed in the fissure might once more serve my purpose. I tried it again. It had borne my weight ; The Impromptu Mountaineer 141 was it strong enough to bear the precious weight of Harold ? I tugged at it, and thought so. I passed the rope round it like a pulley, and then tied it about my own waist. I had a happy thought : I could use myself as a windlass. I turned on my feet for a pivot. Elsie helped me to pull. " Up you go ! " I cried, cheerily. We wound slowly, for fear of shak- ing him. Bit by bit, I could feel the cage rise gradually from the ground ; its weight, taken so, with living capstan and stone axle, was less than I should have expected. But the pulley helped us, and Elsie, spurred by need, put forth more reserve of nervous strength than I could easily have believed lay in that tiny body. I twisted myself round and round, close to the edge, so as to look over from time to time, but not at all quickly, for fear of dizziness. The rope strained and gave. It was a deadly ten minutes of suspense and anxiety. Twice or thrice as I looked down I saw a spasm of pain break over Harold's face ; but when I paused and glanced enquiringly, he motioned me to go on with my venturesome task. There was no turning back now. We had almost got him up when the rope at the edge began to creak ominously. It was straining at the point where it grated against the brink of the precipice. My heart gave a leap. If the rope broke, all was over. With a sudden dart forward, I seized it with my hands, below the part that gave ; then — one fierce little run back — and I brought him level with the edge. He clutched at Elsie's hand. I turned thrice round, to wind the slack about my body. The taut rope cut deep into my flesh ; but no- thing mattered now, except to save him. " Catch the cloak, Elsie ! " I cried ; " catch it : pull him gently in ! " Elsie 142 Miss Caylcy's Adventures caught it and pulled him in, with wonderful pluck and calm- ness. We hauled him over the edge. He lay safe on the bank. Then we all three broke down and cried like children together. I took his hand in mine and held it in silence. When we found words again I drew a deep breath, and said, simply, "How did you manage to doit?" " I tried to clam- ber past the wall that barred the way there by sheer force of s t r i d e — y o u know, my legs are long — and I some- how overbalanced myself. But I did n't exactly fall — if I had fallen I must have been killed ; I rolled and slid down, clutching at the weeds in the crannies as I slipped, I ROLLED AND SLID DOWN. The Impromptu Mountaineer 143 and stumbling over the projections, without quite losing my foothold on the ledges, till I found myself brought up short with a bump at the end of it." " And you think no bones are broken ? " " I can't feel sure. It hurts me horribly to move. I fancy just at first I must have fainted. But I 'm inclined to guess I 'm only sprained and bruised and sore all over. Why, you 're as bad as I, I believe. See, your dear hands are all torn and bleeding ! " " How are we ever to get him back again, Brownie? " Elsie put in. She was paler than ever now, and prostrate with the after-effects of her unwonted effort. ** You are a practical woman, Elsie," I answered. " Stop with him here a minute or two. I '11 climb up the hillside and halloo for Ursula and the men from Lungern." I climbed and hallooed. In a few minutes, worn out as I was, I had reached the path above and attracted their atten- tion. They hurried down to where Harold lay, and, using my cage for a litter, slung on a young fir-trunk, carried him back between them across their shoulders to the village. He pleaded hard to be allowed to remain at the chdld, and Elsie joined her prayers to his ; but there I was adamant. It was not so much what people might say that I minded, but a deeper difficulty. For if once I nursed him through his trouble, how could I or any woman in my place any longer refuse him ? So I passed him ruthlessly on to Lungern (though my heart ached for it), and telegraphed at once to his nearest relative, I^ady Georgina, to come up and take care of him. He recovered rapidly. Though sore and shaken, his worst hurts, it turned out, were sprains ; and in three or 144 Miss Cayley's Adventures four clays he was ready to go on again. I called to see him before he left. I dreaded the interview ; for one's own heart is a hard enemy to fight so long ; but how could I let him go without one word of farewell to him ? " After this, Lois," he said, taking my hand in his — and I was weak enough, for a moment, to let it lie there — *' yon cannot say No to me ! " Oh, how I longed to fling myself upon him and cry out, " No, Harold, I cannot ! I love you too dearly ! " But his future and Marmaduke Ashurst's half-million restrained me ; for his sake and for my own I held myself in courageously ; though, indeed, it needed some courage and self-control. I withdrew my hand slowly. " Do you remember," I said, ** you asked me that first day at Schlangenbad " — it was an epoch to me, now, that first day — " whether I was mediaeval or modern ? And I answered, ' Modern, I hope.' And ,you said, ' That 's well ! ' — You see, I don't forget the least things you say to me. Well, because I am modern " — my lips trembled and belied me — " I can answer you No. I can even now refuse you. The old-fashioned girl, the mediaeval girl, would have held that because she saved your life (if I did save your life, which is a matter of opinion) she was bound to marry you. But / am modern, and I see things differently. If there were reasons at Schlangenbad which made it impracticable for me to accept you — though my heart pleaded hard — I do not deny it — those reasons can- not have disappeared merely because you have chosen to fall over a precipice, and I have pulled you up again. My de- cision was founded, you see, not on passing accidents of situation, but on permanent considerations. Nothing has happened in the last three days to aifect those considerations. The Impromptu Mountaineer 145 We are still ourselves ; you rich, I a penniless adventuress. I could not accept jou when you asked me at Schlangenbad. On just the same grounds, I cannot accept you now. I do not see how the unes.sential fact that I made myself into a winch to pull you up the cliff, and that I am .still smarting for it " He looked me all over comically. ' ' How severe we are ! ' ' he cried, in a bantering tone. " And how extremely Gir- tony ! A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, by lyois Cayley ! What a pity we did n't take a professor's chair. My child, that is n't you ! It 's not yourself at all ! It 's an attempt to be unnaturally and unfemininely reason- able." Logic fled. I broke down utterly. " Harold," I cried, rising, " I love you ! I admit I love you ! But I will never marry you — while you have those thousands." " I have n't got them yet ! " " Or the chance of inheriting them." He smothered my hand with kisses — for I withdrew my face. ' ' If you admit you love me, ' ' he cried, quite joyously, " then all is well. When once a woman admits that, the rest is but a matter of time— and, Lois, I can wait a thou- sand years for you." " Not in my case," I answered through my tears. " Not in my case, Harold ! I am a modern womaij, and what I say I mean. I will renew my promise. If ever you are poor and friendless, come to me ; I am yours. Till then, don't harrow me by asking me the impossible ! " I tore myself away. At the hall door, Lady Georgina in- tercepted me. She glanced at my red eyes. "Then you have taken him ? " she cried, seizing my hand. 10 146 Miss Cayley's Adventures I shook my head firmly. I could hardly speak. " No, Lady Georgina," I answered, in a choking voice. " I have refused him again. I will not stand in his way. I will not ruin his prospects." She drew back and let her chin drop. " Well, of all the hard-hearted, cruel, obdurate young women I ever saw in my born days, if you 're not the very hardest " I Fl.r.NG MYSKLF WILDLY ON MY HE!). I half ran from the house. I hurried home to the chdhi. There, I dashed into my own room, locked the door behind me, flung myself wildly on my bed, and, burying my face in my hands, had a good, long, hard-hearted, cruel, obdurate cry — exactly like any mediaeval woman. It 's all very well being modern ; but my experience is that, when it conies to a man one loves — well, the Middle Ages are still horribly strong within us. CHAPTER VI. THK ADVENTURE OF THE URBANE OLD GENTLEMAN WHEN Elsie's holidays — I beg pardon, vacation — came to an end, she proposed to return to her High School in London. Zeal for the higher mathematics devoured her. But she still looked so frail, and coughed so often — a perfect Campo Santo of a cough — in spite of her summer of open-air exercise, that I positively- worried her into consulting a doctor — not one of the Fortescue-Langley order. The report he gave was mildly unfavourable. He spoke disrespectfully of the apex of her right lung. It was not exactly tubercular, he remarked, but he "feared tuberculosis" — excuse the long words; the phrase was his, not mine ; I repeat verbatim. He vetoed her exposing herself to a winter in London in her present unstable condition. Davos ? Well, no. Not Davos ; with deliberative thumb and finger on close-shaven chin. He judged her too delicate for such drastic remedies. Those high mountain stations suited best the robust invalid, who had dropped by accident into casual phthisis. For Miss Petheridge's case — looking wise — he would not reconnnend the Riviera, either ; too stimulating, too exciting. What this young lady needed most was rest ; rest in some agree- 147 14^ Miss Cayley's Adventures able southern town, some city of the soul — say Rome or Florence— where she might find much to interest her, and might forget the apex of her right lung in the new world of art that opened around her. " Very well," I said promptly ; " that 's settled, Elsie. The apex and you shall winter in Florence." " But, Brownie, can we afford it ? " " Afford it ? " I echoed. " Goodness gracious, my dear child, what a bourgeois sentiment ! Your medical attendant says to you, ' Go to Florence ' ; and to Florence you must go ; there 's no getting out of it. Wh}', even the swallows fly south when their medical attendant tells them England is turning a trifle too cold for them." " But what will Miss Eatimer say ? She depends upon me to come back at the beginning of term. She must have somebody to undertake the higher mathematics." " And she will get somebody, dear," I answered, calmly. " Don't trouble your sweet little head about that. An emi- nent statistician has calculated that five hundred and thirty duly qualified young women are now standing four-square in a solid phalanx in the streets of London, all agog to teach the higher mathematics to anyone who wants them at a mo- ment's notice. Let Miss Latimer take her pick of the five hundred and thirty. I '11 wire to her at once : * Elsie Petheridge unable through ill health to resume her duties. Ordered to Florence. Resigns post. Engage substitute.' That ' s the way to do it." Elsie clasped her small white hands in the despair of the woman who considers herself indispensable — as if we were any of us indispensable ! ' ' But, dearest, the girls ! They ' 11 be so disappointed ! " The Urbane Old Gentleman 149 " They '11 get over it," I answered, grimly. " There are worse disappointments in store for them in life — which is a fine old crusted platitude worthy of Aunt Susan. Anyhow, I 've decided. Look here, Elsie : I stand to you in loco parentis. '" I have already remarked, I think, that she was three years my senior ; but I was so pleased with this phrase that I repeated it lovingly. " I stand to you, dear, in loco parentis. Now, I can't let you endanger your precious health by returning to town and Miss Latimer this winter. Let us be categorical. I go to Florence ; you go with me." " What shall we live upon ? " Elsie suggested, piteously. " Our fellow-creatures, as usual," I answered, with prompt callousness. " I object to these base utilitarian considera- tions being imported into the discussion of a serious ques- tion. Florence is the city of art ; as a woman of culture, it behoves you to revel in it. Your medical attendant sends you there ; as a patient and an invalid, you can revel with a clear conscience. Money ? Well, money is a secondary matter. All philosophies and all religions agree that money is mere dross, filthy lucre. Rise superior to it. We have a fair sum in hand to the credit of the firm ; we can pick up some more, I suppose, in Florence." '• How?" I reflected, " Elsie," I said, " you are deficient in faith — which is one of the leading Christian graces. My mission in life is to correct that want in your spiritual nature. Now, observe how beautifully all these events work in together ! The winter comes, when no man can bicycle, especially in Switzerland. Therefore, what is the use of my stopping on here after October? Again, in pursuance of my general plan of going round the world, I nuist get forward to Italy. i=;o Miss Cayley's Adventures. Your medical attendant considerately orders j'ou at the same lime to Florence. In Florence we shall still have chances of selling Manitous, though possibly, I admit, in diminished numbers. I confess at once that people come to Switzerland to tour, and are therefore liable to need our machines ; while they go to Florence to look at pictures, and a bicj'cle would doubtless prove • inconvenient in the Uffizi or the Pitti. Still, we may sell a few. But I descry another opening. You write shorthand, don't you ? " " A little, dear ; only ninety words a minute." " That 's not business. Advertise yourself, a la Cyrus Hitchcock ! Say boldly, ' I write shorthand.' Leave the world to ask, * How fast ? ' It will ask it quick enough without your suggesting it. Well, my idea is this. Florence is a town teeming with English tourists of the cultivated classes — men of letters, painters, antiquaries, art-critics. I suppose even art-critics may be classed as cultivated. Such people are sure to need literary aid. We exist to supply it. We will set up the Florentine School of Stenography and Typewriting. We '11 buy a couple of typewriters." " How can we pay for them, Brownie ? " I gazed at her in despair. " Elsie," I cried, clapping my hand to my head, " you are not practical. Did I ever sug- gest we should pay for them ? I said merely, buy them. ' Base is the slave that pays.' That 's Shakespeare. And we all know Shakespeare is the mirror of nature. Argal, it would be unnatural to pay for a typewriter. We will hire a room in Florence (on tick, of course), and begin operations. Clients will flock in ; and we tide over the winter. There ' s enterprise for you ! " And I struck an attitude. Elsie's face looked her doubts. I walked across to Mrs. The Urbane Old Gentleman 151 Evelegh's desk, and began writing a letter. It occurred to me that Mr. Hitchcock, who was a man of business, might be able to help a woman of business in this delicate matter. I put the point to him fairly and squarely, without circum- locution ; we were going to start an English typewrititig office in Florence ; what was the ordinary way for people to become possessed of a typewriting machine, without the odious and mercenary preliminary of paying for it ? "there's enterprise for you !" The answer came back with commendable promptitude: " Dear Miss, — Your spirit of enterprise is really remarkable ! I have forwarded your letter to my friends of the Spread Eagle Type- writing and Phonograph Company, Limited, of New York City, in- forming them of your desire to open an agency for the sale of their machines in Florence, Italy, and giving them my estimate of your business capacities. I have advised their London bouse to present 152 Miss Caylcy's Adventures you with two complinientary machines for your own use and your partner's, and also to supply a number of others for disposal in the city of Florence. If you would further like to undertake an agency for the development of the trade in salt codfish (large quantities of which are, of course, consumed in Catholic Europe), I could put you into communication with my respected friends, Messrs. Abel Wood- ward & Co., exporters of preserved provisions, St. John's, New- foundland. But, perhaps, iu this suggestion I am not suflSciently high-toned. " Respectfully, "Cyrus W. Hitchcock." The moment had arrived for Elsie to be firm. " I have no prejudice against trade, Brownie," she observed emphati- cally, " but I do draw the line at salt fish." " So do I, dear," I answered. She sighed her relief. I really believ^e she half expected to find me trotting about Florence with miscellaneous sam- ples of Messrs. Abel Woodward's esteemed productions pro- truding from my pocket. So to Florence we went. My first idea was to travel by the Brenner route through the Tyrol ; but a queer little episode which met us at the outset on the Austrian frontier put a check to this plan. We cycled to the border, sending our trunks by rail. When we went to claim them at the Austrian Custom-house, we were told that they were de- tained " for political reasons." " Political reasons? " I exclaimed, nonplussed. " Even so, Fraulein. Your boxes contain revolutionary literature." " Some mistake ! " [ cried, warmly. I am but a drawing- room Socialist. " Not at all ; look here." And he drew a .small book out of Elsie's portmanteau. The Urbane Old Gentleman 153 What ? Elsie a conspirator ? Elsie in league with Nihi- lists ? So mild and so meek ! I could never have believed it. I took the book in my hands and read the title, ' ' Revo- lution of the Heavenly Bodies." *' But this is astronomy," I burst out. " Don't you see ? Sun-and-star circling. The revolution of the planets." " It matters not, Fraulein. Our instructions are strict. We have orders to intercept «// revolutionary literature with- out distinction." " Come, Elsie," I said, firmly, " this is too ridiculous. Let us give them a clear berth, the.se Kaiserly- Kingly block- heads ! " So we registered our luggage right back to Lu- cerne, and cycled over the Gothard. When at last, by leisurely stages, we arrived at Florence, I felt there was no use in doing things bj' halves. If you are going to start the Florentine School of Stenography and Typewriting, you may as well start it on a proper basis. So I took sunny rooms at a nice hotel for myself and Elsie, and hired a ground floor in a convenient house, close under the shadow of the great marble Campanile. (Con.siderations of space compel me to curtail the usual gush about Arnolfo and Giotto.) This was our office. When I had got a Tuscan painter to plant our flag in the shape of a sign-board, I sallied forth into the street and inspected it from outside with a swelling heart. It is true, the Tuscan painter's unaccount- able predilection for the rare spellings " Scool " without an /^, and " Stenografy " with ari /", somewhat dampened my exuberant pride for the moment ; but I made him take the board back and correct his Italianate English. As .soon as all was fitted up with desk and tables we reposed upon our laurels, and waited only for customers in shoals to pour in 154 Miss Caylcy's Adventures upon us, /called them "customers" ; Elsie maintained that we ought rather to say " clients." Being by tempera- ment averse to sectarianism, I did not dispute the point with her. PAINTING THE SIGN-BOARD. We reposed on our laurels — in vain. Neither cnstomers nor clients seemed in any particular hurry to disturb our leisure. I confess I took this ill. It was a rude awakening. I had begun to regard myself as the special favourite of a fairy godmother ; it surprised me to find that any undertaking of mine did not succeed immediately. However, reflecting that my fairy godmother's name was really Enterprise, I re- called Mr. Cyrus W. Hitchcock's advice, and advertised. The Urbane Old Gentleman 155 " There 's one j^ood thing about Florence, Elsie," I said, just to keep up her courage. ' ' When the customers do come, they '11 be interesting people, and it will be interesting work. Artistic work, don't you know — Fra Angelico, and Delia Robbia, and all that sort of thing ; or else fresh light on Dante and Petrarch ! " " When they do come, no doubt," Elsie answered, du- biously. " But do you know, Brownie, it strikes me there is n't quite that literary stir and ferment one might expect in Florence. Dante and Petrarch appear to be dead. The dis- tinguished authors fail to stream in upon us as one imagined with manuscripts to copy." I affected an air of confidence — for I had sunk capital in the concern (that 's business-like — sunk capital !). " Oh, we 're a new firm," I assented, carelessly. " Our enterprise is yet young. When cultivated Florence learns we 're here, cultivated Florence will invade us by thousands." But we sat in our office and bit our thumbs all day ; the thousands stopped at home. We had ample opportunities for making studies of fehe decorative detail on the Campanile, till we knew every square inch of it better than Mr. Ruskin. Elsie's note-book contains, I believe, eleven hundred separate sketches of the Campanile, from the right end, the left end, and the middle of our window, with eight hundred and five distinct distortions of the individual statues that adorn its niches on the side turned towards us. At last, after we had sat, and bitten our thumbs, and sketched the Four Greater Prophets for a fortnight on end, an innnense excitement occurred. An old gentleman was distinctly seen to approach and to look up at the sign-board which decorated our office. I instantly slipped in a sheet of 156 Miss Cayley's Adventures foolscap, and began to typewrite with alarming speed — click, click, click ; while Elsie, rising to the occasion, set to work to transcribe, imaginarj' shorthand as if her life depended upon it. The old gentleman, after a moment's hesitation, lifted the latch of the door somewhat nervously. I affected to take no notice of him, so breath- less was the haste with which our immense business connec- tion compelled me to finger the keyboard ; but, looking up at him under my eyehishes, I could just make out he was a peculiarly bland and urbane old person, dressed with the greatest care, and some atten- tion to fashion. His face was l^j^ smooth ; it tended towards portliness. He made up his mind, and entered the office. I continued to click till I had reached the close of a sentence — " Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them." Then I looke-^ up sharply. "Can I do anything for you ? " I enquired, in the smartest tone of business. (I observe that politeness is not professional.) The Urbane Old Gentleman came forward with his hat in his hand. He looked as if he had just landed from the eighteenth century. His figure was that of Mr. Edward .:^ THE URBANE OLD GENTLEMAN. The Urbane Old Gentleman 157 Gibbon. " Yes, madam," he said, in a markedly deferential tone, fussing about with the rim of his hat as he spoke, and adjusting his pincc-ncz. " I was recommended to your — ur — your establishment for shorthand and typewriting. I have some work which I wish done, if it falls within your province. But I am rather particular. I require a quick worker. Excuse my asking it, but how many words can you do a minute ? " " Shorthand ? " I asked, sharply, for I wished to imitate official habits. The Urbane Old Gentleman bowed. " Yes, shortha^nd- Certainly." I waved ni}^ hand with careless grace towards Elsie — as if these things happened to us daily. ' ' Miss Petheridge under- takes the shorthand department," I said, with decision. " I am the typewriting from dictation. Miss Petheridge, for- ward ! " Elsie rose to it like an angel. " A hundred," she an- swered, confronting him. The old gentleman bowed again. " And your terms? " he enquired, in a honey-tongued voice. " If I may venture to ask them." We handed him our printed tariff. He seemed satisfied. *' Could you spare me an hour this morning? " he asked, still fingering his hat nervously with his puffy hand. " But perhaps you are engaged. I fear I intrude upon you." " Not at all," I answered, consulting an imaginary en- gagement list. " This work can wait. I^et me see : 11.30. Elsie, I think you have nothing to do l)efore one, that can- not be put off? Quite so — very well, then ; yes, we are both at your service." T5<^ Miss Cay ley's Adventures The Urbane Old Gentleman looked about him for a seat. I pushed him our one easy-chair. He withdrew his gloves with great deliberation, and sat down in it with an apologetic glance. I could gather from his dress and his diamond pin that he was wealthy. Indeed, I half guessed who he was already. There was a fussiness about his manner which seemed strangely familiar to me. He sat down by slow degrees, edging himself about till he was thoroughly comfortable. I could see he was of the kind that will have comfort. He took out his notes and a packet of letters, which he sorted slowly. Then he looked hard at me and at Elsie. He seemed to be making his choice be- tween us. After a time he spoke. " I think,'''' he said, in a most leisurely voice, " I will not trouble your friend to write shorthand for me, after all. Or .should I say your assistant ? Excuse my change of plan. I will content myself with dic- tation. You can follow on the machine ? ' ' " As fast as you choose to dictate to me." He glanced at his notes and began a letter. It was a curious communication. It seemed to be all about buying Bertha and selling Clara — a cold-blooded proceeding which almost suggested slave-dealing. I gathered he was giving instructions to his agent : could he have business rela- tions with Cuba? I wondered. But there were also hints of mysterious middies — brave British tars to the re.s- cue, possibly ! Perhaps my bewilderment showed itself upon my face, for at last he looked queerly at me. " You don't quite like this, I 'm afraid," he said, breaking off short. I was the soul of business. " Not at all," I answered. " I am an automaton — nothing more. It is a typewriter's func- The Urbane Old Gentleman 159 tion to transcribe the words a client dictates as if tliey were absolutely meaningless to her." *' Quite right," he answered, approvingly. " Quite right. I see you understand. A very proper spirit ! " Then the Woman within me got the better of the Type- writer. " Though I confess," I continued, " 1 do feel i\ is a little unkind to sell Clara at once for whatever she will fetch. It seems to me — well — unchivalrous." He smiled, but held his peace. " Still — the middies," I went on ; " they will perhaps take care that these poor girls are not ill-treated." He leaned back, clasped his hands, and regarded me fixedly. " Bertha," he said, after a pause, " is Brighton A's — to be strictly correct, London, Brighton, and South Coast First Preference Debentures. Clara is Glasgow and South-Western Deferred Stock. Middies are Midland Ordi- nary. But I respect your feeling. You are a young lady of principle." And he fidgeted more than ever. He went on dictating for just an hour. His subject- matter bewildered me. It was all about India Bills, and telegraphic transfers, and selling cotton short, and holding tight to Egyptian Unified. Markets, it seemed, were glutted. Hungarians were only to be dealt in if they hardened — hardened sinners I know, but what are hardened Hungarians ? And fears were not unnaturally expressed that Turks might be" irregular." Consols, it appeared, were certain to give way for political reasons ; but the downward tendency of Australians, I was relieved to learn, for the honour of so great a group of colonies, could only be tempo- rar5^ Greeks were growing decidedly worse, though I had alvvavs understood Greeks were bad enough already ; and i6o Miss Cayley's Adventures Argentine Central were likely to l)e weak ; but Provincials must soon become commendably firm, and if Uruguays went flat, something good ought to be made out of them. Scotch rails might shortly be quiet — I always understood they were based upon sleepers ; but if South-Eastern stiffened, advan- HE WKNT ON DICTATING FOK JUST AN HOUR. tage should certainly be taken of their vStiffening. He would telegraph particulars on Monday morning. And so on till my brain reeled. Oh, artistic Florence! was this the Filippo Lippi, the Michael Angelo I dreamed of? At the end of the hour, the Urbane Old Gentleman ro.se urbanely. He drew on his gloves again with the greatest deliberation, and hunted for his stick as if his life depended upon it. " Let me see ; I had a pencil ; oh, thanks ; yes, that is it. This cover protects the point. My hat ? Ah, certainly. And my notes ; much obliged ; notes always get mislaid. People are so careless. Then I will come again to- The Urbane Old Gentleman i6i morrow ; the same hour, if you will kindl)' keep yourself disengaged. Though, excuse me, you had better make an entry of it at once upon your agenda." " I shall remember it,*' I answered, smiling. " No ; will you ? But you have n't my name." *' I know it," I answered. " At least, I think so. You are Mr, Marmaduke Ashurst. Lady Georgina Fawley sent you here. ' ' He laid down his hat and gloves again, so as to regard me more undistracted. " You are a most remarkable young lady," he said, in a very slow voice. " I impressed upon Georgina that she must not mention to you that I was com- ing. How on earth did you recognise me ? " " Intuition, most likely." He stared at me with a sort of suspicion. " Please don't tell me that you think me like my sister," he went on. ** For though, of course, every right-minded man feels — ur — a natural respect and affection for the members of his family — bows, if I may so say, to the inscrutable decrees of Provi- dence — which has mysteriously burdened him with them — still, there are points about Lady Georgina which I cannot con.scientiously assert I approve of." I remembered " Marmy 's a fool," and held my tongue judiciously. " I do not resemble her, I hope," he persisted, with a look which I could almost describe as wistful. " A family likeness, perhaps," I put in. " Family like- nesses exist, you know — often with complete divergence of tastes and character." He looked relieved. " That is true. Oh, how true ! But the likeness in my case, I must admit, escapes me." II f 1 62 Miss Cayley's Adventures I temporised. " Strangers see these things most," I said, airing the stock platitudes. " It may be superficial. And, of course, one knows that profound differences of intellect and moral feeling often occur within the limits of a single family." " You are quite right," he said, with decision. " Geor- gina's principles are not mine. Excuse my remarking it, but j'ou seem to be a young lady of unusual penetration." I saw he took my remark as a compliment. What T really meant to say was that a connnoiiplace man might easily be the brother to so clever a woman as Lady Georgina. He gathered up his hat, his stick, his gloves, his notes, and his typewritten letters, one by one, and backed out politely. He was a punctilious millionaire. He had risen by urbanity to his brother directors, like a model guinea- pig. He bowed to us each separately as if we had been duchesses. As soon as he was gone, Elsie turned to me. " Brownie, how on earth did 3'ou guess it? They 're so awfully different!" " Not at all," I an.swered. " A few surface unlikenesses only just mask an underlying identity. Their features are the same ; but his are plump ; hers, shrunken. Lad}' Georgina's expression is sharp and worldly ; Mr. Ashurst's is smooth, and bland, and financial. And then their man- ner ! Both are fussy ; but Lady Georgina's is honest, open, ill-tempered fussiness ; Mr. Ashurst's is concealed under an artificial mask of obsequious politeness. One 's cantanker- ous ; the other 's only pernicketty. It 's one tune, after all, in two different key.s." From that day forth, the Urbane Old Gentleman was a The Urbane Old Gentleman i6 daily visitor. He took an hour at a time at first ; but after a few days, the hour lengthened out (apologetically) to an entire morning. He "presumed to ask" my Christian name the second day, and remembered my father — " a man HE BOWED TO US EACH SEPARATELY, of excellent principles." But he did n't care for Klsie to work for him. Fortunately for her, other work dropped in, once we had found a client, or else, poor girl, she would have felt sadly slighted. I was glad she had something to do ; the sense of dependence weighed heavily upon her. 164 Miss Cayley's Adventures The Urbane Old Gentleman did not confine himself en- tirely, after the first few days, to Stock Exchange literature. He was engaged on a Work — he spoke of it always with bated breath, and a capital letter was implied in his intona- tion ; the Work was one on the Interpretation of Prophec}-. Unlike Lady Georgina, who was tart and crisp, Mr. Marma- duke Ashurst was devout and decorous ; where she said " pack of fools," he talked with unction of " the mental de- ficiencies of our poorer brethren." But his religious opin- ions and his stockbroking had got strangely mixed up at the wash somehow. He was convinced that the British nation represented the lyost Ten Tribes of Israel — and in particular Kphraim — a matter on which, as a mere lay-woman, I would not presume either to agree with him or to differ from him. " That being so, Miss Cayley, we can easily understand that the existing commercial prosperity of England depends upon the promises made to Abraham." 