LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVs.rtolTY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 cx ;
 
 IN LONDON 
 
 THE STORY OF ADAM AND MARRIAGE 
 
 CONAL O'RIORDAN 
 
 Let him be clapt on the shoulder and called Adam." 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARCOURT. BRACE AND COMPANY
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. 
 
 PRINTED IN THE U. 8. A. BY 
 
 THE OUINN ft BODEN COMPANY 
 
 RAHWAY. N. J
 
 TO 
 
 J. D. BERESFORD 
 
 WHO WELCOMED ADAM TO LONDON
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. ADAM ARRIVES IN LONDON ... 3 
 
 II. ADAM FINDS ANCHORAGE .... 12 
 
 III. ADAM WRITES TO MR. MACARTHY . . 19 
 
 IV. "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING" . . 26 
 V. THE PORTAL OF FAME .... 34 
 
 VI. MORE ADO ABOUT LESS . . . 42 
 
 VII. MR. MACARTHY COMES TO TOWN . . 50 
 
 VIII. WITH MR. MACARTHY IN LONDON . . 60 
 
 IX. OF A POST CARD FROM "G.B.S." . . 68 
 
 X. ADAM STOOPS TO CONQUER . . .76 
 
 XI. ADAM GOES ON TOUR . ... .. . 87 
 
 XII. SUCCESS ....... 95 
 
 XIII. JANE NIGHTINGALE 104 
 
 XIV. DUBLIN DOES IT 113 
 
 XV. MR. SACKVILLE BEHAVES AS A GENTLE- 
 MAN ........ 124 
 
 XVI. LADY DERRYDOWN AT HOME . . . 131 
 
 XVII. How THE MARCHES A ESCAPED . . .139 
 
 XVIII. MORE COMPANY FOR SIR DAVID . . 146 
 
 XIX. ADAM PROSPERS 153 
 
 XX. IN THE SHADOW OF WESTMINSTER 
 
 CATHEDRAL ....... 161 
 
 XXI. THE PROBLEM OF MARRIAGE . . . 169 
 
 XXII. THE PROBLEM REMAINS UNSOLVED . 177 
 
 XXIII. THE SELF-HELP MINISTRY . . .186 
 
 XXIV. To FIGHT OR NOT TO FIGHT . . . 195 
 
 vii
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXV. MAJOR MACFADDEN SMITH . . ... 203 
 
 XXVI. A BOLT FROM THE BLUE . . ,.. : . 211 
 
 XXVII. IN THE TEMPLE . . ... : . 221 
 
 XXVIII. ADAM Is OFFENDED . . . . 231 
 
 XXIX. AT THE GARAGE . ... : .. .. .. . 238 
 
 XXX. BARBARA ........ 244 
 
 XXXI. DEUTSCHLAND UEBER Miss DURWARD . 251 
 
 XXXII. MR. DUVAL ADVISES , ... .. .. .. 257 
 
 XXXIII. ADAM ACCELERATES . .. ... . . 264 
 
 XXXIV. Our OF GEAR . . .. ... , 272 
 
 XXXV. SURRENDER . ...... 280 
 
 XXXVI. LONDON'S LAST AHI-RAID . . > .. 287 
 
 XXXVII. AND So THEY WERE MARRIED . . 297 
 
 XXXVIII. AND LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER ? . . 305
 
 IN LONDON
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 ADAM ARRIVES IN LONDON 
 
 ON a spring morning in the second decade of the twentieth 
 century, a young man came out of Paddington Station and 
 looked for the first time, with doubtful eyes, upon the world 
 of London. He was a very young man, not quite seventeen, 
 yet in essentials was he a man, and, what in the eyes of a 
 few million people is for some odd reason accounted some- 
 thing more, an Irishman. 
 
 If you had asked his name as he came out of the station 
 he would almost certainly have told you, unsuspicious of 
 your good faith and right to question him, that it was Adam 
 Macfadden. But names more glorious, if no more distinc- 
 tive, might be obtained for half a crown on application for 
 a copy of his baptismal certificate at the Pro-Cathedral or 
 Church of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, in Marl- 
 borough Street, Dublin. The names given him in the hope 
 of making him a Chrisom child (such as even in old age 
 was Falstaff) were Adam Byron O'Toole Dudley Wyndham 
 and Innocent. Names, as was observed on that occasion by 
 Mr. Byron O'Toole, his more than godfather, to Mr. 
 Malachy Macfadden, who probably conceived himself to be 
 no less, that sounded nobly in the ear, cost nothing, and 
 looked well on paper. 
 
 Adam was thinking of paper and the things that look well 
 on it as he came out of Paddington, for his eye was full of 
 a poster that had obtruded itself upon him at every sub- 
 urban station through which he had been whisked into the 
 terminus. He wondered why he found it familiar and what 
 
 3
 
 4 IN LONDON 
 
 it meant: a dainty lady in pyjamas was pursued by a bluffly 
 eager gentleman in a nightdress across a ribbon of letter- 
 press demanding: "Who Can Stop It?" If there were 
 words, as he took for granted, at the top of the poster, his 
 eyes had failed to catch them; but he guessed it to be the 
 bill of a play, and not the sort of play that he would admit 
 had any interest for him. . . . The whole thing was absurd 
 and a little indelicate. . . . Yet he felt an interest in that 
 poster as though that lady and that gentleman were old ac- 
 quaintances encountered in a foreign land. Amidst the 
 bustle of the arrival platform he seemed to see them running 
 to meet him, crying : "Here we are again ! You have known 
 us all your life." Yet his eye had enough knowledge of 
 posters to tell him that these had not been exposed to the 
 battle and the breeze for more than twenty-four hours. . . . 
 Familiar to him? How could they be familiar? As he 
 walked out of Paddington Station he dismissed the thought 
 from his mind, crying aloud: "What rot!" At his tender 
 age it was impossible for him to foresee that this poster was 
 to haunt his whole future. ... It seemed to him merely 
 odd that his ejaculation of "What rot" should be, as it 
 were, echoed in huge letters on the flank of some vehicle 
 that roared past him as he emerged from the gloom of the 
 roofed station-yard into the open street. 
 
 He looked about him dazedly as motor 'bus after motor 
 'bus whirled round the corner of Eastbourne Terrace on his 
 right hand side and charged down Praed Street on his left. 
 Motor 'buses were new monsters to him, less tremendous 
 than Mr. Murphy's trams, with which he had been familiar 
 all his life as they groaned round the corners of narrow 
 Dublin streets or thundered Jove-like through the broader 
 thoroughfares of that stately city. Stately indeed did Dub- 
 lin loom up in the memory of Adam as he stood outside 
 Paddington Station, contemplating the mean hurry-skurry of 
 Praed Street. He had understood that Paddington was al-
 
 ADAM ARRIVES IN LONDON 5 
 
 most in the heart of the West End of London, at all events 
 nearer to it than any other of the great railway termini, 
 and behold, it stood in a street paltrier to look upon than 
 Westland Row ; though, facing south, it had the advantage 
 of more sunlight. He liked the sunlight; for only a few 
 days had passed since he believed for a bad quarter of an 
 hour that he had seen the last of it : fighting for life in the 
 waters of the Liffey he had imagined himself being borne by 
 their tide through the gates of hell or nothingness, but in- 
 stead they had carried him across St. George's Channel to 
 Bristol, whence the best laid line of railway in the world 
 had sped him on, not clearly knowing why, to London. 
 ... A clock somewhere struck and whistles blew, it was 
 midday: real midday; for Summer Time, though invented, 
 was not yet enforced. 
 
 Adam put his hand to the left breast pocket of his waist- 
 coat, produced a thin wisp of notes that showed traces of 
 their escape from pulping, and counted them, looked at the 
 hotel, shook his head, walked past it once and again: then 
 he crossed the road to the side of the Underground railway 
 station and studied the fagade from there. Still undecided, 
 he walked eastwards so far as the street corner, read the 
 name plate, London Street, on a house, instinctively turned 
 down it and found himself gazing at a familiar name: the 
 name of Norfolk Square. . . . What was it that he found 
 so homely about this ? 
 
 He knew not the eastern counties of England, had no 
 knowledge of England at all a week ago, and now, as has 
 been implied, glimpsed only Bristol fragmentarily and the 
 borders of that most perfect of permanent ways that Brunei 
 had laid for the Great Western Expresses to fly between it 
 and London. . . . Yet the word "Norfolk" conjured up for 
 him two familiar ideas : as one brought up in the Catholic 
 tradition, albeit in Ireland, he knew the Dukedom of Nor- 
 folk to belong to the greatest Catholic family in England,
 
 6 IN LONDON 
 
 and perhaps, short of royalty, the world, the house of How- 
 ard. It was odd that a youth who had learned the tenets of 
 his creed while still a ragamuffin living in a Dublin slum 
 should recognize beneath the title "Norfolk" a sort of spir- 
 itual kinsman, however remote, but it was true ; and this is 
 perhaps the most exquisite beauty of all that is beautiful in 
 the Catholic faith. To pass from the sublime to the ridicu- 
 lous, the word "Norfolk" was familiar because every day 
 of his life for most of the years of that life Adam had 
 been wont to pass and repass a house in Gardiner's Row 
 (which is that street leading from Findlater's Church on 
 the north-eastern corner of Rutland Square, Dublin, in the 
 direction of Mountjoy Square), that bore in golden letters 
 across its Third Georgian front the legend, "Norfolk 
 Hotel." He knew not why, but this facade was impressed 
 on his memory as were but few other houses in Dublin. 
 . . . The two houses in Denmark Street forming the Jesuit 
 School of Belvedere, the house of Mr. Macarthy, his 
 guardian, on the north side of Mountjoy Square, the shabby 
 little house behind St. George's Church with the cozy rooms 
 full of happy memories hidden within, and the house in 
 St. Stephen's Green, sacred to the cultivation of an uncer- 
 tain half-dozen Muses. And out of Dublin he was familiar 
 with no house. 
 
 But Dublin, wherein he had lived virtually the whole of 
 his few years, seemed as remote as a city in dreamland to a 
 sleeper rudely wakened; this London of which he had not 
 yet traversed five hundred yards was real to him only in its 
 name, which was the reason he had turned down London 
 Street: but Dublin, though paradoxically recalled to him by 
 the word "Norfolk," had ceased to have any reality at all. 
 He could scarce credit that the notes he had just looked at, 
 albeit Irish notes, had been handed to him across the counter 
 of the Hibernian Bank in Dame Street, by Mr. Macarthy's 
 old school-friend, the manager in person, just a short week
 
 ADAM ARRIVES IN LONDON 7 
 
 ago. That manager was a hefty, handsome fellow and 
 something of a sailor, but Adam could not think of him as 
 a real man who could cross a real sea as Adam had. . . . 
 To meet Mr. Campbell in Norfolk Square had surprised 
 Adam more than to meet David Copperfield or Arthur Pen- 
 dennis. For to Adam London was a literary city, and to an 
 imaginative boy as young as Chatterton when he slew him- 
 self, or Walter Scott perishing of senility, the literary is 
 more real than the factual. And how could Mr. Campbell 
 be real when even the three young women whom Adam 
 loved best of all had lost reality? First, there was Caroline 
 Brady, the earliest and best known, indeed the old-fashioned 
 would say the only one known at all, was dead : then there 
 was Barbara Burns, the most beautiful, was married: and 
 then there was Josephine O'Meagher, the best beloved, was 
 on that fatal day not yet a week gone by, the day he had 
 flung himself despairingly into the Liffey, become a nun. 
 . . . Adam felt no emotion about any one of them as he 
 gazed at the name-plate of Norfolk Square : he was as one 
 born, already adolescent, into a new world of which he 
 possessed a vague, fantastic, half-remembered plan: a plan 
 designed, corrected, and blottesquely revised by the dozen 
 writers who had made it live for him in their pages, from 
 Fielding and Smollett to George Meredith and Henry James. 
 . . . Even so far as to Joseph Conrad and H. G. Wells. 
 He wanted to see where Mr. Lewisham had lost touch in 
 the mazes of love with his schema, and where a disgusting 
 Secret Agent (all police agents, secret or not, being disgust- 
 ing) had plied his loathsome trade; but most of all he 
 wanted to walk arm in arm down Piccadilly, from Squire 
 Western's hostelry at Knightsbridge, with Tom Jones and his 
 Sophia and on with them to Covent Garden to see Hamlet 
 played by David Garrick. For it was the privilege of that 
 great actor, who was perhaps a shabby fellow in reality, to 
 survive as a hero of fiction : to Adam he was as vividly alive
 
 8 IN LONDON 
 
 as Mr. Partridge or Lord Fellamour or even the immortal, 
 though left for dead, Philosopher Square. 
 
 The bells somewhere perhaps, for the wind was out of 
 north, St. Augustine's, Kilburn chiming the quarter past 
 noon, found Adam still contemplating Norfolk Square, haz- 
 ily tracing a third idea concerning it. ... Was it not in 
 Norfolk Square that his guardian Mr. Macarthy had once 
 lived? He knew it was the Square nearest to Paddington 
 Station, and Mr. Macarthy had spoken of being kept awake 
 by the rumble of the Underground trains and the screaming 
 of their engines, then propelled by steam, and the shrieking 
 of their brakes beneath the house. Adam took a step for- 
 ward; for all this clearly indicated the north side of Nor- 
 folk Square. Of the number he recalled nothing: he 
 chanced nineteen, his favorite number, but it was not that. 
 He saw no "Apartment" cards in any window, and 
 despaired of his search, when a taxi-cab stopped beside him, 
 and a soldier, descending from the seat beside the driver, 
 rang the bell of one of the houses. . . . Adam suddenly re- 
 membered that there was a war on. 
 
 It was not the sight of a man in uniform that made Adam 
 remember the war; for Dublin was fuller of uniforms than 
 London : but then it always had been so, and the peaceful- 
 est of days Adam had seen more soldiers and police, that 
 were war-wolves in sheep-dogs' clothing, in his native city 
 than so far in this London, girding for the third round of 
 that combat in which, for the first time since saltpeter had 
 been diverted from its use as a preservative to a destroying 
 agent, her houses had been knocked about her ears. In 1745 
 that fellow they called the Young Pretender had brought his 
 tribe of lewd Highlanders as far as Derby, but, God be 
 praised, the Duke of Cumberland and his trusty Huns had 
 come to the rescue and sent the murderers packing back 
 north to the glorious and crowning mercy of Culloden. 
 And a trifle over a hundred years before that, the trained
 
 ADAM ARRIVES IN LONDON 9 
 
 bands of London 'prentices had been ordered by their 
 masters to stay at the defile of Brentford the Young Pre- 
 tender's supposititious great-grandfather's march on Lon- 
 don. But in those days you could do your business even 
 so far west as Whitehall without worrying about the big- 
 gest artillery duel at Twickenham. And then there were 
 men still living who remembered the battle of Hyde Park 
 Corner, which deflected so many of Thomas Wyatt's army 
 in the direction of Tyburn, that enthusiast having neglected 
 artillery preparation possibly because he had no cannon. 
 
 Never from time immemorial (which by law is as long 
 since as Lion-Hearted Richard) was London town treated 
 worse than by saintly Lord George Gordon's religious en- 
 thusiasts, who burned and pillaged it for the honor of Prot- 
 estantism and broke open Newgate jail in 1780 (where in 
 1793 his Lordship was privileged to die in the faith which 
 he believed to be the Hebrew), until one summer night in 
 1915 some members of that same family which had saved 
 London from the Highlanders in 1745, approaching it by 
 the only road they could, which was that highest road of all, 
 the air, dropped some thermite bombs upon the most exclu- 
 sively Jewish part of Shoreditch, so that some irreproach- 
 able children of Abraham suffered a worse fate than the per- 
 verse citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah. But by this time 
 London was so great a city that the whole German air-fleet, 
 from the most portentous Zeppelin to the most playful 
 Taube, might have sailed across it in line ahead loosing the 
 vials of their wrath, without quickening the pulses of one in 
 twenty of her parishes. 
 
 These facts of London's past and present Adam knew, so 
 far as they are to be known from readable history books 
 and periodicals: the London that lives on printed pages he 
 knew better than any Londoner he was fated to meet, but 
 he was finding it so difficult to make the London of his 
 book-learning square with the London whose pavements he
 
 jo IN LONDON 
 
 trod upon, that he had no idea where he would look for a 
 bed to sleep in and a board to feed at, when the taxi-cab 
 and soldier man in Norfolk Square reminded him of the 
 war through bringing before his eyes, emerging through the 
 doorway of the house at which the soldier had rung, an- 
 other figure in khaki whom he recognized. His stars and 
 badges told Adam that he was a captain in the Scots Fusi- 
 liers, but Adam remembered him as a clerk in Guinness' 
 brewery whose rendering of the more sentimental tenor 
 songs in Viennese comic opera had made him a popular 
 figure at the Muses Club. His name he could not recall, 
 and Adam's glance in his face wakened no recognition 
 there: his eyes had for Adam the look of a man going to 
 the scaffold. In the doorway stood a portly woman in 
 tears, she was still standing there after the taxi had passed 
 away beyond the church towards Edgware Road and that 
 sector of the western front which the officer's unit filled 
 a gap in. But Adam joyfully sprang up the steps and in- 
 terposed ere she could close the door: "Excuse me," said 
 he, "but didn't Mr. Macarthy stop here?" 
 
 The stout lady, whose hair he noticed now was very 
 white though her complexion had the freshness of a young 
 woman, choked down a sob to answer: "Mr. Macarthy of 
 Dublin, is it? Of course he did." She pointed in the 
 direction wherein the taxi had disappeared: "That's his 
 friend, Captain de Frece, just gone. . . . Back to the 
 front, poor dear." 
 
 "I know," said Adam, "that's why I thought you must 
 be Miss . . . Miss . . ." he looked up at her, "Miss Quen- 
 tin is it?" 
 
 The lady shook her head surprisedly. "Not at all," said 
 she, "my name is Durward." Ere Adam could explain 
 (if explain he could) how his bookish mind had said 
 Quentin when he meant Durward, she added, smiling 
 through her tears: "Whatever my name is and whatever
 
 ADAM ARRIVES IN LONDON it 
 
 o x 
 
 is yours, if you're a friend of Mr. Macarthy's, come right 
 in." 
 
 Adam, gladly obeying, found himself in the hall of what 
 appeared to him to be a most luxurious lodging-house: 
 Miss Durward claimed for it that it was not the least cozy 
 in Bayswater. And coziness was not a characteristic of 
 the houses with which Adam was acquainted: Mr. Macar- 
 thy had a fine Persian rug or two in his upper part in 
 Mount joy Square, but the feet did not sink into them as 
 into Miss Durward's puffy Axminsters. 
 
 Miss Durward closed the door and said, mopping up her 
 tears: "Isn't this war just dreadful?" She brightened 
 as she added: "You'll be able to tell me, perhaps, how 
 Mr. Macarthy thinks it will end?" Her words told Adam 
 that he was already at home in London.
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 ADAM FINDS ANCHORAGE 
 
 Miss DURWARD led Adam up a flight of stairs whose 
 silence beneath his tread recalled to him his first visit to a 
 house with a carpeted staircase. He remembered how a 
 lady, as stout as Miss Durward but of less agreeable com- 
 plexion, had essayed to win him from the Blessed Virgin 
 to Christ by giving him a penny and a hot bath. He 
 blushed to think what Miss Durward would say if he ac- 
 quainted her with that first great adventure of his in the 
 society to which his grandparents, though neither his father 
 nor his mother, had belonged. He hoped that Miss Dur- 
 ward would be so kind as to let him a room in her house 
 without inquiring into his pedigree. He pinched his thin 
 roll of notes and wondered if it would make a good im- 
 pression if he dropped them casually on the floor; finger- 
 ing them reminded him that their unnatural condition 
 might stimulate rather than soothe suspicion. ... If he 
 were asked to explain why he had tried to drown himself 
 would she be content to know that he had done it for love 
 of a young lady or two? . . . His instinct told him that 
 Miss Durward was romantic, but was she so romantic as 
 all that? 
 
 She said as she bowed him in to her "den," as she called 
 it, a room living apparently on over-intimate terms with the 
 bathroom: "And so Mr. Macarthy sent you here? And 
 what does he think about the war?" 
 
 Adam addressed himself to answer the latter part of the 
 question. "He thinks it will go on for some time." 
 
 "It's been going on for some time already," Miss Dur- 
 ward argued, "when does he think it will end?"
 
 ADAM FINDS ANCHORAGE 13 
 
 Adam reported Mr. Macarthy as saying that it would 
 not end very soon. 
 
 "And what does Mr. Macarthy think about America?" 
 Miss Durward began, but without waiting continued: 
 "And is he married yet?" 
 
 Adam, allowing America to go free, said Mr. Macarthy 
 was not married. 
 
 To this Miss Durward rejoined: "Are you sure?" and 
 Adam confessed that he was not sure, though it seemed 
 to him surprising that he had no certainty of such a lead- 
 ing question in his most intimate friend's life. 
 
 "He's a remarkable man," Miss Durward said, "highly 
 remarkable. I never met any man like him." 
 
 "Nor did I," said Adam fervently. 
 
 "He is so intellectual, so witty, I would call him a gen- 
 ius," said Miss Durward. 
 
 "Heis all that," said Adam. 
 
 He thought her a trifle volatile when she queried : "Have 
 you seen What Rot!" Then memory began to work. 
 
 "No," said Adam, "but I think I know what you mean. 
 It's a play, isn't ft?" 
 
 "Oh, it's more than that," said Miss Durward, "It's a 
 work of art." Adam holding his tongue, she continued: 
 "I see in the Telegraph that Mr. Oswald Onsin is going 
 to revive it at the Grand." 
 
 "Is he?" said Adam lamely. 
 
 "He is," Miss Durward insisted, "so that's good news 
 for everybody. I'm sure we want cheerful things these 
 times and he's such a beautiful actor. I suppose you've 
 seen him heaps of times ?" 
 
 "I don't think I've ever seen him," said Adam, being 
 perfectly sure that he had not. 
 
 "Oh, indeed!" Miss Durward exclaimed. "I suppose 
 you don't often come to London?" Adam was trying to 
 make up his mind whether to confess that this was his
 
 14 IN LONDON 
 
 first visit to the metropolis, when Miss Durward went on : 
 "I'll tell you what we'll do. ... You're not engaged to- 
 night, are you? ... I see you're not; then we'll go to the 
 Grand Theater and you shall see him act and tell me if 
 you don't think him perfectly lovely." Taking Adam's 
 silence for consent she went to the telephone, but hesitated 
 with her hand on the receiver. "I'm afraid they're only 
 playing Shakespeare. Will that bore you ?" 
 
 Adam found his tongue: "Oh, not at all," he said 
 eagerly. "Which play is it?" 
 
 Miss Durward named a play which Adam did not recog- 
 nize; for it sounded like "Muchadoorasu," and rang up a 
 number in the Kensington exchange, holding a conversa- 
 tion of which Adam caught this part. "Hallo, hallo! . . . 
 Is that Fox Mount Lodge? . . . Miss Durward speaking. 
 . . . Is Mrs. Onsin in? ... Do, please. . . . Hallo! . . . 
 
 Mrs. Ons Oh, that's you, Belle. . . . I'm Connie 
 
 speaking. . . . Connie Durward, yes. . . . Still in bed are 
 you? . . . Where's Oswald? . . . Oh! I've a young gen- 
 tleman with me. . . . Rubbish! . . . Ah, go on! ... I'm 
 not like you. . . . All right; I'll wait till you're finished." 
 Miss Durward appealed to Adam. "You'd think she'd 
 have finished breakfast by this." 
 
 "Artists," said Adam gravely, "particularly actors 
 . . ." but Miss Durward did not allow him to say any 
 more, but called into the receiver: "Look here, Belle! 
 
 All I want to know is whether you're doing " and 
 
 there followed another mysterious name, " 'Asuormuch- 
 ado' to-night?" And then the mystery was explained. 
 "Oh, it's 'Muchado/ is it? And tell me, are you and Os- 
 wald both playing? Very well, then, can you keep me two 
 stalls for to-night? The young gentleman that's with me 
 is just dying to see you and Oswald act. He's come all 
 the way from Dublin. It's perfectly true, my dear, what 
 I'm telling you, and what's more, IIQ'S a friend of Mr.
 
 ADAM FINDS ANCHORAGE 15 
 
 Macarthy's. . . . Stephen Macarthy's, yes." She turned 
 to Adam. "It was Mr. Stephen Macarthy sent you, wasn't 
 it?" 
 
 Adam tried to explain that Mr. Stephen Macarthy had 
 not actually sent him, but Miss Dunvard would not listen. 
 "Yes, Belle," she reiterated into the telephone. "He's just 
 come frem Dublin, from Stephen Macarthy, and he has a 
 message for you with his love and a kiss. . . . The Royal 
 Box, did you say? Yes, dear, if it isn't wanted. No, 
 we'll not be late. . . . Eight o'clock. ... All right. 
 Good-by." She rang off. 
 
 Adam conscientiously endeavoring not to listen or to 
 wonder what Mrs. Onsin was having for breakfast, though 
 himself conscious of a desire for luncheon, let his eye rove 
 up and down the walls. The lady's sanctum with which 
 he had been most familiar in Dublin, that of his landlady, 
 Miss Gannon, had been full of faded portraits of holy men 
 in dog-collars, who could not be mistaken for anything but 
 Irish priests, with their air of plump ascetism. Miss Dur- 
 ward's atmosphere was quite otherwise. She had many 
 photographs too, but hers represented handsome, clean- 
 shaven men smiling so cheerfully that their teeth almost 
 leaped out of their mouths, and handsome, hairy ladies, 
 so full of the joy of life that the other features of their 
 faces appeared to have retired altogether behind their 
 teeth. Ladies and gentlemen alike were in evening dress, 
 but with this difference, that the fronts of the gentlemen 
 were rigidly stiff while the ladies presented backs so loosely 
 covered as to tempt the lively eye to travel unhindered 
 farther than Adam would have thought proper. He was 
 already pink when Miss Dunvard, quitting the telephone, 
 said to him: "You'll remember to kiss Belinda when you 
 see her to-night." 
 
 Yet pinker was Adam as he ejaculated: "Belinda?" 
 
 "Belinda Bellingham ; Mrs. Onsin, you know," Miss Dur-
 
 16 IN LONDON 
 
 ward explained, obviously wondering that explanation 
 should be needed. 
 
 "But won't she be on the stage?" Adam faltered. 
 
 "Of course she will," said Miss Durward, "she's doing 
 Rosalind or Beatrice or whatever it's called. He's awfully 
 good as Benedick but we'll see her in her dressing-room 
 afterwards." 
 
 "Oh!" Adam interjected, much impressed. 
 
 Miss Durward went on: "And remember you've got to 
 kiss her then. . . . That's why we've got the Royal Box." 
 
 "I don't understand," said Adam. "What has the Royal 
 Box go to do with my kissing anybody?" 
 
 Miss Durward asked him a question which it seemed to 
 him he had been called upon to answer every week of his 
 life: "How old are you?" and when she was told that he 
 was not yet seventeen she in her turn expressed surprise. 
 "But, anyhow," she said, "You've got to kiss Mrs. Onsin 
 because, you know, I've told her that Mr. Macarthy had 
 sent her a kiss by you. . . ." 
 
 "Did she believe that?" Adam broke in. 
 
 "I tell you," said Miss Durward, "she's given us the 
 Royal Box. D'you think she'd do that for nothing? Re- 
 member now, you've got to give her a nice kiss and say 
 that it's from Mr. Macarthy." 
 
 "But it isn't!" said Adam. 
 
 "That doesn't matter in the least," said Miss Durward. 
 "She won't mind having one from you, anyhow." She 
 added with sudden austerity: "You're so young." 
 
 "But," Adam argued, "I don't think Mr. Macarthy 
 would like me to do anything of the kind." 
 
 "Oh, get out," said Miss Durward, and ignoring his ef- 
 fort to continue the discussion, headed him off with the 
 question: "And are you going to stay long in London, 
 tell me?" 
 
 Adam here rallied his forces to the attack of an impor-
 
 ADAM FINDS ANCHORAGE 17 
 
 tant position and said with a successful air of nonchalance : 
 "That depends on whether I can find comfortable rooms." 
 
 Miss Durward looked at him. "Have you only just 
 come ?" she asked, and reading the answer in his eyes, said : 
 "Well, now, I call that a great piece of luck. I mean," 
 said she, "that poor Captain de Frece had to go back to the 
 front so suddenly." She added apologetically : "He had 
 only a bedroom; the house is so full. . . . Would a bed- 
 room be enough for you?" 
 
 Adam saying with a lighter heart that anything would 
 be enough for him, Miss Durward said : "That's lucky 
 now, you can have poor Captain de Frece's bedroom, and 
 I dare say you wouldn't mind having your meals here with 
 me?" and, taking his answer for granted, she went on: 
 "You haven't come to London to join the army, I hope, for 
 you're too young for that, though they want men dread- 
 fully in France, Captain de Frece says. . . . Has Mr. 
 Macarthy told you whether he thinks America will come 
 in. ... One o'clock, you'll not have had lunch?" 
 
 Adam confessing almost too readily that he had not had 
 lunch nor any meal since an early hour, she rang the bell 
 and busied herself with opening out a folding table and 
 laying a cloth on it, talking the while. "Don't on any 
 account forget to give Mrs. Onsin that kiss to-night from 
 Mr. Macarthy, for she always says I'm a liar, and I want 
 to prove to her that I'm not." 
 
 ! "But it isn't true, is it?" Adam appealed to her: "And 
 I really can't imagine Mr. Macarthy doing anything of the 
 kind." 
 
 "Don't be ridiculous," Miss Durward answered, without 
 appearing to pay much attention to what Adam said. "Of 
 course he does." 
 
 "But Mr. Macarthy," said Adam, "is not young." 
 
 "He's as young as you or I," replied Miss Durward 
 bafflingly. "And, anythow, what does it matter? You've
 
 iS IN LONDON 
 
 7^. - 
 
 just got to kiss Belinda and make her a pretty speech, and 
 that's no great hardship for an Irishman, is it?" 
 
 Adam was seized with qualms : it seemed to him that one 
 might pay too high a price even for the honor of sitting in 
 the Royal Box at Mr. Onsin's theater. But he was silent 
 until Miss Durward, having given some directions to a 
 male domestic, vaguely suggesting a Continental equivalent 
 of Adam's godfather, Mr. O'Toole, in the days when he 
 was an extra waiter at Dublin Castle, said: "Before we 
 lunch you'll like to see your room. . . . It's just as poor 
 Captain de Frece left it, but there's a clean towel, and I'll 
 have the other things changed before we get back from the 
 theater." 
 
 Adam noticed in the bedroom looking-glass that his 
 cheeks were very red. The apartment was on the third 
 floor, but it held a large and comfortable-looking bed, and 
 its pleasant outlook south across the square recalled to him 
 Mr. Macarthy's bedroom, which was, however, in other 
 respects quite different. Mr. Macarthy's pictures, for in- 
 stance, were sober to the verge of what the gilded youth 
 of Dublin called boredom, whereas this bedroom which 
 Miss Durward offered him had its walls well-nigh covered 
 by black-framed French prints of nude ladies. Miss 
 Durward, catching his startled eye, said glibly: "You'll 
 excuse the naughty pictures, won't you? They're not my 
 taste, I needn't say. They're a little souvenir of Mr. 
 Bourchier-Bellingham, Mrs. Onsin's brother; he left ow- 
 ing me a lot of money, so I didn't know what to do with 
 them. . . . Besides, he's in the trenches now and I thought 
 it would be heartless to take them down. What would 
 you advise me to do with them?" 
 
 "Burn them," said Adam firmly. Miss Durward looked 
 at him commiseratingly : "I'm keeping you from washing 
 your hands/' said she : "You know your way downstairs."
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 r ADAM WRITES TO MR. MACARTHY 
 
 As Adam descended the staircase alone he perceived that 
 the walls of the corridors and a couple of rooms, glanced 
 at through doors ajar, were hung with prints after more 
 or less familiar theatrical portraits. Garrick as Richard 
 III. and Mrs. Siddons in the big hat in which she sat to 
 Gainsborough, were conspicuous, and on one landing hung 
 Maclise's picture of Malvolio's wooing, and on another 
 Millais's presentation of Ophelia's death by misadventure. 
 Adam stayed a moment to look at this, wondering whether 
 if he had been drowned in the Liffey his fate would have 
 been chosen for treatment by a member of the Hibernian 
 Academy. Remembering that Barbara Burns, before she 
 had married Mr. Leaper-Carahar, C.B., had told him sub- 
 ject-pictures were out of date, he dismissed the sad but not 
 unpleasant thought from his mind, exchanging it for the 
 on the whole more agreeable attempt to guess what Miss 
 Durward would give him for luncheon. Fate in a pleasant 
 mood decreed that it should be fish. 
 
 "Upstairs I thought you were in love," Miss Durward 
 said, giving him a second helping of plaice, "but now I see 
 you're not." 
 
 "I am," said Adam; for he could not bear to sail under 
 false colors. 
 
 "Since when?" said Miss Durward, rather archly, Adam 
 thought, for a woman of her age. 
 
 He answered austerely: "Ever since I can remember," 
 but when she demanded the name of the object of such 
 faithfulness, he weakened the impression by confessing 
 that he was not sure. 
 
 19
 
 20 IN LONDON 
 
 "I see," said Miss Durward, "you're just like all boys, 
 in love with petticoats." 
 
 Adam protested that petticoats meant nothing to 
 him, and to escape from what he deemed a peril- 
 ous discussion, asked Miss Durward if she were on the 
 stage. 
 
 "How could I be," said Miss Durward, "and run a 
 lodging-house at the same time?" 
 
 "But you seem very fond of the theater," Adam said, 
 "and you know a great deal about it, don't you?" 
 
 "Oh, I'm fond of it enough," Miss Durward sighed, 
 "and if it wasn't for the house here I'd be tempted by it 
 sometimes. . . . Not young parts, you know, I've too much 
 sense for that, but Belinda wanted me to play the nurse 
 to her Juliet in Romeo and Juliet they call it; she said 
 Shakespeare wrote the part for me, not that I believe that, 
 I needn't tell you." 
 
 "No," said Adam rather flatly, adding: "It's rather 
 coarse, isn't it?" 
 
 "Is it?" said Miss Durward. "Belinda didn't tell me 
 that. I couldn't stand anything coarse." She rose 
 from her place and selected a volume from the shelf. 
 "Really coarse, is it?" Adam was alarmed that she was 
 going to look for the coarse passages then and there, but 
 she laid it down, saying: "That'll keep till bedtime." 
 Adam breathed again. "I always read myself to sleep," 
 she explained, "but Shakespeare's very hard to understand 
 unless you see him acted. I suppose you've seen most of 
 his plays?" 
 
 "Oh, no," said Adam deprecatingly. 
 
 "I am surprised at that," said his hostess. "I'd have 
 thought Mr. Macarthy would bring you to everything; 
 he's got such good taste and can get free seats." 
 
 Adam indignantly protested: "Mr. Macarthy always 
 pays when he goes to the theater."
 
 'ADAM WIRES TO MR. MACARTHY 21 
 
 "I call that dreadful waste of money," said she, "to pay 
 for a thing when you can get it for nothing." 
 
 Adam looked at her open-eyed. "But how would a thea- 
 ter pay if every one went in free?" 
 
 Her answer to this question was simplicity itself: "Very 
 few theaters pay, whether people go in free or not." 
 
 "But how do they keep open then?" Adam insisted. 
 
 "Very few of them keep open for long," said Miss Dur- 
 ward, and he felt it useless to pursue the subject. 
 
 "Mind you," said Miss Durward, "the Onsins are differ- 
 ent from other managers ; he's such a clever man, and what 
 is more important he has such wonderful luck, I don't 
 think he has one failure in three, and of course a success 
 like What Rot! would pay for ten ordinary failures. It 
 wouldn't surprise me if now with the war on he made a 
 fresh fortune out of this revival of it. Read that." She 
 handed Adam the newspaper. 
 
 Adam read: "It will be agreeable news to the many 
 admirers of Mr. Oswald Onsin and Miss Belinda Belling- 
 ham that when the successful run of Shakespeare's Much 
 Ado About Nothing comes to an end at the palatial house 
 in Regent Street it will be succeeded, not by As You Like 
 It, as originally intended, but by Mr. Onsin's own play 
 which first brought him fame, What Rot! Mr. Onsin 
 feels that this is more suitable to the strenuous times we 
 live in than Shakespeare's perhaps too literary comedy. 
 Many will sympathize with Mr. Onsin in the sentiment 
 that those on leave from the front do not wish to be re- 
 minded of the grim realities they leave behind by such 
 incidents as the combat between Orlando and Charles the 
 Wrestler. Whatever fault Aristotle might find in the story 
 of Mr. Onsin's great play, which has now been performed 
 in one or other part of the globe not far short of five 
 thousand times, which means that the Pit tickets alone if 
 laid end to end would be sufficient to encircle the German
 
 22 IN LONDON 
 
 Fleet (as Mr. Rubenstein, the courteous Acting Manager 
 at the Grand Theater, informs us to be his estimate) ; the 
 author modestly claims for it that it contains no reference 
 to the war. Although he is revising the story so that it 
 may be in every way up-to-date, Mr. Onsin informs us 
 that it will retain this merit when he gives it to the public, 
 probably on Easter Monday. Needless to add, both he 
 and his gifted partner, Miss Bellingham, will appear in 
 their original parts of Lord Algy Taplow and Lady Lucina 
 Lovelace." 
 
 "I only wish they were doing it to-night instead of 
 Shakespeare," Miss Durward explained. "I do think 
 Shakespeare awfully slow, though Oswald Onsin is good 
 in it, as he is in everything." 
 
 "Is he?" said Adam, seeing that he was expected to say 
 something. "And is Mrs. Onsin very good, too?" 
 
 "Gentlemen like her," Miss Durward told him, "and so 
 do I, off the stage. . . . She's the dearest friend I have 
 off the stage." 
 
 "How did you come to know her?" Adam asked, "since 
 you never acted yourself ?" 
 
 "Oh, that was a long time ago," his hostess answered 
 readily, "when I was head of the underclothing at Pea- 
 oock and Ethelred. She got all the lingerie she wore in 
 the original show of What Rot! from me." She smiled 
 brightly: "So it's no wonder I take an interest in What 
 Rot! is it?" 
 
 "I'm sure it must be very interesting," Adam said, 
 politely stifling all accent of doubt. 
 
 "Oh, most interesting," Miss Durward insisted, "and 
 that apart from the fact that a great part of the play, in- 
 deed you might say the whole of the play, was written in 
 that very room you're going to sleep in to-night." 
 
 "Oh !" Adam ejaculated, really moved by this news which 
 seemed to bring him definitely in touch with the great
 
 ADAM WIRES TO MR. MACARTHY 23 
 
 world of London. "Did Mr. Onsin stay here as well as his 
 brother-in-law ?" 
 
 But his hostess failed to take in this question by reason 
 of the ringing of the telephone bell. Immediately on put- 
 ting her ear to the receiver she turned to Adam and sug- 
 gested that he would like to retire to his room and rest 
 himself. And Adam, understanding that his presence was 
 momentarily undesirable, withdrew upstairs. 
 
 He did not lie down, however, but finding writing mate- 
 rial on a small table by one of the windows he sat down, 
 to write a letter to his guardian: 
 
 "My DEAR MR. MACARTHY," said he, "as I wired you 
 from Bristol, I am safe and sound, and I only hope that I 
 caused you no anxiety on my account. Things happened 
 that upset me the last day I saw you. I'll tell you about 
 them some day, but can't in this letter. I don't quite know 
 myself yet what happened. As you know, there was a 
 fog, and in the fog I somehow fell into the Liffey. I sup- 
 pose I threw myself in, but when I found myself there it 
 seemed to me I hadn't really meant to. And I was aw- 
 fully ashamed to think that my selfishness if I was drowned 
 might worry you. You, who have been so good to me. I 
 won't say more, but I got out somehow and found myself 
 on the Bristol boat. The same old boat I used to watch 
 from the Custom House steps opposite Liberty Hall when 
 I was quite a young lad. I wasn't more than seven then. 
 Anyhow, I got to Bristol. And as I wired you from Bris- 
 tol, came on to London. If you don't mind, I'd like to 
 stay in London, rather than go back to Dublin just yet. I 
 feel I could make my living here if you could let me have 
 money to carry on for a week or two. Of course I've not 
 made any money since I was very young, but I'm sure I 
 could. I don't know how. This is a very long letter, so 
 I won't say any more. You will recognize the address. I
 
 24 IN LONDON 
 
 found the house through seeing Mr. de Frece, who is a cap- 
 tain now and just gone back to France, coming out of it. 
 He looked very sad, not like he used to look at the Six 
 Muses. I have his room, which is lucky, as there is no other. 
 To-night I am going with Miss Durward to see Shake- 
 speare's Much Ado About Nothing. Mrs. Oswald Onsin, 
 whose name you perhaps remember, is playing in it, and 
 Miss Durward says I am to give her a kiss from you. But 
 of course I won't, as I know you would not like me to do 
 anything of the kind. Miss Durward is a funny lady but 
 extremely hospitable. She gave me plaice for lunch. And 
 I could not help thinking it queer that I should be eating 
 plaice instead of plaice eating me. But I said nothing to 
 Miss Durward about my being drowned. I think she 
 might not understand. I am very comfortable but home- 
 sick for Mountjoy Square. Please ask every one to ex- 
 cuse me if I have given them inconvenience. I heard a 
 lot of firing on the sea and saw a warship doing it between 
 Dublin and Bristol. They are reviving W hat Rot! at the 
 Grand. Miss Durward says it was written in this room I 
 am going to sleep in to-night. There are also pictures on 
 the wall you would not care for. But, of course, I find 
 even the smallest things interesting in London. I hope I 
 have not spelt anything wrong. Good-by, dear Mr. 
 Macarthy, I am as always your affectionate little friend, 
 
 ADAM." 
 
 As he appended his name to this epistle, Adam was con- 
 scious of something percolating between his cheek and nose 
 and blotting his signature. Hastily he blew his nose, hear- 
 ing knuckles on the door at the same moment that the 
 handle turned. "May I come in?" said Miss Durward. 
 
 "Yes, yes, do, do," Adam answered emotionally. 
 
 "Whatever have you been crying about?" his hostess de- 
 manded in a tone more genuinely sympathetic than he had
 
 ADAM WIRES TO MR. MACARTHY 25 
 
 yet heard her use, though indeed she had been cordial 
 from the outset. 
 
 Adam answered simply: "I've been writing to Mr. 
 Macarthy," as if that explained everything. 
 
 Miss Durward did not pursue the subject. "I came to 
 ask about your clothes," said she. "I suppose you left 
 them at Euston or did you tell me you came by Padding- 
 ton?" 
 
 "I came by Paddington," said Adam, and reopened his 
 letter, "but I didn't bring any clothes. I must ask Mr. 
 Macarthy to have them sent on." 
 
 He read misgivings in Miss Durward's face. "It's lucky 
 there's a war on," said she, "so it won't look so odd your 
 being in the Royal Box in morning dress." 
 
 "Perhaps I'd better not go," Adam suggested, though he 
 hoped the proposal would not be accepted. 
 
 "Oh, it won't matter at all," Miss Durward said. "I'll 
 wear enough for both of us, and you can sit in the back 
 of the box and people will think you're my son from Eton." 
 
 "Have you a son at Eton?" Adam asked absent-mind- 
 edly, then added confusedly : "I beg your pardon." 
 
 "You ought, indeed," said Miss Durward apparently 
 without taking great offense. "I suppose you think be- 
 cause I haven't the Tieart to burn poor Bourchier-Belling- 
 ham's pictures, or send them to be sold for the Red Cross, 
 that I'm no better than an actress." 
 
 "I never thought anything of the kind," Adam assured 
 her. 
 
 "Didn't you?" said Miss Durward laughing. "And 
 what do you know about actresses, anyhow?" 
 
 Adam was too discreet to say what he knew about ac- 
 tresses, but he could not resist the temptation of trying to 
 look as if he knew a lot. "Well, whether you do or you 
 don't," Miss Durward concluded, "you'd better go out and 
 buy yourself a clean collar and shirt to kiss Mrs. Onsin in."
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING" 
 
 FROM Norfolk Square Adam was taken by his hostess in 
 a taxi-cab to the Grand Theater. Under her direction he 
 had bought at a shop opposite Paddington Station a white 
 shirt, a white collar, and a black satin tie to replace his of 
 green Irish poplin, which she said was unsuited to evening 
 wear even had it not been stained by water. His lounge 
 suit was also the worse for its immersion in the Liffey, 
 but as he had worn it that day for the first time and it 
 happened to be a particularly nice suit, Miss Durward said 
 that he might wear it, and did not insist on his hiring a suit 
 for the occasion, as she rather hinted was properly his duty 
 to the Royal Box. "Mr. Macarthy may be a socialist," 
 she said, "but I never knew any one who knew better what 
 was what, and the Royal Box is, after all, the Royal Box." 
 Still, she permitted Adam, having changed his blue collar 
 and shirt for white and his green tie for black, to cling to 
 the rest of his apparel. 
 
 And indeed she was right in thinking that her full dress 
 would cover many discrepancies on the part of her com- 
 panion. As Adam could not describe it we shall not ex- 
 pose ourselves to criticism by attempting any description 
 here, but it is safe to say that the modest lady whose pre- 
 scriptive right it was to occupy the box had never dreamed 
 of anything like it in all her days and nights. But there is 
 no record of her commanding frock, frill nor furbelow 
 from Mr. Peacock nor yet Mr. Ethelred (known to his 
 neighbors at the Greenroom Club as Ethelred the Un- 
 ready). The odd thing, as Adam thought, about Miss 
 
 26
 
 " "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING" 27 
 
 Durward's costume, was that although it appeared to fill 
 the taxi, covering all her seat and a great share of his, 
 there was but little of it covering her own ample self. He 
 believed the predominant note of it to be purple, or as some 
 would say, lilac, and others mauve. 
 
 But from the moment of leaving the house until they 
 arrived at the theater, Adam was hardly conscious of his 
 companion, being engrossed and a little alarmed by the 
 mysterious flight of the taxi through the dark, and, as it 
 seemed to him, oddly silent streets. Used to the resonant 
 paving of Dublin which multiplied every crash of tram- 
 car, motor-lorry, iron-tired, horse-drawn vehicles, far com- 
 moner there than here, to say nothing of the hammer of 
 horses' hoofs and the heavy boots of civilians as well as 
 soldiers, it seemed to Adam that London was tumultuous 
 with ghosts; armies of them, rushing in and out ghastly- 
 wise in the glimmer of muffled lamps reflected greenly on 
 their faces : he wondered at the temerity of their chauffeur, 
 hooting defiantly as he plunged into mid-stream in what he 
 afterwards recognized as the Edgware Road, and across the 
 alternate spaces and defiles of Mayfair, all black as pitch, 
 into Piccadilly, and across an angle of what Miss Dur- 
 ward told him was St. James's Square, into a short queue 
 of vehicles, all power-driven, and mostly hackneys, suc- 
 cessively jerking out their occupants on to a green baize 
 which covered the pavement at the theater entrance. 
 
 Of the exterior of the theater Adam grasped nothing 
 except that it was very big and much bepillared. . . . Let 
 us confess at once that the architecture was Byzanto-Pal- 
 ladian of the late Victorian variety: Mr. Oswald Onsin 
 had collaborated with the contractor in adapting a design 
 by his then Imperial Majesty, William II., for an aquarium, 
 to the purposes of a theater. Anyhow, lighted up, the 
 vestibule presented a magnificent effect compared with the 
 nebulous darkness outside. What elements constituted
 
 28 IN LONDON 
 
 this magnificence he had no time to judge, being conscious 
 only of three stately and beautiful ladies in evening dress, 
 second only to Miss Durward's, advancing graciously to 
 meet them. One took his hat and stick after mechanically 
 offering to remove his coat; one offered him a program, 
 and one took their tickets. He supposed they were rela- 
 tives of Mr. or Mrs. Oswald Onsin's until Miss Durward 
 gave perhaps the most distinguished one a shilling, and 
 said in quite an ordinary voice: "Thank you, miss." So 
 he gave the lady devoted more particularly to himself a 
 florin and was rewarded by a softly murmured: "Ta, old 
 dear." He blushed and was grateful that Miss Durward 
 was out of ear-shot. He hurried after her. 
 
 When they were alone in the Royal Box Miss Durward, 
 still further loosening her costume, said: "I do think 
 Mr. Onsin runs this theater beautifully. Having three 
 ladies is much better than two flunkeys like Herbert Tree's 
 around the corner. It's just as stylish and it makes you 
 feel more at home. . . . Besides, Peacock and Ethelred pay 
 him five hundred a year for the advertisement." 
 
 "Advertisement of what?" Adam asked, astonished. 
 
 "Why, the robes, of course," said Miss Durward. 
 "These three girls are all trained mannequins; didn't you 
 see the way they moved from the hips?" 
 
 Adam did not answer this question: he wished he had 
 not seen it; particularly he wished . . . but his wishes 
 were lost in the strains of Mr. Onsin's orchestra, which 
 to attune the minds of the audience to the atmosphere of 
 Messina in the Middle Ages were playing "It's a Long 
 Way to Tipperary," with scholarly variations by their con- 
 ductor whose name appeared on the program as Mr. Solo- 
 mon Joystone. But Adam was not critical; he was 
 prepared to believe every claim set forth by Miss Durward 
 on behalf of Mr. Onsin and his theater. It was manifestly 
 very large, very well lighted, and after the Dublin theaters,
 
 "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING" 29 
 
 it seemed to Adam beautifully kept. The Royal Box was 
 an epitome of comfort, with a little private lavatory in one 
 corner. Adam longed to go into this so that he might 
 complete his acquaintance with the ways of kings in their 
 lighter phases, but was bashful about doing so before Miss 
 Durward, though she herself used it to powder her nose. 
 
 Mr. Joystone had not exhausted all the possibilities of 
 "Tipperary," when he changed it for a few bars of what 
 Adam had heard Mr. Macarthy call oleaginous Italian 
 music, and the curtain rose. It had not been up five min- 
 utes when Adam felt himself on fire. . . . Lord knows 
 how or why, unless perhaps that it was that she wore green 
 and gold, Mrs. Onsin as Beatrice reminded him of Bar- 
 bara. And what a delightful part was Beatrice! In the 
 reading it had seemed to him dull, but then he had read it 
 at Clongowes when he was a mere schoolboy of thirteen, 
 needing to look up every other word in the glossary, and 
 then very often left in doubt. But now Shakespeare, and 
 more particularly through the mouth of Mrs. Onsin (ade- 
 quately trained, be it said, in the tradition of Ellen Terry) 
 spoke to him in a language that was become his own. From 
 her first question, "I pray you, is Signer Mountanto re- 
 turned from the wars or no?" he felt himself longing to 
 converse with her across the footlights. . . . And how de- 
 lightful it was when Benedick came on and said for him 
 just the very things he would have said for himself, if in 
 more diffident language. He wished he had had the wit to 
 say to Barbara Burns before she took the fatal step which 
 made her the legal prize of Mr. Leaper-Carahar, C.B. : 
 "It is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: 
 and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard 
 heart; for, truly, I love none." He forgot for the moment 
 that there was scant foundation for this statement. He 
 only considered how well it sounded as Mr. Oswald Onsin 
 said it. Mr. Onsin was indeed on the stage a highly taking
 
 30 IN LONDON 
 
 lover, and, he gathered from Miss Durward, a no less 
 successful one off it. Now Adam would have thought it 
 a dreadful thing to be a rakish fellow in real life; but it 
 occurred to him at that moment that it would be the most 
 delightful of all occupations to play the very devil with 
 Women, particularly if they resembled Barbara, but even 
 if they did not in that harmless world of lath and canvas 
 where the loosest morals lead to no worse fate than to be 
 lowered down a trap-door in a red or green light. 
 
 It was a stage-struck Adam that helped to call Mr. and 
 Mrs. Onsin before the curtain at the end of the play, 
 though even then his candid vision saw at once that they 
 looked less agreeable before the curtain than behind it. 
 Still less attractive did he find them when Miss Dunvard, 
 whom every one seemed to know, led him by a labyrinthine 
 way behind the scenes to a sort of tiny drawing-room that 
 lay between the dressing-rooms of the famous pair. Mrs. 
 Onsin reclined on a sofa drinking beef-tea, while Mr. On- 
 sin, his wig pushed to the back of his head, sat on a desk 
 scowling at his Box Office return. "Damn Shakespeare," 
 he was saying as they came in. 
 
 "Under a hundred again, my dear," Mrs. Onsin said to 
 Miss Durward by way of apology for her husband's dis- 
 tracted manner. She looked at Adam approvingly. 
 "Come and give me that kiss from Mr. Macarthy," she 
 said: "I want something to cheer me up." Intercepting 
 Adam's glance at the actor she went on: "Oh, he won't 
 mind, Oswald knows which side his bread is buttered." 
 
 "There won't be butter for any one's bread," the mana- 
 ger said savagely, "if this war goes on." He qualified the 
 war with one of the most familiar of all adjectives, 
 which, however, Mr. Macarthy had advised Adam not 
 to use. 
 
 A happy thought occurred to Adam. He knelt and 
 kissed the fair Belinda's hand. The movement caught Mr.
 
 "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING" 31 
 
 Onsin's eye and he asked with professional interest: "Who 
 taught you to do that?" 
 
 Adam turned to him with his ever-ready blushes: "I 
 wasn't taught," said he, "I did it because I felt like it." 
 
 Mr. Onsin eyed him curiously. "And who taught you to 
 speak like that?" 
 
 "No need to ask that," Mrs. Onsin murmured. 
 
 "You must be pretty young," the manager pursued. 
 "How long have you been on the stage?" 
 
 "Never," said Adam, "except that I walked on once at 
 the Abbey." 
 
 "Oh! You're one of the Irish Players, are you?" Mr. 
 Onsin said. "But you haven't any Irish accent." And it 
 was a fact that, except in moments of excitement, Adam 
 had very little or none at all of what is called in the the- 
 atrical profession, an Irish accent. 
 
 Adam's truthful soul was for denying that he was an 
 Irish player but Mrs. Onsin forestalled him by saying: 
 "And sure and arrah acushla machree, why haven't you 
 no broguee atall atall no mor than my hat?" which she 
 appeared to conceive to be idiomatic Gaelic. She added 
 to her husband: "I see you're thinking of him for Ned 
 Burke." 
 
 "How wonderful of you! quite ideal!" Miss Durward 
 gasped incomprehensibly. Mr. Onsin silenced both women 
 with his hand, continuing to address himself to his youth- 
 ful visitor: "You say you've never acted outside the Ab- 
 bey, which doesn't count. . . . But you'd like a job on the 
 real stage, the London, or more or less London stage, 
 wouldn't you?" 
 
 "I would," said Adam promptly; for this idea, so mag- 
 ically arrived at by Mr. Onsin, had sprung to full life in 
 Adam's brain at the moment Mr. Onsin himself had swung, 
 triumphantly insolent, yet not discourteous, to address 
 Beatrice as "dear Lady Disdain."
 
 32 IN LONDON 
 
 "Very good, then," said the actor, "come and see me 
 here at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning. That'll do for 
 to-night, you'd better be getting home." 
 
 Miss Durward accepted uncomplainingly this abrupt dis- 
 missal. "Come along, dear/' she said. 
 
 But Mrs. Onsin broke in: "What's the hustle, Ossie? 
 "We don't even know his name yet." 
 
 "Time enough for that to-morrow," said the great man 
 impressively. 
 
 "Oh, Tosh!" cried his spouse, and the expletive was, as 
 it were, emphasized by a thunderous crash which made 
 Adam leap from his chair and stand bewildered while it 
 was repeated again and again and yet again. 
 
 "The Huns !" screamed Mrs. Onsin. 
 
 Her husband nodded portentously. "I had the warning 
 half an hour ago." 
 
 With trembling hands Mrs. Onsin flung a fur coat around 
 herself. "You beast, why didn't you tell me?" 
 
 The actor said harshly : "I wasn't going to have my last 
 act ruined by hysterics, Huns or no Huns . . . but the 
 sooner we all get home the better." 
 
 Miss Durward was already out of the door, and Adam 
 saw he had no choice but to pursue her. The lift shaft 
 was in darkness, so they ran down the stairs, a dizzy spiral, 
 to the street where, no vehicle being visible save those in 
 heedless motion up and down Regent Street and the Hay- 
 market, she led him at a trot to the Piccadilly Tube Sta- 
 tion, the exterior lights of which had been all extinguished. 
 She booked for Paddington by Bakerloo: they had to 
 stand. Adam's first experience of an Underground rail- 
 way and the crashing and roaring of that overloaded train 
 so tightly packed into the cylinder through which it sped, 
 suggested to him that an aerial action was in progress over- 
 head. It seemed to him that he was being swayed by 
 Fate between the alternatives of becoming at once the
 
 "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING" 33 
 
 principal actor of England and of perishing like a rat in a 
 hole. He deemed it cruel of the gods to threaten him with 
 cutting short so soon his promising career: he could not 
 credit that he had tried to take his own life a week ago. 
 Now he felt himself to be the richest drop of the world's 
 blood rushing through its iron veins.
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 THE PORTAL OF FAME 
 
 EMERGING from the tube at Paddington at the quick step, 
 and Miss Durward saying little, and that hardly above a 
 whisper, lest she should draw the enemy's fire, Adam had 
 crossed Praed Street in doubt whether it could be the same 
 thoroughfare he had so closely inspected twelve hours ago. 
 For it was now midnight, though no bell rang to advertise 
 the time; for the churches were as circumspect as his com- 
 panion. All lamps were out, and for the first time he was 
 conscious of giant scissors of light opening and snapping 
 together in the sky as though striving to snip off pieces of 
 the firmament. Far away eastward the ear caught an in- 
 termittent thudding, unimpressive compared with the four 
 great crashes of warning or even the roar of the Under- 
 ground train battering its way through the Tube. But 
 those fiery scissors working in the empyrean were cata- 
 clysmal in their menace, as though they portended war be- 
 tween the Titans and the gods. London, which had become 
 a solid fairyland in the theater, had slid into nothingness 
 again, and Norfolk Square was but the profile of walls of 
 a dead city. 
 
 Miss Durward's house was dark within, and though she 
 switched on a light for him to find his way upstairs, she 
 counseled him to go to bed by moonlight, and he had 
 barely reached his door when the stair light was switched 
 off again. Adam's mind went back to a bull's-eye lantern 
 he had purchased with almost the first money he could call 
 his own, long, long ago before wars were ; he wished he had 
 
 34
 
 THE PORTAL OF FAME 35 
 
 that lantern with him now ; this thought brought on home- 
 sickness. He did not want to be a great actor, he wanted 
 to be back in Dublin, pretending he was in Greece, with 
 the aid of that bull's-eye lantern and the late Mr. Keats. 
 
 The panic roused by the four sinister crashes in the 
 coulisses of the Grand Theater had momentarily swept him 
 away in the same current with his hostess, and in the Tube, 
 where she had felt herself comparatively safe, he had sweated 
 with terror, but now that he was alone again quietly think- 
 ing, his sense of humor brought him back peace, and he 
 laughed at the absurdity of what he had seen. Apart from 
 its vulgar pageantry he had no fear of death beyond the 
 natural reaction of healthy young flesh and blood against 
 atrophy. Even in the Tube he had been less terrified at 
 the thought of his own sudden end than by the vision of 
 that mass of humanity around him suddenly reduced to a 
 great clot of blood and smoldering filth. 
 
 Groping his way across the room without mishap he 
 drew the blinds and flung wide the window. The giant 
 scissors were still snapping at the moon or turning Cath- 
 erine wheels in impotent delirium. As he leaned out, 
 watching, he thought the thudding receded rather than 
 advanced. Below him nothing stirred but the tree-tops 
 in the square ruffled by the spring wind. . . . The spring, 
 the vernal equinox, what a wind it has to be sure. It blew 
 him a vision of himself playing Benedick; Dublin was 
 again forgotten and he was now managing the Grand The- 
 ater, and a lady with all the charms of Barbara Burns, now 
 Mrs. Leaper-Carahar, and Josephine O'Meagher, now in 
 religion Sister Veronica, and Caroline Brady, now no more, 
 combined with the professional technique of Mrs. Osward 
 Onsin, formerly Miss Belinda Bellingham, was calling him 
 with the mockery of Beatrice, but a great deal of truth, 
 "A dear happiness to women." He turned with the pride 
 of Chanticleer from the window to find the saucy moon
 
 36 IN LONDON 
 
 playing all too brightly on Mrs. Onsin's brother's art col- 
 lection, blushed for the last time, and went to bed in his 
 under- vest, having forgotten to buy pyjamas. Instantly, 
 air-raid or no air-raid (in the phrase of Mr. Onsin), Adam 
 slept. 
 
 The next thing he knew was the incredible amiability of 
 his godfather in coming all the way from Dublin and so 
 early in the morning to offer him a cup of tea. . . . He 
 rubbed his eyes. . . . No, after all it was not Mr. Byron 
 O'Toole, it was merely Tomasso, as Miss Durward called 
 her ministering angel, notwithstanding his desire for her 
 to call him more familiarly, Tceme. 
 
 This affable Italian's mastery of English was imperfect, 
 but he suffered Adam to understand that it was eight 
 o'clock, that he could have his bath at half-past, and Miss 
 Durward would look for him to join her at breakfast by 
 nine. As Tomasso was leaving the room, Adam stayed 
 him by a request for sugar with his tea, and he returned 
 to the bedside with profoundly apologetic gesticulations 
 which served also to indicate a small phial half concealed 
 by the saucer. Adam reading on the label the word "Sac- 
 charine," remembered the war and therefore also its 
 knockings last night so near their door. He asked if there 
 was any news of the raid, but this highly technical ques- 
 tion, in accents to which Tomasso was unaccustomed, be- 
 came to him an inquiry as to whether the bath was ready; 
 and so repeating his statement that it would be at half-past 
 eight, he bowed himself out, all smiles and apologies. 
 
 That Tomasso should be so little impressed by the raid 
 would have given food for thought but that he was anxious 
 to escape from Mr. Bellingham's picture gallery to the 
 bathroom. . . . Besides, had he not his interview with Mr. 
 Onsin, fixed for eleven o'clock that morning, to think 
 about? And think about it he did with joyous futility 
 until he found himself sitting opposite his hostess at the
 
 THE PORTAL OF FAME 37 
 
 folding table in her den. Then the raid recurred to him 
 again and he could not help wondering that Miss Dur- 
 ward said nothing about it, but this lady, so woebegone and 
 panic-stricken when she fled from him in the darkness last 
 night, with the obvious intention of making her bedclothes 
 a last line of defense against the destroying angels, was 
 this morning as blithe as ever in a kimono which left more 
 to be desired than imagined. 
 
 There was this to be said for Miss Durward, that she 
 was as clean as Adam himself, indeed, perhaps cleaner, in 
 as much as she had taken a hot bath and he a cold one. 
 Her whole house was redolent of soap and brass-polish, 
 and even Tomasso, if his nails were as black as Mr. 
 O'TooIe's, showed a passably white dicky under his waist- 
 coat and his face was far from dirty. This was all the 
 more praiseworthy of Tomasso, for that he wore a heavy 
 mustache of that kind which Victorian cavalry officers 
 shared with the heroes of the concert platform: he had 
 been such a hero, though unrecognized. So he had drifted 
 into his present more remunerative employment: he had 
 a sweet voice, better suited to this than his former profes- 
 sion, since it was inaudible at a distance. Those who 
 could hear it described it as abnormally alto; and for the 
 rest, his country did not call him to her colors, and he was 
 too modest to go without calling. "He is a topping serv- 
 ant," said his mistress, "but no earthly good for anything 
 else." 
 
 She said this when Adam told her of his conversational 
 cross-purposes with Tomasso between the air-raid and the 
 bath. But she herself said nothing about the air-raid, pre- 
 ferring to turn the conversation on to the more promising 
 topic of Adam's future on the stage. "I felt in my bones," 
 said she, "that he'd do something for you the moment he 
 saw you." 
 
 "Why did you think that?" asked Adam modestly.
 
