THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 J 
 
 A 
 
 * 
 
 The Wife of Altatnont 
 
 i 
 
 1
 
 IRew 65. IRovjels 
 
 WHEN NO MAN PURSUETH. By Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, 
 Author of " Studies in Wives," etc. 
 
 DEVIOUS WAYS. By Gilbert Cannan. Author of 
 " Peter Homunculus," etc. 
 
 IN THE WAKE OFTHE GREEN BANNER. 
 
 By Eugene Paul Metour. 
 FORBIDDEN GROUND. By Gilbert Watson. 
 THE BOOK OF A BACHELOR. By C. Duncan Schwann. 
 THE SOUTHERNER. By Nicholas Worth. 
 THE DOP DOCTOR. By R■CH^RD Dehan. 
 THE DEVOURERS. By a. Vivanti Chartrks. 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 ai Bedford Street, W.C. 
 
 i
 
 The 
 
 Wife of Altamont 
 
 By 
 
 Violet Hunt 
 
 Author of 
 White Rose of Weary Leaf," etc. 
 
 London 
 
 William Heinemann 
 
 1910
 
 Copyright London igio by IVilliam Hei 
 
 nemann 
 
 i^'-*
 
 P/9 
 
 G>0\5 
 
 TO 
 MARY MARTINDALE 
 
 ^ OO-fl ri)^ ji
 
 In Hinderland, one cold October day, an important cere- 
 mony was toward — nothing less than the solemn christening 
 of a world baby — the work of many fierce and expert hands — 
 the child of capital and labour. This iron infant had been 
 framed to live, breathe, and have its being in the water : the 
 chrism with which it should be launched sacramentally into 
 its element must needs be wine. And to-day, at twelve 
 o'clock, the patient waters of the Arrow would cleave and 
 part to receive a solid body that would astonish them and 
 displace them to the extent of thousands of tons. 
 
 In the yard of Messrs. Veere, Avercamp, and Veere, the 
 world-famous shipbuilders of the north, the immense baby 
 lay, inert, on the brink of life till her hour should come. At 
 a given signal, the deft engineer who was responsible for her 
 would release her in the modern way, by the removal of one 
 little wonderful bolt, the knot of the whole complicated 
 system of ligatures which interdepended on its proud in- 
 significancy. That gone, there was nothing to stay the eager 
 nurseling. With a subtle, far-reaching tremor she would 
 move, inappreciably at first, soon so that all men should 
 see and admire the delicacy of her engineer's handling and 
 his dexterity in determining her course. She would settle 
 into her stride, and slip down, with the majestic delibera- 
 tion of all truly great things, suavely and without effort, as 
 a duck broadens its breast to a slat, and swings out into 
 the mill pond. She would slowly cleave the stream with her 
 keel, and, self-arresting, predestinated, lie down happily on
 
 2 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 the sullen surface of the waters. They would close round 
 her, they would lap her evermore, lovingly, faithfully, in- 
 separably, till what time the red rust should overcome her, 
 her corroded plates thin and splinter, and her weakened bolts 
 fall out and leave her disarrayed, and undone. Then, willy- 
 nilly, her splendid life would end ; she would sink to the 
 bottom of the sea, or be shamefully scrapped in some derelict 
 dockyard. 
 
 Men had made her, men would use her to their ends, men 
 would die in, with her, and through her. She was to be born, 
 launched on her career, henceforth a thing to count with, a 
 fierce, fully armed, monster baby stored with deadly ex- 
 uberant vitality. 
 
 In the breasts of the thousands of eager persons who stood 
 that day on the rough wooden staging of the yard of Messrs. 
 Veere, Avercamp, and Veere, anchored by expectant curiosity 
 to the sticky planks turgid with mud, for it had rained, was 
 raining, and would rain — thoughts such as these, conscious 
 and unconscious, harboured. Collected from the surround- 
 ing parts — for country it could not be called where roads, 
 mere channels of communication, ran black- bordered by 
 haggard ghosts of trees — by the absorbing interest of a 
 launch, most of these people had never seen such a thing 
 before, and would probably never care to come so far to give 
 themselves that particular thrill again. 
 
 It was new to a young girl, noticeable in the seedy, tweed- 
 clad north- country crowd, by reason of the brilliant hair 
 and colouring which Nature had given her, and the deter- 
 mined shade of the dress she had chosen to set off her beauty. 
 It was of a " whole " colour — no humble slavish mixture for 
 Miss Elizabeth New ! Like a bold, blue kingfisher, she flashed 
 out in a crowd of tame brown sparrows, and scorned to hold 
 an umbrella over herself. Other women might fly to that 
 awkward protection to shield the inconsistent borrowed 
 plumage that decked, and, as they would have said, put
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 3 
 
 " a bit of colour " about them. Elizabeth New rejoiced 
 in the fact that she was self- trimmed : rain might wet, but 
 could not dim, the living glory of her hair. 
 
 She was the only daughter of the rather exceptional Vicar 
 of Arske by his cook. He had married the woman all right — 
 he was that kind of man — but the living of Arske was a poor 
 one, and George New, in marrying, was aware that now he 
 would never get a better. No preferment would ever come 
 his way, though Mrs. New, as cooks go, was rather superior 
 and very pretty, albeit of a fluffy, soulless prettiness that 
 soon fades. The gentle vicar did not go about to add to 
 the disadvantages of the position he had made for himself 
 by sulking A\dth life, or bemoaning the consequences of his 
 indulgence of a supreme fit of self-will. Having hastily, care- 
 lessly made his bed, he lay on it quietly and did not toss. He 
 did, sometimes, contrive to hint to his young daughter that 
 the habit of taking the bit between one's teeth matrimonially 
 was apt to run in families, and that she must lie in wait 
 with herself to correct a tendency to marry suicidally. 
 
 The girl was inclined to be light like her mother, capricious 
 like her father. The scholar and gentleman knew he could 
 have educated and trained his daughter himself : he chose 
 quietly to forego that privilege, for her greater good. He 
 early deprived Mrs. New of her child's society and help by 
 sending her away, as soon as it was possible, to a much 
 better school than he could afford, and keeping her there as 
 long as he could and while he could not. He was in favour 
 of her accepting visits in between her terms, if possible. 
 Young Elizabeth, being of a gregarious disposition, and pos- 
 sessing long golden hair, that strong power of attraction in 
 schoolgirls for other schoolgirls, was snapped up for every 
 week of her holidays by adoring fellow-students with amusing, 
 luxurious homes. 
 
 She never perhaps realised, so softly did he perform the 
 sacrifice, the self-effacement, the tactful resignation of the
 
 4 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 male parent, patiently enduring, up there in his lonely north- 
 country parish, the deprivation of what might have been the 
 light of his days, and taking on himself the whole weight of 
 the society of the underbred woman he had chosen to make 
 the mother of his child. They always seemed the same, the 
 girl thought, " sweet stick-in-the-muds," " dear good pot- 
 tering people," when she returned, to do up her wardrobe — 
 in which art her mother showed a facility amounting to 
 genius — to lie by for a little, to tell her father about the 
 different people, the various strata of society she had seen 
 and studied, to show her mother what was worn and how 
 to wear it. 
 
 She was quite sure that she had a happy home ; she did 
 not really test it, she was in it so vseldom — after she left school 
 hardly at all. The father's academic, rather pedantic pre- 
 cision and calm envisagement of unalterable fact ; the mother's 
 sweet silliness, and unaggressive commonness, produced and 
 maintained at an even level the atmosphere of cheap com- 
 fort and devitalised amenity that she always came back to 
 with a conscious, restful pleasure. 
 
 Her latest flight had been as far as London, where she had 
 roomed for a couple of months with another girl, a worker 
 and a Suffragette, That was fine ! She liked raids, and 
 street speaking, and banner carrying. She learned a trick 
 of easy frankness, a confraternity of outlook, in her inter- 
 course with women. With men she flirted distantly. Artemis- 
 like, combining a certain coarseness of fibre incurred on her 
 mother's side with traces of her father's delicacy and fas- 
 tidiousness. 
 
 Some one had given her a w^hite and superior ticket for 
 the launch. People always did give her things. She had 
 come into Hinderland by train early to do some shopping. 
 She got through it quickly, and arrived in good time at the 
 yard. Now, with two large packages of drapery purchases 
 in her hand, she waited patiently in the rain for the culmi-
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 5 
 
 nating moment of the show, peering about curiously, craning 
 up her neck, at the risk of letting her rather seedy hat fall 
 off, and loosening the one or two pins that cleverly restrained, 
 without impeding, the artful flow backwards of her masses 
 of reddish-gold hair. It was a trick, arrived at through 
 many a frenzied moment of sustained effort in the silence of 
 her chamber. The rites of dress might and did absorb much 
 of her time. She was apt to think of many totally irrelevant 
 things in terms of toilette. Staring at the shape of the thin, 
 gracile creature that towered above her, its polished sides 
 scooped out to the last degree of refinement, she was irre- 
 sistibly borne towards a sartorial comparison. The delicate 
 bevel of the iron plates that formed the keel reminded her of 
 the subtle echancrure of a pair of woman's stays. 
 
 From the point where she stood, the vanishing curves sug- 
 gested, not so much a deep-bellied vessel constructed to 
 absorb and carry whole armaments, but a mere sharp weapon 
 of offence, a projectile waiting to be fired off. The gold 
 lettering, fore- shortened, of the name on the stern she could 
 not have distinguished unless she had known it. The vessel 
 was built by Messrs. Veere, Avercamp, and Veere for the 
 Cimmerian Government, and it was named the Elisabetta. 
 The bottle of champagne, decked with ribands of the national 
 colour, hung dangling from the stern in apt juxtaposition to 
 the platform, covered with red baize, which had been erected 
 for the gorgeously attired lady and her friends who stood 
 there ready to break the bottle against the ship as soon as 
 the signal should have been given. She was the wife of the 
 Cimmerian ambassador, and the stout man at her side was, 
 so Elizabeth was given to understand, the Admiral of the 
 Cimmerian Fleet. 
 
 Elizabeth watched all these people eagerly, and did not 
 scruple to ask any questions that she wanted to know of the 
 bystanders. She was not shy. But there was one active 
 personage, whose name she rather wished to ascertain, but
 
 6 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 did not succeed in doing so. He was slight, serious, and pale, 
 and she liked his looks, though his eyes were too small. 
 They rested on her once, attracted by the colour of her hair. 
 She was used to that passing form of tribute. 
 
 A hush fell upon the chattering, bustling crowd. It was 
 the hour ! . . . Some faint, metallic sounds were heard. , 
 
 " She's moving — she's mo\dng now ! " said a man near to 
 Elizabeth. " Not that you'll notice it till the lady gives the 
 tap — and hardly even then ! " 
 
 " Success to the Elisabetta ! " 
 
 The formal words were inaudible, except to the fair speaker's 
 immediate neighbours, but the clash of the broken bottle 
 warned all that they were being said. Furthermore, there 
 was the ridiculously inadequate libation of froth that showed 
 on the shining black surface. Elizabeth, as the man beside 
 her had advised her to do, had previously counted the bolt- 
 heads discernible on the hitherside of one of the supports of 
 the platform — there had been five ; now there were only 
 four, and the squat, round blob of iron appeared beyond the 
 limit. . . . No quicker than that ! . . . 
 . Yet she moved. A tense shout ! She moved indeed ! 
 
 She moved, she raced, she tore down the even slope ! It 
 was almost terrible ! But Elizabeth was glad she had come. 
 She felt now as if her very heart was beingVpuUed out of 
 her body, as if her whole being were stirred, torn, nay, dragged 
 down to the shore of the Arrow along with the leaping, 
 healthy, newly freed monster. A sense of disintegration was 
 hers, of emptiness, giddiness, induced by the sight of the 
 useless slats that were left jumping behind in its track, and 
 the painful elimination from her view of the upstanding stern 
 to which she had grown accustomed, and the red platform 
 looking foolish, left behind. . . . 
 
 The showy, golden-haired girl burst into tears ! 
 
 Others wept too, doubtless, but Elizabeth felt herself alone 
 in her disgrace. Nobody noticed her except the pale, slim,
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 7 
 
 serious young man who was marshalling some smart people 
 doT\Ti the improvised steps of the platform, and warning 
 them to be careful. 
 
 " Down this way, Lady Sternways, for the luncheon and 
 the speeches ! . . . Take care. We have a covered way 
 underground. It's drier. ..." 
 
 He and his stout convoy passed Elizabeth, who was still 
 helplessly dabbing her eyes with her pocket-handkerchief. 
 He spoke to her, threading his words, as it were, on the 
 general string of directions to Lady Sternways. 
 
 " Down here, yes. Then we're under cover." To Eliza- 
 beth, " Is it your first launch ? A moving sight, isn't it ? ' 
 
 " Yes," Elizabeth murmured. 
 
 " I've seen dozens, of course. But still. . . . Come and 
 listen to the speeches ? " 
 '" But they're mixed up with the lunch ? " 
 
 " Yes. Come and lunch too ? " 
 
 " Can I ? " 
 
 " If I ask you. I'm Mr. Veere. . . . Yes, down there. 
 Follow me, next time I come along with a dowager. . . . Then 
 you can drink the health of the Elisabetta in champagne ! " 
 
 She followed him and a large and important-looking lady 
 the next time he descended the steps. The road passed 
 down by an easy gradient, and they fared along underground 
 for a time in a passage lit by dim lamps. The young man 
 looked back now and then, and encouraged her by a busy, 
 preoccupied smile. Then they ascended again and pro- 
 ceeded, in their hundreds, up some steps and into a large 
 sky-lighted place, where tables were laid transversely. One 
 table, slightly raised, bisected them — the High Table, of high 
 report. 
 
 Her friend escorted his charge to a place somewhere near 
 the middle of it, and Elizabeth waited again, standing by the 
 comer of one of the cross tables and following him with in- 
 telligent, obedient eyes.
 
 8 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " Now," said he, coming back quickly, " I want you to 
 hear. I'm going to speak. Up here, see? Slip in, close to 
 the big-wigs." 
 
 Seated at this abutting corner by the High Table where he 
 had so kindly placed her, she noticed that there were only 
 men. Stealing a look at the cards that lay in front of their 
 places, she read such labels as these : " Representative of 
 The Sweep,'' " Representative of The Hindcrland Leader," 
 and realised that she was among the reporters. That did 
 not frighten her. She was a Suffragette, and had attended, 
 and even stewarded, many meetings. 
 
 These gentlemen fed heartily and allowed their champagne 
 glasses to be filled to the brim, but they did not drink. Eliza- 
 beth drank hers readily, and understood how the inspiriting 
 beverage may prepare and inure the intelligence to long 
 speeches heard by those whose business it is not to report 
 them. Wliile eating her sandwiches, she asked the young 
 man who happened to be seated next to her the name of 
 her benefactor. 
 
 " Veere, Mr. Ernest Rose Veere. Son of one partner. 
 Nephew of Sir Joris Veere, the man at the head of the table." 
 
 Something in the tone in which he said this impelled 
 Elizabeth to look more closely at her neighbour. Into the 
 mere three-letter word man he had contrived to throw a 
 venom such as should hardly proceed from the mere good- 
 humoured reporter. First at his card, which bore the name 
 of a newspaper that was familiar to her — The Sweep. . . . 
 
 She thought that he must be a foreigner. He had blue- 
 black hair, crested a little on his forehead, and a pert, but 
 scanty moustache. His lips were red and vivid, his eyes dull 
 and spiritless. His hands v.ere white, and his nails fine and 
 beautifully, but rather over-polished. Slight and thin, there 
 was something about his figure which reminded her of that 
 of her kind introducer here, and now she came to think of it, 
 in the face too, especially about the forehead ! . . .
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 9 
 
 Absurd, a reporter, and Mr. Ernest Rose Veere ! 
 
 The toast master gave out the healths of the distinguished 
 Cimmerians present, followed by those of the Veeres and 
 Avercamps. There was no Lady Veere, apparently ? Had 
 there ever been one ? Or was she dead ? 
 
 The healths were drunk. It was the turn of the speeches. 
 " Now to work ! " observed the reporters, smiling, and pen- 
 cils flew to paper. She listened attentively to the speeches, 
 though they were of the usual " Pleasure of meeting you all 
 here to-day ! " and " What I should like to say " variety. 
 Tlie speech made by Sir Joris, however, had a quality of its 
 OAATi. It was poignant, personal, and to the point. The fine, 
 bluff, bearded old man spoke it fluently, in a voice that 
 showed signs of age. 
 
 " He never wrote that himself," said her neighbour. 
 " That's some of Master Ernest's bluff, I can tell you." 
 
 He reported it, nevertheless. 
 
 Then young Veere spoke. A good speech, too, ancillary 
 to his uncle's. 
 
 " Rather too close to the old man's," again observed the 
 young reporter at her side. Under the influence of Eliza- 
 beth's eyes he seemed to have become less taciturn. 
 " But he's a clever go-ahead chap. What I can't stand 
 is his damned insufferable manner ! Been too much in 
 America." 
 
 " Has he ? " said the young girl, faintly interested. The 
 field of her observation, which young Veere had bid fair to 
 monopolise, was now being encroached on by her more 
 flashy, impressive neighbour. 
 
 "Oh, yes, they were determined to get him out of the rut 
 — work up the family, see ? They're awful swells now ; but, 
 of course, you know that the first Veere, this man's grand- 
 father, was a marine storekeeper, here in a back street of 
 Hinderland, and rose." 
 
 " That's always a sign of cleverness."
 
 10 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " Certainly. Far be it from me to blacken the family. 
 All I meant to say was that they are quite self-made people, 
 originally Dutch, with the vices of parvenus. That is to say, 
 they go one better in dissipation than the people who've 
 been rich all along and got used to it ! " 
 
 " They go nap and then bust, don't they ? " said Eliza- 
 beth, smiling. " You are talking like an article in The Sweep. 
 We take in The Sweep at home, mother and I. Father says 
 it's hog-wash." 
 
 " People seem to enjoy hog-wash. And people like me 
 must live by providing it. Well, as I was saying, the great 
 Sir Joris has been every sort of man, up to every sort of 
 game. You wouldn't think to look at him as he sits at the 
 High Table so dignified, and smug " 
 
 " What dreadful things are you hinting at ? " said the 
 young girl comfortably. " Do you know you strike me as 
 having a very bad mind — and tongue ! I suppose you mean 
 he's lived, that's all." 
 
 Her pinkness and innocence seemed to undo the cynicism 
 of her words. It was as though a spring lamb should be 
 caught performing an elaborate piece of step-dancing, skip- 
 ping in tune with its artless fellows along the hawthorn 
 hedges. She continued, really enjoying herself : " Is there 
 a Lady Veere, then ? " 
 
 " No, he never was married." 
 
 " You've put an accent on the married," said she reck- 
 lessly. " Wliat is known as a gay bachelor — eh ? Well, you 
 seem to know them aU very well, for a reporter — just down 
 for the day from London — aren't you ? " 
 
 The reporter bent his tragic eyes upon her, and saw that 
 she was fair. An immense need of sympathy, a desire to 
 trust in this soft, skittish young thing, overcame him. 
 He confided in her. 
 
 " Would you like me to tell you how it is that I am so up 
 in the family ? "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 11 
 
 j" Yes," she replied impulsively, and sealed her fate. 
 " Because Sir Joris Veere is my father." 
 
 He told her all about it in the little tea-place where she 
 alloA^ed him to take her afterwards. The daughter of the 
 cook and the savant, girlishly interested and curious on all 
 subjects, democratically careless of personal dignity, felt no 
 hesitation in setting up an intimacy with this handsome, 
 portentous young man with a history he was burning to 
 repeat. She listened A\ith a lax and fascinating camaraderie ; 
 she was interested — he had the journalistic touch, and could 
 put things dramatically. Squalid details he spared her ; he 
 already cared not to alienate her nascent liking for him. Her 
 happy, cordial nature seemed to him the fit complement to 
 his dour, retiring one. His sceva indignatio lay deep, his 
 wrongs burnt in on his heart for ever ; with her, it was easy 
 to see, anything in the nature of a grievance would not 
 " lie " — no more than snow in spring. To the hard-worked 
 waitress, who, as Elizabeth noticed, he tipped handsomely, 
 they seemed a handsome, heaven-destined pair. And the 
 other bored functionary at the high desk heard him plainly say, 
 as he helped the young lady on \^dth her coat, which she had 
 doffed on coming in and draped over the back of her chair, 
 so as to show her fresh, home-washed blouse and round, un- 
 covered arms — 
 
 " I should like you to know my mother. Miss Altamont." 
 The young lady at the desk thought that odd, and so did 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 " Mss Altamont ? " she asked, interrogatively, as they 
 walked together out into the street. 
 
 " My mother was an actress. It's the name she was known 
 by on the stage. And it happens to be mine."
 
 II 
 
 Elizabeth Altamont rose late of a morning. A con- 
 stitution like hers needed a great deal of sleep. She 
 did not, however, allow this comparative sluggishness of 
 habit to interfere with the performance of her housewifely 
 functions, wherein, without precisely excelling, she was equal 
 to the average. Her daily duties were strictly laid down 
 for her by herself ; she knew to a penny how much money 
 she had got to keep house on. Her husband contributed 
 nothing to the expenses, although he had some ill-defined 
 occupation connected with finance which furnished him with 
 pocket-money. He had long since given up, or been relieved 
 of that post on The Sweep, which had been the cause of their 
 meeting at the launch of the Elisabetta at Hinderland, and 
 subsequent hasty engagement and marriage. 
 
 Though Wilfrid Altamont's personal income was thus solidly 
 diminished, he knew that he could still rely on his board and 
 lodging under his stern mother's roof when he chose to claim it, 
 and that no questions would be asked of him when he did so 
 choose. His absences were frequent, amounting to more than 
 half his time. His letters were not forwarded, it mattered to 
 no one where he had been. Even if his periodical excursions 
 were, as he said, comiected with business, the proceeds of 
 these financial negotiations did not find their way to the family 
 coffers. If, as was then presumed by the household, things 
 had w^orked out badly, he sometimes allowed himself on his 
 return to fall into the vulgar error of knocking his wife about. 
 
 Seven years of union with the man of her choice had turned 
 the careless easy-going girl of Hinderland into a bitter intro- 
 
 12
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 13 
 
 spective woman. She was good stuff ; her temper was not 
 spoiled, she merely proceeded to hate Wilfrid Altamont, her 
 one fatal and permanent mistake, with a quiet intensive 
 hatred that at her age fortunately was powerless to affect or 
 alter a line or a curve of her face. She did not brood, or 
 nurse her wrongs ; she just " said things " ! Her husband knew 
 by now that his ^vife fully realised his vanity, his meanness, 
 his perversity and morbidity. Though she loudly proclaimed 
 that she expected no good of him, she as loudly scouted the 
 idea of any splendid sin on his part, any desperate and pic- 
 turesque criminality. So far she was right. Dreary year after 
 dreary year passed, and Wilfrid showed only as a wastrel of 
 sorts, living on his mother, and neglecting his placable wife. 
 A single scar, aptly placed on her forehead in a region where 
 she could hide it with her magnificent hair, stood for the 
 solitary symptom of ill-treatment. He had given her no 
 child, which in the interests of humanity she could not regret, 
 though as an individual she desperately longed for one. 
 
 The promise held out to her in the little Hinderland res- 
 taurant of a meeting with Wilfrid's mother had been a 
 powerful factor in her acceptance of the son. She had 
 fallen in love with that lady at first sight. She was 
 extraordinarily impressed by the ex-dancer and glory of 
 the stage, by that time a stout dignified invalid of sixty, 
 unable to walk without a stick, and hardly then. What the 
 young girl had so liked about the woman, the item of her 
 pose which had struck her bold young imagination, was this 
 — that with regard to the vital fact of her life. Miss Altamont 
 neither admitted nor reserved. The maiden prefix — her 
 grown-up son who lived "v^ith her and was proud of her — 
 there was no need to say more ! Elizabeth considered it so 
 splendid and sensible that she should have chosen to adopt 
 this permanent antithesis as her social signboard, her word- 
 less explanation — if any were sought — of Worksop House 
 and three hundred a year paid her by Sir Joris Veere in
 
 14 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 quarterly instalments. No one entered her house — the house 
 paid for by the father of her son — on false pretences. That 
 under these conditions, people, and people of some standing, 
 did cross her threshold, was her blue ribbon, proudl}'^ Avorn, 
 Wliatever her history might evidence of weakness, of cupidity, 
 it proved that she had heaps of character, not all of it bad. 
 Even her own pettifogging little world of Wimbledon con- 
 ceded as much. Elizabeth thought her all good, and after 
 a fortnight's delay and five teas at Worksop House, married 
 the son on his mother's merits, and his own face. He was 
 abominably good-looking. 
 
 She was now nearly thirty. For the last seven years she had 
 been Miss Altamont's nurse. The old woman had grown so 
 stout, and had suffered such severe health complications, 
 that she was unable to leave her room. Her daughter-in-law 
 nurse-tended her. She had schooled herself in this connection 
 to be thoughtful, businesslike, long-suffering ; had modified 
 herself all for love, being naturally of a careless, an easy- 
 going and high-spirited disposition. She liked to sit up and 
 potter about until the small hours, she now went to bed esirlj^ 
 because it was quite on the cards, given the state of Miss ' 
 Altamont's health, that her nurse might have to watch all 
 night. She disliked very much hanging over the fire, for it 
 tended to ruin her complexion, but she cooked all Miss Alta- 
 mont's meals herself, and did not allow Georgiana Jack, 
 the untidy " general " whose services were all their income 
 allowed them, to enter the sick-room at all. She herself did 
 not care what she ate, her splendid health was proof even 
 against Georgiana's dough. Wilfrid, so she conceived, had 
 had claims on her housewifely capabilities, he must, and did, 
 settle things with Georgiana, when he cared to be at home. 
 That grew to be more seldom as time went on, and his in- 
 different, yet resentful wife, did not seek to keep him at her 
 side by means of cleverly devised dishes. The time was past 
 for all that.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 15 
 
 Worksop House, of which Julia Altamont, spinster, was 
 the long leaseholder, had been, thirty years ago, a fine red- 
 brick house, standing in its own grounds. The garden had 
 now been built over, and the old Georgian relic stood faded, 
 unnoticeable, crowded out, as number fifty-eight. High 
 Street, Perton. But when the tall unpretending door — 
 perched up on two big steps like horse blocks — was opened, 
 the educated visitor had a vision of pure eighteenth century, 
 in the knobby carved staircase, the old panelling of the walls, 
 the low-pitched ceiling, though the fan over the outer door, 
 the swags over the inner, were all chipped now, and the paint 
 of the walls blistered and crumbling into decay. And should 
 the tall, stout figure of Miss Altamont herself chance to cross 
 the hall, as in earlier days, wearing her black dress, covered 
 by her silk apron, with the quiet keys that did not jingle, 
 so softly did they lie moored at her waist, the illusion would 
 have been complete. 
 
 There was not one square yard of flooring that was hori- 
 zontal in Worksop House, not an upright that was perpen- 
 dicular ; low droopmg ceilings and crooked skirting boards, 
 wherein mice scuttled and went about their affairs day and 
 night, made up an antique, uncomfortable, unliygienic 
 ensemble that neither Wilfrid Altamont or his wiie appre- 
 ciated, for rather various reasons. 
 
 Miss Altamont's professed Philistinism was merely super- 
 ficial, and connected with her intense underlying bitterness. 
 Every one in Wimbledon knew that Worksop House, however 
 charmingly rococo and old-world, represented the wages of 
 sordid Early Victorian sin, and though the daughter-in-law 
 brazened it out, she felt her husband's mother's position 
 deeply. The innocent word " Georgian " had come with her 
 to mean " suburban," and " suburban," she averred, was to 
 be the word that, when she came to die, would be written on 
 her heart. The prejudice coloured her whole speech, and 
 warped her very life. She loudly discounted and flouted all
 
 16 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 forms of culture developed by the denizens of the detested 
 milieu she was rooted in, held there by her cult and sincere 
 affection for an old, unregenerate, dying woman. 
 
 Miss Julia Altamont's bedroom — the best — was the further- 
 most of a chain of three opening one out of the other, and 
 occupying the whole of the first storey. Mrs. Altamont slept 
 in the outermost section, the intermediate one being reserved 
 as a sort of anteroom. The uneven floor of it was a drunkard's 
 dream ; it had no carpet. 
 
 At half-past eight one autumn morning Georgie, the maid, 
 called Mrs. Altamont as usual (she possessed no watch), and 
 planted two jugs full of water, one hot and one cold, on the 
 bare floor of the anteroom, and brought to the bedside the 
 early cup of tea on which her young mistress broke her fast, 
 literally eating nothing till the middle of the day. She did 
 much work on that cup of tea. 
 
 Georgie's rap was not a sound to ignore, Brisldy Mrs. 
 Altamont rose and took her bath in the anteroom without 
 disturbing Miss Altamont, without even inquiring into the 
 invalid's condition after the long night. It was better so. 
 But sometimes, sponge in hand, the water rustling off her 
 polished body, she would suspend operations and stare ner- 
 vously at that door, which some morning, any morning, 
 might be closed on a death-bed ! Early dead — or sleeping 
 late — the dear, dear old thing ! Sometimes, overcome by 
 her imagination, the young woman found herself tingling all 
 over with horror. Yet methodically she proceeded with the 
 work of ablution ; she would not break through her rule of 
 leaving the subject of her fears severely alone until breakfast 
 time. 
 
 Throwing on a blue peignoir, carefully chosen to suit her 
 complexion, she brushed up her beautiful hair into a hasty 
 but not unbecoming knot, without attempting to dress it in 
 the elaborate fashion by whose means she would exhibit all 
 its splendour later on, and left her room.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 17 
 
 She minced down the broad staircase with its rickety steps, 
 of so slight a gradient that each one was a separate shock of 
 unexpected triviahty. She touched the banister once as she 
 went do^vn, for form's sake, and took into account a distinct 
 smudge on her delicate hand. A look of disgust, succeeded 
 by an adumbration of the scolding that was Georgie's due, 
 crossed her face. Then a slight shrug in the direction of a 
 glass door underneath the stairs that led to Georgie's quarters, 
 spoke of her kind manumission of the forfeit. One girl 
 couldn't do everything in a rambling old house like this, 
 where there were so many surfaces and so few con- 
 veniences. 
 
 At the bottom of the flight. Ginger, the yellow house cat, 
 came forth from some catly fastness or other, and threaded 
 itself in and out of the banisters in her honour. She stroked 
 it lazily with her foot, and it left her and went and sat down 
 at the door of her husband's study. 
 
 Wilfrid slept, when he was at home, in a sort of airy closet 
 opening out of a room on the ground floor that he was pleased 
 to call by that name. It was scantily, carelessly furnished, a 
 chair or two, a couple of cupboards in the panelling, and a big 
 unwieldy secretaire he had purchased for himself. There he 
 would often sit for the whole day to brood — and drink. One 
 of the cupboards held the wherewithal to do so. His reveries 
 were respected by all, including Georgiana, who likeAvise 
 respected the thick dust that collected in his sanctum, accord- 
 ing to his orders. She did not attempt to raise it or his 
 temper, of which she was reasonably afraid. In hot and cold 
 blood he called her by the derogatory appellation, " Slavey," 
 and this roused a strong spirit of opposition in his wife, 
 which led her to be an angelic mistress — almost a friend to 
 Georgie. 
 
 Wilfrid was not averse to the cat ; and, indeed, it was the 
 only creature in the house that showed any predilection for 
 his society. But he had been away from home for three days, 
 c
 
 18 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 and it was odd that the cat, who knew everything, did not 
 know that. 
 
 Mrs. Altamont opened the door of the study and looked in. 
 
 Wilfrid was there ! She mechanically fastened the neck 
 of her 'peignoir, as she would have done for the butcher's man 
 or the plumber suddenly introduced by a careless servant. 
 
 He was sitting, his head a little bowed, at the odious cheap 
 writing-table, with the five long drawers that could never be 
 got in again after one had been venturesome enough to open 
 them, and a sliding top that would not slide. She spoke, 
 still keeping her hand on the knob of the door. 
 
 " When did you come back ? " 
 
 " Last night. I didn't disturb you." 
 
 " Why should you ? And " She stopped prudently, 
 
 but the sour intention in her tone nettled him, 
 
 " Mind your own business. Has the doctor been since I 
 left ? " . 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " How does he say my mother is ? " 
 
 " He says she may last several months, or pop off — those 
 were his words — any minute. I don't know how that falls 
 in with your views, but I mean to keep her here as long as 
 I can. She wants care — more care — and always care. I'll 
 give it. I am fond of your mother." 
 
 " I know, and she's fond of you, damn you ! You've got 
 a common bond." 
 
 " What ? " she asked idly. 
 
 " Disapproval of me. I know that you two amuse your- 
 selves abusing me all day ! You haven't a good word for me, 
 either of you ! I'm all that's beastly, according to my wife 
 
 and my mother. Yet " He flicked a quill pen against 
 
 his thumb, broke it, and threw it away. She followed it with 
 her eyes into the waste-paper basket. " It's odd, when you 
 come to think of it, she bore me and you married me ! " 
 
 " Both in error ! " she replied quickly. " But you were
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 19 
 
 fairly plausible in those days — quite good-looking. You are 
 not bad-looking now,*^ Wilfrid, if you didn't drink so," 
 
 A caressing, pleading, characteristic intonation, subtly, and 
 as it were against her will, crept into her voice. It had no 
 effect on him. 
 
 " Drink ! Yes — why not ? Oh, I own to all the vices im- 
 planted in me by my gentlemanly forbears." 
 
 " Don't, Wilfrid, you sicken me." 
 
 " Born in shame — so you said," he went on. " Married to 
 a woman -with a tongue like a whip lash. My wretched home 
 where I live on sufferance, my restrictions abroad through 
 want of money, the sight of this filthy, old, ill-adjusted 
 world turning so coolly on its beastly misplaced axis ! " 
 
 " Wliy do you waste all this on me ? Make an article 
 of it," 
 
 " I couldn't write a line in the state I'm in now. You've 
 worked me up — as usual, damn you ! My head's like a lump 
 of lead, and my chest aches ! " 
 
 She knew he was phthisical. She said more quietly, " You 
 always think worse of the world after you come back from 
 a week's outing, don't you ? " 
 
 " Some insinuation there ? " he remarked with affected 
 carelessness. Tliis was one of the moments in his intercourse 
 %vith her that he courted and yet dreaded. He always hoped 
 that in a reckless mood she might throw off some of the 
 reserve that was a 'parti pris with her and his mother, and 
 reveal the extent of her acquaintance with his affairs. This 
 time he was not disappointed. She rose to the gibe. She 
 was tired, and nervous. 
 
 " Of course there is ! Do you think I don't know where 
 you go ? " 
 
 " Where do I go, you fool ? " 
 
 " To Camberwell, to see that other fool you keep there," 
 
 '' She's no fool. She loves me, and she knows I love her. 
 Don't you pity her, she's all right."
 
 20 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 "Oh, I've no doubt your mistress has a better time of it 
 than your wife. The inestimable treasure of your love ! 
 But, Wilfrid, believe me, if she was your wife she'd end by 
 feeling as I do. Instead of hating me, and envying me my posi- 
 tion, as I expect she does, and sending you back to me as 
 sulky as a bear, she'd much better make up her mind to 
 enjoy you, in your good-tempered moods that we are never 
 permitted to see, and thank her stars that she is free to get 
 rid of you the moment you aren't nice to her. Free ! Free ! 
 Free ! Lucky woman ! I wish I was her ! Good God ! how 
 I long to be my own mistress, to take my poor life back again 
 that I gave you, my life you've mauled and played the mis- 
 chief mth because you're selfish and mad " 
 
 a 
 
 Mad ? " He whisked round. She saw her advantage. 
 
 " Yes, you are mad, with vanity and envy and out-of- 
 work-ness. I sheer pity you, that's what I do — you and your 
 poor shaky, groggy system, and overweening opinion of 
 yourself ! Work ! Not you, except gilt-edged work, or 
 shady financial touting that your pals don't even see their 
 way to giving you ! When thieves don't even trust thieves, 
 good Lord ! " 
 
 She paused. He had not retorted, but sat still, his head 
 resting in his hand. 
 
 She left the security of the door handle, and wrapping her 
 peignoir firmly round her, came into the room and sat dowTi 
 opposite him. She spoke more softly, in almost motherly 
 tones : 
 
 " What's up now ? What has she been saying or doing to 
 upset you so ? You had better tell me — get it off your mind 
 — consult some one outside. I'm the best friend you've got. 
 Two heads are better than one full of whisky ! Don't look 
 on me as your wife — / don't dwell on it, I'm sure — and tell 
 me what it's all about this time." 
 
 He looked at his wife wistfully. " To tell you the truth " 
 
 " Yes, do, for once."
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 21 
 
 a 
 
 I was sitting with her last night up to nearly midnight, 
 arguing. I'm dead tired, body and brain. I've walked all 
 the way home from Camberwell. Since I left her she's been 
 out and posted a letter to me. Shows how keen she is on her 
 plan " 
 
 " What's her plan ? " 
 
 ," Well, if you must know, she's on at me — has been for the 
 last month or so — to have another go at the old man " 
 
 " Sir Joris ? Never ! " 
 
 " Yes. She wants me to have another try at him — a per- 
 sonal interview this time ! Letters, she says, are no good. 
 No more they are, I've found that. That d — d young 
 cousin of mine opens them, and takes good care not to 
 pass them on." 
 
 " He's getting an old man nov^^, and they don't want him 
 worried. Well, go on." 
 
 " Ada — her name's Ada " 
 
 " Thanks, I know." 
 
 " Ada thinks if I could once get at him — if he were to see 
 me personally — that I'm decent-looking, and like him, and 
 all that, you know, he might begin to look on things in a new 
 light, and see that he ought to do something for me and " 
 
 She interrupted. " And her ! I see. On my word, I 
 think I never heard of such a disgusting plan. Fancy going 
 and pestering an old man that you've neither of you got any 
 claim on, and reminding him of obligations he's discharged 
 long ago. You want him to grant you an interview — so that 
 you can get a chance to cadge on him, you and your mistress ! 
 Why don't you take her with you ? I daresay she'd show up 
 well ! What's her type ? Gibson girl ? . . . Well, I have 
 nothing whatever to do with it. It isn't for me you're doing 
 it — or for yourself even. ... I have a home here, and so 
 have you, Wilfrid. Realise that, for the old man and his 
 advisers certainly will. And don't you let your mother know 
 what you mean to do, unless you're in a hurry to inherit, for
 
 22 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 you'll upset her dreadfully. She's got no principle in the 
 world but one, and that's not to have Sir Joris annoyed in 
 any way. She's a good woman, she keeps her bargain. He 
 behaved well to her and she to him, while it lasted. When it 
 was over, he provided for her and you, too, and for your wiie 
 — one of your wives ! We can all three live uncomfortably on 
 him — comfortably, indeed, if you helped to support us, and 
 if your mother hadn't paid out so much capital to give you 
 your start in life, and sent you to a good school and so on. 
 I don't blame her for that ; he intended it, I expect, when he 
 was so generous to her. You can never say you didn't have 
 your chance. You had it and lost it. So do let an honest 
 man alone, the man who knew how to treat your mother 
 properly, and who hoped to have paid himself clear of such 
 encumbrances as you. Some men don't worry about entangle- 
 ments of that sort, I can tell you " 
 
 " For God's sake, shut up, Betsey ! If you only knew how 
 my head ached ! " 
 
 She stopped dead. 
 
 " I'm sorry. I have said more than I meant. And it's not 
 the least bit of good, either. ..." 
 
 She came nearer to him and took up the bottle that stood 
 near his elbow. 
 
 " I'll have this," she remarked quietly. She put it into 
 the cupboard that was further away instead of the one that 
 stood open, and rammed the door fast with an extra turn 
 of force. Returning to her husband, she removed the weak 
 white hand that hid his face. . . . 
 
 " Look here, Wilfrid, if I know you at all, I can see that 
 you are working yourself up for an act of folly ! . . ." 
 
 He resisted her, putting his hands back to his forehead 
 and shaking his head. 
 
 " Tiresome man ! I can't say I thank Ada for sending 
 you back to me with your head stuffed with idiotic plans in 
 her own interest that can't possibly come off. . . . Will you
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 23 
 
 look me in the face, Wilfrid ? I'm serious. ... I want to 
 make you understand that it is, at all events, no good your 
 going to Sir Joris Veere without your mother's backing, and 
 that she'll never give it. She's game, and uill be to the last. 
 She's a splendid woman, and to tell you the truth, if it weren't 
 for her I wouldn't stay with you another hour ! " 
 
 " Try to keep yourself out of it, you d — d egotist ! You 
 stay here as her nurse, not as my wife. You'U get your 
 way — she'll not cumber 3'ou long. She has probably left 
 all her money to you ? " 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure." 
 
 " Things," said he wearily, " are in such a tangle now that 
 even if I were successful and the old man did fork out " 
 
 " You wouldn't know how to allocate the shares, Avould 
 you ? " she assented, taking refuge from the impulse to 
 brutal straight speaking in her sense of humour. She laughed 
 horribly, with her sweet red mouth, " Let me see ! You — 
 me— Ada ? " 
 
 " And two young children." He watched the effect of his 
 speech on her. 
 
 He recoiled, for she turned on him like a tiger cat. But 
 her face, when he took in the sense of it, was not sternly or 
 vindictively made up. It was, on the contrary, dulled and 
 blighted \vith sudden mental suffering. 
 
 " I didn't know that, Wilfrid ! On my word, I didn't. It 
 
 — it alters " she covered her eyes A\ith her hands. " Oh, 
 
 Wilfrid, you have hurt me ! " 
 
 " ^Vhy ? I never knew you wanted a child." 
 
 " I did — once. And you " she dashed a tear out of 
 
 her eyes. " It's no matter. I suppose you wouldn't have 
 let this last fact out if you hadn't been drunk ? " 
 
 " I told you because I was on the edge of a great resolve." 
 
 " Resolve ! Nonsense ! I shall speak to your mother, and 
 tell her to make you hear reason." 
 
 " My mother can't stop me. Tell her what you like. As
 
 24 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 a matter of fact, I believe she knows all about Wilfrid and 
 little Katie." 
 
 She shuddered, 
 
 " You needn't shudder. They're nice little children — not 
 a bit like their father. Now you see why I have to have 
 money — more money ! By the way, before you go tell me 
 how you got to know about Ada ? Did my mother tell 
 you ? " 
 
 " No ; she isn't so keen on talking about you. It is be- 
 cause you leave your papers about so recklessly. I warn 
 you everything I find I read — in self-defence. That letter 
 you've just had from Ada, written, as you say, by the last 
 
 post " She pointed to an open drawer. " There, next 
 
 your case of pistols ! You'll try and shut that drawer, you'll 
 faU, you'll swear, and you'll leave it. Later on I shall have 
 the pleasure of reading it." 
 
 " Damn you ! Cat ! " 
 
 He rose and went for her then. She escaped with a small 
 contused wound on her left wrist, and her mouth twisted 
 awry with derision and pain.
 
 Ill 
 
 Betsey entered Miss Altamont's room and drew the 
 curtains more roughly than usual, because she had just 
 been knocked about, and her hands trembled. Then she 
 turned round to the curtainless bed, and saw what she saw 
 every morning, and hoped to see for a great many mornings 
 more — a fair, fresh face, of almost faultless contour, round 
 which a close-fitting lace nightcap Avas drawn with exactitude. 
 And this vision, first seen after the long gulf of the night, 
 daily suggested the same idea to Betsey. This moon face, 
 grave, fresh, pink, had been a field, first for the economic 
 struggle, and afterwards for the devastating emotions of sex 
 and the scorings of maternity. Jocasta, in frills ; Cornelia, 
 cursed, not blessed in her child ; the valiant mother of a 
 faineant ! Out of strength ; weakness. Reason doomed, 
 bringing irresponsibility into the world ! 
 
 vShe kissed the bland old lady there where the lace edging 
 of the cap met the waxen forehead. " Good morning ! " she 
 murmured, keeping her bleeding wrist behind her. There 
 was no need to prove to her mother-in-law that her children's 
 mutual relation was apt to be strained at times. Then, 
 thrusting her hands into a pair of housemaid's gloves, she 
 knelt down and proceeded to rake out the ashes of the fire 
 that had died last night, and prepare a new one. 
 
 " Wilfrid is back," she remarked, in the intervals of ash- 
 scraping and coal-laying. " He inquired what the doctor had 
 said about you." 
 
 " A graceful act ! " pronounced the cold, hard voice from 
 
 25
 
 26 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 the bed. " And you told him about the aneurism that may 
 leak any day, did you ? Did it impress him ? " 
 
 " Well — he was rather queer this morning — " 
 
 " Been drinking ? " 
 
 " Ada — more ! She's been worrying him ! " 
 
 The fire crackled and danced. Betsey rose from her knees, 
 shook down her skirts, replaced the gloves under the fender 
 stool, seized her housemaid's box, and departed downstairs 
 again to fetch Miss Altamont's breakfast, which Georgie was 
 even now preparing. 
 
 Wilfrid's study door was open. She peeped in, and saw 
 that he had got the whisky bottle out of the cupboard again 
 and sat there drinking. The cat sat beside him. He caressed 
 it now and then. . . . She paused, dubious. Her wrist 
 smarted. . . . 
 
 " Now that he's settled down to it," she thought, " he'll 
 forget about going to see Sir Joris, perhaps." 
 
 She decided not to set his mother at him, but closed the 
 door quietly and proceeded with the order of the day. 
 
 She took up a well-furnished breakfast tray — the toast she 
 had made herself — and watched Miss Altamont, propped on 
 snowy cushions, consume it. The cushions had lace on them. 
 It was Betsey's theory that old ladies, like babies, needed 
 frills and fiuffiness to make them go down. Then she " got 
 her up." Miss Altamont's was a long, deliberate, and com- 
 plicated toilette. Wlien it was completed, she assumed her 
 position for the day in the old knobby carved chair which 
 was Betsey's own, and which had once stood in the vestry 
 of her father's church. Sitting stiffly enthroned near the 
 window, shiny stained boards leading the eye up to the sort 
 of formal entablature she made with her invalid appoint- 
 ments, the old lady looked like an ivory-carven Buddha. Her 
 white-frilled nightcap had given place to a black-frilled day- 
 cap, close and tight like the other one. Her dull black dress 
 and shiny silk apron draped an obesity which was hardly
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 27 
 
 vulgar, since it was the result, not of self-indulgence, but of 
 a mortal complaint. She Avas a very tall woman, with ma- 
 jestic shoulders, and no suggestion of a stoop. Her broad 
 white forehead was like chiselled soapstone, her ears, small 
 and set well back, bore heavy gold drop ear-rings on their 
 tiny lobes. This was all the jewellery she chose to wear. 
 Her Hps were suave and full, red with a tendency to a purpler 
 hue. She had kept all her strong teeth, small and sharp like 
 a Frenchwoman's. Her eyes were grey and keen, but not 
 remarkable ; her neat little nose, and the ghostly straight 
 line of the bridge of it, gave Betsey an indefinable sense of 
 moral assurance. 
 
 The 3^ounger woman cherished, but could not define, a 
 perverse but real feeling of reverence for this popular per- 
 sonification of Vice Triumphant. Vice was hardly the A^ord. 
 Julia Altamont might have been wicked, but never vicious. 
 Her appearance, in her daughter-in-law's opinion, was a 
 guarantee of her immunity from the meaner forms of moral 
 disease. Perhaps she had shed these tendencies, if she had 
 ever possessed them, in the production of her son Wilfrid, 
 who stood for the outcome of the inferior instincts of her 
 nature. She did not love him ; she had never caressed him 
 since his curls were cut off and he told his first mean lie. 
 She was ashamed of her gumboil, her imposthume, and said 
 so, cordially disowning him. Both these women now stood 
 mentally aloof, and gazed at the creature that the one had 
 brought into the world to be the life-partner of the other. 
 
 It was all so long ago, and IVIiss Julia Altamont had not so 
 much gained as dropped into a sort of a position, the result 
 of her neighbours' unconscious appreciation of the question- 
 able personage's force of character. Miss Altamont's inevi- 
 table inv^-alidism served the purpose of an apt social manoeuvre 
 and relieved her of the necessity of testing her right of entree 
 into suburban homes. It was " the thing " to be kind to her ; 
 people went to see her — to " sit with her," as they put it.
 
 28 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 The cynical effrontery which was the basis of her character 
 amused those who did not understand it ; she dissembled it 
 cleverly during her reception of visits from clergymen, for 
 which she had a certain malignant predilection. It pleased 
 her to pay church rate without entering the doors of the 
 building whose upkeep she assisted to provide ; she enjoyed 
 giving tea to the vicar of her parish, on the express condition 
 that he was not to talk to her about her soul. Miss Alta- 
 mont's soul, to the Rev. Sydney Barnes, seemed a hard thing 
 to tackle, and he preferred to believe and say that, in some 
 mysterious way, things worked together for good, even in a 
 menage so doubtfully policed by accredited guardian angels 
 as Worksop House. 
 
 Seated in the full light, with her daughter-in-law minister- 
 ing to her, the old lady, who " had her eyes " and needed no 
 spectacles, noticed the bleeding arm, and realised its prove- 
 nance. 
 
 " Where did you get that ? " she asked dryly. 
 
 " The cat." After a pause : " I was teasing him," Betsey 
 added cynically. " I can't help it, somehow, when he comes 
 back from that woman. Rouses all the worst in my nature. 
 I'm not jealous, not I, but I do resent her sending him back 
 to me in such a bad temper always. And putting ideas into 
 his head just when he's a bit low and can't resist them, but 
 gets them on his mind. I must tell you, Granny, he threat- 
 ened this morning to go and worry Sir Joris for money." 
 
 " I've told him I wouldn't have that ! " exclaimed Miss 
 Altamont, rising in her chair. She subsided again by a 
 strong exercise of will. 
 
 " I will not excite myself ! " she exclaimed. " It may kill 
 me — make the blessed aneurism leak ! " 
 
 " It strikes me you are quite proud of that old aneurism," 
 said Betsey, smiling. 
 
 " And Wilfrid isn't worth it, either. . . . Besides, Sir Joris 
 wouldn't see him. He mil know how to protect himself.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 29 
 
 He always did. Betsey, did you happen to remind my 
 precious son of my views on the subject ? " 
 
 " Yes. That's why he hit me. I said a good deal. To tell 
 you the drunken, honest truth, I don't believe he'll go at all. 
 He's had a drop too much, already, to feel very energetic." 
 
 " Poor devil ! . . . My noble son ! . . . There's one thing, 
 Betsey — does he know it, I wonder ? — if he persuades his 
 father to keep him, / won't, and that's flat ! . . , Here, this 
 won't do ! My heart's jumping as it never did for Joris. 
 Give me my cards." 
 
 The little shaped patience-table was brought out and fitted 
 close up to Miss Altamont's outline. She laid out the cards 
 with shaking hands, and presently she became intent and 
 absorbed. Betsey watched her. . . . Her mother-in-law liked 
 to talk Mhile she played, and assume that the game was 
 played mutually. 
 
 " This is the most difficult Patience there is, that I am try- 
 ing, do you know, Betsey ? , . . Yes. . . . I've got it. It's 
 come off ! ... It doesn't come off once in a hundred times ! 
 Like the aloe ! " 
 
 She swept up the cards, 
 
 " I couldn't bring it off again. Mustn't tempt Providence. 
 I'll try an easier one this time ! . . ." 
 
 She played on in silence. Her ear-rings drooped over the 
 board. . . . Betsey watched, smiling kindly. 
 
 " Capital outlet this, Betsey ! I confess I am a little upset 
 by what you've told me, but I am not going to let it affect 
 me. No, sir ! " 
 
 " I'll go doA\Ti and see if Wilfrid really is gone or not, 
 shall I?" 
 
 " Do. Take care you don't let Ginger scratch you again ! " 
 
 In a few moments her daughter-in-law returned, looking a 
 shade paler. 
 
 " Well ? " said Miss Altamont. " Is the gaol-bird flown ? " 
 
 " I am afraid he has. And "
 
 30 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " Don't tell me if it's anything disagreeable ! I wash my 
 hands of him. Don't speak ! The game's the thing. I am 
 very much interested in my game." 
 
 " You are a wonderful woman ! " said her daughter-in-law, 
 who was trembling. 
 
 " I am. What have you got in your hand ? " 
 
 " It's Ada's letter. I found it in the drawer of Wilfrid's 
 desk." 
 
 " Read it to me. Can you ? " 
 
 " Can't I ? I don't care." 
 
 She began in a dead voice : 
 
 " ' I meant what I said to-night, Willie. This can't go on. 
 I've just got about enough for the stamp for this ' " 
 
 " Extravagant minx ! " 
 
 " ' Me, with my two children, will he turned out of this hole 
 next week. I told you. Did you take it in ? Next week, and 
 this is Sunday. Are you going to he ahle to give me anything 
 to go on with and satisfy the landlord ? You can't. I helieve 
 you. Then all you can do is to go, as I told you, to the old 
 man in Cavendish Square and see if you can't touch him for a 
 hit. He's your own father and doesn't deny it, it seems. He 
 can't he such a heast as you make out — 'tisn't natural. Giving 
 it all to your mother as he has, what good does it do me and 
 the children ? There's no harm in asking. I'm asking. We're 
 all asking, all of us, every day. He's used to it. Do you sup- 
 pose you're the only son like^that he's got — a man like him ! ' " 
 
 " That's a nasty one ! " observed Miss Altamont. " Go on, 
 my dear ! " 
 
 " ' Threaten him' " read Betsey, roused now and suiting 
 in some sort her action to the words. " ' Say you're going to 
 kill yourself. Be desperate. I am, I tell you. If you won't 
 go to him, after this, I will. The children haven't enough to 
 eat. Not — enough — to — eat I Take that, you father that doesn't 
 care for his children starving. Coward ! Little Katie said the 
 other day, " / can't grow, because I'm not watered enough."
 
 THE WIFE OP ALTAMONT 31 
 
 Where'd the child get it ? But I kneiv what she meant. You 
 go to your father, who's your father as you're hers, and tell him 
 that. I'll not see you again, unless. — Ada.' There's her name 
 to it. Did you ever ? " 
 
 " Give me the letter ! " bade Miss Altamont. 
 
 Betsey handed it to her, and she put it in the slight pocket 
 of her silk apron. 
 
 " I am inclined to think I have had enough excitement for 
 this time, my dear. If j'ou stay in the room, we shall talk." 
 
 Her daughter-in-law left her.
 
 IV 
 
 Betsey did not go to Miss Altamont again till one o'clock, 
 when she took her her midday meal. 
 
 " Little Katie's preposterous speech, as reported, has given 
 me quite a flutter ! " the old woman remarked. " I shall 
 really have to be careful of this rowdy species of emotions, 
 or I shall be gone before you can turn round. That's the way 
 it will probably be. It has set me thinking about my money. 
 I have left it all to you, Betsey, child. Did you know that ? " 
 
 " No. But Wilfrid was quite sure of it this morning." 
 
 " I have not told him. He argued from my feeling for 
 you. He knows I'm fond of you, and he's jealous. What do 
 you mean to do, Betsey, when I die ? " 
 
 " Need we talk of it now ? I will not stay with Wilfrid." 
 
 " But if I leave you my money, it is on the condition that 
 you give my son a home." 
 
 " Then I must forfeit the money, dear." 
 
 " But what will you do instead ? " 
 
 " Work." 
 
 " They all say that." She had a shrug of contempt. 
 
 " Some do it, too." 
 
 " Most do as I did." She looked up at her daughter-in- 
 law inquiringly. " Do you blame me ? I have never ascer- 
 tained your views on that point." 
 
 " I thought it very clever of you." 
 
 " How so, bless you ? " 
 
 " To manage to arrange the affairs of the heart on a busi- 
 ness footing." 
 
 32
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 33 
 
 " I had no heart. I never grew one till I was fifty, and 
 it jerked and asserted itself to-day because a little child was 
 starving." 
 
 " I can't say I believe in that child. She got her speech 
 out of some Board-school teacher's collection of bon-mots." 
 
 " So you think I need not flutter over that little joke ! " 
 said the old woman sarcastically. " Fluttering is fatal, we 
 know. You mean well, Betsey, if not by the child, at any 
 rate by me." 
 
 " \Miy don't you send Ada a cheque at once ? " said the 
 younger woman harshly. "If it would ease your mind ? 
 
 There's more joy in Heaven ! You know the quotation ? 
 
 Rather a mean one — I resent it. You want to support the 
 sinner, I know, only you think I should object. You're 
 MTong, dear, in that. I assure you, if the money's there, I 
 don't care what wild, undeserving charity it goes to. Write 
 the cheque, and I'll post it for you with pleasure. I have 
 no fine feelings about Wilfrid's faux menage now. I haven't 
 either taste or feelings left. I am rapidly becoming a mere 
 suburban derelict." 
 
 " Wliat, under Heaven, is that ? Surely you exaggerate ? " 
 
 " I can hardly describe it, except in exaggerated terms." 
 She laughed and sat down on the low prie-dieu chair. She 
 wanted to divert the old woman's mind from serious subjects, 
 and knew very well how to do it. She had a pleasing gurgle 
 in her throat as she talked and laughed, as if her cw^n long 
 words appalled her and her owti wit amused her. " It's the 
 way I feel it — the way my environment affects me. It is as 
 if the iron of inanition had slowly entered my soul. I am 
 resigned, submissive, I am beginning to comply with my 
 misery. I go to their teas, though not to their concerts — not 
 that cup ! — I belong to their magazine clubs and debating 
 societies. Talk of the subliminal mind, it's not nearly so 
 deep down, or so stupidly mysterious, as the suburban con- 
 sciousness ! "
 
 34 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " You are not quite so resigned as you make out. But go 
 on, you amuse me." 
 
 "Is it taking off some of the flutter ? Good ! . . . Well, 
 dear, I don't say I am quite dead and atrophied — None of 
 us are, worse luck ! We brood, we long, we s^vither. We 
 have glimmerings — of worlds not realised. Like the rest of 
 us, I study the movements of the Free Peoples from the 
 pink papers, and read of crimes I may not commit, and clothes 
 I may not wear. We are all waking up a little. I believe it's 
 Wellington's that has done it ? We're a horde of savages in 
 connection with a circulating library. Subsidised men of the 
 Press expound for us the primitive elemental passions " 
 
 " If you knew them, those passions you speak of, knew 
 them intimately, as I have done — you'd know they were mere 
 matters of routine — of business, my dear . . . not worth a 
 quiet afternoon with a book ! " 
 
 " Perhaps ! Satiety might creep in. But we haven't had 
 much chance of trying them, you see. We are seething with 
 revolt. Mrs. Gedge has told her husband that it's quite on 
 the cards he may come back from his office one day and find 
 her flown a la Nora — poor exploded, old Ibsenitish Nora ! 
 Shows how behindhand we are ! The new Nora doesn't fly — 
 she stays and sows her wild oats at home. Miss Zambach 
 has read ' Between the Shafts,' and is thinking of the best 
 way to keep her nephews at home in the evenings ; and 
 Evangeline Simmons takes long bicycle rides to wear down 
 her temperament. I like to see you laughing, dear. Now 
 shall I get you out your cheque-book, and you can spend a 
 happy couple of hours with it while I go out ? " 
 
 " Where are you going ? " 
 
 " It's Mrs. Wormeley's ' At Home ' day. I didn't go last 
 Monday." 
 
 " So you can stand Mrs. W. ? " 
 
 " She's all there is. I have to take my mental food where 
 I can get it," the other replied bitterly. " These women of
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 35 
 
 Wimbledon, with husbands dotted about in every office in 
 London, are rather entertaining in the lump, and for Mhat 
 they represent. Mi's. Wormeley always reminds me of a fat 
 white slug, crawling across the garden path after a shower of 
 rain, lifting its silly transparent horns to see what is going on. 
 She's over-fed, over-housed, over-dressed — under-servanted, 
 under-weighted with intellect " 
 
 " You're so much cleverer than they are, Betsey, I just 
 wonder they tolerate you. . . . W^ell, come to me again 
 when you've got your hat on, and don't mention the cheque- 
 book until I do. I will not be jumped into benevolence ! " 
 
 Betsey obeyed. She wondered, as she stuck pins into her 
 hat, and peeped at herself, stooping, in the low glass that 
 came no further than her waist, whether Miss Altamont 
 would go the cynical length of asking her to post a letter 
 containing the means of running her husband's illegitimate 
 menage for a month longer. But indeed, if this surprising 
 duty were demanded of her, Betsey meant to show no temper. 
 It would be a merely conventional manifestation of that vice, 
 if she did, for she did not feel at all strongly about it. A 
 little natural pique had succeeded her access of real vexation 
 this morning, when Wilfrid had broken the fact of his pater- 
 nity to her. She was moved now by purely business considera- 
 tions. In the first place, she did not believe in the genuine- 
 ness of the appeal of Wilfrid's mistress ; she thought the 
 letter too theatrical to be sincere. In the second, she fancied 
 that the state of Miss Altamont's exchequer did not justify 
 an immediate outlay, supposing the generous impulse were 
 still predominant when that lady came to examine her pass- 
 book. 
 
