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 ' We seem fated to meet," I said. " It does look like it," he answered. 
 
 Page 34. A JilVs Journal.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY "RITA" 
 
 * Give me a nook and a book, 
 And let the proud world spin round.' 
 
 A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, 
 52-58 DUANE STREET, NEW YORK **
 
 Copyright, 1903. BY A. L. BUET COMPANY. 
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 BY "RiTA."
 
 SRLF 
 
 URL 142610 
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL 
 
 PART I. 
 
 The Desire of Knowkdge. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IT was something one of the girls said yesterday, 
 when we were in the Swedish gymnasium, that 
 made me do it. 
 
 "Some people scribble with their pens, but you, 
 Paula, scribble with your mind," was her remark. 
 
 "What do you mean ?" I made answer. 
 
 "You are always presenting things to yourself in 
 the light of an event. You don't accept a plain fact ; 
 you must embroider it. I believe everything that 
 happens is a story to you. You act in it, and live in 
 it, and imagine all sorts of extra things about it 
 things that don't really happen, except in your own 
 mind. 'He said/ and 'she said,' and 'he answered/ 
 is always going on within you. You're the sort of 
 girl who ought to write a book, or go on the stage. 
 You're bound to do something." 
 
 "My mother wrote books," I said thoughtfully. 
 
 "Perhaps that accounts for it. Lesley and I were 
 talking about you last night, and we came to the
 
 * A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 conclusion that you're too restless to be just the 
 ordinary girl. You're a a " 
 
 "Personality?" I suggested. 
 
 "I suppose that's the word. I mean something 
 that can't be suppressed: that wants to come out 
 and speak, and live. You would like to keep a 
 record of your emotions, for the sheer delight of 
 seeing them written down." 
 
 Claire le Creux was eighteen, and was leaving 
 school. I was a year younger, but my education 
 was finished also. At least I had received an 
 intimation from my guardian, who was also my 
 uncle, that I was to return to him at the expiration 
 of this Christmas term. 
 
 We elder girls were arranging the gymnasium for 
 the breaking-up party, which great event was to 
 take place that evening. The long room was 
 decorated with ivy and holly ; the poles and swings 
 and bars were put away, or fastened back. Rows 
 of chairs had been placed for expected visitors, and 
 on the impromptu stage at the end of the room a 
 last rehearsal of a fairy scene was going on. The 
 younger children were solemnly pirouetting in 
 obedience to directions from the dancing mistress. 
 The French governess was assisting us in the deco- 
 rations. A flock of girls were perpetually flitting 
 through the room, hindering or helping, according 
 to their mood. 
 
 I, Paula Trent, Claire le Creux, and my special 
 friend, Lesley Heath, were sufficiently apart from 
 the crowd for conversation. The conversation I 
 have described, the chance words that suddenly 
 seemed to throw a side-light upon the odd and 
 changeful and supremely discontented self which I 
 had dignified as a "personality."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 5 
 
 As a rule schoolgirls are not supposed to think 
 of themselves individually so much as of the life 
 and duties and routine by which their lives are 
 bounded. They are so much part of a system that 
 they must forget, or ignore, their own small place in 
 the vast community. Only a great gift, a great lone- 
 liness, or a great sorrow lifts them into a separate 
 sphere of existence. A place where routine is not; 
 where thought claims creative force, and where"! 
 the Individual" becomes a creature of importance. 
 
 To myself I had long been "I the Individual." 
 Claire's words only illuminated what I had kept in 
 the background of my own thoughts. 
 
 She was the star of our scholastic firmament, the 
 brightest, cleverest, most accomplished of all the 
 accomplished pupils turned out of this mill of learn- 
 ing. She had taken more prizes, passed more ex- 
 aminations, won more honors than any of the girls. 
 And she and I and Lesley Heath were leaving at 
 the same time, after many terms of school friend- 
 ship. Lesley was a general favorite I was not. I 
 do not intend to convey that I was unpopular. Far 
 from it. But my tastes were exclusive, and my 
 tongue had a trick of sharpness. It offended oftener 
 than it flattered, and plain-speaking, even if veiled 
 by irony, is not beloved of schoolgirls. Claire was 
 the supreme favorite. I had been spasmodically 
 jealous of her friendship for Lesley, but, having 
 proved it less devated than my own, was content to 
 rank myself first in that coveted affection. 
 
 We stood as "The Three," in schoolgirl parlance. 
 A trio of united excellence in point of conduct, gifts, 
 and credit to the establishment. 
 
 Claire came first, Lesley second and I third. I 
 could have taken place in the first rank had I so
 
 chosen, but I had a knack of starting at a gallop and 
 then coming in at a walk. I grew tired of things 
 so quickly, even of endeavor. I saw myself attain- 
 ing so much in fancy that I allowed myself to fail in 
 fact. What I felt I could do ceased to be worthy 
 the effort of accomplishment. 
 
 That sentence of Claire's "You scribble with 
 your mind" sums up very accurately my pecu- 
 liarity. I was always living scenes and situations in 
 a mental atmosphere that held me aloof and ab- 
 sorbed. My mind was filled with imaginary friends 
 I might have loved, imaginary deeds I might have 
 done, imaginary speeches I might have made. The 
 outer world, the real life I lived, could not content 
 me. I wanted a wider stage on which to play, an 
 impossible canvas on which to paint; an infinitude 
 of manuscript would have represented the book I 
 wished to write. 
 
 The strangest thoughts came to me and the most 
 impossible dreams. I was badly equipped for life, 
 but I panted to set foot on its pathway of freedom. 
 Anything seemed freedom that was unbounded by 
 school walls and school discipline. I did not speak 
 of my feelings, even to Lesley. It flattered me 
 therefore to feel I had interested her sufficiently for 
 discussion. 
 
 And such a discussion! It gave me a new im- 
 portance in my own eyes. It set my queer mind 
 scribbling afresh. 
 
 Even throughout that evening, the recitations, 
 the piano playing, the fairy tableaux, the general 
 "showing-off" to delighted parents, critical elder 
 sisters, scoffing brothers and cousins, I was living a 
 description of it all. Putting it into shape, laugh- 
 ing at the puppets, and criticising the show.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. T 
 
 My own performance was sufficiently meritorious 
 to win applause. But I had no parents to delight, 
 no relatives to admire me; no friends to fill the 
 benches, and give pleased attention to my part in 
 the programme. 
 
 We ended up with a dance. I had partners of 
 all ages and sizes and incompetence. My toes suf- 
 fered severely. A stolid, awkward, but persevering 
 youth persisted in requesting the favor of my hand. 
 I grew exasperated. I loved dancing, but my feet 
 ached, and he had trampled my shoes into shape- 
 lessness. At his last "May I have the pleasure?" 
 my tongue forgot conventionality, and I answered, 
 "You may have the pleasure, but I have had the 
 pain." 
 
 He grew red, stared stupidly at me, and then 
 walked off. 
 
 Lesley laughed softly. She had overheard. 
 
 "If you are as truthful with future partners in the 
 ballroom as with that poor youth, I pity them," she 
 said. 
 
 But I sat out the dance, and nursed my injured 
 foot, and felt thankful for a space of untrampled 
 peace. 
 
 The evening was over at last. The day pupils 
 had all departed, cloaked and hatted and ecstatic 
 at the prospect of holidays. The boarders were to 
 follow their example next morning. A relaxation 
 on the part of tired governesses brought about the 
 assembling of Lesley, Claire and"myself in the bed- 
 room I shared with the former. 
 
 It was a momentous occasion, and we felt its 
 gravity. One phase of life had closed for us. We 
 jould never again be three schoolgirls interested 
 only in the rivalries and duties of fully occupied
 
 8 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 days. We were to stretch our clipped wings at last 
 and soar to the world beyond our safely sheltered 
 nest. We were to be free if such a thing be pos- 
 sible except in the form of comparison with varying 
 modes of feminine bondage. Free ! It had a pleas- 
 ant sound as we discussed it, brushing out long, 
 silky locks to the rhythm of pleasant speculations. 
 
 It was then that, at the instigation of the others 
 I decided to keep a journal a journal which was 
 to be a faithful record of my after life, which, by 
 some method of reasoning, they both declared was 
 certain to be eventful. 
 
 ''Why more than yours?" I asked them. 
 
 And Claire referred to that speech in the gym- 
 nasium. "You are a born scribbler," she added, 
 "and you will be able to make even commonplace 
 things picturesque." 
 
 "My life at Scarffe will be uneventful enough," I 
 observed. "My guardian is old and learned, a cele- 
 brated archaeologist. He has written some wonder- 
 ful book on the ruined castles of England, and 
 knows more about Norman and Tudor architecture 
 than any other professor. I believe he only settled 
 at Scarffe because there is an old ruin there that 
 dates from the Saxon era. He has been two years 
 investigating it, and has not finished his researches 
 yet." 
 
 "And you will live alone with him?" 
 
 "Yes. And the village is as quiet as the deserted 
 one of Goldsmith's. It only wakes up once a year 
 for the Fair Day. Fancy, they even ring the curfew 
 there r 
 
 "That must be interesting," said Claire. "Have 
 vou all to put out your lights and go to bed at sun- 
 set?"
 
 !A! JILT'S JOURNAL. 9 
 
 "I believe some of the country folk do." 
 
 "What are the people round about you like? The 
 county, I mean." 
 
 "I only spent one holiday there. I know nothing 
 of them/' 
 
 ''What? Not the squire or rector, or doctor! 
 Don't tell me it's quite so God- forsaken." 
 
 "Oh, no ! There is a title and park in the neigh- 
 borhood, and some good families, and a rector and 
 curate to look after their souls, and a doctor to take 
 care of their bodies; but my uncle never goes to 
 church, and is never ill, so they leave him severely 
 alone." 
 
 "It seems a dull look-out for you, Paula," said 
 Lesley. 
 
 "I hope, of your charity, you will come and stay 
 with me sometimes," I answered. 
 
 "I will, and carry you off to London in return. 
 You must not be buried alive." 
 
 "London! How I should love it!" I exclaimed. 
 
 "Perhaps you would not. It is not half so en- 
 chanting as its name portends." 
 
 "And you, Claire you go to Paris," I said. "I 
 am the only country mouse, it appears." 
 
 "Oh! Paris is to finish me, that's all. I shall 
 come out then. My parents have decided that." 
 
 "Come out!" I exclaimed. "How funny that 
 sounds! A female Columbus making discoveries 
 of men, minds, and manners. That is an experi- 
 ence I can't look forward to. My uncle cares noth- 
 ing for society. I don't suppose I shall ever go to 
 a ball a real ball ; what Claire calls 'come out.' ' 
 
 "After all, balls aren't absolutely necessary to a 
 first acquaintance with life," said Lesley. "It can 
 be interesting in other forms."
 
 10 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "But one has to make the interest for oneself 
 instead of having it made." 
 
 "You are well adapted for making discoveries, 
 Paula," laughed Claire. 
 
 "And interests too," said Lesley. "There may be 
 country swains to conquer, country hearts to sub- 
 jugate before she tries her powers on the town." 
 
 I made a gesture of impatience. 
 
 "Why is it," I said, "that a girl's first mission in 
 life is to win the attention of a man, her next to get 
 married to one ? It really seems as if we were edu- 
 cated for no other purpose. There's something very 
 horrid about it. We are shut away from men so 
 that they may not be disenchanted with us in our 
 chrysalis stage. Then they spring into life our 
 life as possible lovers and husbands. We can 
 make no discoveries about them, and yet the inex- 
 perience of girlhood is applied as a test to the weal 
 or woe of our future." 
 
 "What a Minerva you are!" laughed Lesley. 
 
 "And already occupying her wisdom in the uses 
 of man as applied to schoolgirl enlightenment," said 
 Claire. 
 
 "It will have to come," I said. "There's no use 
 shutting our eyes to the fact. And there are two 
 ways of treating the experience. To test, or accept 
 it." 
 
 "Which shall you do, Paula?" asked Lesley, her 
 laughing eyes looking at me from a cloud of dusky 
 hair. 
 
 "Need you ask her that?" said Claire. "Did you 
 ever know Paula accept a thing without question or 
 criticism. She'll carry out the habit, depend on it." 
 
 "But you can't treat men as you treat other 
 things," said Lesley. "How are you to test them
 
 'A JILT'S JOURNAL. 11 
 
 until you know them; and how can you possibly 
 know them until you have passed all the conven- 
 tional stages, bounded by ballroom conversation, or 
 casual acquaintanceship?" 
 
 "I think I shall find a way," I answered. 
 They looked at me eagerly. "I really believe you 
 .will," they said. 
 And that is how I came to write this journal.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MY holidays, with but rare exception, had been 
 spent at school. I was going to a life quite strange 
 and quite different from any previous experience. 
 
 I traveled alone, and being Christmas Eve the 
 trains were crowded, slow, and the changes and 
 waits most wearisome. A novel I purchased at the 
 bookstall helped me to pass away the time as well 
 as affording me an insight into certain phases of 
 life and society hitherto unknown and undreamt of. 
 The title was Friendship, and had allured me into 
 purchase. 
 
 I need hardly say that the sort of friendship I 
 had expected to read about was widely different 
 from the author's ideas on the subject! However, 
 I was too enthralled and delighted to cavil at doubt- 
 ful morality surprised also to find that Love, as a 
 passion, or an experience, was not absolutely lim- 
 ited to the unwedded members of society. The 
 beauty of the writing and its style carried me on as 
 by magic, and threw an enchanted haze over all that 
 was harmful. I could find in those pages, however, 
 no manly action in any way appealing to my ideas 
 of the sex. Prince lo seemed to me a weak, vain 
 fool, who never knew' his own mind. The common- 
 place husband of Lady Joan was a hateful person, 
 the other male creatures mere sketches. Naturally 
 my sympathies flowed towards Etoile, the beautiful 
 and wonderful artist, but even she appeared to me 
 what I can only describe as a "book- woman." Her 
 
 12
 
 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 13 
 
 sorrows didn't appeal, and with all her great genius 
 and wonderful dreams, she certainly never spared 
 expense in the matter of household luxuries, or per- 
 sonal adornment. Such velvet robes, such lace, 
 such jewels, such wealth of hothouse flowers, and 
 fruits, and carriages, and servants ! 
 
 I came to the conclusion that painting must be a 
 most lucrative profession for a woman. 
 
 When it grew too dark to read I closed the book 
 and thought it out. Tried to fathom the supreme 
 art which, even while it repels, exacts one's admira- 
 tion and one's wonder. To write so that your 
 thoughts seemed actual living things! To take 
 some creature of your fancy and clothe it with mere 
 words yet make out of those words a flesh and 
 blood covering for the creature. That, indeed, was 
 magical and great and worthy of all praise ! 
 
 I wished such a power had been mine; and that 
 wish brought back to my memory again those odd 
 words of Claire le Creux, "You scribble with your 
 mind." That was the truth a scathing one. 
 Scribble nothing more. She did not designate my 
 ability by any better title, and Claire was a clever 
 girl! 
 
 I turned over the leaves of the book with careless, 
 wandering fingers. It was a soiled, second-hand 
 copy, and I had singled it out of a pile marked, "Re- 
 duced Prices." I came suddenly upon the title- 
 page and saw written on the blank space between 
 title and publisher's name, two lines in pencil. I 
 held the page close to the window, and in the failing 
 light made out with some difficulty the following 
 words : 
 
 "Yet there is one that comes before the rest, 
 And there is one that stays when all are gone."
 
 14 
 
 I closed the book, and looking straight before me, 
 met the eyes of a fellow-passenger. 
 
 A man a young man, whom I vaguely remem- 
 bered entering the train at the last changing place. 
 
 "It is too dark to read," he said. 
 
 "I am not reading now/' I hastily added. 
 
 He smiled. The "now" was so recent. 
 
 "How slow the trains are to-day," he went on. 
 "We are more than an hour late." 
 
 "Are we?" I said vaguely. It did not matter to 
 me. No one would meet me at the station. No 
 rapturous welcome would be my lot. 
 
 "I I suppose you are going home for the holi- 
 days?" he went on. 
 
 I drew myself up resentfully. Was schoolgirl 
 written so very obviously on my outward appear- 
 ance? 
 
 "For good," I corrected the bold questioner. "I 
 have left school." 
 
 "Oh !" he said. "I believe I am not wrong in ad- 
 dressing you as Miss Trent. I remember you com- 
 ing home last year. Professor Trent is your guard- 
 ian?" 
 
 "Yes. I don't remember you, though. Do you 
 live here at Scarffe, I mean?" 
 
 "Yes. My father's place is called Woodcote. He 
 is a farmer on a large scale." 
 
 "Oh!" I echoed. He looked something superior 
 to my ideas of a farmer's son. "And are you a 
 farmer also?" 
 
 "I am," he said, with a twinkle in the depths of 
 his blue eyes that the dull carriage lamp managed to 
 light up for a second. "I used to see you wander- 
 ing about when I was at work, or driving to mar- 
 ket. You looked very lonely. I often wished "
 
 A JILTS JOURNAL. 15 
 
 He paused abruptly, and I felt my face grow sud- 
 denly warm. 
 
 "Perhaps you'll be offended," he went on, "but I 
 often wished you would come to our place and see 
 my mother and the girls. They're very cheery folk, 
 and I'm sure they'd do their best to brighten the 
 days up a bit. It must be an awfully dull life, al- 
 though the old gentleman is so clever. Having no 
 young people about, I mean." 
 
 "Why should you think my guardian dull?" I 
 inquired. "On the contrary, he is most entertain- 
 ing." 
 
 "I'm sure I beg your pardon," he stammered. "I 
 mean in a different way, of course. No jokes, or 
 games, or dances, or that sort of thing. To-night, 
 for instance, we have a dance and a Christmas tree, 
 and all sorts of fun." 
 
 "Perhaps," I said somewhat cruelly, "our ideas of 
 fun are different. I don't care for dancing, and I 
 think Christmas trees are only fit for children!" 
 
 It was quite untrue, and I don't know why I said 
 it, except that the idea of this young farmer pitying 
 me set all my pride on fire. 
 
 He looked disconcerted at my speech, and with 
 an apologetic "I'm sure I beg your pardon," re- 
 lapsed into silence. 
 
 I studied his face furtively under shadow of my 
 hat. It was more interesting than good-looking. 
 Dark, sun-tanned, with an expression of independ- 
 ence and pride; firm lips (now set close together in 
 momentary annoyance at my rebuff) ; a fine head 
 set on broad shoulders, and eyes whose sunny blue 
 this temporary annoyance could not cloud. 
 
 "He does not look like a farmer," I told myself, 
 as the train sped on through the fast-falling dusk.
 
 16 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "I should have taken him for a gentleman had he 
 not told me." 
 
 He turned his gaze upon me once more. "We 
 are almost there," he said. "Can I be of any as- 
 sistance, about luggage or or anything? If you 
 have not ordered a cab I'm afraid there'll be a dif- 
 ficulty." 
 
 "Oh ! I left all that to my uncle," I said. "Usual- 
 ly the porter brings up my luggage, and I walk to 
 the house. It's not far." 
 
 "It's raining, though, and very dark," he said. 
 "My trap will be waiting for me. Could I give you 
 a lift?" 
 
 "You're very kind. If no one is at the station I 
 shall be glad to accept your offer." 
 
 ("Give you a lift" sounded homely, and left a 
 measurable distance between us, of which I ap- 
 proved. ) 
 
 "No kindness at all," he answered; "and half a 
 mile's walk in the rain and darkness can't be much 
 of a treat to a young lady like yourself." 
 
 The distance was apparently increasing. My 
 snub had been effectual. One doesn't call one's 
 equal a "young lady" except in irony of the term ! 
 
 The train stopped at the insignificant, dirty little 
 station at the foot of the hill a hill famous in his- 
 tory, as was the ruin that crowned its summit. No 
 one was there to meet me. I had scarcely expected 
 it. 
 
 To an individual wrapped in clouds of historical 
 research, and more concerned with dates than living 
 personages, the arrival of a schoolgirl was too in- 
 significant for attention. I stretched my numbed 
 limbs and gathered together such details as travel- 
 ing bag, rug, and umbrella. Then my new ac-
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 17 
 
 quaintance helped me out of the carriage, and left 
 me on the platform while he went to look after my 
 box. 
 
 He soon returned, and I gave the superannuated 
 porter the usual instructions. Then we went out to 
 the entrance where a smart little trap and spanking 
 chestnut were waiting, held by a rough-looking lad 
 who had driven from the farm. 
 
 The owner handed me in. I was still ignorant of 
 his name. The boy clambered up behind, and the 
 chestnut started up the hill at a speed that atoned 
 for long waiting and the attentions of wind and 
 rain. How dreary and desolate the little village 
 looked ! The great castle loomed above it like a pro- 
 tecting giant, a shapeless mass against the dull and 
 starless sky. The quairt eld inn, deserted in win- 
 ter, showed a light in its square stone porch. The 
 Market Cross was but a white gleam amidst the 
 queer old houses as we dashed by. The horse's 
 hoofs struck fire from the flint stones of the street, 
 and the rattle of the wheels roused a whirlwind of 
 echoes. The few shops had made festive efforts to 
 signalize the season, but they left a feeling of pity in 
 my mind. Fashion and frivolity were alike out of 
 place at Scarffe. 
 
 It is a bit of mediaeval history dropped into mod- 
 ern life. As out of place in it as the bicycles of the 
 tourists, and the cheap teas it advertises in its sum- 
 mer season of prosperity. Fortunately it possesses 
 only that season a brief one at best and a thing 
 organized by coaching trips, and inquisitive Amer- 
 icans, to whom, apparently, all things connected 
 with English history possess the attraction of non- 
 possession. 
 
 The summer season of Scarffe was as yet un-
 
 18 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 known to me, but I had heard of it from the pro- 
 fessor. I never called him "uncle" ; it would have 
 seemed a liberty. 
 
 My companion was absolutely silent during that 
 drive. I imagined the chestnut required all his 
 energies. We soon left the village behind (though 
 called a town and dignified as a borough, Scarffe is 
 nothing but that) ; a long, straight road lay between 
 fields, dark and solitary, mere masses of shadow, 
 over which a struggling ray of moonlight fell as 
 the clouds drifted or parted. 
 
 My guardian's house was a large, square, ugly 
 building of gray stone, standing back from the road, 
 and surrounded by a thick hedge. Elm and ash 
 trees waved leafless branches in the adjoining 
 grounds ; the garden was allowed to run wild at its 
 own sweet will. In the distance, that everlasting 
 feature of the landscape, the castle ruins, towered 
 in broken desolation. It was a dreary-looking place 
 seen under that brooding sky, and my eyes roved 
 over it with little interest. My new acquaintance 
 checked the horse, and the boy came to its head. 
 
 "Thank you for your kindness," I murmured 
 somewhat lamely, as my belongings were handed to 
 me. I stood at the gate, which he held open. My 
 arms were full and I had no hand to extend. He 
 lifted his hat, smiled and said, "A pleasure, miss, I 
 assure you," then turned back and sprang into his 
 trap. 
 
 "Miss," I repeated, as I marched up the graveled 
 pathway leading to the front door. "Fancy calling 
 me 'miss.' But then he isn't a gentleman." 
 
 I rang the bell, and after an interval the door was 
 opened by the old woman who served as house- 
 keeper to my uncle. Mrs. Graddage was her name.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 19 
 
 She was a sour old person, with the soul of a Primi- 
 tive Methodist, and a general belief in the wicked- 
 ness of all things young and comely. I was no fav- 
 orite of hers. 
 
 I gave my usual greeting as I stepped inter the 
 hall, and she surveyed me critically under the hang- 
 ing oil-lamp. 
 
 "You've growed," she announced. "Quite a 
 young woman, I declare " 
 
 Then she commenced a quotation from her fav- 
 orite Proverbs of Solomon. 
 
 "Where's the professor?" I interrupted. "Has 
 he remembered I'm coming home?" 
 
 "He's in the study," she said curtly. "Busy." 
 
 "Oh! well, I won't disturb him. I'll go to my 
 room. When will tea be ready? I'm tired and cold 
 and hungry." 
 
 ? Twill be ready at six. You know the master's 
 hours as well as I do. Who drove you from the 
 train ? I heard the sound o' wheels." 
 
 "A friend," I said mendaciously. "Apparently 
 everyone here forgot me. I had to depend on a 
 stranger's courtesy, or " 
 
 "I thought 'twas a friend you mentioned," she 
 said, with a sharp glance at my face. 
 
 "A friend in need," I answered, beginning to 
 mount the steps. "I do hope you've lit a fire in my 
 room, Graddy?" 
 
 She hated me to call her that ; so I often did it, to 
 accustom her to the Christian duty of forbearance. 
 
 She made no answer, but her stiff skirts rustled 
 aggressively as she retired to her own regions. I 
 mounted the stairs and turned into my usual bed- 
 room. There was a fire crackling and blazing 
 brightly in the grate, and a lamp stood on the table,
 
 20 A! JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 shedding a warm glow over the stiffly arranged 
 furniture. A pleasant-looking girl with dark hair 
 and rosy cheeks was drawing down the blind as I 
 entered. 
 
 "Welcome home, miss," she said, dropping me a 
 curtsey. 
 
 "Who are you?" I asked. 
 
 "I'm the niece of Aunt Anne Graddage. She's 
 taken me on as parlormaid, now you've come to 
 live here, miss. And I'm to wait on you." 
 
 "Oh ! is that it ? What's your name ?" 
 
 "Merrieless Hibbs, please, miss, at your service." 
 
 I stared. "Merrieless what a strange name!" 
 
 "It is, miss. But being baptized, why it's my 
 name, and I have to be satisfied with it." 
 
 "It doesn't suit your appearance at all events," I 
 said, looking at her rosy face and bright, dark eyes. 
 "Merry, without the last syllable, would express you 
 better." 
 
 "Just as you please, miss," she answered with 
 another curtsey. "And is there anything I can do 
 for you ?" 
 
 "You can bring me some warm water, if you will ; 
 and I believe there's an old pair of slippers knocking 
 about somewhere that I left behind last holidays. 
 My feet are numbed in these boots." 
 
 "They're by the fire, miss. I found them and put 
 them ready in case your box shouldn't arrive with 
 you." 
 
 "That shows you've got some sense, Merry," I 
 observed approvingly. 
 
 "I'm sure I hope I shall please you, miss," she 
 answered. "I've only had one place, and it was a 
 very hard one. I thought it would be nice to come 
 where a young lady was."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 21 
 
 "Oh ! I dare say we shall get on," I answered. 
 
 Then she left to fetch the can of hot water for 
 which I had asked, and my fancy took a flying leap 
 into the future, and showed me playing the adored 
 mistress to a devoted maid, and various imaginary 
 benefits descending upon her in consequence. At all 
 events she was a novel and pleasant addition to the 
 household, bringing a breath of young life and 
 young interest to vary its monotony. 
 
 Between us we might manage to get some fun 
 even out of such unpromising subjects as a profes- 
 sor of archaeology and Aunt Anne Graddage.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WITH the first summons of the tea bell I entered 
 what Mrs. Graddage termed the "parlor," and 
 found the professor standing with his back to the 
 fire, his hands thrust under his coat-tails, and his 
 spectacles pushed up from his nose and resting on 
 the ridge of his high forehead. 
 
 I went toward him with hand extended. "How 
 do you do, professor?" 
 
 His absent-minded glance swept over me. Then 
 he shook hands in a loose and equally absent-minded 
 fashion. 
 
 "I am pleased to see you, Paula, and looking so 
 so well. You have grown ah considerably." 
 
 He had a way of pausing between words as if 
 , searching for one to express an escaping thought. 
 
 "I think I have. And you I I hope you are 
 quite well ?" 
 
 "Yes, my dear, I believe so." He looked vaguely 
 round the room. "Never better," he went on sud- 
 denly, "never, so to say, ah better. Will you 
 pour out the tea, my dear? You must need re- 
 freshment after your journey." 
 
 "Did you remember that I was to arrive to- 
 night ?" I asked, as I seated myself at the table. 
 
 It was spread with a homely, and to a schoolgirl 
 eminently satisfactory meal of hot cakes, scones, 
 marmalade, and thick bread and butter. The pro- 
 fessor would never eat a thin-cut, as introduced by 
 the fashion of afternoon teas. 
 
 22
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 23 
 
 "Remember? Of course I did. I ah told 
 Mrs. Graddage." 
 
 "You sent no one to meet me. It was dark and 
 rainy, and the train was nearly an hour late. How- 
 ever, one of the farmers in the neighborhood gave 
 me a lift in his cart. It was very kind of him 
 but I quite forgot to ask his name." 
 
 He ruffled up his scanty gray hair and surveyed 
 me with that perplexed air that I always managed 
 to arouse in him. 
 
 "A ah farmer, you say? I regret you have 
 been so inconvenienced. It slipped my memory ; 
 the fact that you would expect to be met by a ah 
 conveyance. I trust you arrived safely." 
 
 "I suppose I did, seeing that I am here," I an- 
 swered. But I knew of old that to attempt to wake 
 a sense of humor, even at his own oddities, in the 
 professor was a hopeless task. 
 
 He drank his tea and commenced on the thick 
 bread and butter with an expression of absent- 
 minded content. I followed his example as far as 
 the food and the content were concerned. Our 
 meals were usually signalized by silent enjoyment. 
 
 "Have you made any new discoveries about the 
 castle?" I asked at last. 
 
 His face lightened to animation. "Yes," he said. 
 "Oh! yes. I have traced the herring-bone masonry 
 to its origin, in fact as far as A.D. 690. The keep 
 was built in 1075, as you know. The great dispute, 
 of course, has been the discrepancy of dates con- 
 necting the abbey and the castle in history. I have 
 never believed that the latter was built by a Saxon 
 king. Quinton Lacy was once a royal manor and 
 its bounds included the land and the hill whereon the 
 castle stands. The abbey possessed the hill and held
 
 24 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 
 
 it till after the Norman Conquest. That doesn't 
 agree with the story of the martyr to whom the 
 church here is dedicated. In fact, the history of the 
 castle has been overladen with fiction, and kept up 
 by romance. I have been involved in many disputes 
 concerning the authenticity of ah its records. 
 But I maintain my point, and I ah shall prove 
 it." 
 
 This information did not interest me at all. My 
 life seemed to flash out of a mass of dusty historical 
 records as a fresh piece of martyrdom connected 
 with Scarffe and its castle. 
 
 I knew, however, that when my uncle was once 
 started on his hobby nothing would stop him, so I 
 let him ramble on while I turned my attention to 
 the home-made scones and marmalade. When my 
 appetite was appeased I gave my thoughts up to 
 the consideration of myself in new surroundings 
 and amidst a life that offered the sharpest possible 
 contrast to that of my school days. Was there any 
 important part here for me to play ? Any role that 
 would place Paula as centre of dramatic results? 
 
 It looked highly improbable. 
 
 This strange old man, wrapped in his researches, 
 whose whole existence was bound up with dates 
 and parchments and the architecture of stones, what 
 could he be to me save the shadow of all the pro- 
 tective kindliness that makes of that word home an 
 idyl and a sanctuary? 
 
 For me the word held naught of love, and but 
 scant idealism. 
 
 I moved, a lonely unit, among its manifold mean- 
 ings, and grasped none. There was no one to please ; 
 no one to care what I did, or left undone. No one 
 to question of school days and their import, no one
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 25 
 
 to heed what youth might dream or seek amidst the 
 undiscovered treasures of the future. 
 
 A gentle melancholy stole over me. 
 
 By the time the professor had prosed himself into 
 a renewed interest with the work he was compiling, 
 I had played the part of the martyred, the neglected, 
 the misunderstood. I had seen my young life glid- 
 ing away under the shadows of that ancient castle ; 
 I had wandered, a lonely girl, a lonely woman, un- 
 der its unchanging aspect. Nothing of girlhood's 
 mirth and light-heartedness was to be my portion. 
 Even romance shrank aside and left me gazing list- 
 lessly after that ''sweet hand-in-hand" companion- 
 ship of moving figures that grouped themselves in 
 the roseate foreground of illusions I should never 
 know. 
 
 The professor's voice aroused me from my trance. 
 He had pushed back his chair, and was looking at 
 me. 
 
 "If you will excuse me, Paula, I ah have some 
 work to do in my study. 
 
 The old formula. I had heard it so often. I 
 should hear it so often still. I sighed and rose also. 
 
 "Of course, professor. Do not let me make any 
 difference to your usual habits." 
 
 Then I went up to my own room and unpacked 
 my box, and began a letter to Lesley. 
 
 I had scarcely got beyond the first page when I 
 was interrupted by a knock at the door, and on my 
 answer the girl Merrieless entered. 
 
 I laid down my pen and looked inquiry. 
 
 "If you please, miss, aunt sent me to see if you 
 wanted anything, and help " Her eyes fell on 
 the emptied box. 'Oh, you've done it all yourself, 
 miss !"
 
 26 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Yes," I said. "There wasn't much to do." 
 
 She glanced at my plain serge frock, and then at 
 me, and then at the wardrobe. 
 
 "But there will be, miss," she said cheerfully. 
 "By-and-by when you're going to parties and balls 
 and such like, same as Lawyer Triggs' daughters 
 young ladies, I mean used to go where I lived be- 
 fore. A beautiful young lady, miss, like you, won't 
 be moping yourself to death here. And it will be 
 such a pleasure to help dress you, and see you go off 
 in your satins and pearls, and " 
 
 I laughed aloud. 
 
 "What are you talking about, Merry?" I ex- 
 claimed. "There's as much probability of my going 
 out to balls and parties, and wearing satins and 
 pearls as as of your doing it." 
 
 Her bright face fell. "Oh, miss, is that true ? J 
 can't believe it. Young ladies always " 
 
 "Young ladies," I interrupted, "who have homes, 
 and mothers and fathers to look after them; but I, 
 Merry, have none." 
 
 "No more than myself, miss," she said sym- 
 pathizingly. 
 
 "Come, sit down here and let us have a talk," I 
 said. "We're both young, and though I'm mistress, 
 and you are maid, youth stands for much. Tell me 
 your history, Merry? And I well, there's nothing 
 to tell you about myself except that I'm an orphan, 
 and have just left school, and must spend the rest 
 of my life here." 
 
 She sat down as I bade her, and her large, 
 bright eyes wandered over me with flattering 
 approval. 
 
 "It won't be for ever, miss," she said cheerfully. 
 "Nor very long, perhaps. You'll be getting mar-
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 27 
 
 ried pardon my freedom in saying it and to some 
 fine-spoken, rich, handsome gentleman." 
 
 "Nonsense," I said, frowning. "Marriage is a 
 very important thing, Merry. It means something 
 more than fine speeches, or looks, or even riches." 
 
 "Love, of course, miss," she said apologetically. 
 "But there's no fear o' that not coming your way." 
 
 I looked at her with a little sense of wonder. 
 
 In every grade of life the same thought seemed to 
 meet the woman on the threshold. Love, marriage. 
 The girls at school had discussed them as the all- 
 important factors in our future. This uneducated 
 serving maid was eager to do the same. I found 
 myself evading a disquieting truth, and angered 
 because it so persistently faced me. Surely there 
 must be many other things beside just Love. 
 
 Why was it ranked so high, why supposed to 
 play so large a part in the existence of men and 
 women ? 
 
 Then a faint curiosity crept into my mind. I 
 looked at Merrieless. 
 
 "How old are you?" 
 
 "I'll be twenty next birthday, miss," she said. 
 
 Twenty! Surely, with three years' start of me 
 in the shape of experience, she might have some 
 personal knowledge of this great mystery. I would 
 rather believe a person than a book, and Friendship 
 was the first novel of modern life I had read. 
 
 "And have you," I asked diffidently, "had any 
 sort of experience about love?" 
 
 "I've felt it, miss," she answered bashfully, 
 "more than once. Not in such gifted language, so 
 to say, as you put it, but with a twinge here, miss, 
 and a deal o' misery." 
 
 Here evidently represented the region of her
 
 28 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 heart, as a large red hand displayed itself like a 
 plaster over the bosom of her neat, black gown. 
 
 I felt interested. ''More than once," I repeated. 
 "But I thought " 
 
 "Ah! miss, don't you go after what them silly 
 folks in the story books says. You may get it, and 
 suffer for it, but you don't die of it." 
 
 That was consoling. My interest grew apace. 
 
 "And what was it like, Merry," I asked, "the first 
 time?" 
 
 "The first time," she said with another blush, 
 "was the last also, miss, with me." 
 
 I felt puzzled. "But I thought you said 'more 
 than once,' Merry?" 
 
 "So I did, miss, and so I meant it. 'Twas this 
 way. Love as a new sort o' feeling that come 
 first. 'Twas the brightest. It didn't last longer than 
 a quarrel and hasty words, and a parting. Second 
 time 'twas a bashful and who'll-speak-first kind o' 
 business and then a making-up. Next 'twas the 
 same feelin' redivived, so to say, and we knew better 
 than to believe a fallin' out was a everlasting thing. 
 That was the best, miss, and it's still a-goin' on." 
 
 "With the same person, Merry?" 
 
 "True for you, miss ; and my word on it that the 
 tenderest love o' them all is the love that's redivived, 
 so to say. It's his word, mi$s, and he's a powerful 
 speaker." 
 
 I was silent for a moment. The simple story 
 afforded a wide field for speculation. 
 
 "Would you mind telling me," I asked at last, 
 "what the first quarrel was about ?" 
 
 "A poor thing, miss, and pitiful enough. Jeal- 
 ousy o' another woman, a bit prettier than myself, 
 but not circumspect. 'Twas her powers I feared,
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 29 
 
 not having them to apply, for fear o' being thought 
 light-meaning." 
 
 She clasped her hands tightly together, and the 
 color faded from her rosy face. "My word for it, 
 miss, 'tis a powerful cruel feeling ; I'd never counsel 
 anyone to give way to it." 
 
 "Is it a case of giving way," I asked, "or can't 
 help it?" 
 
 "Perhaps a matter o' both, miss. A watery heat 
 of the mind which boils over and puts out the fire of 
 the heart. Tis all confusion then hissing o' steam 
 and fizzing o' ashes, and then clouds o' blackness 
 and nothing." 
 
 "Nothing!" I echoed. 
 
 "Save memories," she said. "Black adders of 
 things popping up their heads when most incon- 
 venient ; biting and thrusting out forked tongues till 
 every bit o' you seems pierced and stung and you're 
 mad with the poison." 
 
 "Oh, Merry!" 
 
 "Just so, miss. I've been through it. I hope you 
 never may." 
 
 "So do I, with all my heart," I answered. "But 
 do you mean to say after all this, Merry, that you 
 could believe in love again; go back to the same 
 lover?" 
 
 "It's this way, miss. You give up something o' 
 yourself when you love that never can come back to 
 you again. And sooner than lose it, why you just 
 goes after it." 
 
 She said other things, did Merrieless the maid, 
 but nothing that could beat that bit of philosophy. 
 So I wrote it down in my journal, long after she 
 had left me to-night, and solitude, and my own re- 
 flections.
 
 30 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 After all, expressed in more homely fashion, it 
 only echoed the words scribbled in my book the 
 chance words that had met me on the threshold of 
 life. 
 
 "Yet there is one that comes before the rest. 
 And there is one that stays when all are gone."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I SOON settled down into the routine of life at 
 Scarffe. 
 
 Even Christmas day was much like any other day. 
 Mrs. Graddage proposed a variation in the dinner 
 hour, making it seven o'clock instead of two, and 
 abolishing the nine-o'clock supper, a frugal meal 
 which finished the day, but otherwise there was no 
 difference. 
 
 I walked to the old church of Quinton Lacy in the 
 morning for service, and saw my farmer friend and 
 his family in one of the pews. A hale, rosy-cheeked 
 old man, undoubtedly his father, two apple-faced 
 girls, pretty enough in their own dairymaid, plump 
 and smiling fashion, and my friend of the train, 
 wearing black broadcloth as though to the manner 
 born, and looking decidedly handsome, in a manly, 
 assertive fashion. 
 
 Just as the service began, a rustle of silks and 
 skirts, and a faint exotic perfume arrested my atten- 
 tion. There appeared in the principal pew, belong- 
 ing, I had heard, to the county magnate, Lord St. 
 Quinton, a party of men and women who embodied 
 in their appearance that essence of a world beyond 
 and apart from country boorishness, that is a special 
 distinction. 
 
 One woman especially attracted me. She had a 
 lovely, impertinent face, eyes blue as a turquoise 
 and hair that shone like burnished gold as the sun 
 
 31
 
 32 'A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 rays fell on it from the window above her head. 
 The service evidently bored her. I have no doubt it 
 was a vastly different thing from that of a fashion- 
 able London church. Once or twice I caught her 
 roving glance, and it steadied into a critical observa- 
 tion of myself that made me almost nervous. 
 
 I quitted the church before the party from Quin- 
 ton Court, and gave a somewhat envious glance at 
 the prancing horses and fine liveries of the waiting- 
 carriages. 
 
 Then I took the road back to Scarffe, passing or 
 being passed by other stragglers going the same 
 way. Once a step halted by my side, the owner 
 giving a half-shy "Good morning and a merry 
 Christmas to you, Miss Trent," as he passed on. It 
 was my friend of the train again. He was alone, 
 and I wondered why he had parted with his family 
 belongings. 
 
 I watched him going along the road at a brisk, 
 even pace, nodding right and left, giving and re- 
 ceiving greetings. Evidently he was well known. 
 I began to feel some curiosity respecting him. I 
 should like to have asked his name. He was evi- 
 dently quite aware of mine. 
 
 Instead of going home I took a short cut across 
 the fields, and went up to the castle hill. 
 
 The ruins had long been closed to visitors except 
 by payment, but I proffered my dole and passed in 
 through the massive towers of the gateway. The 
 sun was shining gloriously, the air was keen and 
 exhilarating. The grand old pile, with its shroud- 
 ing ivy and mellow-tinted stone, looked down se- 
 renely on the little, gray roofs below. 
 
 I always regarded that castle with a kind of awe. 
 It was so old, so terribly old. It had seen so much,
 
 A JILTS JOURNAL. 33 
 
 and suffered such stress of fortune ; it held the his- 
 tory of peopled centuries that to me were but school- 
 book records. Men and armies had lived and moved 
 and fought, and loved and died on this same spot 
 where I stood ; gazed, as I was gazing, at the quiet 
 fields, and the babbling stream running under its 
 arched stone bridge; held that ruined drawbridge 
 against savage foes; seen dynasties change, and 
 tasted of good and evil fortune. And now they 
 were dead and forgotten, yet the old ruin stood and 
 conquered Time, and spoke in every tower and stone 
 and buttress of those far-off centuries, and the deeds 
 done in them. 
 
 Men had known how to work in those days, and 
 had not shirked it. Arrow and axe, and steel and 
 shot, had done their best to destroy this fortress, 
 and failed. Generation after generation had come 
 to gaze at it and wonder. It looked as if genera- 
 tions yet unborn would do the same. 
 
 I climbed up the old stone stairway of the dun- 
 geon tower, which was my favorite point of view. 
 Here I perched myself, and despite the wind, which 
 has a rare fancy for those heights, I sat gazing 
 down at the magnificent expanse of country lying 
 to east and west. 
 
 Few visitors came to the castle in the winter sea- 
 son, and I was surprised to see another figure saun- 
 tering through the arch and across the grassy space 
 below my tower. 
 
 "It looks remarkably like my farmer friend," I 
 thought, and felt vexed at the thought. 
 
 Presently I heard steps coming up the stone 
 stairs, mounting higher, approaching nearer, until 
 a sudden exclamation forced me to look round. 
 
 "We seem fated to meet," I said.
 
 34 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 He took off his soft felt hat ceremoniously. "It 
 does look like it," he answered. "I should never 
 have dreamt that a young lady would choose a lone- 
 ly place like this to come to." 
 
 "I like lonely places," I said. "Apparently you do 
 the same." 
 
 "Oh, I often come here when I've leisure. I love 
 every stone of the old place," he added almost rev- 
 erently. 
 
 "How speech lends itself to exaggeration," I said 
 flippantly. "Do you mean every stone?" 
 
 He looked at me a puzzled gaze that seemed to 
 ask whether I was mocking what was a serious mat- 
 ter to himself. 
 
 "I mean I just love it all, ruin or no ruin. 
 These stones have a history for me. I know the 
 names of ward and keep and tower, as well as I 
 know the look of the skies above them. You see," 
 he went on apologetically, "I was born and bred 
 under shadow of the castle. There seems no time 
 to me when I didn't look up at this hill and see sun- 
 shine, or rain, smite, or clouds enfold it. Every 
 aspect is as familiar as the signs of the seasons. It 
 says 'home' to me when I travel the country round 
 and catch sight of it so true and strong, standing 
 between the hills that have known it nigh on eight 
 hundred years. It seemed hard to believe at first, 
 but now well, it's told me so much of itself that 
 there's nothing too wonderful for me to credit." 
 
 "You are as great an enthusiast as the professor," 
 I said carelessly. "It strikes me I shall have a sur- 
 feit of the castle ruins before I have done with 
 Scarffe." 
 
 "The professor; you mean your uncle, the old 
 gentleman who is always exploring around here?"
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 85 
 
 I laughed slightly. "He is a great and learned 
 authority on architecture and everything belonging 
 to it," I said. "He knows more about the celebrated 
 and uncelebrated ruins of England than any other 
 archaeologist." 
 
 "So I have heard," he answered. "But I often 
 think that to know too much of a subject is to lose 
 all sense of its charm. For my part, I would rather 
 keep the romance of the castle unimpaired than 
 make researches which throw doubt or discredit on 
 the old stories." 
 
 I looked at him with unqualified surprise. I had 
 not expected to hear a farmer's son talk like this. 
 
 "Do you know the professor at all ?" I asked. 
 
 "We have spoken odd times. But I think he is 
 an old gentleman who very quickly forgets faces." 
 
 Again I laughed. "I doubt if he ever sees them, 
 except in some inward fashion. His eyes always 
 look as if he were classifying inanimate objects. A 
 dress represents a woman, and a coat and a pair of 
 I mean hat, represents a man, .and that's about 
 all." 
 
 It was his turn to laugh now. "That's a very 
 good description," he said. "But may I ask, Miss 
 Trent, are you not cold sitting there? The position 
 is exposed, and when the wind blows anywhere it 
 never fails to give this hill a turn." 
 
 I was cold, and not sorry to dismount from my 
 perch. We descended the stairway, and then came 
 to a pause under the shelter of the King's Tower. 
 Here it was delightfully warm and snug, and my 
 new acquaintance seemed to take my acceptance of 
 his company for granted. 
 
 "How did your party go off?" I asked him. 
 
 "Party?" '
 
 36 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Last night. The Christmas tree and the dance 
 you told me about." 
 
 "Oh, I believe 'twas greatly enjoyed, but I didn't 
 see much of it." 
 
 "How is that?" 
 
 "Something spoiled it for me," he said, slowly, 
 "and I got thinking." 
 
 I should like to have asked him about the subject 
 of his thoughts, but my ignorance of class-habits or 
 class-prejudices kept me silent. 
 
 He began to tell me about my neighbors, both 
 here and at Quinton Lacy. Of himself, his school- 
 days, and his family. He spoke well and sensibly. 
 When animated his face brightened and grew al- 
 most handsome. He awoke considerable interest in 
 my mind, though behind it all that curious vanity of 
 mine was asking what sort of interest I had aroused 
 in his. 
 
 I had no desire to play the mere ordinary girl 
 talking to the mere ordinary young man. I hoped I 
 had dropped school-missishness, but I was not 
 certain. 
 
 "You will soon be knowing the great folk at 
 Quinton Court," he said presently. "Then it won't 
 be so dull for you." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose they'll call," I answered, all the 
 more confidently because I had supposed nothing of 
 the sort till his suggestion. "My uncle is not rich," 
 I went on, "but I believe he is quite well known in 
 the scientific world. He goes to London every year." 
 
 "He will be taking you with him next time?" 
 
 "I hope so. My greatest friend lives in London. 
 She has invited me to stay with her when I go 
 there." 
 
 "I know London," he said.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 37 
 
 "You!" 
 
 I could not help a genuine feeling of astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 "Why not? We all travel cityward nowadays. 
 Too many, I often think. The depopulation of the 
 country is its greatest danger. All its youth and 
 strength and blood pour themselves into that great 
 seething vat of the towns, to gain wealth at any 
 sacrifice." 
 
 His gaze rested lovingly on the dark, low-lying 
 fields and brooding hills, then swept upward to the 
 stately ruin that seemed always guarding them in 
 overshadowing might. 
 
 He appeared to have forgotten me for the time. 
 I recalled his wandering attention. 
 
 "Wealth is a good thing," I said. "It is the 
 greatest power of life. You can do anything if you 
 are only rich enough." 
 
 "Can you?" he said gravely. "Anything? I 
 think not. Wealth can't purchase happiness or 
 health, or the love of a single human heart. And 
 nothing in life is better than love, Miss Trent." 
 
 Again that same assertion, this time from a man's 
 lips. With a view of getting at both sides of the 
 question, I settled myself comfortably into my warm 
 niche and prepared for controversy. I could hardly 
 ask him directly what I had asked Merrieless, so I 
 tried strategy. 
 
 "You say that as if you had found it out for 
 yourself. Are you married?" 
 
 "I!" The color mounted to his forehead. 
 
 "Oh, no ! I haven't so much as thought about it 
 yet." 
 
 "Then, perhaps, you're what they call 'keeping 
 company' ?"
 
 as A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 
 
 The flush faded, and his lips set themselves 
 tightly, as I had noticed they could do. His voice 
 held a defiant respectfulness. 
 
 "That's foolish sort of talk," he said; "and, 
 though I'm yeoman born and bred, I don't make 
 myself cheap as farm-hands do. I've read a great 
 deal, and thought more; the sort of thought that 
 comes to a man under wide skies, and with the long 
 starlit nights when he lets Nature speak to him. 
 It's wonderful what she can teach." His voice 
 softened, those blue eyes went again to ruined tower 
 and ivied keep. "And she tells no lies," he added. 
 "Books do and men, aye and women, too. But 
 not Nature ; never Nature. She's the grandest book 
 of Truth ever written, and 'tis the finger of God 
 that has touched her pages." 
 
 I was silent. A sort of pent-up force within him 
 seemed to have burst into words, and they were 
 words with a new meaning for me. 
 
 My fancy went off on one of its usual canters, 
 but this time it was racing through a field of specu- 
 lation. Nature he was a son of Nature's breeding. 
 A son of the soil, with the blood of toiling ancestry 
 in his veins. Yet, beside him, I felt suddenly in- 
 significant. All my book-learning, all my smatter- 
 ing of languages, 'ologies and accomplishments 
 were suddenly dwarfed. He towered beside my 
 puny complacency by right of a simple nature speak- 
 ing out Life's simple truth. And to him also that 
 truth was Love, with its strength and self-sacrifice, 
 and divine power. 
 
 So little yet so much. 
 
 I longed to ask him had he realized all this? If 
 to him as to that simple country maid love had 
 taught more "than them silly story books say." But
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 39 
 
 I could not do it. There was something 1 in his 
 face that silenced idle curiosity. The embarrass- 
 ment of sexual difference, hitherto unknown, held 
 my glib tongue abashed and dumb. 
 
 He spoke presently. He was the farmer again. 
 
 "Your pardon, miss. I don't know what made 
 me speak so. It's not young lady's sort of talk. 
 But when a man gets thinking " 
 
 "I know," I said quietly. "It's a comfort to 
 speak it out." 
 
 "That's just it. But " 
 
 His doubtful glance amused me. "Oh! even 
 school-girls think," I said. 
 
 "It takes the soreness from the heart like sun- 
 shine after rain," he went on. "Only the sunshine 
 never warms you unless it's " 
 
 "Comprehensive?" I asked. 
 
 "The very word. You've a clever brain, young 
 as you look." 
 
 "Seventeen," I said with dignity. 
 
 His smile was indulgent. "And I am twenty- 
 seven. A wide bit of difference, miss." 
 
 "I wish you wouldn't call me that," I said 
 pettishly. 
 
 "It comes, with a way you have of putting me in 
 my place," he apologized. "I hope I don't forget it. 
 But although a farmer's son, I'm well educated, 
 and fairly well read, and not altogether concerned 
 with ploughing, and sowing, and breeding cattle." 
 
 "Farming must be rather tiring work?" 
 
 "I like it in its place and season," he said quietly. 
 
 "From year's end to year's beginning?" 
 
 "There's waiting times between." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "One thinks," he said, "and dreams,"
 
 40 A JILT'S JOUENAL. 
 
 Then my Paul Pry bestirred itself. 
 
 "What do you dream about?" I asked softly. 
 
 His glance turned to the massive heights, over 
 which the blue sky bent and smiled. 
 
 "The deeds done there" he said. "The courage 
 that made the land what it is to-day." 
 
 "And never," I asked, "of the fair ladies who 
 lived here also, and inspired that courage?" 
 
 "Sometimes," he said. "But, though the same 
 courage beats in men's hearts to-day, I often think 
 the power to inspire it has passed from the fair 
 ladies' hands." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "I told you I had known something of the life of 
 cities." 
 
 "But they hold the very pearl of womanhood. 
 All that is cultured, and brilliant, and beauti- 
 ful " 
 
 "And vile," he said curtly. "I beg your pardon, 
 I shouldn't have said that. Such things won't 
 come your way. You're but a flower now, and you 
 think only of the sun that will ripen your bloom, not 
 of the rain and the wind that can smite it to the 
 dust to the dust," he echoed vaguely, "as I've seen 
 women's beauty smitten." 
 
 I thought of Prince lo and Lady Joan, and Etoile 
 broken-hearted in her lonely Roman palace. Was 
 this a phase of life the life of cities; of the great 
 world, of womanhood, to which a girl's dreams are 
 the prelude? 
 
 His voice recalled me. It was once more 
 apologetic. 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know why I talk to you so 
 freely. It's not often my way with folk; maidens 
 especially."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 41 
 
 The quaint term pleased me. 
 
 "I like to hear you," I said. "I hope you will 
 always talk to me as if you knew I understood." 
 
 "There's no doubt o' that," he said, "no doubt 
 whatever. But perhaps you'll be thinking it a 
 liberty on my part when you're gone away, or 
 grown up." 
 
 "I wish," I said, "you wouldn't treat me as if I 
 were so very young. I assure you I feel quite 
 grown up enough." 
 
 "Only seventeen," he muttered absently, "and 
 twenty-seven. Seventeen from twenty-seven and 
 ten remains. And what a deal of experience one 
 can gather into ten years!" 
 
 "I wonder," I said suddenly, "if I shall be back 
 here in another ten years' time, and my experience 
 gathered?" 
 
 "May it be a good one, a bright one," he said 
 fervently. "For you've the face to draw men's 
 hearts to you, and the tongue to win them, and 
 it's not always a safe power, miss, nor wisely 
 used." 
 
 "I wish you'd tell me your name," I said abruptly. 
 "I'd like to know it." 
 
 "I thought you did. It's well known here, father 
 and son for generations past. Herivale it is, miss 
 Adam Herivale at your service." 
 
 "At my service?" I echoed, fancy playing once 
 more with the literal meaning of words grown 
 meaningless through centuries of formal usage. 
 "Suppose I should ever claim such service, Mr. 
 Adam Herivale?" 
 
 "It will be yours," he said simply. "And not 
 'Mr.,' if you please, Miss Trent, but only plain 
 Adam Herivale yeoman born, as I said before
 
 42 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 who is your servant and faithful friend if you will 
 so honor him." 
 
 I looked up quickly at the earnest face, the deep 
 blue eyes, full of steadfast purpose. A man to trust 
 undoubtedly to trust, and reverence and believe in. 
 
 Quite involuntarily I stretched out my hand. 
 He took it, and a pleased smile parted his lips. 
 
 "And now I must go home Adam Herivale," I 
 said.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MERRY brought me some tea to my bedroom at 
 five o'clock, and found me writing. 
 
 I pushed the papers aside, glad to have some one 
 to talk to. 
 
 "Oh, what a long day!" I said, "and two hours 
 still to dinner." 
 
 "I suppose it is terrible lonesome, miss," she said 
 sympathizingly, as she drew a dwarf table up to the 
 fire and then placed the tray upon it. "But you 
 went to church, and had a longish bit o' walking. 
 Didn't that pass the time?" 
 
 "Oh ! yes. I was up at the castle." 
 
 " "Pis all the place seemingly, miss. One never 
 loses sight o' it anywheres. Wonderful old it is 
 they do say ! I didn't believe Aunt Anne Graddage 
 when she told me first that it was there time o' the 
 ancient Britons and Norming Conquists. But 
 every one I know here says the same, even Gregory 
 Blox." 
 
 "Who is Gregory Blox?" I asked. 
 
 "Him as I told you about, miss." 
 
 "Oh! And does he live here, in the neigh- 
 borhood?" 
 
 "At Woodcote Farm, miss; Farmer Herivale's 
 place near Quinton Lacy. Mostly called Heri- 
 vale's." 
 
 I grew interested. 
 
 "You can wait till I have finished my tea," I said ; 
 
 43
 
 44 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "and tell me about Gregory and the farm. What 
 does he do?" 
 
 "Helps with the cattle, and field work summer- 
 time, miss. His father's an ancient man, and has 
 been on the Herivale's farm nigh upon sixty years, 
 and they took on Gregory to oblige. 'Twasn't the 
 trade he wanted. He's a blacksmith by nat'ral in- 
 clination. 'Twas part filial duty as brought him 
 back here, his father being a widower, but with a 
 taste for young maidens that seems a unnat'ral 
 thing in an old man. So Gregory came to see as he 
 didn't get into harm. A healthful stretch o' the 
 mind, miss, toward woman-folk is all very well in 
 the prime o' manhood, but 'tis vile in the ancient, 
 and so Gregory told him." 
 
 I began to think I should like to make acquaint- 
 ance with this merry old gentleman who had so epi- 
 curean a taste at three score and ten. 
 
 "Tell me some more," I said, pouring out a fresh 
 cup of tea. "And do sit down ; you look so uncom- 
 fortable standing there." 
 
 "Thank you, miss, and excuse the liberty. But 
 as to more, there's not much o' that to be told. The 
 old gentleman doesn't look favoringly on me since I 
 boxed his ears for trying to snatch a kiss behind the 
 wash-house door one time I had been to the farm 
 on an errand. I had no thought about it but to 
 teach him a lesson. Maybe he didn't care for learn- 
 ing it." 
 
 I laughed unrestrainedly. 
 
 "Did he tell Gregory?" 
 
 "No, miss, but I did; and it made things a bit 
 unpleasant for the ancient man. Gregory called him 
 a old carrion crow, forever sniffing after young 
 flesh, and the old gentleman didn't like it."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 45 
 
 "Has he behaved better since ?" I asked. 
 
 "To me, miss? Well, I haven't given him much 
 chance for disrespectfulness, and Gregory meets me 
 in the village winter times, when we go for a com- 
 pany walk. But I doubt he'll be at his frisky ways 
 again come spring. He was always powerful taken 
 up wi' women, w r as Gregory's father." 
 
 "I hope the son doesn't take after him ?" 
 
 " 'Twas my suspicioning him of that roguery, 
 miss, that led to the quarrel I explained to you yes- 
 ter night; but he had no thoughts o' light-minded- 
 ness the Lord forgive me for the doubt. 'Tis a 
 great thing to be well loved by a respectful man, 
 miss." 
 
 "It must be," I said gravely. "Has Gregory no 
 brothers and sisters?" 
 
 "Not that's known on, miss, acknowledgably. 
 But what's been done by that ancient piece o' back- 
 sliding is not for a modest girl to speak of." 
 
 "Oh !" I murmured uncomfortably, feeling I was 
 upon too delicate ground. "What a funny old per- 
 son he must be. I should like to see him." 
 
 "No trouble about that, miss. Any day you like 
 to go to Herivale's, old Gregory is sure to be about, 
 or any one would show him to you. He's not much 
 to look at, save in the way o' waistcoats, having a 
 fancy for them long from top button downward; 
 nigh to his knees they mostly come. He says 'tis a 
 worshipful high fashion, and points a distinction. 
 But have a care o' yourself, miss, for if his mood be 
 lively there's no sayin' what sly and untimely things 
 he mayn't be sayin'." 
 
 This did, indeed, promise interest. I resolved to 
 pay a visit to the ancient Gregory at the earliest 
 opportunity.
 
 46 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Tell me," I said, "do you know the names of 
 any of the people staying at the Court? There was 
 such a pretty lady with their party at church. I 
 should like to know who she is." 
 
 "I don't know any names, miss. Only that 
 they've a heap o' visitors for Christmas week, and 
 wonderful gay doings. The servants there come to 
 Herivale's farm oftentimes for cream and butter 
 and such-like, though they've dairy, and poultry 
 yards, and all such things o' their own. That's 
 how the talk gets round, miss, from one to the other. 
 Man to maid, and Gregory, he tell me. I had a 
 chance of getting service there, as extra help in 
 kitchen work, but aunt wanted me here. I'm glad 
 now I came." 
 
 "So am I," I said heartily. 
 
 "There's no manner o' reason, miss, why you 
 shouldn't be of the company up to the Court," she 
 went on. "Lord St. Quinton calls here to see your 
 uncle; Aunt Graddage says so, and I'm sure if he 
 and her ladyship knew such a pretty young lady as 
 yourself was so lonesome-like, they'd be having you 
 off in an eye-twinkling. Perhaps 'twill come about. 
 They do think the old gentleman a powerful clever 
 man. And though he lives so plain-like, and not 
 a satin couch, or a picture frame to be seen in the 
 drawing-room, I'm told no one takes count o' that 
 when you're clever." 
 
 "Certainly this house is very ugly, and hideously 
 furnished," I said. "But I fancy the professor 
 isn't very well off, and he doesn't notice things 
 either." 
 
 "If they was brought before him by a forcible 
 word o' argument, miss?" she suggested. 
 
 "What would Aunt Anne Graddage say at inno-
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. ,47 
 
 vations?" I said, with a laugh. "And she rules 
 here, Merry." 
 
 "True, miss ; and she's the powerful strong mind 
 of her own, has aunt. Still, you might get round 
 her." 
 
 "I think I'll wait for the satin couches and picture 
 frames, Merry. After all one can live very com- 
 fortably without grandeur." 
 
 "Yes, miss," she assented cheerfully. "And it's 
 not as if we was a noble family, though well-born I 
 make no mistake, but not of these parts, are you, 
 miss?" 
 
 "No. My uncle only came here to make re- 
 searches about the old ruins. He is from quite a 
 different county." 
 
 "That's as how I've been told it is, miss." 
 
 "Do people take such an interest in us?" 
 
 "Strangers coming to a place like this, miss, is as 
 good as a peep-show. There's not a soul so old, or 
 so wearied out, as don't prick ears and cackle news, 
 be it false or true, 'bout newcomers. And the old 
 gentleman always a-going about with his camp stool 
 and his little hammers, and his measuring rods, 'tis 
 but nat'ral he's set up as a wonderment." 
 
 "Shall I be a wonderment too, Merry?" 
 
 "With that face, and that hair, and the carriage 
 o' your body so straight and limmer, do you ask it, 
 miss? Of course your gowns are a bit plain, but 
 there's more in a gown than the stuff; there's the 
 way o' wearin' it, and that you've got. And makin' 
 so bold, shall I put out a dress for to-night, being a 
 festival day, miss, and late fashionable dinner?" 
 
 "Do you suppose the professor would notice what 
 I had on?" 
 
 " 'Tis a shame to be truthful on the point, but
 
 48 A JILT'S JOTJENAL. 
 
 I've never so much as seen him give a comprehend- 
 ing look to a female, miss." 
 
 "Not like the ancient Gregory, Merry?" 
 
 "A deal better in his morals, miss, though less 
 cheerful in his mind." 
 
 "Well, put me out my school-party frock, Merry. 
 I wish you could dress my hair. I'd make you my 
 maid, and Graddy could get somebody else for 
 housework." 
 
 Merry shook her head gravely. "She'd never 
 consent. She thinks a lot o' servants means only a 
 lot o' work and waste. 'Tis a weary, easy place 
 this, once the morning time is over. I'm good at 
 plain sewing, miss, and will do all yours, but about 
 hair-dressing that's something in the extra way, 
 and would want an art of education." 
 
 So I did my own hair, and put on my white 
 frock, and fastened a bunch of holly berries at my 
 waist. 
 
 But whatever sort of picture I made, or seemed to 
 make, there was no one to notice or approve, for the 
 professor's eyes were turned inward as usual, and I 
 doubt if he even knew there was a plum pudding on 
 the table. 
 
 "I was up at the castle to-day," I said, making a 
 valiant effort at conversation, which had spluttered 
 and died out like damp wood newly kindled, during 
 previous stages of soup and roast beef, served and 
 carved by Graddage. 
 
 He looked up from his plate, where a slice of plum 
 pudding had aroused a speculative regard worthy of 
 an archaeological specimen. "I hope," he said, "you 
 observed that masonry of which I was speaking. It 
 is worthy of study." 
 
 "But I'm not writing a history of ruins," I said.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 49 
 
 "That, Paula, need not prevent you taking an 
 intelligent interest in the subject." 
 
 "I don't care about it as a subject," I said. "If I 
 were an artist I'd paint the old castle, because it is 
 beautiful and picturesque, but I can't get up any 
 enthusiasm over the architecture of one era as dis- 
 tinct from another." 
 
 His eyes regarded me now instead of the pud- 
 ding. 
 
 "You are very young," he remarked. "And all 
 young female things are indifferent to what lies 
 beyond their own immediate interests." 
 
 To be called "a young female thing!" Well? 
 
 "I daresay," he went on placidly, "that when you 
 have passed the chrysalis stage you will show more 
 intelligence. I can recommend you a course of 
 study." 
 
 "Thank you, professor," I said with dignity. 
 "But I've had ten years of study, and am a little 
 tired of it. I should like a change." 
 
 "A change," he repeated. His eyes went from 
 me to his plate, from his plate back to me. 
 
 I wondered whether he noticed that I was wear- 
 ing a white dress, and that my eyes were laughing at 
 his perplexity. 
 
 "Yes," I said; "a change from school routine, 
 and books and classes. I am grown up, you know, 
 professor." 
 
 If anything so grave and solemn as that face of 
 his could be said to smile, then the professor at- 
 tempted this frivolity. He pushed up his glasses 
 and drew a wrinkled hand over a perplexed brow. 
 
 "Hardly that, my dear," he said. "Seventeen is 
 your age, if I remember right. Your father's in- 
 structions were that you should leave school at that
 
 50 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 period of life, and live under my guardianship. 
 You are entitled also to receive the sum of one hun- 
 dred pounds a year from this date. I believe I 
 mentioned these facts in my letter." 
 
 "You may have intended to, but I am hearing 
 them for the first time." 
 
 "Dear me," he said, "dear me! It was certainly 
 written." 
 
 "Perhaps not posted. That would account for 
 my ignorance." 
 
 "So it would, my dear, so it would. I do forget 
 to have letters posted. Perhaps I shall find this on 
 my writing table." 
 
 He rose. "Oh, don't go !" I entreated. "You've 
 not finished your dinner. And it will be such a long 
 evening for me." 
 
 "As for my dinner," he answered, "I have had 
 all I need. This sort of indigestible, though sea- 
 sonable, addition to the meal is ah unimportant." 
 
 "But do you never take a holiday?" I urged. 
 "This is Christmas Day, you know, and well, 
 everyone enjoys themselves, and rests, and is as 
 merry as circumstances permit. Why should you 
 be different?" 
 
 He walked over to the fireplace and stood with 
 his back to it, and his hands thrust behind his long 
 coat tails. I pushed my plate aside, and during the 
 time his silence afforded reflection, I saw myself 
 playing the staff of declining years; the gentle in- 
 fluence who should win him from too-absorbing 
 studies and make of the dreary house a home. Just 
 as his hair had grown to yet more silvered scanti- 
 ness, and his weak voice was blessing my filial devo- 
 tion, he broke into speech. 
 