 38 IN LONDON 
 
 "Oh," she returned, "lots of things. . . . You have an 
 actor's face." ' 
 
 "What is an actor's face?" Adam asked, not being sure 
 whether to take this as a compliment or not. 
 
 "An actor's face," she readily informed him, "is a face 
 like yours," and after that their conversation revolved 
 rather than advanced. 
 
 He broke through the circle by the question: "What 
 exactly does he want me for?" 
 
 "To try you for a part, sure," she said. 
 
 "In what?" he asked. 
 
 "Well, it sounded as if he wanted you for the revival 
 of What Rot! but that seems impossible, for Oswald 
 wouldn't dream of putting an inexperienced actor he had 
 to act with himself in a part in London," she added, "and 
 Ned Burke's a good part, too. . . . Unless, of course, he's 
 saying some of the speeches himself in the revised version." 
 
 So Adam did not know quite what to expect when, leav- 
 ing the Tube at Piccadilly Circus, he marched down Re- 
 gent Street in the brisk spring air and at the eleventh hour 
 presented himself at the stage-door of the Grand Theater. 
 Asking buoyantly for Mr. Onsin he received for some 
 moments no attention from the occupant of the lodge, who 
 was reading his newspaper. When Adam repeated the 
 question in a voice that could hardly be denied, the man 
 looked up at him over the paper and said : "Why ain't ye 
 at the Front?" 
 
 Adam guessed his meaning, but amused himself by reply- 
 ing that Mr. Onsin had desired him to come behind ; 
 whereupon the good man decided to lay down his news- 
 paper, saying gruffly: "Wel^anyoweyain'tereyet." Which 
 Adam interpreted as meaning that the manager was not 
 yet come. 
 
 The man making no suggestion, Adam, a trifle dis- 
 gruntled, hung about the door for a quarter of an hour
 
 THE PORTAL OF FAME 39 
 
 during which nothing happened more exciting than the 
 passing of a stage hand or fireman. At twenty past eleven 
 two ladies drifted in, and after that there was a fairly 
 constant trickle of rather elderly actors ; and then suddenly 
 a not greatly significant figure in a tall hat and overcoat 
 sprang out of a hansom and hustled past him. Had not 
 the stage door-keeper drawn himself to attention and 
 saluted, Adam had not recognized Mr. Onsin; and Mr. 
 Onsin bustled away with no sign of recognition of 
 Adam. 
 
 The door-keeper eyed him with baleful contempt. "I 
 thought you had an appointment with the governor," he 
 said. 
 
 "Was that he?" Adam babbled involuntarily. 
 
 The stage door-keeper spat into his fire. "Serve you 
 right if it was 'Olinginbug," but this jest fell flat as Adam 
 did not recognize the name of that great benefactor of the 
 nail trade. He was mainly concerned to pursue Mr. On- 
 sin and run him to earth at once lest he should be suspected 
 of slackness. But the keeper discouraged any attempt to 
 do this. "No admittance except on business, if you 
 please!" he growled, and flapped his newspaper in em- 
 phasis. Adam was wondering how Mr. Macarthy would 
 have pierced such an impasse as this, when Mrs. Onsin, 
 bouncing out of a Limousine, came to his rescue, as Juno 
 descending from her chariot to succor Achilles, drove a 
 coach and four through it. 
 
 "Hallo, old dear!" she sang out, "hasn't Ossie come 
 yet?" 
 
 Er Adam could reply, Cerberus was out of his kennel 
 barking apologetically: "I believe I see the governor go 
 through. . . ." 
 
 "Then why is this gentleman waiting here?" Mrs. Onsin 
 asked in the tone of a manageress. 
 
 But Adam was not vindictive. "I didn't recognize Mr.
 
 40 IN LONDON 
 
 Onsin at once," he explained, "and of course he didn't 
 recognize me." 
 
 "Then all I can say is," returned the actress, "that of 
 course he should have, but I dare say it's the fault of this 
 old idiot that his attention was not called to you." 
 
 Cerberus growled: "As much as my place is worth to 
 call the guvernor's attention to anything he don't want to 
 see." 
 
 Mrs. Onsin withered him. "It's more than your soul's 
 worth to answer me back" ; whereupon he faded out of 
 the picture. 
 
 Admirable was the art with which Mrs. Onsin carried 
 her voice and manner from the minatory to the seductive 
 as she turned to Adam. "You'll think us savages, but 
 we're not really, and Oswald will be awfully sorry to find 
 he's kept you waiting." She led the way through the 
 swing doors, whereupon what sounded to Adam like the 
 roar of a baulked tiger fell upon their ears. Mrs. Onsin 
 hesitated. "Oswald's taking a rehearsal," she explained, 
 "and he's always nervous after an air-raid. Let's just go 
 and sit in the stalls so that you can study his manner of 
 production; every one says he's such a good producer, 
 though I'm afraid he's not very fortunate with me." 
 
 Adam, meaning to be gallant, assured her that he thought 
 her performance as Beatrice was a triumph. 
 
 "It may be," she answered, "but if it is that's in spite of 
 Oswald and not because of him." 
 
 Adam was too ingenuous to foresee the line which their 
 conversation was taking. "But why do you think he is 
 less successful with you than with others?" 
 
 "Oh, my dear," said the great actress, "I hardly like to 
 tell you. After all, we don't know each other very long, do 
 we?" They were passing now through an ever-darkening 
 passage apparently under the stage, for Mr. Onsin's yells 
 came from above. He was too busy groping to think of
 
 THE PORTAL OF FAME 41 
 
 an answer. She repeated the question in a softer voice, 
 and still getting no answer, went on: "Perhaps you feel 
 as I do, that we've known each other all our lives," and 
 they being now in complete darkness he was suddenly 
 aware of her clasping him in her arms and kissing him. 
 He yielded as to a boa-constrictor: not that he was afraid, 
 still less that he was fascinated, but he was grateful to her 
 for rescuing him from Cerberus, and opening the impasse.
 
 CHAPTER SIX 
 MORE ADO ABOUT LESS 
 
 ADAM did not resist. As they stood there in the darkness 
 under the stage, with her husband making strange outcries 
 over their heads, it did not even occur to him that he would 
 have cried the louder had the stage become transparent. 
 For although on that stage he had thought the wife of the 
 actor-manager a young and blooming beauty, beneath it 
 she was to him merely a middle-aged lady, not of the best 
 style, but with her heart in the right place. That she had 
 once been wooed, as scandal said in Dublin, by not only 
 that admirable procreator, the father of Barbara Burns, 
 but by Mr. Macarthy himself, was incredible; and yet she 
 said to him there in the dark: "That was from Mr. 
 Macarthy, now give me one from yourself." 
 
 At these words Adam started, and his elbow coming in 
 contact with an electric switch, flooded that gloomy cavern 
 with light. "Damn!" said Mrs. Onsin, not perceiving the 
 cause of this effect. "Who had the cheek to do that . . .? 
 Well, anyhow, it's getting late," and, releasing him, she 
 opened a door into the orchestra and through that they 
 passed by a curtain into the stalls. They glided quietly 
 and unperceived to places near the prompter's wing. 
 
 Mr. Onsin had ceased to roar and was walking up and 
 down close to the footlights with his arm thrown pater- 
 nally round a pretty young lady, not the less pretty, Adam 
 thought, for the tears that ran down her cheeks from her 
 great eyes turned with an air of adorable reproach upon the 
 great man, all dulcet now as he murmured: "Picky ickle 
 
 42
 
 MORE ADO ABOUT LESS 43 
 
 sing, mustn't cry-cry when cruel great man imparts to her 
 his art." 
 
 Mrs. Onsin nudged Adam softly. "You see what I have 
 to put up with from that man," she, as it were, pleaded in 
 Adam's ear. But he made no answer; for his sympathy 
 had already gone forth to the young lady in tears, thinking 
 that she must be suffering more from Mr. Onsin's atten- 
 tions than his wife from the absence of them. For the 
 moment he disliked Mr. Onsin with such a wave of aver- 
 sion as Mr. Leaper-Carahar set rolling when he fondled 
 his wife. 
 
 Suddenly a panting small boy appeared from nowhere, 
 and running after the manager as he paraded his quarry 
 up and down, said fearfully: "Please, sir, I can't find 
 Miss Bellingham nowhere." 
 
 Stopping dramatically, Mr. Onsin tossed back his hair 
 with one hand while the other still compassed the waist of 
 the girl : "So I am to be kept waiting by my own wife in 
 my own theater," he thundered, as though the blame for 
 all was divided between the call-boy and the gods : "And 
 that, although she has the use of a Government motor car 
 while I was reduced to come down to my theater to-day 
 in that vehicle of prehistoric origin known as a hansom 
 . . .!" his tone passed to the pathetically ironical: 
 "Ladies and gentlemen, for reasons that I need not explain 
 to you, we cannot go on with the rehearsal until Miss Bell- 
 ingham thinks fit to join us." 
 
 The words were just allowed to sink in when Mrs. On- 
 sin, with no little agility for a woman of her weight, leaped 
 from her place and up a .step-ladder from the orchestra 
 on to the stage. "I've been watching you and Miss Blake 
 for the past half-hour," she blandly announced. 
 
 Mr. Onsin, releasing Miss Blake, took up the attitude of 
 a good man more sorrowed than angered, but Miss Blake 
 fretfully blurted: "I like that 'half-hour.'"
 
 44 IN LONDON 
 
 "Beginners always do," answered Mrs. Onsin sweetly, 
 and content with the effect of this repartee on Miss Blake, 
 rehearsed her part very amiably. 
 
 Mrs. Onsin's triumph over her husband and young Miss 
 Blake inspired her to rehearse so well that Adam felt quite 
 interested in her, almost as much as faintly to recall his 
 feeling of the night before, which personal contact had 
 banished. She was utterly different on the stage and off, 
 he thought, and thought truly; for she was so different on 
 the stage that she forgot there the things that interested 
 her off it, and had in fact from the moment she made her 
 entrance quite forgotten Adam himself. Unfortunately, 
 she did not even remember him when she made her exit, 
 being busy with the learning of her part. Adam's heart 
 sank; for the play, whatever it was, did not interest him 
 much in itself, particularly when the middle-aged gentle- 
 men, not to call them fogies, whom he had seen enter the 
 theater, were rehearsing scenes in which from the words 
 which they slowly delivered they might be supposed to be 
 playing riotous young bucks, to an accompaniment of hor- 
 rible language from the manager. But at last Miss Belin- 
 da Bellingham pranced on again, and as she did so Mr. 
 Onsin called in a loud voice: "Miss Blake, if you will 
 take my advice you will go down into the stalls and note 
 how admirably Miss Bellingham plays the ingenue in this 
 scene." Adam thought Miss Blake pouted as she obeyed 
 her master. "Be careful how you go," the manager said, 
 "it's very dark and you're not used." 
 
 "Thank you," said Miss Blake stiffly. "I can find my 
 way quite well," and tried to come down the ladder face- 
 foremost, failed in the attempt, and rather confusedly 
 turned about to start afresh. This time she reached the 
 floor safely but only to knock over a music-stand which 
 fell with a crash of brass against another, and a whole line 
 of them went down like a rank of tin soldiers. Mrs. On-
 
 MORE ADO ABOUT LESS 45 
 
 sin sighed patiently: "It's no use my listening for my 
 cue," saM she, "until Miss Blake is quite finished." 
 
 "It's quite all right now, dear Miss Bellingham," said 
 Miss Blake. "I am so sorry." 
 
 "Are you quite sure, dear Miss Blake, that you're quite 
 safe?" called Miss Bellingham. "Please, dear," this to 
 Mr. Onsin, "see if Miss Blake is not getting into more 
 mischief." 
 
 Mr. Onsin threw a glance over his shoulder into the 
 darkness. "How the deuce can I see?" said he, "she can 
 take care of herself. . . . For the Lord's sake carry on 
 or we'll never get done." 
 
 Mrs. Onsin spoke her first line, but ere she could reach 
 the second a shriek rang through the stalls. Mr. Onsin 
 swung round. "My God! What's the matter?" he cried. 
 
 "Nothing," answered Miss Blake, to the disappointment 
 of all concerned. But Mrs. Onsin threw down her part. 
 
 "It isn't nothing," she said determinedly. "I'll bet my 
 boots she sat down in that boy's lap," and there was no 
 more rehearsal until Adam had been haled on to the stage 
 lest he should distract Miss Blake from the study of her 
 art. 
 
 If Adam understood little of the rehearsal from the 
 stalls, still less could he follow it from the wings: he was 
 divided between the thrills of sitting on the stage of a 
 London theater and the numbness of watching the barely 
 comprehensible from an angle that made it senseless. He 
 gathered that, whatever the play was, Mr. Onsin was not 
 taking it right through, but hammering at certain or un- 
 certain excerpts here and there, stopping periodically at 
 the critical moment to say, "Here Miss Bellingham and I 
 have a bit together. We needn't rehearse that, need we?" 
 To which the stage manager would unctuously reply : "We 
 know that will be all right!" and shout "Now Mister This 
 or Miss That, why don't you take up your cue?" regard-
 
 46 IN LONDON 
 
 less of the fact that it had not been spoken. And when 
 one of the elderly men foxing young protested that he had 
 not heard his cue, the stage-manager would retort: "At 
 your age you ought to know that the chief never gives 
 them." 
 
 Adam wondered how any man able-bodied enough to 
 drive a tram could stoop to a calling in which he might be 
 cursed by a Mr. Onsin or jeered at by his lieutenant. He 
 was tempted to slip out of the theater and retire to Nor- 
 folk Square; for so far the manager had taken no notice 
 of him, and he did not feel that he could have any griev- 
 ance if he withdrew from so unpromising a situation. 
 He was glad that he had told none of what seemed last 
 night such a brilliant opening. Now he felt that nothing 
 would induce him to become an actor. . . . And then he 
 changed his mind; for a soft voice said in his ear: "I hope 
 I didn't hurt you when I sat . . ." 
 
 He could not allow her to finish her sentence, so eager 
 was he to assure her of his invulnerability : "On the con- 
 trary, it was delightful," said he. 
 
 "I hope," went on Miss Blake, a trifle prudishly; "I do 
 hope you didn't think I sat on your knee purposely." 
 
 "Of course not," said Adam; "Why should you? . . . 
 I mean, why should I think you would sit on my knee on 
 purpose ?" 
 
 "I think Mrs. Onsin thought she could make you think 
 so," whispered Miss Blake. 
 
 "She may think what she likes," Adam stoutly rejoined, 
 "but she can't make me think what I wouldn't like to 
 think. . . ." He hesitated and added: "Not that perhaps 
 I wouldn't like to think it in some ways." 
 
 Unless it could be regarded as an answer that she suf- 
 fered her eyes to sparkle, Miss Blake may be said to have 
 ignored this speech. She asked Adam whether he had been 
 long on the stage. Simultaneously Adam put the same
 
 MORE ADO ABOUT LESS 47 
 
 question to her, and both laughed confusedly, and neither 
 made any effort to reply. Instead, they exclaimed to- 
 gether: he "I beg your pardon," and she "How ridiculous 
 of me!" Then Adam, just for the sake of saying some- 
 thing to make him important in her eyes, demanded: 
 "What is the name of this thing they're rehearsing? . . . 
 I can't make head or tail of it." 
 
 Miss Blake made a warning gesture: "Didn't you 
 know? . . . 'What Rot!' . . . What else could it be?" 
 
 "I suppose," said Adam, "I might have guessed. . . . 
 And what part do you play in it?" 
 
 "What part do I play?" she repeated, "Why, I play Ned 
 Burke." 
 
 "Oh!" Adam blurted unthinkingly: "I thought I was to 
 play Ned Burke." 
 
 Miss Blake stiffened at once. "I think not," she said 
 almost menacingly. 
 
 Adam perceived that he had blundered, and hastened to 
 clear things up. "My mistake," he urged, "I understood 
 that I was wanted for something, and I heard that part 
 mentioned." 
 
 "Who mentioned it?" Miss Blake demanded, as though 
 her copyright had been infringed : on hearing the name of 
 Miss Durward, she tossed her rather pretty and very in- 
 solent nose, saying: "What does Miss Durward know 
 about it ? I like her . . ." 
 
 "So do I," Adam broke in, "I like her very much in- 
 deed." 
 
 "I wish you'd listen to what I say," Miss Blake retorted. 
 "I was not telling you that I liked her. ... I was saying I 
 liked her cheek." 
 
 Adam, anxious to please every one, was trying to find 
 words of apology for Miss Durward but failed to discover 
 any formula to apply to an imaginary wrong. She went 
 on: "No, I'm sure there could be no question of your
 
 48 IN LONDON 
 
 playing Ned Burke. You see, it's really a very important 
 part ... at least it's going to be when Mr. Onsin has 
 written it up for me." 
 
 "If he's doing that," Adam said modestly, "certainly it 
 could never have been given to any one else." 
 
 "Of course," said Miss Blake, less discordantly, "you 
 might perhaps understudy it." 
 
 Adam's pride was up in arms at this: "I never heard 
 of a man understudying a girl." 
 
 "Would you call yourself a man?" Miss Blake mur- 
 mured. And seeing him stretch his frame towards manly 
 pretensions, winged a poisoned shaft: "Then why aren't 
 you at the Front?" And that he might not venture any 
 riposte she rose from her place beside him and walked 
 briskly away. 
 
 Adam asked himself why he was not at the Front. 
 Heretofore he had regarded the question as a foolish joke: 
 now it appeared to be an inquiry calling for an answer. 
 . . . Could he be at the front at his age? He was under 
 the impression that he could not. . . . Did he want to be? 
 In the first murderous onslaught of the German hordes on 
 Belgium, yes. He would gladly have rushed to the help 
 of Belgium against Prussia as he had once rushed to the 
 help of his mother against the man who claimed to be his 
 father. But that he could go in the same uniform as 
 the men who had shot down unarmed fellow-creatures in 
 the streets of Dublin was not to be thought of. There 
 flashed up in his memory the badges of Captain de Frece. 
 . . . Could they have been the Scottish Borderers? No, 
 they were the Scots Fusiliers. ... He heaved a sigh of 
 relief, and, taking leave for the moment of the Great War, 
 found by a burst of general talk that the rehearsal was at 
 an end. 
 
 His heart in his mouth, he approached Me. Onsin to 
 learn from him what he was wanted to do, and with his
 
 MORE ADO ABOUT LESS %g 
 
 mind made up to do what he was told if he could earn his 
 daily bread by it. But the actor merely said : "Not now, 
 not now!" and bustled off. And Mrs. Onsin being no- 
 where visible, and Miss Blake engaged with one of the 
 elderly young bucks, resolutely ignoring him, Adam 
 crammed his hat down on his head and strode from the 
 theater with a prayer that the next air-raid might blow 
 that part of Regent Street to the four winds.
 
 MR. MACARTHY COMES TO TOWN 
 
 Our of the Grand Theater stage-door Adam swept, at war 
 with the world that was all a stage. Not for years, he told 
 himself, had he been so humiliated. And indeed he had 
 never been so; for this was his first experience at the 
 theater. At the Muses Qub and such resorts he had 
 heard stories of the unbusinesslike character of this or that 
 actor-manager, but when abstractly considered and their 
 victims mere names, these were the not unpleasant whimsi- 
 calities of genius. . . . What man has ever ventured to 
 express sympathy with Dick Sheridan's creditors? It 
 would be a murder done on mirth to say that their dis- 
 appointments and chagrins were deeper than the frenzies 
 of harlequinade. . . . But now that the young Adam was 
 himself the fobbed-off party, let the earth tremble at his 
 rage! 
 
 Adam was furious all the way up Regent Street : furious 
 and a little afraid; for if this were the way things were 
 done on the stage how was he to make a living on it? ... 
 And if not on the stage, how was he to make a living, 
 blithely as he had written about it to Mr. Macarthy? Was 
 he prepared to sell papers on the streets of London as he 
 had done in Dublin when all but too young to cry his 
 wares? He did not see himself as a London newsboy nor 
 how the profits from that calling could defray the cost 
 that now seemed essential to his life. ... A fresh chill 
 fell at the realization that he had not even bargained with 
 his hostess as to what the expense of his living should be. 
 He told himself that it could not be less than thirty shil-
 
 MR. MACARTHY COMES TO TOWN 51 
 
 lings or two pounds a week: it was perhaps fortunate that 
 he did not suspect Miss Durward of making a minimum 
 charge of Four Guineas, not including the services of Tom- 
 asso or much else. 
 
 Pausing at Piccadilly Circus he found his interest in his 
 own life merging in his interest in the life of London . . . 
 the word that ever had been one to conjure with, even as 
 Babylon and Nazareth and Rome . . . names that held 
 their meaning in their sound, unlike Jerusalem and Athens 
 and even perhaps Nineveh, Venice, and Paris, the signifi- 
 cance of which had to be explained, however easy to bear 
 in mind. "London" was the roar of the world's hub as it 
 turned on its axle. And Piccadilly Circus, with its off- 
 streets radiating like spokes, seemed the center of the 
 wheel of life. To be alive on a spring day in this heart 
 of London that was the heart of the world! The world, 
 men said, was bleeding to death from wounds that gaped 
 across three continents and dyed two oceans red, yet Adam 
 could not conceive a heart being stronger than that throb- 
 bing and singing with energy as he lounged in Piccadilly 
 outside a railway-office, looking north. 
 
 And yet . . . and yet . . . What is the use of a world 
 in which one has no place? Putting to himself this ques- 
 tion, Adam passed on moodily into the Quadrant, and so up 
 Regent Street to Oxford Circus, where, seeing a 'bus that 
 he recognized as passing Paddington Station, he took it 
 to that corner of London Street with which he already felt 
 himself familiar, and so home to Miss Durward's. She 
 was out, and there was no suggestion from Tomasso of 
 bringing luncheon ... it was now nearly three and 
 Adam's young tummy yelping for food . . . but he did 
 bring what was almost more welcome, a telegram from 
 Mr. Macarthy : "Hope to arrive Euston to-morrow morn- 
 ing." 
 
 Overjoyed, Adam swung downstairs from his bedroom
 
 52 IN LONDON 
 
 to Miss Durward's den, where he had remembered the 
 sight of an A.B.C. hanging near the telephone. He was 
 determined to meet his guardian, until he found the train 
 was due at six, which checked his ardor, particularly when 
 he grasped that Euston was a long way to go from Pad- 
 dington. On the map they looked almost side by side. He 
 had visualized King's Cross, St. Pancras, Euston, Baker 
 Street, Marylebone, and Paddington all within a biscuit 
 throw of one another. 
 
 He was still studying the problem when Miss Durward 
 came in, bursting with curiosity as to his morning's ex- 
 perience: "Have you given Belle that kiss yet?" was her 
 first question. 
 
 Not knowing how to answer it in what he would call a 
 chivalrous manner, Adam laughed it off, murmuring: "As 
 if she'd let me !" 
 
 Miss Durward plumped herself in the chair by her writ- 
 ing-desk: "Look here," she said, "I tell you one thing, 
 young man, if you're going on the stage you'd better put 
 this squeamishness in your pocket. Of course you'll never 
 do anything really immoral so long as you can help it, no 
 lady or gentleman ever would think of such a thing, but if 
 you're too modest to go for what you want, no one is going 
 to give it to you. . . ." As Adam palely held his tongue, 
 she went on : "I can see already that Ossie has turned you 
 down, and it's easy to see why." 
 
 "I don't in the least see why!" Adam retorted, not im- 
 pertinently, but with some little spirit, feeling his resent- 
 ment against the actor suddenly flare up. "I did every- 
 thing that I was told." 
 
 "You didn't do as I told you," she reminded him. "You 
 didn't kiss his wife, and so she hasn't bothered her head 
 to make him take you on." 
 
 Adam drew himself up to his manliest, if inconsiderable 
 height: "What you say is not absolutely correct," he pro-
 
 MR. MACARTHY COMES TO TOWN 53 
 
 tested. "But I'm afraid this is a matter I cannot discuss 
 with any one." 
 
 Miss Durward bubbled with mirth: "All right, Mr. Jo- 
 seph, I'll ask Belle if she remembers what happened. . . . 
 The point is that you've lost your chance of a good shop." 
 
 "How do you mean shop?" he asked, interested in the 
 new term. And she explained to him that "shop" was 
 professional slang for a theatrical engagement. He tried 
 to draw her off on the side track of her knowledge of the 
 stage, but she was bent on increasing that knowledge at 
 his expense. So in the end she had a working acquaint- 
 ance with the bald facts of the case, excluding the details 
 of his interludes with Mrs. Onsin and Miss Blake. 
 
 Her judgment on the evidence was quite other than he 
 had anticipated. "There's nothing really gone wrong," 
 she declared, "except that every one will say you've no 
 gumption to be put off like that. And good-looking young 
 men so hard to find, too. I'm wondering where Ossie's 
 going to find half the lads he'll want for What Rot! . . . 
 Shouldn't be surprised if he had to get girls to play some 
 of the parts. Girls are more like boys than boys them- 
 selves since the last year." 
 
 Adam was glad to find some point on which they could 
 agree: "He has got a girl to play Ned Burke," he broke 
 in. 
 
 "Has he!" Miss Durward ejaculated. "Then I think I 
 know some one who will have something to say to that. 
 . . . Spoiling a beautiful little part. . . . Who on earth is 
 he giving it to?" 
 
 For the first time Adam mentioned Miss Blake. 
 "What!" Miss Durward protested. "Woodbine Blake, 
 who plays that trollop Margaret in Much Ado . . .? I 
 thought there was something up last night! . . ." She 
 turned impulsively to the telephone: "I'll just ring Belle 
 up and tell her my mind about it. ... You run away and
 
 54 IN LONDON 
 
 play, little Joseph, or you may hear something that will 
 send you back to Holy Ireland." 
 
 Adam accordingly retired to the scandalous company in 
 his bedroom, but sat apart from them, looking out of his 
 window in the direction of Hyde Park until Miss Dur- 
 ward herself ascended to fetch him downstairs. 
 
 "I've talked it over with Mrs. Onsin," she declared less 
 flippantly than usual, "and she says she can't understand 
 why you didn't see Mr. Onsin and then come on with him 
 to lunch." 
 
 "This is the first I've heard of either of them asking me 
 to lunch," Adam assured her without making any impres- 
 sion. 
 
 "I'm only telling you what Belle said," replied Miss 
 Durward. "I'm not necessarily supposing it's true. . . . 
 The point is that she doesn't mean to let Ossie get out of 
 giving you that engagement." 
 
 "What engagement?" Adam persisted, feeling a trifle 
 weary of Mr. and Mrs. Onsin. 
 
 "Don't be sulky," Miss Durward returned smilingly, 
 "but just thank your stars that you're young and pretty 
 at a moment when being young and pretty counts in a man. 
 It doesn't always, but it's in demand just now because of 
 all those poor kids being killed. What'll happen after the 
 war I don't know. But I suppose the old world will keep 
 on rolling somehow. Ossie's doing his bit, I know. But 
 he's not everybody's money, after all." 
 
 Adam was thinking too much about himself to follow 
 closely Miss Durward's appreciation of the great actor's 
 talents. He mastered himself to say with more respect than 
 he felt : "Please tell me what you think I ought to do." 
 
 Miss Durward patted him on the head : "That's a good 
 little Joseph. I've thought it all out for you. ... Sit 
 down and I'll tell you. ... Go down to the theater in
 
 MR. MACARTHY COMES TO TOWN 55 
 
 good time to-night so that you can buy yourself a decent 
 seat in the pit. Then sit through until the end of her 
 scene in the church with Benedick. After that she has a 
 long wait, so dash round to the stage-door and insist on 
 seeing her. Take no refusal." 
 
 "But," Adam objected, "if the old ruffian at the door 
 won't let me in?" 
 
 "Don't ask him to let you in," Miss Durward answered. 
 "Just buzz past him as if you were an ordinary member 
 of the company, push through the swing doors, and on 
 your right you'll see the door of the lift. Jump into that 
 and press the button for the second floor. Get out there 
 and you'll find yourself in the passage I brought you 
 through last night, and any one will show you Belle's 
 dressing-room if you can't smell it out for yourself from 
 that strong scent she uses." She smiled at him encourag- 
 ingly: "Simple enough, isn't it?" 
 
 Adam said he supposed it was and wished himself back 
 in Dublin. 
 
 For the next hour or two he was preached at and ex- 
 horted and instructed and cajoled, all more or less for his 
 good, by his hostess, who gave him at six a chop and 
 against his will a glass of claret, and at seven pushed him 
 off on his journey to fame. Ere half-past he was in the 
 queue outside the Grand pit door, and twenty-five minutes 
 to eight found him occupying a tolerably good seat in the 
 front row. 
 
 Partly through the natural sway of youth's pendulum, 
 partly for sound esthetic reasons, his delight in the art of 
 the stage wakened with greater strength than before at the 
 rise of the curtain. For one thing, he saw the action of 
 the play in better perspective from the pit than from the 
 Royal Box (which in the traditional taste of royalty com- 
 manded more of the coulisse than of the stage). And once
 
 56 IN LONDON 
 
 again Mr. and Mrs. Onsin had become gracious and ro- 
 mantic figures instead of the monstrous dolls they had 
 looked like in their retiring room upstairs. The cut and 
 thrust leading to the promise to kill Claudio roused him to 
 enthusiasm, he knew not why, and he danced off to the 
 stage-door just in the prime to make himself agreeable to 
 the fair comedienne. He actually brushed past the stage- 
 door keeper, and although he had never been in an auto- 
 matic lift before, managed his buttons quite correctly and 
 landed himself in on Miss Bellingham while she was still 
 on fire from the emotion of her great scene. Readers who 
 know the theater can imagine what followed Adam's en- 
 trance in the dressing-room, and for the few nowadays 
 who do not, bald statements of fact will mean nothing. 
 Sufficient to say that both Mrs. Onsin and her hustling 
 husband were sufficiently apologetic for the indifference of 
 their morning reception of him to ease his vanity, and, 
 while Cladio was repeating his poetical prayers at the pro- 
 file tomb of unburied Hero, Benedick and Beatrice were 
 discussing with Adam the possibility of playing some part 
 in What Rot! 
 
 At intervals the manager would say: "He could play 
 Ned Burke if I wrote it down, he could play Ned Burke 
 if I wrote it down, but not if we wrote it up." And the 
 constant repetition of the measured phrase buzzed in 
 Adam's ears like a hurdy-gurdy tune, equally with Mrs. 
 Onsin's chant: "He wants to give it to Woodbine Blake, 
 he wants to give it to Woodbine Blake, but I say she 
 won't do." So it continued for a long time until Mrs. 
 Onsin suddenly said: "I wish Stephen Macarthy were 
 here." The word seemed to annoy Mr. Onsin, who asked 
 what that had to do with it. 
 
 But on Adam mentioning that he expected Mr. Macar- 
 thy in the morning, Mr. Onsin may have changed his mind ; 
 for, seizing Adam warmly by the hand, he bade him good-
 
 MR. MACARTHY COMES TO TOWN 57 
 
 by with the injunction on no account to be late for re- 
 hearsal in the morning, as he would certainly be delighted 
 to hear him read the part of Ned Blake, or indeed any 
 other, though no doubt he was still a little young and in- 
 experienced, despite his success at the Abbey . . . and so 
 on. 
 
 Adam went home too bewildered to be purely gratified. 
 But Miss Durward felicitated him on his rapid recovery 
 after the morning's defeat. So, very tired, he went to bed, 
 and at once to sleep. 
 
 Adam awoke with a start, his pulses still drumming the 
 song : 
 
 "He might play Ned Burke if I wrote it down . . . 
 (He wants to give it to Woodbine Blake) 
 He might play Ned Burke if I wrote it down . . . 
 (He wants to give it to Woodbine Blake) 
 But not if I write it up ... 
 (And I say she won't do)." 
 
 It seemed to him that he had not the words of this song 
 quite correctly; so, wide awake, he repeated them and told 
 himself that Mr. Onsin said : "If I write it down," but the 
 antithetical phrase was, "If we write it up." Whom did 
 "We" cover? Mrs. Onsin or just the stage-manager . . . 
 or some luckless outcast from Grub Street whom the great 
 man cellared on the premises? Adam yawned at the 
 thought of this poor ghost working so in the earth, and 
 read on the lucent dial of his wrist-watch that it was four 
 o'clock. He had forgotten to tell Miss Durward that Mr. 
 Macarthy was due at Euston at six. He sprang out of 
 bed, switched on the electric light, made a hasty ablution 
 at the wash-stand and dressed. Then he scribbled a few 
 explanatory words for Miss Durward and left it on the 
 desk of her sanctum on his way to the hall. At half-past
 
 58 IN LONDON 
 
 four he was passing St. Mary's Hospital on his way east. 
 Day was breaking on a Praed Street of desolate misery, 
 suddenly broken into by the liveliness of murder as a mili- 
 tary ambulance reeled round the corner of Edgware Road. 
 
 He passed on to the untraveled land of Marylebone, his 
 nose full of the scent of fish too lately fried whiffing 
 through Chapel Street. On past the Great Central Rail- 
 way Station and Baker Street, to that world-famous home 
 of Madame Tussaud's monstrosities, and Marylebone 
 Church, where (as he had read in a book about London) 
 Hogarth's immortal rake had been married; and so at last 
 across the top of Tottenham Court Road, through the 
 classic portico of the London and North-Western Railway 
 terminus. He knew it well from pictures, and had always 
 taken for granted that he should first see London from that 
 point of view. But in real life what one takes for granted 
 rarely happens. 
 
 He had a good half -hour in hand, and as he wandered 
 about the strange old-fashioned station, almost fancied him- 
 self back in the Victorian period, the very age of Dickens. 
 The Great Western Railway had given him the impression, 
 with its enormous but finely lined engines, of being a solid 
 achievement of modernity: but Euston's hugeness belonged 
 to the classicism of the last century. The very locomo- 
 tives, he felt instinctively, were not really so big and pow- 
 erful as they looked: but resembled that out of date and 
 exploded beast, the British bulldog, which might perhaps 
 hold on to you from sheer inability to let go, but had never 
 been known to serve any useful purpose. Adam wronged 
 the London and North-Western Experiments and Precurs- 
 ors and the rest of them, but that was how they struck 
 him at first sight as he made his way from platform to 
 platform, killing time in the growing, slanting sunlight on 
 that First of April morning. And appropriately enough 
 for that day, he all but missed the train in the end. Yet
 
 MR. MACARTHY COMES TO TOWN 59 
 
 he found Mr. Macarthy at the door of a taxi, and was 
 hailed by him with the words: "My beloved old man, is 
 that you?" 
 Adequate reward for early rising.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT 
 WITH MR. MACARTHY IN LONDON 
 
 ADAM trembled with joy as he embraced his guardian and 
 heard him repeat: "My beloved boy, how good it is to 
 find you, not only alive and well, but waiting here to meet 
 me!" He pressed him into the taxi and gave the driver 
 an address in Jermyn Street. Then with a groan from the 
 low gear and a toot they drew away from the train-side 
 and, with a rasp of the clutch, gathered speed out of the 
 station and spun across the Euston Road down Gower 
 Street. Adam was conscious of an almost holy joy ("pass- 
 ing the love of women" was the phrase that suddenly had 
 meaning for him) as he nestled to his guardian's side and 
 felt his arm pressed around him. "I suppose at my age it's 
 absurd to be sentimental . . ." he blurted: "But may I 
 call you 'Daddie'?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy patted his shoulder soothingly: "Well, 
 well, why not? ... Of course I always think of you as 
 my son . . . though I'm afraid I can't pretend to be your 
 father really." 
 
 Adam winced : "I know that just a bit too well," he an- 
 swered : "It was thinking who my real father was and my 
 real mother that sent me to drown myself." He foundered 
 into tears, which Mr. Macarthy appeared not to notice. 
 
 "There, there," said Mr. Macarthy, "there's no doubt 
 that Providence does sometimes seem to find an odd pleas- 
 ure in serving out new babies to the wrong sort of parents. 
 But you must admit that He made a handsome effort to 
 correct the mistake when He sent you Father Innocent. I 
 was perhaps luckier in my father and mother than you, but 
 
 60
 
 WITH MR. MACARTHY IN LONDON 61 
 
 I wasn't so lucky in my spiritual advisers, and so I wasn't 
 half so good a boy as you've been." 
 
 Adam surprisedly dried his eyes and asked whether he 
 had really been a good boy or if his guardian was only 
 saying that to cheer him up. "In my opinion," Mr. Ma- 
 carthy assured him, "you really have been, all difficulties 
 allowed for, quite a good boy. I don't say that you might 
 not have been a better boy, more industrious, less given to 
 wool-gathering, perhaps even sweeter-tempered. But I 
 frankly confess that you are a better boy than I ... and 
 I was not the worst lad in Dublin in my young days." 
 
 Adam shook his head: "I can't think of you doing any- 
 thing wrong at all!" he protested, whereat Mr. Macarthy 
 guffawed: "I've never been guilty of murder or rape," he 
 admitted. "Not being a military man, crime does not at- 
 tract me nor the opportunity for it come my way . . ." 
 
 "What exactly is rape?" Adam broke in. 
 
 "I thought you knew that," said Mr. Macarthy. "It 
 means taking by sheer brute force from a woman what is 
 devoid of value unless spontaneously offered." 
 
 "I thought it was something of the kind," Adam mur- 
 mured. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy continued: "It is not so much a criminal 
 as a lunatic act, like Father Tudor's imbecile brutality to 
 you at Belvedere. There was a time when it was natural, 
 but the progress of civilization, that almost imperceptible 
 movement, has made it unnatural ... at all events in the 
 ordinary course of a day's work in peace time. Now, of 
 course, that sort of thing is being done by the heroes of 
 the contending nations all over the globe. Kill your enemy 
 and rape his womenkind. Back to the Golden Age!" His 
 eye caught a placard in Shaftesbury Avenue, "Your King 
 and Country want you. . . . Do it now !" 
 
 Adam protested: "But our soldiers wouldn't do a thing 
 like that?"
 
 62 IN LONDON 
 
 "A thing like what?" his guardian asked. 
 
 Adam expressed his conviction that Irish soldiers would 
 never be guilty of such infamy ; but Mr. Macarthy regret- 
 fully advised him that it was on record that their country- 
 men had committed rape in the service of England, and of 
 France, and of Spain, and of several other countries, not 
 excluding the sacred banner of His Holiness the Pope. 
 Whether they should ever do it in the cause of their native 
 land remained to be seen. "The Irishman claims to be 
 considered as a good soldier," Mr. Macarthy explained, 
 "and the good soldier is the man who cultivates the mili- 
 tary virtues of cunning, endurance, and brutality. Chas- 
 tity, except in so far as it benefits his physical fitness, was 
 never considered a military virtue, unless among the 
 Zulus." 
 
 "Then is all war wrong?" Adam asked: "Even in self- 
 defense?" 
 
 As they semi-circled past the Shaftesbury memorial Mr. 
 Macarthy answered thus : "If a burglar broke into a man's 
 house and shot his wife or child, I would not blame that 
 man for shooting the burglar then and there. But if he 
 went instead to the burglar's house and shot the burglar's 
 wife or child, I should account him no better than the 
 burglar." 
 
 "Oh, how could you !" Adam cried : "Surely the burglar 
 began it?" 
 
 "Surely," Mr. Macarthy answered : "The burglar acted 
 without malice? Do you suppose he entered the house for 
 the pleasure of killing the people in it? If he did that he 
 is a criminal lunatic and perhaps his wife and child are 
 better dead. But what about the man who kills them 
 merely to gratify his own lust for blood? . . . And we all 
 have that deep down in our natures with every other po- 
 tential vice. It is only reason and avoidance of tempta- 
 tion keeps any but the merely cowardly straight. And it
 
 WITH MR. MACARTHY IN LONDON 63 
 
 seems to me that the lust of cruelty to destroy is even 
 more abominable (if anything can be) than the lust of 
 cruelty to create." 
 
 In silence they whirred on into the narrows of Jermyn 
 Street and stopped at a house facing south. "After such a 
 serious conversation so early in the morning," said Mr. 
 Macarthy, "we shall both want breakfast." Adam had 
 just time to take in that the house on the steps of which 
 they stood was old-fashioned, with an old-fashioned door 
 and knocker, when they were admitted by an elderly lady 
 recalling the first member of the aristocracy with whom he 
 had ever been privileged to speak. This gentlewoman, 
 whom Mr. Macarthy addressed as Mrs. Apjohn, was al- 
 most just such a piece of ronion respectability as Lady 
 Bland, who ten years or so ago had offered him a penny 
 for Christ's sake to take a bath. It was queer to have the 
 sensation of Lady Bland scraping and kowtowing, as the 
 Chinese say, in front of you, and hoping that you had an 
 agreeable passage, and what would you have to eat, the 
 same as usual, thank you, sir, thank you very much indeed. 
 
 "Mrs. Apjohn," said Mr. Macarthy, "has the Castilian 
 manner of the first-class English servant, which she was 
 before I was born, but don't be misled by it. ... If I 
 woke her out of her after-dinner nap by ringing the bell 
 she would give me notice at once." 
 
 "But can she afford to do that sort of thing?" Adam 
 gasped. 
 
 "If she couldn't she wouldn't," said Mr. Macarthy, "and 
 since she can, why shouldn't she?" 
 
 Adam thought this conduct of Mrs. Apjohn rather profli- 
 gate, but as she reentered with a maid carrying a tray he 
 did not pursue the discussion. He looked out of the win- 
 dow, the middle one of three upon the second floor, and 
 saw a shop or two, a restaurant, and the offices of the 
 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. On a
 
 64 IN LONDON 
 
 table in front of the window lay a popular monthly maga- 
 zine; turning the leaves, his eye caught a portrait, already 
 familiar to him, of John Galsworthy. From that he glanced 
 to his guardian, busy exchanging compliments with Mrs. 
 Apjohn and fencing with her efforts to ask him what he 
 thought of the war. How like Galsworthy his guardian 
 was as he sat there patiently smiling at her and seeming 
 to say a great deal without speaking. He had not Gals- 
 worthy's beauty of feature, but an equal urbanity of ex- 
 pression and a more luminous eye. . . . The difference be- 
 tween Celt and Saxon? . . . But then Galsworthy was a 
 man of Devon and the men of Devon were Celts. . . . 
 Ethnology was the devil of a question. . . . Mr. Macarthy 
 said there was a lot of nonsense in it. Life was too fluid 
 to be pigeon-holed. . . . Mr. Macarthy was also a little 
 like Maeterlinck . . . about the nose? . . . Oh, hang it, 
 everybody was a little bit like everybody else, even Jose- 
 phine O'Meagher like poor little Caroline Brady. . . . 
 And he was hungry for breakfast. 
 
 Mrs. Apjohn's house was less elegantly furnished (to 
 Adam's eye) than Miss Durward's, but she provided even 
 better food. And Adam forgot ethnology and John Gals- 
 worthy and love in the more pressing interest of deviled 
 kidneys. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy, too, seemed to enjoy his breakfast and 
 there was a long silence before he said : "Before you drown 
 yourself next time, Adam, you might mention to me, or 
 some one else that has time to run and tell me, what's in 
 your mind." 
 
 "I'll never drown myself any more," Adam declared 
 with a firmness that was only a trifle weakened by his 
 adding: "I don't think." 
 
 "I shouldn't," Mr. Macarthy said. "There's really noth- 
 ing in it except discomfort for yourself and anxiety for 
 your friends. . . . But we'll not go into that any more.
 
 WITH MR. MACARTHY IN LONDON 65 
 
 Tell me what you've been doing since. Have you made 
 your fortune already?" 
 
 Adam rose with a slight air of importance from the table 
 and stood with his back against the mantelpiece (a hand- 
 some example of his namesake's work, but he did not know 
 it) to make the bigger impression. "No, sir," he an- 
 swered: "I've not made my fortune. . . . Rome was not 
 built in a day. . . ." 
 
 Here Mr. Macarthy asked a trifle disconcertingly: "Are 
 you sure of that ?" And Adam feebly returned : "It wasn't, 
 was it?" 
 
 "I venture on no statement," Mr. Macarthy replied. "I 
 seek for information." 
 
 "Well, anyhow," Adam went on, when he had pulled up 
 his cerebral socks, "I have put my foot on the first rung 
 of the ladder." 
 
 "Bravo!" his guardian cried, "but are you really strong 
 enough to carry bricks?" 
 
 "Bricks !" Adam echoed. . . . "I've gone on the stage." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy whistled very faintly. "Oh! that kind of 
 ladder !" Then his face cleared : "Well, after all you might 
 do worse. . . . Going out with Benson or some one, are 
 you?" 
 
 "No," answered Adam proudly: "I've joined Oswald 
 Onsin. ... At least he's offered me what I'm told is a 
 good part in What Rot! . . . They're reviving What Rot! 
 you know." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy nodded, but was calmer than Adam 
 thought polite. "I didn't know there was more than one 
 good part in What Rot!" was all he said. 
 
 Adam took up the thread he appeared about to drop : "I 
 forgot that you knew the play. . . . What's it all about?" 
 
 "If you have a good part surely you ought to be able to 
 tell me that," his guardian suggested: "But I suppose 
 you've not rehearsed yet?"
 
 66 IN LONDON 
 
 Adam admitted that he had not so far rehearsed. "After 
 all, I only got to Town the day before yesterday." 
 
 "You only got to Town the day before yesterday," his 
 guardian gravely acquiesced : "I am sure your friends in 
 Dublin will be glad to know how well you are doing on 
 the stage, considering you have been so short a time in 
 Town." 
 
 Adam stole a glance at Mr. Macarthy, and then returned 
 crestfallen to his chair, murmuring: "I'm a silly ass." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy shook his head thoughtfully: "No, no! 
 Silly, perhaps, but I wouldn't call you a permanent ass, 
 Adam. . . . You're just silly as boys of your age with 
 lively imaginations will be silly. For my part I prefer such 
 silliness to the dull virtue which holds its peace for fear 
 of being laughed at. If you deserve to be scoffed at you 
 take your due in the right spirit. . . . And when all is said 
 and done, I gather that you really have done something to 
 make a good impression on Mr. ... or was it Mrs. 
 Onsin?" 
 
 After a futile pantomime of philosophic doubt Adam 
 confessed there was ground for supposing that it might 
 have been Mrs. Onsin who was the more impressed by 
 him. Whereupon he seemed to hear Mr. Macarthy mut- 
 ter: "Good old Belinda!" Aloud he said: "By the way, 
 Adam, should we happen to meet Mrs. Onsin together, 
 don't call me your daddie in her presence. As you may 
 have noticed, she's a delightful woman, but long connection 
 with the theater has endued her with a theatrical point of 
 view. If you have to satisfy the Onsins as to your paren- 
 tage before they allow you to appear at their theater you 
 can tell them that your father was a Castle Official." 
 
 Adam looked shyly at his guardian : "I know you'd be 
 the last one in the world to let me tell a lie. May I say 
 that?" 
 
 "Of course you may. I know that for reasons with
 
 WITH MR. MACARTHY IN LONDON 67 
 
 which I sympathize you do not feel as attached to your 
 father as I hope you will make your own son to you, but 
 I assure you that your father is quite as efficient a public 
 servant and probably no worse enemy to public decency 
 than some of the 'Holy Luthers of the preaching North,' 
 as Synge called them in an inspired passage, by whom we 
 have been privileged to be ruled. . . . Come, you're not 
 going to cry at your age because your father happens to 
 be a bad hat, or a hat of inferior quality to Father Inno- 
 cent?" 
 
 Adam moodily shook his head : "No, I was only thinking 
 of what you said about my having a son of my own. . . . 
 I wish I had. . . . I've often wished I had even as much 
 as a little brother." 
 
 He jumped up and went to the window, where Mr. Ma- 
 carthy followed him and said gently in his ear : "The world 
 is full of your little brothers. . . . Don't think that because 
 my hair is gray I'm too old to be one of them. Please tell 
 me when you think I'm wrong."
 
 CHAPTER NINE 
 OF A POST CARD FROM "G. B. S." 
 
 To say that Adam was temperamentally patriotic would 
 be to hazard an improbability. His putative father, Mac- 
 fadden the tailor, had been patriotic in the same sense as 
 he had been religious, and that a very common one; for 
 he would have been equally pleased to black an Irishman's 
 eye for being a Protestant as a Catholic's for being an Eng- 
 lishman: he would quarrel as readily over questions of 
 faith or politics as over the question of paying for a drink. 
 Adam was conscious of having in himself two distinct be- 
 ings, one of whom held fiercely that nothing but Ireland 
 mattered, and another doubting spirit that suggested few 
 things mattered less. The English conquest of Ireland, so 
 far as there had been such a thing, was a hateful example 
 of tyrannic abuse of power; but the individual Englishman 
 appeared to be no more tyrannical than the average Irish- 
 man. Father Tudor had an English name, but Adam did 
 not accuse Britannia of begetting him as a flail for young 
 Ireland. Mr. Macarthy had told him that the pedagogic 
 methods of Belvedere would not be tolerated in an English 
 Elementary School. 
 
 It was a stumbling-block to Adam that Mr. Macarthy 
 gave him no clear lead in politics. Mr. Macfadden had 
 been a gutter patriot and Mr. OiToole a stickler for tradi- 
 tional authority: Mr. Macarthy's notions were obviously 
 remote from either ; but to say what they were not was not 
 equivalent to saying what they were. His attitude to poli- 
 tics was always, so far as Adam could see, negative. He 
 would agree with Mr. O'Meagher that the English govern- 
 
 68
 
 OF A POST CARD FROM "G. B. S." 69 
 
 ment of Ireland was deplorable, but denied the proposition 
 that no government could be worse: he even hinted, for 
 example, that an administration of which Mr. O'Meagher 
 and the Marchesa should be the leading spirits might not 
 satisfy every one. And when Herr Behre, the German 
 socialist, who lived, body and soul, by music, reproached 
 him with criticizing the extreme nationalist party instead of 
 joining wholeheartedly in their plans and using his wisdom 
 from within, Mr. Macarthy would shrug his shoulders and 
 say that he was not so content with his ideas that he would 
 let others die to give them life. It is better, he would 
 contend, to correct the palpable follies of mankind than to 
 upset their digestions with a surfeit of ideas. Even within 
 a hundred years an Irishman could not honestly live under 
 an English government, yet Rome made her priests preach 
 obedience to that government: Ireland had always been 
 made the cat's paw of the theocrats, as the theocrats them- 
 selves had served as the vilest tools of reactionary despots 
 whose only faith was in witchcraft. One could admire and 
 sympathize with those young priests who had suppressed 
 their antipathy to men of other religions, or no religion 
 at all, in order to make a common front in this holy war 
 for Ireland's liberty. But when it came to the question of 
 the country being governed by even the noblest of priests 
 or their nominees, Mr. Macarthy held that there was risk 
 of plain men who valued their personal freedom finding 
 themselves fallen from the frying-pan into the fire. It 
 were better that men should be shot in batches every day 
 than a live thought smothered because conventional piety 
 blushed at it. Said Mr. Macarthy: "If liberty in Ireland 
 is not to mean intellectual liberty, then God damn Ireland." 
 This was the fullest expression of opinion that Adam ever 
 heard him utter. 
 
 The very hour that Adam, still a boy of twelve, had met 
 the Marchesa della Venasalvatica, unsuspicious in those
 
 70 IN LONDON 
 
 days of her being his grandmother (and it seemed that she 
 did not suspect it even now) she had sworn him as a re- 
 cruit for her phalanx of Infant Druids, so called because 
 of their being recruited mainly from the acolytes and choir- 
 boys of the less fashionable Dublin churches. But Mr. 
 Macarthy declined to allow this enlistment to be regarded 
 as effective. He told the Marchesa point blank that his 
 protege was not for her. Up to the time that he went to 
 school with the Jesuits at Clongowes, Adam had found it 
 something of a grievance that he was not allowed to share 
 the glories of the Infant Druids, but with a maturing in- 
 telligence he came to the conclusion that there was nothing 
 in it: besides, he preferred not to be bound even by their 
 Commanding Officer's the Archdruid's somewhat flighty 
 discipline. In his early daydreams the possibility of mili- 
 tary glory had not been overlooked, any more than the pos- 
 sibility of a martyr's crown; but to be a private soldier 
 seemed as uninviting a career as that of a private saint. 
 If Mr. Macarthy had bid him die for Ireland he might 
 have screwed up his courage to run the risk of it, but 
 Mr. Macarthy refrained from the suggestion that Ireland 
 or any other cause was worth dying for: he seemed very 
 firm on the point that the only reason why a man should 
 die would be the discovery that his life was not worth liv- 
 ing; and so far, save in the sulkiness of an offended dig- 
 nity, a rapidly passing phase, Adam found every moment 
 of his life since he had known Mr. Macarthy and his circle 
 well worth living. 
 
 The odd thing was that practically every person every- 
 where seemed to find life worth living: from Mr. O'Toole 
 to Josephine O'Meagher, not one appeared to doubt that 
 it was better to be alive than to be dead : yet for some ob- 
 scure reason here was practically half the world willing to 
 be dead itself rather than suffer the other half to remain 
 alive. The whole thing was so incomprehensible that it
 
 OF A POST CARD FROM "G. B. S." 71 
 
 nearly drove you mad when you tried to make sense of it. 
 In Dublin the Great War appeared to be just blatherum- 
 skite, as Mr. O'Meagher described the religious vocation: 
 just one more immense adventure of dogs snapping at 
 shadows to lose what they possessed. Yet Mr. Macarthy 
 had seemed at first to have been among those who were 
 for the war rather than against it. He lent it a qualified 
 support and refused to assist in recruiting; but if young 
 men asked whether they should go or not he bade them go, 
 or said that were he in their place he would do so. It 
 was the apparent change in his view which perturbed 
 Adam as they drove down Shaftesbury Avenue with its 
 recruiting posters. Just as Adam was asking himself for 
 the first time whether he ought not to be at that mysteri- 
 ously awful Front, Mr. Macarthy seemed to have come to 
 the conclusion that no sane and decent man could have 
 any business there. 
 
 From the window of Mr. Macarthy's room in Mrs. 
 Apjohn's house in Jermyn Street, Adam looked across at 
 the building dedicated to the Prevention of Cruelty to Ani- 
 mals. In front of that office stood the first horse-drawn 
 carriage he had noticed in the London streets: a landau 
 with two showy bays whose outstretched legs told of most 
 careful breeding to an useless end. 
 
 "I wonder," said Adam, "that any one would have the 
 cheek to drive up to the head office of the R.S.P.C.A. with 
 bearing reins on their horses." 
 
 "You have not been in England long," Mr. Macarthy re- 
 turned, "or you would find more to wonder at than that." 
 
 "The English," Adam said, "are rum people." 
 
 "All people are more or less rum," Mr. Macarthy an- 
 swered. "You may have forgotten, but you told me once 
 that at Belvedere the other boys thought you were mad." 
 
 Adam pressed his nose against the window in deep re- 
 flection : "Do you think I am perhaps a bit mad, really?"
 
 72 IN LONDON 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Macarthy, with unpleasing readiness, "I 
 think you are." 
 
 Adam's face fell: "Do you think I ought to be locked 
 up?" 
 
 "No," Mr. Macarthy answered, "I don't think anybody 
 ought to be locked up." 
 
 "Not even criminals?" Adam protested. 
 
 "State what you mean by a criminal," Mr. Macarthy 
 suggested. 
 
 And Adam unhesitatingly answered: "A very bad man." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy shook his head: "A very bad man is not 
 necessarily a criminal nor a criminal a very bad man." 
 
 "D'ye tell me so?" Adam gaped. And Mr. Macarthy 
 nodded : "Even so," he added. "Try again." 
 
 Adam refrained from pursuit of his idea: "It's awfully 
 hard to understand anything completely," he pleaded. 
 
 Said Mr. Macarthy: "It is impossible." And here Mrs. 
 Apjohn's maid, entering to clear away the breakfast table, 
 turned their conversation from the philosophical to the 
 practical. It was typical of Adam at this age to take it 
 for granted that his guardian had flown over from Dublin 
 purely to reassure himself as to his condition and see that 
 all went well with him. He was prepared for Mr. Ma- 
 carthy to show a more curious interest in his achievements 
 than he had so far displayed, and it was with an odd feel- 
 ing of pathos, as one disowned by his father, that he heard 
 him say : "And now you'll want to be off again about your 
 own business, while I shave and dress." 
 
 Adam looked at him wistfully: "Rehearsal isn't till 
 eleven," and his eyes invited Mr. Macarthy to glance at 
 the clock, which pointed to nine. The latter smiled, or 
 perhaps he did not smile; for Mr. Macarthy's expression 
 was commonly that of a male and elderly Mona Lisa. You 
 might suspect him of melancholy, or hilarity, according to 
 your own mood, yet Adam could not remember that he had
 
 OF A POST CARD FROM "G. B. S." 73 
 
 ever seen him either hilarious or depressed. But then 
 Adam had never seen him in his young days and could 
 not think of him as a young man. To have full colored 
 hair on his head and no wrinkles on his face would have 
 robbed him of his identity as Adam's Mr. Macarthy. His 
 mind reverted to the subject they had dropped on the en- 
 trance of the maid : "Do you think you ever make mistakes 
 about things?" he queried. 
 
 "No," Mr. Macarthy replied, "unfortunately, or perhaps 
 fortunately, I never think it. But I make them all the 
 same." Taking a pocket-book from his breast, he produced 
 a post card on which Adam could see a long story in the 
 neatest possible handwriting: "Here is a pretty example of 
 my special branch of imbecility. . . . Foreseeing the cer- 
 tainty that you would want once you reached London, to 
 go on the stage, and thinking I would rather you should 
 appear in good plays than bad, I wrote to Shaw, Gals- 
 worthy, and Masefield about you. To Shaw, as a Dublin 
 man, I entered into certain particulars, including a refer- 
 ence to Hollander's as being only a few doors from the 
 house agent's where he was once employed. For Lord 
 knows why, I had got it into my head that he had been a 
 clerk, in extreme youth, at North's. Possibly I had mixed 
 it up with a legend current when I was a lad that Lord 
 Wolseley started life as a clerk in Hodges and Figgis. 
 Anyhow, there's Shaw's only answer to read for yourself." 
 
 He fluttered the card across the room into Adam's hands, 
 and he read : "I cannot accept any recommendations from 
 a man who has accused me of being clerk to a house agent. 
 You might as well call Shakespeare a reporter. I would 
 have you to know that an Irish land agent is a gentleman 
 (not to say a super-snob), and a house agent, of whatever 
 nationality, is a vulgar tradesman. Adam did not pass the 
 office to which pilgrims will presently resort on that oc- 
 casion. Kindly conduct him, at the first opportunity, down
 
 74 IN LONDON 
 
 Molesworth Street. At No. 15, on the north side, next the 
 Masonic Hall, the office still exists of Uniacke Townshend, 
 LAND agent; and if Adam enters and asks: 'Is this a 
 house agent's?' he will be struck dead. . . . G. B. S." 
 
 Adam fingered the card with an air of reverential dis- 
 appointment: "I don't see what this has to do with me," 
 he said. "Does it mean Mr. Shaw won't do anything for 
 me?" 
 
 "On the contrary," Mr. Macarthy answered, "it means 
 that his interest is aroused." 
 
 Adam read it again with vague hopes that grew vaguer 
 with each sentence: "It doesn't seem to promise much," 
 he said. 
 
 "It promises nothing," his guardian pointed out. "The 
 usual custom in the theatrical world is to promise every- 
 thing and perform nothing . . . nothing worth performing. 
 . . . The meaning of that post card is that if you go to 
 Shaw he will know who you are and he will listen to you 
 or more likely talk to you about my foolishness, which is 
 precisely the sin I am confessing to you as a warning for 
 your future." 
 
 Adam pursed his lips : "I don't see where the foolishness 
 came in. Any one might make a mistake like that." 
 
 "No," said Mr. Macarthy, "any one might not unless he 
 were a vain ass too anxious to be clever to escape being 
 silly." He laid his hand on Adam's shoulder and said 
 laughingly, "I really don't know whether my stupidity has 
 done you any harm. ... I think not . . . but I've damned 
 myself in my own eyes by that idiotic mistake." 
 
 Adam was stubborn : "I don't see that a mistake like that 
 matters a bit. . . . You wouldn't tell me that Mr. Shaw is 
 seriously annoyed." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy laughed, "Shaw is pulling my leg." His 
 face hardened: "But I am seriously annoyed with myself, 
 for it is just that form of ineptitude in mistaking one's
 
 OF A POST CARD FROM "G. B, S." 75 
 
 impressions for facts which holds civilization back more 
 firmly than the most resolute Conservatism. The Great 
 War, as children call it, as if there could be anything great 
 about war, was not made by villains but by blunderers. 
 Man's worst enemy is his own ineptitude." He broke off: 
 "And now you must say good-by until . . . later on." 
 And so Adam reluctantly took his departure, wishing it 
 were a play by Shaw in which he was to make his first 
 appearance, and not Mr. Oswald Onsin's masterpiece.
 
 CHAPTER TEN 
 ADAM STOOPS TO CONQUER 
 
 As Adam turned in to Regent Street from Mr. Macarthy's 
 lodgings in Jermyn Street, and approached that in every 
 sense imposing pile, the Grand Theater, he sincerely wished 
 that it was the least approved of Shaw, or Galsworthy, or 
 Masefield's plays in which he was to make his bow to the 
 public rather than "Mr. Onsin's masterpiece, What Rot!" 
 as the puffs called it. He reflected on this title, so ominous 
 of its content. And he was not sure after all whether he 
 was to be permitted the honor of appearing in this work 
 of art. . . . Supposing that he failed to please Mr. or 
 Mrs. Onsin when it came to the reading of whatever part 
 it might be in their minds to allot to him, Ned Burke or 
 something less (for his chastened vanity surrendered the 
 possibility of its being anything more), then his vaunted 
 career on the stage would end as it had begun. His heart 
 sank ever lower as he drew nearer the stage-door. He 
 wished he had made a stouter effort yesterday to discover 
 what the play really was about ... if it might be said 
 to be about anything. All he gathered was that Mr. Onsin 
 was called Lord Algy Taplow and Miss Belinda Belling- 
 ham (Mrs. Oswald Onsin) called Lady Lucina Something, 
 and both were supposed to be younger than they looked. 
 
 At the pit entrance beside the stage-door, bill-posters 
 were busy with double crown placards. . . . He saw the 
 world-famous words: "What Rot!" go up in capitals that 
 stared out of countenance all passersby. Beneath, on an- 
 other strip, appeared the heads, well-spaced, of a man and 
 a woman, developing at once into the familiar. The lady's 
 
 76
 
 ADAM STOOPS TO CONQUER 77 
 
 head had a tall hat balanced on it, brilliantly black on her 
 golden hair, the honest gentleman was hatless. Another 
 strip showed that she was wearing pyjamas, possibly his, 
 and he a nightdress, no less possibly hers, a third strip con- 
 firmed one's first suspicion that she fled and he pursued 
 her; for feet were flung across the ingenious composition: 
 hers in red sandals, his in black pumps. Beneath all flared 
 the challenge: "Who Can Stop It?" Stop what? Adam 
 asked himself, and the placard answered: "What Rot!" 
 As he regarded this poster a little shamefacedly, wonder- 
 ing where he had seen it first, he little dreamed that once 
 upon a time his putative father, the great Malachy Mac- 
 fadden, had gazed long and lovingly upon it, the night he 
 had gone over to the majority. The young gentleman and 
 young lady depicted in that poster were not wildly fanciful 
 likenesses of Miss Belinda Bellingham and her husband in 
 the days when they were newly married and Adam's sole 
 glimpse of life above the starvation line was Lady Eland's 
 bathroom. That infancy seemed to him as remote now 
 as did the days of their wooing to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Onsin. . . . 
 
 Adam's thoughts were scattered by a majestic trumpet- 
 ing, and the portentous limousine which he had seen once 
 before that day dashed past him and deposited Mrs. Onsin 
 at the door of her husband's theater. . . . Adam recalled 
 his forgotten intention of asking first Miss Durward and 
 afterwards Mr. Macarthy how Mrs. Onsin came to have 
 this car placed at her disposal by the government. . . . 
 Was it to enable her perhaps to visit the military hospitals 
 and cheer the wounded with her buoyancy, eked out by 
 art? 
 