 It was not. When Betsey returned to the invalid no men- 
 tion was made of the intended charity. Miss Altamont was 
 concerned, however, quite unusually, about Wilfrid's comfort. 
 
 " Is there a fire in my son's study ? " she asked. 
 
 " No. But there can be. I'll tell Georgie to light it."
 
 36 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " Do so. I may be hard-hearted and able to resist chari- 
 table appeals, but I have a troubling vision of the poor fool 
 I bore wandering about the streets trying to make up his 
 mind to go and get refused admittance in Cavendish Square ! 
 It is most unlikely that Sir Joris will allow himself to be ap- 
 proached. There is no reason why he should. It would be 
 a mere indecent attempt at blackmail, and Sir Joris knows 
 how to deal with such cases." 
 
 " But I have heard — every one knows — that Sir Joris 
 Veere is a great philanthropist — gives away hundreds every 
 day, and feeds crowds of poor children in Shoreditch and 
 Stepney ! " 
 
 " He will perhaps benefit his grandchildren in the lump, 
 then, and be instrumental in giving them a sixpenny tea at 
 Christmas " 
 
 " So charity will really begin at home for once — eh? " 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! . . . Well, be civil to Wilfrid, if you find him 
 when you come back." 
 
 " Yes, I'll wash my cut and hold out the other hand to 
 him," said Betsey shortly. " Milder counsels shall prevail. 
 You may rely on me. I'll not be gone long. Good-bye ! " 
 
 She went out of the room jauntily, though something, she 
 knew not what, seemed to rise in her throat and choke her 
 as she went downstairs. She took mechanically a box of 
 matches from a shelf in the hall, and, entering her husband's 
 study, struck one after the other in the vain attempt to get 
 a light. She was clumsy, ineffectual, a sense of guiltiness 
 oppressed her. Yet Miss Altamont had not scolded her ; 
 her solicitude for Wilfrid held only a mild note of reproach 
 for the healthy woman who had irritated the nervous man 
 belonging to them both. 
 
 Wilfrid had struck her ! But what was a blow compared 
 with the lash of words that she wielded so well ? 
 
 She knelt on the worn hearthrug and stoked Wilfrid's fire, 
 carefully, eagerly, artistically. It was badly laid, and did
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 37 
 
 not burn — at first. She then sat down, her arms under her 
 knees, and watched the feeble progress of the flame. As it 
 slowly gained strength she felt a distinct sense of elation. 
 She had at last done something wifely for Wilfrid. She made 
 up her mind not to leave the fire till its future was assured. . . . 
 
 It was nearly four o'clock. She fell into a reverie. Her 
 arms relaxed, her gloves fell out of her lap. Thoughts of all 
 kinds, underlaid with a permanent basic mournfulness, passed 
 through her mind. She wished she could shake off her dreary 
 mood of self-condemnation. She wished Georgiana would 
 come in and get scolded for laying the fire so badly. . . . 
 
 The fine heat caressed her cheek. The fire was getting on 
 well. There was no need for Georgiana. She would hunt out 
 a pair of Wilfrid's slippers in the inner room, put them not too 
 near the fire, and go out to distract herself, as usual, by the lan- 
 guid exercise of her finer wits on the clumsy mental apparatus 
 of her acquaintance. Sitting in their horrid be-photographed 
 stuffy drawing-rooms with a cup of tea in her hands, she 
 would smilingly " prod them up," show them their own views, 
 which she more or less shared, exaggerated to ridicule, tease 
 them, agitate them, amuse them. She was not loved, but 
 she was judged worth her salt — at any rate her tea, by the 
 stultified wives and sisters of the business men who flocked 
 out of the suburb every day by the morning train to seek the 
 cheerful arena of combat, leaving their females at home to 
 chew the cud of sweet and bitter fancy. Betsey had quite a 
 little reputation in Wimbledon, where her talk counted for 
 much, and her beauty, naturally enough, not at all.
 
 Mrs. Mortimer Wormeley. At Home, Fridays. Four 
 to six-thirty," was on her cards, and was an institution. 
 The housemaid cleaned the silver on Friday mornings ; 
 the spare seat that would hold three nicely was brought 
 into the drawing-room from the hall, a ninepenny pot- 
 plant was bought, it was clean-cushion day, and the club 
 magazines all had paper-knives negligently stuck through 
 them. 
 
 Crump, the baker in the High Street, provided the one- 
 and-sixpenny Madeira cake and the coffee rolls. Every 
 member of the set who passed Crump's window knew his 
 famous make, and could account to a certainty for each slice 
 of the cake that would be sent up to The Pines in good 
 time on the afternoon of the important day. Mrs. Wormeley's 
 friends had got into the way of attending alternate Fridays, 
 so that a computation of attendances Avould put you in a 
 position to know exactly what members of the set would 
 share the cake with you on any given Friday. 
 
 You were not, as it is confidently believed within the Pale, 
 invited to " bring your sewing." No one really does sew in 
 the suburbs. If Mrs. Altamont put needle to thread it was 
 of sheer necessity. The bitter cry of the riven seam or the 
 sprung button only could impel her, and she used the bored, 
 perfunctory stitch of a Robinson Crusoe whose furs have to 
 be held together. Nobody's clothes, as a matter of fact, 
 needed careful mending, for they were as a rule bought cheap, 
 and thrown away as soon as they " went wrong." 
 
 38
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAJVIONT 39 
 
 Mrs. Altainont could trim a hat, and often did. She used 
 pins. 
 
 To-day, after closing the door of Worksop House with a 
 snap, she directed her steps towards Wimbledon, and walked 
 along the frontage of the few best shops in a ruminating man- 
 ner. She gazed carelessly, but shrewdly, into their glazen 
 depths. . . . 
 
 She had a black feather laid by. 
 
 One of those blue soft felt hats, tilted a little on one side, 
 and with a knowing tweak taken in the crown, would use it 
 up very well. This was how she managed to dress beautifully 
 if a little casually, for almost nothing, worshipping at the 
 shrine of the goddess of the pin- makers. 
 
 She entered the shop, picked out her hat, paid ready money 
 for it, and carried it away with her in a paper bag. 
 
 She passed the railway station and began to scale the slopes 
 of villadom on the west. She went by Magnolia Lodge, and 
 The Beeches, and Oakwood, all so much alike that they 
 might, she thought, as well have been styled comprehensively. 
 The Peas. Finally she came to The Pines — one pine, and 
 so dusty ! — a grey stuccoed house standing in its own scanty 
 grounds. In their circumference two flower-beds and one 
 drive had been engineered. Here Mrs. Wormeley held the 
 jousts. 
 
 Footsteps on the moist gravel of the path told her that the 
 At Home had begun. She rang the bell that said Visitors, 
 and was at once admitted by Selina the maid. She deposited 
 her parcel on the hall table. This was deftly combined with 
 a coat-rack. She concealed the inelegant suggestiveness of 
 the paper bag under the flaps of Mr. Wormeley's great-coat. 
 The impedimenta of Mr. Wormeley's Sunday employment 
 and enjoyment were en evidence, and she sighed, wishing that 
 Wilfrid could be induced to take to the great derivative of 
 clerks and business men. In the other corner Master Albany's 
 perambulator presented unexpected snags. On one of these
 
 40 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 she caught the braid on the bottom of her gown, previously- 
 anchored there by fairy stitches. 
 
 " Oh, bother ! Lend me a pin, SeHna, will you? " 
 
 Selina kindly took the familiar implement out of the bib 
 of her clean apron. "I'm sorry, I only seem to have one, 
 ma'am." 
 
 " Oh, one'll do," answered Mrs. Altamont, hastily adjust- 
 ing it. " Who's here ? " 
 
 " Miss Zambach and Mrs. Gedge." 
 
 Profound and sinister yells from above-stairs punctuated 
 the names. 
 
 " Oh, dear, there's Master Albany off again ! " exclaimed 
 Selina. " Wliatever have come to that child ? He do scream 
 so. Anybody 'd think we was half murdering of him ! " 
 
 " They'll know you aren't doing it by giving him soothing 
 syrup, any way," said Mrs. Altamont vindictively, passing 
 into the drawing-room. " I'd give it him if he were mine, 
 little wretch ! " 
 
 Mrs. Wormeley sat in a cosy corner formed by the Chester- 
 field sofa. It had a shoulder that let down, making room for 
 one person beside her. That person got a clear view of Mrs. 
 Wormeley's mystery of tea-making — of tea-watering, for the 
 nodus of strength was put in outside, to be diluted to taste 
 through the afternoon. On her left hand stood a rickety 
 three-decker cake-stand, bread and butter, rolled, on the 
 top layer, the famous Madeira from Crump's on the inter- 
 mediate one, and the hot cakes, which were the heaviest, on 
 the lowest dish of all. Byngo, Mrs. Wormeley's terrier, who 
 had generally been freshly washed, glared at the assemblage 
 of good things. Mrs. Altamont's eye caught Byngo's in- 
 dubitably, and Byngo at once knew that she would be acces- 
 sory to some portions of the tea-cake finding their way into 
 his mouth during the course of the afternoon. He didn't 
 mind it being heavy. 
 
 Mrs. Wormeley was stout and fair, with ear-rings that
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 41 
 
 somehow gave her a sort of respectable Stuart air. Her grey 
 hair was waved and in rouleaux, and she wore a jewelled 
 inset watch on her broad bosom as if it were a medal. Her 
 voice was low and yearning. She shook hands cordially with 
 IMrs. Altamont, and called her by her Christian name. 
 
 " Albany is letting himself go ! " Betsey remarked as she 
 shook hands with the other two ladies. 
 
 " He doesn't seem to get on with his new nurse. She has 
 a moustache, but is otherwise quite nice," the mother ex- 
 plained, and the two other ladies pursed their lips slightly. 
 Mrs. Wormeley was not clever with servants, and even Selina's 
 demure little cat-face that they had all grown to like in her two 
 months' occupancy of The Pines, would probably not illu- 
 mine those halls for as long again. Mrs. Altamont was being 
 installed next to Mrs. Wormeley — the place reserved to the 
 latest comer. . . . 
 
 " But shan't you have to go to him ? " inquired the child- 
 less woman wistfully. 
 
 " He's only exercising his lungs, so Dr. Gedge tells me," 
 replied ]\Irs. Wormeley indifferently. " Bread and butter, 
 or tea-cake, Betsey ? " Crump's cake was offered with the 
 second cup only. " DoAvn, Byngo ! Is not that a ring at the 
 bell ? " 
 
 " It's Evangeline Simmons, I expect," said Miss Zambach. 
 " Do you know if she's heard from Drake's about her novel ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes — didn't you know ? He's wild to publish it, and 
 she's going to let him. She's got to put down eighty-five 
 pounds as a guarantee, and won't get a penny till two thou- 
 sand copies have been sold. He says they'll easily do five 
 thousand, and she's to give him her next two if it's a success. 
 Isn't that nice ? " 
 
 " Very," said Mrs. Gedge. " Poor girl, I do hope it will 
 be a success. They are so badly off ! " 
 
 " It's sure to pay if she makes it improper enough," said 
 Betsey gaily.
 
 42 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " But not too improper," said Miss Zambach, " for if it is 
 too au de Id, my dear, Wellington's won't have it on his 
 shelves, and I shouldn't be able to afford to buy it." 
 
 " Evangeline must curb herself and manage to keep to the 
 windward of Wellington's," said Betsey. " Cleverer people 
 than she have had to. It's a necessary condition of literary 
 existence now. Wliat ? " 
 
 The door opened suddenly, and the maid Selina appeared, 
 propelled evidently by some force from behind, and com- 
 mendably anxious to keep command of the door. 
 
 " Please, Mrs. Wormeley, it's a lady. She says she's heard 
 Master Albany all down the road, and " 
 
 " Excuse me," said a somewhat raucous but perfectly 
 well-bred voice from behind Selina, " I am a member of 
 The Society, and I feel I must make some inquiries." 
 
 The young lady who, cuckoo-like, shoved the little linnet 
 of a Selina out of the way, was tall and stately, and did not 
 look more than twenty years old. She was pretty in a simple, 
 innocent way, and her long ear-rings accentuated the childish- 
 ness of her face. A single pearl on a loop of diamonds hung 
 from under her chin, lengthening her long throat. The four 
 suburban women were at once duly impressed by the style 
 and grooming of the impertinent visitor. Mrs. Wormeley rose 
 and scattered the biscuits, and Byngo hastily profited. 
 
 " There must be something wrong," pursued the girl, 
 with an effort, evidently, toning down her natural arro- 
 gance. "A child in mortal terror running naked down the 
 street " 
 
 " My son Albany " stammered Mrs. Wormeley. 
 
 "Is it your son ? " 
 
 " Yes, and my son hasn't been out to-day. I never heard 
 such — impertinence. Coming into another person's house ! 
 If my husband were here " 
 
 " Mr. Wormeley would know what to say to you ! " ex- 
 claimed Miss Zambach, coming forward with a spirit.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 43 
 
 " Really ! " murmured Mrs. Gedge, apologetically still under 
 the sway of the style and the pearl drop. 
 
 The young ladj'^ stood firm. She was evidently unused to 
 be contradicted. Mrs. Altamont contributed to the conver- 
 sation for the first time. Gently, indifferently, she spoke. 
 
 " Why don't you let the young lady look at Albany and 
 see for herself, Madge ? Perhaps she will be able to tell us 
 how to stop him screaming." 
 
 The suggestion hung fire for a moment. . . . 
 
 " I'm sure I wouldn't do anything of the kind," murmured 
 IVIiss Zambach, but Mrs. Worm el ey, hypnotised by the pearl 
 drop, had already turned, and was leading her visitor to the 
 upstairs regions, whence the screams still came fast. 
 
 Miss Zambach stooped and picked up the biscuits, restoring 
 those that were least defaced to the dish. " I suppose you'll 
 expect Madge to offer her a cup of tea when she comes down 
 again, Betsey ? " she asked sarcastically. 
 
 " Wliy not ? I should. But Madge won't rise to it. Here, 
 Byngo ! " She offered the dog tea-cake. " I say, I shouldn't 
 be surprised if the mannish nurse gave warning on the 
 spot." 
 
 The others considered Betsey spiteful, and were about to 
 tell her so when the door opened, and Selina admitted a tall 
 weedy girl in rusty tweeds, who was told at once what was 
 going on upstairs. 
 
 " Oh, Betsey, you're killing ! " exclaimed Evangeline 
 Simmons, the future beguiler of Messrs. Wellington, for it 
 was she. 
 
 " Why not ? It was the simplest thing to do. She's only 
 a child. She meant well." 
 
 " Coming here spying ! " 
 
 " Well, who minds being spied on ? The sooner people 
 get rid of that silly notion about an Englishman's house being 
 his castle the better. Privacy is only our desire for differen-
 
 44 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 tiation while the world is so vile. We don't trust our fellow- 
 citizens to be nice. We pay to go first-class because we dread 
 the old lady who offers peppermints in the third. We are 
 ashamed of ourselves in our every attitude. But, bless you, in 
 the time that's coming people won't be shy of each other, won't 
 mind going on platforms, or singing at concerts, or eating in 
 public, and giving themselves away generally. They won't 
 
 care to blush unseen " 
 
 " If they blush at all ! " said Mrs. Gedge severely. " People 
 like you, Betsey, with a perfect craze for publicity — notoriety, 
 I may say " 
 
 a 
 
 I adore it. And I'll never get it. Suburban seclusion 
 for ever — ochone ! ochone ! " Mrs. Altaniont chanted softly. 
 " I should love to be the heroine of a cause celebre. Sh'h ! 
 I hear voices." 
 
 " Somebody, do, set the door ajar ! " said Mrs. Gedge. 
 
 The little thin hall buzzed with apologies. Then the 
 listeners heard the hall door closed deferentially, and Mrs. 
 Wormeley, brimming with consequence, re-entered her own 
 drawing-room. 
 
 " She Avouldn't stay tea, Betsey, though I asked her. Said 
 she was engaged to tea at Garsington House." 
 
 " Old Lord Druid's ! " said Mrs. Gedge. " My husband 
 attends him." 
 
 " A thoroughly nice girl ! " continued Mrs. Wormeley. 
 " I talked to her and explained things. She agreed with me 
 that Albany is a purely modern product, the over- sensitised 
 offspring of two highly-strung personalities — Mortimer and 
 myself." 
 
 " Born and bred beyond the radius," said Betsey, delicately 
 mocking. " Born to soul-searching as the sparks fly upwards, 
 — to a morbid outlook, like the rest of us. Far away from 
 the central radiance — the hub of the universe, Mayfair " 
 
 "I can't say I care about Mayfair so much," said ^ Miss 
 Zambach. " But I could do with Kensington. Bernard
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 45 
 
 Shaw speaks at the To-s\ti Hall there sometimes. But here, 
 with nothing to do but go and try to get the books w^e want 
 from Wellington's " 
 
 " Wellington's has done it ! " said Betsey. " He is re- 
 sponsible for our divine discontent. Until we could, for the 
 humble sum of twopence a volume, procure the literature of 
 our destitution, and learn all about ourselves and our unruly 
 organs, and the world's cruel measures of repression, we bore 
 it better, we could buoy ourselves up with the idea that we 
 were healthy happy outsiders, living the right life, though 
 dreary. But now we know that we are all ^vrong, all clogged 
 up, arrested growths, unfit for treasons, crimes, and strata- 
 gems, out of it all, out of Life where virtues and vice flourish 
 together. ... I can go on if you like ? " 
 
 " I agree with Betsey," said Miss Simmons. " Ten years 
 ago — I am, alas, old enough to remember it " (she was the 
 youngest there !) — " we were contented in our blind suburb- 
 anity. We dressed out of Mrs. Wellwood's shilling patterns, 
 we shopped and argued with tradesmen about things that 
 really didn't matter, we never thought of asking our husbands 
 — I haven't got one, but I know — our husbands what they 
 did all day long when ostensibly at the mart, we never looked 
 beyond the big catalpa tree in the garden, as we sat and 
 hemmed blinds. But now, thanks to Wellington's and some 
 dear darling revealing authors he hasn't got on to boycotting 
 yet, we are seething with discontent, instinct with revolt " 
 
 " And all owing, Betsey says, to the flood of literature let 
 loose on us by the libraries," pondered Mrs. Gedge. " I some- 
 times wonder if it's wise. Is it any good for us to know that 
 we are as capable of high emotion as " 
 
 " Oh, well, Wellington's seems to have got a fright lately," 
 broke in Mrs. Wormeley. " He is trying to pen us in again. 
 There were two or three books I read reviews of last summer 
 in the magazines and so on, and when I asked for them the 
 girl told me the management had boycotted them."
 
 46 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 :c 
 
 Too bad ! " said Miss Zambach. " Treating us like 
 children ! " 
 
 " That's why I have joined the Suffrage movement," ex- 
 claimed Evangeline. " And Socialism too. There's one 
 morality for the rich and another for the poor. It's the poor 
 intelligent who suffer. Untrained rich idiots who can afford 
 to buy a book right out can read what they like." 
 
 " Plank down a voluptuous four-and-six, and you can take 
 your favourite drug home with you," suggested Mrs. Altamont. 
 
 " There's Lee-Brice's new book, now," Evangeline sighed. 
 " I am dying to get it ; I am sure it would appeal to me." 
 
 " It wouldn't appal you, at any rate ! " put in Betsey. 
 
 " The Bed Corpuscles," said Miss Zambach. " But they 
 never will have his books, so it's no good." 
 
 " But what does the title mean ? " asked Mrs. Wormeley. 
 
 " Oh, I suppose it's the vigour — the amount of life force in 
 us," explained Evangeline. " The red corpuscles in the blood 
 and what they drive us to do. That's the way I read the 
 title." 
 
 " Splendid crimes, eh ? " said Betsey. " Though I should 
 think the average murderer was a person of low vitality — of a 
 sluggish imagination, if not an anaemic one. He takes such 
 very short views — never sees the gallows at the end of his 
 line." 
 
 " I didn't mean murder crimes exactly. Crimes with a love 
 motive, more. What they call crimes passionels." 
 
 " Not many of them in England, at least. There's money 
 at the bottom of every murder, I think," said Betsey briskly. 
 " No, my dear Evangeline, make up your mind, there's no 
 hope for you here, so be quick and marry out of mediocrity. 
 Get into Mayfair, or at least Kensington. I'm going now. 
 Are you coming my way ? We might call in at Wellington's 
 and see if we can get The Bed Corpuscles. I don't see how 
 they can go on boycotting a reputation like Lee-Brice." 
 
 I bet they do, though ! Their regular people complain 
 
 a
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 47 
 
 and say they can't send their daughters to grub in their 
 shelves as they like." 
 
 " Who wants girls to get out the books they like ? Lee- 
 Brice doesn't write for girls. If he did, Evangeline wouldn't 
 care to read him. Come on, my dear, I hope you don't mind 
 being seen with a paper parcel ? " 
 
 The two went out together. 
 
 " Betsey's splendid, isn't she ? " said Mrs. Wormeley, 
 rather apologetically. " She's got so much decision of char- 
 acter. When she told me to take that girl upstairs I just had 
 to obey her. And as it turned out, I was glad I had done so. 
 Such a ladylike person, and a friend of Lord Druid's too." 
 
 " He's a dipsomaniac," said Mrs. Gedge parenthetically. 
 She had a great pull, physiologically speaking, in these dis- 
 cussions, being a doctor's wife. 
 
 " But a man of good family before a dipsomaniac," said 
 Mrs. Wormeley. '" That husband of Betsey's, now ! — he 
 drinlvs and nothing to redeem it." 
 
 " Poor Betsey ! " said Miss Zambach. 
 
 " There's no harm in Mr. Altamont," Mrs. Gedge assured 
 them. " Not \icious, only weak. My husband calls him a 
 first-class degenerate." 
 
 "Oh, I should have thought that would have expressed 
 Lord Druid more ! " said Mrs. Wormeley. 
 
 " Mr. Altamont's illegitimacy preys on his mind rather, 
 I imagine," volunteered Mrs. Gedge. 
 
 " More than it does on his mother's," Miss Zambach re- 
 marked skittishly. 
 
 " I do believe Betsey admires her for that," Mrs. Gedge 
 contributed. " She nearly says it. She thinks her so strong." 
 
 " Well," remarked the hostess, " it does take some strength 
 of mind to defy public opinion as that old woman does and 
 call yourself miss when you're the mother of a grown-up son !
 
 48 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 Mr. Wormeley has never been quite reconciled to my calling 
 there. I only did it once to put matters on a footing. And 
 now Betsey is glad to come here, pretty often. She's so 
 amusing. But I'd rather have her here than go there. 
 There's something sinister about that old lady. She just 
 stares me down. And the house is a most uncomfortable 
 and ill-regulated house. It speaks for them both. Betsey's 
 not a bit a natty person. She doesn't seem to care to have 
 things pretty about her. Not a chair-back in the house, and 
 no photographs ! " 
 
 " Perhaps she's got no friends to send her them ? And no 
 money to be done herself," said Miss Zambach, fixing her 
 eyes on the large cabinet-sized presentment of Mrs. Wormeley, 
 in her court dress with a shimmering lake of train in front of 
 her feet, in which she appeared just about to plunge. " And 
 she certainly wasn't presented on her marriage ! " 
 
 " No ! " sighed Mrs. Wormeley sympathetically. " Dear 
 me, how I have let myself drop out of things ! This that I 
 have on," she indicated the dark satin dress that draped her, 
 " was made out of the train, dyed ! " 

 
 VI 
 
 " Gracious ! How my corns are shooting ! " said Evan- 
 geline Simmons, as in the company of the woman 
 she loved Avitli a fearful love, and admired against her 
 own and her parents' will, she made her painful way down 
 the little " parlour drive " of The Pines, " And just look 
 at the berries ! It's going to be a hard ^vinter. And we shall 
 have those wretched unemployed about again, with their 
 six children and one wife starving at home ! " 
 
 Tlie careless speech reminded Mrs. Altamont of the plight 
 of little Katie. But she proceeded to answer Evangeline 
 categorically. 
 
 " Get something for them at Wellington's — the corns, I 
 mean. They had a wonderful cure for them there, my Georgie 
 told me, last winter. And do hold up your long -trained 
 tweeds, Evangeline ! You're covering me mth mud. I wish 
 there were sumptuary laws, and that no one in our position was 
 permitted to wear trains. Did you notice that girl who came 
 in about Albany, and what short skirts she had ? " 
 
 " Ah — but she was tall and slight. Lucky for her. Do you 
 think she was a hospital nurse ? Or a Suffragette ? " 
 
 " Neither. She left her card case in the hall. Madge will 
 have to send it back. I looked in it while you were hunting 
 for your umbrella. She was the Lady Dobree de Saye." 
 
 " Good gracious ! . . . But I don't care for titles, do 
 you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I do, rather," replied Mrs. Altamont frankly. " They 
 sound so clean and clear — not tradey or suburban. I knew 
 X 49
 
 50 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 she was somebody decent the moment she came in — some 
 smart crank, or so." 
 
 " And that's why you advised Madge to take her up- 
 stairs ? " 
 
 " Partly. Just to see if anything came of it." 
 
 " Nothing did." 
 
 " Madge didn't rise to the occasion, you see." 
 
 " Now you " 
 
 " Oh, I'd have got hold of her somehow. Without pushing 
 or vulgarity, mind, Evangeline. I hope I've got enough 
 savoir-faire for that. She and I'd have caught on. It would 
 have been a door opened on to the world — for me. I'd have 
 
 liked that, of course, but " Her face saddened. " It 
 
 could not have lasted. Her people would have interfered — 
 my circumstances, naturally ! " 
 
 " You look so sad, Betsey, all of a sudden ! " 
 
 " — As if the idea had just been brought home to me, eh ? 
 Wlien as a matter of fact I live looking at it, day by day, 
 facing a blank wall that cuts me off from every possible 
 experience. If it wasn't for my — for Miss Altamont, I think 
 I'd go mad ! " 
 
 " I didn't know, although I've immense power of sympathy, 
 that you felt it all as much as that ! You're always so gay 
 and laughing ! " 
 
 " That's my temperament," the other retorted, laughing. 
 " So I get no pity. Here we are at Wellington's. Hey for 
 The Red Corpuscles ! " 
 
 " And hey for the corn-cure ! " echoed Evangeline, with 
 imitative cheerfulness. She admired Betsey enormously in 
 her pose of mirthful Mariana of a Wimbledon grange. 
 
 They entered the funnel-shaped emporium of Messrs. 
 Wellington's. A long counter devoted to physical ameliora- 
 tion led on to that consecrated to mental panacea. Evangeline 
 stopped at the first, and tried to attract the attention of a 
 busy salesman.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 51 
 
 " 111 go on to the library and join you again," said Mrs. 
 Altamont. " They are so perfectly sure not to have the 
 book ! " 
 
 But before she could get any further the light of the door 
 was filled up and a burly man dashed into the shop, anxious, 
 seemingly, not so much to buy a drug to allay pain, as to be 
 the first to impart news to a friend at the counter. The clerk 
 whose duty it was to attend to Evangeline leaned towards 
 the new-comer, who, however, spoke loud, and Betsey and 
 Evangeline caught snatches of his terrific piece of informa- 
 tion : 
 
 " Old man . . . shot in two places . . . head . . . his 
 own secretary . . . turned the weapon on himself . . . only 
 blown out his jaw and one eye, poor devil ! " . . . 
 
 " Good Heavens, you don't say so ! One-and-elevenpence- 
 halfpenny, miss," said the punctilious clerk, turning politely 
 to Evangeline, anxious, perhaps, to show that firmly in- 
 grained business habits could stand the impact of even news 
 like this without pretermission of the work in hand. Then, 
 and not till then, he stooped to the informant for more. 
 
 "Oh, Betsey," pleaded Miss Simmons, fumbling with her 
 bag ; "do lend me sixpence ! " 
 
 Betsey held out her leathern purse, and Evangeline grate- 
 fully prized out the money. 
 
 " Who has been killed, do you say ? " Betsey asked, turning 
 to the new-comer quietly. The clerk had gone for change, 
 and the burly man was the centre of an eager group. He 
 looked in the direction of and answered Betsey's neat voice, 
 however. 
 
 " Old Sir Joris Veere. Veere, Avercamp, and Veere. He's 
 dead as a door-nail by now. Fell like a steer, so the man said 
 who saw it. And he says it's all about a girl, too. Here, I 
 must be off ! " 
 
 He departed, anxious to be delightfully beforehand with 
 the newspapers in some more quarters. Evangeline, having
 
 52 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 got her change, turned to Betsey, who stood dumbfounded. 
 The cro\Ad melted away. 
 
 " We'd better go, I suppose. Wliat about The Red Cor- 
 puscles ? Did you ask ? " 
 
 " I haven't been in there " She seemed dazed. 
 
 " I forgot," said Evangehne. " Sir Joris Veere — it makes 
 a difference to you ? " 
 
 " For goodness' sake, don't talk about it here ! " said 
 Betsey impatiently. " There's the bus — passes our door ! 
 Good-bye ! " 
 
 She caught her bus, without calling upon it to stop. It 
 was running full tilt. Evangeline saw her resolute, impene- 
 trable face fronting the window as she was borne past.
 
 VII 
 
 Betsey declared that she never could think about any- 
 thing but clothes in a bus. She could not even think 
 of clothes now, so her mind was a conscious blank during the 
 ten minutes' drive. She alighted in front of her own door, 
 said good night to the conductor, who knew her well, and 
 admired and respected her lightning entries on to the foot- 
 board of his bus, and rang the bell. Wilfrid, of course, 
 carried the only latch-key. 
 
 Even then she did not think. The essential notion that 
 filled all her brain place was evidenced in the first thing she 
 said to her maid who, smiling imperturbably, opened the door. 
 
 " IVIiss Altamont — no one is to go near her — not even Mr. 
 Altamont — he's not come in, has he ? " She was breathless. 
 Georgie was calm. 
 
 " No, mum. There's a gentleman waiting for you, mum." 
 
 Mrs. Altamont's hand went to her forehead. . . . 
 
 " Where' ve you put him ? " 
 
 " In the dining-room, mum. There's a bit of fire still in 
 there." 
 
 " That's right ! " She handed her the paper bag with the 
 blue felt hat in it. " Here, take this ! " 
 
 " I think it's the Gas ! " volunteered Georgie. 
 
 " Very likely," said her mistress, standing in front of a 
 little mirror in the hall, and poking at a strayed lock on her 
 forehead with a hair-pin. ... To gain time ! For what ? 
 She wondered. ..." Bring a lamp as soon as you can. I'm 
 going in to him now." 
 
 63
 
 54 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 She entered the dinmg-room, going down the one step, 
 over which she boggled, though she was perfectly used to it. 
 She was nervous lest it should not be " the Gas." 
 
 A stiff, correct, spruce person, who had been sitting with 
 his hands on his knees in the semi-obscurity, his bulk irra- 
 diated from below by the nearly extinct fire, rose at her 
 entry. 
 
 " I'm so sorry — she hasn't given you a light ! " Her affec- 
 tation of bustle was unbecoming to her. " Have you been 
 waiting long ? " 
 
 " It doesn't matter," the man interrupted. He fostered a 
 singular calm round him, as he spoke, neither fast nor slow, 
 with the curious, civil inwardness of the British official. 
 " Excuse me, madam — you are Mrs. Altamont ? " 
 
 She acquiesced, timorously — a mouse that sees the trap it 
 will shortly run into. 
 
 " I have a message for you — from a man in hospital." 
 
 " Mr. Altamont ? " She had always known it, she realised, 
 now. 
 
 " Yes. He's badly hurt, but not dead. He shot Sir Joris 
 Veere at his residence in Cavendish Square, at twenty minutes 
 past four this afternoon, and then tried to take his own life." 
 
 He made a movement forward to support the woman who 
 did not totter. Her face he could see but ill in the dimness. 
 
 " Had you heard ? " 
 
 " I heard in a shop near here, that there had been a murder, 
 
 but not that Wilfrid They said something about a 
 
 secretary. . . . Put it down, Georgie, and go ! " She spoke 
 peremptorily. " Remember what I told you about Miss 
 Altamont." 
 
 " Yes, m'm ! " Georgie deposited a hastily lit, still evilly 
 smelling lamp on the centre table and fled. The detective 
 continued : 
 
 " The police were called in by Mr. Ernest Rose Veere, his 
 nephew, who heard the shots in the hall, but was not in time
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 55 
 
 to prevent it. They found both men on the floor. Sir Joris 
 was stone dead, your husband unable to speak. We took him 
 to St. Frithiof's close by. He was made to write on a slate. 
 And a card was found in his pocket with the address. The 
 coroner sent me here to fetch j^ou." 
 
 " What did Wilfrid Avrite on the slate ? " she asked, melting. 
 
 " Only one name — Ada. Your name, I presume ? " 
 
 " Xo. Mine is Elizabeth. I will give you Ada's address — 
 Mrs. Cox, twenty-one Burckardfs Grove, Lordship Lane, 
 Camberwell." 
 
 Her colour had risen. All through the interview she had 
 never really lost it. Inspector Wliortleberry, as he gravely 
 noted the address she gave him, scented something painful, 
 some squalid unpleasant family circumstance such as it often, 
 in the exercise of his profession, fell to his lot to discover. 
 
 " Do I understand, madam, that you prefer not to come to 
 your husband ? " 
 
 " Don't blame me ! " she replied. " I was not sent for. 
 Mrs. Cox will go. We should clash." 
 
 " He may not live through the night." 
 
 She resented his insistence, and retorted violently : 
 
 " All the better ! Then he wUl escape being tried for mur- 
 der — murder of his own father ! " 
 
 Tliis was news to Inspector Wliortleberry, but he did not 
 betray it. He allowed the woman, who was evidently becoming 
 a little hysterical, to run on. 
 
 " It would simply kill his mother, this ! She must not 
 know." 
 
 " His mother ? " 
 
 " Yes, his poor mother ! She is an old lady, and she's an 
 invalid, and she's in this house, and it's no use your asking to 
 see her, for I should not allow it ! You want her help to 
 convict him, I know, but it's no good." 
 
 " The conviction is sure, madam. There is no question of 
 that. But we should be glad of any document — a letter or
 
 56 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 anything of that kind, that would assist us in establishing 
 motive." 
 
 " There's a letter in his pocket now that would do that. 
 Oh, no, it's here. I forgot. If you'll promise me to make no 
 attempt to go near her, I'll undertake to get it for you." 
 
 " I would not disturb the old lady for the world, madam," 
 the detective assured her correctly ; " but if you'll get us the 
 letter you speak of, we shall be very much obliged." 
 
 " You won't follow me upstairs — or anything ? " 
 
 " On no account. I give you my word." 
 
 She smiled at him, a smile whose unnecessary sweetness, 
 with its underlying bitterness, had no particular significance 
 for him, except as an assurance of goodwill and a sign that 
 she meant to be sensible. He had not studied the early 
 Italian Masters, and the face of Monna Lisa. The wife of 
 Altamont left the room, and Inspector Wliortleberry re- 
 mained standing, dutiful, patient, routinier as usual, without 
 curiosity, imagination, or perspicacity. 
 
 Betsey walked upstairs very quietly and into Miss Alta- 
 mont's room. That lady sat reading the works of Froude ; 
 the cards were pushed aside to make room for her book on 
 the green baize table. 
 
 " Who's here ? " she said. " That wretched Georgie came 
 and took away one of my lamps ! " 
 
 " The gas man. There's a stoppage, he thinks, in the pipe — 
 our pipe, I am afraid — under the front door, where it goes into 
 the main. The company'll do it, and charge us cost price, 
 unless we prefer to give the job to our own man." 
 
 " Let them do it, certainly — cheaper," said Miss Altamont. 
 " What is it you want that you are standing over me like 
 that ? " 
 
 " I want Ada's letter, please." 
 
 " What for ? " 
 
 " To read over again. It's been bothering me." 
 
 " And me too. Take it. I do wish there was some way
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 57 
 
 without utterly pauperising them, of sending them a little to 
 go on with." 
 
 " I'll think about it," said Betsey. " Suppose we do 
 ^vithout gas ? " 
 
 She whipped the letter out of the apron pocket, and 
 departed. 
 
 '' This paper," said Mr. Whortleberry, tapping the pocket- 
 book in which he had deposited it, "I will keep safely, and 
 talk to you about it to-morrow, Mlien we meet in the court." 
 
 " Oh, have I got to go anywhere public ? Have I got to be 
 mixed up in it ? " 
 
 " You are his vnfe, madam. Twenty-four hours after — it's 
 the rule. The inquest Avill probably be held in Cavendish 
 Square, where the body lies." 
 
 Betsey's fair face contracted with sudden, real horror. An 
 old grey -haired man lying dead ! His head dabbled in blood ! 
 The inspector pitied her. She was very, glaringly, lovely, and 
 her colour was like a rose. 
 
 " Perhaps, after all, you will not be needed. The secretary 
 was in an imier room and heard it all. And young Mr. Veere, 
 Sir Joris's nephew, was in the hall and heard their voices, and 
 the shots. He rang the bell and rushed to his uncle. He 
 just got there in time to see Altamont turn the weapon 
 upon himself. But the Coroner's Court — I am afraid you will 
 be bound to appear there ! I will let you know. I will come 
 and fetch you, if you like ? " 
 
 " No, thank you," said Mrs. Altamont, who had regained 
 all her composure. " I must think of Miss Altamont. She's 
 the point. I have already had to tell her some lies about 
 your presence here. Very few people come to this house, and 
 she always contrives to get wind of them somehow. Deadly 
 curious she is, like all old people. So I'll come alone, and 
 then she will be able to think I have gone out shopping. 
 Wilfrid shall not have the satisfaction of killing his mother 
 as well as his father ! "
 
 58 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 She opened the door and let him out into the street, her kind 
 smile of adieu and sidelong glance came almost mechanically. 
 
 The officer noted it, though not in a book. 
 
 Then the wife of Altamont shut the door. All life buzzed 
 round her, she had been violently flung into the arena of the 
 passions, she lived at last ! The tall clock on the stairhead 
 struck six.
 
 VIII 
 
 Dinner ! Common, everj-day dinner ! 
 
 Miss Altamont must dine ; Mrs. Altamont must appear 
 to dine. Georgie, apparentlj^ knew nothing. But her mis- 
 tress did not trust her. Servants always knew everj^thing. 
 And if she did not know she ought to be told, so as to ensure 
 her co-operation in the task of keeping the old lady ignorant. 
 But Betsey shrank from opening up the subject, the first 
 words spoken, like the first shots in an engagement, would 
 let loose the pent-up horror, and break through her crust of 
 calm. 
 
 To-morrow it would be all over, in the papers, in Georgie's 
 ouTi special " horror " journal — she would wait. . , . 
 
 " Mr. Altamont is not likely to be home to-night," she 
 hazarded, as she stirred a little mixture over the kitchen fire. 
 
 '■ No, mum." 
 
 " And, Georgie, do you want to go out this evening ? " 
 
 " Not particular, mum." 
 
 " Then j'ou would oblige me very much by staying at home." 
 
 A useless precaution, after all, so she thought, the minute 
 she had spoken, for the postman — a dozen persons would 
 probably come to the door, and inform Georgie. Why shouldn't 
 Georgie know ? She ought to know ! She would know to- 
 morrow morning. So her unquiet thoughts circled on them- 
 selves as she stirred aimlessly, clumsily, spattering the frothy 
 white spume on the iron plate of the stove. 
 
 " Take care, mum, it's just a-going to boil over ! " screamed 
 Georgie. '' Mum, what's the matter ? " 
 
 69
 
 60 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " Don't you see ? " said Mrs. Altamont portentously, 
 pointing to the jflakes of white that lay, billowing into round- 
 ness, and slowly frizzling at their edges, splayed out on the 
 black iron. 
 
 " It won't matter, I can soon wipe it up." 
 
 " No, it won't matter : you can wipe it up ; it's blood." 
 
 " It's milk, mum — whatever have come to you ? " said 
 Georgie, calmly leaving the fried milk to form a rusty blob on 
 the stove. She took matters out of her mistress's hands, and 
 set to work to prepare the bread-sauce herself, while the 
 latter stood and stared at the hideous patch, now diminishing 
 and rapidly turning brown. She no longer saw it red ; the 
 accompanying vision of the study in Cavendish Square and 
 the clotted, spattered carpet there, had faded too, leaving a 
 horror of Wilfrid's disgusting, squalid act that could never be 
 overcome. She allowed Georgie to snatch the tray from her 
 shaking hands, and carry it for her to the foot of the stairs. 
 Georgie knew, decidedly she knew, that there was something 
 wrong. No harm in Georgie ! . . . 
 
 " Let me take it for you, mum, do, as far as the door." 
 
 Mrs. Altamont made no resistance but followed the little 
 kind " general " upstairs. There, Georgie whispered, deliver- 
 ing over the tray to her mistress's hands : 
 
 " I don't suppose, mum, you feel like the cold meat this 
 evening. Just let me toss you up an omelick ! " 
 
 Mrs. Altamont laughed thinly. Georgie " toss " any- 
 thing ! 
 
 " Very well, Georgie. For supper, say ? Wlien I have got 
 Miss Altamont to bed ! I daresay I shall be quite hungry ! " 
 
 Miss Altamont raised her head. Her daughter-in-law 
 entered the room, with the sensations of an actress entering 
 on the scene, but with none of the dash and vigour that 
 pertains to egotistical entry, and the old woman noticed it. 
 
 " How leaden-footed you are, Betsey, to-night ! Has 
 Wilfrid come back yet ? "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 61 
 
 " No. He sent a telegram to say we are not to expect 
 him." 
 
 " My lord is unusually considerate ! Dated from where ? " 
 
 " Camberwell post office," said Betsey, with a jerk. 
 
 Miss Altamont's face grew grimmer. She looked away, 
 down at Betsey's feet. 
 
 " Wliat's that — at the bottom of your dress, you slut ? " 
 
 " Yes, I know," replied Betsey eagerly ; " the braid's off, 
 I must mend it. I wish I wasn't so untidy." 
 
 " Don't wish yourself different, you'll do as you are," Miss 
 Altamont observed almost fondly. "It's part of your easy- 
 going character. If you had anything in the nature of a fixed 
 principle about you, you could not put up with Wilfrid ! " 
 
 " I do that for your sake ! " 
 
 " Well, you won't have to do it much longer for my 
 sake." 
 
 Mrs. Altamont shivered. The cruel, hard, precise voice 
 of IVIiss Altamont went on : 
 
 " I know it. So do you. The warrant's out. . . , Wliy do 
 you jump ? . . . The warrant for my death, I mean. A 
 slow aneurism, that's what I've got — may leak any moment ! 
 You may as well get used to the idea, Betsey — I have. Think 
 of the cistern, and that tiresome old plumber's business we 
 used to dread so — that will keep it before your mind. I can 
 play with it even. Just a shock, and one of those clumsy big 
 arteries ! . . . God sends out careless men sometimes, like 
 Jones the plumber, who don't care, any more than Jones's 
 man does, if he gives the other boss, Death, a job or no ! " 
 
 " Oh, my dear, do stop ! I don't need to keep horrors 
 before my mind ; I can take care of you without." 
 
 " Very pretty and feminine ! But it's better, in the long 
 run, to be mentally armour-plated, like me, you'll find. Noth- 
 ing affects me or ever did. But you, Betsey, you'd go over 
 like a ninepin, or a dressmaker's dummy, the first thing that 
 happens to you. Then you'll lose your bearings — make the
 
 62 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 mistake of your life — I beg your pardon, the second mistake ! 
 Wilfrid has the honour of being the first, hasn't he ? " 
 
 " I really don't know what I'd do," Betsey murmured, 
 ignoring the allusion to her marriage. " It's all a matter of 
 what kind of make of heart you've got. Mine's splendid." 
 
 " Yes, I should say so. But then Life doesn't touch you, at 
 least that's what I always hear you complain of. It's rather 
 revolting to think, isn't it, that I, whose brain is so steeled to 
 endurance, fine-grained, and tempered, should have been 
 furnished, as I have been, at the General Giving out of tools 
 we call Birth, with an inferior make of heart, that may fail 
 me at any time ! I am rather like a person under an opera- 
 tion, whose calm is guaranteed by an ansesthetic, and yet, 
 the mere shock of being cut may have an opposite result ! 
 The brain has nothing whatever to say to it ; the um-uly cells 
 take the law into their own hands. It knocks all that balder- 
 dash they talk about a separate soul and so on completely on 
 the head." 
 
 There was an inquiring note, in spite of the polemical arro- 
 gance with which the old woman spoke, pathetically under- 
 lying her firm expression of opinion. It disquieted Betsey. 
 She was used to the senile vanity and pride of intellect which 
 old Miss Altamont had transmitted to her son. It disgusted 
 her in the son ; she considered it a delightfully healthy 
 symptom in the mother. But this new note of pain-giving ? — 
 she wondered if the thing that had happened, if some subtle 
 effluence from the great moral disaster which had befallen 
 their house, was even now beginning to permeate matter, 
 penetrating the kindly doors and walls that warded off from 
 knowledge the person most interested ? Had this very 
 sanctum of age and infirmity been reached at last ? 
 
 She sturdily cut up the roast chicken, sajdng, in an off-hand 
 manner, '" Well, the main point is, that you shan't have a 
 shock if I can help it ! " 
 
 Miss Altamont ate well. She had two helpings of chicken
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 63 
 
 and some blancmange. She liked her dmner and commended 
 Betsey's bread-sauce — " the most difficult thing in the world 
 to make, my dear, and generally confided to the kitchen- 
 maid." 
 
 Wlien the tablecloth had been removed, and the green 
 baize shone forth again, she looked hard at Betsey. 
 
 " You made that sauce, my dear, and scorched your face 
 doing it. You look hot." 
 
 " Indigestion," remarked Mrs. Altamont. 
 
 " Oh, you had your dinner first, had you ? Then you may 
 as well sit do«ii and we Avill have a talk." 
 
 " May I leave the window open ? " 
 
 " Yes, certainly. I shall be glad of a little air." 
 
 Betsey fervently opened the window looking on the High 
 Street. A delicious breath of mild air, with the faintest 
 touch of frost in it, rushed into the room. Miss Altamont 
 drew a long breath of enjoyment. 
 
 " You're sure it won't hurt you ? " the younger woman 
 said anxiously. " I shall only leave it a minute or two." 
 
 " You'll leave it just as long as I say it is to be left," Miss 
 Altamont bade her imperiously. Then she laughed. " I 
 don't mean to be cross to you, Betsey, you're a good girl and 
 the joy of my poor old life. Sit down and subside. I want to 
 drivel to you." 
 
 Mrs. Altamont sat doAMi \vithin the room. Tlie standard 
 lamp was between her and the Avindow and Miss Altamont's 
 chair and fitted table. The old lady could not see her face, 
 which had now resumed more or less its normal aspect, for 
 Betsey was young. 
 
 " For a stoic," remarked Miss Altamont, " I am a good deal 
 plagued AAith reminiscences to-night. Wilfrid and his corals ! 
 Think of that ! Corals before morals ! He was a dear little 
 baby. They're all alike then. Once, only once, I showed him 
 to his father, and his father kissed him. Just to please me, 
 I was sillier — more sentimental in those days. Never passion-
 
 64 
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 ate. It wasn't in me. And it would have suited me ! We 
 were about to part, then, not in bitterness, as you can judge 
 by what I tell you. We just dissolved the contract, it had 
 grown inconvenient. To him. He stuffed a hundred-pound 
 note into the baby's hand. . . . Then he turned to me, and 
 said, ' It's a good thing you don't love me, isn't it, Julia ? ' 
 You see it was up to me to convince him of that." 
 
 " But didn't you— a Httle ? " 
 
 " Not even to justify myself in your eyes, Betsey, wUl I 
 own to the littlest, teeniest bit. Yet he was a fascinating man. 
 And he was my only lover. I was perfectly faithful to him, 
 though he did not exact it. And wasn't, of course, to me. 
 But he played the game ! Everything was cut and dried — 
 dull, even. I knew he didn't mean to keep me always. Per- 
 fectly square, he was. He meant to marry, so as to have 
 children. And then — bad luck ! — he didn't manage to marry. 
 I don't say didn't have children. A many, doubtless ! Other 
 little Wnfrids." 
 
 Betsey was silent a moment. Then she observed : 
 
 " You are the wickedest, dearest old woman in the world. 
 Sure you're not catching cold ? " 
 
 " No. I shan't catch cold till I want to. Betsey, listen 
 to me. It's rather interesting — if you care about that sort of 
 thing ! This afternoon while you were out I heard the voice 
 of Joris distinctly. I have heard it before, — at crises of my 
 life. Yet we weren't really intimate. Odd, isn't it ? Tliese 
 telepathic messages are quite irresponsible ! I wonder if 
 Wilfrid did succeed in getting speech of him, and if they spoke 
 of me ? That would account for it." 
 
 " Would it ? " 
 
 " They say so, the psychologists. Thought transference. 
 Brain waves. All nonsense. But rather fun ! " 
 
 Again Betsey had the vision of the brain-shattering bullet 
 and the bald head prone. . . . She spoke up, though, flip- 
 pantly, for it was incumbent on her to treat matters lightly.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 65 
 
 Miss Altamont was in an excited state she was sure, and it 
 was bad for her. 
 
 "Oh, you mean a sort of mental marconigram ! " she 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " Something of the sort. Poor Joris ! I wonder, has he 
 worn as well as I have ? If so, he must be a fine old man by 
 now. What's that they're shouting, Betsey ? " 
 
 Betsey apprehended at once. The danger was imminent. 
 A little London screech-owl was coming round the corner 
 where London Villas debouched into the High Road, opposite 
 Worksop House. . . . 
 
 She rose hastily, ejaculating, " Cold. . . . The window." 
 
 " Be quiet ! I want to hear ! " said Miss Altamont decisively. 
 " Please to send out and buy a paper ! " 
 
 The peccant piece of braid on the bottom of Betsey's dress 
 caught in the supports of the standard lamp, and threw her 
 to her knees. She surrendered, instinctively, not to upset 
 the lamp. A choice of evils had presented itself to her in a 
 flash, but practically no other course was open to her. . . . 
 The shrill- voiced lad was actually under the window, extolling 
 his wares. 
 
 " Special ! Murder ! Murder ! Sir Joris Veere. . . . Hor- 
 rible murder. ..." 
 
 He passed away. The movements of Georgie were heard 
 below, frantically unbolting bars, and flinging out of the 
 front door, with a loud call to the boy. 
 
 Then came the clash of the window, as Mrs. Altamont 
 brought it down with a rush, breaking the cord, but too late ! 
 The mischief was done. The old mother had heard. 
 
 " Find out ! Find out ! Buy a paper ! " She spoke quite 
 clearly. " Wilfrid ! . . . Wilfrid has killed his father, 
 hasn't he ? Be quick ! . . ." She bent and settled in her 
 chair and began to speak lower, in a sharp, concise whisper, 
 as if, practical even in extremis, she were husbanding her 
 dying resources. . . . 
 
 F
 
 66 THE WIFE OP ALTAMONT 
 
 " You knew it ? Tell me, tell me, quick ! Don't faint, I'd 
 be dead before you came to ! The famous aneurism ! . . . 
 I want to speak. . . . I've something to say . . . Wilfrid 
 . . . murder ! . . . No, don't touch me, I shan't fall. . . ." 
 
 The voice died down. The breathing became monstrous 
 . . . portentous. . . . 
 
 Betsey's arm was round the old woman, and it supported 
 her shoulders as her head fell forward. She did not slip down 
 in the chair, her dress was stuff and the chair covered with 
 some rough substance, and the scooped table in front upheld 
 her. 
 
 Betsey had never seen death, but she thought — nay, knew, 
 with an animal's practical instinctive knowledge — that this 
 must be it. Miss Altamont's breathing was not like any 
 suspiration she knew. Still retaining her hold on her dar- 
 ling's shoulders, she lunged forward with one arm and 
 reached the hand- bell, that stood on the table in front, and 
 rang it vigorously. 
 
 Georgie appeared. 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Georgie, and go for Dr. Gedge, quick ! 
 Don't stop to put a hat on." 
 
 And Betsey stood for five mortal minutes leaning half 
 over the back of the chair. It was torture. Her forehead 
 was pearled with sweat. She had not yet looked the dead 
 woman in the face, framed by its immaculate upspringing 
 frills. She dared not. 
 
 Georgie returned, cowering, to the door. 
 
 " Don't whisper. Have you got him ? " 
 
 " He's coming, mum," Georgie nearly shouted, and at her 
 back appeared the form of Dr. Gedge. Betsey leaned forward. 
 She stUl did not dare to abandon her position as supporter 
 of the inert mass. 
 
 " Come here ! Come here, quick ! " she begged. " Save 
 her, can you ? She's my dearest, she's my " 
 
 Dr. Gedge gently put her aside. She became quiet all at
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 67 
 
 once and submissively helped him to move the patience 
 board away that penned the body in so nicely. Still it did 
 not collapse. Tlie semblance of life-like pose was dreadful. 
 Georgie, unless directly commanded to help, hung back. 
 Betsey, bright-eyed, feverish, like a young Bacchante, with 
 awestruck eyes averted from the image of death, assisted the 
 doctor to lay the tall woman on her bed, where he slowly and 
 methodically verified the fact of decease. 
 
 " How did it happen ? " he asked her. 
 
 " She got a shock." 
 
 " Ah, yes ! The murder of Sir Joris, eh ? " 
 
 Betsey nodded. " / didn't tell her." 
 
 " Why did you let her hear ? " 
 
 " I couldn't stop it. Those boys yelled it out under the 
 open window. They ought to be whipped." 
 
 " Tcha ! Wlien did she dine ? " 
 
 " Half an hour ago." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Yes, rather." 
 
 " Well, listen now. I'll go home at once and telephone 
 for a nurse " 
 
 " What for ? Can't Georgie and I " 
 
 " She'd be no good for that." 
 
 " I don't want any one to touch Miss Altamont but me." 
 
 " Nonsense ! You can help the nurse." He spoke to 
 Georgie. " Go down to your kitchen, and have some hot 
 water ready. Now, Mrs. Altamont, do you mind " 
 
 " I mind nothing." 
 
 " Very good. Stay here, then, till I come back." 
 
 " You will come back ? " 
 
 Her lovely distracted eyes travelled to his, and the doctor 
 felt their appeal in full. 
 
 " As soon as I can." 
 
 " There are such a lot of dreadful things to do " 
 
 " I'll take them all off your hands, as far as possible. I
 
 68 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 mean about your mother-in-law — register the death and so on. 
 I am afraid I can't " 
 
 " The inspector says I'll have to attend something to- 
 morrow — within twenty-four hours." 
 
 "Oh, I daresay they'll be able to manage the preliminary 
 inquiry without you. There were plenty of people about who 
 saw it. But you'll probably have to go in a couple of days or 
 so to the coroner's court. That you can't get off." 
 
 " I don't see why not," she said violently. " There's no 
 defence, that I can see. The onlj^ decent thing about it is that 
 he tried to take his own life after killing his father and mother. 
 Oh, why couldn't they let him die ? . . . Wliy must they be 
 carrying him off to a hospital, saving him to be hanged ? He 
 will be hanged. I hope he'll be hanged. I long for him to be 
 hanged. He has killed the best woman that ever lived." 
 
 " Not killed her exactly," said Gedge soothingly. " Her 
 heart was in a very delicate state, and you say that you gave 
 her a full meal ? I shall send you a sleeping-draught, Mrs. 
 Altamont, which you are to take, mind." 
 
 " Oh, I'll take it, I'll take it. I'd take poison if you were to 
 give it to me ! Do, now, doctor ! " 
 
 " Don't be silly ! " 
 
 " My life's over ! " 
 
 " Just beginning, perhaps ! " he said, and fled.
 
 IX 
 
 Mrs. Wormeley and Miss Simmons and young Master 
 Albany stood at the door of Worksop House, expostu- 
 lating with Mrs. Altamont's Georgie, who stoutly refused 
 them entrance, though able and wUling to inform them of the 
 date fixed for Miss Altamont's funeral, and the place of 
 burial. 
 
 " But why not see us ? " whined Mrs. Wormeley. " And 
 here's Master Albany's brought her some nice white flowers." 
 
 '" She said I was to let no one go past this door." 
 
 '" No one, but I'm not anybody, nor is Miss Simmons. 
 We're her oldest friends." 
 
 Mrs. Altamont, in a blue gown, crossed the hall at that 
 moment, and Mrs. Wormeley interposed her bulk knowingly 
 between Georgie and the handle of the door. 
 
 " Oh, Betsey, there you are ! Don't mind being seen in 
 colours." 
 
 " I won't be seen at all." 
 
 " But, Betsey, how can you bear it, all alone in the house 
 with a corpse? " 
 
 " I'm not alone." 
 
 " A servant's notliing. Betsey, my husband read about 
 you in the paper this morning. It said you were quite over- 
 come when you got back from the inquest, prostrate were 
 the words, and Mortimer kindly said at once, ' Go and look 
 her up.' " 
 
 " That was that horrid reporter, Georgie," said Mrs. 
 Altamont, turning to the maid as if the two ladies were not 
 
 69
 
 70 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 there ; " the one that got past you last night. Don't you let 
 it happen again. . . . There's one coming now. Be quick ! " 
 
 Georgie, thus admonished, executed a flank movement, 
 adroitly dislodged Mrs. Wormeley, and shut the door in the 
 faces of the two inquiring women, and a slim, pale, serious 
 young man who had just crossed the road exactly in front of 
 Worksop House. 
 
 " That's dod a reborter, I don'd bedieve ! " ejaculated Miss 
 Simmons, who had a bad cold ; " too smart-looking ! " 
 
 They turned away ; Mrs. Wormeley had shopping to do 
 and all her books to pay. The supposed reporter approached 
 and spoke to them, with negligent deference. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, but was that Mrs. Altamont you were 
 speaking to at the door just now ? " 
 
 His address was just civil and just haughty enough to 
 charm them. 
 
 " Yes," exclaimed Miss Simmons eagerly, struggling with 
 her b's and d's, " and she won't see us, her best friends." 
 
 " She must be very busy," said he gently. 
 
 " Oh, yes, naturally," said Mrs. Wormeley, walking along 
 with him. " Her mother-in-law died — you know — on hearing 
 what her son had done." 
 
 " The poor old dear had a weak heart ! " volunteered Miss 
 Simmons, across Mrs. Wormeley. How much farther did he 
 mean to walk along with them ? It was flattering. He asked 
 Mrs. Wormeley, bending forward politely : 
 
 " And do you know when the old lady is to be buried ? " 
 
 :" On Thursday, at a place called Charlton. The famfly 
 have a grave there. We shall all go if we can." 
 
 " — If my cold is better," put in Miss Simmons. 
 
 " Were you thinldng of attending it, Mr. ? " Mrs. 
 
 Wormeley hazarded. 
 
 The stranger stepped off the pavement at her side, suddenly. 
 
 " I may do so. Good day, madam, and thank you for your 
 information."
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 71 
 
 He raised his hat and crossed over and a side-turning 
 soon hid him from their view. They fancied they heard the 
 snort of a motor in the direction in Avhich he had gone, but 
 decided it could not belong to one so unfurred and so com- 
 mercial in style. 
 
 " I do beUeve he's a reporter after all," said Mrs. Wor- 
 meley. 
 
 " I am afraid so. Well, I'll nurse my cold, and go if I can, 
 just to see who else goes." 
 
 " I'm quite well, but I'm not sure Morty wiU let me go 
 when it comes to the point. He doesn't approve of women 
 going to funerals, and you must admit it's rather backing up 
 poor Miss Altamont, her irregular life and so on, to go to her 
 funeral, now, isn't it ? " 
 
 " It's about the last thing you can be asked to do for her, 
 the last call, as you might say," said Evangeline. " Dr. Gedge 
 says he will go if he has time, and anyway he'll lend Betsey 
 his carriage. But I don't for a moment suppose Agnes Gedge'll 
 put herself out. She'll hate the carriage being lent, and she 
 doesn't really care for Betsey." 
 
 " Jealous ! " said Mrs. Wormeley. " I'll just run in here, 
 dear, do you mind ? — and pay Crump." 
 
 " I suppose," said Evangeline, managing, by a process 
 carried to perfection by shopping women, to continue the 
 conversation where it had left off when Mrs. Wormeley reissued 
 beaming — Mr. Crump's pleasure at being paid had com- 
 municated itself to her, " I suppose she considers that Betsey 
 makes eyes at him." 
 