1 assented, without committing myself: " It would seem to follow." Mr. Ashurst, encouraged by so much assent, went on to unfold his System of Interpretation, which was of a strictly connnercial or company-promoting character. It ran like a prospectus. " We have inherited the gold of Australia and the diimonds of the Cape," he said, growing didactic, and lifting one fat forefinger ; " w^e are now inheriting Klondike and the Rand, for it is morally certain that we shall annex the Transvaal, Again, ' the chief things of the ancient mountains, and the precious things of the everlasting hills.' What does that mean ? The ancient mountains are clearly the Rockies ; can the everlasting hills be anything but the Himalayas ? ' For they shall suck of the abundance of the The Urbane Old Gentleman 165 seas ' — that refers, of course, to our world-wide commerce, due mainly to imports — * and of the treasures hid in the sund.' Which sand ? Undoubtedly, I say, the desert of Mount Sinai. What then is our obvious destiny ? A lady of your intelligence must gather at once that it is ?" He paused and gazed at me. " To drive the Sultan out of Syria," I suggested tenta- tively, " and to annex Palestine to our practical province of Egypt?" He leaned back in his chair and folded his fat hands in undisguised satisfaction, " Now, you are a thinker of ex- ceptional penetration," he broke out. *' Do you know, Miss Cayley, I have tried to make that point clear to the War Office, and the Prime Minister, and many leading financiers in the Cit}' of London, and I caji't get them to see it. They have no heads, those people. But jj'^?< catch at it at a glance. Why, I endeavoured to interest Rothschild and induce him to join me in my Palestine Development Syndicate, and, will you believe it, the man refused point blank, Though if he had only looked at Nahum iii. 17 " " Mere financiers," I said, smiling, " will not consider these questions from a historical and prophetic point of view. They see nothing above percentages." " That 's it," he replied, lighting up. " They have no higher feelings. Though, mind you, there will be dividends too ; mark my words, there will be dividends. This syndi- cate, besides fulfilling tii? prophecies, will pay forty per cent, on every pemiy embarked in it." " Only forty per cent, for Ephraim ! " I murmured, half below my breath. " Why, Judah is said to batten upon .sixty." 1 66 Miss Caylcy's Adventures He caught at it eagerl}-, without perceiving my gentle sarcasm, " In that case, we might even expect sevent}'," he put in with a gasp of anticipation. " Though I approached Roths- child first with my scheme on purpose, so that Israel and Judaii might once more unite in sharing the promises." " Your combined generosity and connnercial instinct does you credit," I answered. "It is rare to find so much love for an abstract study side by side with such conspicuous financial abilit}-." His guilelessness was beyond words. He swallowed it like an infant. " So I think," he answered. " I am glad to observe that you understand my character. Mere City men don't. They have no souls above shekels. Though, as I show them, there are shekels in it, too. Dividends, dividends, di-vidends. Ihxt j'o?t are a lady of understanding and comprehension. You have been to Girton, have n't you ? Perhaps you read Greek, then ? " " Enough to get on with." " Could you look up things in Herodotus ? " " Certainly." " In the original ? " " Oh, dear, yes." He regarded me once more with the same astonished glance. His own classics, I soon learnt, were limited to the amount which a public school succeeds in dinning, during the intervals of cricket and football, into an English gentle- man. Then he informed me that he wished me to hunt up certain facts in Herodotus " and elsewhere " confirmatory of his view that the English were the descendants of the Ten Tribes. I promised to do so, swallowing even that com- The Urbane Old Gentleman 167 prehensive " elsewhere." It was none of my bnsiness to believe or disbelieve ; I was paid to get up a case, and I got one up to the best of my ability. I imagine it was at least as good as most other cases in similar matters ; at any rate, it pleased the old gentleman vastly. By dint of listening, I began to like him. But Elsie could n't bear him. She hated the fat crease at the back of his neck, she told me. After a week or two devoted to the Interpretation of Proph- ecy on a strictly conunercial basis of Founders' Shares, with interludes of mining engineers' reports upon the rubies of Mount Sinai and the supposed auriferous quartzites of Pales- tine, the Urbane Old Gentleman trotted down to the office one day, carrying a packet of notes of most voluminous magnitude. " Can we work in a room alone this morning. Miss Cayley ? " he asked, with mystery in his voice ; he was always mysteri- ous. " I want to intrust you with a piece of work of an ex- ceptionally private and confidential character. It concerns Property. In point of fact," he dropped his voice to a whisper, " I want you to draw up my will for me." " Certainly," I said, opening the door into the back office. But I trembled in my shoes. Could this mean that he was going to draw up a will, disinheriting Harold Tillington ? And suppose he did, what then ? My heart was in a tumult. If Harold were rich — well and good, I could never marry him. But, if Harold were poor — I must keep my promise. Could I wish him to be rich ? Could I wish him to be poor ? My heart stood divided two ways within me. The Urbane Old Gentleman began with immense delibera- tion, as befits a man of principle when Property is at stake. " You will kindly take down notes from my dictation," he 1 68 Miss Cayley's Adventures said, fussing with bis papers ; " and afterwards I will ask you to be so good as to copy it all out fair on your typewriter for signature." " Is a typewritten form legal ? " I ventured to enquire. ** A most perspicacious young lady ! " he interjected, well pleased. " I have investigated that point, and find it per- fectly regular. Only, if I may venture to say so, there should be no erasures. ' ' " There .shall be none," I answered. The Urbane Old Gentleman leant back in his easy-chair, and began dictating from his notes with tantalising deliber- ateness. This was the last will and testament of him, Marmaduke Courtney Ashurst. Its verbiage wearied me. I was eager for him to come to the point about Harold. In- stead of that, he did what it seems is usual in such cases — set out with a number of unimportant legacies to old family servants and other hangers-on among " our poorer brethren." I fumed and fretted inwardly. Next came a series of quaint bequests of a quite novel character. " I give and bequeath to James Walsh and Sons, of 720 High Holborn, London, the sum of Five Hundred Pounds, in consideration of the benefit they have conferred upon humanity by the invention of a sugar-spoon or silver sugar-sifter, by means of which it is possible to dust sugar upon a tart or pudding without let- ting the whole or the greater part of the material run through the apertures uselessly in transit. You must have observed, Miss Cayley — with your usual perspicacity — that most sugar- sifters allow the sugar to fall through them on to the table prematurely. ' ' " I have noticed it," I answered, trembling with anxiety. " James Walsh and Sons, acting on a hint from me, have The Urbane Old Gentleman 169 succeeded in inventing a form of spoon which does not pos- sess that regrettable drawback. ' Run through the apertures uselessly in transit,' I think I said last. Yes, thank you. Very good. We will now continue. And I give and be- quealh the like sum of Five Hundred Pounds — did I say, free of legacy duty ? No ? Then please add it to James Walsh's clause. Five Hi-ndred Pounds, free of legacy duty, to Thomas Webster Jones, of Wheeler Street, Soho, for his admirable invention of a pair of braces which will not slip down on the wearer's shoulders after half an hour's use. Most braces, you must have observed. Miss Cay ley " " My acquaintance with braces is limited, not to say ab- stract," I interposed, smiling. He gazed at me, and twirled his fat thumbs. '* Of course," he murmured. " Of course. But most braces, you may not be aware, slip down unpleasantly on the shoulder-blade, and so lead to an awkward habit of hitching them up by the sleeve-hole of the waistcoat at frequent inter- vals. Such a habit must be felt to be ungraceful. Thomas Webster Jones, to whom I pointed out this error of manu- facture, has invented a brace the two halves of which diverge at a higher angle than usual, and fasten further towards the centre of the body in front — pardon these details — so as to obviate that difficulty. He has given me satisfaction, and he deserves to be rewarded." I heard through it all the voice of Lady Georgina observ- ing, tartly, " Why the idiots can't make braces to fit one at first passes my comprehension. But, there, my dear ; the people who manufacture them are a set of born fools, and what can you expect from an imbecile ? " Mr. Ashurst was Lady Georgina, veneered with a thin layer of ingratiating I/O Miss Caylcy's Adventures urbanity. Lady Gcorgina was clever, and therefore acri- monious. Mr. Ashurst was astute, and therefore obsequious. He went on with legacies to the inventor of a sauce-bottle which did not let the last drop dribble down so as to spot the table-cloth ; of a shoe-horn the handle of which did not come undone ; and of a pair of sleeve-links which you could put off and on without injury to the temper. " A real bene- factor. Miss Cayley ; a real benefactor to the link-wearing classes ; for he has sensibly diminished the average anmial output of profane swearing." When he left Five Hundred Pounds to his faithful servant Frederic Higginson, courier, I was tempted to interpose ; but I refrained in time, and I was glad of it afterwards. At last, after many divagations, my Urbane Old Gentle- man arrived at the central point — " And I give and bequeath to my nephew, Harold Ashurst Tillington, Younger of Gled- cliffe, Dumfriesshire, attache to Her Majesty's Embassy at Rome " I waited, breathless. He was annoy ingly dilatory. " My house and estate of Ashurst Court, in the County of Gloucester, and my town house at 24 Park I^ane North, in London, together with the residue of all my estate, real or personal " and so forth. I breathed again. At least, I had not been called upon to disinherit Harold. " Provided always " he went on, in the same voice. I wondered what was coming. " Provided always that the said Harold Ashurst Tillington does not marry leave a blank there, Miss Cayley. I will find out the name of the person I desire to exclude, and fill it in afterward. I don't recolkct it at this moment, but The Urbane Old Gentleman 171 Higginson, no doubt, will be able to supply the deficiency. In fact, I don't think I ever heard it ; though Higginson has told me all about the woman." " Higginson ? " I enquired. " Is he here ? " " Oh, dear, yes. You heard of him, I suppose, from Georgina. Georgina is prejudiced. He has come back to I WAITED, BREATHLESS. me, I am glad to say. An excellent servant, Higginson, though a trifle too omniscient. All men are equal in the eyes of their Maker, of course ; but we must have due subordina- tion. A courier ought not to be better informed than his master — or ought at least to conceal the fact dexterously. Well, Higginson knows this young person's name; my .sister wrote to me about her disgraceful conduct when she first went to Schlangenbad. An adventuress, it seems ; an ad- venturess ; quite a shocking creature. Foisted herself upon 172 Miss Cayley's Adventures Lady Georgina in Kensington Gardens — unintroduced, if you can believe such a thing — with the most astonishing effrontery ; and Georgina, who will forgive anything on earth, for the sake of what she calls originality — another name for impudence, as I am sure you must know — took the young woman with her as her maid to Germany. There, this minx tried to set her cap at my nephew Harold, who can be caught at once by a pretty face ; and Harold was bowled over — almost got engaged to her. Georgina took a fancy to the girl later, having a taste for dubious people (I cannot say I approve of Georgina' s friends), and wrote again to say her first suspicions were unfounded: the young wonic^n was in reality a paragon of virtue. But /know better than that. Georgina has no judgment. I regret to be obliged to confess it, but cleverness, I fear, is the only thing in the world my excellent sister cares for. The hussy, it seems, was certainly clever. Higginson has told me about her. He says her bare appearance would suffice to condemn her — a bold, fast, shameless, brazen-faced creature. But you will forgive me, I am sure, my dear young lady ; I ought not to discuss such painted Jezebels before you. We will leave this person's name blank. I will not sully your pen — I mean, your typewriter — by asking you to transcribe it." I made up my mind at once. " Mr. Ashurst," I said, looking up from my keyboard, " /can give you this girl's name ; and then you can insert the proviso immediately." " You can ? My dear young lady, what a wonderful per- son you are ! You seem to know everybody, and everything. But perhaps she was at Schlangenbad with Lady Georgina, and you were there also ? " The Urbane Old Gentleman 173 " She was," I answered, deliberately. " The name you want is — Lois Cayley ! " He let his notes drop in his astonishment. I went on with my typewriting, unmoved. " Provided always that the said Harold Ashurst Tillington does not marry Lois Cayley ; in which case I will and desire that the said estate shall pass to whom shall I put in, Mr. Ashurst?" He leant forward with his fat hands on his ample knees. " It was reaWy you f " he enquired, open-mouthed. I nodded. " There is no use in denying the truth. Mr. Tillington did ask me to be his wife, and I refused him." " But, my dear Miss Cayley " " The difference in station ? " I said ; " the difference, still greater, in this world's goods ? Yes, I know. I admit all that. So I declined his oflfer. I did not wish to ruin his prospects. ' ' The Urbane Old Gentleman eyed me with a sudden tender- ness in his glance. " Young men are lucky," he said, slowly, after a short pause ; " — and — Higginson is an idiot. I say it deliberately — an idiot ! How could one dream of trusting the judgment of a flunkey about a lady ? My dear — excuse the familiarity from one who may consider himself in a certain sense a contingent uncle — suppose we amend the last clause by the omission of the word not. It strikes me as superfluous. * Provided always the said Harold Ashurst Tillington consents to marry ' — I think that sounds better ! " He looked at me with such fatherly regard that it pricked my heart ever to have poked fun at his Interpretation of Prophecy on Stock Exchange principles. I think I flushed crimson. " No, no," I answered, firmly. " That will not 174 Miss Caylcy's Adventures do either, please. Tliat 's worse than the other way. You must not put it, Mr. Ashurst. I could not consent to be willed away to anybody." He leant forward, with real earnestness. " My dear," he said, " that 's not the point. Pardon my reminding you that you are here in your capacity as my amanuensis. I am drawing up my will, and if you will allow me to say so, I cannot admit that anyone has a claim to influence me in the disposition of my Property." " Please .' " I cried, pleadingly. He looked at me and paused. " Well," he went on at last, after a long interval ; " since jw< insist upon it, I will leave the bequest to stand without condition." " Thank you," I murmured, bending low over my machine. " If I did as I like, though," he went on, " I should say. Unless he marries Miss Lois Cayley (who is a deal too good for him), the estate shall revert to Kynaston's eldest son, a confounded jackass. I do not usually indulge in intemperate language ; but I desire to assure you, with the utmost calm- ness, that Kynaston's eldest son, Lord Southniinster, is a con-founded jackass." I rose and took his hand in my own spontaneously. " Mr. Ashurst," I said, " you may interpret prophecy as long as ever you like, but you are a dear, kind old gentleman. I am truly grateful to you for your good opinion." " And you will marry Harold ? " " Never," I answered ; " while he is rich. I have said as much to him." •' That 's hard," he went on, slowly. " For ... I should like to be your uncle." The Urbane Old Gentleman 1/5 I trembled all over. Elsie saved the situation by bursting in abruptly'. I will only add that when Mr. Ashurst left, I copied the "WHAT, YOU hkre!" he cried. will out neatly, without erasures. The rough original I threw (somewhat carelessly) into the waste-paper basket. That afternoon, somebody called to fetch the fair copy for Mr. Ashurst. I went out into the front office to see him. To my surprise, it was Iligginson — in his guise as courier. T76 Miss Cayley's Adventures He was as astonished as myself. " What, yoic here ! " he cried. " You dog me ! " " I was thinking the same thing of you, M. le Comte," I answered, curtsying. He made no attempt at an excuse. " Well, I have been sent for the will," he broke out, curtly. " And you were sent for the jewel-case," I retorted. " No, no, Dr. Fortescue-Langley ; / am in charge of the will, and I will take it myself to Mr. Ashurst." " I will be even with you yet," he snapped out. " I have gone back to my old trade, and am trying to lead an honest life ; hxxiyoii won't let me." ** On the contrary," I answered, smiling a polite smile, " I rejoice to hear it. If you say nothing more against me to your employer, I will not disclose to him what I know about you. But if you slander me, I will. So now we understand one another." And I kept the will till I could give it myself into Mr. Ashurst's own hands in his rooms that evening. CHAPTER VII THE advunture; of the unobtrusive oasis I WILL not attempt to describe to you the minor episodes of our next twelve months— the manuscripts we type- wrote and the Manitous we sold. 'T is one of my aims in a world so rich in bores to avoid being tedious. I will merely say, therefore, that we spent the greater part of the year in Florence, where we were building up a connection, but rode back for the summer months to Switzerland, as being a livelier place for the trade in bicycles. The net re- sult was not only that we covered our expenses, but that, as chancellor of the exchequer, I found myself with a surplus in hand at the end of the season. When we returned to Florence for the winter, however, I confess I began to chafe. " This is slow work, Elsie ! " I said. " I started out to go round the world ; it has taken me eighteen months to travel no farther than Italy ! At this rate, I shall reach New York a grey-haired old lady, in a nice lace cap, and totter back into London a venerable crone on the verge of ninety." However, those invaluable doctors came to my rescue un- expectedly. I do love doctors ; they are always sending you off at a moment's notice to delightful places you never 17^ Miss Cayley's Adventures dreamt of. Elsie was better, but still far from strong. I took it upon me to consult our medical attendant ; and his verdict Wiis decisive. He did just what a doctor ought to do. " She is getting on very well in Florence," he said ; " but if you want to restore her health completely, I should advise you to take her for a winter to Egypt. After six months of the dry, warm, desert air, I don't doubt she might return to lier work in lyondon." That last point I used as a lever with Elsie. She posi- tively revels in teaching mathematics. At first, to be sure, she objected that we had only just money enough to pay our way to Cairo, and that when we got there we might starve — her favourite programme. I have not this extraordinary taste for starving ; 7ny idea is, to go where j'ou like, and find something decent to eat when you get there. However, to humour her, I began to cast about me for a source of in- come. There is no absolute harm in seeing your way clear before you for a twelvemonth, though of course it deprives you of the plot-interest of poverty. " Elsie," I said, in my best didactic style — I excel in didactics, — " you do not learn from the lessons that life sets before you. Look at the stage, for example ; the stage is universally acknowledged at the present day to be a great teacher of morals. Does not Irving say so ? — and he ought to know. There is that splendid model for imitation, for in- stance, the Clown in the pantomime. How does Clown regulate his life ? Does he take heed for the morrow ? Not a bit of it ! * I wish I had a goose,' he says, at some critical juncture ; and just as he says it — pat — a super strolls upon the stage with a property goose on a wooden tray ; and Clown cries, ' Oh, look here, Joey ; here 's a goose ! ' and The Unobtrusive Oasis 179 proceeds to appropriate it. Then he puts his fingers in his mouth and observes, ' I wish I had a few apples to make the sauce with ' ; and as the words escape him — pat again — a small boy with a very squeaky voice runs on, carrying a basket of apples. Clown trips him up, and bolls with the basket. There 's a model for imitation ! The stage sets these great moral lessons before you regularly every Christ- mas ; yet you fail to profit by them. Govern your life on the principles exemplified by Clown ; expect to find that whatever you want will turn up with punctuality and dis- patch at the proper moment. Be adventurous and you will be happy. Take that as a new maxim to put in your copy- book ! " " I wish I could think so, dear," Elsie answered. " But your confidence staggers me." That evening at our table d^lidtc, however, it was amply justified. A smooth-faced young man of ample girth and most prosperous exterior happened to sit next us. He had his wife with him, so I judged it safe to launch on conversa- tion. We soon found out that he was the millionaire editor- proprietor of a great London daily, with many more strings to his journalistic bow ; his honoured name was Elworthy. I mentioned casually that we thought of going for the winter to Egypt. He pricked his ears up. But at the time he said nothing. After dinner, we adjourned to the cosy salon. I talked to him and his wife ; and somehow, that evening, the devil entered into me. I am subject to devils. I hasten to add, they are mild ones. I had one of my reckless moods just then, however, and I reeled off rattling stories of our various adventures. Mr. Elworthy believed in youth and audacity ; I could see I interested him. The more he was i8o Miss Cayley's Adventures amused, the more reckless I became. " That 's bright," he said at last, when I told him the tale of our amateur exploits in the sale of Manitous. "That would make a good article!" " Yes," I answered, with bravado, determined to strike while the iron was hot. '* What the Daily Telephone lacks is just one enlivening touch of feminine brightness." He smiled. ** What is your forte ? " he enquired. ** My forte," I answered, " is — to go where I choose, and write what I like about it." • He smiled again. " And a very good new departure in journalism too ! A roving commission ! Have you ever tried your hand at writing ? ' ' Had I ever tried ! It was the ambition of my life to see myself in print ; though, hitherto, it had been ineffectual. " I have written a few sketches," I answered, with becoming modesty. As a matter of fact, our ofl&ce bulged with my un- published manuscripts. " Could you let me see them ? " he asked. I assented, with inner joy, but outer reluctance. " If you wish it," I murmured ; " but — you must be very lenient ! " Though I had not told Elsie, the truth of the matter was, I had just then conceived an idea for a novel — my viagmnn opus — the setting of which compelled Egyptian local colour ; and I was therefore dying to get to Egypt, if chance so willed it. I accordingly submitted a few of my picked manuscripts to Mr. Elworthy, in fear and trembling. He read them, cruel man, before my very eyes ; I sat and waited, twiddling my thumbs, demure but apprehensive. When he had finished, he laid them down. " Racy ! " he said. " Racy ! You 're quite right, Miss The Unobtrusive Oasis iSi Cayley. That 's just what we want on the Daily Tehphone. I should like to print these three," selecting them out, " at our usual rate of pay per thousand." HE READ THKM, CRUEL MAN, BEFORE MY VERY EYES. " You are very kind." But the room reeled with me. " Not at all. I am a man of business. And these are good copy. Now, about this Egypt. I will put the matter in the shape of a business proposition. Will you undertake, if I pay your passage, and your friend's, with all travelling expenses, to let me have three d^scn^'.l /•: articles a week, on Cairo, the Nile, Syria, and India, running to about two thousand words apiece, at three guineas a thousand ? ' ' 1 82 Miss Cayley's Adventures My breath came and went. It was positive opulence. The super with the goose could n't approach it for patness. My editor had brought me the apple sauce as well, without even giving me the trouble of cooking it. The very next day everything was arranged. Elsie tried to protest, on the foolish ground that she had no money, but the faculty had ordered the apex of her right lung to go to Egypt, and I could n't let her fly in the face of the faculty. We secured our berths in a P. and O. steatner from Brindisi ; and within a week we were tossing upon the bosom of the blue Mediterranean. People who have n't crossed the blue Mediterranean cher- ish an absurd idea that it is always calm and warm and sunny. I am sorry to take away any sea's character ; but I speak of it as I find it (to borrow a phrase from my old gyp at Girton); and I am bound to admit that the Mediterranean did not treat me as a lady expects to be treated. It behaved disgracefully. People may rhapsodise as long as they choose about a life on the ocean wave; for my own part, I would n't give a pin for sea-sick nes.s. We glided down the Adriatic from Brindisi to Corfu with a reckless profusion of lateral motion which suggested the idea that the ship must have been drinking. I tried to rouse Elsie when we came abreast of the Ionian Islands, and to remind her that " Here was the home of Nausicaa in the Odyssey." Elsie failed to respond ; she was otherwise occupied. At last, I succumbed and gav^e it up. I remember nothing further till a day and a half later, when we got under lee of Crete, and the ship showed a tendency to resume the perpendicular. Then I began once more to take a languid interest in the dinner question. The Unobtrusive Oasis 183 I may add partiithetically that the Mediterranean is a mere bit of a sea, when you look at it on the map — a pocket sea to be regarded with mingled contempt and affection ; but you learn to respect it when you find that it takes four clear days and nights of abject misery merely to run across its eastern basin from Brindisi to Alexandria. I respected the Mediterranean innnensely while we lay off the Peloponnesus in the trough of the waves with a north wind blowing ; I only began to temper my respect with a distant liking when we passed under the welcome shelter of Crete on a calm, star-lit evening. It was deadly cold. We had not counted upon such weather in the sunny south. I recollect now that the Greeks were wont to represent Boreas as a chilly deity, and spoke of the Thracian breeze with the same deferentially deprecating adjectives which we ourselves apply to the east wind of our fatherland; but that apt classical memory some- how failed to console or warm me. A good-natured male passenger, however, volunteered to ask us, " Will I get ye a rug, ladies?" The form of his courteous question sug- gested the probability of his Irish origin. " You are very kind," I answered. ** If you don't want it for yourself, I 'm sure my triend would be glad to have the use of it." " Is it meself ? Sure, I 've got me big ulsther, and I 'm as warrum as a toast in it. But ye 're not provided for this weather. Ye 've thrusted too much to those rascals the po-uts. ' Where breaks the blue Sicilian say,' the rogues write. I'd like to set them down in it, wid a nor'-easter blowing ! " He fetched up his rug. It was ample and soft, a smooth 1 84 Miss Caylcy's Adventures brown camel-hair. He wrapped us both up in it. We sat late on deck that night, as warm as toast ourselves, thanks to our genial Irishman. T IS DR. MACLOGHLEN, HE ANSWERED. We asked his name. " 'T is Dr. Macloghlen," he an- swered. " I 'm from County Clare, ye see ; and I 'm on me way to Egypt for thravel and exploration. Me fader whisht me to see the worruld a bit before I 'd settle down to practise me profession at Liscannor. Have ye ever been in County Clare ? Sure, 't is the pick of Oireland." The Unobtrusive Oasis 185 " We have that pleasure still in store," I an.swered, smiling. " It spreads gold-leaf over the future, as George Meredith puts it." "Is it Meredith ? Ah, there 's the foine writer ! 