THE 
 
 OLD WIVES' TALE 
 
 BY 
 
 ARNOLD BENNETT 
 
 Author of "Buried Alive," etc. 
 
 THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, Ltd. 
 
 LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK 
 
?9. 
 
 3 
 
 TO 
 
 W. W. K. 
 
 116 
 
PREFACE TO THIS EDITION. 
 
 In the autumn of 1903 I used to dine frequently in a res- 
 taurant in the Rue de Clichy, Paris. Here were, among 
 others, two waitresses that attracted my attention. One 
 was a beautiful, pale young girl, to whom I never spoke, 
 for she was employed far away from the table which I 
 affected. The other, a stout, middle-aged managing Breton 
 woman, had sole command over my table and me, and 
 gradually she began to assume such a maternal tone to- 
 wards me that I saw I should be compelled to leave that 
 restaurant. If I was absent for a couple of nights running 
 she would reproach me sharply : " What ! you are un- 
 faithful to me ? " Once, when I complained about some 
 French beans, she informed me roundly that French beans 
 were a subject which I did not understand. I then decided 
 to be eternally unfaithful to her, and I abandoned the 
 restaurant. A few nights before the final parting an old 
 woman came into the restaurant to dine. She was fat, 
 shapeless, ugly, and grotesque. She had a ridiculous voice, 
 and ridiculous gestures. It was easy to see that she lived 
 alone, and that in the long lapse of years she had developed 
 the kind of peculiarity which induces guffaws among the 
 thoughtless. She was burdened with a lot of small parcels, 
 which she kept dropping. She chose one seat ; and then, 
 not liking it, chose another ; and then another. In a few 
 moments she had the whole restaurant laughing at her. 
 That my middle-aged Breton should laugh was indifferent 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 to me, but I was pained to see a coarse grimace of giggling 
 on the pale face of the beautiful young waitress to whom I 
 had never spoken. 
 
 I reflected, concerning the grotesque diner : " This woman 
 was once young, slim, perhaps beautiful ; certainly free 
 from these ridiculous mannerisms. Very probably she 
 is unconscious of her singularities. Her case is a tragedy. 
 One ought to be able to make a heartrending novel out of 
 the history of a woman such as she." Every stout, ageing 
 woman is not grotesque — far from it ! — but there is an 
 extreme pathos in the mere fact that every stout ageing 
 woman was once a young girl with the unique charm of 
 youth in her form and movements and in her mind. And 
 the fact that the change from the young girl to the stout 
 ageing woman is made up of an infinite number of infinitesi- 
 mal changes, each unperceived by her, only intensifies the 
 pathos. 
 
 It was at this instant that I was visited by the idea of 
 writing the book which ultimately became " The Old Wives' 
 Tale." Of course I felt that the woman who caused the 
 ignoble mirth in the restaurant would not serve me as a 
 type of heroine. For she was much too old and obviously 
 unsympathetic. It is an absolute rule that the principal 
 character of a novel must not be unsympathetic, and the 
 whole modern tendency of realistic fiction is against oddness 
 in a prominent figure. I knew that I must choose the sort 
 of woman who would pass unnoticed in a crowd. 
 
 I put the idea aside for a long time, but it was never very 
 distant from me. For several reasons it made a special 
 appeal to me. I had always been a convinced admirer 
 of Mrs. W. K. Clifford's most precious novel, " Aunt Anne," 
 but I wanted to see in the story of an old woman many 
 things that Mrs. W. K. Clifford had omitted from " Aunt 
 Anne." Moreover, I had always revolted against the absurd 
 youthfulness, the unfading youthfulness of the average 
 heroine. And as a protest against this fashion, I was already, 
 in 1903, planning a novel (" Leonora ") of which the heroine 
 was aged forty, and had daughters old enough to be in love. 
 The reviewers, by the way, were staggered by my hardihood 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 in offering a woman of forty as a subject of serious interest 
 to the public. But I meant to go much farther than forty ! 
 Finally, as a supreme reason, I had the example and the 
 challenge of Guy de Maupassant's '' Une Vie." In the 
 nineties we used to regard " Une Vie" with mute awe, as being 
 the summit of achievement in fiction. And I remember 
 being very cross with Mr. Bernard Shaw because, having 
 read " Une Vie " at the suggestion (I think) of Mr. William 
 Archer, he failed to see in it anything very remarkable. 
 Here I must confess that, in 1908, I read V. Une Vie " again, 
 and in spite of a natural anxiety to differ from Mr. Bernard 
 Shaw, I was gravely disappointed with it. It is a fine novel, 
 but decidedly inferior to " Pierre et Jean " or even " Fort 
 Comme la Mort." To return to the year 1903. " Une Vie " 
 relates the entire life-history of a woman. I settled in 
 the privacy of my own head that my book about the de- 
 velopment of a young girl into a stout old lady must be 
 the English " Une Vie." I have been accused of every 
 fault except a lack of self-confidence, and in a few weeks 
 I settled a further point, namely, that my book must " go 
 one better " than " Une Vie," and that to this end it must 
 be the life-history of two women instead of only one. Hence, 
 " The Old Wives' Tale " has two heroines. Constance was 
 the original ; Sophia was created out of bravado, just to 
 indicate that I declined to consider Guy de Maupassant 
 as the last forerunner of the deluge. I was intimidated 
 by the audacity of my project, but I had sworn to carry it 
 out. For several years I looked it squarely in the face at 
 intervals, and then walked away to write novels of smaller 
 scope, of which I produced five or six. But I could not 
 dally forever, and in the autumn of 1907 I actually began 
 to write it, in a village near Fontainebleau, where I rented 
 half a house from a retired railway servant. I calculated 
 that it would be 200,000 words long (which it exactly proved 
 to be), and I had a vague notion that no novel of such 
 dimensions (except Richardson's) had ever been written 
 before. So I counted the words in several famous Victorian 
 novels, and discovered to my relief that the famous Victorian 
 novels average 400,000 words apiece. I wrote the first 
 
 1 a 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 part of the novel in six weeks. It was fairly easy to me, 
 because, in the seventies, in the first decade of my life, I 
 had lived in the actual draper's shop of the Baineses, and 
 knew it as only a child could know it. Then I went to 
 London on a visit. I tried to continue the book in a London 
 hotel, but London was too distracting, and I put the thing 
 away, and during January and February of 1908, I wrote 
 " Buried Alive," which was published immediately, and was 
 received with majestic indifference by the English public, 
 an indifference which has persisted to this day. 
 
 I then returned to the Fontainebleau region and gave 
 " The Old Wives' Tale " no rest till I finished it at the end 
 of July, 1908. It was published in the autumn of the same 
 year, and for six weeks afterward the English public steadily 
 confirmed an opinion expressed by a certain person in whose 
 judgment I had confidence, to the effect that the work was 
 honest but dull, and that when it was not dull it had a re- 
 grettable tendency to facetiousness. My publishers, though 
 brave fellows, were somewhat disheartened ; however, the 
 reception of the book gradually became less and less frigid. 
 
 With regard to the French portion of the story, it was 
 not until I had written the first part that I saw from a study 
 of my chronological basis that the Siege of Paris might be 
 brought into the tale. The idea was seductive ; but I 
 hated, and still hate, the awful business of research ; and 
 I only knew the Paris of the Twentieth Century. Now 
 I was aware that my railway servant and his wife had been 
 living in Paris at the time of the war. I said to the old 
 man, " By the way, you went through the Siege of Paris, 
 didn't you ? " He turned to his old wife and said, un- 
 certainly, " The Siege of Paris ? Yes, we did, didn't we?" 
 The Siege of Paris had been only one incident among many 
 in their fives. Of course, they remembered it well, though 
 not vividly, and I gained much information from them. 
 But the most useful thing which I gained from them was the 
 perception, startling at first, that ordinary people went on 
 living very ordinary lives in Paris during the siege, and 
 that to the vast mass of the population the siege was not 
 the dramatic, spectacular, thrilling, ecstatic affair that is de- 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 scribed in history. Encouraged by this perception, I decided 
 to include the siege in my scheme. I read Sarcey's diary 
 of the siege aloud to my wife, and I looked at the pictures 
 in Jules Claretie's popular work on the siege and the com- 
 mune, and I glanced at the printed collection of official 
 documents, and there my research ended. 
 
 It has been asserted that unless I had actually been present 
 at a public execution, I could not have written the chapter 
 in which Sophia was at the Auxerre solemnity. I have 
 not been present at a public execution, as the whole of 
 my information about public executions was derived from 
 a series of articles on them which I read in the Paris Matin. 
 Mr. Frank Harris, discussing my book in " Vanity Fair," 
 said it was clear that I had not seen an execution, (or words 
 to that effect), and he proceeded to give his own description 
 of an execution. It was a brief but terribly convincing bit of 
 writing, quite characteristic and quite worthy of the author 
 of " Montes the Matador " and of a man who has been 
 almost everywhere and seen almost everything. I com- 
 prehended how far short I had fallen of the truth ! I wrote 
 to Mr. Frank Harris, regretting that his description had not 
 been printed before I wrote mine, as I should assuredly 
 have utilized it, and, of course, I admitted that I had never 
 witnessed an execution. He simply replied : " Neither 
 have I." This detail is worth preserving, for it is a reproof 
 to that large body of readers, who, when a novelist has 
 really carried conviction to them, assert off hand : " O, 
 that must be autobiography ! " 
 
 ARNOLD BENNETT. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 
 MRS. BAINES 
 
 I. 
 
 The Square .... 
 
 II. 
 
 The Tooth .... 
 
 III. 
 
 A Battle .... 
 
 IV. 
 
 Elephant .... 
 
 V. 
 
 The Traveller 
 
 VI. 
 
 Escapade .... 
 
 VII. 
 
 A Defeat .... 
 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 
 CONSTANCE. 
 
 17 
 
 37 
 47 
 77 
 94 
 112 
 129 
 
 I. Revolution . 
 II. Christmas and the Future 
 
 III. Cyril . 
 
 IV. Crime . 
 V. Another Crime 
 
 VI. The Widow . 
 ■VII. Bricks and Mortar 
 VIII. The Proudest Mother 
 
 145 
 162 
 177 
 
 195 
 212 
 
 243 
 255 
 
 267 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 SOPHIA. 
 
 I. The Elopement . 
 II. Supper . 
 
 III. An Ambition Satisfied 
 
 IV. A Crisis for Gerald 
 V. Fever . 
 
 VI. The Siege . 
 VII. Success . . 
 
 279 
 291 
 306 
 324 
 343 
 376 
 401 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 WHAT LIFE IS. 
 
 I. Frensham's . 
 II. The Meeting 
 
 III. Towards Hotel Life 
 
 IV. End of Sophia 
 
 V. End of Constance 
 
 421 
 
 450 
 
 474 
 512 
 
 543 
 
. BOOK I. 
 MRS. BAINES. 
 
THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SQUARE. 
 I. 
 
 THOSE two girls, Constance and Sophia Baines, paid 
 no heed to the manifold interest of their situation, of 
 which, indeed, they had never been conscious. They were, 
 for example, established almost precisely on the fifty-third 
 parallel of latitude. A little way to the north of them, in the 
 creases of a hill famous for its religious orgies, rose the river 
 Trent, the calm and characteristic stream of middle England. 
 Somewhat further northwards, in the near neighbourhood 
 of the highest public-house in the realm, rose two lesser 
 rivers, the Dane and the Dove, which, quarrelling in early 
 infancy, turned their backs on each other, and, the one by 
 favour of the Weaver and the other by favour of the Trent, 
 watered between them the whole width of England, and 
 poured themselves respectively into the Irish Sea and the 
 German Ocean. What a county of modest, unnoticed rivers ! 
 What a natural, simple county, content to fix its boundaries 
 by these tortuous island brooks, with their comfortable 
 names — Trent, Mease, Dove, Tern, Dane, Mees, Stour, Tame, 
 and even hasty Severn ! Not that the Severn is suitable to 
 the county ! In the county excess is deprecated. The 
 county is happy in not exciting remark. It is content 
 that Shropshire should possess that swollen bump, the 
 Wrekin, and that the exaggerated wildness of the Peak 
 should lie over its border. It does not desire to be a pan- 
 cake, like Cheshire. It has everything that England has, 
 4 
 
18 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 including thirty miles of Watling Street ; and England can 
 show nothing more beautiful and nothing uglier than the 
 works of nature and the works of man to be seen within 
 the limits of the county. It is England in little, lost in the 
 midst of England, unsung by searchers after the extreme ; 
 perhaps occasionally somewhat sore at this neglect, but 
 how proud in the instinctive cognizance of its representative 
 features and traits ! 
 
 Constance and Sophia, busy with the intense preoccupa- 
 tions of youth, recked not of such matters. They were 
 surrounded by the county. On every side the fields and 
 moors of Staffordshire, intersected by roads and lanes, 
 railways, watercourses and telegraph-lines, patterned by 
 hedges, ornamented and made respectable by halls and 
 genteel parks, enlivened by villages at the intersections, and 
 warmly surveyed by the sun, spread out undulating. And 
 trains were rushing round curves in deep cuttings, and carts 
 and waggons trotting and jingling on the yellow roads, and 
 long, narrow boats passing in a leisure majestic and infinite 
 over the surface of the stolid canals ; the rivers had only 
 themselves to support, for Staffordshire rivers have remained 
 virgin of keels to this day. One could imagine the messages 
 concerning prices, sudden death, and horses, in their flight 
 through the wires under the feet of birds. In the inns Uto- 
 pians were shouting the universe into order over beer, and in 
 the halls and parks the dignity of England was being pre- 
 served in a fitting manner. The villages were full of women 
 who did nothing but fight against dirt and hunger, and 
 repair the effects of friction on clothes. Thousands of 
 labourers were in the fields, but the fields were so broad and 
 numerous that this scattered multitude was totally lost 
 therein. The cuckoo was much more perceptible than man, 
 dominating whole square miles with his resounding call. 
 And on the airy moors heath-larks played in the inefface- 
 able mule-tracks that had served centuries before even the 
 Romans thought of Watling Street. In short, the usual 
 daily life of the county was proceeding with all its immense 
 variety and importance ; but though Constance and Sophia 
 were in it they were not of it. 
 
 The fact is, that while in the county they were also in 
 the district ; and no person who lives in the district, even 
 if he should be old and have nothing to do but reflect upon 
 things in general, ever thinks about the county. So far 
 as the county goes, the district might almost as well be 
 in the middle of the Sahara. It ignores the county, save 
 that it uses it nonchalantly sometimes as leg-stretcher on 
 
THE SQUARE. 19 
 
 holiday afternoons, as a man may use his back garden. 
 It has nothing in common with the county ; it is richly 
 sufficient to itself. Nevertheless, its self-sufficiency and the 
 true salt savour of its life can only be appreciated by pictur- 
 ing it hemmed in by county. It lies on the face of the 
 county like an insignificant stain, like a dark Pleiades in a 
 green ■ and empty sky. And Hanbridge has the shape of 
 a horse and its rider, Bursley of half a donkey, Knype of a 
 pair of trousers, Longshaw of an octopus, and little Turnhill 
 of a beetle. The Five Towns seem to cling together for 
 safety. Yet the idea of clinging together for safety would 
 make them laugh. They are unique and indispensable. 
 From the north of the county right down to the south they 
 alone stand for civilization, applied science, organized 
 manufacture, and the century — until you come to Wolver- 
 hampton. They are unique and indispensable because you 
 cannot drink tea out of a teacup without the aid of the 
 Five Towns ; because you cannot eat a meal in decency 
 without the aid of the Five Towns. For this the archi- 
 tecture of the Five Towns is an architecture of ovens and 
 chimneys ; for this its atmosphere is as black as its mud ; 
 for this it burns and smokes all night, so that Longshaw 
 has been compared to hell ; for this it is unlearned in the 
 ways of agriculture, never having seen corn except as pack- 
 ing straw and in quartern loaves ; for this, on the other 
 hand, it comprehends the mysterious habits of fire and pure, 
 sterile earth ; for this it lives crammed together in slippery 
 streets where the housewife must change white window- 
 curtains at least once a fortnight if she wishes to remain 
 respectable ; for this it gets up in the mass at six a.m., 
 winter and summer, and goes to bed when the public -houses 
 close ; for this it exists — that you may drink tea out of a 
 teacup and toy with a chop on a plate. All the everyday 
 crockery used in the kingdom is made in the Five Towns — 
 all, and much besides. A district capable of such gigantic 
 manufacture, of such a perfect monopoly — and which finds 
 energy also to produce coal and iron and great men — may 
 be an insignificant stain on a county, considered geographi- 
 cally, but it is surely well justified in treating the county 
 as its back garden once a week, and in blindly ignoring 
 it the rest of the time. 
 
 Even the majestic thought that whenever and wherever in 
 all England a woman washes up, she washes up the product 
 of the district ; that whenever and wherever in all England 
 a plate is broken the fracture means new business for the 
 district — even this majestic thought had probably never 
 
20 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 occurred to either of the girls. The fact is, that while in 
 the Five Towns they were also in the Square, Bursley and 
 the Square ignored the staple manufacture as perfectly as 
 the district ignored the county. Bursley has the honours 
 of antiquity in the Five Towns. No industrial development 
 can ever rob it of its superiority in age, which makes it 
 absolutely sure in its conceit. And the time will never come 
 when the other towns — let them swell and bluster as they may 
 — will not pronounce the name of Bursley as one pronounces 
 the name of one's mother. Add to this that the Square was 
 the centre of Bursley's retail trade (which scorned the staple 
 as something wholesale, vulgar, and assuredly filthy), and 
 you will comprehend the importance and the self-isolation 
 of the Square in the scheme of the created universe. There 
 you have it, embedded in the district, and the district em- 
 bedded in the county, and the county lost and dreaming 
 in the heart of England ! 
 
 The Square was named after St. Luke. The Evangelist 
 might have been startled by certain phenomena in his square, 
 but, except in Wakes Week, when the shocking always hap- 
 pened, St. Luke's Square lived in a manner passably saintly 
 — though it contained five public-houses. It contained five 
 public-houses, a bank, a barber's, a confectioner's, three 
 grocers', two chemists', an ironmonger's, a clothier's, and 
 five drapers'. These were all the catalogue. St. Luke's 
 Square had no room for minor establishments. The aris- 
 tocracy of the Square undoubtedly consisted of the drapers 
 (for the bank was impersonal) ; and among the five the 
 shop of Baines stood supreme. No business establishment 
 could possibly be more respected than that of Mr. Baines was 
 respected. And though John Baines had been bedridden 
 for a dozen years, he still lived on the lips of admiring, 
 ceremonious burgesses as " our honoured fellow-townsman." 
 He deserved his reputation. 
 
 The Baineses' shop, to make which three dwellings had at 
 intervals been thrown into one, lay at the bottom of the 
 Square. It formed about one-third of the south side of the 
 Square, the remainder being made up of Critchlow's (chem- 
 ist), the clothier's, and the Hanover Spirit Vaults. '(" Vaults " 
 was a favourite synonym of the public-house in the Square. 
 Only two of the public-houses were crude public-houses : 
 the rest were " vaults.") It was a composite building of 
 three storeys, in blackish-crimson brick, with a projecting 
 shop-front, and, above and behind that, two rows of little 
 windows. On the sash of each window was a red cloth roll 
 stuffed with sawdust, to prevent draughts ; plain white 
 
THE SQUARE. 21 
 
 blinds descended about six inches from the top of each 
 window. There were no curtains to any of the windows 
 save one ; this was the window of the drawing-room, on the 
 first floor at the corner of the Square and King Street. An- 
 other window, on the second storey, was peculiar, in that 
 it had neither blind nor pad, and was very dirty ; this was 
 the window of an unused room that had a separate staircase 
 to itself, the staircase being barred by a door always locked. 
 Constance and Sophia had lived in continual expectation 
 of the abnormal issuing from that mysterious room, which 
 was next to their own. But they were disappointed. The 
 room had no shameful secret except the incompetence of 
 the architect who had made one house out of three ; it was 
 just an empty, unemployable room. The building had also 
 a considerable frontage on King Street, where, behind the 
 shop, was sheltered the parlour, with a large window and 
 a door that led directly by two steps into the street. A 
 strange peculiarity of the shop was that it bore no sign- 
 board. Once it had had a large signboard which a memor- 
 able gale had blown into the Square. Mr. Baines had de- 
 cided not to replace it. He had always objected to what 
 he called " puffing," and for this reason would never hear 
 of such a thing as a clearance sale. The hatred of " puffing " 
 grew on him until he came to regard even a sign as " puffing." 
 Uninformed persons who wished to find Baines's must ask 
 and learn. For Mr. Baines, to have replaced the sign would 
 have been to condone, yea, to participate in, the modern 
 craze for unscrupulous self-advertisement. This abstention 
 of Mr. Baines's from indulgence in signboards was somehow 
 accepted by the more thoughtful members of the community 
 as evidence that the height of Mr. Baines's principles was 
 greater even than they had imagined. 
 
 Constance and Sophia were the daughters of this credit 
 to human nature. He had no other children. 
 
 II. 
 
 They pressed their noses against the window of the show- 
 room, and gazed down into the Square as perpendicularly as 
 the projecting front of the shop would allow. The show- 
 room was over the millinery and silken half of the shop. 
 Over the woollen and shirting half were the drawing-room 
 and the chief bedroom. When in quest of articles of co- 
 quetry, you mounted from the shop by a curving stair, and 
 your head gradually rose level with a large apartment having 
 
22 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 a mahogany counter in front of the window and along one 
 side, yellow linoieum on the floor, many cardboard boxes, 
 a magnificent hinged cheval glass, and two chairs. The 
 window-sill being lower than the counter, there was a gulf 
 between the panes and the back of the counter, into which 
 important articles such as scissors, pencils, chalk, and artificial 
 flowers were continually disappearing : another proof of the 
 architect's incompetence. 
 
 The girls could only press their noses against the window 
 by kneeling on the counter, and this they were doing. Con- 
 stance's nose was snub, but agreeably so. Sophia had a 
 fine Roman nose ; she was a beautiful creature, beautiful 
 and handsome at the same time. They were both of them 
 rather like racehorses, quivering with delicate, sensitive, and 
 luxuriant life ; exquisite, enchanting proof of the circulation 
 of the blood ; innocent, artful, roguish, prim, gushing, 
 ignorant, and miraculously wise. Their ages were sixteen 
 and fifteen ; it is an epoch when, if one is frank, one must 
 admit that one has nothing to learn : one has learnt simply 
 everything in the previous six months. 
 
 " There she goes ! " exclaimed Sophia. 
 
 Up the Square, from the corner of King Street, passed a 
 woman in a new bonnet with pink strings, and a new blue 
 dress that sloped at the shoulders and grew to a vast circum- 
 ference at the hem. Through the silent sunlit solitude of the 
 Square (for it was Thursday afternoon, and all the shops 
 shut except the confectioner's and one chemist's) this bonnet 
 and this dress floated northwards in search of romance, 
 under the relentless eyes of Constance and Sophia. Within 
 them, somewhere, was the soul of Maggie, domestic servant 
 at Baines's. Maggie had been at the shop since before the 
 creation of Constance and Sophia. She lived seventeen 
 hours of each day in an underground kitchen and larder, 
 and the other seven in an attic, never going out except to 
 chapel on Sunday evenings, and once a month on Thursday 
 afternoons. " Followers " were most strictly forbidden to 
 her ; but on rare occasions an aunt from Longshaw was 
 permitted as a tremendous favour to see her in the sub- 
 terranean den. Everybody, including herself, considered 
 that she had a good " place," and was well treated. It was 
 undeniable, for instance, that she was allowed to fall in love 
 exactly as she chose, provided she did not " carry on " in 
 the kitchen or the yard. And as a fact, Maggie had fallen 
 in love. In seventeen years she had been engaged eleven 
 times. No one could conceive how that ugly and powerful 
 organism could softly languish to the undoing of even a 
 
THE SQUARE. 23 
 
 butty-collier, nor why, having caught a man in her sweet 
 toils, she could ever be imbecile enough to set him free. 
 There are, however, mysteries in the souls of Maggies. The 
 drudge had probably been affianced oftener than any woman 
 in Bursley. Her employers were so accustomed to an in- 
 teresting announcement that for years they had taken to say- 
 ing naught in reply but " Really, Maggie! " Engagements 
 and tragic partings were Maggie's pastime. Fixed other- 
 wise, she might have studied the piano instead. 
 
 " No gloves, of course ! " Sophia criticized. 
 
 " Well, you can't expect her to have gloves," said Con- 
 stance. 
 
 Then a pause, as the bonnet and dress neared the top of 
 the Square. 
 
 " Supposing she turns round and sees us ? " Constance 
 suggested. 
 
 I don't care if she does," said Sophia, with a haugh- 
 tiness almost impassioned ; and her head trembled 
 slightly. 
 
 There were, as usual, several loafers at the top of the 
 Square, in the corner between the bank and the ' Marquis 
 of Granby." And one of these loafers stepped forward 
 and shook hands with an obviously willing Maggie. Clearly 
 it was a rendezvous, open, unashamed. The twelfth victim 
 had been selected by the virgin of forty, whose kiss would 
 not have melted lard ! The couple disappeared together 
 down Oldcastle Street. 
 
 " Well I " cried Constance. " Did you ever see such a 
 thing ? " 
 
 While Sophia, short of adequate words, flushed and bit 
 her lip. 
 
 With the profound, instinctive cruelty of youth, Constance 
 and Sophia had assembled in their favourite haunt, the 
 show-room, expressly to deride Maggie in her new clothes. 
 They obscurely thought that a woman so ugly and soiled 
 as Maggie was had no right to possess new clothes. Even 
 her desire to take the air of a Thursday afternoon seemed 
 to them unnatural and somewhat reprehensible. Why 
 should she want to stir out of her kitchen ? As for her 
 tender yearnings, they positively grudged these to Maggie. 
 That Maggie should give rein to chaste passion was more 
 than grotesque ; it was offensive and wicked. But let it 
 not for an instant be doubted that they were nice, kind- 
 hearted, well-behaved, and delightful girls ! Because they 
 were. They were not angels. 
 
 " It's too ridiculous ! " said Sophia, severely. She had 
 
24 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 youth, beauty, and rank in her favour. And to her it really 
 was ridiculous. 
 
 " Poor old Maggie ! " Constance murmured. Constance 
 was foolishly good-natured, a perfect manufactory of excuses 
 for other people ; and her benevolence was eternally rising 
 up and overpowering her reason. 
 
 " What time did mother say she should be back ? " Sophia 
 asked. 
 
 " Not until supper." 
 
 " Oh ! Hallelujah ! " Sophia burst out, clasping her hands 
 in joy. And they both slid down from the counter just as 
 if they had been little boys, and not, as their mother called 
 them, " great girls." 
 
 " Let's go and play the Osborne quadrilles," Sophia sug- 
 gested (the Osborne quadrilles being a series of dances ar- 
 ranged to be performed on drawing-room pianos by four 
 jewelled hands). 
 
 " I couldn't think of it," said Constance, with a precocious 
 gesture of seriousness. In that gesture, and in her tone, was 
 something which conveyed to Sophia : " Sophia, how can you 
 be so utterly blind to the gravity of our fleeting existence as 
 to ask me to go and strum the piano with you ? " Yet a 
 moment before she had been a little boy. 
 
 " Why not ? " Sophia demanded. 
 
 " I shall never have another chance like to-day for getting 
 on with this," said Constance, picking up a bag from the 
 counter. 
 
 She sat down and took from the bag a piece of loosely 
 woven canvas, on which she was embroidering a bunch of 
 roses in coloured wools. The canvas had once been stretched 
 on a frame, but now, as the delicate labour of the petals and 
 leaves was done, and nothing remained to do but the monot- 
 onous background, Constance was content to pin the stuff to 
 her knee. With the long needle and several skeins of mustard- 
 tinted wool, she bent over the canvas and resumed the filling- 
 in of the tiny squares. The whole design was in squares — 
 the gradations of red and greens, the curves of the smallest 
 buds — all was contrived in squares, with a result that 
 mimicked a fragment of uncompromising Axminster carpet. 
 Still, the fine texture of the wool, the regular and rapid grace 
 of those fingers moving incessantly at back and front of the 
 canvas, the gentle sound of the wool as it passed through the 
 holes, and the intent, youthful earnestness of that lowered 
 gaze, excused and invested with charm an activity which, 
 on artistic grounds, could not possibly be justified. The 
 canvas was destined to adorn a gilt firescreen in the draw- 
 
THE SQUARE. 25 
 
 ing-room, and also to form a birthday gift to Mrs. Baines 
 from her elder daughter. But whether the enterprise was 
 as secret from Mrs. Baines as Constance hoped, none save 
 Mrs. Baines knew. 
 
 " Con," murmured Sophia, " you're too sickening some- 
 times." 
 
 " Well," said Constance, blandly, " it's no use pretending 
 that this hasn't got to be finished before we go back to school, 
 because it has." 
 
 Sophia wandered about, a prey ripe for the Evil One. 
 " Oh," she exclaimed joyously — even ecstatically — looking 
 behind the cheval glass, " here's mother's new skirt ! Miss 
 Dunn's been putting the gimp on it ! Oh, mother, what a 
 proud thing you will be ! " 
 
 Constance heard swishings behind the glass. " What are 
 you doing, Sophia ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " You surely aren't putting that skirt on ? " 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " You'll catch it finely, I can tell you ! " 
 
 Without further defence, Sophia sprang out from behind 
 the immense glass. She had already shed a notable part of 
 her own costume, and the flush of mischief was in her face. 
 She ran across to the other side of the room and examined 
 carefully a large coloured print that was affixed to the wall. 
 
 This print represented fifteen sisters, all of the same height 
 and slimness of figure, all f the same age — about twenty- 
 five or so — and all with exactly the same haughty and bored 
 beauty. That they were in truth sisters was clear from the 
 facial resemblance between them ; their demeanour indicated 
 that they were princesses, offspring of some impossibly pro- 
 lific king and queen. Those hands had never toiled, nor had 
 those features ever relaxed from the smile of courts. The 
 princesses moved in a landscape of marble steps and veran- 
 dahs, with a bandstand and strange trees in the distance. 
 One was in a riding-habit, another in evening attire, another 
 dressed for tea, another for the theatre ; another seemed to 
 be ready to go to bed. One held a little girl by the hand ; 
 it could not have been her own little girl, for these princesses 
 were far beyond human passions. Where had she obtained 
 the little girl ? Why was one sister going to the theatre, 
 another to tea, another to the stable, and another to bed ? 
 Why was one in a heavy mantle, and another sheltering from 
 the sun's rays under a parasol ? The picture was drenched 
 in mystery, and the strangest thing about it was that all 
 these highnesses were apparently content with the most 
 
26 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 ridiculous and out-moded fashions. Absurd hats, with veils 
 flying behind ; absurd bonnets, fitting close to the head, 
 and spotted ; absurd coiffures that nearly lay on the nape ; 
 absurd, clumsy sleeves ; absurd waists, almost above the 
 elbow's level ; absurd scolloped jackets ! And the skirts ! 
 What a sight were those skirts ! They were nothing but vast 
 decorated pyramids ; on the summit of each was stuck the 
 upper half of a princess. It was astounding that princesses 
 should consent to be so preposterous and so uncomfortable. 
 But Sophia perceived nothing uncanny in the picture, which 
 bore the legend : " Newest summer fashions from Paris. 
 Gratis supplement to Myra's Journal." Sophia had never 
 imagined anything more stylish, lovely, and dashing than the 
 raiment of the fifteen princesses. 
 
 For Constance and Sophia had the disadvantage of living 
 in the middle ages. The crinoline had not quite reached its 
 full circumference, and the dress-improver had not even been 
 thought of. In all the Five Towns there was not a public 
 bath, nor a free library, nor a municipal park, nor a telephone, 
 nor yet a board-school. People had not understood the vital 
 necessity of going away to the seaside every year. Bishop 
 Golenso had just staggered Christianity by his shameless 
 notions on the Pentateuch. Half Lancashire was starving 
 on account of the American war. Garroting was the chief 
 amusement of the homicidal classes. Incredible as it may 
 appear, there was nothing but a horse-tram running between 
 Bursley and Hanbridge — and that only twice an hour ; and 
 between the other towns no stage of any kind ! One went 
 to Longshaw as one now goes to Pekin. It was an era so 
 dark and backward that one might wonder how people could 
 sleep in their beds at night for thinking about their sad state. 
 
 Happily the inhabitants of the Five Towns in that era were 
 passably pleased with themselves, and they never even sus- 
 pected that they were not quite modern and quite awake. 
 They thought that the intellectual, the industrial, and the 
 social movements had gone about as far as these movements 
 could go, and they were amazed at their own progress. In- 
 stead of being humble and ashamed they actually showed 
 pride in their pitiful achievements. They ought to have 
 looked forward meekly to the prodigious feats of posterity ; 
 but, having too little faith and too much conceit, they were 
 content to look behind and make comparisons with the past. 
 They did not foresee the miraculous generation which is us. 
 A poor, blind, complacent people ! The ludicrous horse-car 
 was typical of them. The driver rang a huge bell, five minutes 
 before starting, that could be heard from the Wesleyan Chapel 
 
THE SQUARE. 27 
 
 to the Cock Yard, and then after deliberations and hesi- 
 tations the vehicle rolled off on its rails into unknown 
 dangers while passengers shouted good-bye. At Bleakridge 
 it had to stop for the turnpike, and it was assisted up the 
 mountains of Leveson Place and Sutherland Street (towards 
 Hanbridge) by a third horse, on whose back was perched a 
 tiny, whip-cracking boy ; that boy lived like a shuttle on the 
 road between Leveson Place and Sutherland Street, and even 
 in wet weather he was the envy of all other boys. After 
 half an hour's perilous transit the car drew up solemnly in 
 a narrow street by the Signal office in Hanbridge, and the 
 ruddy driver, having revolved many times the polished iron 
 handle of his sole break, turned his attention to his pas- 
 sengers in calm triumph, dismissing them with a sort of 
 unsung doxology. 
 
 And this was regarded as the last word of traction ! A 
 whip-cracking boy on a tip horse ! Oh, blind, blind ! You 
 could not foresee the hundred and twenty electric cars that 
 now rush madly bumping and thundering at twenty miles 
 an hour through all the main streets of the district ! 
 
 So that naturally Sophia, infected with the pride of her 
 period, had no misgivings whatever concerning the final ele- 
 gance of the princesses. She studied them as the fifteen 
 apostles of the ne plus ultra ; then, having taken some flowers 
 and plumes out of a box, amid warnings from Constance, 
 she retreated behind the glass, and presently emerged as a 
 great lady in the style of the princesses. Her mother's 
 tremendous new gown ballooned about her in all its fantastic 
 richness and expensiveness. And with the gown she had put 
 on her mother's importance — that mien of assured authority, 
 of capacity tested in many a crisis, which characterized Mrs. 
 Baines, and which Mrs. Baines seemed to impart to her dresses 
 even before she had regularly worn them. For it was a 
 fact that Mrs. Baines 's empty garments inspired respect, as 
 though some essence had escaped from her and remained in 
 them. 
 
 " Sophia ! " 
 
 Constance stayed her needle, and, without lifting her head, 
 gazed, with eyes raised from the wool-work, motionless at 
 the posturing figure of her sister. It was sacrilege that she 
 was witnessing, a prodigious irreverence. She was conscious 
 of an expectation that punishment would instantly fall on 
 this daring, impious child. But she, who never felt these 
 mad, amazing impulses, could nevertheless only smile fear- 
 fully. 
 
 " Sophia ! " she breathed, with an intensity of alarm that 
 
28 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 merged into condoning admiration. " Whatever will you do 
 next ? " 
 
 Sophia's lovely flushed face crowned the extraordinary 
 structure like a blossom, scarcely controlling its laughter. 
 She was as tall as her mother, and as imperious, as crested, 
 and proud ; and in spite of the pigtail, the girlish semi- 
 circular comb, and the loose foal-like limbs, she could support 
 as well as her mother the majesty of the gimp-embroidered 
 dress. Her eyes sparkled with all the challenges of the un- 
 tried virgin as she minced about the showroom. Abound- 
 ing life inspired her movements. The confident and fierce 
 joy of youth shone on her brow. " What thing on earth 
 equals me ? " she seemed to demand with enchanting and 
 yet ruthless arrogance. She was the daughter of a respected, 
 bedridden draper in an insignificant town, lost in the central 
 labyrinth of England, if you like ; yet what manner of man, 
 confronted with her, would or could have denied her naive 
 claim to dominion ? She stood, in her mother's hoops, for 
 the desire of the world. And in the innocence of her soul 
 she knew it ! The heart of a young girl mysteriously speaks 
 and tells her of her power long ere she can use her power. 
 If she can find nothing else to subdue, you may catch her 
 in the early years subduing a gate-post or drawing homage 
 from an empty chair. Sophia's experimental victim was 
 Constance, with suspended needle and soft glance that shot 
 out from the lowered face. 
 
 Then Sophia fell, in stepping backwards ; the pyramid was 
 overbalanced ; great distended rings of silk trembled and 
 swayed gigantically on the floor, and Sophia's small feet lay 
 like the feet of a doll on the rim of the largest circle, which 
 curved and arched above them like a cavern's mouth. The 
 abrupt transition of her features from assured pride to ludi- 
 crous astonishment and alarm was comical enough to have 
 sent into wild uncharitable laughter any creature less humane 
 than Constance. But Constance sprang to her, a single em- 
 bodied instinct of benevolence, with her snub nose, and tried 
 to raise her. 
 
 " Oh, Sophia 1 " she cried compassionately — that voice 
 seemed not to know the tones of reproof — " I do hope you've 
 not messed it, because mother would be so " 
 
 The words were interrupted by the sound of groans beyond 
 the door leading to the bedrooms. The groans, indicating 
 direct physical torment, grew louder. The two girls stared, 
 wonder-struck and afraid, at the door, Sophia with her dark 
 head raised, and Constance with her arms round Sophia's 
 waist. The door opened, letting in a much-magnified sound 
 
THE SQUARE. 29 
 
 )f groans, and there entered a youngish, undersized man, 
 yho was frantically clutching his head in his hands and con- 
 :orting all the muscles of his face. On perceiving the sculp- 
 :ural group of two prone, interlocked girls, one enveloped in 
 i crinoline, and the other with a wool-work bunch of flowers 
 Dinned to her knee, he jumped back, ceased groaning, ar- 
 anged his face, and seriously tried to pretend that it was 
 lot he who had been vocal in anguish, that, indeed, he was 
 ust passing as a casual, ordinary wayfarer through the 
 showroom to the shop below. He blushed darkly ; and the 
 jirls also blushed. 
 
 " Oh, I beg pardon, I'm sure ! " said this youngish man 
 .uddenly ; and with a swift turn he disappeared whence he 
 lad come. 
 
 He was Mr. Povey, a person universally esteemed, both 
 vithin and without the shop, the surrogate of bedridden Mr. 
 Baines, the unfailing comfort and stand-by of Mrs. Baines, 
 ;he fount and radiating centre of order and discipline in the 
 ihop ; a quiet, diffident, secretive, tedious, and obstinate 
 youngish man, absolutely faithful, absolutely efficient in his 
 iphere ; without brilliance, without distinction ; perhaps 
 ather little-minded, certainly narrow-minded ; but what a 
 brce in the shop ! The shop was inconceivable without Mr. 
 Povey. He was under twenty and not out of his apprentice- 
 ship when Mr. Baines had been struck down, and he had at 
 >nce proved his worth. Of the assistants, he alone slept in 
 ;he house. His bedroom was next to that of his employer ; 
 ;here was a door between the two chambers, and the two 
 steps led down from the larger to the less. 
 
 The girls regained their feet, Sophia with Constance's help. 
 [t was not easy to right a capsized crinoline. They both 
 jegan to laugh nervously, with a trace of hysteria. 
 
 "I thought he'd gone to the dentist's," whispered Con- 
 stance. 
 
 Mr. Povey's toothache had been causing anxiety in the 
 nicrocosm for two days, and it had been clearly understood 
 it dinner that Thursday morning that Mr. Povey was to set 
 forth to Oulsnam Bros., the dentists at Hillport, without any 
 lelay. Only on Thursdays and Sundays did Mr. Povey dine 
 mth the family. On other days he dined later, by him- 
 self, but at the family table, when Mrs. Baines or one of the 
 assistants could " relieve " him in the shop. Before starting 
 3ut to visit her elder sister at Axe, Mrs. Baines had insisted 
 to Mr. Povey that he had eaten practically nothing but 
 ' slops " for twenty-four hours, and that if he was not care- 
 ful she would have him on her hands. He had replied in his 
 
3 o THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 quietest, most sagacious, matter-of-fact tone — the tone that 
 carried weight with all who heard it — that he had only been 
 waiting for Thursday afternoon, and should of course go 
 instantly to Oulsnams' and have the thing attended to in .a 
 proper manner. He had even added that persons who put 
 off going to the dentist's were simply sowing trouble for them- 
 selves. 
 
 None could possibly have guessed that Mr. Povey was 
 afraid Of going to the dentist's. But such was the case. He 
 had not dared to set forth. The paragon of commonsense, 
 pictured by most people as being somehow unliable to human 
 frailties, could not yet screw himself up to the point of ring- 
 ing a dentist's door-bell. 
 
 " He did look funny," said Sophia. " I wonder what he 
 thought. I couldn't help laughing ! " 
 
 Constance made no answer ; but when Sophia had resumed 
 her own clothes, and it was ascertained beyond doubt that 
 the new dress had not suffered, and Constance herself was 
 calmly stitching again, she said, poising her needle as she had 
 poised it to watch Sophia : 
 
 " I was just wondering whether something oughtn't to be 
 done for Mr. Povey." 
 
 " What ? " Sophia demanded. 
 
 " Has he gone back to his bedroom ? " 
 
 " Let's go and listen," said Sophia the adventuress. 
 
 They went, through the showroom door, past the foot of 
 the stairs leading to the second storey, down the long cor- 
 ridor broken in the middle by two steps and carpeted with a 
 narrow bordered carpet whose parallel lines increased its 
 apparent length. They went on tiptoe, sticking close to one 
 another. Mr. Povey 's door was slightly ajar. They listened ; 
 not a sound. 
 
 " Mr. Povey ! " Constance coughed discreetly. 
 
 No reply. It was Sophia who pushed the door open. 
 Constance made an elderly prim plucking gesture at Sophia's 
 bare arm, but she followed Sophia gingerly into the forbidden 
 room, which was, however, empty. The bed had been ruffled, 
 and on it lay a book, " The Harvest of a Quiet Eye." 
 
 " Harvest of a quiet tooth ! " Sophia whispered, giggling 
 very low. 
 
 " Hsh ! " Constance put her lips forward. 
 
 From the next room came a regular, muffled, oratorical 
 sound, as though some one had begun many years ago to 
 address a meeting and had forgotten to leave off and never 
 would leave off. They were familiar with the sound, and they 
 quitted Mr. Povey's chamber in fear of disturbing it. At 
 
THE SQUARE. 31 
 
 the same moment Mr. Povey reappeared, this time in the 
 drawing-room doorway at the other extremity of the long 
 corridor. He seemed to be trying ineffectually to flee from 
 his tooth as a murderer tries to flee from his conscience. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Povey ! " said Constance quickly — for he had 
 surprised them coming out of his bedroom ; "we were just 
 looking for you." 
 
 " To see if we could do anything for you," Sophia added. 
 
 " Oh no, thanks ! " said Mr. Povey. 
 
 Then he began to come down the corridor, slowly. 
 
 " You haven't been to the dentist's," said Constance sym- 
 pathetically. 
 
 " No, I haven't," said Mr. Povey, as if Constance was in- 
 dicating a fact which had escaped his attention. " The truth 
 is, I thought it looked like rain, and if I'd got wet — you 
 see " 
 
 Miserable Mr. Povey ! 
 
 " Yes," said Constance, " you certainly ought to keep out 
 of draughts. Don't you think it would be a good thing if 
 you went and sat in the parlour ? There's a fire there." 
 
 " I shall be all right, thank you," said Mr. Povey. And 
 after a pause : " Well, thanks, I will." 
 
 III. 
 
 The girls made way for him to pass them at the head of the 
 twisting stairs which led down to the parlour. Constance 
 followed, and Sophia followed Constance. 
 
 " Have father's chair," said Constance. 
 
 There were two rocking-chairs with fluted backs covered 
 by antimacassars, one on either side of the hearth. That to 
 the left was still entitled " father's chair," though its owner 
 had not sat in it since long before the Crimean war, and 
 would never sit in it again. 
 
 " I think I'd sooner have the other one," said Mr. Povey, 
 " because it's on the right side, you see." And he touched 
 his right cheek. 
 
 Having taken Mrs. Baines's chair, he bent his face down 
 to the fire, seeking comfort from its warmth. Sophia poked 
 the fire, whereupon Mr. Povey abruptly withdrew his face. 
 He then felt something light on his shoulders. Constance 
 had taken the antimacassar from the back of the chair, and 
 protected him with it from the draughts. He did not in- 
 stantly rebel, and therefore was permanently barred from 
 rebellion. He was entrapped by the antimacassar. It for- 
 
32 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 mally constituted him an invalid, and Constance and Sophia 
 his nurses. Constance drew the curtain across the street 
 door. No draught could come from the window, for the 
 window was not " made to open." The age of ventilation 
 had not arrived. Sophia shut the other two doors. And, 
 each near a door, the girls gazed at Mr. Povey behind his 
 back, irresolute, but filled with a delicious sense of responsi- 
 bility. 
 
 The situation was on a different plane now. The serious- 
 ness of Mr. Povey's toothache, which became more and more 
 manifest, had already wiped out the ludicrous memory of the 
 encounter in the showroom. Looking at these two big girls, 
 with their short-sleeved black frocks and black aprons, and 
 their smooth hair, and their composed serious faces, one would 
 have judged them incapable of the least lapse from an arch- 
 angelic primness ; Sophia especially presented a marvellous 
 imitation of saintly innocence. As for the toothache, its 
 action on Mr. Povey was apparently periodic ; it gathered 
 to a crisis like a wave, gradually, the torture increasing till 
 the wave broke and left Mr. Povey exhausted, but free for a 
 moment from pain. These crises recurred about once a 
 minute. And now, accustomed to the presence of the young 
 virgins, and having tacitly acknowledged by his acceptance 
 of the antimacassar that his state was abnormal, he gave 
 himself up frankly to affliction. He concealed nothing of 
 his agony, which was fully displayed by sudden contortions 
 of his frame, and frantic oscillations of the rocking-chair. 
 Presently, as he lay back enfeebled in the wash of a spent 
 wave, he murmured with a sick man's voice : 
 
 " I suppose you haven't got any laudanum ? " 
 
 The girls started into life. " Laudanum, Mr. Povey ? " 
 
 " Yes, to hold in my mouth." 
 
 He sat up, tense ; another wave was forming. The ex- 
 cellent fellow was lost to all self-respect, all decency. 
 
 " There's sure to be some in mother's cupboard," said 
 Sophia. 
 
 Constance, who bore Mrs. Baines's bunch of keys at her 
 girdle, a solemn trust, moved a little fearfully to a corner 
 cupboard which was hung in the angle to the right of the 
 projecting fireplace, over a shelf on which stood a large 
 copper tea-urn. That corner cupboard, of oak inlaid with 
 maple and ebony in a simple border pattern, was typical of 
 the room. It was of a piece with the deep green " flock " 
 wall paper, and the tea-urn, and the rocking-chairs with their 
 antimacassars, and the harmonium in rosewood with a Chinese 
 papier-mache tea-caddy on the top of it ; even with the carpet, 
 
THE SQUARE. 33 
 
 certainly the most curious parlour carpet that ever was, being 
 made of lengths of the stair-carpet sewn together side by 
 side. That corner cupboard was already old in service ; it 
 had held the medicines of generations. It gleamed darkly 
 with the grave and genuine polish which comes from ancient 
 use alone. The key which Constance chose from her bunch 
 was like the cupboard, smooth and shining with years ; it 
 fitted and turned very easily, yet with a firm snap. The 
 single wide door opened sedately as a portal. 
 
 The girls examined the sacred interior, which had the air 
 of being inhabited by an army of diminutive prisoners, each 
 crying aloud with the full strength of its label to be set free 
 on a mission. 
 
 " There it is ! " said Sophia eagerly. 
 
 And there it was : a blue bottle, with a saffron label, 
 " Caution. POISON. Laudanum. Charles Critchlow, 
 M.P.S. Dispensing Chemist. St. Luke's Square, Bursley." 
 
 Those large capitals frightened the girls. Constance took 
 the bottle as she might have taken a loaded revolver, and she 
 glanced at Sophia. Their omnipotent, all -wise mother was 
 not present to tell them what to do. They, who had never 
 decided, had to decide now. And Constance was the elder. 
 Must this fearsome stuff, whose very name was a name of fear, 
 be introduced in spite of printed warnings into Mr. Povey's 
 mouth ? The responsibility was terrifying. 
 
 " Perhaps I'd just better ask Mr. Critchlow," Constance 
 faltered. 
 
 The expectation of beneficent laudanum had enlivened 
 Mr. Povey, had already, indeed, by a sort of suggestion, half 
 cured his toothache. 
 
 " Oh no ! " he said. " No need to ask Mr. Critchlow . . . 
 Two or three drops in a little water." He showed impatience 
 to be at the laudanum. 
 
 The girls knew that an antipathy existed between the 
 chemist and Mr. Povey. 
 
 " It's sure to be all right," said Sophia. " I'll get the 
 water." 
 
 With youthful cries and alarms they succeeded in pouring 
 four mortal dark drops (one more than Constance intended) 
 into a cup containing a little water. And as they handed the 
 cup to Mr. Povey their faces were the faces of affrighted 
 comical conspirators. They felt so old and they looked so 
 young. 
 
 Mr. Povey imbibed eagerly of the potion, put the cup on 
 the mantelpiece, and then tilted his head to the right so as to 
 submerge the affected tooth. In this posture he remained, 
 
 2 
 
34 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 awaiting the sweet influence of the remedy. The girls, out of 
 a nice modesty, turned away, for Mr. Povey must not swallow 
 the medicine, and they preferred to leave him unhampered 
 in the solution of a delicate problem. When next they ex- 
 amined him, he was leaning back in the rocking-chair with 
 his mouth open and his eyes shut. 
 
 " Has it done you any good, Mr. Povey ? " 
 
 " I think I'll lie down on the sofa for a minute," was Mr. 
 Povey' s strange reply ; and forthwith he sprang up and flung 
 himself on to the horse-hair sofa between the fireplace and 
 the window, where he lay stripped of all his dignity, a mere 
 beaten animal in a grey suit with peculiar coat-tails, and a 
 very creased waistcoat, and a lapel that was planted with 
 pins, and a paper collar and close-fitting paper cuffs. 
 
 Constance ran after him with the antimacassar, which she 
 spread softly on his shoulders ; and Sophia put another one 
 over his thin little legs, all drawn up. 
 
 They then gazed at their handiwork, with secret self -accusa- 
 tions and the most dreadful misgivings. 
 
 " He surely never swallowed it ! " Constance whispered. 
 
 " He's asleep, anyhow," said Sophia, more loudly. 
 
 Mr. Povey was certainly asleep, and his mouth was very 
 wide open — like a shop-door. The only question was whether 
 his sleep was not an eternal sleep ; the only question was 
 whether he was not out of his pain for ever. 
 
 Then he snored — horribly ; his snore seemed a portent of 
 disaster. 
 
 Sophia approached him as though he were a bomb, and 
 stared, growing bolder, into his mouth. 
 
 " Oh, Con," she summoned her sister, " do come and look ! 
 It's too droll ! " 
 
 In an instant all their four eyes were exploring the singular 
 landscape of Mr. Povey's mouth. In a corner, to the right of 
 that interior, was one sizeable fragment of a tooth, that was 
 attached to Mr. Povey by the slenderest tie, so that at each 
 respiration of Mr. Povey, when his body slightly heaved and 
 the gale moaned in the cavern, this tooth moved separately, 
 showing that its long connection with Mr. Povey was draw- 
 ing to a close. 
 
 " That's the one," said Sophia, pointing. " And it's as 
 loose as anything. Did you ever see such a funny thing ? " 
 
 The extreme funniness of the thing had lulled in Sophia 
 the fear of Mr. Povey's sudden death. 
 
 " I'll see how much he's taken," said Constance, pre- 
 occupied, going to the mantelpiece. 
 
 " Why, I do believe " Sophia began, and then stopped, 
 
THE SQUARE. 35 
 
 glancing at the sewing-machine, which stood next to the 
 sofa. 
 
 It was a Howe sewing-machine. It had a little tool-drawer, 
 and in the tool-drawer was a small pair of pliers. Constance, 
 engaged in sniffing at the lees of the potion in order to esti- 
 mate its probable deadliness, heard the well-known click of 
 the little tool-drawer, and then she saw Sophia nearing Mr. 
 Povey's mouth with the pliers. 
 
 " Sophia ! " she exclaimed, aghast. " What in the name of 
 goodness are you doing ? " 
 
 " Nothing," said Sophia. 
 
 The next instant Mr. Povey sprang out of his laudanum 
 dream. 
 
 " It jumps ! " he muttered ; and, after a reflective pause, 
 " but it's much better." He had at any rate escaped 
 death. 
 
 Sophia's right hand was behind her back. 
 
 Just then a hawker passed down King Street, crying mussels 
 and cockles. 
 
 " Oh ! " Sophia almost shrieked. " Do let's have mussels 
 and cockles for tea ! " And she rushed to the door, and un- 
 locked and opened it, regardless of the risk of draughts to 
 Mr. Povey. 
 
 In those days people often depended upon the caprices of 
 hawkers for the tastiness of their teas ; but it was an ad- 
 venturous age, when errant knights of commerce were numer- 
 ous and enterprising. You went on to your doorstep, caught 
 your meal as it passed, withdrew, cooked it and ate it, quite 
 in the manner of the early Briton. 
 
 Constance was obliged to join her sister on the top step. 
 Sophia descended to the second step. 
 
 ' Fresh mussels and cockles all alive oh ! " bawled the 
 hawker, looking across the road in the April breeze. He was 
 the celebrated Hollins, a professional Irish drunkard, aged in 
 iniquity, who cheerfully saluted magistrates in the street, and 
 referred to the workhouse, which he occasionally visited, as 
 the Bastile. 
 
 Sophia was trembling from head to foot. 
 
 " What are you laughing at, you silly thing ? " Constance 
 demanded. 
 
 Sophia surreptitiously showed the pliers, which she had 
 partly thrust into her pocket. Between their points was a 
 most perceptible, and even recognizable, fragment of Mr. 
 Povey. 
 
 This was the crown of Sophia's career as a perpetrator of 
 the unutterable. 
 
36 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " What ! " Constance's face showed the final contortions 
 of that horrified incredulity which is forced to believe. 
 
 Sophia nudged her violently to remind her that they were 
 in the street, and also quite close to Mr. Povey. 
 
 " Now, my little missies," said the vile Hollins. " Three- 
 pence a pint, and how's your honoured mother to-day ? Yes, 
 fresh, so help me God ! " 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE TOOTH. 
 
 The two girls came up the unlighted stone staircase which 
 led from Maggie's cave to the door of the parlour. Sophia, 
 foremost, was carrying a large tray, and Constance a small 
 one. Constance, who had nothing on her tray but a teapot, 
 a bowl of steaming and balmy-scented mussels and cockles, 
 and a plate of hot buttered toast, went directly into the par- 
 lour on the left. Sophia had in her arms the entire material 
 and apparatus of a high tea for two, including eggs, jam, and 
 toast (covered with the slop-basin turned upside down), but 
 not including mussels and cockles. She turned to the right, 
 passed along the corridor by the cutting-out room, up two 
 steps into the sheeted and shuttered gloom of the closed shop, 
 up the showroom stairs, through the showroom, and so into 
 the bedroom corridor. Experience had proved it easier to 
 make this long detour than to round the difficult corner of 
 the parlour stairs with a large loaded tray. Sophia knocked 
 with the edge of the tray at the door of the principal bed- 
 room. The muffled oratorical sound from within suddenly 
 ceased, and the door was opened by a very tall, very thin, 
 black-bearded man, who looked down at Sophia as if to 
 demand what she meant by such an interruption. 
 
 " I've brought the tea, Mr. Critchlow," said Sophia. 
 
 And Mr. Critchlow carefully accepted the tray. 
 
 " Is that my little Sophia ? " asked a faint voice from the 
 depths of the bedroom. 
 
 " Yes, father/' said Sophia. 
 
 But she did not attempt to enter the room. Mr. Critchlow 
 put the tray on a white-clad chest of drawers near the door, 
 and then he shut the door with no ceremony. Mr. Critchlow 
 was John Baines's oldest and closest friend, though decidedly 
 
38 THE OLD WIVES* TALE. 
 
 younger than the draper. He frequently " popped in " to 
 have a word with the invalid ; but Thursday afternoon was 
 his special afternoon, consecrated by him to the service of 
 the sick. From two o'clock precisely till eight o'clock pre- 
 cisely he took charge of John Baines, reigning autocratically 
 over the bedroom. It was known that he would not tolerate 
 invasions, nor even ambassadorial visits. No ! He gave up 
 his weekly holiday to this business of friendship, and he must 
 be allowed to conduct the business in his own way. Mrs. 
 Baines herself avoided disturbing Mr. Critchlow's ministra- 
 tions on her husband. She was glad to do . so ; for Mr. 
 Baines was never to be left alone under any circumstances, 
 and the convenience of being able to rely upon the presence 
 of a staid member of the Pharmaceutical Society for six hours 
 of a given day every week outweighed the slight affront to 
 her prerogatives as wife and house-mistress. Mr. Critchlow 
 was an extremely peculiar man, but when he was in the bed- 
 room she could leave the house with an easy mind. More- 
 over, John Baines enjoyed these Thursday afternoons. For 
 him, there was " none like Charles Critchlow." The two old 
 friends experienced a sort of grim, desiccated happiness, 
 cooped up together in the bedroom, secure from women and 
 fools generally. How they spent the time did not seem to 
 be certainly known, but the impression was that politics 
 occupied them. Undoubtedly Mr. Critchlow was an ex- 
 tremely peculiar man. He was a man of habits. He must 
 always have the same things for his tea. Black-currant jam, 
 for instance. (He called it " preserve.") The idea of offer- 
 ing Mr. Critchlow a tea which did not comprise black-currant 
 jam was inconceivable by the intelligence of St. Luke's 
 Square. Thus for years past, in the fruit-preserving season, 
 when all the house and all the shop smelt richly of fruit boil- 
 ing in sugar, Mrs. Baines had filled an extra number of jars 
 with black-currant jam, " because Mr. Critchlow wouldn't 
 touch any other sort." 
 
 So Sophia, faced with the shut door of the bedroom, went 
 down to the parlour by the shorter route. She knew that on 
 going up again, after tea, she would find the devastated tray 
 on the doormat. 
 
 Constance was helping Mr. Povey to mussels and cockles. 
 And Mr. Povey still wore one of the antimacassars. It must 
 have stuck to his shoulders when he sprang up from the sofa, 
 woollen antimacassars being notoriously parasitic things. 
 Sophia sat down, somewhat self-consciously. The serious 
 Constance was also perturbed. Mr. Povey did not usually 
 take tea in the house on Thursday afternoons ; his practice 
 
THE TOOTH. 39 
 
 was to go out into the great, mysterious world. Never before 
 had he shared a meal with the girls alone. The situation was 
 indubitably unexpected, unforeseen ; it was, too, piquant, 
 and what added to its piquancy was the fact that Constance 
 and Sophia were, somehow, responsible for Mr. Povey. They 
 felt that they were responsible for him. They had offered 
 the practical sympathy of two intelligent and well-trained 
 young women, born nurses by reason of their sex, and Mr. 
 Povey had accepted ; he was now on their hands. Sophia's 
 monstrous, sly operation in Mr. Povey's mouth dia not 
 cause either of them much alarm, Constance having apparently 
 recovered from the first shock of it. They had discussed it 
 in the kitchen while preparing the teas ; Constance's extraor- 
 dinarily severe and dictatorial tone in condemning it had 
 led to a certain heat. But the success of the impudent 
 wrench justified it despite any irrefutable argument to the 
 contrary. Mr. Povey was better already, and he evidently 
 remained in ignorance of his loss. 
 
 " Have some ? " Constance asked of Sophia, with a large 
 spoon hovering over the bowl of shells. 
 
 " Yes, please," said Sophia, positively. 
 
 Constance well knew that she would have some, and had 
 only asked from sheer nervousness. 
 
 " Pass your plate, then." 
 
 Now when everybody was served with mussels, cockles, 
 tea, and toast, and Mr. Povey had been persuaded to cut 
 the crust off his toast, and Constance had, quite unnecessarily, 
 warned Sophia against the deadly green stuff in the mussels, 
 and Constance had further pointed out that the evenings 
 were getting longer, and Mr. Povey had agreed that they 
 were, there remained nothing to say. An irksome silence 
 fell on them all, and no one could lift it off. Tiny clashes of 
 shell and crockery sounded with the terrible clearness of 
 noises heard in the night. Each person avoided the eyes of 
 the others. And both Constance and Sophia kept straighten- 
 ing their bodies at intervals, and expanding their chests, and 
 then looking at their plates ; occasionally a prim cough 
 was discharged. It was a sad example of the difference 
 between young women's dreams of social brilliance and the 
 reality of life. These girls got more and more girlish, until, 
 from being women at the administering of laudanum, they 
 sank back to about eight years of age — perfect children — 
 at the tea-table. 
 
 The tension was snapped by Mr. Povey. " My God ! " 
 he muttered, moved by a startling discovery to this impious 
 and disgraceful oath (he, the pattern and exemplar — and 
 
4 o THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 in the presence of innocent girlhood too !). " I've swallowed 
 it!" 
 
 " Swallowed what, Mr. Povey ? " Constance inquired. 
 
 The tip of Mr. Povey's tongue made a careful voyage of 
 inspection all round the right side of his mouth. 
 
 Oh yes ! " he said, as if solemnly accepting the inevitable. 
 "I've swallowed it ! " 
 
 Sophia's face was now scarlet ; she seemed to be looking 
 for some place to hide it. Constance could not think of 
 anything to say. . 
 
 " That tooth has been loose for two years," said Mr. Povey, 
 " and now I've swallowed it with a mussel." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Povey ! " Constance cried in confusion, and 
 added, " There's one good thing, it can't hurt you any more 
 now." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mr. Povey. " It wasn't that tooth that was 
 hurting me. It's an old stump at the back that's upset 
 me so this last day or two. I wish it had been." 
 
 Sophia had her teacup close to her red face. At these 
 words of Mr. Povey her cheeks seemed to fill out like plump 
 apples. She dashed the cup into its saucer, spilling tea 
 recklessly, and then ran from the room with stifled snorts. 
 
 " Sophia ! " Constance protested. 
 
 " I must just " Sophia incoherently spluttered in the 
 
 doorway. " I shall be all right. Don't 
 
 Constance, who had risen, sat down again. 
 
 II. 
 
 Sophia fled along the passage leading to the shop and 
 took refuge in the cutting-out room, a room which the 
 astonishing architect had devised upon what must have been 
 a backyard of one of the three constituent houses. It was 
 lighted from its roof, and only a wooden partition, eight 
 feet high, separated it from the passage. Here Sophia gave 
 rein to her feelings ; she laughed and cried together, weeping 
 generously into her handkerchief and wildly giggling, in a 
 hysteria which she could not control. The spectacle of 
 Mr. Povey mourning for a tooth which he thought he had 
 swallowed, but which in fact lay all the time in her pocket, 
 seemed to her to be by far the most ridiculous, side-splitting 
 thing that had ever happened or could happen on earth. 
 It utterly overcame her. And when she fancied that she 
 had exhausted and conquered its surpassing ridiculousness, 
 
THE TOOTH. 41 
 
 this ridiculousness seized her again and rolled her anew in 
 depths of mad, trembling laughter. 
 
 Gradually she grew calmer. She heard the parlour door 
 open, and Constance descend the kitchen steps with a 
 rattling tray of tea-things. Tea, then, was finished, without 
 her ! Constance did not remain in the kitchen, because the 
 cups and saucers were left for Maggie to wash up as a fitting 
 coda to Maggie's monthly holiday. The parlour door closed. 
 And the vision of Mr. Povey in his antimacassar swept Sophia 
 off into another convulsion of laughter and tears. Upon 
 this the parlour door opened again, and Sophia choked 
 herself into silence while Constance hastened along the 
 passage. In a minute Constance returned with her woolwork, 
 which she had got from the showroom, and the parlour 
 received her. Not the least curiosity on the part of Constance 
 as to what had become of Sophia ! 
 
 At length Sophia, a faint meditative smile being all that 
 was left of the storm in her, ascended slowly to the show- 
 room, through the shop. Nothing there of interest ! Thence 
 she wandered towards the drawing-room, and encountered 
 Mr. Critchlow's tray on the mat. She picked it up and 
 carried it by way of the showroom and shop down to the 
 kitchen, where she dreamily munched two pieces of toast 
 that had cooled to the consistency of leather. She mounted 
 the stone steps and listened at the door of the parlour. No 
 sound ! This seclusion of Mr. Povey and Constance was 
 really very strange. She roved right round the house, and 
 descended creepingly by the twisted house-stairs, and listened 
 intently at the other door of the parlour. She now de- 
 tected a faint regular snore. Mr. Povey, a prey to laudanum 
 and mussels, was sleeping while Constance worked at her 
 firescreen ! It was now in the highest degree odd, this 
 seclusion of Mr. Povey and Constance ; unlike anything 
 in Sophia's experience ! She wanted to go into the parlour, 
 but she could not bring herself to do so. She crept away 
 again, forlorn and puzzled, and next discovered herself 
 in the bedroom which she shared with Constance at the 
 top of the house ; she lay down in the dusk on the bed 
 and began to read " The Days of Bruce ; " but she read only 
 with her eyes. 
 
 Later, she heard movements on the house-stairs, and the 
 familiar whining creak of the door at the foot thereof. She 
 skipped lightly to the door of the bedroom. 
 
 " Good-night, Mr. Povey. I hope you'll be able to sleep." 
 
 Constance's voice ! 
 
 "It will probably come on again." 
 2a 
 
42 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Mr. Povey's voice, pessimistic ! 
 
 Then the shutting of doors. It was almost dark. She 
 went back to the bed, expecting a visit from Constance. 
 But a clock struck eight, and all the various phenomena 
 connected with the departure of Mr. Critchlow occurred 
 one after another. At the same time Maggie came home 
 from the land of romance. Then long silences ! Constance 
 was now immured with her father, it being her "turn" to 
 nurse. Maggie was washing up in her cave, and Mr. Povey 
 was lost to sight in his bedroom. Then Sophia heard her 
 mother's lively, commanding knock on the King Street 
 door. Dusk had definitely yielded to black night in the 
 bedroom. Sophia dozed and dreamed. When she awoke, 
 her ear caught the sound of knocking. She jumped up, 
 tiptoed to the landing, and looked over the balustrade, 
 whence she had a view of all the first-floor corridor. The 
 gas had been lighted ; through the round aperture at the 
 top of the porcelain globe she could see the wavering flame. 
 It was her mother, still bonneted, who was knocking at the 
 door of Mr. Povey's room. Constance stood in the doorway 
 of her parents' room. Mrs. Baines knocked twice with an 
 interval, and then said to Constance, in a resonant whisper 
 that vibrated up the corridor — 
 
 " He seems to be fast asleep. I'd better not disturb him." 
 
 " But suppose he wants something in the night ? " 
 
 " Well, child, I should hear him moving. Sleep's the best 
 thing for him." 
 
 Mrs. Baines left Mr. Povey to the effects of laudanum, 
 and came along the corridor. She was a stout woman, all 
 black stuff and gold chain, and her skirt more than filled 
 the width of the corridor. Sophia watched her habitual 
 heavy mounting gesture as she climbed the two steps that 
 gave variety to the corridor. At the gas-jet she paused, 
 and, putting her hand to the tap, gazed up into the globe. 
 
 " Where's Sophia ? " she demanded, her eyes fixed on the 
 gas as she lowered the flame. 
 
 " I think she must be in bed, mother," said Constance, 
 nonchalantly. 
 
 The returned mistress was point by point resuming know- 
 ledge and control of that complicated machine— her house- 
 hold. 
 
 Then Constance and her mother disappeared into the 
 bedroom, and the door was shut with a gentle, decisive bang 
 that to the silent watcher on the floor above seemed to create 
 a special excluding intimacy round about the figures of 
 Constance and her father and mother. The watcher won- 
 
THE TOOTH. 43 
 
 dered, with a little prick of jealousy, what they would be dis- 
 cussing in the large bedroom, her father's beard wagging 
 feebly and his long arms on the counterpane, Constance 
 perched at the foot of the bed, and her mother walking to and 
 fro, putting her cameo brooch on the dressing-table or stretch- 
 ing creases out of her gloves. Certainly, in some subtle way, 
 Constance had a standing with her parents which was more 
 confidential than Sophia's. 
 
 III. 
 
 When Constance came to bed, half an hour later, Sophia 
 was already in bed. The room was fairly spacious. It 
 had been the girls' retreat and fortress since their earliest 
 years. Its features seemed to them as natural and un- 
 alterable as the features of a cave to a cave-dweller. It had 
 been repapered twice in their lives, and each papering stood 
 out in their memories like an epoch ; a third epoch was 
 due to the replacing of a drugget by a resplendent old carpet 
 degraded from the drawing-room. There was only one 
 bed, the bedstead being of painted iron ; they never inter- 
 fered with each other in that bed, sleeping with a detach- 
 ment as perfect as if they had slept on opposite sides of St. 
 Luke's Square ; yet if Constance had one night lain down 
 on the half near the window instead of on the half near the 
 door, the secret nature of the universe would have seemed 
 to be altered. The small fire-grate was filled with a mass 
 of shavings of silver paper ; now the rare illnesses which 
 they had suffered were recalled chiefly as periods when that 
 silver paper was crammed into a large slipper-case which 
 hung by the mantelpiece, and a fire of coals unnaturally 
 reigned in its place — the silver paper was part of the orde» 
 of the world. The sash of the window would not work 
 quite properly, owing to a slight subsidence in the wall, 
 and even when the window was fastened there was always 
 a narrow slit to the left hand between the window and it* 
 frame ; through this slit came draughts, and thus very keen 
 frosts were remembered by the nights when Mrs. Baines 
 caused the sash to be forced and kept at its full height by 
 means of wedges — the slit of exposure was part of the ordej 
 of the world. 
 
 They possessed only one bed, one washstand, and on© 
 dressing-table ; but in some other respects they were rather 
 fortunate girls, for they had two mahogany wardrobes ; 
 this mutual independence as regards wardrobes was due 
 
44 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 partly to Mrs. Baines's strong commonsense, and partly to 
 their father's tendency to spoil them a little. They had, 
 moreover, a chest of drawers with a curved front, of which 
 structure Constance occupied two short drawers and one 
 long one, and Sophia two long drawers. On it stood two 
 fancy work-boxes, in which each sister kept jewellery, a 
 savings-bank book, and other treasures, and these boxes 
 were absolutely sacred to their respective owners. They 
 were different, but one was not more magnificent than the 
 other. Indeed, a rigid equality was the rule in the chamber, 
 the single exception being that behind the door were three 
 hooks, of which Constance commanded two. 
 
 " Well," Sophia began, when Constance appeared. " How's 
 darling Mr. Povey ? " She was lying on her back, and 
 smiling at her two hands, which she held up in front of her. 
 
 " Asleep," said Constance. " At least mother thinks so. 
 She says sleep is the best thing for him." 
 
 " ' It will probably come on again,' " said Sophia. 
 
 " What's that you say ? " Constance asked, undressing. 
 
 " ' It will probably come on again.' " 
 
 These words were a quotation from the utterances of 
 darling Mr. Povey on the stairs, and Sophia delivered them 
 with an exact imitation of Mr. Povey 's vocal mannerism. 
 
 " Sophia," said Constance, firmly, approaching the bed. 
 " I wish you wouldn't be so silly ! " She had benevolently 
 ignored the satirical note in Sophia's first remark, but a 
 strong instinct in her rose up and objected to further derision. 
 " Surely you've done enough for one day ! " she added. 
 
 For answer Sophia exploded into violent laughter, which 
 she made no attempt to control. She laughed too long 
 and too freely while Constance stared at her. 
 
 " I don't know what's come over you ! " said Constance. 
 
 " It's only because I can't look at it without simply going 
 off into fits ! " Sophia gasped out. And she held up a tiny 
 object in her left hand. 
 
 Constance started, flushing. " You don't mean to say 
 you've kept it ! " she protested earnestly. " How horrid 
 you are, Sophia ! Give it me at once and let me throw it 
 away. I never heard of such doings. Now give it me ! " 
 
 " No," Sophia objected, still laughing. " I wouldn't part 
 with it for worlds. It's too lovely." 
 
 She had laughed away all her secret resentment against 
 Constance for having ignored her during the whole evening 
 and for being on such intimate terms with their parents. 
 And she was ready to be candidly jolly with Constance. 
 
 " Give it me," said Constance, doggedly. 
 
THE TOOTH. 45 
 
 Sophia hid her hand under the clothes. " You can have 
 his old stump, when it comes out, if you like. But not this. 
 What a pity it's the wrong one ! " 
 
 " Sophia, I'm ashamed of you ! Give it me." 
 
 Then it was that Sophia first perceived Constance's extreme 
 seriousness. She was surprised and a little intimidated by 
 it. For the expression of Constance's face, usually so benign 
 and calm, was harsh, almost fierce. However, Sophia had 
 a great deal of what is called " spirit," and not even ferocity 
 on the face of mild Constance could intimidate her for more 
 than a few seconds. Her gaiety expired and her teeth were 
 hidden. 
 
 " I've said nothing to mother " Constance proceeded. 
 
 " I should hope you haven't," Sophia put in tersely. 
 
 " But I certainly shall if you don't throw that away," 
 Constance finished. 
 
 " You can say what you like," Sophia retorted, adding 
 contemptuously a term of opprobrium which has long since 
 passed out of use : " Cant ! " 
 
 " Will you give it me or won't you ? " 
 
 " No ! " 
 
 It was a battle suddenly engaged in the bedroom. The 
 atmosphere had altered completely with the swiftness of 
 magic. The beauty of Sophia, the angelic tenderness of 
 Constance, and the youthful, naive, innocent charm of both 
 of them, were transformed into something sinister and 
 cruel. Sophia lay back on the pillow amid her dark-brown 
 hair, and gazed with relentless defiance into the angry eyes 
 of Constance, who stood threatening by the bed. They could 
 hear the gas singing over the dressing-table, and their hearts 
 beating the blood wildly in their veins. They ceased to be 
 young without growing old ; the eternal had leapt up in 
 them from its sleep. 
 
 Constance walked away from the bed to the dressing- 
 table and began to loose her hair and brush it, holding back 
 her Ijead, shaking it, and bending forward, in the changeless 
 gesture of that rite. She was so disturbed that she had 
 unconsciously reversed the customary order of the toilette. 
 After a moment Sophia slipped out of bed and, stepping 
 with her bare feet to the chest of drawers, opened her work- 
 box and deposited the fragment of Mr. Povey therein ; she 
 dropped the lid with an uncompromising bang, as if to say, 
 " We shall see if I am to be trod upon, miss ! " Their 
 eyes met again in the looking-glass. Then Sophia got back 
 into bed. 
 
 Five minutes later, when her hair was quite finished, 
 
46 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Constance knelt down and said her prayers. Having said 
 her prayers, she went straight to Sophia's work-box, opened 
 it, seized the fragment of Mr. Povey, ran to the window, and 
 frantically pushed the fragment through the slit into the 
 square. 
 
 " There ! " she exclaimed nervously. 
 
 She had accomplished this inconceivable transgression of 
 the code of honour, beyond all undoing, before Sophia could 
 recover from the stupefaction of seeing her sacred work-box 
 impudently violated. In a single moment one of Sophia's 
 chief ideals had been smashed utterly, and that by the sweet- 
 est, gentlest creature she had ever known. It was a reveal- 
 ing experience for Sophia — and also for Constance. And 
 it frightened them equally. Sophia, staring at the text, 
 " Thou God seest me," framed in straw over the chest of 
 drawers, did not stir. She was defeated, and so profoundly 
 moved in her defeat that she did not even reflect upon the 
 obvious inefficacy of illuminated texts as a deterrent from 
 evil-doing. Not that she cared a fig for the fragment of 
 Mr. Povey ! It was the moral aspect of the affair, and the 
 astounding, inexplicable development in Constance's char- 
 acter, that staggered her into silent acceptance of the inevi- 
 table. 
 
 Constance, trembling, took pains to finish undressing with 
 dignified deliberation. Sophia's behaviour under the blow 
 seemed too good to be true ; but it gave her courage. At 
 length she turned out the gas and lay down by Sophia. And 
 there was a little shuffling, and then stillness for a while. 
 
 " And if you want to know," said Constance in a tone that 
 mingled amicableness with righteousness, '* mother's decided 
 with Aunt Harriet that we are both to leave school next term." 
 

 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A BATTLE. 
 I. 
 
 The day sanctioned by custom in the Five Towns for th« 
 making of pastry is Saturday. But Mrs. Baines made her 
 pastry on Friday, because Saturday afternoon was, of course, 
 a busy time in the shop. It is true that Mrs. Baines made her 
 pastry in the morning, and that Saturday morning in the shop 
 was scarcely different from any other morning. Neverthe- 
 less, Mrs. Baines made her pastry on Friday morning instead 
 of Saturday morning because Saturday afternoon was a busy 
 time in the shop. She was thus free to do her marketing with- 
 out breath-taking flurry on Saturday morning. 
 
 On the morning after Sophia's first essay in dentistry, 
 therefore, Mrs. Baines was making her pastry in the under- 
 ground kitchen. This kitchen, Maggie's cavern-home, had 
 the mystery of a church, and on dark days it had the mystery 
 of a crypt. The stone steps leading down to it from the level 
 of earth were quite unlighted. You felt for them with the feet 
 of faith, and when you arrived in the kitchen, the kitchen, 
 by contrast, seemed luminous and gay ; the architect may 
 have considered and intended this effect of the staircase. 
 The kitchen saw day through a wide, shallow window whose 
 top touched the ceiling and whose bottom had been out of 
 the girls' reach until long after they had begun to go to 
 school. Its panes were small, and about half of them were of 
 the " knot " kind, through which no object could be distin- 
 guished ; the other half were of a later date, and stood for 
 the march of civilization. The view from the window con- 
 sisted of the vast plate-glass windows of the newly built Sun 
 vaults, and of passing legs and skirts. A strong wire grating 
 prevented any excess of illumination, and also protected the 
 glass from the caprices of wayfarers in King Street. Boys 
 
48 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 had a habit of stopping to kick with their full strength at the 
 grating. 
 
 Forget-me-nots on a brown field ornamented the walls of 
 the kitchen. Its ceiling was irregular and grimy, and a beam 
 ran across it ; in this beam were two hooks ; from these 
 hooks had once depended the ropes of a swing, much used by 
 Constance and Sophia in the old days before they were grown 
 up. A large range stood out from the wall between the stairs 
 and the window. The rest of the furniture comprised a 
 table — against the wall opposite the range — a cupboard, and 
 two Windsor chairs. Opposite the foot of the steps was a 
 doorway, without a door, leading to two larders, dimmer even 
 than the kitchen, vague retreats made visible by whitewash, 
 where bowls of milk, dishes of cold bones, and remainders of 
 fruit-pies, reposed on stillages ; in the corner nearest the 
 kitchen was a great steen in which the bread was kept. An- 
 other doorway on the other side of the kitchen led to the first 
 coal-cellar, where was also the slopstone and tap, and thence 
 a tunnel took you to the second coal-cellar, where coke and 
 ashes were stored ; the tunnel proceeded to a distant, infini- 
 tesimal yard, and from the yard, by ways behind Mr. Critch- 
 low's shop, you could finally emerge, astonished, upon 
 Brougham Street. The sense of the vast-obscure of those 
 regions which began at the top of the kitchen steps and ended 
 in black corners of larders or abruptly in the common daili- 
 ness of Brougham Street, a sense which Constance and Sophia 
 had acquired in infancy, remained with them almost unim- 
 paired as they grew old. 
 
 Mrs. Baines wore black alpaca, shielded by a white apron 
 whose string drew attention to the amplitude of her waist. 
 Her sleeves were turned up, and her hands, as far as the 
 knuckles, covered with damp flour. Her ageless smooth 
 paste-board occupied a corner of the table, and near it were 
 her paste-roller, butter, some pie-dishes, shredded apples, 
 sugar, and other things. Those rosy hands were at work 
 among a sticky substance in a large white bowl. 
 
 " Mother, are you there ? " she heard a voice from above. 
 
 " Yes, my chuck." 
 
 Footsteps apparently reluctant and hesitating clinked on 
 the stairs, and Sophia entered the kitchen. 
 
 " Put this curl straight," said Mrs. Baines, lowering her 
 head slightly and holding up her floured hands, which might 
 not touch anything but flour. " Thank you. It bothered 
 me. And now stand out of my light. I'm in a hurry. I 
 must get into the shop so that I can send Mr. Povey off to the 
 dentist's. What is Constance doing ? " 
 
A BATTLE. 49 
 
 " Helping Maggie to make Mr. Povey's bed." 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 Though fat, Mrs. Baines was a comely woman, with fine 
 brown hair, and confidently calm eyes that indicated her belief 
 in her own capacity to accomplish whatever she could be 
 called on to accomplish. She looked neither more nor less 
 than her age, which was forty-five. She was not a native of 
 the district, having been culled by her husband from the 
 moorland town of Axe, twelve miles off. Like nearly all 
 women who settle in a strange land upon marriage, at the 
 bottom of her heart she had considered herself just a trifle 
 superior to the strange land and its ways. This feeling, 
 confirmed by long experience, had never left her. It was 
 this feeling which induced her to continue making her own 
 pastry — with two thoroughly trained " great girls " in the 
 house ! Constance could make good pastry, but it was not 
 her mother's pastry. In pastry-making everything can be 
 taught except the " hand," light and firm, which wields the 
 roller. One is born with this hand, or without it. And if 
 one is born without it, the highest flights of pastry are impos- 
 sible. Constance was born without it. There were days when 
 Sophia seemed to possess it ; but there were other days when 
 Sophia's pastry was uneatable by any one except Maggie. 
 Thus Mrs. Baines, though intensely proud and fond of her 
 daughters, had justifiably preserved a certain condescension 
 towards them. She honestly doubted whether either of them 
 would develop into the equal of their mother. 
 
 " Now you little vixen ! " she exclaimed. Sophia was steal- 
 ing and eating slices of half-cooked apple. " This comes of 
 having no breakfast ! And why didn't you come down to 
 supper last night ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I forgot." 
 
 Mrs. Baines scrutinized the child's eyes, which met hers 
 with a sort of diffident boldness. She knew everything that 
 a mother can know of a daughter, and she was sure that 
 Sophia had no cause to be indisposed. Therefore she scru- 
 tinized those eyes with a faint apprehension. 
 
 "If you can't find anything better to do," said she, " but- 
 ter me the inside of this dish. Are your hands clean ? No, 
 better not touch it." 
 
 Mrs. Baines was now at the stage of depositing little pats of 
 butter in rows .on a large plain of paste. The best fresh 
 butter ! Cooking butter, to say naught of lard, was unknown 
 in that kitchen on Friday mornings. She doubled the ex- 
 panse of paste on itself and rolled the butter in — supreme 
 operation ! 
 
50 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Constance has told you about leaving school ? " said Mrs. 
 Baines, in the vein of small-talk, as she trimmed the paste 
 to the shape of a pie-dish. 
 
 " Yes," Sophia replied shortly. Then she moved away 
 from the table to the range. There was a toasting-fork on 
 the rack, and she began to play with it. 
 
 " Well, are you glad ? Your aunt Harriet thinks you are 
 quite old enough to leave. And as we'd decided in any case 
 that Constance was to leave, it's really much simpler that 
 you should both leave together." 
 
 " Mother," said Sophia, rattling the toasting-fork, " what 
 am I going to do after I've left school ? " 
 
 " I hope," Mrs. Baines answered with that sententiousness 
 which even the cleverest of parents are not always clever 
 enough to deny themselves, " I hope that both of you will do 
 what you can to -help your mother — and father," she added. 
 
 " Yes," said Sophia, irritated. " But what am I going to 
 do ? " 
 
 " That must be considered. As Constance is to learn the 
 millinery, I've been thinking that you might begin to make 
 yourself useful in the underwear, gloves, silks, and so on. 
 Then between you, you would one day be able to manage quite 
 nicely all that side of the shop, and I should be " 
 
 * I don't want to go into the shop, mother." 
 
 This interruption was made in a voice apparently cold and 
 inimical. But Sophia trembled with nervous excitement as 
 she uttered the words. Mrs. Baines gave a brief glance at 
 her, unobserved by the child, whose face was towards the 
 fire. She deemed herself a finished expert in the reading of 
 Sophia's moods ; nevertheless, as she looked at that straight 
 back and proud head, she had no suspicion that the whole 
 essence and being of Sophia was silently but intensely im- 
 ploring sympathy. 
 
 " I wish you would be quiet with that fork," said Mrs. 
 Baines, with the curious, grim politeness which often charac- 
 terized her relations with her daughters. 
 
 The toasting-fork fell on the brick floor, after having re- 
 bounded from the ash-tin. Sophia hurriedly replaced it on 
 the rack. 
 
 " Then what shall you do ? " Mrs. Baines proceeded, con- 
 quering the annoyance caused by the toasting-fork. " I 
 think it's me that should ask you instead of you asking me. 
 What shall you do ? Your father and I were both hoping 
 you would take kindly to the shop and try to repay us for all 
 the — " 
 
 Mrs. Baines was unfortunate in her phrasing that morning. 
 
A BATTLE. 51 
 
 She happened to be, in truth, rather an exceptional parent, 
 but that morning she seemed unable to avoid the absurd 
 pretensions which parents of those days assumed quite sin- 
 cerely and which every good child with meekness accepted. 
 
 Sophia was not a good child, and she obstinately denied in 
 her heart the cardinal principle of family life, namely, that 
 the parent has conferred on the offspring a supreme favour 
 by bringing it into the world. She interrupted her mother 
 again, rudely. 
 
 " I don't want to leave school at all," she said passion- 
 ately. 
 
 " But you will have to leave school sooner or later," argued 
 Mrs. Baines, with an air of quiet reasoning, of putting her- 
 self on a level with Sophia. " You can't stay at school for 
 ever, my pet, can you ? Out of my way I " 
 
 She hurried across the kitchen with a pie, which she whipped 
 into the oven, shutting the iron door with a careful gesture. 
 
 " Yes," said Sophia. " I should like to be a teacher. 
 That's what I want to be." 
 
 The tap in the coal-cellar, out of repair, could be heard 
 distinctly and systematically dropping water into a jar on the 
 slopstone. 
 
 " A school-teacher ? " inquired Mrs. Baines. 
 
 ft Of course. What other kind is there ? " said Sophia, 
 sharply. " With Miss Chetwynd." 
 
 " I don't think your father would like that," Mrs. Baines 
 replied. " I'm sure he wouldn't like it." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " It wouldn't be quite suitable." 
 
 " Why not, mother ? " the girl demanded with a sort of 
 ferocity. She had now quitted the range. A man's feet 
 twinkled past the window. 
 
 Mrs. Baines was startled and surprised. Sophia's attitude 
 was really very trying ; her manners deserved correction. 
 But it was not these phenomena which seriously affected Mrs. 
 Baines ; she was used to them and had come to regard them 
 as somehow the inevitable accompaniment of Sophia's beauty, 
 as the penalty of that surpassing charm which occasionally 
 emanated from the girl like a radiance. What startled and 
 surprised Mrs. Baines was the perfect and unthinkable mad- 
 ness of Sophia's infantile scheme. It was a revelation to 
 Mrs. Baines. Why in the name of heaven had the girl taken 
 such a notion into her head ? Orphans, widows, and spin- 
 sters of a certain age suddenly thrown on the world — these 
 were the women who, naturally, became teachers, because 
 they had to become something. But that the daughter of 
 
52 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 comfortable parents, surrounded by love and the pleasures 
 of an excellent home, should wish to teach in a school was 
 beyond the horizons of Mrs. Baines's common sense. Com- 
 fortable parents of to-day who have a difficulty in sympathiz- 
 ing with Mrs. Baines, should picture what their feelings would 
 be if their Sophias showed a rude desire to adopt the vocation 
 of chauffeur. 
 
 " It would take you too much away from home," said Mrs. 
 Baines, achieving a second pie. 
 
 She spoke softly. The experience of being Sophia's mother 
 for nearly sixteen years had not been lost on Mrs. Baines, 
 and though she was now discovering undreamt-of dangers in 
 Sophia's erratic temperament, she kept her presence of mind 
 sufficiently well to behave with diplomatic smoothness. It 
 was undoubtedly humiliating to a mother to be forced to use 
 diplomacy in dealing with a girl in short sleeves. In her day 
 mothers had been autocrats. But Sophia was Sophia. 
 
 " What if it did ? " Sophia curtly demanded. 
 
 " And there's no opening in Bursley," said Mrs. Baines. 
 
 " Miss Chetwynd would have me, and then after a time I 
 could go to her sister." 
 
 " Her sister ? What sister ? " 
 
 " Her sister that has a big school in London somewhere." 
 
 Mrs. Baines covered her unprecedented emotions by gazing 
 into the oven at the first pie. The pie was doing well, under 
 all the circumstances. In those few seconds she reflected 
 rapidly and decided that to a desperate disease a desperate 
 remedy must be applied. 
 
 London ! She herself had never been further than Man- 
 chester. London, " after a time " ! No, diplomacy would 
 be misplaced in this crisis of Sophia's development ! 
 
 " Sophia," she said, in a changed and solemn voice, fronting 
 her daughter, and holding away from her apron those floured, 
 ringed hands, " I don't know what has come over you. Truly 
 I don't I Your father and I are prepared to put up with a 
 certain amount, but the line must be drawn. The fact is, 
 we've spoilt you, and instead of getting better as you grow up, 
 you're getting worse. Now let me hear no more of this, 
 please. I wish you would imitate your sister a little more. 
 Of course if you won't do your share in the shop, no one can 
 make you. If you choose to be an idler about the house, we 
 shall have to endure it. We can only advise you for your 
 own good. But as for this ..." She stopped, and let 
 silence speak, and then finished : " Let me hear no more 
 of it." 
 
 It was a powerful and impressive speech enunciated clearly 
 
A BATTLE. 53 
 
 in such a tone as Mrs. Baines had not employed since dismiss- 
 ing a young lady assistant five years ago for light conduct. 
 
 " But, mother " 
 
 A commotion of pails resounded at the top of the stone 
 steps. It was Maggie in descent from the bedrooms. Now, 
 the Baines family passed its life in doing its best to keep its 
 affairs to itself, the assumption being that Maggie and all the 
 shop-staff (Mr. Povey possibly excepted) were obsessed by a 
 ravening appetite for that which did not concern them. 
 Therefore the voices of the Baineses always died away or fell 
 to a hushed, mysterious whisper whenever the foot of the 
 eavesdropper was heard. 
 
 Mrs. Baines put a floured finger to her double chin. " That 
 will do," said she, with finality. 
 
 Maggie appeared, and Sophia, with a brusque precipitation 
 of herself, vanished upstairs. 
 
 II. 
 
 " Now, really, Mr. Povey, this is not like you," said Mrs. 
 Baines, who, on her way into the shop, had discovered the 
 Indispensable in the cutting-out room. 
 
 It is true that the cutting-out room was almost Mr. Povey 's 
 sanctum, whither he retired from time to time to cut out suits 
 of clothes and odd garments for the tailoring department. 
 It is true that the tailoring department flourished with orders, 
 employing several tailors who crossed legs in their own homes, 
 and that appointments were continually being made with 
 customers for trying-on in that room. But these considera- 
 tions did not affect Mrs. Baines's attitude of disapproval. 
 
 "I'm just cutting out that suit for the minister," said Mr. 
 Povey. 
 
 The Reverend Mr. Murley, superintendent of the Wesleyan 
 Methodist circuit, called on Mr. Baines every week. On a 
 recent visit Mr. Baines had remarked that the parson's coat 
 was ageing into green, and had commanded that a new suit 
 should be built and presented to Mr. Murley. Mr. Murley, 
 who had a genuine mediaeval passion for souls, and who spent 
 his money and health freely in gratifying the passion, had 
 accepted the offer strictly on behalf of Christ, and had care- 
 fully explained to Mr. Povey Christ's use for multifarious 
 pockets. 
 
 " I see you are," said Mrs. Baines tartly. " But that's no 
 reason why you should be without a coat — and in this cold 
 room too. You with toothache ! " 
 
54 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 The fact was that Mr. Povey always doffed his coat when 
 cutting out. Instead of a coat he wore a tape-measure. 
 
 " My tooth doesn't hurt me," said he, sheepishly, dropping 
 the great scissors and picking up a cake of chalk. 
 
 " Fiddlesticks ! " said Mrs. Baines. 
 
 This exclamation shocked Mr. Povey. It was not unknown 
 on the lips of Mrs. Baines, but she usually reserved it for mem- 
 bers of her own sex. Mr. Povey could not recall that she 
 had ever applied it to any statement of his. " What's the 
 matter with the woman ? " he thought. The redness of her 
 face did not help him to answer the question, for her face was 
 always red after the operations of Friday in the kitchen. 
 
 " You men are all alike," Mrs. Baines continued. " The 
 very thought of the dentist's cures you. Why don't you go 
 in at once to Mr. Critchlow and have it out — like a man ? 
 
 Mr. Critchlow extracted teeth, and his shop sign said 
 " Bonesetter and chemist." But Mr. Povey had his views. 
 
 " I make no account of Mr. Critchlow as a dentist," 
 said he. 
 
 " Then for goodness* sake go up to Oulsnam's." 
 
 " When ? I can't very well go now, and to-morrow is 
 Saturday." 
 
 " Why can't you go now ? " 
 
 " Well, of course, I could go now," he admitted. 
 
 "Let me advise you to go, then, and don't come back 
 with that tooth in your head. I shall be having you laid 
 up next. Show some pluck, do ! " 
 
 " Oh ! pluck — ! " he protested, hurt. 
 
 At that moment Constance came down the passage singing. 
 
 " Constance, my pet ! " Mrs. Baines called. 
 
 " Yes, mother.' She put her head into the room. " Oh ! " 
 Mr. Povey was assuming his coat. 
 
 " Mr. Povey is going to the dentist's." 
 
 " Yes, I'm going at once," Mr. Povey confirmed. 
 
 " Oh ! I'm so glad ! " Constance exclaimed. Her face 
 expressed a pure sympathy, uncomplicated by critical senti- 
 ments. Mr. Povey rapidly bathed in that sympathy, and 
 then decided that he must show himself a man of oak and iron. 
 
 " It's always best to get these things done with," said he, 
 with stern detachment. " I'll just slip my overcoat on." 
 
 " Here it is," said Constance, quickly. Mr. Povey's over- 
 coat and hat were hung on a hook immediately outside the 
 room, in the passage. She gave him the overcoat, anxious 
 to be of service. 
 
 " I didn't call you in here to be Mr. Povey's valet," said 
 Mrs. Baines to herself with mild grimness ; and aloud : "I 
 
A BATTLE. 55 
 
 can't stay in the shop long, Constance, but you can be there, 
 can't you, till Mr. Povey comes back ? And if anything hap- 
 pens run upstairs and tell me." 
 
 " Yes, mother," Constance eagerly consented. She hesi- 
 tated and then turned to obey at once. 
 
 " I want to speak to you first, my pet," Mrs. Baines stopped 
 her. And her tone was peculiar, charged with import, confi- 
 dential, and therefore very flattering to Constance. 
 
 " I think I'll go out by the side-door," said Mr. Povey. 
 " It'll be nearer." 
 
 This was truth. He would save about ten yards, in two 
 miles, by going out through the side-door instead of through 
 the shop. Who could have guessed that he was ashamed to 
 be seen going to the dentist's, afraid lest, if he went through 
 the shop, Mrs. Baines might follow him and utter some remark 
 prejudicial to his dignity before the assistants ? (Mrs. Baines 
 could have guessed, and did.) 
 
 " You won't want that tape-measure," said Mrs. Baines, 
 dryly, as Mr. Povey dragged open the side-door. The ends of 
 the forgotten tape-measure were dangling beneath coat and 
 overcoat. 
 
 " Oh ! " Mr. Povey scowled at his forgetfulness. 
 
 "I'll put it in its place," said Constance, offering to receive 
 the tape-measure. 
 
 " Thank you," said Mr. Povey, gravely. " I don't sup- 
 pose they'll be long over my bit of a job," he added, with a 
 difficult, miserable smile. 
 
 Then he went off down King Street, with an exterior of gay 
 briskness and dignified joy in the fine May morning. But 
 there was no May morning in his cowardly human heart. 
 
 " Hi I Povey ! " cried a voice from the Square. 
 
 But Mr. Povey disregarded all appeals. He had put his 
 hand to the plough, and he would not look back. 
 
 " Hi ! Povey ! " 
 
 Useless ! 
 
 Mrs. Baines and Constance were both at the door. A 
 middle-aged man was crossing the road from Boulton Terrace, 
 the lofty erection of new shops which the envious rest of the 
 Square had decided to call " showy." He waved a hand to 
 Mrs. Baines, who kept the door open. 
 
 " It's Dr. Harrop," she said to Constance. " I shouldn't 
 be surprised if that baby's come at last, and he wanted to 
 tell Mr. Povey." 
 
 Constance blushed, full of pride. Mrs. Povey, wife of 
 " our Mr. Povey 's " renowned cousin, the high-class confec- 
 tioner and baker in Boulton Terrace, was a frequent subject 
 
56 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 of discussion in the Baines family, but this was absolutely 
 the first time that Mrs. Baines had acknowledged, in presence 
 of Constance, the marked and growing change which had 
 characterized Mrs. Povey's condition during recent months. 
 Such frankness on the part of her mother, coming after the 
 decision about leaving school, proved indeed that Constance 
 had ceased to be a mere girl. 
 
 " Good morning, doctor." 
 
 The doctor, who carried a little bag and wore riding- 
 breeches (he was the last doctor in Bursley to abandon the 
 saddle for the dog-cart), saluted and straightened his high, 
 black stock. 
 
 " Morning ! Morning, missy ! Well, it's a boy." 
 
 " What ? Yonder ? " asked Mrs. Baines, indicating the 
 confectioner's. 
 
 Dr. Harrop nodded. " I wanted to inform him," said he, 
 jerking his shoulder in the direction of the swaggering coward. 
 
 " What did I tell you, Constance ? " said Mrs. Baines, 
 turning to her daughter. 
 
 Constance's confusion was equal to her pleasure. The alert 
 doctor had halted at the foot of the two steps, and with one 
 hand in the pocket of his " full-fall " breeches, he gazed up, 
 smiling, out of little eyes, at the ample matron and the slender 
 virgin. 
 
 " Yes," he said. " Been up most of th' night. Difficult ! 
 Difficult ! " 
 
 " It's all right, I hope ? " 
 
 " Oh yes. Fine child ! Fine child ! But he put his 
 mother to some trouble, for all that. Nothing fresh ? " 
 This time he lifted his eyes to indicate Mr. Baines's bedroom. 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Baines, with a different expression. 
 
 " Keeps cheerful ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Good ! A very good morning to you." 
 
 He strode off towards his house, which was lower down 
 the street. 
 
 " I hope she'll turn over a new leaf now," observed Mrs. 
 Baines to Constance as she closed the door. Constance knew 
 that her mother was referring to the confectioner's wife ; 
 she gathered that the hope was slight in the extreme. 
 
 " What did you want to speak to me about, mother ? " 
 she asked, as a way out of her delicious confusion. 
 
 " Shut that door," Mrs. Baines replied, pointing to the door 
 which led to the passage ; and while Constance obeyed, Mrs. 
 Baines herself shut the staircase-door. She then said, in a 
 low, guarded voice — 
 
A BATTLE. 57 
 
 " What's all this about Sophia wanting to be a school- 
 teacher ? " 
 
 " Wanting to be a school-teacher ? " Constance repeated, in 
 tones of amazement. 
 
 " Yes. Hasn't she said anything to you ? " 
 
 " Not a word ! " 
 
 " Well, I never ! She wants to keep on with Miss Chet- 
 wynd and be a teacher." Mrs. Baines had half a mind to add 
 that Sophia had mentioned London. But she restrained 
 herself. There are some things which one cannot bring one's 
 self to say. She added, " Instead of going, into the shop I " 
 
 " I never heard of such a thing ! " Constance murmured 
 brokenly, in the excess of her astonishment. She was rolling 
 up Mr. Povey's tape-measure. 
 
 " Neither did 1 1 " said Mrs. Baines. 
 
 " And shall you let her, mother ? " 
 
 " Neither your father nor I would ever dream of it ! " Mrs. 
 Baines replied, with calm and yet terrible decision. " I only 
 mentioned it to you because I thought Sophia would have told 
 you something." 
 
 " No, mother ! " 
 
 As Constance put Mr. Povey's tape-measure neatly away 
 in its drawer under the cutting-out counter, she thought how 
 serious life was — what with babies and Sophias. She was 
 very proud of her mother's confidence in her ; this simple 
 pride filled her ardent breast with a most agreeable commo- 
 tion. And she wanted to help everybody, to show in some 
 way how much she sympathized with and loved everybody. 
 Even the madness of Sophia did not weaken her longing to 
 comfort Sophia. 
 
 III. 
 
 That afternoon there was a search for Sophia, whom no one 
 had seen since dinner. She was discovered by her mother, 
 sitting alone and unoccupied in the drawing-room. The cir- 
 cumstance was in itself sufficiently peculiar, for on weekdays 
 the drawing-room was never used, even by the girls during 
 their holidays, except for the purpose of playing the piano. 
 However, Mrs. Baines offered no comment on Sophia's geo- 
 graphical situation, nor on her idleness. 
 
 " My dear," she said, standing at the door, with a self-con- 
 scious effort to behave as though nothing had happened, "will 
 you come and sit with your father a bit ? " 
 
 " Yes, mother," answered Sophia, with a sort of cold 
 alacrity. 
 
58 TrfE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Sophia is coming, father," said Mrs. Baines at the open 
 door of the bedroom, which was at right-angles with, and close 
 to, the drawing-room door. Then she surged swishing along 
 the corridor and went into the showroom, whither she had 
 been called. 
 
 Sophia passed to the bedroom, the eternal prison of John 
 Baines. Although, on account of his nervous restlessness, 
 Mr. Baines was never left alone,' it was not a part of the usual 
 duty of the girls to sit with him. The person who undertook 
 the main portion of the vigils was a certain Aunt Maria — 
 whom the girls knew to be not a real aunt, not a powerful, 
 effective aunt like Aunt Harriet of Axe — but a poor second 
 cousin of John Baines ; one of those necessitous, pitiful rela- 
 tives who so often make life difficult for a great family in a 
 small town. The existence of Aunt Maria, after being rather 
 a " trial " to the Baineses, had for twelve years past devel- 
 oped into something absolutely " providential " for them. 
 (It is to be remembered that in those days Providence was still 
 busying himself with everybody's affairs, and foreseeing the 
 future in the most extraordinary manner. Thus, having 
 foreseen that John Baines would have a " stroke " and need 
 a faithful, tireless nurse, he had begun fifty years in advance 
 by creating Aunt Maria, and had kept her carefully in misfor- 
 tune's way, so that at the proper moment she would be ready 
 to cope with the stroke. Such at least is the only theory 
 which will explain the use by the Baineses, and indeed by all 
 thmking Bursley, of the word " providential " in connection 
 with Aunt Maria.) She was a shrivelled little woman, capable 
 of sitting twelve hours a day in a bedroom and thriving on 
 the regime. At nights she went home to her little cottage in 
 Brougham Street ; she had her Thursday afternoons and 
 generally her Sundays, and during the school vacations she 
 was supposed to come only when she felt inclined, or when 
 the cleaning of her cottage permitted her to come. Hence, 
 in holiday seasons, Mr. Baines weighed more heavily on his 
 household than at other times, and his nurses relieved each 
 other according to the contingencies of the moment rather 
 than by a set programme of hours. 
 
 The tragedy in ten thousand acts of which that bedroom 
 was the scene* almost entirely escaped Sophia's perception, as 
 it did Constance's. Sophia went into the bedroom as though 
 it were a mere bedroom, with its majestic mahogany furni- 
 ture, its crimson rep curtains (edged with gold), and its white, 
 heavily tasselled counterpane. She was aged four when John 
 Baines had suddenly been seized with giddiness on the steps 
 of his shop, and had fallen, and, without losing consciousness, 
 
A BATTLE. 59 
 
 had been transformed from John Baines into a curious and 
 pathetic survival of John Baines. She had no notion of the 
 thrill which ran through the town on that night when it was 
 known that John Baines had had a stroke, and that his left 
 arm and left leg and his right eyelid were paralyzed, and 
 that the active member of the Local Board, the orator, the 
 religious worker, the very life of the town's life, was perma- 
 nently done for. She had never heard of the crisis through 
 which her mother, assisted by Aunt Harriet, had passed, and 
 out of which she had triumphantly emerged. She was not 
 yet old enough even to suspect it. She possessed only the 
 vaguest memory of her father before he had finished with the 
 world. She knew him simply as an organism on a bed, 
 whose left side was wasted, whose eyes were often inflamed, 
 whose mouth was crooked, who had no creases from the nose 
 to the corners of the mouth like other people, who experi- 
 enced difficulty in eating because the food would somehow 
 get between his gums and his cheek, who slept a great deal 
 but was excessively fidgety while awake, who seemed to hear 
 what was said to him a long time after it was uttered, as if the 
 sense had to travel miles by labyrinthine passages to his 
 brain, and who talked very, very slowly in a weak, trembling 
 voice. 
 
 And she had an image of that remote brain as something 
 with a red spot on it, for once Constance had said : " Mother, 
 why did father have a stroke ? " and Mrs. Baines had replied : 
 " It was a haemorrhage of the brain, my dear, here " — putting 
 a thimbled finger on a particular part of Sophia's head. 
 
 Not merely had Constance and Sophia never really felt 
 their father's tragedy ; Mrs. Baines herself had largely lost 
 the sense of it — such is the effect of use. Even the ruined 
 organism only remembered fitfully and partially that it had 
 once been John Baines. And if Mrs. Baines had not, by the 
 habit of years, gradually built up a gigantic fiction that the 
 organism remained ever the supreme consultative head of 
 the family ; if Mr. Critchlow had not obstinately continued 
 to treat it as a crony, the mass of living and dead nerves 
 on the rich Victorian bedstead would have been of no more 
 account than some Aunt Maria in similar case. These two 
 persons, his wife and his friend, just managed to keep him 
 morally alive by indefatigably feeding his importance and his 
 dignity. The feat was a miracle of stubborn, self-deceiving, 
 splendidly blind devotion, and incorrigible pride. 
 
 When Sophia entered the room, the paralytic followed her 
 with his nervous gaze until she had sat down on the end of 
 the sofa at the foot of the bed. He seemed to study her for 
 
60 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 a long time, and then he murmured in his slow, enfeebled, 
 irregular voice : 
 
 " Is that Sophia ? " . 
 
 " Yes, father," she answered cheerfully. 
 
 And after another pause, the old man said : " Ay ! It's 
 Sophia." 
 
 And later : " Your mother said she should send ye." 
 
 Sophia saw that this was one of his bad, dull days. He 
 had, occasionally, days of comparative nimbleness, when his 
 wits seized almost easily the meanings of external phenomena. 
 
 Presently his sallow face and long white beard began to 
 slip down the steep slant of the pillows, and a troubled look 
 came into his left eye. Sophia rose, and, putting her hands 
 under his armpits, lifted him higher on the bed. He was not 
 heavy, but only a strong girl of her years could have done it. 
 
 " Ay ! " he muttered. " That's it. That's it." 
 
 And, with his controllable right hand, he took her hand as 
 she stood by the bed. She was so young and fresh, such an 
 incarnation of the spirit of health, and he was so far gone in 
 decay and corruption, that there seemed in this contact of 
 body with body something unnatural and repulsive. But 
 Sophia did not so feel it. 
 
 Sophia," he addressed her, and made preparatory noises 
 in his throat while she waited. 
 
 He continued after an interval, now clutching her arm, 
 " Your mother's been telling me you don't want to go in the 
 shop." 
 
 She turned her eyes on him, and his anxious, dim gaze met 
 hers. She nodded. 
 
 " Nay, Sophia," he mumbled, with the extreme of slowness. 
 " I'm surprised at ye . . . Trade's bad, bad ! Ye know 
 trade's bad ? " He was still clutching her arm. 
 
 She nodded. She was, in fact, aware of the badness of 
 trade, caused by a vague war in the United States. The 
 words " North " and " South " had a habit of recurring in the 
 conversation of adult persons. That was all she knew, 
 though people were starving in the Five Towns as they were 
 starving in Manchester. 
 
 " There's your mother," his thought struggled on, like an 
 aged horse over a hilly road. " There's your mother ! " he 
 repeated, as if wishful to direct Sophia's attention to the spec- 
 tacle of her mother. " Working hard ! Con — Constance 
 and you must help her. . . . Trade's bad ! What can I 
 do . . . lying here ? " 
 
 The heat from his dry fingers was warming her arm. She 
 wanted to move, but she could not have withdrawn her arm 
 
A BATTLE. 61 
 
 without appearing impatient. For a similar reason she 
 would not avert her glance. A deepening flush increased the 
 lustre of her immature loveliness as she bent over him. But 
 though it was so close he did not feel that radiance. He had 
 long outlived a susceptibility to the strange influences of 
 youth and beauty. 
 
 " Teaching ! " he muttered. "Nay,nay ! I canna' allow that." 
 
 Then his white beard rose at the tip as he looked up at the 
 ceiling above his head, reflectively. 
 
 '• You understand me ? " he questioned finally. 
 
 She nodded again ; he loosed her arm, and she turned away. 
 She could not have spoken. Glittering tears enriched her 
 eyes. She was saddened into a profound and sudden grief 
 by the ridiculousness of the scene. She had youth, physical 
 perfection ; she brimmed with energy, with the sense of vital 
 power ; all existence lay before her ; when she put her lips 
 together she felt capable of outvying no matter whom in 
 fortitude of resolution. She had always hated the shop. 
 She did not understand how her mother and Constance could 
 bring themselves to be deferential and flattering to every cus- 
 tomer that entered. No, she did not understand it ; but 
 her mother (though a proud woman) and Constance seemed to 
 practise such behaviour so naturally, so unquestionably, that 
 she had never imparted to either of them her feelings ; she 
 guessed that she would not be comprehended. But long ago 
 she had decided that she would never ■' go into the shop." 
 She knew that she would be expected to do something, and 
 she had fixed on teaching as the one possibility. These de- 
 cisions had formed part of her inner life for years past. She 
 had not mentioned them, being secretive and scarcely anxious 
 for unpleasantness. But she had been slowly preparing her- 
 self to mention them. The extraordinary announcement 
 that she was to leave school at the same time as Constance 
 had taken her unawares, before the preparations ripening in 
 her mind were complete — before, as it were, she had girded 
 up her loins for the fray. She had been caught unready, and 
 the opposing forces had obtained the advantage of her. 
 But did they suppose she was beaten ? 
 
 No argument from her mother ! No hearing, even ! Just 
 a curt and haughty " Let me hear no more of this " I And so 
 the great desire of her life, nourished year after year in her 
 inmost bosom, was to be flouted and sacrificed with a word ! 
 Her mother did not appear ridiculous in the affair, for her 
 mother was a genuine power, commanding by turns genuine 
 love and genuine hate, and always, till then, obedience and 
 the respect of reason. It was her father who appeared tragi- 
 
62 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 cally ridiculous ; and, in turn, the whole movement against 
 her grew grotesque in its absurdity. Here was this antique 
 wreck, helpless, useless, powerless — merely pathetic — actu- 
 ally thinking that he had only to mumble in order to make 
 her "understand"! He knew nothing; he perceived noth- 
 ing ; he was a ferocious egoist, like most bedridden invalids, 
 out of touch with life, — and .he thought himself justified in 
 making destinies, and capable of making them ! Sophia 
 could not, perhaps, define the feelings which overwhelmed 
 her ; but she was conscious of their tendency. They aged 
 her, by years. They aged her so that, in a kind of momen- 
 tary ecstasy of insight, she felt older than her father himself. 
 
 ■ You will be a good girl," he said. "I'm sure o' that." 
 
 It was too painful. The grotesqueness of her father's com- 
 placency humiliated her past bearing. She was humiliated, 
 not for herself, but for him. Singular creature ! She ran out 
 of the room. 
 
 Fortunately Constance was passing in the corridor, other- 
 wise Sophia had been found guilty of a great breach of duty* 
 
 "Go to father," she whispered hysterically to Constance, 
 and fled upwards to the second floor. 
 
 IV. 
 
 At supper, with her red, downcast eyes, she had returned 
 to sheer girlishness again, overawed by her mother. The 
 meal had an unusual aspect. Mr. Povey, safe from the den- 
 tist's, but having lost two teeth in two days, was being fed 
 on "slops" — bread and milk, to wit; he sat near the fire. 
 The others had cold pork, half a cold apple-pie, and cheese ; 
 but Sophia only pretended to eat ; each time she tried to 
 swallow, the tears came into her eyes, and her throat shut 
 itself up. Mrs. Baines and Constance had a too careful air 
 of eating just as usual. Mrs. Baines's handsome ringlets 
 dominated the table under the gas. 
 
 "I'm not so set up with my pastry to-day," observed Mrs. 
 Baines, critically munching a fragment of pie-crust. 
 
 She rang a little hand-bell. Maggie appealed from the 
 cave. She wore a plain white bib-less apron, but no cap. 
 
 " Maggie, will you have some pie ? " 
 
 " Yes, if you can spare it, ma'am." 
 
 This was Maggie's customary answer to offers of food. 
 
 " We can always spare it, Maggie," said her mistress, as 
 usual. " Sophia, if you aren't going to use that plate, give 
 it to me." 
 
A BATTLE. 63 
 
 Maggie disappeared with liberal pie. 
 
 Mrs. Baines then talked to Mr. Povey about his condition, 
 and in particular as to the need for precautions against taking 
 cold in the bereaved gum. She was a brave and determined 
 woman ; from start to finish she behaved as though nothing 
 whatever in the household except her pastry and Mr. Povey 
 had deviated that day from the normal. She kissed Con- 
 stance and Sophia with the most exact equality, and called 
 them " my chucks " when they went up to bed. 
 
 Constance, excellent kind heart, tried to imitate her 
 mother's tactics as the girls undressed in their room. She 
 thought she could not do better than ignore Sophia's deplor- 
 able state. 
 
 " Mother's new dress is quite finished, and she's going to 
 wear it on Sunday," said she, blandly. 
 
 " If you say another word I'll scratch your eyes out ! " 
 Sophia turned on her viciously, with a catch in her voice, 
 and then began to sob at intervals. She did not mean this 
 threat, but its utterance gave her relief. Constance, faced 
 with the fact that her mother's shoes were too big for her, 
 decided to preserve her eyesight. 
 
 Long after the gas was out, rare sobs from Sophia shook 
 the bed, and they both lay awake in silence. 
 
 " I suppose you and mother have been talking me over 
 finely to-day ? " Sophia burst forth, to Constance's surprise, 
 in a wet voice. 
 
 "No," said Constance soothingly. "Mother only told 
 me." 
 
 " Told you what ? " 
 
 " That you wanted to be a teacher." 
 
 " And I will be, too ! " said Sophia, bitterly. 
 
 " You don't know mother," thought Constance ; but she 
 made no audible comment. 
 
 There was another detached, hard sob. And then, such is 
 the astonishing talent of youth, they both fell asleep. 
 
 The next morning, early, Sophia stood gazing out of the 
 window at the Square. It was Saturday, and all over the 
 Square little stalls, with yellow linen roofs, were being erected 
 for the principal market of the week. In those barbaric days 
 Bursley had a majestic edifice, black as basalt, for the sale of 
 dead animals by the limb and rib — it was entitled " the 
 Shambles " — but vegetables, fruit, cheese, eggs, and pikelets 
 were still sold under canvas. Eggs are now offered at five 
 farthings apiece in a palace that cost twenty-five thousand 
 pounds. Yet you will find people in Bursley ready to assert 
 that things generally are not what they were, and that in 
 
64 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 particular the romance of life has gone. But until it has gone 
 it is never romance. To Sophia, though she was in a mood 
 which usually stimulates the sense of the romantic, there was 
 nothing of romance in this picturesque tented field. It was 
 just the market. Holl's, the leading grocer's, was already 
 open, at the extremity of the Square, and a boy apprentice 
 was sweeping the pavement in front of it. The public-houses 
 were open, several of them specializing in hot rum at 5.30 a.m. 
 The town-crier, in his blue coat with red facings, crossed the 
 Square, carrying his big bell by the tongue. There was the 
 same shocking hole in one of Mrs. Povey's (confectioner's) 
 window-curtains — a hole which even her recent travail could 
 scarcely excuse. Such matters it was that Sophia noticed 
 with dull, smarting eyes. 
 
 " Sophia, you'll take your death of cold standing there 
 like that ! " 
 
 She jumped. The voice was her mother's. That vigorous 
 woman, after a calm night by the side of the paralytic, was 
 already up and neatly dressed. She carried a bottle and an 
 egg-cup, and a small quantity of jam in a table-spoon. 
 
 " Get into bed again, do ! There's a dear ! You're shiver- 
 ing." 
 
 White Sophia obeyed. It was true ; she was shivering. 
 Constance awoke. Mrs. Baines went to the dressing-table 
 and filled the egg-cup out of the bottle. 
 
 " Who's that for, mother ? " Constance asked sleepily. 
 
 " It's for Sophia," said Mrs. Baines, with good cheer. 
 " Now, Sophia ! " and she advanced with the egg-cup in one 
 hand and the table-spoon in the other. 
 
 " What is it, mother ? " asked Sophia, who well knew what 
 it was. 
 
 " Castor-oil, my dear," said Mrs. Baines, winningly. 
 
 The ludicrousness of attempting to cure obstinacy and 
 yearnings for a freer life by means of castor-oil is perhaps less 
 real than apparent. The strange interdependence of spirit 
 and body, though only understood intelligently in these intel- 
 ligent days, was guessed at by sensible mediaeval mothers. 
 And certainly, at the period when Mrs. Baines represented 
 modernity, castor-oil was still the remedy of remedies. It 
 had supplanted cupping. And, if part of its vogue was due 
 to its extreme unpleasantness, it had at least proved its quali- 
 ties in many a contest with disease. Less than two years 
 previously old Dr. Harrop (father of him who told Mrs. Baines 
 about Mrs. Povey), being then aged eighty-six, had fallen from 
 top to bottom of his staircase. He had scrambled up, taken 
 a dose of castor-oil at once, and on the morrow was as well as 
 
A BATTLE. 65 
 
 if he had never seen a staircase. This episode was town 
 property and had sunk deep into all hearts. 
 
 " I don't want any, mother," said Sophia, in dejection. 
 "I'm quite well." 
 
 " You simply ate nothing all day yesterday," said Mrs. 
 Baines. And she added, " Come ! " As if to say, " There's 
 always this silly fuss with castor-oil. Don't keep me waiting." 
 
 " I don't want any," said Sophia, irritated and captious. 
 
 The two girls lay side by side, on their backs. They seemed 
 very thin and fragile in comparison with the solidity of their 
 mother. Constance wisely held her peace. 
 
 Mrs. Baines put her lips together, meaning : " This is 
 becoming tedious. I shall have to be angry in another 
 moment ! " 
 
 " Come ! " said she again. 
 
 The girls could hear her foot tapping on the floor. 
 
 " I really don't want it, mamma," Sophia fought. " I 
 suppose I ought to know whether I need it or not ! " This 
 was insolence. 
 
 " Sophia, will you take this medicine, or won't you ? " 
 
 In conflicts with her children, the mother's ultimatum 
 always took the formula in which this phrase was cast. The 
 girls knew, when things had arrived at the pitch of " or won't 
 you," spoken in Mrs. Baines's firmest tone, that the end was 
 upon them. Never had the ultimatum failed. 
 
 There was a silence. 
 
 " And I'll thank you to mind your manners," Mrs. Baines 
 added. 
 
 " I won't take it," said Sophia, sullenly and flatly ; and 
 she hid her face in the pillow. 
 
 It was a historic moment in the family life. Mrs. Baines 
 thought the last day had come. But still she held herself in 
 dignity while the apocalypse roared in her ears. 
 
 Of course I can't force you to take it," she said with superb 
 evenness, masking anger by compassionate grief. " You're 
 a big girl and a naughty girl. And if you will be ill you must." 
 
 Upon this immense admission, Mrs. Baines departed. 
 
 Constance trembled. 
 
 Nor was that all. In the middle of the morning, when 
 Mrs. Baines was pricing new potatoes at a stall at the top end 
 of the Square, and Constance choosing threepennyworth of 
 flowers at the same stall, whom should they both see, walking 
 all alone across the empty corner by the Bank, but Sophia 
 Baines ! The Square was busy and populous, and Sophia 
 was only visible behind a foreground of restless, chattering 
 figures. But she was unmistakably seen. She had been 
 
 3 
 
66 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 beyond the Square and was returning. Constance could 
 scarcely believe her eyes. Mrs. Baines's heart jumped. For 
 let it be said that the girls never under any circumstances 
 went forth without permission, and scarcely ever alone. That 
 Sophia should be at large in the town, without leave, without 
 notice, exactly as if she were her own mistress, was a proposi- 
 tion which a day earlier had been inconceivable. Yet there 
 she was, and moving with a leisureliness that must be de- 
 scribed as effrontery ! 
 
 Red with apprehension, Constance wondered what would 
 happen. Mrs. Baines said nought of her feelings, did not 
 even indicate that she had seen the scandalous, the breath- 
 taking sight. And they descended the Square laden with the 
 lighter portions of what they had bought during an hour of 
 buying. They went into the house by the King Street door ; 
 and the first thing they heard was the sound of the piano 
 upstairs. Nothing happened. Mr. Povey had his dinner 
 alone ; then the table was laid for them, and the bell rung, 
 and Sophia came insolently downstairs to join her mother and 
 sister. And nothing happened. The dinner was silently 
 eaten, and Constance having rendered thanks to God, Sophia 
 rose abruptly to go. 
 
 " Sophia ! " 
 
 " Yes, mother." 
 
 " Constance, stay where you are," said Mrs. Baines sud- 
 denly to Constance, who had meant to flee. Constance was 
 therefore destined to be present at the happening, doubtless 
 in order to emphasize its importance and seriousness. 
 
 " Sophia," Mrs. Baines resumed to her younger daughter 
 in an ominous voice. " No, please shut the door. There is 
 no reason why everybody in the house should hear. Come 
 right into the room — right in ! That's it. Now, what were 
 you doing out in the town this morning ? " 
 
 Sophia was fidgeting nervously with the edge of her little 
 black apron, and worrying a seam of the carpet with her toes. 
 She bent her head towards her left shoulder, at first smiling 
 vaguely. She said nothing, but every limb, every glance, 
 every curve was speaking. Mrs. Baines sat firmly in her own 
 rocking-chair, full of the sensation that she had Sophia, as it 
 were, writhing on the end of a skewer. Constance was braced 
 into a moveless anguish. 
 
 " I will have an answer," pursued Mrs. Baines. " What 
 were you doing out in the town this morning ? " 
 
 " I just went out," answered Sophia at length, still with 
 eyes downcast, and in a rather simpering tone. 
 
 " Why did you go out ? You said nothing to me about 
 
A BATTLE. 67 
 
 going out. I heard Constance ask you if you were coming 
 with us to the market, and you said, very rudely, that you 
 weren't." 
 
 " I didn't say it rudely," Sophia objected. 
 
 " Yes you did. And I'll thank you not to answer back." 
 
 " I didn't mean to say it rudely, did I, Constance ? " 
 Sophia's head turned sharply to her sister. Constance knew 
 not where to look. 
 
 " Don't answer back," Mrs. Baines repeated sternly. 
 " And don't try to drag Constance into this, for I won't 
 have it." 
 
 " Oh, of course Constance is always right ! " observed 
 Sophia, with an irony whose unparalleled impudence shook 
 Mrs. Baines to her massive foundations. 
 
 " Do you want me to have to smack you, child ? " 
 
 Her temper flashed out and you could see ringlets vibrating 
 under the provocation of Sophia's sauciness. Then Sophia's 
 lower lip began to fall and to bulge outwards, and all the 
 muscles of her face seemed to slacken. 
 
 " You are a very naughty girl," said Mrs. Baines, with re- 
 straint. (" I've got her," said Mrs. Baines to herself. " I 
 may just as well keep my temper.") 
 
 And a sot broke out of Sophia. She was behaving like a 
 little child. She bore no trace of the young maiden sedately 
 crossing the Square without leave and without an escort. 
 
 (" I knew she was going to cry," said Mrs. Baines, breath- 
 ing relief.) 
 
 " I'm waiting," said Mrs. Baines aloud. 
 
 A second sob. Mrs. Baines manufactured patience to meet 
 the demand. 
 
 " You tell me not to answer back, and then you say you're 
 waiting," Sophia blubbered thickly. 
 
 " What's that you say ? How can I tell what you say if 
 you talk like that ? " (But Mrs. Baines failed to hear out of 
 discretion, which is better than valour.) 
 
 " It's of no consequence," Sophia blurted forth in a sob. 
 She was weeping now, and tears were ricocheting off her 
 lovely crimson cheeks on to the carpet ; her whole body was 
 trembling. 
 
 " Don't be a great baby," Mrs. Baines enjoined, with a 
 touch of rough persuasiveness in her voice. 
 
 " It's you who make me cry," said Sophia, bitterly. " You 
 make me cry and then you call me a great baby ! " And 
 sobs ran through her frame like waves one after another. 
 She spoke so indistinctly that her mother now really had 
 some difficulty in catching her words. 
 
68 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Sophia," said Mrs. Baines, with god-like calm, " it is not 
 I who make you cry. It is your guilty conscience makes you 
 cry. I have merely asked you a question, and I intend to 
 have an answer." 
 
 " I've told you." Here Sophia checked the sobs with an 
 immense effort. 
 
 " What have you told me ? " 
 
 " I just went out." 
 
 " I will have no trifling," said Mrs. Baines. " What did 
 you go out for, and without telling me ? If you had told me 
 afterwards, when I came in, of your own accord, it might have 
 been different. But no, not a word ! It is I who have to ask ! 
 Now, quick ! I can't wait any longer." 
 
 (" I gave way over the castor-oil, my girl," Mrs. Baines 
 said in her own breast. " But not again ! Not again ! ") 
 
 " I don't know," Sophia murmured. 
 
 " What do you mean — you don't know ? " 
 
 The sobbing recommenced tempestuously. " I mean I 
 don't know. I just went out." Her voice rose ; it was 
 noisy, but scarcely articulate. " What if I did go out ? " 
 
 " Sophia, I am not going to be talked to like this. If you 
 think because you're leaving school you can do exactly as you 
 like " 
 
 " Do I want to leave school ? " yelled Sophia, stamping. 
 In a moment a hurricane of emotion overwhelmed her, as 
 though that stamping of the foot had released the demons of 
 the storm. Her face was transfigured by uncontrollable 
 passion. " You all want to make me miserable ! " she 
 shrieked with terrible violence. " And now I can't even go 
 out ! You are a horrid, cruel woman, and I hate you I 
 And you can do what you like ! Put me in prison if you like ! 
 I know you'd be glad if I was dead ! " 
 
 She dashed from the room, banging the door with a shock 
 that made the house rattle. And she had shouted so loud 
 that she might have been heard in the shop, and even in the 
 kitchen. It was a startling experience for Mrs. Baines. Mrs. 
 Baines, why did you saddle yourself with a witness ? Why 
 did you so positively say that you had intended to have an 
 answer ? 
 
 " Really," she stammered, pulling her dignity about her 
 shoulders like a garment that the wind had snatched off, 
 " I never dreamed that poor girl had such a dreadful temper ! 
 What a pity it is, for her own sake ! " It was the best she 
 could do. 
 
 Constance, who could not bear to witness her mother's 
 humiliation, vanished very quietly from the room. She got 
 
A BATTLE. 69 
 
 halfway upstairs to the second floor, and then, hearing the 
 loud, rapid, painful, regular intake of sobbing breaths, she 
 hesitated and crept down again. 
 
 This was Mrs. Baines's first costly experience of the child 
 thankless for having been brought into the world. It robbed 
 her of her profound, absolute belief in herself. She had 
 thought she knew everything in her house and could do every- 
 thing there. And lo ! she had suddenly stumbled against 
 an unsuspected personality at large in her house, a sort of 
 hard marble affair that informed her by means of bumps 
 that if she did not want to be hurt she must keep out of the 
 way. 
 
 V. 
 
 On the Sunday afternoon Mrs. Baines was trying to repose 
 a little in the drawing-room, where she had caused a fire to be 
 lighted. Constance was in the adjacent bedroom with her 
 father. Sophia lay between blankets in the room overhead 
 with a feverish cold. This cold and her new dress were Mrs. 
 Baines's sole consolation at the moment. She had prophe- 
 sied a cold for Sophia, refuser of castor-oil, and it had come. 
 Sophia had received, for standing in her nightdress at a 
 draughty window of a May morning, what Mrs. Baines 
 called " nature's slap in the face." As for the dress, she had 
 worshipped God in it, and prayed for Sophia in it, before 
 dinner ; and its four double rows of gimp on the skirt had 
 been accounted a great success. With her lace-bordered 
 mantle and her low, stringed bonnet she had assuredly 
 given a unique lustre to the congregation at chapel. She 
 was stout ; but the fashions, prescribing vague outlines, 
 broad downward slopes, and vast amplitudes, were favour- 
 able to her shape. It must not be supposed that stout 
 women of a certain age never seek to seduce the eye and 
 trouble the meditations of man by other than moral 
 charms. Mrs. Baines knew that she was comely, natty, 
 imposing, and elegant ; and the knowledge gave her real 
 pleasure. She would look over her shoulder in the glass 
 as anxious as a girl : make no mistake. 
 
 She did not repose ; she could not. She sat thinking, in 
 exactly the same posture as Sophia's two afternoons pre- 
 viously. She would have been surprised to hear that her 
 attitude, bearing, and expression powerfully recalled those of 
 her reprehensible daughter. But it was so. A good angel 
 made her restless, and she went idly to the window and glanced 
 
70 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 upon the empty, shuttered Square. She too, majestic 
 matron, had strange, brief yearnings for an existence more 
 romantic than this ; shootings across her spirit's firmament of 
 tailed comets ; soft, inexplicable melancholies. The good 
 angel, withdrawing her from such a mood, directed her gaze 
 to a particular spot at the top of the Square. 
 
 She passed at once out of the room — not precisely in a 
 hurry, yet without wasting time. In a recess under the stairs, 
 immediately outside the door, was a box about a foot square 
 and eighteen inches deep covered with black American cloth. 
 She bent down and unlocked this box, which was padded 
 within and contained the Baines silver tea-service. She drew 
 from the box teapot, sugar-bowl, milk-jug, sugar-tongs, hot- 
 water jug, and cake-stand (a flatfish dish with an arching 
 semicircular handle) — chased vessels, silver without and 
 silver-gilt within ; glittering heirlooms that shone in the 
 dark corner like the secret pride of respectable families. 
 These she put on a tray that always stood on end in the 
 recess. Then she looked upwards through the banisters to 
 the second floor. 
 
 " Maggie ! " she piercingly whispered. 
 
 " Yes, mum," came a voice. 
 
 " Are you dressed ? " 
 
 " Yes, mum. I'm just coming." 
 
 " Well, put on your muslin." " Apron," Mrs. Baines im- 
 plied. 
 
 Maggie understood. 
 
 " Take these for tea," said Mrs. Baines when Maggie de- 
 scended. " Better rub them over. You know where the 
 cake is — that new one. The best cups. And the silver 
 spoons." 
 
 They both heard a knock at the side door, far off, be- 
 low. 
 
 " There ! " exclaimed Mrs. Baines. " Now take these right 
 down into the kitchen before you open." 
 
 " Yes, mum," said Maggie, departing. 
 
 Mrs. Baines was wearing a black alpaca apron. She re- 
 moved it and put on another one of black satin embroidered 
 with yellow flowers, which, by merely inserting her arm into 
 the chamber, she had taken from off the chest of drawers 
 in her bedroom. Then she fixed herself in the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 Maggie returned, rather short of breath, convoying the 
 visitor. 
 
 " Ah ! Miss Chetwynd," said Mrs. Baines, rising to wel- 
 come. " I'ni sure I'm delighted to see you. I saw you 
 
A BATTLE. 71 
 
 coming down the Square, and I said to myself, ' Now, I do 
 hope Miss Chetwynd isn't going to forget us.' " 
 
 Miss Chetwynd, simpering momentarily, came forward 
 with that self-conscious, slightly histrionic air, which is one 
 of the penalties of pedagogy. She lived under the eyes of 
 her pupils. Her life was one ceaseless effort to avoid doing 
 anything which might influence her charges for evil or shock 
 the natural sensitiveness of their parents. She had to wind 
 her earthly way through a forest of the most delicate sus- 
 ceptibilities — fern-fronds that stretched across the path, and 
 that she must not even accidentally disturb with her skirt 
 as she passed. No wonder she walked mincingly ! No won- 
 der she had a habit of keeping her elbows close to her sides, 
 and drawing her mantle tight in the streets 1 Her pros- 
 pectus talked about " a sound and religious course of train- 
 ing," " study embracing the usual branches of English, with 
 music by a talented master, drawing, dancing, and calis- 
 thenics." Also " needlework plain and ornamental ; " also 
 " moral influence ; " and finally about terms, " which are 
 very moderate, and every particular, with references to 
 parents and others, furnished on application." (Sometimes, 
 too, without application.) As an illustration of the delicacy 
 of fern-fronds, that single word " dancing " had nearly lost 
 her Constance and Sophia seven years before ! 
 
 She was a pinched virgin, aged forty, and not " well off ; " 
 in her family the gift of success had been monopolized by her 
 elder sister. For these characteristics Mrs. Baines, as a matron 
 in easy circumstances, pitied Miss Chetwynd. On the other 
 hand, Miss Chetwynd could choose ground from which to look 
 down upon Mrs. Baines, who after all was in trade. Miss 
 Chetwynd had no trace of the local accent ; she spoke with a 
 southern refinement which the Five Towns, while making fun 
 of it, envied. All her O's had a genteel leaning towards 
 " ow," as ritualism leans towards Romanism. And she was 
 the fount of etiquette, a wonder of correctness ; in the eyes 
 of her pupils' parents not so much " a perfect lady " as " a 
 perfect lady." So that it was an extremely nice question 
 whether, upon the whole, Mrs. Baines secretly condescended 
 to Miss Chetwynd or Miss Chetwynd to Mrs. Baines. Per- 
 haps Mrs. Baines, by virtue of her wifehood, carried the day. 
 
 Miss Chetwynd, carefully and precisely seated, opened the 
 conversation by explaining that even if Mrs. Baines had not 
 written she would have called in any case, as she made a prac- 
 tice of calling at the home of her pupils in vacation time : 
 which was true. Mrs. Baines, it should be stated, had on 
 Friday afternoon sent to Miss Chetwynd one of her most 
 
72 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 luxurious notes — lavender-coloured paper with scalloped 
 edges, the selectest mode of the day — to announce, in her 
 Italian hand, that Constance and Sophia would both leave 
 school at the end of the next term, and giving reasons in re- 
 gard to Sophia. 
 
 Before the visitor had got very far, Maggie came in with a 
 lacquered tea-caddy and the silver teapot and a silver spoon 
 on a lacquered tray. Mrs. Baines, while continuing to talk, 
 chose a key from her bunch, unlocked the tea-caddy, and 
 transferred four teaspoonfuls of tea from it to the teapot 
 and relocked the caddy. 
 
 " Strawberry," she mysteriously whispered to Maggie ; and 
 Maggie disappeared, bearing the tray and its contents. 
 
 " And how is your sister ? It is quite a long time since she 
 was down here," Mrs. Baines went on to Miss Chetwynd, after 
 whispering " strawberry." 
 
 The remark was merely in the way of small-talk — for the 
 hostess felt a certain unwilling hesitation to approach the 
 topic of daughters — but it happened to suit the social pur- 
 pose of Miss Chetwynd to a nicety. Miss Chetwynd was a 
 vessel brimming with great tidings. 
 
 " She is very well, thank you," said Miss Chetwynd, and 
 her expression grew exceedingly vivacious. Her face glowed 
 with pride as she added, " Of course everything is changed 
 now." 
 
 " Indeed ? " murmured Mrs. Baines, with polite curi- 
 osity. 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Chetwynd. " You've not heard ? " 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Baines. Miss Chetwynd knew that she 
 had not heard. 
 
 " About Elizabeth's engagement ? To the Reverend Archi- 
 bald Jones ? " 
 
 It is the fact that Mrs. Baines was taken aback. She did 
 nothing indiscreet ; she did not give vent to her excusable 
 amazement that the elder Miss Chetwynd should be engaged 
 to any one at all, as some women would have done in the 
 stress of the moment. She kept her presence of mind. 
 
 " This is really most interesting ! " said she. 
 