 "I suppose I am- different," he said. "And I have
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 51 
 
 forgotten what this place must seem to you. You 
 are ah your mother's child, Paula, as well as 
 your father's. I should have remembered that." 
 
 "Am I like her in- any way? Oh, do tell me!" I 
 cried eagerly. I left the table and came to his side. 
 "Please remember," I went on, "that I'm not a stone 
 or a specimen, but a flesh and blood creature, and 
 very ignorant of life. Perhaps if I knew my 
 mother's it would help me." 
 
 Such a change came over the passionless face that 
 I could only look and wonder. The tremor that 
 stirs a quiet pool into whose waters a chance stone 
 has fallen was such a disturbance as wavered over 
 that wrinkled visage, and stirred it from a long- 
 enforced composure. 
 
 He looked at me ; at the table, with its scarlet and 
 white decoration; at the room and its bare walls; 
 then again at me. 
 
 "I forget the years," he said, "and how they pass, 
 and the changes they bring. I forget, ah every- 
 thing. But when you speak and look, Paula, she 
 comes back and speaks and looks also. I have been 
 a recluse so long. I I almost forget what it ever 
 was to have been young. For to-night Christmas 
 night you said it was, Paula I will put aside my 
 work as you ah counseled. You may, if you 
 choose, accompany me to my study, and I will try 
 and tell you what you desire about those parents 
 you lost so young, and whose place I can so ill 
 supply." 
 
 His arms dropped loosely to his side. He led the 
 way to the door, and I followed.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHEN I came up to my room it was ten o'clock, 
 and I took out my journal to confide to its pages the 
 events of the day. But of that conversation in the 
 study I could not write freely. 
 
 It was my first glimpse into a human heart, and 
 the heart had not aged with years as the face had 
 done. Time slipped back as the professor told his 
 story, which was my mother's story also, and 
 painted her for me a bright, gifted, enchanting crea- 
 ture, playing havoc with all hearts. She had Irish 
 blood in her veins, and dawned on the life of two 
 stolid English boys as a revelation of woman's 
 beauty and witchery. They both loved her. One 
 won her love. The other never spoke of his. 
 
 That was what I read between the lines. No new 
 story, I suppose, but it was new to me. Perhaps it 
 was the brief words, the long pauses, the very sim- 
 plicity of speech that made that story so infinitely 
 pathetic. The language of feeling is strong enough 
 to disdain eloquence or exaggeration. I should like 
 to write as the professor spoke, but I know it would 
 be hopeless to attempt it. I made a good listener 
 because I was an intensely interested one. There 
 was no need to act that part. I felt it. A hopeless 
 love, unspoken and unguessed. A tragic death, 
 and then a charge whose import and responsibility 
 were alike undreamt of. 
 
 I the personality, evolved out of the situation. 
 My place here. 
 
 But as I thought it all over in the solitude of my 
 
 52
 
 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 63 
 
 room I felt dwarfed into insignificance. I could 
 only see that patient figure toiling through long 
 years for sake of work, not the work's reward. 
 
 And I had laughed at him. A ghost of patient 
 manhood came back from years of cold lovelessness 
 and seemed to reproach youth's heedless judgment. 
 Its sad eyes made my own eyes dim with swift, 
 repentant tears. 
 
 Love again faced me with a new mystery the 
 mystery of self-sacrifice and unrecompensed devo- 
 tion. Youth, in man and maid, had already spoken, 
 but this time I heard the voice of age telling the 
 same story the story of Love. That vague dream 
 that yet could take substance and overshadow a 
 whole life. 
 
 Strange doubly, trebly strange. Could one 
 never get away from it? 
 
 If I am to be quite true to myself and my promise 
 in this journal, I must hide nothing that comes into 
 my life, shapes or affects it. 
 
 But I find myself wondering to-night what the 
 girls would say at the picture of a sentimental 
 Paula, brooding over the picture of a shabbily 
 dressed, wrinkled old man, who has just made a 
 heroic effort to adjust his life to a new condition. 
 Wondering still more what they would say if they 
 knew the history my imagination had created for me 
 out of such scant materials. For I caught a glimpse 
 of myself wielding my mother's power over hearts ; 
 hurting, enchanting, wounding or winning them. 
 Would one faithful love outweigh all the rest? 
 Would it be for me a love that I should remember 
 even unto the end of life? 
 
 Staying when all "the rest were gone" ?
 
 M A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 
 
 It was a pathetic thought to meet expectant girl- 
 hood, for whom the rose should possess no thorn; 
 but I could not have been myself had I not looked 
 at the subject from its pathetic as well as its ex- 
 pectant side. I had made up my mind to be strictly 
 truthful to that self-conscious personality of Paula. 
 Neither good nor bad of her should escape my 
 handling and my criticism, though to others would 
 fall the judgment of both. 
 
 I think, to-night, I felt impatient for the curtain 
 to rise, the play to begin. There were not many 
 actors in the performance as yet, and the piece was 
 not at all dramatic, except in possibilities. Friend- 
 ship, but no enmity interest, but no passion sen- 
 timent, but no love. 
 
 Yet scope for them all. 
 
 If only I were not so young and so ignorant! I 
 wish I could find a female mentor to give me some 
 hints or some advice. Walking by oneself is pleas- 
 ant enough sometimes, but if you are walking in a 
 strange country and don't know the way, or how to 
 read the sign-posts, you may find yourself in an 
 undesirable situation. 
 
 Ah ! . . . I hear Merry's step. She is com- 
 ing up to brush my hair. So good-by to my journal 
 
 for to-night. 
 
 ****** 
 
 I awoke to a cold, crisp December morning, with 
 sunshine streaming on leaf and berry of the glisten- 
 ing holly trees outside my window. Woke fresh, 
 brisk, alert, as is youth's happy privilege. 
 
 On the breakfast table I found a card and brief 
 scrawl from Lesley. It held an inquiry as to rriy- 
 self and my doings. Claire was staying with her 
 till the New Year, then she was to leave for Paris.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 55 
 
 "I suppose you are very lonely," she concluded. 
 "Unless you are living in imagination, and making 
 stories out of commonplace things, as you can do. 
 Remember you have promised to tell me everything. 
 Have you managed to wake up the professor yet?" 
 
 My glance fell on my guardian, who had received 
 some scientific pamphlet by the same post and was 
 turning over its pages. 
 
 I laid down my letter. "Your tea is getting 
 cold," I observed. "Shall I pour you out another 
 cup hot?" 
 
 "Thank you, my dear, if you will," he said. "I 
 have had my meals alone so long that I forget you 
 are here." 
 
 I took the cup and threw away its chilled contents 
 and handed it back replenished. "Are you going 
 out this morning?" I then asked. "It will be lovely 
 up on the castle heights in this bright sunshine." 
 
 He shook his head. "I have some work to do. I 
 fear I cannot spare the time." 
 
 "You seem to be always working," I said. "Are 
 you writing another book ?" 
 
 "Yes, my dear." 
 
 "Isn't it tiresome writing so much?" 
 
 "It is my life now. I have to give the world 
 the fruit of my discoveries. It is expected of me." 
 
 "That's what's meant by making a name, isn't 
 it?" I inquired. 
 
 "I suppose so," he said. 
 
 "By the way!" I exclaimed, "didn't my mother 
 write books? You told me so once. Have you 
 any of hers? I should love to read them." 
 
 His lips twitched nervously. "She wrote ah! 
 yes. One book was published. I have it my book- 
 case."
 
 56 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Only one!" I echoed disappointedly. "That 
 seems very little. What is the name of it ?" 
 
 "Fenella's Confessions," he answered. 
 
 "What a funny title! Who was Fenella?" 
 
 "I think she is meant for the heroine. But you 
 can read it for yourself. If you will come to the 
 study presently I will ah show it to you." 
 
 My curiosity was aroused. 
 
 "Did you ever read it, professor? or was it too 
 frivolous?" 
 
 "I yes, I read it, although novel-reading is not 
 a habit of mine. But she asked me to do so." 
 
 When I held the book in my hands shortly after- 
 ward, and turned over the pages with reverent 
 fingers, I saw that many passages were marked with 
 pencil lines, that here and there a word was blistered 
 almost out of recognition. I thought of his simple 
 words "She asked me to read it." 
 
 The obedience had cost something, if only a 
 heartache at the quickening of memory. 
 
 "May I take it away and read it, professor?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "Yes, my dear. It is only right you should 
 know her through her writing. But be very care- 
 ful of that volume, Paula. It is all I have of hers; 
 and she gave it to me." 
 
 I promised, and then left the room, carrying with 
 me once more the picture of a patient face bent over 
 piles of paper a stooping figure on which Time's 
 hand had laid a heavy burden, uncomplainingly 
 borne. 
 
 But the sunshine was to me an invitation from 
 the outer world. I put on my hat and jacket, and 
 with the book in my hand went out to it. As usual 
 my steps turned toward the castle hill. I found a
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 57 
 
 sheltered spot, and sat down on one of the fallen 
 bits of masonry, and then I opened the dull brown 
 cover. I looked at the title-page and the name of 
 the author. Suddenly a great wave of sadness 
 swept over me, and I felt the tears rush to my eyes. 
 For I thought of the hand that had penned those 
 words, and of the brain that had spoken in these 
 pages, and remembered that life was quenched in 
 both. 
 
 Only a great silence had represented her to me 
 until I held this volume and began to make ac- 
 quaintance with her through its printed pages. I 
 read them as no one else could read them ; as inter- 
 preters of the dead. The only thing that could 
 speak to me of all that one word "motherhood" 
 meant. I read the story uncritically, for how could 
 I question power or plot, style or diction, when 
 my throbbing heart sought only that hint of self- 
 revelation which should make me cry out, "I know 
 you"? 
 
 Then presently I forgot the story. It was tragic, 
 but it was not hers. I sought through the pages 
 for all the marked passages. He had known her, 
 he would have understood what they spoke of her- 
 self, and to them I applied for interpretation. 
 
 I copy a few here, for reference, as I had prom- 
 ised to return the book. 
 
 "One love in a life. How poverty-stricken you 
 would make it! I have loved three men in dif- 
 ferent ways. Now I begin to think I loved none, 
 for a fourth appears on the scene, making up in 
 himself what the others lacked, each in one par- 
 ticular."
 
 58 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "What an awful barrier sentiment can be !" 
 
 "It's not what you give, but what you refrain 
 from giving, that holds a man your slave. His love 
 can outlive benefits, but not expectation." 
 
 "When you have conquered the illusions of Love, 
 the falling away of the personality they clothed 
 cannot hurt you. It is only a confirmation of your 
 wiser judgment. Be thankful for that, not re- 
 gretful." 
 
 "Say to youth 'Test and try before you buy,' 
 and it will still make its purchases blindfold." 
 
 "Do you thank Fate that you are a beautiful 
 woman? Rather should you curse it. To be be- 
 loved of many is no enviable lot ! Coquette desig- 
 nates your pathway of conquest. A smile is en- 
 couragement. A chance meeting a trap. A 
 granted request makes of triviality a binding agree- 
 ment. Every declaration of passion proclaims you 
 heartless. Could I dared I write my life as it 
 has been, I should call it A Jilt's Journal, to please 
 my disappointed lovers. And The Confessions of 
 a Fool, to please myself." 
 
 I stopped reading abruptly and closed the book. 
 Were these my mother's thoughts, her experiences, 
 or had she only put them into the mouth of her 
 heroine? It was always a woman who spoke them, 
 and they had a cynical flavor that seemed to say she 
 was no happy or innocent one. I went over the 
 professor's story. I dwelt on his picture of her 
 beauty and allurements. "She was loved wherever
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 59 
 
 she went. It seemed her prerogative. No man 
 could resist her." 
 
 That was what he had said. And here, in her 
 book, a similar confession met me. Its opening sen- 
 tence ran thus : "Fenella's fate was to be loved, and 
 love was her life's ban and blessing. She could only 
 make one lover happy, but a hundred believed each 
 individual unit meant that one. Thus on the 
 threshold of life she was an education in the art of 
 disappointment." 
 
 A hundred lovers and only one could mean any- 
 thing to oneself were one ever so gifted, or ever so 
 beautiful. How I wished I knew if she had penned 
 those lines from personal experience. 
 
 They set me thinking and wondering. They 
 opened out a new vista of life. All her beauty and 
 the love she had won did not appear to have made 
 this heroine happy. The last page was the sigh of 
 a broken heart, a prayer for death. Could one pic- 
 ture imaginary unhappiness with such graphic 
 force ? Must it not be felt ere it could be expressed ? 
 
 I knew that I myself could not present it as a 
 reality, however hard I might try, because to me it 
 was an unknown thing. Little griefs, trivial sor- 
 rows, these I had of course experienced, but not 
 anything of the vague discontent, the passionate 
 misery that breathed in those pages. 
 
 They gave me food enough for thought, and I 
 never noticed how the time was slipping on. 
 
 Into my warm nook the sun still streamed. The 
 austere outlines of surrounding hills leaned against 
 the soft blue of a sky that seemed to stoop toward 
 them. Far away to the west an old coach road 
 wound its way, like a resolute thought determined 
 on a distant goal. Rooks cawed in leafless elms
 
 60 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 that towered around the old gray church. The cur- 
 rent of life stirred in the sleepy old town. It was a 
 holiday, and the solitary inn had awakened to re- 
 sponsibilities and profits. 
 
 I became conscious of all this in some dreamy 
 fashion that mingled with the book and its story and 
 my own thoughts. Gradually, through the dreami- 
 ness, a sense of things relative to the outer world 
 began to mingle. A chatter and laughter that her- 
 alded the approach of something unconcerned with 
 dreams. 
 
 I stirred cautiously in my concealing nook, and 
 looked around. 
 
 A party of men and women stood on the slope 
 below. From them came the chatter and laughter 
 that so ill accorded with the quiet of this old historic 
 place. 
 
 I leant forward, wondering who they were; 
 quickly conscious of the intrusion of worldliness, 
 curiosity and frivolity among the sacred things of 
 life. 
 
 One woman's face, uplifted in its audacity of 
 beauty and comment, caught my glance. I knew it 
 at once. She was the woman I had remarked in 
 church on Christmas Day. 
 
 As I looked down she saw me, and pointed me 
 out to the group of which she seemed the leader and 
 guide. Other heads turned in my direction, and I 
 drew back. 
 
 Presently I heard a voice behind me a woman's 
 voice. 
 
 "Can you tell me," it said, "which of these towers 
 is the Butavant? No one seems to know, and this 
 appears to be that rara avis, an historical ruin with- 
 out an historical guide attached to it."
 
 F A JILT'S JOURNAL. 61 
 
 I half rose and turned in the direction of the 
 speaker. The lovely, impertinent face, the inde- 
 scribable air of distinction and luxury and perfec- 
 tion of clothing, held me dumb with wondering ad- 
 miration. 
 
 I pointed to the dungeon tower and narrow gang- 
 way. "That is the place," I said. "But the stairs 
 are very narrow, and you want strong nerves to 
 climb them." 
 
 "Oh, then I'll send Bobby," she said coolly, and 
 turning, made a speaking trumpet of her hand, and 
 shouted something to someone below our level. 
 Then she turned to me. "He's my husband," she 
 said, "and has no nerves to speak of. It will do him 
 good." 
 
 I suppose I stared. She was the revelation of a 
 type of womanhood as yet unknown. The woman 
 of the world. Such a woman as breathed in the 
 pages of Friendship audacious, insolent, self-pos- 
 sessed, and, to an ignoramus like myself, inexpres- 
 sibly fascinating. She made me feel commonplace, 
 almost boorish. Her eyes, of that curious turquoise 
 blue, so cold and yet so lovely, roved from my face 
 to my dress, rested on the book I held, swept up- 
 ward to the ruins, downward to the gray-roofed 
 town, then back to my face again in a space of 
 seconds. 
 
 "Do you live here?" she asked sweetly. "I 
 think I remember your face; I saw you in church." 
 
 I felt flattered. "I have not lived here yet," I 
 said. "But I am to do so." 
 
 "Poor child !" she said with mocking compassion. 
 "What a life ! Buried alive expresses it. Is there 
 a must in the background in the shape of an un- 
 natural parent ?"
 
 62 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 I felt myself color. "I am to live with my uncle. 
 But he is not unnatural. He is making archaeologi- 
 cal researches respecting these old ruins. Perhaps 
 you have heard of him Professor Trent?" 
 
 Her laugh chimed so sweetly on the still, crisp 
 air that I hardly noted its heartlessness. "My dear 
 child, do I look as if I knew anything of any 'ology 
 whatever, or any professor of it ? But I have heard 
 the St. Quintons, where I'm staying, speak of your 
 uncle. He is very learned, and very clever, and 
 quite a recluse, they say. Does he destine you for a 
 similar existence? If so, I should counsel rebellion." 
 
 We were both standing now. Though taller than 
 herself, I envied a grace of carriage, which I felt 
 was inimitable. 
 
 "He does go to London sometimes," I said. 
 
 Again she laughed. "You mean to say you will 
 go also. That promises entertainment! Lectures 
 and soirees of the Royal Archaeological and Geo- 
 graphical and Astronomical, and all the other soci- 
 eties ! How old are you ?" 
 
 "Seventeen." 
 
 Again her eyes swept me from crown of head to 
 tip of toe. 
 
 "All life before you," she said suddenly. "And 
 that face and buried alive beneath musty ruins, 
 and dug-up fossils, and ponderous, dry-as-dust pro- 
 fessors. Poor child !" 
 
 "It is very kind of you to pity me," I said, with a 
 sudden show of spirit, "but there may be very good 
 things to be got out of the life." 
 
 "That's for you to say, of course. My advice 
 would be 'get out of it yourself.' Discontent is 
 fortune's first favor. If we did not long to fly we 
 should never learn to walk."
 
 A JILT'S JOUENAL. 63 
 
 Perhaps I looked perplexed. Such metaphor was 
 a little beyond the average schoolgirl's knowledge 
 of life and manners. 
 
 "Why," she went on suddenly, "I was married at 
 your age. Like you, I had just left school when 1 
 met Bobby." 
 
 Then another peal of laughter escaped her lovely 
 lips. "Look !" she cried, and pointed to the broken 
 and unsafe stairway, up which a short, fat and emi- 
 nently ungraceful figure was making its way, jeered 
 and urged on by the crowd below. 
 
 "That's Bobby," she said, laughing more than 
 ever. "Would you think he was a peer of the 
 realm, and 'Earl of broad acres/ as the story books 
 say? He is, though, and has the honor to be my 
 legal possessor. What do you think of him? 
 Don't birth and breeding and aristocratic lineage 
 speak out in those fat limbs, that unwieldy figure? 
 But you should hear him talk ! Why, a stableman 
 could give him points in grammar. Funny, isn't it, 
 that Eton and Oxford can't turn out better things 
 than a Board school ?" 
 
 I felt more bewildered than ever. That a lady, a 
 titled lady, one wedded to a peer of the realm, 
 should talk of her affairs to an utter stranger in this 
 frank manner was more than a surprise. 
 
 "How astonished you look," she went on. "It 
 must be funny to find anything in life to astonish 
 one. I wish I could. The nearest approach to it 
 I've had for years is to see Bobby climbing up that 
 old stairway, with the grace of a monkey on a stick. 
 I hope he won't tumble down and break his neck. 
 I want to be Duchess of Dorchester before I die, so 
 I'm very careful of him." 
 
 "You sent him up there !" I said.
 
 64 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Yes. I didn't think it was so risky." 
 
 Again she called out: "Come down, Bobby; come 
 down ! You'll break your neck !" 
 
 I saw the figure halt, turn awkwardly round, and 
 then commence to scramble backward amidst the 
 shouts and screams of his friends below. 
 
 "You see how obedient he is," she observed, 
 turning again to me. "And I married him when I 
 was only as old as yourself, and no one could do 
 anything with him before! That fact has ranked 
 me as one of the cleverest women in London. I've 
 run him like a show, and he's not been such a bad 
 investment." 
 
 A feeling of disgust swept over me. To look at 
 this lovely face, this radiant figure, and then hear 
 such words! 
 
 It reminded me of the princess out of whose 
 mouth the frogs leaped whenever she spoke. 
 
 Words like those I had heard seemed to clothe 
 thoughts as unlovely as the frogs, and as repelling 
 in their cold heartlessness. 
 
 "You haven't much to say for yourself," she said 
 suddenly. "Suppose I told you I had taken an in- 
 terest in you?" 
 
 "I really don't know why you should," I an- 
 swered. 
 
 "Perhaps because you don't like me, and that's a 
 thing I never permit. They call me Lorely in Lon- 
 don, because but if you ever go there you'll hear 
 my history, or I shall see you. Will you make a 
 bet on it?" 
 
 I shook my head. "Why should we bet? If 
 it is to be, it will be. That's enough." 
 
 "Kismet, you mean? Will you come down and 
 be introduced to those people? The St. Quintans
 
 A JILTS JOUKNAL. 65 
 
 know your uncle. They were speaking about him 
 to-day while we drove here. Come back with us to 
 lunch." 
 
 She gave the invitation as if the Court and all 
 belonging to it were at her service. I felt more 
 puzzled than ever at the ways of society. 
 
 "I will come down," I said, "because I should like 
 to know Lord St. Quinton. I have heard so much 
 about him." 
 
 "Oh ! Darky's not a bad old thing," she said care- 
 lessly. "We all call him that," she added, seeing 
 my look of surprise. "Darchdale is too formal, 
 you know, so it got to Darch, and then Darky. It's 
 the way to nickname everyone now. The smartest 
 idea is to find a name so appropriate that it explains 
 the person. My dear, what a lot you have to 
 learn!" 
 
 "Of the world and society? I suppose so. I 
 wonder " 
 
 Then I stopped abruptly. 
 
 "What, or how much?" she asked quickly. 
 
 "Of course I know there are different grades 
 sets. I was only going to say I wonder if you know 
 anyone in London of the name of Heath?" 
 
 "Heath the Archie Heaths? Lady Archie is a 
 great pal of mine. Do you mean them ? They live 
 in Stanhope Street." 
 
 "Yes," I said, "that is my friend's address. So 
 you know her mother ?" 
 
 "Step-mother," she corrected. "Lady Archie is 
 "the second wife." 
 
 "Yes, of course. But Lesley always called her 
 mother." 
 
 "She told me she had a daughter to introduce 
 next season," continued my new acquaintance.
 
 66 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Odd that she should be a school friend of yours. 
 I knew she was at a school in the country for her 
 health. Well, our destinies seem converging, Miss 
 Trent, isn't it ?" 
 
 'That," I said, "is my name." 
 
 "And here's Darky and the rest of them. Let me 
 introduce you as my new discovery my archaeo- 
 logical discovery. By the way, what's your Chris 
 tian name?" 
 
 "Paula " 
 
 "Paula! How lovely! It quite redeems the 
 commonplace Trent. I shall call you that. It's the 
 privilege of my superior years. I came of age a 
 year ago !"
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WHAT a luncheon party that was ! 
 
 Talk of a baptism of fire for a man, it is nothing I 
 should say to the baptism of disillusion women offer 
 to their sex, by way of preparing them for social 
 warfare. 
 
 To the people who surrounded me nothing 
 seemed sacred, or pure, or worthy of respect. 
 Nothing serious except dress and baccarat. I felt 
 as ignorant and as "out of" every subject of discus- 
 sion as of the mode of discussing it. I listened 
 eagerly enough, because the Fruit of the Tree of 
 Knowledge seemed so tempting, but I could feel the 
 color come and go at the half-mocking compliments 
 and comments on myself, and I was conscious of 
 alternate shame and anger at my ignorance. 
 
 The ball of frivolous chatter, tossed so lightly and 
 so rapidly by these practiced hands, took a hundred 
 prismatic colors in its flight. I wondered how they 
 had words at command for that incessant sport of 
 repartee, cynicism, or epigram. Yet it was all very 
 heartless. A shower of rockets whose sparks 
 warmed nothing they touched, only left a brilliant 
 track in the air ere darkness caught them. 
 
 They filled me with wonder, these people to 
 whom the great world was a playground its great 
 names puppets of their show. As for Lord Brance- 
 peth, whom everyone called "Bobby," he was to me 
 the greatest surprise of all. Certainly if I had not 
 
 67
 
 68 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 been told he was an earl I should never have mis- 
 taken him for a gentleman. His talk was all of 
 horses, and studs, and jockeys. It was vulgar and 
 slangy, as well as ungrammatical. His wife made 
 open sport of him to his face, and when I looked at 
 her, so lovely, so young, so full of that supreme dis- 
 tinction which has no name, I marveled what on 
 earth could have induced her to marry such a boor ! 
 
 "Have we shocked you very much, Paula?" she 
 asked me, when luncheon was at last over, and the 
 party were sitting, lounging, or smoking in the hall. 
 
 I was longing to get away and to get home. I 
 felt so completely out of my element here. Their 
 language was a shibboleth, their laughter a scream, 
 their jests things of double meaning to me incom- 
 prehensible. 
 
 "Shocked me I don't know," I said doubtfully. 
 "It is very hard to make out what you all mean. 
 You talk so fast, and you never seem to give any- 
 thing its right name, or any person." 
 
 "Poor little country mouse!" she mocked. "If 
 Lesley Heath is anything like you, Archie will have 
 her hands full!" 
 
 "She is not at all like me," I said. "She is very 
 beautiful and very accomplished." 
 
 "Could you see all that in another girl and not be 
 jealous?" she asked, taking a match out of the tiny 
 gold box which hung at her chatelaine, and pro- 
 ceeding to light a cigarette. 
 
 I watched the process in unbounded amazement. 
 
 "You smoke?" I gasped. 
 
 "Certainly. Why not? Did you never see a 
 woman smoke before ?" 
 
 "Never!" 
 
 She burst into a laugh that Nature had modu-
 
 lated beyond the power of fashion to mar. "You 
 are quite too delicious !" she exclaimed. 
 
 Then she turned round to another fashionable 
 exotic lounging on a great cushioned divan near the 
 open fireplace. 
 
 "My dear Larks," she said, "look at this piece of 
 simplicity! Fancy, she has never seen a woman 
 smoke till to-day !" 
 
 Several pairs of eyes turned on me, and I colored 
 hotly beneath their fire and impertinence. I wished 
 I could have left my seat and got away, but I 
 seemed glued to it. 
 
 "Make her try a whiff herself," answered the 
 lady addressed. "She's not half a schoolgirl if she 
 says 'no' to the chance." 
 
 "Thank you, I'd rather not," I exclaimed quickly. 
 "I don't mind seeing men smoke, but I think it's 
 horrid for a woman !" 
 
 An amazed stare met me, followed by a burst of 
 scornful laughter. 
 
 "A female Daniel come to judgment !" murmured 
 the lady whom I had already heard addressed as 
 "Larks" and "Lady-bird," but whose rightful desig- 
 nation was Lady Larkington. 
 
 "She's quite right, though," said a tall, military- 
 looking man, who was hanging over the speaker's 
 chair. "It's horrid, beastly horrid. Spoils your 
 teeth, your breath, your nerves, your clothes. Beats 
 me why you do it. You can't enjoy it, for you 
 nearly all do it in the wrong way. If it wasn't the 
 thing to copy us, you'd pitch Turkish and Egyp- 
 tians to the wind, and your silver cases and match 
 boxes after them." 
 
 "Hear the oracle!" exclaimed Lady Brancepeth. 
 "I begin to think innocence is catching."
 
 70 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Hardly," he said. "When you're by to disin- 
 fect us." 
 
 "That's beastly rude," she said coolly. "And 
 very stupid, for no one nowadays could put up with 
 such a primitive virtue ! You, Jim, least of all." 
 
 "Innocence," observed Lady Larkington, "is the 
 one thing men pretend to admire, and hate to 
 possess !" 
 
 "As if they ever did possess it. If they do it 
 never outlasts their first suit of knickerbockers." 
 
 "If it comes to that," chimed in Bobby, "well, 
 damme, a girl's don't seem to last longer than hers. 
 She wears 'em too." 
 
 The usual scream greeted this witticism. 
 
 "Oh I think it goes as far as the church door 
 in appearance," said Lady Brancepeth. 
 
 "That means the marriage service gives it the 
 coup de grace" 
 
 "Well, you could hardly expect innocence to out- 
 live that, even if read by an archbishop." 
 
 "Why do women believe in nothing that seems 
 good ?" asked the man whom they called Jim. 
 
 "Because it only seems good, I suppose. Women 
 know each other. Men only know what women 
 choose to let them know of women." 
 
 "Deuced lot of wickedness if they're to be be- 
 lieved." 
 
 "Wickedness is the salt of life. It's capable of 
 such endless variations !" said Lady Brancepeth. 
 
 "And do you think smoking a sign of lost inno- 
 cence. Jim?" asked Lady Larkington. 
 
 "Oh, no! I've known some quite good women 
 smoke, because they couldn't afford to be singular. 
 We get so very exclusive in these days of Radical 
 newspapers."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 71 
 
 "Good women!" murmured Lady Brancepeth. 
 "There's quite a country farmhouse flavor about the 
 sound. A good woman is the sort of female that a 
 man always speaks of as 'my friend, Mrs. So and 
 So,' and always makes use of, like charity, to hide a 
 multitude of sins." 
 
 "His own or someone else's?" 
 
 "Either, poor souls ! when there's any whitewash- 
 ing to be done." 
 
 Now what on earth good women could have to do 
 with whitewashing puzzled me. In the first place, 
 it wasn't a woman's work. In the next, the char- 
 acter of the person employed to do it wouldn't affect 
 that work. 
 
 "So safe too if men only married what was best 
 for them," murmured another voice. 
 
 "There is a spirit of contradiction in marriage 
 which only comes out after the ceremony. We 
 never do what men expect, nor they what we 
 desire." 
 
 "I wonder we marry you at all," observed Bobby. 
 
 "You wouldn't if you could help it, I'm very sure. 
 But every man expects his dip into the lottery will 
 bring him a prize. Women are less hopeful, and 
 take disappointment as their portion." 
 
 "They know there are no prizes, perhaps," said 
 Lady Brancepeth. 
 
 Her eyes rested on her "lottery ticket," and mine 
 followed them. Bobby's fat, awkward figure was 
 squatting on a chair, his legs straddled either side of 
 it, as if it were a horse. His arms rested on the 
 back and he had a huge cigar in his mouth. Any- 
 thing more uncouth or unlovely it would be difficult 
 to imagine. Again I thought of this dainty, ex- 
 quisite creature mated with such a common, brain-
 
 72 A JILTS JOURNAL. 
 
 less boor, and a sort of disgust swept over me. I 
 moved restlessly in my seat, and she turned. 
 
 "You look tired," she said. "I suppose you're 
 bored to death. Would you like to go home? Are 
 you pining for fossils and mussels? is it mussels 
 they pick up and specify? or do they belong to an- 
 other 'ology? Well, I'll ask Darky to send you back 
 in one of his traps, or a bike, if you prefer." 
 
 "I'll drive you home, if you'll allow me," said the 
 military man, of whose name I was still ignorant. 
 
 Lady Brancepeth's blue eyes flashed angrily. 
 
 "Nonsense," she said. "There are heaps of 
 grooms and coachmen. And I want you, Jim, for a 
 Badminton set in the covered court. A little exer- 
 cise will do you good you're getting stout." 
 
 Yet when I had stiffly and uncomfortably gone 
 through the ordeal of adieux, and got myself out of 
 that strange atmosphere into the cool, damp outer 
 air, it was no groom who sprang up beside me in 
 the dogcart, but the same "Jim" who had declared 
 he agreed with my opinion as to women smok- 
 ing. 
 
 "I'm going to drive you home," he said, "if you'll 
 allow me the pleasure?" 
 
 I began to feel of great importance. A man of 
 the world, of fashion, so good-looking ' too, and 
 forsaking these beautiful witty women to drive me, 
 a mere schoolgirl. 
 
 "It is very kind of you," I said. "But I thought 
 you were wanted for Badminton?" 
 
 "They'll have to do without me," he said, taking 
 the reins. "Plenty to take my place. Fond of driv- 
 ing?" 
 
 "I love it," I said. "But I'm afraid I love a great 
 many things I have to do without."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 73 
 
 "You're young enough," he said, "to wait for 
 them. They're pretty sure to come." 
 
 Not sharing his confidence in the future, I ven- 
 tured to ask a reason for it. 
 
 He gave me a quick glance. "You must be an 
 awful little innocent," he said, "not to know how 
 pretty you are, and a pretty woman is a social 
 power, you know. She can get most anything she 
 wants." 
 
 I felt a sudden increase of color in my cheeks, 
 and remained silent for a moment. 
 
 "Will you tell me," I said presently, "why those 
 people talked as they did? I don't suppose they 
 really meant half the horrid things they said." 
 
 "Oh, yes, they did, some of them. Lorely, for 
 instance she has the bitterest tongue of the lot. 
 Goodness knows why! She made her own choice, 
 but she girds at it and the man as if she were the 
 injured party." 
 
 "When I looked at her," I said eagerly, "such a 
 dream of loveliness and then at Lord " 
 
 "Oh, don't give him his title, pray! No one ever 
 does. Yes, she's played rather low down, taking 
 that stable-yard cad !" 
 
 "But you said " 
 
 "I know. I said he was her own choice. I sup- 
 pose she thought he'd have his uses. You see, in 
 the world we've left behind us there are queer mo- 
 tives for marrying. Some do it for wealth ; some 
 for convenience; some for safety." 
 
 "Safety?" I echoed. 
 
 He laughed. "There are husbands," he said, who 
 put on the curb, and others who drive with a loose 
 rein, and yet others who never look into the stable 
 yard at all. But there, child, this sort of talk must
 
 74 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 be all Greek to you. Besides, you're not of the stuff 
 those women are. I wonder whether they've get 
 such a thing as a soul between them. Certainly they 
 do their best to hide it." 
 
 "Do they always make sport of everything?" 
 
 "It's their way; it's supposed to be smart, and 
 one caps the other. They ape heartlessness until 
 they seem to possess it. Now and then you may 
 dig up a bit of real womanhood under the veneer, 
 but it takes some finding." 
 
 "They must feel, suffer, love, some time or other 
 in their lives?" 
 
 "Perhaps they do, but there's always doctors, and 
 pick-me-ups, and fools to console them !" 
 
 I was silent. This first peep into a new phase of 
 life had been so startling that it took time to re- 
 adjust my ideas to their former position. 
 
 When he spoke again his voice was earnest and 
 less bitter. 
 
 "I hope, Miss Paula," he said, "that you'll never 
 grow up into a woman of fashion. You heard them 
 jeer at innocence and men's belief in it. Take my 
 word, a man does believe in it, does reverence when 
 he finds it. The love he gives his mother, his wife, 
 his child, is the only sheet anchor his nature pos- 
 sesses. When that drags, or is cut away, he doesn't 
 much care what becomes of himself. I daresay it 
 seems a bit odd I should talk to you like this, but I 
 was watching you during luncheon, and after- 
 ward, and I knew none of them would show ycu 
 the ropes, only jibe and mock. You said something 
 about life being dull here. If you only knew h^v 
 safe that dullness is ! You ought to bless the Fates 
 for it. But, of course, you don't. You'll neve- 
 be content until you're trying your wings in
 
 A JILT'S JOUENAL. 75 
 
 the flight to conquest like the rest of 'em. Not all 
 the preaching in the world would teach a girl with 
 your eyes and hair that her nest in the hedge is bet- 
 ter than the gilded cage in town. There ! what a 
 duffer you'll think me, and why I talk like this I'm 
 sure I don't know. It's not my way, and how the 
 women would laugh if they heard me! and you?" 
 
 "I shall not laugh," I said, "although it's hard to 
 believe the world is so harmful, and teaches more of 
 wrong than right. But women like those at Quin- 
 ton Court " 
 
 "They are a contemptible set," he said. "They 
 ape our vices, and mock at all womanly virtues. 
 The very word is old-fashioned they scream at it. 
 They were only baiting you all the time, though per- 
 haps you didn't see it. Don't ever want to be like 
 one of them. Evil's an insidious thing; it's best 
 not handled. Like tar, some of it's pretty sure to 
 stick to your fingers !" 
 
 We were silent again until we had almost reached 
 the house. Then I took my courage in my hands. 
 
 "I don't know your name," I said. "They only 
 called you " 
 
 "Jim. Yes, that's their way. I'll give you my 
 card, if you like, but I suppose we'll hardly meet 
 again. I'm leaving here to-morrow and going 
 abroad. Still, I'm glad to have met you. It's like 
 a breath of pure air after a night of cards and drink 
 and smoke. After some such night, when I leave 
 the tables, and the dice, and the company behind, 
 I'll remember our drive and our talk. They'll per- 
 haps help to keep a spark of good alight somewhere 
 in my soul. This is your house, isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes," I said, "and thank you for all this trouble, 
 and for being so kind."
 
 76 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 He laughed shortly. "You will find men kind 
 enough to a face like yours," he said. "It's the 
 women who'll be your foes." 
 
 I sprang lightly down from the step. "Oh 
 your card ! You promised it," I said, looking up. 
 
 He shifted the reins into one hand and searched 
 his pockets with the other. 
 
 "I can't open it. Take case and all," he said. 
 "It'll do for a keepsake in memory of our drive. 
 Good-by once more." 
 
 I gave him my hand as he stooped toward me. 
 Then quite suddenly I remembered my mother's 
 book. I had left it behind at the Court. 
 
 "Oh I've forgotten my book," I said hastily. 
 
 "What book?" 
 
 "I was reading it when Lady Brancepeth found 
 me up on the castle hill. Will you please ask for 
 it when you go back? I wouldn't lose it for the 
 world." 
 
 "What makes it so valuable ?" he asked. 
 
 "It's written by my mother. It is the only one 
 she ever had published, though she wrote others." 
 
 "So you are the daughter of an authoress. May 
 I ask her name?" 
 
 "The same as my own," I said, "Paula Trent." 
 
 "And is she " 
 
 "She died," I said, "when I was quite a little 
 child. I have no memory of her." 
 
 "I will get your book, and bring it back to-mor- 
 row." 
 
 "But I thought you were leaving " 
 
 "So I am. I'll stop here on the way to the sta- 
 tion for a few minutes so it's only ( au revoir! 
 
 He waved his hand and drove off, leaving a flat- 
 tered, wondering and speculative Paula behind.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MERRIELESS brought me my tea as usual at five 
 o'clock. She was brimful of curiosity as to my long 
 absence. 
 
 I told her its history. Her comments amused me. 
 Also her prophecies as to my own brilliant doings 
 in the near future. 
 
 "And such a grand gentleman as drove you home, 
 miss," she said. 
 
 "He is an officer," I said, with a glance to where 
 the Russia leather card-case lay, its silver mono- 
 gram shining in the lamplight. 
 
 I had discovered his name was Captain James 
 Con way, and I had a pleasant memory of Paula 
 Trent, the schoolgirl, capable of arousing interest in 
 the breast of a gallant soldier, a man of the world, 
 and a great lady's cavaliere servente. 
 
 She was indeed coming out of her shell ! 
 
 "How did you see him, Merry?" I inquired. 
 
 "I was just lighting the lamp, miss, and looked 
 out of the window when I heard the wheels, and 
 you a-talkin' in a very earnest way, miss. I looked 
 incuriously, but there was light enough in the sky 
 to show a handsome gentleman, and I felt he was 
 interested by the way he held your hand, and looked 
 down at you." 
 
 "That's nothing, Merry; only politeness." 
 
 ; "Tis always politeness at first, miss; leading 
 gradual to the oncoming of familiarities; walking 
 out, and holding hands, and such like." 
 
 77
 
 78 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 I drank my tea slowly, and waited for further 
 information. 
 
 "You see, having gone through it all myself, 
 miss, I've got the knowledge. And though with 
 my sort 'tis more nature than 'by your leave,' it do 
 mean very much the same thing in the end." 
 
 "Yes?" I questioned. 
 
 "'Tis a queer hobble love," she continued. "To 
 think of the days that come and go and not a mor- 
 row of them with any extra meaning, till sudden- 
 like it's 'Will I be seeing him?' or 'Will he be 
 there?' and listening for a step you've' come to 
 know out of a hundred others, and sick at heart 
 when you don't hear it, and all of a flutter if you do. 
 And lifted sky high if so be he's kindly disposed, 
 and down-dropped to what Aunt Graddage do call 
 the Valley o' Humblification if he be indifferent. A 
 wearing thing, miss, even at the best way o' it." 
 
 "It seems so, indeed," I said gravely. "And all 
 these sensations go to show you're in love, do they, 
 Merry?" 
 
 "That's right, miss. Then it gets to the fever 
 time. That's bad. You've got to mind yourself 
 then, miss, as well as to keep him in his place. Yet 
 not to be too chilling neither for fear o' dispiriting 
 his fancies. There's so many wimmen in the world 
 that a man can just pick and choose where he 
 pleases, and ofttimes the ugly ones get what the 
 pretty ones lose by sheer rebelliousness." 
 
 "How came you to learn such things, Merry?" I 
 asked her. 
 
 '"Tis Nature teaches us, I think, miss, and the 
 best school-time is the love-time." 
 
 I looked thoughtfully into the fire, and gave the 
 subject due consideration. It was pleasant to be
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 79 
 
 initiated into such mysteries, to feel oneself gliding 
 down the stream of knowledge helped by an im- 
 personal experience. The contrast between this 
 country girl's simple confessions, and the mocking 
 sneers of the great ladies of the social world, inter- 
 ested me greatly. I was getting at two sides of an 
 all-important question, yet keeping myself in the 
 background as a mere inquirer. 
 
 "Do you think people ever fall in love the first 
 time they see each other?" I asked. 
 
 ""Pis mostly men as does that, miss, bein' in a 
 manner o' way caught by beauty, and the snare o' 
 it. I've heerd say 'tis like a spark lighting on furze, 
 and a quick blaze to follow. But that's not so much 
 the way in our manner o' life as in the higher circles 
 where you'll be getting to, miss. Wonderful 'tis, 
 I've heerd, the ways o' them. Putting the whole 
 sex into shape o' one single woman, and makin' so 
 much o' her that the others aren't considered no 
 more than if they weren't seen, or heerd on. A rare 
 way o' loving that, miss, and 'twill come along the 
 way o' yourself or I'm much mistaught." 
 
 "I can't think how you come to know so much," I 
 said, laughing. "You're a perfect encyclopaedia on 
 affairs of the heart, Merry !" 
 
 "I do prime myself on some knowlageableness, 
 miss," she said complacently. "Not in the way o' 
 bein' proud or vain-glorious, seein' how it came to 
 me through much tribulation. But I've been told 
 stories o' this sort by them as has been deceived, and 
 them as hasn't. 'Tis a way o' talkin' girls get to, 
 not bein' gifted with fine feelin's as you're brought 
 up to, miss." 
 
 "I wonder," I said, "if the knowledge is 
 useful?"
 
 80 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Must be, miss ; or you'll court experience with a 
 babe's helplessness, 'stead o' a woman's wit." 
 
 I sat by the fire long after she had left me and 
 pondered these things in my heart. I also wrote a 
 long letter to Lesley, mentioning my new acquaint- 
 ances and Lady Brancepeth's friendship with her 
 stepmother. There seemed a great deal to tell, once 
 I began to write, or else my habit of putting small 
 events into many words, and building a history 
 round them, had again come into play. 
 
 I wrote of the young farmer, Adam Herivale. I 
 contrasted him incidentally with Captain Conway. 
 It seemed odd that in so short a time I should have 
 met two men so totally different in station, manners 
 and breeding, and could write so freely of both. 
 When the letter was finished, I found there was 
 still an hour before supper. I was at a loss how 
 to employ my time. 
 
 The cold, dreary drawing-room possessed no 
 piano, nor did Graddage consider it necessary to 
 light a fire there except on Sundays "to air it," as 
 she called that office. I had only my school books 
 to read, and I felt I had had quite enough of them in 
 the years that had passed. I felt angry at my stu- 
 pidity in leaving my mother's book behind. It 
 would have been so pleasant to sit by the fire and 
 finish those confessions of Fenella. 
 
 I grew so restless that I went to the window and 
 drew up the blind. The moon was at the full and 
 shone with dazzling brightness. A touch of frost 
 silvered the holly tree and the grass, and made dia- 
 monds along the graveled walk. I suddenly resolved 
 to go out. The posting of my letter would be ex- 
 cuse ; there was no need to ask permission. I seemed 
 free to do as I pleased since I had come to Scarffe.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 81 
 
 I got into jacket and hat without delay, took up 
 the letter, and ran downstairs. As I reached the 
 hall Mrs. Graddage came out of the dining-room. 
 She stared at me. 
 
 "You're surely not goin' walking by yourself, 
 Miss Paula, at this hour o' night!" she exclaimed. 
 
 'What's the matter with the hour?" I asked. 
 
 "'Tis unseemly for young ladies to be walkin* 
 abroad alone." 
 
 "I don't suppose the professor would come if I 
 asked him, and I'm only going to the post. As for 
 being alone here, why, I don't suppose there's a soul 
 in the streets. They've all gone to bed, poor 
 things !" 
 
 " 'Twas a holiday, and there may be rough 
 farmin' folk about." 
 
 I laughed. "I'll risk that, Graddy. If I don't 
 turn up by supper time you can send Merrieless to 
 look for me. My absence won't cost the professor 
 an anxious moment." 
 
 I opened the door and went out to the tune of "A 
 generation lofty in their own eyes, and their eye- 
 lids lifted up !" ' 
 
 I laughed softly to myself as I walked over the 
 uneven pavement. 
 
 "Could Graddy ever have been a girl ?" I thought. 
 "What a queer one. I can't imagine her ever feeling 
 young, even when she was it. And yet she found a 
 man to marry her. What a life she must have led 
 him!" 
 
 Then my thoughts flew off on a new tack. 
 
 The cold, brisk air set my blood tingling. Above 
 my head the sky was thickly studded with glittering 
 stars. Serene and pure the full moon hung like a 
 ball of white flame above the ruined castle. To look
 
 82 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 at that stately pile from here was to feel all its won- 
 der and romance. To picture the ghosts of dead 
 and gone heroes leaning over those ruined battle- 
 ments, crossing that ancient drawbridge, moving in 
 stately measure over the green slopes, gazing with 
 sad eyes over scenes they had known in their stir- 
 ring and martial lives. 
 
 Insensibly the spell of the ruins began to work 
 upon me. To be so constantly overshadowed by 
 them was to feel their strange, eventful history as- 
 serting its claim on memory, and linking the past to 
 present associations. 
 
 A quarter of an hour's walk brought me to the 
 entrance of the little town, and, as Graddy had 
 said, I found it in a comparatively lively condition. 
 Farmers' carts and wagons were rolling home- 
 ward. In the deep old doorways friends were tak- 
 ing noisy leave of each other. The inn was astir 
 with holiday folk, old and young, and a general 
 joviality seemed professing it was Christmas time 
 and excusing an extra glass on the strength of 
 it. 
 
 I dropped my letter into the box, then remem- 
 bering I had no stamps, went to buy some. The 
 post-office combined its own duties with those of 
 a grocer's store. It appeared to be doing a brisk 
 trade this evening. 
 
 I stood a little aside waiting my turn; glancing 
 over backs and heads, shawls and hats of all descrip- 
 tions. Among them I descried my friend the young 
 farmer. He too was buying stamps. As he turned 
 from the counter we were face to face, and it pleased 
 me to see the warm color rise in his own, the flash 
 of pleasure in his eyes. 
 
 He lifted his cap and wished me "Good evening."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 83 
 
 "I am waiting to get some stamps," I said. 
 
 ''Can I get them for you? There's rather a 
 crowd." 
 
 "If you will," I said, handing him a shilling. 
 
 In a few moments he was back with the purchase. 
 
 "Is that all ?" he inquired. 
 
 "Yes, I've no housekeeping to look after." 
 
 "It's a bit late for you to be out alone," he re- 
 marked as we left the shop. 
 
 "What's to harm me?" I asked carelessly. "A 
 quiet place like this is as safe as the kitchen at home. 
 And I wanted to get rid of an hour, so I ran out 
 to post a letter." 
 
 "I'm late returning to Woodcote," he said; "but 
 mother gave me a lot of commissions to do for her. 
 I'm going to a friend's presently to call for my sis- 
 ters. Can I have the pleasure of seeing you a bit of 
 the way home ?" 
 
 "Oh if you like," I said indifferently. "Do you 
 often come into the town?" 
 
 "Yes, when things are wanted. Father or I have 
 to ; and he doesn't care much about it now." 
 
 "What a lovely night," I said, glancing skyward. 
 "Do you know the sky looks clearer here than it did 
 at Salisbury." 
 
 "We're much higher up, and the air is fine and 
 rare on these hills. Cold enough in winter time 
 though. This is a wonderful mild night for the 
 time o' year." 
 
 "I think it cold enough," I said. "There's frost 
 on the fields." 
 
 "We'll be having skating if it lasts. There's a 
 fine pond nigh our farm, the Mere Pond it's called. 
 A couple o' nights like this and the ice will bear fine. 
 Do you skate, Miss Trent ?"
 
 84 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "No. I'd like to, but I've never had a chance of 
 learning." 
 
 "I'd be proud to teach you, if you'll let me." 
 
 "I should think I would !" I said eagerly. "Why s 
 I'm thankful for anything to lighten these long, dull 
 days." 
 
 He looked up again at the brilliant sky. "I think 
 we're in for a spell o' cold. Could you find your 
 way out to the farm supposing the frost lasted? 
 It's a goodish bit to walk." 
 
 "Oh ! I'm not afraid of a walk," I said. "And I 
 can bring my maid to show me the way. By the 
 way, she's what do you call it ? keeping company 
 with a young man on your farm. Gregory some- 
 thing I forget the name." 
 
 "There's two Gregorys," he said, and I saw him 
 smile. "Can't be the old one, Miss Trent, though 
 he's a rare favorite with the women. Quite a char- 
 acter is old Blox." 
 
 "Ah, that's the name! It's the young one, but 
 the fame of the father has reached me already." 
 
 Again he smiled. 
 
 "The old rascal's got into mischief sometimes," 
 he said. "It's odd that the son should be so staid 
 and proper, and the old one, who ought to know 
 better, such a Lothario." 
 
 We were out of the town now, and the road 
 lay before us, a white straight line in the moon- 
 light. 
 
 I stopped suddenly. "You really need not come 
 further," I said. "I'm taking you out of your way, 
 and there's no necessity for it." 
 
 "I'd rather see you safe back if you don't mind. 
 There are not many bad characters about, I know, 
 but now and then a tramp or a laborer, carrying a
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 85 
 
 drop too much, have been known to molest stran- 
 gers. Please let me." 
 
 "Oh, if you wish. I don't mind," I said. 
 
 "I'd go home more easy in my mind," he an- 
 swered, and again we walked on. 
 
 All the quiet country, shut in by those ever-cir- 
 cling hills, lay in a profound and beautiful peace 
 about us. There was no sound save the occasional 
 sharp interrogation of a dog, the echo of our own 
 footsteps on the frozen road. 
 
 "How beautiful night always is," he said. 
 
 "Yes; but I like the summer nights best." 
 
 "You would," he answered. "Being young and 
 a woman, and full of the poetry of things." 
 
 "But don't you prefer June to December?" 
 
 "Maybe not," he answered slowly. "There's 
 things can make our summer-time for us though the 
 snow's on the ground, and never a bird to sing ; and 
 there's a cold that comes to heart and soul that never 
 a June sun can warm." 
 
 "You've lived those things, and I suppose you 
 understand them. I haven't." 
 
 "I'd be sorry to know you had, Miss Trent. 
 'Tis a beautiful time coming for you. Youth and 
 beloved womanhood. When I look at a young girl 
 on the threshold of life, so to say, it seems to me al- 
 ways as if she had her hands full of pearls; pure 
 thoughts, pure dreams, pure hopefulness. And it's 
 hard on her that the world's so full of other greedy 
 hands snatching them for sport o' the thing, and 
 mostly throwing them into the mud and trampling 
 them so that she never can pick them up as they 
 were." 
 
 "That's very pretty," I said, "but very fanciful. 
 You're more like a poet than a farmer."
 
 S9 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Am I ? Then 'tis because I love it so. Poetry's 
 an education of the soul; 'tis the finest sort o' re- 
 ligion, I often think." 
 
 I remembered "Extracts for the Use of Schools" ; 
 the reciting- of "Casabianca," and "Excelsior," and 
 "The May Queen." And I demurred. 
 
 "Have you ever read Shelley?" he asked. 
 
 "No. We weren't allowed to read poetry at 
 school." 
 
 "My ! What strange ways they do have of edu- 
 cating girls young ladies, I mean." 
 
 "Perhaps they're afraid of making us' romantic." 
 
 "Beautiful thoughts put into beautiful words 
 couldn't harm anyone," he answered. "It has come 
 to me often while reading that the world isn't half 
 grateful enough to its authors. They give us, in 
 their way, what God gave in His. For a thought 
 must have words to clothe it, and 'tis the words 
 make it comprehensible and comforting. He 
 couldn't speak save by the voice of the flesh, so He 
 clothed His thought with life and set it, a man 
 amongst men, to speak of His glory. And 'twas 
 only a few could read that book, but see what a 
 power it held. For the world can't ever forget it, 
 till it ceases to be a world." 
 
 I thought how well he spoke when he was moved 
 to eloquence. It might have been better for me to 
 have rested content with that thought instead 
 of pursuing its reason, and giving it a motive 
 power. 
 
 But the newly discovered Paula was waking rap- 
 idly to a sense of feminine importance, and her na- 
 ture, as it awakened, spread eager wings for further 
 flight to realms of enchanting discoveries. 
 
 A man's nature, at once so simple, and earnest,
 
 87 
 
 and plain-spoken as was Adam Herivale's, seemed 
 to afford an excellent region for exploration. 
 
 Propriety, as instilled into the virgin mind, has a 
 certain falseness about it that soon clamors for 
 banishment. Once out of leading strings, the claims 
 of conventionality are more likely to be cut 
 asunder, than treated as a curb. I sent my hamper- 
 ing guardian galloping down the hill of freedom on 
 this occasion, and talked and was talked to by a 
 wholesome, manly tongue, as I had never been by 
 governesses and teachers. 
 
 It seemed to brace and refresh me. But I saw no 
 dangers ahead, and the discovery that I was worth 
 talking to was exhilarating. 
 
 Afterward, when I taxed memory to recall his 
 words, when I thought them over in solitude, I 
 found myself asking would anyone else in Paula 
 Trent's place have served equally well as Adam 
 Herivale's listener. I might have believed it, in a 
 sudden fit of humility, but for two things. 
 
 One was a look in those clear blue eyes, as he 
 shook hands; the other his parting words "How 
 I shall pray for this frost to continue, Miss Trent !" 
 
 The look held a certain lingering admiration that 
 spoke something more than a homage to sex. The 
 words a hardly suppressed desire for future meet- 
 ings. 
 
 To me neither meant more than a self-revelation 
 eminently flattering, and a promise of further 
 triumphs.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A SUNBEAM fluttering into my room next morn- 
 ing laid a light, awakening touch on my eyelids, and 
 I opened them to its dancing welcome. 
 
 For a few moments I lay quietly content with 
 warmth, and the brightness of the outer world, and 
 the thrice-blessed knowledge that I was no longer 
 compelled to rise at a given moment, face the cold 
 of the atmosphere as well as the water jug, and de- 
 scend with half-frozen fingers to a meal of porridge, 
 thick bread, and weak tea. 
 
 "Life is getting very pleasant," I said compla- 
 cently, and let my thoughts stray to and fro over 
 the eventfulness of three apparently uneventful 
 days. 
 
 By that simple number I alone counted my free- 
 dom. Yet they had been full enough of import- 
 ance to lend a tinge of excitement to memory as I 
 passed them in review. 
 
 "And to-day," I thought to myself, "I shall see 
 him again." 
 
 Remembering there were two "hims" now con- 
 cerned in my destiny, I particularized this special 
 one by the name my mind had given him "Captain 
 Jim!" 
 
 What a pity he was going away! How nice it 
 would have been to be taught skating by him. 
 
 Did those hothouse exotics at Quinton Court 
 skate? I wondered. They looked so useless, with 
 their tight-fitting gowns, and tiny waists and high- 
 
 88
 
 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 89 
 
 heeled shoes and marvelously coiffured hair, that I 
 could not picture them doing anything requiring 
 natural exertion. Well, I should soon know. 
 
 Merry's entrance aroused me from sleepy content. 
 My first inquiry was as to the weather. 
 
 "Freezing hard, miss, and cold fit to bite your 
 nose off," was her answer. 
 
 "Good for skating?" I said. 
 
 "Maybe to those as have liberty. That's not a 
 sort of playment as often comes my way." 
 
 "I'm going to learn," I said, stretching a hand 
 for the cup of tea she had brought. 
 
 " 'Tis only right you should do aught that will 
 pleasure you, miss, being so young and frolicsome 
 as* you are." 
 
 I laughed gayly. "Don't you feel like that too, 
 Merry? You're not so much older." 
 
 "Save in the ways o' knowledge, miss. A differ- 
 ent sort o' knowledge to your book learning, 'tis 
 true, but it doesn't seem to leave the heart as young 
 as it might be." 
 
 I dressed, and went downstairs to find the pro- 
 fessor looking very pinched and cold, warming his 
 coat tails at the fire as usual. 
 
 To him I also confided my views on skating. He 
 knew nothing of the Mere Pond, though he had 
 some acquaintance with the Herivale's history. 
 
 "A good old yeoman family," .he said. "Date 
 back to the sixteenth century. You'll find them 
 mentioned in old chronicles of the county." 
 
 "Oh, then, there's no harm in my knowing 
 them?" 
 
 "Harm," he repeated, and pushed back his spec- 
 tacles to regard me. "How could there be harm, 
 child? What do you mean?"
 
 90 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 
 
 "I have met Adam Herivale, the son, two or three 
 times, and he has offered to teach me skating." 
 
 "A fine healthy exercise and one to be encour- 
 aged," said the professor, looking out at the bright 
 sunshine. "I regret it is beyond my power to ac- 
 company you ; but" his brow cleared, he removed 
 his glasses ''there's Graddage," he said; "she'd go 
 with you as ah as chaperon." 
 
 "Thank you," I said, laughing. "I fancy I see 
 her face while waiting about for me at the pond's 
 side this weather. Oh, no ! professor. There's no 
 need for her to martyrize herself. I'm all right. 
 Very probably some of the people staying with Lord 
 St. Ouinton will be skating also. I told you I 
 lunched there and had a general introduction yester- 
 day." 
 
 "So you did, my dear, so you did. A first intro- 
 duction to society you called it. Was it a pleasant 
 one?" 
 
 "Not at all," I said indifferently. "I didn't enjoy 
 it. They all seemed so heartless and frivolous. Not 
 a man spoke as sensibly as Adam Herivale does." 
 
 "I have often found," he said, "that the cultured 
 classes rarely display an intelligent interest in ah 
 subjects that should appeal to intelligence." 
 
 I laughed. "If you could have listened to the 
 conversation at that luncheon table yesterday your 
 opinion would have been confirmed. They only 
 talked of themselves and their acquaintances, and 
 all the idiotic things they did at least they seemed 
 idiotic to me." 
 
 He regarded me with grave interest. 
 
 "It occurs to me, Paula, that I have another duty 
 to perform with regard to you. I I confess I 
 hardly know how to set about it. You will natural-
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. M 
 
 ly look for pleasures and amusements suitable ah 
 to your years years I have left such a long way 
 behind. I I must consider the matter. Parties 
 and dances I imagine come into the category of a 
 young girl's expectations. Things quite out of my 
 line, you must allow. But because I am an old 
 bookworm it does not follow that your youth should 
 be ah ostracized. The matter must be duly con- 
 sidered. Perhaps Lady St. Quinton would assist 
 me. She has always seemed a very agreeable 
 woman, and ah fairly intelligent." 
 
 I looked at him in some surprise. "That is what 
 the girls called 'coming out.' But, dear professor, 
 am I in a position to move in London society such 
 society as those people at Quinton Court represent ? 
 You have no adequate idea of their extravagance. 
 Why the women talked of paying twenty-five 
 guineas for a simple morning frock, as I would of 
 as many shillings." 
 
 "Did they?" he said absently. "But you have 
 money, Paula, and so have I. Frocks can be 
 bought." 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 "I know that, professor, but out of my allowance 
 of a hundred a year I hardly see how I could buy 
 them at twenty-five guineas each? That wouldn't 
 leave much for boots and shoes, and hats and jack- 
 ets, and all the other things constituting a well- 
 Iressed woman. No such extravagances are not 
 " r me. With my friend Lesley Heath it is a differ- 
 ent matter. She will go to Drawing-rooms, and be 
 introduced into the proper set, and probably marry 
 a title. That is what her mother expects, so I was 
 told by her mother's friends. But who is Paula 
 Trent that she should entertain such ambitions?
 
 93 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 They called me 'country mouse,' and I think I had 
 better remain that." 
 
 "It is for you to decide, my dear," he said, and I 
 fancied I saw relief in his face. "The position you 
 would take in the world would not be that of a titled 
 nor wealthy young lady. But there are possibilities 
 of success in in other ways." 
 
 "We will leave them at possibilities," I said, "for 
 the present. Let me look on at life for a little while, 
 professor, before I plunge into it." 
 
 Again he regarded me gravely, with natural 
 vision unobscured by glasses. 
 
 "I daresay you will find it interesting," he said. 
 "You seem to possess a considerable amount of 
 sense and discrimination. To the observer of life 
 nothing is insignificant. The smallest idiosyncrasy 
 possesses a claim on the attention and may serve 
 as a clue to the character." 
 
 "Oh! I don't anticipate writing books," I said, 
 "though I should like to. By the way, professor, 
 there's one favor I'd like to ask of you. I spent a 
 great deal of time at school on music. It seems a 
 great pity not to keep it up. Can I have a piano?" 
 
 "By all means, my dear. Order one as soon as 
 you please." 
 
 "Thank you," I said heartily. "But I hope the 
 sound won't disturb you ?" 
 
 "Oh ! I think not. I think not. When I am en- 
 grossed in study, my ah outer senses are quite 
 impervious to any intrusion from other sources. 
 And I used to be very fond of music," he added. 
 
 He left the table and went to the window and 
 looked out for a moment. When he came back and 
 stood by the fire, there was that look in his face I 
 had learned to know.
 
 JILT'S JOURNAL. 93 
 
 "She used to play and sing," he said. His voice 
 had taken a lower key, there was a reminiscent sad- 
 ness in it. "How long ago it all seems! But the 
 old music book is still in my possession. You shall 
 have it, my dear. Perhaps you will give me the 
 pleasure now and then of hearing the old tunes the 
 old songs. There was one I specially liked. I sup- 
 pose you have heard of it. It would be old fash- 
 ioned now, of course. It was about a wreath of 
 roses. Foolish words, but there was a pathetic 
 meaning in them when she sang; and once, in her 
 laughing, girlish way, she curled her hair and put 
 on a wreath of flowers like the the picture on the 
 title-page of the song. But that night I remember 
 she refused to sing the last verse." 
 
 "What was the last verse ?" I asked, intensely in- 
 terested in all these traits of that unknown mother 
 of mine. 
 
 "I think," he said thoughtfully, "that the girl is 
 first crowned with roses in the beauty and gayety of 
 youth. Then she wears the orange blossoms, the 
 circlet of the bride; and at last the widow's cap, 
 emblem of loss and broken-heartedness. All very 
 sentimental, my dear, and absurd, no doubt, but 
 sometimes in the after years one looks back on 
 such trifles, and sentiment seems less foolish than it 
 sounds." 
 
 I could never remember having kissed the profes- 
 sor in all my memories of our life together. Now, 
 moved by some inexplicable impulse, I went swiftly 
 across the room and put my arms about his neck. 
 "How fond you were of her!" I said impulsively. 
 "How well you remember!" 
 
 He stroked my hair as my head lay against the 
 shoulder of his shabby old coat. "You have found
 
 94 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 that out, my dear," he said gently. "I think I was 
 very fond of her. She made my life such a dif- 
 ferent thing while she was in it." 
 
 "If I were like her perhaps you would be fond of 
 me, too," I said. "It's very lonely to have no home 
 love when one's young." 
 
 My face was hidden, but I seemed to feel the 
 surprise of his look, even as I felt the check of his 
 pausing hand. 
 
 "Poor little girl," he said softly. "Poor little 
 Paula. Has it seemed like that to you? I must try 
 and remember " 
 
 "Oh, no. I don't want you to alter your life or 
 your habits only to feel that I'm not in your way, 
 that you don't mind if I tell you all the things that 
 interest or happen to me." 
 
 "I shall be pleased if you will," he said. "Young 
 life has a certain charm in its very ignorance and 
 freshness. It is so illogical and romantic, and yet 
 so vivid. My dear, never fancy I don't love you 
 because I I don't express it. My tongue has lost 
 its trick of pretty words grown rusty for want of 
 use. You must charm it back, Paula." 
 
 He lifted my head and looked at me closely. 
 
 "Her eyes," he said, in a strangely quiet voice. 
 "Her eyes looking back at me as I remember she 
 used to look. Heaven grant, child, they may never 
 hold what I have seen in hers."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 I SPENT the rest of the morning rearranging the 
 stiff drawing-room; altering the position of furni- 
 ture, deciding where my piano should go, and won- 
 dering whether such things as palms or screens or 
 drapery could possibly make it in any sort of sem- 
 blance to one of the rooms at Quinton Court. 
 
 Fortunately it had some good points. The paper 
 was a plain, deep-toned terra-cotta, and the lace cur- 
 tains were supported either side by heavy velvet 
 ones rich in hue and texture. I foresaw a new ar- 
 rangement of draping them, and I called in Merry 
 to help, and bring the steps. 
 
 We were both engrossed in work, and chattering 
 like two magpies, when the sound of wheels at- 
 tracted our attention. I sprang down from my 
 perch and surveyed a flushed face, dusty hands, and 
 tumbled hair with horror. 
 
 "It's Captain Jim, of course. I'd quite forgotten. 
 You must ask him in, Merry. He's on his way to 
 the station, so I can't keep him waiting." 
 
 She ushered him in, and I displayed my dusty 
 hands by way of greeting. 
 
 "Consider we've shaken 'how d'ye do/ Look at 
 this dust ! I've been energetically trying to alter 
 this room into something more artistic. It doesn't 
 look very promising, does it?" 
 
 "I think it looks charming," he said, but I noticed 
 his eyes went no farther than my head. 
 
 "It may some day," I answered gleefully. "I'm 
 
 95
 
 96 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 to have a piano, and when I get books and flowers 
 and a screen or two I think it will be presentable." 
 
 "I have a lot of odds and ends in my rooms in 
 town," he said eagerly. "Bits of Algerian and In- 
 dian drapery, pottery, and all that. I wish you'd do 
 me the favor to accept some. They're no earthly 
 good to me, for I'll be at least three years in Egypt 
 and they're just the sort of things you could never 
 pick up here, or even in town." 
 
 "Thank you very much," I said. "But really, 
 Captain Conway, I am your debtor already for a 
 very charming gift, and I cannot afford to be under 
 any more obligations." 
 
 "Obligations stuff! It's only useless lumber to 
 me. If I leave it behind, I'll never see it again. 
 Why shouldn't you give me such a simple pleasure 
 as knowing the stuff was where you are?" 
 
 "You put it very nicely," I said. "But I don't 
 feel I ought to accept presents in this lavish fashion 
 Oh ! you have brought my book back !" 
 
