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 •D'APHN't Fl.OriJ
 
 DAPHNE 
 
 OR, "MARRIAGE A LA MODE" 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. HUMPHRY WARD 
 
 J 
 
 VJ 
 
 With Illustrations 
 
 by 
 FRED. PEGRAM 
 
 CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED 
 London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne 
 
 1909
 
 T 7/V 
 
 A.LL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 TO 
 
 L. C. W.
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Daphne Floyd ...... Frontispiece 
 
 " It was, so to speak, the first time she had 
 
 really observed him " . . . . facing page 28 
 
 " ' What kind of girl do you suppose she is ? ' " ,, 42 
 
 "'Thank you. I am just going home'" . . ,, 78 
 
 " Bending over her, he kissed her " . . . ,,88 
 
 " It was the clutch of something racial and in- 
 herited " . . . . ,,150 
 
 "The strengthening firelight showed her small 
 
 white face " . . . ,, 178 
 
 " She was the symbol, in her young motherliness, 
 
 of all that Daphne had denied and forsaken " ,, 234 
 
 " ' But, Roger, what can you do ? ' " . . ,, 238 
 
 "'Good-bye, Daphne!' He held out his hand 
 
 to her" . . . . . . . ,,314
 
 PART I 
 
 " When all birds else do of their music fail 
 Money's the still-sweet-singing nightingale.''' 
 
 B
 
 DAPHNE 
 
 OR 
 
 "MARRIAGE A LA MODE" 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " A STIFLING hot day ! " General Hobson 
 lifted his hat and mopped his forehead in- 
 dignantly. " What on earth this place can be 
 like in June I can't conceive ! The tenth of 
 April, and I'll be bound the thermometer's 
 somewhere near eighty in the shade. You 
 never find the English climate playing 3'ou 
 these tricks." 
 
 Roger Barnes looked at his uncle with 
 amusement. 
 
 " Don't you like heat, Uncle Archie ? Ah, 
 but I forgot, it's American heat." 
 
 " I like a climate you can depend on," 
 said the General, -quite conscious that he was 
 talking absurdly, yet none the less determined 
 to talk, by way of relief to some obscure annoy- 
 ance. " Here we are sweltering in this abomin- 
 able heat, and in New York last week they had 
 a blizzard, and here, even, it was cold enough 
 
 3
 
 4 DAPHNE 
 
 to give me rheumatism. The climate's always 
 in extremes — like the people." 
 
 " I'm sorry to find you don't like the States, 
 Uncle Archie." 
 
 The young man sat down beside his uncle. 
 They were in the deck saloon of a steamer 
 which had left Washington about an hour 
 before for Mount Vernon. Through the open 
 doorway to their left they saw a wide expanse 
 of river, flowing between banks of spring green, 
 and above it thunderous clouds, in a hot blue. 
 The saloon, and the decks outside, held a great 
 crowd of passengers, of whom the majority 
 were women. 
 
 The tone in which Roger Barnes spoke 
 was good-tempered, but quite perfunctory. 
 Any shrewd observer would have seen that 
 whether his uncle liked the States or not did 
 not in truth matter to him a whit. 
 
 " And I consider all the arrangements for 
 this trip most unsatisfactory," the General 
 continued angrily. " The steamer's too small, 
 the landing-place is too small, the crowd getting 
 on board was something disgraceful. They'll 
 have a shocking accident one of these days. 
 And what on earth are all these women here 
 for — in the middle of the day ? It's not a 
 holiday." 
 
 " I believe it's a teachers' excursion," said 
 young Barnes absently, his eyes resting on
 
 DAPHNE S 
 
 the rows of 3''0ung women in white blouses and 
 spring hats who sat in close-packed chairs 
 upon the deck — an eager, talkative host. 
 
 " H'm — Teachers ! " The General's tone 
 was still more pugnacious. " Going to learn 
 more lies about us, I suppose, that they ma}" 
 teach them to school-children ? I was turn- 
 ing over some of their school-books in a 
 shop yesterday. Perfectly abominable ! It's 
 monstrous what they teach the children here 
 about what they're pleased to call their War 
 of Independence. All that we did was to ask 
 them to pay something for their own protection. 
 What did it matter to us whether they were 
 mopped up by the Indians, or the French, or 
 not ? ' But if you want us to go to all the 
 expense and trouble of protecting you, and 
 I)utting down those fellows, why, hang it,' we 
 said, ' you must pay some of the bill ! ' That 
 was all English Ministers asked ; and perfectly 
 right too. And as for the men they make 
 such a fuss about, Samuel Adams, and John 
 Adams, and PYanklin, and all the rest of the 
 crew, I tell you, the stuff they teach American 
 school-children about them is a poisoning of 
 the wells ! Franklin was a man of ])rofligate 
 life, whom I would never have admitted inside 
 my doors ! And as for the Adamses — intriguers 
 —canting fellows ! — both of tliem." 
 
 " Well, at least you'll give them George
 
 6 DAPHNE 
 
 Washington." As he spoke, Barnes concealed 
 a yawn, followed immediately afterwards by a 
 look of greater alertness, caused by the dis- 
 covery that a girl sitting not far from the door- 
 way in the crowd outside was certainly pretty. 
 
 The red-faced, white-haired General paused 
 a moment before replying, then broke out : 
 " Wliat George Washington might have been 
 if he had held a straight course I am not pre- 
 pared to say. As it is, I don't hesitate for a 
 moment ! George Washington was nothing 
 more nor less than a rebel — a damned rebel ! 
 And what Englishmen mean by joining in the 
 worship of him I've never been able to under- 
 stand." 
 
 " I say, uncle, take care," said the young 
 man, looking round him, and observing with 
 some relief that they seemed to have the saloon 
 to themselves. " These Yankees will stand 
 most things, but " 
 
 " You needn't trouble yourself, Roger," 
 was the testy reply ; " I am not in the habit 
 of annoying my neighbours. Well now, look 
 here, what I want to know is, what is the 
 meaning of this absurd journey of yours ? " 
 
 The young man's frown increased. He 
 began to poke the floor with his stick. " I 
 don't know why you call it absurd ? " 
 
 " To me it seems both absurd and extrava- 
 gant," said the otlier with emphasis. " The
 
 DAPHNE 7 
 
 last thing I heard of you was that Burdon and 
 Co. had offered you a place in their office, and 
 that you were prepared to take it. When a 
 man has lost his money and becomes dependent 
 upon others, the sooner he gets to work the 
 better." 
 
 Roger Barnes reddened under the onslaught, 
 and the sulky expression of his handsome 
 mouth became more pronounced. " I think 
 my mother and I ought to be left to judge for 
 ourselves," he said rather hotly. " We haven't 
 asked anybody for money yet, Uncle Archie. 
 Burdon and Co. can have me in September 
 just as well as now ; and my mother wished 
 me to make some friends over here who might 
 be useful to me." 
 
 " Useful to you. How ? " 
 
 " I think tliat's my affair. In this country 
 there are always openings — things turning uj) 
 — chances — you can't get at home." 
 
 The General gave a disapproving laugh. 
 " The only chance that'll help you, Roger, 
 at present — excuse me if I speak frankly — 
 is the chance of regular work. Your poor 
 mother has notliing but her small fixed in- 
 come, and you haven't a farthing to chuck 
 away on wliat you call chances. Why, your 
 ])assage by the Lucania alone must have cost 
 a pretty penny. I'll bet my hat you came 
 first class."
 
 8 DAPHNE 
 
 The young man was clearly on the brink 
 of. an explosion, but controlled himself with 
 an effort. " I paid the winter rate ; and 
 mother, who knows the Cunard people very 
 well, got a reduction. I assure you. Uncle 
 Archie, neither mother nor I is a fool, and we 
 know quite well what we are about." 
 
 As he spoke he raised himself with energy, 
 and looked his companion in the face. 
 
 The General, surveying him, was mollified, 
 as usual, by nothing in the world but the 
 youth's extraordinary good looks. Roger 
 Barnes's good looks had been, indeed, from his 
 childhood upwards the distinguishing and re- 
 markable feature about him. He had been a 
 king among his school-fellows largely because 
 of them, and of the athletic prowess which 
 went with them ; and while at Oxford he had 
 been cast for the part of Apollo in The Eumen- 
 ides, Nature having clearly designed him for it, 
 in spite of the lamentable deficiencies in his 
 Greek scholarship, which gave his prompters 
 and trainers so much trouble. Nose, chin, 
 brow, the poising of the head on the shoulders, 
 the large blue eyes, lidded and set with a 
 Greek perfection, the delicacy of the lean, 
 slightly hollow cheeks, combined with the 
 astonishing beauty and strength of the head, 
 crowned with ambrosial curls — these possessions, 
 together with others, had so far made life an
 
 DAPHNE 9 
 
 eas}^ and triumphant business for their owTier. 
 The " others," let it be noted, however, had 
 till now always been present ; and, chief 
 amongst them, great wealth and an important 
 and popular father. The father was recently 
 dead, as the black band on the young man's 
 arm still testified, and the wealth had suddenly 
 vanished, wholly and completely, in one of 
 the financial calamities of the day. General 
 Hobson, contemplating his nephew, and molli- 
 fied, as we have said, by his splendid appear- 
 ance, kept saying to himself : "He hasn't a 
 farthing but what poor Laura allows him ; he 
 has the tastes of forty thousand a year ; a very 
 indifferent education ; and what the deuce is 
 he going to do ? " 
 
 Aloud he said : 
 
 " Well, all I know is, I had a deplorable 
 letter last mail from your poor mother." 
 
 The young man turned his head away, his 
 cigarette still poised at his lips. " Yes, I 
 know — mother's awfully down." 
 
 " Well, certainly your mother was never 
 meant for a poor woman," said the General, 
 with energy. " She takes it uncommonly 
 hard." 
 
 Roger, with face still averted, showed no 
 inclination to discuss his mother's character on 
 these lines. 
 
 "However, she'll get along rJI light, if yon
 
 10 DAPHNE 
 
 do 3'oiir duty by her," added the General, 
 not without a certain severity. 
 
 " I mean to do it, sir." Barnes rose as he 
 spoke. " I sliould think we're getting near 
 Mount Vernon by this time. I'll go and 
 look." 
 
 He made his way to the outer deck, the 
 General following. The old soldier, as he 
 moved through the crowd of chairs in the wake 
 of his nephew, was well aware of the attention 
 excited by the young man. The eyes of many 
 damsels were upon him ; and, while the girls 
 looked and said nothing, their mothers laughed 
 and whispered to each other as the young 
 Apollo passed. 
 
 Standing at the side of the steamer, the 
 uncle and nephew perceived that the river had 
 widened to a still more stately breadth, and 
 that, on the southern bank, a white building, high 
 placed, had come into view. The excursionists 
 crowded to look, expressing their admiration 
 for the natural scene and their sense of its 
 patriotic meaning in a frank, enthusiastic 
 chatter, which presently enveloped the General, 
 standing in a silent endurance like a rock 
 among the waves. 
 
 " Isn't it fine to think of his coming back here 
 to die, so simply, when he'd made a nation ? " 
 said a j^oung girl — perhaps from Omaha — to her 
 companion. " Wasn't it just lovely ? "
 
 DAPHNE II 
 
 Her voice, restrained, yet warm with feeling, 
 annoyed General Hobson. He moved away, 
 and as they hung over the taffrail, he said 
 with suppressed venom to his companion : 
 ** Much good it did them to be * made a nation ' ! 
 Look at their press — look at their corruption — 
 their divorce scandals ! " 
 
 Barnes laughed, and threw his cigarette-end 
 into the swift brown water. 
 
 " Upon my word, Uncle Archie, I can't play 
 up to you. As far as I've gone, I like America 
 and the Americans." 
 
 " Which means, I suppose, that your mother 
 gave you some introductions to rich people in 
 New York, and they entertained you ? " said 
 the General drily. 
 
 " Well, is there any crime in that ? I met 
 a lot of uncommonly nice people." 
 
 " And didn't particularly bless me when 
 I wired to you to come here ? " 
 
 The young man laughed again and paused 
 a moment before replying. 
 
 " I'm always very glad to come and keep 
 you company, Uncle Archie." 
 
 The old General reddened a little. Privately, 
 he knew very well that his telegram summoning 
 young Barnes from New York had been an act 
 of tyranny — mild, elderly tyranny. He was not 
 amusing himself in Washington, where he was 
 paying a second visit after an absence of twenty
 
 12 DAPHNE 
 
 years. His English soul was disturbed and 
 affronted b}^ a wholly new realisation of the 
 strength of America, by the giant forces of the 
 young nation, as they are to be felt pulsing 
 in the Federal City. He was up in arms 
 for the Old World, wondering sorely and 
 secretly what the New might do with her 
 in the times to come, and foreseeing an ever- 
 increasing deluge of unlovely things — ideals, 
 principles, manners — flowing from this western 
 civilisation, under which his own gods were 
 alreadv half buried, and would soon be hidden 
 beyond recovery. And in this despondency 
 which possessed him, in spite of the attentions 
 of Embassies, and luncheons at the White 
 House, he had heard that Roger was in New 
 York, and could not resist the temptation to 
 send for him. After all, Roger was his heir. 
 Unless the boy flagrantly misbehaved himself, 
 he would inherit General Hobson's money 
 and small estate in Northamptonshire. Before 
 the death of Roger's father this prospective in- 
 heritance, indeed, had not counted for very 
 much in the family calculations. The General 
 had even felt a shyness in alluding to a matter 
 so insignificant in comparison with the general 
 scale on which the Barnes family lived. But 
 since the death of Barnes pere, and the com- 
 plete pecuniary ruin revealed by that event, 
 Roger's expectations from his uncle had assumed
 
 DAPHNE 13 
 
 a new importance. The General was quite 
 aware of it. A year before this date he would 
 never have dreamed of summoning Roger to 
 attend him at a moment's notice. That he had 
 done so, and that Roger had obeyed him, showed 
 how closely even the family relation may 
 depend on pecuniary circumstance. 
 
 The steamer swung round to the landing- 
 place under the hill of Mount Vernon. Again, 
 in disembarkation, there was a crowd and rush 
 which set the General's temper on edge. He 
 emerged from it, hot and breathless, after 
 haranguing the functionary at the gates on the 
 inadequacy of the arrangements and the likeli- 
 hood of an accident. Then he and Roger 
 strode up the steep path, beside beds of blue 
 periwinkles, and under old trees just bursting 
 into leaf. A spring sunshine was in the air 
 and on the grass, which had already donned its 
 " livelier emerald." The air quivered with 
 heat, and the blue dome of sky diffused it. 
 Here and there a magnolia in full flower on the 
 green slopes spread its splendour of white or 
 pinkish blossom to the sun ; the great river, 
 shimmering and streaked with light, swept 
 round the hill, and out into a pearly distance ; 
 and on the height the old pillared house with 
 its flanking colonnades stood under the thinly 
 green trees in a sharp light and shade, which 
 emphasised all its delightful qualities — made,
 
 1 4 DAPHNE 
 
 as it were, the most of it, in response to 
 the eagerness of the crowd now flowing 
 round it. 
 
 Half-way up the hill Roger suddenly raised 
 his hat. 
 
 " Who is it ? " said the General, putting 
 up his eyeglass. 
 
 " The girl we met last night and her 
 brother." 
 
 " Captain Boyson ? So it is. They seem 
 to have a party with them." 
 
 The lady whom young Barnes had greeted 
 moved towards the Englishmen, followed by 
 her brother. 
 
 " I didn't know we were to meet to-day," 
 she said gaily, with a mocking look at Roger. 
 " I thought you said you were bored — and going 
 back to New York." 
 
 Roger was reheved to see that his uncle, 
 engaged in shaking hands with the American 
 officer, had not heard this remark. Tact was 
 certainly not Miss Boyson's strong point. 
 
 " I am sure I never said anything of the 
 kind," he said, looking brazenly down upon 
 her ; " nothing in the least like it." 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! " the lady protested, with an 
 extravagant archness. " Mrs. Phillips, this is 
 Mr. Barnes. We were just talking of him, 
 weren't we ? " 
 
 An elderly lady, quietly dressed in grey
 
 DAPHNE 15 
 
 silk, turned, bowed, and looked curiously at 
 the Englishman. 
 
 " I hear you and Miss Boyson discovered 
 some common friends last night." 
 
 " We did, indeed. Miss Boyson posted me 
 up in a lot of the people I have been seeing in 
 New York. I am most awfully obliged to 
 her," said Barnes. His manner was easy and 
 forthcoming, the manner of one accustomed to 
 feel himself welcome and considered. 
 
 " I behaved like a walking ' Wlio's Who,* 
 only I was much more interesting, and didn't 
 tell half as many lies," said the girl, in a high 
 penetrating voice. " Daphne, let me introduce 
 you to Mr. Barnes. Mr. Barnes — Miss Floyd ; 
 Mr. Barnes — Mrs. Verrier." 
 
 Two ladies beyond Mrs. Phillips made vague 
 inclmations, and young Barnes raised his hat. 
 The whole party walked on up the hill. The 
 General and Captain Boyson fell into a dis- 
 cussion of some miUtary news of the morning. 
 Roger Barnes was mostly occupied with Miss 
 Boyson, who had a turn for monopoly ; and 
 he could only glance occasionally at the two 
 ladies with Mrs. Pliillips. But he was conscious 
 that the whole group made a distinguished 
 appearance. Among the hundreds of young 
 women streaming over the lawn they were 
 clearly marked out by their carriage and their 
 clothes — especially their clothes — as belonging
 
 1 6 DAPHNE 
 
 to the fastidious cosmopolitan class, between 
 whom and the young school-teachers from the 
 West, in their white cotton blouses, leathern 
 belts, and neat short skirts, the links were few. 
 Miss Floyd, indeed, was dressed with great 
 simplicity. A white muslin dress, a la Romney, 
 with a rose at the waist, and a black-and-white 
 Romney hat deeply shading the face beneath — 
 nothing could have been plainer ; yet it was 
 a simplicity not to be had for the asking, a 
 calculated, a Parisian simplicity ; while her 
 companion, Mrs. Verrier, was attired in what 
 the fashion-papers would have called a " crea- 
 tion in mauve." And Roger knew quite enough 
 about women's dress to be aware that it was 
 a creation that meant dollars. She was a tall, 
 dark-eyed, olive-skinned woman, thin almost 
 to emaciation : and young Barnes noticed that 
 while Miss Floyd talked much, Mrs. Verrier 
 answered little, and smiled less. She moved 
 with a languid step, and looked absently about 
 her. Roger could not make up his mind 
 whether she was American or English. 
 
 In the house itself the crowd was almost 
 unmanageable. The General's ire was roused 
 afresh when he was warned off the front door 
 by the polite official on guard, and made to 
 mount a back stair in the midst of a panting 
 multitude. 
 
 *' I really cannot congratulate you on your
 
 DAPHNE 17 
 
 management of these affairs," he said severely 
 to Captain Boyson, as they stood at last, breath- 
 less and hustled, on the first-floor landing. " It 
 is most improper, I may say dangerous, to 
 admit such a number at once. And, as for 
 seeing the house, it is simply impossible. I 
 shall make my way do\vTi as soon as possible, 
 and go for a walk." 
 
 Captain Boyson looked perplexed. General 
 Hobson was a person of eminence ; Washington 
 had been very civil to him ; and the American 
 officer felt a kind of host's responsibility. 
 
 " Wait a moment ; I'll try and find some- 
 body." He disappeared, and the party main- 
 tained itself with difficulty in a corner of the 
 landing against the pressure of a stream of 
 damsels, who crowded to the open doors of 
 the rooms, looked through the gratings which 
 bar the entrance without obstructing the view, 
 chattered, and moved on. General Hobson 
 stood against the wall, a model of angry 
 patience. Cecilia Boyson, glancing at him 
 with a laughing eye, said in Roger's car : 
 " How sad it is that your uncle dislikes us 
 so!" 
 
 " Us ? Wliat you do mean ? " 
 
 " That he hates America so. Oh, don't 
 
 say he doesn't, because I've watched him, at 
 
 one, two, three parties. He thinks we're 
 
 a horrid, noisy, vulgar peoi)lc, with most 
 
 c
 
 i8 DAPHNE 
 
 unpleasant voices, and he thanks God for the 
 Atlantic — and hopes he may never see us 
 again." 
 
 " Well, of course, if you're so certain 
 about it, there's no good in contradicting you. 
 Did you say that lady's name was Floyd ? 
 Could I have seen her last week in New 
 York ? " 
 
 " Quite possible. Perhaps you heard some- 
 thing about her ? " 
 
 ** No," said Barnes, after thinking a mo- 
 ment. *' I remember — somebody pointed her 
 out at the opera." 
 
 His companion looked at him with a kind 
 of hard amusement. Cecilia Boyson was only 
 five-and-twenty, but there was already some- 
 thing in her that foretold the formidable old 
 maid. 
 
 " Well, when people begin upon Daphne 
 Floyd," she said, " they generally go through 
 with it. Ah ! here comes Alfred." 
 
 Captain Boyson, pushing his way through 
 the throng, announced to his sister and General 
 Hobson that he had found the curator in charge 
 of the house, who sent a message by him to 
 the effect that if only the party would wait 
 till four o'clock, the official closing hour, he 
 himself would have great pleasure in showing 
 them the house when all the tourists of the 
 day had taken their departure.
 
 DAPHNE 19 
 
 " Then," said Miss Floj^d, smiling at the 
 General, "let us go and sit in the garden, and 
 feel ourselves aristocratic and superior." 
 
 The General's brow smoothed. Voice and 
 smile were alike engaging. Their owner was 
 not exactly pretty, but she had very large 
 dark eyes, and a small glowing face, set in a 
 profusion of hair. Her neck, the General 
 thought, was the slenderest he had ever seen, 
 and the slight round lines of her form spoke 
 of youth in its first delicate maturity. He 
 followed her obediently, and they were all 
 soon in the garden again, and free of the crowd. 
 Miss Floyd led the way across the grass with 
 the General. 
 
 " Ah ! now you will see the General will 
 begin to like us," said Miss Boyson. " Daphne 
 has got him in hand." 
 
 Her tone was slightly mocking. Barnes 
 observed the two figures in front of them, and 
 remarked that Miss Floyd had a " very — well — 
 a very foreign look." 
 
 " Not English, you mean ? — or American ? 
 Well, naturally. Her mother was a Spaniard 
 — a South American — from Buenos Ayrcs. 
 That's why she is so dark, and so graceful." 
 
 " I never saw a prettier dress," said Barnes, 
 following the slight figure with his eyes. " It's 
 so simple." 
 
 His companion laughed again. The manner
 
 20 DAPHNE 
 
 of the laugh puzzled her companion, but, just 
 as he was about to put a question, the General 
 and the young lady paused in front, to let the 
 rest of the party come up with them. Miss 
 Floyd proposed a seat a little way down the 
 slope, where they might wait the half-hour 
 appointed. 
 
 That half-hour passed quickly for all con- 
 cerned. In looking back upon it afterwards 
 two of the party were conscious that it had all 
 hung upon one person. Daphne Floyd sat 
 beside the General, who paid her a half-reluct- 
 ant, half-fascinated attention. Without any 
 apparent effort on her part she became indeed 
 the centre of the group who sat or lay on the 
 grass. All faces were turned towards her, and 
 presently all ears listened for her remarks. 
 Her talk was young and vivacious, nothing 
 more. But all she said came, as it were, 
 steeped in personality, a personality so ener- 
 getic, so charged with movement and with 
 action that it arrested the spectators — not 
 always agreeably. It was like the passage 
 of a train through the darkness, when, for 
 the moment, the quietest landscape turns to 
 fire and force. 
 
 The comparison suggested itself to Captain 
 Boyson as he lay watching her, only to be 
 received with an inward mockery, half bitter, 
 half amused. This girl was always awakening
 
 DAPHNE 21 
 
 in him these violent or desperate images. Was 
 it her fault that she possessed those brilliant 
 eyes — eyes, as it seemed, of the typical, essential 
 woman ? — and that dowTiy brunette skin, with 
 the tinge in it of damask red ? — and that 
 instinctive art of lovely gesture in which her 
 whole being seemed to express itself ? Boyson, 
 who was not only a rising soldier, but an ex- 
 cellent amateur artist, knew every line of the 
 face by heart. He had drawn Miss Daphne 
 from the life on several occasions ; and from 
 memory scores of times. He was not likely to 
 draw her from life any more ; and thereby 
 hung a tale. As far as he was concerned the 
 train had passed — in flame and fury — leaving 
 an echoing silence behind it. 
 
 What folly ! He turned resolutely to Mrs. 
 Verrier, and tried to discuss with her an ex- 
 hibition of French art recently opened in 
 Washington. In vain. After a few sentences, 
 the talk between them dropped, and both he 
 and she were once more watching Miss Floyd, 
 and joining in the conversation whenever she 
 chose to draw tlicm in. 
 
 As for Roger Barnes, he too was steadily 
 subjugated — uj) to a certain point. He was not 
 sure that he liked Miss Floyd, or her conversa- 
 tion. She was so much mistress of herself 
 and of the company, that his masculine vanity 
 occasionally rebelled. A little flirt !— that gave
 
 22 DAPHNE 
 
 herself airs. It startled his English mind that 
 at twenty — for she could be no more — a girl 
 should so take the floor, and hold the stage. 
 Sometimes he turned his back upon her — 
 almost ; and Cecilia Boyson held him. But, if 
 there was too much of the ''eternal womanly" 
 in Miss Floyd, there was not enough in 
 Cecilia Boyson. He began to discover also 
 that she was too clever for him, and was in 
 fact talking down, to him. Some of the things 
 that she said to him about New York and 
 Washington puzzled him extremely. She was, 
 he supposed, intellectual ; but the intellectual 
 women in England did not talk in the same 
 way. He was equal to them, or flattered 
 himself that he was ; but Miss Boyson was 
 beyond him. He was getting into great diffi- 
 culties with her, when suddenly Miss Floyd 
 addressed him : 
 
 " I am sure I saw you in New York, at the 
 opera ? " 
 
 She bent over to him as she spoke, and 
 lowered her voice. Her look was merry, per- 
 haps a little satirical. It put him on his 
 guard. 
 
 " Yes, I was there. You were pointed out 
 to me." 
 
 " You were with some old friends of mine. 
 I suppose they gave you an account of me ? " 
 
 " They were beginning it ; but then Melba
 
 DAPHNE 23 
 
 began to sing, and some horrid people in the 
 next box said ' Hush ! ' " 
 
 She studied him in a laughing silence a 
 moment, her chin on her hand, then said : 
 
 " That is the worst of the opera ; it stops 
 so much interesting conversation." 
 
 " You don't care for the music ? " 
 
 " Oh, I am a musician ! " she said quickly. 
 " I teach it. But I am like the mad King of 
 Bavaria — I want an opera-house to myself." 
 
 " You teach it ? " he said, in amazement. 
 
 She nodded, smiling. At that moment a 
 bell rang. Captain Boyson rose. 
 
 " That's the signal for closing. I think we 
 ought to be moving up." 
 
 They strolled slowly towards the house, 
 watching the stream of excursionists pour 
 out of the house and gardens, and wind down 
 the hill ; sounds of talk and laughter filled the 
 air, and the western sun touched the spring 
 hats and dresses. 
 
 " The holidays end to-morrow," said Daplme 
 Floyd demurely, as she walked beside young 
 Barnes. And she looked smiling at the crowd 
 of young women, as though claiming solidarity 
 with them. 
 
 A teacher ? A teacher of music ? — with 
 that self-confidence — that air as though tlie 
 world belonged to her ! J'he young man was 
 greatly mystified. But he reminded himself
 
 24 DAPHNE 
 
 that he was in a democratic country where all 
 men — and especially all women — are equal. 
 Not that the young women now streaming to 
 the steamboat were Miss Floyd's equals. The 
 notion was absurd. All that appeared to be 
 true was that Miss Floj^d, in any circumstances, 
 would be, and was, the equal of anybody. 
 
 " How charming your friend is ! " he said 
 presently to Cecilia Boyson, as they lingered on 
 the verandah, waiting for the curator, in a scene 
 now deserted. " She tells me she is a teacher 
 of music." 
 
 Cecilia Boyson looked at him in amazement, 
 and made him repeat Iiis remark. As he did 
 so, his uncle called him, and he turned away. 
 Miss Boyson leant against one of the pillars of 
 the verandah, shaking with suppressed laughter. 
 
 But at that moment the curator, a gentle, 
 grey-haired man, appeared, shaking hands with 
 the General, and bowing to the ladies. He 
 gave them a little discourse on the house and 
 its history, as they stood on the verandah ; 
 and private conversation was no longer possible,
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A SUDDEN hush had fallen upon Mount Vernon. 
 From the river below came the distant sounds 
 of the steamer, which, with its crowds safe on 
 board, was now putting off for Washington. 
 But the lawns and paths of the house, and the 
 formal garden behind it, and all its simple 
 rooms upstairs and down, were now given back 
 to the spring and silence, save for this last 
 ])arty of sightseers. The curator, after his 
 I^reliminary lecture on the verandah, took them 
 within ; the railings across the doors were 
 removed ; they wandered in and out as they 
 pleased. 
 
 Perhaps, however, there were only two 
 persons among the six now following the curator 
 to whom the famous place meant anything more 
 than a means of idling away a warm afternoon. 
 General Hobson carried his white head proudly 
 through it, saying little or nothing. It was the 
 house of a man who had wrenched half a con- 
 tinent from Great Britain ; the English Tory 
 had no intention whatever of bowing the 
 knee. On the other hand, it was the house 
 of a soldier and a gentleman, representing 
 old English traditions, tastes, and manners. 
 
 25
 
 26 DAPHNE 
 
 No modern blatancy, no Yankee smartness 
 anywhere. Simplicity and moderate wealth, 
 combined with culture, — witness the books of 
 the library, — with land-owning, a family coach, 
 and church on Sundays : these things the 
 Englishman understood. Only the slaves, in 
 the picture of Mount Vernon's past, were 
 strange to him. 
 
 They stood at length in the death-chamber, 
 \\ith its low white bed, and its balcony over- 
 looking the river. 
 
 " This, ladies, is the room in which General 
 Washington died," said the curator, patiently 
 repeating the familiar sentence. " It is, of 
 course, on that account sacred to every true 
 American." 
 
 He bowed his head instinctively as he spoke. 
 The General looked round him in silence. His 
 eye was caught by the old hearth, and by the 
 iron plate at the back of it, bearing the letters 
 G.W. and some scroll work. There flashed into 
 his mind a vision of the December evening on 
 which Washington passed away, the flames 
 flickering in the chimney, the winds breathing 
 round the house and over the snow-bound 
 landscape outside, the dying man in that white 
 bed, and around him, hovering invisibly, the 
 generations of the future. 
 
 The General's patriotic mind was not alloyed 
 by any harassing sense of humour ; he therefore
 
 DAPHNE 27 
 
 firmly reminded himself that no Englishman 
 had a right to think of Washington as anything 
 better than a traitor to his king and country ; 
 yet he admitted that it was perhaps natural that 
 Americans should consider him a great man. 
 
 The French window beside the bed was 
 thrown open, and these privileged guests were 
 invited to step on to the balcony. Daphne 
 Floyd was handed out by young Barnes. They 
 hung over the white balustrade together. An 
 evening light was on the noble breadth of river ; 
 its surface of blue and gold gleamed through the 
 boughs of the trees which girdled the house ; 
 blossoms of wild cherry, of dogwood, and mag- 
 nolia sparkled amid the coverts of young green. 
 
 Roger Barnes remarked, with sincerity, as 
 he looked about him, that it was a very pretty 
 place, and he was glad he had not missed it. 
 Miss Floyd made an absent reply, being in fact 
 occupied in studying the speaker. It was, so 
 to speak, the first time she had really observed 
 him ; and, as they paused on the balcony 
 together, she was suddenly possessed by the 
 same impression as that which had mollified the 
 General's scolding on board the steamer. He 
 was indeed handsome, the young Englishman ! 
 — a magnificent figure of a man, in heiglit and 
 breadth and general proportions ; and in a(kli- 
 tion, as it seemed to her, possessed of an absurd 
 and superfluous beauty of feature. What does
 
 28 DAPHNE 
 
 a man want with such good looks ? This was 
 perhaps the girl's first instinctive feeling. She 
 was, indeed, a little dazzled by her new com- 
 panion, now that she began to realise him. 
 As compared with the average man in Wash- 
 ington or New York, here was an exception — 
 an Apollo ! — for she too thought of the Sun- 
 god. Miss Floyd could not remember that 
 she had ever had to do with an Apollo before ; 
 young Barnes, therefore, was so far an event, 
 a sensation. In the opera-house she had been 
 vaguely struck by a handsome face. But here, 
 in the freedom of outdoor dress and movement, 
 he seemed to her a physical king of men ; and, 
 at the same time, his easy manner — which, how- 
 ever, was neither conceited nor ill-bred — showed 
 him conscious of his advantages. 
 
 As they chatted on the balcony she put 
 him through his paces a little. He had been, 
 it seemed, at Eton and Oxford ; and she sup- 
 posed that he belonged to the rich English 
 world. His mother was a Lady Barnes ; his 
 father, she gathered, was dead ; and he was 
 travelling, no doubt, in the lordly English way, 
 to get a little knowledge of the barbarians 
 outside, before he settled down to his own king- 
 dom, and the ways thereof. She envisaged a 
 big Georgian house in a spreading park, like 
 scores that she had seen in the course of motor- 
 ing through England the year before.
 
 
 - --, W ' 7 . - v.- - 
 
 
 
 " It was, so to speak, the first time she. had really observed 
 him ■' (see fage 27).
 
 DAPHNE 29 
 
 Meanwhile, the dear young man was evi- 
 dently trying to talk to her, without too much 
 reference to the gilt gingerbread of this world. 
 He did not wish that she should feel herself 
 carried into regions where she was not at home, 
 so that his conversation ran amicably on music. 
 Had she learnt it abroad ? He had a cousin 
 who had been trained at Leipsic ; wasn't 
 teaching it trying sometimes — when people had 
 no ear ? Delicious ! She kept it up, talking 
 with smiles of " my pupils " and " my class," 
 while they wandered after the others upstairs 
 to the dark low-roofed room above the death- 
 chamber, where Martha Washington spent the 
 last years of her life, in order that from the high 
 dormer window she might command the tomb 
 on the slope below, where her dead husband lay. 
 The curator told the well-known story. Mrs. 
 Verrier, standing beside him, asked some ques- 
 tions, showed indeed some animation. 
 
 " She shut herself up here ? She lived in 
 this garret ? That she might always sec the 
 tomb ? That is really true ? " 
 
 Barnes, who did not remember to have licard 
 her speak before, turned at the sound of her 
 voice, and looked at her curiously. She wore 
 an expression — bitter or incredulous — which, 
 somehow, amused liim. As they descended 
 again to the garden he communicated his 
 amusement — discreetly — to Miss Floyd.
 
 30 DAPHNE 
 
 " Did Mrs. Vcrrier imply that no one who 
 was not a fool could show her grief as Mrs. 
 Washington did ? That it was, in fact, a sign 
 of being a fool to regret your husband ? " 
 
 " Did she say that ? " asked Miss Floyd 
 quickly. 
 
 " Not like that, of course, but " 
 
 They had now reached the open air again, 
 and found themselves crossing the front court 
 to the kitchen-garden. Daphne Floyd did not 
 wait till Roger should finish his sentence. She 
 turned on him a face which was grave if not 
 reproachful. 
 
 " I suppose you know Mrs. Verrier's story ? " 
 
 " Why, I never saw her before ! I hope I 
 haven't said anything I oughtn't to have said ? " 
 
 " Everybody knows it here," said Daphne 
 slowly. " Mrs. Verrier married three years ago. 
 She married a Jew — a New Yorker — who had 
 changed his name. You know Jews are not in 
 what we call ' society ' here. But Madeleine 
 thought she could do it ; she was in love with 
 him, and she meant to be able to do without 
 society. But she couldn't do without society ; 
 and presently she began to dine out, and go to 
 parties by herself — he urged her to. Then, after 
 a bit, people didn't ask her as much as before ; 
 she wasn't happy ; and her people began to talk 
 to him about a divorce — naturally they had 
 been against her marr3dng him all along. He
 
 DAPHNE 31 
 
 said — as they and she pleased. Then, one night 
 about a year ago, he took the train to Niagara 
 — of course it was a very commonplace thing to 
 do — and two days afterwards he was found, 
 thrown up b}/ the whirlpool ; you know, where 
 all the suicides are found ! " 
 
 Barnes stopped short in front of his com- 
 panion, his face flushing. 
 
 " What a horrible story ! " he said, with 
 emphasis. 
 
 Miss Floyd nodded. 
 
 " Yes, poor Madeleine has never got over 
 it." 
 
 The young man still stood riveted. 
 
 " Of course Mrs. Verricr herself had nothing 
 to do with the talk about divorce ? " 
 
 Something in his tone roused a combative 
 instinct in his companion. She, too, coloured, 
 and drew herself up. 
 
 " Why shouldn't she ? She was miserable. 
 The marriage had been a great mistake." 
 
 " And you allow divorce for that ? " said 
 the man, wondering. " Oh, of course I know 
 every State is different, and some States are 
 worse than others. But, somehow, I never 
 came across a case like that — flrst hand — 
 before." 
 
 He walked on slowly beside his companion, 
 who held herself a little stiffly. 
 
 " I don't know whj' you should talk in
 
 32 DAPHNE 
 
 tliat way," she said at last, breaking out in a 
 kind of resentment, " as though all our American 
 views are wrong ! Each nation arranges these 
 things for itself. You have the laws that suit 
 you ; you must allow us those that suit us." 
 
 Barnes paused again, his face expressing 
 a still more complete astonishment. 
 
 " You say that ? " he said. " You ! " 
 
 " And why not ? " 
 
 " But — but you are so young ! " he said, 
 evidently finding a difficulty in putting his 
 impressions. " I beg your pardon — I ought 
 not to talk about it at all. But it was so odd 
 that " 
 
 " That I knew anything about Mrs. Verrier's 
 affairs ? " said Miss Floyd, with a rather un- 
 comfortable laugh. " Well, you see, American 
 girls are not like English ones. We don't 
 pretend not to know what everybody knows." 
 
 " Of course," said Roger hurriedly ; " but 
 you wouldn't think it a fair and square thing 
 to do ? " 
 
 " Think what ? " 
 
 " Why, to marry a man, and then talk of 
 divorcing him because people didn't invite you 
 to their parties." 
 
 " She was very unhappy," said Daphne 
 stubbornly. 
 
 " Well, by Jove ! " cried the young man, 
 " she^doesn't look very happy now ! "
 
 DAPHNE 33 
 
 " No/' Miss Floyd admitted. " No. There 
 are many people who think she'll never get 
 over it." 
 
 " Well, I give it up." The Apollo shrugged 
 his handsome shoulders. " You say it was 
 she who proposed to divorce him ? — yet when 
 the wretched man removes himself, then she 
 breaks her heart ! " 
 
 " Naturally she didn't mean him to do it 
 in that way," said the girl with impatience. 
 " Of course you misunderstood me entirely ! — 
 entirely ! " she added with an emphasis which 
 suited with her heightened colour ajid evidently 
 ruffled feelings. 
 
 Young Barnes looked at her with embarrass- 
 ment. What a queer, hot-tempered girl ! Yet 
 there was something in her which attracted 
 him. She was graceful even in her impatience. 
 Her slender neck, and the dark head upon it, 
 her little figure in the white muslin, her dainty 
 arms and hands — these points in her delighted 
 an honest eye, quite accustomed to appraise 
 the charms of women. But, by George ! she 
 took herself seriously, this little music teacher. 
 The air of wilful command about her, the 
 sharpness with which she had just rebuked him, 
 amazed and challenged him. 
 
 " I am very sorry if I misunderstood you," 
 he said, a little on his dignity ; " but I thought 
 you "
 
 34 DAPHNE 
 
 " You thought I sympathised with Mrs. 
 Verrier ? So I do ; though of course I am 
 awfully sorry that such a dreadful thing 
 happened. But you'll find, Mr. Barnes, that 
 
 American girls " The colour rushed into 
 
 her small olive cheeks. ** Well, we know all 
 about the old ideas, and we know also too 
 well that there's only one life, and we don't 
 mean to have that one spoilt. The old notions 
 of marriage — your English notions," cried the 
 girl facing him — " make it tyranny ! Why 
 should people stay together when they see it's 
 a mistake ? We say everybody shall have 
 their chance. And not one chance only, but 
 more than one. People find out in marriage 
 what they couldn't find out before, and 
 so 
 
 " You let them chuck it just when they're 
 tired of it ? " laughed Barnes. " And what 
 about the " 
 
 " The children ? " said Miss Floyd calmly. 
 " Well, of course, that has to be very carefully 
 considered. But how can it do children any 
 good to live in an unhappy home ? " 
 
 " Had Mrs. Verrier any children ? " 
 
 " Yes, one little girl." 
 
 " I suppose she meant to keep her ? " 
 
 " Why, of course." 
 
 " And the father didn't care ? " 
 
 " Well, I believe he did," said Daphne un-
 
 DAPHNE 35 
 
 willingly. " Yes, that was very sad. He was 
 quite devoted to her." 
 
 " And you think that's all right ? " Barnes 
 looked at his companion, smiling. 
 
 " Well, of course, it was a pity," she said, i 
 
 with fresh impatience ; "I admit it was a pity. j 
 
 But then, why did she ever marry him ? ; 
 
 That was the horrible mistake." i 
 
 " I suppose she thouglit she liked him." ; 
 
 " Oh, it was he who was so desperately in i 
 
 love with her. He plagued her into doing it." 
 
 " Poor devil ! " said Barnes heartily. "All \ 
 
 right, we're coming." 
 
 The last words were addressed to General i 
 
 Hobson, waving to them from the kitchen- ! 
 
 garden. They hurried on to join the curator, 
 who took the party for a stroll round some of ; 
 
 the fields over which George Washington, in ' 
 
 his early married life, was accustomed to ride ' 
 
 in summer and winter dawns, inspecting his ! 
 
 negroes, liis ])lantation, and his barns. The j 
 
 grass in tliese southern fields was already liigli ; i 
 
 there were shining fruit-trees, blossom-laden, i 
 
 in an orchard co[)se ; and the white dogwood ! 
 
 glittered in the woods. I 
 
 For two people to whom the traditions of 
 the place were dear, this quiet walk through i 
 
 Washington's land had a cliarm far beyond 
 that of the reconstructed interior of the house. j 
 
 Here were things unaltered and unalterable, I
 
 36 DAPHNE 
 
 boundaries, tracks, woods, haunted still by 
 the figure of the young master and bridegroom 
 who brought Patsy Curtis there in 1759. To 
 the grey-haired curator every foot of them 
 was sacred and familiar ; he knew these fields 
 and the records of them better than any detail 
 of his own personal affairs ; for years now he 
 had lived in spirit with Washington, through 
 all the hours of the Mount Vernon day ; his 
 life was ruled by one great ghost, so that every- 
 thing actual was comparatively dim. Boyson 
 too, a fine soldier and a fine intelligence, had a 
 mind stored with Washingtoniana. Every now 
 and then he and the curator fell back on each 
 other's company. They knew well that the 
 others were not worthy of their opportunity ; 
 although General Hobson, seeing that most of 
 the memories touched belonged to a period 
 before the Revolution, obeyed the dictates of 
 politeness, and made amends for his taciturnity 
 indoors by a talkative vein outside. 
 
 Captain Boyson was not, however, wholly 
 occupied with history or reminiscence. He 
 perceived very plainly before the walk was over 
 that the General's good-looking nephew and 
 Miss Daphne Floyd were interested in each 
 other's conversation. When they joined the 
 party in the garden it seemed to him that they 
 had been disputing. Miss Daphne was flushed 
 and a little snappish when spoken to ; and the
 
 DAPHNE 37 
 
 young man looked embarrassed. But presently 
 he saw that they gravitated to each other, and 
 that, whatever chance combination might be 
 formed during the walk, it always ended for a 
 time in the flight ahead of the two figures, the 
 girl in the rose-coloured sash and the tall 
 handsome youth. Towards the end of the 
 walk they became separated from the rest of 
 the party, and only arrived at the little 
 station just in time before the cars started. 
 On this occasion again, they had been clearly 
 arguing and disagreeing ; and Daphne had the 
 air of a ruffled bird, her dark eyes glittering, 
 her mouth set in the obstinate lines that Boyson 
 knew by heart. But again they sat together 
 in the car, and talked and sparred all the way 
 home ; while Mrs. Verrier, in a corner of the 
 carriage, shut her hollow eyes, and laid her 
 thin hands one over the other, and in her purple 
 draperies made a picture a la Melisande which 
 was not lost u])on her companions. Boyson's 
 mind registered a good many grim or terse 
 comments, as occasionally he found himself 
 watching tliis lady. Scarcely a year since that 
 hideous business at Niagara, and here she was 
 in that extravagant dress ! He washed his 
 sister would not make a friend of her, and that 
 Da})line Floyd saw less of her. Miss Daphne 
 had quite enough bees in her own bonnet without 
 adopting Mrs. Verrier's.
 
 38 DAPHNE 
 
 Meanwhile, it was the General who, on the 
 return journey, was made to serve Miss Boyson's 
 gift for monopoly. She took possession of him 
 in a business-like way, inquiring into his engage- 
 ments in Washington, his particular friends, 
 his opinion of the place and the people, with 
 a light-handed acuteness which was more than 
 a match for the Englishman's instincts of 
 defence. The General did not mean to give 
 himself away ; he intended, indeed, precisely 
 the contrary ; but, after every round of con- 
 versation, Miss Boyson felt herself more and 
 more richly provided with materials for satire 
 at tlie expense of England and the English 
 tourist, his invincible conceit, insularity, and 
 condescension. She was a clever though tire- 
 some woman ; and expressed herself best in 
 letters. She promised herself to write a " char- 
 acter " of General Hobson in her next letter 
 to an intimate friend, which should be a master- 
 piece. Then, having led him successfully through 
 the role of the comic Englishman abroad, she 
 repaid him with information. She told liim, 
 not without some secret amusement at the 
 reprobation it excited, the tragic story of Mrs. 
 Verrier. She gave him a full history of her 
 brother's honourable and brilliant career ; and 
 here let it be said that the precieuse in her gave 
 way to the sister, and that she talked with 
 feeling. And finally she asked him with a smile
 
 DAPHNE 39 I 
 
 it 
 
 >» 
 
 whether he admired Miss Floyd. The General, 
 who had in fact been observing Miss Floyd and 
 his nephew with some little uneasiness during 
 the preceding half-hour, replied guardedly that 
 Miss Floyd was pretty and picturesque, and 
 apparently a great talker. Was she a native 
 of Washington ? 
 
 " You never heard of Miss Floyd ? — of 
 Daphne Floyd ? No ? Ah, well ! " — and she 
 laughed — " I suppose I ought to take it as a 
 compliment, of a kind. There are so many 
 rich people now in this queer country of ours 
 that even Daphne Floyds don't matter. 
 
 " Is Miss Floyd so tremendously rich ? 
 
 General Hobson turned a quickened coun- 
 tenance upon her, expressing no more than the 
 interest felt by the ordinary man in all societies 
 — more strongly, perhaps, at the present day 
 than ever before — in the mere fact of money. 
 But Miss Boyson gave it at once a personal 
 meaning, and set herself to play on wliat she 
 scornfully supposed to be the cupidity of the 
 Englishman. She inoduccd, indeed, a full and 
 particular account of Dai)hnc Floyd's parentage, 
 possessions, and prospects, during which the 
 General's countenance represented him with 
 great fidelity. A trace of recalcitrance at the 
 beginning — for it was his opinion that Miss 
 Boyson, like most American women, talked 
 decidedly too much — gave way to close attcn-
 
 (< 
 
 40 DAPHNE 
 
 tion, then to astonishment, and finally to a 
 very animated observation of Miss Floyd's 
 slender person as she sat a yard or two from 
 him on the other side of the car, laughing, 
 frowning, or chattering with Roger. 
 
 " And that poor child has the management 
 of it all ? " he said at last, in a tone which did 
 him credit. He himself had lost an only 
 daughter at twenty-one, and he held old- 
 fashioned views as to the helplessness of women. 
 
 But Cecilia Boyson again misunderstood 
 him. 
 
 Oh, yes ! " she said, with a cool smile. 
 Everything is in her own hands — everything ! 
 Mrs. Phillips would not dare to interfere. Daphne 
 always has her own way." 
 
 The General said no more. Cecilia Boyson 
 looked out of the window at the darkening 
 landscape, thinking with malice of Daphne's 
 dealings with the male sex. It had been a 
 Sleeping Beauty story so far. Treasure for 
 the winning — a thorn hedge — and slain lovers ! 
 The handsome Englishman would try it next, 
 no doubt. All young Englishmen, according 
 to her, were on the look-out for American 
 heiresses. Music teacher indeed ! She would 
 have given a good deal to hear the conversa- 
 tion of the uncle and nephew when the party 
 broke up. 
 
 The General and young Barnes made their
 
 DAPHNE 41 
 
 farewells at the railway station, and took their 
 way on foot to their hotel. Washington was 
 steeped in sunset. The White House, as they 
 passed it, glowed amid its quiet trees. Lafayette 
 Square, with its fountains and statues, its white 
 and pink magnolias, its stroHing, chatting 
 crowd, the fronts of the houses, the long vistas 
 of tree-lined avenues, the street cars, the houses, 
 the motors, all the openings and distances of 
 the beautiful, leisurely place — they saw them 
 rosily transfigured under a departing sun, 
 which throughout the day had been weaving 
 the quick spells of a southern spring. 
 
 " Jolly weather ! " said Roger, looking about 
 him. " And a very nice afternoon. How long 
 are you staying here. Uncle Archie ? " 
 
 " I ought to be off at the end of the week ; 
 and of course you want to get back to New 
 York ? I say, you seemed to be getting on 
 with that young lady ? " 
 
 The General turned a rather troubled eye 
 upon his companion. 
 
 " She wasn't bad fun," said the young man 
 graciously ; " but ratlier an odd little thing ! 
 We quarrelled about every conceivable subject. 
 And it's queer how much that kind of girl 
 seems to go about in America. She goes 
 everywhere and knows everything. I wonder 
 how she manages it." 
 
 " What kind of girl do you suppose she is ? "
 
 42 DAPHNE 
 
 asked the General, stopping suddenly in the 
 middle of Lafayette Square. 
 
 " She told me she taught singing," said 
 Roger, in a puzzled voice, " to a class of girls 
 in New York." 
 
 The General laughed. 
 
 " She seems to have made a fool of you, my 
 dear boy. She is one of the great heiresses of 
 America." 
 
 Roger's face expressed a proper astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 '' Oh ! that's it, is it ? I thought once or 
 twice there was something fishy — she was trying 
 it on. Who told you ? " 
 
 The General retailed his information. Miss 
 Daphne Floyd was the orphan daughter of an 
 enormously rich and now deceased lumber-king, 
 of the State of Illinois. He had made vast 
 sums by lumbering, and then invested in real 
 estate in Chicago and Buffalo, not to speak of 
 a railway or two, and had finally left his daughter 
 and only child in possession of a fortune generally 
 estimated at more than a million sterling. The 
 money was now entirely in the girl's power. Her 
 trustees had been sent about their business, 
 though Miss Floyd was pleased occasionally to 
 consult them. Mrs. Phillips, her chaperon, had 
 not much influence with her ; and it was 
 supposed that Mrs. Verrier advised her more 
 than anyone else.
 
 Vi) 
 
 V 't 
 
 Siv 
 
 '??■' :y-P ■*^^ 
 
 k -'I 
 
 
 ',4 J.^^^.. 
 
 
 nr y*-M" 
 
 What kind of girl do you suppose she is? ' " [see -page 41).
 
 DAPHNE 43 
 
 " Good heavens ! " was all that young 
 Barnes could find to say when the story was 
 told. He walked on absently, flourishing his 
 stick, his face working under the stress of 
 amused meditation. At last he brought 
 out : 
 
 " You know, Uncle Archie, if you'd heard 
 some of the things Miss Floyd was saying to 
 me, your hair would have stood on end." 
 
 The General raised his shoulders. 
 
 " I dare say. I'm too old-fashioned for 
 Ajnerica. The sooner I cleca' out the better. 
 Their newspapers make me sick ; I hate the 
 hotels — I hate the cooking ; and there isn't a 
 nation in Europe I don't feel myself more at 
 home with." 
 