'T is jaynius the man has : I can't undtherstand a word of him. But he 's half Otrish, ye know. What proof have I got of it ? An' would he write like that if there was n't a dhrop of the blood of the Celt in him ? " Next day and next night, Dr. Macloghlen was our devoted slave. I had won his heart by admitting frankly that his countrywomen had the finest and liveliest eyes in Europe — eyes with a deep twinkle, half fun, half passion. He took to us at once, and talked to us incessantly. He was a red- haired, raw-boned Munster-man, but a real good fellow. We forgot the aggressive inequalities of the Mediterranean while he talked to us of " the pizzantry." Late the second evening he propounded a confidence. It was a lovely night ; Orion overhead, and the plashing phosphorescence on the water below conspired v;it.h the hour to make him specially confidential. " Now, Miss Cayley," he said, leaning for- ward on his deck chair, and gazing earnestly into my eyes, " there 's wan question I 'd like to ask ye. The ambition of me life is to get into Parlimint. And I want to know from ye, as a frind — if I accomplish me heart's wish — is there annything, in me apparence, ar in me voice, ar in me accent, ar in me manner, that would lade annybody to suppose I was an Oirishman ? " I succeeded, by good luck, in avoiding Elsie's eye. What on earth could I answer ? Then a happy thought struck me. " Dr. Macloghlen," I said, " it would not be the slightest use your trying to conceal it ; for even if nobody 1 86 Miss Cayley's Adventures ever detected a faint Irish intonation in your words or phrases — how could your eloquence fail to betray you for a countryman of Sheridan and Burke and Grattan ? " He seized my hand with such warmth that I thought it best to hurry down to my state-room at once, under cover of my compliment. At Alexandria and Cairo we found him invaluable. He looked after our luggage, which he gallantly rescued from the lean hands of fifteen Arab porters, all eagerly struggling to gain possession of our effects ; he saw us safe into the train ; and he never quitted us till he had safely ensconced us in our rooms at Shepheard's. For himself, he said, with subdued melancholy, " 't was to some cheaper hotel he must go ; Shepheard's was n't for the likes of him ; though if land in County Clare was wort' what it ought to be, there wasn't a finer estate in all Oireland than his fader's." Our Mr. Elworthy was a modern proprietor, who knew how to do things on the lordly scale. Having commissioned me to write this series of articles, he intended them to be written in the first style of art, and he had instructed me accordingly to hire one of Cook's little steam dehabeahs, where I could work at leisure. Dr. Macloghlen was in his element arranging for the trip. " Sure the only thing I mind," he said, " is — that I '11 not be going wid ye." I think he was half inclined to invite himself ; but there again I drew the line. I will not sell salt fish ; and I will not go up the Nile, unchaperoned, with a casual man acquaint- ance. He did the next best thing, however : he took a place in a sailing dahabeah ; and as we steamed up slowly, stopping often on the way, to give me time to write my articles, he The Unobtrusive Oasis 187 managed to arrive almost always at every town or ruin ex- actly when we did. I will not describe the voyage. The Nile is the Nile. Just at first, before we got used to it, we conscientiously looked up the name of every village we passed on the bank in our Murray and our Baedeker. After a couple of days' Niling, however, we found that formality quite unnecessary. They were all the same village, under a number of aliases. They did not even take the trouble to disguise themselves anew, like Dr. Fortescue-Langley, on each fresh appearance. They had every one of them a small whitewashed mosque, with a couple of tall minarets ; and around it spread a tunn- ber of mud-bnilt cottages, looking more like bee-hives than human habitations. They had also every one of them a group of date-palms, overhanging a cluster of mean bare houses ; and they all alike had a picturesque and even im- posing air from a distance, but faded away into indescribable squalor as one got abreast of them. Our progress was monotonous. At twelve, noon, we would pass Aboo-Teeg, with its mosque, its palms, its mud-huts, and its camels ; then for a couple of hours we would go on through the midst of a green field on either side, studded by more mud-huts, and backed up by a range of grey desert mountains ; only to come at 2 p.m., twenty miles higher up, upon Aboo-Teeg once more, with the same mosque, the same mud-huts, and the same haughty camels, placidly chewing the same aristo- cratic cud, but under the alias of Koos-kam. After a wild hubbub at the qnay, we would leave Koos-kam behind, with its camels still vSerenely munching day before yesterday's dimier ; and twenty miles farther on, again, having passed through the same green plain, backed by the same grey i88 Miss Cayley's Adventures mountains, we would stop once more at the identical Koos- kam, which this time absurdly described itself as Tahtah. But whether it was Aboo-Teeg or Koos-kam or Tahtah or anything else, only the name differed : it was always the TOO MUCH NILE. same town, and had always the same camels at precisely the same stage of the digestive process. It seemed to us im- material whether you saw all the Nile or only five miles of it. It was just like wall-paper. A sample sufficed ; the whole was the sample infinitely repeated. The Unobtrusive Oasis 189 However, I had my letters to write, and I wrote them vahantly. I described the various episodes of the compli- cated digestive process in the camel in the minutest detail. I gloated over the date-palms, which I knew in three days as if I had been brought up upon dates. I gave word- pictures of every individual child, veiled woman, Arab sheikh, and Coptic priest whom we encountered on the voyage. And I am open to reprint those conscientious studies of mud-huts and minarets with any enterprising publisher who will make me an offer. Another disillusion weighed upon my soul. Before I went up the Nile, I had a fancy of my own that the bank was studded with endle.ss ruined temples, whose vast red colon- nades were reflected in the water at every turn. I think Macaulay's Lays were primarily answerable for that particu- lar misapprehension. As a matter of fact, it surprised me to find that we often went for two whole days' hard steaming without ever a temple breaking the monotony of those eternal date-palms, those calm and superciliously irresponsive camels. In my humble opinion, Egypt is a fraud ; there is too much Nile — very dirty Nile at that — and not nearly enough temple. Besides, the temples, when j'ou do come up with them, are just like the villages ; they are the same temple over again, under a different name each time, and they have the same gods, the same kings, the same wearisome bas-reliefs, except that the gentleman in a chariot, ten feet high, who is mowing down enemies a quarter his own size, with unsportsmanlike recklessness, is called Rameses in this place, and Sethi in that, and Amen-hotep in the other. With this trifling varia- tion, when you have seen one temple, one obelisk, one hiero- glyphic table, you have seen the whole of Ancient Egypt. I go Miss Cay ley's Adventures At last, after many days' voyage through the same scenery daily — rising in the morning off a village with a mosque, ten palms, and two minarets, and retiring late at night off the same village once more, with mosque, palms, and minarets, as before, da capo — we arrived one evening at a place called Geergeh. In itself, I believe, Geergeh did not differ materi- ally from all the other places we had passed on our voyage ; it had its mosque, its ten palms, and its two minarets, as usual. But I remember its name, because something mys- terious went wrong there with our machinery ; and the engineer informed us we nmst wait at least three days to mend it. Dr. Macloghlen's dahabeah happened oppor- tunely to arrive at the same spot on the same day ; and he declared with fervour he would " see us through our throubles." But what on earth were we to do with our- selves through three long days and nights at Geergeh ? There were the ruins of Abydos close at hand, to be sure ; though I defy anybody not a professed Egyptologist to give more than one day to the ruins of Abydos. In this emer- gency. Dr. Macloghlen came gallantly to our aid. He dis- covered by enquiring from an English-vSpeaking guide that there was an unobtrusive oasis, never visited by Europeans, one long day's journey off", across the desert. As a rule, it takes at least three days to get camels and guides together for such an expedition ; for Egypt is not a land to hurry in. But the indefatigable Doctor further unearthed the fact that a sheikh had just come in, who (for a consideration) would lend us camels for a two days' trip ; and we seized the chance to do our duty by Mr. Elworthy and the world-wide circula- tion. An unvisited oasis — and two Christian ladies to be the first to explore it : there 's journalistic enterprise for you ! The Unobtrusive Oasis 191 If we happened to be killed, so much the better for the Daily Telephone. I pictured the excitement at Piccadilly Circus. " Extra Special, Our Own Correspondent brutally mur- dered ! " I rejoiced at the opportunity. I cannot honestly say that Elsie rejoiced with me. She cherished a prejudice against camels, massacres, and the new journalism. She did n't like being murdered; though this was premature, for she had never tried it. She objected that the fanatical Mohammedans of the Senoosi sect, who were said to inhabit the oasis in question, might cut our throats for dogs of infidels. I pointed out to her at some length that it was just that chance which added zest to our expedition as a journalistic venture; fancy the glory of being the first lady journalists martyred in the cause ! But she failed to grasp this aspect of the question. However, if I went, she would go too, she said, like a dear girl that she is ; she would not desert me when I was getting my throat cut. Dr. Macloghlen made the bargain for us, and insisted on accompanying us across the desert. He told us his method of negotiation with the Arabs with extreme gusto. " ' Is it pay in advance ye want ? ' says I to the dirty beggars : ' divvil a penny will ye get till ye bring these ladies safe back to Geergeh. And remimber, Mr. Sheikh,' says I, fingering me pistol, so, by way of emphasis, * we take no money wid us ; so if yer friends at Wadi Bou choose to cut our throats, 't is for the pleasure of it they '11 be cutting them, not for anything they '11 gain by it.' * Provisions, effendi ? ' says he, salaaming. ' Provisions, is it ? ' says I. ' Take everything ye '11 want wid you ; I suppose ye can buy food fit for a Crischun in the bazaar in Geergeh ; and never wan penny do ye touch for it all till ye 've landed us 192 Miss Cayley's Adventures on the bank again, as safe as ye took us. So if the religious sintiments of the faithful at Wadi Bou should lade them to hack us to pieces,' says I, just waving nie revolver, ' thin EMPHASIS. 't is yerself that will be out of pocket by it,' And the ould diwil cringed as if he took nie for the Prince of Wales. Faix, 't is the purse that 's the best argumint to catch these hay then Arabs upon." The Unobtrusive Oasis 193 When we set out for the desert in the early dawn next day, it looked as if we were starting for a few months' voy- age. We had a company of camels that might have befitted a caravan. We had two large tents, one for ourselves, and one for Dr. Macloghlen, with a third to dine in. We had bedding, and cushions, and drinking-water tied up in swol- len pig-skins, which were really goat-skins, looking far from tempting. We had bread and meat, and a supply of presents to soflen the hearts and weaken the religious scruples of the sheikhs at Wadi Bou. " We thravel en prince,''' said the Doctor. When all was ready we got under way solemnlj', our camels rising and sniffing the breeze with a superior air, as who should saj-, " I happen to be going where you hap- pen to be going ; but don't for a moment suppose I do it to please you. It is mere coincidence. You are bound for Wadi Bou ; I have business of my own which chances to take me there." Over the incidents of the journey I draw a veil. Riding a camel, I find, does not greatly differ from sea-sickness. They are the same phenomenon under altered circumstances. We had been assured beforehand on excellent authority that " much of the comfort on a desert journey depends upon having a good camel." On this matter I am no authority. I do not set up as a judge of camel-flesh. But I did not notice any of the comfort ; so T venture to believe my camel must have been an exceptionally bad one. We expected trouble from the fanatical natives ; I am bound to admit, we had most trouble with Elsie. She was not insubordinate, but she did not care for camel-riding. And her beast took advantage of her youth and innocence. A well-behaved camel should go almost as fast as a child can *3 194 Miss Cayley's Adventures walk, and should not sit down plump on the burning sand without due reason. Elsie's brute crawled, and called halts RIDING A CAMEL DOES NOT GREATLY DIFFER FROM SEA-SICKNESS. for prayer at frequent intervals ; it tried to kneel like a good Mussulman many times a day ; and it showed an intolerant disposition to crush the infidel by rolling over on top of The Unobtrusive Oasis 195 Elsie. Dr. Macloghlen admonished it with Irish eloquence, not always in language intended for publication ; but it only turned up its supercilious lip and enquired in its own un- spoken tongue what he knew about the desert. " I feel like a wurrum before the baste," the Doctor said, nonplussed. If the Nile was monotonous, the road to Wadi Bou was nothing short of dreary. We crossed a great ridge of bare, grey rock, and followed a rolling valley of sand, scored by dry ravines, and baking in the sun. It was ghastly to look upon. All day long, save at the midday rest by some brack- ish wells, we rode on and on, the brutes stepping forward with slow, outstretched legs ; though sometimes we walked by the camels' sides to var}' the monotony ; but ever through that dreary upland plain, sand in the centre, rocky mountain at the edge, and not a thing to look at. We were relieved towards evening to stumble against stunted tamarisks, half buried in sand, and to feel that we were approaching the edge of the oasis. When at last our arrogant beasts condescended to stop, in their patronising way, we saw by the dim light of the moon a sort of uneven basin or hollow, studded with date-palms, and in the midst of the depression a crumbling walled town, with a whitewashed mosque, two minarets by its side, and a crowd of mud-houses. It was strangely familiar. We had come all this way just to see Aboo-Teeg or Koos-kam over again ! We camped outside the fortified town that night. Next monn'ng we essayed to make our entry. At first, the servants of tlie Prophet on watch at the gate raised serious objections. No infidel might enter. But we 196 Miss Cayley's Adventures had a p:iss from Cairo, exhorting the faithful iti the name of the Khedive to give us food and shelter ; and after much examination and many loud discussions, the gatemen passed us. We entered the town, and stood alone, three Christian Europeans, in the midst of three thousand fanatical Moham- medans. I confess it was weird. Elsie shrank by my side. " vSup- pose they were to attack us, Brownie .'• " "Thin the sheikh here would never get paid," Dr. Macloghlen put in with true Irish recklessness. " Faix, he '11 whistle for his money on the whistle I gave him." That touch of humour saved us. We laughed ; and the people about saw we could laugh. They left off scowling, and pressed around trying to sell us pottery and native brooches. In the intervals of fanaticism, the Arab has an eye to business. We passed up the chief street of the bazaar. The inhabit- ants told us in pantomime the chief of the town was away at Asioot, whither he had gone two days ago on business. If he were here, our interpreter gave us to understand, things might have been different ; for the chief had determined that, whatever came, no infidel dog should settle in his oasis. The women with their veiled faces attracted us strangely. They were wilder than on the river. They ran when one looked at them. Suddenly, as we passed one, we saw her give a little start. She was veiled like the rest, but her agi- tation was evident through her thick covering. "She is afraid of Christians," Elsie cried, nestling to- wards me. The woman passed close to us. She never looked in our The Unobtrusive Oasis 197 direction, but in a very low voice she niunnurecl, as she passed, " Then you are Kn^lish ! " I had presence of mind enough to conceal my surprise at this unexpected utterance. " Don't seem to uotice her, HER AGITATION WAS EVIDENT. Elsie," I said, looking away. ** Yes, we are English." She stopped and pretended to examine some jewellery on a stall. ' ' So am I, " she went on, in the same suppressed, low v^oice. " For Heaven's sake, help me ! " 19^ Miss Cayley's Adventures " What are you doing here ? " " I live here — married. I was with Gordon's force at Khartoum. They carried me off. A mere girl then. Now I am thirty." " And you have been here ever since ? " She turned away and walked off, but kept whispering be- hind her veil. \Vc followed, unobtrusively. "Yes; I was sold to a man at Dongola. He passed me on again to the chief of this oasis. I don't know where it is ; but I have been here ever since. I hate this life. Is there any chance of a rescue ? ' ' " Anny chance of a rescue, is it ? " the Doctor broke in, a trifle too ostensibly. " If it costs us a whole British army, me dear lady, we '11 fetch you away and save you." " But now — to-day ? You won't go away and leave me ? You are the first Europeans I have seen since Khartoum fell. They may sell me again. You will not desert me ? " " No," I said. " We will not." Then I reflected for a moment. What on earth could we do ? This was a painful dilemma. If we once lost sight of her, we might not see her again. Yet if we walked with her openly, and talked like friends, we would betraj' ourselves, and her, to those fanatical Senoosis. I made up my mind promptly. I may not have nuich of a mind ; but, such as it is, I flatter myself I can make it up at a moment's notice. " Can you come to us outside the gate at siinset ? " I asked, as if speaking to Elsie. The woman hesitated. '' I think so." " Then keep us in sight all day, and when evening comes, stroll out behind us." The Unobtrusive Oasis 199 She turned over some embroidered slippers on a booth, and seemed to be inspecting them. " But my children ? " she murmured anxiously. The Doctor interposed. "Is it childern she has?" he asked. " Thin they U be the Mohammedan gintleman's. We must n't interfere wid them. We can take away the lady — she 's English, and detained against her will ; but we can't deprive any man of his own childern." I was firm, and categorical. " Yes, we can," I said, stoutly ; " if he has forced a woman to bear them to him whether she would or not. That 's common justice. I have no respect for the Mohammedan gentleman's rights. Let her l)ring them with her. How many are there ? " " Two — a boy and a girl ; not very old ; the eldest is seven." She spoke wistfully. A mother is a mother. \ " Then say no more now, but keep us always in sight, and we will keep you. Come to us at the gate about sundown. We will carry you off with us." She clasped her hands and moved off with the peculiar gliding air of the veiled Mohammedan woman. Our e> js followed her. We walked on through the bazaai^ thinking of nothing else now. It was strange how this episode made us forget our selfish fears for our own safety. Even dear, timid Elsie remembered only that an .Englishwoman's life and liberty were at stake. We kept her more or less in view all day. She glided in and out among the people in the alleys. When we went back to the camels at lunch- time, she followed us unobtrusively through the open gate, and sat watching us from a little way off, among a crowd of gazers ; for all Wadi Bou was of course agog at this un- wonted invasion. 2cx> Miss Cayley's Adventures We discussed the circumstance loudly, so that she might hear our plans. Dr. Macloghlen advised that we should tell our sheikh we meant to return part of the way to Geergeh that evening by moonlight. I quite agreed with him. It was the only way out. Besides, I did n't like the looks of the people. They eyed us askance. This was getting ex- citing now. I felt a professional journalistic interest. Whether we escaped or got killed, what splendid business for the Daily Telephone I The sheikh, of course, declared it was impossible to start that evening. The men would n't move — the camels needed rest. But Dr. Macloghlen was inexorable. " Very well, thin, Mr. Sheikh," he answered, philosophically. ** Ye '11 plaze yerself about whether ye come on wid us or whether ye shtop. That 's j-er own business. But zve set out at sun- down ; and whin ye return by yerself on foot to Geergeh, ye can ask for yer camels at the British Consulate." All through that anxious afternoon we sat in our tents, under the shade of the mud-wall, wondering whether we could carry out our plan or not. About an hour before sun- set the veiled woman strolled out of the gate with her two children. She joined the crowd of sight-seers once more, for never through the day were we left alone for a second. The excitement grew intense. Elsie and I moved up carelessly towards the group, talking as if to one another. I looked hard at Elsie, then I said, as though I were speaking about one of the children: " Go straight along the road to Geergeh till you are past the big clump of palms at the edge of the oasis. Just beyond it comes a sharp ridge of rock. Wait behind the ridge where no one can see you. When we get there," I patted the little girl's head, " don't say a word, The Unobtrusive Oasis 201 but jump on my camel. My two friends will each take one of the children. If you understand and consent, stroke your boy's curls. We will accept that for a signal." She stroked the child's head at once without the least hesitation. Even through her veil and behind her dress, I could somehow feel and see her trembling nerves, her beat- ing heart. But she gave no overt token. She merely turned and muttered something carelessly in Arabic to a woman beside her. We waited once more, in long-drawn suspense. Would she manage to escape them ? Would they suspect her motives ? After ten minutes, when we had returned to our croucli- ing-place under the shadow of the wall, the woman detached herself slowly from the group, and began strolling with almost overdone nonchalance along the road to Geergeh. We could see the little girl was frightened and seemed to expostulate with her mother ; fortunately, the Arabs about were too much occupied in watching the suspicious strangers to notice this episode of their own people. Presently, our new friend disappeared ; and, with beating hearts, we awaited the sunset. Then came the usual scene of hubbub with the sheikh, the camels, the porters, and the drivers. It was eagerness against apathy. With difficulty we made them understand we meant to get under way at all hazards. I stormed in bad Arabic. The Doctor inveighed in very choice Irish. At last they yielded and set out. One by one the camels rose, bent their slow knees, and began to stalk in their lordly way with out- stretched necks along the road to the river. We moved through the palm-groves, a crowd of boys following us and 202 Miss Caylcy's Adventures shouting for backsheesh. We began to be afraid they would accompany us too far and discover our fugitive ; but fortun- ately they all turned back with one accord at a little white- washed shrine near the edge of the oasis. We reached the clump of palms ; we turned the corner of the ridge. Had we missed one another ? No ! There, crouching by t le CROUCHING BY TME ROCKS SAT OUR MYSTKRIOUS STRANC.KR. rocks, with her children by her side, sat our mysterious stranger. The Doctor was equal to the emergency. " Make those bastes kneel ! " he cried authoritatively to the sheikh. The sheikh was taken aback. This was a new exploit burst upon him. He flung his arms up, gesticulating wildly. The Doctor, unmoved, made the drivers understand by some strange pantomime what he wanted. They nodded, half The Unobtrusive Oasis 203 terrified. In a second, the stranger was by my side, Elsie had taken the girl, the Doctor the boy, and the camels were passively beginning to rise again. That is the best of yonr camel. Once set him on his road, and he goes mechanically. The sheikh broke out with several loud remarks in Arabic, which we did not understand, but whose hostile character could not easily escape us. He was beside himself with anger. Then I was suddenly aware of the splendid ad- vantage of having an Irishman on our side. Dr. Macloghlen drew his revolver, like one well used to such episodes, and pointed it full at the angry Arab. " Look here, Mr. Sheikh," he said, calmly, yet with a fine touch of bravado ; " do ye see this revolver ? Well, unless ye make j'er camels thravel