 "Yes, here it is. I found one of the women 
 had got hold of it and was reading out the marked 
 passages. They're wonderfully clever. Didn't you 
 say your mother wrote it?" 
 
 "Yes. I'm very glad you think it clever. I I 
 suppose those people made fun of it?" 
 
 "Oh, no! On the contrary, it hit the nail too 
 straight. Cynicism is quite the fashion now. I 
 really think they were sorry when I insisted on 
 bringing it back to you. Some of them are to ask 
 for it in the next box from Mudie's. 
 
 "I hardly think they'll get it," I said, glancing at 
 the date. "My mother died thirteen years ago, and 
 this book was published the same year." 
 
 "You have neither father nor mother?"
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 97 
 
 "No. My guardian is my father's brother, and 
 the only relative I have heard of. I was left to his 
 care." 
 
 "Lord St. Quinton mentioned other relatives of 
 yours, I believe." 
 
 "I have never heard of them," I said indifferently. 
 Then I glanced at the clock. "Your train is almost 
 due," I said. 
 
 "What a broad hint ! Well, I suppose it must be 
 good-by this time. Never mind the dusty hands, 
 Miss Paula. (I never think of you by any other 
 name.) There are many white ones less clean!" 
 
 He took both of them in his own. 
 
 "Little girl," he said earnestly, "I'd like to think 
 I should come back some day and meet you as I 
 leave you now. But I know that's impossible. Only 
 if it's your fate ever to get into that world of 
 which you've seen one specimen yesterday, don't 
 let them corrupt you. They will if they can. A 
 laugh or a sneer makes any good, pure feeling seem 
 ridiculous, and one gets ashamed, and lets it fall 
 into the mire. It's a pity but I've seen it so often, 
 with men and women both. We're such fools! 
 We'd rather be called wicked than odd !" 
 
 He pressed my hands warmly once more, and 
 looked down into my upraised eyes with strange 
 earnestness. 
 
 "Again good-by I hope you'll be happy I 
 hope life will be kind to you; very kind. I should 
 hate to know you had made acquaintance with sor- 
 row." 
 
 "But I suppose I shall," I said involuntarily. 
 "Everyone does." 
 
 "Yes, you're right. Everyone does. But I hope 
 your day's a long way off. Good-by again. I shall
 
 98 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 send you that stuff. If you don't want it, pitch it 
 into the fire but if you like me ever so little give 
 it place about your home for my sake." 
 
 Then he went ; and I watched him drive off, feel- 
 ing a little bewildered, and yet not at all displeased. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Merry and I eagerly watched the weather and the 
 chance of the wind lasting. 
 
 When she came up to brush my hair for me the 
 last thing, she informed me the frost still held out. 
 
 Then I remembered I had no skates. But she 
 reassured me by the information that there were 
 "lots at Herivale's. More than they need," she 
 added. 
 
 I fell to studying my face in the glass before me 
 with a new consciousness. I was used to it, having 
 known it for my own these past seventeen years. 
 Besides, I think girls are no judges of beauty. At 
 school Lesley had been acknowledged our prettiest 
 girl. Claire ran her closely in some opinions. I 
 had never inquired about my own share in such 
 opinions generally, or individually. 
 
 Merry energetically plying the brush caught sight 
 of my intent eyes. 
 
 "You've a wonderful fine head o' hair, miss," she 
 observed. 
 
 "There's plenty of it," I said. "But I'm doubtful 
 of the color, Merry. Would you call it red ?" 
 
 "Bless your heart, no, miss. 'Tis a warm color, I 
 grant, but run through with streaks o' gold. Just 
 look, when the light falls on it!" 
 
 She held up a strand, which certainly did glitter. 
 
 " 'Tis a sort o' livin' fire," she went on. "I never 
 seed such a color, and it do go with your skin and 
 the warmth o' cheek, just as if Natur' had meant it
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 9* 
 
 should. Were you considerin' o* your looks, miss, 
 when you were so grave-like? I shouldn't trouble 
 if I were you." 
 
 "Oh, I'm not troubling," I said. "Only I wish I 
 knew if they were pleasing. At school I never 
 bothered, but when I was among all those grand 
 people at the Court I felt they were criticising every- 
 thing about me my hair, my face, my dress, my 
 manners. It was horrid!" 
 
 "Perhaps they was envying o' them, miss. Not 
 so onlikely. For the ladies' maids let out a lot ; and 
 what with buttermilk to wash their faces in, and 
 stuff to make their hair golden, and color to put on 
 their cheeks instead o' what Natur' puts into 
 'em, well, maybe they was a-wonderin' how you 
 came by such pure flesh and blood as you've 
 got. The gentlemen's eyes told you so, or I'm no 
 judge." 
 
 I thought of Captain Conway, but flattering as 
 had been his looks I could not tell if they were ap- 
 preciative. All country girls had good complexions 
 and clear skins. There was nothing unusual in my 
 possession. For my own part I admired Lesley's 
 dark hair and pale creamy skin and violet eyes a 
 thousand times more than my own red and white 
 tints, and coppery locks. However, as no amount 
 of thought or skill could alter them, I knew I must 
 be satisfied. 
 
 So after making Merry give an extra long brush 
 to that strange hair by way of making it shine on 
 the morrow, I dismissed her and went to bed. 
 
 I read a few chapters more of Fenella before I 
 slept, and then put the book under my pillow by 
 way of having something of her close to me in my 
 hours of sleep.
 
 100 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 When I awoke my first thought was of the 
 weather, and I rushed to the window. 
 
 Crisp hard frost still reigned. The cold was in- 
 tense. I returned to bed to await Merry and my 
 morning tea with a delightful knowledge of forth- 
 coming excitement. 
 
 Her face was also beaming. " 'Tis just as you 
 wanted, miss," she informed me when she entered 
 the room. "But terrible cold. It's to be hoped you 
 have some sort o' furs for wrappage as is the way 
 o' the quality generally speaking, otherwise stand- 
 ing about by that Mere Pond will be the sort o' 
 thing to freeze your very marrow." 
 
 "Oh, I've a warm coat," I said, thinking of a cer- 
 tain tailor-made costume of dark-blue cloth and 
 sable that I had been measured for before leaving 
 school, and as yet unworn. It would come in use- 
 ful now, and so would the little dark-blue velvet 
 toque that went with it. 
 
 I put on the dress for breakfast. I was in radiant 
 spirits. I babbled nonsense during the meal to an 
 extent that must have tried the professor's patience, 
 though he was considerate enough to put up with it. 
 
 As soon as it was over Merry and I set off to the 
 dispiriting croaks of Mrs. Graddage and her pro- 
 verbs. They could not affect our spirits, however. 
 
 The air was keen as a knife, but the sun shone 
 brightly over the hard, white road. Everything 
 sparkled. A gossamer ripple of webs spanned the 
 bushes, the robins chirped from the hedge-rows. 
 Flocks of sheep munched the swedes cut and scat- 
 tered in the fields. Above our heads the sky was 
 blue as a sapphire. My feet danced along; I could 
 have laughed aloud for sheer joy of living. 
 
 It was, as Adam Herivale had said, a long walk
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 101 
 
 to the Mere Pond, but I felt capable of one twice its 
 length on that morning. Merry took me by many 
 short cuts and twisting lanes, and at last I caught 
 sight of the old farmhouse. It stood in a dip of the 
 valley, the hills sheltering it to north and east. The 
 house itself was built of stone, gray and lichen cov- 
 ered, as was the slate roof. The square porch was 
 like a deep recess, and ivy grew around it and the 
 latticed windows. The fields that stretched on every 
 side were of course but dull brown patches at this 
 time of year, but their extent surprised me, as did 
 the farmsteads and barns and cottages which be- 
 longed, so Merry told me, to the farm acreage. 
 
 As we came into the road again we saw a figure 
 before us engaged in driving a cow and calf into an 
 enclosure. Merry touched my arm. 
 
 " 'Tis he I told you of, miss," she said. "The old 
 ancient man that claims fathership to my Gregory." 
 
 I looked at the queer old yokel with wondering 
 interest. 
 
 He had got the animals through a field gate, and 
 closed it. He turned toward us as he heard our 
 steps. An old, wrinkled face of natural rusty red, a 
 pair of deep-set, twinkling eyes, a thatch of gray, 
 wiry hair under a battered old hat, these repre- 
 sented the famous lady-killer of whom I had 
 heard. 
 
 "Good morning, father," said Merry, gaily. "A 
 fine day, isn't it?" 
 
 He fixed his eyes on me, and touched the brim of 
 his battered hat. 
 
 "The sun be shining fair," he said in a cracked, 
 piping voice. "Come down out o' heaven, I should 
 say, in form o' a maiden. A rare beauty, Merrieless, 
 and puts you aside same as a extinguisher does a
 
 103 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 light. Not o' your sort, neither. Why comes it 
 you're in company?" 
 
 "This is my young lady whom I wait upon," said 
 Merry, proudly. "Miss Trent up to Scarffe yonder. 
 Surely you've heerd o' her by now ?" 
 
 "Not to my remembrancing," said the old man. 
 "But if this be her, she'll pass as a fine, handsome 
 piece even among her betters!" 
 
 "Betters !" snorted Merry, in indignation. "What 
 betters should she have, being a lady in her own 
 right, by birth and breeding and family?" 
 
 The old man hung his head, but his eyes leered 
 knowingly under the shadow of his hat. 
 
 "You were allays a talkative female, Merrieless 
 Hibbs," he said. "And if so be you'd 'a' given the 
 young lady a proper introducing, I might ha' made 
 her my compliments in better style. She's a dandy 
 bit and no mistake. Be ye a-goin' to the farm, 
 miss?" 
 
 "We are going to the pond," I answered. "Will 
 the ice bear?" 
 
 "Fine. The young maister's been up t'ot this 
 hour o' more, with stable lads to broom for him. 
 And I do hear a carriage load o' quality be comin' 
 down noontide. I reckon they'll not pass your 
 young ladyship for merit in the way o' looks." 
 
 I laughed. And so pleased was he by that appre- 
 ciation that he gave his old hat a jaunty twist, and 
 pulled at his waistcoat until it threatened to reach 
 his ankles as well as his knees. 
 
 "Trust my judgment as a man o' ripe years," he 
 went on. "And not a shy one, neither. 'Tis a good- 
 ish bit o' mischief I've done in my day, but a bright 
 eye and a rosy cheek were allays o' that seducin* 
 natur', I couldn't but play to them."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 103 
 
 "It's cold standin' here," interrupted Merry. 
 "We'd better be gettin' on, miss." 
 
 "Hsh hsh !" chuckled the ancient sinner. " 'Tis 
 afeared she be o' I makin' a loose speech hurtful to 
 the feelin's o' modest females. But I knows my 
 place where ladies is concerned, and I wouldn't 
 cause the blush o' bashfulness to rise i' that comely 
 cheek, so there's no need to haste away." 
 
 "You must think you're mortal entertainin', if 
 we've naught better to do than stand listenin' to 
 your rubbage!" exclaimed Merry. "Come along, 
 Miss Paula !" 
 
 "You're but a second-best poor sort o' girl," 
 snapped the ancient, with a display of one unprepos- 
 sessing tooth, left, like a forlorn wreck of better 
 things, in his upper jaw. "And forward, too. 
 For 'tis the young lady should give you her orders, 
 not t'other way about." 
 
 "It is cold, though," I said. "So good morning, 
 Mr. Blox. I daresay I shall see you again." 
 
 "Nawt a doubt o' that," he assured me emphati- 
 cally. "A face like living sunshine, leave alone 
 such a finely grawed figger, b'ain't the sort o' 
 things as Gregory Blox forgets." 
 
 "You're an old sinner," said Merrieless, "and 
 ought to be readin' your Bible, and thinkin' o' your 
 latter end, 'stead o' talkin' onmeaning words. If 
 my young lady was same way o' thinkin' as myself, 
 she'd clout your old ears for your forwardness, but 
 then I suppose 'tis your age makes things excus- 
 able." 
 
 I slipped a shilling into the wrinkled old hand, 
 and laughed another good morning at sight of his 
 astonished face and dropped lip. 
 
 He had a great deal more to say, but he said it to
 
 104 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 our backs as we hurried off to the pond, skirting the 
 quaint old garden that surrounded the farmhouse. 
 
 Another quarter of an hour brought us to the 
 pond. 
 
 Several figures were moving about. Adam Heri- 
 vale's stalwart form and broad shoulders were con- 
 spicuous among them. He saw us directly and 
 came forward. 
 
 I shook hands with him. "You see I've come," 
 I said. "What about the skating?" 
 
 "The ice will bear fine," he answered. "I've 
 heard that the Quinton Court folk are coming down 
 presently. This is the best skating place the coun- 
 try round. It's a sort of lake, though we call it a 
 pond. But you've no skates, Miss Trent !" he added 
 suddenly. 
 
 "No; I never thought of them, or I suppose I 
 could have bought some in the village. It was very 
 stupid of me." 
 
 "I'll run to the house and get you a pair of my 
 sister's." 
 
 "But won't they require them for themselves?" 
 
 "There's extra ones," he said, "and an hour or 
 two will put you into the way of it before the great 
 folks come." 
 
 He turned swiftly and was off. I stood watch- 
 ing his rapid strides, when a piping voice at my 
 elbow startled me. 
 
 "Ladyship," it said, "I've made bould to bring 
 you these skatey-irons. I seed you'd none in your 
 hands, nor that brazen lass o' yours, neither." 
 
 I looked round and beheld the ancient Gregory 
 once again. He was holding out a pair of lady's 
 skates, polished and sharpened, and evidently ready 
 for use.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 105 
 
 "Oh, thank you," I said. "But Mr. Herivale has 
 just gone to fetch me a pair from the house." 
 
 He chuckled feebly. 
 
 "Like eno' these be the ones. Aye, aye, I seed 
 him. 'Twas a most ungodly haste he was in. Not 
 a 'good mornin',' or a 'fine day' in his breath. Don't 
 be perplexin' your pretty head wi' any manner o' 
 thought as to trouble taken for your sake, miss. 
 Tis in the nat'ral way o' man to render service to 
 woman, and when she's a handsome piece o' flesh 
 and blood as makes a pictur' for eyes to behold, then 
 the service is honorarry, so to say. Honorarry," 
 he repeated, as if the ready-coined syllable pleased 
 his ear. 
 
 "You here again, you old piece!" broke in Mer- 
 ry's voice. "What manner o' business can you have 
 with idleness ? 'Tain't your play-time yet." 
 
 "I'm tired o' work, lass, and it would be a true 
 comfort to watch the sportin' as goes on with the 
 superior class. And the pretty ladies a-glidin' and 
 a-slidin' to and fro, with their petticoats a-flyin' and 
 their ankles twinkling. Warms the blood again, it 
 does, Merrieless, and no harm because it do run a 
 trifle quicker." 
 
 "Where did you get them skates ?" she demanded 
 abruptly. 
 
 Again he chuckled. "Found 'em," he said. "And 
 borrowed the loan o' usage for her ladyship, your 
 mistress." 
 
 "You'll get into trouble if you don't take care. 
 The young master be just gone to get some o' the 
 same." 
 
 "I can wait," said the ancient man, complacently. 
 "There'll maybe come need o' me for the screw- 
 work o' her ladyship's foot" his eyes sought the
 
 108 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 ground "seein' as how machines o' this sort don't 
 take nat'ral to the ways o' balance." 
 
 "Well, I can see Mr. Herivale and his sisters 
 comin' along now," said Merry. "And you'll have 
 to explain how you came by those skates. Such 
 foolishness! For you can't put them on for my 
 young lady, and even if you could, she wouldn't 
 know the use o' them or how to stand." 
 
 "What are you going to do yourself, Merry?" I 
 asked abruptly. 
 
 "Oh, if you won't take it as a liberty, miss, I was 
 goin' for a turn with Gregory. He's found me a 
 pair o' skates, and we'll keep out o' the way o' the 
 gentry, miss." 
 
 "But can you skate?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes, miss, since I was a child. Though 'tisn't 
 often I have the chance, bein' kept close in service, 
 but a short time o' practice gives it back again." 
 
 "I'm very glad," I said heartily; "for you can 
 keep yourself warm and have some fun on your own 
 account." 
 
 "Hear that now !" exclaimed the old man. 
 "There's kindliness o' spirit ! Take it to heart, 
 lass," he added, fixing a warning glance on Merrie- 
 less, "and offer your thanksgiving for such a sweet, 
 unparticular mistress. You don't pick 'em up none 
 too often these parts !"
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 ADAM HERIVALE brought his sisters to me for 
 introduction. 
 
 Pleasant, bright-faced country girls of twenty 
 and twenty-four years of age. The borrowing of 
 the skates was explained and excused, and they were 
 duly fixed, and I tottered forth, supported by 
 Adam's strong arm. 
 
 I managed to stand and move about quicker than 
 I had anticipated, but my instructor was very pains- 
 taking, and very patient, and, fortunately, I was 
 lithe and active, and had no sort of mauvaise honte 
 whatever. By the time the Quinton Court party 
 arrived I could glide along quite respectably, hold- 
 ing Adam's hand. 
 
 He looked somewhat disconcerted as the wag- 
 onettes drove up, and a flock of chattering, gaily- 
 dressed women got out with their attendant 
 cavaliers. 
 
 "I suppose you'll join them?" he said, bringing 
 me to a standstill on our quiet bit of the broad sheet 
 of ice. 
 
 "Indeed I won't," I answered. "I want to learn 
 to skate, not idle my time away with these people." 
 
 He gave me a quick glance. "Some of the gen- 
 tlemen would doubtless be glad enough to take my 
 place," he observed. 
 
 "Oh," I said huffily, "if you're tired and bored 
 pray say so. I forgot I was keeping you from your 
 own share of enjoyment." 
 
 107
 
 108 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 He readjusted the hand I had pettishly snatched 
 from his arm. 
 
 "My enjoyment," he said, "can never exceed the 
 present moment, or the honor you are doing me. It 
 was of yourself I thought." 
 
 "Don't trouble about me," I said carelessly. "I'm 
 perfectly happy." 
 
 I had no need to ask whether he shared the feel- 
 ing. His face spoke for him. 
 
 "There is a quieter bit up yonder," he said pres- 
 ently, as dots of scarlet and blue, and sealskin and 
 sable, began to flit and skim over the polished 
 surface. 
 
 "Up yonder" was a divergence or dip of the 
 pond, fed by some minor stream. A narrow slip, 
 hard-frozen like the rest, beneath leafless alders. 
 
 He guided me there even as he spoke. One or 
 two of the Court party flashed by us as we slowly 
 moved. No one seemed to recognize me, however. 
 The high collar of my cloth jacket came over my 
 ears and round my face, the close-fitting toque left 
 little of my audacious hair visible. I was glad when 
 we reached the stream and were moving to and fro, 
 he giving me less and less of his aid, I growing 
 confident and surer of balance as the time passed. 
 
 We spoke very little, but I think he was in a mood 
 of serene content. 
 
 "You make an excellent master," I said, after a 
 pause of silence. 
 
 "And you a most creditable pupil," he answered. 
 "I want you to try by yourself now. Don't be 
 afraid. I shall keep quite close, if you should fall. 
 I don't think you will. You've got your balance." 
 
 I tried, and being absolutely indifferent to slips 
 and jerks and the usual accomrjaniment of any new
 
 r A JILT'S JOURNAL. 109 
 
 physical exercise, I had the gratification of being 
 able to make some progress. It was very far from 
 being that "swallow flight" and embodiment of 
 grace described in books, but it was promising, and 
 I began to feel my feet more under the control of 
 my will than I had been of theirs. 
 
 "You must be tired," said Adam at last. "Let 
 us go back now and I will take you to the house for 
 luncheon. There's always a meal ready these times. 
 The grand folk mostly bring their own things, but 
 mother sends them tea, or soup, or ale if they want 
 it. I promised for you that you'd come in and see 
 my people." 
 
 I thought of the professor's words, "A good old 
 yeoman family," and concluded it would be interest- 
 ing to make their acquaintance. 
 
 I sat down on the bank, and he unfastened my 
 skates. Just then I heard a gay voice hailing me 
 by name. 
 
 "Paula!" it cried, "Paula Trent?" 
 
 I looked ug and saw Lady Brancepeth hovering 
 near us. 
 
 "So you are here," she said, as she glided swiftly 
 across the dividing space. "I thought you would 
 be. Where have you hidden yourself?" 
 
 "I've been having my first lesson in skating. 
 This," I explained, blushing stupidly, "is Mr. Adam 
 Herivale of the farm there." 
 
 Her eyes swept over his broad shoulders and stal- 
 wart figure, then rested a moment on his face, as he 
 lifted his cap. 
 
 "I think we have met before, or at least I've seen 
 you riding, wasn't it ?" 
 
 I caught an odd flash in his eyes, but I was igno- 
 rant of its meaning.
 
 110 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Yes," he said ; "the day you lost your whip." 
 
 "Of course ! I thought I remembered your face. 
 Well, Paula, how did you get on?" 
 
 "Not very well, I'm afraid," I said, rising to my 
 feet, and feeling numbed and dazed after the skates 
 had been removed. "But it's lovely. I hope I shall 
 soon learn." 
 
 "Are you going home?" she asked. 
 
 "Oh, no! I shall stay here all day. I've been 
 invited to lunch," I added, laughing. 
 
 "What! in the farmhouse? How charming! 
 Mr. Herivale, couldn't your hospitality extend itself 
 a little further? I'm absolutely starving." 
 
 "I should be only too honored," he answered 
 somewhat stiffly. "But I thought your party were 
 always provided " 
 
 "With luncheon baskets? So we are. I'm not 
 going to inflict you with any others of the party. 
 I'll chaperon Paula, and see your famous old house 
 at the same time. I've heard something of its 
 history." 
 
 He made no remark. I fancied he was somewhat 
 discourteous to this lovely butterfly, but put it down 
 to bashfulness. She asked him to take off her 
 skates, and I thought such feet and ankles might 
 have made a conquest of any male heart. She chat- 
 tered away to me much as she had done on the 
 castle hill, but an even greater sense of the incon- 
 gruity of the world with these primitive scenes came 
 over me, and I felt cross at its intrusion. As for 
 Adam, he gave only curt monosyllables to her airy 
 banter. 
 
 We found luncheon awaiting us in a lovely old 
 room, wainscoted with oak, and having a huge fire 
 of blazing logs to give kindly welcome, from a great
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. Ill 
 
 open fireplace. Steaming soup was brought in by a 
 neat serving-maid. The table was liberally spread 
 with cold joints, turkey, ham and meat pies. 
 
 Lady Brancepeth babbled delight. It was all so 
 homely and unconventional. She ate so daintily, 
 with such airy grace of finger touches, and move- 
 ments of head or lips, that I watched her with a 
 sort of fascination. I wondered if Adam felt the 
 same. 
 
 It was impossible to tell from his face. It had 
 grown expressionless, and his words, though studi- 
 ously polite, were curt as tongue could make them. 
 
 Lady Brancepeth demanded the history of the 
 farm, and he gave it her in the same formal fashion. 
 He was a revelation to me in this new attitude of 
 stiffness, and I longed to ask its meaning. From 
 time to time his eyes rested uneasily upon me, and 
 then turned to the door as if expecting someone to 
 enter. 
 
 "I hoped I should see your father and mother," I 
 said at last. 
 
 "They seldom intrude on company," he an- 
 swered. "But if you wish it, Miss Trent, my 
 mother would be very pleased to make your ac- 
 quaintance. She has known of you for some time. 
 I think your uncle mentioned your coming home for 
 good." 
 
 I opened my eyes wide. "Oh, did he? I wonder 
 
 w hy " 
 
 Then I crimsoned to the temples, conscious of a 
 foolish speech. 
 
 "When you have finished your luncheon," con- 
 tinued Adam, "I will show you over some of the old 
 rooms, and my mother's parlor. She sits there a 
 great deal. Her health is not good, and my father
 
 112 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 is careful of her. They are truly fond of one an- 
 other my father and mother," he went on more 
 rapidly. " 'Twas a love match at first and 'twill 
 be that to the last. There's no one in the world for 
 him like 'wife.' He never calls her aught but 
 that." 
 
 He looked suddenly straight at the lovely face 
 and lifted, insolent eyes of the fashionable lady at 
 his board. 
 
 "It sounds foolish, I suppose, to your ladyship. 
 But we commoner folks have very simple ways, and 
 love and duty mean a great deal to us." 
 
 She laughed with evident amusement. 
 
 "So I have heard; but pray, my dear man, do not 
 call a family like yours 'common folk.' You are of 
 the stuff that made England what it is. I wish a 
 little of your blood could be infused into our effete 
 nobility. We would be the gainers, I assure you. 
 If it carried a few of your primitive virtues with it 
 so much the better. The word 'wife,' as you said 
 it, has a delicious, old-fashioned flavor about it that 
 almost makes one believe in Lubin and Chloe, and 
 eternal constancy. I wonder if you take after 
 your father?" 
 
 That little pause on the pronoun and the half- 
 mocking, half -amused expression of those lovely 
 turquoise eyes gave the question a second meaning. 
 
 He colored in an embarrassed, stupid fashion 
 that made me angry with him. Why couldn't he 
 speak to this woman as he spoke to me? 
 
 "I hope I shall never do worse," he said at last. 
 
 And again she laughed, that cold, little laugh I 
 was learning to know. 
 
 "You look as if you held all the primitive vir- 
 tues," she said. "Love and constancy are part of
 
 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 113 
 
 them. I foresee a second edition of Darby and 
 Joan when it comes to your turn to make of life a 
 pastoral idyl." 
 
 She rose from the table. At the same moment 
 some more people entered, ushered in by the fine old 
 white-haired man I had seen in church, and whose 
 likeness proclaimed his relationship to Adam. He 
 seated his guests and shook hands with me, and 
 then bustled about, waiting on them and carving, 
 and pressing hospitality in a manner that was de- 
 lightful, because it was so evidently the outcome of 
 genuine feeling. 
 
 Adam approached me under cover of the con- 
 fusion. 
 
 "If you would come away, Miss Trent, I should 
 like to introduce you to my mother." 
 
 I glanced at him deprecatingly. "What of Lady 
 Brancepeth ?" 
 
 "We do not want her, I fancy. Surely she will 
 go back to her own friends." 
 
 "She will expect you to escort her." 
 
 He resumed the old air of courteous indifference. 
 "I will do so after I have left you in the parlor." 
 
 "Very well," I said, "I'll tell her that." 
 
 But when I had told her I was surprised at the 
 sudden anger in her face. 
 
 "Of course you can do as you please," she said. 
 "But I expect your farmer friend to take me back to 
 the pond first." 
 
 "Can't you find your way?" I asked. 
 
 "I am not as at home among pig-styes and cow- 
 sheds as you seem to be," she said sharply. 
 
 I was puzzled at her tone and apparent ill-humor. 
 She had been so radiant and smiling a short time 
 before.
 
 114 A JILT'S JOUKNAU 
 
 "I saw no pig-styes. You cross that paved walk, 
 and then go through the garden." 
 
 "Thank you for troubling to explain, but I've no 
 doubt Colin will be my guide when you can spare 
 him." 
 
 "Colin?" I said stupidly, and then, understand- 
 ing, grew scarlet with sudden shame and indig- 
 nation. 
 
 "One name is as good as another in Arcadia," 
 she said, with her little, chill smile. "And I have a 
 fancy for Colin." 
 
 I moved away. 
 
 Adam Herivale was standing in the same place. 
 
 "I think I will not see your mother to-day," I 
 said. "Lady Brancepeth is eager to get back to the 
 pond, and indeed so am I." 
 
 There was something proud and hurt, yet in- 
 finitely gentle, in those surprised eyes of his, but he 
 only said, "As you wish, Miss Trent. Of course I 
 am at your service." 
 
 I remembered the first time he had used those 
 words, and had the grace to feel a little ashamed of 
 myself. But it was too late to retract. I left the 
 room, and heard Lady Brancepeth's clear voice be- 
 hind me. 
 
 "I'll take your pupil off your hands," she was 
 saying. "It is too bad to spoil your sport, and I 
 think a girl gets on better skating with one of her 
 own sex." 
 
 What he answered I could not hear, but when we 
 were once more at the pond he brought my skates 
 and put them on, and then, lifting his cap, left me 
 with Lady Brancepeth. 
 
 Of course I could not get on at all, and I felt she 
 took a malicious pleasure in making me look awk-
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 115 
 
 ward. Finally I lost my temper. "I wish you'd 
 leave me to myself," I said. "I believe I'd do a 
 great deal better alone." 
 
 "Poor little maid!" she said mockingly. "And 
 is it Colin she wants?" 
 
 I snatched my hand angrily from her own. 
 
 "What makes you torment me so ?" I asked fool- 
 ishly. "You've quite spoilt my day." 
 
 She turned her brilliant eyes on my angry face 
 and laughed. 
 
 "You baby !" she said. "Do you know no better 
 than to give yourself away like that 'spoilt your 
 day' because I took you away from a farm lout who, 
 to my thinking, is decidedly presumptuous. Pray 
 forgive me for not appreciating your bucolic tastes. 
 Shall I go after him and bring him back?" 
 
 Again I flushed scarlet ; the tears of mortification 
 and pride rushed to my eyes. 
 
 "When you are a little older," went on my tor- 
 mentor, "you'll know better than to display prefer- 
 ences so openly. Colin is very handsome, I grant, 
 but scarcely a desirable parti for Professor Trent's 
 niece. I've tried to prevent you from making your- 
 self remarkable. You ought to be grateful, not 
 angry. Your worldly experience is as yet nil. Be 
 glad that anyone is interested enough in you to 
 show you the ropes to handle, and the way to handle 
 them. There is no mistake in life so disastrous as 
 a false step on the threshold. I must call and have 
 a chat with the professor about you, my dear. 
 Meanwhile adieu. I'm going to catch up Colin. 
 Shall I tell him you are disconsolate?" 
 
 She skimmed off, graceful as a swallow, her airy 
 laugh ringing on the air, where it seemed the sting 
 of her echoing words still lingered.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 I POTTERED about in a blundering, aimless fash- 
 ion when left to myself. 
 
 I was conscious of intense humiliation and in- 
 tense anger. Everyone else seemed to be flitting 
 about in the enjoyment of various stages of ability, 
 but I felt a fool. No one offered me a helping hand, 
 and I was in mortal terror of falling. This was 
 altogether a different experience from my previous 
 ventures, supported by Adam Herivale's strong arm 
 and skilful aid to balance. 
 
 "Hullo!" said a voice suddenly, so close that I 
 started and would have fallen but for a hand that 
 caught my arm. 
 
 "Near a cropper that time. Thought I remem- 
 bered you. Don't seem enjoying yourself. Let me 
 lend a hand I'll get you along." 
 
 It was Lord "Bobby" who spoke, and for a mo- 
 ment the relief of a friendly voice was so welcome 
 that I cared very little who was the speaker. 
 
 "Oh, ivill you?" I said eagerly. "This is the 
 first time I've ever tried to skate, and I'm so stupid." 
 
 He took both hands crossways and we moved 
 over the ice together. 
 
 "Wasn't there anyone to teach you?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, but he's gone." 
 
 "Oh, must have been a damned ass ! I beg 
 your pardon slipped out. But why did he go till 
 you'd found your legs?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," I said pettishly. "I do wish 
 
 116
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 117 
 
 I could do it. It seems so easy, and when anyone 
 helps me I feel all right, but the instant I try by 
 myself I can't even slide forward." 
 
 He chuckled. "Yes, 'tis a shaky sort of feeling 
 till you get used to it. But you'll soon be all right. 
 When we get out of the ruck you must try one 
 hand." 
 
 "You're awfully kind to help me," I said pres- 
 ently. 
 
 "Not a bit. Deuced pretty girl oughtn't to 
 want for help, you know." 
 
 "Your wife," I said, "skates beautifully. Do 
 you see her over there doing figures ?" 
 
 "Oh, she's Ai at that runs 'em up, too! No 
 paying, though. Don't suit her book." 
 
 This being Greek to me, I made no response. 
 
 "We drive separate teams, you know. Most peo- 
 ple do. Ask no questions, told no lies; that sort. 
 How surprised you look ! Bet there isn't a girl in 
 London don't know what that means. Tries it on, 
 too, on her own, when her time comes. The women 
 all said what a jolly innocent you were when you 
 left the other day. By the way, Lorry (that's my 
 wife) got hold of that book you left behind and 
 read us out some eye-openers. Demn'd clever it 
 was. If that's your sort o' reading you oughtn't to 
 be so green." 
 
 I stopped my face one burning flush of anger. 
 
 "That was my mother's book. She wrote it. 
 I'm sure there's nothing wrong in it." 
 
 His pale, watery eyes met mine with unmistak- 
 able surprise. "Wrong! Who said it was wrong? 
 D d clever, that's all." 
 
 "You spoke of it as if it had quite another mean- 
 ing to to what it seems to me to have !"
 
 118 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Didn't mean that assure you. Jolly queer 
 girl you are, conscience and all that, I suppose. 
 Take my tip throw it aside and face the world on 
 your own. It hates goody-goodies. You're awfully 
 fetching, but you'll never get on till you've thrown 
 all that moral ballast overboard and taken life for 
 no better than it is!" 
 
 I was speechless from indignation, and he guided 
 me on and up to the spot where his wife was doing 
 the outside edge and other mysterious devices, 
 watched by a crowd of admirers. 
 
 She saw me with her husband and paused a mo- 
 ment to laugh. 
 
 "Why, Bobby," she said, "what's this? A new 
 line?" 
 
 He grinned. "Shame to let Miss Trent stumble 
 about and no one to lend her a hand. Besides 
 good example." 
 
 Her eyes flashed. "You never seem to want for 
 male escort, Paula," she said. "It's odd how pleas- 
 ant boredom can be made if one has long eye- 
 lashes." 
 
 "Come along, Paula," said Lord Brancepeth, 
 audaciously. "Don't mind her; she's in a wax 
 about something. Let's have another try." 
 
 He bore me off, whether I would or no; but my 
 face was tingling, and the smart of hot, indignant 
 tears lay behind those lashes that Lady Brancepeth 
 had alluded to so mockingly. 
 
 When self-control returned, I asked him to take 
 me back to the chairs. I was tired and wanted my 
 skates off. I glanced about for Adam, but he 
 seemed to have disappeared. I caught sight of Mer- 
 rieless, however, and signaled her to accompany me. 
 
 "What's made you freeze up so sudden?" asked
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. Ill) 
 
 Lord Brancepeth, as we neared the bank. "Not a 
 word but 'yes' or 'no.' Surely you don't mind 
 what Lorry said. She's got a nasty sting to her 
 tongue, but, bless you, no one cares for that. I 
 expect she's envying the color of your hair, if the 
 truth were known. It's the shade every smart 
 woman's mad about. But I defy all the hair stuffs 
 in Christendom to do what Nature's done for you !" 
 
 "As I'm never likely to go into your smart world, 
 Lord Brancepeth, there's not much advantage in 
 having the fashionable shade of hair," I said. "And 
 I'm sure your wife is lovely enough, and admired 
 enough, to envy no one." 
 
 "Oh, she's no angel," he said, "and, by Jove ! she 
 makes me sing small. Life ain't all skittles, my 
 dear, take my word. On the whole I think you 
 quiet country folk get the best of it. No debts, no 
 show, no worries. We're sponged on, spied on, im- 
 posed on every way. Got to keep up in the race or 
 be knocked under. All we do known. All we 
 spend, only good to other people ; half ruined by ex- 
 travagances, that aren't a ha'porth o' use to our- 
 selves. Afraid of our servants, our tradespeople; 
 all the beggarly, rotten pack who spy out our secrets 
 and fatten on our incomes. Lord! how sick I get 
 of it all sometimes." 
 
 "Then why do it?" I asked. 
 
 His laugh rang harshly on the frosty air. 
 
 "Why? Because we're fools. Because we must 
 be in the swing. Because it's bred in our bones. 
 Because we're like sheep and must follow on one an- 
 other's heels ! Oh ! there's no end to the reasons 
 once one starts on 'em. Why even you, country 
 innocent as you are, if you married into the set and 
 went through a season, would turn out just like the
 
 120 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 others. You must. There's no help for it. It's 
 been set a-goin' and it'll go as long as vice and gold 
 and vanity are in the world. How Lorry would 
 laugh if she heard me talk and well she might. 
 I'm one of the worst o' the lot, and I've never cared 
 who knew it or what was said of it. Oh, here we 
 are. What a rum old card! Who the deuce is 
 he?" 
 
 The ancient was standing guard over a chair. 
 He must have seen me coming up, and was prepar- 
 ing to remove the skates. 
 
 "That's one of our celebrities," I said, laughing. 
 "He's on the farm, and his years number fourscore 
 and something." 
 
 "Jove! Fancy living to that. Jolly sick he 
 must be of it. Shall I take off your skates for 
 you?" 
 
 "I won't trouble you," I answered. "The old 
 man can do it, and here is my maid also. I'm very 
 much obliged to you, Lord Brancepeth, for your 
 kindness and," I added, "your valuable informa- 
 tion. Perhaps some day I may need it." 
 
 "I hope to God you won't," he said earnestly. 
 "Well, if I can't do anything more, good-by." 
 
 I stepped up on the bank and seated myself. 
 
 The ancient Gregory became garrulous, and was 
 just about to divest me of my skates when Adam 
 Herivale flashed into sight and bore down. 
 
 "Let me do that," he urged. 
 
 In some surprise I consented. 
 
 "How did you get on?" 
 
 "Oh, very badly. It seemed no use trying." 
 
 "You really should not leave off until you have 
 mastered it," he said. "Unless, of course, you're 
 tired."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 121 
 
 I was not tired, but I had lost all inclination to go 
 on the pond again. 
 
 "If you would take me in to see your mother 
 now?" I said hesitatingly. 
 
 He looked up quickly and his face flushed with 
 emotion. "Do you mean it?" he said huskily. "I 
 thought all these grand people had made you 
 ashamed?" 
 
 "What nonsense! Pray don't think such a 
 thing." 
 
 "I should be very proud, very happy," he went 
 on, as he loosened the straps. "I wish you'd stay a 
 bit longer. We could give you tea, and then I'll 
 take you on again if you'll let me. And we'll be 
 skating by torchlight. That's a pretty sight. 
 You'd like to see it?" 
 
 I hesitated. "My uncle," I said "might be 
 uneasy " 
 
 "Oh, if that's all, one of the farm boys could take 
 a message." 
 
 My face cleared. I did so want to be able to 
 skate. 
 
 "If you're sure it's no trouble," I began. 
 
 "I wish you wouldn't keep on saying that. I'm 
 a plain, homely man, and what I say I mean. If 
 you've forgotten that night on the ruins, I haven't !" 
 
 I ignored any other meaning than that I chose to 
 give his speech. "Very well," I said, "I'll stay." 
 
 As Merrieless came up at the same moment I told 
 her my intention, and saw from her radiant face 
 that it suited well enough with her inclinations. 
 Then Adam slung my skates over his arm and we 
 went back to the farmhouse. 
 
 He led me into the beautiful old kitchen, and then 
 across a stone passage into a wide room quaintly
 
 122 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 but comfortably furnished, and having a large bow 
 window looking into the old-fashioned garden. 
 The fireplace was wide and open like that in the 
 room where luncheon had been spread. 
 
 Seated on a carved oak settle, beside the blazing 
 logs, was a woman. White-haired, dark-eyed, with 
 a sweet, placid face a face that bore some dim 
 likeness to Adam's enough to show that she was 
 mother to this stalwart, handsome man, even had 
 not the soft welcome of love looked out so uncon- 
 sciously from her uplifted eyes. 
 
 "Mother," he said simply, "I've brought Miss 
 Trent to see you." 
 
 She rose and came to meet me, her hand out- 
 stretched. "I am very pleased," she said, in a soft, 
 gentle-pitched voice. "Very pleased. I know your 
 uncle, my dear. He has sometimes honored us with 
 his company. Come and sit by the fire, and tell me 
 how you like Scarffe." 
 
 Adam slipped away and left us together. I felt 
 so at home, so charmed with her kindly, natural 
 ways that I chatted of all and everything concerning 
 my yet unimportant life. 
 
 It is only now, to-night, in looking back on the 
 interview that I seem to realize how interested she 
 was, and how gently she dealt with much of my 
 foolish boastings and efforts at importance. Her 
 great pity for me centred in the fact of my mother- 
 lessness. 
 
 "Men folks are very well," she said ; "but it needs 
 a woman to understand a girl's nature in its open- 
 ing years a woman who loves her." 
 
 Then all my foolish babble ceased, and I grew 
 
 silent and listened to her, and was the better for it. 
 
 The same tranquillity that brooded over those
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL". 123 
 
 quiet hills and held the quaint old town in a charmed 
 peace seemed to have found another resting-place 
 here, in this old room, with this placid, tender 
 presence. 
 
 It did me good to hear her talk. To hear of her 
 youth and her first coming to this dear old home, 
 and her husband's goodness and faithful love, and 
 the smooth, unrippled surface of their wedded lives, 
 which to this day had known no cross, or shame, or 
 division. A different story this from that I had 
 heard from the lips of a worldly woman ; a different 
 standpoint this gentle faith and honor from that 
 where disillusion viewed its social wrecks. 
 
 Paula's self-importance shrunk away abased 
 Paula's vanity, of whose dawn none was more con- 
 scious than herself, fell suddenly off like a discarded 
 garment. Her foolish pride hid a shamed head be- 
 fore the simple, godly honesty of a peasant 
 woman. 
 
 And Paula sits here to-night reviewing all the 
 events of this eventful day, and knows that chief 
 and more important than Lady Brancepeth's satires, 
 or Lord "Bobby's" attentions, or Adam Herivale's 
 kindness, or the delicious enjoyment of the skating 
 by torchlight successfully accomplished at last 
 was that quiet talk in the old-fashioned parlor of 
 Woodcote. 
 
 All or any of these things may be means to an 
 end, may have a future bearing on character, but 
 for her own good, her mental and moral education, 
 Paula must acknowledge that in that old parlor she 
 heard higher wisdom, better, nobler things than life 
 had yet taught her. 
 
 As I write this, I look up and see my face in the 
 glass opposite.
 
 124 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 Has Paula two faces ? The one I know the one 
 I don't. 
 
 I have to lay down my pen and consider this 
 point. 
 
 Something stirs in me as the sap stirs in bough 
 and bud. Spring's miracle of wakening life is not 
 more marvellous than the miracle of wakening 
 Nature. My mind has taken an excursion into new 
 realms; I see before me one hard, beaten path, but 
 others diverge from it to right and left, and the 
 signal-posts to each name only the paths, but not 
 their destination. A strange sense of bewilderment, 
 of isolation, comes over me. 
 
 What has touched this hidden spring? What has 
 brought to the surface of my own knowledge the 
 vague and unspoken possibilities which lie slumber- 
 ing in my soul ? 
 
 ****** 
 
 Beside me, close at hand, lies my precious book. 
 A hurried impulse to dip into its pages brought 
 forth this pearl of thought. Tired as I am I write 
 it as footnote to my own confessions, and the day's 
 adventures. 
 
 "When the moral force awakens, question its rea- 
 son for so doing. It is a slumbering giant whose 
 disturbance threatens all your future peace. Hence- 
 forth your warfare is a double one. You are at- 
 tacked from within and without. Keep clear vision 
 fixed upon one issue; there is only one of impor- 
 tance. The others are but side lines, to lead you 
 astray, or leave you irresolute." 
 
 Oh, wise writer, why have you left me alone to 
 clamber as best I can the steep sides of the hill Diffi-
 
 'A 1 JILT'S JOURNAL. 125 
 
 culty? Why are you not here to aid me by your 
 helping hand, your wonderful wisdom ? 
 
 Did you make of your life as perfect and beauti- 
 ful a thing as your words say it can be made ? Do 
 you, by some spiritual prescience, know aught of 
 mine, and will those pages guide me ? Your living 
 thoughts though brain and voice are dumb? 
 
 The great, white, silent world lies all around me. 
 In all the silent house I hear no sound. 
 
 I know now how lonely I am!
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 I WOKE up to a world of dazzling whiteness. 
 
 Snow had laid its pure enchantment over the hills 
 and fields, and turned the castle ruins into a thing of 
 magic beauty. 
 
 The sky was gray and heavy. All hopes of skat- 
 ing were at an end for that day, and with a sigh of 
 disappointment I resigned myself to life indoors. 
 
 I awaited the post eagerly. Surely one of the 
 girls might send me a decent budget by this time. 
 
 But the weather had affected even postal deliver- 
 ies, and it was nearly noon before the letters arrived. 
 
 To my delight there was one from Lesley a 
 thing of many sheets, and promising joy enough to 
 atone for the disappointment brought by the 
 weather. 
 
 I read it by the drawing-room fire. 
 
 "You wonderful Paula! How did you contrive 
 to get so much interest out of such a brief space of 
 time? And a man already to write about, and to 
 make interesting! I believe you are the one and 
 only person who could answer the proverb about a 
 silk purse and a sow's ear. You have the alchemy 
 of imagination, as we always said. Do you know, 
 Claire and I could see you reading that book in the 
 train, speaking to that handsome yeoman (don't 
 fall in love with him, my dear), and feel introduced 
 to your grim old housekeeper and the dear old 
 absent-minded professor ! 
 
 126
 
 'A JILT'S JOURNAL. 127 
 
 "Is that a compliment ? Take it how you please, 
 but believe we are eager for more news of your sur- 
 roundings. I wonder if you will go to the Court 
 while they have that house party? I almost envy 
 you your freedom. I get lectured from morning 
 till night, and am obliged to imbibe perpetual doses 
 of worldly wisdom and be drilled into the ways of 
 society. We are going to the Riviera soon. My 
 stepmother (Lady 'Archie,' as everyone calls her) 
 and I. We are to stay with some friends of hers 
 who have a villa at Nice. So, my dear old chum, I 
 don't know when we shall meet, unless I can have 
 you for a week or two before the season begins. 
 I'm to be presented at one of the March Drawing- 
 rooms. My dress is ordered already. In fact, I 
 hear so much and see so much of the bustle and im- 
 portance of fashionable life that I get bewildered. 
 But I haven't your trick of presenting things, my 
 Paula, so you must imagine them. We had a lot of 
 people to dinner on Christmas Day. Some were 
 relatives, some friends. But they were all very 
 grand and very fashionable, and Claire and I were 
 quite at sea among them. The women seem to 
 think a great deal of dress. Most of those I have 
 met are on the wing to the Riviera, or Rome, or 
 Cairo. It seems no more to them to flit from one 
 place to another than to cross the street. What 
 a self-imposed treadmill society appears! Yet, 
 though I heard people abuse it, they all declare they 
 must go on with the exercise! I wonder if I shall 
 like it when I too 'am in the swing' ? 
 
 "Dear it's too horrid not to be able to speak to 
 you. I seem to have hundreds of things to say, but 
 they won't stand being written down. However, I 
 promise to write you long yarns from Nice, and tell
 
 128 'A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 you all about the life there. Lady Archie says my 
 great fault is that I'm so dreadfully young. I've a 
 small step-brother here, but he's so hemmed in by 
 nurses and rules that I scarcely get a glimpse of 
 him. But he's a darling cherub, and, of course, his 
 father's idol. As for Lady A. Well, it's im- 
 possible to say what she thinks of him. She accepts 
 maternity as another role she must play, and I sup- 
 pose she plays it according to the best rules of soci- 
 ety. I wonder what she's like when she's really 
 natural. I'd like to ask father, but I daren't. He 
 seems always in a haze of business and company 
 promoting, and he's director on goodness knows 
 how many boards if you know what that means? 
 I confess I don't. And Lady A. grumbles because 
 Stanhope Gate is the wrong side of the Park, as if 
 that can matter when one has horses and carriages 
 at command. 
 
 "Now, my dearest dear, good-by. Keep on writ- 
 ing. I love to know how your days go on. Address 
 here till you get my Riviera letter. Your loving 
 and devoted old chum, LESLEY." 
 
 I put the letter back in its envelope and sat gaz- 
 ing into the fire. I had a budget upstairs ready to 
 send off, so there was no need to write a reply. 
 
 I employed myself in measuring the distance be- 
 tween us that these few days of emancipation had 
 created. It seemed to show that life was a very 
 different thing from books. That the study of in- 
 dividuals was the real education. That mind re- 
 acted upon mind, and nature magnetized, repelled, 
 or attracted nature. I thought of Lesley as I had 
 known her my girl friend and confidante. All 
 that was fresh and simple and natural was, in her
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 129 
 
 new life, decreed foolish. That lovely youth, so 
 eager, so pure, so unabashed, was to be put in lead- 
 ing strings, and dragged hither and thither at the 
 bidding of worldly wisdom. 
 
 I pictured her among such women as Lady 
 Brancepeth, such men as "Bobby." I did not like 
 the picture at all. But I consoled myself by think- 
 ing that all the men and women in the fashionable 
 world could not be like those specimens, though they 
 were well born and well connected, and might be 
 Duke and Duchess of Dorchester one day. From 
 the "Lorely," with her fascination, her insolence, 
 her curious recklessness as to what she said or did, 
 my thoughts turned to Captain Jim. He had 
 seemed her special property; she had bitterly re- 
 sented his attentions to myself. Why? What 
 business had a married woman to exact the homage 
 of any other man? Why couldn't she be content 
 with the husband she had won? Was it vanity or 
 wickedness that drove her from the obligations 
 of duty and decency? I could only surmise as 
 yet. 
 
 When I grew tired of my thoughts I went over 
 to the window, and stood watching the snow which 
 was falling thickly. I thought dismally of the pros- 
 pect of being shut indoors, and wondered what oc- 
 cupation I could find. 
 
 I could do nothing more to the room, and again I 
 felt the miss of a piano. That set me thinking as 
 to how I should get one. Such a thing as a musical 
 or piano warehouse did not exist in Scarffe. The 
 next town of any importance was Wareham. But I 
 could only get there by train, and must wait for a 
 change in the weather. 
 
 I began to wish the professor would not shut
 
 130 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 himself up so persistently in his study. I should 
 have loved to talk to him. 
 
 From the professor to my mother, from my 
 mother to her book, was a perfectly natural sequence 
 of thought. I had not half read the book. I re- 
 solved to fetch it and give the rest of the day to its 
 
 perusal. 
 
 ****** 
 
 I brought Fenella downstairs and began the sixth 
 chapter of her confessions. I had an odd fancy 
 that I should get at the individuality of the author 
 by studying the book. The speeches put into the 
 mouths of the characters must surely be the things 
 she would have said herself outcome of the 
 thoughts she had thought. How, otherwise, would 
 they have seemed so natural? Yet there was an 
 occasional refutation of this theory in the self-mock- 
 ery of some words. And Fenella, whoever she was 
 meant to represent, was eminently heartless. To 
 experiment with every nature she met seemed an 
 absolute necessity. Then when she had learnt their 
 depths or shallows, their capacity or inferiority, she 
 would cast them aside. She could make herself so 
 interesting, could seem to feel so deeply, that she 
 deceived others into believing her the reality she 
 appeared. 
 
 One man alone had had the courage to tell her 
 his opinion, to strip her bare of all the flimsy pre- 
 tences and coquetries that veiled what was really 
 cold-heartedness. "You want to be loved," he said, 
 "yet you've none to give. Your vanity has to feed 
 on something. It matters nothing to you if that 
 something be a man's very life. Go your way I'll 
 have none of you. You're naught but a jilt !" 
 
 Of course Fenella was indignant. Of course she
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 131 
 
 moralized and theorized, and vindicated herself to 
 herself. She hated the man for using that ugly 
 word. She threw cold insult in his face. She for- 
 bade him ever to seek, or speak to her again. 
 
 But it seemed to me that he, of all the men who 
 loved her, was the only one for whom she really 
 cared. He was not a gentleman in the accepted 
 term. He did not move in the society she fre- 
 quented. He was lowly born, but had raised him- 
 self to an accepted station by reason of wonderful 
 inventive gifts. She appreciated her power over a 
 nature that had hitherto been cold to feminine 
 charm, but she was quite unable to respond to a 
 deep, imperative passion. She had played with, 
 tormented, allured him, till the whole rough energy 
 of the man broke the filmy chains of polite endur- 
 ance and he spoke to her face what others kept in 
 their hearts. It was curious to trace the effect 
 those words had upon her, even while she still pur- 
 sued her career of triumph. Curious but painful. 
 
 I found myself praying that that experience had 
 not been the writer's not my unknown mother's. 
 
 Yet such vitality breathed in the words, the con- 
 fessions were so absolutely real in their naked truth 
 and scorn, that I grew sick with the fear they roused 
 in me. 
 
 If this had been her life, if like this she had lived 
 and suffered, and grown heart-desolate at last 
 
 I closed the book. I could not bear to read more 
 of it just then.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 "MERRY/' I said, "bring the tea to the drawing- 
 room at five o'clock. I'll try and persuade my 
 uncle to come in and have some with me. He 
 hasn't seen the alteration in the room, and it looks 
 quite respectable in the fire-light." 
 
 "Respectable! 'Tis most uncommon butiful, 
 miss," said my handmaiden with enthusiasm. 
 "That I do say with all my heart, though Aunt 
 Graddage she's done naught but grumble of vanities 
 and 'puffed up with their own conceits,' every morn- 
 ing when we be a-dusting the furnishings. But 
 the only word in my mind, miss, is 'Butiful' !" 
 
 I laughed, well pleased, for a kindly magician in 
 the shape of "Captain Jim" had helped out my 
 scheme in marvellous fashion. He had wired that 
 a piano would come down from London selected by 
 himself. This was followed by a letter in which he 
 hoped my uncle and myself would excuse the liberty 
 of his choice. Of course that was the only obliga- 
 tion, as he dared not ask permission to present it. 
 A friend of his giving up housekeeping had had the 
 piano from an eminent London firm for the short 
 space of a year. The captain had selected it origi- 
 nally and thought it a pity it should go back to the 
 warehouse or be sold for a quarter its value. 
 
 (I had mentioned forty pounds as the price my 
 uncle would pay.) 
 
 So the piano had come, and my uncle gave me a 
 check, and I dispatched it joyfully to my kind as- 
 
 132
 
 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 133 
 
 sistant. There arrived also a huge case of lovely 
 and wonderful things. A Japanese screen, Turkish 
 embroideries, quaint little folding tables, silk-frilled 
 cushions, and bales of tapestry and cretonne. These 
 were the odds and ends of "rubbish" for which he 
 had no use. 
 
 Treasures they were indeed, and with the memory 
 of the Court rooms in my head, I set to work on my 
 own drawing-room. 
 
 This had all happened during a week of snow and 
 bitter cold and biting winds that kept me indoors. 
 I blessed Captain Jim with a full heart for the de- 
 lights of occupation. To-day everything was com- 
 plete. A bright fire burnt in the grate. The cold, 
 white marble of the mantelpiece was draped with 
 rich-hued Oriental stuff. Bits of china and photo- 
 graphs relieved its former stiffness. The lamps 
 had shades of crimson and deep orange. The piano 
 a semi-grand of Bechstein's relieved the hard 
 outline of the room, and cushions and draperies 
 made couch and chairs presentable and ornamental. 
 
 Flowers and plants I could not, of course, pro- 
 cure, owing to the weather. But the lovely glow of 
 light atoned for much, and I was very proud of my 
 handiwork. 
 
 One of the little tables was laid with a snowy, 
 embroidered cloth, and Merry brought the silver 
 tray and china service, and retired for hot cakes and 
 bread and butter, while I went to fetch the pro- 
 fessor. 
 
 As I entered the study in response to his bidding, 
 I saw him sitting by the fire in his old leather chair. 
 The room was almost dark. 
 
 "Oh! you're not working! I'm so glad!" I ex- 
 claimed.
 
 134 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 He peered at me through the gloom. "Is it you, 
 Paula? No, my dear I'm not ah working. I 
 sit passive sometimes to think out my subjects and 
 facts and data." 
 
 "I want you to work out some very important 
 data for me," I said cheerfully. "Not here, though. 
 I'm going to take you to my part of the house and 
 give you a cup of tea. Come along, professor." 
 
 I saw his hand ruffle up his hair till it stood on 
 end like a cockatoo's crest. 
 
 "Tea, my dear? Graddage usually brings me a 
 cup when she lights ah my lamp." 
 
 "Which you usually allow to stand till it gets 
 cold. I'm beginning to know your little ways. 
 Now, please, just to oblige me, make a tiny change 
 for once. The piano came to-day, and I've had the 
 audacity to alter your scheme of furnishing." 
 
 "Mine," he said. "Oh, no! my dear. I had 
 nothing to do with any furnishing. Except the 
 ah arrangements of my study." 
 
 "Oh, then it was Graddage. I wonder why re- 
 ligion always associates itself with ugliness! She 
 evidently made the drawing-room up out of lamen- 
 tations and backslidings, and the eschewing of 
 worldly vanities. The result was a success in hide- 
 ousness. I've altered all that, and I want your ap- 
 proval. Do come." 
 
 He rose almost, I thought, with alacrity. I 
 slipped my hand into his arm, led him along the hall 
 and threw open the drawing-room door with a tri- 
 umphant air. I was greeted on the threshold by 
 Graddage. She turned on us, bristling like an 
 aggressive eagle. 
 
 "I hope, sir," she exclaimed, "that you're not 
 goin' to encourage such sinful vanity as Miss Paula
 
 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 135 
 
 seems bent on showing. 'He that troubleth his 
 own house shall inherit the wind,' as the wise man 
 said." 
 
 "If he could say that after seeing this room he'd 
 prove himself an extremely foolish one," I answered 
 audaciously. "Do get along, Graddy. I want to 
 show my uncle what improvements I've made, and 
 give him a hot cup of tea for once." 
 
 "I take my orders, miss," she snorted, "from my 
 master and no one else." 
 
 "Then give them, professor," I said, squeezing 
 his arm gently. "And let us have a quiet, happy 
 half hour before you go back to work." 
 
 He looked at Graddage, at the room, at me. His 
 eyes grew wonderfully soft. "By all means, my 
 dear," he said. "The invitation sounds tempting. 
 My good Graddage, we will dispense with you for 
 ah the present ; the present. If you will be good 
 enough to light the lamp in my study, I shall ah 
 feel obliged." 
 
 I chuckled to myself. Graddy was not going to 
 have everything her own way. 
 
 She tossed her head with its quaint cap, and dart- 
 ing a most unchristian-like glance at me, left the 
 room. 
 
 I led the old man up to the easy chair by the fire, 
 and seated myself opposite, beside the tea-table. 
 
 "We're going to be quite nice, fashionable peo- 
 ple," I said, as I poured out the tea. "No one now- 
 adays has tea in the dining-room on a table. It's 
 always served like this. How do you like it?" 
 
 "It is charming," he said, glancing round. 
 Then he settled himself against the big, frilled 
 cushions. "Charming," he repeated, "and very 
 feminine."
 
 136 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 I laughed. "What else should it be, professor? 
 A woman's touch seems an introduction to frivoli- 
 ties, but she has a knack of making the frivolities 
 comfortable and pleasing, hasn't she ?" 
 
 "In the present instance," he said, "I feel bound 
 to ah agree. ' ' 
 
 "That's an old dear/' I said. "I was half afraid 
 you'd scold me." 
 
 He held his cup poised half way to his lips, and 
 looked at me with sudden wonder. 
 
 "Scold!" he repeated. "I scold you! Surely, 
 Paula, I never have done ah that ?" 
 
 "Indirectly," I said; "only indirectly, professor. 
 Perhaps disapproval would express your attitude 
 better. You have seemed to disapprove of me 
 sometimes." 
 
 "It was unintentional," he said. "I you see, my 
 dear, you have not on previous visits revealed your- 
 self to me as a ah personality. You seemed 
 careless, reckless, illogical. All faults of youth. 
 They may have had the effect of hindering my ap- 
 preciation of better qualities." He finished his 
 tea and put down the cup. "Better qualities," he 
 repeated. 
 
 I brought him one of Graddy's hot tea-cakes, <and 
 placed the plate on the little dwarf table by his 
 side. 
 
 "Are the better qualities coming out ?" I asked. 
 
 "You seem to me," he said, regarding me seri- 
 ously, "what would be called attractive. You 
 have ah many absurdities, as is natural to youth 
 feminine youth. You will grow out of them as 
 your mind enlarges and your ah intellect asserts 
 itself." 
 
 I felt interested. "Are you speaking generally,"
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 137 
 
 I asked, "or really of myself? ME with capital 
 letters. Paula, as she is spoke, you know ?" 
 
 "Of you," he said, "as you are beginning to reveal 
 yourself." 
 
 "That is very nice of you," I said. "Because it 
 shows that you have begun to think of me as an in- 
 dividual ; not a mere chair or table you find in your 
 way. Might I ask how much of myself I have re- 
 vealed?" 
 
 He looked at me, then at the room, the dainty 
 tea-table, the open piano back again to me. 
 
 "You have the purely feminine instincts," he said, 
 "of decorative surroundings. The student sees so 
 much with the mental eye that the outer faculties of 
 observation grow absorbed." 
 
 "Are those instincts quite worthless?" I in- 
 quired. 
 
 "Far from it. Far ah from it. They serve 
 to render trifles important, to polish ah the rough 
 surface of surrounding objects. A young female 
 thing" (I shuddered) "adorns herself because she 
 takes pleasure in her appearance. She adorns her 
 surroundings because they ah in a measure set 
 off that appearance." 
 
 "Professor!" I cried reproachfully. 
 
 "I am not saying, my dear, that the care and time 
 you have expended on these ah artistic improve- 
 ments" (that sounded hopeful) "are wasted or un- 
 instructive. But, in your present stage of existence, 
 your eye demands more than your mind. You sat- 
 isfy your eye at the expense of more worthy ob- 
 jects." 
 
 "Dear professor," I said plaintively, "I am only 
 seventeen." 
 
 He could not ruffle his hair any more, so his be-
 
 138 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 wildered fingers brought it into its normal condi- 
 tion. 
 
 "I believe you are," he said. "Seventeen !" He 
 regarded me through his glasses. "Your hair," he 
 said, "is very beautiful, Paula. That brilliance is 
 ah not quite usual." 
 
 "I hope you don't think I dye it?" I said, smiling. 
 
 "Do women do such a thing?" he asked inno- 
 cently. 
 
 "Why, of course, professor; even I know that." 
 
 "It is like her hair," he went on, bending his 
 gaze on the fire. "Once, I remember, it all fell 
 down. Like a shower of gold it seemed a wonder- 
 fully beautiful sight. And how she laughed at my 
 awkwardness because I could not put it up! It 
 seemed ah sacrilege to touch it. But Stephen 
 was not so stupid. He helped her." 
 
 (Stephen Trent was my father, and the profes- 
 sor's brother. ) 
 
 "I should like to think I was like her," I said. 
 "I have been reading her book. I thought it might 
 help me to know her. Tell me, professor, can any 
 one write without being themselves, and putting 
 themselves into their writings ? Mustn't it be part- 
 ly what they feel and think, and how they would 
 act under circumstances?" 
 
 "Not necessarily, my dear. Imagination plays a 
 large part in fictional writing. Little traits of the 
 author may creep in, but, as a rule, I believe the 
 characters are quite ah impersonal." 
 
 "Oh!" I said disappointedly. "I have been 
 studying her book, thinking it helped me to know 
 her. And yet I am sure, quite sure, she couldn't 
 have broken hearts and wrecked lives as that girl 
 did."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 139 
 
 "Not intentionally. You are right, Paula. What- 
 ever harm she did was not of her own will or de- 
 sire. Her beauty was not even her greatest charm. 
 It was that strange, winning, joyous temperament. 
 The joy she gave, the light she shed. The constant 
 surprise she was to herself, as well as to others." 
 
 He gazed into the fire and seemed to lose himself 
 in thought. 
 
 Presently he looked at me. "You have her 
 beauty," he said gravely. "But I do not think you 
 will be as interesting." 
 
 "Or as unhappy?" I asked. 
 
 The change that trembled over his face was a 
 reproach to my thoughtless words. 
 
 "Why should you think she was unhappy?" 
 
 "From her book," I answered. 
 
 He moved uneasily. "Her book is not herself. 
 It is bitter, cruel, heartless. She was never that." 
 
 He rose and leaned against the mantelshelf. 
 "Never that" he repeated. "She wanted to live; 
 to make discoveries ; to get at the root of life. Sex 
 hampered her, and her beauty. Men were always 
 around her at her feet. To be kind and gracious, 
 or even civil, meant ensnarement. She made so 
 many unhappy, that at last she grew callous to un- 
 happiness. I don't know why I tell you these 
 things, child you draw them out of me. She used 
 to draw my thoughts out of me also." 
 
 "Does it hurt you; does it make you unhappy?" 
 I asked. 
 
 "No, my dear. Only sad a little troubled be- 
 cause the old fear awakes again. Because you, her 
 child, are in some way herself reincarnated. And 
 you have to learn Life's lessons as she had. You 
 are, as I said, only a child. You believe; you are
 
 140 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 trustful. It is hard already to convince you of 
 facts stern, sober facts. But you will find out for 
 yourself the truth of life, the reason of sorrow, the 
 need of suffering. You may be a pleasure to others, 
 yet a pain to yourself. For no one can live to and 
 for themselves least of ail a woman." 
 
 "I am glad you did not say 'a female thing' 
 again," I answered, as I, too, rose and rang the bell 
 for the removal of the tea-tray. "And now I am 
 going to ask you a favor. Will you sit here a little 
 longer if I play to you? I said I wouldn't touch 
 the piano until you were by to hear it. It is only 
 fair, after all, that you should decide whether I'm 
 worth the money spent on accomplishments." 
 
 "Indeed, my dear, it will be a great delight to me 
 to hear music again. My solitary life has had few 
 pleasures in it. I think it seems ah to me as 
 if you were determined to bring me some at last." 
 
 I gave his arm a little squeeze, and set his coat 
 straight, and then went over to the instrument. The 
 tone of it enchanted me. I had never played on one 
 so beautiful. I had a good memory and rarely 
 played from music. Instinctively I abhorred fan- 
 tasias and variations. I felt that the professor 
 would like music that appealed ; soft, dreamy melo- 
 dies to whose rhythm his own thoughts might flow. 
 So I gave him one or two of Mendelssohn's Lieder, 
 and then drifted to Chopin, that ideal writer for the 
 piano. First the "Berceuse," then one of the sim- 
 pler nocturnes, finally my first and chief favorite 
 the Fifth. When I had finished I looked round at 
 him. He was leaning back in his chair. His eyes 
 were closed. I stole softly to his side, thinking he 
 was asleep. But he opened them and looked at me. 
 Then he held out his hand.
 
 A JILTS JOURNAL. 141 
 
 "Well," I said, smiling, "was it worth three 
 guineas a term?" 
 
 "My dear," he said, "you have given me a great 
 pleasure. Your playing is beautiful. Your music 
 has a soul, Paula. A rare thing, my child treas- 
 ure your gift." 
 
 He paused and took another survey of me and 
 the changed room. "It is like a fairy story," he 
 said abruptly. "And I seem to have awakened from 
 a long sleep, to life and beautiful things. I thank 
 you, Paula. You have been the fairy who has 
 done it."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 WHEN he had gone back to his study, and I sat 
 alone in the changed room, I thought with pardon- 
 able gratification of his words. 
 
 I fancy there was a self-applauding Paula in the 
 background, seeing herself as a beneficent fairy, and 
 pluming herself not a little on already accomplished 
 feats. But she spent a long hour notwithstanding, 
 sometimes flitting to her piano, sometimes nestling 
 among the cushions of the big basket-chair by the 
 fire. But always with active thoughts, vivid imag- 
 inings as companions. 
 