 Roger laughed his clear, good-tempered 
 laugh. " Oh ! I don't feel that way at all. 
 I get on with them capitally. They're a 
 magnificent i)cople. And, as to Miss Floyd, 
 I didn't moan anytliing bad, of course. Only 
 the ideas some of the girls here have, and the 
 way they discuss them — well, it beats me ! " 
 
 " Wliat sort of ideas ? " 
 
 Roger's handsome brow jnickcred in the 
 effort to exj^lain. " They don't lliink anytliing's 
 settled, you know, as we do at liome. Miss 
 Floyd doesn't. They think they've got to settle 
 a lot of things that English girls don't trouble 
 about because they're just told to do 'cm, or
 
 44 DAPHNE 
 
 not to do 'em, by the people that look after 
 them ! " 
 
 " ' Everything hatched over again, and 
 hatched different,' " said the GeneraJ, who was 
 an admirer of George Eliot ; " that's what 
 they'd like, eh ? Pooh ! That's when they're 
 young. They quiet down, like all the rest of 
 the world." 
 
 Barnes shook his head. " But they are 
 hatching it over again. You meet people here 
 in society you couldn't meet at home. And 
 it's all right. The law backs them up." 
 
 " You're talking about divorce ! " said the 
 General. " Aye ! it's astounding ! The tales 
 one hears in the smoking-room after dinner ! 
 In Wyoming, apparently, six months' residence, 
 and there you are. You prove a little cruelty, 
 the husband makes everything perfectly easy, 
 you say a civil good-bye, and the thing's done. 
 Well, they'll pay for it, my dear Roger — they'll 
 pay for it. Nobody ever yet trifled with the 
 marriage law with impunity." 
 
 The energy of the old man's bearing became 
 him. 
 
 Through Roger's mind the thought flashed : 
 " Poor dear Uncle Archie ! If he'd been a 
 New Yorker he'd never have put up with Aunt 
 Lavinia for thirty years ! " 
 
 They turned into their hotel, and ordered 
 dinner in an hour's time. Roger found some
 
 DAPHNE 45 
 
 English letters waiting for him, and carried 
 them off to his room. He opened his mother's 
 first. Lady Barnes wrote a large and straggling 
 hand, which required many sheets and much 
 postage. It might have been observed that 
 her son looked at the sheets for a minute, with 
 a certain distaste, before he began upon them. 
 Yet he was deeply attached to his mother, and 
 it was from her letters week by week that he 
 took his marching orders. If she only wouldn't 
 ride her ideas quite so hard ; if she would 
 sometimes leave him alone to act for himself ! 
 Here it was again — the old story : 
 " Don't suppose I put these things before 
 you on my account. No, indeed ; what does 
 it matter what happens to me ? It is when I 
 think that you may have to spend your whole 
 life as a clerk in a bank, unless you rouse your- 
 self now — (for you know, my dear Roger, 
 though you have very good wits, you're not 
 as frightfully clever as people have to be nowa- 
 days) — tliat I begin to despair. But that is 
 etUirely in your own hands. You have what is 
 far more valuable than cleverness — you have a 
 delightful disposition, and you are one of the 
 handsomest of men. There ! of course, I know 
 you wouldn't let me say it to you in your 
 presence ; but it's true all the same. Any girl 
 should bo proud to marry you. There are plenty 
 of rich girls in America ; and if you i)lay your
 
 46 DAPHNE 
 
 cards properly you will make her and yourself 
 happy. The grammar of that is not quite right, 
 but you understand me. Find a nice girl — of 
 course a nice girl — with a fortune large enough 
 to put you back in your proper sphere ; and it 
 doesn't matter about me. You will pay my rent, 
 I dare say, and help me through when I want 
 it ; but that's notliing. The point is, that I 
 cannot submit to your career being spoilt 
 through your poor father's mad imprudence. 
 You must retrieve yourself — you must. No- 
 body is anything nowadays in the world without 
 money ; you know that as well as I do. And 
 besides, there is another reason. You have 
 got to forget the affair of last spring, to put it 
 entirely behind you, to show that horrid woman 
 who threw you over that you will make your 
 life a success in spite of her. Rouse yourself, 
 my dear Roger, and do your best. I hope by 
 now you have forwarded all my introductions ? 
 You have your opportunity, and I must say 
 you will be a great fool if you don't use it. 
 Do use it my dear boy, for my sake, I am a very 
 unhappy woman ; but you might, if you would, 
 bring back a little brightness to my life." 
 
 After he had read the letter, young Barnes 
 sat for some time in a brown study on the edge 
 of his bed. The letter contained only one more 
 repetition of counsels that had been dinned into 
 his ears for months — almost ever since the
 
 DAPHNE 47 
 
 financial crash which had followed his father's 
 death, and the crash of another sort, concerning 
 himself, which had come so quick upon it. 
 His thoughts returned, as they always did at 
 some hour of the day or night, to the " horrid 
 woman." Yes, that had hit him hard ; the 
 lad's heart still throbbed with bitterness as he 
 thought of it. He had never felt anything so 
 much ; he didn't believe he should ever mind 
 anything so much again. " I'm not one of your 
 sentimental sort," he thought, half congratulat- 
 ing himself, half in self-contempt. But he 
 could not get her out of his head ; he wondered 
 if he ever should. And it had gone prett}^ far 
 too. By Jove ! that night in the orchard ! — 
 when she had kissed him and thrown her arms 
 round his neck ! And then to write him that 
 letter when tilings were at their worst. She 
 might have done the thing decently. Have 
 treated a fellow kindly at least. Well, of course, 
 it was all done with. Yes, it le^as. Done with ! 
 He got uj) and began to pace his small 
 room, his hands in his pockets, thinking of 
 the night in the orchard. Then gradually the 
 smart lessened, and his thoughts passed away 
 to other things. That little Yankee girl had 
 really made good sport all the way home. He 
 had not been dull for a moment ; she had teased 
 and provoked liim so. Her eyes, too, were 
 wonderfully pretty, and her small, jKjinted
 
 48 DAPHNE 
 
 chin, and her witch-like imperious ways. Was 
 it her money, the sense that she could do as 
 she liked with most people, that made her so 
 domineering and masterful ? Very likely. On 
 the journey he had put it down just to a natural 
 and very surprising impudence. That was 
 when he believed that she was a teacher, earning 
 her bread. But the impudence had not pre- 
 vented him from finding it much more amusing 
 to talk to her than to anybody else. 
 
 And, on the whole, he thought she had not 
 disliked him, though she had said the rudest 
 things to him, and he had retaliated. She had 
 asked him, indeed, to join them in an excursion 
 the following day, and to tea at the Country 
 Club. He had meant, if possible, to go back 
 to New York on the morrow. But perhaps a 
 
 day or two longer 
 
 So she had a million — the little sprite ? She 
 was and would be a handful ! — with a fortune 
 or without it. And possessed also of the most 
 extraordinary opinions. But he thought he 
 would go on the excursion, and to the Country 
 Club. He began to fold his mother's letter, 
 and put it back into its envelope, while a slight 
 flush mounted in his cheeks, and the young 
 mouth that was still so boyish and candid took 
 a stiffer line.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " Is Miss Floyd at liome ? " 
 
 The questioner was Mrs. Verrier, who had 
 just alighted from her carriage at the door of 
 the house in Columbia Avenue inhabited by 
 Miss Floyd and her chaperon. 
 
 The maid replied that Miss Floyd had not 
 yet returned, but had left a message begging 
 Mrs. Verrier to wait for her. The visitor was 
 accordingly ushered to the drawing-room on 
 the first floor. 
 
 This room, the staircase, the maid, all bore 
 witness to Miss Floyd's simplicity — like the 
 Romney dress of Mount Vernon. The colour 
 of the walls and the hangings, the lines of the 
 furniture, were all subdued, even a little austere. 
 Quiet greens and blues, mingled with white, 
 showed the artistic mind ; tlie chairs and sofas 
 were a trifle stiff and straight-legged ; the 
 electric fittings were of a Georgian plainness to 
 match the Colonial architecture of the house ; 
 the beautiful self-coloured carpet was indeed 
 Persian and costly, but it betrayed its costliness 
 only to the expert. Altogether, the room, one 
 would have said, of any bourse moycnne with
 
 50 DAPHNE 
 
 an eye for beauty. Fine photographs also, of 
 Itahan and Dutch pictures, suggested travel, 
 and struck the cultivated cosmopolitan note. 
 
 Mrs. Verrier looked round it with a smile. 
 It was all as unpretending as the maid who 
 ushered her upstairs. Daphne would have no 
 men-servants in her employ. Wliat did two 
 ladies want with them, in a democratic country ? 
 But Mrs. Verrier happened to know that Daphne's 
 maid-servants were just as costly in their 
 degree as the drawing-room carpet. Chosen for 
 her in London with great care, attracted to 
 Washington by enormous wages, these numerous 
 damsels played their part in the general " sim- 
 plicity " effect ; but on the whole Mrs. Verrier 
 believed that Daphne's household was rather 
 more expensive than that of other rich people 
 who employed m.en. 
 
 She walked through the room, looking 
 absently at the various photographs and engrav- 
 ings, till her attention was excited by an easel 
 and a picture upon it in the back drawing- 
 room. She went up to it with a muttered 
 exclamation. 
 
 " So she bought it ! Daphne's amazing ! " 
 For what she saw before her was a master- 
 piece — an excessively costly masterpiece — 
 of the Florentine school, smuggled out of 
 Italy, to the wrath of the Italian Government, 
 some six months before this date, and since then
 
 DAPHNE 51 
 
 lost to general knowledge. Rumour had given 
 it first to a well-knowoi collection at Boston ; 
 then to another at Philadelphia ; yet here it 
 was in the possession of a girl of two-and- 
 twenty of whom the great world was just — 
 but only just — beginning to talk. 
 
 " How like Daphne ! " thought her friend, 
 with malice. The " simple " room, and the 
 priceless picture carelessly placed in a corner 
 of it, lest any one should really suppose that 
 Daphne Floyd was an ordinary mortal. 
 
 Mrs. Verrier sat down at last in a chair 
 fronting the picture and let herself fall into a 
 reverie. On this occasion she was dressed in 
 black. The lace strings of a hat crowned with 
 black ostrich feathers were fastened under her 
 chin by a diamond that sparkled in the dim 
 greenish light of the drawing-room ; the feathers 
 of the hat were unusually large and drooping ; 
 they curled heavily round the thin neck and 
 long, hollow-eyed face, so that its ivory whiteness, 
 its fatigue, its fretful beauty, were framed in 
 and emphasised by them ; her bloodless hands 
 lay upon her lap, and the folds of the sweeping 
 dress drawn round her showed her slenderness, 
 or rather her emaciation. Two years before 
 this date Madeleine Verrier had been a great 
 beauty, and she had never yet reconciled herself 
 to physical losses wliich were but the outward 
 and visible sign of losses " far more deeply
 
 52 DAPHNE 
 
 interfused." As she sat apparently absorbed 
 in thought before the picture, she moved, half 
 consciously, so that she could no longer see 
 herself in a mirror opposite. 
 
 Yet her thoughts were in truth much engaged 
 with Daphne and Daphne's proceedings. It 
 was now nearly three weeks since Roger Barnes 
 had appeared on the horizon. General Hobson 
 had twice postponed his departure for England, 
 and was still " enduring hardness " in a Wash- 
 ington hotel. Wliy his nephew should not be 
 allowed to manage his courtship, if it was a 
 courtship, for himself, Mrs. Verrier did not 
 understand. There was no love lost between 
 herself and the General, and she made much 
 mock of him in her talks with Daphne. How- 
 ever, there he was ; and she could only suppose 
 that he took the situation seriously and felt 
 bound to watch it in the interests of the young 
 man's absent mother. 
 
 Was it serious ? Certainly Daphne had 
 been committing herself a good deal. The 
 question was whether she had not been com- 
 mitting herself more than the young man had 
 been doing on his side. That was the astonish- 
 ing part of it. Mrs. Verrier could not sufficiently 
 admire the skill with which Roger Barnes had 
 so far played his part ; could not sufficiently 
 ridicule her own lack of insight, which at her 
 first meeting with him had pronounced him
 
 DAPHNE 53 
 
 stupid. Stupid he might be in the sense that 
 it was of no use to expect from him the kind 
 of talk on books, pictures, and first principles 
 which prevailed in Daphne's circle. But Mrs. 
 Verrier thought she had seldom come across a 
 finer sense of tactics than young Barnes had 
 so far displayed in his dealings with Daphne. 
 If he went on as he had begun, the probability 
 was that he would succeed. 
 
 Did she, Madeleine Verrier, wish him to 
 succeed ? 
 
 Daphne had grown tragically necessary to 
 her, in this world of American society — that sec- 
 tion of it, at any rate, in which she desired to 
 move, where the widow of Leopold Verrier 
 was always conscious of the blowing of a cold 
 and hostile breath. She was not excluded, 
 but she was not welcome ; she was not ostra- 
 cised, but she had lost consideration. There 
 had been something picturesque and appealing 
 in her husband ; something unbearably tragic 
 in the manner of his death. She had braved 
 it out by staying in America, instead of losing 
 herself in foreign towns ; and she had thereby 
 proclaimed that she had no guilty sense of 
 responsibility, no burden on her conscience; 
 that she had only behaved as a thousand other 
 women would have behaved, and without any 
 cruel intention at all. But she knew all the 
 same that the spectators of what had hai)pcned
 
 54 DAPHNE 
 
 held her for a cruel woman, and that there were 
 man}^ and those the best, who saw her come 
 ^\•ith distaste, and go without regret ; and it 
 was under that knowledge, in spite of indomit- 
 able pride, that her beauty had withered in a 
 year. 
 
 And at the moment when the smart of 
 what had happened to her — personally and 
 socially — was at its keenest ; when, after a 
 series of quarrels, she had separated herself 
 from the imperious mother who had been her 
 evil genius throughout her marriage, she had 
 made friends, unexpectedly, owing to a chance 
 meeting at a picture-gallery, with Daphne 
 Floyd. Some element in Dapline's nature had 
 attracted and disarmed her. The proud, fas- 
 tidious woman had given the girl her confi- 
 dence — eagerly, indiscriminately. She had 
 poured out upon her all that wild philosophy 
 of " rights " which is still struggling in the 
 modern mind with a crumbling ethic and a 
 vanishing religion. And she had found in 
 Daphne a warm and passionate ally. Daphne 
 was nothing if not " advanced." She shrank, 
 as Roger Barnes had perceived, from no ques- 
 tion ; she had never been forbidden, had never 
 forbidden herself, any book that she had a 
 fancy to read ; and she was as ready to discuss 
 the relative divorce laws of Massachusetts and 
 Pennsylvania, as the girls of hfty years ago
 
 DAPHNE 55 
 
 were to talk of the fashions, or " Evangehne." 
 In any disputed case, moreover, between a man 
 and a woman Daphne was hotly and instinc- 
 tively on the side of the woman. She had 
 thrown herself therefore with ardour into the 
 defence of Mrs. Verrier ; and for her it was not 
 the wife's desertion, but the husband's suicide, 
 which had been the cruel and indefensible thing. 
 All these various traits and liberalisms had 
 made her very dear to Madeleine Verrier. 
 
 Now, as that lady sat in her usual drooping 
 attitude, wondering what Washington would 
 be like for her when even Daphne Floyd was 
 gone from it, the afternoon sun stole through 
 the curtains of the window on the street and 
 touched some of the furniture and engravings 
 in the inner drawing-room. Suddenly Mrs. 
 Verrier started in her chair. A face had emerged, 
 thrown out upon the shadows by the sun-finger 
 — the countenance of a handsome young Jew, 
 as Rembrandt liad once conceived it. Rare 
 and high intelligence, melancholy ,and pre- 
 monition : — they were there embodied, so long 
 as the apparition lasted. 
 
 The effect on Mrs. Verrier was apparently 
 profound. She closed her eyes ; her lips quiv- 
 ered ; she leant back feebly in her chair, breath- 
 ing a name. The crisis lasted a few minutes, 
 while the momentary vision faded and the sun- 
 liglit crept on. The eyelids unclosed at last,
 
 56 DAPHNE 
 
 slowly and painfully, as though shrinking from 
 what might greet the eyes beneath them. But 
 the farther wall was now in deep shade. Mrs. 
 Verrier sat up ; the emotion which had mastered 
 her like a possession passed away ; and rising 
 hurriedly, she went back to the front drawing- 
 room. She had hardly reached it when Miss 
 Floyd's voice was heard upon the stairs. 
 
 Daphne entered the room in what appeared 
 to be a fit of irritation. She was scolding the 
 parlour-maid, whose high colour and dignified 
 silence proclaimed her both blameless and 
 long-suffering. At the sight of Mrs. Verrier 
 Daphne checked herself with an effort and 
 kissed her friend rather absentl}^ 
 
 " Dear Madeleine ! — very good of you to 
 wait. Have they given you tea ? I suppose 
 not. My household seems to have gone mad 
 this afternoon. Sit down. Some tea, Blount, 
 at once." 
 
 Mrs. Verrier sank into a corner of the sofa, 
 while Daphne, with an " Ouf ! " of fatigue, 
 took off her hat, and threw herself down at the 
 other end, her small feet curled up beneath her. 
 Her half-frowning eyes gave the impression that 
 she was still out of temper and on edge. 
 
 " WTiere have you been ? " asked her com- 
 panion quietly. 
 
 " Listening to a stuffy debate in the Senate," 
 said Daphne without a smile.
 
 DAPHNE 57 
 
 " The Senate. What on earth took you 
 there ? " 
 
 " Well, why shouldn't I go ? — why does one 
 do anythmg ? It was just a debate — horribly 
 dull — trusts, or something of that kind. But 
 there was a man attacking the President — and 
 the place was crowded. Ugh ! the heat was 
 intolerable ! " 
 
 " Who took you ? " 
 
 Daphne named an under-secretary — an agree- 
 able and ambitious man, who had been very 
 much in her train during the preceding winter, 
 and until Roger Barnes appeared upon the 
 scene. 
 
 " I thought until I got your message that 
 you were going to take Mr. Barnes motoring 
 up the river." 
 
 " Mr. Barnes was engaged." Daphne gave 
 the information tersely, rousing herself after- 
 wards to make tea, which appeared at that 
 moment. 
 
 " He seems to have been a good deal engaged 
 this week," said Mrs. Verrier, when they were 
 alone again. 
 
 Daphne made no reply. And Mrs. Verrier, 
 after observing her for a moment, resumed : 
 
 " I suppose it was the Bostonians ? " 
 
 " I suppose so. What does it matter ? " 
 The tone was diy and sharp. 
 
 " Daplme, you goose ! " laughed Mrs. Verrier,
 
 58 DAPHNE 
 
 " I believe this is the very first invitation of 
 theirs he has accepted at all. He was written 
 to about them by an old friend— his Eton 
 master, or somebody of that sort. And as they 
 turned up here on a visit, instead of his having 
 to go and look for them at Boston, of course 
 he had to call upon them." 
 
 " I dare say. And of course he had to go 
 to tea with them yesterday, and he had to take 
 them to Arlington this afternoon ! I suppose 
 I'd better tell you — we had a quarrel on the 
 subject last night." 
 
 " Daphne ! — don't, for heaven's sake, make 
 him think himself too important ! " cried Mrs. 
 Verrier. 
 
 Daphne, with both elbows on the table, 
 was slowly crunching a morsel of toast in her 
 small white teeth. She had a look of con- 
 centrated energy — as of a person charged and 
 overcharged with force of some kind, impatient 
 to be let loose. Her black eyes sparkled ; 
 impetuosity and will shone from them ; although 
 they showed also rims of fatigue, as if Miss 
 Daphne's nights had not of late been all they 
 should be. Mrs. Verrier was chiefly struck, 
 however, by the perception that for the first time 
 Daphne was not having altogether her own way 
 with the world. Madeleine had not observed 
 anything of the same kind in her before. In 
 general she was in entire command both of
 
 DAPHNE 59 
 
 herself and of the men who surrounded her. 
 She made a Httle court out of them, and treated 
 them en despote. But Roger Barnes had not 
 lent himself to the process ; he had not played 
 the game properly ; and Daphne's sleep had 
 been disturbed for the first time in history. 
 
 It had been admitted very soon between 
 the two friends — without putting it very pre- 
 cisely — that Daphne was interested in Roger 
 Barnes. Mrs. Verrier believed that the girl 
 had been originally carried off her feet by the 
 young man's superb good looks, and by the 
 natural distinction — evident in all societies — 
 which they conferred upon him. Then, no 
 doubt, she had been piqued by his good- 
 humoured, easy way — the absence of any 
 doubt of himself, of tremor, of insistence. 
 Mrs. Verrier said to herself — not altogether 
 shrewdly — that he had no nerves, or no heart ; 
 and Daphne had not yet come across the genus. 
 Her lovers had either possessed too much heart 
 — like Captain Boyson — or a lack of coolness, 
 when it really came to the point of grappling 
 with Daphne and her millions, as in the case of 
 a dozen she could name. Whereby it had come 
 about that Daphne's attention had been hrst 
 provoked, then peremptorily seized by the 
 Englishman ; and Mrs. Verrier began now to 
 suspect that deeper things were really in- 
 volved.
 
 6o DAPHNE 
 
 Certainly there was a good deal to puzzle 
 the spectator. That the English are a fortune- 
 hunting race may be a popular axiom ; but 
 it was quite possible, after all, that Roger 
 Barnes was not the latest illustration of it. 
 It was quite possible, also, that he had a sweet- 
 heart at home, some quiet, Quakerish girl who 
 would never wave in his face the red flags that 
 Daphne was fond of brandishing. It was 
 equally possible that he was merely fooHng with 
 Daphne — that he had seen girls he liked better 
 in New York, and was simply killing time till 
 a sportsman friend of whom he talked should 
 appear on the scene and take him off to shoot 
 moose and catch trout in the province of 
 Quebec. Mrs. Verrier realised that, for all 
 his lack of subtlety and the higher conversa- 
 tion, young Barnes liad managed astonishingly 
 to keep his counsel. His " simplicity," like 
 Daphne's, seemed to be of a special type. 
 
 And yet — there was no doubt that he had 
 devoted himself a great deal. Washington 
 society had quickly found him out ; he had been 
 invited to all the most fastidious houses, and 
 was immensely in request for picnics and ex- 
 peditions. But he had contrived, on the whole, 
 to make all these opportunities promote the 
 flirtation with Daphne. He had, in fact, been 
 enough at her beck and call to make her the 
 envy of a young society with whom the splendid
 
 DAPHNE 6 1 
 
 Englishman promised to become the rage, and 
 not enough to silence or wholly discourage 
 other claimants on his time. 
 
 This no doubt accounted for the fact that 
 the two charming Bostonians, Mrs. Maddison 
 and her daughter, who had but lately arrived 
 in Washington and made acquaintance with 
 Roger Barnes, were still evidently in ignorance 
 of what was going on. They were not initiated. 
 They had invited young Barnes in the innocence 
 of their hearts, without inviting Daphne Floyd, 
 whom they did not previously know. And the 
 young man had seen fit to accept their invitation. 
 Hence the jealousy that was clearly burning in 
 Daphne, that she was not indeed even trying 
 to hide from the shrewd eyes of her friend. 
 
 Mrs. Verrier's advice not to make Roger 
 Barnes " too important " had called up a flash 
 of colour in the girl's cheeks. But she did not 
 resent it in words ; rather her silence deepened, 
 till Mrs. Verrier stretched out a hand and 
 laughingly turned the small face towards her 
 that she might see what was in it. 
 
 " Daphne ! I really believe you're in love 
 with him ! " 
 
 " Not at all," said Daphne, her eyelids 
 flickering ; "I never know what to talk to 
 him about." 
 
 " As if that mattered ! " 
 
 " Elsie Maddison always knows what to talk
 
 62 DAPHNE 
 
 to him about, and he chatters to her the whole 
 tune." 
 
 Mrs. Verrier paused a moment, then said : 
 " Do you suppose he came to America to marry 
 money ? " 
 
 " I haven't an idea." 
 
 " Do you suppose he knows that you — are 
 not exactly a pauper ? " 
 
 Daphne drew herself away impatiently. " I 
 really don't suppose anything, Madeleine. He 
 never talks about money, and I should think 
 he had plenty himself." 
 
 Mrs. Verrier replied by giving an outline 
 of the financial misfortunes of Barnes pere, 
 as they had been described to her by another 
 English traveller in Washington. 
 
 Daphne listened indifferently. " He can't 
 be very poor or he wouldn't behave as he does. 
 And he is to inherit the General's property. 
 He told me so." 
 
 " And it wouldn't matter to you. Daphne, 
 if you did think a man had married you for 
 money ? " 
 
 Daphne had risen, and was pacing the 
 drawing-room floor, her hands clasped behind 
 her back. She turned a cloudy face upon her 
 questioner. " It would matter a great deal, 
 if I thought it had been only for money. But 
 then, I hope I shouldn't have been such a fool 
 as to marry him."
 
 DAPHNE 63 
 
 " But you could bear it, if the money counted 
 for sometliing ? " 
 
 "I'm not an idiot ! '* said the girl with 
 energy. " With whom doesn't money count 
 for something ? Of course a man must take 
 money into consideration." There was a curious 
 touch of arrogance in the gesture which accom- 
 panied the words. 
 
 " ' How pleasant it is to have money, 
 heigh-ho ! — How pleasant it is to have money,' " 
 said Mrs. Verrier, quoting, with a laugh. " Yes, 
 I dare say you'd be very reasonable, Daphne, 
 about that kind of thing. But I don't think 
 you'd be a comfortable wife, dear, all the 
 
 same." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " You might allow your husband to spare 
 a little love to your money ; you would be 
 for kilb'ng him if he ever looked at another 
 woman ! " 
 
 " You mean I should be jealous ? " asked 
 Daphne, almost with violence. " You are quite 
 right there. I should be very jealous. On that 
 point I should ' find quarrel in a straw.' " 
 
 Her cheeks had flushed a passionate red. 
 The eyes which she had inherited from her 
 Spanish grandmother blazed above them. She 
 had become suddenly a woman of Andalusia 
 and the South, moved by certain primitive 
 forces in the blood.
 
 64 DAPHNE 
 
 Madeleine Verrier held out her hands, 
 smiling. 
 
 "Come here, little wild cat. I believe 3^ou 
 are jealous of Elsie Maddison." 
 
 Daphne approached her slowly, and slowly- 
 dropped into a seat beside her friend, her eyes 
 still fixed and splendid. But as she looked into 
 them Madeleine Verrier saw them suddenly 
 dimmed. 
 
 " Daphne ! you are in love with him ! " 
 
 The girl recovered herself, clenching her 
 small hands. " If I am," she said resolutely, 
 "it is strange how like the other thing it is ! 
 I don't know whether I shall speak to him 
 to-night." 
 
 " To-night ? " Mrs. Verrier looked a little 
 puzzled. 
 
 " At the White House. You're going, of 
 
 course." 
 
 " No, I am not going." The voice was 
 quiet and cold. " I am not asked." 
 
 Daphne, vexed with lierself, touched her 
 friend's liand caressingly. " It will be just a 
 crusli, dear. But I promised various people 
 to go." 
 
 " And he will be there ? " 
 
 " I suppose so." Daplme turned her head 
 away, and then sprang up. " Have you seen the 
 picture ? " 
 
 Mrs. Verrier followed her into the inner
 
 DAPHNE 65 
 
 room, where the girl gave a laughing and 
 triumphant account of her acquisition, the 
 agents she had employed, the skill with which 
 it had been conveyed out of Italy, the wrath 
 of various famous collectors, who had imagined 
 that the fight lay between them alone, when 
 they found the prize had been ravished from 
 them. Madeleine Verrier was very intelligent, 
 and the contrast, which the story brought out, 
 between the girl's fragile youth and the strange 
 and passionate sense of power which breathed 
 from her whenever it became a question of 
 wealth and the use of it, was at no point lost 
 upon her companion. 
 
 Daphne would not allow any further talk 
 of Roger Barnes. Her chaperon, Mrs. Phillips, 
 presently appeared, and passed through rather 
 a bad quarter of an hour while the imperious 
 mistress of the house inquired into certain in- 
 vitations and card-leavings that had not been 
 managed to her liking. Tlien Daplme sat down 
 to write a letter to a Girls' Club in New York, 
 of which she was President — where, in fact, she 
 occasionally took the Singing Class, with Vv'hich 
 she had made so much play at her first meeting 
 with Roger Barnes. She had to tell them that 
 she had just engaged a holiday house for them, 
 to which they might go in instalments through- 
 out the summer. She would pay the rent, pro- 
 vide a lady-superintendent, and make herself
 
 66 DAPHNE 
 
 responsible for all but food expenses. Her small 
 face relaxed — became quite soft and charming 
 — as she wrote. 
 
 " But, my dear," cried Mrs. Phillips in 
 dismay, as Daphne handed her the letter to read, 
 " you have taken the house on Lake George, 
 and you know the girls had all set their hearts 
 on that place in the White Mountains ! " 
 
 Daphne's lips tightened. " Certainly I have 
 taken the house on Lake George," she said, as 
 she carefully wiped her pen. " I told them I 
 should." 
 
 " But, my dear, they are so tired of Lake 
 George ! They have been there three years 
 running. And you know they subscribe a good 
 deal themselves." 
 
 " Very well ! — then let them do without my 
 help. I have inquired into the matter. The 
 house on Lake George is much more suitable 
 than the White Mountains farm, and I have 
 written to the agent. The thing's done." 
 
 Mrs. Phillips argued a little more, but 
 Daphne was immovable. 
 
 Mrs. Verrier, watching the two, reflected, 
 as she had often done before, that Mrs. Phillips's 
 post was not particularly enviable. Daphne 
 treated her in many ways with great generosity, 
 paid her highly, grudged her no luxury, and 
 was always courteous to her in public. But in 
 private Daphne's will was law, and she had an
 
 DAPHNE 6^ 
 
 abrupt and dictatorial way of asserting it that 
 brought the red back into Mrs. PhilHps's faded 
 cheeks. Mrs. Verrier had often expected her 
 to throw up her post. But there was no doubt 
 something in Daphne's personahty which made 
 hfe beside her too full of colour to be lightly 
 abandoned. 
 
 Daphne presently went upstairs to take off 
 her walking-dress, and Mrs. Phillips, with a rather 
 troubled face, began to tidy the confusion of 
 letters she had left behind her. 
 
 " I dare say the girls won't mind," said 
 Madeleine Verrier, kindly. 
 
 Mrs. Phillips started, and her mild lips 
 quivered a little. Daphne's charities were for 
 Daphne an amusement ; for this gentle, faded 
 woman, who bore all the drudgery of them, 
 they were the chief attraction of life in Daphne's 
 house. Mrs. Phillips loved the club-girls, and 
 the thought of their disappointment pained 
 her. 
 
 " I must try and put it to them," was her 
 patient reply. 
 
 " Daphne must always have her way," 
 Madeleine went on, smiling. " I wonder what 
 she'll do when she marries." 
 
 Mrs. Phillips looked up quickly. 
 
 " I hope it'll be the right man, Mrs. Verrier. 
 Of course, with anyone so — so clever — and so
 
 68 DAPHNE 
 
 used to managing everything for herself — one 
 would be a little anxious." 
 
 Mrs. Verrier's expression changed. A kind 
 of wildness — fanaticism — invaded it, as of one 
 recalling a mission. " Oh, well, nothing is 
 irrevocable nowadays," she said, almost with 
 violence. " Still, I hope Daphne won't make a 
 mistake." 
 
 Mrs. Phillips looked at her companion, at 
 first in astonishment. Then a change passed 
 over her face. With a cold excuse she left 
 Mrs. Verrier alone.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The reception at the Wliite House was being 
 given in honour of the delegates to a Peace 
 Congress. The rooms were full without being 
 inconveniently crowded, and the charming house 
 opened its friendly doors to a society more 
 congruous and organic, richer also in the nobler 
 kind of variety than America, perhaps, can 
 offer to her guests elsewhere. What the opera 
 and international finance are to New York, 
 politics and administration are, as we all know, 
 to Washington. And the visitor from Europe, 
 conversationally starved for want of what seem 
 to him the only topics worth discussing, finds 
 himself within hearing once more of ministers, 
 cabinets, embassies, and parliamentary gossip. 
 Even General Hobson had come to admit that 
 — especially for the middle-aged — Washington 
 })arties were extremely agreeable. The young 
 and foolisli might sigh for the flesh-pots of 
 New York ; tliose on wlioni " the black ox 
 had trodden," wlio were at all aware what a 
 vast tormenting, multitudinous, and headstrong 
 world man has been given to inhabit ; those 
 who were engaged in governing any part of that 
 
 69
 
 70 DAPHNE 
 
 world, or meant some day to be thus engaged ; 
 for them Washington was indispensable, and 
 New York a mere entertainment. 
 
 Moreover Washington, at this time of the 
 world's history, was the scene of one of those 
 episodes — those brisker moments in the human 
 comedy — which every now and then revive 
 among us an almost forgotten belief in person- 
 ality, an almost forgotten respect for the 
 mysteries behind it. The guests streaming 
 through the White House defiled past a man 
 who, in a level and docketed world, appeared 
 to his generation as the reincarnation of forces 
 primitive, over-mastering, and heroic. An 
 honest Odysseus ! — toil-worn and storm-beaten, 
 yet still with the spirit and strength, the many 
 devices, of a boy ; capable like his prototype 
 in one short day of crushing his enemies, up- 
 holding his friends, purifying his house ; and 
 then, with the heat of righteous battle still 
 upon him, with its gore, so to speak, still upon 
 his hands, of turning his mind, without a pause 
 and without hypocrisy, to things intimate and 
 soft and pure — the domestic sweetness of Pene- 
 lope, the young promise of Telemachus, The 
 President stood, a rugged figure, amid the 
 cosmopolitan crowd, breasting the modern 
 world, like some ocean headland, yet not truly 
 of it, one of the great fighters and workers of 
 mankind, with a laugh that pealed above the
 
 DAPHNE 71 
 
 noise, blue eyes that seemed to pursue some 
 converse of their own, and a hand that grasped 
 and cheered, where other hands withdrew and 
 repelled. This one man's will had now, for 
 some years, made the pivot on which vast 
 issues turned — issues of peace and war, of 
 policy embracing the civilised world ; and, here, 
 one saw him in drawing-rooms, discussing 
 Alaric's campaigns with an Oxford professor, 
 or chatting with a young mother about her 
 children. 
 
 Beside him, the human waves, as they met 
 and parted, disclosed a woman's face, modelled 
 by nature in one of her lightest and deftest 
 moods, a trifle detached, humorous also, as 
 though the world's strange sights stirred a gentle 
 and kindly mirth behind its sweet composure. 
 The dignity of the President's wife was com- 
 plete, yet it had not extinguished the personality 
 it clothed ; and wliere royalty, as the European 
 knows it, would have donned its mask and stood 
 on its defence. Republican royalty dared to be 
 its amused, confiding, natural self. 
 
 All around — the political, diplomatic world 
 of Wasliington. General Hobson, as he passed 
 through it, greeted by what was now a large 
 acquaintance, found himself driven once more 
 to the inward confession — tlie grudging con- 
 fession — as tliough Providence had not played 
 him fair in extorting it — that American poli-
 
 72 DAPHNE 
 
 ticians were of a vastly finer stamp than he had 
 expected to find them. The American press 
 was all— he vowed — that fancy had pamtcd it, 
 and more. But, as he looked about him at 
 the members of the President's administration 
 — at this tall, black-haired man, for instance, 
 with the mild and meditative eye, the equal, 
 social or intellectual, of any Foreign Minister that 
 Europe might pit against him, or any diplomat 
 that might be sent to handle him ; or this 
 younger man, sparely built, with the sane, hand- 
 some face — son of a famous father, modest, 
 amiable, efficient ; or this other, of huge bulk 
 and height, the sport of caricature, the hope of 
 a party, smiling already a presidential smile as 
 he passed, observed and beset, through the 
 crowded rooms ; or these naval or military men, 
 with their hard serviceable looks, and the curt 
 good manners of their kind : — the General saw 
 as clearly as anybody else, that America need 
 make no excuses whatever for her best men, 
 that she has evolved the leaders she wants, 
 and Europe has nothing to teach them. 
 
 He could only console himself by the re- 
 membrance of a speech, made by a well-known 
 man, at a military function which the General 
 had attended as a guest of honour the day 
 before. There at last was the real thing ! 
 The real, Yankee, spread-eagle thing ! The 
 General positively hugged the thought of it.
 
 DAPHNE 73 
 
 << 
 
 The American soldier," said the speaker, 
 standing among the ambassadors, the naval 
 and military attaches, of all the European 
 nations, " is the superior of all other soldiers 
 in three respects — bravery, discipline, intelli- 
 gence." 
 
 Bravery, discipline, intelligence ! Just those 
 — the merest trifle ! The General had found 
 himself chuckling over it in the visions of the 
 night. 
 
 Tired at last of these various impressions, 
 acting on a mind not quite alert enough to 
 deal with them, the General went in search 
 of his nephew. Roger had been absent ah 
 day, and the General had left the hotel before 
 his return. But the uncle was sure that he 
 would sooner or later put in an appearance. 
 
 It was of course entirely on Roger's account 
 tliat tliis unwilling guest of America was her 
 guest still. For three weeks now had the General 
 been watching the affair between Roger and 
 Daphne Floyd. It had gone with such a rush 
 at first, such a swing and fervour, that the 
 General had felt that any day might bring the 
 denouement. It was really impossible to desert 
 the lad at such a crisis, especially as Laura was 
 so excitable and anxious, and so sure to make 
 her brother pay for it if he failed to support her 
 views and ambitions at the right moment. 
 The General moreover felt the absolute necessity
 
 74 DAPHNE 
 
 of getting to know something more about Miss 
 Floyd, her chai"acter, the details of her fortune 
 and antecedents, so that when the great moment 
 came he might be prepared. 
 
 But the astonishing thing was that of late 
 the whole affair seemed to have come to some 
 stupid hitch ! Roger had been behaving like a 
 ver}/ cool hand — too cool by half in the General's 
 opinion. What the deuce did he mean by 
 hanging about these Boston ladies, if his affec- 
 tions were really fixed on Miss Daphne ? — or his 
 ambitions, which to the uncle seemed nearer the 
 truth. 
 
 "Well, where is the nephew?" said Ceciha 
 Boyson's voice in his ear. 
 
 The General turned. He saw a sharp, 
 though still young face, a thin and willowy 
 figure, attired in white silk, a pince-nez on the 
 high-pitched nose, and a cool smile. Uncon- 
 sciously his back stiffened. Miss Boyson in- 
 variably roused in him a certain masculine 
 antagonism. 
 
 " I should be glad if you would tell me," 
 he said, with some formality. " There are 
 two or three people here to whom he should be 
 introduced." 
 
 " Has he been picnicking with the Maddi- 
 sons ? " The voice was shrill, perhaps malicious. 
 
 " I believe they took him to Arlington, and 
 somewhere else afterwards."
 
 DAPHNE 75 
 
 " Ah," said Cecilia, " there they are." 
 
 The General looked towards the door and 
 saw his nephew enter, behind a mother and 
 daughter whom, as it seemed to him, their 
 acquaintances in the crowd around them greeted 
 with a peculiar cordiality ; the mother, still 
 young, with a stag-like carriage of the head, a 
 long throat, swathed in white tulle, and grizzled 
 hair, on which shone a spray of diamonds ; the 
 daughter, equally tall and straight, repeating 
 her mother's beauty with a bloom and radiance 
 of her own. Innocent and happy, with dark 
 eyes and a soft mouth. Miss Maddison dropped 
 a little curtsey to the presidential pair, and the 
 room turned to look at her as she did so. 
 
 " A very sweet-looking girl," said the General 
 warmly. " Her father is, I think, a professor." 
 
 " He was. He is now just a writer of books. 
 But Elsie was brought up in Cambridge. How 
 did Mr. Roger know them ? " 
 
 " His Eton tutor told him to go and see 
 them." 
 
 " I thought Miss FJoyd expected liim to- 
 day ? " said Miss Boyson carelessly, adjusting 
 her eyeglass. 
 
 " It was a mistake, a misunderstanding," 
 replied the General hurriedly. " Miss Floyd's 
 party is put off till next week." 
 
 " Daphne is just coming in," said Miss 
 Boyson.
 
 76 DAPHNE 
 
 The General turned again. The watchful 
 Cecilia was certain that he was not in love with 
 Daphne. But the nephew — the inordinately 
 handsome, and by now much-courted young 
 man — what was the real truth about him ? 
 
 Cecilia recognised — with Mrs. Verrier — that 
 merely to put the question involved a certain 
 tribute to young Barnes. He had at any rate 
 done his fortune-hunting, if fortune-hunting it 
 were, with decorum. 
 
 " Miss Floyd is looking well to-night," re- 
 marked the General. 
 
 Cecilia did not reply. She and a great part 
 of the room were engaged in watching Roger 
 Barnes and Miss Maddison walking together 
 through a space which seemed to have been 
 cleared on purpose for them, but was really 
 the result of a move towards the supper- 
 room. 
 
 " Was there ever such a pair ? " said an 
 enthusiastic voice behind the General. " Athene 
 and Apollo take the floor ! " A grey-haired 
 journalist with a small, be wrinkled face, buried 
 in whiskers and beard, laid a hand on the 
 General's arm as he spoke. 
 
 The General smiled vaguely. " Do you 
 know Mrs. and Miss Maddison ? " 
 
 " Rather ! " said the httle man. " Miss 
 Elsie's a wonder ! As pretty and soft as they 
 make them, and a Greek scholar besides — took
 
 DAPHNE 77 
 
 all sorts of honours at Radcliffe last year. I've 
 known her from her cradle." 
 
 " What a number of your girls go to college ! " 
 said the General, but ungraciously, in the tones 
 of one who no sooner saw an American custom 
 emerging than his instinct was to hit it. 
 
 " Yes ; it's a feature of our modern life — 
 the life of our women. But not the most 
 significant one, by a long way." 
 
 The General could not help a look of inquiry. 
 
 The journalist's face changed from gay to 
 
 grave. " The most significant thing in American 
 
 life just now " 
 
 " I know ! " interrupted the General. 
 " Your divorce laws ! " 
 
 The journalist shook his head. " It goes 
 deeper than that. What we're looking on at 
 is a complete transformation of the idea of 
 
 marriage " 
 
 A movement in the crowd bore the speaker 
 away. The General was left watching the 
 beautiful pair in the distance. They were 
 apparently quite unconscious that they roused 
 any special attention. Laughing and chatting 
 like two children, they passed into the supper- 
 room and disappeared. 
 
 Ten minutes later, in the supper-room, 
 Barnes deserted the two ladies with whom he 
 liad entered, and went in pursuit of a girl in 
 wliite, whose necklace, of star sapphires in a
 
 78 DAPHNE 
 
 Spanish setting of the seventeenth century, had 
 at once caught the eye of the judicious. Roger, 
 however, knew nothing of jewels, and was 
 only conscious as he approached Miss Floyd, 
 first of the mingling in his own mind of some- 
 thing like embarrassment with something like 
 defiance, and then, of the glitter in the girl's 
 dark eyes. 
 
 " I hope you had an interesting debate," he 
 said. " Mrs. Phillips tells me you went to the 
 Senate." 
 
 Daphne looked him up and down. ** Did 
 I ? " she said slowly. "I've forgotten. Will 
 you move, please ? There's someone bringing 
 me an ice." And turning her back on Roger, 
 she smiled and beckoned to the Under-Secretary, 
 who with a triumphant face was making his 
 way to her through the crowd. 
 
 Roger coloured hotly. " May I bring Mrs. 
 Maddison?" lie said, passing her; "she would like 
 to talk to you about a party for next week " 
 
 " Thank you. I am just going home." 
 And with an energetic movement she freed 
 herself from him, and was soon in the gayest 
 of talk with the Under-Secretary. 
 
 The reception broke up some time after 
 midnight, and on the way home General Hobson 
 attempted a raid upon his nephew's intentions. 
 
 " I don't wish to seem an intrusive person.
 
 
 m^:'i .::.... 
 
 v,>^ 
 
 Thank you. 1 am just going homu ' " (see page 78).
 
 DAPHNE 79 
 
 my dear Roger, but may I ask how much 
 longer you mean to stay in Washington ? " 
 
 The tone was short and the look which 
 accompanied the words not without sarcasm. 
 Roger, who had been walking beside his com- 
 panion, still deeply flushed, in complete silence, 
 gave an awkward laugh. 
 
 " And as for you, Uncle Archie, I thought 
 you meant to sail a fortnight ago. If you've 
 been staying on like this on my account " 
 
 " Don't make a fool either of me or your- 
 self, Roger ! " said the General hastily, roused 
 at last to speech by the annoyance of the situa- 
 tion. " Of course it was on your account that 
 I have stayed on. But what on earth it all 
 means, and where your affairs are — I'm hanged 
 if I have the glimmer of an idea ! " 
 
 Roger's smile was perfectly good-humoured. 
 
 " I haven't mucli myself," he said quietly. 
 
 " Do you — or do you not — mean to propose 
 to Miss Floyd ? " cried the General, pausing 
 in the centre of Lafayette Square, now all but 
 deserted, and apostrophising with his umbrella 
 — for the niglit was soft and rainy — the presi- 
 dential statue above liis head. 
 
 " Have I given you reason to suppose that 
 I was going to do so ? " said Roger slowly. 
 
 " Given me ? — given everybody reason ? — 
 of course you have ! — a dozen times over. I 
 don't like interfering with your affairs, Roger
 
 8o DAPHNR 
 
 — \vitli any young man's affairs — but you must 
 know that you have set Washington talking, 
 and it's not fair to a girl — by George it isn't ! — 
 when she has given you encouragement and 
 you have made her conspicuous, to begin the 
 same story, in the same place, immediately, 
 with someone else ! As you say, I ought to 
 have taken myself off long ago." 
 
 " I didn't say anything of the kind," said 
 Roger hotly ; " you shouldn't put words into 
 my mouth, Uncle Archie. And I really don't 
 see why you attack me like this. My tutor 
 particularly asked me, if I came across them, 
 to be civil to Mrs. Maddison and her daughter, 
 and I have done nothing but pay them the 
 most ordinary attentions." 
 
 " When a man is in love he pays no ordinary 
 attentions. He has eyes for no one but the 
 lady." The General's umbrella, as it descended 
 from the face of Andrew Jackson and rattled 
 on the flagged path, supplied each word with 
 emphasis. " However, it is no good talking, 
 and I don't exactly know why I should put my 
 old oar in. But the fact is I feel a certain 
 responsibility. People here have been uncom- 
 monly civil. Well, well ! — I've wired to-day 
 to ask if there is a berth left in the Venetia for 
 Saturday. And you, I suppose " — the inquiry 
 was somewhat peremptory — " will be going back 
 to New York ? "
 
 DAPHNE 8i 
 
 " I have no intention of leaving Washington 
 just yet," said Roger, with decision. 
 
 " And may I ask what you intend to do 
 here ? " 
 
 Roger laughed. " I really think that's my 
 business. However, you've been an awful brick, 
 Uncle Archie, to stay on like this. I assure you, 
 if I don't say much, I think it." 
 
 By this time they had reached the hotel, 
 the steps and hall of which were full of people. 
 
 " That's how you put me off." The General's 
 tone was resentful. " And you won't give me 
 any idea of the line I am to take with your 
 mother ? " 
 
 The young man smiled again and waved an 
 evasive hand. 
 
 " If you'll only be patient a little longer, 
 Uncle Archie " 
 
 At this point an acquaintance of the General's 
 who was smoking in the hall came forward to 
 greet him, and Roger made his escape. 
 
 " Well, what the deuce do I mean to do ? " 
 Barnes asked himself the question deliber- 
 ately. He was hanging out of the window in 
 his bedroom, smoking and pondering. 
 
 It was a mild and rainy night. Washington 
 was full of the earth and leaf odours of the 
 spring, which rose in gusts from its trees and 
 gardens ; and rugged, swiftly moving clouds 
 
 G
 
 8a DAPHNE 
 
 disclosed every now and then what looked like 
 hurrying stars. 
 
 The young man was excited and on edge. 
 Daphne Floyd — and the thought of Daphne 
 Floyd — had set his pulses hammering ; they 
 challenged in him the aggressive, self-assertive, 
 masculine force. The history of the preceding 
 three weeks was far from simple. He had first 
 paid a determined court to her, conducting it in 
 an orthodox, English, conspicuous way. His 
 mother, and her necessities — his own also — 
 imposed it on him ; and he flung himself into 
 it, setting his teeth. Then, to his astonishment, 
 one may almost say to his disconcerting, he 
 found the prey all at once, and, as it were, 
 without a struggle, fluttering to his lure, and 
 practically within his grasp. There was an 
 evening when Daphne's sudden softness, the 
 look in her eyes, the inflection in her voice had 
 fairly thrown him off his balance. For the first 
 time he had shown a lack of self-command and 
 self-possession. Whereupon, in a flash, a new 
 and strange Daphne had developed — imperious, 
 difficult, incalculable. The more he gave, the 
 more she claimed. Nor was it mere girlish 
 caprice. The young Englishman, invited to a 
 game that he had never yet played, felt in it 
 something sinister and bewildering. Gropingly, 
 he divined in front of him a future of tyranny 
 on her side, of expected submission on his. 
 
 y
 
 DAPHNE 83 
 
 The Northern character in him, with its reserve, 
 its phlegm, its general sanity, began to shrink 
 from the Southern elements in her. He became 
 aware of the depths in her nature, of things 
 volcanic and primitive, and the English stuff 
 in him recoiled. 
 
 So he was to be bitted and bridled, it seemed, 
 in the future. Daphne Floyd would have 
 bought him with her dollars, and he would have 
 to pay the price. 
 
 Something natural and wild in him said 
 No ! If he married this girl he would be 
 master, in spite of her money. He realised 
 vaguely, at any rate, the strength of her will, 
 and the way in which it had been tempered and 
 steeled by circumstance. But the perception 
 only roused in himself some slumbering tenacities 
 and vehemences of which he had been scarcely 
 aware. So that, almost immediately — since 
 there was no glamour of passion on his side — he 
 began to resent her small tyrannies, to draw in, 
 and draw back. A few quarrels — not ordinary 
 lovers' quarrels, but representing a true grapple 
 of personalities — sprang up behind a screen of 
 trifles. Daphne was once more rude and pro- 
 voking, Roger cool and apparently indifferent. 
 This was the stage when Mrs. Verricr liad become 
 an admiring observer of what she supposed to 
 be his " tactics." But she knew nothing of the 
 curious little crisis which had preceded them.
 
 84 DAPHNE 
 
 Then the Maddisons, mother and daughter, 
 " my tutor's friends," had appeared upon the 
 scene — charming people ! Of course civiUties 
 were due to them, and had to be paid them. 
 Next to his mother — and to the girl of the 
 orchard — the affections of this youth, who was 
 morally backward and immature, but neither 
 callous nor fundamentally selfish, had been 
 chiefly given to a certain Eton master, of a 
 type happily not uncommon in English public 
 schools. Herbert French had been Roger's 
 earliest and best friend. What Roger had 
 owed him at school, only he knew. Since 
 school-days they had been constant corre- 
 spondents, and French's influence on his pupil's 
 early manhood had done much, for all Roger's 
 laziness and self-indulgence, to keep him from 
 serious lapses. 
 
 Neglect any friends of his — and such jolly 
 friends ? Rather not ! But as soon as Daphne 
 had seen Elsie Maddison, and he had begged 
 an afternoon to go an expedition with them. 
 Daphne had become intolerable. She had 
 shown her English friend and his acquaintances 
 a manner so insulting and provocative, that 
 the young man's blood had boiled. 
 
 If he were in love with her — well and good ! 
 She might no doubt have tamed him by these 
 stripes. But she was no goddess to him ; no 
 golden cloud enveloped her ; he saw her under
 
 DAPHNE 85 
 
 a common daylight. At the same time she 
 attracted him ; he was vain of what had seemed 
 his conquest, and uneasily exultant in the 
 thought of her immense fortune. "I'll make 
 her an excellent husband if she marries me," 
 he said to himself stubbornly ; "I can, and I 
 will." 
 
 But meanwhile how was this first stage to 
 end ? At the White House that night Daphne 
 had treated him with contumely, and before 
 spectators. He must either go or bring her 
 to the point. 
 
 He withdrew suddenly from the window, 
 flinging out the end of his cigarette. " I'll 
 propose to her to-morrow — and she may either 
 take me or leave me ! " 
 
 He paced up and down his room, conscious 
 of relief and fresh energy. As he did so his 
 eyes were drawn to a letter from Herbert 
 French lying on the tabic. He took it up and 
 read it again — smiling over it broadl5^ in a 
 boyish and kindly amusement. " By Jove ! 
 he's happy." 
 
 Then as he put it down his face darkened. 
 There was something in the letter, in its man- 
 liness and humour, its unconscious revelation 
 of ideals wholly independent of dollars, tliat 
 made Roger for the moment loathe his own 
 position. But he pulled himself together. 
 