shtraight to Geergeh widout wan other wurrud, 't is yer own brains will be .spattered, sor, on the sand of this desert ! And if ye touch wan hair of our heads, ye '11 answer for it wid yer life to the British Government." I do not feel sure that the sheikh comprehended the exact nature of each word in this comprehensive threat, but I am certain he took in its general meaning, punctuated as it was with some flourishes of the revolver. He turned to the drivers and made a gesture of despair. It meant, apparently, that this infidel was too much for him. Then he called out a few sharp directions in Arabic. Next miiuite, our camels' legs were stepping out briskly along the road to Geergeh with a promptitude which I 'm sure must have astoni.shed their owners. We rode on and on through the gloom in a fever of suspen.se. Had any of the Senoosis noticed our presence ? Would they miss the chief's wife before long, and follow us under arms ? Would our own sheikh betray us ? I am no coward, as women go, but I confess, if it had not been for 204 Miss Cayley's Adventures our fiery Irishman, I should have felt my heart sink. We were grateful to him for the reckless and good-humoured courage of the untamed Celt. It kept us from giving way. " Ye '11 take notice, Mr. Sheikh," he said, as we threaded our way among the moon-lit rocks, " that I have twinty-wan cartridges in me case for me revolver ; and that if there 's throuble to-night, 't is twinty of them there '11 be for your frinds the Senoosis, and wan for yerself ; but for fear of dis- appointing a gintleman, 't is yer own special bullet I '11 dis- thribute first, if it comes to fighting." The sheikh's English was a vanishing quantity, but to judge by the way he nodded and salaamed at this playful remark, I am convinced he understood the Doctor's Irish quite as well as I did. We spoke little by the way; we were all far too frightened, except the Doctor, who kept our hearts up by a running fire of wild Celtic humour. But I found time meanwhile to learn by a few questions from our veiled friend something of her captivity. She had seen her father massacred before her eyes at Khartoum, and had then been sold away to a merchant, who conveyed her by degrees and by various ex- changes across the desert through lonely spots to the Senoosi oasis. There she had lived all those years with the chief to whom her last purchaser had trafficked her. She did not even know that her husband's village was an integral part of the Khedive's territory ; far less that the English were now in practical occupation of Egypt. She had heard no- thing and learnt nothing since that fateful day ; she had waited in vain for the off-chance of a deliverer. " But did you never try to run away to the Nile? " I cried, astonished. The Unobtrusive Oasis 205 ** Run away ? How could I ? I did not even know which way the river lay ; and was it possible for me to cross the desert on foot, or find the chance of a camel ? The Senoosis would have killed me. Even with you to help me, see what dangers surround me ; alone, I should have perished, like Hagar in the wilderness, with no angel to save me." " An' ye 've got the angel now," Dr. Macloghlen ex- claimed, glancing at me. "Steady, there, Mr. Sheikh. What 's this that 's coming ? " It was another caravan, going the opposite way, on its road to the oasis ! A voice halloaed from it. Our new friend clung tightly to me. " My husband ! " she whispered, gasping. They were still far off on the desert, and the moon shone bright. A few hurried words to the Doctor, and with a wild resolve we faced the emergencj'. He made the camels halt, and all of us, springing off, crouched down behind their shadows in such a way that the coming caravan must pass on the far side of us. At the same moment the Doctor turned resolutely to the sheikh. " Look here, Mr. Arab," he said in a quiet voice, with one more appeal to the simple Volapuk of the pointed revolver ; "I cover ye wid this. lyCt these frinds of yours go by. If there 's anny unneces- sary talking betwixt ye, or anny throuble of anny kind, re- number, the first bullet goes sthraight as an arrow t' rough that hay then head of yours ! " The sheikh salaamed more submissively than ever. The caravan drew abreast of us. We could hear them cry aloud on either side the customary salutes : "In Allah's name, peace ! " answered by " Allah is great ; there is no god but Allah." 2o6 Miss Caylcy's Adventures Would anything more happen ? Would our sheikh play us fiilse ? It was a moment of breathlessness. We crouched and cowered in the shade, holding our hearts with fear, while the Arab drivers pretended to be unsaddling the camels. A minute or two of anxious suspense ; then, peer- ing over our beasts' backs, we saw their long line filing off towards the oasis. We watched their turbaned heads, sil- houetted against the sky, disappear slowly. One by one they faded away. The danger was past. With beating hearts we rose up again. The Doctor sprang into his place and seated himself on his camel. " Now ride on, Mr. Sheikh," he said, " wid all yer men, as if grim death was afther ye. Camels or no camels, ye 've got to march all night, for ye '11 never draw rein till we 're safe back at Geergeh ! " And sure enough v^^e never halted, under the persuasive influence of that loaded revolver, till we dismounted once more in the early dawn upon the Nile bank, under British protection. Then Elsie and I and our rescued countrywoman broke down together in an orgy of relief. We hugged one another and cried like so many children. CHAPTER VIII THE ADVENTURE OF THE PEA-GREEN PATRICIAN AWAY to India ! A life on the ocean wave once more ; and — may it prove less wavy ! In plain prose, my arrangement with " my pro- prietor," Mr. El worthy (thus we speak in the newspaper trade), included a trip to Bombay for myself and Elsie. So, as soon as we had drained Upper Egypt journalistically dry, we returned to Cairo on our road to Suez. I am glad to say, my letters to the Daily Telephone gave satisfaction. My employer wrote, " You are a born journalist." I confess this surprised me ; for I have always considered myself a truthful person. Still, as he evidently meant it for praise, I took the doubtful compliment in good part, and offered no remonstrance. I have a mercurial temperament. My spirits rise and fall as if they were Consols. Monotonous Egypt depressed nie, as it depressed the Israelites ; but the passage of the Red Sea set me sounding my timbrel. I love fresh air ; I love the sea, if the sea will but behave itself; and I positively revelled in the change from Egypt. Unfortunately, we had taken our passages by a P. and O. steamer from Suez to Bombay many weeks beforehand, so 207 2o8 Miss Cayley's Adventures as to secure good berths ; and still more unfortunatelj', in a letter to Lady Georgina, I had chanced to mention the name of our ship and the date of the voyage. I kept up a spas- modic correspondence with Lady Georgina nowadays — tuppence-ha'penny a fortnight ; the dear, cantankerous, racy, old lady had been the foundation of my fortunes, and I was genuinely grateful to her ; or, rather, I ought to say, she had been their second foundress, for I will do myself the justice to admit that the first was my own initiative and enterprise, I flatter myself I have the knack of taking the tide on the turn, and I am justly proud of it. But, being a grateful animal, I wrote once a fortnight to report progress to Lady Georgina. Besides — let me whisper — strictly be- tween ourselves — 't was an indirect way of hearing about Harold. This time, however, as events turned out, I recognised that I had made a grave mistake in confiding my movements to my shrewd old lady. She did not betray me on purpose, of course ; but I gathered later that casually in conversation she must have mentioned the fact and date of my sailing be- fore somebody who ought to have had no concern in it ; and the somebody, I found, had governed himself accordingly. All this, however, I only discovered afterwards. So, with- out anticipating, I will narrate the facts exactly as they oc- curred to me. When we mounted the gangway of the Jumna at Suez, and began the process of frizzling down the Red Sea, I noted on deck almost at once an odd-looking young man of twenty- two or thereabouts, with a curious, faint, pea-green com- plexion. He was the wishy-washiest young man I ever beheld in my life ; an achromatic study ; in spite of the .jk The Pea-Green Patrician 209 delicate pea-greenitiess of his skin, all the colouring matter of the body seemed somehow to have faded out of him. Perhaps he had been bleached. As he leant over the taff- rail, gazing down with open mouth and vacant stare at the water, I took a good, long look at him. He interested me much — because he was so exception- ally uninteresting ; a pallid, anaemic, in- definite hobble- dehoy, with a high, narrow forehead, and sketchy f e a t - ures. He had wa- tery, restless eyes of an insipid light blue; thin, yellow hair, al- most white in its paleness; and twitching hands that played nervously all t h e t i m e w i t h a shadowy moustache. This shadowy moustache seemed to absorb, as a rule, the best part of his attention ; it was so sparse and so blanched that he felt it continually— to assure himself, no doubt, of the reality of its existence. I need hardly add that he wore an eye-glass. »4 AN ODD-LOOKING YOUNG MAN, 2IO Miss Cayley's Adventures He was an aristocrat, I felt sure ; Rton and Christ Church; no ordinary person could have been quite so flavourless. Imbecility like his is only to be attained as the result of long and judicious selection. He went on gazing in a vacant way at the water below, an ineffectual patrician smile playing feebly round the corners of his mouth meanwhile. Then he turned and stared at me as I lay back in my deck-chair. For a minute he looked me over as if I were a horsii for sale. When he had finished in- specting me, he beckoned to somebody at the far end of the quarter-deck. The somebody sidled up with a deferential air which con- firmed my belief in the pea-green young man's aristocratic origin. It was such deference as the British flunkey pays only to blue blood ; for he has gradations of flunkeydom. He is respectful to wealth ; polite to acquired rank ; but servile onl}^ to hereditary nobility. Indeed, you can make a rough guess at the social status of the person he addresses by observing which one of his twenty-seven nicely graduated manners he adopts in addressing him. The pea-green young man glanced over in my direction, and murmured something to the satellite, whose back was turned towards me. I felt sure, from his attitude, he was asking whether I was the person he suspected me to be. The satellite nodded assent, whereat the pea-green young man, screwing up his face to fix his eye-glass, stared harder than ever. He must be heir to a peerage, I felt convinced ; no- body short of that rank would consider himself entitled to stare with such frank unconcern at an unknown lady. Presently it further occurred to me that the satellite's back seemed strangel}- familiar. " I have seen that man some- The Pca-Grccn Patrician 2 1 1 where, Elsie," I whispered, putting aside the wisps of hair that blew about my face. " So have I, dear," Elsie answered, with a slight shudder. And I was instinctively aware that I too disliked him. As Elsie spoke, the man turned, and strolled slowly past us, with that ineffable insolence which is the other side of the flunkey's insufferable self-abasement. He cast a glance at us as he went by, a withering glance of brazen effrontery. We knew him, of course ; it was that variable star, our old acquaintance, Mr. Higginson, the courier. He was here as himself this time ; no longer the count or the mysterious faith-healer. The diplomat hid his rays under the garb of the man-servant. " Depend upon it, Elsie," I cried, clutching her arm with a vague sense of fear, " this man means mischief. There is danger ahead. When a creature of Higginson's sort, who has risen to be a count and a fashionable physician, descends again to be a courier, you may, rest assured it is because he has somethintr to gain by it. He has some deep scheme afloat. And 7f v are part of it." " His m3*-;ter looks weak enough and silly enough for any- thing," Elsie answered, eying the suspected lordling. " I should think he is just the sort of man such a wily rogue would naturally fasten upon." " When a wily rogue gets hold of a weak fool, who is also dishonest," I said, " the two together may make a formid- able combination. But never mind. We 're forewarned. I think I shall be even with him." That evening, at dinner in the saloon, the pea-green young man strolled in with a jaunty air and took his seat next to us. The Red Sea, by the way, was kinder than the 212 Miss Caylcy's Adventures Mediterranean ; it allowed us to dine from the very first evening. Cards had been laid on the plates to mark our places. I glanced at my neighbour's. It bore the inscrip- tion, " Viscount Southminster." That was the name of Lord Kynaston's eldest son — Lady Georgina's nephew ; Harold Tillington's cousin ! So this was the man who might possibly inherit Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's money ! I remembered now how often and how fervently Lady Georgina had said, " Kynaston's sons are all fools." If the rest came up to sample, I was inclined to agree with her. It also flashed across me that Lord Southminster nn'ght have heard through Higginson of our meeting with Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst at Florence, and of my acquaintance with Harold Tillington at Schlangenbad and Lungern. With a woman's instinct, I jumped at the fact that the pea- green young man had taken passage by this boat, on pur- pose to baffle both me and Harold. Thinking it over, it seemed to me, too, that he might have various possible points of view on the matter. He might desire, for example, that Harold should marry me, under the impression that his marriage with a penniless outsider would annoy his uncle ; for the pea-green young man doubtless thought that I was still to Mr. Ashurst just that dreadful adventuress. If so, his obvious cue would be to promote a good understanding between Harold and myself, in order to make us marry, so that the Urbane Old Gentleman might then disinherit his favourite nephew, and make a new will in Lord SoLLliiJ,' oter's interest. Or, again, the pea-green young man migUt, on the contrary, be aware that Mr. Ashurst and I had got on admirably together when we met The Pea-Green Patrician 213 at Florence ; in which case his aim would naturally be to find out something that might set the rich uncle against me. Yet once more, he might merely have heard that I had drawn up Uncle Marmaduke's will at the office, and he might desire to worm the contents of it out of me. Whichever was his design, I resolved to be upon my guard in every word I said to him, and leave no door open to any trickery either way. For of one thing I felt sure, that the colourless young man had torn himself away from the mud-honey of Piccadilly for this voyage to India only because he had heard there was a chance of meeting me. That was a politic move, whoever planned it — himself or Higginson ; for a week on board ship with a person or per- sons is the very best chance of getting thrown in with them ; whether they like it or lump it, they can't easily avoid you. It was while I was pondering these things in my mind, and resolving with myself not to give my.self away, that the young man with the pea-green face lounged in and dropped into the next seat to me. He was dressed (amongst other things) in a dinner jacket and a white tie ; for myself, I de- test such fopperies on board ship ; they seem to me out of place ; they conflict with the infinite possibilities of the situ- ation. One stands too near the realities of things. Evening dress and mal-dc-vier sort ill together. As my neighbour sat down, he turned to rtic with an inane smile which occupied all his face. " Good evening," he said, in a baronial drawl. " Miss Cayley, I gathah ? I asked the skippah's leave to sit next yah. We ought to be friends — rathah. I think yah know my poor deali old aunt, Lady Georgina Fawley." 214 Miss Caylcy's Adventures I bowed a somewhat freezing bow. " Lady Georgina is one cf my dearest friends," I answered. " No, reahliy ? Poor deah old Georgey ! Got somebody to stick up for her at last, has she ? Now that 's what I call chivalrous of yah. Magnanimous, is n't it? I like to see people stick up for their friends. And it must be a novelty for George3\ For between you and me, a moah cantanker- ^^^6r> ckr'^i HE TURNED TO ME Wmt AN INANE SMILE. ous, spiteful, acidulated, old cough-drop than the poor deah soul it 'ud be difficult to hit upon." " Lady Georgina has brains," I answered ; " and they enable her to recognise a fool when she sees him. I will admit that she does not suffer fools gladly." He turned to me with a sudden sharp look in the depths of the lack-lustre eyes. Already it began to strike me that, though the pea-green young man was inane, he had his due proportion of a certain in.sidious practical cunning. " That 's true," he answered, measuring me. " And according to her, almost everybody 's a fool — especially her relations. There 's The Pea-Green Patrician 215 a fine knack of sweeping generalisation about deah, skinny old Georgey. The few people she reahlly likes are all arch- angels ; the rest are blithering idiots ; there 's no middle course with her." I held my peace frigidly. " She thinks me a very special and peculiah fool," he went on, crumbling his bread. " Lady Georgina," I answered, "is a person of excep- tional discrimination. I would almost always accept her judgment on anyone as practically final." He laid down his soup-spoon, fondled the imperceptible moustache with his tapering fingers, and then broke once more into a cheerful expanse of smile which reminded me of nothing so much as of the village idiot. It spread over his face as the splash from a stone spreads over a millpond. " Now that 's a nice, cheerful sort of thing to say to a fellah," he ejaculated, fixing his eye-glass in his eye, with a few fierce contortions of his facial muscles. " That 's encourag- ing, don't yah know, as the foundation of an acquaintance. Makes a good cornah-stone. Calculated to place things at once upon what yah call a friendly basis. Georgey said you had a pretty wit ; I see now why she admiahed it. Birds of a feathah : very wise old proverb." I reflected that, after all, this young man had nothijig overt against him, beyond a fishy blue eye and an inane ex- pression ; so, feeling that I had perhaps gone a little too far, I continued, after a minute, " And your uncle, how is he?" " Manny ? " he enquired, with another elephantine smile ; and then I perceived it was a form of humour with him (or rather a cheap substitute) to speak of his elder relations by 2i6 Miss Cayley's Adventures their abbreviated Christian names, without any prefix. " Marmy 's doing very well, thank yah ; as well as could be expected. In fact, bettah. Habakkuk on the brain ; it 's carrying him off at last. He has Bright's disease very bad — drank port, don't yah know — and won't trouble this wicked world much longah with his presence. It will be a happy release — especially for his nephews." I was really grieved, for I had grown to like the Urbane Old Gentleman, as I had grown to like the Cantankerous Old I/ady. In spite of his fussiness and his Stock Exchange views on the interpretation of Scripture, his genuine kindliness and his real liking for me had softened my heart to him ; and my face must have shown my distress, for the pea-green young man added quickly with an afterthought : " But j'Oit need n't be afraid, yah know. It 's all right for Harold Tillington. You ought to know that as well as anyone — and bettah ; for it was you who drew up his will for him at Florence." I flushed crimson, I believe. Then he knew all about me ! " I was not asking on Mr. Tillington' s account," I answered. ' ' I asked because I have a personal feeling of friendship for your uncle, Mr. Ashurst." His hand strayed up to the straggling yellow hairs on his upper lip once more, and he smiled again, this time with a curious undercurrent of foolish craftiness. " That 's a good one," he answered. " Georgey told me you were original. Marmy 's a millionaire, and many people love millionaires for their money. But to love Marmy for himself — I do call that originality ! Why, weight for age, he 's acknowledged to be the most portentous old boah in London society ! " " I like Mr. Ashurst because he has a kind heart and some genuine instincts," I answered. " He has not allowed all The Pea-Green Patrician 217 human feeling to be replaced by a cheap mask of Pall Mall cynicism." " Oh, I say; how 's that for preaching ? Don't you man- age to give it hot to a fellah, neithah! And at sight, too, without the usual three days of grace. Have some of my champagne ? I 'm a forgiving creachah." " No, thank you. I prefer this hock." ** Your friend, then ? " And he motioned the steward to pass the bottle. To my great disgust, Elsie held out her glass. I was annoyed at that. It showed she had missed the drift of our conversation, and was therefore lacking in feminine intuition, I should be sorry if I had allowed the higher mathematics to kill out in me the most distinctively womanly faculty. From that first day forth, however, in spite of this begin- ning, Lord Southminster almost persecuted me with his per- sistent attentions. He did all a man could possibly do to please me. I could not make out precisely what he was driving at ; but I saw he had some artful game of his own to play, and that he was playing it subtly. I also saw that, vapid as he was, his vapidity did not prevent him from being worldly wise with the wisdom of the self-seeking man of the world, who utterly distrusts and disbelieves in all the higher emotions of humanity. He harped so often on this string that on our second day out, as we lolled on deck in the heat, I had to rebuke him sharply. He had been sneering for some hours. " There are two kinds of silly simplicity, Lord Southminster," I said, at last. " One kind is the silly simplicity of the rustic who trusts everybody ; the other kind is the silly simplicity of the Pall Mall clubman who trusts nobody. It is just as foolish and just as one-sided to 2i8 Miss Cayley's Adventures overlook the good as to overlook the evil in humanity. If you trust everyone, you are likely to be taken in ; but if you trust no one, you put yourself at a serious practical disad- vantage, besides losing half the joy of living." " Then you think me a fool, like Georgey ? " he broke out. " I should never be rude enough to say so," I answered, fanning myself. " Well, you 're what I call a first-rate companion for a voyage down the Red Sea," he put in, gazing abstractedly at the awnings. " Such a lovely, freezing mixture ! A fellah does n't need ices when you 're on tap. I recommend you as a refrigeratah." " I am glad," I answered demurely, " if I have secured your approbation in that humble capacity. I am sure I have tried hard for it." Yet nothing that I could say seemed to put the man down. In spite of rebuffs, he was assiduous in running down the companion-ladder for my parasol or my smelling-bottle ; he fetched me chairs ; he stayed me with cushions ; he offered to lend me books ; he pestered me to drink his wine ; and he kept Elsie in champagne, which she annoyed me by accept- ing. Poor dear Elsie clearly failed to understand the crea- ture. " He 's so kind and polite, Brownie, is n't he ? " she would observe in her simple fashion. " Do you know, I think he 's taken quite a fancy to you ! And he '11 be an earl by-and-by. I call it romantic. How lovely it would seem, dear, to see you a countess ! " " Elsie," I said, .severely, with one hand on her arm, " you are a dear little soul, and I am very fond of you ; but if you think I could sell myself for a coronet to a pasty-faced The Pea-Green Patrician 219 young man with a pea-green complexion and glassy blue eyes — I can only say, my child, you have misread my char- acter. He is n't a man ; he 's a lump of putty ! " I think Rlsie was quite shocked that I should apply these terms to a courtesy lord, the eldest son of a peer. Nature NOTHIN') SF.F.MF.P TO VVT THE MAN DOWN. had endowed her with the profound British belief that peers should be spoken of in choice and peculiar language. " If a peer 's a fool," Lady Georgina said once to me, *' people think you should say his temperament does not fit him for the conduct of affairs ; if he 's a rou6 or a drunkard, they think you should say he has unfortunate weaknesses." What most of all convinced me, however, that the wishy- washy young man with the pea-green complexion must be 220 Miss Cayley's Adventures playing some stealthy game, was the demeanour and mental attitude of Mr. Higginson, his courier. After the first day, Higginson appeared to be politeness and deference itself to us. He behaved to us both, almost as if we belonged to the titled classes. He treated us with the second best of his twenty-seven graduated manners. He fetched and carried for us with a courtly grace which recalled that distinguished diplomat, the Comte de Laroche-sur-Loiret, at the station at Malines with Lady Georgina. It is true, at his politest moments, I often caught the undercurrent of a wicked twinkle in his eye, and felt sure he was doing it all with some profound motiv^e. But his external demeanour was everything that one could desire from a well-trained man- servant ; I could hardly believe it was the same man who had growled to me at Florence, " I shall be even with yow yet," as he left our office. " Do you know, Brownie," Elsie mused once, " I really begin to think we must have misjudged Higginson. He 's so extremely polite. Perhaps, after all, he is really a count, who has been exiled and impoverished for his political opinions." I smiled, and held my tongue. Silence costs nothing. But Mr. Higginson's political opinions, I felt sure, were of that simple communistic sort which the law in its blunt way calls fraudulent. They consisted in a belief that all was his which he could lay his hands on. " Higginson 's a splendid fellow for his place, yah know. Miss Cayley," Lord Southminster said to me one ev^ening as we were approaching Aden. " What I like about him is, he 's so doosid intelligent." " Extremely so," I answered. Then the devil entered The Pea-Green Patrician 221 into me again. " He had the doosid intelligence even to take in Lady Georgina." " Yaas ; that 's just it, don't you know. . Georgey told me that story. Screamingly funny, was n't it ? And I said to myself at once, ' Higginson 's the man for me. I want a courier with jolly lots of brains and no blooming scruples. I '11 entice this chap away from Marmy.' And I did. I outbid Marmy. Oh, yaas, he 's a first-rate fellah, Higgin- son. What / want is a man who will do what he 's told, and ask no beastly unpleasant questions. Higginson is that man. He 's as sharp as a ferret." " And as dishonest as they make them." He opened his hands with a gesture of unconcern. " All the bettah for my purpose. See how frank I am, Miss Cayley. I tell the truth. The truth is very rare. You ought to respect me for it." " It depends somewhat upon the kind of truth," I an- swered, with a random shot. " I don't respect a man, for instance, for confessing to a forgery." He winced. Not for months after did I know how a stone thrown at a venture had chanced to hit the spot, and had vastly enhanced his opinion of my cleverness. " You have heard about Dr. Fortescue-Langley too, I suppose ? " I went on. " Oh, yaas. Was n't it real jam ? He did the doctor- trick on a lady in Switzerland. And the way he has come it ovah deah, simple, old Marmy ! He played Marmy with Ezekiel ! Not so dusty, was it ? He 's too lovely for any- thing ! " " He 's an edged tool," I said. ** Yaas ; that 's why I use him." k 222 Miss Cciylcy's Adventures " And edged tools may cut the user's fingers." " Not mine," he answered, taking out a cigarette. " Oh deah no. He can't turn against inc. He would n't dare to. Yah see, I have the fellah entirely in my powah. I know all his little games, and I can expose him any da}-. But it suits me to keep him. I don't mind telling yah, since I re- spect your intellect, that he and I are engaged in pulling off a big coup togethah. If it were not for that, I would n't be heah. Yah don't catch me going away so fall from New- market and the Empire for nothing." " I judged as much," I answered. And then I was silent. But I wondered to myself why the neutral-tinUd young man should be so communicative to an obviously hostile stranger. For the next few days it amused me to see how hard our lordling tried to suit his conversation to myself and Elsie. He was absurdly anxious to humour us. Just at first, it is true, he had discussed the subjects that la}- nearest to his own heart. He was an ardent votary of the noble quad- ruped ; and he loved the turf — whose sward, we judged, he trod mainly at Tattersall's. He spoke to us with erudition on " two-year-old form," and gave us several " safe things " for the spring handicaps. The Oaks he