 It was. For Archibald Jones was one of the idols of the 
 Wesleyan Methodist Connexion, a special preacher famous 
 throughout England. At " Anniversaries " and " Trust ser- 
 mons," Archibald Jones had probably no rival. His Christian 
 name helped him ; it was a luscious, resounding mouthful for 
 admirers. He was not an itinerant minister, migrating every 
 three years. His function was to direct the affairs of the 
 " Book Room," the publishing department' of the Connexion. 
 
A BATTLE. 73 
 
 He lived in London, and shot out into the provinces at week- 
 ends, preaching on Sundays and giving a lecture, tinctured 
 with bookishness, " in the chapel " on Monday evenings. 
 In every town he visited there was competition for the privi- 
 lege of entertaining him. He had zeal, indefatigable energy, 
 and a breezy wit. He was a widower of fifty, and his wife 
 had been dead for twenty years. It had seemed as if women 
 were not for this bright star. And here Elizabeth Chetwynd, 
 who had left the Five Towns a quarter of a century before 
 at the age of twenty, had caught him ! Austere, moustached, 
 formidable, desiccated, she must have done it with her power- 
 ful intellect ! It must be a union of intellects ! He had 
 been impressed by hers, and she by his, and then their in- 
 tellects had kissed. Within a week fifty thousand women in 
 forty counties had pictured to themselves this osculation of 
 intellects, and shrugged their shoulders, and decided once 
 more that men were incomprehensible. These great ones in 
 London, falling in love like the rest ! But no ! Love was a 
 ribald and voluptuous word to use in such a matter as this. 
 It was generally felt that the Reverend Archibald Jones and 
 Miss Chetwynd the elder would lift marriage to what would 
 now be, termed an astral plane. 
 
 After tea had been served, Mrs. Baines gradually recovered 
 her position, both in her own private esteem and in the 
 deference of Miss Aline Chetwynd. 
 
 " Yes," said she. " You can talk about your sister, and 
 you can call him Archibald, and you can mince up your words. 
 But have you got a tea-service like this ? Can you conceive 
 more perfect strawberry jam than this ? Did not my dress 
 cost more than you spend on your clothes in a year ? Has a 
 man ever looked at you ? After all, is there not something 
 about my situation ... in short, something . . . ? " 
 
 She did not say this aloud. She in no way deviated from 
 the scrupulous politeness of a hostess. There was nothing in 
 even her tone to indicate that Mrs. John Baines was a per- 
 sonage. Yet it suddenly occurred to Miss Chetwynd that her 
 pride in being the prospective sister-in-law of the Rev. Archi- 
 bald Jones would be better for a while in her pocket. And 
 she inquired after Mr. Baines. After this the conversation 
 limped somewhat. 
 
 " I suppose you weren't surprised by my letter ? " said 
 Mrs. Baines. 
 
 " I was and I wasn't," answered Miss Chetwynd, in her 
 professional manner and not her manner of a prospective 
 sister-in-law. " Of course I am naturally sorry to lose two 
 such good pupils, but we can't keep our pupils for ever." 
 
 3« 
 
7 4 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 She smiled ; she was not without fortitude — it is easier to 
 lose pupils than to replace them. " Still " — a pause — " what 
 you say of Sophia is perfectly true, perfectly. She is quite 
 as advanced as Constance. Still " — another pause and a 
 more rapid enunciation — " Sophia is by no means an ordinary 
 girl." 
 
 " I hope she hasn't been a very great trouble to you ? " 
 
 " Oh no ! " exclaimed Miss Chetwynd. " Sophia and I 
 have got on very well together. I have always tried to appeal 
 to her reason. I have never forced her. . . . Now, with some 
 girls. ... In some ways I look on Sophia as the most re- 
 markable girl — not pupil — but the most remarkable — what 
 shall I say ? — individuality, that I have ever met with." 
 And her demeanour added, " And, mind you, this is something 
 — from me ! " 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Mrs. Baines. She told herself, " I am not 
 your common foolish parent. I see my children impartially. 
 I am incapable of being nattered concerning them." 
 
 Nevertheless she was flattered, and the thought shaped 
 itself that really Sophia was no ordinary girl. 
 
 " I suppose she has talked to you about becoming a 
 teacher ? " asked Miss Chetwynd, taking a morsel of the 
 unparalleled jam. 
 
 She held the spoon with her thumb and three fingers. Her 
 fourth finger, in matters of honest labour, would never asso- 
 ciate with the other three ; delicately curved, it always drew 
 proudly away from them. 
 
 " Has she mentioned that to you ? " Mrs. Baines de- 
 manded, startled. 
 
 " Oh yes ! " said Miss Chetwynd. " Several times. Sophia 
 is a very secretive gill, very — but I think I may say I have 
 always had her confidence. There have been times when 
 Sophia and I have been very near each other. Elizabeth was 
 much struck with her. Indeed, I may tell you that in one of 
 her last letters to me she spoke of Sophia and said she had 
 mentioned her to Mr. Jones, and Mr. Jones remembered her 
 quite well." 
 
 Impossible for even a wise, uncommon parent not to be 
 affected by such an announcement ! 
 
 " I dare say your sister will give up her school now," 
 observed Mrs. Baines, to divert attention from her self- 
 consciousness. 
 
 " Oh no ! " And this time Mrs. Baines had genuinely 
 shocked Miss Chetwynd. " Nothing would induce Elizabeth 
 to give up the cause of education. Archibald takes the keen- 
 est interest in the school. Oh no ! Not for worlds ! " 
 
A BATTLE. 75 
 
 '* Then you think Sophia would make a good teacher ? " 
 asked Mrs. Baines with apparent inconsequence, and with a 
 smile. But the words marked an epoch in her mind. All 
 was over. 
 
 " I think she is very much set on it and " 
 
 " That wouldn't affect her father — or me," said Mrs. 
 Baines quickly. 
 
 " Certainly not ! I merely say that she is very much 
 set on it. Yes, she would, at any rate, make a teacher far 
 superior to the average." (" That girl has got the better 
 of her mother without me ! " she reflected.) " Ah ! Here 
 is dear Constance ! " 
 
 Constance, tempted beyond her strength by the sounds of 
 the visit and the colloquy, had slipped into the room. 
 
 " I've left both doors open, mother," she excused herself 
 for quitting her father, and kissed Miss Chetwynd. 
 
 She blushed, but she blushed happily, and really made a 
 most creditable debut as a young lady. Her mother rewarded 
 her by taldng her into the conversation. And history was 
 soon made. 
 
 So Sophia was apprenticed to Miss Aline Chetwynd. 
 Mrs. Baines bore herself greatly. It was Miss Chetwynd 
 who had urged, and her respect for Miss Chetwynd. . . . 
 Also somehow the Reverend Archibald Jones came into the 
 cause. ... Of course the idea of Sophia ever going to London 
 was ridiculous, ridiculous ! (Mrs. Baines secretly feared that 
 the ridiculous might happen ; but, with the Reverend Archi- 
 bald Jones on the spot, the worst could be faced.) Sophia 
 must understand that even the apprenticeship in Bursley 
 was merely a trial. They would see how things went on. 
 She had to thank Miss Chetwynd. . . . 
 
 " I made Miss Chetwynd come and talk to mother," said 
 Sophia magnificently one night to simple Constance, as if to 
 imply, " Your Miss Chetwynd is my washpot." 
 
 To Constance, Sophia's mere enterprise was just as stagger- 
 ing as her success. Fancy her deliberately going out that 
 Saturday morning, after her mother's definite decision, to 
 enlist Miss Chetwynd in her aid ! 
 
 There is no need to insist on the tragic grandeur of Mrs. 
 Baines's renunciation — a renunciation which implied her 
 acceptance of a change in the balance of power in her realm. 
 Part of its tragedy was that none, not even Constance, could 
 divine the intensity of Mrs. Baines's suffering. She had no 
 confidant ; she was incapable of showing a wound. But 
 when she lay awake at night by the organism which had once 
 been her husband, she dwelt long and deeply on the martyr- 
 
76 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 dom of her life. What had she done to deserve it ? Always 
 had she conscientiously endeavoured to be kind, just, patient. 
 And she knew herself to be sagacious and prudent. In the 
 frightful and unguessed trials of her existence as a wife, 
 surely she might have been granted consolations as a mother ! 
 Yet no ; it had not been ! And she felt all the bitterness 
 of age against youth — youth egotistic, harsh, cruel, uncom- 
 promising ; youth that is so crude, so ignorant of life, so 
 slow to understand ! She had Constance. Yes, but it would 
 be twenty years before Constance could appreciate the sacri- 
 fice of judgment and of pride which her mother had made, 
 in a sudden decision, during that rambling, starched, simper- 
 ing interview with Miss Aline Chetwynd. Probably Constance 
 thought that she had yielded to Sophia's passionate temper ! 
 Impossible to explain to Constance that she had yielded to 
 nothing but a perception of Sophia's complete inability to 
 hear reason and wisdom. Ah ! Sometimes as she lay in the 
 dark, she would, in fancy, snatch her heart from her bosom and 
 fling it down before Sophia, bleeding, and cry : " See what I 
 carry about with me, on your account ! " Then she would 
 take it back and hide it again, and sweeten her bitterness 
 with wise admonitions to herself. 
 
 All this because Sophia, aware that if she stayed in the 
 house she would be compelled to help in the shop, chose an 
 honourable activity which freed her from the danger. Heart, 
 how absurd of you to bleed ! 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ELEPHANT. 
 I. 
 
 " Sophia, will you come and see the elephant ? Do come ! " 
 Constance entered the drawing-room with this request on her 
 eager lips. 
 
 No," said Sophia, with a touch of condescension. " I'm 
 far too busy for elephants." 
 
 Only two years had passed ; but both girls were grown up 
 now ; long sleeves, long skirts, hair that had settled down in 
 life ; and a demeanour immensely serious, as though exist- 
 ence were terrific in its responsibilities ; yet sometimes child- 
 hood surprisingly broke through the crust of gravity, as now 
 in Constance, aroused by such things as elephants, and pro- 
 claimed with vivacious gestures that it was not dead after all. 
 The sisters were sharply differentiated. Constance wore the 
 black alpaca apron and the scissors at the end of a long black 
 elastic, which indicated her vocation in the shop. She was 
 proving a considerable success in the millinery department. 
 She had learnt how to talk to people, and was, in her modest 
 way, very self-possessed. She was getting a little stouter. 
 Everybody liked her. Sophia had developed into the student. 
 Time had accentuated her reserve. Her sole friend was Miss 
 Chetwynd, with whom she was, having regard to the disparity 
 of their ages, very intimate. At home she spoke little. She 
 lacked amiability ; as her mother said, she was " touchy." 
 She required diplomacy from others, but did not render it 
 again. Her attitude, indeed, was one of half-hidden dis- 
 dain, now gentle, now coldly bitter. She would not wear an 
 apron, in an age when aprons were almost essential to decency. 
 No ! She would not wear an apron, and there was an end of 
 it. She was not so tidy as Constance, and if Constance's 
 hands had taken on the coarse texture which comes from 
 
,<s THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 commerce with needles, pins, artificial flowers, and stuffs, 
 Sophia's fine hands were seldom innocent of ink. But Sophia 
 was splendidly beautiful. And even her mother and Con- 
 stance had an instinctive idea that that face was, at any rate, 
 a partial excuse for her asperity. 
 
 " Well," said Constance, '.'' if you won't, I do believe I shall 
 ask mother if she will." 
 
 Sophia, bending over her books, made no answer. But 
 the top of her head said : "This has no interest for me what- 
 ever." 
 
 Constance left the room, and in a moment returned with 
 her mother. 
 
 " Sophia," said her mother, with gay excitement, " you 
 might go and sit with your father for a bit while Constance 
 and I just run up to the playground to see the elephant. 
 You can work just as well in there as here. Your father's 
 asleep." 
 
 " Oh, very well ! " Sophia agreed haughtily. " Whatever 
 is all this fuss about an elephant ? Anyhow, it'll be quieter 
 in your room. The noise here is splitting." She gave a 
 supercilious glance into the Square as she languidly rose. 
 
 It was the morning of the third day of Bursley Wakes ; 
 not the modern finicking and respectable, but an orgiastic 
 carnival, gross in all its manifestations of joy. The whole 
 centre of the town was given over to the furious pleasures of 
 the people. Most of the Square was occupied by Wombwell's 
 Menagerie, in a vast oblong tent, whose raging beasts roared 
 and growled day and night. And spreading away from this 
 supreme attraction, right up through the market-place past 
 the Town Hall to Duck Bank, Duck Square and the waste 
 land called the " playground," were hundreds of booths with 
 banners displaying all the delights of the horrible. You could 
 see the atrocities of the French Revolution, and of the Fiji 
 Islands, and the ravages of unspeakable diseases, and the 
 living flesh of a nearly nude human female guaranteed to turn 
 the scale at twenty-two stone, and the skeletons of the 
 mysterious phantoscope, and the bloody contests of cham- 
 pions naked to the waist (with the chance of picking up a 
 red tooth as a relic) . You could try your strength by hitting 
 an image of a fellow-creature in the stomach, and test your 
 aim by knocking off the heads of other images with a wooden 
 ball. You could also shoot with rifles at various targets. 
 All the streets were lined with stalls loaded with food in heaps, 
 chiefly dried fish, the entrails of animals, and gingerbread. 
 All the public-houses were crammed, and frenzied jolly 
 drunkards, men and women, lounged along the pavements 
 
ELEPHANT. 79 
 
 everywhere, their shouts vying with the trumpets, horns, 
 and drums of the booths, and the shrieking, rattling toys 
 that the children carried. 
 
 It was a glorious spectacle, but not a spectacle for the 
 leading families. Miss Chetwynd's school was closed, so that 
 the daughters of leading families might remain in seclusion 
 till the worst was over. The Baineses ignored the Wakes 
 in every possible way, choosing that week to have a show 
 of mourning goods in the left-hand window, and refusing 
 to let Maggie outside on any pretext. Therefore the dazzling 
 social success of the elephant, which was quite easily drawing 
 Mrs. Baines into the vortex, cannot imaginably be over- 
 estimated. 
 
 On the previous night one of the three Wombwell elephants 
 had suddenly knelt on a man in the tent ; he had then 
 walked out of the tent and picked up another man at hap- 
 hazard from the crowd which was staring at the great 
 pictures in front, and tried to put this second man into his 
 mouth. Being stopped by his Indian attendant with a 
 pitchfork, he placed the man on the ground and stuck his 
 tusk through an artery of the victim's arm. He then, amid 
 unexampled excitement, suffered himself to be led away. 
 He was conducted to the rear of the tent, just in front of 
 Baines's shuttered windows, and by means of stakes, pulleys, 
 and ropes forced to his knees. His head was whitewashed, 
 and six men of the Rifle Corps were engaged to shoot at him 
 at a distance of five yards, while constables kept the crowd 
 off with truncheons. He died instantly, rolling over with a 
 soft thud. The crowd cheered, and, intoxicated by their 
 importance, the Volunteers fired three more volleys into the 
 carcase, and were then borne off as heroes to different inns. 
 The elephant, by the help of his two companions, was got on 
 to a railway lorry and disappeared into the night. Such 
 was the greatest sensation that has ever occurred, or perhaps 
 will ever occur, in Bursley. The excitement about the 
 repeal of the Corn Laws, or about Inkerman, was feeble 
 compared to that excitement. Mr. Critchlow, who had 
 been called on to put a hasty tourniquet round the arm of the 
 second victim, had popped in afterwards to tell John Baines 
 all about it. Mr. Baines's interest, however, had been 
 slight. Mr. Critchlow succeeded better with the ladies, 
 who, though they had witnessed the shooting from the 
 drawing-room, were thirsty for the most trifling details. 
 
 The next day it was known that the elephant lay near 
 the playground, pending the decision of the Chief Bailiff 
 and the Medical Officer as to his burial. And everybody 
 
80 THE OLD WIVES* TALE. 
 
 had to visit the corpse. No social exclusiveness could 
 withstand the seduction of that dead elephant. Pilgrims 
 travelled from all the Five Towns to see him. 
 
 " We're going now," said Mrs. Baines, after she had 
 assumed her bonnet and shawl. 
 
 " All right," said Sophia, pretending to be absorbed in 
 study, as she sat on the sofa at the foot of her father's bed. 
 
 And Constance, having put her head in at the door, drew 
 her mother after her like a magnet. 
 
 Then Sophia heard a remarkable conversation in the 
 passage. 
 
 " Are you going up to see the elephant, Mrs. Baines ? " 
 asked the voice of Mr. Povey. 
 
 " Yes. Why ? " 
 
 " I think I had better come with you. The crowd is sure 
 to be very rough." Mr. Povey 's tone was firm; he had a 
 position. 
 
 " But the shop ? " 
 
 " We shall not be long," said Mr. Povey. 
 
 " Oh yes, mother," Constance added appealingly. 
 
 Sophia felt the house thrill as the side-door banged. She 
 sprang up and watched the three cross King Street diag- 
 onally, and so plunge into the Wakes. This triple departure 
 was surely the crowning tribute to the dead elephant ! It 
 was simply astonishing. It caused Sophia to perceive that 
 she had miscalculated the importance of the elephant. It 
 made her regret her scorn of the elephant as an attraction. 
 She was left behind ; and the joy of life was calling her. 
 She could see down into the Vaults on the opposite side of 
 the street, where working men — potters and colliers — in their 
 best clothes, some with high hats, were drinking, gesticulating, 
 and laughing in a row at a long counter. 
 
 She noticed, while she was thus at the bedroom window, 
 a young man ascending King Street, followed by a porter 
 trundling a flat barrow of luggage. He passed slowly under 
 the very window. She flushed. She had evidently been 
 startled by the sight of this young man into no ordinary 
 state of commotion. She glanced at the books on the 
 sofa, and then at her father. Mr. Baines, thin and gaunt, 
 and acutely pitiable, still slept. His brain had almost ceased 
 to be active now ; he had to be fed and tended like a bearded 
 baby, and he would sleep for hours at a stretch even in the 
 daytime. Sophia left the room. A moment later she ran 
 into the shop, an apparition that amazed the three young 
 lady assistants. At the corner near the window on the 
 fancy side a little nook had been formed by screening off a 
 
ELEPHANT. 81 
 
 portion of the counter with large flower-boxes placed end-up. 
 This corner had come to be known as " Miss Baines's corner." 
 Sophia hastened to it, squeezing past a young lady assistant 
 in the narrow space between the back of the counter and 
 the shelf-lined wall. She sat down in Constance's chair and 
 pretended to look for something. She had examined herself 
 in the cheval-glass in the showroom, on her way from the 
 sick-chamber. When she heard a voice near the door of 
 the shop asking first for Mr. Povey and then for Mrs. Baines, 
 she rose, and seizing the object nearest to her, which hap- 
 pened to be a pair of scissors, she hurried towards the show- 
 room stairs as though the scissors had been a grail, passion- 
 ately sought and to be jealously hidden away. She wanted 
 to stop and turn round, but something prevented her. She 
 was at the end of the counter, under the curving stairs, when 
 one of the assistants said : 
 
 " I suppose you don't know when Mr. Povey or your 
 mother are likely to be back, Miss Sophia ? Here's " 
 
 It was a divine release for Sophia. 
 
 " They're — I — " she stammered, turning round abruptly. 
 Luckily she was still sheltered behind the counter. 
 
 The young man whom she had seen in the street came 
 boldly forward. 
 
 " Good morning, Miss Sophia," said he, hat in hand. 
 " It is a long time since I had the pleasure of seeing you." 
 
 Never had she blushed as she blushed then. She scarcely 
 knew what she was doing as she moved slowly towards 
 her sister's corner again, the young man following her on the 
 customer's side of the counter. 
 
 II. 
 
 She knew that he was a traveller for the most renowned 
 and gigantic of all Manchester wholesale firms — Birkinshaws. 
 But she did not know his name, which was Gerald Scales. 
 He was a rather short, but extremely well-proportioned man 
 of thirty, with fair hair, and a distinguished appearance, as 
 became a representative of Birkinshaws. His broad, tight 
 necktie, with an edge of white collar showing above it, was 
 particularly elegant. He had been on the road for Birkin- 
 shaws for several years ; but Sophia had only seen him 
 once before in her life, when she was a little girl, three years 
 ago. The relations between the travellers of the great 
 firms and their solid, sure clients in small towns were in 
 
82 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 those days often cordially intimate. The traveller came 
 with the lustre of a historic reputation around him ; there 
 was no need to fawn for orders ; and the client's immense 
 and immaculate respectability made him the equal of no 
 matter what ambassador. It was a case of mutual esteem, 
 and of that confidence-generating phenomenon, " an old 
 account." The tone in which a commercial traveller of 
 middle age would utter the phrase " an old account " re- 
 vealed in a flash all that was romantic, prim, and stately 
 in mid-Victorian commerce. In the days of Baines, after 
 one of the elaborately engraved advice-circulars had arrived 
 
 (" Our Mr. will have the pleasure of waiting upon you 
 
 on — day next, the — inst.") John might in certain cases 
 be expected to say, on the morning of — day, " Missis, what 
 have ye gotten for supper to-night ? " 
 
 Mr. Gerald Scales had never been asked to supper ; be 
 had never even seen John Baines ; but, as the youthful 
 successor of an aged traveller who had had the pleasure of 
 St. Luke's Square, on behalf of Birkinshaws, since before 
 railways, Mrs. Baines had treated him with a faint agreeable 
 touch of maternal familiarity ; and, both her daughters being 
 once in the shop during his visit, she had on that occasion com- 
 manded the gawky girls to shake hands with him. 
 
 Sophia had never forgotten that glimpse. The young 
 man without a name had lived in her mind, brightly glow- 
 ing, as the very symbol and incarnation of the masculine 
 and the elegant. 
 
 The renewed sight of him seemed to have wakened her 
 out of a sleep. Assuredly she was not the same Sophia. 
 As she sat in her sister's chair in the corner, entrenched 
 behind the perpendicular boxes, playing nervously with the 
 scissors, her beautiful face was transfigured into the ravish- 
 ingly angelic. It would have been impossible for Mr. Gerald 
 Scales, or anybody else, to credit, as he gazed at those lovely, 
 sensitive, vivacious, responsive features, that Sophia was 
 not a character of heavenly sweetness and perfection. She 
 did not know what she was doing ; she was nothing but 
 the exquisite expression of a deep instinct to attract and 
 charm. Her soul itself emanated from her in an atmosphere 
 of allurement and acquiescence. Could those laughing lips 
 hang in a heavy pout ? Could that delicate and mild voice 
 be harsh ? Could those burning eyes be coldly inimical ? 
 Never ! The idea was inconceivable ! And Mr. Gerald 
 Scales, with his head over the top of the boxes, yielded to 
 the spell. Remarkable that Mr. Gerald Scales, with all his 
 experience, should have had to come to Bursley to find the 
 
ELEPHANT. 83 
 
 pearl, the paragon, the ideal ! But so it was. They met 
 in an equal abandonment ; the only difference between them 
 was that Mr. Scales, by force of habit, kept his head. 
 
 " I see it's your wakes here," said he. 
 
 He was polite to the wakes ; but now, with the least 
 inflection in the world, he put the wakes at its proper level 
 in the scheme of things as a local unimportance ! She 
 adored him for this ; she was athirst for sympathy in the 
 task of scorning everything local. 
 
 " I expect you didn't know," she said, implying that there 
 was every reason why a man of his mundane interests should 
 not know. 
 
 " I should have remembered if I had thought," said he. 
 " But I didn't think. What's this about an elephant ? " 
 
 * Oh ! " she exclaimed. " Have you heard of that ? " 
 
 " My porter was full of it." 
 
 " Well," she said, " of course it's a very big thing in 
 Bursley." 
 
 As she smiled in gentle pity of poor Bursley, he naturally 
 did the same. And he thought how much more advanced 
 and broad the younger generation was than the old ! He 
 would never have dared to express his real feelings about 
 Bursley to Mrs. Baines, or even to Mr. Povey (who was, 
 however, of no generation) ; yet here was a young woman 
 actually sharing them. 
 
 She told him all the history of the elephant. 
 
 " Must have been very exciting," he commented, despite 
 himself. 
 
 " Do you know," she replied, " it was." 
 
 After all, Bursley was climbing in their opinion. 
 
 " And mother and my sister and Mr. Povey have all gone 
 to see it. That's why they're not here." 
 
 That the elephant should have caused both Mr. Povey 
 and Mrs. Baines to forget that the representative of Birkin- 
 shaws was due to call was indeed a final victory for the 
 elephant. 
 
 But not you ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " No," she said. " Not me." 
 
 " Why didn't you go too ? " He continued his flattering 
 investigations with a generous smile. 
 
 " I simply didn't care to," said she, proudly nonchalant. 
 
 " And I suppose you are in charge here ? " 
 
 " No," she answered. " I just happened to have run 
 down here for these scissors. That's all." 
 
 " I often see your sister," said he. " ' Often ' do I say ? 
 — that is, generally, when I come ; but never you." 
 
84 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 "I'm never in the shop," she said. " It's just an accident 
 to-day." 
 
 " Oh ! So you leave the shop to your sister ? " 
 
 " Yes." She said nothing of her teaching. 
 
 Then there was a silence. Sophia was very thankful to 
 be hidden from the curiosity of the shop. The shop could 
 see nothing of her, and only the back of the young man ; 
 and the conversation had been conducted in low voices. 
 She tapped her foot, stared at the worn, polished surface 
 of the counter, with the brass yard-measure nailed along its 
 edge, and then she uneasily turned her gaze to the left and 
 seemed to be examining the backs of the black bonnets 
 which were perched on high stands in the great window. 
 Then her eyes caught his for an important moment. 
 
 " Yes," she breathed. Somebody had to say something. 
 If the shop missed the murmur of their voices the shop 
 would wonder what had happened to them. 
 
 Mr. Scales looked at his watch. " I dare say if I come 
 in again about two — " he began. 
 
 " Oh yes, they're sure to be in then," she burst out before 
 he could finish his sentence. 
 
 He left abruptly, queerly, without shaking hands (but 
 then it would have been difficult — she argued — for him to 
 have put his arm over the boxes), and without expressing the 
 hope of seeing her again. She peeped through the black 
 bonnets, and saw the porter put the leather strap over his 
 shoulders, raise the rear of the barrow, and trundle off ; 
 but she did not see Mr. Scales. She was drunk ; thoughts 
 were tumbling about in her brain like cargo loose in a rolling 
 ship. Her entire conception of herself was being altered ; 
 her attitude towards life was being altered. The thought 
 which knocked hardest against its fellows was, " Only in 
 these moments have I begun to live ! " 
 
 And as she flitted upstairs to resume watch over her father 
 she sought to devise an innocent-looking method by which 
 she might see Mr. Scales when he next called. And she 
 speculated as to what his name was. 
 
 III. 
 
 When Sophia arrived in the bedroom, she was startled 
 because her father's head and beard were not in their accus- 
 tomed place on the pillow. She could only make out some- 
 thing vaguely unusual sloping off the side of the bed. A 
 
ELEPHANT. 85 
 
 few seconds passed — not to be measured in time — and she 
 saw that the upper part of his body had slipped down, and 
 his head was hanging, inverted, near the floor between the bed 
 and the ottoman. His face, neck, and hands were dark and 
 congested ; his mouth was open, and the tongue protruded 
 between the black, swollen, mucous lips ; his eyes were 
 prominent and coldly staring. The fact was that Mr. Baines 
 had wakened up, and, being restless, had slid out partially 
 from his bed and died of asphyxia. After having been 
 unceasingly watched for fourteen years, he had, with an 
 invalid's natural perverseness, taken advantage of Sophia's 
 brief dereliction to expire. Say what you will, amid Sophia's 
 horror, and her terrible grief and shame, she had visitings 
 of the idea : he did it on purpose ! 
 
 She ran out of the room, knowing by intuition that he 
 was dead, and shrieked out, " Maggie," at the top of her 
 voice ; the house echoed. 
 
 " Yes, miss," said Maggie, quite close, coming out of 
 Mr. Povey's chamber with a slop-pail. 
 
 " Fetch Mr. Critchlow at once. Be quick. Just as you 
 are. It's father " 
 
 Maggie, perceiving darkly that disaster was in the air, 
 and instantly filled with importance and a sort of black 
 joy, dropped her pail in the exact middle of the passage, 
 and almost fell down the crooked stairs. One of Maggie's 
 deepest instincts, always held in check by the stern dominance 
 of Mrs. Baines, was to leave pails prominent on the main 
 routes of the house ; and now, divining what was at hand, 
 it flamed into insurrection. 
 
 No sleepless night had ever been so long to Sophia as 
 the three minutes which elapsed before Mr. Critchlow came. 
 As she stood on the mat outside the bedroom door she tried 
 to draw her mother and Constance and Mr. Povey by mag- 
 netic force out of the wakes into the house, and her muscles 
 were contracted in this strange effort. She felt that it was 
 impossible to continue living if the secret of the bedroom 
 remained unknown one instant longer, so intense was her 
 torture, and yet that the torture which could not be borne 
 must be borne. Not a sound in the house ! Not a sound 
 from the shop ! Only the distant murmur of the wakes ! 
 
 " Why did I forget father ? " she asked herself with awe. 
 " I only meant to tell him that they were all out, and run 
 back. Why did I forget father ? She would never be 
 able to persuade anybody that she had literally forgotten 
 her father's existence for quite ten minutes ; but it was true, 
 though shocking. 
 
86 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Then there were noises downstairs. 
 
 " Bless us ! Bless us ! " came the unpleasant voice of 
 Mr. Critchlow as he bounded up the stairs on his long legs ; 
 he strode over the pail. " What's amiss ? " He was wear- 
 ing his white apron, and he carried his spectacles in his bony 
 hand. 
 
 " It's father — he's — " Sophia faltered. 
 
 She stood away so that he should enter the room first. 
 He glanced at her keenly, and as it were resentfully, and 
 went in. She followed, timidly, remaining near the door while 
 Mr. Critchlow inspected her handiwork. He put on his 
 spectacles with strange deliberation, and then, bending his 
 knees outwards, thus lowered his body so that he could 
 examine John Baines point-blank. He remained staring 
 like this, his hands on his sharp apron-covered knees, for 
 a little space ; and then he seized the inert mass and re- 
 stored it to the bed, and wiped those clotted lips with his 
 apron. 
 
 Sophia heard loud breathing behind her. It was Maggie. 
 She heard a huge, snorting sob ; Maggie was showing her 
 emotion. 
 
 " Go fetch doctor ! " Mr. Critchlow rasped. " And don't 
 stand gaping there ! " 
 
 " Run for the doctor, Maggie," said Sophia. 
 
 " How came ye to let him fall ? " Mr. Critchlow de- 
 manded. 
 
 " I was out of the room. I just ran down into the shop — " 
 
 " Gallivanting with that young Scales ! " said Mr. Critch- 
 low, with devilish ferocity. " Well, you've killed yer father ; 
 that's all ! " 
 
 He must have been at his shop door and seen the entry 
 of the traveller ! And it was precisely characteristic of 
 Mr. Critchlow to jump in the dark at a horrible conclusion, 
 and to be right after all. For Sophia Mr. Critchlow had 
 always been the personification of malignity and malevo- 
 lence, and now these qualities in him made him, to her, almost 
 obscene. Her pride brought up tremendous reinforcements, 
 and she approached the bed. 
 
 " Is he dead ? " she asked in a quiet tone. (Somewhere 
 within a voice was whispering, " So his name is Scales.") 
 
 " Don't I tell you he's dead ? " 
 
 " Pail on the stairs ! " 
 
 This mild exclamation came from the passage. Mrs. 
 Baines, misliking the crowds abroad, had returned alone ; 
 she had left Constance in charge of Mr. Povey. Coming 
 into her house by the shop and showroom, she had first 
 

 ELEPHANT. 87 
 
 noted the phenomenon of the pail — proof of her theory of 
 Maggie's incurable untidiness. 
 
 " Been to see the elephant, I reckon ! " said Mr. Critchlow, 
 in fierce sarcasm, as he recognized Mrs. Baines's voice. 
 
 Sophia leaped towards the door, as though to bar her 
 mother's entrance. But Mrs. Baines was already opening 
 the door. 
 
 " Well, my pet—" she was beginning cheerfully. 
 
 Mr. Critchlow confronted her. And he had no more pity 
 for the wife than for the daughter. He was furiously angry 
 because his precious property had been irretrievably damaged 
 by the momentary carelessness of a silly girl. Yes, John 
 Baines was his property, his dearest toy ! He was con- 
 vinced that he alone had kept John Baines alive for fourteen 
 years, that he alone had fully understood the case and 
 Empathized with the sufferer, that none but he had been 
 capable of displaying ordinary common sense in the sick-room. 
 He had learned to regard John Baines as, in some sort, his 
 creation. And now, with their stupidity, their neglect, 
 their elephants, between them they had done for John 
 Baines. He had always known it would come to that, and 
 it had come to that. 
 
 " She let him fall out o' bed, and ye're a widow now, 
 missis ! " he announced with a virulence hardly conceivable. 
 His angular features and dark eyes expressed a murderous 
 hate for every woman named Baines. 
 
 " Mother ! " cried Sophia, " I only ran down into the 
 shop to — to " 
 
 She seized her mother'e arm in frenzied agony. 
 
 " My child ! " said Mrs. Baines, rising miraculously to the 
 situation with a calm benevolence of tone and gesture that 
 remained for ever sublime in the stormy heart of Sophia, 
 "do not hold me." With infinite gentleness she loosed 
 herself from those clasping hands. " Have you sent for the 
 doctor ? " she questioned Mr. Critchlow. 
 
 The fate of her husband presented no mysteries to Mrs. 
 Baines. Everybody had been warned a thousand times of 
 the danger of leaving the paralytic, whose life depended on 
 his position, and whose fidgetiness was thereby a constant 
 menace of death to him. For five thousand nights she had 
 wakened infallibly every time he stirred, and rearranged him 
 by the flicker of a little oil lamp. But Sophia, unhappy 
 creature, had merely left him. That was all. 
 
 Mr. Critchlow and the widow gazed, helplessly waiting, 
 at the pitiable corpse, of which the salient part was the 
 white beard. They knew not that they were gazing at a van- 
 
88 THE OLD WIVES* TALE. 
 
 ished era. John Baines had belonged to the past, to the age 
 when men really did think of their souls, when orators by 
 
 Ehrases could move crowds to fury or to pity, when no one 
 ad learnt to hurry, when Demos was only turning in his 
 sleep, when the sole beauty of life resided in its inflexible 
 and slow dignity, when hell really had no bottom, and a 
 gilt-clasped Bible really was the secret of England's greatness. 
 Mid- Victorian England lay on that mahogany bed. Ideals 
 had passed away with John Baines. It is thus that ideals 
 die ; not in the conventional pageantry of honoured death, 
 but sorrily, ignobly, while one's head is turned 
 
 And Mr. Povey and Constance, very self-conscious, went 
 and saw the dead elephant, and came back ; and at the 
 corner of King Street, Constance exclaimed brightly — 
 
 " Why ! who's gone out and left the side-door open ? " 
 
 For the doctor had at length arrived, and Maggie, in 
 showing him upstairs with pious haste, had forgotten to shut 
 the door. 
 
 And they took advantage of the side-door, rather guiltily, 
 to avoid the eyes of the shop. They feared that in the 
 parlour they would be the centre of a curiosity half ironical 
 and half reproving ; for had they not accomplished an 
 escapade ? So they walked slowly. 
 
 The real murderer was having his dinner in the commercial 
 room up at the Tiger, opposite the Town Hall. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Several shutters were put up in the windows of the shop, 
 to indicate a death, and the news instantly became known 
 in trading circles throughout the town. Many people 
 simultaneously remarked upon the coincidence that Mr. 
 Baines should have died while there was a show of mourning 
 goods in his establishment. This coincidence was regarded 
 as extremely sinister, and it was apparently felt that, for the 
 sake of the mind's peace, one ought not to inquire into such 
 things too closely. From the moment of putting up the 
 prescribed shutters, John Baines and his funeral began to 
 acquire importance in Bursley, and their importance grew 
 rapidly almost from hour to hour. The wakes continued 
 as usual, except that the Chief Constable, upon representations 
 being made to him by Mr. Critchlow and other citizens, 
 descended upon St. Luke's Square and forbade the activities 
 of Wombwell's orchestra. Wombwell and the Chief Con- 
 
ELEPHANT. 89 
 
 stable differed as to the justice of the decree, but every well- 
 minded person praised the Chief Constable, and he himself 
 considered that he had enhanced the town's reputation for 
 a decent propriety. It was noticed, too, not without a 
 shiver of the uncanny, that that night the lions and tigers 
 behaved like lambs, whereas on the previous night they 
 had roared the whole Square out of its sleep. 
 
 The Chief Constable was not the only individual enlisted 
 by Mr. Critchlow in the service of his friend's fame. Mr. 
 Critchlow spent hours in recalling the principal citizens to 
 a due sense of John Baines's past greatness. He was deter- 
 mined that his treasured toy should vanish underground 
 with due pomp, and he left nothing undone to that end. 
 He went over to Hanbridge on the still wonderful horse-car, 
 and. saw the editor-proprietor of the Staffordshire Signal 
 (then a two-penny weekly with no thought of Football 
 editions), and on the very day of the funeral the Signal 
 came out with a long and eloquent biography of John Baines. 
 This biography, giving details of his public life, definitely 
 restored him to his legitimate position in the civic memory 
 as an ex-chief bailiff, an ex-chairman of the Burial Board, 
 and of the Five Towns Association for the Advancement of 
 Useful Knowledge, and also as a " prime mover " in the local 
 Turnpike Act, in the negotiations for the new Town Hall, 
 and in the Corinthian facade of the Wesleyan Chapel ; it 
 narrated the anecdote of his courageous speech from the 
 portico of the Shambles during the riots of 1848, and it did 
 not omit a eulogy of his steady adherence to the wise old 
 English maxims of commerce and his avoidance of dangerous 
 modern methods. Even in the sixties the modern had reared 
 its shameless head. The panegyric closed with an apprecia- 
 tion of the dead man's fortitude in the terrible affliction with 
 which a divine providence had seen fit to try him ; and 
 finally the Signal uttered its absolute conviction that his 
 native town would raise a cenotaph to his honour. Mr. 
 Critchlow, being unfamiliar with the word " cenotaph " 
 consulted Worcester's Dictionary, and when he found that 
 it meant " a sepulchral monument to one who is buried 
 elsewhere," he was as pleased with the Signal's language as 
 with the idea, and decided that a cenotaph should come 
 to pass. 
 
 The house and shop were transformed into a hive of 
 preparation for the funeral. All was changed. Mr. Povey 
 kindly slept for three nights on the parlour sofa, in order that 
 Mrs. Baines might have his room. The funeral grew into an 
 obsession, for multitudinous things had to be performed and 
 
90 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 done sumptuously and in strict accordance with precedent. 
 There were the family mourning, the funeral repast, the choice 
 of the text on the memorial card, the composition of the 
 legend on the coffin, the legal arrangements, the letters to 
 relations, the selection of guests, and the questions of bell- 
 ringing, hearse, plumes, number of horses, and grave-digging. 
 Nobody had leisure for the indulgence of grief except Aunt 
 Maria, who, after she had helped in the laying-out, simply sat 
 down and bemoaned unceasingly for hours her absence on the 
 fatal morning. " If I hadn't been so fixed on polishing my 
 candle-sticks," she weepingly repeated, " he mit ha' been 
 alive and well now." Not that Aunt Maria had been in- 
 formed of the precise circumstances of the death ; she was 
 not clearly aware that Mr. Baines had died through a piece of 
 neglect. But, like Mr. Critchlow, she was convinced that 
 there had been only one person in the world truly capable of 
 nursing Mr. Baines. Beyond the family, no one save Mr. 
 Critchlow and Dr. Harrop knew just how the martyr had 
 finished his career. Dr. Harrop, having been asked bluntly 
 if an inquest would be necessary, had reflected a moment and 
 had then replied : ' No." And he added, " Least said soon- 
 est mended — mark me ! " They had marked him. He was 
 commonsense in breeches. 
 
 As for Aunt Maria, she was sent about her snivelling busi- 
 ness by Aunt Harriet. The arrival in the house of this 
 genuine aunt from Axe, of this majestic and enormous widow 
 whom even the imperial Mrs. Baines regarded with a certain 
 awe, set a seal of ultimate solemnity on the whole event. In 
 Mr. Povey's bedroom Mrs. Baines fell like a child into Aunt 
 Harriet's arms and sobbed : 
 
 " If it had been anything else but that elephant ! " 
 
 Such was Mrs. Baines's sole weakness from first to last. 
 
 Aunt Harriet was an exhaustless fountain of authority upon 
 every detail concerning interments. And, to a series of 
 questions ending with the word " sister," and answers ending 
 with the word " sister," the prodigious travail incident to the 
 funeral was gradually and successfully accomplished. Dress 
 and the repast exceeded all other matters in complexity and 
 difficulty. But on the morning of the funeral Aunt Harriet 
 had the satisfaction of beholding her younger sister the centre 
 of a tremendous cocoon of crape, whose slightest pleat was 
 perfect. Aunt Harriet seemed to welcome her then, like a 
 veteran, formally into the august army of relicts. As they 
 stood side by side surveying the special table which was being 
 laid in the showroom for the repast, it appeared inconceivable 
 that they had reposed together in Mr. Povey's limited bed. 
 
ELEPHANT. 91 
 
 They descended from the showroom to the kitchen, where 
 the last delicate dishes were inspected. The shop was, of 
 course, closed for the day, but Mr* Povey was busy there, and 
 in Aunt Harriet's all-seeing glance he came next after the 
 dishes. She rose from the kitchen to speak with him. 
 
 " You've got your boxes of gloves all ready ? " she ques- 
 tioned him. 
 
 " Yes, Mrs. Maddack." 
 
 " You'll not forget to have a measure handy ? " 
 
 " No, Mrs. Maddack." 
 
 " You'll find you'll want more oi seven-and-three-quarters 
 and eights than anything." 
 
 " Yes. I have allowed for that." 
 
 " If you place yourself behind the side-door and put your 
 boxes on the harmonium, you'll be able to catch every one 
 as they come in." 
 
 " That is what I had thought of, Mrs. Maddack." 
 
 She went upstairs. Mrs. Baines had reached the show- 
 room again, and was smoothing out creases in the white 
 damask cloth and arranging glass dishes of jam at equal dis- 
 tances from each other. 
 
 " Come, sister," said Mrs. Maddack. "A last look." 
 
 And they passed into the mortuary bedroom to gaze at Mr. 
 Baines before he should be everlastingly nailed down. In 
 death he had recovered some of his earlier dignity ; but even 
 so he was a startling sight. The two widows bent over him, 
 one on either side, and gravely stared at that twisted, worn 
 white face all neatly tucked up in linen. 
 
 " I shall fetch Constance and Sophia," said Mrs. Maddack, 
 with tears in her voice. " Do you go into the drawing-room, 
 sister." 
 
 But Mrs. Maddack only succeeded in fetching Constance. 
 
 Then there was the sound of wheels in King Street. The 
 long rite of the funeral was about to begin. Every guest, 
 after having been measured and presented with a pair of the 
 finest black kid gloves by Mr. Povey, had to mount the 
 crooked stairs and gaze upon the carcase of John Baines, 
 going afterwards to the drawing-room to condole briefly with 
 the widow. And every guest, while conscious of the enor- 
 mity of so thinking, thought what an excellent thing it was 
 that John Baines should be at last dead and gone. The 
 tramping on the stairs was continual, and finally Mr. Baines 
 himself went downstairs, bumping against corners, and led a 
 cortige of twenty vehicles. 
 
 The funeral tea was not over at seven o'clock, five hours 
 after the commencement of the rite. It was a gigantic and 
 
9* THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 faultless meal, worthy of John Baines's distant past. Only 
 two persons were absent from it — John Baines and Sophia. 
 The emptiness of Sophia's chair was much noticed ; Mrs. 
 Maddack explained that Sophia was very high-strung and 
 could not trust herself. Great efforts were put forth by the 
 company to be lugubrious and inconsolable, but the secret 
 relief resulting from the death would not be entirely hidden. 
 The vast pretence of acute sorrow could not stand intact 
 against that secret relief and the lavish richness of the food. 
 
 To the offending of sundry important relatives from a dis- 
 tance, Mr. Critchlow informally presided over that assemblage 
 of grave men in high stocks and crinolined women. He had 
 closed his shop, which had never before been closed on a week- 
 day, and he had a great deal to say about this extraordinary 
 closure. It was due as much to the elephant as to the funeral. 
 The elephant had become a victim to the craze for souvenirs. 
 Already in the night his tusks had been stolen ; then his feet 
 disappeared for umbrella-stands, and most of his flesh had 
 departed in little hunks. Everybody in Bursley had resolved 
 to participate in the elephant. One consequence was that all 
 the chemists' shops in the town were assaulted by strings of 
 boys. " Please a pennorth o' alum to tak' smell out o' a bit 
 o' elephant." Mr. Critchlow hated boys. 
 
 " 'I'll alum ye ! ' says I, and I did. I alummed him out o' 
 my shop with a pestle. If there'd been one there'd been 
 twenty between opening and nine o'clock. ' George,' I says 
 to my apprentice, ' shut shop up. My old friend John Baines 
 is going to his long home to-day, and I'll close. I've had 
 enough o' alum for one day.' " 
 
 The elephant fed the conversation until after the second 
 relay of hot muffins. When Mr. Critchlow had eaten to his 
 capacity, he took the Signal importantly from his pocket, 
 posed his spectacles, and read the obituary all through in 
 slow, impressive accents. Before he reached the end Mrs. 
 Baines began to perceive that familiarity had blinded her to 
 the heroic qualities of her late husband. The fourteen years 
 of ceaseless care were quite genuinely forgotten, and she saw 
 him in his strength and in his glory. When Mr. Critchlow 
 arrived at the eulogy of the husband and father, Mrs. Baines 
 rose and left the showroom. The guests looked at each other 
 in sympathy for her. Mr Critchlow shot a glance at her over 
 his spectacles and continued steadily reading. After he had 
 finished he approached the question of the cenotaph. 
 
 Mrs. Baines, driven from the banquet by her feelings, went 
 into the drawing-room. Sophia was there, and Sophia, seeing 
 tears in her mother's eyes, gave a sob, and flung herself bodily 
 
ELEPHANT. 93 
 
 against her mother, clutching her, and hiding her face in that 
 broad crape, which abraded her soft skin. 
 
 ' Mother," she wept passionately, " I want to leave the 
 school now. I want to please you. I'll do anything in the 
 world to please you. I'll go into the shop if you'd like me 
 to 1 " Her voice lost itself in tears. 
 
 * Calm yourself , my pet," said Mrs. Baines, tenderly, caress- 
 ing her. It was a triumph for the mother in the very hour 
 when she needed a triumph. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE TRAVELLER. 
 I. 
 
 " Exquisite, is. nd." 
 
 These singular signs were being painted in shiny black on 
 an unrectangular parallelogram of white cardboard by Con- 
 stance one evening in the parlour. She was seated, with her 
 left siae to the fire and to the fizzing gas, at the dining-table, 
 which was covered with a checked cloth in red and white. 
 Her dress was of dark crimson ; she wore a cameo brooch and 
 a gold chain round her neck ; over her shoulders was thrown 
 a white knitted shawl, for the weather was extremely cold, 
 the English climate being much more "serious and downright 
 at that day than it is now. She bent low to the task, holding 
 her head slightly askew, putting the tip of her tongue between 
 her ixps, and expending all the energy of her soul and body in 
 an intense effort to do what she was doing as well as it could 
 be done. 
 
 " Splendid ! " said Mr. Povey. 
 
 Mr. Povey was fronting her at the table ; he had his 
 elbows on the table, and watched her carefully, with the 
 breathless and divine anxiety of a dreamer who is witnessing 
 the ie.\lization of his dream. And Constance, without moving 
 any part cf her frame except her head, looked up at him and 
 smiled for a moment, and he could see her delicious little nos- 
 trils at the end of her snub nose. 
 
 Those two, without knowing or guessing it, were making 
 history — the history of commerce. They had no suspicion 
 that they were the forces of the future insidiously at work to 
 destroy what the forces of the past had created, but such was 
 the case. They were conscious merely of a desire to do their 
 duty in tlie shop and to the shop ; probably it had not even 
 occurred to them that this desire, which each stimulated in the 
 
THE TRAVELLER. 95 
 
 breast of the other, had assumed the dimensions of a passion. 
 It was ageing Mr. Povey, and it had made of Constance a 
 young lady tremendously industrious and preoccupied. 
 
 Mr. Povey had recently been giving attention to the ques- 
 tion of tickets. It is not too much to say that Mr. Povey, to 
 whom heaven had granted a minimum share of imagination, 
 had nevertheless discovered his little parcel of imagination in 
 the recesses of being, and brought it effectively to bear on 
 tickets. Tickets ran in conventional grooves. There were 
 heavy oblong tickets for flannels, shirting, and other stuffs 
 in the piece ; there were smaller and lighter tickets for in- 
 termediate goods ; and there were diamond-shaped tickets 
 (containing nothing but the price) for bonnets, gloves, and 
 flim-flams generally. The legends on the tickets gave no 
 sort of original invention. The words " lasting," " durable," 
 "unshrinkable," "latest," "cheap," " stylish," "novelty," 
 " choice " (as an adjective), " new," and " tasteful," ex- 
 hausted the entire vocabulary of tickets. Now Mr. Povey 
 attached importance to tickets, and since he was acknow- 
 ledged to be the best window-dresser in Bursley, his views 
 were entitled to respect. He dreamed of other tickets, in 
 original shapes, with original legends. In brief, he achieved, 
 in regard to tickets, the rare feat of ridding himself of precon- 
 ceived notions, and of approaching a subject with fresh, 
 virginal eyes. When he indicated the nature of his wishes to 
 Mr. Chawner, the wholesale stationer who supplied all the Five 
 Towns with shop- tickets, Mr. Chawner grew uneasy and 
 worried ; Mr. Chawner was indeed shocked. For Mr. Chaw- 
 ner there had always been certain well-defined genera of 
 tickets, and he could not conceive the existence of other 
 genera. When Mr. Povey suggested circular tickets — tickets 
 with a blue and a red line round them, tickets with legends 
 such as " unsurpassable," " very dainty," or " please note," 
 Mr. Chawner hummed and hawed, and finally stated that 
 it would be impossible to manufacture these preposterous 
 tickets, these tickets which would outrage the decency of 
 trade. 
 
 If Mr. Povey had not happened to be an exceedingly ob- 
 stinate man, he might have been defeated by the crass Tory- 
 ism of Mr. Chawner. But Mr. Povey was obstinate, and he 
 had resources of ingenuity which Mr. Chawner little suspected. 
 The great, tramping march of progress was not to be impeded 
 by Mr. Chawner. Mr. Povey began to make his own tickets. 
 At first he suffered as all reformers and inventors suffer. He 
 used the internal surface of collar-boxes and ordinary ink and 
 pens, and the result was such as to give customers the idea 
 
96 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 that Baineses were too poor or too mean to buy tickets like 
 other shops. For bought tickets had an ivory-tinted gloss, 
 and the ink was black and glossy, and the edges were very 
 straight and did not show yellow between two layers of 
 white. Whereas Mr. Povey's tickets were of a bluish-white, 
 without gloss ; the ink was neither black nor shiny, and the 
 edges were amateurishly rough : the tickets had an unmis- 
 takable air of having been " made out of something else " ; 
 moreover, the lettering had not the free, dashing style of 
 Mr. Chawner's tickets. 
 
 And did Mrs. Baines encourage him in his single-minded 
 enterprise on behalf of her business ? Not a bit ! Mrs. 
 Baines's attitude, when not disdainful, was inimical ! So 
 curious is human nature, so blind is man to his own advan- 
 tage ! Life was very complex for Mr. Povey. It might have 
 been less complex had Bristol board and Chinese ink been 
 less expensive ; with these materials he could have achieved 
 marvels to silence all prejudice and stupidity ; but they were 
 too costly. Still, he persevered, and Constance morally sup- 
 ported him ; he drew his inspiration and his courage from 
 Constance. Instead of the internal surface of collar-boxes, 
 he tried the external surface, which was at any rate shiny. 
 But the ink would not " take " on it. He made as many 
 experiments as Edison was to make, and as many failures. 
 Then Constance was visited by a notion for mixing sugar with 
 ink. Simple, innocent creature — why should providence 
 have chosen her to be the vessel of such a sublime notion ? 
 Puzzling enigma, which, however, did not exercise Mr. Povey ! 
 He found it quite natural that she should save him. Save 
 him she did. Sugar and ink would " take " on anything, 
 and it shone like a " patent leather " boot. Further, Con- 
 stance developed a " hand " for lettering which outdid Mr. 
 Povey's. Between them they manufactured tickets by the 
 dozen and by the score — tickets which, while possessing 
 nearly all the smartness and finish of Mr. Chawner's tickets, 
 were much superior to these in originality and strikingness. 
 Constance and Mr. Povey were delighted and fascinated by 
 them. As for Mrs. Baines, she said little, but the modern 
 spirit was too elated by its success to care whether she said 
 little or much. And every few days Mr. Povey thought of 
 some new and wonderful word to put on a ticket. 
 
 His last miracle was the word " exquisite." " Exquisite," 
 pinned on a piece of broad tartan ribbon, appeared to Con- 
 stance and Mr. Povey as the finality of appropriateness. A 
 climax worthy to close the year ! Mr. Povey had cut the 
 card and sketched the word and figures in pencil, and Con- 
 
THE TRAVELLER. 97 
 
 stance was doing her executive portion of the undertaking. 
 They were very happy, very absorbed, in this strictly business 
 matter. The clock showed five minutes past ten. Stern 
 duty, a pure desire for the prosperity of the shop, had kept 
 them at hard labour since before eight o'clock that morning ! 
 
 The stairs-door opened, and Mrs. Baines appeared, in bon- 
 net and furs and gloves, all clad for going out. She had 
 abandoned the cocoon of crape, but still wore weeds. She 
 was stouter than ever. 
 
 " What ! " she cried. " Not ready ! Now really ! " 
 
 " Oh, mother ! How you made me jump ! " Constance 
 protested. '* What time is it ? It surely isn't time to go 
 yet ! " 
 
 " Look at the clock ! " said Mrs. Baines, drily. 
 
 " Well, I never ! " Constance murmured, confused. 
 
 " Come, put your things together, and don't keep me wait- 
 ing," said Mrs. Baines, going past the table to the window, 
 and lifting the blind to peep out. " Still snowing," she ob- 
 served. Oh, the band's going away at last ! I wonder 
 how they can play at all in this weather. By the way, what 
 was that tune they gave us just now ? I couldn't make out 
 whether it was ' Redhead,' or " 
 
 " Band ? " questioned Constance — the simpleton ! 
 
 Neither she nor Mr. Povey had heard the strains of the 
 Bursley Town Silver Prize Band which had been enlivening 
 the season according to its usual custom. These two prac- 
 tical, duteous, commonsense young and youngish persons 
 had been so absorbed in their efforts for the welfare of the shop 
 that they had positively not only forgotten the time, but had 
 also failed to notice the band ! But if Constance had had 
 her wits about her she would at least have pretended that 
 she had heard it. 
 
 " What's this ? " asked Mrs. Baines, bringing her vast 
 form to the table and picking up a ticket. 
 
 Mr. Povey said nothing. Constance said : " Mr. Povey 
 thought of it to-day. Don't you think it's very good, 
 mother ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid I don't," Mrs. Baines coldly replied. 
 
 She had mildly objected already to certain words ; but 
 " exquisite " seemed to her silly ; it seemed out of place ; 
 she considered that it would merely bring ridicule on her 
 shop. " Exquisite " written upon a window-ticket ! No ! 
 What would John Baines have thought of " exquisite " ? 
 
 " ' Exquisite ! ' " She repeated the word with a sarcastic 
 inflection, putting the accent, as every one put it, on the 
 second syllable. " I don't think that will quite do." 
 
 4 
 
98 THE OLD WIVES* TALE. 
 
 " But why not, mother ? " 
 
 " It's not suitable, my dear." 
 
 She dropped the ticket from her gloved hand. Mr. Povey 
 had darkly flashed. Though he spoke little, he was as sensi- 
 tive as he was obstinate. On this occasion he said nothing. 
 He expressed his feelings by seizing the ticket and throwing 
 it into the fire. 
 
 The situation was extremely delicate. Priceless employes 
 like Mr. Povey cannot be treated as machines, and Mrs. 
 Baines of course instantly saw that tact was needed. 
 
 " Go along to my bedroom and get ready, my pet," said 
 she to Constance. ' ' Sophia is there. There's a good fire. I 
 must just speak to Maggie." She tactfully left the room. 
 
 Mr. Povey glanced at the fire and the curling red remains 
 of the ticket. Trade was bad ; owing to weather and war, 
 destitution was abroad ; and he had been doing his utmost 
 for the welfare of the shop ; and here was the reward ! 
 
 Constance's eyes were full of tears. " Never mind ! " she 
 murmured, and went upstairs. 
 
 It was all over in a moment. 
 
 II. 
 
 In the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on Duck Bank there 
 was a full and influential congregation. For in those days 
 influential people were not merely content to live in the town 
 where their fathers had lived, without dreaming of country resi- 
 dences and smokeless air — they were content also to believe 
 what their fathers had believed about the beginning and end 
 of all. There was no such thing as the unknowable in those 
 days. The eternal mysteries were as simple as an addition 
 sum ; a child could tell you with absolute certainty where 
 you would be and what you would be doing a million years 
 hence, and exactly what God thought of you. Accordingly, 
 every one being of the same mind, every one met on certain 
 occasions in certain places in order to express the universal 
 mind. And in the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, for example, 
 instead of a sparse handful of persons disturbingly conscious 
 of being in a minority, as now, a magnificent and proud 
 majority had collected, deeply aware of its lightness and its 
 correctness. 
 
 And the minister, backed by minor ministers, knelt and 
 covered his face in the superb mahogany rostrum ; and be- 
 hind him, in what was then still called the " orchestra " 
 
THE TRAVELLER. 99 
 
 (though no musical instruments except the grand organ had 
 sounded in it for decades), the choir knelt and covered their 
 faces ; and all around, in the richly painted gallery and on 
 the ground-floor, multitudinous rows of people, in easy cir- 
 cumstances of body and soul, knelt in high pews and covered 
 their faces. And there floated before them, in the intense and 
 prolonged silence, the clear vision of Jehovah on a throne, a 
 God of sixty or so with a moustache and a beard, and a non- 
 committal expression which declined to say whether or not 
 he would require more bloodshed ; and this God, destitute 
 of pinions, was surrounded by white-winged creatures that 
 wafted themselves to and fro while chanting ; and afar off 
 was an obscene monstrosity, with cloven hoofs and a tail, 
 very dangerous and rude and interfering, who could exist 
 comfortably in the middle of a coal-fire, and who took a malig- 
 nant and exhaustless pleasure in coaxing you by false pre- 
 tences into the same fire ; but of course you had too much 
 sense to swallow his wicked absurdities. Once a year, for ten 
 minutes by the clock, you knelt thus, in mass, and by medita- 
 tion convinced yourself that you had too much sense to swal- 
 low his wicked absurdities. And the hour was very solemn, 
 the most solemn of all the hours. 
 
 Strange that immortal souls should be found with the 
 temerity to reflect upon mundane affairs in that hour ! Yet 
 there were undoubtedly such in the congregation ; there were 
 perhaps many to whom the vision, if clear, was spasmodic 
 and fleeting. And among them the inhabitants of the Baines 
 family pew ! Who would have supposed that Mr. Povey, a 
 recent convert from Primitive Methodism in King Street to 
 Wesleyan Methodism on Duck Bank, was dwelling upon win- 
 dow-tickets and the injustice of women, instead of upon his 
 relations with Jehovah and the tailed one ? Who would 
 have supposed that the gentle-eyed Constance, pattern of 
 daughters, was risking her eternal welfare by smiling at the 
 tailed one, who, concealing his tail, had assumed the image 
 of Mr. Povey ? Who would have supposed that Mrs. Baines, 
 instead of resolving that Jehovah and not the tailed one 
 should have ultimate rule over her, was resolving that she 
 and not Mr. Povey should have ultimate rule over her house 
 and shop ? It was a pew-ful that belied its highly satisfac- 
 tory appearance. (And possibly there were other pew-fuls 
 equally deceptive.) 
 
 Sophia alone, in the corner next to the wall, with her beauti- 
 ful stern face pressed convulsively against her hands, was 
 truly busy with immortal things. Turbulent heart, the vio- 
 lence of her spiritual life had made her older ! Never was a 
 
ioo THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 passionate, proud girl in a harder case than Sophia ! In the 
 splendour of her remorse for a fatal forgetfulness, she had re- 
 nounced that which she loved and thrown herself into that 
 which she loathed. It was her nature so to do. She had 
 done it haughtily, and not with kindness, but she had done it 
 with the whole force of her will. Constance had been com- 
 pelled to yield up to her the millinery department, for Sophia's 
 fingers had a gift of manipulating ribbons and feathers that 
 was beyond Constance. Sophia had accomplished miracles 
 in the millinery. Yes, and she would be utterly polite to 
 customers ; but afterwards, when the customers were gone, 
 let mothers, sisters, and Mr. Poveys beware of her fiery darts ! 
 
 But why, when nearly three months had elapsed after her 
 father's death, had she spent more and more time in the shop, 
 secretly aflame with expectancy' ? Why, when one day a 
 strange traveller entered the shop and announced himself 
 the new representative of Birkinshaws — why had her very 
 soul died away within her and an awful sickness seized her ? 
 She knew then that she had been her own deceiver. She rec- 
 ognized and admitted, abasing herself lower than the lowest, 
 that her motive in leaving Miss Chetwynd's and joining the 
 shop had been, at the best, very mixed, very impure. En- 
 gaged at Miss Chetwynd's, she might easily have never set 
 eyes on Gerald Scales again. Employed in the shop, she 
 could not fail to meet him. In this light was to be seen the 
 true complexion of the splendour of her remorse. A terrible 
 thought for her ! And she could not dismiss it. It contam- 
 inated her existence, this thought ! And she could confide 
 in no one. She was incapable of showing a wound. Quarter 
 had succeeded quarter, and Gerald Scales was no more 
 heard of. She had sacrificed her life for worse than nothing. 
 She had made her own tragedy. She had killed her father, 
 cheated and shamed herself with a remorse horribly spurious, 
 exchanged content for misery and pride for humiliation — 
 and with it all, Gerald Scales had vanished ! She was ruined. 
 
 She took to religion, and her conscientious Christian vir- 
 tues, practised with stern inclemency, were the canker of the 
 family. Thus a year and a half had passed. 
 
 And then, on this last day of the year, the second year of 
 her shame and of her heart's widowhood, Mr. Scales had reap- 
 peared. She had gone casually into the shop and found him 
 talking to her mother and Mr. Povey. He had come back to 
 the provincial round and to her. She shook his hand and 
 fled, because she could not have stayed. None had noticed 
 her agitation, for she had held her body as in a vice. She 
 knew the reason neither of his absence nor of his return. 
 

 THE TRAVELLER. 101 
 
 She knew nothing. And not a word had been said at meals. 
 And the day had gone and the night come ; and now she was 
 in chapel, with Constance by her side and Gerald Scales in 
 her soul ! Happy beyond previous conception of happiness ! 
 Wretched beyond an unutterable woe ! And none knew ! 
 "What was she to pray for ? To what purpose and end ought 
 she to steel herself ? Ought she to hope, or ought she to 
 despair ? " O God, help me ! " she kept whispering to Jeho- 
 vah whenever the heavenly vision shone through the wrack 
 of her meditation. " O God, help me ! " She had a con- 
 science that, when it was in the mood for severity, could be 
 unspeakably cruel to her. 
 
 And whenever she looked, with dry, hot eyes, through her 
 gloved fingers, she saw in front of her on the wall a marble 
 tablet inscribed in gilt letters, the cenotaph ! She knew all 
 the lines by heart, in their spacious grandiloquence ; lines 
 such as : 
 
 EVER READY WITH HIS TONGUE HIS PEN AND HIS PURSE 
 
 TO HELP THE CHURCH OF HIS FATHERS 
 
 IN HER HE LIVED AND IN HER HE DIED 
 
 CHERISHING A DEEP AND ARDENT AFFECTION 
 
 FOR HIS BELOVED FAITH AND CREED. 
 
 And again : 
 
 HIS SYMPATHIES EXTENDED BEYOND HIS OWN COMMUNITY 
 
 HE WAS ALWAYS TO THE FORE IN GOOD WORKS 
 
 AND HE SERVED THE CIRCUIT THE TOWN AND THE DISTRICT 
 
 WITH GREAT ACCEPTANCE AND USEFULNESS. 
 
 Thus had Mr. Critchlow's vanity been duly appeased. 
 
 As the minutes sped in the breathing silence of the chapel 
 the emotional tension grew tighter ; worshippers sighed 
 heavily, or called upon Jehovah for a sign, or merely coughed 
 an invocation. And then at last the clock in the middle of 
 the balcony gave forth the single stroke to which it was 
 limited ; the ministers rose, and the congregation after them ; 
 and everybody smiled as though it was the millennium, and 
 not simply the new year, that had set in. Then, faintly, 
 through walls and shut windows, came the sound of bells 
 and of steam syrens and whistles. The superintendent 
 minister opened his hymn-book, and the hymn was sung 
 which had been sung in Wesleyan Chapels on New Year's 
 morn since the era of John Wesley himself. The organ 
 finished with a clangour of all its pipes ; the minister had a 
 few last words with Jehovah, and nothing was left to do ex- 
 
102 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 cept to persevere in well-doing. The people leaned towards 
 each other across the high backs of the pews. 
 
 " A happy New Year ! " 
 
 " Eh, thank ye ! The same to you ! " 
 
 " Another Watch-Night service over ! * 
 
 " Eh, yes ! " And a sigh. 
 
 Then the aisles were suddenly crowded, and there was a 
 good-humoured, optimistic pushing towards the door. In 
 the Corinthian porch occurred a great putting-on of cloaks, 
 ulsters, goloshes, and even pattens, and a great putting-up of 
 umbrellas. And the congregation went out into the whirling 
 snow, dividing into several black, silent-footed processions, 
 down Trafalgar Road, up towards the playground, along the 
 market-place, and across Duck Square in the direction of 
 St. Luke's Square. 
 
 Mr. Povey was between Mrs. Baines and Constance. 
 
 " You must take my arm, my pet," said Mrs. Baines to 
 Sophia. 
 
 Then Mr. Povey and Constance waded on in front through 
 the drifts. Sophia balanced that enormous swaying mass, 
 her mother. Owing to their hoops, she had much difficulty 
 in keeping close to her. Mrs. Baines laughed with the com- 
 placent ease of obesity, yet a fall would have been almost 
 irremediable for her ; and so Sophia had to laugh too. 
 But, though she laughed, God had not helped her. She did 
 not know where she was going, nor what might happen 
 to her next. 
 
 " Why, bless us ! " exclaimed Mrs. Baines, as they turned 
 the corner into King Street. " There's some one sitting on 
 our doorstep ! " 
 
 There was : a figure swathed in an ulster, a maud over the 
 ulster, and a high hat on the top of all. It could not have 
 been there very long, because it was only speckled with 
 snow. Mr. Povey plunged forward. 
 
 " It's Mr. Scales, of all people ! " said Mr. Povey. 
 
 ** Mr. Scales ! " cried Mrs. Baines. 
 
 And, " Mr. Scales ! " murmured Sophia, terribly afraid. 
 
 Perhaps she was afraid of miracles. Mr. Scales sitting on 
 her mother's doorstep in the middle of the snowy night had 
 assuredly the air of a miracle, of something dreamed in a 
 dream, of something pathetically and impossibly appro- 
 priate^ — " pat," as they say in the Five Towns. But he was 
 a tangible fact there. And years afterwards, in the light of 
 further knowledge of Mr. Scales, Sophia came to regard his 
 being on the doorstep as the most natural and characteristic 
 thing in the world. Real miracles never seem to be miracles, 
 
THE TRAVELLER. 103 
 
 and that which at the first blush resembles one usually proves 
 to be an instance of the extremely prosaic. 
 
 III. 
 
 " Is that you, Mrs. Baines ? " asked Gerald Scales, in a 
 half-witted voice, looking up, and then getting to his feet. 
 " Is this your house ? So it is ! Well, I'd no idea I was 
 sitting on your doorstep. " 
 
 He smiled timidly, nay, sheepishly, while the women and 
 Mr. Povey surrounded him with their astonished faces under 
 the light of the gas-lamp. Certainly he was very pale. 
 
 " But whatever is the matter, Mr. Scales ? " Mrs. Baines 
 demanded in an anxious tone. " Are you ill ? Have you 
 been suddenly " 
 
 "Oh no," said the young man lightly. " It's nothing. 
 Only I was set on just now, down there," — he pointed to the 
 depths of King Street. 
 
 " Set on ! " Mrs. Baines repeated, alarmed. 
 
 " That makes the fourth case in a week, that we know of ! *' 
 said Mr. Povey. " It really is becoming a scandal." 
 
 The fact was that, owing to depression of trade, lack of 
 employment, and rigorous weather, public security in the 
 Five Towns was at that period not as perfect as it ought to 
 have been. In the stress of hunger the lower classes were 
 forgetting their manners — and this in spite of the altruistic 
 and noble efforts of their social superiors to relieve the desti- 
 tution due, of course, to short-sighted improvidence. When 
 (the social superiors were asking in despair) will the lower 
 classes learn to put by for a rainy day ? (They might have 
 said a snowy and a frosty day.) It was " really too bad " 
 of the lower classes, when everything that could be done was 
 being done for them, to kill, or even attempt to kill, the goose 
 that lays the golden eggs ! And especially in a respectable 
 town ! What, indeed, were things coming to ? Well, here 
 was Mr. Gerald Scales, gentleman from Manchester, a wit- 
 ness and victim to the deplorable moral condition of the 
 Five Towns. What would he think of the Five Towns ? 
 The evil and the danger had been a topic of discussion in the 
 shop for a week past, and now it was brought home to them. 
 
 ' I hope you weren't — " said Mrs. Baines, apologetically 
 and sympathetically. 
 
 "Oh no ! " Mr. Scales interrupted her quite gaily. " I 
 managed to beat them off. Only my elbow " 
 
io 4 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Meanwhile it was continuing to snow. 
 
 " Do come in ! " said Mrs. Baines. 
 
 " I couldn't think of troubling you," said Mr. Scalos. 
 "I'm all right now, and I can find my way to the Tiger." 
 
 " You must come in, if it's only for a minute," said Mrs. 
 Baines, with decision. She had to think of the honour of the 
 town. 
 
 " You're very kind," said Mr. Scales. 
 
 The door was suddenly opened from within, and Maggie 
 surveyed them from the height of the two steps. 
 
 " A happy New Year, mum, to all of you." 
 
 " Thank you, Maggie," said Mrs. Baines, and primly added : 
 " The same to you ! " And in her own mind she said that 
 Maggie could best prove her desire for a happ} 7- new year by 
 contriving in future not to " scamp her corners," and not to 
 break so much crockery. 
 
 Sophia, scarce knowing what she did, mounted the steps. 
 
 " Mr. Scales ought to let our New Year in, my pet," Mrs. 
 Baines stopped her. 
 
 " Oh, of course, mother ! " Sophia concurred with a gasp, 
 springing back nervously. 
 
 Mr. Scales raised his hat, and duly let the new year, and 
 much snow, into the Baines parlour. And there was a vast 
 deal of stamping of feet, agitating of umbrellas, and shaking 
 of cloaks and ulsters on the doormat in the corner by the 
 harmonium. And Maggie took away an armful of everything 
 snowy, including goloshes, and received instructions to boil 
 milk and to bring "mince." Mr. Povey said " B-r-r-r ! " 
 and shut the door (which was bordered with felt to stop ven- 
 tilation) ; Mrs. Baines turned up the gas till it sang, and told 
 Sophia to poke the fire, and actually told Constance to light 
 the second gas. 
 
 Excitement prevailed. 
 
 The placidity of existence had been agreeably disturbed 
 (yes, agreeably, in spite of horror at the attack on Mr. Scales 's 
 elbow) by an adventure. Moreover, Mr. Scales proved to be 
 in evening-dress. And nobody had ever worn evening-dress 
 in that house before. 
 
 Sophia's blood was in her face, and it remained there, en- 
 hancing the vivid richness of her beauty. She was dizzy with 
 a strange and disconcerting intoxication. She seemed to be 
 in a world of unrealities and incredibilities. Her ears heard 
 with indistinctness, and the edges of things and people had 
 a prismatic colouring. She was in a state of ecstatic, un- 
 reasonable, inexplicable happiness. All her misery, doubts, 
 despair, rancour, churlishness, had disappeared. She was 
 
THE TRAVELLER. 105 
 
 as softly gentle as Constance. Her eyes were the eyes of a 
 fawn, and her gestures delicious in their modest and sensi- 
 tive grace. Constance was sitting on the sofa, and, after 
 glancing about as if for shelter, she sat down on the sofa by 
 Constance's side. She tried not to stare at Mr. Scales, but 
 her gaze would not leave him. She was sure that he was the 
 most perfect man in the world. A shortish man, perhaps, 
 but a perfect. That such perfection could be was almost 
 past her belief. He excelled all her dreams of the ideal man. 
 His smile, his voice, his hand, his hair — never were such ! 
 Why, when he spoke — it was positively music ! When he 
 smiled — it was heaven ! His smile, to Sophia, was one of 
 those natural phenomena which are so lovely that they make 
 you want to shed tears. There is no hyperbole in this de- 
 scription of Sophia's sensations, but rather an under-statement 
 of them. She was utterly obsessed by the unique qualities 
 of Mr. Scales. Nothing would have persuaded her that the 
 peer of Mr. Scales existed among men, or could possibly exist. 
 And it was her intense and profound conviction of his com- 
 plete pre-eminence that gave him, as he sat there"in the rock- 
 ing-chair in her mother's parlour, that air of the unreal and 
 the incredible. 
 
 " I staved in the town on purpose to go to a New Year's 
 party at Mr. Lawton's," Mr. Scales was saying. 
 
 " Ah ! So you know Lawyer Lawton ! " observed Mrs. 
 Baines, impressed, for Lawyer Lawton did not consort with 
 tradespeople. He was jolly with them, and he did their 
 legal business for them, but he was not of them. His friends 
 came from afar. 
 
 " My people are old acquaintances of his," said Mr. Scales, 
 sipping the milk which Maggie had brought. 
 
 ' Now, Mr. Scales, you must taste my mince. A happy 
 month for every tart you eat, you know," Mrs. Baines re- 
 minded him. 
 
 He bowed. " And it was as I was coming away from there 
 that I got into difficulties." He laughed. 
 
 Then he recounted the struggle, which had, however, been 
 brief, as the assailants lacked pluck. He had slipped and 
 fallen on his elbow on the kerb, and his elbow might have 
 been broken, had not the snow been so thick. No, it did not 
 hurt him now ; doubtless a mere bruise. It was fortunate 
 that the miscreants had not got the better of him, for he had 
 in his pocket-book a considerable sum of money in notes — 
 accounts paid ! He had often thought what an excellent 
 thing it would be if commercials could travel with dogs, par- 
 ticularly in winter. There was nothing like a dog. 
 
 4a 
 
106 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 ."You are fond of dogs? " asked Mr. Povey, who had 
 always had a secret but impracticable ambition to keep a dog. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Scales, turning now to Mr. Povey. 
 
 " Keep one ? " asked Mr. Povey, in a sporting tone. 
 
 " I have a fox-terrier bitch, 1 ' said Mr. Scales, " that took 
 a first at Knutsford ; but she's getting old now." 
 
 The sexual epithet fell queerly on the room. Mr. Povey, 
 being a man of the world, behaved as if nothing had hap- 
 pened ; but Mrs. Baines's curls protested against this un- 
 necessary coarseness. Constance pretended not to hear. 
 Sophia did not understandingly hear. Mr. Scales had no 
 suspicion that he was transgressing a convention by virtue 
 of which dogs have no sex. Further, he had no suspicion of 
 the local fame of Mrs. Baines's mince-tarts. He had already 
 eaten more mince-tarts than he could enjoy, before beginning 
 upon hers, and Mrs. Baines missed the enthusiasm to which 
 she was habituated from consumers of her pastry. 
 
 Mr. Povey, fascinated, proceeded in the direction of dogs, 
 and it grew more and more evident that Mr. Scales, who went 
 out to parties in evening dress, instead of going in respect- 
 able broadcloth to watch-night services, who knew the great 
 ones of the land, and who kept dogs of an inconvenient sex, 
 was neither an ordinary commercial traveller nor the kind of 
 man to which the Square was accustomed. He came from a 
 different world. 
 
 " Lawyer Lawton's party broke up early — at least I mean, 
 considering — " Mrs. Baines hesitated. 
 
 After a pause Mr. Scales replied, " Yes, I left immediately 
 the clock struck twelve. I've a heavy day to-morrow — I 
 mean to-day." 
 
 It was not an hour for a prolonged visit, and in a few 
 minutes Mr. Scales was ready again to depart. He admitted 
 a certain feebleness (" wankiness," he playfully called it, 
 being proud of his skill in the dialect), and a burning in his 
 elbow ; but otherwise he was quite well — thanks to Mrs. 
 Baines's most kind hospitality . . . He really didn't know 
 how he came to be sitting on her doorstep. Mrs. Baines 
 urged him, if he met a policeman on his road to the Tiger, to 
 furnish all particulars about the attempted highway robbery, 
 and he said he decidedly would. 
 
 He took his leave with distinguished courtliness. 
 
 " If I have a moment I shall run in to-morrow morning 
 just to let you know I'm all right," said he, in the white 
 street. 
 
 " Oh, do ! " said Constance. Constance's perfect inno- 
 cence made her strangely forward at times. 
 
THE TRAVELLER. 107 
 
 " A happy New Year and many of them ! " 
 
 " Thanks ! Same to you ! Don't get lost." 
 
 " Straight up the Square and first on the right," called the 
 commonsense of Mr. Povey. 
 
 Nothing else remained to say, and the visitor disappeared 
 silently in the whirling snow. " Brrr ! " murmured Mr. 
 Povey, shutting the door. Everybody felt : " What a funny 
 ending of the old year ! " 
 
 " Sophia, my pet," Mrs. Baines began. 
 
 But Sophia had vanished to bed. 
 
 " Tell her about her new night-dress," said Mrs. Baines to 
 Constance. 
 
 " Yes, mother." 
 
 " I don't know that I'm so set up with that young man, 
 after all," Mrs. Baines reflected aloud. 
 
 " Oh, mother ! " Constance protested. " I think he's just 
 lovely." 
 
 " He never looks you straight in the face," said Mrs. Baines. 
 
 " Don't tell me I " laughed Constance, kissing her mother 
 good night. " You're only on your high horse because he 
 didn't praise your mince. / noticed it." 
 
 IV. 
 
 "If anybody thinks I'm going to stand the cold in this 
 showroom any longer, they're mistaken," said Sophia the 
 next morning loudly, and in her mother's hearing. And she 
 went down into the shop carrying bonnets. 
 
 She pretended to be angry, but she was not. She felt, on 
 the contrary, extremely joyous, and charitable to all the 
 world. Usually she would take pains to keep out of the 
 shop ; usually she was preoccupied and stern. Hence her 
 presence on the ground-floor, and her demeanour, excited in- 
 terest among the three young lady assistants who sat sewing 
 round the stove in the middle of the shop, sheltered by the 
 great piles of shirtings and linseys that fronted the entrance. 
 
 Sophia shared Constance's corner. They had hot bricks 
 under their feet, and fine-knitted wraps on their shoulders. 
 They would have been more comfortable near the stove, but 
 greatness has its penalties. The weather was exceptionally 
 severe. The windows were thickly frosted over, so that Mr. 
 Povey 's art in dressing them was quite wasted. And — rare 
 phenomenon I — the doors of the shop were shut. In the 
 ordinary way they were not merely open, but hidden by a 
 
108 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 display of " cheap lines." Mr. Povey, after consulting Mrs. 
 Barnes, had decided to close them, foregoing the customary 
 display. Mr. Povey had also, in order to get a little warmth 
 into his limbs, personally assisted two casual labourers to 
 scrape the thick frozen snow off the pavement ; and he wore 
 his kid mittens. All these things together proved better 
 than the evidence of barometers how the weather nipped. 
 
 Mr. Scales came about ten o'clock. Instead of going to 
 Mr. Povey's counter, he walked boldly to Constance's corner, 
 and looked over the boxes, smiling and saluting. Both the 
 girls candidly delighted in his visit. Both blushed ; both 
 laughed — without knowing why they laughed. Mr. Scales 
 said he was just departing and had slipped in for a moment 
 to thank all of them for their kindness of last night — " or 
 rather this morning." The girls laughed again at this wit- 
 ticism. Nothing could have been more simple than this 
 speech. Yet it appeared to them magically attractive. A 
 customer entered, a lady ; one of the assistants rose from 
 the neighbourhood of the stove, but the daughters of the 
 house ignored the customer ; it was part of the etiquette of 
 the shop that customers, at any rate chance customers, should 
 not exist for the daughters of the house, until an assistant 
 had formally drawn attention to them. Otherwise every 
 one who wanted a pennyworth of tape would be expecting 
 to be served by Miss Baines, or Miss Sophia, if Miss Sophia 
 were there. Which would have been ridiculous. 
 
 Sophia, glancing sidelong, saw the assistant parleying with 
 the customer ; and then the assistant came softly behind the 
 counter and approached the corner. 
 
 "Miss Constance, can you spare a minute ? " the assistant 
 whispered discreetly. 
 
 Constance extinguished her smile for Mr. Scales, and, turn- 
 ing away, lighted an entirely different and inferior smile for 
 the customer. 
 
 " Good morning, Miss Baines. Very cold, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Good morning, Mrs. Chatterley. Yes, it is. I suppose 
 you're getting anxious about those — " Constance stopped. 
 
 Sophia was now alone with Mr. Scales, for in order to dis- 
 cuss the unnameable freely with Mrs. Chatterley her sister was 
 edging up the counter. Sophia had dreamed of a private 
 conversation as something delicious and impossible. But 
 chance had favoured her. She was alone with him. And his 
 neat fair hair and his blue eyes and his delicate mouth were 
 as wonderful to her as ever. He was gentlemanly to a degree 
 that impressed her more than anything had impressed her in 
 her life. And all the proud and aristocratic instinct that was 
 

 THE TRAVELLER. 109 
 
 at the base of her character sprang up and seized on his 
 gentlemanliness like a famished animal seizing on food. 
 
 " The last time I saw you," said Mr. Scales, in a new tone, 
 " you said you were never in the shop." 
 
 " What ? Yesterday ? Did I ? " 
 
 " No, I mean the last time I saw you alone," said he. 
 
 " Oh ! " she exclaimed. " It's just an accident." 
 
 " That's exactly what you said last time." 
 
 " Is it ? " 
 
 Was it his manner, or what he said, that flattered her, 
 that intensified her beautiful vivacity ? 
 
 " I suppose you don't often go out ? " he went on. 
 
 " What ? In this weather ? " 
 
 " Any time." 
 
 " I go to chapel," said she, " and marketing with mother." 
 There was a little pause. " And to the Free Library." 
 
 " Oh yes. You ve got a Free Library here now, haven't 
 you ? " 
 
 " Yes. We've had it over a year." 
 
 " And you belong to it ? What do you read ? " 
 
 " Oh, stories, you know. I get a fresh book out once a 
 week." 
 
 " Saturdays, I suppose ? " 
 
 " No," she said. Wednesdays." And she smiled. "Usu- 
 ally." 
 
 It's Wednesday to-day," said he. " Not been al- 
 ready ? " 
 
 She shook her head. " I don't think I shall go to-day. 
 It's too cold. I don't think I shall venture out to-day." 
 
 " You must be very fond of reading," said he. 
 
 Then Mr. Povey appeared, rubbing his mittened hands. 
 And Mrs. Chatterley went. 
 
 " I'll run and fetch mother," said Constance. 
 
 Mrs. Baines was very polite to the young man. He related 
 his interview with the police, whose opinion was that he had 
 been attacked by stray members of a gang from Hanbridge. 
 The young lady assistants, with ears cocked, gathered the 
 nature of Mr. Scales's adventure, and were thrilled to the 
 point of questioning Mr. Povey about it after Mr. Scales had 
 gone. His farewell was marked by much handshaking, and 
 finally Mr. Povey ran after him into the Square to mention 
 something about dogs. 
 
 At half-past one, while Mrs. Baines was dozing after dinner, 
 Sophia wrapped herself up, and with a book under her arm 
 went forth into the world, through the shop. She returned 
 in less than twenty minutes. But her mother had already 
 
no THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 awakened, and was hovering about the back of the shop. 
 Mothers have supernatural gifts. 
 
 Sophia nonchalantly passed her and hurried into the par- 
 lour, where she threw down her muff and a book and knelt 
 before the fire to warm herself. 
 
 Mrs. Baines followed her. " Been to the Library ? " 
 questioned Mrs. Baines. 
 
 " Yes, mother. And it's simply perishing." 
 
 " I wonder at your going on a day like to-day. I thought 
 you always went on Thursdays ? " 
 
 " So I do. But I'd finished my book." 
 
 " What is this ? " Mrs. Baines picked up the volume, 
 which was covered with black oil-cloth. 
 
 She picked it up with a hostile air. For her attitude to- 
 wards the Free Library was obscurely inimical. She never 
 read anything herself except The Sunday at Home, and Con- 
 stance never read anything except The Sunday at Home. 
 There were scriptural commentaries, Dugdale's Gazetteer, 
 Culpepper's Herbal, and works by Bunyan and Flavius 
 Josephus in the drawing-room bookcase ; also Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin. And .Mrs. Baines, in considering the welfare of her 
 daughters, looked askance at the whole remainder of printed 
 literature. If the Free Library had not formed part of the 
 Famous Wedgwood Institution, which had been opened 
 with immense iclat by the semi-divine Gladstone ; if the first 
 book had not been ceremoniously " taken out " of the Free 
 Library by the Chief Bailiff in person — a grandfather of 
 stainless renown — Mrs. Baines would probably have risked 
 her authority in forbidding the Free Library. 
 
 " You needn't be afraid," said Sophia, laughing. " It's 
 Miss Sewell's Experience of Life." 
 
 " A novel, I see," observed Mrs. Baines, dropping the 
 book. 
 
 Gold and jewels would probably not tempt a Sophia of 
 these days to read Experience of Life ; but to Sophia Baines 
 the bland story had the piquancy of the disapproved. 
 
 The next day Mrs. Baines summoned Sophia into her bed- 
 room. 
 
 " Sophia," she said, trembling, " I shall be glad if you will 
 not walk about the streets with young men until you have 
 my permission." 
 
 The girl blushed violently. " I — I " 
 
 " You were seen in Wedgwood Street," said Mrs. Baines. 
 
 " Who's been gossiping — Mr. Critchlow, I suppose ? " 
 Sophia exclaimed scornfully. 
 
 No one has been ' gossiping,' " said Mrs. Baines. 
 
" \ft 
 
 THE TRAVELLER. in 
 
 " Well, if I meet some one by accident in the street, I can't 
 help it, can I ? " Sophia's voice shook. 
 
 ' You know what I mean, my child," said Mrs. Baines, 
 with careful calm. 
 
 Sophia dashed angrily from the room. 
 
 " I like the idea of him having ' a heavy day ' ! " Mrs. 
 Baines reflected ironically, recalling a phrase which had 
 lodged in her mind. And very vaguely, with an uneasiness 
 scarcely perceptible, she remembered that " he," and no other, 
 had been in the shop on the day her husband died. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ESCAPADE. 
 
 The uneasiness of Mrs. Baines flowed and ebbed, during the 
 next three months, influenced by Sophia's moods. There 
 were days when Sophia was the old Sophia — the forbidding, 
 difficult, waspish, and even hedgehog -Sophia. But there 
 were other days on which Sophia seemed to be drawing joy 
 and gaiety and goodwill from some secret source, from some 
 fount whose nature and origin none could divine. It was on 
 these days that the uneasiness of Mrs. Baines waxed. She 
 had the wildest suspicions ; she was almost capable of accus- 
 ing Sophia of carrying on a clandestine correspondence ; she 
 saw Sophia and Gerald Scales deeply and wickedly in love ; 
 she saw them with their arms round each other's necks. . . . 
 And then she called herself a middle-aged fool, to base such a 
 structure of suspicion on a brief encounter in the street and 
 on an idea, a fancy, a curious and irrational notion ! Sophia 
 had a certain streak of pure nobility in that exceedingly 
 heterogeneous thing, her character. Moreover, Mrs. Baines 
 watched the posts, and she also watched Sophia — she was 
 not the woman to trust to a streak of pure nobility — and 
 she came to be sure that Sophia's sinfulness, if any, was not 
 such as could be weighed in a balance, or collected together 
 by stealth and then suddenly placed before the girl on a 
 charger. 
 
 Still, she would have given much to see inside Sophia's 
 lovely head. Ah ! Could she have done so, what sleep- 
 destroying wonders she would have witnessed ! By what 
 bright lamps burning in what mysterious grottoes and 
 caverns of the brain would her mature eyes have been 
 dazzled ! Sophia was living for months on the exhaustless 
 ardent vitality absorbed during a magical two minutes in 
 
ESCAPADE. 113 
 
 Wedgwood Street. She was living chiefly on the flaming 
 fire struck in her soul by the shock of seeing Gerald Scales 
 in the porch of the Wedgwood Institution as she came out 
 of the Free Library with Experience of Life tucked into her 
 large astrakhan muff. He had stayed to meet her, then : 
 she knew it ! " After all," her heart said, " I must be very 
 beautiful, for I have attracted the pearl of men ! " And 
 she remembered her face in the glass. The value and the 
 power of beauty were tremendously proved to her. He, 
 the great man of the world, the handsome and elegant man 
 with a thousand strange friends and a thousand interests 
 far remote from her, had remained in Bursley on the mere 
 chance of meeting her ! She was proud, but her pride 
 was drowned in bliss. " I was just looking at this inscrip- 
 tion about Mr. Gladstone." " So you decided to come out 
 as usual ! " " And may I ask what book you have chosen ? " 
 These were the phrases she heard, and to which she re- 
 sponded with similar phrases. And meanwhile a miracle of 
 ecstasy had opened — opened like a flower. She was walking 
 along Wedgwood Street, by his side slowly, on the scraped 
 pavements, where marble bulbs of snow had defied the 
 spade and remained. She and he were exactly of the same 
 height, and she kept looking into his face and he into hers. 
 This was all the miracle. Except that she was not walking 
 on the pavement — she was walking on the intangible sward 
 of paradise ! Except that the houses had receded and faded, 
 and the passers-by were subtilized into unnoticeable ghosts ! 
 Except that her mother and Constance had become phantas- 
 mal beings existing at an immense distance ! 
 
 What had happened ? Nothing ! The most commonplace 
 occurrence ! The eternal cause had picked up a commercial 
 traveller (it might have been a clerk or curate, but it in fact 
 was a commercial traveller), and endowed him with all the 
 glorious, unique, incredible attributes of a god, and planted 
 him down before Sophia in order to produce the eternal 
 effect. A miracle performed specially for Sophia's benefit ! 
 No one else in Wedgwood Street saw the god walking along 
 by her side. No one else saw anything but a simple com- 
 mercial traveller. Yes, the most commonplace occurrence ! 
 
 Of course at the corner of the street he had to go. " Till 
 next time ! " he murmured. And fire came out of his eyes 
 and lighted in Sophia's lovely head those lamps which 
 Mrs. Baines was mercifully spared from seeing. And he had 
 shaken hands and raised his hat. Imagine a god raising 
 his hat ! And he went off on two legs, precisely like a 
 dashing little commercial traveller. 
 
ii 4 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 And, escorted by the equivocal Angel of Eclipses, she had 
 turned into King Street, and arranged her face, and coura- 
 geously met her mother. Her mother had not at first per- 
 ceived the unusual ; for mothers, despite their reputation 
 to the contrary, really are the blindest creatures. Sophia, 
 the naive ninny, had actually supposed that her walking 
 along a hundred yards of pavement with a god by her side 
 was not going to excite remark ! What a delusion ! It 
 is true, certainly, that no one saw the god by direct vision. 
 But Sophia's cheeks, Sophia's eyes, the curve of Sophia's 
 neck as her soul yearned towards the soul of the god — 
 these phenomena were immeasurably more notable than 
 Sophia guessed. An account of them, in a modified form to 
 respect Mrs. Baines's notorious dignity, had healed the 
 mother of her blindness and led to that characteristic pro- 
 test from her, " I shall be glad if you will not walk about 
 the streets with young men," etc. 
 
 When the period came for the reappearance of Mr. Scales, 
 Mrs. Baines outlined a plan, and when the circular announc- 
 ing the exact time of his arrival was dropped into the letter- 
 box, she formulated the plan in detail. In the first place, 
 she was determined to be indisposed and invisible herself, 
 so that Mr. Scales might be foiled in any possible design 
 to renew social relations in the parlour. In the second 
 place, she flattered Constance with a single hint — oh, the 
 vaguest and briefest ! — and Constance understood that she 
 was not to quit the shop on the appointed morning. In 
 the third place, she invented a way of explaining to Mr. Povey 
 that the approaching advent of Gerald Scales must not be 
 mentioned. And in the fourth place, she deliberately made 
 appointments for Sophia with two millinery customers in 
 the showroom, so that Sophia might be imprisoned in the 
 showroom. 
 
 Having thus left nothing to chance, she told herself that 
 she was a foolish woman full of nonsense. But this did not 
 prevent her from putting her lips together firmly and re- 
 solving that Mr. Scales should have no finger in the pie 
 of her family. She had acquired information concerning 
 Mr. Scales, at second-hand, from Lawyer Pratt. More than 
 this, she posed the question in a broader form — why should 
 a young girl be permitted any interest in any young man 
 whatsoever ? The everlasting purpose had made use of 
 Mrs. Baines and cast her off, and, like most persons in a 
 similar situation, she was, unconsciously and quite honestly, 
 at odds with the everlasting purpose. 
 
ESCAPADE. 115 
 
 II. 
 
 On the day of Mr. Scales 's visit to the shop to obtain 
 orders and money on behalf of Birkinshaws, a singular 
 success seemed to attend the machinations of Mrs. Barnes. 
 With Mr. Scales punctuality was not an inveterate habit, and 
 he had rarely been known, in the past, to fulfil exactly the 
 prophecy of the letter of advice concerning his arrival. 
 But that morning his promptitude was unexampled. He 
 entered the shop, and by chance Mr. Povey was arranging 
 unshrinkable flannels in the doorway. The two youngish 
 little men talked amiably about flannels, dogs, and quarter- 
 day (which was just past), and then Mr. Povey led Mr. Scales 
 to his desk in the dark corner behind the high pile of twills, 
 and paid the quarterly bill, in notes and gold — as always ; 
 and then Mr. Scales offered for the august inspection of 
 Mr. Povey all that Manchester had recently invented for 
 the temptation of drapers, and Mr. Povey gave him an order 
 which, if not reckless, was nearer " handsome " than " good." 
 During the process Mr. Scales had to go out of the shop 
 twice or three times in order to bring in from his barrow 
 at the kerbstone certain small black boxes edged with brass. 
 On none of these excursions did Mr. Scales glance wantonly 
 about him in satisfaction of the lust of the eye. Even if he 
 had permitted himself this freedom he would have seen 
 nothing more interesting than three young lady assistants 
 seated round the stove and sewing with pricked fingers 
 from which the chilblains were at last deciding to depart. 
 When Mr. Scales had finished writing down the details of 
 the order with his ivory-handled stylo, and repacked his 
 boxes, he drew the interview to a conclusion after the manner 
 of a capable commercial traveller ; that is to say, he implanted 
 in Mr. Povey his opinion that Mr. Povey was a wise, a shrewd 
 and an upright man, and that the world would be all the 
 better for a few more like him. He inquired for Mrs. Baines, 
 and was deeply pained to hear of her indisposition while 
 finding consolation in the assurance that the Misses Baines 
 were well. Mr. Povey was on the point of accompanying the 
 pattern of commercial travellers to the door, when two 
 customers simultaneously came in — ladies. One made 
 straight for Mr. Povey, whereupon Mr. Scales parted from 
 him at once, it being a universal maxim in shops that even 
 the most distinguished commercial shall not hinder the 
 business of even the least distinguished customer. The 
 other customer had the effect of causing Constance to pop 
 
ib6 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 up from her cloistral corner. Constance had been there 
 all the time, but of course, though she heard the remembered 
 voice, her maidenliness had not permitted that she should 
 show herself to Mr. Scales. 
 
 Now, as he was leaving, Mr. Scales saw her, with her 
 agreeable snub nose and her kind, simple eyes. She was 
 requesting the second customer to mount to the showroom, 
 where was Miss Sophia. Mr. Scales hesitated a moment, 
 and in that moment Constance, catching his eye, smiled 
 upon him, and nodded. What else could she do ? Vaguely 
 aware though she was that her mother was not "set up " 
 with Mr. Scales, and even feared the possible influence of 
 the young man on Sophia, she could not exclude him from 
 her general benevolence towards the universe. Moreover, 
 she liked him ; she liked him very much and thought him 
 a very fine specimen of a man. 
 
 He left the door and went across to her. They shook 
 hands and opened a conversation instantly ; for Constance, 
 while retaining all her modesty, had lost all her shyness 
 in the shop, and could chatter with anybody. She sidled 
 towards her corner, precisely as Sophia had done on another 
 occasion, and Mr. Scales put his chin over the screening 
 boxes, and eagerly prosecuted the conversation. 
 
 There was absolutely nothing in the fact of the interview 
 itself to cause alarm to a mother, nothing to render futile 
 the precautions of Mrs. Baines on behalf of the flower of 
 Sophia's innocence. And yet it held danger for Mrs. Baines, 
 all unconscious in her parlour. Mrs. Baines could rely 
 utterly on Constance not to be led away by the dandiacal 
 charms of Mr. Scales (she knew in what quarter sat the wind 
 for Constance) ; in her plan she had forgotten nothing, 
 except Mr. Povey ; and it must be said that she could not 
 possibly have foreseen the effect on the situation of Mr. Povey's 
 character. 
 
 Mr. Povey, attending to his customer, had noticed the 
 bright smile of Constance on the traveller, and his heart did 
 not like it. And when he saw the lively gestures of a Mr. 
 Scales in apparently intimate talk with a Constance hidden 
 behind boxes, his uneasiness grew into fury. He was a man 
 capable of black and terrible furies. Outwardly insignificant, 
 possessing a mind as little as his body, easily abashed, he 
 was none the less a very susceptible young man, soon offended, 
 proud, vain, and obscurely passionate. You might offend 
 Mr. Povey without guessing it, and only discover your sin 
 when Mr. Povey had done something too decisive as a result 
 of it. 
 
ESCAPADE. 117 
 
 The reason of his fury was jealousy. Mr. Povey had made 
 great advances since the death of John Baines. He had 
 consolidated his position, and he was in every way a per- 
 sonage of the first importance. His misfortune was that he 
 could never translate his importance, or his sense of his 
 importance, into terms of outward demeanour. Most 
 people, had they been told that Mr. Povey was seriously 
 aspiring to enter the Baines family, would have laughed. 
 But they would have been wrong. To laugh at Mr. Povey 
 was invariably wrong. Only Constance knew what inroads 
 he had effected upon her. 
 
 The customer went, but Mr. Scales did not go. Mr. Povey, 
 free to reconnoitre, did so. From the shadow of the till he 
 could catch glimpses of Constance's blushing, vivacious face. 
 She was obviously absorbed in Mr. Scales. She and he had 
 a tremendous air of intimacy. And the murmur of their 
 chatter continued. Their chatter was nothing, and about 
 nothing, but Mr. Povey imagined that they were exchanging 
 eternal vows. He endured Mr. Scales's odious freedom 
 until it became insufferable, until it deprived him of all his 
 self-control ; and then he retired into his cutting-out room. 
 He meditated there in a condition of insanity for perhaps 
 a minute, and excogitated a device. Dashing back into the 
 shop, he spoke up, half across the shop, in a loud, curt tone : 
 
 " Miss Baines, your mother wants you at once." 
 
 He was launched on the phrase before he noticed that, 
 during his absence, Sophia had descended from the show- 
 room and joined her sister and Mr. Scales. The danger and 
 scandal were now less, he perceived, but he was glad he had 
 summoned Constance away, and he was in a state to despise 
 consequences. 
 
 The three chatterers, startled, looked at Mr. Povey, who 
 left the shop abruptly. Constance could do nothing but obey 
 the call. 
 
 She met him at the door of the cutting-out room in the 
 passage leading to the parlour. 
 
 " Where is mother ? In the parlour ? " Constance inquired 
 innocently. 
 
 There was a dark flush on Mr. Povey's face. ■ If you wish 
 to know," said he in a hard voice, " she hasn't asked for you 
 and she doesn't want you." 
 
 He turned his back on her, and retreated into his lair. 
 
 " Then what — ? " she began, puzzled. 
 
 He fronted her. " Haven't you been gabbling long enough 
 with that jackanapes ? " he spit at her. There were tears in 
 his eyes. 
 
n8 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Constance, though without experience in these matters, 
 comprehended. She comprehended perfectly and immedi- 
 ately. She ought to have put Mr. Povey into his place. 
 She ought to have protested with firm, dignified finality 
 against such a ridiculous and monstrous outrage as that 
 which Mr. Povey had committed. Mr. Povey ought to 
 have been ruined for ever in her esteem and in her heart. 
 But she hesitated. 
 
 " And only last Sunday — afternoon," Mr. Povey blubbered. 
 
 (Not that anything overt had occurred, or been articulately 
 said, between them last Sunday afternoon. But they had 
 been alone together, and had each witnessed strange and 
 disturbing matters in the eyes of the other.) 
 
 Tears now fell suddenly from Constance's eyes. " You 
 ought to be ashamed — " she stammered. 
 
 Still, the tears were in her eyes, and in his too. What he 
 or she merely said, therefore, was of secondary importance. 
 
 Mrs. Baines, coming from the kitchen, and hearing Con- 
 stance's voice, burst upon the scene, which silenced her. 
 Parents are sometimes silenced. She found Sophia and Mr. 
 Scales in the shop. 
 
 III. 
 
 That afternoon Sophia, too busy with her own affairs to 
 notice anything abnormal in the relations between her 
 mother and Constance, and quite ignorant that there had 
 been an unsuccessful plot against her, went forth to call 
 upon Miss Chetwynd, with whom she had remained very 
 friendly : she considered that she and Miss Chetwynd formed 
 an aristocracy of intellect, and the family indeed tacitly 
 admitted this. She practised no secrecy in her departure 
 from the shop ; she merely dressed, in her second-best hoop, 
 and went, having been ready at any moment to tell her 
 mother, if her mother caught her and inquired, that she 
 was going to see Miss Chetwynd. And she did go to see 
 Miss Chetwynd, arriving at the house-school, which lay amid 
 trees on the road to Turnhill, just beyond the turnpike, at 
 precisely a quarter-past four. As Miss Chetwynd's pupils 
 left at four o'clock, and as Miss Chetwynd invariably took 
 a walk immediately afterwards, Sophia was able to contain 
 her surprise upon being informed that Miss Chetwynd was 
 not in. She had not intended that Miss Chetwynd should 
 be in. 
 
 She turned off to the right, up the side road which, start- 
 
ESCAPADE. 119 
 
 ing from the turnpike, led in the direction of Moorthorne 
 and Red Cow, two mining villages. Her heart beat with fear 
 as she began to follow that road, for she was upon a terrific 
 adventure. What most frightened her, perhaps, was her 
 own astounding audacity. She was alarmed by something 
 within herself which seemed to be no part of herself and 
 which produced in her curious, disconcerting, fleeting im- 
 pressions of unreality. 
 
 In the morning she had heard the voice of Mr. Scales 
 from the showroom — that voice whose even distant murmur 
 caused creepings of the skin in her back. And she had 
 actually stood on the counter in front of the window in 
 order to see down perpendicularly into the Square ; by so 
 doing she had had a glimpse of the top of his luggage on a 
 barrow, and of the crown of his hat occasionally when he 
 went outside to tempt Mr. Povey. She might have gone 
 down into the shop — there was no slightest reason why she 
 should not ; three months had elapsed since the name of 
 Mr. Scales had been mentioned, and her mother had evidently 
 forgotten the trifling incident of New Year's Day — but she 
 was incapable of descending the stairs ! She went to the 
 head of the stairs and peeped through the balustrade — and 
 she could not get further. For nearly a hundred days those 
 extraordinary lamps had been brightly burning in her head ; 
 and now the light-giver had come again, and her feet would 
 not move to the meeting ; now the moment had arrived for 
 which alone she had lived, .and she could not seize it as it 
 passed ! " Why don't I go downstairs ? " she asked herself. 
 
 Am I afraid to meet him ? " 
 
 The customer sent up by Constance had occupied the 
 surface of her life for ten minutes, trying on hats ; and 
 during this time she was praying wildly that Mr. Scales 
 might not go, and asserting that it was impossible he should 
 go without at least asking for her. Had she not counted 
 the days to this day ? When the customer left, Sophia 
 followed her downstairs, and saw Mr. Scales chatting with 
 Constance. All her self-possession instantly returned to her, 
 and she joined them with a rather mocking smile. After 
 Mr. Povey's strange summons had withdrawn Constance 
 from the corner, Mr. Scales's tone had changed ; it had 
 thrilled her. " You are you," it had said, " there is you — 
 and there is the rest of the universe ! " Then he had not for- 
 gotten ; she had lived in his heart ; she had not for three 
 months been the victim of her own fancies ! . . . She saw 
 him put a piece of folded white paper on the top edge of 
 the screening box and flick it down to her. She blushed 
 
120 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 scarlet, staring at it as it lay on the counter. He said noth- 
 ing, and she could not speak. . . . He had prepared that 
 paper, then, beforehand, on the chance of being able to 
 give it to her ! This thought was exquisite but full of ter- 
 ror. " I must really go/' he had said, lamely, with emotion 
 in his voice, and he had gone— like that ! And she put 
 the piece of paper into the pocket of her apron, and hastened 
 away. She had not even seen, as she turned up the stairs, 
 her mother standing by the till — that spot which was the con- 
 ning-tower of the whole shop. She ran, ran, breathless to the 
 bedroom. . . . 
 
 " I am a wicked girl ! " she said quite frankly, on the 
 road to the rendezvous. " It is a dream that I am going 
 to meet him. It cannot be true. There is time to go back. 
 If I go back I am safe. I have simply called at Miss Chet- 
 wynd's and she wasn't in, and no one can say a word. But 
 if I go on — if I'm seen ! What a fool I am to go on ! " 
 
 And she went on, impelled by, amongst other things, 
 an immense, naive curiosity, and the vanity which the bare 
 fact of his note had excited. The Loop railway was being 
 constructed at that period, and hundreds of navvies were 
 at work on it between Bursley and Turnhill. When she 
 came to the new bridge over the cutting, he was there, as 
 he had written that he would be. 
 
 They were very nervous, they greeted each other stiffly 
 and as though they had met then for the first time that 
 day. Nothing was said about his note, nor about her re- 
 sponse to it. Her presence was treated by both of them 
 as a basic fact of the situation which it would be well not 
 to disturb by comment. Sophia could not hide her shame, 
 but her shame only aggravated the stinging charm of her 
 beauty. She was wearing a hard Amazonian hat, with a 
 lifted veil, the final word of fashion that spring in the Five 
 Towns ; her face, beaten by the fresh breeze, shone rosily ; 
 her eyes glittered under the dark hat, and the violent colours 
 of her Victorian frock — green and crimson — could not spoil 
 those cheeks. If she looked earthwards, frowning, she was 
 the more adorable so. He had come down the clayey incline 
 from the unfinished red bridge to welcome her, and when 
 the salutations were over they stood still, he gazing appar- 
 ently at the horizon and she at the yellow marl round the edges 
 of his boots. The encounter was as far away from Sophia's 
 ideal conception as Manchester from Venice. 
 
 " So this is the new railway ! " said she. 
 
 " Yes," said he. " This is your new railway. You can 
 see it better from the bridge." 
 
ESCAPADE. 121 
 
 " But it's very sludgy up there," she objectod with a 
 pout. 
 
 " Further on it's quite dry," he reassured her. 
 
 From the bridge they had a sudden view of a raw gash 
 in the earth ; and hundreds of men were crawling about in 
 it, busy with minute operations, like flies in a great wound. 
 There was a continuous rattle of picks, resembling a muffled 
 shower of hail, and in the distance a tiny locomotive was 
 leading a procession of tiny waggons. 
 
 " And those are the navvies ! " she murmured. 
 
 The unspeakable doings of the navvies in the Five Towns 
 had reached even her : how they drank and swore all day on 
 Sundays, how their huts and houses were dens of the most 
 appalling infamy, how they were the curse of a God-fearing 
 and respectable district ! She and Gerald Scales glanced 
 down at these dangerous beasts of prey in their yellow 
 corduroys and their open shirts revealing hairy chests. 
 No doubt they both thought how inconvenient it was that 
 railways could not be brought into existence without the 
 aid of such revolting and swinish animals. They glanced 
 down from the height of their nice decorum and felt the 
 powerful attraction of similar superior manners. The 
 manners of the navvies were such that Sophia could not 
 even regard them, nor Gerald Scales permit her to regard 
 them, without blushing. 
 
 In a united blush they turned away, up the gradual 
 slope. Sophia knew no longer what she was doing. For 
 some minutes she was as helpless as though she had been 
 in a balloon with him. 
 
 " I got my work done early," he said ; and added com- 
 placently, " As a matter of fact I've had a pretty good day." 
 
 She was reassured to learn that he was not neglecting his 
 duties. To be philandering with a commercial traveller who 
 has finished a good day's work seemed less shocking than 
 dalliance with a neglecter of business ; it seemed indeed, by 
 comparison, respectable. 
 
 " It must be very interesting," she said primly. 
 
 " What, my trade ? " 
 
 " Yes. Always seeing new places and so on." 
 
 "Ina way it is," he admitted judicially. " But I can tell 
 you it was much more agreeable being in Paris." 
 
 " Oh ! Have you been in Paris ? " 
 
 " Lived there for nearly two years," he said carelessly. 
 Then, looking at her, " Didn't you notice I never came for a 
 long time ? " 
 
 ' I didn't know you were in Paris," she evaded him. 
 
132 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " I went to start a sort of agency for Birkinshaws," he 
 said. 
 
 " I suppose you talk French like anything." 
 
 " Of course one has to talk French," said he. " I learnt 
 French when I was a child from a governess — my uncle made 
 me — but I forgot most of it at school, and at the Varsity you 
 never learn anything — precious little, anyhow ! Certainly 
 not French ! " 
 
 She was deeply impressed. He was a much greater 
 personage than she had guessed. It had never occurred 
 to her that commercial travellers had to go to a university 
 to finish their complex education. And then, Paris ! Paris 
 meant absolutely nothing to her but pure, impossible, un- 
 attainable romance. And he had been there ! The clouds 
 of glory were around him. He was a hero, dazzling. He 
 had come to her out of another world. He was her miracle. 
 He was almost too miraculous to be true. 
 
 She, living her humdrum life at the shop ! And he, ele- 
 gant, brilliant, coming from far cities ! They together, side 
 by side, strolling up the road towards the Moorthorne ridge ! 
 There was nothing quite like this in the stories of Miss Sewell. 
 
 " Your uncle . . . ? " she questioned vaguely. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Boldero. He's a partner in Birkinshaws." 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 " You've heard of him ? He's a great Wesleyan." 
 
 " Oh yes," she said. " When we had the Wesleyan Con- 
 ference here, he " 
 
 " He's always very great at Conferences," said Gerald 
 Scales. 
 
 " I didn't know he had anything to do with Birkin- 
 shaws." 
 
 " He isn't a working partner of course," Mr. Scales ex- 
 plained. " But he means me to be one. I have to learn 
 the business from the bottom. So now you understand why 
 I'm a traveller." 
 
 " I see," she said, still more deeply impressed. 
 
 "I'm an orphan," said Gerald. " And Uncle Boldero 
 took me in hand when I was three." 
 
 " I see ! " she repeated. 
 
 It seemed strange to her that Mr. Scales should be a 
 Wesleyan — just like herself. She would have been sure 
 that he was " Church." Her notions of Wesleyanism, with 
 her notions of various other things, were sharply modified. 
 
 " Now tell me about you," Mr. Scales suggested. 
 
 " Oh ! I'm nothing ! " she burst out. 
 
 The exclamation was perfectly sincere. Mr. Scales's dis- 
 
ESCAPADE. 123 
 
 closures concerning himself, while they excited her, dis- 
 couraged her. 
 
 " You're the finest girl I've ever met, anyhow," said 
 Mr. Scales with gallant emphasis, and he dug his stick into 
 the soft ground. 
 
 She blushed and made no answer. 
 
 They walked on in silence, each wondering apprehensively 
 what might happen next. 
 
 Suddenly Mr. Scales stopped at a dilapidated low brick 
 wall, built in a circle, close to the side of the road. 
 
 " I expect that's an old pit-shaft," said he. 
 
 " Yes, I expect it is." 
 
 He picked up a rather large stone and approached the 
 wall. 
 
 " Be careful ! " she enjoined him. 
 
 " Oh ! It's all right," he said lightly. " Let's listen. 
 Come near and listen." 
 
 She reluctantly obeyed, and he threw the stone over the 
 dirty ruined wall, the top of which was about level with his 
 hat. For two or three seconds there was no sound. Then a 
 faint reverberation echoed from the depths of the shaft. And 
 on Sophia's brain arose dreadful images of the ghosts of 
 miners wandering for ever in subterranean passages, far, far 
 beneath. The noise of the falling stone had awakened for 
 her the secret terrors of the earth. She could scarcely even 
 look at the wall without a spasm of fear. 
 
 " How strange," said Mr. Scales, a little awe in his voice, 
 too, " that that should be left there like that ! I suppose 
 it's very deep." 
 
 " Some of them are," she trembled. 
 
 " I must just have a look," he said, and put his hands on 
 the top of the wall. 
 
 " Come away ! " she cried. 
 
 " Oh ! It's all right ! " he said again, soothingly. " The 
 wall's as firm as a rock." And he took a slight spring and 
 looked over. 
 
 She shrieked loudly. She saw him at the distant bottom 
 of the shaft, mangled, drowning. The ground seemed to 
 quake under her feet. A horrible sickness seized her. And 
 she shrieked again. Never had she guessed that existence 
 could be such a pain. 
 
 He slid down from the wall and turned to her. " No 
 bottom to be seen ! " he said. Then, observing her trans- 
 formed face, he came close to her, with a superior masculine 
 smile. " Silly little thing ! " he said coaxingly, endearingly, 
 putting forth all his power to charm. 
 
1*4 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 He perceived at once that he had miscalculated the effects 
 of his action. Her alarm changed swiftly to angry offence. 
 She drew back with a haughty gesture, as if he had intended 
 actually to touch her. Did he suppose, because she chanced 
 to be walking with him, that he had the right to address her 
 familiarly, to tease her, to call her " silly little thing " and to 
 put his face against hers ? She resented his freedom with 
 quick and passionate indignation. 
 
 She showed him her proud back and nodding head and 
 wrathful skirts ; and hurried off without a word, almost 
 running. As for him, he was so startled by unexpected 
 phenomena that he did nothing for a moment — merely stood 
 looking and feeling foolish. 
 
 Then she heard him in pursuit. She was too proud to stop 
 or even to reduce her speed. 
 
 " I didn't mean to — " he muttered behind her. 
 
 No recognition from her. 
 
 V I suppose I ought to apologize," he said. 
 
 " I should just think you ought," she answered, furious. 
 
 " Well, I do ! " said he. " Do stop a minute." 
 
 " I'll thank you not to follow me, Mr. Scales." She paused 
 and scorched him with her displeasure. Then she went for- 
 ward. And her heart was in torture because it could not per- 
 suade her to remain with him, and smile and forgive, and win 
 his smile. 
 
 " I shall write to you," he shouted down the slope. 
 
 She kept on, the ridiculous child. But the agony she had 
 suffered as he clung to the frail wall was not ridiculous, nor 
 her dark vision of the mine, nor her tremendous indignation 
 when, after disobeying her, he forgot that she was a queen. 
 To her the scene was sublimely tragic. Soon she had re- 
 crossed the bridge, but not the same she ! So this was the 
 end of the incredible adventure ! 
 
 When she reached the turnpike she thought of her mother 
 and of Constance. She had completely forgotten them ; for 
 a space they had utterly ceased to exist for her. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " You've been out, Sophia ? " said Mrs. Baines in the par- 
 lour, questioningly. Sophia had taken off her hat and mantle 
 hurriedly in the cutting-out room, for she was in danger of 
 being late for tea ; but her hair and face showed traces of the 
 March breeze. Mrs. Baines, whose stoutness seemed to in- 
 
ESCAPADE. 125 
 
 crease, sat in the rocking-chair with a number of The Sunday 
 at Home in her hand. Tea was set. 
 
 " Yes, mother. I called to see Miss Chetwynd." 
 " I wish you'd tell me when you are going out." 
 " I looked all over for you before I started." 
 
 " No, you didn't, for I haven't stirred from this room since 
 four o'clock. . . . You should not say things like that," Mrs. 
 Baines added in a gentler tone. 
 
 Mrs. Baines had suffered much that day. She knew that 
 she was in an irritable, nervous state, and therefore she said 
 to herself, in her quality of wise woman, " I must watch 
 myself. I mustn't let myself go." And she thought how 
 reasonable she was. She did not guess that all her gestures 
 betrayed her ; nor did it occur to her that few things are more 
 galling than the spectacle of a person, actuated by lofty mo- 
 tives, obviously trying to be kind and patient under what he 
 considers to be extreme provocation. 
 
 Maggie blundered up the kitchen stairs with the teapot and 
 hot toast ; and so Sophia had an excuse for silence. Sophia 
 too had suffered much, suffered excruciatingly ; she carried 
 at that moment a whole tragedy in her young soul, unaccus- 
 tomed to such burdens. Her attitude towards her mother 
 was half fearful and half defiant ; it might be summed up in 
 the phrase which she had repeated again and again under 
 her breath on the way home, " Well, mother can't kill 
 me ! " 
 
 Mrs. Baines put down the blue-covered magazine and 
 twisted her rocking-chair towards the table. 
 
 " You can pour out the tea," said Mrs. Baines. 
 
 " Where's Constance ? " 
 
 " She's not very well. She's lying down." 
 
 " Anything the matter with her ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 This was inaccurate. Nearly everything was the matter 
 with Constance, who had never been less Constance than 
 during that afternoon. But Mrs. Baines had no intention 
 of discussing Constance's love-affairs with Sophia. The less 
 said to Sophia about love, the better ! Sophia was excitable 
 enough already ! 
 
 They sat opposite to each other, on either side of the fire 
 — the monumental matron whose black bodice heavily over- 
 hung the table, whose large rounded face was creased and 
 wrinkled by what seemed countless years of joy and disillu- 
 sion ; and the young, slim girl, so fresh, so virginal, so igno- 
 rant, with all the pathos of an unsuspecting victim about to 
 be sacrificed to the minotaur of Time ! They both ate hot 
 
126 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 toast, with careless haste, in silence, preoccupied, worried, 
 and outwardly nonchalant. 
 
 " And what has Miss Chetwynd got to say ? " Mrs. Baines 
 inquired. 
 
 " She wasn't in." 
 
 Here was a blow for Mrs. Baines, whose suspicions about 
 Sophia, driven off by her certainties regarding Constance, 
 suddenly sprang forward in her mind, and prowled to and fro 
 like a band of tigers. 
 
 Still, Mrs. Baines was determined to be calm and careful. 
 " Oh ! What time did you call ? " 
 
 " I don't know. About half-past four." Sophia finished 
 her tea quickly, and rose. " Shall I tell Mr. Povey he can 
 come ? " 
 
 (Mr. Povey had his tea after the ladies of the house.) 
 
 " Yes, if you will stay in the shop till I come. Light me the 
 gas before you go." 
 
 Sophia took the wax taper from a vase on the mantelpiece, 
 stuck it in the fire and lit the gas, which exploded in its crystal 
 cloister with a mild report. 
 
 " What's all that clay on your boots, child ? " asked Mrs. 
 Baines. 
 
 " Clay ? " repeated Sophia, staring foolishly at her boots. 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Baines. " It looks like marl. Where on 
 earth have you been ? " 
 
 She interrogated her daughter with an upward gaze, frigid 
 and unconsciously hostile, through her gold-rimmed glasses. 
 
 " I must have picked it up on the roads," said Sophia, and 
 hastened to the door. 
 
 " Sophia ! " 
 
 " Yes, mother." 
 
 " Shut the door." 
 
 Sophia unwillingly shut the door which she had half opened. 
 
 " Come here." 
 
 Sophia obeyed, with falling Up. 
 
 " You are deceiving me, Sophia," said Mrs. Baines, with 
 fierce solemnity. " Where have you been this afternoon ? " 
 
 Sophia's foot was restless on the carpet behind the table. 
 " I haven't been anywhere," she murmured glumly. 
 
 " Have you seen young Scales ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Sophia with grimness, glancing audaciously 
 for an instant at her mother. (" She can't kill me : She 
 can't kill me," her heart muttered. And she had youth and 
 beauty in her favour, while her mother was only a fat middle- 
 aged woman. " She can't kill me," said her heart, with the 
 trembling, cruel insolence of the mirror-flattered child.) 
 
ESCAPADE. 127 
 
 " How came you to meet him ? " 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Sophia, you heard what I said ! " 
 
 Still no answer. Sophia looked down at the table. (" She 
 can't kill me.") 
 
 " If you are going to be sullen, I shall have to suppose the 
 worst," said Mrs. Baines. 
 
 Sophia kept her silence. 
 
 " Of course," Mrs. Baines resumed, " if you choose to be 
 wicked, neither your mother nor any one else can stop you. 
 There are certain things I can do, and these I shall do. . . . 
 Let me warn you that young Scales is a thoroughly bad lot. 
 I know all about him. He has been living a wild life abroad, 
 and if it hadn't been that his uncle is a partner in Birkin- 
 shaws, they would never have taken him on again." A 
 pause. " I hope that one day you will be a happy wife, but 
 you are much too young yet to be meeting young men, and 
 nothing would ever induce me to let you have anything to do 
 with this Scales. I won't have it. In future you are not to 
 go out alone. You understand me ? " 
 
 Sophia kept silence. 
 
 " I hope you will be in a better frame of mind to-morrow. 
 I can only hope so. But if you aren't, I shall take very severe 
 measures. You think you can defy me. But you never were 
 more mistaken in your life. I don't want to see any more of 
 you now. Go and tell Mr. Povey ; and call Maggie for the 
 fresh tea. You make me almost glad that your father died 
 even as he did. He has, at any rate, been spared this." 
 
 Those words " died even as he did " achieved the intimida- 
 tion of Sophia. They seemed to indicate that Mrs. Baines, 
 though she had magnanimously never mentioned the subject 
 to Sophia, knew exactly how the old man had died. Sophia 
 escaped from the room in fear, cowed. Nevertheless, her 
 thought was, " She hasn't killed me. I made up my mind I 
 wouldn't talk, and I didn't." 
 
 In the evening, as she sat in the shop primly and sternly 
 sewing at hats — while her mother wept in secret on the first 
 floor, and Constance remained hidden on the second — Sophia 
 lived over again the scene at the old shaft ; but she lived it 
 differently, admitting that she had been wrong, guessing by 
 instinct that she had shown a foolish mistrust of love. As 
 she sat in the shop, she adopted just the right attitude and 
 said just the right things. Instead of being a silly baby she 
 was an accomplished and dazzling woman, then. When cus- 
 tomers came in, and the young lady assistants unobtrusively 
 turned higher the central gas, according to the regime of the 
 
128 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 shop, it was really extraordinary that they could not read in 
 the heart of the beautiful Miss Baines the words which blazed 
 there : " You're the finest girl I ever met," and " I shall write to 
 you." The young lady assistants had their notions as to both 
 Constance and Sophia, but the truth, at least as regarded 
 Sophia, was beyond the flight of their imaginations. When 
 eight o'clock struck and she gave the formal order for dust- 
 sheets, the shop being empty, they never supposed that she 
 was dreaming about posts and plotting how to get hold of the 
 morning's letters before Mr. Povey. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A DEFEAT. 
 
 It was during the month of June that Aunt Harriet came over 
 from Axe to spend a few days with her little sister, Mrs. 
 Baines. The railway between Axe and the Five Towns had 
 not yet been opened ; but even if it had been opened Aunt 
 Harriet would probably not have used it. She had always 
 travelled from Axe to Bursley in the same vehicle, a small 
 waggonette which she hired from Bratt's livery stables at 
 Axe, driven by a coachman who thoroughly understood the 
 importance, and the peculiarities, of Aunt Harriet. 
 
 Mrs. Baines had increased in stoutness, so that now Aunt 
 Harriet had very little advantage over her, physically. But 
 the moral ascendency of the elder still persisted. The two 
 vast widows shared Mrs. Baines's bedroom, spending much of 
 their time there in long, hushed conversations — interviews 
 from which Mrs. Baines emerged with the air of one who has 
 received enlightenment and Aunt Harriet with the air of one 
 who has rendered it. The pair went about together, in the 
 shop, the showroom, the parlour, the kitchen, and also into 
 the town, addressing each other as " Sister," " Sister." 
 Everywhere it was " sister," M sister," " my sister," " your 
 dear mother," " your Aunt Harriet." They referred to each 
 other as oracular sources of wisdom and good taste. Respect- 
 ability stalked abroad when they were afoot. The whole 
 Square wriggled uneasily as though God's eye were peculiarly 
 upon it. The meals in the parlour became solemn collations, 
 at which shone the best silver and the finest diaper, but from 
 which gaiety and naturalness seemed to be banished. (I say 
 " seemed " because it cannot be doubted that Aunt Harriet 
 was natural, and there were moments when she possibly con- 
 sidered herself to be practising gaiety — a gaiety more deso- 
 
 5 
 
130 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 lating than her severity.) The younger generation was ex- 
 tinguished, pressed flat and lifeless under the ponderosity of 
 the widows. 
 
 Mr. Povey was not the man to be easily flattened by pon- 
 derosity of any kind, and his suppression was a striking proof 
 of the prowess of the widows ; who, indeed, went over Mr. 
 Povey like traction-engines, with the sublime unconsciousness 
 of traction-engines, leaving an inanimate object in the road 
 behind them, and scarce aware even of the jolt. Mr. Povey 
 hated Aunt Harriet, but, lying crushed there in the road, how 
 could he rebel ? He felt all the time that Aunt Harriet was 
 adding him up, and reporting the result at frequent intervals 
 to Mrs. Baines in the bedroom. He felt that she knew every- 
 thing about him — even to those tears which had been in his 
 eyes. He felt that he could hope to do nothing right for 
 Aunt Harriet, that absolute perfection in the performance of 
 duty would make no more impression on her than a caress on 
 the fly-wheel of a traction-engine. Constance, the dear Con- 
 stance, was also looked at askance. There was nothing in 
 Aunt Harriet's demeanour to her that you could take hold of, 
 but there was emphatically something that you could not 
 take hold of — a hint, an inkling, that insinuated to Constance, 
 " Have a care, lest perad venture you become the second 
 cousin of the scarlet woman." 
 
 Sophia was petted. Sophia was liable to be playfully 
 tapped by Aunt Harriet's thimble when Aunt Harriet was 
 hemming dusters (for the elderly lady could lift a duster to 
 her own dignity). Sophia was called on two separate occa- 
 sions, " My little butterfly." And Sophia was entrusted with 
 the trimming of Aunt Harriet's new summer bonnet. Aunt 
 Harriet deemed that Sophia was looking pale. As the days 
 passed, Sophia's pallor was emphasized by Aunt Harriet until 
 it developed into an article of faith, to which you were com- 
 pelled to subscribe on pain of excommunication. Then 
 dawned the day when Aunt Harriet said, staring at Sophia as 
 an affectionate aunt may : M That child would do with a 
 change." And then there dawned another day when Aunt 
 Harriet, staring at Sophia compassionately, as a devoted 
 aunt may, said : " It's a pity that child can't have a change." 
 And Mrs. Baines also stared and said : " It is." 
 
 And on another day Aunt Harriet said : "I've been won- 
 dering whether my little Sophia would care to come and keep 
 her old aunt company a while." 
 
 There were few things for which Sophia would have cared 
 less. The girl swore to herself angrily that she would not go, 
 that no allurement would induce her to go. But she was in a 
 
A DEFEAT. 131 
 
 net ; she was in the meshes of family correctness. Do what 
 she would, she could not invent a reason for not going. Cer- 
 tainly she could not tell her aunt that she merely did not want 
 to go. She was capable of enormities, but not of that. And 
 then began Aunt Harriet's intricate preparations for going. 
 Aunt Harriet never did anything simply. And she could not 
 be hurried. Seventy-two hours before leaving she had to 
 commence upon her trunk ; but first the trunk had to be 
 wiped by Maggie with a damp cloth under the eye and direc- 
 tion of Aunt Harriet. And the liveryman at Axe had to be 
 written to, and the servants at Axe written to, and the 
 weather prospects weighed and considered. And somehow, 
 by the time these matters were accomplished, it was tacitly 
 understood that Sophia should accompany her kind aunt into 
 the bracing moorland air of Axe. No smoke at Axe ! No 
 stuffiness at Axe ! The spacious existence of a wealthy 
 widow in a residential town with a low death-rate and famous 
 scenery ! " Have you packed your box, Sophia ? " No, she 
 had not. " Well, I will come and help you." 
 
 Impossible to bear up against "the momentum of a massive 
 body like Aunt Harriet's ! It was irresistible. 
 
 The day of departure came, throwing the entire household 
 into a commotion. Dinner was put a quarter of an hour 
 earlier than usual so that Aunt Harriet might achieve Axe at 
 her accustomed hour of tea. After dinner Maggie was the 
 recipient of three amazing muslin aprons, given with a regal 
 gesture. And the trunk and the box were brought down, 
 and there was a slight odour of black kid gloves in the par- 
 lour. The waggonette was due and the waggonette appeared 
 (V I can always rely upon Bladen ! " said Aunt Harriet), and 
 the door was opened, and Bladen, stiff on his legs, descended 
 from the box and touched his hat to Aunt Harriet as she 
 filled up the doorway. 
 
 " Have you baited, Bladen ? " asked she. 
 
 " Yes'm," said he, assuringly. 
 
 Bladen and Mr. Povey carried out the trunk and the box, 
 and Constance charged herself with parcels which she 
 bestowed in the corners of the vehicle according to her aunt's 
 prescription ; it was like stowing the cargo of a vessel. 
 
 " Now, Sophia, my chuck ! " Mrs. Baines called up the 
 stairs. And Sophia came slowly downstairs. Mrs. Baines 
 offered her mouth. Sophia glanced at her. 
 
 V You needn't think I don't see why you're sending me 
 away ! " exclaimed Sophia in a hard, furious voice, with glis- 
 tening eyes. "I'm not so blind as all that ! " She kissed 
 her mother — nothing but a contemptuous peck. Then, as 
 
i 3 2 THE OLD WIVES* TALE. 
 
 she turned away she added : " But you let Constance do just 
 as she likes ! " 
 
 This was her sole bitter comment on the episode, but into 
 it she put all the profound bitterness accumulated during 
 many mutinous nights. 
 
 Mrs. Baines concealed a sigh. The explosion certainly dis- 
 turbed her. She had hoped that the smooth surface of 
 things would not be ruffled. 
 
 Sophia bounced out. And the assembly, including several 
 urchins, watched with held breath while Aunt Harriet, after 
 having bid majestic good-byes, got on to the step and intro- 
 duced herself through the doorway of the waggonette into 
 the interior of the vehicle ; it was an operation like threading 
 a needle with cotton too thick. Once within, her hoops dis- 
 tended in sudden release, filling the waggonette. Sophia 
 followed, agilely. 
 
 As, with due formalities, the equipage drove off, Mrs. Baines 
 gave another sigh, one of relief. The sisters had won. She 
 could now await the imminent next advent of Mr. Gerald 
 Scales with tranquillity. 
 
 II. 
 
 Those singular words of Sophia's, " But you let Constance 
 do just as she likes," had disturbed Mrs. Baines more than was 
 at first apparent. They worried her like a late fly in autumn. 
 For she had said nothing to any one about Constance's case, 
 Mrs. Maddack of course excepted. She had instinctively felt 
 that she could not show the slightest leniency towards the 
 romantic impulses of her elder daughter without seeming un- 
 just to the younger, and she had acted accordingly. On the 
 memorable morn of Mr. Povey's acute jealousy, she had, 
 temporarily at any rate, slaked the fire, banked it down, and 
 hidden it ; and since then no word had passed as to the state 
 of Constance's heart. In the great peril to be feared from Mr. 
 Scales, Constance's heart had been put aside as a thing that 
 could wait ; so one puts aside the mending of linen when 
 earthquake shocks are about. Mrs. Baines was sure that 
 Constance had not chattered to Sophia concerning Mr. Povey. 
 Constance, who understood her mother, had too much com- 
 monsense and too nice a sense of propriety to do that — and 
 yet here was Sophia exclaiming, " But you let Constance do 
 just as she likes." Were the relations between Constance 
 and Mr. Povey, then, common property ? Did the young 
 lady assistants discuss them ? 
 
A DEFEAT. 133 
 
 As a fact, the young lady assistants did discuss them ; not 
 in the shop — for either one of the principal parties, or Mrs. 
 Baines herself, was always in the shop, but elsewhere. They 
 discussed little else, when they were free ; how she had looked 
 at him to-day, and how he had blushed, and so forth inter- 
 minably. Yet Mrs. Baines really thought that she alone 
 knew. Such is the power of the ineradicable delusion that 
 one's own affairs, and especially one's own children, are 
 mysteriously different from those of others. 
 
 After Sophia's departure Mrs. Baines surveyed her daughter 
 and her manager at supper-time with a curious and a diffi- 
 dent eye. They worked, talked, and ate just as though 
 Mrs. Baines had never caught them weeping together in 
 the cutting-out room. They had the most matter-of-fact air. 
 They might never have heard whispered the name of love. 
 And there could be no deceit beneath that decorum ; for 
 Constance would not deceive. Still, Mrs. Baines's con- 
 science was unruly. Order reigned, but nevertheless she 
 knew that she ought to do something, find out something, 
 decide something ; she ought, if she did her duty, to take 
 Constance aside and say : " Now, Constance, my mind is 
 freer now. Tell me frankly what has been going on between 
 you and Mr. Povey. I have never understood the meaning 
 of that scene in the cutting-out room. Tell me." She 
 ought to have talked in this strain. But she could not. That 
 energetic woman had not sufficient energy left. She wanted 
 rest, rest — even though it were a coward's rest, an ostrich's 
 tranquillity — after the turmoil of apprehensions caused by 
 Sophia. Her soul cried out for peace; She was not, however, 
 to have peace. 
 
 On the very first Sunday after Sophia's departure, Mr. 
 Povey did not go to chapel in the morning, and he offered no 
 reason for his unusual conduct. He ate his breakfast with 
 appetite, but there was something peculiar in his glance that 
 made Mrs. Baines a little uneasy ; this something she could 
 not seize upon and define. When she and Constance returned 
 from chapel Mr. Povey was playing " Rock of Ages " on the 
 harmonium — again unusual ! The serious part of the dinner 
 comprised roast beef and Yorkshire pudding — the pudding 
 being served as a sweet course before the meat. Mrs. Baines 
 ate freely of these things, for she loved them, and she was 
 always hungry after a sermon. She also did well with the 
 Cheshire cheese. Her intention was to sleep in the drawing- 
 room after the repast. On Sunday afternoons she invariably 
 tried to sleep in the drawing-room, and she did not often fail. 
 As a rule the girls accompanied her thither from the table, 
 
134 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 and either " settled down " likewise or crept out of the room 
 when they perceived the gradual sinking of the maj estic form 
 into the deep hollows of the easy-chair. Mrs. Baines was an- 
 ticipating with pleasure her somnolent Sunday afternoon. 
 
 Constance said grace after meat, and the formula on this 
 particular occasion ran thus — 
 
 " Thank God for our good dinner, Amen. — Mother, I must 
 just run upstairs to my room." (" My room " — Sophia 
 being far away.) 
 
 And off she ran, strangely girlish. 
 
 " Well, child, you needn't be in such a hurry," said Mrs. 
 Baines, ringing the bell and rising. 
 
 She hoped that Constance would remember the conditions 
 precedent to sleep. 
 
 " I should like to have a word with you, if it's all the same 
 to you, Mrs. Baines," said Mr. Povey suddenly, with obvious 
 nervousness. And his tone struck a rude unexpected blow at 
 Mrs. Baines's peace of mind. It was a portentous tone. 
 
 " What about ? " asked she, with an inflection subtly to 
 remind Mr. Povey what day it was. 
 
 " About Constance," said the astonishing man. 
 
 " Constance ! " exclaimed Mrs. Baines with a histrionic 
 air of bewilderment. 
 
 Maggie entered the room, solely in response to the bell, yet 
 a thought jumped up in Mrs. Baines's brain, " How prying 
 servants are, to be sure ! " For quite five seconds she had a 
 grievance against Maggie. She was compelled to sit down 
 again and wait while Maggie cleared the table. Mr. Povey 
 put both his hands in his pockets, got up, went to the window, 
 whistled, and generally behaved in a manner which foretold 
 the worst. 
 