 It chanced that his questioning was resolved by the acci- 
 dental falling of Miss Woodbine Blake's voice on his ear. 
 She was walking behind him, unconscious of his proximity 
 as she emptied her mind into that of the elderly youth who
 
 78 IN LONDON 
 
 had already roused Adam's jealousy. "No," she was say- 
 ing, "it's not a Rolls Royce, it's a fifty horse-power, six- 
 cylinder Wolseley; they're not common." 
 
 "Tut, I should think not," said the elderly youth, "I 
 don't suppose there's another member of the profession in 
 London, not a lady, anyhow, that has one." 
 
 "Oh, she hasn't one," Miss Blake returned, "it's a War 
 Office car lent her by Lord Bulwark." 
 
 "Lord Bulwark?" the actor echoed, "I thought he was in 
 France commanding an Army Corps?" 
 
 Miss Blake laughed. "He may be commanding an Army 
 Corps in France all right, but that wouldn't prevent him 
 spending most of his time in London, or at any rate where 
 Mrs. Onsin is." 
 
 The actor looked at her with googly eyes. "You don't 
 mean to say !" he ejaculated. 
 
 "I don't mean to say anything," Miss Blake said sweetly, 
 "I was only answering your question." 
 
 Something in this scrap of talk prickled Adam with a 
 delightful despair: he saw life as at once hopeless and de- 
 liciously comic: he visualized the portly form of Lord 
 Bulwark whirled at immense cost in aeroplanes between 
 England and France that he might simultaneously fight the 
 Germans and flirt with Mrs. Oswald Onsin. . . . And Mr. 
 Oswald Onsin, what of him? Was he really proud of his 
 wife's connection with the famous if not notably success- 
 ful general, or were his allusions to the matter to be taken 
 in an ironical spirit? . . . What did it matter to him what 
 Mr. and Mrs. Onsin thought about each other, the question 
 was if he was to be given an opening on the stage by them. 
 Gloomy about his prospects, Adam entered the theater. He 
 half thought the door-keeper might question him, but he 
 sniffed and said nothing. 
 
 Once inside Adam fought down his despair and concen- 
 trated his mind on all that concerned What Rot! He
 
 ADAM STOOPS TO CONQUER 79 
 
 pricked his ears when Mr. Onsin said: "We will take the 
 play from the beginning and go right through as far as we 
 can," this gave him the desired sequence of events which 
 would enable him to gather the meaning of the play. The 
 first act was laid in the Grand Hotel at Paris where Lady 
 Lucina Lovelace arrives breathless with her young and ro- 
 mantic first cousin, Neddie Burke, an Eton boy. It ap- 
 pears that she had been married that morning to Lord 
 Algy Taplow at St. George's, Hanover Square, but hearing 
 at the wedding breakfast that he had once been kissed by 
 the Duchess of Quicksands, she determines never to see 
 him more, and with Master Burke's assistance, flees from 
 London to Paris. There Lord Algy arrives in pursuit of 
 her, and he had just persuaded her that there was nothing 
 in the story of the Duchess of Quicksands, when enter the 
 Princesse des A'guesmortes, who, not seeing her, embraces 
 him, and Lady Lucina flees again to spend Act two in 
 Cairo where parallel incidents arise as they do in Act three 
 at Melbourne and in Act four at New York; but all ends 
 happily in Act five at the Ritz Hotel, London, the curtain 
 apparently coming down on the realization of the poster 
 which had found more favor in the eyes of Adam's sup- 
 posititious father, than his own. It appeared that the full 
 title of the play was What Rot! or The Pursuit of the Well- 
 Beloved. Some of the business of the last act was incom- 
 prehensible to Adam at rehearsal, but then the last act 
 would not have been reached but for Mr. Onsin's privilege 
 of saying: "And so on, and so on, and so on," instead of 
 his speeches. As he who had more to say than all the 
 others put together pronounced so little of it, this was a 
 great economy of time. 
 
 Miss Blake read the part of Ned Burke and Adam was 
 constrained to admit that she read it very charmingly, if 
 in a manner which he found it impossible to believe that 
 an Eton boy would have done it ... but then he had
 
 8o IN LONDON 
 
 never met an Eton boy, so far as he knew, and indeed 
 knew nothing of any schoolboys outside Belvedere and 
 Clongowes, and although Belvedere boys have something 
 in common with Eton boys they have not very much more 
 than an odd collar and a shell jacket. As he watched her, 
 Adam had enough sense of the theater to realize that Miss 
 Blake would be more successful with the British public 
 than he could hope to be in such a part. So his heart sank 
 lower still as he sat in the front row of the stalls, feeling 
 shy of loitering too near the stage until he was called for. 
 . . . And then quite suddenly, with an electrical thrill, Mr. 
 Onsin actually did call for him. 
 
 Adam could scarcely believe his ears when at the end of 
 the first act Mr. Onsin, in reply to a whispered request 
 from Miss Blake, said rather loudly: "Certainly, my dear, 
 you can go home for to-day if you don't feel well, I'll 
 ask Mr. What-you-may-call-him to read the part," and Adam 
 was forced by the vain effort to find Mr. What-you-may- 
 call-him in the theater, to realize that it was he. ... In 
 a moment he had escaladed the stage and was holding out 
 his hand for the part. 
 
 As he read it, after the first stumbling effort to give 
 the lines no less verve than Miss Blake had given, he was 
 conscious of two things: first, that he was succeeding to 
 his own satisfaction, and secondly that not only Mrs. Onsin 
 but Mr. Onsin was listening with unconcealed interest. By 
 the end of the second act he found himself ready to believe 
 that after all he might play the part in London. He was 
 thinking this, with his eyes on the gloom of the dress circle, 
 into which he was trying to pitch his voice that it might 
 ring through the house, when he was aware of a door open- 
 ing at the back of it and the figure of a man in a tall hat 
 momentarily opaque against the daylight, then the door 
 closed and the man was invisible, though he could be heard 
 shuffling down into a front seat with the manifest inten-
 
 ADAM STOOPS TO CONQUER 81 
 
 tion of watching the rehearsal. Adam wondered if Mr. 
 Onsin had noticed his presence and if he approved of it. 
 Perhaps he was an influential member of the Press or could 
 he be? ... No, there being a war on, Lord Bulwark 
 would not be sitting in the dress circle of the Grand 
 Theater, London, during fighting hours with a tall hat on 
 his head. ... At least, Adam supposed not. . . . Who- 
 ever he might be, Adam hoped he should find an oppor- 
 tunity of hearing his candid opinion of his impersonation 
 of Ned Burke in What Rot! he conceived that it would be 
 favorable. 
 
 From midday until one that day was of the pleasantest 
 hours in Adam's life, for it thrilled with unforeseen suc- 
 cess, the edge of which was sharpened rather than dulled 
 by the wonderment whether it was not all a dream. When 
 at half -past one Mr. Onsin dismissed the company for 
 lunch, he asked himself if now he would awake to find 
 there was nothing in it. But the dream, if dream it was, 
 went on; for Mr. Onsin, saying to him politely: "Where 
 do you lunch?" the fair Belinda broke in: "With us, of 
 course," and her lord and master with unwonted urbanity 
 declared the idea not a bad one. So Adam in triumph, 
 with Mrs. Onsin on his right and Mr. Onsin on his left, 
 swept out through the stage-door, across, as it were, the 
 vanquished form of the door-keeper, out of Regent Street 
 and into the Haymarket, and so entered a restaurant where 
 everybody seemed to welcome Mr. and Mrs. Onsin, and 
 Mr. and Mrs. Onsin graciously acknowledged the homage 
 of a few. 
 
 As Adam sat there, with Mr. and Mrs. Onsin alternately 
 offering him the rarest dishes mentioned in the menu . . . 
 and the war had not yet reached that stage when a mutton 
 cutlet was worth its weight in gold ... he felt that he had 
 indeed arrived, and might be justified in sending his photo- 
 graphs to the Evening Telegraph with the intimation that
 
 82 IN LONDON 
 
 he might now be described as a leading London actor. It 
 was therefore a little disappointing when Mr. Onsin opened 
 the professional side of their conversation by inquiring 
 whether he had ever suffered from adenoids, and Mrs. 
 Onsin instead of protesting said: "That's just what struck 
 me." 
 
 On the other hand they were equally surprised when 
 Adam with his mouth full of soup, for he was taken aback 
 and careless of his manners, being much puzzled, and show- 
 ing it in his countenance, repeated the word adenoids and 
 added: "D'ye mean boils?" 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Onsin did not mean boils, they were clear 
 on that point; but they were not sufficiently enlightened 
 about the nature of adenoids to be able to explain that dis- 
 tressing complaint to Adam, though Mr. Onsin illustrated 
 the best-known symptoms by a semi-ventriloquial conver- 
 sation between a lover and his lass, both suffering from 
 the same. This was taking a Rabelaisian turn which Adam 
 feared must, if persevered in, shock Mrs. Onsin's feelings, 
 and he was kept busy in showing his appreciation of Mr. 
 Onsin's jokes and at the same time affecting not to under- 
 stand them, when his eye was caught by a figure in a tall 
 hat and frock coat walking up the restaurant towards them. 
 . . . Where had he seen that figure before? . . . Entering 
 the dress circle during rehearsal. . . . And where before? 
 . . . Never in a tall hat and a frock coat. . . . "Why!" 
 cried Mrs. Onsin, "here's Stephen Macarthy." 
 
 It is a fact that Adam had been so mightily pleased with 
 his own greatness during the past couple of hours that he 
 had forgotten his guardian altogether, forgotten even to 
 anticipate the pleasure of bragging to him of his success. 
 Although he had first heard the names of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Onsin and their Grand Theater and their equally grand 
 success, What Rot! in the program of that production 
 that hung between the crucifix and the portrait of Erasmus
 
 ADAM STOOPS TO CONQUER 83 
 
 over the mantelpiece in Mr. Macarthy's bedroom at Dublin, 
 he could not associate the idea of Mr. Onsin or Mrs. Onsin 
 or What Rot! with Mr. Macarthy: they seemed to him to 
 belong to different worlds, as different as the worlds that 
 contained the Marchesa della Venasalvatica and Mr. 
 Byron O'Toole. . . . Though indeed these two happened 
 to be, or appeared to be, mother and son. . . . All that be- 
 longed to a past so fantastical as to be no longer credible, 
 but the Mr. Macarthy who lifted his hat to shake hands 
 with Mrs. Onsin was as real as the Mr. Macarthy who 
 lifted it to Barbara Burns, now Mrs. Leaper-Carahar. . . . 
 And here he asked himself what Barbara would say when 
 she heard of his success, as sooner or later she must, as a 
 London actor. 
 
 Then Mr. Onsin said an astonishing thing as he rose 
 good-humoredly also to take Mr. Macarthy's hand: 
 "You're late, old chap, we'd given you up." 
 
 Mrs. Onsin raised her eyebrows: "Why didn't you tell 
 me Stephen was coming?" Mr. Onsin murmured that she 
 forgot everything. 
 
 Mrs. Onsin, beaming on Stephen, said there were things 
 no woman could forget; and Adam wondered whether she 
 meant more by this than was sufficient to satisfy the ear. 
 Anyhow, Mr. Macarthy appeared to take his being ex- 
 pected or not expected equally as a matter of course, and 
 sat down by Mrs. Onsin as easily as if he had sat by her 
 all his life. Of Adam, who sat opposite him at the square 
 table, he took no fresh notice and Adam understood that 
 the less he said for the present the better. 
 
 "I wish you'd been to the theater this morning," Mrs. 
 Onsin said. "We're rehearsing What Rot! so you . . ." 
 
 Mr. Onsin casting a glance behind him as though to warn 
 her to beware of eavesdroppers, broke in: "He was there, 
 my dear." 
 
 Mrs. Onsin dropped her hand on Mr. Macarthy's,
 
 84 IN LONDON 
 
 "Stephen, be sweet," she besought him, "tell me I'm going 
 to do it better than ever." 
 
 "You always do everything better than ever, as you will 
 hardly need to be told," said Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 Mrs. Onsin fell eagerly upon a cutlet, declaring: "That's 
 very nicely put, Stephen," and Adam wondered whether 
 she really thought so; for it seemed to him that it might 
 mean anything. There was silence as Mr. Onsin moodily 
 chewed beefsteak. 
 
 At last he said, with the slightest possible inclination of 
 his elbow in Adam's direction: "And what do you think of 
 What-you-call-him ?" 
 
 To this question Mr. Macarthy returned another : "When 
 does the Spring tour start?" 
 
 "Eastbourne, Easter Saturday," the manager said. 
 
 "Have you your full company ?" 
 
 "More or less," said the manager, "except Ned Burke. 
 Ned Burke is always the difficulty." 
 
 "And it's such a beautiful part," Mrs. Onsin interpo- 
 lated, "it seems a pity to spoil it by putting a fat man of 
 fifty to play it, and of course it's still worse to have it 
 played by a woman." 
 
 "I'd rather see it played by a woman than by a fat man 
 of fifty," Mr. Macarthy said; "in that my taste is popular. 
 At Eastbourne I think you will be quite safe rather than 
 that, in trusting it to What-you-call-him." 
 
 Mrs. Onsin said: "I really thought this morning he was 
 quite good enough to play it in town." 
 
 Mr. Onsin shook his head indulgently and seemed to ap- 
 peal to Mr. Macarthy, who replied: "I dare say he is, but 
 I don't consider that at the present moment town would be 
 good for him; he has too much to learn that can't be 
 learned in London, but the rough and tumble of a tour will 
 begin to teach him something." 
 
 Mr. Onsin seemed offended by the phrase "rough and
 
 ADAM STOOPS TO CONQUER 85 
 
 tumble." "It's quite a first-class tour," he said. "East- 
 bourne is not a bad booking for Easter Week." 
 
 "Where do you go afterwards?" Mr. Macarthy asked. 
 
 Mr. Onsin gave his face the expression of one who re- 
 calls with difficulty a matter important in itself but paling 
 into insignificance in the light of his own importance. "I 
 send them to Portsmouth and . . . places like that." 
 
 "What places are like Portsmouth?" Mr. Macarthy in- 
 quired. "Do you mean Plymouth?" 
 
 After some hesitation Mr. Onsin confessed that he did 
 not mean Plymouth, he meant Ramsgate and Folkestone; 
 but was not sure about Folkestone on account of the war. 
 He repeated the assertion that it was a first-class tour, but 
 Adam saw by his guardian's countenance that it was noth- 
 ing of the kind. 
 
 "From my point of view," said Mr. Macarthy, "it is im- 
 material whether it is a first-class tour, but it is essential 
 that it should be some class. Tolerable theaters or halls 
 and possibly decent audiences." 
 
 Mr. Onsin was ironical. "Did you think it was a fit-up 
 tour?" he said point blank. 
 
 And equally point blank Mr. Macarthy answered he 
 thought it quite possible, but would believe Mr. Onsin's 
 assurance that it was not if he could offer Adam a salary 
 of five pounds a week. 
 
 Whereupon Mr. Onsin smiled his famous smile and 
 called for another bottle of wine. "To prove to you that 
 it's a first-class tour, old man, we'll make it guineas," 
 said he. 
 
 And in Mr. Onsin's den at the Grand Theater that very 
 afternoon a contract was drawn up and duly signed and 
 stamped, by which Oswald Onsin, Esquire, of the one part, 
 and Adam Quinn, Esquire of the other, agreed that the 
 latter should perform the part of Ned Burke, or such other 
 part as might be allotted to him in the comedy known as
 
 86 IN LONDON 
 
 What Rot! or such other play as might be performed 
 during that period of twelve weeks from the date of sign- 
 ing this agreement, and that the former should pay the 
 latter in consideration of this a sum of five guineas weekly 
 for the said period. 
 
 As Mr. Macarthy and his young charge left the theater 
 together, Stephen said to him casually: "Well, Mr. Quinn, 
 you're an uncommonly lucky young man. As a reward 
 for drowning yourself you are put into a fair way of 
 making your fortune." 
 
 Adam looked up at his guardian, his eyes overflowing 
 with triumph. "D'ye think I'm going to make my for- 
 tune?" he asked. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy smiled down on him kindly: "How on 
 earth should I know?" he said, "but it's clear to me that 
 Mr. Onsin, who is as shrewd a business man as any on the 
 stage, thinks that you're capable of making a fortune for 
 some one." 
 
 "I'd like to think," said Adam, "that I was going to be 
 a success." 
 
 "And I," said Mr. Macarthy, "would like to think that 
 you were going to deserve it."
 
 ADAM GOES ON TOUR 
 
 FOR some weeks in the spring of that year there was no 
 war on for Adam. True, everywhere he went most men 
 were in khaki, temporary soldiers, terribly many for the 
 little time that remained of their lives ; but so far as Adam 
 was concerned they might have been made of tin: they 
 meant no more to him than to the wire-pullers down in 
 Whitehall who flung them to destruction on this or that 
 sector on the endless line of front, according to the wild- 
 cat inspiration of the moment. In the defense of liberty 
 the youth of Britain had all been enslaved, and a consid- 
 erable percentage were in the course of being massacred. 
 Adam was aware of this and puzzled by it, but supposed 
 that Britons being born free were taking their pleasure in 
 this manner. Their capital, despite the darkness of the 
 streets at night, was alight with the hectic fury of a fair 
 where everything without exception could be bought and 
 sold. All he knew was that his talents were going to pro- 
 vide him with sufficient income that even at his tender age 
 he could hope to enjoy much of the fun of the fair. 
 
 But his head was not in any way turned: he realized 
 that other men's misfortunes had given him his oppor- 
 tunity and he set himself to deserve his good luck. And 
 his prospective five pounds a week was not to be paid him 
 for nothing. If Adam did not spend many hours rehears- 
 ing, he passed the greater part of the day waiting to be 
 rehearsed. Mr. Onsin called his provincial company at the 
 same hour^ as his London one, laying down the rule that
 
 88 IN LONDON 
 
 the lesser actors should model themselves on their London 
 betters, and make the provincial performance as exact a 
 replica of the Grand production as their power of mimicry 
 allowed. Happily, as the part of Ned Burke was now 
 definitely given to Miss Blake for the London show, Adam 
 was excused from the ignominy of directly copying her. 
 
 He was also fortunate in the fact that Lord Algy Tap- 
 low in the provincial cast was played by a young-looking 
 man of forty or so, who, in the days of his histrionic 
 youth, had made a success as Ned Burke in the original 
 production. Since then he had been permanently in Mr. 
 Onsin's employ, as his understudy, until the shortage of 
 actors rising from the war made it necessary to send him 
 out on tour in a part wherein Adam preferred him to the 
 original. But Mr. Macarthy explained that he was not 
 really better than Mr. Onsin, his merit lying in the fact that 
 to the business learned from his master he added the ad- 
 vantage of a more sympathetic personality. ... A sympa- 
 thetic personality was in Mr. Macarthy's opinion the quali- 
 fication most valuable to an actor who wooed success in 
 the English theater. Anything on the stage that suggested 
 the working of a brain, unless it were the brain of the more 
 innocent sort of detective, roused the aversion of a London 
 audience; but an actor with a pleasant smile and manner 
 and not too harsh a voice could do what he liked with them, 
 in the matter of plays, or if exceptionally ingratiating, even 
 the matter of morals, always provided that his immorality 
 was expressed in physical and not in intellectual terms. To 
 hoodwink a husband and kiss his wife, covering the act 
 with a laughing lie, was a delightfully spirited thing for a 
 hero to do; but to tell him that you considered yourself at 
 liberty to kiss his wife if she desired it was an impropriety 
 not to be tolerated in a respectable playhouse. It was, 
 after all, the basic teaching of the Christian churches that
 
 ADAM GOES ON TOUR 89 
 
 it did not greatly matter what you did so long as you ad- 
 mitted that you were doing wrong. 
 
 But Adam troubled himself not at all about morals dur- 
 ing those delightful April days (in point of fact rather 
 cold and rainy), when on the eve of his seventeenth birth- 
 day he found himself rehearsing a real part in a real if 
 uncommonly silly play with every prospect of a personal 
 success. It seemed to him a good omen that the day 
 chosen for their opening performances at Eastbourne, one 
 in the afternoon and one at night, actually should be his 
 seventeenth birthday. He confided this information to Mr. 
 Arthur Sackville, the name by which the leading member 
 of the company was known to him, and Mr. Sackville 
 showed a proper interest. Looking at Adam with kind 
 eyes, he said: "You are a lucky little chap, you know; I 
 was over thirty before they thought me good enough to 
 play a part like that; but of course," he added, "that was 
 a question of creating it in London, and you mustn't think 
 me vain if I say that it is one thing to play a part in an 
 already successful piece in the provinces, and another thing 
 to create a role that is only just words on paper until you 
 have made what you can of it." 
 
 Adam said that he would never have the courage to play 
 such a big part in an original production. He did not 
 mean this, and Mr. Sackville knew perfectly well that he 
 did not mean it, but appreciated the implicit deference. 
 "If you play the part," said he, "as well as you rehearse 
 it, I have very little doubt that with your influence you 
 will be creating big parts in London before long, or at any 
 rate at an age when it would have been impossible for me 
 to get even a minor London engagement." 
 
 "Is it so difficult to get a London engagement?" Adam 
 asked. 
 
 "Before the war," said Mr. Sackville, "for a man mak-
 
 90 IN LONDON 
 
 ing his daily bread and with no social influence it was 
 practically impossible. But the war, with its drain on the 
 life-blood of the younger people, has changed all that for 
 so long as it lasts." He lowered his voice: "The war is a 
 blessing to an enormous number of actors who have not 
 been employed for years." 
 
 "And when the war comes to an end?" Adam asked. 
 Mr. Sackville shook his head sadly: "I dare not think of 
 it," he murmured. 
 
 Adam almost dropped his voice to a startled whisper. 
 "You don't mean to say you want the war to go on?" 
 
 "God forbid!" the other exclaimed, "not for my own 
 sake anyhow, but it seems to me as a middle-aged man 
 that I'd rather have had my life put out with a bullet at 
 your age than live to die of starvation in my old age." 
 
 Adam was horrified so far as it was possible for him to 
 lose countenance in his happy mood. "Surely that won't 
 happen to many?" he said. 
 
 Mr. Sackville's fine and pleasant face fell into dreary 
 curves as he answered : "It will happen to half a dozen of 
 our make-believe young sparks in this theater within three 
 years of the firing of the last shot." 
 
 Adam was saddened by what Mr. Sackville said, but 
 gladdened by the kindly way he said it; for he felt that in 
 this modest gentleman whose artistry if not brilliant, was 
 sincere, he would have a worthy friend. Mr. Macarthy 
 agreed with him. 
 
 Of his guardian in those days of his new life he did not 
 see a great deal, yet he saw more than some youths would 
 have expected. He was frequently at the theater during 
 rehearsal time, and, although he was never heard to com- 
 ment upon what he saw, from time to time alterations were 
 made by Mr. Onsin which Adam guessed were suggested 
 by Mr. Macarthy. One night he dined at Norfolk Square 
 with his young friend and Miss Durward, and more than
 
 ADAM GOES ON TOUR 91 
 
 once she and Adam dined at a public restaurant with him, 
 going to a theater or music hall afterwards. So Adam in 
 less than a month's time, which was all that he had, before 
 starting on tour, made some acquaintance with the light 
 side of London. Whether Miss Durward accompanied 
 him or not, he spent every other evening with Mr. Ma- 
 carthy ; his days, as has been said, were given to Mr. Onsin, 
 who wasted a great deal of them. Once during that month 
 there was a real air-raid, but Adam, asleep in bed when it 
 commenced, knew nothing about it until next day; for he 
 slept the sleep of contented youth. 
 
 In her good-humored way Miss Durward seemed to re- 
 gard it as a grievance that Mr. Macarthy did not lodge at 
 Norfolk Square. It is true that she had not a room avail- 
 able, but she threw out fairly strong hints that if he would 
 not be satisfied with an extra bed in Adam's room, she was 
 prepared to put the bed up in her own den next the bath- 
 room. But Mr. Macarthy declared that it would be an 
 infamy to cause her inconvenience, and stayed on at Mrs. 
 Ap John's. Adam did not see how it could be an infamy 
 to do for Miss Durward what she wanted, but Mr. Ma- 
 carthy insisted that she did not really want it. Adam even 
 went so far as to say that he suspected Miss Durward of 
 being in love with Mr. Macarthy, and Mr. Macarthy de- 
 clared that the facts were to the contrary. This puzzled 
 Adam so much that he did not farther pursue the matter. 
 Anyhow, the idea of Miss Durward or any woman being 
 in love with his guardian always appeared to him in the 
 light of a joke. Younger and prettier ladies than Miss 
 Durward and Mrs. Onsin had affected to be interested in 
 that humorous old bachelor. . . . Was Mr. Macarthy an 
 old bachelor? . , . It was odd to think how little he knew 
 about Mr. Macarthy. Often it was on his lips to ask him 
 why he had never married, but somehow, widely as his 
 questions ranged, they never ranged so far as that, Mr,
 
 92 IN LONDON 
 
 Macarthy, ready as he was to encourage questions on 
 almost every subject, turned aside those which tended 
 toward gossip; even of Adam's scandalous parents, whom 
 it would be reasonable to suppose he held in abhorrence, he 
 answered no questions in scandalous terms: for him 
 Adam's mother was a woman to be pitied if avoided, and 
 his father a man to be laughed at rather than damned, 
 except, indeed, as example. 
 
 But if Adam thought little of Mr. Macarthy 's love- 
 affairs, he devoted some attention to his own. London 
 in war time hummed with the love affairs of young and 
 old, and the Grand Theater stood ina situation too near 
 the center of things for an ardent young man to be un- 
 conscious of the sea of sexuality in storm around him. It 
 seemed to him that every woman he met that spring in 
 London might be won by a passionate wooer, and in theory 
 he was such a one, but in practice quite otherwise. Once 
 already he had known love in what he believed to be its 
 entirety. That was with Caroline Brady, whose tombstone 
 in Glasnevin, placed over her by Mr. Macarthy, pleaded 
 for remembrance as his friend. Once or twice that month 
 when temptation conjured up some facile successor, poor 
 Caroline's tombstone oddly -barred the way. He knew 
 without being told that it was to this end his guardian had 
 sought to perpetuate the unlucky child's memory. Thanks 
 to the man she had vaguely worshiped from afar, her in- 
 glorious existence had become valuable even in its grave. 
 He was too young to be successful in his effort to analyze 
 his motive for being faithful to her ghost. He visualized 
 no meeting beyond the grave, nor even desired it. So far 
 as he voluntarily sentimentalized, his thought conjured up 
 Josephine O'Meagher sorry for herself being a nun. He 
 still thought of a nun as one severed utterly from life, as 
 Curtius when he plunged into the gaping fissure that threat- 
 ened Rome.
 
 93 
 
 His fancy wantoned with the Woodbine Blakes of his 
 new world, this or that Thais sat by him in his dreams. 
 Withal when the Eastbourne train steamed out of Victoria, 
 with the What Rot! touring company as its least warlike 
 freight, he left London as innocent as he had entered it; 
 faithful in spirit to Josephine O'Meagher, in sentiment to 
 Barbara Carahar, and in fact to Caroline Brady. 
 
 It is true that at Victoria Station he was disappointed 
 to find that the ladies of the company traveled by them- 
 selves and so he was to miss the chance of a long desired 
 tete-a-tete with beautiful Drusilla Dartmouth, who played 
 Lady Lucina on tour. As she glided down the platform 
 to the train, ushered thither by two red-tabbed officers of 
 princely bearing, Adam thought her as exquisite as her in- 
 spiring name. Even when, later on, he learned from Mr. 
 Sackville that she was known to her intimates as Peggie 
 Simpson of Paisley, he was steadfast to his opinion that 
 she was rather nice-looking. . . . Meanwhile it was a suf- 
 ficiently happy position for a lad on the eve of his seven- 
 teenth birthday (and the more so when he remembered 
 his seventh, spent in the abomination of squalor) to find 
 himself traveling as the intimate friend of the leading actor 
 of a troupe of which he himself was not the least impor- 
 tant member. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy had not come to the train to say good-by 
 to him, warning Adam that it were best not to emphasize 
 his extreme youthfulness. "The infant prodigy has no 
 place in art," he explained. "Thanks more than anything 
 else to your youth you've got an opening on the stage that 
 may well lead to success, but remember that youth is 
 merely a qualification and not a quality." He added : "At 
 best it remains a qualification for a devilish short time." 
 And again he said: "I think you may be going to have a 
 real success in What Rot! but that is not to say that I 
 think you will ever have a success in anything else."
 
 94 IN LONDON 
 
 Adam looked up at him, troubled. "D'you mean that 
 you don't think me as good as the others think me?" 
 
 "I think you quite good in What Rot!," Mr. Macarthy 
 answered, "but What Rot! is . . ." he broke off: "I gave 
 it that name myself," and said no more.
 
 CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 SUCCESS 
 
 ON the platform of Victoria Station Adam had smoked a 
 cigarette. It was his duty in the character of Ned Burke 
 to do so, and he was striving to acquire the habit of doing 
 it naturally. Nevertheless his cigarette was usually out, and 
 he knew it was not good form to relight it, so he spent a 
 good deal of time chewing the end and upsetting his di- 
 gestion with particles of tobacco. To make a long story 
 short, he never learned how really to smoke but he did gain 
 from Mr. Sackville the more important professional knowl- 
 edge of how to hold a cigarette naturally in the mouth 
 without distorting it. Mr. Sackville had arranged with his 
 young friend to share his rooms on tour, so Adam had 
 every opportunity of modeling himself on a player who 
 combined all the studied graces that mark the perfect gen- 
 tleman of the theater without losing the simplicity of heart 
 which keeps a man a gentleman in reality. Nevertheless 
 he refused a second cigarette which Mr. Sackville offered 
 him in the train when he threw the mangled remains of 
 the first out of the window. 
 
 Mr. Sackville nodded indulgently as he returned his ciga- 
 rette-case to his pocket. "You're quite right," he mur- 
 mured. "Bad habit, spoils the voice. I commenced when 
 I was too young to know better. There was no one to 
 warn me. And now I find it hard to leave off. . . . It's 
 better than drinking. I've never dore that." 
 
 "I wonder what you do do?" growled the low comedian 
 of the company, a gentleman of singularly unattractive 
 mien. . . . "I've never known you even womanize, and I 
 
 95
 
 96 IN LONDON 
 
 don't suppose ... at least I've never heard . . ." he broke 
 off with a leer which roused an echoing chuckle from one 
 or two of the elderly young bucks. . . . Adam did not un- 
 derstand why. Mr. Sackville, to his disappointment, did 
 not crush the low comedian, but turning a little pink, looked 
 out of the window, and presently took up a novel, which 
 he read or appeared to read for the rest of the journey. 
 Adam, sitting opposite to him, was content to admire the 
 beauties of Surrey and Sussex, seen to-day for the first 
 time. 
 
 And while he gazed at these agreeable shires, whose 
 beauties, springing to fresh life in the April sunlight, could 
 not be hidden even by the clouds of smoke from the loco- 
 motive or the ingenuity for circumventing the attractions 
 of nature displayed by the engineer of the line, he saw also 
 the change that had come over his life in one short month. 
 This was the third Thursday in April. . . . The third 
 Thursday of March he had been in Dublin with never a 
 thought of leaving it, not knowing how he could leave it 
 if he should ever want to. He had sometimes thought of 
 going on the stage, but never imagined that he should do 
 so through any door but that of the Abbey Theater. The 
 idea of going to England and joining a theatrical company 
 there had seemed fantastic. Above all, that he should be 
 playing a part in the derided and despised What Rot! 
 which Mr. Macarthy agreed with every one in Dublin in 
 regarding as the acme of British silliness, was really too 
 incredible. 
 
 At their lodgings that evening he asked Mr. Sackville 
 to tell him in confidence what he thought of the play in 
 which they were about to appear. 
 
 Mr. Sackville's fine face, the resemblance of which to 
 Forbes Robertson's had led him from a secure but ill-paid 
 berth in an Insurance Office to one almost as secure and 
 incomparably more remunerative upon the stage, betrayed
 
 SUCCESS 97 
 
 a painful doubt in Mr. Sackville's mind. "I cannot say 
 that I've ever thought about it," said he. "To me it is 
 simply a piece in which I am engaged to appear." 
 
 "But do you think it a good piece?" Adam urged. 
 
 "That is a very difficult question," Mr. Sackville pro- 
 tested. "I remember to have read such varying notices." 
 
 "But I mean what you yourself think of it," Adam in- 
 sisted. 
 
 The trouble on Mr. Sackville's face deepened and then 
 vanished in a smile. "I've never seen it from the front," 
 said he. 
 
 "I've never seen it at all," Adam blurted, "but I think 
 it rubbish." 
 
 Mr. Sackville was clearly pained. "Come, come, that's 
 too severe," he said. "Of course it's not to be compared 
 with Romeo and Juliet or The Lady of Lyons or any other 
 standard play. It belongs to the second rank like East 
 Lynne and Sweet Lavender, only, of course, it's quite dif- 
 ferent, being so up-to-date. I'm not sure if I make myself 
 clear?" 
 
 Adam said it was quite clear but could not make up his 
 mind whether his friends thought What Rot! a good play 
 or not. "What is East Lynne f" he asked. 
 
 "A very beautiful play of a kind not at the moment very 
 fashionable," Mr. Sackville said. 
 
 "What's it about?" Adam asked. 
 
 "About a lady who is an earl's daughter but marries 
 a solicitor and is seduced by a baronet, and comes back as 
 a governess to find her only child dying without recogniz- 
 ing her because she wears spectacles to disguise herself 
 from her husband," Mr. Sackville said, not without emo- 
 tion. "You see, quite a simple story, but touching on the 
 stage." 
 
 "Is it?" said Adam. "It sounds to me worse than 
 What Rot!"
 
 98 IN LONDON 
 
 "I may have described it badly," said Mr. Sackville, 
 "and no doubt to a young blood like yourself it will seem 
 old-fashioned, but it's the most successful play of its kind 
 ever written, I assure you." 
 
 "I know a lady," said Adam, "who was the daughter 
 of a nobleman, and was seduced by a baronet, and wears 
 spectacles," he paused. 
 
 "Do you?" said Mr. Sackville, "that seems quite a co- 
 incidence, doesn't it? I hope she didn't lose her children?" 
 
 "She lost one, anyhow," said Adam. 
 
 Mr. Sackville made a melancholy sound with his lips. 
 "Poor lady. Did her child die?" 
 
 "No," said Adam, "she gave it to the charwoman." 
 
 "For keeps, so to speak?" Mr. Sackville asked, "or was 
 it what you might call baby-farming?" 
 
 "I don't know," Adam said, "but anyhow, the char- 
 woman left it in a tram." 
 
 "That's almost suggestive of Oscar Wilde, isn't it? 
 More like an invention than a fact?" Mr. Sackville argued. 
 "I really can't remember a similar case except, of course, 
 Rousseau; he always did that with his children." 
 
 "Gave them to the charwoman?" Adam asked in as- 
 tonishment. 
 
 "Well, not exactly the charwoman," said Mr. Sackville, 
 "but he gave them to the Foundling Hospital, so that they 
 were as completely lost to him as if he had given them to 
 the charwoman and she had left them about in trams. 
 Not of course that there were trams in Rousseau's time, 
 although Fve been told that there were omnibuses in Paris 
 as long ago as the seventeenth century. . . . Did a man 
 called Pascal have something to do with it?" 
 
 Adam said that Pascal was a religious writer, and he 
 did not think that he had anything to do with omnibuses. 
 
 "But he was a mathematician, too," Mr. Sackville re-
 
 SUCCESS 99 
 
 joined, "so he might have been a shareholder, mightn't 
 he?" It was obvious that it did not matter to Mr. Sack- 
 ville what he talked about so long as he had not to talk 
 about What Rot! 
 
 But Adam had the gift of hanging on to his own ideas. 
 "You were telling me," he ventured to assert, "what you 
 thought about W hat Rot! from an acting point of view." 
 
 "From an acting point of view," Mr. Sackville declared 
 without hesitation, "it's one of the finest plays ever writ- 
 ten. Grips you, if it grips you at all, and I'm assuming 
 that you like that sort of play or you wouldn't go to see 
 it ... it grips you from start to finish. Positively there's 
 not a dull line in it. In that way it's far better than East 
 Lynne, where the sentiment is a bit thick if always clean 
 and thoroughly English, which What Rot! is not. And 
 What Rot! is always cheerful. East Lynne is almost as 
 sad as King Lear. . . . But please don't think I rank it 
 with Lear. The Bard stands alone." 
 
 "Did Mr. Onsin write East Lynne too?" Adam inquired. 
 
 Mr. Sackville repeated the question pensively, and added 
 the question: "What are you talking about?" 
 
 "I mean," said Adam, "did he write East Lynne as well 
 as What Rot!" 
 
 For once Mr. Sackville's slightly melancholy smile 
 broadened to laughter. "I've never heard dear old Oswald 
 say he wrote East Lynne," said he, "and I rather think 
 it was done before he was born. I don't pay much atten- 
 tion to the name of an author of a play unless it's Shake- 
 speare or Pinero or some one like that, but when I used 
 to play in it I remember I was told it was an adaptation 
 from a novel by a woman." 
 
 "What part did you play in it?" Adam asked. 
 
 "The heavy part," Mr. Sackville said apologetically; "I 
 always played gentlemanly heavies in those days," and on
 
 ioo IN LONDON 
 
 Adam asking the nature of a gentlemanly heavy, he went 
 on: "Aristocratic seducers, you know. In East Lynne I 
 was Sir Francis Levison, the baronet who ruins Lady 
 Isabel Carlyle; I never liked doing it, for of course the 
 man is not really a gentleman, also I had to wear a crepe 
 hair mustache, which spoils the expression of one's face. 
 Now in What Rot! it's such a relief to play a gentleman 
 who really is one, besides being clean-shaven. Lord Algy 
 is really a delightful part, you have the sympathy of the 
 audience right through. I always feel when I play it that 
 they really want me to catch Lady Lucina and are always 
 afraid that she may escape me in the end. It's so jolly 
 to play a determined fellow who is at the same time gentle 
 and never insists on his rights, and it's so dramatic at the 
 end of every act to be able to say after each disappoint- 
 ment: 'Love will find out a way.' Mind you, I don't like 
 the bit at the end where they realize the poster, but Oswald 
 would have it so." 
 
 "You mean," said Adam, "where Lord Algy puts on 
 Lady Lucina's nightdress?" 
 
 Mr. Sackville nodded. "Yes, I always feel that's coarse. 
 But then it's so cleverly led up to by her putting on his 
 pyjamas, not to say his tall hat, that I think in the drama, 
 if I may call it so, most audiences overlook the suggestion 
 of indelicacy. If I couldn't persuade myself of that I 
 really couldn't bring myself to play the part." 
 
 Said Adam: "I don't like that business of undressing 
 her as the curtain is coming down." 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," Mr. Sackville protested. "It's an 
 extraordinarily ingenious curtain; sentimental from one 
 point of view and at the same time cleanly funny. I never 
 knew an audience yet that didn't laugh when he came to 
 the seventh pair of undies, and as I know for sure that she 
 wears at least twelve, I never feel there's anything really 
 risky in it."
 
 SUCCESS loi 
 
 "Don't you?" said Adam, and added: "I'd rather play 
 Ned Burke than Lord Algy." 
 
 "There's no doubt that Ned is a topping part," Mr. 
 Sackville said cheerily, "and I prophesy that you're going 
 to have a topping success in it." 
 
 For once a prophecy came true and Adam's seventeenth 
 birthday was marked by a successful first appearance such 
 as has fallen to the lot of not one actor in twenty thou- 
 sand. He himself was unprepared for and puzzled by it, 
 knowing that he was not even playing the part as well 
 as he had rehearsed it, and conscious of all sorts of diffi- 
 culties arising from his inexperience. But from first to 
 last his scenes, such as they were, went well, and even 
 when he dried up in his one important speech the audience 
 applauded sympathetically. 
 
 Mr. Sackville greeted him with enthusiasm at the end. 
 "What did I say?" he raised his gentle voice in triumph 
 to inquire: "I told you you would run away from us all," 
 he hesitated, and added chivalrously, "except, of course, 
 that exquisite performer, Miss Dartmouth . . . and you've 
 done it!" 
 
 Adam tried not to pant with emotion as he burbled, 
 "Was I really very good?" 
 
 He was disappointed to hear Mr. Sackville answer in a 
 more judicial tone: "Well, no, I'd hardly say as a question 
 of technique that you were as good even as I was when I 
 played it. But how could you be without experience ! That 
 will come. . . . The point is that instinctively you know 
 how to get on good terms with your audience. If an 
 actor can do that, his career is safe. But mind you, Mr. 
 Quinn, to get on with your audience means that you can 
 make your living, but it doesn't mean that you're an artist 
 . . . though I hope you'll work at your art until you be- 
 come one. . . ." 
 
 But Adam was not listening. In the excitement of the
 
 io2 IN LONDON 
 
 moment he wanted to open his heart. . . . "Look here, 
 Mr. Sackville," he blurted, "my name is not Quinn, not my 
 real name." 
 
 "Few men use their real names on the stage," Mr. Sack- 
 ville answered: "Though it's more usual now than when 
 I went on the stage. . . . May I ask what you real name 
 is?" 
 
 Adam's cheeks were already scarlet from the hot water 
 with which he had removed such vestiges of grease-paint 
 as his cocoa-butter had failed to dislodge; so he had not 
 the appearance of blushing as he said "I don't know." . . . 
 He added defiantly, as answer to the other's look of aston- 
 ishment: "I'm a bastard." 
 
 Mr. Sackville's face fell, and Adam imagined he re- 
 coiled with horror. But in a second his kindly visage wore 
 its most genial smile as he said heartily: "How perfectly 
 charming ! . . . and how splendid of you ! . . . you must 
 tell me some day how it happened. . . . Life is so full of 
 romance. ... I always think of good old Oscar Wilde's 
 Importance of Being Earnest. . . . Glorious fellow, Oscar 
 Wilde . . . very tragic that he should have died. . . . And 
 so you call yourself Quinn? . . . Was that your father's 
 name, I mean your dear mother's?" 
 
 "My mother's name," Adam answered determinedly, 
 "was Smith . . . her husband's name was Macfadden." 
 
 Mr. Sackville glowed with interest: "Now I do call that 
 a delightful coincidence," he declared. "My mother's name 
 was Macfadden and her husband was called Smith. . . . 
 He was my father, you understand." His tone was apolo- 
 getic. 
 
 "Then where did Mr. Sackville come in?" Adam asked 
 incautiously, but without offending his friend. 
 
 "Sackville," he replied, "is pure fancy. . . . Like Quinn, 
 you know. . . . Or is Quinn perhaps a family name?" 
 
 Jt was on the tip of Adam's tongue to tell Mr. Sackville
 
 SUCCESS 103 
 
 about his grandfather, the Baronet, but when it came to 
 the point he hesitated. That would entail an explanation 
 about the Marchesa that he deemed unchivalrous. . . . 
 And after all could he be sure that she really was his 
 grandmother? How ridiculous it would be if Mr. Sack- 
 ville threw cold water on the suggestion. . . . Not that 
 Mr. Sackville would do anything so ungentlemanly and un- 
 kind. He ended by telling Mr. Sackville that it was Mr. 
 Macarthy who suggested that he should call himself Quinn. 
 
 "Well," Mr. Sackville said, "Quinn was a famous stage 
 name in the eighteenth century, second only to Garrick's. 
 Perhaps in the twentieth you'll make it second to none." 
 
 And this time Adam quite visibly blushed.
 
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 JANE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 IT was on the Saturday that Adam made his first unfor- 
 gettable success. On the Sunday he rested, having lain 
 awake most of the night, feverishly playing his part to the 
 bedclothes. They were less appreciative than the Bank 
 Holiday audience at the Chatsworth Theater. It was an 
 uncommonly hot night for April, and he awoke from what 
 slumber he was allowed with doubts as to any success be- 
 ing worth the loss of an hour's sleep. Presently Mr. Sack- 
 ville, looking neat and incredibly youthful in a sort of 
 marine costume suggesting a naval officer in mufti, ap- 
 peared with the London papers. 
 
 "The revival is no end of a success," he said. "I thought 
 you'd like to know. That means we shall be a success 
 too." 
 
 In his interest in his own performance, Adam had quite 
 forgotten that the real What Rot! was being done in Lon- 
 don and their poor little show was a mere country cousin. 
 And even Mr. Sackville's pleasant smile was a trifle less 
 pleasant as he read out the opinion of the Swiday Times 
 that Mr. Onsin was quite inimitable in the part of Lord 
 Algy, and furthermore that Miss Woodbine Blake's Ned 
 Burke was a lesson to older players in stage technique. 
 Never had the part been played so naturally and yet so 
 surely with regard to stage effect. . . . Adam understood 
 his friend to be of opinion that the critic of this journal 
 was a damned something or other, and gathered that Mr. 
 Sackville was moved. But he soon recovered that seemly 
 cheerfulness which made him so agreeable a companion 
 and one so valuable for a moody and impressionable young 
 
 104
 
 JANE NIGHTINGALE 105 
 
 artist; for by this time Adam had discovered that he really 
 was an artist by desire if hardly by accomplishment. He 
 suggested that after breakfast they should climb Beachy 
 Head. Adam, feeling that he could scale Parnassus, 
 agreed. 
 
 As they turned from the street where they modestly 
 lodged and faced westward along the front, Adam re- 
 called his first experience of the sea at Bray. He deemed 
 Eastbourne to be an incredibly luxurious reconstruction of 
 that attractively situated but not imposing watering-place. 
 And to his brain, this sunny yet misty morning not too 
 clear, Beachy Head was little different from Bray Head. 
 He remembered, however, that it was of greater historic 
 fame. When they were so far up it as Mr. Sackville felt 
 inclined to go, being a little abashed by the multitudes of 
 convalescent soldiers in butcher's blue who jeered at his 
 attire or apostrophized his suspect conscience, Adam asked 
 suddenly: "It was somewhere off here, wasn't it, that the 
 French fleet beat the English and Dutch?" 
 
 Mr. Sackville let fall a look of pained disapproval. "The 
 French beat the English and Dutch?" He turned over the 
 words as if analyzing some secret meaning in them. "You 
 mean perhaps that We beat the French and Dutch?" 
 
 "I never heard of your doing that," Adam rejoined 
 sturdily: "Though I'll not say it wasn't done. It seems 
 to me that every one beats every one else in turn if you 
 leave it to the end of time." 
 
 "There may be something in that," Mr. Sackville ad- 
 mitted, "but I don't believe in any navy beating ours." 
 
 "What about the Dutch in the Medway?" Adam asked. 
 
 Mr. Sackville smiled in gentlemanly triumph. "Nelson 
 saw to it that they didn't remain in the Medway long." 
 
 "He had long sight," said Adam, "to see what happened 
 a hundred years before he was born." 
 
 Mr. Sackville, not quite sneeringly, but just a little super-
 
 106 IN LONDON 
 
 ciliously replied: "Did I say Nelson? You might have 
 understood that I meant Drake." 
 
 "Try Blake," Adam suggested. "He might have done 
 it if he'd lived a little longer." 
 
 Mr. Sackville made a movement that was almost sug- 
 gestive of impatience. "I do not profess to be a scholar," 
 he said. "But I think, my wise young Irish friend, that 
 you will admit the Dutch did not remain in the Medway 
 long." 
 
 "They remained long enough to burn your best battle- 
 ships," Adam told him. 
 
 This time the actor's face really fell, and he answered 
 simply: "They never told me that at school. I thought it 
 was just a tip-and-go business like the German raids on 
 the north-east coast. I didn't support there was anything 
 really in it. I'm not a Jingo, I'm sure, but the English 
 have always won in the end, haven't they? Muddled 
 through, you know, if you like to put it in that way." 
 
 Adam admitted himself insufficiently equipped in his- 
 toric lore to say whether the English had won in the end 
 or not. He added: "Hastings is just round the corner 
 from here, isn't it ?" 
 
 Mr. Sackville said it was not far away, and waved his 
 hand to the east and to the west with a slight swerving 
 to north and south. It was an effective though not in- 
 forming gesture; he had the appearance of knowing where 
 it was without conviction as to the propriety of divulging 
 the secret. He mentioned that it was on the same railway 
 system, and went on to inquire with something like defer- 
 ence whether Adam thought there was any chance of the 
 Germans constructing enough Zeppelins to conquer Eng- 
 land from the air. He was of opinion that Zeppelins and 
 poison gas ought not to be allowed. 
 
 Adam said he knew nothing about the possibilities of 
 Zeppelins, and that no sort of warfare ought to be allowed.
 
 JANE NIGHTINGALE 107, 
 
 "Oh, come!" Mr. Sackville cried, "you're a downright 
 little Philistine! Would you do away with such things as 
 the 'Charge of the Light Brigade' and 'On Countrymen, 
 unto the walls once more,' and 'Fight on! fight on!' said 
 Sir Richard Grenville? I hate cruelty as much as any- 
 thing, and I'm sure that even if I were of a fighting age 
 my heart and digestion would make me no use in the 
 trenches, but I do think war is a great and noble thing 
 for young fellows whose constitutions are equal to rough- 
 ing it. I sometimes think it fortunate that I have no 
 family to ask me what I did in the Great War. Not that 
 I am ashamed of what I do, by any means, but young 
 people don't understand what a great service the actor does 
 his country by keeping people cheered up in moments of 
 depression." 
 
 "It seems to me," Adam returned, "that no one I've seen 
 in London was depressed, except when there was an alarm 
 of an air-raid." 
 
 "You've never seen a real air-raid, perhaps?" Mr. Sack- 
 ville pointed out. "You'll find it most depressing when it 
 comes." 
 
 Adam's mind went off at a tangent. "Did you say you 
 had no family? I thought you were married." He won- 
 dered to himself why he thought this. 
 
 Mr. Sackville shook his head and sighed, looking away 
 sentimentally towards the horizon. "The only women I 
 ever loved," he said gently . . . Adam waited for him to 
 say more but he appeared to regard the sentence as com- 
 plete. 
 
 His finely woebegone expression thrilled his young 
 friend, who murmured the surmise that the so exclusively 
 honored lady was dead. 
 
 "Worse than that," said Mr. Sackville hoarsely. 
 
 Adam delved in his experience for something worse 
 than that and ventured: "She's not a nun?"
 
 io8 IN LONDON 
 
 "A nun!" Mr. Sackville echoed with a horrorstricken 
 tone, betraying his descent from the evangelical branch of 
 the Smith family. "No, not that. She had her hour of 
 temptation. . . . The Cowley sisters . . . but thank God 
 she resisted the fascination of the veil. Though I have 
 often thought how magnificently it would have become her. 
 I can see her," his voice rose lyrically, "I can see her as 
 Roxane in the last act of Cyrano de Bergerac" He added 
 moodily: "I have never played Cyrano. As poor Lewis 
 Waller, whose funeral I had recently the privilege to at- 
 tend, used to say: 'It was a pity that no romantic actor 
 ever played Cyrano.'" He looked at his watch: "I think 
 we had better be turning homewards." 
 
 "But," said Adam, falling into step beside him, 
 "you haven't told me what become of her. Did she go 
 mad?" 
 
 "No," said Mr. Sackville promptly. "She went no such 
 thing. It is I, I who have gone mad on account of Penel- 
 ope Nightingale." 
 
 "Penelope Nightingale," Adam repeated. "Is that her 
 name ?" 
 
 "That is not altogether her name, not in the eyes of the 
 world," Mr. Sackville said. "She calls herself Jane Night- 
 ingale, but I prefer to think of her as Penelope." 
 
 "Why?" Adam asked him point blank. 
 
 "Why?" said Mr. Sackville. "Why, indeed," and lifting 
 his hat he ran his fine hand through his beautiful hair as 
 if that were an answer to the question. 
 
 "I still don't know what happened to her," Adam said. 
 "She wasn't seduced, was she?" 
 
 Mr. Sackville frowned. "Do not be coarse," he said. 
 "You are speaking of a lady." 
 
 "But wasn't the lady in East Lynne seduced?" Adam 
 asked. 
 
 "I don't see what that has to do with it," Mr. Sackville
 
 JANE NIGHTINGALE 109 
 
 propounded. "When you're older you will understand the 
 indelicacy of the suggestion." 
 
 This criticism threw Adam into a somewhat sulky silence 
 which perhaps disappointed Mr. Sackville; for he pres- 
 ently volunteered the information that Miss Nightingale 
 had broken his heart. As Adam still kept pouted lips he 
 went on: "You would ask me how, and I will tell you. 
 She loves another who is as unworthy of her as," he 
 looked to the heavens for inspiration which came in this 
 form, "as Mr. Brown was of Queen Victoria." 
 
 "What Mr. Brown?" Adam asked. "Mr. Brown whose 
 soul goes marching on?" 
 
 If Mr. Sackville heard this question, he was not, as he 
 would modestly say, enough of a scholar to answer it. And 
 while Adam tramped on, humming "Glory, glory Alleluja," 
 and trying to imagine a romance between his vague con- 
 ception of Queen Victoria and yet vaguer notion of the 
 Reverend Mr. Brown of Harper's Ferry, Mr. Sackville 
 reverted to the more congenial subject of his own romance. 
 "I would like you to see her and tell me what you think 
 of her," said he. 
 
 "I know her picture well," said Adam, "and there's a 
 queer old statue of her they put up when I was a lad in 
 Kildare Street." 
 
 Mr. Sackville shook his head wistfully. "I think there 
 is some mistake," said he. "There is a statue of a Miss 
 Nightingale in Waterloo Place, but that is not my Miss 
 Nightingale." 
 
 "Oh!" Adam blurted, "I was thinking of Queen Vic- 
 toria." 
 
 Mr. Sackvjlle's tone stiffened. "If you are not inter- 
 ested in the subject of my conversation, let us drop it." 
 
 Said Adam: "You said Queen Victoria." 
 
 The actor pointed out with dignity that the mention of 
 her penultimate Majesty was subsidiary to the tragic story
 
 i io IN LONDON 
 
 of his relations with Miss Penelope or Jane Nightingale. 
 "Do you wish me to speak more of this or not ?" he asked. 
 
 And Adam, who was acquiring the current English 
 idiom, replied: "Carry on, old bean." 
 
 "I think," said Mr. Sackville, "that you sometimes for- 
 get the difference in our ages." 
 
 Adam, awakening suddenly to the need for tact, said: 
 "You do look so jolly young, you know, and it's all the 
 more wonderful for a man who has had such a," he re- 
 called a word which had pleased him in the papers he had 
 sold in his infancy, "such a tragic romance in his life." 
 
 His friend was mollified. "Tragic romance is the very 
 word for it. How romantic and how tragic you will best 
 understand when you see her. ... If you wish to see 
 her." 
 
 "You bet your boots," said Adam heartily, "I should 
 just love to see her." 
 
 "Then you shall do so," said Mr. Sackville, again look- 
 ing at his watch, "for on our way back, if I have timed 
 myself correctly, we should meet her coming out of 
 church." 
 
 "Righto!" said Adam. "I hope you'll introduce me to 
 her." 
 
 "I cannot promise that," said Mr. Sackville, "without 
 first asking her permission." 
 
 "Oh!" said Adam, finding this rather pusillanimous of 
 Mr. Sackville : but it whetted his curiosity. "Who did you 
 say it was she was in love with?" 
 
 Mr. Sackville frowned. "I did not say with whom she 
 was in love," said he, "and I do not feel that without some 
 risk of a breach of confidence I could tell you his name, 
 but to give you some indication of the nature of the man, 
 I will tell you that he is one of the most brilliant men in 
 he country, and has written one of the most brilliant 
 j>lays."
 
 JANE NIGHTINGALE in 
 
 "Oh!" Adam snapped promptly, "I guess Bernard 
 Shaw." 
 
 Mr. Sackville turned a severe face upon him. "Surely 
 you are aware that Mr. Shaw is a married man. If you 
 think that Miss Nightingale would allow herself to fall 
 in love with a married man, you are mistaken." 
 
 "But you did say he was unworthy of her," Adam re- 
 minded him, and repeated to himself again, "One of the 
 most brilliant men in the country and has written one of 
 the most brilliant plays. . . . One of the most brilliant 
 plays." He looked a little sheepishly at Mr. Sackville, 
 saying in a low voice: "I suppose Mr. and Mr. Onsin are 
 legally married?" 
 
 "For all I know to the contrary they may be," said Mr. 
 Sackville, "but what has that to do with it?" 
 
 "Why," said Adam, "you said he was the author of one 
 of the most brilliant plays of the time and I guessed that 
 you might mean What Rot!" 
 
 "My God!" said Mr. Sackville. "Not another word. 
 You must never mention this to any one." 
 
 "Righto!" said Adam cheerily, without having any idea 
 what it was he was not to mention. His interest in Mr. 
 Sackville's Dulcinea was sadly diminished by the infor- 
 mation that she had lost her heart to the manager of the 
 Grand Theater and reputed author of What Rot! but he 
 felt it proper to express a languid hope that he might have 
 the good fortune to meet her or at least to look upon her 
 as she came out of church. 
 
 This good fortune was his: as he stayed his companion 
 that he might read the poster announcing a play called 
 How Dublin Does It, apparently staged at some minor 
 Eastbourne place of entertainment, and said: "It's a queer 
 thing, but I saw that piece in Dublin last January." . . . 
 Mr. Sackville with a dramatic gesture gripped his arm. 
 
 "She's coming!" he announced in a sort of shouted whis-
 
 ii2 IN LONDON 
 
 per, and lifting his hat, dropped it by his side, standing 
 bareheaded and reverential in such fashion as he would 
 have followed had his place in time suffered him to attend 
 the funeral rites of Joan of Arc or Sarah Siddons. 
 
 Adam, turning from the poster with its suggestion of 
 half-wakened home-sickness, beheld approach two uni- 
 formed ladies. Both in their way were beautiful, but he 
 concentrated his glance on the assured choice of his friend. 
 She was tall, rather buxom yet lithe, with something of the 
 brilliancy of Barbara Burns, but happier looking and per- 
 haps more dashing, with a downright stride from the hips 
 characteristic of the Englishwoman whom war has brought 
 into her own. Yet he had a suspicion that somewhere in 
 her allure there lurked a flavor of the vulgar ... a sug- 
 gestion of the possibility of her falling in love with such 
 a mountebank as Oswald Onsin. She passed Mr. Sack- 
 ville with no more notice than if he had been an itinerant 
 minstrel holding out his hat for undeserved alms. More 
 gracious was the mien of her companion, an elderly lady, 
 as Adam conceived, but well preserved and singularly at- 
 tractive, with her intellectual, kindly face and shapely, fine 
 drawn features, and exquisitely large blue eyes, full of a 
 cheerful sadness, as if she had suffered worse than most 
 women but sang no song about it. 
 
 "Well," Mr. Sackville said at length: "Now that you 
 have seen Miss Nightingale, you perhaps understand all 
 that she means to me." 
 
 "I'm afraid," Adam answered with conscious superi- 
 ority, "I was more interested in the old lady." 
 
 "What old lady?" Mr. Sackville sternly demanded: "If 
 you mean the elder of the two ladies we have just passed, 
 I need hardly say that she was Miss Nightingale." 
 
 Adam's mouth dropped open in callow astonishment: 
 "Go on!" said he.
 
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 DUBLIN DOES IT 
 
 AFTER the meeting with the two ladies in uniform, Adam 
 walked back beside his histrionic mentor, bewildered into 
 silence. His respect for Mr. Sackville, now that he knew 
 he preferred the elder to the younger beauty, had leaped 
 heavenwards: but his surprise at Mr. Sackville's good 
 taste was obliterated by his astoundment at Miss Nightin- 
 gale's madness. . . . How could such a woman be in love 
 with Mr. Oswald Onsin? . . . He would have liked to 
 ask his companion this, but he felt that the question had a 
 delicate implication which were better avoided. After 
 luncheon, having drunk very nearly a pint of cider, he said 
 cheerily to his friend: "I'm sure you could cut him out." 
 Mr. Sackville brightened in what Adam found a very 
 flattering manner, saying eagerly, though still in a minor 
 key : "I'm sure if you who know him so well think that !" 
 This again he treated as a sentence, and Adam was too 
 pleased by the suggestion that he knew the great, if some- 
 what underbred actor, very well, that he failed to notice 
 that it was merely a subjunctive clause. He repeated 
 his assertion with even greater confidence, and Mr. Sack- 
 ville said : "I wish," and treated that again as yet another 
 sentence. Then they both fell asleep, and nothing much 
 more happened that Sunday except that Adam wrote to 
 Mr. Macarthy, who was still at Jermyn Street, that his 
 first appearance had been declared not half bad, that Mr. 
 Sackville continued to be very kind to him and had pointed 
 out to him a very beautiful lady called Penelope or Jane 
 Nightingale, with whom he, Mr. Sackville, was in love,
 
 ii4! IN LONDON 
 
 but she, Miss P. or J. Nightingale, preferred Mr. Onsin, 
 of all people, and what did Mr. Macarthy think about it? 
 
 By the Tuesday morning Adam had a letter from Mr. 
 Macarthy thanking him for his, congratulating him upon 
 his success, cautioning him not to be betrayed by it into 
 vanity, and admonishing him that whatever publicity Mr. 
 Sackville as an artist might wish to give his passion for 
 Miss Nightingale, it would be wise to assume that Miss 
 Nightingale's for Mr. Onsin was a secret to be locked in 
 the bosom. "From your description of her," wrote Mr. 
 Macarthy, "I take it that the lady would be oldish for 
 you/' 
 
 But on that Tuesday Adam was not thinking of Miss 
 Nightingale, and the interests of Mr. Sackville's love af- 
 fairs had paled before a fierier concernment. On the 
 Easter Monday afternoon he had repeated his success of 
 the Saturday, and Mr. Sackville and he, hastening to their 
 lodgings to snatch a meal before they rang up again at 
 night, beheld a bill-sticker, or one suddenly thrust into the 
 office of bill-sticker, employed in a fashion not customary 
 on public holidays. He was feverishly plastering over the 
 announcements of the entertainment called : How Dublin 
 Does It. Mr. Sackville with professional concern asked 
 him his reason for this, expressing the hope that no one 
 had fallen ill. The man preserving a sulky silence, Mr. 
 Sackville said directly : "Why are they withdrawing How 
 Dublin Does It?" 
 
 And the man, splashing paste over Mr. Sackville, an- 
 swered after the manner' of one called upon unjustly to 
 work when he would be idle, said, "I am a Bulgarian if 
 Dublin hasn't gone and done it." And between the news- 
 papers and gossip, Adam played Ned Burke that night 
 knowing that his grandmother with her Infant Druids, 
 assisted by Mr. Porphyro Pink and a few hundred grown 
 men, were striving to war down that hydra-headed mon-
 
 DUBLIN DOES IT 115 
 
 ster, the British Empire, in the burning streets of his 
 native city. He played purely mechanically, barely aware 
 of the fact that he was a greater success than ever. 
 
 There followed days of crazy tragi-comedy. Here was 
 he employed in amusing Englishmen with his acting in an 
 all but base piece of silliness, while the brothers of these 
 Englishmen were burning and battering down the homes 
 of his friends and doing to death under the most despicable 
 of the arbitrary laws of the tyrant those friends themselves. 
 When he read of the judicial murder of James Connolly, 
 propped up all maimed and broken in Kilmainham prison 
 yard to face the firing party, he wrote from Portsmouth 
 to Mr. Macarthy, asking if he might throw up his part 
 and shake the dust of England from his shoes. But Mr. 
 Macarthy, detained in London, replied temperately that he 
 must do nothing of the kind. "Don't abuse Englishmen," 
 he wrote, "they are quite as good as we are. The enemy 
 is the sullen brutality of mankind. I prophesy a day will 
 come in your lifetime, if not in mine, when James Con- 
 nolly will be publicly honored by Englishmen, and Max- 
 well relegated to the dustheap of oblivion with all the other 
 military asses, neither better nor worse than he, who have 
 borne that name." 
 
 Adam at seventeen found it hard to leave to Time the 
 duty of avenging foolish heroes upon senseless bullies . . . 
 but although he thought nothing of defying the Empire 
 . he could not find courage to fly in the face of his guardian. 
 He knew that Mr. Macarthy's advice, if unpalatable, was 
 sound. 
 