 "He said I was beautiful," was one of the 
 thoughts. "Another girl might feel vain but I 
 don't. I haven't even looked in the glass. It's no 
 credit to myself. I can no more help it than I could 
 help having a crooked spine, or a squint, had Fate 
 so chosen to afflict me. My mother was beautiful 
 also. He said she was loved wherever she went. 
 Yet she was unhappy. No one who was not un- 
 happy could have written that book." 
 
 I fell to wondering about my own life and its 
 possibilities. I asked myself if beauty were a wo- 
 man's greatest power. If a fair face had such 
 charm for men that straightway they became the 
 bond slaves of its possessor. History had told me 
 the fate of many of the world's famous beauties. It 
 had rarely been a happy one. 
 
 142
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 143 
 
 "After all, however much love a woman wins, she 
 can only love one man," I said to myself. 
 
 A sudden memory flashed before me of seeing 
 words to that effect written somewhere. My eyes 
 fell on Fenella. I opened it and turned over some 
 of its pages. Yes here it was. 
 
 "Let a woman be ever so greatly loved, she can 
 only love one of her lovers at a time/' 
 
 The horrid little cynicism of that ending was like 
 a douche of cold water. I closed the book with an 
 angry snap. Having once begun to think of love, 
 I looked upon it as most girls look. 
 
 A "once-and-forever" sentiment. To repeat it, 
 to give it second or third-hand, seemed a sacrilege 
 to one's nature and one's instincts. Yet, after all, 
 why should love be a thing of once giving only? 
 Supposing it unworthy, unreturned, disappointed, 
 why could it not withdraw into the heart once more, 
 rest, and grow strong and wise by experience, even 
 as the body grows again to health by proper care 
 and rest and training? 
 
 Why, indeed ? The newly discovered Paula theo- 
 rized and pondered most wisely over the question; 
 avoiding disquieting truths, building all the possi- 
 bilities of her own future on the foundation of two 
 fictional experiences. One was that of Etoile, the 
 artist ; the other Fenella, the jilt. 
 
 Another week has passed, and I have settled into 
 a comfortable groove of existence. So far as I can 
 see, my life will run in this groove until I leave 
 home for good and all. 
 
 (It may be for evil, suggests a little sprite that
 
 144 A JILT'S JOTJENAE. 
 
 often talks to me. Marriage is a lottery, and prizes 
 are few.) 
 
 To-day surprise left a ripple on the placid-flowing 
 stream. I was sitting in the drawing-room waiting 
 the professor's appearance for tea, when Merry 
 opened the door and announced, "Lady St. Quin- 
 ton and Lady Brancepeth." 
 
 I was thankful the lamps were lit, and the room 
 looking its best. 
 
 Lady St. Quinton greeted me warmly, and then 
 glanced at the room. "Why, my dear," she ex- 
 claimed, "how charming you have made yourself 
 here ; I shouldn't have known it !" 
 
 "I think it is a little better," I said, as I released 
 my hand from the cool touch of the Lorely's gray 
 suede. "It could hardly have been worse." 
 
 I drew chairs forward, and they settled themselves 
 and threw off their furs. 
 
 "Such awful weather!" chirped Lady St. Quin- 
 ton, who was a gay, breezy little woman of forty 
 years and juvenile appearance. "We've been quite 
 prisoners! However, the snow's gone at last. I 
 came, my dear, to ask if you would care to come to 
 our theatricals next Friday. We've been spending 
 these wretched days in rehearsing and getting up a 
 comedy. We mean to inflict our neighbors with it 
 now. Very short notice, but in the country that's 
 excusable. There will be a little dance afterward. 
 You must stay the night. I hope you'll come." 
 
 "I shall be delighted," I said. "But" my face 
 fell. I glanced at Lady Brancepeth, who was flit- 
 ting about the room, with a tortoise-shell eye-glass 
 impertinently adjusted, examining my screen and 
 decorations. "I'm afraid I've no dress suitable," I 
 hastily concluded.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 145 
 
 "Dress !" She regarded me vaguely. "Oh, any- 
 thing simple you're so young, you know. Your 
 maid might fix you up." 
 
 I thought of Merrieless and her clumsy fingers, 
 and laughed. Just then an exclamation from Lady 
 Brancepeth fell on the air. 
 
 "Well, I do declare I'm sure it is. Where did 
 you get this screen, Paula ?" she asked sharply. 
 
 "It was sent to me," I said; "a present from a 
 friend going abroad." 
 
 She threw me an almost savage flash of her tur- 
 quoise eyes. 
 
 "I could almost swear," she said, "that it was 
 Jim's!" 
 
 I laughed softly to myself. Lady St. Quinton 
 turned round, also produced a long-handled glass 
 and surveyed the screen in question. "Those things 
 are so much alike," she murmured. "Now that 
 Tottenham Court road and Baker street supply 
 them at any price." 
 
 "Alike yes," snapped Lady Brancepeth. "But 
 I happen to know " 
 
 Lady St. Quinton gave a discreet cough. "Per- 
 haps it is a second-hand one," she suggested. 
 
 I gave no help. It amused me that the "Lorely" 
 should forget good manners, and show curiosity and 
 ill-temper over my insignificant possessions. 
 
 Lady Brancepeth came back to the fire and seated 
 herself. Her delicate face was flushed, and her eyes 
 had a hard, steely glitter. However, she said no 
 more about the screen. 
 
 Lady St. Quinton reverted to the subject of my 
 dress while Merry, who had brought in the tea, was 
 arranging the table. 
 
 "A white gown; anything simple," she repeated.
 
 146 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Hasn't she an evening frock ?" questioned Lady 
 Brancepeth. 
 
 "No," I said. "I've never required one; and I'm 
 not 'out.' ' 
 
 "Better send to town. You said your friend, 
 Miss Heath " 
 
 "She's gone to the Riviera." 
 
 "Peter Robinson would do you at very short no- 
 tice. You need only send a pattern and measure- 
 ments, and name price. They'd need a check on ac- 
 count, or a reference." 
 
 "Oh, I could manage that," I said gleefully. "And 
 as it's to be white there's no difficulty." 
 
 "Don't have book-muslin," sneered the Lorely. 
 "It's a little out of fashion." 
 
 "And don't forget to order the accessories," 
 chimed in Lady St. Ouinton; "gloves, shoes, stock- 
 ings, lace 'undies' all that sort of thing." 
 
 I felt apprehensive. I wondered if I could ask 
 the professor for another check so soon. He entered 
 almost on the thought. 
 
 I had never seen him in company before, and 
 was a little surprised at his ease and courtesy. 
 He seemed pleased at Lady St. Quinton's in- 
 vitation. 
 
 "Most kind," he said, "most kind. My little girl 
 has but a dull life of it here. It will do her good to 
 have a little gaiety and see other young folk, like 
 herself." 
 
 "I am afraid she won't do that," said Lady 
 Brancepeth. "Your niece is singularly unlike most 
 girls of her age, and period." 
 
 I gave them tea. The professor took his cup in a 
 careful, anxious, way, conscious that the use of the 
 dwarf table was not his to-night.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 147 
 
 He held it for a moment, fixing a grave, search- 
 ing gaze on the Lorely's lovely face. 
 
 "In what way, Lady Brancepeth," he asked, "is 
 my niece different from the girls of her age and 
 period?" 
 
 "Oh!" she said airily, "she combines innocence 
 and resource so effectively. As a rule, a girl limits 
 herself to one or other. Paula should be a success. 
 She is very clever." 
 
 "I think she is," said the professor, gently. "And 
 will be more so," he added. "But her cleverness is 
 distinct from artificial trickery. She will think out 
 her own course of life, and follow it." 
 
 He drank his tea amidst a surprised silence. 
 
 "I hope the course she intends to follow will be as 
 admirable as her intentions," said Lady Brancepeth. 
 "We generally begin well, professor." 
 
 "I am sure of that," he said earnestly. "I always 
 like to think that, however life ends for a woman, 
 she began it well. That the disasters, troubles, ship- 
 wreck are less her own fault than the fault of 
 circumstances." 
 
 "They are always the fault of circumstances," 
 chirped Lady St. Quinton, gaily. "We would all be 
 successful if we could." 
 
 She put down her cup and leaned toward him. 
 "Have you considered," she asked, "the subject of 
 Paula's 'coming out'? You know we discussed it 
 once, and I " 
 
 "I remember," he said. "You offered to under- 
 take certain ah responsible duties." 
 
 "Yes chaperonage. I have no daughters of my 
 own, you know, but I like young girls about me. I 
 should be delighted to introduce Paula, if you both 
 wish?"
 
 148 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "She ought, I suppose, to see something of the life 
 that other girls enjoy?" 
 
 "Of course. And a London season is a very 
 pleasant thing. I go up to town usually in May. 
 Three months of it are quite enough for me, I am 
 such a country lover. But if I have such an induce- 
 ment as the bringing out of a new beauty and I 
 will vouch for Paula being considered that why, I 
 would go up a month earlier." 
 
 My cheeks grew hot under this personal discus- 
 sion. 
 
 "That is for you to consider, madam," said the 
 professor, courteously. "I should say, from my 
 own point of view, that three months of dances, late 
 hours, hot rooms, perpetual excitement, was enough 
 for any young woman in the year. But maybe I 
 am old-fashioned in my opinions no doubt I 
 am." 
 
 "You, of course, lead such a very studious life, my 
 dear professor. But Paula is young, and naturally 
 looks forward to brightness and gaiety. I promise 
 she shall have it, and I will look after her as if she 
 were my own child." 
 
 "Thank you," he said. "I believe you will. I 
 am glad it is settled. The ah business part of 
 the arrangement we will discuss privately, at a fu- 
 ture time." 
 
 He handed me his cup. 
 
 "And about the party on Friday?" went on Lady 
 St. Quinton. "I suggested she should sleep the 
 night. But if you could spare her over Sunday, 
 professor, we would be charmed to keep her. It 
 would be an opportunity to get acquainted with one 
 another. Most of my house party are leaving on 
 the Saturday, so I shall have my time on my hands."
 
 A JILT'S JOUBNAL. 149 
 
 "Anything that you consider best, and that 
 pleases her, will be satisfactory to me," he an- 
 swered. 
 
 Then his solemn glance wandered to the lovely, 
 sullen face of the other visitor. He studied it in his 
 classifying manner for a moment, then looked at 
 me. "I suppose," he said vaguely, "I am doing 
 what is best for her?" 
 
 "Most decidedly," said Lady Brancepeth, sharply. 
 "Every girl has a right to see life before she decides 
 on her own place in it. Of course it will all seem 
 very funny to Paula at first. But if she is clever 
 enough to observe, she will soon be clever enough to 
 know the ropes. Once you've learned that you can 
 pick and choose for yourself." 
 
 The professor regarded the speaker with amiable 
 bewilderment. "Ropes," he said ; "I'm afraid " 
 
 "Oh, you're not used to slang, of course. It's a 
 way one gets into of talking. You see I'm so at 
 home with it all, that's it's second nature. But 
 Paula " 
 
 Lady St. Ouinton rose hurriedly. "My dear 
 Lorely, we must be going. Such a long visit. So 
 delighted to have seen you, professor, and so kind 
 of you to spare the dear child. My husband raves 
 about her. ' I'll take the greatest care, I assure 
 you the greatest. Paula, child, you'll remember 
 Friday. I'll send for you in the afternoon, and send 
 you back on Monday. Good-by good-by, pro- 
 fessor." 
 
 They shook hands. Lady Brancepeth's slim fin- 
 gers once more touched mine. Her lifted, insolent 
 eyes glanced in the direction of the screen, then 
 seemed to sweep over the shining crown of twisted 
 hair about my head.
 
 150 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 She dropped my hand and swept out, a mocking 
 smile on her lips. 
 
 "Till Friday," she said, as the door closed on the 
 frou-frou of trailing skirts.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE order for my dress went off to town that 
 same night, and it arrived, with what Lady St. 
 Quinton called its accessories, on the following 
 Thursday morning. 
 
 In the evening I had a dress rehearsal, with 
 Merriless for audience and critic. 
 
 To be assured that the gown was "fit for a queen- 
 royal," that my arms and neck and throat were 
 "whiter than the driven snow," was eminently satis- 
 factory. 
 
 The glass in my wardrobe door afforded me a full 
 view of myself, but the sense of strangeness at my 
 changed aspect left me still doubtful as to whether 
 that change was for the better. Paula in serge and 
 tweed, I knew. Paula with a rough jacket and 
 scarlet tam-o'-shanter on her head was also a fa- 
 miliar figure. But this Paula, with the sheen of 
 ivory satin, with the exquisite flow of a real train, 
 such as fashion plates advertised, with bare white 
 throat and never flower or jewel to disturb the pure, 
 harmonious tones of the white toilette this was, 
 indeed, a revelation! 
 
 Peacock-like, I drew my rustling train along the 
 room to "get used to it." It would be terrible if 
 any gancherie confessed to those cynical folk at the 
 Court that I and an evening gown were strangers 
 to each other. 
 
 "There's so much in knowing how to wear your 
 clothes," I said to Merry. 
 
 151
 
 1521 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "There's not more in the knowing o' that than 
 you're able to cope with, miss," she answered me. 
 "You do look a real beauty, you do." 
 
 "Candle light," I said doubtfully, "is very decep- 
 tive, Merry." 
 
 "I'll bring the lamp an' you wish it, miss. And 
 do let me call Aunt Graddage to see you. Such 
 an adorned vision o' rare maidenhood ha'n't come 
 her way this score o' years, I'll be bound." 
 
 "Oh, she'll throw the whole Book of Proverbs at 
 my head," I said. 
 
 "Ah, true eno', miss. With her own heart as 
 hard as a hazel nut, 'tain't to be looked for that she'll 
 talk flattery to such a captivating piece o' flesh and 
 blood! Well, to-morrow night, miss, you'll have 
 finer tongues than mine to praise ye, though maybe 
 not as honest." 
 
 "I've half a mind to go down to the study and 
 show myself to the professor," I said, surveying my- 
 self once more. 
 
 "That I would, miss. 'Tis wonderful already 
 what a power o' interest he do take in you. Quite 
 a changed man he do seem when one is observing 
 him." 
 
 I laughed gaily. "I'll try my charms on him," I 
 said, "as he's the only male creature handy." And 
 gathering up the trailing skirt I ran downstairs. 
 
 Half-way, I saw Graddage opening the hall door. 
 I halted, wondering if she were admitting a visitor. 
 Adam Herivale stood there, the hall light shining 
 above him. 
 
 "Is Miss Trent " he began. 
 
 Then his words snapped, and he looked straight 
 up the stairs at me. 
 
 I had not recognized the full meaning of be-
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 153 
 
 wilderment till I saw his face. I had not learned 
 the secret of a woman's power until I met the gaze 
 of his eyes. 
 
 Graddage, following them, turned also. Her face 
 was a study of grim disapprobation. "Whatever 
 be you dressed up that sort o' way for?" she de- 
 manded. 
 
 But I took no notice, only ran down the few re- 
 maining stairs and greeted Adam gaily. 
 
 "Come in here," I said, opening the drawing- 
 room door, and he followed me obediently. 
 
 "I've been trying on a ball dress," I informed 
 him. "My first real ball dress. I'm going to the 
 Court to-morrow to stay till Monday. And this has 
 just come from town. What do you think of 
 it?" 
 
 "I'm afraid I'm no judge of women's clothes," 
 he began. 
 
 I interrupted. 
 
 "Clothes?" I said, with horrified emphasis. 
 "Fancy calling this lovely thing clothes! Oh, Mr. 
 Herivale, and you've been to London, and to the- 
 atres, and ceremonies, and you don't know how to 
 distinguish Cinderella from the princess." 
 
 "But you were never Cinderella," he said, smil- 
 ing. "Though you do look a fairy princess now, I 
 grant. It happens I came fortunately, though 'twas 
 only with a message to say the ice was bearing 
 again, and would you care to go on with the skat- 
 ing?" 
 
 "Oh, how lovely! But let me see I go to the 
 Court to-morrow afternoon. They're sending a 
 carriage for me." 
 
 His face fell. "There's the morning," he said. 
 "But, of course, coming to and fro is a bit tiring.
 
 154 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 I'll tell you what, I could drive you from our place 
 any hour after luncheon-time, if " 
 
 His eye fell on my gown. "Oh, the dressing ! I 
 forgot that." 
 
 "But as the carriage is coming," I said eagerly, "I 
 can send my box and come on later, as you suggest. 
 You don't suppose," I added, "that I'm going there 
 dressed like this? They're to have private theat- 
 ricals and then a dance," I rattled on. 
 
 "Private theatricals and to-morrow night, is it? 
 That explains " 
 
 He stopped abruptly, and his hand went to his 
 coat pocket. He took out a card and read out 
 slowly : 
 
 "Lady St. Ouinton. At home. 
 
 "Private theatrical R. S. V. P." 
 
 "Why, that's an invitation," I said gaily. "And 
 to you. Oh, do go ! It will be so nice to have some 
 one I like to talk to there." 
 
 "I thought nothing of it," he said, his grave eyes 
 regarding me in perplexity. "A compliment, that's 
 all. Same as asking us to the Christmas dance and 
 harvest home supper, only they've asked no one be- 
 side myself." 
 
 "Well, you surely don't want a chaperon," I said 
 gaily. 
 
 He smiled. "It's not that, Miss Trent ; it seemed 
 a sort of slight, passing over the others. It's never 
 been done before." 
 
 I looked down at the point of my shoe, and won- 
 dered at his being so sensitive. "Then you're not 
 going?" I said. 
 
 "I told you I hadn't thought about it again, but 
 now "
 
 I looked quickly up. (Oh, Paula! are you learn- 
 ing your lesson already?) 
 
 "Well," I asked, "does now mean that you've 
 changed your mind?" 
 
 He drew himself up, squaring his broad shoulders, 
 and there were pride and a fine sense of manhood's 
 due in his eyes. 
 
 "Miss Trent, though we don't rank with the 
 county families, there's none older, few better than 
 ours. And it's no pleasure to mix with fine ladies 
 and gentlemen who treat me only as a farmer, no 
 more, no less. By keeping to myself I can at least 
 avoid impertinence." 
 
 "But surely if they asked you, it shows they 
 meant to treat you as on equal grounds, I mean." 
 
 "I should be only one of the crowd," he said. 
 "Crushed into a back seat ; treated as a nobody. A 
 shake hands from my lady, a 'good-evening' from 
 my lord. It wouldn't be worth pocketing my inde- 
 pendence for such poor pay, Miss Trent only " 
 
 He looked at me again, from the glitter of my hair 
 to the folds of the ivory satin train. "Only for 
 something," he went on hurriedly, "that could make 
 up. If you treat me before all those grand folk as 
 you have always done at other times I'm ready to 
 forget pride. But I don't want to suffer your scorn 
 as well as their indifference." 
 
 "My scorn!" I laughed outright. I really 
 couldn't help it. 
 
 Paula the Scornful, the Dignified, trampling on 
 the fine feelings of an honest yeoman. The picture 
 seemed to be irresistibly amusing. Then I held out 
 my hands. 
 
 "Adam Herivale," I said, "don't put absurd ideas 
 into my head. It's foolish enough without. Why,
 
 156 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 
 
 if the queen and her court and hundreds of grand 
 people stood around, and I saw you, I'd speak and 
 act just as I've always done ! Why shouldn't I ? One 
 likes a person for what he is not for what he has." 
 
 "A sweet bit of wisdom," he said, releasing my 
 impulsive hands. "God grant you may keep it, and 
 your heart, too, in its innocent faith. But " 
 
 "Now look here," I said impulsively. "Every 
 one seems bent on telling me what a dreadfully 
 wicked place the world is, and what a bad effect it 
 will have upon me in particular. I really will not 
 have you beginning the same thing. I must find it 
 out for myself, and I mean to. Fancy, I am going 
 to have a real season in town, and Lady St. Quinton 
 is to be my chaperon. Oh, it will be lovely ! I was 
 nearly wild with joy when I heard of it." 
 
 His face looked so grave, so almost stern, that it 
 was plain he did not share my enthusiasm. 
 
 "A season in town," he repeated. "And with 
 Lady St. Quinton; that means her set the sort of 
 people up at the Court now; and you thrown 
 among them." 
 
 "Why not?" I asked. "Are they worse than 
 other people?" 
 
 "I don't know much of other people," he said 
 slowly. "But I know them. I'm not counted a 
 gentleman, Miss Trent, and supposed to have only 
 such feelings as are allowed to a clod, but if one of 
 my sisters had received such an offer as you have 
 had, I wouldn't care for her to accept it." 
 
 Indignation got the better of surprise. 
 
 "Do you know what you're insinuating?" I asked 
 him, trying to amalgamate Paula the indignant with 
 the innocent victim of his imagination. 
 
 "Yes, Miss Trent, I do know. I've never been a
 
 r A JILT'S JOURNAL. 157 
 
 man to walk through life blindfold. There's no 
 innocence in being ignorant because you can't help 
 yourself. Innocence is having a clean soul and 
 keeping it clean when the world's doing its best 
 to smirch it. And that's what the world does to 
 every soul, believe me. It's not God's place; it's 
 man's. And all the vileness of his thoughts, his 
 greed for gain, his lust for power, his paltry vani- 
 ties, his loathsome vices are there. 'Tis a seething 
 furnace into which youth thrusts a careless hand and 
 expects to bring it out unscorched. It never does 
 it never does !" 
 
 He moved restlessly across the room, back again 
 to where I stood, dazed by the passionate force of 
 his words. My foot rested on the fender bar as I 
 leaned against the mantelpiece, my uplifted skirt 
 showed the pearl-embroidered shoe whose fascinat- 
 ing toe I had been admiring. He came up to me 
 again. His eyes rested also on the peeping foot, 
 the glitter of the pearls. 
 
 "Could you walk along a miry road shod like 
 that?" he said, "and come back without stain? I 
 think 'twould be a hard task." 
 
 "But, Adam," I said using his name without 
 prefix, because it seemed so natural "there's an- 
 other way of looking at it. To keep one's eyes 
 closed is to shut out the sunshine as well as the dark- 
 ness. You said yourself that ignorance isn't inno- 
 cence. Would you have me always blind because 
 it's peace, always ignorant because it's safe?" 
 
 "Would I ?" His voice was low and held a new 
 earnestness in its deep tones. "Would I keep pure 
 the lily that opened its heart on Easter morn? 
 Would I hold the lamb from the hungry fox ? Would 
 I extinguish the flame round which the white moth
 
 158 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 fluttered? Don't ask me, Miss Paula, what I 
 would do in such a case as any of these. I know 
 only too well." 
 
 I felt the color deepening in my cheek. 
 
 Undoubtedly Adam Herivale's interest in me was 
 growing apace. I felt intensely curious as to the 
 nature of that interest. Did it mean the preliminary 
 stage of a love affair? Was I to try my '"prentice 
 hand" on this simple yeoman before 1 took my flight 
 to town? 
 
 A hundred odd and unanswerable feelings thrilled 
 and fluttered within my heart. I would have given 
 anything to be able to read his. Embarrassment 
 held me silent. It was a relief when he spoke again 
 in his usual even tones. 
 
 "I am afraid I have taken up a great deal of your 
 time. I must be going. You will come to the pond 
 to-morrow?" 
 
 "Certainly I will; if you will promise to drive me 
 to the Court before five o'clock. But perhaps some 
 of the party will be there for the skating, and then I 
 could drive back in one of the wagonettes." 
 
 He looked less pleased at this suggestion. 
 
 "Of course," he said, "in that case, you must 
 please yourself." 
 
 "And are you coming to the theatricals ?" I asked, 
 looking up at his grave face. 
 
 He hesitated. A little line puckered his brow, 
 his eyes met. mine doubtfully. 
 
 "It would matter little to you, I suppose ?" he said 
 at last. 
 
 "What has that to do with it?" I asked demurely. 
 "You would surely go to please yourself." 
 
 "I might go," he said, "and yet not please my- 
 self."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 159 
 
 "Then, if in doubt, let some one decide for you." 
 
 His eyes gave a quick flash. "If some one only 
 would ?" he said softly. "But it's asking too much." 
 
 "I will ask you," I said. "And you must sit by 
 me and we'll talk about everyone, and have our own 
 fun to ourselves. I get on much better with you 
 than any of those slangy men." 
 
 "Thank you," he said, offering his hand. "I shall 
 come, and I hope the seat beside you may be pos- 
 sible." 
 
 "Good-by," I said. "I must go into the study a 
 moment and show myself to the professor. I won- 
 der whether he will see any difference in me ? I sup- 
 pose," I added doubtfully, "there is a difference. 
 Do I look taller? This is the first train I've ever 
 had." 
 
 "You look," he said, "like a picture." 
 
 "Oh, I hope not ! Because that's only paint and 
 still life, and I feel very much alive!" 
 
 We were in the hall now, and Graddage appeared 
 to open the door. She gave me a severe look, as if 
 condemning my levity. 
 
 He took up his hat. "Don't catch cold," he said. 
 "It is freezing hard. I shall look out for you 
 about " 
 
 "Ten o'clock," I said. "Good-by again, and pray 
 the frost may last till I can skate properly."
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 I OPENED the study door and peeped in. 
 
 "Enter Young Frivolity," I said, laughing. "Will 
 Wisdom kindly pardon the liberty ?" 
 
 The gray head lifted itself from the page over 
 which it was bent. A puzzled scrutiny rewarded 
 Frivolity's intrusion. 
 
 "Paula is it really you?" 
 
 "Really and truly. Don't fine feathers make fine 
 birds? This frock came down from London, and I 
 tried it on to see if it was all right. Do you think I 
 shall pass muster in the crowd to-morrow?" 
 
 I stood before him on the hearth-rug and dropped 
 my train. He pushed up his glasses and surveyed 
 me with a new uncertainty. 
 
 "You are very bewildering, Paula," he said. "You 
 seem to me always changing. If it isn't a mood, it r s 
 a gown. But anything so radiant, so dazzling as 
 you look to-night. My dear child, I wish your 
 mother could see you now." 
 
 I forgot my dress, my appearance, everything. 
 "Oh, why did you say that?" I cried, with sudden 
 passion. "It gives me a heartache. And yet I 
 should have said it first." 
 
 "You felt it I suppose?" 
 
 "No, not till you spoke. I'm afraid I'm a vain 
 butterfly, professor. I was so full of myself; I 
 never thought of her." 
 
 "It is only natural you should be full of yourself, 
 100
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 161 
 
 and happy. I think I never saw any face look as 
 happy as yours when you came into the room." 
 
 "I am happy. I seem to have nothing but pleas- 
 ant things to look forward to. Skating, and the 
 party, and the theatricals and a dance. A dance 
 with real partners not girls or schoolboys. Yes, 
 I feel very happy; I hope it will last. Was she 
 happy, professor my mother?" 
 
 A shadow crossed his face and his eyes wandered 
 to the book on the table. 
 
 "Not always," he said. "No one is, my dear. 
 One must not ask too much of life. She, too, was 
 very brilliant. She could not be five minutes any- 
 where without exciting comment and attention. It 
 was her charm. At first it seemed to surprise 
 ah herself. But it became second nature." 
 
 "With all that," I said, "how could she be un- 
 happy?" 
 
 "That is not for me to say. Women are strange 
 creatures. They may have a great deal, but there 
 is always one thing wanting one thing they never 
 get, so they say. She had her own theories. She 
 often spoke of life as a torment and a struggle. A 
 fight against an unconquerable fate. We stand on 
 the borders of a Promised Land, but when life draws 
 to its end the Land is still only promised." 
 
 I gave a little shiver. Some of my content and 
 expectation took flight. 
 
 "I will take off this finery," I said. "I am only 
 wasting your time. But I thought I should like you 
 to see me in my first ball dress. There will never 
 be another quite the same, you know. And when 
 it has been soiled, and crumpled, and danced upon 
 and I have to throw it away I wonder " 
 
 But I couldn't say what I wondered, nor did he
 
 163 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 ask. But I can write it here as I sit alone beside the 
 dying fire, too restless to go to bed scribbling with 
 pen as well as with mind, for once. The thought 
 that came to me so coldly was whether with the cast- 
 away gown something of the wearer would also be 
 thrown aside. Something of the glee and gaiety 
 and girlishness that were part and parcel of Paula 
 as she had been, when first (to quote Dr. Watts) 
 
 "she put that covering on!" 
 
 ******* 
 
 An hour on the ice, with Adam Herivale to in- 
 struct and guide, left me almost able to depend on 
 myself. I skated perseveringly till luncheon-time. 
 Then I went into the farmhouse. I did not see Mrs. 
 Herivale, however. She was not well, and confined 
 to her room. The old farmer himself did the hon- 
 ors of the table, and was so genial and hospitable 
 that I fell to admiring him, and wondering if his son 
 would ever be doing the same sort of thing in the 
 same way. 
 
 Some of the Court people came over for the skat- 
 ing, but not Lady Brancepeth. I heard she was 
 busy rehearsing. Lord Brancepeth had left, and 
 gone on to some other house. 
 
 So after all it was Adam Herivale who drove me 
 over, and I arrived in a high state of nervousness 
 just as the stable clock was striking five. 
 
 "Fancy having to go in and face them all," I said, 
 as we drew up at the entrance. "My heart's gone 
 down to my boots. I wish you were coming in 
 with me." 
 
 "That's very kind," he said. "But five minutes 
 hence you'll not be sparing a thought to me. Your 
 courage is strong enough to face worse things than 
 a few fine ladies. You'll be telling me a different
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 168 
 
 story when nine o'clock comes, and I am thinking 
 of a promise made last night." 
 
 "What promise?" 
 
 "Miss Paula you haven't surely forgotten? Was 
 I not to have the honor of sitting beside you for the 
 theatricals ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes ! But you must look after me and the 
 seat." 
 
 "There's not much fear that I'll forget," he said. 
 "Till nine o'clock, then good-by." 
 
 The door swung open. A blaze of light and 
 warmth streamed out on the frosty air. A footman 
 relieved me of my wraps, and I was ushered into the 
 beautiful old hall, where a crowd of men and women 
 were sitting, or standing about, taking tea. 
 
 Lady St. Ouinton greeted me warmly. "You 
 naughty child !" she said. "When the carriage came 
 back without you I was quite alarmed till I had your 
 note. So you've been skating all day. How did 
 you come here?" 
 
 "I was driven," I said, taking off my gloves, and 
 allowing her to lead me to a snug corner by the tea- 
 table. 
 
 "Well, Paula," said a voice I knew well, "what 
 knight-errant has been your next escort? We 
 thought you'd thrown us over." 
 
 "I wanted to practise while the ice lasted," I 
 said. 
 
 "Oh ! and was the farmer your instructor again?" 
 she asked insolently. 
 
 "Mr. Herivale isn't a farmer," I answered, feeling 
 my face burn as sundry glances were directed at me. 
 
 "Oh, I can't draw fine distinctions," she said. "A 
 yokel is always a yokel, even if his family date back 
 to the Norman Conquest."
 
 164 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 
 
 "You didn't seem at all averse to the yokel's com- 
 pany yourself, Lady Brancepeth," I observed. 
 
 She stared, then laughed shrilly. "I because I 
 had luncheon at the farmhouse. My dear child, if 
 you make remarks like that, every one will wonder 
 where you've been brought up. Your championship 
 is a little out of taste, to say the least of it." 
 
 I drank my tea and said no more. I felt that I 
 hated this insolent, lovely aristocrat who could be so 
 rude and had a way of making me feel insignificant, 
 ignorant, foolish, and only fit for the schoolroom. 
 
 I was thankful to be unnoticed, and I kept in my 
 corner by Lady St. Quinton. But eyes and ears 
 were keen. The one took in the harmony and 
 beauty of my surroundings, the other the babble of 
 conversation, the laughter, jest and repartee which 
 floated around that group where the Lady "Lorely" 
 queened it so insolently. 
 
 No one noticed me except Lady St. Quinton, and 
 she, after a few questions, left me to myself. I 
 suddenly realized how utterly unlike these people I 
 was, and the strangeness of a new atmosphere 
 touched me with discomfort and shyness. 
 
 I felt almost sorry I had come. 
 
 The women were mostly in tea-gowns lovely, 
 dainty creations of satin and lace which seemed just 
 suited to their attitudes and varying styles of 
 beauty. 
 
 The "Lorely" herself, in some wonderful arrange- 
 ment of turquoise velvet and old lace, looked a 
 dream of aristocratic elegance. 
 
 But to my primitive ideas her voice, her laugh, 
 and her perpetual slang seriously interfered with the 
 charm of the picture.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 165 
 
 I found myself in my own room at last. A smart 
 maid knocked at the door and informed me that 
 "her ladyship" had desired her to unpack, or render 
 any assistance I needed. I gave her my keys and 
 got rid of my hat at last. 
 
 The room was small but beautifully furnished. 
 The dressing table a wonder of lace and satin, and 
 cut-glass, and ivory boxes. 
 
 I took the deep padded chair by the fire and 
 watched the grand London maid taking out my in- 
 significant apparel. 
 
 Even my dress seemed less beautiful and artistic 
 since I had seen those tea-gowns! 
 
 She laid it on the bed and placed all "the acces- 
 sories" ready for me. 
 
 "Would you like me to dress your hair, miss?" 
 she inquired. "I have half-an-hour to spare before 
 I attend to my lady. Of course the theatricals to- 
 night make us all busy, and dinner being earlier " 
 
 I jumped up eagerly. "Oh, if you would !" I ex- 
 claimed. "Tell me, could you do my hair like Lady 
 Brancepeth's ? Would it suit me?" 
 
 "I think almost any style would suit you, miss. 
 But if you wish I'll do that coiffure easily." 
 
 I threw off my bodice and slipped into a dressing- 
 jacket. In ten minutes I confronted a wonderful 
 Paula, with waves of red-gold hair enfolding her 
 head and shading her ears and rippling off her 
 brow. 
 
 I gave a cry of delight. "It is lovely! How 
 clever you are ! Do you think I might venture to go 
 down like that?" 
 
 "Why, of course, miss. Nature itself does all 
 the work of curling-tongs for you, and a thousand 
 times better !"
 
 168 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Does Lady Brancepeth use tongs to make those 
 ripples ?" 
 
 "Why, of course, miss. They all do. Your hair 
 would have taken me half an hour, only it waves 
 natural." 
 
 I could have laughed for triumph, but I bethought 
 me of dignity. "Thank you very much for your 
 trouble. I think I can manage my dress ; I've tried 
 it on, and I know how it fastens." 
 
 She smiled. I could see a little pity for the 
 "young person unused to a maid" lurking in that 
 smile. But my head sustained me. I should look 
 as well coiffured as the Lorely. That was some- 
 thing. 
 
 Alas, poor Paula! Her pride was short-lived. 
 When she went down to dinner horribly conscious 
 of that rustling dress, that unusual magnificence 
 Lady Brancepeth was in the drawing-room and 
 her hair was done in a totally different style. 
 
 No wonder the flippant maid had smiled at my 
 request. What I had admired turned out to be the 
 careless degagee mode, suitable for tea-gowns. 
 
 I went through dinner one scarlet blush of shame 
 and misery. Those turquoise eyes were perpetually 
 on me, and I felt they had read my foolish triumph 
 and were laughing at its downfall. The man who 
 took me in must have thought me the stupidest and 
 most ignorant girl he had ever been told off to en- 
 tertain. 
 
 I simply couldn't talk. As for the theatricals I 
 knew nothing of the piece or its meaning; nor did it 
 interest me to learn that Lady Brancepeth was to do 
 a simply "rippin' " skirt dance in the third act. 
 
 The light give and take of social intercourse was 
 an unknown tongue still. I felt with a sort ol
 
 A JILTS JOURNAL. lor 
 
 despair that I should never learn it. The way they 
 caught each other up, finished sentences, turned 
 phrases, made the most serious things a jest, be- 
 wildered me to-night as much as it had done at the 
 luncheon party. 
 
 At home I was glib enough with my tongue. To 
 Adam Herivale I could talk with ease and unflagging 
 zest, but here. . . . Well, I felt that the position of 
 mute at a funeral would have suited me equally 
 
 well! 
 
 ****** 
 
 I am writing of all this days after it has hap- 
 pened. 
 
 I can look back now on those days as an educa- 
 tion. Safe in my own home and my own room I 
 have spent half the night with my journal. I re- 
 member so much that I dare not write half. I re- 
 member Adam Herivale and that I did sit beside 
 him, while the comedy rattled merrily on, provoking- 
 perpetual laughter and applause, and winning as 
 final verdict the assurance "couldn't have been done 
 better by 'pro's.' ' I remember also my surprise 
 that he looked so well in evening dress, and yet a 
 feeling that I liked him better in his tweed knicker- 
 bockers and rough Norfolk jacket. I remember 
 how quiet and self-restrained he was, and how I 
 confided to him my "fish-out-of-water" feelings. 
 
 And the dance afterward that stands out as a 
 delight, though marred by a perpetual recollection 
 of the Lorely's skirt dance in the comedy. What a 
 wonder she was ! She acted divinely ; she danced 
 as if trained to nothing else. She jested, laughed, 
 coquetted like a girl whose heart was free. Yet I 
 heard she had two children, and that one was a con- 
 firmed invalid from spinal deformity.
 
 169 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 Lady St. Quinton told me this in the course of a 
 long talk we had. 
 
 Almost the whole party left on the day following 
 the theatricals, and I was not sorry to hear the 
 Lorely's "By-bye, Paula to our next merry meet- 
 ing. Perhaps I shall find you've come out of your 
 shell and are the belle of the season !" 
 
 I made no answer. But that same night Lady St. 
 Quinton came to my bedroom, while I was undress- 
 ing, "for a chat," she said. 
 
 The "chat" drifted into confidences. 
 
 She gave me doses of worldly advice and little 
 sugar-plums of flattery to help them down. She 
 succeeded in making me uncomfortable and distrust- 
 ful, all in the kindest and most sympathetic way. 
 She told me I had a "great opportunity" before me if 
 I chose to grasp it. 
 
 "You could be an immense success if you chose. 
 Your style is so uncommon. If you could graft a 
 little of Lorely's audacity on to your beauty, Lon- 
 don would be at your feet. You might marry al- 
 most any one. Men nowadays are mad for nov- 
 elty!" 
 
 "I could never emulate Lady Brancepeth," I 
 said. 
 
 "Oh, no ! not at once ; but you have no idea how 
 easy it is to catch up that sort of manner." 
 
 "It would only make me artificial." 
 
 "It would be second nature before long. You are 
 bright enough, and your uncle says you are clever. 
 That should make you adaptable. Of course all girls 
 are a little difficile at first, but that soon wears 
 off/' 
 
 "Will you tell me," I asked her, "why it is so 
 necessary for a girl to be married, and why the
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 169 
 
 bartering of herself for wealth, or rank, or social 
 position is lauded to the skies, while if she really 
 loves the man she marries she is called foolish?" 
 
 "Because marrying for love alone is foolish, unless 
 there is something else behind it. Girls are always 
 romantic, but life isn't. Far from it. It is crammed 
 with duties, necessities, obligations. It is most un- 
 wise to throw away a good chance for sake of a 
 romantic fancy." 
 
 "A good chance meaning marriage as the world 
 looks upon it ?" 
 
 "Decidedly. The world is wiser than a girl's ex- 
 perience. Besides, she can only acquire importance, 
 influence, standing, by marrying well. What is the 
 use of a suburban villa, and a pack of children, and 
 roast mutton every day? That is mere existence, 
 and a very unpleasant one. The greatest love 
 couldn't stand it. If you wish to preserve Love, my 
 dear, you must treat it as an idyl, and give it idyllic 
 surroundings; unfortunately, that's very seldom 
 possible. You, I think, are a little inclined to take it 
 au grand serieux, as you take most things. I should 
 like you to laugh more and think less. The more 
 lightly we take life the better it serves us. You 
 should skim the cream and not trouble the inferior 
 milk below. You get the best and let who may 
 take the other. Of course every one can't get the 
 cream, but there's nothing to prevent your trying 
 for it. I'm telling you all this because I take a great 
 interest in you. I've known your uncle for years, 
 and he is getting to be one of the tip-top men of the 
 day. It seems a pity you shouldn't enjoy life and 
 have your fling like most young creatures. As for 
 your question about why girls should marry, I say 
 it is the best thing for most of them to do; the
 
 170 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 thing for some. What is an unmarried girl ? She 
 has no position. She is simply one of a picturesque 
 crowd who look pretty and go to balls and cost a 
 very great deal of money. When she passes twenty 
 she is looked upon as almost old. A failure of three 
 seasons is no one's choice. She must take a back 
 seat. Then she's ready to marry anybody even 
 a commercial man." 
 
 I laughed. "What is wrong with a commercial 
 man?" I asked. "Lady Archie's husband is only 
 that. And his daughter is my greatest friend." 
 
 "Nothing wrong," she said vaguely, "if it's in a 
 big way, and pots of money in it." 
 
 "I see. A shop is a disgrace, but a wholesale 
 warehouse is a distinction." 
 
 "Exactly. One needn't ever see the warehouse. 
 It's in the city somewhere and has large dealings 
 with foreign firms, and counting-houses, and clerks. 
 And it means money." 
 
 "And anything that means money is accepted by 
 the world." 
 
 "It is the biggest power in it," she said gravely. 
 "Think of the Rothschilds, the Vanderbilts, the 
 Pullmans why, they could pension off our aristoc- 
 racy and be none the worse for it." 
 
 "Are they any happier, I wonder?" 
 
 "Happiness is a vague thing, child. It has no dis- 
 tinct meaning. Every one interprets it as they 
 choose. It is largely a matter of temperament, for 
 what would make one person happy wouldn't affect 
 another in the least. To one mind it is success, to 
 another love, to another power. To some women 
 the supreme distinction of being the most popular, 
 or the best dressed, of her set." 
 
 "These things only express a very inferior sort of
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 171 
 
 happiness," I said. "Nothing to satisfy the soul or 
 the mind." 
 
 "The seat of happiness is supposed to lie in the 
 heart. I did mention love." 
 
 "Then if there is a love that gives happiness it 
 must be the best foundation for marriage." 
 
 "Love is only a sentiment. It passes." 
 
 "It has been a sentiment strong enough to bring- 
 out the best forces of humanity," I said. "To over- 
 come even the fear of death. Look at the story of 
 Juliet." 
 
 "Her love was purely a thing of temperament, 
 passion, emotion, abandonment. That sort of love, 
 my dear, makes a beautiful story, but it's no good in 
 real life. Even the poets and dramatists recognize 
 that, so they bury it among roses, and water it with 
 tears. They know it would never stand the wear 
 and tear of everyday existence. Romantic love is 
 based solely on illusion. Neither the man nor the 
 woman really are what they think each other. Bet- 
 ter a thousand times to die, or to part, before the 
 cold smile of reality gives the lie to fancied per- 
 fection." 
 
 "That sounds horribly cruel." 
 
 "It sounds what it is, child, believe me. If you 
 entertain those fanciful, poetical ideas, which most 
 girls do entertain, you will be most assuredly dis- 
 illusioned unless you and your lover take refuge on 
 a desert island. Even then you would bore each 
 other to death in a twelvemonth." 
 
 ******* 
 
 She said a great deal more on the same subject, 
 but the main part of the argument was always the 
 same. I knew that her cynical speeches were onl} r 
 the parrot phrases of her world. I was learning
 
 172 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 them rapidly myself. I began to think they were 
 not meant for truths only the assuming of a heart- 
 lessness that seemed the fashion. 
 
 I had partaken of doses of these cynical little 
 pleasantries during my three days' stay at the Court. 
 
 I was quite sure Lady St. Ouinton meant kindly. 
 She had promised to "bring me out" and she did 
 not desire her ingenue to pose as quite an ignoramus. 
 Above all she wished me to entertain no prejudices. 
 I must accept the world at its best, its seeming best, 
 and do credit to my chaperon. If not, I should 
 probably be left to rust in this small corner of seclu- 
 sion for the rest of my days. 
 
 I thought of that corner even as I wrote. I 
 thought of quiet years, of grave studies and simple 
 interests, of human love and kindliness and peace. 
 Were these not better things than social success, a 
 heartless marriage, the praise of worldly-minded 
 women, the doubtful flatteries of men such as Lord 
 Brancepeth, or Captain Jim? 
 
 For alas ! Captain Jim had toppled off his pedes- 
 tal. I had heard things which, to my ignorant ears, 
 sounded odious. Had been told that he was the 
 Lorely's bond-slave, and she would not allow him 
 to pay attention to any other woman if she knew of 
 it. That he had had to exchange his regiment and 
 go abroad because he had allowed himself to be half 
 ruined by her extravagances. It all sounded very 
 horrible, and very wrong, but people had said it, and 
 had said it suited "Bobby" to wink the eye, as he 
 couldn't afford a "show-up" any more than herself. 
 
 Women hadn't scrupled to talk before me, and 
 Lady St. Quinton had been very confidential. 
 
 "We've all got to take a mud bath some time or 
 other," she had said. "It's best to get it over when
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 173 
 
 we're young. They say that that man makes the 
 best doctor who turned sick on the first introduction 
 to the dissecting-room. I suppose we are the better 
 also for getting rid of our natural squeamishness. 
 The mind offers us a dissecting-room as well as the 
 
 body. It has as many diseases and impurities." 
 ****** 
 
 "I wanted to know all about it," says Paula to 
 herself a tired and somewhat disgusted Paula 
 laying down her pen and turning over the scribbled 
 pages of her journal. "I wanted to know, and I 
 must know. There must be a better side to society 
 I shall look for it. To women, to men I must 
 find it. True, these women are nearly double my 
 age, and experience holds no closed pages for them, 
 but then they have commenced in a groove and 
 stuck to it. But there is no absolute necessity to 
 stick in a groove; one can claim freedom of limb 
 and thought." 
 
 Paula grows mightily independent in her soli- 
 tude, and draws pictures of moral strength and 
 moral emancipation that are perfect works of art ! 
 
 Paula visionary, self-centred gazes into the 
 glowing coals and sees there images of life as it will 
 be; as she means to make it. And it seems to her 
 that the heart of youth is capable of anything, even 
 as the face of youth gives the lie to art and artifice. 
 
 Had not the Lorely herself said in that comedy 
 "Youth! That's what women hate most in 
 others when they've lost it themselves. It's the one 
 thing they can't compete with. The one thing that 
 is real. It gives their complexions the lie and their 
 lovers the truth! It mocks at washes and creams 
 and face-powders, and points audaciously to the 
 genuine thing !"
 
 174= A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 Well, Paula has "the genuine thing" as yet. How 
 long will it last ? 
 
 What says Fenella on that point ? 
 
 "The dew on the grass, the bloom on the grape, 
 the lark's first song of rapture, the spring's first day 
 these mean youth, and only these. So brief their 
 
 beauty; so soon they are not." 
 
 ****** 
 
 A long letter from Lesley came by the last post 
 rnd it is still unread. I am too much taken up with 
 all I have myself undergone, too much startled at 
 the transformation from schoolroom to social train- 
 ing, too much absorbed in wondering and dreaming, 
 to enter into the confidences of my friend. Already 
 she has ceased to be everything. Already my heart 
 craves more than a girl's affection and sympathy. 
 It is as if from some immeasurable distance a hand 
 stretched itself and touched my heart and my brow. 
 The touch is cold, and makes me afraid. 
 
 And a voice from that immeasurable somewhere 
 speaks to me out of the silence. 
 
 "When the woman-soul is born," it says noth- 
 ing more. Only that. I shall have to wait for the 
 rest. 
 
 How long, I wonder?
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 "Is spring here?" I asked myself on a morning 
 ushered in by a full-throated chorus of birds outside 
 my window. 
 
 It had dallied so long with its coming. Had 
 thrust forth here a bud on the hedge-rows, there 
 a rosy blossom on the chestnut boughs, now a glow 
 of flooding sunlight, then a nipping wind to counter- 
 act them all, that I hardly trusted this new promise, 
 even as I feasted my eyes upon it. 
 
 "Poor things that live in towns," I thought, "and 
 miss the march of the seasons! The expanse of 
 such a sky as I look out upon, the rapturous greet- 
 ing of birds amongst a cluster of blooms, the flood 
 of sunshine like molten fire let loose, the sudden 
 understanding of Nature's face as it smiles 'Good 
 morrow.' ' 
 
 Wide open was my window, wide open eyes and 
 ears and senses to the message of the spring, wide 
 open, too, the doors of my heart, for life was at its 
 spring for me. I was happy because I was alive, 
 because the world was beautiful, because I knew 
 naught of sorrow, because before me there, rippled a 
 silver stream whose name was Hope, and every 
 ripple was a promise. The perfume of wallflowers 
 and violets came up to me, the daffodils were sway- 
 ing on their long, green stalks. A faint mist of 
 green was everywhere, through which the sunlight 
 filtered. Spring had come at last ! 
 
 175
 
 176 A JILTS JOUENAL. 
 
 It was early scarcely six o'clock but the invi- 
 tation of the day was not to be declined. I accepted 
 it without question, dressed and left the house ere 
 even Graddage the virtuous had opened door or 
 window. 
 
 The sap of spring was surely in my veins, for my 
 feet danced along the field path, and I could have 
 sung as the lark sang for joy of living in the beau- 
 tiful world. 
 
 I took the road to Quinton Lacy, partly because 
 it was so good a one, partly because I loved that bit 
 where the old, old elms had made an avenue, and the 
 castle could be seen between its two protecting hills. 
 I leaned against a wooden gate and looked over the 
 wide fields, faintly green with coming crops, faintly 
 gold with buttercups and dandelions. The gray 
 stone roofs and walls of Scarffe looked up as ever to 
 their ruined monarch on his lonely throne. The 
 dun-colored hills were brown, and a white road 
 wound around and about and over them to the sea- 
 coast beyond. 
 
 How beautiful it all was! How homely and safe 
 and pleasant looked the little gray village amidst its 
 sheltering hills! My stay here could be measured 
 by months now, but I was in no way weary of it. 
 On this April day I seemed to have awakened to a 
 new charm in the quaint old place, a new beauty in 
 the now familiar landscape. As I stood there look- 
 ing at it, I threw a hasty glance back on these past 
 months, and wondered what had made their un- 
 eventfulness eventful. 
 
 I had learnt to know the country east to west, and 
 north to south. My guide had been Adam Heri- 
 vale. I had learnt to skate, and ride, and drive. 
 My teacher? Adam Herivale. I had had pleasant
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 177 
 
 teas in the old farmhouse parlor, long, quiet talks, 
 learnt homely lessons from the lips of the mother of 
 Adam Herivale. 
 
 I stopped short and asked myself whether this 
 recital wasn't getting rather like the "house that 
 Jack built." Thought, too, with some sense of sur- 
 prise, that I must have taken up a great deal of this 
 same Adam Herivale's time and attention. The 
 very horse he had trained for a lady's riding was at 
 my service whenever I wished. Its owner, my 
 escort also, whenever I wished. Did I need to go to 
 the market town, to climb the highest hill, or ex- 
 plore the quarries, or find the best views, it was 
 Adam Herivale who happened to be driving to the 
 said town, or had an afternoon free for such ex- 
 ploring. 
 
 In fact, hardly a day passed but that we met 
 somewhere, and the habit of these meetings had be- 
 come second nature, so that I often found myself 
 looking forward to them as a matter of course, even 
 as I exacted or accepted all forms of service, also as 
 a matter of course. 
 
 No one seemed to think any harm of it even 
 Lady St. Quinton, who kept a chaperoning eye on 
 me at times. But she had rarely seen us together, 
 and when I mentioned his attentions, laughed, and 
 said it was "good practice" for me before I tried my 
 powers elsewhere. 
 
 I kept my journal very irregularly now, and my 
 letters to Claire and Lesley were much shorter, as 
 indeed were theirs to me. My time seemed fully 
 occupied. I kept up my music. I read a great deal 
 the Court library was almost encyclopaedic I 
 rode or walked every day, when the weather was 
 fine. I lunched often at the Court, and sometimes
 
 178 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 spent from Saturday to Monday there. I lured the 
 professor from his study every evening to listen to 
 my music, or teach me chess, of which I discovered 
 he was very fond. I worried Graddage, and amused 
 myself with Merrieless, and in fact was as happy as 
 any healthy, heart-free girl could reasonably expect 
 to be. 
 
 Was I still speculative as to the meaning of 
 things and their bearing on life? Did I still play at 
 being Paula, and interest my mind over the dawn- 
 ing possibilities of her nature? I am afraid I must 
 plead guilty. The habit of introspection was as 
 strong as ever, but my ignorance of life had given 
 place to a limited knowledge of its many-sidedness, 
 drawn partly from books, partly from the admis- 
 sions of the people who made up my circle of ac- 
 quaintances. A queer mixture they were. 
 
 The professor, Lady St. Quinton, Adam Heri- 
 vale's mother, Adam himself, his father and sisters, 
 old Gregory and young Gregory, Merrieless and 
 Graddage. Last of all, I learnt from the letters of 
 Claire, who was "finishing" in Paris, and those of 
 Lesley Heath, who had become a young woman of 
 fashion ! 
 
 This morning I reviewed my teachers and my 
 lessons, and asked myself what benefit I had derived 
 from either. 
 
 But the sunlight danced on the fields, the leaves 
 laughed to the wind's touch, the birds sang on high 
 in praise of spring, and I did not wait for the an- 
 swer. Off I sped again, up the hill, past more gray 
 stone cottages, the almshouse, the old inn with the 
 St. Quinton Arms swinging on its sign, to the left 
 again and into the old churchyard, where the grave- 
 stones were leaning at all angles, and where weeds
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 179 
 
 and nettles grew in every corner. From the high- 
 est point one could see the sea, deeply blue, smooth 
 as a mirror; the white cliffs and green, pine-clad 
 heights. 
 
 I perched myself upon the low stone wall and 
 looked around. From the far-off sea to the quiet, 
 old stones, holding dumb, distorted faces up to the 
 serene heavens, my eyes wandered. In this grass- 
 grown place lay those who had looked on this same 
 scene, felt the lovely warmth of this same sun. The 
 stones were old and moss-covered, the names on 
 most of them almost undecipherable. Near to me 
 one of them bore a hand with a finger pointing 
 heavenward. It set me musing on faiths and re- 
 ligions, and the multiplication of sects that religion 
 has created. 
 
 Had Christ said "In my Father's house are many 
 mansions" from a prophetic knowledge of such 
 sects and their manifold doctrines? For mansions 
 must have doors, and if every sect taught that its 
 own particular formula was the only door to 
 heaven, why, the need of many entrances was ex- 
 plained. 
 
 Graddage, for instance, took the most gloomy 
 view of religion. To her it was a thing of stripes 
 and scourges, and heart-scorching and bewailing, of 
 constant conviction of sin and backslidings. Piety 
 with her was a moral purgatory. She courted suf- 
 fering as others court peace. Her sins and the sins 
 of those around her were ever present to her mind, 
 and seemed the only food that sustained her soul. 
 She was much given to prayer, and on a wet or cold 
 Sunday would treat Merrieless and myself to a 
 home-service conducted by herself. It seemed to 
 me, however, that her prayers were the sort that ad-
 
 180 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 minister a pinch of advice to the Deity, even while 
 they supplicate him. She always knew what she 
 wanted, and what others lacked, and took very good 
 care to mention both. 
 
 From the sea my eyes roved over the leaning 
 stones, and I read the inscriptions with some amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 Someone has said that "Graveyards are the 
 devil's jest-book." I agree with him. 
 
 Such catalogues of virtues, such assurances of 
 eternal joy and reward, such preternatural piety, 
 such a curious medley of texts and lyrics truly 
 they were more capable of arousing mirth than con- 
 vincing reason ! 
 
 The old church was not used for service now. A 
 new one, imposing and worthy of the ritual that it 
 called Matins, and Evensong, and Holy Celebration, 
 had been recently built. It stood on the hill over- 
 looking the village, even as it overlooked its humble 
 predecessor; seeming to say, "You are only parish 
 I am the thing !" 
 
 I got off my perch presently, and wandered round 
 the forsaken edifice. 
 
 Rooks were cawing in the tower, the stone walls 
 were yellow with lichen and green with patches of 
 moss. It looked very desolate even in this warm 
 sunshine. As desolate as age must always look and 
 feel, it seemed to me, when life could mean nothing 
 more but "waiting" for what would end life. I 
 paused a moment beside a tiny mound. How very 
 small it was! It had no stone to give it signifi- 
 cance, only upon the green turf lay a little cross 
 made of two twigs. I wondered what hand had 
 laid them there to mark an unnamed resting- 
 place.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 181 
 
 A touch of sadness dimmed for me the spring 
 warmth, the glad and golden morning. What had 
 this little life done that it should have been so 
 quickly eclipsed ? Why had the heart that loved it 
 been left mourning? 
 
 Those other grassy hillocks without stone or sign 
 had not aroused my interest, but this small, name- 
 less spot, with that roughly twined cross laid upon 
 it, held a story of its own. I stood so long beside 
 it, that I wrote one in my own mind. I daresay it 
 was widely different from the original. 
 
 The loud crowing of a cock, the sound of wheels, 
 the voices of carters and farm folk showed me that 
 the village was astir, and I began to think of getting 
 home. With brisk walking I could just do it by 
 breakfast-time. I opened the gate, and went out to 
 the stir and bustle of wakening life around. 
 
 The cottage doors were open ; children ran to and 
 fro to the pump, or tumbled over the doorsteps, or 
 mingled with roaming poultry and foolish, barking 
 puppies. The lovely sunshine rained its gold upon 
 them all. The sky smiled its welcome. I nodded 
 "good-mornings" as I walked down the street. So 
 many of them knew me by sight, seeing me driving 
 to the Court, or coming over from Scarffe for the 
 Sunday services. 
 
 I reached home just as the breakfast bell was 
 sounding and found the professor sunning himself 
 on the doorstep. I told him where I had been. "It 
 would have done you good to come too," I added. 
 "Such a heavenly morning as this makes one con- 
 tent only to be alive and know one is." 
 
 We went in to breakfast. Beside my plate lay a 
 letter. I saw it was from Lady St. Quinton. I 
 poured out the tea, and then opened it.
 
 182 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Mv DEAR PAULA: I intend to go to Uondon 
 next week. Tell me you will be able to accom- 
 pany me." 
 
 "Next week !" I exclaimed involuntarily. 
 
 The professor looked up. "What about next 
 week?" he asked. 
 
 "Lady St. Quinton wants me to go up to London 
 with her." 
 
 "There is no reason why you should not do so." 
 
 "No of course not. Only it is so much sooner 
 than I expected. And just as the country is getting 
 so lovely," I added regretfully. 
 
 "You will find a few troes in London," he said; 
 "and flowers also. You will soon be consoled, my 
 dear, for what you leave behind." 
 
 "I don't believe you are a bit sorry to lose me for 
 three whole months," I said, looking at him. "You 
 will be just as happy wi f h Graddage as with Paula." 
 
 "No, my child," he r.nswered, "I shall not. You 
 have changed the routine of my life for me; and I 
 shall always miss you now. But I cannot sacri- 
 fice your youth to my old age and monotonous hab- 
 its. Perhaps, my dear, you may not find the world 
 all you expect. You may even grow tired of it and 
 be glad to come back to this quiet refuge. It will 
 always be ready for you, Paula whatever betides." 
 
 I left my place and went up and put my arms 
 round his neck. 
 
 "I almost think," I said, "that you are a little bit 
 fond of this troublesome, vain and frivolous Paula, 
 who plagues you so. A little very little bit?" 
 
 "Yes," he said with a grave smile, "a very 
 little bit. She has found that out, as she will find 
 out many other things!"
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE old ruins were bathed in moonlight ; a clear, 
 translucent flood of moonlight that set them like 
 carved ivory against their darker background. Out 
 to them I felt I must go, and out to them I went. 
 
 Now I tell myself I am desperately sorry, for 
 this is what happened. I must write it down. It 
 is an event, a landmark on that road on which my 
 wilful feet are set. A landmark on which Paula 
 
 sheds the tears of a first regret. 
 
 ****** 
 
 The night was warm and the air sweet with 
 scents of spring. I passed through the street on 
 my way to the castle, and soon stood below its ivied 
 towers, listening to the babble of the stream, the 
 rush of the water that once had filled the moat. 
 
 And suddenly there strode through the shadowy 
 spaces a tall figure, and a familiar voice gave me 
 greeting. 
 
 "I had to come out," I said. "I couldn't help it. 
 Such a night; isn't it glorious?" 
 
 "Yes," he said quietly, "most beautiful. I, too, 
 found indoors was not the best place. I wonder if 
 you have noticed that I haven't seen you for two 
 days?" 
 
 "Haven't you?" I said. "Well, very soon you 
 won't see me for whole weeks, and whole months, 
 so it's well to get used to it." 
 
 He made no reply for a moment or two. 
 
 183
 
 184 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "I'm going up to London next week," I added; 
 "sooner than I expected." 
 
 "And you are glad?" he asked. "Of course; 
 your voice says it. What else should you be?" 
 
 "Exactly what else? Haven't I longed and 
 planned and thought and dreamt of it all this time ? 
 Of course I didn't expect to go quite so soon, but 
 Lady St. Quinton says my dresses will take some 
 time to get ready so we are off next week." 
 
 "Will you walk round by the old mill road with 
 me?" he asked suddenly. "I have a message to 
 leave at Widow Vye's. I should have gone this 
 afternoon, but hadn't time. It's not above half a 
 mile." 
 
 "I know that sweet, old cottage with the red 
 berries growing over it. Some people say she's the 
 oldest woman in Scarffe." 
 
 "Yes, she's ninety-two, and has never been out of 
 the place in her life." 
 
 "Gracious! I should call that stagnation; and 
 don't they say queer things about her? That she's 
 got second sight and can tell fortunes by cards? 
 Merrieless told me so." 
 
 "It doesn't do to believe the country gossips," he 
 answered. "She's a queer-looking old thing and a 
 very fair representative of a witch, as we think of 
 witches, but I don't fancy there's any harm in 
 her." 
 
 We had turned from the bridge and taken the 
 road at the base of the hill. The moonlight was so 
 radiant that we seemed to walk on whiteness ; every 
 leaf shone like a jewel, and the rose and gold of 
 blossoms wore their colors as by day. 
 
 "It might be June," I said, looking starward and 
 drawing a deep breath of fragrance; the air was
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 185 
 
 heavy with it chestnut and hawthorn, wallflower 
 and elder-bush, primroses and hidden violets. 
 
 "Oh, isn't it lovely lovely lovely! Like bath- 
 ing in dew and moonlight, with all the fresh scents 
 of spring thrown in !" 
 
 "Your feet almost dance," he said. "I suppose 
 you are perfectly happy, Miss Paula?" 
 
 He still hesitated between the use of Christian or 
 surname, though I had frankly dubbed him "Adam" 
 since the skating days. 
 
 "Happy? I should think so! I have everything 
 I want, and everything to look forward to." 
 
 "And yet," he said slowly, as he met my eyes, 
 "do you know you made me think just now of 
 what Savage Landor meant by 'That sad word 
 joy/ " 
 
 "Sad! What a paradox!" 
 
 "It- needs some thinking : but, though I can't ex- 
 press it, I can feel the meaning. You will too- 
 some day." 
 
 A sudden memory of that morning and the 
 churchyard came to me, and I saw again the little, 
 lonely grave and the cross of twisted hawthorn 
 twigs. A momentary shadow fell across the road, 
 and my dancing feet grew quiet. 
 
 "I never thought of 'joy' as a sad word. But 
 I suppose there is another meaning to it." 
 
 "Or to whom we apply it." 
 
 "Adam," I said irrelevantly, "I was up and out 
 before six o'clock this morning. Where do you 
 think I went?" 
 
 "I cannot tell not there?" glancing up at the 
 castle. 
 
 "Oh, no; quite away. To the old church of 
 Quinton Lacy."
 
 Ig6 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "A strange, dreary place to choose on a spring 
 morning," he said. 
 
 "I like contrasts. The difference between that 
 acre of the dead, and the miles of spreading woods 
 and fields and sea, was just what I needed to check 
 a too great love of life. Once they had been as I 
 was; one day I shall be as they are. I stood for a 
 long time by a tiny little mound it seemed new. 
 What struck me about it was that someone the 
 mother, I suppose had made a little cross out of 
 twigs and laid it on the grass. Nothing else. No 
 name, no flower, just the cross." 
 
 "That touched you?" he asked. 
 
 "It made me think, Adam. Made me remember 
 that life may be very short as well as very long 
 incomplete, as well as satisfied." 
 
 "Would you like to know the history of that little 
 grave?" he asked. "It is a very simple one." 
 
 "Yes; tell me." 
 
 "The child," he said, "was but a year old. The 
 mother a dairy hand on our farm. She fell in love 
 with a soldier, a recruiting sergeant ; he was looking 
 about for likely men to draft into the army. She 
 was very pretty, and very vain. I don't know what 
 tale he made her believe. She told my mother they 
 were married, but that her husband had been or- 
 dered abroad. I never caught sight of him after 
 the mischief was done. A little child was born 
 and from that hour the mother changed; pined, 
 drooped, died. W^e took care of the little one, but 
 suddenly the life seemed withering in it also. Per- 
 haps 'twas its mother it needed. Nature has won- 
 derful ways, Miss Paula. But, anyway, we couldn't 
 rear it, and it followed her. Tis its grave you 
 saw."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 187 
 
 "But who put the cross on it?" I asked, looking 
 up at his face, and wondering at its gravity. 
 
 "Maybe a friend," he said quietly. 
 
 "Adam !" I cried, "I know. It was you." 
 
 "There's no harm in that, is there, Miss Paula ? 
 Perhaps 'twould hurt the poor soul to know that no 
 one gave a thought to the babe, even though I hope 
 and trust 'tis safe in her arms once more. For God 
 couldn't part love like that, though man made sconi 
 of it." 
 
 "Scorn!" I repeated. 
 
 "Perhaps 'tisn't the sort of story I should be tell- 
 ing you, Miss Paula, but the man was bad ; a liar 
 and worse. Dolly wasn't his wife. He was a 
 married man." 
 
 I felt my face flame. "Is it possible that any 
 man could be so wicked?" 
 
 "I'm afraid there's plenty o' that sort o' wicked- 
 ness going about," said Adam, gravely. "All the 
 world over it spreads; among the great as among 
 the humble ; among the rich as among the poor." 
 
 I was silent for a space. "Adam," I said sud- 
 denly, "if I had never liked you before I should like 
 you for that thought of the little, dead child. It 
 shows you have a kind heart." 
 
 Impulsively I stopped and held out my hand. He 
 took it, and his eyes flashed with a new light. 
 
 "Don't be saying such tender words to me, or I 
 mayn't be strong enough to hold back what that 
 heart's so full of," he said huskily. "Full to over- 
 flowing full to the uttermost meaning of what you 
 call tenderness. And I know I mustn't speak I 
 daren't. You must know life first before you'll 
 learn the true meaning o' love" 
 
 "Love !" I said. My heart gave a sudden, quick
 
 188 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 throb. The stars and the radiant night whirled 
 dizzily. The scales fell from my eyes at last, and I 
 knew into what I had been drifting. 
 
 A pall of shyness, coldness, distaste fell over me 
 and all the natural joy that had held me hitherto. I 
 didn't want this. Joy of youth, of life, of all that 
 Nature painted for my soul's delight, these I needed, 
 but not love. Not what I saw in a man's eyes, a 
 man's face something imperative, demanding, 
 compelling. 
 
 I shrank back in a sort of terror. So may a child 
 shrink back when the match, carelessly thrown, kin- 
 dles a blaze that will devour a household. It seemed 
 as if every force within me rose to repel this unde- 
 sired assault. Fancy, imagination, romance, all the 
 flimsy web I had woven around my friendship for 
 Adam Herivale lay in tatters about my clinging 
 arms; but those arms would not relinquish their 
 hold. They strove desperately to wind the tattered 
 shreds around an image of self-respect. They 
 clothed coldness with an airy grace. 
 