 At last Maggie vanished, shutting the door. 
 
 " What is it, Mr. Povey ? " 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mr. Povey, facing her with absurd nervous 
 brusqueness, as though pretending : " Ah, yes ! We have 
 something to say — I was forgetting ! " Then he began : 
 " It's about Constance and me." 
 
 Yes, they had evidently plotted this interview. Constance 
 had evidently taken herself off on purpose to leave Mr. Povey 
 unhampered. They were in league. The inevitable had 
 come. No sleep ! No repose ! Nothing but worry once 
 more ! 
 
 " I'm not at ?11 satisfied with the present situation," said 
 Mr. Povey, in a tone that corresponded to his words. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean, Mr. Povey," said Mrs. 
 Baines stiffly. This was a simple lie. 
 
A DEFEAT. 135 
 
 " Well, really, Mrs. Baines ! " Mr. Povey protested, " I 
 suppose you won't deny that you know there is something 
 between me and Constance ? I suppose you won't deny 
 that ? " 
 
 " What is there between you and Constance ? I can 
 assure you I " 
 
 " That depends on you," Mr. Povey interrupted her. When 
 he was nervous his manners deteriorated into a behaviour 
 that resembled rudeness. " That 'depends on you ! " he re- 
 peated grimly. 
 
 " But " 
 
 " Are we to be engaged or are we not ? " pursued Mr. 
 Povey, as though Mrs. Baines had been guilty of some grave 
 lapse and he was determined not to spare her. " That's 
 what I think ought to be settled, one way or the other. I 
 wish to be perfectly open and aboveboard — in the future, 
 as I have been in the past." 
 
 " But you have said nothing to me at all ! " Mrs. Baines 
 remonstrated, lifting her eyebrows. The way in which the 
 man had sprung this matter upon her was truly too audacious. 
 
 Mr. Povey approached her as she sat at the table, shaking 
 her ringlets and looking at her hands. 
 
 " You know there's something between us ! " he in- 
 sisted. 
 
 " How should I know there is something between you ? 
 Constance has never said a word to me. And have you ? " 
 
 " Well," said he. " We've hidden nothing." 
 
 " What is there between you and Constance ? If I may 
 ask ! " 
 
 " That depends on you," said he again. 
 
 " Have you asked her to be your wife ? " 
 
 " No. I haven't exactly asked her to be my wife." He 
 hesitated. " You see " 
 
 Mrs. Baines collected her forces. " Have you kissed 
 her ? " This in a cold voice. 
 
 Mr. Povey now blushed. " I haven't exactly kissed her," 
 he stammered, apparently shocked by the inquisition. ** No, 
 I should not say that I had kissed her." 
 
 It might have been that before committing himself he felt 
 a desire for Mrs. Baines's definition of a kiss. 
 
 " You are very extraordinary," she said loftily. It was 
 no less than the truth. 
 
 " All I want to know is — have you got anything against 
 me ? " he demanded roughly. " Because if so " 
 
 " Anything against you, Mr. Povey ? Why should I have 
 anything against you ? " 
 
136 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Then why can't we be engaged ? " 
 
 She considered that he was bullying her. " That's an- 
 other question," said she. 
 
 " Why can't we be engaged ? Ain't I good enough ? " 
 
 The fact was that he was not regarded as good enough. 
 Mrs. Maddack had certainly deemed that he was not good 
 enough. He was a solid mass of excellent qualities ; but he 
 lacked brilliance, importance, dignity. He could not impose 
 himself. Such had been trie verdict. 
 
 And now, while Mrs. Baines was secretly reproaching Mr. 
 Povey for his inability to impose himself, he was most 
 patently imposing himself on her — and the phenomenon 
 escaped her ! She felt that he was bullying her, but some- 
 how she could not perceive his power. Yet the man who 
 could bully Mrs. Baines was surely no common soul ! 
 
 " You know my very high opinion of you," she said. 
 
 Mr. Povey pursued in a mollified tone. " Assuming that 
 Constance is willing to be engaged, do I understand you con- 
 sent ? " 
 
 " But Constance is too young." 
 
 " Constance is twenty. She is more than twenty." 
 
 " In any case you won't expect me to give you an answer 
 now." 
 
 " Why not ? You know my position." 
 
 She did. From a practical point of view the match would 
 be ideal : no fault could be found with it on that side. But 
 Mrs. Baines could not extinguish the idea that it would be a 
 " come-down " for her daughter. Who, after all, was Mr. 
 Povey ? Mr. Povey was nobody: 
 
 " I must think things over," she said firmly, putting her 
 lips together. " I can't reply like this. It is a serious 
 matter." 
 
 " When can I have your answer ? To-morrow ? " 
 
 " No— really " 
 
 "Ina week, then ? " 
 
 " I cannot bind myself to a date," said Mrs. Baines, 
 haughtily. She felt that she was gaining ground. 
 
 " Because I can't stay on here indefinitely as things are," 
 Mr. Povey burst out, and there was a touch of hysteria in 
 his tone. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Povey, please do be reasonable." 
 
 " That's all very well," he went on. " That's all very well. 
 But what I say is that employers have no right to have male 
 assistants in their houses unless they are prepared to let their 
 daughters marry ! That's what I say ! No right ! " 
 
 Mrs. Baines did not know what to answer. 
 
A DEFEAT. 137 
 
 The aspirant wound up : "I must leave if that's the case." 
 
 " If what's the case ? " she asked herself. " What has 
 come over him ? " And aloud : " You know you would place 
 me in a very awkward position by leaving, and I hope you 
 don't want to mix up two quite different things. I hope 
 you aren't trying to threaten me." 
 
 " Threaten you ! " he cried. " Do you suppose I should 
 leave here for fun ? If I leave it will be because I can't stand 
 it. That's all. I can't stand it. I want Constance, and if 
 I can't have her, then I can't stand it. What do you think 
 I'm made of ? " 
 
 "I'm sure — " she began. 
 
 " That's all veiy well ! " he almost shouted. 
 
 " But please let me speak." she said quietly. 
 
 " All I say is I can't stand it. That's all. . . . Employers 
 have no right. . . . We have our feelings like other men." 
 
 He was deeply moved. He might have appeared somewhat 
 grotesque to the strictly impartial observer of human nature. 
 Nevertheless "he was deeply and genuinely moved, and pos- 
 sibly human nature could have shown nothing more human 
 than Mr. Povey at the moment when, unable any longer to 
 restrain the paroxysm which had so surprisingly overtaken 
 him, he fled from the parlour, passionately, to the retreat of 
 his bedroom. 
 
 " That's the worst of those quiet calm ones," said Mrs. 
 Baines to herself. " You never know if they won't give way. 
 And when they do, it's awful — awful. . . . What did I do, 
 what did I say, to bring it on ? Nothing ! Nothing ! " ■ 
 
 And where was her afternoon sleep ? What was going to 
 happen to her daughter ? What could she say to Constance ? 
 How next could she meet Mr. Povey ? Ah ! It needed a 
 brave, indomitable woman not to cry out brokenly : " I've 
 suffered too much. Do anything you like ; only let me die 
 in peace ! " And so saying, to let everything indifferently 
 slide I 
 
 III. 
 
 Neither Mr. Povey nor Constance introduced the delicate 
 subject to her again, and she was determined not to be the 
 first to speak of it. She considered that Mr. Povey had taken 
 advantage of his position, and that he had also been infantile 
 and impolite. And somehow she privately blamed Constance 
 for his behaviour. So the matter hung, as it were, suspended 
 in the ether between the opposing forces of pride and passion. 
 
 5« 
 
138 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Shortly afterwards events occurred compared to which the 
 vicissitudes of Mr. Povey's heart were of no more account 
 than a shower of rain in April. And fate gave no warning of 
 them ; it rather indicated a complete absence of events. 
 When the customary advice circular arrived from Birkin- 
 shaws, the name of " our Mr. Gerald Scales " was replaced 
 on it by another and an unfamiliar name. Mrs. Baines, 
 seeing the circular by accident, experienced a sense of relief, 
 mingled with the professional disappointment of a diplomatist 
 who has elaborately provided for contingencies which have 
 failed to happen. She had sent Sophia away for nothing ; 
 and no doubt her maternal affection had exaggerated a mole- 
 hill into a mountain. Really, when she reflected on the past, 
 she could not recall a single fact that would justify her theory 
 of an attachment secretly budding between Sophia and the 
 young man Scales ! Not a single little fact 1 All she could 
 bring forward was that Sophia had twice encountered Scales 
 in the street. 
 
 She felt a curious interest in the fate of Scales, for whom 
 in her own mind she had long prophesied evil, and when 
 Birkinshaws' representative came she took care to be in the 
 shop ; her intention was to converse with him, and ascertain 
 as much as was ascertainable, after Mr. Povey had transacted 
 business. For this purpose, at a suitable moment, she tra- 
 versed the shop to Mr. Povey's side, and in so doing she had 
 a fleeting view of King Street, and in King Street of a familiar 
 vehicle. She stopped, and seemed to catch the distant sound 
 of knocking. Abandoning the traveller, she hurried towards 
 the parlour, in the passage she assuredly did hear knocking, 
 angry and impatient knocking, the knocking of someone who 
 thinks he has knocked too long. 
 
 " Of course Maggie is at the top of the house ! " she mut- 
 tered sarcastically. 
 
 She unchained, unbolted, and unlocked the side-door. 
 
 " At last ! " It was Aunt Harriet's voice, exacerbated. 
 " What ! You, sister ? You're soon up. What a bless- 
 ing ! " 
 
 The two majestic and imposing creatures met on the mat, 
 craning forward so that their lips might meet above their 
 terrific bosoms. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " Mrs. Baines asked, fearfully. 
 
 " Well, I do declare 1 " said Mrs. Maddack. " And I've 
 driven specially over to ask you ! " 
 
 " Where's Sophia ? " demanded Mrs. Baines. 
 
 " You don't mean to say she's not come, sister ? " Mrs. 
 Maddack sank down on to the sofa. 
 
A DEFEAT. 139 
 
 •' Come ? " Mrs. Baines repeated. - " Of course she's not 
 come ! What do you mean, sister ? " 
 
 " The very moment she got Constance's letter yesterday, 
 saying you were ill in bed and she'd better come over to help 
 in the shop, she started. I got Bratt's dog-cart for her." 
 
 Mrs. Baines in her turn also sank down on to the sofa. 
 
 " I've not been ill," she said. " And Constance hasn't 
 written for a week ! Only yesterday I was telling her " 
 
 " Sister — it can't be ! Sophia had letters from Constance 
 every morning. At least she said they were from Constance. 
 I told her to be sure and write me how you were last night, 
 and she promised faithfully she would. And it was because 
 I got nothing by this morning's post that I decided to come 
 over myself, to see if it was anything serious." 
 
 ' Serious it is ! " murmured Mrs. Baines. 
 
 " What " 
 
 " Sophia's run off. That's the plain English of it ! " said 
 Mrs. Baines with frigid calm. 
 
 '• Nay ! That I'll never believe. I've looked after Sophia 
 night and day as if she was my own, and " 
 
 " If she hasn't run off, where is she ? " 
 
 Mrs. Maddack opened the door with a tragic gesture. 
 
 " Bladen," she called in a loud voice to the driver of the 
 waggonette, who was standing on the pavement. 
 
 ? Yes'm." 
 
 '- It was Pember drove Miss Sophia yesterday, wasn't it ? " 
 
 M Yes'm." 
 
 She hesitated. A clumsy question might enlighten a mem- 
 ber of the class which ought never to be enlightened about 
 one's private affairs. 
 
 " He didn't come all the way here ? " 
 
 " No'm. He happened to say last night when he got back 
 as Miss Sophia had told him to set her down at Knype Sta- 
 tion." 
 
 " I thought so ! " said Mrs. Maddack, courageously. 
 
 " Yes'm." . 
 
 " Sister ! " she moaned, after carefully shutting the door. 
 
 They clung to each other. 
 
 The horror of what had occurred did not instantly take 
 full possession of them, because the power of credence, of 
 imaginatively realizing a supreme event, whether of great 
 grief or of great happiness, is ridiculously finite. But every 
 minute the horror grew more clear, more intense, more 
 tragically dominant over them. There were many things 
 that they could not say to each other, — from pride, from 
 shame, from the inadequacy of words. Neither could utter 
 
140 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 the name of Gerald Scales. And Aunt Harriet could not 
 stoop to defend herself from a possible charge of neglect ; 
 nor could Mrs. Baines stoop to assure her sister that she was 
 incapable of preferring such a charge. And the sheer, im- 
 mense criminal folly of Sophia could not even be referred to : 
 it was unspeakable. So the interview proceeded, lamely, 
 clumsily, inconsequently, leading to naught. 
 
 Sophia was gone. She was gone with Gerald Scales. 
 That beautiful child, that incalculable, untamable, impos- 
 sible creature, had committed the final folly ; without 
 pretext or excuse, and with what elaborate deceit ! Yes, with- 
 out excuse ! She had not been treated harshly ; she had 
 had a degree of liberty which would have astounded and 
 shocked her grandmothers ; she had been petted, humoured, 
 spoilt. And her answer was to disgrace the family by an 
 act as irrevocable as it was utterly vicious. If among her 
 desires was the desire to humiliate those majesties, her 
 mother and Aunt Harriet, she would have been content could 
 she have seen them on the sofa there, humbled, shamed, 
 mortally wounded ! Ah, the monstrous Chinese cruelty of 
 youth ! 
 
 What was to be done ? Tell dear Constance ? No, this 
 was not, at the moment, an affair for the younger generation. 
 It was too new and raw for the younger generation. More- 
 over, capable, proud, and experienced as they were, they 
 felt the need of a man's voice, and a man's hard, callous 
 ideas. It was a case for Mr. Critchlow. Maggie was sent 
 to fetch him, with a particular request that he should come 
 to the side-door. He came expectant, with the pleasurable 
 anticipation of disaster, and he was not disappointed. He 
 
 Eassed with the sisters the happiest hour that had fallen to 
 im for years. Quickly he arranged the alternatives for 
 them. Would they tell the police, or would they take the 
 risks of waiting ? They shied away, but with fierce brutality 
 he brought them again and again to the immediate point of 
 decision. . . . Well, they could not tell the police ! They 
 simply could not. . . . Then they must face another danger. 
 . . . He had no mercy for them. And while he was torturing 
 them there arrived a telegram, despatched from Charing 
 Cross, " I am all right, Sophia." That proved, at any rate, 
 that the child was not heartless, not merely careless. 
 
 Only yesterday, it seemed to Mrs. Baines-, she had borne 
 Sophia ; only yesterday she was a baby, a schoolgirl to be 
 smacked. The years rolled up in a few hours. And now she 
 was sending telegrams from a place called Charing Cross ! 
 How unlike was the hand of the telegram to Sophia's hand ! 
 
A DEFEAT. 141 
 
 How mysteriously curt and inhuman was that official hand, 
 as Mrs. Baines stared at it through red, wet eyes ! 
 
 Mr. Critchlow said some one should go to Manchester, to 
 ascertain about Scales. He went himself, that afternoon, 
 and returned with the news that an aunt of Scales had re- 
 cently died, leaving him twelve thousand pounds, and that 
 he had, after quarrelling with his uncle Boldero, abandoned 
 Birkinshaws at an hour's notice and vanished with his in- 
 heritance. 
 
 " It's as plain as a pikestaff," said Mr. Critchlow. " I could 
 ha' warned ye o' all this years ago, even since she killed her 
 father ! " 
 
 Mr. Critchlow left nothing unsaid. 
 
 During the night Mrs. Baines lived through all Sophia's life, 
 lived through it more intensely than ever Sophia had done. 
 
 The next day people began to know. A whisper almost 
 inaudible went across the Square, and into the town : and in 
 the stillness every one heard it. " Sophia Baines run off 
 with a commercial ! " 
 
 In another fortnight a note came, also dated from London. 
 
 " Dear Mother, I am married to Gerald Scales. Please 
 don't worry about me. We are going abroad. Your affec- 
 tionate Sophia. Love to Constance." No tear-stains on 
 that pale blue sheet ! No sign of agitation ! 
 
 And Mrs. Baines said : " My life is over." It was, though 
 she was scarcely fifty. She felt old, old and beaten. She 
 had fought and been vanquished. The everlasting purpose 
 had been too much for her. Virtue had gone out of her — the 
 virtue to hold up her head and look the Square in the face. 
 She, the wife of John Baines ! She, a Syme of Axe ! 
 
 Old houses, in the course of their history, see sad sights, 
 and never forget them ! And ever since, in the solemn 
 physiognomy of the triple house of John Baines at the corner 
 of St. Luke's Square and King Street, have remained the 
 traces of the sight it saw on the morning of the afternoon 
 when Mr. and Mrs. Povey returned from their honeymoon — 
 the sight of Mrs. Baines getting into the waggonette for Axe ; 
 Mrs. Baines, encumbered with trunks and parcels, leaving the 
 scene of her struggles and her defeat, whither she had once 
 come as slim as a wand, to return stout and heavy, and heavy- 
 hearted, to her childhood ; content to live with her grandiose 
 sister until such time as she should be ready for burial ! The 
 grimy and impassive old house perhaps heard her .heart 
 saying : " Only yesterday they were little girls, ever so tiny, 
 and now — " The driving-off of a waggonette can be a dread- 
 ful thing. 
 
BOOK II. 
 CONSTANCE. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 REVOLUTION. 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Povey, rising from the rocking-chair that 
 in a previous age had been John Baines's, "I've got to make 
 a start some time, so I may as well begin now 1 " 
 
 And he went from the parlour into the shop. Constance's 
 eye followed him as far as the door, where their glances met 
 for an instant in the transient gaze which expresses the 
 tenderness of people who feel more than they kiss. 
 
 It was on the morning of this day that Mrs. Baines, relin- 
 quishing the sovereignty of St. Luke's Square, had gone to 
 live as a younger sister in the house of Harriet Maddack at 
 Axe. Constance guessed little of the secret anguish of that 
 departure. She only knew that it was just like her mother, 
 having perfectly arranged the entire house for the arrival of 
 the honeymoon couple from Buxton, to flit early away so as 
 to spare the natural blushing diffidence of the said couple. 
 It was like her mother's commonsense and her mother's sym- 
 pathetic comprehension. Further, Constance did not pur- 
 sue her mother's feelings, being far too busy with her own. 
 She sat there full of new knowledge and new importance, 
 brimming with experience and strange, unexpected aspira- 
 tions, purposes, yes — and cunnings ! And yet, though the 
 very curves of her cheeks seemed to be mysteriously altering, 
 the old Constance still lingered in that frame, an innocent 
 soul hesitating to spread its wings and quit for ever the 
 body which had been its home ; you could see the timid thing 
 peeping wistfully out of the eyes of the married woman. 
 
 Constance rang the bell for Maggie to clear the table ; and 
 as she did so she had the illusion that she was not really a 
 married woman and a house-mistress, but only a kind of 
 counterfeit. She did most fervently hope that all would go 
 
l 4 6 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 right in the house — at any rate until she had grown more 
 accustomed to her situation. 
 
 The hope was to be disappointed. Maggie's rather silly, 
 obsequious smile concealed but for a moment the ineffable 
 tragedy that had lain in wait for unarmed Constance. 
 
 If you please, Mrs. Povey," said Maggie, as she crushed 
 cups together on the tin tray with her great, red hands, which 
 always looked like something out of a butcher's shop ; then 
 a pause, " Will you please except of this ? " 
 
 Now, before the wedding Maggie had already, with tears 
 of affection, given Constant,; a pair of blue glass vases (in 
 order to purchase which she had been obliged to ask for special 
 permission to go out), and Constance wondered what was 
 coming now from Maggie'", p' cket. A smaL piece of folded 
 paper came from Maggie's pocket. Constant accepted of it, 
 and read : "I begs to give one month's notice to leave. 
 Signed Maggie. June 10, 1867." 
 
 " Maggie I " exclaimed the old Constance, terrified by this 
 incredible occurrence, ere the married woman could strangle 
 her. 
 
 " I never give notice before, Mrs. Povey/' said Maggie, 
 " so I don't know as I know how it ought for be done — not 
 rightly. But I hope as you'll a;cep f it, Mrs. Povey." 
 
 " Oh ! of course," said Mr . Povey, priml , just as if Maggie 
 was not the central supporting pillar n the house, just as if 
 Maggie had not assisted at her birth, just as if the end of the 
 world had not abruptly been announced, just as if St. Luke's 
 Square were not inconceivable without Maggie. " But 
 why ' 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Povey, I've been a-thinking it over in my 
 kitchen, and I said to myself : ' If there's going to be one 
 change there'd better be two,' I says. Not but what I 
 wouldn't work my fingers to the bone for ye, Miss Con- 
 stance." 
 
 Here Maggie began to cry into the tray. 
 
 Constance looked at her. Despite the special muslin of 
 that day she had traces of the slatternliness of which Mrs. 
 Baines had never been able to cure her. She was over forty, 
 big, gawky. She had no figure, no charms of any kind. 
 She was what was left of a woman after twenty-two years 
 in the cave of a philanthropic family. And in her cave she 
 had actually been thinking things over ! Constance de- 
 tected for the first time, beneath the dehumanized drudge, 
 the stirrings of a separate and perhaps capricious individu- 
 -ality. Maggie's engagements had never been real to her em- 
 ployers. Within the house she had never been, in practice, 
 
REVOLUTION. 147 
 
 anything but " Maggie " — an organism. And now she was 
 permitting herself ideas about changes ! 
 
 " You'll soon be suited with another, Mrs. Povey," said 
 Maggie. " There's many a — many a — " She burst into 
 sobs. 
 
 " But if you really want to leave, what are you crying for, 
 Maggie ? " asked Mrs. Povey, at her wisest. " Have you 
 told mother ? " 
 
 " No, miss," Maggie whimpered, absently wiping her 
 wrinkled cheeks with ineffectual muslin. " I couldn't seem 
 to fancy telling your mother. And as you're the mistress 
 now, I thought as I'd save it for you when you come home. 
 I hope you'll excuse me, Mrs. Povey." 
 
 " Of course I'm very sorry. You've been a very good 
 servant. And in these days " 
 
 The child had acquired this turn of speech from her mother. 
 It did not /ppear to occur to either of them that they were 
 living in .he sixti- ;. 
 
 " Thank ye, miss." 
 
 " And what are you thinking of doing, Maggie ? You 
 know you won't get many places like this." 
 
 " To tell ye the truth, Mrs. Povey, I'm going to get married 
 my sen." 
 
 " Indeed ! " murmured Constance, with the perfunctori- 
 ness of habit in replying to these tidings. 
 
 " Oh ! but I am, mum," Maggie insisted. " It's all settled. 
 Mr. Hollins, mum." 
 
 " Not Hollins, the fish-hawker ! " 
 
 " Yes, mum. I seem to fancy him. You don't remember 
 as him and me was engaged in '48. He was my first, like. 
 I broke it off because he was in that Chartist lot, and I knew 
 as Mr. Baines would never stand that. Now he's asked me 
 again. He's been a widower this long time." 
 
 " I'm sure I hope you'll be happy, Maggie. But what 
 about his habits ? " 
 
 '• He won't have no habits with me, Mrs. Povey." 
 
 A woman was definitely emerging from the drudge. 
 
 When Maggie, having entirely ceased sobbing, had put the 
 folded cloth in the table-drawer and departed with the tray, 
 her mistress became frankly the girl again. No primness 
 about her as she stood alone there in the parlour ; no pre- 
 tence that Maggie's notice to leave was an everyday docu- 
 ment, to be casually glanced at as one glances at an unpaid 
 bill ! She would be compelled to find a new servant, making 
 solemn inquiries into character, and to train the new servant, 
 and to talk to her from heights from which she had never 
 
148 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 addressed Maggie. At that moment she had an illusion that 
 there were no other available, suitable servants in the whole 
 world. And the arranged marriage ? She felt that this 
 time — the thirteenth or fourteenth time — the engagement 
 was serious and would only end at the altar. The vision of 
 Maggie and Hollins at the altar shocked her. Marriage was 
 a series of phenomena, and a general state, very holy and 
 wonderful — too sacred, somehow, for such creatures as Maggie 
 and Hollins. Her vague, instinctive revolt against such a 
 usage of matrimony centred round the idea of a strong, eternal 
 smell of fish. However, the projected outrage on a hallowed 
 institution troubled her much less than the imminent prob- 
 lem of domestic service. 
 
 She ran into the shop — or she would have run if she had 
 not checked her girlishness betimes — and on her lips, ready 
 to be whispered importantly into a husband's astounded ear, 
 were the words, " Maggie has given notice ! Yes ! Truly ! " 
 But Samuel Povey was engaged. He was leaning over the 
 counter and staring at an outspread paper upon which a 
 certain Mr. Yardley was making strokes with a thick pencil. 
 Mr. Yardley, who had a long red beard, painted houses and 
 rooms. She knew him only by sight. In her mind she 
 always associated him with the sign over his premises in 
 Trafalgar Road, " Yardley Bros., Authorised plumbers. 
 Painters. Decorators. Paper-hangers. Facia writers." For 
 years, in childhood, she had passed that sign without know- 
 ing what sort of thing " Bros." and " Facia " were, and what 
 was the mysterious similarity between a plumber and a 
 version of the Bible. She could not interrupt her husband, 
 he was wholly absorbed ; nor could she stay in the shop 
 (which appeared just a little smaller than usual), for that 
 would have meant an unsuccessful endeavour to front the 
 young lady-assistants as though nothing in particular had 
 happened to her. So she went sedately up the showroom 
 stairs and thus to the bedroom floors of the house — her 
 house ! Mrs. Povey's house ! She even climbed to Con- 
 stance's old bedroom ; her mother had stripped the bed — 
 that was all, except a slight diminution of this room, cor- 
 responding to that of the shop ! Then to the drawing- 
 room. In the recess outside the drawing-room door the 
 black box of silver plate still lay. She had expected her 
 mother to take it ; but no ! Assuredly her mother was one 
 to do things handsomely — when she did them. In the 
 drawing-room, not a tassel of an antimacassar touched ! Yes, 
 the fire-screen, the luscious bunch of roses on an expanse of 
 mustard, which Constance had worked for her mother years 
 
REVOLUTION. 149 
 
 ago, was gone ! That her mother should have clung to just 
 that one souvenir, out of all the heavy opulence of the draw- 
 ing-room, touched Constance intimately. She perceived that 
 if she could not talk to her husband she must write to her 
 mother. And she sat down at the oval table and wrote, 
 " Darling mother, I am sure you will be very surprised to 
 hear. . . . She means it. ... I think she is making a 
 serious mistake. Ought I to put an advertisement in the 
 Signal, or will it do if. . . . Please write by return. We are 
 back, and have enjoyed ourselves very much. Sam says he 
 enjoys getting up late. ..." And so on to the last inch of 
 the fourth scolloped page. 
 
 She was obliged to revisit the shop for a stamp, stamps 
 being kept in Mr. Povey's desk in the corner — a high desk, 
 at which you stood. Mr. Povey was now in earnest converse 
 with Mr. Yardley at the door, and twilight, which began a 
 full hour earlier in the shop than in the Square, had cast 
 faint shadows in corners behind counters. 
 
 " Will you just run out with this to the pillar, Miss Dadd ? " 
 
 " With pleasure, Mrs. Povey." 
 
 " Where are you going to ? " Mr. Povey interrupted his 
 conversation to stop the flying girl. 
 
 " She's just going to the post for me," Constance called 
 out from the region of the till. 
 
 " Oh ! All right ! " 
 
 A trifle ! A nothing ! Yet somehow, in the quiet cus- 
 tomerless shop, the episode, with the scarce perceptible differ- 
 ence in Samuel's tone at his second remark, was delicious 
 to Constance. Somehow it was the real beginning of her 
 wifehood. (There had been about nine other real begin- 
 nings in the past fortnight.) 
 
 Mr. Povey came in to supper, laden with ledgers and 
 similar works which Constance had never even pretended to 
 understand. It was a sign from him that the honeymoon 
 was over. He was proprietor now, and his ardour for 
 ledgers most justifiable. Still, there was the question of 
 her servant. 
 
 " Never ! " he exclaimed, when she told him all about the 
 end of the world. A " never " which expressed extreme as- 
 tonishment and the liveliest concern ! 
 
 But Constance had anticipated that he would have been 
 just a little more knocked down, bowled over, staggered, 
 stunned, flabbergasted. In a swift gleam of insight she saw 
 that she had been in danger of forgetting her rdle of experi- 
 enced, capable married woman. 
 
 " I shall have to set about getting a fresh one," she said 
 
150 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 hastily, with an admirable assumption of light and easy 
 casualness. 
 
 Mr. Povey seemed to think that Hollins would suit Maggie 
 pretty well. He made no remark to the betrothed when she 
 answered the final bell of the night. 
 
 He opened his ledgers, whistling. 
 
 " I think I shall go up, dear," said Constance. ° I've a 
 lot of things to put away," 
 
 *.* Do," said he. " Call out when you've done." 
 
 . II. 
 
 M Sam ! " she cried from the top of the crooked stairs. 
 
 No answer. The door at the foot was closed. 
 
 m Sam ! " 
 
 " Hello ? " Distantly, faintly. 
 
 " I've done all I'm going to do to-night." 
 
 And she ran back along the corridor, a white figure in the 
 deep gloom, and hurried into bed, and drew the clothes up 
 to her chin. 
 
 In the life of a bride there are some dramatic moments. 
 If she has married the industrious apprentice, one of those 
 moments occurs when she first occupies the sacred bed- 
 chamber of her ancestors, and the bed on which she was born. 
 Her parents' room had always been to Constance, if not 
 sacred, at least invested with a certain moral solemnity. 
 She could not enter it as she would enter another room. 
 The course of nature, with its succession of deaths, concep- 
 tions, and births, slowly makes such a room august with a 
 mysterious quality which interprets the grandeur of mere 
 existence and imposes itself on all. Constance had the 
 strangest sensations in that bed, whose heavy dignity of 
 ornament symbolized a past age ; sensations of sacrilege 
 and trespass, of being a naughty girl to whom punishment 
 would accrue for this shocking freak. Not since she was 
 quite tiny had she slept in that bed — one night with her 
 mother, before her father's seizure, when he had been away. 
 What a limitless, unfathomable bed it was then 1 Now it 
 was just a bed— so she had to tell herself — like any other bed. 
 The tiny child that, safely touching its mother, had slept in 
 the vast expanse, seemed to her now a pathetic little thing ; 
 its image made her feel melancholy. And her mind dwelt 
 on sad events : the death of her father, the flight of darling 
 Sophia ; the immense grief, and the exile, of her mother. 
 
REVOLUTION. 151 
 
 She esteemed that she knew what life was, and that it was 
 grim. And she sighed. But the sigh was an affectation, 
 meant partly to convince herself that she was grown-up, 
 and partly to keep her in countenance in the intimidating 
 bed. This melancholy was factitious, was less than transient 
 foam on the deep sea of her joy. Death and sorrow and sin 
 were dim shapes to her ; the ruthless egoism of happiness 
 blew them away with a puff, and their wistful faces vanished. 
 To see her there in the bed, framed in mahogany and tassels, 
 lying on her side, with her young glowing cheeks, and 
 honest but not artless gaze, and the rich curve of her hip 
 lifting the counterpane, one would have said that she had 
 never heard of aught but love. 
 
 Mr. Povey entered, the bridegroom, quickly, firmly, carry- 
 ing it off rather well, but still self-conscious. " After all," 
 his shoulders were trying to say, " what's the difference be- 
 tween this bedroom and the bedroom of a boarding-house ? 
 Indeed, ought we not to feel more at home here ? Besides, 
 confound it, we've been married a fortnight ! " 
 
 " Doesn't it give you a funny feeling, sleeping in this 
 room ? It does me," said Constance. Women, even experi- 
 enced women, are so foolishly frank. They have no decency, 
 no self-respect. 
 
 " Really ? " replied Mr. Povey, with loftiness, as who 
 should say : " What an extraordinary thing that a reasonable 
 creature can have such fancies ! Now to me this room is 
 exactly like any other room." And he added aloud, glancing 
 away from the glass, where he was unfastening his necktie : 
 " It's not a bad room at all." This, with the judicial air of 
 an auctioneer. 
 
 Not for an instant did he deceive Constance, who read his 
 real sensations with accuracy. But his futile poses did not 
 in the slightest degree lessen her respect for him. On the 
 contrary, she admired him the more for them ; they were a 
 sort of embroidery on the solid stuff of his character. At 
 that period he could not do wrong for her. The basis of 
 her regard for him was, she often thought, his honesty, his 
 industry, his genuine kindliness of act, his grasp of the busi- 
 ness, his perseverance, his passion for doing at once that 
 which had to be done. She had the greatest admiration for 
 his qualities, and he was hi her eyes an indivisible whole ; 
 she could not admire one part of him and frown upon another. 
 Whatever he did was good because he did it. She knew that 
 some people were apt to smile at certain phases of his in- 
 dividuality ; she knew that far down in her mother's heart 
 was a suspicion that she had married ever so little beneath 
 
152 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 her. But this knowledge did not disturb her. She had no 
 doubt as to the correctness of her own estimate. 
 
 Mr. Povey was an exceedingly methodical person, and he 
 was also one of those persons who must always be "before- 
 hand " with time. Thus at night he would arrange his 
 raiment so that in the morning it might be reassumed in the 
 minimum of minutes. He was not a man, for example, to 
 leave the changing of studs from one shirt to another till the 
 morrow. Had it been practicable, he would have brushed 
 his hair the night before. Constance already loved to watch 
 his meticulous preparations. She saw him now go into his 
 old bedroom and return with a paper collar, which he put 
 on the dressing-table next to a black necktie. His shop-suit 
 was laid out on a chair. 
 
 " Oh, Sam ! " she exclaimed impulsively, " you surely 
 aren't going to begin wearing those horrid paper collars 
 again ! " During the honeymoon he had worn linen collars. 
 
 Her tone was perfectly gentle, but the remark, neverthe- 
 less, showed a lack of tact. It implied that all his life Mr. 
 Povey had been enveloping his neck in something which was 
 horrid. Like all persons with a tendency to fall into the 
 ridiculous, Mr. Povey was exceedingly sensitive to personal 
 criticisms. He flushed darkly. 
 
 " I didn't know they were ' horrid,' " he snapped. He 
 was hurt and angry. Anger surprised him unawares. 
 
 Both of them suddenly saw that they were standing on 
 the edge of a chasm, and drew back. They had imagined 
 themselves to be wandering safely in a flowered meadow, 
 and here was this bottomless chasm I It was most dis- 
 concerting. 
 
 Mr. Povey's hand hovered undecided over the collar. 
 11 However — " he muttered. 
 
 She could feel that he was trying with all his might to be 
 gentle and pacific. And she was agha,st at her own stupid 
 clumsiness, she so experienced ! 
 
 " Just as you like, dear," she said quickly. " Please ! " 
 
 "■ Oh no ! " And he did his best to smile, and went off 
 gawkily with the collar and came back with a linen one. 
 
 Her passion for him burned stronger than ever. She knew 
 then that she did not love him for his good qualities, but 
 for something boyish and naive that there was about him, 
 an indescribable something that occasionally, when his face 
 was close to hers, made her dizzy. 
 
 The chasm had disappeared. In such moments, when 
 each must pretend not to have seen or even suspected the 
 chasm, small-talk is essential. 
 
REVOLUTION. 153 
 
 " Wasn't that Mr. Yardley in the shop to-night ? " began 
 Constance. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " What did he want ? " 
 
 "I'd sent for him. He's going to paint us a signboard." 
 
 Useless for Samuel to make-believe that nothing in this 
 world is more ordinary than a signboard. 
 
 " Oh ! " murmured Constance. She said no more, the 
 episode of the paper collar having weakened her self- 
 confidence. 
 
 But a signboard ! 
 
 What with servants, chasms, and signboards, Constance 
 considered that her life as a married woman would not be 
 deficient in excitement. Long afterwards she fell asleep, 
 thinking of Sophia. 
 
 III. 
 
 A few days later Constance was arranging the more 
 precious of her wedding presents in the parlour ; some had 
 to be wrapped in tissue and in brown paper and then tied 
 with string and labelled ; others had special cases of their 
 own, leather without and velvet within. Among the latter 
 was the resplendent egg-stand holding twelve silver-gilt 
 egg-cups and twelve chased spoons to match, presented 
 by Aunt Harriet. In the Five Towns' phrase, " it must 
 have cost money." Even if Mr. and Mrs. Povey had ten 
 guests or ten children, and all the twelve of them were 
 simultaneously gripped by a desire to eat eggs at break- 
 fast or tea — even in this remote contingency Aunt Harriet 
 would have been pained to see the egg-stand in use ; such 
 treasures are not designed for use. The presents, few in 
 number, were mainly of this character, because, owing to 
 her mother's heroic cession of the entire interior, Constance 
 already possessed every necessary. The fewness of the pres- 
 ents was accounted for by the fact that the wedding had 
 been strictly private and had taken place at Axe. There is 
 nothing like secrecy in marriage for discouraging the gener- 
 ous impulses of one's friends. It was Mrs. Baines, abetted 
 by both the chief parties, who had decided that the wedding 
 should be private and secluded. Sophia's wedding had been 
 altogether too private and secluded; but the casting of a 
 veil over Constance's (whose union was irreproachable) 
 somehow justified, after the event, the circumstances of 
 Sophia's, indicating as it did that Mrs. Baines believed in 
 
154 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 secret weddings on principle. In such matters Mrs. Baines 
 was capable of extraordinary subtlety. 
 
 And while Constance was thus taking her wedding presents 
 with due seriousness, Maggie was cleaning the steps that led 
 from the pavement of King Street to the side-door, and the 
 door was ajar. It was a fine June morning. 
 
 Suddenly, over the sound of scouring, Constance heard a 
 dog's low growl and then the hoarse voice of a man : 
 
 " Mester in, wench ? " 
 
 " Happen he is, happen he isn't," came Maggie's answer. 
 She had no fancy for being called wench. 
 
 Constance went to the door, not merely from curiosity, 
 but from a feeling that her authority and her responsibilities 
 as house-mistress extended to the pavement surrounding 
 the house. 
 
 The famous James Boon, of Buck Row, the greatest 
 dog-fancier in the Five Towns, stood at the bottom of the 
 steps : a tall, fat man, clad in stiff, stained brown and smok- 
 ing a black clay pipe less than three inches long. Behind 
 him attended two bull-dogs. 
 
 " Morning, missis ! " cried Boon, cheerfully. "I've heerd 
 tell as th' mister is looking out for a dog, as you might say." 
 
 " I don't stay here with them animals a-snifnng at me — 
 no, that I don't ! " observed Maggie, picking herself up. 
 
 " Is he ? " Constance hesitated. She knew that Samuel 
 had vaguely referred to dogs ; she had not, however, imagined 
 that he regarded a dog as aught but a beautiful dream. No 
 dog had ever put paw into that house, and it seemed im- 
 possible that one should ever do so. As for those beasts of 
 prey on the pavement . . . ! 
 
 " Ay ! " said James Boon, calmly. 
 
 " I'll tell him you're here," said Constance. " But I don't 
 know if he's at liberty. He seldom is at this time of day. 
 Maggie, you'd better come in." 
 
 She went slowly to the shop, full of fear for the future. 
 
 " Sam," she whispered to her husband, who was writing at 
 his desk, " here's a man come to see you about a dog." 
 
 Assuredly he was taken aback. Still, he behaved with 
 much presence of mind. 
 
 " Oh, about a dog ! Who is it ? " 
 
 " It's that Jim Boon. He says he's heard you want one." 
 
 The renowned name of Jim Boon gave him pause ; but 
 he had to go through with the affair, and he went through 
 with it, though nervously. Constance followed his agitated 
 footsteps to the side-door. 
 
 " Morning, Boon." 
 
REVOLUTION. 155 
 
 "Morning, mester." 
 
 They began to talk dogs, Mr. Povey, for his part, with 
 due caution. 
 
 " Now, there's a dog ! " said Boon, pointing to one of the 
 bull-dogs, a miracle of splendid ugliness. 
 
 " Yes," responded Mr. Povey, insincerely. " He is a 
 beauty. What's it worth now, at a venture ? " 
 
 "I'll tak' a hundred and twenty sovereigns for her," said 
 Boon. " Th' other's a bit cheaper — a hundred." 
 
 " Oh, Sam ! " gasped Constance. 
 
 And even Mr. Povey nearly lost his nerve. " That's more 
 than I want to give," said he timidly. 
 
 " But look at her ! " Boon persisted, roughly snatching up 
 the more expensive animal, and displaying her cannibal 
 teeth. 
 
 Mr. Povey shook his head. Constance glanced away. 
 
 " That's not quite the sort of dog I want," said Mr. Povey. 
 
 " Fox-terrier ? " 
 
 " Yes, that's more like," Mr. Povey agreed eagerly. 
 
 " What '11 ye run to ? " 
 
 " Oh," said Mr. Povey, largely, " I don't know." 
 
 " Will ye run to a tenner ? " 
 
 " I thought of something cheaper." 
 
 " Well, hoo much ? Out wi' it, mester." 
 
 " Not more than two pounds," said Mr. Povey. He would 
 have said one pound had he dared. The prices of dogs 
 amazed him. 
 
 " I thowt it was a dog as ye wanted ! " said Boon. " Look 
 'ere, mester. Come up to my yard and see what I've got." 
 
 " I will," said Mr. Povey. 
 
 " And bring missis along too. Now, what about a cat for 
 th' missis ? Or a gold-fish ? " 
 
 The end of the episode was that a young lady aged some 
 twelve months entered the Povey household on trial. Her 
 exiguous legs twinkled all over the parlour, and she had the 
 oddest appearance in the parlour. But she was so confiding, 
 so affectionate, so timorous, and her black nose was so icy 
 in that hot weather, that Constance loved her violently 
 within an hour. Mr. Povey made rules for her. He ex- 
 plained to her that she must never, never go into the shop. 
 But she went, and he whipped her to the squealing point, 
 and Constance cried an instant, while admiring her husband's 
 firmness. 
 
 The dog was not all. 
 
 On another day Constance, prying into the least details of 
 the parlour, discovered a box of cigars inside the lid of the 
 
156 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 harmonium, on the keyboard. She was so unaccustomed 
 to cigars that at first she did not realize what the object was. 
 Her father had never smoked, nor drunk intoxicants; nor 
 had Mr. Critchlow. Nobody had ever smoked in that house, 
 where tobacco had always been regarded as equally licentious 
 with cards, " the devil's playthings." Certainly Samuel had 
 never smoked in the house, though the sight of the cigar-box 
 reminded Constance of an occasion when her mother had 
 announced an incredulous suspicion that Mr. Povey, fresh 
 from an excursion into the world on a Thursday evening, 
 "smelt of smoke." 
 
 She closed the harmonium and kept silence. 
 
 That very night, coming suddenly into the parlour, she 
 caught Samuel at the harmonium. The lid went down with 
 a resonant bang that awoke sympathetic vibrations in every 
 corner of the room. 
 
 " What is it ? " Constance inquired, jumping. 
 
 " Oh, nothing ! " replied Mr. Povey, carelessly. 
 
 Each was deceiving the other : Mr. Povey hid his crime, 
 and Constance hid her knowledge of his crime. False, false ! 
 But this is what marriage is. 
 
 And the next day Constance had a visit in the shop from 
 a possible new servant, recommended to her by Mr. Holl, 
 the grocer. 
 
 " Will you please step this way ? " said Constance, with 
 affable primness, steeped in the, novel sense of what it is to 
 be the sole responsible mistress of a vast household. She 
 preceded the girl to the parlour, and as they passed the open 
 door of Mr. Povey's cutting-out room, Constance had the 
 clear vision and titillating odour of her husband smoking a 
 cigar. He was in his shirt-sleeves, calmly cutting out, and 
 Fan (the lady companion), at watch on the bench, yapped 
 at the possible new servant. 
 
 " I think I shall try that girl," said she to Samuel at tea. 
 She said nothing as to the cigar ; nor did he. 
 
 On the following evening, after supper, Mr. Povey burst 
 out : 
 
 " I think I'll have a weed ! You didn't know I smoked, 
 did you ? " 
 
 Thus Mr. Povey came out in his true colours as a blood, 
 a blade, and a gay spark. 
 
 But dogs and cigars, disconcerting enough in their degree, 
 were to the signboard, when the signboard at last came, as 
 skim milk is to hot brandy. It was the signboard that, 
 more startlingly than anything else, marked the dawn of 
 a new era in St. Luke's Square. Four men spent a day 
 
REVOLUTION. 157 
 
 and a half in fixing it ; they had ladders, ropes, and pulleys, 
 and two of them dined on the flat lead roof of the project- 
 ing shop -windows. The signboard was thirty-five feet long 
 and two feet in depth ; over its centre was a semicircle about 
 three feet in radius ; this semicircle bore the legend, judi- 
 ciously disposed, " S. Povey. Late." All the signboard 
 proper was devoted to the words, " John Baines," in gold 
 letters a foot and a half high, on a green ground. 
 
 The Square watched and wondered ; and murmured : 
 " Well, bless us ! What next ? " 
 
 It was agreed that in giving paramount importance to 
 the name of his late father-in-law, Mr. Povey had displayed 
 a very nice feeling. 
 
 Some asked with glee : " What'U the old lady have to 
 say ? "' 
 
 Constance asked herself this, but not with glee. When 
 Constance walked down the Square homewards, she could 
 scarcely bear to look at the sign ; the thought of what her 
 mother might say frightened her. Her mother's first visit 
 of state was imminent, and Aunt Harriet was to accompany 
 her. Constance felt almost sick as the day approached. 
 When she faintly hinted her apprehensions to Samuel, he 
 demanded, as if surprised — 
 
 " Haven't you mentioned it in one of your letters ? " 
 
 " Oh no ! " 
 
 " If that's all," said he, with bravado, "I'll write and tell 
 her myself." 
 
 IV. 
 
 So that Mrs. Baines was duly apprised of the signboard 
 before her arrival. The letter written by her to Constance 
 after receiving Samuel's letter, which was merely the 
 amiable epistle of a son-in-law anxious to be a little more 
 than correct, contained no reference to the signboard. This 
 silence, however, did not in the least allay Constance's ap- 
 prehensions as to what might occur when her mother and 
 Samuel met beneath the signboard itself. It was therefore 
 with a fearful as well as an eager, loving heart that Constance 
 opened her side-door and ran down the steps when the 
 waggonette stopped in King Street on the Thursday morning 
 of the great visit of the sisters. But a surprise awaited her. 
 Aunt Harriet had not come. Mrs. Baines explained, as she 
 soundly kissed her daughter, that at the last moment Aunt 
 Harriet had not felt well enough to undertake the journey. 
 
158 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 She sent her fondest love, and cake. Her pains had recurred. 
 It was these mysterious pains which had prevented the sisters 
 from coming to Bursley earlier. The word " cancer " — the 
 continual terror of stout women — had been on their lips, 
 without having been actually uttered ; then there was a 
 surcease, and each was glad that she had refrained from 
 the dread syllables. In view of the recurrence, it was not 
 unnatural that Mrs. Baines's vigorous cheerfulness should 
 be somewhat forced. 
 
 " What is it, do you think ? " Constance inquired. 
 
 Mrs. Baines pushed her lips out and raised her eyebrows — 
 a gesture which meant that the pains might mean God knew 
 what. 
 
 " I hope she'll be all right alone," observed Constance. 
 
 " Of course," said Mrs. Baines quickly. " But you don't 
 suppose I was going to disappoint you, do you ? " she added, 
 looking round as if to defy the fates in general. 
 
 This speech, and its tone, gave intense pleasure to Con- 
 stance ; and, laden with parcels, they mounted the stairs 
 together, very content with each other, very happy in the 
 discovery that they were still mother and daughter, very 
 intimate in an inarticulate way. 
 
 Constance had imagined long, detailed, absorbing, and 
 highly novel conversations between herself and her mother 
 upon this their first meeting after her marriage. But alone 
 in the bedroom, and with a clear half-hour to dinner, they 
 neither of them seemed to have a great deal to impart. 
 
 Mrs. Baines slowly removed her light mantle and laid it 
 with precautions on the white damask counterpane. Then, 
 fingering her weeds, she glanced about the chamber. Noth- 
 ing was changed. Though Constance had, previous to her 
 marriage, envisaged certain alterations, she had determined 
 to postpone them, feeling that one revolutionist in a house 
 was enough. 
 
 " Well, my chick, you all right ? " said Mrs. Baines, with 
 hearty and direct energy, gazing straight into her daughter's 
 eyes. 
 
 Constance perceived that the question was universal in 
 its comprehensiveness, the one unique expression that the 
 mother would give to her maternal concern and curiosity, 
 and that condensed into six words as much interest as wouid 
 have overflowed into a whole day of the chatter of some 
 mothers. She met the candid glance, flushing. 
 
 " Oh yes ! " she answered with ecstatic fervour. " Per- 
 fectly ! " 
 
 And Mrs. Baines nodded, as if dismissing that. " You're 
 
REVOLUTION. 159 
 
 stouter," said she, curtly. " If you aren't careful you'll be 
 as big as any of us." 
 
 " Oh, mother ! " 
 
 The interview fell to a lower plane of emotion. It even 
 fell as far as Maggie. What chiefly preoccupied Constance 
 was a subtle change in her mother. She found her mother 
 fussy in trifles. Her manner of laying down her mantle, 
 of smoothing out her gloves, and her anxiety that her 
 bonnet should not come to harm, were rather trying, were 
 perhaps, in the very slightest degree, pitiable. It was 
 nothing ; it was barely perceptible, and yet it was enough 
 to alter Constance's mental attitude to her mother. " Poor 
 dear ! " thought Constance. " I'm afraid she's not what 
 she was." Incredible that her mother could have aged in 
 less than six weeks ! Constance did not allow for the 
 chemistry that had been going on in herself. 
 
 The encounter between Mrs. Baines and her son-in-law 
 was of the most satisfactory nature. He was waiting in the 
 parlour for her to descend. He made himself exceedingly 
 agreeable, kissing her, and flattering her by his evidently 
 sincere desire to please. He explained that he had kept an 
 eye open for the waggonette, but had been called away. 
 His " Dear me ! " on learning about Aunt Harriet lacked 
 nothing in conviction, though both women knew that his 
 affection for Aunt Harriet would never get the better of his 
 reason. To Constance, her husband's behaviour was mar- 
 vellously perfect. She had not suspected him to be such a 
 man of the world. And her eyes said to her mother, quite 
 unconsciously : " You see, after all, you didn't rate Sam as 
 high as you ought to have done. Now you see your mistake." 
 
 As they sat waiting for dinner, Constance and Mrs. Baines 
 on the sofa, and Samuel on the edge of the nearest rocking- 
 chair, a small scuffling noise was heard outside the door 
 which gave on the kitchen steps, the door yielded to pressure, 
 and Fan rushed importantly in, deranging mats. Fan's 
 nose had been hinting to her that she was behind the times, 
 not up-to-date in the affairs of the household, and she had 
 hurried from the kitchen to make inquiries. It occurred to 
 her en route that she had been washed that morning. The 
 spectacle of Mrs. Baines stopped her. She stood, with her 
 legs slightly outstretched, her nose lifted, her ears raking 
 forward, her bright eyes blinking, and her tail undecided. 
 " I was sure I'd never smelt anything like that before," she 
 was saying to herself, as she stared at Mrs. Baines. 
 
 And Mrs. Baines, staring at Fan, had a similar though not 
 the same sentiment. The silence was terrible. Constance 
 
160 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 took on the mien of a culprit, and Sam had obviously lost 
 his easy bearing of a man of the world. Mrs. Baines was 
 merely thunderstruck. 
 
 A dog ! 
 
 Suddenly Fan's tail began to wag more quickly ; and then, 
 having looked in vain for encouragement to her master and 
 mistress, she gave one mighty spring and alighted in Mrs. 
 Baines 's lap. It was an aim she could not have missed. 
 Constance emitted an " Oh, Fan ! " of shocked terror, and 
 Samuel betrayed his nervous tension by an involuntary move- 
 ment. But Fan had settled down into that titanic lap as 
 into heaven. It was a greater flattery than Mr. Povey's. 
 
 " So your name's Fan ! " murmured Mrs. Baines, stroking 
 the animal. " You are a dear ! " 
 
 " Yes, isn't she ? " said Constance, with inconceivable 
 rapidity. 
 
 The danger was past. Thus, without any explanation, 
 Fan became an accepted fact. 
 
 The next moment Maggie served the Yorkshire pudding. 
 
 " Well, Maggie," said Mrs. Baines. " So you are going to 
 get married this time ? When is it ? " 
 
 " Sunday, ma'am." 
 
 " And you leave here on Saturday ? " 
 
 " Y;s, ma'am." 
 
 " Well, I must have a talk with you before I go." 
 
 During the dinner, not a word as to the signboard ! Sev- 
 eral times the conversation curved towards that signboard 
 in the most alarming fashion, but invariably it curved away 
 again, like a train from another train when two trains are 
 simultaneously leaving a station. Constance had frights, so 
 serious as to destroy her anxiety about the cookery. In 
 the end she comprehended that her mother had adopted a 
 silently disapproving attitude. Fan was socially very useful 
 throughout the repast. 
 
 After dinner Constance was on pins lest Samuel should 
 light a cigar. She had not requested him not to do so, for 
 though she was entirely sure of his affection, she had already 
 learned that a husband is possessed by a demon of con- 
 trariety which often forces him to violate his higher feelings. 
 However, Samuel did not light a cigar. He went off to 
 superintend the shutting-up of the shop, while Mrs. Baines 
 chatted with Maggie and gave her ^5 for a wedding present. 
 Then Mr. Critchlow called to offer his salutations. 
 
 A little before tea Mrs. Baines announced that she would 
 go out for a short walk by herself. 
 
 " Where has she gone to ? " smiled Samuel, superiorly, as 
 
REVOLUTION. 161 
 
 with Constance at the window he watched her turn down 
 King Street towards the church. 
 
 " I expect she has gone to look at father's grave," said 
 Constance. 
 
 " Oh ! " muttered Samuel apologetically. 
 
 Constance was mistaken. Before reaching the church, 
 Mrs. Baines deviated to the right, got into Brougham Street 
 and thence, by Acre Lane, into Oldcastle Street, whose steep 
 she climbed. Now, Oldcastle Street ends at the top of St. 
 Luke's Square, and from the corner Mrs. Baines had an ex- 
 cellent view of the signboard. It being Thursday afternoon, 
 scarce a soul was about. She returned to her daughter's by 
 the same extraordinary route, and said not a word on enter- 
 ing. But she was markedly cheerful. 
 
 The waggonette came after tea, and Mrs. Baines made her 
 final preparations to depart. The visit had proved a wonder- 
 ful success ; it would have been utterly perfect if Samuel had 
 not marred it at the very door of the waggonette. Some- 
 how, he contrived to be talking of Christmas. Only a per- 
 son of Samuel's native clumsiness would have mentioned 
 Christmas in July. 
 
 " You know you'll spend Christmas with us ! " said he into 
 the waggonette. 
 
 " Indeed I shan't ! " replied Mrs. Baines. " Aunt Harriet 
 and I will expect you at Axe. We've already settled that." 
 
 Mr. Povey bridled. " Oh no ! " he protested, hurt by this 
 summariness. 
 
 Having had no relatives, except his cousin the confectioner, 
 for many years, he had dreamt of at last establishing a family 
 Christmas under his own roof, and the dream was dear to him. 
 
 Mrs. Baines said nothing. " We couldn't possibly leave the 
 shop," said Mr. Povey. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " Mrs. Baines retorted, putting her lips to- 
 gether. " Christmas Day is on a Monday." 
 
 The waggonette in starting jerked her head towards the 
 door and set all her curls shaking. No white in those curls 
 yet, scarcely a touch of grey ! 
 
 " I shall take good care we don't go there anyway," Mr. 
 Povey mumbled, in his heat, half to himself and half to 
 Constance. 
 
 He had stained the brightness of the day. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHRISTMAS AND THE FUTURE. 
 
 Mr. Povey was playing a hymn tune on the harmonium, it 
 having been decided that no one should go to chapel. Con- 
 stance, in mourning, with a white apron over her dress, sat 
 on a hassock in front of the fire ; and near her, in a rocking- 
 chair, Mrs. Baines swayed very gently to and fro. The 
 weather was . extremely cold. Mr. Povey's mittened hands 
 were blue and red ; but, like many shopkeepers, he had ap- 
 parently grown almost insensible to vagaries of temperature. 
 Although the fire was immense and furious, its influence, 
 owing to the fact that the mediaeval grate was designed to 
 heat the flue rather than the room, seemed to die away at the 
 borders of the fender. Constance could not have been much 
 closer to it without being a salamander. The era of good 
 old-fashioned Christmases, so agreeably picturesque for the 
 poor, was not yet at an end. 
 
 Yes, Samuel Povey had won the battle concerning the locus 
 of the family Christmas. But he had received the help of a 
 formidable ally, death. Mrs. Harriet Maddack had passed 
 away, after an operation, leaving her house and her money 
 to her sister. The solemn rite of her interment had deeply 
 affected all the respectability of the town of Axe, where the 
 late Mr. Maddack had been a figure of consequence ; it had 
 even shut up the shop in St. Luke's Square for a whole day. 
 It was such a funeral as Aunt Harriet herself would have ap- 
 proved, a tremendous ceremonial which left on the crushed 
 mind an ineffaceable, intricate impression of shiny cloth, 
 crape, horses with arching necks and long manes, the drawl 
 of parsons, cake, port, sighs, and Christian submission to the 
 inscrutable decrees of Providence. Mrs. Baines had borne 
 
CHRISTMAS AND THE FUTURE. 163 
 
 herself with unnatural calmness until the funeral was over : 
 and then Constance perceived that the remembered mother 
 of her girlhood existed no longer. For the majority of human 
 souls it would have been easier to love a virtuous principle, 
 or a mountain, than to love Aunt Harriet, who was assuredly- 
 less a woman than an institution. But Mrs. Baines had 
 loved her, and she had been the one person to whom Mrs. 
 Baines looked for support and guidance. When she died, 
 Mrs. Baines paid the tribute of respect with the last hoarded 
 remains of her proud fortitude, and weepingly confessed that 
 the unconquerable had been conquered, the inexhaustible 
 exhausted ; and became old with whiten' g hair. 
 
 She had persisted in her refusal t spen 1 Christmas in 
 Bursley, but both Constance and Samuel knew that the re- 
 sistance was only formal. She soon yielded. When Con- 
 stance's second new servant took it int her head to leave a 
 week before Christmas, Mrs. Baines migi-t have pointed the 
 finger of Providence at work again, and this time in her 
 favour. But no ! With amazing pliancy she suggested that 
 she should bring one of her own servants to " tide Constance 
 over " Christmas. She was met with all the forms of loving 
 solicitude, and she found that her daughter and son-in-law 
 had " turned out of" the state bedroom in her favour. In- 
 tensely flattered by this attention (which was Mr. Povey's 
 magnanimous idea), she nevertheless protested strongly. 
 Indeed she " would not hear of it." 
 
 " Now, mother, don't be silly," Constance had said firmly. 
 "You don't expect us to be at all the trouble of moving back 
 again, do you ? " And Mrs. Baines had surrendered in tears. 
 
 Thus had come Christmas. Perhaps it was fortunate that, 
 the Axe servant being not quite the ordinary servant, but a 
 benefactor where a benefactor was needed, both Constance 
 and her mother thought it well to occupy themselves in 
 household work, " sparing " the benefactor as much as pos- 
 sible. Hence Constance's white apron. 
 
 " There he is ! " said Mr. Povey, still playing, but with his 
 eye on the street. 
 
 Constance sprang up eagerly. Then there was a knock on 
 the door. Constance opened, and an icy blast swept into the 
 room. The postman stood on the steps, his instrument for 
 knocking (like a drumstick) in one hand, a large bundle of 
 letters in the other, and a yawning bag across the pit of his 
 stomach. 
 
 " Merry Christmas, ma'am ! " cried the postman, trying to 
 keep warm by cheerfulness. 
 
 Constance, taking the letters, responded, while Mr. Povey, 
 
164 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 playing the harmonium with his right hand, drew half a 
 crown from his pocket with the left. 
 
 " Here you are ! " he said, giving it to Constance, who gave 
 it to the postman. 
 
 Fan, who had been keeping her muzzle warm with the ex- 
 tremity of her tail on the sofa, jumped down to superintend 
 the transaction. 
 
 " Brrr ! " vibrated Mr. Povey as Constance shut the door. 
 
 " What lots ! " Constance exclaimed, rushing to the fire. 
 " Here, mother 1 Here, Sam ! " 
 
 The girl had resumed possession of the woman's body. 
 
 Though the Baines family had few friends (sustained hospi- 
 tality being little practised in those days) they had, of course, 
 many acquaintances, and, like other families, they counted 
 their Christmas cards as an Indian counts scalps. The tale 
 was satisfactory. There were between thirty and forty en- 
 velopes. Constance extracted Christmas cards rapidly, read- 
 ing their contents aloud, and then propping them up on the 
 mantelpiece. Mrs. Baines assisted. Fan dealt with the 
 envelopes on the floor. Mr. Povey, to prove that his soul 
 was above toys and gewgaws, continued to play the har- 
 monium. 
 
 " Oh, mother ! " Constance murmured in a startled, hesi- 
 tant voice, holding an envelope. 
 
 " What is it, my chuck ? " 
 
 " It's " 
 
 The envelope was addressed to " Mrs. and Miss Baines " in 
 large, perpendicular, dashing characters which Constance in- 
 stantly recognised as Sophia's. The stamps were strange, 
 the postmark " Paris." Mrs. Baines leaned forward and 
 looked. 
 
 " Open it, child," she said. 
 
 The envelope contained an English Christmas card of a 
 common type, a spray of holly with greetings, and on it was 
 written, " I do hope this will reach you on Christmas morn- 
 ing. Fondest love." No signature, nor address. 
 
 Mrs. Baines took it with a trembling hand, and adjusted 
 her spectacles. She gazed at it a long time. 
 
 " And it has done ! " she said, and wept* 
 
 She tried to speak again, but not being able to command 
 herself, held forth the card to Constance and jerked her head 
 in the direction of Mr. Povey. Constance rose and put the 
 card on the keyboard of the harmonium. 
 
 " Sophia ! " she whispered. 
 
 Mr. Povey stopped playing. " Dear, dear ! " he mut- 
 tered. 
 
CHRISTMAS AND THE FUTURE. 165 
 
 Fan, perceiving that nobody was interested in her feats, 
 suddenly stood still. 
 
 Mrs. Baines tried once more to speak, but could not. Then, 
 her ringlets shaking beneath the band of her weeds, she 
 found her feet, stepped to the harmonium, and, with a 
 movement almost convulsive, snatched the card from Mr. 
 Povey, and returned to her chair. 
 
 Mr. Povey abruptly left the room, followed by Fan. Both 
 the women were in tears, and he was tremendously surprised 
 to discover a dangerous lump in his own throat. The beauti- 
 ful and imperious vision of Sophia, Sophia as she had left 
 them, innocent, wayward, had swiftly risen up before him 
 and made even him a woman too ! Yet he had never liked 
 Sophia. The awful secret wound in the family pride revealed 
 itself to him as never before, and he felt intensely the mother's 
 tragedy, which she carried in her breast as Aunt Harriet had 
 carried a cancer. 
 
 At dinner he said suddenly to Mrs. Baines, who still wept : 
 " Now, mother, you must cheer up, you know." 
 
 " Yes, I must," she said quickly. And she did so. 
 
 Neither Samuel nor Constance saw the card again. Little 
 was said. There was nothing to say. As Sophia had given 
 no address she must be still ashamed of her situation. But 
 she had thought of her mother and sister. She . . . she did 
 not even know that Constance was married . . . What sort 
 of a place was Paris ? To Bursley, Paris was nothing but 
 the site of a great exhibition which had recently closed. 
 
 Through the influence of Mrs. Baines a new servant was 
 found for Constance in a village near Axe — a raw, comely girl 
 who had never been in a " place." And through the post it 
 was arranged that this innocent should come to the cave on 
 the thirty-first of December. In obedience to the safe rule 
 that servants should never be allowed to meet for the inter- 
 change of opinions, Mrs. Baines decided to leave with her 
 own servant on the thirtieth. She would not be persuaded 
 to spend the New Year in the Square. On the twenty- 
 ninth poor Aunt Maria died all of a sudden in her cottage 
 in Brougham Street. Everybody was duly distressed, and 
 in particular Mrs. Baines's demeanour under this affliction 
 showed the perfection of correctness. But she caused it to be 
 understood that she should not remain for the funeral. Her 
 nerves would be unequal to the ordeal ; and, moreover, her 
 servant must not stay to corrupt the new girl, nor could Mrs. 
 Baines think of sending her servant to Axe in advance, to 
 spend several days in idle gossip with her colleague. 
 
 This decision took the backbone out of Aunt Maria's 
 
166 THE OLD WIVES* TALE. 
 
 funeral, which touched the extreme of modesty : a hearse and 
 a one-horse coach. Mr. Povey was glad, because he happened 
 to be very busy. An hour before his mother-in-law's de- 
 parture he came into the parlour with the proof of a poster. 
 
 " What is that, Samuel ? " asked Mrs. Baines, not dreaming 
 of the blow that awaited her. 
 
 " It's foi my first Annual Sale," replied Mr. Povey with 
 false tranquillity. 
 
 Mrs. Baines merely tossed her head. Constance, hap >Hy 
 for Constance, was not present at this final defeat of the old 
 order. Had she been there, she would certainly not have 
 known where to look. 
 
 II. 
 
 " Forty next birthday ! " Mr. Povey exclaimed one day, 
 with an expression and in a tone that were at once mock- 
 serious and serious. This was on his thirty-ninth birthday. 
 
 Constance was startled. She had, of course, been aware 
 that they were getting older, but she had never realized the 
 phenomenon. Though customers occasionally remarked that 
 Mr. Povey was stouter, and though when she helped him to 
 measure himself for a new suit of clothes the tape proved 
 the fact, he had not changed for her. She knew that she 
 too had become somewhat stouter ; but for herself, she re- 
 mained exactly the same Constance. Only by recalling 
 dates and by calculations could she really grasp that she had 
 been married a little over six years and not a little over six 
 months. She had to admit that, if Samuel would be forty 
 next birthday, she would be twenty-seven next birthday. 
 But it would not be a real twenty-seven ; nor would Sam's 
 forty be a real forty, like other people's twenty-sevens and 
 forties. Not long since she had been in the habit of regard- 
 ing a man of forty as senile, as practically in his grave. 
 
 She reflected, and the more she reflected the more clearly 
 she saw that after all the almanacs had not lied. Look at 
 Fan ! Yes, it must be five years since the memorable morn- 
 ing when doubt first crossed the minds of Samuel and Con- 
 stance as to Fan's moral principles. Samuel's enthusiasm 
 for dogs was equalled by his ignorance of the dangers to which 
 a young female of temperament may be exposed, and he 
 was much disturbed as doubt developed into certainty. 
 Fan, indeed, was the one being who did not suffer from 
 shock and who had no fears as to the results. The animal, 
 having a pure mind, was bereft of modesty. Sundry enormi- 
 

 CHRISTMAS AND THE FUTURE. 167 
 
 ties had she committed, but none to rank with this one ! 
 The result was four quadrupeds recognizable as fox-terriers. 
 Mr. Povey breathed again. Fan had had more luck than 
 she deserved, for the result might have been simply any- 
 thing. Her owners forgave her and disposed of these fruits 
 of iniquity, and then married her lawfully to a husband who 
 was so high up in the world that he could demand a dowry. 
 And now Fan was a grandmother, with fixed ideas and 
 habits, and a son in the house, and various grandchildren 
 scattered over the town. Fan was a sedate and disillusioned 
 dog. She knew the world as it was, and in learning it she 
 had taught her owners above a bit. 
 
 Then there was Maggie Hollins. Constance could still 
 vividly recall the self-consciousness with which she had one 
 day received Maggie and the heir of the Hollinses ; but it 
 was a long time ago. After staggering half the town by the 
 production of this infant (of which she nearly died) Maggie 
 allowed the angels to waft it away to heaven, and everybody 
 said that she ought to be very thankful — at her age. Old 
 women dug up out of their minds forgotten histories of the 
 eccentricities of the goddess Lucina. Mrs. Baines was most 
 curiously interested ; she talked freely to Constance, and 
 Constance began to see what an incredible town Bursley 
 had always been — and she never suspected it ! Maggie was 
 now mother of other children, and the draggled, lame mistress 
 of a drunken home, and looked sixty. Despite her prophecy, 
 her husband had conserved his " habits." The Povey s ate 
 all the fish they could, and sometimes more than they en- 
 joyed, because on his sober days Hollins invariably started 
 his round at the shop, and Constance had to buy for Maggie's 
 sake. The worst of the worthless husband was that he 
 seldom failed to be cheery and polite. He never missed 
 asking after the health of Mrs. Baines. And when Constance 
 replied that her mother was *' pretty well considering," but 
 that she would not come over to Bursley again until the Axe 
 railway was opened, as she could not stand the drive, he 
 would shake his grey head and be sympathetically gloomy 
 for an instant. 
 
 All these changes in six years ! The almanacs were in the 
 right of it. 
 
 But nothing had happened to her. Gradually she had 
 obtained a sure ascendency over her mother, yet without 
 seeking it, merely as the outcome of time's influences on her 
 and on her mother respectively. Gradually she had gained 
 skill and use in the management of her household and of her 
 share of the shop, so that these machines ran smoothly and 
 
i68 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 effectively and a sudden contretemps no longer frightened 
 her. Gradually she had constructed a chart of Samuel's in- 
 dividuality, with the submerged rocks and perilous currents 
 all carefully marked, so that she could now voyage unalarmed 
 in those seas. But nothing happened. Unless their visits 
 to Buxton could be called happenings ! Decidedly the visit 
 to Buxton was the one little hill that rose out of the level 
 plain of the year. They had formed the annual habit of 
 going to Buxton for ten days. They had a way of saying : 
 
 Yes, we always go to Buxton. We went there for our 
 honeymoon, you know." They had become confirmed 
 Buxtonites, with views concerning St. Anne's Terrace, the 
 Broad Walk and Peel's Cavern. They could not dream of 
 deserting their Buxton. It was the sole possible resort. 
 Was it not the highest town in England ? Well, then ! 
 They always stayed at the same lodgings, and grew to be 
 special favourites of the landlady, who whispered of them to 
 all her other guests as having come to her house for their 
 honeymoon, and as never missing a year, and as being most 
 respectable, superior people in quite a large way of business. 
 Each year they' walked out of Buxton station behind their 
 luggage on a truck, full of joy and pride because they knew 
 all the landmarks, and the lie of aU the streets, and which 
 were the best shops. 
 
 At the beginning, the notion of leaving the shop to hired 
 custody had seemed almost fantastic, and the preparations 
 for absence had been very complicated. Then it was that 
 Miss Insull had detached herself from the other young lady 
 assistants as a creature who could be absolutely trusted. 
 Miss Insull was older than Constance ; she had a bad com- 
 plexion, and she was not clever, but she was one of your 
 reliable ones. The six years had witnessed the slow, steady 
 rise of Miss Insull. Her employers said " Miss Insull " in a 
 tone quite different from that in which they said " Miss 
 Hawkins " or " Miss Dadd." " Miss Insull " meant the end 
 of a discussion. " Better tell Miss Insull." " Miss Insull 
 will see to that." " I shall ask Miss Insull." Miss Insull 
 slept in the house ten nights every year. Miss Insull had 
 been called into consultation when it was decided to engage 
 a fourth hand in the shape of an apprentice. 
 
 Trade had improved in the point of excellence. It was 
 now admitted to be good — a rare honour for trade ! The 
 coal-mining boom was at its height, and colliers, in addition 
 to getting drunk, were buying American organs and ex- 
 pensive bull-terriers. Often they would come to the shop 
 to purchase cloth for coats for their dogs. And they would 
 
CHRISTMAS AND THE FUTURE. 169 
 
 have good cloth. Mr. Povey did not like this. One day a 
 butty chose for his dog the best cloth of Mr. Povey's shop 
 — at 125. a yard. " Will ye make it up ? I've gotten th' 
 measurements," asked the collier. " No, I won't 1 " said 
 Mr. Povey, hotly. " And what's more, I won't sell you the 
 cloth either ! Cloth at 125. a yard on a dog's back indeed ! 
 I'll thank you to get out of my shop ! " The incident became 
 historic, in the Square. It finally established that Mr. Povey 
 was a worthy son-in-law and a solid and successful man. It 
 vindicated the old pre-eminence of " Baines's." Some sur- 
 prise was expressed that Mr. Povey showed no desire nor 
 tendency towards entering the public life of the town. But 
 he never would, though a keen satirical critic of the Local 
 Board in private. And at the chapel he remained a simple 
 private worshipper, refusing stewardships and trusteeships. 
 
 III. 
 
 Was Constance happy ? Of course there was always some- 
 thing on her mind, something that had to be dealt with, 
 either in the shop or in the house, something to employ all 
 the skill and experience which she had acquired. Her life 
 had much in it of laborious tedium — tedium never-ending 
 and monotonous. And both she and Samuel worked con- 
 sistently hard, rising early, " pushing forward," as the phrase 
 ran, and going to bed early from sheer fatigue ; week after 
 week and month after month as season changed impercep- 
 tibly into season. In June and July it would happen to them 
 occasionally to retire before the last silver of dusk was out of 
 the sky. They would lie in bed and talk placidly of their 
 daily affairs. There would be a noise in the street below. 
 " Vaults closing ! " Samuel would say, and yawn. " Yes, 
 it's quite late," Constance would say. And the Swiss clock 
 would rapidly strike eleven on its coil of resonant wire. And 
 then, just before she went to sleep, Constance might reflect 
 upon her destiny, as even the busiest and smoothest women 
 do, and she would decide that it was kind. Her mother's 
 gradual decline and lonely life at Axe saddened her. The 
 cards which came now and then at extremely long intervals 
 from Sophia had been the cause of more sorrow than joy. 
 The naive ecstasies of her girlhood had long since departed 
 — the price paid for experience and self-possession and a true 
 vision of things. The vast inherent melancholy of the uni- 
 verse did not exempt her. But as she went to sleep she 
 
 6a 
 
i 7 o THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 would be conscious of a vague contentment. The basis of 
 this contentment was the fact that she and Samuel compre- 
 hended and esteemed each other, and made allowances for 
 each other. Their characters had been tested and had stood 
 the test. Affection, love, was not to them a salient phe- 
 nomenon in their relations. Habit had inevitably dulled its 
 ghtter. It was like a flavouring, scarce remarked ; but had 
 it been absent, how they would have turned from that dish ! 
 Samuel never, or hardly ever, set himself to meditate upon 
 the problem whether or not life had come up to his expecta- 
 tions. But he had, at times, strange sensations which he 
 did not analyze, and which approached nearer to ecstasy 
 than any feeling of Constance's. Thus, when he was in one 
 of his dark furies, molten within and black without, the sudden 
 thought of his wife's unalterable benignant calm, which 
 nothing could overthrow, might strike him into a wondering 
 cold. For him she was astoundingly feminine. She would 
 put flowers on the mantelpiece, and then, hours afterwards, 
 in the middle of a meal, ask him unexpectedly what he 
 thought of her " garden ; " and he gradually divined that a 
 perfunctory reply left her unsatisfied ; she wanted a genuine 
 opinion ; a genuine opinion mattered to her. Fancy calling 
 flowers on a mantelpiece a " garden " ! How charming, 
 how childlike ! Then she had a way, on Sunday mornings, 
 when she descended to the parlour all ready for chapel, of 
 shutting the door at the foot of the stairs with a little bang, 
 shaking herself, and turning round swiftly as if for his in- 
 spection, as if saying : " Well, what about this ? Will this 
 do ? " A phenomenon always associated in his mind with 
 the smell of kid gloves ! Invariably she asked him about 
 the colours and cut of her dresses. Would he prefer this, 
 or that ? He could not take such questions seriously until 
 one day he happened to hint, merely hint, that he was not 
 a thorough-going admirer of a certain new dress — it was her 
 first new dress after the definite abandonment of crinolines. 
 She never wore it again. He thought she was not serious at 
 first, and remonstrated against a joke being carried too far. 
 She said : " It's not a bit of use you talking, I shan't wear it 
 again." And then he so far appreciated her seriousness as 
 to refrain, by discretion, from any comment. The incident 
 affected him for days. It flattered him ; it thrilled him ; 
 but it baffled him. Strange that a woman subject to such 
 caprices should be so sagacious, capable, and utterly reliable 
 as Constance was ! For the practical and commonsense side 
 of her eternally compelled his admiration. The very first 
 example of it — her insistence that the simultaneous absence 
 
CHRISTMAS AND THE FUTURE. 171 
 
 of both of them from the shop for half an hour or an hour 
 twice a day would not mean the immediate downfall of the 
 business — had remained in his mind ever since. Had she 
 not been obstinate — in her benevolent way — against the 
 old superstition which he had acquired from his employers, 
 they might have been eating separately to that day. Then 
 her handling of her mother during the months of the siege 
 of Paris, when Mrs. Baines was convinced that her sinful 
 daughter was in hourly danger of death, had been extraor- 
 dinarily fine, he considered. And the sequel, a card for 
 Constance's birthday, had completely justified her attitude. 
 
 Sometimes some blundering fool would jovially exclaim 
 to them : 
 
 " What about that baby ? " 
 
 Or a woman would remark quietly : "I often feel sorry 
 you've no children." 
 
 And they would answer that really they did not know 
 what they would do if there was a baby. What with the 
 shop and one thing or another . . . ! And they were quite 
 sincere. 
 
 IV. 
 
 It is remarkable what a little thing will draw even the 
 most regular and serious people from the deep groove of 
 their habits. One morning in March, a boneshaker, an 
 affair on two equal wooden wheels joined by a bar of iron, 
 in the middle of which was a wooden saddle, disturbed the 
 gravity of St. Luke's Square. True, it was probably the first 
 boneshaker that had ever attacked the gravity of St. Luke's 
 Square. It came out of the shop of Daniel Povey, the con- 
 fectioner and baker, and Samuel Povey 's celebrated cousin, 
 in Boulton Terrace. Boulton Terrace formed nearly a right 
 angle with the Baines premises, and at the corner of the 
 angle Wedgwood Street and King Street left the Square. 
 The boneshaker was brought forth by Dick Povey, the only- 
 son of Daniel, now aged eleven years, under the superintend- 
 ence of his father, and the Square soon perceived that Dick 
 had a natural talent for breaking-in an untrained boneshaker. 
 After a few attempts he could remain on the back of the 
 machine for at least ten yards, and his feats had the effect of 
 endowing St. Luke's Square with the attractiveness of a 
 circus. Samuel Povey watched with candid interest from 
 the ambush of his door, while the unfortunate young lady 
 assistants, though aware of the performance that was going 
 
i 7 2 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 on, dared not stir from the stove. Samuel was tremendously- 
 tempted to sally out boldly, and chat with his cousin about 
 the toy ; he had surely a better right to do so than any 
 other tradesman in the Square, since he was of the family ; 
 but his diffidence prevented him from moving. Presently 
 Daniel Povey and Dick went to the top of the Square with 
 the machine, opposite Holl's, and Dick, being carefully in- 
 stalled in the saddle, essayed to descend the gentle paven 
 slopes of the Square. He failed time after time ; the machine 
 had an astonishing way of turning round, running uphill, and 
 then lying calmly on its side. At this point of Dick's life- 
 history every shop-door in the Square was occupied by an 
 audience. At last the boneshaker displayed less unwilling- 
 ness to obey, and lo ! in a moment Dick was riding down the 
 Square, and the spectators held their breath as if he had been 
 Blondin crossing Niagara. Every second he ought to have 
 fallen off, but he contrived to keep upright. Already he had 
 accomplished twenty yards — thirty yards ! It was a miracle 
 that he was performing ! The transit continued, and seemed 
 to occupy hours. And then a faint hope rose in the breast of 
 the watchers that the prodigy might arrive at the bottom of 
 the Square. His speed was increasing with his " nack." 
 But the Square was enormous, boundless. Samuel Povey 
 gazed at the approaching phenomenon, as a bird at a serpent, 
 with bulging, beady eyes. The child's speetf went on in- 
 creasing and his path grew straighter. Yes, he would arrive ; 
 he would do it ! Samuel Povey involuntarily lifted one leg 
 in his nervous tension. And now the hope that Dick would 
 arrive became a fear, as his pace grew still more rapid. 
 Everybody lifted one leg, and gaped. And the intrepid child 
 surged on, and, finally victorious, crashed into the pavement 
 in front of Samuel at the rate of quite six miles an hour. 
 
 Samuel picked him up, unscathed. And somehow this 
 picking up of Dick invested Samuel with importance, gave 
 him a share in the glory of the feat itself. 
 
 Daniel Povey came running and joyous. " Not so bad 
 for a start, eh ? " exclaimed the great Daniel. Though by 
 no means a simple man, his pride in his offspring some- 
 times made him a little naive. 
 
 Father and son explained the machine to Samuel, Dick 
 incessantly repeating the exceedingly strange truth that if 
 you felt you were falling to your right you must turn to your 
 right and vice versd. Samuel found himself suddenly ad- 
 mitted, as it were, to the inner fellowship of the boneshaker, 
 exalted above the rest of the Square. In another adventure 
 more thrilling events occurred. The fair-haired Dick was 
 
CHRISTMAS AND THE FUTURE. 173 
 
 one of those dangerous, frenzied madcaps who are born with- 
 out fear. The secret of the machine had been revealed to 
 him in his recent transit, and he was silently determining 
 to surpass himself. Precariously balanced, he descended 
 the Square again, frowning hard, his teeth set, and actually 
 managed to swerve into King Street. Constance, in the 
 parlour, saw an incomprehensible winged thing fly past the 
 window. The cousins Povey sounded an alarm and protest 
 and ran in pursuit ; for the gradient of King Street is, in 
 the strict sense, steep. Half-way down King Street Dick was 
 travelling at twenty miles an hour, and heading straight for 
 the church, as though he meant to disestablish it and perish. 
 The main gate of the churchyard was open, and that affright- 
 ing child, with a lunatic's luck, whizzed safely through the 
 portals into God's acre. The cousins Povey discovered him 
 lying on a green grave, clothed in pride. His first words were : 
 " Dad, did you pick my cap up ? " The symbolism of the 
 amazing ride did not escape the Square ; indeed, it was 
 much discussed. 
 
 This incident led to a friendship between the cousins. 
 They formed a habit of meeting in the Square for a chat. 
 The meetings were the subject of comment, for Samuel's 
 relations with the greater Daniel had always been of the 
 most distant. It was understood that Samuel disapproved 
 of Mrs. Daniel Povey even more than the majority of people 
 disapproved of her. Mrs. Daniel Povey, however, was 
 away from home ; probably, had she not been, Samuel would 
 not even have gone to the length of joining Daniel on the 
 neutral ground of the open Square. But having once broken 
 the ice, Samuel was glad to be on terms of growing intimacy 
 with his cousin. The friendship flattered him, for Daniel, 
 despite his wife, was a figure in a world larger than Samuel's ; 
 moreover, it consecrated his position as the equal of no 
 matter what tradesman (apprentice though he had been), 
 and also he genuinely liked and admired Daniel, rather to 
 his own astonishment. 
 
 Every one liked Daniel Povey ; he was a favourite among 
 all ranks. The leading confectioner, a member of the Local 
 Board, and a sidesman at St. Luke's, he was, and had been 
 for twenty-five years, very prominent in the town. He was 
 a tall, handsome man, with a trimmed, greying beard, a 
 jolly smile, and a flashing, dark eye. His good humour 
 seemed to be permanent. He had dignity without the 
 slightest stiffness ; he was welcomed by his equals and 
 frankly adored by his inferiors. He ought to have been 
 Chief Bailiff, for he was rich enough ; but there intervened a 
 
174 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 mysterious obstacle between Daniel Povey and the supreme 
 honour, a scarcely tangible impediment which could not be 
 definitely stated. He was capable, honest, industrious, 
 successful, and an excellent speaker ; and if he did not belong 
 to the austerer section of society, if, for example, he thought 
 nothing of dropping into the Tiger for a glass of beer, or of 
 using an oath occasionally, or of telling a facetious story — 
 well, in a busy, broad-minded town of thirty thousand in- 
 habitants, such proclivities are no bar whatever to perfect 
 esteem. But — how is one to phrase it without wronging 
 Daniel Povey ? He was entirely moral ; his views were 
 unexceptionable. The truth is that, for the ruling classes 
 of Bursley, Daniel Povey was just a little too fanatical a 
 worshipper of the god Pan. He was one of the remnant 
 who had kept alive the great Pan tradition from the days 
 of the Regency through the vast, arid Victorian expanse of 
 years. The nighty character of his wife was regarded by 
 many as a judgment upon him for the robust Rabelaisianism 
 of his more private conversation, for his frank interest in, 
 his eternal preoccupation with, aspects of life and human 
 activity which, though essential to the divine purpose, are 
 not openly recognized as such — even by Daniel Poveys. It 
 was not a question of his conduct ; it was a question of the 
 cast of his mind. If it did not explain his friendship with 
 the rector of St. Luke's, it explained his departure from the 
 Primitive Methodist connexion, to which the Poveys as 
 a family had belonged since Primitive Methodism was 
 created in Turnhill in 1807. 
 
 Daniel Povey had a way of assuming that every male was 
 boiling over with interest in the sacred cult of Pan. The 
 assumption, though sometimes causing inconvenience at 
 first, usually conquered by virtue of its inherent truthfulness. 
 Thus it fell out with Samuel. Samuel had not suspected 
 that Pan had silken cords to draw him. He had always 
 averted his eyes from the god — that is to say, within reason. 
 Yet now Daniel, on perhaps a couple of fine mornings a week, 
 in full Square, with Fan sitting behind on the cold stones, 
 and Mr. Critchlow ironic at his door in a long white apron, 
 would entertain Samuel Povey for half an hour with Pan's 
 most i.itimate lore, and Samuel Povey would not blench. 
 He would, on the contrary, stand up to Daniel like a little 
 man, and pretend with all his might to be, potentially, a 
 perfect arch-priest of the god. Daniel taught him a lot ; 
 turned over the page of life for him, as it were, and, showing 
 the reverse side, seemed to say : " You were missing all 
 that." Samuel gazed upwards at the handsome long nose 
 
CHRISTMAS AND THE FUTURE. 175 
 
 and rich lips of his elder cousin, so experienced, so agreeable, 
 so renowned, so esteemed, so' philosophic, and admitted to 
 himself that he had lived to the age of forty in a state of 
 comparative boobyism. And then he would gaze downwards 
 at the faint patch of flour on Daniel's right leg, and conceive 
 that life was, and must be, life. 
 
 Not many weeks after his initiation into the cult he was 
 startled by Constance's preoccupied face one evening. Now, 
 a husband of six years' standing, to whom it has not hap- 
 pened to become a father, is not easily startled by such a 
 lace as Constance wore. Years ago he had frequently been 
 startled, had frequently lived in suspense for a few days. 
 But he had long since grown impervious to these alarms. 
 And now he was startled again — but as a man may be 
 startled who is not altogether surprised at being startled. 
 And seven endless days passed, and Samuel and Constance 
 glanced at each other like guilty things, whose secret refuses 
 to be kept. Then three more days passed, and another three. 
 Then Samuel Povey remarked, in a firm, masculine, fact- 
 fronting tone : 
 
 "Oh, there's no doubt about it ! " 
 
 And they glanced at each other like conspirators who 
 have lighted a fuse and cannot take refuge in flight. Their 
 eyes said continually, with a delicious, an enchanting mixture 
 of ingenuous modesty and fearful 'joy : 
 
 " Well, we've gone and done it ! " 
 
 There it was, the incredible, incomprehensible future — 
 coming ! 
 
 Samuel had never correctly imagined the manner of its 
 heralding. He had imagined in his early simplicity that one 
 day Constance, blushing, might put her mouth to his ear and 
 whisper — something positive. It had not occurred in the 
 least like that. But things are so obstinately, so incurably 
 unsentimental. 
 
 " I think we ought to drive over and tell mother, on 
 Sunday," said Constance. 
 
 His impulse was to reply, in his grand, offhand style : 
 " Oh, a letter will do ! " 
 
 But he checked himself and said, with careful deference : 
 " You think that will be better than writing ? " 
 
 All was changed. He braced every fibre to meet destiny, 
 and to help Constance to meet it. 
 
 The weather threatened on Sunday. He went to Axe 
 without Constance. His cousin drove him there in a dog- 
 cart, and he announced that he should walk home, as the 
 exercise would do him good. During the drive Daniel, in 
 
176 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 whom he" had not confided, chattered as usual, and Samuel 
 pretended to listen with the Same attitude as usual ; but 
 secretly he despised Daniel for a man who has got something 
 not of the first importance on the brain. His perspective 
 was truer than Daniel's. 
 
 He walked home, as he had decided, over the wavy moor- 
 land of the county dreaming in the heart of England. Night 
 fell on him in mid-career, and he was tired. But the earth, 
 as it whirled through naked space, whirled up the moon for 
 him, and he pressed on at a good speed. A wind from 
 Arabia wandering cooled his face. And at last, over the 
 brow of Toft End, he saw suddenly the Five Towns a-twinkle 
 on their little hills down in the vast amphitheatre. And one 
 of those lamps was Constance's lamp — one, somewhere. He 
 lived, then. He entered into the shadow of nature. The 
 mysteries made him solemn. What ! A boneshaker, his 
 cousin, and then this ! 
 
 " Well, I'm damned ! Well, I'm damned ! " he kept 
 repeating, he who never swore. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 CYRIL. 
 I. 
 
 Constance stood at the large, many-paned window in the 
 
 Earlour. She was stouter. Although always plump, her 
 gure had been comely, with a neat, well-marked waist. But 
 now the shapeliness had gone ; the waist-line no longer existed, 
 and there were no more crinolines to create it artificially. 
 An observer not under the charm of her face might have 
 been excused for calling her fat and lumpy. The face, grave, 
 land, and expectant, with its radiant, fresh cheeks, and the 
 rounded softness of its curves, atoned for the figure. She 
 was nearly twenty-nine years of age. 
 
 It was late in October. In Wedgwood Street, next to 
 Boulton Terrace, all the little brown nouses had been pulled 
 down to make room for a palatial covered market, whose 
 foundations were then being dug. This destruction exposed 
 a vast area of sky to the north-east. A great dark cloud 
 with an untidy edge rose massively out of the depths and 
 curtained off the tender blue of approaching dusk ; while in 
 the west, behind Constance, the sun was setting in calm and 
 gorgeous melancholy on the Thursday hush of the town. 
 It was one of those afternoons which gather up all the sad- 
 ness of the moving earth and transform it into beauty. 
 
 Samuel Povey turned the corner from Wedgwood Street, 
 and crossed King Street obliquely to the front-door, which 
 Constance opened. He seemed tired and anxious. 
 
 " Well ? " demanded Constance, as he entered. 
 
 " She's no better. There's no getting away from it, she's 
 worse. I should have stayed, only I knew you'd be worry- 
 ing. So I caught the three-fifty." 
 
 " How is that Mrs. Gilchrist shaping as a nurse ? " 
 
178 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " She's very good," said Samuel, with conviction. " Very 
 good ! " 
 
 " What a blessing ! I suppose you didn't happen to see 
 the doctor ? " 
 
 " Yes, I did." 
 
 " What did he say to you ? " 
 
 Samuel gave a deprecating gesture. " Didn't say any- 
 thing particular. With dropsy, at that stage, you know . . ." 
 
 Constance had returned to the window, her expectancy 
 apparently unappeased. 
 
 ' I don't like the look of that cloud," she murmured. 
 
 " What ! Are they out still ? " Samuel inquired, taking 
 off his overcoat. 
 
 " Here they are ! " cried Constance. Her features sud- 
 denly transfigured, she sprang to the door, pulled it open, 
 and descended the steps. 
 
 A perambulator was being rapidly pushed up the slope by 
 a breathless girl. 
 
 " Amy," Constance gently protested, " I told you not to 
 venture far." 
 
 " I hurried all I could, mum, soon as I seed that cloud," 
 the girl puffed, with the air of one who is seriously thankful 
 to have escaped a great disaster. 
 
 Constance dived into the recesses of the perambulator and 
 extricated from its cocoon the centre of the universe, and 
 scrutinized him with quiet passion, and then rushed with 
 him into the house, though not a drop of rain had yet 
 fallen. 
 
 " Precious ! " exclaimed Amy, in ecstasy, her young 
 virginal eyes following him till he disappeared. Then she 
 wheeled away the perambulator, which now had no more 
 value nor interest than an egg-shell. It was necessary to take 
 it right round to the Brougham Street yard entrance, past 
 the front of the closed shop. 
 
 Constance sat down on the horsehair sofa and hugged and 
 kissed her prize before removing his bonnet. 
 
 " Here's Daddy ! " she said to him, as if imparting strange 
 and rapturous tidings. " Here's Daddy come back from 
 hanging up his coat in the passage ! Daddy rubbing his 
 hands ! " And then, with a swift transition of voice and 
 features : " Do look at him, Sam ! " 
 
 Samuel, preoccupied, stooped forward. " Oh, you little 
 scoundrel ! Oh, you little scoundrel ! " he greeted the 
 baby, advancing his finger towards the baby's nose. 
 
 The baby, who had hitherto maintained a passive indiffer- 
 ence to external phenomena, lifted elbows and toes, blew 
 
CYRIL. 179 
 
 bubbles from his tiny mouth, and stared at the finger with 
 the most ravishing, roguish smile, as though saying : "I 
 know that great sticking-out limb, and there is a joke about 
 it which no one but me can see, and which is my secret joy 
 that you shall never share." 
 
 " Tea ready ? " Samuel asked, resuming his gravity and 
 his ordinary pose. 
 
 " You must give the girl time to take her things off," 
 said Constance. " We'll have the table drawn away from the 
 fire, and baby can lie on his shawl on the hearthrug while 
 we're having tea." Then to the baby, in rapture : " And 
 play with his toys ; all his nice, nice toys ! " 
 
 " You know Miss Insull is staying for tea ? " 
 
 Constance, her head bent over the baby, who formed a 
 white patch on her comfortable brown frock, nodded without 
 speaking. 
 
 Samuel POvey, walking to and fro, began to enter into 
 details of his hasty journey to Axe. Old Mrs. Baines, having 
 beheld her grandson, was preparing to quit this world. 
 Never again would she exclaim, in her brusque tone of 
 genial ruthlessness : " Fiddlesticks ! " The situation was 
 very difficult and distressing, for Constance could not leave 
 her baby, and *she would not, until the last urgency, run 
 the risks of a journey with him to Axe. He was being 
 weaned. In any case Constance could not have undertaken 
 the nursing of her mother. A nurse had to be found. Mr. 
 Povey had discovered one in the person of Mrs. Gilchrist, 
 the second wife of a farmer at Malpas in Cheshire, whose first 
 wife had been a sister of the late John Baines. All the credit 
 of Mrs. Gilchrist was due to Samuel Povey. Mrs. Baines 
 fretted seriously about Sophia, who had given no sign of life 
 for a very long time. Mr. Povey went to Manchester and 
 ascertained definitely from the relatives of Scales that noth- 
 ing was known of the pair. He did not go to Manchester 
 'especially on this errand. About once in three weeks, on 
 Tuesdays, he had to" visit the Manchester warehouses ; but the 
 tracking of Scales's relative cost him so much trouble and 
 time that, curiously, he came to believe that he had gone to 
 Manchester one Tuesday for no other end. Although he was 
 very busy indeed in the shop, he flew over to Axe and back 
 whenever he possibly could to the neglect of his affairs. 
 He was glad to do all that was in his power ; even if he had 
 not done it graciously his sensitive, tyrannic conscience would 
 have forced him to do it. But nevertheless he felt rather 
 virtuous, and worry and fatigue and loss of sleep intensified 
 this sense of virtue. v 
 
180 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " So that if there is any sudden change they will telegraph," 
 he finished to Constance. 
 
 She raised her head. The words, clinching what had led 
 up to them, drew her from her dream and she saw, for a 
 moment, her mother in an agony. 
 
 " But you don't surely mean — ? " she began, trying to 
 disperse the painful vision as unjustified by the facts. 
 
 1 My dear girl," said Samuel, with head singing, and hot 
 eyes, and a consciousness of high tension in every nerve of 
 his body, " I simply mean that if there's any sudden change 
 they will telegraph." 
 
 While they had tea, Samuel sitting opposite to his wife, 
 and Miss Insull nearly against the wall (owing to the moving 
 of the table), the baby rolled about on the hearthrug, which 
 had been covered with a large soft woollen shawl, originally 
 the property of his great-grandmother. He had no cares, no 
 responsibilities. The shawl was so vast that he could not 
 clearly distinguish objects beyond its confines. On it lay an 
 indiarubber ball, an indiarubber doll, a rattle, and fan. He 
 vaguely recollected all four items, with their respective prop- 
 erties. The fire also was an old friend. He had occasion- 
 ally tried to touch it, but a high bright fence always came in 
 between. For ten months he had never spent a day without 
 making experiments on this shifting universe in which he 
 alone remained firm and stationary. The experiments were 
 chiefly conducted out of idle amusement, but he was serious 
 on the subject of food. Lately the behaviour of the universe 
 in regard to his food had somewhat perplexed him, had 
 indeed annoyed him. However, he was of a forgetful, happy 
 disposition, and so long as the universe continued to fulfil 
 its sole end as a machinery for the satisfaction, somehow, 
 of his imperious desires, he was not inclined to remonstrate. 
 He gazed at the flames and laughed, and laughed because he 
 had laughed. He pushed the ball away and wriggled after it, 
 and captured it with the assurance of practice. He tried to 
 swallow the doll, and it was not until he had tried several 
 times to swallow it that he remembered the failure of previous 
 efforts and philosophically desisted. He rolled with a fear- 
 ful shock, arms and legs in the air, against the mountainous 
 flank of that mammoth Fan, and clutched at Fan's ear. The 
 whole mass of Fan upheaved and vanished from his view, 
 and was instantly forgotten by him. He seized the doll and 
 tried to swallow it, and repeated the exhibition of his skill 
 with the ball. Then he saw the fire again and laughed. And 
 so he existed for centuries : no responsibilities, no appetites ; 
 and the shawl was vast. Terrific operations went on over 
 
CYRIL. 181 
 
 his head. Giants moved to and fro. Great vessels were 
 carried off and great books were brought and deep voices 
 rumbled regularly in the spaces beyond the shawl. But he 
 remained oblivious. At last he became aware that a face 
 was looking down at his. He recognized it, and immediately 
 an uncomfortable sensation in his stomach disturbed him ; 
 he tolerated it for fifty years or so, and then he gave a little 
 cry. Life had resumed its seriousness. 
 
 " Black alpaca. B quality. Width 20, t.a. 22 yards," 
 Miss Insull read out of a great book. She and Mr. Povey 
 were checking stock. 
 
 And Mr. Povey responded, " Black alpaca B quality. 
 Width 20, t.a. 22 yards. It wants ten minutes yet." He 
 had glanced at the clock. 
 
 " Does it ? " said Constance, well knowing that it wanted 
 ten minutes. 
 
 The baby did not guess that a high invisible god named 
 Samuel Povey, whom nothing escaped, and who could do 
 everything at once, was controlling his universe from an 
 inconceivable distance. On the contrary, the baby was 
 crying to himself, There is no God. 
 
 His weaning had reached a stage at which a baby really 
 does not know what will happen next. The annoyance had 
 begun exactly three months after his first tooth, such being 
 the rule of the gods, and it had grown more and more dis- 
 concerting. No sooner did he accustom himself to a new 
 phenomenon than it mysteriously ceased, and an old one 
 took its place which he had utterly forgotten. This afternoon 
 his mother nursed him, but not until she had foolishly 
 attempted to divert him from the seriousness of life by 
 means of gewgaws of which he was sick. Still, once at her 
 rich breast, he forgave and forgot all. He preferred her 
 simple natural breast to more modern inventions. And he 
 had no shame, no modesty. Nor had his mother. It was 
 an indecent carouse at which his father and Miss Insull had 
 to assist. But his father had shame. His father would 
 have preferred that, as Miss Insull had kindly offered to stop 
 and work on Thursday afternoon, and as the shop was 
 chilly, the due rotation should have brought the bottle round 
 at half -past five o'clock, and not the mother's breast. He was 
 a self-conscious parent, rather apologetic to the world, rather 
 apt to stand off and pretend that he had nothing to do with 
 the affair ; and he genuinely disliked that anybody should 
 witness the intimate scene of his wife feeding his baby. 
 Especially Miss Insull, that prim, dark, moustached spinster ! 
 He would not have called it an outrage on Miss Insull, to force 
 
i82 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 her to witness the scene, but his idea approached within sight 
 of the word. 
 
 Constance blandly offered herself to the child, with the 
 unconscious primitive savagery of a young mother, and as 
 the baby fed, thoughts of her own mother flitted to and fro 
 ceaselessly like vague shapes over the deep sea of content 
 which filled her mind. This illness of her mother's was 
 abnormal, and the baby was now, for the first time perhaps, 
 entirely normal in her consciousness. The baby was some- 
 thing which could be disturbed, not something which did dis- 
 turb. What a change ! What a change that had seemed 
 impossible until its full accomplishment ! 
 
 For months before the birth, she had glimpsed at nights 
 and in other silent hours the tremendous upset. She had 
 not allowed herself to be silly in advance ; by temperament 
 she was too sagacious, too well balanced for that ; but she 
 had had fitful instants of terror, when solid ground seemed 
 to sink away from her, and imagination shook at what faced 
 her. Instants only ! Usually she could play the comedy of 
 sensible calmness to almost perfection. Then the appointed 
 time drew nigh. And still she smiled, and Samuel smiled. 
 But the preparations, meticulous, intricate, revolutionary, 
 belied their smiles. The intense resolve to keep Mrs. Baines, 
 by methods scrupulous or unscrupulous, away from Bursley 
 until all was over, belied their smiles. And then the first 
 pains, sharp, shocking, cruel, heralds of torture ! But when 
 they had withdrawn, she smiled again, palely. Then she was 
 in bed, full of the sensation that the whole house was in- 
 verted and disorganized, hopelessly. And the doctor came 
 into the room. She smiled at the doctor apologetically, 
 foolishly, as if saying : M We all come to it. Here I am." 
 She was calm without. Oh, but what a prey of abject fear 
 within ! "I am at the edge of the precipice," her thought 
 ran ; " in a moment I shall be over." And then the pains — 
 not the heralds but the shattering army, endless, increasing 
 in terror as they thundered across her. Yet she could think 
 quite clearly : " Now I'm in the middle of it. This is it, 
 the horror that I have not dared to look at. My life's in the 
 balance. I may never get up again. All has at last come 
 to pass. It seemed as if it would never come, as if this 
 thing could not happen to me. But at last it has come to 
 pass ! " 
 
 Ah ! Some one put the twisted end of a towel into her 
 hand again — she had loosed it ; and she pulled, pulled, enough 
 /to break cables. And then she shrieked. It was for pity. 
 It was for some one to help her, at any rate to take notice of 
 

 CYRIL. 183 
 
 her. She was dying. Her soul was leaving her. And she 
 was alone, panic-stricken, in the midst of a cataclysm a thou- 
 sand times surpassing all that she had imagined of sickening 
 horror. " I cannot endure this," she thought passionately. 
 " It is impossible that I should be asked to endure this ! " 
 And then she wept ; beaten, terrorized, smashed and riven. 
 No commonsense now ! No wise calmness now ! No self- 
 respect now ! Why, not even a woman now ! Nothing but 
 a kind of animalized victim ! And then the supreme endless 
 spasm, during which she gave up the ghost and bade good- 
 bye to her very self. . . . 
 
 She was lying quite comfortable in the soft bed ; idle, silly ; 
 happiness forming like a thin crust over the lava of her an- 
 guish and her fright. And by her side was the soul that had 
 fought its way out of her, ruthlessly ; the secret disturber 
 revealed to the light of morning. Curious to look at ! Not 
 like any baby that she had ever seen ; red, creased, brutish ! 
 But — for some reason that she did not examine — she folded 
 it in an immense tenderness. 
 
 Sam was by the bed, away from her eyes. She was so 
 comfortable and silly that she could not move her head nor 
 even ask him to come round to her eyes. She had to wait 
 till he came. 
 
 In the afternoon the doctor returned, and astounded her by 
 saying that hers had been an ideal confinement. She was 
 too weary to rebuke him for a senseless, blind, callous old 
 man. But she knew what she knew. " No one will ever 
 guess," she thought, " no one ever can guess, what I've been 
 through ! Talk as you like. I know, now." 
 
 Gradually she had resumed cognizance of her household, 
 perceiving that it was demoralized from top to bottom, and 
 that when the time came to begin upon it she would not be 
 able to settle where to begin, even supposing that the baby 
 were not there to monopolize her attention. The task ap- 
 palled her. Then she wanted to get up. Then she got up. 
 What a blow to self-confidence ! She went back to bed like 
 a little scared rabbit to its hole, glad, glad to be on the soft 
 pillows again. She said : " Yet the time must come when I 
 shall be downstairs, and walking about and meeting people, 
 and cooking and superintending the millinery." Well, it did 
 come — except that she had to renounce the millinery to Miss 
 Insull — but it was not the same. No, different ! The baby 
 pushed everything else on to another plane. He was a ter- 
 rific intruder ; not one minute of her old daily life was left ; 
 he made no compromise whatever. If she turned away her 
 gaze from him he might pop off into eternity and leave her. 
 
1 84 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 And now she was calmly and sensibly giving him suck in 
 presence of Miss Insull. She was used to his importance, to 
 the fragility of his organism, to waking twice every night, to 
 being fat. She was strong again. The convulsive twitching 
 that for six months had worried her repose, had quite disap- 
 peared. The state of being a mother was normal, and the 
 baby was so normal that she could not conceive the house 
 without him. 
 
 All in ten months ! 
 
 When the baby was installed in his cot for the night, she 
 came downstairs and found Miss Insull and Samuel still work- 
 ing, and harder than ever, but at addition sums now. She 
 sat down, leaving the door open at the foot of the stairs. She 
 had embroidery in hand : a cap. And while Miss Insull and 
 Samuel combined pounds, shillings, and pence, whispering at 
 great speed, she bent over the delicate, intimate, wasteful 
 handiwork, drawing the needle with slow exactitude. Then 
 she would raise her head and listen. 
 
 " Excuse me," said Miss Insull, " I think I hear baby cry- 
 ing." 
 
 And two are eight and three are eleven. He must cry," 
 said Mr. Povey, rapidly, without looking up. 
 
 The baby's parents did not make a practice of discussing 
 their domestic existence even with Miss Insull ; but Con- 
 stance had to justify herself as a mother. 
 
 " I've made perfectly sure he's comfortable," said Con- 
 stance. " He's only crying because he fancies he's neglected. 
 And we think he can't begin too early to learn." 
 
 " How right you are ! " said Miss Insull. " Two and carry 
 three." 
 
 That distant, feeble, querulous, pitiful cry continued obsti- 
 nately. It continued for thirty minutes. Constance could' 
 not proceed with her work. The cry disintegrated her will, 
 dissolved her hard sagacity. 
 
 Without a word she crept upstairs, having carefully de- 
 posed the cap on her rocking-chair. 
 
 Mr. Povey hesitated a moment and then bounded up after 
 her, startling Fan. He shut the door on Miss Insull, but Fan 
 was too quick for him. He saw Constance with her hand on 
 the bedroom door. 
 
 " My dear girl," he protested, holding himself in. " Now 
 what are you going to do ? " 
 
 "I'm just listening," said Constance. 
 
 " Do be reasonable and come downstairs." 
 
 He spoke in a low voice, scarcely masking his nervous irri- 
 tation, and tiptoed along the corridor towards her and up 
 
CYRIL. 185 
 
 the two steps past the gas-burner. Fan followed, wagging 
 her tail expectant. 
 
 " Suppose he's not well ? " Constance suggested. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " Mr. Povey exclaimed contemptuously. " You 
 remember what happened last night and what you said ! " 
 
 They argued, subduing their tones to the false semblance 
 of good-will, there in the closeness of the corridor. Fan, de- 
 ceived, ceased to wag her tail and then trotted away. The 
 baby's cry, behind the door, rose to a mysterious despairing 
 howl, which had such an effect on Constance's heart that she 
 could have walked through fire to reach the baby. But Mr. 
 Povey's will held her. And she rebelled, angry, hurt, resent- 
 ful. Commonsense, the ideal of mutual forbearance, had 
 winged away from the excited pair. It would have assuredly 
 ended in a quarrel, with Samuel glaring at her in black fury 
 from the other side of a bottomless chasm, had not Miss 
 Insull most surprisingly burst up the stairs. 
 
 Mr. Povey turned to face her, swallowing his emotion. 
 
 " A telegram ! " said Miss Insull. The postmaster 
 brought it down himself " 
 
 " What ? Mr. Deny ? " asked Samuel, opening the tele- 
 gram with an affectation of majesty. 
 
 " Yes. He said it was too late for delivery by rights. But 
 as it seemed very important ..." 
 
 Samuel scanned it and nodded gravely ; then gave it to 
 his wife. Tears came into her eyes. 
 
 " I'll get Cousin Daniel to drive me over at once," said 
 Samuel, master of himself and of the situation. 
 
 " Wouldn't it be better to hire ? " Constance suggested. 
 She had a prejudice against Daniel. 
 
 Mr. Povey shook his head. " He offered," he replied. " I 
 can't refuse his offer." 
 
 " Put your thick overcoat on, dear," said Constance, in a 
 dream, descending with him. 
 
 " I hope it isn't — " Miss Insull stopped. 
 
 " Yes it is, Miss Insull," said Samuel deliberately. 
 
 In less than a minute he was gone. 
 
 Constance ran upstairs. But the cry had ceased. She 
 turned the door-knob softly, slowly, and crept into the cham- 
 ber. A night-light made large shadows among the heavy 
 mahogany and the crimson, tasselled rep in the close-cur- 
 tained room. And between the bed and the ottoman (on 
 which lay Samuel's newly -bought family Bible) the cot loomed 
 in the shadows. She picked up the night-light and stole 
 round the bed. Yes, he had decided to fall asleep. The 
 hazard of death afar off had just defeated his devilish obsti- 
 
186 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 nacy. Fate had bested him. How marvellously soft and 
 delicate that tear-stained cheek ! How frail that tiny, tiny 
 clenched hand ! In Constance grief and joy were mystically 
 united. 
 
 II. 
 
 The drawing-room was full of visitors, in frocks of cere- 
 mony. The old drawing-room, but newly and massively 
 arranged with the finest Victorian furniture from dead Aunt 
 Harriet's house at Axe ; two " Canterburys," a large book- 
 case, a splendid scintillant table solid beyond lifting, intri- 
 cately tortured chairs and armchairs ! The original furniture 
 of the drawing-room was now down in the parlour, making 
 it grand. All the house breathed opulence ; it was gorged 
 with quiet, restrained expensiveness ; the least considerable 
 objects, in the most modest corners, were what Mrs. Baineg 
 would have termed " good." Constance and Samuel had 
 half of all Aunt Harriet's money and half of Mrs. Barnes's ; 
 the other half was accumulating for a hypothetical Sophia, 
 Mr. Critchlow being the trustee. The business continued to 
 flourish. People knew that Samuel Povey was buying houses. 
 Yet Samuel and Constance had not made friends ; they had 
 not, in the Five Towns phrase, " branched out socially," 
 though they had very meetly branched out on subscription 
 lists. They kept themselves to themselves (emphasizing the 
 preposition). These guests were not their guests ; they were 
 the guests of Cyril. 
 
 He had been named Samuel because Constance would have 
 him named after his father, and Cyril because his father se- 
 cretly despised the name of Samuel ; and he was called Cyril ; 
 " Master Cyril," by Amy, definite successor to Maggie. His 
 mother's thoughts were on Cyril as long as she was awake. 
 His father, when not planning Cyril's welfare, was earning 
 money whose unique object could be nothing but Cyril's wel- 
 fare. Cyril was the pivot of the house ; every desire ended 
 somewhere in Cyril. The shop existed now solely for him. 
 And those houses that Samuel bought by private treaty, or 
 with a shamefaced air at auctions — somehow they were aimed 
 at Cyril. Samuel and Constance had ceased to be self -justi- 
 fying beings ; they never thought of themselves save as the 
 parents of Cyril. 
 
 They realized this by no means fully. Had they been 
 accused of monomania they would have smiled the smile of 
 people confident in their commonsense and their mental 
 
CYRIL. 187 
 
 balance. Nevertheless, they were monomaniacs. Instinc- 
 tively they concealed the fact as much as possible. They 
 never admitted it even to themselves. Samuel, indeed, 
 would often say : " That child is not everybody. That 
 child must be kept in his place." Constance was always 
 teaching him consideration fcr his father as the most impor- 
 tant person in the household. Samuel was always teaching 
 him consideration for his mother as the most important 
 person in the household. Nothing was left undone to con- 
 vince him that he was a cipher, a nonentity, who ought to 
 be very glad to be alive. But he knew all about his im- 
 portance. He knew that the entire town was his. He 
 knew that his parents were deceiving themselves. Even 
 when he was punished he well knew that it was because he 
 was so important. He never imparted any portion of this 
 knowledge to his parents ; a primeval wisdom prompted him 
 to retain it strictly in his own bosom. 
 
 He was four and a half years old, dark, like his father; 
 handsome like his aunt, and tall for his age ; not one of his 
 features resembled a feature of his mother's, but sometimes 
 he " had her look." From the capricious production of inar- 
 ticulate sounds, and then a few monosyllables that described 
 concrete things and obvious desires, he had gradually ac- 
 quired an astonishing idiomatic command over the most 
 difficult of Teutonic languages ; there was nothing that he 
 could not say. He could walk and run, was full of exact 
 knowledge about God, and entertained no doubt concerning 
 the special partiality of a minor deity called Jesus towards 
 himself. 
 
 Now, this party was his mother's invention and scheme. 
 His father, after flouting it, had said that if it was to be done 
 at all, it should be done well, and had brought to the doing all 
 his organizing skill. Cyril had accepted it at first — merely 
 accepted it ; but, as the day approached and the prepara- 
 tions increased in magnitude, he had come to look on it with 
 favour, then with enthusiasm. His father having taken him 
 to Daniel Povey's opposite, to choose cakes, he had shown, 
 by his solemn and fastidious waverings, how seriously he re- 
 garded the affair. 
 
 Of course it had to occur on a Thursday afternoon. The 
 season was summer, suitable for pale and fragile toilettes. 
 And the eight children who sat round Aunt Harriet's great 
 table glittered like the sun. Not Constance's specially pro- 
 vided napkins could hide that wealth and profusion of white 
 lace and stitchery. Never in after-life are the genteel chil- 
 dren of the Five Towns so richly clad as at the age Of four or 
 
1 88 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 five years. Weeks of labour, thousands of cubic feet of gas, 
 whole nights stolen from repose, eyesight, and general health, 
 will disappear into the manufacture of a single frock that 
 accidental jam may ruin in ten seconds. Thus it was in those 
 old days ; and thus it is to-day. Cyril's guests ranged in 
 years from four to six ; they were chiefly older than their 
 host ; this was a pity, it impaired his importance ; but up 
 to four years a child's sense of propriety, even of common 
 decency, is altogether too unreliable for a respectable party. 
 
 Round about the outskirts of the table were the elders, 
 ladies the majority ; they also in their best, for they had to 
 meet each other. Constance displayed a new dress, of crim- 
 son silk ; after having mourned for her mother she had defi- 
 nitely abandoned the black which, by reason of her duties 
 in the shop, she had constantly worn from the age of sixteen 
 to within a few months of Cyril's birth ; she never went into 
 the shop now, except casually, on brief visits of inspection. 
 She was still fat ; the destroyer of her figure sat at the head 
 of the table. Samuel kept close to her ; he was the only 
 male, until Mr. Critchlow astonishingly arrived ; among the 
 company Mr. Critchlow had a grand-niece. Samuel, if not 
 in his best, was certainly not in his everyday suit. With his 
 large frilled shirt-front, and small black tie, and his little 
 black beard and dark face over that, he looked very nervous 
 and self-conscious. He had not the habit of entertaining. 
 Nor had Constance ; but her benevolence ever bubbling up 
 to the calm surface of her personality made self-consciousness 
 impossible for her. Miss Insull was also present, in shop- 
 black, " to help." Lastly there was Amy, now as the years 
 passed slowly assuming the character of a faithful retainer, 
 though she was only twenty-three. An ugly, abrupt, down- 
 right girl, with convenient notions of pleasure ! For she 
 would rise early and retire late in order to contrive an hour 
 to go out with Master Cyril ; and to be allowed to put Master 
 Cyril to bed was, really, her highest bliss. 
 
 All these elders were continually inserting arms into the 
 fringe of fluffy children that surrounded the heaped table ; 
 removing dangerous spoons out of cups into saucers, replacing 
 plates, passing cakes, spreading jam, whispering consolations, 
 explanations, and sage counsel. Mr. Critchlow, snow-white 
 now but unbent, remarked that there was " a pretty cackle," 
 and he sniffed. Although the window was slightly open, 
 the air was heavy with the natural human odour which young 
 children transpire. More than one mother, pressing her nose 
 into a lacy mass, to whisper, inhaled that pleasant perfume 
 with a voluptuous thrill. 
 
CYRIL. 189 
 
 Cyril, while attending steadily to the demands of his body, 
 was in a mood which approached the ideal. Proud and 
 radiant, he combined urbanity with a certain fine condescen- 
 sion. His bright eyes, and his manner of scraping up jam 
 with a spoon, said : "I am the king of this party. This 
 party is solely in my honour. I know that. We all know it. 
 Still, I will pretend that we are equals, you and I." He 
 talked about his picture-books to a young woman on his right 
 named Jennie, aged four, pale, pretty, the belle in fact, and 
 Mr. Critchlow's grand-niece. The boy's attractiveness was 
 indisputable ; he could put on quite an aristocratic air. It 
 was the most delicious sight to see them, Cyril and Jennie, so 
 soft and delicate, so infantile on their piles of cushions and 
 books, with their white socks and black shoes dangling far 
 distant from the carpet ; and yet so old, so self-contained ! 
 And they were merely an epitome of the whole table. The 
 whole table was bathed in the charm and mystery of young 
 years, of helpless fragility, gentle forms, timid elegance, un- 
 shamed instincts, and waking souls. Constance and Samuel 
 were very satisfied ; full of praise for other people's children, 
 but with the reserve that of course Cyril was hors concours. 
 They both really did believe, at that moment, that Cyril was, 
 in some subtle way which they felt but could not define, 
 superior to all other infants. 
 
 Some one, some officious relative of a visitor, began to pass 
 a certain cake which had brown walls, a roof of cocoa-nut 
 icing, and a yellow body studded with crimson globules. Not 
 a conspicuously gorgeous cake, not a cake to which a catholic 
 child would be likely to attach particular importance ; a good, 
 average cake ! Who could have guessed that it stood, in 
 Cyril's esteem, as the cake of cakes ? He had insisted on his 
 father buying it at Cousin Daniel's, and perhaps Samuel 
 ought to have divined that for Cyril that cake was the gleam 
 that an ardent spirit would follow through the wilderness. 
 Samuel, however, was not a careful observer, and seriously 
 lacked imagination. Constance knew only that Cyril had 
 mentioned the cake once or twice. Now by the hazard of 
 destiny that cake found much favour, helped into popularity 
 as it was by the blundering officious relative who, not dream- 
 ing what volcano she was treading on, urged its merits with 
 simpering enthusiasm. One boy took two slices, a slice in 
 each hand ; he happened to be the visitor of whom the cake 
 distributor was a relative, and she protested ; she expressed 
 the shock she suffered. Whereupon both Constance and 
 Samuel sprang forward and swore with angelic smiles that 
 nothing could be more perfect than the propriety of that dear 
 
iqo THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 little fellow taking two slices of that cake. It was this hulla- 
 balloo that drew Cyril's attention to the evanescence of the 
 cake of cakes. His face at once changed from calm pride to 
 a dreadful anxiety. His eyes bulged out. His tiny mouth 
 grew and grew, like a mouth in a nightmare. He was no 
 longer human ; he was a cake-eating tiger being balked of his 
 prey. Nobody noticed him. The officious fool of a woman 
 persuaded Jennie to take the last slice of the cake, which was 
 quite a thin slice. 
 
 Then every one simultaneously noticed Cyril, for he gave 
 a yell. It was not the cry of a despairing soul who sees his 
 beautiful iridescent dream shattered at his feet ; it was the 
 cry of the strong, masterful spirit, furious. He turned upon 
 Jennie, sobbing, and snatched at her cake. Unaccustomed 
 to such behaviour from hosts, and being besides a haughty 
 put-you-in-your-place beauty of the future, Jennie defended 
 her cake. After all, it was not she who had taken two slices 
 at once. Cyril hit her in the eye, and then crammed most of 
 the slice of cake into his enormous mouth. He could not 
 swallow it, nor even masticate it, for his throat was, rigid and 
 tight. So the cake projected from his red lips, and big tears 
 watered it. The most awful mess you can conceive ! Jennie 
 wept loudly, and one or two others joined her in sympathy, 
 but the rest went on eating tranquilly, unmoved by the 
 horror which transfixed their elders. 
 
 A host to snatch food from a guest ! A host to strike a 
 guest I A gentleman to strike a lady ! 
 
 Constance whipped up Cyril from his chair and flew with 
 him to his own room (once Samuel's), where she smacked him 
 on the arm and told him he was a very, very naughty boy and 
 that she didn't know what his father would say. She took 
 the food out of his disgusting mouth — or as much of it as she 
 could get at — and then she left him, on the bed. Miss Jennie 
 was still in tears when, blushing scarlet, and trying to smile, 
 Constance returned to the drawing-room. Jennie would not 
 be appeased. Happily Jennie's mother (being about to pre- 
 sent Jennie with a little brother — she hoped) was not present. 
 Miss Insull had promised to see Jennie home, and it was de- 
 cided that she should go. Mr. Critchlow, in high sardonic 
 spirits, said that he would go too ; the three departed to- 
 gether, heavily charged with Constance's love and apologies. 
 Then all pretended, and said loudly, that what had happened 
 was naught, that such things were always happening at chil- 
 dren's parties. And visitors' relatives asseverated that Cyril 
 was a perfect darling and that really Mrs. Povey must 
 not . . . 
 
CYRIL. 191 
 
 But the attempt to keep up appearance was a failure. 
 
 The Methuselah of visitors, a gaping girl of nearly eight 
 years, walked across the room to where Constance was stand- 
 ing, and said in a loud, confidential, fatuous voice : 
 
 " Cyril has been a rude boy, hasn't he, Mrs. Povey ? " 
 
 The clumsiness of children is sometimes tragic. 
 
 Later, there was a trickling stream of fluffy bundles down 
 the crooked stairs and through the parlour and so out into 
 King Street. And Constance received many compliments 
 and sundry appeals that darling Cyril should be for- 
 given. 
 
 " I thought you said that boy was in his bedroom," said 
 Samuel to Constance, coming into the parlour when the last 
 guest had gone. Each avoided the other's eyes. 
 
 " Yes, isn't he ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " The little jockey ! " (" Jockey," an essay in the playful, 
 towards making light of the jockey's sin !) " I expect he's 
 been in search of Amy." 
 
 She went to the top of the kitchen stairs and called out : 
 " Amy, is Master Cyril down there ? " 
 
 " Master Cyril ? No, mum. But he was in the parlour a 
 bit ago, after the first and second lot had gone. I told him 
 to go upstairs and be a good boy." 
 
 Not for a few moments did the suspicion enter the minds 
 of Samuel and Constance that Cyril might be missing, that 
 the house might not contain Cyril. But having once entered, 
 the suspicion became a certainty. Amy, cross-examined, 
 burst into sudden tears, admitting that the side-door might 
 have been open when, having sped " the second lot," she 
 criminally left Cyril alone in the parlour in order to descend 
 for an instant to her kitchen. Dusk was gathering. Amy 
 saw the defenceless innocent wandering about all night in the 
 deserted streets of a great city. A similar vision with precise 
 details of canals, tramcar-wheels, and cellar-flaps, disturbed 
 Constance. Samuel said that anyhow he could not have got 
 far, that some one was bound to remark and recognize him, 
 and restore him. " Yes, of course," thought sensible Con- 
 stance. " But supposing " 
 
 They all three searched the entire house again. Then, in 
 the drawing-room (which was in a sad condition of anti- 
 climax) Amy exclaimed : 
 
 " Eh, master ! There's town -crier crossing the Square. 
 Hadn't ye better have him cried ? " 
 
 " Run out and stop him," Constance commanded. 
 
 And Amy flew. 
 
i 9 2 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 • Samuel and the aged town-crier parleyed at the side door, 
 the women in the background. 
 
 " I canna' cry him without my bell," drawled the crier, 
 stroking his shabby uniform. " My bell's at wum (home). 
 I mun go and fetch my bell. Yo' write it down on a bit o' 
 paper for me so as I can read it, and I'll foot off for my bell. 
 Folk wouldna' listen to me if I hadna' gotten my bell." 
 
 Thus was Cyril cried. 
 
 " Amy," said Constance, when she and the girl were alone, 
 " there's no use in you standing blubbering there. Get to 
 work and clear up that drawing-room, do ! The child is sure 
 to be found soon. Your master's gone out, too." 
 
 Brave words ! Constance aided in the drawing-room and 
 kitchen. Theirs was the woman's lot in a great crisis. Plates 
 have always to be washed. 
 
 Very shortly afterwards, Samuel Povey came into the 
 kitchen by the underground passage which led past the two 
 cellars to the yard and to Brougham Street. He was carrying 
 in his arms an obscene black mass. This mass was Cyril, 
 once white. 
 
 Constance screamed. She was at liberty to give way to 
 Her feelings, because Amy happened to be upstairs. 
 
 " Stand away ! " cried Mr. Povey. " He isn't fit to touch." 
 
 And Mr. Povey made as if to pass directly onwards, igno- 
 ring the mother. 
 
 Wherever did you find him ? " 
 
 " I found him in the far cellar," said Mr. Povey, compelled 
 to stop, after all. '.' He was down there with me yesterday, 
 and it just occurred to me that he might have gone there 
 again." 
 
 "What! All in the dark ? " 
 
 " He'd lighted a candle, if you please ! I'd left a candle- 
 stick and a box of matches handy because I hadn't finished 
 that shelving." 
 
 " Well ! " Constance murmured. " I can't think how ever 
 he dared go there all alone ! " 
 
 " Can't you ? " said Mr. Povey, cynically. " I can. He 
 simply did it to frighten us." 
 
 " Oh, Cyril ! " Constance admonished the child. " Cyril ! " 
 
 The child showed no emotion. His face was an enigma. It 
 might have hidden sullenness or mere callous indifference, or 
 a perfect unconsciousness of sin. 
 
 " Give him to me," said Constance. 
 
 "I'll look after him this evening," said Samuel, grimly. 
 
 " But you can't wash him," said Constance, her relief yield- 
 ing to apprehension. 
 
CYRIL. 193 
 
 " Why not ? " demanded Mr. Povey. And he moved off. 
 
 " But Sam " 
 
 " I'll look after him, I tell you ! " Mr. Povey repeated, 
 threateningly. 
 
 " But what are you going to do ? " Constance asked with 
 fear. 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Povey, " has this sort of thing not to be 
 dealt with, or hasn't it ? He departed upstairs. 
 
 Constance overtook him at the door of Cyril's bedroom. 
 
 Mr. Povey did not wait for her to speak. His eyes were 
 blazing. 
 
 "See here ! " he admonished her cruelly. " You get away 
 downstairs, mother ! " 
 
 And he disappeared into the bedroom with his vile and 
 helpless victim. 
 
 A moment later he popped his head out of the door. Con- 
 stance was disobeying him. He stepped into the passage and 
 shut the door so that Cyril should not hear. 
 
 " Now please do as I tell you," he hissed at his wife. 
 " Don't let's have a scene, please." 
 
 She descended, slowly, weeping. And Mr. Povey retired 
 again to the place of execution. 
 
 Amy nearly fell on the top of Constance with a final tray of 
 things from the drawing-room. And Constance had to tell 
 the girl that Cyril was found. Somehow she could not resist 
 the instinct to tell her also that the master had the affair in 
 hand. Amy then wept. 
 
 After about an hour Mr. Povey at last reappeared. Con- 
 stance was trying to count silver teaspoons in the parlour. 
 
 " He's in bed now," said Mr. Povey, with a magnificent 
 attempt to be nonchalant. " You mustn't go near him." 
 
 " But have you washed him ? " Constance whimpered. 
 
 "I've washed him," replied the astonishing Mr. Povey. 
 
 " What have you done to him ? " 
 
 "I've punished him, of course," said Mr. Povey, like a god 
 who is above human weaknesses. " What did you expect me 
 to do ? Someone had to do it." 
 
 Constance wiped her eyes with the edge of the white apron 
 which she was wearing over her new silk dress. She sur- 
 rendered ; she accepted the situation ; she made the best 
 of it. And all the evening was spent in dismally and horribly 
 pretending that their hearts were beating as one. Mr. Povey's 
 elaborate, cheery kindliness was extremely painful. 
 
 They went to bed, and in their bedroom Constance, as she 
 stood close to Samuel, suddenly dropped the pretence, and 
 with eyes and voice of anguish said : \ 
 
 7 
 
194 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " You must let me look at him." 
 
 They faced each other. For a brief instant Cyril did not 
 exist for Constance. Samuel alone obsessed her, and yet 
 Samuel seemed a strange, unknown man. It was in Con- 
 stance's life one of those crises when the human soul seems 
 to be on the very brink of mysterious and disconcerting 
 cognitions, and then the wave recedes as inexplicably as it 
 surged up. 
 
 " Why, of course ! " said Mr. Povey, turning away lightly, 
 as though to imply that she was making tragedies out of 
 nothing. 
 
 She gave an involuntary gesture of almost childish relief. 
 
 Cyril slept calmly. It was a triumph for Mr. Povey. 
 
 Constance could not sleep. As she lay darkly awake by 
 her husband, her secret being seemed to be a-quiver with 
 emotion. Not exactly sorrow ; not exactly joy ; an emotion 
 more elemental than these ! A sensation of the intensity of 
 her life in that hour ; troubling, anxious, yet not sad ! She 
 said that Samuel was quite right, quite right. And then 
 she said that the poor little thing wasn't yet five years old, 
 and that it was monstrous. The two had to be reconciled. 
 And they never could be reconciled. Always she would be 
 between them, to reconcile them, and to be crushed by their 
 impact. Always she would have to bear the burden of both 
 of them. There could be no ease for her, no surcease from 
 a tremendous preoccupation and responsibility. She could 
 not change Samuel ; besides, he was right ! And though 
 Cyril was not yet five, she felt that she could not change 
 Cyril either. He was just as unchangeable as a growing 
 plant. The thought of her mother and Sophia did not pre- 
 sent itself to her; she felt, however, somewhat as Mrs. 
 Baines had felt on historic occasions ; but, being more softly 
 kind, younger, and less chafed by destiny, she was conscious 
 of no bitterness, conscious rather of a solemn blessedness. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CRIME. 
 I. 
 
 " Now, Master Cyril," Amy protested, " will you leave that 
 fire alone ? It's not you that can mend my fires." 
 
 A boy of nine, great and heavy for his years, with a full 
 face and very short hair, bent over the smoking grate. It 
 was about five minutes to eight on a chilly morning after 
 Easter. Amy, hastily clad in blue, with a rough brown 
 apron, was setting the breakfast table. The boy turned his 
 head, still bending. 
 
 " Shut up, Ame," he replied, smiling. Life being short, 
 he usually called her Ame when they were alone together. 
 " Or I'll catch you one in the eye with the poker." 
 
 " You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Amy. 
 " And you know your mother told you to wash your feet 
 this morning, and you haven't done. Fine clothes is all 
 very well, but " 
 
 " Who says I haven't washed my feet ? " asked Cyril, 
 guiltily. 
 
 Amy's mention of fine clothes referred to the fact that he 
 was that morning wearing his Sunday suit for the first time 
 on a week-day. 
 
 " I say you haven't," said Amy. 
 
 She was more than three times his age still, but they had 
 been treating each other as intellectual equals for years. 
 
 " And how do you know ? " asked Cyril, tired of the fire. 
 
 " I know," said Amy. 
 
 " Well, you just don't, then ! " said Cyril. " And what 
 about your feet ? I should be sorry to see your feet, Ame." 
 
 Amy was excusably annoyed. She tossed her head. " My 
 feet are as clean as yours any day," she said. " And I shall 
 tell your mother." N 
 
i 9 6 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 But he would not leave her feet alone, and there ensued 
 one of those endless monotonous altercations on a single 
 theme which occur so often between intellectual equals when 
 one is a young son of the house and the other an established 
 servant who adores him. Refined minds would have found 
 the talk disgusting, but the sentiment of disgust seemed to 
 be unknown to either of the wranglers. At last, when Amy 
 by superior tactics had cornered him, Cyril said suddenly : 
 
 " Oh, go to hell ! " 
 
 Amy banged down the spoon for the bacon gravy. " Now 
 I shall tell your mother. Mark my words, this time I shall 
 tell your mother." 
 
 Cyril felt that in truth he had gone rather far. He was 
 perfectly sure that Amy would not tell his mother. And yet, 
 supposing that by some freak of her nature she did ! The 
 consequences would be unutterable ; the consequences would 
 more than extinguish his private glory in the use of such a 
 dashing word. So he laughed, a rather silly, giggling laugh, 
 to reassure himself. 
 
 " You daren't," he said. 
 
 " Daren't I ? " she said grimly. " You'll see. J don't 
 know where you learn ! It fair beats me. But it isn't Amy 
 Bates as is going to be sworn at. As soon as ever your 
 mother comes into this room ! " 
 
 The door at the foot of the stairs creaked and Constance 
 came into the room. She was wearing a dress of magenta 
 merino, and a gold chain descended from her neck over her 
 rich bosom. She had scarcely aged in five years. It would 
 have been surprising if she had altered much, for the years 
 had passed over her head at an incredible rate. To her it 
 appeared only a few months since Cyril's first and last party. 
 
 • Are you all ready, my pet ? Let me look at you." 
 Constance greeted the boy with her usual bright, soft energy. 
 
 Cyril glanced at Amy, who averted her head, putting 
 spoons into three saucers. 
 
 " Yes, mother," he replied in a new voice. 
 
 " Did you do what I told you ? " 
 
 " Yes, mother," he said simply. 
 
 " That's right." 
 
 Amy made a faint noise with her lips, and departed. 
 
 He was saved once more. He said to himself that never 
 again would he permit his soul to be disturbed by any 
 threat of " old Ame's." 
 
 Constance's hand descended into her pocket and drew out 
 a hard paper packet, which she clapped on to her son's head. 
 
 " Oh, mother ! " He pretended that she had hurt him, 
 
CRIME. 197 
 
 and then he opened the packet. It contained Congleton 
 butterscotch, reputed a harmless sweetmeat. 
 
 " Good ! " he cried, " good ! Oh ! Thanks, mother." 
 
 " Now don't begin eating them at once." 
 
 " Just one, mother." 
 
 " No ! And how often have I told you to keep your feet 
 off that fender. See how it's bent. And it's nobody but 
 you." 
 
 " Sorry." 
 
 " It's no use being sorry if you persist in doing it." 
 
 " Oh, mother, I had such a funny dream ! " 
 
 They chatted until Amy came up the stairs with tea and 
 bacon. The fire had developed from black to clear red. 
 
 " Run and tell father that breakfast is ready." 
 
 After a little delay a spectacled man of fifty, short and 
 stoutish, with grey hair and a small beard half grey and half 
 black, entered from the shop. Samuel had certainly very 
 much aged, especially in his gestures, which, however, were 
 still quick. He sat down at once — his wife and son were 
 already seated — and served the bacon with the rapid assur- 
 ance of one who needs not to inquire about tastes and appe- 
 tites. Not a word was said, except a brief grace by Samuel. 
 But there was no restraint. Samuel had a mild, benignant 
 air. Constance's eyes were a fountain of cheerfulness. The 
 boy sat between them and ate steadily. 
 
 Mysterious creature, this child, mysteriously growing and 
 growing in the house ! To his mother he was a delicious 
 joy at all times save when he disobeyed his father. But now 
 for quite a considerable period there had been no serious col- 
 lision. The boy seemed to be acquiring virtue as well as 
 sense. And really he was charming. So big, truly enormous 
 (every one remarked on it), and yet graceful, lithe, with a 
 smile that could ravish. And he was distinguished in his 
 bearing. Without depreciating Samuel in her faithful heart, 
 Constance saw plainly the singular differences between Samuel 
 and the boy. Save that he was dark, and that his father's 
 " dangerous look " came into those childish eyes occasionally, 
 Cyril had now scarcely any obvious resemblance to his 
 father. He was a Baines. This naturally deepened Con- 
 stance's family pride. Yes, he was mysterious to Constance, 
 though probably not more so than any other boy to any 
 other parent. He was equally mysterious to Samuel, but 
 otherwise Mr. Povey had learned to regard him in the light 
 of a parcel which he was always attempting to wrap up in a 
 piece of paper imperceptibly too small. When he success- 
 fully covered the parcel at one corner it burst out at another, 
 
ig8 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 and this went on for ever, and he could never get the string 
 on. Nevertheless, Mr. Povey had unabated confidence in 
 his skill as a parcel-wrapper. The boy was strangely subtle 
 at times, but then at times he was astoundingly ingenuous, 
 and then his dodges would not deceive the dullest. Mr. 
 Povey knew himself more than a match for his son. He 
 was proud of him because he regarded him as not an ordinary 
 boy ; he took it as a matter of course that his boy should not 
 be an ordinary boy. He never, or very rarely, praised Cyril. 
 Cyril thought of his father as a man who, in response to any 
 request, always began by answering with a thoughtful, 
 serious " No, I'm afraid not." 
 