 " I shall make licr a good husband," he
 
 86 DAPHNE 
 
 repeated, frowning. " She'll have nothing to 
 complain of." 
 
 On the following day a picnic among the 
 woods of the Upper Potomac brought together 
 most of the personages in this history. The 
 day was beautiful, the woods fragrant with 
 spring leaf and blossom, and the stream, 
 swollen with rain, ran seaward in a turbid, 
 rejoicing strength. 
 
 The General, having secured his passage 
 home, was in good spirits as far as his own 
 affairs were concerned, though still irritable 
 on the score of his nephew's. Since the abortive 
 attempt on his confidence of the night before, 
 Roger had avoided all private conversation 
 with his uncle ; and for once the old had to 
 learn patience from the young. 
 
 The party was given by the wife of one of 
 the staff of the French Embassy — a young 
 Frenchwoman, as gay and frank as her babies, 
 and possessed, none the less, of all the social 
 arts of her nation. She had taken a shrewd 
 interest in the matter of Daphne Floyd and the 
 Englishman. Daphne, according to her, should 
 be promptly married and her millions taken 
 care of, and the handsome, broad-shouldered 
 fellow impressed the little Frenchwoman's imag- 
 ination as a proper and capable watchdog. 
 She had indeed become aware that something
 
 DAPHNE 87 
 
 was wrong, but her acuteness entirely refused 
 to believe that it had any vital connection with 
 the advent of pretty Elsie Maddison. Mean- 
 while, to please Daphne, whom she liked, while 
 conscious of a strong and frequent desire to 
 smite her, Madame de Fronsac had invited 
 Mrs. Verrier, treating her with a cold and 
 punctilious courtesy that, as applied to any other 
 guest, would have seemed an affront. 
 
 In vain, however, did the hostess, in vain 
 did other kindly bystanders, endeavour to 
 play the game of Daphne Floyd. In the first 
 place Daphne herself, though piped unto, refused 
 to dance. She avoided the society of Roger 
 Barnes in a pointed and public way, bright 
 colour on her cheeks and a wild light in her 
 eyes ; the Under-Secretary escorted her and 
 carried her wrap. Washington did not know 
 what to think. For, owing to this conduct of 
 Daphne's, the charming Boston girl, the other 
 ingenue of the party, fell constantly to the care 
 of young Barnes ; and to see them stepping 
 along the green ways together, matclicd almost 
 in height, and clearly of the same English 
 ancestry and race, pleased while it puzzled the 
 spectators. 
 
 The party lunched in a little inn beside the 
 river, and then scattered again along woodland 
 paths. Daphne and the Under-Secretary wan- 
 dered on ahead and were some distance from
 
 88 DAPHNE 
 
 the rest of the party when that gentleman 
 suddenly looked at his watch in dismay. An 
 appointment had to be kept with the President 
 at a certain hour, and the Under-Secretary's 
 wits had been wandering. There was nothing 
 for it but to take a short cut through the woods 
 to a local station and make at once for Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 Dapline quickened his uneasiness and 
 hastened his departure. She assured him that 
 the others were close behind, and that nothing 
 could suit her better than to rest on a mossy 
 stone that happily presented itself till they 
 arrived. 
 
 The Under-Secretary, transformed into the 
 anxious and ambitious politician, abruptly left 
 her. 
 
 Daphne, as soon as he was gone, allowed 
 herself the natural attitude that fitted her 
 thoughts. She was furiously in love and torn 
 with jealousy ; and that love and jealousy 
 could smart so, and cling so, was a strange 
 revelation to one accustomed to make a world 
 entirely to her liking. Her dark eyes were 
 hollow, her small mouth had lost its colour, 
 and she showed that touch of something wasting 
 and withering that Theocritan Shepherds knew 
 in old Sicilian days. It was as though she had 
 defied a god — and the god had avenged himself. 
 
 Suddenly he appeared — the teasing divinity
 
 Rending over Iter, ho kissed her " (see page Sq).
 
 DAPHNE 89 
 
 — in human shape. There was a rustUng among 
 the brushwood fringing the river. Roger Barnes 
 emerged and made his way up towards her. 
 
 "I've been stalking you all this time," he 
 said, breathless, as he reached her, " and now, 
 at last — I've caught you ! " 
 
 Daphne rose furiously. " What right have 
 you to stalk me, as you call it ? — to follow me — 
 to speak to me even ? I wish to avoid you — 
 and I have shown it ! " 
 
 Roger looked at her. He had thrown down 
 his hat, and she saw him against the back- 
 ground of sunny wood, as the magnificent em- 
 bodiment of its youth and force. " And why 
 have you shown it ? " There was a warning 
 tremor of excitement in his voice. " What 
 have I done ? I haven't deserved it ! You 
 treat me like — like a friend — and then you drop 
 me — like a hot coal ! You've been awfully 
 unkind to me ! " 
 
 " I won't discuss it with you," she cried 
 passionately. " You are in my way, Mr. Barnes. 
 Let me go back to the others ! " And stretching 
 out a small hand, she tried to put him aside. 
 Roger hesitated, but only for a moment. 
 He caught the hand, he gathered its owner into 
 a pair of strong arms, and bending over her, 
 he kissed her. Daphne, suffocated with anger 
 and emotion, broke from him — tottering. Then 
 sinking on the ground beneath a tree, she burst
 
 90 DAPHNE 
 
 into sobbing. Roger, scarlet, with sparkling 
 eyes, dropped on one knee beside her. 
 
 " Daphne, I'm a ruffian ! Forgive me ! you 
 must, Daphne ! Look here, I want you to 
 marry me. I've nothing to offer you, of course ; 
 I'm a poor man, and you've all this horrible 
 money ! But I— I love you !— and I'll make 
 you a good husband, Daphne, that I'll swear, 
 if you'll take me, you shall never be sorry for it." 
 
 He looked at her again, sorely embarrassed, 
 hating himself, yet, after all, inwardly sure of 
 her. Her small frame shook with weeping. 
 And presently she turned from him and said in 
 a fierce voice : 
 
 " Go and tell all that to Elsie Maddison ! " 
 
 Infinitely relieved, Roger gave a quick, 
 excited laugh. 
 
 " She'd soon send me about my business ! 
 I should be a day too late for the fair, in that 
 quarter. What do you think she and I have 
 been talking about all this time. Daphne ? " 
 
 " I don't care ! " said Daphne hastily, with 
 face still averted. 
 
 "I'm going to tell you, all the same," cried 
 Roger triumphantly, and diving into his coat 
 pocket he produced " my tutor's letter." 
 Daphne sat immovable, and he had to read it 
 aloud himself. It contained the rapturous 
 account of Herbert French's engagement to 
 Miss Maddison, a happy event which had taken
 
 DAPHNE 91 
 
 place in England during the Eton holidaj^s, 
 about a month before this date. 
 
 " There ! " cried the young man as he 
 finished it. " And she's talked about nothing 
 all the time, nothing at all — but old Herbert — 
 and how good he is — and how good-looking, 
 and the Lord knows what ! I got precious sick 
 of it, though I think he's a trump, too. Oh, 
 Daphne ! — you were a little fool ! " 
 
 " All the same, you have behaved abomin- 
 ably ! " Daphne said, still choking. 
 
 " No, I haven't," was Roger's firm reply. 
 " It was you who were so cross. I couldn't 
 tell you anything. I say ! you do know how 
 to stick pins into people ! " 
 
 But he took up her hand and kissed it as 
 he spoke. 
 
 Da})hnc allowed it. Her breast heaved as 
 the storm departed. And she looked so charm- 
 ing, so soft, so desirable, as she sat there in her 
 white dress, with her great tear- washed eyes 
 and fluttering breath, that the youth was really 
 touclicd and carried off his feet ; and the rest of 
 his task was quite easy. All the familiar things 
 that had to be said were said, and with all the 
 proper emphasis and spirit. He played his pait, 
 the spring woods played theirs, and Daphne, 
 worn out by emotion and conquered by passion, 
 gradually betrayed herself wholly. And so 
 much at least may be said to the man's credit
 
 9a DAPHNE 
 
 that there were certainly moments in the half- 
 hour between them when, amid the rush of 
 talk, laughter, and caresses, that conscience 
 which he owed so greatly to the exertions of 
 " m}^ tutor " pricked him not a little. 
 
 After losing themselves deliberately in the 
 woods, they strolled back to join the rest of 
 the party. The sounds of conversation were 
 already audible through the trees in front of 
 them, when they saw Mrs. Verrier coming to- 
 wards them. She was walking alone and did not 
 perceive them. Her eyes were raised and fixed, 
 as though on some sight in front of them. The 
 bitterness, the anguish, one might almost call 
 it, of her expression, the horror in the eyes, as 
 of one ghost-led, ghost-driven, drew an ex- 
 clamation from Roger. 
 
 " There's Mrs. Verrier ! Why, how ill she 
 looks ! " 
 
 Daphne paused, gazed, and shrank. She 
 drew him aside through the trees. 
 
 " Let's go another way. Madeleine's often 
 strange." And with a superstitious pang she 
 wished that Madeleine Verrier's face had not 
 been the first to meet her in tliis hour of her 
 betrothal.
 
 PART II 
 
 THREE YEARS AFTER 
 " L'occasion fait le larron "
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 In the drawang-room at Heston Park two 
 ladies were seated. One was a well-preserved 
 woman of fifty, with a large oblong face, good 
 features, a double chin, and abundant grey 
 hair arranged in waved bandeaux above a 
 forehead which should certainly have implied 
 strength of character, and a pair of challeng- 
 ing black eyes. Lady Barnes moved and spoke 
 with authority ; it was evident that she had 
 been accustomed to do so all her life ; to trail 
 silk gowns over Persian carpets, to engage 
 expensive cooks and rely on expensive butlers, 
 with a strict attention to small economies all 
 the time ; to impose her will on her household 
 and the clergyman of the parish ; to give her 
 opinions on books, and expect them to be 
 listened to ; to abstain from politics as un- 
 feminine, and to make up for it by the 
 strongest of views on Church questions. She 
 belonged to an English type common through- 
 out all classes — quite harmless and tolerable 
 when things go well, but apt to be soured and 
 twisted by adversity. 
 
 And Lady Barnes, it will be remembered, 
 
 95
 
 96 DAPHNE 
 
 had known adversity. Not much of it, nor for 
 long together; but in her own opinion she had 
 gone through " great trials," to the profit of 
 her Christian character. She was quite certain, 
 now, that everything had been for the best, 
 and that Providence makes no mistakes. But 
 that, perhaps, was because the " trials " had 
 only lasted about a year ; and then, so far as 
 they were pecuniary, the marriage of her son 
 with Miss Daphne Floyd had entirely relieved 
 her of them. For Roger now made her a hand- 
 some allowance, and the chastened habits of a 
 most uncomfortable year had been hastily 
 abandoned. 
 
 Nevertheless, Lady Barnes's aspect on this 
 autumn afternoon was not cheerful, and her 
 companion was endeavouring, with a little 
 kind embarrassment, both to soothe an evident 
 irritation and to avoid the confidences that 
 Roger's mother seemed eager to pour out. 
 Elsie French, whom Washington had known 
 three years before as Elsie Maddison, was in 
 that bloom of young married life when all that 
 was lovely in the girl seems to be still lingering, 
 while yet love and motherhood have wrought 
 once more their old transforming miracle on 
 sense and spirit. In her afternoon dress of 
 dainty sprigged silk, with just a touch of 
 austerity in the broad muslin collar and cuffs 
 — her curly brown hair simply parted on
 
 DAPHNE 97 j 
 
 her brow, and gathered classically on a ] 
 
 shapely head — her mouth a little troubled, her 1 
 
 brow a little puckered over Lady Barnes's dis- 
 contents — she was a very gracious vision. Yet [ 
 behind the gentleness, as even Lady Barnes 
 knew, there were qualities and characteristics i 
 of a singular strength. ] 
 
 Lady Barnes indeed was complaining, and ' 
 
 could not be stopped. i 
 
 " You see, dear Mrs. French," she was ' 
 
 saying in a rapid, lowered voice, and with ' 
 
 many glances at the door, " the trouble is that \ 
 
 Daphne is never satisfied. She has some im- ; 
 
 possible ideal in her mind, and then everything 
 must be sacrificed to it. She began with going i 
 
 into ecstasies over this dear old house, and ! 
 
 now ! — there's scarcely a thing in it she does 
 not want to change. Poor Edward and I spent 
 thousands upon it, and we really flattered ' 
 
 ourselves that we had some taste ; but it is 
 not good enough for Daphne ! " ! 
 
 The speaker settled herself in her chair 
 with a slight but emphatic clatter of bangles 
 and rustle of skirts. ! 
 
 " It's the ceilings, isn't it ? " murmured ' 
 
 Elsie French, glancing at the heavy decoration, 
 the stucco bosses and pendants above her head, i 
 
 which had replaced, some twenty years before, I 
 
 a piece of Adam design, sparing and felicitous. ' 
 
 " It's everything ! " Lady Barnes's tone 
 
 H (
 
 98 DAPHNE 
 
 was now more angry than fretful. " I don't, 
 of course, like to say it — but really Daphne's 
 self-confidence is too amazing ! " 
 
 " She does know so much," said Elsie French 
 reflectively. " Doesn't she ? " 
 
 " Well, if you call it knowing. She can 
 alwaj^s get some tiresome person, whom she 
 calls an ' expert,' to back her up. But I believe 
 in liking what you do like, and not being buUied 
 into what you don't like ! " 
 
 " I suppose if one studies these things " 
 
 Elsie French began timidly. 
 
 " Wliat's the good of studying ! " cried Lady 
 Barnes ; " one has one's own taste, or one hasn't." 
 
 Confronted with this form of the Absolute, 
 Elsie French looked perplexed ; especially as 
 her own artistic sympathies were mainly with 
 Daphne. The situation was certainly awkward. 
 At the time of the Barnes's financial crash, 
 and Sir Edward Barnes's death, Heston Park, 
 which belonged to Lady Barnes, was all that 
 remained to her and her son. A park of a 
 hundred acres and a few cottages went with the 
 house ; but there was no estate to support it, 
 and it had to be let, to provide an income for the 
 widow and the boy. Much of the expensive 
 furniture had been sold before letting, but 
 enough remained to satisfy the wants of a not 
 very exacting tenant. 
 
 Lady Barnes had then departed to weep
 
 DAPHNE 9Q 
 
 ill exile on a pittance of about seven hundred 
 a year. But with the marriage of her son to 
 Miss Floyd and her millions, the mother's 
 thoughts had turned fondly back to Heston 
 Park. It was too big for her, of course ; but 
 the young people clearly must redeem it, and 
 settle there. And Daphne had been quite 
 amenable. The photographs charmed her. The 
 house, she said, was evidently in a pure style, 
 and it would be a delight to make it habitable 
 again. The tenant, however, had a lease, and 
 refused to turn out until at last Daphne had 
 frankly bribed him to go. And now, after 
 three years of married life, during which the 
 young couple had rented various " places," be- 
 sides their house in London and a villa at Tunis, 
 Heston Park had been vacated. Daphne and 
 Roger had descended upon it — as Lady Barnes's 
 tenants at a high rent — intent upon its restora- 
 tion ; and Roger's mother had been invited to 
 their councils. 
 
 Hence, indeed, these tears. \Vlicn Daphne 
 first stepped inside the ancestral mansion of 
 the Trescoes — such had been Lady Barnes's 
 maiden name — she had received a severe shock. 
 The outside, the shell of the house — delightful ! 
 But inside ! — heavens ! what taste, what decora- 
 tion — what ruin of a beautiful thing ! Half the 
 old mantelpieces gone, the ceOings spoilt, the 
 decorations " busy," pretentious, overdone, and
 
 loo DAPHNE 
 
 nothing left to console her but an ugly row of 
 bad Lelys and worse Highmores — the most 
 despicable collection of family portraits she 
 liad ever set e3^es upon ! 
 
 Roger had looked unhappy. " It was father 
 and mother did it," he admitted penitently. 
 " But after all, Daphne, you know they are 
 Trescoes ! " — this with a defensive and pro- 
 tecting glance at the Lelys. 
 
 Daphne was sorry for it. Her mouth tight- 
 ened, and certain lines appeared about it which 
 already prophesied what the years would make 
 of the young face. Yet it was a pretty mouth — 
 the mouth, above all, of one with no doubts at 
 all as to her place and rights in the world. 
 Lady Barnes had pronounced it " common " 
 in her secret thoughts before she had known its 
 owner six weeks. But the adjective had never 
 yet escaped the " bulwark of the teeth." Out- 
 wardly the mother and daughter-in-law were 
 still on good terms. It was indeed but a week 
 since the son and his wife had arrived — with 
 their baby girl — at Heston Park, after a summer 
 of yachting and fishing in Norway ; since Lady 
 Barnes had journeyed thither from London to 
 meet them ; and Mr. and Mrs. French had 
 accepted an urgent invitation from Roger, 
 quite sufficiently backed by Daphne, to stay 
 for a few days with Mr. French's old pupil, 
 before the reopening of Eton.
 
 DAPHNE loi 
 
 During that time there had been no open 
 quarrels of any kind ; but Elsie French was a 
 sensitive creature, and she had been increasingly 
 aware of friction and annoyance behind the 
 scenes. And now here was Lady Barnes let 
 loose ! and Daphne might appear at any 
 moment, before she could be re-caged. 
 
 " She puts you down so ! " cried that lady, 
 making gestures with the paper-knife she had 
 just been employing on the pages of a Mudie 
 book. " If I tell her that something or other — 
 it doesn't matter what — cost at least a great 
 deal of money, she has a way of smiling at you 
 that is positively insulting ! She doesn't trouble 
 to argue ; she begins to laugh, and raises her 
 eyebrows. I — I always feel as if she had struck 
 me in the face ! I know I oughtn't to speak 
 like this ; I hadn't meant to do it, especially to 
 a country-woman of hers, as you are." 
 
 " Am I ? " said Elsie, in a puzzled voice. 
 
 Lady Barnes opened her eyes in astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " I meant " — the explanation was hurried 
 — " I thought — Mrs. Barnes was a South Ameri- 
 can ? Her mother was Spanish, of course ; you 
 see it in Daphne." 
 
 " Yes ; in her wonderful eyes," said Mrs. 
 French warmly ; " and her grace — isn't she 
 graceful ! My husband says she moves like a 
 sea-wave. She has given her eyes to the cliild."
 
 102 DAPHNE 
 
 " Ah ! and other things too, I'm afraid ! " 
 cried Lady Barnes, carried away. " But here 
 is the baby." 
 
 For the sounds of a childish voice were 
 heard echoing in the domed hall outside. Small 
 feet came pattering, and the drawing-room door 
 was burst open by Roger Barnes, holding a 
 little girl of nearly two and a half by the hand. 
 
 Lady Barnes composed herself. It is 
 necessary to smile at children, and she en- 
 deavoured to satisfy her own sense of it. 
 
 " Come in, Beatty ; come and kiss granny ! " 
 And Lady Barnes held out her arms. 
 
 But the child stood still, surveyed her grand- 
 mother with a pair of startling eyes, and then, 
 turning, made a nish for the door. But her 
 father was too quick for her. He closed it with 
 a laugh, and stood with his back to it. The 
 child did not cry, but, with flaming cheeks, she 
 began to beat her father's knees with her small 
 fists. 
 
 " Go and kiss granny, darling," said Roger, 
 stroking her dark head. 
 
 Beatty turned again, put both her hands 
 behind her, and stood immovable. 
 
 " Not kiss granny," she said firmly. " Don't 
 love granny." 
 
 " Oh, Beatty " — Mrs. French knelt down be- 
 side her — " come and be a good little girl, and 
 I'll show you picture-books."
 
 DAPHNE 103 
 
 " I not Beatty — I Jemima Ann," said the 
 small thin voice. " Not be a dood diii — do up- 
 stairs." 
 
 She looked at her father again, and then, 
 evidently perceiving that he was not to be 
 moved by force, she changed her tactics. Her 
 delicate, elfish face melted into the sweetest 
 smile ; she stood on tiptoe, holding out to him 
 her tiny arms. With a laugh of irrepressible 
 pride and pleasure, Roger stooped to her and 
 lifted her up. She nestled on his shoulder — a 
 small odalisque, dark, lithe, and tawny, beside 
 her handsome, fair-skinned father. And Roger's 
 manner of holding and caressing her showed the 
 passionate affection with which he regarded her. 
 
 He again urged her to kiss her grand- 
 mother ; but the child again shook her head. 
 " Then," said he craftily, " father must kiss 
 granny." And he began to cross the room. 
 
 But Lady Barnes stopped him, not without 
 dignity. " Better not press it, Roger : another 
 time." 
 
 Barnes laughed, and yielded. He carried 
 the child away, murmuring to her, " Naughty, 
 naughty 'ittie girl ! " — a remark which Beatty, 
 tucked under his ear, and complacently sucking 
 her thumb, received with complete indifference. 
 
 " There, you see 1 " said the grandmother, 
 with slightly flushed cheeks, as the door closed : 
 " the cliild lias been already taught to dislike
 
 104 DAPHNE 
 
 me, and if Roger had attempted to kiss me, she 
 would probably have struck me." 
 
 " Oh, no ! " cried Mrs. French. " She is a 
 loving little thing." 
 
 " Except when she is jealous," said Lady 
 Barnes, with significance. " I told you she has 
 inherited more than her eyes." 
 
 Mrs. French rose. She was determined not 
 to discuss her hostess any more, and she walked 
 over to the bow window as though to look at 
 the prospects of the weather, which had threat- 
 ened rain. But Roger's mother was not to be 
 repressed. Resentment and antagonism, nur- 
 tured on a hundred small incidents and trifling 
 jars, and, to begin with, a matter of tempera- 
 ment, had come at last to speech. And in 
 this charming New Englander, the wife of 
 Roger's best friend, sympathetic, tender, with 
 a touch in her of the nun and the saint. Lady 
 Barnes could not help trying to find a supporter. 
 She was a much weaker person than her square 
 build and her double chin would have led the 
 bystander to suppose ; and her feelings had 
 been hurt. 
 
 So that when Mrs. French returned to say 
 that the sun seemed to be coming out, her com- 
 panion, without heeding, went on, with emotion : 
 " It's my son I am thinking of, Mrs. French. I 
 know you're safe, and that Roger depends upon 
 Mr. French more than upon anyone else in the
 
 DAPHNE 105 
 
 world, so I can't help just saying a word to you 
 about my anxiety. You know, when Roger 
 married, I don't think he was much in love — in 
 fact, I'm sure he wasn't. But now — it's quite 
 different. Roger has a very soft heart, and 
 he's very domestic. He was always the best 
 of sons to me, and as soon as he was married 
 he became the best of husbands. He's 
 devoted to Daphne now, and you see how he 
 adores the child. But the fact is, there's a 
 person in this neighbourhood " (Lady Barnes 
 lowered her voice and looked round her) — 
 " I only knew it for certain this morning — 
 who . . . well, who might make trouble. And 
 Daphne's temper is so passionate and uncon- 
 trolled that " 
 
 " Dear Lady Barnes, please don't tell me 
 any secrets ! " Elsie French implored, and laid 
 a restraining hand on the mother's arm, ready, 
 indeed, to take up her work and fly. But Lady 
 Barnes's chair stood between her and the door, 
 and the occupant of it was substantial. 
 
 Laura Barnes hesitated, and in the pause 
 two persons appeared upon the garden path 
 outside, coming towards the open windows of 
 the drawing-room. One was Mrs. Roger Barnes ; 
 the other was a man, remarkably tall and slender, 
 with a stoop Hke that of an overgrown scliool- 
 boy, silky dark hair and moustache, and pale 
 grey eyes.
 
 I06 DAPHNE 
 
 " Dr. Lelius ! " said Elsie, in astonishment. 
 " Was Daphne expecting him ? " 
 
 " Who is Dr. LeUus ? " asked Lady Barnes, 
 putting up her eyeglass. 
 
 Mrs. French explained that he was a South 
 German art-critic, from Wlirzburg, with a great 
 reputation. She had already met him at Eton 
 and at Oxford. 
 
 " Another expert ! " said Lady Barnes with 
 a shrug. 
 
 The pair passed the window, absorbed 
 apparently in conversation. Mrs. French es- 
 caped. Lady Barnes was left to discontent 
 and solitude. 
 
 But the solitude was not for long. 
 
 When Elsie French descended for tea, an 
 hour later, she was aware, from a considerable 
 distance, of people and tumult in the drawing- 
 room. Daphne's soprano voice — agreeable, but 
 making its mark always, like its owner — could be 
 heard running on. The young mistress of the 
 house seemed to be admonisliing, instructing 
 someone. Could it be her mother-in-law ? 
 
 When Elsie entered. Daphne was walking 
 up and down in excitement. 
 
 " One cannot really live with bad pictures 
 because they happen to be one's ancestors ! 
 We won't do them any harm, mamma ! of 
 course not. There is a room upstairs where they 
 can be stored — most carefully — and anybody
 
 DAPHNE 107 
 
 who is interested in them can go and look at 
 them. If they had only been left as they were 
 painted ! — not by Lely, of course, but by some 
 drapery man in his studio — passe encore! they 
 might have been just bearable. But you see 
 some wretched restorer went and daubed them 
 all over a few years ago." 
 
 " We went to the best man we could find ! 
 We took the best advice ! " cried Lady Barnes, 
 sitting stiff and crimson in a deep arm-chair, 
 opposite the luckless row of portraits that 
 Daphne was denouncing. 
 
 " I'm sure you did. But then, you see, 
 nobody knew anything at all about it in those 
 days. The restorers were all murderers. Ask 
 Dr. Lelius." 
 
 Daphne pointed to the stranger, who was 
 leaning against an arm-chair beside her in an 
 embarrassed attitude, as though he were en- 
 deavouring to make the chair a buffer between 
 himself and Lady Barnes 
 
 Dr. Lelius bowed. 
 
 " It is a modern art," he said with diffi- 
 dence, and an accent creditably slight — " a 
 quite modern art. We hafe a great man at 
 Wiirzburg." 
 
 " I don't suppose he professes to know 
 anything about English pictures, does he ? " 
 asked Lady Barnes witli scorn. 
 
 " Ach ! — I do not propose that Mrs. Barnes
 
 loS DAPHNE 
 
 entrust him wid dcse pictures, Madame. It is 
 now too late." 
 
 And the willowy German looked, with a 
 half-repressed smile, at the row of pictures 
 — all staring at the bystander with the same 
 saucer eyes, the same wooden arms, and the 
 same brilliance of modern paint and varnish, 
 which not even the passage of four years since 
 it was applied had been able greatly to subdue. 
 
 Lady Barnes lifted shoulders and eyes — a 
 woman's angry protest against the tyranny 
 of knowledge. 
 
 " All the same, they are my forbears, my 
 kith and kin," she said, with emphasis. " But 
 of course Mrs. Barnes is mistress here : I suppose 
 she will do as she pleases." 
 
 The German stared politely at the carpet. 
 It was now Daphne's turn to shrug. She threw 
 herself into a chair, with very red cheeks, one 
 foot hanging over the other, and the fingers 
 of her hands, which shone with diamonds, 
 tapping the chair impatiently. Her dress of a 
 delicate pink, touched here and there with black, 
 her wide black hat, and the eyes which glowed 
 from the small pointed face beneath it ; the 
 tumbling masses of her dark hair as contrasted 
 with her general lightness and slenderness ; the 
 red of the lips, the whiteness of the hands and 
 brow, the dainty irregularity of feature : these 
 things made a Watteau sketch of her, all pure
 
 DAPHNE 109 
 
 colour and lissomeness, with dots and scratches , 
 
 of intense black. Daphne was much hand- ' 
 
 somer than she had been as a girl, but also a | 
 
 trifle less refined. All her points were intensi- | 
 
 fied — her eyes had more flame ; the damask of I 
 
 her cheek was deeper ; her grace was wilder, j 
 
 her voice a little shriller than of old. 
 
 While the uncomfortable silence which the 
 two women had made around them still lasted, 
 Roger Barnes appeared on the garden steps. 
 
 " Hullo ! any tea going ? " He came in, 
 without waiting for an answer, looked from his 
 mother to Daphne, from Daphne to his mother, 
 and laughed uncomfortably. 
 
 " Still bothering about those beastly pic- 
 tures ? " he said as he helped himself to a 
 cup of tea. 
 
 Thanh you, Roger ! " said Lady Barnes. 
 I didn't mean any harm, mother." He 
 crossed over to her and sat down beside her. 
 " I say, Daphne, I've got an idea. Wh}^ 
 shouldn't mother have them ? She's going to 
 take a house, she says. Let's hand them all 
 over to her ! " 
 
 Lady Barnes's lips trembled with indigna- 
 tion. " The Trescoes who were born and died 
 in this house, belong here ! " The tone of the 
 words showed the stab to feeling and self-love. 
 It would be a sacrilege to move them." 
 
 Well then, let's move ourselves ! " cx- 
 

 
 "o DAPHNE 
 
 claimed Daphne, springing up. " We can let 
 this house again, can't we, Roger ? " 
 
 " We can, I suppose," said Roger, munching 
 his bread and butter ; " but we're not going 
 to." 
 
 He raised his head and looked quietly at 
 her. 
 
 " I think we'd better ! " The tone was 
 imperious. Daphne, with her thin arms and 
 hands locked behind her, paused beside her 
 husband. 
 
 Dr. Lelius, stealthily raising his eyes, ob- 
 served the two. A strange little scene — not 
 English at all. The English, he understood, 
 were a phlegmatic people. What had this 
 little Southerner to do among them ? And 
 what sort of fellow was the husband ? 
 
 It was evident that some mute colloquy 
 passed between the husband and wife — dis- 
 approval on his part, attempt to assert authority, 
 defiance on hers. Then the fair-skinned English 
 face, confronting Daphne, wavered and weak- 
 ened, and Roger smiled into the eyes trans- 
 fixing him. 
 
 " Ah ! " thought Lelius, " she has him, de 
 poor fool ! " 
 
 Roger, coming over to his mother, began a 
 murmured conversation. Daphne, still breath- 
 ing quick, consented to talk to Dr. Lelius and 
 Mrs. French. Lelius, who travelled widely,
 
 DAPHNE III 
 
 had brought her news of some pictures in a 
 chateau of the Bourbonnais — pictures that her 
 whole mind was set on acquiring. Elsie French 
 noticed the expertise of her talk ; the intellectual 
 development it implied ; the passion of will 
 which accompanied it. " To the dollar, all things 
 are possible," — one might have phrased it so. 
 
 The soft September air came in through 
 the open windows, from a garden flooded with 
 western sun. Suddenly through the subdued 
 talk which filled the drawing-room — each group 
 in it avoiding the other — the sound of a motor 
 arriving made itself heard. 
 
 " Heavens ! who on earth knows we're 
 here ? " said Barnes, looking up. 
 
 For they had only been camping a week in 
 the house, far too busy to think of neighbours. 
 They sat expectant and annoyed, reproaching 
 each other with not having told the butler to 
 say " Not at home." Lady Barnes's attitude 
 had in it something else — a little anxiety ; but 
 it escaped notice. Steps came tlirough the 
 liall, and the butler, throwing open the door, 
 announced — 
 
 " Mrs. Fairmile." 
 
 Roger Barnes sprang to his feet. His mother, 
 with a little gasp, caught him by the arm in- 
 stinctively. There was a general rise and a 
 movement of confusion, till the new-comer, 
 advancing, offered her hand to Daphne.
 
 1X2 DAPHNE 
 
 I ani afraid, Mrs. Barnes, I am disturbing 
 3^ou all. The butler told me you had only 
 been here a few days. But Lady Barnes and 
 your husband are such old friends of mine 
 that, as soon as I heard — through our old 
 postmistress, I think — that you had arrived, I 
 thought I might venture." 
 
 The charming voice dropped, and the speaker 
 waited, smiling, her eyes fixed on Daphne. 
 Daphne had taken her hand in some bewilder- 
 ment, and was now looking at her husband for 
 assistance. It was clear to Elsie French, in the 
 background, that Daphne neither knew the 
 lady nor the lady's name, and that the visit 
 had taken her entirely by surprise. 
 
 Barnes recovered himself quickly. " I had 
 no idea you were in these parts," he said, as he 
 brought a chair forward for the visitor, and 
 stood beside her a moment. 
 
 Lady Barnes, observing him, as she stiffly 
 greeted the new-comer — his cool manner, his 
 deepened colour — felt the usual throb of maternal 
 pride in him, intensified by alarm and excite- 
 ment. 
 
 " Oh, I am staying a day or two with 
 Duchess Mary," said the new-comer. " She 
 is a little older — and no less gouty, poor dear, 
 than she used to be. Mrs. Barnes, I have 
 heard a great deal of you — though you mayn't 
 know anything about me. Ah ! Dr. Lelius ? "
 
 DAPHNE 113 
 
 The German, bowing awkwardly, yet radiant, 
 came forward to take the hand extended to 
 him. 
 
 "They did nothing but talk about you at 
 the Louvre, when I was there last week," she 
 said, with a little confidential nod. " You have 
 made them horribly uncomfortable about some 
 of their things. Isn't it a pity to know too 
 much ? " 
 
 She turned towards Daphne. " I'm afraid 
 that's your case too." She smiled, and the 
 smile lit up a face full of delicate lines and 
 wrinkles, which no effort had been made to 
 disguise ; a tired face, where the eyes spoke 
 from caverns of shade, yet with the most 
 appealing and persuasive beauty. 
 
 " Do you mean about pictures ? " said 
 Daphne, a little coldly. " I don't know as 
 much as Dr. Lelius." 
 
 Humour leapt into the eyes fixed upon lier ; 
 but Mrs. Fairmile only said : " That's not 
 given to the rest of us mortals. But after all, 
 having's better than knowing. Don't — don't 
 you possess the Vitali Signorelli ? " 
 
 Her voice was most musical and flattering. 
 Daphne smiled in .spite of herself. " Yes, we 
 do. It's in London now — waiting till wc can 
 find a place for it." 
 
 " You must let me make a pilgrimage — 
 when it comes. Hut you know }ou'd find a
 
 114 DAPHNE 
 
 number of things at Upcott — where I'm staying 
 now — that would interest you. I forget whether 
 5^ou've met the Duchess ? " 
 
 " This is our first week here," said Roger, 
 interposing. " The house has been let till now. 
 We came down to see what could be made 
 of it." 
 
 His tone was only just civil. His mother, 
 looking on, said to herself that he was angry 
 — and with good reason. 
 
 But Mrs. Fairmile still smiled. 
 
 " Ah ! the Lelys ! " she cried, raismg her 
 hand slightly towards the row of portraits on 
 the wall. " The dear impossible things ! Are 
 3^ou still discussing them — as we used to do ? " 
 
 Daphne started. " You know this house, 
 then ? " 
 
 The smile broadened into a laugh of amuse- 
 ment, as Mrs. Fairmile turned to Roger's 
 mother. 
 
 " Don't I, dear Lady Barnes — don't I know 
 this house ? " 
 
 Lady Barnes seemed to straighten in her 
 chair. " Well, you were here often enough to 
 know it," she said abruptly. " Daphne, Mrs. 
 Fairmile is a distant cousin of ours." 
 
 " Distant, but quite enough to swear by ! " 
 said the visitor, gaily. " Yes, Mrs. Barnes, I 
 knew this house very well in old days. It has 
 many charming points." She looked round
 
 DAPHNE 115 
 
 with a face that had suddenly become coolJy 
 critical, an embodied intelligence. 
 
 Daphne, as though divining for the first 
 time a listener wortlty of her steel, began to 
 talk \\dth some rapidity of the changes she wished 
 to make. She talked with an evident desire to 
 show off, to make an impression. Mrs. Fairmile 
 listened attentively, occasionally throwing in a 
 word of criticism or comment, in the softest, 
 gentlest voice. But somehow, whenever she 
 spoke. Daphne felt vaguely irritated. She was 
 generally put slightly in the wrong by her 
 visitor, and Mrs. Fairmile's extraordinary know- 
 ledge of Heston Park, and of everything con- 
 nected with it, was so odd and disconcerting. 
 She had a laughing way, moreover, of appealing 
 to Roger Barnes himself to support a recollec- 
 tion or an opinion, which presently produced a 
 contraction of Daphne's brows. Who was this 
 woman ? A cousin — a cousin who knew every 
 inch of the house, and seemed to be one of 
 Roger's closest friends ? It was really too 
 strange that in all these years Roger should 
 never have said a word about her ! 
 
 The red mounted in Daphne's cheek. She 
 began, moreover, to feel licrsclf at a disadvantage 
 to which she was not accustomed. Dr. Lelius, 
 meanwhile, turned to Mrs. Fairmile, whenever 
 she was allowed to speak, with a joyous yet 
 inarticulate deference he had never shown to his
 
 ii6 DAPHNE 
 
 hostess. They understood each other at a word 
 or a glance. Beside them Daphne, with all her 
 cleverness, soon appeared as a child for whom 
 one makes allowances. 
 
 A vague anger swelled in her throat. She 
 noticed, too, Roger's silence and Lady Barnes's 
 discomfort. There was clearly something here 
 that had been kept from her — something to 
 be unravelled ! 
 
 Suddenly the new-comer rose. Mrs. Fair- 
 mile w^ore a dress of some pale grey stuff, cob- 
 web-light and transparent, over a green satin. 
 It had the effect of sea-water, and her grey hat, 
 \\'ith its pale green wreath, framed the golden- 
 grey of her hair. Every one of her few adorn- 
 ments was exquisite — so was her grace as she 
 moved. Daphne's pink-and-black vivacity be- 
 side her seemed a pinchbeck thing. 
 
 " Well, now, when will you all come to 
 Upcott ? " Mrs. Fairmile said graciously, as 
 she shook hands. " The Duchess will be en- 
 chanted to see you any day, and " 
 
 " Thank you ! but we really can't come so 
 far," said a determined voice. ** We have only a 
 shaky old motor — our new one isn't ready yet — 
 and besides, we want all our time for the house." 
 
 " You make him work so hard ? " 
 
 Mrs. Fairmile, laughing, pointed to the 
 speaker. Roger looked up involuntarily, and 
 Daphne saw the look.
 
 DAPHNE 117 
 
 " Roger has nothing to do/' she said, 
 quickly. " Thank you very much : we will 
 certainly come. I'll write to j^ou. How many 
 miles did you say it was ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing for a motor ! — twenty-five. 
 We used to think it nothing for a ride, didn't 
 we ? " 
 
 The speaker, who was just passing through 
 the door, turned towards Roger, who, with 
 Lelius, was escorting her, with a last gesture — 
 gay, yet, like all her gestures, charged with a 
 slight yet deliberate significance. 
 
 They disappeared. Daphne walked to the 
 window, biting her lip. 
 
 As she stood there Herbert French came 
 into the room, looking a little shy and ill at 
 ease, and behind him three persons, a clergy- 
 man in an Archdeacon's apron and gaiters, 
 and two ladies. Daphne, perceiving them 
 sideways in a mirror to her right, could not 
 repress a gesture and muttered sound of 
 annoyance. 
 
 French introduced Archdeacon Mountford, 
 his wife and sister. Roger, it seemed, had met 
 them in the hall, and sent them in. He him- 
 self had been carried off on some business by 
 the head keeper. 
 
 Da})hne turned ungraciously. Her colour 
 was very bright, her eyes a little absent and
 
 iiS DAPHNE 
 
 wild. The two ladies, both clad in pale brown 
 stuffs, large mushroom hats, and stout country 
 boots, eyed her nervously, and as they sat 
 down, at her bidding, they left the Archdeacon 
 — who w^as the vicar of the neighbouring town 
 — to explain, with much amiable stammering, 
 that seeing the Duchess's motor at the front 
 door, as they were crossing the park, they pre- 
 sumed that visitors were admitted, and had 
 ventured to call. 
 
 Daphne received the explanation without 
 any cordiality. She did indeed bid the callers 
 sit down, and ordered some fresh tea. But she 
 took no pains to entertain them, and if Lady 
 Barnes and Herbert French had not come to 
 the rescue, they would have fared but ill. 
 The Archdeacon, in fact, did come to grief. 
 For him Mrs. Barnes was just a " foreigner," 
 imported from some unknown and, of course, 
 inferior milieu, one who had never been " a 
 happy English child," and must therefore be 
 treated with indulgence. He endeavoured to 
 talk to her — kindly — about her country. A 
 branch of his own family, he informed her, had 
 settled about a hundred years before this date 
 in the United States. He gave her, at some 
 length, the genealogy of the branch, then of 
 the main stock to which he himself belonged, 
 presuming that she was, at any rate, acquainted 
 with the name ? It w^as, he said, his strong
 
 DAPHNE 119 
 
 opinion that American women were very 
 " bright." For himself he could not say that 
 he even disliked the accent, it was so " quaint." 
 Did Mrs. Barnes know many of the American 
 bishops ? He himself had met a large number 
 of them at a reception at the Church House, but 
 it had really made him quite uncomfortable ! 
 They wore no official dress, and there was he 
 — a mere Archdeacon ! — in gaiters. And, of 
 course, no one thought of calling them *' my 
 lord." It certainly was very curious — to an 
 Englishman. And Methodist bishops ! — such as 
 he was told America possessed in plenty — that 
 was still more curious. One of the Episco- 
 palian bishops, however, had preached — in West- 
 minster Abbey — a remarkable sermon, on a 
 very sad subject, not perhaps a subject to be 
 
 discussed in a drawing-room — but still 
 
 Suddenly the group on the other side of 
 the room became aware that the Archdeacon's 
 amiable prosing had been sharply interrupted 
 — that Daphne, not he, was holding the field. 
 A gust of talk arose — Daphne declaiming, the 
 Archdeacon, after a first pause of astonishment, 
 changing aspect and tone. French, looking 
 across the room, saw the mask of conven- 
 tional amiability stripped from what was really 
 a strong and rather tyrannical face. The man's 
 prominent mouth and long upper lip emerged. 
 He drew his chair back from Daplme's ; he
 
 I20 UAPIINE 
 
 tried once or twice to stop or argue with her, 
 and finally he rose abruptly. 
 
 " My dear ! " — his wife turned hastily — 
 " We must not detain Mrs. Barnes longer ! " 
 
 The two ladies looked at the Archdeacon 
 — the god of their idolatry ; then at Daphne. 
 Hurriedly, like birds frightened by a shot, 
 they crossed the room and just touched their 
 hostess's hand ; the Archdeacon, making up 
 for their precipitancy by a double dose of 
 dignit}^ bowed himself out ; the door closed 
 beliind them. 
 
 " Daphne ! — my dear ! what is the mat- 
 ter ? " cried Lady Barnes, in dismay. 
 
 " He spoke to me impertinently about my 
 country ! " said Daphne, turning upon her, 
 her black eyes blazing, her cheeks white with 
 excitement. 
 
 " The Archdeacon ! — he is always so polite." 
 
 " He talked like a fool — about things he 
 doesn't understand ! " was Daphne's curt reply, 
 as she gathered up her hat and some letters, 
 and moved towards the door. 
 
 " About what ? My dear Daphne ! He 
 could not possibly have meant to offend you ! 
 Could he, Mr. French ? " Lady Barnes turned 
 plaintively towards her very uncomfortable 
 companions. 
 
 Daphne confronted her. 
 
 "If he chooses to think America immoral
 
 DAPHNE 121 
 
 and degraded because American divorce laws 
 are different from the English laws, let him 
 think it ! — but he has no business to air his 
 views to an American — at a first visit, too!" 
 said Daphne passionately, and, drawing herself 
 up, she swept out of the room, leaving the 
 others dumbfoundered. 
 
 " Oh dear ! oh dear ! " wailed Lady Barnes. 
 " And the Archdeacon is so important ! Daphne 
 might have been rude to anybody else — but not 
 to the Archdeacon ! " 
 
 " How did they manage to get into such a 
 subject — so quickly ? " asked Elsie in bewilder- 
 ment. 
 
 " I suppose he took it for granted that 
 Daphne agreed with him ! All decent people 
 do." 
 
 Lady Barnes's wrath was evident — so was 
 her indiscretion. Elsie French applied herself 
 to soothing her, while Herbert French dis- 
 appeared into the garden with a book. His 
 wife, however, presently observed from the 
 drawing-room that he was not reading. He 
 was pacing the lawn, with liis liands behind 
 him, and his eyes on tlie grass. The slight, 
 slowly-moving figure stood for meditation, and 
 Elsie French knew enough to understand that 
 the incidents of the afternoon miglit well 
 supply any friend of Roger Barnes's with food 
 for meditation. Herbert liad not been in tlie
 
 122 DAPHNE 
 
 drawing-room when Mrs. Fairmile was calling, 
 but no doubt he had met her in the hall when 
 she was on her way to her carriage. 
 
 Meanwhile Daphne, in her own room, was 
 also employed in meditation. She had thrown 
 herself, frowning, into a chair beside a window 
 which overlooked the park. The landscape 
 had a gentle charm — spreading grass, low hills, 
 and scattered woods — under a warm Septem- 
 ber sun. But it had no particular accent, and 
 Daphne thought it both tame and depressing ; 
 like an English society made up of Archdeacon 
 Mountfords and their womenkind ! What a 
 futile, irritating man ! — and what dull creatures 
 were the wife and sister ! — mere echoes of their 
 lord and master. She had behaved badly, of 
 course ; in a few days she supposed the report 
 of her outburst would be all over the place. 
 She did not care. Even for Roger's sake she 
 was not going to cringe to these poor provincial 
 standards. 
 
 And all the time she knew very well that it 
 was not the Archdeacon and his fatuities that 
 were really at fault. The afternoon had been 
 decided not by the Mountfords' call, but by 
 that which had preceded it.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Mrs. Barnes, however, made no immediate 
 reference to the matter which was in truth fill- 
 ing her mind. She avoided her husband and 
 mother-in-law, both of whom were clearly 
 anxious to capture her attention ; and, by way 
 of protecting herself from them, she spent the 
 late afternoon in looking through Italian photo- 
 graphs with Dr. Lelius. 
 
 But about seven o'clock Roger found her 
 lying on her sofa, her hands clasped behind 
 her head — frowning — the lips working. 
 
 He came in rather consciously, glancing at 
 his wife in hesitation. 
 
 " Are you tired, Daphne ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " A penny for your thoughts, then ! " He 
 stooped over her and looked into her eyes. 
 
 Daphne made no reply. She continued to 
 look straiglit before her. 
 
 '* What's the matter with you ? " he said, 
 at last. 
 
 " I'm wondering," said Daplmc slowly, " how 
 many more cousins and great friends you have, 
 that I know nothing about. I think another 
 
 123
 
 124 DAPHNE 
 
 time it would be civil — just that ! — to give me 
 a word of warning." 
 
 Roger pulled at his moustache. " I hadn't 
 an idea she was within a thousand miles of this 
 place ! But, if I had, I couldn't have imagined 
 she would have the face to come here ! " 
 
 " Wlio is she ? " With a sudden movement 
 Daphne turned her eyes upon him. 
 
 " Well, there's no good making any bones 
 about it," said the man, flushing. " She's a 
 girl I was once engaged to — for a very short 
 time," he added hastily. " It was the week 
 before my father died, and our smash came. 
 As soon as it came she threw me over." 
 
 Daphne's intense gaze, under the slightly 
 frowning brows, disquieted him. 
 
 " How long were you engaged to her ? " 
 
 " Three weeks." 
 
 " Had she been staying here before that ? " 
 
 " Yes — she often stayed here. Daphne ! 
 don't look like that ! She treated me abomin- 
 ably ; and before I married you I had come not 
 to care twopence about her." 
 
 " You did care about her when you proposed 
 to me ? " 
 
 " No ! — not at all ! Of course, when I went 
 out to New York I was sore, because she had 
 thrown me over." 
 
 " And I " — Daphne made a scornful lip — 
 " was the feather-bed to catch you as you fell.
 
 DAPHNE 12 
 
 
 
 It never occurred to you that it might have been 
 honourable to tell me ? " 
 
 " Well, I don't know — I never asked you to 
 tell me of your affairs ! " 
 
 Roger, his hands in his pockets, looked 
 round at her with an awkward laugh. 
 
 " I told you everything ! " was the quick 
 reply — " everything." 
 
 Roger uncomfortably remembered that so 
 indeed it had been ; and moreover that he had 
 been a good deal bored at the time by Daphne's 
 confessions. 
 
 He had not been enough in love with her — 
 then — to find them of any great account. And 
 certainly it had never occurred to him to pay 
 them back in kind. What did it matter to 
 her or to anyone that Chloe Morant had made 
 a fool of him ? His recollection of the fooling, 
 at the time he proposed to Daphne, was still so 
 poignant that it would have been impossible to 
 speak of it. And within a few months afterwards 
 he had practically forgotten it — and Chloe too. 
 Of course he could not see her again, for 
 the first time, without being "a bit upset"; 
 mostly, indeed, by tlie boldness — the brazcn- 
 ness — of her behaviour. But his emotions were 
 of no tragic strength, and, as Lady Barnes had 
 complained to Mrs. French, he was now honestly 
 in love with Daphne and his child. 
 
 So that he had nothing but impatience and
 
 126 DAPHNE 
 
 annoyance for the recollection of the visit of 
 the afternoon ; and Daphne's attitude dis- 
 tressed him. Why, she was as pale as a ghost ! 
 His thoughts sent Chloe Fairmile to the deuce. 
 
 *' Look here, dear ! " he said, kneeling down 
 suddenly beside his wife — " don't you get any 
 nonsense into your head. I'm not the kind 
 of fellow who goes philandering after a woman 
 when she's jilted him. I took her measure, 
 and after you accepted me I never gave her 
 another thought. I forgot her, dear — bag 
 and baggage ! Kiss me, Daphne ! " 
 
 But Daphne still held him at bay 
 
 " How long were you engaged to her ? " 
 she repeated. 
 
 "I've told you — three weeks ! " said the 
 man, reluctantly. 
 
 " How long had you known her ? " 
 
 " A year or two. She was a distant cousin 
 of father's. Her father was Governor of Madras, 
 and her mother was dead. She couldn't stand 
 India for long together, and she used to stay 
 about with relations. Wliy she took a fancy 
 to me I can't imagine. She's so booky and 
 artistic, and that kind of thing, that I never 
 understood half the time what she was talking 
 about. Now you're just as clever, you know, 
 darling, but I do understand you." 
 
 Roger's conscience made a few dim remon- 
 strances. It asked him whether in fact, standing
 
 DAPHNE 127 
 
 on his own qualifications and advantages of 
 quite a different kind, he had not always felt 
 himself triumphantly more than a match for 
 Chloe and her cleverness. But he paid no heed 
 to them. He was engaged in stroking Daphne's 
 fingers and studying the small set face. 
 
 " Whom did she marry ? " asked Daphne, 
 putting an end to the stroking. 
 
 " A fellow in the army — Major Fairmile — a 
 smart, popular sort of chap. He was her 
 father's aide-de-camp when they married — 
 just after we did — and they've been in India, 
 or Egypt, ever since. They don't get on, and 
 I suppose she comes and quarters herself on the 
 old Duchess — as she used to on us." 
 
 " You seem to know all about her ! Yes, 
 I remember now, I've heard people speak of 
 her to you. Mrs. Fairmile — Mrs. Fairmile — 
 yes, I remember," said Daphne, in a brooding 
 voice, her cheeks becoming suddenly very red. 
 "Your uncle — in town — mentioned her. I 
 didn't take any notice." 
 
 " \Vliy should you ? She doesn't matter a 
 fig, either to you or to me ! " 
 
 " It matters to me very much that these 
 people who spoke of her — your uncle and the 
 others — knew what I didn't know ! " cried 
 Daphne, passionately. She stared at Roger, 
 strangely conscious that something epoch-mak- 
 ing and decisive had hai)pened. Roger had had
 
 128 DAPHNE 
 
 a secret from her all these years — that was what 
 had happened ; and now she had discovered it. 
 That he could have a secret from her, however, 
 was the real discovery. She felt a fierce resent- 
 ment, and yet a kind of added respect for him. 
 All the time he had been the private owner of 
 thoughts and recollections that she had no 
 part in, and the fact roused in her tumult and 
 bitterness. Nevertheless the disturbance which 
 it produced in her sense of propert}^ the shock 
 and anguish of it, brought back something of 
 the passion of love she had felt in the first 
 year of their marriage. 
 
 During these three years she had more than 
 once sho\vn herself insanely jealous for the 
 merest trifles. But Roger had always laughed 
 at her, and she had ended by laughing at herself. 
 
 Yet all the time he had had this secret. 
 She sat looking at him hard with her as- 
 tonishing eyes ; and he grew more and more 
 uneasy. 
 
 " Well, some of them knew," he said, 
 answering her last reproach. " And they knew 
 that I was jolly well quit of her ! I suppose 
 I ought to have told you, Daphne — of course I 
 ought — I'm sorry. But the fact w^as I never 
 wanted to think of her again. And I certainly 
 never want to see her again ! Why, in the name 
 of goodness, did you accept that tea-fight ? " 
 
 " Because I mean to go."
 