 But when the news came through that Mr. O'Meagher 
 and his two sons had been slain, charging behind the 
 O'Rahilly up Moore Street, there was a fresh crisis, and 
 after the night's performance at Brighton Adam trained 
 to London to consult his guardian, still at Jermyn Street. 
 It appeared that Patrick and Columba had both been In-
 
 ii6 IN LONDON 
 
 fant Druids, and went into action with old sword-bay- 
 onets or some such form of lethal weapon, but their father, 
 a well-known pacifist, had been shot down in the act of 
 shaking an umbrella at the British army. Adam pictured 
 Josephine's father and brothers in red burial blent by 
 English machine-guns, and was for assaulting Whitehall 
 single-handed. It seemed to him that all iniquity resided 
 there. 
 
 But Mr. Macarthy still counseled submission to the logic 
 of fact. "The British Government is ruled by a clique 
 of bloody-minded men," he declared. "But their energies 
 are directed mainly to combating a foreign power yet 
 bloodier-minded and incomparably more efficient in crime 
 than themselves. When a policeman is locked in a deadly 
 struggle with a homicidal lunatic that is not the moment 
 for trying to trip him up on the plea that he is a drunken 
 scoundrel and beats his wife." He added: "I knew too 
 little of those plucky boys to judge whether their death 
 is to be regarded as a misfortune, but I am quite sure that 
 in their father's story there was nothing that became him 
 more; for his death showed the sincerity of his attachment 
 to a cause which his life tended to make ridiculous." 
 
 Adam turned away to press his forehead against a pane 
 of glass of the window facing the offices of the R.S.P.C.A. 
 "I can't bear to think of it," he said, "and what about 
 Mrs. O'Meagher . . .? What about Josephine?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy 's tone hardened. "If I were you I should 
 not worry about them," he said. "They will find consola- 
 tion in the thought that the poor lads had been to Mass 
 in the morning, or wore rosary beads in their hats, and so 
 have perpetual light now shining upon them." 
 
 Adam smiled grimly: "But Josephine loved her father 
 . . ." he began. Mr. Macarthy cut him short. 
 
 "Who told you so?" 
 
 On reflection Adam was not sure that any one had told
 
 DUBLIN DOES IT 117 
 
 him so. It had seemed to him that Josephine, as a child, 
 had appeared attached to her father, but, after all, less 
 so than he to her. . . . And a girl who enters a convent 
 against her father's wish can hardly be said to love him. 
 Yet he did not like to hear Mr. Macarthy say with un- 
 wonted severity: "Josephine appears to me to be as self- 
 ish as her mother." 
 
 He looked at his guardian in remonstrance. "I should 
 never have thought Josephine was selfish, and surely Mrs. 
 O'Meagher was a very good Catholic?" 
 
 "To be a very good Catholic," said Mr. Macarthy, "in 
 the vulgar sense of the words, is to be neither good nor 
 Catholic in the real sense. It happens that I have known 
 Mrs. O'Meagher for the greater part of my life, and you 
 may take it from me that she was a naturally good and 
 sweet woman, absolutely worm-eaten with superstition until 
 she had lost all sense of right and wrong." 
 
 "I should never have suspected her of that," said Adam. 
 
 "Unfortunately, she never suspects herself of it," said 
 Mr. Macarthy. "She is probably this moment offering up 
 her two sons as a sacrifice to that pet demon to whom she 
 has already sacrificed her daughter." 
 
 Adam was shocked at the vigor of Mr. Macarthy's de- 
 nunciation of Mrs. O'Meagher. "You wouldn't say," he 
 cried, "that she really wished her sons to be killed?" 
 
 It was Mr. Macarthy's turn to smile savagely. 
 "O'Meagher told me himself," said he, "that she prayed 
 for them to die like this from the moment she heard of 
 their joining the Infant Druids." 
 
 "But I thought," said Adam, "that she disapproved of 
 Sinn Fein altogether because the Bishop was against it?" 
 
 "Quite so," said Mr. Macarthy, "but what troubled her 
 was their friendship with the Marchesa. She thought they 
 would be better dead than friends with her." 
 
 Even from a point so near to Josephine, his heart's de-
 
 ii8 IN LONDON 
 
 sire so hopelessly lost in the depths of the Church, Adam's 
 mind easily wandered. "And the Marchesa?" he queried. 
 "She seems to have led the righting in the Mountjoy Ward, 
 but I can't make out what became of her." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy's smile became very mysterious. "Re- 
 member that she was the daughter of the Earl of Derry- 
 down, and in Ireland the peerage is above the law." 
 
 In protest Adam breathed the name of Lord Edward 
 Fitzgerald, a fragment of whose coffin had been a cherished 
 relic in the O'Meaghers* house at Sandycove. But Mr. 
 Macarthy waived away the pretensions of Lord Edward 
 to be considered as before the law. "Accidentally shot by 
 an Englishman," he explained. "No Irish policeman 
 would have ventured to touch him even by mistake. Some 
 people think poor Casement's knighthood might save him 
 if he were tried in Dublin, so they've sent him to London 
 to be done to death by his peers." 
 
 "You don't mean they'll hang him too?" Adam cried, 
 conjuring up a tall and dreamy figure he had seen loung- 
 ing in the Abbey stalls, one he could not associate with 
 violence in any form. 
 
 "Hang him !" Mr. Macarthy echoed. "They'd draw and 
 quarter him if they were not afraid of reviving a danger- 
 ous precedent. Even the Attorney-General knows there 
 is such a thing as dying too hard." 
 
 Adam shuddered at the thought of the blood on the hands 
 that England had given him so hospitably. He said at 
 length: "Anyhow, they've let the Marchesa go?" 
 
 "I don't know that they have," Mr. Macarthy assured 
 him: "It's only a guess. She may possibly have been 
 destroyed in the blowing up of some building. You know 
 as well as I that there never was a man yet with greater 
 contempt for death than she. But of course an old lady 
 like that would be fairly easily overpowered when it came 
 to the last cartridge and then the wheels within wheels
 
 DUBLIN DOES IT 119 
 
 would begin to work at once. . . ." He glanced at the 
 clock. "If you're to act to-night, and of course you must, 
 you'll want to catch the 4.25 from Victoria. I'll drive you 
 down there now, and on the way we'll look in on some one 
 
 I who may be able to say what has become of the Mar- 
 chesa." 
 From Jermyn Street a taxi carried them, Adam agog 
 with curiosity, down Regent Street, past the theater and 
 under the Admiralty arch, and past the Horse Guards 
 Parade, and through Story's Gate into a labyrinth of wind- 
 ing streets that he did not know. They stopped at a door 
 on which Adam read only the number, which was 38, and 
 that being twice nineteen impressed itself upon him. On 
 Mr. Macarthy's summons it opened cautiously and reluc- 
 tantly until his figure was seen by the janitor, who then at 
 once admitted him. Mr. Macarthy said as a matter of 
 course: "Mr. O'Hagan-Bathe is in?" 
 
 "I'm not sure, Mr. Macarthy," the janitor said, "but 
 I'll just inquire." He disappeared for an instant and re- 
 turned to say: "Captain O'Hagan-Bathe asks if you'll 
 kindly walk in." 
 
 They were ushered into a large, old-fashioned book- 
 lined room with great windows looking out northwards 
 on St. James's Park. In this Mr. or Captain O'Hagan- 
 Bathe rose courteously to welcome them. He was a big- 
 gish man with a smallish head and an infinitesimal mus- 
 tache of the type worn by bucks in the days of Nell 
 Gwynne's residence at the other side of the Park. He 
 wore an eyegless and khaki, which somehow did not appear 
 to Adam to be what one might call genuine or fighting 
 khaki. His Sam Browne belt shone with the same bril- 
 liant luster as his brown boots and his eyeglass, but al- 
 though these things were obviously spot new and fit to go 
 anywhere, he himself was not intended by God for the 
 firing line. It was not that he would have feared to face
 
 uo IN LONDON 
 
 the onslaught of the Huns, provided the call came at a 
 convenient hour of the day. For the rest, his age, which 
 was older than his manner, gave him a better excuse for 
 remaining at home than did that of the average gentleman 
 employed in Government Offices. 
 
 To Mr. Macarthy he was civility itself. "I was think- 
 ing of you this very moment," said he. "I've just got 
 some thundering good whisky." He put out his hand as 
 though to grope in an aperture marked "Strictly Confi- 
 dential," when Mr. Macarthy smilingly shook his head, 
 protesting that he never drank it. 
 
 "Sure I forgot," said Mr. or Captain O'Hagan-Bathe. 
 "Perhaps our young friend here . . . ?" 
 
 "Too young," said Mr. Macarthy, who had warned 
 Adam to keep his theatrical success to himself and to 
 appear as juvenile as possible. 
 
 "Well, well," said their host, "that makes the more for 
 me," and he helped himself, quite moderately for an offi- 
 cial who appeared to be head of his department. "And 
 now, you spalpeen, what is it you want out of me? Not 
 to get off any more of your damned lunatic friends from 
 getting what they asked for, I hope?" 
 
 "Oh, no," said Mr. Macarthy easily, "I know all that 
 has passed away from the power of decent men like your- 
 self to those drum-headed imbeciles round the corner." 
 
 Their host nodded sympathetically. "B fools," he 
 
 agreed, "but sure they'd great provocation. There can be 
 no doubt that Connolly's men shot down unarmed sol- 
 diers." 
 
 "And you find that a good reason," said Mr. Macarthy, 
 "for soldiers shooting down an unarmed Connolly?" 
 
 Mr. O'Hagan-Bathe pursed his lips deprecatingly. "I 
 don't say I'd like to do it myself," said he. "But sure, 
 soldiers are the same all the world over. You can't ex- 
 pect them to see farther than the ends of their noses, and
 
 DUBLIN DOES IT 121 
 
 you know Connolly really was quite outside the pale." He 
 indicated some papers. "I have convincing proof here that 
 the man was what I'm told they call a Syndicalist." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy shot a glance at Adam and asked with 
 an air of innocence: "Now what exactly is that?" 
 
 Mr. O'Hagan-Bathe snorted. "How the blazes should 
 I know? But I can tell you it's something they don't 
 mean to have in Ireland if Ned Carson can prevent it, and 
 I'm told he can count even on that fellow Redmond to 
 help him out in that." 
 
 "It would interest me to know what the Irish Office 
 thinks of Syndicalism," Mr. Macarthy said. 
 
 "The Irish Office has something better to think about," 
 their host growled, with perhaps affected ill-humor. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy smiled at Mr. O'Hagan-Bathe and said 
 genially: "Look here, old man, let's talk about something 
 you are interested in. ... What has become of the Mar- 
 chesa?" 
 
 "You mean young Derrydown's aunt? That frantic old 
 idiot?" Mr. O'Hagan-Bathe said. "Damned if I know. 
 I'd have shot her out of hand because she was rude to my 
 mother thirty years ago at a Castle Ball just when she 
 was beginning to go dotty after the death of that fellow 
 Byron-Quinn. ... By the way, we've just had a very odd 
 piece of news in cipher." He glanced at Adam, his lips 
 silently querying: "Can the boy be trusted?" and on Mr. 
 Macarthy nodding, he rang the bell. "Have you a copy 
 of that B.T. message, the last one ?" he asked the attendant 
 clerk, and when they were alone again, holding the paper 
 in his hand, he went on in a low voice: "I needn't ask 
 you if you know Pleasant Street, Dublin, or if you know 
 what sort of a street it was. I suppose there was never 
 a Trinity boy yet couldn't answer that question." Adam 
 instinctively rose and gazed out of the window across St. 
 James's Park, and standing there, there fell upon his ears
 
 122 IN LONDON 
 
 these words, uttered in tones which O'Hagan-Bathe vaguely 
 intended should not reach him : "No. 7 was blown up and 
 burned to the ground in the small hours of this morning, 
 and the firemen have recovered the body of a man and 
 a woman. She is supposed to have been the keeper of the 
 house, she lived with a fellow called O'Toole, one of our 
 . . ." the next words were inaudible, but presently he heard 
 Mr. O'Hagan-Bathe say in a voice made loud with laugh- 
 ter: "And the amazing thing is, our fellow Newton in- 
 sists that this blackguard O'Toole was the son of the old 
 Marchesa by that hare-brained fellow, Byron-Quinn !" 
 
 And in this fashion Adam, staring stonily across St. 
 James's Park towards the sedate authority of Pall Mall 
 and the luxurious stateliness of Carlton House Terrace, 
 and that queer old toy-brick palace of St. James's, learned 
 with a mixture of shame and joy that he was an orphan. 
 
 Then he heard Mr. Macarthy say: "Well, if you really 
 won't tell me what's become of the Marchesa, I suppose 
 you won't, and we'd better be off!" He added as he left 
 the room: "It's my conviction, you know, that you've 
 got her hidden away in your chambers in Bury Street." 
 
 Mr. O'Hagan-Bathe shook his head gravely. "Indeed 
 I have not," said he, "I really wouldn't risk it, not even for 
 the sake of young Derrydown, though he's a charming 
 fellow, and we often play billiards at the Carlton." Tears 
 filled his eyes, giving him a momentary resemblance to Mr. 
 Sackville as he added huskily: "Apart from that no gen- 
 tleman can forgive an insult to his mother." 
 
 "It could not have been a serious insult," Mr. Macarthy 
 said. 
 
 Mr. O'Hagan-Bathe blazed with indignation. "Serious," 
 he snapped, "scurrilous to the last degree. She said she 
 was a Plymouth Brother. My dear mother, who was niece 
 of the Lord Bishop of Brownstown ! Thank God we've 
 been Church of Ireland on both sides ever since penal
 
 DUBLIN DOES IT 123 
 
 times. And the thing was all the more impertinent com- 
 ing from a woman whose own mother kept a black Scrip- 
 ture Reader." 
 
 Asked Macarthy, smiling: "What did she keep him 
 for?" 
 
 "You're not the first to ask that," said Mr. O'Hagan- 
 Bathe, "but I never heard any answer." He was grave 
 again: "But if Daphne Page thinks I've forgotten her 
 impudence to my mother, she'll find herself mistaken." 
 
 And then they were back in their taxi with no word 
 spoken till they reached Victoria and Mr. Macarthy put 
 his young friend in the train. "All the world's a stage," 
 said he, "and all the men and women merely players. 
 Hackneyed but true. Play your part as well as you can, 
 Adam, that's the best we can do with life." A handshake 
 and Adam was alone, returning to Brighton to play his 
 part as well as he could.
 
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
 MR. SACKVILLE BEHAVES AS A GENTLEMAN 
 
 ADAM, speeding back to Brighton after his interview with 
 his guardian, slept in the train, huddled up between a 
 soldier and a sailor. It was his first slumber since the 
 news of Mr. O'Meagher's death and Patrick and Colum- 
 ba's had filled his horrified eyes. Compared with the 
 pathos of that tragedy the annihilation of his own father 
 and mother seemed but a grizzly jest. . . . He tried to 
 be sorry for his mother, but failed. As for Mr. O'Toole, 
 their relationship had always seemed as incredible as that 
 between himself and his putative father, the late Malachy 
 Macfadden, the tailor. All his filial emotion, and he was 
 not wanting in it, went out to Mr. Macarthy, Herr Behre, 
 and in a lesser degree, to Mr. O'Meagher: with the last- 
 named dead and Herr Behre in America, it seemed that 
 all must go to Mr. Macarthy. That night, for once, ow- 
 ing to his weariness, he played badly, and after the per- 
 formance Mr. Sackville remonstrated with him for slack- 
 ing. 
 
 Adam, worn out, confided to him much of what had 
 passed. Alternate languor and excitement made him even 
 so incautious that he let slip his grandmother's relationship 
 to the Earl of Derrydown. 
 
 Mr. Sackville was more impressed by this detail than 
 by all the rest of the story put together. "Now that really 
 is," said he, "a very remarkable coincidence, for the pres- 
 ent Countess of Derrydown was the lady you saw walking 
 with Miss Nightingale at Eastbourne, and she, I suppose, 
 must be your grandmother's grand-daughter-in-law." 
 
 124
 
 MR. SACKVILLE AS A GENTLEMAN 125 
 
 Adam suggested niece, and Mr. Sackville accepted this 
 emendation. "The world," said Mr. Sackville, "is very 
 small." 
 
 The profundity of this observation was lost on Adam, 
 sunk in a yet more profound sleep, in which his friend 
 undressed and put him all unconscious to bed. There he 
 dreamed of his first awakening to life in the corner of 
 Malachy Macfadden's squalid lodging beneath the shadow- 
 ing walls of the Dublin Pro-cathedral ... to hear the 
 chafing of his mother's tongue and the clang of intermit- 
 tent tram bells ... he could see Mr. O'Toole, humor- 
 ously vile, entering the door or maybe creeping with soft 
 feet down the staircase. . . . What a father! . . . What 
 a mother ! . . . How did they come to bring him to whom 
 all that meant life and joy for them was hateful and 
 despicable into this breathing world. . . . Almost more 
 mysterious still, how did that romantic warrior, Sir David 
 Byron-Quinn, and his then sentimentally passionate be- 
 loved, Lady Daphne Page, beget such a monster of deprav- 
 ity as Byron O'Toole? ... a dishonest menial, a Giovanni 
 of the gutters, a whoremonger, and now it would appear, 
 that meanest of all things, a spy. And now he and the 
 mere animal of a woman on whom he had gotten Adam 
 were gone with one another to the Plutonian shore, to 
 await there in the company of Sir David the explanation 
 of the causes that made them what they were. He asked 
 himself if father and son had met in tears or fury or, as 
 Mr. Macarthy seemed to think possible, in laughter at the 
 vainness of their vanity in thinking to be other than they 
 were. 
 
 It was almost too much for Adam, the smashing knowl- 
 edge of this torrent of death among those with whom all 
 his thoughts of childhood were connected. He recalled 
 the first blow that death had dealt his friends : how, when 
 almost at death's door himself, as a little child he had
 
 126 IN LONDON 
 
 heard of the dying of his godmother, to call her no 
 more, Miss or Mrs. Robinson. And then he who had 
 brought him that news and taught him that his prayers 
 might waft that unfortunate saint, as Father Innocent 
 had called her, to heaven, he, Father Innocent, had died 
 more or less by suicide. Before that had perished in 
 drunken wrath the terrible and obsene Macfadden, that 
 bugbear of his youth, who claimed him for a son when 
 convenience bade him. Then death had held his hand 
 awhile until suddenly, and as it were, forcing Adam him- 
 self to be his joint conspirator, he had reft from life Car- 
 oline Brady; and now, and now he had swept his scythe 
 still closer round Adam, yet Adam himself, he had re- 
 jected. Was it his fate to see perish all he loved while 
 he lived on and on into old age? One of his guardians 
 was already gone, was he to lose them all? ... Was he 
 to lose ... he could not allow himself to think of it. 
 
 These were drear thoughts that haunted him when he 
 could not sleep; but the life of the theater does not lend 
 itself when one is young to dreariness, and a successful 
 actor still in his teens, touring the provinces in the com- 
 pany of an older one who knows the ropes, has one of the 
 jolliest lives in the world. The success of the What Rot! 
 revival at the London theater had given the piece a fresh 
 lease of life also in the country, and the bookings of a 
 second-class nature were easily bartered for first, and what 
 with the big camps all over the country and the great 
 towns full of munition workers rolling in ill-gotten gains, 
 there was no necessity for the company to take a holiday 
 that summer. Catastrophes such as the Battle of Jutland, 
 slaying five thousand Englishmen in the full glory of life 
 in five minutes, and all for nothing, made their compa- 
 triots all the more eager to spend their money enjoying 
 What Rot! It seemed to Mr. Sackville that the English 
 had muddled through to victory in that transaction; it
 
 MR. SACKVILLE AS A GENTLEMAN 127 
 
 seemed to Adam that they had valiantly, more valiantly 
 than himself, gone to the bottom of the sea. 
 
 The low comedian made dirty jokes about the loss of 
 the Queen Mary: most of the company said cheerfully 
 that whoever lost or whoever won, it looked as if the war 
 would go on for some time, and the plunge to doom of the 
 Hampshire with Lord Kitchener on board confirmed the 
 optimists. Miss Dartmouth wore heavy mourning for a 
 week or ten days for some one she had lost, rumor said 
 he had in life worn red tabs. Adam thought she looked 
 adorable in mourning, but he had learned to be content 
 to look upon Miss Dartmouth without engaging her in 
 conversation, which was not her strong point. He was 
 very content to act with her and she with him: with the 
 exception of Mr. Sackville, she was the only member of 
 the company in whom he felt any interest, and that was 
 not much. He was living now for his art, trying hard to 
 get more and more legitimate effect in his taking little part, 
 and at the same time definitely studying the literature of 
 his profession, both ancient and modern. 
 
 October found them playing in the London suburbs, 
 where they had not only good local audiences, but even 
 something of the overflow from the Grand, where the re- 
 vival was having an unprecedented boom. No doubt to 
 ease the public mind and convince them that the war was 
 well in hand, leading members of the Cabinet were in con- 
 stant attendance, and in his permanently retained box Lord 
 Bulwark rested on the laurels he had won at the cost of 
 eighty thousand lives in the Great Push. 
 
 For the moment Adam and Mr. Sackville had parted 
 company, for while in the neighborhood of London, the 
 latter resided with his mother in West Kensington, and 
 Adam went back to Miss Durward's welcoming arms at 
 Norfolk Square. He had just realized that he really was 
 very much more comfortable there than in the most com-
 
 128 IN LONDON 
 
 fortable rooms he had occupied on tour, and rather dreaded 
 setting out again to face the privations of the north in 
 winter, when a telephone message summoned him one 
 morning to the Grand, where he found that Mr. Onsin 
 required him to play Ned Burke in London while Miss 
 Blake was away upon a holiday. Even without the in- 
 ducement of an extra three guineas a week, Adam jumped 
 at this proposal, though he felt a little shamefaced when 
 he told Mr. Sackville about it that night. He feared the 
 elder actor would resent or at least be hurt by his parting 
 with him so cavalierly. But Mr. Sackville's attitude was 
 quite otherwise. 
 
 "I cannot tell you," said he, "apart from the considera- 
 tion of your advancement, how glad I am to know that 
 Ned Burke will once more be played by an artist and not 
 by a . . ." and on this occasion again Mr. Sackville thought 
 it unnecessary verbally to complete his sentence. "I am 
 only sorry for myself," said he, "that I am never likely 
 again to have so agreeable a young gentleman to share 
 my rooms on tour. Although," he added brightly, "one 
 never knows, the long arm of coincidence . . ." this piece 
 of anatomy clearly required no verb. 
 
 Adam, to turn their conversation on a subject that he 
 knew to be of inexhaustible interest to him, inquired 
 whether he had heard from Miss Nightingale lately, and 
 Mr. Sackville surprised him with the answer that he not 
 only heard from her but had seen her. Whereupon Adam 
 archly suggested that she would like to see Mr. Sackville 
 employed in the pursuit of the Well-Beloved. 
 
 Mr. Sackville sighed: "I am sorry to say that when 
 she saw it she found it a very vulgar play and reproached 
 me with taking part in it." 
 
 "Rather a difficult lady," Adam suggested, "if she blames 
 you and yet goes on being in love with . . ." 
 
 Mr. Sackville stopped him with a protesting hand. "She
 
 MR. SACKVILLE AS A GENTLEMAN 129 
 
 is a faithful soul," said he, "that is why I call her Penel- 
 ope, though I am not her Telemachus." 
 
 "I shouldn't have thought," said Adam, "that she was 
 old enough to be your mother." 
 
 Mr. Sackville threw a baffled look at his young friend, 
 and suspecting a trembling at the corners of Adam's 
 mouth, reddened, but with an effort he said frankly: "I 
 thought Telemachus was the Latin .name for Ulysses." 
 
 Adam, disarmed by his invincibly gentlemanly simplic- 
 ity, said almost apologetically: "I couldn't be sure, but 
 I think not. My Greek's so awfully bad that I dare not 
 say anything about Homer, but anyhow, Fenelon makes 
 Telemachus the son of Ulysses." 
 
 "Oh !" said poor Mr. Sackville, "fancy my not knowing 
 that. . . . But I thought all names ending in 'us' must be 
 Latin." 
 
 "Telemachus is Latin right enough," said Adam. 
 
 "Then why did the fellow you mentioned call him Tele- 
 machus?" Mr. Sackville argued. 
 
 "He didn't," said Adam, "he called him Telemaque." 
 
 "T-e-1-e-m-a-c-k ?" Mr. Sackville suggested. 
 
 "No," said Adam regretfully, "T-e-1-e-m-a-q-u-e." He 
 wished he could remember whether there was an accent. 
 
 Mr. Sackville turned to him as one seeing a hope of re- 
 gaining his position. "Surely," said he, "in Greek that 
 would be pronounced: 'Telemackway' ?" 
 
 "It's French," said Adam. 
 
 "Oh!" Mr. Sackville positively cried, "how could 
 Ulysses, who was a Greek, wasn't he, have a son with a 
 French name?" 
 
 "In Greek," said Adam thoughtfully, "I'm not sure that 
 the name of Ulysses was . . ." 
 
 "Don't!" groaned Mr. Sackville, "I can't bear it," and 
 so far forget himself as to make an impracticable sugges- 
 tion about his late Majesty of Ithaca. "But anyhow,"
 
 130 IN LONDON 
 
 he added gravely, "that has nothing to do with Miss Night- 
 ingale." 
 
 Adam, biting his hare's foot, rouge and all, agreed. He 
 ventured to add that he preferred the name of Jane to 
 that of Penelope. 
 
 "I cannot admit that," said Mr. Sackville, "although, as 
 you know, I am no scholar, I feel instinctively that Greek 
 names are more beautiful than English." He added 
 hastily: "Penelope was not French, was she?" 
 
 "No," said Adam, "I think not, but isn't Jane really a 
 French name?" 
 
 "Is it?" Mr. Sackville asked with almost painful humil- 
 ity, but recovered himself to say proudly: "Well, any- 
 how, Miss Jane Nightingale is British through and through. 
 Her father was born in Hanover when it was a British 
 possession. . . ." 
 
 "Was it ever a British possession?" Adam asked. 
 
 This time it was Mr. Sackville's turn to smile politely. 
 "Didn't you know," he said, "that up to the time of dear 
 Queen Victoria, the king of England was also king of 
 Hanover?" 
 
 "Are you sure," said Adam, "you don't mean that Eng- 
 land was a Hanoverian possession?" 
 
 Again poor Mr. Sackville's face fell. "Was it?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "No," said Adam, and Mr. Sackville again brightened. 
 
 "Of one thing I am quite sure," said he, "that in her 
 innermost heart Jane Nightingale is as English as you or 
 I," whereupon Adam quite incontinently flung his hare's 
 foot in Mr. Sackville's face, and as incontinently Mr. Sack- 
 ville's fist knocked him over with a blow on the nose. 
 
 This was scarcely delivered ere he heard his voice cry- 
 ing in entreaty: "Forgive me, Quinn, I apologize. When 
 I talk of Miss Nightingale I forget myself, but I see 
 clearly that I have y een very tactless."
 
 CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 LADY DERRYDOWN AT HOME 
 
 THROUGH tears of physical anguish, induced by the shock 
 to his proboscis, Adam gaped at Mr. Sackville, whose fine 
 eyes were no less liquid with remorse. "All right, old 
 bean," he stuttered, "my fault as much as yours." In his 
 heart he felt this absurd quarrel to be symbolic of the 
 contest between the sister islands ; but, hopeless of explain- 
 ing himself to Mr. Sackville, he just took his proffered 
 hand and shook it. 
 
 "If you have forgiven me," said Mr. Sackville, "for be- 
 having in such an un-English fashion there are moments 
 when the coarser fiber of the Macfaddens . . ." he 
 checked himself confusedly, "there I am again, putting 
 my foot in it!" 
 
 Adam's sense of humor conquered the pain in his nose. 
 "The Macfadden's fiber, so far as I knew it, was coarse," 
 he said. 
 
 Mr. Sackville bowed. "You are magnanimous," he de- 
 clared, "and knowing that you are magnanimous I am 
 going to ask you to grant me this favor Never mention 
 to Miss Nightingale that I knocked you down. If she 
 suspected me of such brutality she would never speak to 
 me again." 
 
 "It was only rough and tumble," said Adam stoutly, 
 "but of course I shouldn't mention it to any one, unless 
 as a bit of fun." 
 
 Mr. Sackville shook his head. "You don't know Miss 
 Nightingale" 
 
 131
 
 i 3 2 IN LONDON 
 
 "And I don't suppose I ever will," Adam answered, not 
 without guile. 
 
 "Shall," Mr. Sackville admonished him, "is more cor- 
 rect English. 'I don't suppose I ever shall.' " 
 
 Adam was on the point of replying that Shakespeare 
 did not think so, but refrained, repeating dutifully: "I 
 don't suppose I ever shall meet Miss Nightingale," and 
 Mr. Sackville was beaming upon him when his dresser 
 entered with a letter. 
 
 "Came by the last post, Mr. Sackville, and marked 
 'Urgent/ " he said officiously, "so they sent it up." 
 
 That dresser had the air of a prescriptive right to know 
 the contents of Mr. Sackville's letter, and Adam himself 
 was ashamed to feel curiosity about it. But Mr. Sack- 
 ville, having thanked his dresser, sat gazing long and lov- 
 ingly at the superscription, murmuring: "The arm . . ." 
 and no more. Adam left him at it while he descended to the 
 stage to play his scene, and it was not until the last inter- 
 val that he saw Mr. Sackville yield to the urgency desired 
 by the writer of this letter. Then he said in a strangled 
 voice: "My God! the arm grows longer every day." 
 
 "God's arm?" Adam queried, without great interest. 
 
 Mr. Sackville gravely shook his head. "Worse than 
 that the arm of coincidence." He waved his letter slowly 
 to and fro with a melancholy gesture. "Miss Nightin- 
 gale . . ." After some minutes he added: "You will, 
 of course." 
 
 Adam knew Mr. Sackville's syntax sufficiently well by 
 this time to supply the missing words for himself. He 
 understood that this adorable woman desired for some 
 unknown reason that he, Adam, should be brought to her. 
 He was less flattered than Mr. Sackville deemed he ought 
 to be, but more flattered than he felt inclined to admit. 
 "Awfully good of her," he said offhand, "but you'll be 
 much too busy."
 
 LADY DERRYDOWN AT HOME 133 
 
 Mr. Sackville sighed. "I am never too busy to do what 
 Pen . . . What Miss Jane Nightingale desires," he de- 
 clared. 
 
 "Well," said Adam nonchalantly, "of course if you're 
 free I shall be charmed to be taken to see any friend of 
 yours. Is Miss Nightingale in London, or where?" 
 
 "In London," Mr. Sackville said, trying not to stress 
 the information, "staying with Lady Derrydown at her 
 town house in Eaton Place." 
 
 "Pimlico Way?" said Adam, proud of his rapidly gained 
 knowledge of the Metropolis. 
 
 "Belgravia," said Mr. Sackville, and added: "Have you 
 a tall hat?" He seemed almost to hope that if Adam had 
 no hat of any altitude, the Fates might yet be thwarted. 
 
 But Adam pointing to the one he wore as Ned Burke, 
 Mr. Sackville's face fell. "I had . . ." said he, and said 
 no more for the time. But at parting he made the ap- 
 pointment. "Sunday, three o'clock, at Sloane Square Sta- 
 tion. Don't forget your hat. Not that Miss Nightingale 
 would care, but Lady Derrydown is very particular. She 
 was a Gaiety girl before the war, and you know how 
 snobbish they can be." 
 
 This was the first Adam had heard of the snobbishness 
 of the ladies of that theater, but he nodded intelligently 
 as if it had been a household word in the late Mr. Macf ad- 
 den's apartments. A knowledgable air still disguised his 
 normally ingenuous countenance as he commented: "Odd 
 that Miss Nightingale should be so fond of her." 
 
 Mr. Sackville frowned: "You are quite . . ." he said 
 almost eagerly but without indicating whether he meant 
 wrong or right; whichever it was, Adam felt that he re- 
 sented the suggestion. He said good-night at the stage- 
 door, turned rapidly away, and as rapidly retraced his 
 footsteps, to add in a rather severe tone: "Miss Night- 
 ingale, as you will find out for yourself, is a very extraor-
 
 IN LONDON 
 
 dinary woman, but please understand that there is nothing 
 whatever unusual about her." 
 
 "That's what you might call an English bull," said 
 Adam. 
 
 "Flippancy about Miss Nightingale I cannot tolerate," 
 said Mr. Sackville. 
 
 Adam sobered at once. "I wasn't flippant about her," 
 said he, "I never dreamt of such a thing, but you don't 
 mind my being flippant about you, do you?" 
 
 And Mr. Sackville, good-humoredly shaking his head, 
 answered: "Not at all," and admonishing him not to 
 forget their appointment, bade him once more good-night. 
 
 That day closed with an Adam whose interest in life 
 was doubly awakened. For was he not now to be a Lon- 
 don actor and a gentleman received in the houses of the 
 nobility? . . . But did England's nobility condescend to 
 lodge in Eaton Place? . . . Some one had told him that 
 Carson lived there. Surely no English nobleman . . . 
 surely Miss Nightingale, who looked the very soul of 
 nobility! . . . But then Carson had lived in a very hand- 
 some house in Merrion Square, only a door or two from 
 Plunkett House. . . . Fancy A.E. and Carson side by 
 side! . . . Besides, the Derrydown peerage was Irish, and 
 Irish peerages are not as good as other Irish things like 
 butter and bacon. . . . Anyhow, it was very delicious to 
 be lulled to sleep by the thought that whatever his father 
 and mother might have been, Mr. Sackville saw he was a 
 perfect gentleman and no end of an artist, and Lady Der- 
 rydown had asked him to come to tea. Once in the night 
 he was startled from sleep by the fancy that as he entered 
 Lady Derrydown's drawing-room her ladyship's eye called 
 his attention to the fact that his tall hat was that of a 
 schoolboy and not a man of the world. 
 
 When he met Mr. Sackville at Sloane Square Station he
 
 LADY DERRYDOWN AT HOME 135 
 
 had the right sort of hat, and he flattered himself, was 
 well-nigh faultlessly attired, though not without misgiving 
 that Mr. Macarthy might disagree with him. Anyhow, 
 not Mr. Sackville nor yet his hostess found any fault with 
 him. Miss Nightingale and the Countess were in what 
 they called mufti, but a uniformed figure lounged in an 
 armchair by the fire: the gray head and bowed back sug- 
 gested to Adam a broken-down staff -officer. He was 
 startled to hear Lady Derrydown say: "You know my 
 aunt, don't you?" 
 
 More startled was he still when the staff officer cried in 
 a piercing voice : "My God, how like David !" and to find 
 himself violently forced into a prostrate attitude in the 
 lap of the Marchesa della Venasalvatica. 
 
 As he lay thus in his grandmother's lap, he could hear 
 Mr. Sackville's cultured voice murmuring: "Ah, Miss 
 Nightingale, this is indeed what dear old Haddon Cham- 
 bers called in his exquisite play, Captain Swift Tree did 
 it at the Haymarket, you know, long before your time, But 
 I had the privilege of walking on in it the long arm of 
 coincidence." To Lady Derrydown he said : "But a coiiv- 
 cidence is always remarkable whether its arms are long or 
 short, don't you think?" and picking up the Marchesa's 
 spectacles, which had fallen on the floor, he regarded them 
 with tears in his eyes, protesting: "I'm sure I don't know 
 why, but this reminds me of East Lynne" 
 
 The Marchesa released Adam to say: "Don't bt a 
 damn fool! East Lynne is disgusting rubbish. I remem- 
 ber telling Mrs. Wood when I was a young girl, and she 
 was already as old as Methuselah, that she ought to be 
 ashamed to have written it." 
 
 "Perhaps you never saw it as a play," Mr. Sackville 
 gently suggested. "I have only the privilege of knowing 
 it as a play."
 
 136 IN LONDON 
 
 "I don't know it as anything beyond hearsay," the Mar- 
 chesa snapped. "If you think I'd read an English novel 
 or see an English play . . ." words failed her. 
 
 "I am not enough of a scholar," said Mr. Sackville 
 deferentially, "to form an opinion about English novels, 
 though there is always Dickens, isn't there, and they tell 
 me Hall Caine is clever, but surely, in drama England is 
 pre-eminent? Think of Goldsmith and Sheridan." 
 
 "Who is this man?" the Marchesa asked Adam, who 
 piped up readily the information that he was Mr. Arthur 
 Sackville, and one of his best and kindest friends. 
 
 The Marchesa's tone changed. "Sackville," said she, 
 "is an unfortunate name." 
 
 "It is not really mine," the actor broke in hastily. "I 
 have the privilege to be a Smith." 
 
 "That's better," said the Marchesa generously, "any- 
 thing to Smith O'Brien?" 
 
 The actor hesitated. "I don't think so," he said re- 
 luctantly, "but of course one never knows." 
 
 "One doesn't," said the Marchesa. She sighed. "I 
 know that from experience. What you said just now is 
 quite true, Mr. Smith. I mean about the legs of coinci- 
 dence." 
 
 Mr. Sackville said deferentially: "The phrase that dear 
 old Haddon Chambers used, was the long arm of coin- 
 cidence, meaning, I suppose, that it embraces widely sep- 
 arated things, but of course there's no reason why he 
 should not have said leg." 
 
 The Marchesa tossed her head. "Do you suppose your 
 Censor would have let him?" 
 
 "I don't follow you," Mr. Sackville said earnestly. "In 
 America, I am told, well-bred people speak of the limbs 
 of a table, but in England we are more robust." 
 
 "I don't care whether you're robust or not," the Mar-
 
 LADY DERRYDOWN AT HOME 137 
 
 chesa said, "if you've been kind to little Adam here, that's 
 enough for me, though I'm ashamed of him for deserting 
 his country in the hour of need." 
 
 "Surely Mr. Quinn," said the actor, "is too young for 
 the firing line?" 
 
 "Mr. Quinn?" the Marchesa echoed. "What Mr. 
 Quinn?" 
 
 Adam apologetically explained that this was the name 
 he was known by on the stage. 
 
 The Marchesa looked at him sternly, or rather with a 
 sort of wild fierceness. "If you had been a real Quinn," 
 she said, "you would have been with me on Easter Mon- 
 day." 
 
 Mr. Sackville came to Adam's rescue. "Madam," he 
 said, "you may not understand that we had two perform- 
 ances on Easter Monday, and it would have been impos- 
 sible for Mr. Quinn to get away." 
 
 "Sir," said the Marchesa, "I have been an actress myself, 
 and am thoroughly acquainted with the customs of the 
 profession, but if you think that a man is justified in play- 
 ing a silly part in an idiotic play when he ought to be 
 fighting for his country . . ." 
 
 Mr. Sackville flung out protesting hands: "I am over 
 age," he cried, "and my heart is weak. ... I was in 
 munitions until it gave me neuralgia." 
 
 "What is that to me?" said the Marchesa. "So far as 
 I know you have no country worth fighting for, but this 
 child here is an Irishman, and as an Irishman it was his 
 duty to be fighting beside me on Easter Monday." 
 
 "You don't mean to say," cried Mr. Sackville. 
 
 "I do," cried the Marchesa. "I am a rebel with a price 
 upon my head." 
 
 "But surely," said Mr. Sackville. "You have never 
 actually . . ."
 
 i 3 8 IN LONDON 
 
 "I have," cried the Marchesa. Her voice shot up : "On 
 Easter Monday, I pledge you my word, that I emptied 
 revolver after revolver into the British phalanx advancing 
 to arrest me, and although I am short-sighted, it seems 
 impossible that all should have escaped."
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 HOW THE MARCHESA ESCAPED 
 
 MR. SACKVILLE gazed at the Marchesa petrified. At last 
 he said, as one with difficulty collecting his thoughts: 
 "This phalanx . . . you thought you saw . . . advancing 
 to arrest you . . ." 
 
 "I didn't think I saw it," said the Marchesa. 
 
 Mr. Sackville looked relieved. "Pardon me. I thought 
 you thought you saw it," he said. 
 
 "Don't be an idiot," snapped the Marchesa, "I saw it 
 right enough, there was no time for thinking about it." 
 
 "I apologize," Mr. Sackville assured her, "but if this 
 phalanx was, as you thought, going to arrest you, it must 
 have been composed of police." 
 
 "That's all you know about it," said the Marchesa. 
 
 "But if it was going to arrest you, as I'm sure you 
 thought it was," Mr. Sackville respectfully argued, "and 
 you didn't kill or wound it, why didn't it arrest you?" 
 
 "That's just it," said the Marchesa, "that's what I think 
 is unfair." 
 
 "Unfair?" Mr. Sackville echoed. "Not to arrest you 
 was unfair?" 
 
 "Most unfair," said the Marchesa, "both to me and the 
 dear boys who would have given their lives to defend me." 
 
 Mr. Sackville flung a despairing glance around the room. 
 "Upon my word, I ..." he said, and left it at that. 
 
 Adam came to the rescue. "Why didn't they arrest 
 you?" he asked. 
 
 "Colonel Dixon was in command," said the Marchesa. 
 
 139
 
 140 IN LONDON 
 
 The Countess spoke for the first time. "Not Tommy 
 Dixon?" said she. "Well, of course, he couldn't, could 
 he?" 
 
 "He could, but he didn't," said the Marchesa. 
 
 "Old dear," murmured the Countess. 
 
 And now Miss Nightingale's beautiful voice broke in: 
 "I'm awfully interested, but as much in the dark as Mr. 
 Sackville. May I ask what really happened?" 
 
 The Countess anticipated the Marchesa's reply. "Janie, 
 old love, don't you see, Tommy Dixon's no end of a flame 
 of mine, and he couldn't decently go and do a thing like 
 that." 
 
 Adam was thoroughly interested, and implored his 
 grandmother to tell them what Dixon did. 
 
 This started the Marchesa on a somewhat baffling nar- 
 rative from which Adam gathered that the gentleman 
 called Dixon, apparently an officer of local importance, 
 had persuaded the Marchesa to lay down her arms on 
 condition of the Infant Druids being dismissed then and 
 there without arrest. He had then placed her in charge 
 of a junior officer with instructions to seek an early op- 
 portunity of allowing her to escape. This was easily 
 effected by the Marchesa bringing him on a fairly plausible 
 pretext to the Muses Club, going upstairs and not coming 
 down again until he had grown tired and gone away. Mrs. 
 Burns coming in to a committee meeting and finding her 
 concealed in the dressing-room, had suggested changing 
 clothes with her. Accordingly, while Mrs. Burns attended 
 her committee in the uniform of the Arch-druid, the Mar- 
 chesa had left the building attired as Mrs. Burns. 
 
 Mr. Sackville listened with the deepest interest. 
 "Would it not have been safer to stay where you were?" 
 he cried* 
 
 "Not at all," said the Marchesa. "I have one particu-
 
 HOW THE MARCHESA ESCAPED 141 
 
 larly bitter and unscrupulous enemy at the Castle who 
 would certainly have told the police to look for me." 
 
 "Leaper-Carahar ?" Adam asked. 
 
 "Yes," said the Marchesa dramatically. "Leaper-Car- 
 ahar! He would have stopped at nothing to have me 
 hanged or shot." 
 
 "What a cruel man," said Mr. Sackville. "How pleased 
 you must be to be safe from him over here." 
 
 The Marchesa tossed her head. "I was safe enough 
 from him in Dublin until I got tired of hiding myself." 
 
 "Where did you hide?" Adam asked. 
 
 The Marchesa smiled at him. "Where do you think I 
 would be safest?" 
 
 "At Mr. Macarthy's," said Adam readily. 
 
 "I know a better place than that," said the Marchesa. 
 
 "If I were going to hide," Adam said, "I couldn't imag- 
 ine a better place than Mr. Macarthy's bedroom." 
 
 "It depends who you were hiding from," said the Mar- 
 chesa. "I'll tell you the best place to hide from Leaper- 
 Carahar if you ever want to know, and that's the place 
 where I hid." 
 
 By this time even Miss Nightingale was worked up to 
 asking where the Marchesa hid, and she being now satis- 
 fied that her answer would have its full effect, said: "I 
 hid in Mrs. Leaper-Carahar's bedroom." 
 
 "But didn't Leaper-Carahar . . ." said Mr. Sackville, 
 the eyes jumping out of his head. 
 
 "No," said the Marchesa, "he didn't. He never has. 
 She wouldn't let him. Barbara Burns Mrs. Leaper-Car- 
 ahar is the grand-daughter of Sir David Byron-Quinn, 
 not the sort of woman to tolerate a fellow like that in her 
 bedroom." 
 
 "I thought," said Mr. Sackville, "that they were mar- 
 ried."
 
 142 IN LONDON 
 
 "Yes," said the Marchesa dryly, "I dare say he thought 
 so, too, until she taught him to know better." 
 
 "It seems to me," said Mr. Sackville thoughtfully, but 
 did not mention what. 
 
 Adam's curiosity was now thoroughly aroused. "Did 
 you remain there long?" he asked. 
 
 "It seemed a long time to me/' said the Marchesa, "for 
 Barbara talked about nothing but herself and sometimes 
 you and Stephen Macarthy." 
 
 "About Stephen Macarthy?" Miss Nightingale asked. 
 
 "Yes," said the Marchesa, "Barbara always had an ab- 
 surd passion for him, just as Adam here has for her." 
 
 "I haven't," cried Adam, "certainly not now she's mar- 
 ried." 
 
 "Pooh!" said the Marchesa, "that isn't a marriage, I'd 
 hardly even call it a manage blanc." 
 
 Miss Nightingale's voice chimed in again. "And how 
 did you escape from there?" 
 
 "Oh, there was no difficulty whatever in that," the Mar- 
 chesa said. "I just left when I thought fit in this uniform 
 of Leaper-Carahar's. He was in the Methuseleers." 
 
 "The Methuseleers?" Mr. Sackville deferentially asked. 
 "Is that an Irish regiment?" 
 
 "An Irish regiment! God forbid!" said the Marchesa. 
 "It's a sort of volunteer corps made up of Castle officials 
 and some old fogies who ought to know better." 
 
 "I see," said Mr. Sackville brightly, "and they are called, 
 no doubt, after their commander? Some such name as 
 Methuen?" 
 
 "They're called after Methuselah," said the Marchesa. 
 
 Mr. Sackville sighed: "I'm afraid I'm a little out of 
 my depth. . . . Biblical scholarship is not . . ." 
 
 Miss Nightingale spoke again. "I must say you are a 
 courageous woman to beard the lion in his den and then 
 go off disguised in his skin."
 
 HOW THE MARCHESA ESCAPED 143 
 
 "I suppose you mean I'm an ass?" said the Marchesa 
 sharply. 
 
 "You are too quick," Miss Nightingale replied, "if I 
 thought it I did not mean to say it." 
 
 "That's straight," said the Marchesa good-humoredly, 
 "and very few women are straight." 
 
 "They compare favorably with men," said Miss Night- 
 ingale. 
 
 "Hear, hear!" cried the Countess, "I think men are 
 damned rotters." 
 
 "I protest," said Mr. Sackville. "We may not be as 
 straight as ladies, but we are less crooked than the . . ." 
 
 "Than the what?" snapped the Marchesa. 
 
 "The inferior animals generally," said Mr. Sackville. 
 "The . . . the . . . jackal and, perhaps some one would 
 correct me if I am wrong in saying, the lynx. On the 
 other hand, of course, the elephant is . . ." 
 
 "How do you know?" said the Marchesa. 
 
 "I have always heard the elephant well spoken of," Mr. 
 Sackville said temperately. 
 
 "Irish elephants, I know, are all right," the Marchesa 
 admitted, "but if you're to believe Rudyard Kipling, all 
 the Indian elephants are traitors to their country. I'd 
 rather be a woman, but most of all I'd like to be an Irish- 
 man like Jim Connolly." 
 
 Adam broke in impulsively: "So should I." 
 
 "Then why did you run away like a little coward?" 
 said the Marchesa. 
 
 Adam was now on the verge of tears. "I shouldn't 
 have run away if I'd been in Dublin on Easter Monday," 
 he said. 
 
 Again Miss Nightingale broke in. "We still don't 
 know what happened after you left Mrs. Carahar's house 
 wearing her husband's uniform." 
 
 The Marchesa smiled with an expression that Adam
 
 144 IN LONDON 
 
 never remembered to have seen on her face before. "A 
 great deal happened after I left Mr. Leaper-Carahar's 
 house." 
 
 Mr. Sackville murmured sympathetically: "It must 
 have been an extraordinary experience for a lady to be 
 walking the streets of a great city in ... I suppose you 
 wore trousers?" 
 
 "You don't suppose Leaper-Carahar wore skirts," 
 growled the Marchesa. 
 
 Said Miss Nightingale: "I wonder that you were not 
 recognized." 
 
 "You needn't wonder about that," said the Marchesa. 
 "I was spotted again and again." 
 
 "And yet here you are," Mr. Sackville almost chirped; 
 "it's a delightfully fascinating story." 
 
 The Marchesa looked at him grimly : "I wonder if 
 you'd say that if you knew the whole of it?" 
 
 Said the Countess: "Tell him and see." 
 
 Mr. Sackville shook his head. "Pray don't tell me any- 
 thing it might distress me to hear." 
 
 The Marchesa looked at him mockingly. "I wonder 
 if it would distress you to hear what I did after I left 
 that house where I had been hiding?" 
 
 "If it was anything violent," said Mr. Sackville, "par- 
 ticularly anything unladylike . . ." 
 
 "It was very unladylike in one way," said the Mar- 
 chesa, "for it forced me to visit a brothel," she waited, 
 as it were, with an air of challenge for Mr. Sackville to 
 be horrified. 
 
 But Mr. Sackville's expression became almost beatific. 
 "Ah, no," he said, "my nerves may be weak, but believe 
 me, I am not prudish. My dear mother herself has al- 
 ways taken a lively interest in such work." 
 
 It was the Marchesa's turn to be shocked. "Such 
 work?" she repeated, "your mother?"
 
 HOW THE MARCHESA ESCAPED 145 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Sackville, "only not in England. Res- 
 cue work in India, missions to the Zenanas I still sub- 
 scribe." 
 
 "My rescue work was not quite like that," said the 
 Marchesa. "The Zenana my mission brought me to was 
 kept by a traitor." 
 
 "Terrible," said Mr. Sackville, "and how immensely 
 brave of you. Was the man a German?" 
 
 "No," said the Marchesa, "he was an Irishman. " 
 
 "But in German pay," said Mr. Sackville. 
 
 "In British pay," said the Marchesa. 
 
 Mr. Sackville smiled with sweet feebleness. "I'm very 
 stupid about following you," he said. "Now what exactly 
 do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean," said the Marchesa, looking at him rather 
 hard, "that this accursed scoundrel was a creature of 
 Leaper-Carahar's who seduced youngsters of mine to his 
 den that his harpies might find out our secrets." 
 
 Mr. Sackville wiped his brow. "It sounds perfectly 
 awful," he said, "though my mind is so confused about 
 it that I really don't know what to say." 
 
 Said the Countess: "I hope you dealt with the 
 stinker ?" 
 
 Mr. Sackville protested: "It's so difficult to deal with a 
 case like that. Of course the police . . ." 
 
 "Of course not," said the Marchesa. 
 
 Miss Nightingale came and stood beside Adam and 
 looked with strong yet placid eyes at the Marchesa. "I 
 think I can imagine what you did," said she. "You can 
 trust Mr. Sackville not to betray it." 
 
 "I don't care a damn whether he betrays it or not," said 
 the Marchesa. "I blew the scoundrel and his house to 
 hell." 
 
 Adam's brain caught fire, but he was conscious of Miss 
 Nightingale's fingers patting soothingly his shoulder.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
 MORE COMPANY FOR SIR DAVID 
 
 ADAM'S brain burned. It seemed to him that there was a 
 long and intolerable pause in which every one except the 
 Marchesa was staring at him. Then, as it were, with a 
 splash in that sea of silence, fell the voice of Mr. Sack- 
 ville in the polite tone of one who feels it to be his duty 
 to say something. More respectfully than ever he ad- 
 dressed the Marchesa: "I cannot tell you what a priv- 
 ilege it is that you should give me your confidence with 
 regard to this . . . this ... as it were, peccadillo that 
 you have just mentioned. ... I feel it very deeply, and I 
 am sure that Mr. Quinn here will understand as readily 
 as I do why it must go no farther. But at the same time 
 I feel it is my duty to point out that what you did was 
 not merely unladylike, as my mother in her perhaps old- 
 fashioned way of thinking would say, but speaking in the 
 name of our common humanity, and although a conserva- 
 tive in politics, I claim to be not altogether inhumane, it 
 seems to me that to blow up a house for whatever reason, 
 and however noble a motive, is . . ." 
 
 He looked round appealingly to Miss Nightingale. 
 
 "I wish I'd blown up the whole street," said the Mar- 
 chesa in a voice of challenge. 
 
 Mr. Sackville chivalrously answered: "This ungentle 
 mood will pass." 
 
 The Marchesa rose from her chair, not without diffi- 
 culty, and with the movement of a perambulating scare- 
 crow, made the best of her way to Mr. Sackville, who sup- 
 pressed a shrinking visible to all but her as she approached 
 
 146
 
 MORE COMPANY FOR SIR DAVID 147 
 
 him. Placing her bony right hand under his chin, she 
 gazed into his eyes and said: "From your talk I thought 
 you were a boy of Adam's age, but I see you're getting on. 
 Anyhow, you're a dear, gentle creature, and I'm sure Adam 
 has found a good friend. This is your reward for being 
 kind to him," and her lipless mouth descended in a ro- 
 mantically and maternal fashion somewhere between the 
 nose and chin of Mr. Sackville. 
 
 His eyes filled with tears as he wrung the Marchesa's 
 hand and murmured: "I shall never forget this, never, 
 but I shall never mention it; you may rely upon my . . ." 
 
 The Marchesa returned to her place by the fire and Mr. 
 Sackville's experience as an actor indicated to him that 
 he would do well now to take his leave. A glance of in- 
 terrogation from Adam to Miss Nightingale admonished 
 him to leave his young friend behind. So, with some 
 speeches of courtesy and the hope that the Marchesa would 
 not distress her friends by running such risks, he was 
 gone. No sooner had the hall-door closed behind him, 
 than on some murmured excuse Lady Derrydown and 
 Miss Nightingale also withdrew, and Adam found himself 
 alone with his grandmother. His brain cooled as he gazed 
 at her. Critically he considered her with the unsenti- 
 mental detachment of a child of his time. In the old 
 woman's wild stare he read that she knew something, but 
 not all that he knew. He saw that she knew he was 
 descended from David Byron-Quinn, but not that the 
 descent was through her. And certainly she did not know 
 that the man whom she boasted of having blown to hell 
 was her own son and Adam's father. He wondered if he 
 ought to tell her: he believed that he ought to tell her, 
 but the words would not come. They sat a long time in 
 silence, then at last she said in a calm and cultured voice, 
 such as he had seldom heard her use: "You know you 
 are here because I sent for you?"
 
 148 TN LONDON 
 
 "I didn't know it until I came," said Adam. 
 
 "You know now," said the Marchesa, and as Adam 
 nodded she went on : "Why do you suppose I sent for 
 you?" 
 
 "Is it about the Infant Druids?" he hazarded. 
 
 "No," said the Marchesa, "whatever I may say in front 
 of other people, I tell you now I am very glad you were 
 not there on Easter Monday. When I see you now the 
 living image of the man I loved . . . and love . . . the 
 thought that you might have been shot down beside me 
 is unbearable." She put out her arms entreatingly : "I 
 love you, Adam, as I would have loved my own son if he 
 had not been taken from me. . . ." Seeing that Adam 
 made no movement in response, she went on : "Is it be- 
 cause I'm growing old and perhaps ugly. ... I could see 
 that actor fellow thought me no longer beautiful. ... Is 
 that why you won't come to me? It's enough to make 
 your grandfather turn in his grave." She made another 
 motion with her arms, in pitiful yet disdainful appeal. 
 
 But Adam only said : "You know who my grandfather 
 was?" 
 
 "I saw it from the first glance," she answered. "You're 
 the living image of him, even more than your father." 
 
 Adam recoiled: "Then you did know my father . . . 
 who he was?" he cried. 
 
 "Do you think I could be such a fool as to doubt it?" 
 she answered. "But Stephen, with his old-fashioned no- 
 tion of chivalry, told me a lie about it." 
 
 Adam broke in: "If you mean Mr. Stephen Macarthy, 
 he couldn't tell you a lie if he tried. It's the one thing 
 in the world I don't believe he could do, no matter how 
 hard he tried." He panted with resentment as he flung 
 the words at her. 
 
 But the Marchesa seemed only pleased by them:
 
 MORE COMPANY FOR SIR DAVID 149 
 
 "Bravo!" she cried. "It's a good thing to hear a boy 
 speak for his father nowadays." 
 
 "I'm not speaking for my father," Adam retorted. "I 
 only wish I could. . . . I'm speaking of Mr. Macarthy, 
 who has been more to me than any father ever was. . . ." 
 
 "I know," she interrupted, "you think your father was 
 Macfadden, the tailor. . . . But I give you my word he 
 was not. . . . Your father was Stephen Macarthy as sure 
 as Stephen was David Byron-Quinn's son." 
 
 This time Adam was taken by surprise : "I never knew 
 that," he stuttered. 
 
 "No," the Marchesa answered triumphantly, "I thought 
 not. But I tell you that your father was a gentleman and 
 his father before him. You've nothing to be ashamed of, 
 Adam, any more than I. ... I'm as proud of your father, 
 though he's a trimmer in politics ... as if he were my 
 own son." 
 
 Adam hesitated a moment and then said in a low voice: 
 "Perhaps you'll not be so proud to hear that my real 
 father was your son." 
 
 The Marchesa stared at him incredulously: "What 
 nonsense are you talking? I tell you Stephen Macarthy 
 was your father. . . . Who your mother was I don't 
 know; for it was not like Stephen . . ." 
 
 "Never mind about that," Adam said : "The point is 
 that he was not my father." 
 
 The Marchesa laughed scornfully. "Allow me to know 
 who your father was. I suppose rather than admit you 
 were born out of wedlock you wish to pose as the son of a 
 drunken tailor?" 
 
 Adam with an effort kept his voice low and even : "Shall 
 I allow you to know who my father was?" And, as she 
 answered only with a laugh, let the words escape him: 
 "He was the man you blew up in Pleasant Street."
 
 150 IN LONDON 
 
 The Marchesa half rose from her placQ. "The what?" 
 she screamed. 
 
 Adam let her have it : "Mr. Byron O'Toole of 7 Pleas- 
 ant Street, your son by Sir David Byron-Quinn." 
 
 Pulling herself together the Marchesa lowered her scare- 
 crow figure into her chair. "Rubbish!" she snorted, "I 
 don't believe a word of it." 
 
 "I believe it," said Adam. 
 
 "This is perverse," said the Marchesa, "perverse of you, 
 to wish to be the son of a scoundrel like O'Toole rather 
 than a gentleman like Stephen Macarthy." 
 
 "I don't wish it," said Adam, "it was Mr. Macarthy 
 himself who taught me to face facts." 
 
 "I never did it," said the Marchesa, "and I never will. 
 . . . No artist attaches any importance to facts." 
 
 "Then if you're an artist," said Adam, "why did you 
 blow up 7 Pleasant Street? That was a fact, wasn't 
 it?" 
 
 "It may have been a fact from your point of view, 
 which seems to be that of the police, but from my point 
 of view it was simply the most beautiful gesture in my 
 career." Her eyes glowed with lunatic plausibility. 
 
 "I agree," said Adam, "that it was a more beautiful 
 gesture to send my father out of the world than to bring 
 him into it." 
 
 The Marchesa laughed. "What did that actor fellow 
 say about coincidence?" 
 
 Adam almost smiled as he answered: "I don't remem- 
 ber, but he's very fond of talking about the long arm of 
 coincidence." 
 
 "If what you say is true," said the Marchesa, "I mean 
 if this canaille O'Toole was really my son, and in the 
 world of facts I suppose it's possible, then the arm of 
 coincidence is longer even than your friend thinks; for the 
 house which I blew to pieces with him and his horrible
 
 MORE COMPANY FOR SIR DAVID 151 
 
 company, was, I could almost swear to it, the house in 
 which David and I ..." she broke off suddenly. "You're 
 yery young for me to be talking to about these things. I 
 never discuss them with my dear boys." Her voice sank 
 very low and her hand trembled as it appeared to play 
 with the buttons of her tunic: "To think," she said, "to 
 think . . ." 
 
 "I am very young," Adam said, "but I'm old enough to 
 think that the one boy who might have been dear to you, 
 who ought to have been dear to you, was my father whom 
 you blew to hell. Not this year, mind you, but I suppose 
 nearly fifty years ago." 
 
 The Marchesa rose and flung herself at his feet. "Upon 
 your honor," she demanded, "do you believe that Byron 
 OToole was my son?" 
 
 Adam looked her full in the face. "Yes," he said, "I 
 believe that the Dublin police know it for a fact." 
 
 "I see," said the Marchesa lightly, and springing up 
 with a recrudescence of youth she turned away. She 
 seemed to move quite idly to the window, then he noticed 
 she had the attitude of one listening, and he heard a tele- 
 phone bell ring somewhere in the house. The Marchesa 
 was still standing by the window fumbling with her button- 
 holes as the Countess burst into the room. "Daphne, 
 dear," she cried, "I'm afraid you'll have to go." 
 
 "Go where?" asked the Marchesa with an air of indif- 
 ference. 
 
 "Anywhere you like, old dear," the Countess answered, 
 "but you can't stop here. Derrydown's just rung up from 
 the club that O'Hagan-Bathe tells him that Scotland Yard 
 believes you're in this house, and are going to act. Of 
 course I don't care a damn, but it's an awkward moment 
 for an Irish peer to be compromised." 
 
 "I see," said the Marchesa in a low voice. 
 
 "And you will go, won't you, old dear?"
 
 152 IN LONDON 
 
 "I suppose I may as well," said the Marchesa with a 
 very rational air. 
 
 The Countess flung her arms round her. "You are an 
 old sport," she cried, "and it does seem such a shame," 
 but she disengaged herself to add anxiously: "You'll go 
 soon, won't you?" 
 
 "I'll go now," said the Marchesa, opening the window 
 to look out. 
 
 "Do you want a taxi?" her hostess said, "if so I'll ring 
 for one, and while it's coming you can change." 
 
 "Oh, there's no need to change," said the Marchesa 
 without turning her head. 
 
 "But you can't go into the street like that," the Countess 
 protested. 
 
 "Why not?" the Marchesa queried; "what could be 
 easier?" 
 
 "It isn't done," the Countess said, "every one would 
 know who you are." 
 
 "That's what I've always aimed at," said the Marchesa. 
 "I wanted every one to know who I was, and I tell you 
 they shall. I shall be remembered for ever and ever." 
 
 On the last word there was a flash and report and her 
 body fell through the window and disappeared. 
 
 The door opened to admit Miss Nightingale, who said 
 in her tranquil voice: "Is anything the matter?" 
 
 For answer came a shriek and a thud. Adam shrank 
 into his seat, covering his face with his hands. 
 
 "Daphne's gone and killed herself," said the Countess. 
 "I call it perfectly insane and damned inconsiderate."
 
 CHAPTER NINETEEN 
 ADAM PROSPERS 
 
 Now that the Great Push was ending in the air, the news- 
 papers found it worth while to make much of the death 
 of the Marchesa della Venasalvatica. If not fated to be 
 remembered for ever, she had the considerable honor of 
 supplying the press with a rather more than nine days' 
 wonder, and her glory reflected on Adam who, somehow 
 or other, came to be spoken of as her grandson. Mr. Onsin 
 found it worth while to advance his salary to ten guineas 
 a week. Revolutionaries cheered him on the strength of 
 his connection with Sinn Fein: the Conservatives showed 
 themselves scarcely less appreciative of his connection with 
 the peerage : it all helped to advance him in his career. 
 