 "She does — make eyes, I mean — and at everybody. Mostly 
 at men, of course. It's the worst of being what they call a 
 man's woman. She is that, don't you think ? " 
 
 "Oh, distinctly." 
 
 " And do you notice that while one is reading up and dis- 
 cussing all those sort of things, about women like her especially, 
 she knows it all, like the palm of her hand, or as Morty knows
 
 72 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 the procedure of the Stock Exchange ? She is it. She's 
 nothing to learn from books." 
 
 " Yes, she makes books — and I write her," said the novelist 
 proudly. 
 
 " Look what's happened to her now ! It's very sad, of 
 course, but one can't imagine such a thing coming in any one 
 of our lives ! " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know ! " said Evangeline thoughtfully ; " after 
 all, what is it ? A murder. Our husbands — I mean mine if 
 I had one — might commit a murder." 
 
 " Not they ! " Mrs. Wormeley replied, in the accents of 
 contempt. " Don't you see, we should never marry that kind 
 of man, and he wovildn't ever marry us. People like Betsey 
 Altamont gravitate naturally to tragedy and the papers. She 
 fell quite easily into the pitfall of marrying Altamont. We 
 don't even know if his name is really Altamont, nor does she. 
 It was just his mother's old stage name." 
 
 " Delightfully all of a piece ! " said Evangeline. " And 
 the old woman must have had a life's experience and a half ! 
 I envy Betsey having her to talk to all those years ! I shall 
 certainly go and support her — stick by her at Charlton, if I 
 am better. And so I don't think I'll go in here with you, 
 Madge, it's so draughty lounging round these vegetable 
 baskets. I do think a greengrocer's shop is the rawest place 
 in the world ! Good-bye, Albany, young man, what a dull 
 time you've had, poor child ! And he never saw his Betsey, 
 did he, or had a chance to give her his flowers, had he ? Give 
 them to me, then, my pet, instead. You won't ? Isn't it 
 funny how he adores her, Madge ? "
 
 Thuesday dawned, muddy and dank. The air was a 
 wet medium, in which the dreary motes of fog seemed to 
 quiver, encompassing all terrestrial objects in a mist of 
 shifting particles. It was not yellow, it seemed to contain 
 a dull hint of ice and snow, rather than the offscouring of 
 countless chimneys ; and suggested Alpine heights more 
 closely than the neighbourhood of gibbering humanity. 
 
 Charlton, on the heights of Blackheath, seemed a long way 
 ofi to all those who had promised themselves that they would 
 accompany Mss Altamont on her last journey. Mr. Mortimer 
 Wormeley's faintly expressed prohibition was seized on as an 
 excuse, ratified and self-enforced by his, for the nonce, obe- 
 dient wife. She had not see Evangeline Simmons since 
 Tuesday, but that young person's cold was sure to be better, 
 and her upspringing curiosity would act as a spur and surely 
 drive her to see how Betsey behaved at Charlton. 
 
 Actually, Miss Simmons was in bed — unable now to sub- 
 stitute d for b, unable to speak at all. Mrs. Gedge looked 
 her up and pacified her by telling her that Dr. Gedge was 
 taking the bit between his teeth and intending to drive Mrs. 
 Altamont to Charlton in his carriage. 
 
 Mrs. Altamont voyaged alone. An urgent case called Dr. 
 Gedge at the last moment and prevented his sharing, his 
 carriage mth her. To his wife's intense annoyance, he did 
 not take back his generous and umiecessary offer, but pursued 
 his profession by the help of the District Railway. Betsey 
 had got, and retained, his soft side. 
 
 73
 
 74 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 She thought that on the whole she preferred to be alone, 
 in this the first great sorrow of her life. She was glad that none 
 of her so-called friends volunteered, though she felt she could 
 have done with Georgie ! The little maid-servant would 
 have been the best possible company for a person in her condi- 
 tion, being merely a human being with a positive genius for 
 holding her tongue. But some one had to stay at home to 
 mind the house. 
 
 So Betsey sat alone in a corner of the compact little pro- 
 fessional brougham, stupid with misery, half stunned by the 
 continued impact of intolerable reminiscence, for more than 
 an hour, till mtli a jerk the carriage drew up. . . . 
 
 The white fog settled round it, obliterating space, armihilat- 
 ing time. A man standing at a looming iron gate opened the 
 door for her, let down the step, and she got out. The bulk of 
 the carriage was wiped out at once, and it was Betsey's in- 
 stinct, set down as she was in a cloud, to hang on to the only 
 two solid objects she saw, the spiked black gate and the 
 opaque black functionary who stood there. 
 
 She walked along. Presently, through the surging, un- 
 easily shifting mist, she was aware of the box-like mortuary 
 chapel of the cemetery, with its stern cupola, that hung, 
 like a dish-cover, exactly over the spot on the marble floor 
 where Miss Altamont was placed. The coffin was raised on 
 an elevated pedestal. Some quiet person — she saw no one's 
 features — escorted her to a pew, and handed her a little 
 purple bound book of the service. This, among other minor 
 details, had, as Betsey found afterwards, been arranged by 
 Miss Altamont herself, months before. 
 
 She sat and stood, all in order, looking up, spellbound, at 
 the huge Frankenstein monster made of shining elm which 
 held all that was left of her best beloved, the erring woman, 
 the mother of a murderer, an accessory heroine like herself to 
 the Perton cause celebre. The coffin had cost forty pounds 
 odd. The gilt handles of the immense wooden structure
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 75 
 
 shone, its sides were planed with exactitude. It looked for 
 all the world like a brand new wardrobe at Maple's that 
 Betsey had once coveted ! 
 
 She shuddered. The organ was playing gloomily. How 
 lucky it was that the audience could not guess her grotesquely 
 inappropriate thoughts ! She thought them, although she 
 was so miserable. She even wondered if she had remem- 
 bered to bring a second handkerchief, and if so, where 
 was it ? 
 
 She heard a cough behind her — a cough she knew. It was 
 that permanent affection, the curse of poor Mr. Downes,^the 
 little local lawyer who had drawn up Miss Altamont's will. 
 He was there, then, neglecting his health in token of respect. 
 She felt a rush of liking for him. Wliat a shocking day for 
 him to come out ! She peered sideways through her veil, and 
 ascertained that the little chapel was fairly full — of men. 
 The Vicar of St. Faith's was there, and the butcher whom Miss 
 Altamont had always " paid regular ! " Betsey was pleased 
 with them, but disgusted with her class, and her owti sex 
 especially. Men Avere best after all. She thought she would 
 never speak to the ladies of The Pines and The Mag- 
 nolias and The Beeches again. Men were simpler, 
 straighter, less fiddling. They had all respected Miss Alta- 
 mont, a good tenant, a good client, a good customer, and 
 they were here to prove it. Their stay-at-home, recalcitrant 
 women, probably, took mean sartorial and health considera- 
 tions into account. They had not been able to " fake up " 
 becoming mourmng in time, or fancied the damp would take 
 their feathers out of curl. Yet surely Evangeline, whose 
 wardrobe she knew intimately, might easily have laid a 
 temporary layer of black material over the blue strappings of 
 her winter jacket, if she had been so inclmed, and have 
 wrapped up her throat. She had not cared — none of them 
 had cared. And Betsey had tried to amuse them in the old 
 days — had let off expensive mental fireworks for them.
 
 76 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 had stood on her head, so to speak. She would take 
 care never to amuse them more ! She would never see 
 them again. 
 
 Some one was speaking all this time, words that she knew 
 by heart, but could not hear. She had rather not hear them 
 or be made to think of them ; they were words that she could 
 not even read alone in the silence of her chamber without 
 crying. And now that they were applicable to the only thing 
 she had ever loved on earth ! . . . 
 
 She bit her lip, and stared up at the coffin, fixing her eyes 
 on the single wreath that hung over on her side. The waxen 
 white petals of the flowers focussed her tearless eyes. If she 
 once allowed the salt rush to invade them, she would not be 
 able to stop, and she knew that when the droning recitative 
 was over they would all go out for the further trial of the 
 open grave. Tears — useless tears — they were but a savage 
 grace — she was not a crying woman. She had taken that 
 anonymous wreath quite calmly, when it came last night, and 
 Georgie had hatcheted the box open in the dining-room. It 
 came from Brooks' in Regent Street, and no card was attached. 
 It gave her no pleasure. She really disliked flowers associated 
 with mourning. It vexed her to see them wither in the faint 
 airs of a death chamber. But the sender's intentions must be 
 carried out, and she had told Georgie to lay the wreath 
 reverently on the bed upstairs. The undertakers had been 
 careful to forward it along with the coffin. 
 
 The short service was over. Betsey left her little purple 
 book in the pew, and her handkerchief. With the slow cir- 
 cumscribed step of official mourning, the little party filed 
 out of the chapel, towards the corner of the cemetery where 
 the grave had been dug, and where three or four men in pale 
 corduroj^s stood ready, spade in hand. Two of them held 
 wide hempen bands. ... 
 
 She heard the swish of a car, and its rapid arrest just 
 by the gate. An individual in motor disguise joined the
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 77 
 
 troop. But Betsey, the only woman of the party, did not 
 turn. 
 
 The coffin was lowered into the grave by means of those 
 bands she had noticed. It was heavy. The quiet, solemn 
 men in corduroj^s seemed to turn from mourners into rough, 
 casual labourers, grunting and sweating at their ugly material 
 task of putting something into the ground. . . . 
 
 More words were spoken. Said out of doors, falling one by 
 one from the tame officiating clergyman's mouth, mauled by 
 his dripping moustache, and going off in smoke, they gave 
 Betse}^ the same sensation of unreality that tea in Mrs. 
 Wormeley's garden, and the flat clash of china cups in the 
 open air, had been used to give. Then a few sods — grains of 
 earth charily husbanded, were shed perfunctorily, as one 
 scatters salt, on the coffin lying deep in the clay ca\4ty, far 
 below. They rattled, trivially. . . . 
 
 " Earth to earth, dust to dust ! . . ." 
 
 The solitary wreath of unknown provenance was lowered 
 down on to the coffin. Betsey turned away in instinctive 
 disgust. Those fair upstanding petals would be dashed, bent, 
 overwhelmed by a heavy, clayey burden. ... It was as if 
 she herself should be hurt ! . . . Miss Altamont had never 
 cared for flowers — at least, not for flowers cut and maimed, 
 pilloried in a drawing-room ! ... It was a useless, tasteless 
 observance, without true or noble significance. 
 
 At the risk of being thought heartless, Betsey remained 
 sullenly apart, as the other mourners looked their last at the 
 wreath and the metal plate bearing the name Julia Lane 
 Adamson. She was practically alone, standing with her eyes 
 downcast, when the stranger in the motor garb, after a brief 
 glance into the grave, detached himself from the group and 
 approached her respectfully. She was inclined to run away 
 and hide ; she was for the moment, pure, suffering, unconscion- 
 able animal. 
 
 " Pray don't take me for a reporter," he said gently.
 
 78 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 The soft thinnish voice attracted her. She turned, her 
 eyes met his. She thought she had seen him before and 
 liked him. 
 
 He went before the question that was shadowed by her 
 inquiring eyes. 
 
 " I am here," he said, " to show my respect for Miss Alta- 
 mont." 
 
 " Was it you who sent the wreath ? " she asked eagerly. 
 
 " Yes. That's nothing. May I ? " The knot round 
 
 the newly-made grave began to scatter, and he spoke 
 low and hastily. " Excuse me, but how are you going 
 back ? " 
 
 Betsey made no reply, but walked a little way in the direc- 
 tion of the gate of the cemetery. He took it as evidencing her 
 weakness — a sort of faint feckless encouragement. But as a 
 matter of fact, Betsey only wanted to get away from the 
 condolences of the others. 
 
 Though she longed for them she did not think she could 
 manage to bear them and keep her handkerchiefless calm. To 
 his question, her answer, if any, should be the sight of her 
 calling up her own carriage. 
 
 They reached the gate of the cemetery. Dr. Gedge's coach- 
 man, by some ocular marvel, sighted her, in the feathery mist 
 which was lifting a little, and approaching, drew up by the 
 kerb. 
 
 " Are you going alone ? " asked the young man, at her 
 elbow. 
 
 " I came alone." 
 
 " No woman with you ? " 
 
 " Tliere's no woman belonging to me — now ! " 
 
 Her voice broke on the " now." He breathed a faint 
 " Hush ! " and cleverly propelled her away from the foot- 
 board of her own conveyance, a little further along towards 
 the big covered motor that stood behind it. It was large and 
 seemed to form a positive clearing in the fog, a displace-
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 79 
 
 ment of the mist. He had not touched her . . . but she 
 assented, . . . 
 
 " Come, get in ! " he said, still in the same gentle, even 
 tones ; and she obeyed him. He, she, and the motor, with 
 its stolid chauffeur, seemed alone on a peak — in Blacklieath.
 
 XI 
 
 She gave him no direction, nor did he ask her for any. 
 
 The car started. 
 
 Presently she turned to him. 
 
 " I am in such sorrow that I am letting you do as you like 
 with me. Who are you ? " 
 
 " I am Ernest Rose Veere." 
 
 She looked blank behind her veil. 
 
 " Isn't the name at all familiar to you ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," said she, without any sign of intelligence. She 
 was worn out with sensation. He spoke to her as to a little 
 child. 
 
 " Your maid shut the door in my face last Monday. Two 
 women were there then. Why are not those two women here 
 with you to-day ? It's disgraceful." 
 
 " I did not want them," she answered earnestly. " I'm 
 rather glad — I mean relieved — that they're not here." She 
 thought, but was not within measurable distance of saying, 
 that she found her present companion far more soothing. 
 Then she gave her intelligence a jog. " But you were saying 
 . . . that's why I came with you, I think — that you knew 
 my mother-in-law and — liked her ? " 
 
 " I did not have the advantage of knowing her personally, 
 but I knew nothing but good of her. My — Sir Joris had the 
 highest regard for her." 
 
 " He spoke of her ? " 
 
 " Seldom. You understand. But kindly. He was a 
 splendid fellow, a dear old man." 
 
 80
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 81 
 
 " Was ! " Betsey murmured. " Oh, it is awful ! " She 
 shrank away back into her corner again. 
 
 " But we know — we all know — that the poor soul who's 
 dead had no part in sending her son to murder my uncle ! " 
 
 She sat bolt upright. " Oh, that is who you are ! I must 
 get out. Stop the car — oh, do stop the car ! " 
 
 " I shall do nothing of the kind. There's no reason, is 
 there, because you happen to be linked to the man who killed 
 the uncle, that the nephew shouldn't be a friend to you. I 
 mean to be. Won't you let me, Mrs. Altamont ? I am quite 
 harmless, not pushing. I didn't mean to intrude on your 
 grief, only to show you that I shared it. Hang it all, I've 
 lost a person dear to me too ! Don't forget that. He was 
 like a father to me. ..." 
 
 " Yes, oh, yes, that's what I felt. You must hate the sight 
 of my face ! " 
 
 " On the contrarj'-," he said, " I long to see it. Won't you 
 put your veil up ? You chose to swear Scotch fashion the 
 other day in court, so as to avoid raising your veil, and be 
 snapshotted by the paper men, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes, that was the reason." 
 
 " I thought it so fine of you. Lift it ! Lift it, please." 
 
 She obediently raised the thick crape veil and flashed 
 bleared, drowned eyes at him. 
 
 He said, " Thank you. Put it down again — the light hurts 
 you, doesn't it ? " 
 
 " I should think it did ! " she added. " I have seen you 
 before somewhere, haven't I ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Where ? " 
 
 " I know. At the launch of the Elisabetta at Hinderland. 
 You found me a place next Wilfrid — that day. He was a 
 reporter then." 
 
 " Then it was I who " 
 
 " Yes, you brought us together." She wept copiously. 
 
 She felt this slim stranger to be like the brother she had 
 
 a
 
 82 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 never known. His off-hand tenderness, his blunt style, his 
 queer lackadaisical way of taking an interest in her, fostered 
 her confidence, where delicate deferentiality and half-shades 
 of politeness would have withered it. He talked to her as a 
 fifth form boy might talk to a new fellow. Yet he admired her 
 too, he had singled her out at Hinderland, because of her 
 flashy hair, as she supposed. She looked a fright now, but 
 the subtle sense of sex was there all the time with its flattering 
 possibflities. Without it a woman, a woman like Betsey 
 Altamont, can never be entirely at her ease with a man. 
 
 So she gave way as in the presence of a comrade, her 
 beauty and the uses of it tacitly in abeyance, and only some 
 such queer freemasonry as might exist between a pair of 
 married lovers to excuse her lapse into the infirmity of tears. 
 Her handkerchief proved ridiculously inadequate — she had 
 left the supplementary one in the chapel. It was not long 
 before she became aware of a hardy, capacious, man's sample 
 of the useful square being thrust into her hand. She took it 
 eagerly, and squeezed herself into the corner of the car, 
 resisting an absurd and improper wish to lay her head on the 
 neighbouring shoulder. The owner of it had, however, no 
 notion of inviting her to do so. That was not in his methods. 
 
 His brow was knit, he was thinking out some plan. 
 
 The car stopped. 
 
 "Oh, where are we ? " 
 
 " At your home — so called." He did not stir, 
 
 " Wni the chauffeur ring the bell ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes — or I ^vill " He got out and entered into con- 
 versation with his man. 
 
 As a result of it, no bell was rung, Mrs, Altamont had 
 just uncrossed her knees and gathered her legs together pre- 
 paratory to alighting, when he got in again, and the car went 
 on. She looked mute interrogation. 
 
 " We are going to dine at the Albemarle together, 
 quietly. Then I'll drive you back. Though I don't think
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 83 
 
 you ought to be here, all night, alone. I wonder if 
 Dobree " 
 
 She interrupted fervently. 
 
 " No, reaUy, I must not go with you. Please let me go 
 home. I have things to see to ! " 
 
 " No, you haven't. That's just the worst of it. Is there 
 any one in the house ? " 
 
 " Tliere's Georgie." 
 
 " Who's Georgie ? Oh, the servant ! She's not company. 
 You want to be taken out of yourself. I can do it, I think." 
 
 " Yes, but I " 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Altamont, or Adamson, the die is cast, we 
 are three miles away from your house already ! I told him to 
 get along. I'm exceeding the speed limit in this, as in every- 
 thing else — our acquaintance, I mean. I'm not one to dawdle, 
 I'm afraid, either in love or business. You're going to dine 
 with me. Be easy, I'm quite dependable, you'll find ! 
 Haven't time to be anything else. Trust me, do ! "
 
 XII 
 
 The porter of the club evidently knew Veere very well. 
 In the cloakroom an obsequious attendant came forward 
 to meet Betsey, removed her jacket, poured out hot water 
 for her and tendered hairpins. Betsey meekly washed her 
 face and " did " her hair, and subtly regained a measure of 
 self-respect. She began to be sorry she had given away so in 
 the carriage, and allo^'ed a man to see her cry. She had seen 
 in his eyes when she foolishly raised her veil at his request, 
 that he had not thought her much to look at. 
 
 The big black hat with the sweeping feather went on again 
 over the gold meshes of her hair. The shadow of the brim 
 hid to a certain extent those traces of the day's discomfiture 
 that only time would remove, and it was a pretty, funda- 
 mentally healthy-looking young woman who issued forth 
 shyly to meet her host. 
 
 Impassive, easy, as usual, he threw down his illustrated 
 paper, and rose to escort her to the dining-room. 
 
 There, mild shaded lights, softly gliding waitresses, delicate 
 meats and exhilarating wines reddened her lips, though they 
 could not so soon bring back the colour to her bleached face, 
 made paler by the showers of rice-powder she had nervously 
 applied in a mere futile effort to relieve the stinging smart of 
 tears. Her lips were scarlet, raw almost, with her unconscious 
 biting of them. The blunted arrows of her eyes were patheti- 
 cally inefficient. They refused to convey the mute, inde- 
 terminate appeal that, from habit, she was willing to throw 
 
 84
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 85 
 
 into them. She sat opposite Veere and ate her dinner like a 
 charity child. 
 
 Her simple, unobtrusive sorrow, the pleasure she evidently 
 took in being petted, her innocent response to his sincerely 
 meant kindness, touched the young man. He thought he had 
 discovered a prize in this woman A\itli the serene lack of 
 affectation, of vanity and self-consciousness. She would 
 always get everything, for she asked nothing, except that 
 you should be nice to her. Woman's arts, if she had any, 
 and they were naturally in abeyance for the moment, would 
 be instinctive instead of feigned. She was charming, un- 
 expected, different from Dobree and Lady Maude and the 
 others. He promised himself not to lose sight of her. He 
 would see what she was like when she was recovered and up 
 to her normal form. Meanwhile he occupied himself with her 
 physical wellbeing. 
 
 She had gone, and must still go, through a great deal. 
 The situation was uncommon. He had helped to make it 
 more so. Idly, from some inborn want of taste and reserve, 
 actuated by curiosity, and a constitutional desire to get to 
 the root of matters, he had followed up this trail. He had 
 sought out the wife of his uncle's murderer, and attended 
 the funeral of that uncle's pensioned mistress. With the 
 modernest audacity he had brought Mrs. Altamont here, to 
 a discreet West End club, and was giving her dinner. That 
 she was presentable — more than presentable — was an acci- 
 dent and Veere's own luck. Outside on the pavement, 
 beyond the flower- banked window, people were probably 
 walking up and down discussing her affairs and his. News- 
 boys were hawking papers containing full accounts of her 
 felon husband's health, and assessing the probabilities of his 
 ever being sufficiently recovered to stand his trial for an act 
 which had placed him, Ernest Rose Veere, in his uncle's place, 
 and made him heir to a vast property and a world-wide, well- 
 established business.
 
 86 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 This and other sensational arrangements of fact passed 
 through the young man's mind as he sat opposite Betsey 
 Altamont, or Adamson, to be dismissed as soon as concocted 
 and the pleasurable stimulus fairly derived from the anti- 
 thesis. He studied her face keenly, but with diplomatic 
 delicacy, lest he should amioy her in her present state of raw 
 sensitiveness. 
 
 Betsey, on the other hand, did not focus him. He was little 
 more to her than a minister to her present entertainment, her 
 rescuer from the gloomy House of Death to which she must 
 by and by return. She was acutely conscious of the physical 
 delight of the warm club, of the good wine that soothed and 
 bemused her a little, even of the footstool run in under the 
 table to her numbed feet by a w^aitress. She was warm, now, 
 for the first time since Miss Altamont had died. It brought 
 it home to her how much and in how many ways she had 
 suffered during the short space of five days — those five days 
 dating from Mrs. Wormeley's day " at home," in which tragedy 
 had come to her, and she had " lived " at last. 
 
 The young man opposite was talking about a certain Lady 
 Dobree de Saye, of whom she did not think she had ever 
 heard. This Lady Dobree appeared to be a madwoman 
 of fashion, who " would be so much interested in her." Mr. 
 Veere spoke of this lady as if he were engaged to her, without, 
 however, precisely stating it as a fact. Betsey did not care. 
 He was talking of Lady Dobree now, propounding all sorts 
 of wild-cat schemes in that low, even, colourless voice of his. 
 Betsey thought he was the quietest, and at the same time 
 the most dashing person she had ever met. He seemed made 
 of quicksilver. He reminded her of some neat, polished tool 
 of refined steel. His appearance, as he sat lightly on a chair 
 opposite her, leaning forward on his elbows, was as different 
 as possible from Wilfrid's dark, foreign, hairy, night-bird 
 sort of looks. Wnfrid was handsome ; this man was clean. 
 Wilfrid had beautiful, terrible eyes ; Mr. Veere's were small,
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 87 
 
 cold, and inexpressive. His face, clean-shaven, was not a 
 face that one remembered ; it was like that of many another 
 young, well-trained, active Englishman. But his thin, 
 rather cruel mouth had, what Wilfrid's never could compass, 
 a ravishing smile now and again, and then he showed, like 
 Wilfrid, a set of regular, business teeth, white and sharp. He 
 was Wilfrid's cousin ! Suddenly that fact came home to 
 her ! . . . 
 
 " Shall we go somewhere ? " said he tentatively, when they 
 had dined. 
 
 " AVhere ? " 
 
 " Don't look so shocked ! I am afraid I meant a music- 
 hall. It's what a man would do — in your case ! Only I 
 suppose a woman " 
 
 " I don't think I want to go," said she. " I'd go if I did. 
 I understand what you mean. I didn't look shocked, only I 
 can't quite control my muscles, they're stiff with crjang. . . . 
 Don't be angry, but I think I'd like to go home. I might 
 sleep, perhaps, if I went now." 
 
 He would have liked to take her in his arms, charmed by 
 this halting confession of muscular incompetency. But he 
 replied, coldly : 
 
 " Perhaps you might ? One knows best what's good for 
 oneself. We'll go." 
 
 She ■v\alked upstairs and put on her jacket while he paid 
 the bill. Having done so, he went out into the hall and found 
 her standing there waiting for him, as if she had known him 
 all her life. He wrote the name of his guest in the book, as 
 required by the management, inserting not the one he had 
 known her by, but that of Adamson, the name he had seen on 
 the coffin plate to-day. 
 
 His car was waiting at the door, open. 
 
 " Do you mind ? " he asked her. " I said we would have 
 it so going back. I fancied a spin in the fresh air might do you 
 good."
 
 88 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 Betsey assented gratefully. Henceforth her resistance to 
 any little reasonable arrangement of his was over. A truly 
 feminine woman ; she was now in his hands. 
 
 Mr. Veere dismissed the chauffeur and drove himself. At 
 the corner of Albemarle Street, he stopped the car and got 
 out. Betsey did not look to see what shop he went into, she 
 felt too tired to turn her head ; it was not likely to be any 
 concern of hers. 
 
 It was, however. Just before they reached Wimbledon, 
 he pulled a sealed parcel out of his pocket. 
 
 " Look here, this is what I got out to get at the chemist's. 
 Will you, to oblige me, take one of these ? " 
 
 She swallowed it. 
 
 " How clever of you to take it without water ! And another 
 when you get into bed ? " 
 
 She promised. 
 
 They came to Worksop House. He got out and rang the 
 bell. He did not ask her for her latch-key, and it M^as as well, 
 for that lay in the pocket of the jacket that had been 
 cut away from Altamont's body in St. Frithiof 's Hospital. 
 
 Georgie, to whom it now appeared Mr. Veere had thought 
 of telegraphing to sit up, opened the door, blinking but kindly 
 welcoming. Mr. Veere, with a sweet indeterminate smile that 
 included Georgie, got into his car again and was gone. 
 
 " Oh, ma'am," said Georgie, " I'm so glad you're back ! 
 I've been that lonesome, wondering where you'd got to ! " 
 
 " Poor old Georgie, what a selfish pig I was to leave you all 
 alone ! I never thought " 
 
 " Oh, ma'am, it doesn't matter now that you've come back ! 
 Old Ginger's been sitting on my knee all the evening, purring 
 fit to burst himself. He's wonderful company, he is." 
 
 " Take him to sleep with you, then," said Mrs. Altamont, 
 wearily following Georgie and her candle upstairs. Georgie 
 had seized that implement from her mistress's yielding hand 
 with a " Let me, mum, you'll spill the grease."
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 89 
 
 Mrs. Altamont began to undress, with Georgie's help. Mrs. 
 Altamont would have liked to send her out of the room, but 
 realised that the good simple soul could not bear to tear her- 
 self away from the newly recovered house-mate, who was her 
 kind, considerate mistress as well. 
 
 " Oh, my pill ! " Mrs. Altamont exclaimed suddenly. 
 
 " Wliat's that for, mum ? " 
 
 " To make me sleep, I fancy. And I'm half asleep already. 
 Good night, Georgie ; I say, sure you don't mind sleeping 
 alone ? Will Ginger really do ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, mum. Ginger's slept with me all these last nights ; 
 he purrs me off to sleep beautiful. Besides, I'm all right now 
 that I've seen you home safe."
 
 XIII 
 
 Mrs. Altamont did not know what drug it was that 
 Ernest Veere had given her, but its effect was to make 
 her sleep well into the day. Georgie thoughtfully did not 
 call her. Very slowly and surely she woke to the acutest 
 desolation. 
 
 The house seemed only truly empty now that the body of 
 Miss Altamont had been borne away. Until then, one room 
 in it had held, not Miss Altamont, indeed, but A Thing, that 
 having brooded over long and circled round in thought until 
 one plucked up some sort of courage, one went in and looked 
 upon. One posed the Eternal question ? " Where are you ? " 
 and " What are you doing there ? " to the sleeping Silence 
 that lay, cold, imperturbable, framed in satin and laces, in its 
 wooden shell. Then one kissed it to show that one was not 
 afraid of the vastly Infinite, brought suddenly home to the 
 finite creature and within wondering range of its humble 
 vision. 
 
 And now, Betsey dared not go near the kernel of horror, 
 that one room, which she knew to be empty. She sat stiffly 
 in the hall, with her eyes on the staircase that the coffin had 
 been carried down the day before yesterday. She had been 
 crouching in the dining-room, with the door ajar, while the 
 undertaker's men accomplished their ugly mission. She had 
 heard all, the grunting of the bearers, the strain of the banis- 
 ters, as the body of Miss Altamont in its wooden enclosure 
 suffered this last indignity of grotesque, helpless transit. 
 Dead and penned in her boarded case, she was forced to 
 
 90
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 91 
 
 vicariously damage the house and fittings that, living, she 
 had cherished. Betsey likewise knew each danger knob and 
 awkward projection of the staircase with its two wide 
 landings. She had heard, as she sat evilly spellbound, the 
 muttered exclamations of the labouring, sweating coffin 
 bearers, " Mind the corner ! Be careful there ! " When it 
 was over, when IVIiss Altamont had crossed her own threshold 
 for the last time, feet foremost, the trembling woman had 
 rushed out of the room to Georgie in the kitchen — smutty, 
 blowzy Georgie, dealing gently with her pots and pans out of 
 sympathy — and had flung her arms round the little hand- 
 maid's neck, regardless of the fact that there was a sheepish 
 man hovering in the scullery. 
 
 " Georgie ! " the mistress duly observed, when she had 
 recovered herself, and Georgie's visitor had slipped away. 
 
 " Yes, I know, mum, I've told him so, and he won't take 
 ' No ' for an answer ! " 
 
 " Told him what ? " 
 
 " That you don't allow no followers." 
 
 " Don't I, Georgie ? But you must marry some time, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 " That's what he says, mum. He says, ' Now, this min- 
 ute ' Oh, he's all right. But I say as I can't think of 
 
 leaving you at present, mum, now can I ? " 
 
 " Not just yet, Georgie ; not till after " 
 
 " And perhaps not then, mum ; we'll see ! " 
 
 Georgie no longer stood alone ! Georgie had an interest 
 apart, and in spite of her devotion to her mistress, looked 
 beyond to the consolable future. This new tie of Georgie's 
 accentuated Mrs. Altamont's isolation, and discounted the 
 maid's sympathetic cookery and few ill-chosen words of 
 comfort. The tactful mistress must take care to keep out of 
 the kitchen henceforth. Georgie, of course, must have full 
 liberty to see her young man, who was a grocer's assistant 
 in Wimbledon, thoroughly respectable and ready to marry
 
 92 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 Georgie at once. It was all right ; but it cut the mistress off 
 from the maid, whose simple consolations had soothed her. 
 
 She was thrown back on the new friend whom she had so 
 recently and so strangely acquired. He had said that he would 
 look in some time in the day and see how she was. A little 
 dubious about it last night, wondering if she had not given 
 herself away too much, been too easy ; to-day she was glad. 
 And his thoughtfulness had benefited her already — the sleep- 
 ing-draught had carried her through a greater part of that 
 dreadful first day after the funeral, when even people whom 
 the fact of death has left more or less unaffected, feel poig- 
 nantly, physically depressed. 
 
 It was nearly five o'clock. She jumped to her feet, with a 
 sudden feverish activity. She would go into the Death 
 Chamber. She would unbolt the door of the anteroom, 
 
 bolted since ! She would let herself straight into the 
 
 tragic arena of two days ago. It was better over. There were 
 papers in a bureau in the inner room, that were perhaps 
 crying to be looked over ? 
 
 It was done. She was there, standing free in terrible empty 
 spaces, that had been cleared for the passage of the coffin. 
 The low-ceiled rooms seemed vast and spacious. Georgie, 
 good soul, had been in and had swept a little. She had 
 spread a clean sheet over the bed. She had — north-country, 
 superstitious creature — veiled the looking-glass. 
 
 The window should be opened. The atmosphere was op- 
 pressive and close. Mrs. Altamont walked towards it and 
 tried to raise the sash. It fell again. It would not keep up. 
 The broken cord hung helplessly and told her why. She had 
 broken it herself in that desperate effort to hinder the news 
 from reaching Miss Altamont. She wedged the window open 
 with a chair and then looked round. The packet of patience 
 cards so lately used were put out of sight ; Georgie doubtless 
 had thought them a profanity. Betsey stooped and tried to
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 93 
 
 get hold of a couple of cards that had insinuated themselves 
 behind the skirting-board. One was a knave, the other that 
 unofiicial personage called the " Joker." Miss Altamont had 
 made it an ace of spades, in her bold actress-like handwriting. 
 The unhinged Betsey felt it to be prophetic. 
 
 " A spade, to dig a grave." It was one of those last touches 
 that break up enforced calm. Betsey sank down on the low 
 prie-dieu chair in which she always had sat to read to Miss 
 Altamont, and buried her face in her hands, so as not to 
 see the dreadful room full of associations, while she thought of 
 what she should do next — how she should get out of it, cut 
 it, forget it. . . . 
 
 Buzz ! And whirr ! The bells of St. Faith's, the church 
 adjoining at the back, began to ring for afternoon service. 
 
 She gathered her knees together to flee, outraged ; in a 
 few moments more she adjusted herself to the familiar circum- 
 stance, and took pleasure in the clear fresh sound. . . . 
 
 Soon the usual reverberation was set up. St. Faith's owiied 
 a fine peal. The air hummed with clean, sweet tones that 
 allured and uplifted. The process of revivification seemed to 
 extend to her. Still the bells rang on. She took her hands 
 away from her face, and drank in the gay noise. Some true 
 comfort was instUled by this fanfaronade of cheer. It was 
 no longer possible for her thought to waUow in the depths of 
 bitterness. The cup had been drained, and she tossed up 
 her throat, as a drinker may who has gulped down the lees of 
 sorrow and is about to forget the sour taste of woe. 
 
 An end, and a beginning ! So Dr. Gedge had said — the 
 last words spoken in this room in her hearing ! 
 
 She would brood no more, she would go on, and walk 
 bravely in the open fields of honest endeavour. Young, 
 handsome, strong, she would eat, sleep, be herself. She 
 would let the dear dead lie, while she, the quick, went about 
 her decreed business of life. Life to be lived and savoured — 
 life that she had not lived yet.
 
 94 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 All this the bells suggested to her, they even made her 
 think of young Veere. His fair, blue, unruminating eyes, his 
 weU-cut, sharp, intaking nostrils, were akin to the inspiriting 
 hurtle of sound that vibrated now all through the air, for the 
 peal had worked up to its due culmination and sonority. 
 Soon it would drop into the dull summoning monotone. 
 Though she was not in love with him, her mind was whole- 
 somely occupied with the young man. She saw again his 
 neat, straight black hair, brushed smooth, his stiff collar, with 
 its sharp curve that nursed his square chin. She heard again 
 his clean unslurred brevity of speech, that spoke of a level- 
 headedness and dashing efficiency that no lumber of old 
 sad thought, lying derelict about the chambers of the brain, 
 could tangle, distress, or impede. 
 
 A somewhat different woman rose as the bells finally called 
 to prayer, and looking up, but neither to the right nor the 
 left, passed into the inner room, and lifted the flap of an old 
 escritoire that stood near the fireplace. 
 
 She had forgotten to bring the keys — Miss Altamont's own 
 sacred bunch now in her legatee's possession. She knew if 
 she went back for them she would never return ; so, reck- 
 lessly, she jogged and pulled at the brass knob of one drawer. 
 It yielded, a little the worse for her attack. 
 
 " She's left all to me, so it doesn't matter," was her con- 
 solatory reflection. 
 
 The bells had stopped. She heard the burr of the organ 
 faintly. She felt like a child in mischief — horribly perturbed, 
 but went on courageously rummaging and shuffling. 
 
 There were some paper packets in the drawer, inscribed in 
 Miss Altamont's handwriting. 
 
 " I am her sole executrix." So saying she opened the 
 first. A packet of plain black-edged cards fell out and on 
 them was neatly written : 
 
 " Mr. and Mrs. Altamont return thanks for kind 
 inquiries and sympathy."
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 95 
 
 There were a dozen of these. For her and her husband. 
 All in form — the best of form. On turning the packet over, 
 she read, in pencil : " To save Betsey trouble after I am dead. 
 N.B. — A round dozen will clear all my friends off ! " 
 
 Another packet lying next to this strange piece of meticu- 
 lousness engaged Betsey's attention. 
 
 It contained three smaller parcels, each inscribed, but so 
 faintly that she had to carry them to the light. 
 
 " Wilfrid's Jiair, aged ten." 
 
 On the two other packets was written respectively : 
 
 " Wilfrid II., aged three," and " Little Katie's hair." 
 
 Confronted with these pendant examples of sentiment and 
 cpiicism, Betsey quailed, flung them down, and investigated 
 no more. 
 
 The first was consistent enough with the character of the 
 perpetrator, as she knew it ; the lock of hair business was a 
 revelation to her, and an unpleasant one. 
 
 ]\Iiss Altamont knew that she was a grandmother, then ! 
 Wilfrid must have brought her the locks of hair in some 
 moment of expansion, Betsey being absent. Mother and son, 
 at some period, must have had an explanation. 
 
 In Betsey's experience of the last five years, Miss Altamont 
 and her son had not addressed more than three or four words 
 to each other. They were practically not on speaking terms. 
 Betsey, at Miss Altamont's desire, had been their interpreter 
 and go-between. 
 
 So her darling had performed the manoeuvre technically 
 kno^\^l as " going behind " her ! Even Miss Altamont had 
 been false — untrue to her supposedly beloved daughter-in- 
 law. 
 
 The shock was tremendous. In the gathering dusk, Betsey, 
 afraid no more, wept. She cried for rage — sheer blind rage. 
 She was angry \vith them all. People were all alike ! No 
 one, not even a cynic like the late departed one, could be 
 trusted ! This was almost her bitterest hour. An ideal
 
 96 THE WIFE OF AETAMONT 
 
 friendship torn to ribbons, the intercourse of years honey- 
 combed with suspicions. She had not known how like lovers 
 she and Miss Altamont had been till now, when one party to 
 the alliance proved to have been double-hearted, and in 
 treaty, even for so short a time, with the outside enemy. 
 
 Mr. Veere was coming. If he proposed a music-hall, some- 
 thing heartless, something outrageous, she would go. 
 
 But he did not propose anything of the kind. He sat down, 
 asked for some tea, and she showed him. the contents of the 
 envelope. 
 
 " Pathetic ! " was what he said. 
 
 " Do you realise that's the hair of WUfrid's illegitimate 
 children that my mother-in-law has been hoarding for years ? " 
 
 " I see. Those would be the children of Ada Cox, wouldn't 
 they, whose letter was read at the inquest ? Poor soul ! " 
 
 " Poor soul ! Poor beast ! She was the cause of your 
 uncle's murder." 
 
 " Oh, indirectly ! One can't make her accessory before the 
 fact. Quite an illiterate woman, I gathered. Had been a 
 model, like everybody else. Well, why don't you go and 
 see her ? " 
 
 "I?" 
 
 " Yes, you ! You've got a kind heart, I believe and trust. 
 And if you're upset, what must she be ? " 
 
 " She's no right to be upset." 
 
 " More right than you, for I daresay she loves the man. 
 You don't even pretend to." 
 
 " I don't pretend to because I don't — didn't. They are 
 not my children. I never had any." 
 
 " Dear thing ! How sad ! Well, these wretched children 
 — not yours, and so the more wretched, eh ? — are probably 
 starving, whose ever they are ! At least, that occurred to me, 
 do you know ? Hearing the letter read in court, I've been 
 worrjdng about them a bit." 
 
 " Why don't you go and relieve them, then ? "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 97 
 
 " I'd rather do it through you. It would be a graceful act 
 if you were to look her up ; if I went it would be an indecent 
 one. Not really, of course, but in the eyes of the fools we 
 can't afford to affront all the time. Look here, do go, feed 
 the children ! I've got a special fibre of my being for them ; 
 it's in my blood — you know they called my uncle the Chil- 
 dren's Friend. Do go to Mrs. Cox, and draw on me for 
 supplies. I've got far too much money — he's left me every- 
 thing and I'd already got some of my OAni — enough to live on. 
 I shall be getting soft if I don't take care to send myself bank- 
 rupt or something stimulating of that kind ! " 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't say that ! " 
 
 " Superstitious, Mrs. Altamont ? Not you ! Well, will 
 you come and dine with me somewhere quietly — say Rich- 
 mond, this time ? We'd better not patronise the Albemarle 
 twice running ! Tie yourself up tight, if you don't mind. 
 The car's open. Or — I say, would you honour me by wearing 
 this ? " 
 
 She now saw that he had got a cardboard box with him 
 and that it was l3dng on the table. She opened it, smiling ; 
 it held a smart black motor bonnet that fitted close to the 
 head, with a veil attached. 
 
 " I got it at Woolland's. That's where Dobree goes, and 
 she says it's the best place — in fact, she chose it. I hope it is 
 what you like ? " he said anxiously. 
 
 " I haven't got such a thing. You see, I never seemed 
 likely to be going about in motor-cars," Betsey said grate- 
 fully. " Of course, I'll wear it ; it's beautiful." 
 
 He smiled with pleasure as she ran upstairs to adjust it. 
 He had introduced another woman's name as a test. Some 
 women, he knew, would have raised objections to a hat thus 
 obtrusively godmothered by a more intimate female friend 
 of the donor's, but Betsey was not like that, he was glad to 
 observe, and he had not expected her to be. 
 
 He brought her back to Worksop House as usual. As they 
 
 H
 
 98 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 drew up a spruce young man in a bowler hat was coming 
 away. 
 
 " Who's that ? " he asked sharply. 
 
 " Georgie's young man. Did you think it was a friend of 
 mine ? " 
 
 " Tidy young chap enough ! " he replied. " Looks as 
 smart as I do. But I didn't ask. It isn't my business to look 
 after you and make inquiries about the character of your 
 admirers. You wouldn't stand it from me." 
 
 His tone was wistful. Betsey tried to please him. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," she said gently. " I am going to call 
 upon Mrs. Cox, to-morrow, as you asked me to. Good night, 
 and thank you." 
 
 " I can't come to-morrow," said he. " I'm dining out — 
 with Dobree and her pal, as a matter of fact. But I'll come 
 the next day and hear about your excursion. Shall I send 
 the car for you, as I can't come myself ? " 
 
 "No, it might frighten Ada, and make her think I was 
 giving myself airs. And I don't expect you to be so kind as 
 to come every day," she said. 
 
 "Oh, kind !" he said. "I began it out of kindness, 
 
 but I'm going on with it for myself — if you'll let me ? "
 
 XIV 
 
 The monstrous twin-eyed tram carried Betsey next day 
 over solitary suburban heights, and lamp-set crowded 
 dales, over Denmark Hill with its mouldering gardens and 
 wooden palings, Camberwell Grove, and over the hill again 
 down into Lordship Lane. There the young woman got out, 
 asked many questions, and was directed to Burckhardt's 
 Grove. 
 
 It was nearly dusk, and cold and damp. She wore a black 
 fur jacket that had fitted Miss Altamont closely in the days 
 when Miss Altamont had walked abroad. It draped the 
 slighter Betsey handsomely. It was brown at the seams, 
 particularly under the arms. It would not stultify Ada by 
 its magnificence, but it enlianced Betsey's beauty with its rich 
 darkness, so that whenever she asked the way, the questioned 
 one, after giving his information, turned and looked at her. 
 
 She had got no money from Veere, and she had brought 
 very little of her o^vn. She meant to prospect first. She 
 could not bring herself to believe that a minx like Mrs. Cox 
 could be in the straits she had described in her sensational 
 letter to Wilfrid, a letter written, of course, to stimulate him 
 to renewed efforts to increase their exchequer. If she and 
 her children were indeed as destitute as she made out, if 
 Little Katie was growing up maimed and stunted for want 
 of food, then — Miss Altamont's last wish to help her to grow 
 should be respected. Only, where was the money to come 
 from ? Immediate housekeeping needs had absorbed nearly 
 all the available funds in the house, though Mr. Veere during 
 these last days had practically boarded her free. 
 
 99
 
 100 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 It would be some time before she could inherit. There 
 was no reason, now, why she should refuse her legacy. Wilfrid, 
 if he lived, would be fed and housed by the State, and Wilfrid 
 would not live at all, he would be hanged ! 
 
 It shocked her a little that Veere should gratify his strong 
 sense of antithesis under the guise of charity. The mistress 
 of the man who had murdered his beloved uncle should not 
 correctly be relieved by the nephew, though it would be pictur- 
 esque. It was only slightly less picturesque that Ada should be 
 relieved by her lover's mother, but Betsey felt it would be in 
 better taste. She hoped with all her heart that Ada would 
 prove an impostor. 
 
 Number ten, Burckhardt's Grove. Betsey found it. Her 
 heart beat. 
 
 Burckhardt's Grove was a blind alley, a byway, a section, 
 seemingly, of some steaming African swamp left standing un- 
 cleared in the midst of civilisation. Trees, bushes, and low 
 craven houses together, were hideously entangled, a lodge of 
 boughs like Nicolete's would have been drier. Surely no 
 landlord could want to turn a tenant out of this dripping 
 reservoir of disease ? Were all the tenants of Burckhardt's 
 Grove as hard up as Mrs. Cox ? For at no window of all the 
 dozen houses did light show, no sound came to Betsey's ears 
 except the crunch of her own footfall on the gravel, and the 
 soft, pertinacious swish of rain, intercepted by foliage, that 
 passed it on, in drips, to the sodden earth of the little scrubby 
 cat-runs round each house. 
 
 Betsey counted the numbers down from the last she could 
 see by the light of the street lamp at the corner, pulled and 
 rang a silly tinlding cheerful bell that made her jump. The 
 house boasted only one storey. The sill of the upper window 
 nearly met her tall feather. 
 
 A woman opened the door — Ada Cox, of course. 
 
 She was pale, thin, and tall, with all the strange, blasted 
 beauty of anaemia and consumption. To Betsey's Philistine
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 101 
 
 eyes she was hideous. There was not an ounce of colour in 
 the face shadowed by crisp black hair. The white chapped 
 upper lip was short and beautifully sucked in, like a mouth in 
 a pre-Raphaelite picture. This, Ada, the minx — this piteous, 
 wild, and faded Belle Dame Sans Merci ! 
 
 " Mrs. Cox ? " 
 
 The woman nodded. 
 
 " I am Mrs. Altamont . . . Shall I go ? " 
 
 " Stay if you like ! " returned the other, in a strong Cockney 
 accent. She turned and led the way into a room on the 
 right side of the door. There was no light in the passage 
 except what pierced through the dirty, decayed fanlight 
 from the street lamp further down. In the room there was 
 a lamp standing on a packing-case. There was a chair, and 
 two more packing-cases. That was all. 
 
 " Sit down," said Mrs. Cox, pulling up the one chair to the 
 box that supported the lamp. " Sit down. It's fairly clean ; 
 you won't take nothing away with you." 
 
 " Wliere are the children ? " 
 
 " In the bed, to keep warm. I'll fetch them do^vn for you 
 presently. Sit down." 
 
 Mrs. Altamont complied. She felt sick. This horrible, 
 barren emptiness ! Mrs. Cox, grown cool and hardy in pro- 
 portion to her visitor's dereliction, stood near the door, her 
 arm, bare to the elbow, languidly propped up against the 
 lintel. 
 
 " You've come to have a good look at me, haven't you ? 
 Well, I'm not much to look at. I was just doing a bit of 
 washing when you called." 
 
 " You look awfully tired." 
 
 " My dear, what would you have ? I'm wore out, that's 
 what I am, with trying to keep a rag on the children's backs, 
 and a bit in their stomachs. It was hard enough when he was 
 here and gave me ten bob a week." 
 
 " Was that what he gave you ? "
 
 102 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " Yes, and sometimes a little more. How much did he give 
 you ? " 
 
 " He never gave me anything. I lived with his mother. 
 I looked after her." 
 
 " Did you 'ave help ? " 
 
 " Yes, a girl." 
 
 " And no children ? I don't know, for Wilfrid wouldn't 
 never talk to me about you." 
 
 " No, no children." 
 
 " Wanted them badly, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Yes, at first." 
 
 " That's always the way. Them as wants them can't get 
 'em, and them as thinks them a nuisance has more than they 
 want." 
 
 " You hardly look strong enough " 
 
 " No, more I am. But when I had little Katie I was a 
 strong, healthy girl enough. Used to sit for the figure. But 
 children soon spoils that. Would you like to see 'em 
 now ? I expect that's what you came for, more than to 
 see me ? " 
 
 " I came to " began Betsey. " Yes, I should like to see 
 
 them, please." 
 
 Mrs, Cox disappeared. Betsey had acceded to her request, 
 so as not to seem unkind, though it was Mrs. Cox who inter- 
 ested her most. The woman's thin civility, her indiiierent 
 politeness, put her at her ease. A termagant would have 
 revolted her, a whiner disgusted her. The picture that Ada 
 managed to present touched her. That thin, angular drudge 
 had " sat for the figure " before she came into WUfrid's 
 hands, and bore his children for him ! 
 
 Mrs. Cox returned, carr3ang a touzled black-haired boy. 
 A very small girl trotted behind. The boy was the bigger 
 of the two. She was dressed in a kind of petticoat waist, the 
 boy was in a flannelette nightgown. 
 
 " Here they are ! Sleepy, poor souls ! She's the eldest,
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 103 
 
 but she ain't growed like he has. Wretched wizen little thing 
 she is — ain't you, Katie ? " 
 
 " Not enough to eat — I couldn't grow . . . not — enough — to — 
 eat . . . ! " 
 
 Like a refrain — like the raindrips from the eaves, punctuat- 
 ing the minutes, outside, these words chanted themselves in 
 the back of Betsey's mind. She held out her hand to the little 
 girl, awkwardly, stupidly, as a childless woman does. 
 
 " I keep 'em clean. You can kiss 'em if you want. But 
 perhaps you'd rather not, considering " 
 
 " I don't mind at all," said Mrs. Altamont gently, stooping 
 to Little Katie, and then raising her lips to those of the boy 
 who was held down to her. It was true, they were, and smelt, 
 clean enough. She was, moreover, anxious to remove the 
 misconception that evidently existed in the mind of Ada Cox. 
 The sight of the children of the man she hated gave her only 
 neutral sensations ; they were neither attractive nor repulsive 
 to her. 
 
 Mrs. Cox watched Mrs. Altamont — observed her favour- 
 ably. She made up her mind about her, as an animal does. 
 She let herself go ; she trusted Betsey on her face. She ceased 
 to use her remarkable powers of self-control, and the slow 
 drops began to course down her cheeks, those worn channels 
 for miry scalding tears. She still held the big child mechani- 
 cally. . . . 
 
 " Ah, don't cry, please don't ! " the other woman pleaded, 
 taking the child from her, and nursing him. Mrs. Cox, 
 relieved of her burden, made use of her apron, and held it 
 over her face. The word " Fatherless ! " issued from its folds. 
 
 " You are not to cry for Wilfrid," repeated Betsey per- 
 emptorily, in a voice husky with emotion. " Believe me, 
 he's not worth it. He's selfish, thoughtless, cruel. I've 
 always known it. You're too good for him. I'm too good 
 for him ; he ought never to have been born, he's only done 
 harm in the world, and most to himself."
 
 104 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " That's what I feel," said Ada. " Poor boy ! He's never 
 had a chance — the darUng ! " 
 
 Her expressions of tenderness irritated the neglected wife. 
 
 " Yes, he had ! I'd have been a good wife to him if he'd 
 let me. You w;ere a good wife to him — " She stopped. "No — 
 yes — I mean it. And when he's gone, you'll be his real widow." 
 She rose, put the boy down, and patted Ada on the back. 
 The woman's sobs jerked once or twice, and ceased. She 
 looked up inquiringly. 
 
 " Didn't you never love him yourself ? " she asked. 
 
 "No. Or else I wouldn't have been able to come and see 
 you." 
 
 " You might have done that for spite," said Mrs. Cox, 
 " just to see the woman he liked better than you." 
 
 Betsey was not deterred by this raw statement of fact. 
 
 " Look here," she said, " let's not talk of Wilfrid. . . . 
 He's done — finished ! I'll try not to abuse him to you, for 
 you feel it, of course. Be practical. I am. How do you go 
 on ? Money, I mean ? " 
 
 " I have none. We're to be turned out day after to-morrow. 
 Rent was paid beforehand " 
 
 " Poor Wilfrid ! " said Betsey. " Then, where do you go ? " 
 
 " What's the use of going anywhere when you ain't got a 
 penny to pay your rent ? You go where they'll take you. . . . 
 It's the House, I suppose. River for me, if Wilfrid don't get 
 off ! " 
 
 " Hush, hush ! He won't get off. And if he does, it's 
 prison — quod you call it — for life. I've had it all explained 
 to me. But — let me see — the public'll be getting up a sub- 
 scription " 
 
 " For you, not for me. You're his lawful wife, aren't you ? " 
 
 " All, don't be snappy with me ! I'm trying to think of a 
 plan. . . . Let me see. . , . I've got enough to live on, and 
 keep one servant. . . . My mother-in-law left her money 
 to me."
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 105 
 
 " Knew how to get the right side of her, I expect." 
 
 Betsey asked, disregarding, " Ada, can you cook ? " 
 
 " Yes. And then ? " 
 
 " Because if you'll come along with the children and live 
 with me, for the present anyway, and do the cooking for us 
 all, I'll send away my girl. She wants to go away and get 
 married, so it works out all right. And I'll give you her 
 wages, so you'll feel independent. Then we'll try to get 
 along together and bring up the children. You poor girl ! 
 SmUe ! " 
 
 " Little Katie never did get quite enough, the doctor said," 
 murmured IVIrs. Cox. Her face was irradiated. 
 
 " I can pack you all in nicely," repeated Betsey cheerfully, 
 conning the resources of the house accommodation in her 
 mind. " Let me see, I can sleep in Miss Altamont's room 
 and you in mine — and the children in the little room be- 
 tween." 
 
 Ada made an inarticulate sound. If anything, it suggested 
 disapprobation, but JVIrs. Altamont chose to take it the other 
 way. 
 
 " For God's sake, don't thank me ! " 
 
 " I wasn't a-going to, azackly," said IVIrs. Cox. " You say 
 you do want a servant. It's very good of you to take me 
 with the burdensome children too, but I'll give you good 
 value for your money, and, of course, I shan't take your 
 wages, and I can cook. I learned off my mother, who was a 
 wonderful clever woman. I know how to make folk com- 
 fortable. I made him comfortable, and now I'll do for you 
 — till he comes back." 
 
 " Gracious me, it's nearly seven ! " Betsey, in whom ner- 
 vous tension was giving rise to headache, suddenly exclaimed. 
 She felt as if she must at once get out of this place, this 
 en\ironment which had so subtly instilled into her mind the 
 idea which was perhaps going to turn out a hideous mistake. 
 She must think, instead of feeling. While she was under
 
 106 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 Mrs. Cox's roof, however, she continued to respond to the 
 same sentimental stimulus. 
 
 " I will come to-morrow and fetch you all. Midday ? 
 Is that too soon ? I have to settle my Georgie, you see ? She 
 can stay a day or two, or go at once, which I like." 
 
 " I can take up the place at once," said Mrs. Cox sturdily. 
 
 " Very well, then," Mrs. Altamont replied, fussily. " And 
 you'll have the children dressed ready, won't you ? Have 
 you much to go on with — in the eating line, I mean ? " 
 
 " Not much," said the other. " Nothing, in fact ! But 
 we can do." 
 
 Betsey laid five shillings odd on the table. " All I've got— 
 keeping enough for my fare back," she said. " It'll perhaps 
 get supper, and some breakfast. Good-bye ! " 
 
 Mrs, Cox did not even reply to Betsey's perfunctory adieu. 
 She looked mazed.
 
 XV 
 
 Mrs. Altamont sat in the great red omnibus going 
 back to town, and wondered what she had done. She was 
 on her way home at least ; she gloated on the thought of 
 her last quiet evening in her own quiet house. For had she 
 let loose the Furies ? Had she done something mad, idiotic, 
 and Scriptural, a Christian act of the extremest, foolishest 
 charity? She felt now as one who has received extreme 
 unction, bemused and yet equable. She was like those 
 persons who give but seldom to offertories or subscription 
 lists, and when they do give, give copiously. She seemed as 
 if she had just attended a long and unwieldy church service 
 — to have once for all penetrated to the very core of philan- 
 thropy, and she was bored and tired to death ! 
 
 Yet she could have done no less. It had been, now that 
 she came to disentangle motives, the sight of Little Katie 
 which had so affected her and moved her to benevolence ; 
 Little Katie, who couldn't grow, who wasn't going to live, she 
 felt sure of it, not even though they should begin feeding her 
 well from now ! . . . 
 
 Well, to carry on the religious metaphor, she had had her 
 call, and she had responded to it. She was glad, she was 
 changed, invigorated, uplifted, not with pride, but the plea- 
 sure of Doing, for once. This was Living indeed — squalid, 
 utilitarian, grotesque, but still, Living. 
 
 She began to plan to make up her old winter jacket for 
 Ada Cox, and there were some of Wilfrid's baby clothes that 
 his mother had put aside long ago which might do for the 
 
 107
 
 108 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 children ! In her mind, the scissors flew hither and thither — 
 she heard the tearing of stuff. . . . 
 
 Later on, when the tram turned her out in Victoria Street, 
 and the region grew less slummy, she began to think of 
 Ernest Veere, and wondered if he would be pleased with her 
 or no. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 Veere was not pleased, he thought the arrangement absurd. 
 He used the time-honoured fetish word, quixotic, in this 
 connection, and was vexed with. Betsey for disdaining his 
 proffered pecuniary assistance for Mrs. Cox. She tried to 
 explain to him how she felt about it. In vain. His utilitarian 
 negation of the picturesque as a factor in human affairs made 
 him blind and deaf to her reasons for action, and they 
 were, of course, purely sentimental, though she did not 
 realise it. 
 
 But she could not deny that Ada Cox, so far, proved to be 
 no cook. That was Ernest Veere's opportunity, eagerly 
 grasped at. He wasn't going to have his beautiful friend 
 starve and grow thin, at all events ! He insisted on taking 
 her out to dinner nearly every night during the month that 
 elapsed before Altamont mended and was able to be brought 
 to the court to stand his trial. 
 
 It was over at last. Two days of squalid recapitulation of 
 horrid details, a hint of female influence quashed at once, 
 and then the verdict. At the Vienna Cafe, at the top of 
 Leicester Square, where Ernest Veere brought Betsey to dine 
 two days after the trial, she might, while she waited for him, 
 read the questions of counsel, the judge's summing up, and 
 the hopeless, inevitable verdict. Furthermore, poor Miss 
 Altamont's disgraceful history in full, the sin of Sir Joris's 
 youth lightly adumbrated. It was all there, m The Sweep. 
 As for the bare facts of the case, she had no need to read 
 them up, for Inspector Whortleberry made it his business to 
 keep her informed. She had not been asked to appear, the
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 109 
 
 Veeres' solicitor, through Rose's intermission, had made all 
 that easy for her. She was naturally supposed to be ill, 
 prostrate, and quite unable to leave her sofa. 
 
 That was why she met him at obscure places like this. 
 When he was too busy to motor out to fetch her, she was not 
 too proud to arrive first at the rendezvous and wait for him ; 
 their camaraderie was perfect. 
 
 On the white tablecloth beside her lay one or two of the 
 daily papers, mounted on wooden frames for reading, like 
 horn books of old. The large catchy headlines of The Sweep 
 caught her eye. She was able to read there, " The Convict 
 Altamont," and " The Condemned Man's Health," while 
 " Altamont in Prison " stared at her from another sheet. 
 
 She could have asked the waiter to remove them if she had 
 been inclined, but that might have attracted attention to 
 herself, and revealed her identity, which she had taken the 
 greatest pains, short of positively cloistering herself, to con- 
 ceal. Besides, she did not care much, she had grown used to 
 the impact of the shocks dealt her by sensation-mongers on 
 placards and posters. There was, indeed, only one form of 
 headline that she had, from the peculiarities of the case, been 
 spared, " Strange Development." Wilfrid's counsel naturally 
 was debarred from that line of defence — there could be noth- 
 ing new. 
 