 DAPHNE 129 
 
 " Then you'll have to go without me," was 
 the incautious reply. 
 
 " Oh, so you're afraid of meeting her ! 
 I shall know what to think, if you don't go." 
 Daphne sat erect, her hands clasped round her 
 knees. 
 
 Roger made a sound of wrath, and threw 
 his cigarette into the fire. Then, turning round 
 again to face her, he tried to control himself. 
 
 " Look here. Daphne, don't let us quarrel 
 about this. I'll tell you everything you want 
 to know — the whole beastly stor}^ But it can't 
 be pleasant to me to meet a woman who 
 treated me as she did — and it oughtn't to be 
 pleasant to you either. It was like her 
 audacity to come this afternoon." 
 
 " She simply wants to get hold of you 
 again ! " Daphne sprang up as she spoke 
 with a violent movement, her face blazing. 
 
 " Nonsense ! she came out of nothing in 
 the world but curiosity, and because she likes 
 making people uncomfortable. She knew very 
 well mother and I didn't want her ! " 
 
 But the more he tried to persuade her the 
 
 more determined was Dai)hne to pay the 
 
 promised visit, and that he should pay it with 
 
 her. He gave way at last, and she allowed 
 
 herself to be soothed and caressed. Then, 
 
 when she seemed to liave recovered herself, he 
 
 gave her a tragi-comic account of the three 
 J
 
 I30 DAPHNE 
 
 weeks' engagement, and the manner in which 
 it had been broken off : caustic enough, one 
 might have thought, to satisfy the most un- 
 friendly hstener. Daphne heard it all quietly. 
 
 Then her maid came, and she donned a 
 tea-gown. 
 
 When Roger returned, after dressing, he 
 found her still abstracted. 
 
 " I suppose you kissed her ? " she said 
 abruptly, as they stood by the fire together. 
 
 He broke out in laughter and annoyance, 
 and called her a little goose, with his arm round 
 her. 
 
 But she persisted. " You did kiss her ? " 
 
 ** Well, of course I did ! What else is one 
 engaged for ? " 
 
 "I'm certain she wished for a great deal of 
 kissing ! " said Daphne, quickly. 
 
 Roger was silent. Suddenly there swept 
 through him the memory of the scene in the 
 orchard, and with it an admission — wrung, as 
 it were, from a wholly unwilling self — that it 
 had remained for him a scene unique and un- 
 approached. In that one hour the " muddy 
 vesture " of common feeling and desire that 
 closed in his manhood had taken fire and burnt 
 to a pure flame, fusing, so it seemed, body and 
 soul. He had not thought of it for years, but 
 now that he was made to think of it, the old 
 thrill returned — a memory of something heavenly,
 
 DAPHNE 131 
 
 ecstatic, far transcending the common hours 
 and the common earth. 
 
 The next moment he had thrown the recol- 
 lection angrily from him. Stooping to his wife, 
 he kissed her warmly. " Look here, Daphne ! 
 I wish you'd let that woman alone ! Have I 
 ever looked at anyone but you, old girl, since 
 that day at Mount Vernon ? " 
 
 Daphne let him hold her close ; but all the 
 time, thoughts — ugly thoughts — like " little 
 mice stole in and out." The notion of Roger 
 and that woman, in the past, engaged — always 
 together, in each other's arms, tormented her 
 unendurably. 
 
 She did not, however, say a word to Lady 
 Barnes on the subject. The morning following 
 Mrs. Fairmile's visit that lady began a rather 
 awkward explanation of Chloe Fairmile's place 
 in the family history, and of the reasons for 
 Roger's silence and her own. Daphne took 
 it apparently with complete indifference, and 
 managed to cut it short in the middle. 
 
 Nevertheless she brooded over the wliole 
 business ; and her resentment showed itself, 
 first of all, in a more and more drastic treatment 
 of Heston, its pictures, decorations and appoint- 
 ments. Lady Barnes dared not oppose her any 
 more. She understood that if she were thwarted, 
 or even criticised, Daphne would simply decline
 
 132 DAPHNE 
 
 to live there, and her own hnk with the place 
 would be once more broken. So she withdrew 
 angril}^ from the scene, and tried not to know 
 what was going on. Meanwhile a note of in- 
 vitation had been addressed to Daphne by the 
 Duchess, and had been accepted ; Roger had 
 been reminded, at the point of the bayonet, 
 that go he must ; and Dr. Lelius had transferred 
 himself from Heston to Upcott, and the com- 
 panionship of Mrs. Fairmile. 
 
 It was the last day of the Frenches' visit. 
 Roger and Herbert French had been trying to 
 get a brace or two of partridges on the long- 
 neglected and much-poached estate ; and on the 
 way home French expressed a hope that, now 
 they were to settle at Heston, Roger would take 
 up some of the usual duties of the country 
 gentleman. He spoke in the haJf-jesting way 
 characteristic of the modern Mentor. The old 
 didactics have long gone out of fashion, and the 
 moralist of to-day, instead of preaching, ore 
 retundo, must only " hint a fault and hesitate 
 dislike." But, hide it as he might, there was 
 an ethical and religious passion in French that 
 would out, and was soon indeed to drive him 
 from Eton to a town parish. He had been 
 ordained some two years before this date. 
 
 It was this inborn pastoral gift, just as real 
 as the literary or artistic gifts, and containing
 
 DAPHNE 133 
 
 the same potentialities of genius as they, which 
 was leading him to feel a deep anxiety about 
 the Barnes's minage. It seemed to him neces- 
 sary that Daphne should respect her husband ; 
 and Roger, in a state of complete idleness, was 
 not altogether respect-able. 
 
 So, with much quizzing of him as " the 
 Squire," French tried to goad his companion 
 into some of a Squire's duties. " Stand for the 
 County Council, old fellow," he said. " Your 
 father was on it, and it'll give you something 
 to do." 
 
 To his surprise Roger at once acquiesced. 
 He was striding along in cap and knicker- 
 bockers, his curly hair still thick and golden 
 on his temples, his clear skin flushed with exer- 
 cise, his general physical aspect even more 
 splendid than it had been in his first youth. 
 Beside him, the slender figure and pleasant 
 irregular face of Herbert French would have 
 been altogether effaced and eclipsed but for 
 the Eton master's two striking points : pre- 
 maturely white liair, remarkably thick and 
 abundant ; and very blue eyes, shy, spiritual 
 and charming. 
 
 " I don't mind," Roger was saying, " if you 
 think they'd have me. Beastly bore, of course ! 
 But one's got to do something for one's keep." 
 
 He looked round with a smile, slightly con- 
 scious. The position he had occupied for some
 
 134 DAPHNE 
 
 three years, of the idle and penniless husband 
 dependent on his wife's dollars, was not, he 
 knew, an exalted one in French's eyes. 
 
 " Oh ! 3'ou'll find it quite tolerable," said 
 French. " Roads and schools do as well as 
 anything else to break one's teeth on. We 
 shall see you a magistrate directly." 
 
 Roger laughed. " That would be a good 
 one ! — I say, you know, I hope Daphne's going 
 to like Heston." 
 
 French hoped so too, guardedly. 
 
 " I hear the Archdeacon got on her nerves 
 yesterday ? " 
 
 He looked at his companion with a slight 
 laugh and a shrug. 
 
 " That doesn't matter." 
 
 " I don't know. He's rather a spiteful old 
 party. And Daphne's accustomed to be made 
 a lot of, you know. In London there's always 
 a heap of people making up to her — and in 
 Paris, too. She talks uncommon good French 
 — learnt it in the convent. I don't understand 
 a word of what they talk about — but she's a 
 queen — I can tell you ! She doesn't want 
 Archdeacons prating at her." 
 
 " It'll be all right when she knows the 
 people." 
 
 " Of course, mother and I get along here 
 all right. We've got to pick up the threads 
 again ; but we do know all the people, and we
 
 DAPHNE 135 
 
 like the old place for grandfather's sake, and 
 all the rest of it. But there isn't much to 
 amuse Daphne here." 
 
 " She'll be doing up the house." 
 
 " And offending mother all the time. I say, 
 French, don't you think art's an awful nuisance ! 
 When I hear Lelius yarning on about qtiattro- 
 cento and cinque-cento, I could drown myself. 
 No ! I suppose you're tarred with the same 
 brush." Roger shrugged his shoulders. " Well, 
 I don't care, so long as Daphne gets what she 
 wants, and the place suits the child." His 
 ruddy countenance took a shade of anxiety. 
 
 French inquired what reason there was to 
 suppose that Beatty would not thrive perfectly 
 at Heston. Roger could only say that the child 
 had seemed to flag a little since their arrival. 
 Appetite not quite; so good, temper difficult, 
 and so on. Their smart lady-nurse was not 
 quite satisfied. " And I've been finding out 
 about doctors here," the young father went on, 
 knitting his brows : " blokes, most of them, 
 and such old blokes ! I wouldn't trust Beatty 
 to one of them. But Fve heard of a new man 
 at Hereford — awfully good, they say — a wunner ! 
 And after all a motor would soon run him 
 out ! " 
 
 He went on talking eagerly about the child, 
 her beauty, her cleverness, the plans Daphne 
 had for her bringing up, and so on. No otiier
 
 136 DAPHNE 
 
 child ever had been, ever could be, so fetching, 
 so " cunning," so lovely, such a duck ! The 
 Frenches, indeed, possessed a boy of two, 
 reputed handsome. Roger wished to show 
 himself indulgent to anything that might be 
 pleaded for him. *' Dear little fellow ! " — of 
 course. But Beatty ! Well ! it was surprising, 
 indeed, that he should find himself the father 
 of such a little miracle ; he didn't know what 
 he'd done to deserve it. Herbert French smiled 
 as he walked. 
 
 ** Of course, I hope there'll be a boy," said 
 Roger, stopping suddenly to look at Heston 
 Park, half a mile off, emerging from the trees. 
 " Daphne would like a boy — so should I, and 
 particularly now that we've got the old house 
 back again." 
 
 He stood and surveyed it. French noticed 
 in the growing manliness of his face and bearing 
 the signs of things and forces ancestral, of those 
 ghostly hands stretching from the past that in 
 a long settled society tend to push a man into 
 his right place and keep him there. The Barnes 
 family was tolerable, though not distinguished. 
 Roger's father's great temporary success in 
 politics and business had given it a passing 
 splendour, now quenched in the tides of failure 
 and disaster which had finally overwhelmed his 
 career. Roger evidently did not want to think 
 much about his Barnes heritage. But it was
 
 DAPHNE 137 
 
 clear also that he was proud of the Trescoes ; 
 that he had fallen back upon them, so to speak. 
 Since the fifteenth century there had always 
 been a Trescoe at Heston ; and Roger had 
 already taken to browsing in county histories 
 and sorting family letters. French foresaw a 
 double-barrelled surname before long — perhaps, 
 just in time for the advent of the future son 
 and heir who was already a personage in the 
 mind, if not yet positively expected. 
 
 " My dear fellow, I hope Mrs. Barnes will 
 give you not one son, but many ! " he said, in 
 answer to his companion's outburst. " They're 
 wanted nowadays." 
 
 Roger nodded and smiled, and then passed 
 on to the discussion of county business and 
 county people. He had already, it seemed, in- 
 formed himself to a rather surprising degree. 
 The shrewd, upriglit county gentleman was 
 beginning to emerge, oddly, from the Apollo. 
 The merits and absurdities of the type were 
 already there, indeed, in posse. How persistent 
 was the type, and the instinct ! A man of 
 Roger's antecedents might seem to swerve from 
 the course ; but the smallest favourable varia- 
 tion of circumstances, and there he was again 
 on the track, trotting liap})ily between the 
 shafts. 
 
 " If only the wife i)lays up ! " thought 
 French.
 
 138 DAPHNE 
 
 The recollection of Daphne, indeed, emerged 
 simultaneously in both minds. 
 
 " Daphne, you know, won't be able to stand 
 this all the year round," said Roger. " By 
 George, no ! not with a waggon-load of Leliuses!" 
 Then, with a sudden veer and a flush : " I say, 
 French, do you know what sort of state the 
 Fairmile marriage is in by now ? I think that 
 lady might have spared her call — don't you ? " 
 
 French kept his eyes on the path. It was 
 the first time, as far as he was concerned, that 
 Roger had referred to the incident. Yet the 
 tone of the questioner implied a past history. 
 It was to him, indeed, that Roger had come, 
 in the first bitterness of his young grief and 
 anger, after the " jilting." French had tried 
 to help him, only to find that he was no more 
 a match for the lady than the rest of the world. 
 
 As to the call and the invitation, he agreed 
 heartily that a person of delicacy would have 
 omitted them. The Fairmile marriage, it was 
 generally rumoured, had broken down hope- 
 lessly. 
 
 " Faults on both sides, of course. Fairmile 
 is and always was an unscrupulous beggar ! 
 He left Eton just as you came, but I remember 
 him well." 
 
 Roger began a sentence to the effect that 
 if Fairmile had no scruples of his own, Chloe 
 would scarcely have taught him any ; but he
 
 DAPHNE 139 
 
 checked himself abruptly in the middle, and 
 the two men passed to other topics. French 
 began to talk of East London, and the parish 
 he was to have there. Roger, indifferent at 
 first, did not remain so. He did not profess, 
 indeed, any enthusiasm of humanity ; but 
 French found in him new curiosities. That 
 children should starve, and slave, and suffer 
 — that moved him. He was, at any rate, for 
 hanging the parents. 
 
 The day of the Upcott visit came, and, in 
 spite of all recalcitrance, Roger was made to 
 mount the motor beside his wife. Lady Barnes 
 had entirely refused to go, and Mr. and Mrs. 
 French had departed that morning for Eton. 
 
 As the thing was inevitable, Roger's male 
 philosophy came to his aid. Better laugh and 
 have done with it. So that, as he and Daphne 
 sped along the autumn lanes, he talked about 
 anything and everything. He expressed, for 
 instance, his friendly admiration for Elsie 
 French. 
 
 " She's just the wife for old Herbert — 
 and, by George, she's in love with him ! " 
 
 " A great deal too much in love with him ! " 
 said Daphne, sharply. The day was chilly, 
 with a strong east wind blowing, and Daphne's 
 small figure and face were enveloped in a 
 marvellous wrap, compounded in equal pro-
 
 140 DAPHNE 
 
 portions of Russian sables and white cloth. 
 It had not long arrived from Worth, and Roger 
 had allowed himself some jibes as to its probable 
 cost. Daphne's " simplicity," the pose of her 
 girlhood, was in fact breaking down in all 
 directions. The arrogant spending instinct had 
 gained upon the moderating and self-restraining 
 instinct. The results often made Barnes un- 
 comfortable. But he was inarticulate, and 
 easily intimidated — by Daphne. With regard 
 to Mrs. French, however, he took up the cudgels 
 at once. Why shouldn't Elsie adore her man, 
 if it pleased her ? Old Herbert was worth it. 
 
 Women, said Daphne, should never put 
 themselves wholly in a man's power. Moreover, 
 wifely adoration was particularly bad for clergy- 
 men, who were far too much inclined already to 
 give themselves airs. 
 
 " I say ! Herbert never gives himself airs ! " 
 
 " They both did — to me. They have quite 
 different ways from us, and they make one 
 feel it. They have family prayers — we don't. 
 They have ascetic ideas about bringing up 
 children — I haven't. Elsie would think it self- 
 indulgent ajid abominable to stay in bed to 
 breakfast — I don't. The fact is, all her in- 
 terests and ideals are quite different from 
 mine, and I am rather tired of being made to 
 feel inferior." 
 
 ** Daphne ! what rubbish ! I'm certain Elsie
 
 DAPHNE 141 
 
 French never had such an idea in her head. 
 She's awfully soft and nice ; I never saw a 
 bit of conceit in her." 
 
 " She's soft outside and steel inside. Well, 
 never mind ! we don't get on. She's the old 
 America, I'm the new," said Daphne, half 
 frowning, half laughing ; " and I'm as good 
 as she." 
 
 " You're a very good-looking woman, any- 
 way," said Roger, admiring the vision of her 
 among the warm browns and shining whites of 
 her wrap. " Much better-looking than when 
 I married you." He slipped an arm under the 
 cloak and gave her small waist a squeeze. 
 
 Daphne turned her eyes upon him. In 
 their black depths his touch had roused a 
 passion which was by no means aJl tender- 
 ness. There was in it something threatening, 
 something intensely and inordinately possessive. 
 " That means that you didn't think me good- 
 looking at all, as compared with — Chloe ? " 
 she said insistently. 
 
 " Really, Daphne ! " — Roger withdrew his 
 arm with a rather angry laugh — " the way you 
 twist what one says ! I declare I won't make 
 you any more pretty speeches for an age." 
 
 Daphne scarcely replied ; but there dawned 
 on her face the smile — m(;lting, provocative, 
 intent — which is the natural weapon of such a 
 temperament. With a quirk movement she
 
 142 DAPHNE 
 
 nestled to her husband's side, and Roger was 
 soon appeased. 
 
 The visit which followed always counted 
 in Roger Barnes's memory as the first act of 
 the tragedy, the first onset of the evil that 
 engulfed him. 
 
 They found the old Duchess, Mrs. Fairmile, 
 and Dr. Lelius, alone. The Duchess had been 
 the penniless daughter of an Irish clergyman, 
 married en secondes noces for her somewhat 
 queer and stimulating personality, by an epi- 
 curean duke, who, after having provided the 
 family with a sufficient store of dull children by 
 an aristocratic mother, thought himself at 
 liberty, in his declining years, to please himself. 
 He had left her the dower-house — small but 
 delicately Jacobean — and she was now nearly 
 as old as the Duke had been when he married 
 her. She was largely made, shapeless, and 
 untidy. Her mannish face and head were tied 
 up in a kind of lace coif ; she had long since 
 abandoned all thought of a waist ; and her 
 strong chin rested on an ample bosom. 
 
 As soon as Mrs. Barnes was seated near her 
 hostess, Lelius — who had an intimate acquaint- 
 ance, through their pictures, with half the great 
 people of Europe — began to observe the Duchess's 
 impressions. Amused curiosity, first. Evi- 
 dently Daphne represented to her one of the
 
 DAPHNE 143 i 
 
 queer, crude types that modem society is i 
 always throwing up on the shores of life — like 
 
 strange beasts from deep-sea soundings. i 
 
 An American heiress, half Spanish — South- \ 
 
 American Spanish — with no doubt a dash of j 
 
 Indian ; no manners, as Europe understands \ 
 
 them ; unlimited money, and absurd preten- ! 
 
 sions — so Chloe said — in the matter of art ; a ! 
 
 mixture of the pedant and the parvenue : where ; 
 
 on earth had young Barnes picked her up ! It ] 
 
 was in some such way, no doubt — so Lelius i 
 guessed — that the Duchess's thoughts were run- 
 ning. 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. Barnes was treated with all 
 
 possible civility. The Duchess inquired into j 
 
 the plans for rebuilding Heston ; talked of her j 
 
 own recollections of the place, and its owners ; I 
 
 hoped that Mrs. Barnes was pleased with the ; 
 
 neighbourhood ; and finally asked the stock ^ 
 
 question, " And how do you like England ? " ! 
 
 Daphne looked at her coolly. " Moder- i 
 
 ately ! " she said, with a smile, the colour ' 
 
 rising in her cheek as she became aware, without i 
 
 looking at them, that Roger and Mrs. Fairmile ' 
 
 had adjourned to the farther end of the ; 
 large room, leaving her to the Duchess and 
 
 Lelius. I 
 
 The small eyes above the Duchess's prominent ' 
 nose sparkled. " Only moderately ? " The 
 speaker's tone expressed that she had been for
 
 144 DAPHNE 
 
 once taken by surprise. " I'm extremely sorry 
 we don't please you, Mrs. Barnes." 
 
 " You see, my expectations were so high." 
 
 "Is it the country, or the climate, or the 
 people, that won't do ? " inquired the Duchess, 
 amused. 
 
 " I suppose it would be civil to say the 
 climate," replied Daphne, laughing. 
 
 Whereupon the Duchess saw that her visitor 
 had made up her mind not to be overawed. 
 The great lady summoned Dr. Lelius to her 
 aid, and she, the German, and Daphne, kept 
 up a sparring conversation, in which Mrs. 
 Barnes, driven on by a secret wrath, showed 
 herself rather noisier than Englishwomen gener- 
 ally are. She was a little impertinent, the 
 Duchess thought, decidedly aggressive, and not 
 witty enough to carry it off. 
 
 Meanwhile, Daphne had instantly perceived 
 that Mrs. FairmDe and Roger had disappeared 
 into the conservatory ; and though she talked 
 incessantly through their absence, she felt each 
 minute of it. When they came back for tea, 
 she imagined that Roger looked embarrassed, 
 while Mrs. Fairmile was all gaiety, chatting to 
 her companion, her face raised to his, in the 
 manner of one joyously renewing an old intimacy. 
 As they slowly advanced up the long room, 
 Daphne felt it almost intolerable to watch them, 
 and her pulses began to race. Why had she
 
 DAPHNE 145 
 
 never been told of this thing ? That was what 
 rankled ; and the Southern wildne'ss in her blood 
 sent visions of the past and terrors of the future 
 hurr\dng through her brain, even while she 
 went on talking fast and recklessly to the 
 Duchess. 
 
 At tea-time conversation turned on the 
 various beautiful things which the room con- 
 tained—its Nattiers, its Gobelins, its two dessus 
 de partes by Boucher, and its two cabinets, of 
 which one had belonged to Beaumarchais and 
 the other to the Appartemeni du Dauphin at 
 Versailles. 
 
 Daphne restrained herself for a time, asked 
 questions, and affected no special knowledge. 
 Then, at a pause, she lifted a careless hand, 
 inquiring wlicther " the Fragonard sketch " 
 o])posite were not the pendant of one — she 
 named it — at Berlin. 
 
 " Ah-h-h ! " said Mrs. Fairmilc, with a 
 smiling shake of the head, " how clever of you ! 
 But that's not a Fragonard. I wish it were. 
 It's an unknown. Dr. Lelius has given him a 
 name." 
 
 And she and Lchus fell into a discussion of 
 the drawing, that soon left Daphne bcliind. 
 Native taste of the finest, mingled with the 
 training of a lifetime, tlic intimate knowledge 
 of collections of one who had lived among them 
 
 K
 
 146 DAPHNE 
 
 from her childhood — these things had long since 
 given Chloe Fairmile a kind of European repu- 
 tation. Daphne stumbled after her, consumed 
 with angry envy, the precieuse in her resenting 
 the easy mastery of Mrs. Fairmile, and the wife 
 in her offended by the strange beauty, the soft 
 audacities of a woman who had once, it seemed, 
 held Roger captive, and would, of course, like 
 to hold him captive again. 
 
 She burned in some way to assert herself, 
 the imperious will chafing at the slender barrier 
 of self-control. And some malicious god did, 
 in fact, send an opportunity. 
 
 After tea, when Roger, in spite of efforts 
 to confine himself to the Duchess, had been 
 once more drawn into the orbit of Mrs. Fairmile, 
 as she sat fingering a cigarette between the two 
 men, and gossiping of people and politics, the 
 butler entered, and whispered a message to the 
 Duchess. 
 
 The mistress of the house laughed. " Chloe ! 
 who do you think has called ? Old Marcus, of 
 South Audley Street. He's been at Brendon 
 House — buying up their Romneys, I should 
 think. And as he was passing here, he wished 
 to show me something. Shall we have him in ? " 
 
 " By all means ! The last time he was here 
 he offered you four thousand pounds for the 
 blue Nattier," said Chloe, with a smile, pointing 
 to the picture.
 
 DAPHNE 147 
 
 The Duchess gave orders ; and an elderly 
 man, with long black hair, swarthy complexion, 
 fine eyes, and a peaked forehead, was admitted, 
 and greeted by her, Mrs. Fairmile, and Dr. Lelius 
 as an old acquaintance. He sat dowTi beside 
 them, was given tea, and presented to Mr. and 
 Mrs. Barnes. Daphne, who knew the famous 
 dealer by sight and reputation perfectly well, 
 was piqued that he did not recognise her. Yet 
 she well remembered having given him an im- 
 portant commission not more than a year before 
 her marriage. 
 
 As soon as a cup of tea had been despatched, 
 Marcus came to the business. He drew a small 
 leather case out of the bag he had brought into 
 the room with him ; and the case, being opened, 
 disclosed a small but marvellous piece of 
 Sevres. 
 
 " There ! " he said, pointing triumphantly 
 to a piece on the Duchess's chimney-piece. 
 ** Your Grace asked me — oh ! ten years ago — 
 and again last year — to find )'ou the pair of 
 that. Now — you have it ! " 
 
 He put the two together, and the effect was 
 great. Tlie Ducliess looked at it with greed — 
 the greed of the connoisseur. But she shook 
 her head. 
 
 " Marcus, I have no money." 
 
 " Oh ! " He protested, smiling and shrug- 
 ging his shoulders.
 
 148 DAPHNE 
 
 <{ 
 
 And I know you want a brigand's price 
 for it." 
 
 " Oh, nothing — nothing at alL" 
 
 The Duchess took it up, and regretfully 
 turned it round and round. 
 
 " A thousand, Marcus ? " she said, look- 
 ing up. 
 
 He laughed, and would not reply. 
 
 " That means more, Marcus : how do you 
 imagine that an old woman like me, with only 
 just enough for bread and butter, can waste 
 her money on Sevres ? " He grinned. She put 
 it down resolutely. " No ! I've got a con- 
 sumptive nephew with a consumptive family. 
 He ought to have been hung for marrying, but 
 I've got to send them all to Davos this winter. 
 No, I can't, Marcus ; I can't — I'm too poor." 
 But her eyes caressed the shining thing. 
 
 Daphne bent forward. " If the Duchess 
 has really made up her mind, Mr. Marcus, I 
 will take it. It would just suit me ! " 
 
 Marcus started on his chair. " Pardon, 
 Madame ! " he said, turning hastily to look at 
 the slender lady in white, of whom he had as 
 yet taken no notice. 
 
 " We have the motor. We can take it with 
 us," said Daphne, stretching out her hand for 
 it triumphantly. 
 
 Madame," said Marcus, in some agitation, 
 I have not the honour. The price " 

 
 DAPHNE 149 
 
 " The price doesn't matter," said Daphne, 
 smihng. " You know me quite well, Mr. Marcus. 
 Do you remember selling a Louis Seize cabinet 
 to Miss Floyd ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " The dealer was on his feet in a 
 moment, saluting, excusing himself. Daphne 
 heard him with graciousness. She was now 
 the centre of the situation : she had asserted 
 herself, and her money. Marcus outdid himself 
 in homage. Lelius in the background looked on, 
 a sarcastic smile hidden by his fair moustache. 
 Mrs. Fairmile, too, smiled ; Roger had grown 
 rather hot ; and the Duchess was frankly 
 annoyed. 
 
 " I surrender it to force majeure,'' she said, 
 as Daphne took it from her. " VVhy are we 
 not all Americans ? " 
 
 And then, leaning back in her chair, she 
 would talk no more. The pleasure of the visit, 
 so far as it had ever existed, was at an end. 
 
 But before the Barnes motor departed home- 
 wards, Mrs. Fairmile had again found means 
 to carry Roger Barnes out of sight and hearing 
 into the garden. Roger had not been able to 
 avoid it ; and Daphne, hugging the leatlier case, 
 had, all the same, to look on. 
 
 When they were once more alone together, 
 speeding tlirough the briglit sunset air, each 
 found tlie otlier on edge.
 
 ISO DAPHNE 
 
 " You were rather rough on the Duchess, 
 Daphne ! " Roger protested. " It wasn't quite 
 nice, was it, outbidding her Hke that in her own 
 house ? " 
 
 Daphne flared up at once, declaring that she 
 wanted no lessons in deportment from him or 
 anyone else, and then demanding fiercely what 
 was the meaning of his two disappearances 
 with Mrs. Fairmile. Whereupon Roger lost his 
 temper still more decidedly, refusing to give 
 any account of himself, and the drive passed in 
 a continuous quarrel, which only just stopped 
 short, on Daphne's side, of those outrageous 
 and insulting things which were burning at the 
 back of her tongue, while she could not as yet 
 bring herself to say them. 
 
 An unsatisfactory peace was patched up 
 during the evening. But in the dead of night 
 Daphne sat up in bed, looking at the face and 
 head of her husband beside her on the pillow. 
 He lay peacefully sleeping, the noble outline 
 of brow and features still nobler in the dim light 
 which effaced all the weaker, emptier touches. 
 Daphne felt rising within her that mingled 
 passion of the jealous woman, which is half love, 
 half hate, of which she had felt the first stir- 
 rings in her early jealousy of Elsie Maddison. 
 It W£is the clutch of something racial and in- 
 herited — a something which the Northerner 
 hardly knows. She had felt it before on one
 
 / 
 
 
 It was ihc clutch of something racial and 
 inherite'l ' [fc pat;!' 150).
 
 DAPHNE 151 
 
 or two occasions, but not with this intensity. 
 The grace of Chloe Fairmile haunted her 
 memory, and the perfection, the corrupt per- 
 fection of her appeal to men, men Hke Roger. 
 
 She must wring from him — she must and 
 would — a much fuller history of his engage- 
 ment. And of those conversations in the 
 garden, too. It stung her to recollect that, 
 after all, he had given her no account of them. 
 She was very sure they had not been ordinary 
 conversations ! — Mrs. Fairmile was not the per- 
 son to waste her time in chit-chat. 
 
 A gust of violence swept through her. She 
 had given Roger everything — money, ease, 
 amusement. Where would he have been with- 
 out her ? And his mother, too ? — tiresome, 
 obstructive woman ! For the first time that 
 veil of the unspoken, that mist of loving illu- 
 sion which preserves all human relations, broke 
 down between Daphne and her marriage. Her 
 thoughts dwelt, in a vulgar detail, on the money 
 she had settled upon Roger — on his tendencies 
 to extravagance — his happy-go-lucky self-con- 
 fident ways. He would have been a pauper 
 but for her ; but now that he had her money 
 safe, without a word to her of his previous 
 engagement, no doubt he and Mrs. Fairmile 
 supposed they might do as they pleased. The 
 heat and corrosion of this idea spread through 
 her being, and the will made no figlit against it.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 *' You're off to the meet ? " 
 " I am. Look at the day ! " 
 
 Chloe Fairmile, who was standing in her 
 riding-habit at the window of the Duchess's 
 morning-room, turned to greet her hostess. 
 
 A mild November sun shone on the garden 
 and the woods, and Chloe' s face — the more 
 exquisite as a rule for its slight, strange wither- 
 ing — had caught a freshness from the morning. 
 
 The Duchess was embraced, and bore it ; 
 she herself never kissed anybody. 
 
 " You always look well, my dear, in a habit, 
 and you know it. Tell me what I shall do 
 with this invitation." 
 
 " From Lady Warton ? May I look ? " 
 
 Chloe took a much blotted and crossed 
 letter from the Duchess's hand. 
 
 " What were her governesses about ? " said 
 the Duchess, pointing to it. " Really— the 
 education of our class ! Read it ! " 
 
 ..." Can I persuade you to come — and 
 bring Mrs. Fairmile — next Tuesday to dinner, 
 to meet Roger Barnes and his wife ? I groan 
 
 152
 
 DAPHNE 153 
 
 at the thought, for I think she is quite one of 
 the most disagreeable httle creatures I ever 
 saw. But Warton says I must — a Lord-Lieu- 
 tenant can't pick and choose ! — and people as 
 rich as they are have to be considered. I can't 
 imagine why it is she makes herself so odious. 
 All the Americans I ever knew I have liked par- 
 ticularly. It is, of course, annoying that they 
 have so much money — but Warton says it 
 isn't their fault — it's Protection, or something 
 of the kind. But Mrs. Barnes seems really to 
 wish to trample on us. She told Warton the 
 other day that his tapestries — you know, those 
 we're so proud of — that they were bad Flemish 
 copies of something or other — a set belonging 
 to a horrid friend of hers, I think. Warton was 
 furious. And she's made the people at Bren- 
 don love her for ever by insisting that they 
 have now ruined all their pictures without 
 exception, by the way they've had them 
 restored — ct cetera, et cetera. She really makes 
 us feel her millions — and her brains — too much. 
 We're paupers, but we're not worms. Then 
 there's the Arclideacon — why should she fall 
 foul of him ? He tells Warton that her prhi- 
 ciples are really shocking. She told liim she 
 saw no reason why people should stick to their 
 husbands or wives longer than it pleased them 
 — and that in America nobody did ! He doesn't 
 wish Mrs. Mountford to see much of her ; —
 
 154 DAPHNE 
 
 though, really, my dear, I don't think Mrs. M. 
 is likely to give him trouble — do you ? And I 
 hear, of course, that she thinks us all dull and 
 stuck-up, and as ignorant as savages. It's so 
 odd she shouldn't even want to be liked ! — a 
 5^oung woman in a strange neighbourhood. 
 But she evidently doesn't, a bit. Warton 
 declares she's already tired of Roger — and she's 
 certainly not nice to him. What can be the 
 matter ? Anyway, dear Duchess, do come and 
 help us through." 
 
 ** What, indeed, can be the matter ? " re- 
 peated Chloe lightly, as she handed back the 
 letter. 
 
 " Angela Warton never knows anything. 
 But there's not much need for you to ask, my 
 dear," said the Duchess quietly. 
 
 Mrs. Fairmile turned an astonished face. 
 
 " Me ? " 
 
 The Duchess, more bulky, shapeless and 
 swathed than usual, subsided on a chair, and 
 just raised her small but sharp eyes on Mrs. 
 Fairmile. 
 
 " What can you mean ? " said Chloe, after 
 a moment, in her gayest voice. " I can't 
 imagine. And I don't think I'll try." 
 
 She stooped and kissed the untidy lady in 
 the chair. The Duchess bore it again, but 
 the lines of her mouth, with the strong droop 
 at the comers, became a trifle grim. Chloe
 
 DAPHNE 155 
 
 looked at her, smiled, shook her head. The 
 Duchess shook hers, and then they both began 
 to talk of an engagement announced that 
 morning in TJie Times. 
 
 Mrs. Fairmile was soon riding alone, with- 
 out a groom — she was an excellent horse- 
 woman, and she never gave any unnecessary 
 trouble to her friends' servants — through 
 country lanes chequered with pale sun. As 
 for the Duchess's attack upon her, Chloe 
 smarted. The Duchess had clearly pulled her 
 up, and Chloe was not a person who took it 
 well. 
 
 If Roger's American wife was by now wildly 
 jealous of his old fiancee, whose fault was it ? 
 Had not Mrs. Barnes herself thrown them per- 
 petually together ? Dinners at Upcott ! — invi- 
 tations to Heston ! — a resolute frequenting of 
 the same festal gatherings with Mrs. Fairmile. 
 None of it with Roger's goodwill, or his mother's, 
 — Chloe admitted it. It had been the wife's 
 doing — all of it. There had been even — rare 
 occurrences — two or tliree balls in the neigh- 
 bourhood. Roger hated dancing, but Daphne 
 had made him go to them all. Merely that 
 she might display her eyes, her diamonds, and 
 her gowns ? Not at all. The real psychology 
 of it was plain. " She wishes to keep us under 
 observation — to give us o]:)portunities — and then
 
 156 DAPHNE 
 
 torment her husband. Very well then ! — tu 
 I' as voiihi, Madame I " 
 
 As to the " opportunities," Chloe coolly 
 confessed to herself that she had made rather 
 a scandalous use of them. The gossip ol the 
 neighbourhood had been no doubt a good 
 deal roused ; and Daphne, it seemed, was dis- 
 contented. But is it not good for such people 
 to be discontented ? The money and the 
 arrogance of Roger's wife had provoked Roger's 
 former flancie from the beginning ; the money 
 to envy^ and the arrogance to chastisement. 
 Why not ? What is society but a discip- 
 line ? 
 
 As for Roger, who is it says there is a little 
 polygamy in all men ? Anyway, a man can 
 always — nearly always — keep a corner for the 
 old love, if the new love will let him. Roger 
 could, at any rate ; " though he is a model 
 husband, far better than she deserves, and 
 anybody not a fool could manage him." 
 
 It was a day of physical delight, especially 
 for riders. After a warm October, the leaves 
 were still thick on the trees ; Nature had not 
 yet resigned herself to death and sleep. Here 
 and there an oak stood, fully green, among the 
 tawny reds and golds of a flaming woodland. 
 The gorse was yellow on the commons ; and 
 in the damp woody ways through which Chloe
 
 DAPHNE 157 
 
 passed, a few primroses — frail, unseasonable 
 blooms — pushed their pale heads through the 
 moss. The scent of the beech-leaves under 
 foot ; the buffeting of a westerly wind ; the 
 pleasant jdelding of her light frame to the move- 
 ment of the horse ; the glimpses of plain that 
 every here and there showed themselves through 
 the trees that girdled the high ground or edge 
 along which she rode ; the white steam-wreath 
 of a train passing, far away, through strata of 
 blue or pearly mist ; an old windmill black in 
 the middle distance ; villages, sheltering among 
 their hedges and uplands : a sky, of shadow 
 below widely brooding over earth, and of a 
 radiant blue flecked with white cloud above : — 
 all the English familiar scene, awoke in Chloc 
 Fairmile a familiar sensuous joy. Life was 
 so good — every minute, every ounce of it ! — 
 from the Duchess's chef to these ethereal splen- 
 dours of autumn — from the warm bath, the 
 luxurious bed, and breakfast, she had but 
 lately enjoyed, to these artistic memories that 
 ran through her brain, as she glanced from 
 side to side, reminded now of Turner, now of 
 De Wint, revelling in the complexity of her 
 own being. Her conscience gave her no trouble ; 
 it had never been more friendly. Her hus- 
 band and she had come to an understanding ; 
 they were in truth more than quits. There was 
 to be no divorce — and no scandal. She would
 
 158 DAPHNE 
 
 be very prudent. A man's face rose before 
 her that was not the face of her husband, and 
 she smiled— indulgently. Yes, life would be 
 interesting when she returned to town. She 
 had taken a house in Chester Square from the 
 New Year; and Tom was going to Teheran. 
 Meanwhile, she was passing the time. 
 
 A thought suddenly occurred to her. Yes, 
 it was quite possible — probable even — that she 
 might find Roger at the meet ! The place 
 appointed was a long way from Heston, but in 
 the old days he had often sent on a fresh horse 
 by train to a local station. They had had 
 many a run together over the fields now coming 
 into sight. Though certainly if he imagined 
 there were the very smallest chance of finding 
 her there, he would give this particular meet a 
 wide berth. 
 
 Chloe laughed aloud. His resistance — and 
 his weakness — were both so amusing. She 
 thought of the skill— the peremptory smiling 
 skill — with which she had beguiled him into 
 the garden, on the day when the young couple 
 paid their first call at Upcott. First, the low- 
 spoken words at the back of the drawing-room, 
 while Mrs. Barnes and the Duchess were skir- 
 mishing — 
 
 " I must speak to you. Something that 
 concerns another person — something urgent." 
 
 Whereupon, unwilling and rather stern com-
 
 DAPHNE 159 
 
 pliance on the man's part — the handsome face 
 darkened with most unnecessary frowns. And 
 in the garden, the short colloquy between them — 
 " Of course, I see— you haven't forgiven me ! 
 Never mind ! I am doing this for someone 
 else— it's a duty." Then abruptly—" You still 
 have three of my letters." 
 
 Amusing again — his shock of surprise, his 
 blundering denials ! He always was the most 
 unmethodical and unbusinesslike of mortals — 
 poor Roger ! She heard her own voice in reply. 
 " Oh yes, you have. I don't make mistakes 
 about such things. Do you remember the 
 letter in which I told you about that affair of 
 Theresa Weightman ? " 
 
 A stare — an astonished admission. Pre- 
 cisely ! 
 
 " Well, she's in great trouble. Her hus- 
 band threatens absurdities. She has always 
 confided in me — she trusts me, and I can't 
 have that letter wandering about the world." 
 
 " I certainly sent it back ! " 
 
 " No — you never sent it back. You have 
 three of mine. And you know how careless 
 you arc — how you leave things about. I was 
 always on tenterhooks. Look again, please ! 
 You must have some idea where they might 
 be." 
 
 Perplexity — annoyance ! 
 
 " When we sold the London liouse, all
 
 i6o DAPHNE 
 
 papers and documents were sent down here. 
 We reserved a room — which was locked up." 
 
 " A la bonne heure I Of course — there they 
 are." 
 
 But all the same — great unwilhngness to 
 search. It was most unlikely he would be able 
 to find anything — most unlikely there was any- 
 thing to find. He was sure he had sent back 
 everything. And then a look in the fine hazel 
 eyes — like a horse putting back its ears. 
 
 All of no avail — against the laughing persist- 
 ence which insisted on the letters. " But I 
 must have them — I really must ! It is a horrid 
 tragedy, and I told you everything — things I 
 had no business to tell you at all." 
 
 On which, at last, a grudging consent to 
 look, followed by a marked determination 
 to go back to the drawing-room. . . . 
 
 But it was the second Ute-ci-Ute that was 
 really adroit ! After tea — just a touch on the 
 arm — while the Duchess was showing the Nat- 
 tiers to Mrs. Barnes, and Lelius was holding 
 the lamp. " One moment more ! — in the con- 
 servatory. I have a few things to add." And 
 in that second little interview — about nothing, 
 in truth — a mere piece of audacity — the lion's 
 claws had been a good deal pared. He had 
 been made to look at her, first and foremost ; to 
 realise that she was not afraid of him — not one 
 bit ! — and that he would have to treat her
 
 DAPHNE i6i 
 
 decently. Poor Roger ! In a few years the 
 girl he had married would be a plain and 
 prickly little pedant — ill-bred besides — and he 
 knew it. 
 
 As to more recent adventures. If people 
 meet in society, they must be civil ; and if old 
 friends meet at a dance, there is an institution 
 known as " sitting out " ; and " sitting out " is 
 nothing if not conversational ; and conversa- 
 tion — between old friends and cousins — is be- 
 guiling, and may be lengthy. 
 
 The ball at Brendon House — Chloe still 
 felt the triumph of it in her veins — still saw 
 the softening in Roger's handsome face, the 
 look of lazy pleasure, and the disapproval — or 
 was it the envy ? — in the eyes of certain county 
 magnates looking on. Since then, no com- 
 munication between Heston and Upcott. 
 
 Mrs. Fairmile was now a couple of miles 
 from the meet. She had struck into a great 
 belt of plantations bounding one side of the 
 ducal estate. Through it ran a famous green 
 ride, crossed near its beginning by a main road. 
 On her right, beyond the thick screen of trees, 
 was the railway, and she could hear the occa- 
 sional rush of a train. 
 
 When she reached the cross road, which led 
 from a station, a labourer opened the plan- 
 tation gates for her. As he unlatched the
 
 i62 DAPHNE 
 
 second, she perceived a man's figure in front 
 of her. 
 " Roger ! " 
 
 A touch of the whip — her horse sprang for- 
 ward. The man in front looked back startled ; 
 but she was already beside him. 
 
 " You keep up the old habit, like me ? 
 What a lovely day ! " 
 
 Roger Barnes, after a flush of amazement 
 and surprise, greeted her coldly : " It is a long 
 way for you to come," he said formally. 
 " Twelve miles, isn't it ? You're not going to 
 hunt ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! I only came to look at the 
 hounds and the horses — to remind myself of 
 all the good old times. You don't want to 
 remember them, I know. Life's gone on for 
 you ! " 
 
 Roger bent forward to pat the neck of his 
 horse. "It goes on for all of us," he said 
 gruffly. 
 
 " Ah, well ! " She sighed. He looked up 
 and their eyes met. The wind had slightly 
 reddened her pale skin : her expression was 
 one of great animation, yet of great softness. 
 The grace of the long, slender body in the close- 
 fitting habit ; of the beautiful head and loosened 
 hair under the small, low-crowned beaver hat ; 
 the slender hand upon the reins — all these vari- 
 ous impressions rushed upon Barnes at once,
 
 DAPHNE 163 
 
 bringing with them the fascination of a past 
 happiness, provoking, by contrast, the memory 
 of a harassing and irritating present. 
 
 " Is Heston getting on ? " asked Mrs. Fair- 
 mile, smihng. 
 
 He frowTied involuntarily. 
 
 " Oh, I suppose we shall be straight some 
 day ; " the tone, however, belied the words. 
 " When once the British workman gets in, it's 
 the deuce to get him out." 
 
 " The old house had such a charm ! " said 
 Chloe softly. 
 
 Roger made no reply. He rode stiffly beside 
 her, looking straight before him. Chloe, observ- 
 ing him without appearing to do anything of 
 the kind, asked herself whether the Apollo 
 radiance of him were not already somewhat 
 quenched and shorn. A slight tliickening of 
 feature — a slight coarsening of form — she 
 thought she perceived them. Poor Roger ! — 
 had he been living too well and idling too 
 flagrantly on these American dollars ? 
 
 Suddenly she bent over and laid a gloved 
 hand on his arm. 
 
 " Hadn't it ? " she said, in a low voice. 
 
 He started. But he neither looked at her 
 nor shook her off. 
 
 " What — the house ? " was the ungracious 
 reply. " I'm sure I don't know ; I never 
 thought about it — whether it was pretty or ugly,
 
 1 64 DAPHNE 
 
 I mean. It suited us, and it amused mother 
 to fiddle about with it." 
 
 Mrs. Fairmile withdrew her hand. 
 
 " Of course a great deal of it was ugly," she 
 said composedly. " Dear Lady Barnes really 
 didn't know. But then we led such a jolly 
 life in it — we made it ! " 
 
 She looked at him brightly, only to see in 
 him an angry flash of expression. He turned 
 and faced her. 
 
 "I'm glad you think it was jolly. My re- 
 membrances are not quite so pleasant." 
 
 She laughed a little — not flinching at all — 
 her face rosy to his challenge. 
 
 " Oh, yes, they are — or should be. What's 
 the use of blackening the past because it 
 couldn't be the present ? My dear Roger, if I 
 hadn't — well, let's talk plainly ! — if I hadn't 
 thrown you over, where would you be now ? 
 We should be living in West Kensington, and 
 I should be taking boarders — or — no ! — a coun- 
 try-house, perhaps, with paying guests. You 
 would be teaching the cockney idea how to 
 shoot, at half a guinea a day, and I 
 should be buying my clothes second-hand 
 through The Exchange and Mart, Whereas — 
 whereas " 
 
 She bent forward again. 
 
 " You are a very rich man — you have a 
 charming wife — a dear little girl — you can get
 
 DAPHNE 165 
 
 into Parliament — travel, speculate, race, any- 
 thing you please. And I did it all ! " 
 
 " I don't agree with you," he said drily. 
 She laughed again. 
 
 " Well, we can't argue it — can we ? I only 
 wanted to point out to you the plain, bare 
 truth, that there is nothing in the world to 
 prevent our being excellent friends again — 
 now. But first — and once more — my letters I " 
 
 Her tone was a little peremptor}^, and 
 Roger's face clouded. 
 
 " I found two of them last night, by the 
 merest chance — in an old despatch-box I took 
 to America. They were posted to you on the 
 way here." 
 
 " Good ! But there were three." 
 
 " I know — so you said. I could only find 
 two." 
 
 " Was the particular letter I mentioned one 
 of them ? " 
 
 He answered unwillingly. 
 
 " No. I searched everywhere. I don't be- 
 lieve I have it." 
 
 She shook her head with decision. 
 
 " You certainly have it. Please look 
 again." 
 
 He broke out with some irritation, insist- 
 ing that if it liad not been returned it had been 
 either lost or destroyed. It could matter to 
 no one.
 
 t66 daphne 
 
 Some snaring, entangling instinct — an in- 
 stinct of the hunter — made her persist. She 
 must have it. It was a point of honour. " Poor 
 Theresa is so unhappy, so pursued ! You saw 
 that odious paragraph last week ? I can't 
 run the risk ! " 
 
 With a groan of annoyance, he promised 
 at last that he would look again. Then the 
 sparkling eyes changed, the voice softened. 
 
 She praised — she rewarded him. By smooth 
 transitions she slipped into ordinary talk ; of 
 his candidature for the County Council — 
 the points of the great horse he rode — the 
 gossip of the neighbourhood — the charms of 
 Beatty. 
 
 And on this last topic he, too, suddenly 
 found his tongue. The cloud — of awkward- 
 ness, or of something else not to be analysed — 
 broke away, and he began to talk, and presently 
 to ask questions, with readiness, even with 
 eagerness. 
 
 Was it right to be so very strict with chil- 
 dren ? — babies under three ? Wasn't it ridicu- 
 lous to expect them not to be naughty or 
 greedy ? Why, every child wanted as much 
 sweetstuff as it could tuck in ! Quite right 
 too — doctors said it was good for them. But 
 Miss Farmer 
 
 " Who is Miss Farmer ? " inquired Mrs. 
 Fairmile. She was riding close beside him — an
 
 DAPHNE 167 
 
 embodied friendliness — a soft and womanly 
 Chloe, very different from the old. 
 
 " She's the nurse ; my mother fomid her. 
 She's a lady — by way of— she doesn't do any 
 rough work — and I dare say she's the newest 
 thing out. But she's too tight a hand for my 
 taste. I say ! — what do you think of this ! 
 She wouldn't let Beattie come down to the 
 drawing-room 3'esterday, because she cried for 
 a sweet ! Wasn't that devilish ! " He brought 
 his hand down fiercel}^ on his thigh. 
 
 " A Gorgon ! " said Mrs. Fairmile, raising 
 her eyebrows. " Any other qualifications ? 
 French ? German ? " 
 
 " Not a word. Not slie ! Her people live 
 somewhere near here, I believe." Roger looked 
 vaguely round him. " Her father managed a 
 brick-field on this estate — some parson or other 
 recommended her to mother." 
 
 " And you don't like her ? " 
 
 " Well, no— I don't ! She's not the kind^f 
 woman / want." He blurted it out, adding 
 hurriedly, " But my wife thinks a lot of 
 lier." 
 
 Chloe dismissed the topic of the nurse, but 
 still let him run on about the child. Amazing ! 
 — this development of paternity in the careless, 
 handsome youth of three years before. She 
 was amused and bored by it. But her permis- 
 sion f)f it liad thawed him — that she saw.
 
 1 68 DAPHNE 
 
 Presently, from the child she led him on to 
 common acquaintance — old friends — and talk 
 flowed fast She made him laugh ; and the 
 furrows in the young brow disappeared. Now 
 as always they understood each other at a word ; 
 there was between them the freemasonry of 
 persons sprung from the same world and the 
 same tradition ; his daily talk with Daphne had 
 never this easy, slipping pleasure. Meanwhile 
 the horses sauntered on, unconsciously held 
 back ; and the magical autumn wood, its 
 lights and lines and odours, played upon their 
 senses. 
 
 At last Roger with a start perceived a gate 
 in front. He looked at his watch, and she saw 
 him redden, 
 
 " We shall be late for the meet." 
 
 His eyes avoided hers. He gathered up the 
 reins, evidently conscious. 
 
 Smiling, she let him open the gate for her, 
 and then as they passed into the road, shadowed 
 with overarching trees, she reined in White- 
 foot, and bending forward, held out her hand. 
 " Good-bye ! " 
 
 " You're not coming ? " 
 
 " I think I've had enough. I'll go home. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 It was a relief. In both minds had risen 
 the image of their arrival together — amid the 
 crowd of the meet. As he looked at her — grate-
 
 DAPHNE 169 
 
 fully — the grace of her movement, the tempta- 
 tion of her eyes, the rush of old memories sud- 
 denly turned his head. He gripped her hand 
 hard for a minute, staring at her. 
 
 The road in front of them was quite empty. 
 But fifty yards behind them was a small red- 
 brick house buried in trees. As they still 
 paused, hand in hand, in front of the gate into 
 the wood, which had failed to swing back and 
 remained half open, the garden door of this 
 house unclosed and a young woman in a kind of 
 uniform stepped into the road. She perceived 
 the two riders — stopped in astonishment — ob- 
 served them unseen, and walked quickly away 
 in the direction of the station. 
 
 Roger reached Heston that night only just 
 in time to dress for dinner. 
 