 To the casual observer passing down Eaton Place that 
 Sunday afternoon, it might have seemed that the Marchesa 
 had committed suicide. And that was Adam's impression, 
 and he thought also, from what she said, the impression 
 of the Countess of Derrydown. Indeed he wrote to Mr. 
 Macarthy that very night in the most positive terms that 
 it was so. Fortunately, however, for every one concerned, 
 counsel representing the relatives at the inquest had no 
 difficulty in proving that nothing was farther from the de- 
 ceased lady's mind. It appeared that she was an impulsive 
 lady, and on hearing that the police had run her down on 
 a purely political charge, reflecting in no way on her private 
 character, she had sought to escape through the window, 
 and her revolver, a very modern and dangerous weapon, 
 happening to be in her hand, had accidentally gone off with 
 fatal results. ... As no charge had been proved against
 
 154 IN LONDON 
 
 her the body was handed over to her relatives, and as she 
 was wearing uniform at the time, the War Office chival- 
 rously decided to give her a military funeral. This took 
 place at the family burial ground, which to Adam's sur- 
 prise was in the west of Ireland and not in the south, as he 
 had supposed, and for recruiting purposes the firing-party 
 was made up of Irish Guardsmen sent at considerable ex- 
 pense from their depot in England. This money was, how- 
 ever, not entirely thrown away, for one of her boy Druids 
 subsequently offered himself for enlistment in that regi- 
 ment but was rejected on the ground of his name being 
 William O'Brien. He was, however, suffered to transfer 
 his services to the Middlesex regiment, where he rapidly 
 rose to the command of a battalion. 
 
 Meanwhile Adam grew fat in peace, and being now 
 prosperous, as the spring approached he felt arise within 
 him a fresh sentiment for Barbara Burns. He had not 
 been so much impressed by his grandmother's death as by 
 two of the assertions she had made in her last hour. 
 Firstly, that Mr. Macarthy was the connecting link be- 
 tween him and her long-dead lover, Sir David Byron- 
 Quinn. He could not help wishing that this were true. He 
 tried to persuade himself that it was true and then hated 
 himself for his meanness in thinking Mr. Macarthy capable 
 of deserting a woman and child. On the other hand he 
 remembered the money that had so mysteriously been paid 
 through Father Muldoon for his upbringing. Then again 
 to suspect Mr. Macarthy of knowing more about this than 
 he admitted was to make Mr. Macarthy out something that 
 he most certainly was not. Not so long ago Mr. Ma- 
 carthy had definitely said that he wished he were his 
 father, and as definitely confirmed his own belief that his 
 father was Byron O'Toole, the son of Sir David Byron- 
 Quinn by the Marchesa, and flung by her to the wolves 
 at the compulsion of her pious mother, the present Lord
 
 ADAM PROSPERS 155 
 
 Derrydown's grandmother. No, he could not be the son 
 of Mr. Macarthy. There was no escaping from the fact 
 that O'Toole was his father, and the wife of Macfadden 
 the tailor his mother. He could only thank God that both 
 were dead and no one was likely now to question his right 
 to call himself by his grandfather's name. To himself now 
 he was and would be so long as he lived, Adam Quinn. 
 Already that name was placarded over London; already 
 portraits of him under that name had found their way 
 into the illustrated papers that helped to boom What Rot! 
 and no illustrated paper lost its chance of joining in that 
 boom. Again and again he was referred to in such phrases 
 as: "This brilliant light of the Abbey Theater, who has 
 transferred his effulgence to London." . . . Yes, Adam 
 Macfadden, the child of that disgraceful couple, Byron 
 O'Toole and Bride Macfadden, was dead and buried in 
 their grave, his soul transmigrated to Adam Quinn, the 
 grandson of that hero of romance, Sir David Byron-Quinn 
 and his flamboyant love, the Marchesa della Venasalvatica, 
 once Lady Daphne Page. It was easy to obscure the sor- 
 didness of his parents by keeping so far as possible in the 
 reflected light of his forebears. 
 
 What surprised him more was the Marchesa's allegation 
 that Mr. Macarthy was the son of Sir David. Such an 
 idea had never entered his mind, and he felt convinced 
 that if true, Mr. Macarthy was unaware of it. Often Mr. 
 Macarthy had spoken of his father and always with affec- 
 tion though not always with approval. Adam visualized 
 him as a straightforward gentleman who aimed at virtue 
 with an inadequate intellectual equipment. He remembered 
 to have been told, not by Mr. Macarthy, that his mother 
 had died in giving him birth, and the responsibility of 
 his upbringing had fallen exclusively on his father, who 
 had not married again. Adam had an impression of a 
 man rigidly faithful to the memory of his first wife and
 
 156 IN LONDON 
 
 finding relief from his sorrow for her partly in his work 
 at the Bar and partly in his care for his son. Mrs. Ma- 
 carthy was not to be seen by him at all. He knew only 
 that she came from Cork and was some connection of Sir 
 David's, but that hardly added to the probability of her 
 being his mistress. The more he considered it, the more 
 did he come to the conclusion that the Marchesa's chatter 
 on that fatal Sunday was that of a crazy old woman reel- 
 ing to self-destruction. 
 
 Less willing was he to dismiss from his mind what she 
 had said about Barbara Leaper-Carahar. There was too 
 great a food for pleasure in the thought that she was that 
 abominable fellow's wife in no more than name. If the 
 Marchesa could hide safely in her bedroom then it was 
 clear that all relations between them had ceased, and the 
 Marchesa boldly proclaimed that they had never existed. 
 Adam hugged the thought that they had never existed . . . 
 that after all Barbara was for him. ... It was easy to 
 forget that she was several years older and always pooh- 
 poohed his love-making when it threatened to grow serious. 
 ... He made up his mind to write to Mr. Macarthy and 
 ask him if he thought it possible . . . but the letter was 
 never written though the idea was not abandoned. He 
 thought he might wait until Mr. Macarthy came to town 
 again. But Mr. Macarthy did not come. . . . The spring 
 warmed to summer and there was nothing done. 
 
 Adam grew fat, there was no mistake about it. English- 
 men complained of their rations and grew thin, but Irish- 
 men grow fat on rations insufficient for their plumper 
 neighbors. To say that Adam grew fat does not mean that 
 he grew as fat as an Englishman. It only means that 
 he grew plumper and more juvenile in appearance than he 
 had been on his arrival in the metropolis eighteen months 
 ago. Now that he was an orphan he was at liberty to 
 enjoy that childhood his parents had denied him. There
 
 ADAM PROSPERS 157 
 
 was no longer any question of Miss Blake coming back to 
 take up her old part in W hat Rot! Despite his attach- 
 ment for Miss Blake, Mr. Onsin recognized that to give her 
 back the part would not have been good business. So at 
 eighteen years of age Adam found himself enjoying an 
 income of over five hundred a year, agreeably earned, 
 and with no likelihood of being threatened so long as he 
 kept his health and his youthful appearance, which so far 
 had protected him from the recruiting authorities. Miss 
 Durward saw to it that he was not registered and yet was 
 better fed than if he had been. ... It was perhaps a mere 
 coincidence that she procured lingerie on really very rea- 
 sonable terms for the dearest friend of a high official in 
 the Home Office. It is only on the Continent or west of 
 the Atlantic that officials lay themselves open to suspicion. 
 
 Mr. Sackville, once again playing Lord Algy in the sub- 
 urbs, spent a Sunday with him up the river. Adam picked 
 him up at West Kensington Station, whence they trained 
 to Richmond and on by 'bus to Kingston, where they 
 lunched by the waterside and then embarked in an out- 
 rigger which Mr. Sackville proposed to scull up to some- 
 where above Hampton Court. He placed Adam in the 
 stern sheets, the tiller ropes in his hand. Adam did not 
 mention that this was his first acquaintance with the duties 
 of a coxswain. They enjoyed themselves very much until 
 somehow or other the boat turned turtle. 
 
 "I thought . . ." said Mr. Sackville reproachfully, be- 
 fore his head disappeared beneath the surface of the water. 
 Fortunately he was rescued, though not by Adam, who was 
 so terrified at the idea of being drowned that it was with 
 difficulty he rescued himself. He was relieved to know 
 that his companion was safe, and perhaps only a little less 
 relieved to be told that he was too unwell to see any one, 
 being much exhausted by the efforts used to restore him 
 by some V.A.D. ladies who had witnessed the accident.
 
 158 IN LONDON 
 
 Adam did not feel equal to any further conversation with 
 Mr. Sackville that day. It had come to him suddenly that 
 success, with its consequent ease of life, had turned him 
 into a self -satisfied poltroon. Mr. Sackville breathed no 
 word of censure, being indeed fully rewarded for his pains 
 and the risks he had run by the opportunity it gave him of 
 publishing his latest photographs, of which the papers had 
 recently been unwilling to make use. It was not his fault 
 that he was represented as having swam ashore with Adam 
 on his back and then returned to the water in a quixotic 
 effort to rescue a packet of biscuits which he felt should 
 not be wasted in war time. Adam was not blind to the 
 humors of Mr. Sackville's advertised heroism, but he was 
 scarcely less awake to the sorry figure he himself had cut 
 in the adventure, and he blushed to find his own portrait 
 appended as extra illustrative matter to those of his friend. 
 He was terrified to know what Mr. Macarthy would say of 
 it. Mr. Macarthy said nothing. 
 
 On the other hand it brought him a letter with an en- 
 velope addressed in writing that was beautiful and thrill- 
 ing. Where had he seen it before? Where seen such an 
 envelope, unusually dainty for war-time, and yet sufficiently 
 sober and businesslike? Had such an envelope even been 
 addressed to him before? If not, why was he so familiar 
 with it? Why did he have the impression of passing an 
 evening in its company? He sat a long time in his dress- 
 ing-room contemplating that envelope, deliciously wonder- 
 ing what exquisite message it might contain. Then, sud- 
 denly remembering how absurd he thought Mr. Sackville 
 for doing the same thing, he opened it and without sur- 
 prise saw that it came from Miss Nightingale. 
 
 It appeared that she had left London, returning to her 
 duties at Eastbourne immediately after the death of the 
 Marchesa, but now she was returned, so far as she could 
 foresee, permanently to town, and would be at her own
 
 ADAM PROSPERS 159 
 
 flat in Westminster, where she hoped Adam would come 
 to see her. That was all, but a postscript asked him the 
 flattering question: "Why do you, who have so much in- 
 fluence over our friend Mr. Sackville, allow him to make 
 himself so ridiculous?" 
 
 To be flattered by Miss Nightingale was indeed a temp- 
 tation, but Adam resisted it. "The accident up the river 
 was all my fault," he wrote; "I made no end of an ass 
 of myself and then lost my head, and Sackville was nearly 
 drowned, but he never rounded on me though I richly de- 
 served it. If you still want me to come to tea after this 
 confession, I'll come, but please ring me up and say so, 
 Paddington . . ." He gave Miss Durward's number. 
 
 The next day Miss Nightingale rang him up saying: 
 "Come, of course," and the following Sunday he went, 
 taking a number sixteen 'bus from the corner of Praed 
 Street to Victoria. He found that Miss Nightingale's flat 
 was at the top of a block looking towards Westminster 
 Cathedral. 
 
 As Adam stood on the doormat he wondered what the 
 interior would be like. As Miss Nightingale was a great 
 friend of Lady Derrydown it seemed reasonable to sup- 
 pose that her drawing-room would in some measure re- 
 semble the Countess's. That was a very handsomely fur- 
 nished apartment, though in a style Adam thought might 
 not have appealed to Mr. Macarthy, nor was he quite sat- 
 isfied with it himself, except for the chairs, which were 
 as comfortable saddle-bags as he had ever sat in. The 
 walls had been covered with some sort of velvet, richly 
 red; against them hung paintings in large gold frames; 
 some of these he thought might be good, but that in the 
 place of honor over the mantelpiece seemed of dubious 
 value. It represented a sylph-like lady with scarlet lips 
 and less than no clothes offering a realistically painted 
 champagne glass to the first comer. This interesting work
 
 i6o IN LONDON 
 
 of art was entitled, if one might rely upon the authority 
 of the frame-maker, "A Toi." Adam wondered, even at 
 the moment while he was listening to his grandmother's 
 last speech, whether it was his lordship's taste or her lady- 
 ship's, or worse. He knew that with all her faults his 
 grandmother would not have tolerated it in any room of 
 hers. . . . Miss Nightingale's door opened.
 
 Miss NIGHTINGALE'S flat as little resembled Lady Derry- 
 down's house as her face and figure resembled her lady- 
 ship's. There was no bright color in her drawing-room: 
 on that summer afternoon, coming from the dusty streets 
 of Pimlico, Adam found it deliciously cool in its neutrality 
 of tone: so far as there was any distinct note it was of 
 silvery gray, the key set by Miss Nightingale's hair: her 
 pictures were etchings or faded prints: her considerable 
 library was clad in buff parchment or buckram: the very 
 roses on her tea-table, poised elegantly in a blue-gray glass 
 vase over the white egg-shell china and silver, were paler 
 than seemed to him credible: "Are they artificial?" he 
 asked. 
 
 His ingenuousness was without offense, yet Miss Night- 
 ingale's cheeks forthwith gave her room the glow that he 
 thought it wanted. "How could you think me capable of 
 such a thing?" she murmured. "Has Mr. Macarthy never 
 told you that artificial flowers, at all events as a decoration 
 in a room, are the last word in bad taste ?" 
 
 Adam looked into the saucer-like blue eyes to which the 
 momentarily pink cheeks gave a flash of brilliancy. "You 
 don't mean to say you know Mr. Macarthy?" said he. 
 
 Miss Nightingale's indignation melted into a smile. 
 "Why should I not know him?" she returned. "As a 
 matter of fact I suppose I must riave known him before 
 you were born." 
 
 161
 
 i6a IN LONDON 
 
 "Oh!" Adam grunted, this conjuring up of the remote 
 past giving him food for thought. "If you know him as 
 long as that," said he, "do you happen to know who his 
 father was?" 
 
 Miss Nightingale's color deepened, and she had the ef- 
 fect of recoiling without definite movement. Then she 
 said in an even voice : "You want to know about his father ? 
 He was a barrister. Chiefly, I should say, on the equity 
 side, though in Ireland I understand most barristers prac- 
 tice on both sides. Anyhow, from what Stephen tells me 
 I gather his reputation was won as what they call a black 
 letter lawyer." 
 
 The new phrase tickled Adam. "What sort of a lawyer 
 is that?" he asked. 
 
 Miss Nightingale smiled again. "I'm not sure that I 
 know, but I should think it must mean an authority on 
 the older statutes, wouldn't you?" 
 
 "I suppose I would," said Adam, admiring equally the 
 erudition of his hostess and her skill in turning his ques- 
 tion. But his spirit was too genuinely inquiring to accept 
 a first defeat. "I knew that the gentleman who brought 
 him up as if he were his father was a barrister," he said. 
 "But I sometimes thought perhaps that he was an adopted 
 son." 
 
 Miss Nightingale's voice chilled to the color of her room. 
 "He never mentioned to me that he was an adopted child. 
 In fact I feel quite sure that he was not." 
 
 Adam expected her to ask him how he came by such a 
 notion, but she refrained from doing so, and thus frus- 
 trated his attempt to break her line of defense at this point. 
 But the drums of his brain beat fast to a fresh assault. 
 "And, of course, he'd have something better to talk about 
 than to tell you who my father was?" 
 
 His hostess looked at him so directly as to rouse a mis- 
 giving that she was about to bid him stand in the corner,
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF WESTMINSTER 163 
 
 but after a breath sufficient to allow this impression to 
 sink in, she smiled almost flatteringly as she replied : "Mr. 
 Macarthy has often spoken of you. I think he has told 
 me as much about you as he was sure you would wish me 
 to know, but my intuition tells me that you would like to 
 tell me more about yourself." 
 
 Adam was so disarmed that he answered with a percep- 
 tible brogue: "Ah, sure I never did anything worth talk- 
 ing about." 
 
 Miss Nightingale's smile did not relinquish its place upon 
 her countenance as she pointed out: "You're very young 
 to have done anything at all, and really it seems to me 
 you've done wonders on the stage." 
 
 "I haven't done badly and that's a fact," Adam ac- 
 quiesced. "It's not every Dublin boy of my age that's mak- 
 ing five hundred a year." 
 
 It was obvious from the changed expression on Miss 
 Nightingale's face that had she not been so perfectly well- 
 bred she would have gaped with astonishment. Her voice 
 betrayed her a little as she repeated : "Five hundred a year ? 
 What waste of money!" 
 
 Adam was hurt by this sentence and asked her if she 
 really thought so. 
 
 "Well, frankly, isn't it waste to pay anybody five hun- 
 dred a year for acting in such a play?" She strengthened 
 her appeal by winningly appending: "And, of course, it's 
 still worse waste of talent for you to play in it." 
 
 Adam's eyes moistened. "There's something in that," he 
 murmured, and felt quite sorry for himself. His accent 
 grew more English in its note of appeal : "I've got to work 
 for my living." 
 
 He found Miss Nightingale's tone less sympathetic as 
 she replied: "You feel that you are working for your liv- 
 ing? I had an impression that was not absolutely neces- 
 sary."
 
 164. IN LONDON 
 
 Adam tossed his head. "There is a bagatelle be- 
 sides . . ." 
 
 "I beg your pardon?" said Miss Nightingale. 
 
 Adam suddenly felt that he wished he had never seen 
 her, but a smile won him back to her. "Mr. Macarthy 
 may have told you," said he, "that I have a little money 
 sent to me by some one, but it's not near enough to keep 
 me . . ." He would have corrected himself, but his hos- 
 tess delicately anticipated the effort. 
 
 "You find it not nearly enough to keep you?" she said. 
 
 "Not nearly enough," Adam repeated. "London," he 
 explained, "is more expensive than Dublin, and, of course, 
 besides, when a fellow's grown up he wants all the money 
 he can get." 
 
 "We all of us want all the money we can get, but we 
 don't all get it," said Miss Nightingale with what seemed 
 to Adam a faint echo of Mr. Macarthy's manner, but he 
 at once detected the lacuna in her argument. 
 
 It was his turn to be schoolmaster, and he took it. "We 
 all get what we can get," he pointed out. 
 
 It was disappointing to hear Miss Nightingale say: "Do 
 we? I think not," and he realized that perhaps his re- 
 partee had missed fire. 
 
 "I meant to say we all can get what we get," he said. 
 
 "Obviously," Miss Nightingale agreed, "what of it?" 
 
 Again Adam felt that his affection for her was diminish- 
 ing, but he could not help liking the look of her. "I've 
 forgotten what we were talking about," he said simply. 
 
 Once more Miss Nightingale smiled benignly. "If you 
 do that at your age," said she, "what will you do at mine ?" 
 
 "Come," Adam answered chivalrously, "you're not so 
 old as all that!" 
 
 "All what?" queried Miss Nightingale; a singularly baf- 
 fling question.
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF WESTMINSTER 165 
 
 Adam smiled broadly in her face. "You remind me of 
 Mr. Macarthy." 
 
 "And you remind me of Mr. Macarthy," she said, and 
 added hastily : "And, of course, all sorts of other people." 
 
 Here Adam again saw a chance to score. "What sorts 
 of other people?" 
 
 Miss Nightingale laughed outright, and so failed to score 
 before Adam thought of another effective blow, which he 
 put in just in time. "I can't imagine any one like Mr. 
 Macarthy being like any one else." 
 
 His hostess looked at him this time with unmistakable 
 admiration. "You really are a clever child," she said. 
 
 Adam was too pleased with the adjective to quarrel 
 with the noun. "My grandfather," said he, "was a very 
 intellectual man." 
 
 Miss Nightingale instantly sobered. "It seems a pity 
 that you did not take up a more intellectual profession." 
 
 Adam crossed his legs with the air of a man of the 
 world. "Well, my grandfather's profession wasn't very 
 intellectual, you know. . . ." He made a great effort: 
 "He was just a beau sabreur" 
 
 "A what?" asked Miss Nightingale. 
 
 For this question Adam was quite unprepared, and he 
 was not unconscious of the lameness of his reply as he 
 said : "The French for a beautiful swordsman." 
 
 "How interesting," Miss Nightingale declared with dubi- 
 ous innocence. "I fence a little myself. Do you?" 
 
 "Not much," said Adam. "Mr. Sackville and I went 
 in for it a little." Mr. Sackville, who did well everything 
 connected with his profession, had in fact given him a 
 lesson, and would have given him more had not Adam 
 found it dull to be poked by his friend without succeeding 
 in poking him, for even when the elder actor's amiability 
 had frequently thrown him off his guard, Adam had failed
 
 166 IN LONDON 
 
 to notice it. He added thoughtfully: "I like Mr. Sack- 
 ville." 
 
 Miss Nightingale seemed almost to resent the note of 
 patronage in the last words. "Mr. Sackville is a very lov- 
 able man," she said. 
 
 "I suppose he is," said Adam judiciously, "but I couldn't 
 feel for him as I do for Mr. Macarthy; could you?" 
 
 Miss Nightingale rose to press the bell before she an- 
 swered: "I suppose they are different in some ways." 
 
 Adam was annoyed at the notion of Mr. Sackville being 
 put on a parity with his guardian. "Sackville's a jolly nice 
 actor," he said, "and a jolly nice fellow, but there's nothing 
 in him, is there?" 
 
 Miss Nightingale hesitated. "It's hardly for a woman 
 to say whether there's anything in a man or not unless she 
 really knows him very well indeed." 
 
 "But you must know Arthur Sackville through and 
 through," said Adam. "He simply worships the ground 
 you walk upon." 
 
 His hostess frowned. "Please don't say such ridiculous 
 things to me. Mr. Sackville may be a little sentimental 
 about me, but that's only because he's the sort of man who 
 was born full of sentiment and must find somebody to 
 spend it on." 
 
 "Anyhow, he wanted to marry you," Adam insisted. 
 
 "We'll not discuss that," said Miss Nightingale icily. 
 
 Adam bowed with an air of perfect obedience. "I sup- 
 pose Mr. Macarthy never did a thing like that?" he said. 
 
 For a moment Miss Nightingale's brows were thunder- 
 ously angry, then her whole face, as it were, exploded in 
 laughter, and she hid it in her hands. "You're a dreadful 
 child," she cried, "perfectly dreadful!" 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry," said Adam, "if I've been rude. I 
 assure you I didn't mean it. But I am most awfully inter- 
 ested in what they call . . ." He tried to think of the
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF WESTMINSTER 167 
 
 word "psycho-analysis," but couldn't, blurting out instead: 
 "Physical affinity." 
 
 Miss Nightingale's eyes slowly appeared between her 
 fingers, and her tone was deliberate as she said : "You and 
 I would get on better, I imagine, if you troubled to think 
 what you were going to say before you said it." 
 
 It seemed to Adam that he felt the blood in his toes 
 creeping up his legs and body until it reached his brain 
 where, finding it could go no farther, it bubbled him into 
 dumbness: it added to his confusion to know that he 
 looked as if some such accident had befallen his circula- 
 tion. He found himself staring at his wrist-watch, and 
 without gaining the smallest information from his study of 
 it, murmured in a voice he did not recognize as his own 
 that he had no idea it was so late. 
 
 "I suppose it is getting rather late," said Miss Night- 
 ingale. "You see, you've kept me so interested that, like 
 yourself, I forgot about the time." 
 
 Adam pouted at her reproachfully. "And yet you say 
 we don't get on?" 
 
 With curved lips she answered: "I said nothing of the 
 kind. I threw out a flattering hint how we might get on 
 yet better." 
 
 "Oh," said Adam, and they faced each other with latent 
 mockery: she determined to keep him in his place, he re- 
 coiling to leap from it. He felt that she lived in a world 
 whose air he could not breathe, but he longed to skim its 
 surface in leaps and bounds, partly for the pleasure of it 
 and partly from curiosity. One thirst he felt he must sat- 
 isfy before he went: he sought his end subtly. "What do 
 you think of Mrs. Onsin?" he asked. 
 
 "Who is that?" queried Miss Nightingale. 
 
 "I believe she is Mr. Onsin's wife," said Adam. 
 
 Miss Nightingale brushed beautiful fingers across her 
 forehead. "Oh! a person called Isabelle Something, you
 
 168 IN LONDON 
 
 mean? I've only seen her once and I don't remember any- 
 thing about her except that she was disgustingly vulgar, 
 like everything else in the play, except poor dear Arthur 
 Sackville. He can't be vulgar even when it's necessary." 
 
 Adam looked at her roguishly: "I think I know, all the 
 same," said he, "that you rather fancied Oswald Onsin 
 himself." 
 
 "If I did," she said thoughtfully, "I must have fancied 
 that he was even worse than his wife."
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 
 THE PROBLEM OF MARRIAGE 
 
 WITH temperate cordiality Miss Nightingale bade Adam 
 farewell at the door of her flat. "You know your way," 
 she said smilingly, but he thought there was an under- 
 current of suggestion that he had better not presume upon 
 that knowledge. 
 
 His last words to her were, he felt afterwards, not well 
 chosen : "I notice you have no lift." 
 
 She replied: "You are very observant; we cannot afford 
 one in this house, but of course there are others." Adam 
 felt that she had an almost snobbish gift of charging in- 
 genuousness with a breach of manners. He half suspected 
 that she knew the secret of his parentage and was eternally 
 prepared to use the knowledge against him, albeit unwill- 
 ing to admit that such scapegraces as Byron O'Toole and 
 Bride Macfadden could exist. He summed her up as an 
 exquisite, if somewhat too high-browed lady; he opined 
 that if she had a brother he would wear an outsize in hats. 
 
 Yet, as he descended the staircase, it was her charm 
 that worked within him. He said to himself that the ef- 
 frontery of her denial of interest in Oswald Onsin was a 
 triumph of subtle dissimulation of passion. At the same 
 time he wondered whether perhaps after all Mr. Sackville 
 might not be what his real and his putative father had 
 agreed in calling each other when at variance on things of 
 the mind. He suddenly wondered, as he reached the street 
 and saw Bentley's red creation looming heavenward over 
 his head, what on earth was Miss Nightingale's object in 
 sending for him. Once before she had done so, but that 
 
 169
 
 170 IN LONDON 
 
 was at the instigation of the Marchesa, who was the con- 
 nection by marriage of her friend Lady Derrydown. . . . 
 Did Miss Nightingale know by intuition, as she called it, 
 that he was a member of that noble family? . . . He sel- 
 dom thought of it himself; for he was more interested in 
 his grandfather, the romantic baronet, than in his grand- 
 mother, the unkempt offspring of an Irish Earl. He hardly 
 thought an Irish peerage sufficiently distinguished to com- 
 pensate for the Marchesa's faults of style. . . . He re- 
 membered that even Caroline Brady, the shopgirl, had the 
 air of looking down on her as an enemy of decent society. 
 And although he had at once perceived that Caroline's 
 attitude could not be sustained, it somehow had perma- 
 nently left him ashamed of his grandmother ... he 
 thought of her as some one with whom Caroline could not 
 bring herself to associate. . . . And now Caroline and the 
 Marchesa were associates in death, and if one were to 
 credit the letter of the faith that had built Bentley's cathe- 
 dral for his glory and God's, the pair of them were now 
 roasting in hell. Caroline through his fault and the Mar- 
 chesa through his grandfather's. Therefore Caroline's 
 perdition lay in some measure at the Marchesa's door. . . . 
 But what would that matter to the Marchesa since she was 
 clearly hopelessly damned anyhow as a suicide? ... Or 
 perhaps did her guardian angel argue for her in heaven, as 
 her relatives' advocate on earth, that she had died through 
 misadventure? . . . He found himself smiling at the no- 
 tion, and at the consternation of Satan should he be made 
 responsible for that lady's future. 
 
 In the glow of the setting sun the enormous building 
 gleamed scarlet as Mephistopheles ; it seemed to him to 
 threaten London with a red revival of obscurantism. It 
 was almost a consolation to recall that it was not yet paid 
 for. He had an impression from his youth that churches 
 never were paid for, but remained a pious excuse for
 
 THE PROBLEM OF MARRIAGE 171 
 
 breaches of the Lottery Act. He recalled that his mother 
 had won a bottle of whisky with a church bazaar ticket 
 which she had purchased in a moment of exaltation. He 
 wondered if the contributions of Catholics no more spir- 
 itual than his mother had been declined, whether the cam- 
 panile of Bentley's cathedral would have towered so au- 
 thoritatively over Westminster. He could perceive that it 
 was a nobler projection of Byzantine architecture than Mr. 
 Oswald Onsin's theater, but almost equally remote from 
 every idea that bowed his knee to the name of Jesus. At 
 eighteen, and as a successful London actor, his heart 
 warmed as hotly to the Holy Name as when he was a 
 ragamuffin of eight. But that architectural masterpiece at 
 Westminster left all but his eye as dissatisfied as that 
 masonic miscarriage, the Dublin pro-Cathedral wherein 
 sturdier presters had battered out of recognition the image 
 of his Saviour begotten in his mind by Father Innocent. 
 
 From these teleological dreams he was roused by the 
 roar of Victoria Street welcoming him back to the world 
 which the war had not yet robbed of all appearance of 
 reality. Not having known the Metropolis in pre-war days, 
 he took the scene before him as typical. In the mechanic 
 of life and all the exterior things of human existence, 
 London even on the Sunday summer evening in war-time 
 seemed more vital than Dublin in its busiest hour. On the 
 other hand the mentality of London seemed to him so far 
 a feeble thing. Miss Nightingale, for example, was a beau- 
 tiful, and he supposed a brilliant lady; he was prepared to 
 believe that she lived half in heaven, but he was certain 
 that the other half never touched earth. He deemed Mr. 
 Sackville's passion for her almost farcical in its fatuity. 
 . . . And yet he saw clearly that he might fall in love with 
 Miss Nightingale himself . . . and yet again he asked him- 
 self, why did she want him to call upon her? He had 
 nothing whatever in common with Miss Nightingale, for it
 
 172 IN LONDON 
 
 was his topmost passion to realize the meaning of things 
 as they are, while she seemed intent on creating for herself 
 an atmosphere of superficially reasonable unreality. At 
 this time Adam did not carry in his mind the word par- 
 thenogenesis, but it contained the idea that Miss Nightin- 
 gale's roses were parthenogenetically brought forth by her 
 florist and her mutton cutlets by her cook. No doubt if 
 she was in love with Oswald Onsin it was because of some 
 quality that she imagined she had seen in him. . . . Yet 
 it did seem absurd that a woman who had lived on friendly 
 terms with Mr. Macarthy should condescend to waste any 
 emotion over the manager of the Grand Theater. . . . 
 Could it be because he was in daily touch with Mr. Onsin 
 that Miss Nightingale had sent for him? Or could it be 
 that having met him at Lady Derrydown's she really was 
 impressed with Adam and desirous of his company on his 
 own merits? After all, at the Muses Club he had heard 
 of comparatively mature women being in love with young 
 men. . . . There was the leading case of Lady Bland and 
 Mr. Tinkler: he calculated that the difference between 
 Lady Eland's age and Mr. Tinkler's was no more dispro- 
 portionate than Miss Nightingale's age and his own . . . 
 and Miss Nightingale was unmarried. . . . That night, 
 waking and dreaming, he sought the reasons why Miss 
 Nightingale had remained so long unmarried. Heretofore 
 he had taken it for granted that old maids were women 
 who had never a chance to be rid of their maidenness, with 
 the exception of perhaps a few, who through vanity or mis- 
 fortune had missed their chance, but he could not doubt 
 that Miss Nightingale might have married again and again 
 even had there been no sentimental Sackvilles pledged to 
 her worship. He wondered if one day Miss Nightingale 
 might say to Mr. Sackville that she surrendered, and 
 whether Mr. Sackville would in that event survive the hour 
 of victory. He supposed that Mr. Sackville must have the
 
 THE PROBLEM OF MARRIAGE 173 
 
 same feeling for Miss Nightingale as he himself had for 
 Josephine, only perhaps rather more so; for although he 
 longed continuously for Josephine, his desire for her was 
 never so acute as his occasional pangs of hunger at the 
 sudden mention of the name of Barbara. ... It was odd 
 that he had heard nothing of Barbara since the Marchesa 
 had confided to him the scarcely credible tale of her rela- 
 tions with her husband. 
 
 He wrote to Mr. Macarthy, whom he had not seen now 
 for a whole year, telling him of his visit to Miss Nightin- 
 gale and asking in a postscript how the Carahars were 
 getting on. Mr. Macarthy replied that he was glad to think 
 of him in the company of Miss Nightingale, and that he 
 saw nothing of Mrs. Leaper-Carahar, and understood that 
 her husband saw very little more. There was a rumor that 
 Mrs. Burns meditated going to London to do war work 
 and had invited her daughter to accompany her as chap- 
 eron. "If Mrs. Burns goes into munitions in London, it 
 might be as well for you to go on tour," Mr. Macarthy 
 said, and Adam was not quite sure whether this joke did 
 not conceal a note of warning. He had long suspected 
 that his guardian did not wish him and Barbara to come in 
 contact now that she was a married woman. On the other 
 hand, he persuaded himself that it would be pleasing to his 
 guardian if he lost no time in calling on Miss Nightingale 
 again, so the following Sunday he did so, and although 
 this time uninvited, she seemed genuinely pleased to wel- 
 come him. 
 
 Considering that he had seen it but once before, the gray 
 room seemed full of familiar gestures, and the fresh roses 
 poised above the white china bowed to him gracefully as 
 though to imply that they had heard of him from their 
 predecessors. He found himself wondering whether it 
 might not be a pleasant thing to go on living till the end 
 of time in such a suite of apartments as Miss Nightingale
 
 174 IN LONDON 
 
 hallowed with her presence. ... It occurred to him that 
 she resembled at once the Belle dame sans merci of his first 
 abstract love, in as much as she repelled all advances (un- 
 less, indeed, Mr. Onsin's?) and the Blessed Damozel of the 
 pre-Raphaelites in that she might yet reward some perfect 
 gentle knight, ignoring Mr. Onsin's kisses on her lips . . . 
 and Adam, looking at her, found it incredible that Mr. 
 Onsin should have so far ventured. If Jane Nightingale 
 had been kissed, and he could not visualize the kissing of 
 her even by himself, though practised in fanciful victories 
 ... it was certain that the creator of Lord Algy was not 
 the man. Whatever Mr. Sackville might think he knew 
 about her, Adam once for all refused to believe that ten- 
 dresses in any shape or form had passed between his host- 
 ess and the author of What Rot! . . . He remembered 
 now that Mr. Macarthy had implied ridicule of the idea 
 in his only reference to the subject. . . . The Blessed 
 Damozel could not condescend to such as Mr. Onsin, and 
 Miss Nightingale looked the Blessed Damozel to the life, 
 if her Damozellery (he coined the word) was what Mr. 
 Pirn of the Muses Club was wont to call "a bit passy." 
 Truly she was a desirable creature, with the physical equi- 
 poise of a sexless archangel and the mental aloofness of a 
 womanly woman. "I have come to ask your advice," said 
 Adam. 
 
 He thought Miss Nightingale looked pleased. "My dear 
 boy," said she, "what about?" 
 
 Adam was not quite sure what was the subject upon 
 which he wished to consult Miss Nightingale, but he 
 thought this a good opening to any interrogatory he might 
 summon up the courage to put to her; for he would ap- 
 pear to be disclosing his affairs to her when in fact he 
 was prying into her own. Not that Adam ever applied 
 the term "prying" to his inquisition into other people's 
 business, and in a sense he was justified, for his was not
 
 THE PROBLEM OF MARRIAGE 175 
 
 vulgar prying; his curiosity being never idle but always 
 inspired by an unselfish, interest in the meaning of life. 
 Miss Nightingale was so utterly unlike any woman whom 
 he had ever met that he felt justified at all costs in pene- 
 trating the secret of the difference between her and her 
 frailer sisters. "I want you to tell me," said he with suf- 
 ficient solemnity, "whether you think I ought to get mar- 
 ried?" 
 
 He was quite prepared for Miss Nightingale to laugh at 
 him, but she kept a serious countenance without apparent 
 effort as she said: "It is strange that you should ask me 
 that." 
 
 "Oh, not at all," said Adam lightly, "I feel that no one 
 could give me better advice." 
 
 Miss Nightingale looked at him very gravely. "Why 
 do you feel that?" 
 
 "Because," said Adam, returning her glance with equal 
 gravity, "I do know that in many ways you are wiser 
 than I." 
 
 Miss Nightingale shrugged her shoulders, or rather al- 
 lowed them ever so gracefully to rise and fall. "I am 
 several years older than you," said she, "but it is as im- 
 possible for me to understand things from a man's point 
 of view as it is for a man to understand things from a 
 woman's point of view." 
 
 "But is that so impossible?" Adam argued. "I cannot 
 imagine any point of view that Mr. Macarthy wouldn't 
 understand." 
 
 Miss Nightingale smiled with just a suspicion of bitter- 
 ness. "Can't you?" said she. "Then perhaps it may in- 
 terest you to know that much as I like him, he and I have 
 failed signally to understand one another." 
 
 "Perhaps that was a long time ago?" Adam promptly 
 suggested. 
 
 "It would seem a long time ago to you," Miss Nightin-
 
 176 IN LONDON 
 
 gale gently replied. "To me it seems only yesterday, but 
 in any case, however long since the original misunder- 
 standing, we have never got rid of it." 
 
 "But," Adam protested, "I thought you were such good 
 friends?" 
 
 Miss Nightingale found something wrong with the lid of 
 her tea-pot and became so interested in it that her very 
 conversation appeared to be addressed to it. "I think I 
 have no better friend in the world than Stephen Ma- 
 carthy," she said, "and I am sure that he has no more 
 faithful friend than I. But there is at least one subject 
 on which he and I utterly disagree." 
 
 Adam felt that he had struck oil. "Of course I wouldn't 
 on any account intrude," said he, "but may I ask what 
 that is?" 
 
 After a pause she answered : "I wonder that you do not 
 know that it is the very subject upon which you wish to 
 consult me."
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 
 THE PROBLEM REMAINS UNSOLVED 
 
 As Adam listened to Miss Nightingale he felt his brain 
 hot in pursuit of an idea, and almost prayed the gods that 
 he might not lose the chase through overrunning it. "The 
 subject of marriage?" he questioned, and as Miss Nightin- 
 gale lowered her chin in silent acquiescence he assured her 
 that he would never have guessed that Mr. Macarthy did 
 not share her views. 
 
 Miss Nightingale glanced at him, not perhaps without 
 suspicion. "Do you know what my views are?" she asked. 
 
 "I think I know you well enough to guess," said Adam, 
 "that your view of marriage would be a very beautiful 
 one, and so I thought that Mr. Macarthy would be sure 
 to agree with it." 
 
 Miss Nightingale said firmly: "Mr. Macarthy's view of 
 marriage and mine are diametrically opposed." 
 
 "Well, well," said Adam, "wonders will never cease," 
 and tried to remember if Mr. Macarthy had ever said any- 
 thing to indicate what his view of marriage might be. He 
 had always supposed that Mr. Macarthy's view of mar- 
 riage was the same as his own: likewise he had taken it 
 for granted that Miss Nightingale's view was the same as 
 his own : he was now a little surprised to find that he had 
 no view. Father Innocent had taught him that marriage 
 was a holy sacrament, but his experience failed to give him 
 any example of a marriage corresponding with this de- 
 scription. For himself he had wanted to marry Josephine, 
 he had wanted to marry Barbara, and when Caroline was 
 
 177
 
 i;8 IN LONDON 
 
 dead he had talked of wanting to marry her until Mr. Ma- 
 carthy had a little harshly cleared away that illusion. But 
 he certainly had the impression that at one time his guard- 
 ian would have wished him to marry Barbara Burns. . . . 
 At last, critically considering his hostess's cold, clear-cut 
 features, he hazarded the guess : "I suppose you think peo- 
 ple ought not to marry at all?" 
 
 Miss Nightingale was apparently startled into immediate 
 rejoinder: "On the contrary, I think everybody ... al- 
 most everybody, ought to marry." 
 
 "Then why didn't you?" asked Adam point blank. 
 
 Miss Nightingale's tone turned to marble as she an- 
 swered: "I did not say that everybody ought to marry, I 
 said almost everybody; which reminds me that you asked 
 me, before we got on to this unfortunate question, whether 
 you ought to marry." 
 
 "Did I?" said Adam absent-mindedly. He pinched him- 
 self to add, while she still stared at him: "It's extraordi- 
 nary the way you take me out of myself. I wanted to ask 
 you about my being married, and now I can't think of any- 
 thing but about your being married." 
 
 Miss Nightingale suppressed the ghost of a smile. "I 
 don't think I broached that subject." 
 
 "Didn't you?" said Atiam. "Then I suppose it must 
 have been a sort of telepathy." 
 
 Miss Nightingale almost frowned. "What must have 
 been a sort of telepathy?" 
 
 "My thinking," Adam explained, "that you wanted to tell 
 me all about it." 
 
 "Do you talk like this to everybody?" Miss Nightingale 
 demanded. 
 
 Adam replied with truth that this was the first time he 
 had ever touched upon such delicate ground with a lady. 
 He did not think it necessary to add that this was his first 
 opportunity.
 
 THE PROBLEM REMAINS UNSOLVED 179 
 
 True, Miss Durward had a way of turning the conver- 
 sation on more or less matrimonial topics ; but with her he 
 was rather on his defense, and if forced to answer her 
 points, merely followed where she led. He had nothing 
 to learn from Miss Durward that he really wished to 
 know, but Miss Nightingale filled him with an almost 
 saintly curiosity: it seemed to him that she might have 
 something to reveal which could change the whole tenor 
 of his life. She stood for the one vein of refinement run- 
 ning through this vulgar London of the stage and streets, 
 which was all he yet knew of the metropolis. After Mr. 
 Macarthy she seemed to him the most refined person in 
 the world, and Mr. Macarthy came first only by reason of 
 his obviously superior intellect. Miss Nightingale had the 
 refinement of one for whom common things have no exist- 
 ence : Mr. Macarthy, ignoring nothing, had eliminated them 
 from his environment: surely he and Miss Nightingale 
 were intended by Providence to agree? . . . He said so to 
 Miss Nightingale. 
 
 She seemed at once flustered and pleased: "Have I not 
 told you that we disagree?" 
 
 "But what do you disagree about?" he insisted. 
 
 "I have said more than once that we disagree about mar- 
 riage," she reiterated, and had almost an air of being vexed 
 with him. 
 
 Adam sought to dissipate it : "I know I must seem dread- 
 fully stupid," he explained, "but you see, you're quite my 
 ideal woman. ... I mean my ideal of what a woman 
 ought to be." 
 
 "You mustn't idealize me," his hostess murmured. 
 
 "I don't idealize you," Adam gallantly assured her. "I 
 only idealize women generally when I think that some of 
 them may perhaps resemble you." 
 
 "I'm quite an ordinary woman," Mjss Nightingale said 
 in the most modest tone.
 
 i8o IN LONDON 
 
 Adam shook his head. "You're not that," said he, "any 
 more than Mr. Macarthy is an ordinary man." 
 
 "I cannot understand," said Miss Nightingale, "why you 
 should bracket us together in your mind." 
 
 As she apparently wished to understand it, Adam took 
 courage and went on : "I think it a great pity that you 
 didn't . . . that he didn't . . . that you and he . . ." it 
 seemed to Adam that it was Mr. Sackville and not himself 
 who was making this statement, which perhaps by reason 
 of her familiarity with Mr. Sackville, Miss Nightingale ac- 
 cepted as complete. 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know why you think that," said she. 
 
 "Did it never enter into your mind to marry him?" 
 queried Adam. 
 
 "I won't go so far as to say that," Miss Nightingale 
 admitted. "I have known him a great many years, and 
 all sorts of ideas may enter the mind without making a 
 lasting impression." 
 
 "And of course," Adam suggested, "there was always the 
 man you were in love with?" 
 
 Miss Nightingale leaned forward, her chin resting on her 
 hand, and gazed at him wistfully. "I'm afraid I don't 
 follow you." 
 
 "Well," said Adam a trifle knowingly, "there was . . ." 
 he began to say Oswald, but turned his tongue off in time 
 to form the words: "a certain distinguished dramatist." 
 
 Miss Nightingale wearily shook her head. "Mr. Ma- 
 carthy is, I suppose, in a sense a dramatist, but I wouldn't 
 call him very distinguished. . . . Who on earth do you 
 mean ?" 
 
 Adam felt nonplussed. "Mr. Sackville," said he, "told 
 me that you had never thought of marriage because you 
 were too much interested in a witty and brilliant dramatist, 
 or something of the kind."
 
 THE PROBLEM REMAINS UNSOLVED 181 
 
 His hostess positively laughed. "Poor Arthur. . . . He 
 really has the most fantastic ideas." 
 
 "Has he?" Adam queried, "he never mentioned them 
 to me." 
 
 Miss Nightingale laughed lightly: "But I understand 
 you to say that he said I was in love with a famous 
 dramatist ?" 
 
 "That's what I understood from him," Adam nodded. 
 
 Miss Nightingale's tone took the note of a cross-exam- 
 iner. "Are you sure he said anything of the kind?" 
 
 "Something of the kind certainly," Adam insisted, "I 
 don't remember his words. . . . You know his habit of 
 leaving them out . . . but he really gave me to understand 
 that you might be in love with Oswald Onsin." 
 
 Miss Nightingale sprang from her chair like a wounded 
 antelope. "How could you believe such a thing?" she 
 cried. 
 
 "I didn't know you then," Adam stammered; "that was 
 at Eastbourne before I even saw you. Of course since 
 then I've thought it was absurd, but really and truly that 
 seemed the idea that he wished to convey." 
 
 "But this is monstrous !" Miss Nightingale protested. 
 "If he ever said such a thing he must have been mad, for, 
 after all, he knows me pretty well and never once have I 
 said or done anything that could give color to such a sug- 
 gestion. If it were possible for me to care for an actor 
 at all, I should far prefer poor Arthur himself, who, after 
 all, is a gentleman in his own limited way ; but as for Mr. 
 Onsin, I can't stand him on the stage, much less off it." 
 
 "Did you ever at any time like him?" Adam suggested, 
 "or," he added with a great inspiration, "did you ever, just 
 to tease poor Mr. Sackville, pretend to like him?" 
 
 Miss Nightingale frowned. "I never tease and I never 
 pretend," said she. "I know nothing whatever about Mr.
 
 182 IN LONDON 
 
 Onsin beyond seeing him play one or two parts, as it seemed 
 to me, not very well, and hearing what Arthur Sackville 
 had to say about him. Good-natured as Arthur is, he never 
 told me anything that would make me like him any better." 
 
 After a pause Adam said: "Well, I suppose it's all my 
 stupidity. Sackville probably meant somebody else." 
 
 "But there is nobody else," Miss Nightingale assured 
 him. "I never in my life told Arthur I was in love with 
 any one, for the simple reason that I never have been in 
 love with any one," she added: "I am not likely to be in 
 love with any one now." 
 
 Adam thought for a long time, trying to recall the terms 
 of his conversation with Mr. Sackville on Beachy Head. 
 At length he said thoughtfully: "Can you remember any 
 one who feels for you the same as John Brown did for 
 Queen Victoria?" 
 
 Miss Nightingale colored charmingly. "It is not for me 
 to say what John Brown felt for Queen Victoria, but 
 Arthur himself used to tell me in the early days of our 
 acquaintance, before he quite realized the sort of woman I 
 am, that he would always love me as humbly and as stead- 
 fastly as John Brown loved Queen Victoria." 
 
 "I don't understand about John Brown loving Queen 
 Victoria," Adam confessed. "What had it to do with his 
 soul going marching on?" 
 
 Miss Nightingale reflected for some moments. "Surely 
 there is some mistake," said she, "you're thinking of the 
 American John Brown; Queen Victoria's John Brown was 
 a Highland servant." 
 
 "Oh!" said Adam, and looked foolish. After a long re- 
 arrangement of his ideas he went on apologetically: "Per- 
 haps after all I've misunderstood everything that Mr. Sack- 
 ville told me about you. . . . Except, of course, that he 
 was very much in love with you himself." He looked at 
 her: "That is true, isn't it?"
 
 [THE PROBLEM REMAINS UNSOLVED 183 
 
 "Poor Arthur thinks it's true," Miss Nightingale said, 
 "or at all events he tells me that he thinks it's true, but he 
 would probably soon tire of me if we were man and wife." 
 
 "Why should he tire of you?" Adam asked, in a tone 
 that implied his confidence that his hostess would prove 
 many-sided as Cleopatra. 
 
 "Frankly," said Miss Nightingale, "I should be bored to 
 death by him, and my weariness could hardly fail to react 
 even on a man so amiable. We should end up as cat and 
 dog." 
 
 Again Adam shook his head : "I cannot see you as a cat 
 or a dog," he said. 
 
 Miss Nightingale laughed softly. "I have both cat and 
 dog in me," she said, "particularly cat, and so has every 
 woman, no matter how artfully she cages it. ... You'll 
 find that if you ever marry." 
 
 Adam heaved a deep sigh. "I don't suppose I ever 
 shall." 
 
 Miss Nightingale turned quizzical, perhaps to hide dis- 
 appointment. "But you came here to talk to me about get- 
 ting married?" 
 
 "Yes," said Adam, "I did, but you've driven the notion 
 quite out of my mind." 
 
 Miss Nightingale looked alarmed. "I don't under- 
 stand . . ." 
 
 "Neither do I," said Adam, "but so it is." 
 
 "But you really mustn't think that I disapprove of mar- ' p 
 riage," Miss Nightingale asserted nervously. "I think it's 
 entirely beautiful when the right man marries the right 
 woman, only that happens so very seldom. ... I some-j 
 times wonder whether it has ever happened." 
 
 "Then," said Adam, "you've never met the right man?" 
 
 Miss Nightingale shifted in her chair. "No, certainly 
 not, not in the sense you mean. ... At any rate I have 
 always considered that marriage is out of the question for
 
 184 IN LONDON 
 
 me. My temperament doesn't lend itself to marriage, and 
 the women most like myself among my friends who mar- 
 ried, rather made a mess of it, I'm afraid; they expected 
 too much of their husbands." 
 
 "What exactly did they expect?" Adam asked pointblank. 
 
 "For one thing," said Miss Nightingale, "they expected 
 them to be faithful." 
 
 "And weren't they?" Adam asked, mildly surprised. 
 
 "No," said Miss Nightingale sternly, "they were not. 
 ... I mean they were not as faithful as they ought to 
 have been." 
 
 "Oh," said Adam, and "Ah!" said Adam. "You 
 mean . . .?" 
 
 "Never mind what I mean," said Miss Nightingale with 
 the air of waking from a trance, "this is a subject you are 
 far too young for me to discuss with you." 
 
 "But Mr. Macarthy discusses every subject with me," 
 Adam claimed, not quite truthfully. 
 
 "I am not Mr. Macarthy," said Miss Nightingale flatly. 
 
 "No," Adam rejoined, "but you know I cannot help 
 feeling that you might very well be Mrs. Macarthy." 
 
 His hostess covered her face with her hands. "Talk of 
 teasing people," she said. "It seems to me that you do 
 nothing else." 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry," said Adam innocently, "but I don't 
 at all follow. You can't mean that I'm teasing you by 
 talking as if you were my guardian's wife? ... It isn't 
 as if you'd wanted to be his wife." 
 
 "I did not say that it was," said Miss Nightingale 
 sternly. 
 
 "To tell you the truth," said Adam confidentially, "Mr. 
 Macarthy is so queer in some ways that I don't know for a 
 positive fact whether he's married or single." 
 
 "You may take it from me," said Miss Nightingale, 
 "that he is not married."
 
 JHE PROBLEM REMAINS UNSOLVED 185 
 
 "I can't help thinking it odd," said Adam, "that you 
 should both be unmarried." 
 
 Miss Nightingale looked at him a little distrustfully. "If 
 Mr. Macarthy discusses everything with you, as you say, 
 it seems odd that you should not know that he does not 
 believe in marriage at all." 
 
 Adam shook his head, dumbfounded. "I never heard 
 him say a word to that effect," said he. 
 
 "Then it is quite obvious that he does not discuss every- 
 thing with you," said Miss Nightingale. 
 
 Adam thought he saw a ray of light, deeming that Bar- 
 bara's marriage with Mr. Leaper-Carahar, C.B., had dis- 
 gusted his guardian with matrimony. "When did he tell 
 you that he was against marriage?" 
 
 "Before you were born," said Miss Nightingale. 
 
 Events anterior to his birth and not bearing directly 
 upon himself always appeared to Adam outside the range 
 of useful discussion. So, feeling that he had elicited from 
 his hostess all that he might well draw from her upon 
 this occasion, he presently took his leave. But on the 
 threshold he said: "I'm afraid you must find me a terrible 
 little bore." 
 
 And to his delight she answered with her most urbane 
 smile: "You are the most interesting person I've ever met, 
 except one." 
 
 Adam cocked his chin, and he knew his eyes shone as he 
 cried : "It's awfully good of you to say that." 
 
 "And awfully silly," said Miss Nightingale, "but any- 
 how, the mischief's done." 
 
 "Then I may come again?" he asked, ardent for more 
 flattery. 
 
 But her only answer was a smile as she shut her door. 
 He descended the staircase furiously in love with Miss 
 Nightingale.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 
 THE SELF-HELP MINISTRY 
 
 ADAM interpreted Miss Nightingale's smile in the light of 
 what she had said before, and became a constant visitor 
 at the flat reflecting the glory of Westminster Cathedral, 
 or rather, failing to reflect it; for the rubicund visage of 
 the huge building made the grayness of her apartment all 
 the paler. Never once did he see any color there save 
 when her cheeks mantled talking of Mr. Macarthy. He 
 no longer doubted that Mr. Sackville's theory of her love 
 for an unnamed dramatist of great brilliance was a foible 
 of the actor's brain, and that the one man who had touched 
 her heart was his own guardian. But although Miss Night- 
 ingale encouraged Adam to talk to her about Mr. Macarthy, 
 she turned illusive when he looked for information in ex- 
 change. She had known him a long time, had been fas- 
 cinated by his brain-power, and considered him to be wast- 
 ing himself in Ireland : that was almost all he could gather 
 from her. He wrote to Mr. Macarthy that he saw much 
 of Miss Nightingale and that they talked constantly of 
 him. Mr. Macarthy replied that he had wished Adam to 
 learn wisdom from Miss Nightingale and not waste her 
 time and his own in small talk. 
 
 Fortified by this letter, Adam felt justified in making 
 love to Miss Nightingale, but she received his advances in 
 a somewhat baffling way, appearing to be unaware of them. 
 He asked her if she had heard that Shakespeare had mar- 
 ried a lady several years older than himself. 
 
 She answered : "He couldn't very well get out of it, could 
 
 186
 
 THE SELF-HELP MINISTRY 187 
 
 he?" and Adam, not being able clearly to remember the 
 circumstances, and suspecting that he was on dangerous 
 ground, dropped the subject; but he said boldly that a man 
 as clever as Shakespeare could marry a woman old enough 
 to be his mother. 
 
 "He could," said Miss Nightingale, "but would he?'* 
 
 "Why not?" asked Adam. 
 
 "That is not for me to say," Miss Nightingale answered, 
 "but Shakespeare himself, you may remember, is very in- 
 sistent that a woman should always marry a man older than 
 herself. 'So wears she to him, so sways she level with her 
 husband's heart/ " 
 
 "Well," said Adam doggedly, "then I don't agree with 
 Shakespeare." 
 
 "The lady you once came to consult me about," Miss 
 Nightingale suggested, "was she older than you?" 
 
 "I hardly remember," said Adam, "but the lady I want 
 to talk about now is a lot older, she is in fact as old as 
 you." 
 
 "Then I'll not make the poor dear woman ridiculous by 
 discussing her," said Miss Nightingale, and firmly refused 
 to be further drawn, but in his heart he suspected that she 
 knew what he meant and was pleased by it; for never did 
 she shut him out altogether, never hasten his departure, 
 and never hint at indifference as to whether he came again. 
 He said to himself that if she might not have Mr. Ma- 
 carthy's company, she really found him the next best 
 thing. 
 
 But there was one fissure dividing his position from hers. 
 She did not open it, and he did not for some time suspect 
 it, but once discovered it yawned between them. Miss 
 Nightingale was hot for the prosecution of the war and 
 thought it high time that Adam was in khaki. Now agree- 
 able as Adam's life was he would at a hint from Mr. Ma- 
 carthy have thrown it all up and gone to face wounds,
 
 188 IN LONDON 
 
 sickness and death, but he had no instinctive feeling that he 
 ought to be fighting England's battle. This attitude baf- 
 fled Miss Nightingale, who was a sentimentally patriotic 
 Englishwoman, through and through. She had worked 
 hard at one or other war service from the very beginning, 
 and being a highly qualified nurse, though she had ceased 
 to practise professionally, had done first-class service near 
 the firing-line until compulsorily invalided home. Since 
 then, forced to restrict herself to light work, she had acted 
 as inspector for one of the Red Cross organizations. So 
 it was that she had come in contact with that slightly ec- 
 centric peeress, the present Countess of Derrydown, whom 
 she had inspired with a greater devotion than did Britannia. 
 The Countess did not greatly care whether Britain sank 
 or swam, but a frown from Miss Nightingale would reduce 
 her to tears of repentance. 
 
 It was from the Countess herself that Adam gathered 
 these facts about Miss Nightingale and her view of him; 
 for she was punctiliously reticent when he visited her at 
 the flat; so reticent that Adam had no suspicion of her 
 disapproval until the Countess warned him of it. He had 
 not seen Lady Derrydown since the death of his grand- 
 mother, until a chance encounter one Sunday at Miss Night- 
 ingale's, when they came away together, she volunteering 
 her permission for him to cavalier her to Eaton Place. 
 
 Adam had no stomach for this journey; for that street 
 had become a place of horror to him since he had seen 
 the old Marchesa lifted from the roadway like nothing that 
 he could think of so much as a hideous Guy Fawkes : the 
 very carcass of false romance. To think of that thing be- 
 ing a woman at all was fearsome, to think of her as being 
 his grandmother little less appalling than the thought of 
 her who had been his mother. When Adam thought of 
 those who gave him life he abhorred it: the donors dis- 
 missed from his memory, he rejoiced in their gift.
 
 THE SELF-HELP MINISTRY 189 
 
 This paradox had sprung into his brain when Lady 
 Derrydown, having led him as far as Ebury Street with 
 barely a monosyllable returning her chatter of her friend, 
 offered him a penny for his thoughts. She neither paid 
 for nor received the goods, Adam smiling grimly at the 
 impertinence, which nettled her into the inquiry why he 
 was not in the army. 
 
 Adam answered lightly that like her husband he thought 
 the war was not an Irishman's business. 
 
 "Derrydown thinks nothing of the kind," the Countess 
 declared. "He can't be in khaki because of his heart, but 
 he does no end of war work." 
 
 "At the club with Mr. O'Hagan-Bathe ?" Adam sug- 
 gested. 
 
 "I don't know what he does at the club with Mr. 
 O'Hagan-Bathe," the lady blurted, "but you ought to know 
 what his war work is, since his offices are over the Grand 
 Theater." 
 
 "Oh!" said Adam, "is he the Self-Help Ministry?" 
 
 "I should think he was," said the Countess, "he's written 
 nearly all their advertisements, and every one says they're 
 simply splendid." She pointed opportunely to one on a 
 pillar-box outside St. Peter's Church and stayed her com- 
 panion that they might read it. 
 
 "Britons Strike Home !" it cried in strident capitals, add- 
 ing in type not quite so large: "You Can Do This Staying 
 At Home. . . . How? . . . Through Self-Help. ... If 
 You Will Help Yourself Your Country Will Do The 
 Rest." 
 
 "What do you think of that?" Lady Derrydown proudly 
 asked, and seemed disappointed when Adam answered that 
 it seemed to him a direct encouragement to fraudulent 
 contractors. 
 
 "I don't think it was meant for that," said Lady Derry- 
 down. "Of course one can't help being on friendly terms
 
 190 IN LONDON 
 
 with profiteers, but I'm sure Derrydown makes little or 
 nothing out of the war himself." 
 
 "D'you happen to know what the Self-Help Ministry is 
 for?" Adam asked. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she answered eagerly, "creating civil billets 
 of indispensable importance and helping to win the war." 
 
 "But how does it help to win the war?" Adam insisted. 
 
 "Derrydown did explain that to me," she said, "but I've 
 forgotten, except that you do it through Self-Help." 
 
 "I'm dashed if I can see how selfishness of any kind is 
 going to win the war," Adam murmured. 
 
 "Oh, not selfishness," Lady Derrydown corrected him, 
 "truly not selfishness. . . . Selp-Helpishness. I remember 
 now, he said the idea was to dissuade people who were en- 
 titled to pensions from applying for them ; if nobody asked 
 for anything that would be a help, wouldn't it?" 
 
 "A help to whom?" Adam asked dryly. 
 
 His companion shook her head. "I'm not clever enough 
 to tell you that," she said, "but I'll ask Derrydown." She 
 pointed her hand up Belgrave Street: "There's another 
 poster of Derrydown's over there, perehaps that will make 
 it clear." 
 
 So they called another halt to study this: "Britons," it 
 said, as the other had done, "Strike Home! If You Have 
 Lost Your Father, Remember You Might Have Lost Your 
 Mother. ... See That You Keep Her, And The Best 
 Way Is By Saving The State The Cost Of Supporting 
 Her." 
 
 "I think that's very touching," said Lady Derrydown, 
 "don't you?" 
 
 For answer Adam said that he espied yet another pillar- 
 box with yet another poster in the distance and suggested 
 a farther pilgrimage to this. Lady Derrydown in recogni- 
 tion of his appreciation of her husband's appeal, accom- 
 panied him, and again they read: "Britons Strike Home.
 
 THE SELF-HELP MINISTRY 191 
 
 . . . Strike Home By Self-Help. This Is How You Can 
 Help, By Self-Help. If You Have Lost A Leg, Remember 
 You Might Have Lost Your Life, And Ask For Nothing." 
 On the back of this pillar-box was yet another poster: 
 "Britons Strike Home! How Though Disabled You Can 
 Help. If You Have Lost An Arm, Remember You Are 
 No Longer With The Army, And Be Grateful To Your 
 Country And Content." 
 
 "That's just like Derrydown," said his Countess, "he 
 always looks on the cheerful side." 
 
 Adam felt that his appetite for the noble peer's com- 
 positions was sharpening. "Let's go and look for some 
 more," he suggested, but Lady Derrydown pleaded the 
 necessity to dress for dinner. "There's a very nice one 
 just outside the house," she said, and on yet another pillar- 
 box, the black base of which had not so long before been 
 spotted by the Marchesa's blood, Adam read: "Britons 
 Strike Home! If You Have Lost All You Love In The 
 War, That Is All The More Reason Why You Should 
 Love Your Country's Government. See That You Cost 
 Them Nothing," and on the other side : "The True Patriot 
 Asks Nothing Of His Country, Britons Expect Nothing Of 
 Yours, But Strike Home !" 
 
 "I think they're much the best of all the Ministry posters, 
 don't you?" said the Countess. 
 
 Adam confessed that his acquaintance with the litera- 
 ture of war posters was restricted to a not infrequent 
 perusal of the advice that his King and Country wanted 
 him. 
 
 "I think that, too, is a beautiful poster," the Countess 
 declared, "I wonder that it has never stirred your heart to 
 be told that your King and Country want you." 
 
 "Well, you see," said Adam with sweet simplicity, "I 
 may have a country, but I should hardly be justified in 
 saying that I had a king."
 
 i 9 2 IN LONDON 
 
 The Countess looked at him resentfully. "Are you really 
 a Sinn Feiner?" she demanded. 
 
 Adam thoughtfully answered: "I don't know that I am, 
 but I wouldn't positively say that I am not." 
 
 The Countess still stood at the top of the steps, gazing 
 proudly at her husband's blazonry on the letter-box. "I 
 can't understand any one being a Sinn Feiner when he 
 reads a thing like that." 
 
 In a fair imitation of Mr. Macarthy's tone Adam an- 
 swered: "I can't understand a Sinn Feiner reading that 
 when he might be doing anything else." 
 
 "What is a Sinn Feiner?" asked the Countess. "It's an 
 Irish rebel, of course, I know that, or at any rate a sort 
 of moonlighter; but what does the word actually mean? 
 Derrydown says it means: 'To Hell with the Orangemen,' 
 and what are the Orangemen?" 
 
 "Your husband ought to know that," Adam said. "It 
 simply means Self-Help." 
 
 The Countess clapped her hands and then knocked at her 
 door. "Come in and tell Derrydown that. He's been asked 
 to do a poster for Ireland, and wouldn't it be a great score 
 to head it Sinn Feiners Strike Home? . . ." As Adam 
 made no answer she went on : "You will come up now and 
 tell him, won't you?" 
 