 " So you haven't lost your appetite ! " his mother com- 
 mented. 
 
 Cyril grinned. " Did you expect me to, mother ? " 
 
 " Let me see," said Samuel, as if vaguely recalling an 
 unimportant fact. " It's to-day you begin to go to school, 
 isn't it ? " ' 
 
 " I wish father wouldn't be such a chump ! " Cyril reflected. 
 And, considering that this commencement of school (real 
 school, not a girls' school, as once) had been the chief topic 
 in the house for days, weeks ; considering that it now occu- 
 pied and filled all hearts, Cyril's reflection was excusable. 
 
 " Now, there's one thing you must always remember, my 
 boy," said Mr. Povey. " Promptness. Never be late either 
 in going to school or in coming home. And in order that you 
 may have no excuse " — Mr. Povey pressed on the word 
 " excuse," as though condemning Cyril in advance — " here's 
 something for you ! " He said the last words quickly, with 
 a sort of modest shame. 
 
 It was a silver watch and chain. 
 
 Cyril was staggered. So also was Constance, for Mr. 
 Povey could keep his own counsel. At long intervals he 
 would prove, thus, that he was a mighty soul, capable of 
 sublime deeds. The watch was the unique flowering of Mr. 
 Povey 's profound but harsh affection. It lay on the table 
 like a miracle. This day was a great day, a supremely ex- 
 citing day in Cyril's history, and not less so in the history of 
 his parents. 
 
 The watch killed its owner's appetite dead. 
 
 Routine was ignored that morning. Father did not go 
 back into the shop. At length the moment came when 
 father put on his hat and overcoat to take Cyril, and Cyril's 
 watch and satchel, to the Endowed School, which had 
 quarters in the Wedgwood Institution close by. A solemn 
 departure, and Cyril could not pretend by his demeanour that 
 
CRIME. 199 
 
 it was not ! Constance desired to kiss him, but refrained. 
 He would not have liked it. She watched them from the 
 window. Cyril was nearly as tall as his father ; that is to 
 say, not nearly as tall, but creeping up his father's shoulder. 
 She felt that the eyes of the town must be on the pair. She 
 was very happy, and nervous. 
 
 At dinner-time a triumph seemed probable, and at tea- 
 time, when Cyril came home under a mortar-board hat and 
 with a satchel full of new books and a,head full of new ideas, 
 the triumph was actually and definitely achieved. He had 
 been put into the third form, and he announced that he should 
 soon be at the top of it. He was enchanted with the life of 
 school ; he liked the other boys, and it appeared that the 
 other boys liked him. The fact was that, with a new silver 
 watch and a packet of sweets, he had begun his new career 
 in the most advantageous circumstances. Moreover, he 
 
 Eossessed qualities which ensured success at school. He was 
 ig, and easy, with a captivating smile and a marked 
 aptitude to learn those things which boys insist on teaching 
 to their new comrades. He had muscle, a brave demeanour, 
 and no conceit. 
 
 During tea the parlour began to accustom itself to a new 
 vocabulary, containing such words as "fellows," "kept in," 
 " lines," "rot," "recess," "jolly." To some of these words the 
 parents, especially Mr. Povey, had an instinct to object, but 
 they could not object, somehow they did not seem to get an 
 opportunity to object ; they were carried away on the tor- 
 rent, and after all, their excitement and pleasure in the 
 exceeding romantic novelty of existence were just as intense 
 and nearly as ingenuous as their son's. 
 
 He demonstrated that unless he was allowed to stay up 
 later than aforetime he would not be able to do his home- 
 work, and hence would not keep that place in the school to 
 which his talents entitled him. ' Mr. Povey suggested, but 
 only with half a heart, that he should get up earlier in the 
 morning. The proposal fell flat. Everybody knew and ad- 
 mitted that nothing save the scorpions of absolute necessity, 
 or a tremendous occasion, such as that particular morning's, 
 would drive Cyril from his bed until the smell of bacon rose 
 to him from the kitchen. The parlour table was consecrated 
 to his lessons. It became generally known that " Cyril was 
 doing his lessons." His father scanned the new text-books 
 while Cyril condescendingly explained to him that all others 
 were superseded and worthless. His father contrived to 
 maintain an air of preserving his mental equilibrium, but not 
 his mother ; she gave it up, she who till that day r^ad under 
 
200 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 his father's direction taught him nearly all that he knew, 
 and Cyril passed above her into regions of knowledge where 
 the made no pretence of being able to follow him. 
 
 When the lessons were done, and Cyril had wiped his 
 fingers on bits of blotting-paper, and his father had expressed 
 qualified approval and had gone into the shop, Cyril said to 
 his mother, with that delicious hesitation which overtook 
 him sometimes : 
 
 " Mother." 
 
 " Well, my pet." 
 
 " I want you to do something for me." 
 
 " Well, what is it ? " 
 
 " No, you must promise." 
 
 " I'll do it if I can." 
 
 " But you can. It isn't doing. It's not doing." 
 
 " Come, Cyril, out with it." 
 
 " I don't want you to come in and look at me ajter I'm 
 asleep any more." 
 
 " But, you silly boy, what difference can it make to you if 
 you're asleep ? " 
 
 " I don't want you to. It's like as if I was a baby. 
 You'll have to stop doing it some day, and so you may as 
 well stop now." 
 
 It was thus he meant to turn his back on his youth. 
 
 She smiled. She was incomprehensibly happy. She con- 
 tinued to smile. 
 
 " Now you'll promise, won't you, mother ? " 
 
 She rapped him on the head with her thimble, lovingly. 
 He took the gesture for consent. 
 
 " You are a baby," she murmured. 
 
 " Now I shall trust you," he said 4 ignoring this. " Say 
 * honour bright.' " 
 
 " Honour bright." 
 
 With what a long caress her eyes followed him, as he went 
 up to bed on his great sturdy legs ! She was thankful that 
 school had not contaminated her adorable innocent. If she 
 could have been Ame for twenty-four hours, she perhaps 
 would not have hesitated to put butter into his mouth lest 
 it should melt. 
 
 Mr. Povey and Constance talked late and low that night. 
 They could neither of them sleep ; they had little desire to 
 sleep. Constance's face said to her husband : " I've always 
 stuck up for that boy, in spite of your severities, and you see 
 how right I was ! " And Mr. Povey 's face said : " You see 
 now the brilliant success of my system. You see how my 
 educational theories have justified themselves. Never been 
 

 CRIME. 201 
 
 to a school before, except that wretched little dame's school, 
 and he goes practically straight to the top of the third form — 
 at nine years of age ! " They discussed his future. There 
 could be no sign of lunacy in discussing his future up to a 
 certain point, but each felt that to discuss the ultimate career 
 of a child nine years old would not be the act of a sensible 
 parent ; only foolish parents would be so fond. Yet each 
 was dying to discuss his ultimate career. Constance yielded 
 first to the temptation, as became her. Mr. Povey scoffed, 
 and then, to humour Constance, yielded also. The matter 
 was soon fairly on the carpet. Constance was relieved to 
 find that Mr. Povey had no thought whatever of putting 
 Cyril in the shop. No ; Mr. Povey did not desire to chop 
 wood with a razor. Their son must and would ascend. 
 Doctor ! Solicitor ! Barrister ! Not barrister — barrister 
 was fantastic. When they had argued for about half an 
 hour Mr. Povey intimated suddenly that the conversation 
 was unworthy of their practical commonsense, and went to 
 sleep. 
 
 II. 
 
 Nobody really thought that this almost ideal condition of 
 things would persist : an enterprise commenced in such 
 glory must surely traverse periods of difficulty and even of 
 temporary disaster. But no ! Cyril seemed to be made 
 specially for school. Before Mr. Povey and Constance had 
 quite accustomed themselves to being the parents of " a great 
 lad," before Cyril had broken the glass of his miraculous watch 
 more than once, the summer term had come to an end and 
 there arrived the excitations of the prize-giving, as it was 
 called ; for at that epoch the smaller schools had not found 
 the effrontery to dub the breaking-up ceremony a "speech- 
 day." This prize-giving furnished a particular joy to Mr. 
 and Mrs. Povey. Although the prizes were notoriously few 
 in number — partly to add to their significance, and partly 
 to diminish their cost (the foundation was poor) — Cyril won a 
 prize, a box of geometrical instruments of precision ; also 
 ihe reached the top of his form, and was marked for promo- 
 tion to the formidable Fourth. Samuel and Constance were 
 bidden to the large hall of the Wedgwood Institution of a 
 summer afternoon, and they saw the whole Board of Gover- 
 nors raised on a rostrum, and in the middle, in front of what 
 he referred to, in his aristocratic London accent, as " a 
 beggarly array of rewards," the aged and celebrated Sir 
 
202 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Thomas Wilbraham Wilbraham, ex-M.P., last respectable 
 member of his ancient line. And Sir Thomas gave the box 
 of instruments to Cyril, and shook hands with him. And 
 everybody was very well dressed. Samuel, who had never 
 attended anything but a National School, recalled the 
 simple rigours of his own boyhood, and swelled. For cer- 
 tainly, of all the parents present he was among the richest. 
 When, in the informal promiscuities which followed the prize 
 distribution, Cyril joined his father and mother, sheepishly 
 they duly did their best to make light of his achievements, 
 and failed. The walls of the hall were covered with speci- 
 mens of the pupils' skill, and the headmaster was observed 
 to direct the attention of the mighty to a map done by Cyril. 
 Of course it was a map of Ireland, Ireland being the map 
 chosen by every map-drawing schoolboy who is free to choose. 
 For a third-form boy it was considered a masterpiece. In 
 the shading of mountains Cyiil was already a prodigy. Never, 
 it was said, had the Macgillycuddy Reeks been indicated by 
 a member of that school with a more amazing subtle refine- 
 ment than by the young Povey. From a proper pride in 
 themselves, from a proper fear lest they should be secretly 
 accused of ostentation by other parents, Samuel and Con- 
 stance did not go near that map. For the rest, they had lived 
 with it for weeks, and Samuel (who, after all, was determined 
 not to be dirt under his son's feet) had scratched a blot from 
 it with a completeness that defied inquisitive examination. 
 
 The fame of this map, added to the box of compasses and 
 Cyril's own desire, pointed to an artistic career. Cyril had 
 always drawn and daubed, and the drawing-master of the 
 Endowed School, who was also headmaster of the Art School, 
 had suggested that the youth should attend the Art School 
 one night a week. Samuel, however, would not listen to the 
 idea ; Cyril was too young. It is true that Cyril was too 
 young, but Samuel's real objection was to Cyril's going out 
 alone in the evening. On that he was adamant. 
 
 The Governors had recently made the discovery that a 
 sports department was necessary to a good school, and had 
 rented a field for cricket, football, and rounders up at Bleak- 
 ridge, an innovation which demonstrated that the town was 
 moving with the rapid times. In June this field was open 
 after school hours till eight p.m. as well as on Saturdays. 
 The Squire learnt that Cyril had a talent for cricket, and 
 Cyril wished to practise in the evenings, and was quite ready 
 to bind himself with Bible oaths to rise at no matter what 
 hour in the morning for the purpose of home lessons. He 
 scarcely expected his father to say " Yes," as his father never 
 
CRIME. 203 
 
 did say " Yes," but he was obliged to ask. Samuel nonplussed 
 him by replying that on fine evenings, when he could spare 
 time from the shop, he would go up to Bleakridge with his 
 son. Cyril did not like this in the least. Still, it might be 
 tried. One evening they went, actually, in the new steam- 
 car which had superseded the old horse-cars, and which trav- 
 elled all the way to Longshaw, a place that Cyril had only 
 heard of. Samuel talked of the games played in the Five 
 Towns in his day, of the Titanic sport of prison-bars, when 
 the team of one "bank" went forth to the challenge of 
 another " bank," preceded by a drum-and-fife band, and when, 
 in the heat of the chase, a man might jump into the canal to 
 escape his pursuer ; Samuel had never played at cricket. 
 
 Samuel, with a very young grandson of Fan (deceased), 
 sat in dignity on the grass and watched his cricketer for an 
 hour and a half (while Constance kept an eye on the shop 
 and superintended its closing). Samuel then conducted 
 Cyril home again. Two days later the father of his own 
 accord offered to repeat the experience. Cyril refused. 
 Disagreeable insinuations that he was a baby in arms had 
 been made at school in the meantime. 
 
 Nevertheless, in other directions Cyril sometimes surpris- 
 ingly conquered. For instance, he came home one day with 
 the information that a dog that was not a bull-terrier was not 
 worth calling a dog. Fan's grandson had been carried off in 
 earliest prime by a chicken-bone that had pierced his vitals, 
 and Cyril did indeed persuade his father to buy a bull- 
 terrier. The animal was a superlative of forbidding ugliness, 
 but father and son vied with each other in stern critical praise 
 of his surpassing beauty, and Constance, from good nature, 
 joined in the pretence. He was called Lion, and the shop, 
 after one or two untoward episodes, was absolutely closed to 
 him. 
 
 But the most striking of Cyril's successes had to do with 
 the question of the annual holiday. He spoke of the sea 
 soon after becoming a schoolboy. It appeared that his com- 
 plete ignorance of the sea prejudicially affected him at school. 
 Further, he had always loved the sea ; he had drawn hun- 
 dreds of three-masted ships with studding-sails set, and knew 
 the difference between a brig and a brigantine. When he first 
 said : "I say, mother, why can't we go to Llandudno instead 
 of Buxton this year ? " his mother thought he was out of his 
 senses. For the idea of going to any place other than 
 Buxton was inconceivable ! Had they not always been to 
 Buxton ? What would their landlady say ? How could they 
 ever look her in the face again ? Besides . . / well . . . ! 
 
20 4 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 They went to Llandudno, rather scared, and hardly knowing 
 how the change had come about. But they went. And it 
 was the force of Cyril's will, Cyril the theoretic cipher, that 
 took them. 
 
 III. 
 
 The removal of the Endowed School to more commodious 
 premises in the shape of Shawport Hall, an ancient mansion 
 with fifty rooms and five acres of land round about it, was 
 not a change that quite pleased Samuel or Constance. 
 They admitted the hygienic advantages, but Shawport Hall 
 was three-quarters of a mile distant from St. Luke's Square — 
 in the hollow that separates Bursley from its suburb of Hill- 
 port ; whereas the Wedgwood Institution was scarcely a 
 minute away. It was as if Cyril, when he set off to Shawport 
 Hall of a morning, passed out of their sphere of influence. 
 He was leagues off, doing they knew not what. Further, 
 his dinner-hour was cut short by the extra time needed for the 
 journey to and fro, and he arrived late for tea ; it may be 
 said that he often arrived very late for tea ; the whole 
 machinery of the meal was disturbed. These matters seemed 
 to Samuel and Constance to be of tremendous import, seemed 
 to threaten the very foundations of existence. Then they 
 grew accustomed to the new order, and wondered some- 
 times, when they passed the Wedgwood Institution and the 
 insalubrious Cock Yard — once sole playground of the boys 
 — that the school could ever have " managed " in the narrow 
 quarters once allotted to it. 
 
 Cyril, though constantly successful at school, a rising man, 
 an infallible bringer-home of excellent reports, and a regular 
 taker of prizes, became gradually less satisfactory in the 
 house. He was " kept in " occasionally, and although his 
 father pretended to hold that to be kept in was to slur the 
 honour of a spotless family, Cyril continued to be kept in ; 
 a hardened sinner, lost to shame. But this was not the worst. 
 The worst undoubtedly was that Cyril was " getting rough." 
 No definite accusation could be laid against him ; the offence 
 was general, vague, everlasting ; it was in all he did and said, 
 in every gesture and movement. He shouted, whistled, sang, 
 stamped, stumbled, lunged. He omitted such empty rites as 
 saying " Yes " or " Please," and wiping his nose. He replied 
 gruffly and nonchalantly to polite questions, or he didn't 
 reply until the questions were repeated, and even then with a 
 " lost " air that was not genuine. His shoe-laces were a sad 
 

 CRIME. 205 
 
 sight, and his finger-nails no sight at all for a decent woman ; 
 his hair was as rough as his conduct ; hardly at the pistol's 
 point could he be forced to put oil on it. In brief, he was no 
 longer the nice boy that he used to be. He had unmistakably 
 deteriorated. Grievous ! But what can you expect when 
 your boy is obliged, month after month and year after year, to 
 associate with other boys ? After all, he was a good boy, said 
 Constance, often to herself and now and then to Samuel. 
 For Constance, his charm was eternally renewed. His smile, 
 his frequent ingenuousness, his funny self-conscious gesture 
 when he wanted to " get round " her — these characteristics 
 remained ; and his pure heart remained ; she could read that 
 in his eyes. Samuel was inimical to his tastes for sports and 
 his triumphs therein. But Constance had pride in all that. 
 She liked to feel him and to gaze at him, and to smell that 
 faint, uncleanly odour of sweat that hung in his clothes. 
 
 In this condition he reached the advanced age of thirteen. 
 And his parents, who despite their notion of themselves as 
 wide-awake parents were a simple pair, never suspected that 
 his heart, conceived to be still pure, had become a crawling, 
 horrible mass of corruption. 
 
 One day the head-master called at the shop. Now, to see a 
 head-master walking about the town during school-hours is a 
 startling spectacle, and is apt to give you the same uncanny 
 sensation as when, alone in a room, you think you see some- 
 thing move which ought not to move. lyir. Povey was startled. 
 Mr. Povey had a thumping within his breast as he rubbed his 
 hands and drew the head-master to the private corner where 
 his desk was. " What can I do for you to-day ? " he almost 
 said to the head-master. But he did not say it. The boot 
 was emphatically not on that leg. The head-master talked 
 to Mr. Povey in tones carefully low, for about a quarter of an 
 hour, and then he closed the interview. Mr. Povey escorted 
 him across the shop and the head-master said with ordinary 
 loudness : "Of course it's nothing. But my experience is 
 that it's just as well to be on the safe side, and I thought I'd 
 tell you. Forewarned is forearmed. I have other parents to 
 see." They shook hands at the door. Then Mr. Povey 
 stepped out on to the pavement and, in front of the whole 
 Square, detained an unwilling head -master for quite another 
 minute. 
 
 His face was deeply flushed as he returned into the shop. 
 The assistants bent closer over their work. He did not in- 
 stantly rush into the parlour and communicate with Con- 
 stance. He had dropped into a way of conducting many 
 operations by his own unaided brain. His confidence in his 
 
206 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 skill had increased with years. Further, at the back of his 
 mind, there had established itself a vision of Mr. Povey as the 
 seat of government and of Constance and Cyril as a sort of 
 permanent opposition. He would not have admitted that 
 he saw such a vision, for he was utterly loyal to his wife ; 
 but it was there. This unconfessed vision was one of several 
 causes which had contributed to intensify his inherent tend- 
 ency towards Machiavellianism and secretiveness. He said 
 nothing to Constance, nothing to Cyril ; but, happening to 
 encounter Amy in the showroom, he was inspired to inter- 
 rogate her sharply. The result was that they descended to 
 the cellar together, Amy weeping. Amy was commanded to 
 hold her tongue. And as she went in mortal fear of Mr. Povey 
 she did hold her tongue. 
 
 Nothing occurred for several days. And then one morning 
 — it was Constance's birthday : children are nearly always 
 horribly unlucky in their choice of days for sin — Mr. Povey, 
 having executed mysterious movements in the shop after 
 Cyril's departure to school, jammed his hat on his head and 
 ran forth in pursuit of Cyril, whom he intercepted with two 
 other boys, at the corner of Oldcastle Street and Acre Passage. 
 
 Cyril stood as if turned into salt. " Come back home ! " 
 said Mr. Povey, grimly ; and for the sake of the other boys : 
 " Please." 
 
 ■* But I shall be late for school, father," Cyril weakly urged. 
 
 " Never mind." 
 
 They passed through the shop together, causing a terrific 
 concealed emotion, and then they did violence to Constance 
 by appearing in the parlour. Constance was engaged in 
 cutting straws and ribbons to make a straw-frame for a 
 water-colour drawing of a moss-rose which her pure-hearted 
 son had given her^as a birthday present. 
 
 "Why — what — ?" she exclaimed. She said no more at 
 the moment because she was sure, from the faces of her men, 
 that the time was big with fearful events. 
 
 " Take your satchel off," Mr.* Povey ordered coldly. " And 
 your mortar-board,' he added with a peculiar intonation, as 
 if glad thus to prove that Cyril was one of those rude boys 
 who have to be told to take their hats off in a room. 
 
 " Whatever 's amiss ? " Constance murmured under her 
 breath, as Cyril obeyed the command. " Whatever's 
 amiss ? " 
 
 Mr. Povey made no immediate answer. He was in charge 
 of these proceedings, and was very anxious to conduct them 
 with dignity and with complete effectiveness. Little fat 
 man over fifty, with a wizened face, grey-haired and grey- 
 

 CRIME. 207 
 
 bearded, he was as nervous as a youth. His heart beat furi-- 
 ously. And Constance, the portly matron who would never 
 see forty again, was just as nervous as a girl. Cyril had gone 
 very white. All three felt physically sick. 
 
 " What money have you got in your pockets ? " Mr. Povey 
 demanded, as a commencement. 
 
 Cyril,. who had had no opportunity to prepare his case, 
 offered no reply. 
 
 " You heard what I said," Mr. Povey thundered. 
 
 " I've got three-halfpence," Cyril murmured glumly, look- 
 ing down at the floor. His lower Up seemed to hang precari- 
 ously away from his gums. 
 
 " Where did you get that from ? " 
 
 "It's part of what mother gave me," said the boy. 
 
 " I did give him a threepenny bit last week," Constance 
 put in guiltily. " It was a long time since he had had any 
 money." 
 
 " If you gave it him, that's enough," said Mr. Povey 
 quickly, and to the boy : " That's all you've got ? " 
 
 " Yes, father," said the boy. 
 
 " You're sure ? " 
 
 " Yes, father." 
 
 Cyril was playing a hazardous game for the highest stakes, 
 and under grave disadvantages ; and he acted for the best. 
 He guarded his own interests as well as he could. 
 
 Mr. Povey found himself obliged to take a serious risk. 
 " Empty your pockets, then." 
 
 Cyril, perceiving that he had lost that particular game, 
 emptied his pockets. 
 
 Cyril," said Constance, " how often have I told you to 
 change your handkerchiefs oftener ! Just look at this ! " 
 
 Astonishing creature ! She was in the seventh hell of sick 
 apprehension, and yet she said that ! 
 
 After the handkerchief emerged the common schoolboy 
 stock of articles useful and magic, and then, last, a silver 
 florin ! 
 
 Mr. Povey felt relief. 
 
 " Oh, Cyril ! " whimpered Constance. 
 
 " Give it your mother," said Mr. Povey. 
 
 The boy stepped forward awkwardly, and Constance, weep- 
 ing, took the coin. 
 
 " Please look at it, mother," said Mr. Povey. " And tell 
 me if there's a cross marked on it." 
 
 Constance's tears blurred the coin. She had to wipe her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Yes," she whispered faintly. " There's something on it." 
 
208 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " I thought so," said Mr. Povey. " Where did you steal 
 it from ? " he demanded. 
 
 " Out of the till," answered Cyril. 
 
 " Have you ever stolen anything out of tht till before ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Yes, what." 
 
 " Yes, father." 
 
 " Take your hands out of your pockets and stand up 
 straight, if you can. How often ? " 
 
 11 1 — I don't know, father." 
 
 " I blame myself," said Mr. Povey, frankly. " I blame 
 myself. The till ought always to be locked. All tills ought 
 always to be locked. But we felt we could trust the assist- 
 ants. If anybody had told me that I ought not to trust you, 
 if anybody had told me that my own son would be the thief, 
 I should have — well, I don't know what I should have 
 said ! " 
 
 Mr. Povey was quite justified in blaming himself. The 
 fact was that the functioning of that till was a patriarchal 
 survival, which he ought to have revolutionized, but which it 
 had never occurred to him to revolutionize, so accustomed to 
 it was he. In the time of John Baines, the till, with its three 
 bowls, two for silver and one for copper (gold had never been 
 put into it), was invariably unlocked. The person in charge 
 of the shop took change from it for the assistants, or tempo- 
 rarily authorized an assistant to do so. Gold was kept in a 
 small linen bag in a locked drawer of the desk. The contents 
 of the till were never checked by any system of book-keeping, 
 as there was no system of book-keeping ; when all trans- 
 actions, whether in payment or receipt, are in cash — the 
 Baineses never owed a penny save the quarterly wholesale 
 accounts, which were discharged instantly to the travellers — 
 a system of book-keeping is not indispensable. The till was 
 situate immediately at the entrance to the shop from the 
 house ; it was in the darkest part of the shop, and the unfor- 
 tunate Cyril had to pass it every day on his way to school. 
 The thing was a perfect device for the manufacture of young 
 criminals. 
 
 " And how have you been spending this money ? " Mr. 
 Povey inquired. 
 ^ Cyril's hands slipped into his pockets again. Then, noti- 
 cing the lapse, he dragged them out. 
 
 ' Sweets," said he. 
 
 " Anything else ? " 
 
 " Sweets and things." 
 
 " Oh 1 " said Mr. Povey. " Well, now you can go down 
 
CRIME. 209 
 
 into the cinder-cellar and bring up here all the things there 
 are in that little box in the corner. Off you go ! " 
 
 And off went Cyril. He had to swagger through the 
 kitchen. . 
 
 " What did I tell you, Master Cyril ? " Amy unwisely asked 
 of him. " You've copped it finely this time." 
 
 " Copped " was a word which she had learned from Cyril. 
 
 " Go on, you old bitch ! " Cyril growled. 
 
 As he returned from the cellar, Amy said angrily : 
 
 " I told you I should tell your father the next time you 
 called me that, and I shall. You mark my words." 
 
 " Cant ! cant ! " he retorted. " Do you think I don't 
 know who's been canting ? Cant ! cant ! " 
 
 Upstairs in the parlour Samuel was explaining the matter 
 to his wife. There had been a perfect epidemic of smoking 
 in the school. The head-master had discovered it and, he 
 hoped, stamped it out. What had disturbed the head-master 
 far more than the smoking was the fact that a few boys had 
 been found to possess somewhat costly pipes, cigar-holders, 
 or cigarette-holders. The head-master, wily, had not con- 
 fiscated these articles ; he had merely informed the parents 
 concerned. In his opinion the articles came from one single 
 source, a generous thief ; he left the parents to ascertain 
 which of them had brought a thief into the world. 
 
 Further information Mr. Povey had culled from Amy, and 
 there could remain no doubt that Cyril had been providing 
 his chums with the utensils of smoking, the till supplying the 
 means. He had told Amy that the things which he secreted 
 in the cellar had been presented to him by blood-brothers. 
 But Mr. Povey did not believe that. Anyhow, he had marked 
 every silver coin in the till for three nights, and had watched 
 the till in the mornings from behind the merino-pile ; and the 
 florin on the parlour-table spoke of his success as a detective. 
 
 Constance felt guilty on behalf of Cyril. As Mr. Povey 
 outlined his case she could not free herself from an entirely 
 irrational sensation of sin ; at any rate of special responsi- 
 bility. Cyril seemed to be her boy and not Samuel's boy 
 at all. She avoided her husband's glance. This was very 
 odd. 
 
 Then Cyril returned, and his parents composed their faces 
 and he deposited, next to the florin, a sham meerschaum pipe 
 in a case, a tobacco-pouch, a cigar of which one end had been 
 charred but the other not cut, and a half-empty packet of 
 cigarettes without a label. 
 
 Nothing could be hid from Mr. Povey. The details were 
 distressing. 
 
210 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " So Cyril is a liar and a thief, to say nothing of this smok- 
 ing ! " Mr. Povey concluded. 
 
 He spoke as if Cyril had invented strange and monstrous 
 sins. But deep down in his heart a little voice was telling 
 him, as regards the smoking, that he had set the example. 
 Mr. Baines had never smoked. Mr. Critchlow never smoked. 
 Only men like Daniel smoked. 
 
 Thus far Mr. Povey had conducted the proceedings to his 
 own satisfaction. He had proved the crime. He had made 
 Cyril confess. The whole affair lay revealed. Well — what 
 next ? Cyril ought to have dissolved in repentance ; some- 
 thing dramatic ought to have occurred. But Cyril simply 
 stood with hanging, sulky head, and gave no sign of proper 
 feeling. 
 
 Mr. Povey considered that, until something did happen, he 
 must improve the occasion. 
 
 " Here we have trade getting worse every day," said he 
 (it was true), " and you are robbing your parents to make a 
 beast of yourself, and corrupting your companions ! I won- 
 der your mother never smelt you ! " 
 
 " I never dreamt of such a thing ! " said Constance, 
 grievously. 
 
 Besides, a young man clever enough to rob a till is usually 
 clever enough to find out that the secret of safety in smoking 
 is to use cachous and not to keep the stuff in your pockets a 
 minute longer than you can help. 
 
 " There's no knowing how much money you have stolen," 
 said Mr. Povey. "A thief ! " 
 
 If Cyril had stolen cakes, jam, string, cigars, Mr. Povey 
 would never have said " thief " as he did say it. But money ! 
 Money was different. And a till was not a cupboard or a 
 larder. A till was a till. Cyril had struck at the very basis 
 of society. 
 
 " And on your mother's birthday ! " Mr. Povey said 
 further. 
 
 " There's one thing I can do ! " he said. " I can burn all 
 this. Built on lies ! How dared you ? " 
 
 And he pitched into the fire — not the apparatus of crime, 
 but the water-colour drawing of a moss-rose and the straws 
 and the blue ribbon for bows at the corners. .* 
 
 " How dared you ? " he repeated. 
 
 " You never gave me any money," Cyril muttered. 
 
 He thought the marking of coins a mean trick, and the 
 dragging-in of bad trade and his mother's birthday roused a 
 familiar devil that usually slept quietly in his breast. 
 
 " What's that you say ? " Mr. Povey almost shouted. 
 
CRIME. 211 
 
 " You never gave me any money," the devil repeated in a 
 louder tone than Cyril had employed. 
 
 (It was true. But Cyril " had only to ask," and he would 
 have received all that was good for him.) 
 
 Mr. Povey sprang up. Mr. Povey also had a devil. The 
 two devils gazed at each other for an instant ; and then, 
 noticing that Cyril's head was above Mr. Povey's, the elder 
 devil controlled itself. Mr. Povey had suddenly had as much 
 drama as he wanted. 
 
 " Get away to bed ! " said he with dignity. 
 
 Cyril went, defiantly. 
 
 " He's to have nothing but bread and water, mother," Mr. 
 Povey finished. He was, on the whole, pleased with himself. 
 
 Later in the day Constance reported, tearfully, that she had 
 been up to Cyril and that Cyril had wept. Which was to 
 Cyril's credit. But all felt that life could never be the same 
 again. During the remainder of existence this unspeakable 
 horror would lift its obscene form between them. Constance 
 had never been so unhappy. Occasionally, when by herself 
 she would rebel for a brief moment, as one rebels in secret 
 against a mummery which one is obliged to treat seriously. 
 " After all," she would whisper, " suppose he has taken a few 
 shillings out of the till ! What then ? What does it matter ? " 
 But these moods of moral insurrection against society and 
 Mr. Povey were very transitory. They were come and gone 
 in a flash. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 ANOTHER CRIME. 
 
 One night — it was late in the afternoon of the same year, 
 about six months after the tragedy of the florin — Samuel 
 Povey was wakened up by a hand on his shoulder and a voice 
 that whispered : " Father ! " 
 
 The thief and the liar was standing in his night-shirt by the 
 bed. Samuel's sleepy eyes could just descry him in the 
 thick gloom. 
 
 " What — what ? " questioned the father, gradually coming 
 to consciousness. " What are you doing there ? " 
 
 " I didn't want to wake mother up," the boy whispered. 
 " There's someone been throwing dirt or something at our 
 windows, and has been for a long time." 
 
 " Eh, what ? " 
 
 Samuel stared at the dim form of the thief and liar. The 
 boy was tall, not in the least like a little boy ; and yet, then, 
 he seemed to his father as quite a little boy, a little " thing " 
 in a night-shirt, with childish gestures and childish inflec- 
 tions, and a childish, delicious, quaint anxiety not to disturb 
 his mother, who had lately been deprived of sleep owing 
 to an illness of Amy's which had demanded nursing. His 
 father had not so perceived him for years. In that instant 
 the conviction that Cyril was permanently unfit for human 
 society finally expired in the father's mind. Time had 
 already weakened it very considerably. The decision that, 
 be Cyril what he might, the summer holiday must be taken 
 as usual, had dealt it a fearful blow. And yet, though 
 Samuel and Constance had grown so accustomed to the com- 
 panionship of a criminal that they frequently lost memory 
 of his guilt for long periods, nevertheless the convention 
 of his leprosy had more or less persisted with Samuel until 
 
ANOTHER CRIME. 213 
 
 that moment : when it vanished with strange suddenness, 
 to Samuel's conscious relief. 
 
 There was a rain of pellets on the window. 
 
 " Hear that ? " demanded Cyril, whispering dramatically. 
 '■ And it's been like that on my window too." 
 
 Samuel arose. " Go back to your room ! " he ordered in 
 the same dramatic whisper ; but not as father to son — 
 rather as conspirator to conspirator. 
 
 Constance slept. They could hear her regular breathing. 
 
 Barefooted, the elderly gowned figure followed the younger, 
 and one after the other they creaked down the two steps 
 which separated Cyril's room from his parents'. 
 
 " Shut the door quietly ! " said Samuel. 
 
 Cyril obeyed. 
 
 And then, having lighted Cyril's gas, Samuel drew the blind, 
 unfastened the catch of the window, and began to open it 
 with many precautions of silence. All the sashes in that 
 house were difficult to manage. Cyril stood close to his father, 
 shivering without knowing that he shivered, astonished only 
 that his father had not told him to get back into bed at once. 
 It was, beyond doubt, the proudest hour of Cyril's career. 
 In addition to the mysterious circumstances of the night, 
 there was in the situation that thrill which always communi- 
 cates itself to a father and son when they are afoot together 
 upon an enterprise unsuspected by the woman from whom 
 their lives have no secrets. 
 
 Samuel put his head out of the window. 
 
 A man was standing there. 
 
 " That you, Samuel ? " The voice came low. 
 
 "Yes," replied Samuel, cautiously. "It's not Cousin 
 Daniel, is it ? " 
 
 " I want ye," said Daniel Povey, curtly. 
 
 Samuel paused. "I'll be down in a minute," he said. 
 
 Cyril at length received the command to get back into bed 
 at once. 
 
 " Whatever's up, father ? " he asked joyously. 
 
 " I don't know. I must put some things on and go and 
 see." 
 
 He shut down the window on all the breezes that were 
 pouring into the room. 
 
 " Now quick, before I turn the gas out ! " he admonished, 
 his hand on the gas- tap. 
 
 " You'll tell me in the morning, won't you, father ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Povey, conquering his habitual impulse 
 to say " No." 
 
 He crept back to the large bedroom to grope for clothes. 
 
2i 4 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 When, having descended to the parlour and lighted the 
 gas there, he opened the side-door, expecting to let Cousin 
 Daniel in, there was no sign of Cousin Daniel. Presently he 
 saw a figure standing at the corner of the Square. He 
 whistled — Samuel had a singular faculty of whistling, £he 
 envy of his son — and Daniel beckoned to him. He nearly 
 extinguished the gas and then ran out, hatless. He was 
 wearing most of his clothes, except his linen collar and neck- 
 tie, and the collar of his coat was turned up. 
 
 Daniel advanced before him, without waiting, into the 
 confectioner's shop opposite. Being part of the most 
 modern building in the Square, Daniel's shop was provided 
 with the new roll-down iron shutter, by means of which you 
 closed your establishment with a motion similar to the wind- 
 ing of a large clock, instead of putting up twenty separate 
 shutters one by one as in the sixteenth century. The little 
 portal in the vast sheet of armour was ajar, and Daniel had 
 passed into the gloom beyond. At the same moment a 
 policeman came along on his beat, cutting off Mr. Povey 
 from Daniel. 
 
 " Good-night, officer ! Brrr 1 " said Mr. Povey, gathering 
 his dignity about him and holding himself as though it was 
 part of his normal habit to take exercise bareheaded and 
 collarless in St. Luke's Square on cold November nights. 
 He behaved so because, if Daniel had desired the services 
 of a policeman, Daniel would of course have spoken to this 
 one. 
 
 '■ Goo' night, sir," said the policeman, after recognizing 
 him. 
 
 " What time is it ? " asked Samuel, bold. 
 
 " A quarter-past one, sir." 
 
 The policeman, leaving Samuel at the little open door, 
 went forward across the lamplit Square, and Samuel entered 
 his cousin's shop. 
 
 Daniel Povey was standing behind the door, and as Samuel 
 came in he shut the door with a startling sudden movement. 
 Save for the twinkle of gas, the shop was in darkness. It 
 had the empty appearance which a well-managed confec- 
 tioner's and baker's always has at night. The large brass 
 scales near the flour-bins glinted ; and the glass cake-stands, 
 with scarce a tart among them, also caught the faint flare 
 of the gas. 
 
 " What's the matter, Daniel ? Anything wrong ? " 
 Samuel asked, feeling boyish as he usually did in the pres- 
 ence of Daniel. 
 
 The well-favoured white-haired man seized him with one 
 
•U „ « A t^»» +1 
 
 ANOTHER CRIME. 215 
 
 hand by the shoulder in a grip that convicted Samuel of 
 frailty. 
 
 " Look here, Sam'l," said he in his low, pleasant voice, 
 somewhat altered by excitement. " You know as my wife 
 drinks ? " 
 
 He stared defiantly at Samuel. 
 
 « n — no," said Samuel. " That is — no one's ever said — " 
 
 This was true. He did not know that Mrs. Daniel Povey, 
 at the age of fifty, had definitely taken to drink. There had 
 been rumours that she enjoyed a glass with too much gusto ; 
 but " drinks " meant more than that. 
 
 " She drinks," Daniel Povey continued. " And has done 
 this last two year ! " 
 
 "I'm very sorry to hear it," said Samuel, tremendously 
 shocked by this brutal rending of the cloak of decency. 
 
 Always, everybody had feigned to Daniel, and Daniel had 
 feigned to everybody, that his wife was as other wives. And 
 now the man himself had torn to pieces in a moment the veil 
 of thirty years' weaving. 
 
 " And if that was the worst ! " Daniel murmured reflec- 
 tively, loosening his grip. 
 
 Samuel was excessively disturbed. His cousin was hint- 
 ing at matters which he himself, at any rate, had never 
 hinted at even to Constance, so abhorrent were they ; 
 matters unutterable, which hung like clouds in the social 
 atmosphere of the town, and of which at rare intervals one 
 conveyed one's cognizance, not by words, but by something 
 scarce perceptible in a glance, an accent. Not often is a 
 town such as Bursley starred with such a woman as Mrs. 
 Daniel Povey. 
 
 " But what's wrong ? " Samuel asked, trying to be firm. 
 
 And, "What is wrong ? " he asked himself. " What does 
 all this mean, at after one o'clock in the morning ? " 
 
 " Look here, Sam'l," Daniel recommenced, seizing his 
 shoulder again. " I went to Liverpool corn market to-day, 
 and missed the last train, so I came by mail from Crewe. 
 And what do I find ? I find Dick sitting on the stairs in the 
 dark pretty nigh naked." 
 
 " Sitting on the stairs ? Dick ? " 
 
 " Ay ! This is what I come home to ! " 
 
 « But " 
 
 " Hold on ! He's been in bed a couple of days with a 
 feverish cold, caught through lying in damp sheets as his 
 mother had forgot to air. She brings him no supper to- 
 night. He calls out. No answer. Then he gets up to 
 go down-stairs and see what's happened, and he slips on th' 
 
216 ' THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 stairs and breaks his knee, or puts it out or summat. Sat 
 there hours, seemingly ! Couldn't walk neither up nor 
 down." 
 
 " And was your — wife — was Mrs. ? " 
 
 " Dead drunk in the parlour, Sam'l." 
 
 " But the servant ? " 
 
 " Servant ! " Daniel Povey laughed. " We can't keep 
 our servants. They won't stay. You know that." 
 
 He did. Mrs. Daniel Povey's domestic methods and 
 idiosyncrasies could at any rate be freely discussed, and 
 they were. 
 
 " And what have you done ? " 
 
 "Done ? Why, I picked him up in my arms and carried 
 him upstairs again. And a fine job I had too ! Here ! 
 Come here ! " 
 
 Daniel strode impulsively across the shop — the counterflap 
 was up — and opened a door at the back. Samuel followed. 
 Never before had he penetrated so far into his cousin's 
 secrets. On the left, within the doorway, were the stairs, 
 dark ; on the right a shut door ; and in front an open door 
 giving on to a yard. At the extremity of the yard he dis- 
 cerned a building, vaguely lit, and naked figures strangely 
 moving in it. 
 
 " Wlxat's that ? Who's there ? " he asked sharply. 
 
 " That's the bakehouse," Daniel replied, as if surprised at 
 such a question. " It's one of their long nights." 
 
 Never, during the brief remainder of his life, did Samuel 
 eat a mouthful of common bread without recalling that mid- 
 night apparition. He had lived for half a century, and 
 thoughtlessly eaten bread as though loaves grew ready-made 
 on trees. 
 
 " Listen ! " Daniel commanded him. 
 
 He cocked his ear, and caught a feeble, complaining wail 
 from an upper floor. 
 
 " That's Dick ! That is ! " said Daniel Povey. 
 
 It sounded more like the distress of a child than of an 
 adventurous young man of twenty-four or so. 
 
 " But is he in pain ? Haven't you fetched the doctor ? " 
 
 " Not yet," answered Daniel, with a vacant stare. 
 
 Samuel gazed at him closely for a second. And Daniel 
 seemed to him very old and helpless and pathetic, a man 
 unequal to the situation in which he found himself ; and yet, 
 despite the dignified snow of his age, wistfully boyish. Samuel 
 thought swiftly : " This has been too much for him. He's 
 almost out of his mind. That's the explanation. Some 
 one's got to take charge, and I must." And all the courageous 
 
ANOTHER CRIME. 217 
 
 resolution of his character braced itself to the crisis. Being 
 without a collar, being in slippers, and his suspenders im- 
 perfectly fastened anyhow, — these things seemed to be a part 
 of the crisis. 
 
 " I'll just run upstairs and have a look at him," said 
 Samuel, in a matter-of-fact tone. 
 
 Daniel did not reply. 
 
 There was a glimmer at the top of the stairs. Samuel 
 mounted, found the gas-jet, and turned it on full. A dingy, 
 dirty, untidy passage was revealed, the very antechamber 
 of discomfort. Guided by the moans, Samuel entered a bed- 
 room, which was in a shameful condition of neglect, and 
 lighted only by a nearly expired candle. Was it possible 
 that a house-mistress could so lose her self-respect ? Samuel 
 thought of his own abode, meticulously and impeccably 
 " kept," and a hard bitterness against Mrs. Daniel surged 
 up in his soul. 
 
 " Is that you, doctor ? " said a voice from the bed ; the 
 moans ceased. 
 
 Samuel raised the candle. 
 
 Dick lay there, his face, on which was a beard of several 
 days' growth, distorted by anguish, sweating ; his tousled 
 brown hair was limp with sweat. 
 
 " Where the hell's the doctor ? " the young man demanded 
 brusquely. Evidently he had no curiosity about Samuel's 
 presence ; the one thing that struck him was that Samuel 
 was not the doctor. 
 
 " He's coming, he's coming," said Samuel, soothingly. 
 
 "Well, if he isn't here soon I shall be damn well dead," 
 said Dick, in feeble resentful anger. " I can tell you that." 
 
 Samuel deposited the candle and ran downstairs. " I say, 
 Daniel," he said, roused and hot, " this is really ridiculous. 
 Why on earth didn't you fetch the doctor while you were 
 waiting for me ? Where's the missis ? " 
 
 Daniel Povey was slowly emptying grains of Indian corn 
 out of his jacket-pocket into one of the big receptacles behind 
 the counter on the baker's side of the shop. He had pro- 
 visioned himself with Indian corn as ammunition for Samuel's 
 bedroom window ; he was now returning the surplus. 
 
 " Are ye going for Harrop ? " he questioned hesitatingly. 
 
 ** Why, of course ! " Samuel exclaimed. " Where's the 
 missis ? " \ 
 
 " Happen you'd better go and have a look at her," said 
 Daniel Povey. " She's in th' parlour." 
 
 He preceded Samuel to the shut door on the right. When 
 he opened it the parlour appeared in full illumination. 
 
218 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Here ! Go in ! " said Daniel. 
 
 Samuel went in, afraid. In a room as dishevelled and filthy 
 as the bedroom, Mrs. Daniel Povey lay stretched awkwardly 
 on a worn horse-hair sofa, her head thrown back, her face 
 discoloured, her eyes bulging, her mouth wet and yawning : 
 a sight horribly offensive. Samuel was frightened ; he was 
 struck with fear and with disgust. The singing gas beat 
 down ruthlessly on that dreadful figure. A wife and mother ! 
 The lady of a house ! The centre of order ! The fount of 
 healing ! The balm for worry, and the refuge of distress ! 
 She was vile. Her scanty yellow-grey hair was dirty, her 
 hollowed neck all grime, her hands abominable, her black 
 dress in decay. She was the dishonour of her sex, her 
 situation, and her years. She was a fouler obscenity than 
 the inexperienced Samuel had ever conceived. And by the 
 door stood her husband, neat, spotless, almost stately, the man 
 who for thirty years had marshalled all his immense pride 
 to suffer this woman, the jolly man who had laughed through 
 thick and thin ! Samuel remembered when they were 
 married. And he remembered when, years after their mar- 
 riage, she was still as pretty, artificial, coquettish, and ada- 
 mantine in her caprices as a young harlot with a fool at 
 her feet. Time and the slow wrath of God had changed 
 her. 
 
 He remained master of himself and approached her ; then 
 stopped. 
 
 ' But — " he stammered. 
 
 " Ay, Sam'l, lad ! " said the old man from the door. "I 
 doubt I've killed her ! I doubt I've killed her ! I took and 
 shook her. I got her by the neck. And before I knew where 
 I was, I'd done it. She'll never drink brandy again. This 
 is what it's come to ! " 
 
 He moved away. 
 
 All Samuel's flesh tingled as a heavy wave of emotion rolled 
 through his being. It was just as if some one had dealt him 
 a blow unimaginably tremendous. His heart shivered, as a 
 ship shivers at the mountainous crash of the waters. He was 
 numbed. He wanted to weep, to vomit, to die, to sink away. 
 But a voice was whispering to him : " You will have to go 
 through with this. You are in charge of this." He thought 
 of his wife and child, innocently asleep in the cleanly pure- 
 ness of his home. And he felt the roughness of his coat- 
 collar round his neck and the insecurity of his trousers. He 
 passed out of the room, shutting the door. And across the. 
 yard he had a momentary glimpse of those nude nocturnal 
 forms, unconsciously attitudinizing in the bakehouse. And 
 
ANOTHER CRIME. 219 
 
 down the stairs came the protests of Dick, driven by pain 
 into a monotonous silly blasphemy. 
 
 " I'll fetch Harrop," he said, melancholily, to his cousin. 
 
 The doctor's house was less than fifty yards off, and the 
 doctor had a night-bell, which, though he was a much older 
 man than his father had been at his age. he still answered 
 promptly. No need to bombard the doctor's premises with 
 Indian corn ! While Samuel was parleying with the doctor 
 through a window, the question ran incessantly through his 
 mind : " What about telling the police ? " 
 
 But when, in advance of old Harrop, he returned to Daniel's 
 shop, lo ! the policeman previously encountered had re- 
 turned upon his beat, and Daniel was talking to him in the 
 little doorway. No other soul was about. Down King 
 Street, along Wedgwood Street, up the Square, towards 
 Brougham Street, nothing but gas-lamps burning with their 
 everlasting patience, and the blind facades of shops. 
 Only in the second storey of the Bank Building at the top 
 of the Square a light showed mysteriously through a blind. 
 Somebody ill there ! 
 
 The policeman was in a high state of nervous excitement. 
 That had happened to him which had never happened to him 
 before. Of the sixty policemen in Bursley, just he had been 
 chosen by fate to fit the socket of destiny. He was startled. 
 
 " What's this, what's this, Mr. Povey ? " he turned hastily 
 to Samuel. " What's this as Mr. Councillor Povey is a-telling 
 me ? " 1 
 
 " You come in, sergeant," said Daniel. 
 
 "If I come in," said the policeman to Samuel, " you mun' 
 go along Wedgwood Street, Mr. Povey, and bring my mate. 
 He should be on Duck Bank, by rights." 
 
 It was astonishing, when once the stone had begun to 
 roll, how quickly it ran. In half an hour Samuel had actu- 
 ally parted from Daniel at the police-office behind the 
 Shambles, and was hurrying to rouse his wife so that she 
 could look after Dick Povey until he might be taken off to 
 Pirehill Infirmary, as old Harrop had instantly, on seeing 
 him, decreed. 
 
 " Ah ! " he reflected in the turmoil of his soul : " God is 
 not mocked ! " That was his basic idea : God is not mocked ! 
 Daniel was a good fellow, honourable, brilliant ; a figure in 
 the world. But what of his licentious tongue ? What of his 
 frequenting of bars ? (How had he come to miss that train 
 •from Liverpool ? How ?) For many years he, Samuel, 
 had seen in Daniel a living refutation of the authenticity of 
 the old Hebrew menaces. But he had been wrong, after 
 
220 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 all ! God is not mocked ! And Samuel was aware of a 
 revulsion in himself towards that strict codified godliness 
 from which, in thought, he had perhaps been slipping away. 
 
 And with it all he felt, too, a certain officious self-im- 
 portance, as he woke his wife and essayed to break the news 
 to her in a manner tactfully calm. He had assisted at the 
 most overwhelming event ever known in the history of the 
 town. 
 
 II. 
 
 " Your muffler — I'll get it," said Constance. " Cyril, run 
 upstairs and get father's muffler. You know the drawer." 
 
 Cyril ran. It behoved everybody, that morning, to be 
 prompt and efficient. 
 
 " I don't need any muffler, thank you," said Samuel, cough- 
 ing and smothering the cough. 
 
 " Oh ! But, Sam — " Constance protested. 
 
 " Now please don't worry me ! " said Samuel with frigid 
 finality. A I've got quite enough — ! " He did not finish. 
 
 Constance sighed as her husband stepped, nervous and self- 
 important, out of the side-door into the street. It was early, 
 not yet eight o'clock, and the shop still unopened. 
 
 " Your father couldn't wait," Constance said to Cyril when 
 he had thundered down the stairs in his heavy schoolboy 
 boots. " Give it to me." She went to restore the muffler 
 to its place. 
 
 The whole house was upset, and Amy still an invalid ! 
 Existence was disturbed ; there vaguely seemed to be a 
 thousand novel things to be dor.e, and yet she could think 
 of nothing whatever that she needed to do at that moment ; 
 so she occupied herself with the muffler. Before she re- 
 appeared Cyril had gone to school, he who was usually a 
 laggard. The truth was that he could no longer contain 
 within himself a recital of the night, and in particular of the 
 fact that he had been the first to hear the summons of the 
 murderer on the window-pane. This imperious news had to 
 be imparted to somebody, as a preliminary to the thrilling 
 of the whole school ; and Cyril had issued forth in search of 
 an appreciative and worthy confidant. He was scarcely five 
 minutes after his father. 
 
 In St. Luke's Square was a crowd of quite two hundred 
 persons, standing moveless in the November mud. The 
 body of Mrs. Daniel Povey had already been taken to the 
 Tiger Hotel, and young Dick Povey was on his way in a 
 
ANOTHER CRIME. 221 
 
 covered waggonette to Pirehill Infirmary on the other side 
 of Knype. The shop of the crime was closed, and the blinds 
 drawn at the upper windows of the house. There was 
 absolutely nothing to be seen, not even a policeman. Never- 
 theless the crowd stared with an extraordinary obstinate 
 attentiveness at the fatal building in Boulton Terrace. 
 Hypnotized by this face of bricks and mortar, it had ap- 
 parently forgotten all earthly ties, and, regardless of break- 
 fast and a livelihood, was determined to stare at it till the 
 house fell down or otherwise rendered up its secret. Most 
 of its component individuals wore neither overcoats nor 
 collars, but were kept warm by a scarf round the neck and 
 by dint of forcing their fingers into the furthest inch of their 
 pockets. Then they would slowly lift one leg after the other. 
 Starers of infirm purpose would occasionally detach them- 
 selves from the throng and sidle away, ashamed of their 
 fickleness. But reinforcements were continually arriving. 
 And to these new-comers all that had been said in gossip 
 had to be repeated and repeated : the same questions, the 
 same answers, the same exclamations, the same proverbial 
 philosophy, the same prophecies recurred in all parts of the 
 Square with an uncanny iterance. Well-dressed men spoke 
 to mere professional loiterers ; for this unparalleled and 
 glorious sensation, whose uniqueness grew every instant 
 more impressive, brought out the essential brotherhood of 
 mankind. All had a peculiar feeling that the day was 
 neither Sunday nor week-day, but some eighth day of the 
 week. Yet in the St. Luke's Covered Market close by, the 
 stall-keepers were preparing their stalls just as though it 
 were Saturday, just as though a Town Councillor had not 
 murdered his wife — at last ! It was stated, and restated 
 infinitely, that the Povey baking had been taken over by 
 Brindley, the second-best baker and confectioner, who had 
 a stall in the market. And it was asserted, as a philosophical 
 truth, and reasserted infinitely, that there would have been 
 no sense in wasting good food. 
 
 Samuel's emergence stirred the multitude. But Samuel 
 passed up the Square with a rapt expression ; he might have 
 been under an illusion, caused by the extreme gravity of his 
 preoccupations, that he was crossing a deserted Square. He 
 hurried past the Bank and down the Turnhill Road, to the 
 private residence of " Young Lawton," son of the deceased 
 " Lawyer Lawton." Young Lawton followed his father's pro- 
 fession ; he was, as his father had been, the most^ success- 
 ful solicitor in the town (though reputed by his learned rivals 
 to be a fool), but the custom of calling men by their occupa- 
 
222 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 tions had died out with horse-cars. Samuel caught young 
 Lawton at his breakfast, and presently drove with him, in 
 the Lawton buggy, to the police-station, where their arrival 
 electrified a crowd as large as that in St. Luke's Square. 
 Later, they drove together to Hanbridge, informally to brief 
 a barrister ; and Samuel, not permitted to be present at the 
 first part of the interview between the solicitor and the 
 barrister, was humbled before the pomposity of legal eti- 
 quette. 
 
 It seemed to Samuel a game. The whole rigmarole of 
 police and police-cells and formalities seemed insincere. His 
 cousin's case was not like any other case, and, though for- 
 malities might be necessaiy, it was rather absurd to pretend 
 that it was like any other case. In what manner it differed 
 from other cases Samuel did not analytically inquire. He 
 thought young Lawton was self-important, and Daniel too 
 humble, in the colloquy of these two, and he endeavoured to 
 indicate, by the dignity of his own demeanour, that in his 
 opinion the proper relative tones had not been set. He 
 could not understand Daniel's attitude, for he lacked im- 
 agination to realize what Daniel had been through. After 
 all, Daniel was not a murderer ; his wife's death was due to 
 accident, was simply a mishap. 
 
 But in the crowded and stinking court-room of the Town 
 Hall, Samuel began to feel qualms. It occurred that the 
 Stipendiary Magistrate was sitting that morning at Bursley. 
 He sat alone, as not one of the Borough Justices cared to 
 occupy the bench while a Town Councillor was in the dock. 
 The Stipendiary, recently appointed, was a young man, from 
 the southern part of the county ; and a Town Councillor of 
 Bursley was no more to him than a petty tradesman to a man 
 of fashion. He was youthfully enthusiastic for the majesty 
 and the impartiality of English justice, and behaved as 
 though the entire responsibility for the safety of that vast 
 fabric rested on his shoulders. He and the barrister from 
 Hanbridge had had a historic quarrel at Cambridge, and 
 their behaviour to each other was a lesson to the vulgar in the 
 art of chill and consummate politeness. Young Lawton, 
 having been to Oxford, secretly scorned the pair of them, 
 but, as he had engaged counsel, he of course was precluded 
 from adding to the eloquence, which chagrined him. These 
 three were the aristocracy of the court-room ; they knew it ; 
 Samuel Povey knew it ; everybody knew it, and felt it. The 
 barrister brought an unexceptionable zeal to the performance 
 of his duties ; he referred in suitable terms to Daniel's char- 
 acter and high position in the town, but nothing could hide 
 
ANOTHER CRIME. 223 
 
 the fact that for him too his client was a petty tradesman 
 accused of simple murder. Naturally the Stipendiary was 
 bound to show that before the law all men are equal — the 
 Town Councillor and the common tippler ; he succeeded. 
 The policeman gave his evidence, and the Inspector swore 
 to what Daniel Povey had said when charged. The hearing 
 
 Eroceeded so smoothly and quickly that it seemed naught 
 ut an empty rite, with Daniel as a lay figure in it. The 
 Stipendiary achieved marvellously the illusion that to him a 
 murder by a Town Councillor in St. Luke's Square was quite 
 an everyday matter. Bail was inconceivable, and the bar- 
 rister, being unable to suggest any reason why the Stipendi- 
 ary should grant a remand — indeed, there was no reason — 
 Daniel Povey was committed to the Stafford Assizes for trial. 
 The Stipendiary instantly turned to the consideration of an 
 alleged offence against the Factory Acts by a large local firm 
 of potters. The young magistrate had mistaken his vocation. 
 With his steely calm, with his imperturbable detachment 
 from weak humanity, he ought to have been a General of 
 the Order of Jesuits. 
 
 Daniel was removed — he did not go : he was removed, by 
 two bare-headed constables. Samuel wanted to have speech 
 with him, and could not. And later, Samuel stood in the 
 porch of the Town Hall, and Daniel appeared out of a cor- 
 ridor, still in the keeping of two policemen, helmet ed now. 
 And down below at the bottom of the broad flight of steps, 
 up which passed dancers on the nights of subscription balls, 
 was a dense crowd, held at bay by other policemen ; and 
 beyond the crowd a black van. And Daniel — to his cousin 
 a sort of Christ between thieves — was hurried past the 
 privileged loafers in the corridor, and down the broad steps. 
 A murmuring wave agitated the crowd. Unkempt idlers 
 and ne'er-do-wells in corduroy leaped up like tigers in the 
 air, and the policemen fought them back furiously. And 
 Daniel and his guardians shot through the little living lane. 
 Quick ! Quick ! For the captive is more sacred even than a 
 messiah. The law has him in charge ! And like a feat of 
 prestidigitation Daniel disappeared into the blackness of the 
 van. A door slammed loudly, triumphantly, and a whip 
 cracked. The crowd had been balked. It was as though the 
 crowd had yelled for Daniel's blood and bones, and the faith- 
 ful constables had saved him from their lust. 
 
 Yes, Samuel had qualms. He had a sickness in the 
 stomach. 
 
 The aged Superintendent of Police walked by, with the 
 aged Rector. The Rector was Daniel's friend. Never before 
 
224 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 had the Rector spoken to the Nonconformist Samuel, but 
 now he spoke to him ; he squeezed his hand. 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Povey ! " he ejaculated grievously. 
 
 " I — I'm afraid it's serious ! " Samuel stammered. He 
 hated to admit that it was serious, but the words came out 
 of his mouth. 
 
 He looked at the Superintendent of Police, expecting the 
 Superintendent to assure him that it was not serious ; but 
 the Superintendent only raised his small white-bearded chin, 
 saying nothing. Tlie Rector shook his head, and shook a 
 senile tear out of his eye. 
 
 After another chat with young Lawton, Samuel, on behalf 
 of Daniel, dropped his pose of the righteous man to whom a 
 mere mishap has occurred, and who is determined, with the 
 lofty pride of innocence, to indulge all the whims of the law, 
 to be more royalist than the king. He perceived that the 
 law must be ionght v/ith its own weapons, that no advantage 
 must be surrenderor, and every possible advantage seized. 
 He was truly astonished at himself that such a pose had ever 
 been adopted. His eyes were opened ; he saw things as they 
 were. 
 
 He returned home through a Square that was more in- 
 terested than ever in the facade of his cousin's house. People 
 were beginning to come from Hanbridge, Knype, Longshaw, 
 Turnhill, and villages such as Moorthorne, to gaze at that 
 facade. And the fourth edition of the Signal, containing a 
 full report of v/hat the Stipendiary and the barrister had said 
 to each other, was being cried. 
 
 In his shop he found customers, as absorbed in the triviali- 
 ties 0'2 purchase as though nothing whatever had happened. 
 He was shocked ; he resented their callousness. 
 
 "I'm too busy now," he said curtly to one who accosted 
 him. 
 
 " Sam ! " his wife called him in a low voice. She was 
 standing behind the till. 
 
 " What is it ? " He was ready to crush, and especially to 
 crush indiscreet babble in the shop. He thought she was 
 going to vent her womanly curiosity at once. 
 
 " Mr. Huntbach is waiting for you in the parlour," said 
 Constance. 
 
 " Mr. Huntbach ? " 
 
 " Yes, from Longshaw." She whispered, " It's Mrs. Povey's 
 cousin. He's come to see about the funeral and so on, the — 
 the inquest, I suppose." 
 
 Samuel paused. " Oh, has he ! " said he defiantly. " Well, 
 I'll see him. If he wants to see me, I'll see him." 
 
ANOTHER CRIME. 225 
 
 That evening Constance learned all that was in his mind 
 of bitterness against the memory of the dead woman whose 
 failings had brought Daniel Povey to Stafford gaol and Dick 
 to the Pirehill Infirmary. 'Again and again, in the ensuing 
 days, he referred to the state of foul discomfort which he 
 had discovered in Daniel's house. He nursed a feud against 
 all her relatives, and when, after the inquest, at which he 
 gave evidence full of resentment, she was buried, he vented 
 an angry sigh of relief, and said : " Well, she's out of the 
 way ! " Thenceforward he had a mission, religious in its 
 solemn intensity, to defend and save Daniel. He took the 
 enterprise upon himself, spending the whole of himself upon 
 it, to the neglect of his business and the scorn of his health. 
 He lived solely for Daniel's trial, pouring out money in pre- 
 paration for it. He thought and spoke of nothing else. 
 The affair was his one preoccupation. And as the weeks 
 passed, he became more and more sure of success, more and 
 more sure that he would return with Daniel to Bursley in 
 triumph after the assize. He was convinced of the impos- 
 sibility that " anything should happen " to Daniel ; the cir- 
 cumstances were too clear, too overwhelmingly in Daniel's 
 favour. 
 
 When Brindley, the second-best baker and confectioner, 
 made an offer for Daniel's business as a going concern, he was 
 indignant at first. Then Constance, and the lawyer, and 
 Daniel (whom he saw on every permitted occasion) between 
 them persuaded him that if some arrangement was not made, 
 and made quickly, the business would lose all its value, and 
 he consented, on Daniel's behalf, to a temporary agreement 
 under which Brindley should reopen the shop and manage it 
 on certain terms until Daniel regained his freedom towards 
 the end of January. He would not listen to Daniel's plain- 
 tive insistence that he would never care to be seen in Bursley 
 again. He pooh-poohed it. He protested furiously that the 
 whole town was seething with sympathy for Daniel ; and 
 this was true. He became Daniel's defending angel, rescu- 
 ing Daniel from Daniel's own weakness and apathy. He 
 became, indeed, Daniel. 
 
 One morning the shop-shutter was wound up, and Brindley, 
 inflated with the importance of controlling two establish- 
 ments, strutted in and out under the sign of Daniel Povey. 
 And traffic in bread and cakes and flour was resumed. Ap- 
 parently the sea of time had risen and covered Daniel and 
 all that was his ; for his wife was under earth, and Dick 
 lingered at Pirehill, unable to stand, and Daniel was, locked 
 away. Apparently, in the regular flow of the life of the 
 
 8 
 
226 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Square, Daniel was forgotten. But not in Samuel Povey's 
 heart was he forgotten ! There, before an altar erected to 
 the martyr, the sacred flame of a new faith burned with 
 fierce consistency. Samuel, in his greying middle-age, had 
 inherited the eternal youth of the apostle. 
 
 III. 
 
 On the dark winter morning when Samuel set off to the 
 grand assize, Constance did not ask his views as to what pro- 
 tection he would adopt against the weather. She silently 
 ranged special underclothing, and by the warmth of the fire, 
 which for days she had kept ablaze in the bedroom, Samuel 
 silently donned the special underclothing. Over that, with 
 particular fastidious care, he put his best suit. Not a word 
 was spoken. Constance and he were not estranged, but the 
 relations between them were in a state of feverish excitation. 
 Samuel had had a cold on his flat chest for weeks, and nothing 
 that Constance could invent would move it. A few days in 
 bed or even in one room at a uniform temperature would 
 have surely worked the cure. Samuel, however, would not 
 stay in one room ; he would not stay in the house, nor yet 
 in Bursley. He would take his lacerating cough on chilly 
 trains to Stafford. He had no ears for reason ; he simply 
 could not listen ; he was in a dream. After Christmas a 
 crisis came. Constance grew desperate. It was a battle 
 between her will and his that occurred one night when Con- 
 stance, marshalling all her forces, suddenly insisted that he 
 must go out no more until he was cured. In the fight Con- 
 stance was scarcely recognizable. She deliberately gave way 
 to hysteria ; she was no longer soft and gentle ; she flung 
 bitterness at him like vitriol; she shrieked like a common 
 shrew. It seems almost incredible that Constance could 
 have gone so far ; but she did. She accused him, amid sobs, 
 of putting his cousin before his wife and son, of not caring 
 whether or not she was left a widow as the result of his 
 obstinacy. And she ended by crying passionately that she 
 might as well talk to a post. She might just as well have 
 talked to a post. Samuel answered quietly and coldly. He 
 told her that it was useless for her to put herself about, as he 
 should act as he thought fit. It was a most extraordinary 
 scene, and quite unique in their annals. Constance was 
 beaten. She accepted the defeat, gradually controlling her 
 sobs and changing her tone to the tone of the vanquished. 
 
ANOTHER CRIME. 227 
 
 She kissed him in bed, kissing the rod. And he gravely- 
 kissed her. 
 
 Henceforward she knew, in practice, what the inevitable, 
 when you have to live with it, may contain of anguish wretched 
 and humiliating. Her husband was risking his life, so she 
 was absolutely convinced, and she could do nothing ; she 
 had come to the bed-rock of Samuel's character. She felt 
 that, for the time being, she had a madman in the house, 
 who could not be treated according to ordinary principles. 
 The continual strain aged her. Her one source of relief was 
 to talk with Cyril. She talked to him without reserve, and 
 the words " your father," " your father," were everlastingly 
 on her complaining tongue. Yes, she was utterly changed. 
 Often she would weep when alone. 
 
 Nevertheless she frequently forgot that she had been 
 beaten. She had no notion of honourable warfare. She was 
 always beginning again, always firing under a flag of truce ; 
 and thus she constituted a very inconvenient opponent. 
 Samuel was obliged, while hardening on the main point, to 
 compromise on lesser questions. She too could be formi- 
 dable, and when her lips took a certain pose, and her eyes 
 glowed, he would have put on forty mufflers had she com- 
 manded. Thus it was she who arranged all the details of 
 the supreme journey to Stafford. Samuel was to drive to 
 Knype, so as to avoid the rigours of the Loop Line train 
 from Bursley and the waiting on cold platforms. At Knype 
 he was to take the express, and to travel first-class. 
 
 After he was dressed on that gas-lit morning, he learnt bit 
 by bit the extent of her elaborate preparations. The break- 
 fast was a special breakfast, and he had to eat it all. Then 
 the cab came, and he saw Amy put hot bricks into it. Con- 
 stance herself put goloshes over his boots, not because it was 
 damp, but because indiarubber keeps the feet warm. Con- 
 stance herself bandaged his neck, and unbuttoned his waist- 
 coat and stuck an extra flannel under his dickey. Constance 
 herself warmed his woollen gloves, and enveloped him in his 
 largest overcoat. 
 
 Samuel then saw Cyril getting ready to go out. " Where 
 are you off ? " he demanded. 
 
 "He's going with you as far as Knype," said Constance 
 grimly. "He'll see you into the train and then come back 
 here in the cab." 
 
 She had sprung this indignity upon him. She glared. 
 Cyril glanced with timid bravado from one to tlie other. 
 Samuel had to yield. 
 
 Thus in the winter darkness — for it was not yet dawn — 
 
228 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Samuel set forth to the trial, escorted by his son. The 
 reverberation of his appalling cough from the cab was the 
 last thing that Constance heard. 
 
 During most of the day Constance sat in " Miss Insult's 
 corner " in the shop. Twenty years ago this very corner 
 had been hers. But now, instead of large millinery-boxes 
 enwrapped in brown paper, it was shut off from the rest of 
 the counter by a rich screen of mahogany and ground-glass, 
 and within the enclosed space all the apparatus necessary to 
 the activity of Miss Insull had been provided for. However, 
 it remained the coldest part of the whole shop, as Miss Insull's 
 fingers testified. Constance established herself there more 
 from a desire to do something, to interfere in something, than 
 from a necessity of supervising the shop, though she had said 
 to Samuel that she would keep an eye on the shop. Miss 
 Insull, whose throne was usurped, had to sit by the stove 
 with less important creatures ; she did not like it, and her 
 underlings suffered accordingly. 
 
 It was a long day. Towards tea-time, just before Cyril 
 was due from school, Mr. Critchlow came surprisingly in. 
 That is to say, his arrival was less of a surprise to Miss Insull 
 and the rest of the staff than to Constance. For he had lately 
 formed an irregular habit of popping in at tea-time, to chat 
 with Miss Insull. Mr. Critchlow was still defying time. He 
 kept his long, thin figure perfectly erect. His features had 
 not altered. His hair and beard could not have been whiter 
 than they had been for years past. He wore his long white 
 apron, and over that a thick reefer jacket. In his long, 
 knotty fingers he carried a copy of the Signal. 
 
 Evidently he had not expected to find the corner occupied 
 by Constance. She was sewing. 
 
 " So it's you ! " he said, in his unpleasant, grating voice, 
 not even glancing at Miss Insull. He had gained the reputa- 
 tion of being the rudest old man in Bursley. But his general 
 demeanour expressed indifference rather than rudeness. It 
 was a manner that said : " You've got to take me as I am. 
 I may be an egotist, hard, mean, and convinced ; but those 
 who don't like it can lump it. I'm indifferent." 
 
 He put one elbow on the top of the screen, showing the 
 Signal. 
 
 1 Mr. Critchlow ! " said Constance, primly ; she had ac- 
 quired Samuel's dislike of him. 
 
 " It's begun ! " he observed with mysterious glee. 
 
 " Has it ? " Constance said eagerly. "Is it in the paper 
 already ? " 
 
 She had been far more disturbed about her husband's 
 
ANOTHER CRIME. 229 
 
 health than about the trial of Daniel Povey for murder, but 
 her interest in the trial was of course tremendous. And this 
 news, that it had actually begun, thrilled her. 
 
 " Ay ! " said Mr. Critchlow. " Didn't ye hear the Signal 
 boy hollering just now all over the Square ? " 
 
 " No," said Constance. For her, newspapers did not exist. 
 She never had the idea of opening one, never felt any curi- 
 osity which she could not satisfy, if she could satisfy it at all, 
 without the powerful aid of the press. And even on this 
 day it had not occurred to her that the Signal might be 
 worth opening. 
 
 " Ay I " repeated Mr. Critchlow. " Seemingly it began 
 at two o'clock — or thereabouts." He gave a moment of his 
 attention to a noisy gas-jet, which he carefully lowered. 
 
 " What does it say ? " 
 
 " Nothing yet ! " said Mr. Critchlow ; and they read the 
 few brief sentences, under their big heading, which described 
 the formal commencement of the trial of Daniel Povey for 
 the murder of his wife." " There was some as said," he re- 
 marked, pushing up his spectacles, " that grand jury would 
 alter the charge, or summat ! " He laughed, grimly tolerant 
 of the extreme absurdity. " Ah ! " he added contempla- 
 tively turning his head to see if the assistants were listening. 
 They were. It would have been too much, on such a day, 
 to expect a strict adherence to the etiquette of the shop. 
 
 Constance had been hearing a good deal lately of grand 
 juries, but she had understood nothing, nor had she sought 
 to understand. 
 
 " I'm very glad it's come on so soon," she said. " In a 
 sense, that is ! I was afraid Sam might be kept at Stafford 
 for days. Do you think it will last long ? " 
 
 " Not it ! " said Mr. Critchlow, positively. " There's 
 naught in it to spin out." 
 
 Then a silence, punctuated by the sound of stitching. 
 
 Constance would really have preferred not to converse with 
 the old man ; but the desire for reassurance, for the calming 
 of her own fears, forced her to speak, though she knew well 
 that Mr. Critchlow was precisely the last man in the town 
 to give moral assistance if he thought it was wanted. 
 
 " I do hope everything will be all right ! " she murmured. 
 
 " Everything'll be all right ! " he said gaily. " Every- 
 thing'll be all right. Only it'll be all wrong for Dan." 
 
 " Whatever do you mean, Mr. Critchlow ? " she protested. 
 Nothing, she reflected, could rouse pity in that heart, not 
 even a tragedy like Daniel's. She bit her lip for having 
 spoken. 
 
23© THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Well," he said in loud tones, frankly addressing the girls 
 round the stove as much as Constance. " I've met with 
 some rare good arguments this new year, no mistake ! There's 
 been some as say that Dan never meant to do it. That's as 
 may be. But if it's a good reason for not hanging, there's 
 an end to capital punishment in this country. ' Never 
 meant ' ! There's a lot of 'em as * never meant ' ! Then 
 I'm told as she was a galivanting woman and no house- 
 keeper, and as often drunk as sober. I'd no call to be told 
 that. If strangling is a right punishment for a wife as 
 spends her time in drinking brandy instead of sweeping floors 
 and airing sheets, then Dan's safe. But I don't seem to see 
 Judge Lindley telling the jury as it is. I've been a juryman 
 under Judge Lindley myself — and more than once — and I 
 don't seem to see him, like ! " He paused with his mouth 
 open. " As for all them nobs," he continued, " including 
 th' rector, as have gone to Stafford to kiss the book and 
 swear that Dan's reputation is second to none — if they could 
 ha' sworn as Dan wasn't in th' house at all that night, if they 
 could ha' sworn he was in Jericho, there'd ha' been some 
 sense in their going. But as it is, they'd ha' done better to 
 stop at home and mind their business. Bless us ! Sam 
 wanted me to go ! " 
 
 He laughed again, in the faces of the horrified and angry 
 women. 
 
 "I'm surprised at you, Mr. Critchlow ! I really am ! " 
 Constance exclaimed. 
 
 And the assistants inarticulately supported her with 
 vague sounds. Miss Insull got up and poked the stove. 
 Every soul in the establishment was loyally convinced that 
 Daniel Povey would be acquitted, and to breathe a doubt 
 on the brightness of this certainty was a hideous crime. 
 The conviction was not within the domain of reason ; it was 
 an act of faith ; and arguments merely fretted, without in 
 the slightest degree disturbing it. 
 
 " Ye may be ! " Mr. Critchlow gaily concurred. He was 
 very content. 
 
 Just as he shuffled round to leave the shop, Cyril entered. 
 Good afternoon, Mr. Critchlow," said Cyril, sheepishly 
 polite. 
 
 Mr. Critchlow gazed hard at the boy, then nodded his 
 head several times rapidly, as though to say : " Here's 
 another fool in the making ! So the generations follow one 
 another ! " He made no answer to the salutation, and de- 
 parted. 
 
 Cyril ran round to his mother's corner, pitching his bag 
 
ANOTHER CRIME. 231 
 
 on to the showroom stairs as he passed them. Taking off 
 his hat, he kissed her, and she unbuttoned his overcoat with 
 her cold hands. • 
 
 " What's old Methuselah after ? " he demanded. 
 
 " Hush ! " Constance softly corrected him. " He came 
 in to tell me the trial had started." 
 
 " Oh, I knew that ! A boy bought a paper and I saw it. 
 I say, mother, will father be in the paper ? " And then in 
 a different tone : "I say, mother, what is there for tea ? " 
 
 When his stomach had learnt exactly what there was for 
 tea, the boy began to show an immense and talkative curi- 
 osity in the trial. He would not set himself to his home- 
 lessons. " It's no use, mother," he said, " I can't." They 
 returned to the shop together, and Cyril would go every 
 moment to the door to listen for the cry of a newsboy. Pres- 
 ently he hit upon the idea that perhaps newsboys might 
 be crying the special edition of the Signal in the market-place, 
 in front of the Town Hall, to the neglect of St. Luke's Square. 
 And nothing would satisfy him but he must go forth and see. 
 He went, without his overcoat, promising to run. The shop 
 waited with a strange anxiety. Cyril had created, by his 
 restless movements to and fro, an atmosphere of strained 
 expectancy. It seemed now as if the whole town stood with 
 beating heart, fearful of tidings and yet burning to get them. 
 Constance pictured Stafford, which she had never seen, and 
 a court of justice, which she had never seen, and her husband 
 and Daniel in it. And she waited. 
 
 Cyril ran in. " No ! " he announced breathlessly. " Noth- 
 ing yet." 
 
 Don't take cold, now you're hot," Constance advised. 
 
 But he would keep near the door. Soon he ran off again. 
 
 And perhaps fifteen seconds after he had gone, the strident 
 cry of a Signal boy was heard in the distance, faint and in- 
 distinct at first, then clearer and louder. 
 
 " There's a paper ! " said the apprentice. 
 
 " Sh ! " said Constance, listening. 
 
 " Sh ! " echoed Miss Insull. 
 
 " Yes, it is ! " said Constance. " Miss Insull, just step out 
 and get a paper. Here's a halfpenny." 
 
 The halfpenny passed quickly from one thimbled hand to 
 another. Miss Insull scurried. 
 
 She came in triumphantly with the sheet, which Constance 
 tremblingly took. Constance could not find the report at 
 first. Miss Insull pointed to it, and read — 
 
 " ' Summing up ! ' Lower down, lower down ! ' After an 
 absence of thirty-five minutes the jury found the prisoner 
 
232 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 guilty of murder, with a recommendation to mercy. The 
 judge assumed the black cap and pronounced sentence of 
 death, saying that he would forward the recommendation 
 to the proper quarter.' " 
 
 Cyril returned. " Not yet ! " he was saying — when he 
 saw the paper lying on the counter. His crest fell. 
 
 Long after the shop was shut, Constance and Cyril waited 
 in the parlour for the arrival of the master of the house. 
 Constance was in the blackest despair. She saw nothing but 
 death around her. She thought : misfortunes never come 
 singly. Why did not Samuel come ? All was ready for 
 him, everything that her imagination could suggest, in the 
 way of food, remedies, and the means of warmth. Amy was 
 not allowed to go to bed, lest she might be needed. Constance 
 did not even hint that Cyril should go to bed. The dark, 
 dreadful minutes ticked themselves off on the mantelpiece 
 until only five minutes separated Constance from the moment 
 when she would not know what to do next. It was twenty- 
 five minutes past eleven. If at half-past Samuel did not 
 appear, then he could not come that night, unless the last 
 train from Stafford was inconceivably late. 
 
 The sound of a carriage ! It ceased at the door. Mother 
 and son sprang up. 
 
 Yes, it was Samuel ! She beheld him once more. And 
 the sight of his condition, moral and physical, terrified her. 
 His great strapping son and Amy helped him upstairs. 
 " Will he ever come down those stairs again ? " This 
 thought lanced Constance's heart. The pain was come and 
 gone in a moment, but it had surprised her tranquil common- 
 sense, which was naturally opposed to, and gently scornful 
 of, hysterical fears. As she puffed, with her stoutness, up 
 the stairs, that bland cheerfulness of hers cost her an im- 
 mense effort of will. She was profoundly troubled ; great 
 disasters seemed to be slowly approaching her from all 
 quarters. 
 
 Should she send for the doctor ? No. To do so would 
 only be a concession to the panic instinct. She knew exactly 
 what was the matter with Samuel : a severe cough persist- 
 ently neglected, no more. As she had expressed herself many 
 times to inquirers, " He's never been what you may call ill." 
 Nevertheless, as she laid him in bed and posseted him, how 
 frail and fragile he looked ! And he was so exhausted that 
 he would not even talk about the trial. 
 
 " If he's not better to-morrow I shall send for the doctor ! " 
 she said to herself. As for his getting up, she swore she 
 would keep him in bed by force if necessary. 
 

 ANOTHER CRIME. 233 
 
 IV. 
 
 The next morning she was glad and proud that she had 
 not yielded to a scare. For he was most strangely and 
 obviously better. He had slept heavily, and she had slept a 
 little. True that Daniel was condemned to death ! Leaving 
 Daniel to his fate, she was conscious of joy springing in her 
 heart. How absurd to have asked herself : Will he ever 
 come down those stairs again ? " ! 
 
 A message reached her from the forgotten shop during the 
 morning, that Mr. Lawton had called to see Mr. Povey. 
 Already Samuel had wanted to arise, but she had forbidden 
 it in the tone of a woman who is dangerous, and Samuel had 
 been very reasonable. He now said that Mr. Lawton must 
 be asked up. She glanced round the bedroom. It was 
 " done " ; it was faultlessly correct as a sick chamber. She 
 agreed to the introduction into it of the man from another 
 sphere, and aft^r a preliminary minute she left the two to 
 talk together. This visit of young Lawton 's was a dramatic 
 proof of Samuel's importance, and of the importance of the 
 matter in hand. The august occasion demanded etiquette, 
 and etiquette said that a wife should depart from her husband 
 when he had to transact affairs beyond the grasp of a wife. 
 
 The idea of a petition to the Home Secretary took shape 
 at this interview, and before the day was out it had spread 
 over the town and over the Five Towns, and it was in the 
 Signal. The Signal spoke of Daniel Povey as " the condemned 
 man." And the phrase startled the whole district into an 
 indignant agitation for his reprieve. The district woke up to 
 the fact that a Town Councillor, a figure in the world, an 
 honest tradesman of unspotted character, was cooped soli- 
 tary in a little cell at Stafford, waiting to be hanged by the 
 neck till he was dead. The district determined that this must 
 not and should not be. Why ! Dan Povey had actually once 
 been Chairman of the Bursley Society for the Prosecution 
 of Felons, that association for annual eating and drinking, 
 whose members humorously called each other " felons ! 
 Impossible, monstrous, that an ex-chairman of the " Felons " 
 should be a sentenced criminal ! 
 
 However, there was nothing to fear. No Home Secretary 
 would dare to run counter to the jury's recommendation and 
 the expressed wish of the whole district. Besides, the Home 
 Secretary's nephew was M.P. for the Knype division. Of 
 course a verdict of guilty had been inevitable. Everybody 
 recognized that now. Even Samuel and all the hottest 
 
 8a 
 
234 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 partisans of Daniel Povey recognized it. They talked as if 
 they had always foreseen it, directly contradicting all that 
 they had said on only the previous day. Without any sense 
 of any inconsistency or of shame, they took up an absolutely 
 new position. The structure of blind faith had once again 
 crumbled at the assault of realities, and unhealthy, un-English 
 truths, the statement of which would have meant ostracism 
 twenty-four hours earlier, became suddenly the platitudes of 
 the Square and the market-place. 
 
 Despatch was necessary in the affair of the petition, for 
 the condemned man had but three Sundays. But there was 
 delay at the beginning, because neither young Lawton nor 
 any of his colleagues was acquainted with the proper formula 
 of a petition to the Home Secretary for the reprieve of a 
 criminal condemned to death. No such petition had been 
 made in the district within living memory. And at first 
 young Lawton could not get sight or copy of any such 
 petition anywhere, in the Five Towns or out of them. Of 
 course there must exist a proper formula, and^of course that 
 formula and no other could be employed. Nobody was bold 
 enough to suggest that young Lawton should commence the 
 petition, " To the Most Noble the Marquis of Welwyn, K.C.B., 
 May it please your Lordship," and end it, " And your peti- 
 tioners will ever pray 1 " and insert between those phrases a 
 simple appeal for the reprieve, with a statement of reasons. 
 No ! the formula consecrated by tradition must be found. 
 And, after Daniel had arrived a day and a half nearer death, 
 it was found. A lawyer at Alnwick had the draft of a petition 
 which had secured for a murderer in Northumberland twenty 
 years' penal servitude instead of sudden death, and on 
 request he lent it to young Lawton. The prime movers in 
 the petition felt that Daniel Povey was now as good as saved. 
 Hundreds of forms were printed to receive signatures, and 
 these forms, together with copies of the petition, were laid 
 on the counters of all the principal shops, not merely in 
 Bursley, but in the other towns. They were also to be found 
 at the offices of the Signal, in railway waiting-rooms, and in 
 the various reading-rooms ; and on the second of Daniel's 
 three Sundays they were exposed in the porches of churches 
 and chapels. Chapel-keepers and vergers would come to 
 Samuel and ask with the heavy inertia of their stupidity : 
 " About pens and ink, sir ? " These officials had the air of 
 audaciously disturbing the sacrosanct routine of centuries in 
 order to confer a favour. 
 
 Samuel continued to improve. His cough shook him less, 
 and his appetite increased. Constance allowed him to 
 
ANOTHER CRIME. 235 
 
 establish himself in the drawing-room, which was next to the 
 bedroom, and of which the grate was particularly efficient. 
 Here, in an old winter overcoat, he directed the vast affair 
 of the petition, which grew* daily to vaster proportions. 
 Samuel dreamed of twenty thousand signatures. Each sheet 
 held twenty signatures, and several times a day he counted 
 the sheets ; the supply of forms actually failed once, and 
 Constance herself had to hurry to the printers to order more. 
 Samuel was put into a passion by this carelessness of the 
 printers. He offered Cyril sixpence for every sheet of 
 signatures which the boy would obtain. At first Cyril was 
 too shy to canvass, but his father made him blush, and in a 
 few hours Cyril had developed into an eager canvasser. One . 
 whole day he stayed away from school to canvass. Altogether 
 he earned over fifteen shillings, quite honestly except that 
 he got a companion to forge a couple of signatures with 
 addresses lacking at the end of a last sheet, generously 
 rewarding him with sixpence, the value of the entire 
 sheet. 
 
 When Samuel had received a thousand sheets with twenty- 
 thousand signatures, he set his heart on twenty-five thousand 
 signatures. And he also announced his firm intention of 
 accompanying young Lawton to London with the petition. 
 The petition had, in fact, become one of the most remark- 
 able petitions of modern times. So the Signal said. The 
 Signal gave a daily account of its progress, and its progress 
 was astonishing. In certain streets every householder had 
 signed it. The first sheets had been reserved for the signa- 
 tures of members of Parliament, ministers of religion, civic 
 dignitaries, justices of the peace, etcf These sheets were 
 nobly filled. The aged rector of Bursley signed first of all ; 
 after him the Mayor of Bursley, as was right ; then sundry 
 M.P.'s. 
 
 Samuel emerged from the drawing-room. He went into 
 the parlour, and, later, into the shop ; and no evil conse- 
 quence followed. His cough was nearly, but not quite, 
 cured. The weather was extraordinarily mild for the 
 season. He repeated that he should go with the petition to 
 London ; and he went ; Constance could not validly oppose 
 the journey. She, too, was a little intoxicated by the petition. 
 It weighed considerably over a hundredweight. The crown- 
 ing signature, that of the M.P. for Knype, was duly obtained 
 in London, and Samuel's one disappointment was that his 
 hope of twenty-five thousand signatures had fallen short of 
 realization — by only a few score. The few score could have 
 been got had not time urgently pressed. He returned from 
 
236 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 London a man of mark, full of confidence ; but his cough 
 was worse again. 
 
 His confidence in the power of public opinion and the 
 inherent virtue of justice might have proved to be well 
 placed, had not the Home Secretary happened to be one of 
 your humane officials. The Marquis of Welwyn was cele- 
 brated through every stratum of the governing classes for his 
 humane instincts, which were continually fighting against 
 his sense of duty. Unfortunately his sense of duty, which 
 he had inherited from several centuries of ancestors, made 
 havoc among his humane instincts on nearly every occasion 
 of conflict. It was reported that he suffered horribly in con- 
 sequence. Others also suffered, for he was never known to 
 advise a remission of a sentence of flogging. Certain capital 
 sentences he had commuted, but he did not commute 
 Daniel Povey's. He could not permit himself to be influ- 
 enced by a wave of popular sentiment, and assuredly not 
 by his own nephew's signature. He gave to the case the 
 patient, remorseless examination which he gave to every 
 case. He spent a sleepless night in trying to discover a 
 reason for yielding to his humane instincts, but without 
 success. As Judge Lindley remarked in his confidential 
 report, the sole arguments in favour of Daniel were provo- 
 cation and his previous high character ; and these were no 
 sort of an argument. The provocation was utterly inade- 
 quate, and the previous high character was quite too ludi- 
 crously beside the point. So once more the Marquis's 
 humane instincts were routed and he suffered horribly. 
 
 On the Sunday morning after the day on which the Signal 
 had printed the menu of Daniel Povey's supreme breakfast, 
 and the exact length of the " drop " which the executioner had 
 administered to him, Constance and Cyril stood together at 
 the window of the large bedroom. The boy was in his best 
 clothes ; but Constance's garments gave no sign of the 
 Sabbath. She wore a large apron over an old dress that was 
 rather tight for her. She was pale and looked ill. 
 
 " Oh, mother ! " Cyril exclaimed suddenly. " Listen ! 
 I'm sure I can hear the band." 
 
 She checked him with a soundless movement of her lips ; 
 and they both glanced anxiously at the silent bed, Cyril with 
 a gesture of apology for having forgotten that he must make 
 no noise. 
 
ANOTHER CRIME. 237 
 
 The strains of the band came from down King Street, in 
 the direction of St. Luke's Church. The music appeared to 
 linger a long time in the distance, and then it approached, 
 growing louder, and the Bursley Town Silver Prize Band 
 passed under the window at the solemn pace of Handel's 
 " Dead March." The effect of that requiem, heavy with its 
 own inherent beauty and with the vast weight of harrowing 
 tradition, was to wring the tears from Constance's eyes ; 
 they fell on her aproned bosom, and she sank into a chair. 
 And though the cheeks of the trumpeters were puffed out, 
 and though the drummer had to protrude his stomach and 
 arch his spine backwards lest he should tumble over his 
 drum, there was majesty in the passage of the band. The 
 boom of the drum, desolating the interruptions of the 
 melody, made sick the heart, but with a lofty grief ; and the 
 dirge seemed to be weaving a purple pall that covered every 
 meanness. 
 
 The bandsmen were not all in black, but they all wore 
 crape on their sleeves and their instruments were knotted 
 with crape. They carried in their hats a black-edged card. 
 Cyril held one of these cards in his hands. It ran thus : 
 
 SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 DANIEL POVEY 
 
 A TOWN COUNCILLOR OF THIS TOWN 
 
 JUDICIALLY MURDERED AT 8 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 
 
 8TH FEBRUARY I 888 
 
 " HE WAS MORE SINNED AGAINST THAN SINNING." 
 
 In the wake of the band came the aged Rector, bare- 
 headed, and wearing a surplice over his overcoat ; his thin 
 white hair was disarranged by the breeze that played in the 
 chilly sunshine ; his hands were folded on a gilt-edged book. 
 A curate, churchwardens, and sidesmen followed. And after 
 these, tramping through the dark mud in a procession that 
 had apparently no end, wound the unofficial male multitude, 
 nearly all in mourning, and all, save the more aristocratic, 
 carrying the memorial card in their hats. Loafers, women, 
 and children had collected on the drying pavements, and a 
 window just opposite Constance was ornamented with the 
 entire family of the landlord of the Sun Vaults. In the 
 great bar of the Vaults a barman was craning over the pitch- 
 pine screen that secured privacy to drinkers. The proces- 
 sion continued without break, eternally rising over the verge 
 
238 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 of King Street " bank," and eternally vanishing round the 
 corner into St. Luke's Square ; at intervals it was punctu- 
 ated by a clergyman, a Nonconformist minister, a town 
 crier, a group of foremen, or a few Rifle Volunteers. The 
 watching crowd grew as the procession lengthened. Then 
 another band was heard, also playing the march from Saul. 
 The first band had now reached the top of the Square, and 
 was scarcely audible from King Street. The reiterated glitter 
 in the sun of memorial cards in hats gave the fanciful illusion 
 of an impossible whitish snake that was straggling across the 
 town. Three-quarters of an hour elapsed before the tail of 
 the snake came into view, and a rabble of unkempt boys 
 closed in upon it, filling the street. 
 
 " I shall go to the drawing-room window, mother," said 
 Cyril. 
 
 She nodded. He crept out of the bedroom. 
 
 St. Luke's Square was a sea of hats and memorial cards. 
 Most of the occupiers of the Square had hung out flags at 
 half-mast, and a flag at half-mast was flying over the Town 
 Hall in the distance. Sightseers were at every window. 
 The two bands had united at the top of the Square ; and 
 behind them, on a North Staffordshire Railway lorry, stood 
 the white-clad Rector and several black figures. The Rector 
 was speaking ; but only those close to the lorry could hear 
 his feeble treble voice. 
 
 Such was the massive protest of Bursley against what 
 Bursley regarded as a callous injustice. The execution of 
 Daniel Povey had most genuinely excited the indignation 
 of the town. That execution was not only an injustice ; 
 it was an insult, a humiliating snub. And the worst was 
 that the rest of the country had really discovered no sympa- 
 thetic interest in the affair. Certain London papers, indeed, 
 in commenting casually on the execution, had slurred the 
 morals and manners of the Five Towns, professing to regard 
 the district as notoriously beyond the realm of the Ten 
 Commandments. This had helped to render furious the 
 townsmen. This, as much as anything, had encouraged the 
 spontaneous outburst of feeling which had culminated in a 
 St. Luke's Square full of people with memorial cards in their 
 hats. The demonstration had scarcely been organized ; it 
 had somehow organized itself, employing the places of 
 worship and a few clubs as centres of gathering. And it 
 proved an immense success. There were seven or eight thou- 
 sand people in the Square, and the pity was that England 
 as a whole could not have had a glimpse of the spectacle. 
 Since the execution of the elephant, nothing had so pro- 
 
ANOTHER CRIME. 239 
 
 foundry agitated Bursley. Constance, who left the bedroom 
 momentarily for the drawing-room, reflected that the death 
 and burial of Cyril's honoured grandfather, though a re- 
 sounding event, had not caused one-tenth of the stir which 
 she beheld. But then John Baines had killed nobody. 
 
 The Rector spoke too long ; every one felt that. But at 
 length he finished. The bands performed the Doxology, and 
 the immense multitudes began to disperse by the eight 
 streets that radiate from the Square. At the same time 
 one o'clock struck, and the public-houses opened with their 
 customary admirable promptitude. Respectable persons, of 
 course, ignored the public-houses and hastened homewards 
 to a delayed dinner. But in a town of over thirty thousand 
 souls there are sufficient dregs to fill all the public-houses on 
 an occasion of ceremonial excitement. Constance saw the 
 bar of the Vaults crammed with individuals whose sense of 
 decent fitness was imperfect. The barman and the landlord 
 and the principal members of the landlord's family were hard 
 put to it to quench that funereal thirst. Constance, as she ate 
 a little meal in the bedroom, could not but witness the orgy. 
 A bandsman with his silver instrument was prominent at 
 the counter. At five minutes to three the Vaults spewed 
 forth a squirt of roysterers who walked on the pavement as 
 on a tight-rope ; among them was the bandsman, his silver 
 instrument only half enveloped in its bag of green serge. He 
 established an equilibrium in the gutter. It would not 
 have mattered so seriously if he had not been a bandsman. 
 The barman and the landlord pushed the ultimate sot by 
 force into the street and bolted the door (till six o'clock) 
 just as a policeman strolled along, the first policeman of the 
 day. It became known that similar scenes were enacting 
 at the thresholds of other inns. And the judicious were sad. 
 
 VI. 
 
 When the altercation between the policeman and the 
 musician in the gutter was at its height, Samuel Povey 
 became restless ; but since he had scarcely stirred through 
 the performances of the bands, it was probably not the cries 
 of the drunkard that had aroused him. 
 
 He had shown very little interest in the preliminaries of 
 the great demonstration. The flame of his passion for the 
 case of Daniel Povey seemed to have shot up on the day 
 before the execution, and then to have expired. On that day 
 
240 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 he went to Stafford in order, by permit of the prison gover- 
 nor, to see his cousin for the last time. His condition then 
 was undoubtedly not far removed from monomania. " Un- 
 hinged " was the conventional expression which frequently 
 rose in Constance's mind as a description of the mind of her 
 husband ; but she fought it down ; she would not have it ; 
 it was too crude — with its associations. She would only ad- 
 mit that the case had " got on " his mind. A startling proof 
 of this was that he actually suggested taking Cyril with him 
 to see the condemned man. He wished Cyril to see Daniel ; 
 he said gravely that he thought Cyril ought to see him. The 
 proposal was monstrous inexplicable — or explicable only 
 by the assumption that his mind, while not unhinged, had 
 temporarily lost its balance. Constance opposed an abso- 
 lute negative, and Samuel being in every way enfeebled, 
 she overcame. As for Cyril, he was divided between fear 
 and curiosity. On the whole, perhaps Cyril regretted that he 
 would not be able to say at school that he had had speech 
 with the most celebrated killer of the age on the day before 
 his execution. 
 
 Samuel returned hysterical from Stafford. His account of 
 the scene, which he gave in a very loud voice, was a most 
 absurd and yet pathetic recital, obviously distorted by 
 memory. When he came to the point of the entrance of 
 Dick Povey, who was still at the hospital, and who had been 
 specially driven to Stafford and carried into the prison, he 
 wept without restraint. His hysteria was painful in a very 
 high degree. 
 
 He went to bed — of his own accord, for his cough had 
 improved again. And on the following day, the day of the 
 execution, he remained in bed till the afternoon. In the 
 evening the Rector sent for him to the Rectory to discuss 
 the proposed demonstration. On the next day, Saturday, 
 he said he should not get up. Icy showers were sweeping the 
 town, and his cough was worse after the evening visit to the 
 Rector. Constance had no apprehensions about him. The 
 most dangerous part of the winter was over, and there was 
 nothing now to force him into indiscretions. She said to her- 
 self calmly that he should stay in bed as long as he liked, 
 that he could not have too much repose after the cruel 
 fatigues, physical and spiritual, which he had suffered. His 
 cough was short, but not as troublesome as in the past ; 
 his face flushed, dusky, and settled in gloom ; and he was 
 slightly feverish, with quick pulse and quick breathing — 
 the symptoms of a renewed cold. He passed a wakeful night, 
 broken by brief dreams in which he talked. At dawn he had 
 
ANOTHER CRIME. 241 
 
 some hot food, asked what day it was, frowned, and seemed 
 to doze off at once. At eleven o'clock he had refused food. 
 And he had intermittently dozed during the progress of the 
 demonstration and its orgiastic sequel. 
 
 Constance had food ready for his waking, and she ap- 
 proached the bed and leaned over him. The fever had in- 
 creased somewhat, the breathing was more rapid, and his 
 lips were covered with tiny purple pimples. He feebly shook 
 his head, with a disgusted air, at her mention of food. It 
 was this obstinate refusal of food which first alarmed her. 
 A little uncomfortable suspicion shot up in her : Surely 
 there's nothing the matter with him ? 
 
 Something — impossible to say what — caused her to bend 
 still lower, and put her ear to his chest. She heard within 
 that mysterious box a rapid succession of thin, dry, crack- 
 ling sounds : sounds such as she would have produced by 
 rubbing her hair between her fingers close to her ear. The 
 crepitation ceased, then recommenced, and she perceived 
 that it coincided with the intake of his breath. He coughed ; 
 the sounds were intensified ; a spasm of pain ran over his 
 face ; and he put his damp hand to his side. 
 
 " Pain in my side ! " he whispered with difficulty. 
 
 Constance stepped into the drawing-room, where Cyril was 
 sketching by the fire. 
 
 " Cyril," she said, " go across and ask Dr. Harrop to come 
 round at once. And if he isn't in, then his new partner." 
 
 " Is it for father ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " What's the matter ? " 
 
 " Now do as I say, please," said Constance, sharply, add- 
 ing : "I don't know what's the matter. Perhaps nothing. 
 But I'm not satisfied." 
 
 The venerable Harrop pronounced the word " pneumonia." 
 It was acute double pneumonia that Samuel had got. During 
 the three worst months of the year, he had escaped the fatal 
 perils which await a man with a flat chest and a chronic 
 cough, who ignores his condition and defies the weather. But 
 a journey of five hundred yards to the Rectory had been one 
 journey too many. The Rectory was so close to the shop 
 that he had not troubled to wrap himself up as for an ex- 
 cursion to Stafford. He survived the crisis of the disease 
 and then died of toxaemia, caused by a heart that would not 
 do its duty by the blood. A casual death, scarce noticed in 
 the reaction after the great febrile demonstration ! Besides, 
 Samuel Povey never could impose himself on the burgesses. 
 He lacked individuality. He was little. I have often 
 
242 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 laughed at Samuel Povey. But I liked and respected him. 
 He was a very honest man. I have always been glad to think 
 that, at the end of his life, destiny took hold of him and dis- 
 played, to the observant, the vein of greatness which runs 
 through every soul without exception. He embraced a cause, 
 lost it, and died of it. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE WIDOW, 
 I. 
 
 Constance, alone in the parlour, stood expectant by the set 
 tea-table. She was not wearing weeds ; her mother and she, 
 on the death of her father, had talked of the various dis- 
 advantages of weeds ; her mother had worn them unwillingly, 
 and only because a public opinion not sufficiently advanced 
 had intimidated her. Constance had said : "If ever I'm a 
 widow I won't wear them," positively, in the tone of youth ; 
 and Mrs. Baines had replied : " I hope you won't, my dear." 
 That was over twenty years* ago, but Constance perfectly re- 
 membered. And now, she was a widow ! How strange and 
 how impressive was life ! And she had kept her word ; not 
 positively, not without hesitations ; for though times were 
 changed, Bursley was still Bursley ; but she had kept it. 
 
 This was the first Monday after Samuel's funeral. Exist- 
 ence in the house had been resumed on the plane which would 
 henceforth be the normal plane. Constance had put on for 
 tea a dress of black silk with a jet brooch of her mother's. 
 Her hands, just meticulously washed, had that feeling of being 
 dirty which comes from roughening of the epidermis caused 
 by a day spent in fingering stuffs. She had been " going 
 through Samuel's things, and her own, and ranging all 
 anew. It was astonishing how little the man had collected, 
 of " things," in the course of over half a century. All his 
 clothes were contained in two long drawers and a short one. 
 He had the least possible quantity of haberdashery and 
 linen, for he invariably took from the shop such articles as 
 he required, when he required them, and he wouki never 
 preserve what was done with. He possessed no jewellery 
 save a set of gold studs, a scarf-ring, and a wedding-ring ; the 
 
244 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 wedding-ring was buried with him. Once, when Constance 
 had offered him her father's gold watch and chain, he had 
 politely refused it, saying that he preferred his own — a silver 
 watch (with a black cord) which kept excellent time ; he had 
 said later that she might save the gold watch and chain for 
 Cyril when he was twenty-one. Beyond these trifles and a 
 half-empty box of cigars and a pair of spectacles, he left 
 nothing personal to himself. Some men leave behind them a 
 litter which takes months to sift and distribute. But Samuel 
 had not the mania for owning. Constance put his clothes in 
 a box, to be given away gradually (all except an overcoat 
 and handkerchiefs which might do for Cyril) ; she locked up 
 the watch and its black cord, the spectacles and the scarf- 
 ring ; she gave the gold studs to Cyril ; she climbed on a 
 chair and hid the cigar-box on the top of her wardrobe ; and 
 scarce a trace of Samuel remained ! 
 
 By his own wish the funeral had been as simple and private 
 as possible. One or two distant relations, whom Constance 
 scarcely knew and who would probably not visit her again, 
 until she too was dead, came — and went. And lo ! the affair 
 was over. The simple celerity of the funeral would have 
 satisfied even Samuel, whose tremendous self-esteem hid 
 itself so effectually behind such externals that nobody had 
 ever fully perceived it. Not even Constance quite knew 
 Samuel's secret opinion of Samuel. Constance was aware 
 that he had a ridiculous side, that his greatest lack had been 
 a lack of spectacular dignity. Even in the coffin, where 
 nevertheless most people are finally effective, he had not been 
 imposing — with his finicky little grey beard persistently 
 sticking up. 
 
 The vision of him in his coffin — there in the churchyard, 
 just at the end of King Street ! — with the lid screwed down 
 on that unimportant beard, recurred frequently in the mind 
 of the widow, as something untrue and misleading. She had 
 to say to herself : " Yes, he is really there ! And that is why 
 I have this particular feeling in my heart." She saw him 
 as an object pathetic and wistful, not majestic. And yet she 
 genuinely thought that there could not exist another hus- 
 band quite so honest, quite so just, quite so reliable, quite 
 so good, as Samuel had been. What a conscience, he had ! 
 How he would try, and try, to be fair with her ! Twenty 
 years she could remember, of ceaseless, constant endeavour 
 on his part to behave rightly to her ! She could recall many 
 an occasion when he had obviously checked himself, striving 
 against his tendency to cold abruptness and to sullenness, 
 in order to give her the respect due to a wife. What loyalty 
 
THE WIDOW. 245 
 
 was his ! How she could depend on him ! How much 
 better he was than herself (she thought with modesty) ! 
 
 His death was an amputation for her. But she faced it 
 with calmness. She was not bowed with sorrow. She did 
 not nurse the idea that her life was at an end ; on the con- 
 trary, she obstinately put it away from her, dwelling on 
 Cyril. She did not indulge in the enervating voluptuous- 
 ness of grief. She had begun in the first hours of bereave- 
 ment by picturing herself as one marked out for the blows 
 of fate. She had lost her father and her mother, and now 
 her husband. Her career seemed to be punctuated by in- 
 terments. But after a while her gentle commonsense came 
 to insist that most human beings lose their parents, and that 
 every marriage must end in either a widower or a widow, 
 and that all careers are punctuated by interments. Had 
 she not had nearly twenty-one years of happy married life ? 
 (Twenty-one years — rolled up ! The sudden thought of 
 their na'ive ignorance of life, hers and his, when they were 
 first married, brought tears into her eyes. How wise and 
 experienced she was now !) And had she not Cyril ? Com- 
 pared to many women, she was indeed very fortunate. 
 
 The one visitation which had been specially hers was the 
 disappearance of Sophia. And yet even that was not worse 
 than the death outright of Sophia, was perhaps not so bad. 
 For Sophia might return out of the darkness. The blow of 
 Sophia's flight had seemed unique when it was fresh, and 
 long afterwards ; had seemed to separate the Baines family 
 from all other families in a particular shame. But at the 
 age of forty-three Constance had learnt that such events 
 are not uncommon in families, and strange sequels to them 
 not unknown. Thinking often of Sophia, she hoped wildly 
 and frequently. 
 
 She looked at the clock ; she had a little spasm of nervous- 
 ness lest Cyril might fail to keep his word on that first day 
 of their new regular life together. And at the instant he 
 burst into the room, invading it like an armed force, having 
 previously laid waste the shop in his passage. 
 
 " I'm not late, mother ! I'm not late ! " he cried proudly. 
 
 She smiled warmly, happy in him, drawing out of him 
 balm and solace. He did not know that in that stout fa- 
 miliar body before him was a sensitive, trembling soul that 
 clutched at him ecstatically as the one reality in the uni- 
 verse. He did not know that that evening meal, partaken 
 of without hurry after school had released him to \her, was 
 to be the ceremonial sign of their intimate unity and their 
 interdependence, a tender and delicious proof that they were 
 
246 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 "all in all to each other " ; he saw only his tea, for which 
 he was hungry — just as hungry as though his father were 
 not scarcely yet cold in the grave. 
 
 But he saw obscurely that the occasion demanded some- 
 thing not quite ordinary, and so he exerted himself to be 
 boyishly charming to his mother. She said to herself " how 
 good he was." He felt at ease and confident in the future, 
 because he detected beneath her customary judicial, impar- 
 tial mask a clear desire to spoil him. 
 
 After tea, she regretfully left him, at his home-lessons, in 
 order to go into the shop. The shop was the great unsolved 
 question. What was she to do with the shop ? Was she to 
 continue the business or to sell it ? With the fortunes of 
 her father and her aunt, and the economies of twenty years, 
 she had more than sufficient means. She was indeed rich, 
 according to the standards of the Square ; nay, wealthy ! 
 Therefore she was under no material compulsion to keep the 
 shop. Moreover, to keep it would mean personal super- 
 intendence and the burden of responsibility, from which her 
 calm lethargy shrank. On the other hand, to dispose of the 
 business would mean the breaking of ties and leaving the 
 premises : and from this also she shrank. Young Lawton, 
 without being asked, had advised her to sell. But she did 
 not want to sell. She wanted the impossible : that matters 
 should proceed in the future as in the past, that Samuel's 
 death should change nothing save in her heart. 
 
 In the meantime Miss Insull was priceless. Constance 
 thoroughly understood one side of the shop ; but Miss Insull 
 understood both, and the finance of it also. Miss Insull 
 could have directed the establishment with credit, if not with 
 brilliance. She was indeed directing it at that moment. 
 Constance, however, felt jealous of Miss Insull ; she was con- 
 scious of a slight antipathy towards the faithful one. She 
 did not care to be in the hands of Miss Insull. 
 
 There were one or two customers at the millinery counter. 
 They greeted her with* a deplorable copiousness of tact. 
 Most tactfully they avoided any reference to Constance's 
 loss ; but by their tone, their glances, at Constance and at 
 each other, and their heroically restrained sighs, they spread 
 desolation as though they had been spreading ashes instead 
 of butter on bread. The assistants, too, had a special de- 
 meanour for the poor lone widow which was excessively try- 
 ing to her. She wished to be natural, and she would have 
 succeeded, had they not all of them apparently conspired 
 together to make her task impossible. 
 
 She moved away to the other side of the shop, to Samuel's 
 
THE WIDOW. 247 
 
 desk, at which he used to stand, staring absently out of the 
 little window into King Street while murmurously casting 
 figures. She lighted the gas-jet there, arranged the light 
 exactly to suit her, and then lifted the large flap of the desk 
 and drew forth some account books. 
 
 " Miss Insull ! " she called, in a low, clear voice, with a 
 touch of haughtiness and a touch of command in it. The 
 pose, a comical contradiction of Constance's benevolent char- 
 acter, was deliberately adopted ; it illustrated the effects of 
 jealousy on even the softest disposition. 
 
 Miss Insull responded. She had no alternative but to re- 
 spond. And she gave no sign of resenting her employer's 
 attitude. But then Miss Insull seldom did give any sign of 
 being human. 
 
 The customers departed, one after another, obsequiously 
 sped by the assistants, who thereupon lowered the gases 
 somewhat, according to saccular rule ; and in the dim eclipse, 
 as they restored boxes to shelves, they could hear the tran- 
 quil, regular, half-whispered conversation of the two women 
 at the desk, discussing accounts; and then the chink of 
 gold. 
 
 Suddenly there was an irruption. One of the assistants 
 sprang instinctively to the gas ; but on perceiving that the 
 disturber of peace was only a slatternly girl, hatless and 
 imperfectly clean, she decided to leave the gas as it was, 
 and put on a condescending, suspicious demeanour. 
 
 " If you please, can I speak to the missis ? " said the girl, 
 breathlessly. 
 
 She seemed to be about eighteen years of age, fat and 
 plain. Her blue frock was torn, and over it she wore a rough 
 brown apron, caught up at one corner to the waist. Her 
 bare forearms were of brick-red colour. 
 
 " What is it ? " demanded the assistant. 
 
 Miss Insull looked over her shoulder across the shop. " It 
 must be Maggie's — Mrs. Holhns's daughter ! " said Miss 
 Insull under her breath. 
 
 " What can she want ? " said Constance, leaving the desk 
 instantly ; and to the girl, who stood sturdily holding her 
 own against the group of assistants : " You are Mrs. Holhns's 
 daughter, aren't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, mum." 
 
 " What's your name ? " 
 
 ". Maggie, mum. And, if you please, mother's sent me to 
 ask if you'll kindly give her a funeral card." 
 
 " A funeral card ? " \ 
 
 " Yes. Of Mr. Povey. She's been expecting of one, and 
 
248 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 she thought as how perhaps you'd forgotten it, especially as 
 she wasn't asked to the funeral." 
 
 The girl stopped. 
 
 Constance perceived that by mere negligence she had seri- 
 ously wounded the feelings of Maggie, senior. The truth was, 
 she had never thought of Maggie. She ought to have re- 
 membered that funeral cards were almost the sole ornamenta- 
 tion of Maggie's abominable cottage. 
 
 " Certainly," she replied after a pause. " Miss Insull, 
 there are a few cards left in the desk, aren't there ? Please 
 put me one in an envelope for Mrs. Hollins." 
 
 She gave the heavily bordered envelope to the ruddy wench, 
 who enfolded it in her apron, and with hurried, shy thanks 
 ran off. 
 
 " Tell your mother I send her a card with pleasure," Con- 
 stance called after the girl. 
 
 The strangeness of the hazards of life made her thought- 
 ful. She, to whom Maggie had always seemed an old woman, 
 was a widow, but Maggie's husband survived as a lusty in- 
 valid. And she guessed that Maggie, vilely struggling in 
 squalor and poverty, was somehow happy in her frowsy, care- 
 less way. 
 
 She went back to the accounts, dreaming. 
 
 II. 
 
 When the shop had been closed, under her own critical 
 and precise superintendence, she extinguished the last gas in 
 it and returned to the parlour, wondering where she might 
 discover some entirely reliable man or boy to deal with the 
 shutters night and morning. Samuel had ordinarily dealt 
 with the shutters himself, and on extraordinary occasions 
 and during holidays Miss Insull and one of her subordinates 
 had struggled with their unwieldiness. But the extra- 
 ordinary occasion had now become ordinary, and Miss Insull 
 could not be expected to continue indefinitely in the func- 
 tions of a male. Constance had a mind to engage an errand- 
 boy, a luxury against which Samuel had always set his face. 
 She did not dream of asking the herculean Cyril to open and 
 shut the shop. 
 
 He had apparently finished his home-lessons. The books 
 were pushed aside, and he was sketching in lead-pencil on a 
 drawing-block. To the right of the fireplace, over the sofa, 
 there hung an engraving after Landseer, showing a lonely 
 
THE WIDOW. 249 
 
 stag paddling into a lake. The stag at eve had drunk or was 
 about to drink his fill, and Cyril was copying him. He had 
 already indicated a flight of birds in the middle distance ; 
 vague birds on the wing being easier than detailed stags, he 
 had begun with the birds. 
 
 Constance put a hand on his shoulder. " Finished your 
 lessons ? " she murmured caressingly. 
 
 Before speaking, Cyril gazed up at the picture with a 
 frowning, busy expression, and then replied in an absent- 
 minded voice : 
 
 " Yes." And after a pause : " Except my arithmetic. I 
 shall do that in the morning before breakfast." 
 
 " Oh, Cyril ! " she protested. 
 
 It had been a positive ordinance, for a long time past, 
 that there should be no sketching until lessons were done. 
 In his father's lifetime Cyril had never dared to break it. 
 
 He bent over his block, feigning an intense absorption. 
 Constance's hand slipped from his shoulder. She wanted 
 to command him formally to resume his lessons. But she 
 could not. She feared an argument ; she mistrusted her- 
 self. And, moreover, it was so soon after his father's 
 death ! 
 
 " You know you won't have time to-morrow morning ! " 
 she said weakly. 
 
 •• Oh, mother ! " he retorted superiorly. " Don't worry." 
 And then, in a cajoling tone : " I've wanted to do that stag 
 for ages." 
 
 She sighed and sat down in her rocking-chair. He went 
 on sketching, rubbing out, and making queer expostulatory 
 noises against his pencil, or against the difficulties need- 
 lessly invented by Sir Edwin Landseer. Once he rose and 
 changed the position of the gas-bracket, staring fiercely at 
 the engraving as though it had committed a sin. 
 
 Amy came to lay the supper. He did not acknowledge 
 that she existed. 
 
 " Now, Master Cyril, after you with that table, if you 
 please ! " She announced herself brusquely, with the privi- 
 lege of an old servant and a woman who would never see 
 thirty again. 
 
 " What a nuisance you are, Amy ! " he gruffly answered. 
 " Look here, mother, can't Amy lay the cloth on that half of 
 the table ? I'm right in the middle of my drawing. There's 
 plenty of room there for two." 
 
 He seemed not to be aware that, in the phrase " plenty of 
 room for two," he had made a callous reference to their loss. 
 The fact was, there was plenty of room for two. 
 
250 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Constance said quickly : " Very well, Amy. For this 
 once." 
 
 Amy grunted, but obeyed. 
 
 Constance had to summon him twice from art to nourish- 
 ment. He ate with rapidity, frequently regarding the pic- 
 ture with half-shut, searching eyes. When he had finished, 
 he refilled his glass with water, and put it next to his sketch- 
 ing-block. 
 
 " You surely aren't thinking of beginning to paint at this 
 time of night ! " Constance exclaimed, astonished. 
 
 " Oh yes, mother 1" he fretfully appealed. " It's not 
 late." 
 
 Another positive ordinance of his father's had been that 
 there should be nothing after supper except bed. Nine 
 o'clock was the latest permissible moment for going to bed. 
 It was now less than a quarter to. 
 
 " It only wants twelve minutes to nine," Constance pointed 
 out. 
 
 " Well, what if it does ? " 
 
 " Now, Cyril," she said, " I do hope you are going to be 
 a good boy, and not cause your mother anxiety." 
 
 But she said it too kindly. 
 
 He said sullenly : " I do think you might let me finish it. 
 I've begun it. It won't take me long." 
 
 She made the mistake of leaving the main point. " How 
 can you possibly choose your colours properly by gas-light ? " 
 she said. 
 
 " I'm going to do it in sepia," he replied in triumph. 
 
 " It mustn't occur again," she said. 
 
 He thanked God for a good supper, and sprang to the 
 harmonium, where his paint-box was. Amy cleared away. 
 Constance did crochet-work. There was silence. The clock 
 struck nine, and it also struck half-past nine. She warned 
 him repeatedly. At ten minutes to ten she said persua- 
 sively : 
 
 " Now, Cyril, when the clock strikes ten I shall really put 
 the gas out." 
 
 The clock struck ten. 
 
 " Half a mo, half a mo ! " he cried. " I've done ! I've 
 done ! " 
 
 Her hand was arrested. 
 
 Another four minutes elapsed, and then he jumped up. 
 " There you are ! " he said proudly, showing her the block. 
 And all his gestures were full of grace and cajolery. 
 
 " Yes, it's very good," Constance said, rather indiffer- 
 ently. 
 
THE WIDOW. 251 
 
 " I don't believe you care for it ! " he accused her, but 
 with a bright smile. 
 
 " I care for your health," she said. " Just look at that 
 clock ! " 
 
 He sat down in the other rocking-chair, deliberately. 
 
 " Now, Cyril ! " 
 
 " Well, mother, I suppose you'll let me take my boots off ! " 
 He said it with teasing good-humour. 
 
 When he kissed her good night, she wanted to cling to him, 
 so affectionate was his kiss ; but she could not throw off 
 the habits of restraint which she had been originally taught 
 and had all her life practised. She keenly regretted the in- 
 ability. 
 
 In her bedroom, alone, she listened to his movements as 
 he undressed. The door between the two rooms was un- 
 latched. She had to control a desire to open it ever so little 
 and peep at him. He would not have liked that. He could 
 have enriched her heart beyond all hope, and at no cost to 
 himself ; but he did not know his power. As she could not 
 cling to him with her hands, she clung to him with that heart 
 of hers, while moving sedately up and down the room, alone. 
 And her eyes saw him through the solid wood of the door. 
 At last she got heavily into bed. She thought with placid 
 anxiety, in the dark : "I shall have to be firm with Cyril." 
 And she thought also, simultaneously : " He really must be a 
 good boy. He must." And clung to him passionately, with- 
 out shame ! Lying alone there in the dark, she could be as 
 unrestrained and girlish as her heart chose. When she 
 loosed her hold she instantly saw the boy's father arranged 
 in his coffin, or flitting about the room. Then she would hug 
 that vision too, for the pleasure of the pain it gave her. 
 
 III. 
 
 She was reassured as to Cyril during the next few days. 
 He did not attempt to repeat his ingenious naughtiness of the 
 Monday evening, and he came directly home for tea ; more- 
 over he had, as a kind of miracle performed to dazzle her, 
 actually risen early on the Tuesday morning and done his 
 arithmetic. To express her satisfaction she had manufac- 
 tured a specially elaborate straw-frame for the sketch after 
 Sir Edwin Landseer, and had hung it in her bedroom : an 
 honour which Cyril appreciated. She was as happy as a 
 
252 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 woman suffering from a recent amputation can be : and 
 compared with the long nightmare created by Samuel's 
 monomania and illness, her existence seemed to be now a 
 beneficent calm. 
 
 Cyril, she thought, had realized the importance in her eyes 
 of tea, of that evening hour and that companionship which 
 were for her the flowering of the day. And she had such 
 confidence in his goodness that she would pour the boiling 
 water on the Horniman tea-leaves even before he arrived : 
 certainty could not be more sure. And then, on the Friday 
 of the first week, he was late ! He bounded in, after dark, 
 and the state of his clothes indicated too clearly that he 
 had been playing football in the mud that was a grassy field 
 in summer. 
 
 " Have you been kept in, my boy ? " she asked, for the sake 
 of form. 
 
 " No, mother," he said casually. " We were just kicking 
 the ball about a bit. Am I late ? " 
 
 " Better go and tidy yourself," she said, not replying to 
 his question. " You can't sit down in that state. And I'll 
 have some fresh tea made. This is spoilt." 
 
 " Oh, very well ! " 
 
 Her sacred tea — the institution which she wanted to 
 hallow by long habit, and which was to count before every- 
 thing with both of them — had been carelessly sacrificed to 
 the kicking of a football in mud ! And his father buried not 
 ten days ! She was wounded : a deep, clean, dangerous 
 wound that would not bleed. She tried to be glad that he 
 had not lied ; he might easily have lied, saying that he had 
 been detained for a fault and could not help being late. No ! 
 He was not given to lying ; he would he, like any human 
 being, when a great occasion demanded such prudence, but 
 he was not a liar ; he might fairly be called a truthful boy. 
 She tried to be glad, and did not succeed. She would have 
 preferred him to have lied. 
 
 Amy, grumbling, had to boil more water. 
 
 When he returned to the parlour, superficially cleaned, 
 Constance expected him to apologize in his roundabout boyish 
 way ; at any rate to woo and wheedle her, to show by some 
 gesture that he was conscious of having put an affront on 
 her. But his attitude was quite otherwise. His attitude 
 was rather brusque and overbearing and noisy. He ate 
 a very considerable amount of jam, far too quickly, and 
 then asked for more, in a tone of a monarch who calls for 
 his own. And ere tea was finished he said boldly, apropos 
 of nothing : 
 
THE WIDOW. 253 
 
 " I say, mother, you'll just have to let me go to the School 
 of Art after Easter." 
 
 And stared at her with a fixed challenge in his eyes. 
 
 He meant, by the School of Art, the evening classes at 
 the School of Art. His father had decided absolutely 
 against the project. His father had said that it would in- 
 terfere with his lessons, would keep him up too late at night, 
 and involve absence from home in the evening. The last 
 had always been the real objection. His father had not been 
 able to believe that Cyril's desire to study art sprang purely 
 from his love of art ; he could not avoid suspecting that it 
 was a plan to obtain freedom in the evenings — that freedom 
 which Samuel had invariably forbidden. In all Cyril's sug- 
 gestions Samuel had been ready to detect the same scheme 
 lurking. He had finally said that when Cyril left school 
 and took to a vocation, then he could study art at night if he 
 chose, but not before. 
 
 " You know what your father said ! " Constance replied. 
 
 " But, mother ! That's all very well ! I'm sure father 
 would have agreed. If I'm going to take up drawing I 
 ought to do it at once. That's what the drawing-master 
 says, and I suppose he ought to know." He finished on a 
 tone of insolence. 
 
 -" I can't allow you to do it yet," said Constance, quietly. 
 ' It's quite out of the question. Quite ! " 
 
 He pouted and then he sulked. It was war between 
 them. 
 
 At times he was the image of his Aunt. Sophia. He would 
 not leave the subject alone ; but he would not listen to 
 Constance's reasoning. He openly, accused her of harshness. 
 He asked her how she could expect him to get on if she 
 thwarted him in his most earnest * desires. He pointed to 
 other boys whose parents were wiser. 
 
 " It's all very fine of you to put it on father ! " he observed 
 sarcastically. 
 
 He gave up his drawing entirely. 
 
 When she hinted that if he attended the School of Art she 
 would be condemned to solitary evenings, he looked at her as 
 
 though saying : " Well, and if you are ? " He seemed 
 
 to have no heart. 
 
 After several weeks of intense unhappiness she said : 
 " How many evenings do you want to go ? " 
 
 The war was over. 
 
 He was charming again. When she was alone ^he could 
 cling to him again. And she said to herself : "If we can be 
 happy together onty when I give way to him, I must give 
 
254 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 i 
 
 way to him." And there was ecstasy in her yielding. 
 " After all," she said to herself, " perhaps it's very impor- 
 tant that he should go to the School of Art." She solaced 
 herself with such thoughts on three solitary evenings a week, 
 waiting for him to come home. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BRICKS AND MORTAR. 
 
 In the summer of that year the occurrence of a white rash 
 of posters on hoardings and on certain houses and shops, was 
 symptomatic of organic change in the town. The posters 
 were iterations of a mysterious announcement and summons, 
 which began with the august words : "By Order of the 
 Trustees of the late William Clews Mericarp, Esq." Mericarp 
 had been a considerable owner of property in Bursley. After 
 a prolonged residence at Southport, he had died, at the age of 
 eighty- two, leaving his property behind. For sixty years he 
 had been a name, not a figure ; and the news of his death, 
 which was assuredly an event, incited the burgesses to gossip, 
 for they had come to regard him as one of the invisible 
 immortals. Constance was shocked, though she had never 
 seen Mericarp. (" Everybody dies nowadays ! " she thought.) 
 He owned the Baines-Povey shop, and also Mr. Critchlow's 
 shop. Constance knew not how often her father, and, later, 
 her husband, had renewed the lease of those premises that 
 were now hers ; but from her earliest recollections rose a 
 vague memory of her father talking to her mother about 
 "Mericarp's rent," which was and always had been a hundred 
 a year. Mericarp had earned the reputation of being "a 
 good landlord." Constance said sadly : " We shall never have 
 another as good ! " When a lawyer's clerk called and asked 
 her to permit the exhibition of a poster in each of her shop- 
 windows, she had misgivings for the future ; she was wor- 
 ried ; she decided that she would determine the lease next 
 year, so as to be on the safe side ; but immediately after- 
 wards she decided that she could decide nothing. \ 
 
 The posters continued ; "To be sold by auction at the 
 Tiger Hotel at six-thirty for seven o'clock precisely." What 
 
256 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 six-thirty had to do with seven o'clock precisely no one 
 knew. Then, after stating the name and* credentials of the 
 auctioneer, the posters at length arrived at the objects to be 
 sold : " All those freehold messuages and shops and copy- 
 hold tenements namely." Houses were never sold by auction 
 in Bursley. At moments of auction burgesses were reminded 
 that the erections they lived in were not houses, as they had 
 falsely supposed, but messuages. Having got as far as 
 " namely " the posters ruled a line and began afresh : " Lot i. 
 All that extensive and commodious shop and messuage with 
 the offices and appurtenances thereto belonging situate and 
 being No. 4 St. Luke's Square in the parish of Bursley in the 
 County of Stafford and at present in the occupation of Mrs. 
 Constance Povey widow under a lease expiring in September 
 1889." Thus clearly asserting that all Constance's shop was 
 for sale, its whole entirety, and not a fraction or slice of it 
 merely, the posters proceeded : " Lot 2. All that extensive 
 and commodious .shop and messuage with the offices and 
 appurtenances thereto belonging situate and being No. 3 St. 
 Luke's Square in the parish of Bursley in the County of 
 Stafford and at present in the occupation of Charles Critchlow 
 chemist under an agreement for a yearly tenancy." The 
 catalogue ran to fourteen lots. The posters, lest any one 
 should foolishly imagine that a non-legal intellect could have 
 achieved such explicit and comprehensive clarity of state- 
 ment, were signed by a powerful firm of solicitors in Han- 
 bridge. Happily in the Five Towns there were no meta- 
 physicians ; otherwise the firm might have been expected 
 to explain, in the " further particulars and conditions " which 
 the posters promised, how even a messuage could "be" the 
 thing at which it was "situate." 
 
 Within a few hours of the outbreak of the rash, Mr. Critch- 
 low abruptly presented himself before Constance at the 
 millinery counter ; he was waving a poster. 
 
 " Well ! " he exclaimed grimly. " What next, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed ! " Constance responded. 
 
 " Are ye thinking o' buying ? " he asked. All the assist- 
 ants, including Miss Insull, were in hearing, but he ignored 
 their presence. 
 
 " Buying ! " repeated Constance. " Not me ! I've got 
 quite enough house property as it is." 
 
 Like all owners of real property, she usually adopted 
 towards her possessions an attitude implying that she would 
 be willing to pay somebody to take them from her." 
 
 " Shall you ? " she added, with Mr. Critchlow's own 
 brusqueness. 
 
BRICKS AND MORTAR. 257 
 
 " Me ! Buy property in St. Luke's Square ! " Mr. Critch- 
 low sneered. And then left the shop as suddenly as he had 
 entered it. 
 
 The sneer at St. Luke's Square was his characteristic ex- 
 pression of an opinion which had been slowly forming for 
 some years. The Square was no longer what it had been, 
 though individual businesses might be as good as ever. For 
 nearly twelve months two shops had been to let in it. And 
 once, bankruptcy had stained its annals. The tradesmen had 
 naturally searched for a cause in every direction save the 
 right one, the obvious one ; and naturally they had found a 
 cause. According to the tradesmen, the cause was " this foot- 
 ball." The Bursley Football Club had recently swollen into 
 a genuine rival of the ancient supremacy of the celebrated 
 Knype Club. It had transformed itself into a limited com- 
 pany, and rented a ground up the Moorthorne Road, and 
 built a grand stand. The Bursley F.C. had " tied " with the 
 Knype F.C. on the Knype ground — a prodigious achieve- 
 ment, an achievement which occupied a column of the 
 Athletic News one Monday morning ! But were the trades- 
 men civically proud of this glory ? No ! They said that 
 "this football" drew people out of the town on Saturday 
 afternoons, to the complete abolition of shopping. They 
 said also that people thought of nothing but " this football ; " 
 and, nearly in the same breath, that only roughs and good- 
 for-nothings could possibly be interested in such a barbarous 
 game. And they spoke of gate-money, gambling, and pro- 
 fessionalism, and the end of all true sport in England. In 
 brief, something new had come to the front and was submit- 
 ting to the ordeal of the curse. 
 
 The sale of the Mericarp estate had a particular interest for 
 respectable stake-in -the- town persons. It would indicate to 
 what extent, if at all, "this football " was ruining Bursley. 
 
 Constance mentioned to Cyril that she fancied she might 
 like to go to the sale, and as it was dated for one of Cyril's 
 off-nights Cyril said that he fancied he might like to go too. 
 So they went together ; Samuel used to attend property sales, 
 but he had never taken his wife to one. Constance and 
 Cyril arrived at the Tiger shortly after seven o'clock, and were 
 directed to a room furnished and arranged as for a small 
 public meeting of philanthropists. A few gentlemen were 
 already present, but not the instigating trustees, solicitors, 
 and auctioneers. It appeared that "six-thirty for seven 
 o'clock precisely" meant seven-fifteen. Constance took a 
 Windsor chair in the corner nearest the door, and motioned 
 Cyril to the next chair ; they dared not speak ; they moved 
 
 9 
 
258 ( THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 on tiptoe ; Cyril inadvertently dragged his chair along the 
 floor, and produced a scrunching sound ; he blushed, as 
 though he had desecrated a church, and his mother made a 
 gesture of horror. The remainder of the company glanced 
 at the corner, apparently pained by this negligence. Some 
 of them greeted Constance, but self-consciously, with a sort 
 of shamed air ; it might have been that they had all nefari- 
 ously gathered together there for the committing of a crime. 
 Fortunately Constance's widowhood had already lost its 
 touching novelty, so that the greetings, if self-conscious, were 
 at any rate given without unendurable commiseration and did 
 not cause awkwardness. 
 
 When the official world arrived, fussy, bustling, bearing 
 documents and a hammer, the general feeling of guilty shame 
 was intensified. Useless for the auctioneer to try to dissipate 
 the gloom by means of bright gestures and quick, cheerful 
 remarks to his supporters ! Cyril had an idea that the meet- 
 ing would open with a hymn, until the apparition of a tapster 
 with wine showed him his error. The auctioneer very par- 
 ticularly enjoined the tapster to see to it that no one lacked 
 for his thirst, and the tapster became self-consciously ener- 
 getic. He began by choosing Constance for service. In 
 refusing wine, she blushed ; then the fellow offered a glass 
 to Cyril, who went scarlet, and mumbled " No " with a lump 
 in his throat ; when the tapster's back was turned, he 
 smiled sheepishly at his mother. The majority of the com- 
 pany accepted and sipped. The auctioneer sipped and 
 loudly smacked, and said : " Ah ! " 
 
 Mr. Critchlow came in. 
 
 And the auctioneer said again : " Ah ! I'm always glad 
 when the tenants come. That's always a good sign." 
 
 He glanced round for approval of this sentiment. But 
 everybody seemed too stiff to move. Even the auctioneer 
 was self-conscious. 
 
 " Waiter ! Offer wine to Mr. Critchlow ! " he exclaimed 
 bullyingly, as if saying : " Man ! what on earth are you 
 thinking of, to neglect Mr. Critchlow ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; yes, sir," said the waiter, who was dispensing 
 wine as fast as a waiter can. 
 
 The auction commenced. 
 
 Seizing the hammer, the auctioneer gave a short biography 
 of William Clews Mericarp, and, this pious duty accom- 
 plished, called upon a solicitor to read the conditions of sale. 
 The solicitor complied and made a distressing exhibition of 
 self-consciousness. The conditions of sale were very lengthy, 
 and apparently composed in a ^foreign tongue ; and the 
 
BRICKS AND MO&TAR. 259 
 
 audience listened to this elocution with a stoical pretence of 
 breathless interest. 
 
 Then the auctioneer put up all that extensive and com- 
 modious messuage and shop situate and being No. 4, St. 
 Luke's Square. Constance and Cyril moved their limbs 
 surreptitiously, as though being at last found out. The 
 auctioneer referred to John Baines and to Samuel Povey, 
 with a sense of personal loss, and then expressed his pleasure 
 in the presence of "the ladies;" he meant Constance, who 
 once more had to blush. 
 
 " Now, gentlemen," said the auctioneer, " what do you say 
 for these famous premises ? I think I do not exaggerate when 
 I use the word ' famous.' " 
 
 Some one said a thousand pounds, in the terrorized voice 
 of a delinquent. 
 
 " A thousand pounds," repeated the auctioneer, paused, 
 sipped, and smacked. 
 
 " Guineas," said another voice self -accused of iniquity. 
 
 " A thousand and fifty," said the auctioneer. 
 
 Then there was a long interval, an interval that tightened 
 the nerves of the assembly. 
 
 " Now, ladies and gentlemen," the auctioneer adjured. 
 
 The first voice said sulkily : " Eleven hundred." 
 
 And thus the bids rose to fifteen hundred, lifted bit by bit, 
 as it were, by the magnetic force of the auctioneer's person- 
 ality. The man was now standing up, in domination. He 
 bent down to the solicitor's head ; they whispered to- 
 gether. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the auctioneer, " I am happy to inform 
 you that the sale is now open." His tone translated better 
 than words his calm professional beatitude. Suddenly in a 
 voice of wrath he hissed at the waiter : " Waiter, why don't 
 you serve these gentlemen ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; yes, sir." 
 
 The auctioneer sat down and sipped at leisure, chatting 
 with his clerk and the solicitor and the solicitor's clerk. 
 
 When he rose it was as a conqueror. " Gentlemen, fifteen 
 hundred is bid. Now, Mr. Critchlow." 
 
 Mr. Critchlow shook his head. The auctioneer threw a 
 courteous glance at Constance, who avoided it. 
 