 By this time he was in a wholly different 
 mood ; angry with himself, and full of rueful 
 thought about his wife. Daphne and he had 
 been getting on anything but well for some 
 time past. He knew that he had several times 
 behaved badly; why, indeed, that very after- 
 noon, had he held Cliloe Fairmile's hand in the 
 public road, like an idiot ? Suppose anyone 
 had passed ? It was only Dai)hne's tempers 
 and the discomfort at home that made an hour 
 with Chloe so pleasant — and brought the old 
 recollections back. He vowed he never thought
 
 170 DAPHNE 
 
 of her, except when she was there to make a 
 fool of him — or plague him about those beastly 
 letters. Whereas Daphne — Daphne was always 
 in his mind, and this eclipse into which their 
 daily life had passed. He seemed to be always 
 tripping and stumbling, like a lame man among 
 loose stones ; doing or saying what he did 
 not mean to do or say, and tongue-tied when 
 he should have spoken. Daphne's jealousy 
 made him ridiculous ; he resented it hotly ; 
 yet he knew he was not altogether blame- 
 less. 
 
 If only something could be done to make 
 Daphne like Heston and the neighbours ! But 
 he saw plainly enough that in spite of all the 
 effort and money she was pouring out upon the 
 house, it gave her very little pleasure in return. 
 Her heart was not in it. And as for the neigh- 
 bours, she had scarcely a good word now for 
 any of them. Jolly ! — just as he was going to 
 stand for the County Council, with an idea of 
 Parliament later on ! And as for what he 
 wished — what would be good for him — that she 
 never seemed to think of. And, really, some of 
 the things she said now and then about money 
 — nobody with the spirit of a mouse could 
 stand them. 
 
 To comfort his worries he went first of all 
 to the nursery, where he found the nursery- 
 maid in charge, and the child already asleep.
 
 DAPHNE 171 
 
 Miss Farmer, it appeared, had been enjoying 
 a " day off," and was not expected back till 
 late. He knelt down beside the little girl, feed- 
 ing his eyes upon her. She lay with her deli- 
 cate face pressed into the pillow, the small neck 
 visible under the cloud of hair, one hand, the 
 soft palm uppermost, on the sheet. He bent 
 down and kissed the hand, glad that the sharp- 
 faced nurse was not there to see. The touch 
 of the fragrant skin thrilled him with pride 
 and joy ; so did the lovely defencelessness of the 
 child's sleep. That such a possession should 
 have been given to him, to guard and cherish ! 
 There was in his mind a passionate vow to 
 guard the little thing — aye, with his life-blood ; 
 and then a movement of laughter at his own 
 heroics. Well ! — Daphne might give him sons 
 — but he did not suppose any other child could 
 ever be quite the same to him as Beatty. He 
 sat in a contented silence, feeding his eyes upon 
 lier, as the soft breath rose and fell. And as 
 he did so, his temper softened and warmed 
 towards Beatty's mother. 
 
 A little later he found Daphne in her room, 
 already dressed for dinner. He approached 
 her uneasily. 
 
 " How tired you look. Daphne ! Wliat have 
 you been doing to yourself ? " 
 
 Daphne stiffly pointed out that she liad 
 been standing over the workmen all day, there
 
 172 DAPHNE 
 
 being no one else to stand over them, and of 
 course she was tired. Her manner would have 
 provoked him but for the visiting of an inward 
 compunction. Instead of showing annoyance 
 he bent down and kissed her. 
 
 " I'll stay and help to-morrow, if you want 
 me, though you know I'm no good. I say, 
 how much more are you going to do to the 
 house ? " 
 
 Daphne looked at him coldly. She had 
 not returned the kiss. " Of course, I know that 
 you don't appreciate in the least what I am 
 doing ! " 
 
 Roger thrust his hands into his pockets, 
 and walked up and down uncomfortably. He 
 thought, in fact, that Daphne was spoiling the 
 dear nondescript old place, and he knew that 
 the neighbourhood thought so too. Also he 
 particularly disliked the young architect who 
 was superintending the works ("a priggish ass," 
 who gave himself abominable airs — except to 
 Daphne, whom he slavishly obeyed, and to Miss 
 Farmer, with whom Roger had twice caught 
 him gossiping). But he was determined not 
 to anger his wife, and he held his tongue. 
 
 " I wish, anyway, you wouldn't stick at 
 it so closely," he said discontentedly. " Let's 
 go abroad somewhere for Christmas — Nice, 
 or Monte Carlo. I am sure you want a 
 change."
 
 DAPHNE 173 
 
 " Well, it isn't exactly an enchanting neigh- 
 bourhood," said Daphne, with pinched lips. 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry you don't like the 
 people here," said Roger, perplexed, " I dare 
 say they're all stupids." 
 
 ** That wouldn't matter — if they behaved 
 decently," said Daphne, flushing. 
 
 " I suppose that means — if I behaved 
 decently ! " cried Roger, turning upon her. 
 
 Daphne faced him, her head in air, her 
 small foot beating the ground, in a trick it 
 had. 
 
 " Well, I'm not likely to forget the Brendon 
 ball, am I ? " 
 
 Roger's look changed. 
 
 " I meant no harm, and you know I didn't," 
 he said sulkily. 
 
 " Oh, no, you only made a laughing-stock 
 of me!" Daphne turned on her heel. Sud- 
 denly she felt herself roughly caught in Roger's 
 arms. 
 
 " Daphne, what is the matter ? Why can't 
 we be happy together ? " 
 
 " Ask yourself," she said, trying to extricate 
 herself, and not succeeding. " I don't like the 
 people here, and they don't like me. But as 
 you seem to enjoy flirting with Mrs. Fairmile, 
 there's one person satisfied." 
 
 Roger laughed — not agreeably. " I shall 
 soon think, Daphne, that somebody's ' put a
 
 174 DAPHNE 
 
 spell on you/ as my old nurse used to say. I 
 wish I knew what I could do to break it." 
 
 She lay passive in his arms a moment, and 
 then he felt a shiver run through her, and saw 
 that she was crying. He held her close to him, 
 kissing and comforting her, while his own eyes 
 were wet. What her emotion meant, or his 
 own, he could not have told clearly ; but it was 
 a moment for both of healing, of impulsive 
 return, the one to the other, unspoken penitence 
 on her side, a hidden self-blame on his. She 
 clung to him fiercely, courting the pressure of 
 his arms, the warm contact of his youth ; while, 
 in his inner mind, he renounced with energy the 
 temptress Chloe and all her works, vowing to 
 himself that he would give Daphne no cause, 
 no pretext even, for jealousy, and would bear 
 it patiently if she were still unjust and tor- 
 menting. 
 
 '* Where have you been all day ? " said 
 Daphne at last, disengaging herself, and brush- 
 ing the tears away from her eyes — a little 
 angrily, as though she were ashamed of 
 them. 
 
 ** I told you this morning. I had a run 
 with the Stoneshire hounds." 
 
 " Whom did you meet there ? " 
 
 " Oh, various old acquaintances. Nobody 
 amusing." He gave two or three names, his 
 conscience pricking him. Somehow, at that
 
 DAPHNE 175 
 
 moment, it seemed impossible to mention Chloe 
 Fairmile. 
 
 About eleven o'clock that night, Daphne and 
 Lady Barnes having just gone upstairs, Roger 
 and a local Colonel of Volunteers who was dining 
 and spending the night at Heston, were in the 
 smoking-room. Colonel Williams had come over 
 to discuss Volunteer prospects in the neighbour- 
 hood, and had been delighted to find in the 
 grandson of his old friend Oliver Trescoe — a 
 young fellow whom he and others had too 
 readily regarded as given over to luxury and 
 soft living — signs of the old pubhc spirit, the 
 traditional manliness of the family. The two 
 men were talking with great cordiality, when 
 the sound of a dogcart driving up to the front 
 door disturbed them. 
 
 " Who on earth ? — at this time of night ? " 
 said Roger. 
 
 The butler, entering with fresh cigarettes, 
 explained tliat Miss Farmer had only just re- 
 turned, having missed an earlier train. 
 
 " Well, I hope to goodness she won't go and 
 disturb Miss Beatty," grumbled Roger ; and 
 then, half to himself, half to his companion, as 
 the butler departed — " I don't believe she 
 missed her train ; she's one of the cool sort — 
 does jolly well what she likes ! I say. Colonel, 
 do you like ' lady helps ' ? I don't ! "
 
 176 DAPHNE 
 
 Half an hour later, Roger, having said good- 
 night to his guest ten minutes before, was 
 mounting the stairs on his own way to bed, 
 when he heard in the distance the sound of a 
 closing door and the rustle of a woman's dress. 
 
 Nurse Farmer, he supposed, who had been 
 gossiping with Daphne. His face, as the 
 candle shone upon it, expressed annoyance. 
 Vaguely, he resented the kind of intimacy 
 which had grown up lately between Daphne 
 and her child's nurse. She was not the kind of 
 person to make a friend of ; she bullied Beatty ; 
 and she must be got rid of. 
 
 Yet when he entered his wife's room, every- 
 thing was dark, and Daphne was apparently 
 sound asleep. Her face was hidden from him ; 
 and he moved on tiptoe so as not to disturb her. 
 Evidently it was not she who had been gossip- 
 ing late. His mother, perhaps, with her maid.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 In the course of that night Roger Barnes's 
 fate was decided, while he lay, happily sleep- 
 ing, beside his wife. Daphne, as soon as she 
 heard his regular breathing, opened the eyes 
 she had only pretended to close, and la}^ staring 
 into the shadows of the room, in which a night- 
 light was burning. Presentl}^ she got up softly, 
 put on a dressing-gown, and went to the fire, 
 which she noiselessl}^ replenished ; then, draw- 
 ing up a chair, she sank back into it, her arms 
 folded. The strengthening firelight showed her 
 small white face, amid the masses of her dark 
 hair. 
 
 Her whole being was seething with pas- 
 sionate and revengeful thought. It was as 
 though with violent straining and wrenching 
 the familiar links and bulwarks of life were 
 breaking down, and as if amid the wreck of 
 them she found herself looking at goblin faces 
 beyond, growing gradually used to them, ceas- 
 ing to be startled by them, finding in them even 
 a wild attraction and invitation. 
 
 So Roger had lied to her. Instead of a 
 casual ride, involving a meeting with a few 
 
 M 177
 
 178 DAPHNE 
 
 old acquaintances, as he had represented to 
 her, he had been engaged that day in an assigna- 
 tion with Mrs. Fairmile, arranged beforehand, 
 and carefully concealed from his wife. Miss 
 Farmer had seen them coming out of a wood 
 together hand in hand ! In the public road, 
 this ! — not even so much respect for appear- 
 ances as might have dictated the most 
 elementary reticence and decency. The case 
 was so clear that it sickened her ; she shivered 
 with cold and nausea as she lay there by the 
 now glowing fire which yet gave her no phy- 
 sical comfort. Probably in the past their 
 relation had gone much farther than Roger 
 had ever confessed to his wife. Mrs. Fairmile 
 was a woman who would stick at nothing. And 
 if Daphne were not already betrayed, she could 
 no longer protect herself. The issue was cer- 
 tain. Such women as Chloe Fairmile are not 
 to be baulked of what they desire. Good 
 women cannot fight them on equal terms. 
 And as to any attempt to keep the affections 
 of a husband who could behave in such a way 
 to the wife who had given him her youth, 
 herself, and all the resources and facilities of 
 life, Daphne's whole being stiffened into mingled 
 anguish and scorn as she renounced the con- 
 test. Knowing himself the traitor that he 
 was, he could 3^et hold her, kiss her, murmur 
 tender things to her, allow her to cry upon
 
 " TIt' sir<"iiRlh<'ninp firi-lii^lil sliowrd Ivr NriKill whiii'
 
 DAPHNE 179 
 
 his breast, to stammer repentance and humble- 
 ness. Cowardly ! False ! Treacherous ! She 
 flung out her hands, rigid, before her in the 
 darkness, as though for ever putting him 
 away. 
 
 Anguish ? Yes ! — but not of such tortur- 
 ing quality as she could have felt a year, six 
 months even, before this date. She was 
 astonished that she could bear her life, that 
 she could sit there in the night stillness, motion- 
 less, holding her breath even, while Roger 
 slept there in the shadowed bed. Had this 
 thing happened to her before their arrival at 
 Heston, she must have fallen upon Roger in 
 mad grief and passion, ready to kill him or her- 
 self ; must at least have poured out torrents 
 of useless words and tears. She could not have 
 sat dumb like this ; in misery, but quite able 
 to think things out, to envisage all the dark 
 possibilities of the future. And not only the 
 future. By a perfectly logical diversion her 
 thoughts presently went racing to the past. 
 There was, so to speak, a suspension of tlic 
 immediate crisis, while she listened to her own 
 mind — while she watched her own years go by. 
 
 It was but rarely that Daphne let her mind 
 run on her own origins. ]3ut on tliis winter 
 night, as she sat motionless by the fire, she 
 became conscious of a sudden detachment from 
 her most recent self and life — a sudden violent
 
 i8o DAPHNE 
 
 turning against both — which naturally threw 
 her back on the past, on some reflection upon 
 w^hat she had made of herself, by way of guide 
 to what she might still make of herself, if she 
 struck boldly, now, while there was yet time, 
 for her own freedom and development. 
 
 As to her parents, she never confessed, even 
 to herself, that she owed them anything, except, 
 of course, the mere crude wealth that her father 
 had left her. Otherwise she was vaguely 
 ashamed of them both. And yet ! — in her most 
 vital qualities, her love of sensational effect, 
 her scorn of half-measures, her quick, relentless 
 imagination, her increasing ostentation and ex- 
 travagance, she was the true child of the boast- 
 ful mercurial Irishman who had married her 
 Spanish mother as part of a trade bargain, on 
 a chance visit to Buenos Ayres. For twenty 
 years Daniel Floyd had leased and exploited, 
 had ravaged and destroyed, great tracts of 
 primaeval forest in the northern regions of the 
 Prairie State, leaving behind him a ruined 
 earth and an impoverished community, but 
 building up the while a colossal fortune. He 
 had learnt the arts of municipal " bossing " in 
 one of the minor towns of Illinois, and had 
 then migrated to Chicago, where for years he 
 was the life and soul of all the bolder and more 
 adventurous corruption of the city. A jovial, 
 handsome fellow ! — with an actor's face, a
 
 DAPHNE i8i 
 
 bright eye, and a slippery hand. Daphne had 
 a vivid, and, on the whole, affectionate, remem- 
 brance of her father, of whom, however, she 
 seldom spoke. The thought of her mother, on 
 the other hand, was always unwelcome. It 
 brought back recollections of storm and tem- 
 pest ; of wild laughter, and still wilder tears ; 
 of gorgeous dresses, small feet, and jewelled 
 fingers. 
 
 No ; her parents had but small place in 
 that dramatic autobiography that Daphne was 
 now constructing for herself. She was not 
 their daughter in any but the physical sense ; 
 she was the daughter of her own works and 
 efforts. 
 
 She leant forward to the fire, her face 
 propped in her hands, going back in thought 
 to her father's death, when she was fifteen ; to 
 her three years of cloying convent life, and her 
 escape from it, as well as from the intriguing 
 relations who would have kept her there ; to 
 the clever lawyer who had helped to put her in 
 possession of her fortune, and the huge sums 
 she had paid him for his services ; to her search 
 for education, her hungry determination to 
 rise in the world, the friends she had made at 
 college, in New York, Philadelphia, Washing- 
 ton. She liad been influenced by one milieu 
 after another ; she had worked hard, now at 
 music, now at philosophy ; had dabbled in
 
 i82 DAPHNE 
 
 girls' clubs, and gone to Socialist meetings, 
 and had been all through driven on by the 
 gadfly of an ever-increasing ambition. 
 
 Ambition for what ! She looked back on 
 this early life with a bitter contempt. What 
 had it all come to ? Marriage with Roger 
 Barnes ! — a hasty passion of which she was 
 already ashamed, for a man who was already 
 false to her. 
 
 What had made her marry him ? She did not 
 mince matters with herself in her reply. She 
 had married him, influenced by a sudden gust 
 of physical inclination — by that glamour, too, 
 under which she had seen him in Washington, 
 a glamour of youth and novelty. If she had 
 seen him first in his natural environment she 
 would have been on her guard ; she would have 
 realised what it meant to marry a man who 
 could help her own ideals and ambitions so 
 little. And what, really, had their married life 
 brought her ? Had she ever been sure of 
 Roger ? — had she ever been able to feel proud 
 of him, in the company of really distinguished 
 men ? — had she not been conscious, again 
 and again, when in London, or Paris, or Berlin, 
 that he was her inferior, that he spoiled her 
 social and intellectual chances ? And his tone 
 towards women had always been a low one ; 
 no great harm in it, perhaps ; but it had often 
 wounded and disgusted her.
 
 DAPHNE 183 
 
 And then — for climax ! — his concealment of 
 the early love affair with Chloe Fairmile ; his 
 weakness and folly in letting her regain her 
 hold upon him ; his behaviour at the Brendon 
 baJl, the gossip, which, as Agnes Farmer 
 declared, was all over the neighbourhood, 
 ending in the last baseness — the assignation, 
 the lies, the hypocrisy of the afternoon ! 
 
 Enough ! — more than enough ! What did 
 she care what the English world thought of 
 her ? She would free and right herself in her 
 own way, and they might hold up what hands 
 they pleased. A passion of wounded vanity, of 
 disappointed self-love, swept through her. She 
 had looked forward to the English country 
 life ; she had meant to play a great part in it. 
 But three months had been enough to show 
 her the kind of thing — the hopeless narrowness 
 and Philistinism of these English backwaters. 
 What did these small squires and country 
 clergy know of the real world, the world that 
 mattered to her, where people had free minds 
 and progressive ideas ? Her resentment of the 
 milieu in which Roger expected her to live 
 subtly swelled and strengthened her wrath 
 against himself ; it made the soil from which 
 sprang a sudden growth of angry will — violent 
 and destructive. There was in her little or 
 none of that affinity with a traditional, a parent 
 England, which is present in so many Americans,
 
 184 DAPHNE I 
 
 j 
 
 which emerges in them like buried land from | 
 
 the waters. On the contrary, the pressure of | 
 race and blood in her was not towards, but 
 
 against ; not friendly, but hostile. The nearer i 
 
 she came to the English life, the more certain ! 
 forces in her, deeply infused, rose up and made 
 
 their protest. The Celtic and Latin strains that j 
 were mingled in her, their natural sympathies 
 
 and repulsions, which had been indistinct in ^ 
 
 the girl, overlaid by the deposits of the current | 
 
 American world, were becoming dominant in i 
 
 the woman. j 
 
 Well, thank goodness, modern life is not ; 
 
 as the old ! There are ways out. j 
 
 Midnight had just struck. The night was 
 
 gusty, the north-west wind made fierce attacks j 
 on the square, comfortable house. Daphne 
 
 rose slowly ; she moved noiselessly across the j 
 
 floor ; she stood with her arms behind her, ' 
 
 looking down at the sleeping Roger. Then a ; 
 tliought struck her ; she reached out a hand 
 
 to the new number of an American Quarterly | 
 
 which lay, with the paper knife in it, on a table [ 
 
 beside the bed. She had ordered it in a mood i 
 
 of jealous annoyance because of a few pages of ! 
 
 art criticism in it by Mrs. Fairmile, which im- ' 
 
 pertinently professed to know more about the | 
 
 Vitali Signorelli than its present owner did ; but | 
 
 she remembered also an article on " The Future j
 
 DAPHNE 185 
 
 for Women," which had seemed to her a fine, 
 progressive thing. She turned the pages noise- 
 lessly — her eyes now on the unconscious Roger 
 — now on the book. 
 
 " All forms of contract — in business, edu- 
 cation, religion, or law — suffer from the 
 weakness and blindness of the persons making 
 them — the marriage contract as much as any 
 other. The dictates of humanity and common- 
 sense alike show that the latter and most 
 important contract should no more be per- 
 petual than any of the others." 
 
 Again : — 
 
 " Any covenant between human beings 
 that fails to produce or promote human 
 happiness, cannot in the nature of things be 
 of any force or authority ; it is not only a 
 right but a duty to abolish it." 
 
 And a little further : — 
 
 " Womanhood is the great fact of woman's 
 life. Wifehood and motherhood are but 
 incidental relations." 
 
 Daphne put down the book. In the dim 
 light, the tension of her slender figure, her 
 frowning brow, her locked arms and hands, 
 made of her a threatening Fate hovering darkly 
 above the man in his deep, defenceless sleep. 
 
 She was miserable, consumed with jealous
 
 i86 DAPHNE 
 
 anger. But the temptation of a new licence — 
 a lawless law — was in her veins. Have women 
 been trampled on, insulted, enslaved ? — in 
 America, at least, they may now stand on their 
 feet. No need to cringe any more to the 
 insolence and cruelty of men. A woman's life 
 may be soiled and broken ; but in the great 
 human workshop of America it can be repaired. 
 She remembered that in the majority of Ameri- 
 can divorces it is the woman who applies for 
 relief. And why not ? The average woman, 
 when she marries, knows much less of life and 
 the world than the average man. She is more 
 likely — poor soul ! — to make mistakes. 
 
 She drew closer to the bed. All round her 
 glimmered the furniture and appointments of 
 a costly room — the silver and tortoise-shell on 
 the dressing-table, the long mirrors lining the 
 farther wall, the silk hangings of the bed. 
 Luxury, as light and soft as skill and money 
 could make it — the room breathed it ; and in 
 the midst stood the young creature who had 
 designed it, the will within her hardening 
 rapidly to an irrevocable purpose. 
 
 Yes, she had made a mistake ! But she 
 would retrieve it. She would free herself. 
 She would no longer put up with Roger, with 
 his neglect and deceit — his disagreeable and 
 ungrateful mother — his immoral friends — and 
 this dull, soul-deadening English life.
 
 DAPHNE 187 
 
 Roger moved and murmured. She retreated 
 a little, still looking at him fixedly. Was it 
 the child's name ? Perhaps. He dreamt in- 
 terminably, and very often of Beatty. But it 
 did not move her. Beatty, of course, was her 
 child. Every child belongs to the mother in 
 a far profounder sense than to the father. And 
 he, too, would be free ; he would naturally 
 marry again. 
 
 Case after case of divorce ran through her 
 mind as she stood there ; the persons and cir- 
 cumstances all well known to her. Other 
 stories also, not personally within her ken ; the 
 famous scandals of the time, much discussed 
 throughout American society. Her wits cleared 
 and steeled. She began to see the course tliat 
 she must follow. 
 
 It would all depend upon the lawyers ; and 
 a good deal — she faced it — upon money. All 
 sorts of technical phrases, vaguely remembered, 
 ran through her mind. She would have to 
 recover her American citizenship — she and the 
 child. A domicile of six months in South 
 Dakota, or in Wyoming — a year in Phila- 
 delphia — she began to recall information 
 derived (jf old from Madeleine Verrier, wlio 
 had, of course, been forced to consider all 
 these things, and to weigh alternatives. Advice, 
 therefore, must be asked of lier at once — and 
 sympathy.
 
 1 88 DAPHNE 
 
 Suddenly, on her brooding, there broke a 
 wave of excitement. Life, instead of being 
 closed, as in a sense it is, for every married 
 woman, was in a moment open and vague 
 again ; the doors flung wide to flaming heavens. 
 An intoxication of recovered youth and free- 
 dom possessed her. The sleeping Roger re- 
 presented things intolerable and outworn. Why 
 should a woman of her gifts, of her opportuni- 
 ties, be chained for life to this commonplace 
 man, now that her passion was over ? — now 
 that she knew him for what he was, weak, 
 feather-brained, and vicious ? She looked at 
 him with a kind of exaltation, spuming him 
 from her path. 
 
 But the immediate future ! — the practical 
 steps ! What kind of evidence would she 
 want ? — what kind of witnesses ? Something 
 more, no doubt, of both than she had already. 
 She must wait — temporise — do nothing rashly. 
 If it was for Roger's good as well as her own 
 that they should be free of each other — and she 
 was fast persuading herself of this — she must, 
 for both their sakes, manage the hateful opera- 
 tion without bungling. 
 
 What was the alternative ? She seemed to 
 ask it of Roger, as she stood looking down upon 
 him. Patience ? — with a man who could never 
 sympathise with her intellectually or artistic- 
 ally ? — the relations of married life with a
 
 DAPHNE 189 
 
 husband who made assignations with an old 
 love, under the eyes of the whole neighbour- 
 hood ? — the narrowing, cramping influences of 
 English provincial society ? No ! she was born 
 for other and greater things, and she would 
 grasp them. " My first duty is to myself — to 
 my own development ! We have absolutely 
 no right to sacrifice ourselves — as women 
 have been taught to do for thousands of 
 years." 
 
 Bewildered by the rhetoric of her own 
 thoughts. Daphne returned to her seat by the 
 fire, and sat there wildly dreaming, till once 
 more recalled to practical possibilities by the 
 passage of the hours on the clock above 
 her. 
 
 Miss Farmer ? Everything, it seemed, de- 
 pended on her. But Daphne had no doubts 
 of her. Poor girl ! — with her poverty-stricken 
 home, her dninken fatlier lately dismissed from 
 his post, and her evident inchnation towards 
 this clever young fellow now employed in the 
 house — Daphne rejoiced to think of wliat money 
 could do, in this case at least ; of the reward 
 that should be waiting for tlie girl's devotion 
 when the moment came ; of tlie gifts already 
 made, and the gratitude already evoked. No ; 
 she could be trusted ; she had every reason to 
 be true. 
 
 Some fitful sleep came to her at last in the
 
 190 DAPHNE 
 
 morning hours. But when Roger awoke, she 
 was half-way through her dressing ; and when 
 he first saw h^r, he noticed nothing except that 
 she was paler than usual, and confessed to a 
 broken night. 
 
 But as the day wore on it became plain to 
 everybody at Heston— to Roger first and fore- 
 most — that something was much amiss. Daphne 
 would not leave her sitting-room and her sofa ; 
 she complained of headache and over-fatigue ; 
 would have nothing to say to the men at work 
 on the new decoration of the east wing of the 
 house, who were clamouring for directions ; 
 and would admit nobody but Miss Farm.er and 
 her maid. Roger forced his way in once, only 
 to be vanquished by the traditional weapons 
 of weakness, pallor, and silence. Her face con- 
 tracted and quivered as his step approached 
 her ; it was as though he trampled upon her ; 
 and he left her, awkwardly, on tiptoe, feeling 
 himself as intrusively brutal as she clearly 
 meant him to feel. 
 
 What on earth was the matter ? Some new 
 grievance against him, he supposed. After the 
 softening, the quasi-reconciliation of the day 
 before, his chagrin and disappointment were 
 great. Impossible she should know anytliing 
 of his ride with Chloe ! There was not a soul 
 in that wood ; and the place was twenty miles
 
 DAPHNE 191 
 
 from Heston. Again he felt the impulse to 
 blurt it all out to her ; but was simply repelled 
 and intimidated by this porcupine mood in 
 which she had wrapped herself. Better wait 
 at least till she was a little more normal 
 again. He went off disconsolately to a day's 
 shooting. 
 
 Meanwhile, his owti particular worry was 
 sharp enough. Chloe had taken advantage of 
 their casual tete-a-tete, as she had done before on 
 several occasions, to claim something of the 
 old relation, instead of accepting the new, like 
 a decent woman ; and in the face of the tempt- 
 ation offered him he had shown a weakness of 
 which not only his conscience but his pride was 
 ashamed. He realised perfectly that she had 
 been trying during the whole autumn to recover 
 her former hold on him, and he also saw clearly 
 and bitterly that he was not strong enough to 
 resist her, should lie continue to be thrown 
 with her ; and not clever enough to baffle her, 
 if her will were really set on recapturing 
 him. He was afraid of her, and afraid of 
 himself. 
 
 What, then, must he do ? As he tramped 
 about the wet fields and i)lantations with a 
 keeper and a few beaters after some scattered 
 pheasants, he was really, poor fellow ! arguing 
 out the riddle of his life. What would Her- 
 bert French advise him to do ? — supposing he
 
 192 DAPHNE 
 
 could put the question plainly to him, which of 
 course was not possible. He meant honestly 
 and sincerely to keep straight ; to do his duty 
 by Daphne and the child. But he was no 
 plaster saint, and he could not afford to give 
 Chloe Fairmile too many opportunities. To 
 break at once, to carry off Daphne and leave 
 Heston, at least for a time — that was the obvi- 
 ously prudent and reasonable course. But in 
 her present mood it was of no use for him to 
 propose it, tired as she seemed to be of Heston, 
 and disappointed in the neighbours : any plan 
 brought forward by him was doomed before- 
 hand. Well then, let him go himself ; he had 
 been so unhappy during the preceding weeks 
 it would be a jolly relief to turn his back on 
 Heston for a time. 
 
 But as soon as he had taken his departure, 
 Chloe perhaps would take hers ; and if so. 
 Daphne's jealousy would be worse than ever. 
 Whatever deserts he might place between him- 
 self and Mrs. Fairmile, Daphne would imagine 
 them together. 
 
 Meanwhile, there was that Lilliput bond, 
 that small, chafing entanglement, which Chloe 
 had flung round him in her persistence about 
 the letters. There was, no doubt, a horrid 
 scandal brewing about Mrs. Weightman, Chloe's 
 old friend— a friend of his own, too, in former 
 days. Through Chloe's unpardonable indiscre-
 
 DAPHNE X93 
 
 tions he knew a great deal more about this 
 lady's affairs than he had ever wished to know. 
 And he well remembered the letter in question ; 
 a letter on which the political life or death of 
 one of England's most famous men might easily 
 turn, supposing it got out. But the letter 
 was safe enough ; not the least likely to come 
 into dangerous hands, in spite of Chloe's absurd 
 hypotheses. It was somewhere, no doubt, 
 among the boxes in the locked room ; and who 
 could possibly get hold of it ? At the same 
 time he realised that as long as he had not 
 found and returned it she would still have a 
 certain claim upon him, a certain right to harass 
 him with inquiries and confidential interviews, 
 which, as a man of honour, he could not alto- 
 gether deny. 
 
 A pheasant got up across a ploughed field 
 where in the mild season the young corn was 
 already green. Roger shot, and missed ; the 
 bird floated gaily down the wind, and the head 
 keeper, in disgust, muttered bad language to 
 the underling beside him. 
 
 But after that Barnes was twice as cheer- 
 ful as before. He whistled as he walked ; his 
 shooting recovered ; and by the time the dark 
 fell, keepers and beaters were once more his 
 friends. 
 
 The fact was that just as he missed the 
 pheasant he had taken his resolution, and seen 
 
 N
 
 194 DAPHNE 
 
 his way. He would have another determined 
 hunt for that letter ; he would also find and 
 destroy his o\vn letters to Chloe — those she had 
 returned to him — which must certainly never 
 fall into Daphne's hands ; and then he would 
 go away to London or the North, to some place 
 whence he could write both to Chloe Fairmile 
 and to his wife. Women like Daphne were too 
 quick ; they could get out a dozen words to 
 your one ; but give a man time, and he could 
 express himself. And, therewith, a great ten- 
 derness and compunction in this man's heart, 
 and a steady determination to put things right. 
 For was not Daphne Beatty's mother ? and 
 was he not in truth very fond of her, if only she 
 would let him be ? 
 
 Now then for the hunt. As he had never 
 destroyed the letters, they must exist ; but, in 
 the name of mischief, where ? He seemed to 
 remember thrusting his own letters to Chloe 
 into a desk of his schoolboy days which used to 
 stand in his London sitting-room. Very likely 
 some of hers might be there too. But the 
 thought of his own had by now become a much 
 greater anxiety to him than the wish to placate 
 Chloe. For he was most uncomfortably aware 
 that his correspondence with Chloe during their 
 short engagement had been of a very different 
 degree of fervour from that shown in the letters 
 to Daphne under similar circumstances. As
 
 DAPHNE 195 
 
 for the indelicacy and folly of leaving such 
 documents to chance, he cursed it sorely. 
 
 How to look ? He pondered it. He did 
 not even know which attic it was that had 
 been reserved at the time of the letting of 
 Heston, and now held some of the old London 
 furniture and papers. Well, he must manage 
 it, " burgle " his own house, if necessary. What 
 an absurd situation ! Should he consult his 
 mother ? No ; better not. 
 
 That evening General Hobson was ex- 
 pected for a couple of nights. On going up 
 to dress for dinner, Roger discovered that he 
 had been banished to a room on the farther side 
 of the house, where his servant was now putting 
 out his clothes. He turned very white, and 
 went straight to his wife. 
 
 Daphne was on the sofa as before, and re- 
 ceived him in silence. 
 
 " What's the meaning of tliis, Daphne ? " 
 The tone was quiet, but the breathing 
 quick. 
 
 She looked at him — bracing herself. 
 
 " I nmst be alone ! I had no sleep last 
 night." 
 
 " You had neuralgia ? " 
 
 " I don't know — I had no sleep. I must be 
 alone." 
 
 His eyes and hers met.
 
 196 DAPHNE 
 
 " For to-niglit, then," he said briefly. " I 
 don't know what's the matter with you, Daphne, 
 and I suppose it's no use to ask you. I thought, 
 yesterday — but — however, there's no time to 
 talk now. Are you coming down to dinner ? " 
 
 " Not to dinner. I will come down for 
 an hour afterwards." 
 
 He went away, and before he had reached 
 his own room, and while the heat of his 
 sudden passion still possessed him, it occurred 
 to him that Daphne's behaviour might after 
 all prove a godsend. That night he would 
 make his search, with no risk of disturbing 
 his wife. 
 
 The dinner in the newly decorated dining- 
 room went heavily. Lady Barnes had grown 
 of late more and more anxious and depressed. 
 She had long ceased to assert herself in Daphne's 
 presence, and one saw her as the British matron 
 in adversity, buffeted by forces she did not 
 understand ; or as some minor despot snuffed 
 out by a stronger. 
 
 The General, who had only arrived just in 
 time to dress, inquired in astonishment for 
 Daphne, and was told b}^ Roger that his wife 
 was not well, but would come down for a little 
 while after dinner. In presence of the new 
 splendours of Heston, the General had — in 
 Roger's company — very little to say. He made
 
 DAPHNE 197 
 
 the vague remark that the dining-room was 
 " very fine," but he should not have known it 
 again. Where was the portrait of Edward, 
 and the full-length of Edward's father by Sir 
 Francis Grant ? Lady Barnes drew herself up, 
 and said nothing. Roger hastily replied that 
 he believed they were now in the passage lead- 
 ing to the billiard-room. 
 
 " \Vliat ! that dark corner ! " cried the 
 General, looking with both distaste and hos- 
 tility at the famous Signorelli — a full-length 
 nude St. Sebastian, bound and pierced — which 
 had replaced them on the dining-room wall. 
 Who on earth ever saw such a picture in 
 a dining-room ? Roger must be a fool to 
 allow it ! 
 
 Afterwards, the General and Lady Barnes 
 wandered through the transformed house, in 
 general agreement as to the ugliness and ex- 
 travagance of almost everything that had been 
 done — an agreement that was as balm to the 
 harassed spirits of the lady. 
 
 " Wliat have they spent ? " asked the 
 General, under his breath, as they returned to 
 the drawing-room — " thousands and thousands, 
 I should think ! And there was no need for 
 them to spend a penny. It is a sinful waste, 
 and no one should waste money in these days 
 — tliere are too many unemployed ! " He drew 
 up his spare person, with a terrier-like shake
 
 iq8 daphne 
 
 of the head and shoulders, as of one repudiat- 
 ing Mammon and all its works. 
 
 " Daphne has simply no idea of the value 
 of money ! " Lady Barnes complained, also 
 under her breath. They were passing along 
 one of the side corridors of the house, and there 
 was no one in sight. But Roger's mother was 
 evidently uneasy, as though Daphne might at any 
 moment spring from the floor, or emerge from 
 the walls. The General was really sorry for her. 
 
 " It's like all the rest of them — Americans, 
 I mean," he declared ; " they haven't our sense 
 of responsibility. I saw plenty of that in the 
 States." 
 
 Lady Barnes acquiesced. She was always 
 soothed by the General's unfaltering views of 
 British superiority. 
 
 They found Daphne in the drawing-room 
 — a ghostly Daphne, in white, and covered with 
 diamonds. She made a little perfunctory con- 
 versation with them, avoided all mention of 
 the house, and presently, complaining again of 
 headache, went back to her room after barely 
 an hour downstairs. 
 
 The General wliistled to himself, as he 
 also retired to bed, after another and more 
 private conversation with Lady Barnes, and 
 half an hour's billiards with a very absent- 
 minded host. By Jove, Laura wanted a 
 change ! He rejoiced that he was to escort
 
 DAPHNE 199 
 
 her on the morrow to the London house of 
 some cheerful and hospitable relations. Dol- 
 lars, it seemed, were not everything, and he 
 wished to heaven that Roger had been content 
 to marry some plain English girl, with, say, a 
 couple of thousand a year. Even the frugal 
 General did not see how it could have been 
 done on less. Roger no doubt had been a lazy, 
 self-indulgent beggar. Yet he seemed a good 
 deal steadier, and more sensible than he used 
 to be ; in spite of his wife, and the pouring 
 out of dollars. And there was no doubt that he 
 had grown perceptibly older. The General felt 
 a vague pang of regret, so rare and so compelling 
 had been the quality of Roger's early youth, 
 measured at least by physical standards. 
 
 The house sank into sleep and silence. 
 Roger, before saying good-night to his mother, 
 had let fall a casual question as to the where- 
 abouts of the room which still contained the 
 dibris of the London house. He must, he said, 
 look up two or three things, some share certifi- 
 cates of his father's, for instance, that he had 
 been in want of for some time. Lady Barnes 
 directed him. At the end of the nursery wing, 
 to the right. But in the morning one of the 
 housemaids would show him. Plad she the 
 key ? She produced it, thought no more of 
 it, and went to bed.
 
 200 DAPHNE 
 
 He waited in his room till after midnight, 
 then took off his shoes, his pride smarting, and 
 emerged. There was one electric light burning 
 in the hall below. This gave enough glimmer 
 on the broad open landing for him to grope his 
 way by, and he went noiselessly towards the 
 staircase leading up to Beatty's rooms. Once, 
 just as he reached it, he thought he caught the 
 faint noise of low talking somewhere in the 
 house, an indeterminate sound not to be located. 
 But when he paused to listen, it had ceased ; 
 and he supposed it to be only a windy murmur 
 of the night. 
 
 He gained the nursery wing. So far, of 
 course, the way was perfectly familiar. He 
 rarely passed an evening without going to kiss 
 Beatty in her cot. Outside the door of the 
 night-nursery he waited a moment to listen. 
 Was she snoozling among her blankets ? — the 
 darling ! She still sucked her thumb, some- 
 times, poor baby, to send her to sleep, and 
 it was another reason for discontent with 
 Miss Farmer that she would make a mis- 
 demeanour of it. Really, that woman got on 
 his nerves ! 
 
 Beyond the nursery he had no knowledge 
 whatever of his own house. The attics at 
 Heston were large and rambling. He believed 
 the servants were all in the other wing, but 
 was not sure ; he could only hope that he
 
 DAPHNE 201 
 
 might not stumble on some handmaiden's room 
 by mistake ! 
 
 A door to the right, at the end of the passage. 
 He tried the key. Thank goodness ! It turned 
 without too much noise, and he found himself 
 on the threshold of a big lumber-room, his 
 candle throwing lines of dusty light across it. 
 He closed the door, set down the light, and 
 looked round him in despair. The room was 
 crowded with furniture, trunks, and boxes, in 
 considerable confusion. It looked as though 
 the men employed to move them had piled 
 them there as they pleased ; and Roger shrewdly 
 suspected that his mother, from whom, in 
 spite of her square and businesslike appearance, 
 his own indolence was inherited, had shrunk 
 till now from the task of disturbing them. 
 
 He began to nimmage a little. Papers be- 
 longing to his father — an endless series of 
 them ; some in tin boxes marked with the 
 names of various companies, mining and other ; 
 some in leather cases, reminiscent of politics, 
 and labelled " Parliamentary " or " Local 
 Government Board." Trunks containing Court 
 suits, yeomanry uniforms, and the like ; a 
 medley of old account books, photographs, 
 worthless volumes, and broken ornaments : all 
 the refuse that our too complex life piles about 
 us was represented in the chaos of the room. 
 Roger pulled and pushed as cautiously as he
 
 202 DAPHNE 
 
 could, but making, inevitably, some noise in the 
 process. At last ! He caught sight of some 
 belongings of his own, and was soon joyfully 
 detaching the old Eton desk, of which he was 
 in search, from a pile of miscellaneous rubbish. 
 In doing so, to his dismay, he upset a couple of 
 old cardboard boxes filled with letters, and 
 they fell with some clatter. He looked round 
 instinctively at the door ; but it was shut, and 
 the house was well built, the walls and ceilings 
 reasonably sound-proof. The desk was only 
 latched — beastly carelessness, of course ! — and 
 inside it were three thick piles of letters, and a 
 few loose ones below. His own letters to Chloe ; 
 and — by George ! — the lost one ! — among the 
 others. He opened it eagerly, ran it through. 
 Yes, the very thing ! What luck ! He laid 
 it carefully aside a moment on a trunk 
 near by, and sat with the other letters on 
 his lap. 
 
 His fingers played with them. He almost 
 determined to take them down unopened, and 
 burn them, as they were, in his own room ; but 
 in the end he could not resist the temptation 
 to look at them once more. He pulled off an 
 indiarubber band from the latest packet, and 
 was soon deep in them, at first half ashamed, 
 half contemptuous. Calf love, of course ! And 
 he had been a precious fool to write such things. 
 Then, presently, the headlong passion of them
 
 DAPHNE 203 
 
 began to affect him, to set his pulses swinging. 
 He fell to wondering at his own bj^gone facility, 
 his own powers of expression. How did he 
 ever write such a style ! He, who could hardly 
 get through a note now without blots and labour. 
 Self-pity grew upon him, and self-admiration. 
 By heaven ! How could a woman treat a man 
 — a man who could write to her like this — as 
 Chloe had treated him ! 
 
 The old smart revived ; or rather, the old 
 indelible impressions of it left on nerve and 
 brain. 
 
 The letters lay on his knee. He sat brood- 
 ing : his hands upon the packets, his head 
 bowed. One might have thought him a man 
 overcome and dissolved by the enervating 
 memories of passion ; but in truth, he was 
 gradually and steadily reacting against them ; 
 resuming, and this time finally, as far as Chloe 
 Fairmile was concerned, a man's mastery of 
 himself. He thought of her unkindness and 
 cruelty — of the misery he had suffered — and 
 now of the reckless caprice with which, during 
 the preceding weeks, slie had tried to entangle 
 him afresh, witli no respect for his married life, 
 for his own or Dapline's peace of mind. 
 
 He judged lier, and therewith, liimself. 
 Looking back upon the four years since Cliloe 
 Fairmile had thrown him over, it seemed to 
 him that, in some ways, he had made a good
 
 204 DAPHNE 
 
 job of liis life, and, in others, a bad one. As to 
 the money, that was neither here nor there. 
 It had been amusing to have so much of it ; 
 though of late Daphne's constant reminders 
 that the fortune was hers and not his, had been 
 like grit in the mouth. But he did not find 
 that boundless wealth had made as much differ- 
 ence to him as he had expected. On the other 
 hand, he had been much happier with Daphne 
 than he had thought he should be, up to the 
 time of their coming to Heston. She wasn't 
 easy to live with, and she had been often, before 
 now, ridiculously jealous ; but you could not, 
 apparently, live with a woman without getting 
 very fond of her — he couldn't — especially if 
 she had given you a child ; and if Daphne had 
 turned against him now, for a bit — well, he 
 could not swear to himself that he had been 
 free from blame ; and it perhaps served him 
 right for having gone out deliberately to the 
 States to marry money — with a wife thrown 
 in — in that shabby sort of way. 
 
 But, now, to straighten out this coil ; to 
 shake himself finally free of Chloe, and make 
 Daphne happy again ! He vowed to himself 
 that he could and would make her happy — 
 just as she had been in their early days to- 
 gether. The memory of her lying white and 
 exhausted after child-birth, with the little dark 
 head beside her, came across him, and melted
 
 DAPHNE 205 
 
 him ; he thought of her with longing and 
 tenderness. 
 
 With a deep breath he raised himself on 
 his seat ; in the old Greek phrase, " the gods 
 breathed courage into his soul " ; and as he 
 stretched out an indifferent hand towards 
 Cliloe's letters on the trunk, Roger Barnes had 
 perhaps reached the highest point of his moral 
 history ; he had become conscious of himself 
 as a moral being choosing good or evil ; and 
 he had chosen good. It was not so much that 
 his conscience accused him greatly with regard 
 to Chloe. For that his normal standards were 
 not fine enough. It was rather a kind of 
 " serious call," something akin to conversion, 
 or that might have been conversion, which 
 befell him in this dusty room, amid the night- 
 silence. 
 
 As he took up Chloe's letters he did not 
 notice that the door had quietly opened 
 behind him, and that a figure stood on the 
 threshold. 
 
 A voice struck into the stillness. 
 
 " Roger ! " 
 
 He turned with a movement that scattered 
 all his own letters on the floor. Daphne stood 
 before him — but with the eyes of a mad woman. 
 Her hand shook on the handle of the door. 
 
 " What are you doing here ? " She flung 
 out the question like a blow.
 
 2o6 DAPHNE 
 
 " Hallo, Daphne !— is that you ? " He tried 
 to laugh. " I'm only looking up some old 
 papers; no joke, in all this rubbish." He 
 pointed to it. 
 
 " What old papers ? " 
 
 " Well, you needn't catechise me 1" he 
 said, nettled by her tone, " or not in that way, 
 at any rate. I couldn't sleep, and I came up 
 here to look for something I wanted. Wliy 
 did you shut your door on me ? " 
 
 He looked at her intently, his lips twitch- 
 ing a little. Daphne came nearer. 
 
 " It must be something you want very 
 badly — something you don't want other people 
 to see — something you're ashamed of ! — or you 
 wouldn't be searching for it at this time of 
 night." She raised her eyes, still with the 
 same strange yet flaming quiet, from the Uttered 
 floor to his face. Then suddenly glancing again 
 at the scattered papers — " That's your hand- 
 writing !— they're your letters !— letters to Mrs. 
 Fairmile ! " 
 
 " Well, and what do you make of that ? " 
 cried Roger, half wroth, half inclined to laugh. 
 " If you want to know, they are the letters I 
 wrote to Chloe Fairmile ; and I, like a careless 
 beast, never destroyed them, and they were 
 stuffed away here. I have long meant to get 
 at them and burn them, and as you turned me 
 out to-night "
 
 DAPHNE 207 
 
 " What is that letter in your hand ? " ex- 
 claimed Daphne, interrupting him. 
 
 " Oh, that has nothing to do with you — or 
 
 me " he said, hastily making a movement 
 
 to put it in his coat pocket. But in a second, 
 Daphne, with a cry, had thrown herself upon 
 him, to his intense amazement, wrestling with 
 him, in a wild excitement. And as she did so, 
 a thin woman, with frightened eyes, in a nurse's 
 dress, came quickly into the room, as though 
 Daphne's cry had signalled to her. She was 
 behind Roger, and he was not aware of her 
 approach. 
 
 " Daphne, don't be such a little fool ! " he 
 said indignantly, holding her off with one 
 hand, determined not to give her the letter. 
 
 Then, all in a moment — without, as it 
 seemed to him, any but the mildest defensive 
 action on his part — Daphne stumbled and fell. 
 
 " Daphne !— I say ! " 
 
 He was stooping over her in great distress 
 to lift her up, when he felt himself vehemently 
 put aside by a woman's hand. 
 
 " You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sir ! 
 Let me go to her." 
 
 He turned in bewilderment. " Miss Far- 
 mer ! What on earth are you doing here ? " 
 
 But in his astonishment he had given way 
 to her, and he fell back pale and frowning, 
 while, without replying, she lifted Daphne —
 
 2o8 DAPHNE 
 
 who had a cut on her forehead and was half 
 fainting — from the ground. 
 
 " Don't come near her, sir ! " said the nurse, 
 again warding him off. " You have done quite 
 enough. Let me attend to her." 
 
 " You imagine that was my doing ? " said 
 Roger grimly. " Let me assure you it was 
 nothing of the kind. And pray, were you 
 listening at the door ? " 
 
 Miss Farmer vouchsafed no reply. She was 
 half leading, half supporting Daphne, who leant 
 against her. As they neared the door, Roger, 
 who had been standing dumb again, started 
 forward. 
 
 Let me take her," he said sternly. 
 Daphne ! — send this woman away." 
 
 But Daphne only shuddered, and putting 
 out a shaking hand, she waved him from 
 her. 
 
 " You see in what a state she is ! " cried Miss 
 Farmer, with a withering look. "If you must 
 speak to her, put it off, sir, at least till to- 
 
 
 morrow." 
 
 Roger drew back. A strange sense of in- 
 explicable disaster rushed upon him. He 
 sombrely watched them pass through the door 
 and disappear. 
 
 Daphne reached her own room. As the 
 door closed upon them she turned to her com-
 
 DAPHNE 209 
 
 panion, holding out the handkerchief stained 
 with blood she had been pressing to her temple. 
 
 " You saw it all ? " she said imperiously 
 — " the whole thing ? " 
 
 " All," said Miss Farmer. " It's a mercy 
 you're not more hurt." 
 
 Daphne gave a hysterical laugh. 
 
 " It'll just do— I think it'll just do ! But 
 you'll have to make a good deal out of it." 
 
 And sinking down by the fire, she burst 
 into a passion of wild tears. 
 
 The nurse brought her sal volatile, and 
 Wcished the small cut above her eyebrow. 
 
 " It was lucky we heard him," she said 
 triumphantly. " I guessed at once he must 
 be looking for something — I knew that room 
 was full of papers." 
 
 A knock at the door startled them. 
 
 " Never mind." Tlie nurse hurried across 
 the room. " It's locked." 
 
 " How is my wife ? " said Roger's strong 
 and, as it seemed, threatening voice outside. 
 
 " She'U be all right, sir, T hope, if you'll 
 leave her to rest. But I won't answer for the 
 consequences if she's disturbed any more." 
 
 There was a pause, as thougli of hesitation. 
 Then Roger's steps receded. 
 
 Daphne pushed her hair back from her face, 
 and sat staring into the fire. Everything 
 was decided now. Yet she had rushed up- 
 
 o
 
 2IO DAPHNE 
 
 stairs on Miss Farmer's information with no 
 definite purpose. She only knew that — once 
 again — Roger was hiding something from her 
 — doing something secret and disgraceful — and 
 she suddenly resolved to surprise and confront 
 him. With a mind still vaguely running on 
 the legal aspects of what she meant to do, she 
 had bade the nurse follow her. The rest had 
 been half spontaneous, half acting. It had 
 struck her imagination midway how the inci- 
 dent could be turned — and used. 
 
 She was triumphant ; but from sheer ex- 
 citement she wept and sobbed through the 
 greater part of the night.
 
 PART III 
 
 "Lfl vie est un orage, soit. Nous sommes ovage et con- 
 vulsion nous-mcntes. Laissons nous alley a cctte hi qui 
 emporte tout dans l'abime,ct il n'y a plus de societe, plus 
 d'huinaniti, plus rien."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 It was a cheerless February day, dark and 
 slaty overhead, dusty below. In the East 
 End streets paper and straw, children's curls, 
 girls' pinafores and women's skirts were driven 
 back and forward by a bitter wind ; there 
 was an ugly light on ugly houses, with none of 
 that kind trickery of mist or smoke which can 
 lend some grace on normal days even to Com- 
 mercial Street, or to the network of lanes north 
 of the Bethnal Green Road. The pitiless wind 
 swept the streets — swept the children and the 
 grown-ups out of them into the houses, or any 
 available shelter ; and in the dark and chilly 
 emptiness of the side roads one might listen in 
 fancy for the stealthy returning steps of spirits 
 crueller than Cold, more tyrannous than Poverty, 
 coming to seize upon their own. 
 
 In one of these side streets stood a house 
 larger than its neighbours, in a bit of front 
 garden, with some decrepit rust-bitten railings 
 between it and the road. It was an old dwell- 
 ing overtaken by the flood of tenement houses, 
 which spread north, souti), east, and west of 
 
 2IJ
 
 214 DAPHNE 
 
 it. Its walls were no less grimy than its neigh- 
 bours' ; but its windows were outlined in cheer- 
 ful white paint, firelight sparkled through its 
 unshuttered panes, and a bright green door 
 with a brass knocker completed its pleasant 
 air. There were always children outside the 
 Vicarage railings on winter evenings, held there 
 by the spell of the green door and the firelight. 
 
 Inside the firelit room to the left of the front 
 pathway, two men were standing — one of whom 
 had just entered the house. 
 
 " My dear Penrose ! — how very good of you 
 to come. I know how frightfully busy you are." 
 
 The man addressed put down his hat and 
 stick, and hastily smoothed back some tumbling 
 black hair which interfered with spectacled 
 eyes already hampered by short sight. He 
 was a tall, lank, powerful fellow ; anyone 
 acquainted with the West-country would have 
 known him for one of the swarthy, grey-eyed 
 Cornish stock. 
 