 It was not Adam's intention to do anything of the kind, 
 but in a moment he found himself in the oddly familiar 
 drawing-room, listening to the Countess burbling to a pre- 
 maturely middle-aged gentleman courteously dissembling 
 his feelings, the information that Sinn Fein meant Self- 
 Help. "Isn't it priceless?" she demanded, "that it should 
 mean that, when you thought it meant 'To Hell with the 
 Orangemen' ?" 
 
 "I don't quite think that that was altogether what I 
 said," Lord Derrydown protested without cogency, "but I 
 think no one will deny . . ." he glanced at Adam with
 
 THE SELF-HELP MINISTRY 193 
 
 obvious anxiety lest he should do so, "I really think that 
 few if any will deny, that if Sinn Fein, whatever the word 
 exactly means, were to turn out a success, I'm sure that no 
 one will deny, or comparatively few, that practically no 
 Orangemen, if I am to believe what my neighbor Carson 
 says, would like it." 
 
 "Carson is an old dear," cried the Countess, "but I really 
 never understood that he objected to Self-Help." 
 
 In a condition wavering between laughter and tears, 
 Adam gazed on the Earl and on the Countess and then on 
 the Earl again : he wondered if they had children : he tried 
 to be humble and not congratulate himself on belonging to 
 the sinister branch of the family. The Earl broke silence 
 with a pretty strong hint that he supposed his wife wanted 
 him to give Adam a job in the Self-Help Ministry. 
 
 "I never thought of it," said the Countess, "but it really 
 would be a good idea, only I do think that he ought to be 
 going to the Front." 
 
 "Damn the Front," said his lordship. "It costs more 
 money than it's worth," he added, to account for his note 
 of disapproval. 
 
 "But war is bound to cost money," said the Countess. 
 
 "Not when they belted each other with clubs," said his 
 lordship. "In the days of chivalry war was cheap 
 enough, but to think of firing a field gun at a quid a time 
 and God knows how many rounds a minute all day and 
 all night for years on end makes me sick." His voice rose 
 protestingly : "And gas! Just think of it! Look at the 
 price of gas !" He turned to Adam apologetically : "You'll 
 forgive my talking shop, but the business of my Ministry 
 is to try to keep down the non-productive costs of the 
 war. I have to cod fellows into going about on one leg as 
 if it were two in order that another department may spend 
 the money blowing the heads off Germans. . . . I'm sick 
 of it, I tell you."
 
 194 IN LONDON 
 
 "But it's better than being in the trenches," said the 
 Countess. 
 
 "I don't know," said the Earl, "at this time of the year 
 when it's dry under foot the trenches are not so bad for 
 lads who like playing at boy scout and that kind of thing. 
 . . . You've been a boy scout?" he suggested to Adam. 
 
 Said Adam : "No, I can't say I was that, though I ought 
 to have been one of your aunt's Infant Druids." 
 
 His lordship asked what the hell the Infant Druids 
 were, and then went on without waiting for an answer: 
 "You'll know, perhaps, was my aunt a Sinn Feiner or was 
 she not? O'Hagan-Bathe says he knows for a fact she 
 was, but I can't help thinking that the old bird was just 
 out for a bit of a lark that Easter Monday." He wiped 
 his forehead. "My God, what a relief it was when she 
 fell out of the window there." 
 
 "It's all very well for you to say that," the Countess 
 grumbled as she lit a cigarette, "you hadn't to help to pick 
 her up, and after all, she was no end of an old sport." 
 
 "What did Miss Nightingale think of her?" Adam asked. 
 
 The Countess giggled. "Janie Nightingale would rather 
 die than tell any one what she thought of the Marchesa. 
 I'm not sure that she wouldn't rather die than think about 
 her at all, but I can tell you what she thinks about you." 
 
 Adam raised a pleased face: "She does me the honor to 
 think about me?" he said, "and do you know what she 
 thinks?" 
 
 "Yes," said the Countess calmly, "she thinks you're a 
 damned young skunk not to be in the trenches." 
 
 Adam's shocked ears burned. "Did she say that?" he 
 quavered. 
 
 The Countess nodded. "Not in my words, but serpent 
 talk she did."
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 
 TO FIGHT OR NOT TO FIGHT 
 
 IN the chair in which his grandmother had sat a few mo- 
 ments before she flung herself to her doom Adam sat star- 
 ing at the patches of red wall covering, which interlocked 
 with the Countess of Derrydown's odd collection of pic- 
 tures. Finally his eye rested on the provocative imbecility 
 rejoicing in the title of "A Toi." He felt he ought still 
 to be able to despise its proprietors, but could not bring 
 himself to make head against them, so overcome was he 
 at hearing what Miss Nightingale really thought of him. 
 The knowledge did not make him wish that he were in 
 the trenches : it made him regret that he had not been with 
 Columba and Patrick O'Meagher on that immortal Easter 
 Monday. But, anyhow, it made him wish that he was 
 anywhere but in the Countess of Derrydown's drawing- 
 room. . . . Abruptly he rose to go. 
 
 "You mustn't pay any attention to what my wife says," 
 the Earl affably admonished him, "she's always egging on 
 people to join the army, but when I had very nearly worked 
 up enough enthusiasm to join an O.T.C. she said she'd 
 divorce me if I didn't get a medical certificate to say I 
 really mustn't." 
 
 The Countess said with dignity: "I knew your brains 
 would be more valuable at home than at the Front. . . . 
 After all there would have been no Self-Help Ministry if 
 I'd let you come to grief in the army." 
 
 "No," agreed his lordship moodily, "there would have 
 been no Self-Help Ministry if I'd come to grief." 
 
 195
 
 196 IN LONDON 
 
 "Would that have mattered?" Adam promptly asked, 
 unable to resist the Parthian shot. 
 
 His lordship took it amiably: "Faith, it would have 
 mattered to me,'* he said with a not unpleasant twinkle in 
 his eye. 
 
 So Adam parted from his unsought hosts without rancor, 
 but as he circumvented Belgrave Square with all its greater 
 houses turned into some form of amateur War Ministry, 
 destructive or curative, he was deeply indignant with the 
 vulgarity of the Countess and the treacherous reticence of 
 Miss Nightingale. As he walked through Hyde Park he 
 birched vindictively the trees, and such upright things as 
 came within reach of his cane, at the thought that Miss 
 Nightingale had smiled in welcome at him, to sneer at him 
 after his departure. 
 
 Miss Durward, seeing him ruffled, failed signally to 
 smooth him. He slept badly, and though it was a hot 
 summer night, presently rose and drew his blinds that he 
 might light up and write to Mr. Macarthy, pouring out a 
 mourning plaint against the lady whose wisdom as well as 
 virtue his guardian had bid him honor. "You will be sur- 
 prised to hear," he wrote, "that your friend Miss Nightin- 
 gale, whom you told me to go and see, and who seemed 
 to me so nice, makes fun of me to her friends for not being 
 in the army the English army, if you please. But I 
 don't see any more than you do why an Irishman should 
 be in the English army. In fact I don't see why he should 
 be in any army at all since there's no Irish army for him 
 to be in. It only makes me feel ashamed that I ran away 
 from Ireland the way I did. Not that I pretend to feel 
 very much about Ireland either, I mean in the sense of 
 wanting to fight for her ; I don't believe that any country's 
 worth fighting about, in fact I never heard of anything yet 
 that was worth fighting about, but if I'm going to fight 
 about anything, that is, fight for my country, then I'll fight
 
 TO FIGHT OR NOT TO FIGHT 197 
 
 'for Ireland and nothing else." The letter ended with a 
 rhetorical expression of his resolution to visit Miss Night- 
 ingale no more. 
 
 Dawn had broken when Adam finished this letter and 
 went to bed. Re-reading it before going to his bath he 
 liked it less than in the first blush of composition, but, 
 though dissatisfied with its style and suspicious that he 
 might win severe criticism from any who happened to dis- 
 agree with him, he posted it after breakfast and awaited 
 with confidence, if with some curiosity, his guardian's reply. 
 It arrived on the Wednesday afternoon. 
 
 Writing from his Dublin address, Mr. Macarthy said in 
 effect : "My DEAR BOY, You tell me that our friend Miss 
 Nightingale deplores the fact that you are not serving in 
 the British army. The form of her strictures on your con- 
 duct, as reported by Lady Derrydown, have an unflattering 
 implication, but I know Miss Nightingale well enough to 
 judge that she did not speak as reported. That she regrets 
 your absence from the fighting line is, after all, flattering 
 to you; for she must imagine that your presence there 
 would make some difference, and you will be justified in 
 assuming that it would be a change for the better since the 
 state of affairs could hardly be worse. . . . Though in 
 point of fact I anticipate that our generals may yet suc- 
 ceed in making it worse before the Americans come to our 
 rescue. You see I write of the situation critically as an 
 Irishman. As an Irishman I am indignant at Miss Night- 
 ingale's suggestion that you, who are my ward, should be 
 seduced by her into joining the British army. . . . On the 
 other hand I am bound to put to you in fairness to all 
 parties the other side of the case. . . . For some eighteen 
 months now, which is an appreciable proportion of your 
 whole life, you have been domiciled in England, living on 
 what I might call equal terms with other young English- 
 men, were it not for the fact that you are actually better
 
 ig8 IN LONDON 
 
 off than all but a mere handful. I put it to you that it 
 might be said you cannot in honor go on living in England 
 taking five hundred a year out of the pockets of English 
 people (a considerable percentage of whom have probably 
 died of wounds or disease since they paid their money for 
 the privilege of seeing you act) without accepting the lia- 
 bilities as well as the rewards of being to all intents and 
 purposes a British citizen. ... To me it would be a ter- 
 ribly painful thing if you were killed or your health ruined 
 in a war which need not have been any concern of yours, 
 but since you ask me, I tell you that, if I were in your 
 position, I should feel that now you are approaching the 
 age at which Englishmen by the laws of their country must 
 be prepared to fight for that country, you should either 
 throw in your lot with them or return to your own coun- 
 try. If your point is that your conscience forbids you to 
 fight, then I advise you that you spend some of your ill- 
 gotten gains on learning to drive an ambulance or some 
 other useful work which will not involve you in butchering 
 your fellow-men." 
 
 Adam was conscious of shock as he took in at a glance 
 the purport of this letter; and study did not remove the 
 uneasiness of that first moment. It was clear that even 
 Mr. Macarthy thought he should be at the Front. He 
 wrote off to him on the spur of the moment a letter com- 
 plaining of his change of attitude. "Why didn't you warn 
 me before," he demanded, "that you thought me a cow- 
 ard?" To which Mr. Macarthy at once replied that such 
 a thought had never entered his head. 
 
 "You very well know that I have never interfered with 
 the working of your conscience," Mr. Macarthy reminded 
 him. ... "I have never told you what I thought you ought 
 to do, though I may have told you of things you had better 
 refrain from doing. As you were settled in England I 
 thought it well that you should be brought into contact,
 
 TO FIGHT OR NOT TO FIGHT 199 
 
 as a corrective to the mentality of the theater, or of the 
 camp-followers of the theater, with the point of view of the 
 better sort of English people. ... I know no better sort 
 than Miss Nightingale, who has a tolerable brain and some- 
 thing like a beautiful character : her limitations are those of 
 her sex and nation which in spite of, or perhaps because 
 C-, her German extraction, is markedly English. It is nat- 
 ural that a woman who has worn herself to death at the 
 Front should expect her male friends to go there too. The 
 possibility of her country being wrong never occurs to per- 
 sons of Miss Nightingale's temperament. And indeed of 
 all the nations, the big, predatory nations, cutting each 
 other's throats at the present time, England seems to me 
 on the whole the least wrong. You cannot expect any 
 woman with an untrained political sense to realize that 
 England opposes to the brutal efficiency of Prussia and her 
 imitators a dishonest opportunism, perhaps as inhumane 
 in effect, and at worst there remains to her the defense that 
 England is an amateur cut-throat struggling in the grip of 
 a professional one. . . . Think this over. . . . And think 
 over another point which gives me much ground for 
 thought : There never has been, during all the centuries in 
 which they have been in conflict, any excuse either in 
 morality or common-sense for England's attitude towards 
 Ireland. The English people, as apart from those high- 
 waymen schoolboys called gentlemen adventurers, have lost 
 far more than they have gained by the Irish policy of their 
 rulers, who not only used the riff-raff of England to bully 
 decent Irishmen, but the riff-raff of Ireland to bully decent 
 Englishmen. But the calling in of America to save the 
 alleged Liberalism of Europe means that England at all 
 events must pretend to abandon her traditional Irish policy, 
 and I am convinced that Woodrow Wilson (who appears 
 to me to be the only statesman in the world, at all events 
 on the side of progress, who combines honesty with strik-
 
 200 IN LONDON 
 
 ing power) is determined that she shall abandon it. ... 
 I tell you this to make it quite clear that although I do 
 not urge you to risk your life in the furtherance of English 
 interests, yet in my view an Irishman may devote himself 
 to England's service in the present grave crisis without 
 feeling himself to be a traitor to his own country. ... I 
 write you this almost in spite of myself; for my whole 
 mentality revolts at the idea of an old man, as I feel my- 
 self to be, being directly or indirectly a party to a young 
 man running an avoidable risk. My only rational excuse 
 is that I think death the least of all the risks that any man 
 can run." 
 
 When Adam had reached so far he was fully ready to 
 think over what his guardian put to him. He found him- 
 self wondering how he had failed to give it more serious 
 thought before. There was one very good reason : He had 
 come to London not yet seventeen, and commencing with 
 his seventeenth birthday he had been fulfilling a theatrical 
 engagement which had necessitated his pretending for three 
 hours every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 
 and six hours every Wednesday and Saturday for eighteen 
 months on end to be a boy not yet seventeen, and 
 so despite his plump prosperity and the addition of an inch 
 or two to his height, he remained to outward appearance 
 so much a schoolboy that at eighteen and a half the busiest 
 recruiting officer still ignored him as too obviously a lad. 
 
 And it hardly needs to be said that his looks did not 
 altogether belie him. Physically he was less developed 
 than the average English youth of his age: he hardly 
 reached the standard height, and even, as most of his fel- 
 low-countrymen, was far below what in England was for 
 that height the standard weight. His very countenance was 
 that of a bare adolescent: easily he would have passed for 
 a girl, having still no need to shave. His eyes, if not as 
 large, were as blue as Miss Nightingale's own; and his
 
 TO FIGHT OR NOT TO FIGHT 201 
 
 complexion, well preserved by cocoa-butter and cleanliness 
 from the ravages of theatrical make-up, had the delicate 
 pink and white of one content with little food and less 
 drink. For the rest the swirl of dissipation round him 
 titillated his brain but offered him no temptation. A semi- 
 narist could hardly have lived more prudently. So he com- 
 fortably met his liabilities with little more than half his 
 income, sending the rest to Mr. Macarthy to invest for 
 him: his chief expenditure was on books; for he sadly 
 missed his guardian's library. In fine, though essentially 
 a man, he was a man in nothing but essentials. 
 
 He could not bring himself to think that fighting was an 
 occupation for any man. The sight of the common sol- 
 diers with their woebegone faces, lost in the mazes of the 
 London stations, or plodding desperately, tin hats jangling 
 against trenching tools, towards the reinforcement trains 
 stirred him to tears of rage. . . . He could not bear to see 
 other men going to throw their lives away in this incredibly 
 nightmarish chance medley. . . . And now he found that 
 the one man in whose guidance he had perfect faith made 
 it a reproach that he did not join that pageant of sad 
 travelers. . . . Though his whole soul rebelled at the no- 
 tion, he made up his mind that on the following Monday 
 he would offer himself at the Central Recruiting Offices. 
 
 The last days of the week sank him in the first melan- 
 choly he had suffered from since leaving Dublin: he felt 
 as a man condemned to death without honorable reason. 
 . . . And then on the Saturday night by the very last post 
 came one more letter from Mr. Macarthy which again 
 changed the outlook. "Dr. Ahearn tells me," said he, "that 
 the British recruiting authorities must be badly served by 
 their medical officers if they take you for any sort of a 
 soldier. You need not be alarmed by this. His point is 
 that since you landed yourself such a cropper trying to 
 ride over that unfortunate ox four or five years ago, your
 
 202 IN LONDON 
 
 right arm, whether you know it or not, has been out of 
 action for all military purposes. Ahearn believes that you 
 could not possibly handle a rifle nor turn the starting- 
 handle of an engine with a stiff compression. So it seems 
 that after all there is nothing doing."
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 
 MAJOR MACFADDEN SMITH 
 
 ADAM sat looking wistfully at Mr. Macarthy's letter con- 
 veying to him his opinion of Dr. Ahearn. His first feel- 
 ing of relief that he should be spared the dabbling of his 
 hands in blood, of his own or others, was drowned in a 
 sudden revulsion of emotion when he realized that if Dr. 
 Ahearn was right the lists of the Great War were for ever 
 closed against him. Incredible as it was even to himself, 
 now that he appeared to be debarred from all share in the 
 conflict, his need to plunge into it waxed hot. All through 
 the Sunday it burned, yet by Monday its glow was not so 
 intense that he was fired to a decision. For the dread of 
 being called on to take life yet outweighed all other mis- 
 givings and still haunted his dreams. Only once, within 
 his remembrance, had he really wished to kill: that was 
 at the sight of Macfadden, still believed by him in those 
 days to be his father, beating his mother. If he had seen 
 with his own eyes the German soldiers in Belgium . . . 
 But then Mr. Macarthy said that the soldiers of every 
 nation brutalized women if they got the chance: even Irish 
 soldiers ! . . . After" all, Macfadden was an Irishman and 
 kicked his wife, and he had seen Irish policemen twisting 
 the arms off women. Was it worse to kiss a woman than 
 to kick her? . . . Perhaps from her husband's point of 
 view. . . . Even in peace the world was a welter of beast- 
 liness and cruelty. Did war make it so much worse? . . . 
 The papers answered "Yes!" Peace brutalized and slew 
 its thousands, but war its thousands of thousands. Mil- 
 lions of lives were blasted not only in fiery battlefield and 
 pestilent camping ground, but in the very cradle. 
 
 203
 
 204 IN LONDON 
 
 English people did not realize the abomination of war; 
 for it seldom unmasked in their streets. This war had 
 brought them an immediate fraudulent prosperity, and if 
 babes wanted milk, they had wanted it no less in peace 
 time for the lack of the means to pay for it. Now the 
 money that might have gone on milk for them, had there 
 been milk to buy, filled the picture palaces with their eld- 
 ers. The upper classes, too, unable to spend their money 
 on filling their stomachs, lavished it in the purchase of such 
 mental pabulum as What Rot! After eighteen months' 
 run What Rot! awoke in the autumn like a giant refreshed 
 and was going stronger than ever. 
 
 On the Monday Mr. Onsin, who had heard a rumor of 
 Adam's desire to join the army, sent for him: "Look 
 here," he said, "this is all nonsense. You're bound to me 
 in honor for the run of the piece." He was making-up 
 for his famous impersonation of Lord Algy as he spoke. 
 
 Adam, already dressed to go on, and looking the picture 
 of youthful albeit painted innocence, answered in a child- 
 ish voice: "But I may have to join the army." 
 
 "No fear," said the actor positively. "Lord Bulwark 
 has promised the missus to see to that." He added 
 genially: "We've found some use for the old huckster." 
 
 Adam was disinclined to avail himself of the amorous 
 war-lord's condescending dishonesty, and with a firmer 
 tone answered : "Legally, I dare say I couldn't be made 
 to go, but I think perhaps I ought." 
 
 "Why?" Mr. Onsin queried sharply. 
 
 Adam now gave the lamer answer that it was a question 
 of his conscience. 
 
 Mr. Onsin caught him up smartly. "Conscience, for- 
 sooth ! Your conscience should tell you that you're bound 
 to me," and with a sudden crash of his hand on the dress- 
 ing-table, he rasped out: "I'm not to be trifled with. If 
 you leave me in the lurch after all I've done for you, and
 
 205 
 
 go romancing off to this damned war, I'll see, if you ever 
 come back, that you never get a London engagement 
 again." 
 
 Adam's temper caught flame from his. "I'm an Irish- 
 man," he cried, "and I'll go where I like, and I'll do what 
 I like, and you and London can be damned together." 
 
 Whereupon, to his astonishment, Mr. Onsin burst into 
 laughter. "The illusions of youth," he cried. "My missus 
 has only to tell Bulwark that she wants you here at this 
 theater, and if you go to enlist you'll simply be locked up 
 and put in the cells with a sentry over you until you 
 promise to come back here with your tail between your 
 legs at half the money I'm giving you now. So much for 
 that." 
 
 "I don't believe it," Adam cried, but the manager's 
 downright tone overawed him. 
 
 Mr. Onsin tossed his head: "Believe me or not," said 
 he, "you can have a week's holiday to try." 
 
 Adam was fairly staggered, and answered doubtfully, 
 "I don't want a holiday, if I go, I go." 
 
 "Answered like a man," said the great actor heartily. 
 "Don't go. I'll make it worth your while not to. I won't 
 conceal from you that What Rot! is the biggest success 
 I've ever had, one of the beggest successes in the history 
 of the theater, and between ourselves I'm not blind to the 
 fact that after my wife and myself you have as much a share 
 in it as any one. You're helping to keep up the country's 
 courage far better here than you would in the trenches, 
 where as likely as not you'd just be drowned for nothing. 
 That's what happens to the bantams, you know, they're not 
 shot, they're just drowned. . . ." Having allowed this to 
 sink in, he sprang up fully dressed to go on, and clapped 
 his hand on Adam's shoulder: "Take fifteen pounds a 
 week and let the army go to hell. We needn't make any 
 fresh contract, but so long as you remain in my theater
 
 206 IN LONDON 
 
 during the run of this play, you'll find fifteen pounds in 
 the treasury for you every Friday." He put his arm 
 through Adam's. "That's settled; let's go down together." 
 
 So Adam woke up the next morning with two hundred 
 and fifty pounds a year added to his ill-gotten gains, to 
 compensate for the injury to his conscience. And his pres- 
 tige in the theater was vastly increased. Had not the 
 great manager walked arm in arm with him to the lift and 
 from the lift to the stage? Had he not also put up his 
 salary fifty per cent.? Either of these tokens of appre- 
 ciation would have added to his importance. Taken 
 together, they doubled it; for Mr. Onsin often flattered 
 actors who wished their salary put up, but he seldom or 
 never put up their salaries and flattered them too; indeed 
 an increase of salary was almost invariably accompanied 
 by a mark of contempt. Clearly Mr. Onsin valued Adam 
 Quinn's services at far more than he paid him: the rumor 
 got about that the Box Office reckoned Adam as worth 
 fifty pounds a week. The extra ladies (with under- 
 studies) who received fifty shillings, all agreed that Mr. 
 Quinn was deplorably underpaid at fifteen pounds, or, as 
 many believed, twenty-five. 
 
 To Adam himself the extra five pounds were a source 
 of shameful joy. He could not conceal from himself that 
 they colored his view of life: he knew that he was being 
 bribed and cajoled into the abandonment of what might 
 have proved to be his duty. After all, he did not 
 know positively that he was not fit to be a soldier: he did 
 not know positively that if he were fit to be a soldier a 
 conspiracy between the Onsins and Lord Bulwark could 
 not merely frustrate him but turn his noble gesture into 
 a contemptible one. In his heart he did not believe it, but 
 his brain was titillated by the extra money into defending 
 the possibility of such a fiasco. 
 
 So another week drifted on while he exchanged further
 
 MAJOR MACFADDEN SMITH 207 
 
 letters with his guardian. "This is the clearest case," 
 wrote Mr. Macarthy, "of virtue being its own reward. 
 But I think I should feel easier in my mind, were I in your 
 place, if I spent a trifle of my unearned increment in find- 
 ing out whether I were really fit for military service or no. 
 Dr. Ahearn reminds me that he is primarily a physician, 
 and would not undertake to say definitely that the lesion 
 from which you suffer is incurable. In the life which you 
 seemed likely to lead when he treated you after your acci- 
 dent, it could not have affected you in any way, so he did 
 not advise me to bring you to a consultant. If you would 
 care to go to one now, he says that Macfadden Smith of 
 Devonshire Street (you will find the exact address in the 
 Telephone Book; remember, being a surgeon, you will ad- 
 dress him as Esquire simply), would be quite a good man 
 for you to see if he hasn't been sent to sweep out stables 
 in Mesopotamia. Ahearn knows him from the days when 
 he was House Surgeon at the Royal Free and a great dab 
 at mending football fractures. If you mention Ahearn's 
 name, that will be sufficient if he's there, and if he's away, 
 his secretary, or whoever represents him, will probably 
 advise you whom you had better see." 
 
 Adam communicated with Mr. Macfadden Smith, writ- 
 ing from the theater but giving his address as care of Miss 
 Durward in Norfolk Square. The next morning, at break- 
 fast with that lady, the telephone bell rang and Miss Dur- 
 ward, stretching out her hand to the receiver, told Adam 
 that Mr. Sackville wanted him. 
 
 "He's in Edinburgh," Adam protested, rising doubtfully 
 from his place. 
 
 "Wherever he is, my dear," Miss Durward answered 
 as one who knew better, "he's holding the line for you 
 to talk to him." 
 
 So Adam went to the telephone and said: "Adam 
 Quinn speaking, is that you Arthur Sackville?"
 
 208 IN LONDON 
 
 A voice uncommonly like Sackville's sang back in Adam's 
 ears : "No, it's not, but I happen to be his brother." 
 
 "Oh," said Adam, disconcerted, "no bad news, I hope?" 
 
 There was a buzz of laughter: "I hope not, I'm Mac- 
 fadden Smith." 
 
 "Oh," said Adam, "the doctor?" 
 
 "No, no, no," the receiver vibrated with emotion, "the 
 surgeon." 
 
 "I beg your pardon," Adam cried, and through the tele- 
 phone Mr. Macfadden Smith forgave him and made an 
 appointment for the following morning at eleven. 
 
 Although Mr. Macfadden Smith's voice was so like his 
 brother's that Miss Durward had taken it for granted that 
 it was the latter who had summoned Adam to the tele- 
 phone, he bore no great resemblance in the flesh to the 
 actor. He was, in fact, a great, big, hearty man, and in 
 khaki, being a major in the R.A.M.C. on leave from the 
 Western Front, looked far more like a soldier than a leech. 
 But he impressed Adam as knowing his job, and when, 
 after a long and dexterous manipulation of the muscles of 
 Adam's right arm, he said phlegmatically : "Some army 
 doctors would class you Al, but I am prepared to say that 
 if you are ever fit for military service, it won't be within 
 the next five years." Adam felt that a Daniel had come 
 to judgment. He felt, too, that though he might, through 
 the stupidity of some official, be sent to the Front, he was 
 justified, in England's interest as well as his own, in avoid- 
 ing such a possibility. 
 
 With an aspect perhaps more crestfallen than was ab- 
 solutely sincere, Adam murmured: "Then you really 
 think I should be worse than useless in the army?" 
 
 "Physically worse than useless," the major assured him, 
 "and what you might be otherwise, you may take it from 
 me, you would never get the chance to show."
 
 MAJOR MACFADDEN SMITH 209 
 
 Adam was emboldened by this to go on in the same 
 tone: "You'd call it downright silly of me to try to en- 
 list?" 
 
 The major, if less obviously sentimental than his artistic 
 brother, rivaled him in kindliness and outrivaled him in 
 the heartiness of its display. For Adam's willingness to 
 throw up the delights of London in war time for the in- 
 felicity of the fighting line he expressed a greater admira- 
 tion than the recipient could plume himself on deserving: 
 "I call it simply magnificent," he boomed down to Adam 
 from his superior altitude of ten inches, "but I am glad to 
 say, as a famous British officer said on I forget what occa- 
 sion : 'It is not war.' " 
 
 Adam could not refrain from telling him that it was the 
 politely expressed censure of a French general on the im- 
 becility of a British staff at the skirmish of Balaclava. 
 
 The surgeon nodded. "I know, I know," and in a palpa- 
 ble imitation of his brother's voice he roared: "Half a 
 league, half a league onward, all in the valley of death 
 rode the seventeenth Lancers and the eleventh Hussars. 
 . . . The Death or Glory Boys and the Cherubims, as they 
 call them when they call them nothing worse. . . . I'm 
 afraid I'm boring you." 
 
 This last was called for by the expression of Adam's 
 eyes, which suddenly visualized an outside car bowling 
 along Stephen's Green, and on it Caroline Bradv and an 
 eleventh Hussar with cherry overalls jauntily bright in the 
 gray street. In a flash he recalled the jealous fury that 
 made him wish Caroline Brady was dead. . . . And the 
 gods had given him that wish, but not until Caroline had 
 first given him herself. 
 
 His eyes filled with tears, and the major, cordially mis- 
 understanding him, blew his nose in sympathy and said: 
 "What a glorious little chap you are. Would it cheer you
 
 2io IN LONDON 
 
 up to dine with me on Sunday night at the club?" He 
 added with obvious doubt: "The National Liberal Qub." 
 Not knowing what else to say, Adam said that he was 
 sure he would find it most enheartening, so that was set- 
 tled.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 
 A BOLT FROM THE BLUE 
 
 ADAM'S conception of a club was derived from his intimate 
 acquaintance with the Muses Club in Dublin and one or 
 two flying visits with Mr. Sackville to the Green Room: 
 except the Green Room the only London club which he 
 so much as knew by appearance was the Athenaeum, and 
 might not have known that but for its classic frieze catch- 
 ing his eye every day on his way to the theater. It seemed 
 to him a prodigious building, apparently roomier than the 
 Kildare Street which in his youth he had taken for a rival 
 hostelry to the Shelbourne. His imagination failed to en- 
 due these barracks with club life. The National Liberal 
 Club, driven by the war into exile in Victoria Street, re- 
 minded him at the first glance of a railway station, and 
 when a page boy was sent wailing through the premises 
 the name of Major Macfadden Smith, as if that worthy 
 man were a destination for which a train was about to 
 depart, this impression deepened. But when his host sate 
 him down at a comfortable table, in a spacious room dec- 
 orated with pictures rather larger than life of political 
 nonenities who had left their footprints in the quicksands 
 of time, a cozier feeling stole through his veins. 
 
 Being Sunday evening, the great dining-hall was com- 
 paratively empty, and they had a waitress all to them- 
 selves, who hung on the lips of the huge warrior-surgeon 
 as devotionally as if he were the portly ghost of Lord Kitch- 
 ener. ... "I used often to be taken for K.K. when I first 
 got into khaki," he mentioned to Adam with modest pride. 
 "Mugs who couldn't see that our badges were different. 
 
 211
 
 212 IN LONDON 
 
 ... Of course, he was old enough to be my father. In 
 point of fact we were both bachelors." He tossed off a 
 glass of sherry and said gravely: "The only woman I 
 ever loved . . . Just like Kitchener." 
 
 "Like your brother, too," Adam suggested. 
 
 Major Macfadden Smith nodded like a hearse horse; his 
 neck being longer than Lord Kitchener's, enabled him to do 
 this. "Thereby hangs a tale. Tragic story. The only 
 woman we ever loved. One and the same. . . . Have an- 
 other glass of sherry. We're rationed in food except offal, 
 but you can drink as much as you like. . . . Most tragic, 
 I call it. So does dear old Arthur. Admirable tragedian, 
 don't you think?" 
 
 "I've never seen him in tragedy," Adam answered apolo- 
 getically, "but I'm sure he'd be awfully good in everything." 
 
 "Magnificent," the surgeon asserted, "his Romeo is top- 
 hole." 
 
 "He never told me he played Romeo," Adam confessed. 
 
 "I don't think he did," said the surgeon, "but I've known 
 him rehearse it. That speech about Queen Mab." 
 
 "Isn't that Mercutio?" Adam suggested. 
 
 "Surely not?" the major returned. "The fellow who 
 gets killed in the duel and says, 'Damn both families/ 
 that's Romeo?" 
 
 Adam expressed his opinion that in the more authori- 
 tative text Romeo killed himself. 
 
 Enlightenment came into his host's puzzled eyes: "I 
 believe you're right. Of course you are. I remember 
 now. Romeo kills Juliet and then himself. 'No way but 
 this killing myself to die upon a kiss. . . / Shakespeare's 
 prose is the finest poetry in the world. I'm afraid there's 
 no more bread, have some sherry. I never read anything 
 now but the British Medical Journal: The Lancet is rather 
 frivolous, though it's a good name. In France one has no 
 time even for that. All I read there is Miss Marie
 
 A BOLT FROM THE BLUE 213 
 
 Corelli. Have you ever heard of her? I find she makes 
 me think. A scientific man should not be a materialist. 
 So many are. Dear old Arthur sent me Miss Marie 
 Corelli's works because she lived at Stratford-on-Avon. 
 . . . Has Arthur ever told you what a tragedy his life has 
 been? You're too young to understand. There's nothing 
 like the love of a beautiful woman. Beautiful and good. 
 I can honestly say I'd rather dear old Arthur had her than 
 I. Between ourselves, I know that she preferred me, be- 
 ing interested in surgery. It was a great privilege to work 
 with her. There I had the advantage over him, but I can 
 honestly say that I never used it. I always put his claim 
 on her before my own. She never married, any more 
 than Arthur and myself. Damned odd what women will 
 do. And yet . . . Have some sherry." 
 
 Adam seized the momentary pause to say that he drank 
 little. 
 
 "Quite right," said the surgeon. "The less one drinks 
 the better one is, except in moderation. I was telling you 
 about my brother's love affair. Dear old Arthur. He 
 never drinks. Upon my honor, I sometimes think he never 
 does anything. At school . . . The artistic temperament. 
 I'm not artistic, I know it, but I can appreciate Miss Marie 
 Corelli. I don't care whether she lives at Stratford-on- 
 Avon or not. I think you said you didn't care for sherry? 
 We'll try some port. No port? Come, I'll have to drink 
 it by myself. No wonder you're interested in dear Arthur. 
 Splendid tragedian. You said it wasn't Romeo. That re- 
 minds me, I know a man in France who has rooms in the 
 Temple he wants to let, Plowden Buildings. Any use to 
 you? I've got the key. You can have them at your 
 own price. He may be dead by now, and what's it 
 matter?" 
 
 Adam's interest was wakened. "Are they furnished?" 
 he asked.
 
 214 IN LONDON 
 
 "Furnished?'* the major cried. "I should think so. 
 Beautifully furnished. They're at the top of the building, 
 and there's a bath hot and cold in the bedroom, and you 
 can go out straight on the tiles. Mind you don't fall off, 
 and what more do you want? You can have them at your 
 own price." He blew his nose. "I love those rooms. It 
 was in that bedroom with the bath in it that I first met the 
 only woman. Elderly K.C., gallstones. Most handy hav- 
 ing the bath there. So few in the Temple. And she and 
 I stood on the tiles and . . . How well I remember the 
 face of Big Ben. Tolling midnight. You would under- 
 stand me better if you knew her." 
 
 "If the lady you mean is Miss Nightingale, I know her 
 a little," Adam enjoyed telling him. 
 
 "My God!" said the surgeon, clapping his hand to his 
 forehead, "I may have said too much." He told the wait- 
 ress to bring some soda water, and went on after he had 
 tossed off a glass: "You understand that my conversa- 
 tion with Miss Nightingale on the roof of Plowden Build- 
 ings was purely professional. In those days I was not a 
 consultant, though my success in that case, not properly 
 one for me at all, but thanks to that glorious woman I 
 muddled through, gave me the chance I wanted. Elderly 
 K.C.'s great friend, famous Law-Lord's son, biffed arm 
 playing polo. Top sawyers all turned him down. Hope- 
 less. Elderly K.C. suggested me. I sent for Miss Night- 
 ingale, and between us we somehow brought it off. She 
 says to this day there was nothing wrong with the arm 
 really. Patient of that kind very baffling to a specialist. 
 Hardest thing in the world to diagnose is nothing at all. 
 That's where a woman comes in. I owe everything in 
 the world to Miss Nightingale. I wish you knew her, but 
 of course you do. Look here, you can have those rooms 
 for nothing. I'll pay the rent of them myself. Can't 
 bear to think of some one living there that would dishonor
 
 A BOLT FROM THE BLUE 215 
 
 diem. Or look here, not to make a favor of it, you shall 
 pay what you can afford. Say ten shillings a week." 
 
 Adam warmly declared that if he liked the rooms he 
 would be prepared to pay one pound a week for them. 
 
 "A pound a week," his host replied, "they're worth ten 
 pounds at least. I pay seven, but what does it matter? 
 We may all be dead to-morrow. And I've said you shall 
 have them for ten shillings, not a penny more." 
 
 "It's not a question of what they're worth," Adam said, 
 "it's a question of what I can afford to pay." 
 
 His host looked at him with eyes that were alternately 
 lack-luster and radiant. "I understand," he said; "we'll 
 compromise. We'll say guineas." He thrust his hand 
 in his pocket and produced a ring, from which with strong 
 and nimble hand, oddly out of keeping with his how 
 muzzy speech, he detached a key. "There! For sweet 
 Jane Nightingale's sake, keep it and use it. Never mind 
 about a cheque; any time will do. We may all be dead 
 to-morrow." 
 
 Adam was staring at the proffered key, wondering what 
 course to follow, when their waitress fluttered up, ob- 
 viously unhappy. "Please, there's an air-raid warning and 
 we must put out the lights in a few minutes." The key 
 clinked on Adam's plate as a convulsive movement of his 
 host's elbow swept the empty port bottle off the table. 
 "My God!" said he, "will the Boches never leave me 
 alone?" Tears filled his eyes. "They have a down on 
 me, the Boches." 
 
 "Aren't they awful?" said the little waitress, "and on 
 Sunday, too." 
 
 "No religion, no anything," said the surgeon, "gross ma- 
 terialists. Can I have a liqueur?" 
 
 "They can bring it to you in the basement," said the 
 waitress, "we can't serve anything more here. All the 
 upper part of the club is closed for fear of bombs."
 
 2i6 IN LONDON 
 
 "My God !" said the surgeon. "Bombs ! As if I hadn't 
 had enough bombs in France." 
 
 "I suppose," said Adam, sympathetically, "you get a lot 
 of bombing in France?" 
 
 "In France," said the surgeon solemnly, "you get every- 
 thing all the time and so you don't think about it. But 
 when it comes to being bombed in London, I protest, I 
 protest. In London there are women and children." 
 
 "But in France," said Adam, "there are women and 
 children." 
 
 The surgeon nodded. "True, and in Germany, and 
 . . ." he thought for a long time and said with great dis- 
 tinctness: "There are men and women and children, and 
 I dare say ladies and gentlemen in Mesopotamia. What 
 of that ? What I protest against is the Boches being here." 
 
 The manager approached. "I'm afraid, sir, we really 
 must put out the light." 
 
 The major looked at him. " 'Put out the light and then 
 put out the light,' " he intoned, and added thoughtfully : 
 "Miss Marie Corelli." As the manager still stood ex- 
 pectant, as though the mention of the distinguished novel- 
 ist were insufficient, he rose and said: "Basement in the 
 liqueurs." 
 
 "Liqueurs in the basement?" said the manager. "Cer- 
 tainly, if you touch the bell down there." 
 
 "Thank you," said the major, then dropping his hand 
 confidentially on the manager's shoulder he said: "Don't 
 go to the Front, I can see you're unfit. Rheumatoid 
 Arthritis." 
 
 The manager's respect became more real. "Is that what 
 it's called, sir? I've often wondered." 
 
 "Thought I was drunk, did he?" said the surgeon as they 
 crossed the hall, now sepulchrally gloomy with the welled 
 staircase in darkness. In the distance could be heard that 
 thudding with which Adam's life in London had made
 
 A BOLT FROM THE BLUE 217 
 
 him familiar. "He may have it, he may not. Point is, I 
 said Rheumatoid Arthritis." 
 
 Down below in the basement all exterior sounds were 
 drowned by a little choir of the waitresses singing hymns. 
 Adam knew very few, but he recognized as he sat beside 
 his host, who after drinking his Benedictine was lulled to 
 sleep by the music: 
 
 "Jesus loves me, that I know, 
 For the Bible tells me so. 
 Little ones to Him belong, 
 They are weak but He is strong." 
 
 The words recalled to Adam the last day he had spent 
 in Dublin, that Dublin which since his departure had been 
 so battered by the ubiquitous fist of war, and he was try- 
 ing to picture to himself the new aspect of its shell-riven 
 and burnt-out streets, when a crash shook the building to 
 its foundations, and the psalm-singers stopped with a 
 shriek. 
 
 "If that bomb had got us," some one said, and faces 
 paled, those that were not pale already. But the major 
 slept on, protected from fear by the roar of his own snor- 
 ing. An hour passed in silence, at first anxious, but grad- 
 ually gathering calm. Then two rumors spread: First 
 that the bomb had got Victoria Station and secondly that 
 the All-clear signal had been heard. Adam looked at his 
 wrist-watch: It was past ten, and he felt so tired that 
 if his host did not wake he was determined to steal away 
 without disturbing him. 
 
 "Yes," that worthy's voice boomed suddenly in his ear, 
 "I shall always bless the day when first I met Miss June 
 Nightingale. For her I would give the little that is left 
 of my life and the whole of my professional career. . . . 
 Only to see dear old Arthur happy."
 
 2i8 IN LONDON 
 
 Adam was interested. "With her?" he asked. 
 
 "If you really knew Arthur," said his host, "as I know 
 him, you would understand that he could never be happy 
 without." 
 
 "Do you suggest," Adam asked, "that he is unhappy?" 
 
 "Tragic!" boomed the surgeon, "a born tragedian, 
 Romeo." 
 
 "The All-clear has sounded," said Adam. 
 
 The big man roused himself. "My God!" he cried, 
 "have the Boches been over again? Taking photographs 
 or what?" 
 
 "They couldn't be taking photographs at this hour?" 
 Adam suggested. 
 
 The major looked at his watch. "Eleven o'clock. A.M. 
 or P.M.?" 
 
 "P.M.," said Adam. 
 
 "Ah!" said the major sagely, "what the French call 
 twenty-three. Wonderfully practical people. Surgical in- 
 struments shocking and no lint. Seen tourniquets made 
 of newspaper. Want to go already? All right, I'm with 
 you. Let's go and have a wash first." 
 
 After he had buried his great head in a basin full of 
 cold water the major was markedly sober. "Let's stroll 
 across Parliament Square to the Underground." 
 
 "It will be shorter," said the major pensively, as they 
 regained the vestibule and found it still in darkness: "It 
 will be shorter if we go out at the back." He paused to 
 ask the porter: "No taxis about yet?" 
 
 "Nothing doing in taxis, sir. I see an ambulance go by. 
 Only wheeled traffic to speak of," said the man judicially. 
 
 The major hesitated, looking out towards Victoria Street, 
 his ears caught by a rush of lumbering wheels. 
 
 The porter shot a glance through the drawn blinds. 
 "That's an Eleven 'bus. Didn't stop at the corner. Wants 
 to get home."
 
 A BOLT FROM THE BLUE 219 
 
 "Naturally," said the major, "so do we all. Blighty 
 the only word. . . . No, you needn't open the door. We're 
 going out by Tothill Street." To Adam he added as they 
 descended the steps once more : "We may be able to jump 
 on a 'bus at the corner of Whitehall, and if not, it's only 
 across the road to the Underground at Westminster. We 
 can change at Charing Cross to the Bakerloo. Raids don't 
 affect them." 
 
 "Except when you can't get up or down for the crowd," 
 Adam laughed. To him a raid was still an agreeable ex- 
 citement. 
 
 "Use it as a dug-out, do they?" the major said as one 
 disagreeably impressed. "I heard that, but I didn't be- 
 lieve it. Sort of thing you read in Punch. Like the 
 curate's egg, not necessarily true. I was dreaming just 
 now that Miss Nightingale and I were in a dug-out to- 
 gether. The Boches were putting some heavy stuff over, 
 and she fainted, and Arthur and I carried her in. You 
 know what dreams are. I suppose I must have been 
 asleep." 
 
 A full moon was flooding Westminster as they emerged 
 from Tothill Street. The night was silent now save for 
 the muffled chatter of groups of pedestrians hurrying on 
 their way. Outside Westminster Hospital stood an am- 
 bulance, no doubt the sole wheeled traffic heard by the 
 porter in Victoria Street. By it in the shadow were two 
 vague figures, the only living beings not in motion. 
 
 Adam coughed and the major also cleared his throat: 
 the Abbey was engulfed in waves of gunpowder gas which 
 drifted on a slow breeze across Broad Sanctuary. The 
 effect was of fantastic beauty. 
 
 "Imagine the Huns bombing St. Margaret's," Adam's 
 companion protested. "Rheims was bad enough. All this 
 air business is very wrong. Our fellows try to avoid 
 buildings as much as possible. Of course, it can't be done,
 
 220 IN LONDON 
 
 but it shows a decent English spirit. One young lad I 
 know got a religious procession at Frankfort, but he man- 
 aged to avoid the church. Miss Nightingale is very re- 
 ligious. She wanted to be a Cowley sister. ... I 
 shouldn't like to see her bombed even by one of our own 
 fellows. . . . Damned if I don't think I'd rather be blown 
 to bits myself, and as for dear old Arthur ... I believe 
 that chauffeur's a girl from the set of her shoulders." 
 They were almost beside the ambulance now, and the fig- 
 ures came up less vaguely against the tail-board. Adam 
 opened his mouth to say that both were women, when the 
 sky blazed an instant, and as his ear-drums shivered to a 
 resounding crash, his knees knocked together, and his 
 lower jaw sent his teeth convulsively up into his tongue. 
 
 Then he saw his friend bolting with elephantine strides, 
 his head thrown forward, back to the club. All the pedes- 
 trians had taken to their heels as though the groups had 
 been disrupted by the concussion of the bomb. And the 
 night was hideous with the Bedlamite fury of artillery 
 flinging molten fire at the moon. Yet in the very fore- 
 ground of the picture was Peace and Mercy symbolized by 
 two gracious figures: the women at the ambulance. The 
 one, Adam perceived, was Miss Nightingale: the other, 
 the chauffeur, his doubting eyes assured him, was Wood- 
 bine Blake. 
 
 . Both looked at, but neither recognized him: their nerves 
 were too highly strung for casual greetings. Another 
 bomb shook the earth, but the sight of these two calm 
 women steadied his desire to run, and he trudged delib- 
 erately down Tothill Street, despite a spray of shrapnel 
 rattling in the roadway, and safely reached St. James's, 
 his most convenient station.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 
 IN THE TEMPLE 
 
 As Adam descended to the platform of the Underground 
 station, the crash of explosives became merged in the roar 
 of wheels and the grinding of brakes. The Inner Circle 
 trains with lights switched off were running, or rather 
 crawling, in their accustomed orbit; and, as Adam entered 
 the tunnel leading to Victoria, the thunder of constructive 
 mechanism seemed finally to war down the thunder of 
 destructive. When he left the train at Praed Street his 
 ear caught no certain echo of aerial combat. The station 
 was sunk in gloom as sepulchral as St. James's Park; but 
 in Norfolk Square the brilliant moon had a chance to com- 
 pensate more than adequately for the absence of artificial 
 light. The brasses of Miss Durward's door reflected its 
 glory as Adam thrust key in lock and surprisedly failed to 
 turn it. 
 
 He tried again and failed, and once again. Then, 
 troubled that he might be suffering from shell-shock or 
 intoxication, he withdrew the key and examined it in the 
 moonlight, closely enough to prove that it was not his own 
 key. . . . That was in his pocket. . . . He had been try- 
 ing to let himself in with the key of the chambers once 
 occupied by eminent Counsel at the top of Plowden Build- 
 ings. . . . The chambers that might be his virtually for 
 the asking. . . . That is, if Major Macfadden Smith held 
 the same view about him sober as when tipsy. . . . Then 
 he remembered something about guineas which seemed in- 
 consistent with the first offer. 
 
 It would appear to be his immediate duty to ring up 
 
 221
 
 222 IN LONDON 
 
 the major and advise him that the key was safe in his 
 possession. He went to the telephone for this purpose, 
 when the clock on Miss Durward's mantelpiece striking 
 midnight, determined him to wait till morning. So he re- 
 turned the key to the pocket of his evening waistcoat. 
 And in the morning he had forgotten all about it. And 
 so, apparently, had the major : the key lay undisturbed until 
 two Sundays later, when Adam donned the waistcoat that 
 he might go to dine with the lady who had indirectly led 
 to its being in his possession. 
 
 But ere that Sunday came a fortnight had passed, much 
 widening Adam's experience. For the first thing he had 
 done on Monday morning was to study in Miss Durward's 
 chosen journal the advertisements of those learned in the 
 lore of motor-cars and prepared for a consideration to 
 communicate their experience. For a time he hovered be- 
 tween one that seemed to offer the mastery of the automo- 
 bile world for a bagatelle, and another which proposed to 
 charge him stiffly for a lesser but still, as he understood, 
 adequate knowledge of driving and mechanism. Possibly 
 for the reason that the map showed it to be situated within 
 a quarter mile of Miss Nightingale's flat, Adam chose the 
 latter garage. He did not sit down to lunch until he had 
 invited it to send him further particulars. And on Tues- 
 day morning a handsome pamphlet, in itself justifying 
 high charges, lay upon his breakfast plate. The engaging 
 photographs in this work, showing attractive young ladies 
 dissecting, under the guidance of affable and talented en- 
 gineers, the priviest entrails of massive motor-cars, appar- 
 ently no worse for the trying experience, won Adam's 
 heart. And that very afternoon he found time to visit the 
 office, where he formally agreed to commence the study of 
 this mystery in the early morning of the following Monday. 
 After he had paid the first instalment of his fees he was 
 warned, as an afterthought, that while he was free to hear
 
 IN THE TEMPLE 223 
 
 the principles of the petrol engine and its handling ex- 
 haustively demonstrated, it was impossible owing to the 
 shortage of petrol to guarantee that he would ever actually 
 be able to drive a car in a manner satisfactory even to 
 himself. This a little damped Adam's ardor and made him 
 feel the need of Mr. Macarthy's presence, but in as much 
 as he had paid three guineas, never, as he conjectured, to 
 be seen again, he decided to pursue the adventure. 
 
 He did not regret it, nor the new world in which he 
 found himself that Monday morning, as he left the 
 train at Victoria and made his way through the smelly 
 streets of Pimlico to the Eaton-Ebury Motor Training 
 School. There he found himself amidst sprightly lasses 
 and would-be sprightly if elderly lads, with a sprinkling 
 of the genuine youth of Britain eager to fly ere they well 
 could walk; and all learnedly discussing the merits of the 
 many types of engines they had never handled, nor per- 
 haps (owing to the shortage of petrol) ever would. He 
 felt as might an unconverted Gentile among zealous cate- 
 chumens. He strove to harmonize himself with his en- 
 vironment by mentioning such facts as he could remember 
 about Dr. Ahearn's Ford, but quickly realized that the 
 interest he roused was not complimentary. He blushed 
 when one young impertinent demanded to know if Dublin 
 had nothing more like a car than a Tin "Lizzie. For the 
 moment he had an odd feeling of being once more a little 
 boy just entered at Belvedere. Remembering that from 
 the first he had worked hard at his lessons there, he made 
 up his mind to do no less now. 
 
 On the Tuesday night Mrs. Onsin complained that he 
 ruined her great scene in the third act of What Rot! 
 wherein it was his duty to be seen but not heard, while 
 she poured forth a tirade against faithless lovers falsely 
 true, by muttering without cease the devastating words: 
 "Induction, Compression, Explosion, Exhaust. . . ." "If
 
 224 IN LONDON 
 
 I only knew what it meant!" the fair Belinda cried, "I 
 might have stood it better." 
 
 "It means," said her husband, with unusual aptness of 
 irony, "Quinn took you for a gas-engine." 
 
 But Adam modestly explained that he was so hypnotized 
 by the force of her acting that he unconsciously repeated 
 his lessons; and on promising never more to allow himself 
 to be so moved by her art, he was forgiven. He was still 
 a favorite with his manageress, though she had long since 
 ceased to coquette with him, protesting that he was (even 
 as Miss Durward alleged of Tomasso) "No earthly." Al- 
 though Miss Durward had urged more than fully the ad- 
 vantages to be derived from it, Adam had never brought 
 himself even to flirt with Mrs. Onsin, nor could he per- 
 suade himself that she desired it. To him she bore a 
 rather painful likeness to his mother as he remembered 
 her in the beginning, ere drink had destroyed her vulgar 
 comeliness. Made up to match the lighting, Belinda looked 
 plump and appetizing in that great theater; but daylight 
 betrayed her contours as bulging where they should not 
 and her complexion as a crude example of plastic art. 
 When peace should free a younger generation of critics 
 to push the dug-outs from the stalls, she was clearly doomed 
 to be written off and filed as a back number. 
 
 That first week at the garage Adam found strange the 
 difference between the apparently strenuous labor of the 
 neophyte engineers dismounting and reassembling motors 
 in the shops, and the hustling make-believe of a play which 
 too prolonged success had sapped of its vitality. Yet, as 
 slowly came home to him, the labor of the Eaton-Ebury 
 garage was largely make-believe too, and the engines whose 
 valves enthusiastic young beauties ground and magnetos 
 ingenious Portias timed, if they had ever urged a living 
 car along the road, would do so never again. 
 
 Dining with Miss Nightingale he loosed his tongue in
 
 IN THE TEMPLE 225 
 
 praise of his new interest; and Miss Nightingale with tem- 
 pered warmth (or what seemed warmth in that cold room) 
 encouraged him. She was a devotee of the politer writings 
 of Mr. Kipling, and on this occasion appeared to share his 
 mystical faith in the spiritual triumph of machinery over 
 men. Not that Miss Nightingale was pettily consistent 
 in her admiration of Mr. Kipling. Mr. Macarthy had 
 once decoyed her into saying that the Piccadilly Tube was 
 more to be admired than Shakespeare's sonnets; but she 
 never concealed the opinion that Robert Louis Stevenson 
 was in every way superior to his mechanical relatives and 
 second only in importance among "Englishmen" to Mr. 
 Ruskin. For the rest, her arguments were always phrased 
 with such distinction and air of reserve that one felt that 
 there must be something behind them which to him who 
 might win her heart, and to him alone, could be divulged. 
 
 Adam found it the most delightful evening he had spent 
 with her, and came away feeling that he had risen much 
 in her estimation. As she was letting him out he chanced 
 to touch the second latchkey in his pocket and said : "Oh, 
 by the way, did you ever meet Arthur Sackville's brother?" 
 
 "I have met Mr. Macfadden Smith, the surgeon," she 
 said simply, and the brevity of her answer damped Adam's 
 desire to take her opinion about the rooms in Plowden 
 Buildings. As it were, realizing an awkwardness in his 
 silence, she volunteered the information that the major 
 had returned to the Western Front, and added : "He told 
 me how plucky you had been about your arm." 
 
 Adam heroically pooh-poohed his arm. "Only, of 
 course," he said with breezy pathos, "it's hard lines at my 
 age to know there's no hope of reaching the firing-line." 
 
 His hostess looked at him sweetly. "The war may be 
 going on for a long time," she said, "and Mr. Macfadden 
 Smith quite shares my view that massage might make it 
 flexible enough for all practical purposes in a year or two."
 
 226 IN LONDON 
 
 Adam was not sure whether he quavered the words: 
 "How ripping that would be. . . ." It seemed to him he 
 reached the street immediately after that; and instead of 
 making his way directly home, he jumped on the first 'bus 
 he saw in Victoria Street. As he climbed on the roof he 
 noticed that it was an Eleven going east; and handing the 
 conductor twopence (in those days when 'bus riding was 
 not confined to the wealthy) was franked as far as Chan- 
 cery Lane. But he did not travel quite so far, for seeing 
 the Middle Temple gate opening to admit a taxi, as the 
 'bus swept under the Law Courts' clock he was moved by 
 some unaccountable impulse to plunge down to the road- 
 way, and with an easy nod and mutter of "Plowden Build- 
 ings" to the janitor closing the gate, he passed on down 
 Middle Temple Lane. 
 
 He had never been within the precincts of the Temple 
 before, and as the bolts shot behind him was conscious of 
 a pang of misgiving as to how he should get out again. 
 He might have turned to retrace his steps but for the dread 
 of rousing the janitor's suspicions. Deciding that his saf- 
 est course was to go to the address he had mentioned and 
 presently return with the air of one who has paid a some- 
 what late evening call. The Law Courts' clock had gone 
 eleven. But where, when all was said and done, was 
 Plowden Buildings? Forgetting that it had been at its 
 zenith a fortnight ago, he vaguely hoped for the moon to 
 pierce a cloud and light him on his way; the war-time 
 lamps of the Temple discreetly revealed nothing. . . . 
 Until he came to a pile appearing to reach the clouds 
 whereon was revealed to him by glimmering gas a figure 
 he thought might be eight. That was not the number that 
 he wanted, but there were other letterings that he thought 
 daylight might force to reveal the identity of Plowden 
 Buildings. So here he lingered, pondering what to do 
 next. He was roused by a faint bang high above him,
 
 IN THE TEMPLE 227 
 
 as though one of the smaller gates of heaven had been 
 blown to by a draught. There followed the high-pitched 
 tinkle of a young woman's voice, punctuated by a manly 
 growl implying weariness of conversation, and light steps 
 and heavy first pattered and then reverberated down a 
 wooden staircase. A change in the character of the sounds 
 told that the feet had reached stone paving. Hidden in 
 the lane, Adam saw a man and a woman, the former wear- 
 ing khaki, which not even the softening shades of night 
 could blend with his figure, and the latter dressed also in 
 the costume of the period, were at once swallowed in ob- 
 scurity, the lady becoming silent, perhaps under compul- 
 sion as they moved towards Fleet Street. 
 
 Adam told himself that discretion ordained that he should 
 follow them: for if they went out unquestioned, why not 
 he? ... Then he recalled reading in the pages of George 
 Moore something that would imply that life in the Temple 
 was not so cloistral as the name of that famous place por- 
 tended. He no longer dreaded the janitor's Ne exeat . . . 
 he was even emboldened, as it were, by the fluttering 
 gesture of half-remembered paragraphs from the pen of 
 that compatriot, to seek adventure. He penetrated to the 
 hall of the building and, striking a match, read painted on 
 the wall some famous names that meant nothing to him, 
 but also the information that one set of chambers on the 
 top floor still stood in the name (albeit painted so long 
 ago as to be hardly decipherable) of Sir Levi Lee, K.C. 
 . . . He asked himself was that Sir Levi Lee but just 
 gone up the road, and decided that the figure, however 
 remote from martial, could not have been that of an elderly 
 advocate. . . . Nor was it to be supposed that the too 
 vocal gentlewoman who accompanied him was Lady Lee. 
 . . . The finger from the past urged him up the staircase. 
 In its simple elegance it reminded him of nothing so much 
 as that which through its failure to uphold his manly form,
 
 228 IN LONDON 
 
 when in anger, had put a term to the existence of his puta- 
 tive father. He reached the top breathless, to find himself 
 in front of two doors : that on the right hand bore several 
 names above it, but on the left, that of the noble Sir Levi 
 warred in solitary dignity its battle against time. 
 
 Headlong now, Adam plunged Major Macfadden Smith's 
 key in the lock, and, unacquainted with the habits of Tem- 
 ple doors, strove to push it in. It resisted his efforts, but 
 yielded readily to his invitation to meet him. But within 
 was another door, and Adam realized that he had merely 
 penetrated that outer shell known to Templars and Col- 
 legers as the Oak. In the other scale he found encourage- 
 ment in the form of a letter which had been dropped 
 through the outer letter-box and was directed in a woman's 
 handwriting to Major Macfadden Smith, R.A.M.C. In- 
 spired by this to a Napoleonic grasp of possibilities, he 
 thrust his hand through the letter-box of the inner door, 
 and twiddling his forefinger, realized his expectation by 
 contact with a piece of string. With a snap the door 
 opened. 
 
 Then came reaction: peering into the ghostly darkness 
 of those antique chambers, across the floor of which he 
 could see the reflections of London's sky-quartering search- 
 lights whirling like phantom windmills, he was so con- 
 scious of utter silence that it might have eased his nerves 
 had a raven on the portal quoth "Never more." But 
 nothing so American and fantastic could occur in those 
 rooms in the apex of the monument to the most respectable 
 of English jurists, the proverbial Plowden. Sir Levi Lee's 
 fevered brain might have called up the specter of a Mass 
 priest, but no ghostly bird, unless the secred Dove, in 
 which it is only fair to Sir Levi to say, he would not have 
 believed. Toeing the mat of those ancient chambers Adam 
 felt not at all jocose : his great desire was to wheel about 
 and run downstairs and out of the Temple as fast as he
 
 IN THE TEMPLE 229 
 
 could go: he visualized himself at home with his head 
 protected, as Miss Durvvard protected hers against welkin- 
 riding Huns, but he remembered reading somewhere the 
 Zulu saying: "If we go forward we die: if we go back- 
 ward we die: better go forward and die." As a com- 
 promise he struck a match. This woke a comforting gleam 
 from the brass switch of an electric lamp, and bravely 
 Adam pressed it. He was at once reassured; for that an- 
 cient shell revealed itself as furnished in a manner as 
 repulsive to self-respecting ghosts as the ingenuity of 
 Tottenham Court Road could devise. Sir Levi Lee him- 
 self might have complained that his chambers, if they had 
 gained in comfort since he left them, had suffered in char- 
 acter. On the other hand, Adam thought, his semi-demi 
 kinswoman, Lady Derrydown, might have found it to her 
 taste; for that masterpiece, "A Toi," would have felt more 
 at home here than in Eaton Place. 
 
 Laughing at himself, Adam entered and closed the door 
 behind him. If he wanted to get home to-night he would 
 have to walk, and he was in no mood for so long a tramp. 
 After all, the rooms were his in the absence of evidence 
 to the contrary. Certainly Major Macfadden Smith would 
 not object to his passing a night in them by way of trying 
 how he liked them. ... To pass the night. . . . He 
 glanced up a flight of stairs ascending from the hall. The 
 famous bedroom with the bath in it and the way out on 
 to the roof must be up there. Below on a level with the 
 hall were three doors: two closed and one open; through 
 the open doorway had come the reflection of the search- 
 lights. That meant the blinds were not drawn and his 
 electric lamp could attract the attention of those who were 
 responsible for the shading of the Temple lights. He had 
 better see to it that those blinds were drawn at once. . . . 
 
 Unhesitatingly he strode forward and entered the room 
 where he now could clearly see three large windows, two
 
 230 IN LONDON 
 
 in one wall and one in another, so he closed that door, too, 
 behind him. As he did so he felt horribly that this time 
 he really had shut himself off from the world he knew, 
 and entered one in which he was not alone: he knew for 
 sure that in that strange room in which there was enough 
 light to see that it was different in every way from the 
 rest, there was a familiar though unrecognizable presence. 
 He was thrilled but not terrified. . . . Though one of the 
 windows, for no reason that he could understand, con- 
 jured up a vision of the window through which his grand- 
 mother had gone to her end. . . . No, he was not fright- 
 ened; the presence in the room was not a hostile one; 
 deliberately he drew the curtains even of that sinister win- 
 dow. As he did so the wing of his evening cape swept 
 some object from a table beside it, and it flapped down 
 upon the floor. Striking a match to search for it, he saw 
 that it was a book, that it had fallen open, and that from 
 its pages the eyes of his grandfather, Sir Byron-Quinn, 
 looked up at him, as they had once looked into the eyes 
 of Lady Daphne Page who died Marchesa della Venasal- 
 vatica.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 
 ADAM IS OFFENDED 
 
 BY the flickering light of the match Adam knelt in that 
 high and lonely room staring at dead of night in the mys- 
 terious eyes of his grandfather, lost in battle half a gen- 
 eration before he was born. Then in a second the match 
 went out and he was alone in the dark, still feeling those 
 eyes meet his. . . . And yet he was not frightened. 
 Lifting the book in his left hand, just as it had fallen 
 open on the floor, he walked deliberately towards the 
 door, counting on finding there a switch controlling 
 the electric lighf. With that on, the room revealed 
 itself as being unlike the others, because the walls were 
 still paneled in oak, and against these panels Tottenham 
 Court Road failed to do more than appear insignificant. 
 But Adam was not concerned about the furniture nor even 
 the room. What held him was the question how that 
 book had come there: the first copy of Sir David Byron- 
 Quinn's poems he had come across in England, though 
 Lady Derrydown claimed to have one somewhere which, 
 some day when occasion served, she would read. 
 