 After many adjurations, he reluctantly raised his hammer, 
 pretended to let it fall, and saved it several times. 
 
 And then Mr. Critchlow said : " And fifty." 
 
 " Fifteen hundred and fifty is bid," the auctioneer informed 
 the company, electrifying the waiter once more. And when 
 he had sipped he said, with feigned sadness : " Come, gentle- 
 
260 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 men, you surely don't mean to let this magnificent lot go for 
 fifteen hundred and fifty pounds ? " 
 
 But they did mean that. 
 
 The hammer fell, and the auctioneer's clerk and the solici- 
 tor's clerk took Mr. Critchlow aside and wrote with him. 
 
 Nobody was surprised when Mr. Critchlow bought Lot 
 No. 2, his own shop. 
 
 Constance whispered then to Cyril that she wished to leave. 
 They left, with unnatural precautions, but instantly regained 
 their natural demeanour in the dark street. 
 
 " Well, I never ! Well, I never ! " she murmured outside, 
 astonished and disturbed. 
 
 She hated the prospect of Mr. Critchlow as a landlord. And 
 yet she could not persuade herself to leave the place, in spite 
 of decisions. 
 
 The sale demonstrated that football had not entirely under- 
 mined the commercial basis of society in Bursley ; only two 
 Lots had to be withdrawn. 
 
 II. 
 
 On Thursday afternoon of the same week the youth whom 
 Constance had ended by hiring for the manipulation* of 
 shutters and other jobs unsuitable for fragile women, was 
 closing the shop. The clock had struck two. All the shutters 
 were up except the last one, in the midst of the doorway. 
 Miss Insull and her mistress were walking about the darkened 
 interior, putting dust-sheets well over the edges of exposed 
 goods ; the other assistants had just left. The bull- terrier 
 had wandered into the shop as he almost invariably did at 
 closing time — for he slept there, an efficient guard — and 
 had lain down by the dying stove ; though not venerable, 
 he was stiffening into age. 
 
 " You can shut," said Miss Insull to the youth. 
 
 But as the final shutter was ascending to its position, Mr. 
 Critchlow appeared on the pavement. 
 
 " Hold on, young fellow ! ■" Mr. Critchlow commanded, and 
 stepped slowly, lifting up his long apron, over the horizontal 
 shutter on which the perpendicular shutters rested in the 
 doorway. 
 
 " Shall you be long, Mr. Critchlow ? " the youth asked, 
 posing the shutter. " Or am I to shut ? " 
 
 " Shut, lad," said Mr. Critchlow, briefly. " I'll go out by 
 th' side door." 
 
 " Here's Mr. Critchlow ! " Miss Insull called out to Con- 
 
BRICKS AND MORTAR. 261 
 
 stance, in a peculiar tone. And a flush, scarcely perceptible, 
 crept very slowly over her dark features. In the twilight of 
 the shop, lit only by a few starry holes in the shutters, and by 
 the small side-window, not the keenest eye could have de- 
 tected that flush. 
 
 " Mr. Critchlow ! " Constance murmured the exclamation. 
 She resented his future ownership of her shop. She thought 
 he was come to play the landlord, and she determined to let 
 him see that her mood was independent and free, that she 
 would as lief give up the business as keep it. In particular 
 she meant to accuse him of having deliberately deceived her 
 as to his intentions on his previous visit. 
 
 " Well, missis ! " the aged man greeted her. " We've made 
 it up between us. Happen some folk'll think we've taken 
 our time, but I don't know as that's their affair." 
 
 His little blinking eyes had a red border. The skin of his 
 pale small face was wrinkled in millions of minute creases. 
 His arms and legs were marvellously thin and sharply angular. 
 The corners of his heliotrope lips were turned down, as usual, 
 in a mysterious comment on the world ; and his smile, as he 
 fronted Constance with his excessive height, crowned the 
 mystery. 
 
 Constance stared, at a loss. It surely could not after all 
 be # true, the substance of the rumours that had floated like 
 vapours in the Square for eight years and more ! 
 What . . . ? " she began. 
 
 " Me, and her ! " He jerked his head in the direction of 
 Miss Insull. 
 
 The dog had leisurely strolled forward to inspect the edges 
 of the fiance's trousers. Miss Insull summoned the animal 
 with a noise of fingers, and then bent down and caressed it. 
 A strange gesture proving the validity of Charles Critchlow's 
 discovery that in Maria Insull a human being was buried ! 
 
 Miss Insull was, as near as any one could guess, forty years 
 of age. For twenty-five years she had served in the shop, 
 passing about twelve hours a day in the shop ; attending 
 regularly at least three religious services at the Wesleyan 
 Chapel or School on Sundays, and sleeping with her mother, 
 whom she kept. She had never earned more than thirty 
 shillings a week, and yet her situation was considered to be 
 exceptionally good. In the eternal fusty dusk of the shop 
 she had gradually lost such sexual characteristics and 
 charms as she had once possessed. She was as thin and flat 
 as Charles Critchlow himself. It was as though her bosom 
 had suffered from a prolonged drought at a susceptible period 
 of development, and had never recovered. The on© proof 
 
262 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 that blood ran in her veins was the pimply quality of her 
 ruined complexion, and the pimples of that brickish expanse 
 proved that the blood was thin and bad. Her hands and 
 feet were large and ungainly ; the skin of the fingers was 
 roughened by coarse contacts to the texture of emery-paper. 
 On six days a week she wore black ; on the seventh a kind of 
 discreet half-mourning. She was honest, capable, and in- 
 dustrious ; and beyond the confines of her occupation she had 
 no curiosity, no intelligence, no ideas. Superstitions and prej- 
 udices, deep and violent, served her for ideas ; but she could 
 incomparably sell silks and bonnets, braces and oilcloth ; 
 in widths, lengths, and prices she never erred ; she never 
 annoyed a customer, nor foolishly promised what could not 
 be performed, nor was late nor negligent, nor disrespectful. 
 No one knew anything about her, because there was nothing 
 to know. Subtract the shop-assistant from her, and naught 
 remained. Benighted and spiritually dead, she existed by 
 habit. 
 
 But for Charles Critchlow she happened to be an illusion. 
 He had cast eyes on her and had seen youth, innocence, 
 virginity. During eight years the moth Charles had flitted 
 round the lamp of her brilliance, and was now singed past 
 escape. He might treat her with what casualness he chose ; 
 he might ignore her in public ; he might talk brutally about 
 women ; he might leave her to wonder dully what he meant, 
 for months at a stretch : but there emerged indisputable from 
 the sum of his conduct the fact that he wanted her. He 
 desired her ; she charmed him ; she was something orna- 
 mental and luxurious for which he was ready to pay — and to 
 commit follies. He had been a widower since before she was 
 born ; to him she was a slip of a girl. All is relative in this 
 world. As for her, she was too indifferent to refuse him. 
 Why refuse him ? Oysters do not refuse. 
 
 "I'm sure I congratulate you both," Constance breathed, 
 realizing the import of Mr. Critchlow's laconic words. "I'm 
 sure I hope you'll be happy." 
 
 " That'll be all right," said Mr. Critchlow. 
 
 " Thank you, Mrs. Povey," said Maria Insull. 
 
 Nobody seemed to know what to say next. " It's rather 
 sudden," was on Constance's tongue, but did not achieve 
 utterance, being patently absurd. 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed Mr. Critchlow, as though himself con- 
 templating anew the situation. 
 
 Miss Insull gave the dog a final pat. 
 
 " So that's settled," said Mr. Critchlow. " Now, missis, ye 
 want to give up this shop, don't ye ? " 
 
BRICKS AND MORTAR. 263 
 
 " I'm not so sure about that," Constance answered uneasily. 
 
 " Don't tell me ! " he protested. " Of course ye want to 
 give up the shop." 
 
 " I've lived here all my life," said Constance. 
 
 " Ye've not lived in th' shop all your life. I said th' shop. 
 Listen here ! " he continued. " I've got a proposal to make 
 to you. You can keep on the house, and I'll take the shop 
 off your hands. Now ? " He looked at her inquiringly. 
 
 Constance was taken aback by the brusqueness of the sug- 
 gestion, which, moreover, she did not understand. 
 
 " But how " she faltered. 
 
 " Come here," said Mr. Critchlow, impatiently, and he 
 moved towards the house-door of the shop, behind the till. 
 
 " Come where ? What do you want ? " Constance de- 
 manded in a maze. 
 
 " Here ! " said Mr. Critchlow, with increasing impatience. 
 " Follow me, will ye ? " 
 
 Constance obeyed. Miss Insull sidled after Constance, and 
 the dog after Miss Insull. Mr. Critchlow went through the 
 doorway and down the corridor, past the cutting-out room to 
 his right. The corridor then turned at a right-angle to the 
 left and ended at the parlour door, the kitchen steps being to 
 the left. 
 
 Mr. Critchlow stopped short of the kitchen steps, and ex- 
 tended his arms, touching the walls on either side. 
 
 " Here ! " he said, tapping the walls with his bony knuckles. 
 "Here ! Suppose I brick ye this up, and th* same upstairs 
 between th' showroom and th' bedroom passage, ye've got 
 your house to yourself. Ye say ye've lived here all your life. 
 Well, what's to prevent ye finishing up here ? The fact is," 
 he added, " it would only be making into two houses again 
 what was two houses to start with, afore your time, missis." 
 
 " And what about the shop ? " cried Constance. 
 
 " Ye can sell us th' stock at a valuation." 
 
 Constance suddenly comprehended the scheme. Mr. 
 Critchlow would remain the chemist, while Mrs. Critchlow 
 became the head of the chief drapery business in the town. 
 Doubtless they would knock a hole through the separating 
 wall on the other side, to balance the bricking-up on this side. 
 They must have thought it all out in detail. Constance re- 
 volted. 
 
 " Yes ! " she said, a little disdainfully. " And my good- 
 will ? Shall you take that at a valuation too ? " 
 
 Mr. Critchlow glanced at the creature for whom\ he was 
 ready to scatter thousands of pounds. . She might have been 
 a Phryne and he the infatuated fool. He glanced at her as 
 
264 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 if to say : " We expected this, and this is where we agreed it 
 was to stop." 
 
 " Ay ! " he said to Constance. " Show me your goodwill. 
 Lap it up in a bit of paper and hand it over, and 111 take it 
 at a valuation. But not afore, missis ! Not afore ! I'm 
 making ye a very good offer. Twenty pound a year, I'll let 
 ye th' house for. And take th' stock at a valuation. Think 
 it over, my lass." 
 
 Having said what he had to say, Charles Critchlow de- 
 
 Earted according to his custom. He unceremoniously let 
 imself out by the side door, and passed with wavy apron 
 round the corner of King Street into the Square and so to his 
 own shop, which ignored the Thursday half -holiday. Miss 
 Insull left soon afterwards. 
 
 III. 
 
 Constance's pride urged her to refuse the offer. But in 
 truth her sole objection to it was that she had not thought of 
 the scheme herself. For the scheme really reconciled her 
 wish to remain where she was with her wish to be free of the 
 shop. 
 
 " I shall make him put me in a new window in the parlour 
 — one that will open ! " she said positively to Cyril, who 
 accepted Mr. Critchlow's idea with fatalistic indifference. 
 
 After stipulating for the new window, she closed with the 
 offer. Then there was the stock-taking, which endured for 
 weeks. And then the carpenter came and measured for the 
 window. And a builder and a mason came and inspected 
 doorways, and Constance felt that the end was upon her. 
 She took up the carpet in the parlour and protected the furni- 
 ture by dust-sheets. She and Cyril lived between bare 
 boards and dust-sheets for twenty days, and neither car- 
 penter nor mason reappeared. Then one surprising day the 
 old window was removed by the carpenter's two journeymen, 
 and late in the afternoon the carpenter brought the new 
 window, and the three men worked till ten o'clock at night, 
 fixing it. Cyril wore his cap and went to bed in his cap, and 
 Constance wore a Paisley shawl. A painter had bound him- 
 self beyond all possibility of failure to paint the window on 
 the morrow. He was to begin at sixfa.m., and Amy's alarm- 
 clock was altered so that she might be up and dressed to 
 admit him. He came a week later, administered one coat, 
 and vanished for another ten days. 
 
 Then two masons suddenly came with heavy tools, and 
 
BRICKS AND MORTAR. 265 
 
 were shocked to find that all was not prepared for them. 
 (After three carpetless weeks Constance had relaid her floors.) 
 They tore off wall-paper, sent cascades of plaster down the 
 kitchen steps, withdrew alternate courses of bricks from the 
 walls, and, sated with destruction, hastened away. After 
 four days new red bricks began to arrive, carried by a quite 
 guiltless hodman who had not visited the house before. The 
 hodman met the full storm of Constance's wrath. It was not 
 a vicious wrath, rather a good-humoured wrath ; but it im- 
 pressed the hodman. " My house hasn't been fit to live in 
 for a month," she said in fine. " If these walls aren't built 
 to-morrow, upstairs and down — to-morrow, mind ! — don't 
 let any of you dare to show your noses here again, for I won't 
 have you. Now you've brought your bricks. Off with you, 
 and tell your master what I say ! " 
 
 It was effective. The next day subdued and plausible 
 workmen of all sorts awoke the house with knocking at six- 
 thirty precisely, and the two doorways were slowly bricked 
 up. The curious thing was that, when the barrier was already 
 a foot high on the ground floor Constance remembered small 
 possessions of her own which she had omitted to remove 
 from the cutting-out room. Picking up her skirts, she 
 stepped over into the region that was no more hers, and 
 stepped back with the goods. She had a bandanna round 
 her head to keep the thick dust out of her hair. She was 
 very busy, very preoccupied with nothings. She had no 
 time for sentimentalities. Yet when the men arrived at the 
 topmost course and were at last hidden behind their own 
 erection, and she could see only rough bricks and mortar, 
 she was disconcertingly overtaken by a misty blindness and 
 could not even see bricks and mortar. Cyril found her, 
 with her absurd bandanna, weeping in a sheet-covered 
 rocking-chair in the sacked parlour. He whistled uneasily, 
 remarked : "I say, mother, what about tea ? " and then, 
 hearing the heavy voices of workmen above, ran with relief 
 upstairs. Tea had been set in the drawing-room, he was glad 
 to learn that from Amy, who informed him also that she 
 should " never get used to them there new walls," not as long 
 as she lived. 
 
 He went to the School of Art that night. Constance, 
 alone, could find nothing to do. She had willed that the walls 
 should be built, and they had been built ; but days must 
 elapse before they could be plastered, and after the plaster 
 still more days before the papering. Not for another month, 
 perhaps, would her house be free of workmen and ripe for her 
 own labours. She could only sit in the dust-drifts and 
 
 9* 
 
266 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 contemplate the havoc of change, and keep her eyes as dry- 
 as she could. The legal transactions were all but complete ; 
 little bills announcing the transfer of the business lay on the 
 counters in the shop at the disposal of customers. In two 
 days Charles Critchlow would pay the price of a desire realized. 
 The sign was painted out and new letters sketched thereon 
 in chalk. In future she would be compelled, if she wished 
 to enter the shop, to enter it as a customer and from the 
 front. Yes, she saw that, though the house remained hers, 
 the root of her life had been wrenched up. 
 
 And the mess ! It seemed inconceivable that the material 
 mess could ever be straightened away ! 
 
 Yet, ere the fields of the county were first covered with 
 snow that season, only one sign survived of the devastating 
 revolution, and that was a loose sheet of wall-paper that had 
 been too soon pasted on to new plaster and would not stick. 
 Maria Insull was Maria Critchlow. Constance had been out 
 into the Square and seen the altered sign, and seen Mrs. 
 Critchlow's taste in window-curtains, and seen — most impress- 
 ive sight of all — that the grimy window of the abandoned 
 room at the top of the abandoned staircase next to the bed- 
 room of her girlhood had been cleaned and a table put in 
 front of it. She knew that the chamber, which she herself 
 had never entered, was to be employed as a storeroom, but 
 the visible proof of its conversion so strangely affected her 
 that she had not felt able to go boldly into the shop, as she 
 had meant to do, and make a few purchases in the way of 
 friendliness. "I'm a silly woman ! " she muttered. Later, 
 she did venture, timidly abrupt, into the shop, and was re- 
 ceived with fitting state by Mrs. Critchlow (as desiccated as 
 ever), who insisted on allowing her the special trade discount. 
 And she carried her little friendly purchases round to her 
 own door in King Street. Trivial, trivial event ! Constance, 
 not knowing whether to laugh or cry, did both. She accused 
 herself of developing a hysterical faculty in tears, and strove 
 sagely against it. 
 
 i 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PROUDEST MOTHER. 
 I. 
 
 In the year 1893 there was a new and strange man living at 
 No. 4, St. Luke's Square. Many people remarked on the 
 phenomenon. Very few of his like had ever been seen in 
 Bursley before. One of the striking things about him was 
 the complex way in which he secured himself by means of 
 glittering chains. A chain stretched across his waistcoat, 
 passing through a special button-hole, without a button, in 
 the middle. To this cable were firmly linked a watch at one 
 end and a pencil-case at the other ; the chain also served 
 as a protection against a thief who might attempt to snatch 
 the fancy waistcoat entire. Then there were longer chains, 
 beneath the waistcoat, partly designed, no doubt, to deflect 
 bullets, but serving mainly to enable the owner to haul up 
 penknives, cigarette-cases, match-boxes, and key-rings from 
 the profundities of hip-pockets. An essential portion of the 
 man's braces, visible sometimes when he played at tennis, 
 consisted of chain, and the upper and nether halves of his 
 cuff-links were connected by chains. Occasionally he was 
 to be seen chained to a dog. 
 
 A reversion, conceivably, to a mediaeval type ! Yes, but 
 also the exemplar of the excessively modern ! Externally he 
 was a consequence of the fact that, years previously, the 
 leading tailor in Bursley had permitted his son to be appren- 
 ticed in London. Tbe father died ; the son had the wit to 
 return and make a fortune while creating a new type in the 
 town, a type of which multiple chains were but one feature, 
 and that the least expensive if the most salient. For in- 
 stance, up to the historic year in which the young tailor 
 created the type, any cap was a cap in Bursley, and any collar 
 was a collar. But thenceforward no cap was a cap, and no 
 
268 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 collar was a collar, which did not exactly conform in shape 
 and material to certain sacred caps and collars guarded by 
 the young tailor in his back shop. None knew why these 
 sacred caps and collars were sacred, but they were ; their 
 sacredness endured for about six months, and then suddenly 
 — again none knew why — they fell from their estate and be- 
 came lower than offal for dogs, and were supplanted on the 
 altar. The type brought into existence by the young tailor 
 was to be recognized by its caps and collars, and in a similar 
 manner by every other article of attire, except its boots. 
 Unfortunately the tailor did not sell boots, and so imposed 
 on his creatures no mystical creed as to boots. This was a 
 pity, for the boot-makers of the town happened not to be 
 inflamed by the type-creating passion as the tailor was, and 
 thus the new type finished abruptly at the edges of the 
 tailor's trousers. 
 
 The man at No. 4, St. Luke's Square had comparatively 
 small and narrow feet, which gave him an advantage ; and 
 as he was endowed with a certain vague general physical 
 distinction he managed, despite the eternal untidiness of his 
 hair, to be eminent among the type. Assuredly the frequent 
 sight of him in her house flattered the pride of Constance's 
 eye, which rested on him almost always with pleasure. He 
 had come into the house with startling abruptness soon 
 after Cyril left school and was indentured to the head de- 
 signer at " Peel's," that classic earthenware manufactory. 
 The presence of a man in her abode disconcerted Constance 
 at the beginning ; but she soon grew accustomed to it, 
 perceiving that a man would behave as a man, and must be 
 expected to do so. This man, in truth, did what he liked in 
 all things. Cyril having always been regarded by both his 
 parents as enormous, one would have anticipated a giant 
 in the new man ; but, queerly, he was slim, and little above 
 the average height. Neither in enormity nor in many other 
 particulars did he resemble the Cyril whom he had supplanted. 
 His gestures were lighter and quicker ; he had nothing of 
 Cyril's ungainliness ; he had not Cyril's limitless taste for 
 sweets, nor Cyril's terrific hatred of gloves, barbers, and soap. 
 He was much more dreamy than Cyril, and much busier. 
 In fact, Constance only saw him at meal-times. He was at 
 Peel's in the day and at the School of Art every night. Ho 
 would dream during a meal, even ; and, without actually 
 saying so, he gave the impression that he was the busiest 
 man in Bursley, wrapped in occupations and preoccupations 
 as in a blanket — a blanket which Constance had difficulty in 
 penetrating. 
 
THE PROUDEST MOTHER. 269 
 
 Constance wanted to please him ; she lived for nothing 
 but to please him ; he was, however, exceedingly difficult to 
 please, not in the least because he was hypercritical and 
 exacting, but because he was indifferent. Constance, in 
 order to satisfy her desire of pleasing had to make fifty efforts, 
 in the hope that he might chance to notice one. He was a 
 good man, amazingly industrious — when once Constance had 
 got him out of bed in the morning ; with no vices ; kind, 
 save when Constance mistakenly tried to thwart him ; 
 charming, with a curious strain of humour that Constance 
 only half understood. Constance was unquestionably vain 
 about him, and she could honestly find in him little to blame. 
 But whereas he was the whole of her universe, she was 
 merely a dim figure in the background of his. Every now and 
 then, with his gentle, elegant raillery, he would apparently 
 rediscover her, as though saying : " Ah ! You're still there, 
 are you ? " Constance could not meet him on the plane 
 where his interests lay, and he never knew the passionate 
 intensity of her absorption in that minor part of his life 
 which moved on her plane. He never worried about her 
 solitude, or guessed that in throwing her a smile and a 
 word at supper he was paying her meagrely for three hours 
 of lone rocking in a rocking-chair. 
 
 The worst of it was that she was quite incurable. • No 
 experience would suffice to cure her trick of continually 
 expecting him to notice things which he never did notice. 
 One day he said, in the midst of a silence : " By the way, 
 didn't father leave any boxes of cigars ? " She had the 
 steps up into her bedroom and reached down from the dusty 
 top of the wardrobe the box which she had put there after 
 Samuel's funeral. In handing him the box she was doing 
 a great deed. His age was nineteen, and she was ratifying 
 his precocious habit of smoking by this solemn gift. He 
 entirely ignored the box for several days. She said timidly : 
 " Have you tried those cigars ? " " Not yet," he replied. 
 *' I'll try 'em one of these days." Ten days later, on a 
 Sunday when he chanced not to have gone out with his 
 aristocratic friend Matthew Peel-Swynnerton, he did at 
 length open the box and take out a cigar. "Now," he 
 observed roguishly, cutting the cigar, " we shall see, Mrs. 
 Plover ! " He often called her Mrs. Plover, for fun. Though 
 she liked him to be sufficiently interested in her to tease her, 
 she did not like being called Mrs. Plover, and she never failed 
 to say : " I'm not Mrs. Plover." He smoked the cigar slowly, 
 in the rocking-chair, throwing his head back and sending 
 clouds to the ceiling. And afterwards he remarked : " The 
 
270 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 old man's cigars weren't so bad." " Indeed ! " she answered 
 tartly, as if maternally resenting this easy patronage. But 
 in secret she was delighted. There was something in her 
 son's favourable verdict on her husband's cigars that thrilled 
 her. 
 
 And she looked at him. Impossible to see in him any re- 
 semblance to his father ! Oh ! He was a far more brilliant, 
 more advanced, more complicated, more seductive being than 
 his homely father ! She wondered where he had come from. 
 And yet . . . ! If his father had lived, what would have 
 occurred between them ? Would the boy have been openly 
 smoking cigars in the house at nineteen ? 
 
 She laboriously interested herself, so far as he would allow, 
 in his artistic studies and productions. A back attic on the 
 second floor was now transformed into a studio — a naked 
 apartment which smelt of oil and of damp clay. Often there 
 were traces of clay on the stairs. For working in clay he 
 demanded of his mother a smock, and she made a smock, 
 on the model of a genuine smock which she obtained from a 
 country-woman who sold eggs and butter in the Covered 
 Market. Into the shoulders of the smock she put a week's 
 fancy-stitching, taking the pattern from an old book of 
 embroidery. One day when he had seen her stitching morn, 
 noon, and afternoon, at the smock, he said, as she rocked 
 idly after supper : "I suppose you haven't forgotten all 
 about the smock I asked you for, have you, mater ? " 
 She knew that he was teasing her ; but, while perfectly 
 realizing how foolish she was, she nearly always acted as 
 though his teasing was serious ; she picked up the smock 
 again from the sofa. When the smock was finished he ex- 
 amined it intently ; then exclaimed with an air of surprise : 
 " By Jove ! That's beautiful ! Where did you get this pat- 
 tern ? " He continued to stare at it, smiling in pleasure. He 
 turned over the tattered leaves of the embroidery-book with 
 the same naive, charmed astonishment, and carried the book 
 away to the studio. " I must show that to Swynnerton," 
 he said. As for her, the epithet " beautiful " seemed a strange 
 epithet to apply to a mere piece of honest stitchery done in 
 a pattern, and a stitch with which she had been familiar all 
 her life. The fact was she understood his " art " less and less. 
 The sole wall decoration of his studio was a Japanese print, 
 which struck her as being entirely preposterous, considered 
 as a picture. She much preferred his own early drawings 
 of moss-roses and picturesque castles — things that he now 
 mercilessly contemned. Later, he discovered her cutting out 
 another smock. " What's that for ? " he inquired. " Well," 
 

 THE PROUDEST MOTHER. 271 
 
 she said, " you can't manage with one smock. What shall 
 you do when that one has to go to the wash ? " " Wash ! " 
 he repeated vaguely. " There's no need for it to go to the 
 wash." " Cyril," she replied, " don't try my patience ! I 
 was thinking of making you half-a-dozen." He whistled. 
 " With all that stitching ? " he questioned, amazed at the 
 undertaking. " Why not ? " she said. In her young days, 
 no sempstress ever made fewer than half-a-dozen of any- 
 thing, and it was usually a dozen ; it was sometimes half- 
 a-dozen dozen. " Well," he murmured, " you have got a 
 nerve ! I'll say that." 
 
 Similar things happened whenever he showed that he was 
 pleased. If he said of a dish, in the local tongue : "I could 
 do a bit of that ! " or if he simply smacked his lips over it, 
 she would surfeit him with that dish. 
 
 II. 
 
 On a hot day in August, just before they were to leave 
 Bursley for a month in the Isle of Man, Cyril came home, 
 pale and perspiring, and dropped on to the sofa. He wore a 
 •grey alpaca suit, and, except his hair, which in addition to 
 being very untidy was damp with sweat, he was a master- 
 piece of slim elegance, despite the heat. He blew out great 
 sighs, and rested his head on the antimacassared arm of the 
 sofa. 
 
 " Well, mater," he said, in a voice of factitious calm, " I've 
 got it." He was looking up at the ceiling. 
 
 " Got what ? " 
 
 " The National Scholarship. Swynnerton says it's a sheer 
 fluke. But I've got it. Great glory for the Bursley School 
 of Art ! " 
 
 " National Scholarship ? " she said. " What's that ? 
 What is it ? " 
 
 " Now, mother ! " he admonished her, not without testi- 
 ness. " Don't go and say I've never breathed a word about 
 it! " 
 
 He lit a cigarette, to cover his self-consciousness, for he 
 perceived that she was moved far beyond the ordinary. 
 
 Never, in fact, not even by the death of her husband, 
 had she received such a frightfur blow as that which the 
 dreamy Cyril had just dealt her. 
 
 It was not a complete surprise, but it was nearly a complete 
 surprise. A few months previously he certainly had men- 
 
272 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 tioned, in his incidental way, the subject of a National 
 Scholarship. Apropos of a drinking-cup which he had 
 designed, he had said that the director of the School of Art 
 had suggested that it was good enough to compete for the 
 National, and that as he was otherwise qualified for the 
 competition he might as well send the cup to South Kensing- 
 ton. He had added that Peel-Swynnerton had laughed at 
 the notion as absurd. On that occasion she had compre- 
 hended that a National Scholarship involved residence in 
 London. She ought to have begun to live in fear, for Cyril 
 had a most disturbing habit of making a mere momentary 
 reference to matters which he deemed very important and 
 which occupied a large share of his attention. He was 
 secretive by nature, and the rigidity of his father's rule had 
 developed this trait in his character. But really he had 
 spoken of the competition with such an extreme casualness 
 that with little effort she had dismissed it from her anxieties 
 as involving a contingency so remote as to be negligible. 
 She had, genuinely, almost forgotten it. Only at rare in- 
 tervals had it wakened in her a dull transitory pain — like the 
 herald of a fatal malady. And, as a woman in the opening 
 stage of disease, she had hastily reassured herself: "How 
 silly of me ! This can't possibly be anything serious ! " 
 
 And now she was condemned. She knew it. She knew 
 there could be no appeal. She knew that she might as 
 usefully have besought mercy from a tiger as from her good, 
 industrious, dreamy son. 
 
 " It means a pound a week," said Cyril, his self -conscious- 
 ness intensified by her silence and by the dreadful look on 
 her face. " And of course free tuition." 
 
 " For how long ? " she managed to say. 
 
 " Well," said he, " that depends. Nominally for a year. 
 But if you behave yourself it's always continued for three 
 years." 
 
 If he stayed for three years he would never come back : 
 that was a certainty. 
 
 How she rebelled, furious and despairing, against the for- 
 tuitous cruelty of things ! She was sure that he had not, 
 till then, thought seriously of going to London. But the 
 fact that the Government would admit him free to its class- 
 rooms and give him a pound a week besides, somehow 
 forced him to go to London. It was not the lack of means 
 that would have prevented him from going. Why, then, 
 should the presence of means induce him to go ? There was 
 no logical reason. The whole affair was disastrously absurd. 
 The art-master at the Wedgwood Institution had chanced, 
 
THE PROUDEST MOTHER. 273 
 
 merely chanced, to suggest that the drinking-cup should be 
 sent to South Kensington. And the result of this caprice 
 was that she was sentenced to solitude for life ! It was too 
 monstrously, too incredibly wicked ! 
 
 With what futile and bitter execration she murmured in 
 her heart the word " If." If Cyril's childish predilections had 
 not been encouraged ! If he had only been content to follow 
 his father's trade ! If she had flatly refused to sign his 
 indenture at Peel's and pay the premium ! If he had not 
 turned from colour to clay ! If the art-master had not had 
 that fatal " idea " ! If the judges for the competition had 
 decided otherwise ! If only she had brought Cyril up in 
 habits of obedience, sacrificing temporary peace to perma- 
 nent security ! 
 
 For after all he could not abandon her without her con- 
 sent. He was not of age. And he would want a lot more 
 money, which he could obtain from none but her. She 
 could refuse. . . . No ! She could not refuse. He was 
 the master, the tyrant. For the sake of daily pleasantness 
 she had weakly yielded to him at the start ! She had be- 
 haved badly to herself and to him. He was spoiled. She 
 had spoiled him. And he was about to repay her with life- 
 long misery, and nothing would deflect him from his course. 
 The usual conduct of the spoilt child ! Had she not witnessed 
 it, and moralized upon it, in other families ? 
 
 " You don't seem very chirpy over it, mater ! " he said. 
 
 She went out of the room. His joy in the prospect of de- 
 parture from the Five Towns, from her, though he masked 
 it, was more manifest than she could bear. 
 
 The Signal, the next day, made a special item of the 
 news. It appeared that no National Scholarship had been 
 won in the Five Towns for eleven years. The citizens were 
 exhorted to remember that Mr. Povey had gained his success 
 in open competition with the cleverest young students of the 
 entire kingdom — and in a branch of art which he had but 
 recently taken up ; and further, that the Government offered 
 only eight scholarships each year. The name of Cyril Povey 
 passed from lip to Up. And nobody who met Constance, 
 in street or shop, could refrain from informing her that 
 she ought to be a proud mother, to have such a son, but that 
 truly they were not surprised . . . and how proud his poor 
 father would have been ! A few sympathetically hinted that 
 maternal pride was one of those luxuries that may cost too 
 dear. 
 
274 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 III. 
 
 The holiday in the Isle of Man was of course ruined for 
 her. She could scarcely walk because of the weight of a 
 lump of lead that she carried in her bosom. On the brightest 
 days the lump of lead was always there. Besides, she was 
 so obese. In ordinary circumstances they might have 
 stayed beyond the month. An indentured pupil is not 
 strapped to the wheel like a common apprentice. Moreover, 
 the indentures were to be cancelled. But Constance did not 
 care to stay. She had to prepare for his departure to 
 London. She had to lay the faggots for her own martyrdom. 
 
 In this business of preparation she showed as much 
 silliness, she betrayed as perfect a lack of perspective, as the 
 most superior son could desire for a topic of affectionate 
 irony. Her preoccupation with petty things of no impor- 
 tance whatever was worthy of the finest traditions of fond 
 motherhood. However, Cyril's careless satire had no effect 
 on her, save that once she got angry, thereby startling him ; 
 he quite correctly and sagely laid this unprecedented outburst 
 to the account of her wrought nerves, and forgave it. 
 Happily for the smoothness of Cyril's translation to London, 
 young Peel-Swynnerton was acquainted with the capital, 
 had a brother in Chelsea, knew of reputable lodgings, was, 
 indeed, an encyclopaedia of the town, and would himself 
 spend a portion of the autumn there. Otherwise, the pre- 
 liminaries which his mother would have insisted on by means 
 of tears and hysteria might have proved fatiguing to Cyril. 
 
 The day came when on that day week Cyril would be gone. 
 Constance steadily fabricated cheerfulness against the pros- 
 pect. She said : 
 
 " Suppose I come with you ? " 
 
 He smiled in toleration of this joke as being a passable 
 quality of joke. And then she smiled in the same sense, 
 hastening to agree with him that as a joke it was not a bad 
 joke. 
 
 In the last week he was very loyal to his tailor. Many a 
 young man would have commanded new clothes after, not 
 before, his arrival in London. But Cyril had faith in his 
 creator. 
 
 On the day of departure the household, the very house 
 itself, was in a state of excitation. He was to leave early. 
 He would not listen to the project of her accompanying him 
 as far as Knype, where the Loop Line joined the main. She 
 might go to Bursley Station and no further. When she 
 
THE PROUDEST MOTHER. 275 
 
 rebelled he disclosed the merest hint of his sullen-churlish 
 side, and she at once yielded. During breakfast she did not 
 cry, but the aspect of her face made him protest. 
 
 " Now, look here, mater ! Just try to remember that I 
 shall be back for Christmas. It's barely three months." 
 And he lit a cigarette. 
 
 She made no reply. 
 
 Amy lugged a Gladstone bag down the crooked stairs. A 
 trunk was already close to the door ; it had wrinkled the 
 carpet and deranged the mat. 
 
 ■ You didn't forget to put the hair-brush in, did you, 
 Amy ? " he asked. 
 
 " N — no, Mr. Cyril," she blubbered. 
 
 " Amy ! "Constance sharply corrected her, as Cyril ran 
 upstairs, " I wonder you can't control yourself better than 
 that." 
 
 Amy weakly apologized. Although treated almost as one 
 of the family, she ought not to have forgotten that she was 
 a servant. What right had she to weep over Cyril's luggage ? 
 This question was put to her in Constance's tone. 
 
 The cab came. Cyril tumbled downstairs with exaggerated 
 carelessness, and with exaggerated carelessness he joked at 
 the cabman. 
 
 ' Now, mother ! " he cried, when the luggage was stowed. 
 " Do you want me to miss this train ? " But he knew that 
 the margin of time was ample. It was his fun ! 
 
 " Nay, I can't be hurried ! " she said, fixing her bonnet. 
 " Amy, as soon as we are gone you can clear this table." 
 
 She climbed heavily into the cab. 
 
 " That's it ! Smash the springs ! " Cyril teased her. 
 
 The horse got a stinging cut to recall him to the seriousness 
 of life. It was a fine, bracing autumn morning, and the driver 
 felt the need of communicating his abundant energy to some 
 one or something. They drove off, Amy staring after them 
 from the door. Matters had been so marvellously well ar- 
 ranged that they arrived at the station twenty minutes before 
 the train was due. 
 
 " Never mind ! " Cyril mockingly comforted his mother. 
 " You'd rather be twenty minutes too soon than one minute 
 too late, wouldn't you ? " 
 
 His high spirits had to come out somehow. 
 
 Gradually the minutes passed, and the empty slate-tinted 
 platform became dotted with people to whom that train was 
 nothing but a Loop Line train, people who took that train 
 every week-day of their lives and knew all its eccentricities. 
 
 And they heard the train whistle as it started from Turn- 
 
276 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 hill. And Cyril had a final word with the porter who was in 
 charge of the luggage. He made a handsome figure, and he 
 had twenty pounds in his pocket. When he returned to 
 Constance she was sniffing, and through her veil he could see 
 that her eyes were circled with red. But through her veil she 
 could see nothing. The train rolled in, rattling to a stand- 
 still. Constance lifted her veil and kissed him ; and kissed 
 her life out. He smelt the odour of her crape. He was, for 
 an instant, close to her, close ; and he seemed to have an 
 overwhelmingly intimate glimpse into her secrets ; he 
 seemed to be choked in the sudden strong emotion of that 
 crape. He felt queer. 
 
 ' Here you are, sir ! Second smoker ! " called the porter. 
 
 The daily frequenters of the train boarded it with their 
 customary disgust. 
 
 " I'll write as soon as ever I get there ! " said Cyril, of his 
 own accord. It was the best he could muster. 
 
 With what grace he raised his hat ! 
 
 A sliding-away ; clouds of steam ; and she shared the dead 
 platform with milk-cans, two porters, and Smith's noisy boy ! 
 
 She walked home very slowly and painfully. The lump of 
 lead was heavier than ever before. And the townspeople saw 
 the proudest mother in Bursley walking home. 
 
 " After all," she argued with her soul angrily, petulantly, 
 " could you expect the boy to do anything else ? He is a 
 serious student, he has had a brilliant success, and is he to 
 be tied to your apron-strings ? The idea is preposterous. 
 It isn't as if he was an idler, or a bad son. No mother could 
 have a better son. A nice thing that he should stay all his 
 life in Bursley simply because you don't like being left alone ! " 
 
 Unfortunately one might as well argue with a mule as with 
 one's soul. Her soul only kept on saying monotonously : 
 " I'm a lonely old woman now. I've nothing to live for any 
 more, and I'm no use to anybody. Once I was young and 
 proud. And this is what my life has come to ! This is the 
 end ! " 
 
 When she reached home, Amy had not touched the break- 
 fast things ; the carpet was still wrinkled, and the mat still 
 out of place. And, through the desolating atmosphere of 
 reaction after a terrific crisis, she marched directly upstairs, 
 entered his plundered room, and beheld the disorder of the 
 bed in which he had slept. 
 
BOOK III. 
 SOPHIA. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ELOPEMENT. 
 I. 
 
 Her soberly rich dress had a countrified air, as she waited, 
 ready for the streets, in the bedroom of the London hotel on 
 the afternoon of the first of July, 1866 ; but there was nothing 
 of the provincial in that beautiful face, nor in that bearing 
 at once shy and haughty ; and her eager heart soared beyond 
 geographical boundaries. 
 
 It was the Hatfield Hotel, in Salisbury Street, between the 
 Strand and the river. Both street and hotel are now gone, 
 lost in the vast foundations of the Savoy and the Cecil ; but 
 the type of the Hatfield lingers with ever-increasing shabbi- 
 ness in Jermyn Street. In 1866, with its dark passages and 
 crooked stairs, its candles, its carpets and stuffs which had 
 outlived their patterns, its narrow dining-room where a 
 thousand busy flies ate together at one long table, its acrid 
 stagnant atmosphere, and its disturbing sensation of dirt 
 everywhere concealing itself, it stood forth in rectitude as a 
 good average modern hotel. The patched and senile drab- 
 ness of the bedroom made an environment that emphasized 
 Sophia's flashing youth. She alone in it was unsullied. 
 
 There was a knock at the door, apparently gay and jaunty. 
 But she thought, truly : " He's nearly as nervous as I am ! " 
 And in her sick nervousness she coughed, and then tried to 
 take full possession of herself. The moment had at last come 
 which would divide her life as a battle divides the history of 
 a nation. Her mind in an instant swept backwards through 
 an incredible three months. 
 
 The schemings to obtain and to hide Gerald's letters at the 
 shop, and to reply to them ! The far more complex and dan- 
 gerous duplicity practised upon her majestic aunt at Axe ! 
 The visits to the Axe post-office ! The three divine meet- 
 
280 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 ings with Gerald at early morning by the canal-feeder, when 
 he had told her of his inheritance and of the harshness of his 
 uncle Boldero, and with a rush of words had spread before 
 her the prospect of eternal bliss ! The nights of fear ! The 
 sudden, dizzy acquiescence in his plan, and the feeling of 
 universal unreality which obsessed her ! The audacious 
 departure from her aunt's, showering a cascade of appalling 
 lies ! Her dismay at Knype Station ! Her blush as she 
 asked for a ticket to London ! The ironic, sympathetic 
 glance of the porter, who took charge of her trunk ! And 
 then the thunder of the incoming train ! Her renewed dis- 
 may when she found that it was very full, and her dis- 
 tracted plunge into a compartment with six people already 
 in it ! And the abrupt reopening of the carriage-door and 
 that curt inquisition from an inspector : " Where for, please ? 
 Where for ? Where for ? " Until her turn was reached : 
 " Where for, miss ? " and her weak little reply : " Euston " ! 
 And more violent blushes ! And then the long, steady beat- 
 ing of the train over the rails, keeping time to the rhythm 
 of the unanswerable voice within her breast : " Why are you 
 here? Why are you here?" And then Rugby; and the 
 awful ordeal of meeting Gerald, his entry into the compart- 
 ment, the rearrangement of seats, and their excruciatingly 
 painful attempts at commonplace conversation in the pub- 
 licity of the carriage ! (She had felt that that part of the 
 enterprise had not been very well devised by Gerald.) And 
 at last London ; the thousands of cabs, the fabulous streets, 
 the general roar, all dream-surpassing, intensifying to an 
 extraordinary degree the obsession of unreality, the illusion 
 that she could not really have done what she had done, that 
 she was not really doing what she was doing ! 
 
 Supremely and finally, the delicious torture of the clutch of 
 terror at her heart as she moved by Gerald's side through the 
 impossible adventure ! Who was this rash, mad Sophia ? 
 Surely not herself ! 
 
 The knock at the door was impatiently repeated. 
 
 " Come in," she said timidly. 
 
 Gerald Scales came in. Yes, beneath that mien of a com- 
 mercial traveller who has been everywhere and through 
 everything, he was very nervous. It was her privacy that, 
 with her consent, he had invaded. He had engaged the bed- 
 room only with the intention of using it as a retreat for 
 Sophia until the evening, when they were to resume their 
 travels. It ought not to have had any disturbing signifi- 
 cance. But the mere disorder on the washstand, a towel 
 lying on one of the cane chairs, made him feel that he was 
 
THE ELOPEMENT. 281 
 
 affronting decency, and so increased his jaunty nervousness. 
 The moment was painful ; the moment was difficult beyond 
 his skill to handle it naturally. 
 
 Approaching her with factitious ease, he kissed her through 
 her veil, which she then lifted with an impulsive movement, 
 and he kissed her again, more ardently, perceiving that her 
 ardour was exceeding his. This was the first time they had 
 been alone together since her flight from Axe. And yet, 
 with his worldly experience, he was naive enough to be sur- 
 prised that he could not put all the heat of passion into his 
 embrace, and he wondered why he was not thrilled at the 
 contact with her ! However, the powerful clinging of her lips 
 somewhat startled his senses, and also delighted him by its 
 silent promise. He could smell the stuff of her veil, the 
 sarsenet of her bodice, and, as it were wrapped in these 
 odours as her body was wrapped in its clothes, the faint 
 fleshly perfume of her body itself. Her face, viewed so close 
 that he could see the almost imperceptible down on those 
 fruit-like cheeks, was astonishingly beautiful ; the dark eyes 
 were exquisitely misted ; and he could feel the secret loyalty 
 of her soul ascending to him. She was very slightly taller 
 than her lover ; but somehow she hung from him, her body 
 curved backwards, and her bosom pressed against his, so that 
 instead of looking up at her gaze he looked down at it. He 
 preferred that ; perfectly proportioned though he was, his 
 stature was a delicate point with him. His spirits rose by 
 the uplift of his senses. His fears slipped away ; he began 
 to be very satisfied with himself. He was the inheritor of 
 twelve thousand pounds, and he had won this unique crea- 
 ture. She was his capture ; he held her close, permittedly 
 scanning the minutiae of her skin, permittedly crushing 
 her flimsy silks. Something in him had forced her to lay her 
 modesty on the altar of his desire. And the sun brightly 
 shone. So he kissed her yet more ardently, and with the 
 slightest touch of a victor's condescension ; and her burning 
 response more than restored the self-confidence which he had 
 been losing. 
 
 " I've got no one but you now," she murmured in a melt- 
 ing voice. 
 
 She fancied in her ignorance that the expression of this 
 sentiment would please him. She was not aware that a man 
 is usually rather chilled by it, because it proves to him that 
 the other is thinking about his responsibilities and not about 
 his privileges. Certainly it calmed Gerald, though without 
 imparting to him her sense of Ms responsibilities. He 
 smiled vaguely. To Sophia his smile was a miracle con- 
 
282 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 tinually renewed ; it mingled dashing gaiety with a hint of 
 wistful appeal in a manner that never failed to bewitch her. 
 A less innocent girl than Sophia might have divined from 
 that adorable half-feminine smile that she could do any- 
 thing with Gerald except rely on him. But Sophia had to 
 learn. 
 
 " Are you ready ? " he asked, placing his hands on her 
 shoulders and holding her away from him. 
 
 " Yes," she said, nerving herself. Their faces were still 
 very near together. 
 
 " Well, would you like to go and see the Dore pictures ? " 
 
 A simple enough question ! A proposal felicitous enough ! 
 Dore was becoming known even in the Five Towns, not, 
 assuredly, by his illustrations to the Contes Drolatiques of 
 Balzac, but by his shuddering Biblical conceits. In pious 
 circles Dore was saving art from the reproach of futility 
 and frivolity. It was indubitably a tasteful idea on Gerald's 
 part to take his love of a summer's afternoon to gaze at the 
 originals of those prints which had so deeply impressed the 
 Five Towns. It was an idea that sanctified the profane 
 adventure. 
 
 Yet Sophia showed signs of affliction. Her colour went 
 and came ; her throat made the motion of swallowing ; 
 there was a muscular contraction over her whole body. And 
 she drew herself from him. Her glance, however, did not 
 leave him, and his eyes fell before hers. 
 
 " But what about the — wedding ? " she breathed. 
 
 That sentence seemed to cost all her pride ; but she was 
 obliged to utter it, and to pay for it. 
 
 " Oh," he said lightly and quickly, just as though she had 
 reminded him of a detail that might have been forgotten, 
 " I was just going to tell you. It can't be done here. There's 
 been some change in the rules. I only found out for certain 
 late last night. But I've ascertained that it'll be as simple 
 as A B C before the English Consul at Paris ; and as I've 
 got the tickets for us to go over to-night, as we arranged . . ." 
 He stopped. 
 
 She sat down on the towel-covered chair, staggered. She 
 believed what he said. She did not suspect that he was using 
 the classic device of the seducer. It was his casualness that 
 staggered her. Had it really been his intention to set off on 
 an excursion and remark as an afterthought : "By the way, 
 we can't be married as I told you at half-past two to-day " ? 
 Despite her extreme ignorance and innocence, Sophia held a 
 high opinion of her own commonsense and capacity for look- 
 ing after herself, and she could scarcely believe that he was 
 

 * THE ELOPEMENT. 283 
 
 expecting her to go to Paris, and at night, without being 
 married. She looked pitiably young, virgin, raw, unsophisti- 
 cated ; helpless in the midst of dreadful dangers. Yet her 
 head was full of a blank astonishment at being mistaken for 
 a simpleton ! The sole explanation could be that Gerald, 
 in some matters, must himself be a confiding simpleton. He 
 had not reflected. He had not sufficiently realized the im- 
 mensity of her sacrifice in flying with him even to London. 
 She felt sorry for him. She had the woman's first glimpse of 
 the necessity for some adjustment of outlook as an essential 
 preliminary to uninterrupted happiness. 
 
 " It'll be all right ! " Gerald persuasively continued. 
 
 He looked at her, as she was not looking at him. She was 
 nineteen. But she seemed to him utterly mature and mys- 
 terious. Her face baffled him ; her mind was a foreign land. 
 Helpless in one sense she might be ; yet she, and not he, stood 
 for destiny ; the future lay in the secret and capricious work- 
 ings of that mind. 
 
 Oh no ! " she exclaimed curtly. " Oh no ! " 
 
 " Oh no what ? " 
 
 " We can't possibly go like that," she said. 
 
 " But don't I tell you it'll be all right ? " he protested. 
 " If we stay here and they come after you^ . . . ! Besides, 
 I've got the tickets and all." 
 
 " Why didn't you tell me sponer ? " she demanded. 
 
 " But how could I ? " he grumbled. " Have we had a 
 single minute alone ? " 
 
 This was nearly true. They could not have discussed the 
 formalities of marriage in the crowded train, nor during the 
 hurried lunch with a dozen cocked ears at the same table. 
 He saw himself on sure ground here. 
 
 " Now, could we ? " he pressed. 
 
 ' And you talk about going to see pictures ! " was her 
 reply. 
 
 Undoubtedly this had been a grave error of tact. He 
 recognized that it was a stupidity. And so he resented it, 
 as though she had committed it and not he. 
 
 " My dear girl," he said, hurt, " I acted for the best. It 
 isn't my fault if rules are altered and officials silly." 
 
 " You ought to have told me before," she persisted sul- 
 lenly. 
 
 " But how could I ? " 
 
 He almost believed in that moment that he had really in- 
 tended to marry her, and that the ineptitudes of red-tape 
 had prevented him from achieving his honourable purpose ; 
 whereas he had done nothing whatever towards the marriage. 
 
284 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Oh no ! Oh no ! " she repeated, with heavy Hp and 
 liquid eye. " Oh no ! " 
 
 He gathered that she was flouting his suggestion of Paris. 
 
 Slowly and nervously he approached her. She did not 
 stir nor look up. Her glance was fixed on the washstand. 
 He bent down and murmured : 
 
 " Come, now. It'll be all right. You'll travel in the ladies' 
 saloon on the steam-packet." 
 
 She did not stir. He bent lower and touched the back of 
 her neck with his lips. And she sprang up, sobbing and 
 angry. Because she was mad for him she hated him furiously. 
 All tenderness had vanished. 
 
 " I'll thank you not to touch me ! " she said fiercely. She 
 had given him her lips a moment ago, but now to graze her 
 neck was an insult. 
 
 He smiled sheepishly. " But really you must be reason- 
 able," he argued. " What have I done ? " 
 
 " It's what you haven't done, I think ! " she cried. " Why 
 didn't you tell me while we were in the cab ? " 
 
 " I didn't care to begin worrying you just then," he re- 
 , plied : which was exactly true. 
 
 The fact was, he had of course shirked telling her that no 
 marriage would occur that day. Not being a professional 
 seducer of young girls, he lacked skill to do a difficult thing 
 simply. 
 
 " Now come along, little girl," he went on, with just a 
 trifle of impatience. " Let's go out and enjoy ourselves. I 
 assure you that everything will be all right in Paris." 
 
 " That's what you said about coming to London," she 
 retorted sarcastically through her sobs. " And look at 
 you ! " 
 
 Did he imagine for a single instant that she would have 
 come to London with him save on the understanding that 
 she was to be married immediately upon arrival ? This atti- 
 tude of an indignant question was not to be reconciled with 
 her belief that his excuses for himself were truthful. But 
 she did not remark the discrepancy. 
 
 Her sarcasm wounded his vanity. 
 
 " Oh, very well ! " he muttered. " If you don't choose to 
 believe what I say ! " He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 She said nothing ; but the sobs swept at intervals through 
 her frame, shaking it. 
 
 Reading hesitation in her face, he tried again. " Come 
 along, little girl. And wipe your eyes." And he approached 
 her. She stepped back. 
 
 " No, no ! " she denied him, passionately. He had es- 
 
THE ELOPEMENT. 285 
 
 teemed her too cheaply. And she did not care to be called 
 " little girl." 
 
 " Then what shall you do ? " he inquired, in a tone which 
 blended mockery and bullying. She was making a fool of 
 him. 
 
 " I can tell you what I shan't do," she said. " I shan't 
 go to Paris." Her sobs were less frequent. 
 
 " That's not my question," he said icily. " I want to 
 know what you will do." 
 
 There was now no pretence of affectionateness either on 
 her part or on his. They might, to judge from their attitudes, 
 have been nourished from infancy on mutual hatred. 
 
 " What's that got to do with you ? " she demanded. 
 
 " It's got everything to do with mS," he said. 
 
 " Well, you can go and find out ! " she said. 
 
 It was girlish ; it was childish ; it was scarcely according 
 to the canons for conducting a final rupture ; but it was not 
 the less tragically serious. Indeed, the spectacle of this 
 young girl absurdly behaving like one in a serious crisis in- 
 creased the tragicalness of the situation even if it did not 
 heighten it. The idea that ran through Gerald's brain was 
 the ridiculous folly of having anything to do with young 
 girls. He was quite blind to her beauty. 
 
 " ' Go ' ? " he repeated her word. " You mean that ? " 
 
 " Of course I mean it," she answered promptly. 
 
 The coward in him urged him to take advantage of her 
 ignorant, helpless pride, and leave her at her word. He re- 
 membered the scene she had made at the pit shaft, and he 
 said to himself that her charm was not worth her temper, 
 and that he was a fool ever to have dreamed that it was, and 
 that he would be doubly a fool now not to seize the oppor- 
 tunity of withdrawing from an insane enterprise. 
 
 " I am to go ? "he asked, with a sneer. 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " Of course if you order me to leave you, I must. Can I 
 do anything for you ? " 
 
 She signified that he could not. 
 
 " Nothing ? You're sure ? " 
 
 She frowned. 
 
 " Well, then, good-bye." He turned towards the door. 
 
 " I suppose you'd leave me here without money or any- 
 thing ? " she said in a cold, cutting voice. And her sneer 
 was far more destructive than his. It destroyed in him the 
 last trace of compassion for her. 
 
 " Oh, I beg pardon ! " he said, and swaggeringly counted 
 out five sovereigns on to a chest of drawers. 
 
286 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 She rushed at them. " Do you think I'll take your odious 
 money ? " she snarled, gathering the coins in her gloved 
 hand. 
 
 Her first impulse was to throw them in his face ; but she 
 paused and then flung them into a corner of the room. 
 
 " Pick them up ! " she commanded him. 
 
 " No, thanks," he said briefly ; and left, shutting the door. 
 
 Only a very little while, and they had been lovers, exuding 
 tenderness with every gesture, like a perfume ! Only a very 
 little while, and she had been deciding to telegraph con- 
 descendingly to her mother that she was " all right " ! And 
 now the dream was utterly dissolved. And the voice of that 
 hard commonsense which spake to her in her wildest moods 
 grew loud in asserting that the enterprise could never have 
 come to any good, that it was from its inception an impossible 
 enterprise, unredeemed by the slightest justification. An 
 enormous folly ! Yes, an elopement ; but not like a real 
 elopement ; always unreal ! She had always known that 
 it was only an imitation of an elopement, and must end in 
 some awful disappointment. She had never truly wanted 
 to run away ; but something within her had pricked her 
 forward in spite of her protests. The strict notions of her 
 elderly relatives were right after all. It was she who had 
 been wrong. And it was she who would have to pay. 
 
 " I've been a wicked girl," she said to herself grimly, in 
 the midst of her ruin. 
 
 She faced the fact. But she would not repent ; at any rate 
 she would never sit on that stool. She would not exchange 
 the remains of her pride for the means of escape from the 
 worst misery that life could offer. On that point she knew 
 herself. And she set to work to repair and renew her 
 pride. 
 
 Whatever happened she would not return to the Five Towns. 
 She could not, because she had stolen money from her Aunt 
 Harriet. As much as she had thrown back at Gerald, she 
 had filched from her aunt, but in the form of a note. A 
 prudent, mysterious instinct had moved her to take this 
 precaution. And she was glad. She would never have 
 been able to dart that sneer at Gerald about money if she 
 had really needed money. So she rejoiced in her crime ; 
 though since Aunt Harriet would assuredly discover the loss 
 at once, the crime eternally prevented her from going back 
 to her family. Never, never would she look at her mother 
 with the eyes of a thief ! 
 
 (In truth Aunt Harriet did discover the loss, and very 
 creditably said naught about it to anybody. The know- 
 
THE ELOPEMENT. 287 
 
 ledge of it would have twisted the knife in the maternal 
 heart.) 
 
 Sophia was also glad that she had refused to proceed to 
 Paris. The recollection of her firmness in refusing flattered 
 her vanity as a girl convinced that she could take care of 
 herself. To go to Paris unmarried would have been an in- 
 conceivable madness. The mere thought of the enormity 
 did outrage to her moral susceptibilities. No, Gerald had 
 most perfectly mistaken her for another sort of girl ; as, for 
 instance, a shop-assistant or a barmaid ! 
 
 With this the catalogue of her satisfactions ended. She 
 had no idea at all as to what she ought to do, or could do. 
 The mere prospect of venturing out of the room intimidated 
 her. Had Gerald left her trunk in the hall ? Of course he 
 had. What a question ! But what would happen to her ? 
 London . . . London had merely dazed her. She could do 
 nothing for herself. She was as helpless as a rabbit in Lon- 
 don. She drew aside the window- curtain and had a glimpse 
 of the river. It was inevitable that she should think of 
 suicide ; for she could not suppose that any girl had ever 
 got herself into a plight more desperate than hers. " I could 
 slip out at night and drown myself," she thought seriously. 
 " A nice thing that would be for Gerald ! " 
 
 Then loneliness, like a black midnight, overwhelmed her, 
 swiftly wasting her strength, disintegrating her pride in its 
 horrid flood. She glanced about for support, as a woman 
 in the open street who feels she is going to faint, and went 
 blindly to the bed, falling on it with the upper part of her 
 body, in an attitude of abandonment. She wept, but without 
 sobbing. 
 
 II. • 
 
 Gerald Scales walked about the Strand, staring up at its 
 high narrow houses, crushed one against another as though 
 they had been packed, unsorted, by a packer who thought 
 of nothing but economy of space. Except by Somerset 
 House, King's College, and one or two theatres and banks, 
 the monotony of mean shops, with several storeys unevenly 
 perched over them, was unbroken. Then Gerald encountered 
 Exeter Hall, and examined its prominent facade with a pro- 
 vincial's eye ; for despite his travels he was not very familiar 
 with London. Exeter Hall naturally took his mind back 
 to his Uncle Boldero, that great and ardent Nonconformist, 
 and his own godly youth. It was laughable to muse upon 
 
288 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 what his uncle would say and think, did the old man know 
 that his nephew had run away with a girl, meaning to seduce 
 her in Paris. It was enormously funny ! 
 
 However, he had done with all that. He was well out of 
 it. She had told him to go, and he had gone. She had 
 money to get home ; she had nothing to do but use the 
 tongue in her head. The rest was her affair. He would go 
 to Paris alone, and find another amusement. It was absurd 
 to have supposed that Sophia would ever have suited him. 
 Not in such a family as the Baineses could one reasonably 
 expect to discover an ideal mistress. No ! there had been 
 a mistake. The whole business was wrong. She had nearly 
 made a fool of him. But he was not the man to be made a 
 fool of. He had kept his dignity intact. 
 
 So he said to himself. Yet all the time his dignity, and 
 his pride also, were bleeding, dropping invisible blood along 
 the length of the Strand pavements. 
 
 He was at Salisbury Street again. He pictured her in the 
 bedroom. Damn her ! He wanted her. He wanted her with 
 an excessive desire. He hated to think that he had been 
 baulked. He hated to think that she would remain immacu- 
 late. And he continued to picture her in the exciting privacy 
 of that cursed bedroom. 
 
 Now he was walking down Salisbury Street. He did not 
 wish to be walking down Salisbury Street ; but there he 
 was ! 
 
 " Oh, hell ! " he murmured. " I suppose I must go through 
 with it." 
 
 He felt desperate. He was ready to pay any price in order 
 to be able to say to himself that he had accomplished what 
 he had set his heart on. 
 
 " My wife hasn't gone out, has she ? " he askeQ. of the ball- 
 porter. 
 
 " I'm not; sure, sir ; I think not," said the hall-porter. 
 
 The fear that Sophia had already departed made him sick. 
 When he noticed her trunk still there, he took hope and ran 
 upstairs. 
 
 He saw her, a dark crumpled, sinuous piece of humanity, 
 half on and half off the bed, silhouetted against the bluish- 
 white counterpane ; her hat was on the floor, with the spotted 
 veil trailing away from it. This sight seemed to him to be 
 the most touching that he had ever seen, though her face 
 was hidden. He forgot everything except the deep and 
 strange emotion which affected him. He approached the 
 bed. She did not stir. 
 
 Having heard the entry and knowing that it must be 
 

 THE ELOPEMENT. 289 
 
 Gerald who had entered, Sophia forced herself to remain still. 
 A wild, splendid hope shot up in her. Constrained by all 
 the power of her will not to move, she could not stifle a sob 
 that had lain in ambush in her throat. 
 
 The sound of the sob fetched tears to the eyes of Gerald. 
 
 " Sophia 1 " he appealed to her. 
 
 But she did not stir. Another sob shook her. 
 
 " Very well, then," said Gerald. " We'll stay in London 
 till we can be married. I'll arrange it. . I'll find a nice 
 boarding-house for you, and I'll tell the people you're my 
 cousin. I shall stay on at this hotel, and I'll come and see 
 you every day." 
 
 A silence. 
 
 " Thank you ! " she blubbered. " Thank you ! " 
 
 He saw that her little gloved hand was stretching out 
 towards him, like a feeler ; and he seized it, and knelt down 
 and took her clumsily by the waist. Somehow he dared not 
 kiss her yet. 
 
 An immense relief surged very slowly through them both. 
 
 " I — I — really " She began to say something, but the 
 
 articulation was lost in her sobs. 
 
 " What ? What do you say, dearest ? " he questioned 
 eagerly. 
 
 And she made another effort. " I really couldn't have 
 gone to Paris with you without being married," she succeeded 
 at last. " I really couldn't." 
 
 " No, no ! " he soothed her. " Of course you couldn't. 
 It was I who was wrong. But you didn't know how I felt. 
 . . . Sophia, it's all right now, isn't it ? " 
 
 She sat up and kissed him fairly. 
 
 It was so wonderful and startling that he burst openly into 
 tears. She saw in the facile intensity of his emotion a 
 guarantee of their future happiness. And as he had soothed 
 her, so now she soothed him. They clung together, equally 
 surprised at the sweet, exquisite, blissful melancholy which 
 drenched them through and through. It was remorse for 
 having quarrelled, for having lacked faith in the supreme 
 lightness of the high adventure. Everything was right, 
 and would be right ; and they had been criminally absurd. 
 It was remorse ; but it was pure bliss, and worth the quarrel ! 
 Gerald resumed his perfection again in her eyes ! He was 
 the soul of goodness and honour ! And for Mm she was 
 again the ideal mistress, who would, however, be also a wife. 
 As in his mind he rapidly ran over the steps necessary to 
 their marriage, he kept saying to himself, far off in some 
 remote cavern of the brain : " I shall have her ! I shall have 
 
 10 
 
290 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 her I " He did not reflect that this fragile slip of the Baines 
 stock, unconsciously drawing upon the accumulated strength 
 of generations of honest living, had put a defeat upon him. 
 
 After tea, Gerald, utterly content with the universe, re- 
 deemed his word and found an irreproachable boarding-house 
 for Sophia in Westminster, near the Abbey. She was as- 
 tonished at the glibness of his lies to the landlady about her, 
 and about their circumstances generally. He also found a 
 church and a parson, close by, and in half an hour the for- 
 malities preliminary to a marriage were begun. He explained 
 to her that as she was now resident in London, it would be 
 simpler to recommence the business entirely. She saga- 
 ciously agreed. As she by no means wished to wound him 
 again, she made no inquiry about those other formalities 
 which, owing to red-tape, had so unexpectedly proved 
 abortive ! She knew she was going to be married, and that 
 sufficed. The next day she carried out her filial idea of 
 telegraphing to her mother. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SUPPER. 
 I. 
 
 They had been to Versailles and had dined there. A tram 
 had sufficed to take them out ; but for the return, Gerald, 
 who had been drinking champagne, would not be content with 
 less than a carriage. Further, he insisted on entering Paris 
 by way of the Bois and the Arc de Triomphe. Thoroughly 
 to appease his conceit, it would have been necessary to swing 
 open the gates of honour in the Arc and allow his fiacre to 
 pass through ; to be forced to drive round the monument 
 instead of under it hurt the sense of fitness which champagne 
 engenders. Gerald was in all his pride that day. He had 
 been displaying the wonders to Sophia, and he could not 
 escape the cicerone's secret feeling : that he himself was 
 somehow responsible for the wonders. Moreover, he was 
 exceedingly satisfied with the effect produced by Sophia. 
 
 Sophia, on arriving in Paris with the ring on her trium- 
 phant finger, had timidly mentioned the subject of frocks. 
 None would have guessed from her tone that she was pos- 
 sessed by the desire for French clothes as by a devil. She had 
 been surprised and delighted by the eagerness of Gerald's 
 response. Gerald, too, was possessed by a devil. He thirsted 
 to see her in French clothes. He knew some of the shops 
 and ateliers in the Rue de la Paix, the Rue de la Chaussee 
 d' An tin, and the Palais Royal. He was much more skilled 
 in the lore of frocks than she, for his previous business in 
 Paris had brought him into relations with the great firms ; 
 and Sophia suffered a brief humiliation in the discovery that 
 his private opinion of her dresses was that they x were not 
 dresses at all. She had been aware that they were not 
 Parisian, nor even of London ; but she had thought them 
 pretty good. It healed her wound, however, to reflect that 
 
292 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Gerald had so marvellously kept his own counsel in order to 
 spare her self-love. Gerald had taken her to an establish- 
 ment in the Chaussee d'Antin. It was not one of what Gerald 
 called les grandes maisons, but it was on the very fringe of 
 them, and the real haute couture was practised therein ; and 
 Gerald was remembered there by name. 
 
 Sophia had gone in trembling and ashamed, yet in her 
 heart courageously determined to emerge uncompromis- 
 ingly French. But the models frightened her. They sur- 
 passed even the most fantastic things that she had seen in 
 the streets. She recoiled before them and seemed to hide 
 for refuge in Gerald, as it were appealing to him for moral 
 protection, and answering to him instead of to the saleswoman 
 when the saleswoman offered remarks in stiff English. The 
 prices also frightened her. The simplest trifle here cost 
 sixteen pounds ; and her mother's historic " silk," whose 
 elaborateness had cost twelve pounds, was supposed to 
 have approached the inexpressible ! Gerald said that she 
 was not to think about prices. She was, however, forced 
 by some instinct to think about prices — she who at home 
 had scorned the narrowness of life' in the Square. In the 
 Square she was understood to be quite without common- 
 sense, hopelessly imprudent ; yet here, a spring of sagacity 
 seemed to be welling up in her all the time, a continual anti- 
 dote against the general madness in which she found herself. 
 With extraordinary rapidity she had formed a habit of 
 preaching moderation to Gerald. She hated to " see money 
 thrown away," and her notion of the boundary line between 
 throwing money away and judiciously spending it was still 
 the notion of the Square. 
 
 Gerald would laugh. But she would say, piqued and 
 blushing, but self -sure : " You can laugh ! " It was all 
 deliciously agreeable. 
 
 On this evening she wore the first of the new costumes. 
 She had worn it all day. Characteristically she had chosen 
 something which was not too special for either afternoon or 
 evening, for either warm or cold weather. It was of pale blue 
 taffetas striped in a darker blue, with the corsage cut in 
 basques, and the underskirt of a similar taffetas, but un- 
 striped. The effect of the ornate overskirt falling on the 
 plain underskirt with its small double volant was, she thought, 
 and Gerald too, adorable. The waist was higher than any 
 she had had before, and the crinoline expansive. Tied round 
 her head with a large bow and flying blue ribbons under the 
 chin, was a fragile flat capote like a baby's bonnet, which 
 allowed her hair to escape in front and her great chignon 
 
SUPPER. 293 
 
 behind. A large spotted veil flew out from the capote over 
 the chignon. Her double skirts waved amply over Gerald's 
 knees in the carriage, and she leaned back against the hard 
 cushions and put an arrogant look into her face, and thought 
 of nothing but the intense throbbing joy of life, longing with 
 painful ardour for more and more pleasure, then and for ever. 
 
 As the carriage slipped downwards through the wide, 
 empty gloom of the Champs Elysees into the brilliant Paris 
 that was waiting for them, another carriage drawn by two 
 white horses flashed upwards and was gone in dust. Its 
 only occupant, except the coachman and footman, was a 
 woman. Gerald stared after it. 
 
 " By Jove ! " he exclaimed. " That's Hortense ! " 
 
 It might have been Hortense, or it might not. But he 
 instantly convinced himself that it was. Not every evening 
 did one meet Hortense driving alone in the Champs Elysees, 
 and in August too ! 
 
 " Hortense ? " Sophia asked simply. 
 
 " Yes. Hortense Schneider." 
 
 " Who is she ? " 
 
 " You've never heard of Hortense Schneider ? " 
 
 " No ! " 
 
 " Well ! Have you ever heard of Offenbach ? " 
 
 " I — I don't know. I don't think so." 
 
 He bad the mien of utter incredulity. " You don't mean 
 to say you've never heard of Bluebeard ? " 
 
 "I've heard of Bluebeard, of course," said she. " Who 
 hasn't ? " 
 
 " I mean the opera — Offenbach's." 
 
 She shook her head, scarce knowing even what an opera 
 was. 
 
 " Well, well ! What next ? " 
 
 He implied that such ignorance stood alone in his experi- 
 ence. Really he was delighted at the cleanness of the slate 
 on which he had to write. And Sophia was not a bit alarmed. 
 She relished instruction from his lips. It was a pleasure to 
 her to learn from that exhaustless store of worldly knowledge. 
 To the world she would do her best to assume omniscience 
 in its ways, but to him, in her present mood, she liked to play 
 the ignorant, uninitiated little thing. 
 
 " Why," he said, " the Schneider has been the rage since 
 last year but one. Absolutely the rage." 
 
 " I do wish I'd noticed her ! " said Sophia. v 
 
 " As soon as the Varietes reopens we'll go and see her," 
 he replied, and then gave his detailed version of the career of 
 Hortense Schneider. 
 
294 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 More joys for her in the near future ! She had yet scarcely 
 penetrated the crust of her bliss. She exulted in the dazzling 
 destiny which comprised freedom, fortune, eternal gaiety, and 
 the exquisite Gerald. 
 
 As they crossed the Place de la Concorde, she inquired, 
 " Are we going back to the hotel ? " 
 
 " No," he said. " I thought we'd go and have supper 
 somewhere, if it isn't too early." 
 
 " After all that dinner ? " 
 
 " All what dinner ? You ate about five times as much as 
 me, anyhow ! " 
 
 " Oh, I'm ready ! " she said. 
 
 She was. This day, because it was the first day of her 
 French frock, she regarded as her dibut in the dizzy life of 
 capitals. She existed in a rapture of bliss, an ecstasy which 
 could feel no fatigue, either of body or spirit. 
 
 II. 
 
 It was after midnight when they went into the Restau- 
 rant Sylvain ; Gerald, having decided not to go to the hotel, 
 had changed his mind and called there, and having called 
 there, had remained a long time : this of course ! Sophia 
 was already accustoming herself to the idea that, with Gerald, 
 it was impossible to predict accurately more than five 
 minutes of the future. 
 
 As the chasseur held open the door for them to enter, and 
 Sophia passed modestly into the glowing yellow interior of 
 the restaurant, followed by Gerald in his character of man-of- 
 the-world, they drew the attention of Sylvain 's numerous 
 and glittering guests. No face could have made a more 
 provocative contrast to the women's faces in those screened 
 rooms than the face of Sophia, so childlike between the 
 baby's bonnet and the huge bow of ribbon, so candid, so 
 charmingly conscious of its own pure beauty and of the fact 
 that she was no longer a virgin, but the equal in knowledge 
 of any woman alive. She saw around her, clustered about 
 the white tables, multitudes of violently red lips, powdered 
 cheeks, cold, hard eyes, self-possessed arrogant faces, and 
 insolent bosoms. What had impressed her more than any- 
 thing else in Paris, more even than the three-horsed omni- 
 buses, was the extraordinary self-assurance of all the women, 
 their unashamed posing, their calm acceptance of the public 
 gaze. They seemed to say : " We are the renowned Pari- 
 

 SUPPER. 295 
 
 siennes." They frightened her : they appeared to her so 
 corrupt and so proud in their corruption. She had already 
 seen a dozen women in various situations of conspicuousness 
 apply powder to their complexions with no more ado than if 
 they had been giving a pat to their hair. She could not 
 understand such boldness. As for them, they marvelled at 
 the phenomena presented in Sophia's person ; they admired ; 
 they admitted the style of the gown ; but they envied neither 
 her innocence nor her beauty ; they envied nothing but her 
 youth and the fresh tint of her cheeks. 
 
 " Encore des Anglais ! " said some of them, as if that ex- 
 plained all. 
 
 Gerald had a very curt way with waiters ; and the more 
 obsequious they were, the haughtier he became ; and a head- 
 waiter was no more to him than a scullion. He gave loud- 
 voiced orders in French of which both he and Sophia were 
 proud, and a table was laid for them in a corner near one of 
 the large windows. Sophia settled herself on the bench of 
 green velvet, and began to ply the ivory fan which Gerald 
 had given her. It was very hot ; all the windows were wide 
 open, and the sounds of the street mingled clearly with the 
 tinkle of the supper-room. Outside, against a sky of deepest 
 purple, Sophia could discern the black skeleton of a gigantic 
 building ; it was the new opera house. 
 
 " All sorts here ! " said Gerald, contentedly, after he had 
 ordered iced soup and sparkling Moselle. Sophia did not 
 know what Moselle was, but she imagined that anything 
 would be better than champagne. 
 
 Sylvain's was then typical of the Second Empire, and 
 particularly famous as a supper-room. Expensive and gay, 
 it provided, with its discreet decorations, a sumptuous scene 
 where lorettes, actresses, respectable women, and an occa- 
 sional grisette in luck, could satisfy their curiosity as to each 
 other. In its catholicity it was highly correct as a resort ; 
 not many other restaurants in the centre could have suc- 
 cessfully fought against the rival attractions of the Bois and 
 the dim groves of the Champs Elysees on a night in August. 
 The complicated richness of the dresses, the yards and 
 yards of fine stitchery, the endless niching, the hints, more or 
 less incautious, of nether treasures of embroidered linen ; 
 and, leaping over all this to the eye, the vivid colourings 
 of silks and muslins, veils, plumes and flowers, piled as it 
 were pell-mell in heaps on the universal green cushions to 
 the furthest vista of the restaurant, and all multiplied in 
 gilt mirrors — the spectacle intoxicated Sophia. Her eyes 
 gleamed. She drank the soup with eagerness, and tasted 
 
296 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 the wine, though no desire on her part to like wine could 
 make her like it ; and then, seeing pineapples on a large 
 table covered with fruits, she told Gerald that she should like 
 some pineapple, and Gerald ordered one. 
 
 She gathered her self-esteem and her wits together, and 
 began to give Gerald her views on the costumes. She could 
 do so with impunity, because her own was indubitably 
 beyond criticism.. Some she wholly condemned, and there 
 was not one which earned her unreserved approval. All 
 the absurd fastidiousness of her schoolgirlish provinciality 
 emerged in that eager, affected torrent of remarks. How- 
 ever, she was clever enough to read, after a time, in Gerald's 
 tone and features, that she was making a tedious fool of 
 herself. And she adroitly shifted her criticism from the 
 taste to the work — she put a strong accent on the word — 
 and pronounced that to be miraculous beyond description. 
 She reckoned that she knew what dressmaking and millinery 
 were, and her little fund of expert knowledge caused her to 
 picture a whole necessary cityful of girls stitching, stitching, 
 and stitching day and night. She had wondered, during the 
 few odd days that they had spent in Paris, between visits to 
 Chantilly and other places, at the massed luxury of the 
 shops ; she had wondered, starting with St. Luke's Square 
 as a standard, how they could all thrive. But now in her 
 first real glimpse of the banal and licentious profusion of one 
 among a hundred restaurants, she wondered that the shops 
 were so few. She thought how splendid was all this expen- 
 siveness for trade. Indeed, the notions chasing each other 
 within that lovely and foolish head were a surprising medley. 
 
 " Well, what do you think of Sylvain's ? Gerald asked, 
 impatient to be assured that his Sylvain's had duly over- 
 whelmed her. 
 
 " Oh, Gerald ! " she murmured, indicating that speech 
 was inadequate. And she just furtively touched his hand 
 with hers. 
 
 The ennui due to her critical disquisition on the short- 
 comings of Parisian costume cleared away from Gerald's 
 face. 
 
 " What do you suppose those people are talking about ? " 
 he said with a jerk of the head towards a chattering group 
 of three gorgeous lorettes and two middle-aged men at the 
 next table but one. 
 
 " What are they talking about ? " 
 
 " They're talking about the execution of the murderer 
 Rivain that takes place at Auxerre the clay after to-morrow. 
 They're arranging to make up a party and go and see it." 
 
SUPPER. 297 
 
 " Oh, what a horrid idea ! " said Sophia. 
 
 " Guillotine, you know ! " said Gerald. 
 
 " But can people see it ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course." 
 
 " Well, I think it's horrible." 
 
 " Yes, that's why people like to go and see it. Besides, 
 the man isn't an ordinary sort of criminal at all. He's very 
 young and good-looking, and well-connected. And he killed 
 the celebrated Claudine ..." 
 
 " Claudine ? " 
 
 " Claudine Jacquinot. Of course you wouldn't know. 
 She was a tremendous — er — wrong 'un here in the forties. 
 Made a lot of money, and retired to her native town." 
 
 Sophia, in spite of her efforts to maintain the rdle of a 
 woman who has nothing to learn, blushed. 
 
 " Then she was older than he is." 
 
 " Thirty-five years older, if a day." 
 
 " What did he kill her for ? " 
 
 " She wouldn't give him enough money. She was his 
 mistress — or rather one of 'em. He wanted money for a 
 young lady friend, you see. He killed her and took all the 
 jewels she was wearing. Whenever he went to see her she 
 always wore all her best jewels — and you may bet a woman 
 like that had a few. It seems she had been afraid for a long 
 time that he meant to do for her." 
 
 " Then why did she see him ? And why did she wear her 
 jewels ? " 
 
 " Because she liked being afraid, goose ! Some women 
 only enjoy themselves when they're terrified. Queer, isn't 
 it? " 
 
 Gerald insisted on meeting his wife's gaze as he finished 
 these revelations. He pretended that such stories were the 
 commonest things on earth, and that to be scandalized by 
 them was infantile. Sophia, thrust suddenly into a strange 
 civilization perfectly frank in its sensuality and its sensuous- 
 ness, under the guidance of a young man to whom her half- 
 formed intelligence was a most diverting toy — Sophia felt 
 mysteriously uncomfortable, disturbed by sinister, flitting 
 phantoms of ideas which she only dimly apprehended. Her 
 eyes fell. Gerald laughed self-consciously. She would not 
 eat any more pineapple. 
 
 Immediately afterwards there came into the restaurant an 
 apparition which momentarily stopped every conversation in 
 the room. It was a tall and mature woman who wore over a 
 dress of purplish-black silk a vast flowing sortie de bal of 
 vermilion velvet, looped and tasselled with gold. No other 
 
 10 a 
 
298 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 costume could live by the side of that garment, Arab in shape, 
 Russian in colour, and Parisian in style. It blazed. The 
 woman's heavy coiffure was bound with fillets of gold braid 
 and crimson rosettes. She was followed by a young English- 
 man in evening dress and whiskers of the most exact cor- 
 rectness. The woman sailed, a little breathlessly, to a table 
 next to Gerald's, and took possession of it with an air of use, 
 almost of tedium. She sat down, threw the cloak from her 
 majestic bosom, and expanded her chest. Seeming to ignore 
 the Englishman, who superciliously assumed the seat oppo- 
 site to her, she let her large scornful eyes travel round the 
 restaurant, slowly and imperiously meeting the curiosity 
 which she had evoked. Her beauty had undoubtedly been 
 dazzling, it was still effulgent ; but the blossom was about to 
 fall. She was admirably rouged and powdered ; her arms 
 were glorious ; her lashes were long. There was little fault, 
 save the excessive ripeness of a blonde who fights in vain 
 against obesity. And her clothes combined audacity with 
 the propriety of fashion. She carelessly deposed costly 
 trinkets on the table, and then, having intimidated the whole 
 company, she accepted the menu from the head-waiter and 
 began to study it. 
 
 " That's one of 'em ! " Gerald whispered to Sophia. 
 
 " One of what ? " Sophia whispered. 
 
 Gerald raised his eyebrows warningly, and winked. The 
 Englishman had overheard ; and a look of frigid displeasure 
 passed across his proud face. Evidently he belonged to a 
 rank much higher than Gerald's ; and Gerald, though he 
 could always comfort himself by the thought that he had 
 been to a university with the best, felt his own inferiority and 
 could not hide that he felt it. Gerald was wealthy ; he came 
 of a wealthy family ; but he had not the habit of wealth. 
 When he spent money furiously, he did it with bravado, too 
 conscious of grandeur and too conscious of the difficulties of 
 acquiring that which he threw away. For Gerald had earned 
 money. This whiskered Englishman had never earned 
 money, never known the value of it, never imagined himself 
 without as much of it as he might happen to want. He had 
 the face of one accustomed to give orders and to look down 
 upon inferiors. He was absolutely sure of himself. That his 
 companion chiefly ignored him did not appear to incommode 
 him in the least. She spoke to him in French. He replied 
 in English, very briefly ; and then, in English, he commanded 
 the supper. As soon as the champagne was served he began 
 to drink ; in the intervals of drinking he gently stroked his 
 whiskers. The woman spoke no more. 
 
SUPPER. 299 
 
 Gerald talked more loudly. With that aristocratic Eng- 
 lishman observing him, he could not remain at ease. And 
 not only did he talk more loudly ; he brought into his con- 
 versation references to money, travels, and worldly experi- 
 ences. While seeking to impress the Englishman, he was 
 merely becoming ridiculous to the Englishman ; and ob- 
 scurely he was aware of this. Sophia noticed and regretted 
 it. Still, feeling very unimportant herself, she was recon- 
 ciled to the superiority of the whiskered Englishman as to a 
 natural fact. Gerald's behaviour slightly lowered him in her 
 esteem. Then she looked at him — at his well-shaped neat- 
 ness, his vivacious face, his excellent clothes, and decided 
 that he was much to be preferred to any heavy-jawed, long- 
 nosed aristocrat alive. 
 
 The woman whose vermilion cloak lay around her like a 
 fortification spoke to her escort. He did not understand. 
 He tried to express himself in French, and failed. Then the 
 woman recommenced, talking at length. When she had done 
 he shook his head. His acquaintance with French was 
 limited to the vocabulary of food. 
 
 " Guillotine ! " he murmured, the sole word of her discourse 
 that he had understood. 
 
 " Oui, oui 1 Guillotine. Enfin . . . ! " cried the woman 
 excitedly. Encouraged by her success in conveying even one 
 word of her remarks, she began a third time. 
 
 " Excuse me," said Gerald. " Madame is talking about 
 the execution at Auxerre the day after to-morrow. N'est- 
 ce-pas, madame, que vous parliez de Rivain ? " 
 
 The Englishman glared angrily at Gerald's officious inter- 
 ruption. But the woman smiled benevolently on Gerald, 
 and insisted on talking to her friend through him. And the 
 Englishman had to make the best of the situation. 
 
 There isn't a restaurant in Paris to-night where they 
 aren't talking about that execution," said Gerald on his own 
 account. 
 
 " Indeed ! " observed the Englishman. 
 
 Wine affected them in different ways. 
 
 Now a fragile, short young Frenchman, with an ex- 
 tremely pale face ending in a thin black imperial, appeared 
 at the entrance. He looked about, and, recognizing the 
 woman of the scarlet cloak, very discreetly saluted her. 
 Then he saw Gerald, and his worn, fatigued features showed 
 a sudden startled smile. He came rapidly forward, hat in 
 hand, seized Gerald's palm and greeted him effusively. 
 
 " My wife," said Gerald, with the solemn care of a man 
 who is determined to prove that he is entirely sober. 
 
3 oo THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 The young man became grave and excessively ceremoni- 
 ous. He bowed low over Sophia's hand and kissed it. Her 
 impulse was to laugh, but the gravity of the young man's 
 deference stopped her. She glanced at Gerald, blushing, as 
 if to say : This comedy is not my fault." Gerald said 
 something, the young man turned to him and his face 
 resumed its welcoming smile. 
 
 " This is Monsieur Chirac," Gerald at length completed 
 the introduction, " a friend of mine when I lived in 
 Paris." 
 
 He was proud to have met by accident an acquaintance in 
 a restaurant. It demonstrated that he was a Parisian, and 
 improved his standing with the whiskered Englishman and 
 vermilion cloak. 
 
 "It is the first time you come Paris, madame ? " Chirac 
 addressed himself to Sophia, in limping, timorous English. 
 
 " Yes," she giggled. He bowed again. 
 
 Chirac, with his best compliments, felicitated Gerald upon 
 his marriage. 
 
 " Don't mention it ! " said the humorous Gerald in English, 
 amused at his own wit ; and then : " What about this execu- 
 tion ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " replied Chirac, breathing out a long breath, and 
 smiling at Sophia. " Rivain ! Rivain ! " He made a large, 
 important gesture with his hand. 
 
 It was at once to be seen that Gerald had touched the 
 topic which secretly ravaged the supper-world as a sub- 
 terranean fire ravages a mine. 
 
 " I go ! " said Chirac, with pride, glancing at Sophia, who 
 smiled, self-consciously. 
 
 Chirac entered upon a conversation with Gerald in French. 
 Sophia comprehended that Gerald was surprised and im- 
 pressed by what Chirac told him and that Chirac in turn 
 was surprised. Then Gerald laboriously found his pocket- 
 book, and after some fumbling with it handed it to Chirac so 
 that the latter might write in it. 
 
 " Madame ! " murmured Chirac, resuming his ceremonious 
 stiffness in order to take leave. " Alors, c'est entendu, mon 
 cher ami ! " he said to Gerald, who nodded phlegmatically. 
 And Chirac went away to the next table but one, where were 
 the three lorettes and the two middle-aged men. He was 
 received there with enthusiasm. 
 
 Sophia began to be teased by a little fear that Gerald was 
 not quite his usual self. She did not think of him as tipsy. 
 The idea of his being tipsy would have shocked her. She did 
 not think clearly at all. She was lost and dazed in the laby- 
 
SUPPER. 301 
 
 rinth of new and vivid impressions into which Gerald had led 
 her. But her prudence was awake. 
 
 " I think I'm tired," she said in a low voice. 
 
 " You don't want to go, do you ? " he asked, hurt. 
 
 " Well " 
 
 " Oh, wait a bit ! " 
 
 The owner of the vermilion cloak spoke again to Gerald, 
 who showed that he was nattered. While talking to her he 
 ordered a brandy-and-soda. And then he could not refrain 
 from displaying to her his familiarity with Parisian life, and 
 he related how he had met Hortense Schneider behind a pair 
 of white horses. The vermilion cloak grew even more soci- 
 able at the mention of this resounding name, and chattered 
 with the most agreeable vivacity. Her friend stared inimi- 
 cally. 
 
 " Do you hear that ? " Gerald explained to Sophia, who 
 was sitting silent. " About Hortense Schneider — you know, 
 we met her to-night. It seems she made a bet of a louis with 
 some fellow, and when he lost he sent her the louis set in 
 diamonds worth a hundred thousand francs. That's how 
 they go on here." 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Sophia, further than ever in the labyrinth. 
 
 " 'Scuse me," the Englishman put in heavily. He had 
 heard the words " Hortense Schneider," " Hortense Schnei- 
 der," repeating themselves in the conversation, and at last 
 it had occurred to him that the conversation was about 
 Hortense Schneider. " 'Scuse me," he began again. " Are 
 you — do you mean Hortense Schneider ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Gerald. " We met her to-night." 
 
 " She's in Trouville," said the Englishman, flatly. 
 
 Gerald shook his head positively. 
 
 " I gave a supper to her in Trouville last night," said the 
 Englishman. " And she plays at the Casino Theatre to- 
 night." 
 
 Gerald was repulsed but not defeated. ' ' What is she play- 
 ing in to-night ? Tell me that ! " he sneered. 
 
 " I don't see why I sh'd tell you." 
 
 " Hm ! " Gerald retorted. " If what you say is true, it's a 
 very strange thing I should have seen her in the Champs 
 Elysees to-night, isn't it ? " 
 
 The Englishman drank more wine. " If you want to in- 
 sult me, sir " he began coldly. v 
 
 " Gerald ! " Sophia urged in a whisper. 
 
 " Be quiet ! " Gerald snapped. 
 
 A fiddler in fancy costume plunged into the restaurant at 
 that moment and began to play wildly. The shock of his 
 
302 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 strange advent momentarily silenced the quarrel ; but soon 
 it leaped up again, under the shelter of the noisy music, — the 
 common, tedious, tippler's quarrel. It rose higher and 
 higher. The fiddler looked askance at it over his fiddle. 
 Chirac cautiously observed it. Instead of attending to the 
 music, the festal company attended to the quarrel. Three 
 waiters in a group watched it with an impartial sporting 
 interest. The English voices grew more menacing. 
 
 Then suddenly the whiskered Englishman, jerking his head 
 towards the door, said more quietly : 
 
 " Hadn't we better settle thish outside ? " 
 
 " At your service ! " said Gerald, rising. 
 
 The owner of the vermilion cloak lifted her eyebrows to 
 Chirac in fatigued disgust, but she said nothing. Nor did 
 Sophia say anything. Sophia was overcome by terror. 
 
 The swain of the cloak, dragging his coat after him across 
 the floor, left the restaurant without offering any apology or 
 explanation to his lady. 
 
 " Wait here for me," said Gerald defiantly to Sophia. " I 
 shall be back in a minute." 
 
 " But, Gerald ! " She put her hand on his sleeve. 
 
 He snatched his arm away. " Wait here for me, I tell 
 you," he repeated. 
 
 The doorkeeper obsequiously opened the door to the two 
 unsteady carousers, for whom the fiddler drew back, still 
 playing. 
 
 Thus Sophia was left side by side with the vermilion cloak. 
 She was quite helpless. All the pride of a married woman 
 had abandoned her. She stood transfixed by intense shame, 
 staring painfully at a pillar, to avoid the universal assault of 
 eyes. She felt like an indiscreet little girl, and she looked 
 like one. No youthful radiant beauty of features, no grace 
 and style of a Parisian dress, no certificate of a ring, no pre- 
 mature initiation into the mysteries, could save her from the 
 appearance of a raw fool whose foolishness had been her un- 
 doing. Her face changed to its reddest, and remained at 
 that, and all the fundamental innocence of her nature, which 
 had been overlaid by the violent experiences of her brief com- 
 panionship with Gerald, rose again to the surface with that 
 blush. Her situation drew pity from a few hearts and a 
 careless contempt from the rest. But since once more it 
 was a question of ces Anglais, nobody could be astonished. 
 
 Wifhout moving her head, she twisted her eyes to the 
 clock : half -past two. The fiddler ceased his dance and 
 made a collection in his tasselled cap. The vermilion cloak 
 threw a coin into the cap. Sophia stared at it moveless, 
 
SUPPER. 303 
 
 until the fiddler, tired of waiting, passed to the next table 
 and relieved her agony. She had no money at all. She set 
 herself to watch the clock ; but its fingers would not stir. 
 
 With an exclamation the lady of the cloak got up and 
 peered out of the window, chatted with waiters, and then 
 removed herself and her cloak to the next table, where she 
 was received with amiable sympathy by the three lorettes, 
 Chirac, and the other two men. The party surreptitiously 
 examined Sophia from time to time. Then Chirac went 
 outside with the head-waiter, returned, consulted with 
 his friends, and finally approached Sophia. It was twenty 
 minutes past three. 
 
 He renewed his magnificent bow. " Madame," he said 
 carefully, " will you allow me to bring you to your hotel ? " 
 
 He made no reference to Gerald, partly, doubtless, because 
 his English was treacherous on difficult ground. 
 
 Sophia had not sufiicient presence of mind to thank her 
 saviour. 
 
 " But the bill ? " she stammered. " The bill isn't paid." 
 
 He did not instantly uuderstand her. But one of the 
 waiters had caught the sound of a familiar word, and sprang 
 forward with a slip of paper on a plate. 
 
 " I have no money," said Sophia, with a feeble smile. 
 
 " Je vous arrangerai 5a," he said. " What name of the 
 hotel ? Meurice, is it not ? " 
 
 " Hotel Meurice," said Sophia. " Yes." 
 
 He spoke to the head-waiter about the bill, which was 
 carried away like something obscene ; and on his arm, which 
 he punctiliously offered and she could not refuse, Sophia left 
 the scene of her ignominy. She was so distraught that she 
 could not manage her crinoline in the doorway. No sign 
 anywhere outside of Gerald or his foe ! 
 
 He put her into an open carriage, and in five minutes they 
 had clattered down the brilliant silence of the Rue de la Paix, 
 through the Place Vendome into the Rue de Rivoli ; and the 
 night-porter of the hotel was at the carriage-step. 
 
 " I tell them at the restaurant where you gone," said 
 Chirac, bare-headed under the long colonnade of the street. 
 " If your husband is there, I tell him. Till to-morrow . . . ! " 
 
 His manners were more wonderful than any that Sophia 
 had ever imagined. He might have been in the dark Tui- 
 leries on the opposite side of the street, saluting an empress, 
 instead of taking leave of a raw little girl, who was still too 
 disturbed even to thank him. 
 
 She fled candle in hand up the wide, many-cornered stairs ; 
 Gerald might be already in the bedroom, . . . drunk ! 
 
3 o 4 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 There was a chance. But the gilt-fringed bedroom was 
 empty. She sat down at the velvet-covered table amid the 
 shadows cast by the candle that wavered in the draught from 
 the open window. And she set her teeth and a cold fury 
 possessed her in the hot and languorous night. Gerald was 
 an imbecile. That he should have allowed himself to get 
 tipsy was bad enough, but that he should have exposed her 
 to the horrible situation from which Chirac had extricated 
 her, was unspeakably disgraceful. He was an imbecile. He 
 had no commonsense. With all his captivating charm, he 
 could not be relied upon not to make himself ridiculous, 
 tragically ridiculous. Compare him with Mr. Chirac ! She 
 leaned despairingly on the table. She would not undress. 
 She would not move. She had to realize her position ; she 
 had to see it. 
 
 Folly ! Folly ! Fancy a commercial traveller throwing a 
 compromising piece of paper to the daughter of his customer 
 in the shop itself : that was the incredible folly with which 
 their relations had begun ! And his mad gesture at the pit- 
 shaft ! And his scheme for bringing her to Paris unmarried ! 
 And then to-night ! Monstrous folly ! Alone in the bedroom 
 she was a wise and disillusioned woman, wiser than any of 
 those dolls in the restaurant. 
 
 And had she not gone to Gerald, as it were, over the dead 
 body of her father, through lies and lies and again lies ? 
 That was how she phrased it to herself. . . . Over the dead 
 body of her father ! How could such a venture succeed ? 
 How could she ever have hoped that it would succeed ? 
 In that moment she saw her acts with the terrible vision of 
 a Hebrew prophet. 
 
 She thought of the Square and of her life there with her 
 mother and Constance. Never would her pride allow her 
 to return to that life, not even if the worst happened to her 
 that could happen. She was one of those who are prepared 
 to pay without grumbling for what they have had. 
 
 There was a sound outside. She noticed that the dawn 
 had begun. The door opened and disclosed Gerald. 
 
 They exchanged a searching glance, and Gerald shut the 
 door. Gerald infected the air, but she perceived at once 
 that he was sobered. His lip was bleeding. 
 
 " Mr. Chirac brought me home," she said. 
 
 " So it seems," said Gerald, curtly. " I asked you to wait 
 for me. Didn't I say I should come back ? " 
 
 He was adopting the injured magisterial tone of the man 
 who is ridiculously trying to conceal from himself and others 
 that he has recently behaved like an ass. 
 
SUPPER. 305 
 
 She resented the injustice. " I don't think you need talk 
 like that," she said. / 
 
 " Like what ? " he bullied her, determined that she should 
 be in the wrong. 
 
 And what a hard look on his pretty face ! 
 
 Her prudence bade her accept the injustice. She was his. 
 Rapt away from her own world, she was utterly dependent 
 on his good nature. 
 
 ' ' I knocked my chin against the damned balustrade, coming 
 upstairs," said Gerald, gloomily. 
 
 She knew that was a lie. " Did you ? " she replied kindly. 
 V Let me bathe it." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 \N AMBITION SATISFIED. 
 I. 
 
 She went to sleep in misery. All the glory of her new life 
 had been eclipsed. But when she woke up, a few hours later, 
 in the large, velvety stateliness of the bedroom for which 
 Gerald was paying so fantastic a price per day, she was in a 
 brighter mood, and very willing to reconsider her verdicts. Her 
 pride induced her to put Gerald in the right and herself in the 
 wrong, for she was too proud to admit that she had married 
 a charming and irresponsible fool. And, indeed, ought she 
 not to put herself in the wrong ? Gerald had told her to wait, 
 and she had not waited. He had said that he should return 
 to the restaurant, and he had returned. Why had she not 
 waited ? She had not waited because she had behaved like 
 a simpleton. She had been terrified about nothing. Had 
 she not been frequenting restaurants now for a month past ? 
 Ought not a married woman to be capable of waiting an hour 
 in a restaurant for her lawful husband without looking a 
 ninny ? And as for Gerald's behaviour, how could he have 
 acted differently ? The other Englishman was obviously a 
 brute and had sought a quarrel. His contradiction of Gerald's 
 statements was extremely offensive. On being invited by 
 the brute to go outside, what could Gerald do but comply ? 
 Not to have complied might have meant a fight in the res- 
 taurant, as the brute was certainly drunk. Compared to 
 the brute, Gerald was not at all drunk, merely a little gay 
 and talkative. Then Gerald's fib about his chin was natural ; 
 he simply wished to minimize the fuss and to spare her feel- 
 ings. It was, in fact, just like Gerald to keep perfect silence 
 as to what had passed between himself and the brute. How- 
 ever, she was convinced that Gerald, so lithe and quick, had 
 
AN AMBITION SATISFIED. 307 
 
 given that great brute with his supercilious ways as good as 
 he received, if not better. 
 
 And if she were a man and had asked her wife to wait in a 
 restaurant, and the wife had gone home under the escort of 
 another man, she would most assuredly be much more angry 
 than Gerald had been. She was very glad that she had con- 
 trolled herself and exercised a meek diplomacy. A quarrel 
 had thus been avoided. Yes, the finish of the evening could 
 not be called a quarrel ; after her nursing of his chin, nothing 
 but a slight coolness on his part had persisted. 
 
 She arose silently and began to dress, full of a determina- 
 tion to treat Gerald as a good wife ought to treat a husband. 
 Gerald did not stir ; he was an excellent sleeper : one of 
 those organisms that never want to go to bed and never want 
 to get up. When her toilet was complete save for her bodice, 
 there was a knock at the door. She started. 
 
 " Gerald ! " She approached the bed, and leaned her nude 
 bosom over her husband, and put her arms round his neck. 
 This method of being brought back to consciousness did not 
 displease him. 
 
 The knock was repeated. He gave a grunt. 
 
 " Some one's knocking at the door," she whispered. 
 
 " Then why don't you open it ? " he asked dreamily. 
 
 * I'm not dressed, darling." 
 
 He looked at her. " Stick something on your shoulders, 
 girl ! " said he. " What does it matter ? " 
 
 There she was, being a simpleton again, despite her resolu- 
 tion ! 
 
 She obeyed, and cautiously opened the door, standing 
 behind it. 
 
 A middle-aged whiskered servant, in a long white apron, 
 announced matters in French which passed her understand- 
 ing. But Gerald had heard from the bed, and he replied. 
 
 ' Bien, monsieur ! " The servant departed, with a bow, 
 down the obscure corridor. 
 
 " It's Chirac," Gerald explained when she had shut the 
 door. ' I was forgetting I asked him to come and have 
 lunch with us, early. He's waiting in the drawing-room. 
 Just put your bodice on, and go and talk to him till I come." 
 
 He jumped out of bed, and then, standing in his night- 
 garb, stretched himself and terrifically yawned. 
 
 " Me ? " Sophia questioned. s 
 
 " Who else ? " said Gerald with that curious satiric dryness 
 which he would sometimes import into his tone. 
 
 " But I can't speak French ! " she protested. 
 
 " I didn't suppose you could," said Gerald, with an in- 
 
3©8 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 crease of dryness ; " but you know as well as I do that he 
 can speak English." 
 
 " Oh, very well, then ! " she murmured with agreeable 
 alacrity. 
 
 Evidently Gerald had not yet quite recovered from his 
 legitimate displeasure of the night. He minutely examined 
 his mouth in the glass of the Louis Philippe wardrobe. It 
 showed scarcely a trace of battle. 
 
 " I say ! " he stopped her, as, nervous at the prospect 
 before her, she was leaving the room. " I was thinking of 
 going to Auxerre to-day." 
 
 " Auxerre ? " she repeated, wondering under what circum- 
 stances she had recently heard that name. Then she re- 
 membered : it was the place of execution of the murderer 
 Rivain. 
 
 " Yes," he said. " Chirac has to go. He's on a newspaper 
 now. He was an architect when I knew him. He's got to 
 go and he thinks himself jolly lucky. So I thought I'd go 
 with him." 
 
 The truth was that he had definitely arranged to go. 
 
 " Not to see the execution ? " she stammered. 
 
 " Why not ? I've always wanted to see an execution, 
 especially with the guillotine. And executions are public 
 in France. It's quite the proper thing to go to them." 
 
 " But why do you want to see an execution ? " 
 
 " It just happens that I do want to see an execution. It's 
 a fancy of mine, that's all. I don't know that any reason 
 is necessary," he said, pouring out water into the diminutive 
 ewer. 
 
 She was aghast. " And shall you leave me here alone ? " 
 
 " Well," said he, "I don't see why my being married 
 should prevent me from doing something that I've always 
 wanted to do. Do you ? " 
 
 " Oh no ! " she eagerly concurred. 
 
 " That's all right," he said. " You can do exactly as you 
 like. Either stay here, or come with me. If you go to 
 Auxerre there's no need at all for you to see the execution. 
 It's an interesting old town — cathedral and so on. But of 
 course if you can't bear to be in the same town as a guillotine, 
 I'll go alone. I shall come back to-morrow." 
 
 It was plain where his wish lay. She stopped the phrases 
 that came to her lips, and did her best to dismiss the thoughts 
 which prompted them. 
 
 " Of course I'll go," she said quietly. She hesitated, and 
 then went up to the washstand and kissed a part of his cheek 
 that was not soapy. That kiss, which comforted and some- 
 
AN AMBITION SATISFIED. 309 
 
 how reassured her, was the expression of a surrender whose 
 monstrousness she would not admit to herself. 
 
 In the rich and dusty drawing-room Chirac and Chirac's 
 exquisite formalities awaited her. Nobody else was there. 
 
 " My husband . . ." she began, smiling and blushing. 
 She liked Chirac. 
 
 It was the first time she had had the opportunity of using 
 that word to other than a servant. It soothed her and gave 
 her confidence. She perceived after a few moments that 
 Chirac did genuinely admire her ; more, that she inspired 
 him with something that resembled awe. Speaking very 
 slowly and distinctly she said that she should travel with her 
 husband to Auxerre, as he saw no objection to that course ; 
 implying that if he saw no objection she was perfectly satis- 
 fied. Chirac was concurrence itself. In five minutes it 
 seemed to be the most natural and proper thing in the world 
 that, on her honeymoon, she should be going with her hus- 
 band to a particular town because a notorious murderer was 
 about to be decapitated there in public. 
 
 " My husband has always wanted to see an execution," 
 she said, later. " It would be a pity to . . ." 
 
 " As psychological experience," replied Chirac, pronouncing 
 the p of the adjective, " it will be very inter essant. ... To 
 observe one's self, in such circumstances ..." He smiled 
 enthusiastically. 
 
 She thought how strange even nice Frenchmen were. 
 Imagine going to an execution in order to observe yourself ! 
 
 II. 
 
 What continually impressed Sophia as strange, in the be- 
 haviour not only of Gerald but of Chirac and other people 
 with whom she came into contact, was its quality of casual- 
 ness. She had all her life been accustomed to see enter- 
 prises, even minor ones, well pondered and then carefully 
 schemed beforehand. In St. Luke's Square there was always, 
 in every head, a sort of time-table of existence prepared at 
 least one week in advance. But in Gerald's world nothing 
 was prearranged. Elaborate affairs were decided in a moment 
 and undertaken with extraordinary lightness. Thus the 
 excursion to Auxerre ! During lunch scarcely a word was 
 said as to it ; the conversation, in English for Sophia's advan- 
 tage, turning, as usual under such circumstances, upon the 
 difficulty of languages and the differences between countries. 
 
3 io THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Nobody would have guessed that any member of the party 
 had any preoccupation whatever for the rest of the day. 
 The meal was delightful to Sophia ; not merely did she find 
 Chirac comfortingly kind and sincere, but Gerald was restored 
 to the perfection of his charm and his good humour. Then 
 suddenly, in the midst of coffee, the question of trains loomed 
 up like a swift crisis. In five minutes Chirac had departed — 
 whether to his office or his home Sophia did not understand — 
 and within a quarter of an hour she and Gerald were driving 
 rapidly to the Gare de Lyon, Gerald stuffing into his pocket 
 a large envelope full of papers which he had received by reg- 
 istered post. They caught the train by about a minute, 
 and Chirac by a few seconds. Yet neither he nor Gerald 
 seemed to envisage the risk of inconvenience and annoyance 
 which they had incurred and escaped. Chirac chattered 
 through the window with another journalist in the next 
 compartment. When she had leisure to examine him, Sophia 
 saw that he must have called at his home to put on old 
 clothes. Everybody except herself and Gerald seemed to 
 travel in his oldest clothes. 
 
 The train was hot, noisy, and dusty. But, one after an- 
 other, all three of them fell asleep and slept heavily, calmly, 
 like healthy and exhausted young animals. Nothing could 
 disturb them for more than a moment. To Sophia it ap- 
 peared to be by simple chance that Chirac aroused himself 
 and them at Laroche and sleepily seized her valise and got 
 them all on the platform, where they yawned and smiled, 
 full of the deep, half-realized satisfaction of repose. They 
 drank nectar from a wheeled buffet, drank it eagerly, in 
 thirsty gulps, and sighed with pleasure and relief, and Gerald 
 threw down a coin, refusing change with a lord's gesture. 
 The local train to Auxerre was full, and with a varied and 
 sinister cargo. At length they were in the zone of the wait- 
 ing guillotine. The rumour ran that the executioner was on 
 the train. No one had seen him ; no one was sure of recog- 
 nizing him, but everyone hugged the belief that he was on 
 the train. Although the sun was sinking the heat seemed 
 not to abate. Attitudes grew more limp, more abandoned. 
 Soot and prickly dust flew in unceasingly at the open win- 
 dows. The train stopped at Bonnard, Chemilly, and Mone- 
 teau, each time before a waiting crowd that invaded it. 
 And at last, in the great station at Auxerre, it poured out an 
 incredible mass of befouled humanity that spread over every- 
 thing like an inundation. Sophia was frightened. Gerald 
 left the. initiative to Chirac, and Chirac took her arm and 
 led her forward, looking behind him to see that Gerald 
 
AN AMBITION SATISFIED. 311 
 
 followed with the valise. Frenzy seemed to reign in 
 Auxerre. 
 
 The driver of a cab demanded ten francs for transporting 
 them to the Hotel de l'Epee. 
 
 " Bah ! " scornfully exclaimed Chirac, in his quality of ex- 
 perienced Parisian who is not to be exploited by heavy- 
 witted provincials. 
 
 But the driver of the next cab demanded twelve francs. 
 
 " Jump in," said Gerald to Sophia. Chirac lifted his eye- 
 brows. 
 
 At the same moment a tall, stout man with the hard face 
 of a nourishing scoundrel, and a young, pallid girl on his arm, 
 pushed aside both Gerald and Chirac and got into the cab 
 with his companion. 
 
 Chirac protested, telling him that the cab was already 
 engaged. 
 
 The usurper scowled and swore, and the young girl laughed 
 boldly. 
 
 Sophia, shrinking, expected her escort to execute justice 
 heroic and final ; but she was disappointed. 
 
 " Brute ! " murmured Chirac, and shrugged his shoulders 
 as the carriage drove off, leaving them foolish on the kerb. 
 
 By this time all the other cabs had been seized. They 
 walked to the Hotel de l'Epee, jostled by the crowd, Sophia 
 and Chirac in front, and Gerald following with the valise, 
 whose weight caused him to lean over to the right and his 
 left arm to rise. The avenue was long, straight, and misty 
 with a floating dust. Sophia had a vivid sense of the ro- 
 mantic. They saw towers and spires, and Chirac talked to 
 her slowly and carefully of the cathedral and the famous 
 churches. He said that the stained glass was marvellous, 
 and with much care he catalogued for her all the things she 
 must visit. They crossed a river. She felt as though she 
 was stepping into the middle age. At intervals Gerald 
 changed the valise from hand to hand ; obstinately, he would 
 not let Chirac touch it. They struggled upwards, through 
 narrow curving streets. 
 
 " Voila ! " said Chirac. 
 
 They were in front of the Hotel de l'Epee. Across the 
 street was a cafe crammed with people. Several carriages 
 stood in front. The Hotel de l'Epee had a reassuring air of 
 mellow respectability, such as Chirac had claimed for it. He 
 had suggested this hotel for Madame Scales because it was 
 not near the place of execution. Gerald had said, " Of 
 course ! Of course ! " Chirac, who did not mean to go to 
 bed, required no room for himself. 
 
3 i2 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 The Hotel de l'Epee had one room to offer, at the price of 
 twenty-five francs. 
 
 Gerald revolted at the attempted imposition. "A nice 
 thing ! " he grumbled, " that ordinary travellers can't get a 
 decent room at a decent price just because some one's going 
 to be guillotined to-morrow ! We'll try elsewhere ! " 
 
 His features expressed disgust, but Sophia fancied that he 
 was secretly pleased. 
 
 They swaggered out of the busy stir of the hotel, as those 
 must who, having declined to be swindled, wish to preserve 
 their importance in the face of the world. In the street a 
 cabman solicited them, and filled them with hope by saying 
 that he knew of a hotel that might suit them and would drive 
 them there for five francs. He furiously lashed his horse. 
 The mere fact of being in a swiftly moving carriage which 
 wayfarers had ( to avoid nimbly, maintained their spirits. 
 They had a near glimpse of the cathedral. The cab halted 
 with a bump, in a small square, in front of a repellent build- 
 ing which bore the sign, " Hotel de Vezelay." The horse was 
 bleeding. Gerald instructed Sophia to remain where she 
 was, and he and Chirac went up four stone steps into the 
 hotel. Sophia, stared at by loose crowds that were promen- 
 ading, gazed about her, and saw that all the windows of the 
 square were open and most of them occupied by people who 
 laughed and chattered. Then there was a shout : Gerald's 
 voice. He had appeared at a window on the second floor 
 of the hotel with Chirac and a very fat woman. Chirac 
 saluted, and Gerald laughed carelessly, and nodded. 
 
 " It's all right," said Gerald, having descended. 
 
 " How much do they ask ? " Sophia inquired indis- 
 creetly. 
 
 Gerald hesitated, and looked self-conscious. " Thirty- 
 five francs," he said. " But I've had enough of driving 
 about. It seems we're lucky to get it even at that." 
 
 And Chirac shrugged his shoulders as if to indicate that the 
 situation and the price ought to be accepted philosophically. 
 Gerald gave the driver five francs. He examined the piece 
 and demanded a pourboire. 
 
 " Oh ! Damn ! " said Gerald, and, because he had no 
 smaller change, parted with another two francs. 
 
 " Is any one coming out for this damned valise ? " Gerald 
 demanded, like a tyrant whose wrath would presently fall, 
 if the populace did not instantly set about minding their 
 p's and q's. 
 
 But nobody emerged, and he was compelled to carry the 
 bag himself. 
 
AN AMBITION SATISFIED. 313 
 
 The hotel was dark and malodorous, and every room seemed 
 to be crowded with giggling groups of drinkers. 
 
 " We can't both sleep in this bed, surely," said Sophia 
 when, Chirac having remained downstairs, she faced Gerald 
 in a small, mean bedroom. 
 
 " You don't suppose I shall go to bed, do you ? " said 
 Gerald, rather brusquely. " It's for you. We're going to 
 eat now. Look sharp." 
 
 III. 
 
 It was night. She lay in the narrow, crimson -draped bed. 
 The heavy crimson curtains had been drawn across the dirty 
 lace curtains of the window, but the lights of the little square 
 faintly penetrated through chinks into the room. The sounds 
 of the square also penetrated, extraordinarily loud and clear, 
 for the unabated heat had compelled her to leave the window 
 open. She could not sleep. Exhausted though she was, 
 there was no hope of her being able to sleep. 
 
 Once again she was profoundly depressed. She remem- 
 bered the dinner with horror. The long, crowded table, 
 with semicircular ends, in the oppressive and reeking 
 dining-room lighted by oil-lamps ! There must have been 
 at least forty people at that table. Most of them ate dis- 
 gustingly, as noisily as pigs, with the ends of the large coarse 
 napkins tucked in at their necks. All the service was done 
 by the fat woman whom she had seen at the window with 
 Gerald, and a young girl whose demeanour was candidly 
 brazen. Both these creatures were slatterns. Everything 
 was dirty. But the food was good. Chirac and Gerald were 
 agreed that the food was good, as well as the wine. " Re- 
 marquable ! " Chirac had said, of the wine. Sophia, how- 
 ever, could neither eat nor drink with relish. She was afraid. 
 The company shocked her by its gestures alone. It was 
 very heterogeneous in appearance, some of the diners being 
 well dressed, approaching elegance, and others shabby. 
 But all the faces, to the youngest, were brutalized, corrupt, 
 and shameless. The juxtaposition of old men and young 
 women was odious to her, especially when those pairs kissed, 
 as they did frequently towards the end of the meal. x Happily 
 she was placed between Chirac and Gerald. That situation 
 seemed to shelter her even from the conversation. She would 
 have comprehended nothing of the conversation, had it not 
 been for the presence of a middle-aged Englishman who sat 
 at the opposite end of the table with a youngish, stylish 
 
314 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Frenchwoman whom she had seen at Sylvain's on the 
 previous night. The Englishman was evidently under a 
 promise to teach English to the Frenchwoman. He kept 
 translating for her into English, slowly and distinctly, and 
 she would repeat the phrases after him, with strange con- 
 tortions of the mouth. 
 
 Thus Sophia gathered that the talk was exclusively about 
 assassinations, executions, criminals, and executioners. Some 
 of the people there made a practice of attending every execu- 
 tion. They were fountains of interesting gossip, and the 
 lions of the meal. There was a woman who could recall the 
 dying words of all the victims of justice for twenty years 
 past. The table roared with hysteric laughter at one of this 
 woman's anecdotes. Sophia learned that she had related 
 how a criminal had said to the priest who was good-naturedly 
 trying to screen the sight of the guillotine from him with his 
 body : " Stand away now, parson. Haven't I paid to see 
 it ? " Such was the Englishman's rendering. The wages 
 of the executioners and their assistants were discussed, and 
 differences of opinions led to ferocious arguments. A young 
 and dandiacal fellow told, as a fact which he was ready to 
 vouch for with a pistol, how Cora Pearl, the renowned English 
 courtesan, had through her influence over a prefect of police 
 succeeded in visiting a criminal alone in his cell during the 
 night preceding his execution, and had only quitted him an 
 hour before the final summons. The tale won the honours 
 of the dinner. It was regarded as truly impressive, and in- 
 evitably it led to the general inquiry : what could the 
 highest personages in the empire see to admire in that red- 
 haired Englishwoman ? And of course Rivain himself, the 
 handsome homicide, the centre and hero of the fete, was 
 never long out of the conversation. Several of the diners 
 had seen him ; one or two knew him and could give amazing 
 details of his prowess as a man of pleasure. Despite his 
 crime, he seemed to be the object of sincere idolatry. It was 
 said positively that a niece of his victim had been promised 
 a front place at the execution. 
 
 Apropos of this, Sophia gathered, to her intense astonish- 
 ment and alarm, that the prison was close by and that the 
 execution would take place at the corner of the square it- 
 self in which the hotel was situated. Gerald must have 
 known ; he had. hidden it from her. She regarded him side- 
 ways, with distrust. As the dinner finished, Gerald's pose 
 of a calm, disinterested, scientific observer of humanity 
 gradually broke down. He could not maintain it in front 
 of the increasing license of the scene round the table. He was 
 
AN AMBITION SATISFIED. 315 
 
 at length somewhat ashamed of having exposed his wife to 
 the view of such an orgy ; his restless glance carefully avoided 
 both Sophia and Chirac. The latter, whose unaffected sim- 
 plicity of interest in the affair had more than anything 
 helped to keep Sophia in countenance, observed the change 
 in Gerald and Sophia's excessive discomfort, and suggested 
 that they should leave the table without waiting for the 
 coffee. Gerald agreed quickly. Thus had Sophia been 
 released from the horror of the dinner. She did not under- 
 stand how a man so thoughtful and kindly as Chirac — he 
 had bidden her good-night with the most distinguished 
 courtesy — could tolerate, much less pleasurably savour, the 
 gluttonous, drunken, and salacious debauchery of the Hotel 
 de Vezelay ; but his theory was, so far as she could judge 
 from his imperfect English, that whatever existed might be 
 admitted and examined by serious persons interested in the 
 study of human nature. His face seemed to say : " Why 
 not ? " His face seemed to say to Gerald and to herself : 
 " If this incommodes you, what did you come for ? " 
 
 Gerald had left her at the bedroom door with a self- 
 conscious nod. She had partly undressed and lain down, 
 and instantly the hotel had transformed itself into a kind 
 of sounding-box. It was as if, beneath and within all the 
 noises of the square, every movement in the hotel reached 
 her ears through cardboard walls : distant shoutings and 
 laughter below ; rattlings of crockery below ; stampings up 
 and down stairs ; stealthy creepings up and down stairs ; 
 brusque calls ; fragments of song; whisperings ; long sighs 
 suddenly stifled ; mysterious groans as of torture, broken 
 by a giggle ; quarrels and bickerings, — she was spared nothing 
 in the strangely resonant darkness. 
 
 Then there came out of the little square a great uproar 
 and commotion, with shrieks, and under the shrieks a con- 
 fused din. In vain she pressed her face into the pillow and 
 listened to the irregular, prodigious noise of her eyelashes as 
 they scraped the rough linen. The thought had somehow 
 introduced itself into her head that she must arise and go to 
 the window and see all that was to be seen. She resisted. 
 She said to herself that the idea was absurd, that she did not 
 wish to go to the window. Nevertheless, while arguing with 
 herself, she well knew that resistance to the thought was use- 
 less and that ultimately her legs would obey its command. 
 
 When ultimately she yielded to the fascination and went 
 to the window and pulled aside one of the curtains, she had 
 a feeling of relief. 
 
 The cool, grey beginnings of dawn were in the sky, and 
 
316 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 every detail of the square was visible. Without exception 
 all the windows were wide open and filled with sightseers. 
 In the background of many windows were burning candles 
 or lamps that the far distant approach of the sun was already 
 killing. In front of these, on the frontier of two mingling 
 lights, the attentive figures of the watchers were curiously 
 silhouetted. On the red-tiled roofs, too, was a squatted 
 population. Below, a troop of gendarmes, mounted on cara- 
 coling horses stretched in line across the square, was gradu- 
 ally sweeping the entire square of a packed, gesticulating, 
 cursing crowd. The operation of this immense besom was 
 very slow. As the spaces of the square were cleared they 
 began to be dotted by privileged persons, journalists or law 
 officers or their friends, who walked to and fro in conscious 
 pride ; among them Sophia descried Gerald and Chirac, 
 strolling arm-in-arm and talking to two elaborately clad 
 girls, who were also arm-in-arm. 
 
 Then she saw a red reflection coming from one of the side 
 streets of which she had a vista ; it was the swinging lantern 
 of a waggon drawn by a gaunt grey horse. The vehicle 
 stopped at the end of the square from which the besom had 
 started, and it was immediately surrounded by the privileged, 
 who, however, were soon persuaded to stand away. The 
 crowd amassed now at the principal inlets of the square, gave 
 a formidable cry and burst into the refrain — 
 
 " Le voila ! 
 Nicolas ! 
 Ah! Ah! Ah!" 
 
 The clamour became furious as a group of workmen in blue 
 blouses drew piece by piece all the components of the guillo- 
 tine from the waggon and laid them carefully on the ground, 
 under the superintendence of a man in a black frock-coat 
 and a silk hat with broad flat brims ; a little fussy man of 
 nervous gestures. And presently the red columns had risen 
 upright from the ground and were joined at the top by an 
 acrobatic climber. As each part was bolted and screwed to 
 the growing machine the man in the high hat carefully tested 
 it. In a short time that seemed very long, the guillotine was 
 finished save for the triangular steel blade which lay shining 
 on the ground, a cynosure. The executioner pointed to it, 
 and two men picked it up and slipped it into its groove, and 
 hoisted it to the summit of the machine. The executioner 
 peered at it interminably amid a universal silence. Then he 
 actuated the mechanism, and the mass of metal^fell with a 
 
AN AMBITION SATISFIED. 317 
 
 muffled, reverberating thud. There were a few faint shrieks, 
 blended together, and then an overpowering racket of cheers, 
 shouts, hootings, and fragments of song. The blade was 
 again lifted, instantly reproducing silence, and again it fell, 
 liberating a new bedlam. The executioner made a move- 
 ment of satisfaction. Many women at the windows clapped 
 enthusiastically, and the gendarmes had to fight brutally 
 against the fierce pressure of the crowd. The workmen 
 doffed their blouses and put on coats, and Sophia was dis- 
 turbed to see them coming in single file towards the hotel, 
 followed by the executioner in the silk hat. 
 
 IV. 
 
 There was a tremendous opening of doors in the Hotel de 
 Vezelay, and much whispering on thresholds, as the execu- 
 tioner and his band entered solemnly. Sophia heard them 
 tramp upstairs ; they seemed to hesitate, and then appar- 
 ently went into a room on the same landing as hers. A 
 door banged. But Sophia could hear the regular sound of 
 new voices talking, and then the rattling of glasses on a tray. 
 The conversation which came to her from the windows of the 
 hotel now showed a great increase of excitement. She could 
 not see the people at these neighbouring windows without 
 showing her own head, and this she would not do. The boom 
 of a heavy bell striking the hour vibrated over the roofs of the 
 square ; she supposed that it might be the cathedral clock. 
 In a corner of the square she saw Gerald talking vivaciously 
 alone with one of the two girls who had been together. She 
 wondered vaguely how such a girl had been brought up, and 
 what her parents thought — or knew ! And she was conscious 
 of an intense pride in herself, of a measureless haughty 
 feeling of superiority. 
 
 Her eye caught the guillotine again, and was held by it. 
 Guarded by gendarmes, that tall and simple object did most 
 menacingly dominate the square with its crude red columns. 
 Tools and a large open box lay on the ground beside it. The 
 enfeebled horse in the waggon had an air of dozing on his 
 twisted legs. Then the first rays of the sun shot lengthwise 
 across the square at the level of the chimneys ; and Sophia 
 noticed that nearly all the lamps and candles had been 
 extinguished. Many people at the windows were yawning ; 
 they laughed foolishly after they had yawned. Some were 
 eating and drinking. Some were shouting conversations from 
 
318 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 one house to another. The mounted gendarmes were still 
 pressing back the feverish crowds that growled at all the 
 inlets to the square. She saw Chirac walking to and fro 
 alone. But she could not find Gerald. He could not have 
 left the square. Perhaps he had returned to the hotel and 
 would come up to see if she was comfortable or if she needed 
 anything. Guiltily she sprang back into bed. When last 
 she had surveyed the room it had been dark ; now it was 
 bright and every detail stood clear. Yet she had the sensa- 
 tion of having been at the window only a few minutes. 
 
 She waited. But Gerald did not come. She could hear 
 chiefly the steady hum of the voices of the executioner and 
 his aids. She reflected that the room in which they were 
 must be at the back. The other sounds in the hotel grew 
 less noticeable. Then, after an age, she heard a door open, 
 and a low voice say something commandingly in French, and 
 then a ' Oui, monsieur," and a general descent of the stairs. 
 The executioner and his aids were leaving. " You," cried a 
 drunken English voice from an upper floor — it was the middle- 
 aged Englishman translating what the executioner had said — 
 " you, you will take the head." Then a rough laugh, and 
 the repeating voice of the Englishman's girl, still pursuing 
 her studies in English : " You will take ze 'ead. Yess, sair." 
 And another laugh. At length quiet reigned in the hotel. 
 Sophia said to herself : "I won't stir from this bed till it's 
 all over and Gerald comes back 1 " 
 
 She dozed, under the sheet, and was awakened by a 
 tremendous shrieking, growling, and yelling : a phenomenon 
 of human bestiality that far surpassed Sophia's narrow ex- 
 periences. Shut up though she was in a room, perfectly 
 secure, the mad fury of that crowd, balked at the inlets to the 
 square, thrilled and intimidated her. It sounded as if they 
 would be capable of tearing the very horses to pieces. " I 
 must stay where I am," she murmured. And even while 
 saying it she rose and went to the window again and peeped 
 out. The torture involved was extreme, but she had not suffi- 
 cient force within her to resist the fascination. She stared 
 greedily into the bright square. The first thing she saw was 
 Gerald coming out of a house opposite, followed after a few 
 seconds by the girl with whom he had previously been talking. 
 Gerald glanced hastily up at the facade of the hotel, and then 
 approached as near as he could to the red columns, in front 
 of which were now drawn a line of gendarmes with naked 
 swords. A second and larger waggon, with two horses, waited 
 by the side of the other one. The racket beyond the square 
 continued and even grew louder. But the couple of hundred 
 
AN AMBITION SATISFIED. 319 
 
 persons within the cordons, and all the inhabitants of the 
 windows, drunk and sober, gazed in a fixed and sinister 
 enchantment at the region of the guillotine, as Sophia gazed. 
 " I cannot stand this ! " she told herself in horror, but she 
 could not move ; she could not move even her eyes. 
 
 At intervals the crowd would burst out in a violent stac- 
 cato — 
 
 " Le voila I 
 Nicolas ! 
 Ah ! Ah! Ah!" 
 
 And the final " Ah " was devilish. 
 
 Then a gigantic passionate roar, the culmination of the 
 mob's fierce savagery, crashed against the skies. The line 
 of maddened horses swerved and reared, and seemed to fall 
 on the furious multitude while the statue-like gendarmes 
 rocked over them. It was a last effort to break the cordon, 
 and it failed. 
 
 From the little street at the rear of the guillotine appeared 
 a priest, walking backwards and holding a crucifix high in 
 his right hand, and behind him came the handsome hero, 
 his body all crossed with cords, between two warders, who 
 pressed against him and supported him on either side. He 
 was certainly very young. He lifted his chin gallantly, 
 but his face was incredibly white. Sophia discerned that 
 the priest was trying to hide the sight of the guillotine from 
 the prisoner with his body, just as in the story which she had 
 heard at dinner. 
 
 Except the voice of the priest, indistinctly rising and 
 falling in the prayer for the dying, there was no sound in the 
 square or its environs. The windows were now occupied by 
 groups turned to stone with distended eyes fixed on the little 
 procession. Sophia had a tightening of the throat, and the 
 hand trembled by which she held the curtain. The central 
 figure did not seem to her to be alive ; but rather a doll, a 
 marionette wound up to imitate the action of a tragedy. 
 She saw the priest offer the crucifix to the mouth of the 
 marionette, which with a clumsy unhuman shoving of its 
 corded shoulders butted the thing away. And as the pro- 
 cession turned and stopped she could plainly see that the 
 marionette's nape and shoulders were bare, his shirt \having 
 been slit. It was horrible. " Why do I stay here ? " she 
 asked herself hysterically. But she did not stir. The 
 victim had disappeared now in the midst of a group of men. 
 Then she perceived him prone under the red column, between 
 the grooves. The silence was now broken only by the tink- 
 
3 2o THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 ling of the horses' bits in the corners of the square. The line 
 of gendarmes in front of the scaffold held their swords 
 tightly and looked over their noses, ignoring the privileged 
 groups that peered almost between their shoulders. 
 
 And Sophia waited, horror-struck. She saw nothing but 
 the gleaming triangle of metal that was suspended high above 
 the prone, attendant victim. She felt like a lost soul, torn 
 too soon from shelter, and exposed for ever to the worst 
 hazards of destiny. Why was she in this strange, incom- 
 prehensible town, foreign and inimical to her, watching with 
 agonized glance this cruel, obscene spectacle ? Her sensi- 
 bilities were all a bleeding mass of wounds. Why ? Only 
 yesterday, and she had been an innocent, timid creature in 
 Bursley, in Axe, a foolish creature who deemed the conceal- 
 ment of letters a supreme excitement. Either that day or 
 this day was not real. Why was she imprisoned alone in that 
 odious, indescribably odious hotel, with no one to soothe and 
 comfort her, and carry her away ? 
 
 The distant bell boomed once. Then a monosyllabic voice 
 sounded, sharp, low, nervous ; she recognized the voice of 
 the executioner, whose name she had heard but could not 
 remember. There was a clicking noise . . . 
 
 She shrank down to the floor in terror and loathing, and 
 hid her face, and shuddered. Shriek after shriek, from 
 various windows, rang on her ears in a fusillade ; and then 
 the mad yell of the penned crowd, which, like herself, had 
 not seen but had heard, extinguished all other noise. Justice 
 was done. The great ambition of Gerald's life was at last 
 satisfied. 
 
 Later, amid the stir of the hotel, there came a knock at her' 
 door, impatient and nervous. Forgetting, in her tribulation, 
 that she was without her bodice, she got up from the floor 
 in a kind of miserable dream, and opened. Chirac stood on 
 the landing, and he had Gerald by the arm. Chirac looked 
 worn out, curiously fragile and pathetic ; but Gerald was 
 the very image of death. The attainment of ambition had 
 utterly destroyed his equilibrium ; his curiosity had proved 
 itself stronger than his stomach. Sophia would have pitied 
 him had she in that moment been capable of pity. Gerald 
 staggered past her into the room, and sank with a groan on 
 to the bed. Not long since he had been proudly conver- 
 sing with impudent women. Now, in swift collapse, he 
 
AN AMBITION SATISFIED. 321 
 
 was as flaccid as a sick hound and as disgusting as an aged 
 drunkard. 
 
 " He is some little souffrant," said Chirac, weakly. 
 
 Sophia perceived in Chirac's tone the assumption that of 
 course her present duty was to devote herself to the task of 
 restoring her shamed husband to his manly pride. 
 
 " And what about me ? " she thought bitterly. 
 
 The fat woman ascended the stairs like a tottering blanc- 
 mange, and began to gabble to Sophia, who understood 
 nothing whatever. 
 
 " She wants sixty francs," Chirac said, and in answer to 
 Sophia's startled question, he explained that Gerald had 
 agreed to pay a hundred francs for the room, which was the 
 landlady's own — fifty francs in advance and the fifty after 
 the execution. The other ten was for the dinner. The land- 
 lady, distrusting the whole of her clientele, was collecting her 
 accounts instantly on the completion of the spectacle. 
 
 Sophia made no remark as to Gerald's lie to her. Indeed, 
 Chirac had heard it. She knew Gerald for a glib liar to others, 
 but she was naively surprised when he practised upon herself. 
 
 " Gerald ! Do you hear ? " she said coldly. 
 
 The amateur of severed heads only groaned. 
 
 With a movement of irritation she went to him and felt 
 in his pockets for his purse ; he acquiesced, still groaning. 
 Chirac helped her to choose and count the coins. 
 
 The fat woman, appeased, pursued her way. 
 
 " Good-bye, madame ! " said Chirac, with his customary 
 courtliness, transforming the landing of the hideous hotel 
 into some imperial antechamber. 
 
 " Are you going away ? " she asked, in surprise. Her 
 distress was so obvious that it tremendously flattered him. 
 He would have stayed if he could. But he had to return to 
 Paris to write and deliver his article. 
 
 " To-morrow, I hope ! " he murmured sympathetically, 
 kissing her hand. The gesture atoned somewhat for the 
 sordidness of her situation, and even corrected the faults 
 of her attire. Always afterwards it seemed to her that 
 Chirac was an old and intimate friend ; he had successfully 
 passed through the ordeal of seeing " the wrong side '- of 
 the stuff of her life. 
 
 She shut the door on him with a lingering glahce, and 
 reconciled herself to her predicament. 
 
 Gerald slept. Just as he was, he slept heavily. 
 
 This was what he had brought her to, then ! The horrors 
 of the night, of the dawn, and of the morning ! Ineffable 
 suffering and humiliation ; anguish and torture that could 
 
 11 
 
322 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 never be forgotten ! And after a fatuous vigil of unguessed 
 license, he had tottered back, an offensive beast, to sleep 
 the day away in that filthy chamber ! He did not possess 
 even enough spirit to play the role of roysterer to the end. 
 And she was bound to him ; far, far from any other human 
 aid ; cut off irrevocably by her pride from those who perhaps 
 would have protected her from his dangerous folly. The deep 
 conviction henceforward formed a permanent part of her 
 general consciousness that he was simply an irresponsible 
 and thoughtless fool ! He was without sense. Such was 
 her brilliant and godlike husband, the man who had given 
 her the right to call herself a married woman ! He was a. 
 fool. With all her ignorance of the world she could see that 
 nobody but an arrant imbecile could have brought her to 
 the present pass. Her native sagacity revolted. Gusts of 
 feeling came over her in which she could have thrashed him 
 into the realization of his responsibilities. 
 
 Sticking out of the breast pocket of his soiled coat was the 
 packet which he had received on the previous day. If he 
 had not already lost it, he could only thank his luck. She 
 took it. There were English bank-notes in it for two hun- 
 dred pounds, a letter from a banker, and other papers. With 
 precautions against noise she tore the envelope and the letter 
 and papers into small pieces, and then looked about for a 
 place to hide them. A cupboard suggested itself. She got 
 on a chair, and pushed the fragments out of sight on the 
 topmost shelf, where they may well be to this day. She 
 finished dressing, and then sewed the notes into the lining of 
 her skirt. She had no silly, delicate notions about stealing. 
 She obscurely felt that, in the care of a man like Gerald, she 
 might find herself in the most monstrous, the most impos- 
 sible dilemmas. Those notes, safe and secret in her skirt, 
 gave her confidence, reassured her against the perils of the 
 future, and endowed her with independence. The act was 
 characteristic of her enterprise and of her fundamental 
 prudence. It approached the heroic. And her conscience 
 hotly defended its righteousness. 
 
 She decided that when he discovered his loss, she would 
 merely deny all knowledge of the envelope, for he had not 
 spoken a word to her about it. He never mentioned the 
 details of money ; he had a fortune. However, the neces- 
 sity for this untruth did not occur. He made no reference 
 whatever to his loss. The fact was, he thought he had been 
 careless enough to let the envelope be filched from him during 
 the excesses of the night. 
 
 All day till evening Sophia sat on a dirty chair, without 
 
AN AMBITION SATISFIED. 323 
 
 food, while Gerald slept. She kept repeating to herself, in 
 amazed resentment : "A hundred francs for this room ! A 
 hundred francs ! And he hadn't the pluck to tell me ! " 
 She could not have expressed her contempt. 
 
 Long before sheer ennui forced her to look out of the 
 window again, every sign of justice had been removed from 
 the square. Nothing whatever remained in the heavy August 
 sunshine save gathered heaps of filth where the horses had 
 reared and caracoled. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A CRISIS FOR GERALD. 
 I. 
 
 For a time there existed in the minds of both Gerald and 
 Sophia the remarkable notion that twelve thousand pounds 
 represented the infinity of wealth, that this sum possessed 
 special magical properties which rendered it insensible to the 
 process of subtraction. It seemed impossible that twelve 
 thousand pounds, while continually getting less, could ulti- 
 mately quite disappear. The notion lived longer in the mind 
 of Gerald than in that of Sophia ; for Gerald would never 
 look at a disturbing fact, whereas Sophia's gaze was mor- 
 bidly fascinated by such phenomena. In a life devoted to 
 travel and pleasure Gerald meant not to spend more than 
 six hundred a year, the interest on his fortune. Six hundred 
 a year is less than two pounds a day, yet Gerald never paid 
 less than two pounds a day in hotel bills alone. He hoped 
 that he was living on a thousand a year, had a secret fear 
 that he might be spending fifteen hundred, and was really 
 spending about two thousand five hundred. Still, the re- 
 markable notion of the inexhaustibility of twelve thousand 
 pounds always reassured him. The faster the money went, 
 the more vigorously this notion flourished in Gerald's mind. 
 When twelve had unaccountably dwindled to three, Gerald 
 suddenly decided that he must act, and in a few months he 
 lost two thousand on the Paris Bourse. The adventure 
 frightened him, and in his panic he scattered a couple of hun- 
 dred in a frenzy of high living. 
 