 " I am pretty busy — but your tale, Her- 
 bert, was a startler. If I can help you — or 
 Barnes — command me. He is coming this 
 afternoon ? " 
 
 Herbert French pointed his visitor to a 
 chair. 
 
 " Of course. And another man — whom I 
 met casually, in Pall Mall this morning — and 
 had half an hour's talk with — an American
 
 DAPHNE 215 
 
 naval officer — an old acquaintance of Elsie's — 
 Captain Boyson — will join us also. I met him 
 at Harvard before our wedding, and liked him. 
 He has just come over with his sister for a short 
 holiday, and I ran across him." 
 
 " Is there any particular point in his join- 
 ing us ? " 
 
 Herbert French expounded. Boyson had 
 been an old acquaintance of Mrs. Roger Barnes' 
 before her marriage. He knew a good deal 
 about the Barnes story — " feels, so I gathered, 
 very strongly about it, and on the man's side ; 
 and when I told him that Roger had just 
 arrived and was coming to take counsel with 
 you and me this afternoon, he suddenly asked 
 if he might come, too. I was rather taken 
 aback. I told him that we were going, of 
 course, to consider the case entirely from the 
 English point of view. He still said, ' Let me 
 come ; I may be of use to you.' So I could 
 only reply it must rest with Roger. They'll 
 show him first into the dining-room." 
 
 Penrose nodded. " All right, as long as 
 he doesn't mind his national toes trampled 
 upon. So these are your new quarters, old 
 fellow ? " 
 
 His eyes travelled round the small book-lined 
 room, with its shelves of poetry, history, and 
 theology ; its parish litter ; its settle by the 
 fire, on wliicli lav a doll and a child's picture-
 
 2i6 DAPHNE ' 
 
 book ; back to the figure of the new vicar, | 
 
 who stood, pipe in hand, before the hearth, ' 
 
 clad in a shabby serge suit, his collar alone 
 
 betraying him. French's white hair showed i 
 
 even whiter than of old above the delicately ' 
 
 blanched face ; from his natural slendemess I 
 
 and smallness the East End and its life had J 
 
 by now stripped every superfluous ounce ; yet, 
 
 ethereal as his aspect was, not one element of '■ 
 
 the Meredithian trilogy— " flesh," ''blood," or : 
 
 " spirit " — v/as lacking in it. i 
 
 " Yes, we've settled in," he said quietly, as j 
 
 Penrose took stock. | 
 
 " And you hke it ? " I 
 
 " We do." j 
 
 The phrase was brief ; nor did it seem to j 
 
 be going to lead to an3^thing more expansive. ■ 
 
 Penrose smiled. 
 
 "Well, now" — he bent forward, with a pro- : 
 fessional change of tone — " before he arrives, .: 
 where precisely is this unhapp}^ business ? I i 
 gather, by the way, that Barnes has got prac- 
 tically all his legal advice from the other | 
 side, though the solicitors here have been co- | 
 operating ? " 
 
 French nodded. " I am still rather vague | 
 myself. Roger only arrived from New York 
 
 the day before yesterday. His uncle, General ' 
 
 Hobson, died a few weeks ago, and Roger came | 
 
 rushing home, as I understand, to see if he \
 
 DAPHNE 217 
 
 could make an}' ready money out of his in- 
 heritance, ^loney, in fact, seems to be his 
 chief thought." 
 
 " Money ? What for ? Mrs. Barnes's suit 
 was surely settled long ago ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes— months ago. She got her decree 
 and the custody of the child in July." 
 
 " Remind me of the details. Barnes re- 
 fused to plead ? " 
 
 " Certainly. By the advice of the lawyers 
 on both sides, he refused, as an EngUshman, to 
 acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court." 
 
 " But he did what he could to stop the 
 thing ? " 
 
 " Of course. He rushed out after his wife 
 as soon as he could trace where she had gone ; 
 and he made the most desperate attempts to 
 alter her purpose. His letters, as far as I could 
 make them out, were heart-rending. I very 
 nearly went over to try and help him, but it 
 was impossible to leave my work. Mrs. Barnes 
 refused to see him. She was already at Sioux 
 Falls, and had begun the residence necessary 
 to bring her within the jurisdiction of the Soutli 
 Dakota Court. Roger, however, forced one or 
 two interviews with her — most painful scenes ! 
 — but found lier quite immovable. At the 
 same time she was mucli annoyed and excited 
 by the legal line tliat he was advised to take ; 
 and there was a moment wlien she tried to
 
 2i8 DAPHNE 
 
 bribe him to accept the divorce and submit 
 to the American court." 
 
 " To bribe him ! With money ? " 
 " No ; with the child. Beatty at first was 
 hidden away, and Roger could find no traces 
 of her. But for a few weeks she was sent to 
 stay with a Mrs. Verrier at Philadelphia, and 
 Roger was allowed to see her, while Mrs. Barnes 
 negotiated. It was a frightful dilemma ! If 
 he submitted, Mrs. Barnes promised that Beatty 
 should go to him for two months every year ; 
 if not, and she obtained her decree, and the 
 custody of the child, as she was quite confident 
 of doing, he should never — as far as she could 
 secure it — see Beatty again. He, too, fore- 
 saw that she would win her suit ; he was 
 sorely tempted ; but he stood firm. Then, 
 before he could make up his mind what to do 
 as to the child, the suit came on, Mrs. Barnes 
 got her decree, and the custody of the little 
 
 girl." 
 
 " On the ground of ' cruelty,' I understand, 
 and * indignities ' ? " 
 
 French nodded. His thin cheek flushed. 
 
 " And by the help of evidence that any 
 liar could supply ! " 
 
 " Who were her witnesses ? " 
 
 " Beatty' s nurse — one Agnes Farmer — and 
 a young fellow who had been employed on the 
 decorative work at Heston. There were rela-
 
 DAPHNE 219 
 
 tions between these two, and Roger tells me 
 they have married latel3^ on a partnership 
 bought by Mrs. Barnes. While the work was 
 going on at Heston the yomig man used to put 
 up at an inn in the country town, and talk 
 scandal at the bar." 
 
 " Then there was some local scandal — on 
 the subject of Barnes and Mrs. Fairmile ? " 
 
 " Possibly. Scandal pour rive ! Not a soul 
 believed that there was anything more in it 
 than mischief on the woman's side, and a kind 
 of incapacity for dealing with a woman as she 
 deserved, on the man's. Mrs. Fairmile has 
 been an mtrigante from her cradle. Barnes was 
 at one time deeply in love 's\ith her. His wife 
 became jealous of her after the marriage, and 
 threw them together, by way of getthig at the 
 truth, and he shilly-shaJlicd with the situation, 
 instead of putting a prompt end to it, as of 
 course he ought to have done. He was honestly 
 fond of his wife the whole time, and devoted 
 to his home and his child." 
 
 " Well, she didn't plead, you say, anything 
 more than ' cruelty ' and ' indignities.' The 
 scandal, such as it was, was no doubt part of 
 the ' cruelty ' ? " 
 
 French assented. 
 
 " And you suspect that money played a 
 great part in the whole transaction ? " 
 
 " I don't S2ispecl — the evidence goes a long
 
 220 DAPHNE 
 
 way beyond that. Mrs. Barnes bought the 
 show ! I am toid there are a thousand ways of 
 doing it." 
 
 Penrose smoked and pondered. 
 
 *' Well, then — what happened ? I imagine 
 that by this time Barnes had not much affec- 
 tion left for his wife ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said French, hesitating. 
 " I believe the whole thing was a great blow 
 to him. He was never passionately in love 
 with her, but he was very fond of her in his 
 own way — increasingly fond of her — up to that 
 miserable autumn at Heston. However, after 
 the decree, his one thought was for Beatty. 
 His whole soul has been wrapped up in that 
 child from the first moment she was put into 
 his arms. When he first realised that his 
 wife meant to take her from him, Boyson tells 
 me that he seemed to lose his head. He was 
 like a person unnerved and bewildered, not 
 knowing how to act or where to turn. First of 
 all, he brought an action — a writ of habeas 
 corpus, I think — to recover his daughter, as an 
 English subject. But the fact was he had put 
 it off too long " 
 
 " Naturally," said Penrose, with a shrug. 
 " Not much hope for him — after the decree." 
 
 "So he discovered, poor old fellow ! The 
 action was, of course, obstructed and delayed 
 in every way, by the power of Mrs. Barnes's
 
 DAPHNE 221 
 
 millions behind the scenes. His lawyers told 
 him plainly from the beginning that he had 
 precious little chance. And presently he found 
 himself the object of a press campaign in some 
 of the yellow papers — all of it paid for and 
 engineered by his v/ife. He was held up as 
 the brutal fortune-hunting Englishman, who 
 had beguiled an American heiress to marry him, 
 had carried her off to England to live upon her 
 money, had then insulted her by scandalous 
 flirtations with a lady to whom he had formerly 
 been engaged, had sho\vn her constant rude- 
 ness and unkindness, and had finally, in the 
 course of a quarrel, knocked her down, inflicting 
 shock and injury from which she had suffered 
 ever since. Mrs. Barnes had happily freed her- 
 self from him, but he was now trying to bully 
 her through the child — had, it was said, 
 threatened to carry off the little girl by vio- 
 lence. Mrs. Barnes went in terror of him. 
 America, however, would know how to pro- 
 tect both the mother and the child ! You can 
 imagine the kind of thing. Well, very soon 
 Roger began to find himself a marked man in 
 hotels, followed in the streets, persecuted by 
 interviewers ; and the stream of lies that found 
 its way even into the respectable newspapers 
 about him, his former life, his habits, etc., is 
 simj)]y incredible ! Unfortunately, he gave 
 some handle "
 
 222 DAPHNE 
 
 French paused a moment. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Penrose, " I have heard 
 rumours." 
 
 French rose and began to pace the room. 
 
 " It is a matter I can hardly speak of 
 calmly," he said at last. " The night after 
 that first scene between them, the night of her 
 fall — her pretended fall, so Roger told me — he 
 went downstairs in his excitement and misery, 
 and drank, one way and another, nearly a 
 bottle of brandy, a thing he had never done in 
 his life before. But " 
 
 " He has often done it since ? " 
 
 French raised his shoulders sadly, then 
 added, with some emphasis, " Don't, however, 
 suppose the thing worse than it is. Give him 
 a gleam of hope and happiness, and he would 
 soon shake it off." 
 
 " Well, what came of his action ? " 
 
 " Nothing — so far. I believe he has ceased 
 to take any interest in it. Another line of 
 action altogether was suggested to him. About 
 three months ago he made an attempt to kid- 
 nap the child, and was foiled. He got word 
 that she had been taken to Charlestown, and 
 he went there with a couple of private detec- 
 tives. But Mrs. Barnes was on the alert, and 
 when he discovered the villa in which the child 
 had been living, she had been removed. It 
 was a bitter shock and disappointment, and
 
 DAPHNE 223 
 
 when he got back to New York in November, in 
 the middle of an epidemic, he was struck down 
 by influenza and pneumonia. It went pretty 
 hard with him. You will be shocked by his 
 appearance. Ecco ! was there ever such a 
 story ! Do you remember, Penrose, what a 
 magnificent creature he was that year he played 
 for Oxford, and j^ou and I watched his innings 
 from the pavilion ? " 
 
 There was a note of emotion in the tone 
 which implied much. Penrose assented heartily, 
 remarking, however, that it was a magnifi- 
 cence which seemed to have cost him dear, if, 
 as no doubt was the case, it had won him his 
 wife. 
 
 " But now, with regard to money ; 3^ou say 
 he wants money. But surely, at the time 
 of the marriage, something was settled on 
 him ? " 
 
 " Certainly, a good deal. But from the 
 moment she left him, and tlie Heston bills were 
 paid, he has never touched a farthing of it, 
 and never will." 
 
 " So that the General's deatli was oppor- 
 tune ? Well, it's a deplorable affair ! And I 
 wish I saw any cliance of being of use." 
 
 French looked up anxiously. 
 
 " Because you know," the speaker reluct- 
 antly continued, " there's nothing to be done. 
 The thing's finished."
 
 224 DAPHNE 
 
 "Finished?" French's manner took fire. 
 " And the law can do nothing ! Society can do 
 nothing, to help that man either to right him- 
 self, or to recover his child ? Ah ! " — he paused 
 to listen — " here he is ! " 
 
 A cab had drawn up outside. Through the 
 lightly curtained windows the two within saw 
 a man descend from it, pay the driver, and 
 walk up the flagged passage leading to the front 
 door. 
 
 French hurried to greet the new-comer. 
 
 " Come in, Roger ! Here's George Penrose 
 — as I promised you. Sit down, old man. 
 They'll bring us some tea presently." 
 
 Roger Barnes looked round him for a moment 
 without replying ; then murmured something 
 unintelligible, as he shook hands with Penrose, 
 and took the chair which French pushed for- 
 ward. French stood beside him with a furrowed 
 brow. 
 
 " Well, here we are, Roger ! — and if there's 
 anything whatever in this horrible affair where 
 an English lawyer can help you, Penrose is 
 your man. You know, I expect, what a swell 
 he is ? A K.C. after seven years — lucky dog ! 
 — and last year he was engaged in an Anglo- 
 American case not wholly unlike yours — Brown 
 V. Brown. So I thought of him as the best 
 person among your old friends and mine to 
 come and give us some private informal help
 
 DAPHNE 225 
 
 to-day, before you take any fresh steps — if you 
 do take an}^" 
 
 " Awfully good of you both." The speaker, 
 still wrapped in his fur coat, sat staring at the 
 carpet, a liand on each of his knees. " Awfully 
 good of you," he repeated vaguely. 
 
 Penrose observed the new-comer. In some 
 ways Roger Barnes was handsomer than ever. 
 His colour, the pink and white of his astonish- 
 ing complexion, was miraculously vivid ; his 
 blue ej^es were infinitely more arresting than 
 of old ; and the touch of physical weakness 
 in his aspect, left evidently by severe illness, 
 was not only not disfiguring, but a positive 
 embellishment. He had been too ruddy in the 
 old days, too hearty and splendid — a too obvi- 
 ous and supreme king of men — for our fas- 
 tidious Hiodem eyes. The grief and misfortune 
 which had sliorn some of his radiance had 
 given a more human spell to wliat remained. 
 At the same time the signs of change were by 
 no means, all of them, easy to read, or reassur- 
 ing to a friend's eye. Were they no more tlian 
 physical and transient ? 
 
 Penrose was just beginning on tlie ques- 
 tions which seemed to him inii)ortant, when 
 there was another ring at tlie front door. French 
 got up nervousl}', with an anxious look at 
 Barnes. 
 
 " Roger ! T don't know wlictlier you will
 
 226 DAPHNE 
 
 allow it, but I met an American acquaintance 
 of yours to-day, and, subject to your permis- 
 sion, I asked him to join our conference." 
 
 Roger raised his head — it might have been 
 thought, angrily. 
 
 " Who on earth ? " 
 
 " Captain Bo3^son ? " 
 
 The young man's face changed. 
 
 " I don't mind him," he said sombrely. 
 " He's an awfully good sort. He was in Phila- 
 delphia a few months ago, when I was. He 
 knows all about me. It was he and his sister 
 who introduced me to — my wife." 
 
 French left the room for a moment, and re- 
 turned accompanied by a fair-haired, straight- 
 shouldered man, whom he introduced to Pen- 
 rose as Captain Boyson. 
 
 Roger rose from his chair to shake hands. 
 
 " How do you do, Boyson ? I've told them 
 3'.ou know all about it." He dropped back 
 heavily into his seat. 
 
 " I thought I might possibly put in a word," 
 said the new-comer, glancing from Roger to his 
 friends. " I trust I was not impertinent ? But 
 don't let me interrupt anj^thing that was going 
 on." 
 
 On a plea of chill, Boyson remained stand- 
 ing by the fire, warming his hands, looking 
 down upon the other three. Penrose, who 
 belonged to a military family, reminded him-
 
 DAPHNE 227 
 
 self, as he glanced at the American, of a recent 
 distinguished book on Military Geograph\^ b}" 
 a Captain Alfred Boyson. No doubt the same 
 man. A capable face ! — the face of the modern 
 scientific soldier. It breathed alertness ; but 
 also some quality warmer and softer. If the 
 general aspect had been shaped and moulded 
 by an incessant travail of brain, the humanity 
 of e3^e and mouth spoke dumbly to the humanit}^ 
 of others. The council gathered in the vicarage 
 room felt itself strengthened. 
 
 Penrose resumed his questioning of Barnes, 
 and the other two listened while the wliole 
 miserable story of the divorce, in its American 
 aspects, unrolled. At first Roger showed a cer- 
 tain apathy and brevity ; he might have been 
 fulfiUing a task in which he took but small 
 interest ; even the details of chicanery and 
 corruption connected with the trial were told 
 without heat ; he said nothing bitter of his 
 wife — avoided naming her, indeed, as mucli as 
 possible. 
 
 But when the talc was done he threw back 
 his head with sudden animation and looked at 
 Boyson. 
 
 " Is that about the truth, Boyson ? You 
 know." 
 
 " Yes, I endorse it," said tlie American 
 gravely. His face, thin and tanned, liad fiusliod 
 while Barnes was speaking.
 
 228 DAPHNE 
 
 " And you know what all their papers said 
 of me — what they wished people to believe — 
 that I wasn't fit to have charge of Beatty 
 — that I should have done her harm ? " 
 
 His eyes sparkled. He looked almost 
 threateningly at the man whom he addressed. 
 Boyson met his gaze quietly. 
 
 " I didn't believe it." 
 
 There was a pause. Then Roger sprang 
 suddenly to his feet, confronting the men round 
 him. 
 
 " Look here ! " he said impatiently. " I 
 want some money at once — and a good lot of 
 it." He brought his fist down heavily on the 
 mantelpiece. " There's this place of my uncle's, 
 and I'm dashed if I can get a penny out of it ! 
 1 went to his solicitors this morning. They 
 drove me mad with their red-tape nonsense. 
 It will take some time, they say, to get a mort- 
 gage on it, and meanwhile they don't seem 
 inclined to advance me anything, or a hundred 
 or two, perhaps. What's that ? I lost my 
 temper, and next time I go they'll turn me out, 
 I dare say. But there's the truth. It's money I 
 want, and if you can't help me to money it's 
 no use talking." 
 
 " And when you get the money what'U you 
 do with it ? " asked Penrose. 
 
 " Pay half a dozen people who can be 
 trusted to help me kidnap Beatty and smuggle
 
 DAPHNE 229 
 
 her over the Canadian frontier. I bungled the 
 thing once. I don't mean to bungle it again." 
 
 The answer was given slowly, without any 
 bravado, but whatever energy of life there was 
 in the speaker had gone into it. 
 
 " And there is no other way ? " French's 
 voice from tlie back was troubled. 
 
 " Ask him ? " Roger pointed to Boyson. 
 " Is there any legal way, Boyson, in which I can 
 recover the custody and companionship of my 
 child ? " 
 
 Bo3^son turned away. 
 
 " None that I know of — and I have made 
 every possible inquiry." 
 
 " And yet," said Barnes, with emphasis, 
 addressing the English barrister, " by the law 
 of England I am still Daphne's husband and 
 that cliild's legal guardian ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " And if I could once get her upon ground 
 under the English flag, she would be mine 
 again, and no power could take her from 
 me ? " 
 
 " Except the same private violence that 
 you yourself ])roposc to exercise." 
 
 "I'd take care of tliat ! " said Roger briefly. 
 
 " I low do you mean to do it ? " asked 
 French, with knit brows. To be sitting there 
 in an English vicarage plotting violence against 
 a woman disturbed him.
 
 230 DAPHNE 
 
 ({ 
 
 He aiid I'll manage it," said the quiet 
 voice of the American officer. 
 
 The others stared. 
 
 " You ? " said French. " An officer in 
 active service ? It might injure your career ! " 
 
 " I shall risk it." 
 
 A charming smile broke on Penrose's medita- 
 tive face. 
 
 " My dear French, this is much more amus- 
 ing than the law. But I don't quite see where 
 / come in." He rose tentatively from his seat. 
 
 Boj^son, however, did not smile. He looked 
 from one to the other. 
 
 " My sister and I introduced Daphne Floyd 
 to Barnes," he said steadily, " and it is my 
 country, as I hold — or a portion of it — that 
 allows the«e villainies. Some day we shall 
 get a great reaction in the States, and then 
 tlie reforms that plenty of us are clamouring 
 for will come about. Meanwhile, as of course 
 you know " — he addressed French — " New 
 Yorkers and Bostonians suffer almost as much 
 from the abominations that Nevada and South 
 Dakota call laws, as Barnes has suffered. 
 ]\Iarriage in the eastern States is as sacred as 
 with you — South Carolina allows no divorce 
 at all — but with tliis licence at our gates, no 
 one is safe, and thousands of our women, in 
 particular — for the women bring two-thirds of 
 the actions — are going to the deuce, simply
 
 DAPHNE -31 
 
 because they have the opportunity of going. 
 And the cliildren— it doesn't bear thinking of ! 
 Well — no good haranguing ! I'm ashamed of 
 my country in this matter — I have been for a 
 long time — and I mean to help Barnes out, 
 cotite que coute ! And as to the money, Barnes, 
 you and I'll discuss that." 
 
 Barnes lifted a face that quivered, and he 
 and Boy son exchanged looks. 
 
 Penrose glanced at the pair. That imagina- 
 tive power, combined with the power of 
 drudgery, which was in process of making a 
 great lawyer out of a Balliol scholar, showed 
 him something typical and dramatic in the 
 two figures : — in Boyson, on the one hand, so 
 lithe, serviceable, and resolved, a helpful, mer- 
 curial man, ashamed of his country in this one 
 respect, because he adored her in so many 
 others, penitent and patriot in one : — in Barnes, 
 on the other, so heavy, inert, and bewildered, 
 a shipwrecked suppliant as it were, clinging to 
 the knees of that very America wliich liad so 
 lightly and irresponsibly wronged him. 
 
 It was Penrose who broke the silence. 
 
 " Is there any cliance of Mrs. Barnes's 
 marrying again ? " he asked. 
 
 Barnes turned to him. 
 
 " Not that I know of." 
 
 " There's no one else in tlic case ? " 
 
 " I never heard of anyone." Roger gave a
 
 232 DAPHNE 
 
 short, excited laugh. " What she's done, she's 
 done because she was tired of me, not because 
 she was in love with anyone else. That was her 
 great score in the divorce case — that there was 
 nobody." 
 
 Biting and twisting his lip, in a trick 
 that recalled to French the beautiful Eton 
 lad, cracking his brains in the pupil-room over 
 a bit of Latin prose, Roger glanced, frown- 
 ing, from one to the other of these three men 
 who felt for him, whose resentment of the 
 wrong that had been done him, whose pity for 
 his calamity showed plainly enough through 
 their reticent speech. 
 
 His sense, indeed, of their sympathy began 
 to move him, to break down his own self- 
 command. No doubt, also, the fatal causes 
 that ultimately ruined his will-power were 
 already at work. At any rate, he broke out 
 into sudden speech about his case. His com- 
 plexion, now unhealthily delicate, like the 
 complexion of a girl, had flushed deeply. As 
 he spoke he looked mainly at French. 
 
 ** There's lots of things you don't know," 
 he said in a hesitating voice, as though appeal- 
 ing to his old friend. And rapidly he told the 
 story of Daphne's flight from Heston. Evi- 
 dently since his return home many details that 
 were once obscure had become plain to him ; 
 and the three listeners could perceive how
 
 DAPHNE 233 
 
 certain new information had goaded and stung 
 him afresh. He dwelt on the letters which 
 had reached him during his first week's absence 
 from home, after the quarrel — letters from 
 Daphne and Miss Farmer, which were posted 
 at intervals from Heston by their accom- 
 plice, the young architect, while the writers of 
 them were hurrying across the Atlantic. The 
 servants had been told that Mrs. Barnes, Miss 
 Farmer, and the little girl were going to London 
 for a day or two, and suspected nothing. " I 
 wrote long letters — lots of them — to my wife. 
 I thought I had made everything right — not 
 that there ever had been anything wrong, 3^ou 
 understand, — seriously. But in some ways I 
 had behaved like a fool." 
 
 He threw himself back in his chair, pressing 
 his hands on his eyes. The listeners sat or 
 stood motionless. 
 
 " Well, I might have spared my pains. The 
 letters were returned to me from the States. 
 Dai)hne had arranged it all so cleverly tliat 
 I was some time in tracing her. By the time I 
 had got to Sioux Falls she was through a month 
 of her necessary residence. My God ! " — his 
 voice dropped, became almost inaudible — " if 
 I'd only carried 15eatty off tJicn! — then and 
 there — the frontier wasn't far off — without wait- 
 ing for anything more. But I wouldn't believe 
 that Daplnie could persist in such a monstrous
 
 234 DAPHNE 
 
 thing, and, if she did, that any decent country 
 would aid and abet her." 
 
 Boyson made a movement of protest, as 
 though he could not listen any longer in 
 silence. 
 
 " I am ashamed to remind you, Barnes, 
 — again — that your case is no worse than that 
 of scores of American citizens. We are the 
 first to suffer from our own enormities." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Barnes absently, " per- 
 haps." 
 
 His impulse of speech dropped. He sat, 
 drearil}^ staring into the fire, absorbed in recol- 
 lection. 
 
 Penrose had gone. So had Boyson. Roger 
 was sitting by the fire in the vicar's study, 
 ininistered to by Elsie French and her children. 
 By common consent the dismal subject of the 
 day had been put aside. There was an attempt 
 to cheer and distract him. The little boy of 
 four was on his knee, declaiming the " Owl and 
 the Pussy Cat," while Roger submissively turned 
 the pages and pointed to the pictures of that 
 immortal history. The little girl of two, curled 
 up on her mother's lap close by, listened sleepily, 
 and Elsie, applauding and prompting as a 
 properly regulated mother should, was all the 
 time, in spirit, hovering pitifully about her 
 guest and his plight. There was in her, as in
 
 " blie wd., Uiu symbol, iii In r ynuii^ iiiuliicrliii'/Ns, ni ,ill tli.ii 
 Dnphnc h;id denied ;iii(l fors;ik<jn " (see page 235).
 
 DAPHNE 235 
 
 Bo}'son, a touch of patriotic remorse ; and all 
 the pieties of her own being, all the sacred 
 memories of her own life, combined to rouse 
 in her indignation and s^onpathy for Herbert's 
 poor friend. The thought of what Daphne 
 Barnes had done was to her a monstrosity 
 hardly to be named. She spoke to the young 
 man kindly and shyly, as though she feared 
 lest any chance word might wound him ; she 
 was the symbol, in her young motherliness, of 
 all that Daphne had denied and forsaken. 
 "When would America — dear, dear America! — 
 see to it that such things were made im- 
 possible ! " 
 
 Roger meanwhile was evidently cheered 
 and braced. The thouglit of the interview to 
 which Boyson had confidentially bidden him 
 on the morrow ran warmly in his veins, and 
 the children soothed liim. The little boy 
 especially, who was just Beatty's age, excited 
 in him a number of practical curiosities. How 
 about tlic last tectli ? He actually inserted a 
 coaxing and inquiring finger, the babe gravely 
 suffering it. Any trouble witli them ? Beatty 
 liad once been very ill with hers, at Phila- 
 delj)liia, mostly caused, however, by some 
 beastly, indigestible food lliat the nurse had 
 let her have. And they allowed her to sit up 
 much too late. Didn't Mrs. French tliink 
 seven o'clock wiis late enough for any child
 
 236 DAPHNE 
 
 not yet four ? One couldn't say that Beatty 
 was a very robust child, but healthy — oh yes, 
 liealthy ! — none of your sickly, rickety little 
 things. 
 
 The curtains had been closed. The street 
 children, the electric light outside, were no 
 longer visible. Roger had begun to talk of 
 departure, the baby had fallen fast asleep in 
 her mother's arms, when there was another loud 
 ring at the front door. 
 
 French, who was expecting the headmaster 
 of his church schools, gathered up some papers 
 and left the room. His wife, startled by what 
 seemed an exclamation from him in the hall 
 outside, raised her head a moment to listen ; 
 but the sound of voices — surely a woman's 
 voice ? — died abruptly away, and the door of 
 the dining-room closed. Roger heard nothing ; 
 he was laughing and crooning over the boy. 
 
 " The Pobble that lost his toes 
 Had once as many as we." 
 
 The door opened. Herbert stood on the 
 threshold beckoning to her. She rose in terror, 
 the child in her arms, and went out to him. In 
 a minute she reappeared in the doorway, her 
 face ashen-white, and called to the little boy. 
 He ran to her, and Roger rose, looking for the 
 hat he had put down on entering. 
 
 Then French came in, and behind him a
 
 DAPHNE 237 
 
 lady in black, dishevelled, bathed in tears. The 
 vicar hung back. Roger turned in astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " Mother ! You here ? Mother ! "—he hur- 
 ried to her — " what's the matter ? " 
 
 She tottered towards him with outstretched 
 hands. 
 
 " Oh, Roger, Roger ! " 
 
 His name died away in a wail as she clasped 
 liim. 
 
 " What is it, mother ? " 
 
 " It's Beatty — my son ! — my darling 
 Roger ! " She put up her hands piteousl}', 
 bending his head down to her. ** It's a cable 
 from Washington, from that woman, Mrs. 
 Verrier. They did everything, Roger — it was 
 only three days — and hopeless always. Yes- 
 terday convulsions came on — and this morn- 
 ing " Her head dropped against her 
 
 son's breast as her voice failed her. He put 
 her roughly from him. 
 
 " What are you talking of, mother ! Do 
 you mean that Beatty has been ill ? " 
 
 " She died last night. Roger — my darling 
 son — my poor Roger ! " 
 
 " Died— last night— Beatty ? " 
 
 French in silence handed him the telegram. 
 Roger disengaged himself and walked to the 
 firei^lace, standing motionless, with his back 
 to them, for a minute, while tliey held their
 
 238 DAPHNE 
 
 breaths. Then he began to grope again for his 
 hat, without a word. 
 
 " Come home with me, Roger ! " implored 
 his mother, pursuing him. " We must bear 
 it — bear it together. You see — she didn't 
 suffer " — she pointed to the message — " the 
 darhng ! — the darhng ! " 
 
 Her voice lost itself in tears. But Roger 
 brushed her awa3% as though resenting her 
 emotion, and made for the door. 
 
 French also put out a hand. 
 
 " Roger, dear, dear old fellow ! Stay here 
 with us — with your mother. Where are you 
 going ? " 
 
 Roger looked at his watch unsteadily. 
 
 " The office will be closed," he said to him- 
 self ; " but I can put some things together." 
 
 " Where are you going, Roger ? " cried Lady 
 Barnes, pursuing him. Roger faced her. 
 
 " It's Tuesda}^ There'll be a Wliite Star 
 boat to-morrow." 
 
 " But, Roger, what can you do ? She's gone, 
 dear — she's gone. And before you can get 
 there — long before — she will be in her grave." 
 
 A spasm passed over his face, into which 
 the colour rushed. Without another word he 
 wrenched himself from her, opened the front 
 door, and ran out into the night.
 
 iul, l^'i^^iA , V. lial tali y.iu ' 1' 
 
 (iCC pJi^c ^jSj.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 " Was there ever anything so poetic, so sug- 
 gestive ? " said a charmhig voice. " One might 
 make a new Turner out of it — if one just hap- 
 pened to be Turner ! — to match ' Rain, Steam, 
 and Speed.' " 
 
 " Wliat would 3'ou call it—' Mist, Light, 
 and Spring ' ? " 
 
 Captain Boyson leant forward, partly to 
 watch the wonderful landscape effect through 
 which the train was passing, partly because his 
 young wife's profile, her pure cheek and soft hair, 
 were so agreeably seen under the mingled light 
 from outside. 
 
 They were returning from their wedding 
 journey. Some six weeks before this date 
 Boyson had married in Philadelphia a girl 
 coming from one of the old Quaker stocks 
 of that town, in whose tender steadfastness of 
 character a man inclined both by nature and 
 experience to expect little from life had found 
 a happiness that amazed him. 
 
 The bridegroom, also, liad just been ap- 
 pointed to the Military Attachesliip at tlie 
 Berlin Embassy, and the couple were, in fact, 
 on their wa}' soutli to New York and embarka- 
 
 239
 
 240 DAPHNE 
 
 tion. But there were still a few days left of the 
 honeymoon, of which they had spent the last half 
 in Canada, and on this May night tliey were 
 journeying from Toronto along the southern 
 shore of Lake Ontario to the pleasant Canadian 
 hotel which overlooks the pageant of Niagara. 
 They had left Toronto in bright sunshine, but as 
 they turned the corner of the lake westward, a 
 white fog had come creeping over the land as 
 the sunset fell. 
 
 But the daylight was still strong, the fog 
 thin ; so that it appeared rather as a veil of 
 gold, amethyst, and opal, floating over the 
 country, now parting altogether, now blotting 
 out the orchards and the fields. And into the 
 colour above melted the colour below. For 
 the orchards that cover the Hamilton district 
 of Ontario were in bloom, and the snow of 
 the pear-trees, the flush of the peach-blossom 
 broke everywhere through the warm cloud of 
 pearly mist ; while, just as Mrs. Boyson spoke, 
 the train had come in sight of the long flashing 
 line of the Wclland Canal, which wound its 
 way, outlined by huge electric lamps, through 
 the sunset and the fog, till the lights died in 
 that northern distance where stretched the 
 invisible shore of the great lake. The glittering 
 waterway, speaking of the labour and commerce 
 of men, the blossom-laden earth, the white ap- 
 proaching mist, the softly falling night : — the
 
 DAPHNE 241 
 
 girl-bride could not tear herself from the spec- 
 tacle. She sat beside the window entranced. 
 But her husband had captured her hand, and 
 into the overflowing beauty of nature there 
 stole the thrill of their love. 
 
 " All very well ! " said Boyson presently. 
 " But a fog at Niagara is no joke ! " 
 
 The night stole on, and the cloud through 
 which they journeyed grew denser. Up crept 
 the fog, on stole the night. The lights of the 
 canal faded, the orchards sank into darkness, 
 and when the bride and bridegroom reached 
 the station on the Canadian side the bride's 
 pleasure had become dismay. 
 
 " Oh, Alfred, we shan't see anything ! " 
 
 And, indeed, as their carriage made its 
 slow progress along the road that skirts the 
 gorge, they seemed to plunge deeper and deeper 
 into the fog. A white darkness, as though of 
 impenetrable yet glimmering cloud, above and 
 around them ; a white ab3'ss beneath them ; 
 and issuing from it the thunderous voice of 
 wild waters, dim first and distant, but growing 
 steadily in volume and terror. 
 
 " There are the lights of the bridge ! " cried 
 Boyson, " and the towers of tlie aluminium 
 works. But not a vestige of tlie Falls ! Gone ! 
 Wiped out ! I say, darling, tliis is going to 
 be a disappointment." 
 
 Mrs. J^)oyson, however, was not so sure.
 
 242 DAPHNE 
 
 The lovely " nocturne " of the evening plain 
 had passed into a Vision or Masque of Force 
 that captured the mind. High above the gulf 
 rose the towers of the great works, transformed 
 by the surging fog and darkness into some piled 
 and castled fortress ; a fortress of Science held 
 by Intelligence. Lights were in the towers, as 
 of genii at their work ; lights glimmered here 
 and there on the face of the farther clii^, as 
 though to measure the vastness of the gorge 
 and of that resounding vacancy towards which 
 they moved. In front, the arch of the vast 
 suspension bridge, pricked in light, crossed the 
 gulf, from nothingness to nothingness, like that 
 skyey bridge on which the gods marched to 
 Walhalla. Otherwise, no shape, no landmark ; 
 earth and heaven had disappeared. 
 
 " Here we are at the hotel," said Boyson. 
 " There, my dear," — he pointed ironically — " is 
 the American Fall, and there — is the Canadian ! 
 Let me introduce you to Niagara ! " 
 
 They jumped out of the carriage, and while 
 their bags were being carried in they ran to 
 the parapeted edge of the cliff in front of the 
 hotel. Niagara thundered in their ears ; the 
 spray of it beat upon their faces ; but of 
 the two great Falls immediately in front of 
 them they saw nothing whatever. The fog, 
 now cold and clammy, enwrapped them ; even 
 the bright lights of the hotel, but a stone's
 
 DAPHNE 243 
 
 throw distant, were barely visible ; and the 
 carriage still standing at the steps had vanished. 
 Suddenly, some common impulse born of 
 the moment and the scene — of its inhuman 
 ghostliness and grandeur — drew them to each 
 other. Bo3'Son threw his arm round his young 
 wife and pressed her to him, kissing her face 
 and hair, bedewed by the spray. She clung to 
 him passion at el}^ trembling a little, as the roar 
 deafened them and the fog swept round them. 
 
 As the Boj^sons lingered in the central hall 
 of the hotel, reading some letters which had 
 been handed to them, a lady in black passed 
 along the gallery overhead and paused a moment 
 to look at the new arrivals brought by the even- 
 ing train. 
 
 As she perceived Captain Boyson there was 
 a quick, startled movement ; she bent a moment 
 over the staircase, as though to make sure of 
 his identity, and then ran along the gallery to 
 a room at the farther end. As she opened the 
 door a dam]) cold air streamed u])on her, and 
 the thunder of tlie Falls, with which the hotel 
 is })erpetually filled, seemed to redouble. 
 
 Three large windows opposite to her were, 
 in fact, wide open ; the room, with its lights 
 dimmed by fog, seemed hung above the abyss. 
 
 An invalid couch stood in front of the 
 window, and upon it lay a j)ale, emaciated
 
 244 DAPHNE 
 
 woman, breathing quickl}^ and feebly. At the 
 sound of tlie closing door, Madeleine Verrier 
 turned. 
 
 "Oh, Daphne, I was afraid you had gone 
 out ! You do such wild things ! " 
 
 Daphne Barnes came to the side of the couch. 
 
 " Darling, I only went to speak to your maid 
 for a moment. Are 5^ou sure 3^ou can stand all 
 this damp fog ? " 
 
 As she spoke Daphne took up a fur cloak 
 lying on a chair near, and wrapped herself 
 warmly in it. 
 
 " I can't breathe when they shut the win- 
 dows. But it is too cold for you." 
 
 " Oh, I'm all right in this." Daphne drew 
 the cloak round her. 
 
 Inwardly she said to herself, " Shall I tell 
 her the Boysons are here ? Yes, I must. She 
 is sure to hear it in some way." 
 
 So, stooping over the couch, she said : 
 
 " Do 3^ou know who arrived this evening ? 
 The Alfred Boysons. I saw them in the hall 
 just now." 
 
 " They're on their honeymoon ? " asked the 
 faint voice, after a just perceptible pause. 
 
 Daphne assented. " She seems a pretty little 
 thing." 
 
 Madeleine Verrier opened her tired eyes to 
 look at Daplme. Mrs. Floyd — as Daphne now 
 called herself — was dressed in deep black. The
 
 DAPHNE 245 
 
 costly gown revealed a figure which had re- 
 cently become substantial, and the face on 
 which the electric light shone had nothing left 
 in it of the girl, though Daphne Floyd was not 
 yet thirty. The initial beauty of complexion 
 was gone ; so was the fleeting prettiness of 
 youth. The eyes were as splendid as ever, but 
 combined with the increased paleness of the 
 cheeks, the greater prominence and determina- 
 tion of the mouth, and a certain austerity in the 
 dressing of the hair, which was now firmly 
 drawn back from the temples round wliich it 
 used to curl, and worn high, a la Marquise, they 
 expressed a personality — a formidable person- 
 ality — in which self-will was no longer grace- 
 ful, and power no longer magnetic. Madeleine 
 Verrier gazed at her friend in silence. She was 
 very grateful to Daphne, often very dependent 
 on her. But there were moments when she 
 shrank from her, when she would gladly never 
 have seen lier again. Daphne was still erect, 
 self-confidant, militant ; whereas Madeleine 
 knew herself vanquished — vanquished both in 
 body and soul. 
 
 Certain inner miseries and discomforts had 
 been set vibrating by the name of Captain 
 Boyson. 
 
 " You won't want to see him or come across 
 him ? " she said abruptly. 
 
 " Who ? x'Vlfred Boyson ? 1 am nut afiaid
 
 =46 DAPHNE 
 
 of him in the least. He may say what he 
 pleases — or think what he pleases. It doesn't 
 matter to me." 
 
 " \Vlien did you see liim last ? " 
 
 Daphne hesitated a moment. " When he 
 came to ask me for certain things which had 
 belonged to Beatty." 
 
 " For Roger ? I remember. It must have 
 been painful." 
 
 " Yes," said Daphne unwillingly, " it was. 
 He was very unfriendly. He always has been — 
 since it happened. But I bore him no malice " 
 — the tone was firm — " and the interview was 
 short." 
 
 " Beatty—" The half audible word fell like 
 a sigh from Madeleine's lips as she closed her 
 eyes again to sliut out the light which teased 
 them. And presently she added, " Do you 
 ever hear anything now — from England ? " 
 
 " Just what I might expect to hear — what 
 more than justifies all that I did." 
 
 Daphne sat rigid on her chair, her hands 
 crossed on her lap. Mrs. Verrier did not pursue 
 the conversation. 
 
 Outside the fog grew thicker and darker. 
 Even the lights on the bridge were now en- 
 gulfed. Daphne began to shiver in her fur 
 cloak. She put out a cold hand and took one ! 
 of Mrs. Verrier's. i 
 
 " Dear Madeleine ! Indeed, indeed, you J
 
 DAPHNE 247 
 
 ought to let me move you from this place. 
 Do let me ! There's the house at Stockbridge 
 all ready. And in July T could take you to 
 Newport. I must be off next week, for I've 
 promised to take the chair at a big meeting at 
 Buffalo on the 29th. But I can't bear to 
 leave you behind. We could make the jour- 
 ney quite easy for you. That new car of mine 
 is very comfortable." 
 
 " I know it is. But, thank you, dear, I like 
 this hotel ; and it will be summer directly." 
 
 Daphne hesitated. A strong protest against 
 " morbidness " was on her lips, but she did 
 not speak it. In the mist-filled room even 
 the bright fire, the electric lights, had grown 
 strangely dim. Only the roar outside was real 
 — terribly, threateningly real. Yet the sound 
 was not so much fierce as lamentable ; the 
 voice of Nature mourning the eternal flaw and 
 conflict at the heart of things. Daphne knew 
 well that, mingled with this primitive, cosmic 
 voice, tliere was — for Madeleine Verrier — 
 anotlicr : a plaintive, human cr}', that was 
 drawing the life out of her breast, the blood 
 from her veins, like some baneful witchcraft 
 of old. But she dared not speak of it ; she and 
 the doctor who attended Mrs. Verrier dared no 
 longer name the patient's " obsession " even 
 to each other. They had tried to combat 
 it, to tear her from this place ; with no other
 
 248 DAPHNE 
 
 result, as it seemed, than to hasten the death- 
 process which was upon her. Gently, but 
 lirmly, she had defied them, and they knew 
 now that she would always defy them. For 
 a year past, summer and winter, she had lived 
 in this apartment facing the Falls ; her nurses 
 found her very patient under the incurable 
 disease which had declared itself ; Daphne 
 came to stay with her when arduous engage- 
 ments allowed, and Madeleine was always 
 grateful and affectionate. But certain topics, 
 and certain advocacies, had dropped out of 
 their conversation — not by Daphne's will. There 
 had been no spoken recantation ; only the 
 prophetess prophesied no more ; and of late, 
 especially when Daphne was not there — so 
 Mrs. Floyd had discovered — a Roman Catholic 
 priest had begun to visit Mrs. Verrier. Daphne, 
 moreover, had recently noticed a small crucifix, 
 hidden among the folds of the loose black dress 
 which Madeleine commonly wore. 
 
 Daphne had changed her dress and dis- 
 missed her maid. Although it was May, a 
 wood-fire had been lighted in her room to 
 counteract the chilly damp of the evening. 
 She hung over it, loth to go back to the sitting- 
 room, and plagued by a depression that not 
 even her strong will could immediately shake 
 off. She wished the Boysons had not come.
 
 DAPHNE 249 
 
 She supposed that Alfred Boyson would hardly 
 cut her ; but she was tolerably certain that 
 he would not wish his young wife to become 
 acquainted wdth her. She scorned his dis- 
 approval of her ; but she smarted under it. It 
 combined with Madeleine's strange delusions 
 to put her on the defensive ; to call out all 
 the fierceness of her pride ; to make her feel 
 herself the champion of a sound and reason- 
 able view of life as against weakness and re- 
 action. 
 
 Madeleine's dumb remorse was, indeed, the 
 most paralysing and baffling thing ; nothing 
 seemed to be of an}- avail against it, now that 
 it had finally gained the upper hand. There 
 had been dark times, no doubt, in the old days 
 in Washington ; times when the tragedy of 
 her husband's death had overshadowed her. 
 But in the intervals, what courage and boldness, 
 what ardour in the declaration of that new 
 Feminist gospel to which Daphne had in her 
 own case borne witness ! Daphne remembered 
 well with what feverish readiness Madeleine 
 had accepted her own pleas after lier flight 
 from England ; how slie had defended her 
 against hostile criticism, had supported her 
 during the divorce court proceedings, and 
 triumphed in their result. " You arc un- 
 happy ? And he deceived you ? Well, tlien, 
 what moie do you want ? Free yourself, my
 
 250 DAPHNE 
 
 dear, free yourself ! What right have you to 
 bear more children to a man who is a liar and 
 a shuffler ? It is our generation that must 
 suffer, for the liberty of those that come 
 after ! " 
 
 What had clianged her ? Was it simply 
 the approach of mortal illness, the old ques- 
 tioning of " what dreams may come " ? Supersti- 
 tion, in fact ? As a girl she had been mystical 
 and devout ; so Daphne had heard. 
 
 Or was it the death of little Beatty, to whom 
 she was much attached ? She had seen some- 
 thing of Roger during that intermediate Phila- 
 delphia stage, when he and Beatty were allowed 
 to meet at her house ; and she had once or 
 twice astonished and v/ounded Daphne at that 
 time by sudden expressions of pity for him. 
 It was she who had sent the cable message 
 announcing the child's death, wording it as 
 gently as possible, and had wept in sending it. 
 
 " As if I hadn't suffered too ! " cried 
 Daphne's angry thought. And she turned to 
 look at the beautiful miniature of Beatty set 
 in pearls that stood upon her dressing-table. 
 There was something in the recollection of 
 Madeleine's sensibility with regard to the child 
 — as in that of her compassion for the father's 
 suffering — that offended Daphne. It seemed a 
 reflection upon herself, Beatty' s mother, as 
 lacking in softness and natural feeling.
 
 DAPHNE 251 
 
 On the contrary ! She had suffered ter- 
 ribly ; but slie had thought it her duty to bear 
 it with courage, not to let it interfere with the 
 development of her life. And as for Roger, 
 was it her fault that he had made it impossible 
 for her to keep her promise ? That she had 
 been forced to separate Beatly from him ? 
 And if, as she understood now from various 
 English correspondents, it was true that Roger 
 had dropped out of decent society, did it not 
 simply prove that she had guessed his charac- 
 ter aright, and had only saved herself just in 
 time ? 
 
 It was as though the sudden presence of 
 Captain Boyson under the same roof had raised 
 up a shadowy adversary and accuser, with 
 whom she must go on thus arguing, and hotly 
 defending herself, in a growing excitement. Not 
 that she would ever stoop to argue with Alfred 
 Boyson face to face. Plow could he ever under- 
 stand the ideals to which she had devoted her 
 powers and her money since the break-up of 
 her married life ? He could merely estimate 
 what slie had done in the commonest, vulgarest 
 way. Yet who could trutli fully charge her 
 with having obtained her divorce in order 
 thereby to claim any fresh licence for herself ? 
 She looked back now with a cool amazement 
 on that sudden rush of passion whicli Iiad 
 swept her into marriage, no less than the
 
 252 DAPHNE 
 
 jealousy which had led her to break with Roger. 
 She was still capable of many kinds of violence ; 
 but not, probably, of the violence of love. The 
 influence of sex and sense upon her had 
 weakened ; the influence of ambition had in- 
 creased. As in many women of Southern race, 
 the period of hot blood had passed into a period 
 of intrigue and domination. Her wealth gave 
 her power, and for that power she lived. 
 
 Yes, she was personally desolate, but she 
 had stood firm, and her reward lay in the fact 
 that she had gathered round her an army of 
 dependents and followers — women especially — 
 to whom her money and her brains were in- 
 dispensable. There on the table lay the plans 
 for a new Women's College, on the broadest 
 and most modern lines, to which she was soon 
 to devote a large sum of money. The walls 
 should have been up by now but for a quarrel 
 with her secretary, who had become much too 
 independent, and had had to be peremptorily 
 dismissed at a moment's notice. But the plan 
 was a noble one, approved by the highest 
 authorities ; and Daphne, looking to posterity, 
 anticipated the recognition that she herself 
 might never live to see. For the rest she 
 had given herself — with reservations — to the 
 Feminist movement. It was not in her nature 
 to give herself wholly to anything ; and she 
 WcLS instinctively critical of people who pro-
 
 DAPHNE 253 
 
 fessed to be her leaders, and programmes to 
 which she was expected to subscribe. Whole- 
 hearted devotion, which, as she rightly said, 
 meant blind devotion, had never been her 
 line ; and she had been on one or two occa- 
 sions offensively outspoken on the subject of 
 certain leading persons in the movement. She 
 was not, therefore, popular with her party, and 
 did not care to be ; her pride of money held 
 her apart from the rank and file, the college 
 girls, and typists, and journalists who filled the 
 Feminist meetings, and often made themselves, 
 in her eyes, supremely ridiculous, because of 
 what she considered their silly provinciality 
 and lack of knowledge of the world. 
 
 Yet, of course, she was a " Feminist " — and 
 particularly associated with those persons in 
 the suffrage camp who stood for broad views 
 on marriage and divorce. She knew very well 
 that many other persons in the same camj) held 
 different opinions ; and in public or official 
 gatherings was always nervously — most people 
 thought arrogantly — on the look-out for affronts. 
 Meanwhile, everywhere, or almost everywhere, 
 her money gave her jjowcr, and her knowledge 
 of it was always sweet to her. There was 
 notliing in the world — no cause, no faith — that 
 she could have accepted "as a little cliild." 
 But everywhere, in lier own ojjinion, she stood 
 for Justice; justice for women as against the
 
 *54 DAPHNE 
 
 old primaeval t3a-anny of men ; justice, of 
 course, to the workman, and justice to the rich. 
 No fooUsh SociaHsm, and no encroaching 
 Trusts ! A lucid common-sense, so it seemed 
 to her, had been her cradle-gift. 
 
 And with regard to Art, how much she had 
 been able to do ! She had generously helped 
 the public collections, and her own small 
 gallery, at the house in Newport, was famous 
 throughout England and America. That in 
 the course of the preceding year she had found 
 among the signatures, extracted from visitors 
 by the custodian in charge, the name of 
 Chloe Fairmile, had given her a peculiar 
 satisfaction. 
 
 She walked proudly across the room, her 
 head thrown back, every nerve tense. Let the 
 ignorant and stupid blame her if they chose. 
 She stood absolved. Memory reminded her, 
 moreover, of a great number of kind and gener- 
 ous things — private thingg^that she had done 
 with her money. If men like Herbert French, 
 or Alfred Boj^son, denounced her, there were 
 many persons who felt warmly towards her — 
 and had cause. As she thought of them the 
 tears rose in her eyes. Of course she could 
 never make such things public. 
 
 Outside the fog seemed to be lifting a little. 
 There was a silvery light in the south-east, a 
 gleam and radiance over the gorge. If the
 
 DAPHNE 255 
 
 moon struggled through, it would be worth while 
 slipping out after dinner to watch its play 
 upon the great spectacle. She was careful to 
 cherish in herself an openness to noble impres- 
 sions and to the high poetr}^ of nature and 
 life. And she must not allow herself to be led 
 by the casual neighbourhood of the Boysons 
 into weak or unprofitable thought. 
 
 The Boysons dined at a table, gay with 
 lights and flowers, that should have com- 
 manded the Falls but for the curtain of fog. 
 Niagara, however, might flout them if it 
 pleased ; they could do without Niagara. 
 They were delighted that the hotel, appar- 
 ently, contained no one they knew. All they 
 wanted was to be together, and alone. But 
 the bride was tired by a long day in the train ; 
 her smiles began presently to flag, and by 
 nine o'clock her husband had insisted on send- 
 ing her to rest. 
 
 After escorting her upstairs Cai)tain Boy- 
 son returned to tlic verandah, which was 
 brightly lit up, in order to read some letters 
 that were still unopened in his pocket. But 
 before he began upon them he was seized 
 once more by the wizardry of the scene. Was 
 that indistinct glimmer in the far distance — 
 that intenser white on white — the eternal cloud 
 of spray that haiif^s over tlio rnnadian I^'all ?
 