 His own copy of the poems, given him by the Marchesa 
 as a Christmas present when he was a child just entering 
 his teens and neither of them suspecting their relationship, 
 was not among the books Mr. Macarthy had sent him on 
 from Dublin; and he had felt a shyness in asking for it, 
 knowing that his guardian modestly esteemed the baronet's 
 muse, and seemed to think that but for his social position 
 it might have blushed unheard. On the other hand, Mr. 
 
 231
 
 232 IN LONDON 
 
 Arthur Sackville, to whom he had recited certain chosen 
 excerpts as best he could remember them, had declared the 
 poet to be one of the best, and inscribed his name on his 
 shirtcuff, in those days a notable compliment. Recalling 
 the actor's gesture as he drew his fountain pen, Adam 
 guessed how the book had found its way into those cham- 
 bers. 
 
 And rightly did he guess; for on the flyleaf of the vol- 
 ume he read in the neat characters of Mr. Sackville this 
 legend: "To my eminent and heroic brother 'Mac' on his 
 fifty-first birthday, these beautiful poems by the grand- 
 father of my friend, Adam Quinn, esq., knowing that he 
 will find in them sentiments after his own gallant and soft 
 heart and head, from his only but truly optimistic 
 brother, Arthur Sackville Macfadden Smith. 17th June, 
 1917." 
 
 Adam sank into a saddle-bag chair, the book still in hand, 
 and laughed with greater heartiness than he had felt for 
 some time. He wished Mr. Macarthy were with him to 
 share the joke; for what had seemed so ominous and 
 tragical, not to say downright supernatural, had suddenly 
 become a mere ludicrous coincidence now that he guessed 
 the chain of events leading up to it. The haunted room 
 itself was now nothing more than an old-fashioned apart- 
 ment with comparatively new-fashioned furniture, more 
 comfortable than beautiful, and an upright grand piano. 
 . . . All the same, he did not feel like staring his grand- 
 father in the face, so he closed the book and laid it on the 
 table beside him when, by a process easy enough to under- 
 stand, but uncanny to behold, it proceeded to open itself 
 again until Adam caught sight of the words: "The Dead 
 Lover." He knew the poem by heart; for he had heard 
 it for the first time on one of the most memorable days 
 of his life, but he was impelled to take it up and read it 
 again now.
 
 ADAM IS OFFENDED 233 
 
 "When that I was alive there were women that loved me; 
 When that I was alive they loved only me; 
 And that I could do no wrong was the burden of the 
 
 song 
 Of the dear good women that loved me. 
 
 Now that I am dead those good women that loved me 
 Are sought by other lovers happily, oh, happily, 
 And in my narrow bed I can hear as I lie dead 
 Little feet that I have kissed dance lightly over me. 
 
 Yet though in my grave I lie, I laugh deliciously 
 At the foolish living lovers that are dancing over me 
 For the Queens of all their toasts are the cold and care- 
 less ghosts 
 
 Of the women that have loved me and are lying dead 
 with me." 
 
 He found himself trying to hum it to the tune which 
 Barbara Burns had made for it and he had heard her sing 
 for the first time as he read of the death of Caroline Brady. 
 But the tune would not come. Laying down the book he 
 went over to the piano and tried gently to finger it out there. 
 . . . But the tune would not come. He closed the piano, 
 conscious of a growing desire to sleep. His wrist-watch told 
 him it was three o'clock in the morning, the room was 
 very cold : he was overwhelmed with the desire to sleep, 
 and remembered the bedroom upstairs. So up he went, 
 switching on electric lights everywhere without misgiving. 
 He saw that the room looked comfortable: he felt that the 
 bed was comfortable: he drew off his boots and, without 
 undressing, snuggled under an eiderdown and fell fast 
 asleep. . . . He was awakened by the postman's knock 
 to find daylight and the electric light struggling together. 
 
 At his age the instinct roused by the postman's knock
 
 234 IN LONDON 
 
 was stronger than reason. He leaped from bed, ran down- 
 stairs, and picked up the letter. He was disappointed to 
 find that it was not for him but for Major Macfadden 
 Smith. On the other hand, he was interested to notice 
 that it was directed in the same feminine hand as the letter 
 he had found on the mat the night before : glancing at that, 
 he found that it must have been there a week, just missing 
 the addressee. Then his wakened interest inquired why 
 the major had his letters addressed to Plowden Buildings 
 rather than Devonshire Street. . . . Did he lead a double 
 life? . . . Fascinating thought, a double life. . . . But 
 Adam thought that if he led a double life he would try to 
 lead it a trifle less carelessly. . . . He felt the friendly 
 thing to do would be to take the two letters with him and 
 send them on to the major when writing to him, as he 
 would at once, about the key. . . . About the key? . . . 
 And what about his taking the chambers? He thought 
 they would be well worth a pound a week or even more 
 to him if the major really wished to let them, though why 
 they should be worth anything to him he did not clearly 
 know. It would be pleasant to be able to speak of "My 
 chambers in the Temple," and even if he only kept them for 
 a week or two, he would still be entitled to refer to the 
 time when he had chambers in that famous place. In 
 short, it seemed to him to mark a fresh stage in the growth 
 of manhood. . . . He thought he might at least have ten 
 pounds' worth of being a Templar. Striking a chord on 
 the piano, he was so impressed by the richness of its tone 
 that he felt he could not offer the major less than two 
 pounds a week, so ten pounds would give him five glorious 
 weeks, and no one in the world need ever know about it 
 unless he told them; for it did not occur to him that these 
 rooms in the Temple would not keep themselves clean even 
 though he should refrain from putting them to hard use. 
 Returning to the bedroom he found that the bath therein
 
 ADAM IS OFFENDED 235 
 
 was heated from a geyser and the geyser workable, so 
 with the delight of a child in a new toy he turned on the 
 water, lit the gas, and was presently reveling in a hot bath. 
 It was, however, somewhat of an anticlimax to find that he 
 had failed to provide himself with a towel, and was re- 
 duced to getting into the bed, which fortunately was fully 
 made, and drying himself between the sheets. This was 
 a course the objections to which he perceived, but as a 
 practical young gentleman he preferred it to catching cold. 
 Presently, when he had dressed, he took the bed to pieces, 
 hanging sheets and blankets over chairs to air. By this 
 time it was nearly nine, his usual breakfast hour, and he 
 was conscious of a vast appetite. So making sure that he 
 had left things as nearly as possible as he had found them, 
 the electric lights off and the curtains in the drawing-room 
 opened and the piano closed, he took the two letters, ascer- 
 tained that the key was in his pocket, and went out, bang- 
 ing both doors behind him. 
 
 In a few minutes he was back in Fleet Street, the Law 
 Courts' clock holding out the information that he had 
 been ten hours within the Temple gates : and turned west in 
 search of the Temple Station, not knowing that his direct 
 way to it would have been down Middle Temple Lane to 
 the Embankment. Advised now by a constable to take 
 the first street on the left, he turned into Essex Street, 
 when his ever-sharpening appetite halted him at the Ex- 
 press Dairy, and into that he went and demanded food. 
 A poached egg on toast with a meager scrap of bread and 
 butter or some substitute, washed down with tea, kept him 
 so occupied that he was slow to perceive that the wait- 
 resses made him the subject of much whispered conversa- 
 tion. When he did realize it, he flattered himself that 
 they recognized in him an already famous young actor, 
 until a chance phrase gave him a clue to the suspicion that 
 they were making spicy jokes about his being in evening
 
 236 IN LONDON 
 
 clothes at that hour of the day. The impropriety of his 
 costume brought home" to him, he buttoned his overcoat 
 carefully and hurried on past the publishing offices in Essex 
 Street, plunged down the steps to the Embankment, ran 
 lightly through the few yards of garden, and so into the 
 Temple Station and an Inner Circle train on the outer rail. 
 Between there and Praed Street it occurred to him that 
 this was the first time since he had been stopping at Miss 
 Durward's that he had spent a night out. But despite 
 the flutter of the waitresses at the sight of him in evening 
 clothes, the full significance of this to the ordinary mind 
 escaped him until he read in Tomasso's leering eyes a sus- 
 picion that offended him. 
 
 Still worse was it when Miss Durward herself called to 
 him archly as he ascended the stairs: "You might have 
 told me you were going on the tiles." 
 
 Adam marched hotly in upon her where she sat in her 
 den checking her accounts, for it was Monday morning. 
 "Did you speak to me?" he asked. 
 
 "Did I speak to you," Miss Durward drawled banter- 
 ingly, "now, did I speak to you? If I did, you ought to 
 be flattered at my taking notice of you after being such 
 a naughty boy. Some ladies I know would complain of 
 your deserting them." 
 
 "I don't understand," said Adam shortly. 
 
 "La, la, la," laughed Miss Durward, "don't make a 
 mystery of it to me. I didn't expect you to go on pre- 
 tending to be my maiden aunt for ever. It really isn't good 
 for a young man, you know, to go on like that, whatever 
 your chaste friend, Miss Nightingale, may say about it. 
 For I don't suppose it was she kept you." 
 
 It seemed to Adam that, as Miss Durward spoke, her 
 face, half -turned to him at an ugly angle, became utterly 
 vile: and all the more so because it recalled his mother's 
 as he could still remember it when she bantered his father
 
 ADAM IS OFFENDED 237 
 
 covertly in the presence of her husband. "No woman kept 
 me," said he. 
 
 "Don't try to get out of it by calling her a flapper," Miss 
 Durward fleered. "What did she rook you for, anyway?" 
 
 The thought of women who sold their bodies filled Adam 
 with pity; but of the men who bought them he thought 
 with loathing; and the women who used their better for- 
 tune to jest at such transaction he looked on with horror 
 and disgust. Miss Durward read something of this in his 
 eye, but misinterpreted it. "Don't be a humbug," she 
 sniggered, "and tell me you've been playing cards." 
 
 "I'll tell you nothing," Adam answered hotly, and went 
 to his room. 
 
 After this scene between them he felt he could no longer 
 remain under Miss Durward's roof; and he sat down at 
 once, still in his evening clothes, to write to Major Mac- 
 fadden Smith a formal proposal for the hire of his cham- 
 bers in the Temple. But he had not satisfied himself with 
 the opening phrase when he heard a tap at the door and 
 found his hostess there smiling good-naturedly. 
 
 "It's all right, old man," she said, "only I was afraid 
 you were ill." 
 
 Adam's tone was still stiff as he asked: "Why should 
 you suppose I was ill?" 
 
 But she returned, unruffled: "What about your gar- 
 age?" 
 
 Adam's hands tore across his sheet of paper. "The 
 devil !" he cried. "I'd forgotten." And he added heartily : 
 "Thanks awfully, Miss Durward." 
 
 In fact he had missed a lecture in mechanics, and, what 
 was more serious, would miss his driving lesson if he lost 
 another ten minutes. Keeping his shirt and collar, he 
 changed his tie and outer garments, and within a quarter- 
 hour was sailing along Praed Street on the Victoria 'bus.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 
 AT THE GARAGE 
 
 ADAM was just in time for his driving lesson; as he ap- 
 proached the gate of the garage the Overland car wherein 
 he took his lessons stole past him down the narrow street, 
 allowing him a glimpse of a lady at the wheel beside the 
 instructor. When he turned in at the gate he saw her 
 tripping on nimble feet up the iron staircase to the shops, 
 and found the effect as familiar as it was charming; but 
 she took no notice of him, and he could not see her face. 
 
 "Very nice little lady, that," said Mr. Gander Duval, 
 Adam's instructor, as he noted his pupil's eye following 
 his predecessor's heels. But to Adam's query if he knew 
 who the nice little lady was, he stiffened, as reproving an 
 indiscretion. "We never know who anybody's name is." 
 He added cryptically: "Wastes petrol," then surrendered 
 the wheel and banged to the door of the car. "Will you 
 kindly reverse out of the yard?" 
 
 Airily Adam opened with his right toe his throttle, and 
 his flywheel revolving with what he deemed adequate 
 power, his left hand slipped his lever into the rear notch 
 engaging the Overland's gear. So far so good; the car 
 lurched backwards towards the gate and was almost 
 through it when there was a nasty scraping sound and, to 
 Adam's ears, the yet nastier sound of ladylike laughter. 
 He had allowed his off fore-wing to draggle against the 
 gate, from which it seemed unwilling to part company. 
 In the effort to save it by a rapid change to first gear he 
 called from the machinery beneath his feet a protestant 
 
 238
 
 AT THE GARAGE 1239 
 
 groan. . . . And he blushed to find that his engine had 
 stopped. 
 
 "What are you thinking of this morning?" Mr. Duval 
 inquired with amiability on his lips, but contempt in his 
 eye, as he heaved his ponderous body to the ground and 
 with a massy swoop on the starting handle cranked the 
 engine back to life. 
 
 "What, indeed," said Adam humbly, and, waking up to 
 his work, drove the car forward a few feet to straighten 
 her up, and then with a reasonably well-timed de-clutch 
 and re-engagement in reverse, drove her backward into the 
 street with even clearance on both sides of his wheels. 
 
 Mr. Duval grunted moderate approval, and after a quar- 
 ter of an hour of zig-zag exercise in the neighboring alleys, 
 bade him steer into Victoria Street for a brisk run round 
 before re-entering the yard. Passing St. Ermins, Adam 
 saw a clear line ahead of him, and opened his engine out 
 to nearly twenty miles an hour. 
 
 "Easy, easy," cried Mr. Duval; "you're wasting petrol 
 and breaking regulations too. Ease off there with that 
 foot of yours." As the pace dropped to that of the traffic 
 they were overtaking, and they rolled on into Parliament 
 Square, he volunteered the information: "Damned if that 
 little lady you saw didn't get the old bus up to twenty-five 
 in Whitehall this morning, and near got me into trouble 
 with the police, . . . She's Irish, you know, and they're 
 all like that; they keep gabbing away at you, and all the 
 time they're doing what they shouldn't; though, mind you, 
 it was sharp of her to get the bus up to twenty-five with- 
 out the accelerator roaring at me." 
 
 "What did she gabble about?" Adam asked. 
 
 "Ask me another one," Mr. Duval protested. "Does 
 any one ever know what the Irish gabble about? . . . Not, 
 mind you, that they ain't witty, and all that; but what's 
 it all about? I ask myself. Anything that matters? I
 
 240 IN LONDON 
 
 don't think. . . . But she is a nice little lady, I will say 
 that." He added thoughtfully: "A man might do worse 
 than be the 'usband of a little lady like that," and still more 
 thoughtfully: "From Saturday to Monday." 
 
 Adam looked at him out of the corner of his eye, accel- 
 erating up the slope past King Charles's statue. "Are 
 you married?" he asked. 
 
 "Not 'arf," said Mr. Gander Duval, and as one who 
 deprecates further inquiry : "To your left down Pall Mall, 
 if you please, and through the Park 'ome." 
 
 Adam brought the Overland smartly through Pall Mall, 
 in and out of the toy-brick castellations of the St. James's 
 Palace precincts, and by the now leafless Mall and war- 
 dinged Buckingham Palace Road, back to the garage, 
 where Mr. Duval dismissed him with a nod and wink com- 
 posing together a form of encomium. Before going home 
 to luncheon he climbed the iron staircase, theoretically that 
 he might cleanse himself from the moil of the car, actually 
 that he might see if the nice little lady were still about. 
 
 He had given up the hope of seeing her, and was re- 
 descending the staircase from the top of the building, 
 when the door of one of the lecture rooms on the first 
 floor opening, twenty minutes later than class usually ended, 
 poured forth a bevy of damsels, foremost among whom 
 was Mr. Duval's charmer. But again, from his position 
 above her head, Adam could not distinguish her features; 
 yet he had no doubt whatever that it was she with her 
 extraordinary familiar allure. . . . She was Irish, Mr. 
 Duval had said. . . . Could she possibly be Woodbine 
 Blake? But Woodbine Blake was already a skilled driver, 
 or she had not been allowed to tool that ambulance in the 
 streets of London. Besides, this young woman was too 
 free of movement for Miss Blake, who, as he knew her, 
 affected the calculated and somewhat mincing paces of the 
 theater.
 
 AT THE GARAGE i 4 i 
 
 He was still pondering this question when he reached 
 Norfolk Square, where Miss Durward, all urbanity, was 
 waiting lunch for him, and tactfully bore with his dis- 
 tracted silence. . . . Still pondering it when he returned 
 to the garage at three for the afternoon lecture on the un- 
 natural vices of carbureters. . . . Still pondering it when, 
 an hour later, he passed on into the shops, where his self- 
 chosen task was the disintegration of the cylinders of a 
 sleeve- valved Knight-Daimler. This was a job requiring 
 at least two persons, and he had got into his overalls and 
 was waiting the arrival of the lady who should be ap- 
 pointed him as mate, when a familiar voice penetrated his 
 ears from behind. . . . Some one from Dublin? . . . 
 Who? . . . The tone was strident and unattractive, but it 
 roused poignant memories. 
 
 Still appearing to stare with professional acumen into 
 the sumph of the Knight-Daimler, Adam swiveled his head 
 just enough to catch sight, by a sheep's glance, of a lean 
 face towering some inches above the tallest of a group of 
 pupils, and talking down to a golden head engulfed below. 
 "Well, it's damn mean of you, that's all I can say, and 
 if we're not going to work together you can go to hell 
 for all I care." . . . Adam could not hear the answer of 
 the unseen interlocutrix; but it was short, for the lean 
 figure quickly spat out: "You can go to hell, I say, you 
 can go to hell! I'm done with this" here followed an 
 adjective made fashionable by the war as a term of dispraise 
 "place. You don't catch me here again." The figure 
 disappeared rending its overall. 
 
 In spite of himself, Adam crepitated at the apparition 
 and sighed with relief when it vanished; for this was no 
 other than Miss Macfie, who not so very long ago, indeed 
 upon that day he left Dublin as he had intended for ever, 
 had assaulted first his heart and then his head. Even the 
 starkest soul might quake in her presence. Never could
 
 242 IN LONDON 
 
 Mr. Gander Duval have appraised her as a nice little lady 
 or companionable from Saturday even unto Monday: 
 stouter fellows than stout Mr. Duval would have stolen 
 forth to matins on the Sunday. Never could Adam's eyes 
 have followed her heels or eke her hat with desire. . . . 
 But who, he asked himself, was that other one, hidden in 
 the crowd, with whom she had quarreled? . . . Could it 
 be? ... His pulses throbbed at the thought. 
 
 They throbbed faster as there emerged from the buzz 
 of talk the voice of the instructor: "Mr. Quinn, here's a 
 new mate to work with you on that chassis." 
 
 And behold ! all green and gold as he had known her of 
 yore, for her overall was of the familiar shade, and her 
 hair, bobbed once again, retained its brilliancy, stood Bar- 
 bara Burns: so lithe and blithe and youthful, that he could 
 not think of her as the wife of Mr. Leaper-Carahar, C.B., 
 or of any man. Nor did she seem to wish to be so thought 
 of; for on her deft hands, bared for work, there was no 
 ring save one simple filament, which Adam knew Mr. 
 Macarthy had given her as a toy from a Christmas tree, 
 long ago, when she was still a child . . . and Adam him- 
 self, a ragged little boy selling newspapers in Sackville 
 Street, with never a hope of entering her world. 
 
 These things huddled confusedly through his mind as 
 their .yes met; but Barbara faced him with an unflinching 
 glance and a mere nod of recognition. "So you're to be 
 my mate," she opened curtly. "Well, carry on, and let's 
 see what I can learn from you." 
 
 But Adam knew from the tone of her voice that he 
 could teach her nothing, and that even the vapors of a 
 sleeve-valved Knight-Daimler were more comprehensible 
 to her than to him. . . . Always excepting, of course, in 
 theory. She seemed to have even greater physical power 
 as they lifted the cylinder block from its place; and he
 
 AT THE GARAGE 243 
 
 cursed the feebleness of his right arm, making him palpably 
 contemptible in her eyes. 
 
 As they paused to draw breath after laying the ponder- 
 ous block on the floor, she said, in a low voice: "Did I 
 hear him call you Quinn?" 
 
 "Yes," Adam returned in the same tone, and braced 
 himself to explain why he had taken the name of her 
 mother's father. But Barbara did not deign to show 
 further interest in the matter. Her next question was 
 about the working of the machine in front of them, and, 
 although he knew the answer, he failed to give it to her 
 until she had forgotten the question. A long silence fell, 
 broken only by inevitable grunts and monosyllables. . . . 
 He felt a wild desire to tell her that Mr. Gander Duval 
 said she gabbled. . . . But it would have been easier to 
 precipitate himself from the iron staircase.
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY 
 BARBARA 
 
 WHEN Barbara did at last condescend to speak, her gambit 
 was a crushing one. "What are you doing in London? 
 Some one told me you had been killed at the Dardanelles." 
 
 Adam meekly pointed out that the Dardanelles expedi- 
 tion had been abandoned before he left Dublin. She went 
 on: "Oh, Salonika, then, or Syria, or Mespot., or some 
 old place. ... I suppose I'm thinking of Calvinia's young 
 man; he was killed somewhere there." 
 
 Adam faintly smiled. "Calvinia's young man? Miss 
 Macfie's, is it? I didn't know she had a young man." 
 
 "He's dead and can't deny it," Barbara snapped. "And 
 are you sure you're not one of her young men yourself?" 
 
 To this Adam answered with a blush; but as he was 
 already flushed from struggling with the engine, he hoped 
 his mate might not notice it. Whether she did or did not, 
 the conversation again dropped into desultory exchanges 
 more or less appropriate to the work in hand, until Bar- 
 bara, abruptly throwing down her spanner, declared that 
 she had had enough for the day. 
 
 "Are you going home?" Adam asked, somewhat per- 
 turbed, for they were surrounded by particles of Knight- 
 Daimler. 
 
 "Not necessarily home," his mate answered, "but I can't 
 stand any more of this beastly engine." 
 
 Adam looked at her pitifully. "Don't you find it in- 
 teresting?" he pleaded. 
 
 Barbara shrugged her shoulders. "At first it wasn't 
 bad," she answered; "but I'm fed up now." 
 
 "That's a pity," Adam said. 
 
 244
 
 BARBARA 245 
 
 Her eyes fired with challenge. "How do you mean it's 
 a pity?" 
 
 Adam despondently said: "Well, now that you have 
 got it all to pieces, the real job is to put it together again." 
 
 "I don't see that at all," said Barbara. "Why can't 
 somebody else do that to-morrow?" 
 
 "I suppose they could," Adam answered ; "but it's the 
 rule that we do it ourselves." 
 
 "Blow the rule !" cried Barbara ; "I'm fed up, I tell you. 
 If you like to put it together, you may. I'm going home." 
 
 "Oh, you are going home," was all that Adam answered, 
 and with an air of martyred innocence proceeded to estab- 
 lish some sort of order among the remains of the Knight- 
 Daimler. 
 
 Barbara looked at him, fingering her overall. "Sooner 
 or later I am going home," she said, "and pretty soon 
 you'll have to be going home too." Having allowed the 
 words to work in, she added: "Supposing you come now?" 
 
 Adam cast a despairing glance at the particles of Knight- 
 Daimler. "All right, ... if you'll wait for me below," 
 he blurted ; and, with a nod, she was gone. . . . His wrist- 
 watch told him it was half-past five. He ought to have 
 worked on till six ; then, after a hasty ablution, have hur- 
 ried to Queen Anne's Gate and past the Government sheds 
 in St. James's Park, up the Duke of York's steps to 
 Waterloo Place and the theater. There he would take a 
 bath in the new bathroom which the phenomenal profits 
 of What Rot! had allowed Mr. Onsin to build (at a cost 
 exceeding the yearly salary of a German Rear Admiral, 
 as his business manager confided to the gentlemen of the 
 Press, to lend interest to their notices of the five-hun- 
 dredth performance), snatch a hasty meal of tea and dry 
 bread in his dressing-room, and reach the stage just in 
 time for the curtain to ring up; as it did now, because of 
 the frequent air-raids, at a quarter past seven.
 
 246 IN LONDON 
 
 But this Monday night Adam was fated to keep the 
 stage waiting; for, to begin with, after he had huddled the 
 component parts of the Knight-Daimler higgledy-piggledy 
 into the crank case, which he did not attempt to return to 
 the chassis, and rushed upstairs to rid himself of his over- 
 alls and such grime as would yield to an instant's plunge 
 of head and hands in boiling water, he flung down the stair- 
 case to the yard to await for twenty minutes the reappear- 
 ance of his mate. 
 
 He had almost made up his mind that she had wantonly 
 given him the slip, when at last she appeared, leisurely 
 descending, as though nothing mattered less than her tryst 
 with him. So slow was she that, in the murk of night, 
 he was not sure of her until she came under the glow of 
 the shaded lamp at the bottom. She made no apology for 
 delaying him, said indeed no word, good or bad, until they 
 were out of earshot of any one in the garage, and thread- 
 ing a difficult path through a narrow and atramentous 
 passage into Victoria Street. He wondered if she would 
 never speak, and wondered still more when she did; for 
 she asked: "Why did you call yourself Quinn?" 
 
 "Mr. Macarthy suggested it," said Adam, "when I went 
 on the stage." 
 
 "Oh! so you're on the stage," said Barbara. 
 
 "Yes," said Adam, and added timidly: "Did nobody 
 tell you?" 
 
 "I dare say they did," she answered carelessly, "but my 
 life the last year or two has been too terrible for me to 
 be impressed by gossip." 
 
 Adam's tenderness was wakened. "Have you really had 
 a bad time?" he asked. 
 
 "Terrible," said Barbara, "really terrible. No one will 
 ever know what I suffered." 
 
 Adam's voice was full of sensibility as he pleaded to 
 know the worst.
 
 BARBARA 247 
 
 "There's nothing to tell," said Barbara. . . . "Nothing 
 that I could tell you. ... It would be quite impossible for 
 you to understand what I have suffered." 
 
 "You did wrong to marry him," said Adam bitterly. 
 
 "He was not my own choice," Barbara seemed to argue; 
 "beggars can't be choosers. ... I'd have married the 
 Kaiser to get away from my mother." 
 
 "Would you really," said Adam sympathetically, "would 
 you really?" It did not occur to him that his then Im- 
 perial Majesty would not have jumped at the chance, 
 deeming his crown well lost for the sake of Barbara, even 
 a Barbara with no more love to give him than she had 
 bestowed upon Mr. Leaper-Carahar. 
 
 Forgetful of the theater and all else, he felt his arms 
 going out to fold her to him protectively against bad men 
 like her husband. . . . Not that he had ever thought of 
 Mr. Leaper-Carahar as being her husband in any sense 
 flattering to that official. Mr. Macarthy had propounded 
 the view that it was possible for Barbara to be in love 
 with him; but Adam had consistently rejected the propo- 
 sition, and here she was now confirming his view. . . . 
 Yet he dared not touch her, lest he too should find himself 
 in the same boat with his elderly rival. . . . Then, incred- 
 ible joy, she touched him. "I find it impossible to see 
 where I'm going," she cried, in sudden dismay, "you'd 
 better take care of me," and thrust an arm through his. 
 
 "If I may," he answered, "if I may." It seemed to 
 him that his heart accelerated like the engine of the Over- 
 land when he opened her out for top speed. In her com- 
 pany, pressed side by side in the blackness, with no light 
 anywhere but a blob of reflected search-light like a dif- 
 fused and nebulous moon overhead, he felt an exhilaration 
 that so far he had known only in dreams. For with Car- 
 oline Brady, even in the short hour of consummation, his 
 passion had always been damped by the certainty that her
 
 248 IN LONDON 
 
 world was not his; but Barbara's flesh and his were grass 
 of one field, clay of one mold. And he felt that in taking 
 his arm she had made acknowledgment of this and their 
 common descent from that incorrigible romantic, Sir David 
 Byron-Quinn. 
 
 It really seemed that some such thought must have 
 worked simultaneously in her own mind; for she said a 
 moment later: "I never can think of my mother as David 
 Byron-Quinn's daughter." 
 
 "No more do I," Adam agreed, "though of course she 
 has qualities she may have got from him." 
 
 "Yes," said Barbara, "she has no end of pluck, and she 
 has good looks; ... at least she's generally considered 
 good-looking." She paused, as it were, expectantly. 
 
 "Jolly good-looking," Adam agreed; "I remember still 
 how lovely I thought her when I saw her first as a boy." 
 
 "And that's not so very long ago, is it?" Barbara sug- 
 gested. 
 
 "It seems an awfully long time to me," said Adam ; "but 
 then, of course, my life is changed in every way since 
 then." 
 
 "So has mine," Barbara declared, with a fresh call to his 
 sympathy, which he showed by a silent pressure of the 
 arm. And to this he was thrilled to imagine that she re- 
 sponded with a pressure on her part. By the time they 
 reached Victoria Street Mr. Leaper-Carahar, C.B., so far 
 as Adam was concerned, was dead, buried and forgotten; 
 and his wife (whether in name only or not) avoided any 
 word or action that might have weakened this impression. 
 
 Between the obfuscation of the Pimlico alleys and the 
 blinding flashes of his relighted passion for Barbara, Adam 
 hardly knew where he was when they suddenly struck the 
 main thoroughfare at a point other than that he would 
 have reached had he been alone. His companion was 
 quicker than he: "We're close to the Brighton and South
 
 BARBARA 249 
 
 Coast station," she said; "let's go into the tea room and 
 see what we can get to eat. It will be warmer and easier 
 to talk there than in the street." 
 
 Adam looked round still hazily. "How do you know 
 where we are?" 
 
 She pointed to the clock that stood as terminus at the 
 railroad in Middlesex of the Surrey side trams. "There's 
 Vauxhall Bridge Road." 
 
 The thread of Adam's ideas snapped; for he saw that 
 it was nearly seven. Pulling up short, he ejaculated: "I 
 must go, . . . the theater, . . . you understand." 
 
 "Oh, bother the theater 1" she cried, "just when I wanted 
 to talk to you. . . . What theater is it? . . . Where? 
 ..." Her voice and whole manner were contemptuous. 
 But when he said it was the Grand, he suspected that she 
 was impressed, though she affected not to be. She vouch- 
 safed to say: "Well, that's not far. What time must you 
 be there?" 
 
 "I should have been there half an hour ago," he an- 
 swered; "I'm due to speak my first line in twenty min- 
 utes." 
 
 Barbara woke up, and with an imperious wave of her 
 hand stopped an empty taxi making for the station. "Jump 
 in," she said, "and I'll drop you." As Adam obeyed, she 
 called to the driver: "Grand Theater, stage door, like 
 billyoh I" 
 
 "Right, lady," grinned the man, and, whisking about into 
 Buckingham Palace Road, stimulated his Napier to illus- 
 trate his conception of the term "billyoh." In a moment 
 they were skurrying through St. James's Park at twice the 
 pace Adam had been pleased to attain in the Overland that 
 afternoon. 
 
 As the driver crowned his achievement by dodging 
 through one of the bottle-necks into St. James's Square, 
 by fifteen seconds the shortest way to the Grand stage
 
 250 IN LONDON 
 
 door, Adam thrust his fingers in his waistcoat pocket to 
 grasp half a crown ; but Barbara showed him that very coin 
 already between ringer and thumb, and said: "This is my 
 taxi, I took it." And so great was her ascendancy over 
 him that he ingloriously fled into the theater, leaving her 
 to have her way. He was in his dressing-room before he 
 realized that he had not even said good-by to her; but a 
 glimpse of his dirty face in the glass, and the call-boy's 
 warning of but ten minutes to go, dismissed the thought 
 even of Barbara from his mind. 
 
 As it was, he was severely rated by the stage-manager 
 for holding down the curtain five precious minutes; and, 
 injudiciously retorting that Miss Bellingham often kept it 
 down ten, was warned that he was in danger of for- 
 getting which side his bread was buttered. This so en- 
 raged him, that his mind was occupied for the rest of the 
 evening in deliberating whether it would or would not be 
 judicious of him to lay his cane across the stage-manager's 
 back; he was confident of his ability to do this, if in doubt 
 as to the sequel. 
 
 Action was yet in abeyance when, as he was leaving the 
 theater, the no longer haughty doorkeeper proffered him 
 knowingly a lady's visiting card. "For you, sir, I think." 
 
 Adam read on it in copperplate the words: "Miss Bar- 
 bara Burns, Abbey Theater," and in writing: "Have been 
 in front; see you to-morrow. Tell Mr. Onsin I thought 
 him simply splendid. B." 
 
 As Adam stood looking at this, half pleased and half 
 annoyed, he was conscious of the doorkeeper whispering 
 at him with malty breath behind an oniony hand: "If you 
 take my tip, sir, you'll pin that up prominent in your 
 dressing-room."
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE 
 DEUTSCHLAND UEBER MISS DURWARD 
 
 MIDNIGHT following Adam's rediscovery of Barbara saw 
 him slipping between the sheets at Norfolk Square, hating 
 and loving her. Surely there was no one in the world so 
 beautiful as she: so poised; so proud; so insolently silly. 
 For Adam was not so modest that he could regard her 
 praise of Mr. Onsin's performance and indifference to his 
 own otherwise than as a premeditated snub. That mes- 
 sage was meant to say: "You may think you matter, but 
 you don't. You may suppose that I am interested in you, 
 but I am not." . . . On the other hand, if she merely 
 wanted to snub him, why trouble to leave a card upon him 
 at all? He was still too ignorant of life, too ingenuous in 
 intrigue, to see what to Miss Macfie would have been the 
 obvious meaning of the matter. He saw only that Barbara 
 was hard of heart, and as he tossed from side to side in 
 bed he imagined himself alternatively melting or breaking 
 it: his temperament was for melting it, but his mood for 
 breaking. Then his mind wandered to the letter he ought 
 to have written Major Macfadden Smith about his cham- 
 bers in the Temple. He certainly would take them if he 
 could, if only that he might have some quiet place where 
 he could talk to Barbara without interruption. His prac- 
 tical side was trying to calculate how much it would be 
 worth his while to pay for the privilege of uninterrupted 
 conversation with Barbara, when he fell asleep and to 
 dream that Barbara and he were in the center plot of 
 Norfolk Square (or was it Mountjoy Square?) and all the 
 airmen of Germany dropping bombs around them. They 
 
 25*
 
 252 IN LONDON 
 
 dropped them so close that Adam woke with a start, think- 
 ing himself hit, to find that an air-raid actually was in 
 progress, and that presumably a bomb had caused the house 
 so to vibrate that one of Mr. Bourchier-Bellingham's il- 
 lustrations of French manners had leaped off the wall on to 
 his nose. ... In an instant he was out of bed and on his 
 knees (for the first time in that room) praying that, what- 
 ever happened, Barbara might be safe. And so he re- 
 mained spiritually on guard until the firing died away, and 
 he crept back into bed very cold. 
 
 He woke with a sneeze, and discovered the too knowing 
 Tomasso standing over him with the French picture be- 
 tween his fingers and a delightful grin upon his countenance. 
 Adam snatched it from his hand, and Tomasso's military 
 instinct warning him in the very nick of his danger, he 
 fled. The picture crashed on the door as he closed it be- 
 hind him. 
 
 Then Adam sneezed again, and after his bath he coughed. 
 His nose was red, and he held his handkerchief to it during 
 a great part of breakfast. His hostess ventured to sug- 
 gest that he had a cold, and hinted that he must have caught 
 it on Sunday night or in the small hours of Monday morn- 
 ing. But Adam answered not; for he had found on his 
 plate the first letter he ever received from the zone of the 
 armies. The address was : A.P.O.S.8, B.E.F., and the sig- 
 nature: Alaric Macfadden Smith, Major. 
 
 It ran: "DEAR QUINN, If you have not forgotten me 
 and a certain little dinner we enjoyed together not so long 
 ago, perhaps you may remember I spoke to you of certain 
 chambers (more or less my own), which I offered you the 
 use of for some time to come, until the military situation 
 becomes more favorable, at your own figure, and which I 
 think I am right in saying I gave you the outer door key 
 of. Perhaps if you have time you would go and see them 
 and write and tell me if they are of any use to you, and
 
 DEUTSCHLAND UEBER MISS DURWARD 253 
 
 if you happen to find by any chance (I don't say there is) 
 a letter there addressed to me, particularly if in a lady's 
 handwriting, you might be so good as to send it on in a 
 fresh envelope. But it isn't of any consequence if you're 
 at all busy, as I'm sure you must be with so many matinees. 
 You understand, don't you, that I shall be delighted for 
 you to have the rooms at your own terms, for sentimental 
 reasons, as I need not repeat. I may say, should you have 
 any doubt, that the lady whose letter, or perhaps letters, 
 I am asking you to send on, should there be any, is not 
 the lady whose name I mentioned in connection with a 
 certain room containing a bath. I hope you will find the 
 geyser in working order. If there is anything unsatisfac- 
 tory, have it made good at my expense and deduct from 
 rent, if any. I hope to see you again, but am glad you 
 are not here. Shall be pleased at any time to give you any 
 sort of certificate that you care to have. It would be a 
 real pleasure to my brother's friend. The men are simply 
 splendid, though fed up, as is yours. . . ." 
 
 As Adam read, he felt for a moment that the gods were 
 on his side; but there was a postscript which dashed his 
 cheerfulness : "I ought to warn you that the chambers are 
 considered dangerous in air-raids, being so near the river 
 and high up, as well as combustible and impossible to 
 escape from. You might perhaps use them in the daytime, 
 sleeping at night in some safe place like Leighton Buzzard. 
 I could arrange for you to do this with a patient of mine, 
 if desired. She would be glad of a youthful companion 
 (P.G. or otherwise), but perhaps you might find her too 
 religious. I mention this in confidence." 
 
 Adam might have been amused at the notion of fleeing 
 from the bomb-throwers into what he supposed to be the 
 wilds of Buckinghamshire; but suddenly he saw himself 
 prostrate on the floor of his bedroom, praying for the body 
 of Barbara as once he had prayed for the soul of Caro-
 
 254 IN LONDON 
 
 line Brady. He read in Miss Durward's affably matter- 
 of-fact eyes that not in a hundred years would she guess 
 how he had caught cold: "Do you know where that bomb 
 dropped last night?" he asked. 
 
 Miss Durward shuddered, and shook her head: "Don't 
 talk of it," she protested; "they'll get us one of these days 
 when we're least expecting it. Don't let us think of it. 
 No, not even talk about it; I shouldn't." After a pause, 
 indicating that she considered the subject as closed, she 
 went on : "There were three glasses cracked in the kitchen 
 this morning, and Tomasso says there must have been 
 more than one bomb. Fortunately I was asleep, and didn't 
 wake up until that wretched boy scout, young Higgin- 
 botham, startled me blowing the 'All-clear' very loud on 
 purpose, because I wouldn't register with his mother for 
 cheese." . . . Thus, loosely as was her wont after air-raid 
 nights, Miss Durward went on. But Adam was not listen- 
 ing, until he heard suddenly her threat, if the air-raids con- 
 tinued, to show her dissatisfaction with those responsible 
 for the defense of the Metropolis, by shaking its dust from 
 her shoes and going to live at Bath. . . . "So it might be 
 as well," she concluded, "if you were to look about for 
 other rooms, in case I have to go." 
 
 "That," said Adam, "is a good idea. I'll do it now." 
 And, somewhat to her annoyance, he sat down then and 
 there at her desk and wrote Major Macfadden Smith that 
 he would like to take the rooms in Plowden Buildings for 
 at least five weeks, and suggested a rental of two pounds 
 a week. 
 
 He felt a glow of satisfaction as he posted this letter, 
 covering the two he had found at Plowden Buildings, in 
 the District Head Office in Spring Street, deeming it too 
 important a packet for one of those ordinary receptacles 
 which had been pressed to the doubtful uses of the Self- 
 Help and other Ministries. But he remained uneasy as to
 
 DEUTSCHLAND UEBER MISS DURWARD 255 
 
 what might have befallen Barbara in the night. The morn- 
 ing papers had gone to press too early to have any mention 
 of the raid; and vague scraps of conversation, caught in 
 the street and on the bus to Victoria, told him nothing ex- 
 cept that there had been heavy damage as near as Maida 
 Vale. This might account for Miss Durward's cracked 
 glasses ; but he had no reason to suppose that Barbara lived 
 in that neighborhood. . . . Where did she live? He had 
 no idea; nor had he told her where he lived. . . . What 
 had they talked about in those precious moments between 
 turning their backs on the garage and parting at the stage 
 door of the Grand? He could not recall anything except 
 that Barbara seemed very sorry for herself. . . . 
 
 Mr. Macarthy disapproved of people being sorry for 
 themselves. Adam had a suspicion that, since Barbara 
 married Mr. Leaper-Carahar, his guardian had ceased to 
 approve of her. But then Mr. Macarthy perhaps did not 
 know what he knew from his grandmother: that her mar- 
 riage was what the French call a white marriage, or mar- 
 riage that only seemed to be a marriage, and was the op- 
 posite of a marriage in the sight of God, which did not 
 seem to be a marriage at all, though it produced somewhat 
 similar results. He himself, as he reflected in Park Lane, 
 was the result of a union which he had not heard called a 
 marriage in the sight of God, though presumably if all 
 things were visible to Him, He must have been a witness 
 to it ... an unwilling witness? Adam did not quite per- 
 ceive how Mr. Byron O'Toole, even with the castle behind 
 him, could have forced his will upon the Almighty. So he 
 came to the conclusion, as he walked in at the garage gate, 
 that perhaps at the moment when Byron O'Toole begot him 
 on the body of Bride Macfadden, nee Smith, the two were 
 married in the sight of God. ... As individuals he could 
 feel no affection nor respect for either of them; but, for 
 bringing him into this world, despite all its abominations
 
 256 IN LONDON 
 
 so beautiful and interesting, he thanked them. He flat- 
 tered himself that he bore no resemblance to either, though 
 in moments of depression he suspected that he was much 
 like what Mr. O'Toole might have been had Lady Daphne 
 Page not presented him in infancy to her charwoman. He 
 had already seen enough of the upper classes to surmise 
 that Mr. Macarthy's opinion that only the lack of schooling 
 and money in his pocket prevented Mr. O'Toole cutting a 
 brilliant figure in Irish society, and one of some distinc- 
 tion even in England, was not pure sarcasm. . . . 
 
 The voice of the flapper clerk in the sentry-box at the 
 gateway of the garage broke in upon his thoughts with the 
 words: "Oh, Mr. Quinn, can Mr. Duval see you about 
 altering the time of your drive?" 
 
 Adam frowned. "Where is Mr. Duval?" he asked. 
 
 "Just across the yard talking to that lady," said the 
 flapper clerk, and Adam's eyes, following her finger, beheld 
 first Barbara and then Mr. Gander Duval engaged in what 
 to Adam's scandalized emotions appeared to be something 
 uncommonly like a flirtation.
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO 
 MR. DUVAL ADVISES 
 
 ADAM stepped forward towards Mr. Duval as if he were 
 about to transfix with his walking-stick, in the manner laid 
 down in the bayonet exercise, that gentleman's well-covered 
 peritoneum. "You wish to speak with me?" he demanded. 
 
 The chauffeur, completing at his ease a laugh of consid- 
 erable size, answered off-hand: "Not at all, sir, not at all; 
 pray don't mention it." 
 
 "Then why . . ." began Adam angrily, to be checked by 
 a wave from Mr. Duval's enormous paw, indicating Bar- 
 bara. 
 
 Turning upon her, she met his indignant eye with a smile 
 almost as sphinx-like as Mr. Macarthy's, and his wrath 
 was abashed to hear her say: "I'm so sorry, but I thought 
 it might be more convenient for every one if we could 
 arrange with Mr. Duval to take our driving lessons to- 
 gether. Mr. Duval tells me he has no objection," and 
 smilingly she looked to him for confirmation. 
 
 Mr. Duval did not smile. He said: "No object, what- 
 ever," crisply, as though he were well aware of the number 
 of fishes in the sea. 
 
 "Have you any objection?" Barbara asked Adam, with 
 mock humility, and he was too overjoyed at the idea to 
 resent the sarcasm of her tone. So it was agreed, although 
 it involved ringing up Miss Durward to apologize for his 
 not returning to luncheon, that Mr. Duval should take both 
 his young pupils out together. "It will save petrol," Bar- 
 bara observed, as if she could have no other motive, and 
 to emphasize this she turned away from Adam with an 
 
 257
 
 258 IN LONDON 
 
 air of indifference, apparently not hearing his inquiry as 
 to how she had been affected by the air-raid. 
 
 As she attended none of the classes which he attended, 
 they did not meet again until it was time for them to take 
 their places in the Overland. Mr. Duval placed Barbara 
 at the wheel and sat down beside her, while he waved 
 Adam to a seat behind them. All through that morning's 
 lectures Adam had been enjoying in anticipation this hour 
 with Barbara, and he had gone without luncheon lest he 
 should be a moment late for it. But it opened dully, for 
 Mr. Duval laconically bade her drive to a blind alley off 
 Caxton Street, and her whole lesson was spent crawling up 
 that alley backwards, and down it again to crawl up it 
 once more. At the first effort she did this pretty well, 
 until it came to the turn at the top, when she bumped her 
 near driving wheel on a neglected curb stone; her second 
 attempt was not so good, and her third was only better 
 than her fourth and fifth. The sixth effort went aground 
 within a few feet, and instead of putting her lever into 
 first gear to get afloat again, she deliberately accelerated 
 her engine and tore past the obstacle, leaving many inches 
 of fractured wing behind. Whereupon Mr. Gander Duval 
 remarked with Mephistophelean politeness that he knew a 
 perfect little lady who had had just about enough of it for 
 to-day; and restarting the engine, which had stopped to 
 listen to what he had to say, he invited his fair pupil 
 to relinquish her place in favor of her young friend. 
 
 Barbara leaped out with an offended air, and was ap- 
 parently of a mind to make for home without a word to 
 Adam, when Mr. Duval again interposed. "Better jump 
 in behind, and let's drop you where you want to go." 
 
 "I don't want to go anywhere," Barbara retorted, eyeing 
 him reproachfully. 
 
 "Looks bad for a lady to go nowhere in a 'uff," said 
 Mr. Duval firmly ; "better jump in while there is yet time,"
 
 MR. DUVAL ADVISES 259 
 
 and he gave the door just a ghost of a swing as though to 
 indicate the possibility of its being closed against Barbara 
 for evermore. . . . 
 
 And to Adam's surprise the proud Barbara meekly 
 obeyed, though he himself was on the very point of find- 
 ing words wherewith to rebuke Mr. Duval, a mere English 
 or even hybrid chauffeur, for his impertinence to an Irish 
 gentlewoman to whom Adam, if but doubtfully of kin, de- 
 sired to be more than kind. . . . But he had no time to 
 think of this ; for it behooved him to take the Overland out 
 of that backwater alley into the full tide of Victoria Street 
 and Buckingham Palace Road. 
 
 "I want you to show the lady what you can do," Mr. 
 Duval exhorted him, "and I don't mind wasting a bit of 
 petrol for once by way of swank, just to show you can 
 do it. Go a-'ead !" 
 
 Adam, on his mettle, wangled the car with some dex- 
 terity, as he flattered himself, through the cross-tides into 
 Victoria Street, past the station and with something like a 
 rip round into Buckingham Palace Road, going west with 
 the speedometer kicking at twenty-five. He was approach- 
 ing the Chelsea end somewhat proud of himself, when Mr. 
 Duval motioned him to ease down. "Slow down," he said, 
 "slow down, low as you can go without coming off top 
 gear; but keep your toe ready on the accelerator, or you'll 
 get your engine stopped. Now very steady into Ebury 
 Street and bring her up to ten, and then listen to me." 
 He threw his chin over his shoulder: "And you listen too, 
 young lady, for your faults are the same as 'is, only 
 more so." 
 
 Adam, oddly relieved to find that he was not to be made 
 a butt for Barbara's amusement, soberly obeyed, and in 
 Ebury Street Mr. Duval continued his discourse. "Now 
 like most young neophytes, as they call them, Mr. I for- 
 get your name you've a trick of taking corners with your
 
 260 IN LONDON 
 
 engine in full buzz, and then when you're round it, safe by 
 the dispensation of Providence, getting scared and slowing 
 down. Now once for all remember this, when you want 
 to negotiate a corner and you've any speed on, you toot 
 your horn and you de-clutch. When you're round it you 
 accelerate and get back into gear as smartly as you can, 
 remembering that if you lose time, and don't accelerate 
 enough, you stop your engine sure as eggs. On the other 
 hand, if you take your corner at any speed with your en- 
 gine in gear, and the road has any camber to sj>eak of, or 
 there's a little grease about, as likely as not ye'll be stand- 
 ing on your head in the kingdom of 'eaven when you're 
 least expecting it." Again his chin swung round to the 
 back seat. "The remark about standing on your 'ead does 
 not apply to ladies," he explained; "but even the most 
 perfect little lady will find herself in Kingdom Come the 
 wrong way up, if she goes on taking corners in the wrong 
 way." 
 
 He turned to Adam again: "Now we'll take some cor- 
 ners, if you please." And forthwith he set Adam waltzing 
 the Overland round the blocks of Belgravia, and cutting 
 figures of eight through Chelsea until it was time to turn 
 homewards. Adam lost all sense of where he was, even 
 on the return journey; for his mentor allowed him no 
 more straight running than was sufficient to get the 
 speedometer within nodding distance of twenty before he 
 directed him to left or right, keeping all the while a running 
 fire of general conversation with Barbara, interlarded with- 
 out change of tone with words of command and advice to 
 Adam. 
 
 Thus ran on Mr. Gander Duval's monologue, as Adam, 
 all asweat to acquit himself featly in Barbara's eyes, wrig- 
 gled the Overland in and out and round about thorough- 
 fares alternately mean and pretentious : "Yes, miss, it is a 
 strain on a young lady that isn't used to go pushing a bus
 
 MR. DUVAL ADVISES 261 
 
 rumtifoosle, as you might call it, up and down those blink- 
 ing lanes; but that's where the real work of a chauffeur 
 comes in, not in spinning along the Ripley Road with his 
 mouth open for a champagne lunch. Left, if you please. 
 De-clutch. . . . Accelerate, accelerate! . . . And the Over- 
 land engine, when it isn't worn out, which isn't always, is 
 easy as winking backwards or forwards; but to reverse a 
 car that wants handling, like a Wolseley or a Fiat, up a 
 corkscrew turn like R.A.C. test at St. James's. . . . Right, 
 if you please. . . . Out of gear. . . . Don't let your revo- 
 lutions drop. . . . Clutch again. . . . Accelerate, accele- 
 rate! is another pair of shoes. Not that there's anything 
 in it to make a song about. . . . No, I wouldn't drive for 
 the M.T. for any money. All slop gears. Ruins the hands. 
 I'd rather go into the trenches, if I had to go at all; but, 
 thank God, I've got heart disease. Left again. Remember 
 what I said. Out you go. . . . Keep her running. In 
 again. Accelerate, accelerate !" The corner of Adam's left 
 eye caught Mr. Duval's paw indexing some object in the 
 strait street of tall houses, to him a mere course for gather- 
 ing speed, "That's what I call 'orrid. The man that lives 
 in that 'ouse, and is a nobleman, and ought to know better, 
 goes and advertises his own business outside his own 'ouse." 
 At this point Adam was conscious that Barbara's interest 
 was at last fully roused by Mr. Duval's conversation; for 
 Mr. Duval went on with confidence: "You wonder 'ow I 
 mean he advertises his business. Well, if Mr. What's-his- 
 name will just take us round again I'll show ye. Left. . . . 
 De-clutch, round you go. There you are. Got him again. 
 Accelerate, accelerate! Left again into the square and left 
 again up Belgrave Place. We'll just do that little bit 
 again." The reference to the square and Belgrave Place 
 prepared Adam for what was to follow : "Yes, miss, on that 
 pillar box we passed you may have read these words : 
 ' 'Uns go' Ungry for the sake of 'Ome. Britons arise and
 
 262 IN LONDON 
 
 show you can go 'angrier still.' . . . Now I'm told that the 
 nobleman who lives in that 'ouse gets ten thousand a year 
 for inventing bilge like that and sticking it round the town. 
 ... I don't believe it, but I haven't a doubt he gets more 
 for doing it than it's worth. For it's worth nothing at all. 
 It's enough to make you want to 'oist the Red Flag to read 
 an advert, like that in Eaton Place. But it's an interesting 
 street otherwise. An Irish rebel with the queer name of 
 Arson lives at No. 5, and got a bomb in his area not long 
 ago. And an interesting thing happened in the nobleman's 
 'ouse too. You see that middle window on the first floor 
 I'm told the police pushed a foreign countess through it 
 not long ago, trying to handcuff her I suppose they were, 
 and she fell on the very letter box and was killed, so they 
 made out she shot herself by accident. Rum story, but 
 everything doesn't get into the papers. Left again. . . . 
 Out. ... In. ... Straight ahead. . . . 'Ome. Accelerate, 
 accelerate !" 
 
 As Barbara prepared to descend from the car in the 
 yard she said with condescension : "Perhaps, Mr. Duval, 
 it might interest you to know that the foreign countess, as 
 you call her, who was killed in Eaton Place, was at one 
 time in love with my grandfather." 
 
 "Was that so, miss ?" Mr. Duval readily responded ; "then 
 if your grandmother was at all like you, I guess there were 
 wigs on the green." 
 
 Barbara smiled scornfully. "Oh, I'm not jealous," she 
 said, in a voice of ladylike rebuke, "and I don't suppose 
 my grandmother was either." 
 
 "I suppose she wasn't," Mr. Duval agreed, "if she never 
 heard anything about it." 
 
 These words were scarce spoken when Adam, feeling 
 that he had been too long excluded from the conversation, 
 inquired in his turn of Mr. Duval: "I wonder if it would 
 interest you to know that the lady whom you call a coun-
 
 MR. DUVAL ADVISES 263 
 
 tess, but was in reality of superior rank, in fact a mar- 
 chioness . . ." At this point he had the misfortune to 
 draw breath and allow Mr. Duval to interject the qualifi- 
 cation: "Foreign." 
 
 "Besides being a marchioness, foreign or otherwise," 
 Adam insisted with dignity, "she was before marriage an 
 earl's daughter, and it may interest you to know, my grand- 
 mother." 
 
 "Before marriage," Mr. Duval repeated, with an air of 
 politeness. He seemed puzzled, but not impressed. . . . 
 Then one of his large paws descended on Adam's shoulder, 
 and the other, to Adam's consternation, on Barbara's. And 
 he actually stood there, without being blasted, while, there 
 being no one within earshot, he said confidentially though 
 not without breadth of effect: "I see what you two are 
 after: You want to spoof me that you're cousins. . . . 
 Why trouble? You can do what you like for all I care. 
 It's all one to me if you were twins." And giving them a 
 jocose salute he got into the car again and, winking at 
 Adam, said for the last time that day: "Accelerate, accele- 
 rate!"
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE 
 ADAM ACCELERATES 
 
 BARBARA turned from Adam and ascended the garage stair- 
 way without a word. He followed her, the expression of 
 her back convincting him of crime in daring to claim kin- 
 ship with her through her grandfather's mistress. He 
 wanted to run after her and point out that he had not done 
 so; that it was Mr. Gander Duval who jactitated a mar- 
 riage of the blackest shade between Sir David and the 
 Marchesa. . . . She disappeared into the seraglio, ignoring 
 him, and he dreaded that he might see her no more that 
 day. 
 
 Through the afternoon's lecture he could visualize only 
 her portrait upon the blackboard : every diagram twisted 
 itself into some suggestion of her face or form; every 
 formula spelled in cipher her name; the very words issu- 
 ing from the mouth of the lecturer referred esoterically to 
 her. And through everything echoed the accents of Mr. 
 Gander Duval chanting: "Accelerate, accelerate!" 
 
 Wistfully as when a schoolboy at Belvedere, Adam 
 pined for the class to end that he might flee to the work- 
 shops and learn his fate. He would look out of the win- 
 dow and long for her; he would stare up at the ceiling and 
 long for her; he would gaze in the lecturer's face and long 
 for her. . . . Just as, not so many months ago, at Belve- 
 dere he had affected interest in this or that when really 
 interested only in Josephine O'Meagher. At the garage 
 Josephine O'Meagher had ceased to exist. She could not 
 have breathed in that atmosphere any more than St. Francis 
 of Assisi could have driven a tank over the body of Brother 
 
 264
 
 ADAM ACCELERATES 265 ' 
 
 Wolf. On the other hand, Caroline Brady with a few shil- 
 lings' worth more of education, and just the ghost of a 
 chance, might have done well in that glib company. But 
 Caroline Brady was a ghost herself, and all that Adam had 
 felt for her was definitely passed to Barbara. 
 
 It is easy for the living to triumph over the dead, and all 
 the easier when there is no contrast of character other 
 than arises from circumstances. Even Adam was observ- 
 ant enough to see that Barbara had Caroline's qualities, en- 
 riched by a greater generosity of inheritance and environ- 
 ment; he did not tell himself that she had Caroline's de- 
 fects, refined by traditions and education. He saw only 
 (while he pretended to see the principle governing the ad- 
 justment of a Bosch magneto) that Barbara's was of all 
 the earth's bodies the most desirable, and that her men- 
 tality, in the aspect shown to him, enhanced the provoca- 
 tion of her physical charm. He would not have called her, 
 as he had called Josephine, beautiful and good; she was 
 that more alluring thing to young knighthood lovely and 
 ruthless : belle et sans merci. 
 
 He was not sure that Barbara could love at all; but he 
 dreamt of a power in himself to win what love she had. 
 If she had loved any one else, she could not have married 
 Leaper-Carahar. . . . And now he knew for sure that she 
 had never pretended to love him. All argumentative roads 
 led Adam to the conclusion that she was to be won by 
 him! only there remained the stubborn fact that she de- 
 spised or affected to despise him. And why? . . . Because 
 in Dublin he was whispered by scandal to be no gentle- 
 man. But in the greater world of London fame acclaimed 
 him a gentleman without question. And in his own bones 
 he felt himself a gentleman: the sordid and the black- 
 guardedly had no secret hold on him; his thrifty soul 
 stopped short of meanness. For a youngster of artistic 
 temperament he was almost a Puritan: even his most sen-
 
 266 IN LONDON 
 
 sual mood withered at the adumbration of vice. At Ra- 
 venna he might have been as forward as Dante, but at 
 Venice more shy than Rousseau, that bashfulest of all men 
 that ever got a child. In fine, unworthy as he admitted 
 himself to be of the gorgeous Barbara Burns, this lady 
 Venus in a golden shawl, as the Playboy would have 
 called her, he asked himself as a practical young fellow, 
 who was more worthy than he? Especially now when all 
 the youth of Britain were flinging their valorous beauty 
 beneath the wheels of Juggernaut. 
 
 And although nineteen, as he would be next April, was 
 young for a man to marry and settle down, he flattered 
 himself that few men ten years his senior were so well 
 circumstanced in fortune as he. In Dublin a man of thirty 
 earning an income of seven hundred a year would be con- 
 sidered a catch. . . . He forgot that long ere he was thirty, 
 one of the reasons contributing most solidly to his income 
 would have disappeared; unless, indeed, the war were still 
 going on and he taking no share in it. Rather did he re- 
 flect that Leaper-Carahar, three times his age, was making 
 only one and a half times his income; so at Leaper-Cara- 
 har's age, he reckoned he should be making nearly twice 
 what that gentleman made now and had enabled him to 
 buy the priceless Barbara in the Dublin slave-market. He 
 was admitting to himself the point that Barbara as a slave 
 would be written off by the Orientalist as a wash-out, when 
 the class ended and he was set free to put his valor to 
 the test. 
 
 That Mr. Leaper-Carahar had any moral lien upon Bar- 
 bara did not present itself to him. For him she was not 
 Mr. Leaper-Carahar 's wife, not a married woman at all, 
 but merely a slave, iniquitously enslaved, and momentarily 
 escaped and basking in the sunlight of freedom. It seemed 
 to Adam that if he took courage to face her pursuer he 
 could free her for aye. And Adam never doubted his cour-
 
 ADAM ACCELERATES 267 
 
 age to face Mr. Leaper-Carahar his grandmother could 
 not have done so more readily than he but he was less 
 certain of his ability to face Barbara. 
 
 What bravery he had in relation to Barbara oozed out 
 of him as he climbed to the top of the house and donned 
 his overalls. Momentarily, however, he was enheartened 
 by re-reading Major Macfadden Smith's letter, which hap- 
 pened to drop from his pocket as he changed ; and, reflect- 
 ing that he had now or was about to have a spot of earth 
 he could call his own, he imagined how delightful it would 
 be if Barbara condescended to be interested in his address, 
 to tell her he had chambers in the Temple. He went so 
 far as to imagine the possibility of her wanting to see 
 them. He would invite her to drink afternoon tea with 
 him, bringing, of course, any one she liked as chaperon 
 ... oh hell ! Miss Macfie ? 
 
 He went downstairs half laughing at his own horror over 
 the thought of a visit from this bereaved lady, and was 
 thrilled to find Barbara petulantly fiddling with the mortal 
 remains of the Knight-Daimler. 
 
 "I thought you'd never come!" she greeted him with 
 peevish coquetry. "What on earth are you smiling at?" 
 
 "Can't you guess?" said Adam, boldly challenging her 
 eyes. 
 
 She dropped them and pouted. "I don't see anything to 
 smile at." 
 
 "But I do," and Adam was most emphatic. 
 
 He was so emphatic that she could not avoid to ques- 
 tion: "What do you see?" 
 
 He paused to answer until at long last her eyes turned 
 to him inquiringly, not to escape from his until he had said : 
 "I see my mate waiting for me." 
 
 She turned instantly with a frown, but her cheeks, he 
 was sure, were pinker. "You don't know what you're talk- 
 ing about," she said crushingly, but weakened the effect by
 
 268 IN LONDON 
 
 adding: "And anyhow, that's a crib from Stephen Ma- 
 carthy." 
 
 She weakened the effect so far as her dignity was con- 
 cerned; but the incomprehensible phrase served to baffle 
 Adam for the time being, and their further conversation 
 became mechanical. 
 
 Yet, although their talk might be of inlet and exhaust, 
 of cams and piston rings and washers and big ends, touch- 
 ing nothing nearer the loves of mortals than the sexual 
 differentiation of screws, it seemed that she, no more than 
 himself, was wholly concentrated upon anatomizing the 
 Knight-Daimler. 
 
 "Calvinia," she mentioned without premeditation, as it 
 seemed to Adam, "Calvinia makes out that even screws are 
 male and female. Is that true? ... I thought it was just 
 her queer mind, until I caught something about a female 
 screw in Mr. Baker's lecture this morning." 
 
 Adam met her glance with innocent eyes. "They are 
 called male and female in the trade," he answered, and, 
 picking out a couple from the lumber box beside him, he 
 passed them to her and went on with his work. 
 
 Presently he heard them chink one after the other into 
 the box, as she tossed them back across the chassis. And 
 there was an unwonted graciousness in her voice as she 
 said : "You really are rather a sweet person." 
 
 After that, conversation between them ceased until she 
 said : "I must be off. . . . Can I help you to put things in 
 order first?" 
 
 He gazed at her surprisedly, because of this unlocked for 
 condescension, and she seemed to give way before him as 
 she murmured : "Don't look at me with Stephen Macarthy's 
 eyes." 
 
 He stood a moment, rapt in the recollection that Caro- 
 line Brady too had in a sense complained of the likeness 
 of his eyes to his guardian's.
 
 ADAM ACCELERATES 269 
 
 From her subtle face his eyes traveled to the broad face 
 of the clock at the farther end of the workshop: it agreed 
 with his wrist-watch upon five and twenty minutes to six. 
 Barbara made a movement of perhaps mock impatience: 
 "You don't want my help." 
 
 "No," Adam answered at his leisure, "but I want your 
 company. Sit down." With acted ease he drew a bench 
 from the wall. 
 
 But Barbara disdained the suggested motion. "If I stay 
 I may as well help," she said. 
 
 "No," Adam answered her again. "As soon as I've got 
 the parts straight you might help me to lift the thing back 
 into its place, but you'll only waste time muddling me over 
 bolts and nuts." 
 