 But even with only twenty thousand francs left out of 
 three hundred thousand, he held closely to the belief that 
 natural laws would in his case somehow be suspended. He 
 had heard of men who were once rich begging bread and 
 sweeping crossings, but he felt quite secure against such risks, 
 
A CRISIS FOR GERALD. 325 
 
 by simple virtue of the axiom that he was he. However, he 
 meant to assist the axiom by efforts to earn money. When 
 these continued to fail, he tried to assist the axiom by borrow- 
 ing money ; but he found that his uncle had definitely done 
 with him. He would have assisted the axiom by stealing 
 money, but he had neither the nerve nor the knowledge to 
 be a swindler ; he was not even sufficiently expert to cheat 
 at cards. 
 
 He had thought in thousands. Now he began to think in 
 hundreds, in tens, daily and hourly. He paid two hundred 
 francs in railway fares in order to live economically in a 
 village, and shortly afterwards another two hundred francs in 
 railway fares in order to live economically in Paris. And to 
 celebrate the arrival in Paris and the definite commencement 
 of an era of strict economy and serious search for a livelihood, 
 he spent a hundred francs on a dinner at the Maison Doree 
 and two balcony stalls at the Gymnase. In brief, he omitted 
 nothing — no act, no resolve, no self-deception — of the typical 
 fool in his situation ; always convinced that his difficulties 
 and his wisdom were quite exceptional. 
 
 In May 1870, on an afternoon, he was ranging nervously 
 to and fro in a three-cornered bedroom of a little hotel at the 
 angle of the Rue Fontaine and the Rue Laval (now the Rue 
 Victor Masse), within half a minute of the Boulevard de 
 Clichy. It had come to that — an exchange of the " grand 
 boulevard " for the " boulevard exterieur " ! Sophia sat on a 
 chair at the grimy window, glancing down in idle disgust of 
 life at the Clichy-Odeon omnibus which was casting off its 
 tip-horse at the corner of the Rue Chaptal. The noise of 
 petty, hurried traffic over the bossy paving stones was deaf- 
 ening. The locality was not one to correspond with an ideal. 
 There was too much humanity crowded into those narrow 
 hilly streets ; humanity seemed to be bulging out at the 
 windows of the high houses. Gerald healed his pride by say- 
 ing that this was, after all, the real Paris, and that the cookery 
 was as good as could be got anywhere, pay what you would. 
 He seldom ate a meal in the little salons on the first floor 
 without becoming ecstatic upon the cookery. To hear him, 
 he might have chosen the hotel on its superlative merits, 
 without regard to expense. And with his air of use and 
 custom, he did indeed look like a connoisseur of Paris who 
 knew better than to herd with vulgar tourists in the pens of 
 the Madeleine quarter. He was dressed with some distinc- 
 tion ; good clothes, when put to the test, survive a change 
 of fortune, as a Roman arch survives the luxury of departed 
 empire. Only his collar, large V-shaped front, and wrist- 
 
326 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 bands, which bore the ineffaceable signs of cheap launder- 
 ing, reflected the shadow of impending disaster. 
 
 He glanced sideways, stealthily, at Sophia. She, too, was 
 still dressed with distinction ; in the robe of black faille, the 
 cashmere shawl, and the little black hat with its falling veil, 
 there was no apparent symptom of beggary. She would have 
 been judged as one of those women who content themselves 
 with few clothes but good, and, greatly aided by nature, 
 make a little go a long way. Good black will last for eternity ; 
 it discloses no secrets of modification and mending, and it is 
 not transparent. 
 
 At last Gerald, resuming a suspended conversation, said 
 as it were doggedly : 
 
 " I tell you I haven't got five francs altogether ! and you 
 can feel my pockets if you like," added the habitual liar in 
 him, fearing incredulity. 
 
 " Well, and what do you expect me to do ? " Sophia in- 
 quired. 
 
 The accent, at once ironic and listless, in which she put 
 this question, showed that strange and vital things had hap- 
 pened to Sophia in the four years which had elapsed since 
 her marriage. It did really seem to her, indeed, that the 
 Sophia whom Gerald had espoused was dead and gone, and 
 that another Sophia had come into her bcdy : so intensely 
 conscious was she of a fundamental change in herself under 
 the stress of continuous experience. And though this was 
 but a seeming, though she was still the same Sophia more 
 fully disclosed, it was a true seeming. Indisputably more 
 beautiful than when Gerald had unwillingly made her his 
 legal wife, she was now nearly twenty-four, and looked per- 
 haps somewhat older than her age. Her frame was firmly 
 set, her waist thicker, neither slim nor stout. The lips were 
 rather hard, and she had a habit of tightening her mouth, 
 on the same provocation as sends a snail into its shell. No 
 trace was left of immature gawkiness in her gestures or of 
 simplicity in her intonations. She was a woman of command- 
 ing and slightly arrogant charm, not in the least degree 
 the charm of innocence and ingenuousness. Her eyes were 
 the eyes of one who has lost her illusions too violently and 
 too completely. Her gaze, coldly comprehending, implied 
 familiarity with the abjectness of human nature. Gerald 
 had begun and had finished her education. He had not 
 ruined her, as a bad professor may ruin a fine voice, because 
 her moral force immeasurably exceeded his ; he had un- 
 wittingly produced a masterpiece, but it was a tragic master- 
 piece. Sophia was such a woman as, by a mere glance as 
 
A CRISIS FOR GERALD. 327 
 
 she utters an opinion, will make a man say to himself, half 
 in desire and half in alarm lest she reads him too : " By 
 Jove ! she must have been through a thing or two. She 
 knows what people are ! " 
 
 The marriage was, of course, a calamitous folly. From the 
 very first, from the moment when the commercial traveller 
 had with incomparable rash fatuity thrown the paper pellet 
 over the counter, Sophia's awakening commonsense had tola 
 her that in yielding to her instinct she was sowing misery 
 and shame for herself ; but she had gone on, as if under a 
 spell. It had needed the irretrievableness of flight from 
 home to begin the breaking of the trance. Once fully 
 awakened out of the trance, she had recognized her marriage 
 for what it was. She had made neither the best nor the 
 worst of it. She had accepted Gerald as one accepts a 
 climate. She saw again and again that he was irreclaim- 
 ably a fool and a prodigy of irresponsibleness. She toler- 
 ated him, now with sweetness, now bitterly ; accepting always 
 his caprices, and not permitting herself to have wishes of 
 her own. She was ready to pay the price of pride and 
 of a moment's imbecility with a lifetime of self -repression. 
 It was high, but it was the price. She had acquired noth- 
 ing but an exceptionally good knowledge of the French 
 language (she soon learnt to scorn Gerald's glib maltreat- 
 ment of the tongue), and she had conserved nothing but 
 her dignity. She knew that Gerald was sick of her, that 
 he would have danced for joy to be rid of her ; that he 
 was constantly unfaithful ; that he had long since ceased 
 to be excited by her beauty. She knew also that at bot- 
 tom he was a little afraid of her ; here was her sole moral 
 consolation. The thing that sometimes struck her as sur- 
 prising was that he had not abandoned her, simply and 
 crudely walked off one day and forgotten to take her with 
 him. 
 
 They hated each other, but in different ways. She loathed 
 him, and he resented her. 
 
 " What do I expect you to do ? " he repeated after her. 
 " Why don't you write home to your people and get some 
 money out of them ? " 
 
 Now that he had said what was in his mind, he faced her 
 with a bullying swagger. Had he been a bigger man he might 
 have tried the effect of physical bullying on her. One of 
 his numerous reasons for resenting her was that she was the 
 taller of the two. 
 
 She made no reply. 
 
 " Now you needn't turn pale and begin all that fuss 
 
328 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 over again. What I'm suggesting is a perfectly reasonable 
 thing. If I haven't got money I haven't got it. I can't 
 invent it." 
 
 She perceived that he was ready for one of their periodical 
 tempestuous quarrels. But that day she felt too tired and 
 unwell to quarrel. His warning against a repetition of 
 " fuss " had reference to the gastric dizziness from which 
 she had been suffering for two years. It would take her 
 usually after a meal. She did not swoon, but her head 
 swam and she could not stand. She would sink down 
 wherever she happened to be, and, her face alarmingly 
 white, murmur faintly : " My salts." Within five minutes 
 the attack had gone and left no trace. She had been through 
 one just after lunch. He resented this affection. He 
 detested being compelled to hand the smelling-bottle to 
 her, and he would have avoided doing so if her pallor did 
 not always alarm him. Nothing but this pallor convinced 
 him that the attacks were not a deep ruse to impress 
 him. His attitude invariably implied that she could cure 
 the malady if she chose, but that through obstinacy she did 
 not choose. 
 
 " Are you going to have the decency to answer my ques- 
 tion, or aren't you ? " 
 
 " What question ? " Her vibrating voice was low and 
 restrained. 
 
 " Will you write to your people ? " 
 
 A For money ? " 
 
 The sarcasm of her tone was diabolic. She could not 
 have kept the sarcasm out of her tone ; she did not attempt 
 to keep it out. She cared little if it whipped him to fury. 
 Did he imagine, seriously, that she would be capable of 
 going on her knees to her family ? She ? Was he un- 
 aware that his wife was the proudest and the most obsti- 
 nate woman on earth, that all her behaviour to him was the 
 expression of her pride and her obstinacy ? Ill and weak 
 though she felt, she marshalled together all the forces of her 
 character to defend her resolve never, never to eat the 
 bread of humiliation. She was absolutely determined to 
 be dead to her family. Certainly, one December, several 
 years previously, she had seen English Christmas cards in 
 an English shop in the Rue de Rivoli, and in a sudden gush 
 of tenderness towards Constance, she had despatched a 
 coloured greeting to Constance and her mother. And 
 having initiated the custom, she had continued it. That 
 was not like asking a kindness ; it was bestowing a kind- 
 ness. But except for the annual card, she was dead to St. 
 
A CRISIS FOR GERALD. 329 
 
 Luke's Square. She was one of those daughters who dis- 
 appear and are not discussed in the family circle. The 
 thought of her immense foolishness, the little tender thoughts 
 of Constance, some flitting souvenir, full of unwilling ad- 
 miration, of a regal gesture of her mother, — these things 
 only steeled her against any sort of resurrection after death. 
 
 And he was urging her to write home for money ! Why, 
 she would not even have paid a visit in splendour to St. 
 Luke's Square. Never should they know what she had 
 suffered ! And especially her Aunt Harriet, from whom she 
 had stolen ! 
 
 " Will you write to your people ? " he demanded yet again, 
 emphasizing and separating each word. 
 
 " No," she said shortly, with terrible disdain. 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " Because I won't." The curling line of her lips, as 
 they closed on each other, said all the rest ; all the cruel 
 truths about his unspeakable, inane, coarse follies, his lazi- 
 ness, his excesses, his lies, his deceptions, his bad faith, 
 his truculence, his improvidence, his shameful waste and 
 ruin of his life and hers. She doubted whether he realized 
 his baseness and her wrongs, but if he could not read them 
 in her silent contumely, she was too proud to recite them 
 to him. She had never complained, save in uncontrolled 
 moments of anger. 
 
 " If that's the way you're going to talk — all right ! " he 
 snapped, furious. Evidently he was baffled. 
 
 She kept silence. She was determined to see what he 
 would do in the face of her inaction. 
 
 " You know, I'm not joking," he pursued. " We shall 
 starve." 
 
 " Very well," she agreed. " We shall starve." 
 
 She watched him surreptitiously, and she was almost 
 sure that he really had come to the end of his tether. His 
 voice, which never alone convinced, carried a sort of con- 
 viction now. He was penniless. In four years he had 
 squandered twelve thousand pounds, and had nothing to 
 show for it except an enfeebled digestion and a tragic figure 
 of a wife. One small point of satisfaction there was — and 
 all the Baines in her clutched at it and tried to suck satis- 
 faction from it — their manner of travelling about from hotel 
 to hotel had made it impossible for Gerald to run up debts. 
 A few debts he might have, unknown to her, but they could 
 not be serious. 
 
 So they looked at one another, in hatred and despair. 
 The inevitable had arrived. For months she had fronted 
 
 11 a 
 
33Q THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 it in bravado, not concealing from herself that it lay in 
 waiting. For years he had been sure that though the 
 inevitable might happen to others it could not happen to 
 him. There it was ! He was conscious of a heavy weight 
 in his stomach, and she of a general numbness, enwrapping 
 her fatigue. Even then he could not believe that it was 
 true, this disaster. As for Sophia, she was reconciling her- 
 self with bitter philosophy to the eccentricities of fate. 
 Who would have dreamed that she, a young girl brought 
 up, etc. ? Her mother could not have improved the occasion 
 more uncompromisingly than Sophia did — behind that dis- 
 dainful mask. 
 
 " Well — if that's it . . . ! " Gerald exploded at length, 
 puffing. And he puffed out of the room and was gone in a 
 second. 
 
 II. 
 
 She languidly picked up a book, the moment Gerald had 
 departed, and tried to prove to herself that she was suffi- 
 ciently in command of her nerves to read. For a long 
 time reading had been her chief solace. But she could 
 not read. She glanced round the inhospitable chamber, 
 and thought of the hundreds of rooms — some splendid and 
 some vile, but all arid in their unwelcoming aspect — through 
 which she had passed in her progress from mad exultation 
 to calm and cold disgust. The ceaseless din of the street 
 annoyed her jaded ears. And a great wave of desire for 
 peace, peace of no matter what kind, swept through her. 
 And then her deep distrust of Gerald reawakened ; in spite 
 of his seriously desperate air, which had a quality of sin- 
 cerity quite new in her experience of him, she could not be 
 entirely sure that, in asserting utter penury, he was not after 
 all merely using a trick to get rid of her. 
 
 She sprang up, threw the book on the bed, and seized 
 her gloves. She would follow him, if she could. She would 
 do what she had never done before — she would spy on him. 
 Fighting against her lassitude, she descended the long wind- 
 ing stairs, and peeped forth from the doorway into the 
 street. The ground floor of the hotel was a wine-shop ; 
 the stout landlord was lightly flicking one of the three little 
 yellow tables that stood on the pavement. He smiled with 
 his customary benevolence, and silently pointed in the 
 direction of the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette. She saw 
 Gerald down there in the distance. He was smoking a cigar. 
 
A CRISIS FOR GERALD. 
 
 He seemed to be a little man without a care. The sed 
 of the cigar came first round his left cheek and then rol 
 his right, sailing away into nothing. He walked witL «, 
 gay spring, but not quickly, flourishing his cane as freely 
 as the traffic of the pavement would permit, glancing into 
 all the shop windows and into the eyes of all the women 
 under forty. This was not at all the same man as had 
 a moment ago been spitting angry menaces at her in the 
 bedroom of the hotel. It was a fellow of blithe charm, 
 ripe for any adventurous joys that destiny had to 
 offer. 
 
 Supposing he turned round and saw her ? 
 
 If he turned round and saw her and asked her what she 
 was doing there in the street, she would tell him plainly : 
 "I'm following you, to find out what you do." 
 
 But he did not turn. He went straight forward, deviat- 
 ing at the church, where the crowd became thicker, into 
 the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, and so to the boule- 
 vard, which he crossed. The whole city seemed excited 
 and vivacious. Cannons boomed in slow succession, and 
 flags were flying. Sophia had no conception of the signi- 
 ficance of those guns, for, though she read a great deal, 
 she never read a newspaper ; the idea of opening a news- 
 paper never occurred to her. But she was accustomed to 
 the feverish atmosphere of Paris. She had lately seen 
 regiments of cavalry flashing and prancing in the Luxem- 
 bourg Gardens, and had much admired the fine picture. 
 She accepted the booming as another expression of the 
 high spirits that had to find vent somehow in this feverish 
 empire. She so accepted it and forgot it, using all the 
 panorama of the capital as a dim background for her ex- 
 acerbated egoism. 
 
 She was obliged to walk slowly, because Gerald walked 
 slowly. A beautiful woman, or any woman not positively 
 hag-like or venerable, who walks slowly in the streets of 
 Paris becomes at once the cause of inconvenient desires, 
 as representing the main objective on earth, always tran- 
 scending in importance politics and affairs. Just as a true 
 patriotic Englishman cannot be too busy to run after a fox, 
 so a Frenchmen is always ready to forsake all in order to 
 follow a woman whom he has never before set eyes on. 
 Many men thought twice about her, with her romantic 
 Saxon mystery of temperament, and her Parisian clothes ; 
 but all refrained from affronting her, not in the least out 
 of respect for the gloom in her face, but from an expert 
 conviction that those rapt eyes were fixed immovably on 
 
332 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 another male. She walked unscathed amid the frothing 
 hounds as though protected by a spell. 
 
 On the south side of the boulevard, Gerald proceeded 
 down the Rue Montmartre, and then turned suddenly into 
 the Rue Croissant. Sophia stopped and asked the price 
 of some combs which were exposed outside a little shop. 
 Then she went on, boldly passing the end of the Rue Crois- 
 sant. No shadow of Gerald ! She saw the signs of 
 newspapers all along the street, Le Bien Public, La Presse 
 Libre, La Patrie. There was a creamery at the corner. 
 She entered it, asked for a cup of chocolate, and sat down. 
 She wanted to drink coffee, but every doctor had forbidden 
 coffee to her, on account of her attacks of dizziness. Then, 
 having ordered chocolate, she felt that, on this occasion, 
 when she had need of strength in her great fatigue, only 
 coffee could suffice her, and she changed the order. She 
 was close to the door, and Gerald could not escape her vigi- 
 lance if he emerged at that end of the street. She drank 
 the coffee with greedy satisfaction, and waited in the 
 creamery till she began to feel conspicuous there. And 
 then Gerald went by the door, within six feet of her. He 
 turned the corner and continued his descent of the Rue 
 Montmartre. She paid for her coffee and followed the 
 chase. Her blood seemed to be up. Her lips were tightened, 
 and her thought was : " Wherever he goes, I'll go, and I 
 don't care what happens." She despised him. She felt 
 herself above him. She felt that somehow, since quitting 
 the hotel, he had been gradually growing more and more 
 vile and meet to be exterminated. She imagined infamies 
 as to the Rue Croissant. There was no obvious ground for 
 this intensifying of her attitude towards him ; it was merely 
 the result of the chase. . All that could be definitely charged 
 against him was the smoking of a cigar. 
 
 He stepped into a tobacco-shop, and came out with a 
 longer cigar than the first one, a more expensive article, 
 stripped off its collar, and lighted it as a millionaire might 
 have lighted it. This was the man who swore that he did 
 not possess five francs. 
 
 She tracked him as far as the Rue de Rivoli, and then 
 lost him. There were vast surging crowds in the Rue de 
 Rivoli, and much bunting, and soldiers and gesticulatory 
 policemen. The general effect of the street was that all 
 things were brightly waving in the breeze. She was caught 
 in the crowd as in the current of a stream, and when she 
 tried to sidle out of it into a square, a row of smiling police- 
 men barred her passage ; she was a part of the traffic that 
 
A CRISIS FOR GERALD. 333 
 
 they had to regulate. She drifted till the Louvre came 
 into view. After all, Gerald had only strolled forth to 
 see the sight of the day, whatever it might be ! She knew 
 not what it was. She had no curiosity about it. In the 
 middle of all that thickening mass of humanity, staring 
 with one accord at the vast monument of royal and imperial 
 vanities, she thought, with her characteristic grimness, of 
 the sacrifice of her whole career as a school-teacher for the 
 chance of seeing Gerald once a quarter in the shop. She 
 gloated over that, as a sick appetite will gloat over tainted 
 food. And she saw the shop, and the curve of the stairs 
 up to the showroom, and the pier-glass in the showroom. 
 
 Then the guns began to boom again, and splendid car- 
 riages swept one after another from under a majestic arch- 
 way and glittered westward down a lane of spotless splen- 
 did uniforms. The carriages were laden with still more 
 splendid uniforms, and with enchanting toilettes. Sophia, in 
 her modestly stylish black, mechanically noticed how much 
 easier it was for attired women to sit in a carriage now that 
 crinolines had gone. That was the sole impression made 
 upon her by this glimpse of the last fete of the Napoleonic 
 Empire. She knew not that the supreme pillars of im- 
 perialism were exhibiting themselves before her ; and that 
 the eyes of those uniforms and those toilettes were full of 
 the legendary beauty of Eugenie, and their ears echoing to 
 the long phrases of Napoleon the Third about his grati- 
 tude to his people for their confidence in him as shown 
 by the plebiscite, and about the ratification of constitu- 
 tional reforms guaranteeing order, and about the empire 
 having been strengthened at its base, and about showing 
 force by moderation and envisaging the future without fear, 
 and about the bosom of peace and liberty, and the eternal 
 continuance of his dynasty. 
 
 She just wondered vaguely what was afoot. 
 
 When the last carriage had rolled away, and the guns and 
 acclamations had ceased, the crowd at length began to 
 scatter. She was carried by it into the Place du Palais 
 Royal, and in a few moments she managed to withdraw into 
 the Rue des Bons Enfants and was free. 
 
 The coins in her purse amounted to three sous, and there- 
 fore, though she felt exhausted to the point of illness, she 
 had to return to the hotel on foot. Very slowly she crawled 
 upwards in the direction of the Boulevard, through the 
 expiring gaiety of the city. Near the Bourse a fiacre over- 
 took her, and in the fiacre were Gerald and a woman. Gerald 
 had not seen her ; he was talking eagerly to his ornate com- 
 
■^■"■■■M 
 
 334 THE OLP WIVES' TALE. 
 
 panion. All his body was alive. The fiacre was out of 
 sight in a moment, but Sophia judged instantly the grade 
 of the woman, who was evidently of the discreet class that 
 frequented the big shops of an afternoon with something of 
 their own to sell. 
 
 Sophia's grimness increased. The pace of the fiacre, her 
 fatigued body, Gerald's delightful, careless vivacity, the 
 attractive streaming veil of the nice, modest courtesan — 
 everything conspired to increase it. 
 
 III. 
 
 Gerald returned to the bedroom which contained his wife 
 and all else that he owned in the world at about nine o'clock 
 that evening. Sophia was in bed. She had been driven to 
 bed by weariness. She would have preferred to sit up td 
 receive her husband, even if it had meant sitting up all night, 
 but her body was too heavy for her spirit. She lay in the 
 dark. She had eaten nothing. Gerald came straight into 
 the room. He struck a match, which burned blue, with 
 a stench, for several seconds, and then gave a clear, yellow 
 flame. He lit a candle ; and saw his wife. 
 
 " Oh ! " he said ; " you're there, are you ? " 
 
 She offered no reply. 
 
 " Won't speak, eh ? " he said. " Agreeable sort of wife ! 
 Well, have you made up your mind to do what I told you ? 
 I've come back especially to know." 
 
 She still did not speak. 
 
 He sat down, with his hat on, and stuck out his feet, 
 wagging them to and fro on the heels. 
 
 I'm quite without money," he went on. " And I'm 
 sure your people will be glad to lend us a bit till I get some. 
 Especially as it's a question of you starving as well as me. 
 If I had enough to pay your fares to Bursley I'd pack you off. 
 But I haven't." 
 
 She could only hear his exasperating voice. The end of 
 the bed was between her eyes and his. 
 
 " Liar ! " she said, with uncompromising distinctness. 
 The word reached him barbed with all the poison of her 
 contempt and disgust. 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " Oh ! I'm a liar, am I ? Thanks. I lied enough to get 
 you, I'll admit. But you never complained of that. I 
 remember beginning the New Year well with a thumping 
 
A CRISIS FOR GERALD. 335 
 
 lie just to have a sight of you, my vixen. But you didn't 
 complain then. I took you with only the clothes on your 
 back. And I've spent every cent I had on you. And now 
 I'm spun, you call me a liar." 
 
 She said nothing. 
 
 " However," he went on, " this is going to come to an end, 
 this is ! " 
 
 He rose, changed the position of the candle, putting it on a 
 chest of drawers, and then drew his trunk from the wall, and 
 knelt in front of it. 
 
 She gathered that he was packing his clothes. At first 
 she did not comprehend his reference to beginning the New 
 Year. Then his meaning revealed itself. That story to her 
 mother about having been attacked by ruffians at the bot- 
 tom of King Street had been an invention, a ruse to account 
 plausibly for his presence on her mother's doorstep ! And 
 she had never suspected that the story was not true. In 
 spite of her experience of his lying, she had never suspected 
 that that particular statement was a lie. What a simpleton 
 she was ! 
 
 There was a continual movement in the room for about a 
 quarter of an hour. Then a key turned in the lock of the 
 trunk. 
 
 His head popped up over the foot of the bed. " This isn't 
 a joke, you know," he said. 
 
 She kept silence. 
 
 " I give you one more chance. Will you write to your 
 mother — or Constance if you like — or won't you ? " 
 
 She scorned to reply in any way. 
 
 "I'm your husband," he said. " And it's your duty to 
 obey me, particularly in an affair like this. I order you to 
 write to your* mother." 
 
 The corners of her lips turned downwards. 
 
 Angered by her mute obstinacy, he broke away from the 
 bed with a sudden gesture. 
 
 " You do as you like," he cried, putting on his overcoat, 
 " and I shall do as I like. You can't say I haven't warned 
 you. It's your own deliberate choice, mind you ! What- 
 ever happens to you you've brought on yourself." He lifted 
 and shrugged his shoulders, to get the overcoat exactly into 
 place on his shoulders. 
 
 She would not speak a word, not even to insist that she 
 was indisposed. 
 
 He pushed his trunk outside the door, and returned to the 
 bed. 
 
 " You understand," he said menacingly : " I'm off." 
 
336 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 She looked up at the foul ceiling. 
 
 " Hm ! " he sniffed, bringing his reserves of pride to 
 combat the persistent silence that was damaging his dignity. 
 And he went off, sticking his head forward like a pugilist. 
 
 " Here ! " she muttered. " You're forgetting this." 
 
 He turned. 
 
 She stretched her hand to the night-table and held up a 
 red circlet. 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 " It's the bit of paper off the cigar you bought in the Rue 
 Montmartre this afternoon," she answered, in a significant 
 tone. 
 
 He hesitated, then swore violently, and bounced out of the 
 room. He had made her suffer, but she was almost repaid 
 for everything by that moment of cruel triumph. She 
 exulted in it, and never forgot it. 
 
 Five minutes later, the gloomy menial in felt slippers and 
 alpaca jacket, who seemed to pass the whole of his life 
 flitting in and out of bedrooms like a rabbit in a warren, 
 carried Gerald's trunk downstairs. She recognized the 
 peculiar tread of his slippers. 
 
 Then there was a knock at the door. The landlady entered, 
 actuated by a legitimate curiosity. 
 
 " Madame is suffering ? " the landlady began. 
 
 Sophia refused offers of food and nursing. 
 
 " Madame knows without doubt that monsieur has gone 
 away ? " 
 
 " Has he paid the bill ? " Sophia asked bluntly. 
 
 M But yes, madame, till to-morrow. Then madame has 
 want of nothing ? " 
 
 " If you will extinguish the candle," said Sophia. 
 
 He had desciiv J her, then ! • 
 
 " All this," the reflected, listening in the dark to the 
 ceaseless rattle of the street, " because mother and Con- 
 stance wanted to see the elephant, and I had to go into 
 father's room ! I should never have caught sight of him 
 from the drawing-room window ! " 
 
 IV. 
 
 She passed a night of physical misery, exasperated by the 
 tireless rattling vitality of the street. She kept saying to 
 herself : " I'm all alone now, and I'm going to be ill. I 
 am ill." She saw herself dying in Paris, and heard the ex- 
 
A CRISIS FOR GERALD. 337 
 
 pressions of facile sympathy and idle curiosity drawn forth 
 by the sight of the dead body of this foreign woman in a 
 little Paris hotel. She reached the stage, in the gradual ex- 
 cruciation of her nerves, when she was obliged to concentrate 
 her agonized mind on an intense and painful expectancy of 
 the next new noise, which when it came increased her 
 torture and decreased her strength to support it. She went 
 through all the interminable dilatoriness of the dawn, from 
 the moment when she could scarcely discern the window to 
 the moment when she could read the word " Bock " on the 
 red circlet of paper which had tossed all night on the sea of 
 the counterpane. She knew she would never sleep again. 
 She could not imagine herself asleep ; and then she was 
 startled by a sound that seemed to clash with the rest of her 
 impressions. It was a knocking at the door. With a start 
 she perceived that she must have been asleep. 
 
 ** Enter," she murmured. 
 
 There entered the menial in alpaca. His waxen face 
 showed a morose commiseration. He noiselessly approached 
 the bed — he seemed to have none of the characteristics of a 
 man, but to be a creature infinitely mysterious and aloof 
 from humanity — and held out to Sophia a visiting card in 
 his grey hand. 
 
 It was Chirac's card. 
 
 " Monsieur asked for monsieur," said the waiter. " And 
 then, as monsieur had gone away, he demanded to see 
 madame. He says it is very important." 
 
 Her heart jumped, partly in vague alarm, and partly with 
 a sense of relief at this chance of speaking to some one 
 whom she knew. She tried to reflect rationally. 
 
 " What time is it ? " she inquired. 
 
 " Eleven o'clock, madame." 
 
 This was surprising. The fact that it was eleven o'clock 
 destroyed the remains of her self-confidence. How could it 
 be eleven o'clock, with the dawn scarcely finished ? 
 
 " He says it is very important," repeated the waiter, 
 imperturbably and solemnly. " Will madame see him an 
 instant ? " 
 
 Between resignation and anticipation she said : " Yes." 
 
 "It is well, madame," said the waiter, disappearing 
 without a sound. 
 
 She sat up and managed to drag her matinie from a chair 
 and put it around her shoulders. Then she sank back 
 from weakness, physical and spiritual. She hated to receive 
 Chirac in a bedroom, and particularly in that bedroom. 
 But the hotel had no public room except the dining-room, 
 
338 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 which began to be occupied after eleven o'clock. Moreover, 
 she could not possibly get up. Yes, on the whole she was 
 pleased to see Chirac. He was almost her only acquaintance, 
 assuredly the only being whom she could by any stretch of 
 meaning call a friend, in the whole of Europe. Gerald and 
 she had wandered to and fro, skimming always over the real 
 life of nations, and never penetrating into it. There was no 
 place for them, because they had made none. With the ex- 
 ception of Chirac, whom an accident of business had thrown 
 into Gerald's company years before, they had no social rela- 
 tions. Gerald was not a man to make friends ; he did not 
 seem to need friends, or at any rate to feel the want of them. 
 But as chance had given him Chirac, he maintained the 
 connection whenever they came to Paris. Sophia, of course, 
 had not been able to escape from the solitude imposed by 
 existence in hotels. Since her marriage she had never spoken 
 to a woman in the way of intimacy. But once or twice 
 she had . approached intimacy with Chirac, whose wistful 
 admiration for her always aroused into activity her desire 
 to charm. 
 
 Preceded by the menial, he came into the room hurriedly, 
 apologetically, with an air of acute anxiety. And as he saw 
 her lying on her back, with flushed features, her hair dis- 
 arranged, and only the grace of the silk ribbons of her 
 matinie to mitigate the melancholy repulsiveness of her 
 surroundings, that anxiety seemed to deepen. 
 
 " Dear madame," he stammered, " all my excuses ! " 
 He hastened to the bedside and kissed her hand — a little 
 peck, according to his custom. " You are ill ? " 
 
 " I have my migraine," she said. " You want Gerald ? " 
 
 " Yes," he said diffidently. " He had promised " 
 
 " He has left me," Sophia interrupted him in her weak 
 and fatigued voice. She closed her eyes as she uttered the 
 words. 
 
 " Left you ? " He glanced round to be sure that the waiter 
 had retired. 
 
 " Quitted me ! Abandoned me ! Last night ! " 
 
 " Not possible ! " he breathed. 
 
 She nodded. She felt intimate with him. Like all secre- 
 tive persons, she could be suddenly expansive at times. 
 
 " It is serious ? " he questioned. 
 
 " All that is most serious," she replied. 
 
 " And you ill ! Ah, the wretch ! Ah, the wretch ! 
 That, for example ! " He waved his hat about. 
 
 " What is it you want, Chirac ? " she demanded, in a 
 confidential tone. 
 
A CRISIS FOR GERALD. 339 
 
 " Eh, well," said Chirac. " You do not know where he has 
 gone ? " 
 
 " No. What do you want ? " she insisted. 
 
 He was nervous. He fidgeted. She guessed that, though 
 warm with sympathy for her plight, he was preoccupied by 
 interests and apprehensions of his own. He did not refuse 
 her request temporarily to leave the astonishing matter of her 
 situation in order to discuss the matter of his visit. 
 
 " Eh, well ! He came to me yesterday afternoon in the 
 Rue Croissant to borrow some money." 
 
 She understood then the object of Gerald's stroll on the 
 previous afternoon. 
 
 " I hope you didn't lend him any." she said. 
 
 " Eh, well I It was like this. He said he ought to have 
 received five thousand francs yesterday morning, but that 
 he had had a telegram that it would not arrive till to-day. 
 And he had need of five hundred francs at once. I had not 
 five hundred francs " — he smiled sadly, as if to insinuate that 
 he did not handle such sums — " but I borrowed it from the 
 cash-box of the journal. It is necessary, absolutely, that I 
 should return it this morning." He spoke with increased 
 seriousness. " Your husband said he would take a cab and 
 bring me the money immediately on the arrival of the post 
 this morning — about nine o'clock. Pardon me for deranging 
 you with such a " 
 
 He stopped. She could see that he really was grieved 
 to " derange " her, but that circumstances pressed. 
 
 " At my paper," he murmured, "it is not so easy as that 
 to — in fine ! " 
 
 Gerald had genuinely been at his last francs. He had not 
 lied when she thought he had lied. The nakedness of his 
 character showed now. Instantly upon the final and definite 
 cessation of the lawful supply of money, he had set his wits 
 to obtain money unlawfully. He had, in fact, simply stolen 
 it from Chirac, with the ornamental addition of endanger- 
 ing Chirac's reputation and situation — as a sort of reward to 
 Chirac for the kindness ! And, further, no sooner had he got 
 hold of the money than it had intoxicated him, and he had 
 yielded to the first fatuous temptation. He had no sense of 
 responsibility, no scruple. And as for common prudence — 
 had he not risked permanent disgrace and even prison for a 
 paltry sum which he would certainly squander in two or three 
 days ? Yes, it was indubitable that he would stop at noth- 
 ing, at nothing whatever. 
 
 " You did not know that he was coming to me ? " asked 
 Chirac, pulling his short, silky brown beard. 
 
3 4 o THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " No," Sophia answered. 
 
 " But he said that you had charged him with your 
 friendlinesses to me ! " He nodded his head once or twice, 
 sadly but candidly accepting, in his quality of a Latin, the 
 plain facts of human nature — reconciling himself to them at 
 once. 
 
 Sophia revolted at this crowning detail of the structure of 
 Gerald's rascality. 
 
 " It is fortunate that I can pay you," she said. 
 
 " But " he tried to protest. 
 
 " I have quite enough money." 
 
 She did not say this to screen Gerald, but merely from 
 amour-propre. She would not let Chirac think that she was 
 the wife of a man bereft of all honour. And so she clothed 
 Gerald with the rag of having, at any rate, not left her in 
 destitution as well as in sickness. Her assertion seemed a 
 strange one, in view of the fact that he had abandoned her 
 on the previous evening — that is to say, immediately after 
 the borrowing from Chirac. But Chirac did not examine the 
 statement. 
 
 " Perhaps he has the intention to send me the money. 
 Perhaps, after all, he is now at the offices " 
 
 " No," said Sophia. " He is gone. Will you go down- 
 stairs and wait for me. We will go together to Cook's office. 
 It is English money I have." 
 
 " Cook's ? " he repeated. The word now so potent had 
 then little significance. " But you are ill. You cannot " 
 
 " I feel better." 
 
 She did. Or rather, she felt nothing except the power of 
 her resolve to remove the painful anxiety from that wistful 
 brow. The shame of the trick played on Chirac awakened 
 new forces in her. She dressed in a physical torment which, 
 however, had no more reality than a nightmare. She 
 searched in a place where even an inquisitive husband 
 would not think of looking, and then, painfully, she de- 
 scended the long stairs, holding to the rail, which swam 
 round and round her, carrying the whole staircase with it. 
 " After all," she thought, " I can't be seriously ill, or I 
 shouldn't have been able to get up and go out like this. I 
 never guessed early this morning that I could do it ! I can't 
 possibly be as ill as I thought I was ! " 
 
 And in the vestibule she encountered Chirac's face, 
 lightening at the sight of her, which proved to him that 
 his deliverance was really to be accomplished. 
 
 " Permit me " 
 
 " I'm all right," she smiled, tottering. " Get a cab." It 
 
A CRISIS FOR GERALD. 341 
 
 suddenly occurred to her that she might quite as easily have 
 given him the money in English notes ; he could, have 
 changed them. But she had not thought. Her brain would 
 not operate. She was dreaming and waking together. 
 He helped her into the cab. 
 
 V. 
 
 In the bureau de change there was a little knot of English 
 people, with naive, romantic, and honest faces, quite differ- 
 ent from the faces outside in the street. No corruption in 
 those faces, but a sort of wondering and infantile sincerity, 
 rather out of its element and lost in a land too unsophisti- 
 cated, seeming to belong to an earlier age ! Sophia liked 
 their tourist stare, and their plain and ugly clothes. She 
 longed to be back in England, longed for a moment with 
 violence, drowning in that desire. 
 
 The English clerk behind his brass bars took her notes, 
 and carefully examined them one by one. She watched 
 him, not entirely convinced of his reality, and thought 
 vaguely of the detestable morning when she had abstracted 
 the notes from Gerald's pocket. She was filled with pity 
 for the simple, ignorant Sophia of those days, the Sophia 
 who still had a few ridiculous illusions concerning Gerald's 
 character. Often, since, she had been tempted to break 
 into the money, but she had always withstood the temptation, 
 saying to herself that an hour of more urgent need would 
 come. It had come. She was proud of her firmness, of the 
 force of will which had enabled her to reserve the fund intact. 
 The clerk gave her a keen look, and then asked her how she 
 would take the French money. And she saw the notes fall- 
 ing down one after another on to the counter as the clerk 
 separated them with a snapping sound of the paper. 
 
 Chirac was beside her. 
 
 " Does that make the count ? " she said, having pushed 
 towards him five hundred-franc notes. 
 
 " I should not know how to thank you," he said, accepting 
 the notes. " Truly " 
 
 His joy was unmistakably eager. He had had a shock 
 and a fright, and he now saw the danger past. He could 
 return to the cashier of his newspaper, and fling down the 
 money with a lordly and careless air, as if to say : " When it 
 is a question of these English, one can always be sure ! " 
 But first he would escort her to the hotel. She declined — 
 
342 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 she did not know why, for he was her sole point of moral 
 support in all France'. He insisted. She yielded. So she 
 turned her back, with regret, on that little English oasis in 
 the Sahara of Paris, and staggered to the fiacre. 
 
 And now that she had done what she had to do, she 
 lost control of her body, and reclined flaccid and inert. 
 Chirac was evidently alarmed. He did not speak, but 
 glanced at her from time to time with eyes full of fear. 
 The carriage appeared to her to be swimming amid waves 
 over great depths. Then she was aware of a heavy weight 
 against her shoulder : she had slipped down upon Chirac, 
 unconscious. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 FEVER. * 
 
 I. 
 
 Then she was lying in bed in a small room, obscure because 
 it was heavily curtained ; the light came through the inner 
 pair of curtains of icru lace, with a beautiful soft silvery- 
 quality. A man was standing by the side of the bed — not 
 Chirac. 
 
 " Now, madame," he said to her, with land firmness, and 
 speaking with a charming exaggerated purity of the vowels. 
 " You have the mucous fever. I have had it myself. You 
 will be forced to take baths, very frequently. I must ask you 
 to reconcile yourself to that, to be good." 
 
 She did not reply. It did not occur to her to reply. 
 But she certainly thought that this doctor — he was probably 
 a doctor — was overestimating her case. She felt better 
 than she had felt for two days. Still, she did not desire to 
 move, nor was she in the least anxious as to her surroundings. 
 She lay quiet. 
 
 A woman in a rather coquettish deshabille watched over 
 her with expert skill. 
 
 Later, Sophia seemed to be revisiting the sea on whose 
 waves the cab had swum ; but now she was under the sea, 
 in a watery gulf, terribly deep ; and the sounds of the world 
 came to her through the water, sudden and strange. Hands 
 seized her and forced her from the subaqueous grotto where 
 she had hidden into new alarms. And she briefly perceived 
 that there was a large bath by the side of the bed, and that 
 she was being pushed into it. The water was icy cold. 
 After that her outlook upon things was for a time clearer and 
 more precise. She knew from fragments of talk which she 
 heard that she was put into the cold bath by her bed every 
 three hours, night and day, and that she remained in it for 
 
344 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 ten minutes. Always, before the bath, she had to drink a 
 glass of wine, and sometimes another glass while she was in 
 the bath. Beyond this wine, and occasionally a cup of soup, 
 she took nothing, had no wish to take anything. She grew 
 perfectly accustomed to these extraordinary habits of life, 
 to this merging of night and day into one monotonous and 
 endless repetition of the same rite amid the same circum- 
 stances on exactly the same spot. Then followed a period 
 during which she objected to being constantly wakened up 
 for this annoying immersion. And she fought against it even in 
 her dreams. Long days seemed to pass when she could not be 
 sure whether she had been put into the bath or not, when all 
 externa} phenomena were disconcertingly interwoven with 
 matters which she knew to be merely fanciful. And then she 
 was overwhelmed by the hopeless gravity of her state. She 
 felt that her state was desperate. She felt that she was dying. 
 Her unhappiness was extreme, not because she was dying, 
 but because the veils ol sense were so puzzling, so exasperat- 
 ing, and because her exhausted body was so vitiated, in every 
 fibre, by disease. She was perfectly aware that she was 
 going to die. She cried aloud for a pair of scissors. She 
 wanted to cut off her hair, and to send part of it to Con- 
 stance and part of it to her mother, in separate packages. 
 She insisted upon separate packages. Nobody would give 
 her a pair of scissors. She implored, meekly, haughtily, 
 furiously, but nobody would satisfy her. It seemed to her 
 shocking that all her hair should go with her into her coffin 
 while Constance and her mother had nothing by which to 
 remember her, no tangible souvenir of her beauty. Then she 
 fought for the scissors. She clutched at some one — always 
 through those baffling veils — who was putting her into the 
 bath by the bedside, and fought frantically. It appeared to 
 her that this some one was the rather stout woman who had 
 supped at Sylvain's with the quarrelsome Englishman four 
 years ago. She could not rid herself of this singular conceit, 
 though she knew it to be absurd. . . . 
 
 A long time afterwards— it seemed like a century — she did 
 actually and unmistakably see the woman sitting by her bed, 
 and the woman was crying. 
 
 " Why are you crying ? " Sophia asked wonderingly. 
 
 And the other, younger, woman, who was standing at the 
 foot of the bed, replied : 
 
 " You do well to ask ! It is you who have hurt her, in 
 your delirium, when you so madly demanded the scissors." 
 
 The stout woman smiled with the tears on her cheeks ; 
 but Sophia wept, from remorse. The stout woman looked 
 
FEVER. 345 
 
 old, worn, and untidy. The other one was much younger. 
 Sophia did not trouble to inquire from them who they were. 
 
 That little conversation formed a brief interlude in the 
 delirium, which overtook her again and distorted everything. 
 She forgot, however, that she was destined to die. 
 
 One day her brain cleared. She could be sure that she 
 had gone to sleep in the morning and not wakened till the 
 evening. Hence she had not been put into the bath. 
 
 " Have I had my baths ? " she questioned. 
 
 It was the doctor who faced her. 
 
 " No," he said, " the baths are finished." 
 
 She knew from his face that she was out of danger. More- 
 over, she was conscious of a new feeling in her body, as 
 though the fount of physical energy within her, long inter- 
 rupted, had recommenced to flow — but very slowly, a 
 trickling. It was a rebirth. She was not glad, but her body 
 itself was glad ; her body had an existence ox its own. 
 
 She was now often left by herself in the bedroom. To the 
 right of the foot of the bed was a piano in walnut, and to 
 the left a chimney-piece with a large mirror. She wanted to 
 look at herself in the mirror. But it was a very long way off. 
 She tried to sit up, and could not. She hoped that one day 
 she would be able to get as far as the mirror. She said not 
 a word about this to either of the two women. 
 
 Often they would sit in the bedroom and talk without 
 ceasing. Sophia learnt that the stout woman was named 
 Foucault, and the other Laurence. Sometimes Laurence 
 would address Madame Foucault as Aim6e, but usually she 
 was more formal. Madame Foucault always called the 
 other Laurence. 
 
 Sophia's curiosity stirred and awoke. But she could not 
 obtain any very exact information as to where she was, 
 except that the house was in the Rue Breda, off the Rue 
 Notre Dame de Lorette. She recollected vaguely that the 
 reputation of "the street was sinister. It appeared that, on 
 the day when she had gone out with Chirac, the upper part 
 of the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette was closed for repairs — 
 (this she remembered) — and that the cabman had turned up 
 the Rue Breda in order to make a detour, and that it was 
 just opposite to the house of Madame Foucault that she had 
 lost consciousness. Madame Foucault happened to be get- 
 ting into a cab at the moment ; but she had told Chirac 
 nevertheless to carry Sophia into the house, and a policeman 
 had helped. Then, when the doctor came, it was discovered 
 that she could not be moved, save to a hospital, and both 
 Madame Foucault and Laurence were determined that no 
 
346 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 friend of Chirac's should be committed to the horrors of a 
 Paris hospital. Madame Foucault had suffered in one as a 
 patient, and Laurence had been a nurse in another. . . . 
 
 Chirac was now away. The women talked loosely of a war. 
 
 " How kind you have been ! " murmured Sophia, with 
 humid eyes. 
 
 But they silenced her with gestures. She was not to talk. 
 They seemed to have nothing further to tell her. They said 
 Chirac would be returning perhaps soon, and that she could 
 talk to him. Evidently they both held Chirac in affection. 
 They said often that he was a charming boy. 
 
 Bit by bit Sophia comprehended the length and the 
 seriousness of her illness, and the immense devotion of the 
 two women, and the terrific disturbance of their lives, and 
 her own debility. She saw that the women were strongly 
 attached to her, and she could not understand why, as she 
 had never done anything for them, whereas they had done 
 everything for her. She had not learnt that benefits ren- 
 dered, not benefits received, are the cause of such attach- 
 ments. 
 
 All the time she was plotting, and gathering her strength 
 to disobey orders and get as far as the mirror. Her pre- 
 liminary studies and her preparations were as elaborate as 
 those of a prisoner arranging to escape from a fortress. 
 The first attempt was a failure. The second succeeded. 
 Though she could not stand without support, she managed 
 by clinging to the bed to reach a chair, and to push the 
 chair in front of her until it approached the mirror. The 
 enterprise was exciting and terrific. Then she saw a face 
 in the glass : white, incredibly emaciated, with great, wild, 
 staring eyes ; and the shoulders were bent as though with 
 age. It was a painful, almost a horrible sight. It frightened 
 her so that in her alarm she recoiled from it. Not attending 
 sufficiently to the chair, she sank to the ground. She could 
 not pick herself up, and she was caught there, miserably, by 
 her angered jailers. The vision of her face taught her more 
 efficiently than anything else the gravity of her adventure. 
 As the women lifted her inert, repentant mass into the bed, 
 she reflected, " How queer my life is ! " It seemed to her 
 that she ought to have been trimming hats in the show- 
 room instead of being in that curtained, mysterious, Parisian 
 interior. 
 
FEVER. 347 
 
 II. 
 
 One day Madame Foucault knocked at the door of Sophia's 
 little room (this ceremony of knocking was one of the in- 
 dications that Sophia, convalescent, had been reinstated in 
 her rights as an individual), and cried : 
 
 " Madame, one is going to leave you all alone for some 
 time." 
 
 " Come in," said Sophia, who was sitting up in an arm- 
 chair, and reading. 
 
 Madame Foucault opened the door. " One is going to 
 leave you all alone for some time," she repeated in a low, 
 confidential voice, sharply contrasting with her shriek 
 behind the door. 
 
 Sophia nodded and smiled, and Madame Foucault also 
 nodded and smiled. But Madame Foucault's face quickly 
 resumed its anxious expression. 
 
 " The servant's brother marries himself to-day, and she 
 implored me to accord her two days — what would you ? 
 Madame Laurence is out. And I must go out. It is four 
 o'clock. I shall re-enter at six o'clock striking. There- 
 fore . . ." 
 
 M Perfectly," Sophia concurred. 
 
 She looked curiously at Madame Foucault, who was care- 
 fully made up and arranged for the street, in a dress of yellow 
 tussore with blue ornaments, bright lemon-coloured gloves, 
 a little blue bonnet, and a little white parasol not wider when 
 opened than her shoulders. Cheeks, lips, and eyes were 
 heavily charged with rouge, powder, or black. And that too 
 abundant waist had been most cunningly confined in a belt 
 that descended beneath, instead of rising above, the lower 
 masses of the vast torso. The general effect was worthy of 
 the effort that must have gone to it. Madame Foucault was 
 not rejuvenated by her toilette, but it almost procured her 
 pardon for the crime of being over forty, fat, creased, and 
 worn out. It was one of those defeats that are a triumph. 
 
 " You are very chic," said Sophia, uttering her admiration. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Madame Foucault, shrugging the shoulders 
 of disillusion. " Chic ! What does that do ? " 
 
 But she was pleased. 
 
 The front-door banged. Sophia, by herself for the first 
 time in the flat into which she had been carried unconscious 
 and which she had never since left, had the disturbing sen- 
 sation of being surrounded by mysterious rooms- and mysteri- 
 ous things. She tried to continue reading, but the sentences 
 
348 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 conveyed nothing to her. She rose — she could walk now a 
 little — and looked out of the window, through the inter- 
 stices of the pattern of the lace curtains. The window gave 
 on the courtyard, which was about sixteen feet below her. 
 A low wall divided the courtyard from that of the next house. 
 And the windows of the two houses, only to be distinguished 
 by the different tints of their yellow paint, rose tier above 
 tier in level floors, continuing beyond Sophia's field of vision. 
 She pressed her face against the glass, and remembered the 
 St. Luke's Square of her childhood ; and just as there from 
 the showroom window she could not even by pressing her face 
 against the glass see the pavement, so here she could not see 
 the roof ; the courtyard was like the bottom of a well. 
 There was no end to the windows ; six storeys she could count, 
 and the sills of a seventh were the limit of her view. Every 
 window was heavily curtained, like her own. Some of the 
 upper ones had green sunblinds. Scarcely any sound ! 
 Mysteries brooded without as well as within the flat of Madame 
 Foucault. Sophia saw a bodiless hand twitch at a curtain 
 and vanish. She noticed a green bird in a tiny cage on a sill 
 in the next house. A woman whom she took to be the con- 
 cierge appeared in the courtyard, deposited a small plant 
 in the track of a ray of sunshine that lighted a corner for a 
 couple of hours in the afternoon, and disappeared again. 
 Then she heard a piano — somewhere. That was all. The 
 feeling that secret and strange lives were being lived be- 
 hind those baffling windows, that humanity was everywhere 
 intimately pulsing around her, oppressed her spirit yet not 
 quite unpleasantly. The environment softened her glance 
 upon the spectacle of existence, insomuch that sadness be- 
 came a voluptuous pleasure. And the environment threw 
 her back on herself, into a sensuous contemplation of ^ the 
 fundamental fact of Sophia Scales, formerly Sophia Baines. 
 
 She turned to the room, with the marks of the bath on the 
 floor by the bed, and the draped piano that was never opened, 
 and her two trunks filling up the corner opposite the door. 
 She had the idea of thoroughly examining those trunks, which 
 Chirac or somebody else must have fetched from the hotel. 
 At the top of one of them was her purse, tied up with 
 old ribbon and ostentatiously sealed ! How comical these 
 French people were when they deemed it necessary to be 
 serious ! She emptied both trunks, scrutinizing minutely 
 all her goods, and thinking of the varied occasions upon which 
 she had obtained them. Then she carefully restored them, 
 her mind full of souvenirs newly awakened. 
 
 She sighed as she straightened her back. A clock struck 
 
FEVER. 349 
 
 in another room. It seemed to invite her towards discoveries. 
 She had been in no other room of the flat. She knew nothing 
 of the rest of the flat save by sound. For neither of the 
 other women had ever described it, nor had it occurred to 
 them that Sophia might care to leave her room though she 
 could not leave the house. 
 
 She opened her door, and glanced along the dim corridor, 
 with which she was familiar. She knew that the kitchen lay- 
 next to her little room, and that next to the kitchen came 
 the front-door. On the opposite side of the corridor were 
 four double-doors. She crossed to the pair of doors facing 
 her own little door, and quietly turned the handle, but the 
 doors were locked ; the same with the next pair. The third 
 pair yielded, and she was in a large bedroom, with three 
 windows on the street. She saw that the second pair of 
 doors, which she had failed to unfasten, also opened into 
 this room. Between the two pairs of doors was a wide bed. 
 In front of the central window was a large dressing-table. 
 To the left of the bed, half hiding the locked doors, was a 
 large screen. On the marble mantelpiece, reflected in a huge 
 mirror, that ascended to the ornate cornice, was a gilt-and- 
 basalt clock, with pendants to match. On the opposite side 
 of the room from this was a long wide couch. The floor was 
 of polished oak, with a skin on either side of the bed. At 
 the foot of the bed was a small writing-table, with a penny 
 bottle of ink on it. A few coloured prints and engravings — 
 representing, for example, Louis Philippe and his family, 
 and people perishing on a raft — broke the tedium of the 
 walls. The first impression on Sophia's eye was one of sombre 
 splendour. Everything had the air of being richly orna- 
 mented, draped, looped, carved, twisted, brocaded into 
 gorgeousness. The dark crimson bed-hangings fell from 
 massive rosettes in majestic folds. The counterpane was 
 covered with lace. The window-curtains had amplitude 
 beyond the necessary, and they were suspended from behind 
 fringed and pleated valances. The green sofa and its sateen 
 cushions were stiff with applied embroidery. The chandelier 
 hanging from the middle of the ceiling, modelled to represent 
 cupids holding festoons, was a glittering confusion \ of gilt 
 and lustres : the lustres tinkled when Sophia stood on a 
 certain part of the floor. The cane-seated chairs were com- 
 pletely gilded. There was an effect of spaciousness. And 
 the situation of the bed between the two double-doors, with 
 the three windows in front and other pairs of doors com- 
 municating with other rooms on either hand, produced in 
 addition an admirable symmetry. 
 
350 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 But Sophia, with the sharp gaze of a woman brought up 
 in the traditions of a modesty so proud that it scorns osten- 
 tation, quickly tested and condemned the details of this 
 chamber that imitated every luxury. Nothing in it, she 
 found, was " good." And in St. Luke's Square goodness " 
 meant honest workmanship, permanence, the absence of 
 pretence. All the stuffs were cheap and showy and shabby ; 
 all the furniture was cracked, warped, or broken. The clock 
 showed five minutes past twelve at five o'clock. And further, 
 dust was everywhere, except in those places where even the 
 most perfunctory cleaning could not have left it. In the 
 obscurer pleatings of draperies it lay thick. Sophia's lip 
 curled, and instinctively she lifted her peignoir. One of 
 her mother's phrases came into her head : "a lick and a 
 promise." And then another : "If you want to leave dirt, 
 leave it where everybody can see it, not in the corners." 
 
 She peeped behind the screen, and all the horrible welter 
 of a cabinet de toilette met her gaze : a repulsive medley of 
 foul waters, stained vessels and cloths, brushes, sponges, 
 powders, and pastes. Clothes were hung up in disorder on 
 rough nails ; among them she recognized a dressing-gown of 
 Madame Foucault's, and, behind affairs of later date, the 
 dazzling scarlet cloak in which she had first seen Madame 
 Foucault, dilapidated now. So this was Madame Foucault's 
 room ! This was the bower from which that elegance 
 emerged, the filth from which had sprung the mature 
 blossom ! 
 
 She passed from that room direct to another, of which 
 the shutters were closed, leaving it in twilight. This room 
 too wrs a bedroom, rather smaller than the middle one, and 
 having only one window, but furnished with the same 
 dubious Opulence. Dust covered it everywhere, and small 
 footmarks were visible in the dust on the floor. At the back 
 was a small door, papered to match the wall, and within this 
 door was a cabinet de toilette, with no light and no air ; 
 neither in the room nor in the closet was there any sign of 
 individual habitation. She traversed the main bedroom 
 again and found another bedroom to balance the second one, 
 but open to the full light of day, and in a state of extreme dis- 
 order ; the double-pillowed bed had not even been made ; 
 clothes and towels draped all the furniture ; shoes were 
 about the floor, and on a piece of string tied across the 
 windows hung a single white stocking, wet. At the back was 
 a cabinet de toilette, as dark as the other one, a vile malodor- 
 ous mess of appliances whose familiar forms loomed vague 
 and extraordinarily sinister in the dense obscurity. Sophia 
 
FEVER. 351 
 
 turned away with the righteous disgust of one whose prepa- 
 rations for the gaze of the world are as candid and simple as 
 those of a child. Concealed dirt shocked her as much as it 
 would have shocked her mother ; and as for the trickeries of 
 the toilette table, she contemned them as harshly as a young 
 saint who has never been tempted contemns moral weakness. 
 She thought of the strange flaccid daily life of those two 
 women, whose hours seemed to slip unprofitably away without 
 any result of achievement. She had actually witnessed noth- 
 ing ; but since the beginning of her convalescence her ears 
 had heard, and she could piece the evidences together. 
 There was never any sound in the flat, outside the kitchen, 
 until noon. Then vague noises and smells would commence. 
 And about one o'clock Madame Foucault, disarrayed, would 
 come to inquire if the servant had attended to the needs of 
 the invalid. Then the odours of cookery would accentuate 
 themselves ; bells rang ; fragments of conversations escaped 
 through doors ajar ; occasionally a man's voice or a heavy 
 step ; then the fragrance of coffee ; sometimes the sound of 
 a kiss, the banging of the front door, the noise of brushing, 
 or of the shaking of a carpet, a little scream as at some 
 trifling domestic contretemps. Laurence, still in a dressing- 
 gown, would lounge into Sophia's room, dirty, haggard, but 
 polite with a curious stiff ceremony, and would drink her 
 coffee there. This wandering in peignoirs would continue 
 till three o'clock, and then Laurence might say, as if nerving 
 herself to an unusual and immense effort : "I must be dressed 
 by five o'clock. I have not a moment." Often Madame 
 Foucault did not dress at all ; on such days she would go 
 tc bed immediately after dinner, with the remark that she 
 didn't know what was the matter with her, but she was ex- 
 hausted. And then the servant would retire to her seventh 
 floor, and there would be silence until, now and then, faint 
 creepings were heard at midnight or after. Once or twice, 
 through the chinks of her door, Sophia had seen a light at 
 two o'clock in the morning, just before the dawn. 
 
 Yet these were the women who had saved her life, who 
 between them had put her into a cold bath every three hours 
 night and day for weeks Surely it was impossible after that 
 to despise them for shiftlessness and talkative idling in 
 peignoirs ; impossible to despise them for anything whatever ! 
 But Sophia, conscious of her inheritance of strong and reso- 
 lute character, did despise them as poor things. The one 
 point on which she envied them was their formal manners 
 to her, which seemed to become more dignified and graciously 
 distant as her health improved. It was always " Madame," 
 
352 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Madame," to her, with an intonation of increasing defer- 
 ence. They might have been apologizing to her for them- 
 selves. 
 
 She prowled into all the corners of the flat ; but she dis- 
 covered no more rooms, nothing but a large cupboard 
 crammed with Madame Foucault's dresses. Then she went 
 back to the large bedroom, and enjoyed the busy movement 
 and rattle of the sloping street, and had long, vague yearn- 
 ings for strength and for freedom in wide, sane places. She 
 decided that on the morrow she would dress herself " prop- 
 erly," and never again wear a peignoir ; the peignoir and 
 all that it represented, disgusted her. And while looking 
 at the street she ceased to see it and saw Cook's office and 
 Chirac helping her into the carriage. Where was he ? Why 
 had he brought her to this impossible abode ? What did 
 he mean by such conduct ? . . . But could he have acted 
 otherwise ? He had done the one thing that he could do. 
 . . . Chance ! . . . Chance ! And why an impossible abode ? 
 Was one place more impossible than another ? . ' . . All this 
 came of running away from home with Gerald. It was. 
 remarkable that she seldom thought of Gerald. He had 
 vanished from her life as he had come into it — madly, pre- 
 posterously. She wondered what the next stage in her career 
 would be. She certainly could not forecast it. Perhaps 
 Gerald was starving, or in prison. . . . Bah ! That ex- 
 clamation expressed her appalling disdain of Gerald and of 
 the Sophia who had once deemed him the paragon of men. 
 Bah! 
 
 A carriage stopping in front of the house awakened her 
 from her meditation. Madame Foucault and a man very 
 much younger than Madame Foucault got out of it. Sophia 
 fled. After all, this prying into other people's rooms was 
 quite inexcusable. She dropped on to her own bed and 
 picked up a book, in case Madame Foucault should come in. 
 
 III. 
 
 In the evening, just after night had fallen, Sophia on the 
 bed heard the sound of raised and acrimonious voices in 
 Madame Foucault's room. Nothing except dinner had hap- 
 pened since the arrival of Madame Foucault and the young 
 man. These two had evidently dined informally in the bed- 
 room on a dish or so prepared by Madame Foucault, who had 
 herself served Sophia with her invalid's repast. The odours 
 of cookery still hung in the air. 
 
FEVER. 353 
 
 The noise of virulent discussion increased and continued, 
 and then Sophia could hear sobbing, broken by short and 
 fierce phrases from the man. Then the door of the bedroom 
 opened brusquely. " J 'en ai soupe ! " exclaimed the man, 
 in tones of angry disgust. " Laisse-moi, je te prie ! " And 
 then a soft muffled sound, as of a struggle, a quick step, and 
 the very violent banging of the front door. After that there 
 was a noticeable silence, save for the regular sobbing. 
 Sophia wondered when it would cease, that monotonous 
 sobbing. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " she called out from her bed. 
 
 The sobbing grew louder, like the sobbing of a child who 
 has detected an awakening of sympathy and instinctively 
 begins to practise upon it. In the end Sophia arose and put 
 on the peignoir which she had almost determined never to 
 wear again. 
 
 The broad corridor was lighted by a small, smelling oil- 
 lamp with a crimson globe. That soft, transforming radiance 
 seemed to paint the whole corridor with voluptuous luxury : 
 so much so that it was impossible to believe that the smell 
 came from the lamp. Under the lamp lay Madame Foucault 
 on the floor, a shapeless mass of lace, frilled linen, and 
 corset ; her light brown hair was loose and spread about the 
 floor. At the first glance, the creature abandoned to grief 
 made a romantic and striking picture, and Sophia thought 
 for an instant that she had at length encountered life on a 
 plane that would correspond to her dreams of romance. 
 And she was impressed, with a feeling somewhat akin to that 
 of a middling commoner when confronted with a viscount. 
 There was, in the distance, something imposing and sensa- 
 tional about that prone, trembling figure. The tragic works 
 of love were therein apparently manifest, in a sort of dignified 
 beauty. But when Sophia bent over Madame Foucault, and 
 touched her flabbiness, this illusion at once vanished ; and 
 instead of being dramatically pathetic the woman was 
 ridiculous. Her face, especially as damaged by tears, could 
 not support the ordeal of inspection ; it was horrible ; not 
 a picture, but a palette ; or like the coloured design of a 
 pavement artist after a heavy shower. Her great, relaxed 
 eyelids alone would have rendered any face absurd ; and there 
 were monstrous details far worse than the eyelids. Then she 
 was amazingly fat ; her flesh seemed to be escaping at all 
 ends from a corset strained to the utmost limit. And above 
 her boots — she was still wearing dainty, high-heeled, tightly 
 laced boots — the calves bulged suddenly out. 
 
 As a woman of between forty and fifty, the obese sepulchre 
 
 12 
 
354 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 of a dead vulgar beauty, she had no right to passions and 
 tears and homage, or even the means of life ; she had no 
 right to expose herself picturesquely beneath a crimson glow 
 in all the panoply of ribboned garters and lacy seductive- 
 ness. It was silly ; it was disgraceful. She ought to have 
 known that only youth and slimness have the right to appeal 
 to the feelings by indecent abandonments. 
 
 Such were the thoughts that mingled with the sympathy 
 of the beautiful and slim Sophia as she bent down to Madame 
 Foucault. She was sorry for her landlady, but at the same 
 time she despised her, and resented her woe. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " she asked quietly. 
 
 " He has chucked me ! " stammered Madame Foucault. 
 " And he's the last. I have no one now ! " 
 
 She rolled over in the most grotesque manner, kicking up 
 her legs, with a fresh outburst of sobs. Sophia felt quite 
 ashamed for her. 
 
 " Come and lie down. Come now ! " she said, with 
 a touch of sharpness. " You mustn't lie there like 
 that." 
 
 Madame Foucault's behaviour was really too outrageous. 
 Sophia helped her, morally rather than physically, to rise, 
 and then persuaded her into the large bedroom. Madame 
 Foucault fell on the bed, of which the counterpane had been 
 thrown over the foot. Sophia covered the lower part of her 
 heaving body with the counterpane. 
 
 " Now, calm yourself, please ! " 
 
 This room too was lit in crimson, by a small lamp that 
 stood on the night-table, and though the shade of the lamp 
 was cracked, the general effect of the great chamber was 
 incontestably romantic. Only the pillows of the wide bed 
 and a small semicircle of floor were illuminated, all the rest 
 lay in shadow. Madame Foucault's head had dropped be- 
 tween the pillows. A tray containing dirty plates and 
 glasses and a wine-bottle was speciously picturesque on the 
 writing-table. 
 
 Despite her genuine gratitude to Madame Foucault for 
 astounding care during her illness, Sophia did not like her 
 landlady, and the present scene made her coldly wrathful. 
 She saw the probability of having another's troubles piled on 
 the top of her own. She did not, in her mind, actively object, 
 because she felt that she could not be more hopelessly 
 miserable than she was ; but she passively resented the im- 
 position. Her reason told her that she ought to sympathize 
 with this ageing, ugly, disagreeable, undignified woman ; 
 but her heart was reluctant ; her heart did not want to know 
 
FEVER. 355 
 
 anything at all about Madame Foucault, nor to enter in any- 
 way into her private life. 
 
 " I have not a single friend now," stammered Madame 
 Foucault. 
 
 " Oh, yes, you have," said Sophia, cheerfully. " You 
 have Madame Laurence." 
 
 " Laurence — that is not a friend. You know what I 
 mean." 
 
 '■' And me ! I am your friend ! " said Sophia, in obedience 
 to her conscience. 
 
 " You are very kind," replied Madame Foucault, from the 
 pillow. " But you know what I mean." 
 
 The fact was that Sophia did know what she meant. The 
 terms of their intercourse had been suddenly changed. 
 There was no pretentious ceremony now, but the sincerity 
 that disaster brings. The vast structure of make-believe, 
 which between them they had gradually built, had crumbled 
 to nothing. 
 
 " I never treated badly any man in my life," whimpered 
 Madame Foucault. " I have always been a good girl. 
 There is not a man who can say I have not been a good 
 girl. Never was I a girl like the rest. And every one has 
 said so. Ah ! when I tell you that once I had a hotel in the 
 Avenue de la Reine Hortense. Four horses ... I have sold 
 a horse to Madame Musard. . . . You know Madame Musard. 
 . . . But one cannot make economies. Impossible to make 
 economies ! Ah 1 In 'fifty-six I was spending a hundred 
 thousand francs a year. That cannot last. Always I have 
 said to myself : ' That cannot last.' Always I had the 
 intention. . . . But what would you ? I installed myself 
 here, and borrowed money to pay for the furniture. *There 
 did not remain to me one jewel. The men are poltroons, 
 all ! I could let three bedrooms for three hundred and fifty 
 francs a month, and with serving meals and so on I could 
 live." 
 
 " Then that," Sophia interrupted, pointing to her own 
 bedroom across the corridor, " is your room ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Madame Foucault. " I put you in it because 
 at the moment all these were let. They are so no longer. 
 Only one — Laurence — and she does not pay me always. 
 What would you ? Tenants — that does not find itself at the 
 present hour. ... I have nothing, and I owe. And he 
 quits me. He chooses this moment to quit me I And 
 why ? For nothing. For nothing. That is not for his 
 money that I regret him. No, no ! You know, at his age — 
 he is twenty-five — and with a woman like me — one is not 
 
356 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 generous.! No. I loved him. And then a man is a moral 
 support, always. I loved him. It is at my age, mine, that 
 one knows how to love. Beauty goes always, but not the 
 temperament ! Ah, that- — No ! . . . I loved him. I love 
 him." 
 
 Sophia's face tingled with a sudden emotion caused by the 
 repetition of those last three words, whose spell no usage can 
 mar. But she said nothing. 
 
 14 Do you know what I shall become ? There is nothing 
 but that for me. And I know of such, who are there already. ! 
 A charwoman ! Yes, a charwoman ! More soon or more 
 late. Well, that is life. What would you ? One exists 
 always." Then in a different tone : "I demand your 
 pardon, madame, for talking like this. I ought to have 
 shame." 
 
 And Sophia felt that in listening she also ought to be 
 ashamed. But she was not ashamed. Everything seemed 
 very natural, and even ordinary. And, moreover, Sophia 
 was full of the sense of her superiority over the woman on 
 the bed. Four years ago, in the Restaurant Sylvain, the 
 ingenuous and ignorant Sophia had shyly sat in awe of the 
 resplendent courtesan, with her haughty stare, her large, 
 easy gestures, and her imperturbable contempt for the man 
 who was paying. And now Sophia knew, that she, Sophia, 
 knew all that was to be known about human nature. She 
 had not merely youth, beauty, and virtue, but knowledge — 
 knowledge enough to reconcile her to her, own misery. She 
 had a vigorous, clear mind, and a clean conscience. She 
 could look any one in the face, and judge every one too as 
 a woman of the world. Whereas this obscene wreck on the 
 bed 'had nothing whatever left. She had not merely lost 
 her effulgent beauty, she had become repulsive. She could 
 never have had any commonsense, nor any force of char- 
 acter. Her haughtiness in the day of glory was simply 
 fatuous, based on stupidity. She had passed the years in 
 idleness, trailing about all day in stuffy rooms, and emerging 
 at night to impress nincompoops ; continually meaning to 
 do things which she never did, continually surprised at the 
 lateness of the hour, continually occupied with the most 
 foolish trifles. And here she was at over forty writhing 
 about on the bare floor because a boy of twenty-five (who 
 must be a worthless idiot) had abandoned her after a scene 
 of ridiculous shoutings and stampings. She was dependent 
 on the caprices of a young scamp, the last donkey to turn 
 from her with loathing ! Sophia thought : " Goodness ! 
 If I had been in her place I shouldn't have been like that. 
 
FEVER. 357 
 
 [ should have been rich. I should have saved like a miser. 
 C wouldn't have been dependent on anybody at that age. 
 [f I couldn't have made a better courtesan than this piti- 
 ible woman, I would have drowned myself." 
 
 In the harsh vanity of her conscious capableness and 
 foung strength she thought thus, half forgetting her own 
 'olfies, and half excusing them on the ground of inexperi- 
 ence. 
 
 Sophia wanted to go round the flat and destroy every 
 ;rimson lampshade in it. She wanted to shake Madame 
 Foucault into self-respect and sagacity. Moral reprehen- 
 sion, though present in her mind, was only faint. Cer- 
 ;ainly she felt the immense gulf between the honest woman 
 md the wanton, but she did not feel it as she would have 
 expected to feel it. " What a fool you have been ! " she 
 thought ; not : " What a sinner ! " With her precocious cyni- 
 :ism, which was somewhat unsuited to the lovely northern 
 pouthfulness of that face, she said to herself that the whole 
 situation and their relative attitudes would have been dif- 
 ferent if only Madame Foucault had had the wit to amass 
 a, fortune, as (according to Gerald) some of her rivals had 
 succeeded in doing. . 
 
 And all the time she was thinking, in another part of her 
 mind : "I ought not to be here. It's no use arguing. I 
 Dught not to be here. Chirac did the only thing for me there 
 was to do. But I must go now." 
 
 Madame Foucault continued to recite her woes, chiefly 
 financial, in a weak voice damp with tears ; she also con- 
 tinued to apologize for mentioning herself. She had finished 
 sobbing, and lay looking at the wall, away from Sophia, who 
 stood irresolute near the bed, ashamed for her companion's 
 weakness and incapacity. 
 
 ' You. must not forget," said Sophia, irritated by the un- 
 relieved darkness of the picture drawn by Madame Foucault, 
 " that at least I owe you a considerable sum, and that I am 
 only waiting for you to tell me how much it is. I have 
 asked you twice already, I think." 
 
 " Oh, you are still suffering ! " said Madame Foucault. 
 
 " I am quite well enough to pay my debts," said Sophia. 
 
 " I do not like to accept money from you," said Madame 
 Foucault. 
 
 " But why not ? " 
 
 *' You will have the doctor to pay." 
 
 " Please do not talk in that way," said Sophia. " I have 
 money, and I can pay for everything, and I shall pay for 
 everything." 
 
358 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 She was annoyed because she was sure that Madame 
 Foucault was only making a pretence of delicacy, and that 
 in any case her delicacy % was preposterous. Sophia had re- 
 marked this on the two previous occasions when she had 
 mentioned the subject of bills. Madame Foucault would 
 not treat her as an ordinary lodger, now that the illness was 
 past. She wanted, as it were, to complete brilliantly what 
 she had begun, and to live in Sophia's memory as a unique 
 figure of lavish philanthropy. This was a sentiment, a 
 luxury that she desired to offer herself : the thought that 
 she had played providence to a respectable married lady 
 in distress ; she frequently hinted at Sophia's misfortunes 
 and helplessness. But she could not afford the luxury. 
 She gazed at it as a poor woman gazes at costly stuffs through 
 the glass of a shop-window. The truth was, she wanted the 
 luxury for nothing. For a double reason Sophia was ex- 
 asperated : by Madame Foucault's absurd desire, and by a 
 natural objection to the role of a subject for philanthropy. 
 She would not admit that Madame Foucault's devotion as 
 a nurse entitled her to the satisfaction of being a philan- 
 thropist when there was no necessity for philanthropy. 
 
 " How long have I been here ? " asked Sophia. 
 
 " I don't know," murmured Madame Foucault. " Eight 
 weeks — or is it nine ? " 
 
 " Suppose we say nine," said Sophia. 
 
 " Very well," agreed Madame Foucault, apparently re- 
 luctant. 
 
 " Now, how much must I pay you per week ? " 
 
 " I don't want anything — I don't want anything ! You 
 are a friend of Chirac's. You " 
 
 " Not at all ! " Sophia interrupted, tapping her foot and 
 biting her Up. " Naturally I must pay." 
 
 Madame Foucault wept quietly. 
 
 " Shall I pay you seventy-five francs a week ? " said 
 Sophia, anxious to end the matter. 
 
 "It is too much ! " Madame Foucault protested, in- 
 sincerely. 
 
 " What ? For all you have done for me ? " 
 
 " I speak not of that," Madame Foucault modestly re- 
 plied. 
 
 If the devotion was not to be paid for, then seventy-five 
 francs a week was assuredly too much, as during more than 
 half the time Sophia had had almost no food. Madame 
 Foucault was therefore within the truth when she again pro- 
 tested, at sight of the bank-notes which Sophia brought 
 from her trunk : 
 
FEVER. 359 
 
 "lam sure that it is too much." 
 
 " Not at all ! " Sophia repeated. " Nine weeks at seventy- 
 five. That makes six hundred and seventy-five. Here are 
 seven hundreds." 
 
 " I have no change," said Madame Foucault. " I have 
 nothing." 
 
 " That will pay for the hire of the bath," said Sophia. 
 
 She laid the notes on the pillow. Madame Foucault looked 
 at them gluttonously, as any other person would have done 
 in her place. She did not touch them. After an instant 
 she burst into wild tears. 
 
 " But why do you cry ? " Sophia asked, softened. 
 
 " I — I don't know ! " spluttered Madame Foucault. 
 " You are so beautiful. I am so content that we saved 
 you." Her great wet eyes rested on Sophia. 
 
 It was sentimentality. Sophia ruthlessly set it down as 
 sentimentality. But she was touched. She was suddenly 
 moved. Those women, such as they were in their foolish- 
 ness, probably had saved her life — and she a stranger ! 
 Flaccid as they were, they had been capable of resolute per- 
 severance there. It was possible to say that chance had 
 thrown them upon an enterprise which they could not have 
 abandoned till they or death had won. It was possible 
 to say that they hoped vaguely to derive advantage from 
 their labours. But even then ? Judged by an ordinary 
 standard, those women had been angels of mercy. And 
 Sophia was despising them, cruelly taking their motives to 
 pieces, accusing them of incapacity when she herself stood a 
 supreme proof of their capacity in, at any rate, one direction ! 
 In a rush of emotion she saw her hardness and her injustice. 
 
 She bent down. " Never can I forget how kind you have 
 been to me. It is incredible ! Incredible ! " She spoke 
 softly, in tones loaded with genuine feeling. It was all she 
 said. She could not embroider on the theme. She had no 
 talent for thanksgiving. 
 
 Madame Foucault made the beginning of a gesture, as if 
 she meant to kiss Sophia with those thick, marred lips ; 
 but refrained. Her head sank back, and then she had a 
 recurrence of the fit of nervous sobbing. Immediately 
 afterwards there was the sound of a latchkey in the front- 
 door of the flat ; the bedroom door was open. Still sobbing 
 very violently, she cocked her ear, and pushed the bank- 
 notes under the pillow. 
 
 Madame Laurence — as she was called : Sophia had never 
 heard her surname — came straight into the bedroom, and 
 beheld the scene with astonishment in her dark twinkling 
 
360 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 eyes. She was usually dressed in black, because people 
 said that black suited her, and because black was never out 
 of fashion ; black was an expression of her idiosyncrasy. 
 She showed a certain elegance, and by comparison with the 
 extreme disorder of Madame Foucault and the deshabille 
 of Sophia her appearance, all fresh from a modish restau- 
 rant, was brilliant ; it gave her an advantage over the other 
 two — that moral advantage which ceremonial raiment always 
 gives. 
 
 " What is it that passes ? " she demanded. 
 " He has chucked me, Laurence ! " exclaimed Madame 
 Foucault, in a sort of hysteric scream which seemed to force 
 its way through her sobs. From the extraordinary fresh- 
 ness of Madame Foucault 's woe, it might have been supposed 
 that her young man had only that instant strode out. 
 
 Laurence and Sophia* exchanged a swift glance ; and 
 Laurence, of course, perceived that Sophia's relations with 
 her landlady and nurse were now of a different, a more 
 candid order. She indicated her perception of the change by 
 a single slight movement of the eyebrows. 
 
 " But listen, Aimee," she said authoritatively. " You 
 must not let yourself go like that. He will return." 
 
 " Never ! " cried Madame Foucault. "It is finished. 
 And he is the last ! " 
 
 Laurence, ignoring Madame Foucault, approached Sophia. 
 " You have an air very fatigued," she said, caressing Sophia's 
 shoulder with her gloved hand. " You are pale like every- 
 thing. All this is not for you. It is not reasonable to 
 remain here, you still suffering ! At this hour ! Truly not 
 reasonable ! " 
 
 Her hands persuaded Sophia towards the corridor. And, 
 in fact, Sophia did then notice her own exhaustion. She 
 departed from the room with the ready obedience of physical 
 weakness, and shut her door. 
 
 After about half an hour, during which she heard confused 
 noises and murmurings, her door half opened. 
 
 " May I enter, since you are not asleep ? " It was Lau- 
 rence's voice. Twice, now, she had addressed Sophia without 
 adding the formal " madame." 
 
 " Enter, I beg you," Sophia called from the bed. " I am 
 reading." 
 
 Laurence came in. Sophia was both glad and sorry to 
 see her. She was eager to hear gossip which, however, 
 she felt she ought to despise. Moreover, she knew that if 
 they talked that night they would talk as friends, and that 
 Laurence would ever afterwards treat her with the famili- 
 
FEVER. 361 
 
 arity of a friend. This she dreaded. Still, she knew that 
 she would yield, at any rate, to the temptation to listen to 
 gossip. 
 
 " I have put her to bed," said Laurence, in a whisper, 
 as she cautiously closed the door. " The poor woman ! 
 Oh, what a charming bracelet ! It is a true pearl, natur- 
 ally ? " 
 
 Her roving eye had immediately, with an infallible in- 
 stinct, caught sight of a bracelet which, in taking stock of 
 her possessions, Sophia had accidentally left on the piano. 
 She picked it up, and then put it down again. 
 
 " Yes," said Sophia. She was about to add : " It's nearly 
 all the jewellery I possess ; " but she stopped. 
 
 Laurence moved towards Sophia's bed, and stood over 
 it as she had often done in her quality of nurse. She had 
 taken off her gloves, and she made a piquant, pretty show, 
 with her thirty years, and her ' agreeable, slightly roguish 
 face, in which were mingled the knowingness of a street 
 boy and the confidence of a woman who has ceased to be 
 surprised at the influence of her snub nose on a highly in- 
 telligent man. 
 
 " Did she tell you what they had quarrelled about ? " 
 Laurence inquired abruptly. And not only the phrasing 
 of the question, but the assured tone in which it was uttered, 
 showed that Laurence meant to be the familiar of Sophia. 
 
 " Not a word ! " said Sophia. 
 
 In this brief question and reply, all was crudely implied 
 that had previously been supposed not to exist. The rela- 
 tions between the two women were altered irretrievably in 
 a moment. 
 
 " It must have been her fault ! " said Laurence. " With 
 men she is insupportable. I have never understood how 
 that poor woman has made her way. With women she is 
 charming. But she seems to be incapable of not treating 
 men like dogs. Some men adore that, but. they are few. 
 Is it not ? " 
 
 Sophia smiled. 
 
 " I have told her ! How many times have I told her ! 
 But it is useless. It is stronger than she is, and if she finishes 
 on straw one will be able to say that it was because of that. 
 But truly she ought not to have asked him here ! Truly that 
 was too much ! If he knew . . . ! " 
 
 " Why not ? " asked Sophia, awkwardly. The answer 
 startled her. 
 
 " Because her room has not been disinfected." 
 
 " But I thought all the flat had been disinfected ? " 
 12 a 
 
362 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " All except her room." 
 
 " But why not her room ? " 
 
 Laurence shrugged her shoulders. " She did not want 
 to disturb her things ! Is it that I know, I ? She is like 
 that. She takes an idea — and then, there you are ! " 
 
 " She told me every room had been disinfected." 
 
 " She told the same to the police and the doctor." 
 
 " Then all the disinfection is useless ? " 
 
 " Perfectly ! But she is like that. This flat might be 
 very remunerative ; but with her, never ! She has not even 
 paid for the furniture — after two years! " 
 
 " But what will become of her ? " Sophia asked. 
 
 " xVh — that ! " Another shrug of the shoulders. " All 
 that I know is that it will be necessary for me to leave here. 
 The last time I brought Monsieur Cerf here, she was excess- 
 ively rude to him. She has doubtless told you about Mon- 
 sieur Cerf ? " 
 
 " No. Who is Monsieur Cerf ? " 
 
 " Ah ! She has not told you ? That astonishes me. 
 Monsieur Cerf, that is my friend, you know." 
 
 " Oh ! " murmured Sophia. 
 
 " Yes," Laurence proceeded, impelled by a desire to im- 
 press Sophia and to gossip at large. " That is my friend. 
 I knew him at the hospital. It was to please him that I 
 left the hospital. After that we quarrelled for two years ; 
 but at the end he gave me right. I did not budge. Two 
 years ! It is long. And I had left the hospital. I could 
 have gone back. But I would not. That is not a life, to 
 be nurse in a Paris hospital ! No, I drew myself out as 
 well as I could. . . . He is the most charming boy you can 
 imagine ! And rich now ; that is to say, relatively. He 
 has a cousin infinitely more rich than he. I dined with them 
 both to-night at the Maison Doree. For a luxurious boy, 
 he is a luxurious boy — the cousin I mean. It appears that 
 he has made a fortune in Canada." 
 
 " Truly ! " said Sophia, with politeness. Laurence's hand 
 was playing on the edge of the bed, and Sophia observed for 
 the first time that it bore a wedding-ring. 
 
 " You remark my ring ? " Laurence laughed. " That is 
 he — the cousin. ' What ! ' he said, ' you do not wear an 
 alliance? An alliance is more proper. We are going to 
 arrange that after dinner.' I said that all the jewellers' 
 shops would be closed. ' That is all the same to me,' he 
 said. ' We will open one.' And in effect ... it passed 
 like that. He succeeded ! Is it not beautiful ? " She held 
 forth her hand. 
 
FEVER. 363 
 
 " Yes/' said Sophia. " It is very beautiful." 
 
 " Yours also is beautiful," said Laurence, with an ex- 
 tremely puzzling intonation. 
 
 "It is just the ordinary English wedding-ring," said 
 Sophia. In spite of herself she blushed. 
 
 ' Now I have married you. It is I, the cur6,' said he 
 — the cousin — when he put the ring on my finger. Oh, he 
 is excessively amusing ! He pleases me much. And he is 
 all alone. He asked me whether I knew among my friends 
 a sympathetic, pretty girl, to make four with us three for a 
 picnic. I said I was not sure, but I thought not. Whom 
 do I know ? Nobody. I'm not a woman like the rest. I 
 am always discreet. I do not like casual relations. . . . 
 But he is very well, the cousin. Brown eyes. ... It is 
 an idea — will you come, one day ? He speaks English. 
 He loves the English. He is all that is most correct, the 
 perfect gentleman. He would arrange a dazzling fete. I 
 am sure he would be enchanted to make your acquaintance. 
 Enchanted ! ... As for my Charles, happily he is com- 
 pletely mad about me — otherwise I should have fear." 
 
 She smiled, and in her smile was a genuine respect for 
 Sophia's face. 
 
 " I fear I cannot come," said Sophia. She honestly en- 
 deavoured to keep out of her reply any accent of moral 
 superiority, but she did not quite succeed. She was not 
 at all horrified by Laurence's suggestion. She meant 
 simply to refuse it ; but she could not do so in a natural 
 voice. 
 
 " It is true you are not yet strong enough," said the im- 
 perturbable Laurence, quickly, and with a perfect imita- 
 tion of naturalness. " But soon you must make a little 
 promenade." She stared at her ring. " After all, it is 
 more proper," she observed judicially. " With a wedding- 
 ring one is less likely to be annoyed. What is curious is 
 that the idea never before came to me. Yet ..." 
 
 " You like jewellery ? " said Sophia. 
 
 " If I like jewellery ! " — with a gesture of the hands. 
 
 " Will you pass me that bracelet ? " v 
 
 Laurence obeyed, and Sophia clasped it round the girl's 
 wrist. 
 
 " Keep it," Sophia said. 
 
 " For me ? " Laurence exclaimed, ravished. " It is too 
 much." 
 
 " It is not enough," said Sophia. " And when you look 
 at it, you must remember how kind you were to me, and 
 how grateful I am." 
 
364 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " How nicely you say that ! " Laurence said ecstati- 
 cally. 
 
 And Sophia felt that she had indeed said it rather nicely. 
 This giving of the bracelet, souvenir of one of the few cap- 
 ricious follies that Gerald had committed for her and not for 
 himself, pleased Sophia very much. 
 
 " I am afraid your nursing of me forced you to neglect 
 Monsieur Cerf," she added. 
 
 " Yes, a little ! " said Laurence, impartially, with a small 
 pout of haughtiness. * It is true that he used to complain. 
 But I soon put him straight. What an idea ! He knows 
 there are things upon which I do not joke. It is not he 
 who will quarrel a second time ! Believe me ! " 
 
 Laurence's absolute conviction of her power was what im- 
 pressed Sophia. To Sophia she seemed to be a vulgar little 
 piece of goods, with dubious charm and a glance that was 
 far too brazen. Her movements were vulgar. And Sophia 
 wondered how she had established her empire and upon what 
 it rested. 
 
 " I shall not show this to Aimee," whispered Laurence, 
 indicating the bracelet. 
 
 " As you wish," said Sophia. 
 
 " By the way, have I told you that war is declared ? " 
 Laurence casually remarked. 
 
 " No," said Sophia. " What war ? " 
 
 " The scene with Aimee made me forget it. . . . With 
 Germany. The city is quite excited. An immense crowd in 
 front of the New Opera. They say we shall be at Berlin in 
 a month — or at most two months." 
 
 " Oh ! " Sophia muttered. " Why is there a war ? " 
 
 " Ah ! It is I who asked that. Nobody knows. It is 
 those Prussians." 
 
 " Don't you think we ought to begin again with the dis- 
 infecting ? " Sophia asked anxiously. " I must speak to 
 Madame Foucault." 
 
 Laurence told her not to worry, and went off to show the 
 bracelet to Madame Foucault. She had privately decided 
 that this was a pleasure which, after all, she could not deny 
 herself. 
 
 IV. 
 
 About a fortnight later — it was a fine Saturday in early 
 August— Sophia, with a large pinafore over her dress, was 
 
FEVER. 365 
 
 finishing the portentous preparations for disinfecting the 
 flat. Part of the affair was already accomplished, her own 
 room and the corridor having been fumigated on the pre- 
 vious day, in spite of the opposition of Madame Foucault, 
 who had taken amiss Laurence's tale-bearing to Sophia. 
 Laurence had left the flat — under exactly what circumstances 
 Sophia knew not, but she guessed that it must have been 
 in consequence of a scene elaborating the tiff caused by 
 Madame Foucault' s resentment against Laurance. The 
 brief, factitious friendliness between Laurence and Sophia 
 had gone like a dream, and Laurence had gone like a dream. 
 The servant had been dismissed ; in her place Madame Fou- 
 cault employed a charwoman each morning for two hours. 
 Finally, Madame Foucault had been suddenly called away 
 that morning by a letter to her sick father at St. Mammes- 
 sur-Seine. Sophia was delighted at the chance. The disin- 
 fecting of the flat had become an obsession with Sophia — the 
 obsession of a convalescent whose perspective unconsciously 
 twists things to the most wry shapes. She had had trouble 
 on the day before with Madame Foucault, and she was 
 expecting more serious trouble when the moment arrived 
 for ejecting Madame Foucault as well as all her movable 
 belongings from Madame Foucault 's own room. Never- 
 theless, Sophia had been determined, whatever should 
 happen, to complete an honest fumigation of the entire 
 flat. Hence the eagerness with which, urging Madame 
 Foucault to go to her father, Sophia had protested that 
 she was perfectly strong and could manage by herself for a 
 couple of days. Owing to the partial suppression of the 
 ordinary railway services in favour of military needs, 
 Madame Foucault could not hope to go and return on the 
 same day. Sophia had lent her a louis. 
 
 Pans of sulphur were mysteriously burning in each of the 
 three front rooms, and two pairs of doors had been pasted 
 over with paper, to prevent the fumes from escaping. The 
 charwoman had departed. Sophia, with brush, scissors, 
 flour-paste, and news-sheets, was sealing the third pair of 
 doors, when there was a ring at the front door. 
 
 She had only to cross the corridor in order to open. 
 
 It was Chirac. She was not surprised to see him. The 
 outbreak of the war had induced even Sophia and her land- 
 lady to look through at least one newspaper during the day, 
 and she had in this way learnt, from an article signed by 
 Chirac, that he had returned to Paris after a mission into 
 the Vosges country for his paper. 
 
 He started on seeing her. " Ah ! " He breathed out the 
 
366 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 exclamation slowly. And then smiled, seized her hand, and 
 kissed it. 
 
 The sight of his obvious extreme pleasure in meeting her 
 again was the sweetest experience that had fallen to Sophia 
 for years. 
 
 " Then you are cured ? " 
 
 " Quite." 
 
 He sighed. " You know, this is an enormous relief to 
 me, to kno*w, veritably, that you are no longer in danger. 
 You gave me a fright . . . but a fright, my dear ma- 
 dame ! " 
 
 She smiled in silence. 
 
 As he glanced inquiringly up and down the corridor, she 
 said — 
 
 " I'm all alone in the flat. I'm disinfecting it." 
 
 " Then that is sulphur that I smell ? " 
 
 She nodded. " Excuse me while I finish this door," she 
 said. 
 
 He closed the front-door. " But you seem to be quite at 
 home here ! " he observed. 
 
 " I ought to be," said she. 
 
 He glanced again inquiringly up and down the corridor. 
 •* And you are really all alone now ? " he asked, as though 
 to be doubly sure. 
 
 She explained the circumstances. 
 
 " I owe you my most sincere excuses for bringing you here," 
 he said confidentially. 
 
 " But why ? " she replied, looking intently at her door. 
 " They have been most kind to me. Nobody could have 
 been kinder. And Madame Laurence being such a good 
 nurse " 
 
 " It is true," said he. " That was a reason. In effect 
 they are both very good-natured little women. . . . You 
 comprehend, as journalist it arrives to me to know all 
 kinds of people . . ." He snapped his fingers ..." And 
 as we were opposite the house. In fine, I pray you to excuse 
 me . . ." 
 
 " Hold me this paper," she said. " It is necessary that 
 every crack should be covered ; also between the floor and 
 the door." 
 
 " You English are wonderful," he murmured, as he took 
 the paper. " Imagine you doing that ! Then," he added, 
 resuming the confidential tone, " I suppose you will leave 
 the Foucault now, hein ? " 
 
 " I suppose so," she said carelessly. 
 
 " You go to England ? " 
 
FEVER. 367 
 
 She turned to him, as she patted the creases out of a strip 
 of paper with a duster, and shook her head. 
 
 " Not to England ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " If it is not indiscreet, where are you going ? " 
 
 " I don't know," she said candidly. 
 
 And she did not know. She was without a plan. Her 
 brain told her that she ought to return to Bursley, or, at 
 the least, write. But her pride would not hear of such a 
 surrender. Her situation would have to be far more des- 
 perate than it was before she could confess her defeat to 
 her family even in a letter. A thousand times no ! That 
 was a point which she had for ever decided. She would 
 face any disaster, and any other shame, rather than the 
 shame of her family's forgiving reception of her. 
 
 " And you ? " she asked. " How does it go ? This war ? " 
 
 He told her, in a few words, a few leading facts about 
 himself. " It must not be said," he added of the war, " but 
 that will turn out ill ! I — I know, you comprehend." 
 
 " Truly ? " she answered with casualness. 
 
 " You have heard nothing of him ? " Chirac asked. 
 
 " Who ? Gerald ? " 
 
 He gave a gesture. 
 
 " Nothing 1 Not a word ! Nothing ! " 
 
 " He will have gone back to England ! " 
 
 " Never ! " she said positively. 
 
 " But why not ? " 
 
 " Because he prefers France. He really does like France. 
 I think it is the only real passion he ever had." 
 
 "It is astonishing," reflected Chirac, " how France is 
 loved ! And yet ... 1 But to live, what will he do ? 
 Must live ! " 
 
 Sophia merely shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " Then it is finished between you two ? " he muttered 
 awkwardly. 
 
 She nodded. She was on her knees, at the lower crack 
 # of the doors. 
 
 " There ! " she said, rising. " It's well done,\ isn't it ? 
 That is all." 
 
 She smiled at him, facing him squarely, in the obscurity 
 of the untidy and shabby corridor. Both felt that they had 
 become very intimate. He was intensely flattered by her 
 attitude, and she knew it. 
 
 " Now," she said, " I will take off my pinafore. Where 
 can I niche you ? There is only my bedroom, and I want 
 that. What are we to do ? " 
 
368 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Listen," he suggested diffidently. " Will you do me 
 the honour to come for a drive ? That will do you good. 
 There is sunshine. And you are always very pale." 
 
 " With pleasure," she agreed cordially. 
 
 While dressing, she heard him walking up and down the 
 corridor ; occasionally they exchanged a few words. Before 
 leaving, Sophia pulled off the paper from one of the key- 
 holes of the sealed suite of rooms, and they peered through, 
 one after the other, and saw the green glow of the sulphur, 
 and were troubled by its uncanniness. And then Sophia 
 refixed the paper. 
 
 In descending the stairs of the house she felt the infirmity 
 of her knees ; but in other respects, though she had been out 
 only once before since her illness, she was conscious of a 
 sufficient strength. A disinclination for any enterprise had 
 prevented her from taking the air as she ought to have 
 done, but within the flat she had exercised her limbs in 
 many small tasks. The little Chirac, nervously active and 
 restless, wanted to take her arm, but she would not allow it. 
 
 The concierge and part of her family stared curiously at 
 Sophia as she passed under the archway, for the course of her 
 illness had excited the interest of the whole house. Just as 
 the carriage was driving off, the concierge came across the 
 pavement and paid her compliments, and then said : 
 
 " You do not know by hazard why Madame Foucault has 
 not returned for lunch, madame ? " 
 
 " Returned for lunch ! " said Sophia. " She will not come 
 back till to-morrow." 
 
 The concierge made a face. " Ah ! How curious it is ! 
 She told my husband that she would return in two hours. 
 It is very grave ! Question of business." 
 
 " I know nothing, madame," said Sophia. She and Chirac 
 looked at each other. The concierge murmured thanks and 
 went off muttering indistinctly. 
 
 The fiacre turned down the Rue Laferriere, the horse 
 slipping and sliding as usual over the cobblestones. Soon 
 they were on the boulevard, making for the Champs Elyse^s 
 and the Bois de Boulogne. 
 
 The fresh breeze and bright sunshine and the large freedom 
 of the streets quickly intoxicated Sophia — intoxicated her, 
 that is to say, in quite a physical sense. She was almost 
 drunk, with the heady savour of life itself. A mild ecstasy 
 of well-being overcame her. She saw the flat as a horrible, 
 vile prison, and blamed herself for not leaving it sooner and 
 oftener. The air was medicine, for body and mind too. Her 
 perspective was instantly corrected. She was happy, living 
 
FEVER. 369 
 
 neither in the past nor in the future, but in and for that 
 hour. And beneath her happiness moved a wistful melan- 
 choly for the Sophia who had suffered such a captivity and 
 such woes. She yearned for more and yet more delight, for 
 careless orgies of passionate pleasure, in the midst of which 
 she would forget all trouble. Why had she refused the 
 offer of Laurence ? Why had she not rushed at once into the 
 splendid fire of joyous indulgence, ignoring everything but the 
 crude, sensuous instinct ? Acutely aware as she was of her 
 youth, her beauty, and her charm, she wondered at her re- 
 fusal. She did not regret her refusal. She placidly observed 
 it as the result of some tremendously powerful motive in 
 herself, which could not be questioned or reasoned with — 
 which was, in fact, the essential her. 
 
 "Do I look like an invalid ? " she asked, leaning back 
 luxuriously in the carriage among the crowd of other vehicles. 
 
 Chirac hesitated. "My faith! Yes!" he said at length. 
 " But it becomes you. If I did not know that you have little 
 love for compliments, I " 
 
 " But I adore compliments ! " she exclaimed. " What 
 made you think that ? " 
 
 " Well, then," he youthfully burst out, " you are more 
 ravishing than ever." 
 
 She gave herself up deliciously to his admiration. 
 
 After a silence, he said: "Ah! if you knew how dis- 
 quieted I was about you, away there . . . ! I should not know 
 how to tell you. Veritably disquieted, you comprehend ! 
 What could I do ? Tell me a little about your illness." 
 
 She recounted Retails. 
 
 As the fiacre entered the Rue Royale, they noticed a crowd 
 of people in front of the Madeleine shouting and cheering. 
 
 The cabman turned towards them. " It appears there 
 has been a victory ! " he said. 
 
 " A victory ! If only it was true ! " murmured Chirac, 
 cynically. 
 
 In the Rue Royale people were running frantically to and 
 fro, laughing and gesticulating in glee. The customers in 
 the cafes stood on their chairs, and even on tables, to watch, 
 and occasionally to join in, the sudden fever. The fiacre 
 was slowed to a walking pace. Flags and carpets began to 
 show from the upper storeys of houses. The crowd grew 
 thicker and more febrile. " Victory ! Victory ! " rang 
 hoarsely, shrilly, and hoarsely again in the air. 
 
 " My God ! " said Chirac, trembling. " It must be a true 
 victory ! We are saved ! We are saved ! . . . Oh yes, 
 it is true ! " 
 
37° THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " But naturally it is true ! What are you saying ? " 
 demanded the driver. 
 
 At the Place de la Concorde the fiacre had to stop alto- 
 gether. The immense square was a sea of white hats and 
 flowers and happy faces, with carriages anchored like boats 
 on its surface. Flag after flag waved out from neighbouring 
 roofs in the breeze that tempered the August sun. Then 
 hats began to go up, and cheers rolled across the square like 
 echoes of firing in an enclosed valley. Chirac's driver jumped 
 madly on to his seat, and cracked his whip. 
 
 " Vive la France ! " he bawled with all the force of his 
 lungs. 
 
 A thousand throats answered him. 
 
 Then there was a stir behind them. Another carriage 
 was being slowly forced to the front. The crowd was 
 pushing it, and crying, " Marseillaise ! Marseillaise ! " In 
 the carriage was a woman alone ; not beautiful, but distin- 
 guished, and with the assured gaze of one who is accus- 
 tomed to homage and multitudinous applause. 
 
 " It is Gueymard ! " said Chirac to Sophia. He was very 
 pale. And he too shouted, " Marseillaise ! " All his features 
 were distorted. 
 
 The woman rose and spoke to her coachman, who offered 
 his hand, and she climbed to the box seat, and stood on it and 
 bowed several times. 
 
 " Marseillaise ! " The cry continued. Then a roar of 
 cheers, and then silence spread round the square like an 
 inundation. And amid this silence the woman began to sing 
 the Marseillaise. As she sang, the tears ran down her 
 cheeks. Everybody in the vicinity was weeping or sternly 
 frowning. In the pauses of the first verse could be heard 
 the rattle of horses' bits, or a whistle of a tug on the river. 
 The refrain, signalled by a proud challenging toss of Guey- 
 mard 's head, leapt up like a tropical tempest, formidable, 
 overpowering. Sophia, who had had no warning of the 
 emotion gathering within her, sobbed violently. At the close 
 of the hymn Gueymard's carriage was assaulted by worship- 
 pers. All around, in the tumult of shouting, men were kissing 
 and embracing each other ; and hats went up continually in 
 fountains. Chirac leaned over the side of the carriage and 
 wrung the hand of a man who was standing by the wheel. 
 
 " Who is that ? " Sophia asked, in an unsteady voice, to 
 break the inexplicable tension within her. 
 
 " I don't know," said Chirac. He was weeping like a 
 child. And he sang out : " Victory ! To Berlin I Victory 1 " 
 
FEVER. 371 
 
 V. 
 
 Sophia walked alone, with tired limbs, up the damaged 
 oak stairs to the flat. Chirac had decided that, in the cir- 
 cumstances of the victory, he would do well to go to the 
 offices of his paper rather earlier than usual. He had brought 
 her back to the Rue Breda. They had taken leave of each 
 other in a sort of dream or general enchantment due to their 
 participation in the vast national delirium which somehow 
 dominated individual feelings. They did not define their 
 relations. They had been conscious only of emotion. 
 
 The stairs, which smelt of damp even in summer, disgusted 
 Sophia. She thought of the flat with horror and longed for 
 green places and luxury. On the landing were two stoutish, 
 ill-dressed men, of middle age, apparently waiting. Sophia 
 found her key and opened the door. 
 
 " Pardon, madame ! " said one of the men, raising his hat, 
 and they both pushed into the flat after her. They stared, 
 puzzled, at the strips of paper pasted on the doors. 
 
 " What do you want ? she asked haughtily. She was very 
 frightened. The extraordinary irruption brought her down 
 with a shock to the scale of the individual. 
 
 " I am the concierge," said the man who had addressed 
 her. He had the air of a superior artisan. " It was my 
 wife who spoke to you this afternoon. This," pointing to 
 his companion, " this is the law. I regret it, but ..." 
 
 The law saluted and shut the door. Like the concierge 
 the law emitted an odour — the odour of uncleanliness on a 
 hot August day. 
 
 " The rent ? " exclaimed Sophia. 
 
 " No, madame, not the rent : the furniture ! " 
 
 Then she learnt the history of the furniture. It had be- 
 longed to the concierge, who had acquired it from a previous 
 tenant and sold it on credit to Madame Foucault. Madame 
 Foucault had signed bills and had not met them. She had 
 made promises and broken them. She had done everything 
 except discharge her liabilities. She had been warned and 
 warned again. That day had been fixed as the last limit, 
 and she had solemnly assured her creditor that on that day 
 she would pay. On leaving the house she had stated pre- 
 cisely and clearly that she would return before lunch with 
 all the money. She had made no mention of a sick father. 
 
 Sophia slowly perceived the extent of Madame Foucault's 
 duplicity and moral cowardice. No doubt the sick father 
 was an invention. The woman, at the end of a tether which 
 
372 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 no ingenuity of lies could further lengthen, had probably 
 absented herself solely to avoid the pain of witnessing the 
 seizure. She would do anything, however silly, to avoid an 
 immediate unpleasantness. Or perhaps she had absented 
 herself without any particular aim, but simply in the hope 
 that something fortunate might occur. Perhaps she had 
 hoped that Sophia, taken unawares, would generously pay. 
 Sophia smiled grimly. 
 
 " Well," she said. " I can't do anything. I suppose you 
 must do what you have to do. You will let me pack up my 
 own affairs ? " 
 
 " Perfectly, madame ! " 
 
 She warned them as to the danger of opening the sealed 
 rooms. The man of the law seemed prepared to stay in 
 the corridor indefinitely. No prospect of delay disturbed 
 him. 
 
 Strange and disturbing, the triumph of the concierge! 
 He was a locksmith by trade. He and his wife and their 
 children lived in two little dark rooms by the archway — an 
 insignificant fragment of the house. He was away from 
 home about fourteen hours every day, except Sundays, when 
 he washed the courtyard. All the other duties of the 
 concierge were performed by the wife. The pair always 
 looked poor, untidy, dirty, and rather forlorn. But they 
 were steadily levying toll on everybody in the big house. 
 They amassed money in forty ways. They lived for money, 
 and all men have what they live for. With what arrogant 
 gestures Madame Foucault would descend from a carriage 
 at the great door ! What respectful attitudes and tones the 
 ageing courtesan would receive from the wife and children 
 of the concierge i But beneath these conventional fictions 
 the truth was that the concierge held the whip. At last he 
 was using it. And he had given himself a half-holiday in 
 order to celebrate his second acquirement of the ostentatious 
 furniture and the crimson lampshades. This was one of the 
 dramatic crises in his career as a man of substance. The 
 national thrill of victory had not penetrated into the flat 
 with the concierge and the law. The emotions of the con- 
 cierge were entirely independent of the Napoleonic foreign 
 policy. 
 
 As Sophia, sick with a sudden disillusion, was putting her 
 things together, and wondering where she was to go, and 
 whether it would be politic to consult Chirac, she heard a 
 fluster at the front door : cries, protestations, implorings. 
 Her own door was thrust open, and Madame Foucault 
 burst in. 
 
FEVER. 373 
 
 " Save me!" exclaimed Madame Foucault, sinking to the 
 ground. 
 
 The feeble theatricality of the gesture offended Sophia's 
 taste. She asked sternly what Madame Foucault expected 
 her to do. Had not Madame Foucault knowingly exposed 
 her, without the least warning, to the extreme annoyance 
 of this visit of the law, a visit which meant practically that 
 Sophia was put into the street ? 
 
 " You must not be hard ! " Madame Foucault sobbed. 
 
 Sophia learnt the complete history of the woman's efforts 
 to pay for the furniture : a farrago of folly and deceptions. 
 Madame Foucault confessed too much. Sophia scorned con- 
 fession for the sake of confession. She scorned the impulse 
 which forces a weak creature to insist on its weakness, to 
 revel in remorse, and to find an excuse for its conduct in 
 the very fact that there is no excuse. She gathered that 
 Madame Foucault had in fact gone away in the hope that 
 Sophia, trapped, would pay ; and that in the end, she had 
 not even had the courage of her own trickery, and had run 
 back, driven by panic into audacity, to fall at Sophia's feet, 
 lest Sophia might not have yielded and the furniture have 
 been seized. From beginning to end the conduct of Madame 
 Foucault had been fatuous and despicable and wicked. 
 Sophia coldly condemned Madame Foucault for having al- 
 lowed herself to be brought into the world with such a weak 
 and maudlin character, and for having allowed herself to grow 
 old and ugly. As a sight the woman was positively dis- 
 graceful. 
 
 " Save me ! " she exclaimed again. " I did what I could 
 for you ! " 
 
 Sophia hated her. But the logic of the appeal was irre- 
 sistible. 
 
 " But what can I do ? " she asked reluctantly. 
 
 " Lend me the money. You can. If you don't, this will 
 be the end for me." 
 
 , " And a good thing, too ! " thought Sophia's hard 
 sense. v 
 
 " How much is it ? " Sophia glumly asked. 
 
 " It isn't a thousand francs ! " said Madame Foucault with 
 eagerness. " All my beautiful furniture will go for less than 
 a thousand francs ! Save me ! " 
 
 She was nauseating Sophia. 
 
 " Please rise," said Sophia, her hands fidgeting unde- 
 cidedly. 
 
 " I shall repay you, surely ! " Madame Foucault assever- 
 ated. " I swear ! " 
 
374 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Does she take me for a fool ? " thought Sophia, " with 
 her oaths ! " 
 
 " No ! " said Sophia. " I won't lend you the money. 
 But I tell you what I will do. I will buy the furniture at 
 that price ; and I will promise to re-sell it to you as soon as 
 you can pay me. Like that, you can be tranquil. But I have 
 very little money. • I must have a guarantee. The furniture 
 must be mine till you pay me." 
 
 " You are an angel of charity ! " cried Madame Foucault, 
 embracing Sophia's skirts. " I will do whatever you wish. 
 Ah ! You Englishwomen are astonishing." 
 
 Sophia was not an angel of charity. What she had, 
 promised to do involved sacrifice and anxiety without the 
 prospect of reward. But it was not charity. It was part of 
 the price Sophia paid for the exercise of her logical faculty ; 
 she paid it unwillingly. " I did what I could for you 1 " 
 Sophia would have died sooner than remind any one of a 
 benefit conferred, and Madame Foucault had committed 
 precisely that enormity. The appeal was inexcusable to a 
 fine mind ; but it was effective. 
 
 The men were behind the door, listening. Sophia paid out 
 of her stock of notes. Needless to say, the total was more 
 and not less than a thousand francs. Madame Foucault 
 grew rapidly confidential with the man. Without consulting 
 Sophia, she asked the bailiff to draw up a receipt transferring 
 the ownership of all the furniture to Sophia ; and the bailiff, 
 struck into obligingness by glimpses of Sophia's beauty, con- 
 sented to do so. There was much conferring upon forms 
 of words, and flourishing of pens between thick vile fingers, 
 and scattering of ink. 
 
 Before the men left Madame Foucault uncorked a bottle 
 of wine for them, and helped them to drink it. Throughout 
 the evening she was insupportably deferential to Sophia, 
 who was driven to bed. Madame Foucault contentedly went 
 up to the sixth floor to occupy the servant's bedroom. She 
 was glad to get so far away from the sulphur, of which a few 
 faint fumes had penetrated into the corridor. 
 
 The next morning, after a stifling night of bad dreams, 
 Sophia was too ill to get up. She looked round at the fur- 
 niture in the little room, and she imagined the furniture in 
 the other rooms, and dismally thought : " All this furniture 
 is mine. She will never pay me ! I am saddled with it." 
 
 It was cheaply bought, but she probably could not sell it 
 for even what she had paid. Still, the sense of ownership 
 was reassuring. 
 
 The charwoman brought her coffee, and Chirac's news- 
 
FEVER. 375 
 
 paper ; from which she learnt that the news of the victory 
 which had sent the city mad on the previous day was utterly 
 false. Tears came into her eyes as she gazed absently at all 
 the cur/tained windows of the courtyard. She had youth and 
 loveliness ; according to the rules she ought to have been 
 irresponsible, gay, and indulgently watched over by the 
 wisdom of admiring age. But she felt towards the French 
 nation as a mother might feel towards adorable, wilful 
 children suffering through their own charming foolishness. 
 She saw France personified in Chirac. How easily, despite 
 his special knowledge, he had yielded to the fever ! Her 
 heart bled for France and Chirac on that morning of reaction 
 and of truth. She could not bear to recall the scene in the 
 Place de la Concorde. Madame Foucault had not descended. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SIEGE. 
 I. 
 
 Madame Foucault came into Sophia's room one afternoon 
 with a peculiar guilty expression on her large face, and she 
 held her peignoir close to her exuberant body in folds con- 
 sciously majestic, as though endeavouring to prove to Sophia 
 by her carriage that, despite her shifting eyes she was the 
 most righteous and sincere woman that ever lived. 
 
 It was Saturday, the third of September, a beautiful day. 
 Sophia, suffering from an unimportant relapse, had remained 
 in a state of inactivity, and had scarcely gone out at all. She 
 loathed the flat, but lacked the energy to leave it every 
 day. There was no sufficiently definite object in leaving 
 it. She could not go out and look for health as she might 
 have looked for flowers. So she remained in the flat, and 
 stared at the courtyard and the continual mystery of lives 
 hidden behind curtains that occasionally moved. And the 
 painted yellow walls of the house, and the papered walls of 
 her room pressed upon her and crushed her. For a few days 
 Chirac had called daily, animated by the most adorable solici- 
 tude. Then he had ceased to call. She had tired of read- 
 ing the journals ; they lay unopened. The relations between 
 Madame Foucault and herself, and her status in the flat of 
 which she now legally owned the furniture, — these things 
 were left unsettled. But the question of her board was 
 arranged on the terms that she halved the cost of food and 
 service with Madame Foucault ; her expenses were thus 
 reduced to the lowest possible — about eighteen francs a week. 
 An idea hung in the air — like a scientific discovery on the point 
 of being made by several independent investigators simul- 
 taneously — that she and Madame Foucault should co-operate 
 in order to let furnished rooms at a remunerative profit. 
 
THE SIEGE. 377 
 
 Sophia felt the nearness of the idea and she wanted to be 
 shocked at the notion of any avowed association between 
 herself and Madame Foucault ; but she could not be. 
 
 " Here are a lady and a gentleman who want a bedroom," 
 began Madame Foucault, " a nice large bedroom, furnished." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Sophia ; " who are they ? " 
 
 " They will pay a hundred and thirty francs a month, in 
 advance, for the middle bedroom." 
 
 " You've shown it to them already ? " said Sophia. And 
 her tone implied that somehow she was conscious of a right to 
 overlook the affairs of Madame Foucault. 
 
 " No," said the other. " I said to myself that first I 
 would ask you for a counsel." 
 
 " Then will they pay all that for a room they haven't 
 seen ? " 
 
 " The fact is," said Madame Foucault, sheepishly, "the 
 lady has seen the room before. I know her a little. It is a 
 former tenant. She lived here some weeks." 
 
 " In that room ? " 
 
 " Oh no ! She was poor enough then." 
 
 " Where are they ? " 
 
 " In the corridor. She is very well, the lady. Naturally 
 one must live, she like all the world ; but she is veritably 
 well. Quite respectable ! One would never say . . . Then 
 there would be the meals. We could demand one franc for 
 the cafe an lait, two and a half francs for the lunch, and 
 three francs for the dinner. Without counting other things. 
 That would mean over five hundred francs a month, at least. 
 And what would they cost us ? Almost nothing ! By what 
 appears, he is a plutocrat ... I could thus quickly repay 
 you." 
 
 " Is it a married couple ? " 
 
 " Ah ! You . know, one cannot demand the marriage 
 certificate." Madame Foucault indicated by a gesture that 
 the Rue Breda was not the paradise of saints. 
 
 " When she came before, this lady, was it with the same 
 man ? " Sophia asked coldly. x 
 
 " Ah, my faith, no ! " exclaimed Madame Foucault, brid- 
 ling. " It was a bad sort, the other, a . . . ! Ah, no." 
 
 " Why do you ask my advice ? " Sophia abruptly ques- 
 tioned, in a hard, inimical voice. "Is it that it concerns 
 me ? " 
 
 Tears came at once into the eyes of Madame Foucault. 
 " Do hot be unkind," she implored. % 
 
 "I'm not unkind," said Sophia, in the same tone. 
 
 " Shall you leave me if I accept this offer ? " 
 
378 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " Yes," said Sophia, bluntly. She tried to be large- 
 hearted, large-minded, and sympathetic ; but there was no 
 sign of these qualities in her speech. 
 
 " And if you take with you the furniture which is 
 yours. . . , ! 
 
 Sophia kept silence. 
 
 " How am I to live, I demand of you ? " Madame Fou- 
 cault asked weakly. 
 
 " By being respectable and dealing with respectable 
 people ! " said Sophia, uncompromisingly, in tones of steel. 
 
 " I am unhappy ! " murmured the elder woman. " How- 
 ever, you are more strong than I ! " 
 
 She brusquely dabbed her eyes, gave a little sob, and ran 
 out of the room. Sophia listened at the door, and heard her 
 dismiss the would-be tenants of the best bedroom. She 
 wondered that she should possess such moral ascendancy 
 over the woman, she so young and ingenuous ! For, of 
 course, she had not meant to remove the furniture. She 
 could hear Madame Foucault sobbing quietly in one of the 
 other rooms ; and her lips curled. 
 
 Before evening a truly astonishing event happened. 
 Perceiving that Madame Foucault showed no signs of bestir- 
 ring herself, Sophia, with good nature in her heart but not 
 on her tongue, went to her, and said : 
 
 " Shall I occupy myself with the dinner ? " 
 
 Madame Foucault sobbed more loudly. 
 
 " That would be very amiable on your part," Madame 
 Foucault managed at last to reply, not very articulately. 
 
 Sophia put a hat on and went to the grocer's. The 
 grocer, who kept a busy establishment at the corner of the 
 Rue Clausel, was a middle-aged and wealthy man. He 
 had sent his young wife and two children to Normandy 
 until victory over the Prussians should be more assured, 
 and he asked Sophia whether it was true that there was 
 a good bedroom to let in the flat where she lived. His 
 servant was ill of small-pox ; he was attacked by anxieties 
 and fears on all sides ; he would not enter his own flat on 
 account of possible infection ; he liked Sophia, and Madame 
 Foucault had been a customer of his, with intervals, for 
 twenty years. Within an hour he had arranged to rent 
 the middle bedroom at eighty francs a month, and to take 
 his meals there. The terms were modest, but the respecta- 
 bility was prodigious. t All the glory of this tenancy fell 
 upon Sophia. 
 
 Madame Foucault was deeply impressed. Characteris- 
 
THE SIEGE. 379 
 
 tically she began at once to construct a theory that Sophia 
 had only to walk out of the house in order to discover ideal 
 tenants for the rooms. Also she regarded the advent of 
 the grocer as a reward from Providence for her self-denial 
 in refusing the profits of sinfulness. Sophia felt personally 
 responsible to the grocer for his comfort, and so she her- 
 self undertook the preparation of the room. Madame Fou- 
 cault was amazed at the thoroughness of her housewifery, 
 and at the ingenuity of her ideas for the arrangement of 
 furniture. She sat and watched with admiration syco- 
 phantic but real. 
 
 That night, when Sophia was in bed, Madame Foucault 
 came into the room, and dropped down by the side of the 
 bed, and begged Sophia to be her moral support for ever. 
 She confessed herself generally. She explained how she 
 had always hated the negation of respectability ; how re- 
 spectability was the one thing that she had all her life pas- 
 sionately desired. She said that if Sophia would be her 
 partner in the letting of furnished rooms to respectable 
 persons, she would obey her in everything. She gave Sophia 
 a list of all the. traits in Sophia's character which she admired. 
 She asked Sophia to influence her, to stand by her. She 
 insisted that she would sleep on the sixth floor in the ser- 
 vant's tiny room ; and she had a vision of three bedrooms 
 let to successful tradesmen. She was in an ecstasy of re- 
 pentance and good intentions. 
 
 Sophia consented to the business proposition ; for she had 
 nothing else whatever in prospect, and she shared Madame 
 Foucault 's rosy view about the remunerativeness of the bed- 
 rooms. With three tenants who took meals the two women 
 would be able to feed themselves for nothing and still make 
 a profit on the food ; and the rents would be clear gain. 
 
 And she felt very sorry for the ageing, feckless Madame 
 Foucault, whose sincerity was obvious. The association 
 between them would be strange ; it would have been im- 
 possible to explain it to St. Luke's Square. . . . And yet, 
 if there was anything at all in the virtue of Christian charity, 
 what could properly be urged against the association ? 
 
 " Ah ! " murmured Madame Foucault, kissing Sophia's 
 hands, " it is to-day, then, that I recommence my life. You 
 will see — you will see ! You have saved me ! " 
 
 It was a strange sight, the time-worn, disfigured courtesan, 
 half prostrate before the beautiful young creature proud 
 and unassailable in the instinctive force of her own char- 
 acter. It was almost a didactic tableau, fraught with les- 
 sons for the vicious. Sophia was happier than she had been 
 
3 8o THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 for years. She had a purpose in existence ; she had a fluid 
 soul to mould to her will according to her wisdom ; and 
 there was a large compassion to her credit. Public opinion 
 could not intimidate her, for in her case there was no public 
 opinion ; she knew nobody ; nobody had the right to ques- 
 tion her doings. 
 
 The next day, Sunday, they both worked hard at the bed- 
 rooms from early morning. The grocer was installed in his 
 chamber, and the two other rooms were cleansed as they had 
 never been cleansed. At four o'clock, the weather being more 
 magnificent than ever, Madame Foucault said : 
 
 " If we took a promenade on the boulevard ? " 
 
 Sophia reflected. They were partners. " Very well," she 
 agreed. 
 
 The boulevard was crammed with gay, laughing crowds. 
 All the caf6s were full. None, who did not know, could 
 have guessed that the news of Sedan was scarcely a day old 
 in the capital. Delirious joy reigned in the glittering sun- 
 shine. As the two women strolled along, content with their 
 industry and their resolves, they came to a National Guard, 
 who, perched on a ladder, was chipping away the " N " 
 from the official sign of a court-tradesman. He was ex- 
 changing jokes with a circle of open mouths. It was in 
 this way that Madame Foucault and Sophia learnt of the 
 establishment of a republic. 
 
 " Vive la republique ! " cried Madame Foucault, incon- 
 tinently, and then apologized to Sophia for the lapse. 
 
 They listened a long while to a man who was telling strange 
 histories of the Empress. 
 
 Suddenly Sophia noticed that Madame Foucault was no 
 longer at her eblow. She glanced about, and saw her in 
 earnest conversation with a young man whose face seemed 
 familiar. She remembered it was the young man with whom 
 Madame Foucault had quarrelled on the night when Sophia 
 found her prone in the corridor; the last remaining wor- 
 shipper of the courtesan. 
 
 The woman's face was quite changed by her agitation. 
 Sophia drew away, offended. She watched the pair from a 
 distance for a few moments, and then, furious in disillusion, 
 she escaped from the fever of the boulevards and walked 
 quietly home. Madame Foucault did not return. Ap- 
 parently Madame Foucault was doomed to be the toy of 
 chance. Two days later Sophia received a scrawled letter 
 from her, with the information that her lover had required 
 that she should accompany him to Brussels, as Paris would 
 soon be getting dangerous. " He adores me always. He 
 
THE SIEGE. 381 
 
 is the most delicious boy. As I have always said, this is 
 the grand passion of my life. I am happy. He would 
 not permit me to come to you. He has spent two thousand 
 francs on clothes for me, since naturally I had nothing." 
 And so on. No word of apology. Sophia, in reading the 
 letter, allowed for a certain exaggeration and twisting of 
 the truth. 
 
 " Young fool ! Fool ! " she burst out angrily. She did 
 not mean herself ; she meant the fatuous adorer of that 
 dilapidated, horrible woman. She never saw her again. 
 Doubtless Madame Foucault fulfilled her own prediction as 
 to her ultimate destiny, but in Brussels. 
 
 II. 
 
 Sophia still possessed about a hundred pounds, and had 
 she chosen to leave Paris and France, there was nothing to 
 prevent her from doing so. Perhaps if she had chanced to 
 visit the Gare St. Lazare or the Gare du Nord, the sight 
 of tens of thousands of people flying seawards might have 
 stirred in her the desire to flee also from the vague coming 
 danger. But she did not visit those termini ; she was too 
 busy looking after M. Niepce, her grocer. Moreover, she 
 would not quit her furniture, which seemed to her to be a 
 sort of rock. With a flat full of furniture she considered 
 that she ought to be able to devise a livelihood ; the enter- 
 prise of becoming independent was already indeed begun. 
 She ardently wished to be independent, to utilize in her own 
 behalf the gifts of organization, foresight, commonsense and 
 tenacity which she knew she possessed and which had lain 
 idle. And she hated the idea of flight. 
 
 Chirac returned as unexpectedly as he had gone ; an ex- 
 pedition for his paper had occupied him. With his lips 
 he urged her to go, but his eyes spoke differently. He had, 
 one afternoon, a mood of candid despair, such as he would 
 have dared to show only to one in whom he felt great con- 
 fidence. " They will come to Paris," he said ; " nothing 
 can stop them. And . . . then . . . ! " He gave a cynical 
 laugh. But when he urged her to go she said : 
 
 " And what about my furniture ? And I've promised M. 
 Niepce to- look after him." 
 
 Then Chirac informed her that he was without a lodging, 
 and that he would like to rent one of her rooms. She agreed. 
 
 Shortly afterwards he introduced a middle-aged acquaint- 
 
382 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 ance named Carlier, the secretary-general of his newspaper, 
 who wished to rent a bedroom. Thus by good fortune 
 Sophia let all her rooms immediately, and was sure of over 
 two hundred francs a month, apart from the profit on meals 
 supplied. On this latter occasion Chirac (and his com- 
 panion too) was quite optimistic, reiterating an absolute 
 certitude that Paris could never be invested. Briefly, Sophia 
 did not believe him. She believed the candidly despair- 
 ing Chirac. She had no information, no wide theory, to 
 justify her pessimism ; nothing but the inward conviction 
 that the race capable of behaving as she had seen it behave 
 in the Place de la Concorde, was bound to be defeated. She 
 loved the French race ; but all the practical Teutonic saga- 
 city in her wanted to take care of it in its difficulties, and 
 was rather angry with it for being so unfitted to take care 
 of itself. 
 
 She let the men talk, and with careless disdain of their 
 discussions and their certainties she went about her business 
 of preparation. At this period, overworked and harassed by 
 novel responsibilities and risks, she was happier, for days 
 together, than she had ever been, simply because she had 
 a purpose in life and was depending upon herself. Her 
 ignorance of the military and political situation was com- 
 
 Elete ; the situation did not interest her. What interested 
 er was that she had three men to feed wholly or partially, 
 and that the price of eatables was rising. She bought eat- 
 ables. She bought fifty pecks of potatoes at a franc a peck, 
 and another fifty pecks at a franc and a quarter — double 
 the normal price ; ten hams at two and a half francs a pound ; 
 a large quantity of tinned vegetables and fruits, a sack of 
 flour, rice, biscuits, coffee, Lyons sausage, dried prunes, 
 dried figs, and much wood and charcoal. But the chief 
 of her purchases was cheese, of which her mother used to 
 say that bread and cheese and water made a complete diet. 
 Many of these articles she obtained from her grocer. All 
 of them, except the flour and the biscuits, she stored in the 
 cellar belonging to the flat ; after several days' delay, for 
 the Parisian workmen were too elated by the advent of a 
 republic to stoop to labour, she caused a new lock to be 
 fixed on the cellar-door. Her activities were the sensation 
 of the house. Everybody admired, but no one imitated. 
 
 One morning, on going to do her marketing, she found a 
 notice across the shuttered windows of her creamery in the 
 Rue Notre Dame de Lorette : " Closed for want of milk." 
 The siege had begun. It was in the closing of the creamery 
 that the siege was figured for her; in this, and in eggs at 
 
THE SIEGE. 383 
 
 five sous a piece. She went elsewhere for her milk and 
 paid a franc a litre for it. That evening she told her lodgers 
 that the price of meals would be doubled, and that if any 
 gentleman thought that he could get equally good meals 
 elsewhere, he was at liberty to get them elsewhere. Her 
 position was strengthened by the appearance of another can- 
 didate for a room, a friend of Niepce. She at once offered 
 him her own room, at a hundred and fifty francs a month. 
 
 " You see," she said, " there is a piano in it." 
 
 " But I don't play the piano," the man protested, shocked 
 at the price. 
 
 " That is not my fault," she said. 
 
 He agreed to pay the price demanded for the room because 
 of the opportunity of getting good meals much cheaper 
 than in the restaurants. Like M. Niepce, he was a " siege- 
 widower," his wife having been put under shelter in Brittany. 
 Sophia took to the servant's bedroom on the sixth floor. It 
 measured nine feet by seven, and had no window save a 
 skylight ; but Sophia was in a fair way to realize a profit 
 of at least four pounds a week, after paying for everything. 
 
 On the night when she installed herself in that chamber, 
 amid a world of domestics and poor people, she worked 
 very late, and the rays of her candles shot up intermittently 
 through the skylight into a black heaven ; at intervals she 
 flitted up and down the stairs with a candle. Unknown to 
 her a crowd gradually formed opposite the house in the 
 street, and at about one o'clock in the morning a file of 
 soldiers woke the concierge and invaded the courtyard, and 
 every window was suddenly populated with heads. Sophia 
 was called upon to prove that she was not a spy signalling 
 to the Prussians. Three quarters of an hour passed before 
 her innocence was established and the staircases cleared of 
 uniforms and dishevelled curiosity. The childish, impos- 
 sible unreason of the suspicion against her completed in 
 Sophia's mind the ruin of the reputation of the French people 
 as a sensible race. She was extremely caustic the next day 
 to her boarders. Except for this episode, the frequency of 
 military uniforms in the streets, the price of food, and the 
 fact that at least one house in four was flying either the 
 ambulance flag or the flag of a foreign embassy (in an absurd 
 hope of immunity from the impending bombardment) the 
 siege did not exist for Sophia. The men often talked about 
 their guard-duty, and disappeared for a day or two to the 
 ramparts, but she was too busy to listen to them. She 
 thought of nothing but her enterprise, which absorbed all 
 her powers. She arose at six a.m., in the dark, and by 
 
384 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 seven-thirty M. Niepce and his friend had been served with 
 breakfast, and much general work was already done. At 
 eight o'clock she went out to market. When asked why 
 she continued to buy at a high price, articles of which she 
 had a store, she would reply : "I am keeping all that till 
 things are much dearer." This was regarded as astounding 
 astuteness. 
 
 On the fifteenth of October she paid the quarter's rent of 
 the flat, four hundred francs, and was accepted as tenant. 
 Her ears were soon quite accustomed to the sound of cannon, 
 and she felt that she had always been a citizeness of Paris, 
 and that Paris had always been besieged. She did not 
 speculate about the end of the siege ; she lived from day to 
 day. Occasionally she had a qualm of fear, when the firing 
 grew momentarily louder, or when she heard that battles 
 had been fought in such and such a suburb. But then 
 she said it was absurd to be afraid when you were with a 
 couple of million people, all in the same plight as your- 
 self. She grew reconciled to everything. She even began 
 to like her tiny bedroom, partly because it was so easy to 
 keep warm (the question of artificial heat was growing acute 
 in Paris), and partly because it ensured her privacy. Down 
 in the flat, whatever was done or said in one room could be 
 more or less heard in all the others, owing to the prevalence 
 of doors. 
 
 Her existence, in the first half of November, had become 
 regular with a monotony almost absolute. Only the num- 
 ber of meals served to her boarders varied slightly from day 
 to day. All these repasts, save now and then one in the 
 evening, were carried into the bedrooms by the charwoman. 
 Sophia did not allow herself to be seen much, except in the 
 afternoons. Though Sophia continued to increase her prices, 
 and was now selling her stores at an immense profit, she 
 never approached the prices current outside. She was very 
 indignant against the exploitation of Paris by its shop- 
 keepers, who had vast supplies of provender, and were 
 hoarding for the rise. But the force of their example was 
 too great for her to ignore it entirely ; she contented her- 
 self with about half their gains. Only to M. Niepce did 
 she charge more than to the others, because he was a 
 shopkeeper. The four men appreciated their paradise. In 
 them developed that agreeable feeling of security which 
 solitary males find only under the roof of a landlady who 
 is at once prompt, honest, and a votary of cleanliness. 
 Sophia hung a slate near the front door, and on this slate 
 they wrote their requests for meals, for being called, for 
 
THE SIEGE. 3«5 
 
 laundry-work, etc. Sophia never made a mistake, and 
 never forgot. The perfection of the domestic machine 
 amazed these men, who had been accustomed to something 
 quite different, and who every day heard harrowing stories 
 of discomfort and swindling from their acquaintances. 
 They even admired Sophia for making them pay, if not too 
 high, still high. They thought it wonderful that she should 
 tell them the price of all things in advance, and even show 
 them how to avoid expense, particularly in the matter of 
 warmth. She arranged rugs for each of them, so that they 
 could sit comfortably in their rooms with nothing but a 
 small charcoal heater for the hands. Quite naturally they 
 came to regard her as the paragon and miracle of women. 
 They endowed her with every fine quality. According to 
 them there had never been such a woman in the history of 
 mankind ; there could not have been ! She became legend- 
 ary among their friends : a young and elegant creature, 
 surpassingly beautiful, proud, queenly, unapproachable, 
 scarcely visible, a marvellous manager, a fine cook and 
 artificer of strange English dishes, utterly reliable, utterly 
 exact and with habits of order . . . ! They adored the 
 slight English accent which gave a touch of the exotic to 
 her very correct and freely idiomatic French. In short, 
 Sophia was perfect for them, an impossible woman. What- 
 ever she did was right. 
 
 And she went up to her room every night with limbs 
 exhausted, but with head clear enough to balance her ac- 
 counts and go through her money. She did this in bed 
 with thick gloves on. If often she did not sleep well, it 
 was not because of the distant guns, but because of her pre- 
 occupation with the subject of finance. She was making 
 money, and she wanted to make more. She was always 
 inventing ways of economy. She was so anxious to achieve 
 independence that money was always in her mind. She 
 began to love gold, to love hoarding it, and to hate paying 
 it away. 
 
 One morning her charwoman, who by good fortune was 
 nearly as precise as Sophia herself, failed to appear. When 
 the moment came for serving M. Niepce's breakfast, Sophia 
 hesitated, and then decided to look after the old man per- 
 sonally. She knocked at his door, and went boldly in with 
 the tray and candle. He started at seeing her ; she was 
 wearing a blue apron, as the charwoman did, but there 
 could be no mistaking her for the charwoman. Niepce looked 
 older in bed than when dressed. He had a rather ridiculous, 
 undignified appearance, common among old men before 
 
 13 
 
386 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 their morning toilette is achieved ; and a nightcap did not 
 improve it. His rotund paunch lifted the bed-clothes, upon 
 which, for the sake of extra warmth, he had spread un- 
 majestic garments. Sophia smiled to herself ; but the con- 
 tempt implied by that secret smile was softened by the 
 thought : " Poor old man ! " She told him briefly that she 
 supposed the charwoman to be ill. He coughed and moved 
 nervously. His benevolent and simple face beamed on her 
 paternally as she fixed the tray by the bed. 
 
 " I really must open the window for one little second," 
 she said, and did so. The chill air of the street came 
 through the closed shutters, and the old man made a noise 
 as of shivering. She pushed back the shutters, and closed 
 the window, and then did the same with the other two win- 
 dows. It was almost day in the room. 
 
 " You will no longer need the candle," she said, and came 
 back to the bedside to extinguish it. 
 
 The benign and fatherly old man put his arm round her 
 waist. Fresh from the tonic of pure air, and with the 
 notion of his ridiculousness still in her mind, she was stag- 
 gered for an instant by this gesture. She had never given 
 a thought to the temperament of the old grocer, the hus- 
 band of a young wife. She could not always imaginatively 
 keep in mind the effect of her own radiance, especially 
 under such circumstances. But after an instant her pre- 
 cocious cynicism, which had slept, sprang up. " Naturally ! 
 I might have expected it ! " she thought with blasting 
 scorn. 
 
 " Take away your hand ! " she said bitterly to the amiable 
 old fool. She did not stir. 
 
 He obeyed, sheepishly. 
 
 " Do you wish to remain with me ? " she asked, and as he 
 did not immediately answer, she said in a most commanding 
 tone : " Answer, then ! " 
 
 " Yes," he said feebly. 
 
 " Well, behave properly." 
 
 She went towards the door. 
 
 " I wished only — " he stammered. 
 
 " I do not wish to know what you wished," she said. 
 
 Afterwards she wondered how much of the incident had 
 been overheard. The other breakfasts she left outside the 
 respective doors ; and in future Niepce's also. 
 