 "Yes," I said eagerly, "it is life only I want to 
 know. Nothing else, Adam." 
 
 His face lost that fevered glow, and grew calm 
 and quiet as of old. 
 
 "Nothing else," he echoed. "But the meanings 
 of life are many. One by one you learn them only 
 to wish you had never learnt. For all that they 
 give is nothing to what they take. The best things, 
 the pure dreams, the happy, sinless days, the love of 
 God and Nature. The faith in what is best in man 
 or woman. Oh, Paula ! if you gain the world and 
 lose these you are beggared and my heart is 
 broken." 
 
 "I should be sorry," I said, "to hurt you, Adam,
 
 ! JILT'S JOURNAL. 189 
 
 in any way. We have been such good friends. I 
 am content to be that but nothing more. It never 
 entered my head that you would want us to be 
 different." ' 
 
 "Because you think I am not your equal socially." 
 
 "No, I never gave that a moment's consideration. 
 Because I don't want to love, or hear about love, or 
 be troubled with lovers. Not yet not ever, per- 
 haps. It means so much." 
 
 "Yes," he said, "it means pretty nigh every- 
 thing." 
 
 We walked on to the echo of that sigh of his. 
 And the sweet, white, magical world had a shadow 
 
 on it now, and Paula's feet no longer danced. 
 ##*#*# 
 
 One thing more I must write here before I close 
 my journal to-night. 
 
 We reached the old woman's cottage very soon 
 after those last words; reached it without breaking 
 silence. An old tumble-down place it was. A 
 stream divided it from the roadway, and a wooden 
 plank served as bridge. It was bowered in creepers 
 and held by ivy, and the old thatched roof and 
 quaint windows were things to delight an artist's 
 heart. 
 
 A light burned in the window, shedding a glow 
 of scarlet through the crimson glaze of the blind. 
 It wavered over a scrap of garden, and lay like a 
 thread along the tiny foot bridge . 
 
 Adam held out his hand. "Let me take you 
 over," he said; "it's only a frail bit o' plank, but 
 though the stream's shallow there's no need to get 
 your feet wet. I happen to know the 'tippitty' way 
 of it." 
 
 I also got to know the "tippitty" way of that
 
 190 A JILT'S JOUENAL. 
 
 plank ; but a spring, and Adam's strong hand landed 
 me safely. He knocked and we entered the cottage. 
 
 A lamp was on the table, and a fire burned in an 
 old, rusty grate, with its two wide hobs. Sitting in 
 a deep, quaint chair, with wooden back and sides, 
 was the old woman of whose fame I had heard. 
 She lifted her head as we entered. On the table be- 
 fore her lay a pack of cards spread out and covering 
 a considerable space. Oh, that ancient, ancient 
 face ! Oh, those strange eyes set back in shrunken 
 hollows ! Yet it was a face alive and keen, and full 
 of gnarled meaning, like the twisted roots of the 
 old tree that sheltered her cottage door. 
 
 She answered Adam's greeting cheerfully. 
 
 "Ye bain't come for the rent? 'Tain't ready; 
 nor likely to be." 
 
 "No," he said. "But, if you remember, we were 
 to do a bit o' repairs come spring, and father can 
 spare a man to-morrow, so I came to tell you." 
 
 "My hearty thanks for your trouble. And is it 
 courting time come spring, wi' you? A likely 
 enough lass, but not for you, Adam, lad. A meal 
 for your betters ; a dainty piece, too ! Will you hear 
 your fortune, miss? I'm main good at the cards. 
 Many's the luck I've told, and the sorrow too. 
 You're happy now in not bein' happy. But there's 
 changes comin', dark as storm on summer's day. 
 Shuffle the pack, miss, and cut." 
 
 I hesitated, then glanced at Adam. 
 
 Her bleared eyes shot an angry spark. 'Tain't 
 o' him you need take count, only your heart's nat'ral 
 instincts. You're not set on matrimony " (as she 
 turned up the card I had cut) "try another." 
 
 I obeyed, now grown curious as to what I was to 
 hear.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 191 
 
 "Bold eno' you be to fight your own battles 'tis 
 a strange wilfulness. There's journeys and changes 
 many a one, and a proud heart grown sore, and 
 the keeping o' pride and the keeping out o' other 
 women-folk. And men scores o' them followin' 
 look at the cards but no thought o' carin' for 
 one. There's a woman, golden-crowned like your- 
 self she brings you a power o' trouble ; and there's 
 one who bears you no good will. Beware o' her. 
 You'll know her by an eye o' blue blue as that bit 
 o' chancy, which has known nigh two-score years o' 
 my shelf." 
 
 She pointed to the quaint old figure of a man- 
 darin set above the smoke-blackened mantel. "Be- 
 ware o' that woman," she went on, placing card 
 after card, and reading them like a printed page. 
 "No good will she ever do you, or the man who 
 owns her, or the children she's borne him." 
 
 "Come, come, widow, that's enough o'that stuff," 
 said Adam. "You'll frighten the young lady, and 
 after all 'tis better she should find things out for 
 herself than be told to watch for troubles. They'll 
 come, if they are to come." 
 
 "You've but a barren sort o' knowledge, lad," 
 said the old woman, peering again into the out- 
 spread pack, as they lay before her. "I'll speak o' 
 your own fate presently, but let the young lady hear 
 and take warning." 
 
 He laid a sudden, imperative hand on the cards 
 and drew them all together. "No, no. I tell you I 
 won't have it." 
 
 She looked at me, and her eyes twinkled. "You 
 be bold eno' to face troubles," she said. "When the 
 hour comes that you want to know aught o' man 
 that hurts, or woman that hates, come you here, and
 
 193 A JILT'S JOUENAL. 
 
 old Marthy Vye will tell you way and ward against 
 misfortune." 
 
 Our walk home was silent and uncomfortable. 
 He bade me give no thought to what the old woman 
 had said, but yet I felt he was remembering it. 
 
 I, for my own part, was nursing a grudge against 
 him for this sudden spoiling of our friendship. I 
 liked him so much that I had no wish to like him 
 more. I had grown so used to him in the position 
 he had held, that the attempt to alter that position 
 disconcerted and displeased me. I could not help 
 feeling embarrassed. I avoided his eyes, and tried 
 to keep our restrained talk on impersonal subjects. 
 I felt half angry that we had met on this special 
 night. If I had only gone up to the ruins instead 
 of loitering on the bridge we would not have done 
 so, and there would not have been this dull, strange 
 feeling in my heart as I write ; there would not have 
 been that sense that I had not dealt fairly with 
 Adam that he had had a right to blame me. 
 
 For when we parted, and I had said, "Please for- 
 give me if I have caused you any pain," he had 
 laughed somewhat bitterly. 
 
 " "Tis a pain you'll cause many a man," he said. 
 "Maybe you don't mean to, or can't help it, but it's 
 hard on them that love, to look back on a long road 
 o' flowery beauty, and find they've but trodden 
 
 stones." 
 
 ****** 
 
 So I have found a lover and I don't want him. I 
 have found "love," and given it the cold shoulder! 
 
 What makes me remember suddenly that book of 
 confessions, and find myself confronting another 
 life, love-haunted and love-besought, and also in-
 
 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 193 
 
 capable of giving anything worth the name in 
 return ? 
 
 My reasoning faculties array themselves against 
 a too vivid impression of some inherited instinct, 
 but in the background I feel that the instinct is 
 strong enough to defy even my own rebellion at its 
 existence. 
 
 I seem a narrow-minded creature; cold of heart, 
 critical and faulty. A hateful, unlovable, miserable, 
 regretful Paula and the first blot on my journal is 
 the blot of tears.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THREE days have passed in a bustle of prepara- 
 tion and letter-writing. In none of those days have 
 I seen Adam Herivale. 
 
 This afternoon I walked over to the farm to bid 
 his mother good-by. She was sitting in her parlor, 
 her chair drawn up to the open window, so that the 
 spring scents and warmth and beauty should reach 
 her as she worked. 
 
 "Have you heard," I asked, "that I go to London 
 to-morrow ?" 
 
 "My son made mention of it," she said, looking 
 up from the sock she was knitting for that son. "I 
 hope you will have a pleasant time, my dear, and not 
 quite forget us in spite of the pleasures." 
 
 Her kind eyes looked at me as if asking had I 
 learnt Adam's secret. 
 
 She had a face whose noble beauty made every 
 emotion beautiful also. Some faces distort expres- 
 sion, or caricature it ; others turn it into an exquisite 
 meaning. 
 
 "I shall not forget you," I said with emphasis. 
 
 "You will be with grand folk, and very gay and 
 going to parties and balls every night eh, my 
 dear?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " 'Tis ofttimes with worldly pleasures the devil 
 sets his traps. I hope, my dear, you will not be alto- 
 gether ensnared. You're fair o' face, and sweet- 
 tongued, and the manner o' you is bewitching. It 
 
 194
 
 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 196 
 
 would beguile any man into thinking he was much 
 to you." 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Herivale!" I gasped. 
 
 "It's your way, child, and you can't be helping it. 
 I'll not deny that it's a very pleasant one, though 
 harmful. But maybe that's no fault of yours." 
 
 I felt my face grow suddenly warm. Could 
 Adam possibly have told her ? 
 
 "You'll be having sweethearts and thinking o' 
 marriage, no doubt," she went on placidly. "I'm 
 thinking 'tis now you'll feel the miss o' your mother, 
 my dear. The best friend you can have is never 
 what your own mother can be. She goes back and 
 asks her heart the same questions you are asking 
 yours, and by its joy, or pain, or the disappointment 
 of her own life, she finds material eno' to guide her 
 tongue to wisdom." 
 
 "I have no mother," I said earnestly. "Although 
 she has left me a legacy of wisdom. But I have to 
 find out its truth much of it is so bewildering and 
 so cruel." 
 
 Her eyes looked up questioningly. 
 
 "It's all in a book," I said hurriedly. 
 
 "There are things written in books to mislead as 
 well as to guide, my dear. I would not be putting 
 too much faith in man's wisdom." 
 
 "What about woman's?" 
 
 "Maybe she has a clever brain and keen senses, is 
 quick and ready to argue, or to feel. But ever and 
 always 'tis her heart makes her danger. Many and 
 many a one has crossed the bridge of faith, all hope 
 and gladness, only to find on the other side a black 
 and dreary waste. No Promised Land o' Glory." 
 
 "But if she doesn't cross the bridge she can't tell 
 what lies beyond," I argued.
 
 19G A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "True, my dear. And I often think 'tisn't meant 
 she should. For love is a good thing, and a woman 
 needs it ; even if it brings sorrow and tears, 'tis bet- 
 ter to have known the cause o' the sorrow, the smart 
 o' the tears, than gone through life with its one 
 great need unsatisfied." 
 
 "You," I asked, "have never wanted to change 
 your fate?" 
 
 "Never," she said emphatically. 
 
 "Never wanted to get away from these surround- 
 ings? The even, constant routine of weeks, and 
 months, and years?" 
 
 "Never. God placed me here for a purpose and a 
 duty. I have tried to do His will." 
 
 I looked at the sweet, placid face, the busy fingers. 
 I thought of the splendid physique of her children, 
 the devotion of her husband, the charmed circle of 
 home-love of which she was the centre, and I told 
 myself she had made of life a nobler thing than I 
 should ever do. 
 
 Morbidity of thought is self-destruction. It 
 withdraws the healthy root to analyze its component 
 parts, and then replants a cutting! 
 
 I shook myself free of a tendency to disagree witK 
 Divine orderings of commonplace human events, 
 and told her I was sure she had chosen the best part. 
 
 All the same, though I might have repeated her 
 life, lived on here beloved and honored and safely 
 sheltered from the world's temptings, I knew I 
 should never have been content. I wanted so much 
 more. 
 
 She, like Adam, had been satisfied to let Natures 
 teach her, and Nature never permits us to feel and 
 analyze at the same moment what it is we feel. She 
 draws us along with the flow of her own current
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 197 
 
 that living, rushing, throbbing current that is exist- 
 ence and joy in one. 
 
 Mrs. Herivale talked on and I listened, as I al- 
 ways did; and left her, soothed by her sweet, wise 
 words. She never spoke of evil things; of human 
 passions let loose without restraint; of riddles of 
 thought and feeling, forever seeking answer, and 
 getting none; of torments of self-investigation; of 
 all those torturing, bewildering things that had 
 come to me of late without desire of my own. 
 Fruit of what I had read, and heard, and imagined 
 of three months' mental growth. 
 
 What height should I have reached ere the next 
 three months had passed? Ere that "quiet autumn 
 time" of which she spoke should find me here again? 
 
 I took the short cut home across the fields, asking 
 myself these questions. 
 
 The sun was near setting, and its red glint was 
 over the brown hills and quiet meadows. I looked 
 about, wondering if I should meet Adam. If I did 
 not, I should see him no more till I returned. That 
 long talk with his mother had left me in an almost 
 penitent mood penitent for havoc wrought in this 
 quiet, well-ordered life. I should like to have 
 looked once more into that frank and kindly face, to 
 have felt that warm, strong handclasp, to have 
 heard him say "Godspeed." 
 
 Even as the thought came I looked up and saw 
 him crossing the next field. He was near enough 
 to see me. I felt sure he did see me, but he made no 
 sign of recognition. Only it seemed to me that he 
 hurried his steps, and leaping the low stone wall, 
 passed on and up the road that led to Quinton Lacy. 
 
 I stopped dead. I could scarcely believe my eyes. 
 Then his figure passed out of sight, lost in a mazy
 
 198 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 confusion of light and shadow as the twilight de- 
 scended from the circling hills above. 
 
 My pride rose up in arms. To be ignored; "cut" 
 in this curt, unceremonious fashion, and by a mere 
 farmer's son! A man who had been the willing 
 slave of my every caprice for months past. 
 
 It seemed incredible. Was my offence so great, 
 or his pride so hurt? 
 
 I had penetrated a little further into the realms of 
 reality than I had bargained for. But to be taught 
 that my power was short-lived that my proffered 
 friendship could meet such discourtesy these 
 things stung and rankled. I did not like them. 
 
 I had assured him he would soon forget, but I 
 wanted to teach him how to do it, not receive a 
 lesson from him instead. 
 
 Swiftly and with burning cheeks I went my way. 
 I had a frightful sense of bungling absurdity. I 
 tingled from head to foot with shame. 
 
 "How the girls would laugh," I said to myself. 
 "Oh, how they would laugh !".... 
 
 But I don't feel like laughing. And yet I write 
 it all down here ! Not for the girls, though they 
 
 must never know. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Merrieless brushed out my hair to-night. I saw 
 the reflection of red, reproachful eyes. 
 
 "How it's to be borne without you, miss the 
 textses and the preaching, and your sins o' back- 
 slidin' forever thrown at your head ! I don't know. 
 Aunt gets that irritating that 'tis more than mortal 
 patience can stand. 'Tis well eno' for her to preach 
 o' vanities with a clay-cold man laid to rest in 
 churchyard blessedness ; but she's known the state o' 
 life, and worn the badge o' lawful matrimony, and
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 199 
 
 hasn't no manner o' right to find fault with others 
 for seekin' similar timely pleasures." 
 
 I laughed. "Suppose it wasn't a pleasure or 
 'timely' ? Perhaps she's only warning you to be 
 cautious, Merry. Men are changeable creatures, 
 you know. Fire before marriage, and snow 
 after." 
 
 "Well, snow be easy melted, miss, and my heart's 
 a warm one." 
 
 "Then if the snow melts what would you do?" 
 
 She looked puzzled at such pursuing of metaphor. 
 
 "I ha'n't thought so much o' the matter out, miss. 
 Nor do I be believin' such ill o' a man as has loved 
 true and faithful nigh upon two twelvemonths." 
 
 "Do you want to get married, Merry?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh ! that is putting the matter in a way to make 
 one bashful, miss. No right-feelin' woman ever 
 says she wants the ordinance o' matrimony for her 
 own experience, but she's just waitin' to take it if 
 chance do bring it her way." 
 
 "Then how long do you want to wait?" 
 
 "Gregory he be talkin' o' this coming Christmas, 
 miss; wages and a cottage bein' conformable, and 
 the work at the farm certain." 
 
 "Next Christmas! Oh, Merry, what shall / do 
 without you?" 
 
 "That's payin' me an honor as is not my due, 
 miss, for there be girls in plenty for service ; and it's 
 not out of the probable that you might be marryin' 
 too." 
 
 "Oh, no, Merry !" I said hastily, "not in the least 
 likely. I don't want to be tied down to a man and 
 his will. That's what happens when you get mar- 
 ried, unless, of course, you quarrel and go each your 
 separate way."
 
 200 A JILTS JOURNAL. 
 
 "That not bein' true and hon'rable matrimony, 
 miss, as considered by the Church Service." 
 
 "I suppose not; but I'm afraid it's not uncom- 
 mon." 
 
 "What's taught you this side o' the matter, miss, 
 if I may make so bold ?" 
 
 "Books modern novels and modern women," 
 I said. 
 
 "Well, my showings for it are only my feelin's, 
 miss, and they do counsel love and obedience, and 
 patient bearing with the man if he's not too contu- 
 mashus. Then a handled broomstick is not a bad 
 sort o' corrective, specially if he's in his cups, as 
 most o' them is when talkin' to argufyin', and re- 
 tainin' wages as ought to be for the wife's right o' 
 spendin'." 
 
 "Dear me," I said, "I can hardly fancy you with 
 a broomstick, Merry, chastising Gregory. The old 
 one, now, might deserve it, but not your swain." 
 
 "The old one is sobered down a bit o' late," she 
 said. "Rheumatics caught a hold o' him, and he's 
 all o' a groan instead o' a cackle. That cheerful 
 soul o' his came down wonderful meek when he had 
 to have his limbs liniminted, and his beer stopped. 
 And talkin' o' the ancient sinner 'twas Gregory all 
 but gave him a clout for the darin' words o' you, 
 sayin' you'd been and jilted the young master, and 
 made him a sort o' pictur' o' misery that scarce 
 knows his business when he goes to do it." 
 
 "How dared he say such a thing!" I asked furi- 
 ously, as I gave my head an angry jerk that sent 
 the brush flying. "Do you mean to say that it's 
 farmhouse gossip that I and Adam Herivale " 
 
 "Were as good as courtin'. Yes, miss. They're 
 poor, ignorant folk and don't take much account o'
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 201 
 
 difference in stations, and young Adam Herivale 
 was most worshipful, miss. Anyone could see that 
 'twas love wi' him whatever it might be wi' you." 
 
 "And they dare to say I jilted him?" 
 
 " 'Twas the word, miss ; but him that spoke it is 
 but an ignorant, unlettered man as looks on life but 
 one way, and that's his own." 
 
 I had scarcely known what real anger was as yet. 
 There had been nothing to call it forth but the little 
 tiffs and quarrels of school-life. 
 
 Now, however, I felt aroused to wrath, hot and 
 indignant. 
 
 Paula's anxiety to stand well in everyone's esti- 
 mation, Paula's desire to be praised and appreciated, 
 met with a rude shock. 
 
 A jilt! 
 
 That odious word to be applied to me! To 
 think that I must go forth from my first conquest 
 branded with so hateful a designation. 
 
 Must a girl accept a man's love if she accept his 
 attentions ? Is one only the precursor of the other ? 
 At what critical moment should she draw back? 
 How learn the signs when friendship drifts to love ? 
 How tell a man you do not need him, and spoil his 
 happiness, before actually allowing to yourself that 
 it is happiness you are spoiling? 
 
 I dismissed Merrieless, having no further inclina- 
 tion for her quaint babble dismissed her, and gave 
 myself up to my own thoughts. 
 
 To-night I closed a chapter of my journal and a 
 chapter of my life. It saddened me, amidst all the 
 glamor of expectation, to think that I closed them 
 with remorse.
 
 PART II. 
 
 The Fruit of Knowledge* 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Is Paula a fool? 
 
 It is Paula herself who asks that question of her- 
 self, three months later. 
 
 What have these three months held ? 
 
 More than my journal could chronicle had I 
 chosen to write down day by day, hour for hour, the 
 lessons that life was teaching. More than I care to 
 say even as I resume my old habit of scribbling. 
 
 More than I can say even to Lesley, who has come 
 back with me for a week's visit before her marriage. 
 
 Yes Lesley is to be married, and I according 
 to a long-ago promise am to be one of her brides- 
 maids. 
 
 She is making a "great match," so Lady Archie 
 told me, but I am sure that she is being coerced into 
 it by some of those invisible forces applied to girls, 
 whose whole duty, according to Society, is to make 
 a brilliant marriage. 
 
 Lesley's will be a brilliant marriage. Lord Lyn- 
 mouth is one of the "catches" of many seasons, and 
 has hitherto escaped all the traps of matchmaking 
 
 202
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 203 
 
 mothers and guileless debutantes. Yet he fell a 
 victim to Lesley, and though I appreciate his taste, 
 I abhor him. 
 
 That is the worst of friendship ! It has to be cut 
 asunder by some knife of disapproval. It is impos- 
 sible to agree on every point. Certainly impossible 
 to agree on the choice of the man or woman who 
 first divides it. 
 
 I know my Lesley, my chum, my school idol will 
 never be to me what she has been, once a husband 
 claims her ; once she takes up that position to which 
 her marriage will entitle her. 
 
 We had seen a great deal and yet very little of one 
 another in that season I spent in London. A time 
 at which I am now looking back critically, conscious 
 that to write the truth of it will make me seem a 
 somewhat vain and essentially fickle young person. 
 
 I wrote no journal there. My days were too 
 crowded, my leisure too rare. There is no doubt 
 that Lady St. Quinton gave me what Americans call 
 a "lovely time." 
 
 I rode and drove with hundreds of others who 
 rode trained hacks, and adorned cee-spring car- 
 riages. I danced, and dined, and "at homed;" 
 meeting persistently the same set of people, and 
 hearing perpetually the same sort of talk. I was 
 satiated with music, and grew critical as to fashion- 
 able pianists and vocalists. I was taken to see pic- 
 tures which gave me but a poor idea of modern art, 
 and had learnt to give opinions on men, manners 
 and morals which invariably made the recipients 
 laugh, or declare I was "rippin' good fun," or as ex- 
 hilarating as a glass of champagne. 
 
 For, with all her rusticity, Paula was essentially 
 critical and exacting. Vapid speeches, unconvinc-
 
 204 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 ing compliments, never satisfied her. She wanted 
 something very different. 
 
 She had two proposals, formal and definite, and 
 about a dozen undeclared and indecisive confessions 
 of what might have meant love, had she so chosen. 
 
 She did not choose it. 
 
 The same spirit that had interested her in Adam 
 Herivale interested her in those London men, up to 
 a certain point. Beyond that she would not go, 
 and nothing could tempt her. In vain Lady St. 
 Quinton urged that a brilliant marriage would make 
 of her a perfect success ! 
 
 Paula preferred to be an imperfect one as yet. 
 ****** 
 
 I went to town labeled "jilt" I have come back 
 an acknowledged coquette. And all because I will 
 know the full meaning of those simulated passions, 
 those professed attachments ; the homage that is at 
 once incense to one's vanity and shame to one's 
 better instincts. None of these men could move me 
 beyond a certain point. When I reached that point 
 I began to analyze them. It was not that I had 
 raised a standard of excellence to which I expected 
 they would attain, but that I sought to know their 
 own standard, and found it so poor, or so trivial, 
 that I felt nothing but contempt for the com- 
 petitors. 
 
 I saw no harm in leading them to self-betrayal, 
 because I considered a woman had every right to 
 know what sort of a bargain she was making when 
 she deliberately put herself and her future into a 
 man's hands. 
 
 He might choose a wife for her beauty, her fasci- 
 nation, her wealth even, but she should choose no 
 man for external advantages of physique or posi-
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 205 
 
 tion. So as I dismissed my suitors with calm indif- 
 ference, I received many a lecture from my 
 chaperon. 
 
 "It would be so advantageous to come back next 
 season a young married woman," she urged. "It is 
 the era of the young married woman. She has all 
 the admiration and all the prestige, and all the op- 
 portunities denied to the mere girl." 
 
 "Those seem odd incentives to marriage," I 
 answered. 
 
 "You have surely some ambition. You don't 
 look the sort of girl to go through an uninteresting 
 life." 
 
 "I hope to get a deal of interest out of it before 
 I marry." 
 
 "But you are throwing away such good oppor- 
 tunities. You have offended so many men. A man 
 hates to look a fool, and you lead them on till they 
 are sure you mean acceptance, and then you refuse 
 them." 
 
 "Because I don't care to marry one of them." 
 
 "Why not? There's Tommy Yelverton." 
 
 "Tommy Dodd, as they call him a young man 
 with but one idea, and that's himself." 
 
 "He has acquired another of late, and that's 
 yourself." 
 
 "Well, the idea is all he will acquire, for I would 
 never marry him" 
 
 "Mr. St. Aubyn, then. He's a rising man, and 
 you like politicians." 
 
 "He's such an echo of other people's opinions, 
 and so selfish." 
 
 "How do you contrive to find out the worst 
 points of every man you meet?" 
 
 I laughed. "I don't know. Perhaps they don't
 
 206 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 show me their best. I like to draw them out, and 
 they apparently like to confess. I've heard 
 Tommy Yelverton's own opinions of Tommy Yel- 
 verton, and very funny they are. That millionaire 
 from South Africa, Reuben Goldstein, first told me 
 how he made his money, and then enlightened me as 
 to the feat known as going on the 'razzle-dazzle/ 
 I believe that meant spending the aforesaid money 
 idiotically, by the help of other people." 
 
 "Paula!" 
 
 "Well, dear, you asked me, and I am explaining. 
 Carlton Clyde, again, who you said was epris, only 
 used to talk about his success at 'bac/ as he called 
 it, and the scandals retailed at the Bachelors'. That 
 rich young American, who was going to marry into 
 our 'aristocracy,' gave me an insight into the free 
 unbiased condition of the American press. Sir 
 Richard Dense, whom everyone calls 'Dickey D/ 
 was very communicative with regard to ladies of the 
 ballet and some popular actresses. What he used 
 to tell me after half a dozen glasses of champagne at 
 supper well, perhaps you'd rather not hear !" 
 
 "I'd rather you had never heard," she said in 
 alarm. "I thought you such a modest, reserved 
 girl, Paula. How comes it that you've managed to 
 draw so much out of your admirers?" 
 
 "That's my artfulness, I suppose. They all 
 thought they were impressing me, while all the time 
 they were disillusioning. I know the heart of man 
 and his foibles and vanities a great deal better than 
 he thinks I know it. Perhaps it is the contrast " 
 I stopped, then hurried on. "They think I'm young 
 and fresh and they give me 'tips,' so that I need 
 not betray my ignorance of the social ropes." 
 
 "All this, I suppose, comes of being the niece of a
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 207 
 
 clever man," murmured Lady St. Quinton, ruefully. 
 "They say his brother, your father, was even clev- 
 erer than the professor, and your mother would have 
 been a second George Eliot had she lived." 
 
 "I am not sure I should have cared for her to be 
 that," I said. "You see I've read the Life and 
 Letters." 
 
 Lady St. Quinton turned the conversation, and 
 again paraded before me my admirers, my chances, 
 and my astonishing indifference to both. 
 
 It was indifference save so far as the extraction 
 of facts on which to build my opinions, and form 
 my theories. 
 
 I let thought wing me back to that brilliant epi- 
 sode my first season. Rapid as a bird's flight 
 seem those days of leisure and pleasure now I look 
 back on them ! I remember their incidents because 
 Nature has gifted me with a brain that photographs 
 and chronicles. I could take up any one of those 
 incidents and what led to it, and what in turn led 
 to the conclusions I have formed, were I so dis- 
 posed; but the few facts I have jotted down tell 
 enough. 
 
 When I began by asking myself if I were a fool, I 
 asked it from the point of view of Lady St. Quin- 
 ton; of that audacious firefly, the Lorely, whom I 
 saw so often and hated so cordially ; of saddest of 
 all my friend, Lesley Heath ! 
 
 For in different words and different ways they 
 had all insinuated the same thing, "You had the ball 
 at your feet and you've kicked it away ; you'll never 
 get another chance." 
 
 Lesley had picked up her ball. Its possession, 
 however, did not seem to make her happy. Be- 
 tween us, of late, had crept a thin crust of reserve.
 
 208 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 She had grown reticent of expressing her feelings, 
 and I did not like to question her too closely. 
 
 I felt angered often when I thought of the happy, 
 careless school days, the talks and confidences, the 
 long letters we had exchanged even in brief ab- 
 sences. 
 
 The first chill had come with that visit to the 
 Riviera. She had stayed with her step-mother at 
 the villa of a certain Russian princess, had breathed 
 an atmosphere of the most lavish and enervating 
 extravagance, had met a crowd of men and women 
 steeped to their finger-tips in worldly follies, and 
 with one unceasing craze for excitement in some 
 form. 
 
 It had been a bad school for a young girl, and 
 Lesley's delicate beauty, and that sweet, small face 
 of hers, had created a sensation among them all. 
 
 Hers was that strange combination apparent 
 helplessness and physical strength. The clear- 
 tinted, clear-cut face made one think of ivory or 
 porcelain, and the brown hair was so thick and 
 ruffled that, to me, it always seemed to cast a shadow 
 over the whiteness of the brow from which it waved. 
 
 That wave was ensnaring. Brush, or pin, or 
 band the hair as you would, always it fell back into 
 one soft ripple, and underneath its shadow of dusky 
 brown the deep, full-lidded eyes looked out with 
 something of a child's appeal, and a woman's fear of 
 the unknown. 
 
 It seemed to me they always held the fear now. 
 
 But she would not speak of it, nor of why it had 
 come, nor of that time when her letters ceased 
 abruptly, and my promised description of the Riv- 
 iera and the life of the gay little cities it owned was 
 never fulfilled.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 209 
 
 When she told me she was going 1 to marry Lord 
 Lynmouth I could not believe it. He was a weak- 
 looking, dissipated man of forty, enormously weal- 
 thy, and with a reputation as enormously bad. Yet 
 in cold, unmoved tones she announced she had ac- 
 cepted him, and was to be married at the beginning 
 of October. 
 
 She was giving me one week of herself. One 
 week of quiet days among my peaceful surround- 
 ings. It had been her own suggestion to come. 
 And I scarcely believed she meant it. 
 
 But she is here, and she is sleeping now in the 
 adjoining room while I write. 
 
 Lady St. Quinton wanted us to stay at the Court, 
 but Lesley answered, "No. I want Paula to my- 
 self, and I am sure Paula wants me." 
 
 And I did want her. But I wanted my own 
 Lesley, the girl I had known, the friend I had loved. 
 
 Should I ever find her again?
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 TO-DAY I took Lesley to the castle, and showed 
 her all my favorite spots. 
 
 We sat on the western slope, and I pointed to the 
 cottage where Widow Vye lived, and described her 
 powers of fortune-telling. Lesley was interested, 
 and I repeated the prophecies which I remembered 
 so well. 
 
 "That description of blue eyes rather applies to 
 Lady Brancepeth," she said. "And, for some rea- 
 son or other, Paula, she bears you no good will. 
 How did you manage to offend her ?" 
 
 I mentioned Captain Jim and the little incident 
 of the screen. We discussed the incident with some 
 diffidence, but it would be absurd to say that it held 
 no significance for us now. A London season illu- 
 minates the meaning of many strange friendships. 
 
 "Have you ever heard from him since he went 
 away?" asked Lesley. 
 
 "No, not a word. I liked him rather. I hoped 
 he would write. He was better than most of the 
 men I have met. I mean he didn't only talk of sport, 
 or scandal, or pay one foolish compliments." 
 
 "He drove you home against the Lorely's orders 
 and sent you those things for your drawing-room! 
 My dear, of course she'd hate you! He has been 
 her special property so long that she'd never forgive 
 the woman who made him forswear his allegiance." 
 
 "That sort of thing," I observed, "is very com- 
 210
 
 A JILT'S JOUBNAL. 211 
 
 mon in Society, isn't it ? At first I thought it was 
 only in Ouida's novels that one found the Lady Joan 
 and Duchess de Sonnaz type of woman. But they 
 do exist." 
 
 "Indeed they do. Books only describe what life 
 produces. The life of the smart world is about as 
 immoral as well, as the two characters you have 
 mentioned. Think of the extravagances, the waste 
 of money, the thousand follies they commit. When 
 I stayed at Princess Tchernigov's villa there were 
 two women there who frankly acknowledged their 
 dress allowance was supplemented by obliging 
 friends of the male persuasion. As for flowers 
 and gloves and jewels they were offered and ac- 
 cepted as a matter of course." 
 
 "Oh, Lesley," I said involuntarily, "and you are 
 marrying into this set !" 
 
 She made no answer. Her eyes wandered off to 
 the golden harvest fields that stretched to right and 
 left. 
 
 "What has become of Adam Herivale?" she 
 asked suddenly. 
 
 "I don't know. I suppose he is still at the farm. 
 He will be busy now. It is harvest time." 
 
 "I should like to meet him." 
 
 "Why? He is not at all your style of man." 
 
 "But he is a man. At least your description 
 showed him as one. It must be refreshing to meet 
 one like him simple, natural, true without the 
 vices of modern life, or the nauseating affection that 
 is labeled culture. Bring him over while I am here, 
 Paula." 
 
 I felt my cheeks grow hot. "I don't know if he 
 will come," I said. 
 
 "Why have you quarreled?"
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 "Not exactly. But before I left here well, 
 
 "Oh, Paula, fie! Another broken heart?" 
 
 "I hardly think his heart is broken. And really, 
 Lesley, it was not my fault. I liked him very much 
 in a friendly, appreciative fashion; but, oh why 
 will men always want you to love instead of like 
 them? There's such a difference between the two, 
 but they seem to think if you like to talk, or walk 
 with, or are interested in them, you must of necessity 
 fall into love as well. They spoil everything by 
 such a ridiculous idea !" 
 
 "I suppose it is an idea that is the outcome of 
 generations of slavish conquests. They think of us 
 still as possible captives of bow and spear; the 
 weapons only are different. Physical force has 
 given place to mental, or magnetic, coercion. They 
 would keep the attitude of 'conqueror' always if they 
 could." 
 
 "Lesley, dearest," I said suddenly, "are you happy 
 in the thought of this marriage? It seems to me " 
 
 She stopped me by a pressure of her hand. 
 
 "Dear Paula, I never question the why and where- 
 fore of my actions as you do. I want certain things 
 of life and I take them while I have the chance. 
 It will suit me very well to be queen of a social set 
 that has only seen in me a girl's possibilities. This 
 may sound very ignoble to you, but I have had a 
 different education. As for love" her voice grew 
 hard "it doesn't really last. It is very well while 
 it does, but there are certain substantial benefits 
 infinitely preferable. I am built on small lines 
 you on great ones. I have certain inherited tenden- 
 cies that lead me to prefer luxury to insignificance. 
 I can't help them. I only know they are as much a
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 213 
 
 part of myself as my hair or my hands. They will 
 make up to me for many things. My husband-to- 
 be may not seem a very desirable individual, but to 
 me he is a very necessary one." 
 
 "You are only echoing Lady Archie. It's not 
 your old true self speaking!" 
 
 Our eyes met mine were hot and indignant. 
 Hers was it pain I read in them? Pain and re- 
 bellion suppressed by a strong hand, held down and 
 conquered by force of will. I thought so, and the 
 thought hurt me as nothing had hurt me yet. 
 
 "My old true self," she echoed, with a pause be- 
 tween each word. "I wonder where it is, Paula? 
 Out of sight somewhere, or buried alive beneath 
 an avalanche of worldly maxims? I confess I should 
 not know where to look for it, or what to do with it 
 if I found it." 
 
 "I don't believe it's lost," I said earnestly. "You 
 are pretending to me as well as to your own heart, 
 Lesley. In this quiet, simple life doesn't the old self 
 come back and look at you with reproach ? Nature 
 never intended you to be the heartless coquette of 
 fashion typified by such a woman as Lady Brance- 
 peth." 
 
 Her face flushed suddenly. "Why did you bring 
 up her name?" 
 
 "Because I think she is responsible for the change 
 in you. An incentive to the race for a prize " 
 
 "It certainly is a prize, my dear," she said mock- 
 ingly. "Forty thousand a year, and two country 
 seats, and a town mansion! I could not in justice 
 to myself allow any one else to go off with them." 
 
 "But if you are unhappy?" 
 
 "Paula," she said bitterly, "one is bound to be 
 unhappy soon or late. It's a law of life from which
 
 214 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 there's no escape. And as some modern writer 
 cleverly puts it, it is better to be unhappy in com- 
 fortable surroundings than in uncomfortable ones. 
 Cold that is warded off by satin eiderdowns and 
 blazing fires is cold rendered luxurious. Who would 
 prefer a tattered blanket, or an empty grate? I 
 have been brought up to luxury. I have no fortune 
 of my own. I have won the heart of a man who 
 can give me everything I want, and I assure you, 
 Paula, I want a great deal, because " 
 
 She broke off, then rose abruptly. "Let us walk 
 on," she said, her tone hard and strangely altered. 
 "And for God's sake, Paula, don't lure me into sen- 
 timental confidences. They are useless. I have 
 made up my mind." 
 
 I rose and followed her silently down the castle 
 slopes. We walked past the old inn. A crowd of 
 children were grouped round the Market Cross as if 
 awaiting some event. 
 
 Suddenly in the distance sounded the merry blast 
 of a horn. We glanced down the narrow street 
 leading to the bridge, and saw a coach dashing up 
 the hill. It rounded the corner and drew up in fine 
 style before the great square porch of the Deer- 
 hound Inn. The red-coated guard descended nim- 
 bly, and the owner of the inn advanced with a smile 
 of welcome and an eye to the patronage of hungry 
 luncheon-seekers. The coach was crowded with 
 people, and Lesley and I watched them descend and 
 gaze about this Sleepy Hollow with some interest. 
 
 "Oh, that's the coach from Glenbourne, twenty 
 miles away," I said. "It comes once a week in the 
 season, but I've never been here at this time of year 
 before. What a lot of people! I suppose they 
 come to see the castle."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 215 
 
 They were gazing about in that questioning, curi- 
 ous manner of tourists. Perhaps wondering, as I 
 had done, that the vulgarity of modern life should 
 desecrate so quaint a bit of ancient history as 
 Scarffe. 
 
 For bicycles and cheap teas always seemed to me 
 a desecration of the beautiful peace those circling 
 hills had so long shut in from the inharmonious in- 
 trusion of the world without. But alas ! the bicycle, 
 and the excursion train, and the advertised "coach- 
 ing trip" were doing what all modern civilization 
 does destroying the quaint and stately grace that 
 still clings about historical landmarks ! 
 
 I had not yet learned what this morning taught 
 me that peering eyes, and loud voices, and vulgar 
 jests, and the competition of cheap wagonettes and 
 hired "bikes" could turn Scarffe and its beautiful 
 old ruin into a Hampstead Heath on bank holidays. 
 
 Lesley was watching the dispersing crowd with an 
 interest I could not emulate. Suddenly an indi- 
 vidual from among it approached us a young, 
 good-looking man with a field-glass swung over his 
 shoulder, and a guide-book in his hand. 
 
 He lifted his hat. "May I ask you, ladies," he 
 said, "if that's the way to the ruins?" 
 
 I felt inclined to. answer, "May I ask you, man, if 
 you've got eyes?" But his accent had given him 
 away. I had learned something of that insatiable 
 curiosity for information which has made the New 
 World so important and domineering. I recognized 
 an exponent of this curiosity, and answered it. 
 
 "That path," I said, "leads to a stone bridge. Be- 
 fore you is the gateway. You will note the massive 
 towers twenty feet in diameter that have been blown 
 to pieces by the Parliamentary gunpowder of 1646.
 
 216 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 You will also pay sixpence for admission beyond 
 that gateway. We don't give anything away in 
 this country even ruins." 
 
 "I guess you're giving away a fair lot of infor- 
 mation," he said, smiling, and displaying a row of 
 beautifully white and even teeth under a brown 
 mustache. "I s'pose you live here and know all 
 about it?" 
 
 "I live here," I said, "but I know very little 
 about it. I think we English don't concern our- 
 selves about our surroundings, once we get used to 
 them." 
 
 "Is that so ?" he inquired, his face growing eager. 
 "Well, now, it's often struck me that we Americans 
 could give you points on your own history. As a 
 nation you do seem ver-ry indifferent to it, if I may 
 say so." 
 
 "I am afraid we are," I said. "We ought to be 
 grateful for the introduction of Atlantic liners. 
 They have at least helped us to some knowledge of 
 our national possessions. Wasn't it an American 
 traveler who first discovered Stonehenge?" 
 
 "I don't know about that," he said, with a keen 
 look. "But I'm main sure that we taught you more 
 about your Tower of London and your Shakes- 
 peare's village than you'd ever guessed." 
 
 Lesley looked at him and half smiled. "Yours is 
 a young nation," she said, "and it has all youth's 
 enthusiasm and buoyancy. This old land has had 
 time to get tired of its history even of itself." 
 
 "I guess that's so," he said. "Though we wouldn't 
 object to some of the history, and a good deal of 
 itself." 
 
 He glanced at me again, or rather at my hair, 
 and up once more to the castle ruins.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 217 
 
 "I s'pose," he said, "I'd best be getting along. 
 There's a great deal to see up there, I'm told." 
 
 "Yes, and as you've thoughtfully provided your- 
 self with a guide-book you'll be at no loss to find out 
 the points of interest." 
 
 "I I was thinking of spending a couple of days 
 here," he went on. "Might I ask if that inn's the 
 only sort of ho-tel in the place?" 
 
 "The only one. But it's very comfortable, and 
 you can have the privilege of doing without gas, or 
 elevators, or iced water, and sleeping in a room in 
 which you can barely stand upright. I think the 
 date is somewhere about 1733, if that's old enough 
 to be of any value." 
 
 He glanced at the quaint stone porch, and then 
 up to the old gray, moss-covered roofs around. 
 
 "It's about the most me-diaeval place I've yet 
 seen," he observed. "I guess I'll stay." 
 
 "You had better see about accommodation," I 
 suggested. "A great many artists come here, and 
 they always make the inn their headquarters." 
 
 "Thank you. I'll just go and deposit my 'grip.' 
 I hope you'll excuse me for saying it's been a real 
 pleasure to meet such a frank-spoken young Eng- 
 lish lady. Mostly they freeze up if you so much as 
 ask them a question. We don't mean any harm by 
 our questions. It's just our way to use our tongues. 
 Your folk, I reckon, chain them up." 
 
 I laughed outright. He was so breezy and care- 
 less and good-humored that I felt perfectly assured 
 he would not misinterpret my own frankness. 
 
 "I hope you'll enjoy your stay," I said. "Scarffe 
 is a most interesting place, and so are its surround- 
 ings." 
 
 "Of that I'm sure," he said, with an emphatic
 
 218 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 glance again at my hair. "Good morning, and 
 thank you for all your information. Would you 
 shake?" 
 
 He extended his hand. I gave him mine. But 
 Lesley, with the faintest lifting of penciled eye- 
 brows, only bowed and passed on. 
 
 ''Do you always make friends in that free-and- 
 easy manner?" she asked, as we walked home- 
 ward. 
 
 "Not always," I said. "But you must remember 
 I am a student of life. What harm was there in 
 exchanging those few words? I knew he was an 
 American, and I think they are so interesting. And 
 they are always polite to women." 
 
 "So their own women say," she answered. "It is 
 because they are so used to exacting that they come 
 over here to monopolize." 
 
 "They do take our best titles, there's no doubt of 
 that," I observed. 
 
 "Well, I used rather to admire them until that 
 Mrs. Washington E. Decker took to walking in the 
 Park with a diamond-handled umbrella, and a long 
 chain hanging from her neck containing a sort of 
 transparent locket in which was a cigar-end that the 
 Kaiser had once smoked. That cured my admira- 
 tion." 
 
 I laughed softly. "I know. She called it her 
 'Relic.' But after all, Lesley, it isn't fair to judge 
 a nation by its travelling samples. We English 
 haven't an all-round reputation in that line." 
 
 "But we don't chip off stones whenever we come 
 across an historical edifice, or gather up the refuse 
 of royalty." 
 
 "But we do scribble our names over any available 
 space, or cut them into the walls of history," I said.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 219 
 
 "You'll find the British tourist has left 'John Smith, 
 his mark,' even at Scarffe." 
 
 "You are more liberal-minded than I am, Paula." 
 
 "I don't know that. I have my prejudices, but 
 the peculiarities of people make their characters. If 
 you've read Dickens you must have found that 
 every character he introduces is labeled with some 
 eccentricity I mean the principal characters. The 
 Americans call them 'freaks,' not human beings." 
 
 "I suppose no American ever came across such 
 characters." 
 
 "Have we?" I asked. 
 
 "They are types of a time with which we have 
 had nothing to do." 
 
 "But types of human character must be true to 
 human nature for all time for any age." 
 
 "Well, and isn't Pecksniff the hypocrite of all 
 time? Isn't Dombey the type of hard and preten- 
 tious pride, and old Dorrit of selfishness, and Peg- 
 gotty of faithful love, and Dora of pretty silliness 
 that is so attractive to very young men ? One could 
 go on repeating them ad lib. but " 
 
 The sound of hoofs at a rapid rate made us draw 
 aside. A groom in the St. Quinton livery was com- 
 ing along. He seemed to recognize me, drew rein, 
 and touched his hat. 
 
 "Beg pardon, miss, I was taking a letter to 
 you." 
 
 He handed it to me and I ran my eyes rapidly 
 over it. 
 
 "Lady St. Quinton wants to know if we'd like the 
 riding horses this afternoon," I said to Lesley. 
 "Shall I say yes?" 
 
 Her eyes sparkled. "Oh, do! I'd love a ride 
 above all things."
 
 220 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "She says, 'Tell the groom what time,' so I 
 needn't write." 
 
 I turned to the man. "Tell her ladyship four 
 o'clock, if she'll be so kind. It's cooler then." 
 
 He touched his hat again and rode off. 
 
 "Now you can show me Adam Herivale's farm," 
 said Lesley. 
 
 "Very well ; we'll ride past it and over that range 
 of hills to the Beacon Cove. It's an adorable little 
 place. We can rest the horses and have some tea. 
 How kind of Lady St. Quinton to think of us !" 
 
 "I suppose there's no one at Court who rides," 
 said Lesley. 
 
 "I think she has some people staying with her. 
 You know she's asked us for Friday, and the pro- 
 fessor has half promised to come also." 
 
 "He's an old dear," said Lesley, warmly. "It 
 does one good to know that such a man does exist in 
 this false, fantastic age." 
 
 "He is an old dear. There's no time to argue 
 about the age, for here we are, and I expect luncheon 
 is ready."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I HAD not seen Adam Herivale since my return. 
 We rode past Woodcote, its fruitful fields now rip- 
 ening for harvest. The house itself was bowered 
 in honeysuckle and clematis and jessamine. I 
 glanced somewhat anxiously about as our horses 
 trotted past, and we had scarcely left it behind when 
 I caught sight of a figure on the road before us. I 
 knew it at a glance. His horse was going at a 
 walking pace, and as we neared the rider looked 
 round, then drew aside as if to let us pass. 
 
 But I was determined to speak. 
 
 "How are you, Adam? You see I have come 
 back." 
 
 He lifted his cap. "I am quite well, thank you, 
 Miss Trent." (No "Paula" now.) "I hope you 
 are?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. London didn't kill me, you see. I feel 
 much the same as when I went away." 
 
 Then I introduced Lesley, and asked after his 
 mother. 
 
 "We are going to the Beacon Cove," I added. 
 "How far is it to ride?" 
 
 "It's a very long way," he answered. "Too long 
 for two young ladies to go alone, I should say. 
 You'll have to rest the horses, and you won't be 
 bock till eight or nine o'clock to-night." 
 
 "I can't help that. We've made up our minds to 
 go. Miss Heath is only to be a week with me, and 
 every day is mapped out." 
 
 221
 
 222 A. JILT'S JOUKNAL. 
 
 He looked at her with that wondering admiration 
 I had seen in so many men's eyes. That lovely 
 little white face, with its deep eyes, had an irresist- 
 ible attraction. 
 
 "If I should not be intruding," he said diffidently, 
 "I could show you a much shorter way of getting to 
 the cove. That coach-road is very tedious. It winds 
 about so." 
 
 "Oh, will you ?" I cried delightedly. 
 
 And that settled it. 
 
 We rode abreast when the road allowed of it, and 
 I gave shy glances at the face I had not seen for so 
 long. I had plenty others in my memory with 
 which to contrast it. Handsomer, more refined, 
 more intellectual, but in none of them had I seen 
 that strength and calmness so characteristic of 
 Adam's. That wholesome, candid, fearless honesty 
 which was as the imprint of a clean and fearless 
 soul. 
 
 He talked more to Lesley than to me, but I had 
 no objection to that. I seemed, indeed, to acquire a 
 new knowledge of him while playing the part of 
 listener. How was it he talked so well, and had so 
 cultured a knowledge? He must have read and 
 studied a great deal since we had parted, or else 
 Lesley had a happy knack of drawing him out, and 
 making him reveal undiscovered corners of his mind 
 that I had passed by. 
 
 It was, as he had said, a very long way to the 
 cove, and but for his skilful piloting would have 
 been longer. 
 
 I found myself wondering how it was that frank 
 and easy comradeship was so possible with this man, 
 and that the pruderies and pretences of sex de- 
 manded by social intercourse in the fashionable
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 223 
 
 world were here quite superfluous. Adam Heri- 
 vale would not, and I felt sure could not, bring a 
 blush to a girl's cheek, or misinterpret her friendly 
 advances. He was courteous, cool, polite, some- 
 times forgetting and adopting the homely phrase- 
 ology of his country habits. But all the time I was 
 conscious of a change in him. A change that set 
 us apart. A rift in the lute of friendly intimacy that 
 had played such pleasant music once. He asked no 
 questions as to my doings in London, but I noticed 
 he listened eagerly to any chance word of Lesley's 
 that threw light upon them. 
 
 When we arrived at the cove we went to the one 
 little hotel of which the place boasted. There we 
 all had tea in a large bow-windowed room looking 
 out on the sea. 
 
 Lesley was enchanted with the place. It consisted 
 of a single street of picturesque thatched cottages, 
 bowered in greenery and roses. The street led down 
 an incline to a sort of basin which formed the cove. 
 Beyond this inlet lay the wide, open waters of the 
 Channel, blue as indigo under the warm and cloud- 
 less sky. The cove itself was shut in completely on 
 two sides by high, chalky cliffs, and at the little 
 landing-place were dozens of fishing boats, their 
 owners lounging on the rough, pebbly strand in 
 that attitude of alert idleness peculiar to fisher 
 folk. 
 
 We refused invitations for a sail or row, and went 
 up the steep ascent to the flagstaff, and sat down on 
 the grass to rest and take in the charm of our sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 "I'm not surprised that artists come here," said 
 Lesley. "I feel tempted to bring a pencil-and-paper 
 memory away with me."
 
 224 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Can't you take a mental photograph?" I sug- 
 gested. 
 
 "There is too much of it, and it's all so beautiful 
 one doesn't like to miss anything out." 
 
 I felt I wasn't leaving "anything out," and re- 
 lapsed into silence. 
 
 Here, as at Scarffe, we were shut in from bleak 
 surroundings by a circle of hills, their brown level 
 varied by patches of green, where sheep cropped and 
 strayed. Before us, as we rested now, was a jagged 
 line of rocks broken off from the mainland, and full 
 of hollows, into which the sea poured and foamed. 
 Through natural arches one looked at the wide- 
 spreading water beyond, calm now in the mellow 
 evening light. About us was an undisturbed peace. 
 Sky and sea held that deep blue that rests the eye 
 almost as its kindred color green can do the two 
 hues of Nature of which one never wearies. 
 
 White sails flashed in the far distance. A 
 steamer's smoke trailed like a blurred shadow across 
 the horizon ; the sweet salt air blew softly up and left 
 its cool touch on our faces. No wonder artists 
 loved this nook of shallow waters, and brown rock, 
 and silvery sand, and changeful sunsets; and had 
 immortalized those quaint cottages bowered in 
 fuchsia and honeysuckle and cabbage roses. 
 
 I was so lost in thought and in imagining a life 
 set amidst these surroundings that I paid no atten- 
 tion to my companions. I heard them talking, but 
 their words passed me by, even as the breeze did, 
 that touched my hair in its passage from the sea to 
 the waiting hills above. 
 
 I was roused by an eager exclamation. 
 
 "Well, now," it said, "if this isn't luck ! I thought 
 I recognized your heir, Fve never seen ay l&e it. "
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 225 
 
 I looked up, startled, into the joyous face of my 
 American acquaintance of the morning. 
 
 "How on earth did you get here?" I gasped. 
 
 "Guess I just hired a horse from the manager of 
 that ho-tel. He told me this was one of the places 
 that had to be seen, so I just had to see it." 
 
 I laughed with genuine amusement. "Well, you 
 are energetic," I said. "Did you get through the 
 ruins before lunch, and then ride on to the cove?" 
 
 "I did. They were ver-ry fine and ver-ry inter- 
 esting, but they didn't take more than a couple of 
 hours to get through. And when I'd got through, I 
 didn't want to waste time, so I asked the landlord 
 what next, and he advised this. But only fancy 
 seeing you! Well " 
 
 He looked so ecstatic that I concluded my hair 
 had won for me my usual fate. 
 
 "I rode over, too," I said, "and had tea. We're 
 going back directly." 
 
 "Oh, I don't want any tea," he answered. "It 
 gives me dyspepsia. You people over here drink a 
 great deal too much of it. Wonder you're not all 
 nerves. Look here, hadn't we better exchange 
 names. I've left my cards behind at the boarding- 
 house, but my name's Quain Dr. Mark Christo- 
 pher Quain of New York City." 
 
 "Oh," I said, "I'm very pleased to meet you, Dr. 
 Quain. I met several of your countrymen and 
 women in London this season, but you're the first 
 doctor I've come across. Is this your first visit to 
 England?" 
 
 "No," he said, "my third. I've always taken a 
 trip across when I could spare a holiday. It's 
 ver-ry interesting, is Eu-rope; ver-ry interesting." 
 
 "It is considered so," I answered. "I've never
 
 226 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 been out of England myself. But' of course one 
 reads so much that one almost gets to know foreign 
 places." 
 
 I was a little distance from Lesley, to whom he 
 had bowed, but now, in answer to a certain discom- 
 posed look in Adam Herivale's face, I introduced 
 my new acquaintance cursorily as Dr. Quain from 
 New York. 
 
 Lesley's eyes flashed surprise, but she soon turned 
 and resumed her conversation with Adam. 
 
 I went on with mine, delighted at the breezy 
 manner and apparently unlimited acquaintance with 
 everything, characteristic of my new friend. 
 
 "What a number of places you've seen!" I ex- 
 claimed, as he ran over a list. "And how you seem 
 to have enjoyed them !" 
 
 "So I have," he said. "I've just had a fascinating 
 time." 
 
 "Isn't this a lovely little spot?" I asked. "It's 
 the first time I've ever seen it." 
 
 "You don't say? and living so close!" 
 
 "But I haven't lived at Scarffe ; only spent a yearly 
 holiday here, and generally at Christmas." 
 
 "But you're not at school now, surely?" 
 
 "Oh, no ! I'm out, as girls call it." 
 
 "And you're going to live hereabouts? You won't 
 find it very exciting." 
 
 "I can't tell until I've tried it. As yet it's been 
 only interesting. I was here all the winter, then 
 went up to London in April, and came back two 
 days ago." 
 
 "Parents living?" 
 
 "No. I live with an uncle, who is my guardian. 
 He is very celebrated. Perhaps you've heard of him 
 Professor Trent?"
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. *87 
 
 "You don't say? your uncle? I should just 
 think I had heard of him. I've got his book on the 
 famous ruins of England in my trunk. Told me 
 more about Stonehenge and Salisbury than I'd ever 
 known. And your uncle well, I'm ver-ry pleased 
 to know you. Shake." 
 
 He extended his hand and I gave him mine. 
 
 "Is that an American custom?" I asked. 
 
 "Well, when one gets worked up to enthusiasm, 
 it is." 
 
 "Oh, then I know what to expect. May I ask 
 why you look at my hair like that?" 
 
 "It's so wonderful. I've never seen that sort of 
 color but once before in my life. Might be matched 
 from yours." 
 
 "Indeed, and who was the unfortunate posses- 
 sor?" 
 
 "Come now, Miss Trent, you know better'n that. 
 It's really bu tiful; like living sunshine let 
 loose." 
 
 "More like sunset, I think. It's a source of trouble 
 to me. Perhaps as you're a doctor you can explain 
 the chemical reasons for such a remarkable color." 
 
 "Well, I'm not exactly a medical doctor," he ex- 
 plained. "Dentistry's my line. I'm over here now 
 to join a branch established on our American sys- 
 tem." 
 
 The word gave me a little shock. "Dentistry!" 
 I exclaimed. "Then why do you call yourself a 
 doctor ?" 
 
 "Because I guess I am a doctor of dental surgery. 
 I've taken all my degrees, though I'm only twenty- 
 six." 
 
 "Oh !" I said indifferently, wondering why Amer- 
 icans always explained so much. "But over here we
 
 228 A JILT'S JOUENAL. 
 
 don't call dentists doctors. I thought you were a 
 medical man." 
 
 "Well, in one sort of way I am. I guess my 
 science is as important as curing fevers, or dosing 
 folks with drugs. I've noticed you people over here 
 have a sort of prejudice against the name 'dentist.' 
 Seems queer. Why, we study and go to college and 
 take degrees same as the medicos. We have 
 brought our profession to as near per-fection as it 
 can be brought. But somehow to English minds a 
 dental surgeon is only a tooth-extractor. Over our 
 way it's different. We're as good as the medical 
 profession every bit, and have every right to call 
 ourselves doctors," 
 
 I felt somewhat embarrassed. It was a first ex- 
 perience, and I had the usual schoolgirl's idea that 
 a dentist was only a "tooth-extractor," as he had 
 said. I changed the subject by asking if he were 
 going to settle in London. 
 
 "I must for three years," he said. "I was sent 
 over to one of our recent establishments and I'm 
 bound to stay. I'm taking a holiday first. You 
 see I've been frank and told you exactly who I am 
 so there'd be no mistake. You were so friendly I 
 shouldn't like to seem as if I'd taken advantage 
 of it." 
 
 "Thank you for your frankness and explanation. 
 As you say, there does exist a prejudice an odd 
 one, I suppose. But don't let that trouble us at 
 present. Tell me about America. It's a country 
 that interests me greatly. It's so tremendously en- 
 terprising, and rich, and extravagant." 
 
 I thought of the Kaiser's cigar story, but con- 
 cluded to keep it to myself. 
 
 He waxed enthusiastic over the glories of his
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 land, and I heard of the vast extent covered by the 
 wings of that celebrated Bird of Freedom of mar- 
 velous cities, of marvelous inventions and still more 
 marvelous riches. 
 
 There I checked him. "I never can believe," I 
 said, "that enormous fortunes can be made honestly. 
 Some one has to suffer, something has to be sacri- 
 ficed. Truth, or honor, or human lives. I have 
 read in your own books that gold is the god of your 
 nation ; that you talk dollars, dream dollars, live and 
 die for dollars. Is that so?" 
 
 "We are rather given that way," he allowed. 
 "But I guess we're not so different from the rest of 
 the world." 
 
 "Perhaps not," I said. "The craze for wealth 
 seems pretty universal. But the craze for advertis- 
 ing one's millions is certainly an American preroga- 
 tive. We may be as avaricious; we are certainly 
 less boastful. If you can't go 'one better' than your 
 brother millionaire, you do your best to try." 
 
 "I'm afraid that's true. There's a rivalry in dol- 
 lars as in other things say " 
 
 "The height of skyscrapers ?" I suggested. 
 
 "I won't deny that, because I've recognized our 
 faults in the light of other folks' opinions since I've 
 traveled about. But you must be very well read, 
 or very interested in such matters, to know so much 
 about them." 
 
 "When I was in London I had the privilege of 
 meeting one of your writers. He had been a lead- 
 ing journalist for many years on a Boston paper. 
 We used to have long talks. Do you know what 
 he said to me once? I had told him that a gentle- 
 man just returned from the States had said the 
 quantity of journals published in America was per-
 
 230 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 fectly appalling. 'Not so appalling as the quality,' 
 he answered." 
 
 "Well, Miss Trent, I won't discuss our literature 
 or our faults. You're too young to worry your 
 head about racial differences, and I'm not a bigoted 
 patriot. Seems a pity to get on any rock of obstruc- 
 tion instead of keeping friendly. Perhaps you'll 
 allow me to join your party on the ride back. I 
 did get a room at that inn, and I'm going to stay 
 over to-morrow." 
 
 I saw Lesley had risen, so I followed her example, 
 and we rode back to Scarffe two and two. 
 
 My companion was Dr. Mark Christopher Quain.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE steed borrowed from the landlord of the 
 Deerhound was not up to the standard of the Quin- 
 ton Court stables, and I had to keep pace, or leave 
 my companion behind. 
 
 "I'm spoiling your ride," he said. 
 
 "Well, you can talk as we go along. There's no 
 fear of our getting lost even if we're out till moon- 
 rise. By-the-by, you said you had once seen some- 
 one with hair that matched mine. Who was it, and 
 where?" 
 
 "As for where it was in America I saw her. She 
 was, and is, an actress. A ver-ry beautiful woman, 
 and renowned for her wonderful hair. She acted in 
 a piece where it all has to tumble down, and she just 
 drew the whole town to see her in that act. I went 
 myself every night for a week. It was like a cata- 
 ract of golden rain. Sort of thing you see when a 
 rocket goes off. So light, so bright, fairly dazzled 
 you. And she could act no doubt about that." 
 
 My interest quickened. "What was her name?" 
 
 "Desallion Mrs. Desallion." 
 
 "Oh, not an American, or she'd have the initials 
 of half the alphabet." 
 
 He laughed. "I see you know us some. No, 
 she wasn't American. No one could quite say what 
 nation, and she'd never tell. She used to rile the 
 interviewers. Laugh in their faces and tell them to 
 guess. And each one gave her a different birth^ 
 
 m
 
 232 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 right. They were mad when the papers came out. 
 Oh, there's no mistake she's clever !" 
 
 "And acts well?" 
 
 "Oh, fine! Thrills you through and through. 
 Makes you in love with wickedness, for it's always 
 wicked women she plays. Men go wild about her. 
 But she's not one to waste her fervors or her favors. 
 'Cute all through and an eye to the main chance 
 that's Nina Desallion." 
 
 He pronounced the name softly as if it held two 
 s's. I murmured it over half aloud for the pure 
 pleasure of hearing it, I thought it so charming. 
 
 "Done some queer things, though," he went on, 
 warming to my interest. "Cut the stage once and 
 joined the Salvation Army, and took to going about 
 with a tambourine, for all the world like the girl in 
 'The Belle of New York.' Of course that set the 
 men crazy. They sort of clung to religion for a 
 spell; said 'twas an ultimate refuge. But it didn't 
 last long. None of her crazes do. She went back 
 to the stage in six months. She says she tires of a 
 man in one. So that religion was five degrees bet- 
 ter." 
 
 "That sounds rather shocking," I said, and yet 
 even as I said it I thought of my own capacity for 
 change, and my own inability to discover in any 
 man I had met sufficient to interest me for even a 
 week. With a new subject for experiment I began 
 to touch that delicate ground. 
 
 "Do you think," I said, "that a woman should be 
 blamed because she can't find a man capable of 
 holding her love, as well as winning it ? That seems 
 to me the problem of life. You men all think that 
 your duty ends with the winning. From my point 
 of view I should say it only began."
 
 A JILTS JOURNAL. 333 
 
 (It wasn't my point of view. It was Fenella's. 
 But I had imbibed so much of Fenella's philosophy 
 that I had begun to make it my own.) 
 
 He looked at me with the awakening- interest I 
 had learned to arouse in a man's face. The interest 
 that tells a girl she has suddenly presented herself 
 in a light different from that of other girls. 
 
 "Only begun," he repeated. "Do you mean when 
 a man has loved and served and waited, and at last 
 won the woman he loves, that he still hasn't won 
 her?" 
 
 "He has won her heart truly only when he satisfies 
 it completely. But if it isn't satisfied it will stray, 
 as surely as a bird will fly through the opened door 
 of its cage. Love alone makes a lasting bond be- 
 tween two human hearts. Show me a man with the 
 record of a woman's life-long love, and I will con- 
 fess him a greater hero than our bestarred and titled 
 conquerors." 
 
 "There's stories in history. There's your own 
 Shakespeare's great tragedy " 
 
 "I said life-long. Those people scarcely tasted 
 love before life was ended. That is no proper test." 
 
 "But well, you see, Miss Trent, you're so very 
 young to discuss such a point!" 
 
 "Don't American girls discuss every point at is- 
 sue with so momentous a thing as marriage ? every 
 social law and obligation? Does a woman owe so 
 little to the fact of being a woman that she can ig- 
 nore the responsibilities of her sex, or the critical 
 exactions of her nature? A man promises her love 
 measureless, eternal. She believes him capable of 
 rendering it, but he isn't. She looks for the infinite 
 and finds a limit. From what source can content 
 spring?"
 
 234 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 (Paula felt very proud of herself at that mo- 
 ment. It was not often that thought flowed so 
 readily into the channels of speech. Not often 
 that a listener presented himself at convenient 
 moments. ) 
 
 "I don't know how you've come to know so much 
 about love and marriage, and the duties of man to 
 woman. In America, of course, our girls are 
 brought up with wide views on all subjects, and can 
 talk on most any of them. But it's not often an 
 English girl will do it." 
 
 "No," I said, "an English girl thinks that an im- 
 personal discussion on love with a man under sev- 
 enty is indelicate, and a personal discussion with a 
 man over twenty would mean a declaration. Her 
 tongue is tied, you see." 
 
 (Oh, Paula! enjoying your experiment and wear- 
 ing the garb of original philosophy, and all the time 
 a base echo.) 
 
 It did me good to hear him laugh. 
 
 "Permit me," he said; "as I'm under seventy and 
 over twenty will you discuss love with me im- 
 personally ?" 
 
 "Certainly. It is an opportunity I have always 
 desired." 
 
 "Is that so?" 
 
 His eye flashed keen interrogation. I answered 
 back with becoming gravity, my finger on a smile 
 that longed to break bounds. His own composure 
 gave way first. 
 
 "I guess it's an experience," he said. "But, as 
 I said before, you're ver-ry interesting. I said that 
 to myself when I left you this morning and went 
 over that gangway you told me about. Seemed as 
 if you weren't a stranger at all but a friend I'd
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 235 
 
 met and mislaid, and found again. They say des- 
 tiny changes hands with a hand-clasp." 
 
 "Yes; and we did shake," I said demurely. "But 
 please remember this is to be a discussion without 
 personalities. We'll have a gallop first and then 
 breathe the horses. You can't trot to an argu- 
 ment." 
 
 I started off, more to prepare myself by a rapid 
 summary of points than to excuse a gallop. How- 
 ever, I drew up at the brow of the hill and waited 
 for him to open a gate which led to one of Adam 
 Herivale's "short cuts." 
 
 We walked the horses through a narrow lane 
 fragrant with hedge-row treasures, and green with 
 the shade of larch and beech, and we talked 
 whether wisely or foolishly I don't know of what 
 love is, and was, and might, and could, and should 
 be. 
 
 After this elaborate conjugation we seemed very 
 much where we had been when we started, save that 
 the discussion had made us feel quite old friends, 
 and he wanted me to call him "Mark." 
 