 "I don't muddle," Barbara retorted. 
 
 "You muddle me," he insisted, with an urbane smile that 
 disarmed her resentment. 
 
 She sank down on the bench murmuring: "You simply 
 are Stephen to-night." 
 
 "I wish I were," he answered only. 
 
 Five minutes passed before she surrendered to her desire 
 to ask him why he wished it. 
 
 "Because you would find my company more enjoyable," 
 he said ; and it seemed to him as well as to her that it was 
 a man speaking. 
 
 Apart from indifferent things, she said no more until 
 they bade each other farewell in Victoria Street, where she 
 watched for a bus going Chelseawards. She had given him 
 an address at Joy Mansions, King's Road, which she de- 
 scribed as a studio. 
 
 "A studio?" Adam cried. "Have you taken up paint- 
 ing?" That seemed to him an explanation of her being in 
 London. 
 
 "I've painted all my life," she answered; "only I'm less 
 vain than some people about showing my work."
 
 270 IN LONDON 
 
 "I'm sure," Adam protested, "it's awfully good." 
 
 Barbara laughed bitterly: "Now you're not talking like 
 Mr. Macarthy," and cut short his answer with the words: 
 "Good-night, I see my bus;" she nodded towards a red 
 monster emerging from the slime of a wet London night. 
 
 Adam hugged her arm as he led her through the posse 
 of humanity struggling for an inside place. Barbara said 
 the outside would do for her. 
 
 "You'll catch cold," he protested, "and there's a lot of 
 'flu about." 
 
 "Does that matter?" she rejoined; "you forget that I'm 
 married . . . miserably married." 
 
 In point of fact he had forgotten it, and it was a sicken- 
 ing shock to be reminded of it thus. So he let her part 
 from him without a word, and as the red monster (which 
 he was not in a state to recognize as the same No. Eleven 
 which had carried him to Fleet Street within forty-eight 
 hours past) sank with her into the mire, figured the Shep- 
 herd's Bush omnibus as a genie of Mr. Leaper-Carahar's 
 ring. Then he conjured up the vision of Barbara's hand 
 with no such ring upon it, and his heart glowed again. A 
 fig for such a marriage as that! A fig for anything that 
 strove to part Barbara from him, if only he could win her 
 love. . . . 
 
 If only he could win her love. . . . Was he winning it? 
 At the corner of Vauxhall Bridge Road he looked ques- 
 tioningly at the clock marking the terminus of the tram 
 line. But it only told him that it was half-past six, and 
 that he must not keep the stage waiting. 
 
 If Adam had learned nothing else at the Grand Theater 
 under Mr. Onsin's tutelage, he had learned that, whatever 
 engagements one might break or pledges falsify, one must 
 not keep the stage waiting, unless one happened to be a 
 star actor or the mistress of a famous, if frustrate, com- 
 mander. And even then, what one gained in advertisement
 
 ADAM ACCELERATES 271 
 
 one lost in popularity with one's humbler brethren. . . . 
 With an odd feeling of exhilaration he felt in his pocket 
 for half a crown and, doing that which he did not do once 
 in a blue moon, called a taxi and drove to the theater.
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR 
 OUT OF GEAR 
 
 ALTHOUGH upon that wet and murky night Adam was the 
 first of the principals to reach the stage, where he awaited 
 some extra minutes his cue (so that the stage-manager 
 boasted to the prompter that he had given one whom he 
 characterized as an amateur, qualified by an adjective more 
 appropriate to the military than the theatrical profession, a 
 lesson), this was in fact the first occasion upon which he 
 believed that he could play Lord Algy Taplow better than 
 Mr. Onsin or Mr. Sackville or both together. Not that he 
 desired to play it. Dear no! Romeo for him . . . and 
 Hamlet ... and Othello? Othello? ... A beastly part, 
 but full of fat. . . . Yes, when he had a theater of his own 
 he might condescend to play Othello. . . . But Romeo for 
 preference. . . . Also, why not the Playboy? He would 
 make the Playboy a purely romantic figure, not the dirty 
 little skunk which some argued was the correct reading of 
 the part. 
 
 He went to bed that night with everything handsome 
 about him, or so it seemed as he was falling asleep . . . 
 He was a successful actor, and he was about to be a suc- 
 cessful lover, and as it were in the stride of his success 
 he had got very delightful chambers in the Temple at a 
 most reasonable figure. It was true that they would be 
 very dangerous during air-raids, but Barbara would not 
 mind that any more than he; and what did it matter if a 
 bomb hit them, provided that it hit them both together? 
 He felt that if Barbara gave herself to him at all, bombs 
 would not deter her. 
 
 272
 
 OUT OF GEAR 273 
 
 It was disappointing the next day, when he put on his 
 best suit to go motoring with Barbara in Mr. Duval's Over- 
 land, to find no Barbara at the garage. Mr. Duval gave 
 her ten minutes' grace and then, despite Adam's protest, 
 refused further to wait, and made him take his lesson alone. 
 Disgruntled as he was, Adam swallowed his agitation and 
 concentrated on the work, so that his instructor was fain 
 to admit that yesterday's lesson had not been thrown away. 
 "If you were like this every day," said Mr. Duval, "you'd 
 soon learn to drive." 
 
 Adam was so bucked by this that he kept his spirits up 
 until the afternoon and the hour came for Barbara to join 
 him beside the corpse of the Knight-Daimler, but there was 
 no Barbara. 
 
 Five o'clock came and went. Still no Barbara, and he 
 knew there was no hope of her now. The foul weather 
 that had set in the previous afternoon stlil prevailed, 
 though during the hour of his driving lesson he had no 
 worse to contend with than greasy surfaces. . . . Until 
 that evening he knew not what a dreary place an engineer- 
 ing workshop could be, nor what infinite melancholy could 
 compress itself within a cylinder and slowly percolate 
 through the pores of its metal walls. 
 
 That was the gloomiest spring living England could re- 
 member. On the Western Front she and her allies were 
 being wedged asunder and flung back mangled towards 
 the southern rivers and the western sea : losing in a day 
 what they had won in years. Their piebald armies hailed 
 from the four quarters of the globe were welded together 
 only to be powdered beneath the hammer of single-minded 
 Thor, starved not yet into defeat, but an ever more frantic 
 frenzy of valorous despair. 
 
 But the last fury of Prussia's death throes hardly so 
 much as flicked Adam's consciousness. He read no more 
 than the headlines of happenings on the Western Front or
 
 274 IN LONDON 
 
 any seat of war. He knew only that despite the intricate 
 permutation of searchlights quartering the sky, the German 
 airmen night after night flung death and destruction into 
 London's heart, so that many thought it must ere long 
 stop beating. And Paris, as he heard at the theater, was 
 already bombarded by the Huns' artillery safely emplaced 
 behind their battle line. . . . What of that? What did 
 London and Paris matter compared with his solicitude for 
 Barbara? No more than the cities beneath the Dead Sea. 
 . . . But what if Barbara had caught cold last night on 
 that accursed bus? . . . What if, like Caroline Brady, she 
 suddenly sickened and died? 
 
 Half -past five. . . . He flung down his spanner, and 
 leaving the Knight-Daimler in worse case than ever, hur- 
 riedly washed and walked across St. James's Park in pelt- 
 ing rain to the theater. . . . How miserable it was in the 
 Park to-night! How exhilarating two nights ago! . . . 
 What a miracle of verve was Barbara. . . . What could 
 have become of her? ... A horrible thought clutched his 
 throat as he climbed the Duke of York's steps. Could she 
 have slain herself? . . . He faltered through a nightmare 
 the last few yards to the theater. 
 
 "For you, sir?" asked Cerberus, presenting a telegram 
 addressed: "Adam Quinn Macfadden, Esquire, Grand 
 Theater, S.W." The message ran: "So sorry, influenza, 
 writing. Burns." Not until he noticed that it had been 
 handed in at the Chelsea Head Office did he realize that 
 it was from Barbara. "Thanks," he said, in a choking 
 voice, to Cerberus, and passed on feverishly to his dressing- 
 room. 
 
 Again and again he sighed with relief that evening. And 
 he played his part no worse than he had done it of late. 
 But he was weary of it, weary of this nonsensical play in 
 which the egregious Onsin appeared to greater advantage 
 than himself. Why had he not waited for his guardian to
 
 OUT OF GEAR 275 
 
 find him an opening with Galsworthy, or Masefield, or 
 Shaw? . . . They wrote plays in which an actor of his 
 genius need not be ashamed to appear; it did not occur 
 to him that their producers might hesitate about paying 
 him seven hundred a year for his services, their receipts 
 for a year being perhaps no more than those for a few 
 weeks of What Rot! He was flatly ignorant of theatrical 
 economics. To him success was success, and failure fail- 
 ure; he had yet to learn that a distinguished dramatist 
 might account a piece of success from which he had made 
 a hundred pounds, while a nonentity might deplore as a 
 failure some prodigy of his art which had brought him in 
 a thousand. 
 
 From the theater he hastened home, and was thrilled to 
 find Barbara's letter already come. Miss Durward handed 
 it to him with a sniff. ... A neat-looking letter with an 
 agreeable savor. . . . He guessed she had been sniffing at 
 it all the evening, and wished he had the self-control to 
 get it to his bedroom before opening it. But his fingers 
 had done this while his will was thinking about it, and 
 even with Miss Durward's eyes upon him he read: 
 
 "You will miss me, perhaps, a little to-day, dear Adam, 
 when you take your driving lesson, and I dare say that I 
 too may miss you and Mr. Duval when the hour comes 
 for it. But I cannot possibly go to the garage to-day, as 
 the doctor forbids it. That is to say, of course, I could 
 come to the garage, but I couldn't do myself or any one 
 else much good if I got there. It seems that I must have 
 caught cold last night, and the influenza you spoke of has 
 bagged me. Very unfortunate for me just as I was begin- 
 ning to enjoy myself, and perhaps you will think it unfor- 
 tunate for you. But please don't think so, for it is really 
 no good. I quite understand that you think that you are 
 still in love with me, and I am afraid that I enjoy your 
 being in love with me. But all the same, when I think it
 
 276 IN LONDOtt 
 
 over I hate the thought of it. So please dismiss it from 
 your mind. 
 
 "We spoke about my painting. Some day perhaps I 
 might paint you, but what I would really like to do, and 
 perhaps you could do for me, is to have some sittings from 
 Mr. Onsin. It's not so much that I admire him. Although, 
 as far as actors go, I don't know any one I like better. 
 But what I'm thinking of is that if I could send a portrait 
 of him to the Academy, and there is still time, it might 
 possibly be accepted. He would make a very fine portrait 
 as I would do him. You might perhaps tell him this. You 
 need not tell him that I said so, but just hint something of 
 the kind. 
 
 "And what a clever play What Rot! really is! It puz- 
 zles me completely to think why Mr. Macarthy so con- 
 stantly ridiculed it; it almost makes me suspect that he 
 was jealous of the author. 
 
 "My head is aching too badly for me to write any more, 
 but you might write me if you have time. My nose is 
 running, and I am altogether a horrible sight, or I would 
 ask you to come and see me ; but please do not think of 
 doing so on your own until you hear from me that I am 
 better. Apart from my nose, we must not run the risk of 
 your picking up a germ from me. You are a very dear 
 person, and I should not like you to come to harm through 
 your old and affectionate friend BARBARA." 
 
 He stood with the precious thing in his hand while pleas- 
 ure and chagrin chased each other through his blood. 
 
 "Not Miss Nightingale's writing, I think," his hostess 
 drawled; "but of course you won't want to tell me who 
 it is." She drew a long breath with the suggestion of a 
 sniff in it: "Anyhow I've made up my mind to go to 
 Bath." 
 
 Adam mechanically expressed a hope that she would be 
 comfortable there, and declining on the ground of weari- 

 
 OUT OF GEAR 277 
 
 ness her offer of supper, ascended to his bedroom to bury 
 himself again in his treasure, reading and rereading into 
 it every possible and impossible hope and despair. 
 
 Then at last he sat himself down to gush forth a hot 
 reply. His pen flew over the paper, careless of punctuation 
 and spelling, but pulsing with what seemed to him to be 
 the topmost summit of passion. How terrible of her to be 
 ill: how thoughtful to write: how kind to think of hinv 
 how cruel to say what she said. How wise she was and 
 how foolish: how generous and harsh and brave and ab- 
 surdly fearful. How he died for love of her and would 
 not have it otherwise: but (oh ghost of Herrick!) would 
 rather live for her: how he could not live without her for 
 another hour, but would never see her again if she wished 
 it. And so on for some solid pages : the sort of letter 
 every male is ashamed to have written and every female is 
 rejoiced to receive, even when she scornfully, or prudishly, 
 or truly piously burns it at the stake. A letter of maudlin 
 sentimentality, ludicrous in itself, but clean and pleasing 
 to think of as written in that room decorated with the 
 maudlin sensualities collected by its former occupant, Mr. 
 Bourchier-Bellingham. 
 
 Fast as his pen winged its way, the small hours saw 
 him put it at last in its envelope. Then he stopped to think 
 that though he brought it to Spring Street now, the letter 
 could not in course of post reach Chelsea until the after- 
 noon. And he swore she must have it for her breakfast, 
 dreaming that she might look vainly for it on waking. . . . 
 Happy thought, to walk down to Chelsea then and here 
 and leave it himself at her flat. ... It looked a long walk 
 on the map, an hour at least, but despite his alleged weari- 
 ness, not purely fanciful, he felt he could not sleep, and 
 the walk would do him good; ease his nerves, brace him, 
 make the to-morrow without her less unbearable. 
 
 Out of the house he stole and out of the square, and by
 
 278 IN LONDON 
 
 familiarly named Clarendon Street to the Bayswater Road. 
 The first Park gates he came to were closed; so, knowing 
 no shorter way, he had to go east past the ground where 
 Mr. Macarthy had told him that Yorick lay buried, as far 
 as Marble Arch, before turning south towards Chelsea. A 
 long round, but the night made it delicious; for the rain 
 had stopped, the temperature was rising, and the earth 
 smelled of spring: in the heart of the darkness he was 
 conscious of life burgeoning secretly around him as of his 
 own flowering within. Earthward the gloom was intense, 
 but as he approached Piccadilly the sky above the trees re- 
 called to him a child's book picture of the Northern Lights. 
 Victorious Peace drove her chariot over Hyde Park Corner 
 on a roadway of white flame towards the stars : east of her 
 whirled the fantastic windmills, and to the west the Titan's 
 scissors shore through the clouds. He thought now of a 
 painting in the Dublin gallery of the opening of the sixth 
 seal, and from that of how, at any moment, whole squad- 
 rons of Deaths on pale horses of aluminium might ride 
 down the firmament and blast Victorious Peace, chariot, 
 champing team and all into one ruin with the hospital 
 below. 
 
 The warm air reeked with antiseptics as he turned past 
 the hospital into Belgrave Square. ... A few minutes 
 later he was standing by a letter-box : the letter-box he had 
 seen spattered with his grandmother's brains. Then he 
 passed on into Cliveden Place, across Sloane Square 
 (where a Clongowes boy was managing the Court Theater) 
 and into the King's Road: the interminable King's Road. 
 By this time he was weary beyond question, and Joy Man- 
 sions seemed farther off than ever; but, as day was break- 
 ing, he found them. An incredibly early milkman had 
 already penetrated the premises; so he was able to reach 
 the hall, and found with the aid of an electric torch the in-
 
 OUT OF GEAR 279 
 
 formation that the studio his lady love occupied was on the 
 top floor. 
 
 He panted up the concrete staircase, and found a light 
 shining under her door, and heard her move within. He 
 wished he had the courage to knock . . . but he had not; 
 and there being no letter-box, he thrust his missive under 
 the door and, turning, fled.
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE 
 SURRENDER 
 
 THOUGH panic drove Adam down the steps of Joy Man- 
 sions, at the street level the glass of exhilaration rose 
 again: so that he seemed to himself, with the morning 
 breeze flung on his face, Antony risen from the arms of 
 Cleopatra. After all, despite the anti-climax, he had been 
 nearer Barbara's arms and in a sense more intimate with 
 her than ever before ; he had heard in glamor the very sigh- 
 ing of her couch springs as she drew breath on it, had 
 heard her cough musically as an actress dying sentimen- 
 tally in a play; more than that, his eyes had caught the 
 beams of that light which played upon her within. He was 
 untroubled by the reflection that, if Barbara had been con- 
 scious of his presence at all, she must have mistaken him 
 for the milkman. 
 
 It was now fully dawn, and he thought to himself he 
 might find a shorter way home than the route by which 
 he had come ; so he struck boldly north, and found himself 
 in a region of great buildings strangely alight and buzzing 
 for that hour of the morning: they proved to be that nest 
 of hospitals in the Fulham Road. Into the box for chose 
 stricken by cancer he put half of the money in his pocket, 
 fancying that to these sufferers little indeed was love and 
 still less war. Cancer to him was still a child's bogey, com- 
 parable with leprosy and hydrophobia and the yet worse 
 plagues lending color to the possibility of demons triumph- 
 ing over man: horrors that made even mutual slaughter a 
 human pleasantry and mere extravagance of horseplay. 
 
 280
 
 SURRENDER 281 
 
 Heart sickened again with the oppression of these evils 
 mocking his charity, he wandered towards other lights: a 
 building decorated in the fashion of a stove: South Ken- 
 sington Station. The first train for Praed Street was almost 
 due. He descended to the Inner Circle platforms, where 
 daylight had not yet pushed a visible skirmishing line, and 
 found soldiers: privates of mixed units returning to the 
 Front: men by his reckoning elderly, frozen in despair. 
 
 "My God, I'd give my ... to be in hospital!" said one. 
 Adam could not catch, but guessed at the missing word. 
 The faces of the others echoed the unholy sentiment. One 
 spat on the line as if he were of a mind to lay his head 
 beside his sputum in front of the incoming train. 
 
 A trench helmet rattled down the steps from the book- 
 ing-ofEce, followed by a young Canadian singing drunkenly 
 to a popular sentimental air some senseless filth. As 
 Adam's train went out the elder men, roused to an odd 
 competition in fatherliness, were helping the youngster to 
 collect his belongings, and he was cursing them for clumsy 
 cripples. 
 
 Twenty minutes later Norfolk Square looked refresh- 
 ingly sane in the daylight. Its respectable Victorianism 
 touched Adam's very heart. Intoxicated with sleep and 
 romance and something indefinable, he turned all the pic- 
 tures visible from his pillow with their faces to the wall 
 ere he went to bed. 
 
 Yet he woke again at eight without the aid of Tomasso, 
 who had gone off, it seemed, to fill some hazardous but 
 remunerative job of national importance, such as spying 
 on his fellow-countrymen. There was a letter that morn- 
 ing from Major Macfadden Smith, and Adam found him- 
 self definitely confirmed as tenant of the chambers in 
 Plowden Buildings, at his own figure for the duration of 
 the war. This strengthened his tone in answering Miss 
 Durward's query whether he had left the house in the small
 
 IN LONDON 
 
 hours: "I suppose you went to post a billet-doux to your 
 lady love?" she suggested. 
 
 "Not exactly," said he. 
 
 Less cautiously she commented: "You were long enough 
 to post a good many." 
 
 "Was I?" said he. 
 
 Whereupon she made a peevish movement, upset a tea- 
 cup over the clean table-cloth and lost her temper : "I won't 
 have such goings on in this house. For all I know you may 
 have gone out to . . ." 
 
 Adam saw red : "Don't confuse me with Mr. Bourchier- 
 Bellingham," he cried. 
 
 "You're far worse than him," she answered, loosing the 
 cat's bag; "he never made any secrets, but you're a young 
 hypocrite . . . and a coward too. . . . Why aren't you, 
 like him, at the Front, trying to do something to keep the 
 Huns from murdering decent people over here? All you're 
 fit for is to mess about with women who don't know their 
 own minds." As Adam preserved a provocative calm, she 
 exploded once again: "Even Macarthy was not as bad as 
 that at your age. He had some sense of . . ." Tears 
 overcame her before she could indicate the nature of the 
 sense she held Mr. Macarthy to possess. 
 
 Adam would have liked to comfort her, but instinct 
 warned him to be careful. He was slinking out of the 
 room, fancying himself covered from observation by the 
 handkerchief masking her eyes, when she dropped a de- 
 taining hand on his arm so suddenly that he nearly fell 
 upon her. "Excuse me for behaving like this," she bab- 
 bled, "it's all these Huns . . . and Tomasso . . . and I do 
 feel responsible to Mr. Macarthy if ... but you won't be 
 troubled with me for long;" here she sobbed hysterically 
 and at last made an end. "Kiss me as if I was your 
 mother, and we'll say no more about it."
 
 SURRENDER 283 
 
 Adam stood a moment holding her hand and even find- 
 ing it in his heart to pat it. "I can't kiss you as if you 
 were my mother," he apologized, "because I am fonder of 
 you that I was of her, and I respect you more than I 
 did her;" so saying, he kissed her hand and left the 
 room. He had scored unwittingly his first triumph with 
 a woman. 
 
 His guardian angel could not have excelled Miss Dur- 
 ward in virtuous friendliness for his remaining days in 
 her house. She even went down to Plowden Buildings to 
 see him comfortably settled in, and impressed the char- 
 woman with the sinfulness of wronging in thought or deed 
 so beautiful a young gentleman. Her valediction was : "Up 
 in this eyrie you'll be like a bird without a mate. I don't 
 know what'll become of you." But she spoke with ir- 
 reproachable detachment; for within the coarse folds of 
 her spiritual garment lay wounded, but not dead, the emo- 
 tions of frustrate maternity. 
 
 But if Miss Durward was kind and kinder than of old, 
 not so Barbara. His precious letter was left unanswered 
 for three weeks and a day; and only the distraction of 
 entertaining the less unbearable members of the Grand 
 company on Sundays, the one day he was not busy at the 
 theater or the garage, kept him from despair. The floor 
 round his bed was littered with the sentimental poetry 
 books presented to Major Macfadden Smith by his brother, 
 and the learned heroes of the Devil's Own Volunteers had 
 their nights made hideous by his passionate voice flinging 
 his grandfather's romantics from the roof of Plowden 
 Buildings into the void. 
 
 Then, when he had with the vigor of youth expelled 
 Barbara from the innermost circle of his system, and was 
 becoming conscious of the charms of Mrs. Onsin's new 
 understudy, Cynthia Churchill, a younger sister of Dru-
 
 284 IN LONDON 
 
 silla Dartmouth, Barbara suddenly reappeared. There she 
 was, one Monday morning, sitting in Mr. Duval's Over- 
 land, and nodding to Adam as easily as if he were just 
 nobody, good or bad. 
 
 "I hope you're all right again?" he murmured, with ten- 
 der banality. 
 
 "Quite," she said blankly, and obeyed, not very success- 
 fully, Mr. Duval's direction to reverse out of the yard. 
 
 By this time Adam was the better driver, despite sundry 
 awkward lapses contrived by his artistic temperament. In 
 difficulties he was admirable, but out of them less success- 
 ful; and on clear roads, presenting no hazards, his pace 
 might be eight or eight and twenty miles an hour without 
 his appearing conscious of the difference. 
 
 "All mighty fine for a private owner," swore Mr. Duval, 
 "but for God's sake never take up a real job." 
 
 "Don't you think I could drive an ambulance?" Adam 
 asked modestly. 
 
 " 'Eaven 'elp the poor blighters," Mr. Duval answered 
 him. 
 
 Adam was annoyed with Mr. Duval for criticizing him 
 in the presence of Barbara; and that Monday Mr. Duval 
 had a pair of naughty pupils, Barbara being markedly can- 
 tankerous. But Mr. Duval was patient with her, saying 
 only at the end of the lesson : " 'Flu is an awful disease, 
 madam; I know 'ow you're feeling. Like recovering from 
 a sick drunk." 
 
 Adam was indignant, but Barbara laughed: "Something 
 like that," she said. 
 
 To Mr. Duval Barbara could be gracious, but the face 
 she turned to her suitor was adamant when he pleaded: 
 "Why didn't you answer my letter?" 
 
 "Why didn't you answer mine?" she retorted. 
 
 Adam stared at her, for a moment glimpsing hope.
 
 SURRENDER 285 
 
 "You wrote an answer to the letter I left at your studio?" 
 
 "I did not," she riposted ; "it called for no answer, since 
 it was not an answer to mine." 
 
 "But it was!" cried Adam, "I sat up all night writing 
 it, and then carried it down all the way to Chelsea myself, 
 that you might have it first thing in the morning. Surely 
 it was a love-letter if ever there was one?" 
 
 "I did not ask you to write me a love-letter," she said 
 icily; "I asked you to give me an introduction to Oswald 
 Onsin. Why didn't you do that instead of writing me 
 nonsense?" 
 
 Then rage seized on Adam's heart, so that he had a mind 
 to beat her. But he merely lifted his hat with elaborate 
 courtesy, turned on his heel and walked out of the garage 
 yard, with the intention never to reenter it. 
 
 Weeks flowed into months, spring begot summer and 
 was put away with the past. The Western Front buckled 
 and gave: visibly it crumbled away, but the ocean was 
 alive with ship-loads of fresh buttresses; and in the East 
 the sun was breaking through the clouds. 
 
 Adam read a column or two of war news in The Times 
 every morning, but it all seemed to him of trivial im- 
 portance ; for Cynthia Churchill came to tea with him again 
 and again. She was sweetly pretty, prettier than Barbara, 
 if less distinguished : prettier than her sister, Drusilla Dart- 
 mouth, better educated and at once less silly, and less 
 canny: in short, a companionable and charming little lady, 
 appealing to the senses and not devastating to the mind. 
 Only Adam's shyness stood between him and the promise 
 of great happiness. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon in June they sat for hours on 
 the roof, and reached the point of being all but engaged; 
 for she had more than signified her willingness to marry 
 him, and he had all but asked her. Summoning his grand-
 
 286 IN LONDON 
 
 father's ghostly aid, he had read her one of Sir David's 
 sonnets called Surrender, and his guest buried her face in 
 her hands as she listened : 
 
 "You wonder why you yielded. Reason veiled 
 By treacherous unreason bubbled your blood 
 To weak surrender. Had you but withstood 
 His forlorn hope, then his assault had failed. 
 Had you but kept your color and not paled 
 When his trump blew Retreat. Had he not seen 
 Your white flag flying where defeat had been, 
 Your virgin citadel were yet unsealed. 
 Is your war over or but just begun ? 
 Can you retrench the breach 'gainst storm again? 
 Where lodgment once has been defense is vain, 
 Unless the conqueror weary of what's won . . . 
 Forth with your keys and open fling the gate, 
 To greet his trumpeter whose name is Fate." 
 
 As Adam's voice dropped Cynthia dropped her hands; 
 and she was lying back in her chair, her violet eyes all 
 misty, her red lips slightly parted, and in these febrile 
 days who shall say but she and Adam might almost have 
 fallen a-kissing, when a bald-headed gentleman bobbed half 
 his person out of a window and hailed Adam with the in- 
 formation that for ten minutes past some one had been 
 summoning his door. 
 
 While Miss Churchill straightened herself upon her chair 
 Adam descended amidst a volley of knocks, punctuated by 
 peals at the bell, to find Barbara on the mat. Then came 
 a blurred quarter of an hour; and Cynthia was gone and 
 Barbara reclining in her chair with her grandfather's 
 poems in her lap.
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX 
 LONDON'S LAST AIR-RAID 
 
 "AND may I ask," said Barbara, "why you were so long 
 answering the door?" 
 
 Adam answered simply, but already as one on his de- 
 fense: "Miss Churchill and I were out here. ... I didn't 
 expect any callers. We didn't hear any one until a neigh- 
 bor told me there was some one at the door. . . . I'm aw- 
 fully sorry." 
 
 "So am I," quoth Barbara, "for I never thought I should 
 be kept waiting by you because of another woman. You're 
 very fickle, Adam." 
 
 "I am not fickle," Adam declared, "but I'm not altogether 
 a fool." 
 
 "Far from it," Barbara agreed, "I admire your taste. 
 She's quite pretty and not bad style for an actress." She 
 threw a glance behind her. "Where did you say you were 
 when I knocked?" 
 
 "Out here," declared Adam, reddening. "How do you 
 know she was an actress?" 
 
 Barbara glanced at him contemptuously. "Do you know 
 any woman over here who isn't an actress?" 
 
 "Of course I do," he snapped at her, and then wished 
 he had been less emphatic; for she did not let the state- 
 ment pass unchallenged, but asked whom he knew that was 
 not an actress. 
 
 "Miss Durward is not an actress," he strove by a lofty 
 tone to prove his case. 
 
 But Barbara was too much for him. "Your landlady," 
 she admitted, "is not an actress, and I suppose in a sense 
 you know her. Any one else?" 
 
 28*
 
 288 IN LONDON 
 
 "The Countess of Derrydown," he said impressively. 
 
 But Barbara was not impressed. "Lady Derrydown used 
 to be in the front row at the Gaiety. . . . Any one else?" 
 she queried. 
 
 Adam was forced to play his trump card: "Miss Jane 
 Nightingale." 
 
 Barbara clapped her hands. "You've won. Old Jane 
 Nightingale really is respectable. Tell me about her. I 
 suppose Stephen gave you an introduction to her. She 
 was an old flame of his; ... perhaps the only one that 
 really burned. . . . Though my mother pretends he was 
 very fond of her." She threw herself back in her chair. 
 "I simply can't stand my mother sometimes. . . Tell me 
 about Miss Nightingale. She doesn't look so very old, they 
 say. Too placid to wear out. Are you in love with her 
 too?" 
 
 "Not in the sense that I am with you," said Adam. 
 
 Barbara laughed gleefully. "So you are in love with me 
 still? Well you can be now if you like. But there must 
 be no one else: neither Miss Nightingale nor the little 
 actress, nor any one else." 
 
 Adam was moved within, but presented an external 
 stolidity, for he was determined not to be played with. 
 "Did you come here to tell me that?" he asked. 
 
 Barbara laughed in his face. "What do you take me 
 for? A sloppy schoolgirl? ... I came here to have a look 
 at the Law Courts, if you want to know. . . ." 
 
 "I don't want to know," said Adam resentfully, though 
 he tried to sound polite. 
 
 Barbara shrugged her shoulders. "Anyhow that's why 
 I came, and then I remembered that you told me you lived 
 here, and thought you might be interested to see me." 
 Smiling in his sulky face, she went on : "I thought I might 
 even be able to persuade you to give me tea." 
 
 Adam made a shamefaced movement. "I beg your par-
 
 LONDON'S LAST AIR-RAID $89 
 
 don," said he. "I'll have a kettle on in a moment," and 
 passing through the bedroom to the kitchen, he not only 
 put the kettle on the gas-stove, but cooled himself by let- 
 ting the cold water tap run on his head. He returned to 
 her affably bearing some fresh tea things. 
 
 Said Barbara: "I see Miss Churchill has eaten all the 
 cake." 
 
 "She didn't, I ate it," said Adam chivalrously. 
 
 But Barbara went on laughing at him: "Don't be quix- 
 otic. Well I remember you never ate anything but bread 
 and butter. And why shouldn't a woman eat cake if she's 
 prepared to pay the price? All the old-fashioned senti- 
 ment is as dead as Pharaoh and Queen Victoria. Women 
 nowadays mean to have what they want." 
 
 "Did you have what you wanted when you married 
 Leaper-Carahar ?" Adam asked less urbanely. 
 
 "No," she answered point blank, "but I wasn't a woman 
 then. I know better now. And when I found he was not 
 what I wanted I didn't stick him long." Her strongly 
 beautiful eyes flashed as she added, in a tone to make some 
 men tremble : "Nor do I mean to stick any one long who 
 isn't what I want." 
 
 Adam's glance fell before her. "Anyhow," he said 
 meekly, "there's plenty more cake." 
 
 After that their talk was less stormy, and Barbara con- 
 descended to say that he knew how to make tea, and that 
 she was glad she had come. She had been there about an 
 hour when she bade him show her his premises, and under 
 his blushing conduct she inspected every inch with an air 
 of detached and patronizing interest. "Not bad," said she 
 when the tour was finished, and she led the way back to 
 the roof. "I like it best out here." She swept her eyes 
 towards the river : "What a jolly view you must get of air- 
 raids!" 
 
 Adam confessed that he had not been there long enough
 
 290 IN LONDON 
 
 to say whether it afforded an entertaining prospect of air- 
 raids or not. He told her of the raid which had impressed 
 him most, and of his vision of Miss Nightingale and the 
 ambulance in Broad Sanctuary. 
 
 "I suppose it was that made you take up motoring," 
 Barbara suggested. "How sentimental you are. . . . And 
 is Woodbine Blake another of your flames ? You really are 
 a little Don Juan." 
 
 Now Adam knew himself perfectly well to be nothing 
 of the kind, but he could not resist a self-conscious smile 
 at this delicious blame. Nevertheless he said modestly that 
 he feared he was nothing of the kind. 
 
 Barbara eyed him critically: "Perhaps not. But you 
 will be later on. . . . It's in your blood, you know, just as 
 it is in mine." 
 
 His eye caught hers, but had not the courage to hold it. 
 He took the book of verses off the table where it now lay. 
 "You're thinking of our grandfather?" 
 
 Barbara nodded. "Yes. I know he was yours too. The 
 Marchesa made that quite clear to me. What a life that 
 woman had!" 
 
 Said Adam: "And what a death!" 
 
 Barbara shrugged her shoulders: "Dramatic and soon 
 done with. ... It might have been worse." 
 
 Adam shivered: "If you'd heard her groan as they car- 
 ried her in." There was less bravado in Barbara's tone as 
 she rejoined : "I forget that you were there. . . . But any- 
 how, things horrible for onlookers are often nothing to the 
 people who seem to suffer. . . . Reflex action and that sort 
 of thing. Stephen Macarthy always says that grandfather 
 probably enjoyed being killed. I shouldn't mind it myself 
 in a fair fight. ... I wish English women could be sol- 
 diers like in Russia." 
 
 "There have been English women soldiers, but they 
 passed for men."
 
 LONDON'S LAST AIR-RAID 291 
 
 Barbara took the new turning : "Do you really think that 
 a woman could pass for a man for long among other men ?" 
 
 Adam shifted uneasily: "It's a difficult question," he 
 murmured; "I don't know enough about it." 
 
 Barbara looked at him very hard: "Tell me honestly, 
 how much do you know about women?" 
 
 Adam confronted her just long enough to say : "I don't 
 know how much I know, that's the truth." Dropping his 
 eyes, he added : "If what the Marchesa told me is true, I 
 know just a little more than you do about men." 
 
 Promptly she demanded: "What did the Marchesa tell 
 you about me?" 
 
 Adam walked to and fro uneasily. "Only about hiding 
 in your bedroom. ... I don't remember exactly what she 
 said." He looked to his wrist-watch for suggestion : "Look 
 here, it's seven o'clock, you'd better let me give you dinner 
 somewhere." 
 
 "It's easier to talk here," said Barbara. 
 
 "But you can't eat here," said Adam ; "you can't dine on 
 cake, and I've nothing else. Do come out and have a meal 
 with me for once. You've never done that all the years 
 I've known you." 
 
 Barbara rose, laughing: "I see you want to get rid of 
 me." 
 
 "Don't mock me," said Adam. "Why should I want to 
 get rid of you?" 
 
 Provokingly she answered: "You're afraid to face Miss 
 Churchill to-morrow." 
 
 Although Adam had not thought of this, he was silenced 
 by the truth of it; but putting on his best face, he rejoined: 
 "Much you know about it. Anyhow, come along." 
 
 As always to Adam on Sundays, Fleet Street was dream- 
 like when he and Barbara passed down it in search of food. 
 He still knew little of the customs of the City, and was 
 surprised to find the neighboring restaurant, where he had
 
 292 IN LONDON 
 
 meant to bring her, closed. This ought to have warned 
 him to turn west instead of east; but, absent-mindedly, he 
 led her on until she called a halt at an unpretentious en- 
 trance near Bouverie Street. "This looks Italian," she 
 said ; "let us pretend we are in Italy." 
 
 They found themselves almost alone with an elderly 
 waiter, whom they bewildered by addressing in the choic- 
 est Tuscan acquired in the Italian circle at the Muses Club. 
 They refreshed themselves exotically on vermicelli soup 
 and macaroni cheese washed down with Chianti. Both 
 were very thirsty, and the draughts of Chianti were out of 
 all proportion to the rations of macaroni cheese: that gen- 
 erous wine inspired them to oblivion of each other's short- 
 comings, and Adam was hoping that they might part that 
 night on a basis of firm and promising friendship, not 
 necessarily troubling to Miss Churchill, when there fell 
 upon their ears One and Two and Three and Four strokes 
 of warning of the uncertainty of fate, and the elderly 
 waiter all but let fall a Neapolitan ice as he indulged him- 
 self in an expletive in his native tongue. 
 
 As Adam looked at Barbara he almost fancied that he 
 heard the wings of doom: he seemed to hear the street 
 outside wax noisy and fall more than ever silent. Time 
 flew while Barbara daintily helped herself to the ice. 
 
 "You heard the warning? It's an air-raid," Adam said. 
 
 "What of that?" said Barbara. The elderly waiter 
 hastened with the bill, and gesticulated the need for 
 despatch that he might close the door and hide beneath 
 the Chianti. Barbara looked to Adam: "Can't I have cof- 
 fee?" she asked. 
 
 Adam read in the waiter's face an incapacity to distin- 
 guish between coffee and asparagus. He paid the bill. 
 "I'm afraid it's no use trying to get coffee here," he said. 
 
 Barbara pursed her lips. "I noticed a coffee mill in your 
 kitchen," she said.
 
 LONDON'S LAST AIR-RAID 293 
 
 Adam looked at her imploringly. "I dare not ask you 
 there," he said, "it's dangerous." 
 
 "In what way?" she demanded coldly. 
 
 "I mean," said Adam, "it's considered very dangerous in 
 air-raids. An old building, not fireproof." 
 
 Barbara rose and shook herself. "If you think I care 
 sixpence whether it's dangerous or not, I may as well go 
 home," she said. 
 
 "All the way to Chelsea?" Adam asked anxiously. 
 
 "No, to St. John's Wood/' she answered; "I moved 
 yesterday." 
 
 "If you're near a station, that would be safer," said 
 Adam; "you could go almost all the way by tube from 
 Aldwych." 
 
 "Bring me to Aldwych," she said sharply. 
 
 As they reached the street the guns were audible from 
 down the river, and as Adam and Barbara walked up Fleet 
 Street, up came the roar of the guns after them, faster and 
 faster, until Barbara made him turn to watch the shrapnel 
 all red-gold above the City in the evening gloom. "This is 
 gorgeous," she cried, "I'm not going to bury myself in the 
 earth with lovely things like that to see." She looked at 
 him: "Is your flat too dangerous for you? The outside, 
 I mean, not the inside." 
 
 Chianti, fresh air and shrapnel betrayed Adam into the 
 answer : "Come and see." 
 
 It seemed to him the very next moment they were on 
 the roof of Plowden Buildings and the world on fire all 
 round them. He was drunk and in the possession of only 
 three notions; and not sure what these notions were, but 
 all revolved round Barbara. In the height of the tumult 
 she flung an impulsive hand to him: "What if a bomb 
 struck us now!" she cried. 
 
 "It would be well," said he, but he did not touch her 
 hand, for the clearest of his notions was that she and
 
 294 IN LONDON 
 
 Cynthia Churchill had both been his guests that day, and 
 he must betray neither the one nor the other. Besides, at 
 heart he was still afraid of Barbara, still distrustful of her 
 phantasy. From this instant they both sobered and fell 
 into dullness as the firing died away. They had been sit- 
 ting in silence a very long time when Barbara shivered and 
 yawned. "The best of things come to an end," she said; 
 "how can I get home?" 
 
 Adam looked at his watch : "You can't unless you walk," 
 he answered, "it's one o'clock." 
 
 She started up and then sat down again laughing. "May 
 I have a rug," she asked, "and sleep in this chair?" 
 
 Adam hesitated before saying: "Would you mind my 
 bed?" 
 
 And she hesitated before replying: "What would you 
 do?" 
 
 "There's a big Chesterfield in the sitting-room." 
 Why shouldn't I have that?" asked Barbara. 
 
 Adam answered cheerfully: "I'll spare you details, but 
 you'd be more comfortable in my bedroom.'* 
 
 Barbara laughed outright: "Little tyrant!" said she. 
 
 So Adam had his way, and Barbara prepared to go to 
 bed in the room sacred to the meeting of Jane Nightingale 
 and Major Macfadden Smith. 
 
 "Leave me grandfather's poems to read," she said, "and 
 tell me, what morning paper do you get?" 
 
 "On Sunday," said Adam, "the Observer. Do you wish 
 to see it?" 
 
 She shook her head. "I mean on week-days." 
 
 "The Times and the Daily News," said Adam. 
 
 "Good," said Barbara, "have you Saturday's Times?" 
 
 He told her that if the charwoman or the mice had not 
 eaten it, it should be somewhere about in the sitting-room, 
 and as she was undressing he brought it to her. 
 
 "Wait a moment," she called, and then opening the door
 
 LONDON'S LAST AIR-RAID 295 
 
 to admit him displayed herself in his pyjamas. He was 
 tempted to kiss the hand that took the paper from him and 
 the feet white and naked beneath the trouser legs, but 
 soberly he bade her good-night. Yet not entirely without a 
 twinge did he hear her lock the door as he descended to 
 the sitting-room. He stood there a long while in darkness 
 looking out of the window, trying to recall his conversa- 
 tion with Cynthia Churchill, trying not to think of Bar- 
 bara. The effort at self-mastery wore him out at last, and 
 he sidled into a chair and dozed. 
 
 He was wakened by a sharp concussion and started up 
 thinking the raid had begun again; but there was no 
 sound, so he sat down once more and was dropping off 
 when there was another bang, this time quite clearly on 
 the floor above. His thought was that some part of the 
 ancient building was falling in as the result of the cannon- 
 ade, and that perhaps even as he stood there Barbara might 
 be struck and slain. In an instant he was up the staircase, 
 determined if necessary to force the door. 
 
 It yielded without force. One light was still on in the 
 room, and showed Barbara calmly asleep, still wearing his 
 pyjamas. Beside the bed on the floor lay The Times and 
 beside The Times Sir David Byron-Quinn's poems. He 
 told himself that he had heard them falling on the floor, 
 and did not stop to wonder how they had come to fall upon 
 it twice. He only thought that he must make sure there 
 had been no accident, that she had not been hurt. He stole 
 across the room on tip-toe and assured himself that her 
 sleep was normal, that she was breathing regularly, that 
 not so much as a speck of plaster had fallen from the ceil- 
 ing. ... It was queer to see her in his pyjamas; if he 
 wore them like that he thought he would catch cold: he 
 looked away from her to her clothes piled on a chair, and 
 from them to the book of poems on the floor. He lifted 
 and found it open at the sonnet he had read to Cynthia
 
 296 IN LONDON 
 
 that afternoon. He closed the book convulsively and gazed 
 long upon Barbara. He turned to go ; ... he turned back 
 and looked at her again. . . . He told himself she was his 
 guest: he must not presume on anything she had said or 
 seemed to say, done or seemed to do: he must not run 
 the tiniest risk of hurting or offending her: he must make 
 her feel as safely at home with him as if he were her 
 brother or their old and common friend, Mr. Macarthy 
 himself. He was turning to go when Barbara opened her 
 eyes and looked up at him: "You sweet person," said she. 
 
 Adam shrank back: "I beg your pardon. ... I thought 
 you were asleep; . . . something fell," he stuttered. 
 
 "Did something fall?" asked Barbara sleepily, and as, 
 not catching the question, he made a movement as though 
 really to depart, she spoke again. 
 
 "Don't go away," she murmured, closing her eyes; and, 
 as he hesitated, continued in the same low voice: "you can 
 sit beside the bed if you like." 
 
 "But will you be able to sleep?" he asked, still with an 
 air of apology for his intrusion. 
 
 In her turn she asked: "Why not?" 
 
 This seemed a simple question; but he failed to find the 
 answer. And after ten minutes' vain search, while she 
 lay silent, motionless and so calmly lovely that he fancied 
 her the Sleeping Beauty that might never wake, her lips 
 parted just enough to say in a voice so drowsy that he 
 caught slowly the words, and more slowly still their mean- 
 ing : "What is it that man Duval is always saying we must 
 do when we turn a corner?"
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN 
 AND SO THEY WERE MARRIED 
 
 THOUGH it was only five o'clock summer time, the hottest 
 sun of June that year was already beating on the roof of 
 Plowden Buildings. Adam rose and looked at himself in 
 the glass. . . . Could it be really he? ... Everything was 
 incredible. His glass gave him no reason for its not being 
 a dream. But anyhow, dream or no dream, his chief 
 thought was that Barbara must be gone before the char- 
 woman came; . . . unless indeed she elected to stay for 
 ever, and he doubted her willingness to do that. 
 
 She was still placidly asleep, as placidly as she seemed 
 when he had so innocently come upstairs last night: as 
 placidly as if nothing at all had happened. She did not 
 look so beautiful as he had always dreamed she would look 
 in her sleep : not so beautiful as she had looked last night ! 
 Still she had a beauty not to be despised. And at that mo- 
 ment he was ready to endow her with a thousand charms 
 of which bodily perfection was the least. This morning he 
 told himself fervently that he would never allow himself to 
 think of her mere physical attraction again. It was not 
 right so to think of a woman one truly loved. He must 
 put such unworthiness away. A flood of exaltation flung 
 him on his knees by her bedside, and he would have poured 
 forth thanksgiving had not his eyes fallen on The Times 
 lying where she had thrown it. They focused themselves 
 on a cross-heading : "Irish Official's Divorce Case.'* 
 
 Still on his knees, his left hand unconsciously upon her 
 feet, his right holding the paper, he read: 
 
 "LEAPER-CARAHAR v. LEAPER-CARAHAR AND MACARTHY. 
 (Before Mr. Justice Doncaster and a Common Jury.) 
 
 297
 
 298 IN LONDON 
 
 "In this case Mr. Leaper-Carahar, C.B., a well-known 
 official of the Irish Government, obtained a decree nisi 
 against his wife, Barbara Leaper-Carahar, whose maiden 
 name was Burns, on the ground of her adultery with 
 Stephen Macarthy. Damages were claimed, but on the ad- 
 vice of his Lordship, after examining the petitioner, the 
 claim was withdrawn. There was no defense. 
 
 "Mr. Bolsover, for the petitioner, said that the parties 
 were married as recently as the beginning of the previous 
 year, when the grounds for the present case arose. There 
 were no children. Petitioner was aware of an earlier in- 
 timacy between his wife and the co-respondent, whom 
 counsel described as a gentleman of liberal means with 
 worse than liberal views. On account of the notoriously 
 coarse moral fiber of the co-respondent, petitioner had in- 
 sisted that this intimacy should cease; but within a year 
 of marriage respondent had locked him out of her bed- 
 room, and on finding that in her absence the key had been 
 removed, left the house and refused to return. Evidence 
 was given that she had gone directly to co-respondent's 
 chambers and remained there for several days and nights, 
 subsequently proceeding to London, where she was now 
 domiciled, presumably, as she had no private means, under 
 the protection of co-respondent. 
 
 "Mr. Justice Doncaster pronounced a decree nisi with 
 costs." 
 
 Adam leaped convulsively to his feet, the paper clutched 
 in his hand. There seemed no sense in anything: his brain 
 appeared to open and shut. Was it he who was standing 
 up or he who was lying in his bed looking at him? Who 
 was it that was lying in his bed looking at him? He was 
 just in time to see Barbara's smile transformed from the 
 gracious to the cynical. She was the first to speak. "If 
 that is how you feel, the sooner I go home the better."
 
 AND SO THEY WERE MARRIED 299 
 
 "I agree," said he. 
 
 Her eyes shot through him. "Please leave the room," 
 she commanded, and with a gesture rather of despair than 
 rage he obeyed. 
 
 It was queer to hear the key turn again in the lock as 
 he descended, and queerer still to hear her methodically 
 turning on the geyser for her hot bath. Queerest of all, 
 that he took pleasure in the thought that as it was Monday 
 morning she would find an unused bath towel on the rail: 
 he would have been ashamed for her to find a dirty towel 
 there. 
 
 Already cooling from the first torrent of rage, he set 
 himself to make her some tea, creeping upstairs and about 
 the kitchen on tiptoe lest he should disturb her. 
 
 But Barbara would have no more of his hospitality. She 
 flung one short tirade in his face: "Because when I come 
 to see you I allowed things to happen like this, I suppose 
 you think the same happens everywhere. . . . You forget 
 that Stephen Macarthy is a gentleman, and gentlemen do 
 not take advantage of an act of folly." So saying, she was 
 gone, with a bang of the door which wakened Adam's bald- 
 headed neighbor, and confirmed him in his opinion that she 
 was an obstreperous baggage. 
 
 Adam prowled upstairs and down, his hands over his 
 ears to shut out the sound of her departing footsteps. She 
 must have passed the Temple gates before he dropped them, 
 hating himself for allowing her to go thus and expose 
 herself to insolent inquiry. But what could he have done? 
 Barbara had never listened to reason from him : it was 
 certain now that she never would. He had rendered him- 
 self utterly ridiculous by reading that wretched report oth- 
 erwise than between the lines. What irony was it that 
 had made him for ever jealous of the man he loved and 
 respected more than any one in the world? If only Mr. 
 Macarthy had told him what Barbara was doing. . . . If
 
 3 oo IN LONDON 
 
 only she had told him what she had done ! An accursed 
 trinity of emotions chased him up and down stairs, chased 
 him out on the roof, to hang over the parapet asking him- 
 self why after all he was alive. ... If only that bomb had 
 fallen last night. . . . Then he remembered where bombs' 
 were falling in plenty, and grew calm and quiet. 
 
 His charwoman found him already dressed and hungry 
 for breakfast, the materials of which she brought with her. 
 He- thought she looked at him queerly as he went into his 
 bedroom presently to get his hat and gloves. In order to 
 say something he mentioned that he might be giving up the 
 rooms before long. 
 
 "Dear me, sir," said, she, "I will be sorry. . . . But of 
 course things do 'appen, don't they?" she sighed. "It's 
 the war, I suppose." 
 
 By ten o'clock he was in Waterloo Place, but he did* not 
 turn to the right towards the theater: he kept straight 
 along Pall Mall, past the Athenaeum Club, past the Trav- 
 eler's, the Reform, the Carlton and the Automobile. Then 
 he entered- a building that displayed the Red Cross. "About 
 driving- an ambulance," he said to some one who met him 
 with an air of interrogation : he did not notice whether he 
 spoke- to male or female. 
 
 Presently he was* in a lift, then in a waiting-room, then 
 talking to a compatriot of his own, a comely and business- 
 like lady. "The doctor is here now," she said, "go and 
 see what he says, and then come back to me." 
 
 The doctor said sharply: "Why aren't you at the Front 
 already?" 
 
 Adam mentioned various reasons, which he pooh-poohed 
 until, he heard the name of Macfadden Smith. Then he 
 waggled Adam's arm about, declared he saw nothing the 
 matter with it, made him out a certificate to that effect and 
 presented him with two bottles of lymph. "You ought to 
 be in the trenches," was his farewell,
 
 AND SO THEY WERE MARRIED 301 
 
 The business-like Irish lady just glanced at the certificate 
 and said: "When would you like to take* your test?" 
 
 "As soon as I can," said Adam. 
 
 "You can do it now if you like," she said. 
 
 "Make it so," said Adam, for the doctor's taunt, follow- 
 ing on Barbara's, left him indifferent to everything else but 
 the desire to be done with all he knew. 
 
 She scribbled on a piece of paper. "You'll find the am- 
 bulance at the bottom of St. James's Street in a quarter 
 of an hour," said she ; "this is an introduction, to our officer 
 in charge." 
 
 Then it seemed to Adam that he was transported direct 
 to the inside of an ambulance, which he shared with a 
 heavy-looking young man with a provincial accent: they 
 were being driven up St. James's Street by a middle-aged 
 woman in some sort of uniform, who seemed chiefly con- 
 cerned to explain to the Red Cross official beside her that 
 she did not want to drive a motor-car, but to cook ; she had 
 never driven before but once, whereas she had been cook- 
 ing all her life: yet you'd hardly believe it, the CO. said 
 he'd rather she drove than cooked. 
 
 "I'd rather she cooked than drove," growled the heavy 
 young man, and by the corner of Berkeley Street their 
 examiner seemed to have come to the same conclusion; 
 for Adam was called to take his trick at the wheel. 
 
 There followed mere nightmare; for Adam was not in a 
 condition to handle even the accustomed Overland, and the 
 ambulance was a Buick and had to be driven from the 
 near side. He got her turned into Berkeley Street without 
 catastrophe and as far as the corner of Hay Hill. But 
 then his troubles began, for at the stiffest piece of gradient 
 the examiner bade him stop dead and then start up again. 
 Now Adam knew perfectly the nature of this test and 
 exactly the right thing to do; but for the life of him he 
 could not do it, and the ambulance would have charged
 
 302 IN LONDON 
 
 backwards and wedged itself between Devonshire and 
 Lansdowne House but for the examiner's controlling brake. 
 Adam expected to be turned down there and then, but the 
 fates decreed otherwise. "Carry on," said the official, not 
 unkindly. 
 
 Encouraged by his tone, Adam carried on and without 
 disaster tooled the Buick to the left into Dover Street, 
 right into Graf ton Street, right down Albemarle Street, left 
 into Piccadilly, right down Regent Street, left into Orange 
 Street, right into the Hay market (a little flustered from 
 the bottle-neck), left into Suffolk Place and Trafalgar 
 Square, right round the square and back into Pall Mall. 
 All was going smoothly now, and Adam saw himself roll- 
 ing back to their starting-point with reasonable hope, when 
 he was bidden "take the bottle-neck into St. James's 
 Square." He did it successfully, but it strained his nerves. 
 "Through Charles Street back into Regent Street," his 
 amiable tormentor commanded. And then just as he got 
 into Regent Street, passing the Grand stage door, an omni- 
 bus swinging up from Waterloo Place all but struck him. 
 His companion's brake averted collision, but, Adam re- 
 engaging his engine with insufficient acceleration, it stopped 
 dead. Even now the examiner was not altogether discour- 
 aging. "You'll find her easy to start up," he said as Adam 
 leaped out. 
 
 But Adam did not find her so. Starting up the Overland 
 had always been a serious business, and in such a condi- 
 tion of nerves as he found himself now, might have been 
 beyond him. He imagined the compression of the Buick 
 to be stiffen Lifting the handle in the orthodox way, he 
 turned it twice with an idle flop, heard the official say 
 something about advancing the ignition, and tried again, a 
 third idle flop. He looked round feverishly to see his own 
 portrait grinning at him from the walls of the theater, to 
 see Cerberus laughing uproariously behind his oniony hand
 
 AND SO THEY WERE MARRIED 303 
 
 at the stage door, to read a poster of the Self -Help Min- 
 istry : 
 
 Help Yourself! 
 If You Don't, 
 Who Will? 
 Strike Home! 
 
 Frantically he seized the starting-handle again, and struck 
 home with that downward thrust against which tyros are 
 explicitly cautioned. . . . There was a backfire, and the 
 starting-handle leaped upwards carrying his right arm with 
 it, powerless, but in excruciating pain. . . . 
 
 "I say," said the official, this time angrily, "you are a 
 mug! You'd better leave that engine to me." 
 
 Adam left it to him, left it to him completely. . . . He 
 took no interest in it whatever, nor in anything else* ex- 
 cept a vague wonderment why that official had suddenly 
 been transformed into Cynthia Churchill. 
 
 When he next took note of his surroundings he recog- 
 nized nothing, but Cynthia Churchill was there to explain 
 to him that the ambulance he had proved himself unfit to 
 drive had been used to convey him to the Onsins' house in 
 Kensington, where she, having* had some experience as a 
 nurse, had been deputed by their hostess to look after him. 
 
 The Onsins had their faults, but as hosts they were irre- 
 proachable. Never had Adam been so pampered as during 
 the following weeks. Never had be been so cherished by 
 any woman as by gentle Cynthia Churchill. And she was 
 tactful too, hinting no word that could trouble him on any 
 subject, though puzzled to dismay at his annoyance when 
 the papers appeared once again with his portrait and starred 
 the information that he was a brilliant young Irish actor, 
 who had met with a desperate accident while driving an 
 ambulance in the most dangerous part of the London traf-
 
 304 IN LONDON 
 
 fie. Some, though not all the papers, added the portrait 
 of Miss Churchill herself, explaining that she was the 
 beautiful young Scots actress who had momentarily relin- 
 quished her duties of understudying that world-famous 
 comedienne, Miss Belinda Bellingham (Mrs. Oswald On- 
 sin), in order to devote herself to nursing the brilliant 
 young Irish actor as aforesaid at Mr. Oswald Onsin's 
 wonderful house overlooking Kensington Palace. 
 
 And some again gave portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Oswald 
 Onsin, in whose wonderful house, etc., that brilliant young 
 Irish actor, and so on. 
 
 Adam wondered if Barbara could fail to see all those 
 portraits and read all those paragraphs. If she did, she 
 gave no sign, and he concluded that once for all she was 
 done with him. 
 
 It was quite a month after the accident, and Mrs. Onsin 
 in her robust way was bantering him at dinner as to 
 whether he and Miss Churchill proposed to go on for ever 
 living in sin, when a letter was handed Adam bearing the 
 St. John's Wood postmark. It simply ran, in Barbara's 
 least legible writing: "How could you have been so un- 
 utterably callous?" . . . Whether the word was "callous" 
 or "careless" he could not quite make out, not being cer- 
 tain to what she referred. But there could be no mistake 
 about the second line: "You had better come and see me 
 at once."
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT 
 AND LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER? 
 
 A PREMATURELY spring-like January day burst on the Mary- 
 lebone Road, along which Adam had trudged to meet Mr. 
 Macarthy on such another morning three years before. 
 Hardly dare one say that London was at peace; but the 
 thunder of the guns had died down at last on the Western 
 Front; a quire of the mouths that rolled it lay silent in 
 St. James's Park; and optimists declared that the last saga 
 of brute heroism had been sung. Pessimists, notably those 
 who had brought about the war, sermonized on the text that 
 the world was now worse off than ever, and nothing could 
 save her from herself but wars more awful still. Profiteers 
 of all classes and kinds, colors and creeds, soldiers and 
 civilians, echoed the sentiment, having now a vested inter- 
 est in the international slaughter-house. 
 
 So much for the great world of Lord Bulwark and his 
 peers. In Adam's humbler sphere the notable event was 
 that Mr. Leaper-Carahar's decree had been made absolute, 
 and that very morning Barbara was forging for herself 
 fresh bonds. 
 
 No less beautiful, though perhaps less sylph-like, than 
 of yore, Barbara came out of the Marylebone Registrar's 
 office, and was handed by Adam 'into a taxi which stood 
 waiting with a trifle of his luggage, and rather more than 
 a trifle of hers, upon the roof. With Adam beside her the 
 bride whirled off towards Paddington, past a spot new 
 poster showing a gentleman in a nightdress chasing a lady 
 in pyjamas, and challenging all comers to say: "Who Can 
 Stop It?" 
 
 305
 
 306 IN LONDON 
 
 From the porch of the office the eyes of Mr. Macarthy 
 and Miss Nightingale followed the taxi: hers were humid 
 with emotion, his more than ever sphinx-like. 
 
 For a moment Mr. Macarthy paused after the taxi had 
 turned to dust. Then he looked up at the unpromising 
 facade of Madame Tussaud's. "I wonder," said he, "how 
 many persons who once figured at this office are figuring 
 now in the most popular gallery across the road." 
 
 "Stephen," cried Miss Nightingale, with tender remon- 
 strance : "how can you be cynical at such a moment ?" 
 
 "I am no more cynical at such a moment than was 
 Paul," said he. 
 
 Her voice was low, but intense, as she rejoined: "Even 
 Paul said it was better to marry than to burn." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy gently shook his head. "Do you think 
 he said so to the pious Thecla?" 
 
 "Who was she?" Miss Nightingale asked, with bewil- 
 derment in her exquisite blue eyes, which deepened as Mr. 
 Macarthy bade her quote no more gospels until she had 
 read them all. 
 
 "But I have," she answered, "at least I think so.'* 
 
 Very politely he replied : "I think not. Only those that 
 Rizzio's son selected for your perusal." 
 
 "What do you mean?" she asked, as one hopeless of 
 understanding. 
 
 He declared : "You know quite well," and upset her still 
 further by adding: "Who shall say that the West is wiser 
 than the East?" 
 
 She laughed nervously. "Really, Stephen, sometimes I 
 think you are quite mad." 
 
 "I was mad once," he replied, "and the blame lies at your 
 door." 
 
 "Oh, nonsense," she cried, with eyes turned joyful, "you 
 never really cared." 
 
 Whatever his thought, Mr. Macarthy's tone was stern:
 
 AND LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER? 307 
 
 "It was the madness of my love for you that drove me to 
 write What Rot!" 
 
 Her face fell, horrified. "Stephen! . . . You don't 
 mean to say?" 
 
 He nodded lugubriously. "Lucina Lovelace is a projec- 
 tion of yourself as I visualized you when I was drunk." 
 
 Her appearance showed that she believed herself to be 
 shocked. "You actually got drunk?" 
 
 "Could I have written it if I were sober?" he demanded. 
 Then he kissed her hand and went on: "Do not blush. 
 In the play as I wrote it, the hero did not unveil the hero- 
 ine. Nor was the incident so spiritedly illustrated on the 
 poster over there invented by me. These are flashes of 
 Mr. Onsin's genius; and to render unto Caesar the things 
 that are Caesar's, I have no doubt they make the success 
 of the play. But the characters, so far as they exist, and 
 the idea, if one may call it so, are mine. Above all, I claim 
 the title. That at least is a work of art! ... Mr. Onsin 
 wished to call it 'Chase Me, Algy !' so I added the sub-title, 
 cribbed from Hardy, 'The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved.' " 
 
 "Please say no more," begged Miss Nightingale. 
 
 "Thank you for that," he said heartily; "this shall be a 
 secret between us that I know you will not confide to 
 Adam. He is too young to understand, and might make 
 my tragedy a precedent for a worse one of his own." 
 
 "Stephen," said Miss Nightingale, "you have turned this 
 happy morning into a miserable one by trying to persuade 
 me that I led you to use your beautiful brain in producing 
 such infamy as that play." 
 
 "Tut! my dear Jane," said Mr. Macarthy, "be easy in 
 your mind. You like Adam, you know you do; so does 
 everybody, as Barbara will presently find out." 
 
 "Adam will never do anything wrong," said Miss Night- 
 ingale fervently. 
 
 "If Adam never does anything wrong," said Mr. Macar-
 
 308 IN LONDON 
 
 thy, "that will be mainly because you induced me to write 
 What Rot!" He nodded at her gravely. "It is true, my 
 dear Jane, though you look at me as if I had seven heads. 
 If I had not written What Rot! Adam might still be in his 
 Dublin slum, he might be at Maynooth learning to preach 
 the local variety of your religion, he might be an Irish 
 police spy and brothel-keeper, he might be a British cap- 
 tain or a Sinn Fein private. . . . God only knows, he 
 might even be doing something useful." 
 
 "He is doing something useful," she insisted ; "I feel sure 
 of that, Stephen." And her face flushed with a rare warmth 
 of color as Mr. Macarthy took out his watch and smiling 
 his sphinx-like smile, said nothing. 
 
 Presently he offered her his arm, which, despite a reluc- 
 tant gesture, she accepted. And walking slowly down 
 Park Lane, they were about that place whence Adam had 
 watched Victorious Peace galloping on search-lights 
 towards the stars, when he said : "You spoke of my beau- 
 tiful brain just now, my dear Jane, but yours is the most 
 beautiful of all the minds I know. ... If you had the 
 smallest grasp of reality . . ." He broke off and dropped 
 her arm: "What really interests me now is the question, 
 What becomes of Adam?" 
 
 Her face, that had been radiant a moment ago, fell hag- 
 gard. "Am I so little to you as that ?" she queried sharply. 
 
 He turned and looked at her with much tenderness. 
 "Littleness and you cannot be mentioned in one breath," 
 he declared, "and surely we hold the common faith that the 
 future is greater than the past?"
 
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