 His solicitor, paid by Rose Veere, had she but known, was 
 trying to bring him ofif on the plea of insanity. She herself 
 had been questioned, but she had not chosen to contribute 
 anything to this charitable theory. No, Wilfrid, to her 
 knowledge, had never been strange in manner, or done any- 
 thing particularly perverse until now. She knew of nothing, 
 and the removal of the other witness, his mother, by death, 
 had left her the sole depository of the previous facts of his 
 life. Ada Cox had not even been called. 
 
 The waiter removed the papers ; a client wanted them. 
 A young man behind her was even then hanging up his hat,
 
 no THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 he came round the corner of the coat- stand to their table. 
 It was Veere, who smiled, as he always did when he saw 
 Betsey again. The waiter hovered over him as he sat down — 
 
 " Two dozen oysters. Poulet Paprika. Pommes Sautees. 
 Omelette au Rhum — or will you have Kirsch ? For two. 
 And bring the wine card, please." 
 
 " How are you ? " he addressed himself to her. " Why 
 wouldn't you come out with me yesterday ? " 
 
 " Because of Ada." 
 
 " Your cook ? " scornfully. 
 
 " Yes," she smiled, " and a bad one at that," 
 
 He interrupted her. " One minute ! Champagne ? " 
 
 " No, not to-day." 
 
 "Oh, yes, do you good. I want some." He pointed to a 
 number on the card. " A pint of that." The man departed. 
 " Now ! Do you mean that Ada took it conventionally ? " 
 
 " Well, the morning of the day on which you get the news 
 of your husband's condemnation is bound to be a little up- 
 setting — to her at any rate ! He was my husband, of course, 
 but she's the one that feels it. She couldn't, really, do a 
 single thing all day — headache — sat in a corner with her 
 apron over her head, woman-of-the-people fashion. I had to 
 cook the dinner, and mind the children. Little Wilfrid, of 
 course, chose the occasion to be more uproarious than usual. 
 It took me all my time to keep him out of the copper. Georgie 
 had come in to do some washing for me. Domestic detail ! 
 So you see, it would not have been possible for me to come, 
 even if I had wanted ! " 
 
 " Didn't you want ? " 
 
 " No, I think not. I'm not a monster. It would have 
 seemed too callous. But I don't pretend that I want him to 
 get off. Ada, of course, does." 
 
 " I suppose he was fairly kind to her ? " 
 
 " He doesn't seem to have knocked her about. She's got 
 no marks, anyway."
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 111 
 
 " You have ? " 
 
 "Oh, the usual scar. It was my own fault. You see I've 
 got a tongue, unfortunately, and I used to let poor Wilfrid 
 have it pretty hot sometimes. Ada noticed my cut the other 
 day." 
 
 " And did you tell her who gave it to you ? " 
 
 " No. Poor old Ginger gets the credit of it. But I'm not 
 sure she believed me. She is quiet, but she's got a lot of 
 elementary wisdom and a sort of doggy instinct that goes 
 right, sometimes. She is rather jealous of me still. She is 
 always trying to find out if Wilfrid and I got on together, and 
 when I do my best to let her understand that she was his 
 first and only love, she resents that on his account, and 
 implies that I neglected my wifely duties." 
 
 " You did, thanli God ! And sent him to her, an inferior 
 article. She or her like was his true mate. They were prob- 
 ably very happy together. If she had had enough money to 
 run the show, he would have stayed at home, lived on her, 
 and let my uncle alone. She knew how to manage him. 
 AVhy wasn't she tied to him instead of you ? That's the 
 irony — the pity of it ! Wliy weren't you like her — and she 
 Altamont's widow ? " 
 
 " You wouldn't have cared to be my friend then." 
 
 " On the contrary, I'd have married you — if you'd only 
 been his mistress, instead of his wife. That's another thing, 
 and fatal ! " 
 
 It was not Betsey's way to check and annoy him in the full 
 flush of his charming arrogance and egoism by representing 
 to him the possibility of a difference of opinion. She let him 
 take it for granted that she would have accepted his offer if 
 he had seen his way to make it. The thing could never be 
 put to the test, as he said. And she had plans. She wanted 
 to keep him in a good humour. Wilfrid was as good as dead. 
 The plea of insanity which was his only line of defence had 
 failed. His wife, and only his wife, could have substantiated
 
 112 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 it ; and she had refused, tacitly, to lie to save his life. She 
 showed Veere the trend of her thoughts by her question. 
 
 " Don't you thinli that if the relations of a criminal help 
 the lawyers to trump up the plea of insanity and invent all 
 sorts of strange, mad things that he has done in the past to 
 save him, that, when they succeed in proving it, they ought to 
 be liable to prosecution ? " 
 
 " How so ? " 
 
 " Because if they do get him off so, they establish the 
 fact that they were all the time harbouring a madman, and 
 should have had him examined and shut up before he did any 
 mischief ! " 
 
 " I certainly agree with you. It's a good point. Many 
 more people would get hanged, though, and Broadmoor 
 would be emptied. Well, where shall we go to-night ? There's 
 a splendid play at the Shaftesbury — oh, I forgot ! " 
 
 " No, let's go to it ; I have no feeling of that kind." 
 
 " All right. I'll go and pay." 
 
 She dropped an enormous veil with large velvety spots 
 over the features she was interested in hiding from the British 
 Public. It would interfere with her plans should her face 
 become public property. Neither was it good for Veere to be 
 seen too much about with her. They went to the pit of the 
 theatre. 
 
 Since her husband's definite condemnation, Betsey, con- 
 fronted with the one great issue of her life, looked facts full 
 in the face, and formed a distinct plan of action. She meant 
 to confide in this young man, who had elected to be her friend, 
 and beg for his co-operation. He was the dearest boy in the 
 world, the cleverest, the most generous, a young man with a 
 future, though he was consecrating the present to her, the 
 wife of a condemned murderer, and a woman older than himself. 
 But not for long now. To-night after the play and supper he 
 would motor her back and she would tell him what she meant 
 to do.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 113 
 
 She had no fear of him. She dreaded no cheaply audacious 
 enterprises on his part. Yet she knew well enough that he 
 admired her. She would not have cared to be with him 
 other\^'ise, she could not have been such a thorough companion 
 to a man who did not desire her as a woman. She supposed 
 him to be not entirely proof against the subtle whet of sex, 
 although he showed himself so superior to the vulgar triviali- 
 ties of flirtation. Against the big guns and forceful batteries 
 of passion, her want of any deep feeling for him made her safe, 
 and she conceived that he would use no other. A queer, deep, 
 concentrated nature his, though outwardly easy-going, 
 negligent, and trivial. So she thought of him in the com- 
 paratively brief moments devoted by her to the consideration 
 of his character. She was, for the moment, full of The Lyons 
 Mail. 
 
 " This is an old-fashioned play ! Murderers don't seem to 
 get found out now like that. There's no poetic justice in real 
 life." 
 
 " Because miscreants have learned not to give themselves 
 away. They avoid committing that one little bit of idiocy 
 that makes the whole world kin and themselves discovered. 
 Tliey don't neglect the smaller precautions — I suppose it's 
 the result of the capital Board School training we give them ? " 
 
 " Yes ; we teach them to criticise the Bible and to join 
 their flats, and then when they are old they do not depart 
 from it. Do you think Wilfrid meant to shoot your uncle ? " 
 
 " He took his pistols out with him, didn't he ? Were they 
 new ? " 
 
 " He had had them for years ! I missed them, and at first 
 it worried me, and I didn't tell Miss Altamont. Then I made 
 up my mind that he had taken them out of bravado. He 
 meant to threaten — a man armed is always more persuasive. 
 I'fl tell you what I think. No one heard exactly what they 
 said to each other, but my idea is, he begged for money." 
 
 " You said so in court."
 
 114 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " And threatened to blow out his own brains if he was 
 refused. Sir Joris was a brave man ; I expect he first shrugged 
 his shoulders and suggested a strait waistcoat. That would 
 infuriate Wilfrid and suggest to him a change of plan. It 
 drove him mad, in fact, and he pulled the trigger at Sir Joris. 
 The shooting at himself was after pure remorse." 
 
 " My dear friend, aren't you rather morbid ? " 
 
 " No, the opposite to morbid — ^healthy. Death isn't so 
 terrible to perfectly well people." 
 
 " A good digestion, in fact, can deal even mth a horrible 
 murder, and make it into chyle." 
 
 " Well, I do think it's physical weakness makes one shrink 
 so from the idea of death — one's own or other people's. If 
 a cook wasn't healthy she'd loathe — or enjoy too much — 
 drawing a turkey. And animals can go on feeding, cropping 
 grass beside a comrade that's dying under the most disgust- 
 ing conditions " 
 
 " I've seen Dobree once, staying at my uncle's, jab at a 
 hunted otter with her parasol and spoil its nose — add to its 
 last grunting agonies ! I've seen her. Yes, I've seen her." 
 
 " She has no imagination, I suppose ? " 
 
 " No more have I, but I couldn't stand that. I didn't say 
 any more to the girl all day. . . . She's up there, now, in a 
 box ! Do you see ? " 
 
 " How like you to keep it dark aU through the first act ! 
 Has she seen us — you, I mean? " Betsey whispered excitedly. 
 
 " I shouldn't think so. She would never look for me here, 
 in the pit ! " 
 
 " No, no, of course not ! " she said sarcastically. After a 
 moment's deliberation — " I see her quite weU. She's not so 
 pretty as I thought. She's too steely." 
 
 " Say aluminium ? " 
 
 " I'm disappointed in her, anyway. She's the sort of woman 
 I'd have expected to be soft, and sweet — bom in the purple 
 as she is ! "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 115 
 
 " If the purple isn't lined with ermine it's no good. The 
 Angernoimes are not well off ! " 
 
 " What do you call not well off ? " 
 
 " Paupers at two thousand a year. But old Angernoune's 
 got a big estate to keep up." 
 
 " Why should he keep it up ? Bet him cut it up into 
 small holdings." 
 
 " And the ancestral mansion, that James the Fourth slept 
 in on the night before Flodden ? " 
 
 " Make it into a museum ! "
 
 XVI 
 
 " Oh, do give me something to give that poor child ! " she 
 begged, as they came out of the theatre, and were at 
 once beset by a shivering specimen of organised London 
 misery. 
 
 " I will not. You should never give in the street." 
 
 " Oh, but it's genuine. Look ! He doesn't even beg." 
 
 " Best draw of all ! Do come on, dear." 
 
 " All right ! " She hastily slipped her fine scarf that he 
 had given her from her neck and wound it deftly round that 
 of the boy, flashing back her pretty defiance of the questioner 
 of the morality of charity. He only smiled. 
 
 " It won't matter. I'm not a bit hurt. Though why you 
 should disregard me on the subject — ! I was my uncle's 
 almoner. I dispensed his charities ! " 
 
 Crossing the strip of pavement on their way to the motor 
 they passed the series of wet posters laid in the mud with 
 stones apposed at all four corners to keep them down. The 
 chief item of news was, " Altamont's Letter to His Wife ! " 
 
 " Yes," said she, " that came just before I started. Ada's 
 got it now, wearing it next her poor heart." 
 
 " How could you let her ? " 
 
 " She wanted it. She didn't see through it. It's just con- 
 ventional — dictated by the prison chaplain, I should think." 
 
 " Well, you are a queer mixture ! " he said, regarding her 
 half kindly, half cynically. They were rolling along now 
 smoothly towards Wimbledon — the chauffeur knew he need 
 not put in top speed. 
 
 116
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 117 
 
 " How am I ? " 
 
 " Full of misplaced charity and whimsical hardnesses." 
 
 " Look here ! " She turned to him solemnly. " You like 
 me to be natural, you encourage me to talk quite freely to you, 
 don't you ? . . . But if I had to fag to sham sensibility, 
 I tell you, I wouldn't be with you in these days at all ! I 
 would refuse myself to you as I do to the others, the Wimble- 
 donians. They all come bothering, one after another, and I hear 
 that they are all down on me now because I go about with 
 you and won't let them see how I am bearing it. I am bearing 
 it too well, I know. It's indecent. I'm supposed to be broken 
 with shame and grief. But why should I be bowed down 
 with shame for the act of a man in whom I have no part, 
 with whose doings I am not in any way connected, just 
 because I once was fool enough to go and have my union 
 with him blessed ? It wasn't even a real union — as I see it. 
 I can't possibly feel sorry because I am going to be freed from 
 such vermin ! That's how I think of him — perhaps you 
 didn't know it ? Ada is properly broken-hearted — she is my 
 vicar. She works it off for me, and you I let see me as I am, 
 and how I feel — and I don't feel conventionally ! " 
 
 She flung herself back in the car, spent with her tirade. 
 Ernest Veere looked at her curiously, as at a lovely being of 
 another species. 
 
 " I often wonder what you really do feel ? " he said dog- 
 gedly. 
 
 "Oh, man, can't you see? As Christian did when the 
 burden rolled off his back ! " 
 
 " Yet you married the fellow — for love, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Nay, for love of his mother, I think. I don't fall in love 
 easily, for all I am so friendly with men ! " 
 
 There was a long pause. Ernest Veere looked her in the 
 face. His gaze seemed to fall away from her unreceptive 
 sweetness. He sighed. " Well, you are very charming and 
 life is very complicated. I love to hear what you make of it
 
 118 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 all. I can make nothing of it except that anything so ador- 
 ably natural and breezy must be right ! In your heart, Betsey, 
 it is always spring-cleaning — one smells the smell of anti- 
 septic soap, and knows the windows are open ! One touch 
 of spite or cattiness, taken in conjunction with your eyes, and 
 you'd be a minx, any one can see that ! " 
 
 " I'm not a minx ! " said she gravely, " Never was. And 
 
 now Say a nun, walled up in a cell, buried alive, 
 
 paralysed ! But no more — no more ! I see daylight " 
 
 " Through a prison window ! " 
 
 " I am not going to let myself thinli of that," she said 
 brutally. " I only know I shall be a widow on the twentieth 
 of this month, and then — I'll make great differences — great 
 changes, do you understand ? There's such a lot of life in me." 
 
 " There is, indeed. Don't I know it ! But you can't do 
 so very much. He has spoiled your chances." 
 
 " No, not quite ! I won't let him. I mean to try to begin 
 again. That's why I have been so careful to keep my face 
 out of the papers. No one out of Perton — the great public, 
 I mean, knows what " the wife of Altamont " is really like. 
 Can't I go to a new country and begin afresh ? " She seized 
 his hand. " Ernest, can't I ? " 
 
 " Can't you ? Yes, why not ? I suppose you can if you 
 care to ! " 
 
 He was suddenly cast down. She was too eager to notice it, 
 but went on fiercely : 
 
 " Of course I care. Yes, I am determined to pull it off." 
 
 " You can pull off anything if you have a mind. Go to 
 America, marry again, even " He laughed harshly. 
 
 " Yes, I had thought of that," she said seriously. 
 
 He started, 
 
 " That's what I mean, I had rather be married than not, 
 and to a good man this time, I don't absolutely hate men, as 
 you know ! " she smiled, " Now, listen, I should start with 
 a sort of what do you call it — a nom-de-guerre."
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 119 
 
 " A nom de Saturday to Monday, I suppose ! " 
 
 " Are you being quite nice ? I mean, he wouldn't know 
 who I was till we got to know each other, and then, of course, 
 I'd tell him the truth about myself. Out there, on another 
 continent, it wouldn't sound so bad. I should start quite 
 fair, and penniless, for I'll leave the lease of the house and a 
 hundred a year to Ada." 
 
 " And how do you mean to get to America ? " 
 
 " Through you, of course. I should ask you to give me my 
 passage as a parting gift. It wouldn't be so very expensive, 
 for I shouldn't want a return ticket, you know." 
 
 " And supposing I refused ? " 
 
 " You wouldn't. Wliy should you ? You're rich — and if 
 you weren't, I could always pay you back." 
 
 " ^^^len you got the man ! " He hesitated, ashamed. 
 " No, Betsey, that isn't the reason why I should refuse to 
 frank you across. And I certainly should refuse " 
 
 " To help me ? 
 
 5) 
 
 (C 
 
 To help you to leave me. Yes. For I had hoped " 
 
 What ? " she asked sharply. 
 
 " That you would stay with me." 
 
 " Marry you, do you mean ? " 
 
 " How could I ? The wiie of my uncle's murderer ! It 
 would ruin me ! " 
 
 " It would. I shouldn't think of it. Neither would I allow 
 you to ruin me ! " 
 
 " But " 
 
 " You mean that there's nothing to ruin. That I'm done 
 for already, because of W^ilfrid ? " 
 
 " I don't see what's left for you, frankly, but the protection 
 and care of some decent man, as the world goes. The widow 
 of a criminal " 
 
 " I don't see why because I have been the wife of one 
 beast that I should sink into becoming the mistress of an- 
 other ! "
 
 120 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " But that's the long and the short of it, I'm afraid," he 
 said. " I may be wrong " 
 
 " Of course you're wrong. And another thing — you don't 
 love me." 
 
 " I beheve I do. Honestly, I do. I guessed it and I began 
 to be quite sure when you talked of going to America ! " 
 
 " That was just temper." 
 
 " No, Betsey, I assure you. Dear woman, you have wound 
 yourself round my heart in these days — I am getting to feel 
 that I cannot do without you. I can't bear to think of letting 
 go your hand, or having to hold it across continents. That's 
 why I got so sulky when you spoke of leaving Europe. All 
 this, I know, can't go on for ever — our surreptitious meetings, 
 our little jaunts, our good times together, but something 
 might have been arranged, not necessarily derogatory to 
 you ? " 
 
 " I should have liked that still less," said she, frankly. 
 " Don't you see, I want to launch my poor little boat out into 
 the full stream of life again, not to get stuck in some wretched 
 backwater or other. You don't understand me a bit." 
 
 " On the contrary, Betsey, I do. I appreciate you as no 
 one else ever did. I appreciate you so much I feel that I 
 can't bear to part with so much excellence. Curse that man — 
 your husband ! Why couldn't he have kept quiet ! " 
 
 " Then I shouldn't have been a widow at all." 
 
 " Well, simply committed suicide, then — ended his useless 
 life without getting mixed up with irmj family. Betsey, I've 
 never wanted anything as much as I want you in my whole 
 life." 
 
 " That's not saying so very much if you pretend you love 
 me. But I know all the time that you only want to keep a 
 soothing companion by you for the present, while you're 
 intending by and by to marry Lady Dobree and consolidate 
 your race." 
 
 " I had thought of it," he said simply. " It was a fine plan.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 121 
 
 But it may never come off. And I am utterly upset and 
 miserable at what you have told me. Betsey, you can't — 
 you can't be so hard upon me after all we have been to each 
 other these days. Will you give me a kiss ? " 
 
 " Certainly," she said. " You have been very good." 
 
 She held her soft cool cheek to him, and a loosened bow of 
 her hair fell over his forehead. . . . He breathed heavily, 
 and touched her hair, like a blind man feeling his way. . . . 
 
 " I shall never kiss Dobree like that." 
 
 " Don't marry her then. That's my advice to you. Take 
 it. It's good. Here we are at my diggings. Good-bye. 
 You're the nicest man I've ever met — so far — but you're 
 younger than me, remember, and I'm quite young still." 
 She moved to get out. 
 
 He put his hand on the door. 
 
 " Betsey, if I could marry you, you'd stay ? " 
 
 " I believe I would. I'm very fond of you. And I am so 
 X keen now on respectability, and above- boardness. Marriage 
 V.dth you would be that — perfectly all right, I'm sure. But 
 you can't. . . . I'm so sick of grovelling here in the suburbs, 
 hiding and pottering and wasting my life on church bazaars 
 and dress and talk — and ugly nothings. I feel as if I must 
 get out of it somehow, get into the light if I can. Marrying 
 you would gi7e me that, wouldn't it ? But — the other thing 
 you proposed ^vould mean going back into the dusk and the 
 gloom, or rather, staying where I am already ! You'd hide 
 me, and I want to be produced." 
 
 Veere was silent. The moon rays broke faintly through the 
 glass panel of the car. The chauffeur's back as he sat there, 
 impassible, waiting, was a solid screen of discretion. . . . 
 
 She laid her hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " Dear, nice boy, don't be angry with me " 
 
 " What for ? " he muttered. 
 
 " For being so set up, for presuming to want to make my 
 o\\ n life my way, not yours — having the check to refuse you !
 
 122 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 Don't visit it on me. Come and take me out again. See me 
 through this. I am all alone, and it's rather awful, although 
 I talk big. Ada's not company. The others avoid me, I've 
 groAvn to look to you for— such a lot of things. Don't fail 
 me. . . . Let me be myself. ... I don't love you, not even 
 as much as I thought I did. I knew it when you kissed me." 
 
 " Ah, but " 
 
 He came out of his sullen fit, caught her to him, strained 
 her close, murmured soft things to her, called up all the re- 
 sources and furiously stoked the fires of potential passion. 
 It was a moment that could not last without real emotion on 
 both sides to back it. He released her, and her eyes, that had 
 been closed and flattened in the heavy fur collar of his coat, 
 opened again on to the moonlit panes, and the rain pools, 
 like flakes of silver, flashing in the roadway in front. . . . 
 
 " You see, there's no doubt about my loving you ! " he 
 said, as calm, smiling, gently breathing, exhibiting only the 
 faintest signs of discomposure, she came out of his arms. 
 
 " But what about me ? " she said sadly, gettmg out of the 
 car.
 
 XVII 
 
 Lady Dobree de Saye owned a little flat in town, the 
 rent of which was paid by her god-parent, the Duke of 
 Lax, and lived in it with the slavish little companion that 
 her mother chose for her. This was the condition of her free- 
 dom. The earl, her father, lived at Low Water, far away in 
 the north of England. His dull, but worthy, punctilious and 
 psalm-singing milieu was intolerable to his high-spirited 
 daughter, who had once threatened to run away with her 
 brother's tutor, unless she were permitted to live her own 
 life. The permission was given. She lived it now conveni- 
 ently — with her family's forced aid and help. The ancestral 
 oaks of Angernoune were gradually being carted away to 
 pay for her keep. Lady Angernoune's toilette was sacrificed 
 to her fancies. There was not a numbered edition de luxe she 
 didn't order or a Paris model off the nail when she had a mind 
 thereto. Lady Angernoune in her remote northern fastness 
 dressed worse than the housekeeper who showed the state 
 rooms, to pay the bill for it, and to supplement her daughter's 
 exiguous allowance. Lady Dobree's account was always 
 overdrawn. The impoverished parent birds yearned that she 
 should marry, but not a tutor. They fondly imagined that 
 this result would be attained if, taking her strong character 
 into account, they allowed the young lady to compass her 
 destiny herself. Dobree's head was screwed on the right 
 commercial way, she used her title wisely enough, and at 
 home they had heard of Ernest Rose Veere. So her schemes 
 were furthered by her family. The rich Duke of Lax, who 
 
 123
 
 124 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 wrote books to prove that his vast estates in Somersetshire 
 brought him in nothing, made his niece, yearly, a handsome 
 present of money, which she usually anticipated, and lent 
 her his box at the Opera pretty often in the season ; but 
 that was all he could do for her, she knew. He meant to 
 leave her nothing to speak of, for he had too many sons. 
 
 Dobree was only four-and-twenty, a slight, tall stripling 
 of a girl, with smooth, quite ordinary hair, and grey in- 
 expressive eyes. Her length of limb would have fitted her 
 for the saddle, but her father could not afford to mount her. 
 She swam, fenced, and danced in London, but at other people's 
 expense. She used her position for all it was worth, her title 
 procured her her creature comforts and helped her to " nob- 
 ble " even bourgeois celebrities, for whom she had a mysterious 
 unracial weakness. Those persons of her own station whom 
 she neglected were of opinion that poor iDobree was running 
 rather to seed in London. She would pitch her set so 
 many pegs lower than that to which her rank and name 
 entitled her. The reason was this, that she loved to bask in 
 the atmosphere of flattery, as it were a savoury joss-stick 
 burned in the room she occupied. Adulation, no matter from 
 what motive it sprang, was the breath of life to her, and she 
 was too simple to realise that she could be of any use to 
 people, and that the oldest name in England had its magic 
 apart from the social merits of its possessor. Though with 
 tradespeople it practically sent up her bills : in society it 
 made her a 'persona grata, so that she need not patronise the 
 butcher or the fishmonger who overcharged her, but could 
 dine and lunch out free every night of her life. 
 
 Presuming on her Norman blood, she did as she liked, and 
 went where she liked. She trifled with morbidity, she pal- 
 tered with perversity, she entertained pathetic blackmailers 
 and amiable adventuresses, and remained what she was, 
 intrinsically, a simple, egotistic, sweet-natured English girl. 
 
 Ethel Taylor, her unpaid companion, was respectable.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 125 
 
 Scotch, a poor relation, and knew Dobree through and through. 
 She was over fifty, a feather bed, a mat, boiled rag, all of 
 which engaging appellations her young charge called her in 
 turn, nagging the rag, trampling on the mat, and hugging the 
 feather bed, as the fancy took her. 
 
 Tlie real society chaperon of Lady Dobree was the tall, 
 faded, handsome Lady Maude Erskine-Robertson, who had 
 passed through the Divorce Court, but through the right lobby, 
 the one on the side of the angels, so she said. It must have 
 been so ; it was She who had divorced Him, or the Angernounes 
 would never have allowed their girl to go out with her. The 
 two went everywhere together, and left " Effel " at home 
 with the dogs and the cat. Effel patiently combed the cat 
 and tied a blue bow in the dog's fringe and sat the evening 
 through, knitting things for Dobree. She was not allowed to 
 knit when Dobree was at home — "It looks so smug and 
 companiony ! " 
 
 When there was a dinner party in the flat, Effel went to 
 spend the evening with her sister, who was nurse-housekeeper 
 to old Lord Druid at Garsington House. Lady Dobree knew 
 this sister well and went to see her sometimes, to please Effel. 
 She liked to be kind and please people when it was fairly 
 convenient. But Ladj^ Maude was always commandeered to 
 chaperone Lady Dobree on official social occasions. She was 
 nothing loath. She drifted in one evening of a dinner party 
 five minutes before the prescribed hour of arrival, so as to 
 discharge her duties. The front of her gown was a marvel of 
 alternate reticence and revelation. She was never decolletee, it 
 might have been better, from the point of view of obvious 
 morality, if she had been. She managed, as Lady Dobree 
 said, to be " highly indecent " instead ! She had reduced 
 her weight to less than seven stone to suit the exiguities of 
 her banana-skin, and could scarcely sit down in her suggestive 
 costume. 
 
 There was time for a few questions.
 
 126 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " Who's your sixth ? " 
 
 " I asked Ernest Veere over the telephone." 
 
 " Isn't it rather soon ? " 
 
 " Well, he's accepted. It's only a small dinner, and dear 
 Ernest is very modern." 
 
 " Oh, very ! " Lady Maude ya^vmed. " Do you know that 
 he's spending his whole time, when he's not giving evidence 
 or paying estate duty, with the wife of the man who mur- 
 dered his uncle ? " 
 
 " I like that." 
 
 " You would." 
 
 " I felt at once, when I met him — where did I meet him ? — 
 that he would amuse me." 
 
 " And marry you ? " 
 
 " That too, perhaps ! Don't be nasty, Maude. It's the 
 best thing I can do, on the whole. I accepted the situation, 
 practically, when I went and stayed at the Veere place in 
 Surrey, and got them to have Ernest up at Low Water. Oh, 
 dear ! It was rather a trial ! But when once I get over his, 
 what shall I call it, his expectedness — he's not a bit 
 artistic or cultured, is he ? " 
 
 " He's pure commercial. That's it. And his manners are a 
 little too good, and too much of them " 
 
 " That's when he talks to us. We're not his world, Maude, 
 and he knows it. I wonder, don't you, how he talks to this 
 Mrs. Altamont ? " 
 
 " Fried fish and onions style ! Very pally ! Says what- 
 ever comes into his head, or nothing at all, as the case may 
 be. Long silences. I don't suppose he rattles on to amuse her, 
 he keeps that for society, puts it on the moment the man at 
 the door takes his coat and passes him in to us. We don't 
 know where these flies that amuse us have been buzzing. I 
 often think we deserve to be strangled in our beds by the 
 people we pick up in the street. We never think of asking for 
 references ! "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 127 
 
 " We don't ask for bread because we know we'll be given a 
 stone ! References are so easily faked, and it's worse to get 
 caught bj'- an adventurer," said Lady Dobree. " Now I 
 knoiv Ernest's trade. The Veeres were originally Dutch, I 
 know that too. The old man had an estate at Veere in 
 Holland." 
 
 " That he probably bought cheap to motiver the name. 
 Trade has all sorts of dodges. . . . Oh, and let me tell you 
 not to talk to Lee-Brice about his last book, for it's a sore 
 subject. It's been forbidden and the publisher has under- 
 taken to burn all the existing copies." 
 
 " What, The Bed Corpuscles ! Oh, how I do sympathise ! " 
 
 " With the Vigilance people ? " 
 
 " No, 'odth him. I think it's a wonderful book ! " 
 
 " If you young girls didn't take to books like that so 
 furiously," said Lady Maude, " there'd be a chance of their 
 being allowed to stay on the counter for the people they really 
 do good to." 
 
 " Wliat good can they do the old stagers ? It's us girls 
 that want telling. Shut up, Maude — here's some one ! . . . Rose 
 Veere. I know his voice. I mean to rag him about last night. 
 I was at the Shaftesbury with the Vallances and he " 
 
 The door opened and Veere was announced. 
 
 " Am I the first ? " he asked, looking round the room. 
 
 " The first shall be last," said Dobree. " We want you to 
 take us out to supper after the people have gone." 
 
 " I don't think I can. I am starting for the north at eight 
 o'clock to-morrow morning, and I want just to taste my bed 
 for an hour or two." 
 
 " Is that sincere ? " 
 
 " Sincere that I love my bed ? I adore it." 
 
 " I believe you sincerely adore something else ! " she said, 
 giving rein to her congenital taste for the very simplest forms 
 of chaff. She added : "If the husband gets off, he'll bring 
 an action for divorce ! "
 
 128 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 Eady Maude laughed, and arranged her feet on the foot- 
 stool. 
 
 " Why isn't her portrait in the papers? " pursued the eager 
 young girl, enjoying herself. 
 
 " Because she won't have it." 
 
 " Why ? Is she ugly ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Does she look a lady ? " 
 
 " That I won't tell you. It's the most descriptive descrip- 
 tion you can give, and some of these days you'll be seeing her 
 with me." 
 
 " I did. Last night. Saw you sitting in the pit of the 
 Shaftesbury with the wife of your uncle's murderer ! " 
 
 " Dobree, don't be a brute ! " murmured the chaperon. 
 
 " Maude, you know you're enjoying hearing me heckling 
 him. We're so modern. Ernest doesn't mind it. He's 
 modern, too." 
 
 " Don't mind me, Lady Maude," said Veere cheerfuUy, 
 " I'll answer any questions — decent questions, that is ! " 
 
 " Well then, tell me, is she very much upset ? " 
 
 " Rather upset — and very busy, as the schoolboy wrote, 
 when he was assisting his widowed mother with her replies to 
 condolences. She — well, you are both so modern you won't 
 be shocked if I tell you — the wife of Altamont is placidly, 
 quietly happy, delighted to be a widow. The man was a 
 regular beast, he drank and struck her and was unfaithful 
 to her, and she's glad to be rid of him. She's modern, too." 
 
 Veere rose — they all rose — to greet the famous author, Lee- 
 Brice, the distinguished-looking man who wrote undistin- 
 guished novels about common people, and visited with the 
 pick of the aristocracy. He was tall and rather grey, with a 
 black pointed beard, this Don Quixote, who had tilted, now 
 successfully, now unsuccessfully, against the windmills of 
 Wellington's and Mudie. Fastidiousness was the note of 
 his face, his small imperial suggested early days spent in
 
 THE WIFE OP ALTAMONT 129 
 
 diplomacy. Lady Maude had a great weakness for him, as, 
 indeed, she had for| all handsome men, and monopolised 
 him for the moment. Veere and his young hostess were 
 let alone. 
 
 " So that's your new toy-author ? " he said, alluding to 
 Lee-Brice. 
 
 " Not much of a toy, is he? More like a greyhound," she 
 said. " He's splendid, I think. I say, do tell me what your 
 Mrs, Altamont is going to do with herself, after " 
 
 " After her husband is hanged," said he calmly. " Well, 
 she has her plans, like the rest of us." 
 
 " Are you in them ? " 
 
 " No, I regret to say. She is going to America, where she 
 intends to remarry. No one need knoAv her story out there, 
 you see." 
 
 " That's the meaning of the mammoth veil in court " 
 
 " Precisely. Now talk to Lee-Brice, he's got something to 
 say to you." 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 " I saw you in my part of the world the other day, Lady 
 Dobree," said the author, approaching, as Ernest Veere left 
 the field clear for him. 
 
 " In Mount Street ? " 
 
 " No, in Wimbledon. I went there to finish a novel — I 
 can't work in town, with the telephone going constantly and 
 people calling. When I have something to finish I take a 
 room somewhere in the suburbs, and work hard at it, seeing 
 no one, and leaving my secretary at home to open my letters. 
 Anywhere to avoid the advantages of civilisation ! " 
 
 " Oh, yes," said she, " I remember. I went down to 
 Wimbledon once to see Effel's sister, who's companion to old 
 Lord Druid at Garsington House. And oh, I must tell you — 
 you can put it in a story — I had such an adventure ! " 
 
 She sat down, and motioned him to a place on the ottoman 
 beside her. She settled down to her story-telling with glee,
 
 130 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 for like most amateurs she took a pride in furnishing reluctant 
 authors with " copy." 
 
 " Well, it was like this. Suddenly I saw a naked child run 
 screaming out of a house, and down the drive and a bit of the 
 road, and an awful-looking woman with a beard run out after 
 it and catch it and take it in. It yelled then like fury ; and 
 went on yelling inside. I thought it was my duty, so I rang 
 the bell and gave the girl my card, said I was an inspector 
 — Cruelty to Children, you know — and that I must positively 
 come in and make inquiries. So she let me in, and they were 
 really quite nice in a fussy, lumbering, suburban sort of way. 
 There was a tea-fight going on, but the woman of the house 
 took me up and explained. The child was having his bath, 
 and he got naughty and ran out Just as he was, and the old 
 Nanny — she had a beard but she was all right, I found, and 
 adored children — had to go and get him back, but hadn't 
 liked to disturb the tea-party. Wouldn't you have thought 
 it your duty to inquire ? And all I said — I was very cunning 
 — was that I had heard the screams — and so I did, for all the 
 time we were talking he was yelling fit to take the roof off. 
 Oh, here are the Blessingtons ! Now we can go in to dinner. 
 You take me."
 
 XVIII 
 
 Lady Dobree was too egotistic and erratic to be a 
 good hostess. She made no effort to lead the conversation, 
 not even in her own direction. It glanced on and off the 
 Altamont trial several times during the meal. Veere sat 
 impassible, like a good boy, eating his dinner, which was 
 neither well cooked or well served. Betsey, with Ada's help, 
 could manage to give him a better. 
 
 " Did you hear ? " said Lord Blessington, whose approach- 
 ing senility was indicated more or less by the fact that he could 
 not keep off the subject connected, and painfully so, with 
 one of the guests, " that one of the halls had offered the wife 
 of Altamont two hundred a week just to appear and sing one 
 song ? " 
 
 " Is she a frump or a beauty ? " asked Lee-Brice. 
 
 " Very fine hair, I believe. The Sweep had a whole column 
 about her. She lives somewhere about Wimbledon in an old 
 Jacobean manor-house — romantic, and so on. They gave some 
 photos of it. The article was in Monday's issue, I think." 
 
 " I didn't see it," said Veere, " \Vho do you say wrote 
 it?" 
 
 " E. Simpson or E. Simmons — a name like that. A local 
 authoress, I expect. Some one who'd got a down on the poor 
 little woman, I imagine." 
 
 Veere made a mental note to advise Mrs. Altamont to 
 beware of Evangeline, but forgot. He was interested in a 
 talk he was having with the intensely versatile author about 
 archaeology. Lee-Brice, among his thirty-seven literary 
 
 131
 
 132 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 nurslings, numbered one book of which the scene was laid in 
 Early Saxon times. 
 
 " There's an old burying- ground on the links near a place of 
 mine I should like you to see," Veere was saying, with all the 
 zest of a Wardour Street shopman, who has got his lesson 
 well by heart. " We'll get it opened. I'll give any one leave 
 who'll undertake it, and pay the damage. There's all sorts 
 of traditions about it." 
 
 " What period ? " 
 
 " They're pre-Christian burials, I have been told by the 
 local antiquary. We find bits of lead coffin now and again, 
 and sometimes a whole jawbone and femurs and tibias. The 
 teeth are as white as milk when the ladies have picked them 
 with a bonnet-pin." 
 
 " The ladies ! " said Dobree, " Disgusting ! It's bad enough 
 to pick one's OAvn teeth, but other people's " 
 
 " Quite a fascinating occupation you'd find, if you were 
 there. Come and do it, I say. It's at Angernoune." 
 
 " My ancestral home," said the young lady coolly. 
 
 " Your father sold it to my uncle, all fair and square," said 
 Veere. " Forgive him for buying it, and come and entertain 
 for me there this summer, and bring the present company. 
 There are twenty-three bedrooms in the Dwelling House, 
 and as many more in the Old Keep. I've no lady of my own 
 family to entertain for me, except an old aunt who's doited, 
 and says the wrong thing all the time." 
 
 " That's where you get it ! " muttered Lady Maude, in a 
 careless whisper. 
 
 " I don't mind coming," the girl said, in her harsh voice 
 that could not adequately express the pleasure she felt at this 
 decisive move on Mr. Veere's part. " But Maude must come 
 and housekeep." 
 
 " Certainly," said that lady complacently. " I take house- 
 keeping in my stride. I'll come, certainly, if the Blessingtons 
 come too, and my cherubic latest — Lord Vallance ! "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 133 
 
 Long, long ago Lady Maude had taken Lord Blessington 
 in that capacious stride of hers, that now included the boy 
 Vallance. The Blessingtons accepted the invitation con 
 arnore. The wife's facile conjunction was easUy forthcoming. 
 " Dear Maude is so safe ! " was the general opinion of her 
 female contemporaries, victims some of them, clans le temps, 
 of Lad}^ Maude's Courts of Love that sat perpetually in 
 Eccleston Square. She went always to fancy dress balls as 
 the Comtesse de Champagne, and was admitted to have all 
 the passions under her patronage. Veere obediently desired 
 the company of Vallance of all things, Lee-Brice promised to 
 give Lady Dobree a fortnight in August, and amid jests and 
 laughter the house-party for Angernoune was made up. 
 
 The Blessingtons made their adieux with Lady Maude 
 and Lee-Brice, and all four packed into the tiny self- 
 working lift. 
 
 " By the way," Lee-Brice said to Lord Blessington, " I 
 didn't like to mention it before that young fellow, but there 
 is some talk about a petition on foot to the Home Secretary 
 for Altamont. I understand Veere is interested in the wife ? " 
 
 " Oh, not to that extent ! " said Lady Maude. " He's 
 romantic, that's all." The lift bumped. 
 
 Her smile was subtle as she bade the author good-bye in 
 the hall, and got into the Blessington carriage. 
 
 " Romantic ? Veere ? " she said. " He's going in for 
 Dobree, that's a fact. What else could that invitation to 
 pose as hostess at Angernoune mean ? " 
 
 " It might mean that he and the Altamont had had a row," 
 said Lord Blessmgton. " But we shall see." 
 
 " At Angernoune. It will be great fun ! " said the vivacious 
 lady. 
 
 " Don't go ! " said Lady Dobree to Veere, when the two 
 young people were left alone in the warm little flat. " Sit
 
 134 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 down and talk. Effel's come in ; I heard her. I say, do you 
 really want me to come to Angernoune and bring all my 
 friends ? " 
 
 " Yes, unless you think they are too great and good for 
 me." 
 
 " Don't say things like that, Ernest. But I could not help 
 wondering a little if you asked me for myself." 
 
 " Wliy else should I ask you ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know." She was ashamed to taunt him with 
 the truth, that she had thought him pushing, and made a 
 hasty accusation, which had, however, some slight validity 
 in her mind. 
 
 " I thought, perhaps, the wife of Altamont might have 
 huffed you ? " 
 
 " Don't talk about her, it bores me." 
 
 She tossed her head. " But why should I be so careful not 
 to bore you ? You don't mind boring me ? " 
 
 " I'm sorry. How ? " 
 
 " You don't behave nicely to me — at least not as I 
 should hke you to." 
 
 " Tell me how you'd like me to, and I'll try, for you're 
 a good fellow, Dobree. And when you plead, you are 
 very pathetic, because your voice doesn't exactly lend 
 itself " 
 
 " There you are ! What a way to talk to a woman ! Tell- 
 ing her straight out that her voice is unsympathetic ! Voice 
 isn't everything ! " 
 
 " Your only weapon, no. You've got others, and, as I say, 
 when you soften " 
 
 " But your voice now, Ernest — I suppose you wouldn't be 
 bothered, talking to me, but your voice never has the sort 
 of inflections that I thought men's voices had, talking to 
 women they admire and desire, when they are alone with 
 them ? " 
 
 " Wliy, you said Miss Taylor was in ! "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 135 
 
 a 
 
 Yes, but safely tucked up in bed by now." 
 
 " I had better go, then ! " 
 
 She laughed stridently. He rose, and looked at her dis- 
 satisfied face, and Avas touched by it. True, Betsey had 
 huffed him, and he was tired to-night. He spoke roughly, 
 and that she somehow liked. 
 
 " Look here, Dobree, do you want to make me want to make 
 love to you ? For I tell you honestly, I am not going to. It 
 wouldn't be good for you, you aren't actuated by the right 
 femuiine motives. You're not really a flirt, my dear, and 
 the pose doesn't suit you at all. You are a creamy English 
 girl " 
 
 (( 
 
 Tcha ! " She turned away. 
 
 " And to hear you talking away about desire ! It's not a 
 word for you to use ; not your line at all. It's as if an aspic 
 were to try to be a mayonnaise. And I'm in a rather bad 
 temper to-night " 
 
 " I see you are. Good night." 
 
 " Good night, my dear. I daresay we shall " he stopped. 
 
 "What? Say it." 
 
 " Marry each other all right in the end, that is to say, if 
 you care to when the time comes." 
 
 " I shall never marry you till I have seen the green light 
 in your eyes." 
 
 " What are you talking about, you perverse child? " 
 
 " Something Maude said — connected with that word you 
 disapproved of my using so much. Good night ! " 
 
 " Use it as much as you like, but not to me," said Veere 
 good-humouredly. " You don't come in there with me. Good 
 night ! I've enjoyed myself very much, thank you." He 
 kissed her hand. 
 
 " So glad ! " They both laughed. 
 
 " You should learn not to stick your knuckles out so when 
 they kiss your hand ! " said he, as he left the room.
 
 136 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " He meant when I am the wife of a Cabinet Minister and 
 receive foreign notabilities — Lady Dobree Veere, At Home ! " 
 Dobree told Effel, waking her up, and relating the experi- 
 ences of the evening. " But I must say I feel a fool when 
 some one is kissing my hand, and I am thinking of all sorts 
 of different things, as I look out over his bald parting " 
 
 " Mr. Veere isn't bald," remarked Efl'el sleepily. 
 
 " No, but he's the kind of man who soon will be, if he works 
 so hard, and runs the wife of Altamont at the same time. He 
 makes, but he's not made of, cast-iron. Effel, laugh ! " she 
 insisted nervously. 
 
 " Effel " obediently laughed. 
 
 " As for Mrs. A., I've fought her and I've beaten her, and 
 I feel proud, for she's what they caU desirable, I'm sure. I 
 teased Ernest about it to-night, when he was courting me in 
 his usual casual fashion. Is he cold — or am I ? " 
 
 " I hardly know what you mean ? " said Effel. 
 
 " No, poor dear. Well, the fact is, I love fifty men better 
 than Ernest, in that way, even the author who dined to- 
 night ! But alack, they have none of them sixty thousand a 
 year ! " 
 
 " Has Mr. Veere ? " 
 
 " More. And it will take it all, all, to make him go down." 
 
 " But I thought your people " 
 
 " Oh, they're all right. Father'll stop tree-cuttmg and 
 mother will start her model dairy. And, of course, the Laxes 
 and Ninians are quite aware which side of their bread isn't 
 buttered. They don't want to go on keeping me. And they 
 don't think I've got quite the right woman to go out with, 
 and no more I have — I'm quite aware of that, but what have I 
 to offer to a really nice woman of my owti set ? She wouldn't 
 see it. Lady Maude's a bit off colour, but she's all I can get. 
 And it's the Veeres and so on that she can introduce me to. 
 That's the only chance of my going off, and down ! Do you 
 think I don't know that ? I'm rather deep really ; I go with
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 137 
 
 the tide. I go ^Aith Veere. Only I wish he'd take some lessons 
 
 in the art of making love ! " 
 
 " He's such a nice-looking young man, I think ! " 
 
 " Dear old Effel ! " said her young charge sorrowfully, 
 
 stooping down and kissing her. " Good night ! "
 
 XIX 
 
 Mrs. Altamont was intent, all her faculties surrendered to 
 the cutting out of a suit for little Wilfrid on the dining- 
 room table in Worksop House — it was the only table in 
 the house you could cut out on. Ada, from the adjoining 
 kitchen, wandered in and out carrying, absently, various 
 stained and sooty culinary implements backwards and for- 
 wards — a lovely scullion, for she had gained some weight 
 and her complexion had improved since her domestication in 
 Betsey's home. 
 
 " Ada, put that pan down — not here, silly girl ; it's all 
 black round the bottom — and catch me Billy. This is basted 
 ready for him to try on. He's under the table with Ginger." 
 
 Mrs. Cox stooped under the table and addressed her ap- 
 parently inanimate son. 
 
 " Come out, Billy ! Come to your mammy ! " 
 
 " Which one ? " said Billy, with a mind to tease and pro- 
 crastinate. 
 
 " This one ! " said Mrs. Altamont sharply. " Come along, 
 quick ! I've no time to waste." 
 
 Billy was then temporarily arrayed in a sober, manly serge 
 covering, held together precariously by scant white threads, 
 and stood up in front of his own mother, whose secret ideal of 
 clothes for her boy was that embodied in the picture " Bub- 
 bles." She murmured tamely, " He'll look quite the man 
 in it ! " 
 
 Mrs. Altamont's mouth was full of pins. Ada went on, 
 whining : 
 
 138
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 139 
 
 " I wish his poor father could see him in it. Billy, don't 
 you long to see Daddy again ? " 
 
 " Don't," said Betsey, removing such pins from her lips 
 as positively impeded speech, " don't work him up like that ! 
 What's the good of putting impossible ideas into the child's 
 head ? " 
 
 " Impossible ideas ? " Ada stared. 
 
 " The idea that he'll see him again when he won't." 
 
 " My goodness, you are hard ! " 
 
 " No, I'm not." 
 
 The eyes of Betsey filled with tears. 
 
 " Oh, yes, you're crying fast enough," Ada said resentfully. 
 " But not for him. It's for yourself you're crjang." 
 
 " Yes, for myself, and BUly, and you, for anybody but the 
 man who's plunged us all into this for nothing ! " 
 
 She threw down the large dressmaking scissors with a 
 clash. Ada Cox stood up and arraigned her benefactress. 
 
 " For nothing ! His children were starving and I told 
 him so." 
 
 " IVIiss Altamont was going to do something." 
 
 " But she went and died first," Ada complained, sitting 
 down and falling into her second fit of tears this morning. 
 She generally had five or six. She fed and fostered her 
 insurgent nerves vA\h. continual sluicings of tea ; there were 
 days when her usual allowance of sixteen cups was exceeded. 
 She drank no spirits. 
 
 Mrs. Altamont swept the materials of Billy's suit off the 
 table and began to sew, feverishly, inexpertly, but sturdily. 
 Ada was ashamed. She rose and wiped her eyes on her apron. 
 
 " Look here, this is the way to nowhere. I'll go back to my 
 work. Shall Billy stay with you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I'll mind him. I'll take him for a walk as soon as I 
 have got this put together, so that I don't lose all the pins." 
 
 She sat and worked. Her head, a shining platter, a disc of 
 gold, was downcast, her cheek was flushed. The child played
 
 140 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 happily at her feet. Presently there was a ring at the outer 
 door bell. 
 
 Mrs. Altamont, without waiting for her hysterical cook, 
 rose and admitted the friendly detective who had brought 
 her the news of the crime in the first instance. 
 
 Inspector Whortleberry admired the wife of Altamont and 
 was impressed by the dramatic circumstances of her case. 
 His histrionic leanings were, however, a good deal modified 
 by the life he led, and would never have betrayed him into a 
 breach of disciplme, though, mdeed, the spectacle of the 
 murderer's wife with the murderer's child by another woman 
 on her knee, was stimulating and richer in suggestion than 
 most of the usual combinations that came under his notice. 
 Betsey knew exactly the state of his feelings about her, and 
 manipulated them at her pleasure. She encouraged him to 
 call often, and give her all the news she wanted. 
 
 " I have called to tell you, Mrs. Altamont, that there is 
 going to be a petition signed and sent up to the Home Secre- 
 tary." 
 
 " What for ? " Her eyes grew round and strained ; she 
 suspended the play of her needle. " Run away to your mother, 
 Billy, and tell her I sent you." 
 
 " It is a petition to commute the death sentence," the 
 inspector said solemnly. 
 
 " Is that so ? " 
 
 " Yes. It may be granted — we cannot tell. It depends on 
 the list of names — and popular feeling is rather strong in his 
 favour." 
 
 " I wonder why ? '* 
 
 " Well, you see, Mrs. Altamont, the attempt at suicide — " 
 
 " — Showed the purity of his intentions ! " 
 
 " It showed the state of despair that the man was in. And 
 then the doctors bringing him round — operating on him 
 only to fit him to be hanged, after all, you see, it gets up a lot 
 of sympathy in the public."
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 141 
 
 " The public doesn't reason " 
 
 " No, Mrs. Altamont, we have to take that into account. 
 But the present Home Secretary is a stern man — there ain't 
 no nonsense about him. He doesn't take much count of 
 petitions, especially those The Sweep gets up." 
 
 " My husband was once on the staff of that paper. . . . 
 Well, thank you very much, Mr. Whortleberry, for coming 
 here to tell me these things." 
 
 " Not at all, madam, I am very pleased to be of any use to 
 
 you." 
 
 He was distrait and so was Mrs. Altamont. During the 
 course of his last speech they had both heard a motor stop 
 outside Worksop House, and both the inspector and Betsey 
 knew who it was. 
 
 "Wliortleberry took his respectful leave of the enchantress. 
 
 He had come across Mr. Veere in Worksop House before ; 
 this made twice — it was custom, then ! It was another 
 aspect of the unconventionality that ran all through the 
 Veere murder case. 
 
 He knew well enough that his news was unwelcome to Mrs. 
 Altamont. Naturally so. The poor girl was young, hand- 
 some, and absolutely indifferent to her criminal husband. 
 What was sport to the British public was death to her and 
 her future. He also, for Mrs. Altamont's sake, rejoiced in 
 the reputed severity and unyielding character of the Home 
 Secretary of the day, which would impel him to reject the 
 careless popular cry. Petitions like this go to the very root 
 of human nature. It is as impossible to avoid inscribing one's 
 name at the bottom of an appeal to mercy, as it is to refuse 
 to put one's hand in one's pocket at Christmas in response 
 to the prayers of indiscriminate, ill-judged charity. 
 
 " Well, Betsey, I'm back. Travelled all night " Veere 
 
 said, coming in rather boisterously.
 
 142 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " And have you pulled it off — what you went to do ? " she 
 asked, making an effort of detachment. 
 
 " Yes. Done the deed — deal, I mean. I say," he grew 
 serious, " have you seen the papers this morning — or did that 
 stout beggar I met going out come to tell you ? It's not his 
 
 business — but I suppose your eyes " 
 
 " Don't, Ernest, he means to be kind. Yes, he told me — 
 but he reassured me as well. He says it's most unlikely the 
 Home Secretary will agree to it. I'm speaking low, because 
 of Ada. I never know — she is so keenly interested, she 
 
 listens " 
 
 " Well, will you come for a spin in the car ? " 
 " Yes, if I may take the child. I promised him a walk." 
 " All right, I'll take you to Kensington Gardens." 
 " To Kensington, when we live on Wimbledon Common ? " 
 " Yes, and it is common to him. We'll buy him a boat and 
 swim it on the Round Pond. Come on." 
 
 Betsey opened the door leading to the kitchen and called : 
 " Ada ! Mr. Veere is here. Send Billy along, will you ? " 
 Veere stooped and kissed the child, tweaking his " Bubble " 
 frills. " You dear little figure of fun ! " he said. " I've no 
 moustache for you to pull. Pity, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Daddy has a moustache. . . . I've only one daddy, and 
 two mammys ! " 
 
 They dressed him between them and hustled him off, 
 promising to buy him a little ship at the first shop they came 
 to in Kensington. As they packed into the motor, Evangeline 
 Simmons passed by and gawkily made some gesture between a 
 familiar nod and a distant bow to Betsey, who pretended not 
 to see it. She was not inclined to forgive Evangeline for the 
 Interview in The Sweep just yet, though she fully admitted 
 the terrible temptation to make capital out of a friend's woes 
 that had been presented to a cynical young pauper of journal- 
 istic tendencies. 
 
 They stopped half-way at a fancy repository in West
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 143 
 
 Kensington to buy the little ship that Billy was clamouring 
 for. A large printed paper was spread out on the counter, 
 which the quick-eyed Betsey spied, and at once turned away 
 from. The shopwoman, however, timidly presented it to 
 Veere's notice. 
 
 " Petition to reprieve Altamont ! Not I ! " 
 
 " Perhaps the lady would like to sign it ? " 
 
 "The lady does not approve of the object of the petition," 
 Veere informed her ofi-handedly. " Are you aware that the 
 man himself is not anxious to live ? He tried to kill himself." 
 
 "All, but think of his poor wife? " said the shopwoman. 
 " And her left with two little children ! " 
 
 " You are misinformed," said Veere carelessly, " She has 
 
 none." 
 
 The woman gave it up, and went for the change. Betsey 
 nudged him. " Don't let us wait." 
 
 " We must, or she will begin to think things." 
 
 They lunched at the hotel overlooking Kensington Gardens, 
 and then sailed the little ship on the Round Pond for half an 
 hour in such a thoroughly half-hearted and ineffective manner 
 that Billy was disgusted, and said he didn't care about sailing 
 his new boat at all, but wanted to sit down under the tree 
 on a penny chair with green slats instead. 
 
 " It's too cold ! " was Betsey's curt reply to his petition. 
 " We had better be getting home." Her temper was rising. 
 She muttered, " I don't know whatever your mother will say 
 to me, you've gone and messed your nice suit all over with 
 water " 
 
 " Betsey ! Betsey ! " objected Veere good-humouredly. 
 " Here are you crabby — when you have a good right to be 
 tragic ! It's the sign of a healthy nature, I suppose ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes." She flew out, pettish as a child. " I'm healthy 
 — damn healthy — but just now I'm so tired I can hardly 
 stand ! " 
 
 " We will sit down for a minute, then," he said. " And
 
 144 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 please both the children. It's really quite mild. . . . Betsey, 
 dear, I understand." 
 
 " You do. You're an angel. . . . You don't think me a 
 monster, do you ? " she half sobbed, looking up into his kind 
 eyes, as she sank into a seat. 
 
 " No, of course not. I consider you're a woman awfully 
 put upon — regularly bashed by Fate ! No one, knowing all 
 the circumstances, and your OAvn peculiar temperament, could 
 blame you for feeling — not quite en regie, shall we say ? Even 
 the inspector doesn't, and he's not so much prejudiced in 
 your favour as I am, at least I hope not. But we can none 
 of us do anything one way or another. The Law must take 
 its course." 
 
 " Yes, if they'd only let it ! Oh, my God ! what am I say- 
 ing ? " 
 
 " Don't mind me ! " 
 
 He idly threw Billy's ball, which he was holding, to a little 
 distance, so as to get rid of the boy and his inquiring gaze till 
 Betsey should right herself, for her tears fell softly, like 
 summer rain. 
 
 She dried her eyes, and spoke passionately. 
 
 " Every woman — even a woman of no temperament at all 
 — would feel as I do, if she had the honesty to admit it — or 
 was as blunt and tactless as I am. Don't I know that if they'd 
 had a tithe of what I've had to put up with, they'd be mad, 
 enraged, wild, to find themselves taken out of the sun they 
 had just crawled out into for a moment — and put back again 
 into the dark cage, alone with a maniac ! . . . Tied to him 
 with a chain, and when he moves, they've got to move too ! 
 Oh, if Wilfrid were only dead, and the earth over him ! " 
 
 " You do say dreadful things, my Betsey, somehow, but 
 somehow I understand you. It is this way, isn't it ? You 
 mean, if that were so, you would feel he was redeemed — 
 purified from his sin by the wholesome earth, with robins 
 bringing dead leaves to cover him, and so on ? "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 145 
 
 " Oh, don't be poetical, please," she replied brutally. " I'm 
 afraid I wasn't thinking of him, I was thinking of me. Yes," 
 relenting a little, " that is what I do mean. He would be 
 safe underneath, all his \vickedness cancelled down there, 
 thrown away like dirt, like old clothes, like last year's lumber. 
 But to have to think of him continually, alive in a sickening 
 prison cell, the disgusting papers telling you day by day how 
 he is in health and spirits, gloating on it in their horrid way, 
 and all the world expecting me to pelt off to go and kiss him 
 through the bars ! My God ! " 
 
 " Hush ! " said Ernest Veere. " Billy's coming back." 
 
 She rallied to his caution, and when Wilfrid's boy toddled 
 up to her, she bent to him kindly and normally. 
 
 " What is it, BUly ? What do you want ? " 
 
 " To give you a kiss," said the child timidly. 
 
 " It's his way of sho\\ing sympathy," said Mr. Veere 
 hastily. "Do." 
 
 She obeyed and hugged the boy very nicely. Contented 
 with his little demonstration, the child sped away again, and 
 Betsey murmured, shamefaced : 
 
 " He wanted to console me for crying, and I was crying 
 because they are going to spare his father's life ! " 
 
 " Yes, but I don't think they will," said Ernest Veere 
 sensibly. " They won't prevail mth the man who's boss now. 
 I know him a bit. He's firm. And the public's a mere senti- 
 mental idiot, collectively, and its sympathy's quite misplaced, 
 for I hear, on the best authority, that they have all the 
 trouble in the world to prevent him from finishing himself in 
 prison." 
 
 " Poor Wilfrid ! " she said gently. She dried her eyes and 
 shook her head. On the lips of the revengeful msenad of a 
 moment ago, Veere felt that the expression of sympathy 
 was sincere, the tardy shining forth of the true womanly 
 sense of pity, whose workings in her had been temporarily 
 obscured by selfish considerations. He loved her, but this 
 
 L
 
 146 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 exhibition of a raw soul in its mutiny, which he now saw he 
 had laid himself out for, when once he began to court her, 
 troubled and worried the simple, even quality of his nature a 
 little. 
 
 Did Betsey Altamont apprehend that her slave, even in so 
 little, was becoming alienated ? For she stood up and stooped 
 to him, saying sweetly, with her tremulous bow-shaped 
 mouth : 
 
 " Ernest, I've made a fool of myself, and you've let me. 
 Thank you. Come, Billykins, we'll be going. Send us home, 
 will you, Ernest ? Don't come with us this time. I want to 
 tell poor Ada." 
 
 " Let's have a look what a nice ship you got ! " exclaimed 
 poor Ada, opening the door of Worksop House, and dusting 
 off the flour and currants sticking on her hands. " I was 
 just making you a nice cake for tea." 
 
 Betsey, thrall as she was just then to deepest tragedy, 
 could not help making a wry face at this announcement. 
 
 " Who gave it to you ? Mr. Veere ? He is a nice kind 
 man. And good gracious, Betsey, my dear, whatever makes 
 you look so down in the mouth ? " 
 
 " I hadn't better tell her this very moment," thought the 
 other woman, half considerate, half cowardly, and busied 
 herself in extricating the child from damp garments, com- 
 plicated by reason of their smallness. 
 
 Nervously she said, " Look what Billy's done to his pants, 
 messing about by the Round Pond ! I knew you would be 
 cross." 
 