 The charwoman never came again. She had caught small- 
 pox and she died of it, thus losing a good situation. Strange 
 to say, Sophia did not replace her ; the temptation to save 
 her wages and food was too strong. She could not, how- 
 
THE SIEGE. 387 
 
 ever, stand waiting for hours at the door of the official 
 baker and the official butcher, one of a long line of frozen 
 women, for the daily rations of bread and tri- weekly rations 
 of meat. She employed the concierge's boy, at two sous 
 an hour, to do this. Sometimes he would come in with his 
 hands so blue and cold that he could scarcely hold the pre- 
 cious cards which gave the right to the rations and which 
 cost Chirac an hour or two of waiting at the mayoral offices 
 each week. Sophia might have fed her flock without re- 
 sorting to the official rations, but she would not sacrifice 
 the economy which they represented. She demanded thick 
 clothes for the concierge's boy, and received boots from 
 Chirac, gloves from Carlier, and a great overcoat from Niepce. 
 The weather increased in severity, and provisions in price. 
 One day she sold to the wife of a chemist who lived on the 
 first floor, for a hundred and ten francs, a ham for which 
 she had paid less than thirty francs. She was conscious 
 of a thrill of joy in receiving a beautiful 'banknote and a 
 gold coin in exchange for a mere ham. By this time her 
 total cash resources had grown to nearly five thousand 
 francs. It was astounding. And the reserves in the cellar 
 were still considerable, and the sack of flour that encumbered 
 the kitchen was still more than half full. The death of 
 the faithful charwoman, when she heard of it, produced but 
 little effect on Sophia, who was so overworked and so com- 
 pletely absorbed in her own affairs that she had no nervous 
 energy to spare for sentimental regrets. The charwoman, 
 by whose side she had regularly passed many hours in the 
 kitchen, so that she knew every crease in her face and fold 
 of her dress, vanished out of Sophia's memory. 
 
 Sophia cleaned and arranged two of the bedrooms in the 
 morning, and two in the afternoon. She had stayed in 
 hotels where fifteen bedrooms were in charge of a single 
 chambermaid, and she thought it would be hard if she could 
 not manage four in the intervals of cooking and other work. 
 This she said to herself by way of excuse for not engaging 
 another charwoman. One afternoon she was rubbing the 
 brass knobs of the numerous doors in M. Niepce's room, 
 when the grocer unexpectedly came in. 
 
 She glanced at him sharply. There was a self-conscious 
 look in his eye. He had entered the flat noiselessly. She 
 remembered having told him, in response to a question, that 
 she now did his room in the afternoon. Why should he have 
 left his shop ? He hung up his hat behind the door, with 
 the meticulous care of an old man. Then he took off his 
 overcoat and rubbed his hands. 
 
388 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " You do well to wear gloves, madame," he said. " It is 
 dog's weather." 
 
 " I do not wear them for the cold," she replied. " I wear 
 them so as not to spoil my hands." 
 
 " Ah ! truly ! Very well ! Very well ! May I demand 
 some wood ? Where shall I find it ? I do not wish to 
 derange you." 
 
 She refused his help, and brought wood from the kitchen, 
 counting the logs audibly before him. 
 
 " Shall I light the fire now ? " she asked. 
 
 " I will light it," he said. 
 
 " Give me a match, please." 
 
 As she was arranging the wood and paper, he said : " Ma- 
 dame, will you listen to me ? " 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 " Do not be angry," he said. " Have I not proved that 
 I am capable of respecting you ? I continue in that respect. 
 It is with all that respect that I say to you that I love you, 
 madame. . . . No, remain calm, I implore you ! " The fact 
 was that Sophia showed no sign of not remaining calm. " It 
 is true that I have a wife. But what do you wish . . .? 
 She is far away. I love you madly," he proceeded with 
 dignified respect. " I know I am old ; but I am rich. I 
 understand your character. You are a lady, you are de- 
 cided, direct, sincere, and a woman of business. I have the 
 greatest respect for you. One can talk to you as one could 
 not to another woman. You prefer directness and sin- 
 cerity. Madame, I will give you two thousand francs a month, 
 and all you require from my shop, if you will be amiable to 
 me. I am very solitary, I need the society of a charming 
 creature who would be sympathetic. Two thousand francs 
 a month. It is money." 
 
 He wiped his shiny head with his hand. 
 
 Sophia was bending over the fire. She turned her head 
 towards him. 
 
 " Is that all ? " she said quietly. 
 
 " You could count on my discretion," he said in a low 
 voice. " I appreciate your scruples. I would come, very 
 late, to your room on the sixth. One could arrange. . . . 
 You see, I am direct, like you." 
 
 She had an impulse to order him tempestuously out of the 
 flat ; but it was not a genuine impulse. He was an old fool. 
 Why not treat him as such ? To take him seriously would be 
 absurd. Moreover, he was a very remunerative boarder. 
 
 " Do not be stupid," she said with cruel tranquillity. 
 " Do not be an old fool." 
 
THE SIEGE. 389 
 
 And the benign but fatuous middle-aged lecher saw the 
 enchanting vision of Sophia, with her natty apron and her 
 amusing gloves, sweep and fade from the room. He left the 
 house, and the expensive fire warmed an empty room. 
 
 Sophia was angry with him. He had evidently planned 
 the proposal. If capable of respect, he was evidently also 
 capable of chicane. But she supposed these Frenchmen were 
 all alike : disgusting ; and decided that it was useless to 
 worry over a universal fact. They had simply no shame, 
 and she had been very prudent to establish herself far away 
 on the sixth floor. She hoped that none of the other boarders 
 had overheard Niepce's outrageous insolence. She was not 
 sure if Chirac was not writing in his room. 
 
 That night there was no sound of cannon in the distance, 
 and Sophia for some time was unable to sleep. She woke up 
 with a start, after a doze, and struck a match to look at her 
 watch. It had stopped. She had forgotten to wind it up, 
 which omission indicated that the grocer had perturbed her 
 more than she thought. She could not be sure how long 
 she had slept. The hour might be two o'clock or it might 
 be six o'clock. Impossible for her to rest ! She got up and 
 dressed (in case it should be as late as she feared) and crept 
 down the interminable creaking stairs with the candle. As 
 she descended, the conviction that it was the middle of the 
 night grew upon her, and she stepped more softly. There 
 was no sound save that caused by her footfalls. With her 
 latchkey she cautiously opened the front door of the flat 
 and entered. She could then hear the noisy ticking of the 
 small, cheap clock in the kitchen. At the same moment 
 another door creaked, and Chirac, with hair all tousled, but 
 fully dressed, appeared in the corridor. 
 
 " So you have decided to sell yourself to him ! " Chirac 
 whispered. 
 
 She drew away instinctively, and she could feel herself 
 blushing. She was at a loss. She saw that Chirac was in a 
 furious rage, tremendously moved. He crept towards her, 
 half crouching. She had never seen anything so theatrical 
 as his movement, and the twitching of his face. She felt 
 that she too ought to be theatrical, that she ought nobly to 
 scorn his infamous suggestion, his unwarrantable attack. 
 Even supposing that she had decided to sell herself to the old 
 pasha, did that concern him ? A dignified silence, an annihi- 
 lating glance, were all that he deserved. But she was not 
 capable of this heroic behaviour. 
 
 " What time is it ? " she added weakly. 
 
 " Three o'clock," Chirac sneered. 
 
39Q THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " I forgot to wind up my watch," she said. " And so I came 
 down to see." 
 
 " In effect ! " He spoke sarcastically, as if saying : "I've 
 waited for you, and here you are." 
 
 7 She said to herself that she owed him nothing, but all the 
 time she felt that he and she were the only young people in 
 that flat, and that she did owe to him the proof that she was 
 guiltless of the supreme dishonour of youth. She collected 
 her forces and looked at him. 
 
 V You should be ashamed," she said. " You will wake the 
 others." 
 
 " And M. Niepce — will he need to be wakened ? " 
 
 " M. Niepce is not here," she said. 
 
 Niepce's door was unlatched. She pushed it open, and 
 went into the room, which was empty and bore no sign of 
 having been used. 
 
 " Come and satisfy yourself ! " she insisted. 
 
 Chirac did so. His face fell. 
 
 She took her watch from her pocket. 
 
 " And now wind my watch, and set it, please." 
 
 She saw that he was in anguish. He could not take the 
 watch. Tears came into his eyes. Then he hid his face, 
 and dashed away. She heard a sob-impeded murmur that 
 sounded like, " Forgive me ! " and the banging of a door. 
 And in the stillness she heard the regular snoring of M. Carlier. 
 She too cried. Her vision was blurred by a mist, and she 
 stumbled into the kitchen and seized the clock, and carried 
 it with her upstairs, and shivered in the intense cold of the 
 night. She wept gently for a very long time. " What a 
 shame ! What a shame \ " she said to herself. Yet she did 
 not quite blame Chirac. The frost drove her into bed, but 
 not to sleep. She continued to cry. At dawn her eyes were 
 inflamed with weeping. She was back in the kitchen then. 
 Chirac's door was wide open. He had left the flat. On 
 the slate was written, " I shall not take meals to-day." 
 
 III. 
 
 Their relations were permanently changed. For several 
 days they did not meet at all ; and when at the end of the 
 week Chirac was obliged at last to face Sophia in order to pay 
 his bill, he had a most grievous expression. It was obvious 
 that he considered himself a criminal without any defence to 
 offer for his crime. He seemed to make no attempt to hide 
 
THE SIEGE. 391 
 
 his state of mind. But he said nothing. As for Sophia, she 
 preserved a mien of amiable cheerfulness. She exerted her- 
 self to convince him by her attitude that she bore no resent- 
 ment, that she had determined to forget the incident, that 
 in short she was the forgiving angel of his dreams. She did 
 not, however, succeed entirely in being quite natural. Con- 
 fronted by his misery, it would have been impossible for her 
 to be quite natural, and at the same time quite cheerful ! 
 
 A little later the social atmosphere of the flat began to grow 
 querulous, disputatious and perverse. The nerves of every- 
 body were seriously strained. This applied to the whole city. 
 Days of heavy rains followed the sharp frosts, and the town 
 was, as it were, sodden with woe. The gates were closed. 
 And though nine-tenths of the inhabitants never went out- 
 side the gates, the definite and absolute closing of them de- 
 moralized all hearts. Gas was no longer supplied. Rats, 
 cats, and thorough-bred horses were being eaten and pro- 
 nounced " not bad." The siege had ceased to be a novelty. 
 Friends did not invite one another to a " siege-dinner " as 
 to a picnic. Sophia, fatigued by regular overwork, became 
 weary of the situation. She was angry with the Prussians 
 for dilatoriness, and with the French for inaction, and she 
 poured out her English spleen on her boarders. The boarders 
 told each other in secret that the patronne was growing for- 
 midable. Chiefly she bore a grudge against the shopkeepers ; 
 and when, upon a rumour of peace, the shop-windows one 
 day suddenly blossomed with prodigious quantities of all 
 edibles, at highest prices, thus proving that the famine was 
 artificially created, Sophia was furious. M. Niepce in par- 
 ticular, though he sold goods to her at a special discount, 
 suffered indignities. A few days later that benign and 
 fatherly man put himself lamentably in the wrong by 
 attempting to introduce into his room a charming young 
 creature who knew how to be sympathetic. Sophia, by an 
 accident unfortunate for the grocer, caught them in the 
 corridor. She was beside herself, but the only outward 
 symptoms were a white face and a cold steely voice \that 
 grated like a rasp on the susceptibilities of the adherents of 
 Aphrodite. At this period Sophia had certainly developed 
 into a termagant — without knowing it ! 
 
 She would often insist now on talking about the siege and 
 hearing everything that the men could tell her. Her com- 
 ments, made without the least regard for the justifiable deli- 
 cacy of their feelings as Frenchmen, sometimes led to heated 
 exchanges. When all Montmartre and the Quartier Breda 
 was impassioned by the appearance from outside of the Thirty- 
 
392 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 second battalion, she took the side of the populace, and would 
 not credit the solemn statement of the journalists, proved by 
 documents, that these maltreated soldiers were not cowards 
 in flight. She supported the women who had spit in the faces 
 of the Thirty-second. She actually said that if she had met 
 them, she would have spit too. Really she was convinced of 
 the innocence of the Thirty-second, but something prevented 
 her from admitting it. The dispute ended with high words 
 between herself and Chirac. 
 
 The next day Chirac came home at an unusual hour, 
 knocked at the kitchen door, and said : 
 
 " I must give notice to leave you." 
 
 " Why ? " she demanded curtly. 
 
 She was kneading flour and water for a potato-cake. Her 
 potato-cakes were the joy of the household. 
 
 " My paper has stopped ! " said Chirac. 
 
 " Oh ! " she added thoughtfully, but not looking at him. 
 " That is no reason why you should leave." 
 
 " Yes," he said. " This place is beyond my means. I 
 do not need to tell you that in ceasing to appear the paper 
 has omitted to pay its debts. The house owes me a month's 
 salary. So I must leave." 
 
 " No ! " said Sophia. " You can pay me when you have 
 money." 
 
 He shook his head. " I have no intention of accepting 
 your kindness." 
 
 " Haven't you got any money ? " she abruptly asked. 
 
 " None," said he. " It is the disaster — quite simply ! " 
 
 " Then you will be forced to get into debt somewhere." 
 
 " Yes, but not here ! Not to you ! " 
 
 " Truly, Chirac," she exclaimed, with a cajoling voice, 
 " you are not reasonable." 
 
 " Nevertheless it is like that ! " he said with decision. 
 
 " Eh, well ! " she turned on him menacingly. " It will 
 not be like that ! You understand me ? You will stay. 
 And you will pay me when you can. Otherwise we shall 
 quarrel. Do you imagine I shall tolerate your childishness ? 
 Just because you were angry last night " 
 
 "It is not that," he protested. " You ought to know it is 
 not that." (She did.) " It is solely that I cannot permit 
 myself to " 
 
 " Enough ! " she cried peremptorily, stopping him. And 
 then in a quieter tone. " And what about Carlier ? Is he 
 also in the ditch ? " 
 
 " Ah ! he has money," said Chirac, with sad envy. 
 
 " You also, one day," said she. " You stop — in any case 
 
THE SIEGE. 393 
 
 until after Christmas, or we quarrel. Is it agreed ? " Her 
 accent had softened. 
 
 " You are too good ! " he yielded. " I cannot quarrel 
 with you. But it pains me to accept " 
 
 " Oh ! " she snapped, dropping into the vulgar idiom, 
 " you make me sweat with your stupid pride. Is it that 
 that you call friendship ? Go away now. How do you 
 wish that I should succeed with this cake while you station 
 yourself there to distract me ? " 
 
 IV. 
 
 But in three days Chirac, with amazing luck, fell into 
 another situation, and on the Journal des Ddbdts. It was the 
 Prussians who had found him a place. The celebrated 
 Payenneville, second greatest chroniqueur of his time, had 
 caught a cold while doing his duty as a national guard, and 
 had died of pneumonia. The weather was severe again ; sol- 
 diers were being frozen to death at Aubervilliers. Payenne- 
 ville' s position was taken by another man, whose post was 
 offered to Chirac. He told Sophia of his good fortune with 
 unconcealed vanity. 
 
 " You with your smile ! " she said impatiently. " One can 
 refuse you nothing ! " 
 
 She behaved just as though Chirac had disgusted her. She 
 humbled him. But with his fellow-lodgers his airs of im- 
 portance as a member of the editorial staff of the Debdts were 
 comical in their ingenuousness. On the very same day Carlier 
 gave notice to leave Sophia. He was comparatively rich ; 
 but the habits which had enabled him to arrive at independ- 
 ence in the uncertain vocation of a journalist would not allow 
 him, while he was earning nothing, to spend a sou more than 
 was absolutely necessary. He had decided to join forces 
 with a widowed sister, who was accustomed to parsimony 
 as parsimony is understood in France, and who was living 
 on hoarded potatoes and wine. 
 
 " There ! " said Sophia, " you have lost me a tenant ! " 
 
 And she insisted, half jocularly and half seriously, that 
 Carlier was leaving because he could not stand Chirac's 
 infantile conceit. The flat was full of acrimonious words. 
 
 On Christmas morning Chirac lay in bed rather late ; the 
 newspapers did not appear that day. Paris seemed to be in 
 a sort of stupor. About eleven o'clock he came to the kitchen 
 door. 
 
 13 a 
 
394 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " I must speak with you," he said. His tone impressed 
 Sophia. 
 
 Enter," said she. 
 
 He went in, and closed the door like a conspirator. " We 
 must have a little fdte," he said. " You and I." 
 
 " Fete ! " she repeated. " What an idea ! How can I 
 leave ? " 
 
 If the idea had not appealed to the secrecies of her heart, 
 stirring desires and souvenirs upon which the dust of time 
 lay thick, she would not have begun by suggesting diffi- 
 culties ; she would have begun by a flat refusal. 
 
 " That is nothing," he said vigorously. " It is Christmas, 
 and I must have a chat with you. We cannot chat here. I 
 have not had a true little chat with you since you were ill. 
 You will come with me to a restaurant for lunch." 
 
 She laughed. " And the lunch of my lodgers ? " 
 
 " You will serve it a little earlier. We will go out im- 
 mediately afterwards, and we will return in time for you to 
 prepare dinner. It is quite simple." 
 
 She shook her head. " You are mad," she said crossly. 
 
 "It is necessary that I should offer you something," he 
 went on scowling. " You comprehend me ? I wish you to 
 lunch with me to-day. I demand it, and you are not going 
 to refuse me." 
 
 He was very close to her in the little kitchen, and he spoke 
 fiercely, bullyingly, exactly as she had spoken to him when 
 insisting that he should live on credit with her for a while. 
 
 " You are very rude," she parried. 
 
 " If I am rude, it is all the same to me," he held out un- 
 compromisingly. " You will lunch with me ; I hold to it." 
 
 " How can I be dressed ? " she protested. 
 
 " That does not concern me. Arrange that as you can." 
 
 It was the most curious invitation to a Christmas dinner 
 imaginable. 
 
 At a quarter past twelve they issued forth side by side, 
 heavily clad, into the mournful streets. The sky, slate- 
 coloured, presaged snow. The air was bitterly cold, and yet 
 damp. There were no fiacres in the little three-cornered 
 place which forms the mouth of the Rue Clausel. In the Rue 
 Notre Dame de Lorette, a single empty omnibus was toiling 
 up the steep glassy slope, the horses slipping and recovering 
 themselves in response to the whip-cracking, which sounded 
 in the streets as in an empty vault. Higher up, in the Rue • 
 Fontaine, one of the few shops that were open displayed this 
 announcement : "A large selection of cheeses for New Year's 
 gifts." They laughed. 
 
THE SIEGE. 395 
 
 " Last year at this moment," said Chirac, " I was thinking 
 of only one thing — the masked ball at the opera. I could 
 not sleep after it. This year even the churches are not open. 
 And you ? " 
 
 She put her lips together. " Do not ask me," she 
 said. 
 
 They proceeded in silence. 
 
 " We are triste, we others," he said. " But the Prussians, 
 in their trenches, they cannot be so gay, either ! Then- 
 families and their Christmas trees must be lacking to them. 
 Let us laugh ! " 
 
 The Place Blanche and the Boulevard de Clichy were no 
 more lively than the lesser streets and squares. There was 
 no life anywhere, scarcely a sound ; not even the sound of 
 cannon. Nobody knew anything ; Christmas had put the 
 city into a lugubrious trance of hopelessness. Chirac took 
 Sophia's arm across the Place Blanche, and a few yards up 
 the Rue Lepic he stopped at a small restaurant, famous 
 among the initiated, and known as " The Little Louis." 
 They entered, descending by two steps into a confined and 
 sombrely picturesque interior. 
 
 Sophia saw that they were expected. Chirac must have 
 paid a previous visit to the restaurant that morning. Several 
 disordered tables showed that people had already lunched, 
 and left ; but in the corner was a table for two, freshly laid 
 in the best manner of such restaurants ; that is to say, with 
 a red-and-white checked cloth, and two other red-and-white 
 cloths, almost as large as the table-cloth, folded as serviettes 
 and arranged flat on two thick plates between solid steel 
 cutlery ; a salt-cellar, out of which one ground rock-salt 
 by turning a handle, a pepper-castor, two knife-rests, and two 
 common tumblers. The phenomena which differentiated 
 this table from the ordinary table were a champagne bottle 
 and a couple of champagne glasses. Champagne was one of 
 the few items which had not increased in price during the 
 siege. N 
 
 The landlord and his wife were eating in another corner, a 
 fat, slatternly pair, whom no privations of a siege could have 
 emaciated. The landlord rose. He was dressed as a chef, 
 all in white, with the sacred cap ; but a soiled white. Every- 
 thing in the place was untidy, unkempt and more or less 
 unclean, except just the table upon which champagne was 
 waiting. And yet the restaurant was agreeable, reassuring. 
 The landlord greeted his customers as honest friends. His 
 greasy face was honest, and so was the pale, weary, humorous 
 face of his wife. Chirac saluted her. 
 
396 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " You see," said she, across from the other corner, indi- 
 cating a bone on her plate. " This is Diane ! " 
 
 " Ah ! the poor animal ! " exclaimed Chirac, sympatheti- 
 cally. 
 
 " What would you ? " said the landlady. " It cost too dear 
 to feed her. And she was so mignonne ! One could not 
 watch her grow thin ! " 
 
 " I was saying to my wife," the landlord put in, " how she 
 would have enjoyed that bone — Diane ! " He roared with 
 laughter. 
 
 Sophia and the landlady exchanged a curious sad smile at 
 this pleasantry, which had been re-discovered by the landlord 
 for perhaps the thousandth time during the siege, but which 
 he evidently regarded as quite new and original. 
 
 " Eh, well ! " he continued confidentially to Chirac. " I 
 have found for you something very good — half a duck." 
 And in a still lower tone : " And it will not cost you too dear." 
 
 No attempt to realize more than a modest profit was ever 
 made in that restaurant. It possessed a regular clientele 
 who knew the value of the little money they had, and who 
 knew also how to appreciate sincere and accomplished 
 cookery. The landlord was the chef, and he was always 
 referred to as the chef, even by his wife. 
 
 " How did you get that ? " Chirac asked. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the landlord, mysteriously. " I have one of 
 my friends, who comes from Villeneuve St. Georges — refugee, 
 you know. In fine ..." A wave of the fat hands, suggest- 
 ing that Chirac should not inquire too closely. 
 
 " In effect ! " Chirac commented. " But it is very chic, 
 that ! " 
 
 " I believe you that it is chic ! " said the landlady, sturdily. 
 
 " It is charming," Sophia murmured politely. 
 
 " And then a quite little salad ! " said the landlord. 
 
 " But that — that is still more striking ! " said Chirac. 
 
 The landlord winked. The fact was that the commerce 
 which resulted in fresh green vegetables in the heart of a 
 beleaguered town was notorious. 
 
 " And then also a quite little cheese ! " said Sophia, slightly 
 imitating the tone of the landlord, as she drew from the 
 inwardness of her cloak a small round parcel. It contained 
 a Brie cheese, in fairly good condition. It was worth at least 
 fifty francs, and it had cost Sophia less than two francs. 
 The landlady joined the landlord in inspecting this wondrous 
 jewel. Sophia seized a knife and cut a slice for the landlady's 
 table. 
 
 " Madame is too good ! " said the landlady, confused by 
 
THE SIEGE. 397 
 
 this noble generosity, and bearing the gift off to her table as 
 a fox-terrier will hurriedly seek solitude with a sumptuous 
 morsel. The landlord beamed. Chirac was enchanted. 
 In the intimate and unaffected cosiness of that interior the 
 vast, stupefied melancholy of the city seemed to be forgotten, 
 to have lost its sway. 
 
 Then the landlord brought a hot brick for the feet of 
 madame. It was more an acknowledgment of the slice of 
 cheese than a necessity, for the restaurant was very warm ; 
 the tiny kitchen opened directly into it, and the door between 
 the two was open ; there was no ventilation whatever. 
 
 " It is a friend of mine," said the landlord, proudly, in the 
 way of gossip, as he served an undescribed soup, " a butcher 
 in the Faubourg St. Honore, who has bought the three 
 elephants of the Jardin des Plantes for twenty-seven thousand 
 francs." 
 
 Eyebrows were lifted. He uncorked the champagne. 
 
 As she drank the first mouthful (she had long lost her 
 youthful aversion for wine), Sophia had a glimpse of herself 
 in a tilted mirror hung rather high on the opposite wall. It 
 was several months since she had attired herself with cere- 
 moniousness. The sudden unexpected vision of elegance 
 and pallid beauty pleased her. And the instant effect of the 
 champagne was to renew in her mind a forgotten conception 
 of the goodness of life and of the joys which she had so long 
 missed. 
 
 V. 
 
 At half-past two they were alone in the little salon of the 
 restaurant, and vaguely in their dreamy and feverish minds 
 that were too preoccupied to control with precision their 
 warm, relaxed bodies, there floated the illusion that the res- 
 taurant belonged to them and that in it they were at home. 
 It was no longer a restaurant, but a retreat and shelter from 
 hard life. The chef and his wife were dozing in an innet room. 
 The champagne was drunk ; the adorable cheese was eaten ; 
 and they were sipping Marc de Bourgogne. They sat at right 
 angles to one another, close to one another, with brains aswing; 
 full of good nature and quick sympathy ; their flesh content 
 and yet expectant. In a pause of the conversation (which, 
 entirely banal and fragmentary, had seemed to reach the 
 acme of agreeableness), Chirac put his hand on the hand of 
 Sophia as it rested limp on the littered table. Accidentally 
 she caught his eye ; she had not meant to do so. They botn 
 
398 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 became self-conscious. His thin, bearded face had more than 
 ever that wistfulness which always softened towards him the 
 uncompromisingness of her character. He had the look of a 
 child. For her, Gerald had sometimes shown the same look. 
 But indeed she was now one of those women for whom all 
 men, and especially all men in a tender mood, are invested 
 with a certain incurable quality of childishness. She had not 
 withdrawn her hand at once, and so she could not withdraw 
 it at all. 
 
 He gazed at her with timid audacity. Her eyes were liquid. 
 
 " What are you thinking about ? " she asked. 
 
 " I was asking myself what I should have done if you had 
 refused to come." 
 
 " And what should you have done ? " 
 
 " Assuredly something terribly inconvenient," he replied, 
 with the large importance of a man who is in the domain of 
 pure supposition. He leaned towards her. " My very dear 
 friend," he said in a different voice, getting bolder. 
 
 It was infinitely sweet to her, voluptuously sweet, this bask- 
 ing in the heat of temptation. It certainly did seem to her, 
 then, the one real pleasure in the world. Her body might 
 have been saying to his : " See how ready I am ! " Her 
 body might have been saying to his : " Look into my mind. 
 For you I have no modesty. Look and see all that is there." 
 The veil of convention seemed to have been rent. Their 
 attitude to each other was almost that of lover and mistress, 
 between whom a single glance may be charged with the 
 secrets of the past and promises for the future. Morally she 
 was his mistress in that moment. 
 
 He released her hand and put his arm round her waist. 
 
 " I love thee," he whispered with great emotion. 
 
 Her face changed and hardened. You must not do that," 
 she said, coldly, unkindly, harshly. She scowled. She 
 would not abate one crease in her forehead to the appeal of 
 his surprised glance. Yet she did not want to repulse him. 
 The instinct which repulsed him was not within her control. 
 Just as a shy man will obstinately refuse an invitation which 
 he is hungering to accept, so, though not from shyness, she 
 was compelled to repulse Chirac. Perhaps if her desires 
 had not been laid to sleep by excessive physical industry and 
 nervous strain, the sequel might have been different. 
 
 Chirac, like most men who have once found a woman weak, 
 imagined that he understood women profoundly. He thought 
 of women as the Occidental thinks of the Chinese, as a race 
 apart, mysterious but capable of being infallibly compre- 
 hended by the application of a few leading principles of psy- 
 
THE SIEGE. 399 
 
 chology. Moreover he was in earnest ; he was hard driven, 
 and he was honest. He continued, respectfully obedient in 
 withdrawing his arm : 
 
 " Very dear friend," he urged with undaunted confidence, 
 " you must know that I love you." 
 
 She shook her head impatiently, all the time wondering 
 what it was that prevented her from slipping into his arms. 
 She knew that she was treating him badly by this brusque 
 change of front ; but she could not help it. Then she began 
 to feel sorry for him. 
 
 " We have been very good friends," he said. " I have 
 always admired you enormously. I did not think that I 
 should dare to love you until that day when I overheard 
 that old villain Niepce make his advances. Then, when I 
 perceived my acute jealousy, I knew that I was loving you. 
 Ever since, I have thought only of you. I swear to you 
 that if you will not belong to me, it is already finished for 
 me ! Altogether ! Never have I seen a woman like you ! 
 So strong, so proud, so kind, and so beautiful ! You are 
 astonishing, yes, astonishing ! No other woman could have 
 drawn herself out of an impossible situation as you have 
 done, since the disappearance of your husband. For me, 
 you are a woman unique. I am very sincere. Besides, you 
 know it. . . . Dear friend ! " 
 
 She shook her head passionately. 
 
 She did not love him. But she was moved. And she 
 wanted to love him. She wanted to yield to him, only liking 
 him, and to love afterwards. But this obstinate instinct 
 held her back. 
 
 " I do not say, now," Chirac went on. " Let me hope." 
 
 The Latin theatricality of his gestures and his tone made 
 her sorrowful for him. 
 
 " My poor Chirac ! " she plaintively murmured, and began 
 to put on her gloves. 
 
 " I shall hope ! " he persisted. 
 
 She pursed her lips. He seized her violently by the waist. 
 She drew her face away from his, firmly. She was not hard, 
 not angry now. Disconcerted by her compassion, he loosed 
 her. 
 
 " My poor Chirac," she said, " I ought not to have come. 
 I must go. It is perfectly useless. Believe me." 
 
 " No, no ! " he whispered fiercely. 
 
 She stood up and the abrupt movement pushed the table 
 gratingly across the floor. The throbbing spell of the flesh 
 was snapped like a stretched string, and the scene over. 
 The landlord, roused from his doze, stumbled in. Chirac 
 
4 oo THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 had nothing but the bill as a reward for his pains. He was 
 baffled. 
 
 They left the restaurant, silently, with a foolish air. 
 
 Dusk was falling on the mournful streets, and the lamp- 
 lighters were lighting the miserable oil lamps that had re- 
 placed gas. They two, and the lamplighters, and an omni- 
 bus were alone in the streets. The gloom was awful ; it was 
 desolating. The universal silence seemed to be the silence 
 of despair. Steeped in woe, Sophia thought wearily upon 
 the hopeless problem of existence. For it seemed to her 
 that she and Chirac had created this woe out of nothing, and 
 yet it was an incurable woe ! 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SUCCESS. 
 I. 
 
 Sophia lay awake one night in the room lately quitted by 
 Carlier. That silent negation of individuality had come and 
 gone, and left scarcely any record of himself either in his 
 room or in the memories of those who had surrounded his 
 existence in the house. Sophia had decided to descend from 
 the sixth floor, partly because the temptation of a large room, 
 after months in a cubicle, was rather strong ; but more 
 because of late she had been obliged to barricade the door 
 of the cubicle with a chest of drawers, owing to the pro- 
 pensities of a new tenant of the sixth floor. It was useless 
 to complain to the concierge ; the sole effective argument 
 was the chest of drawers, and even that was frailer than 
 Sophia could have wished. Hence, finally, her retreat. 
 
 She heard the front door of the flat open ; then it was 
 shut with nervous violence. The resonance of its closing 
 would have certainly wakened less accomplished sleepers 
 than M. Niepce and his friend, whose snores continued with 
 undisturbed regularity. After a pause of shuffling, a match 
 was struck, and feet crept across the corridor with the most 
 exaggerated precautions against noise. There followed the 
 unintentional bang of another door. It was decidedly the 
 entry of a man without the slightest natural aptitude for 
 furtive irruptions. The clock in M. Niepce's room, which the 
 grocer had persuaded to exact time-keeping, chimed three 
 with its delicate ting. 
 
 For several days past Chirac had been mysteriously en- 
 gaged very late at the bureaux of the Debdts. No one knew 
 the nature of his employment ; he said nothing, except to 
 inform Sophia that he would continue to come home about 
 three o'clock until further notice. She had insisted on leav- 
 
4 02 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 ing in his room the materials and apparatus for a light meal. 
 Naturally he had protested, with the irrational obstinacy of 
 a physically weak man who sticks to it that he can defy the 
 laws of nature. But he had protested in vain. 
 
 His general conduct since Christmas Day had frightened 
 Sophia, in spite of her tendency to stifle facile alarms at their 
 birth. He had eaten scarcely anything at all, and he went 
 about with the face of a man dying of a broken heart. The 
 change in him was indeed tragic. And instead of improving, 
 he grew worse. " Have I done this ? " Sophia asked her- 
 self. "It is impossible that I should have done this ! It 
 is absurd and ridiculous that he should behave so ! " Her 
 thoughts were employed alternately in sympathizing with 
 him and in despising him, in blaming herself and in blaming 
 him. When they spoke, they spoke awkwardly, as though 
 one or both of them had committed a shameful crime, which 
 could not even be mentioned. The atmosphere of the flat 
 was tainted by the horror. And Sophia could not offer him 
 a bowl of soup without wondering how he would look at her 
 or avoid looking, and without carefully arranging in advance 
 her own gestures and speech. Existence was a nightmare 
 of self-consciousness. 
 
 " At last they have unmasked their batteries ! " he had 
 exclaimed with painful gaiety two days after Christmas, 
 when the besiegers had recommenced their cannonade. He 
 tried to imitate the strange, general joy of the city, which 
 had been roused from apathy by the recurrence of a familiar 
 noise ; but the effort was a deplorable failure. And Sophia 
 condemned not merely the failure of Chirac's imitation, but 
 the thing imitated. " Childish ! " she thought. Yet, de- 
 spise the feebleness of Chirac's behaviour as she might, she 
 was deeply impressed, genuinely astonished, by the gravity 
 and persistence of the symptoms. " He must have been 
 getting himself into a state about me for a long time," she 
 thought. " Surely he could not have gone mad like this 
 all in a day or two ! But I never noticed anything. No ; 
 honestly I never noticed anything ! " And just as her be- 
 haviour in the restaurant had shaken Chirac's confidence 
 in his knowledge of the other sex, so now the singular be- 
 haviour of Chirac shook hers. She was taken aback. She 
 was frightened, though she pretended not to be frightened. 
 
 She had lived over and over again the scene in the res- 
 taurant. She asked herself over and over again if really 
 she had not beforehand expected him to make love to her 
 in the restaurant. She could not decide exactly when she 
 had begun to expect a declaration ; but probably a long 
 
SUCCESS. 403 
 
 time before the meal was finished. She had foreseen it, 
 and might have stopped it. But she had not chosen to stop 
 it. Curiosity concerning not merely him, but also her- 
 self, had tempted her tacitly to encourage him. She asked 
 herself over and over again why she had repulsed him. It 
 struck her as curious that she had repulsed him. Was it 
 because she v/as a married woman ? Was it because she 
 had moral scruples ? Was it at bottom because she did not 
 care for him ? Was it because she could not care for any- 
 body ? Was it because his fervid manner of love-making 
 offended her English phlegm ? And did she feel pleased 
 or displeased by his forbearance in not renewing the assault ? 
 She could not answer. She did not know. 
 
 But all the time she knew that she wanted love. Only, 
 she conceived a different kind of love : placid, regular, some- 
 what stern, somewhat above the plane of whims, moods, 
 caresses, and all mere fleshly contacts. Not that she con- 
 sidered that she despised these things (though she did) ! 
 What she wanted was a love that was too proud, too in- 
 dependent, to exhibit frankly either its joy or its pain. 
 She hated a display of sentiment. And even in the most 
 intimate abandonments she would have made reserves, and 
 would have expected reserves, trusting to a lover's powers 
 of divination, and to her own ! The foundation of her char- 
 acter was a haughty moral independence, and this quality 
 was what she most admired in others. 
 
 Chirac's inability to draw from his own pride strength to 
 sustain himself against the blow of her refusal gradually 
 killed in her the sexual desire which he had aroused, and 
 which during a few days flickered up under the stimulus of 
 fancy and of regret. Sophia saw with increasing clearness 
 that her unreasoning instinct had been right in saying him 
 nay. And when, in spite of this, regrets still visited her, she 
 would comfort herself in thinking : "I cannot be bothered 
 with all that sort of thing. It is not worth while. What 
 does it lead to ? Is not life complicated enough without 
 that ? No, no ! I will stay as I am. At any rate I know 
 what I am in for, as things are ! " And she would reflect 
 upon her hopeful financial situation, and the approaching 
 prospect of a constantly sufficient income. And a little 
 thrill of impatience against the interminable and gigantic 
 foolishness of the siege would take her. 
 
 But her self -consciousness in presence of Chirac did not 
 abate. 
 
 As she lay in bed she awaited accustomed sounds which 
 should have connoted Chirac's definite retirement for the 
 
4 o 4 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 night. Her ear, however, caught no sound whatever from 
 his room. Then she imagined that there was a smell of 
 burning in the flat. She sat up, and sniffed anxiously, of a 
 sudden wideawake and apprehensive. And then she was 
 sure that the smell of burning was not in her imagination. 
 The bedroom was in perfect darkness. Feverishly she 
 searched with her right hand for the matches on the night- 
 table, and knocked candle-stick and matches to the floor. 
 She seized her dressing-gown, which was spread over the bed, 
 and put it on, aiming for the door. Her feet were bare. 
 She discovered the door. In the passage she could dis- 
 cern nothing at first, and then she made out a thin line of 
 light, which indicated the bottom of Chirac's door. The 
 smell of burning was strong and unmistakable. She went 
 towards the faint light, fumbled for the door-handle with 
 her palm, and opened. It did not occur to her to call out 
 and ask what was the matter. 
 
 The house was not on fire ; but it might have been. She 
 had left on the table at the foot of Chirac's bed a small cook- 
 ing-lamp, and a saucepan of bouillon. All that Chirac had to 
 do was to ignite the lamp and put the saucepan on it. He had 
 ignited the lamp, having previously raised the double wicks, 
 and had then dropped into the chair by the table just as 
 he was, and sunk forward and gone to sleep with his head 
 lying sideways on the table. He had not put the saucepan 
 on the lamp ; he had not lowered the wicks, and the flames, 
 capped with thick black smoke, were waving slowly to and 
 fro within a few inches of his loose hair. His hat had rolled 
 along the floor ; he was wearing his great overcoat and one 
 woollen glove ; the other glove had lodged on his slanting 
 knee. A candle was also burning. 
 
 Sophia hastened forward, as it were surreptitiously, and 
 with a forward-reaching movement turned down the wick of 
 the lamp ; black specks were falling on the table ; happily 
 the saucepan was covered, or the bouillon would have been 
 ruined. 
 
 Chirac made a heart-rending spectacle, and Sophia was 
 aware of deep and painful emotion in seeing him thus. He 
 must have been utterly exhausted and broken by loss of 
 sleep. He was a man incapable of regular hours, incapable 
 of treating his body with decency. Though going to bed 
 at three o'clock, he had continued to rise at his usual hour. 
 He looked like one dead ; but more sad, more wistful. Out- 
 side in the street a fog reigned, and his thin draggled beard 
 was jewelled with the moisture of it. His attitude had the 
 unconsidered and violent prostration of an overspent dog. 
 
SUCCESS. 405 
 
 The beaten animal in him was expressed in every detail of 
 that posture. It showed even in his white, drawn eyelids, 
 and in the falling of a finger. All his face was very sad. It 
 appealed for mercy as the undefended face of sleep always 
 appeals ; it was so helpless, so exposed, so simple. It re- 
 called Sophia to a sense of the inner mysteries of life, remind- 
 ing her somehow that humanity walks ever on a thin crust 
 over terrific abysses. She did not physically shudder ; but 
 her soul shuddered. 
 
 She mechanically placed the saucepan on the lamp, and 
 the noise awakened Chirac. He groaned. At first he did 
 not perceive her. When he saw that some one was looking 
 down at him, he did not immediately realize who this one 
 was. He rubbed his eyes with his fists, exactly like a baby, 
 and sat up, and the chair cracked. 
 
 " What then ? " he demanded. " Oh, madame, I ask 
 pardon. What ? " 
 
 " You have nearly destroyed the house," she said. " I 
 smelt fire, and I came in. I was just in time. There is no 
 danger now. But please be careful." She made as if to 
 move towards the door. 
 
 " But what did I do ? " he asked, his eyelids wavering. 
 
 She explained. 
 
 He rose from his chair unsteadily. She told him to sit 
 down again, and he obeyed as though in a dream. 
 
 " I can go now," she said. 
 
 " Wait a moment," he murmured. " I ask pardon. I 
 should not know how to thank you. You are truly too 
 good. Will you wait one moment ? " 
 
 His tone was one of supplication. He gazed at her, a little 
 dazzled by the light and by her. The lamp and the candle 
 illuminated the lower part of her face, theatrically, and 
 showed the texture of her blue flannel peignoir ; the pattern 
 of a part of the lace collar was silhouetted in shadow on 
 her cheek. Her face was flushed, and her hair hung down 
 unconfined. Evidently he could not recover from his ex- 
 cusable astonishment at the apparition of such a figure in 
 his room. 
 
 " What is it — now ? " she said. The faint, quizzical em- 
 phasis which she put on the " now " indicated the essential 
 of her thought. The sight of him touched her and filled 
 her with a womanly sympathy. But that sympathy was 
 only the envelope of her disdain of him. She could not 
 admire weakness. She could but pity it with a pity in 
 which scorn was mingled. Her instinct was to treat him 
 as a child. He had failed in human dignity. And it 
 
4 o6 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 seemed to her as if she had not previously been quite cer- 
 tain whether she could not love him, but that now she was 
 quite certain. She was close to him. She saw the wounds 
 of a soul that could not hide its wounds, and she resented 
 the sight. She was hard. She would not make allow- 
 ances. And she revelled in her hardness. Contempt — a 
 good-natured, kindly, forgiving contempt — that was the 
 kernel of the sympathy which exteriorly warmed her ! 
 Contempt for the lack of self-control which had resulted in 
 this swift degeneration of a man into a tortured victim ! 
 Contempt for the lack of perspective which magnified a 
 mere mushroom passion till it filled the whole field of life ! 
 Contempt for this feminine slavery to sentiment ! She felt 
 that she might have been able to give herself to Chirac as 
 one gives a toy to an infant. But of loving him . . . ! 
 No ! She was conscious of an immeasurable superiority to 
 him, for she was conscious of the freedom of a strong mind. 
 
 " I wanted to tell you," said he, " I am going away." 
 
 " Where ? " she asked. 
 
 " Out of Paris." 
 
 *' Out of Paris ? How ? " 
 
 " By balloon ! My journal . . . ! It is an affair of 
 great importance. You understand. I offered myself. 
 What would you ? " 
 
 " It is dangerous," she observed, waiting to see if he 
 would put on the silly air of one who does not understand 
 fear. 
 
 " Oh ! " the poor fellow muttered with a fatuous intona- 
 tion and snapping of the fingers. " That is all the same 
 to me. Yes, it is dangerous- Yes, it is dangerous ! " he 
 repeated. " But what would you . . . ? For me . . . ! " 
 
 She wished that she had not mentioned danger. It hurt 
 her to watch him incurring her ironic disdain. 
 
 " It will be the night after to-morrow," he said. " In the 
 courtyard of the Gare du Nord. I want you to come and 
 see me go. I particularly want you to come and see me go. 
 I have asked Carlier to escort you." 
 
 He might have been saying, "I am offering myself to 
 martyrdom, and you must assist at the spectacle." 
 
 She despised him yet more. 
 
 " Oh ! Be tranquil," he said. " I shall not worry you. 
 Never shall I speak to you again of my love. I know you. 
 I know it would be useless. But I hope you will come and 
 wish me bon voyage." 
 
 " Of course, if you really wish it," she replied with cheer- 
 ful coolness. 
 
SUCCESS. 407 
 
 He seized her hand and kissed it. 
 
 Once it had pleased her when he kissed her hand. But 
 now she did not like it. It seemed hysterical and foolish 
 to her. She felt her feet to be stone-cold on the floor. 
 
 " I'll leave you now," she said. " Please eat your soup." 
 
 She escaped, hoping he would not espy her feet. 
 
 II. 
 
 The courtyard of the Nord Railway Station was lighted 
 by oil-lamps taken from locomotives ; their silvered reflectors 
 threw dazzling rays from all sides on the under portion of 
 the immense yellow mass of the balloon ; the upper por- 
 tion was swaying to and fro with gigantic ungainliness in 
 the strong breeze. It was only a small balloon, as balloons 
 are measured, but it seemed monstrous as it wavered over 
 the human forms that were agitating themselves beneath 
 it. The cordage was silhouetted against the yellow taffetas 
 as high up as the widest diameter of the balloon, but above 
 that all was vague, and even spectators standing at a dis- 
 tance could not clearly separate the summit of the great 
 sphere from the darkly moving sky. The car, held by ropes 
 fastened to stakes, rose now and then a few inches uneasily 
 from the ground. The sombre and severe architecture of 
 the station-buildings enclosed the balloon on every hand ; 
 it had only one way of escape. Over the roofs of that archi- 
 tecture, which shut out the sounds of the city, came the 
 irregular booming of the bombardment. Shells were falling 
 in the southern quarters of Paris, doing perhaps not a great 
 deal of damage, but still plunging occasionally into the 
 midst of some domestic interior and making a sad mess of 
 it. The Parisians were convinced that the shells were aimed 
 maliciously at hospitals and museums ; and when a child 
 happened to be blown to pieces their unspoken comments 
 upon the Prussian savagery were bitter. Their faces said : 
 " Those barbarians cannot even spare our children ! " They 
 amused themselves by creating a market in shells, paying 
 more for a live shell than a dead one, and modifying the tariff 
 according to the supply. And as the cattle-market was 
 empty, and the vegetable market was empty, and beasts no 
 longer pastured on the grass of the parks, and the twenty- 
 five million rats of the metropolis were too numerous to 
 furnish interest to spectators, and the Bourse was practically 
 deserted, the traffic in shells sustained the starving mer- 
 
4 o8 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 can tile instinct during a very dull period. But the effect 
 on the nerves was deleterious. The nerves of everybody 
 were like nothing but a raw wound. Violent anger would 
 spring up magically out of laughter, and blows out of ca- 
 resses. This indirect consequence of the bombardment was 
 particularly noticeable in the group of men under the balloon. 
 Each behaved as if he were controlling his temper in the most 
 difficult circumstances. Constantly they all gazed upwards 
 into the sky, though nothing could possibly be distinguished 
 there save the blurred edge of a flying cloud. But the boom- 
 ing came from that sky; the shells that were dropping on 
 Montrouge came out of that sky ; and the balloon was going 
 up into it ; the balloon was ascending into its mysteries, to 
 brave its dangers, to sweep over the encircling ring of fire 
 and savages. 
 
 Sophia stood apart with Carlier. Carlier had indicated 
 a particular spot, under the shelter of the colonnade, where 
 he said it was imperative that they should post themselves. 
 Having guided Sophia to this spot, and impressed upon her 
 that they were not to move, he seemed to consider that the 
 activity of his role was finished, and spoke no word. With 
 the very high silk hat which he always wore, and a thin 
 old-fashioned overcoat whose collar was turned up, he made 
 a rather grotesque figure. Fortunately the night was not 
 very cold, or he might have passively frozen to death on 
 the edge of that feverish group. Sophia soon ignored him. 
 She watched the balloon. An aristocratic old man leaned 
 against the car, watch in hand ; at intervals he scowled, or 
 stamped his foot. An old sailor, tranquilly smoking a pipe, 
 walked round and round the balloon, staring at it ; once 
 he climbed up into the rigging, and once he jumped into the 
 car and angrily threw out of it a bag, which some one had 
 placed in it. But for the most part he was calm. Other 
 persons of authority hurried about, talking and gesticulating ; 
 and a number of workmen waited idly for orders. 
 
 " Where is Chirac ? " suddenly cried the old man with the 
 watch. 
 
 Several voices deferentially answered, and a man ran 
 away into the gloom on an errand. 
 
 Then Chirac appeared, nervous, self-conscious, restless. 
 He was enveloped in a fur coat that Sophia had never seen 
 before, and he carried dangling in his hand a cage contain- 
 ing six pigeons whose whiteness stirred uneasily within it. 
 The sailor took the cage from him, and all the persons of 
 authority gathered round to inspect the wonderful birds 
 upon which, apparently, momentous affairs depended. 
 
SUCCESS. 409 
 
 When the group separated, the sailor was to be seen bending 
 over the edge of the car to deposit the cage safely. He then 
 got into the car, still smoking his pipe, and perched himself 
 negligently on the wicker-work. The man with the watch 
 was conversing with Chirac ; Chirac nodded his head fre- 
 quently in acquiescence, and seemed to be saying all the 
 time : " Yes, sir ! Perfectly, sir ! I understand, sir ! 
 Yes, sir ! " 
 
 Suddenly Chirac turned to the car and put a question to 
 the sailor, who shook his head. Whereupon Chirac gave a 
 gesture of submissive despair to the man with the watch. 
 And in an instant the whole throng was in a ferment. 
 
 " The victuals ! " cried the man with the watch. " The 
 victuals, name of God ! Must one be indeed an idiot to 
 forget the victuals ! Name of God : — of God 1 " 
 
 Sophia smiled at the agitation, and at the inefficient 
 management which had never thought of food. For it 
 appeared that the food had not merely been forgotten ; it 
 was a question which had not even been considered. She 
 could not help despising all that crowd of self-important 
 and fussy males to .whom the idea had not occurred that 
 even balloonists must eat. And she wondered whether every- 
 thing was done like that. After a delay that seemed very 
 long, the problem of victuals was solved, chiefly, as far as 
 Sophia could judge, by means of cakes of chocolate and 
 bottles of wine. 
 
 "It is enough ! It is enough ! " Chirac shouted passion- 
 ately several times to a knot of men who began to argue 
 with him. 
 
 Then he gazed round furtively, and with an inflation of 
 the chest and a patting of his fur coat he came directly to- 
 wards Sophia. Evidently Sophia's position had been pre- 
 arranged between him and Carlier. They could forget food, 
 but they could think of Sophia's position ! 
 
 All eyes followed him. Those eyes could not, in the gloom, 
 distinguish Sophia's beauty, but they could see that she was 
 young and slim and elegant, and of foreign carriage^ That 
 was enough. The very air seemed to vibrate with the in- 
 tense curiosity of those eyes. And immediately Chirac grew 
 into the hero of some brilliant and romantic adventure. Im- 
 mediately he was envied and admired by every man of 
 authority present. What was she ? Who was she ? Was it 
 a serious passion or simply a caprice ? Had she flung her- 
 self at him ? It was undeniable that lovely creatures did 
 sometimes fling themselves at lucky mediocrities. Was she 
 a married woman ? An artiste ? A girl ? Such queries 
 
4 io THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 thumped beneath overcoats, while the correctness of a cere- 
 monious demeanour was strictly observed. 
 
 Chirac uncovered, and kissed her hand. The wind dis- 
 arranged his hair. She saw that his face was very pale 
 and anxious beneath the swagger of a sincere desire to be 
 brave. 
 
 " Well, it is the moment ! " he said. 
 
 " Did you all forget the food ? " she asked. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " What will you ? One can- 
 not think of everything." 
 
 " I hope you will have a safe voyage," she said. 
 
 She had already taken leave of him once, in the house, 
 and heard all about the balloon and the sailor-aeronaut and 
 the preparations ; and now she had nothing to say, nothing 
 whatever. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders again. " I hope so ! " he 
 murmured, but in a tone to convey that he had no such 
 hope. 
 
 " The wind isn't too strong ? " she suggested. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders again. " What would you ? " 
 
 " Is it in the direction you want ? " • 
 
 " Yes, nearly," he admitted unwillingly. Then rousing 
 himself : " Eh, well, madame. You have been extremely 
 amiable to come. I held to it very much — that you should 
 come. It is because of you I quit Paris." 
 
 She resented the speech by a frown. 
 
 " Ah ! " he implored in a whisper. " Do not do that. 
 Smile on me. After all, it is not my fault. Remember that 
 this may be the last time I see you, the last time I regard 
 your eyes." 
 
 She smiled. She was convinced of the genuineness of the 
 emotion which expressed itself in all this flamboyant be- 
 haviour. And she had to make excuses to herself on behalf 
 of Chirac. She smiled to give him pleasure. The hard com- 
 monsense in her might sneer, but indubitably she was the 
 centre of a romantic episode. The balloon darkly swing- 
 ing there ! The men waiting ! The secrecy of the mission ! 
 And Chirac, bareheaded in the wind that was to whisk him 
 away, telling her in fatalistic accents that her image had 
 devastated his life, while envious aspirants watched their 
 colloquy ! Yes, it was romantic. And she was beautiful ! 
 Her beauty was an active reality that went about the world 
 playing tricks in spite of herself. The thoughts that passed 
 through her mind were the large, splendid thoughts of ro- 
 mance. And it was Chirac who had aroused them ! A real 
 drama existed, then, triumphing over the accidental absurd- 
 
SUCCESS. 411 
 
 ities and pettinesses of the situation. Her final words to 
 Chirac were tender and encouraging. 
 
 He hurried back to the balloon, resuming his cap. He 
 was received with the respect due to one who comes fresh 
 from conquest. He was sacred. 
 
 Sophia rejoined Carlier, who had withdrawn, and began 
 to talk to him with a self-conscious garrulity. She spoke 
 without reason and scarcely noticed what she was saying. 
 Already Chirac was snatched out of her life, as other beings, 
 so many of them, had been snatched. She thought of their 
 first meetings, and of the sympathy which had always united 
 them. He had lost his simplicity now, in the self-created 
 crisis of his fate, and had sunk in her esteem. And she was 
 determined to like him all the more because he had sunk in 
 her esteem. She wondered whether he really had undertaken 
 this adventure from sentimental disappointment. She won- 
 dered whether, if she had not forgotten to wind her watch 
 one night, they would still have been living quietly under 
 the same roof in the Rue Br6da. 
 
 The sailor climbed definitely into the car ; he had covered 
 himself with a large cloak. Chirac had got one leg over the 
 side of the car, and eight men were standing by the rope, 
 when a horse's hoofs clattered through the guarded entrance 
 to the courtyard, amid an uproar of sudden excitement. 
 The shiny chest of the horse was flecked with the classic 
 foam. 
 
 " A telegram from the Governor of Paris ! " 
 
 As the orderly, checking his mount, approached the group, 
 even the old man with the watch raised his hat. The 
 orderly responded, bent down to make an inquiry, which 
 Chirac answered, and then, with another exchange of 
 salutes, the official telegram was handed over to Chirac, 
 and the horse backed away from the crowd. It was quite 
 thrilling. Carlier was thrilled. 
 
 " He is never too prompt, the Governor. It is a quality ! " 
 said Carlier, with irony. 
 
 Chirac entered the car. And then the old man -faith the 
 watch drew a black bag from the shadow behind him and 
 entrusted it to Chirac, who accepted it with a profound 
 deference and hid it. The sailor began to issue commands. 
 The men at the ropes were bending down now. Suddenly 
 the balloon rose about a foot and trembled. The sailor 
 continued to shout All the persons of authority gazed 
 motionless at the balloon. The moment of suspense was 
 eternal. 
 
 " Let go all ! " cried the sailor, standing up, and clinging 
 
4 i2 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 to the cordage. Chirac was seated in the car, a mass of dark 
 fur with a small patch of white in it. The men at the ropes 
 were a knot of struggling confused figures. 
 
 One side of the car tilted up, and the sailor was nearly 
 pitched out. Three men at the other side had failed to free 
 the ropes. 
 
 " Let go, corpses ! " the sailor yelled at them. 
 
 The balloon jumped, as if it were drawn by some terrific 
 impulse from the skies. 
 
 " Adieu ! " called Chirac, pulling his cap off and waving it. 
 " Adieu ! " 
 
 " Bon voyage ! Bon voyage ! " the little crowd cheered. 
 And then, " Vive la France ! " Throats tightened, including 
 Sophia's. 
 
 But the top of the balloon had leaned over, destroying its 
 pear-shape, and the whole mass swerved violently towards 
 the wall of the station, the car swinging under it like a toy, 
 and an anchor under the car. There was a cry of alarm. 
 Then the great ball leaped again, and swept over the high 
 glass roof, escaping by inches the spouting. The cheers 
 expired instantly. . . . The balloon was gone. It was 
 spirited away as if by some furious and mighty power that 
 had grown impatient in waiting for it. There remained for 
 a few seconds on the collective retina of the spectators a 
 vision of the inclined car swinging near the roof like the tail 
 of a kite. And then nothing ! Blankness ! Blackness ! 
 Already the balloon was lost to sight in the vast stormy 
 ocean of the night, a plaything of the winds. The spectators 
 became once more aware of the dull booming of the cannon- 
 ade. The balloon was already perhaps flying unseen amid 
 the wrack over those guns. 
 
 Sophia involuntarily caught her breath. A chill sense of 
 loneliness, of purposelessness, numbed her being. 
 
 Nobody ever saw Chirac or the old sailor again. The sea 
 must have swallowed them. Of the sixty-five balloons that 
 left Paris during the siege, two were not heard of. This was 
 the first of the two. Chirac had, at any rate, not magnified 
 the peril, though his intention was undoubtedly to magnify it. 
 
 III. 
 
 This was the end of Sophia's romantic adventures in France. 
 Soon afterwards the Germans entered Paris, by mutual agree- 
 ment, and made a point of seeing the Louvre, and departed, 
 
SUCCESS. 413 
 
 amid the silence of a city. For Sophia the conclusion of the 
 siege meant chiefly that prices went down. Long before 
 supplies from outside could reach Paris, the shop-windows 
 were suddenly full of goods which had arrived from the 
 shopkeepers alone knew where. Sophia, with the stock in 
 her cellar, could have held out for several weeks more, and it 
 annoyed her that she had not sold more of her good things 
 while good things were worth gold. The signing of a treaty 
 at Versailles reduced the value of Sophia's two remaining 
 hams from about five pounds apiece to the usual price of hams. 
 However, at the end of January she found herself in posses- 
 sion of a capital of about eight thousand francs, all the furni- 
 ture of the flat, and a reputation. She had earned it all. 
 Nothing could destroy the structure of her beauty, but she 
 looked worn and appreciably older. She wondered often 
 when Chirac would return. She might have written to 
 Carlier or to the paper ; but she did not. It was Niepce who 
 discovered in a newspaper that Chirac's balloon had mis- 
 carried. At the moment the news did not affect her at 
 all ; but after several days she began to feel her loss in a 
 dull sort of way; and she felt it more and more, though 
 never acutely. She was perfectly convinced that Chirac 
 could never have attracted her powerfully. She continued 
 to dream, at rare intervals, of the kind of passion that would 
 have satisfied her, glowing but banked down like a fire in some 
 fine chamber of a rich but careful household. 
 
 She was speculating upon what her future would be, and 
 whether by inertia she was doomed to stay for ever in the 
 Rue Breda, when the Commune caught her. She was more 
 vexed than frightened by the Commune ; vexed that a city 
 so in need of repose and industry should indulge in such 
 antics. For many people the Commune was a worse ex- 
 perience than the siege; but not for Sophia. She was a 
 woman and a foreigner. Niepce was infinitely more dis- 
 turbed than Sophia ; he went in fear of his life. Sophia would 
 go out to market and take her chances. It is true that 
 during one period the whole population of the house went 
 to live in the cellars, and orders to the butcher and other 
 tradesmen were given over the party- wall into the adjoining 
 courtyard, which communicated with an alley. A strange 
 existence, and possibly perilous ! But the women who 
 passed through it, and had also passed through the siege, 
 were not very much intimidated by it, unless they happened 
 to have husbands or lovers who were active politicians. 
 
 Sophia did not cease, during the greater part of the year 
 1 87 1, to make a living and to save money. She watched 
 
4 I4 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 every sou, and she developed a tendency to demand from 
 her tenants all that they could pay. She excused this to 
 herself by ostentatiously declaring every detail of her prices 
 in advance. It came to the same thing in the end, with this 
 advantage, that the bills did not lead to unpleasantness. 
 Her difficulties commenced when Paris at last definitely 
 resumed its normal aspect and life, when all the women and 
 children came back to those city termini which they had 
 left in such huddled, hysterical throngs, when flats were re- 
 opened that had long been shut, and men who for a whole 
 year had had the disadvantages and the advantages of being 
 without wife and family, anchored themselves once more to 
 the hearth. Then it was that Sophia failed to keep all her 
 rooms let. She could have let them easily and constantly 
 and at high rents ; but not to men without encumbrances. 
 Nearly every day she refused attractive tenants in pretty hats, 
 or agreeable gentlemen who only wanted a room on condition 
 that they might offer hospitality to a dashing petticoat. It 
 was useless to proclaim aloud that her house was " serious." 
 The ambition of the majority of these joyous persons was to 
 live in a " serious " house, because each was sure that at 
 bottom he or she was a " serious " person, and quite different 
 from the rest of the joyous world. The character of Sophia's 
 flat, instead of repelling the wrong kind of aspirant, infallibly 
 drew just that kind. Hope was inextinguishable in these 
 bosoms. They heard that there would be no chance for 
 them at Sophia's ; but they tried nevertheless. And 
 occasionally Sophia would make a mistake, and grave un- 
 pleasantness would occur before the mistake could be recti- 
 fied. The fact was that the street was too much for her. 
 Few people would credit that there was a serious boarding- 
 house in the Rue Breda. The police themselves would not 
 credit it. And Sophia's beauty was against her. At that 
 time the Rue Br6da was perhaps the most notorious street 
 in the centre of Paris ; at the height of its reputation as a 
 warren of individual improprieties ; most busily creating 
 that prejudice against itself which, over thirty years later, 
 forced the authorities to change its name in obedience to 
 the wish of its tradesmen. When Sophia went out at about 
 eleven o'clock in the morning with her reticule to buy, the 
 street was littered with women who had gone out' with 
 reticules to buy. But whereas Sophia was fully dressed, 
 and wore headgear, the others were in dressing-gown and 
 slippers, or opera-cloak and slippers, having slid directly out 
 of unspeakable beds and omitted to brush their hair out of 
 their puffy eyes. In the little shops of the Rue Breda, the 
 
SUCCESS. 415 
 
 Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, and the Rue des Martyrs, you 
 were very close indeed to the primitive instincts of human 
 nature. It wa^ wonderful ; it was amusing ; it was ex- 
 citingly picturesque ; and the universality of the manners 
 rendered moral indignation absurd. But the neighbourhood 
 was certainly not one in which a woman of Sophia's race, 
 training, and character could comfortably earn a living, or 
 •ven exist. She could not fight against the entire street. 
 She, and not the street, was out of place and in the wrong. 
 Little wonder that the neighbours lifted their"shoulders when 
 they spoke of her ! What beautiful woman but a mad 
 Englishwoman would have had the idea of establishing her- 
 self in the Rue Breda with the intention of living like a nun 
 and compelling others to do the same ? 
 
 By dint of continual ingenuity, Sophia contrived to win 
 somewhat more than her expenses, but she was slowly driven 
 to admit to herself that the situation could not last. 
 
 Then one day she saw in Galignani's Messenger an adver- 
 tisement of an English pension for sale in the Rue Lord Byron, 
 in the Champs Elysees quarter. It belonged to some people 
 named Frensham, and had enjoyed a certain popularity 
 before the war. The proprietor and his wife, however, had 
 not sufficiently allowed for the vicissitudes of politics in 
 Paris. Instead of saving money during their popularity, 
 they had put it on the back and on the fingers of Mrs. 
 Frensham. The siege and the Commune had almost ruined 
 them. With capital they might have restored themselves 
 to their former pride ; but their capital was exhausted. 
 Sophia answered the advertisement. She impressed the 
 Frenshams, who were delighted with the prospect of dealing 
 in business with an honest English face. Like many English 
 people abroad, they were most strangely obsessed by the notion 
 that they had quitted an island of honest men to live among 
 thieves and robbers. They always implied that dishonesty 
 was unknown in Eritain. They offered, if she would take 
 over the lease, to sell all their furniture and their renown for 
 ten thousand francs. She declined, the price seeming absurd 
 to her. When they asked her to name a price, she said that 
 she preferred not to do so. Upon entreaty, she said four 
 thousand francs. They then allowed her to see that they 
 considered her to have been quite right in hesitating to name 
 a price so ridiculous. And their confidence in the honest 
 English face seemed to have been shocked. Sophia left. 
 When she got back to the Rue Breda she was relieved that 
 the matter had come to nothing. She did not precisely fore- 
 see what her future was to be, but at any rate she knew she 
 
4 i6 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 shrank from the responsibility of the Pension Frensham. 
 The next morning she received a letter offering to accept six 
 thousand. She wrote and declined. She* was indifferent, 
 and she would not budge from four thousand. The Fren- 
 shams gave way. They were pained, but they gave way. 
 The glitter of four thousand francs in cash, and freedom, 
 was too tempting. 
 
 Thus Sophia became the proprietress of the Pension 
 Frensham in the cold and correct Rue Lord Byron. She 
 made room in' it for nearly all her other furniture, so that 
 instead of being under-furnished, as pensions usually are, 
 it was over- furnished. She was extremely timid at first, 
 for the rent alone was four thousand francs a year ; and the 
 prices of the quarter were alarmingly different from those of 
 the Rue Breda. She lost a lot of sleep. For some nights, 
 after she had been installed in the Rue Lord Byron about a 
 fortnight, she scarcely slept at all, and she ate no more than 
 she slept. She cut down expenditure to the very lowest, and 
 frequently walked over to the Rue Breda to do her marketing. 
 With the aid of a charwoman at six sous an hour she accom- 
 plished everything. And though clients were few, the feat 
 was in the nature of a miracle ; for Sophia had to cook. 
 
 The articles which George Augustus Sala wrote under the 
 title " Paris herself again " ought to have been paid for in 
 gold by the hotel and pension-keepers of Paris. They 
 awakened the English curiosity and the desire to witness 
 the scene of terrible events. Their effect was immediately 
 noticeable. In less than a year after her adventurous pur- 
 chase, Sophia had acquired confidence, and she was employ- 
 ing two servants, working them very hard at low wages. 
 She had also acquired the landlady's manner. She was 
 known as Mrs. Frensham. Across the balconies of two win- 
 dows the Frenshams had left a gilded sign, " Pension 
 Frensham," and Sophia had not removed it. She often 
 explained that her name was not Frensham ; but in vain. 
 Every visitor inevitably and persistently addressed her 
 according to the sign. It was past the general comprehension 
 that the proprietress of the Pension Frensham might bear 
 another name than Frensham. But later there came into 
 being a class of persons, habitues of the Pension Frensham, 
 who knew the real name of the proprietress and were proud 
 of knowing it, and by this knowledge were distinguished 
 from the herd. What struck Sophia was the astounding simi- 
 larity of her guests. They all asked the same questions, made 
 the same exclamations, went out on the same excursions, 
 returned with the same judgments, and exhibited the same 
 
SUCCESS. 417 
 
 unimpaired assurance that foreigners were really very peculiar 
 people. They never seemed to advance in knowledge. There 
 was a constant stream of explorers from England who had 
 to be set on their way to the Louvre or the Bon Marche. 
 
 Sophia's sole interest was in her profits. The excellence 
 of her house was firmly established. She kept it up, and she 
 kept the modest prices up. Often she had to refuse guests. 
 She naturally did so with a certain distant condescension. 
 Her manner to guests increased in stiff formality ; and she 
 was excessively firm with undesirables. She grew to be 
 seriously convinced that no pension as good as hers existed 
 in the world, or ever had existed, or ever could exist. Hers 
 was the acme of niceness and respectability. Her prefer- 
 ence for the respectable rose to a passion. And there were no 
 faults in her establishment. Even the once despised showy 
 furniture of Madame Foucault had mysteriously changed 
 into the best conceivable furniture ; and its cracks were 
 hallowed. 
 
 She never heard a word of Gerald nor of her family. In 
 the thousands of people who stayed under her perfect roof, 
 not one mentioned Bursley nor disclosed a knowledge of 
 anybody that Sophia had known. Several men had the wit 
 to propose marriage to her with more or less skilfulness, but 
 none of them was skilful enough to perturb her heart. She 
 had forgotten the face of love. She was a landlady. She 
 was the landlady : efficient, stylish, diplomatic, and tre- 
 mendously experienced. There was no trickery, no base- 
 ness of Parisian life that she was not acquainted with and 
 armed against. She could not be startled and she could not 
 be swindled. 
 
 Years passed, until there was a vista of years behind her. 
 Sometimes she would think, in an unoccupied moment, " How 
 strange it is that I should be here, doing what I am doing ! " 
 But the regular ordinariness of her existence would instantly 
 seize her again. At the end of 1878, the Exhibition Year, 
 her Pension consisted of two floors instead of one, and slie had 
 turned the two hundred pounds stolen from Gerald into over 
 two thousand. 
 
 14 
 
BOOK IV. 
 WHAT LIFE IS, 
 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 frensham's. 
 
 Matthew Peel-Swynnerton sat in the long dining-room 
 of the Pension Frensham, Rue Lord Byron, Paris; and he 
 looked out of place there. It was an apartment about thirty 
 feet in length, and of the width of two windows, which 
 sufficiently lighted one half of a very long table with round 
 ends. The gloom of the other extremity was illumined by a 
 large mirror in a tarnished gilt frame, which filled a good 
 portion of the wall opposite the windows. Near the mirror 
 was a high folding-screen of four leaves, and behind this screen 
 could be heard the sound of a door continually shutting and 
 opening. In the long wall to the left of the windows were 
 two doors, one dark and important, a door of state, through 
 which a procession of hungry and a procession of sated solemn 
 self-conscious persons passed twice daily, and the other, a 
 smaller door, glazed, its glass painted with wreaths of roses, 
 not an original door of the house, but a late breach in the 
 wall, that seemed to lead to the dangerous and to the naughty. 
 The wall-paper and the window drapery were rich and for- 
 bidding, dark in hue, mysterious of pattern. Over the state- 
 door was a pair of antlers. And at intervals, so high up as 
 to defy inspection, engravings and oil-paintings made oblong 
 patches on the walls. They were hung from immense nails 
 with porcelain heads, and they appeared to depict the more 
 majestic aspect of man and nature. One engraving, over 
 the mantelpiece and nearer earth than the rest, unmistakably 
 showed Louis Philippe and his family in attitudes of virtue. 
 Beneath this royal group, a vast gilt clock, flanked by 
 pendants of the same period, gave the right time — a quarter 
 past seven. 
 
 And down the room, filling it, ran the great white table, 
 
422 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 bordered with bowed heads and the backs of chairs. Ther 
 were over thirty people at the table, and the peculiarl; 
 restrained noisiness of their knives and forks on the plate 
 proved that they were a discreet and a correct people. Thei 
 clothes — blouses, bodices, and jackets — did not flatter th 
 lust of the eye. Only two or three were in evening dress 
 They spoke little, and generally in a timorous tone, as thoug] 
 silence had been enjoined. Somebody would half -whisper ; 
 remark, and then his neighbour, absently fingering her brea< 
 and lifting gaze from her plate into vacancy, would con 
 scientiously weigh the remark and half-whisper in reply 
 " I dare say." But a few spoke loudly and volubly, and wer< 
 regarded by the rest, who envied them, as underbred. 
 
 Food was quite properly the chief preoccupation. Th< 
 diners ate as those eat who are paying a fixed price per da] 
 for as much as they can consume while observing the rules o 
 the game. Without moving their heads they glanced out o 
 the corners of their eyes, watching the manoeuvres of th< 
 three starched maids who served. They had no conceptioi 
 of food save as portions laid out in rows on large silver dishes 
 and when a maid bent over them deferentially, balancing th< 
 dish, they summed up the offering in an instant, and in ai 
 instant decided how much they could decently take, and t( 
 what extent they could practise the theoretic liberty of choice 
 And if the food for any reason did not tempt them, or if i 
 egregiously failed to coincide with their aspirations, the] 
 considered themselves aggrieved. For, according to th< 
 game, they might not command ; they had the right t< 
 seize all that was presented under their noses, like gentee 
 tigers ; and they had the right to refuse : that was all 
 The dinner was thus a series of emotional crises for th< 
 diners, who knew only that full dishes and clean plates cam< 
 endlessly from the banging door behind the screen, and thai 
 ravaged dishes and dirty plates vanished endlessly througl 
 the same door. They were all eating similar food simul 
 taneously ; they began together and they finished together 
 The flies that haunted the paper-bunches which hung fron 
 the chandeliers to the level of the flower-vases, were mon 
 free. The sole event that chequered the exact regularity o: 
 the repast was the occasional arrival of a wine-bottle for om 
 of the guests. The receiver of the wine-bottle signed a small 
 paper in exchange for it and wrote largely a number on th€ 
 label of the bottle ; then, staring at the number and fearing 
 that after all it might be misread by a stupid maid or an un- 
 scrupulous compeer, he would re-write the number on anothei 
 part of the label, even more largely. 
 
FRENSHAM'S. 423 
 
 Matthew Peel-Swynnerton obviously did not belong co this 
 rorld. He was a young man of twenty-five or so, not hand- 
 ome, but elegant. Though he was not in evening dress, 
 hough he was, as a fact, in a very light grey suit, entirely 
 mproper to a dinner, he was elegant. The suit was admi- 
 ably cut, and nearly new ; but he wore it as though he had 
 Lever worn anything else. Also his demeanour, reserved 
 ret free from self-consciousness, his method of handling a 
 cnife and fork, the niceties of his manner in transferring 
 ood from the silver dishes to his plate, the tone in which he 
 >rdered half a bottle of wine — all these details infallibly 
 ndicated to the company that Matthew Peel-Swynnerton 
 >vas their superior. Some folks hoped that he was the son of 
 a lord, or even a lord. He happened to be fixed at the end of 
 the table, with his back to the window, and there was a vacant 
 :hair on either side of him ; this situation favoured the hope 
 Df his high rank. In truth, he was the son, the grandson, 
 and several times the nephew, of earthenware manufacturers. 
 Be noticed that the large " compote " (as it was called in his 
 trade) which marked the centre of the table, was the produc- 
 tion of his firm. This surprised him, for Peel, Swynnerton 
 and Co., known and revered throughout the Five Towns 
 as " Peels," did not cater for cheap markets. 
 
 A late guest startled the room, a fat, flabby, middle-aged 
 man whose nose would have roused the provisional hostility 
 of those who have convinced themselves that Jews are not as 
 other men. His nose did not definitely brand him as a 
 usurer and a murderer of Christ, but it was suspicious. His 
 clothes hung loose, and might have been anybody's clothes. 
 He advanced with brisk assurance to the table, bowed, some- 
 what too effusively, to several people, and sat down next to 
 Peel-Swynnerton. One of the maids at once brought him a 
 plate of soup, and he said : " Thank you, Marie," smiling at 
 her. He was evidently a habitu6 of the house. His spec- 
 tacled eyes beamed the superiority which comes of knowing 
 girls by their names. He was seriously handicapped in the 
 race for sustenance, being two and a half courses behind^ but 
 he drew level with speed and then, having accomplished 
 this, he sighed, and pointedly engaged Peel-Swynnerton with 
 his sociable glance. 
 
 " Ah ! " he breathed out. " Nuisance when you come in 
 late, sir ! " 
 
 Peel-Swynnerton gave a reluctant affirmative. 
 
 " Doesn't only upset you ! It upsets the house ! Serv- 
 ants don't like it ! " 
 
 " No," murmured Peel-Swynnerton, " I suppose not." 
 
4 2 4 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " However, it's not often 7'm late," said the man. " Can't 
 help it sometimes. Business ! Worst of these French busi- 
 ness people is that they've no notion of time. Appoint- 
 ments . . . ! God bless my soul ! " 
 
 " Do you come here often ? " asked Peel-Swynnerton. He 
 detested the fellow, quite inexcusably, perhaps because his 
 serviette was tucked under his chin ; but he saw that the 
 fellow was one of your determined talkers, who always win 
 in the end. Moreover, as being clearly not an ordinary 
 tourist in Paris, the fellow mildly excited his curiosity. 
 
 " I live here," said the other. " Very convenient for a 
 bachelor, you know. Have done for years. My office is 
 just close by. You may know my name — Lewis Mardon." 
 
 Peel-Swynnerton hesitated. The hesitation convicted him 
 of not " knowing his Paris " well. 
 
 ". House-agent," said Lewis Mardon, quickly. 
 
 " Oh yes," said Peel-Swynnerton, vaguely recalling a vision 
 of the name among the advertisements on newspaper kiosks. 
 
 " I expect," Mr. Mardon went on, " my name is as well- 
 known as anybody's in Paris." 
 
 " I suppose so," assented Peel-Swynnerton. 
 
 The conversation fell for a few moments. 
 
 " Staying here long ? " Mr. Mardon demanded, having 
 added up Peel-Swynnerton as a man of style and of means, 
 and being puzzled by his presence at that table. 
 
 " I don't know," said Peel-Swynnerton. 
 
 This was a lie, justified in the utterer's opinion as a repulse 
 to Mr. Mardon 's vulgar inquisitiveness, such inquisitiveness 
 as might have been expected from a fellow who tucked his 
 serviette under his chin. Peel-Swynnerton knew exactly 
 how long he would stay. Pie would stay until the day after 
 the morrow ; he had only about fifty francs in his pocket. 
 He had been making a fool of himself in another quarter of 
 Paris, and he had descended to the Pension Frensham as a 
 place where he could be absolutely sure of spending not more 
 than twelve francs a day. Its reputation was high, and it 
 was convenient for the Galliera Museum, where he was 
 making some drawings which he had come to Paris expressly 
 to make, and without which he could not reputably return to 
 England. He was capable of foolishness, but he was also 
 capable of wisdom, and scarcely any pressure of need would 
 have induced him to write home for money to replace the 
 money spent on making himself into a fool. 
 
 Mr. Mardon was conscious of a check. But, being of an 
 accommodating disposition, he at once tried another direction. 
 
 " Good food here, eh ? " he suggested. 
 
FRENSHAM'S. 425 
 
 " Very," said i-'eel-Swynnerton, with sincerity. " I was 
 quite " 
 
 At that moment, a tall straight woman of uncertain age 
 pushed open the principal door and stood for an instant in 
 the doorway. Peel-Swynnerton had just time to notice 
 that she was handsome and pale, and that her hair was black, 
 and then she was gone again, followed by a clipped poodle 
 that accompanied her. She had signed with a brief gesture 
 to one of the servants, who at once set about lighting the gas- 
 jets over the table. 
 
 " Who is that ? " asked Peel-Swynnerton, without reflect- 
 ing that it was now he who was making advances to the 
 fellow whose napkin covered all his shirt-front. 
 
 " That's the missis, that is," said Mr. Mardon, in a lower 
 and semi-confidential voice. 
 
 " Oh ! Mrs. Frensham ? " 
 
 " Yes. But her real name is Scales," said Mr. Mardon, 
 proudly. 
 
 " Widow, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And she runs the whole show ? " 
 
 " She runs the entire contraption," said Mr. Mardon, 
 solemnly ; " and don't you make any mistake ! " He was 
 getting familiar. 
 
 Peel-Swynnerton beat him off once more, glancing with 
 careful, uninterested nonchalance at the gas-burners which 
 exploded one after another with a little plop under the appli- 
 cation of the maid's taper. The white table gleamed more 
 whitely than ever under the flaring gas. People at the end 
 of the room away from the window instinctively smiled, as 
 though the sun had begun to shine. The aspect of the dinner 
 was changed, ameliorated ; and with the reiterated statement 
 that the evenings were drawing in though it was only July, 
 conversation became almost general. In two minutes Mr. 
 Mardon was genially talking across the whole length of the 
 table. The meal finished in a state that resembled^ con- 
 viviality. 
 
 Matthew Peel-Swynnerton might not go out into the 
 crepuscular delights of Paris. Unless he remained within 
 the shelter of the Pension, he could not hope to complete 
 successfully his re-conversion from folly to wisdom. So he 
 bravely passed through the small rose-embroidered door 
 into a small glass-covered courtyard, furnished with palms, 
 wicker armchairs, and two small tables ; and he lighted a 
 
 ?ipe and pulled out of his pocket a copy of The Referee. 
 hat retreat was called the Lounge ; it was the only part of 
 14 a 
 
426 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 the Pension where smoking was not either a positive crime or 
 a transgression against good form. He felt lonely. He said 
 to himself grimly in one breath that pleasure was all rot, and 
 in the next he sullenly demanded of the universe how it was 
 that pleasure could not go on for ever, and why he was not 
 Mr. Barney Barnato. Two old men entered the retreat and 
 burnt cigarettes with many precautions. Then Mr. Lewis 
 Mardon appeared and sat down boldly next to Matthew, 
 like a privileged friend. After all, Mr. Mardon was better 
 than nobody whatever, and Matthew decided to suffer him, 
 especially as he began without preliminary skirmishing to 
 talk about life in Paris. An irresistible subject ! Mr. 
 Mardon said in a worldly tone that the existence of a bachelor 
 in Paris might easily be made agreeable. But that, of course, 
 for himself — well, he preferred, as a general rule, the Pension 
 Frensham sort of thing ; and it was excellent for his business. 
 Still he could not ... he knew . . . He compared the ad- 
 vantages of what he called " knocking about " in Paris, with 
 the equivalent in London. His information about London 
 was out of date, and Peel-Swynnerton was able to set him 
 right on important details. But his information about Paris 
 was infinitely precious and interesting to the younger man, 
 who saw that he had hitherto lived under strange miscon- 
 ceptions. 
 
 " Have a whiskey ? " asked Mr. Mardon, suddenly. " Very 
 good here ! " he added. 
 
 " Thanks ! " drawled Peel-Swynnerton. 
 
 The temptation to listen to Mr. Mardon as long as Mr. 
 Mardon would talk was not to be overcome. And presently, 
 when the old men had departed, they were frankly telling 
 each other stories in the dimness of the retreat. Then, 
 when the supply of stories came to an end, Mr. Mardon 
 smacked his lips over the last drop of whiskey and ejaculated : 
 " Yes ! " as if giving a general confirmation to all that had 
 been said. 
 
 " Do have one with me," said Matthew, politely. It was 
 the least he could do. 
 
 The second supply of whiskeys was brought into the 
 Lounge by Mr. Mardon 's Marie. He smiled on her familiarly, 
 and remarked that he supposed she would soon be going to 
 bed after a hard day's work. She gave a moue and a flounce 
 in reply, and swished out. 
 
 " Carries herself well, doesn't she ? " observed Mr. Mardon, 
 as though Marie had been an exhibit at an agricultural show. 
 " Ten years ago she was very fresh and pretty, but of course 
 it takes it out of 'em, a place like this 1 
 
FRENSHAM'S. 427 
 
 " But still," said Peel-Swynnerton, " they must like it or 
 they wouldn't stay — that is, unless things are very different 
 here from what they are in England." 
 
 The conversation seemed to have stimulated him to 
 examine the woman question in all its bearings, with philo- 
 sophic curiosity. 
 
 " Oh ! They like it," Mr. Mardon assured him, as one who 
 knew. " Besides, Mrs. Scales treats 'em very well. I know 
 that. She's told me. She's very particular " — he looked 
 around to see if walls had ears — " and, by jove, you've got 
 to be ; but she treats 'em well. You'd scarcely believe the 
 wages they get, and pickings. Now at the Hotel Moscow — 
 know the Hotel Moscow ? " 
 
 Happily Peel-Swynnerton did. He had been advised to 
 avoid it because it catered exclusively for English visitors, 
 but in the Pension Frensham he had accepted something 
 even more exclusively British than the Hotel Moscow. Mr. 
 Mardon was quite relieved at his affirmative. 
 
 " The Hotel Moscow is a limited company now," said he ; 
 
 English." 
 
 " Really ? " 
 
 " Yes. I floated it. It was my idea. A great success ! 
 That's how I know all about the Hotel Moscow." He 
 looked at the walls again. " I wanted to do the same here," 
 he murmured, and Peel-Swynnerton had to show that he 
 appreciated this confidence. " But she never would agree. 
 I've tried her all ways. No go ! It's a thousand pities." 
 
 " Paying thing, eh ? " 
 
 " This place ? I should say it was ! And I ought to be 
 able to judge, I reckon. Mrs. Scales is one of the shrewdest 
 women you'd meet in a day's march. She's made a lot of 
 money here, a lot of money. And there's no reason why a 
 place like this shouldn't be five times as big as it is. Ten 
 times. The scope's unlimited, my dear sir. All that's wanted 
 is capital. Naturally she has capital of her own, and she 
 could get more. But then, as she says, she doesn't want the 
 
 Elace any bigger. She says it's now just as big as she can 
 andle. That isn't so. She's a woman who could handle 
 anything — a born manager — but even if it was so, all she 
 would have to do would be to retire — only leave us the place 
 and the name. It's the name that counts. And she's 
 made the name of Frensham worth something, I can tell 
 you ! " 
 
 " Did she get the place from her husband ? " asked Peel- 
 Swynnerton. Her own name of Scales intrigued him. 
 
 Mr. Mardon shook his head. " Bought it on her own, after 
 
428 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 the husband's time, for a song — a song ! I know, because I 
 knew the original Frenshams." 
 
 " You must have been in Paris a long time," said Peel- 
 Swynnerton. 
 
 Mr. Mardon could never resist an opportunity to talk about 
 himself. His was a wonderful history. And Peel-Swynner- 
 ton, while scorning the man for his fatuity, was impressed. 
 And when that was finished — 
 
 " Yes ! " said Mr. Mardon after a pause, reaffirming every- 
 thing in general by a single monosyllable. 
 
 Shortly afterwards he rose, saying that his habits were 
 regular. 
 
 " Good-night," he said with a mechanical smile. 
 
 " G-good-night," said Peel-Swynnerton, trying to force the 
 tone of fellowship and not succeeding. Their intimacy, 
 which had sprung up like a mushroom, suddenly fell into 
 dust. Peel-Swynnerton 's unspoken comment to Mr. Mar- 
 don's back was : " Ass ! " Still, the sum of Peel-Swynner- 
 ton's knowledge had indubitably been increased during the 
 evening. And the hour was yet early. Half-past ten ! 
 The Folies-Marigny, with its beautiful architecture and its 
 crowds of white toilettes, and its frothing of champagne 
 and of beer, and its musicians in tight red coats, was just 
 beginning to be alive — and at a distance of scarcely a stone's- 
 throw ! Peel-Swynnerton pictured the terraced, glittering 
 hall, which had been the prime origin of his exceeding fool- 
 ishness. And he pictured all the other resorts, great and 
 small, garlanded with white lanterns, in the Champs 
 Elysees ; and the sombre aisles of the Champs Elys6es where 
 mysterious pale figures walked troublingly under the shade 
 of trees, while snatches of wild song or absurd brassy music 
 floated up from the resorts and restaurants. He wanted to 
 go out and spend those fifty francs that remained in his pocket. 
 After all, why not telegraph to England for more money ? 
 " Oh, damn it ! " he said savagely, and stretched his arms 
 and got up. The Lounge was very small, gloomy and 
 dreary. 
 
 One brilliant incandescent light burned in the hall, crudely 
 illuminating the wicker fauteuils, a corded trunk with a blue- 
 and-red label on it, a Fitzroy barometer, a map of Paris, a 
 coloured poster of the Compagnie Transatlantique, and the 
 mahogany retreat of the hall-portress. In that retreat was 
 not only the hall-portress — an aged woman with a white 
 cap above her wrinkled pink face — but the mistress of the 
 establishment. They were murmuring together softly ; they 
 seemed to be well disposed to one another. The portress was 
 
FRENSHAM'S. 429 
 
 respectful, but the mistress was respectful also. The hall, 
 with its one light tranquilly burning, was bathed in an honest 
 calm, the calm of a day's work accomplished, of gradual re- 
 laxation from tension, of growing expectation of repose. 
 In its simplicity it affected Peel-Swynnerton as a medicine 
 tonic for nerves might have affected him. In that hall, 
 though exterior nocturnal life was but just stirring into 
 activity, it seemed that the middle of the night had come, 
 and that these two women alone watched in a mansion full 
 of sleepers. And all the recitals which Peel-Swynnerton and 
 Mr. Mardon had exchanged sank to the level of pitiably fool- 
 ish gossip. Peel-Swynnerton felt that his duty to the house 
 was to retire to bed. He felt, too, that he could not leave 
 the house without saying that he was going out, and that he 
 lacked the courage deliberately to tell these two women he 
 was going out — at that time of night ! He dropped into 
 one of the chairs and made a second attempt to peruse The 
 Referee. Useless ! Either his mind was outside in the Champs 
 Elysees, or his gaze would wander surreptitiously to the 
 figure of Mrs. Scales. He could not well distinguish her 
 face because it was in the shadow of the mahogany. 
 
 Then the portress came forth from her box, and, slightly 
 bent, sped actively across the hall, smiling pleasantly at the 
 guest as she passed him, and disappeared up the stairs. 
 The mistress was alone in the retreat. Peel-Swynnerton 
 jumped up brusquely, dropping the paper with a rustle, and 
 approached her. 
 
 " Excuse me," he said deferentially. " Have any letters 
 come for me to-night.? " 
 
 He knew that the arrival of letters for him was impossible, 
 since nobody knew his address. 
 
 " What name ? " The question was coldly polite, and the 
 questioner looked him full in the face. Undoubtedly she was 
 a handsome woman. Her hair was greying at the temples, 
 and the skin was withered and crossed with lines. But she 
 was handsome. She was one of those women of whom to their 
 last on earth the stranger will say : " When she was ^ young 
 she must have been worth looking at ! " — with a little tran- 
 sient regret that beautiful young women cannot remain for 
 ever young. Her voice was firm and even, sweet in tone, and 
 yet morally harsh from incessant traffic with all varieties of 
 human nature. Her eyes were the impartial eyes of one who 
 is always judging. And evidently she was a proud, even a 
 haughty creature, with her careful, controlled politeness. 
 Evidently she considered herself superior to no matter what 
 guest. Her eyes announced that she had lived and learnt, 
 
430 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 that she knew more about life than any one whom she was 
 likely to meet, and that having pre-eminently succeeded in 
 life, she had tremendous confidence in herself. The proof 
 of her success was the unique Frensham's. A consciousness 
 of the uniqueness of Frensham's was also in those eyes. 
 Theoretically Matthew Peel-Swynnerton' s mental attitude 
 towards lodging-house keepers was condescending, but here 
 it was not condescending. It had the real respectfulness of a 
 man who for the moment at any rate is impressed beyond 
 his calculations. His glance fell as he said — 
 
 " Peel-Swynnerton." Then he looked up again. 
 
 He said the words awkwardly, and rather fearfully, as if 
 aware that he was playing with fire. If this Mrs. Scales was 
 the long-vanished aunt of his friend, Cyril Povey, she must 
 know those two names, locally so famous. Did she start ? 
 Did she show a sign of being perturbed ? At first he thought 
 he detected a symptom of emotion, but in an instant he was 
 sure that he had detected nothing of the sort, and that it was 
 silly to suppose that he was treading on the edge of a romance. 
 Then she turned toward the letter-rack at her side, and he saw 
 her face in profile. It bore a sudden and astonishing likeness 
 to the profile of Cyril Povey ; a resemblance unmistakable 
 and finally decisive. The nose and the curve of the upper 
 Up were absolutely Cyril's. Matthew Peel-Swynnerton felt 
 very queer. He felt like a criminal in peril of being caught 
 in the act, and he could not understand why he should feel 
 so. The landlady looked in the " P " pigeon-hole, and in the 
 " S " pigeon-hole. 
 
 "No," she said quietly, " I see nothing for you." 
 
 Taken with a swift rash audacity, he said : " Have you 
 had any one named Povey here recently ? " 
 
 " Povey ? " 
 
 " Yes. Cyril Povey, of Bursley — in the Five Towns." 
 
 He was very impressionable, very sensitive, was Matthew 
 Peel-Swynnerton. His voice trembled as he spoke. But 
 hers also trembled in reply. 
 
 " Not that I remember ! No ! Were you expecting him 
 to be here ? " 
 
 " Well, it wasn't at all sure," he muttered. " Thank you. 
 Good-night." 
 
 " Good-night," she said, apparently with the simple per- 
 functoriness of the landlady who says good-night to dozens 
 of strangers every evening. 
 
 He hurried away upstairs, and met the portress coming 
 down. " Well, well ! " he thought. "Of all the queer 
 things ! " And he kept nodding his head. At last he 
 
FRENSHAM'S. 431 
 
 had encountered something really strange in the spectacle 
 of existence. It had fallen to him to discover the legendary 
 woman who had fled from Bursley before he was born, and 
 of whom nobody knew anything. What news for Cyril ! 
 What a staggering episode ! He had scarcely any sleep that 
 night. He wondered whether he would be able to meet Mrs. 
 Scales without self-consciousness on the morrow. However, 
 he was spared the curious ordeal of meeting her. She did 
 not appear at all on the following day ; nor did he see her 
 before he left. He could not find a pretext for asking why 
 she was invisible. 
 
 II. 
 
 The hansom of Matthew Peel-Swynnerton drew up in front 
 of No. 26, Victoria Grove, Chelsea ; his kit-bag was on the 
 roof of the cab. The cabman had a red flower in his button- 
 hole. Matthew leaped out of the vehicle, holding his straw 
 hat on his head with one hand. On reaching the pavement 
 he checked himself suddenly and became carelessly calm. 
 Another straw-hatted and grey-clad figure was standing at 
 the side-gate of No. 26 in the act of lighting a cigarette. 
 
 " Hello, Matt ! " exclaimed the second figure, languidly, 
 and in a veiled voice due to the fact that he was still holding 
 the match to the cigarette and puffing. " What's the mean- 
 ing of all this fluster ? You're just the man I want to see." 
 
 He threw away the match with a wave of the arm, and 
 took Matthew's hand for a moment, blowing a double shaft 
 of smoke through his nose. 
 
 " I want to see you, too," said Matthew. " And I've 
 only got a minute. I'm on my way to Euston. I must 
 catch the twelve-five." 
 
 He looked at his friend, and could positively see no feature 
 of it that was not a feature of Mrs. Scales 's face. Also, the 
 elderly woman held her body in exactly the same way as 
 the young man. It was entirely disconcerting. 
 
 " Have a cigarette," answered Cyril Povey, imperturbably. 
 He was two years younger than Matthew, from whom he 
 had acquired most of his vast and intricate knowledge of 
 life and art, with certain leading notions of deportment ; 
 whose pupil indeed he was in all the things that matter to 
 young men. But he had already surpassed his professor. 
 He could pretend to be old much more successfully than 
 Matthew could. 
 
 The cabman approvingly watched the ignition of the 
 
32 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 econd cigarette, and then the cabman pulled out a cigar, 
 and showed his large, white teeth, as he bit the end on it. 
 The appearance and manner of his fare, the quality of the 
 kit-bag, and the opening gestures of the interview between 
 the two young dukes, had put the cabman in an optimistic 
 mood. He had no apprehensions of miserly and ungentle- 
 manly conduct by his fare upon the arrival at Euston. He 
 knew the language of the tilt of a straw hat. And it was a 
 magnificent day in London. The group of the two elegances 
 dominated by the perfection of the cabman made a striking 
 tableau of triumphant masculinity, content with itself, and 
 needing nothing. 
 
 Matthew lightly took Cyril's arm and drew him further 
 down the street, past the gate leading to the studio (hidden 
 behind a house) which Cyril rented. 
 
 " Look here, my boy," he began, "I've found your aunt." 
 
 " Well, that's very nice of you," said Cyril, solemnly. 
 " That's a friendly act. May I ask what aunt ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Scales," said Matthew. " You know " 
 
 " Not the " Cyril's face changed. 
 
 " Yes, precisely ! " said Matthew, feeling that he was not 
 being cheated of the legitimate joy caused by making a sen- 
 sation. Assuredly he had made a sensation in Victoria 
 Grove. 
 
 When he had related the whole story, Cyril said : " Then 
 she doesn't know you know ? " 
 
 " I don't think so. No, I'm sure she doesn't. She may 
 guess." 
 
 " But how can you be certain you haven't made a mis- 
 take ? It may be that " 
 
 " Look here, my boy," Matthew interrupted him. " I've 
 not made any mistake." 
 
 " But you've no proof." 
 
 " Proof be damned ! " said Matthew, nettled. " I tell you 
 it's her ! " 
 
 " Oh ! All right ! All right ! What puzzles me most is 
 what the devil you were doing in a place like that. Accord- 
 ing to your description of it, it must be a " 
 
 " I went there because I was broke," said Matthew. 
 
 " Razzle ? " 
 
 Matthew nodded. 
 
 " Pretty stiff, that ! " commented Cyril, when Matthew 
 had narrated the prologue to Frensham's. 
 
 " Well, she absolutely swore she never took less than two 
 hundred francs. And she looked it, too ! And she was 
 worth it ! I had the time of my life with that woman. I 
 
FRENSHAM'S. 433 
 
 can tell you one thing — no more English for me ! They 
 simply aren't in it." 
 
 " How old was she ? " 
 
 Matthew reflected judicially. " I should say she was 
 thirty." The gaze of admiration and envy was upon him. 
 He had the legitimate joy of making a second sensation. 
 " I'll let you know more about that when I come back," he 
 .added. " I can open your eyes, my child." 
 
 Cyril smiled sheepishly. " Why can't you stay now ? " 
 he asked. " I'm going to take the cast of that Verrall girl's 
 arm this afternoon, and I know I can't do it alone. And 
 Robson's no good. You're just the man I want." 
 
 " Can't ! " said Matthew. 
 
 " Well, come into the studio a minute, anyhow." 
 
 " Haven't time ; I shall miss my train." 
 
 " I don't care if you miss forty trains. You must come 
 in. You've got to see that fountain," Cyril insisted crossly. 
 
 Matthew yielded. When they emerged into the street 
 again, after six minutes of Cyril's savage interest in his own 
 work, Matthew remembered Mrs. Scales. 
 
 " Of course you'll write to your mother ? " he said. 
 
 " Yes," said Cyril, " I'll write ; but if you happen to see 
 her, you might tell her." 
 
 " I will," said Matthew. " Shall you go over to Paris ? " 
 
 " What ! To see Auntie ? " He smiled. " I don't know. 
 Depends. If the mater will fork out all my exes . . . it's 
 an idea," he said lightly, and then without any change of 
 tone, " Naturally, if you re going to idle about here all morn- 
 ing you aren't likely to catch the twelve-five." 
 
 Matthew got into the cab, while the driver, the stump of 
 a cigar between his exposed teeth, leaned forward and lifted 
 the reins away from the tilted straw hat. 
 
 " By-the-by, lend me some silver," Matthew demanded. 
 " It's a good thing I've got my return ticket. I've run it as 
 fine as ever I did in my life." 
 
 Cyril produced eight shillings in silver. Secure in the 
 possession of these riches, Matthew called to the driver — 
 
 " Euston — like hell ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the driver calmly. 
 
 " Not coming my way, I suppose ? " Matthew shouted as 
 an afterthought, just when the cab began to move. 
 
 " No. Barber's," Cyril shouted in answer, and waved his 
 hand. 
 
 The horse rattled into Fulham Road. 
 
434 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 III. 
 
 Three days later Matthew Peel-Swynnerton was walking 
 along Bursley Market Place when, just opposite the Town 
 Hall, he met a short, fat, middle-aged lady dressed in black, 
 with a black embroidered mantle, and a small bonnet tied 
 with black ribbon and ornamented with jet fruit and crape 
 leaves. As she stepped slowly and carefully forward she 
 had the dignified, important look of a provincial woman 
 who has always been accustomed to deference in her native 
 town, and whose income is ample enough to extort obsequi- 
 ousness from the vulgar of all ranks. But immediately she 
 caught sight of Matthew her face changed. She became 
 simple and naive. She blushed slightly, smiling with a timid 
 pleasure. For her, Matthew belonged to a superior race. 
 He bore the almost sacred name of Peel. His family had 
 been distinguished in the district for generations. " Peel ! " 
 You could without impropriety utter it in the same breath 
 with " Wedgwood." And " Swynnerton " stood not much 
 lower. Neither her self-respect, which was great, nor her 
 commonsense, which far exceeded the average, could enable 
 her to extend as far as the Peels the theory that one man is 
 as good as another. The Peels never shopped in St. Luke's 
 Square. Even in its golden days the Square could not have 
 expected such a condescension. The Peels shopped in Lon- 
 don or in Stafford ; at a pinch, in Oldcastle. That was the 
 distinction for the ageing stout lady in black. Why, she 
 had not in six years recovered from her surprise that her 
 son and Matthew Peel-Swynnerton treated each other rudely 
 as equals ! She and Matthew did not often meet, but they 
 liked each other. Her involuntary meekness flattered him. 
 And his rather elaborate homage flattered her. He admired 
 her fundamental goodness, and her occasional raps at Cyril 
 seemed to put him into ecstasies of joy. 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Povey," he greeted her, standing over her 
 with his hat raised. (It was a fashion he had picked up in 
 Paris.) " Here I am, you see." 
 
 " You're quite a stranger, Mr. Matthew. I needn't ask 
 you how you are. Have you been seeing anything of my 
 boy lately ? " 
 
 " Not since Wednesday," said Matthew. " Of course he's 
 written to you ? " 
 
 " There's no ' of course ' about it," she laughed faintly. 
 " I had a short letter from him on Wednesday morning. He 
 said you were in Paris." 
 
FRENSHAM'S. 435 
 
 " But since that — hasn't he written ? " 
 
 " If I hear from him on Sunday I shall be lucky, bless 
 ye ! " said Constance, grimly. " It's not letter-writing that 
 will kill Cyril." 
 
 " But do you mean to say he hasn't " Matthew 
 
 stopped. 
 
 " Whatever's amiss ? " asked Constance. 
 
 Matthew was at a loss to know what to do or say. " Oh, 
 nothing." 
 
 " Now, Mr. Matthew, do please " Constance's tone 
 
 had suddenly quite changed. It had become firm, command- 
 ing, and gravely suspicious. The conversation had ceased 
 to be small-talk for her. 
 
 Matthew saw how nervous and how fragile she was. He 
 had never noticed before that she was so sensitive to trifles, 
 though it was notorious that nobody could safely discuss 
 Cyril with her in terms of chaff. He was really astounded 
 at that youth's carelessness, shameful carelessness. That 
 Cyril's attitude to his mother was marked by a certain benev- 
 olent negligence — this Matthew knew ; but not to have 
 written to her with the important news concerning Mrs. Scales 
 was utterly inexcusable , and Matthew determined that he 
 would tell Cyril so. He felt very sorry for Mrs. Povey. She 
 seemed pathetic to him, standing there in ignorance of a 
 tremendous fact which she ought to have been aware of. He 
 was very content that he had said nothing about Mrs. Scales 
 to anybody except his own mother, who had prudently en- 
 joined silence upon him, saying that his one duty, having told 
 Cyril, was to keep his mouth shut until the Poveys talked. 
 Had it not been for his mother's advice he would assuredly 
 have spread the amazing tale, and Mrs. Povey might have 
 first heard of it from a stranger's gossip, which would have 
 been too cruel upon her. 
 
 " Oh 1 " Matthew tried to smile gaily, archly. " You're 
 bound to hear from Cyril to-morrow." 
 
 He wanted to persuade her that he was concealing merely 
 some delightful surprise from her. But he did not succeed. 
 With all his experience of the world and of women, he was 
 not clever enough to deceive that simple woman. 
 
 " I'm waiting, Mr. Matthew," she said, in a tone that 
 flattened the smile out of Matthew's sympathetic face. She 
 was ruthless. The fact was, she had in an instant convinced 
 herself that Cyril had met some girl and was engaged to 
 be married. She could think of nothing else. " What has 
 Cyril been doing ? " she added, after a pause. 
 
 " It's nothing to do with Cyril," said he. 
 
436 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Then what is it ? " 
 
 " It was about — Mrs. Scales," he murmured, nearly trem- 
 bling. As she offered no response, merely looking around 
 her in a peculiar fashion, he said : " Shall we walk along a 
 bit ? " And he turned in the direction in which she had 
 been going. She obeyed the suggestion. 
 
 " What did ye say ? " she asked. The name of Scales for 
 a moment had no significance for her. But when she com- 
 prehended it she was afraid, and so she said vacantly, as 
 though wishing to postpone a shock : " What did ye say ? " 
 
 " I said it was about Mrs. Scales. You know I m-met her 
 in Paris." And he was saying to himself : "I ought not to 
 be telling this poor old thing here in the street. But what 
 can I do ? " 
 
 " Nay, nay ! " she muttered. 
 
 She stopped and looked at him with a worried expression. 
 Then he observed that the hand that carried her reticule was 
 making strange purposeless curves in the air, and her rosy 
 face went the colour of cream, as though it had been painted 
 with one stroke of an unseen brush. Matthew was very 
 much put about. 
 
 " Hadn't you better " he began. 
 
 " Eh," she said ; "I must sit me " Her bag dropped. 
 
 He supported her to the door of Airman's shop, the iron- 
 monger's. Unfortunately, there were two steps up into the 
 shop, and she could not climb them. She collapsed like a 
 sack of flour on the first step. Young Edward Allman ran 
 to the door. He was wearing a black apron and fidgeting 
 with it in his excitement. 
 
 "Don't lift her up— don't try to lift her up, Mr. Peel- 
 Swynnerton ! " he cried, as Matthew instinctively began to 
 do the wrong thing. 
 
 Matthew stopped, looking a fool and feeling one, and he 
 and young Allman contemplated each other helpless for a 
 second across the body of Constance Povey. A part of the 
 Market Place now perceived that the unusual was occurring. 
 It was Mr. Shawcross, the chemist next door to Allman 's 
 who dealt adequately with the situation. He had seen all, 
 while selling a Kodak to a young lady, and he ran out with 
 salts. Constance recovered very rapidly. She had not quite 
 swooned. She gave a long sigh, and whispered weakly that 
 she was all right. The three men helped her into the lofty 
 dark shop, which smelt of nails and of stove-polish, and she 
 was balanced on a rickety chair. 
 
 " My word ! " exclaimed young Allman, in his loud voice, 
 when she could smile and the pink was returning reluctantly 
 
FRENSHAM'S. 437 
 
 to her cheeks. " You mustn't frighten us like that, Mrs. 
 Povey ! " 
 
 Matthew said nothing. He had at last created a genuine 
 sensation. Once again he felt like a criminal, and could not 
 understand why. 
 
 Constance announced that she would walk slowly home, 
 down the Cock-yard and along Wedgwood Street. But 
 when, glancing round in her returned strength, she saw the 
 hedge of faces at the doorway, she agreed with Mr. Shaw- 
 cross that she would do better to have a cab. Young All- 
 man went to the door and whistled to the unique cab that 
 stands for ever at the grand entrance to the Town Hall. 
 
 " Mr. Matthew will come with me," said Constance. 
 
 " Certainly, with pleasure," said Matthew. 
 
 And she passed through the little crowd of gapers on Mr. 
 Shawcross's arm. 
 
 " Just take care of yourself, missis," said Mr. Shawcross 
 to her, through the window of the cab. " It's fainting 
 weather, and we're none of us any younger, seemingly." 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " I'm awfully sorry I upset you, Mrs. Povey," said Mat- 
 thew, when the cab moved. 
 
 She shook her head, refusing his apology as unnecessary. 
 Tears filled her eyes. In less than a minute the cab had 
 stopped in front of Constance's light-grained door. She 
 demanded her reticule from Matthew, who had carried it 
 since it fell. She would pay the cabman. Never before had 
 Matthew permitted a woman to pay for a cab in which he 
 had ridden ; but there was no arguing with Constance. 
 Constance was dangerous. 
 
 Amy Bates, still inhabiting the cave, had seen the cab- 
 wheels through the grating of her window and had panted 
 up the kitchen stairs to open the door ere Constance had 
 climbed the steps. Amy, decidedly over forty, was a woman 
 of authority. She wanted to know what was the matter, 
 and Constance had to tell her that she had " felt unwell." 
 Amy took the hat and mantle and departed to prepare a cup 
 of tea. When they were alone Constance said to Matthew : 
 
 " Now, Mr. Matthew, will you please tell me?" 
 
 " It's only this," he began. 
 
 And as he told it, in quite a few words, it indeed had the 
 air of being " only that." And yet his voice shook, in sym- 
 pathy with the ageing woman's controlled but visible emotion. 
 It seemed to him that gladness should have filled the absurd 
 little parlour, but the spirit that presided had no name ; it 
 was certainly not joy. He himself felt very sad, desolated. 
 
438 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 He would have given much money to have been spared the 
 experience. He knew simply that in the memory of the 
 stout, comical, nice woman in the rocking-chair he had stirred 
 old, old things, wakened slumbers that might have been 
 eternal. He did not know that he was sitting on the very 
 spot where the sofa had been on which Samuel Povey lay 
 when a beautiful and shameless young creature of fifteen 
 extracted his tooth. He did not know that Constance was 
 sitting in the very chair in which the memorable Mrs. Baines 
 had sat in vain conflict with that same unconquerable girl. 
 He did not know ten thousand matters that were rushing 
 violently about in the vast heart of Constance. 
 
 She cross-questioned him in detail. But she did not put 
 the questions which he in his innocence expected ; such as, 
 if her sister looked old, if her hair was grey, if she was stout 
 or thin. And until Amy, mystified and resentful, had 
 served the tea, on a little silver tray, she remained compara- 
 tively calm. It was in the middle of a gulp of tea that she 
 broke down, and Matthew had to take the cup from her. 
 
 " I can't thank you, Mr. Matthew," she wept. " I couldn't 
 thank you enough." 
 
 " But I've done nothing," he protested. 
 
 She shook her head. " I never hoped for this. Never 
 hoped for it ! " she went on. " It makes me so happy — in 
 a way. . . . You mustn't take any notice of me. I'm silly. 
 You must kindly write down that address for me. And I 
 must write to Cyril at once. And I must see Mr. Critchlow." 
 
 " It's really very funny that Cyril hasn't written to you," 
 said Matthew. 
 
 " Cyril has not been a good son," she said with sudden, 
 solemn coldness. "To think that he should have kept 
 that . . . ! " She wept again. 
 
 At length Matthew saw the possibility of leaving. He felt 
 her warm, soft, crinkled hand round his fingers. 
 
 " You've behaved very nicely over this," she said. " And 
 very cleverly. In every thing — both over there and here. 
 Nobody could have shown a nicer feeling than you've shown. 
 It's a great comfort to me that my son has got you for a 
 friend." 
 
 When he thought of his escapades, and of all the know- 
 ledge, unutterable in Bursley, fantastically impossible in 
 Bursley, which he had imparted to her son, be marvelled 
 that the maternal instinct should be so deceived. Still, he 
 felt that her praise of him was deserved. 
 
 Outside, he gave vent to a "Phew " of relief. He smiled, 
 in his worldliest manner. But the smile was a sham. A 
 
FRENSHAM'S. 439 
 
 Eretence to himself ! A childish attempt to disguise from 
 imself how profoundly he had been moved by a natural 
 scene ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 On the night when Matthew Peel-Swynnerton spoke to 
 Mrs. Scales, Matthew was not the only person in the Pension 
 Frensham who failed to sleep. When the old portress came 
 downstairs from her errand, she observed that her mistress 
 was leaving the mahogany retreat. 
 
 " She is sleeping tranquilly, the poor one ! " said the 
 portress, discharging her commission, which had been to 
 learn the latest news of the mistress's indisposed dog, Fossette. 
 In saying this her ancient, vibrant voice was rich with sym- 
 pathy for the suffering animal. And she smiled. She was 
 rather like a figure out of an almshouse, with her pink, ap- 
 parently brittle skin, her tight black dress, and frilled white 
 cap. She stooped habitually, and always walked quickly, 
 with her head a few inches in advance of her feet. Her 
 grey hair was scanty. She was old ; nobody perhaps knew 
 exactly how old. Sophia had taken her with the Pension, 
 over a quarter of a century before, because she was old and 
 could not easily have found another place. Although the 
 clientele was almost exclusively English, she spoke only 
 French, explaining herself to Britons by means of benevo- 
 lent smiles. 
 
 " I think I shall go to bed, Jacqueline," said the mistress, 
 in reply. 
 
 A strange reply, thought Jacqueline. The unalterable cus- 
 tom of Jacqueline was to retire at midnight and to rise at 
 five-thirty. Her mistress also usually retired about mid- 
 night, and during the final hour mistress and portress saw a 
 good deal of each other. And considering that Jacqueline 
 had just been sent up into the mistress's own bedroom to 
 glance at Fossette, and that the bulletin was satisfactory, 
 and that madame and Jacqueline had several customary 
 daily matters to discuss, it seemed odd that madame should 
 thus be going instantly to bed. However, Jacqueline said 
 nothing but : 
 
 " Very well, madame. And the number 32 ? " 
 
 " Arrange yourself as you can," said the mistress, curtly. 
 
 " It is well, madame. Good evening, madame, and a good 
 night." 
 
 Jacqueline, alone in the hall, re-entered her box and set 
 
44Q THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 upon one of those endless, mysterious tasks which occupied 
 her when she was not rushing to and fro or whistling up the 
 tubes. 
 
 Sophia, scarcely troubling even to glance into Fossette's 
 round basket, undressed, put out the light, and got into bed. 
 She felt extremely and inexplicably gloomy. She did not 
 wish to reflect ; she strongly wished not to reflect ; but 
 her mind insisted on reflection — a monotonous, futile, and 
 distressing reflection. Povey ! Povey ! Could this be Con- 
 stance's Povey, the unique Samuel Povey ? That is to say, not 
 he, but his son, Constance's son. Had Constance a grown-up 
 son ? Constance must be over fifty now, perhaps a grand- 
 mother ! Had she really married Samuel Povey ? Possibly 
 she was dead. Certainly her mother must be dead, and 
 Aunt Harriet and Mr. Critchlow. If alive, her mother must 
 be at least eighty years of age. 
 
 The cumulative effect of merely remaining inactive when 
 one ought to be active, was terrible. Undoubtedly she 
 should have communicated with her family. It was silly 
 not to have done so. After all, even if she had, as a child, 
 stolen a trifle of money from her wealthy aunt, what would 
 that have mattered ? She had been proud. She was crim- 
 inally proud. That was her vice. She admitted it frankly. 
 But she could not alter her pride. Everybody had some 
 weak spot. Her reputation for sagacity, for commonsense, 
 was, she knew, enormous ; she always felt, when people were 
 talking to her, that they regarded her as a very unusually 
 wise woman. And yet she had been guilty of the capital 
 folly of cutting herself off from her family. She was ageing, 
 and she was alone in the world. She was enriching herself ; 
 she had the most perfectly managed and the most respect- 
 able Pension in the world (she sincerely believed), and she 
 was alone in the world. Acquaintances she had — French 
 people who never offered nor accepted hospitality other than 
 tea or wine, and one or two members of the English com- 
 mercial colony — but her one friend was Fossette, aged three 
 years ! She was the most solitary person on earth. She 
 had heard no word of Gerald, no word of anybody. Nobody 
 whatever could truly be interested in her fate. This was 
 what she had achieved after a quarter of a century of cease- 
 less labour and anxiety, during which she had not once been 
 away from the Rue Lord Byron for more than thirty hours 
 at a stretch. It was appalling — the passage of years ; and 
 the passage of years would grow more appalling. Ten years 
 hence, where would she be ? She pictured herself dying. 
 Horrible ! 
 
FRENSHAM'S. 
 
 Of course there was nothing to prevent her from g^ 
 back to Bursley and repairing the grand error of her girlhood. 
 No, nothing except the fact that her whole soul recoiled from 
 the mere idea of any such enterprise ! She was a fixture in 
 the Rue Lord Byron. She was a part of the street. She 
 knew all that happened or could happen there. She was 
 attached to it by the heavy chains of habit. In the chill 
 way of long use she loved it. There ! The incandescent 
 gas-burner of the street lamp outside had been turned down, 
 as it was turned down every night ! If it is possible to love 
 such a phenomenon, she loved that phenomenon. That 
 phenomenon was a portion of her life, dear to her. 
 
 An agreeable young man, that Peel-Swynnerton ! Then 
 evidently, since her days in Bursley, the Peels and the Swyn- 
 nertons, partners in business, must have intermarried or 
 there must have been some affair of a will. Did he suspect 
 who she was ? He had had a very self-conscious, guilty- 
 look. No ! He could not have suspected who she was. 
 The idea was ridiculous. Probably he did not even know 
 that her name was Scales. And even if he knew her name, 
 he had probably never heard of Gerald Scales or the story 
 of her flight. Why, he could not have been born until after 
 she had left Bursley ! Besides, the Peels were always quite 
 aloof from the ordinary social life of the town. No ! He 
 could not have suspected her identity. It was infantile to 
 conceive such a thing. 
 
 And yet, she inconsequently proceeded in the tangle of 
 her afflicted mind, supposing he had suspected it ! Suppos- 
 ing by some queer chance he had heard her forgotten story, 
 and casually put two and two together ! Supposing even 
 that he were merely to mention in the Five Towns that the 
 Pension Frensham was kept by a Mrs. Scales. "Scales?. 
 Scales ? " people might repeat. " Now, what does that re- 
 mind me of ? " And the ball might roll and roll till Con- 
 stance or somebody picked it up ! And then . . . 
 
 Moreover — a detail of which she had at first unaccount- 
 ably failed to mark the significance — this Peel-Swynnerton 
 was a friend of the Mr. Povey as to whom he had inquired. 
 ... In that case it could not be the same Povey. Impos- 
 sible that the Peels should be on terms of friendship with 
 Samuel Povey or his connections ! But supposing after all 
 they were ! Supposing something utterly unanticipated and 
 revolutionary had happened in the Five Towns ! 
 
 She was disturbed. She was insecure. She foresaw in- 
 quiries being made concerning her. She foresaw an immense 
 family fuss, endless tomfoolery, the upsetting of her exist- 
 
442 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 ence, the destruction of her calm. And she sank away from 
 that prospect. She could not face it. She did not want to 
 face it. " No," she cried passionately in her soul, " I've 
 lived alone, and I'll stay as I am. I can't change at my time 
 of life." And her attitude towards a possible invasion of her 
 solitude became one of resentment. " I won't have it ! I 
 won't have it ! I will be left alone. Constance ! What 
 can Constance be to me, or I to her, now ? " The vision of 
 any change in her existence was in the highest degree pain- 
 ful to her. And not only painful ! It frightened her. It 
 made her shrink. But she could not dismiss it. . . . She 
 could not argue herself out of it. The apparition of Matthew 
 Peel-Swynnerton had somehow altered the very stuff of her 
 fibres. 
 
 And surging on the outskirts of the central storm of her 
 brain were ten thousand apprehensions about the manage- 
 ment of the Pension. All was black, hopeless. . The Pension 
 might have been the most complete business failure that gross 
 carelessness and incapacity had ever provoked. Was it not 
 the fact that she had to supervise everything herself, that she 
 could depend on no one ? Were she to be absent even for a 
 single day the entire structure would inevitably fall. In- 
 stead of working less she worked harder. And who could 
 guarantee that her investments were safe ? 
 
 When dawn announced itself, slowly discovering each 
 object in the chamber, she was ill. Fever seemed to rage 
 in her head. And in and round her mouth she had strange 
 sensations. Fossette stirred in the basket near the large 
 desk on which multifarious files and papers were ranged with 
 minute particularity. 
 
 " Fossette ! " she tried to call out ; but no sound issued 
 from her lips. She could not move her tongue. She tried 
 to protrude it, and could not. For hours she had been con- 
 scious of a headache. Her heart sank. She was sick with 
 fear. Her memory flashed to her father and his seizure. She 
 was his daughter ! Paralysis ! " £a serait le comble ! " 
 she thought in French, horrified. Her fear became abject ! 
 " Can I move at all ? " she thought, and madly jerked her 
 head. Yes, she could move her head slightly on the pillow, 
 and she could stretch her right arm, both arms. Absurd 
 cowardice ! Of course it was not a seizure ! She reassured 
 herself. Still, she could not put her tongue out. Suddenly 
 she began to hiccough, and she had no control over the hic- 
 cough. She put her hand to the bell, whose ringing would 
 summon the man who slept in a pantry off the hall, and 
 suddenly the hiccough ceased. Her hand dropped. She 
 
FRENSHAM'S. 443 
 
 was better. Besides, what use in ringing for a man if she 
 could not speak to him through the door ? She must wait 
 for Jacqueline. At six o'clock every morning, summer and 
 winter, Jacqueline entered her mistress's bedroom to release 
 the dog for a moment's airing under her own supervision. 
 The clock on the mantelpiece snowed five minutes past three. 
 She had three hours to wait. Fossette pattered across the 
 room, and sprang on to the bed and nestled down. Sophia 
 ignored her, but Fossette, being herself unwell and torpid, 
 did not seem to care. 
 
 Jacqueline was late. In the quarter of an hour between 
 six o'clock and a quarter past, Sophia suffered the supreme 
 pangs of despair and verged upon insanity. It appeared to 
 her that her cranium would blow off under pressure from 
 within. Then the door opened silently, a few inches. Usu- 
 ally Jacqueline came into the room, but sometimes she stood 
 behind the door and called in her soft, trembling voice, 
 " Fossette ! Fossette ! " And on this morning she did not 
 come into the room. The dog did not immediately respond. 
 Sophia was in an agony. She marshalled all her volition, 
 all her self-control and strength, to shout : 
 
 " Jacqueline ! " 
 
 It came out of her, a horribly difficult and misshapen 
 birth, but it came. She was exhausted. 
 
 " Yes, madame." Jacqueline entered. 
 
 As soon as she had a glimpse of Sophia she threw up her 
 hands. Sophia stared at her, wordless. 
 
 " I will fetch the doctor — myself," whispered Jacqueline, 
 and fled. 
 
 " Jacqueline I " The woman stopped. Then Sophia deter- 
 mined to force herself to make a speech, and she braced 
 her muscles to an unprecedented effort. " Say not a word 
 to the others." She could not bear that the whole house- 
 hold should know of her illness. Jacqueline nodded and 
 vanished, the dog following. Jacqueline understood. She lived 
 in the place with her mistress as with a fellow-conspirator. 
 
 Sophia began to feel better. She could get into a sitting 
 posture, though the movement made her dizzy. By work- 
 ing to the foot of the bed she could see herself in the glass 
 of the wardrobe. And she saw that the lower part of her 
 face was twisted out of shape. 
 
 The doctor, who knew her, and who earned a lot of money 
 in her house, told her frankly what had happened. Par- 
 alysie glosso-labio-laryngSe was the phrase he used. She 
 understood. A very slight attack ; due to overwork and 
 worry. He ordered absolute rest and quiet. 
 
444 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Impossible ! " she said, genuinely convinced that she 
 alone was indispensable. 
 
 " Repose the most absolute ! " he repeated. 
 
 She marvelled that a few words with a man who chanced 
 to be named Peel-Swynnerton could have resulted in such a 
 disaster, and drew a curious satisfaction from this fearful 
 proof that she was so highly-strung. But even then she did 
 not realize how profoundly she had been disturbed. 
 
 V. 
 
 " My darling Sophia- 
 
 The inevitable miracle had occurred. Her suspicions con- 
 cerning that Mr. Peel-Swynnerton were well-founded, after 
 all ! Here was a letter from Constance ! The writing on 
 the envelope was not Constance's ; but even before examin- 
 ing it she had had a peculiar qualm. She received letters 
 from England nearly every day asking about rooms and prices 
 (and on many of them she had to pay threepence excess post- 
 age, because the writers carelessly or carefully forgot that a 
 penny stamp was not sufficient) ; there was nothing to dis- 
 tinguish this envelope, and yet her first glance at it had 
 startled her ; and when, deciphering the smudged post-mark, 
 she made out the word " Bursley," her heart did literally 
 seem to stop, and she opened the letter in quite violent 
 tremulation, thinking to herself : " The doctor would say 
 this is very bad for me." Six days had elapsed since her 
 attack, and she was wonderfully better ; the distortion of her 
 face had almost disappeared. But the doctor was grave ; 
 he ordered no medicine, merely a tonic ; and monotonously 
 insisted on . " repose the most absolute," on perfect mental 
 calm. He said little else, allowing Sophia to judge from his 
 silences the seriousness of her condition. Yes, the receipt 
 of such a letter must be bad for her ! 
 
 She controlled herself while she read it, lying in her dress- 
 ing-gown against several pillows on the bed ; a mist did not 
 form in her eyes, nor did she sob, nor betray physically that 
 she was not reading an order for two rooms for a week. But 
 the expenditure of nervous force necessary to self-control 
 was terrific. 
 
 Constance's handwriting had changed ; it was, however, 
 easily recognizable as a development of the neat caligraphy 
 of the girl who could print window-tickets. The " S of 
 Sophia was formed in the same way as she had formed it in 
 the last letter which she had received from her at Axe ! 
 
FRENSHAM'S. 445 
 
 " My Darling Sophia, 
 
 " I cannot tell you how overjoyed I was to learn that 
 after all these years you are alive and well, and doing so well 
 too. I long to see you, my dear sister. It was Mr. Peel- 
 Swynnerton who told me. He is a friend of Cyril's. Cyril 
 is the name of my son. I married Samuel in 1867. Cyril 
 was born in 1874 at Christmas. He is now twenty- two, and 
 doing very well in London as a student of sculpture, though 
 so young. He won a National Scholarship. There were 
 only eight, of which he won one, in all England. Samuel died 
 in 1888. If you read the papers you must have seen about 
 the Povey affair. I mean of course Mr. Daniel Povey, Con- 
 fectioner. It was that that killed poor Samuel. Poor 
 mother died in 1875. It doesn't seem so long. Aunt Har- 
 riet and Aunt Maria are both dead. Old Dr. Harrop is dead, 
 and his son has practically retired. He has a partner, a 
 Scotchman. Mr. Critchlow has married Miss Insull. Did 
 you ever hear of such a thing ? They have taken over the 
 shop, and I live in the house part, the other being bricked 
 up. Business in the Square is not what it used to be. The 
 steam trams take all the custom to Hanbridge, and they 
 are talking of electric trams, but I dare say it is only talk. 
 I have a fairly good servant. She has been with me a long 
 time, but servants are not what they were. I keep pretty 
 well, except for my sciatica and palpitation. Since Cyril 
 went to London I have been very lonely. But I try to cheer 
 up and count my blessings. I am sure I have a great deal 
 to be thankful for. And now this news of you ! Please 
 write to me a long letter, and tell me all about yourself. It 
 is a long way to Paris. But surely now you know I am still 
 here, you will come and pay me a visit — at least. Everybody 
 would be most glad to see you. And I should be so proud 
 and glad. As I say, I am all alone. Mr. Critchlow says I 
 am to say there is a deal of money waiting for you. You 
 know he is the trustee. There is the half-share of mother's 
 and also of Aunt Harriet's, and it has been accumulating. 
 By the way, they are getting up a subscription for Miss 
 Chetwynd, poor old thing. Her sister is dead, and she is in 
 poverty. I have put myself down for £20. Now, my dear 
 sister, please do write to me at once. You see it is still the 
 old address. I remain, my darling Sophia, with much love, 
 your affectionate sister, 
 
 " Constance Povey. 
 
 " P.S. — I should have written yesterday, but I was not 
 fit. Every time I sat down to write, I cried." 
 
446 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Of course," said Sophia to Fossette, " she expects me to 
 go to her, instead of her coming to me ! And yet who's the 
 busiest ? " 
 
 But this observation was not serious. It was merely a 
 trifle of affectionate malicious embroidery that Sophia put 
 on the edge of her deep satisfaction. The very spirit of 
 simple love seemed to emanate from the paper on which 
 Constance had written. And this spirit woke suddenly and 
 completely Sophia's love for Constance. Constance ! At 
 that moment there was assuredly for Sophia no creature in 
 the world like Constance. Constance personified for her the 
 qualities of the Baines family. Constance's letter was a 
 great letter, a perfect letter, perfect in its artlessness ; the 
 natural expression of the Baines character at its best. Not 
 an awkward reference in the whole of it 1 No clumsy ex- 
 pression of surprise at anything that she, Sophia, had done, 
 or failed to do ! No mention of Gerald ! Just a sublime 
 acceptance of the situation as it was, and the assurance of 
 undiminished love ! Tact ? No ; it was something finer 
 than tact ! Tact was conscious, skilful. Sophia was cer- 
 tain that the notion of tactfulness had not entered Con- 
 stance's head. Constance had simply written out of her 
 heart. And that was what made the letter so splendid. 
 Sophia was convinced that no one but a Baines could have 
 written such a letter. 
 
 She felt that she must rise to the height of that letter, that 
 she too must show her Baines blood. And she went primly 
 to her desk, and began to write (on private notepaper) in 
 that imperious large hand of hers that was so different from 
 Constance's. She began a little stiffly, but after a few lines 
 her generous and passionate soul was responding freely to 
 the appeal of Constance. She asked that Mr. Critchlow 
 should pay ^20 for her to the Miss Chetwynd fund. She 
 spoke of her Pension and of Paris, and of her pleasure in 
 Constance's letter. But she said nothing as to Gerald, nor 
 as to the possibility of a visit to the Five Towns. She finished 
 the letter in a blaze of love, and passed from it as from a 
 dream to the sterile banality of the daily life of the Pension 
 Frensham, feeling that, compared to Constance's affection, 
 nothing else had any worth. 
 
 But she would not consider the project of going to Bursley. 
 Never, never would she go to Bursley. If Constance chose 
 to come to Paris and see her, she would be delighted, but she 
 herself would not budge. The mere notion of any change 
 in her existence intimidated her. And as for returning to 
 Bursley itself . . . no, no ! 
 
FRENSHAM'S. 447 
 
 Nevertheless, at the Pension Frensham, the future could 
 not be as the past. Sophia's health forbade that. She 
 knew that the doctor was right. Every time that she made 
 an effort, she knew intimately and speedily that the doctor 
 was right. Only her will-power was unimpaired ; the 
 machinery by which will-power is converted into action was 
 mysteriously damaged. She was aware of the fact. But 
 she could not face it yet. Time would have to elapse before 
 she could bring herself to face that fact. She was getting 
 an old woman. She could no longer draw on reserves. Yet 
 she persisted to every one that she was quite recovered, and 
 was abstaining from her customary work simply from an 
 excess of prudence. Certainly her face had recovered. And 
 the Pension, being a machine all of whose parts were in order, 
 continued to run, apparently, with its usual smoothness. It 
 is true that the excellent chef began to peculate, but as his 
 cuisine did not suffer, the result was not noticeable for a long 
 period. The whole staff and many of the guests knew that 
 Sophia had been indisposed ; and they knew no more. 
 
 When by hazard Sophia observed a fault in the daily con- 
 duct of the house, her first impulse was to go to the root of 
 it and cure it, her second was to leave it alone, or to palliate 
 it by some superficial remedy. Unperceived, and yet vaguely 
 suspected by various people, the decline of the Pension Fren- 
 sham had set in. The tide, having risen to its highest, was 
 receding, but so little that no one could be sure that it had 
 turned. Every now and then it rushed up again and washed 
 the furthest stone. 
 
 Sophia and Constance exchanged several letters. Sophia 
 said repeatedly that she could not leave Paris. At length 
 she roundly asked Constance to come and pay her a visit. 
 She made the suggestion with fear — for the prospect of 
 actually seeing her beloved Constance alarmed her — but she 
 could do no less than make it. And in a few days she had 
 a reply to say that Constance would have come, under Cyril's 
 charge, but that her sciatica was suddenly much worse, and 
 she was obliged to he down every day after dinner to rest 
 her legs. Travelling was impossible for her. The fates 
 were combining against Sophia's decision. 
 
 And now Sophia began to ask herself about her duty to 
 Constance. The truth was that she was groping round to 
 find an excuse for reversing her decision. She was afraid 
 to reverse it, yet tempted. She had the desire to do some- 
 thing which she objected to doing. It was like the desire 
 to throw one's self over a high balcony. It drew her, drew 
 her, and she drew back against it. The Pension was now 
 
448 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 tedious to her. It bored her even to pretend to be the 
 supervising head of the Pension. Throughout the house dis- 
 cipline had loosened. 
 
 She wondered when Mr. Mardon would renew his over- 
 tures for the transformation of her enterprise into a limited 
 company. In spite of herself she would deliberately cross 
 his path and give him opportunities to begin on the old 
 theme. He had never before left her in peace for so long 
 a period. No doubt she had, upon his last assault, abso- 
 lutely convinced him that his efforts had no smallest chance 
 of success, and he had made up his mind to cease them. 
 With a single word she could wind him up again. The 
 merest hint, one day when he was paying his bill, and he 
 would be beseeching her. But she could not utter the word. 
 
 Then she began to say openly that she did not feel well, 
 that the house was too much for her, and that the doctor 
 had imperatively commanded rest. She said this to every 
 one except Mardon. And every one somehow persisted 
 in not saying it to Mardon. The doctor having advised that 
 she should spend more time in the open air, she would take 
 afternoon drives in the Bois with Fossette. It was October. 
 But Mr. Mardon never seemed to hear of those drives. 
 
 One morning he met her in the street outside the house. 
 
 "I'm sorry to hear you're so unwell," he said confiden- 
 tially, after they had discussed the health of Fossette. 
 
 " So unwell ! " she exclaimed as if resenting the statement. 
 " Who told you I was so unwell ? " 
 
 " Jacqueline. She told me you often said that what you 
 needed was a complete change. And it seems the doctor says 
 so, too." 
 
 " Oh ! doctors ! " she murmured, without however denying 
 the truth of Jacqueline's assertion. She saw hope in Mr. 
 Mardon 's eyes. 
 
 " Of course, you know," he said, still more confidentially, 
 " if you should happen to change your mind, I'm always 
 ready to form a little syndicate to take this " — he waved 
 discreetly at the Pension — " off your hands." 
 
 She shook her head violently, which was strange, con- 
 sidering that for weeks she had been wishing to hear such 
 words from Mr. Mardon. 
 
 " You needn't give it up altogether," he said. " You 
 could retain your hold on it. We'd make you manageress, 
 with a salary and a share in the profits. You'd be mistress 
 just as much as you are now." 
 
 " Oh ! " said she carelessly. " If I gave it up, I should give 
 it up entirely. No half measures for me." 
 
FRENSHAM'S. 449 
 
 With the utterance of that sentence, the history of Fren- 
 sham's as a private undertaking was brought to a close. 
 Sophia knew it. Mr. Mardon knew it. Mr. Mardon's heart 
 eapt. He saw in his imagination the formation of the pre- 
 iminary syndicate, with himself at its head, and then the 
 •e-sale by the syndicate to a limited company at a profit. 
 de saw a nice little profit for his own private personal self 
 }f a thousand or so — gained in a moment. The plant, his 
 lope, which he had deemed dead, blossomed with miraculous 
 mddenness. 
 
 ' Well," he said. " Give it up entirely, then ! Take a 
 loliday for life. You've deserved it, Mrs. Scales." 
 
 She shook her head once again. 
 
 " Think it over," he said. 
 
 " I gave you my answer years ago," she said obstinately, 
 while fearing lest he should take her at her word. 
 
 ' Oblige me by thinking it over," he said. " I'll mention 
 it to you again in a few days." 
 
 " It will be no use," she said. 
 
 He took his leave, waddling down the street in his vague 
 clothes, conscious of his fame as Lewis Mardon, the great 
 house-agent of the Champs Elysees, known throughout 
 Europe and America. 
 
 In a few days he did mention it again. 
 
 " There's only one thing that makes me dream of it even 
 for a moment," said Sophia. " And that is my sister's 
 health." 
 
 ' Your sister ! " he exclaimed. He did not know she had 
 a sister. Never had she spoken of her family. 
 
 " Yes. Her letters are beginning to worry me." 
 
 " Does she live in Paris ? " 
 
 " No. In Staffordshire. She has never left home." 
 
 And to preserve her pride intact she led Mr. Mardon to 
 think that Constance was in a most serious way, whereas in 
 truth Constance had nothing worse than her sciatica, and 
 even that was somewhat better. 
 
 Thus she yielded. v 
 
 15 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MEETING. 
 
 Soon after dinner one day in the following spring, Mr. 
 Critchlow knocked at Constance's door. She was seated in 
 the rocking-chair in front of the fire in the parlour. She 
 wore a large " rough " apron, and with the outlying parts 
 of the apron she was rubbing the moisture out of the coat 
 of a young wire-haired fox-terrier, for whom no more 
 original name had been found than " Spot." It is true that 
 he had a spot. Constance had more than once called the 
 world to witness that she would never have a young dog 
 again, because, as she said, she could not be always running 
 about after them, and they ate the stuffing out of the fur- 
 niture. But her last dog had lived too long ; a dog can do 
 worse things than eat furniture ; and, in her natural reaction 
 against age in dogs, and also in the hope of postponing as 
 long as possible the inevitable sorrow and upset which death 
 causes when it takes off a domestic pet, she had not known 
 how to refuse the very desirable fox-terrier aged ten months 
 that an acquaintance had offered to her. Spot's beautiful 
 pink skin could be seen under his disturbed hair ; he was 
 exquisitely soft to the touch, and to himself he was loath- 
 some. His eyes continually peeped forth between corners 
 of the agitated towel, and they were full of inquietude and 
 shame. 
 