considered " a moral " for Clorinda. He also retailed certain choice anec- dotes about ladies whose Christian names were chiefly Tottie and Flo, and whose honoured surnames have escaped my memory. Most of them flourished, I recollect, at the Frivolity Music Hall. But when he learned that our inter- est in the noble quadruped was scarcely more than tepid, and that we had never even visited " the Friv.," as he affectionately called it, he did his best in turn to acquire our ai < Z o < in O C/) O o o u X o H <; o V. o Q a CO 224 Miss Cayley's Adventures subjects. He had heard us talk about Florence, for example, and he gathered from our talk that we loved its art treasures. So he set himself to work to be studiously artistic. It was a beautiful study in human ineptitude. " Ah, yaas," he mur- mured, turning up the pale blue eyes ecstatically towards the mast-head. " Chawming place, Florence ! I dote on the pickchahs. I know them all by heart. I assuah yah, I 've spent houahs and houahs feeding my soul in the galleries." " And what particular painter does your soul most feed upon ? " I asked bluntly, with a smile. The question staggered him. I could see him hunting through the vacanit chambers of his brain for a Florentine painter. Then a faint light gleamed in the leaden eyes, and he fingered the straw-coloured moustache with that nervous hand till he almost put a visible point upon it. " Ah, Raphael?" he said, tentatively, with an enquiring air, yet beaming at his success. " Don't you think so? Splendid artist, Raphael ! " " And a very safe guess," I answered, leading him on. " You can't go far wrong in mentioning Raphael, can you ? But after him ? " He dived into the recesses of his memory again, peered about him for a minute or two, and brought back nothing. " I can't remembah the othah fellahs' names," he went on ; ** they 're all so much alike ; all in clli, don't yah know ; but I recollect at the time they impressed me awfully." " No doubt," I answered. He tried to look through me, and failed. Then he plunged, like the noble sportsman that he was, on a second fetch of memory. " Ah — and Michael Angelo," he went on, quite The Pea-Green Patrician 225 proud of his treasure-trove. " Sweet things, Michael Angelo's ! " " Very sweet," I admitted. " So simple ; so touching ; so tender ; so domestic ! " I thought Elsie would explode ; but she kept her counte- nance. The pea-green young man gazed at me uneasily. He had half an idea by this time that I was making game of him. However, he fished up a name once more, and clutched at it. " Savonarola, too," he adventured. " I adore Savona- rola. His pickchahs are beautiful." " And so rare ! " Elsie murmured. "Then there is Era Diavolo ? " I suggested, going one better. " How do you like Fra Diavolo ? " He seemed to have heard the name before, but still he hesitated. "Ah — what did he paint?" he asked, with growing caution. I stuffed him valiantly. " Those charming angels, you know," I answered. " With the roses and the glories I " "Oh, yaas ; I recollect. All askew, are n't they? like this ! I remembah them very well. But — " a doubt flitted across his brain — " was n't his name Fra AngeHco ? " " His brother," I replied, casting truth to the winds. " They worked together, j'ou must have heard. One did the saints ; the other did the opposite. Division of labour, don't you see ; Fra Angelico, Fra Diavolo." He fingered his cigarette with a dubious hand, and wrig- gled his eye-glass tighter. " Yaas, beautiful ; beautiful ! But — " growing suspicious apace, — " was n't Fra Diavolo also a composah ? ' ' " Of course," I assented. " In his off time, he composed. Tho.se early Italians — so versatile, you see ; so versatile ! ' ' *5 226 Miss Cayley's Adventures He had his doubts, Init he suppressed them. " And Torricelli," I went on, with a side glance at Elsie, who was choking by this time. ' ' And Chianti, and Frittura, and Cinquevalli, and Giulio Romano." His distrust increased. " Now you 're trying to make me conmiit myself," he drawled out. " I remembah Torri- " WAS N'r I'RA DIAVdI.O ALSO A COMI'OSAH?' celli — he 's the fellah who used to paint all his women crooked. But Chianfi 's a wine ; I 've often drunk it ; and Romano's — well, ever}' fellah knows Romano's is a restau- rant near the Gaiety Theatre." " Besides," I contiiuied, in a drawl like his own, " there are Risotto, and Gnocchi, and Vermicelli, and Anchovy — all famous paintahs, and all of whom I don't doubt you adniiah." The Pea-Green Patrieian 227 Elsie exploded at last. Bu^ he took no offence. He smiled inanely, as if he rather enjoyed it. " L,ook heah, you know," he said, with his crafty smile ; " that 's one too much. I 'm not taking any. You think yourselves very clevah for kidding me with paintahs who are really macaroni and cheese and claret ; yet if I were to tell you the Lejah was run at Ascot, or the Cesarewitch at Doncnstah, why, you 'd be no wisah. When it comes to art, I don't have a look in ; but I could tell you a thing or two about starting prices." And I was forced to admit that there he had reason. Still, I think he realised that he had better avoid the sub- ject of art in future, as we avoided the noble quadruped. He saw his limitations. Not till the last evening before we reached Bombay did I really understand the nature of my neighbour's project. That evening, as it chanced, Elsie had a headache and went below early. I stopped with her till she dozed off ; then I slipped up on deck once more for a breath of fresh air, before retiring for the night to the hot and stuffy cabins. It was an exquisite evening. The moon rode in the pale green sky of the tropics. A strange light still lingered on the western horizon. The stifling heat of the Red Sea had given way long since to the refreshing coolness of the Indian Ocean. I strolled a while on the quarter-deck, and sat down at last near the stern. Next moment, I was aware of somebody creeping up to me. " Look heah. Miss Cayley," a voice broke in ; "I 'm in luck at last ! I 've been waiting, oh, evah so long, for this opportunity." I turned and faced him. " Have you, indeed?" I an- swered. " Well, I have not, Lord Southminstcr." 228 Miss Cayley's Adventures I tried to rise, but he motioned me back to my chair. There were ladies on deck, and to avoid being noticed I sank into my seat again, " I want to speak to you," he went on, in a voice that (for him) was ahnost impressive. " Half a mo'. Miss Cayley. I want to say — this last night — you misunderstand me." " On the contrary," I answered, " the trouble is — that I understand you perfectly." " No, yah don't. Look heah." He bent forward quite romantically. " I 'm going to be perfectly frank. Of course yah know that when I came on board this ship I came — to checkmate yah." " Of course," I replied. " Why else should you and Higginson have bothered to come here ? " He rubbed his hands together. ' ' That 's just it. You 're always clevah. You hit it first shot. But there 's wheah the point comes in. At first, I only thought of how we could circumvent yah. I treated yah as the enemy. Now, it 's all the othah way. Miss Cayley, you 're the cleverest woman I evali met in this world ; you extort my admira- tion !" I could not repress a smile. I did n't know how it was, but I could see I possessed some mysterious attraction for the Ashurst family. I was fatal to Ashursts. Lady Georginn, Harold Tillington, the Honourable Marmaduke, Lord South- minster— different types as they were — all succumbed to me without one blow. " You flatter me," I answered, coldly. " No, I don't," he cried, flashing his cuffs and gazing affectionately at his sleeve-links. " 'Pon my soul, I assuah yah, I mean it. I can't tell you how much I admiah yah. The Pea-Green Patrician 229 I admiah your intellect. Ever}^ day I have seen yah, I feel it moali and moah. Why, you 're the only person who has evah out-flanked my fellah, Higginson. As a rule I don't think much of women. I 've been through several London seasons, and lots of 'em have tried their level best to catch me ; the cleverest mammas have been aftali me for their Ethels. But I was n't so easily caught; I dodged the Ethels. With you, it 's different. I feel " — he paused — " you 're a woman a fellah might be really proud of." " You are too kind," I answered, in my refrigerator voice. " Well, will you take me ? " he asked, trying to seize my hand. " Miss Cayley, if you will, you will make me un- speakably happy." It was a great effort for him — and I was sorrj^ to crush it. " I regret," I said, " that I am compelled to deny you un- speakable happiness." " Oh, but you don't catch on. You mistake. Let me explain. You 're backing the othah man. Now, I happen to know about that, and I assuah you, it 's an error. Take my word for it, you 're staking your money on the wrong fellah." " I do not understand you," I replied, drawing away from his approach. " And what is more, I may add, you could never understand me." " Yaas, but I do. I understand perfectly. I can see where you go wrong. You drew up Marmy's will ; and you think Manny has left all he 's worth to Harold Tillington ; so you 're putting every peiui}- you 've got on Harold. Well, that 's mere moonshine. Harold may think it 's all right ; but it 's not all right. There 's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the Prol^ate Court. Listen heah, Miss Cayley ; 230 Miss Cayley's Adventures Higginson and I are a jolly sight sharper than your friend Harold. Harold 's what they call a clevah fellah in society, and I 'm what they call a fool ; but I know bettah than Harold which side of my bread 's buttahed." TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, YOU Kli STAKING YOUR MONEY ON THE WRONG FELLAH. " I don't doubt it," I answered. " Well, I have managed this business. I don't mind tell- ing you now, I had a telegram from Manny's valet when we touched at Aden ; and poor old Manny 's sinking, Habak- kuk 's been too much for him. Sixteen stone going under. Why am I not with him ? yah may ask. Because, when a d The Pea-Green Patrician 231 man of Marmy's temperament is dying, it 's safah to be away from him. There 's plenty of time for Marmy to altah his will yet — and there are othah contingencies. Still, Harold 's quite out of it. You take my word for it ; if you back Harold, you back a man who 's not going to get anything ; while if you back me, you back the winnah, with a coronet into the bargain." And he smiled fatuously. I looked at him with a look that would have made a wiser man wince. But it fell flat on Lord Southminster. " Do you know why I do not rise and go down to my cabin at once ? " I said, slowly. " Because, if I did, somebody as I passed might see my burning cheeks — cheeks flushed with shame at your insulting proposal — and might guess that you had as^ed me, and that I had refused you. And I should shrink from the disgrace of anyone's knowing that you had put such a humiliation upon me. You have been frank with me — after your kind, Lord Southminster ; frank with the franknCvSS of a low and purely connnercial nature. I will be frank with you in turn. You are right in supposing that I love Harold Tillington — a man whose name I hate to mention in your presence. But you are wrong in supposing that the disposition of Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's money has or can have anything to do with the feelings I entertain toward;:' him. I woidd marry him all the sooner if he were poor anc penniless. You cannot understand that state of mind, of course ; but you must be content to accept it. And I would not marry jjw< if there were no other man left in the world to marry. I should as soon think of marrying a lump of dough." I faced him all crimson. " Is that plain enough ? Do you see now that I really mean it ? " 232 Miss Cayley's Adventures He gazed at me with a curious look, and twiried what he considered his moustache once more, quite airil}'. The man was imperturbable — a pachydermatous imbecile. " You 're all wrong, yah know," he said, after a long pause, during which he had regarded me through his eye-glass as if I were a specimen of some rare new species. " You 're all wrong, and yah won't believe me. But I tell yah, I know what I 'm talking about. You think it 's quite safe about Marmy's money — that he 's left it to Harold — because you drew the will up. I assuah you that will 's not worth the paper it 's written on. You fancy Harold 's a hot favourite ; he 's a rank outsidah. I give you a chance, and you won't take it. I want yah because you 're a remarkable woman. Most of the Ethels cry when they 're trying to make a fellah propose to 'em ; and I don't like 'em damp ; but you have some go about yah. You insist upon backing the wrong man. But you '11 find your mistake out yet." A bright idea struck him. "I say — why don't you hedge? Leave it open till Manny 's gone, and then marry the winnah ? " It was hopeless trying to make this clod understand. His brain was not built with the right cells for understanding me. " Lord Southminster," I said, turning upon him and clasping my hands, ' ' I will not go away while you stop here. But you have some spark enough of a gentleman in your composi- tion, I hope, not to inflict your company any longer upon a woman who does not desire it. I ask you to leave me here alone. When you have gone, and I have had time to re- cover from your degrading offer, I may perhaps feel able to go down to my cabin." He stared at me with open blue eyes — those watery blue eyes. " Oh, just as you like," he answered. " I wanted to 'M The Pea-Green Patrician 233 do you a good turn, because you 're the only woman I evah reahlly admiahed — to say admiah, don't you know ; not trot- ted round like the Ethels ; but you won't allow me. I '11 go if you wish it ; though I tell you again, you 're backing the wrong man, and soonah or latah you '11 discover it. I don't mind laying you six to four against him. Howevah, I '11 do one thing for yah : I '11 leave this offah always open. I 'm not likely to marry any othah woman — not good enough, is it? — and if evah you. find out you 're mistaken about Harold Tillington, remembah, honour bright, I shall be ready at any time to renew my ofFah." By this time, I was at boiling-point. I could not find words to answer him. I waved him away angrily with one hand. He raised his hat with quite a jaunty air and strolled oif forward, puffing his cigarette, I don't think he even knew the disgust with which he inspired me. I sat some hours with the cool air playing about mj'^ burn- ing cheeks before I mustered up courage to rise and go down below again. ^M^ JKZSit 1^ i^^^ ^^5^ k %s%^ 1^ ^ft ^^■^^■P^k: ill ^^i 8 ^^^ ^^ ^ ^ 5v\^ ^ -^1,'< -^S^ jfi^^^i^ \} ^^-l!^ CHAPTER IX THE ADVENTURE OF THE MAGNIFICENT MAHARAJAH OUR arrival at Bombay was a triumphal entry. We were received like royalty. Indeed, to tell the truth, Elsie and I were beginning to get just a little bit spoiled. It struck us now that our casual connection with the Ashurst family in its various branches had suc- ceeded in saddling us, like the lady of Burleigh, " with the burden of an honour unto which we were not born." We were everywhere treated as persons of importance ; and, oh dear, by dint of such treatment we began to feel at last almost as if we had been raised in the purple. I felt that when we got back to England we should turn up our noses at plain bread and butter. Yes, life has been kind to me. Have your researches into English literature ever chanced to lead you into reading Horace Walpole, I wonder ? That polite trifler is fond of a word which he coitvd himself — ' ' serendipity. " It is derived from the name oi ertain happy Indian Prince Serendip, whom he unearthed (or invented) in some obscure Oriental story ; a prince for whom the fairies or the genii always managed to make everything pleasant. It implies the faculty, which few of us possess, of finding whatever we 234 The Magnificent Maharajah 235 want turn up accidentally at the exact right moment. Well, I believe I must have been born with serendipity in my mouth, in place of the proverbial silver spoon, for, wherever I go, all things seem to come out exactly right for me. ^ho. Jumna, for example, had hardly heaved to in Bombay Harbour when we noticed on the quay a very distinguished- looking Oriental potentate, in a large, white turban with a particularly big diamond stuck ostentatiously in its front. He stalked on board with a martial air, as soon as we stopped, and made enquiries from our captain after someone he expected. The captain received him with that odd mix- ture of respect for rank and wealth, combined with true British contempt for the inferior black man, which is uni- versal among his class in their dealings with native Indian nobility. The Oriental potentate, however, who was accom- panied by a gorgeous suite like that of the Wise Men in Italian pictures, seemed satisfied with his information, and moved over with his stately glide in our direction. Elsie and I were standing near the gangway among our rugs and bun- dles, in the hopeless helplessness of disembarkation. He approached us respectfull3% and, bowing with extended hands and a deferential air, asked, in excellent English, " May I venture to enquire which of you two ladies is Miss L,ois Cayley?" " /am," I replied, my breath taken away by this unex- pected greeting. *' May I venture to enquire in return how you came to know I was arriving by this steamer ? " He held out his hand, with a courteous inclination. " I am the Maharajah of Moozuffernuggar," he answered in an impressive tone, as if everybody knew of the Maharajah of Moozuffernuggar as familiarly as they knew of the Duke 236 Miss Cayley's Adventures of Cambridge. " Moozuffernuggar in Rajputana — not the one in the Doab. You must have heard my name from Mr. Harold Tillington." I had not ; but I dissembled, so as to salve his pride. " Mr. Tillington's friends are i;«r friends, " I answered, sen- tentiously. I AM THE MAHARAJAH OF MOOZUFFERNUGGAR. " And Mr. Tillington's friends are my friends," the Maharajah retorted, with a low bow to Elsie. " This is no doubt Miss Petheridge. I have heard of your expected arrival, as you will guess, from Tillington. He and I were at Oxford together ; I am a Merton man. It was Tillington who first taught me all I know of cricket. He took me to stop at his father's place in Dumfriesshire. I owe much to his friendship ; and when he wrote me that friends of his The Ma D i-, b ■J o Ed O CI 250 Miss Cayley's Adventures eater. He once ate a whole family at a meal — a man, his wife, and his three children. The people at Janwargurh have been pestering me for weeks to come and shoot him ; and each week he has eaten somebody — a child or a woman ; the last was yesterday — but I waited till you came, because I thought it would be something to show you that you would not be likely to see elsewhere." " And you let the poor people go on being eaten, that we might enjoy this sport ! " I cried. He shrugged his shoulders, and opened his palms. * ' They were villagers, you know — ryots : mere tillers of the soil — poor naked peasants. I have thousands of them to spare. If a tiger eats ten of them, they only say, * It was written upon their foreheads.' One woman more or less — who would notice her at MoozufFernuggar ? ' ' Then I perceived that the Maharajah was a gentleman, but still a barbarian. The eventful morning arrived at last, and we started, all agog, for the jungle where the tiger was known to live. Elsie excused herself. She remarked to me the night be- fore, as I brushed her back hair for her, that she had " half a mind" not to go. " My dear," I answered, giving the brush a good dash, "for a higher mathematician, that phrase lacks accuracy. If you were to say ' seven-eighths of a mind ' it would be nearer the mark. In point of fact, if you ask my opinion, your inclination to go is a vanishing quantity." She admitted the impeachment with an accusing blush. " You 're quite right, Brownie ; to tell you the truth, I 'm afraid of it." "So am I, dear; horribly afraid. Between ourselves, The Mai^nificent Maharajah 251 I 'm in a deadly funk of it. But ' the brave man is not he that feels no fear ' ; and I believe the same principle applies almost equally to the brave woman. I mean ' that fear to subdue ' as far as I am able. The Maharajah says I shall be the first girl who has ever gone tiger hunting. I 'm frightened out of my life. I never held a gun in my born days. But, Elsie, recollect, this is splendid journalism! I intend to go through with it." " You offer yourself on the altar, Brownie." " I do, dear ; I propose to die in the cause. I expect my proprietor to carve on my tomb, ' Sacred to the memory of the martyr of journalism. She was killed, in the act of taking shorthand notes, by a Bengal tiger.' " We started at early dawn, a motley mixture. My short bicycling skirt did beautifully for tiger hunting. There was a vast company of native swells, nawabs and ranas, in gor- geous costumes, whose preci.se names and titles I do not pretend to remember; there were also Major Balmossie, Lord Southminster, the Maharajah, and myself — all mounted on gaily caparisoned elephants. We had likewise, on foot, a miserable crowd of wretched beaters, with dirty white loin- cloths. We were all very brav^e, of course — demonstra- tively brave — and we talked a great deal at the start about the exhilaration given by " the spice of danger." But it somehow struck me that the poor beaters on foot had the majority of the danger and extremely little of the ex- hilaration. Each of us great folk was mounted on his own elephant, which carried a light basket-work howdah in two compartments : the front one intended for the noble sportsman, the back one for a servant with extra guns and ammunition. I pretended to like it, but I fear I trembled 252 Miss Cayley's Adventures visibly. Our mahouts sat on the elephants' necks, each armed with a pointed goad, to whose admonition the huge beasts answered like clockwork. A born journalist always pretends to know everything beforehand, .so I speak care- lessly of the " mahout," as if he were a familiar acquaint- ance. But I don't mind telling you aside, in confidence, that I had only just learnt the word that morning. The Maharajah protested at first against my taking part in the actual hunt, but I think his protest was merely formal. In his heart of hearts I believe he was proud that the first lady tiger hunter should have joined his party. Dusty and shadeless, the road from Moozuffernuggar fares straight across the plain towards the crumbling mountains. Behind, in the heat mist, the castle and palace on their steeply scarped crag, with the squalid town that clustered at their feet, reminded me once more most strangely of Edin- burgh, where I used to spend my vacations from Girton. But the pitiless sun differed greatly from the grey haar of the northern metropolis. It warmed into intense white the little temples of the wayside, and beat on our heads with tropical garishness. I am bound to admit also that tiger hunting is not quite all it is cracked up to be. In my fancy I had pictured the gallant and bloodthirsty bea.st rushing out upon us full pelt from some grass-grown nullah at the first sniff of our presence, and fiercely attacking both men and elephants. Instead of that, I will confess the whole truth : frightened as at least one of us was of the tiger, the tiger was still more desperately frightened of his human assailants. I could see clearly that, so far from rushing out of his own accord to attack us, his one desire was to be let alone. He was horribly afraid ; he The Magnificent Maharajah 253 skulked in the jungle like a wary old fox in a trusty spinney. There was no nullah (whatever a nullah may be), there was only a waste of dusty cane-brake. We encircled the tall grass patch where he lurked, forming a big round with a ring-fence of elephants. The beaters on foot, advancing, half naked, with a caution with which I could fully sym- pathise, endeavoured l)y loud shouts and gesticulations to rouse the royal beast to a sense of his position. Not a bit of it ; the royal beast declined to be drawn ; he preferred retire- ment. The Maharajah, whose elephant was stationed next to mine, even apologised for the resolute cowardice with which he clung to his ignoble lurking-place. The beaters drew in ; the elephants, raising their trunks in air and sniffing suspicion, moved slowly inward. We had girt him round now with a perfect ring, through which he could not possiljly break without attacking somebody. The Maharajah kept a fixed eye on my personal safety. But still the royal animal crouched and skulked, and still the black beaters shrieked, howled, and gesticnlated. At last, among the tall perpendicular lights and shadows of the big grasses and bamboos, I seemed to see something move — something striped like the stems, yet passing slowly, slowly, slowly between them. It moved in a stealthy undulating line. No one could believe till he saw it how the bright flame-coloured bands of vivid orange-yellow on the monster's flanks, and the interspersed black stripes, could fade away and har- monise, in their native surroundings, with the lights and shades of the upright jungle. It was a marvel of mimicry. " Look there ! " I cried to the Maharajah, pointing one eager hand. " What is that thing there, moving ? " He stared where I pointed. " By Jove," he cried, raising 254 Miss Caylcy's Adventures his rifle with a sportsman's quickness, " you have spotted him first ! The tiger ! " The terrified beast stole slowly and cautiously through the tall grasses, his lithe, silken side gliding in and out snake- wise, and only his fierce eyes burning bright with gleaming flashes between the gloom of the jungle. Once I had seen him, I could follow with ease his siiuious path among the tangled bamboos, a waving line of beauty in perpetual mo- tion. The Maharajah followed him too, with his keen eyes, and pointed his rifle hastily. But, quick as he was. Lord Southminster was before him. I had half expected to find the pea-green young man turn coward at the last moment ; but in that I was mistaken : I will do him the justice to say, whatever else he was, he was a born sportsman. The gleam of joy in his leaden eye when he caught sight of the tiger, the flush of excitement on his pasty face, the eagerness of his alert attitude, were things to see and remember. That moment almost ennobled him. In sight of danger, the best instincts of the savage seemed to revive within him. In civilised life he was a poor creature ; face to face with a wild beast he became a mighty shikari. Perhaps that was why he was so fond of big-game shooting. He may have felt it raised him in the scale of being. He lifted his rifle and fired. He was a cool shot, and he wounded the beast upon its left shoulder. I could see the great crimson stream gush out all at once across the shapely sides, staining the flame-coloured stripes and reddening the black shadows. The tiger drew back, gave a low, fierce growl, and then crouched among the jungle. I saw he was going to leap ; he bent his huge backbone into a strong downward curve, took in a deep breath, and stood at bay, The Magnificent Maharajah 255 glaring at us. Which elephant would he attack ? That was what he was now debating. Next moment, with a frightful R'-r'-r'-r', he had straightened out his muscles, and, like a bolt from a bow, had launched his huge bulk forward. I never saw his charge. I never knew he had leapt upon me. I only felt my elephant rock from side to side like a ship in a storm. He was trumpeting, shaking, roaring with rage and pain, for the tiger was on his flanks, its claws buried deep in the skin of his forehead. I could not keep my seat ; I felt myself tossed about in the frail howdah like a pill in a pill-box. The elephant, in a death grapple, was trying to shake off his ghastly enemy. For a minute or two, I was conscious of nothing save this swinging movement. Then, opening my eyes for a second, I saw the tiger, in all his terrible beauty, clinging to the elephant's head by the claws of his forepaws, and struggling for a foothold on its trunk with his mighty hind legs, in a wounded agony of despair and vengeance. He would sell his life dear ; he would have one or other of us. Lord Southminster raised his rifle again ; but the Maha- rajah shouted aloud in an angry voice : " Don't fire ! don't fire ! You will kill the lady ! You can't aim at him like that. The beast is rocking so that no one can say where a shot will take effect. Down with your gun, sir, instantly ! " My mahout, unable to keep his seat with the rocking, now dropped off his cushion among the scrub below. He could speak a few words of Englis'i. ' ' Shoot, Mem Sahib, shoot ! ' ' he cried, flinging his havids up. Buc I was tossed to and fro, from side to side, with my rifle under my arm. It was impo.s.sible to aim. Yet in sheer terror I tried to draw the 256 Miss Cayley's Adventures trigger. I failed ; but somehow I caught my rifle agaiust the side of my cage. Something snapped in it somewhere. It went off unexpectedly, without my aiming or firing. I IT WKNT OKK UNKXI'KCTKDI.Y. shut my eyes. When I opened them again, I saw a swim- ming picture of the great sullen beast, loosing his hold on the