 " Not I ! " said Ada cheerfully. " I'm not a fusser. No 
 more'd you be, if you'd had two. But you're a regular old 
 maid, you are ! " 
 
 " Somebody may as well be pleased," said Betsey then, in 
 a hard voice. " Ada, there's a petition set up in all the shops 
 to the Home Secretary to get Wilfrid off ! "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 147 
 
 Ada dropped Billy's cap that she was holding. Mrs. Alta- 
 mont picked it out of the grate. " Now, don't faint — don't 
 be silly, or I'll wish I hadn't told you," she murmured hastily. 
 
 " You just dare not tell me ! Who d'ye say '11 get him oli ? 
 The King ? " 
 
 " I said the Home Secretary. He can reverse the verdict 
 if he thinks proper." 
 
 " Don't bother me with j^our Home Secretary ! Does he 
 think Wilfrid'll get off — I mean, do you ? . . . God a mercy ! 
 I don't know where I've got my head ! You might be kind, 
 Betsey, though you don't care. It's life and death to me ! " 
 
 She sat down by the fire and rocked herself to and fro, 
 and the firelight caught one of the grey strands in her hair. 
 There were several. Betsey saw them. Ada was only twenty- 
 seven. Betsey knelt down beside her. 
 
 " Yes, I will be kind. But I know nothing more than that 
 there's a petition out — which I didn't sign " 
 
 " Oh, Betsey, and you his wife ! How could you ! " 
 
 " I couldn't, Ada. It's no good, I don't want him saved. 
 I'm not a Catholic, but I want him to be well punished for his 
 fault here, and then perhaps God will let him off purgatory — 
 afterwards. He ought to pay, and then they won't send the 
 bill in again." 
 
 " He's paid ! He's paid — in full. He tried to kill himself, 
 that was paying — his way of paying. And then there's me ! 
 Can't you think of me ? Whj'^ must I pay ? / never murdered 
 anybody. And if Wilfrid dies it will be my life that they take. 
 Oh, Betsey, you are so much cleverer than me — you've been 
 edicated — give your mind to it ! Think and tell me what you 
 think. I can't put two ideas together. I'm too addled with 
 misery. Oh, say you think he may come back? " 
 
 Mrs. Altamont spoke her pious lie distinctly. " I think it 
 is possible he may live to come back — to you. In twenty 
 years or so ! " 
 
 " Oh, thank you. You mean "
 
 148 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " I mean they won't let him out all at once. They will send 
 him to penal servitude, and, if he is very good, they might 
 commute his sentence — let him out sooner, you know." 
 
 " I'll be dead, perhaps, first," said Ada, staring into the 
 fire, and grasping a fold of Betsey's go"\vn. " I may never see 
 my chOdren's father again ; you don't seem to think of that, 
 Betsey ? Oh, cruel, cruel 'tis ! You don't pity him — but 
 you might pity me ? " 
 
 " Yes I do, I do," returned the other, in full generous tones, 
 putting her soft white hand over the bony talons that clawed 
 her gown. " And that's why I ! But I don't — now " 
 
 Mrs. Altamont's incoherency mattered little, for Mrs. Cox 
 paid no attention to her strangled meanings. She spoke on, 
 swiftly, interrupting her comfortress : 
 
 " Oh, but, Betsey, even if I never see him again I can get 
 on, for I shall know he won't be dead — not hanged ... by 
 his poor thin neck. ..." A long shudder ran through her. 
 " Such an awful death, Betsey ! You couldn't wish it for any 
 one — not even a man you hate — as you hate Will. ..." 
 
 Mrs. Altamont made no reply. She had slid down on to her 
 knees on the hearthrug beside her cook — her husband's 
 mistress, of whose hand she did not choose to let go. She 
 alternately chafed and clasped it. Ada evidently derived 
 comfort from her unspoken, only faintly indicated, sympathy, 
 the touch was all. . . . Firmly she held the kind nurselike 
 hand, as a baby might, uncritical of the quality of the emotion 
 that radiated thence. Presently she raised her head and 
 flung back the shroud of her crisp black hair ; — 
 
 "That's settled, isn't it? He'll be let off. . . . The Home 
 Secretary's a kind man. ... A just man. He can't deny 
 . . . and all England's on Will's side. . . . He can come back 
 to me ! He can come back when he likes, and any hour of 
 the day or night he'll find me waiting ! " 
 
 A pause. 
 
 Ada was dimly vexed. She could not see Betsey's
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 149 
 
 face, sedulously concealed, and that disturbed her. She 
 repeated : 
 
 " He'll find me Avaitmg ! And, Betsey, you're tied to him 
 too ? . . . fast tied. We're both tied to him, aren't we ? . . . 
 Oh, Betsey, do speak, do say something ! " 
 
 " How can I ? " exclaimed the other passionately, between 
 her sharply taken breaths. " Do you want me to say that 
 
 he'll find me waiting too ? You do ? Two women he's ! 
 
 My God ! " Her voice changed. " Wliere's the child ? " 
 
 She jumped up, leaving the other prone under her withering 
 displeasure. " Wliere's Little Katie ? " she continued. 
 
 " Ha\^ig their teas, bless them ! " answered Ada, in 
 smothered tones. Then plucking up a spirit, she declaimed : 
 
 " Poor imiocent children, that you want to make orphans 
 of!" 
 
 She nursed her knees and rocked to and fro, an interminable 
 gesture. Betsey, tearless, sat up, in a high chair, sardonically 
 regarding her vicar, officiating now in the full panoply and 
 trappings of grief.
 
 XX 
 
 Weeks passed. The petition for Altamont's life lay on 
 the counters of shops and gathered up names, the lists in the 
 papers swelled apace. The two women whose whole fate 
 depended on the whim of the Home Secretary, acted on 
 by the will of the sentimental section of the British public, 
 knew no ease. The prayers that went up from Worksop 
 House must have clashed and neutralised each other on their 
 way to the throne of the Most High. Ada formulated her 
 prayers ; she was a believer. Betsey did not, but hers were 
 none the less insistent, though they were addressed to no 
 specific arbiter and unregistered on the mental altars we all 
 have within us. They could not " settle to anything." Ada 
 Cox could not cook, but then, this omission was adjusted by 
 the corollary that Mrs. Altamont could not eat. Billy and 
 Little Katie did not starve, their joint guardians took care of 
 that, they were as happy as quiet little children ever are at 
 Christmas. 
 
 For Christmas and its enforced merriment came down on 
 the sad, expectant household of four, and sucked them up in 
 its insensate round of meaningless ceremonies. To please the 
 children ! The colour of oranges, the sound of crackers, a 
 blue ribbon round Ginger's neck — all these tender minutiae of 
 seasonable jollity were duly supplied by the two agonised 
 women who were responsible before Heaven for the callow 
 young and what should be the halcyon days of their in- 
 fancy. 
 
 150
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT l5l 
 
 In the tactless papers there was much talk of a Christmas 
 prisoner and seasonable clemency, which did not escape two 
 pairs of eyes in Worksop House, and gave rise to very different 
 feelings. Both Ada and Betsey bought halfpenny papers and 
 conned them in their cold winter bedrooms. Either woman 
 would have died of shame if the other had caught her in this- 
 nefarious act. And their confusion proceeded from divers 
 motives. JVIrs. Altamont's attitude towards the appeal to 
 mercy was never again alluded to by the other excited partici- 
 pant in the Perton tragedy, who honestly tried to forget that 
 Betsey, whom she loved and who was so kind, eagerly scanned 
 the papers to find a result counter to all her own dearest 
 hopes. 
 
 The whole neighbourhood that ostracised, and were in 
 their turn ostracised by, the wife of Altamont watched her 
 behaviour keenly. Her cook, when she went out of doors to 
 do the necessary marketing — for Betsey never went into a 
 shop now, or out at all except with Mr. Veere, was stared 
 at by all Mrs. Altamont's old friends occupied on the same 
 errand. One or two of them went so far as to ask her how 
 her mistress was ? The Burne- Jones cook — " a queer-looking 
 woman, you know, but I daresay Betsey finds a difficulty in 
 getting respectable servants to come to her ! " — was used to 
 answer shortly, sullenly, and refused to contribute the in- 
 formation, a desire for which had prompted the question. 
 Evangeline Simmons, kind, curious soul, did more than speak 
 to the cook, she thought she would like to send Mrs. Altamont 
 a Christmas card. She carefully chose out one that did not 
 in any way bear on the situation, and she left it at the door, 
 which Ada answered, Little Katie clinging to her gown. 
 Evangeline was grateful for even this transitory glimpse into 
 the interior of her dear Betsey, whose sorrows she had made 
 two pound ten out of. She asked to see her as usual, and as 
 usual was told that Mrs. Altamont was not at home. 
 
 " How proud she is ! " was her respectful thought, as she
 
 152 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 turned away. A large London tradesman's cart rattled up 
 just then and left — actually — a small Christmas tree at the 
 door of Worksop House ! Mr. Veere was going to give the 
 cook's children a Christmas tree ! Her novelist's mind jumped 
 at once to that conclusion, which happened to be the right 
 one. 
 
 This romance going on under the shadow of the gallows 
 delighted Evangeline. The motor-clad furry Prince, the 
 cloistered beauty, the Burue-Jones cook, the mysterious 
 starved-looking children that Avent with the cook, and whom 
 Veere thought it necessary to provide with a seasonable 
 jBr-tree from Baltic forests ! — Oh, why wouldn't Betsey see 
 her and let her be in it ? It was her due. She wasn't narrow, 
 like Mrs. Gedge ; she was truly the confidante proper, or 
 improper — built for the part ! She supposed Betsey was a 
 bit annoyed by that wretched interview ! She was, indeed, 
 by now, a little ashamed of having written it, a Judas who 
 felt inclined to quarrel with the scanty wage of silver doled 
 out to her by The Sweep, that patron of lost sensational 
 causes. 
 
 She took to haunting the outskirts of Worksop House, 
 making it convenient to pass by the door at least three or 
 four times a day. Thus the daily visits of Mr. Veere to the 
 house, and the slightly more spaced out ones of Inspector 
 Wliortleberry, did not escape her encouraging notice. But 
 these two were only accessories, she would get speech of 
 Betsey, the chief protagonist ! Of that she was deter- 
 mined. 
 
 Her opportunity came. The next time Inspector Whortle- 
 berry came, it was on Twelfth Night. The snow had fallen 
 and Ada, in shrewish tones, was interviewing a snow-away 
 at the door. Wliortleberry nodded to Mrs. Altamont's cook, 
 whom even he was far from suspecting to be the Ada Cox 
 mentioned in the Altamont trial, and passed in. Miss Sim- 
 mons, with the courage of romance, followed him, and by
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 153 
 
 some dexterous Juggling mth outer and inner doors that 
 folded back, succeeded in evading his eyes and those of Ada. 
 She stowed herself away in one of the upstairs rooms, where 
 she patiently suffered the worst extremities of cold, while the 
 interview ■with the inspector lasted. 
 
 Inspector Wliortleberry had not much to say. In fact his 
 was a Christmas visit. His superior soul revolted against 
 ^^^shing ]\Irs. Altamont either a merry Christmas or even a 
 Happy New Year, but by sheer good luck he had found a 
 card in one of the vast trays exhibited by the shops which 
 embodied his hopes on her behalf and stated them, so it 
 seemed to him, in the most delicate way. Under the floral 
 emblem that decorated the card, a line from Shakespeare was 
 blazoned : 
 
 "... My gentle lady, I wish you all the joy that you can 
 wish." 
 
 Sirs. Altamont tore off the envelope and looked at it rue- 
 fully. She was embarrassed. But she reflected, with her 
 usual elasticity of thought and sympathy, that the choice 
 of this card showed nothing but nice feeling on Mr. Wliortle- 
 berry's part, and she therefore thanlied him for it cordially 
 and prettfly, stuffing into his hands some splendid crackers 
 for the chfldren he had not got, though he was much too shy 
 to teU her so. 
 
 His unofficial visit had lasted a shorter time than poor 
 Mrs. Cox expected. She fell away from the door in a strained 
 position as soon as Betsey opened it to let the Inspector out. 
 He cleverly turned aside and looked out of the window while 
 Betsey raised Ada Cox. 
 
 " My poor girl," said she kindly, " we were not talking 
 about that ! " 
 
 After the stress of the moment was over and Whortleberry 
 had gone, she was inclined to be a little more severe. She 
 interviewed her cook in the kitchen, as she was preparing 
 the potatoes for an Irish stew.
 
 154 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " You mustn't, Ada, you really mustn't let yourself down 
 so as to listen at doors. And why you should imagine that 
 Inspector Whortleberry always comes to talk about Wil- 
 frid " 
 
 " Wliat's he come for, then ? To blarney you and get 
 your name up ! Oh, you needn't toss your head, that's what 
 they're all saying ! " 
 
 " Who's all saying ? " 
 
 " They ! They ! " Ada repeated obstinately. " I tell you 
 you won't have a bit of character left. There's that Miss 
 Simmons always hanging about, trying to get by me — I 
 shouldn't wonder if she isn't in the house now — I thought I 
 saw something go past when that man come ! " 
 
 " Nonsense, Ada. Keep to the point, and that is, you 
 must really stay in your kitchen when I have visitors." 
 
 " And leave you and him shut up for hours together " 
 
 " That's not true, Ada." 
 
 "Poor Wilfrid! Nobody cares what becomes of him but 
 me ! You aren't talking about Wilfrid, you says — no, trust 
 you ! Your own two beautiful selves, of course. And yet 
 that's the man that knows all about my poor boy and could 
 tell me if he liked. But you're right, it ain't no good my 
 listening at doors to what you and he say, or I'd do it, and 
 more, if I could get to know about him. I'm fit to burst. 
 I have to go picking it up bit by bit from the tradesmen, 
 and look silly, arsking questions, as if I was keen on knowing 
 about murders and bloody detaOs and that — I who never 
 knew anything about that sort of thing till I came into this 
 family ! . . . No, I know well enough as the policeman 
 doesn't come to talk about my affairs — not he ! I've listened 
 to you two enough to know that it ain't worth my while to 
 listen. Nor Mr. Veere, neither, comes for that. I call it 
 shameful, you, his wife, his real wife, not to take more care 
 of his name ! " 
 
 She paused, exhausted with the mere effort of vituperation.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 155 
 
 Mrs. Altamont turned away with a disagreeable smile on her 
 lips. Her show of outward tranquillity calmed the other 
 woman, who turned and looked back to the far end of the 
 room where her child was playing in the window-seat. 
 
 " Now, then, I suppose I'll have to go," she sighed, spent. 
 " You give me notice, don't you ? Here, Billy, put away 
 them bricks of yours, and let's take ourselves off where we 
 come from ! " 
 
 " Leave the child alone, Ada ! " Betsey placed herself in 
 front of the boy, who in full confidence never even sus- 
 pended his making of bridges. " I'm not going to take a 
 bit of notice of what you say, except to tell you you'll be 
 sorry for it afterwards. You've got a lot to put you out and 
 vex you. So have I, but in a different way. Be quiet now, 
 stop crying, there's a dear ! We won't talk of it again. . . . 
 I don't know how you will look at the piece of news Mr. 
 Wliortleberry did tell me — not to-day, but a few days ago. 
 I didn't tell you, not to hurt you more, but Wilfrid nearly 
 managed to do for himself last week in prison — got hold of a 
 knife or somethmg. That's all he cares for their reprieve ! 
 And to tell you the truth I respect him for it ! I think better 
 of him than I did, for attempting it. . . . And I think it was a 
 shame of them to prevent him making an end of himself at 
 the first, and getting decently out of it all ! " 
 
 " Yes, and leave you free to marry your man ! . . . Now — 
 you may believe me, I'd sooner go ! " She clutched the 
 little boy again, and with hysterical strength lifted him right 
 over her shoulder. 
 
 " Will you put that child down ! He's far too heavy for 
 you now, thank goodness ! " 
 
 The mother let him slide out of her arms, and Billy sidled 
 up and clung to Mrs. Altamont, whose breast heaved as she 
 took him on her knee. Ada stood glowering on the pair with 
 sullen vindictive eyes. At last Betsey looked up ; hers were 
 full of kindness and contrition.
 
 156 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " Poor child, he doesn't know what to make of it, us two 
 quarrelling ! You looked as if you were going to claw my 
 eyes out, my dear, don't you know ! " 
 
 Ada said nothing. She seemed tired ; and leaned against the 
 kitchen table, while Mrs. Altamont went on softly : 
 
 " Of course, I shan't let this outburst of yours make any 
 difference — not even your last taunt about Mr. Veere. But 
 I'll tell you how it really is. You silly girl, do you suppose 
 that Mr. Veere would think of marrying the widow of a man 
 who has been hanged for murder — the murder of his own 
 uncle too ? My poor Ada, don't you see that your precious 
 Wilfrid has spoilt both our lives, yours and mine, whatever 
 happens. Only if he is reprieved, mine will be spoilt a little 
 worse — and you'll be no better off. Look at it like that. Try 
 
 to see my point of view. For I " she paused. " It may 
 
 sound brutal, but I had hoped to be able to do some- 
 thing decent with the remains of my life — make a fresh 
 start " 
 
 " If I understand you," said Ada, quite quietly — she had 
 begun to peel potatoes — " you are building your happi- 
 ness on a man's death ! That seems a bit queer to me ! . . ." 
 She picked out an eye from the potato vindictively. She 
 heard Betsey catch her breath, almost sob, and when she 
 looked up again her mistress was gone. 
 
 The kitchen fire craclded brightly, Billy had returned to 
 his bricks. Ginger lay stretched full length in indolent ease in 
 front of the blaze. The sight focussed Ada's rage. She 
 seized a broom and flourished it in the cat's direction, then 
 desisted weakly and laid it aside. She addressed her little 
 son, who was regarding her, wide-eyed, and took him in her 
 arms. 
 
 "We'll let the cat be, won't we, Billy? She's fond of 
 him, as much as she's fond of anybody ! Hard as nails 
 she is. . . ," 
 
 The cat, scenting disturbance, rose and stretched itself.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 157 
 
 with an eye on the door. Ada continued to rock herself and 
 Billy, murmuring : 
 
 " Go 'long, Ginger, go 'long to her ! She's in the dining-room 
 warming her toes, and naught but a man's life between her 
 and her happiness. But you and me, sonny — we don't 
 forget ! "
 
 XXI 
 
 Mrs. Altamont rushed up to her bedroom to get a 
 pocket-handkerchief. EvangeUne Simmons came forward : 
 
 " Oh, Betsey, I had to — I had to see you somehow. Won't 
 you forgive me ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes. Sit down," said the other wearily. " I'm too 
 tired to have another row ! " 
 
 " Who've you had a row with ? " 
 
 " My cook," said Betsey laconically. " She gave me notice." 
 
 " After all your kindness to her ! " 
 
 " Wliat kindness ? I give her wages — the same as Georgie 
 had." 
 
 " Yes, but you took her with all those children. And I 
 daresay a husband out of work somewhere ? ' 
 
 " No, no husband." 
 
 " Are the children ? " 
 
 " Illegitimate — yes." 
 
 " How awfully good of you ! Look here, I've brought a book 
 for you — you know you wanted it. The condemned book — 
 Lee-Brice's. I'll give it you. I caught it up just before I left 
 home " 
 
 " And came on here with your burnt-ofiferings," said Mrs. 
 Altamont. " Thanks, I never read novels now." 
 
 " The novel has come to you, hasn't it ? " hazarded Evan- 
 geline, slyly laying her present down. 
 
 " Come to stay, I think, like motor-cars. Well, as you're 
 here, we had better go and sit where there's a fire." 
 
 " Delighted. My crop of chilblains is terrific this winter." 
 
 158
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 159 
 
 She babbled about her chilblains till they were settled 
 by the dining-room fire do^vnstairs. Ada's children were 
 banished to the kitchen for the first time in their stay, by a 
 visitor. 
 
 " You see one reason why I refuse myself to people ? " said 
 Betsey. " These poor little things have the freedom of the 
 house, and I don't fancy Mrs. Wormeley caring to come and 
 tumble over my cook's family using the dining-room." 
 
 " Oh," said Evangeline, " if that was all ! Mrs. Worme- 
 ley ! " Betsey was ej^eing her curiously. " But why 
 
 need we talk about Mrs. Wormeley ? " 
 
 " \Vhat do you suppose I let you in for, Evangeline ? 1 
 want to know all the gossip about me." 
 
 " Oh, do you ? " Evangeline settled in, threw off her boa, 
 and bared her ankles to the blaze. " Wliat fun ! Well, of 
 course, you know But do let me say first, that I, per- 
 sonally, utterly approve of you " 
 
 " You would ! " 
 
 " Yes, you see I am a thorough woman of the world. Noth- 
 ing shocks me that the smart set does. I adore sharp con- 
 trasts and antithesi — is that right ? " 
 
 " I dare say. I keep off such dangerous ground myself. Go 
 on. What do they say ? " 
 
 " Well, you know, you are not taking it quite as they think 
 you ought. Mrs. Gedge is a wee bit jealous, as we all know, 
 and the more Dr. Gedge asks her to look you up, the more she 
 won't, and it's worth as much as his life is worth to offer to go 
 and see you himself, or he'd have bounded ! Madge Worme- 
 ley's really all right, only Mortimer is the usual reactionary 
 husband, don't you know, the kind of Helmer man we all 
 used to talk about ! He told Nora — Madge, I mean — that 
 he'd have had no objection to her supporting you, if you 
 had been keeping quiet, but you've chosen your atmosphere 
 wrong, for him, don't you know, being consoled all over the 
 place by the son of the "
 
 160 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " Nephew." 
 
 " — Nephew of the man your husband — attacked. And they 
 say you went to call on the barmaid — he liked, and gave her 
 money." 
 
 " Is that all ? " 
 
 " No. You're supposed — you know what people are ! — to 
 have a flirtation with the policeman who brought you the 
 news — that he's in and out the house constantly." 
 
 " After my cook, perhaps ? " 
 
 '•' That may be. I'll tell Madge Wormeley. But the worst 
 thing you've done is casting me off so completely. Me, the 
 only woman in all Wimbledon who could understand you, 
 knew you through and through — a real broad-minded woman 
 who went a little too far, even for them, and you kept me 
 away ! As if, Madge said, you couldn't stand even a tolerant 
 person seeing what you were up to ! Some of those motor 
 rides, for instance " 
 
 " Why didn't I take you, eh ? " 
 
 " WeU, once or twice, say, to give a decent colour to the 
 business. It isn't as if you disliked me ! " 
 
 She looked keenly at Betsey, wondering if she had really 
 read the article about her — Betsey, who now looked so 
 innocent and unmtting. She concluded that no ordinary 
 woman could be so full of guile as to conceal her knowledge 
 thus perfectly, and she was emboldened to lay her hand on 
 Betsey's arm and beg, appealingly : 
 
 " Now, my dear old pal, why wouldn't you make all right 
 and see me sometimes ? " 
 
 " To tell you the truth, dear old chum, I forgot you ! So 
 much going on ! I've never had a dull moment since the 
 day Wilfrid was tried." 
 
 " Oh, Betsey, I'm so sorry for Mrs. Wormeley, she would 
 so enjoy hearing you say that ! You're just the same — 
 epigrammatical, and cool as ever ! " 
 
 " You can go and tell her you've seen me — retail all my
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 161 
 
 hon-mots ! It's her day at-home. Good Lord, what a way 
 back it seems ! " 
 
 " Gracious ! So it is her day. Do you remember those sort 
 of things ? " 
 
 " Submerged landmarks — yes." 
 
 " You have got an edge on you, dear. They'd be simply 
 delighted to see you, I believe." 
 
 " And hustle me into a cupboard as soon as they heard Mr. 
 W.'s step in the hall. No, thank you. Have they still got 
 Selina ? " 
 
 " Gracious, no ! No more than you've got Georgie." 
 
 " I could have kept Georgie if I'd liked," said Mrs. Alta- 
 mont, with vivacity. " She didn't leave to better herself, 
 like, I'll bet you a shilling, Selina did, but to get married. 
 Crump's man, in Wimbledon — a very decent young fellow." 
 
 " Well, never mind. Let's talk about something interesting. 
 That petition they've sent up — do you think it'U have any 
 e£fect ? I ask you because I know you're broad-minded 
 enough to look at the question dispassionately, aren't you ? " 
 
 " Oh, quite. I'U answer you. Listen. Do you suppose, 
 Evangeline Simmons, that if I had thought Wilfrid would get 
 off, and that it was on the cards I might have to go on living 
 here among you all, that I should have cared to set all the 
 neighbourhood against me ? It would have been too siUy. 
 But I knew from the very first — I had an instinct or 
 whatever you like — that he'd be hanged. So I wanted to 
 make the place too hot to hold me, and to have every excuse 
 for getting out of it, I'm glad you all took your cues so quick 
 and dropped me. It doesn't make it at all hard to leave, 
 as it might have been, if people had been kind to me and 
 stood by me. You left it to an outsider to do that, a man 
 who had the grace to come to Miss Altamont's funeral because 
 he respected her. Think of that ! " 
 
 Her voice broke. 
 
 " And as for me, why, you have all been horrid to me. 
 
 M
 
 162 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 Perfectly detestable ! You too, Evangeline ! Don't suppose 
 I don't know quite well what you've done in particular — the 
 shabby trick you played on me ! That article ! You can't 
 think, can you, why I didn't speak of it before ? The fact is 
 I didn't care to. I'm going away to shake the mean tale- 
 bearing dust of you all off my feet, and break new ground, 
 good, clean, fresh ground instead of the weary old dust of a 
 squalid suburb. You can call me cjniical if you like ! " 
 
 " I do," murmured Miss Simmons hastily. 
 
 " Yes. You used to admire it in me ! Well, take this from 
 me now, and for ever after hold your peace. I am not going to 
 marry Mr. Veere. I won't hide anything from you. I'm not 
 going to bind myself to any one — on this side of the Atlantic, 
 at least." 
 
 Evangeline looked stunned with this impact of intelligence. 
 
 " This is news ! " she mumbled. 
 
 " Well, you've got what you came for, haven't you ? " 
 
 " I think, Betsey, all the same, if you'll allow me to say so, 
 that you might show a little human feeling for the poor man 
 whose wife you still are. A husband is a husband " 
 
 " Not when he's doing time ! " said Betsey, jumping up. 
 " You see, I'm bent on disgusting you. I have. I'm glad. 
 It serves you right. Now go and tell them all. Here comes 
 Mr. Veere. I must send you away." 
 
 " Oh, Betsey, mayn't I stop and see him ? I met him 
 
 once." 
 
 " On my doorstep. I heard about it. No, I am afraid I 
 must really ask you to go. Mr. Veere has a horror of meeting 
 local people. I've promised never to let him run the risk of 
 that, so you see there's nothing for it but to reluctantly turn 
 you away ! "
 
 XXII 
 
 Veere passed Miss Simmons as she went, out, and took 
 not the sHghtest notice of her beyond giving her immensely 
 too much room to pass him. His mien was so portentous, 
 that Ada Cox, in whom all the cords that tent-pegged her 
 dowTi to conventionality seemed to have snapped, walked into 
 the room with him when she introduced him, and witnessed 
 his greeting of her mistress. 
 
 Furthermore, he did not offer to shake hands with Betsey. 
 She rose, startled, and Ada from behind exclaimed : 
 
 " There's something ! You've got news ! " 
 
 Veere did not seem to be aware that it was not Betsey 
 who spoke. His teeth were set. He flung off his motor coat, 
 revealmg the alert stripling imprisoned in the hoggish shape 
 of custom. . . . 
 
 " Hasn't your faithful Whortleberry told you ? The Home 
 Secretary's comrtiuted the sentence ! " 
 
 It was Ada, her eyes bleared with the tears that were com- 
 ing, who shouted, " Wliat's that mean ? " 
 
 He answered her. " Penal servitude — and an innocent 
 woman tied to him for life ! " 
 
 Ada fell prone on the floor. Betsey, who had been standing 
 Avith her hands down, knucldes firmly planted on the table, 
 came round and helped Veere to pick the woman up. 
 
 " Oh, Wilfrid — Wilfrid — not to be hanged — not to be 
 killed ! " she moaned, as she fell into complete unconscious- 
 ness. 
 
 " Brutes we are ! " Veere murmured under his breath, as 
 
 163
 
 164 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 according to Betsey's concise directions, he carried her up- 
 stairs. The tragic unseeing eyes of the mistress seemed to 
 glare down at the wife of Altamont as her head dangled 
 over the banisters. 
 
 " Oh, take care, take care ! " Betsey murmured, shame- 
 stricken, but indeed he was doing as weU as he could. 
 
 " Keep Billy quiet ! " she said to Ernest Veere, when he 
 left the upper room, having first laid the fainting woman 
 carefully on her bed. 
 
 The frightened child had followed them up. The door of 
 the room where his mother lay was sharply closed. He 
 looked round aghast, prepared to cry, but Mr. Veere, sitting 
 down on the stairs, took the boy on his knee. 
 
 " Billy ! Billy ! " he murmured. 
 
 He could think of nothing else to say. But Billy, fortu- 
 nately, liked him, trusted him, and ramming his head between 
 Mr. Veere's chin and breast lay so, quietly. 
 
 Veere reproached himself for his crudeness, shading into 
 selfishness. He should have been less sudden in his revelation. 
 He had been absorbed in the effect of tliis piece of intelligence 
 on his and Betsey's fortunes ; wondering so deeply how she 
 would take it, and if she would stiU adhere to her plans of the 
 other day ; he had forgotten to be gentle with the other poor 
 creature, whose heart was concerned in the mere physical 
 salvation of Wilfrid Altamont, and to whom his news was so 
 outrageously joyful that it should have been softened to her 
 nerves, seared with long waiting and suspense. It was easy 
 for Betsey to be calm. For her it represented part of a mere 
 business calculation — the reprieve was inopportune, untoward, 
 but not of vital significance, since she cared for neither Wilfrid 
 nor himself. He thought her cruel to the one, selfish and 
 indifferent to the other, since this result was directly counter 
 to his wishes. . . . She was very hard, as they said. . . . 
 
 The door of the bedroom opened and Betsey came out. 
 Her eyes were blazing, her hair looked alive. At once all his
 
 THE WIFE OF ABTAMONT 165 
 
 love and passion returned at the sight of her. She beckoned 
 to BiUy. 
 
 " Go to your mother, Billy." 
 
 The child unwound his arms from Veere's neck and sidled 
 into the room Betsey had vacated. She evidently took him 
 up to the bedside, placed him on it, and then closed the door 
 on him. 
 
 " She's better now," Betsey said, in a strange voice that he 
 had never heard her use before. There was caution, too, in 
 her walk as she approached him and leaned on the banister 
 at the stair-head. He was going to get up, but she signed to 
 him to remain where he was. 
 
 " That poor girl ! " she said. " Do you realise that she 
 fainted for Joy ? Joy ? She adores my brute of a hus- 
 band." 
 
 Her eyes narrowed. She looked down inquiringly at him. 
 
 " I suppose you're quite sure the news is true ? Because if 
 it isn't " 
 
 " True as death, and far more horrible. Oh, Betsey, what 
 will you do now ? Tell me. Let me help. I'll do anything 
 you like." 
 
 " Look here ! " she said roughly, permitting, at least not 
 denying, his clasp of her knees as she stood over him. She 
 made a violent dab at her chin with a handkercliief, then 
 spoke with a rush : 
 '" Do you still want me ? " 
 
 " Of course I do." 
 
 " Then I'll come to you." 
 
 " D'ye love me, Betsey ? " was his stiff, unaccountable 
 answer. A deep wave of distrust washed over his passion as 
 she stood there, blushing, for the first time in his knowledge 
 of her. He was actuated by a desire to probe her motives 
 judicially, to sift them to the bottom once for all, now, while 
 her soul stood naked before him and her cheeks were crimsoned 
 for shame uf self-revelation. Then let the glamour steal over
 
 166 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 the beloved again, and he would give way to it completely. 
 He was aware that he would fall, but he must know first. 
 
 Betsey replied slowly and squarely, as he would have her. 
 
 " No, I feel to you as I always told you I did." She 
 paused, laughed, and went on quickly. " Half and half. 
 Nothing to speak of. As Miss Altamont felt to your uncle, 
 perhaps ? But I ask you definitely if you want me ? And 
 it is because I have made up my mind. Fate's against me, 
 it seems, but I'll fight Fate. I will not be tied for life to a 
 convict with twenty years or more to serve — and a woman 
 here fainting for joy at the news that kUls me. She's his real 
 wife, as she'd have been his real widow. You can take me 
 if you want me. Everything's gone wrong. I'm done with 
 it all ! " 
 
 " Then, with your gracious permission — " he said, rising and 
 taking her in his arms. The great duU clock at the stair-head 
 ticked out the parcels of her surrender. . . . 
 
 She lay there, yielding, passive, but conscious of no such 
 passionate fusing of identities as may take a pair of lovers 
 in such case, but rather the reverse. She was pained by the 
 polite irony piercing through Ernest Veere's phrases. She 
 was soothed, as the slow seconds counted themselves out, by 
 her intimate awareness of its overcoming by the glamour 
 that should be shed with the first embrace. It was overcome, 
 but she did not know that the man, permitting his inclination 
 for the woman to have sway, kept his head, and made a 
 solemn reservation on her behalf. . . . 
 
 " You trust me, at least ? " he asked, setting her on her 
 feet again. 
 
 " Yes," she sighed. His kiss had moved her. 
 
 " It's a funny world, isn't it, my sweetheart ? Well, come 
 downstairs now, and help me on with my coat. I'll be with 
 you again this evening to arrange things." 
 
 She demurred. 
 
 "Oh, yes, they must be arranged. No tricks shall be
 
 THE WIFE OF AETAMONT 167 
 
 played on you. I know you like people to be businesslike. 
 We shall see if your poor life is to be as maimed as you thought 
 it would be. It all depends. Your ideal may be attained 
 after aU, some of it." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " She laughed, but the light had all 
 gone out of her face, which was a little puffy and heavy, 
 and her lips clumsier in curve. " She'll look like that when 
 she's fifty," thought Ernest Veere involuntarily. " Coarsish, 
 like the old apple- woman who had a stall near my school." 
 
 She helped him on with his coat. She murmured. " What 
 do you mean by talking of my ideal ? I've smashed it up. 
 I've promised to go to the dogs with you." 
 
 " That's what it's called, my dear." He shrugged into the 
 sleeves. 
 
 " And that's what it is. Don't suppose I'm under any 
 delusions as to what I've done. I've done it with my eyes 
 open. The moment Ada fainted, I made up my mind to 
 make you that proposal — you made it first, remember — 
 and I have ! . . ." 
 
 " Yes, you've done it and no mistake ! " he answered, 
 softly pinching her ear. Both speech and gesture had no 
 relevance to his thought, and she felt it to be so. His frivol- 
 ous attitude could not conceal a definite hardness that was 
 gro'wing up in him concerning her, he was what a business 
 customer might have called " nasty." He continued : 
 
 " You leave it to me and don't be so cocksure about your 
 own destruction. You've led the ass to the water, but are 
 you so sure you can make him drink ? Ass, I say. I am an 
 ass, oh, I am ! And obstinate at that ! . . . Good-bye — for 
 the present ! " 
 
 He was going ; she looked so like a chidden child that he 
 returned to kiss her. 
 
 " By Jove, you are a pretty woman, and I love you all the 
 same ! You'll always get me, this way. . . . Will you give 
 me some dinner when I come back ? "
 
 168 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " Are you coming back ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course, why not ? I said I was. That woman " — 
 he indicated the room above, where Ada lay — " won't be 
 about again to-night, will she ? " 
 
 " No. I'll give her some soup and tuck her up early." Her 
 eyes sought his. 
 
 " Had you rather I didn't come back ? " 
 
 " I have no feeling either way," she replied sturdily.
 
 XXIII 
 
 It was early spring. Mr. Veere never missed April in 
 England. He brought Betsey back from the Continent, 
 where they had been travelling about for three months, and 
 estabHshed her on his yacht, cruising in English waters. 
 
 Mi's. Altamont liked England better than Paris or even 
 Sicily. She was glad to have seen these places, though. She 
 never wanted to go abroad again, and she was thinldng so, 
 as she stood and sat and lounged on Cowes Pier. She had 
 got them to row her in from the yacht to meet Ernest Veere, 
 who had run up to London about some business, chiefly 
 connected with her affairs, she believed, and who was return- 
 ing by the Cowes boat, due even now. 
 
 He would have made it his business to see Mrs. Cox, left 
 sole chatelaine of Worksop House and with Betsey's income 
 to draw upon for herself and the children. It had been 
 formally made over to her. The lease of Worksop House 
 ran for a few years more, but Mr. Veere was going to dispose 
 of the remainder, and Ada was to retain the sum accruing 
 from that negotiation as well. By and by, Mrs. Altamont 
 had arranged to go back to Ada for a short while to help her 
 to " get out." Then the connection between the two women 
 would cease. 
 
 Ada had been offered, and had accepted, the post of house- 
 keeper, cicerone, and caretaker at Angernoune Castle, whicb 
 Sir Joris Veere had bought eight years ago, as an experiment, 
 in a highly dilapidated condition, from Lady Dobree's father, 
 the Earl of Angernoune. Much money had been spent on it.
 
 170 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 The Keep, tempo William II, was bolstered up and rendered 
 habitable. But it had been found on examination that that 
 ancient fabric would not stand the introduction of electric 
 lighting and dinner-lifts and other modern appliances, so a 
 modem house, at fabulous cost, had been built in the court- 
 yard, whence the flag flew when the family were in residence, 
 and not enjoying the balmier airs of Mill Strand, Sir Joris's 
 place in Sussex. The purchase of decrepit Angernoune was a 
 millionaire's freak, an extravagance, a decided convenience 
 to the vendors ; yet the haughty impoverished nobleman 
 who took his title from thence could never bear to accept 
 Sir Joris Veere's repeated handsome oSers of hospitality. 
 He had, however, no objection to allowing his daughter to 
 marry his nephew and heir. 
 
 Ada, with her one surviving child — Little Katie had never 
 " growed," but had died quietly while Veere and Betsey were 
 abroad — meant to wait there for Wilfrid. Wilfrid was coming 
 back to her some time — must come back. The cold North had 
 no terrors for the city girl, fixed, rapt in her mulish central 
 idea. Niched up there, in her mediaeval setting, she would 
 gain health and look more picturesque than ever, while her 
 boy would grow strong and hardy and defeat, as far as pos- 
 sible, inlierited or vicious town instincts. 
 
 Mrs. Altamont's plans were of necessity vague. Not from a 
 business point of view, indeed. She knew she was amply and 
 solidly provided for. She and he had not minced the matter 
 of the pecuniary basis of their alliance. Stock had been made 
 over to her and invested in her name, she had an income for 
 life — if she should leave Veere's protection to-morrow. 
 
 That night at Worksop House, when Veere came back and 
 dined with her and they had settled things, she had been as 
 hard as naUs, almost rapacious in her determination to have 
 the thing in black and white, something solid to depend on 
 in this crumbling of her moral standards. Veere had almost 
 hated her for a moment. The ugly joints of her character
 
 THE WIFE OF ABTAMONT 171 
 
 came uppermost, jogged forward into prominence with the 
 violent rift in her self-respect. She meant, and showed that 
 she meant, to seU herself dear. 
 
 And he had not exacted the quid pro quo / 
 
 Even in Paris she had only half realised it. She was tired, 
 he was forbearing, he was a dear. 
 
 They had been to see everything. They did monuments 
 and plays together. He had bought her clothes and jewels. 
 She had accepted them as one accepts gifts which one expects 
 to have to repay in kind. 
 
 At the end of a week she asked him seriously to buy her no 
 more presents, her income, of which she had already received 
 an instalment, would, she averred coldly, suffice to dress her 
 and pay for her cabs unless he was with her. Her tone was 
 sour and strictly businesslike. 
 
 He was not always with her. He treated her like a w^oman 
 of the world, not as a pretty doll that he brought away to 
 seduce. She was allowed to preserve her somewhat gloomy 
 independence. He had friends in Paris, he preferred not to 
 introduce her to them at all, to labelling her as his permanent 
 companion. She did some of the monuments and some of 
 the plays alone. He was never out of temper. They often 
 talked of Dobree. 
 
 In Italy she was happier. They led a life of errantry, 
 riding about, bathing, mountaineering. Betsey was a frank 
 tomboy ; that side of her nature had been in abeyance, too. 
 Her hair, warmed through and through by Italian sun, 
 was more golden than ever. And the nice thing about Italy 
 was that it was all new to Ernest too. They had adventures 
 in Sicily, and after in Bosnia. Then when they reached Eng- 
 land and got aboard the yacht, an exciting episode, which 
 nearly resulted in the loss of the vessel off the tame little 
 Needles, supervened. They had nearly died together, and
 
 172 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 yet, take it all in all, they were less intimate than they had 
 been in those far back days when they had strolled about the 
 streets of London together and scanned the posters for news 
 of Betsey's deliverance. 
 
 That wretched, hasty moment on the stair-head at Worksop 
 House had been a turning-point — which had decided nothing. 
 Betsey's move towards the social abyss had been checkmated 
 by her guardian knight. She was grateful to him in theory, 
 irritated in fact by her insistent surmise as to whether it had 
 cost him anything to keep her virtuous ? Betsey was vain. 
 
 She was waiting for him now, with several little rods in 
 pickle for him, and only a lukewarm welcome. She had found 
 a seat on the landing-stage and sat there watching the boat 
 plough its way to her. It held the man whose society solaced 
 and delighted her, but whose attitude was a perpetual blister 
 to her self-love. 
 
 The steward of the EUsahetta (renamed in compliment to 
 her) approached and touched his cap. 
 
 " I came to tell you, madam, that there's nothing to pre- 
 vent our getting ofE as soon as the skipper comes. The wash- 
 ing is in." 
 
 The Cowes boat made the pier. ... Mr. Veere was coming 
 off, hurrying along the raying boards, slender, businesslike, 
 alert — ^he was two years younger than she. 
 
 " Here you are, Betsey ! I've settled everything. St. Malo 
 — now ! We can get off this afternoon— has the washing 
 come ? " 
 
 " Yes, Masters just told me so." 
 
 " That's good. Come down to Bingley's. I must get a few 
 things. I've just remembered that I haven't any films." 
 
 " Yes ! " said Betsey agreeably. They turned and went* 
 off together, chatting amicably, like a husband and wife. 
 
 They were returning to the yacht for luncheon, their arms 
 laden with odds and ends of marine stores, cigarettes, and 
 films, when Betsey touched his arm :
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 173 
 
 " A lady, bowing and beckoning to you ! " 
 
 "Oh, I say ! Good luck ! It's Dobree and her Miss 
 Taylor." 
 
 His face radiant with good fellowship, he went for- 
 ward to meet them, and Betsey fell back and studied a 
 stationer's window. 
 
 Blind rage leaped up in her heart. She condemned it, yet it 
 sprang up anew. She heard all they said. 
 
 " Oh, I say, Ernest, angel, lend me threepence ! We are 
 lunching at East Cowes Castle, and I've not got enough to 
 pay for the tram boat across Medina." 
 
 " Here, take sixpence," said Veere. " It's awkward 
 borrowing coppers of your hostess, however rich, to come 
 back with, isn't it ? "Wliere are you two staying ? " 
 
 " On the Godiva, my godfather's yacht, you know. I say, 
 Where's that pretty w^oman got to that was wdtli you ? She's 
 hidden herself somewhere ! Oh, I suppose I oughtn't to 
 ask ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, you may ask." 
 
 " And you'll tell me she's a Mrs. Jones, wife of an old 
 college friend ! It isn't the person you've renamed your 
 yacht after ? " 
 
 "Oh, you twigged that, did you ? Well, now be off to 
 your lunch, and keep yourself respectable. Wlio is it has got 
 East Cowes Castle this season ? " 
 
 " Very rich Australians. Good-bye. We may come to tea 
 with you — and the wife of Altamont." 
 
 " Shall have sailed ! " Veere called after her, as he rejoined 
 Betsey, who came out from behind the sheltering eaves of 
 Bingley's, like a chidden child. 
 
 WTien they w^ere in the dinghy, being rowed out to the 
 Elisahetta, she said softly, playing with the fringed end of 
 the tiller rope, " I wish you'd marry her soon." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Lady Dobree."
 
 174 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " Never was further from it in my life ! Why do you say 
 that sort of thing ? You are always saying that sort of thing 
 now." 
 
 " Am I a cross-patch ? " 
 
 " Rather." 
 
 " I was nicer — in the Worksop House days, eh ? " 
 
 " You were gayer." 
 
 " I was ! I was ! Isn't it funny ! I suppose, if I'd been 
 like this, an ill-tempered virago — as I am now — you'd never 
 have wanted to take Andromeda away from her rock." 
 
 " I don't say that ! " 
 
 His reply struck him as too grudging, he was casting about 
 in his mind to say something kinder, but the end of the short 
 trip had come, and he helped Betsey out and up. He gave 
 her hand a little squeeze, and said, " Come and smoke a 
 cigarette." 
 
 " No, I think I'll go to my cabin now, and have a real good 
 cry, till after we've started ! " 
 
 He laughed. " Nerves ! You ! Did the meeting with our 
 young friend upset you ? " 
 
 " Yes, rather. I believe I wanted you to grasp your nettle 
 and introduce me. After all, I'm quite respectable, bating 
 the little fact that I'm the wife of a convict." 
 
 " Oh, she'd rather like that. But the other thing — 
 I couldn't have persuaded her of your respectability, at any 
 rate." 
 
 " Doesn't she know you're a crank ? " 
 
 " Not to that extent ! " 
 
 " Nor did I," Betsey just breathed, as she ran down the 
 companion, and bade the steward, whom she met below, to 
 bring her a glass of wne and some biscuits to her cabin for 
 lunch. 
 
 ^-Ernest Veere heard her close the skylight of her state-room, 
 she did not mean him to hear her weep, then Her expressed 
 determination to do so did not disturb him much ; he thought
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 175 
 
 it rather nice of her to announce a cataclysm of nerves and 
 set a limit to it. She was given to having nerves now, it was 
 a new phase. ^Vllat she said was true enough. She was not 
 nearly so good-tempered as she used to be. She had a tongue 
 and she used it on him sometimes — her benefactor ' 
 
 He was her benefactor — not her lover. A busy, bustling, 
 hustling man, he was not sufficiently versed in the ways of 
 women to realise that his reasonable platonic attitude was 
 the goad that drove Betsey's tongue, and made her smite 
 him whom she should have spared. 
 
 He did not understand her. His easy sympathy was not 
 deep. He thought he made her happy ; he himself was con- 
 tented, which was all he ever expected to be. He was both a 
 materialist and a crank. It is your idealists who cannot be 
 happy with a woman "without seducing her. He was not a 
 nervous or excitable man, his emotions waited on his fancies, 
 and a slight, real or supposed, scored deep. Betsey had 
 "huffed" him and disconcerted him in that hour, three 
 months ago, on the stairs at Worksop House when, fiercely 
 railing at Fate, she had flung herself at him and said, " Take 
 me, yet believe me, I have no pleasure in the giving." 
 
 His positive, domineering nature bore her some malice. 
 She had made a moral convenience of him.
 
 XXIV 
 
 They went down to dinner in the little state-room. Her 
 eyes were as bright as if she had not carried out her 
 threat, while the mind behind them was full of cross motives 
 that chased each other hither and thither, and peeped in and 
 out of its recesses like black and white cats in a suburban 
 garden. 
 
 She sat down with a little air of furtive wildness that was 
 charming. There was a streak of blue ribbon in her hair and 
 she had never looked so well. 
 
 The pocket of Veere's smoking-jacket bulged with papers. 
 
 " We'll go over these after dinner," he said, as soon as 
 Masters had left the room. " But it's all done, and all done 
 right. You're a woman of means, like Miss Altamont of 
 famous memory ! " 
 
 These were the little things he said that jarred, and at once 
 evoked the protecting motherly instinct in Betsey Altamont. 
 She did not know that Lady Dobree had once remarked that 
 if Veere hadn't been so clever, he'd have been a bounder, but 
 with far less knowledge of the world than that possessed by 
 the green girl of rank, Betsey realised that sentiment, which 
 Veere disdained, is tact's best ally, and that the strenuous 
 life of business is too apt to brush aside the thin cobwebs of 
 tradition that would cloak and veil for us half life's inevitable 
 grossnesses. She answered tactfully, compljdng with him. 
 
 " How much have I now ? " 
 
 " Fifteen hundred a year secured to you — safe from all 
 interference from me even if we quarrel." 
 
 176
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 177 
 
 " How perfectly hateful it sounds ! " She tried to thank 
 him but could not, her lips framed the pettish exclamation 
 instead: "Anyhow, Miss Altamont would have approved. 
 Fifteen hundred a year, which I shall retire on when you have 
 married Lady Dobree — though, after all, I've nothing to 
 retire from ! I'm not earning my salary." 
 
 " Don't talk like that ! " 
 
 She could shock him easily. He could not shock her. 
 
 Masters came back into the room, and she asked Veere a 
 colourable, indifferent question : " Wlien is Ada going to 
 Angernoune ? " 
 
 " August." 
 
 " Shall I go there and stay with her ? " 
 
 " Yes, do," said he calmly, though it was the first time the 
 idea had been mooted by the Avayward woman. " It would 
 be all right. I rather wanted you to. Let me tell you about 
 it. Tliere are practically two complete houses standing in 
 the courtyard. That is big enough to enclose a whole town- 
 ship, and did, in the Middle Ages. The old Keep is where 
 Mrs. Cox will live, and keep it clean — with help, of course — 
 and show it on Thursdays. That was the arrangement in my 
 uncle's time. Then there's the completely modern building 
 he built opposite — an act of vandalism, and Veere's Folly 
 they called it. I never can see the harm, personally, but 
 then I've got no taste." 
 
 " I think it's a cursed thing to remove landmarks." 
 
 " Why ? if they're so crocky they can't stand up, let alone 
 habitable ? The old people were just like me, if you will only 
 think of it ! They never scrupled to pull about or pull down 
 the old and insanitary or even the too small to hold them. 
 They'd have laughed in your face if you'd talked to them about 
 the Preservation of Ancient Buildings Society — thought it all 
 your eye and your d — d cheek ! They considered that they 
 had architectural ideas of their own quite as good as the ideas 
 of the previous man." 
 
 N
 
 178 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " Oh, once you go back to mediaeval times, they we,re as 
 good. The ages of Faith, you know. Men without a rehgion 
 can't have an architecture." 
 
 " Tosh, dear ! It's got nothing to do with it. You've been 
 reading Ruskin." 
 
 " Among others. But I do think the spirit of the age — 
 and you've got it finely exemplified, Ernest — is antagonistic 
 to beauty. You lie awake thinking of inventions for stupid, 
 selfish, besotted comfort — hideous mouldings by the piece — 
 creaky doors to not fit anywhere. All your minds are given 
 up to labour-saving appliances " 
 
 " The old people hadn't got to think of saving labour, when 
 they'd plenty of cheap labour-slaves. Thomas of Lancaster 
 put thousands of men on to Ky marays Castle, near here. You 
 shall go and see it. Wish we had 'em now, instead of these 
 Trades Union -ridden, uppish, brawling masses we have to 
 work with ! " 
 
 " Don't, Ernest. I happen to know you are awfully good to 
 your men." 
 
 " Have to be ! Well, to resume. There we have these two 
 complete dwelling-houses connected by an underground pas- 
 sage. Wlien Uncle Joris had one of his big, dull house-parties, 
 I used to have a bed in the Keep — in the haunted room for 
 preference. I think I'll go there next time. Dobree and her 
 little lot won't care to dig me out there, and stick my sheets 
 together with acid-drops, even in the daytime. She's got no 
 moral pluck at all. She's afraid of ghosts.'* 
 
 " Wlien is she coming ? " 
 
 " Well, you see — did I tell you ? — " He went on, without 
 waiting for the reply which, indeed, Betsey was not minded to 
 give, for it was in the affirmative and would have muzzled the 
 further explanation she longed for. " I asked her long ago to 
 play hostess for me in the home of her ancestors for the month 
 of August. Do you mind ? " 
 
 " No, of course not ! She was invited before me," replied
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 179 
 
 Betsey sedately. " And I don't see very well how we could 
 clash — I m the old house, and she in the new. ..." 
 
 She looked across the table at him, using all the power of 
 appeal of which her eyes were capable. " I would so like to 
 beg a promise of you. May I ? Say at once if you think you 
 can't do it." 
 
 " You sweet baby ! What ? " 
 
 " Promise you won't propose to her while I am there — if 
 I do settle to come." 
 
 " I'll promise that, easily — if you on your side will faithfully 
 promise to come," said he. " And — do you think I shall ever 
 propose to her at aU ? I'm very half-hearted. A month's 
 reign at Angernoune along of me might choke her off from 
 caring to reign there altogether. You know I don't love her. 
 She knows it — or she will. And when the sacrifice is consum- 
 mated I see myself flying out of our big house in Belgravia or 
 Bloomsbury to have tea with you in your little nest in Bromp- 
 ton — or perhaps you'll choose Kensington ? " 
 
 She gave a little moan — of disgust, discomfiture, alienation. 
 He was really rather trying. 
 
 " Ernest," she spoke severely. " I'll ask you one question, 
 ^vithout prejudice, mind ! Wliy, if you don't care for Lady 
 Dobree more than that, do you dare to contemplate marrjdng 
 her ? " 
 
 " Shall I tell you ? " he said, " and then you'll see that 
 you've known the answer to your o\vn question all along. 
 I am ambitious. For ambition I would sacrifice anything, even 
 love. I'd certainly sacrifice Love. One passion's as good as 
 another. There are only three that really move the world. 
 Ambition, Revenge, and Love. I choose Ambition for my 
 ruling one." 
 
 " You make a mistake." 
 
 " You say that because you are a woman. Women haven't 
 got beyond Love yet. I can see what Dobree is — can see that, 
 try as I might, I couldn't make her unhappy. So why shouldn't
 
 180 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 I marry her and improve my own position, which I care about 
 as an actor cares about his art or a poHtician his party ? By 
 the way, I should stand for Angershire. Dobree will get that 
 for me, and I shall get her the money she wants. She only cares 
 for money — quite nicely, you know, but it's in the Angernoune 
 blood. They are Norman peasants au fond and money's their 
 god. Dobree, personally, is not exigeante. Give her a child 
 and a couple of motor-cars and she'll be as happy as the day is 
 long." 
 
 " No. Au fond she is like other women, once you're married 
 to her, she won't stay a schoolgirl ! The baby — or the car — 
 will bring her on. Then — where Love isn't. Jealousy rushes 
 in, and instead of helping you in your schemes she may hinder 
 you. Now I've done. You said it might be without prejudice." 
 
 She had saddened him. He fiddled with the spoons on the 
 table. Masters came and deposited a coffee-maker in full blast. 
 
 " Of course, without prejudice," he said quietly. "Maybe 
 you're right ? One has to take risks, and marriage is the 
 biggest gamble of all. I'm getting commonplace, am I not ? 
 Anyhow, I'm with you now — you, my chosen companion — 
 the woman who's never bored me once since I've known her." 
 
 " A ' dead cert ' of amusement," she said bitterly. " Well, 
 I must play up, I suppose, or else you'll complain of me. You 
 did to-day, I remember." 
 
 " No, Betsey, I should love you if you cut your hair off and 
 preached all the time, so be as cross as you like." 
 
 " Love me — do you say ? " she asked, with wistful con- 
 tempt. 
 
 " Well, inferior being that I am — disgracefully, crassly 
 material, you do stand for Love with me ! " 
 
 " The passion you rank after Ambition and Revenge ! " 
 
 " No, not quite that ! " he whispered. " Let me kiss you, 
 and see ? " 
 
 " No, I won't let you play with fire," she said, with a forced 
 laugh.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 181 
 
 " Fire ? " 
 
 " I am fire, for the present." 
 
 " Are you ? Yes, you are. Only — such a pal as well ! " 
 He looked at her fondly. 
 
 She fidgeted on her seat. Her eyes filled mth tears. " I'm 
 here, alone with you. ... I daresay you find it rather 
 trying, but Lady Dobree's interests must be safeguarded." 
 She busied herself with the coffee. 
 
 He was silent. She could not know that he was thinking of 
 Dobree as he had seen her the last time but one in the Duke of 
 Lax's box at the opera. She was wearing her usual conven- 
 tionally cut dress that formally exhibited a brief section of 
 her chest — somehow one could not think of it as her breast ! 
 He had never seen Betsey except in a high black gown such 
 as she wore now. 
 
 " Wliy do you never wear a low-necked dress ? " he asked 
 her, suddenly. 
 
 " Because I've never in my life had occasion to get one," 
 said she, in as bitter a tone as she had ever used. The answer 
 revealed at once the deepest depths of the suburban agony 
 she had suffered. " Do you know, I have never been asked out 
 to dinner in my life, and I wasn't going to bother to dress for 
 a few scrubby makeshift concerts." 
 
 " Tlie pathos of that remark ! " He laughed. " It is the 
 Book of Job in a sentence. Now I see why you were so keen to 
 come out and live " 
 
 " With you ? " 
 
 " I suppose," he said hastily, " no one has ever told you that 
 you are ten times more charming en Cinderella ? I am sure of 
 it, though I've never seen you decolletee. Yet I like that plain 
 dress of soft black you wear. It is more like a nun's, except 
 that you've no wimple and that your neck rises firm and 
 straight from it like a round white pillar — of alabaster, shall 
 I say ? " 
 
 " I hate frills and horse collars," said she, blushing at his
 
 182 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 praise. " And I suppose my neck is self-supporting because I 
 don't put it in stays. Never did. The kettle boUs ! " She 
 began to pour out the coffee. " See how my hand shakes ! 
 I'm nervous because I cried this afternoon, so I believe you 
 are right. Tliese prolonged tete-a-tete between a man and a 
 woman generally lead to neurasthenia. I've got it in my arm, 
 all dowTi. That's why I suppose marriage is always found to 
 be the best arrangement for spacing out lovers' raptures. 
 Sugar ? "
 
 XXV 
 
 Angernoune Keep, like a grey-haired respectable man 
 of science, hemmed in by a gathering of smart people, 
 stood isolated, bewildered, and mediaeval in the vast 
 courtyard, opposite the sophisticated Gothic of the new 
 Dwelling House. Grass no longer grew from the roof of the 
 tower, that had never boasted battlements. Battlements had 
 been ruthlessly supplied by the innovator, the grass had been 
 tidied aAvay ; but the white cocldeshells of pilgrims still dotted 
 the lower courses of the north wall, and Ada's boy, standing 
 on the pediment, used to try in vain to pull them out of the 
 mortar, so firmly welded together by the traditions of Roman 
 science. 
 
 Modern and old seemed to stand and hate each other ; the 
 young sneered, the old frowned. The boy linked them, play- 
 ing quietly round the low Norman doorway that gave entrance 
 into the Keep, but longing, childlike, to pull the shiny electric 
 bell fixed in the oak portal of the Dwelling House. Billy was 
 growing strong and healthy, he had no dislike of the fierce 
 sea blast that drove perpetually round the corner of the lone 
 Keep, and tossed his hair, and kept him in continual disarray. 
 It lifted, too, the white locks of Boris, the great Newfound- 
 land, who couched and curvetted all day on the scrubby 
 stretch of lawn whence sprang the carefully husbanded ivy 
 that was supposed to soften the angles of the Dwelling House. 
 Nothing clothed the squareness of the Keep, the north wind 
 took care of that. 
 
 It was difficult to be complicated in a place like this. Mrs. 
 Altamont, consciously maimed by suburbanity and short 
 
 183
 
 184 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 views, found that her cribbed and cabined thoughts unrolled 
 like banners in this noble wind ; in the clear light the deeps were 
 revealed, and the deeps were pure and translucent, after all. 
 
 She was glad she had come. She thought that, if the better- 
 ment of the fortunes of the man she loved should demand and 
 obtain a mercenary marriage, she would choose to remain here 
 for the winter with Ada. She, then, would be nothing better 
 than a wounded animal, and the Keep at Angernoune would 
 be the lair into which she would creep, to sit there and nurse 
 her sorrow. 
 
 The guardroom of Angernoune comprised nearly the whole 
 ground floor, and was dark and soothing. The windows, mere 
 slits for archers to shoot from, could hardly illumine the low- 
 pitched, arched roof, whence all remnants of the authentic 
 plaster of the time had been scraped off by the hand of the 
 restorer, leaving the deeply-pitted surface that had held it so 
 well. The floor's covering of stout hempen matting muffled 
 the feet of outsiders coming in. Betsey chose to spend her 
 days in this part, leaving the kitchen, and housekeeper's room 
 that had been carved out of it, to Ada and her child. During 
 her visit, she agreed to relieve the less well-informed woman of 
 her paid job of showing the Keep on Thursdays, a task which 
 she naturally detested. But Betsey did it co7i amove. She got 
 up her facts carefully, from some old county histories which 
 she found upstairs. Ada had not been expected to do more 
 than render herself mistress of the sixpenny guide that lay by 
 the visitors' book. Local antiquaries, visiting the Castle with 
 their friends, set down the pretty woman's attention to their 
 words as a mark of intelligence, and posted her in many a 
 recondite fact which she was able to retail again. She became 
 an accredited cicerone in Angershire, where the Castle of 
 Angernoune was the staple of antiquarian discussion and 
 interest. 
 