 I told him it was too soon. Then he explained a 
 legend which stated that in the embryonic period of 
 the world men and women were one a unity, not a 
 division. That at a later period of time they sepa- 
 rated and became two distinct beings. Now, at rare 
 intervals, some fragments of their earlier selves met 
 and knew each other, and were drawn back into an 
 overwhelming desire for that old lost union. This 
 explained sudden love, sudden friendship; the as- 
 surance of a quickly awakened sympathy. It also, 
 so it seemed, explained why we should be "Mark 
 and Paula" in his opinion. 
 
 I failed, however, to discover in myself any hint
 
 236 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 of that past intercommunion, or any desire for its 
 renewal. 
 
 So I took another gallop, and my kindred soul 
 had to follow, and landed breathlessly behind me as 
 we came in sight of Adam Herivale's farm. 
 
 Here I found the others resting the horses, and 
 drew rein beside them. 
 
 "Where is your friend?" asked Lesley. 
 
 "Plodding on behind," I answered. "Mr. Heri- 
 vale, there's no need to trouble you for further 
 escort. Miss Heath and I will leave the horses 
 at the Court lodge and walk home across the 
 fields." 
 
 "You'll be too tired," he said. "Hadn't you bet- 
 ter let one of my men take them back, and I'll drive 
 you home." 
 
 I looked at Lesley and then across the darkening 
 valley. "Very well," I said, "as it is so late that 
 would be a better plan. May I run in and have a 
 chat with your mother for a few moments?" 
 
 "I'm sure she would be very pleased," he an- 
 swered. "She was saying to-day you hadn't been 
 to see her since your return from town." 
 
 He helped us dismount, and summoned one of the 
 farm hands. 
 
 Just then Dr. Quain approached. I told him of 
 our change of plans and saw his look of disappoint- 
 ment. But I had been cautioning myself against 
 that unwise proceeding known as "making oneself 
 too cheap." He had been just as useful, as enter- 
 taining and as interesting as I wanted him to be. 
 It seemed a pity to add five minutes' boredom to that 
 sense of entertainment. 
 
 He ambled off to Scarffe, and Lesley and I sat on 
 in fefoe swfeet old fragrant parlor, talking to Mrs.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 237 
 
 Herivale and watching the moon rise over the circ- 
 ling hill. 
 
 "How restful it is!" I said after we had dis- 
 cussed my visit to London and my dip into the 
 waters of Society; after she had surveyed me with 
 that calm, wise regard that seemed to me always 
 the garnered essence of motherhood, and pronounced 
 me "very little changed." 
 
 "Yes," she agreed. "And there's no better thing 
 than rest when it comes to the ending of days. Some 
 run quickly through life, and with others 'tis a 
 slow parting. I think it's meant that the tarry- 
 ing hours should be an education of the tarry- 
 ing soul." 
 
 There was a pathos in her voice and in her quiet 
 face that touched me with fear. 
 
 "You are not feeling worse than when I went 
 away?" I asked. 
 
 "Much better, my dear, much better," she said. 
 "I've had many years given to me to learn content ; 
 and when one has known months of pain you get 
 grateful for a day that's free of suffering. I've had 
 many days of late." 
 
 "That's a good sign, surely," I said. 
 
 She smiled. "Good or bad, my dear, it makes 
 but little difference to the end that comes to all. 
 Queen and beggar, sovereign and subject, rich and 
 poor. 'Tis a wonderful mystery, and we only seem 
 to see the wonder of it as the day of life begins to 
 close even as we only see the beauty of night when 
 
 the sun has set." 
 
 ****** 
 
 "That was a beautiful thought," said Lesley, later 
 on, as we were driving home. 
 
 She hod been silent 90 long that Adam and I tfoth
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 looked at her, as if for a clew to that expressed 
 thought. 
 
 "What one?" I asked. 
 
 "About only seeing the beauty of night when the 
 sun has set. Is vour mother a great sufferer, Mr. 
 Herivale?" 
 
 "She never complains," he said. "Her patience 
 is so great that it's always been hard to get her to 
 even confess she's ailing. This hot summer seems 
 to have weakened her, though. She's less active 
 and quieter by far." 
 
 "You must be very fond of her?" 
 
 "I am/' he said ; "I don't know who could help it. 
 And as for father she's just the heart of him, so to 
 say. I dread to think of what the parting hour will 
 mean to him. I think she dreads it, too." 
 
 "But there's a long time, let us hope, before that 
 parting hour." 
 
 "We do hope it," he answered gravely. "But the 
 doctor seemed anxious about her the last time he 
 called. She's weaker, and doesn't seem to care 
 about things in the same way." 
 
 "I wonder why life is so cruel," cried Lesley, 
 suddenly. "If we are happy, or content, or have 
 just gained something that we desire and value, 
 straightway it all ends! Sickness, death, division, 
 loss oh ! how one wonders why one is born at all !" 
 
 "Ah, Miss Heath," said Adam, gravely, "it's early 
 days for youth and beauty such as yours to utter 
 words so despairing ! I think there's too much now- 
 adays of expecting all the good of life, and not 
 enough thankfulness at escaping the evil. For you, 
 and for Miss Paula there, no great sorrow or suffer- 
 ing can be more than a name as yet. You see 
 others suffering, and your own joyfulness resents it.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 239 
 
 "Tis like a blot on the page you're reading, but it 
 needn't set you blaming life or rather what created 
 life. You have to learn a great deal more, and per- 
 haps suffer too, before you realize it as worthless." 
 
 Paula, the impetuous, put in her oar then. 
 
 "One must generalize sometimes, Adam. It is 
 quite impossible to look on at life with indifference. 
 Sorrow and loss are everywhere, and their shadow 
 hovers over every tie of love and nature. God puts 
 us into life, as you say, but we have to grope hope- 
 lessly about trying to find out its meaning. Our 
 very religious faith is a mere accident of birth. We 
 are Protestants, Catholics, Buddhists, Puritans or 
 Atheists, according to our early training. If we 
 obey the commandment of obedience to parents we 
 must believe as they believe, and worship as they 
 worship. All sects are authoritative as to that 
 special duty. But who is to decide which of them 
 all is the right?" 
 
 "I hardly suppose sects are important to the Al- 
 mighty Himself; and though, as you say, Miss 
 Trent, He puts us on the stage of life, He has given 
 us free will as a conscious inheritance. We know 
 wrong from right. It's not easy to explain but 
 there's a direction given us an inner spring that 
 moves our lives. We need only come out face to 
 face with Nature, and lie passive till the message 
 reaches us. It'll come safe enough if we don't close 
 our ears or choke our hearts with the dust and dross 
 of earthly vanities." 
 
 "You are a pagan, Adam," I said, laughing. 
 "But, I'm not sure that Nature is altogether a safe 
 teacher. She has cruelties as well as mercies, blows 
 as well as kisses. Her face is as changeful as a 
 woman's mind, and her temper as uncertain."
 
 240 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Miss Paula, you always bettered me at an argu- 
 ment, and I've never found it easy to speak of things 
 that I feel very much. I'm quite sure you under- 
 stand what I mean, but you won't pretend to." 
 
 In the clear, soft light I met his eyes. I saw 
 their sorrow and their pain, and my heart grew 
 weak, and I felt ashamed. 
 
 I recognized in that moment some height to 
 which I could not reach. All about me grew dim 
 and dream-like; and I held my peace, as did he. 
 
 But he had made me remember as he remem- 
 bered
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 I WAS standing by the window looking out at a 
 star-lit world, dew-pearled and luminous, and full of 
 a beauty that made my heart ache. 
 
 Why it should ache I cannot say, but it did; and 
 odds and ends of poetry floated to my mind, and I 
 was as sentimental, as romantic, as passionately de- 
 sirous of some vague happiness necessary to com- 
 plete this beauty as any heroine of fiction. I seemed 
 to be a part of a dream. This stillness that yet was 
 not silence, since absolute silence has no existence, 
 this weird charm of moonlight and shadow, perfume 
 and peace, breathed a spell I had never known be- 
 fore. All was so vague, so beautiful, so unreal ; and 
 most unreal of all was Paula herself, trembling with 
 some sense of spiritual awakening ; hardly conscious 
 of her thoughts or desires, but overpowered by a 
 sudden sense of longing to understand. 
 
 There might have been a prayer in her soul then, 
 a vague appeal to the Great Mystery that the 
 heavens seem to hold to something in those spark- 
 ling worlds above that no science can explain with 
 any satisfaction to the inquirer. 
 
 It had never explained them to me. Only set me 
 wondering as to what millions of imprisoned souls 
 might not be there, pitying this dark, tiny planet 
 which man deems so all-important. 
 
 Fancy applying the nursery book of school as- 
 
 241
 
 243 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 tronomy to such a heaven as that I gazed upon, to 
 such a moon as bathed the castle ruins in its lustrous 
 glow ! 
 
 A touch on my arm startled me almost into a 
 scream. I turned and saw Lesley. 
 
 "I knocked and you never answered, so I came in. 
 How many hundreds of miles away were you, 
 Paula ? You look hardly awake yet." 
 
 "It is such a wonderful night," I said. "I couldn't 
 undress or go to bed. There's nothing affects me so 
 keenly as moonlight. I sometimes think a great 
 happiness or a great sorrow will come to me on a 
 night like this." 
 
 She made no answer; only leaned out as I was 
 leaning, and looked as I was looking. 
 
 I slipped my hand into her arm and rested my 
 head against her. When she began to speak her 
 voice was so low, and blended so harmoniously with 
 the tender peace around, that I felt myself listening 
 with a new sense of pleasure to its always musical 
 accents. 
 
 "It has been a day of surprises," she said. "Al- 
 most too many impressions are crowded into it; but 
 of them all, Paula, there is one that stands out more 
 distinctly than all the rest. It is the deep, strong 
 love that Adam Herivale has for you. You don't 
 answer? You know it?" 
 
 "Yes," I said, "I know not its depth or its 
 strength, there has been nothing to prove them 
 yet. But I know he cares." 
 
 "That is a poor word to express it," she said. 
 "His life is bound up in it." 
 
 "How can you tell? Surely he " 
 
 "Now, Paula, don't do him that injustice. He 
 said nothing. But how he suffered ! Every hour of
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 243 
 
 this afternoon and evening was pain to him. You 
 asked how I know " 
 
 The arm on which my hand rested shook 
 slightly. 
 
 "I have learned," she said, "by my own experi- 
 ence." 
 
 "Lesley!" I cried. 
 
 Her face was like a bit of carved ivory in its 
 death-like whiteness. 
 
 "I never meant to tell you, Paula. It would be 
 better that I should not. I never might have felt a 
 temptation to do it, but for Adam Herivale." 
 
 I was silent, but my thoughts took a backward 
 flight, and I saw three schoolgirls in a little bedroom 
 discussing the possibilities of life, and what it might 
 mean for each of them. 
 
 "Lesley," I said, "you have learned it has come 
 to you ?" 
 
 "Yes," she said. "It has come and gone." 
 
 I turned to look at her. That little white, flower- 
 like face, those deep, deep eyes were suddenly trans- 
 formed for me. They represented the mystery of 
 womanhood. Its hunger, its passion, its pain. 
 
 "Turn out that light," she said suddenly, "and 
 then we will sit here by the window where only the 
 stars can see us, and I will try to tell you." 
 
 I put out the lamp, and silently came back and 
 took the little hand she held out to me as a child 
 appeals for protection. 
 
 (Even then that hateful sense of the dramatic 
 import of the scene flashed to my brain with a hun- 
 dred meanings apart from her own.) 
 
 "I have told no one," she began. "I have borne 
 it and hidden it till I cannot bear it any longer. 
 Paula, you remember when I wrote that I was to
 
 244 A JILT'S JOUENAL. 
 
 spend a month at the villa of the Princess Nadia 
 Tchernigov ?" 
 
 "Yes " 
 
 "Among the guests," she said, "was a man a 
 Russian count whom all the women raved about. 
 It was not only that he was handsome, well-born, 
 rich, but he had a charm indescribable. To be 
 noticed by him was a hall-mark of distinction. I 
 was only a foolish schoolgirl, as you know, Paula, 
 and I was thrown among this set of fast, society 
 women some of them lovely, most of them reck- 
 less, with no one to give me a word of counsel or 
 warning. When Count Zavadoff singled me out 
 for attention I became the subject of bitter jealousy 
 and openly displayed envy. But he did single me 
 out, and his attention and homage drew first my 
 fancy, then my wonder, then my heart. Beside him 
 I was but an ignorant girl. He was so cultured and 
 so gifted. There seemed nothing he could not 
 do soldier, litterateur, artist, man of the world 
 could any girl resist the fascinations of such a 
 man?" 
 
 "And you loved him, Lesley? You know what it 
 is to love?" I whispered breathlessly. 
 
 "I loved him yes. I love him to this hour. I 
 shall love him to my last hour on earth. It is better 
 and simpler to speak out the truth and have done 
 with it, Paula. And now that I have begun to 
 speak it seems easier. He told me of his own feel- 
 ings, of my own danger " 
 
 "Danger !" I echoed. 
 
 "Yes. He was not free, Paula. He had a wife 
 a helpless, half-imbecile creature whom fate had 
 cursed within two years of their marriage. She 
 lived apart at one of his great estates. As far as
 
 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 
 
 any obligations of the tie were concerned he was 
 free but he could not marry !" 
 
 "And he made you love him, and then told you 
 this!" I cried indignantly. 
 
 "I think sometimes he did not know I loved him. 
 He thought it was a girl's fancy and might be easily 
 cured. He took that way of curing it." 
 
 "It was horribly cruel !" 
 
 "It was a great shock," she said. "But those 
 women were as much to blame, for they knew, and 
 left me to drift on to my doom." 
 
 "But didn't Lady Archie say anything?" 
 
 "She never seemed to notice and I believe she 
 also thought I knew he wasn't free. And it all 
 came about so strangely." 
 
 I saw her close her eyes, and suddenly she put her 
 hands up to her face as if to hide it. 
 
 "I never think of it, Paula, but I see a dazzling 
 sky and a dazzling sea, so bright they seem to beat 
 into my brain. I never want to see that coast again 
 unless I have learned to forget. And now you 
 know why I have accepted Lord Lynmouth !" 
 
 "Oh, Lesley!" 
 
 "It may sound wrong to you, Paula, but I know 
 what I am doing. I want a defence; marriage is 
 the best. If we ever meet again I am safe." 
 
 "Are you safe? If I am to judge by the stories I 
 have heard, the scenes I have witnessed, marriage is 
 not always a safeguard to other passions. It neither 
 prevents nor forbids them." 
 
 "I shall not be a woman like Lady Brancepeth. 
 My very experience is my safeguard. There is no 
 coldness like that of a heart that has known love 
 and foregone it." 
 
 "Oh, my dear, my dear and but a few months
 
 246 A JILT'S JOUEtfAL. 
 
 ago you were so happy, and all life seemed a 
 jest!" 
 
 "It is never a jest, Paula. We should not pretend 
 it or believe it. Childhood has its sorrows, and 
 youth and maturity theirs. When I think of those 
 days, and then of one that changed everything for 
 me, I seem to have left that self I knew behind. 
 There ought to be a pale ghost sitting on a rock of 
 that seaboard below Eza a ghost looking out at a 
 blue haze that dazzles and glitters, and then fades 
 into a blackness no earthly night can bring. The 
 ghost of myself, Paula something from which I 
 walked away, saying 'Good-by good-by I 
 have left you forever; I shall never meet you 
 again/ ' 
 
 "And it was this that changed you not the 
 season, as I fancied?" 
 
 "Yes it was this." 
 
 "And did it end like that? ' You never met him 
 again ?" 
 
 "No; he went away. That was the end for both 
 of us." 
 
 "Are you not afraid you may meet him again?" 
 
 "Yes," she said. "Horribly afraid. That is 
 why I am taking refuge in this matrimonial ark. 
 Oh, Paula ! Paula ! the looks, the jeers, the hints of 
 those women, and my heart a living torture, my 
 pride so shamed ! I don't know how I lived through 
 it " 
 
 She shivered as with sudden cold, and her hands 
 fell. 
 
 "If it would end if I could kill out the feeling! 
 Sometimes I seem to forget and it is quite gone, 
 and I can smile and talk and dance, and then like a 
 knife-thrust it is back the pain and humiliation, the
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 247 
 
 passion and bitterness and despair. In a single 
 day, a single hour, Paula, love teaches us what 
 neither books nor any other experience can teach. 
 We live or die, I think, in that birth-struggle of the 
 heart." 
 
 "It sounds so pathetic," I said. 
 
 "It sounds what it is. Don't wish for the ex- 
 perience, Paula. Be thankful if you can evade it. 
 I have told you the truth, partly for my own ease, 
 partly to warn you. If you choose to hold out a 
 hand you may claim a love and a lover worthy the 
 name; worth all that rank and riches can bestow. 
 But I know you won't hold it out. Perhaps you 
 don't care." 
 
 "I care so much," I said, "that I am sorry I can- 
 not care more. Do you understand such a feel- 
 ing?" 
 
 "No," she said, "I do not, Paula. But we are of 
 different temperaments. Love comes to no two na- 
 tures in exactly the same way. You are so vivid, 
 so full of force and energy, so eager to know. I 
 it would have been quite enough had he loved 
 me." 
 
 "But he did; you said so." 
 
 "I think he experimented with me for his own 
 purpose. He must have known what it would be, 
 but I could not. When he spoke of his suffer- 
 ings " 
 
 For the first time her voice broke. At my quick 
 glance the tears gathered and began to fall. I drew 
 her into my arms with a new passion of tenderness 
 and something of wrath against the cruelty that had 
 left such cruel hurt behind. 
 
 "Why do you cry for him?" I said. "I don't 
 believe men suffer."
 
 848 A JILT'S JOUKKAL. 
 
 "Yes, Paula, they do. Don't run away with that 
 theory." 
 
 She controlled herself by an effort. 
 
 "He did suffer. It was a surprise to himself. He 
 thought I would have let it all go on played with 
 fire as as so many others had done. And I would 
 not. I would not go back. I was inexorable. I 
 sent him from me, and now it is all over. For 
 when I marry " 
 
 She rose abruptly and wrung her hands in a 
 desperate, helpless way. "If that does not save me 
 nothing will," she said. "If life isn't full to the brim 
 its emptiness terrifies me. I must throw myself into 
 something politics, charities, philanthropy some- 
 thing that will take up my days and hold my 
 thoughts. To live as I live is impossible, and Lyn- 
 mouth will not be an exacting or troublesome hus- 
 band. I must go on with it, Paula I must." 
 
 "It won't be easy," I said. 
 
 "I know. Don't suppose I haven't looked at it 
 every way. It's no use being sentimental. I marry 
 knowing why I marry, and what I am marrying for. 
 It's less of a degradation than it might be. I make 
 no pretence of feelings. And he doesn't ask it. I 
 like him well enough to make him a good wife. 
 Everyone at home wishes it. It will be of inesti- 
 mable advantage to my father and that nursery 
 cherub. Besides, Lynmouth has honored me by an 
 assurance that he knows I'm 'the sort of girl that 
 will run straight and not kick over the traces.' All 
 the self-indulgence I shall allow myself is my friend- 
 ship for you, Paula, and an avoidance of the Rivi- 
 era. . Not much and yet a great deal. We were 
 never demonstrative you and I but I cannot al- 
 low our lives to drift apart."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 849 
 
 "I hope they never will," I said. I rose also, and 
 with clasped hands we stood by the open window, 
 the moonlight on our faces, and disquiet in our 
 hearts. 
 
 "How soon things changed," I said involuntarily. 
 "We are the same Paula and the same Lesley who 
 wanted to know the truth and the purpose of Life 
 and now " 
 
 "My fruit of knowledge," she said, "is bitter, and 
 hateful, and poisonous. Yours?" 
 
 "I have not plucked it yet," I said. "I am only 
 looking at the boughs."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 I SLEPT badly that night, haunted by the pale mis- 
 ery of Lesley's face. 
 
 Besides, I should not have been Paula had I not 
 relived that story, and pictured that Russian count, 
 and seen a Byronic hero, passionate and unprin- 
 cipled, breaking- hearts without compunction till 
 suddenly Fate had turned on him and left him suf- 
 fering and alone. It seemed strange that such a ro- 
 mance should have come to her, and passed me by. 
 I who wanted to play heroine to my own life- 
 story, and only succeeded in finding unsuitable back- 
 grounds. What was the use of Adam Herivale lov- 
 ing me? I cared for him a little, but Lesley had 
 given me an insight into love the passion, and I 
 felt that nothing less would satisfy my heart. 
 
 "One draught of the true wine of life," had said 
 my oracle, "is worth a, thousand sips of inferior 
 brands. Better go thirsty forever after, than be 
 content with a poorer vintage." 
 
 "The true wine of life." Would it ever be offered 
 to me? 
 
 "All the best love stories are unhappy ones," I 
 thought. "It seems as if Fate meant them for a 
 tragic ending! I have a horror of suffering. I 
 feel I should want to run away from anything that 
 threatened discomfort or pain. Oh, to think that 
 Lesley has learned the great secret first, and I never 
 suspected it!" 
 
 250
 
 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 251 
 
 I tossed from side to side. I turned my pillow, 
 and tried to shut my eyes to that radiant moonlight, 
 but for long sleep refused to come to me. 
 
 I had made the acquaintance of a new Lesley and 
 was bound to follow it through many mazes of con- 
 jecture. Yet the picture was evasive and incom- 
 plete, and I felt an ever-growing dissatisfaction with 
 it. But strangest of all was the thought that she 
 had learnt to suffer and yet conceal the fact of suf- 
 fering. Even I, who knew her so well, had never 
 suspected it. Now her forthcoming marriage stood 
 out in a totally new light. It struck a note of 
 tragedy, and on the bridal white a shadow seemed to 
 rest. 
 
 "I wonder why she persists in going through 
 with it," I said to myself. "How can she expect to 
 be anything but miserable ? To sacrifice herself for 
 sake of a memory !" 
 
 The strangeness and the folly of it angered me; 
 
 though when Lesley had spoken, I felt only pity. 
 ****** 
 
 I slept at last and woke to a dull morning with a 
 sky that threatened rain. My head ached, and a 
 sense of depression weighed on my spirits. The 
 memory of Lesley's confession came back afresh 
 and left me half anxious and half eager to meet 
 her. 
 
 Merrieless brought me a message from her. She 
 also had a headache ; would I excuse her from com 
 ing down to breakfast? 
 
 I dressed and went to her. The blinds were 
 drawn, but even in the dim light I saw how pale and 
 tired she looked. 
 
 "We sat up too late," I said, as I kissed her. Her 
 forehead was burning, and her eyes spoke pain. I
 
 252 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 made a cool lotion and steeped a handkerchief in it 
 and laid it on her head. "Don't speak," I said. 
 "Just lie quietly there till the pain goes. I will see 
 you are not disturbed." 
 
 She pressed my hand. 
 
 "You always understand, Paula," she said. "A 
 few hours' quiet that will do me good. Please 
 don't be anxious. I'll be all right by noon." 
 
 I left her to the darkness and the quiet and went 
 down to the professor. He had taken a great fancy 
 to Lesley, and was distressed to hear she was ill. 
 "Perhaps you rode too far yesterday," he said. 
 
 The remembrance of the ride brought back my 
 American friend. I told the professor about him 
 and the book. 
 
 "You might have asked him to call," he said. "I 
 should have been pleased to make his acquaintance." 
 
 "He is staying here for another day. Perhaps he 
 will call," I said. "He is not at all a bashful young 
 man, and evidently bent on making the most of his 
 opportunities. He did the castle, the village and 
 the Beacon Cove yesterday. I wonder what his 
 plans are for to-day?" 
 
 "Ask him to lunch," said the professor, "if you 
 see him or you might send a note down to the 
 inn." 
 
 "I have to go to the village," I said. "I will 
 leave a note if you write it." 
 
 He did write it, and I started off as soon as break- 
 fast was over. 
 
 I had little fear of not seeing Dr. Quain. It was 
 difficult to miss anybody in Scarffe. I saw him in 
 the porch of the inn, smoking a cigarette and read- 
 ing a newspaper. He recognized me with pleased 
 surprise.
 
 A JILT'S JOUENAL. 253 
 
 "I reckon you'll supply the want of sunshine," he 
 said as we "shook." "It's good to see you on such 
 a morning." 
 
 "I've brought you a note from the professor," I 
 said, handing it. "I was coming down to one of 
 the shops, so I said I'd be postman." 
 
 "You're doing me a great honor," he said, "and 
 this is most kind of Professor Trent. I assure you 
 I appreciate it ver-ry much. I was just wondering 
 what I should do with myself. I thought of walk- 
 ing to that old church on the hill Quinton Lacy is 
 the name, I believe. Is it worth seeing?" 
 
 "I hardly think so. The walk is pretty and the 
 village rather quaint, but the church is an old, 
 dreary building. They don't use it for service any 
 longer. The churchyard is very old. Do you care 
 about churchyards?" 
 
 "Well, not ver-ry much," he said, smiling. "Kind 
 of melancholy, aren't they ? Perhaps I might walk 
 with you while you're shopping, and we could have 
 another interesting talk unless, of course, you'd 
 rather not." 
 
 "I have no objection. Would you care to go to 
 the ruins again ?" 
 
 "Certainly I should care. More especially with 
 such a charming guide." 
 
 I ignored the compliment, and after calling at the 
 shop took him all round the outer walk which sur- 
 rounded the castle, and which the public were gra- 
 ciously permitted to use free of charge. I gave him 
 a great deal of information which I had received 
 from the professor, and for which he seemed grate- 
 ful. Then we went up to the ruins, and I took him 
 to "my" tower, as I called it. From there we had a 
 wonderful view. Suddenly, however, the threat-
 
 254 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 ened rain poured down, and we had to beat a 
 retreat. 
 
 ''I guess I was right to come prepared," he re- 
 marked. "If you stand under this corner of the 
 wall, Miss Trent, I'll put up my collapsible." 
 
 "Collapsible?" I gazed about, and at his hands. 
 "What is that?" 
 
 He smiled effulgently, and produced from the 
 pocket of his coat a curious-looking article which 
 resembled an apoplectic ruler. 
 
 This he began to unscrew and unfold, and fit and 
 fix, until, to my amazement, it represented an um- 
 brella. 
 
 "Ingenious, ain't it?" he said, as the thing wid- 
 ened out like an inflated mushroom. "I guess you 
 haven't seen anything like that before?" 
 
 "No, I haven't," I said. "And now that I have 
 been privileged, may I ask what's the advantage? 
 You could be drenched to the skin before you got 
 the thing fixed into shape, and even then it's a 
 clumsy-looking article !" 
 
 "Well, it does take some time to fix," he allowed. 
 "But then it's easy stowed away; goes into your 
 pocket." 
 
 "It would look a great deal better in your hand, if 
 it were presentable." 
 
 "Don't seem to please you somehow." 
 
 I laughed. "What funny people you are ! I was 
 thinking of some of the things you told me yester- 
 day." 
 
 "I wish you'd let me tell you something to- 
 day." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "That you're just about the nicest, prettiest, 
 sweetest little girl I've ever met. But I guess you've
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 255 
 
 heard that so often that it makes no difference for 
 an American cousin to say it." 
 
 "Well," I said, "I haven't considered you in the 
 light of a cousin yet." 
 
 "Couldn't you begin?" 
 
 "I could ; but what would be the use ?" 
 
 "Seems friendly like. And we did get along fine 
 yesterday. You remember our talk?" 
 
 "Of course I do. We said a great deal to very 
 little purpose, and you quoted a great deal of poetry, 
 mostly American." 
 
 "You said you liked it." 
 
 "So I did yesterday." 
 
 "What does that mean?" 
 
 "It means that I don't bring the same thoughts or 
 the same feelings to bear upon this marvellous 'in- 
 vention,' as I brought to accommodating my horse's 
 pace to yours." 
 
 "Never mind the invention, so long as it keeps the 
 wet off your pretty hair." 
 
 "Is that an insinuation that the color might 'run'?" 
 
 "I see you're up for teasing. But I don't mind. 
 I guess this is pretty comfortable." 
 
 "How long does the average American girl take 
 to accommodate herself to the average English- 
 man?" I asked. 
 
 "Well, just about as long as it took me to get 
 friendly with you. She's not artificial or conven- 
 tional." 
 
 "I see. And is it my fault or yours that we can't 
 be conventional?" 
 
 "A little of both, I take it. You find something 
 ver-ry interesting in the study of that foot of yours, 
 Miss Trent ? I haven't seen the color of your eyes 
 since the rain came on."
 
 256 A 1 JILT'S JOUENAL. 
 
 "You seem to associate my coloring with a ten- 
 dency to be spoilt by wet," I said. "My eyes are 
 all right I only use my tongue for talking." 
 
 "That's so. And you can make amazing good 
 use of it. I guess you're not so friendly as you 
 were yesterday. Have I been so unfortunate as to 
 offend?" 
 
 "I'm never offended when a man talks sensibly. 
 But I hate compliments and personal remarks." 
 
 "I am ver-ry sorry. But it's hard to keep to quite 
 impersonal things when there's a person who 
 makes herself more important than the things." 
 
 "What a lucid remark !" 
 
 "A mighty ordinary, commonplace one ! I " 
 
 "You are the person, and the Patent Collapsible 
 is the thing! And the rain's over, and we might be 
 getting home. I've left my friend ill in bed, and it 
 seems very unkind to be so long away." 
 
 "The pretty, disdainful young lady who was with 
 you yesterday?" 
 
 "She's not disdainful!" 
 
 "Certainly not, if you say so. But she looked a 
 fairly good imitation of the adjective. See here, 
 Miss Trent, we'll be quarrelling presently. S'pose 
 we start the conversation afresh. You gave me a 
 good time yesterday. What's wrong with to-day?" 
 
 "Nothing except the weather." 
 
 "Does it always affect you like this ?" 
 
 "Like what?" 
 
 "You know very well sort of putting out porcu- 
 pine quills at every remark I make." 
 
 I felt indignant. 
 
 "When anything is an effort it is sure to be a 
 failure," I said. "Your efforts have spoilt my appre- 
 ciation."
 
 ft JILT'S JOURNAL. 257 
 
 "That's very hard. Because I can't drag my 
 mind away from you and to talk about anything 
 else is an effort. When I got up this morning I felt 
 immense. I was so happy. And now for the last 
 five minutes I've been just as miserable." 
 
 "Your people always use big words to express 
 little things," I said cruelly. "And you're no ex- 
 ception, Dr. Quain." 
 
 I slipped out from the shade of the collapsible 
 into a brief glint of sunshine. "Do put down that 
 odious thing and be sensible," I said. 
 
 He opened his lips as if to make a remark, but he 
 didn't. Only hauled down, and unscrewed, and un- 
 fixed the remarkable invention that I had failed to 
 appreciate. 
 
 I watched the process. But for a certain look in 
 his face I should have laughed riotously. 
 
 I was learning to know that look now.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 I HAD never seen the professor so amused, and 
 apparently so interested, as he was by the conversa- 
 tion and varied information of Dr. Quain. 
 
 It appeared to me that my new friend could talk 
 on any subject. If he was not very well informed 
 on it, he limited himself to questions, put as asser- 
 tions, and learned enough by this means to take one 
 side of an argument. 
 
 Lesley, who had come down to luncheon, ap- 
 peared as interested as the professor, though we 
 agreed afterward that the intricacies of dental sur- 
 gery left us fervently thankful that Nature was 
 likely to make us both independent of such assist- 
 ance for a good many years to come. 
 
 After luncheon we discussed plans for the after- 
 noon. The rain had cleared, the sun was shining 
 brilliantly. Dr. Quain suggested a drive, and forth- 
 with betook himself to the inn to see what vehicle 
 was possible for the purpose. 
 
 He returned in half an hour's time, driving a non- 
 descript machine, with a weedy-looking animal be- 
 tween the shafts, whose only recommendation was 
 that it could "go." 
 
 And go it did ! 
 
 Up hill and down dale, through roads and lanes, 
 past fields where the blue of cornflower and scarlet 
 of poppy made but one flash of color ; under shade 
 of elm and birch and firs and pines ; taking the hard, 
 
 268
 
 A JILTS JOURNAL. 
 
 old Roman road at a harder trot; giving an occa- 
 sional shy at a stray sheep, a fluttering bird or a 
 heap of stones on the roadway; jolting and jogging 
 in a fashion that made comfort impossible, and con- 
 versation a gasp, until finally our charioteer drew 
 rein on the crest of a hill and with a cheerful smile 
 remarked that we'd done eight miles, and he guessed 
 that wasn't so bad for the "hire system." 
 
 "Oh, do stop for five minutes! You've shaken 
 all the breath out of me," I implored. 
 
 "Why, didn't you like it?" he asked with com- 
 punction. "If I'd got you behind an American 
 spider I wonder what you'd have said then?" 
 
 "Said I'd have shrieked! If there's one insect 
 I detest in this world of insects it's a spider." 
 
 "I didn't mean an insect. It's a vehicle. And it 
 can cover ground, you bet. A fast trotter in front 
 of it don't let you trouble much more about scenery 
 than a passing comet." 
 
 "Then I'm thankful you haven't one here," I said 
 ungratefully. "No wonder you people have not the 
 art of enjoyment. You seem to do everything at a 
 rush, from viewing an imperial city to taking a 
 country drive. You can't expect to hear Nature's 
 stories at full gallop." 
 
 He glanced at the smoking steed, and then at the 
 wide-lying prospect, so pastoral and peaceful and 
 typically English. Cottages, harvest-fields, mead- 
 ows gold and green; above a sky whose radiance 
 was dazzling; around that circle of the everlasting 
 hills; and yet again, sweeping to the far horizon 
 line, the blue of the waveless sea. 
 
 "It is pretty," he allowed. "But if you only saw 
 the Adirondacks." 
 
 "I can appreciate English scenery without the aid
 
 260 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 of comparison," I said, being in a mood as aggres- 
 sive as breathlessness and aching bones would ex- 
 cuse. "As for the Adirondacks " 
 
 I paused, then raised a directing finger. "Do you 
 see those white cliffs out seaward? Well, they pro- 
 tect one of England's loveliest isles a fairyland 
 that shelters the home of one of the greatest, noblest 
 and most beloved of reigning sovereigns.* There 
 again" with another sweep of the hand, "is a bit 
 of English history a church and castle that date 
 from A. D. 690 around which the strength of our 
 throne and the records of our faith are linked. Isn't 
 that better than your Adirondacks ?" 
 
 ( I am ashamed to say I knew nothing of what the 
 Adirondacks were, but the name prejudiced me. I 
 could never dissociate it from tin tacks and hard-' 
 ware!) 
 
 "It's certainly ver-ry interesting," he observed. 
 "But monarchy not being a constitutional thing 
 with us, we naturally couldn't have any palaces 
 lying about. But as far as scenery goes, well, I've 
 not come across any this side to beat ours." 
 
 "Why should you want it beaten ?" I inquired in- 
 nocently. "That sounds as if it were a carpet kind 
 of scenery that you take up and lay down when the 
 fancy takes you !" 
 
 "I guess that's meant to be smart, Miss Trent," 
 he said good-naturedly. "But you must know very 
 well, judging what a lot you've read, that our Amer- 
 ican Continent is a most astonishing place." 
 
 "We will leave it at that," interposed Lesley, 
 quietly. "There is an old proverb, Dr. Quain, that 
 says, 'Comparisons are odious.' ' 
 
 *This wa's written, alas ! while yet the beloved sovereign was 
 England's reigning Queen.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 261 
 
 "You're right, Miss Heath, they are. It's my 
 fault for introducing a bit of our national boastful- 
 ness into the subject. We have a cheerful irrever- 
 ence for all things connected with a crowned head, 
 or an imperial government, or a patented nobility. 
 I know I ought to have said, 'Ladies this is a most 
 charming bit of English scenery, and ver-ry typical.' 
 Now, shall we get along?" 
 
 I laughed. "Oh, you're incorrigible! I had a 
 great deal more to point out." 
 
 "What's that high, white building to the right 
 among the trees, with the flag floating around ?" 
 
 "That," I said, "is Quinton Court, the seat of 
 Lord St. Quinton. He has the finest property 
 about here." 
 
 "Oh, where that old church is I've not seen it 
 yet." 
 
 "We might drive round there and drop in at the 
 Court for tea," suggested Lesley. 
 
 "Will you?" he asked eagerly. "I'd love to see 
 that Court. I heard the interior was magnificent 
 enough for royalty." 
 
 "Oh, royalty has very simple tastes," I said. "It 
 is far too sensible to live up to 'gilded splendor.' 
 When you're to the 'manner born,' Dr. Quain, your 
 own consciousness of power and prerogative doesn't 
 require external advertisement." 
 
 He made no answer, but sent the "goer" on once 
 more. 
 
 "You're very hard on him," whispered Lesley, as 
 we descended the hill jerkily. "WhatJs he done? 
 The usual thing ?" 
 
 "Does it look like that?" 
 
 "Very much like that. An unusually quick case, 
 but then his nation never do things at our rate of
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 speed. I believe the next generation will get 
 through love, courtship and marriage by electric- 
 ity." 
 
 We were hurled down into the valley again, and I 
 told him breathlessly the road to take. As we en- 
 tered the village I saw one of the Court carriages 
 coming toward us. In it were Lady St. Quinton 
 and Lady Brancepeth. 
 
 It stopped; and Dr. Quain drew his animal up 
 almost on its haunches. 
 
 "Come in and have tea," said Lady St. Quinton. 
 "I've something to tell you, Paula." 
 
 "We were just going to call," I answered. 
 
 "That's right. We're on our way home now." 
 
 I saw her glance inquiringly at my new friend, so 
 I introduced him without his initials or degrees. I 
 knew they would come out before the acquaintance 
 dated ten minutes. 
 
 "We'll just drive round to the old church, and 
 then follow you," I said. 
 
 "I never knew the old church was anything but 
 an eyesore," said Lady Brancepeth. "I see you still 
 keep up your habit of labeling trifles 'Important.' ' 
 
 "The importance rests with the way you regard 
 them," I said. 
 
 "And who shares in the regard?" she said, with 
 one of her insolent smiles. 
 
 "Please drive on," I said to Dr. Quain, and a 
 touch of the whip took our Pegasus out of earshot 
 and eyesight. 
 
 There were some half dozen people in the hall 
 when we arrived. Some of them Lesley and I had 
 met in town.
 
 A JILTS JOUBJffAl. 363 
 
 Two sisters the Misses Featherleigh who were 
 renowned for "skirt dancine." A certain Dickey 
 Wren, who was an excellent amateur actor, an 
 equally excellent musician, and lived on an epigram- 
 matic reputation and debts. Who paid the debts 
 or allowed him credit was a mystery, but his useful- 
 ness in the art of providing country house parties 
 with amusement helped him along the road of life as 
 well as any profession would have done. Lord 
 "Bobby" was here again, and greeted me with 
 effusion. My rejected admirer Tommy Yelver- 
 ton was also to the fore, looking more dissipated 
 and vacuous than when in town, and apparently 
 ready for "the third time of asking." 
 
 We sat down and had tea, and Lady St. Quinton 
 made herself very charming to the American, per- 
 haps scenting the proverbial "dollar" as recommen- 
 dation, or else desirous of knowing how and where 
 her "charge" had picked him up. That same charge 
 was inwardly thanking Fate for a season in town 
 that had robbed her tongue of gaucherie and her 
 nerves of fear. 
 
 She was capable now of entertaining Lord 
 Brancepeth and "Tommy Dodd" at one and the 
 same moment, and neither seemed to wish them- 
 selves in better company. 
 
 Lesley was dignified and somewhat silent. But 
 the aura of forthcoming marriage surrounded her. 
 She was an object of respectful interest. The 
 Lorely lounged on one of the divans, and kept 
 Dickey, or "Dickey-bird," as she called him, in con- 
 stant attendance upon her. 
 
 After a time I discovered why Lady St. Quinton 
 had wished to see me. She was getting up an en- 
 tertainment for the organ fund, and it had been
 
 264 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 
 
 arranged to take the form of "out-door" theatricals. 
 The balcony scene from "Romeo and Juliet" was 
 to be given on a real balcony, with real moonlight. 
 ''Wasn't that a novel and delightful idea?" she 
 asked. 
 
 ''Guess you'd better square the Metereological 
 Office before you fix the date," interposed Dr. 
 Quain. "Or arrange two ways, so that you can 
 have your performance indoors or out. A thunder- 
 storm would make pretty short work of Juliet's love 
 speeches." 
 
 "Oh, it will be full moon. And the August moon 
 is a dependable one," said Lady St. Quinton. 
 
 "I think it is a lovely idea," I said rapturously. 
 "Who's going to act ?" 
 
 "Oh, the principals are to be professionals, and 
 Dickey (Mr. Wren, you know) is to stage manage, 
 and play a minor part. Then we shall have a scene 
 or two from 'As You Like It,' and all the seats are 
 to be arranged in a semi-circle among the trees." 
 
 "It's a smart notion," said the American, "and 
 ought to catch on here. When did you say the en- 
 tertainment was to come off, Lady St. Quinton ?" 
 
 "To-morrow week. If you are staying in this 
 neighborhood, doctor, I should be pleased " 
 
 "Madame," he interposed, with a polite bow, "I 
 shall consider it a duty I owe to myself and my 
 country to stay in this neighborhood and to be a 
 witness of this ver-ry interesting performance. I 
 guess I can scatter around the country and see some 
 more of your celebrated antiquities, and be back 
 again in time to hear Romeo swear fidelity to Juliet. 
 I've had the pleasure of visiting your Shakespeare's 
 birthplace, and I shall look forward to hearing his 
 masterpiece with double enthusiasm."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 265 
 
 "Very well," said Lady St. Quinton, "we'll leave 
 it conditional." 
 
 "Put it so, if you please, and I will record the 
 date in my notebook, and keep an eye on the 
 weather." 
 
 "You seem distrustful of our weather," I ob- 
 served. "I suppose you've not found your patent 
 defence very useful ?" 
 
 "I've found it less satisfactory since yesterday," 
 he said, meaningly. 
 
 "If it were your own patent ?" I said. 
 
 "No such luck, I assure you." 
 
 "Well, if it were, I'd like to buy the exclusive 
 right " 
 
 "And bring it out here?" he asked eagerly. 
 
 "Exclusive right," I went on remorselessly. "So 
 that it might never again intrude upon anyone's 
 sense of inartistic fitness."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE talk was all of the theatricals. They seemed 
 to rival the record "bags" and record sportsmen. 
 Lady St. Quinton wished Lesley and myself to 
 take part in them, but I refused. Lesley, however, 
 did consent to play a small part in "As You Like 
 It," and to stay on the extra week in order to re- 
 hearse. 
 
 "It will be something to do," she said to me as we 
 drove home. "And I want to keep away from town 
 as long as I possibly can." 
 
 Dr. Quain detained me a moment as I wished him 
 good-by. 
 
 "I want to ask one favor of you," he said. "They 
 tell me it's worth climbing up that hill to the right 
 of the castle to see the view at sunset. Would you 
 be so kind as to walk up there with me ?" 
 
 "Walk up?" I repeated. "Do you think I'm a 
 fly? Climb up, you mean. You've no idea how 
 steep it is ?" 
 
 "Is it? I thought it was possible. Wouldn't 
 you try?" 
 
 I hesitated. I knew perfectly well why he 
 wanted me to go up to that hill summit. It would 
 be kinder and wiser to refuse. But 
 
 That overmastering desire to know, to read the 
 workings of another mind, to trace the current of 
 thought in another conquered heart swooped down 
 on Paula in the form of an irresistible temptation. 
 
 266
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 267 
 
 She played with it by virtue of the "cat and mouse" 
 element in her sex. 
 
 "I don't know whether Miss Heath would care 
 about it. She is not very strong." 
 
 "Miss Heath ! I wasn't asking her to exert her- 
 self." 
 
 "Oh! you expect me to leave her, and mount 
 that hill for sake of seeing a sunset with you?" 
 
 "It does seem a bit presumptuous, I suppose. Yet 
 that's what I had in my mind. You're a bit of a 
 thought-reader, I see." 
 
 I laughed softly. "You certainly are the very 
 strangest man I've ever met. Are you aware how 
 long our acquaintance has lasted ?" 
 
 "Seems as if I'd known you years. But, of 
 course, I remember driving up here on that coach 
 only yesterday. I've had a pretty wide and compre- 
 hensive experience, but I do allow this leaves a want 
 of purpose in all the others. Won't you come up the 
 hill and see the sunset ?" 
 
 I glanced up at the steep peak and tried to picture 
 Paula in that elevated position, studying her favor- 
 ite "philosophy of cardiac anatomy." 
 
 Laughter bubbled up from an inexhaustible 
 spring, and sentiment flew heavenward. 
 
 "I'll come," I said, "in half an hour's time." 
 
 I turned away lest he should discover that I was 
 only mirthful not impressed. 
 
 "Who is ever going to touch this hea'rt of mine?" 
 I asked myself. 
 
 Lesley was lying down, tired with the jolting of 
 that dreadful drive. I told her I was going out to 
 see the sunset. She lifted languid eyes. 
 
 "Out again alone?" 
 
 "Not alone." I said. "I am taking a walk into a
 
 268 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 lion's den. I'll relate the experience when I re- 
 turn." 
 
 "Oh, Paula! Paula!" 
 
 "Now, Lesley," I said calmly, "from first to last 
 you have been a witness of the career of this ex- 
 perience. Am I to blame? Can I say 'I won't 
 talk' 'I won't jest' 'I won't laugh, dear Mr. Man, 
 for fear you should fall in love with me as soon as I 
 am introduced to you." 
 
 "I didn't think Americans were so susceptible." 
 
 "I suppose they conduct their courtships on the 
 same lines as their other inventions," I said, going 
 over to the glass to see if my hat was straight. 
 
 I looked at myself as steadily as uncontrollable 
 laughter would allow. 
 
 "For the life of me, Lesley," I said, "I can't tell 
 what makes men care about me !" 
 
 "Perhaps that's the best reason you can give for 
 their caring. As a rule, a man falls in love with a 
 woman because she is just the one person in the 
 world he has no business to love." 
 
 "That rule scarcely applies to me." 
 
 "No not yet. But your day has to come. A 
 present indifference shields you most effectually." 
 
 I wheeled suddenly round. "Are you very tired, 
 dear ? Do you mind my leaving you ? It's so hard 
 to remember I ought to be playing hostess." 
 
 "If you want to be kind," she said, "you'll treat 
 me exactly as you've always done. For the present 
 I'd be glad of an hour or two of rest. I seem to 
 tire so quickly now." 
 
 I kissed her silently and went away. The mem- 
 ory of that story she had told went with me, and I 
 left my mirth behind.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 269 
 
 The light was red above the gray, clustering roofs 
 of Scarffe as I mounted the sharp ascent. A rough 
 foot-track led me round to where the slope grew 
 abrupt. Here I found Dr. Ouain awaiting me. 
 
 "I reckon it's steeper than I thought," he said. 
 "Let me help you." 
 
 By aid of his stick, and occasionally of his hand, 
 I clambered up. 
 
 The height overlooked not only the castle and the 
 village, but two distinct counties. The dome of the 
 sky was like a tent, whose blue, silken sides clasped 
 the dusky circle of the hills. Feathery clouds of 
 rose and gold floated over this arch of blue, and all 
 the lovely width of burnished water shone like a 
 mirror of gold as the sun began to sink. 
 
 Breathless and silent I stood, and he was silent, 
 too. 
 
 So near, so mystic, looked that sapphire wonder 
 of the sky, so near those rosy, drifting clouds, it 
 seemed as if heaven stooped to kiss the earth "good- 
 by" ere taking back its gift of light. 
 
 And still the change went on, and cloud and color 
 took or lost a splendor as the last gold flashed from 
 the crown of day. Then a wonderful light, clear 
 and purple as an amethyst, stole up from behind the 
 greater glory, and the rosy clouds paled. 
 
 The circle of those hills which shut in the old, old 
 town and the older ruins from the noise and con- 
 fusion of the modern world, showed once more gray 
 and green against the fading light. 
 
 Water, cliffs, bare harvest-fields and gold-starred 
 meadows lost their momentary vividness, and 
 seemed to glide away into a hazy distance. The 
 brilliant tints changed to twilight's dusk. A cold 
 wind blew over the hills, and chilled me.
 
 270 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 
 
 "You shivered," he said at last, breaking the 
 silence. "I hope you're not cold." 
 
 The intrusion of mere physical inconvenience on 
 such a moment jarred on me. 
 
 I walked on, and made no answer. 
 
 After a few yards, I stopped abruptly with an ex- 
 clamation of disgust. 
 
 "What is it?" he asked. 
 
 "The usual vulgar tourist has been adorning even 
 this place with his insignificant initials!" I ex- 
 claimed, pointing to the letters cut into the turf at 
 our feet. "One would think a scene and spot like 
 this would eliminate this caddish craze. But it 
 hasn't. There are men, I believe, who would risk 
 their lives to climb a mountain, or take a balloon 
 to the highest pyramid only for the glory of cutting 
 their names on ice or granite !" 
 
 "I'm afraid you have not much toleration for 
 .weakness," he said. "But, you see, Paula, you're 
 yery young." 
 
 "Don't. call me Paula," I said. "I'm not an 
 American girl !" 
 
 "I wish you'd let me make you into one," 
 he said. "I do feel as if I'd give all the world for 
 you. They say love at first sight is the best love, 
 and I reckon that's what it was with me. Just 
 took it bad, and can't seem to get over it any- 
 way." 
 
 The old, old chill swept over me at those words. 
 How much did he mean? how much did he care? 
 And why should he care so quickly? What did he 
 know of Paula the real Paula? 
 
 "Have I offended you?" he asked humbly. "I 
 was looking at your face when that beautiful sunset 
 was going on" (he spoke of it as of a pyrotechnic
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 271 
 
 display got up for his benefit) "and it seemed to me 
 so sweet and gentle and holy." 
 
 (No Paula could stand that.) I flashed out: 
 "What you saw in my face wasn't me at all ; only 
 the reflection of that wonderful light. What you 
 care for in me, isn't me at all, either; only the reflec- 
 tion of your own feelings. How can you possibly 
 fancy you are in love with a girl to whom accident 
 introduced you, and of whose life and heart and 
 nature you are absolutely ignorant?" 
 
 "I can only answer that by saying your face came 
 to me suddenly as the one face capable of rousing 
 such a feeling. I can't get away from it, or from 
 you. But then it's no use trying to explain love. 
 You know it when you feel it, and it seems to lift 
 you right straight into Paradise without any need 
 of wings ! Only to catch sight of you, Paula, seems 
 to make my heart just like a summer's day; I feel 
 poetry all through me and would like to shake hands 
 with all the world. I can't explain why, but it's so. 
 As one of our sweetest poets says, 'No other love 
 finds room within my heart.' And again . . . 
 
 " 'For love's sake I can put e'en art away, 
 Or anything which stands 'twixt me and you." 1 
 
 - would have given anything to take him seri- 
 ously, but that unfortunate lapse into poetry 
 brought not only the Boffins of Dickens's Mutual 
 Friend into my head, but also what Captain Cuttle 
 calls "the application of it." And the idea of "art" 
 as associated with the sacrifice of American dentis- 
 try overthrew the whole situation. I began to 
 laugh hysterically. The more I tried to restrain 
 myself the worse I became. 
 
 He looked very angry, and I attempted an 
 apology.
 
 27B A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "It's it's it's the poetry," I gasped. "Poetry 
 always upsets me it did at school." 
 
 "School!" he said wrathfully. "I reckon a girl 
 who can talk like you has left school a long way 
 behind her long enough to know better than make 
 sport of a man's feelings." 
 
 "I'm not making sport of your feelings," I said. 
 "I'm very sorry if you take it so seriously, but for 
 goodness' sake don't drop into verse about it." 
 
 "I shan't drop into anything," he said; "I s'pose 
 it's no good. If you had cared, ever such a little 
 bit " 
 
 I went through my newly acquired formula of 
 proffered friendship and regard, but whether he 
 found laughter still lurked behind, or the wound 
 was deeper than I imagined, his wrath only in- 
 creased. He stood driving holes into the ground 
 with his stick, and kept his eyes sullenly averted. 
 
 "I am very sorry," I repeated. "But, if you 
 come to think of it, a girl can't make up her mind 
 to love, marry and obey for the rest of her natural 
 life a man she's only met twice. At least I'm not 
 the sort of girl. I should want to know a great 
 deal about the the person. His mind, and his 
 nature, and" (as an after thought) "his temper. 
 Why think, even in this case," I went on cheerfully, 
 "I might be a shrew, a vixen, a " 
 
 "You're none of these," he said drily. And he 
 lifted his head and looked into my eyes at last. 
 "But I'll tell you what you've a fair chance of be- 
 coming if you'd care to hear and that's a co- 
 quette."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I SAT alone in my room, and meditated on the 
 many different ways men propose. 
 
 I had come home in a mood of indignation, for 
 my American friend had maintained a hurt and 
 sulky silence, and I thought it was only due to my- 
 self to resent such a speech as that last one on the 
 hill heights. 
 
 Coquette, indeed! Because I had not fallen in 
 love to order; jumped into his arms as he opened 
 them! No. On this occasion my conscience ab- 
 solved me. It was true I had met him once by ap- 
 pointment, but surely there was no great harm in 
 going to look at a sunset. It could scarcely be 
 looked upon as direct encouragement of a proposal. 
 
 "The truth is," I had said to Lesley while we dis- 
 cussed the subject, during the labor of hair-brush- 
 ing, "the truth is, Lesley, that men are so full of 
 vanity and self-importance that they think they have 
 only to ask and to have! They are not over and 
 above tender to our feelings, but don't they cry out 
 if their own are hurt!" 
 
 "You seem to have acquired a pretty successful 
 knack of hurting them," she said. 
 
 "I can't help it," I said crossly, for I had never 
 before failed in keeping a possible friendliness in 
 view after previous rejection. "I like men just as I 
 like certain books, certain amusements, but I really 
 begin to think things are much nicer than people. 
 
 273
 
 274 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 There's not one in a hundred I can like, much less 
 love." 
 
 "Well, I don't blame you for not falling in love 
 with Dr. Quain. He wasn't the sort of man to suit 
 your tastes or your character. When you do marry, 
 Paula, it will be a dangerous experiment. It's the 
 inward side of everything you look at." 
 
 When she went to bed I took out Friendship, for 
 which I had always had a sneaking kindness, and 
 read of loris and Etoile, and wondered if it was 
 really possible that a woman could love like that. 
 Love to the sacrifice of life, and art, and happi- 
 ness. Love even when what she loved was un- 
 worthy. 
 
 I read this sentence : 
 
 "Once was it yesterday, or was it a score of 
 years away? she had flown to her work with such 
 joy in it that she never felt physical fatigue, or soli- 
 tude, or any flight of time. Now she only listened 
 for one step. When she heard it not, the long, pale, 
 weary day seemed cold as death, empty as a rifled 
 grave !" 
 
 I closed the book. 
 
 "Empty as a rifled grave," I repeated. "Does it 
 lie in any man's power to make my life like that? 
 Full to overflowing, or empty as a rifled grave. Do 
 these great, wonderful passions exist, or are they 
 invented to mislead us?" 
 
 A dip into my own "treasury of knowledge" as- 
 sured me that "love as an illusionist was without 
 rival. It could make you forget everything except 
 love." But as if to counteract the force of that 
 assertion another paragraph stated, "Love may be 
 so completely disillusioned that the faithlessness of 
 the person you love cannot even hurt you. It only
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 275 
 
 confirms your judgment; it does not affect your 
 feelings. Your reasoning powers can lift you to 
 heights that his can never touch. From that high 
 altitude passion looks a poor and ill-controlled 
 thing. You pity, you forgive, or you condemn, but 
 rest assured that you can never give back your love, 
 your faith, your real self as once you gave them. 
 For you for evermore Love's face is veiled, and his 
 voice powerless to enchant." 
 
 These were my mother's words. Like a talisman 
 I kept that book forever with me. I had discovered 
 two copies in the professor's bookcase and had taken 
 one for my own use. 
 
 Rightly or wrongly it seemed to me that all the 
 wisdom of a woman's heart lived in those pages. 
 Whether glad or sorrowful, hopeful or perplexed, I 
 could always find something in them to suit the need 
 of my mood. Further on, my eyes lighted on a page 
 of Fenella's own history. "Does this sound fool- 
 ish?" she asked. "All sentiment is foolish. Yet a 
 woman can live on it. But a man can't. Never 
 expect it, and never blame him for what his nature 
 has made impossible. For him life means strong 
 meat, strong wine, strong passions. All else is 
 mawkish and poor and beneath his attention. Of 
 course I except curates." 
 
 With a laugh I put away the book, saying to 
 myself, "I wonder what she would have said to 
 Mark Christopher Quain?" 
 
 ****!* 
 
 At breakfast next morning the professor an- 
 nounced he had changed his mind, and would not 
 lunch at the Court. We argued and pleaded, but 
 all in vain. He had a paper to write for some forth- 
 coming meeting and he would not be persuaded,
 
 276 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 I kept indoors until it was time to leave. Lady 
 St. Quinton sent a carriage for us as usual. I 
 hoped that my American had taken himself off, and 
 that there would be no fear of meeting him again 
 until he returned for the theatricals. Surely by then 
 he would have recognized his folly, or mine, and 
 taken a dose of common sense to cure himself. 
 
 Lesley looked very lovely. She was all in white ; 
 the only bit of color about her was a cluster of 
 Marechal Niel roses with their green leaves fast- 
 ened in the lace at her throat. The day was radiant, 
 and my spirits equally so. I almost forgot Lesley's 
 hidden tragedy. I certainly did forget the re- 
 proaches heaped upon my head by rejected lovers. 
 I felt that youth and life, and sunshine and liberty 
 were blessed things, and never a riddle among them 
 that morning. 
 
 Toddling through a field that skirted the road to 
 Quinton Lacy, I spied a figure. Bent, yet alert, 
 quaintly garbed, and flourishing a stick at a recreant 
 sheep that seemed to have followed a prayer-book 
 formula and "done the thing it ought not to do." 
 
 "That's old Gregory Blox," I said to Lesley. 
 "Shall we speak to him? He's such a character." 
 
 "Yes do," she said, having heard from me of 
 Merrieless' love affair, and the Lothario reputation 
 of the ancient man. 
 
 So we drew up and I beckoned to Gregory, and 
 forthwith he straightened his waistcoat, and gave 
 his old straw hat a jaunty curve, and hobbled up to 
 the victoria. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Blox, how are you?" I said. "I've 
 been wondering what had become of you. I began 
 to think you must be courting for the how many 
 times is it ?"
 
 A JILT'S JOUENAL. 1877 
 
 "As many times as there were maids to listen," 
 he said, chuckling. "But 'tain't for me no longer, 
 miss, which you're kindly welcome, and the new 
 London lady too, and a fine, handsome pair you do 
 make, pardon the liberty of expressing." 
 
 "I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance, 
 Mr. Blox," said Lesley. "I've heard a great deal 
 about you." 
 
 "Is that so now, young lady? Well well, they 
 do say London gets knowledge of every thought and 
 deed that's done, but I hadn't fancied bein' so hon- 
 ored as to have my small fortunes discussed in a 
 varied metropolies. Such an old man as I be too. 
 Heh heh heh! You'll be for makin' me that 
 vain, honorable missies, that a sight o' looking- 
 glasses won't be altering my faculties !" 
 
 It was long since I had heard Lesley laugh, but 
 old Blox, with a belief in a London reputation and 
 a looking-glass, would have made the veriest cynic 
 smile. 
 
 "And have you been quite well ?" I asked hastily. 
 
 "I might make mention o' a complaint or two but 
 for fear o' offending such delicate female ears," he 
 remarked. "A touch o' rheumatics, and a hint o' 
 colic maybe, is allowable ; not but the good lady at 
 the farm is kind *eno' in the way o' peppermint for 
 the stomick, and linniment for the knees. Aye, I 
 believe a' wouldn't ha' wintered through but for 
 her." 
 
 "You mean Mrs. Herivale?" 
 
 "Aye, 'tis the mistress. The Lord's blessing on 
 her! I'm thinkin' He'll need her to grace His 
 courts afore He sends a messenger my way. There 
 not being so special a need o' sinners as o' saints in 
 them same courts o' glory. Maybe 'tis because I've
 
 278 A JILTS JOURNAL. 
 
 secreted mirth so long, that the serious side o' life 
 has 'scaped me ! I do begin a psalm tune now and 
 then when the ale's warm, and the fire roarin' high, 
 but the power o' melody in the voice isn't what it 
 was in years agone, not apparingly to other folk's 
 thinkin', and the complyments they will be payin', 
 makes o' my inside as 'twas naught but blushes. 
 And that's a discomfortin' feelin' for a man, be he 
 old or young." 
 
 "I think we must say good-by now, Gregory," I 
 said hurriedly. JT11 be round at the farm soon to 
 see Mrs. Herivale. Will you tell her so, with my 
 love?" 
 
 Oh, the delicious leer of his wicked old eye ! 
 
 "Love is it? and I to be honored by the car- 
 ryin' o't ! 'Tis a terrible pleasurable situation, miss, 
 and one that makes a chance o' obstinacy in a four- 
 footed creature seem like a happy providence for 
 him as had the fault o' strayin' laid on his shoulders, 
 
 and took the field way yonder." 
 
 ****** 
 
 When we had laughed ourselves tired, Lesley and 
 I agreed that English natural humor had been much 
 neglected by those truth-seekers who have courted 
 fame in the regions of fiction. Then she turned to 
 me, as if by some impulse that memory had inspired. 
 "By-the-bye, Paula, do you still keep that journal? 
 You used to send me extracts from it, you re- 
 member?" 
 
 "Yes," I said. "But you didn't seem to appre- 
 ciate them, so I gave it up." 
 
 I left her to decide what I had given up the 
 journal, or the transmission of its extracts. How 
 could I tell her of my nightly tasks; of the secret 
 pleasure those scribbled pages afforded ; of her own
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 279 
 
 love-story transcribed; of the speculations it had 
 aroused? No. A girl's confidence is only confi- 
 dence while she is ignorant of the full meaning of 
 life. Once she learns its possibilities, or its tempta- 
 tions, its excitements and its dangers, she feels that 
 her own nature becomes secretive by force of emo- 
 tions never hitherto experienced. 
 
 Girlhood stands like a sentinel awaiting Nature's 
 call. The heart forbids the betrayal of a password, 
 but the citadel is less eager of defence than conscious 
 of weakness. 
 
 I looked at my school friend's lovely face, and 
 remembered how long I had been left in ignorance 
 of the great secret of her life. 
 
 "Lesley," I said abruptly, "you are a great dis- 
 appointment. There was nothing I looked forward 
 to so eagerly as the hearing of your engagement, or 
 Claire's. I thought it would be just the most in- 
 teresting " 
 
 "Paula!" she cried warningly. "Who are you 
 copying now ?" 
 
 I laughed. "I ought to have said Ver-ry.' But 
 really, Lesley, think of our talks, of our expecta- 
 tions, our promises where are they all?" 
 
 "Where the school days are, I suppose, and the 
 girls who laughed, and chattered, and promised. I 
 think, Paula, our life then was only an expenditure 
 of mind-energy. We were so ignorant and we 
 thought ourselves so wise. We believed that to 
 wish and to have were identical. I wish education 
 fitted us for life, instead of unfitting life for 
 us." 
 
 "You have grown sadly wise, Lesley. My 'spurts' 
 are only second hand. I take my lessons from the 
 philosophy of a life that has lived and suffered.
 
 280 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 But I can't make it spontaneous or effective as you 
 do the philosophy, I mean." 
 
 "So much the better for you, Paula. But you 
 are far too interested and too observant to take 
 either life or its philosophy at second hand. You 
 have made a prologue interesting. What will the 
 drama itself be?" 
 
 "Perhaps there will never be a drama. Only a 
 long stage wait, and then a quick curtain." 
 
 "Better that than a prolonged tragedy." 
 
 "Lesley, I haven't forgotten what you said that 
 night. But I thought you would prefer I did not 
 speak of it." 
 
 She touched my hand. "I do prefer it, Paula. 
 I want to get rid of sentiment. It is an enemy to 
 life woman's life. That life is hard enough, God 
 knows. We enter on it with everything prescribed 
 by a code of moral laws and social obligations. We 
 must do the same things that other women have 
 done, however different our natures or inclinations. 
 Oh, Paula, the drilling I had ! Even love, if so deli- 
 cate a subject is touched upon, comes in form of a 
 platitude a thing hedged and ditched by moral 
 maxims and prudent precepts; a sexless, limbless 
 creation, of as much use to teach us life as our 
 broken dolls are to teach us anatomy. Oh, it is 
 hateful hateful! And in this fashion we are set 
 going fetters clanking at every step! All the tri- 
 umph and hope of youth forbidden or despoiled. 
 Is it any wonder the iron enters the soul at last, and 
 a woman becomes a secret sinner instead of a 
 healthy rebel?" 
 
 The crimson on her cheek, the flash of her soft 
 eyes transformed her into something of the spirited, 
 fearless girl I had known.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 281 
 
 My heart warmed. "Why not become a rebel?" 
 I said eagerly. "Oh, Lesley, it's not too late! 
 Give up this idea this sacrifice. I hate to think of 
 your marriage now. I dreamt last night of a field 
 of waving grass, and out of it a snake crawled, its 
 crest raised to strike! And you stood there alone, 
 and looked at it, and I shrieked to you to move out 
 of its way, and you only smiled. The horror of it 
 woke me. There seemed such a little thing wanted 
 to save you, and yet " 
 
 "I wouldn't be saved. That's just it, Paula. I 
 think I would rather face the fangs and have done 
 with it." 
 
 She turned her eyes on me, and I saw something 
 in their depths I could not reach, or even compre- 
 hend; that strange pathos which is like the sup- 
 pressed pain of all humanity. 
 
 I could not bear that look, nor, in all my varied 
 vocabulary of ready speech, could I find a single 
 word to fit the situation, or my feelings respect- 
 ing it. 
 
 So I held my peace, and in unbroken silence we 
 reached the Court.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 "WE are going to have a hen-luncheon," said 
 Lady St. Quinton, as she came to meet us. "The 
 men are all off to the coverts, except Dickey, and he 
 doesn't count. He's in the veranda now, talking 
 stage traditions with Lorely and the American ac- 
 tress who is going to do Juliet for us. She came 
 down last night, and everyone is raving about her.*' 
 
 "Why an American Juliet ?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, my dear, all the Shakespearean actresses are 
 resting, as the Era puts it off for a holiday, or a 
 tour, I suppose. Lorely had met Mrs. Desallion 
 or was it Dickey?" 
 
 "Desallion!" I cried. "You don't mean to say 
 Mrs. Desallion is here?" 
 
 "Why not ? You surely don't know her except 
 by repute?" 
 
 "No, of course not, but it seems so odd. Only 
 the other day her name was brought up and I felt 
 so interested in her, and to think she should be here 
 herself." 
 
 "I've often noticed," observed Lady St. Quinton, 
 "that to talk of a person is a sure sign you're to 
 meet at some near date. Psychic force or magnet- 
 ism, I suppose. Very odd. Well, it must be the 
 same Mrs. Desallion, because she's an American, 
 and only just come over for a London engagement 
 in the autumn." She looked keenly at me. "What 
 did you hear ?" she asked. 
 
 282
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 283 
 
 "Only that she was very beautiful, and" I hesi- 
 tated a moment "that her hair was exactly like my 
 own." 
 