 256 DAPHNE 
 
 If so, the fog was indeed yielding, and the full 
 moon behind it would triumph before long. 
 On the other hand, he could no longer see the 
 lights of the bridge at all ; the rolling vapour 
 choked the gorge, and the waiter who brought 
 him his coffee drily prophesied that there 
 would not be much change under twenty- 
 four hours. 
 
 He fell back upon his letters, well pleased 
 to see that one among them came from Herbert 
 French, with whom the American officer had 
 maintained a warm friendship since the da}' 
 of a certain consultation in French's East- 
 End library. The letter was primarily one of 
 congratulation, written with all French's charm 
 and sympathy ; but over the last pages of it 
 Boyson's face darkened, for they contained a 
 deplorable account of the man whom he and 
 French had tried to save. 
 
 The concluding passage of the letter ran as 
 follows : 
 
 " You will scarcely wonder after all this 
 that we see him very seldom, and that he no 
 longer gives us his confidence. Yet both Elsie 
 and I feel that he cares for us as much as 
 ever. And, indeed, poor fellow, he himself 
 remains strangely lovable, in spite of what 
 one must — alas ! — believe as to his ways of 
 life and the people with whom he associates. 
 There is in him, always, something of what
 
 DAPHNE 257 
 
 Myers called * the imperishable child.' That a 
 man who might have been so easily led to good 
 has been so fatally thrust into evil is one of 
 the abiding sorrows of my life. How can I 
 reproach him for his behaviour ? As the law 
 stands, he can never marry ; he can never 
 have legitimate children. Under the wrong 
 he has suffered, and, no doubt, in consequence 
 of that illness in New York, when he was badly 
 nursed and cared for — from which, in fact, he 
 has never wholly recovered — his will-power and 
 nerve, which were never very strong, have 
 given way ; he broods upon the past perpetu- 
 ally, and on the loss of his child. Our poor 
 Apollo, Boyson, will soon have lost himself 
 wholly, and there is no one to help. 
 
 " Do you ever see or hear an37thing of that 
 woman ? Do you know what has become of 
 her ? I see you are to have a Conference 
 on your Divorce Laws — that opinion and indig- 
 nation are rising. For Heaven's sake, do some- 
 thing ! I gather some appalling facts from a 
 recent Wasliington report. One in twelve of 
 all your marriages dissolved ! A man or a 
 woman divorced in one State, and still bound 
 in another ! The most trivial causes for the 
 break-up of marriage, accepted and acted upon 
 by corrupt courts, and reform blocked by a 
 phalanx of corrupt interests ! Is it all true ? 
 An American correspondent of mine — a lady — 
 
 K
 
 258 DAPHNE 
 
 repeats to me what you once said, that it is the 
 women who bring the majority of the actions. 
 She impresses upon me also the remarkable fact 
 that it is apparently only in a minority of cases 
 that a woman, when she has got rid of her 
 husband, marries someone else. It is not 
 passion, therefore, that dictates many of these 
 actions ; no serious cause or feeling, indeed, of 
 any kind ; but rather an ever-spreading rest- 
 lessness and levity, a readiness to tamper with 
 the very foundations of society, for a whim, a 
 nothing ! — in the interests, often, of what 
 women call their ' individuality ' ! No foolish 
 talk here of being * members one of another ' ! 
 We have outgrown all that. The facilities are 
 always there, and the temptation of them. 
 * The women — especially — who do these things,' 
 she writes me, * are moral anarchists. One can 
 appeal to nothing ; they acknowledge nothing. 
 Transformations infinitely far-reaching and pro- 
 found are going on among us.' 
 
 " * Appeal to nothing ! ' And this said of 
 women, by a woman ! It was of men that a 
 Voice said long ago : ' Moses, because of the 
 hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put 
 away your wives ' — just such grounds, appar- 
 ently — trivial and cruel pretexts — as your 
 American courts admit. * But I say unto 
 you ! — / say unto you ! \ . . . 
 
 " Well, I am a Christian priest, incapable,
 
 DAPHNE 259 
 
 of course, of an unbiassed opinion. My corre- 
 spondent tries to explain the situation a little 
 by pointing out that your women in America 
 claim to be the superiors of your men, to be 
 more intellectual, better-mannered, more refined. 
 Marriage disappoints or disgusts them, and they 
 impatiently put it aside. They break it up, 
 and seem to pay no penalty. But you and I 
 believe that they will pay it ! — that there are 
 divine avenging forces in the very law they 
 tamper with — and that, as a nation, you must 
 either retrace some of the steps taken, or sink 
 in the scale of life. 
 
 " How I run on ! And all because my heart 
 is hot within me for the suffering of one man, 
 and the hardness of one woman ! " 
 
 Boyson raised his eyes. As he did so he 
 saw dimly through the mist the figure of a 
 lady, veiled, and wrapped in a fur cloak, cross- 
 ing the farther end of the verandah. He half 
 rose from his seat, with an exclamation. She 
 ran down the steps leading to the road and 
 disappeared in the fog. 
 
 Boyson stood looking after her, liis mind in 
 a whirl. 
 
 The manager of the hotel came hurriedly 
 out of the same door by whicli Dai)hne Floyd 
 had emerged, and spoke to a waiter on the 
 verandah, pointing in the direction she liad 
 taken.
 
 26o DAPHNE 
 
 Boyson heard what was said, and came up. 
 A short conversation passed between him and 
 the manager. There was a moment's pause on 
 Boyson's part ; he still held French's letter in 
 his hand. At last, thrusting it into his pocket, 
 he hurried to the steps whereby Daphne had 
 left the hotel, and pursued her into the cloud 
 outside. 
 
 The fog was now rolling back from the 
 gorge, upon the Falls, blotting out the transient 
 gleams which had seemed to promise a lifting 
 of the veil, leaving nothing around or beneath 
 but the white and thunderous abyss.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Daphne's purpose in quitting the hotel had 
 been to find her way up the river by the road 
 which runs along the gorge on the Canadian 
 side, from the hotel to the Canadian Fall. Thick 
 as the fog still was in the gorge she hoped to 
 find some clearer air beyond it. She felt op- 
 pressed and stifled ; and though she had told 
 IMadeleine that she was going out in search of 
 effects and spectacle, it was in truth the neigh- 
 bourhood of Alfred Boyson wliich had made 
 her restless. 
 
 The road was lit at intervals by electric 
 lamps, but after a time she found the passage 
 of it not particularly easy. Some repairs to 
 the tramway hues were going on higher up, 
 and she narrowly escaped various pitfalls in the 
 shape of trenches and holes in the roadway, 
 very insufficiently marked by feeble lamps. 
 But the stir in her blood drove her on ; so did 
 the strangeness of this wliite darkness, suffused 
 with moonhght, yet, in this immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of the Falls, impenetrable. She was 
 impatient to get through it ; to breathe an un- 
 embarrassed air. 
 
 261
 
 262 DAPHNE 
 
 The roar at her left hand grew wilder. She 
 had reached a point some distance from the 
 hotel, close to the jutting corner, once open, 
 now walled and protected, where the traveller 
 approaches nearest to the edge of the Canadian 
 Fall. She knew the spot well, and groping for 
 the wall, she stood breathless and spray- 
 beaten beside the gulf. 
 
 Only a few yards from her the vast sheet 
 of water descended. She could see nothing of 
 it, but the wind of its mighty plunge blew 
 back her hair, and her mackintosh cloak was 
 soon dripping with the spray. Once, far away, 
 above the Falls, she seemed to perceive a few 
 dim lights along the bend of the river ; per- 
 haps from one of the great power-houses that 
 tame to man's service the spirits of the water. 
 Otherwise — nothing ! She was alone with the 
 perpetual challenge and fascination of the 
 Falls. 
 
 As she stood there she was seized by a 
 tragic recollection. It was from this spot, 
 so she believed, that Leopold Verrier had thrown 
 himself over. The body had been carried 
 down through the rapids, and recovered, terribly 
 injured, in the deep eddying pool which the 
 river makes below them. He had left no 
 letter or message of any sort behind him. But 
 the reasons for his suicide were clearly under- 
 stood by a large public, whose main verdict
 
 DAPHNE 263 
 
 upon it was the quiet " What else could he 
 do? " 
 
 Here, then, on this very spot, he had stood 
 before his leap. Daphne had heard him de- 
 scribed by various spectators of the marriage. 
 He had been, it seemed, a man of sensitive 
 temperament, who should have been an artist 
 and was a man of business ; a considerable 
 musician, and something of a poet ; proud of 
 his race and faith and himself irreproachable, 
 yet perpetually wounded through his family, 
 which bore a name of ill-repute in the New 
 York business world ; passionately grateful to 
 his wife for having married him, delighting in 
 her beauty and charm, and foolishly, abjectly 
 eager to heap upon her and their child every- 
 tliing that wealth could buy. 
 
 " It was Madeleine's mother who made it 
 hopeless," thought Daphne. " But for Mrs. 
 Fanshaw — it might have lasted." 
 
 And memory called up Mrs. Fanshaw, the 
 beautifully dressed woman of fifty, with her 
 pride of wealth and family, belonging to the 
 strictest sect of New York's social dlite, with 
 her hard, fastidious face, her formidable elegance 
 and self-possession. How slie had loathed the 
 marriage ! And with what a harpy-like eagerness 
 had she seized on the first signs of Madeleine's 
 discontent and ennui ; persuaded her to come 
 home ; prepared the divorce ; poisoned public
 
 264 DAPHNE 
 
 opinion. It was from a last interview with Mrs. 
 Fanshaw that Leopold Verrier had gone straight 
 to his death. What was it that she had said 
 to him ? 
 
 Daphne lingered on the question ; haunted, 
 too, by other stray recollections of the dismal 
 story — the doctor driving by in the early 
 morning who had seen the fall ; the discovery 
 of the poor broken body ; Madeleine's blanched 
 stoicism, under the fierce coercion of her mother ; 
 and that strong, silent, slow-setting tide of 
 public condemnation, which in this instance, at 
 least, had avenged a cruel act. 
 
 But at this point Daphne ceased to think 
 about her friend. She found herself suddenly 
 engaged in a heated self-defence. What com- 
 parison could there be between her case and 
 Madeleine's ? 
 
 Fiercely she found herself going through 
 the list of Roger's crimes ; his idleness, 
 treachery and deceit ; his lack of any high 
 ideals ; his bad influence on the child ; his 
 luxurious self-indulgent habits, the lies he had 
 told, the insults he had offered her. By now 
 the story had grown to a lurid whole in 
 her imagination, based on a few distorted 
 facts, yet radically and monstrously untrue. 
 Generally, however, when she dwelt upon it, 
 it had power to soothe any smart of conscience, 
 to harden any yearning of the heart, supposing
 
 DAPHNE 265 
 
 she felt any. And by now she had almost 
 ceased to feel any. 
 
 But to-night she was mysteriously shaken and 
 agitated. As she clung to the wall, which alone 
 separated her from the echoing gulf beyond, 
 she could not prevent herself from thinking of 
 Roger, Roger as he was when Alfred Boyson in- 
 troduced him to her, when they first married, 
 and she had been blissfully happy ; happy in 
 the possession of such a god-like creature, in the 
 envy of other women, in the belief that he was 
 growing more and more truly attached to her. 
 
 Her thoughts broke abruptly. " He married 
 me for money ! " cried the inward voice. Then 
 she felt her cheeks tingling as she remembered 
 her conversation with Madeleine on that very 
 subject — how she had justified what she was 
 now judging — how plainly she had understood 
 and condoned it. 
 
 " That was my inexperience ! Besides, I 
 knew nothing then of Chloe Fairmile. If I had 
 — I should never have done it." 
 
 She turned, startled. Steps seemed to be 
 approaching her, of someone as yet invisible. 
 Her nerves were all on edge, and she felt sud- 
 denly frightened. Strangers of all kinds visit 
 and hang about Niagara ; she was quite alone, 
 known to be the rich Mrs. Floyd ; if she were 
 attacked — set upon 
 
 The outline of a man's form emerged ; she
 
 266 DAPHNE 
 
 heard her name, or rather the name she had 
 renounced. 
 
 " I saw you come in this direction, Mrs. 
 Barnes. I knew the road was up in some 
 places, and I thought in this fog you would 
 allow me to warn you that walking was not 
 very safe." 
 
 The voice was Captain Boyson's ; and they 
 were now plain to each other as they stood a 
 couple of yards apart. The fog, however, 
 was at last slightly breaking. There was a 
 gleam over the nearer water ; not merely the 
 lights, but the span of the bridge had begun to 
 appear. 
 
 Daphne composed herself with an effort. 
 
 " I am greatly obliged to you," she said 
 in her most freezing manner. " But I found 
 no difficulty at all in getting through, and the 
 fog is lifting." 
 
 With a stiff inclination she turned in the 
 direction of the hotel, but Captain Boyson 
 stood in her way. She saw a face embarrassed 
 yet resolved. 
 
 " Mrs. Barnes, may I speak to you a few 
 minutes ? " 
 
 Daphne gave a slight laugh. 
 
 " I don't see how I can prevent it. So you 
 didn't follow me, Captain Boyson, out of 
 mere regard for my personal safety ? " 
 
 " If I hadn't come myself I should have
 
 DAPHNE 267 
 
 sent someone,'* he replied quietly. " The hotel 
 people were anxious. But I wished to come 
 myself. I confess I had a very strong desire 
 to speak to you." 
 
 " There seems to be nothing and no one to 
 interfere with it," said Daphne, in a tone of 
 sarcasm. " I should be glad, however, with 
 your permission, to turn homeward. I see 
 Mrs. Boyson is here. You are, I suppose, on 
 your wedding journey ? " 
 
 He moved out of her path, said a few con- 
 ventional words, and they walked on. A light 
 wind had risen and the fog was now breaking 
 rapidly. As it gave way, the moonlight poured 
 into the breaches that the wind made ; the 
 vast black-and-silver spectacle, the Falls, the 
 gorge, the town opposite, the bridge, the clouds, 
 began to appear in fragments, grandiose and 
 fantastical. 
 
 Daphne, presently, seeing that Boyson was 
 slow to speak, raised her eyebrows and 
 attempted a remark on the scene. Boyson 
 interrupted her hurriedly. 
 
 " I imagine, Mrs. Barnes, that what I wish 
 to say will seem to you a piece of insolence. 
 All the same, for the sake of our former friend- 
 ship, I would ask you to bear with me." 
 
 " By all means ! " 
 
 " I had no idea that you were in the hotel. 
 About half an hour ago, on the verandah, I
 
 =68 DAPHNE 
 
 opened an English letter which arrived this 
 evening. The news in it gave me great 
 concern. Then I saw you appear, to my 
 astonishment, in the distance. I asked the 
 hotel manager if it were really you. He was 
 about to send someone after you. An idea 
 occurred to me. I saw my opportunity — and I 
 pursued you." 
 
 ** And here I am, at your mercy ! " said 
 Daphne, with sudden sharpness. '' You have 
 left me no choice. However, I am quite 
 willing." 
 
 The voice was familiar yet strange. There 
 was in it the indefinable hardening and ageing 
 which seemed to Bo^^son to have affected the 
 whole personality. What had happened to 
 her ? As he looked at her in the dim light there 
 rushed upon them both the memory of those 
 three weeks by the sea-side years before, when 
 he had fallen in love with her, and she had 
 first trifled with, and then repulsed him. 
 
 " I wished to ask you a question, in the 
 name of our old friendship ; and because I 
 have also become a friend — as you know — 
 of your husband." 
 
 He felt, rather than saw, the start of anger 
 in the woman beside him. 
 
 " Captain Boyson ! I cannot defend myself, 
 but I would ask you to recognise ordinary 
 courtesies. I have now no husband."
 
 DAPHNE 269 
 
 " Of your husband," he repeated, without 
 hesitation, yet gently. " By the law of Eng- 
 land at least, which you accepted, and under 
 which you became a British subject, you are 
 still the wife of Roger Barnes, and he has done 
 nothing whatever to forfeit his right to your 
 wifely care. It is indeed of him and of his 
 present state that I beg to be allowed to speak 
 to you." 
 
 He heard a little laugh beside him — unsteady 
 and hysterical. 
 
 " You beg for what you have already taken. 
 I repeat, I am at your mercy. An American 
 subject, Captain Bo^^son, knows nothing of the 
 law of England. I have recovered my American 
 citizenship, and the law of my country has 
 freed me from a degrading and disastrous 
 marriage ! " 
 
 " While Roger remahis bound ? Incapable, 
 at the age of thirty, of marrying again, unless 
 he renounces his country — permanently debarred 
 from home and children ! " 
 
 His pulse ran quick. It was a strange adven- 
 ture, this, to which he had committed himself ! 
 
 " I have notliing to do with English law, 
 nothing whatever ! It is unjust, monstrous. 
 But that was no reason why I, too, should 
 suffer ! " 
 
 " No reason for patience ? No reason for 
 pity ? " said the man's voice, betraying emotion
 
 (( 
 
 270 DAPHNE 
 
 at last. " Mrs. Barnes, what do you know of 
 Roger's present state ? " 
 
 I have no need to know anything." 
 It matters nothmg to you ? Nothing to 
 you that he has lost health, and character, 
 and happiness, his child, his home, everything, 
 owing to your action ? " 
 
 " Captain Boyson ! " she cried, her com- 
 posure giving way, " this is intolerable, out- 
 rageous ! It is humiliating that you should 
 even expect me to argue with you. Yet," she 
 bit her lip, angry with the agitation that would 
 assail her, " for the sake of our friendship to 
 which you appeal, I would rather not be angry. 
 What you say is monstrous ! " her voice shook. 
 " In the first place, I freed myself from a man 
 who married me for money." 
 
 " One moment ! Do you forget that from 
 the day you left him Roger has never touched 
 a farthing of your money ? That he returned 
 everything to you ? " 
 
 " I had nothing to do with that ; it was his 
 own folly." 
 
 " Yes, but it throws light upon his character. 
 Would a mere fortune-hunter have done it ? No, 
 Mrs. Barnes ! — that view of Roger does not really 
 convince you, you do not really believe it." 
 
 She smiled bitterly. 
 
 ''As it happens, in his letters to me after I 
 left him, he amply confessed it."
 
 DAPHNE 271 
 
 " Because his wish was to make peace, to 
 throw himself at your feet. He accused him- 
 self, more than was just. But you do not really 
 think him mercenary and greedy, you know that 
 he was neither ! Mrs. Barnes, Roger is ill and 
 lonely." 
 
 " His mode of life accounts for it." 
 
 " You mean that he has begun to drink, has 
 fallen into bad company. That may be true. 
 I cannot deny it. But consider. A man from 
 whom everything is torn at one blow ; a man 
 of not very strong character, not accustomed 
 to endure hardness. — Does it never occur to 
 you that you took a frightful responsi- 
 bility ? " 
 
 " I protected myself — and my child." 
 
 He breathed deep. 
 
 " Or rather — did you murder a life — that 
 God had given you in trust ? " 
 
 He paused, and she paused also, as though 
 held by the power of his will. They were passing 
 along the public garden tliat borders the road ; 
 scents of lilac and fresh leaf floated over the 
 damp grass ; the moonliglit was growing in 
 strength, and the majesty of the gorge, the roar 
 of tlie leaping water, all seemed to enter into 
 the moral and human scene, to accent and 
 deepen it. 
 
 Daphne suddenly clung to a seat beside the 
 path, dropped into it.
 
 272 DAPHNE 
 
 " Captain Boyson ! I — I cannot bear this 
 any longer." 
 
 " I will not reproach you any more," he said, 
 quietly. " I beg your pardon. The past is 
 irrevocable, but the present is here. The man 
 who loved you, the father of your child, is alone, 
 ill, poor, in danger of moral ruin, because of 
 what you have done. I ask you to go to his 
 aid. But first let me tell you exactly what I 
 have just heard from England." He repeated 
 the greater part of French's letter, so far as it 
 concerned Roger. 
 
 " He has his mother," said Daphne, when 
 he paused, speaking with evident physical 
 difficulty. 
 
 " Lady Barnes I hear had a paralytic stroke 
 two months ago. She is incapable of giving 
 advice or help." 
 
 " Of course, I am sorry. But Herbert 
 French " 
 
 " No one but a wife could save him — no 
 one ! " he repeated with emphasis. 
 
 " I am not his wife ! " she insisted faintly. 
 " I released myself by American law. He is 
 nothing to me." As she spoke she leant back 
 against the seat and closed her eyes. Boyson 
 saw clearly that excitement and anger had 
 struck down her nervous power, that she might 
 faint or go into hysterics. Yet a man of re- 
 markable courtesy and pitifulness towards
 
 DAPHNE 273 
 
 women was not thereby moved from his pur- 
 pose. He had his chance ; he could not re- 
 hnquish it. Only there was something now 
 in her attitude which recalled the young Daphne 
 of years ago ; which touched his heart. 
 
 He sat down beside her. 
 
 " Bear with me, Mrs. Barnes, for a few 
 moments, while I put it as it appears to another 
 mind. You became first jealous of Roger, 
 for very small reason, then tired of him. Your 
 marriage no longer satisfied you — you resolved 
 to be quit of it ; so you appealed to laws of which, 
 as a nation, we are ashamed, which all that is 
 best among us will, before long, rebel against 
 and change. Our State system permits them — 
 America suffers. In this case — forgive me if I 
 put it once more as it appears to me — they have 
 been used to strike at an Englishman who had 
 absolutely no defence, no redress. And now you 
 are free ; he remains bound — so long, at least, as 
 you form no other tie. Again I ask you, have 
 you ever let yourself face what it means to a 
 man of thirty to be cut off from lawful mar- 
 riage and legitimate children ? Mrs. Barnes ! 
 you know what a man is, his strength and his 
 weakness. Arc you really willing that Roger 
 should sink into degradation in order that 
 you may punish liim for some offence to your 
 pride or your feeling ? It may be too late ! 
 He may, as French fears, have fallen into 
 
 s
 
 274 DAPHNE 
 
 some fatal entanglement ; it may not be 
 possible to restore his health. He may not be 
 able " — he hesitated, then brought the words 
 out firmly — " to forgive you. Or again, French's 
 anxieties about him may be unfounded. But 
 for God's sake go to him ! Once on English 
 ground you are his wife again as though nothing 
 had happened. For God's sake put every- 
 thing aside but the thought of the vow you once 
 made to him ! Go back ! I implore you, go 
 back ! I promise you that no happiness you 
 have ever felt will be equal to the happiness that 
 step would bring you, if only you are per- 
 mitted to save him." 
 
 Daphne was by now shaking from head to 
 foot. The force of feeling which impelled him 
 so mastered her that when he gravely took 
 her hand she did not withdraw it. She had a 
 strange sense of having at last discovered the 
 true self of the quiet, efficient, unpretending 
 man she had known for so long and cast so 
 easily aside. There was shock and excitement 
 in it, as there is in all trials of strength between 
 a man and a woman. She tried to hate and 
 despise him, but she could not achieve it. 
 She longed to answer and crush him, but 
 her mind was a blank, her tongue refused its 
 office. Surprise, resentment, wounded feeling 
 made a tumult and darkness through which 
 she could not find her way.
 
 DAPHNE 275 
 
 She rose at last painfully from her seat. 
 
 " This conversation must end," she said 
 brokenly. " Captain Boyson, I appeal to you 
 as a gentleman, let me go on alone." 
 
 He looked at her sadly and stood aside. 
 But as he saw her move uncertainly towards 
 a portion of the road where various trenches 
 and pits made walking difficult, he darted after 
 her. 
 
 " Please ! " he said peremptorily ; " this 
 bit is unsafe." 
 
 He drew her hand within his arm and guided 
 her. As he did so he saw that she was crying ; 
 no doubt, as he rightly guessed, from shaken 
 nerves and wounded pride ; for it did not seem 
 to him that she had yielded at all. But this 
 time he felt distress and compunction. 
 
 " Forgive me ! " he said, bending over her. 
 " But think of what I have said — I beg of you ! 
 Be kind, be merciful ! " 
 
 She made various attempts to speak, and at 
 last she said, " I bear you no malice. But you 
 don't understand me, you never have." 
 
 He offered no reply. They had reached the 
 courtyard of the hotel. Daphne withdrew her 
 hand. When she reached the steps she pre- 
 ceded him without looking back, and was soon 
 lost to sight. 
 
 Boyson shook his head, lit a cigar, and spent 
 some time longer pacing up and down the
 
 276 DAPHNE 
 
 verandah. When he went to his wife's room 
 he found her asleep, a vision of soft youth and 
 charm. He stood a few moments looking 
 down upon her, wondering in himself at what he 
 had done. Yet he knew very well that it was 
 the stirring and deepening of his whole being pro- 
 duced by love that had impelled him to do it. 
 
 Next morning he told his wife. 
 
 " Do you suppose I produced any effect ? " 
 he asked her anxiously. " If she really thinks 
 over what I said, she must be touched ! unless 
 she's made of flint. I said all the wrong things — 
 but I did rub it in." 
 
 " I'm sure you did," said his wife, smiling. 
 Then she looked at him with a critical tender- 
 ness. 
 
 " You dear optimist ! " she cried, and slipped 
 her hand into his. 
 
 " That means you think I behaved like a 
 fool, and that my appeal won't move her in 
 the least ? " 
 
 The face beside him saddened. 
 
 " Dear, dear optimist ! " she repeated, and 
 pressed his hand. He urged an explanation 
 of her epithet. But she only said, thought- 
 fully : 
 
 " You took a great responsibility ! " 
 
 " Towards her ? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " No — towards him ! "
 
 DAPHNE 277 
 
 Meanwhile Daphne was watching beside a 
 death-bed. On her return from her walk 
 she had been met by the news of fresh and 
 grave symptoms in Mrs. Verrier's case. A 
 Boston doctor arrived the following morning. 
 The mortal disease which had attacked her 
 about a year before this date had entered, so 
 he reported, on its last phase. He talked of a 
 few days — possibly hours. 
 
 The Boysons departed, having left cards of 
 inquiry and sympathy, of which Mrs. Floyd 
 took no notice. Then for Daphne there followed 
 a nightmare of waiting and pain. She loved 
 Madeleine Verrier, as far as she was capable of 
 love, and she jealously wished to be all in all 
 to her in these last hours. She would liave 
 hked to feel that it was she who had carried 
 her friend through them ; who had nobly 
 sustained her in the dolorous pass. To have 
 been able to feel this would have been as balm 
 moreover to a piteously wounded self-love, 
 to a smarting and bitter recollection, which 
 would not let her rest. 
 
 But in these last days Madeleine escaped 
 her altogether. A thin-faced priest arrived, 
 the same who had been visiting the invalid at 
 intervals for a month or two. Mrs. Verrier was 
 received into the Roman Catholic Church ; 
 she made her first confession and comnmnion ; 
 she saw her mother for a short, final interview.
 
 278 DAPHNE 
 
 and her little girl ; and the physical energy 
 required for these acts exhausted her small 
 store. Whenever Daphne entered her room 
 Madeleine received her tenderly ; but she could 
 speak but little, and Daphne felt herself shut 
 out and ignored. What she said or thought 
 was no longer, it seemed, of any account. She 
 resented and despised Madeleine's surrender to 
 what she held to be a decaying superstition ; 
 and her haughty manner towards the mild 
 Oratorian whom she met occasionally on the 
 stairs, or in the corridor, expressed her disap- 
 proval. But it was impossible to argue with 
 a dying woman. She suffered in silence. 
 
 As she sat beside the patient, in the hours of 
 narcotic sleep when she relieved one of the 
 nurses, she went often through times of great 
 bitterness. She could not forgive the attack 
 Captain Boyson had made upon her ; yet she 
 could not forget it. It had so far roused her 
 moral sense that it led her to a perpetual brood- 
 ing over the past, a perpetual re-statement of 
 her own position. She was most troubled, often, 
 by certain episodes in the past, of which, she 
 supposed, Alfred Boyson knew least ; the cor- 
 rupt use she had made of her money ; the 
 false witnesses she had paid for ; the bribes she 
 had given. At the time it had seemed to her 
 all part of the campaign, in the day's work. 
 She had found herself in a milieu that demoral- 
 
 i
 
 DAPHNE 279 
 
 ised her ; her mind had become Hke " the 
 dyer's hand, subdued to what it worked in." 
 Now, she found herself thinking in a sudden 
 terror, " If Alfred Boyson knew so and so ! " 
 or, as she looked down on Madeleine's dying 
 face, " Could I even tell Madeleine that ? " 
 And then would come the dreary thought, " I 
 shall never tell her anything any more. She 
 is lost to me — even before death." 
 
 She tried to avoid thinking of Roger ; but 
 the memory of the scene with Alfred Boyson 
 did, in truth, bring him constantly before her. 
 An inner debate began, from which she could 
 not escape. She grew white and ill with it. 
 If she could have rushed away from it into the 
 full stream of life, have thrown herself into 
 meetings and discussion, have resumed her 
 place as the admired and flattered head of a 
 particular society, she could easily have crushed 
 and sOenced the tlioughts wliich tormented her. 
 
 But she was held fast. She could not 
 desert Madeleine Verrier in death ; she could 
 not wrench her own hand from this frail hand 
 which clung to it ; even though Madeleine had 
 betrayed the common cause, had yielded at 
 last to that moral and spiritual cowardice which 
 — as all freetliinkers know — has spoiled and 
 clouded so many death-beds. Daphne — the 
 skimmer of many books — remembered how 
 Renan — sain el sauj — had sent a challenge to
 
 28o DAPHNE 
 
 his own end, and, defying the possible weakness 
 of age and sickness, had demanded to be judged 
 by the convictions of hfe, and not by the terrors 
 of death. She tried to fortify her own mind 
 by the recollection. 
 
 The first days of June broke radiantly over 
 the great gorge and the woods which surround 
 it. One morning, early, between four and 
 five o'clock. Daphne came in, to find Madeleine 
 awake and comparatively at ease. Yet the 
 preceding twenty-four hours had been terrible, 
 and her nurses knew that the end could not 
 be far off. 
 
 The invalid had just asked that her couch 
 might be drawn as near to the window as 
 possible, and she lay looking towards the dawn, 
 which rose in fresh and windless beauty over 
 the town opposite and the white splendour of 
 the Falls. The American Fall was still largely 
 in shadow ; but the light struck on the fresh 
 green of Goat Island and leapt in tongues of 
 fire along the edge of the Horseshoe, turning 
 the rapids above it to flame and sending shafts 
 into the vast tower of spray that holds the 
 centre of the curve. Nature was all youth, 
 glitter and delight ; summer was rushing on 
 the gorge ; the mingling of wood and water 
 was at its richest and noblest. 
 
 Madeleine turned her face towards the gorge,
 
 DAPHNE 281 
 
 her wasted hands clasped on her breast. She 
 beckoned Daphne with a smile, and Daphne 
 knelt down beside her. 
 
 "The water!" said the whispering voice; 
 "it was once so terrible. I am not afraid — 
 now." 
 
 " No, darling. Why should you be ? " 
 
 " I know now, I shall see him again." 
 
 Daphne was silent. 
 
 " I hoped it, but I couldn't be certain. 
 That was so awful. Now — I am certain." 
 
 " Since you became a Catholic ? " 
 
 She made a sign of assent. 
 
 " I couldn't be uncertain — I couldn't ! " 
 she added with fervour, looking strangely at 
 Daphne. And Daphne understood that no 
 voice less positive or self-confident than that 
 of Catholicism, no religion less well provided 
 with tangible rites and practices, could have 
 lifted from the spirit the burden of that remorse 
 which had yet killed tlie body. 
 
 A little later Madeleine drew her down 
 again . 
 
 " I couldn't talk. Daphne — I was afraid ; but 
 I've written to you, just bit by bit, as I had 
 strength. Oh, Daplme ! " 
 
 Then voice and strength failed her. Her 
 eyes pitcously followed her friend for a little, 
 and then closed. 
 
 She lingered through the day ; and at
 
 282 DAPHNE 
 
 night, when the June starlight was on the 
 gorge, she passed away, with the voice of the 
 Falls in her dying ears. A tragic beauty — 
 "beauty born of murmuring sound" — had 
 passed into her face ; and that great plunge of 
 many waters, which had been to her in life the 
 symbol of anguish and guilt, had become in 
 some mysterious way the comforter of her pain, 
 the friend of her last sleep. 
 
 A letter was found for Daphne in the little 
 box beside her bed. 
 
 It ran thus : 
 
 " Daphne, darling, — It was I who first 
 taught you that we may follow our own law- 
 less wills, and that marriage is something we 
 may bend or break as we will. But, oh ! it is 
 not so. Marriage is mysterious and wonder- 
 ful ; it is the supreme test of men and women. 
 If we wrong it, and despise it, we mutilate the 
 divine in ourselves. 
 
 " Oh, Daphne ! it is a small thing to say, 
 ' Forgive ! ' Yet it means the whole world. 
 
 " And you can still say it to the living. It 
 has been my anguish that I could only say it 
 to the dead. Daphne, good-bye ! I have fought 
 a long, long fight, but God is Master — I bless — 
 I adore " 
 
 Daphne sat staring at the letter through a
 
 DAPHNE 283 
 
 mist of unwilling tears. All its phrases, ideas, 
 preconceptions, were unwelcome, unreal to her, 
 though she knew they had been real to Madeleine. 
 
 Yet the compulsion of the dead was upon 
 her, and of her scene with Boyson. What they 
 asked of her — Madeleine and Alfred Boyson — 
 was of course out of the question ; the mere 
 thought of that humiliating word " forgiveness " 
 sent a tingle of passion through her. But was 
 there no third course ? — something which 
 might prove to all the world how full of re- 
 source and generosity a woman may be ? 
 
 She pondered through some sleepless hours ; 
 and at last she saw her way plain. 
 
 Within a week she had left New York for 
 Europe.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 The ship on which Daphne travelled had 
 covered about half her course. On a certain 
 June evening Mrs. Floyd, walking up and 
 down the promenade deck, found her attention 
 divided between two groups of her fellow- 
 travellers — one taking exercise on the same 
 deck as herself ; the other, a family party, on 
 the steerage deck, on which many persons in 
 the first class paused to look down with sym- 
 pathy as they reached the dividing rail aft. 
 
 The group on the promenade deck con- 
 sisted of a lady and gentleman, and a boy of 
 seven. The elders walked rapidly, holding 
 themselves stiffly erect, and showing no sign 
 of acquaintance with anyone on board. The 
 child dragged himself wearily along behind 
 them, looking sometimes from side to side at 
 the various people passing by, with eyes no 
 less furtive than his mother's. She was a tall 
 and handsome woman, with extravagantly 
 marine clothes and much false hair. Her com- 
 panion, a bulky and ill-favoured man, glanced 
 superciliously at the ladies in the deck chairs, 
 bestowing always a more attentive scrutiny 
 
 284
 
 DAPHNE 285 
 
 than usual on a very pretty girl, who was lying 
 reading midway down, with a white lace scarf 
 draped round her beautiful hair and the 
 harmonious oval of her face. Daphne, watch- 
 ing him, remembered that she had seen him 
 speaking to the girl — who was travelling alone — 
 on one or two occasions. For the rest, they were 
 a notorious couple. The woman had been 
 twice divorced, after misdoings which had richly 
 furnished the newspapers ; the man belonged 
 to a financial class with which reputable men 
 of business associate no more than they are 
 obliged. The ship left them severely alone ; 
 and they retaliated by a manner clearly meant 
 to say that they didn't care a brass farthing 
 for the ship. 
 
 The group on the steerage deck was of a 
 very different kind. It was made up of a con- 
 sumptive wife, a young husband and one or 
 two children. The wife's malady, recently 
 declared, had led to their being refused ad- 
 mission to the States. They had been turned 
 back from the emigrant station on Ellis Island, 
 and were now sadly returning to Liverpool. 
 But the courage of the young and sweet-faced 
 mother, tlie devotion of her Irish husband, 
 the charm of her dark-eyed children, had roused 
 much feeling in an idle ship, ready for emotion. 
 There had been a collection for them among 
 the passengers ; a Liverpool shipowner, in the
 
 286 DAPHNE 
 
 first class, had promised work to the young 
 man on landing ; the mother was to be sent to 
 a sanatorium ; the children cared for during 
 her absence. The family made a kind of 
 nucleus round which whatever humanity — 
 or whatever imitation of it — there was on 
 board might gather and crystallise. There 
 were other mournful cases indeed to be studied 
 on the steerage deck, but none in which mis- 
 fortune was so attractive. 
 
 As she walked up and down, or sat in the 
 tea-room catching fragments of the conversation 
 round her, Daphne was often secretly angered 
 by the public opinion she perceived, favourable 
 in the one case, hostile in the other. How 
 ignorant and silly it was — this public opinion ! 
 As to herself, she was soon aware that a few 
 people on board had identified her and com- 
 municated their knowledge to others. On the 
 whole, she felt herself treated with deference. 
 Her own version of her story was clearly 
 accepted, at least by the majority ; some showed 
 her an unspoken but evident sympathy, while 
 her wealth made her generally interesting. 
 Yet there were two or three in whom she felt 
 or fancied a more critical attitude ; who looked 
 at her coolly, and seemed to avoid her. Bos- 
 tonian Pharisees, no doubt ! — ignorant of all 
 those great expansions of the female destiny 
 that were going forward.
 
 DAPHNE 287 
 
 The fact was — she admitted it — that she 
 was abnormally sensitive. These moral judg- 
 ments, of different sorts, of which she was 
 conscious, floating as it were in the life around 
 her, which her mind isolated and magnified, 
 found her smarting and sore, and would not 
 let her be. Her irritable pride was touched 
 at every turn ; she hardly knew why. She 
 was not to be judged by anybody ; she was her 
 own defender and her own judge. If she was 
 no longer a symbolic and sympathetic figure — 
 like that young mother among her children 
 — she had her own claims. In the secrecy of 
 the mind she fiercely set them out. 
 
 The days passed, however, and as she neared 
 the English shores her resistance to a pursuing 
 thought became fainter. It was, of course, 
 Boyson's astonishing appeal to her that had 
 let loose the Avenging Goddesses. She re- 
 pelled them with scorn ; yet all the same they 
 hurtled round her. After all, she was no 
 monster. She had done a monstrous thing in a 
 sudden brutality of egotism ; and a certain 
 crude state of law and opinion had helped her 
 to do it, had confused the moral values and 
 falsified her conscience. But she was not yet 
 brutalised. Moreover, do what she would, she 
 was still in a world governed by law ; a world at 
 the heart of which broods a power austere and 
 immutable ; a power which man did not make.
 
 288 DAPHNE 
 
 which, if he clash with it, grinds him to powder. 
 Its manifestations in Daphne's case were shght, 
 but enough. She was not happy, that certainly 
 was clear. She did not suppose she ever would 
 be happy again. Whatever it was — just, heroic, 
 or the reverse — the action by which she had 
 violently changed her life had not been a 
 success, estimated by results. No other man 
 had attracted her since she had cast Roger 
 off ; her youth seemed to be deserting her ; 
 she saw herself in the glass every morning with 
 discontent, even a kind of terror ; she had lost 
 her child. And in these suspended hours of 
 the voyage, when life floats between sky and 
 sea, amid the infinity of waves, all that she 
 had been doing since the divorce, her public 
 " causes " and triumphs, the adulations with 
 which she had been surrounded, began to 
 seem to her barren and futile. No, she was not 
 happy ; what she had done had not answered ; 
 and she knew it. 
 
 One night, a night of calm air and silvery 
 sea, she hung over the ship's side, dreaming 
 rather miserably. The ship, aglow with lights, 
 alive with movement, with talk, laughter and 
 music, glided on between the stars and the 
 unfathomable depths of the mid-Atlantic. 
 Nothing, to north and south, between her and 
 the poles ; nothing but a few feet of iron and
 
 DAPHNE 2S9 
 
 timber between her and the hungry gulfs in 
 which the highest Alp would sink from sight. 
 The floating palace, hung by Knowledge above 
 Death, just out of Death's reach, suggested to 
 her a number of melancholy thoughts and 
 images. A touch of more than Arctic cold 
 stole upon her, even through this loveliness of 
 a summer night ; she felt desperately unhappy 
 and alone. 
 
 From the saloon came a sound of singing 
 
 "An die Lip pen wollt' ich pressen 
 Deine kleine weisse Hand, 
 Und mit Thrdnen sie henetzen 
 Deine kleine weisse Hand'' 
 
 The tears came to her eyes. She remembered 
 that she, too, had once felt the surrender and 
 the tenderness of love. 
 
 Then she brushed the tears away, angry 
 with herself and determined to brood no more. 
 But she looked round her in vain for a com- 
 panion who might distract her. She liad made 
 no friends on board, and though she had brouglit 
 with her a secretary and a inaid, she kept them 
 both at arm's length, and they never offered 
 their society without an invitation. 
 
 What was she going to do ? And wliy was 
 she making tliis journey ? 
 
 Because the injustice and absurdity of 
 
 T
 
 290 DAPHNE 
 
 English law had distorted and besmirched her 
 own perfectly legitimate action. They had 
 given a handle to such harsh critics as Alfred 
 Boyson. But she meant somehow to put her- 
 self right ; and not only herself, but the great 
 cause of woman's freedom and independence. 
 No woman, in the better future that is coming, 
 shall be forced either by law or opinion to 
 continue the relations of marriage with a man 
 she has come to despise. Marriage is merely 
 proclaimed love ; and if love fails, marriage has 
 no further meaning or raison d'etre: it comes, 
 or should come, automatically to an end. This 
 is the first article in the woman's charter, and 
 without it marriage itself has neither value nor 
 sanctity. She seemed to hear sentences of this 
 sort, in her own voice, echoing about windy 
 halls, producing waves of emotion on a sea 
 of strained faces — women's faces, set and pale, 
 like that of Madeleine Verrier. She had never 
 actually made such a speech, but she felt she 
 would like to have made it. 
 
 What was she going to do ? No doubt 
 Roger would resent her coming — would probably 
 refuse to see her, as she had once refused to see 
 him. Well, she must try and act with dignity 
 and common sense ; she must try and persuade 
 him to recognise her good faith, and to get him 
 to listen to what she proposed. She had her 
 plan for Roger's reclamation, and was already
 
 DAPHNE 291 
 
 in love with it. Naturall3^ she had never 
 meant permanently to hurt or injure Roger ! 
 She had done it for his good as well as 
 her own. Yet even as she put this plea for- 
 ward in the inner tribunal of consciousness, she 
 knew that it was false. 
 
 " Yoii have murdered a life ! " Well, that 
 was wliat prejudiced and hide-bound persons 
 like Alfred Boyson said, and no doubt alwaj'S 
 would say. She could not help it ; but for her 
 own dignity's sake, that moral dignity in which 
 she liked to feel herself enwrapped, she would 
 give as little excuse for it as possible. 
 
 Then, as she stood looking eastward, a 
 strange tliought struck lier. Once on tliat 
 fartlier sliore and she would be Roger's wife 
 again — an English subject, and Roger's wife. 
 How ridiculous, and liow intolerable ! When 
 shall we see some real comity of nations in 
 these matters of international marriage and 
 divorce ? 
 
 She liad consulted her lawyers in New York 
 before starting ; on l^ogcr's situation fust of 
 all, but also on li(;r own. Roger, it seemed, 
 might take certain legal steps, once he was 
 aware of her being again on English ground. 
 But, of course, he would not take them. " It 
 was never me he cared for — only Beatty ! " she 
 said to herself with a bitter perversity. Still 
 the thought of returning within the range of
 
 292 DAPHNE 
 
 the old obligations, the old life, affected her 
 curiously. There were hours, especially at night, 
 when she felt shut up with thoughts of Roger 
 and Beatty — her husband and her child — just 
 as of old. 
 
 How, in the name of justice, was she to 
 blame for Roger's illness ? Her irritable thoughts 
 made a kind of grievance against him of the 
 attack of pneumonia which she was told had 
 injured his health. He must have neglected 
 himself in some foolish way. The strongest 
 men are the most reckless of themselves. In 
 any case, how was it her fault ? 
 
 One night she woke up suddenly, in the 
 dawn, her heart beating tumultuously. She 
 had been dreaming of her meeting — her possible 
 meeting — with Roger. Her face was flushed, 
 her memory confused. She could not recall 
 the exact words or incidents of the dream, only 
 that Roger had been in some way terrible and 
 terrifying. 
 
 And as she sat up in her berth, trying to 
 compose herself, she recalled the last time she 
 had seen him at Philadelphia — a painful scene — 
 and his last broken words to her, as he turned 
 back from the door to speak them : — 
 
 "As to Beatty, I hold you responsible ! 
 She is my child, no less than yours. You shall 
 answer to me ! Remember that ! " 
 
 Answer to him ? Beatty was dead — in
 
 DAPHNE 293 
 
 spite of all that love and science could do. 
 Involuntarily she began to weep as she 
 remembered the child's last days; the little 
 choked cry, once or twice, for " Daddy ! " 
 followed, so long as life maintained its struggle, 
 by a childish anger that he did not come. And 
 then the silencing of the cry, and the last change 
 and settling in the small face, so instinct already 
 with feeling and character, so prophetic of the 
 woman to be. 
 
 A grief, of course, never to be got over; 
 but for which she. Daphne, deserved pity and 
 tenderness, not reproaches. She hardened her- 
 self to meet the coming trial. 
 
 She arrived in London in the first week of 
 July, and her first act was to post a letter to 
 Herbert French, addressed to his East-End 
 vicarage, a letter formally expressed and merely 
 asking liim to give the writer " twenty minutes' 
 conversation on a subject of common interest 
 to us both." The letter was signed " Daphne 
 Floyd," and a stamped envelope addressed to 
 " Mrs. Floyd " was enclosed. By return of 
 post she received a letter from a person un- 
 known to her, the curate, apparently, in charge 
 of Mr. French's parish. The letter informed her 
 that her own communication had not been for- 
 warded, as Mr. French had gone away for a 
 holiday after a threat of nervous breakdown
 
 294 DAPHNE 
 
 in consequence of overwork ; and business letters 
 and interviews were being spared him as much 
 as possible. " He is, however, much better, 
 I am glad to say, and if the subject on which 
 you wish to speak to him is really urgent, his 
 present address is Prospect House, St. Damian's, 
 Ventnor. But unless it is urgent it would 
 be a kindness not to trouble him with it until 
 he returns to town, which will not be for another 
 fortnight." 
 
 Daphne walked restlessly up and down her 
 hotel sitting-room. Of course the matter was 
 urgent. The health of an East-End clergy- 
 man — already, it appeared, much amended — 
 was not likely to seem of much importance to a 
 woman of her temperament, when it stood in 
 the way of her plans. 
 
 But she would not write, she would go. 
 She had good reason to suppose that Herbert 
 French would not welcome a visit from her ; 
 he might indeed very easily use his health as an 
 excuse for not seeing her. But she must see 
 him. 
 
 By mid-day she was already on her way to 
 the Isle of Wight. About five o'clock she 
 arrived at Ventnor, where she deposited maid 
 and luggage. She then drove out alone to 
 St. Damian's, a village a few miles north, 
 through a radiant evening. The twinkling sea 
 was alive with craft of all sizes, from the great
 
 DAPHNE 295 
 
 liner leaving its trail of smoke along the horizon, 
 to the white-sailed yachts close upon the land. 
 The woods of the Undercliff sank softly to the 
 blues and purple, the silver streaks and gorgeous 
 shadows of the sea floor. The lights were 
 broad and rich. After a hot day, coolness had 
 come and the air was delightful. 
 
 But Daphne sat erect, noticing nothing but 
 the relief of the lowered temperature after her 
 hot and tiresome journey. She applied herself 
 occasionally to natural beauty, as she applied 
 herself to music or literature ; but it is not to 
 women of her type that the true passion of it 
 — " the soul's bridegroom " — comes. And she 
 was absorbed in thinking how she should open 
 her business to Herbert French. 
 
 Prospect House turned out to be a detached 
 villa standing in a garden, with a broad view 
 of the Channel. Daphne sent her carriage back 
 to the inn and climbed tlie steep drive which 
 led u]) to tlic vcrandahed house. The front 
 garden was emjity, but voices — voices, it seemed, 
 of cliildrcn — came from behind the house where 
 there was a grove of trees. 
 
 " Is Mr. Herbert Frencli at home ? " she 
 asked of the maid who answered her bell. 
 
 The girl looked at her doubtfully. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am — but he doesn't see visitors 
 yet. Shall I tell Mrs. French ? She's in the 
 gaidcn with the children."
 
 296 DAPHNE 
 
 " No, thank you," said Daphne, firmly. 
 ** It's Mr. French I have come to see, and I 
 am sure that he will wish to see me. Will you 
 kindly give him my card ? I will come in and 
 wait." 
 
 And she brushed past the maid, who was 
 intimidated by the visitor's fashionable dress 
 and by the drooping feathers of her Paris 
 hat, in which the sharp olive-skinned face 
 with its magnificent eyes was picturesquely 
 framed. The girl gave way unwillingly, showed 
 Mrs. Floyd into a small study looking on the 
 front garden, and left her. 
 
 " Elsie ! " cried Herbert French, springing 
 from the low chair in which he had been loung- 
 ing in his shirt-sleeves with a book when the 
 parlour-maid found him, " Elsie ! " 
 
 His wife, who was at the other end of the 
 lawn, playing with the children, the boy on her 
 back and a pair of girl twins clinging to 
 her skirts, turned in astonishment and hurried 
 back to him. 
 
 " Mrs. Floyd ? " They both looked at the card 
 in bewilderment. " Who is it ? Mrs. Floyd ? " 
 
 Then French's face changed. 
 
 " What is this lady hke ? " he asked peremp- 
 torily of the parlour-maid. 
 
 ** Well, sir, she's a dark lady, dressed very 
 smart "
 
 DAPHNE 297 
 
 " Has she very black eyes ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir ! " 
 
 " Young ? " 
 
 The girl promptly replied in the negative, 
 qualif3dng it a moment afterwards by a per- 
 plexed " Well, I shouldn't say so, sir." 
 
 French thought a moment. 
 
 " Thank you. I will come in." 
 
 He turned to his wife with a rapid question, 
 under his breath. " Where is Roger ? " 
 
 Elsie stared at him, her colour paling. 
 
 " Herbert !— it can't— it can't " 
 
 " I suspect it is — Mrs. Barnes," said French 
 slowly. " Help me on with my coat, darhng. 
 Now then, wliat shall we do ? " 
 
 " She can't have come to force herself on 
 him ! " cried his wife passionately. 
 
 " Probably she knows nothing of his being 
 here. Did he go for a walk ? " 
 
 " Yes, towards Sandown. But he will be 
 back directly." 
 
 A quick shade of expression crossed French's 
 face, which liis wife knew to mean that whenever 
 Roger was out by liimself tliere was cause for 
 anxiety. But the familiar trouble was imme- 
 diately swallowed up in the new and pressing 
 one. 
 
 " What can that woman have come to say ? " 
 he asked, half of himself, half of his wife, as he 
 walked slowly back to the house. Elsie had
 
 298 DAPHNE 
 
 conveyed the children to their nurse, and was 
 beside him. 
 
 " Perhaps she repents ! " The tone was 
 dry and short ; it flung a challenge to mis- 
 doing. 
 
 " I doubt it ! But Roger ? " French stood 
 still, pondering. " Keep him, darling — in- 
 tercept him if you can. If he must see her, 
 I will come out. But we mustn't risk a 
 shock." 
 
 They consulted a little in low voices. Then 
 French went into the house and Elsie came 
 back to her children. She stood thinking, 
 her fine face, so open-browed and purely 
 lined, frowning and distressed. 
 
 " You wished to see me, Mrs. Barnes ? " 
 
 French had closed the door of the study 
 behind him and stood without offering to shake 
 hands with his visitor, coldly regarding her. 
 
 Daphne rose from her seat, reddening in- 
 voluntarily. 
 
 " My name is no longer what you once knew 
 it, Mr. French. I sent you my card." 
 
 French made a slight inclination and pointed 
 to the chair from which she had risen. 
 
 " Pray sit down. May I know what has 
 brought you here ? " 
 
 Daphne resumed her seat, her small hands 
 fidgeting on her parasol.
 
 DAPHNE 299 
 
 " I wished to come and consult with you, 
 Mr. French. I had heard a distressing account 
 of — of Roger, from a friend in America." 
 