 Ada must, of course, resume her duties as soon as Mr. Veere 
 should join Lady Dobree's party. That came, numerous.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 185 
 
 eager and bustling on the first of September, in motors and bus- 
 loads, ^vith lorries for its belongings, and thin maids and stout 
 maids, and one hairdresser — Lady Blessington's. 
 
 Betsey m the indulgence of her boundless curiosity, divested 
 nowadays of morbidity, disinfected as it were by the holy airs 
 of Angershire, sho^^'ed them all over the antique structure they 
 pretended so cleverly to be interested in. They did not notice 
 the exceptionalness of the cicerone, perhaps her beauty was 
 not quite so glaring ; she had grown thinner, paler, sharper 
 featured, and attracted less superficial observation than she 
 would have done a year ago. Before opening the door she 
 always peered through a side -loop window, mounting up into 
 the embrasure, the better to ascertain that Veere did not form 
 one of the party seekmg admittance. He was pledged to 
 write and tell her when he was on his way. He was detained 
 for the present in town by some rather tiresome business 
 relative to his succession to his uncle's fortune. But she knew 
 him, he was the sort of person who might motor down without 
 the slightest warning, on a sudden impulse. That is, if the 
 impulse to see her again should become too strong. 
 
 She had his heart — such as it was. 
 
 Lady Maude Erskine-Robertson visited the Keep, escorted 
 by the novelist, Lee-Brice. Tliey looked all over together, but 
 Lady Maude soon tired of Lee-Brice's real and insulting in- 
 terest in antiquities and cried off. 
 
 " I promised Vallance to have a game of tennis with him," 
 she declared as soon as they got on to the roof. " He is down 
 there on the common, waiting for me ! I can see his moustache 
 droop." 
 
 " Yes, they said there was a view from here ! " answered 
 Lee-Brice, without sarcasm. " Let us go down." 
 
 Betsey piloted them past the haunted room, which she 
 never showed to visitors if she could help. It was Veere's 
 room, and she slept in it. They got to tho bottom of the 
 stairs, she had felt the novelist's eyes in her back as they went
 
 186 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 down, and was not surprised when he whispered to her at the 
 door, " I'm coming back." 
 
 She wondered if she would be called upon to reel off any 
 more facts about Angernoune, or if he was like his books. 
 If he was like his books, he would make love to her. So she 
 superficially argued. But she knew she could take care of 
 herself, even with the author of The Red Corpuscles. 
 
 He wanted no more facts, and yet he was not in the least 
 like his books. He sincerely wanted to gloat over the old well 
 in the guardroom, to expatiate on the stone-flagged narrow 
 passages, to get the atmosphere of mediaevalism. He knew 
 more about Angernoune than she could tell him, and though 
 he had probably got it all up from the county history in the 
 smoking-room of the Dwelling House, he managed, with 
 literary sleight of hand, to reissue it with the imprint of his 
 own personality. He did not flirt with Mrs. Altamont, not so 
 much as by the turn of an eyelid, but she was sure that he had 
 come back to study her. 
 
 She was left full of a sense of the force and power of this 
 author with an ugly record. His reticence, his pointed im- 
 perial, and his record of expurgation, which he seemed to take 
 pride in falsifying, were what impressed her. There was 
 nothing squalid, nothing morbid about him. Were his passions 
 low, and his haunts vile ? His pose was perfect. Did he 
 really do harm by his books ? His visit had done her good. 
 
 Lady Dobree had a maid — of sorts — she was not what either 
 Betsey or Ada considered a proper maid. " More like a dresser 
 at a theatre," Ada said, and Ada knew. For Betsey, she had 
 her uses. She manoeuvred it. Miss Parker and Mrs. Cox, 
 they knew not why or how, struck up a friendship, and some- 
 times, after dinner and when the wind was not too cold, the 
 former would potter across and ring the bell of the doorway in 
 the Keep, for the key of the underground door of communica- 
 tion between the two buildings had been lost. Betsey knew who 
 had it in his safe keeping. Ada, her Billy safe tucked up in
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 187 
 
 bed, would be sitting, mending ; Betsey dreaming, playing 
 endless patiences, to soothe her mind before she slept. . . . 
 The woman's talk was all, as Betsey had supposed it would 
 be, about her mistress, and incidentally, about Mr. Veere. 
 The second time she came in she began, as usual, with a long 
 competent sigh of satisfaction, to rehearse her own maid-like 
 perfections. 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure, whatever my lady would do 
 without me ! " 
 
 " She always looks very nice," said Mrs. Cox, politely. 
 
 " I'm proud to say she does, but she wouldn't last a day if 
 it wasn't for me washing and mending her. Not that she's not 
 neat, she's got it in her, she's not like Lady Maude, over fond of 
 shoving things on — but would you believe it, Mrs. Cox, that 
 poor girl, for aU she's a title, hasn't got more than a couple o' 
 pair of silk stockings to her name ? And the ladders that 
 come in them along of the suspenders, you know, it takes me 
 half my time mending them ! And washing her veils — chiffon 
 will wash, but it rightly ought to be cleaned. But, gracious, 
 AAC can't run to so many cleaner's bills ! And her gloves — by 
 rights a lady oughtn't to wear darned gloves — but I'll defy 
 you to see my darns ! I join the long ones at the wrist same 
 as the girl at the shop showed me " 
 
 " It's very good of you, isn't it ? " said Betsey. 
 
 " Well, I put my back into it, so to speak, when they en- 
 gaged me. 'Twas my first place. I wasn't so particular then, 
 and I took a fancy to her. It was what Mr. Brooks calls a 
 sporting chance. I said, I'll see if I can't get her married 
 all off my own bat, and a nice husband to pay for her clothes. 
 Maids bring these things off more than you know. With a 
 little help from other ladies, that take an interest, for reasons ! 
 I'll tell you a secret. Lady Maude's got a bet on it. Last 
 season we had several of Lady Maude's own dresses. Her 
 maid didn't like it at all, I can tell you, seeing those good 
 clothes go past her ! She's a fool that Chaytor ! I shouldn't
 
 188 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 allow it if I were her. I mean to have my lady's wardrobe 
 when she's married. It'll be worth while, as it happens. 
 She's done herself well, and I'm never going to leave her — 
 not an earl's daughter like her, who's under obligations to 
 me. For Mr. Veere's the kind of man who wouldn't have 
 me chucked — afterwards." 
 
 " Mr. Veere ? " said Betsey, with a mute appeal in her eyes 
 to Ada to ask the necessary question. Ada played up : 
 
 " Is your lady marrying Mr. Veere then ? " 
 
 " Some time in December, I believe. The day ain't settled, 
 for the earl don't want it announced till — I'm sure I don't 
 know what it is exactly — something about business. Mr. 
 Veere's business. Seems as if he was in some sort of hole — 
 something that'll pass off. He's a queer sort of man, though 
 he's rich." 
 
 " Is he odd ? " Again Ada spoke. Betsey vowed grati- 
 tude. 
 
 " Well, it's an uncomfortable sort of business — not my idea 
 of an engagement, somehow ! He's just as nice to everybody 
 as he is to her, and more so. She cries about it sometimes, and 
 she was never a crier ! It's my belief he's never kissed her 
 properly except once when he proposed — in the drawing- 
 room of our flat, and Lady Maude was there, actually, in the 
 room ! They call themselves modern, and that, but even 
 modern is human, and if you don't hole-and-corner over an 
 engagement, when do you ? And an earl's daughter too — so 
 off-hand, not treating her respectful, I think ! " 
 
 " It seems a queer way to manage things," Ada said, 
 adding triumphantly, " And I say this, if he don't care to 
 kiss her or be with her alone, it won't come to nothing." 
 
 " Well, he gave her an engagement ring. They went and 
 bought it themselves. He gave Lady Maude cart-blank. It's 
 a queer sort of stone, an archimandrite they call it, green by 
 day and red by night — not a proper engagement ring at all. 
 And although the engagement isn't announced, she can wear
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 189 
 
 it fast enougli, for no one would ever take it for an engagement 
 ring, I say." 
 
 " Wiiy isn't the engagement to be announced ? " said Mrs. 
 Altamont, whose voice shook. 
 
 " I told you, didn't I ? There's what you call a pretender. 
 Mr. Brooks was telling me, saying that the late Sir Joris Veere 
 was married after all, and that the other man says he can 
 prove it. The business is a company now — they can't stop 
 Mr. Veere being one of the managers, anyhow. But still, it's 
 a lot of money to change hands, isn't it, if Mr. Veere was to 
 lose his case ? " 
 
 " I should be sorry," said Ada, with simple emphasis. " Mr. 
 Veere's been kind to me — putting me in here, and all." 
 
 " It isn't at all lilcely. Mr. Brooks says the other man hasn't 
 a ghost of a chance. Just good money wasted — his bringing 
 the action, but he's going to have a good try for it, I'm told. 
 Would he keep you on, Mrs. Cox ? You've got a nice place 
 of it, haven't you ? Pity if you was to lose it ! Nothing to do 
 but spin a tale about the old place once a week to the people 
 who come. And visitors too, as much as you like. Your 
 friend here is getting a nice blow, after London. You are a 
 Londoner, aren't you, Mrs. " 
 
 " Mrs. Adamson. I'm Mrs. Cox's sister-in-law." 
 
 " And I'm sure I hope this place will do you good. You 
 don't look well, for all you've got such a nice colour. Rather 
 nervous, aren't you? Circulation not very good, I expect. 
 Do you get chilblains ? My lady does — cruel, in the winter, 
 and a bit of a red nose, too, at times. We have to be very 
 careful ! " 
 
 " Yes, I saw her come home from riding yesterday with a 
 nose the colour of beetroot," said poor Betsey. 
 
 Ada thought the little ebullition of spite dangerous, and lest 
 Miss Parker resented it, hastened to add : 
 
 " She looks nice in the saddle." 
 
 " Yes. She's only just taken to that since she's been en-
 
 190 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 gaged. Mr, Veere stood her the lessons and gave her the 
 horse. But he's never rode with her. Mr. Lee-Brice does, now 
 — in the Park. Isn't he a fine figure of a man ? " 
 
 Betsey cordially agreed. She had had enough. She with- 
 drew her magnetism, and soon the loquacious creature took 
 her departure and was literally blown across the courtyard, 
 with her mincing London steps. 
 
 I
 
 XXVI 
 
 Betsey, coolly turning the matter over in her little 
 haunted bedroom, where she had gone after Miss Parker's 
 departure to ascertain if that lady's remarks about her 
 circulation bore the further implication of a red nose, 
 absolved Veere from any double dealing in the matter of his 
 engagement. He had probably proposed to Lady Dobree 
 before coming to Angernoune, while Betsey was absorbed in 
 the task of getting rid of Worksop House in Ada's interest and 
 selling the furniture. She had been too busy to see him. 'Twas 
 loneliness had tossed him to Lady Dobree's breast. She 
 honestly acknowledged to herself, moreover, that Mr. Veere 
 had been more or less engaged to the girl at a date long prior 
 to their first meeting in Charlton churchyard. 
 
 It was sharp practice, though. She could not sleep, but lay 
 tangled in her golden hair, crying through it, stifling her sobs 
 in it, drawing meshes of it across her burning eyes. 
 
 Half-way through the night her dismay culminated in an 
 access of hysteria. She sobbed and shrieked and bit her 
 pillow. Then she sat up, leaned forward and touched old 
 Ginger, the cat, that professional soother of the menage of 
 Worksop House, who lay curled up at the foot of the bed. He 
 murmured pellucid response, a loving gurgle — no more. It 
 comforted her a little. It was her one reaching-out for sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 Ada, who knew her heart, also knew better than to console. 
 
 Next day Betsey took Billy and went to the Bear Rocks to 
 get shells. When they were on the beach, she let the little boy go 
 
 191
 
 192 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 barefoot, and imitated him, and they went paddhng in and out 
 of the little pools, like eyes with lids of yellow sand, that lie in 
 the crevices of the long reefs of basaltic rocks half a mile from 
 Angemoune. Walking like this, the distance was as good as 
 doubled. Billy with his short legs might get tired, so she 
 presently anchored him at a single-handed game in one of the 
 eight little sandy coves that intersect the Bear Rocks, each one 
 hidden from and as beautiful as the other. She had no hat — 
 she seldom wore one — and she had let her hair down, half 
 savage, half swagger, and left her hairpins in charge of Billy, 
 while she looked to see what shells might linger in the next 
 bay, having thoroughly explored the first. 
 
 She came suddenly upon Mr. Lee-Brice, his great length 
 stretched out full as he pored over the golden sand, intent on 
 the same innocent quest as herself. Betsey stopped, looking 
 down on him, a little but not deeply confused. 
 
 He thought he had never seen — or imagined — such lovely 
 feet, with nails as pink and polished as the tiny winged shells 
 he was even now collecting, prying them out of the fine fringe 
 of coal that lay like a moustache on the lips of the strand. He 
 gazed at the fair feet boldly, they were nearer to his line of 
 vision than her face. And they were at least as beautiful. 
 
 Lee-Brice was a man of tact. He did not at any time out- 
 rage conventionality, he treated it cavalierly, and knew how to 
 be indiscreet without indiscretion. Rising to his full height, 
 dignified, graceful, easy, for he was a man in his prime, he ad- 
 dressed Betsey, after due pause for consideration of her 
 beauty. He did not call her goddess ; with royal facility he 
 remembered her name : 
 
 " Mrs. Adamson, have you ever seen this shell ? It is very 
 rare." He held it out to her, giving its Latin name. 
 
 " No, never. I didn't know you were a " 
 
 " Conchologist ? " 
 
 " — As well as a novelist." She got out the little compli- 
 mentary phrase with a shyness that charmed him, and con-
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 193 
 
 tinued to charm him as she went on : "I have read your novel. 
 I have even got a copy." 
 
 "Have you, indeed? Then stick to it," he said, laughing. 
 " You know what happened to that book ? " 
 
 " Yes. It was a shame ! We aU talked of nothing else 
 at " 
 
 " Where ? " 
 
 " \Vhere I lived." 
 
 " There are three copies in the Castle, then," said he, 
 respecting her reticence, though, author-like, he would have 
 enjoyed hearing the data for his popularity. " Lady Maude 
 Erskine-Robertson — the lady I ' shed ' the other day and 
 came back to see over the Castle properly with you — has one, 
 and Lady Dobree de Saye." 
 
 " It isn't a book for her at all." 
 
 " You are quite right. But the young girls of the present 
 day are too quick for us. They seem to shin up the ladder of 
 the Impossible and Improper while we still stand with one 
 foot on the lower rungs. Luckily, the younger they are, the 
 less it hurts them. You see they have not begun to think in 
 colour yet." 
 
 " How do you mean ? " 
 
 " As a line drawing or a Flaxman outline — to a Titian 
 or a Tintoretto, is the young girl's consciousness — to yours, 
 say ? You understand me ? Lines have no corporeality. 
 Nature has no outlines, only washes of colour blocked in, grey 
 or gorgeous as the case may be. Virtue in the next block 
 to sin, is only demarcated by delicate differences of hue. So 
 only you may know water from wine, the lamb from the wolf — 
 and the last two are apt to lie down together — in society, at 
 least." 
 
 " Then if only one's mind is like those empty whitewashed 
 paddocks one sees at railway stations before you put the sheep 
 and the goats in them, one can read your novels with im- 
 punity ? " 
 o
 
 194 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " Yes, as long as one remains unable to fill up the blanks — 
 put words for the asterisks ! But enough of my contributions 
 to contemporary literature. Tell me, do you know that 
 charming fellow, our host, who is engaged to supply the 
 colour scheme for Lady Dobree ? Pure accident — that en- 
 gagement ! " 
 
 She mnced. " Yes. I have spoken to him. Why do you 
 say their engagement is pure accident ? " 
 
 " Because I saw him at a man's dinner the night before 
 Maude Erskine- Robertson faked that engagement, and I 
 never knew a man less likely to make a woman an offer 
 next day." 
 
 " Did he thinly in line only, then, too ? " 
 
 " Ah, no, he's mature enough. . . . But he was describing 
 to me the type he admired, and it wasn't hers. It was more 
 like yours. . . . He considers Romney's Lady Hamilton to 
 be the highest female type of beauty." 
 
 " That is no guide," said she, quickly. " Men who admire 
 the fair type always marry dark women, just as women swear 
 they like a clean-shaven man, and then go and marry an im- 
 perial ! When is Mr. Veere due to come here ? " 
 
 " This afternoon." 
 
 " No, is he ? " 
 
 " Yes, he wired suddenly to the butler — old Brooks — do you 
 know him ? And Lady Dobree wanted the motor, both 
 motors, in fact, to go over to Kelso. So he's to be met in the 
 bus. Poor Veere, who simply can't bear crawling ! " 
 
 " Yes, I do think he might have been allowed to have one of 
 his own conveyances to bring him to his own place," she re- 
 plied nervously. They had walked on and now they came 
 to the shielded cove where Billy's intent head could be seen. 
 He was having a dinner-party of shells on a bit of smooth 
 golden sand. The ugly part of wading — shoes and stockings, 
 of which the prettiest exemplars will look squalid, deprived of 
 their context, lay near him. His and Betsey's. Lee-Brice
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 195 
 
 tactfully touched his hat and was making off, when a cry of 
 the heart arrested him. 
 
 " You little villain, what have you done with all my hair- 
 pins ? I left them here on this bit of rock " 
 
 " I made 'em all into boats and fish hooks," said Billy, thus 
 objurgated and mildly shaken. " And they wouldn't float and 
 they're at the bottom of the pool." 
 
 " Wliich pool ? " 
 
 The child indicated a neighbouring cranny, deep and secret, 
 and Eee-Brice came to the rescue. 
 
 " I'll dredge them up for you, while you put on your shoes 
 and stockings again, if I may ? " 
 
 Five minutes later he reappeared, with a small handful of 
 hairpins, to find Betsey shod and demure, but with her lovely 
 hair still spread over her shoulders. 
 
 " Are these all ? " he asked. 
 
 " Enough to work the ship, I dare say," said Betsey, using 
 them with celerity. Lee-Brice watched her, appreciatively, 
 but not impertinently, and finally proposed to walk home with 
 her. 
 
 His dripping shirt cuff, earned in her service, was a strong 
 argument in favour of her acceptance of his escort, besides it 
 was not like Betsey to object, although her heart was torn in 
 two by the news that had been given her the night before by 
 Lady Dobree's maid, and the excitement of an imminent 
 meeting with Ernest Veere. She never disdained the present 
 for the future, or one man for another. 
 
 Ernest Veere, in the station bus, drove past them in the 
 village. He saw Betsey and the author delicately stepping it 
 along the road up to the Castle, but scrupled to follow his first 
 cordial impulse to get out and join them. He betrayed his 
 motion, however, by a quick forward movement of his hand 
 to the check string. Thinking better of it, he fell back, 
 nodded to them both, and was slowly bowled on. 
 
 Betsey was in a silent flutter. IVIr. Lee-Brice, who noticed it.
 
 196 THE WIFE OF AETAMONT 
 
 began to converse with judgment, and tactful absence of 
 direct questioning. 
 
 " The charm of Ernest Veere's face," he observed, " lies in 
 his open yet cute smile. He always, somehow, reminds me of 
 cutlery — of some serviceable tool, shiny, smooth, and pre- 
 eminently efficient." 
 
 " Do you mean a bradawl ? " inquired Betsey, laughing. 
 She was terribly excited. She did not care what names she 
 called Veere. She was to see him in a short while — an hour, 
 two hours — at all events, that very evening. 
 
 " He's an extraordinarily clever young fellow," pursued the 
 author. " It's almost a pity he's got all that money — he 
 might have done so much without it ! " 
 
 " What, for instance ? " 
 
 " Married the right woman, for one thing ! A woman who 
 would have nothing to ' get over ' in him ! " 
 
 " What has Lady Dobree to get over ? He doesn't eat peas 
 with his knife, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Of course not ! He's all right in those things. Some- 
 thing far more subtle than that. You're quite clever enough 
 to understand. He jars, believe me. It's so funny to watch 
 them." 
 
 " Quite a privilege ! " replied Betsey, sourly. " Poor Mr. 
 Veere ! " 
 
 The author was carrying her into fields where her natural 
 wit had no play. She herself was too rough and ready to 
 envisage those subtle pitfalls imminent in daily intercourse 
 with Lady Dobree and her set which beset the self- 
 made man, and Lee-Brice missed her sure-footed criticisms 
 and comments on the kind of workaday life she knew best. 
 He did not choose to let her waUow any more in sloughs of 
 incompetent spite. She was a very pretty thing, and deserved 
 her millionaire, whom he would help her to get, furthering at 
 the same time a not altogether inchoate scheme of his own. 
 
 Half an hour later the unused key grated in the door that
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 197 
 
 connected the smart Dwelling House with the stern Keep, and 
 Mr. Veere, cheerful, smiling and expansive, was with Ada, 
 Betsey and Billy. 
 
 " Good luck ! They're across the border and away, I hear, 
 so I've got my freedom till dinner-time." 
 
 " I think she ought to have stayed to receive you, when 
 she knew you were coming ! " Betsey said. 
 
 " Rather not ! I purposely misled her. She didn't know 
 I was coming till to-morrow. I arranged it all with Brookie. 
 How do you like Brookie, Betsey ? He's an old faithful dear, 
 isn't he ? Yes, Billy, my son, that's for you — and this ! And 
 this is for your mother ! " 
 
 " Oh, thank you, sir — indeed," said Mrs. Cox. " And for 
 Billy too." She took her son's hand and negligently left the 
 room. Lately she had grown a delicate sense of not being 
 wanted. 
 
 " Well, Elisabetta, are you happy here ? I needn't ask, I 
 saw you escorted by the greatest novelist of the day up the 
 hill, I saw your golden hair shining in the setting sun — very 
 casually, but effectively, done up. And so did he, you bet ! 
 The cheek of you — wearing no hat ! Well, at any rate, you're 
 having a good time, and I'm delighted to see it ! Do you 
 like the naughty author ? " 
 
 " Mr, Lee-Brice has very nice modest manners, hasn't 
 he ? " she said demurely, " for a man who writes books that — 
 well, books that every gentleman's library should be with- 
 out ! " 
 
 " Ha, ha ! A very decent chap all the same, don't you 
 think ? And a regular CrcBSus. Wliy, the royalties on his 
 book alone " 
 
 " The one they've suppressed ? " 
 
 " No, he doesn't get any more on that. But the one before 
 — the one they made a play of — that brings in a few good 
 thousands a year. I declare he's a better parti than I, if only 
 the fair Dobree's advisers would let her see it. Especially
 
 198 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 now, when I don't know if I mayn't be chucked out of house 
 and home by the turn of the law ! " 
 
 " The law ! It's not cleverness needed to keep you in, but 
 right. Either that pretender is your uncle's son or he isn't." 
 
 " I believe he's faked a register or something. And if the 
 finding is on his side, I shall only have my wits." 
 
 " They're excellent ones. Mr. ILee-Brice says that you could 
 do anything you liked. He even says that you would do 
 better without any money at all ! " 
 
 The cute smile glittered. 
 
 " Does he expect me to make a handsome present of my 
 wealth to any one ? To him, say ? Then he could marry 
 Dobree. Is that what he's after ? " 
 
 " But I thought you were going to marry Lady Dobree ? " 
 she asked innocently. " Every one about here says you are." 
 
 " That's the idea ! "he replied uneasily. Was she going to 
 reproach him for his engagement, and the march he had 
 stolen on his promise ? He cared so much for her opinion on 
 everything, more than for that of any other person in the 
 world, excepting himself, that he was actually driven in his 
 own despite to ask her in so many words what she thought of 
 the step he had taken. 
 
 She primmed her full sweet lips; it was a little drop of balm in 
 the draught of bitterness, and she wanted to enjoy it to the full. 
 
 But Veere hated any approximation, on the mouth of a 
 woman dear to him, to the disturbing smile of Monna Lisa. 
 " Are you quite sure you don't object to anything ? " he 
 insisted. 
 
 " To what ? Everything's quite nice here, I think. Good 
 air— lovely sands, only I wish they had run to electric light in 
 the Keep " 
 
 " No, no, my engagement, I mean. I had to settle that in 
 London " 
 
 " Before you got here ? Practical, as ever." 
 
 He gave her up. " Practical, yes, and so is the girl's father
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 199 
 
 — won't have it announced until the pretender is disposed of. 
 Full of schedules and mortgages and what not. Oh, they're 
 an awful lot ! She's the bright spot in the family. Would you 
 beUeve it, he doesn't like me to take her name ! " 
 
 " He is right. A Norman name wouldn't suit you at all ! " 
 
 " Now, that's the first delightful bit of spite you've shown, 
 Betsey. Quite warms the cockles of my heart ! But I'm 
 afraid, my dear, it will have to be, for I mean to stick to that 
 point and get my owti way. I shall have old Angernoune under 
 my thumb as soon as the gentleman calling himself Ernest 
 Louis Veere is safely disposed of, as he will be. We've retained 
 the best heads in England. We can't fail. And I shall be a 
 cad Avith a Norman name. Am I a cad, Betsey ? " 
 
 " I've heard people call you a bounder." 
 
 " Oh, I say ! " His face feU. 
 
 " It's not so bad as cad, that you're trying to call yourself. 
 It doesn't, at any rate, mean anything dishonourable." 
 
 " One who bounds, merely. Do I bound, Betsey ? I 
 should have thought I was too busy and too hard- worked, and 
 not self-indulgent enough. Besides that wretched word's 
 often the last arrow in the quiver of people who are too slack, 
 too weakly, too fastidious to get on. It's an easy thing to say 
 — the sort of reproach you hurl at a Labour Member with a 
 majority of a few hundred behind him ! . . . You see I come 
 back to the House — I can't get away from the House. I'm 
 so keen to be in it. I can't settle down to be a mere manu- 
 facturer Avith a headpiece like mine. Yes, my head's got to 
 get me into the House, with a little adroit jockejdng of social 
 values and earl's daughters thrown in. Betsey, isn't it a fair 
 game ? They're pretty overweening, one has the right to get 
 the better of them, don't you think ? Say so, if you can ! " 
 
 " I should think it quite fair if only you were prepared to 
 give rather better value for your title. I don't mean money, I 
 think you'll be generous about that, but I mean that poor 
 little Lady Dobr6e wants something more."
 
 200 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 His head dropped on to his hands. 
 
 " Betsey, I can't. Positively, I can't. And that's the 
 weak, the mean point in my scheme." 
 
 " Is it me ? " she asked frankly. " For if it is, I could go." 
 
 " No, I desire you as a woman, if you must have it, but I 
 hold on to you still more as a pal. Don't desert me, please. 
 You would do her no good, and your going would send 
 me off my head, I believe. Stay here, and let me come and 
 talk things over with you sometimes, as I am doing now. I 
 am very amenable. You must admit I don't persecute you by 
 making love to you. Since I cannot — may not — I am resigned 
 to see Lee-Brice doing it, or any other fellow you like to 
 take on." 
 
 " Yes, you must really let me manage my own affairs — of 
 the heart. But would you like to explain how you came to 
 take the plunge, and then I can see if Mr. Lee-Brice was 
 speaking the truth ? " 
 
 " Oh, did he talk about it, the beggar ? " 
 
 " No, you talked to him. You mentioned the type of 
 beauty you happened to admire." 
 
 " Yours, of course," said the young man, simply. " But I 
 hope he hasn't twigged." 
 
 "Oh, no. You said too many kind things for the portrait to 
 be recognised. I've gone off sadly. Hair three shades 
 darker ! " 
 
 " Nonsense ! Pure gold wire, spun glass, floss silk, all 
 the nice things they can possibly call hair. But about 
 Dobree, you wanted to know. . . . Well, I proposed to her 
 one day in July, during that week when you were too busy 
 packing up and so on, to see me." 
 
 " I know," she murmured sombrely. " I took my eye off 
 you for one minute and " 
 
 " Oh, I know you disapprove. But — I don't know how 
 it was, I seemed to get myself fixed up for life in a sort of 
 unamorous fury, the business-devil driving me, don't you
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 201 
 
 know ! He does ride me sometimes — he's an inlierited devil, 
 of course, he made all this ! " 
 
 He waved his hand to indicate the artificial mounds and 
 stiffly laid out rock gardens of Angemoune. 
 
 " I knew I was down in his book to commit this error, or 
 act of wisdom — what you will, and I thought to myself, 
 ' Oh, come, damn, let's get it over ! ' Lots of fellows, it's 
 my firm belief, scuffle into it like that ! They get hypnotised 
 by the notion of the general suitability of an engagement — 
 it grows to seem a thing that's got to be, like confirmation " 
 
 " Or death ? " 
 
 " If you like. Well, I went to call at the flat, and I said 
 — something leading, I suppose. They had got me into that 
 sort of mood " 
 
 " They ? " 
 
 " Lady Maude and Dobree. It was in that horrid up- 
 holsterer's Louis Quinze room of Dobree's, all flowers and 
 frames and cushions and hot cakes — you seem to be swimming 
 in an atmosphere of spooniness the moment the ribbony 
 maid closes the door on you, and Dobree was less arrogant 
 than usual. It might even be called yielding. Then Lady 
 Maude, who was more or less about, took good care to clinch 
 it — told the sun to stand still upon Gibeon, don't you know, 
 until I'd made Dobree mine — and left the room. Not before 
 she'd, as it were, knocked our two heads together in an 
 engagement kiss. So I had to stand to it, and pretend I was 
 thoroughly in the picture, which I wasn't. I was in your 
 picture." 
 
 " Then I think you did very wrong. And now — she cries 
 herself sick about your backwardness — so her maid says." 
 
 " What can I do ? It's only three weeks ago. I've given 
 her a ring, two kisses and a dozen riding lessons. If she 
 can't stand me, she can chuck me. Ha, ha ! Perhaps that's 
 what I'm driving at all the time ? " 
 
 Betsey's eyes lightened, glanced, and were cast down.
 
 202 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 This terrible off-hand conversation represented her informal 
 trial of the man who had failed her. He was to stand or fall 
 by these jerky, ill-chosen sentences, and half-meant, ill-chosen 
 expressions of apology. It was enough for her. His nervous 
 laughter was music to her ears. He passed and repassed her 
 in a constant cell-Hke walk, and her hands sketched a grasp- 
 ing gesture now and again. 
 
 He went on : 
 
 " I don't formulate any plan. And yet — there does seem 
 a kmd of barbaric honour in making her find me inadequate, 
 isn't there ? She has got a bad bargain — a man who doesn't 
 really care for her. That would be the only sort of thing she 
 would ever throw me over for — if she ever did, something 
 personal, something that hurts her poor little pride. She's 
 proud, though she loves money. Whereas, if I lost the case 
 and all my money, I beheve I should positively have to bash 
 her to make her give me up. You can't tell, but that's my 
 idea of her. And I ought to know her pretty well ? " 
 
 " You don't know her a bit — any more than I do. I 
 confess I don't think there's much to know. But one thing 
 I'm certain of, and that is, that though you're every sort of 
 dear yourself, your attitude in this is simply that of a cad." 
 
 " Hold on ! . . . Betsey, no ; you may shake your pretty 
 head till your pretty hair comes down — as it has ! — but you'll 
 not convince me that I'm a cad. I'm not ! I'm not ! Human 
 beings, when it comes to the real big things, can't order their 
 lives on conventions. Those are all right for merely social 
 difficulties " 
 
 " But that," she said quickly, " is just where bounderish- 
 ness comes in. You can't afford to stop being a gentleman 
 the moment the drawing-room door closes behind you. It's 
 so easy not to drop your " h " s, or eat peas with your knife — 
 so much more difficult to realise your attitude to other people, 
 when to indulge, when to resent, how much you are bound to 
 give for nothing, and how little to take even when it is due
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 203 
 
 to you. And with Lady Dobree, where your liabilities are 
 so ill-defined " 
 
 " Yes, Betsey, you talk very well ; but still, that sort of 
 thing comes outside of oneself somehow. It's all a question 
 of markets, even with an earl's daughter. And I say that 
 we are nothing but brute beasts at bottom in a world that's 
 over-populated, and that the moment the struggle for life 
 sets in, it takes precedence of everything ! " 
 
 " Even of honour," she said bitterly, taking away her 
 hand from his. She rose from her seat and caressed Ada's 
 geraniums in the window. " Fais ce que peux — not dois, that 
 is the bounder's gospel. Ernest, did you ever hear of the 
 gentleman wrecked, and clinging to a plank in mid-ocean, 
 who took his hands off and preferred to drown rather than 
 incommode a lady ? " 
 
 "Oh, dear," he groaned, catching her to him and burying 
 his face in the folds of her dress. " Be kind to me, even if 
 I am a cad." 
 
 She looked down on him with grave tenderness. " Let us 
 call it an opportunist ! " she murmured. 
 
 He raised his head. 
 
 " I say, who taught you to use such long words ? Your 
 latest, Lee-Brice ? "
 
 XXVII 
 
 The evening closed in. The Avindows of the DwelUng 
 House began to twinkle meretriciously, one single beam 
 of light from Ada Cox's ill-trimmed lamp was all that came 
 from the lone Keep. The newly returned master of Anger- 
 noune was making merry with his friends, after their own 
 style. They were all " dressing up " for charades, rummaging 
 in everybody's rooms for the wrong clothes; the run on 
 ladies' nightgowns was tremendous. Even Miss Parker's 
 modest wardrobe was pressed into the service. Shrieks of 
 joy accompanied every fresh travesty. Lady Maude led the 
 revels ; she had, it was said, the right figure for it. 
 
 The two sad, solitary women took up their position in 
 the guardroom on the ground floor of the Keep, and gazed 
 out through the archer slits pierced in the thickness of the 
 wall. They perched themselves each in her separate em- 
 brasure — Ada with her boy squeezed up into the narrow 
 space beside her — and surveyed the empty space, like a 
 stage, set between the two buildings, and listened to the 
 eldritch screeches that greeted Lord Vallance's appearance 
 as the Lorelei, swathed in Lady Maude's Paris lingerie, 
 Lee-Brice as Lady Wellington's, and Lady Maude herself as 
 Mephistopheles, an airy costume she never travelled without, 
 for it took so little room. The performance wound up with 
 the horrors of a Channel passage, enacted by Lord and Lady 
 Blessington. 
 
 The noises ceased. Betsey and Ada, cramped in their 
 unnatural positions, prepared to abandon them. But 
 
 204
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 205 
 
 the door of the Dwelling House was softly opened, 
 and by common consent they remained to see the play 
 played out. 
 
 "White figures stole forth ; bare arms posed on black coat- 
 sleeves indicated the manly prop that, shadow-like, sup- 
 ported them. The crushed shells of the drive crackled under 
 satin-shod feet, and the red glow of cigarettes began to light 
 up the dark encoignures of the walls. No one cared to walk 
 on the damp strip of lawn except Lady Dobree. 
 
 Ghost-like, in her long clinging white dress, she paced up 
 and do^vn, backwards and forwards, on the wet grass, clinging 
 to the arm of Ernest Veere, stooping over him a little, for she 
 was slightly taller than he. It gave her a possessive air 
 which angered Mrs. Cox. Passionate arrows of ill-will sped 
 from her eyes on behalf of her friend, and she muttered 
 jerkily : 
 
 " He's giving her his arm ! If he cared for her, he'd take 
 hers. Don't I know ? . . . Silly fool ! Letting her good 
 dress trail on the wet grass to show him she's got another 
 to put on when that one's spoiled." 
 
 " She hasn't got another," Betsey murmured from her 
 neighbouring window. " I guess that's why she's marrying 
 him. And he knows it." 
 
 She thought she hated Ernest. She had taken to compar- 
 ing him with Wilfrid. She compared him to his disadvantage. 
 The wife of a murderer — no doubt ! Better that than the 
 promised bride of a bounder ! It had a finer sound. She 
 preferred it. 
 
 (Where had they got to now? They had left the grass 
 plot ? ) 
 
 Crime, yes ; but a reckless, dare-devil crime, followed by 
 a noble attempt at suicide, thwarted by the grandmotherly 
 Law of England which took no count of honourable obligations 
 that should have been allowed their proper fulfilment. Wil- 
 frid had wished to pay his debt to society, he had offered a
 
 206 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 'i 
 
 i 
 
 life for a life ! There was something fine, after all, in the way 1 
 he had, without a moment's hesitation, turned his weapon 
 on himself. | 
 
 Those magnificent specimens of the criminal class who had ] 
 lived here in the old days, who had trodden the very floor of i 
 this room she was in, and had sat there drinking success to !; 
 their depredations, would have done honour to WUfrid. Or 
 rather, they would have thought nothing of the deed for \ 
 which Wilfrid was even now languishing in prison. They ■ 
 would not have stuck at twenty such deeds done in the | 
 name of revenge or self-aggrandisement. But surely the 
 stern, bearded buccaneers would have turned away in sick { 
 loathing of the slick opportunism, the vague, intangible i 
 immoralities of the heir that the might of money, not the 
 power of the sword, had foisted on their stormy record of ! 
 grandeur. 
 
 (Where had they got to? Everybody had gone in, he 
 must have slipped in also ?) i 
 
 Her limbs ached. She climbed down from the window 
 and invited Ada to do so too. The two women put the little '< 
 boy to bed, both kissed him, both tucked him in, and heard \ 
 his prayers. By common consent they spoke only to the | 
 child, not to each other, except to say good night. Betsey 1 
 swiftly sought her little bedroom in the roof, and opening her i 
 window looked out. \ 
 
 It had turned out a horrid night. There were no stars. 1 
 There was no moon. The air was full of damp, clinging j 
 particles of moisture. Betsey realised that the sea-fret was j 
 creeping up slowly, biting in and in, enveloping the coast in 
 a sea-borne winding sheet. They would be enwrapped for 
 hours and hours. The human being in her realised with some 
 actual distress her mere physical obliteration. Tliis little 
 horde of uncongenial persons fortuitously grouped on the | 
 Castle rock would be isolated in a short while from the rest 
 of the world. They would all be shut in together with their |
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 207 
 
 plans, their dislikes, and their sins. Horrible, that she should 
 be boxed up Avith a Lady Dobree ! 
 
 A few lights still burned in the Dwelling House. Wearied 
 out with forced jollity, the house party had at last sought its 
 curtained rooms, and was undressing in the mock daylight 
 of electricit3^ Not a member of it had probably even 
 thought of looking out into the night. 
 
 Betsey's wide sash window, set by the early Victorian 
 innovator, had no curtains. She laid her elbows on the sill 
 and looked out moodily on the dark blue stage cloths hung 
 before her, seemingly soft textured, fraught with a grey 
 bloom, like the stuff of a woman's woollen gown. . . . 
 
 Her earnest gaze could not penetrate the night. Six hun- 
 dred feet below, at the foot of the Castle steep, the girdling 
 waters lay very close, she knew, for the tide was high. But she 
 could not even make out the faint line of breaking waves that 
 would indicate the serrated coast line to the north, or the shores 
 of Holj^stone, the island a mile or more out to sea, where cor- 
 morant families in thousands nest and cover the ground like 
 a crowd of castaway sailors. It was all dark, dark, and silent 
 too — not the sound of the tiniest wave that breaks futilely 
 over a jutting promontory could come to her, here alone, 
 perched on the rock of Angemoune. 
 
 She shivered, as the rank cold mist from the crawling 
 waters rose, as it were, to a slow measure, and enveloped 
 the mound on which she abode, lapping it round with 
 its sleeping folk, in a soft blanlcet veil of weltering vapours, 
 made of all the tears that had ever been shed by women, 
 weeping, brooding over the woes of the world that they can- 
 not prevent or stay. . . . For women see so well how it is, 
 the ^vilful exercise of strength that leads men to set their 
 wits against each other, the remorse, the suffering as of 
 chidden, headstrong children, when the battle is to the 
 stronger, as it must be, and the Wilfrids of life are forced to 
 the wall.
 
 208 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 Poor Wilfrid, whom she had always refused to visit in 
 his prison ! Wilfrid, the man who had never had a chance — 
 so Ada who loved him and saw him truly, had always said — 
 poor Ada, who would have gone to see him like a shot, had 
 she been permitted or even invited ! Wilfrid, after the first 
 moment, had never asked for her. The shock, they said, 
 had wiped her from his mind. 
 
 Betsey slept, her slumbers soured and saddened by an 
 importunate dream of Wilfrid. It was a vivid dream. If 
 she had been Ada Cox she would certainly have gone down 
 to breakfast swearing that she had actually seen the man 
 sitting, bowed and bent, in his cell, his thin, transparent 
 hands fumbling with the collar of his shirt — intent on nothing, 
 after the manner of madmen. . . . But Betsey knew that 
 she would have the strength of mind not to tell her dream ; 
 she would keep the secret of her new-found pity to herself, 
 out of consideration for the weaker human vessel. 
 
 " I have neither Faith nor Hope," she thought to herself 
 as she dressed. " But I believe I have gained Charity. ..." 
 
 She hugged her new-found virtue. She felt a little happier. 
 And when she looked out of the window, as she had done 
 overnight, the wall of vapour still faced her as before, but 
 it was trembling and white. And as she gazed, spikes of 
 daylight as yellow as her hair seemed to pierce the thin 
 veils of mist and part them. The lazy, reluctant films re- 
 ceded, were wafted off in parcels of milky radiance, that a 
 gay, imperative dawn was breaking and pushing away. . . . 
 
 She stood there tranced, watching this ordinary process of 
 nature till all ambiguity was gone from everything. Old, 
 grey, but undismayed, the rock of Angernoune reappeared 
 from the wrack, like an ancient faith assailed, but un- 
 abashed. The Keep commanded anew the shore for miles, 
 a beacon for night- worn mariners, that were even now, some
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 209 
 
 of them, holding their hands before their eyes to realise with 
 joy their grizzled landmark standing firm another day. 
 
 She clapped her watch on to her breast, slipped her rmgs 
 over her finger, and ran along the narrow stone-flagged 
 passages that led from her room to the twisting turret stair 
 that was the only way to the ground floor. As she passed 
 down along its windings she caught sight, through the slits 
 that served for windows, of a section of the drive in front 
 where the mica and quartz glistered in the sun like silver, of 
 the sodden patch of grass, set with fairy rings, beyond, where 
 Boris, the dog, already bounding and awake, lay couched for 
 a spring. 
 
 Her husband's child called her in his fresh young voice. 
 
 " A letter ! Two whole letters for you, Auntie Betsey. 
 With O.H.M.S. on them both ! " 
 
 Her mood changed. . . . 
 
 About ten o'clock every one in the Dwelling House agreed 
 that this was going to be a day of days for Angernoune. The 
 sun was shining brilliantly, the air was mild, soft breezes 
 blew in from the sea. No one realised that all last night they 
 had lain enwrapped in a thick shroud of mist, that their dying 
 cries would have been stifled, and their eyes sealed with im- 
 permeable vapours, and that for a few hours they had been 
 as one with sea and sky. Later on, they had looked out of 
 carefully upholstered windows and seen the world was good. 
 The ladies agreed that it was at last a day that justified 
 the summer frocks that had lain so far unused, but not 
 forgotten, in trunks and wardrobes until they should appear 
 seasonable. Sparkling in white linens, quaking, some of 
 them, in furtive muslins, for the wind was still fresh, the 
 members of Lady Dobree's house-party, their hands full of 
 novels and newspapers, tripped up the steep stone staircase 
 that led to a favoured coign of the brand new battlements. 
 They bestowed themselves in one of the wide embrasures with 
 circular stone seats that had been arranged at intervals along
 
 210 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 the line of it by a beneficent architect. To keep up the mili- 
 tary effect an effete cannon stood in each, its muzzle defjdng 
 a seaward enemy. 
 
 It was cold, all the same. People drifted away for constitu- 
 tionals. Soon Lady Dobree and Lady Maude, with Lee-Brice 
 and their host for attendant cavaliers, alone were left. 
 
 Lady Maude's eyes wandered to the door of the Keep, where 
 an etiolated little boy was pla3dng, timidly throwing a ball now 
 and then for the dog to catch, and as timidly retreating 
 from the wild rushes his gesture provoked. She remarked, 
 idly: 
 
 " That's a nice pair of women you've chartered to keep the 
 Keep, Ernest. I often notice them flitting about. I'm quite 
 jealous. The dark one is like an overworked Burne- Jones, and 
 the other like a Romney — later period. Gone to seed, rather — 
 blowzy ! " 
 
 " Yes," Lee-Brice agreed with her, leaving the looks of Mrs. 
 Cox out of account. " The Romney 's is not a beauty that will 
 last. But she is splendid now. A queer type — full of discor- 
 dants. Her colouring is so vivid, yet soft ; the lines of her 
 face are so defined as to be almost hard in effect. There's 
 no shading, no gradation about the curves, the cavities of 
 the eye sockets are extraordinarily clean cut and sharp. Then 
 those velvety, dark, arched eyebrows, over bold blue eyes, that 
 fine bow-shaped mouth and Greek nose remind me of the best 
 Lady Hamiltons ! And her hair with its two shades " 
 
 " — Shows she doesn't dye it ! " said Lady Maude, gener- 
 ous, but bored to death. 
 
 The author went on : "I was looking at it as she sat on the 
 rocks with me a few days ago." Lady Maude raised her eye- 
 brows. " It was so like the shading of the basalt — gold and 
 tawny, with deep strong shadows " 
 
 " You appear to admire her ? " 
 
 " Yes — as much as I admire anything so full blown," said 
 he, with a glance at Lady Dobree's pure null profile, with
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 211 
 
 its Roman nose and touching angularities of cheek. " She 
 had a child with her," he added in a vaguely explanatory 
 manner. 
 
 " It's not hers, it's Mrs. Cox's, the dark one's," said Dobree. 
 " It's not a bad-looking child either — reminds me of some one 
 I know, somehow. But I suppose it's like its papa. That is 
 if she's really married. So many people aren't. Where's 
 Mr. Cox ? " 
 
 " Is the Romney married too ? " Lady Maude asked Ernest 
 Veere, disregarding this flippant excursion of the ingenue into 
 her own province. 
 
 " I haven't inquired," said he, plausibly. " Mrs. Cox just 
 asked me if she might have her sister-in-law down here for a 
 change of air, and I said yes. Perhaps — she may be married, 
 of course — wife of a poor clerk, I should think ? " 
 
 " If once you come to think, I wonder you don't get to 
 know ! " said Dobree severely, and Veere realised that he 
 was protesting too much. 
 
 " I must go and start the Blessingtons at croquet," he said 
 hastily. " Boris has chewed all the balls and made them un- 
 even, and there are about six blades of grass each for them to 
 roll on." He departed, and the girl looked after him, and then 
 back at Lady Maude, who had turned to the novelist and was 
 wagging her finger at him. 
 
 " Wordy ! " she said. " He admires the Lady of the Keep ; 
 I have a flair in these matters. That's all rubbish about her 
 being Mrs. Cox's sister-in-law. You look out, Mr. Lee-Brice, 
 and take fewer walks with basaltic -haired chatelaines, or you'll 
 find yourself trespassing on some one else's preserves." 
 
 Dobree looked puzzled, a little annoyed at her chaperon's 
 crudity. She stood, poised on one foot, anxious to leave them, 
 anxious to hear more. 
 
 " I suppose," she said humbly " there is a something about 
 women like that " 
 
 " Something — a je ne sais quoi, that makes for unrighteous-
 
 212 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 ness ! " said Lee-Brice, laughing. But there were tears in the 
 young girl's eyes as she turned away, 
 
 " Something that makes for men, I suppose you mean ? " 
 said Lady Maude, brusquely, for she saw the tears. She was 
 really fond of the girl whose fortunes she had a bet on, and 
 disliked to see her teased. "Oh, he'll ranger himself ! That 
 kind of man does. He'll have every bourgeois virtue — soon. 
 Dobree, why don't you go and take a hand at croquet ? They 
 seem to want a fourth badly." 
 
 The girl got up and obeyed. Lady Maude turned to the 
 author and spoke to him seriously. 
 
 " My dear soul, you shouldn't worry that poor girl about 
 her man ! Don't you see, poor little wire-haired terrier that 
 she is, that she's now come bang against life, and doesn't 
 know what to make of it ? She's got all a woman's tribula- 
 tions, and no savvy at all. She can't manage her engagement 
 in the very least." 
 
 " It's such an impossible engagement. And she is, as you 
 say, a sweet, straight, undeveloped piece of mechanism, with 
 only one slide to her little lantern. I thought that blue tear 
 I saw in her eye as she ran off adorable. She wept it because 
 the strands of her hair are all one colour, like the strands of her 
 soul. There's no more twist in the woof and warp of that 
 child's heart than will suffice to keep it together. Now the 
 other, the Lady of the Keep " 
 
 " Mrs. Adamson ? " 
 
 ■" —Has lived." 
 
 " With Ernest ? I hope not. By the way, talking of him, 
 did you see in the paper this morning that that murderer — you 
 know, what was his name — the man that shot old Sir Joris, has 
 at last succeeded in committing suicide ? They found him in 
 his ceU with his throat cut with a rusty nail he got hold of, and 
 he's not expected to live this time. Don't you remember at 
 the time of the trial how Ernest ajjicher'd himself with the 
 wife ? Every one was talking about it and trying to get a
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 213 
 
 sight of her, but all they could find out was that she had 
 3-ellow hair. That they saw through the thick veil she sported. 
 And he was always flashing by all his friends in a motor, 
 breaking the speed limit so that we shouldn't see who it was 
 he had with him. It's all over now, of course, but we were so 
 afraid once he was going to marry the widow as soon as her 
 husband was hanged. But it's blown over, luckily. I suppose 
 when he got penal servitude for life she subsided into the 
 suburbs again." 
 
 " Wliich was her particular suburb, do you remember ? " 
 
 " I can't remember. Stop, was it Wimbledon ? But, of 
 course, it won't make any difference now. Dobree has really 
 got Ernest, if she cares to stick to it. Do you know, I think 
 I've stood the wind long enough. Let us go down." 
 
 Halting, impeded by skirts, maimed by high heels, she 
 clambered dovm. from the battlement, and lightly took the 
 author's arm till, as they passed the door of the Keep, she 
 paused and hung all her weight on to it. 
 
 " Wait a moment. I wonder if it is only the effect of the 
 wind howling round these old corners? To me it sounds 
 exactly Uke a woman crying. I hear it most distinctly, 
 don't you ? " 
 
 " It is probably a child in disgrace. His Romney aunt has 
 whipped the Burne-Jones nephew, probably. She looks a 
 bit of a Tartar. Come along, dear lady," he persuaded Lady 
 Maude, who seemed disposed to linger, for she took a morbid 
 interest in the two women that lived in the Keep. " I fancy 
 it's not a case for sympathy. Morning noises are always 
 squalid, never tragic."
 
 XXVIII 
 
 " Oh, Betsey, Betsey, you're a widow now ! " 
 
 The mistress of Altamont wept bitterly as she looked 
 over his wife's shoulder, and read the official missive that 
 coldly set forth the fact that Wilfrid Adamson, alias Alta- 
 mont, had taken his life in prison. There were two communi- 
 cations from the Home Office. The one had been delayed in 
 transit ; the new tenant of Worksop House had been in no 
 hurry to forward it. It invited Betsey Altamont to come 
 at once to her husband, who was not expected to live, as a 
 result of his third attempt at suicide, . . . 
 
 Would Betsey have gone ? Oh, yes, she would, she would ! 
 She had been thinking of him all the night past, the night 
 preceding his decease, the night preceding his actual decease, 
 when he most thought of her. 
 
 She managed to conceal the first telegram from Ada, and 
 nursed her shame and remorse in stony silence. She had no 
 tears. Ada, grown wise in her beloved rival's psychology, 
 took no umbrage and wept for two. Her wails were heard 
 outside the walls of the Keep. Luckily, however, by no one 
 but the Lady Maude, adroitly side-tracked by Mr. Lee-Brice. 
 
 By midday the simple creature had, as it were, wept herself 
 out ; her tears were for the moment dried up at the source. 
 She sat about in an untidy heap, made herself innumerable 
 cups of tea, and seemed chiefly concerned to know Betsey's 
 views on certain points connected with her dead husband. 
 
 With childish insistence she attempted to inform herself. 
 
 214
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 215 
 
 " Say you respect him now, Betsey ! You once said you 
 would think more of him if he took his own Hfe ! " 
 
 " Did I, dear ? It sounds so awful. But I suppose that is 
 what I meant. I do think less hardly of him." 
 
 " Bless you ! " said the poor woman. " And, Betsey, will 
 you wear mourning ? " 
 
 " I daren't," said Betsey. " It might give it away. But 
 let me see, you might slide a little black in somehow ? . . . 
 Your Sunday dress is black, isn't it ? Mine is blue serge — very 
 dark. The only thing is, and I am afraid it will upset you, you 
 mustn't for your life put the child into black. That would be 
 very marked." 
 
 " Mustn't I really ? His o^\^l father ! " 
 
 " We are pensioners of Mr. Veere, Ada, and we must be 
 guided by his wishes. He doesn't want any one to know who 
 we are — so there it is. I'm sorry." 
 
 " I think I'll make a cup of tea," said Ada, swallowing 
 her disappointment and flying to her one panacea. " And 
 what are you going to do after this, Betsey ? Is it any 
 good my arsking ? You and Billy are all I've left to care 
 for." 
 
 " I don't mind your asking, if I only knew myself." 
 
 " Are you going to America ? " 
 
 " No, I'm off that." 
 
 " Don't mean to marry ? " 
 
 " I think not." 
 
 " No, don't you marry again. Stay a widow. We'll be 
 widows together — once marrying is enough. I talk as if I'd 
 been married, don't I — and so I do feel as if I'd been married 
 to the man that's dead. Oh, dear Betsey, you've been so kind, 
 do you mind my saying that ? It's cheek, I know." 
 
 " Nonsense, dear ! Have I ever minded ? You're a good 
 sort, and as soon as I found that out, I've been quite willing 
 to take cheek or anything else from you. I think we've both 
 behaved fairly well over it all. Oh, my head ! "
 
 216 THE WIFE OP ALTAMONT 
 
 Ada brewed the tea and brought her a cup. Betsey put her 
 hand up and clasped the kind one that was ministering to her. 
 
 " Ada, I'm miserable ! " she said. 
 
 " Poor soul ! It isn't about Wilfrid, either, is it ? " 
 
 " No, not about Wilfrid." 
 
 " You can't take me in, can you ? " 
 
 " Nor don't want to," said the other, spiritlessly. " You'll 
 not do me any harm." 
 
 " Harm you, Betsey ? Why, I'd go to my death for you, 
 that's what I would do. If my death would give you your 
 heart's desire — and I know well enough what that is — you 
 should have it and welcome. Wliat's that silly girl to him ? 
 You and him been to each other — what Wilfrid and I been to 
 each other pretty near — or thereabouts, and why's she with 
 her blasted title to come in and part them as has known each 
 other like you two have — I say it's a shame ! " She went 
 away, muttering faint cockney curses. 
 
 Betsey saw that Ada Cox had formed the obvious and in- 
 evitable opinion as to her relations with the young man with 
 whom she had been constantly intimate since the day of the 
 funeral of Miss Altamont — with whom she had travelled 
 abroad. . . . What else could Ada think, what else could any- 
 body think who knew of it ? She did not care to disabuse her. 
 It was even a point of consolation that Ada, with her sad 
 slum wisdom and hard and fast social code, should think no 
 other form of alliance had been possible. 
 
 Later on in the afternoon she said : 
 
 " There's to be a high tide on the Bear Rocks this afternoon. 
 They say the waves will be highest about five. I'll go down 
 and see. It might cure my headache." 
 
 " Wind's bound to make it worse." 
 
 " Not this sort of headache. . . . No, I won't take Billy, 
 he'd be a responsibility, and in this gale, it's not so easy for a 
 grown-up person even to keep his footing on those rocks." 
 
 She tied a veil over her cap and hair, and like a drift of grey
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 217 
 
 smoke blown this way and that, made her way by the wind- 
 swept links to the place where the waves ran reputedly highest 
 and encountered most opposition in their onslaught on the 
 land. 
 
 She could hardly get along. The wind was straight off the 
 sea and Norway. It swished and wisped through the wooden 
 slats of the railings of the golf course, it eddied in and out the 
 sand-hills, mo^\ing down and flattening the bents that seemed 
 to lay their spines slavishly sideways against its onrush. The 
 little hard pink balls of thrift growing where sand met grass 
 bumped about and knocked each other, and the yellow rag- 
 wort growing by the reddened iron water of the little streams 
 rattled and shook. 
 
 One of the vicar's nice boys — dear boys like grey whelps in 
 their Jaeger flannels — she liked them — told her that the waves 
 made a splendid show, and that the Castle party were all down 
 there. 
 
 She hesitated for one moment, then she decided that she 
 would attract no particular attention in her smoke-coloured 
 wrappings. There were other people there too, the vicar and 
 his Avife, and some of the visitors. Everybody's eyes would be 
 bleared by salt spray. Yes, she would go on. She needed all 
 the exhilaration that savage Nature can give. 
 
 She passed the Castle party, staggering about absurdly 
 on the reef of slippery, broken-up rock that flung itself 
 out to sea, like an inky hand, which the white waves licked 
 slavishly, continually. Again and again they rose in Kiihle- 
 bom-like rushes, to be dissipated in falling water, as was 
 Undine's ghostly waggoner, while the foam flecks flew out far 
 down the wind and struck the lookers-on in the face. It was 
 no place for idle seekers after sensation, for the elemental com- 
 bat recked not of them, but laughed and covered them with 
 flakes of ridicule. 
 
 The sea-charges grew more furious. The cold blue sky was 
 splashed with the dirty brown spume. It was fully high tide.
 
 218 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 Betsey had gone to the shelving end of the reef, where the 
 waters spread out lasciviously as they retreated, baffled, and 
 the suction oceanwards was enormous. A woman in despair 
 goes far. The worst was comfort. The sea was kinder than 
 the man she loved, sunk as he was in short-sighted ease, con- 
 cerned in petty issues merely, complacently looking down the 
 avenues of sophistication that led to his pale desire for a 
 second-rate, cheap substitute for Life. . . . 
 
 Between her and Veere and his chosen friends there were 
 now material barriers, tantamount to Alpine peaks and 
 crevasses that Betsey, agUe, had leaped across and poised on 
 easily, like a kid. The town people had none of them seem- 
 ingly got any balance. Lady Blessington, seized protectingly 
 first by this man and then that, seemed to spin like a saffron- 
 ulstered tee-to-tum ; Lady Dobree, thin and slight in her 
 elegant dark-coloured tweeds, waved reed-like, and continually 
 tried to prevent her wind-blown skirts from revealing her too 
 far. Such was not Lady Maude's preoccupation. Ernest 
 Veere, in yachting cap and sailor serge, stood by them both, 
 ready to help if either were carried off her feet. A fall into 
 some jagged chasm, set with bone-breaking spikes, would be 
 the inevitable result, and even the place where the two women 
 stood was none too secure. 
 
 Betsey was further out than any one of the spectators. 
 There was in her case the added risk of being attained and 
 carried out by a heavy back-wash of some eleventh wave. 
 She dauntlessly defied danger. Her attitude was fine. 
 
 " What a fool that woman is ! " said Veere suddenly to his 
 party, or any one else who cared to hear it. "I must tell her. 
 She's a stranger here, I dare say, and doesn't know how 
 dangerous it is ! " 
 
 Quickly he bridged the gulf that parted him from Betsey, 
 whom he had recognised by the poise of her figure, sharply 
 defined every now and again. It was unlikely that any one 
 else had done so, or heard his excuse for joining her. The
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 219 
 
 senses of seeing and hearing possessed by these landsmen and 
 landswomen were more or less in abeyance owing to the stress 
 of wind and water. 
 
 Betsey, of course, did not hear Veere coming or notice him 
 until he was close to her, 
 
 " Oh, mistress mine, where are you roaming ? . . . Come 
 away from here, it's dangerous." 
 
 She turned sharply, and veered towards him. 
 