elephant. I .saw his brindled face ; I saw his white tusks. But his gleaming pupils burned bright no longer. His jaw was full towards me ; I had shot him between the The Magnificent Maharajah 257 eyes. He fell, slowly, with blood streaming from his nostrils, and his tongue lolling out. His muscles relaxed ; his huge limbs grew limp. In a minute, he lay stretched at full length on the ground, with his head on one side, a grand, terrible picture. My mahout flung up his hands in wonder and amazement. " My father ! " he cried aloud. " Truly, the Mem Sahib is a great shikari ! " The Maharajah stretched across to me. " That was a wonderful shot ! " he exclaimed. " I could never have be- lieved a woman could show such nerve and coolness." Nerve and coolness, indeed ! I was trembling all over like an Italian greyhound, every limb a jelly; and I had not even fired ; the rifle went off" of itself without me. I am innocent of having ever endangered the life of a haycock. But once more I dissembled. "Yes, it zuas a difficult shot," I said jauntily, as if I rather liked tiger hunting. ' ' I did n't think I 'd hit him." Still the effect of my speech was somewhat marred, I fear, by the tears that in spite of me rolled down my cheek silently. " 'Pon honah, I nevah saw a finah piece of shooting in my life, ' ' Lord Southminster drawled out. Then he added aside, in an undertone, " Makes a fellow moah determined to annex her than evah ! " I sat in my howdah, half dazed. I hardly heard what they were saying. My heart danced like the elephant. Then it stood still within me. I was only aware of a feeling of faintness. Luckily for my reputation as a mighty sports- woman, however, I just managed to keep up, and did not actually faint, as I was more than half inclined to do. Next followed the native piean. The beaters crowded •7 25^ Miss Cayley's Adventures round the fallen beast in a chorus of congratulation. Many of the villagers also ran out, with prayers and ejaculations, to swell our triumph. It was all like a dream. They hustled round me and salaamed to me. A woman had shot him ! Wonderful ! A babel of voices resounded in my ears. I was aware that pure accident had elevated me into a heroine. " Put the beast on a pad elephant," the Maharajah called out. The beaters tied ropes round his body and raised him with difficulty. The Maharajah's face grew stern. " Where are the whiskers?" he asked, fiercel)-, in his own tongue, which Major Balmossie interpreted for me. The beaters and the villagers, bowing low and expanding their hands, made profuse expressions of ignorance and inno- cence. But the fact was patent — the grand face had been mangled. While they had crowded in a dense group round the fallen carcass, somebody had cut off the lips and whiskers and secreted them. " They have ruined the skin ! " the Maharajah cried out in angry tones. " I intended it for the lady. I shall have them all searched, and the man who has done this thing " He broke off, and looked around him. His silence was more terrible by far than the fiercest threat. I saw him now the Oriental despot. All the natives drew back, awe- struck. " The voice of a king is the voice of a great god," my mahout murmured, in a solenui whisper. Then nobody else said anything. " Why do they want the whiskers ? " I asked, just to set The Magnificent Maharajah 259 things straight again. " The}' seem to have been in a pre- cious hurry to take them ! " : ^AW UIM NOW TllK UKIKiNTAL DKSPOT. The Maharajah's brow cleared. He turned to me once more with his Kuropean manner. " A tiger's body has 26o Miss Caylcy's Adventures wonderful power after his death," he answered. " His fangs and his claws are very potent charms. His heart gives courage. Whoever eats of it will never know fear. His liver preserves against death and pestilence. But the highest virtue of all exists in his whiskers. They are mighty talismans. Chopped up in food, they act as a slow poison, which no doctor can detect, no antidote guard against. Tlicy are also a sovereign remedy against magic or the evil eye. And administered to women, they make an irresistible philtre, a puissant love-potion. They secure you the heart of whoever drinks them." " I 'd give a couple of monkeys for those whiskahs," Lord Southminster murmured, half unnoticed. We began to move again. " We '11 go on to where we know there is another tiger," the Maharajah said, lightly, as if tigers were partridges. " Miss Cayley, you will come with us ? " I rested on my laurels. (I was quivering still from head to foot.) " No, thank you, Maharajah," as unconcernedly as I could ; " I 've had quite enough sport for my first day's tiger hunting. I think I '11 go back now, and write a new.s- paper account of this little adventure." " You have had luck," he put in. " Not everyone kills a tiger his first day out. This will make good reading." " I would n't have missed it for a hundred pounds," I an- swered. " Then try another." " I would n't try another for a thousand," I cried fer- vently. That evening, at the palace, I was the heroine of the day. They toasted me in a bumper of Heidsieck's dry monopole. The Ma^niificcnt Maharajah 261 The men made speeches. Everybody talked gushingly of my splendid courage and my steadiness of hand. It was a brilliant shot, under such difficult circumstances. For my- self, I said nothing. I pretended to look modest. I dared not confess the truth — that I never fired at all. And from IT S I WHO AM THE WINNAH. that day to this I have nev^er confessed it, till I write it down now in these confiding memoirs. One episode cast a gloom over my ill-deserved triumph. In the course of the evening, a telegram arrived for the pea- green young man by a white-turbaned messenger. He read it, and crumpled it up carelessly in his hand. I looked en- 262 Miss Cayley's Adventures quiry. " Yaas," he answered, nodding. " You 're quite right. It 's that ! Pooah old Marmy has gone, aftah all ! Ezekiel and Habakkuk have carried off his sixteen stone at last ! And I don't mind telling yah now — though it was a neah thing — it 's /who am the winnah ! " CHAPTER X THE ADVENTURE OP THE CROSS-EYED Q. C. THK " cold weather," as it is humorously called, was now drawing to a close, and the young ladies in .sailor hats and cambric blouses, who flock to India each autumn for the annual marriage-market, were begin- ning to resign themselves to a return to England — unless, of course, they had succeeded in " catching." So I realised that I must hurry on to Delhi and Agra, if I were not to be intercepted by the intolerable summer. When we started from MooziifFer nuggar for Delhi and the East, Lord Southminster was starting for Bombay and Europe. This surprised me not a little, for he had confided to my unsympathetic ear a few nights earlier, in the Maha- rajah's billiard-room, that he was " stony broke," and must wait at Moozuffernuggar for lack of funds " till the oof-bird laid" at his banker's in England. His conversation en- larged my vocabulary, at any rate. " So you 've managed to get away ? " I exclaimed, as he dawdled up to me at the hot and dusty station. " Yaas," he drawled, fixing his eye-glass, and lighting a cigarette. " I 've — p'f— managed to get away. Maharaj seems to have thought — p'f— it would be cheapah in the end to pay me out than to keep me." 263 264 Miss Caylcy's Adventures " You don't mean to say he offered to lend you money ? " I cried. " No ; not exactly that : /offahed to borrow it." ''From the man you call a ' niggah ' ? " H i s smile spread broader over his face than ever. "Well, we borrow from the Jews, yah know," he said pleasantly, " so w h, y the j o o c e should n't we borrow from the heathen, also ? Spoiling the Egyptians, don't yah see ? — the same as we used to read about in the Scripchah when we were innocent kid- dies. Like marriage, quite. You borrow in haste — and repay at leisure." He strolled off and took his seat. I was glad to get rid of him at the main line junction. In accordance with my usual merciful custom, I spare you the details of our visit to Agra, Muttra, Benares. At Cal- cutta Elsie left me. Her health was now quite restored, HE WROTE, "I EXPECT YOU TO COME BACK TO ENGLAND AND MARRY ME ! " The Cross-Eycd O. C. 265 dear little soul — I felt I had done that one good thing in life, if no other — and she could no longer withstand the higher mathematics, which were beckoning her to London with in- visible fingers. For myself, having so far accomplished my original design of going round the world with twopence in my pocket, I could not bear to draw back at half the circuit ; and Mr. Elworthy having willingly consented to my return by Singapore and Yokohama, I set out alone on my home- ward journey. Harold wrote me from London that all was going well. He had found the will which I drew up at Florence in his uncle's escritoire, and everything was left to him ; but he trusted, in spite of this untoward circumstance, long absence might have altered my determination. " Dear Lois," he wrote, " I expect you to come back to England and marry me ! " I was brief, but categorical. Nothing, meanwhile, had altered my resolve. I did not wish to be considered mer- cenary. While he was rich and honoured, I could never take him. If, some day, fortune frowned — but, there — let us not forestall the feet of calamity; let us await con- tingencies. Still, I was heavy in heart. If only it had been other- wise ! To say the truth, I should be thrown away on a millionaire ; but just think what a splendid managing wife a girl like me would have made for a penniless pauper ! At Yokohama, however, while I dawdled in curiosity shops, a telegram from Harold startled me into seriousness. My chance at last ! I knew what it meant ; that villain Higginson ! " Come home at once. I want your evidence to clear my 266 Miss Caylcy's Adventures character. Southminster opposes the will as a forgery. He has a strong case ; the experts are with him." Forgery ! That was clever. I never thought of that. I suspected them of trying to forge a will of their own ; but to upset the real one — to throw the burden of suspicion on Harold's shoulders — how much subtler and craftier ! I saw at a glance it gave them every advantage. In the first place, it put Harold virtually in the place of the ac- cused, and compelled him to defend instead of attacking — an attitude which prejudices people against one from the outset. Then, again, it implied positive criminality on his part, and so allowed Lord Southminster to assume the air of injured innocence. The eldest son of the eldest brother, unjustly set aside by the scheming machinations of an un- scrupulous cousin ! Primogeniture, the ingrained Eng- lish love for keeping up the dignity of a noble family, the prejudice in favour of the direct male line as against the female — all were astutely utilised in Lord Southminster's interest. But worst of all, it was / who had typewritten the will — I, a friend of Harold's, a woman whom Lord Southminster would doubtless try to exhibit as his fiancSc. I saw at once how much like conspiracy it looked : Harold and I had agreed together to concoct a false document, and Harold had forged his uncle's signature to it. Could a British jury doubt when a Lord declared it ? Fortunately, I was just in time to catch the Canadian steamer from Japan to Vancouver. But, oh, the endless breadth of that broad Pacific ! How time seemed to lag, as each day one rose in the morning, in the midst of space ; blue sky overhead ; behind one, the hard horizon ; in front of one, the hard horizon ; and nothing else visible : then The Cross-Eyed Q. C. 267 steamed on all day, to arrive at night, where ?— why, in the midst of space ; starry sky overhead ; behind one, the dim horizon ; in front of one, the dim horizon ; and nothing else visible. The Nile was child's play to it. IT WAS ENDLESSLY WEARISOME Day after day we steamed, and night after night were still where we began— in the centre of the sea, no farther from our starting-point, no nearer to our goal, yet for ever steam- ing. It was endlessly wearisome ; who could say what might be happening meanwhile in England ? At last, after months, as it seemed, of this slow torture. 268 Miss Cayley's Adventures we reached Vancouver. There, in the raw, new town, a telegram awaited me. " Glad to hear you are coming. Make all haste. You may be just in time to arrive for the trial." Just in time! I would not waste a moment. I caught the first train on the Canadian Pacific, and travelled straight through, day and night, to Montreal and Quebec, without one hour's interval. I cannot describe to you that journey across a continent I had never before seen. It was endless and hopeless. I only know that we crawled up the Rocky Mountains and the Selkirk Range, over spider-like viaducts, with interminable effort, and that the prairies were just the broad Pacific over again. They rolled on for ever. But we did reach Quebec — in time we reached it ; and we caught by an hour the first liner to Liverpool. At Prince's Landing-stage another telegram awaited me. " Come on at once. Case now proceeding. Harold is in court. We need your evidence. — Gkorcina Fawi.Ey." I might still be in time to vindicate Harold's character. At Huston, to mj' surprise, I was met not only by my dear Cantankerous Old Lady, but also by my friend, the magnifi- cent Maharajah, dressed this time in a frock-coat and silk hat of Bond Street glossiness. *' What has brought you to England?" I asked, aston- ished. "The Jubilee?" He smiled, and showed his two fine rows of white teeth. " That, nominally. In reality, the cricket season (I play for Berks). But most of all, to see dear Tillington safe through this trouble." " He 's a brick ! " Lady Georgina cried with enthusiasm. The Cross-Eycd Q. C. 269 " A regular brick, my dear Lois ! His carriage is waiting outside to take you up to my house. He has stood by Harold— well, like a Christian ! " " Or a Hindoo," the Maharajah corrected, smiling. " And how have you been all this time, dear Lady Georgina ? " I asked, hardly daring to enquire about what was nearest to my soul — Harold. The Cantankerous Old Lady knitted her brows in a familiar fashion. "Oh, my dear, don't ask: I haven't known a happy hour since you left me in Switzerland. Lois, I shall never be happy again without you ! It would pay me to give you a retaining fee of a thousand a year — honour bright, it would, I assure you. What I 've suffered from the Gretchens since you 've been in the East has only been equalled by what I ' ve suffered from the Mary Annes and the Cdlestines. Not a hair left on my scalp ; not one hair, I declare to you. They 've made my head into a tabula rasa for the various restorers. George R. Sims and Mrs. S. A. Allen are going to fight it out between them. My dear, I wish yoH could take my maid's place ; I ' ve always said ' ' I finished the speech for her. " A lady can do better whatever she turns her hand to than any of these hussies." She nodded. ' ' And why ? Because her hands arc hands ; while as for the Gretchens and the Mary Annes, * paws ' is the only word one can honestly apply to them. Then, on top of it all comes this trouble about Harold. So distress- ing, is n't it ? You see, at the point which the matter has reached, it 's simply impossible to save Harold's reputation without wrecking Southminster's. Pretty position that for a respectable family ! The Ashursts hitherto have been quite respectable ; a co-respondent or two, perhaps, but never 270 Miss Caylcy's Adventures anything serious. Now, either Southminster sends Harold to prison, or Harold sends Southminster. There 's a nice sort of dilemma ! I always knew Kynaston's boys were born fools ; but to find they 're born knaves, too, is hard on an old woman in her hairless dotage. However, you 'vc come, my child, and j^« 7/ soon set things right. You 're the one person on earth I can trust in this matter." Harold go to prison ! My head reeled at the thought. I staggered out into the open air, and took my seat mechani- cally in the Maharajah's carriage. All London swam before me. After so many months' absence, the polychromatic decorations of our English streets, looming up through the smoke, seemed both strange and familiar. I drove through the first half-mile with a vague consciousness that Lipton's tea is the perfection of cocoa and matchless for the com- plexion, but that it dyes all colours, and won't wash clothes. After a while, however, I woke up to the full terror of the situation. " Where are you taking me ? " I enquired. " To my house, dear," Lady Georgina answered, looking anxiously at me ; for my face was bloodless. *' No, that won't do," I answered. " My cue must be now to keep myself as aloof as possible from Harold and Harold's backers. I must put up at an hotel. It will sound so much better in cross-examination." " She 's quite right," the Maharajah broke in, with sud- den conviction. " One must block every ball with these nasty swift bowlers," " Where 's Harold ? " I asked, after another pause. " Why did n't he come to meet me ? " " My dear, how could he ? He 's under examination. A The Cross-llyed Q. C. 271 cross-eyed Q. C. with an odious leer. Southminster 's chosen the biggest bully at the Bar to support his contention." " Drive to some hotel in the Jenny n Street district," I cried to the Maharajah's coachman. " That will be handy for the law courts." He touched his hat and turned. In a sort of dickey be- hind sat two gorgeous, turbaned Rajput servants. That evening Harold came round to visit me at my rooms. I could see he was much agitated. Things had gone very badly. Lady Georgina was there ; she had stopped to dine with me, dear old thing, lest I .should feel lonely and give way ; so had Elsie Petheridge. Mr. Elworthy sent a tele- gram of welcome from Devonshire. I knew at least that my friends were rallying round me in this hour of trial. The kind Maharajah himself would have come too, if I had al- lowed him, but I thought it inexpedient. They explained everything to me. Harold had propounded Mr. Ashurst's will — the one I drew up at Florence — and had asked for probate. Lord Southminster intervened and opposed the grant of probate on the ground that the signatures were forgeries. He propounded instead another will, drawn some twenty years earlier, when they were both children, duly executed at the time, and undoubtedly genuine ; in it, testator left everything without reserve to the eldest son of his eldest brother. Lord Kynaston. " Manny did n't know in those days that Kynaston' s sons would all grow up fools," Lady Georgina said tartly. " Be- sides which, that was before the poor dear soul took to plunging on the Stock Exchange and made his money. He had nothing to leave, then, but his best silk hat and a few paltry hundreds. Afterwards, when he 'd feathered 1\, L _..L ■ 2 72 Miss Cay ley's Adventures his nest in soap and cocoa, he discovered that Bertie — that 's Lord Southniinster — was a first-class idiot. Marmy never liked Southniinster, nor Southniinster, Mami}-. For after all, with all his faults, Mumij' tvas a gentleman ; while Bertie — well, my dear, we need n't put a name to it. So he altered his will, as you know, when he sav.^ the sort of man Southniinster turned out, and left practically everything he possessed to Harold." " Who are the witnesses to the will ? " I asked. •' There 's the trouble. Who do you think ? Why, Higginson's sister, who was Manny's masseuse, and a waiter — Franz Markheim — at the hotel at Florence, who 's dead, they say — or, at least, not forthcoming." " And Higginson's sister forswears her signature," Harold added gloomily; " while the experts are, most of them, dead against the genuineness of my uncle's." " That 's clever," I said, leaning back, and taking it in slowly. " Higginson's sister ! How well they 've worked it! They could n't prevent Mr. Ashurst from making his will, but they managed to supply their own tainted witnesses! If it had been Higginson himself, now, he 'd have had to be cross-examined ; and in cross-examination, of course, we could have shaken his credit, by bringing up the episodes of the Count de Laroche-sur-Loiret and Dr. Fortescue- Langley. But his sister ! What 's she like ? Have you anything against her ? " " My dear," Lady Georgina cried, " there the rogue has bested us. Is n't it just like him ? What do you suppose he has done ? Why, provided himself with a sister of tried respectability and blameless character." *' And she denies that it is her handwriting ? " I asked. The Cross-Eyed Q. C. 273 " Declares on her Bible oath she never signed the docu- ment ! " I was fairly puzzled. It was a stupendously' clever dodge. Higginson must have trained up his sister for forty years in the ways of wickedness, yet held her in reserve for this supreme moment. " And where is Higginson ? " I asked. Lady Georgina broke into a hysterical laugh. " Where is he, my dear ? That 's the question. With consummate strategy, the wretch has disappeared into space at the last moment." " That 's artful again," I said. " His presence could only damage their case. I can see, of course, Lord Southminster has no need of him." " Southminster 's the wiliest fool that ever lived," Harold broke out bitterly. " Under that mask of imbecility, he 's a fox for trickiness." I bit my lip. *' Well, if you succeed in evading him," I said, " you will have cleared your character. And if you don't — then, Harold, our time will have come ; you will have your longed-for chance of trying me. ' ' " That won't do me much good," he answered, " if I have to wait fourteen years for you — at Portland." Next morning, in court, I heard Harold's cross-examina- tion. He described exactly where he had found the con- tested will in his uncle's escritoire. The cross-eyed Q. C, a heavy man with bloated features and a bulbous nose, begged him, with one fat uplifted forefinger, to be very careful. How did he know where to look for it ? " Because I knew the house well : I knew where my uncle was likely to keep his valuables." 18 2 74 Miss Cayley*s Adventures " Oh, indeed ; not l>ecause you had put it there ? " The court rang with laughter. My face grew crimson. After an hour or two of fencing, Harold was dismissed. He stood down, baffled. Coun.sel recalled Lord South- minster. THE CROSS-EYEI> O. C. BEGGED HIM TO UK VERY CAREFUL. The pea-green young man, stepping briskly up, gazed about him, open-mouthed, with a vacant stare. The look of cunning on his face was carefully suppressed. He wore, on the contrar}-, an air of injured innocence combined with an eye-glass. " Yon did not put this will in the drawer where Mr. Tilling- ton found it, did you ? "* counsel asked. The Cross-Eycd O. C. 275 The pea-green young man laughed. " No, I certainly did n't put it theah. My cousin Harold was man in posses- sion. He took jolly good care / did n't come neah the premises." " Do you think you could forge a will if you tried ? " Lord Southminster laughed. " No, I don't," heanswefed, with a well-assumed naivdi. " That 's just the difference between us, don't yah know, /'w what they call a fool, and my cousin Harold 's a precious clevah fellah." There was another loud laugli, " That 's not evidence," the judge obser\'ed, severely. It was not. But it told far more than much that was. It told strongly against Harold. " Besides," Lord Southminster continued, with engaging frankness, " if I forged a will at all, I 'd take jolly good care to forge it in my own favah." My turn came next. Our counsel handed me the incrimi- nated will. " Did you draw up this document ? " he asked. I looked at it closely. The paper bore our Florentine water-mark, and was written with a Spread-Kagle. " I typewrote it," I answered, gazing at it with care to make sure I recognised it. Our counsel's business was to uphold the will, not to ca.st aspersions upon it. He was evidently annoyed at my close examination. "You have no doubts about it?" he said, trying to prompt me. I hesitated. " No, no doubts," I answered, turning over the sheet and inspecting it still closer. " I typewrote it at Florence." " Do you recognise that signature as Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's ? " he went on. 2/6 Miss Cay ley's Acl ventures I stared at it. Was it his ? It was like it, certainly. Yet that /• .'' and tho.se s'a ? I almost wondered. Conn.sel was obviously annoyed at my hesitation. He thought I was playijig into the enemy's hand.s. " Is it his, or is it not ? " he enquired again, testily. " It is his," I answered. Yet I own I was troubled. He a.sked many questions about the circumstances of the interview when I took down the will. I answered them all. But I vaguely felt he and I were at cross- i)nrpo.ses. I grew almost as uncomfortable under his gaze as if he had l)een examining me in the interest of the other side. He managed to fluster me. As a witness for Harold, I was a grotesque failure. Then the cro.ss-eyed Q. C, rising and shaking his huge bulk, began to cro.ss-examine me. " Where did you type- write this thing, do you say ? " he said, pointing to it con- temptuously. " In my office at Florence." " Yes, I understand ; you had an office at Florence — after you gave up retailing bicycles on the public roads ; and you had a partner, I think — a Miss Petherick, or Petherton, or Pennyfarthing, or something ? " " Miss Petheridge," I corrected, while the court tittered. " Ah, Petheridge, you call it ! W^ell, now, answer this question carefully. Did your Miss Petheridge hear Mr. Ashurst dictate the terms of his last will and testa- ment ? " " No," I answered. " The interview was of a strictly confidential character. Mr. Ashurst took me aside into the back room at our office." " Oh, he took you aside ? Confidential ? Well, now we 're The Cross-Eycd Q. C. 2/7 gettinj; at it. And did anybody hut yourself see or hear any l)art whatsoever of this precious document ? " " Certainly not," I repHed. " It was a private matter." *' Private! oh, very ! Nobody else saw it. Did Mr. Ashur.st take it away from the office in person ? I WAS A CJROTESgUE FAILURE. ** No ; he sent his courier for it." '* His courier ? The man Higgin.son ? " ** Yes ; but I refused to give it to Higginson. I took it my.self that night to the liotcl where Mr. Ashurst was stopping." 