 " I see," said French, on whom a sudden 
 hght dawned. " You met Boyson at Niagara — 
 that I knew — and you are here because of what 
 he said to you ? " 
 
 " Yes, partly." The speaker looked round 
 the room, biting her lip, and French observed 
 her for a moment. He remembered the foreign 
 vivacity and dash, the wilful grace of her youth, 
 and marvelled at her stiffened, pretentious air, 
 her loss of charm. Instinctively the saint in him 
 knew from the mere look of her that she had 
 been feeding herself on egotisms and falsehoods, 
 and his heart hardened. Daphne resumed : 
 
 "If Captain Boyson has given you an account 
 of our interview, Mr. French, it was probably 
 a one-sided one. However, that is not tlie point. 
 He did distress me very much by his account, 
 which I gather came from you — of — of Roger, 
 and although, of course, it is a very awkward 
 matter for me to move in, I still felt imi)elled 
 for old times' sake to come over and see whether 
 I could not help you — and his other friends — 
 and, of course, liis mother " 
 
 " His mother is out of the question," iiiter- 
 ru])ted French. " She is, I am sorry to say, a 
 helpless invalid." 
 
 " Is it really as bad as that ? 1 hoped for
 
 300 DAPHNE 
 
 better news. Then I apply to you — to you 
 chiefly. Is there anything that I could do to 
 assist you, or others, to " 
 
 " To save him ? " French put in the words 
 as she hesitated. 
 
 Daphne was silent. 
 
 ** What is your idea ? " asked French, after 
 a moment. " You heard, I presume, from 
 Captain Boyson that my wife and I were 
 extremely anxious about Roger's ways and 
 habits ; that we cannot induce him, or, at any 
 rate, we have not yet been able to induce him, 
 to give up drinking ; that his health is extremely 
 bad, and that we are sometimes afraid that 
 there is now some secret in his life of which he 
 is ashamed ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Daphne, fidgeting with a book 
 on the table. " Yes, that is what I heard." 
 
 " And you have come to suggest some- 
 thing ? " 
 
 " Is tliere no way by which Roger can 
 become as free as I now am ! " she said sud- 
 denly, throwing back her head. 
 
 " By which Roger can obtain his divorce 
 from you — and marry again ? None, in English 
 law." 
 
 " But there is — in Colonial law." She began 
 to speak hurriedly and urgently. " If Roger 
 were to go to New Zealand, or to Australia, he 
 could, after a time, get a divorce for desertion.
 
 DAPHNE 301 
 
 I know he could — I have inquired. It doesn't 
 seem to be certain what effect my action — the 
 American decree, I mean — would have in an 
 English colony. My lawyers are going into it. 
 But at any rate there is the desertion. And 
 then " — she grew more eager — " if he married 
 abroad — in the Colony — the marriage would be 
 valid. No one could say a word to him when 
 he returned to England." 
 
 French looked at her in silence. She went 
 on — with the unconscious manner of one accus- 
 tomed to command her world, to be the oracle 
 and guide of subordinates : — 
 
 " Could we not induce him to go ? Could 
 you not ? Very likely he would refuse to see 
 me ; and, of course, he has, most unjustly to 
 me, I think, refused to take any money from me. 
 But the money might be provided without his 
 knowing where it came from. A young doctor 
 miglit be sent witli liim — some nice fellow 
 who would kec]) liim amused and look after him. 
 At Heston he used to take a groat interest in 
 farming. He might take u}) land. I would 
 pay anytliing — anything ! He miglit suppose 
 it came from some friend." 
 
 French smiled sadly. His eyes were on llic 
 ground. She bent forward. 
 
 " I beg of you, Mr. French, not to set your- 
 self against me ! Of course" — she drew herself 
 up proudly — " I know what you must think
 
 
 302 DAPHNE 
 
 of my action. Our views are different, irre- 
 concilably different. You probably think all 
 divorce wrong. We think, in America, that 
 a marriage which has become a burden to 
 either party is no marriage, and ought to cease. 
 But that, of course" — she waved a rhetorical 
 hand — " we cannot discuss. I do not propose 
 for a moment to discuss it. You must allow 
 me my national point of view. But surely 
 we can, putting all that aside, combine to help 
 Roger ? " 
 
 To marry again ? " said French, slowly. 
 It can't, I fear, be done — what you propose 
 — in the time. I doubt whether Roger has two 
 years to live." 
 
 Daphne started. 
 
 " Roger ! — to live ? " she repeated, in horror. 
 " What is really the matter ? Surely nothing 
 more than care and a voyage could set right ? " 
 
 French shook his head. 
 
 '* We have been anxious about him for 
 some time. That terrible attack of septic 
 pneumonia in New York, as v/e now know, 
 left the heart injured and the lungs weakened. 
 He was badly nursed, and his state of mind 
 at the time — his misery and loneliness — left 
 him little chance. Then the drinking habit, 
 which he contracted during those wretched 
 months in the States, has been of course sorely 
 against him. However, we hoped against hope
 
 DAPHNE 303 
 
 — Elsie and I — till a few weeks ago. Then 
 someone, we don't know who, made him go to 
 a specialist, and the verdict is — phthisis ; not 
 very advanced, but certain and definite. And 
 the general outlook is not favourable." 
 
 Daphne had grown pale. 
 
 " We must send him away ! " she said im- 
 periously. " We must ! A voyage, a good 
 doctor, a dry climate, would save him, of course 
 they would ! Why, there is nothing necessarily 
 fatal now in phthisis ! Nothing ! It is absurd 
 to talk as though there were." 
 
 Again French looked at her in silence. 
 But as she had lost colour, he had gahied it. 
 His face, which the East End had already 
 stamped, had grown rosy, his eyes sparkled. 
 
 " Oh, do say something ! Tell me what you 
 suggest ? " cried Daphne. 
 
 " Do you really wish me to tell you what I 
 suggest ? " 
 
 Daphne waited, her eyes first imploring, 
 then beginning to shrink. He bent forward 
 and touclied her on the arm. 
 
 " Go, Mrs. Barnes, and ask 3/our husband's 
 forgiveness ! What will come of it I do not 
 know. But you, at least, will have done some- 
 thing to set yourself right — with God." 
 
 The Cliristian and the priest liad spoken ; 
 the low voice in its intensity liad seemed 
 to ring through the quiet sun-flooded room.
 
 ?04 DAPHNE 
 
 Daphne rose, trembling with resentment and 
 antagonism. 
 
 " It is you, then, Mr. French, who make it 
 impossible for me to discuss — to help. I shall 
 have to see if I can find some other means of 
 carrying out my purpose." 
 
 There was a voice outside. Daphne turned. 
 
 " Who is that ? " 
 
 French ran to the glass door that opened on 
 to the verandah, and, trying for an ordinary 
 tone, waved somebody back who was approach- 
 ing from without. Elsie came quickly round 
 the corner of the house, calling to the new- 
 comer. 
 
 But Daphne saw who it was and took her 
 own course. She, too, went to the window, 
 and, passing French, she stepped into the 
 verandah. 
 
 " Roger ! " 
 
 A man hurried through the dusk. There 
 was an exclamation, a silence. By this time 
 French was on the lawn, his wife's quivering 
 hand in his. Daphne retreated slowly into the 
 study and Roger Barnes followed her. 
 
 " Leave them alone," said French, and 
 putting an arm round his wife he led her 
 resolutely away, out of sound and sight. 
 
 Barnes stood silent, breathing heavily and 
 leaning on the back of a chair. The western
 
 DAPHNE 305 
 
 light from a side window struck full on him. 
 But Daphne, the wave of excitement spent, was 
 not looking at him. She had fallen upon a 
 sofa, her face was in her hands. 
 
 " What do you want with me ? " said Roger 
 at last. Then, in a sudden heat, " By God, I 
 never wished to see you again ! " 
 
 Daphne's muffled voice came through her 
 fingers : 
 
 " I know that. You needn't tell me so ! " 
 
 Roger turned away. 
 
 " You'll admit it's an intrusion ? " he said 
 fiercely. " I don't see what you and I have 
 got to do with each other now." 
 
 Dapline struggled for self-control. After all, 
 she had alwa3's managed him in the old days. 
 She would manage him now. 
 
 " Roger — I — I didn't come to discuss the 
 past. That's done with. But — I heard things 
 about you — that " 
 
 " You didn't like ? " he laughed. " I'm 
 sorry, but I don't see what you have to do 
 witli them." 
 
 Daphne's hand fidgeted witli her dress, her 
 eyes still cast down. 
 
 " Couldn't we talk without bitterness ? Just 
 for ten minutes ? It was from Captain Boyson 
 that I heard " 
 
 " Oh. Boyson, was that it ? And he got liis 
 information from French — poor old Herbert. 
 
 u
 
 3o6 DAPHNE 
 
 Well, it's quite true. I'm no longer fit for your 
 — or his — or anybody's society." 
 
 He threw himself into an armchair, calmly 
 took a cigarette out of a box that lay near, and 
 lit it. Daphne at last ventured to look at him. 
 The first and dominant impression was of 
 something shrunken and diminished. His blue 
 flannel suit hung loose on his shoulders and 
 chest, his athlete's limbs. His features liad 
 been thinned and graved and scooped by fever 
 and broken nights ; all the noble line and 
 proportion was still there, but for one who had 
 known him of old the effect was no longer 
 beautiful but ghastly. Daphne stared at him 
 in dismay. 
 
 He on his side observed his visitor, but with 
 a cooler curiosity. Like French he noticed 
 the signs of change, the dying down of brilliance 
 and of bloom. To go your own way, as Daphne 
 had done, did not seem to conduce to a woman's 
 good looks. 
 
 At last he threw in a dry interrogation : 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I came to try and help you/' Daphne 
 broke out, turning her head away, " to ask Mr. 
 French what I could do. It made me un- 
 happy " 
 
 " Did it ? " He laughed again. " I don't 
 see why. Oh, you needn't trouble yourself. 
 Elsie and Herbert are awfully good to me.
 
 DAPHNE 307 
 
 They're all I want, or at any rate," he hesitated 
 a moment, " they're all I shall want — from now 
 on. Anyway, you know there' d be something 
 grotesque in your trying your hand at reform- 
 ing me." 
 
 " I didn't mean anything of the kind ! " 
 she protested, stung by his tone. " I — I wanted 
 to suggest something practical — some wa}' by 
 which you miglit — release yourself from me — 
 and also recover your health." 
 
 " Release myself from you ? " he repeated. 
 " Tliat's easier said than done. Did 3^ou mean to 
 send me to the Colonies — was that your idea ? " 
 
 His smile was hard to bear. But she went 
 on, choking, yet determined : 
 
 " That seems to be the only way — in English 
 law. Wliy shouldn't you take it ? The voyage, 
 the new climate, would probably set you up 
 again. You need only be away a short time." 
 
 He looked at her in silence a mom.cnt, 
 fingering his cigarette. 
 
 " Thank you," he said at last, " thank you. 
 And I suppose you offered us money ? You told 
 Herbert you would ])ay all expenses ? Oh, 
 don't be angry ! I didn't mean anything un- 
 civil. But," he raised himself with energy 
 from his lounging position, " at the same time, 
 perhaps you ought to know that I would sooner 
 die a thousand times over than take a single 
 silver sixpence that belonged to you 1 "
 
 3o8 DAPHNE 
 
 Their eyes met, his quite calm, hers sparkling 
 with resentment and pain. 
 
 " Of course I can't argue with you if you 
 meet me in that tone," she said passionately. 
 " But I should have thought " 
 
 " Besides," he interrupted her, " you say 
 it is the only way. You are quite mistaken. 
 It is not the only way. As far as freeing me 
 goes, you could divorce me to-morrow — here — 
 if you liked. I have been unfaithful to you. 
 A strange way of putting it — at the present 
 moment — between you and me ! But that's 
 how it would appear in the English courts. 
 And as to the 'cruelty' — that wouldn't give 
 you any trouble ! " 
 
 Daphne had flushed deeply. It was only 
 by a great effort that she maintained her com- 
 posure. Her eyes avoided him. 
 
 " Mrs. Fairmile ? " she said in a low voice. 
 
 He threw back his head with a- sound of 
 scorn. 
 
 " Mrs. Fairmile ! You don't mean to tell 
 me. Daphne, to my face, that you ever believed 
 any of the lies — forgive the expression — that 
 you, and your witnesses, and your lawyers, 
 told in the States — that you bribed those 
 precious newspapers to tell ? " 
 
 " Of course I believed it 1 " she said fiercely. 
 " And as for lies, it was you who began 
 them."
 
 DAPHNE 309 
 
 " You believed that I had betrayed you with 
 Chloe Fairmile ? " He raised himself again, 
 fixing his strange deep-set gaze upon her. 
 
 " I never said " 
 
 " No ! To that length you didn't quite go. 
 I admit it. You were able to get your way 
 ■without it." He sank back in his chair again. 
 " No, my remark had nothing to do with Chloe. 
 I have never set eyes on her since I left you at 
 Heston. But — there was a girl, a shop-girl, 
 a poor little thing, rather pretty. I came 
 across her about six months ago — it doesn't 
 matter how. She loves me, she was awfully 
 good to me, a regular little brick. Some day 
 I shall tell Herbert all about her — not yet — 
 though, of course, he suspects. She'd serve 
 your purpose, if you thought it worth while. 
 But you won't " 
 
 " You're — living with her — now ? " 
 
 " No. I broke with her a fortniglit ago, 
 after I'd seen those doctors. She made me see 
 them, poor little soul. Then I went to say good- 
 bye to her, and slie," his voice shook a httlc, 
 " she took it hard. But it's all right. I'm not 
 going to risk her life, or saddle licr with a dying 
 man. She's with her sister. Slic'll get over it." 
 
 He turned his head towards the window, 
 his eyes pursued the white sails on the darkening 
 blue outside. 
 
 " It's been a bad business, but \t wasn't
 
 310 DAPHNE 
 
 altogether my fault. I saved her from someone 
 else, and she saved me, once or twice, from 
 blowmg my brains out." 
 
 " What did the doctors say to you ? " asked 
 Daplme, brusquely, after a pause. 
 
 " They gave me about two years," he said, 
 indifferently, turning to knock off the end of 
 his cigarette. " That doesn't matter." Then, 
 as his eyes caught her face, a sudden animation 
 sprang into his. He drew his chair nearer to 
 her and threw away his cigarette. " Look 
 here. Daphne, don't let's waste time. We 
 shall never see each other again, and there are 
 a number of things I want to know. Tell me 
 everything you can remember about Beatty 
 that last six months — and about her illness, 
 you understand — never mind repeating what 
 you told Boyson, and he told me. But there's 
 lots more, there must be. Did she ever ask for 
 me ? Boyson said you couldn't remember. 
 But you must remember ! " 
 
 He came closer still, his threatening eyes 
 upon her. And as he did so, the dark presence 
 of ruin and death, of things damning and irre- 
 vocable, which had been hovering over their 
 conversation, approached with him — flapped 
 their sombre wings in Daphne's face. She 
 trembled all over. 
 
 " Yes," she said, faintly, " she did ask for 
 
 you."
 
 DAPHNE 311 
 
 " Ah ! " He gave a cry of delight. " Tell 
 me — tell me at once — everything — from the 
 beginning ! " 
 
 And held by his will, she told him every- 
 thing — all the piteous story of the child's last 
 days — sobbing herself ; and for the first time 
 making much of the little one's signs of re- 
 membering her father, instead of minimising 
 and ignoring them, as she had done in the talk 
 with Boyson. It was as though for the first 
 time she were trymg to stanch a wound instead 
 of widening it. 
 
 He listened eagerly. The two heads — of the 
 father and mother — drew closer ; one might 
 have thought them lovers still, united by 
 tender and sacred memories. 
 
 But at last Roger drew himself away. He 
 rose to his feet. 
 
 " I'll forgive you much for that ! " he said 
 witii a long breath. " Will you write it for me 
 some day — all you've told me ? " 
 
 She made a sign of assent. 
 
 " Well, now, you mustn't stay here any 
 longer. I suppose you've got a carriage ? And 
 we mustn't meet again. Tlicre's no object in 
 it. But I'll remember that you came." 
 
 She looked at him. In her nature the 
 great deeps were breaking up. She saw him 
 as she had seen him in her first youth. And, at 
 last, what she had done was plain to her.
 
 312 DAPHNE 
 
 With a cry she threw herself on the floor 
 beside him. She pressed his hand in hers. 
 
 " Roger, let me stay ! Let me nurse you ! " 
 she panted. " I didn't understand. Let me 
 be your friend ! Let me help ! I implore — I 
 implore you ! " 
 
 He hesitated a moment, then he lifted her 
 to her feet decidedly, but not unkindly. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he said, slowly. 
 "Do you mean that you wish us to be husband 
 and wife again ? You are, of course, my wife, 
 in the eye of English law, at this moment." 
 
 " Let me try and help you ! " she pleaded 
 again, breaking into bitter tears. " I didn't 
 — I didn't understand ! " 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " You can't help me. I — I'm afraid I 
 couldn't bear it. We mustn't meet. It — it's 
 gone too deep." 
 
 He thrust his hands into his pockets and 
 walked away to the window. She stood help- 
 lessly weeping. 
 
 When he returned he was quite composed 
 again. 
 
 " Don't cry so," he said, calmly. "It's 
 done. We can't help it. And don't make 
 yourself too unhappy about me. I've had 
 awful times. When I was ill in New York — 
 it was like hell. The pain was devilish, and 
 I wasn't used to being alone, and nobody caring
 
 DAPHNE 313 
 
 a damn, and everybody believing me a cad 
 and a bully. But I got over that. It was 
 Beatty's death that hit me so hard, and that 
 I wasn't there. It's that, somehow, I can't 
 get over — that you did it — that you could 
 have had tlie heart. It would always come 
 between us. No, we're better apart. But I'll 
 tell you something to comfort you. I've given 
 up that girl, as I've told you, and I've given 
 up drink. Herbert won't believe it, but he'll 
 find it is so. And I don't mean to die before 
 my time. I'm going out to Switzerland directly. 
 I'll do all tlie correct things. You see, when a 
 man knows he's going to die — well," he turned 
 away, " he gets uncommonly curious as to 
 what's going to come next." 
 
 He walked up and down a few turns. 
 Daplme watclied him. 
 
 " I'm not pious — I never was. But after 
 all, the religious people profess to know some- 
 thing about it, and nobody else does. Just 
 supposing it were true ? " 
 
 He stopped short, looking at her. She under- 
 stood perfectly that he had Bcatty in his mind. 
 
 " Well, anyhow, I'm going to live decently 
 for the rest of my time — and die decently. 
 I'm not going to throw away chances. And 
 don't trouble yourself about money. There's 
 enough left to carry me through. Good-bye, 
 Daphne ! " He held out his hand to her.
 
 314 DAPHNE 
 
 She took it, still dumbly weeping. He 
 looked at her with pity. 
 
 " Yes, I know, you didn't understand what 
 you were doing. But you see, Daphne, 
 
 marriage is " he sought rather painfully 
 
 for his words, " it's a big thing. If it doesn't 
 make us, it ruins us ; I didn't marry you for the 
 best of reasons, but I was very fond of you — 
 honour bright ! I loved you in my way, I should 
 have loved you more and more. I should have 
 been a decent fellow if you'd stuck to me. 
 I had all sorts of plans ; you might have taught 
 me anything. I was a fool about Chloe Fairmile, 
 but there was nothing in it, you know there 
 wasn't. And now it's all rooted up and done 
 with. Women like to think such things can be 
 mended, but they can't — they can't, indeed. 
 It would be foolish to try." 
 
 Daphne sank upon a chair and buried her 
 face in her hands. He drew a long and pain- 
 ful breath. " I'm afraid I must go," he said 
 waveringly. " I — I can't stand this any longer. 
 Good-bye, Daphne, good-bye." 
 
 She only sobbed, as though her Hfe dissolved 
 in grief. He drew near to her, and as she 
 wept, hidden from him, he laid his hand a 
 moment on her shoulder. Then he took up 
 his hat. 
 
 " I'm going now," he said in a low voice. 
 ** I shan't come back till you have gone."
 
 Good-bye, Daphne!" He held out his hand to I)er " 
 {srr fa fie 31 3I.
 
 DAPHNE 315 
 
 She heard him cross the room, his steps in 
 the verandah. Outside, in the summer dark, 
 a figure came to meet him. French drew 
 Roger's arm into his, and the two walked 
 away. The shadows of the wooded lane received 
 them. 
 
 A woman came quickly into the room. 
 
 Elsie French looked down upon the sobbing 
 Dap] me, her own eyes full of tears, her hands 
 clasped. 
 
 "Oil, you poor thing ! " she said, under her 
 breath. " You poor thing ! " And she knelt 
 down beside her and folded her arms round 
 her. 
 
 So from the same heart that had felt a 
 passionate pity for the victim, compassion 
 flowed out on the transgressor. For where 
 others feel the tragedy of suffering, the pure in 
 heart realise with an infinitely sharper pain 
 the tragedy of guilt. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Pbintbd by Cassbli. & Co., Lid., La Bkllb Sauvage, London, E.C
 
 The Publishers are indehled to the Proprietors of 
 
 the ' ' Pall Jllall Magazine " for their percussion 
 
 to tise the drawings by Mr. Fred. Pegratn.
 
 
 (I New Fiction 
 
 o o 
 
 Daphne 
 
 or 
 '•MARRIAGE A LA MODE" 
 
 By Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD 
 
 With Font Illustrations in Colours, and Six Pen Drawings by 
 
 Fred Pegkam. 6^. 
 
 The recent visit of Mrs. Humphry Ward to the United States ha? 
 resulted in a book that promises to be the outstanding success of 
 the season. Mrs. Ward has turned her trained intellect upon 
 the state of the Divorce Law, which many good critics have de- 
 nounced as a disgrace to civilisation. In her treatment of this 
 vital human problem Mrs. Ward is truthful and direct. With 
 delicate, unerring touch she desci ibes American society as it exists, 
 with its present laxity of regard for the marriage bond. 
 
 " Daphne or ' Marriage i la Mode ' " is the story of an inter- 
 national marriage — of a young Englishman's love for a bright 
 American girl of wealth, and the failure of their married life 
 through misunderstanding and jealousy. With all her crying 
 faults Daphne Floyd, the heroine, is an interesting character — 
 one of the best delineations of a peculiar type in recent fiction — 
 and human in every word and action. 
 
 The remaining characters are Roger Pai ncs, the husband; 
 Captain Royson, the American naval ofliccr, whose denuncia- 
 tion of the laxitiei and enormities with regard to marriage 
 allowed in various States of the Union reflects the opinion of 
 New England ; the tragic Mrs. Verrier ; the mischievous Chloe 
 Fairmile, and others. The whole story leads up to the scene in 
 the last chapter between the divorced husband and wife, and by 
 it Mrs. Ward is content that her book should be judged.
 
 NEW FICTION 
 
 The Yellow God 
 
 An Idol of Africa 
 
 By H. RIDER HAGGARD 
 
 Author of " The Ghost Kings," etc. 
 
 With Frontispiece in Colours^ and Two Half-tone 
 Plates by A. Michael. 65. 
 
 It is doubtful whether in any of his romances Mr. Rider 
 Haggard has revealed a country more weird, more mysterious, 
 than Asikiland — the home of "The Yellow God." Situated in 
 the heart of " Darkest Africa " it is only re-discovered, through 
 many perils and hardships, by the hero of the story. How he 
 heard of this land of gold, and why he decided to seek it, form 
 a pleasant prelude to the adventures themselves. 
 
 As regards Asika herself, the presiding genius of this strange 
 land, she ranks with Ayesha and those other royal women 
 of Mr. Haggard's imagination, who allure by their peerless 
 beauty and repel by their inhuman cruelty. 
 
 The Show Girl 
 
 By MAX PEMBRRTON 
 
 Author of " Sir Richard Escombe," etc. 
 With Frontispiece in Colours by Cyrus Cuneo, R.I. 6j. 
 
 It is to Paris that Mr. Pemberton takes us in this story — the 
 Paris of Montmartre, of the Quartier Latin — in the company ot 
 Henry Gastonard, a rollicking art student. The story fascinates 
 at the outset, when we are privileged to read a letter from 
 Gastonard to his friend Paddy O'Connell, in which the intro- 
 duction to Mimi, the " Show Girl," is given. 
 
 Mr. Pemberton's story revolves around the doings of the 
 adorable " Mimi the Simpleton," whose charms cannot fail to 
 appeal to the reader. She is a heroine who will rank with the best 
 of Mr. Pemberton's creations, this little waif of the Circus who in- 
 spired love in the hearts of all men with whom she came in contact. 
 How this same charm preserved her, through all the horrors of her 
 early life, is not the least interesting feature of the story. 
 
 Pathos, humour, wild fun and serious adventure ; love, 
 passion, comedy and tragedy, make " The Show Girl " one of 
 the best Pemberton books yet produced.
 
 NEW FICTION 
 
 The Sword of the Lord 
 
 By JOSEPH HOCKING 
 
 Author of " A Strong Man's Vow," 
 "A Flame of Fire," etc. 
 
 With Frontispiece in Colours by Max Cowper. 2>s. id. 
 
 " The Sword of the Lord " is a stirring story of Luther and 
 his times, written with the author's well-known power. 
 
 Brian Hamilton is sent to Germany by Henry VIII. to bring 
 a lady of noble birth to England, where her presence is required 
 for political reasons. The King has chosen Hamilton for the 
 task partly because the latter is reputed to be a woman-hater, 
 and Henry does not desire a inessenger likely to fall in love 
 with the lady. But even so absolute a monarch as Henry VIII. 
 is not always able to stay the tide of love. 
 
 Brian's mission is surrounded by almost overwhelming 
 difficulties, for, at the time of his arrival, Germany is in a state 
 of ferment owing to the growth of the Reformation. He meets 
 Luther and Erasmus, and has many thrilling experiences in 
 the execution of his important mission. 
 
 The Interrupted Kiss 
 
 By RICHARD MARSH 
 
 Author of " The Seen and the Unseen," 
 " The Girl and the Miracle," etc. 
 
 With Frontispiece in Colours by R^:x Osborne. 6^-. 
 
 Thf tragedy begins in the opening chapters. A murder is 
 committed in circumstances which readily throw suspicion 
 upon several persons. How the incubus of this suspicion affects 
 them, and especially how it affects the two whose blissful kiss 
 was interrupted on the eve of the eventful night, is told in 
 Mr. Marsh's most effective manner. 
 
 Elsie Grahame, the heroine, has reason to place herself under 
 suspicion of being the murderer of her uncle, and her conduct in 
 various trying situations provides some of the most delightful 
 reading in tlie story. Her interview with the blackmailer and 
 her subsequent offer of herself as security for the money raised 
 to meet his demands are convincingly describeJ. But the story 
 teems with interest tliroughout ; tliere is humour in plenty, 
 dialogue of brilliant quality, and a continuous succession of 
 incident that does not permit a moment of faltering interest.
 
 NEW FICTION 
 
 The Red Saint 
 
 By WARWICK DEEPING 
 
 Anthor of " Mad Barbara," "Uther 
 and Igraine," etc. 
 
 With Frontispiece in Colours by Christopher Clark, R.I, ds. 
 
 This is the romance of a saint who found the world too rough 
 for her, and whose adventures brought her into strange com- 
 pany upon the road. 
 
 In the building of England, under men such as De Montfort 
 and those who preceded and followed him, there were wars 
 and rumours of wars, and many suffered at the hands of kings. 
 England was a rich treasure house for adventurers from over 
 the sea to plunder. The tragic life of Denise began at the 
 hands of one of these hired captains. The book tells of her life 
 in the woods ; how she was loved by one man and wounded 
 by another ; how the Benedictines would have made her a 
 wonder-worker, but how her sister women drove her out into 
 the snow ; and how Aymery, gentleman of Sussex, won that 
 which he had thought lost. 
 
 " The Red Saint " is the most brilliant novel written by 
 Mr. Warwick Deeping since "Uther and Igraine." 
 
 Sir Gregory's Silence 
 
 By A. W. MARCHMONT 
 
 Author of " My Lost Self," " The 
 Man who was Dead," etc. 
 
 With Frontispiece in Colours by N. Tenison. 6^. 
 
 Sir Gregory's friends and relations know that in his early days 
 he lived in America ; but they know nothing of his life there, for 
 on that subject he rigidly maintains silence. And this brings 
 trouble not only to himself, but also to others. 
 
 Bulrner, Sir Gregory's son, falls in love with a typist, and, for 
 some unknown reason, a rich American lady schemes to prevent 
 their marriage. She is aided by a man who poses as a United 
 States Senator, and who, having some knowledge of Sir Gregory's 
 secret, blackmails him. 
 
 All attempts to describe Mr. Marchmont's ingenious dramatic 
 tale must be inadequate, and it can only be said that this story of 
 love and intrigue will not let the reader rest until the startling 
 climax is reached.
 
 NEW FICTION 
 
 The Conquest of 
 Chrystabel 
 
 By Mrs. GEORGE DE HORNE VAIZEY 
 
 Author of "Flaming June," etc. 
 With Frontispiece in Colours by F. Hodge. 6^. 
 
 " The way of a man with a maid," and the perversity of the maid 
 herself, is an old theme, but one that never palls. " The Conquest 
 of Chrystabel" deals with this "old, old story," but in such a 
 manner that it is once more new, fresh and invigorating. In her 
 quiet Lakeland home Chrystabel Victor, with her winsomeness 
 and naive appreciation of her own charms, is a conqueror of 
 hearts. How she went forth into the world and was herself 
 conquered is the story which Mrs. de Home Vaizey tells with 
 delightful charm and vivacity. Readers of " Flaming June " will 
 welcome it heartily, and, indeed, " The Conquest of Chrystabel " 
 is a book which is bound to achieve success, for its appeal is to all 
 who have loved, all who love, and all who — like Chrystabel her- 
 self — hope to love. 
 
 Peggy the Daughter 
 
 By KATHARINE TYNAN 
 
 Author of " Mary Gray," etc. 
 With Frontispiece in Colours by Warwick Goble. ds. 
 
 Whilr Peggy is a little child, her father, Sir Pierce Rowan, 
 abducts Priscilla Penn, a rich Quakeress. They are pursued, and, 
 to avoid capture, Sir Pierce shoots onecf the pursuers ; and, later, 
 he marries Priscilla, who, in secret, has long loved him. But he is 
 arrested, tried and sentenced to penal servitude. The new Lady 
 Rowan takes Peggy under her care, and the latter grows up a 
 charming and lovable girl. Not until she is seventeen does Priscilla 
 tell her of her father, and that he must remain in prison twelve 
 more years unless something can l)e done to obtain pardon for him. 
 What Peggy does to attain this end, and what success she 
 achieves. Miss Tynan tells in the inimitable manner which has 
 caused her to be regarded as one of the best ttory-tellers of the 
 present day. " Peggy the Daughter " might be described as a 
 picturesque Irish idyll, but it is also a story instinct with the 
 motives and purposes of human life and character.
 
 NEW FICTION 
 
 The Circular Staircase 
 
 By MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 
 
 With Frontispiece in Colours^ and 5 Half -Tone 
 Plates bv Lester Ralph. 65. 
 
 Of the detective stories which have appeared in recent years 
 " The Circular Staircase " is one of the best, and its author has 
 rapidly taken her place as a worthy exponent of the art of 
 Gaboriau and Anna Katharine Green. " The Circular Staircase " 
 attained such vogue on its recent publication in America that 
 it soon became one of the six best-selling novels of the season — 
 a result which may be accounted for partly by the fact that the 
 tension of the story is relieved by frequent flashes of humour, 
 ordinarily absent from books of this kind. 
 
 The illustrations by Lester Ralph, who has rapidly taken his 
 place among the best draughtsmen of the day, are not the least 
 attractive feature of this excellent book. 
 
 A Royal Ward 
 
 By PERCY J. BREBNER 
 
 Author of "Princess Maritza," " Vayenne," etc. 
 With Frontispiece in Colours by Christopher Clark, R.I. 6^. 
 
 The romantic adventures of Lady Betty Walmisley take place 
 in England when Europe is in the throes of the Napoleonic 
 wars. Although secure in England, Lady Betty's life is, in- 
 directly, moulded by the great upheaval on the Continent. But 
 for the French Revolution and the wars that followed, she would 
 never have met her two suitors, Lieutenant Evertsen and Claud 
 Dalbert, would never have been suspected of treason, and would 
 never have gained the happiness that is htrs at last. 
 
 Mr. Brebner's historical romances are dramatic and en- 
 thralling, and with every new story his ability to create the 
 correct atmosphere becomes more pronounced. He never fails 
 to translate his readers to the period of his tale, and in " A 
 Royal Ward " we get a striking vision of certain phases of life 
 in England during the Regency. 
 
 " A Royal Ward " gains further interest from the circum- 
 stance that Mr. Brebner has founded it upon fact.
 
 NEW FICTION 
 
 The Lure of Eve 
 
 By EDITH MARY MOORE 
 
 WM Frontispiece in Colours by J. E. Sutcliffe. 6j. 
 
 To those who are interested in " some new thing " this book 
 should appeal with special force. It is the writer's first pub- 
 lished novel, and may be said at once to possess great power. 
 
 The characters are drawn with a sureness of touch that 
 proves the author to be a closely observant student of her 
 fellow-beings, and the study of Annabel Laine, a woman pos- 
 sessed of beauty and no soul, is perhaps one of the most daring 
 and successful analyses of the undesirable feminine in recent 
 literature. 
 
 How she exercised her lure of beauty, and the results that 
 accrued, form the gist of the story. It is indeed a love story 
 — an old theme, but in "The Lure of Eve" presented in a 
 manner that is entirely new. 
 
 Those who like to read in novels of the doings of writers and 
 artists will find a special interest in " The Lure of Eve." 
 
 The Love-Brokers 
 
 By ALBERT KINROSS 
 
 Author of " The Land of Every Man," etc. 
 
 With Frontistiece in Colours by P. B. Hick ling, 6j. 
 
 The subject of " The Love-Brokers " is our marriage laws and 
 our marriage lawyers — especially the latter. Hence the title of 
 the book. 
 
 To the ordinary newspaper reader a divorce case is an 
 amusing or scandaUjus item served up between the latest 
 market reports and a batch of foreign telegrams ; according 
 to the author it is, in reality, legalised robbery, blackmail 
 and extortion, practised and upheld by lawyers for their own 
 profit. 
 
 In the course of his engrossing story Mr. Kinross describes a 
 divorce case as it actually is, and demonstrates that the parties 
 really "guilty" are the State-aided parasites vvho are empowered 
 by the law to demand "proofs of guilt" and a considerable sum 
 of money in return for the decree which spells release.
 
 NEW FICTION 
 
 Double Bonds 
 
 By FLORINDA McGALL 
 
 With Frontispiece in Colours by H. L. Bacon. 6j. 
 
 SiLVKR Mackay, a pathetic but winsome maiden of the AustraHan 
 Bush, marries Jack Breshn, and at the early age of sixteen is left 
 a widow. An aunt, hitherto unknown to Silver, seeks her and, 
 struck by her extraordinary beauty, determines to educate her 
 niece and arrange a brilliant marriage for her. When the 
 haughty Australian millionaire, Marcus Ducaine, sees Silver, he 
 tails in love v/ith her, proposes, and is accepted. The ambitious 
 aunt, however, extracts from her young protegee a promise which 
 is fraught with trouble and grief for the guileless bride-elect. 
 Ducaine, however, learns his wife's secret of her former marriage. 
 How does he take it } Whatever the answer to this question is, 
 readers of this story may safely be promised keen, healthy en- 
 joyment. 
 
 A Daughter of the Storm 
 
 By CAPT. FRANK H. SHAW 
 
 With Frontispiece in Colours, ^s. 
 
 Captain Shav^^ has rapidly won popular favour as a writer of 
 stirring tales of the sea, for he writes with the knowledge gained 
 by personal experience. Like Captain Marryat and Clark Russell, 
 he is a sailor, and " A Daughter of the Storm " is a story of 
 the sea and of those who use the sea. It is a tale of the 
 unbridled passions of men — of love and hate, of heroism and 
 cowardice. 
 
 But it deals more closely with the manners and thoughts 
 of one who owed all things to the sea : who gave all to it — her 
 love and her highest courage. It tells, too, of one great hour in 
 her life when, the world going out in storm and darkness, with 
 the edifice of her existence tottering about her ears, she yet rose 
 supreme in the time of her deadliest danger and wrenched victory 
 from the jaws of defeat. 
 
 Incidentally " A Daughter of the Storm " teaches a lesson to 
 those who would have it that aliens can serve our flag as loyally 
 as men of British blood.
 
 NEW FICTION 
 
 Polly of the Circus 
 
 By MARGARET MAYO 
 
 Wiih Eight Illustrations by Harry M. Bunker. 35. ^d. 
 
 PoLLV is one of the most charming of recent creations in 
 fiction. Born and bred in the circus, knowing no other en- 
 vironment save the sawdust ring, and ever subject to those 
 defihng infiuences of which an itinerant Ufe is full, she remains 
 sweet and pure. 
 
 Accident throws her into the home of a young clergyman, 
 who protects her from the bitter tongue of gossip, slowly draws 
 her away from her old life in the tent, and finally falls in love 
 with her. How the pretty and dainty heroine eventually drifts 
 back into her old life, only to return at last to the arms of the 
 man who shielded her at great sacrifice to himself, may well 
 be left for the reader's enjoyment. The story is one of laughter 
 and tears, and must attract all save the most hardened of 
 pessimists. 
 
 Not since Babbie, of " The Little Minister," has there been a 
 heroine who makes such a compelling appeal. 
 
 The Secret Paper 
 
 By WALTER WOOD 
 
 Author of "The Revenge of Gilbert 
 Strange," etc. 
 
 With Frontispiece in Colours by N. Tknison. 6,y. 
 
 " Thk Secret Pahkr " is essentially a novel of plot and action, 
 with the double advantage of possessing a scene laid partly in 
 England and partly in America. Mr. Walter Wood finished revising 
 the story immediately after his last visit to the United States and 
 Canada, so that the impressions recorded were all the fresher and 
 stronger. It is Mr. Wood's habit in travelling to get off the 
 beaten track of tourists, and in this new novel he has made use 
 of unfamiliar experiences in such places as The Bowery and 
 Chinatown, in New York, and the more or less unfrequented cities 
 on the Mississippi and in the Middle West. The novel contains a 
 strong love interest and a most resourceful and alluring heroine.
 
 REGENT FICTION 
 
 The Ghost Kings 
 
 By H. RIDER HAGGARD 
 
 Author of " Benita," " King Solomon's Mines," etc. 
 With 8 Illustrations by A, Michael. (>s. 
 
 Once more we have the presentation of a girl of wonderful 
 charm, who through no desire of her own is endowed with 
 mystical properties by the superslitious natives. Mr. Rider 
 Haggard doubtless knows more of the Zulus than any other 
 writer of our day, and he introduces here a picture of that nation 
 under Dingaan which is both vivid and convincing. Their 
 dealings with the heroine, her lover, and the renegade European 
 who lives with them, form some of the chief incidents of the 
 book, but it is the love story of the mysterious maiden, of her 
 wanderings in the land of the Ghost Kings — surely one of the 
 weirdest regions Mr. Haggard has ever imagined — of the search 
 of her lover for her, and of their reunion after many strange 
 adventures, which make up a romance of exciting and fascinating 
 interest. 
 
 "One of the most fascinating romances this author has ever written. 
 A brilliant and vehement novel, abundantly worthy to be placed side by side 
 with ' She ' and ' King Solomon's Mines.' " — Standard. 
 
 The Virgin in Judgment 
 
 By EDEN PHILLPOTTS 
 
 Author of "The Mother," etc. 
 With Frontispiece in Colours by Gunning King. 6s. 
 
 Once again Mr. Eden Phillpotts has woven a fascinating romance 
 with " Dartymoor " as the base of the fabric, but the design 
 and substance arc new, vigorous, and altogether pleasing. The 
 general characters of the story will rank among Mr. Phillpott's 
 finest creations, but Rhoda — who gives the title to the book — 
 will doubtless live as his greatest. This strange child of the 
 moor, with her curious, weird temperament, forms one of the 
 most subtle studies in femininity in modern literature. 
 
 " No one who likes humour, humanity, good psychology, beautifully felt 
 landscape, and an interesting plot can fail to like ' The Virgin in judgment." " 
 
 — Evening Standard. 
 
 10
 
 RECENT FICTION 
 
 Sir Richard Escombe 
 
 By MAX PEMBERTON 
 
 Author of " Wheels of Anarchy," etc. 
 With Frojitispiece in Colours by Cyrus Cuneo, R.I. ds. 
 
 Mr. Max Pemberton has selected as the principal theme of his 
 new story the notorious Society of St. Francis in the reign of 
 George II. and its strange doings at Medmenham Abbey. The 
 main interest, however, centres round Sir Richard Escombe 
 and his charming Kitty Dulcimore, and in the recital of their 
 love story the author has provided one of the best romances 
 associated with his name. 
 
 "A spirited romance, very brightly written. . , . Never has Mr. 
 Pemberton written better than in 'Sir Richard Escombe.' . . . Many of 
 the scenes reach a really high level of achievement." — Daily Mail, 
 
 Miss Fallowfield's 
 Fortune 
 
 By ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER 
 
 (The Hon. Mrs. Alfred Felkin). 
 With 4 Illustrations by Steven Spurrier, ts. 
 
 Miss Fallovvfield, while deploring her poverty, is left a million 
 pounds. She is afterwards married to the Rev. Luke Forrester, 
 who has a son named Claude by a former marriage. The bride 
 and bridegroom depart to Australia on a honeymoon tour ; 
 news comes home that the ship has been wrecked and both of 
 them drowned. The question of the disposal of the fortune 
 arises. If Mrs. Forrester died before her husband the money 
 will have passed to the latter, and from him to Claude ; but if 
 Mr. Forrester was first deceased the fortune belongs to the 
 bride's niece, Dagmar, beloved by Claude. How the difficuUies 
 which obscure the question as to who is legally entitled to the 
 money are overcome must be left to the reader to discover. 
 
 "To take up a fresh story of Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler's is to anti- 
 cipate a few hours of thorough entertainment among very real characters, 
 and this does not disappoint us of our anticipation. . . . The doings and 
 sayings of the various groups of people are chronicled with such cleverness, 
 humour, and insight that the book will be found absorbing from first to 
 last." — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 XX
 
 RECENT FICTION 
 
 The Golden Precipice 
 
 By H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON 
 
 Author of " Galloping Dick," " The Privateers," etc. 
 Wt'i/i Frontispiece in Colours by W. Herbert Holloway. 6j. 
 
 Mr. Marriott Watson has, in this novel ot treasure-seeking, 
 crowded sensational scenes one upon another. Directly the 
 steamer sets off upon her journey stirring episodes happen on 
 board. Then follows an attempt to maroon the captain and 
 others, which is frustrated by the engineer, a mighty man of 
 muscle. A mutiny breaks out, and the reader is hurried from 
 one scene of fighting to another. Plots and counterplots are 
 formed by the two parties to gain the treasure cavern, which is 
 found to be bare. After some exciting adventures with his lady- 
 love, the engineer obtains a fresh clue, the treasure is found, the 
 mutineers are defeated, and the steamer starts for home. 
 
 " The writer's gusto is evident in every page in this stirring revival of the 
 antique, venerable, venerated legend about the Caribbean pirates' treasure. 
 . . . We can promise all who read this story a right jovial, thrilling, 
 sparkling entertainment for their money and their trouble."— £>«//> Graphic. 
 
 Mad Barbara 
 
 By WARWICK DEEPING 
 
 Author of " Uther and Igraine," " The 
 Slanderers," etc. 
 
 Wilk Frontispiece in Colours by Christopher Clark, R.I. 6j-. 
 
 The author of " Uther and Igraine " has followed up his brilliant 
 success with a first-rate piece of work, which is certain to win the 
 admiration of the critics and the reading public. The dialogue 
 in " Mad Barbara," and the dramatic scenes which the story 
 contains, exhibit all Mr. Warwick Deeping's accustomed felicity 
 of phrasing. The plot, which he develops with great skill, is 
 laid in the Stuart period, and is one of absorbing interest. 
 
 " The narrative generally is as full of unexpected beauties as the 
 windings of a mountain stream — the happy phrase, the piquant reflection, 
 are continually surprising the reader. . . . It is a tale to be read once 
 for itself and again for the manner of its telling."— Ltm/oo/ Courier. 
 
 12
 
 RECENT FICTION 
 
 Rose -White Youth 
 
 By DOLF WYLLARDE 
 
 Author of "Mafoota," etc. 
 
 With Frontispiece in Colours 37 P. B. Hickling. 6,9. 
 
 A STUDY of girlhood verging into womanhood is here presented in 
 a manner which arrests attention at the first Hne and fascinates 
 to the last. Betty, the schoolgirl, with her slang, her grit, her 
 honesty of purpose, but withal, her puzzling femininity, is a 
 character who will secure admiration from all readers. A girl's 
 heart — who can understand it ? But Dolf Wyllarde has at least 
 given us an insight into one in this story ; has .sympathetically 
 revealed the passing of the girl into the woman's realm, with its 
 infinitude of pathos and tragedy. 
 
 " We come into a realm of almost inexpressible tenderness when we 
 deal with Dolf Wyllarde's ' Rose- White Youth.' . . . The homeliness of 
 the story is its charm, and it presents to us a heart-touching situation with 
 the art of unaffected simplicity." — Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury. 
 
 The Hate of Man 
 
 By HEADON HILL 
 
 Author of " The Duke Decides," etc. 
 Wit/i Frontispiece in Co/ours by Cyrus Cuneo, R.I. 6.9. 
 
 Sir Chaklfs Kii.i.krhv, the proprietor of a great London daily 
 newspaper, has been trying for many years to bring Simon Mar- 
 wood to justice. The latter takes an oath to avenge himself on Sir 
 Charles, who is the organiser of a strong defence against a great 
 movement of foreigners, plr)tting Great Britain's overthrow, in 
 which the ex-convict is involved, together with Lester Cornwaliis, 
 who is a clerk at the W.ir Oflice. How Augusta Killerby, Dolly 
 Bcde and Adolphe Jcbault play their parts in the ensuing events 
 is told by Mr. Ileadon Mill with characteristic skill. 
 
 " Mr. Headon Hill has spread himself finely In his new story, and gives 
 us a piece of sensation which would be hard to beat. . . . Mr. Hearlon 
 Hill has certainly devoted a great deal of ingenuity to the making of the 
 book, and has been most lavish with his imagination." — Dailv Tdegraph. 
 
 13
 
 RECENT FICTION 
 
 A Life's Arrears 
 
 By FLORENCE WARDEN 
 
 Author of " The House on the Marsh," " The Heiress of Densley Wold," etc. 
 WV/// Frontispiece in Colours by W. Dewar. 65. 
 
 From penury and a hard, humdrum, friendless existence Jane 
 Maristow is suddenly left a fortune of about ^^2,000 a 3'ear. At 
 first Miss Maristow hardly knew what to do with her wealth nor 
 how to enjoy herself with it. After much deliberation she goes 
 to Monte Carlo, where she gets involved in some most exciting 
 adventures, which make excellent reading. 
 
 " 'A Life's Arrears ' opens with pleasant anticipations of ease and wealth 
 for a woman who has always been desperately poor. Her experiences and 
 her love story are told by Miss Florence Warden with all her usual skill and 
 power of holding attention." — Morning Leader. 
 
 My Lost Self 
 
 By A. W. MARCHMONT 
 
 Author of " The Man who was Dead," etc. 
 
 With Frontispiece in Colours by Cyrus Cuneo, R.I. 6.y. 
 
 Mr. Marchmont's new book tells of a young American who 
 
 finds himself a prisoner among brigands on an island oflP the 
 
 coast of Italy. How he is thought a murderer by a beautiful and 
 
 terror-stricken woman, and how the brigands themselves mistake 
 
 him for one of their leaders, are two of many incidents which 
 
 will grip all lovers of mystery, adventure, and passion. 
 
 " Mr. Marchmont is a master craftsman, and lacks neither force nor 
 energy, and he has sent forth in ' My Lost Self ' one of the best of his 
 
 melodramatic romances." — The Scotsman. 
 
 The Cairn of the Badger 
 
 By MADGE BARLOW 
 
 Wiil! Frontispiece in Colours by J. E. Sutclifkr. 6j. 
 
 " The Cairn of the Badger " is the story of a dramatic conflict 
 between two men representing birth and poverty on the one 
 hand, and plebeian blood and wealth on the other. Feminine 
 intrigue holds the issue of the struggle in thrilling suspense, 
 until a powerful and moving climax is reached. 
 
 " Miss Barlow manipulates the elemental passions with an adept hand, 
 and the creation is a story of arresting power and emotional force." — Sheffield 
 Independent.
 
 RECENT FICTION 
 
 The Amethyst Cross 
 
 By FERGUS HUME 
 
 Author of " The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," etc. 
 With Frontispiece in Colours hy Dudley Tennant. 3^. dd. 
 
 "The Amethyst Cross" is a novel full of thrilling situations 
 and startling surprises. The plot is woven round an amethyst 
 cross, in connection with which a fortune is concerned. 
 
 " Ingenious and skilfully complex in its plot, abounding in strong 
 situations, full of human interest, and told with much literary ability." 
 — The Scotstnan. 
 
 Life's Chequer-Board 
 
 By HELEN WALLACE 
 
 Author of " The Coming of Isobel," " To Pleasure Madame," etc. 
 With 4 Illustrations by Howard Somerville. hs. 
 
 The readei will find in this new book an abundance of incident 
 
 and delightful descriptive touches which will recall the glow of the 
 
 heather and the freshness of the hill breezes. It is a stirring story 
 
 of self-sacrifice and unconscious love. 
 
 "The characters are well drawn, and the plot is strongly executed. 
 Her descriptive touches are admirable. It is a splendid story of self-sacrifice 
 and concealed love." — Pfrlhshhe Courier. 
 
 The Revenge of Gilbert 
 Strange 
 
 |{> WALTER WOOD 
 
 Author of " The Lord of the Dyke." etc. 
 Wit/i r'rotitispiece in Colours hy Max Cowper. 6.y. 
 
 Confident of the stability of the business inherited from his 
 father, Gilbert Strange led a comfortable, easj'-going life until the 
 day when the great crash caiiic. I'^'iiancial ruin — followed by 
 social ostracism, and his dismissal hy his //>///(/<• —revealed to him 
 his real strength, and created the desire to avenge himself upf>n 
 those who had triumphed in his downfall. 
 
 " The author d^^serves hearty congratulation on the result ol Ins l.ilfours, 
 which have added another good story to his previous productions." — Western 
 Daily Press. 
 
 15
 
 RECENT FICTION 
 
 Hoodman Grey, Christian 
 
 By DAVID RAEBURN 
 
 With Frontispiece. 6s. 
 
 According to an ancient legend, the ghost of Judas Iscariot 
 haunts a Cornish tin-mine, locally known as the Old Judas 
 mine. Querneby, a stern financier, who is sceptical with 
 regard to religion, determines to speculate in Old Judas and 
 re-open the workings. The preliminary operations lead to the 
 discovery of the thirty rusty pieces of silver which were the price 
 of "innocent blood." Hoodman Grey gives these coins, each of 
 which seems to be an emblem of the universal mammon taint, 
 to Lytton Clay, an extremely clever but indolent artist. The 
 possession of the sinister silver inspires this man to paint a 
 picture of Judas's face, in which the depths of racking remorse 
 are so strikingly scored that everyone who beholds it is startled. 
 To all who look upon the picture it seems to convey a reproach 
 and a dread warning that " God is not mocked " ; that the 
 worship of Mammon is not compatible with His service. 
 
 Meantime, despite his fame and the widespread spiritual 
 effect of his teaching, Hoodman Grey lives a saintly, unspoiled 
 life, which is fittingly crowned by a sublime ending. 
 
 " Artistic realism and poetic (spiritually poetic) flights of fancy are 
 cunningly interwoven around strong characters, and it is with regret that 
 the end of the story is reached. . . . The tale is artistically conceived, and 
 might be counted an excellent set-off to the modern novel." 
 
 — Sheffield Independent. 
 
 Ships of Desire 
 
 By KATE HORN 
 
 Wit/i Frontisbiece. ^s. 
 
 Captain Lascelles is gallantly saved from death by his brother 
 oflficer, Lord Canfield, and in the depth of his gratitude vows 
 eternal devotion to his rescuer. Canfield's demand in this 
 respect is extraordinary, and leads Lascelles (who is a man with 
 a soul) into a bewildering position. 
 
 The regiment is stationed at Malta, and Canfield — to whom a 
 manage de convenance is both expedient and necessary — requires 
 Lascelles to write his (Canfield's) love letters to the charming 
 Elizabeth Blair. Lascelles performs his task with grace and 
 fervour, and the beautiful girl falls " in love with love." 
 
 " The events are exciting, the persons are mostly good corapajiy, and the 
 conclusion is legitimately joyful." — Birmingham Poit. 
 
 CASSKLL AND COMPANY, LTD., LONDON, NBW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE, 
 
 1 6 Fiction — 3 09
 
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