 " Good girl ! . . . That was only a blind. You're fairly 
 sure-footed. Give me your hand for a minute. They can't 
 see ! " 
 
 She laid her palm in his. It was warm ; she had held it in 
 the pocket of her ulster, 
 
 " That's all. And now I'll go back to them," 
 
 " And may I stay where I am ? " 
 
 " No, I'd rather you didn't, so near ! " 
 
 As he departed, leaping gracefully from the Big Bear to the 
 little one, he made a funnel of his hands, and bawled, for the 
 benefit of the assistance, " Not safe ! " 
 
 " He's happier for that hand- squeeze ! " thought the woman 
 he had left, scornfully, " He's gone back to them, with fresh 
 strength gathered from me, to pull his iniquitous scheme 
 through. And I, I should not have allowed him. It's as bad 
 and immoral as getting up unemployed winter funds — only 
 staves off the crux to another year ! " 
 
 She could positively not bring herself to believe that Ernest 
 Veere, loving her with all his heart, trusting her as no woman 
 had ever been trusted before, with his business, with his hopes 
 and aspirations, his secret failings and lapses into the com- 
 mercialism from which he was attempting to rise, could 
 actually and finally side-track her and his own future happi- 
 ness by espousing the Lady Dobree de Saye ! 
 
 Impossible ! She called him a cad, to his face and behind
 
 220 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 his back, that is to say, in her own self-communings, but her 
 basic beUef in his practical integrity and intrinsic sense of 
 decency was unshaken. He was the man of her heart, tram- 
 melled by the cloak of a superficial bounderism which her true 
 gaze was able to pierce and eliminate from her conception of 
 him. 
 
 His essential character must tell in the end, his natural 
 nobility assert itself. So the wife of Altamont held on, day by 
 day, a thwarted, lonely goddess, a statue of frozen, impotent 
 love, disdaining to move hand or foot to deflect in any way 
 advantageous to herself the vagarious course taken by her 
 strayed votary. He did not leave her side altogether, he still 
 sought his Egeria. Though her wisdom was set on one side, 
 her suasions void, she could still heal and medicine the tired, 
 wavering mind of the young man. For she knew men, above 
 all she knew Ernest Veere, she had never made a serious mis- 
 calculation but once. In that vital moment, standing with 
 him on the stair-head at Worksop House, she had gauged ill 
 the world-forces given her, in ever so little, to control. She 
 had missed her tip, lost her bearings, made a fool of herself, 
 and him. 
 
 This was according to the code of the late IVIiss Altamont, 
 whose pupil she was. 
 
 She had simply done wrong, been wicked and immoral, 
 according to the Vicar of Angernoune, and she was coming to 
 think that there was as much to be said for his view as for the 
 other. He suited her. He was as modern as Miss Altamont, 
 and he had taken her so gently along Avith him, that she was 
 more affected by his subtle teachings than she would have 
 cared to own. 
 
 It had come to this with her, that whatever her crime or her 
 folly, she was willing to comply with its results — or punish- 
 ment. She would bear, and forbear ; she would refrain from 
 touching the pendulum of her own fate and her lover's any 
 more.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 221 
 
 Her part was again waiting ! Apt corrective for a nature 
 like Betsey's, to whom moral inaction always proved one of 
 the worst circles of Hell. Waiting in Wimbledon — waiting in 
 Angernoune, but always waiting ! 
 
 She stood there on the gradually forsaken reef for some 
 time. She saw, through the tail of her eye, the Castle party 
 furl their \^ings and go home to tea. For them the play had 
 been plaj^ed. The eleventh wave had flung itself in all its 
 force and majesty of endeavour at the land's eternal bulwark 
 in vain ; now the unhandsome rear-guard, the stunted 
 warriors of the tide did not interest, the heart of the show was 
 over. Yet Betsey stood there glued to the rock, pensive, 
 paralysed A^dth thought, her eyes fixed on the growling sea. 
 
 One mighty remainder gathered, surged up, and then laid 
 itself out, a vast plateau of foamy water, gasping, panting on 
 the flat of the shelving rock, as on a bed of pain. Betsey 
 watched it go, as the sea sucked it back into its reserves, with 
 a distinct feeling of regret that she was not borne away with 
 it to the forgettable.
 
 XXIX 
 
 Going past the old Castle mill on her way to the shore 
 next day, Betsey met Ernest Veere and quietly adjusted 
 her step to his, as she had adjusted so many another idiosyn- 
 crasy. He passed with her through the ancient postern gate 
 that pierced the curtain wall, and thence, by some topsy- 
 turvy steps, these two descended to the level of the sands. 
 
 Betsey thought with some temper that the owner, the host, 
 the giver of this splendid holiday feast at Angemoune, seemed 
 isolated and alone. His friends and guests avoided him, or 
 at any rate did not seek his society. Was he conscious of it, 
 she wondered? But her curiosity was not satisfied, Ernest 
 was close. 
 
 " I suppose you knew yesterday," said he, alluding to the 
 tidings of her husband's death ; "I only saw it in the papers 
 this morning. You won't want me to condole, I suppose ? " 
 
 The young widow shivered. This was the sort of thing he 
 said — this was the reason the fine-strung, fastidious people up 
 there had left him to his own devices this morning — and every 
 morning nearly — given him over to the handling of the woman 
 who really loved him and understood him. 
 
 " Condole, yes, with Ada ! " would have been her defiant re- 
 ply a few months ago, but not now. She had done with surface 
 bitterness ; she who was sunk deep in a sea of despair, of which 
 bitterness is but the foam and froth. Nowadays she would ill 
 deserve Evangeline Simmons' oft-repeated praise of her tart 
 speeches and cheap cynicism. She drifted now, unresisting, 
 unresenting, with the grey flood that had taken her, which 
 
 222
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 223 
 
 she had once fought against, conspired against, and which had, 
 through Love, overcome her. She was living in something 
 very Hke the abeyance she had always so protested against, 
 the cage from which she had once struggled so fiercely to be 
 free. The door was open now, carelessly, languidly ajar, yet 
 she stayed ! Her life was a dreary fait accompli which even 
 her convict husband's death could not affect one way or 
 another. She did not desire to alter it. She philosophised a 
 little, flirted a little, with the gentle vicar and his ungentle 
 boys, was very good to Ada, and that was all. What a life ! 
 
 Together she and Ernest descended into the field, half 
 garden and half cricket-ground, which Sir Joris had made of 
 the vast undisciplined masses of sand he had found lying up 
 against the Castle rock of Angernoune at the outset of his 
 occupancy. The fussy, utilitarian old gentleman, fuller of 
 money than wit, had blasted the wind-blown sand of a cen- 
 tury's drifting and silting, scraped its kindly softening mask 
 from the serried rampart, contradicting and obscuring the 
 natural droop of the cliff, and had laid the substance thus 
 gained down here to form a wide, dull expanse for the benefit 
 of Angernoune village, the prosecution of tennis and the arts 
 of peace. So that the long curtain wall above, whence the 
 faced stones had fallen away, been shot away, had weathered 
 away, till in some places it showed nothing but coarse inside 
 rubble, rose sheer out of the horny-looking basalt, suggesting 
 savage scarped teeth from which the gums had been peeled. 
 
 Tlie two stood and looked up at it, with rather mixed feel- 
 ings. She was the romanticist, and he the practical engineer. 
 They were, however, mysteriously one. Veere's intense lone- 
 liness dropped from him like a veil, and her sullen pessimism. 
 
 He gently took hold of her elbow and jogged it. She turned 
 and flashed her eyes at him with something of the old look. 
 Then they both laughed, as Adam and his faulty Eve may 
 have done in that first wild moment when they had passed 
 beyond the flaming swords that shut them off from the rigours
 
 224 THE WIFE OF AfeTAMONT 
 
 of Paradise. They were free for the time ; the aching back 
 and sweating brow would come later. . , , 
 
 " Take a walk with me," he begged. " A real walk ! " 
 
 A touch of primordial huff impelled her to put him off. She 
 had had so few opportunities of exercising femininity lately. 
 
 " Would it be safe ? " 
 
 " Do you mean might it jeopardise my matrimonial plans ? 
 Oh, no, nothing can interfere with them, not even her present 
 fancy for Lee-Brice. That's only, so far, a clumsy measure of 
 flirtation, aimed at me. She may get caught, though. No, 
 I don't think so, for she's a business woman, my little Dobree." 
 
 " A woman after your own heart." 
 
 " One would fancy so," he said gloomily. " All I know is 
 she means to have the place, and incidentally — me ! The 
 place, though, is the thing, the place that was once her own. 
 Do you know that ? " 
 
 " I know it was built by an Earl of Angemoune." 
 
 "William Rufus, to begin with. The Angernounes have 
 royal blood in their veins. Well — I — or my like — took it from 
 her in the Wars of the Roses. I've been mugging up some 
 history lately, and arranging it in my mind from my point of 
 view — the utilitarian. I find Dobree's people were the Old 
 and we were the New, then as now. Now we buy their estates, 
 then we took 'em. I fought Dobree — broke her — broke her 
 power, and now that she is harmless I am willing to reinstate 
 her, by marriage, the usual way. . . . Do you see those ? " 
 He pointed to the immense masses of casing of the wall that 
 studded the Castle green. 
 
 " Those lumps of petrified plum pudding ! " 
 
 " Yes, a conglomerate of stone and mud and Roman 
 cement, that's what they really are. The old Saxon masons 
 had an inkling of the secret, for the Romans left it behind 
 them. But we cannot recover it. It resists even a fall like 
 that, of six hundred feet or so. That portentous mass of em- 
 battled masonry was Angernoune — its strength. Well, I re-
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 225 
 
 duced it, flung it do'wn with my modern artillery. I see my- 
 self here — I'll call myself young Edward of York, shall I ? — 
 perched on that rising knoll over there, opposite the Lan- 
 castrian stronghold — I, with my modern ideas and my 
 travelled minions, home from Italy, laughing at the anti- 
 quated defences of the old regime. They have persuaded me 
 to adopt some of the novelties in offensive weapons — they 
 cost a lot then. Old Margaret of Anjou's captain in here, 
 Sir Ralph Gascoigne — I always think she was a kind of 
 mediaeval Victoria — felt pretty safe when he saw the Yorks 
 mounting their cannon on the knoll, for he supposed them the 
 rotten old tools he was accustomed to, fixed things, used only 
 to frighten the horses and the men. He wasn't up to the great 
 new gun 'Dysion,' that sent a ball slap through his lodging, 
 and destroyed his confidence and battered the place down 
 about his ears in no time ! That's where the ball went in — 
 there, where Dobree's new Liberty bedroom has been built ! 
 He capitulated, poor dear, of course. They, the besiegers — I 
 mean I — was able to eat my Christmas dinner in Angernoune. 
 Moreover, Kymarays, Thomas of Lancaster's place, fell too, 
 in the same week. An end of the old order. . . . Betsey, tell 
 me, are you going to America now ? " 
 
 Tliey had walked a good half-mile along the links, and now 
 they sat side by side in a cleft of the sandhills, like a holiday 
 couple. She was a vertical line, he a horizontal one, as usual. 
 
 " America ! " said she. " How did you get there from the 
 great gun Dysion ? Oh, I see ! The Old and the New." 
 
 " Yes, that's about it. It reminded me of something you 
 threw out a month or two ago." She stared. " Are you going 
 to America ? " 
 
 " No, not now." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " Stupid ! " 
 
 She just touched his cheek with the tip of a long bit of bent 
 grass. She was stiff with nerves, as she always was when the 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 hour struck for her to lead them on one of the little amorous 
 attacks that she every now and then permitted herself. An 
 agonised, desperate sortie, to be conducted with spirit, whUe 
 the retreat must be masked and covered by such insouciance 
 as she could muster. Again, as oft before, it was a failure, 
 and she subsided into her usual soft inertia. 
 
 " Why am I stupid ? " he had retorted, angrUy, and she had 
 averted her eyes while he continued : " You wanted to go — 
 before — it was the desire of your heart, so you said, I re- 
 member distinctly. But you went with me instead because, 
 to your disgust, you weren't a widow ! Really, you 
 
 women ! " 
 
 " In a fit of rage it was — yes ! " She drew a harsh blade of 
 grass through her teeth, and then again. . . . 
 
 " Well, be reasonable ! Now that you are a widow, why 
 has the desire passed ? You could now do all you proposed 
 then, and more ! " 
 
 " I've done a good deal," she said, " all the same. " What 
 I wanted most was to get out of the suburbs, and I am here." 
 " Yes, Angernoune's a rather difierent affair, isn't it ? I'm 
 glad you like it. But it isn't America." 
 
 " America was only to marry. I don't want to marry — now." 
 " No," said he seriously. " I can understand that. Indeed, 
 I can't understand anybody wanting to who's once been 
 through it, and had an experience such as you've had. You 
 chose your mate wrong, my poor Betsey, in the first instance." 
 She was about to jump on him in Wilfrid's defence, but she 
 loved Ernest too much. She said softly : " We aU do. It's 
 good for character. You'll be much nicer and far more under- 
 standing when you've made your little mistake too." 
 
 " Dash it all, Betsey, must you keep on rubbing it in like 
 this ! Wliat's come to you ? Continually throwing cold 
 water — it gets on a fellow's nerves at last, especially when he 
 has very serious doubts himself of the propriety of the step he 
 is taking."
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 227 
 
 " Then why do you take it ? " 
 
 " There you are again ! " 
 
 " I'm sorry." 
 
 He half rose. ..." Well, I don't pretend to understand 
 women ! " 
 
 She looked up at him with her mouth awry. " It would be 
 pretending if you said you did, dear." 
 
 " I leave such special knowledge to novelists like Lee-Brice, 
 whose business it is." 
 
 " Are you jealous of him ? " she asked combatively. 
 
 " With you I am. Not with Dobree. It's the wrong way 
 round, of course. All of a piece with my exceedingly^ topsy- 
 turvy courtship." 
 
 Betsey could not nor would not say anything. Sexual 
 obstinacy possessed her merely. 
 
 " I wish I were jealous of her. It would argue better for our 
 future happiness. The funny thing about Dobree is that she 
 doesn't seem a woman at all — to me. Lee-Brice appears to 
 find her a highly problematic, feminine study. To me she's a 
 pretty little dodo, soon to be extinct. I can't entertain the 
 idea of her being a real woman, like you, for a single moment ! 
 You are so feminine ; she's like a boy. I like women. It's 
 pathetic, isn't it, that we should be about to be allied." 
 
 " It's not pathetic so much as wrong." 
 
 His sweet monitory smile reminded Betsey that she had 
 fallen into preaching again. He continued : " But, strangely 
 enough, to the chap who writes indecent novels, all about that 
 sort of thing — novels positively weltering with sex, as Lady 
 Maude says — she seems to appeal ! He's always talking of her 
 — quite respectfully, you know. I couldn't find anything to 
 take hold of or resent as the girl's fiance, even if I wanted to. 
 I don't want to — I like to hear her appreciated, poor little 
 thing ! Good Lord, I wonder what's the matter with it all ! 
 I can't get the hang of it. Can you ? " 
 
 He flung himself, face downwards, in the sand. Betsey
 
 228 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 braced her backbone and sat up stiffly, looking out to sea, 
 with the dull, resigned expression of one of the homeless on a 
 bench in the Park, beside a possibly brutish sleeping partner. 
 She had the hang of it right enough. Her hand scooped up 
 the hard, cold grains of sand beside her, she drove them into 
 her nails ; she felt them going in— a slight counter-irritant. 
 At last he sat up and pushed the neat dark hair, just greying 
 slightly at the temples, back from his forehead ; — 
 
 "Fact is, Betsey, these are not my sort. I'm only just 
 one remove from a Avorking-man-^and I'm not ashamed 
 of it." 
 
 " They all say that, some time," said she. " Keep it for the 
 hustings. It's a platform platitude." 
 
 " Don't tease ! I've been well educated, been abroad, 
 know five languages, got good natural parts. Have you 
 noticed, Betsey, what a flight there is of young fledglings like 
 me growing up ! " 
 
 " I've never seen anybody like you ! " 
 
 " You flatter," he said, smiling. " Heaps of us. These 
 modern conditions produce us naturally, and will, more and 
 more of us. I know what we're like well enough. Men you'll 
 never think, soon, of wondering whether they're gentlemen 
 or no. It's immaterial. The breed's here, come to stay. The 
 new pattern. They're just the good piece of mental machinery 
 slipped into a fairly decent reach-me-down of a body. They 
 come bouncing out of shops, out of schools, out of classes, 
 anywhere they can hear and learn things. Then they go about 
 their different businesses, they travel in this or that, guns, 
 electricity, anything you like. They glide about and slide in 
 and fit into all sorts of places, but they know no Greek or 
 Latin, and they offer to " relieve " a lady of her cup, and they 
 generally can't dance — like me. I'm awfully out of it o' 
 nights here. We — I mean they — dressed up last night and 
 danced. Tommy-rot, / think." 
 
 " But that's only because you can't dance ! And I won't
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 229 
 
 admit j^ou're just the same as the man Vho' comes 'about 
 the gas or the electricity ! " said she, wilfully misunderstand- 
 ing him. " You'll tell me next you've worked in a mine." 
 
 " 'Strewth ! I have. We all have to begin from the be- 
 ginning at Hinderland, if we want to make a job of it. I tell 
 you I did my day's shift and so on, underground, like any 
 one else, for a year on end. Wlien I told Dobree that she 
 wouldn't believe me, poor little kid ! " 
 
 " Kid ! She's taller than you ! " 
 
 " Kid to me, all the same ! . . ." He groaned. "Oh, good 
 Lord, how I wish this house party was over. I let myself in 
 for it out of vanity, and I'm well paid out. It doesn't go the 
 least bit in the world." 
 
 " Not in your idea. I dare say it's the usual thing in her 
 set ! Different sets, different ideas." 
 
 " I have no set. I wish you wouldn't keep rubbing it in. 
 But it really is a bad botch. It's not the right thing. She 
 is far too young and selfish to be a good hostess, that is 
 what's the matter, I suppose." 
 
 " She'll get on better in London." 
 
 " I sincerely hope so. If it's going to be anything like this 
 when we are married, and she asks the members of the Cabinet 
 to dinner, I don't know what I'm marrying her for ? And if 
 these are her highly extolled friends " 
 
 " They're the usual smart, dull London people ! " 
 
 " Yes, very smart — men without livers and women without 
 stomachs — or hearts either. To see them going down to the 
 beach o' mornings, flattened out in skin-tight dresses that 
 peel off them like bananas, or paddling about villages in the 
 afternoons, shriekmg for the tea that isn't, and the yokels 
 staring at them in their motor coats which make them look 
 for all the world like hedgehogs, that a gipsy would bake 
 until the skin stayed behind in the ashes ! They treat a 
 mediaeval castle as if it was a Surrey mansion, and they seem 
 to have brought all the airs of Hindhead and the graces of
 
 230 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 Haslemere with them. . , . This blessed afternoon we're all 
 going to bore ourselves at a garden-party at Castle de Saye. 
 The Duchess of Lax is Dobree's aunt — gives me three fingers 
 and wishes I wasn't going to enter her family. The Ladies 
 Ninian, Dobree's cousins, show the elastic of their hats and 
 curl up their noses when they hear of Suffragettes ! " 
 
 " Good as gold, eh ? " 
 
 " It is that sort of people keeps the old feudal fetish going, 
 which Lady Maude and her like are trying to pull down. I 
 can see that." 
 
 " Possibly. Well . . . Ernest . . . don't be shocked, but 
 I must tell you that Lady Dobree's maid has invited Ada and 
 Billy and me to come round when you are gone and be shown 
 the Dwelling House. I said I would. My position here is 
 already so irregular that a few chips off it won't matter. We 
 shall dress in our best, you know, to show the solemnity of the 
 occasion, and put on our hats and our gloves to cross the court- 
 yard ! " 
 
 " And have tea in the servants' hall. You, my Betsey ? I 
 don't quite like that." 
 
 " Frankly, I don't think there is so much to choose between 
 the two sets. We call all the maids by their mistresses' names, 
 and they behave much better than their namesakes, for they 
 daren't degrade their titles ! You've taste possibly, but we've 
 morals. And manners. We don't stick acid-drops in the men's 
 beds, and^ throw our bread about, and comb men's hair with 
 table forks, and try to put dormice into the teapot " 
 
 " Oh, you heard about that, did you ? That was Dobree's 
 quiet fun. She's always teasing little Vallance. He's a 
 twentieth cousin. They're all related all over the place. . . . 
 Well, good-bye ; I dare say you'll have a better time than I 
 shall. Old Brookie — see that you get old Brookie — is quite 
 a character."
 
 XXX 
 
 The courtyard for half an hour before three o'clock that 
 day was a pandemonium. Yelping dogs, chattering women, 
 snorting, unruly motors chafing to be gone ! By a quarter- 
 past three it was clear and empty, and the Keep, as usual, 
 fro-^Tied over the absurd level grass plot^with its eight croquet 
 hoops and the sweep of carefully tended yellow gravel that 
 stretched between the two buildings. 
 
 Betsey, and Ada with the little Wilfrid — the two latter as 
 deeply in mourning as they dared to be — crossed it, and hold- 
 ing the child up, helped him to ring the electric bell of the 
 Dwelling House, a privilege coveted long and, by the circum- 
 stances of the case, of unfrequent attainment. Mr, Brooks 
 opened the door, and his priest-like countenance, wreathed 
 ^vith unaccustomed smiles, welcomed the Eady of the Keep 
 and her pale, unconsidered shadow. They were led cere- 
 moniously into the housekeeper's room, where Miss Parker 
 received them. The housekeeper, a busy woman, was m and 
 out, but Brooks, an amateur of female beauty, sat tight, and 
 tried to entertain Betsey. 
 
 " Did you happen to see to-day's paper, Mrs. Adamson ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " No. Why ? " 
 
 " Only our Mr. Veere's case is coming on at last." 
 
 " And he'll get it, of course," said she. 
 
 " Oh, certainly, there's not a shadow of doubt. Waste of 
 money on their part. Of course, we don't have to think of 
 that ! Still, I don't like Mr. Veerc to be troubled. Not that 
 
 231
 
 232 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 there's anything in the young man's claim. A regular adven- 
 turer, this Ernest Louis seems to be. I knew the lady — the 
 one that was his mother ! Of course, she was his mother right 
 enough — but we all know what Sir Joris was, bless him ! " 
 
 " Don't you go blaming Sir Joris, Mr. Brooks," put in the 
 housekeeper. " He was the nicest man I ever knew." 
 
 " He could be that and all the rest too," began Mr. Brooks 
 
 and stopped. " But there are ladies present ! " 
 
 " Oh, go on, Mr. Brooks, do ! We're all married women 
 here except me," broke in Miss Parker. " And I'm Lady 
 Dobree's maid. In Bohemia — Upper Bohemia, she calls 
 
 it " 
 
 " What's that ? Sounds like a street," said Mrs. Cox. 
 " Name for do as you please, go as you please and when you 
 please — and wear an old coat," said Miss Parker. " And but 
 
 that Chay tor's away, she could tell you things " 
 
 " We won't speak ill of the absent," said Mr. Brooks. 
 Chaytor was Lady Maude's maid, and she stood for her and her 
 vices, and went by her name, officially. She was in bed now 
 with a bad cough caught at her last visit to a cold house where 
 low dress in the servants' hall was unfortunately de rigueur. 
 Parker, with sturdy kitchen morality, took up the cudgels for 
 the absent. 
 
 " Lady Maude's not quite particular enough, but she's got 
 a kind heart all the same. She stayed a day longer at Pilling- 
 ham just to give Chaytor a chance of getting over her cold. 
 She always lets Chaytor come and attend to her all ready 
 dressed for supper, so long as the girl sticks a golf cape over 
 her evening frock. Pillingham's a mortal cold house, and so 
 stiff. This house is colder, but more laissy ally. How do you 
 find it in the Keep for heating apparatus, Mrs. Cox ? " 
 
 " Very cold," said Ada. " But it suits my son, and that's 
 all I think of now since my poor husband's death. I don't 
 
 wear crape, for the sea-air stickys it so, but " 
 
 Betsey quickly asked Miss Parker to show them over the
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 233 
 
 Dwelling House. That lady acceded joyfully, and took all the 
 rooms, one by one, till they came to the only one that in- 
 terested Betsey — Lady Dobree's. 
 
 It was as vast, as spacious as a drawing-room, with light 
 modern Louis Quinze furniture dotted about on a fair rose- 
 streA\Ti Aubusson carpet. On little lace- covered tables were 
 spread poor Dobree's meagre effects. Her cotton dressing- 
 jacket, trimmed mth cheap lace, was flung on a silk table- 
 cover, edged with real Valenciennes. Her worn bedroom 
 slippers made an ugly blot on the pink rug. Yes, she 
 wanted money badly ! 
 
 " It's the best room. Mr. Veere wanted her to have it. 
 Lord and Lady Blessington haven't one half so good. It's 
 the one him and her '11 occupy one day, I suppose ! " 
 
 Betsey quivered. Then, daringly, she said : " You don't 
 seem very keen on it. Miss Parker ? " 
 
 " No, he's not her sort, really, not the sort she's been used 
 to. It's just a fancy of hers, that's what this is. Girls are like 
 that. They don't think. He's a nobody, of course, wants her 
 title, and if he loses his money he'll be nothing at all. I'd 
 rather see her married to the writing gentleman — ^lie's some 
 family, I'll be bound, for all he writes for a living ! I'm never 
 deceived. I see so many people. He's with her a good deal, 
 and Mr. Veere either don't know — or he don't care ! . . . 
 He's teaching my lady to write a novel, too. She sits up here 
 half the night scribbling — I have to take the ink away before 
 I can get her to bed — and then what she's done she shows him 
 in the day. She's mad on novel- writing just now." 
 
 " How silly ! " said Betsey, whose heart leapt. She sneaked 
 up to a photograph of Ernest propped up against a row of 
 Lee-Brice's books. Tlie careless juxtaposition struck her. 
 She liked it, as she liked everything that seemed to point to an 
 understanding between these two in which her own lover did 
 not share. Ernest was being left out in the cold. Every one 
 conspired to put him back in his proper place beside her. He
 
 234 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 deserved it for aspiring, if it was aspiring ? Lady Dobree's 
 worid and his were different, hers was not necessarily better. 
 Hers represented a mediaeval tag, a stupid feudal remnant 
 clinging to the ancient fetish that was their reason of existence. 
 liCt them draw closer and expire within their borders, instead 
 of feebly seeking to revive what was moribund by these occa- 
 sional infusions of clever common blood ! 
 
 She loved every drop of it. She bent forward when no one 
 was looking and kissed the photograph of Ernest. It lurched 
 and fell down behind the chest of drawers. 
 
 " Oh, silly, see what I've done ! " she cried, and stooping 
 low, retrieved it.
 
 XXXI 
 
 The Dwelling House party came home late, having crossed 
 the Carter Fell, run out of petrol at Edlingham, and burst 
 a tyre at Rothbury. Because they were all worn out, they 
 elected to dance after dinner. Little Lord Vallance, who had 
 driven the second car, volunteered to play for them as long as 
 he could sit on a music stool. 
 
 Ernest Veere wished heartily they would not choose this 
 form of exercise, for though he was graceful and limber, he 
 could not dance. He felt all the sulkiness of the male wall 
 plant, though he did not allow his vexation to be obvious. 
 Standing lonely in a corner of the big hall at the end of the 
 drawing-room that served as a ballroom for these absurd 
 people, who seemed to be enjoying themselves hugely, he, 
 the host, felt like the meanest, uncounted guest in a London 
 crush, and resented it. 
 
 Idly he visited each one of the square encoignures, cut in 
 the thickness of the Avail, with a single window that looked 
 sheer down six hundred feet of Castle rock. Green silk curtains 
 shut off, if need were, all these little " sitting-out " places. The 
 hall had been designed for dancing. Royalty should have been 
 entertained there, if Sir Joris had not been cut off untimely by 
 Betsey's husband. 
 
 Veere thought of this — ^he was in the mood for gloomy 
 antithesis. He drew the curtain of one of the spaces and, 
 shutting himself off from the gyrating couples, opened the 
 window and looked out into the mild August night. Far 
 below he saw the twinkling lights of Angeruoune, In the 
 
 235
 
 236 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 
 middle of the plot of trees that formed the village green he 
 noticed a focus of gleaming merriment. The fair had come, 
 and the horses had been set up and were going round and 
 round — a wheel of glittering spokes. The discordant notes 
 of the hurdy-gurdy, tliat turned music and horses both, came 
 to his ears faintly, with its all too familiar tang. I 
 
 " Oh, my little dar-ling, I love you ! " The notes of the 
 three last words came strongly staccatoed. He pictured it. 
 Pairs of village love-birds were even now going round and 
 round on the nicely balanced, painted wooden horses, two and 
 two, an ever renewed procession. Then the end of the tune 
 would be ground out and giddiness at the dismounting would 
 take them, and She would sway and swirl dizzily into His arms, 
 with passionate " Ow's " and " Ha's." The same thing was 
 going on inside, at his back. He knew if he looked round he 
 would see Lady Maude and Blessington, apologising to each 
 other for the time it was since they had last danced. There 
 would be Lady Blessington and the man she had brought, that 
 no one knew anything about, except that he amused her and 
 that Lord Blessington tolerated him. There would be Lady 
 Dobree with Lee-Brice, who danced in the Viennese fashion, 
 which Veere disliked so much, for it was excessive. The male 
 dancer made a point of at once taking his partner off her feet, 
 her useless feet, that he seldom allowed her so much as to 
 touch the ground with. Wliat need ? She lay, slightly tilted 
 forward, on his breast, as he bore her safely, irresponsibly, 
 through the melee. Warm-blooded women — or their hus- 
 bands for them — pretended that they dared not trust them- 
 selves with him ; he contended that his dancer and he were 
 one, and hardly need she lift her head from its pose on his 
 shoulder. Had she done so, indeed, her emotions, so easily 
 raised, would have received the cold douche of his unmoved 
 face and wary eyes, gauging distances, plumbing horizons, 
 steering for all he was worth, and no sharer of the divine 
 frenzy he was inculcating in his helpless partner.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 237 
 
 " After all, it's only an exercise ! " was Veere's short- 
 sighted comment on the art, as he turned back to night 
 thoughts and the open window. He looked out and down 
 again. A wide macadamised track led in a sweeping, gradual 
 curve down, down from the south gate and the drawbridge 
 to the village. ... A smaU, compact figure on a bicycle was 
 flying doA\Ti the slope. He recognised it. 
 
 Betsey ! The new-made widow. The tomboy. She was 
 hardy and capable as he knew, but still he didn't quite like 
 her taking that steep curve so carelessly ! It was in vain to 
 hope to prevent her by calling out, but he did so. 
 
 " Wliat are you shouting at ? " The harsh voice of Lady 
 Dobree made him turn round sharply. She had come up 
 behind him and drawn back the curtains of his shelter. " Brr ! 
 The window's open. But I don't mind. I rather like feeling 
 the wind on my neck ! " 
 
 He turned, quite savagely, and glared at this famous neck 
 that enjoyed the cold air so keenly. The perfunctory display 
 of naked flesh outraged the latent claustral prejudices he 
 shared with most men. Perhaps it was because he had never 
 seen Betsey's neck bare below her collar-bone ? . . . Perhaps 
 it was the insensate, Jura-like tone of the young girl's skin that 
 suggested merely a lifeless chastity, an arrogant, unearned 
 increment of purity that annoyed him ? Some women's 
 appeal to the senses of men is conscious, but the direction of 
 her dressmaker's scissors alone regulated the surrender of 
 personality implied in the cut of Lady Dobree's gown. 
 
 And it was right it should be so. What was he thinking of ? 
 She was only a girl. His soul, in the tide of cruel sexual 
 criticism, paused and pitied her — and himself too. He was 
 to make her a woman. With a groan he turned to the window 
 again and closed the casement with savage vigour, lest he were 
 tempted to throw himself down. 
 
 Where had Betsey gone at this hour, speeding, like Brito- 
 mart, under her panoply of rough serge, buttoned to the chin,
 
 238 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 and little tight, helmet-like cap that took all her hair in ? She 
 made so little of her hair here, good Betsey, for prudence' 
 sake, only letting it out of prison sometimes, when far out on 
 the rocks, or in Kymarays Bay, and then it was not Ernest 
 Veere, but Lee-Brice who was Avith her. 
 
 Why not ? She was free. She liked men. She liked life. 
 She was probably gone down to see one of its phases now at 
 the fair, in the company of the four vicarage boys, who all 
 adored her. So did their father. He was a widower. She 
 saw a good deal of him. She might marry him — she was 
 quite good and pure. The vicar was a freethinker, and could 
 easily get over the fact of her being the widow of a murderer, 
 if she on the other hand could make up her mind to endure his 
 Jaeger shirts and woollen knitted stockings and nut diet. 
 
 Not she ! He was not afraid of her doing that. . . . 
 
 " Are you alone ? " 
 
 It was Dobree, again, trying to be arch. She drew the 
 curtain back. The ballroom was deserted. They had all gone 
 to comfort Lord Vallance, who for sheer fatigue of having 
 driven them all day, had now, as he had threatened, fallen off 
 the music stool, and declined to play any more without a 
 whisky and soda. . . . The curtain flapped-to behind her. 
 Veere closed the window officiously. Though breathless, the 
 girl did not look hot. Lady Dobree was proud of that 
 peculiarity, she hated girls that got red after dancing. Veere, 
 on the other hand, liked them to do so, because it was natural. 
 
 They were alone. He could have flung his arms round her 
 and kissed her now, ardently, passionately, with perfect social 
 impunity. He might even pretend that she was not his fiancee, 
 if he cared to add a forbidden zest. He saw the little romance- 
 seeking look in her eyes, and realised that at the moment she 
 desperately longed for the power to force and impel him to 
 such harmless rape. 
 
 The moment passed. She said pettishly : 
 
 " Wliy can't you dance ? It is such fun ! "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 239 
 
 " It's about the only thing I can't do," he retorted, nettled. 
 " It's just that I haven't had time to learn. I'm a worker, 
 you see." 
 
 " ]Mr. Lee-Brice can dance, and write books as well." 
 
 " Yes, and nice books they are, with a dissected motive on 
 every page, books that take a pride in prowling about in 
 people's imiards, like the hand of the executioner in the old 
 days. One criminal bounced up and hit the man who was 
 doing it on the head ! " 
 
 " How horrible ! You haven't much poetry in you, Ernest, 
 to talk about ' innards ' in a ballroom ! " 
 
 " You and I have no use for poetry, have we ? And 
 
 yet " He pointed to the view below, to the little circle 
 
 of twinkling lights, set in their solemn nest of dark green. 
 " That seems to me poetical, somehow." 
 
 "A lot of cads going round and round on wooden horses? " 
 Lady Dobree said doubtfully. She could not know that Ernest 
 Veere's excursion into poetical sentiment was accentuated by 
 the little fact that he had just seen his love speeding down 
 to join in this village Kermesse. But she valued Ernest at 
 this moment to an unusual extent ; the touch of unaccus- 
 tomed wistfulness about the hard-headed business man was 
 attractive, and she murmured, much as a housewife who 
 volunteers to order in some particular comestible fancied by 
 her lord and master : 
 
 " I could be poetical, too, if I liked ! " 
 
 " Not you. It is hardly in your line." 
 
 " Ernest, am I so hard ? I don't believe I am, really. It 
 is that I am una wakened." She stopped and savoured the 
 word. 
 
 " Has Lee-Brice been telling you so ? " he said in dreamy 
 annoyance. 
 
 " He said I was a sort of Sleeping Beauty ! " . . . She 
 turned away. " Now you will think I am conceited for telling 
 you that ! "
 
 240 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 "No, I don't." He took her hand. "My dear child, 
 you're pretty enough, goodness knows. You know I think so." 
 
 She looked up gratefully at him and perforce he kissed her. 
 " Wake ! The woman who wants to get her full share of 
 kisses nowadays must be jolly wideawake, and not afraid of 
 pricking her fingers on the rose-bush of life either." 
 
 " How pretty ! The rose-bush of life ! Ernest ! " Again 
 there was the rough note in the voice. " Ernest ! I believe if 
 you were to kiss me, once — as you probably kiss some other 
 woman ? " 
 
 " On my honour, I do not have anything to do with any 
 other woman — in the way you mean." 
 
 " I believe you. How stupid of you ! " 
 
 It was a wrong note. He became bitter again. 
 
 " Lady Maude taught you to say things like that." 
 
 " No, indeed. I think for myself. I'm waking — and not 
 through you, dear. . . . There, now you hate me ! " 
 
 " My poor Dobree ! " He took her hand, but they were no 
 longer alone. The others were beginning to come back into 
 the ballroom ; the pianist had been fortified and replaced on 
 his seat. " I can't kiss you now — ^here — can I ? " 
 
 " Come into the morning-room, then. There's no one 
 there ! " 
 
 He was not so much touched, as shocked by this sexual 
 gaucherie. 
 
 " And do you mean to prove me there, once for all — to test 
 the strength of my feeling for you ? . . . No, it can't be like 
 that ! . . ." He spoke hastily, eagerly, as if it had to be 
 said. ..." Dobree, what's to be done ? Are we two to 
 marry ? " 
 
 She flung away from him, out of the window-place, and 
 beckoned to Lee-Brice. On his arm, clinging affectedly, she 
 passed out of the dance, and he saw the pair go into the empty 
 morning-room. 
 
 " Sweet innocent ! She is trying to make me jealous,"
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 241 
 
 Veere thought. Sad and depressed beyond measure as he 
 was, he laughed. " It's no good. I am not jealous ! Follow 
 them— not I ! " 
 
 He issued mto the circle of light and made himself agreeable 
 to a cousin of Lady Dobree's. 
 
 R
 
 XXXII 
 
 The young girl flung herself into an arm-chair. Mr. Lee- 
 Brice sat down at a respectful distance and crossed his 
 long legs. His stateliness, his steely greyness, his somewhat 
 pompous earnestness, would have made him a suggestive 
 model for Don Quixote or Sir Galahad. He was not heated 
 with his previous exertions in the ballroom. He looked 
 distinguished, but the subscribers to Wellington's, their 
 imaginations heated by a perusal of what they would have 
 called some "sultry " works of his, would have been somewhat 
 disagreeably disappointed, and would have agreed that in spite 
 of these titles to a fame of dis-esteem, he did not look the man 
 and the brute they were prone to fancy him. He laid the crush 
 hat, with which he never neglected to go armed, across his 
 knee, and waited patiently until the storm-tossed child of 
 rank should unbosom herself. She looked at him after a while 
 inquiringly, and conventionally attempted to tear a lace hand- 
 kerchief into fragments. . . . 
 
 " I suppose you find me a fairly good study, Mr. Lee- 
 Brice ? " she said at last, pettishly. 
 •■"A good deal more than that." 
 
 ",WeU, if it's any good to you, I don't mind sitting here 
 and giving you tips. ... It must be quite in your line. . . , 
 A tortured woman's heart ! Perhaps, though, you don't 
 believe I have got a heart? Or that I'm a woman at 
 all ? " 
 
 He put up his pince-nez. The proud Lady Dobree endured 
 his probing glance. She had tears in her eyes. 
 
 242
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 243 
 
 "No, I see that you are really suffering — as women alone 
 can suffer," he said. "There can be no mistake about it. 
 You have got quite beyond controlling the amount of emotion 
 that can be contained in the ordinary human vessel without 
 spilling. It's an unfair strain. Could one — could I palliate it 
 in any way ? I am here ..." 
 
 *' Yes, you are so splendid — you understand." 
 
 " Trained to it, you see ? " 
 
 " I know. That is why I should so like to tell you how I 
 
 feel, but it is very difficult. I don't know how " She 
 
 sat up as if she were riding, and flung her handlcerchief in 
 a ball on to the table. " One thing I can tell you — being en- 
 gaged is very poor fun ! And it ought to be the happiest time 
 of one's life ! " 
 
 " Oh, no, it oughtn't. It's a preparation for the encounter, 
 merely, a prolonged formal salute, such as fencers use before 
 they cross swords and start. The fun comes after, and the 
 tears too." 
 
 She smiled, reached out for the sopped handkerchief, and 
 lay back stiffly in her chair, 
 
 " I do like you to talk to me cynically as if I really were 
 grown up, as I am. But no one else seems to realise it. There 
 seems to be a conspiracy here to keep me a child, and Ernest 
 Veere, that I'm supposed to be going to marry, is the worst. 
 He treats me as if I was a flapper — he snubs me ! i\fter all, 
 one is the principal person for the moment, or ought to be — to 
 him, at aU events ; and he, he doesn't give himself the least 
 trouble in the world to get to understand one or to appreciate 
 the character of the woman he's going to spend his life with. 
 Oh, it's all wrong ! . . . I'm all wrong, I suppose ? . . . I 
 look into myself, and ..." 
 
 She rose abruptly, walked across the room, and drawing 
 a brise-bise curtain so harshly that it grated on its rings, stared 
 out into tlie courtyard. 
 
 Ml'. Lee-Brice was undecided wixether to follow her at once,
 
 244 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 or at all ! She was moved, as he could see. He was rather 
 sorry to see this young girl aping the airs and introspective- 
 ness of a woman of mature years ; but he realised with an 
 artist's pleasure that the pose was for his benefit, and saw 
 plainly enough what it might lead to if he wished it, and if 
 he should consider that his career demanded it. 
 
 Apart from his own inchoate plans, it was interesting to 
 watch Race struggling with its intrinsic dislike for Trade and 
 trade methods, the Traditional detesting the Irresponsible, 
 the Old the New, as exemplified in the supple person of Ernest 
 Veere. And how curious it was that she should not realise 
 that, in taking himself as her mentor and his counsels as her 
 rule in life, she was merely appealing to the same business 
 instinct in another form. The great shipowner : the popular 
 novelist — boilers : Uterature, it was aU one and the same. 
 The novelist, indeed, was a child of his age, a man who 
 had struggled, and was under no misapprehensions as to the 
 purely commercial nature of his own life-work. Whether 
 Lady Dobree de Saye married Ernest Veere or himself, she 
 and her title would come to be exploited Just the same. The 
 easy ornate pessimism bred of low aims and cultivated in 
 newspaper offices ; the cynical attitude inculcated by The 
 Sweep and kindred publications and good-humouredly satir- 
 ised as a rule during the London season in two or three plays 
 at once, was his. The satire was vain, without prejudice, a 
 man must live — and not in a garret ! 
 
 The girl's long back was persistently turned towards him. 
 His fancy began to stray into the future. Perhaps, when they 
 were married, the Lady Dobree Lee-Brice would be heard at 
 dinner-tables, like other commercial wives, who jibbed at the 
 means, but enjoyed all the emoluments of the position, in- 
 dignantly repudiating all acquaintance with her husband's 
 books ; with affected horror disoAvning the " stuff " that 
 dressed her and sent her into the world as an advertise- 
 ment. Such things had happened. . . .
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 245 
 
 He was roused from his somewhat premature reflections by 
 a murmured request from the figure at the window. 
 
 " Mr. Lee-Brice, do come here." 
 
 He joined her, and she mysteriously pointed out to him 
 Ernest Veere striding across the lawn towards the little 
 wicket which led by a short cut to the principal gate of the 
 Castle. 
 
 " Where's he oS to, without a hat ? " she asked breath- 
 lessly. 
 
 " To the fair, I should think, to take a turn on the merry- 
 go-round," the author said reassuringly, turning away from 
 the window and in^'iting Lady Dobree to do the same and 
 resume the conversation. " One only hopes he won't be 
 thrown. . . . "What are you ringing for ? Let me ? " 
 
 " You'll soon see ! " she said, a little hectic red spot growing 
 on her cheek, very obvious as Brooks appeared. 
 
 " Tell my maid to come here with my wrap, the dark 
 one." 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " said the author, his dark 
 eyes glowing ^vith some of the spirit of adventure. 
 
 " We're going down to the fair to see that Ernest doesn't 
 fall off. You'll escort me, won't you ? " 
 
 " To the end of the world, and Angernoune village green. 
 ... It is mild enough," he murmured to himself. Then 
 aloud, " Hadn't we better take Lady Maude ? " 
 
 " If you like. But you'll make the expedition disreputable 
 at once if you do. Besides, she's in at bridge by now. She'd 
 hate to be commandeered to chaperone." 
 
 Lady Dobree considered the matter settled. She was un- 
 used to being contradicted. Her maid brought the wrap, and 
 Lee-Brice, wearing a soft hat and with his Spanish hidalgo's 
 cloak thrown over his shoulder, escorted this Elvira to track 
 out her wayward Don Juan.
 
 246 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 The cocoanut shies, the fat lady, the shooting-galleries 
 had taken their horses out and now nestled comfortably under 
 the canopy of tall trees which made of the three-cornered 
 village green as seen from the Castle a thick, impenetrable mat 
 of foliage. Lee-Brice enjoyed to the full the peculiar pleasure 
 which the under-lighting of swart green leaves always gave him. 
 To Lady Dobree, standing at his side, sturdily planted on white 
 satin slippers, while the hem of her close-fitting white frock, 
 which she held tightly and relentlessly round her, bisected the 
 vertical line of her ankles, this Teniers-like scene, with its 
 smug boors and flaring lights and dark darknesses, repre- 
 sented but a less well-managed Kermesse than she had often 
 seen on the operatic stage. She was, moreover, deeply intent 
 on singling out the man she had come to look for. Now and 
 then she stamped her feet with a feverish, ill-disguised im- 
 patience, and the thin dried leaves crackled beneath her 
 tread. Lee-Brice quite realised her nervous state, but he was 
 not afraid of an anti-social outburst such as he might have 
 expected from the less well-regulated Betsey. He knew that 
 Lady Dobree had self-control at will and a certain stagnant 
 power of repose, and could bide her time with anybody. 
 
 But it was nearly twelve o'clock. He began to get anxious 
 to take this enterprising lamb back to her magnificent fold. 
 They had as yet seen no sign of Veere or Betsey. They 
 had no inkling of the right place to look for her. Suddenly, 
 however, their wandering gaze fixed itself on the merry-go- 
 round and its caparisoned wooden steeds, and then they were 
 both aware of a spirited figure in a short skirt and piquant cap, 
 from which masses of gold hair flew abroad, riding on a red 
 horse with blue trappings. 
 
 " There she is ! " Lady Dobree exclaimed, " on the merry- 
 go-round, actually !';,Wliat a cad ! " 
 
 " Hardly that. Only, popular prices, as you might say," 
 corrected Lee-Brice, adjusting his pince-nez. He admired 
 Betsey in her degree, and he had had several long talks with
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 247 
 
 her. He gazed at her next time she came round and then said, 
 deliberately : 
 
 " She looks very fine. Like a Co vent Garden Valkyrie, 
 and better. All that golden hair escaping — flying in the 
 wind " 
 
 " Gold hair has it, then ! " she replied languidly. " There's 
 a certain kind of man, I believe, who goes doAVTi like a nine- 
 pin before gold hair." 
 
 " Not I. It's always bound to be dyed after thirty." 
 
 "And is she thirty? Well, I don't know about you, of 
 course, but all Ernest's flirtations have to have it, it seems. 
 Didn't that IVIrs. Altamont ? I heard so. It was supposed to 
 shine through her veil, and light up the whole dingy court at 
 the trial, so The Sweep said. Oh dear me, how jealous I was 
 of her — once ! " 
 
 " Not really ? " said the man at her side. " Well, like to 
 like ! I'll wager you anything that she will feel sick presently, 
 and come off, and Ernest will find her. Shall we go ? " 
 
 She signified her assent, lifted her skirts still higher over her 
 thin legs, regardless of grimiing yokels' glances, and moved 
 away. As they reached the outer fringe of the crowd they met 
 Ernest Veere, rushing towards them, wild-eyed, from his long 
 walk on the links. 
 
 Lady Dobree nodded at him. Unruffled, she waved her 
 hand in the direction of the merry-go-round, which had just 
 started again to its appropriate music. 
 
 " You'll find your friend, Mrs. Adamson — isn't that her 
 name ? — in there," she said. " Good night. I'm getting cold." 
 
 She did not take the arm of Mr. Lee-Brice, but walked along 
 by his side in silence. He realised that an important shift of 
 her mental kaleidoscope had taken, or was taking place, and 
 forbore to distract her thoughts that were probably turning 
 conveniently in his direction. Ernest Veere had done for him- 
 self this evening. 
 
 Lady Dobree presently held up a white satin-shod foot, to
 
 248 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 which dull dead leaves adhered. " Parker will blow me up for 
 spoiling my shoes," she remarked. 
 
 " ShaU I carry you ? " 
 
 " No," she answered. She turned to him, as they began to 
 mount the incline by the zigzag paths that dissimulated it a 
 little, and spoke to him, using some of the roughest cadences 
 of which her voice was capable. 
 
 " Mr. Lee-Brice, you saw that woman ? What has she got 
 that I haven't, besides a lot of hair ? " 
 
 " Spots of commonness, anyway." 
 
 " Yes, but . . . charm seems to neutralise even common- 
 ness — it will neutralise anything, it seems. Why was I sent 
 into the world without it ! " 
 
 " My dear Lady Dobree ! " 
 
 " Lady Dobree — yes — but with nothing else to recommend 
 her ! " 
 
 " A fine — a very fine — character ! I mean it." 
 
 " I beheve you do. But " She looked away, she 
 
 was oppressed by shyness, yet lured by the desire to dis- 
 burden herself of confidences. " I'd adore any one who could 
 persuade me that I had one little tiny iota of the other thing. 
 It's something small and wonderful, like radium — a tiny 
 speck of it can modify a whole continent. It's the one bit 
 that'll be left when the planets burn up, and it's the only 
 thing that manages to survive a woman's beauty, and every- 
 thing else." 
 
 He took her hand and held it deliberately. The moment 
 had come. 
 
 Lady Dobree stopped on the cinder path and looked down 
 on their linked palms dispassionately. She seemed to herself 
 to speak with an effort, with a voice other than her own, but 
 it only sounded rougher than ever. 
 
 " Are you trying to show me that I've got enough radio- 
 activity about me to make you want to squeeze my hand ? "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 249 
 
 •Two vanities Avill never make a passion. Yet the young 
 girl was soothed, consoled, and uplifted even. She had got 
 what she wanted out of life. So had he. 
 
 Mr. Lee-Brice gently dropped the little complaisant hand 
 he was holding when, a few minutes later, they both stood at 
 the gate of Angernoune, and summoned the sleepy porter to 
 let them in. It did not occur to Lady Dobree to behave as if 
 there were any understanding between herself and the author. 
 \Mien in the solemn courtyard, that slept under the moon- 
 light, they came upon Lady Maude ; she bluntly told that 
 lady where she had been, and rallied her and her male com- 
 panion in a voice from which she made no effort to remove the 
 traces of emotion. 
 
 " Lord Vallance asked me to come out and catch cold with 
 him ! " Lady Maude explained. " The caprices of a nice boy 
 are law to me, as vou know " 
 
 " So you arranged a dreamy scarf over your head and 
 came. Suppose you take my man, and I'll have yours." 
 
 " All right ! You've been crjdng, Dobree ? " 
 
 " Yes. Now, scatter ! " She waved her hand and took 
 Lord Vallance's arm as if it was a hedge stake, and led him 
 aside. 
 
 " Do you know," said Lady Maude to the author as they 
 also sti oiled away together, " that I accepted this invitation 
 to Angernoune solely on your account. I thought we would 
 have such nice long indecent talks together, and instead of 
 that, you spend your time riding on roundabouts at village 
 fairs with Ernest Veere's sweetheart ! " 
 
 " Ah, but," he said gravely, watching the effect of his 
 words on the Lady Maude, " it was Ernest Veere's other sweet- 
 heart who rode. Not mine ! " 
 
 " Are you going to marry her ? " the lady asked, calmly. 
 
 " Do you object ? The Lady Dobree is merely going to 
 exchange* one form of mesalliance for another." 
 
 She woundingly accepted his statement. " No. Poor
 
 250 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 Dobree was bound to do something of the kind. She's not 
 had much chance. She's been forced to accept my valuable 
 chaperonage — and you know what I am. I've had to let her 
 into the society of people I despise, nouveaux riches, and so 
 on, people I can get hold of, and who value her title just for 
 what it gives them, and exploit her comparative poverty. 
 Don't I knoAv — but what can I do ? " 
 
 " Yes," he said pensively, refusing to continue the conver- 
 sation on this pessimistic note. " Rank is, or ought to be, 
 primitive and simple, because there is no struggle for existence 
 to breed complexity. Common people complicate life because 
 it's a fight to them. She doesn't know how to fight any more 
 than she knows how to darn stockings." 
 
 " Well, old Ernest would have saved her from that." 
 
 He laughed. " I think I can guarantee my wife immunity 
 from that degrading form of servitude too. She will be a 
 smart woman, never fear. Her fall from grace will secure her 
 that. A duchess may be dowdy — Lady Dobree Lee-Brice 
 must dress the part." 
 
 " Oh, she'll manage," Lady Maude burst out. " She can 
 say the most risque things sometimes, and her dresses are, 
 somehow, always cut lower and held up higher than any one 
 else's ! " 
 
 " The indelicacy of extreme innocence ! Shall I tell you 
 what flower she reminds me of ? A little early crocus, sturdy, 
 smooth-skinned, straight out of the ground, without guile or 
 subterfuge, or moral trimmings of any kind — nearly curve- 
 less, except for a little bit of modest closing in at the top " 
 
 " I'm what is known as a good sort," said Lady Maude, 
 " and I can talk about another woman for half an hour good — 
 but no more ! Let us turn in."
 
 XXXIII 
 
 Ernest Veere, his whole mind dazed and stupid with 
 unusual introspection, his outside plastered over with 
 his customary slickness and calm, made his way into the 
 thick of the throng, until he stood side by side with the moving 
 circle of the merry-go-round. He caught sight of the vicarage 
 boj'S — and then of their cherished companion, Mrs. Altamont. 
 She was actually mounted on a horse — riding abreast with one 
 great grey-flaimelled hobbledehoy who punctuated, with all 
 sorts of vocal encouragements in a young voice pitched at 
 breaking-point, their wild but restricted progress. Betsey's 
 horse was on the outside. 
 
 " Betsey ! " said Veere, as she passed. Even at that 
 distance he saw that she looked distracted. Sad unto tears, 
 with her golden hair coming down in floods under her cap, and 
 riding a patient roan horse with blue and crimson trappings, 
 she did not hear him as she pursued her circular course and 
 curved rapidly away from him. 
 
 Next time she came round he was determined to make 
 her hear, even at the risk of causing her to fall ofl' with 
 emotion. 
 
 " Betsey ! " he said again, as she passed. 
 
 Her glance fell on him. It was full of reproach. He saw the 
 shell-like whites of her eyes flash as she looked over her 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Come and have a ride ? " she shouted, her face suddenly 
 instinct with tragic animation. 
 
 A great guffaw proceeded from the vicarage boy, too simple 
 
 251
 
 252 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 to notice that Mr. Ernest Veere had called his pretty com- 
 panion by her Christian name ! 
 
 She passed again ; Veere felt as if a part of him was borne 
 in the remorseless curve along with this queer undisciplined 
 piece of feminine flesh and blood, who did not belong to him 
 but who alone had the power to make him feel angry. 
 She had chosen such a fallacious escort for what could have 
 been taken as a merely fashionable breaking-out of good 
 spirits if skilfully managed ! But these great rough boys, with 
 harsh voices cracking all over the place ! Her want of taste 
 revolted him. 
 
 The wheel stopped. He found Betsey at his side, sub- 
 missively tucking her hair out of sight. He said sourly : 
 
 " Don't trouble to hide it. . . . It's in character. That is, 
 if you have any left ! " 
 
 " Do mind your own business, Ernest ! " She turned away, 
 sticking in the last hairpin. Then she came back and touched 
 him on the arm. 
 
 "I never did have any," she remarked appealingly. "You've 
 always thought I did very well without it. I don't belong to 
 the ranks of the chaperoned. How could I, the wife of Alta- 
 mont?" 
 
 " Still, you might find a smarter escort ! " 
 
 " To sit crying beside ? No, I prefer the vicarage 
 
 boys ; they are young and unsophisticated, they notice 
 nothing." 
 
 " What should there be to notice ? There oughtn't to be. 
 But you've no dignity ! " 
 
 " No," she said sadly. " Not now. Something — ladylike — 
 in me has snapped. I've lost hold of myself. Wliat matter, 
 especially to you ? And I can't help thinking that I manage 
 to keep myself fairly respectable. At least, I'm as proper as 
 your Lady Dobree, who's been down here with Mr. Lee-Brice, 
 in draggled white satin, and her neck bare for every man to 
 stare at ! "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 253 
 
 " She dresses every evening, you see. And please don't 
 abuse her to me ! You lose ground." 
 
 " Well, I don't care to gain any," said she, gloomily. 
 " How should I ? The die is cast — your die — and yet you're 
 scolding me as if I was your wife — as if we were Darby and 
 Joan ! . . . I'm having a fairly good time, in spite of my 
 sorrows and so on, and I don't see why you, who are nothing 
 to me, by your own choice, should come here and prate about 
 dignity and make me self-conscious. It's no good ! . . . 
 You see, I'm not ]\Irs. Ernest Veere, and never shall be, so 
 why shouldn't I ride twenty hobby-horses if I like ? I'm 
 ]Mrs. Adamson — common, second-rate Mrs. Adamson — who 
 shows the Castle for sixpence to you and your real true friends, 
 that understand you and love you, and think you're a right 
 good sort, if a little bounderish ! . . ." 
 
 She was crying. Tlie sight moved him and took the sting 
 out of her words. She continued, pushing him away and 
 choking. 
 
 " Let me go. ... I wish I was as perfectly indifferent to 
 you as I try to batter myself into being ; but you know I'm 
 not, and I know you're not, and it's been hell. , . . Let me 
 go,'?Ernest ! — dear Ernest ! It's a pity we understand each 
 other so well, isn't it ? " 
 
 He caught her hand and gripped it. 
 
 " You demon ! And all you say is true . . . Betsey ! dear 
 Betsey ! " 
 
 ' Good -bye, Ernest. Let me go . . . please ... I can't 
 stand it. ... I love you ! " 
 
 She was gone, swallowed up in the crowd, her last whisper 
 only half heard, half believed. . . . 
 
 " What is it ? You sent for me ? " 
 
 Lady Dobree de Saye, very red, in a white kimono, stood
 
 254 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 at the door of her room that night, and confronted Ernest 
 Veere. She held out a handkerchief. 
 
 " Wliat's the matter ? " He looked at it. " Some one had 
 hemorrhage ? " 
 
 " No. I bit my lip, and I happened to have it in my hand. 
 But it isn't mine." She held out a corner of it. Her face was 
 crimson, but she was fairly calm. 
 
 " Well, you are a most original woman ! " He turned away. 
 
 " Tcha ! Read the name." 
 
 " E. Altamont," he read out crossly. 
 
 " I found it in my room behind a chest of drawers. Parker 
 thinks it must belong to a friend of hers whom she had in here 
 to tea. Only Parker says her friend's name was Adamson." 
 
 " Mrs. Adamson in the Keep ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Altamont in the Keep." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " Altamont, or Adamson, it 
 appears to be hers. Give it back to her." 
 
 " I will." 
 
 " Very well, do so in the morning. Go to bed now, quietly. 
 Good night. I suppose I mustn't kiss you before Parker? " 
 
 " That's just why you must," said she, capriciously. 
 
 The embrace was given and received. " May I really go and 
 see her to-morrow ? " she whispered. 
 
 " As you like." 
 
 " Shall you go across to-night and warn her ? " 
 
 " No, I shall go straight to bed. You can watch me go if 
 you like. I'm sick of it all, and I think I'll just leave it to 
 Betsey to straighten it out." 
 
 " Betsey ? " 
 
 ." Yes, Betsey, that's her name. It's the golden-haired one. 
 Don't make a mistake and claw Mrs. Cox's eyes out. Good 
 night. You won't see me in the morning." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " I'm off to town, to watch my case. First day of the trial 
 to-morrow."
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 255 
 
 " Oh, poor Ernest " 
 
 " Keep your pity," said he, crossly, turning and seeking his 
 own room. 
 
 " Most original engaged couple I ever saw ! " thought Lady 
 Maude Erskine-Robertson, who, in a gorgeous flowered French 
 peignoir that m\'ited more instant recognition, watched the 
 colloquy from her open bedroom door three or four steps up 
 from Lady Dobree's. Miss Parker did not abandon her post 
 of observation. Three scared women's faces watched Veere 
 as he flung away.
 
 XXXIV 
 
 The beach at Angernoune was dotted in the summer 
 months with bathing tents and cosy corners, but there 
 was no pier, no bathing machines as yet. It ranked so far only 
 as an amateur watering-place. Very little shipping came 
 within eye-range except the Scotch steamers that coasted by 
 on their way from London to Leith. There were lively quick- 
 sands, crabs that bit and jelly-fish that stung, and other 
 obstructions that are not met with at Margate. 
 