 Lady St. Quinton studied my remarkable coils 
 for a moment. "Not exactly," she said. "Hers is 
 more vivid. The women say it's dyed. I wouldn't 
 be sure. But now that you've spoken, Paula, I see. 
 what it was that puzzled me about her. She is like 
 you. For instance, with your colored hair one gen- 
 erally expects to see blue eyes. Yours are hazel, 
 you know, and so are Mrs. Desallion's, and she has 
 the same arched brows, that make one think of pen- 
 cils. But there the resemblance ends. She is taller, 
 and her figure is simply perfect. She is as lithe as a 
 gymnast. The only thing that spoils her is that 
 American drawl. It sounds affected; but she says 
 the cleverest things. However, you'll see her pres- 
 ently." 
 
 I felt strangely curious about this woman, though 
 I could give no reason for it. We went into the 
 broad, shady veranda, and there, stretched on a long 
 wicker lounge, her dazzling head against a heap of 
 blue and gold cushions, was the most beautiful and 
 striking-looking figure I had ever seen. 
 
 I am writing this description hours after I have 
 seen her, and yet she is so vividly before me that I 
 could draw every shade of color and line of grace 
 that represent her. 
 
 The red-gold of her hair had more of red and less* 
 of gold than mine, but, like mine, it had the loose, 
 f eathery wil fulness that always defied arrangement, 
 that shook and shimmered in the sunlight as if each 
 ?url and tendril were a protest against restraint. 
 Her attitude and expression, and the whole charac- 
 ter of her beauty was an embodied rebellion. Vivid,
 
 284 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 wilful, heartless those were the adjectives with 
 which I qualified the enthusiasm her personal 
 charms awoke. 
 
 When Lady St. Quinton introduced Lesley and 
 myself she scarcely deigned to notice us. Had it 
 not been for a certain curious stillness that came to 
 her face as her eyes met mine, I could have fancied 
 she had not even heard my name. 
 
 But the stillness passed so rapidly, and the 
 drooped lids were so supercilious in their indiffer- 
 ence, that I was inclined to attribute the change to 
 my imagination. 
 
 She had the strangest fascination for me, and yet 
 I felt I had never shown to worse advantage. My 
 glib tongue was silent; my brain refused to exert 
 itself. The half-veiled sneers and taunts, of Lady 
 Brancepeth aroused no answering quips from me. 
 I was like one in a dream, conscious only of this 
 delicate vision, with the strange eyes and the lan- 
 guid, mocking voice. 
 
 Before the wisest, cleverest, most celebrated man 
 I could have borne myself composedly, have spoken 
 without effort, but this woman seemed to turn me 
 into a dumb, awkward fool. If she glanced at me I 
 flushed; if she asked me a question I could only 
 summon a brief "Yes" or "No" by way of answer. 
 
 I saw Lesley look at me in surprise, and the 
 Lorely with contemptuous amusement, but I could 
 not gather my wits about me, and was thankful to 
 keep in the background. 
 
 When she rose from that cushioned lounge and 
 swept into the dining-room, I recognized what my 
 chaperon had meant by saying she was as lithe as an 
 athlete. She seemed to move as I had seen no other 
 woman move. It was not only the grace and sup-
 
 r A JILT'S JOURNAL. 285 
 
 pleness of her figure, but the wonderful distinction 
 of her carriage that made all the other women look 
 awkward, or graceless, or vulgar. Even the Lorely 
 was at a disadvantage for once. 
 
 No empress could have carried herself with 
 greater dignity, or left a stronger impression of 
 natural sovereignty than did this actress. She had 
 no stage tricks, she never once talked "shop," she 
 never sounded a single echo of her name and fame, 
 but it was impossible not to feel that in some way, 
 at some time, she had ruled and swayed the hearts 
 of a multitude, even as now she swayed and fasci- 
 nated individual units. 
 
 "You seem to have lost your wits, Paula," Lady 
 Brancepeth had remarked. "I suppose the air of 
 Sleepy Hollow has counteracted the benefits of the 
 Row. Do you still find the ruins exhilarating, and 
 Colin resourceful ?" 
 
 Several eyes turned to my crimson cheeks. 
 
 "Pray, who is Colin ?" asked Lady St. Quinton. 
 
 "Quite a pastoral," murmured the eldest Miss 
 Featherleigh, who had poetic tastes, and eyebrows 
 that were a perpetual query. "Ruins and Arcadia, 
 and a swain whose name matches them." 
 
 "Colin," went on my tormentor, "is a handsome 
 farmer, who has the advantages of education, the 
 lineage of centuries, and the virtues of the country 
 bumpkin !" 
 
 "Oh, you mean young Herivale!" said Lady St. 
 Quinton. "I think 'country bumpkin' is hardly a 
 fair description." 
 
 "Shepherd perhaps is better," said the Lorely. 
 "I think I have seen him with a crook in his hand, 
 and a stray lamb in attendance." 
 
 "What sort of lamb ?" drawled the cold, clear ac-
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 cents of Mrs. Desallion. "Young, I suppose, and 
 innocent ?" 
 
 "Innocent as natural wool," said the Lorely, 
 "with country prejudices undisturbed, and a ten- 
 dency to bleat affection." 
 
 "I cannot understand how a pastoral idyl can pos- 
 sess a single element of content," observed Mrs. 
 Desallion, languidly. 
 
 "Because the bucolic mind asks only to enjoy 
 its possessions, and never questions the capacity 
 of another mind to interfere with such enjoy- 
 ment." 
 
 "Content is a great blessing," said Lady St. Quin- 
 ton, in the copy-book-precept fashion she often 
 adopted when girls were present. "I think it is 
 such a comfort that the agricultural classes have it, 
 for really they could make life very unpleasant for 
 us if they chose." 
 
 "I think they do make it unpleasant," said the 
 Lorely. "At least Bobby's tenants do. Perhaps 
 Bobby isn't popular I know he hates interview- 
 ing the steward, or being worried about roofs and 
 pig-styes. Do your tenants ask for a new pig-stye 
 every year, Pussy?" 
 
 "Perhaps your people are only asking for the 
 same one that has never been given." 
 
 "Oh, perhaps that's it. I know Bobby gets into 
 a dreadful rage, and his language is well, not of 
 the three divisions." 
 
 "What are the three divisions?" inquired Laura 
 Featherl eigh. 
 
 "Don't you know? Some clever person in the 
 papers wrote that the English-spoken language 
 might be divided into three variations on the origi- 
 nal theme. Upper class slang; middle class
 
 'A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 287 
 
 slovenly; lower class sanguinary. But I think 
 Bobby has discovered a fourth." 
 
 "I never heard that before. But do we talk 
 slang?" 
 
 "A pretty good imitation. What do you say, 
 Dickey?" 
 
 "It depends on what class you consider you be- 
 long to!" 
 
 Lady Brancepeth laughed. "Is there a doubt in 
 your mind?" 
 
 "My mind," he answered, "is nothing but doubt. 
 I once discovered a mistake in the Peerage, and 
 since then I've begun to mistrust the Thirty-nine 
 Articles, the Divine Right of Kings, and Mr. Cham- 
 berlain's orchid." 
 
 "Never mind the orchid. They imitate flowers so 
 well now that it's wise to adopt a scentless one. I 
 ask again, are we slangy, as this man said?" 
 
 "We are all things to all men on occasions," 
 said Dickey. "A newspaper stated the other day 
 
 that the Prince of Wales had said 'd n' to a 
 
 clergyman." 
 
 "Was the cleric lecturing his future sovereign?" 
 
 "Oh, no ; only asked why he read a sporting paper 
 on Sunday." 
 
 "Wherefore 'd n' for answer ? I should have 
 
 said, 'For the same reason that you preach.' ' 
 
 "But it couldn't have been for the same 
 reason !" 
 
 "Why not ? The paper and the sermon come out 
 on the same day." 
 
 "Dickey, you are becoming so deliciously subtle 
 that you'll soon have to travel with an interpreter," 
 said Lady St. Ouinton. 
 
 "You always do flatter me dreadfully. I wish
 
 288 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 you would say something that would make me sorry 
 you had said it." 
 
 "You are very profound," drawled Mrs. Desal- 
 lion. "It is almost sad to think how much of your 
 existence must have been wasted in educating ordi- 
 nary minds to your standard of comprehension." 
 
 "Now," he exclaimed, "I am sorry, but for you, 
 not for myself. Your speech is an infringement of 
 copyright !" 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "It's not original. I read it almost word for 
 word in a book. As it was only last night I read 
 the book, or rather that passage, I pronounce you a 
 plagiarist." 
 
 "We are all plagiarists when we talk. Tell me 
 the name of the book." 
 
 "I can't remember, but I'll show it you after lun- 
 cheon. It's in the library." 
 
 "And do you mean to say," she inquired, with an 
 odd look at his pale, expressionless face, "that you 
 read that identical sentence in a book ?" 
 
 "It was a book of aphorisms and cynical half- 
 truths. A woman only writes half a truth, you 
 know. She's so fond of compromises." 
 
 "Oh, then, this was a woman's book." 
 
 "I concluded it was. But I never look for an 
 author's name. If I like a book I read it. If I 
 don't, I don't. It doesn't matter to me who writes 
 it." 
 
 "You must be a boon to Mudie's," said Lady St. 
 Quinton. 
 
 "And to anonymous authors," said Lady Brance- 
 peth. 
 
 "I should like to see that book," said the Amer- 
 ican actress.
 
 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 389 
 
 "I will show it to you with pleasure. It is a book 
 of the purely feminine temperament. The neurotic, 
 discontented, semi-cynical temperament of the mod- 
 ern woman. She rails at everything, because her 
 innate discontent with life doesn't alter life." 
 
 "Nothing alters life. It only alters you," mur- 
 mured Mrs. Desallion. Her eyes took a sombre, 
 inward look, as if she were gazing at mental pic- 
 tures. 
 
 "We are afraid of ourselves," observed Dickey. 
 "The endeavor to be original is far too exhausting 
 for general use. To copy is so easy ; to lead, so un- 
 popular." 
 
 I was watching Mrs. Desallion ; looking at the red 
 curves of her closed lips, the dreamy droop of her 
 heavy-lidded eyes. How she interested, and yet 
 disturbed me ! 
 
 I was dimly conscious of fresh impulses at work 
 within me, that seemed urged into being by no con- 
 scious will of my own. And now even now in 
 the silence of midnight, in the quiet surroundings of 
 my own room, I feel that same fear at work again. 
 
 What had this woman known, felt, seen? What 
 lurked in the sombre depths of those eyes? What 
 secret chord vibrated to the music of that mocking 
 voice? For even when she spoke she seemed to 
 listen within herself. 
 
 I cannot express it in any other way. I cannot 
 express her. I only know that I could excuse a 
 man any madness, any folly committed for sake of 
 this woman. But if she loved him, then indeed 
 would he know the full and uttermost depths of 
 unhappiness. 
 
 It seemed to me that the very fact of yielding 
 herself to any one of the sensations, whose experi-
 
 290 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 ence she coveted, would be an argument against its 
 possible powers of satisfaction. 
 
 As I wrote this, memory flashed back along its 
 signal wire the laughing words of Dickey Wren. 
 
 That book from which Nina Desallion had quoted 
 which he had taken her to the library to see 
 was there not something familiar in its style, and in 
 that very plagiarism? 
 
 Were not the words now staring me in the face, 
 less the utterance of my own thoughts, than the 
 memory of another's? I stretched a hand to the 
 little brown volume on the shelf above my writing 
 table. I turned over the pencil-marked leaves. So 
 often I had read them that I could almost place my 
 finger on a desired paragraph at will. 
 
 Here I copy two : 
 
 "To be profound is the sign of a wasted existence. 
 Wasted because spent in educating the ordinary (or 
 unappreciative) mind to your own standard of com- 
 prehension." 
 
 "An innate discontent with life doesn't alter life 
 but oh! how it alters yourself!" 
 
 The first paragraph was almost identical with 
 Nina Desallion's remark to Dickey Wren. The sec- 
 ond was also a plagiarism, applied to my own 
 theory of Nina Desallion's character. 
 
 And both were contained in Fenella's Confessions.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 LIFE formed itself into a very pretty picture for 
 the week that followed, but my impatience to march 
 to interests and conquer results left me too restless 
 to write of it in detail. 
 
 Those luncheons and teas at the Court, the re- 
 hearsals, the chatter, the mirth, the cynicisms and 
 follies and extravagances formed a brilliant pano- 
 rama that I could not describe while it lasted. 
 Amidst it all one figure was the centre of all inter- 
 est and all attraction. It seemed to me, however, 
 a little strange that Nina Desallion should always 
 avoid me. And, in contrast to that avoidance, was 
 her openly confessed affection for Lesley. 
 
 With Lesley she would talk by the hour. It 
 was Lesley she chose as companion for a stroll 
 through park or gardens ; Lesley she coached in the 
 part she was to play at the forthcoming theatricals. 
 But did I approach them her manner altered, she 
 grew cold and distant, and very soon would leave 
 us together, or call in some one of her ever-watchful 
 courtiers to prove the proverb that "three were no 
 company" when 7 was the third. Yet I was only 
 the more fascinated, the more admiring. I wor- 
 shipped this strange woman with that curious, de- 
 voted, all-absorbing passion a girl very often feels 
 for some brilliant prototype of her own sex. She 
 was so wonderful ! Over and over again I said that 
 of her to Lesley. 
 
 291
 
 293 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 So wonderful. When she rehearsed even the 
 smallest part she enchained attention. When she 
 spoke Juliet's lines I could have wished myself 
 Romeo, only to have believed that liquid, impas- 
 sioned utterance addressed to myself. For when 
 she acted she dropped all Americanisms, and her 
 voice had a charm as powerful as her own person- 
 ality. 
 
 I try to make allowance for girlish enthusiasm 
 now that that magical week has gone, and she has 
 gone with it. I try to think I was carried off my 
 feet by her genius and inexplicable charm. I try 
 to convince myself that Nina Desallion was heart- 
 less, cruel, unprincipled since the kindest voice I 
 have ever listened to called her these since* I saw 
 a gray head bent in sorrowful abandonment over an 
 unfinished work, and learned that the tears of age 
 are wrung from the soul's bitterest anguish and the 
 heart's most agonized shame. 
 
 How to write of it? 
 ***$*? 
 
 I am alone once more and Lesley has gone, and 
 the house party broken up, and a new Paula faces 
 me in my regained solitude. 
 
 A Paula, shuddering and half afraid of some un- 
 confessable discovery. A Paula, hovering on the 
 brink of a question she dare not ask. A Paula 
 gazing with frightened eyes at sorrow, and praying 
 that its touch should be averted. 
 
 "Not yet," cries her heart "not yet. A little 
 longer to believe, and laugh, and jest. A little 
 longer to think Love has some truth, Honor some 
 meaning, Life some joy. That youth is something 
 better than a spent lamp with the light gone outr 
 that there are wonderful and beautiful things in
 
 & JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 Nature to which one's own soul brings the rapture 
 of recognition. A little longer only a little 
 
 longer !" 
 
 ****** 
 
 The pen fell even as I wrote. The growing fear 
 within me showed its face without a mask. I dare 
 not breathe to living soul what that face told me 
 
 even here I dare not write it. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Paint to yourself a child straying along a high- 
 way, and confronted with danger, clutching eagerly 
 at a helping hand. The hand withdraws its aid ; the 
 puzzled, appealing look meets no response, the aid 
 that was so possible and so desired has passed. 
 The child knows itself forsaken but is ignorant of 
 
 the cause. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Paint again the first faith and hopefulness of 
 youth. Listen to its laugh read the untroubled 
 soul through clear, untroubled eyes. Hear it ap- 
 peal to all the wonder-speech of gathered wisdom, 
 and pray, "Speak to me." But the voice of woman 
 mocks, and the voice of man is cold, and the voice of 
 Life cruel, and the jangling discords hold no mean- 
 ing and no comfort. 
 
 The counsel so desired is valueless, and the plead- 
 ing voice asks Why? 
 
 ****** 
 
 r 
 
 Had ever hart panted for the water brooks more 
 ardently than Paula's soul had desired the meaning 
 of Life? 
 
 Love had come and left her unmoved and uncar- 
 ing. Friendship was a meaningless bond that held 
 a promise and withdrew a heart. Experience, as 
 yet but brief and shallow, had preached false phil-
 
 8*41 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 osophies, was full of pathetic reaction, leaving only 
 a sense of loss and disillusion after every lesson. 
 
 Full of misgiving, full of dread, she looked out 
 on life now, and whispered fearfully, "God do not 
 let this be true." 
 
 ****** 
 
 It is often unwise to question a feeling too closely 
 to analyze an emotion at its source; but to peer 
 into the hidden mechanism of an unnameable dread 
 is to suffer such terror as haunts the darkness of 
 long-closed rooms where the dead seem still to 
 linger. 
 
 Could the dead I had mourned still live? Could 
 that beautiful face of purity and loveliness, and 
 genius and truth, have become suddenly only the 
 mask of a living shame? 
 
 Could it be possible that 
 
 I flung the pen away in a sudden fury. 
 
 "I will ask him! he shall tell me!" I said. 
 ****** 
 
 There was no light in the room I entered, save 
 what poured from the full golden splendor of the 
 harvest moon. 
 
 The window opened to the ground, and seated 
 beside it in the old worn chair was the familiar 
 figiire. 
 
 Something in its bent and weary attitude some- 
 thing in the lined and patient face, struck chillingly 
 on my own excited nerves. 
 
 I went up to him and knelt down on the footstool 
 by his chair. 
 
 "Why Paula !" he said. "Not in bed at this 
 time of night. Is anything the matter, my dear?" 
 
 "Yes," I said, "a great deal is the matter. I want
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 915 
 
 the truth about myself. You have never told it 
 me." 
 
 I seemed to feel the curious tremor that ran 
 through his frame as I met the unquiet distress of 
 his eyes with the question of my own. 
 
 "The truth," he repeated. "I I half expected 
 this. Ask your questions, Paula; I will answer 
 them if I can." 
 
 His tone was very quiet; his eyes went to the 
 garden, where flower and leaf lay washed in dew, 
 and steeped in radiance. 
 
 "It is about my mother," I said. "Had she ever 
 a sister?" 
 
 He was silent so long that I was about to repeat 
 the question when he turned toward me. My hand 
 lay on his knee; he took it in his own, laying it 
 palm upward, and seeming to give it careful at- 
 tention. 
 
 "I know," he said, "why you ask that I wish it 
 were possible to say 'Yes,' but it isn't possible." 
 
 "Then," I pursued relentlessly, "am I to under- 
 stand that you consciously deceived me? That she 
 never died that when you sat beside me under 
 the trees at Quinton Court and saw that figure on 
 the balcony and heard that voice, it was not illness 
 that made you faint it was memory and recog- 
 nition?" 
 
 His hand closed spasmodically on my own, crush- 
 ing my fingers with a pressure that hurt. 
 
 "Oh, my dear, I acted for the best. When 
 Stephen lay broken, dying, and told me she had left 
 him, I promised to keep the story from you if I 
 could. He tried to make me believe she was not to 
 blame, but with his death I mourned her own. A 
 worse death, a crueller fate the death of honor
 
 29S A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 and faith and womanly purity. From that hour I 
 heard or saw nothing of her until she flashed before 
 me on that moonlit balcony lovely radiant en- 
 trancing as ever. It seemed as if a blow had struck 
 me. You said afterward I fell back in the chair 
 and some one helped me away. It spoilt your even- 
 ing, Paula but pray heaven it may not spoil your 
 life as others' have been spoilt." 
 
 I knelt there and heard in a sort of blind stupor. 
 
 This the end of that story woven around the 
 mother I had worshipped in my memory. 
 
 This the true history of the radiant, lovely 
 woman I had envied and admired so passionately. 
 This the fruit of all that beauty, all that genius 
 that conquering charm which could play at, and win, 
 and lose love as lightly as a game of cards. 
 
 When the numbness passed, a sense of horror and 
 of shame swept over my heart and filled me with a 
 fierce rage. To have adored unworthiness, to have 
 worshipped at the shrine of a false image, to have 
 studied that spurious philosophy, and believed it 
 the truth of life and the outcome of a reality that 
 proved itself now the veriest sham! 
 
 Oh, what blind folly had been mine! She had 
 never been true to a single feeling, a single senti- 
 ment of the sorrow, and the love, and the sentiment 
 she had described so well. She had never loved 
 aught save herself, or how could she have deserted 
 husband and child? left the one to death and the 
 other to charity not even deigning a sign of recog- 
 nition, a passing word of tenderness, when chance 
 had brought us face to face. 
 
 That stung! That hurt. Her attraction for me, 
 my worshipping adoration of her, my foolish tim- 
 idity in her presence, seeing only a* loveliness I
 
 A JILT'S JOUENAL. 297 
 
 envied, and a charm that now showed itself the 
 cloak of unpardonable dishonor. She must have 
 known me from the first, and yet had never vouch- 
 safed a sign that would have ranked me higher in 
 her interests than a stranger ! 
 
 Suddenly, above the racking turmoil within me I 
 heard the professor's voice again. 
 
 "It is a sad story a painful story to meet you 
 on the threshold of life. I would have kept it 
 from you if I could. What made you suspect, 
 Paula?" 
 
 "I hardly know. First I only wondered at the 
 likeness. Then she said things that were in her 
 book. That seemed odd to me, and I read them 
 over again, and suddenly how I cannot tell a 
 feeling grew up within me that there was something 
 more than chance in it ; and Lesley told me that she 
 was always questioning her, always wanting to 
 know about my life, my bringing-up, my character- 
 istics. But it was only when I began to write it all 
 down that the fear took shape and the truth dawned 
 upon me. Something seemed to say this woman 
 was not a mere stranger, not some one chance had 
 thrown across my path, and I remembered your agi- 
 tation, that strange seizure, your broken words I 
 resolved to ask you for the truth !" 
 
 "What a truth!" I cried passionately. "Oh, 
 fool that I was ! Couldn't I have been content to go 
 on as I was going? Why must I forever dig, and 
 search, and pry, and question? Why did you 
 tell " 
 
 "Ah, child, don't speak so," he entreated. "You 
 asked, and I could not deny. I thought the ques- 
 tion would come soon or late. I thought she might 
 have bidden you ask me."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "She! she never spoke to me unless she was 
 obliged; gave me less notice than the dogs that 
 crouched at her feet. Let me be made sport of, 
 fooled, by those other hateful women. Left me 
 without word or sign as she has always done!" 
 
 "Not always, dear," he pleaded. "She loved you 
 when you were a little child. She was good to you 
 then. Once when you were recovering from some 
 childish illness and had run into the garden the 
 dew was falling, I remember and I and Stephen 
 were at the window talking she suddenly snatched 
 up a little gray shawl that was hanging on a chair, 
 and ran out and wrapped it round you. 'How 
 thoughtful she is!' said Stephen. Then I knew she 
 loved you, Paula even if she loved nothing else." 
 
 I was silent. Something within me struggling 
 for expression, beaten back, unbelieving. 
 
 "I I kept that little shawl," he said, his quiet, 
 tender voice breaking on the stillness and on the 
 waves of that rebellious sea raging within my soul. 
 "Some day, Paula, I will give it to you if you care 
 to have it because that night at least her heart was 
 full of her little child and she was true woman and 
 true mother for the last time." 
 
 "That," I said breathlessly, "was the last time 
 before she left my father." 
 
 "The next morning she had gone," he answered. 
 
 "I will not have it," I said, coldly and relentlessly. 
 "She never loved even that little child. She only 
 played at sentiment." 
 
 What cut my words short and sharp ? What held 
 me like a prisoner, caught suddenly in unexpected 
 chains of his own forging? What struck me like a 
 blow with my own use of my own words? 
 
 Who played at sentiment if not Paula? Who
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 299 
 
 took each phase of life as it came to her and laid it 
 on the dissecting table of her own curious mind, and 
 spared neither herself nor others in the research, if 
 not Paula ? Who had listened to false wisdom and 
 aped the mountebank tricks that lead women into 
 deadly peril? Who had questioned the hidden 
 paths that morbid fancies and sated passions tread 
 in search of pleasure? Who had asked to know, 
 and know, and still could never know enough, if 
 net Paula ? 
 
 And now I knew why. 
 
 In my veins ran the same blood that had poisoned 
 that other life. In my heart lurked perhaps the 
 same passions. She had cared only to conquer and 
 to charm and enslave! She stood now upon the 
 throne of the world's favor, and had earned the 
 coveted distinction of notoriety. She had walked 
 to triumph over broken hearts, without pity, with- 
 out remorse. 
 
 Her face showed no signs of grief, her eyes no 
 shame of the dead sins of those dead years to which 
 I belonged whose fatal fruits might be my heri- 
 tage. 
 
 ****** 
 
 In that hour I lost youth as I lost faith. 
 
 I went away, and back to my room, and to my 
 written confessions, and then that night I took 
 those other Confes.sions and tore them leaf after leaf 
 from their cover. Tore them, with blind rage and 
 fury, into shreds and tatters. 
 
 But I think with each one I tore away something 
 of myself the old Paula that I should never meet 
 again, nor jest, nor talk to. 
 
 The Paula who had learned so much and knew so 
 little.
 
 PART III. 
 
 *A Little Laughter and a Little Love." 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TO-NIGHT we met again the three girls who had 
 parted at life's threshold and gone their several 
 ways. 
 
 To-night Claire and Lesley and Paula sat by the 
 fire in Lesley's dressing-room a sad and strange 
 and somewhat silent trio. There, on the wide 
 Chesterfield, lay the bridal robe, and wreath, and 
 veil, that would mean for one of us the greatest, 
 strangest change a woman's life can know, and gaz- 
 ing thoughtfully into the fire that gleamed so cheer- 
 ily behind its brass fender, sat the girl who would 
 wear that bridal attire. 
 
 It was the eve of Lesley's wedding. Claire and I 
 were staying at Stanhope Gate, but after the wed- 
 ding she was to return to Paris and I to Scarffe. 
 
 I think Claire was less changed than either Lesley 
 or myself. She had charming manners, was un- 
 doubtedly elegant, if not beautiful, and the little 
 half-foreign tricks of speech and gesture she had 
 acquired gave her a certain attractiveness that was 
 specially noticeable when she was with English girls. 
 
 She had been relating her first experiences of a 
 Parisian finishing school, and describing "figure 
 training." 
 
 300
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 301 
 
 The gradual lacing-in, the stiff "corsets de nuit" 
 the manner in which she had been compelled to 
 stand or lie in those instruments of torture for 
 hours, until she was on the verge of fainting. Then 
 the strange, unhealthy fashion of wearing sleeping- 
 gloves laced up to the elbow, and high-heeled boots 
 with pointed toes. The attention paid to her com- 
 plexion and hair the whole arduous routine pre- 
 scribed by fashion for its victims. 
 
 "But I have a charming waist," she finished up, as 
 she rose and pressed her hands either side of her 
 slim, sz-elte figure. "Picture to yourself when I 
 went away I measured twenty-four inches, and now 
 I am only eighteen. At my first ball I was quite a 
 success. I have had a real proposal of marriage as 
 I told you, made, of course, through my parents 
 not to one's face, as in England. I believe they are 
 arranging it. I do not object. He is the Vicomte 
 de Chaumont, and very rich. I shall live in Paris 
 most of my time. Oh ! it is adorable, is Paris, and 
 this winter I shall go everywhere. Be fiancee at the 
 end of the season, if I so desire. The Vicomte de 
 Chaumont is enormously rich, my mother says. He 
 has ever so many chateaux, and a hotel in the 
 Champs Elysees. I do not know why he wishes to 
 marry me, except that he has a craze for everything 
 English. English sport, English horses, English 
 women. He says an English girl with a French 
 education is the most perfect type of woman in the 
 world." 
 
 I looked at her curiously. Of a truth the finish- 
 ing touches of Paris had produced a wonderful 
 change. Claire's mother was an Englishwoman 
 who had married a wealthy French merchant, and 
 had made her home in Paris.
 
 302 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "But would you really marry a man only because 
 he is rich, and has asked your parents' permission 
 to address you?" I inquired. 
 
 "But why not? I should be a simpleton to re- 
 fuse. A girl is nothing. It is only when you are 
 married that you become of importance. You have 
 an establishment then, and can have a salon and 
 play at grandc dame if you desire. I used to think 
 as we do in England, that a girl must love a man, 
 and he her, before she can even think of marriage. 
 But my people soon showed me that was all wrong. 
 A girl cannot possibly know anything about a man, 
 but her parents can, and they can judge if he is 
 suitable and will make a good husband, and above 
 all give her a good position. Vicomte de Chaumont 
 is of a very great family. He might marry some- 
 body quite as great, but he does not wish. And 
 he is so good, he will wait for my decision, and not 
 hurry me; and the settlements he proposed 
 mamma said they were princely!" 
 
 Still I looked, still I listened; and Lesley, lifting 
 that white narcissus face of hers, looked also, and 
 listened. 
 
 "They were a little afraid to let me come here 
 to England," Claire went on. "But I said I must. 
 We were the three friends of the school. Tiens! 
 how far away Aose days look! You, Lesley, are 
 making a great marriage and I I think I shall do 
 the same. And you, Paula what is it you intend ? 
 Do you still take life au grand sericux?" 
 
 "I have not distorted my waist," I said, "I have 
 left my complexion alone, and my hands are sun- 
 burnt. I have had one season, and four proposals, 
 and now I am going to see what Lesley and yourself 
 make of marriage !"
 
 "A JILT'S JOURNAL. 303 
 
 She stared at me, and then began to laugh. 
 
 "You were always so funny I think you are 
 funnier than ever. Do you remember what I used 
 to say about you?" 
 
 "You used to say a great many things about me." 
 
 "I used to think you were always writing a book 
 mentally and putting everything and everybody 
 in it. Have you found out any of the things you 
 were so anxious to know? The secrets of love 
 the hearts of men .or women the real truth of any- 
 thing?" 
 
 "No," I said, quietly, "I haven't discovered a sin- 
 gle secret, or the real truth of any heart, or nature, 
 or life." 
 
 "Then you've only been looking on as yet." 
 
 "As yet," I agreed. 
 
 Lesley's eyes met mine. It had been hard to hide 
 from her how unhappy I was; how bitter the taste 
 of my first fruit of knowledge had been to my lips. 
 
 "Perhaps," said Claire, "you have not had our 
 opportunities." 
 
 She moved across the room and touched the lus- 
 trous folds of satin with a reverent hand. "How 
 lovely you will look, Lesley," she said. "I almost 
 envy you." 
 
 "The dress?" asked Lesley, "or the tragedy it 
 symbolizes?" 
 
 "Marriage a tragedy Quoi done! A comedy 
 you mean. It rests with ourselves to make it so." 
 
 "A comedy of errors," I suggested. 
 
 "You always manage to say horrid things, chere 
 Paula ! I can't fancy any man falling in love with 
 you!" 
 
 "We were talking of marriage, not of falling in 
 love."
 
 304 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Eh, bien tell me" she dropped the fold of 
 satin and came back "how is it you have been 
 four times proposed to and yet are not even a 
 fiancee?" 
 
 "Because I did not care enough for any of the 
 four to sacrifice a woman's best possession inde- 
 pendence." 
 
 "Don't tell me, Paula, you have got strong- 
 minded, and want to get on platforms and tell 
 women all the horrid rational things that make 
 them discontented with men, and conceited about 
 themselves !" 
 
 "No," I said. "My ambitions don't lie in the 
 direction of platform oratory any more than they 
 tend to marriage. As I said before, I am going to 
 watch the result of an experiment before I attempt 
 it on my own behalf." 
 
 She stood lightly swaying on one foot, and ex- 
 amined me critically. 
 
 "You ought to be a success," she said presently. 
 "You are very striking-looking. Of course there 
 are men who admire vivid coloring, and men who 
 don't. One never knows what will take. You and 
 Lesley are the greatest possible contrast. But I 
 must say, Paula, since you left school you have 
 much improved." 
 
 "I am glad to hear it. Although my waist still 
 measures twenty-two inches." 
 
 "Oh, la, la! does it really? You must have a 
 very good dressmaker, for it does not look any 
 larger than mine." 
 
 "I will tell her so," I answered. "She almost ob- 
 jected to my bridesmaid measurements. They are 
 two inches in excess of what she considers the fash- 
 ionable standard."
 
 A JILT'S JOUENAL. 305 
 
 "You have no idea how soon you get used to the 
 compression." 
 
 "I don't want to have any idea, or any compres- 
 sion. Tell me some more about French women, 
 Claire. One never seems to know them except en 
 grande tenue shopping, visiting, dining, cycling. 
 What is their home-life like?" 
 
 "I really don't know. Except that my mother 
 says they are never fit to be seen in the morning. 
 Always a case of peignoir, and curling-pins, and 
 flat-heeled shoes. You see, domestic life in France 
 is very different from ours especially in the higher 
 ranks of society. Monsieur has his apartments; 
 madame has hers. She visits or receives, or goes 
 where she pleases, without question from him. They 
 have .none of our stupid nine o'clock breakfasts. 
 They take their coffee or chocolate in their own 
 room, and meet at the mid-day dejeuner or not. 
 Go their own way, in fact. And as long as they are 
 discreet, and convenable, the whole menage conducts 
 itself admirably. That my mother explains is 
 why there are so few scandals and quarrels in a 
 French household. We English, she says, are too 
 intimate, too much thrown together, too exacting 
 the one of the other." 
 
 "I see. It certainly sounds very sensible." 
 
 "Oh, but it is sensible, I assure you. At my 
 home that is how everything: goes, and my father is 
 so kind, and so considerate and generous. Why, 
 my mother told me he never questions an account, 
 however extravagant. And her jewels he is al- 
 ways giving her jewels. Sometimes he has to go 
 away on business to other cities Lyons, Marseilles, 
 Vienna even Russia, but he never fails to bring 
 her back a magnificent present. Oh, their marriage
 
 306 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 has been a great success, and yet she was only a girl 
 when she made it." 
 
 "That is very encouraging for you," I said. 
 
 "Certainly it is. But why for me more than for 
 Lesley? She also makes a mariage de convenance 
 is it not, ma chere? Of a truth you have shown 
 no enthusiasm either with, or without, the presence 
 of Lord Lynmouth. He is, of course, devoted 
 that is without doubt. But you " 
 
 Lesley's delicate little face grew a shade whiter. 
 
 "I am as happy as I expected," she said. "It was 
 only Paula who asked great things of life. You and 
 I, Claire, will take just what it gives." 
 
 "That is true, ma chore, and our poor Paula will 
 be asking, and seeking, and criticising, while we are 
 enjoying. That is just the difference." 
 
 "Yes," I said. "The difference being your idea of 
 enjoyment, and mine of life." 
 
 Claire seated herself again, and for a moment we 
 were silent. 
 
 "I hope," she suddenly said, "that on the eve of 
 my marrrage I shall not be so gloomy, so triste as 
 you seem, Lesley. I have not once seen you smile, 
 even when you looked at your riviere of diamonds 
 and that adorable gown. You ought to be happy! 
 Such a trousseau, such jewels, and such presents 
 fit for a princess! and yet you are as grave as an 
 owl. I think Paula makes you so. Moi, I would 
 have only laughter and joy and merriment about my 
 wedding eve, and should keep my thoughts only to 
 the settlement and the jewels, and the perfect estab- 
 lishment I meant to have, and the season when I 
 would be presented with my new title ! Oh, life is 
 the most charming thing when you are young and 
 such a future lies before you !"
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 307 
 
 "I think you would want trumpeters to herald 
 your future, Claire, and outriders before your car- 
 riage, and a general crowd of lookers-on to applaud 
 and envy. You are of the type that signalizes the 
 end of the century. Noise, glitter, show, eclat 
 should fill your days, and everything be a pageant ! 
 Your chief happiness the outrivaling of a rival, or 
 the out-reaching an extravagance. Your ambition, 
 not how select your salon can be, but how crowded. 
 Your heart's desire, not the treasure of one perfect 
 love, but the exciting dalliance with a hundred lov- 
 ers." 
 
 I broke off abruptly. I had not meant to say so 
 much, but two months of garnered misery and hid- 
 den shame had left me very bitter. If my ideals had 
 been impossible, at least they had been pure; if my 
 desires had seemed exacting, I was prepared to give 
 the best of myself in exchange. 
 
 I knew Lesley's heart, and Claire did not. I felt 
 how her sensitive nature must shrink from all this 
 publicity, from the panoply of outward show, the 
 jewels and satins and gifts so lavishly showered 
 upon an envied bride. 
 
 I did not envy her any more than she envied her- 
 self. 
 
 Claire looked at me, her eyebrows arched in as- 
 tonishment and a slight flush warming her cheek. 
 
 "del! but how you talk. What is the harm of a 
 grand manage? If it has to be at all, it is better 
 it should be one that people will envy, not pity. And 
 in one, two, three years it matters so little to your- 
 self whom you have married, but if there be all 
 sorts of compensating advantages, then you can be 
 extremely content, and choose your own path, and 
 be happy your own way."
 
 303 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 Lesley made a little impatient movement and 
 glanced at the clock. It pointed to five minutes of 
 midnight. Claire rose languidly. She was in a 
 primrose satin dressing-robe, bordered with white 
 fur, and had not yet removed her corsets. 
 
 "We must not tire you, Lesley," she said. "It is 
 just upon midnight. Good-night, ma bien aimee; 
 sleep well, and dream of the glories before you. 
 They will never come the way of our dear wise 
 Paula; or if they do she won't appreciate them." 
 
 "I shall appreciate them at their worth," I said. 
 "But the worth of anything in this world is only the 
 value one's own soul puts upon it. Queens and 
 kings have been poor and beggars rich." 
 
 "It is such a dear, wise, serious old owl !" laughed 
 Claire, kissing me on either cheek. "But how can 
 one wonder? Figure to yourself a life among old 
 ruins, and dusty books, and a wise old professor 
 for guardian that is how you showed yourself, 
 Paula, in your letters. That is how I have pictured 
 you. But there we will talk no more, seeing we 
 have not once agreed. Bonne nuit, mes cheries." 
 
 She nodded and passed through the archway di- 
 viding the two rooms, and we heard the outer door 
 close. 
 
 Lesley and I stood silent, avoiding each other's 
 eyes. At the first sound of the striking hour her 
 head drooped, her hands went out to me. 
 
 I held them, and I felt them grow colder with 
 each silvery note. At the last she lifted her head 
 and turned and looked at her reflection in the mir- 
 ror above. Looked so long, so silently, that I could 
 almost feel the force of the thoughts that thronged 
 within her brain ; could almost trace in the deep, in- 
 tent eyes the shadow of those pictures they beheld,
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 309 
 
 But still she did not speak. 
 
 "Claire has altered very much," I said, at last 
 breaking the silence, with a sudden dread of its 
 mysteries. 
 
 She started and seemed to come out of her trance. 
 Our eyes met in one quick look. 
 
 "We are all altered," she said in a low, restrained 
 voice. "You, Paula, most of all." 
 
 "I? more than yourself, Lesley?" 
 
 "It is in recognizing my own change I recognize 
 yours, but we won't talk of it to-night, dear not 
 now. It would be too sad. They say it is ill-luck 
 to weep on your wedding-day day, Paula; it has 
 come to that. Yesterday has ceased to exist; and 
 very, very soon I shall have ceased to be the girl you 
 have known. Such a little thing will alter it. A 
 form of words, a little ring of gold. I wonder how 
 other girls feel who are making a marriage like 
 mine? For one must feel, Paula ; one can't help it." 
 
 "Lesley," I entreated, "it's not too late, if you're 
 unhappy, afraid " 
 
 She half smiled, but those deep eyes met mine 
 tranquilly still. 
 
 "Afraid I was never that, Paula. But I am 
 ashamed bitterly, horribly ashamed and to hide 
 that shame I will go through with it. Do you hear ? 
 I will. When you hear me say that to-morrow, 
 Paula- " 
 
 I shuddered as if a cold blast had penetrated that 
 warm and perfumed atmosphere. 
 
 "We had better say no more if your mind is made 
 up." 
 
 "You are thinking of how I shall appear at the 
 ceremony. Have no fear. I possess a very clever 
 maid."
 
 310 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Don't, Lesley," I entreated. "I hate to hear you 
 talk that society jargon." 
 
 The bitterness left her small, curved mouth, and it 
 smiled a pale, faint shadow of the smile I had 
 once seen there. 
 
 Suddenly she raised her hand, and with one finger 
 touched the blue veins beneath her sombre eyes. 
 
 "Do you see that?" she said softly. "That, Paula, 
 is the only sign I am afraid of. It is the tear chan- 
 nel. The most self -betray ing secret of a woman's 
 face. No art can hide, no power disguise it. While 
 you are young it only makes you look interesting. 
 But the years go on, and the faint line is ploughed 
 into a channel and the outline of the cheek is cut 
 as by a sword. Study a woman's face, Paula, and 
 learn by that line of the grief she has borne, and the 
 tears she has shed. You will never believe her 
 smiles then, nor her words that tell you she is 
 happy." 
 
 "Shall I go now, Lesley?" I asked, after another 
 pause. 
 
 "Yes, dear. We have said good-by to a great 
 deal; all the foolish fancies and ideals and hopes 
 that were ours a year ago. It isn't much sadder to 
 say good-by to each other." 
 
 "Must we do that?" I asked, sadly. "Will you 
 be less true to me and our old trust and love after 
 after to-day?" 
 
 "I don't know. I cannot tell." 
 
 Her voice lost its calm and grew hurried. "Don't 
 ask me anything to-night, Paula don't make me 
 think. Oh, my dear, if ever you loved me, don't 
 make me think to-night !"
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 IT was the first wedding I had ever seen as an 
 interested assistant, not a mere spectator. 
 
 From first to last the brilliant pageant played it- 
 self successfully. Who could know that the ad- 
 mired and admirable centre of it all was not as 
 radiant with happiness as she looked? Who could 
 say that the exquisite flush which mantled her cheek 
 was of art, not nature's painting? Who tell that 
 the hard glitter of the eyes meant the defiance of 
 sternly repressed tears ? 
 
 She went through it all so bravely that I could 
 only wonder where she had found strength. 
 
 From that first whispered "Here she comes" to 
 that last "Good-by" that caught the air with a 
 laugh, and died in an echo of scattered rice and 
 swift-rolling wheels, I had seen only Lesley my 
 Lesley. Not the sheen of her magnificent dress, the 
 sparkle of her jewels, the haughty poise of the little, 
 queenly head, but Lesley with the moonlight shin- 
 ing on her white face, with despair in her eyes, with 
 clasped hands wrung in agony; Lesley pouring out 
 her heart to me and telling me a history that made 
 to-day's ceremony a hateful mockery. 
 
 But she had learned the world's lesson well. Her 
 beauty, her grace, her bearing, her wonderful com- 
 posure were the theme of everyone's admiration, and 
 I heard Claire murmur that she should treasure the 
 example in her memory for future use, when a few 
 
 311
 
 313 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 months later she herself might be transformed into 
 Madame de Chaumont. 
 
 The guests had departed, and Lady Archie, worn 
 out, so she declared, had retired for a rest after the 
 reception. I, too, escaped to my own room. 
 
 The evening was to end up with a visit to the 
 theatre. I had only just heard of it. All the brides- 
 maids, Lady Archie and her husband, the Lorely, 
 and a few choice spirits were to be the occupants of 
 a row of circle seats. Stalls had not been procur- 
 able. There was such a run on the piece. 
 
 I felt very tired, and almost wished I could excuse 
 myself from going, but as the principal bridesmaid 
 I knew it would look affected, or ungracious. 
 
 I got out of my finery and threw myself on the 
 bed. My room adjoined Lesley's dressing-room, 
 and through the open door I could see her wedding 
 dress and veil and wreath, as she had left them 
 when changing into her traveling gown. " 
 
 They fascinated my eyes. Such a little while 
 they had been worn, yet never, never again would 
 that wearer be the girl who had put them on for 
 those few hours of pageantry. 
 
 I thought of her on the previous night; of those 
 dark, wide, terrified eyes ; of her words "If 
 you ever loved me don't make me think to- 
 night!" 
 
 "But you will have to think, Lesley," I said to 
 myself. ' "No one can escape from themselves al- 
 ways. There is something pursuing you, even 
 now ; sitting by your side as you drive on that first 
 stage of your wedding journey. It will catch you 
 up, fly you ever so swiftly ; it will haunt you as your 
 words haunt me." 
 
 ******
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 313 
 
 The dim October dusk crept in through the win- 
 dow, and all about was quiet. 
 
 I thought of the old room at Scarffe, and the 
 familiar figure in the chair, and wondered if he 
 missed me. This was our tea-hour the hour we 
 always spent together. The hour when quiet con- 
 fidences and broken words strove to heal that never- 
 ending pain of mine ; strove to teach me the charity 
 of life as well as its high standards ; the patience of 
 life as well as its great truths. 
 
 At first it had been intolerable to me to speak of 
 that secret. Any allusion was as the pressure of a 
 rough hand on raw flesh. 
 
 How tenderly and how skilfully I had been dealt 
 with I only began to learn in these days of absence 
 in this atmosphere of worldly frivolity. 
 
 Lesley had recognized a change in me, but guessed 
 nothing of its cause; Claire had summed me up in 
 her light fashion the previous night; Lady Archie 
 had laughingly declared I must have taken an over- 
 dose of archaeology since my last visit to town ; the 
 Lorely's shafts had sped my way disregarded. I 
 had but one dread that any of these heartless, jest- 
 ing people should find out what the secret was that 
 had overshadowed my life lest they should hear 
 who and what was the woman tempted by devils of 
 lust and greed, and vanity and desire, from the path 
 of honor and the ties of duty. 
 
 When I thought of it, when I remembered how I 
 had idolized that memory, I grew mad with fierce 
 rage and blind with tears of passion. Not once in 
 these months had I learned to regard her with any 
 sense of pity, or excuse her with any recognition of 
 the force temptation might take. 
 
 I had written of my feelings over and over again,
 
 314 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 but the writing only served to lash them into yet 
 wilder fury, as the impotence of the breaking waves 
 seems to gather fresh force with the swelling tide 
 on which they mount. 
 
 "You are very young, Paula," the patient voice 
 had said again and again. "And the young are al- 
 ways unjust and loth to find excuse. Life has 
 much to teach you, ere you can consider mercy be- 
 fore judgment." 
 
 ****** 
 
 Even here, amidst the trappings of wedding fin- 
 ery, the excitement of the day, I could not get away 
 from that memory. Tired brain and aching head 
 lay on the pillow, but to Paula herself came no rest. 
 
 "I will go home to-morrow," I said to myself. "I 
 am best at home. Among all these people I only 
 
 seem to feel more desolate." 
 
 * V * * * * 
 
 I think I fell asleep. I remember starting up at 
 the flash of a light in the room and hearing Claire's 
 voice asking me if I was coming down to dinner. 
 
 T soon got into my dress again, and she arranged 
 my hair with a few deft touches. 
 
 "It is the most wonderful thing about you, that 
 hair of yours," she said. "I have never seen any- 
 thing like it. Paula, what sort of men were they 
 that wanted to marry you?" 
 
 "How you do harp on that one string!" I cried 
 impatiently. "What does it matter? One was a 
 farmer, one an American doctor" (I did give him 
 his title). "Another was a self-made millionaire, 
 and another you will see to-night. They call him 
 Tommy Dodd. He is the only 'title' I have man- 
 aged to charm, and he has asked me to marry him 
 twice already."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 315 
 
 "And why won't you?'* 
 
 "Because he is an empty-headed fool!" I said 
 impatiently. 
 
 She made one of her expressive, foreign gestures. 
 "Ctel! but you are strange. What can that matter 
 if it is a good chance? And a fool makes the safest 
 husband." 
 
 "Do not preach your horrid, foreign infidelities to 
 me," I said coldly. "A woman owes a debt to her- 
 self. She has no right to forget or forego it. If 
 she cannot love the man to whom she gives herself, 
 she is committing a sin if she marries him." 
 
 "That is so prudish so old-fashioned, my Paula. 
 I wish I had you for a year in Paris. You would 
 soon cease to hold such theories. Why, even Les- 
 ley " 
 
 "Don't, please, speak of Lesley," I said hurriedly. 
 "If she has added one more to the mistakes of social 
 vanity, so much the more does she need pity. And 
 she will need it before her life ends." 
 
 "You certainly are a crank, Paula. And how 
 you talk! Tell me, have you written a book yet? 
 I always said you would." 
 
 I moved across the room for my gloves and began 
 to draw them on. "No," I said, "nor do I intend 
 to." 
 
 "Then you still scribble with your mind," she 
 
 said, laughing. 
 
 ****** 
 
 About me as I write to-night flash the glare and 
 brilliance of a scene to which I suddenly grew deaf 
 and blind. 
 
 Was I so ignorant, so stupid, that the talk about 
 me had conveyed nothing of the name of the play or 
 the theatre whither we were driven? Fourteen seats
 
 310 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 
 
 in the front row of the circle held our party. We 
 created some slight stir as we entered the six 
 bridesmaids in their dresses of the day, the other 
 guests in evening attire, conspicuous among them 
 being Lady Brancepeth, in diamond shoulder straps 
 and very little else in the way of corsage. 
 
 We were a little late; the curtain was up. I took 
 the seat indicated, placed my bouquet on the velvet 
 ledge, and then looked at the stage. It was almost 
 dark. Two people occupied it a man and a wo- 
 man. The woman had her back turned, but I knew 
 her even before the light flashed on her red-gold 
 hair. I knew the languid grace of that matchless 
 figure, and the voice that reached my ears turned 
 me faint and sick with memories. Only the great- 
 est effort kept me from betraying myself, enabled 
 me to sit still, while about me the rustle of dresses 
 sweeping into place was like the surge of the sea. 
 Waves of sound throbbed in the air, and my ears 
 caught no meaning the scene went on, and con- 
 veyed to me nothing comprehensible. I was thank- 
 ful for the semi-obscurity around, thankful that no 
 one was observing me. I regained composure be- 
 fore the act was over, and froze into a critical con- 
 demnation of the play that was as heartless in its 
 teachings, as immoral in its attitude to life, as 
 plausible, and false, and cruel as the era that 
 had evoked, and the sated, blase audience who ap- 
 plauded it. 
 
 It was a relief when some one in the gallery hissed 
 and the pit was coldly silent. 
 
 The piece was evidently only suited to the com- 
 prehension of the upper classes. I had heard Dickey 
 Wren chuckle delightedly, and the Honorable 
 Tommy Yelverton pronounce it "rippin'." Lan-
 
 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 317 
 
 guid occupants of stalls and boxes applauded rap- 
 turously. 
 
 I felt sorry to think a woman had written the play, 
 and that a woman was acting in it whose own life 
 might have matched its heartless platitudes. 
 
 But when they called her back again, and yet 
 again, and she bowed, and smiled, and stood, a liv- 
 ing picture of sensuous beauty among the glow of 
 flowers that had been cast at her feet, I met her eyes 
 for the first time. Full and straight across that 
 lighted space we looked ; from face to face. Again 
 that curious stillness crept over hers as when first we 
 had met, and she had heard my name. 
 
 The distance that separated us now was not dark- 
 enough to hide the secret that she held, nor wide 
 enough to keep back from her heart the message 
 sent by mine. 
 
 I think she knew that I knew her at last.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IT was growing dark when I reached Scarffe Sta- 
 tion. I glanced carelessly at the few figures on the 
 platform, and to my surprise saw the professor. I 
 had wired from town that morning that I was com- 
 ing down, but had never expected he would meet 
 me. 
 
 A memory of that other arrival, when I had found 
 myself alone, and apparently forgotten, came over 
 me as I greeted him. In this year we had grown 
 curiously interested in and attached to one another. 
 
 "I have a cab for your luggage," he said, as we 
 went out of the station. "You see, Paula, I am 
 waking up to the obligations of every-day life at 
 last." 
 
 I gave his arm a little squeeze. "It was good of 
 you to come," I said. 
 
 "Not so good as your return. I never expected 
 you could tear yourself away from your gay friends 
 and the pleasures of town so soon. I suppose the 
 wedding was as ah brilliant as you expected?" 
 
 "Yes," I said. "Quite." 
 
 We got into the musty old cab and jolted along 
 for some time in silence. 
 
 The familiar landmarks came and went like 
 ghosts in the falling dusk. I turned to him. 
 
 "Do you know," I said, "I believe I am growing 
 fond of Scarffe. When I was away it positively 
 
 haunted me." 
 
 818
 
 A JILT'S JOUENAL. 319 
 
 "Any one who feels or thinks deeply," he said, 
 "cannot help becoming attached to ah places that 
 possess interest and beauty. Modern life is doing 
 its best to destroy both ; its touch is a scourge. But 
 we have averted it here as yet. Not for long, I fear. 
 But to me this place is one of the few that possesses 
 tranquillity, historic interest, and ah mediaeval 
 charm. I have worked without fear of intrusion, 
 and made ah researches without interruption. I 
 too am attached to the place. I shall be sorry to 
 leave it." 
 
 "Why should you leave it?" I asked quickly. 
 
 "When my book is finished," he answered, "there 
 will be no need to remain. And it is a dull life for 
 youth, Paula." 
 
 "My youth can flourish very well here," I said. 
 "Life is better and safer, too than in the world." 
 
 "Life," he said, "has not brought you what it 
 should bring to youth, or you would not say that." 
 
 I made no answer, and we drove on. 
 
 It seemed to me such a long, long time since I had 
 driven here by Adam Herivale's side, the cold De- 
 cember moon shining through rifts of clouds, the 
 rain falling mistily over the dark, ploughed fields. 
 
 Yet it was only a time to be counted by months, 
 so rapidly does the education of life proceed. But 
 in those months I had received harm and done harm. 
 I had known what it was to be proud and self-satis- 
 fied ; assured of my own importance, and vain of the 
 interest I aroused. Sharp and sudden had been my 
 humiliation, painful the truths I had learned. One 
 by one I had seen my foolish conceits rent to pieces, 
 one by one I had seen my faiths fall. 
 
 I turned with a sudden fear of yet further trial 
 and clasped the old, wrinkled hand by my side. "You
 
 320 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 must not go away from here," I said. "And you 
 must let me stay with you. It is the best place for 
 me the very best." 
 
 "For a little while," he said, "perhaps it is." 
 
 "I have got into bad habits," I hurried on. "I 
 may get into worse ; and I don't want to. There is 
 something better than jesting and laughing, and tak- 
 ing life only from a sense of enjoyment ; the enjoy- 
 ment it offers." 
 
 "You are right, Paula," he said, "though enjoy- 
 ment is one of youth's happiest phases; but it is 
 short-lived you must have something to fall back 
 upon." 
 
 "That is what I want," I said. "And only you 
 can give it me." 
 
 "My dear child I?" 
 
 "Yes and you give it all the more successfully 
 because you are unconscious of giving it. You have 
 a very exalted way of looking at things. I I have 
 not. But I think if you let me stay by you, and try 
 to look at life as you do, it will be better for me. 
 You told me I must see the world, and I am sure 
 you thought I should find it pleasant and enjoy it; 
 but when I look back on those frivolous months I 
 know they were only harming me. What I learned, 
 what I heard, what I saw, was not good never!" 
 
 "You learned quickly, my dear," he said gravely. 
 
 "Because I can't help it. Because I must think. 
 I can speak to you and tell you, because I feel you 
 will understand; you won't laugh. There, in the 
 world I have left, everyone laughs at the serious 
 things. Even death doesn't seem to strike them in 
 any other light than what is the most becoming 
 style of mourning. Perhaps those women, when 
 they were young, felt as I do, but pure feelings and
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 321 
 
 noble ambitions are soon killed by mockery or dis- 
 use. And after a time one cannot alter life. It is 
 like a great, strong wave that is made up of the 
 force of hundreds of other waves, and it carries us 
 along to some shore where all the others are going. 
 I don't want to be carried along. My life belongs 
 to myself as yet. Oh, keep it by you, and with 
 you!" 
 
 He gave my hand a gentle pressure. His voice 
 was not as firm as usual as he answered that im- 
 passioned outburst. 
 
 "It is what I should desire," he said. "But I fear 
 to seem selfish. When you were away I missed you 
 so the tea, the little talks, the quiet, happy hours, 
 the music. But I always said I must not expect a 
 sacrifice from from you, Paula." 
 
 "A sacrifice from me," I said, "would be as im- 
 possible, dear professor, as selfishness on your part. 
 Oh, here we are at home. I am glad. I am very, 
 very glad !" 
 
 The lights shone on his face, and in the quiet 
 content of his dim, blue eyes. 
 
 "You make me very happy, my dear," he said, 
 "when you say that." 
 
 My old room so plain and simple after the luxu- 
 rious appointments of Stanhope Gate. The blazing 
 fire to greet me, the laughing face of Merrieless to 
 give me welcome. How pleasant and homely it all 
 was! 
 
 And once again I thought of that first home- 
 coming as an emancipated schoolgirl. Of the 
 thoughts I had brought here, and the discontent of 
 my heart, and my crude, unworthy summary of the
 
 322 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 dear, wise old man whom I had learned to love and 
 appreciate as well. Yet even as I stood before the 
 welcoming blaze and gazed into its deep, red heart, 
 I was taking myself to task for some insincerity 
 lurking in the background of changed feelings. I 
 knew they were less genuine than they seemed. 
 Born of pique, not penitence ; disgust, not judgment. 
 Born most of all of that self-pity which is so natural 
 to youth, so easily excited by the spectacle of its 
 own undeserved sufferings. 
 
 "If I could only be sure that I was genuine in one 
 single thought or feeling, even in the way I regard 
 my real self," I thought bitterly. "But when I 
 look back on the impulse that made me speak as I 
 did, I feel more gratified by the look in that dear old 
 face than certain that I deserve credit for bringing 
 it there. Am I ever to find out if I am really Paula, 
 or playing the part of the Paula I want other people 
 to believe in?" 
 
 I sighed wearily. It was getting very compli- 
 cated and I was getting tired of both Paulas the 
 false and the true. 
 
 But I suppose I took them both downstairs and 
 wove them into the music I played, and the words 
 I said, and the patience with which I listened to ex- 
 tracts from the book now nearing completion the 
 book whose compiling and research had cost 
 such labor and time and thought to its patient 
 author. 
 
 "It has tired you, hasn't it?" I asked him, as he 
 put the sheets of beautiful, neat penmanship aside. 
 
 "Work always tires one more or less, my dear," 
 he said. "But if it is work done to the best of our 
 ability, then it is worthy of satisfaction." 
 
 "Do you remember my asking you once if a writer
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 99* 
 
 puts real feelings, real expressions into his work? 
 If the thoughts represent his own thoughts uttered 
 by his creations?" 
 
 "I remember. And I believe I told you it was 
 not necessary to believe all you wrote, or individual- 
 ize it. In the course of literary or artistic life one 
 gains a wide experience, which one naturally turns 
 to profit by using as material. But in the the 
 creation of a character, I should say the author must 
 conceive it clearly as flesh and blood, and human, 
 before clothing it with words and placing it on a 
 stage of action. No story can seem true to a reader 
 if it has not first been true to the author of it. I am 
 not a wide reader of fiction. Standard works I 
 have of course studied, and a few modern novels 
 that have been widely praised. But I find modern 
 writers apt to lose sight of the ah importance of 
 what they publish. Perhaps, for them, it has no 
 importance. That is the grave fault and the crying 
 disgrace of modern literature. It makes it slipshod, 
 imperfect, inaccurate. You may argue that since 
 fiction is only to amuse, these defects are unimpor- 
 tant. But nothing is unimportant that goes out 
 from one mind and soul with a message to another. 
 Harm may and does accrue. To me it seems as 
 wrong to give a false view of life, a false code of 
 honor, to gloss over vice, or mock at one single, 
 deep, or holy emotion, as to rob, or betray, or mur- 
 der! There are no arbitrary rules for literature. It 
 is a pity there are not. The ranks might be cleared 
 and freed from that worthless flood of competition 
 which is the ruin of all good work." 
 
 He spoke warmly and with interest. I listened 
 with that never-satisfied query in my mind as to the 
 amount of genuine feeling brought to bear on that
 
 324 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 particular book whose false philosophies I had once 
 adored. 
 
 "I wanted to tell you something," I said at last. 
 "It is about an incident that happened when I was 
 in town." 
 
 "Yes ?" he said, looking down at my face, as I sat 
 on my usual low stool beside his chair. 
 
 "On the night of Lesley's wedding we all went to 
 the theatre," I said. "I had not asked what theatre, 
 or the piece. When I looked at the stage I saw 
 her again." 
 
 "Poor child," he said softly, and his hand stroked 
 my hair as it lay against his knee. "I thought she 
 had left gone back to America." 
 
 "No. It was a hateful piece, and she acted as if 
 she wanted to paint the woman in all her vileness 
 and selfishness. And the people seemed to like it. 
 They called her back again and again. It was at 
 the last, just as she bowed and smiled, that she saw 
 me and I cannot get over the idea she felt I knew" 
 
 "What makes you think so ?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know. One feels a thing some- 
 times without being able to explain why. That is 
 all I can say." 
 
 "Was this the reason you hurried back so quick- 
 ly, Paula?" 
 
 "Partly and partly because Lesley's marriage 
 affected me so. It was such a pure piece of world- 
 liness and outward show. She looked like a dream 
 of purity and loveliness, and yet " 
 
 My voice broke. I remembered that piteous en- 
 treaty not to make her think on her wedding eve. 
 My poor, pretty Lesley! 
 
 "Do you fear she will not be happy?" he asked 
 presently.
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 325 
 
 "I am sure she will not." 
 
 "She is your friend," he said slowly. "You would 
 have had girlish confidences. I suppose you know 
 why?" 
 
 "Yes," I said, "I know why. And knowing it, 
 and looking on at those people applauding and en- 
 couraging the sacrifice, looking at other husbands 
 and wives, and the mockery and woe of marriage, 
 made me feel suddenly so tired, so ashamed, so 
 sick of that false life, that I only longed to get away 
 to where peace and goodness lay." 
 
 "My dear," he said, "I thank you for that 
 thought." 
 
 "I have had other thoughts so many, and so 
 wicked. I get so perplexed." 
 
 "Ah, my child I know that perpetual question, 
 that perplexity of youth. You have been trying to 
 find yourself, Paula, and perhaps you did not set 
 about it in in quite the right way." 
 
 "I am very sure I did not." 
 
 "There are strange things in the heart of youth," 
 he went on dreamily. "And its dreams are very 
 beautiful. But life is no place for dreams only 
 the poet and the thinker can afford to live away 
 from the world, and live for its well-being. To the 
 most of us life is an urgent call or a plain duty. It 
 has to be obeyed. I think sometimes, Paula, that it 
 was because you had no special call, saw no absolute 
 duty awaiting you that you made life a complex 
 instead of a simple thing. I have often thought 
 I did not like to recall what was so painful but 
 I have often thought of what you said once about 
 writing things down. That it made them seem 
 more real. Is this a habit of yours, my dear?" 
 
 "It used to be. I gave it up after that hateful
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 night. But it is always tempting- me again. Every- 
 thing lives for me, like a scene, or a story. My mind 
 is restless until it places events into some shape or 
 form. Can you explain why this is?" 
 
 He was silent so long that I thought he could not 
 have heard me. But the gentle touch of the hand 
 went on, and I waited. 
 
 "Paula," he said at last, "you are asking the same 
 question that she asked. Can you not, by the 
 light of your own nature, read something of the 
 restlessness and fever and desire that drove her to 
 seek distraction ? She has found it, and success and 
 fame, too. But perhaps her heart is still a woman's 
 heart, full of deep, strange phases ; desperately sad, 
 and desperately afraid. You have come to me, 
 Paula, to tell me what hurts you. Had she done 
 the same " 
 
 "Do you think you could have saved her?" 
 
 "I should have tried my best. She was young 
 and ignorant and thoughtless. The world tempted 
 her. She had, perhaps, less resolution than you or 
 she relied upon her own judgment. But if you re- 
 flect, Paula, you can trace back the origin of your 
 own restlessness and dissatisfaction, your own per- 
 petual search for some outlet of imprisoned feelings. 
 She played with human hearts as a child plays with 
 toys. At first life was a jest. Do you think, Paula, 
 it is that any longer? That she has not dark and 
 bitter hours, haunted by shame and terrible memo- 
 ries? Perhaps, some day, she will creep back 
 broken-hearted to us. Yes us, my dear the man 
 who loved her faithfully the child she deserted." 
 
 Something in his voice, in the innocent simplicity 
 of that self-betrayal, touched me as nothing had 
 touched me yet. I felt the tears gather and drop on
 
 A JILT'S JOUENAL. K7 
 
 the wrinkled hand I held, and I felt, too, the mo- 
 mentary pause of the one that stroked my hair. 
 
 But the thought in my heart the thought I 
 could not express was that I might have become 
 like her but for that self-betrayal but for that wise 
 and simple life, about me like an unasked yet faith- 
 ful protection. 
 
 A protection at which I had once scoffed.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I DROPPED back into the old, peaceful routine of 
 days, the old, simple duties of life, with something 
 of the satisfaction a tired swimmer feels who has 
 reached land after an unexpected demand on his 
 energies. 
 
 It was pleasant to hear Merrieless' homely chat- 
 ter, and even the proverbs of Graddage had a salu- 
 tary sharpness in their reproach, or reproof. Noth- 
 ing disturbed those first few days. No letters, no 
 calls, no intrusion of the outer world. I rested body 
 and mind. I read a great deal. I had long, quiet 
 talks with the professor talks that did me good, 
 even if they could not cure that morbid dissatisfac- 
 tion with myself and my part in life that at times 
 swept over me like a wave of misery. 
 
 One afternoon I went over to Woodcote to see 
 Mrs. Herivale. I found her very frail and weak, 
 but placid and sweet as ever. She told me Adam 
 had gone away for a time, but gave no reason, or 
 locality, and I did not like to ask for either. She 
 made me have tea with her in the cosy old parlor, 
 and the cheerful talk of the farmer and the girls 
 brought with it that sense of family union and con- 
 tent I had failed to discover in more brilliant family 
 circles. 
 
 How they loved that pale, gentle woman, studied 
 her every want, listened to her quiet words ! 
 
 When they left us alone, as they always did, she 
 
 328
 
 "A JILT'S JOUENAL. 329 
 
 asked me of Lesley and the wedding, and I told 
 her briefly how gay and bright a pageant it had 
 seemed. 
 
 "If that were all," she sighed, "the sweet young 
 lady might be happy. But the life that begins for 
 a woman when she steps out of church door by her 
 husband's side, that, Miss Paula, is another sort o' 
 life to any that's gone before. There was some- 
 thing in Miss Lesley's face that spoke o' suffering. 
 And you say she had no mother's counsel to guide 
 her?" 
 
 "No," I said, very low, wondering if there were 
 mothers in Society, in whose counsel a girl might 
 trust before she faced moral shipwreck. "But, after 
 all, no counsel can help you. When you take up a 
 responsibility you must go through with it." 
 
 She looked at me with her wise, sweet eyes. 
 
 "Ah, my dear," she said, "those young lips o' 
 yours ought to speak brighter words. There should 
 be nought in life as yet to make you feel discon- 
 tented with it and it's an unwise thing to give way 
 to. Sometimes you talk very clever and very 
 pretty, but it doesn't seem to me as if your words 
 were real; not as if your heart was in them. Don't 
 encourage fancies, Miss Paula. Look at life 
 straight and clear, and take its duties as they come. 
 'Tis easier to face the great parting knowing you've 
 done that. Believe an old woman, my dear, who's 
 seen more o' life than you, even if it's a different 
 sort o' life. There's but one true law for women, 
 and it's none o' man's making. It's just content. 
 Content with her own nature as Nature made it 
 her own soul as God gave it. No repining because 
 things can't be altered to whims (for we all have 
 our whimsies, Miss Paula, bein' women), no regrets
 
 WO A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 that she isn't better and wiser than God meant her 
 to be. He gave her to man, and man's she is; to 
 have and to hold, to love and help and guide ; or else 
 she ceases to be woman." 
 