2/S Miss Cayley's Adventures " Ah ! You took it yourself. So the only other person who knows anything at first hand about the existence of the alleged will is this person Higginson ? " " Miss Petheridge knows," I said, flushing. " At the time, I told her of it." " Oh, voii told her. Well, that does n't help us much. If what you are swearing is n't true — remember, you are on your oath — what you told Miss Petherick or Petheridge or Penny farthing, ' at the time,' can hardly be regarded as corroborative evidence. Your word then and your word now are just equally valuable — or equally worthless. The only person who knows beside 3'ourself is Higginson. Now, I ask you, ichcrc is Higginson ? Arc you going to produce him ? " The wicked cunning of it struck me dumb. They were keeping him away, and then using his absence to cast doubts on my veracity. ' ' Stop ! " I cried, taken aback. * ' Higginson is well known to be a rogue, and he is keeping away lest he may damage your side. I know nothing of Higginson." " Yes, I 'm coming to that in good time. Don't be afraid that we 're going to pass over Higginson. You admit this man is a man of bad character. Now, what do j'ou know of him?" I told the stories of the Count and of Dr. Fortescue- Langley. The cross-eyed cross-examiner leant across towards me and leered. " And this is the man," he exclaimed, with a triumphant air,." whose sister you pretended you had got to sign this precious document of yours ? " " Whom Mr. Ashurst got to sign it," I aiiswered, red-hot, " It is not my document." The Cross-nyed (J. C. 279 <( And you have heard that she swears it is not her signa- ture at all?" " So they tell me. She is Higginson's sister. For all I know, she may be prepared to swear, or to forswear, any- thing." " Don't cast doubt upon our witnesses without cause ! Miss Higginson is an eminently respectable woman. You gave this document to Mr. Ashurst, you say. There your knowledge of it ends. A signature is placed on it which is not his, as our experts testify. It purports to be witnessed by a Swiss waiter, who is not forthcoming, and who is as- serted to be dead, as well as by a nurse who denies her signature. And the only other person who knows of its ex- istence before Mr. Tillington ' discovers ' it in his uncle's desk is — the missing man Higginson. Is that, or is it not, the truth of the matter ? " " I suppose so," I said, baffled. " Well, now, as to. this man Higginson. He first appears upon the scene, so far as you are concerned, on the day when you travelled from London to Schlang- enbad?" " That is so," I answered. " And he nearly succeeded then in stealing Lady Georgina Fawley's jewel-case ? " " He nearly took it, but I saved it." And I explained the circumstance. The cross-eyed Q. C. held his fat sides with his hands, looking incredulously at me, and smiled. His vast width of waistcoat shook with silent merriment. " You are a very clever young lady, ' ' he murmured. ' ' You can explain away anything. But don't you think it just as likely that it was 28o Miss Caylcy's Adventures a plot between you two, and that, owing to some mistake, the plot came off unsuccessful ? ' ' " I do not," I cried, crimson. " I never saw the Count before that morning." He tried another tack. " Still, wherever you went, this man Higginson — the only other person, you admit, who knows about the previous existence of the will — turned up simultaneously. He was always turning up — at the same place that you did. He turned up at Lucerne, as a faith- healer, did n't he?" " If you will allow me to explain," I cried, biting my lip. He bowed, all blandness. ' ' Oh, certainly," he murmured. " Explain away everything ! " I explained, but of course he had discounted and damaged my explanation. He made no comment. " And then," he went on, with his hands on his hips, and his obtrusive rotundity, " he turned up at Florence, as courier to Mr. Ashurst, at the very date when this so-called will was being concocted ? " " He was at Florence when Mr. Ashurst dictated it to me," I answered, growing desperate. " You admit he was in Florence. Good ! Once more he turned up in India with my client, Lord Southminster, upon whose j'outh and inexperience he had managed to impose himself. And he carried him off, did he not, bj' one of these strange coincidences to which j'ou are peculiarly liable, on the very same steamer on which /^« happened to be travel- ling ? " " Lord Southminster told me he took Higginson with him because a rogue suited his book," I answered, warmly. *' Will you swear his lordship did n't say ' i/ie rogue suited The Cross-Hycd Q. C. 281 his book ' — which is quite another thing ? " the Q. C. asked blandly. " I will swear he did not," I replied. " I have correctly reported him." ' Then I congratulate you, young lady, on your excellent memory. My lud, will you allow me later to recall Lord Southminster to testify on this point ? ' ' The judge nodded. " Now, once more, as to your relations with the various members of the Ashurst family. You introduced yourself to Lady Georgina Fawlcy, I believe, quite casually, on a seat in Kensington Gardens ? " " That is true," I answered. " You had never seen her before ? " " Never." " And you promptly offered to go as her lady's maid to Schlangenbad in Germany ? " " In place of her lady's maid, for one week," I answered. " Ah ; a delicate distinction ! ' In place of her lady's maid.' You are a lady, I believe ; an officer's daughter, you told us ; educated at Girton ? " " So I have said already," I replied, crimson. ** And you stick to it ? By all means. Tell — the truth — and vStick to it. It 's always safest. Now, don't you think it was rather an odd thing for an officer's daughter to do — to run about Germany as maid to a lady of title ? " I tried to explain once more ; but the jury smiled. You can't justify originality to a British jury. Why, they would send you to prison for that alone, if they made the laws as well as dispensing them. He passed on after a while to another topic. " I think 282 Miss Cayley's Adventures you have boasted more than once in societj- that when you first met Lady Georgina Fawley you had twopence in your pocket to go round the world with ? ' ' " I had," I answered—" and I went round the world with it." " Exactly. I 'm getting there in time. With it and other things. A few months later, more or less, you were touring up the Nile in your steam dahabeah, and in the lap of luxury- ; you were taking saloon-carriages on Indian rail- ways, were n't j'ou ? " I explained again. " The dahabeah was in the service of the Daily Telephone''' I answered, " I became a journalist." He cross-questioned me about that. " Then I am to understand," he said at last, leaning forward with all his waistcoat, " that you sprang yourself upon Mr. Klworthy at sight, prettj' much as you sprang yourself upon L,ady Geor- gina Fawley ? " "We arranged matters quickly," I admitted. The dex- terous wretch was making my strongest points all tell against me. " H'm ! Well, he was a man ; and you will admit, I sup- pose," fingering his smooth fat chin, " that you are a lady of^what is the stock phrase the reporters use ? — consider- able personal attractions ? " " My Lord," I said, turning to the Bench, " I appeal to 3-ou. Has he the right to compel me to answer that question ? " The judge bowed slightly. " The question requires no answer," he said, with a quiet emphasis. I burned bright scarlet. " Well, my lud, I defer to your ruling," the cross-eyed 284 Miss Cayley's Adventures cross-examiner continued, radiant. " I go on to another point. When in India, I believe, you stopped for some time as a guest in the house of a native maharajah." THE QUESTION REQUIRES NO ANSWER, HE SAID. " Is that matter relevant ? " the judge asked, sharply. " My lud," the Q. C. said, in his blandest voice, " I am striving to suggest to the jury that this lad} — the only per- son who ever beheld this so-called will till Mr. Harold Tillington — described in its terms as ' Younger of Gled- The Cross-Eycd (J. C. 2S5 cliffe,' whatever that may be — produced it out of his uncle's desk — I am striving to suggest that this lady is — my duty to my client compels me to say — an adventuress." He had uttered the word. I felt my character had not a leg left to stand upon before a British jury. " I went there with my friend, Miss Petheridge " I began. " Oh, Miss Petheridge once more — you hunt in couples ? " " Accompanied and chaperoned by a married lady, the wife of a Major Balmossie, on the Bombay Staff Corps." " That was certainly prudent. One ought to be chape- roned. Can you produce the lady ? " " How is it possible ? " I cried. " Mrs. Balmossie is in India." " Yes; but the Maharajah, I understand, is in London ? " " That is true," I answered. " And he came to meet you on your arrival yesterday." " With Lady Georgina Fawley," I cried, taken off my guard. " Do you not consider it curious," he asked, " that these Higginsons and these maharajahs should happen to follow you so closely round the world ? — should happen to turn up wherever you do ? " " He came to be present at this trial," I exclaimed. " And so did you. I believe he met you at Euston last night, and drove you to your hotel in his private carriage." *' With Lady Georgina Fawley," I answered, once more. " And Lady Georgina is on Mr. Tillington's side, I fancy ? Ah yes, I thought so. And Mr. Tillington also called to see you ; and likewise Miss Petherick — I beg your pardon, Petheridge. We must be strictly accurate — where Miss 286 Miss Cayley's Adventures Petlieridge is concerned. And, in fact, you had quite a little family party." > " My friends were glad to see me back again," I mur- mured. He sprang a fresh innuendo. " But Mr. Tillington did not resent your visit to this gallant Maharajah ? " " Certainly not," I cried, bridling. " Why should he?" " Oh, we 're getting to that too. Now answer me this carefully. We want to find out what interest you might have, supposing a will were forged, on either side, in arrang- ing its terms. We want to find out just who would benefit by it. Please reply to this question, yes or no, without pre- varication. Are you or are you not conditionally engaged to Mr. Harold Tillington ? " " If I might explain " I began, quivering. He sneered. " You have a genius for explaining, we are aware. Answer me first, yes or no ; we will qualify after- ward." I glanced appealingly at the judge. He was adamant. " Answer as counsel directs you, witness," he said, sternly. " Yes, I am," I faltered. " But " " Excuse me one moment. You promised to marry him conditionally upon the result of Mr. Ashurst's testamentary dispositions ? " " I did," I answered ; " but " My explanation was drowned in roars of laughter, in which the judge joined, in spite of himself. When the mirth in court had subsided a little, I went on : "I told Mr. Till- ington I would only marry him in case he was poor and without expectations. If he inherited Mr. Marmaduke The Cross-Eyed (j. C. 287 Ashiirst's money, I could never be his wife." I said it proudly. The cross-eyed Q. C. drew himself up and let his rotundity take care of itself. " Do you take me," he enquired, " for one of Her Majesty's horse-marines ? " There was another roar of laughter — feebly suppressed by a judicial frown — and I slank away, annihilated. " You can go," my persecutor said. " I think we have got — well, everything we wanted from you. You promised to marry him, if all went ill ! That is a delicate feminine way of putting it. Women like these equivocations. They relieve one from the onus of .speaking frankly." I stood down from the box, feeling, for the fir.st time in ni}' life, conscious of having scored an ignominious failure. Our counsel did not care to re-examine me ; I recognised that it would be useless. The hateful Q. C. had put all mj' history in such an odious light that explanation could only make matters worse — it must savour of apology. The jury could never understand my point of view. It could never be made to see that there are adventuresses and advent- uresses. Then came the final speeches on either side. Harold's advocate said the best he could in favour of the will our party propounded ; but his best was bad ; and what galled me most was this — I could see he himself did not believe in its genuineness. His speech amounted to little more than a perfunctory attempt to put the most favourable tace on a probable forgery. As for the cro.ss-eyed Q. C, he rose to reply with humor- ous confidence. Swaying his big body to and fro, he crumpled our will and our case in his fat fingers like so 288 Miss Cayley's Adventures much flimsy tissue-paper. Mr. Ashurst had made a dis- position of his property twenty years ago — the right dispo- sition, the natural disposition ; he had left the bulk of it as childless English gentlemen have ever been wont to leave their wealth — to the eldest son of the eldest son of his famil}-. The Honourable Marmaduke Courtney Ashurst, the testator, was the scion of a great house, which recent agricultural changes, he regretted to say, had relatively impoverished ; he had come to the succour of that great house, as such a scion should, with his property acquired by honest industry elsewhere. It was fitting and reasonable that Mr. Ashurst should wish to see the Kynaston peerage regain, in the per- son of the amiable and accomplished young nobleman whom he had the honour to represent, some portion of its ancient dignity and splendour. But jealousy and greed inter\'ened. (Here he frowned at Harold.) Mr. Harold Tillington, the son of one of Mr. Ashurst's married sisters, cast longing eyes, as he had tried to suggest to them, on his cousin Lord Southminster's natural heritage. The result, he feared, was an unnatural intrigue. Mr. Harold Tillington formed the acquaintance of a young lady — should we say j'oung lady ? (he withered me with his glance) — well, yes, a lady, indeed, by birth and education, but an adventuress by choice — a lady who, brought up in a respectable, though not (he must admit) a distinguished sphere, had lowered herself by accepting the position of a lady's maid, and had trafficked in patent American cycles on the public highroads of Germany and Switzerland. This clever and designing woman (he would grant her ability — he would grant her good looks) had fascinated Mr. Tillington — that was the theory he ventured to lay before the jury to- The Cross-Eyed Q. C. 289 day ; and the jury would see for themselves that whatever else the young lady might be, she had distinctly a certain outer gift of fascination. It was for them to decide whether Miss I^ois Cayley had or had not suggested to Mr. Harold Tillington the design of substituting a forged will for Mr. Marniaduke Ashurst's undeniable testament. He would point out to them her singular connection with the missing man Higginson, whom the young lady herself described as a rogue, and from whom she had done her very best to dis- sociate herself in this court — but ineffectually. Wherever Miss Cayley went, the man Higginson went independently. Such frequent recurrences, such apt juxtapositions, could hardly be set down to mere accidental coincidence. He went on to insinuate that Higginson and I had con- cocted the disputed will between us ; that we had passed it on to our fellow-conspirator, Harold ; and that Harold had forged his uncle's signature to it, and had appended those of the two supposed witnesses. But who, now, were these wit- nesses ? One, Franz Markheim, was dead or missing ; dead men tell no tales : the other was obviously suggested by Higginson. It was his own sister. Perhaps he forged her name to the document. Doubtless he thought that family feeliug would induce her, when it came to the pinch, to ac- cept and endorse her brother's lie ; nay, he might even have been foolish enough to suppose that this cock-and-bull will would not be disputed. If so, he and his master had reck- oned without Lord Southminster, a gentleman who concealed beneath the careless exterior of a man of fashion the solid intelligence of a man of affairs, and the hard head of a man not to be lightly cheated in matters of business. The alleged will had thus not a leg to stand upon. It was •9 290 Miss Caylcy's Adventures " typewritten " (save the mark !) " from dictation " at Florence, by whom ? By the lady who had most to gain from its success — the lady who was to be transformed from a shady adventuress, tossed about between Irish doctors and Hindoo maharajahs, into the lawful wife of a wealthy dip- lomatist of noble family, on one condition only — if this pretended will could be satisfactorily established. The sig- natures were forgeries, as shown by the expert evidence, and also bj' the oath of the one surviving witness. The will left all the estate — practically — to Mr. Harold Tillington, and five hundred pounds to whom ? — why, to the accomplice Higginson. The minor bequests the Q. C. re- garded as ingenious inventions, pure play of fancy, ** in- tended to give artistic verisimilitude," as Pooh-Bah says in the opera, ** to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narra- tive." The fads, it was true, were known fads of Mr. Ashurst's ; but what sort of fads ? Bimetallism ? Anglo- Israel ? No, braces and shoe-horns — clearly the kind that would best be known to a courier like Higginson, the sole begetter, he believed, of this nefarious conspiracy. The cross-eyed Q. C, lifting his fat right hand in solemn adjuration, called upon the jury confidently to set aside this ridiculous fabrication, and declare for a will of undoubted genuineness, a will drawn up in London by a firm of eminent solicitors, and preserved ever since by the testator's bankers. It would then be for his lordship to decide whether in the public interest he should recommend the Crown to prosecute on a charge of forgery the clumsy fabricator of this pre- posterous document. The judge summed up — strongly in favour of Lord South- minster's will. If the jury believed the experts and Miss The Cross-Hycd Q. C. 291 IIiKRi'ison, one verdict alone wns possible. The jury retired for three niiniiles only. It was a foregone conclusion. They ^i2^U^ 1 REELED WHERE I SAT. found for Lord Southminster. The judge, looking grave, concurred in their finding. A most proper verdict. And he considered it would be the duty ot the Public Prosecutor to pursue Mr. Harold Tillington on the charge of forgery. '-"■J — .- i'>-' 292 Miss Caylcy's Adventures I reeled where I sat. Then I looked round for Harold. He had slipped from the court, unseen, during counsel's address, some minutes earlier ! That distressed me more than anything else on that dread- ful da}'. I wished he had stood up in his place like a man to face this vile and cruel conspiracy. I walked out slowly, supported by Lady Georgina, who was as white as a ghost herself, but very straight and scorn- fid. " I always knew Southminster was a fool," she said aloud ; " I always knew he was a sneak ; but I did not know till now he was also a particularly bad type of criminal." On the steps of the court, the pea-green young man met us. His air was jaunty. " Well, I was right, yah see," he said, smiling and withdrawing his cigarette. " You backed the wrong fellah ! I told you I 'd win. I won't say moah now ; this is not the time or place to recur to that subject ; but, by-and-by, you '11 come round ; you '11 think bettali of it still ; 3'ou '11 back the winnah ! " I wished I were a man, that I might have the pleasure of kicking him. We drove back to my hotel and waited for Harold. To my horror and alarm, he never came near us. I might almost have doubted him — if he had not been Harold. I waited and waited. He did not come at all. He sent no word, no message. And all that evening we heard the newsboys shouting at the top of their voice in the street : " Kxtra Spcshul ! the Ashurst Will Kise ; Sensational De- velopments ! Mysterious Disappearance of Mr. 'Arold Tillington." CHAPTER XI 1 THE ADVRNTURK OK TIIK ORIKXTAL ATTENDANT DID not sleep that night. Next morning, I rose very- early from a restless bed with a dry, hot mouth, and a general feeling that the solid earth had failed beneath me. Still no news from Harold ! It was cruel, I thought. My faith almost flagged. He was a man and should be brave. How could he run away snd hide himself at such a time ? Even if I set my own anxiet}' aside, just think to what vSerious misapprehension it laid him open ! I sent out for the morning papers. They were full of Harold. Rumours, rumours, rumours ! Mr. Tillington had deliberately choseti to put himself in the wrong by dis- appearing mysteriously at the last moment. He had only himself to blame if the worst interpretation were put upon his action. But the police were on his track ; Scotland Yard had " a clue " , it was confidently expected an arrest would be made before evening at latest. As to details, authorities differed. The officials of the Great Western Railway at Paddington were convinced that Mr. Tillington had started, alone and undisguised, by the night express for P^xeter. The South Eastern inspectors at Charing Cross, on the other 2<)3 294 Miss Cayley's Adventures hand, were equally certain that he had slipped away with a false beard, in company with his " accomplice " Higginson, by the 8.15 p.m. to Paris. Everybody took it for granted, however, that he had left London. Conjecture played with various ultimate destinations — Spain, Morocco, Sicily, the Argentine. In Italy, said the Chronicle, he might lurk for a while — he spoke Italian fluently, and could manage to put up at tiny ostcric in out- of-the-way places seldom visited by Englishmen. He might try AJbania, said the Morning Post, airing its exclusive "society" information; he had often hunted there, and might in turn be hunted. He would probably attempt to slink away to some remote spot in the Carpathians or the Balkans, said the Daily Nczvs, quite proud of its geography. Still, wherever he went, leaden-footed justice in this age, said the Times, must surely overtake him. The day of uni- versal extradition had dawned ; we had no more Alsatias : even the Argentine itself gives up its rogues — at last ; not an asylum for crime remains in Europe, not a refuge in Asia, Africa, America, Australia, or the Pacific Islands. I noted with a shudder of horror that all the papers alike took his guilt as certain. In spite of a few decent pretences at not prejudging an untried cause, they treated him already as the detected criminal, the fugitive from justice. I sat in my little sitting-room at the hotel in Jermyn Street, a limp rag, looking idly out of the window with anxious eyes, and waiting for Lady Georgina. It was early, too early, but — oh, why did n't .she come ! Unless somebody soon sym- pathised with me, my heart would break under this load of loneliness ! Presently, as I looked out on the sloppy morning street. The Oriental Attendant -95 I was vaguely aware through the mist that floated before my dry eyes (for tears were denied me) of a very grand carriage driving up to the doorway — the porch with the four wooden Ionic pillars. I took no heed of it. I was too heart-sick for observation. My life was wrecked, and Harold's with it. Yet, dimly through the mist, I became conscious after a while that the carriage was that of an Indian prince ; I could see the black faces, the white turbans, the gold brocades of the attendants in the dickey. Then it came home to me with a pang that this was the Maharajah. It was kindly meant ; yet after all that had been insinu- ated in court the day before, I was by no means overpleased that his dusky Highness should come to call upon me. Walls have eyes and ears. Reporters were hanging about all over London, eager to distinguish themselves by success- ful eavesdropping. Thej^ would note, with brisk innuendoes after their kind, how " the Maharajah of Moozuffernuggar called early in the day on Miss Lois Cayley, with whom he remained for at least half an hour in close consultation," I had half a mind to send down a message that I could not see him. My face still burned with the undeserved shame of the cross-eyed Q. C.'s unspeakable suggestions. Before I could make my mind up, however, I saw to my surprise that the Maharajah did not propose to come in him- self. He leaned back in his place with his lordly Eastern air, and waited, looking down on the gapers in the street, while one of the two gorgeous attendants in the dickey de- scended obsequiously to ''eceive his orders. The man was dressed as usual in rich Oriental stuffs, and wore his full white turban swathed in folds round his head. I could not see his features. He bent forward respectfully with Oriental 296 Miss Cayley's Adventures suppleness to take his Highness's orders. Then, receiving a card and bowing low, he entered the porch with the wooden Ionic pillars, and disappeared within, while the Maharajah THE MKSSENGER ENTERED. folded his hands and seemed to resign himself to a temporary Nirvana. A minute later, a knock sounded on my door. " Come ill ! " I said, faintly ; and the messenger entered. I turned and faced him. The l)lood rushed to my cheek. " Harold ! " I cried, darting forward. My joy overcame me. The Oriental Attendant 297 He folded me in his arms. I allowed him, unreproved. For the first time he kissed me. I did not shrink from it. Then I stood away a little and gazed at him. Even at that crucial moment of doubt and fear, I could not help noticing how admirably he made up as a handsome young Rajput. Three years earlier, at Schlangenbad, I remem- bered, he had struck me as strangely Oriental-looking : he had the features of a high-born Indian gentleman, without the complexion. His large, poetical eyes, his regular, oval face, his even teeth, his mouth and moustache, all vaguely recalled the highest type of the Eastern temperament. Now, he had blackened his face and hands with some permanent stain — Indian ink, I learned later — and the resemblance to a Rajput chief was positivelj' startling. In his gold brocade and ample white turban, no passer-by, I felt sure, would ever have dreamt of doubting him. " Then you knew me at once ? " he said, holding my face between his hands. " That 's bad, darling ! I flattered myself I had transformed my face into the complete Indian." ' * Love has sharp eyes, ' ' I answered. * * It can see through brick walls. But the disguise is perfect. No one else would detect you." " Love is blind, I thought." " Not where it ought to see. There, it pierces everything. I knew you instantly, Harold. But all London, I am .sure, would pass you by, unknown. You are absolute Orient." " That 's well ; for all London is looking for me," he an- swered, bitterly. " The .streets bristle with detectives. Southminster's knaveries have won the day. So I have tried this disguise. Otherwise, I should have been arrested the moment the jury brought in their verdict." 298 Miss Caylcy's Adventures "And why were you not?" I asked, drawing back. " Oh, Harold, I trust you ; but why did you disappear and make all the world believe you admitted yourself guilty?" He opened his arms. "Can't you guess?" he cried, holding them out to me. I nestled in them once more ; but I answered through my tears — I had found tears now — "No, Harold; it baffles me." " You remember what you promised me ? " he murmured, leaning over me and clasping me. " If ever I were poor, friendless, hunted — you would marry me. Now the oppor- tunity has come when we can both prove ourselves. To-day, except you and dear Georgey, I have n't a friend in the world. Everyone else has turned against me. Southminster holds the field. I am a suspected forger ; in a very few days I shall doubtless be a convicted felon. Unjustly, as you know ; yet still — we must face it — a convicted felon. So I have come to claim you. I have come to ask you now, in this moment of despair, will you keep your promise ? ' ' I lifted my face to his. He bent over it trembling. I whispered the words in his ear. " Yes, Harold, I will keep it. I have always loved you. And now I will marry you. ' ' " I knew you would ! " he cried, and pressed me to his bosom. We sat for some minutes, holding each other's hands, and saying nothing ; we were too full of thought for words. Then, suddenly, Harold roused himself. " We must make haste, darling," he cried. " We are keeping Partab outside, The Oriental Attendant 299 and every minute is precious, every minute's delay danger- ous. We ought to go down at once. Partab's carriage is waiting at the door for us." "Go down?" I exclaimed, clinging to him. "How? Why ? I don't understand. What is your programme ? " " Ah, I forgot I had n't explained to you ! Listen here, dearest — quick ; I can waste no words over it. I said just now I had no friends in the world but you and Georgey. That 's not true, for dear old Partab has stuck to me nobly. When all my English friends fell away, the Rajput was true to me. He arranged all this ; it was his own idea ; he fore- saw what was coming. He urged me yesterday, just before the verdict (when he saw my acquaintances beginning to look askance), to slip quietly out of court, and make my way by unobtrusive roads to his house in Curzon Street. There, he darkened my face like his, and converted me to Hindooism. I don't suppose the disguise will serve me for more than a day or two ; but it will last long enough for us to get safely away to Scotland." " Scotland ? " I murmured. " Then you mean to try a Scotch marriage ? " "It is the only thing possible. We must be married to- day, and in England, of course, we cannot do it. We would have to be called in church, or else to procure a license, either of which would involve disclosure of my identity. Besides, ev^en the license would keep us waiting about for a day or two. In Scotland, on the other hand, we can be married at once. Partab's carriage is below, to take you to King's Cross. He is staunch as steel, dear fellow. Do you consent to go with me ? " My faculty for promptly making up such mind as I possess 300 Miss Cayley's Adventures stood me once more in good stead. " Implicitly," I an- swered. " Dear Harold, this calamity has its happy side — for without it, much as I love you, I could never have brought myself to marry you ! " " One moment," he cried. " Before you go, recollect, this step is irrevocable. You will marry a man who may be torn from you this evening, and from whom fourteen years of prison may separate you." *' I know it," I cried, through my tears. " But — I shall be showing my confidence in you, my love for you." He kissed me once more, fervently. " This makes amends for all," he cried. " Lois, to have won such a woman as you, I would go through it all a thousand times over. It was for this, and for this alone, that I hid myself last night. I wanted to give you the chance of showing me how much, how truly, you loved me." . " And after we are married ? " I asked, trembling. " I shall give myself up at once to the police in Kdin- burgh." I clung to him wistfully. My heart half led me to urge him to escape. But I knew that was wrong. " Give your- self up, then," I said, sobbing. " It is a brave man's place. You must stand your trial; and, come what will, I will strive to bear it with you." " I knew you would," he cried. " I was not mistaken in you." We embraced again, just once. It was little enough after those years of waiting. " Now come ! " he cried. " L,et us go." I drew back. " Not with you, dearest," I whisoered. " Not in the Maharajah's carriage. You must start by The Oriental Attendant 30 ^ yourself. I will follow you at once, to King's Cross, in a hansom." He saw I was right. It would avoid suspicion, and it would prevent more scandal. He withdrew without a word. " We meet," I said, " at ten, at King's Cross Station." I did not even wait to wash the tears from my eyes. All red as they were, I put on my hat and my little brown travelling jacket. I don't think I so much as glanced once at the glass. The seconds were precious. I saw the Maha- rajah drive away, with Harold in the dickey, arms crossed, imperturbable, Orientally silent. He looked the very counterpart of the Rajput by his side. Then I descended the stairs and walked out boldly. As I passed through the hall, the servants and the visitors stared at me and whispered. They spoke with nods and liftings of the eyebrows. I was aware that that morning I had achieved notoriety. At Piccadilly Circus, I jumped of a sudden into a passing hansom. " King's Cross ! " I cried, as I mounted the step. " Drive quick ! I have no time to spare." And, as the man drove off, I saw, by a convulsive dart of someone across the road, that I had given the slip to a disappointed reporter. At the station I took a first-class ticket for Edinburgh. On the platform, the Maharajah and his attendants were waiting. He lifted his hat to me, though otherwise he took no overt notice. But I saw his keen eyes follow me down the train. Harold, in his Oriental dress, pretended not to observe me. One or two porters, and a few curious travel- lers, cast enquiring eyes on the Eastern prince, and made re- marks about him to one another. " That 's the chap as was up yesterday in the Ashurst will kise ! " said one lounger to his neighbour. But nobody seemed to look at Harold ; his 302 Miss Cayley's Adventures subordinate position secured him from curiosity. The Maha- rajah had always two Eastern servants, gorgeously dressed, in attendance ; he had been a well-known figure in London society, and at Lord's and the Oval, for two or three seasons. " Bloomin' fine cricketer ! " one porter observed to his mate as he passed. " Yuss ; not so dusty for a nigger," the other man replied. " Fust-rite bowler ; but, Lord, he can't 'old a candle to good old Ranji." As for myself, nobody seemed to recognise me. I set this fact down to the fortunate circumstance that the evening papers had published rough wood-cuts which professed to be my portrait, and which naturally led the public to look out for a brazen-faced, raw-boned, hard-featured termagant. I took my seat in a ladies' compartment by myself. As the train was about to start, Harold strolled up as if casually for a moment. "You think it better so?" he queried, without moving his lips or seeming to look at me. " Decidedly," I answered. " Go back to Partab. Don't come near me again till w^e get to Edinburgh. It is danger- ous still. The police maj'^ at any moment hear we have started and stop us half-way ; and now that we have once committed ourselves to this plan it would be fatal to be inter- rupted before we have got married." " You are right," he cried ; " Lois, you are always right, somehow. ' ' I wished I could think .so myself; but 't was with serious misgivings that I felt the train roll out of the station. Oh, that long journey north, alone, in a ladies' compart- ment — with the feeling that Harold was so near, yet so unapproachable ; it was an endless agony. He had the The Oriental Attendant 3<^3 Maharajah, who loved and admired him, to keep him from brooding ; but I, left alone, and confined with my own fears, conjured up before my eyes every possible misfortune that Heaven could send us. I saw clearly now that if we failed in our purpose this journey would be taken by everyone for a flight, and would deepen the suspicion under which we both laboured. It would make me still more obviously a conspirator with Harold. Whatever happened, we must strain every nerve to reach Scotland in safetj% and then to get married, in order that Harold might immediately surrender himself. At York, I noticed with a thrill of terror that a man in plain clothes, with the obtrusively unobtrusive air of a de- tective, looked carefully though casually into every carriage. I felt sure he was a spy, because of his marked outer jaunti- ness of demeanour, which hardly masked an underlying hang-dog expression of scrutiny. When he reached my place, he took a long, careless stare at me — a seemingly careless stare, which was yet brimful of the keenest observa- tion. Then he paced slowly along the line of carriages, with a glance at each, till he arrived just opposite the Maharajah's compartment. There he stared hard once more. The Ma- harajah descended; so did Harold and the Hindoo attendant, who was dressed just like him. The man I took for a de- tective indulged in a frank, long gaze at the unconscious Indian prince, but cast only a hasty eye on the two apparent followers. That touch of revelation relieved my mind a little. I felt convinced the police were watching the Maha- rajah and myself, as suspicious persons connected with the case ; but they had not yet guessed that Harold had di.s- guised himself as one of the two invariable Rajput servants. 