 Still, Evangeline Simmons, on the look out for a seaside 
 resort wherein to spend a month with her friend Mrs. Worme- 
 ley, had nosed it out. Evangeline loved the picturesque and 
 the romantic, and Angernoune Castle, as every one knew, 
 belonged to Ernest Veere, Betsey Altamont's friend. That 
 added a zest to the Wimbledonian plans. She thought she 
 would like to see how the Fairy Prince in the car was getting 
 on. Meanwhile the air at Angernoune was good, the sands 
 golden, and the lodgings, though amateurish, not worse than 
 other lodgings where they take you in, and pack themselves 
 and a large famUy into the kitchen for the summer months. 
 
 Mrs. Wormeley and Evangeline had brought a large striped 
 Christy Minstrel canvas shelter, set it up on the beach under 
 the lee of the Castle, and sat within it every day when it was 
 fine. They brought their lunch in baskets, and a novel each, 
 and to-day's Sweep and a book for the bairn, i.e. Master 
 Albany, who had never run away from his nurse since the day 
 he received that terribly converting shock of the lady with 
 
 256
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 257 
 
 the long bead necklace coming into his nursery. It would be 
 too much to say he never smiled again, but he certainly never 
 screamed. His mother, when she saw the card in the hall, had 
 suddenly realised that the bead chain was composed of rose 
 diamonds and that their angel visitant was a member of the 
 aristocracy. Her distinguished card still lay in the china tray, 
 dusted and delicately handled, but never covered. The 
 memory of the Lady Dobree de Saye was kept green. She had 
 called ! 
 
 Mrs. Wormeley, in the intervals of making purple French 
 knots in her gold-embroidered nightgown case, looked up at 
 the Castle. It impressed her deepl}^, with aU the weight of the 
 grandiose. 
 
 " It's a castle and a half, isn't it ? " Thus did she render 
 in colloquial English the effect produced on her by the im- 
 posing appearance of the great Norman stronghold of the 
 North. 
 
 " Our Ernest may lose," said Evangeline, glumly. " The 
 trial is going on now. The pretender man seems to stick at 
 nothing. I saw something about it in the papers to-day. He 
 seems to have been tampering A^dth the entry of his mother's 
 marriage certificate in some little local church in the south of 
 France." 
 
 " Why should he trouble to alter the certificate of his 
 mother's marriage to Sir Joris ? " 
 
 " Silly ! It wasn't the certificate of the Veere marriage — 
 I don't know where that is — but another. Don't you see, if 
 she married a Frenchman, as they say she did in between 
 whiles, she can't have been legally married to Sir Joris, 
 even if they do find that certificate. Here, let's look it 
 up " 
 
 She rummaged in her frightful canvas bag, embroidered on 
 some previous holiday, and found The Sweep. 
 
 " See ! He didn't tamper with the register, that's proved — 
 but someone else did — in his interests. They arrested that
 
 258 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 man and now they've arrested another, and he turns out to be 
 the plaintiff's cousin." 
 
 " That sounds fishy ! " 
 
 " The plaintiff — his name is Ernest Louis — says it was done 
 by some one in the defendant's interests. The defendant's 
 our Ernest Rose, see ? If Ernest Louis — that's the plaintiff — 
 is found to be illegitimate, then Ernest Rose, up there," she 
 waved her hand in the direction of the Castle, " keeps it as the 
 nephew of Sir Joris, See ? " 
 
 " No, I don't see. You're not very plain and I'm rather 
 muddled. I never can remember the difference between 
 plaintiff and defendant. You're a novelist, so of course it 
 comes easier." 
 
 " And you're a solicitor's wife ! " 
 
 " All, but Mortimer never talks business to me. He says 
 it's degrading. He likes to keep all that apart from the 
 home." 
 
 Evangeline laid The Sweep down in the sand with a sigh of 
 satisfaction, and resumed the silk tie she was knitting for 
 Dr. Gedge. "I think we writing women should not neglect 
 the arts of peace," she always said. But she could talk and 
 work too, and continued. 
 
 " A nervous business for our friend — Betsey's friend, I 
 mean. He's in London now, I suppose, watching his own 
 case. Mrs. Gray said she thought he wasn't in the Castle just 
 now. The flag's down, anyway." 
 
 "Oh, but there are a lot of people there still. By the way, 
 didn't Mrs. Gray say there was a man in Lady Dobree's house 
 party that the vicar preached about last Sunday — the shame 
 of his book being suppressed, don't you know ? Did he mean 
 The Red Corpuscles ? Can it be the man who wrote The Bed 
 Corpuscles ? " 
 
 " Not likely. Surely the Castle people wouldn't know any 
 one whose books had been suppressed, though the vicar might. 
 He's a bit advanced, they say. I don't like it in a clergyman,
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 259 
 
 I must say. The Jaeger vicar, so far, is the only thing I've 
 got against this place." 
 
 " I don't know that I mind. It's rather smart to be a free- 
 thinker. It's dowdy to be as thin-skinned as Mortimer, and 
 bother so about morals ! And as for Lady Dobree and her set, 
 I know something of them. She treats authors and so on as 
 she would conjurers and palmists, don't you know, and when 
 it's a general mourning announced, don't a bit mind their 
 coming to her parties wearing colours ! I heard that once. 
 It's rather derogatory to the profession, I think. We ought 
 to be careful, to be more conventional than most. Oh, I expect 
 Lee-Brice is The Red Corpuscles all right." 
 
 " That book always makes me think of Betsey." 
 
 " Yes, it does me. You know we were in Wellington's ask- 
 ing for it when the murder of Sir Joris first came out. She was 
 the calmest thing, that day ! " 
 
 " Stunned, probably. So Dr. Gedge always says. By the 
 way, she'd be a widow now, wouldn't she ? " 
 
 " Ten days ago. I expect she's gone to America. She told 
 me she meant to that day I went to tea with her in Worksop 
 House. I was the only one of her old friends she would see 
 during that awful time " 
 
 " She only saw you once," said Mrs. Wormeley, hastily. 
 " And that was an accident — or more than an accident — so 
 you needn't brag about it. . . . My goodness ! " 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 " Speak of the ! I'm very much mistaken, or I do 
 
 believe that is Betsey over there, coming straight towards 
 us ! And isn't that her cook's little boy she's got in her 
 hand ? " 
 
 " It is ! Now wasn't I right to get you to come here ? " 
 
 " We'll have to speak to her ! " ejaculated Mrs. Wormeley, 
 becoming very business-like. " Albany, come here. Now 
 mind, you're not to want to go and play with that little boy 
 over there, do you see ? "
 
 260 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " Oh, ma, can't I ? " begged Master Albany, naturally 
 affected by this prohibition. 
 
 Mrs. Wormeley encircled her son's neck with her arm, bury- 
 ing his face in the arm of her jacket. Betsey, shortsightedly 
 plodding towards them — they were in the direct line of the 
 road to the beach — was upon them before she could take 
 thought to avoid the suburban snare set for her. 
 
 " Heigh, Betsey ! " exclaimed Evangeline, bluntly and 
 shyly. " You're not going to cut me, surely ? Shake hands 
 with Mrs. Wormeley, do — let bygones be bygones ! " 
 
 " Tliey are bygones, aren't they ? " said Betsey, gently 
 indicating a deep sense of time elapsed. " No, I don't mind 
 shaking hands — twenty hands, if you like ? " 
 
 Master Albany and Billy, at a good working distance, 
 glared and gloated on each other. 
 
 " You've got thinner, Betsey," said Mrs. Wormeley, who 
 had got fatter. 
 
 " Have I ? " 
 
 " And it's not because you're in black ? " she insinuated 
 disapprovingly. 
 
 " I don't believe in mourning," said Betsey, " even if you're 
 sorry the person has died. I'm not. Can't these two children 
 go and play together ? " 
 
 " Certainly, if you'll sit down and tell us all about yourself," 
 said Mrs. Wormeley, quite cordially — Betsey always had a 
 way with her. " Not out of sight, mind ! " she admonished 
 her child, who was being led away to recondite groves of bent 
 grass by the sturdier, more spirited Billy. 
 
 " And how do you come to be here ? " she asked judicially, 
 as the married woman, taking the entire conduct of the inter- 
 view. " Aren't you going to tell us all about it ? " 
 
 " I'm going to tell you all that you can possibly find out," 
 said Betsey. " Bother you ! Well, you must know — you 
 will know — I come to be here just as you come to be here. 
 Angernoune is reckoned to be very good air, and I have taken
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 261 
 
 lodgings with my cook. She happens to have got the post of 
 housekeeper at the Castle. She'll be the one to show you over 
 the Keep on Thursday ! " 
 
 " We intended to come," murmured Evangeline. 
 
 " You'll be sure to come now, won't you ? " the other said 
 sarcastically. " Remember that I call myself Adamson. That 
 is my name, really. I suppose it is no use asking you both not 
 to split on me or talk about me in the village — for if you do 
 I shall have to go, and I'd be sorry, for the place suits me." 
 
 " My dear, we wouldn't give j^ou away for the world, would 
 we, Evangeline ? Naturally, it's a bit awkward for you — the 
 association — the name Altamont ! . . . How funny it sounds 
 to pronounce it again ! It gives one quite a turn ! So much 
 lias happened since then " 
 
 " We won't discuss it. I must be off. Billy has to have his 
 bathe." 
 
 " You are good to those children, Betsey ! You always 
 were. And Mr. Veere — I used to hear he made quite pets of 
 them ! There was a little girl, wasn't there ? How's she ? " 
 
 " All right. She died." 
 
 " How can she be all right then, Betsey ? But I suppose 
 you've had a lot of worry, and you're a bit muddled in your 
 mind at times." 
 
 Betsey rose to her feet. 
 
 " Then are you going to America ? " Mrs. Wormeley in- 
 quired. 
 
 " No. Who said I was ? " 
 
 Miss Simmons broke in. " That last interview we had " 
 
 " When you got into my house on the sly and hid in my bed- 
 room ! Oh, yes, I had some idea of it then. Now I've changed 
 my plans." 
 
 " Where are you going then ? " Mrs. Wormeley reserved her 
 rightful retributive chaff of Evangeline till later. " Can one 
 know ? " 
 
 " I'll send you a card to say where I am when I'm settled,
 
 262 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 and then you can have the pleasure of calling — or taking no 
 notice of me. Just which suits you. Good-bye." 
 
 " The same as ever ! " sighed Mrs. Wormeley the moment 
 Betsey's pretty maidenly back was turned. 
 
 " More cynical — and less handsome ! " said the other. 
 
 "Oh, she was always quite the rudest woman in Wimble- 
 don. We only tolerated her because she was so amusing — 
 and now she isn't even that ! Soured ! Not so much hair ! 
 I wonder, now, I really do, what she has been doing with her- 
 self all this time since she left Wimbledon ? " 
 
 " Running about under an assumed name. And here, in 
 Mr. Veere's house, practically. Her old flame ! And he's in 
 and out all day, I expect. There's an underground passage 
 between the Dwelling House and the Keep ! " 
 
 " Which he uses, you bet ! " 
 
 "Oh, this is a good place to come to ! " sighed Evangeline. 
 " One gets taken out of oneself with a vengeance, doesn't one ? 
 It's as good as any rest cure to me — to be in the move — in 
 the know. We'll go over the Castle on Thursday, won't we ? " 
 
 " If she's still there ! She'll probably do a bolt, isn't that 
 what they call it . . . ? " 
 
 Mrs. Wormeley was staring urgently towards a lonely figure 
 of a woman who had been sitting on the beach, and who, when 
 Betsey passed her, had risen tentatively and sat down again, 
 as if she had repented her impulse to speak to Mrs. Altamont. 
 
 " What are you looking at so hard and not attending to 
 me ? " asked Evangeline. 
 
 " I was thinking how true it was that you said about this 
 being the place to come to. Do you see that girl over there — 
 nicely dressed — good style ? " 
 
 " She's been there ages. There was a man with her a few 
 moments ago." 
 
 " Well, when she first got up to speak to Betsey as she 
 passed, and thought better of it, I noticed her more particu- 
 larly, and I feel sure it's that Lady Dobree. When she came
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 263 
 
 in that day about Albany screaming so, Betsey said I was a 
 muff for not improving the acquaintance. I'm going to do 
 it now ! I'm going to speak to her. Lady Dobree de Saye — 
 that was the name on the card she left on me." 
 
 "All right. I'm on." 
 
 Taking Albany by the dirty hand and followed by Evan- 
 geline, Mrs. Wormeley approached the negligent figure and 
 dashed at it. 
 
 " Lady Dobree, perhaps you may not remember me, but 
 this is the little boy you took such an interest in once in 
 Wimbledon." 
 
 " Did I ? " said Lady Dobree, coldly. 
 
 " Don't you remember ? You were walking up our road in 
 Wimbledon — at least I don't know if you were walking — and 
 you caught sight of Albany, in one of his naughty little 
 tempers. He was having a fine escapade — he's such a highly 
 nervous child — and you saw him running down the road with 
 no clothes on, and called in about it. You're too old now, 
 my sweet, to do that ! Speak to the lady and tell her so." 
 
 She removed a sticky bun — what she could of it — from her 
 son's mouth, and continued : 
 
 " We've got such nice lodgings — Mrs, Gray's — very clean 
 and reasonable. You're in the Castle, of course. We heard. 
 Our landlady knows all about Mr. Veere's house party. A 
 friend of mine — that lady who's just left us — you must have 
 seen her go past — is lodging there, and likes it very much." 
 
 "Oh, in the Keep ! " A light broke on Lady Dobree's 
 face, which had been heretofore stiffly made up to repress 
 impertinence. She half rose, and forgetting to be distant, 
 asked eagerly : 
 
 " Could you tell me her right name — the name of the one 
 with golden hair — not the dark-haired one ? " 
 
 " Not so golden as it was ! " said Mrs. Wormeley. " But 
 still. Lady Dobree, if you're really interested in dear Betsey — 
 I think we'll tell her, won't we, Evangeline ? . . . She's got
 
 264 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 such a very sad life, has poor Betsey, and Lady Dobree is 
 interested in her." 
 
 A pause. '. 
 
 " She's the widow of Altamont, the murderer ! " 
 
 " Is she really ? No, I'm not particularly interested in her, 
 thank you. Good day ! " 
 
 She did not rise, she did not move from her place, she 
 merely turned her back. And Judas lost his thirty pieces.
 
 XXXV 
 
 It was midday. Lady Dobree, returned from her bathe, 
 wandered round and round the courtyard alone, help- 
 lessly throwing croquet balls for Boris to retrieve from the 
 square enclosure of the ruined chapel, and again, returning, 
 examining wth a faint curiosity the cocldeshells embedded 
 in the wall of the Keep. Mrs. Altamont, had Lady Dobree but 
 known it, watched her from a window-slit inside, sitting cross- 
 legged in the wide stone encoignure that widened out to 
 make a seat-hold in the interior. Golden hair against grey 
 wall, she made a picture which Lee-Brice, the only artist in 
 the enceinte of Angernoune, would have known how to 
 admire. 
 
 He sat at his own window in the Dwelling House, by a little 
 table, correcting an important batch of proofs for the next 
 post. If he troubled to raise his eyes, he could see Lady 
 Dobree's peregrinations, but he was bent on finishing the 
 work in hand. He worked methodically. The young lady 
 would not run awav. 
 
 It was finished, the envelope addressed and stamped. The 
 author rose, and stood in his window full in view. Lady 
 Dobree, strangely womanly and gentle, came and waited 
 below. She had no notion of flirting : with her the attain- 
 ment of her immediate object always precluded side-issues, 
 and she was deeply determined on a certain course — or had 
 been, while she mounted the steep sides up to the postern and 
 through to the domain of Angernoune, after her conversa- 
 
 2(35
 
 266 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 tion with the two suburban ladies on the beach. Single- 
 hearted people are generally single-minded as well and drive 
 a straight furrow to their point. 
 
 " Have you quite done ? " she asked politely. 
 
 " Yes. I will go down and post this, and after that I shall 
 be quite at your service." 
 
 " I want nothing done for me that another person could 
 do, at least," she replied, sadly. " I'd rather say, ' Alone I 
 did it ! ' or, ' Alone I don't do it,' will be nearer the mark, I 
 fear." 
 
 " You have been circling for a long while round and 
 round the door of the Keep, like the student Wagner's 
 poodle in ' Faust ' — but with what objective I cannot 
 guess ! " 
 
 He joined her on the grass plat. Dobree looked up at him 
 and said frankly : 
 
 "I look like a fool, don't I? The fact is, I want to 
 have a row with a woman and I don't know how to get 
 at her." 
 
 " Ah ! Ring the bell— or shall I ? " He raised his hand. 
 She made a rapid movement. Then she drawled : 
 
 " How do you know the person I want is in there ? " 
 
 " I knew you were stalking the Lady of the Keep. I saw 
 her just now, from my window, go into her fastness. She was 
 a little flurried, I thought, and showed it ! " 
 
 " She would. That sort of common person ! " 
 
 " Is she a common sort of person ? I think not ! She's one 
 of those women you can't classify, for they come under no 
 known category. It's a class that's bred under modern con- 
 ditions " 
 
 " Like Ernest Veere ! " said she, roundly. " Funny ! Those 
 two are better pals than you know. I've just found out about 
 her from a couple of impertinent women I met on the sands 
 this morning. They were friends of hers — of Mrs. Altamont's. 
 That's who she is. You don't seem surprised ! "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 267 
 
 " I suspicioned it." 
 
 " I don't believe you a bit. Being a novelist wouldn't 
 surely put you on to that ! Now I had a sort of inkling, for I 
 found a handkerchief yesterday marked ^^dth her name. Here 
 it is!" 
 
 " Piece de conviction ! " 
 
 " Yes, it only needed, after that, for them to tell me which 
 of the Keep women was Mrs. Altamont ! " 
 
 " \Mio's the other, then?" 
 
 " Her cook ! " 
 
 " More likely the other woman in the case ! . . . a barmaid 
 or a model, wasn't it ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I didn't at the time take much interest in 
 the Altamont trial, except in so far as it referred to Ernest. 
 Tlie only thing against it is, that if she is really the woman 
 he used to go about with in town, you know — and that there 
 was such a talk about — Ernest would hardly have dared 
 to encourage me, as he did last night, to go and talk to her 
 about it. . . ." 
 
 " Not all things — but a few things are possible to Veere that 
 would not be — say, to us ! He flies to bluff, resorts to it as a 
 natural weapon, without reference to the delicacy of the posi- 
 tion in which you are placed. And it needed some nerve to put 
 you straight on to her ! " 
 
 " Oh, you can't say Ernest is a coward ! " 
 
 " Yes, let us leave him something ! " He smiled. 
 " Well, why don't you do as he so ungently sug- 
 gested ? Villainy ! Seek it out ! Have an explanation 
 with her." 
 
 " I can't, somehow." 
 
 " Because, somehow, you are gentle, in the true sense of the 
 word." 
 
 " I meant to have a scene with her and I told him so last 
 night. But when I came to think it over this morning, I found 
 1 had nothing to kick oil from. What was I going to say to
 
 268 THE WIFE OF ALTx^MONT 
 
 her when I did see her ? How was I going to word my com- 
 plaint ? I can't go to her and say, ' Madam — or woman ! — 
 you're a murderer's wife and I disapprove of your 
 acquaintance with the man I'm going to marry — that is 
 if I am ? '" 
 
 His face brightened. He remarked cynically, " That 
 addition would probably take the sting out of your 
 words." 
 
 " Why ? Oh, I see ! And he with her, do you think ? I 
 suspected that too. Oh dear, what dirty water we're swim- 
 ming in ! I saw them once together, and I've been restless 
 and irritable ever since. How could he ? It was about a week 
 ago, and they were sitting in a cleft in the sandhills about half 
 a mile from here. He was lying on the sand face downwards, 
 with his back to her, like a lover, and she was munching 
 rushes ! I felt horrid, and yet I wasn't spying, only walking 
 by. Since then I've hated this place. I wish I was out of it ! 
 It's all different — it's a sickening hole, I think. And we're 
 Ernest's guests, ... Oh, dash ! " 
 
 She sank on to a bit of a stone plinth lying derelict in the 
 little chapel garden where he had led her. " It seems rather 
 mean to be wild because a man you're not in love with 
 is in love with another woman ? My vanity is hurt, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, it isn't that ! It is not vanity, it is proper 
 pride. Ernest Veere hasn't behaved well — he doesn't 
 know how to behave, in fact. You are fully entitled to 
 a scene." 
 
 He observed her, drooping, conscious and bewildered, un- 
 accustomed to deal with persons of this socially doubtful 
 brand. He tested her again, he wished her to come out of the 
 trial perfectly pure and lad^'like. 
 
 " Come along, I sa}^, and talk to her. She's in there, I 
 know. I believe she is watching us through one of those loop- 
 holes ! "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 269 
 
 Lady Dobree started, vshruggcd her shoulders, and looked 
 thoroughly disgusted. 
 
 " Peeping ! No, it's no good. I simply can't. I'm 
 shy ! " 
 
 " Charming ! I knew you couldn't," said Mr, Lee-Brice.
 
 mi 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 The party at Angernoune had been dwindling for some 
 time past. The host was away, autumn steaHng on apace. 
 The evenings closed in very cold, with more than a touch 
 of frost. The Dwelling House now tenanted the Blessingtons, 
 Eady Maude Erskine - Robertson, the novelist, and Lady 
 Dobree only. These five persons nightly attempted to fill 
 beautifully the long narrow table, at the head of which Lady 
 Dobree had sat from the beginning. The lower end of it, with 
 its melancholy acreage of glistering white tablecloth, now 
 seemed very far away from the little knot of people at the 
 top, who were in such complete sympathy and fashionable 
 accord that conversation was hardly needed to foster the 
 sense of fellowship between them. 
 
 They were all in a tale. Lee-Brice, happy to be one of them, 
 albeit casually, fitted in perfectly. No one missed Ernest 
 Veere. 
 
 " ,The old butler was severely catechised at every meal as to 
 the date of his master's probable return. No one but he was 
 privileged to know it. 
 
 " I could not say, sir. I could not tell, my lady," was his 
 rejoinder, oft repeated. " We have received no official inti- 
 mation." 
 
 " : " The trial can't surely last many more days," Lord Blessing- 
 ton ejaculated. " They'll find for Veere to-morrow, or there- 
 abouts, I should think ! " 
 
 " I hope so, I'm sure, my lord." 
 
 " Brookie knows more than he chooses to tell us," Lady 
 
 270
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 271 
 
 Maude whispered to her neighbour, Mr. Lee-Brice. " I don't 
 care for these so old familj^ servants. They're past work and 
 they are no more faithful than the others, and they have a 
 deal more data to betray you on. That man's been hearing 
 from Veere every day, I fancy, and knows to a minute when 
 he'll arrive. \Miat does it matter, we are very happy as we 
 are ? Veere's a dear felloAv, but there's a certain sense of relief 
 at his absence, don't you think ? If it was nothing else, 
 Dobree seems more at ease, doesn't she ? " 
 
 " How Avicked you are ! " 
 
 " A weight off her mind," continued Lady Maude, " and 
 something else nice and effervescing there instead." 
 
 " She looks very well to-night, if a little preoccupied ? " 
 
 " Dobree's always preoccupied — with self, of course, and 
 it's against her looks. There's often a strong determination 
 of personality to the tip of the nose ! 'Sh'h ! She's a dear 
 little girl — and you mean to marry her ! " 
 
 " My dear lady ! " 
 
 "Authors always call one that," said Lady Maude, bluntly. 
 " It's a little way they have. But don't be cross. As a race, 
 you are very different nowadays from the Early Victorian 
 variety. Selection, I suppose — Mudie's ! The old lot didn't 
 go out so much, and they dranlc deeper. Imagine Wilkie 
 Collins or Anthony TroUope having the slightest chance of 
 marrying a girl like Dobree ! " 
 
 " Wanting to, even ! " said he, haughtily. 
 
 " Aha ! I've got you to admit it ! Well — well ! Prosper 
 you ! You will call yourself De Saye, I presume ? " 
 
 " You go rather quick, don't you, dear Lady Maude ? She's 
 still engaged to another man, more or less." 
 
 " So much less ! I made that engagement — I'll unmake it 
 if I think fit. She's, though obstinate, fairly impressionable, 
 and the worst of her is that when you have got her jogged to 
 a particular course of action, she takes all the credit of the 
 initiative to herself. Oh, of course, you'll marry her ! It's
 
 272 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 indicated. Do you think, if it hadn't been, I'd have consented 
 to such a dull time of it here ? I've been simply bored to 
 death. I came intending to have long Kreutzer-Sonata-like 
 talks, leading to nothing, with you about our triple-stained 
 pasts, and instead you've been occupying your time corrupt- 
 ing the ingenue. If I wasn't a student of human nature and 
 hadn't had dear little decadent Vallance and good, steady 
 old Blessington for a derivative, I'd have gone long since. It's 
 a bit more amusing now that poor Ernest is away. Isn't it 
 odd — for a clever boy like him, how ill he goes with us ! He 
 doesn't amalgamate a bit. He belongs over there ! " She 
 indicated the region where the Keep was supposed to lie with 
 a sweep of her jewelled fingers. 
 
 " I agree Avith you that it is so, and he will find it out 
 presently." 
 
 " He's too straight — I don't say in business, but socially — 
 for us. Too literal, too slavish, too simple. He keeps his wits 
 for his trade, I suppose. We don't want inventions — we want 
 epigrams. Solid qualities that will wash are no good to us. 
 We don't want things to wash — we like to knock them out 
 and have done. Now you do all right. You're clever ! " 
 
 " I would never allow a man to call me so ! " replied Lee- 
 Brice, swallowing a little in his throat. 
 
 " I say what I like," said Lady Maude, perfectly appre- 
 hending and regardless of his feelings. " Always did. Let 
 the glass-house authors beware ! If they don't like my 
 brusqueness they can leave it alone — or say it's smart ! I do 
 you good, you know. ... All right, Dobree, I'm collected . . . 
 Mr. Lee-Brice has refused to amuse me any more ! " 
 
 They passed into the big drawing-room, beyond which, and 
 three or four grades lower, loomed the vaster depths of the 
 ballroom. It was unlit to-night for some reason or other. 
 Brooks's orders, which no one, not even Lady Dobree, ever 
 ventured to contravene ! There were two doors at the far end, 
 one of which led into a corridor and what was presumed to be
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 273 
 
 the old kitchen of the Castle, the other mto that room which 
 had been Sir Joris's study. Veere used that now and then, 
 when he had business, and as a sanctum to retire to when he 
 had the sulks. 
 
 A dart was made for the morning papers. Lord Elessington 
 took one and Mr. Lee-Brice the other. The maxim, ^'Place aux 
 dames,'" did not operate ; women are generally supposed to 
 be willing to be served last mth news. They shimmered 
 about aimlessly, by the big standard lamps that were clasped 
 in the mailed fists of knights impossibly armed in the purlieus 
 of Wardour Street. Tliey remained on the raised plateau of 
 the drawing-room floor, and treated the lower plane of the 
 unlit ballroom as the waters of the unl^nown lying at their feet. 
 The effect was ghostly enough, and Lady Maude, gossiping 
 with Dobree, both outlined against the dark, looked like 
 Geraldine, with her soft green draperies and wicked light hair, 
 betraying a Christabel. ... A door banged somewhere at the 
 end of the dancing-hall, and Lady Maude shivered. 
 
 " I'm rather sorry I dtcolleteed to please you," she com- 
 plained, " for there are some fearsome draughts about ! I 
 believe one of those doors at the end of the hall is open ? 
 Can't one of you men go and shut it ? I would, but I'm 
 afraid of the ghosts of armed men and walled-in nuns. That 
 was a chapel beyond — or was it the kitchen ? The ghost of 
 a mediaeval cook would be enough for me. I wouldn't go 
 down to the end of the room alone for the world ! " 
 
 Both men ignored her appeal, so deeply were they in- 
 terested in their papers. Lady Maude, psychic as usual, felt a 
 brain wave, and grew perturbed. . . . Just as she was about 
 to speak Lord Blessington looked up, dropped his eye-glass 
 on the floor, and exclaimed : " Good God ! " 
 
 Mr. Lee-Brice looked up out from his particular journal in 
 which the same item of news had caught his superior natural 
 eye a few moments ago, but he had chosen to keep quiet and let 
 some one else chirrup it out. 
 
 T
 
 274. THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " What is it, Blessington ? " asked Lady Maude, fretfully. 
 " You didn't ' Good God ' like that about a bit of pebble ! Is 
 it something about Ernest Veere ? " 
 " Yes, He's lost his case, that's all ! " 
 "Veere! Lost his case!" cried the lady. "Here, let me see!" 
 Tripping herself up in her tight skirts, she ran to Lord 
 Blessington, who, without the aforesaid pebble, was helpless 
 and of no further use to any one. She roughly took his paper 
 from him, while he groped senilely on the floor for his glass. 
 Dobree, meanwhile, had swung across to where Mr. Lee-Brice 
 was sitting. 
 
 " The other man's proved it — proved it to the hilt ! " 
 shouted Lady Maude. " They have found that he's the law- 
 ful son of Sir Joris all right— or all wrong ! Oh, my poor 
 Ernest ! I like him, you know, and always shall ! " 
 
 " How generous of you, now he's a pauper ! " grumbled 
 Lord Blessington, still as it were on four feet looking for his 
 eye-glass. 
 
 " He can appeal," said Lee-Brice, quietly. 
 " But he won't ! " said Lady Dobree. " I know him. He's 
 an utter crank ! " 
 
 She spoke indifferently, carelessly, as if interested in some- 
 thing else. . . . Her eyes were dilated, her attitude tense, 
 as she stared fixedly into the depths of the dancing-hall. 
 
 " What is it, Dobree ? " Lady Maude asked irritably. 
 " You look as if you had just seen a ghost — the ghost of a 
 fortune, eh, my girl ? " 
 
 " I don't want to drive you all into hysterics," said the 
 young lady, still peering intently into the blackness. " But 
 if you ask me, I am convinced there's some one there." 
 
 Lady Maude then screamed. The sound of what seemed to 
 be a distant lock catching was distinctly heard. . . . Lord 
 Blessington came up from behind the console. 
 
 "I've got it— got my eyes ! " said he triumphantly. " Now 
 let's have a look."
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 275 
 
 " Oh, damn j^our eyes ! " cried Lady Maude, impatiently. 
 " You won't know what's happening with them any more than 
 you did without, will he, Mary ? Do, somebody, have some 
 sense and turn up the lights down there, please ! " 
 
 Lord Blessington, anxious to retrieve his position m the 
 lady's good graces, girded his old loins to tread the slippery 
 floor of the ballroom and find the switch that would illuminate 
 it and dispel all contumacious shadows. Dobree, leaning over 
 Lee-Brice's shoulder, was conning the details of the trial. 
 The author's beautiful calm under the misfortune of another 
 fascinated her. She was his from that moment, and he knew 
 it. Henceforth there were only arrangements to be made, 
 engagements to be politely cancelled, ways and means to be 
 found, and old tracks to be smoothed over. He knew he had 
 Lady Maude's suffrage — the middle-aged Society woman who 
 bear-led this self-billed maiden. The girl herself uncon- 
 sciously leant on his arm, mth all the weight of confidence 
 reposed by a simple stalwart nature, when at an early, non- 
 critical age it surrenders itself to a profound psychologist and 
 man of the world. 
 
 The switch had been found — one of them — and the shadows 
 of the dancing-hall partially dispelled. But Lady Maude was 
 still whimpering . . , suggesting horrors . . . half pretend- 
 ing, half serious. . . . Lady Dobree drew herself up and 
 spoke coldly : 
 
 " Dear Maude, don't you think we have had enough non- 
 sensical talk of this kind ? Wliy should you trouble to raise 
 the ghost of — my ancestors, when you come to think ? For 
 Ernest has got no ghosts ! " Lee-Brice worshipped the draw- 
 ing up of her proud young lips with which she said this. 
 " There's nothing there, you see, and the door of Ernest's 
 study is locked, so Lord Blessington says. It always is if he's 
 away, I know. Brookie has strict instructions. So it can't 
 have been that door you heard closing. Don't have hysterics 
 just now when there's so much to do and think of."
 
 276 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " Of course not ! " said Mary Blcssington, sensibly. 
 " Maude isn't really afraid of spooks, we knew, or of any- 
 thing. She's upset by the news, that's all ! We all are ! " 
 
 " As far as I can make out," said her husband, who had 
 been studying The Times assiduously, " we have none of us 
 any right here in this house at all ! It doesn't belong to 
 Ernest Veere, whose guests we are, any more ! " 
 
 " Surprising intelligence you do show sometimes. Blessing- 
 ton ! " said his wife, " But I don't see, even if it is as you 
 say, that we can be expected to turn out at once — to-night ! 
 We can pay the pretender his hotel bill when he takes posses- 
 sion, if you like ! " 
 
 "I dare say we shall all sleep as sound in Ernest Louis's 
 bed as in Ernest Rose's," said Dobree, ingenuously, and every 
 one laughed, glad that the tension was removed. 
 
 " I wonder what he's like — the pretender, I mean ? " whis- 
 pered Lady Blcssington. 
 
 " He's not the pretender any more," retorted Lady Maude, 
 also in a low voice, to her friend. " Our Ernest is the outsider 
 now. I say, if Ernest Louis is at all presentable, might the 
 engagement be transferred, do you think ? " 
 
 " Papa Angernoune would be quite willing, I expect," re- 
 plied Lady Blcssington. " But you are wicked, Maude ! " 
 
 " Not so. ' Tempora mutantur ' , . . Come along, my little 
 Dobree, for it's late and there's a lot to be done to-morrow. 
 Let us all betake ourselves to the comfortable couch of Ernest 
 Louis. I mean to have my nice drug-sleep, in spite of the 
 sudden change of dynasty. It's freezing, too, to-night, I be- 
 lieve. I wonder where poor old Ernest is ? " 
 
 She drew her arm through that of Lady Dobree, as they 
 went upstairs. It proved a stiff, irresponsive member. Lady 
 Dobree was " off " her whilom friend and mentor. But the 
 habits of intimacy of five years could not be so lightly 
 discontinued, and the young girl dutifully answered her 
 chaperon's questions, albeit as shortly as she dared.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 277 
 
 " What are you going to do about it, dear ? " 
 
 " The only thing." 
 
 " Throw him over ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Have you got the other safe ? " 
 
 "Yes. Goodnight!" 
 
 " How that girl has gro\vn up in the last few days," thought 
 the practised coquette, as she gained her own room and Chay- 
 tor's discreet ministrations. " It is Lee-Brice who has brought 
 her on so. Extraordinary power these journalistic people 
 have, like the medicine-man or priest of a savage tribe ! It's 
 all mumbo- jumbo that they shove at you, but in choice literary 
 phrases ! He has looks too, and pots of money ! These 
 royalties on his books that he talks of, now — I don't quite 
 understand, but whatever it is, it goes on and on accumu- 
 lating ! It's really hardly fair. Now, poor little Vallance — 
 no money, no inches, only a title ! Veere none of the three ! 
 I suppose I shall have to console him ! They'll all leave him 
 now — like the rats in a sinking ship, I know us — we're a low 
 lot, in our way." 
 
 She turned in. 
 
 Dobree, entering her vast apartment on the West Turret, 
 took up a position near the crooked window that commanded 
 the western wall of the Keep, and commanded Parker to 
 brush her hair, as she stood there, till she was told to desist, 
 and not to talk. 
 
 Parker would have liked to tell her mistress that Betsey's 
 room fronted the north, knowing full well that the pretty 
 golden-haired cicerone was Lady Dobree's real objective. But 
 she obeyed in silence — a temporary silence as she knew it 
 would be. The girl soon spoke. ' 
 
 " We shall be leaving here to-morrow, Parker." 
 
 " Yes, my lady. Where for, my lady ? " 
 
 " Hell ! " said Lady Dobree, with sombre empiiasis, but 
 Parker was not much startled. She settled in her mind that
 
 278 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 the luggage would have to be labelled Castle de Saye — or 
 perhaps Low Water, both family entrenchments where the 
 wounded doe might retire for a season. 
 
 " Very well, my lady," she replied. " I'll write the labels." 
 
 Lady Dobree said nothing, but continued to gaze out of the 
 window into the black night. 
 
 The unconfidential maid could not resist the opportunity 
 of allowing her mistress to see that she was as well primed 
 with information as any one else, and was perfectly well 
 acquainted with the cause of her meditated flight. 
 
 " There's a lot of talk in the village, my lady ! You know 
 that Mrs. Adamson in the Keep — well, she isn't really Mrs. 
 Adamson at all ! She's Mrs. Altamont, the wife — widow, I 
 should say — of the murderer of Sir Joris Veere. They say 
 that Mr. Veere oughtn't to have let her be about here, 
 stopping free in Sir Joris's omti place — that it's hardly de- 
 cent " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Parker." 
 
 " Yes, my lady." 
 
 " And yet that's boring. I want to hear what they do say, 
 so you had better go on." 
 
 " There are two ladies in the village, my lady, lodging with 
 Mrs. Gray in Chesters, and they say they knew Mrs. Altamont 
 quite well, in Wimbledon, where they all live. Nasty Ioav 
 subbub it is, to be sure. Near your uncle's, though. And 
 Mr. Ernest was never out of the house where Mrs. Altamont 
 lived — Worksop House, I think they called it. And driving 
 her about in his motor-car and all ! And then bringing her 
 here under a false name ! Seems as if he could not bear to be 
 parted from her " 
 
 " I don't want you to tell me any more, Parker, thank you 
 very much. That will do. Remember we go to-morrow. I 
 dare say some of the others will be going too. Mr. Lee-Brice 
 is, I know." Complacently she laid her young head on the 
 pillow and composed herself to sleep.
 
 XXXVII 
 
 As Lady Maude had said, the first prickly cold of autumn 
 was in the air. It was a night to turn in as quicldy as 
 possible ; but Betsey, in her haunted chamber in the old 
 Keep, lingered, threw clothes into bags, undid her hair in 
 sections, and leaned on the wide window-sill, refraining, how- 
 ever, from lifting the pane of glass that stood between her 
 and the cold wind that roved over the North Sea and now and 
 then smote her window desultorily, as earnest of what it could 
 do if roused. She thought once, as she leaned very near the 
 pane, that she heard the snort of a motor down at the garage, 
 but thought better of it. Then Boris the hound barked 
 solemnly. . . . The moon was rising over the Bear Rocks and 
 the ghostly crag of Spindleston. . . . Soon a flood of silver 
 was spilled unevenly over the plain of waters . . . faintly 
 moving under the summoning moonbeams. . . . 
 
 It seemed to toll, rather than strike, one by the Castle clock, 
 and some one knocked at the door of her room. 
 
 " Get up, Betsey. Come and speak to me ! " 
 
 She removed her elbows from the sUl and quietly ad- 
 mitted Ernest Veere. 
 
 " You're dressed ! " 
 
 "Did you expect me to come without?" She laughed. 
 But she grew serious, as the sense of his attitude was per- 
 ceived by her. She knew his imperturbable, inexpressive face 
 so well now, that the least ripple of emotion was significant to 
 her as the removal of a landmark. 
 
 " Betsey, I'm a ruined man ! " 
 
 279
 
 280 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 She understood at once. Her line was taken. 
 
 " Then we will to the greenwood go ! You dear, to come 
 and tell me first ! " 
 
 Her warm arms were round his neck, her kisses on his 
 mouth. . . . The young man, lapped in sensuous ease, the 
 nervous tension he had suffered during the last iew days re- 
 laxed by the warm aroma of affection she diffused, murmured, 
 repeating the phrase automatically, " I've lost my case, 
 Betsey ! I've lost my case ! " 
 
 " Of course you have. I'm sorry. I'm glad. You'll 
 marry me now you are ruined, won't you ? " 
 
 She released him. There was a suggestion in her gesture of 
 granting him his unfettered freedom to answer. He smiled 
 wryly, half pleased, half rueful. . . . 
 
 " Well, that's one way of taking it ! " 
 
 She drew him into the room, and they sat down on the bed, 
 and he took her in his arms. They rocked together ; he 
 groaned a little like some one hurt and she was consolmg. He 
 was very cold, indeed, chilled through and through with his 
 recent long motor ride from Berwick. She apprehended that, 
 but forbore to question him about it. She was not one for 
 asking questions. To his body she communicated her own 
 reserve of warmth, while to his distressed ego her seeming 
 selfish optimism was on the whole as soothing as condolences 
 could have been. It induced the cheerful reflection in him that 
 some one at least was happy, some one's ship had come safely 
 to port, indirectly though it might be, through his own disaster. 
 He stroked her cheek ; she pressed it against his cold hand as 
 an animal might rub its soft velvet nose against his master. 
 His eyes were full of unshed tears, hers were wet too, but 
 brilliant, sparkling with new-found happiness. So they sat 
 and swayed in loving unison. 
 
 The solitary candle, placed high on the chest of drawers, 
 guttered in the draught, for Veere had left the door open and 
 Betsey had not thought of shutting it. There was no danger
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTMIONT 281 
 
 of disturbing Ada and her child, who slept on the floor below. 
 The predestined pair were alone in the night. 
 
 The man was broken, he seemed to her motherliness like an 
 arrogant pampered child who had had a severe fall. The 
 woman could almost imagine herself feeling for the bump on 
 his forehead that it was her mission to kiss and make well. 
 He pitied himself so. But though she comforted and assuaged 
 him cumiingly, she did not choose to dissimulate her own 
 personal gladness. 
 
 Veere began to talk, to unbosom himself in the old way. 
 He first sought her soft, tingling hand in the semi-obscurity, 
 and held it, punctuating his sharp, sad sentences with grips 
 and squeezes. 
 
 " Betsey, I'm nothing now. I'm a ne'er-do-well — a no- 
 body ! I've been listening to those wretched people in the 
 Dwelling House " 
 
 " Your guests ? " 
 
 " Tliey were. They're Ernest Louis's guests now, and he's 
 half a foreigner ! God ! He'll be settling here now. They'll 
 hate it worse than me. Betsey, I heard them, they were dis- 
 cussing me. It was like assisting at my own funeral " 
 
 " Listeners never hear any good of themselves," she said, 
 with mock gravity. 
 
 He apologised in all seriousness. " It was only for a mo- 
 ment, quite by accident, in the end of the big hall, as I crossed 
 to my study from the kitchen entrance there. They heard the 
 door opening, and they thought I was a ghost — the ghost of 
 one of her ancestors, I suppose ? Ha ! Ha ! I had to pass — 
 quickly, for fear they switched on the light, but not before I'd 
 heard enough to convince me of the value of the liking they'll 
 transfer to the other man ! I had time to see my Dobrce — 
 leaning on Lee-Brice's arm with all her weight, no joke — and 
 breathing down his neck — whispering to him." 
 
 " She's only a child," said Betsey, wlio in her happiness 
 felt she could alford to be generous. If she had not loved
 
 282 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 Ernest Veere, she could not have borne to hear him talk so, 
 even of a girl who was preparing to jilt him. She was what 
 she was. With some finer- spun women, love would have 
 made compliance in his attitude the more impossible. She 
 added softly : 
 
 " There's no harm in her. A nice girl, I think. And he's 
 a nice man, far better suited to her than you. They'll find 
 arms and ancestors for him, and he'll become them all right. 
 . . . Listen, Ernest, about our own dear little affairs. . . . 
 You and I are going to be married, aren't we ? " 
 
 He kissed her, " Yes, but what about Dobree ? " 
 
 " She won't want you now. She'll cart you. After what 
 you told me, I should just think so. She wouldn't lean 
 heavily on a man for nothing, a stiff girl like that ! And the 
 true business- woman she is at bottom will throw you over the 
 moment she hears that you're only a pauper." 
 
 " Don't be brutal. I have a little," 
 
 " Not much, eh ? But that's no matter, you've got your 
 great talent, and little me to help you ! " 
 
 He patted her shoulder. The shadow of a smile lurked in 
 the corners of his rather cruel mouth. He spoke in her ear : 
 
 " There's another thing, Betsey — you have always said 
 you didn't love me ! " 
 
 " Does this look like it ? " she cried, embracing him closely 
 without stint or pretence of reticence. " Ernest, I have never 
 in my life kissed any one as I am kissing you." Her voice was 
 deep vaih. passion, melodious with heretofore concealed emo- 
 tions. " I adore you — truth ! I swear I do." 
 
 " Well, but at the most important moment of all — the 
 crisis in Worksop House, you remember ? — when you con- 
 sented to run away with me, you swore firmly you didn't, and 
 hurt my feelings very much — quite indelibly, I fear ! " 
 
 Though she knew he was teasing her, she answered him 
 seriously, putting him away from her a little. 
 
 " I didn't love you then, when you had just made me dis-
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 283 
 
 honourable proposals — in the car — coming home one night — 
 do you remember ? I thought it so horrid of you." 
 " It was — horrid of me ! " 
 
 " Yes, commonplace, stupid, showed a thorough want of 
 understanding, don't you know ? It annoyed me and hurt 
 me, though I tried to be polite and not hu£fy, for you had 
 been so very kind. But all the same, it completely dashed the 
 poor little plant of Love that was just beginning to grow up 
 in me. And of course, that day, later on, when Wilfrid, my 
 husband, was condemned, and I consented, as you say, to go 
 with you on your own odious terms, that was temper 
 — nothing in the world but temper ! I was enraged — with 
 the British public, for begging him off and sending me 
 back to slavery. That was my lowest ebb of morality, a 
 regular lapse into beastliness, and I have been jolly well 
 punished for it." 
 
 " How ? " said Veere, indulgently. The candle on the chest 
 of drawers guttered and went out with a plop ! 
 
 " I've got another, somewhere," said Betsey, unwinding 
 herself from his arms. Rising stiffly, she took a fresh bit of 
 candle out of a drawer, round which she folded a piece of 
 paper, and methodically proceeded to insert it in the candle- 
 stick on the smoking ruins of the old wick, talking all the 
 while. . . . 
 
 " Well, you see, in Paris . . . when you behaved so — ex- 
 ceptionally, I felt so desperately snubbed that I rather hated 
 you ! " 
 
 " But, my dear, don't you see, I couldn't possibly have 
 profited by your forced submission — forced by circum- 
 stances ! I regretted it, but do you think I didn't see that you 
 only came to me out of temper ? Why should a woman hate 
 one for behaving decently ? " 
 
 " Women do resent that sort of thing, in a way, though they 
 don't, as a rule, admit it. It sounds so very awkward and 
 coarse."
 
 284 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " You're not afraid of admitting anything, are you, 
 Betsey ? " 
 
 "I'm a bit exceptional too, I suppose. And, to continue 
 with my punishment. ... As a result of that worry and 
 disappointment, and being thrown back on myself, I got 
 as nervous as a cat. I was all on edge somehow. I was riding 
 on a needle-point all day and all night. You couldn't help 
 noticing how cross and irritable I was ! " 
 
 " Rather not ! " 
 
 " Any woman would be the same, thrown back on herself — 
 thrown back to herself like that, no matter how wrong it was 
 of her to give herself away in the first instance. I fretted — I 
 worried — I cried — I lost all my looks ! " 
 
 " No, no ! " 
 
 " Well, half my looks. That punishes you, too, for you're 
 going to marry me, aren't you, now ? Mrs. Ernest Veere 
 won't be a roaring beauty, I'm afraid, but a real good sort, 
 with the remains of looks. We'll do all right, won't we ? It 
 was intended, our marriage, from the beginning, Ernest, only 
 you didn't realise, but tore off on your wUd goose chase, after 
 the aristocracy that didn't want you. I always knew, but 
 while you were full of this craze for marrying a title, how 
 could I, in decency, contend with it, interested as I was, 
 personally ? I just had to wait until you came to your senses, 
 and with the horrible fear that perhaps you never would — 
 untU it was too late. Only, luckily, this came ! " 
 
 " You needn't be so pleased because I have lost a fortune." 
 
 " And got me ! " 
 
 " Betsey, I can do nothing with you ! You are " 
 
 " In your arms ! " she cried, triumphantly nestling. 
 
 " By the way, why were you still up and dressed at this 
 hour ? " 
 
 " Oh, I must tell you. They have found out who I am 
 here." 
 
 " What matter ? "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 285 
 
 " Not now, of course. Dear Ernest, so we arc going to be 
 married ! You darling, to say it ! But before, you know, you 
 said you didn't want people to guess that you were still keep- 
 ing on with the notorious Mrs. Altamont, and you asked me 
 to call myself by my real name, I thought it rather cunning 
 and neat of you, for Adamson isn't so very unlike Altamont, 
 and it looks so innocent to go so near. But listen ! I met two 
 wretched women — cads — out of my old life, on the sands — 
 simply ran into them. I'm a little short-sighted. And oh, 
 how I longed to kick the sand up into their horrid fat faces 
 when I recognised them ! " 
 
 " Betsey, no, that wouldn't have been the grand manner." 
 
 " Oh, leave that nonsense to those people in the Dwelling 
 House that have chucked you. Well, I didn't fling any sand, 
 I realised the need for diplomacy. I sat down beside them and 
 entreated them fairly, hoping they would perhaps leave me 
 and my story alone. They told me I had grown thinner and 
 plainer " 
 
 " Did they really ? " 
 
 "Oh, it's true. I have. Fretting about you ! I could see 
 they weren't to be bound, but would blow on me the first 
 chance they got to give themselves consequence. They have. 
 They've told all the village, and I suppose your sweetheart's 
 maid has told her, for I've watched her all the morning, since, 
 trying to get at me, and make a scene. Poor little innocent 
 thing, she was too well bred, after all, and gave it up ! She 
 really is a nice girl. But I had made up my mind to do what 
 you'd like and catch the eight o'clock at Haggerdon, and 
 I was packing up. ..." 
 
 " And what about me ? " 
 
 " I'd have written to you, dear, from the wilds of London 
 lodgings. I shouldn't have deserted you, no fear, I love you 
 too much. Only novel heroines go off in huffs, leaving no 
 clue to their whereabouts — so difficult, too, to manage ! Even 
 a clever criminal can't. I'm just an ordinary woman witli my
 
 286 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 wits about me. And it's a good thing I didn't get off, as things 
 have turned out, for now, perhaps, we can go together. Let's ! " 
 
 " You forget. I'm not jilted yet." 
 
 " You will be, before noon to-day. I'll sit tight here till 
 you come to me. Then we'll shake the fine dust of them off 
 our feet and do a bolt into the blue. They're not for us — not 
 our sort. They have their merits — I say she's a nice little 
 girl ! — but their virtues are not yours or mine ! Good form — 
 good birth — wait till they're on a desert island, or on an air- 
 ship, as you and I'll be before we're done ! You're going to 
 invent — you're going to be a great man — unhampered by a 
 silly fortune. You're as clever as paint, Ernest. I love you 
 better for being a bit of a bounder ! Now go. The second 
 candle's going out and I've got no more."
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 Parker pottered about the now nearly empty bedroom, 
 making all the final arrangements for departure. Lady 
 Dobree, neat, tailor-made, with her strong boots on, handed 
 over her keys and went downstairs. 
 
 Tlie gong had just sounded. She opened the door of the 
 breakfast-room as the last reverberations echoed through the 
 house. Brooks was ringing it with a will. His face was set 
 like that of an old priest at the mass. She discovered Veere 
 alone, hovering over the sideboard. 
 
 " Good morning ! " he said quietly. " What can I get 
 you ? Ham ? Eggs ? Devilled kidney ? " 
 
 Lady Dobree, full of tragic resolve, borne down by the 
 weight of her own affairs, her mood leavened by a dash of 
 condolence for this extraordinarily jaunty victim of circum- 
 stance, was much taken aback, and replied meekly, " Some 
 devilled kidney, please ! " 
 
 He procured a plateful for her, and then directed his 
 attention to another table where stood a hissing urn and 
 many jugs. 
 
 "Tea or coffee? " 
 
 " Tea. But I should like " 
 
 " Well, why don't you have what you like ? " 
 
 " Bother you, Ernest ! " 
 
 " How nice it sounds to hear you say that again ! " 
 
 " I'm afraid what I want to say won't sound very nice." 
 
 " Oh, why not ? Eat your breakfast, now, my dear, and 
 then we'll see. Always have a scene on a good breakfast ! " 
 
 287
 
 288 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 " I'm not going to make you a scene, Ernest — far from it. 
 Only — bother you — I don't in the least loiow how to take 
 this — that has happened to us ! " 
 
 " To me ! " he corrected gravely, " Well, take a lesson 
 from Lady Blessington. Watch her. She's always quite 
 correct." 
 
 Lady Blessington sailed in timidly, as a rabbit which has 
 strayed into a neighbouring warren, and deprecatingly seized 
 both hands of Veere, and squeezed them portentously. 
 
 " My poor boy ! " 
 
 " I am poor." 
 
 " I know. We heard last night. I could not sleep. Ought 
 we all to go ? Surely ? " 
 
 " Well, soon ! " said he, " unless you stop to receive Ernest 
 Louis." 
 
 " My dear boy, how can you laugh ? " 
 
 " That I may not weep ! " said he, winking at Lady Dobree, 
 who found his Jack Sheppard-like attitude charming, and, 
 now that she had made up her mind to jilt him, resented his 
 making himself regretted. 
 
 " I was telling Ernest how sorry we all were for this bother," 
 she said, " and suggesting that we ought all to go." 
 
 " And I told you," he said sturdily, " to eat your breakfast 
 first, at all events. I think my hospitality can run to that. 
 Here's Lady Maude " 
 
 Lady Maude came in, bade a languid good morning to the 
 others, extended a flaccid hand to Veere, and drifted towards 
 the sideboard. 
 
 " They've moved my aspirin ! " she observed drearily, 
 hunting about. Veere ran forward. . . . 
 
 " I think you'll find it here on the ledge. I took one to 
 calm my own spirits." 
 
 " Yes, of course, you must be having any amount of low 
 spirits. It's too bad. Ernest, don't you think us all horrid ? " 
 she asked, sitting down to cold game pie.
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 289 
 
 " Dear me, no, you are all charming, so full of soulful re- 
 ticence. It is only that I, somehow, seem to have lost all my 
 point. Wliat am I doing here ? . . . Joy ! Here's Mr. Lee- 
 Brice ! He's a host in himself. Now I'll leave you all. I have 
 some work to do, as you can imagine, and he will look after 
 you ! " 
 
 Veere shook hands cordially with the author in the door- 
 way. Not a word was spoken. The freemasonry between two 
 essentially good fellows served to bridge the gulf set across 
 successful and unsuccessful. The author had no need of words 
 to convey the correctness of his attitude and the sufficiency of 
 sympathy he was able to place at the service of the man who 
 had lost a fortune and was now to lose the titled bride who 
 went with it. Veere was not really to be pitied. He was to 
 find his happy level by and by. Lee-Brice was well aware of 
 the golden-haired mitigation of the blow that existed in the 
 shape of the beloved waiting for her lover in the grey old Keep 
 opposite. Veere would fall on his feet, or rather, on the breast 
 of a kind woman that adored him as he was — a decent young 
 fellow — without tact, or chic, or art-feeling. 
 
 He sat down, in a masterful way, in the chair next Lady 
 Dobree, on which she had carelessly laid her handkerchief. He 
 handed it to her. They ate together in silence. Tlie other 
 tAvo women, declaring that they meant to ask Brookie for a 
 Bradshaw, presently sidled out. The two were alone. 
 
 " I have not had a chance of speaking to Ernest yet," said 
 she, peeling a peach. 
 
 " \Vhat, not to condole ! " 
 
 " Oh, yes, that ! But I mean I haven't told him yet that I 
 am going to throw him over ! I don't fancy he'll care at all, 
 but still, it's an unpleasant sort of thing to blurt out, just when 
 a man's down ! " 
 
 " The nail of one disappointment will knock out the other." 
 
 " I don't flatter myself the second nail will be strong 
 enough," she replied modestly. " Besides, the first is the
 
 290 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 cause of the second. I happen to know that I'm so con- 
 structed that I cannot stand poverty — I can't even stand the 
 hand-to-mouth existence I am leading now, with a cheap maid 
 and ' Kttle ' dressmaker, any longer. And even if you are 
 good enough to go on helping me, I shall never be able to make 
 anything by writing ! " 
 
 " But it's a smart thing and a profitable for husband and 
 Avife to collaborate. The Markhams do a roaring business. 
 Tlieir joint royalties amount to " 
 
 " You would have to change your form a good deal before 
 a woman could be seen dead collaborating with you, wouldn't 
 you ! " Lady Dobree said, trying to hide her very comparative 
 degree of embarrassment. 
 
 He laughed. " Good ! Very good ! But let me tell you I have 
 exhausted that phase of myself. I shall write no more books 
 to be burned by the common hangman. I've worked that vein 
 sufficiently. I've done my work of ' pure ablution round our 
 human shores.' I can take the other thing in my stride. I 
 shall give my attention henceforth to the Beautiful, the 
 Pure, the Clean — I shall aim at a rectory circulation, in fact ! " 
 
 " All right," she laughed. "I'm with you — on the cover 
 of that book, at all events. Tlie rest, well, we must get things 
 settled first. ... I can count on you, can't I ? " 
 
 " Throughout ! From cover to cover," he said. The 
 literary form of courtship appealed to this wayward child, as 
 he could see. She smiled and said seriously : 
 
 " Would you mind calling Ernest ? I hear him outside 
 there, talking to Brookie. I think I'll settle things now if I 
 can." 
 
 " Brava ! " said he. Going to the door, he called : 
 
 " Mr. Veere, Lady Dobree wants you." 
 
 Turning to the young girl, who had risen, he added : " And 
 now I'll leave you." 
 
 " Please don't. . . . Ernest, I think of going home to-day. 
 Can I be motored over to Low Water ? "
 
 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 291 
 
 " Certaiiily. It's quite the best plan for you," he answered 
 stolidly, leaning against the jamb of the door. 
 
 She looked nonplussed. " But don't you see what that 
 means ? " 
 
 " WTiat does it mean ? I am waiting to hear." 
 
 Lady Dobree was vexed with his nonchalance and spoke 
 out hardily. 
 
 " It means, Ernest, that I am a thoroughly worldly woman, 
 and that, barring a certain amount of liking which I'm not 
 cad enough to deny, I was in the main marrying you for 
 money." 
 
 He bowed. " Money which I haven't got. Tliat settles 
 me." 
 
 *' Yes. And " she hesitated, and then looked at Lee- 
 
 Brice, who stood, conventionally drooping, but with the 
 springs of action tense and ready to move in her service. " Did 
 you realise why I wouldn't let this man go and let us have our 
 talk alone? " 
 
 Veere laughed rather noisily. " My dear Dobree, nothing 
 surely could have been more obvious, even to my limited 
 social intelligence. You have taken a weight off my mind. 
 I'm delighted with you — both. Will you go on being my 
 friends ? Don't go, Lee-Brice, stay here, and let us aU be 
 sensible and plain dealing. Lady Dobree has given us the cue. 
 Dobree, shall I say what you want to say for you ? " 
 
 " You may try," said the girl, smiling. 
 
 " Well, it is this. Not much. You have heard that I am 
 a pauper — what amounts to a pauper, since it doesn't amount 
 to an income worthy of you and j'our aims. You are there- 
 fore desirous of breaking off, here and now, our absurd and 
 improper engagement." 
 
 " That's it — to a ' t ' — only I shouldn't perhaps have used 
 the word absurd of anything I once thought fit to do." 
 
 " You always were a bit of a piig, dear. Well, it's all 
 right now, isn't it ? I thii)k I'll have some more breakfast."
 
 292 THE WIFE OF ALTAMONT 
 
 He felt one of the milk jugs to see if the milk it contained 
 was still warm. . . . He shook his head disappointedly, and 
 turned up the wick below the brass stand that supported it 
 a little higher. . . . 
 
 The author, immensely moved and interested by this scene, 
 would not have given up his front place at the show for worlds. 
 He handed Ernest Veere the sugar. Lady Dobree ministered 
 to her whilom lover with the cream. 
 
 " And since we are all so friendly," she said, " are you going 
 to marry Mrs. Altamont ? " 
 
 " Betsey ? Certainly," he replied, with his mouth full. 
 
 " Well, that's cool ! " Lady Dobree ejaculated involun- 
 tarily. 
 
 " We're all cool — damn cool. I've been admiring it. So 
 is the bacon, by the way." 
 
 By this time Lady Dobree was quite at her ease. With a 
 little shrug at Lee-Brice, she entered heartily into the spirit 
 of the thing. She was no actress, but she attempted to draw 
 up her mouth into an expression of disappointment. 
 
 " And I am to be left lamenting ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid so — if your standard of living continues so 
 high that it takes a millionaire to cope with it. ... ' For I 
 must to the greenwood go, alone, a banished man.' No, 
 not alone, thank God ! " 
 
 He munched and helped himself to a peach. . . . Lee- 
 Brice, laughing, came forward and took Lady Dobree's 
 hand : 
 
 " Dear lady — if my poor royalties ? " 
 
 THE END 
 
 WILLIAM DRENDON AND SON', LTD. 
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