 Deep into my rebellious heart sank the simple 
 wisdom of those words. I went home, as I always 
 went home from Woodcote, the better for what I 
 had heard and seen. 
 
 When I played to my ever-willing listener that 
 night I chose brighter music than for long I had 
 chosen quaint gavottes, stirring battle marches, 
 the rippling, laughing measure of Chopin's gayest 
 waltzes. It pleased me to see how attentively he 
 listened, how the studious face brightened, and how 
 now and then the white head nodded time to some 
 spirited phrase that caught his ear and pleased it. 
 
 When I stopped and went over to his chair he 
 held out his hand. 
 
 "Thank you, my dear. I like that music. It was 
 the music of youth the music you ought to play. 
 I fancied I could see you dancing. You dance, do 
 you not, Paula?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, of course I do. I should have cut a 
 sorry figure in London ballrooms but for that." 
 
 "And you liked it? You felt gay and bright. 
 It meant enjoyment." 
 
 "Enjoyment of a sensation yes. But, unfor- 
 tunately, professor, one cannot dance alone." 
 
 "No," he said vaguely. "No, Paula, I I sup- 
 pose not in a ballroom. But your partners were 
 they satisfactory?" 
 
 "As far as time and style certainly. But they 
 seemed to dance in much the same spirit they did 
 everything a bore, an obligation, a means for an 
 end. There would be two rounds, sometimes only
 
 A JILT'S JOUENAL. 331 
 
 one, a few vapid remarks, and then a suggestion of 
 a conservatory, or a balcony." 
 
 "None of those partners pleased you?" he asked. 
 
 "No, except for the time they served as partners." 
 
 "You are a very difficult girl to please, or a very 
 easy one. You would need either a hero or a very 
 simple, honest man, whose only merit was that he 
 loved you above and beyond all other women and 
 would so love you to life's end." 
 
 "As for the hero," I said, "I should like to see a 
 hero through the eyes of those who live behind the 
 scenes of his heroism. I might then get some idea 
 of the man." 
 
 -"The man" he smiled up at me. "You think 
 that behind the scenes would show him only as a 
 very ordinary person." 
 
 "From the point of view," I said, "of sister or 
 mother." 
 
 "Ah, Paula," he said sadly, "they would only see 
 him through a haze of sentiment. The sister would 
 have prophesied strength from a broken doll she had 
 cherished. The mother what is the greatest war- 
 rior in the world to the mother who bore him, save 
 the little lad who sat at her knee, and knew that V 
 stood for soldier?" 
 
 "Well, take the 'simple, honest man,' " I went on 
 inexorably. "Should I appreciate his love? life- 
 long fidelity is an irresistible appeal to a woman's 
 vanity, but I fear I very much fear that I should 
 not value the love unless I could return it equally." 
 
 "And why should you not ?" he asked. 
 
 "Ah, that's the question. It doesn't seem in me 
 to care for any one man. I've seen plenty I've 
 read of them and heard of them, and yet they 
 don't appeal in any way to anything within myself."
 
 332 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 
 
 "Ah, my child, that is at once characteristic and 
 your defect. You won't accept anything for what 
 it seems. You want to find out what it is. But 
 you never can, Paula. The hidden springs that 
 work our highest emotions, the noblest impulses 
 that force us into action, these are not things to be 
 explained to cold criticism. Thought is God's most 
 priceless gift, but who can tell us why we think a 
 certain thing why our emotions spring into the 
 vivid force of passionate words? No one. We 
 only feel that it is so. Once you feel, Paula, you 
 will forget to reason, and then you will have learnt 
 the woman's lesson." 
 
 "I will tell you," I said suddenly, "what I do 
 feel, and that is that I'm never true. That in all 
 phases of emotion I'm not myself, but merely look- 
 ing on at myself; suffering, or forgiving, or acting 
 the part I want to make real." 
 
 "My dear," he said, "I'm sorry for you. In look- 
 ing out for Truth you have missed the way. You 
 have put the seeker before the search. Are none of 
 your emotions true, Paula ? Do you pretend even 
 to me?" 
 
 I hung my head abashed and shamed. 
 
 "At first," I said, "I did pretend. I wanted to be 
 a sort of ministering angel. It seemed to me that 
 as my place was here I must make myself of some 
 importance in that place. I didn't want to be over- 
 looked even by you." 
 
 "At first you said at first, Paula? Don't fear 
 to trust me with the truth. Have your feelings 
 changed ? Can I not believe that some genuine af- 
 fection lives in your heart for a lonely, old man 
 whose life you have gladdened?" 
 
 "Oh, yes yes, indeed !" I cried eagerly. "I have
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 333 
 
 changed in that way. To you I am what I am. I 
 wanted to come back to you, and I want to stay 
 with you, because I feel you are the one person who 
 does me good, who draws out this hateful egotism." 
 
 "One thing will cure you, Paula," he said gently. 
 "Not Society, not the gay life of the world to which 
 I sent you. A sorrow -deep and real. Something 
 that will make you forget that you are only an on- 
 looker. Something that will wrench from your 
 brain all its cold and critical faculties; that will 
 waken your heart to feel the woe of life, and make 
 you truly grateful if that life holds a little child's 
 laugh .... a man's true love." 
 
 I was silent. 
 
 I knew that to-day I had heard the deep and 
 simple truth of life from two sources. 
 
 The one an ailing woman, around whom was 
 centred the home- worship she had so well deserved ; 
 the other this lonely, old man, so wise and yet so 
 simple of heart, who had silently suffered and borne 
 without complaint a loveless fate. 
 
 My headstrong course was checked suddenly. I 
 felt as if I had strolled carelessly to the brink of a 
 precipice, and a hand had pulled me back. Only 
 those whose nerves are tried and strong may look 
 over that brink, otherwise the brain would reel and 
 the head grow dizzy, and then would come the fall 
 that means destruction. 
 
 .-4> * 4c -,- 4 
 
 That silence lasted long. But I seemed to know 
 he was following my thoughts along that line to 
 which his words had given the cue. 
 
 When they ended in a deep-drawn sigh, he looked 
 up to where I stood leaning against the mantelpiece. 
 
 "All this time, Paula," he said, "I'have forgotten
 
 334 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 to mention an important communication that I have 
 received from Lady St. Quinton." 
 
 He drew out a letter from his pocket and opened 
 it, and surveyed the sheet with critical eyes. 
 
 "She tells me," he went on, "that you have re- 
 ceived an offer of marriage from a certain Honor- 
 able Thomas Yelverton a man well connected, 
 rich, and devoted to you. In fact, so devoted that 
 he appeals to her to try and make you alter your de- 
 termination. He has, I gather, already proposed to 
 you." 
 
 "Twice," I said briefly. 
 
 "What is your objection to him, Paula?" 
 
 I looked down at the foot resting on the fender- 
 bar, and ran over in my own mind a list of objec- 
 tions that finally resolved themselves into one. 
 
 "I do not care for him in the way a woman 
 should care for the man she intends to marry." 
 
 He replaced the letter in its envelope. 
 
 "I am afraid," he said, "I am but a poor sort of 
 guardian for a girl of your type, Paula. In a ques- 
 tion of marriage a girl's best and wisest ad- 
 viser " 
 
 He stopped his face grew ashen gray. I felt 
 that quiver of emotion that passed over it answered 
 by my own. 
 
 "Is one of her own sex," he hurried on. "Lady 
 St. Quinton is very fond of you, Paula. She is de- 
 sirous to see you well and happily married. She 
 tells me of the admiration and ah attentions you 
 received, and she begs me to use my influence with 
 you in this matter. She ah urges that too much 
 stress must not be laid upon the absence of love in a 
 suitable marriage. A great deal of happiness can 
 be gained from the comforts and luxuries of life,
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 335 
 
 the sympathy of a man's heart as well as its de- 
 votion." 
 
 I laughed unrestrainedly. To hear of Tommy 
 Dodd's "sympathy" with any single wish or feeling 
 of Paula as I knew Paula, was as amusing as to 
 hear the dear professor laboring through Lady St. 
 Quinton's well-worn arguments in his favor. 
 
 "You don't appear to take this very seriously^ 
 Paula," he said. 
 
 "Indeed no. I cannot. He is such a very odd 
 young man. The idea of marrying him is impos- 
 sible." 
 
 "Have you weighed all the advantages, Paula?" 
 
 "Yes, and all the disadvantages. The scales 
 don't balance." 
 
 "Perhaps you have never been in a position to 
 judge his qualifications. Lady St. Quinton sug- 
 gests your staying a week or two at the Court. He 
 will be there next week. You will have a better 
 opportunity " 
 
 I shook my head. "I have had plenty of oppor- 
 tunities. I have seen as much of this gentleman as 
 I wish to seb." 
 
 Then I turned suddenly to him. "Are you so 
 anxious to get rid of me, that you wish me to 
 marry ?" 
 
 "My dear," he said, "you know better than to ask 
 that. But I must do my duty to you. I am an old 
 man, Paula ; I may not live many years. I cannot 
 leave more than a moderate provision for you, and 
 I have no relative to whose care I could leave you. 
 These are considerations that must be faced. If I 
 could see you well and suitably married it would 
 mean a great anxiety lessened." 
 
 "But you do not refuse me freedom of choice?"
 
 336 A JILT'S JOUKNAt. 
 
 "Certainly not. I wish you to judge for your- 
 self. You have mixed with society the best so 
 Lady St. Quinton assures me. You have known 
 men's admiration more, their attachment. I think 
 I suppose, at least, that your chaperon would have 
 explained to you a woman's position in the world 
 who is left unprovided for. It is a very hard one 
 sometimes, Paula, and with all your independence 
 and your gifts you might not find it pleasant. Your 
 present opportunities are far greater than fall to 
 most girls of your age and social standing. The 
 world and I have had very little to do with one an- 
 other. I preferred a solitary life, but that cannot 
 be your fate; it would not be right or wise." 
 
 "It would be better," I said, "than a loveless mar- 
 riage, an empty heart or the sins and shams that 
 I have witnessed, thinly veiled by the hypocrisies of 
 society !" 
 
 He pushed up his glasses, and looked at me with 
 strange, bewildered eyes. 
 
 "Paula," he said, "what am I to do with you?" 
 
 "Let me stay here!" I cried suddenly. "Here 
 with you, here where all is peace and content. Here 
 where. I need not vex myself with life's problems, 
 where I may learn something that will help me and 
 do me good." 
 
 "Will that be best, I wonder?" he said, and the 
 puzzled look in the kind old face was very piteous. 
 "It is the best I want to do for you, Paula only the 
 best. But the quiet, the dull, monotonous days? 
 You forget how dreary it was when you first 
 came ?" 
 
 "I do forget," I said, "that it was ever dreary. 
 Don't punish me by bringing up the discontented, 
 ungrateful girl who came to you a year ago."
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 337 
 
 "It will soon be a year," he said, with the air of 
 one making a discovery. ''Shall we renew the ex- 
 periment then, Paula, for another one?" 
 
 "For as many as you care to put up with me," I 
 said. 
 
 He rose and took my hands, and held them 
 closely. 
 
 "I think we are getting to understand one another 
 better. Still, my dear, if you would go to the Court 
 for one week, before you quite decide." 
 
 "If I come back an engaged young woman and 
 tell you to prepare for a wedding it will be entirely 
 your own fault," I said, laughing. "You are driv- 
 ing me away."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 "MERRIELESS/' I said that night as I went up to 
 my room, "open that box ottoman and get out my 
 evening frocks for inspection. I am going to make 
 a splash before I settle down into a quiet life." 
 
 "Quiet and you, miss," she observed, "don't seem 
 the sort o* companions as 'ud run together. But 
 I'm glad you're to have the wearin' o' some o' those 
 beautiful frocks. I'd like to ha' seen you in Lon- 
 don, miss, among all them grand folk and at the 
 weddin' most o' all." 
 
 She began taking out dress after dress. Lady St. 
 Quinton had supplied me well, and some of them 
 were almost as fresh as at their first wearing. 
 
 "Your fancy leans to white, miss," observed my 
 handmaiden. "Not but what this blush-rose is 
 heavenly." 
 
 "There's a gold tissuey thing somewhere," I said. 
 "It is almost the color of my hair. It was a most 
 audacious choice, and won me a proposal of mar- 
 riage. I am to meet the same gentleman again, 
 Merry, so put that aside as one of my selection." 
 
 "You must look a sort o' fairy queen, miss," she 
 said, shaking out the lovely fabric, which was one 
 of my successes. "And are you going to marry the 
 gentleman, if I may make so bold, miss?" 
 
 "I think not," I answered. 
 
 She paused; the gown hanging from her out- 
 stretched hands. "Not but if that be so, miss, 
 
 338
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 839 
 
 doesn't it seem kind o' cruel to make yourself so 
 beautiful that his heart will only ache onsatisfied? 
 That's how it do seem to me." 
 
 I sat down on the chair before the fire and 
 watched her face with some curiosity. "That's 
 how it would seem to you?" I repeated. 
 
 "Yes, miss and if you go a-jilting one man after 
 another " 
 
 I sprang up in a sudden rage. 
 
 "How dare you use that hateful word ! I do not 
 jilt men. I don't even encourage them!" 
 
 She looked so scared that I sat down again, half 
 inclined to laugh. 
 
 "Pat the thing away," I said decisively. "I'll 
 take the three white ones. That's all. There's not 
 a memory among them, so I suppose I'm safe?" 
 
 "The satin, miss?" she inquired. "The first dress 
 that you wore when you went to the Court?" 
 
 "Is that there?" I asked slowly. 
 
 "You left it behind when you went to London, 
 miss, and Aunt Graddy and I we did take the liberty 
 of turning up the hem so as to freshen it; and she 
 did up the lace beautiful. She's grand at lace, is 
 aunt. 'Tis most as good as the night you put it on, 
 miss." 
 
 The night I put it on ! 
 
 1 turned away and looked into the fire. How it 
 all came back! My trying on the dress, and run- 
 ning down to show myself to the professor and 
 Adam Herivale 
 
 "Yes, I'll take that," I said. "Merry, have you 
 heard why young Herivale left the farm?" 
 
 "Gregory, he do say that he was mortal changed, 
 miss. That restless and captious in his temper 
 and forever studyin' when he wasn't workin'. He
 
 340 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 seemed to think as how one o' they grand ladies 
 stayin' at the Court, time Miss Lesley was here and 
 the play-actin' goin' on, upset his mind a bit. She 
 took a deal o' notice o' him, in a sly kind o' way. 
 It's said by some as how she's got him to some place 
 o' business in London. Sort o' shamed him wi' 
 farming." 
 
 I felt myself growing hot and cold by turns. She 
 had turned her back, and was shaking out the folds 
 of the satin dress ; the dress that he had seen me in 
 that night. I thought of his look, his calm, stead- 
 fast face, his patience with my manifold whims, his 
 words as we walked in the moonlight under the 
 shadow of the castle ruins. 
 
 What did this change mean? Ashamed of his 
 farm of his heritage of the soil. Deserting the 
 roof that had sheltered ancestors, leaving the quiet, 
 country peace and the simple, honest home life for 
 the strife of a city, the life of the traders he had so 
 despised. 
 
 It seemed horrible to me. I could not fit him into 
 such a place and yet how well I remembered the 
 powers of the temptress who might have worked 
 this change. How like a flash, that day on the ice 
 came back to me, and her wiles and flatteries; and 
 yet again, when he had been at the Court theatricals 
 and once more on that night when the grounds 
 had been turned into an open-air auditorium, and 
 far and near the country-side had been represented 
 in each and all of these scenes had I not witnessed 
 the attraction he possessed for this woman ? Why 
 did she dislike me ? why did she never lose an oppor- 
 tunity to gibe and jest at "Colin" and myself? 
 
 The reason seemed plain enough ! 
 
 The lessons I had learned bore sudden fruit
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 341 
 
 fruit of disgust, and suspicion, and shame. It mat- 
 tered nothing to me, I told myself; nothing what- 
 ever. 
 
 I had professed no faith in man or woman. I 
 had no exalted ideal of either. I could not reason- 
 ably expect that Adam Herivale would worship at 
 my shrine when I had so plainly shown that his 
 worship was undesired, and the shrine a very un- 
 worthy one. 
 
 But it hurt me to think him less true of heart 
 than he had vowed to be. Hurt me to think of three 
 words written in the pages of my discarded journal 
 
 words meaningless now and falsified. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Merrieless had babbled on, and I had made vague 
 answers, and given all sorts of contradictory opin- 
 ions about my gowns and the packing. 
 
 Finally I dismissed her, and for long sat by the 
 fire brooding, thinking, questioning. I had heard 
 how swiftly men can turn from love to fascination, 
 from rejected affection to the salve for wounded 
 vanity supplied by an easy conquest. But I had 
 not thought Adam Herivale was this sort of man. 
 I had ranked him higher than the others. 
 
 It seemed the irony of fate that the one man I 
 had esteemed, I had believed in, was the one who 
 dealt the first blow at my faith. His mother's silence 
 on the subject of his absence bore a new meaning 
 for me now, as did the new sorrow in her gentle 
 face, and the decay of strength so plainly visible. 
 Some grief had come to her. Who but Adam could 
 have dealt it? Some secret preyed at her heart. 
 Who but Adam had given her it to bear? 
 
 Yet why did I concern myself in the matter? 
 Why should it trouble me? Adam Herivale was
 
 342 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 no more to me than any of the others. No more 
 than Captain Convvay; no more than "Mark Chris- 
 topher Q.," as I always called him; no more than 
 Tommy Yelverton, who was asking me to marry 
 him for the third time. 
 
 Yet as I set them all in array, looking at each as 
 a mental photograph, something strange and sad 
 stirred my heart. The quiet, patient face, the deep 
 eyes, whose reproach I had seen without ever re- 
 lenting, stood out clearly from the others, and vexed 
 me with its recognized change. 
 
 "At your service'' he had said, and I had smiled, 
 and told myself there would never be need of his 
 service, or himself. Yet now, if both were gone, or 
 if I saw them unworthily bestowed! Well, 
 
 what then, Paula? 
 
 ****** 
 
 This morning a letter came to me from Lesley 
 her first since her marriage. It was very brief, so 
 brief that I turned as if for explanation to a little 
 newspaper cutting enclosed. It was in French. I 
 translated it as I read. 
 
 "On the 27th inst., at Yarosla, Novgorod, Russia, 
 Nadia Fedorovna, wife of Paul Fedor, Count 
 Zavadoff, aged twenty-seven years." 
 
 Written across in ink were three words "/ am 
 free." 
 
 I felt puzzled. Then, bit by bit, I put the story 
 together. Lesley's story Lesley's marriage. The 
 Russian count of whom she had told me. Free! 
 that meant this Nadia Fedorovna was his wife. 
 
 Dead, and Lesley had married! I snatched up 
 the little scrap of paper and looked at the date. Oc- 
 tober 27th. Her wedding had taken place October 
 26th. One day too late !
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. S-13 
 
 The horrible, stupid irony of it thrilled me to my 
 heart's core with a blind and stupid rage. What 
 pawns we were upon Life's chessboard! What 
 helpless, silly fools, that Fate played with as it 
 chose ! 
 
 Nothing had so stirred and moved me as this sim- 
 ple incident an incident that might wreck two 
 lives that a few hours would have altered so com- 
 pletely ! 
 
 Those words "I am free" the haste with which 
 the paper had been dispatched, all spoke of memory 
 and sincerity on his part. The news must have 
 reached him suddenly. He had published the death, 
 sent it and that message to Lesley, and it had 
 reached her on her wedding journey. 
 
 November was already a week old, and she and 
 her husband were at Florence. 
 
 Again I read the letter. But it was curt almost 
 to insignificance. Merely saying she was well, that 
 Florence was very full of English people, that they 
 would probably go on to Rome for the winter sea- 
 son. She did not sign her new name. And there 
 was a P. S., like an after-thought: 
 
 "You have often spoken of the irony of Fate. 
 Read this." 
 
 I locked away the letter and the slip of paper. I 
 longed to pour my whole soul out to her in response. 
 But something stayed me. Something counseled 
 no disturbance of that frozen calm she must have 
 gathered about her, and though 1 seemed to wait on 
 a hidden tragedy I feared to draw aside the curtain 
 
 by so much as an inch. 
 
 ****** 
 
 A few hours later I was on my way to the Court. 
 Through the dusk I saw the lights in the old
 
 344 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 farm-house, and heard the feet of laborers going 
 their several ways. I peered forward eagerly. I 
 wanted some news, and I dared not call at Wood- 
 cote myself, for fear of what I might, or might not 
 hear. 
 
 An alert, brisk figure crossing the main road 
 stopped to look at the carriage with bucolic curios- 
 ity. The lamps flashed on young Gregory's face. 
 I called the coachman to stop, and leaned out of the 
 window. 
 
 "How is Mrs. Herivale?" I asked quickly. 
 
 He came forward, touching his hat. "But poorly, 
 miss," he answered. "They called doctor in to-day. 
 You see 'twas a bit o' a shock hearin' sudden like o' 
 Mister Adam's illness." 
 
 "Mr. Adam is he ill?" 
 
 "Way up in London town, miss, somewheres. 
 Took bad wi' one o' them fevers as they breeds 
 there. Gone to hospital, so 'twas said in the letter. 
 The missus she be terrible upset by it, and would 
 have th' ould master go straight off to see 'im ; but 
 he doan't like leavin' her, and doctor he do say there 
 be no manner o' use in it for 'tis a main bad fever as 
 have to rout out a man's constitution for six weeks 
 or thereabouts. A Latin name don't make it any 
 th' easier to bear, miss, but it's a sound like ti-pus, 
 I heerd." 
 
 I had listened mechanically, feeling my heart 
 grow heavier with each word. Could it be typhus 
 fever the man meant? A terrible and dangerous 
 one I knew. And Adam that picture of manly 
 strength, and youth, and health fulness attacked 
 by it. 
 
 "Tell the coachman to drive to the farm," I said 
 hurriedly; "I must see Mrs. Herivale."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 I HAD never felt the sharpness of contrast so 
 keenly as when from the homely bedroom at Wood- 
 cote, and the quiet figure lying so patient, and yet so 
 mind-tortured on its pillows, I stepped into the bril- 
 liantly lit hall of the Court. 
 
 It had to be. I had to do it. I had only a visi- 
 tor's right at the farm. I could not intrude upon 
 grief so sacred, and whose results already looked 
 tragical. The weak mother stricken down by that 
 sudden blow; the blanched cheek and anxious eyes 
 of the strong old farmer ; the sorrowful faces of the 
 girls these told me a tale of saddest meaning, these 
 meant for me the first face-to-face meeting with 
 grief and sickness, and that chill possibility beyond. 
 
 And I left them to hear the Lorely's pert inso- 
 lences, and "Tommy Dodd's" vapid greeting of 
 "Too awfully glad to see you, don't you know," and 
 all the chatter and laughter and worldly banalities 
 that in the last half hour had become to me like 
 things of another world. 
 
 I sat by Lady St. Quinton and accepted tea me- 
 chanically, and let my eyes rove over these now 
 familiar faces with a last endeavor to find one real 
 or true sentiment expressed in any of them. 
 
 What mattered that their talk was clever, their 
 wit sharp and cynical as of old ? What pleasure did 
 I find to-night in elegant phrases, or worldly theo- 
 ries, or the comforting doctrines of self-culture? 
 What satisfaction could the world of fashion give to 
 
 345
 
 3*0 A JILT'S JOTJBtfAL. 
 
 that heart-broken mother ? What could it speak of 
 hope or sympathy to any desolate or pain-racked 
 soul? What had it mada of life but a false craze 
 for excitement, or an intellectual dissipation that 
 deceived no real thinker, but was an admirable de- 
 stroyer of sentiment? 
 
 "What is the matter with you, Paula?" asked 
 Lady St. Quinton, tapping my arm. "I've asked 
 you the same question three times and you've only 
 been staring- stupidly at the end of the room as if 
 you saw a ghost." 
 
 "I beg your pardon," I said hurriedly; "I was 
 thinking- 
 
 "My dear child- 
 
 'Oh, I know, I know," I said bitterly. "It's bad 
 form, bad manners all that. But I can't help it 
 to-night. I have seen, heard things that make me 
 think. One can't always look at life as a jest, Lady 
 St. Quinton." 
 
 She regarded me with some perturbation. 
 
 "You are really such a very odd girl, Paula. One 
 never knows how to take you. I was about to tell 
 you that I had a long letter from Lady Archie this 
 morning, and that she said our pretty bride was so 
 well and happy, and making quite a sensation in 
 Florence. So many people in their set are winter- 
 ing there, and Lesley is so admired. I was asking 
 if you had heard from her yet ?" 
 
 I thought of that brief note, the little printed slip ; 
 the three words whose message of hope could not 
 heal a broken heart. 
 
 "Yes I heard also to-day," I said. 
 
 "Of course she would confide a great deal more to 
 you, you were such friends. Did she say much 
 about Florence?"
 
 A JILT'S JOUKNAt. 347 
 
 "Very little about Florence," I answered. 
 
 "No doubt personalities, of course. But she is 
 very happy, isn't she?" 
 
 "She is just as happy," I said, "as such a mar- 
 riage would make any girl." 
 
 She gaye me a quick look then bent a little 
 nearer. "You must be kind to him, Paula. Poor 
 fellow, he is quite desperate. His eyes were never 
 off the clock till you came." 
 
 I looked in the direction of my persevering suitor. 
 
 "I told him," she went on confidentially, "that if 
 you came here it would certainly show you meant to 
 accept him this time. That I had put it in that way 
 to you and he must judge for himself. That's why 
 he was so anxious." 
 
 "Oh!" I said somewhat vaguely. My wits were 
 wandering again. How bright and cold was that 
 laugh of the Lorely's ; did she know 
 
 "I do wish, my dear, you would pay some atten- 
 tion to me," Lady St. Quinton went on pettishly. 
 "I can't imagine what is the matter with you. 
 Ycu'renotill?" 
 
 "No I am perfectly well. Lady St. Quinton, 
 have you ever had typhus fever ?" 
 
 "Good heavens, child ! What a question. No 
 of course not; what makes you ask?" 
 
 "I wanted to know if it's dangerous?" 
 
 "Dangerous! Why, it's deadly a terrible fever 
 one of the very worst." 
 
 Further and further her voice seemed to recede, 
 further and further into some hazy distance faded 
 those forms and faces of the gay group beyond. A 
 sound like the rushing of waters thundered through 
 
 my ears. I seemed to fall suddenly into a black gulf. 
 ******
 
 348 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 The voices were still buzzing when I opened my 
 eyes again. Lady St. Quinton was holding smell- 
 ing-salts to my nostrils, and fanning me. I was still 
 in my chair ; she, by standing- up, screened me from 
 the rest of the room. 
 
 "It was the heat, I suppose," she said; "the 
 change after the frosty air. You turned a little 
 faint." 
 
 Her face and voice betrayed anxiety. It would 
 be unpleasant to have Paula as an invalid guest, I 
 thought, translating that anxiety as rapidly as I re- 
 covered my senses. 
 
 "It is very hot," I said. "If you don't mind, I 
 will go to my room and rest till dinner-time." 
 
 "But do you feel all right? No headache, or 
 chill, or anything of that sort?" 
 
 "Quite right. Only tired. Let me slip away 
 
 through the portieres. No one will notice." 
 ****** 
 
 Ah, Paula! Paula! is this you? Sick at heart, 
 tired, miserable, racked with anxiety. With fever- 
 ish, throbbing temples, and one endless, futile long- 
 ing to hear the news of that fight going on in a city 
 that seems whole worlds away! A telegram every 
 hour would scarcely satisfy you, and yet you cannot 
 hear news once in the twenty-four. 
 
 All to-night I had felt like a caged animal that 
 longed to spring on its captors, but was withheld by 
 bolts and bars. My bolts and bars were of conven- 
 tional forging, but I had dashed myself against 
 them in thought a hundred times. Now at last, as 
 I locked my door and ruthlessly tore off satin and 
 lace, and the flowers the maid had pinned into my 
 bodice, I felt as if the pent-up feelings of the day 
 would suffocate me !
 
 & JILT'S JOURNAL. 349 
 
 I threw myself on the bed and burst into a pas- 
 sion of wild sobs. They seemed to tear my very 
 heart-strings, to agonize my throbbing throat and 
 scorch my eyes yet they brought no relief; they 
 eased nothing of the pain within ; the strange, hate- 
 ful, cruel pain that a single word had brought to 
 life; the pain I could not name even to myself. 
 
 All that evening I had borne it all that night 
 when my heart had been sick with terror and anx- 
 iety ; all the time while I had joined in the frivolous 
 talk and danced with heedless feet, and listened with 
 dulled ears to the personalities and trivalities that 
 make up Society chatter. 
 
 Now, when I was alone at last, I asked myself 
 why I had ever come. Why I had fallen into this 
 trap so skilfully laid for my heedless feet. 
 
 Either the professor had not understood that let- 
 ter (as indeed how could his simple, unworldly mind 
 understand it!) or had not read it clearly to me. 
 Even when Lady St. Ouinton had made that remark 
 about the construction to be placed upon my ac- 
 ceptance of her invitation, I had not quite caught 
 her meaning. Neither had I known that the flow- 
 ers pinned into my dress and worn so heedlessly, 
 had been a signal of my willingness to listen favor- 
 ably to that twice-rejected suitor. 
 
 My dazed faculties had passed by hints, smiles, 
 innuendoes. Had scarcely even taken in the blunder- 
 ing words of Tommy himself words excused by 
 copious libations of champagne, by the unusual 
 hilarity of the evening, by everything, until by some 
 vague chance we were standing in a dusky corridor, 
 and a laughing voice had cried, "Good-night, turtle- 
 doves," and then suddenly the light had been extin- 
 guished and I was conscious of a suffocating em-
 
 350 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 brace, a wild attempt to kiss rebellious lips as I 
 struggled for freedom. 
 
 I had rushed wildly away. I was furious, en- 
 raged, insulted, pursued still by an echo of that 
 laughing, malicious voice. 
 
 "Won't you wait for my felicitations, Paula !" 
 
 Her felicitations hers! Was it she who had 
 planned the scheme, laid the trap? Did they sup- 
 pose I was going to accept this man because I had 
 consented to meet him, had danced with him to- 
 night, and heard by chance that those flowers were 
 his gift? 
 
 My tears ceased as suddenly as they had begun. 
 I lifted my head from the drenched pillow and sat 
 upright on the edge of the bed. 
 
 "I see it all," I said. "They want to drive me 
 into an engagement with him. They sha'n't! I 
 never shall never! never!" 
 
 The last "never" was broken upon by a rap at the 
 door an imperative rap. 
 
 "Who is it?" I asked angrily, for I wanted no 
 further disturbance. 
 
 "Let me in, Paula," said a voice I knew only too 
 well. "I have something to say to you." 
 
 "I am just going to bed," I said coldly. "I am 
 too tired to sit up talking." 
 
 "Nonsense. I won't detain you five minutes. I 
 tell you I must see you." 
 
 Languidly I rose, unloosing the pins of my hair 
 as I moved to the door, and shaking it down to 
 screen my flushed, disordered face. I threw it open. 
 
 There, in floating turquoise blue that matched her 
 eyes, her fair hair loosely coiled, stood the Lorely. 
 I closed the door behind her. 
 
 "I cannot imagine what you have to say to me,"
 
 & JILT'S JOURNAL. 351 
 
 I muttered furiously, being now in a rage with my- 
 self and life, and the world in general. 
 
 She threw herself into a chair. I remained 
 standing. 
 
 "Can't you?" she said. "What if I am bent on 
 giving you a little bit of advice, and also telling you 
 of a little discovery I have made?" 
 
 I looked at her and said nothing. 
 
 "The advice," she went on "is to marry Tommy 
 as soon as you can manage it before he learns a 
 certain little secret that might alter his intentions.'* 
 
 I felt my cheeks flame suddenly, but still I kept 
 silence. 
 
 "The secret," she said, "is one I learnt by merest 
 chance, but I am rather good at putting two and two 
 together. That has made me successful in life. 
 You cannot have too many people afraid of you, or 
 of what you know about them. Shall I tell you 
 what I know about you, Paula?" 
 
 Still I was far from fathoming her real meaning. 
 I thought she alluded to to , something my own 
 heart was holding as a secret almost from myself. 
 
 "Why don't you speak?" she went on. "One 
 would think you were deaf and dumb. Shall I tell 
 you what it is?" 
 
 "Yes," I blurted out half unwillingly, goaded to 
 semi-desperation by her mocking glance, her per- 
 sistence. 
 
 "Throw your memory back a little," she said, "to 
 a moonlit night, to a certain entertainment, to a 
 woman on a balcony gazing out at a crowd of up- 
 lifted faces. Look at that woman, Paula here!" 
 
 She sprang up, and with one rapid movement 
 turned my face to the glass over the fireplace. My 
 face with all that glittering hair flung loosely back.
 
 352 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 My face, that was that other face in its white de- 
 spair, and the sorrow struggling for expression in 
 dark, tear-stained eyes. 
 
 "Now," she went on rapidly, "now you know 
 what I mean. I suspected then. In London I felt 
 sure so sure that I made myself acquainted with 
 certain details of her life. They are at your service 
 if you wish." 
 
 I turned on her then savage as any robbed and 
 outraged creature can be savage. 
 
 "I know what you mean," I said, "I know what 
 you have discovered. I never had a very high opin- 
 ion of you, Lady Brancepeth, and to-night will 
 scarcely improve it. But as my affairs can scarcely 
 concern you, I would rather not discuss them." 
 
 She reseated herself and smiled. 
 
 "You were always good at words, Paula, and of 
 course now I know how you come by all those 
 tragedy-queen airs. But please don't run away 
 with the idea that my interest in you is quite disin- 
 terested. I assure you it is not. I want you to 
 marry Tommy Yelverton, and Lady St. Quinton 
 also wants to bring it about. She wrote to your 
 guardian explaining that if you were disposed to re- 
 consider your rejection she would expect you here 
 to-night. Tommy knew this. He looked upon 
 your arrival as a sign that you would accept him. 
 We all saw him gather those flowers and send them 
 to your room. We all saw you wear them. After 
 the little episode in the corridor he went down to 
 the smoking-room and told the men it was all right. 
 To-morrow you will be looked upon as engaged, 
 unless you choose to place both yourself and him in 
 a very ridiculous position. That is how the matter 
 stands, and I must say that for a girl who has no
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 353 
 
 money no position and a doubtful histoirette in 
 the background, you have one of the best chances 
 ever offered. Such luck doesn't come twice in a 
 girl's way, I assure you." 
 
 "Luck " I echoed scornfully. "You call it 
 
 luck ! The sort of luck that came your way when 
 you married Lord Bobby!" 
 
 She flushed to the roots of her fair hair, and her 
 eyes took the cold, hard glitter that meant danger. 
 I had seen that look before. I had seen it when 
 Adam Herivale had avoided her. 
 
 I gave her no time to speak. I was too desper- 
 ately angry. 
 
 "What you choose to plan or think, or what any- 
 one here chooses to imagine about a situation forced 
 upon me, and of whose nature I was entirely igno- 
 rant, does not trouble me in the very least. I am 
 no weak fool to be driven by false circumstances 
 into false action ! You and your set, Lady Brance- 
 peth, have taught me a great deal more perhaps 
 than you imagine. And first and foremost of all is 
 the disgrace of the marriages you make ! 
 
 She started to her feet. 
 
 "Disgrace how dare you talk of disgrace! You, 
 whose mother " 
 
 "You shall say nothing against my mother," I 
 interrupted fiercely. "Whatever she has done, her 
 faults lie before the world ; they are not hid in holes 
 and corners. Not the outcome of a sensual, evil 
 nature. I know what drove her to the stage it 
 scarcely deserves to be called a fault beside the hid- 
 den vileness of women such as you!" 
 
 "How how dare you!" she cried, white now 
 with fury, and perhaps with fear of my own fear- 
 lessness.
 
 354 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 I laughed. "Dare! There's nothing I would 
 not dare when I'm goaded by such mean and das- 
 tardly tricks as have been played on me to-night. 
 Nothing! What have I to fear? What have I 
 ever done that I am ashamed of? Can you say 
 that? Can you tell me why you recognized the 
 screen that came from Captain Conway's rooms? 
 Why you wish me to marry one of your discarded 
 lovers? Why you took an honest, clean-minded 
 man from his land and his toil, and his simple, 
 honest life, and tempted him to the world that has 
 ruined you? Why " 
 
 I stopped abruptly, for the door had opened, and 
 in the entrance stood the amazed figure of Lady St. 
 Quinton. 
 
 "Whatever is the matter, Paula? I heard your 
 voice raised so loudly I came in. What does it 
 mean?" 
 
 "It means, my dear, that Paula has been indulg- 
 ing in a fit of heroics," said the Lorely, coolly. 
 "Giving vent to words and feelings wholly un- 
 worthy of your teaching. She, in fact, got into a 
 perfectly natural schoolgirl rage because I suggested 
 that her encouragement of poor Tommy has led him 
 to believe she means to marry him." 
 
 "So you will, Paula," said Lady St. Quinton 
 sharply. 
 
 She closed the door and came forward. 
 
 "I will not," I said determinedly. "You are all 
 trying to drive me into an engagement by force of 
 strategy. Had you let me alone I I might have 
 done this thing. But the tricks practised upon me 
 are too disgusting. You have overreached your 
 object. I shall never marry Mr. Yelverton now!" 
 
 "I told you it was a case of heroics/' said the
 
 A JILTS JOTJENAL. 
 
 Lorely, disdainfully. "Why should we trouble our 
 heads about her? All she pines for is a two-roomed 
 cottage, and a farm lout who will share his porridge 
 and potatoes with her!" 
 
 Lady St. Quinton glanced from one face to the 
 other. I had not thought hers could look so angry. 
 
 "Really, Paula," she said, "I cannot understand 
 you. You seem to think you can play fast and loose 
 with life and men and social obligations. It is most 
 embarrassing. I undertook a certain responsibility 
 in connection with you, and I have faithfully ful- 
 filled my part of the duty. You seem determined 
 to be ungrateful." 
 
 "I am not ungrateful," I interposed. "I only say 
 I will not be forced into a marriage for which I have 
 no inclination." 
 
 "May I ask, then, why you came here after re- 
 ceiving my letter?" she asked coldly. 
 
 "I received no letter. My uncle read out what 
 you wrote to him. There was no mention of any 
 conditions attending this visit." 
 
 "They were distinctly stated," she said. "And I 
 repeated them to you on your arrival." 
 
 "I was not listening I did not understand." 
 
 "For one who is so quick at drawing inferences, 
 you can be singularly obtuse when it suits you, 
 Paula." 
 
 Hot tears of pride and anger rushed to my eyes, 
 but in that one hated presence I would not show any 
 signs of weakness. 
 
 "Please remember," went on Lady St. Quinton, 
 "that you are placing me in a very awkward posi- 
 tion, and gaining for yourself a most unenviable 
 reputation. Everyone looks upon you to-night as 
 engaged to Mr. Yelverton. It was the subject of
 
 356 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 
 
 congratulation in the smoking-room. How are you 
 going to explain to him to-morrow that you had no 
 such intention? Are you aware what you will be 
 called?" 
 
 I was aware, only too well aware. What evil 
 fate pursued Paula, and labeled every love affair 
 with ever the same obnoxious epithet ? 
 
 "I cannot help it," I repeated. "It was not my 
 fault. I do not wish to marry Mr. Yelverton, or 
 or anyone." 
 
 "She has an arriere pensee for Colin and the por- 
 ridge, and the two-roomed cottage," sneered Lady 
 Brancepeth, taking her lovely, insolent face and 
 trailing skirts toward the door. 
 
 She paused there a moment. "I hardly think she 
 will get them, though. Colin is a little bit tired of 
 his share in the idyl."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 I COULD not sleep. 
 
 I was in a fever of mingled rage, grief, anxiety, 
 indignation. Little by little the truth dawned upon 
 me. Little by little the whispers I had heard of the 
 Lorely's arts and fascinations and infidelities pieced 
 themselves into one whole, like the bits of a puzzle 
 map. She had always gained the admiration she 
 desired. Always save in one instance. 
 
 As I thought of her bold looks, her audacious 
 pursuit; as I remembered her cool, cutting remarks 
 on every possible occasion, I felt they had had but 
 one origin jealousy. She had been jealous of me, 
 and of Adam Herivale's simple devotion to- me. 
 And by some means she had got him away from his 
 home, and knew that he lay ill and dying in a public 
 hospital, and yet came here to plot further. 
 
 What a search-light her own imprudent words 
 had thrown around her own actions ! How swiftly 
 the scales had fallen from her eyes ! How clearly I 
 saw now now, when it was too late! Now when 
 the sorrowful gaze of a dying woman haunted me. 
 Now when afar and beyond call, lay the one faithful, 
 honest heart I had turned from me with careless 
 words. 
 
 I felt aged by ten years that night; bitterly 
 humiliated by that scene, shamed in my own sight 
 forever as I thought of my secret at that cruel 
 worldling's mercy. Not my secret only, but the 
 secret of Nina Desallion. 
 
 357
 
 358 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 The thought of her roused me to fresh anger. 
 
 I had tried to vindicate her to my enemy, because 
 I was too proud to show what that story meant to 
 me. But my own heart was bitter and wrathful as 
 ever. She had dealt me my first stroke of suffer- 
 ing. She had torn youth's illusions from my heart, 
 and dethroned an ideal that nothing in the world 
 could ever replace. She had added an added bitter- 
 ness to that scene to-night. She had barbed the 
 taunts of those cruel lips with a deadlier malice. 
 
 The whole weight of those memories over- 
 whelmed me like a torrent. I lay back in my chair, 
 bruised, quivering, agonized as by physical blows; 
 while my too vivid imagination played its tragedy, 
 and I saw myself the sport of my own challenged 
 Fate. 
 
 I think I knew Paula at last. 
 ****** 
 
 For long confusion reigned, and any clear 
 thought or decision was impossible. Yet I knew 
 they must be faced. I had to meet those people 
 again on the morrow or leave without any explana- 
 tion. And how could I do that ? 
 
 They had told me that my engagement was 
 looked upon as a settled thing, proclaimed by the 
 man himself. At least I owed him some explana- 
 tion. Could I show him the trap and leave it to his 
 honor to free me? 
 
 Honor! Had he any? Did any of these men 
 and women know the true meaning of that word? 
 One thing alone they feared to be made ridiculous 
 and assuredly Tommy Yelverton would be made 
 ridiculous if I had seemed to accept him one day and 
 reject him the next. 
 
 I looked at my position from the point of view of
 
 A JILT'S JOUKNAL. 3*9 
 
 the two women who had brought it about, followed 
 their arguments, and heard my passionate refuta- 
 tion of them. But still the question remained 
 what to do ? 
 
 How the riddle perplexed me what to do ? 
 ****** 
 
 "Once you feel, Paula," the professor had said. 
 
 Well, God knows I had felt enough to-night, and 
 suffered enough. I felt as if all the hopes of youth 
 had been stifled in me. The laughing, careless ac- 
 ceptance of mere joys was forever at an end. 
 
 Time had been an impatient schoolmaster. In 
 this one year I had learnt enough of the world's 
 wisdom and the world's tragedies to live for a 
 memory's lifetime. 
 
 The fire was dying down. The house was silent 
 as the grave. I crouched over the dull embers, cold 
 and shivering, and heard the clocks striking in the 
 distance, and still I had arrived at no decision. 
 
 Five ! The day was here already. Only four 
 
 more hours and I must face that hateful ordeal. 
 
 A cowardly thought of running away, of going 
 back to the professor and telling him what had hap- 
 pened, came to me. But I rejected it. The dear, 
 simple, old man ! How should he understand any- 
 thing but the plain "Yea" or "Nay" of the matter? 
 How could I expect him to disentangle the thousand 
 threads of its complications? 
 
 I pictured my entrance into the breakfast-room. 
 Looks, smiles, congratulations. What a fool I 
 would look if I said, "Excuse me, ladies and gentle- 
 men, there is some mistake ; I I didn't mean to ac- 
 cept Mr. Yelverton's proposal !" 
 
 And what a fool he would look poor Tommy, 
 whose only fault was that he was what he looked!
 
 360 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 But a man can never forgive being publicly pre- 
 sented in his own rightful character. 
 
 I threw myself down on the bed and drew the 
 satin eiderdown about me, for I was chilled to the 
 bone now the fever of rage had spent itself. I closed 
 my burning eyes and longed for sleep, but no sleep 
 came. 
 
 When the maid appeared with my tea and hot 
 water I was still awake, still irresolute ; not knowing 
 whether to brace myself to face the situation or fly 
 from it. Beside my cup of tea lay my letters. I 
 looked at them with no sense of interest. The en- 
 velope I opened first was directed in the professor's 
 neat, small hand. 
 
 An enclosure fell out of it addressed to me in a 
 bold, clear handwriting quite unknown. I opened 
 it, surprised to find several sheets of closely covered 
 paper inside. But surprise was swept aside by a 
 stranger and more terrifying emotion as I read on. 
 
 "Paula," it began, "I suppose you have learned by 
 now the secret that will doubtless poison your mind 
 against me. I have often wondered whether you 
 would ever know. When I left this country I left 
 with a determination never to return to it. Yet I 
 returned. When I left you a small, wilful, pas- 
 sionate copy of my own self I resolved that I 
 would make no attempt to see you, to claim you! 
 Yet I have seen you, and I am going to claim 
 something of you. I fancy I see you start. I 
 fancy I see your face as it looked to me that night 
 across the theatre. I wonder if you guessed what 
 it expressed disgust, anger, shame! I am going 
 to ask you to look a little into your own heart be- 
 fore you register these feelings as irrevocable. I
 
 A JILTS JOURNAL. 361 
 
 am going to claim what is in you of myself, and 
 show you how the tyranny of Fate may fetter a life. 
 
 "I was a restless, discontented girl, beautiful 
 enough to win any man's admiration that I desired, 
 or did not desire. I threw myself into all sorts of 
 pursuits that might cure my restlesness, or subdue 
 my energy, or satisfy my heart. Paula I found 
 nothing. Have you found anything? For it was 
 my second self I met when I met you a few weeks 
 ago. And all the time I avoided you I was study- 
 ing that self, and pitying it. The book they spoke 
 of was my book. You were in the library when it 
 was shown to me, and I watched your face and saw 
 how well you knew it. Paula that book was writ- 
 ten as an outlet of that nature and that temperament 
 which drove me to destruction. Child, do you know 
 why I left you ? I felt that to keep you by me was 
 to make you such a woman as Fate had made me. 
 I knew that nothing simple, peaceful, good would 
 ever content me. I tired of love. I never loved 
 any man. I played at it as I play now on the 
 mimic stage that gives me scope for some expression 
 of what I am, or feel. But, Paula, to you let me 
 confess that I am a most unhappy woman. So un- 
 happy that some day, when the string of excitement 
 snaps, I shall not care to live. 
 
 "I tell you this to warn you. If there is anything 
 deep, or faithful, or real in your heart, thank God 
 for it. If you can love, thank God for that; and if 
 you find love, take it, Paula, and reverence the 
 giver, for there is no better thing in life or worse. 
 
 "But you may escape its 'worse.' You have the 
 dearest, kindest, most faithful soul that ever Heaven 
 created, beside you. Be good to him, Paula. I 
 spoilt his life as I spoilt so many. There lies the
 
 903 A JILT'S JOURNAL, 
 
 irrevocable past behind me. Is there hope, is there 
 consolation, is there forget fulness? 
 
 "Child, I said I would claim you; but only your 
 attention now only your pity as you read. Only 
 your forgiveness at some future time when you have 
 learnt to be charitable to faults. For it is very 
 easy, Paula, to condemn a saint that we don't love, 
 and equally easy to forgive a sinner that we do. 
 
 "When the heart is empty its doors stand wide 
 to admit any passer-by that chooses to enter. But 
 when it is full, full of love and tenderness, and all 
 the sweet and holy things that women like myself 
 never value, then, child, the idle steps go by, leaving 
 not even an echo behind ! 
 
 "It would be false sentiment on my part to pre- 
 tend that maternal love sprang to life at sight and 
 knowledge of you. And, with all my faults, I never 
 pretended any sentiment I did not feel. But I 
 know I could love you, Paula, did I stay beside you 
 long; and I know I fear my love would only 
 harm you. 
 
 "So I write this, feeling I owe you some explana- 
 tion, and I beg you to believe that when you hear 
 my name lightly spoken of, I am not as bad as I 
 have seemed to be. But I always loved excitement. 
 I have gone to the very brink of danger to learn its 
 nature, and to try my own powers of resistance. 
 Such experiments are dangerous, Paula. Be warned 
 by me, and do not attempt them. 
 
 "I do not suppose we shall meet again. I return 
 to America the day that you will receive this letter. 
 
 "You may think a warning from me superfluous, 
 but if you can. break away from those people among 
 whom I found you. They will only do you harm. 
 
 "And one thing more let me tell you for your
 
 A. JILT'S JOURNAL. 363 
 
 comfort. If you have never known a mother's love, 
 at least you have not missed a father's. The wise 
 and tender guardianship to which I left you is the 
 only wise thing I have ever done in all my rash, and 
 ill-judged, and most reckless life. Perhaps for his 
 sake you will forgive me, as he has forgiven. I 
 think he would never counsel resentment or re- 
 venge. N. D." 
 
 There was no signature. Only those initials. 
 
 I sat with the letter in my hand, and all my 
 thronging thoughts of her, and her fate, and mine, 
 brought with them a weight as of years. Nothing 
 could have surprised or startled me more than such 
 a letter. But also, nothing could have so braced my 
 energies for the trial before me. I locked it away 
 till such time as I could read it beside that simple, 
 kindly counsellor to whom I owed so much locked 
 it away, and then commenced to dress. 
 
 The ravages made in my appearance by those past 
 hours were not as visible as I supposed. Cold water 
 and eau-de-cologne reduced my eyes to their nor- 
 mal condition, and even my face to its normal color. 
 
 Paula dressed and in her right mind, presented 
 only a trim, "tailor-made girl," with loose, glitter- 
 ing coils of burnished hair, and a half-proud, half- 
 defiant look in her eyes. 
 
 This was the Paula that entered the breakfast- 
 room. 
 
 The house party usually dropped in in scattered 
 fashion of one or two. Lady St. Quinton and her 
 husband were there, and a couple of women, and 
 Tommy a dissipated-looking, blear-eyed Tommy, 
 whose face and hands told tales of midnight pota- 
 tions.
 
 364 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 At sight of him all fear left me. 
 
 I greeted them in my usual fashion, meeting 
 Lady St. Quintan's questioning glance with perfect 
 non-committal. I saw she was puzzled. Tommy 
 was too owlish to be effusive. He gave me a chair 
 next his own, and I wished him a cool good morn- 
 ing. 
 
 No remarks were made, and I began my break- 
 fast with an appearance of innocence I was far from 
 feeling. 
 
 "What a cool little devil you are," murmured my 
 supposed fiance. "Why, I'm in a perfect blue funk 
 this morning. Nervous as a cat, don't-cher-know. 
 Gad! however I'm to stand getting married if the 
 preliminary's bad as this, beats me. How the deuce 
 do women carry off things as they do ?" 
 
 "By consciousness of superiority," I said. "We 
 don't think it necessary to drink ourselves into im- 
 becility in order to prove we're happy, or have met 
 with some unmerited good fortune." 
 
 "Unmerited," he chuckled. "Gad! you're right 
 there, though that's the sort o' thing / ought to have 
 said. But I'm no hand at pretty speeches; damn 
 bad lot, Paula, but you'll have to put up with me, 
 don't-cher-know." 
 
 I looked at him in wide-eyed astonishment. A 
 battle of voices around drowned our conversation. 
 
 "Put up with you! What do you mean, Mr. 
 Yelverton ?" 
 
 "Oh, come now Mister? Say Tommy." 
 
 "There's no more reason why I should say 
 'Tommy' than there appears to be for what you call 
 'putting up with you.' ' 
 
 "Oh, come, I say after last night?" 
 
 "What about last night? You were very rude,
 
 r A' JILT'S JOURNAL. 365 
 
 and I felt extremely annoyed, but I excused it and 
 your general behavior on the usual grounds." 
 
 "Usual grounds!" 
 
 He stared at me and then at his cup, and then at 
 the untouched ham on his plate. His hand went up 
 to his thin, fair hair and touched it as if seeking as- 
 surance that it was his own head it covered. 
 
 ''Was I so so very bad?" he muttered. 
 
 "About as bad as you generally are on special 
 occasions," I answered. "But as it was only a 
 joke " 
 
 "A joke?" He half turned and faced me. 
 
 "A joke " I went on inexorably, "for which I 
 
 expect you to apologize most humbly. You had no 
 right to make use of my name as you did. It was 
 a quite unwarrantable piece of impertinence." 
 
 His jaw dropped. He looked a comical fool, as 
 well as Tommy Yelverton. 
 
 "By Jove!" he whispered under his breath, "I 
 must have been beastly drunk. Then nothing really 
 happened?" 
 
 (If only Paula's eyes looked as innocent as she 
 meant them to look !) 
 
 "Of course not. I got a hint of what you said 
 through Lady St. Quinton. I determined to speak 
 to you. I felt sure you would be sorry for the 
 mistake, in the morning." 
 
 "Damn'd sorry if it's annoyed you. But, Paula," 
 he lowered his voice "why must it be a mistake? 
 Couldn't you " 
 
 "No I couldn't. If you will come out in the 
 garden for a few moments after breakfast, I'll tell 
 you zvhy." 
 
 "I'd do anything in the world for you, and you 
 know it."
 
 366 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Then drink your tea and try not to look foolish, 
 and if anyone says anything about last night, you 
 must declare it was all a mistake. You've a very 
 good excuse to give. Look at your hand." 
 
 It was shaking so that he could not raise his cup 
 to his lips. 
 
 "I'm beastly 'shamed," he muttered. "But it 
 serves me right. Lorely bet me I couldn't drink 
 three brandies and then say "Paula Yelverton' after 
 'em. And I b'lieve I did, though the /'s did bother 
 confoundedly." 
 
 The color raced madly to my cheeks. Lorely 
 again! Well, this time she had not got the better 
 of me! 
 
 At that moment she entered, though she rarely 
 appeared at breakfast. Tommy rose and pushed 
 back his chair. I followed his example. 
 
 Under the fire of those insolent eyes, before the 
 gaze of the men who had heard our names coupled 
 in the smoking-room, I walked out beside the man 
 they had chosen to believe was my accepted hus- 
 band. 
 
 An hour later he had explained to Lord St. Quin- 
 ton the mistake he had made. 
 
 That afternoon we both left the Court. 
 ****** 
 
 "Then you couldn't make up your mind?" asked 
 the professor, after I had burst into his study, ruf- 
 fled his hair, disarranged his papers, dragged him 
 away to have tea with me ; done everything, in fact, 
 that a wild, free, excited Paula could do, who had 
 "overthrown the tables of the money-changers" for 
 once. 
 
 "But I could" I said, "and I did. And now 
 I've come back to you, to live with you and take
 
 A JILT'S JOTJKNAL. 367 
 
 care of you, and be 'happy ever after/ But first, 
 will you let me see Lady St. Quinton's letter?" 
 
 He produced it from the torn coat pocket, and I 
 read its diplomatic sentences as I leaned against his 
 knee, safe, sheltered, beloved. (Oh, happy Paula, 
 who had once released a poor trapped rabbit in the 
 woods!) 
 
 By the light of what I had learned I could read 
 its meaning a meaning that had quite escaped his 
 unworldly mind, and my inattentive ears. 
 
 It is not right, perhaps, to rejoice over a victory 
 won by strategy, but when I thought of those 
 astute, worldly women bringing their whole artil- 
 lery to bear on a weak, inebriated fool and an igno- 
 rant girl, I felt I had something to thank my wits 
 for something that had borne me through the or- 
 deal of Tommy's blundering apologies, and left him 
 and his instigators the fools; not Paula not 
 
 myself ! 
 
 ****** 
 
 At last I summoned courage to show him that 
 other letter, so strangely interwoven with events 
 that were happening, so momentous in its tragic les- 
 son and its fateful warning. 
 
 I felt it was right he should know, and that if its 
 message were any compensation for past wrong, for 
 past pain to-night was a fitting time to deliver it. 
 But I had not thought to see him break down so 
 utterly before its cynical sadness. I had not thought 
 to see his tears blister the pages that he handed back 
 
 to my keeping. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Dear, dear old man, how I loved him that night ! 
 How I blessed him for the lessons he had taught out 
 of that wise brain, and gentle, humane heart of his !
 
 368 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 For long I had not prayed. For long rebellion 
 and pride and resentment had ruled my every feel- 
 ing. That night, under the shadow of the old, 
 gray, clustering roofs, under the brooding wings of 
 the old, ivied ruins, my stubborn heart bowed itself, 
 and I cried, "Thank God for love!"
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE again. 
 
 Two years have gone since I first landed at 
 Scarffe Station, unmet, unloved, and apparently un- 
 wanted ; with no special place in life, and little in my 
 heart but an overweening curiosity concerning it. 
 
 Two years. 
 
 There is snow on the ground to-night, and a cold, 
 white moon shines in the sky, and the castle lifts its 
 ivied towers and broken archways to the glittering 
 stars. 
 
 An hour ago I had been looking over the blurred 
 pages, the hasty scrawls, the foolish conceits of a 
 girl called Paula. 
 
 There they were. Traced with almost cruel truth 
 by the thinker who had thought them, the actor 
 who had acted them. Faults of friend and foe. 
 Youth's hasty judgment youth's selfish indiffer- 
 ence youth's fateful mistakes, there they were ! 
 
 I read them through tears of sorrow and of 
 shame. I read them as a story truer than any 
 printed page had ever held. Will any read them in 
 
 like manner? 
 
 ****** 
 
 For a year they had ceased. Ceased abruptly, for 
 the writer had had no heart to yield to self-confes- 
 sion. 
 
 Perhaps she had begun to fear it. 
 
 But the year is over now, and it needs but little to 
 
 869
 
 370 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 complete this story of a girl who "scribbled with her 
 mind." 
 
 Claire, who said that, has married the Vicomte 
 de Chaumont. She tells me she is happy as the day 
 is long. 
 
 Well, her nature knew its need and satisfied it. 
 Let her pass from the procession. Who comes 
 next? Lesley. Alas, my pretty, best-loved Les- 
 ley ! What of your life-story goes to fill these few 
 blank pages? 
 
 In Rome Lesley lies, a victim to malarial fever, 
 so they say. There is more than one name for a 
 broken heart. I saw her grave in the English 
 churchyard a brief while ago, for the professor and 
 I have had a year of foreign travel, and Claire's 
 Paris and Lesley's Riviera have also come to Paula 
 through her own eyes. 
 
 But she had no heart to write of them. No heart 
 to write anything. No want of aught in life but 
 just that kindly presence, that simple guidance, 
 whose true value suffering had taught her. 
 
 A year! It seems double the length of the first 
 year. But it has been less eventful. Its close finds 
 me back in the old gray house, the only place that has 
 ever seemed to mean home. Merrieless is married, 
 but Graddage still rules us with severe gaze and 
 sternest of texts. Yet even Graddage's face looked 
 friendly after so many foreign chambermaids. 
 
 I had been to see Merrieless before opening the 
 locked drawer that held that old journal. It is since 
 reading over these bits about her that I realize how 
 much good her simple common sense has done me. 
 
 Very odd things are factors in the moulding of 
 
 character, and sometimes very small ones. 
 
 ******
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 371 
 
 But when I saw that dangling pencil hanging by 
 a cord to the thick-lined volume, and when some 
 impulse moved me to write an ending to those un- 
 finished records, I did not ask myself what the end- 
 ing might be for that curious scribbler to whom 
 they owe their existence. 
 
 I took the thought of them and the story of them 
 to the one place about which their interest clings, 
 and here I found another chapter. 
 
 Perhaps a happier and a better than any yet 
 written. 
 
 And so, for sake of what already stands con- 
 fessed, for sake of one true, noble soul, that to my 
 mind seems to dwarf the petty, self -consequent one 
 that has already spoken, I am going to write the 
 
 story I heard in the old gray ruins to-night. 
 ****** 
 
 How dark they were and quiet as the sun's rays 
 faded behind the hills, its last bars of gold just out- 
 lining their highest point ! And as the dusk swept 
 softly downward, the twinkling lights of farm and 
 cottage shone from near and far. 
 
 I watched the evening star arise below the faint 
 white of the moon. The cold air, with the brine of 
 the sea in its breath, blew keen and chill from the 
 coast, and brought with it a hundred memories of 
 other days spent here, and all the changes that had 
 come and gone. 
 
 I leaned against the sheltering tower, and sud- 
 denly through the dusky gateway I saw a figure ad- 
 vance. Dark as it was, the step and form seemed 
 familiar. With a gladness wholly irrepressible I 
 stepped forward and in a moment we were face to 
 face. The moon was half veiled by clouds, and left 
 us in shadow.
 
 373 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "Aaam !" I cried, and then my cheeks burned and 
 rny outstretched hands fell. 
 
 We were no longer in shadow, the moon threw its 
 radiance over his uplifted face, white and stern, and 
 unlike the face I had not seen for so long. 
 
 "Miss Trent," he said coldly. "I I thought you 
 were away abroad ?" 
 
 "We only came back yesterday," I said. 
 
 My gladness and surprise were abruptly checked. 
 He had not even shaken hands with me. 
 
 "How is your mother?" I asked, feeling more 
 embarrassed than I had ever felt in all my life. 
 
 "She is a little better we all think." 
 
 "I am glad of that. I am coming to see her to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "She will be very pleased, I am sure. She missed 
 you very much this last year." 
 
 How stiff and formal and stupid it all was! I 
 grew impatient. 
 
 "Are you quite well and strong again yourself? 
 She was terribly anxious about you when you had 
 that fever." 
 
 "I know. I heard much of your kindness, Miss 
 Trent. The hours you spent with her, the help you 
 were, the way you cheered and comforted her. She 
 often says she couldn't have borne up but for you." 
 
 "I did very little," I said. "Very little. Adam 
 do you mind telling me something?" 
 
 His eyes met mine. The cold, white light above 
 our heads made him look strangely pale. 
 
 "Perhaps I ought not to ask; please don't think 
 it's from idle curiosity. But I should like to know 
 why you went to London ?" 
 
 His eyes flashed, widened, then dropped. 
 
 "I went," he said sternly, "because I was driven;
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 373 
 
 driven by restlessness and misery, and the sort of 
 longing that comes to a man and sets his blood to 
 roving. I went because I had grown tired of this 
 place, the dullness, the monotony. Of the self-same 
 hills on which the sun rose and set, and the wagons 
 that crossed and recrossed them, and the grain that 
 was sown for the sickle, and the hay-cutting and 
 harvesting that any clod might tend as well as I. 
 Life widened suddenly for me and I lost content. 
 That, Miss Paula, was why I went to London." 
 
 My heart leaped. "But you have come back to 
 the farm?" I said hesitatingly. 
 
 "Not to stay. Only to spend Christmas. To 
 cheer my mother's heart a bit. In a week I shall 
 have gone again." 
 
 "A week," I echoed disappointedly. "So soon?" 
 
 " 'Tis long enough," he said, " to be reminded 
 of old sorrows and the pain that drove me 
 hence." 
 
 I was silent for a moment. 
 
 "Adam," I said at last, "do you know it was two 
 years ago this very night that you and I first met ?" 
 
 "I think," he answered slowly, "I do not need re- 
 minding of that. I wonder you should remem- 
 ber it." 
 
 His face showed no signs of softening. I won- 
 dered vaguely if it were sorrow or anger he so 
 sternly repressed. 
 
 "Why did you come here? to-night?" I went on. 
 
 "Why did you Miss Paula ?" he asked. 
 
 "I have been away a whole year," I said. "And 
 in that year I have learned much, seen much, suf- 
 fered much. But nothing can kill out the memory 
 of this place. Often, in others as ancient, as his- 
 torical, I have come back here, seen that leaning
 
 374 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 tower, and the ancient gateway, and the moon clear 
 above the old, gray pile " 
 
 "A summer moon ?" he asked slowly. 
 
 I was silent. 
 
 He went on. "There's been many and many a 
 day and night in my life this last year when I've 
 stood here, too in memory and thought of words 
 said and the deep, sad loneliness they left behind ; 
 and of something that changed the light of hill and 
 home for one man, and drove him to the world to 
 find forget fulness." 
 
 "Did he find it, Adam?" 
 
 "No," he said, "I'm afraid he's not one of the 
 forgetting sort. It seems strange that a slip of a 
 girl should come between a man and all that's made 
 his life before he saw her. Stranger still that he 
 should be driven back to his sorrow only by sight of 
 some place that's known the tread of her feet, the 
 touch of her hand. But I suppose it's Nature." 
 
 He sighed heavily. 
 
 "Shall we be walking back?" he said. 
 
 I moved on beside him mechanically. My heart 
 was full of vague pain. The chill of the wind was 
 less chilling than the tone of his voice, or the words 
 that put the present away for sake of the past. 
 
 "You, Miss Paula," he said presently, "will not 
 be stopping long here, I suppose ?" 
 
 "I hope I shall," I answered. "I have no desire 
 to leave it. I have seen two worlds, Adam the 
 world of the country, and the world of the town. I 
 know which is best, I think." 
 
 "This," he said, "is the best till thought gets too 
 strong to be killed; then turmoil is better than 
 quiet." 
 
 "What thought did you flee from?" I asked
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 375 
 
 softly. "From the thought of that white witch who 
 tempted you to town ?" 
 
 He started. 
 
 "No one tempted me !" 
 
 "Adam," I said reproachfully, "think again. 
 Were there no promises of a great future ? No 
 offer of place and position that should make a noble 
 yeoman into an ignoble nobody?" 
 
 "How have you heard such things?" he de- 
 manded. 
 
 "A little gossip, a little scandal, a little piecing of 
 a puzzle. I told you I had learned a great deal in 
 this past year, Adam." 
 
 "I'm sorry if you've believed anything that would 
 make me seem unworthy of your notice." 
 
 "Notice," I said petulantly. "Oh, Adam, what a 
 hateful word! What has come to you?" 
 
 "I was told," he said slowly, "that you laughed 
 at and despised me called me a clod a country 
 bumpkin." 
 
 "It is not true!" I cried passionately. "I never 
 did !" 
 
 "I am glad to hear that," he said. "It poisoned a 
 good deal of life for me, Miss Paula. I set to 
 work at a new sort o' business, but buying and sell- 
 ing don't come natural to one who has lived face to 
 face with Nature, and laughed under the free heav- 
 ens, and watched the seasons come and go by signs 
 that town-folk never notice. I grew weak and ill, 
 and then fever laid hold on me, and not a soul to 
 speak to, or comfort me. Only for thought o' my 
 mother and how she was bound up in me, and the 
 words they sent from home, I shouldn't have cared 
 how it ended. But I'm alive and hearty again." 
 
 "And we have met again," I said. "And a
 
 376 A JILT'S JOURNAL. 
 
 great deal has happened, Adam, to change us 
 both." 
 
 "A great deal," he echoed. "Yet not so much 
 that it hasn't left me still where I was when I heard 
 those laughing words o' yours, echoing mine. 
 Shall I remind you o' them again, Miss Paula ?" 
 
 "Perhaps I don't need reminding, Adam. Per- 
 haps my memory, too, is faithful. I think the 
 words were but three, were they not ? And " 
 I paused and turned, and pointed up to where the 
 old, grim pile stood, half shadow and half starlight 
 "and you spoke them there, Adam. You said 
 you were " 
 
 "At your service, Miss Paula." 
 
 "But many months have come and gone since you 
 said it." 
 
 "They have left me at your service still," he 
 said. 
 
 "Then do not call me Miss Paula ever again." 
 
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