304 Miss Cayley's Adventures We steamed on northward. At Newcastle, the same de- tective strolled, with his hands in his pockets, along the train once more, and puffed a cigar with the nonchalant air of a sporting gentleman. But I was certain now, from the studious unconcern he was anxious to exhibit, that he must 1 HE TOOK A LONG, CARELESS STARE AT MK. be a spy upon us. He overdid his mood of careless observa- tion. It was too obvious an assumption. Precisely the same thing happened again when we pulled up at Berwick, I knew now that we were watched. It would be impossible for us to get married at Edinburgh if we were thus closely pursued. There was but one chance open ; we nuist leave the train abruptly at the first Scotch stopping station. The Oriental Attendant 305 The detective knew we were booked through for Edin- burgh. So much I conld tell, because I saw him make en- (luiries of the ticket examiner at York, and again at Berwick, and because the ticket-examiner thereupon entered a mental note of the fact as he punched my ticket each time : "Oh, Kdinburgh, miss ? All right " ; and then stared at me sus- piciously. I could tell he had heard of the Ashurst will case. He also lingered long about the Maharajah's com- partment, and then went back to confer with the detective. Thus, putting two and two together, as a woman will, I came to the conclusion that the spy did not expect us to leave the train before we reached Edinburgh. That told in our favour. Most men trust much to just such vague expecta- tions. They form a theorj', and then neglect the adverse chances. You can only get the better of a skilled detective by taking him thus, psychologically and humanly. By this time, I confess, I felt almost like a criminal. Never in my life had danger loomed so near — not even when we returned with the Arabs from the oasis. For then we feared for our lives alone ; now, we feared for our honour. I drew a card from my case before we left Berwick station, and scribbled a few hasty words on it in German. " We are watched. A detective ! If we run through to Edinburgh, we shall doubtless be arrested or at least impeded. This train will stop at Dunbar for one minute. Just before it leaves again, get out as quietly as you can — at the last mo- ment. I will also get out and join you. Let Partab go on ; it will excite le.ss attention. The .scheme I suggest is the only safe plan. If you agree, as soon as we have well started from Berwick, shake your handkerchief unobtrusively out of your carriage window." 3o6 Miss Caylcy's Adventures I beckoned a porter noiselessly without one word. The detective was now strolling along the fore-part of the train, with his back turned towards nie, peering as he went into all the windows. I gave the porter a shilling. "Take this to a black gentleman in the next carriage but one," I said, in a confiden- tial whisper. The porter touched his hat, nodded, smiled, and took it. Would Harold see the necessity for acting on my advice ? — I wondered. I gazed out along the train as soon as we had got well clear of Berwick. A min- ute — two mi nutes — three minutes passed ; and still no handkerchief. I began to despair. He was debat- ing, no doubt. If he re- fused, all was lost, and we were disgraced for ever. At last, after long wait- ing, as I stared still along the whizzing line, with the smoke in my eyes, and the dust half blinding me, I saw, to my intense relief, a handker- chief flutter. It fluttered once, not markedly, then a black hand withdrew it. Only just in time, for even as it disap- peared, the detective's head thrust itself out of a farther I BIXKONED A PORTKR. The Oriental Attendant 3^7 window. He was not looking for anything in particular, as far as I could tell — ^just observing the signals. But it gave me a strange thrill to think even now we were so nearly defeated. My next trouble was — would the train draw up at Dunbar ? The lo A.M. from King's Cross is not set down to stop there in Bradshaw, for no passengers are booked to or from the station by the day express ; but I remembered from of old, when I lived at Edinburgh, that it used always to wait about a minute for some engine-driver's purpose. This doubt filled me with fresh fear ; did it draw up there still ? — they have accelerated the service so much of late years, and abolished so many old accustomed stoppages. I counted the familiar stations with my breath held back. They seemed so much farther apart than usual. Reston-— Grant's House — Cock- burn.spath — Innerwick. The next was Dunbar. If we rolled past f/ia^, then all was lost. We could never get married. I trembled and hugged myself. The engine screamed. Did that mean .she was ruiniing through ? Oh, how I wished I had learned the interpreta- tion of the signals ! Then gradually, gently, we began to slow. Were we slowing to pass the station only ? No ; with a jolt she drew up. My heart gave a bound as I read the word " Dunbar " on the station notice-board. I rose and waited, with my fingers on the door. Happily it had one of those new-fa.shioned .slip-latches which open from the inside. No need to betray myself prematurely to the detective by a hand displayed on the outer handle. I glanced out at him cautiously. His head was thrust through 3o8 Miss Cayley's Adventures his window, and his sloping shoulders revealed the sp}-, but he was looking the other way — observing the signals, douljt- less, to discover why we stopped at a place not mentioned in Bradshaw. Harold's face just showed from another window close by. Too soon or too late might either of them be fatal. He glanced enquiry at me. I nodded back, " Now ! " The train gave its first jerk, a faint backward jerk, indicative of the nascent intention of starting. As it braced itself to go on, I jumped out ; so did Harold. We faced one another on the platform without a word. "Stand away, there," the station-master cried, in an angry voice. The guard waved his green flag. The detective, still absorbed on the signals, never once looked back. One second later, we were safe at Dunbar, and he was speeding away by the express for Edinburgh. It gave us a breathing space of about an hour. For half a minute I could not speak. My heart was in my mouth. I hardly even dared to look at Harold. Then the station-master stalked up to us with a threatening manner. " You can't get out here," he said, crustily, in a gruff" Scotch voice. " This train is not timed to set down before Edin- burgh." " We have got out," I answered, taking it upon me to speak for my fellow-culprit, the Hindoo — as he was to all seeming. " The logic of facts is with us. We were booked through to Edinburgh, but we wanted to stop at Dunbar ; and as the train happened to pull up, we thought we need n't waste time by going on all that way and then coming back again." " Ye should have changed at Berwick," the station-master The Oriental Attendant 309 said, still gruffly, " and come on by the slow train." I could see his careful Scotch soul was vexed (incidentally) at our extravagance in paying the extra fare to Edinburgh and back again. In spite of agitation, I managed to summon YOU CAN T GET OUT UEKE, HE SAID, CRUSTILY. Up one of my sweetest smiles — a smile that ere now had melted the hearts of rickshaw coolies and of French douanicrs. He thawed before it visibly. " Time was important to us," I said — oh, he guessed not how important ; " and besides, you know, it is so good for the company ! " 310 Miss Caylcy's Adventures " That 's so," he answered, molHfied. He could not tilt against the interests of tlie North British shareholders, "But how about yer luggage ? It '11 have gone on to Edin- burgh, I 'm thinking." " We have no luggage," I answered boldly. He stared at us both, puckered his brow a moment, and then burst out laughing. " Oh, ay, I see," he answered, with a comic air of amusement. " Well, well, it 's none of my business, no doul)t, and I will not interfere with ye ; though why a lady like you " He glanced curiously at Harold. I saw he had guessed right, and thought it best to throw myself unreservedly on his mercy. Time was indeed im- portant. I glanced at the station clock. It was not very far from the stroke of six, and we must manage to get mar- ried before the detective could miss us at Ivdinburgh, where he was due at 6.30. So I smiled once more that heart-softening smile. "We have each our own fancies," I said, blushing — and, indeed (such is the pride of race among women), I felt myself blush at the bare idea that I was marrying a black man, in spite of our good Maharajah's kindness. " He is a gentleman, and a man of education and culture." I thought that recom- mendation ought to tell with a Scotchman. " We are in sore straits now, but our case is a just one. Can you tell me who in this place is most likely to sympathise — most likely to marry us ? " He looked at me — and surrendered at discretion. " I should think anybody would marry ye who saw yer pretty face and heard yer sweet voice," he answered. " But perhaps ye 'd better present yerself to Mr. Schoolcraft, The Oriental Attendant the U. P. minister at Little Kirkton. hearted." " How far from liere ? " I asked. " About two inilL'S," lie answered. " Can we ^-et a trap ? " He was ay soft- \VK l(il.l) (H.'K lAI.I " Oh, a\', there 's machines always waitiiiij^ at the station." We interviewed a "machine" and drove out to Little Kirkton. Tlh.Te, we told our tale in the fewest words possi- ble to the obliging- and good-natured II. P. minister. He looked, as the station-master had said, " soft-hearted " ; but he dashed our hopes to the ground at once by telliug us 312 Miss Caylcy's Adventures candidly that unless we had had our residence in Scotland for twenty-one days preceding the marriage, it would not be legal. " If you were Scotch," he added, " I could go through the ceremony at once, of course ; and then you could apply to the sheriff to-night for leave to register the marriage in proper form afterward ; but as one of you is English, and the other, I judge " — he smiled and glanced towards Harold — " an Indian-born subject of Her Majesty, it would be impossible for me to do it : the ceremony would be invalid, under Lord Brougham's Act, without previous residence. ' ' This was a terrible blow. I looked away appealingly. " Harold," I cried in despair, " do you think we could manage to hide ourselves safely anywhere in Scotland for twenty-one days ? ' ' His face fell. "How could I escape notice? All the world is hunting for me. And then the scandal ! No matter where you stopped — however far from me — no, Lois darling, I could never expose you to it." The minister glanced from one to the other of us, puzzled. " Harold ? " he said, turning over the word on his tongue. " Harold ? That does n't .sound like an Indian name, does it? And " he hesitated, " you speak w^onderful Eng- lish ! " I saw the safest plan was to make a clean breast of it. He looked the sort of man one could trust on an emergency. " You have heard of the Ashurst will case ? " I said, blurt- ing it out suddenly. " I have seen something about it in the newspapers ; yes-. But it did not interest me : I have not followed it." I told him the whole truth ; the case against us — the facts The Oriental Attendant 3^3 as we knew them. Then I added slowly: "This is Mr. Harold Tillington, whom they accuse of forgery. Does he look like a forger ? I want to marry him before he is tried. It is the only way by which I can prove my implicit trust in him. As soon as we are married, he will give himself up at once to the police — if you wish it, before your eyes. But married we must be. Can't you manage it somehow ? " My pleading voice touched him. " Harold Tillington ? " he murmured. " I know of his forbears. Lady Guinevere Tillington' s son, is it not ? Then you must be Younger of GledclifFe." For Scotland is a village ; everyone in it seems to have heard of every other. " What does he mean ? " I asked. " Younger of Gled- cliffe ? " I remembered now that the phrase had occurred in Mr. Ashurst's will, though I never understood it. " A Scotch fashion," Harold answered. " The heir to a laird is called Younger of so-and-so. My father has a small estate of that name in Dumfriesshire, — a very small estate ; I was born and brought up there." " Then you are a Scotchman ? " the minister asked. " Yes," Harold answered frankly ; " by remote descent. We are trebly of the female line at Gledcliffe ; still, I am no doubt more or less Scotch by domicile." " Younger of Gledcliffe ! Oh, yes, that ought certainly to be quite sufficient for our purpose. Do 3'ou live there ? " " I have been living there lately. I always live there when I 'm in Britain. It is my only home. I belong to the diplomatic service." " But then— the lady ? " " She is unmitigatedly English," Harold admitted, in a gloomy voice. 3H Miss Caylcy's Adventures " Not quite," I answered. " I lived four years in Edin- burgh. And I spent my liolidays there while I was at Girton. I keep my boxes still at my old rooms in Maitland Street." " Oh, that will do," the minister answered, quite relieved; for it was clear that our anxiety and the touch of romance in our tale had enlisted him in our favour. " Indeed, now I come to think of it, it suffices for the Act if one only of the parties is domiciled in Scotland. And as Mr. Tillington lives habitually at Gledcliffe, that settles the question. Still, I can do nothing save marry you now by religious service in the presence of my servants — which constitutes what we call an ecclesiastical marriage — it becomes legal if afterwards registered ; and then you must apply to the sheriff for a warrant to register it. But I will do what I can ; later on, if you like, you can be re-married by the rites of your own Church in England." " Are you quite sure our Scotch domicile is good enough in law ? " Harold asked, still doubtful. " I can turn it up, if you wish. I have a legal hand-book. Before Lord Brougham's Act, no formalities were necessary. But the Act was passed to prevent Gretna Green marriages. The usual phrase is that such a marriage does not hold good unless one or other of the parties either has had his or her usual residence in Scotland, or else has lived there for twenty-one days immediately preceding the date of the mar- riage. If you like, I will wait to consult the authorities." " No, thank you," I cried. " There is no time to lose. Marry us first, and look it up afterwards. ' One or other ' will do, it seems. Mr. Tillington is Scotch enough, I am sure ; he has no address in Britain but Gledcliffe ; we will The Oriental Attendant 315 rest our claim upon that. Even if the marriage turns out invahd, we only remain where we were. This i.s a pre- liminary ceremony to prove good faith, and to bind us to one another. We can satisfy the law, if need be, when we return to England." The minister called in his wife and servants, and explained to them briefly. He exhorted us and prayed. We gave our solemn consent in legal form before two witnesses. Then he pronounced us duly married. In a quarter of an hour more, we had made declaration to that effect before the sheriff, the witnesses accompanying us, and were formally affirmed to be man and wife before the law of Great Britain. I asked if it would hold in England as well. " You could n't be firmer married," the sheriff said, with decision, " by the Archbishop of Canterbury in Westminster Abbey." Harold turned to the minister. "Will you send for the police ? " he said, calmly. " I wish to inform them that I am the man for whom they are looking in the Ashurst will case." Our own cabman went to fetch them. It was a terrible moment. But Harold sat in the sheriff's study and waited, as if nothing uiuisual were happening. He talked freely but quietly. Never in my life had I felt vSo proud of him. At last the police came, much inflated with the dignity of so great a capture, and took down our statement. " Do you give yourself in charge on a confession of forgery?" the superintendent asked, as Harold ended. " Certainly not," Harold answered. " I have not com- mitted forgery. But I do not wish to skulk or hide myself. I understand a warrant is out against me in London. I 3i6 Miss Caylcy's Adventures have come to Scotland, hurriedly, for the sake of getting married, not to escape apprehension. I am here, openly, under my own name. I tell you the facts : 't is for you to decide ; if you choose, you can arre.st me." The superinten- dent conferred for some time in an- other room with the sheriff. Then he returned to the study. "Very well, sir," he said, in a respect- ful tone, ' ' I arrest you." So that was the beginning of our married life. More than ever, I felt sure I could trust in Harold. The police de- cided, after hear- ing by telegram from L,ondon, that we must go up at once by the night express, which they stopped for the purpose. They were forced to divide us. I took the sleeping car ; Harold trav- elled with two constables in an ordinary carriage. Strange to say, notwithstanding all this, so great was our relief from M^ u I HAVE FOUND A CLUE. The Oriental Attendant 317 the tension of our flight, that we both slept soundly. Next morning we arrived in London, Harold guarded. The police had arranged that the case should come up at Bow Street that afternoon. It was not an ideal honeymoon, and yet, I was somehow happy. At King's Cross, they took him away from me. Still, I hardly cried. All the way up in the train, whenever I was awake, an idea had been haunting me — a possible clue to this trickery of Lord Southminster's. Petty details cropped up and fell into their places. I began to unravel it all now. I had an inkling of a plan to set Harold right again. The will we had proved but I must not anticipate. When we parted, Harold kissed me on the forehead, and murmured rather sadly, " Now, I suppose it 's all up. Lois, I must go. These rogues have been too much for us." " Not a bit of it," I answered, new hope growing stronger and stronger within me. " I see a way out. I have found a clue. I believe, dear Harold, the right will still be vindi- cated." And red-eyed as I was, I jumped into a hansom, and called to the cabman to drive at once to Lady Georgina's. CHAPTER XII THK ADVENTURE OF THE UNPROFESSIONAL DETECTIVE "IS Lady Georgina at home ? " The discreet man-servant 1^ in sober black clothes eyed me suspiciously. " No, miss," he answered. " That is to say — no, ma'am. Her ladyship is still at Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's — the late Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst, I mean — in Park Lane North. You know the number, ma'am ? " ** Yes, I know it," I replied, with a gasp ; for this was in- deed a triumph. My one fear had been lest Lord South- minster should already have taken possession — why, you will see hereafter; and it relieved me to learn that Lady Georgina was still at hand to guard my husband's interests. She had been living at the house, practically, since her brother's death. I drove round with all speed, and flung myself into my dear old lady's arms. " Kiss me," I cried, flushed. " I am your niece ! " But she knew it already, for our movements had been fully re- ported by this time (with picturesque additions) in the morning papers. Imagination, ill-developed in the English race, seems to concentrate itself in the lower order of journalists. She kissed me on both cheeks with unwonted tenderness. 318 The Unprofessional Detective 319 " Lois," she cried, with tears in her eyes, " you 're a brick ! " It was not exactly poetical at such a moment, but from her it meant more than much gushing phraseology. " And you 're here in possession ! " I murmured. The Cantankerous Old Lady nodded. She was in her element, I must admit. She dearly loved a row — above all, a family row ; but to be in the thick of a family row, and to feel herself in the right, with the law against her — that was joy such as Lady Georgina had seldom before experienced. " Yes, dear," .she burst out volubly, " I 'm in po.sse.ssion, thank Heaven! And what 's more, they won't oust me without a legal process. I 've been here, off and on, you know, ever since poor dear Marmy died, looking after things for Harold ; and I .shall look after them .still, till Bertie Southminster succeeds in ejecting me, which won't be easy. Oh, I 've held the fort by main force, I can tell you ; held it like a Trojan. Bertie 's in a precious hurry to move in, I can .see ; but I won't allow him. He 's been down here this morning, fatuou.sly blu.stering, and trying to carry the pest by storm, with a couple of policemen." " Policemen ! " I cried. " To turn you out ? " " Yes, my dear, policemen; but (the Lord be praised!) I was too much for him. There are legal formalities to fulfil yet ; and I won't budge an inch, Lois, not one inch, my dear, till he 's fulfilled every one of them. Mark my words, child, that boy 's up to some devilry." " He is," I answered. " Yes, he would n't be in such a rampaging hurry to get in — being as lazy as he 's empty-headed — takes after Gwen- doline in that — if he had n't some excellent reason for wishing to take possession : and depend upon it, the reason 320 Miss Cayley's Adventures is that he wants to get hold of something or other that 's Harold's. But he sha'n't if I can help it ; and, thank my stars, I 'm a dour woman to reckon with. If he comes, he comes over my old bones, child. I 've been overhauling everything of Marmy's, I can tell you, to checkmate the boy if I can ; but I 've found nothing yet, and till I 've satisfied 1 'VK llKl.I) Till-: I'OKT IIY MAIN KORCK myself on that point, I '11 hold the fort still, if I have to barricade that pasty-faced scoundrel of a nephew of mine out by piling the furniture against the front door — I will, as sure as my name 's Georgina Fawley ! " " I know you will, dear," I assented, kissing her, '* and so I shall venture to leave you, while I go out to institute another little enquiry." The Unprofessional Detective 32 j " What enquiry ? " I shook my head. " It 's only a surmise," I said, hesitat- ing. " I '11 tell you about it later. I 've had time to think while I 've been coming back in the train, and I 've thought of many things. Mount guard till I return, and mind you don't let Lord Southminster have access to anything." " I '11 shoot him first, dear." And I believe she meant it. I drove on in the same cab to Harold's solicitor. There I laid my fresh doubts at once before him. He rubbed his bony hands. " You 've hit it ! " he cried, charmed. " My dear madam, you 've hit it ! I never did like that will. I never did like the signatures, the witnesses, the look of it. But what could I do ? Mr. Tillington propounded it. Of course it was n't my bu.siness to go dead against my own client." "Then you doubted Harold's honour, Mr. Hayes?" I cried, flushing. " Never ! " he answered. " Never ! I felt sure there must be some mistake somewhere, but not any trickery on — your husband's part. Now, jou supply the right clue. We must look into it immediately." He hurried round with me at once in the same cab to the court. The incriminated will had been " impounded," as they call it ; but, under certain restrictions, and subject to the closest surveillance, I was allowed to examine it with my husband's solicitor, before the eyes of the authorities. I looked at it long with the naked eye and also with a small pocket lens. The paper, as I had noted before, was the same kind of foolscap as that which I had been in the habit of using at my office in Florence ; and the typewriting — was it mine ? The longer I looked at it, the more I doubted it. 322 Miss Caylcy's Adventures After a careful examination I turned round to our solicitor. " Mr. Hayes," I said, firmly, having arrived at my conclu- sion, ** this is not the document I typewrote at Florence." * ' How do you know ? " he asked. ' ' A different machine ? Some small peculiarity in the shape of the letters ? " NEVKK ! " IIK ANSWERF.I). " NK\ KR !' " No, the rogue who typed this will was too cunning for that. He did n't allow himself to be foiled by such a scholar's mate. It is written with a Spread E:igle, the same sort of machine precisely as my own. I know the type perfectly. But " I hesitated. " But what?" " Well, it is difficult to explain. There is character in The Unprofessional Detective 3-3 tj''pewriting, just as there is in handwriting, only, of course, not quite so much of it. Every operator is liable to his own peculiar tricks and blunders. If I had some of my own type- written manuscript here to show you, I could soon make that evident." " I can easily believe it. Individuality runs through all we do, however seemingly mechanical. But are the points of a sort that you could make clear in court to the satisfaction of a j ury ? ' ' " I think so. Look here, for example. Certain letters get habitually mixed up in typewriting ; c and v stand next one another on the keyboard of the machine, and the per.son who typed this draft sometimes strikes a c instead of a v, or 2'?V