 Amy was assisting at this performance, gravely on the 
 watch to see that Spot did not escape into the coal-cellar. 
 She opened the door to Mr. Critchlow 's knock. Mr. Critch- 
 low entered without any formalities, as usual. He did not 
 seem to have changed. He had the same quantity of white 
 hair, he wore the same long white apron, and his voice (which 
 showed however an occasional tendency to shrillness) had 
 
THE MEETING. 451 
 
 the same grating quality. He stood fairly straight. He was 
 carrying a newspaper in his vellum hand. 
 
 " Well, missis ! " he said. 
 
 " That will do, thank you, Amy," said Constance, quietly. 
 Amy went slowly. 
 
 " So ye're washing him for her ! " said Mr. Critchlow. 
 
 " Yes," Constance admitted. Spot glanced sharply at the 
 aged man. 
 
 " An' ye seen this bit in the paper about Sophia ? " he 
 asked, holding the Signal for her inspection. 
 
 " About Sophia ? " cried Constance. " What's amiss ? " 
 
 " Nothing's amiss. But they've got it. It's in the ' Staf- 
 fordshire day by day ' column. Here ! I'll read it ye." 
 He drew a long wooden spectacle-case from his waistcoat 
 pocket, and placed a second pair of spectacles on his nose. 
 Then he sat down on the sofa, his knees sticking out pointedly, 
 and read : " ' We understand that Mrs. Sophia Scales, pro- 
 prietress of the famous Pension Frensham in the Rue Lord 
 Byron, Paris ' — it's that famous that nobody in th' Five 
 Towns has ever heard of it — ' is about to pay a visit to her 
 native town, Bursley, after an absence of over thirty years. 
 Mrs. Scales belonged to the well-known and highly respected 
 family of Baines. She has recently disposed of the Pension 
 Frensham to a limited company, and we are betraying no 
 secret in stating that the price paid ran well into five figures.' 
 So ye see 1 " Mr. Critchlow commented. 
 
 " How do those Signal people find out things ? " Constance 
 murmured. 
 
 " Eh, bless ye, I don't know," said Mr. Critchlow. 
 
 This was an untruth. Mr. Critchlow had himself given 
 the information to the new editor of the Signal, who had soon 
 been made aware of Critchlow 's passion for the press, and 
 who knew how to make use of it. / 
 
 " I wish it hadn't appeared just to-day," said Constance. 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I don't know, I wish it hadn't." 
 
 " Well, I'll be touring on, missis," said Mr. Critchlow, 
 meaning that he would go. 
 
 He left the paper, and descended the steps with senile de- 
 liberation. It was characteristic that he had shown no 
 curiosity whatever as to the details of Sophia's arrival. 
 
 Constance removed her apron, wrapped Spot up in it, 
 and put him in a corner of the sofa. She then abruptly sent 
 Amy out to buy a penny time-table. 
 
 " I thought you were going by tram to Knype," Amy ob- 
 served. 
 
452 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " I have decided to go by train," said Constance, with 
 cold dignity, as if she had decided the fate of nations. She 
 hated such observations from Amy, who unfortunately lacked, 
 in an increasing degree, the supreme gift of unquestioning 
 obedience. 
 
 When Amy came breathlessly back, she found Constance 
 in her bedroom, withdrawing crumpled balls of paper from 
 the sleeves of her second-best mantle. Constance scarcely 
 ever wore this mantle. In theory it was destined for chapel 
 on wet Sundays ; in practice it had remained long in the 
 wardrobe, Sundays having been obstinately fine for weeks 
 and weeks together. It was a mantle that Constance had 
 never really liked. But she was not going to Knype to meet 
 Sophia in her everyday mantle ; and she had no intention 
 of donning her best mantle for such an excursion. To make 
 her first appearance before Sophia in the best mantle she had 
 — this would have been a sad mistake of tactics ! Not only 
 would it have led to an anti-climax on Sunday, but it would 
 have given to Constance the air of being in awe of Sophia. 
 Now Constance was in truth a little afraid of Sophia ; in 
 thirty years Sophia might have grown into anything, whereas 
 Constance had remained just Constance. Paris was a great 
 place ; and it was immensely far off. And the mere sound 
 of that limited company business was intimidating. Im- 
 agine Sophia having by her own efforts created something 
 which a real limited company wanted to buy and had bought ! 
 Yes, Constance was afraid, but she did not mean to show her 
 fear in her mantle. After all, she was the elder. And she 
 had her dignity too — and a lot of it — tucked away in her 
 secret heart, hidden within the mildness of that soft exterior, j 
 So she had decided on the second-best mantle, which, being 
 seldom used, had its sleeves stuffed with paper to the end that 
 they might keep their shape and their " fall." The little 
 balls of paper were strewed over the bed. 
 
 " There's a train at a quarter to three, gets to Knype at 
 ten minutes past," said Amy, officiously. " But supposing 
 it was only three minutes late and the London train was 
 prompt, then you might miss her. Happen you'd better 
 take the two fifteen to be on the safe side." 
 
 " Let me look," said Constance, firmly. " Please put all 
 this paper in the wardrobe." 
 
 She would have preferred not to follow Amy's sugges- 
 tion, but it was so incontestably wise that she was obliged 
 to accept it. 
 
 " Unless you go by tram," said Amy. " That won't mean 
 starting quite so soon." 
 
THE MEETING. 453 
 
 But Constance would not go by tram. If she took the 
 fcram she would be bound to meet people who had. read the 
 Signal, and who would say, with their stupid vacuity : 
 " Going to meet your sister at Knype ? " And then tire- 
 some conversations would follow. Whereas, in the train, 
 >he would choose a compartment, and would be far less 
 ikely to encounter chatterers. 
 
 There was now hot a minute to lose. And the excitement 
 which had been growing in that house for days past, under 
 1 pretence of calm, leapt out swiftly into the light of the sun, 
 md was unashamed. Amy had to help her mistress make 
 lerself as comely as she could be made without her best 
 Iress, mantle, and bonnet. Amy was frankly consulted as 
 to effects. The barrier of class was lowered for a space. 
 Many years had elapsed since Constance had been conscious 
 of a keen desire to look smart. She was reminded of the days 
 when, in full fig for chapel, she would dash downstairs on a 
 unday morning, and, assuming a pose for inspection at the 
 threshold of the parlour, would demand of Samuel : " Shall 
 
 do ? " Yes, she used to dash downstairs, like a child, 
 and yet in those days she had thought herself so sedate 
 and mature ! She sighed, half with lancinating regret, and 
 half in gentle disdain of that mercurial creature aged less 
 than thirty. At fifty-one she regarded herself as old. And 
 she was old. And Amy had the tricks and manners of an old 
 spinster. Thus the excitement in the house was an " old " 
 excitement, and, like Constance's desire to look smart, it 
 had its ridiculous side, which was also its tragic side, the side 
 that would have made a boor guffaw, and a hysterical fool 
 cry, and a wise man meditate sadly upon the earth's fashion 
 of renewing itself. 
 
 At half-past one Constance was dressed, with the excep- 
 tion of her gloves. She looked at the clock a second time 
 to make sure that she might safely glance round the house 
 without fear of missing the train. She went up into the 
 bedroom on the second-floor, her and Sophia's old bedroom, 
 which she had prepared with enormous care for Sophia. x The 
 airing of that room had been an enterprise of days, for, save 
 by a minister during the sittings of the Wesleyan Methodist 
 Conference at Bursley, it had never been occupied since the 
 era when Maria Insull used occasionally to sleep in the house. 
 Cyril clung to his old room on his visits. Constance had an 
 ample supply of solid and stately furniture, and the chamber 
 destined for Sophia was lightened in every corner by the 
 reflections of polished mahogany. It was also fairly impreg- 
 nated with the odour of furniture paste — an odour of which no 
 
454 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 housewife need be ashamed. Further, it had been re-papered 
 in a delicate blue, with one of the new " art " patterns. It 
 was a " Baines " room. And Constance did not care where 
 Sophia came from, nor what Sophia had been accustomed 
 to, nor into what limited company Sophia had been trans- 
 formed — that room was adequate ! It could not have been 
 improved upon. You had only to look at the crocheted 
 mats — even those on the washstand under the white-and- 
 gold ewer and other utensils. It was folly to expose such 
 mats to the splashings of a washstand, but it was sublime 
 folly. Sophia might remove them if she cared. Constance 
 was house-proud ; house-pride had slumbered within her ; 
 now it blazed forth. 
 
 A fire brightened the drawing-room, which was a truly 
 magnificent apartment, a museum of valuables collected by 
 the Baines and the Maddack families since the year 1840, 
 tempered by the latest novelties in antimacassars and cloths. 
 In all Bursley there could have been few drawing-rooms 
 to compare with Constance's. Constance knew it. She was 
 not afraid of her drawing-room being seen by anybody. 
 
 She passed for an instant into her own bedroom, where 
 Amy was patiently picking balls of paper from the bed. 
 
 " Now you quite understand about tea ? " Constance 
 asked. 
 
 " Oh yes, 'm," said Amy, as if to say : " How much oftener 
 are you going to ask me that question ? " " Are you off 
 now, 'm ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Constance. " Come and fasten the front 
 door after me." 
 
 They descended together to the parlour. A white cloth 
 for tea lay folded on the table. It was of the finest damask 
 that skill could choose and money buy. It was fifteen years 
 old, and had never been spread. Constance would not have 
 produced it for the first meal, had she not possessed two 
 other of equal eminence. On the harmonium were arranged 
 several jams and cakes, a Bursley pork-pie, and some pickled 
 salmon ; with the necessary silver. All was there. Amy 
 could not go wrong. And crocuses were in the vases on the 
 mantelpiece. Her " garden," in the phrase which used to 
 cause Samuel to think how extraordinarily feminine she was ! 
 It was a long time since she had had a " garden " on the 
 mantelpiece. Her interest in her chronic sciatica and in her 
 palpitations had grown at the expense of her interest in 
 gardens. Often, when she had finished the complicated pro- 
 cesses by which her furniture and other goods were kept in 
 order, she had strength only to " rest." She was rather a 
 
THE MEETING. 455 
 
 fragile, small, fat woman, soon out of breath, easily marred. 
 This business of preparing for the advent of Sophia had 
 appeared to her genuinely colossal. However, she had come 
 through it very well. She was in pretty good health ; only 
 a little tired, and more than a little anxious and nervous, as 
 she gave the last glance. 
 
 " Take away that apron, do ! " she said to Amy, pointing 
 to the rough apron in the corner of the sofa. " By the way, 
 where is Spot ? " 
 
 " Spot, m'm ? " Amy ejaculated. 
 
 Both their hearts jumped. Amy instinctively looked out 
 of the window. He was there, sure enough, in the gutter, 
 studying the indescribabilities of King Street. He had ob- 
 viously escaped when Amy came in from buying the time- 
 table. The woman's face was guilty. 
 
 " Amy, I wonder at you ! " exclaimed Constance, tragic- 
 ally. She opened the door. 
 
 " Well, I never did see the like of that dog ! " murmured 
 Amy. 
 
 " Spot ! " his mistress commanded. " Come here at once. 
 Do you hear me ? " 
 
 Spot turned sharply and gazed motionless at Constance. 
 Then with a toss of the head he dashed off to the corner of 
 the Square, and gazed motionless again. Amy went forth 
 to catch him. After an age she brought him in, squealing. 
 He was in a state exceedingly offensive to the eye and to 
 the nose. He had effectively got rid of the smell of soap, 
 which he loathed. Constance could have wept. It did 
 really appear to her that nothing had gone right that day. 
 And Spot had the most innocent, trustful air. Impossible 
 to make him realize that his aunt Sophia was coming. He 
 would have sold his entire family into servitude in order to 
 buy ten yards of King Street gutter. 
 
 " You must wash him in the scullery, that's all there is for 
 it," said Constance, controlling herself. " Put that apron 
 on, and don't forget one of your new aprons when you open 
 the door. Better shut him up in Mr. Cyril's bedroomx when 
 you've dried him." 
 
 And she went, charged with worries, clasping her bag and 
 her umbrella and smoothing her gloves, and spying down- 
 wards at the folds of her mantle. 
 
 " That's a funny way to go to Bursley Station, that is," 
 said Amy, observing that Constance was descending King 
 Street instead of crossing it into Wedgwood Street. And 
 she caught Spot " a fair clout on the head," to indicate to 
 him that she had him alone in the house now. 
 
456 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Constance was taking a round-about route to the station, 
 so that, if stopped by acquaintances, she should not be too 
 obviously going to the station. Her feelings concerning 
 the arrival of Sophia, and concerning the town's attitude 
 towards it, were very complex. 
 
 She was forced to hurry. And she had risen that morn- 
 ing with plans perfectly contrived for the avoidance of hurry. 
 She disliked hurry because it always " put her about." 
 
 II. 
 
 The express from London was late, so that Constance had 
 three-quarters of an hour of the stony calmness of Knype 
 platform when it is waiting for a great train. At last the 
 porters began to cry, " Macclesfield, Stockport, and Man- 
 chester train ; " the immense engine glided round the curve, 
 dwarfing the carriages behind it, and Constance had a supreme 
 tremor. The calmness of the platform was transformed into 
 a milee. Little Constance found herself left on the fringe 
 of a physically agitated crowd which was apparently trying 
 to scale a precipice surmounted by windows and doors from 
 whose apertures looked forth defenders of the train. Knype 
 platform seemed as if it would never be reduced to order 
 again. And Constance did not estimate highly the chances 
 of picking out an unknown Sophia from that welter. She 
 was very seriously perturbed. All the muscles of her face 
 were drawn as her gaze wandered anxiously from end to end 
 of the train. 
 
 Presently she saw a singular dog. Other people also saw 
 it. It was of the colour of chocolate ; it had a head and 
 shoulders richly covered with hair that hung down in thou- 
 sands of tufts like the tufts of a modern mop such as is 
 bought in shops. This hair stopped suddenly rather less than 
 half way along the length of the dog's body, the remainder 
 of which was naked and as smooth as marble. The effect 
 was to give to the inhabitants of the Five Towns the im- 
 pression that the dog had forgotten an essential part of its 
 attire and was outraging decency. The ball of hair which 
 had been allowed to grow on the dog's tail, and the circles 
 of hair which ornamented its ankles, only served to intensify 
 the impression of indecency. A pink ribbon round its neck 
 completed the outrage. The animal had absolutely the air 
 of a decked trollop. A chain ran taut from the creature's 
 neck into the middle of a small crowd of persons gesticulat- 
 
THE MEETING. 457 
 
 g over trunks, and Constance traced it to a tall and dis- 
 
 nguished woman in a coat and skirt with a rather striking 
 
 t. A beautiful and aristocratic woman, Constance thought, 
 t a distance ! Then the strange idea came to her : " That's 
 
 phia ! " She was sure. . . . She was not sure. . . . She 
 
 as sure. The woman emerged from the crowd. Her eye 
 ell on Constance. They both hesitated, and, as it were, 
 
 avered uncertainly towards each other. 
 
 " I should have known you anywhere," said Sophia, with 
 pparently careless tranquillity, as she stooped to kiss Con- 
 tance, raising her veil. 
 
 Constance saw that this marvellous tranquillity must be 
 mitated, and she imitated it very well. It was a " Baines " 
 xanquillity. But she noticed a twitching of her sister's lips. 
 The twitching comforted Constance, proving to her that she 
 vas not alone in foolishness. There was also something 
 meer about the permanent lines of Sophia's mouth. That 
 must be due to the " attack " about which Sophia had 
 written. 
 
 " Did Cyril meet you ? " asked Constance. It was all that 
 she could think of to say. 
 
 " Oh yes ! " said Sophia, eagerly. " And I went to his 
 studio, and he saw me off at Euston. He is a very nice boy. 
 I love him." 
 
 She said " I love him " with the intonation of Sophia aged 
 fifteen. Her tone and imperious gestures sent Constance fly- 
 ing back to the 'sixties. She hasn't altered one bit," Con- 
 stance thought with joy. " Nothing could change Sophia." 
 And at the back of that notion was a more general notion : 
 " Nothing could change a Baines." It was true that Con- 
 stance's Sophia had not changed. Powerful individualities 
 remain undisfigured by no matter what vicissitudes. After 
 this revelation of the original Sophia, arising as it did out of 
 praise of Cyril, Constance felt easier, felt reassured. 
 
 " This is Fossette," said Sophia, pulling at the chain. 
 
 Constance knew not what to reply. Surely Sophia could 
 not be aware what she did in bringing such a dog to a place 
 where people were so particular as they are in the \ Five 
 Towns. 
 
 " Fossette ! " She repeated the name in an endearing 
 accent, half stooping towards the dog. After all, it was not 
 the dog's fault. Sophia had certainly mentioned a dog in her 
 letters, but she had not prepared Constance for the spectacle 
 of Fossette. 
 
 All that happened in a moment. A porter appeared with 
 two trunks belonging to Sophia. Constance observed that 
 
 15 a 
 
458 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 they were superlatively " good " trunks ; also that Sophia's 
 clothes, though " on the showy side," were superlatively 
 " good." The getting of Sophia's ticket to Bursley occupied 
 them next, and soon the first shock of meeting had worn off. 
 
 In a second-class compartment of the Loop Line train, 
 with Sophia and Fossette opposite to her, Constance had 
 leisure to take in " Sophia. She came to the conclusion 
 that, despite her slenderness and straightness and the general 
 effect of the long oval of her face under the hat, Sophia 
 looked her age. She saw that Sophia must have been 
 through a great deal ; her experiences were damagingly 
 printed in the details of feature. Seen at a distance, she 
 might have passed for a woman of thirty, even for a girl, 
 but seen across a narrow railway carriage she was a woman 
 whom suffering had aged. Yet obviously her spirit was un- 
 broken. Hear her tell a doubtful porter that of course she 
 should take Fossette with her into the carriage ! See her 
 shut the carriage door with the expressed intention of keep- 
 ing other people out ! She was accustomed to command. 
 At the same time her face had an almost set smile, as though 
 she had said to herself : "I will die smiling." Constance 
 felt sorry for her. While recognizing in Sophia a superior 
 in charm, in experience, in knowledge of the world and in 
 force of personality, she yet with a kind of undisturbed, 
 fundamental superiority felt sorry for Sophia. 
 
 " What do you think ? " said Sophia, absently fingering 
 Fossette. " A man came up to me at Euston, while Cyril 
 was getting my ticket, and said, " Eh, Miss Baines, I haven't 
 seen ye for over thirty years, but I know you're Miss Baines, 
 or were — and you're looking bonny." Then he went off. I 
 think it must have been Holl, the grocer." 
 
 " Had he got a long white beard ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then it was Mr. Holl. He's been Mayor twice. He's an 
 alderman, you know." 
 
 " Really ! " said Sophia. " But wasn't it queer ? " 
 
 " Eh ! Bless us ! " exclaimed Constance. " Don't talk 
 about queer ! It's terrible how time flies." 
 
 The conversation stopped, and it refused to start again. 
 Two women who are full of affectionate curiosity about each 
 other, and who have not seen each other for thirty years, 
 and who are anxious to confide in each other, ought to dis- 
 cover no difficulty in talking ; but somehow these two could 
 not talk. Constance perceived that Sophia was impeded by 
 the same awkwardness as herself. 
 
 " Well I never ! " cried Sophia, suddenly. She had glanced 
 
THE MEETING. 459 
 
 out of the window and had seen two camels and an elephant 
 in a field close to the line, amid manufactories and ware- 
 houses and advertisements of soap. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Constance. " That's Barnum's, you know. 
 They have what they call a central depot here, because it's 
 the middle of England." Constance spoke proudly. (After 
 all, there can be only one middle.) It was on her tongue to 
 say, in her " tart " manner, that Fossette ought to be with 
 the camels, but she refrained. Sophia hit on the excellent 
 idea of noting all the buildings that were new to her and all 
 the landmarks that she remembered. It was surprising 
 how little the district had altered. 
 
 " Same smoke ! " said Sophia. 
 
 " Same smoke ! " Constance agreed. 
 
 " It's even worse," said Sophia. 
 
 " Do you think so ? " Constance was slightly piqued. 
 " But they're doing something now for smoke abate- 
 ment." 
 
 " I must have forgotten how dirty it was ! " said Sophia. 
 " I suppose that's it. I'd no idea ...,/." 
 
 " Really ! " said Constance. Then, in candid admission, 
 " The fact is, it is dirty. You can't imagine what work it 
 makes, especially with window-curtains." 
 
 As the train puffed under Trafalgar Road, Constance 
 pointed to a new station that was being built there, to be 
 called " Trafalgar Road " station. 
 
 " Won't it be strange ? " said she, accustomed to the eternal 
 sequence of Loop Line stations — Turnhill, Bursley, Bleak- 
 ridge, Hanbridge, Cauldon, Knype, Trent Vale, and Long- 
 shaw. A " Trafalgar Road " inserting itself between Bleak- 
 ridge and Hanbridge seemed to her excessively curious. 
 . • Yes, I suppose it will," Sophia agreed. 
 
 " But of course it's not the same to you," said Constance 
 dashed. She indicated the glories of Bursley Park, as the 
 train slackened for Bursley, with modesty. Sophia gazed, 
 and vaguely recognized the slopes where she had taken her 
 first walk with Gerald Scales. 
 
 Nobody accosted them at Bursley Station, and they drove 
 to the Square in a cab. Amy was at the window ; she held 
 up Spot, who was in a plenary state of cleanliness, rivalling 
 the purity of Amy's apron. 
 
 " Good afternoon, m'm," said Amy, officiously, to Sophia, 
 as Sophia came up the steps. 
 
 " Good afternoon, Amy," Sophia replied. She flattered 
 Amy in thus showing that she was acquainted with her name ; 
 but if ever a servant was put into her place by mere tone, 
 
4 6o THE OLD WIVES* TALE. 
 
 Amy was put into her place on that occasion. Constance 
 trembled at Sophia's frigid and arrogant politeness. Cer- 
 tainly Sophia was not used to being addressed first by ser- 
 vants. But Amy was not quite the ordinary servant. She 
 was much older than the ordinary servant, and she had 
 acquired a partial moral dominion over Constance, though 
 Constance would have warmly denied it. Hence Constance's 
 apprehension. However, nothing happened. Amy appar- 
 ently did not feel the snub. 
 
 " Take Spot and put him in Mr. Cyril's bedroom," Con- 
 stance murmured to her, as if implying ; " Have I not 
 already told you to do that ? " The fact was, she was afraid 
 for Spot's life. 
 
 " Now, Fossette ! " She welcomed the incoming poodle 
 kindly ; the poodle began at once to sniff. 
 
 The fat, red cabman was handling the trunks on the pave- 
 ment, and Amy was upstairs. For a moment the sisters 
 were alone together in the parlour. 
 
 " So here I am ! " exclaimed the tall, majestic woman of 
 fifty. And her lips twitched again as she looked round the 
 room — so small to her. 
 
 " Yes, here you are ! " Constance agreed. She bit her lip, 
 and, as a measure of prudence to avoid breaking down, she 
 bustled out to the cabman. A passing instant of emotion, 
 like a fleck of foam on a wide and calm sea ! 
 
 The cabman blundered up and downstairs with trunks, 
 and saluted Sophia's haughty generosity, and then there was 
 quietness. Amy was already brewing the tea in the cave. 
 The prepared tea-table in front of the fire made a glittering 
 array. 
 
 " Now, what about Fossette ? " Constance voiced anxieties 
 that had been growing on her. 
 
 " Fossette will be quite right with me," said Sophia, 
 firmly. 
 
 They ascended to the guest's room, which drew Sophia's 
 admiration for its prettiness. She hurried to the window 
 and looked out into the Square. 
 
 " Would you like a fire ? " Constance asked, in a rather 
 perfunctory manner. For a bedroom fire, in seasons of 
 normal health, was still regarded as absurd in the Square. 
 
 " Oh, no ! " said Sophia ; but with a slight failure to rebut 
 the suggestion as utterly ridiculous. 
 
 " Sure ? " Constance questioned. 
 
 " Quite, thank you," said Sophia. 
 
 " Well, I'll leave you. I expect Amy will have tea ready 
 directly." She went down into the kitchen. " Amy," she 
 
THE MEETING. 461 
 
 said, " as soon as we've finished tea, light a fire in Mrs. Scales's 
 bedroom." 
 
 " In the top bedroom, m'm ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Constance climbed again to her own bedroom, and shut 
 the door. She needed a moment to herself, in the midst of 
 this terrific affair. She sighed with relief as she removed her 
 mantle. She thought : "At any rate we've met, and I've 
 got her here. She's very nice. No, she isn't a bit altered." 
 She hesitated to admit that to her Sophia was the least in 
 the world formidable. And so she said once more : " She's 
 very nice. She isn't a bit altered." And then : " Fancy 
 her being here ! She really is here." With her perfect sim- 
 plicity it did not occur to Constance to speculate as to what 
 Sophia thought of her. 
 
 Sophia was downstairs first, and Constance found her look- 
 ing at the blank wall beyond the door leading to the kitchen 
 steps. 
 
 " So this is where you had it bricked up ? " said Sophia. 
 
 " Yes," said Constance. " That's the place." 
 
 " It makes me feel like people feel when they have tickling 
 in a limb that's been cut off ! " said Sophia. 
 
 " Oh, Sophia ! " 
 
 The tea received a great deal of praise from Sophia, but 
 neither of them ate much. Constance found that Sophia was 
 like herself : she had to be particular about her food. She 
 tasted dainties for the sake of tasting, but it was a bird's 
 pecking. Not the twelfth part of the tea was consumed. 
 They dared not indulge caprices. Only their eyes could 
 feed. 
 
 After tea they went up to the drawing-room, and in the 
 corridor had the startling pleasure of seeing two dogs who 
 scurried about after each other in amity. Spot had found 
 Fossette, with the aid of Amy's incurable carelessness, and 
 had at once examined her with great particularity. She 
 seemed to be of an amiable disposition, and not averse from 
 the lighter distractions. For a long time the sisters sat x chat- 
 ting together in the lit drawing-room to the agreeable sound 
 of happy dogs playing in the dark corridor. Those dogs 
 saved the situation, because they needed constant attention. 
 When the dogs dozed, the sisters began to look through the 
 photograph albums, of which Constance had several, bound 
 in plush or morocco. Nothing will sharpen the memory, 
 evoke the past, raise the dead, rejuvenate the ageing, and 
 cause both sighs and smiles, like a collection of photographs 
 gathered together during long years of life. Constance had an 
 
462 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 astonishing menagerie of unknown* cousins and their connec- 
 tions, and of townspeople ; she had Cyril at all ages ; she had 
 weird daguerreotypes of her parents and their parents. The 
 strangest of all was a portrait of Samuel Povey as an infant 
 in arms. Sophia checked an impulse to laugh at it. But 
 when Constance said : " Isn't it funny ? " she did allow 
 herself to laugh. A photograph of Samuel in the year 
 before his death was really imposing. Sophia stared at it 
 impressed. It was the portrait of an honest man. 
 
 " How long have you been a widow ? " Constance asked 
 in a low voice, glancing at upright Sophia over her spec- 
 tacles, a leaf of the album raised against her finger. 
 
 Sophia unmistakably flushed. " I don't know that I am 
 a widow," said she, with an air. " My husband left me in 
 1870, and I've never seen nor heard of him since." 
 
 " Oh, my dear ! " cried Constance, alarmed and deafened 
 as by a clap of awful thunder. " I thought ye were a widow. 
 Mr. Peel-Swynnerton said he was told positively ye were a 
 widow. That's why I never. . . ." She stopped. Her 
 face was troubled. 
 
 " Of course I always passed for a widow, over there," said 
 Sophia. 
 
 " Of course," said Constance quickly. " I see. ..." 
 
 " And I may be a widow," said Sophia. 
 
 Constance made no remark. This was a blow. Bursley 
 was such a particular place. Doubtless, Gerald Scales had 
 behaved like a scoundrel. That was sure ! 
 
 When, immediately afterwards, Amy opened the drawing- 
 room door (having first knocked — the practice of encouraging 
 a servant to plunge without warning of any kind into a draw- 
 ing-room had never been favoured in that house) she saw 
 the sisters sitting rather near to each other at the walnut 
 oval table, Mrs. Scales very upright, and staring into the 
 fire, and Mrs. Povey " bunched up " and staring at the 
 photograph album ; both seeming to Amy aged and appre- 
 hensive ; Mrs. Povey's hair was quite grey, though Mrs. 
 Scales's hair was nearly as black as Amy's own. Mrs. Scales 
 started at the sound of the knock, and turned her head. 
 
 " Here's Mr. and Mrs. Critchlow, m'm," announced Amy. 
 
 The sisters glanced at one another, with lifted foreheads. 
 Then Mrs. Povey spoke to Amy as though visits at half-past 
 eight at night were a customary phenomenon of the house- 
 hold. Nevertheless, she trembled to think what outrageous 
 thing Mr. Critchlow might say to Sophia after thirty years' 
 absence. The occasion was great, and it might also be 
 terrible. 
 
THE MEETING. 463 
 
 " Ask them to come up," she said calmly. 
 
 But Amy had the best of that encounter. " I have done," 
 she replied, and instantly produced them out of the dark- 
 ness of the corridor. It was providential : the sisters had 
 made no remark that the Critchlows might not hear. 
 
 Then Maria Critchlow, simpering, had to greet Sophia. 
 Mrs. Critchlow was very agitated, from sheer nervousness. 
 She curvetted; she almost pranced; and she made noises 
 with her mouth as though she saw some one eating a sour 
 apple. She wanted to show Sophia how greatly she had 
 changed from the young, timid apprentice. Certainly since 
 her marriage she had changed. As manager of other people's 
 business she had not felt the necessity of being effusive to 
 customers, but as proprietress, anxiety to succeed had 
 dragged her out of her capable and mechanical indifference. 
 It was a pity. Her consistent dullness had had a sort of 
 dignity ; but genial, she was merely ridiculous. Animation 
 cruelly displayed her appalling commonness and physical 
 shabbiness. Sophia's demeanour was not chilly ; but it indi- 
 cated that Sophia had no wish to be eyed over as a freak 
 of nature. 
 
 Mr. Critchlow advanced very slowly into the room. " Ye 
 still carry your head on a stiff neck," said he, deliberately 
 examining Sophia. Then with great care he put out his 
 long thin arm and took her hand. " Well, I'm rare and 
 glad to see ye ! " 
 
 Every one was thunderstruck at this expression of joy. 
 Mr. Critchlow had never been known to be glad to see any- 
 body. 
 
 Yes," twittered Maria, " Mr. Critchlow would come in 
 to-night. Nothing would do but he must come in to- 
 night." 
 
 " You didn't tell me this afternoon," said Constance, " that 
 you were going to give us the pleasure of your company like 
 this." 
 
 He looked momentarily at Constance. " No," he grated, 
 " I don't know as I did." 
 
 His gaze nattered Sophia. Evidently he treated this ex- 
 perienced and sad woman of fifty as a young girl. And in 
 presence of his extreme age she felt like a young girl, re- 
 membering the while how as a young girl she had hated 
 him. Repulsing the assistance of his wife, he arranged an 
 armchair in front of the fire and meticulously put himself 
 into it. Assuredly he was much older in a drawing-room 
 than behind the counter of his shop. Constance had noticed 
 that in the afternoon. A live coal fell out of the fire. He 
 
464 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 bent forward, wet his fingers, picked up the coal and threw 
 it back into the fire. 
 
 " Well," said Sophia, " I wouldn't have done that." 
 
 " I never saw Mr. Critchlow's equal for picking up hot 
 cinders," Maria giggled. 
 
 Mr. Critchlow deigned no remark. " When did ye leave 
 this Paris ? " he demanded of Sophia, leaning back, and 
 putting his hands on the arms of the chair. 
 
 " Yesterday morning," said Sophia. 
 
 " And what'n ye been doing with yeself since yesterday 
 morning ? " 
 
 " I spent last night in London," Sophia replied, 
 
 " Oh, in London, did ye ? " 
 
 " Yes. Cyril and I had an evening together." 
 
 " Eh ? Cyril ! What's yer opinion o' Cyril, Sophia ? " 
 
 " I'm very proud to have Cyril for a nephew," said Sophia. 
 
 " Oh ! Are ye ? " The old man was obviously ironic. 
 
 " Yes I am," Sophia insisted sharply. " I'm not going to 
 hear a word said against Cyril." 
 
 She proceeded to an enthusiastic laudation of Cyril which 
 rather overwhelmed his mother. Constance was pleased ; 
 she was delighted. And yet somewhere in her mind was an 
 uncomfortable feeling that Cyril, having taken a fancy to' 
 his brilliant aunt, had tried to charm her as he seldom or 
 never tried to charm his mother. Cyril and Sophia had 
 dazzled and conquered each other ; they were of the same 
 type ; whereas she, Constance, being but a plain person, 
 could not glitter. 
 
 She rang the bell and gave instructions to Amy about food 
 — fruit cakes, coffee and hot milk, on a tray ; and Sophia 
 also spoke to Amy, murmuring a request as to Fossette. 
 
 " Yes, Mrs. Scales," said Amy, with eager deference. 
 
 Mrs. Critchlow smiled vaguely from a low chair near the 
 curtained window. Then Constance lit another burner of the 
 chandelier. In doing so, she gave a little sigh ; it was a 
 sigh of relief. Mr. Critchlow had behaved himself. Now 
 that he and Sophia had met, the worst was over. Had Con- 
 stance known beforehand that he would pay a call, she 
 would have been agonized by apprehensions, but now that 
 he had actually come she was glad he had come. 
 
 When he had silently sipped some hot milk, he drew a 
 thick bunch of papers, white and blue, from his bulging breast- 
 pocket. 
 
 " Now, Maria Critchlow," he called, edging round his 
 chair slightly. " Ye'd best go back home." 
 
 Maria Critchlow was biting at a bit of walnut cake, while 
 
THE MEETING. 4^5 
 
 in her right hand, all seamed with black lines, she held a cup 
 of coffee. 
 
 " But, Mr. Critchlow ! " Constance protested. 
 
 " I've got business with Sophia, and I must get it done. 
 I've got for to render an account of my stewardship to Sophia, 
 under her father's will, and her mother's will, and her aunt's 
 will, and it's nobody's business but mine and Sophia's, I 
 reckon. Now then," he glanced at his wife, " off with ye ! " 
 
 Maria rose, half -kittenish and half -ashamed. 
 
 " Surely you don't want to go into all that to-night," said 
 Sophia. She spoke softly, for she had already fully per- 
 ceived that Mr. Critchlow must be managed with the tact 
 which the capricious obstinacies of advanced age demanded. 
 " Surely you can wait a day or two. I'm in no hurry." 
 
 " Haven't I wr u sd long enough ? " he retorted fiercely. 
 
 There was a pause. Maria Critchlow moved. 
 
 " As for you being in no hurry, Sophia," the old man went 
 on, " nobody can say as you've been in a hurry." 
 
 Sophia had suffered a check. She glanced hesitatingly at 
 Constance. 
 
 " Mrs. Critchlow and I will go down into the parlour," said 
 Constance, quickly. " There's a bit of fire there." 
 
 " Oh no. I won't hear of such a thing ! " 
 
 " Yes, we will, won't we, Mrs. Critchlow ? " Constance in- 
 sisted, cheerfully but firmly. She was determined that in her 
 house Sophia should have all the freedom and conveniences 
 that she could have had in her own. If a private room was 
 needed for discussions between Sophia and her trustee, Con- 
 stance's pride was piqued to supply that room. Further, 
 Constance was glad to get Maria out of Sophia's sight. She 
 was accustomed to Maria ; with her it did not matter ; but 
 she did not care that the teeth of Sophia should be set on 
 edge by the ridiculous demeanour of Maria. So those two 
 left the drawing-room, and the old man began to open the 
 papers which he had been preparing for weeks. 
 
 There was very little fire in the parlour, and Cqnstance, 
 in addition to being bored by Mrs. Critchlow's inane and in- 
 quisitive remarks, felt chilly, which was bad for her sciatica. 
 She wondered whether Sophia would have to confess to Mr. 
 Critchlow that she was not certainly a widow. She thought 
 that steps ought to be taken to ascertain, through Birkm- 
 shaws, if anything was known of Gerald Scales. But even 
 that course was set with perils. Supposing that he still lived, 
 an unspeakable villain (Constance could only think of him as 
 an unspeakable villain), and supposing that he molested 
 Sophia, — what scenes ! What shame in the town ! Such 
 
466 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 frightful thoughts ran endlessly through Constance's mind 
 as she bent over the fire endeavouring to keep alive a silly 
 conversation with Maria Critchlow. 
 
 Amy passed through the parlour to go to bed. There was 
 no other way of reaching the upper part of the house. 
 
 " Are you going to bed, Amy ? " 
 
 " Yes'rn." 
 
 " Where is Fossette ? " 
 
 " In the kitchen, m'm," said Amy, defending herself. 
 " Mrs. Scales told me the dog might sleep in the kitchen with 
 Spot, as they was such good friends. I've opened the bottom 
 drawer, and Fossit is lying in that." 
 
 " Mrs. Scales has brought a dog with her ! " exclaimed 
 Maria. 
 
 " Yes'm ! " said Amy, drily, before Constance could answer. 
 She implied everything in that affirmative. 
 
 " You are a family for dogs," said Maria. " What sort of 
 dog is it ? " 
 
 " Well," said Constance, " I don't know exactly what 
 they call it. It's a French dog, one of those French dogs." 
 Amy was lingering at the stairfoot. " Good night, Amy, 
 thank you." 
 
 Amy ascended, shutting the door. 
 
 " Oh ! I see ! " Maria muttered. " Well, I never ! " 
 
 It was ten o'clock before sounds above indicated that the 
 first interview between trustee and beneficiary was finished. 
 
 " I'll be going on to open our side-door," said Maria. 
 " Say good night to Mrs. Scales for me." She was not sure 
 whether Charles Critchlow had really meant her to go home, 
 or whether her mere absence from the drawing-room had 
 contented him. So she departed. He came down the stairs 
 with the most tiresome slowness, went through the parlour 
 in silence, ignoring Constance, and also Sophia, who was at 
 his heels, and vanished. 
 
 As Constance shut and bolted the front-door, the sisters 
 looked at each other, Sophia faintly smiling. It seemed to 
 them that they understood each other better when they did 
 not speak. With a glance, they exchanged their ideas on 
 the subject of Charles Critchlow and Maria, and learnt that 
 their ideas were similar. Constance said nothing as to the 
 private interview. Nor did Sophia. At present, on this 
 the first day, they could only achieve intimacy by inter- 
 mittent flashes. 
 
 " What about bed ? " asked Sophia. 
 
 " You must be tired," said Constance. 
 
 Sophia got to the stairs, which received a little light from 
 
THE MEETING. 467 
 
 the corridor gas, before Constance, having tested the window- 
 fastening, turned out the gas in the parlour. They climbed 
 the lower flight of stairs together. 
 
 " I must just see that your room is all right," Constance 
 said. 
 
 " Must you ? " Sophia smiled. 
 
 They climbed the second flight, slowly. Constance was 
 out of breath. 
 
 Oh, a fire ! How nice ! " cried Sophia. " But why did 
 you go to all that trouble ? I told you not to." 
 
 " It's no trouble at all," said Constance, raising the gas 
 in the bedroom. Her tone implied that bedroom fires were 
 a quite ordinary incident of daily life in a place like Bursley. 
 
 " Well, my dear, I hope you'll find everything comfort- 
 able," said Constance. 
 
 " I'm sure I shall. Good night, dear." 
 
 " Good night, then." 
 
 They looked at each other again, with timid affectionate- 
 ness. They did not kiss. The thought in both their minds 
 was : " We couldn't keep on kissing every day." But there 
 was a vast amount of quiet restrained affection, of mutual 
 confidence and respect, even of tenderness, in their tones. 
 
 About half an hour later a dreadful hullabaloo smote the 
 ear of Constance. She was just getting into bed. She 
 listened intently, in great alarm. It was undoubtedly those 
 dogs fighting, and fighting to the death. She pictured the 
 kitchen as a battlefield, and Spot slain. Opening the door, 
 she stepped out into the corridor. 
 
 " Constance," said a low voice above her. She jumped. 
 " Is that you ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, don't bother to go down to the dogs ; they'll stop 
 in a moment. Fossette won't bite. I'm so sorry she's up- 
 setting the house." 
 
 Constance stared upwards, and discerned a pale shadow. 
 The dogs did soon cease their altercation. This short col- 
 loquy in the dark affected Constance strangely. 
 
 III. 
 
 The next morning, after a night varied by periods of wake- 
 fulness not unpleasant, Sophia arose and, taking due precau- 
 tions against cold, went to the window. It was Saturday ; 
 she had left Paris on the Thursday. She looked forth upon 
 
468 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 the Square, holding aside the blind. She had expected, of 
 course, to find that the Square had shrunk in size ; but never- 
 theless she was startled to see how small it was. It seemed 
 to her scarcely bigger than a courtyard. She could remem- 
 ber a winter morning when from the window she had watched 
 the Square under virgin snow in the lamplight, and the Square 
 had been vast, and the first wayfarer, crossing it diagonally 
 and leaving behind him the irregular impress of his feet, had 
 appeared to travel for hours over an interminable white waste 
 before vanishing past Holl's shop in the direction of the Town 
 Hall. She chiefly recalled the Square under snow ; cold 
 mornings, and the coldness of the oil-cloth at the window, 
 and the draught of cold air through the ill-fitting sash (it 
 was put right now) ! These visions of herself seemed beauti- 
 ful to her ; her childish existence seemed beautiful ; the 
 storms and tempests of her girlhood seemed beautiful ; 
 even the great sterile expanse of tedium when, after giving 
 up a scholastic career, she had served for two years in the 
 shop — even this had a strange charm in her memory. 
 
 And she thought that not for millions of pounds would she 
 live her life over again. 
 
 In its contents the Square had not surprisingly changed 
 during the immense, the terrifying interval that separated 
 her from her virginity. On the east side, several shops had 
 been thrown into one, and forced into a semblance of eter- 
 nal unity by means of a coat of stucco. And there was a 
 fountain at the north end which was new to her. No other 
 constructional change ! But the moral change, the sad 
 declension from the ancient proud spirit of the Square — this 
 was painfully depressing. Several establishments lacked 
 tenants, had obviously lacked tenants for a long time ; "To 
 let " notices hung in their stained and dirty upper windows, 
 and clung insecurely to their closed shutters. And on the 
 sign-boards of these establishments were names that Sophia 
 did not know. The character of most of the shops seemed 
 to have worsened ; they had become pettifogging little holes, 
 unkempt, shabby, poor ; they had no brightness, no feeling 
 of vitality. And the floor of the Square was Uttered with 
 nondescript refuse. The whole scene, paltry, confined, and 
 dull, reached for her the extreme of provinciality. It was 
 what the French called, with a pregnant intonation, la pro- 
 vince. This being said, there was nothing else to say. Burs- 
 ley, of course, was in the provinces ; Bursley must, in the 
 nature of things, be typically provincial. But in her mind 
 it had always been differentiated from the common province ; 
 it had always had an air, a distinction, and especially St. 
 
THE MEETING. 469 
 
 Luke's Square ! That illusion was now gone. Still, the 
 alteration was not wholly in herself ; it was not wholly sub- 
 jective. The Square really had changed for the worse ; it 
 might not be smaller, but it had deteriorated. As a centre 
 of commerce it had assuredly approached very near to death. 
 On a Saturday morning thirty years ago it would have been 
 covered with linen-roofed stalls, and chattering country- 
 folk, and the stir of bargains. Now, Saturday morning was 
 like any other morning in the Square, and the glass-roof of 
 St. Luke's market in Wedgwood Street, which she could see 
 from her window, echoed to the sounds of noisy commerce. 
 In that instance business had simply moved a few yards to 
 the east ; but Sophia knew, from hints in Constance's letters 
 and in her talk, that business in general had moved more 
 than a few yards, it had moved a couple of miles — to arro- 
 gant and pushing Hanbridge, with its electric light and its 
 theatres and its big, advertising shops. The heaven of thick 
 smoke over the Square, the black deposit on painted wood- 
 work, the intermittent hooting of steam syrens, showed that 
 the wholesale trade of Bursley still flourished. But Sophia 
 had no memories of the wholesale trade of Bursley ; it meant 
 nothing to the youth of her heart ; she was attached by 
 intimate links to the retail traffic of Bursley, and as a mart- 
 old Bursley was done for. 
 
 She thought : "It would loll me if I had to' live here. It's 
 deadening. It weighs on you. And the dirt, and the hor- 
 rible Ugliness ! And the way they talk, and the way they 
 think ! I felt it first at Knype station. The Square is 
 rather picturesque, but it's such a poor, poor little thing ! 
 Fancy having to look at it every morning of one's life ! No ! " 
 She almost shuddered. 
 
 For the time being she had no home. To Constance she 
 was " paying a visit." 
 
 Constance did not appear to realize the awful conditions of 
 dirt, decay, and provinciality in which she was living. Even 
 Constance's house was extremely inconvenient, dark, and 
 no doubt unhealthy. Cellar-kitchen, no hall, abominable 
 stairs, and as to hygiene, simply mediaeval. She could not 
 understand why Constance had remained in the house. 
 Constance had plenty of money, and might live where she 
 liked, and in a good modern house. Yet she stayed in the 
 Square. " I daresay she's got used to it," Sophia thought 
 leniently. " I daresay I should be just the same in her place." 
 But she did not really think so, and she could not understand 
 Constance's state of mind. 
 
 Certainly she could not claim to have " added up " Con- 
 
47o THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 stance yet. She considered that her sister was in some re- 
 spects utterly provincial — what they used to call in the Five 
 Towns a " body." Somewhat too diffident, not assertive 
 enough, not erect enough ; with curious provincial pro- 
 nunciations, accents, gestures, mannerisms, and inarticu- 
 late ejaculations ; with a curious narrowness of outlook ! 
 But at the same time Constance was very shrewd, and she 
 was often proving by some bit of a remark that she knew 
 what was what, despite her provinciality. In judgments upon 
 human nature they undoubtedly thought alike, and there 
 was a strong natural general sympathy between them. And 
 at the bottom of Constance was something fine. At intervals 
 Sophia discovered herself secretly patronizing Constance, 
 but reflection would always cause her to cease from patron- 
 age and to examine her own defences. Constance, besides 
 being the essence of kindness, was no fool. Constance could 
 see through a pretence, an absurdity, as quickly as any one. 
 Constance did honestly appear to Sophia to be superior to 
 any Frenchwoman that she had ever encountered. She saw 
 supreme in Constance that quality which she had recognized 
 in the porters at Newhaven on landing — the quality of an 
 honest and naive goodwill, of powerful simplicity. That 
 quality presented itself to her as the greatest in the world, 
 and it seemed to be in the very air of England. She could 
 even detect it in Mr. Critchlow, whom, for the rest, she liked, 
 admiring the brutal force of his character. She pardoned 
 his brutality to his wife. She found it proper. " A^er all," 
 she said, " supposing he hadn't married her, what would she 
 have been ? Nothing but a slave I She's infinitely better 
 off as his wife. In fact she's lucky. And it would be absurd 
 for him to treat her otherwise than he does treat her." 
 (Sophia did not divine that her masterful Critchlow had once 
 wanted Maria as one might want a star.) 
 
 But to be always with such people ! To be always with 
 Constance ! To be always in the Bursley atmosphere, 
 physical and mental ! 
 
 She pictured Paris as it would be on that very morning 
 — bright, clean, glittering ; the neatness of the Rue Lord 
 Byron, and the magnificent slanting splendour of the Champs 
 Elys6es. Paris had always seemed beautiful to her ; but 
 the life of Paris had not seemed beautiful to her. Yet now 
 it did seem beautiful. She could delve down into the earlier 
 f years of her ownership of the Pension, and see a regular, 
 ^placid beauty in her daily life there. Her life there, even! 
 so late as a fortnight ago, seemed beautiful ; sad, but beauti- 
 ful. It had passed into history. She sighed when she; 
 
THE MEETING. 471 
 
 thought of the innumerable interviews with Mardon, the 
 endless formalities required by the English and the French 
 law and by the particularity of the Syndicate. She had been 
 through all that. She had actually been through it and 
 it was over. She had bought the Pension for a song and 
 sold it for great riches. She had developed from a nobody 
 into the desired of Syndicates. And after long, long, monot- 
 onous, strenuous years of possession the day had come, the 
 emotional moment had come, when she had yielded up the 
 keys of ownership to Mr. Mardon and a man from the Hotel 
 Moscow, and had paid her servants for the last time and 
 signed the last receipted bill. The men had been very gallant, 
 and had requested her to stay in the Pension as their guest 
 until she was ready to leave Paris. But she had declined 
 that. She could not have borne to remain in the Pension 
 under the reign of another. She had left at once and gone 
 to a hotel with her few goods while finally disposing of cer- 
 tain financial questions. And one evening Jacqueline had 
 come to see her, and had wept. 
 
 Her exit from the Pension Frensham struck her now as 
 poignantly pathetic, in its quickness and its absence of cere- 
 monial. Ten steps, and her career was finished, closed. 
 Astonishing, with what liquid tenderness she turned and 
 looked back on that hard, fighting, exhausting life in Paris ! 
 For, even if she had unconsciously liked it, she had never 
 enjoyed it. She had always compared France disadvantage- 
 ously with England, always resented the French tempera- 
 ment in business, always been convinced that " you never 
 knew where you were " with French tradespeople. And 
 now they flitted before her endowed with a wondrous charm ; 
 so polite in their lying, so eager to spare your feelings and to 
 reassure you, so neat and prim. And the French shops, so 
 exquisitely arranged ! Even a butcher's shop in Paris was 
 a pleasure to the eye, whereas the butcher's shop in Wedg- 
 wood Street, which she remembered of old, and which she 
 had glimpsed from the cab — what a bloody shambles ! She 
 longed for Paris again. She longed to stretch her lungs in 
 Paris. These people in Bursley did not suspect what Paris 
 was. They did not appreciate and they never would appre- 
 ciate the marvels that she had accomplished in a theatre 
 of marvels. They probably never realized that the whole 
 of the rest of the world was not more or less like Bursley. 
 They had no curiosity. Even Constance was a thousand 
 times more interested in relating trifles of Bursley gossip 
 than in listening to details of life in Paris. Occasionally 
 she had expressed a mild, vapid surprise at things told to 
 
472 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 her by Sophia ; but she was not really impressed, because 
 her curiosity did not extend beyond Bursley. She, like the 
 rest, had the formidable, thrice-callous egotism of the prov- 
 inces. And if Sophia had informed her that the heads of 
 Parisians grew out of their navels she would have murmured : 
 " Well, well ! Bless us ! I never heard of such things ! 
 Mrs. Brindley's second boy has got his head quite crooked, 
 poor little fellow ! " 
 
 Why should Sophia feel sorrowful ? She did not know. 
 She was free ; free to go where she liked and do what she 
 liked. She had no responsibilities, no cares. The thought 
 of her husband had long ago ceased to rouse in her any feel- 
 ing of any kind. She was rich. Mr. Critchlow had accumu- 
 lated for her about as much money as she had herself acquired. 
 Never could she spend her income ! She did not know how 
 to spend it. She lacked nothing that was procurable. She 
 had no desires except the direct desire for happiness. If 
 thirty thousand pounds or so could have bought a son like 
 Cyril, she would have bought one for herself. She bitterly 
 regretted that she had no child. In this she envied Con- 
 stance. A child seemed to be the one commodity worth 
 having. She was too free, too exempt from responsibilities. 
 In spite of Constance she was alone in the world. The 
 strangeness of the hazards of life overwhelmed her. Here 
 she was at fifty, alone. 
 
 But the idea of leaving Constance, having once rejoined 
 her, did not please Sophia. It disquieted her. She could 
 not see herself living away from Constance. She was alone 
 — but Constance was there. 
 
 She was downstairs first, and she had a little conversation 
 with Amy. And she stood on the step of the front-door 
 while Fossette made a preliminary inspection of Spot's 
 gutter. She found the air nipping. 
 
 Constance, when she descended, saw stretching across one 
 side of the breakfast-table an umbrella, Sophia's present to 
 her from Paris. It was an umbrella such that a better could 
 not be bought. It would have impressed even Aunt Harriet. 
 The handle was of gold, set with a circlet of opalines. The 
 tips of the ribs were also of gold. It was this detail which 
 staggered Constance. Frankly, this development of luxury- 
 had been unknown and unsuspected in the Square. That 
 the tips of the ribs should match the handle . . . that did 
 truly beat everything 1 Sophia said calmly that the device 
 was quite common. But she did not conceal that the um- 
 brella was strictly of the highest class and that it might be 
 shown to queens without shame. She intimated that the 
 
THE MEETING. 473 
 
 frame (a " Fox's Paragon "), handle, and tips, would outlast 
 many silks. Constance was childish with pleasure. 
 
 They decided to go out marketing together. The unspoken 
 thought in their minds was that as Sophia would have to be 
 introduced to the town sooner or later, it might as well be 
 sooner. 
 
 Constance looked at the sky. " It can't possibly rain," 
 she said. " I shall take my umbrella." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 
 I. 
 
 Sophia wore list slippers in the morning It was a habit 
 which she had formed in the Rue Lord Byron — by accident 
 rather than with an intention to utilize list slippers for the 
 effective supervision of servants. These list slippers were 
 the immediate cause of important happenings in St. Luke's 
 Square. Sophia had been with Constance one calendar 
 month — it was, of course, astonishing how quickly the time 
 had ^passed ! — and she had become familiar with the house. 
 Restraint had gradually ceased to mark the relations of the 
 sisters. Constance, in particular, hid nothing from Sophia, 
 who was made aware of the minor and major defects of 
 Amy and all the other creakings of the household machine. 
 Meals were eaten off the ordinary table-cloths, and on 
 the days for " turning out " the parlour, Constance assumed, 
 with a little laugh, that Sophia would excuse Amy's apron, 
 which she had not had time to change. In brief, Sophia 
 was no longer a stranger, and nobody felt bound to pretend 
 that things were not exactly what they were. In spite of 
 the foulness and the provinciality of Bursley, Sophia enjoyed 
 the intimacy with Constance. As for Constance, she was 
 enchanted. The inflections of their voices, when they were 
 talking to each other very privately, were often tender, and 
 these sudden surprising tendernesses secretly thrilled both 
 of them. 
 
 On the fourth Sunday morning Sophia put on her dress- 
 ing-gown and those list slippers very early, and paid a visit 
 to Constance's bedroom. She was somewhat concerned about 
 Constance, and her concern was pleasurable to her. She 
 made the most of it. Amy, with her lifelong carelessness 
 about doors, had criminally failed to latch the street-door 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 475 
 
 of the parlour on the previous morning, and Constance had 
 only perceived the omission by the phenomenon of frigidity 
 in her legs at breakfast. She always sat with her back to 
 the door, in her mother's fluted rocking-chair ; and Sophia 
 on the spot, but not in the chair, occupied by John Baines 
 in the forties, and in the seventies and later by Samuel Povey. 
 Constance had been alarmed by that frigidity. " I shall 
 have a return of my sciatica ! " she had exclaimed, and 
 Sophia was startled by the apprehension in her tone. Before 
 evening the sciatica had indeed revisited Constance's sciatic 
 nerve, and Sophia for the first time gained an idea of what 
 a pulsating sciatica can do in the way of torturing its victim. 
 Constance, in addition to the sciatica, had caught a sneezing 
 cold, and the act of sneezing caused her the most acute pain. 
 Sophia had soon stopped the sneezing. Constance was got 
 to bed. Sophia wished to summon a doctor, but Constance 
 assured her that the doctor would have nothing new to advise. 
 Constance suffered angelically. The weak and exquisite 
 sweetness of her smile, as she lay in bed under the stress of 
 twinging pain amid hot-water bottles, was amazing to Sophia. 
 It made her think upon the reserves of Constance's char- 
 acter, and upon the variety of the manifestations of the 
 Baines blood. 
 
 So on the Sunday morning she had risen early, just after 
 Amy. 
 
 She discovered Constance to be a little better, as regards 
 the neuralgia, but exhausted by the torments of a sleepless 
 night. Sophia, though she had herself not slept well, felt 
 somehow conscience-stricken for having slept at all. 
 
 " You poor dear ! " she murmured, brimming with sym- 
 pathy. " I shall make you some tea at once, myself." 
 
 " Oh, Amy will do it," said Constance. 
 
 Sophia repeated with a resolute intonation : "I shall make 
 it myself." And after being satisfied that there was no 
 instant need for a renewal of hot-water bottles, she went 
 further downstairs in those list slippers. 
 
 As she was descending the dark kitchen steps she heard 
 Amy's voice in pettish exclamation : " Oh, get out, you ! " 
 followed' by a yelp from Fossette. She had a swift move- 
 ment of anger, which she controlled. The relations between 
 her and Fossette were not marked by transports, and her 
 rule over dogs in general was severe ; even when alone she 
 very seldom kissed the animal passionately, according to the 
 general habit of people owning dogs. But she loved Fos- 
 sette. And, moreover, her love for Fossette had been lately 
 sharpened by the ridicule which Burslev had showered upon 
 
476 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 that strange beast. Happily for Sophia's amour propre, 
 there was no means of getting Fossette shaved in Bursley, 
 and thus Fossette was daily growing less comic to the Bursley 
 eye. Sophia could therefore without loss of dignity yield to 
 force of circumstances what she would not have yielded to 
 popular opinion. She guessed that Amy had no liking for 
 the dog, but the accent which Amy had put upon the " you " 
 seemed to indicate that Amy was making distinctions between 
 Fossette and Spot, and this disturbed Sophia much more than 
 Fossette's yelps. 
 
 Sophia coughed, and entered the kitchen. 
 
 Spot was lapping his morning milk out of a saucer, while 
 Fossette stood wistfully, an amorphous mass of thick hair, 
 under the table. 
 
 " Good morning, Amy," said Sophia, with dreadful polite- 
 ness. 
 
 " Good morning, m'm," said Amy, glumly. 
 
 Amy knew that Sophia had heard that yelp, and Sophia 
 knew that she knew. The pretence of politeness was hor- 
 rible. Both the women felt as though the kitchen was sanded 
 with gunpowder and there were lighted matches about. 
 Sophia had a very proper grievance against Amy on account 
 of the open door of the previous day. Sophia thought that, 
 after such a sin, the least Amy could do was to show contri- 
 tion and amiability and an anxiety to please : which things 
 Amy had not shown. Amy had a grievance against Sophia 
 because Sophia had recently thrust upon her a fresh method 
 of cooking green vegetables. Amy was a strong opponent 
 of new or foreign methods. Sophia was not aware of this 
 grievance, for Amy had hidden it under her customary 
 cringing politeness to Sophia. 
 
 They surveyed each other like opposing armies. 
 
 " What a pity you have no gas-stove here ! I want to 
 make some tea at once for Mrs. Povey," said Sophia, in- 
 specting the just-born fire. 
 
 " Gas-stove, m'm ? " said Amy, hostilely. It was Sophia's 
 list slippers which had finally decided Amy to drop the mask 
 of deference. 
 
 She made no effort to aid Sophia ; she gave no indication 
 as to where the various necessaries for tea were to be found. 
 Sophia got the kettle, and washed it out. Sophia got the 
 smallest tea-pot, and, as the tea-leave€ had been left in it, 
 she washed out the teapot also, with exaggerated noise and 
 meticulousness. Sophia got the sugar and the other trifles, 
 and Sophia blew up the fire with the bellows. And Amy did 
 nothing in particular except encourage Spot to drink. 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 477 
 
 " Is that all the milk you give to Fossette ? " Sophia de- 
 manded coldly, when it had come to Fossette's turn. She 
 was waiting for the water to boil. The saucer for the bigger 
 dog, who would have made two of Spot, was not half 
 full. 
 
 " It's all there is to spare, m'm," Amy rasped. 
 
 Sophia made no reply. Soon afterwards she departed, 
 with the tea successfully made. If Amy had not been a 
 mature woman of over forty she would have snorted as 
 Sophia went away. But Amy was scarcely the ordinary 
 silly girl. 
 
 Save for a certain primness as she offered the tray to her 
 sister, Sophia's demeanour gave no sign whatever that the 
 Amazon in her was aroused. Constance's eager trembling 
 pleasure in the tea touched her deeply, and she was exceed- 
 ingly thankful that Constance had her, Sophia, as a succour 
 in time of distress. 
 
 A few minutes later, Constance, having first asked Sophia 
 what time it was by the watch in the watch-case on the chest 
 of drawers (the Swiss clock had long since ceased to work), 
 pulled the red tassel of the bell-cord over her bed. A bell 
 tinkled far away in the kitchen. 
 
 " Anything I can do ? " Sophia inquired. 
 
 " Oh no, thanks," said Constance. " I only want my 
 letters, if the postman has come. He ought to have been 
 here long ago." 
 
 Sophia had learned during her stay that Sunday morning 
 was the morning on which Constance expected a letter from 
 Cyril. It was a definite arrangement between mother and 
 son that Cyril should write on Saturdays, and Constance on 
 Sundays. Sophia knew that Constance set store by this 
 letter, becoming more and more preoccupied about Cyril as 
 the end of the week approached. Since Sophia's arrival 
 Cyril's letter had not failed to come, but once it had been 
 naught save a scribbled line or two, and Sophia gathered that 
 it was never a certainty, and that Constance was accustomed, 
 though not reconciled, to disappointments. Sophia had been 
 allowed to read the letters. They left a faint impression on 
 her mind that her favourite was perhaps somewhat negligent 
 in his relations with his mother. 
 
 There was no reply to the bell. Constance rang again with- 
 out effect. 
 
 With a brusque movement Sophia left the bedroom by way 
 of Cyril's room. 
 
 " Amy," she called over the banisters, " do you not hear 
 your mistress's bell ? " 
 
478 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " I'm coming as quick as I can, m'm." The voice was still 
 very glum. 
 
 Sophia murmured something inarticulate, staying till as- 
 sured that Amy really was coming, and then she passed back 
 into Cyril's bedroom. She waited there, hesitant, not exactly 
 on the watch, not exactly unwilling to assist at an interview 
 between Amy and Amy's mistress ; indeed, she could not 
 have surely analyzed her motive for remaining in Cyril's 
 bedroom, with the door ajar between that room and Con- 
 stance's. 
 
 Amy reluctantly mounted the stairs and went into her mis- 
 tress's bedroom with her chin in the air. She thought that 
 Sophia had gone up to the second storey, where she " be- 
 longed." She stood in silence by the bed, showing no sym- 
 pathy with Constance, no curiosity as to the indisposition. 
 She objected to Constance's attack of sciatica, as being a too 
 permanent reproof of her carelessness as to doors. 
 
 Constance also waited, for the fraction of a second, as if 
 expectant. 
 
 " Well, Amy," she said at length in her voice weakened 
 by fatigue and pain. " The letters ? " 
 
 " There ain't no letters," said Amy, grimly. " You might 
 have known, if there' d been any, I should have brought 'em 
 up. Postman went past twenty minutes agone. I'm always 
 being interrupted, and it isn't as if I hadn't got enough to do 
 — now ! " 
 
 She turned to leave, and was pulling the door open. 
 
 " Amy ! " said a voice sharply. It was Sophia's. 
 
 The servant jumped, and in spite of herself obeyed the 
 implicit, imperious command to stop. 
 
 You will please not speak to your mistress in that tone, 
 at any rate while I'm here," said Sophia, icily. " You know 
 she is ill and weak. You ought to be ashamed of your- 
 self." 
 
 " I never " Amy began. 
 
 " I don't want to argue," Sophia said angrily. " Please 
 leave the room." 
 
 Amy obeyed. She was cowed, in addition to being stag- 
 gered. 
 
 To the persons involved in it, this episode was intensely 
 dramatic. Sophia had surmised that Constance permitted 
 liberties of speech to Amy ; she had even guessed that Amy 
 sometimes took licence to be rude. But that the relations 
 between them were such as to allowing the bullying of Con- 
 stance by an Amy downright insolent — this had shocked 
 and wounded Sophia, who suddenly had a vision of Con- 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 479 
 
 stance as the victim of a reign of terror. " If the creature 
 will do this while I'm here," said Sophia to herself, " what 
 does she do when they are alone together in the house ? " 
 
 " Well," she exclaimed, " I never heard of such goings- 
 on ! And you let her talk to you in that style ! My dear 
 Constance ! " 
 
 Constance was sitting up in bed, the small tea-tray on 
 her knees. Her eyes were moist. The tears had filled them 
 when she knew that there was no letter. Ordinarily the 
 failure of Cyril's letter would not have made her cry, but 
 weakness had impaired her self-control. And the tears 
 having once got into her eyes, she could not dismiss them. 
 There they were ! 
 
 " She's been with me such a long time," Constance mur- 
 mured. " She takes liberties. I've corrected her once or 
 twice." 
 
 " Liberties ! " Sophia repeated the word. " Liber- 
 ties ! " 
 
 " Of course I really ought not to allow it," said Con- 
 stance. " I ought to have put a stop to it long since." 
 
 " Well," said Sophia, rather relieved by this symptom of 
 Constance's secret mind, " I do hope you won't think I'm 
 meddlesome, but truly it was too much for me. The. words 
 were out of my mouth before I " She stopped. 
 
 " You were quite right, quite right," said Constance, see- 
 ing before her in the woman of fifty the passionate girl of 
 fifteen. 
 
 " I've had a good deal of experience of servants," said 
 Sophia. 
 
 I know you have," Constance put in. 
 
 " And I'm convinced that it never pays to stand any 
 sauce. Servants don't understand kindness and forbear- 
 ance. And this sort of thing grows and grows till you can't 
 call your soul your own." 
 
 " You are quite right," Constance said again, with even 
 more positiveness. 
 
 Not merely the conviction that Sophia was quite right, 
 but the desire to assure Sophia that Sophia was not meddle- 
 some, gave force to her utterance. Amy's allusion to extra 
 work shamed Amy's mistress as a hostess, and she was bound 
 to make amends. 
 
 " Now as to that woman," said Sophia in a lower voice, 
 as she sat down confidentially on the edge of the bed. And 
 she told Constance about Amy and the dogs, and about 
 Amy's rudeness in the kitchen. " I should never have 
 dreamt of mentioning such things," she finished. " But 
 
480 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 under the circumstances I feel it right that you should 
 know. I feel you ought to know." 
 
 And Constance nodded her head in thorough agreement. 
 She did not trouble to go into articulate apologies to her 
 guest for the actual misdeeds of her servant. The sisters 
 were now on a plane of intimacy where such apologies would 
 have been supererogatory. Their voices fell lower and lower, 
 and the case of Amy was laid bare and discussed to the 
 minutest detail. 
 
 Gradually they realized that what had occurred was a 
 crisis. They were both very excited, apprehensive, and 
 rather too consciously defiant. At the same time they were 
 drawn very close to each other, by Sophia's generous in- 
 dignation and by Constance's absolute loyalty. 
 
 A long time passed before Constance said, thinking about 
 something else : 
 
 " I expect it's been delayed in the post." 
 
 " Cyril's letter ? Oh, no doubt ! If you knew the posts 
 in France, my word ! " 
 
 Then they determined, with little sighs, to face the crisis 
 cheerfully. 
 
 In truth it was a crisis, and a great one. The sensation of 
 the crisis affected the atmosphere of the entire house. Con- 
 stance got up for tea and managed to walk to the drawing- 
 room. And when Sophia, after an absence in her own room, 
 came down to tea and found the tea all served, Constance 
 whispered : 
 
 " She's given notice ! And Sunday too ! " 
 
 " What did she say ? " 
 
 " She didn't say much," Constance replied vaguely, hid- 
 ing from Sophia that Amy had harped on the too great 
 profusion of mistresses in that house. " After all, it's just as 
 well. She'll be all right. She's saved a good bit of money, 
 and she has friends." 
 
 " But how foolish of her to give up such a good place ! " 
 
 " She simply doesn't care," said Constance, who was a 
 little hurt by Amy's defection. " When she takes a thing 
 into her head she simply doesn't care. She's got no com- 
 mon sense. I've always known that." 
 
 " So you're going to leave, Amy ? " said Sophia that even- 
 ing, as Amy was passing through the parlour on her way to 
 bed. Constance was already arranged for the night. 
 
 " I am, m'm," answered Amy, precisely. 
 
 Her tone was not rude, but it was firm. She had ap- 
 parently reconnoitred her position in calmness. 
 
 "I'm sorry I was obliged to correct you this morning," 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 481 
 
 said Sophia, with cheerful amicableness, pleased in spite of 
 herself with the woman's tone. " But I think you will see 
 that I had reason to." 
 
 " I've been thinking it over, m'm," said Amy, with dignity, 
 " and I see as I must leave." 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " Well, you know best. . . . Good night, Amy." 
 
 " Good night, m'm." 
 
 " She's a decent woman," thought Sophia, " but hopeless 
 for this place now." 
 
 The sisters were fronted with the fact that Constance had 
 a month in which to find a new servant, and that a new 
 servant would have to be trained in well-doing and might 
 easily prove disastrous. Both Constance and Amy were pro- 
 foundly disturbed by the prospective dissolution of a bond 
 which dated from the seventies. And both were decided 
 that there was no alternative to the dissolution. Outsiders 
 knew merely that Mrs. Povey's old servant was leaving. Out- 
 siders merely saw Mrs. Povey's advertisement in the Signal 
 for a new servant. They could not read hearts. Some 
 of the younger generation even said superiorly that old- 
 fashioned women like Mrs. Povey seemed to have servants 
 on the brain, etc., etc. 
 
 II. 
 
 " Well, have you got your letter ? " Sophia demanded 
 cheerfully of Constance when she entered the bedroom the 
 next morning. 
 
 Constance merely shook her head. She was very depressed. 
 Sophia's cheerfulness died out. As she hated to be in- 
 sincerely optimistic, she said nothing. Otherwise she might 
 have remarked : " Perhaps the afternoon post will bring it." 
 Gloom reigned. To Constance particularly, as Amy had 
 given notice and as Cyril was " remiss," it seemed really that 
 the time was out of joint and life unworth living. Even 
 the presence of Sophia did not bring her much comfort. Im- 
 mediately Sophia left the room Constance's sciatica began 
 to return, and in a severe form. She had regretted this, 
 less for the pain than because she had just assured Sophia, 
 quite honestly, that she was not suffering ; Sophia had been 
 sceptical. After that it was of course imperative that Con- 
 stance should get up as usual. She had said that she would 
 get up as usual. Besides, there was the immense enterprise 
 of obtaining a new servant ! Worries loomed mountainous. 
 
 16 
 
k 
 
 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Suppose Cyril was dangerously ill, and unable to write ! 
 Suppose something had happened to him ! Supposing she 
 never did obtain a new servant ! 
 
 Sophia, up in her room, was endeavouring to be philo- 
 sophical, and to see the world brightly. She was saying to 
 herself that she must take Constance in hand, that what Con- 
 stance lacked was energy, that Constance must be stirred 
 out of her groove. And in the cavernous kitchen Amy, pre- 
 paring the nine-o'clock breakfast, was meditating upon the 
 ingratitude of employers and wondering what the future 
 held for her. She had a widowed mother in the picturesque 
 village of Sneyd, where the mortal and immortal welfare of 
 every inhabitant was watched over by God's vicegerent, the 
 busy Countess of Chell ; she possessed about two hundred 
 pounds of her own ; her mother for years had been begging 
 Amy to share her home free of expense. But nevertheless 
 Amy's mind was black with foreboding and vague dejection. 
 /The house was a house of sorrow, and these three women, 
 I each solitary, the devotees of sorrow. And the two dogs 
 wandered disconsolate up and down, aware of the necessity 
 for circumspection, never guessing that the highly peculiar 
 state of the atmosphere had been brought about by nothing 
 but a half-shut door and an incorrect tone. 
 
 As Sophia, fully dressed this time, was descending to 
 breakfast, she heard Constance's voice, feebly calling her, 
 and found the convalescent still in bed. The truth could not 
 be concealed. Constance was once more in great pain, and 
 her moral condition was not favourable to fortitude. 
 
 " I wish you had told me, to begin with," Sophia could 
 not help saying, " then I should have known what to 
 do." 
 
 Constance did not defend herself by saying that the pain 
 had only recurred since their first interview that morning. 
 She just wept. 
 
 "I'm very low ! " she blubbered. 
 
 Sophia was surprised. She felt that this wai not " being 
 a Baines." 
 
 During the progress of that interminable April morning, 
 her acquaintance with the possibilities of sciatica as an 
 agent destructive of moral fibre was further increased. Con- 
 stance had no force at all to resist its activity. The sweet- 
 ness of her resignation seemed to melt into nullity. She 
 held to it that, the doctor could do nothing for her. 
 
 About noon, when Sophia was moving anxiously around 
 her, she suddenly screamed. 
 
 " I feel as if my leg was going to burst ! " she cried. 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 483 
 
 That decided Sophia. As soon as Constance was a little 
 easier she went downstairs to Amy. 
 
 " Amy," she said, " it's a Doctor Stirling that your mis- 
 tress has when she's ill, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Yes, m'm." 
 
 " Where is his surgery ? " 
 
 " Well, m'm, he did live just opposite, with Dr. Harrop, 
 but latterly he's gone to live at Bleakridge." 
 
 " I wish you would put your things on, and run up there 
 and ask him to call as soon as he can." 
 
 " I will, m'm," said Amy, with the greatest willingness. 
 " I thought I heard missis cry out/' She was not effusive. 
 She was better than effusive : kindly and helpful with a cer- 
 tain reserve. 
 
 " There's something about that woman I like," said 
 Sophia, to herself. For a proved fool, Amy was indeed 
 holding her own rather well. 
 
 Dr. Stirling drove down about two o'clock. He had now 
 been established in the Five Towns for more than a decade, 
 and the stamp of success was on his brow and on the proud 
 forehead of his trotting horse. He had, in the phrase of the 
 Signal, " identified himself with the local life of the district." 
 He was liked, being a man of broad sympathies. In his rich 
 Scotch accent he could discuss with equal ability the flavour 
 of whisky or of a sermon, and he had more than sufficient 
 tact never to discuss either whiskies or sermons in the wrong 
 place. He had made a speech (responding for the learned 
 professions) at the annual dinner of the Society for the 
 Prosecution of Felons, and this speech (in which praise of 
 red wine was rendered innocuous by praise of books — his fine 
 library was notorious) had classed him as a wit with the 
 American consul, whose post-prandial manner was modelled 
 on Mark Twain's. He was thirty-five years of age, tall and 
 stoutish, with a chubby boyish face that the razor left chiefly 
 blue every morning. 
 
 The immediate effect of his arrival on Constance was 
 miraculous. His presence almost cured her for a moment, 
 just as though her malady had been toothache and he a 
 dentist. Then, when he had finished his examination, the 
 pain resumed its sway over her. 
 
 In talking to her and to Sophia, he listened very seriously 
 to all that they said ; he seemed to regard the case as the one 
 case that had ever aroused his genuine professional interest ; 
 but as it unfolded itself, in all its difficulty and urgency, so 
 he seemed, in his mind, to be discovering wondrous ways of 
 dealing with it ; these mysterious discoveries seemed to give 
 
484 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 him confidence, and his confidence was communicated to the 
 patient by means of faint sallies of humour. He was a highly 
 skilled doctor. This fact, however, had no share in his 
 popularity ; which was due solely to his rare gift of taking 
 a case very seriously while remaining cheerful. 
 
 He said he would return in a quarter of an hour, and he 
 returned in thirteen minutes with a hypodermic syringe, 
 with which he attacked the pain in its central strongholds. 
 
 " What is it ? " asked Constance, breathing gratitude for 
 the relief . 
 
 He paused, looking at her roguishly from under lowered 
 eyelids. 
 
 " I'd better not tell ye," he said. " It might lead ye into 
 mischief." 
 
 " Oh, but you must tell me, doctor," Constance insisted, 
 anxious that he should five up to his reputation for Sophia's 
 benefit. 
 
 " It's hydrochloride of cocaine," he said, and lifted a 
 ringer. " Beware of the cocaine habit. It's ruined many a 
 respectable family. But if I hadn't a certain amount of 
 confidence in yer strength of character, Mrs. Povey, I wouldn't 
 have risked it." 
 
 " He will have his joke, will the doctor ! " Constance 
 smiled, in a brighter world. 
 
 He said he should come again about half-past five, and he 
 arrived about half-past six, and injected more cocaine. The 
 special importance of the case was thereby established. On 
 this second visit, he and Sophia soon grew rather friendly. 
 When she conducted him downstairs again he stopped chat- 
 ting with her in the parlour for a long time, as though 
 he had nothing else on earth to do, while his coachman 
 walked the horse to and fro in front of the door. 
 
 His attitude to her flattered Sophia, for it showed that he 
 took her for no ordinary woman. It implied a continual 
 assumption that she must be a mine of interest for any one 
 who was privileged to delve into her memory. So far, among 
 Constance's acquaintance, Sophia had met no one who 
 showed more than a perfunctory curiosity as to her life. 
 Her return was accepted with indifference. Her escapade 
 of thirty years ago had entirely lost its dramatic quality. 
 Many people indeed had never heard that she had run away 
 from home to marry a commercial traveller ; and to those 
 who remembered, or had been told, it seemed a sufficiently 
 banal exploit — after thirty years ! Her fear, and Constance's, 
 that the town would be murmurous with gossip was ludi- 
 crously unfounded. The effect of time was such that even 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 485 
 
 Mr. Critchlow appeared to have forgotten even that she had 
 been indirectly responsible for her father's death. She had 
 nearly forgotten it herself ; when she happened to think of 
 it she felt no shame, no remorse, seeing the death as purely 
 accidental, and not altogether unfortunate. On two points 
 only was the town inquisitive : as to her husband, and as 
 to the precise figure at which she had sold the Pension. The 
 town knew that she was probably not a widow, for she had 
 been obliged to tell Mr. Critchlow, and Mr. Critchlow in some 
 hour of tenderness had told Maria. But nobody had dared 
 to mention the name of Gerald Scales to her. "With her 
 fashionable clothes, her striking mien of command, and the 
 legend of her wealth, she inspired respect, if not awe, in the 
 townsfolk. In the doctor's attitude there was something of 
 amaze ; she felt it. Though the dull apathy of the people 
 she had hitherto met was assuredly not without its ad- 
 vantageous side for her tranquillity of mind, it had touched 
 her vanity, and the gaze of the doctor soothed the smart. 
 He had so obviously divined her interestingness ; he so ob- 
 viously wanted to enjoy it. 
 
 " I've just been reading Zola's ' Downfall,' " he said. 
 
 Her mind searched backwards, and recalled a poster. 
 
 " Oh ! " she replied. " ' La Debacle ' ? " 
 
 " Yes. What do ye think of it ? " His eyes lighted at 
 the prospect of a talk. He was even pleased to hear her 
 give him the title in French. 
 
 " I haven't read it," she said, and she was momentarily 
 sorry that she had not read it, for she could see that he was 
 dashed. The doctor had supposed that residence in a foreign 
 country involved a knowledge of the literature of that country. 
 Yet he had never supposed that residence in England in- 
 volved a knowledge of English literature. Sophia had read 
 practically nothing since 1870 ; for her the latest author was 
 Cherbuliez. Moreover, her impression of Zola was that he 
 was not at all nice, and that he was the enemy of his race, 
 though at that date the world had scarcely heard of Dreyfus. 
 Dr. Stirling had too hastily assumed that the opinions of the 
 bourgeois upon art differ in different countries. 
 
 " And ye actually were in the siege of Paris ? " he ques- 
 tioned, trying again. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "And the commune ? " * 
 
 " Yes, the commune too." 
 
 " Well ! " he exclaimed. " It's incredible 1 When I was 
 reading the ' Downfall ' the night before last, I said to myself 
 that you must have been through a lot of all that. I didn't 
 
486 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 know I was going to have the pleasure of a chat with ye so 
 soon." 
 
 She smiled. " But how did you know I was in the siege of 
 Paris ? " she asked, curious. 
 
 " How do I know ? I know because I've seen that birth- 
 day card ye sent to Mrs. Povey in 1871, after it was over. 
 It's one of her possessions, that card is. She showed it me 
 one day when she told me ye were coming." 
 
 Sophia started. She had quite forgotten that card. It 
 had not occurred to her that Constance would have treasured 
 all those cards that she had despatched during the early 
 years of her exile. She responded as well as she could to his 
 eagerness for personal details concerning the siege and the 
 commune. He. might have been disappointed at the prose 
 of her answers, had he not been determined not to be dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 " Ye seem to have taken it all very quietly," he observed. 
 
 " Eh yes ! " she agreed, not without pride. " But it's a 
 long time since." 
 
 Those events, as they existed in her memory, scarcely war- 
 ranted the tremendous fuss subsequently made about them. 
 What were they, after all ? Such was her secret thought. 
 Chirac himself was now nothing but a faint shadow. Still, 
 were the estimate of those events true or false, she was a 
 woman who had been through them, and Dr. Stirling's high 
 appreciation of that fact was very pleasant to her. Their 
 friendliness approached intimacy. Night had fallen. Out- 
 side could be heard the champing of a bit. 
 
 " I must be getting on," he said at last ; but he did not 
 move. 
 
 " Then there is nothing else I am to do for my sister ? " 
 Sophia inquired. 
 
 " I don't think so," said he. " It isn't a question of med- 
 icine." 
 
 " Then what is it a question of ? " Sophia demanded 
 bluntly. 
 
 " Nerves," he said. " It's nearly all nerves. I know 
 something about Mrs. Povey's constitution now, and I was 
 hoping that your visit would do her good." 
 
 " She's been quite well — I mean what you may call quite 
 well — until the day before yesterday, when she sat in that 
 draught. She was better last night, and then this morning 
 I find her ever so much worse." 
 
 " No worries ? " The doctor looked at her confidentially. 
 
 " What can she have in the way of worries ? " exclaimed 
 Sophia. " That's to say — real worries." 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 487 
 
 " Exactly 1 " the doctor agreed. 
 
 " I tell her she doesn't know what worry is," said Sophia. 
 
 " So do I ! " said the doctor, his eyes twinkling. 
 
 " She was a little upset because she didn't receive her usual 
 Sunday letter from Cyril yesterday. But then she was weak 
 and low." 
 
 " Clever youth, Cyril ! " mused the doctor. 
 
 " I think he's a particularly nice boy," said Sophia, eagerly. 
 
 " So you've seen him ? " 
 
 " Of course," said Sophia, rather stiffly. Did the doctor 
 suppose that she did not know her own nephew ? She 
 went back to the subject of her sister. " She is also a little 
 bothered, I think, because the servant is going to leave." 
 
 " Oh ! So Amy is going to leave, is she ? " He spoke still 
 lower. " Between you and me, it's no bad thing." 
 
 " I'm so glad you think so." 
 
 " In another few years the servant would have been the 
 mistress here. One can see these things coming on, but it's 
 so difficult to do anything. In fact ye can't do anything." 
 
 " I did something," said Sophia, sharply. " I told the 
 woman straight that it shouldn't go on while I was in the 
 house. I didn't suspect it at first — but when I found it 
 out ... I can tell you 1 " She let the doctor imagine what 
 she could tell him. 
 
 He smiled. " No," he said. " I can easily understand 
 that ye didn't suspect anything at first. When she's well 
 and bright Mrs. Povey could hold her own — so I'm told. 
 But it was certainly slowly getting worse." 
 
 " Then people talk about it ? " said Sophia, shocked. 
 
 " As a native of Bursley, Mrs. Scales," said the doctor, 
 " ye ought to know what people in Bursley do ! " Sophia 
 put her lips together. The doctor rose, smoothing his waist- 
 coat. " What does she bother with servants at all for ? " 
 he burst out. " She's perfectly free. She hasn't got a care 
 in the world, if she only knew it. Why doesn't she go out 
 and about, and enjoy herself ? She wants stirring up, that's 
 what your sister wants." 
 
 " You're quite right," Sophia burst out in her turn. <<x That's 
 precisely what I say to myself ; precisely ! I was thinking 
 it over only this morning. She wants stirring up. She's got 
 into a rut." 
 
 " She needs to be jolly. Why doesn't she go to some sea- 
 side place, and live in a hotel, and enjoy herself ? Is there 
 anything to prevent her ? " 
 
 " Nothing whatever." 
 
 " Instead of being dependent on a servant ! I believe in 
 
488 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 enjoying one's self — when ye've got the money to do it 
 with ! Can ye imagine anybody living in Bursley for pleas- 
 ure ? And especially in St. Luke's Square, right in the 
 thick of it all! Smoke! Dirt! No air! No light! No 
 scenery 1 No amusements ! What does she do it for ? 
 She's in a rut." 
 
 " Yes, she's in a rut," Sophia repeated her own phrase, 
 which he had copied. 
 
 " My word ! " said the doctor. " Wouldn't I clear out 
 and enjoy myself if I could ! Your sister's a young woman." 
 
 " Of course she is ! " Sophia concurred, feeling that she 
 herself was even younger. Of course she is ! " 
 
 " And except that she's nervously organized, and has cer- 
 tain predispositions, there's nothing the matter with her. 
 This sciatica — I don't say it would be cured, but it might 
 be, by a complete change and throwing off all these ridicu- 
 lous worries. Not only does she live in the most depressing 
 conditions, but she suffers tortures for it, and there's abso- 
 lutely no need for her to be here at all." 
 
 " Doctor," said Sophia, solemnly, impressed, " you are 
 quite right. I agree with every word you say." 
 
 " Naturally she's attached to the place," he continued, 
 glancing round the room. " I know all about that. After 
 living here all her life ! But she's got to break herself of her 
 attachment. It's her duty to do so. She ought to show a 
 little energy. I'm deeply attached to my bed in the morn- 
 ing, but I have to leave it." 
 
 Of course," said Sophia, in an impatient tone, as though 
 disgusted with every person who could not perceive, or would 
 not subscribe to, these obvious truths that the doctor was 
 uttering. " Of course ! " 
 
 " What she needs is the bustle of life in a good hotel, a 
 good hydro, for instance. Among jolly people. Parties ! 
 Games ! Excursions ! She wouldn't be the same woman. 
 You'd see. Wouldn't I do it, if I could ? StrathpefFer. 
 She'd soon forget her sciatica. I don't know what Mrs. 
 Povey's annual income is, but I expect that if she took it 
 into her head to live in the dearest hotel in England, there 
 would be no reason why she shouldn't." 
 
 Sophia lifted her head and smiled in calm amusement. 
 " I expect so," she said superiorly. 
 
 " A hotel — that's the life. No worries. If ye want any- 
 thing ye ring a bell. If a waiter gives notice, it's some one 
 else who has the worry, not you. But you know all about 
 that, Mrs. Scales." 
 
 " No one better," murmured Sophia. 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 489 
 
 " Good evening," he said abruptly, sticking out his hand. 
 " I'll be down in the morning." 
 
 " Did you ever mention this to my sister ? " Sophia asked 
 him, rising. 
 
 " Yes," said he. " But it's no use. Oh yes, I've told 
 her. But she does really think it's quite impossible. She 
 wouldn't even hear of going to live in London with her 
 beloved son. She won't listen." 
 
 " I never thought of that," said Sophia. " Good night." 
 
 Their hand-grasp was very intimate and mutuallv compre- 
 hending. He was pleased by the quick responsiveness of her 
 temperament, and the masterful vigour which occasionally 
 flashed out in her replies. He noticed the hardly percep- 
 tible distortion of her handsome, worn face, and he said to 
 himself : " She's been thr ugh a thing or two," and : " She'll 
 have to mind her p's and q's." Sophia was pleased because 
 he admired her, and because with her he dropped his bed- 
 side jocularities, and talked plainly as a sensible man will 
 talk when he meets an uncommonly wise woman, and be- 
 cause he echoed and amplified her own thoughts. She 
 honoured him by standing at the door till he had driven off. 
 
 For a few. moments she mused solitary in the parlour, and 
 then, lowering the gas, she went upstairs to her sister, who 
 lay in the dark. Sophia struck a match. 
 
 " You've been having quite a long chat with the doctor," 
 said Constance. " He's very good company, isn't he ? 
 What did he talk about this time ? " 
 
 " He wanted to know about Paris and so on," Sophia 
 answered. 
 
 " Oh ! I believe he's a rare student." 
 
 Lying there in the dark, the simple Constance never sus- 
 pected that those two active and strenuous ones had been 
 arranging her life for her, so that she should be jolly and live 
 for twenty years yet. She did not suspect that she had been 
 tried and found guilty of sinful attachments, and of being 
 in a rut; and of lacking the elements of ordinary sagacity. 
 It had not occurred to her that if she was worried and ill, 
 the reason was to be found in her own blind and stupid 
 obstinacy. She had thought herself a fairly sensible kind 
 of creature. 
 
 , III. 
 
 The sisters had an early supper together in Constance's 
 bedroom. Constance was much easier. Having a fancy 
 
 16 a 
 
490 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 that a little movement would be beneficial, she had even 
 got up for a few moments and moved about the room. Now 
 she sat ensconced in pillows. A fire burned in the old-fash- 
 ioned ineffectual grate. From the Sun Vaults opposite came 
 the sound of a phonograph singing an invitation to God to 
 save its gracious queen. This phonograph was a wonderful 
 novelty, and filled the Sun nightly. For a few evenings it 
 had interested the sisters, in spite of themselves, but they 
 had soon sickened of it and loathed it. Sophia became 
 more and more obsessed by the monstrous absurdity of the 
 simple fact that she and Constance were there, in that dark 
 inconvenient house, wearied by the gaiety of public-houses, 
 blackened by smoke, surrounded by mud, instead of being 
 luxuriously installed in a beautiful climate, amid scenes of 
 beauty and white cleanliness. Secretly she became more and 
 more indignant. 
 
 Amy entered, bearing a letter in her coarse hand. As 
 Amy unceremoniously handed the letter to Constance, 
 Sophia thought : "If she was my servant she would hand 
 letters on a tray." (An advertisement had already been 
 sent to the Signal.) 
 
 Constance took the letter trembling. " Here it is at last," 
 she cried. 
 
 When she had put on her spectacles and read it, she ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 " Bless us ! Here's news ! He's coming down ! That's 
 why he didn't write on Saturday as usual." 
 
 She gave the letter to Sophia to read. It ran — 
 
 " Sunday midnight. 
 " Dear Mother, 
 
 " Just a line to say I am coming down to Bursley on 
 Wednesday, on business with Peels. I shall get to Knype at 
 5.28, and take the Loop. I've been very busy, and as I was 
 coming down I didn't write on Saturday. I hope you didn't 
 worry. Love to yourself and Aunt Sophia. 
 
 " Yours, C." 
 
 " I must send him a line," said Constance, excitedly. 
 
 " What ? To-night ? " 
 
 " Yes. Amy can easily catch the last post with it. Other- 
 wise he won't know that I've got his letter." 
 
 She rang the bell. « 
 
 Sophia thought : " His coming down is really no excuse for 
 his not writing on Saturday. How could she guess that he 
 was coming down ? I shall have to put in a little word to 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 491 
 
 that young man. I wonder Constance is so blind. She is 
 quite satisfied now that his letter has come." On behalf of 
 the elder generation she rather resented Constance's eager- 
 ness to write in answer. 
 
 But Constance was not so blind. Constance thought ex- 
 actly as Sophia thought. In her heart she did not at all 
 justify or excuse Cyril. She remembered separately almost 
 every instance of his carelessness in her regard. ' Hope I 
 didn't worry, indeed ! " she said to herself with a faint touch 
 of bitterness, apropos of the phrase in his letter. 
 
 Nevertheless she insisted on writing at once. And Amy 
 had to bring the writing materials. 
 
 " Mr. Cyril is coming down on Wednesday," she said to 
 Amy with great dignity. 
 
 Amy's stony calmness was shaken, for Mr. Cyril was a 
 great deal to Amy. Amy wondered how she would be able 
 to look Mr. Cyril in the face when he knew that she had given 
 notice. 
 
 In the middle of writing, on her knee, Constance looked up 
 at Sophia, and said, as though defending herself against an 
 accusation : "I didn't write to him yesterday, you know, 
 or to-day." 
 
 "No," Sophia murmured assentingly. 
 
 Constance rang the bell yet again, and Amy was sent out 
 to the post. 
 
 Soon afterwards the bell was rung for the fourth time, and 
 not answered. 
 
 " I suppose she hasn't come back yet. But I thought I 
 heard the door. What a long time she is ! " 
 
 " What do you want ? " Sophia asked. 
 
 " I just want to speak to her," said Constance. 
 
 When the bell had been rung seven or eight times, Amy 
 at length reappeared, somewhat breathless. 
 
 " Amy," said Constance, " let me examine those sheets, 
 will you ? " 
 
 " Yes'm," said Amy, apparently knowing what sheets, of 
 all the various and multitudinous sheets in that house. 
 
 " And the pillow-cases," Constance added as Amy left the 
 room. 
 
 So it continued. The next day the fever heightened. 
 Constance was up early, before Sophia, and trotting about the 
 house like a girl. Immediately after breakfast Cyril's bedroom 
 was invested and revolutionized ; not till evening was order 
 restored in that chamber. And on the Wednesday morning 
 it had to be dusted afresh. Sophia watched the prepara- 
 tions, and the increasing agitation of Constance's demeanour, 
 
492 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 with an astonishment which she had real difficulty in conceal- 
 ing. " Is the woman absolutely mad ? " she asked herself. 
 The spectacle was ludicrous : or it seemed so to Sophia, 
 whose career had not embraced much experience of mothers. 
 It was not as if the manifestations of Constance's anxiety- 
 were dignified or original or splendid. They were just silly, 
 ordinary fussinesses ; they had no sense in them. Sophia 
 was very careful to make no observation. She felt that 
 before she and Constance were very much older she had a 
 very great deal to do, and that a subtle diplomacy and wary 
 tactics would be necessary. Moreover, Constance's angelic 
 temper was slightly affected by the strain of expectation. 
 She had a tendency to rasp. After the high -tea was set 
 she suddenly sprang on to the sofa and lifted down the 
 " Stag at Eve " engraving. The dust on the top of the frame 
 incensed her. 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " Sophia asked, in a final 
 marvel. 
 
 " I'm going to change it with that one," said Constance, 
 pointing to another engraving opposite the fireplace. " He 
 said the effect would be very much better if they were 
 changed. And his lordship is very particular." 
 
 Constance did not go to Bursley station to meet her son. 
 She explained that it upset her to do so, and that also Cyril 
 preferred her not to come. 
 
 " Suppose I go to meet him," said Sophia, at half -past 
 five. The idea had visited her suddenly. She thought: 
 " Then I could talk to him before any one else." 
 
 " Oh, do ! " Constance agreed. 
 
 Sophia put her things on with remarkable expedition. 
 She arrived at the station a minute before the train came in. 
 Only a, few persons emerged from the train, and Cyril was 
 not among them. A porter said that there was not sup- 
 posed to be any connection between the Loop Line trains 
 and the main line expresses, and that probably the express 
 had missed the Loop. She waited thirty-five minutes for 
 the next Loop, and Cyril did not emerge from that train 
 either. 
 
 Constance opened the front door to her, and showed a tele- 
 gram — 
 
 " Sorry prevented last moment. Writing. Cyril." 
 
 Sophia had known it. Somehow she had known that it 
 was useless to wait for the second train. Constance was 
 silent and calm ; Sophia also. 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 493 
 
 " What a shame ! What a shame ! " thumped Sophia's 
 heart. 
 
 It was the most ordinary episode. But beneath her calm 
 she was furious against her favourite. She hesitated. 
 
 " I'm just going out a minute," she said. 
 
 " Where ? " asked Constance. " Hadn't we better have 
 tea ? I suppose we must have tea." 
 
 " I shan't be. long. I want to buy something." 
 
 Sophia went to the post-office and despatched a telegram. 
 Then, partially eased, she returned to the arid and painful 
 desolation of the house. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The next evening Cyril sat at the tea-table in the parlour 
 with his mother and his aunt. To Constance his presence 
 there had something of the miraculous in it. He had come, 
 after all ! Sophia was in a rich robe, and for ornament wore 
 an old silver-gilt neck-chain, which was clasped at the throat, 
 and fell in double to her waist, where it was caught in her 
 belt. This chain interested Cyril. He referred to it once or 
 twice, and then he said : " Just let me have a look at that 
 chain," and put out his hands ; and Sophia leaned forward 
 so that he could handle it. His fingers played with it thus 
 for some seconds ; the picture strikingly affected Constance. 
 At length he dropped it, and said : " H'm ! " After a pause 
 he said : " Louis Sixteenth, eh ? " and Sophia said : 
 
 " They told me so. But it's nothing ; it only cost thirty 
 francs, you know." And Cyril took her up sharply : 
 
 " What does that matter ? " Then after another pause 
 he asked : " How often do you break a link of it ? " 
 
 " Oh, often," she said. " It's always getting shorter." 
 
 And he murmured mysteriously : " H'm I " 
 
 He was still mysterious, withdrawn within himself extra- 
 ordinarily uninterested in his physical surroundings. But 
 that evening he talked more than he usually did. He was 
 benevolent, and showed a particular benevolence towards his 
 mother, apparently exerting himself to answer her questions 
 with fullness and heartiness, as though admitting frankly her 
 right to be curious. He praised the tea ; he seemed to notice 
 what he was eating. He took Spot on his knee, and gazed 
 in admiration at Fossette. 
 
 " By Jove ! " he said, " that's a dog, that is ! ... All the 
 same ". . ." And he burst out laughing. 
 
 " I won't have Fossette laughed at," Sophia warned him. 
 
494 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " No, seriously," he said, in his quality of an amateur of 
 dogs ; " she is very fine." Even then he could not help 
 adding : " What you can see of her ! " 
 
 Whereupon Sophia shook her head, deprecating such wit. 
 Sophia was very lenient towards him. Her leniency could be 
 perceived in her eyes, which followed his movements all the 
 time. " Do you think he is like me, Constance ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " I wish I was half as good-looking," said Cyril, quickly ; 
 and Constance said : 
 
 "As a baby he was very like you. He was a handsome 
 baby. He wasn't at all like you when he was at school. 
 These last few years he's begun to be like you again. He's 
 very much changed since he left school ; he was rather heavy 
 and clumsy then." 
 
 " Heavy and clumsy ! " exclaimed Sophia. " Well, I 
 should never have believed it ! " 
 
 " Oh, but he was ! " Constance insisted. 
 
 " Now, mater," said Cyril, " it's a pity you don't want 
 that cake cutting into. I think I could have eaten a bit of 
 that cake. But of course if it's only for show . . . ! " 
 
 Constance sprang up, seizing a knife. 
 
 " You shouldn't tease your mother," Sophia told him. 
 " He doesn't really want any, Constance ; he's regularly 
 stuffed himself." 
 
 And Cyril agreed, " No, no, mater, don't cut it ; I really 
 couldn't. I was only gassing." 
 
 But Constance could never clearly see through humour of 
 that sort. She cut three slices of cake, and she held the plate 
 towards Cyril. 
 
 " I tell you I really couldn't ! " he protested. 
 
 " Come ! " she said obstinately. "I'm waiting ! How 
 much longer must I hold this plate ? " 
 
 And he had to take a slice. So had Sophia. When she 
 was roused, they both of them had to yield to Constance. 
 
 With the dogs, and the splendour of the tea-table under 
 the gas, and the distinction of Sophia and Cyril, and the 
 conversation, which on the whole was gay and free, rising at 
 times to jolly garrulity, the scene in her parlour ought surely 
 to have satisfied Constance utterly. She ought to have been 
 quite happy, as her sciatica had raised the siege for a space. 
 But she was not quite happy. The circumstances of Cyril's 
 arrival had disturbed her ; they had in fact wounded her, 
 though she would scarcely admit the wound. In the morn- 
 ing she had received a brief letter from Cyril to say that he 
 had not been able to come, and vaguely promising, or half- 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 495 
 
 promising, to run down at a later date. That letter had the 
 cardinal defects of all Cyril's relations with his mother : it 
 was casual, and it was not candid. It gave no hint of the 
 nature of the obstacle which had prevented him from coming. 
 Cyril had always been too secretive. She was gravely de- 
 
 Eressed by the letter, which she did not show to Sophia, 
 ecause it impaired her dignity as a mother, and displayed 
 her son in a bad light. Then about eleven o'clock a tele- 
 gram had come for Sophia. 
 
 " That's all right," Sophia had said, on reading it. " He'll 
 be here this evening ! " And she had handed over the tele- 
 gram, which read — 
 
 " Very well. Will come same train to-day." 
 
 And Constance learned that when Sophia had rushed out 
 just before tea on the previous evening, it was to telegraph 
 to Cyril. 
 
 " What did you say to him ? " Constance asked. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Sophia, with a careless air, " I told him I 
 thought he ought to come. After all, you're more impor- 
 tant than any business, Constance ! And I don't like him 
 behaving like that. I was determined he should come ! " 
 
 Sophia had tossed her proud head. 
 
 Constance had pretended to be pleased and grateful. But 
 the existence of a wound was incontestable. Sophia, then, 
 could do more with Cyril than she could ! Sophia had only 
 met him once, and could simply twist him round her little 
 finger. He would never have done so much for his mother. 
 A fine sort of an obstacle it must have been, if a single tele- 
 gram from Sophia could overcome it ... ! And Sophia, too, 
 was secretive. She had gone out and had telegraphed, and 
 had not breathed a word until she got the reply, sixteen hours 
 later. She was secretive, and Cyril was secretive. They 
 resembled one another. They had taken to one another. 
 But Sophia was a curious mixture. When Constance had 
 asked her if she should go to the station again to meet Cyril, 
 she had replied scornfully : " No, indeed ! I've done going 
 to meet Cyril. People who don't arrive must not expect to 
 be met." ^ 
 
 When Cyril drove up to the door, Sophia had been in 
 attendance. She hurried down the steps. " Don't say any- 
 thing about my telegram," she had rapidly whispered to 
 Cyril ; there was no time for further explanation. Constance 
 was at the top of the steps. Constance had not heard the 
 whisper, but she had seen it ; and she saw a guilty, puzzled 
 look on Cyril's face, afterwards an ineffectively concealed 
 conspiratorial look on both their faces. They had " some- 
 
496 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 thing between them," from which she, the mother, was 
 shut out ! Was it not natural that she should be wounded ? 
 She was far too proud to mention the telegrams. And as 
 neither Cyril nor Sophia mentioned them, the circumstances 
 leading to Cyril's change of plan were not referred to at all, 
 which was very curious. Then Cyril was more sociable 
 than he had ever been ; he was different, under his aunt's 
 gaze. Certainly he treated his mother faultlessly. But Con- 
 stance said to herself : " It is because she is here that he is 
 so specially nice to me." 
 
 When tea was finished and they were going upstairs to 
 the drawing-room, she asked him, with her eye on the " Stag 
 at Eve " engraving : 
 
 " Well, is it a success ? " 
 
 " What ? " His eye followed hers. " Oh, you've changed 
 it ! What did you do that for, mater ? " 
 
 " You said it would be better like that," she reminded 
 him. 
 
 " Did I ? " He seemed genuinely surprised. " I don't 
 remember. I believe it is better, though," he added. " It 
 might be better still if you turned it the other way up." 
 
 He pulled a face to Sophia, and screwed up his shoulders, 
 as if to indicate : "I've done it, this time ! " 
 
 " How ? The other way up ? " Constance queried. Then 
 as she comprehended that he was teasing her, she said : 
 " Get away with you ! " and pretended to box his ears. 
 " You were fond enough of that picture at one time ! " she 
 said ironically. 
 
 " Yes, I was, mater," he submissively agreed. " There's 
 no getting over that." And he pressed her cheeks between 
 his hands and kissed her. 
 
 In the drawing-room he smoked cigarettes and played the 
 piano — waltzes of his own composition. Constance and 
 Sophia did not entirely comprehend those waltzes. But they 
 agreed that all were wonderful and that one was very pretty 
 indeed. (It soothed Constance that Sophia's opinion coin- 
 cided with hers.) He said that that waltz was the worst of 
 the lot. When he had finished with the piano, Constance 
 informed him about Amy. " Oh! She told me," he said, 
 " when she brought me my water. I didn't mention it be- 
 cause I thought it would be rather a sore subject." Beneath 
 the casualness of his tone there lurked a certain curiosity, a 
 willingness to hear details. He heard them. 
 
 At five minutes to ten, when Constance had yawned, he 
 threw a bomb among them on the hearthrug. 
 
 " Well," he said, " I've got an appointment with Matthew 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 497 
 
 at the Conservative Club at ten o'clock. I must go. Don't 
 wait up for me." 
 
 Both women protested, Sophia the more vivaciously. It 
 was Sophia now who was wounded. 
 
 " It's business," he said, defending himself. " He's going 
 away early to-morrow, and it's my only chance." And as 
 Constance did not brighten he went on : " Business has to 
 be attended to. You mustn't think I've got nothing to do 
 but enjoy myself." 
 
 No hint of the nature of the business ! He never ex- 
 plained. As to business, Constance knew only that she 
 allowed him three hundred a year, and paid his local tailor. 
 The sum had at first seemed to her enormous, but she had 
 grown accustomed to it. 
 
 " I should have preferred you to see Mr. Peel-Swynnerton 
 here," said Constance. " You could have had a room to 
 yourselves. I do not like you going out at ten o'clock at 
 night to a club." 
 
 " Well, good night, mater," he said, getting up. " See 
 you to-morrow. I shall take the key out of the door. It's 
 true my pocket will never be the same again." 
 
 Sophia saw Constance into bed, and provided her with two 
 hot-water bottles against sciatica. They did not talk much. 
 
 V. 
 
 Sophia sat waiting on the sofa in the parlour. It appeared 
 to her that, though little more than a month had elapsed 
 since her arrival in Bursley, she had already acquired a new 
 set of interests and anxieties. Paris and her life there had 
 receded in the strangest way. Sometimes for hours she 
 would absolutely forget Paris. Thoughts of Paris were 
 disconcerting ; for either Paris or Bursley must surely be 
 unreal ! As she sat waiting on the sofa Paris kept coming 
 into her mind. Certainly it was astonishing that she should 
 be just as preoccupied with her schemes for the welfare of 
 Constance as she had ever been preoccupied with schemes 
 for the improvement of the Pension Frensham. She said to 
 herself : My life has been so queer — and yet every part 
 of it separately seemed ordinary enough — how will it end ? " 
 
 Then there were footfalls on the steps outside, and a key 
 was put in the door, which she at once opened. 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed Cyril, startled, and also somewhat out 
 of countenance. " You're still up ! Thanks." He came in, 
 
49« THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 smoking the end of a cigar. " Fancy having to cart that 
 about ! " he murmured, holding up the great old-fashioned 
 key before inserting it into the lock on the inside. 
 
 ' I stayed up," said Sophia, " because I wanted to talk 
 to you about your mother, and it's so difficult to get a 
 chance." 
 
 Cyril smiled, not without self -consciousness, and dropped 
 into his mother's rocking-chair, which he had twisted round 
 with his feet to face the sofa. 
 
 " Yes," he said. " I was wondering what was the real 
 meaning of your telegram. What was it ? " He blew out a 
 lot of smoke and waited for her reply. 
 
 " I thought you ought to come down," said Sophia, cheer- 
 fully but firmly. " It was a fearful disappointment to your 
 mother that you didn't come yesterday. And when she's 
 expecting a letter from you and it doesn't come, it makes 
 her ill." 
 
 " Oh, well ! " he said. " I'm glad it's no worse. I thought 
 from your telegram there was something seriously wrong. 
 And then when you told me not to mention it — when I came 
 in . . . ! " 
 
 She saw that he failed to realize the situation, and she 
 lifted her head challengingly. 
 
 " You neglect your mother, young man," she said. 
 
 " Oh, come now, auntie ! " he answered quite gently. 
 " You mustn't talk like that. I write to her every week. 
 I've never missed a week. I come down as often as " 
 
 " You miss the Sunday sometimes," Sophia interrupted 
 him. 
 
 " Perhaps," he said doubtfully. " But what " 
 
 " Don't you understand that she simply lives for your 
 letters ? And if one doesn't come, she's very upset indeed — 
 can't eat ! And it brings on her sciatica, and I don't know 
 what ! " 
 
 He was taken aback by her boldness, her directness. 
 
 " But how silly of her ! A fellow can't always " 
 
 " It may be silly. But there it is. You can't alter her. 
 And, after all, what would it cost you to be more attentive, 
 even to write to her twice a week ? You aren't going to 
 tell me you're so busy as all that ! I know a great deal more 
 about young men than your mother does." She smiled like 
 an aunt. 
 
 He answered her smile sheepishly. 
 
 " If you'll only put yourself in your mother's place . . . ! " 
 
 " I expect you're quite right, he said at length. " And 
 I'm much obliged to you for telling me. How was I to 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 499 
 
 know ? " He threw the end of the cigar, with a large 
 sweeping gesture, into the fire. 
 
 " Well, anyhow, you know now ! " she said curtly ; and 
 she thought : " You ought to have known. It was your 
 business to know." But she was pleased with the way in 
 which he had accepted her criticism, and the gesture with 
 which he threw away the cigar-end struck her as very dis- 
 tinguished. 
 
 • That's all right ! " he said dreamily, as if to say : " That's 
 done with." And he rose. 
 
 Sophia, however, did not stir. 
 
 " Your mother's health is not what it ought to be," she 
 went on, and gave him a full account of her conversation 
 with the doctor. 
 
 " Really ! " Cyril murmured, leaning on the mantel-piece 
 with his elbow and looking down at her. " Stirling said 
 that, did he ? I should have thought she would have been 
 better where she is, in the Square." 
 
 " Why better in the Square ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know ! " 
 
 " Neither do I ! " 
 She's always been here." 
 
 " Yes," said Sophia, " she's been here a great deal too 
 long." 
 
 " What do you suggest ? " Cyril asked, with impatience 
 in his voice against this new anxiety that was being thrust 
 upon him. 
 
 " Well," said Sophia, " what should you say to her coming 
 to London and living with you ? " 
 
 Cyril started back. Sophia could see that he was genu- 
 inely shocked. " I don't think that would do at all," he 
 said. 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I don't think it would. London wouldn't suit 
 her. She's not that sort of woman. I really thought she 
 was quite all right down here. She wouldn't like London." 
 He shook his head, looking up at the gas ; his eyes had a 
 dangerous glare. v 
 
 " But supposing she said she did ? " 
 
 " Look here," Cyril began in a new and brighter tone. 
 " Why don't you and she keep house together somewhere ? 
 That would be the very " 
 
 He turned his head sharply. There was a noise on the 
 staircase, and the staircase door opened with its eternal 
 creak. 
 
 " Yes," said Sophia. " The Champs Elysees begins at 
 
500 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 the Place de la Concorde, and ends Is that you, 
 
 Constance ? " 
 
 The figure of Constance filled the doorway. Her face was 
 troubled. She had heard Cyril in the street, and had come 
 down to see why he remained so long in the parlour. She 
 was astounded to find Sophia with him. There they were, 
 as intimate as cronies, chattering about Paris ! Undoubtedly 
 she was jealous ! Never did Cyril talk like that to her ! 
 
 " I thought you were in bed and asleep, Sophia," she said 
 weakly. " It's nearly one o'clock." 
 
 " No," said Sophia. " I didn't seem to feel like going to 
 bed ; and then Cyril happened to come in." 
 
 But neither she nor Cyril could look innocent. And Con- 
 stance glanced from one to the other apprehensively. 
 
 The next morning Cyril received a letter which, he said 
 — with no further explanation — forced him to leave at once. 
 He intimated that there had been danger in his coming 
 just then, and that matters had turned out as he had 
 feared. 
 
 " You think over what I said," he whispered to Sophia 
 when they were alone for an instant, " and let me know." 
 
 VI. 
 
 A week before Easter the guests of the Rutland Hotel in 
 the Broad Walk, Buxton, being assembled for afternoon tea 
 in the " lounge " of that establishment, witnessed the arri- 
 val of two middle-aged ladies and two dogs. Critically to 
 examine newcomers was one of the amusements of the occu- 
 pants of the lounge. This apartment, furnished " in the 
 oriental style," made a pretty show among the photographs 
 in the illustrated brochure of the hotel, and, though draughty, 
 it was of all the public rooms the favourite. It was draughty 
 because only separated from the street (if the Broad Walk 
 can be called a street) by two pairs of swinging-doors — in 
 charge of two page-boys. Every visitor entering the hotel 
 was obliged to pass through the lounge, and for newcomers 
 the passage was an ordeal ; they were made to feel that they 
 had so much to learn, so much to get accustomed to ; like 
 passengers who join a ship at a port of call, they felt that 
 the business lay before them of creating a niche for them- 
 selves in a hostile and haughty society. The two ladies pro- 
 duced a fairly favourable impression at the outset by reason 
 of their two dogs. It is not every one who has the courage 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 501 
 
 to bring dogs into an expensive private hotel : to bring one 
 dog indicates that you are not accustomed to deny yourself 
 small pleasures for the sake of a few extra shillings ; to 
 bring two indicates that you have no fear of hotel-managers 
 and that you are in the habit of regarding your own whim 
 as nature's law. The shorter and stouter of the two ladies 
 did not impose herself with much force on the collective 
 vision of the Rutland ; she was dressed in black, not fashion- 
 ably, though with a certain unpretending richness ; her ges- 
 tures were timid and nervous ; evidently she relied upon her 
 tall companion to shield her in the first trying contacts of 
 hotel life. The tall lady was of a different stamp. Hand- 
 some, stately, deliberate, and handsomely dressed in colours, 
 she had the assured hard gaze of a person who is thoroughly 
 habituated to the inspection of strangers. She curtly asked 
 one of the page-boys for the manager, and the manager's 
 wife tripped rapidly down the stairs in response, and was 
 noticeably deferential. Her voice was quiet and command- 
 ing;, the voice of one who gives orders that are obeyed. The 
 opinion of the lounge was divided as to whether or not they 
 were sisters. 
 
 They vanished quietly upstairs in convoy of the man- 
 ager's wife, and they did not reappear for the lounge tea, 
 which in any case would have been undrinkably stewed. It 
 then became known, by the agency of one of those guests, 
 to be found in every hotel, who acquire all the secrets of the 
 hotel by the exercise of unabashed curiosity on the per- 
 sonnel, that the two ladies had engaged two bedrooms, Nos. 
 17 and 18, and the sumptuous private parlour with a balcony 
 on the first floor, styled " C " in the nomenclature of rooms. 
 This fact definitely established the position of the new arrivals 
 in the moral fabric of the hotel. They were wealthy. They 
 had money to throw away. For even in a select hotel like 
 the Rutland it is not everybody who indulges in a private 
 sitting-room ; there were only four such apartments in the 
 hotel, as against fifty bedrooms. 
 
 At dinner they had a small table to themselves in a x comer. 
 The short lady wore a white shawl over her shoulders. Her 
 almost apologetic manner during the meal confirmed the view 
 that she must be a very simple person, unused to the world 
 and its ways. The other continued to be imperial. She 
 ordered half-a-bottle of wine and drank two glasses. She 
 stared about her quite self-unconsciously, whereas the little 
 woman divided her glances between her companion and her 
 plate. They did not talk much. Immediately after dinner 
 they retired. " Widows in easy circumstances " was the 
 
502 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 verdict ; but the contrast between the pair held puzzles that 
 piqued the inquisitive. 
 
 Sophia had conquered again. Once more Sophia had 
 resolved to accomplish a thing, and she had accomplished 
 it. Events had fallen out thus. The advertisement for a 
 general servant in the Signal had been a disheartening 
 failure. A few answers were received, but of an entirely 
 unsatisfactory character. Constance, a great deal more than 
 Sophia, had been astounded by the bearing and the demands 
 of modern servants. Constance was in despair. If Con- 
 stance had not had an immense pride she would have been 
 ready to suggest to Sophia that Amy should be asked to " stay 
 on." But Constance would have accepted a modern impudent 
 wench first. It was Maria Critchlow who got Constance out 
 of her difficulty by giving her particulars of a reliable servant 
 who was about to leave a situation in which she had stayed 
 for eight years. Constance did not imagine that a servant 
 recommended by Maria Critchlow would suit her, but, being 
 in a quandary, she arranged to see the servant, and both she 
 and Sophia were very pleased with the girl — Rose Bennion 
 by name. The mischief was that Rose would not be free 
 until about a month after Amy had left. Rose would have 
 left her old situation, but she had a fancy to go and spend a 
 fortnight with a married sister at Manchester before settling 
 into new quarters. Constance and Sophia felt that this 
 caprice of Rose's was really very tiresome and unnecessary. 
 Of course Amy might have been asked to " stay on " just 
 for a month. Amy would probably have volunteered to do 
 so had she been aware of the circumstances. She was not, 
 however, aware of the circumstances. And Constance was 
 determined not to be beholden to Amy for anything. What 
 could the sisters do ? Sophia, who had conducted all the 
 interviews with Rose and other candidates, said that it would 
 be a grave error to let Rose slip. Besides, they had no one 
 to take her place, no one who could come at once. 
 
 The dilemma was appalling. At least, it seemed appal- 
 ling to Constance, who really believed that no mistress had 
 ever been so " awkwardly fixed." And yet, when Sophia 
 first proposed her solution, Constance considered it to be 
 a quite impossible solution. Sophia's idea was that they 
 should lock up the house and leave it on the same day as 
 Amy left it, to spend a few weeks in some holiday resort. 
 To begin with, the idea of leaving the house empty seemed 
 to Constance a mad idea. The house had never been left 
 empty. And then — going for a holiday in April ! Con- 
 stance had never been for a holiday except in the month of 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 503 
 
 August. No ! The project was beset with difficulties and 
 dangers which could not be overcome nor provided against. 
 For example, " We can't come back to a dirty house," said 
 Constance. " And we can't have a strange servant coming 
 here before us." To which Sophia had replied : " Then 
 what shall you do ? " And Constance, after prodigious re- 
 flection on the frightful pass to which destiny had brought 
 her, had said that she supposed she would have to manage 
 with a charwoman until Rose's advent. She asked Sophia 
 if she remembered old Maggie. Sophia, of course, perfectly 
 remembered. Old Maggie was dead, as well as the drunken, 
 amiable Hollins, but there was young Maggie (wife of a 
 bricklayer) who went out charing in the spare time left from 
 looking after seven children. The more Constance medi- 
 tated upon young Maggie, the more was she convinced that 
 young Maggie would meet the case. Constance felt that she 
 could trust young Maggie. 
 
 This expression of trust in Maggie was Constance's un- 
 doing. Why should they not go away, and arrange with 
 Maggie to come to the house a few days before their return, 
 to clean and ventilate ? The weight of reason overbore 
 Constance. She yielded unwillingly, but she yielded. It 
 was the mention of Buxton that finally moved her. She 
 knew Buxton. Her old landlady at Buxton was dead, and 
 Constance had not visited the place since before Samuel's 
 death ; nevertheless its name had a reassuring sound to her 
 ears, and for sciatica its waters and climate were admitted 
 to be the best in England. Gradually Constance permitted 
 herself to be embarked on this perilous enterprise of shutting 
 up the house for twenty-five days. She imparted the infor- 
 mation to Amy, who was astounded". Then she commenced 
 her domestic preparations. She wrapped Samuel's Family 
 Bible in brown paper ; she put Cyril's straw-framed copy 
 of Sir Edwin Landseer away in a drawer, and she took 
 ten thousand other precautions. It was grotesque ; it was 
 farcical ; it was what you please. And when, with the cab 
 at the door and the luggage on the cab, and the dogs chained 
 together, and Maria Critchlow waiting on the pavement to 
 receive the key, Constance put the key into the door on the 
 outside, and locked up the empty house, Constance's face 
 was tragic with innumerable apprehensions. And Sophia 
 felt that she had performed a miracle. She had. 
 
 On the whole the sisters were well received in the hotel, 
 though they were not at an age which commands popularity. 
 In the criticism which was passed upon them — the free, 
 realistic and relentless criticism of private hotels — Sophia 
 
5 o 4 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 was at first set down as overbearing. But in a few days 
 this view was modified, and Sophia rose in esteem. The 
 fact was that Sophia's behaviour changed after forty-eight 
 hours. The Rutland Hotel was very good. It was so good 
 as to disturb Sophia's profound beliefs that there was in 
 the world only one truly high-class pension, and that nobody 
 could teach the creator of that unique pension anything 
 about the art of management. The food was excellent ; the 
 attendance on the bedrooms was excellent (and Sophia knew 
 how difficult of attainment was excellent bedroom attend- 
 ance) ; and to the eye the interior of the Rutland presented 
 a spectacle far richer than the Pension Frensham could show. 
 The standard of comfort was higher. The guests had a 
 more distinguished appearance. It is true that the prices 
 were much higher. Sophia was humbled. She had enough 
 sense to adjust her perspective. Further, she found herself 
 ignorant of many matters which by the other guests were 
 taken for granted and used as a basis for conversation. 
 Prolonged residence in Paris could not justify this igno- 
 rance ; it seemed rather to intensify its strangeness. Thus, 
 when some one of cosmopolitan experience, having learnt 
 that she had lived in Paris for many years, asked what had 
 been going on lately at the Comedie Francaise, she had to 
 admit that she had not been in a French theatre for nearly 
 thirty years. And when, on a Sunday, the same person 
 questioned her about the English chaplain in Paris, lo ! 
 she knew nothing but his name, had never even seen him. 
 Sophia's life, in its way, had been as narrow as Constance's. 
 Though her experience of human nature was wide, she had 
 been in a groove as deep as Constance's. She had been 
 utterly absorbed in doing one single thing. 
 
 By tacit agreement she had charge of the expedition. 
 She paid all the bills. Constance protested against the ex- 
 
 Eensiveness of the affair several times, but Sophia quietened 
 er by sheer force of individuality. Constance had one ad- 
 vantage over Sophia. She knew Buxton and its neighbour- 
 hood intimately, and she was therefore in a position to show 
 off the sights and to deal with local peculiarities. In all 
 other respects Sophia led. 
 
 They very soon became acclimatized to the hotel. They 
 moved easily between Turkey carpets and sculptured ceil- 
 ings ; their eyes grew used to the eternal vision of them- 
 selves and other slow-moving dignities in gilt mirrors, to the 
 heaviness of great oil-paintings of picturesque scenery, to 
 the indications of surreptitious dirt behind massive furni- 
 ture, to the grey-brown of the shirt-fronts of the waiters, 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 505 
 
 to the litter of trays, boots and pails in long corridors ; their 
 ears were always awake to the sounds of gongs and bells. 
 They consulted the barometer and ordered the daily carriage 
 with the perfunctoriness of habit. They discovered what 
 can be learnt of other people's needlework in a hotel on a 
 wet day. They performed co-operative outings with fellow- 
 guests. They invited fellow- guests into their sitting-room. 
 When there was an entertainment they did not avoid it. 
 Sophia was determined to do everything that could with 
 propriety be done, partly as an outlet for her own energy 
 (which since she left Paris had been accumulating), but 
 more on Constance's account. She remembered all that Dr. 
 Stirling had said, and the heartiness of her own agreement 
 with his opinions. It was a great day when, under tuition 
 of an aged lady and in the privacy of their parlour, they both 
 began to study the elements of Patience. Neither had ever 
 played at cards. Constance was almost afraid to touch 
 cards, as though in the very cardboard there had been some- 
 thing unrighteous and perilous. But the respectability of 
 a luxurious private hotel makes proper every act that passes 
 within its walls. And Constance plausibly argued that no 
 harm could come from a game which you played by your- 
 self. She acquired with some aptitude several varieties of 
 Patience. She said : "I think I could enjoy that, if I kept 
 at it. But it does make my head whirl." 
 
 Nevertheless Constance was not happy in the hotel. She 
 worried the whole time about her empty house. She antici- 
 pated difficulties and even disasters. She wondered again 
 and again whether she could trust the second Maggie in her 
 house alone, whether it would not be better to return home 
 earlier and participate personally in the cleaning. She would 
 have decided to do so had it not been that she hesitated to 
 subject Sophia to the inconvenience of a house upside down. 
 The matter was on her mind, always. Always she was rest- 
 lessly anticipating the day when they would leave. She had 
 carelessly left her heart behind in St. Luke's Square. She 
 had never stayed in a hotel before, and she did not like it. 
 Sciatica occasionally harassed her. Yet when it came to the 
 point she would not drink the waters. She said she never 
 had drunk them, and seemed to regard that as a reason why 
 she never should. Sophia had achieved a miracle in getting 
 her to Buxton for nearly a month, but the ultimate grand 
 effect lacked brilliance. 
 
 Then came the fatal letter, the desolating letter, which 
 vindicated Constance's dark apprehensions. Rose Bennion 
 calmly wrote to say that she had decided not to come to 
 
506 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 St. Luke's Square. She expressed regret for any incon- 
 venience which might possibly be caused ; she was polite. 
 But the monstrousness of it ! Constance felt that this 
 actually and truly was the deepest depth of her calamities. 
 There she was, far from a dirty home, with no servant 
 and no prospect of a servant ! She bore herself bravely, 
 nobly ; but she was stricken. She wanted to return to the 
 dirty home at once. 
 
 Sophia felt that the situation created by this letter would 
 demand her highest powers of dealing with situations, and 
 she determined to deal with it adequately. Great measures 
 were needed, for Constance's health and happiness were at 
 stake. She alone could act. She knew that she could not 
 rely upon Cyril. She still had an immense partiality for 
 Cyril ; she thought him the most charming young man she 
 had ever known ; she knew him to be industrious and clever ; 
 but in his relations with his mother there was a hardness, 
 a touch of callousness. She explained it vaguely by saying 
 that " they did not get on well together " ; which was 
 strange, considering Constance's sweet affectionateness. 
 Still, Constance could be . a little trying — at times. Any- 
 how, it was soon clear to Sophia that the idea of mother and 
 son living together in London was entirely impracticable. 
 No ! If Constance was to be saved from herself, there was 
 no one but Sophia to save her. 
 
 After half a morning spent chiefly in listening to Con- 
 stance's hopeless comments on the monstrous letter, Sophia 
 said suddenly that she must take the dogs for an airing. 
 Constance did not feel equal to walking out, and she would 
 not drive. She did not want Sophia to " venture," because 
 the sky threatened. However, Sophia did venture, and she 
 returned a few minutes late for lunch, full of vigour, with 
 two happy dogs. Constance was moodily awaiting her in 
 the dining-room. Constance could not eat. But Sophia 
 ate, and she poured out cheerfulness and energy as from a 
 source inexhaustible. After lunch it began to rain. Con- 
 stance said she thought she should retire directly to the 
 sitting-room. " I'm coming too," said Sophia, who was 
 still wearing her hat and coat and carried her gloves in her 
 hand. In the pretentious and banal sitting-room they sat 
 down on either side the fire. Constance put a little shawl 
 round her shoulders, pushed her spectacles into her grey 
 hair, folded her hands, and sighed an enormous sigh : " Oh, 
 dear ! " She was the tragic muse, aged, and in black silk. 
 
 " I tell you what I've been thinking," said Sophia, folding 
 up her gloves. 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 507 
 
 " What ? " asked Constance, expecting some wonderful 
 solution to come out of Sophia's active brain. 
 
 " There's no earthly reason why you should go back to 
 Bursley. The house won't run away, and it's costing 
 nothing but the rent. Why not take things easy for a 
 bit ? " 
 
 " And stay here ? " said Constance, with an inflection that 
 enlightened Sophia as to the intensity of her dislike of the 
 existence at the Rutland. 
 
 " No, not here," Sophia answered with quick deprecation. 
 
 There are plenty of other places we could go to." 
 
 " I don't think I should be easy in my mind," said Con- 
 stance. " What with nothing being settled, the house " 
 
 " What does it matter about the house ? " 
 
 " It matters a great deal," said Constance, seriously, and 
 slightly hurt. " I didn't leave things as if we were going to 
 be away for a long time. It wouldn't do." 
 
 " I don't see that anything could come to any harm, I 
 really don't ! " said Sophia, persuasively. " Dirt can always 
 be cleaned, after all. I think you ought to go about more. 
 It would do you good — all the good in the world. And 
 there is no reason why you shouldn't go about. You are 
 perfectly free. Why shouldn't we go abroad together, for 
 instance, you and I ? I'm sure you would enjoy it very 
 much." 
 
 " Abroad ? " murmured Constance, aghast, recoiling from 
 the proposition as from a grave danger. 
 
 " Yes," said Sophia, brightly and eagerly. She was deter- 
 mined to take Constance abroad. ** There are lots of places 
 we could go to, and live very comfortably among nice English 
 people." She thought of the resorts she had visited with 
 Gerald in the sixties. They seemed to her like cities of a 
 dream. They came back to her as a dream recurs. 
 
 " I don't think going abroad would suit me," said Con- 
 stance. 
 
 " But why not ? You don't know. You've never tried, 
 my dear." She smiled encouragingly. But Constance did 
 not smile. Constance was inclined to be grim. 
 
 ** I don't think it would," said she, obstinately. " I'm 
 one of your stay-at-homes. I'm not like you. We can't all 
 be alike," she added, with her " tart " accent. 
 
 Sophia suppressed a feeling of irritation. She knew that 
 she had a stronger individuality than Constance's. 
 
 " Well, then," she said, with undiminished persuasiveness, 
 " in England or Scotland. There are several places I should 
 like to visit — Torquay, Tunbridge Wells. I've always under- 
 
508 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 stood that Tunbridge Wells is a very nice town indeed, with 
 very superior people, and a beautiful climate." 
 
 " I think I shall have to be getting back to St. Luke's 
 Square," said Constance, ignoring all that Sophia had said. 
 " There's so much to be done." 
 
 Then Sophia looked at Constance with a more serious and 
 resolute air ; but still kindly, as though looking thus at Con- 
 stance for Constance's own good. 
 
 " You are making a mistake, Constance," she said, " if you 
 will allow me to say so." 
 
 " A mistake ! " exclaimed Constance, startled. 
 
 " A very great mistake," Sophia insisted, observing that 
 she was creating an effect. 
 
 " I don't see how I can be making a mistake," Constance 
 said, gaining confidence in herself, as she thought the matter 
 over. 
 
 " No," said Sophia, ■ I'm sure you don't see it. But you 
 are. You know, you are just a little apt to let yourself be a 
 slave to that house of yours. Instead of the house existing 
 for you, you exist for the house." 
 
 " Oh ! Sophia ! " Constance muttered awkwardly. " What 
 ideas you do have, to be sure ! " In her nervousness she rose 
 and picked up some embroidery, adjusting her spectacles and 
 coughing. When she sat down she said : " No one could 
 take things easier than I do as regards housekeeping. I can 
 assure you I let dozens of little matters go, rather than 
 bother myself." 
 
 " Then why do you bother now ? " Sophia posed her. 
 
 " I can't leave the place like that." Constance was hurt. 
 
 " There's one thing I can't understand," said Sophia, rais- 
 ing her head and gazing at Constance again, " and that is, why 
 you live in St. Luke's Square at all." 
 
 " I must live somewhere. And I'm sure it's very pleas- 
 ant." 
 
 " In all that smoke ! And with that dirt ! And the house 
 is very old." 
 
 " It's a great deal better built than a lot of those new 
 houses by the Park," Constance sharply retorted. In spite of 
 herself she resented any criticism of her house. She even 
 resented the obvious truth that it was old. 
 
 " You'll never get a servant to stay in that cellar-kitchen, 
 for one thing," said Sophia, keeping calm. 
 
 " Oh ! I don't know about that ! I don't know about that ! 
 That Bennion woman didn't object to it, anyway. It's all 
 very well for you, Sophia, to talk like that. But I know 
 Bursley perhaps better than you do." She was tart again. 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 509 
 
 " And I can assure you that my house is looked upon as a very 
 good house indeed." 
 
 " Oh ! I don't say it isn't ; I don't say it isn't. But you 
 would be better away from it. Every one says that." 
 
 " Every one ? " Constance looked up, dropping her work. 
 " Who ? Who's been talking about me ? " 
 
 " Well," said Sophia, " the doctor, for instance." 
 
 " Dr. Stirling ? I like that ! He's always saying that 
 Bursley is one of the healthiest climates in England. He's 
 always sticking up for Bursley." 
 
 " Dr. Stirling thinks you ought to go away more — not stay 
 always in that dark house." If Sophia had sufficiently re- 
 flected she would not have used the adjective " dark." It 
 did not help her cause. 
 
 " Oh, does he ! " Constance fairly snorted. " Well, if it's 
 of any interest to Dr. Stirling, I like my dark house." 
 
 " Hasn't he ever told you you ought to go away more ? " 
 Sophia persisted. 
 
 ' He may have mentioned it," Constance reluctantly ad- 
 mitted. 
 
 " When he was talking to me he did a good deal more than 
 mention it. And I've a good mind to tell you what he said." 
 
 " Do ! " said Constance, politely. 
 
 " You don't realize how serious it is, I'm afraid," said 
 Sophia. " You can't see yourself." She hesitated a moment. 
 Her blood being stirred by Constance's peculiar inflection of 
 the phrase " my dark house," her judgment was slightly ob- 
 scured. She decided to give Constance a fairly full version 
 of the conversation between herself and the doctor. 
 
 " It's a question of your health," she finished. " I think 
 it's my duty to talk to you seriously, and I have done. I hope 
 you'll take it as it's meant." 
 
 " Oh, of course ! " Constance hastened to say. And she 
 thought : "It isn't yet three months that we've been to- 
 gether, and she's trying already to get me under her thumb." 
 
 A pause ensued. Sophia at length said : " There's no 
 doubt that both your sciatica and your palpitations are due to 
 nerves. And you let your nerves get into a state because you 
 worry over trifles. A change would do you a tremendous 
 amount of good. It's just what you need. Really, you must 
 admit, Constance, that the idea of living always in a place 
 like St. Luke's Square, when you are perfectly free to do what 
 you like and go where you like — you must admit it's rather too 
 much." 
 
 Constance put her lips together and bent over her em- 
 broidery. 
 
510 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Now, what do you say ? " Sophia gently entreated. 
 
 " There's some of us like Bursley, black as it is ! " said 
 Constance. And Sophia was surprised to detect tears in 
 her sister's voice. 
 
 " Now, my dear Constance," she remonstrated. 
 
 " It's no use ! " cried Constance, flinging away her work, and 
 letting her tears flow suddenly. Her face was distorted. She 
 was behaving just like a child. " It's no use ! I've got to go 
 back home and look after things. It's no use. Here we are 
 pitching money about in this place. It's perfectly sinful. 
 Drives, carriages, extras ! A shilling a day extra for each 
 dog. I never heard of such goings-on. And I'd sooner be at 
 home. That's it. I'd sooner be at home." This was the 
 first reference that Constance had made for a long time to 
 the question of expense, and incomparably the most violent. 
 It angered Sophia. 
 
 " We will count it that you are here as my guest," said 
 Sophia, loftily, " if that is how you look at it." 
 
 " Oh no ! " said Constance. " It isn't the money I grudge. 
 Oh no, we won't." And her tears were falling thick. 
 
 " Yes, we will," said Sophia, coldly. " I've only been 
 talking to you for your own good. I " 
 
 " Well," Constance interrupted her despairingly, " I wish 
 you wouldn't try to domineer over me ! " 
 
 " Domineer ! " exclaimed Sophia, aghast. " Well, Con- 
 stance, I do think " 
 
 She got up and went to her bedroom, where the dogs were 
 imprisoned. They escaped to the stairs. She was shaking 
 with emotion. This was what came of trying to help other 
 people ! Imagine Constance . . . ! Truly Constance was 
 most unjust, and quite unlike her usual self I And Sophia 
 encouraged in her breast the feeling of injustice suffered. But 
 a voice kept saying to her : " You've made a mess of this. 
 You've not conquered this time. You're beaten. And the 
 situation is unworthy of you, of both of you. Two women 
 of fifty quarrelling like this ! It's undignified. You've made 
 a mess of things." And to strangle the voice, she did her best 
 to encourage the feeling of injustice suffered. 
 
 " Domineer ! " 
 
 And Constance was absolutely in the wrong. She had not 
 argued at all. She had merely stuck to her idea like a mule ! 
 How difficult and painful would be the next meeting with 
 Constance, after this grievous miscarriage ! 
 
 As she was reflecting thus the door burst open, and Con- 
 stance stumbled, as it were blindly, into the bedroom. She 
 was still weeping. 
 
TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE. 511 
 
 " Sophia ! " she sobbed, supplicatingly, and all her fat body- 
 was trembling. " You mustn't kill me. . . . I'm like that 
 
 -you can't alter me. I'm like that. I know I'm silly. But 
 it's no use ! " She made a piteous figure. 
 
 Sophia was aware of a lump in her throat. 
 
 " It's all right, Constance ; it's all right. I quite under- 
 stand. Don't bother any more." 
 
 Constance, catching her breath at intervals, raised her wet, 
 worn face and kissed her. 
 
 Sophia remembered the very words, " You can't alter her," 
 which she had used in remonstrating with Cyril. And now 
 she had been guilty of precisely the same unreason as that 
 with which she had reproached Cyril ! She was ashamed, 
 both for herself and for Constance. Assuredly it had not been 
 such a scene as women of their age would want to go through 
 often. It was humiliating. She wished that it could have 
 been blotted out as though it had never happened. Neither 
 of them ever forgot it. They had had a lesson. And par- 
 ticularly Sophia had had a lesson. Having learnt, they left 
 the Rutland, amid due ceremonies, and returned to St. 
 Luke's Square. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 END OF SOPHIA. 
 I. 
 
 The kitchen steps were as steep, dark, and difficult as ever. 
 Up those steps Sophia Scales, nine years older than when she 
 had failed to persuade Constance to leave the Square, was 
 carrying a large basket, weighted with all the heaviness of 
 Fossette. Sophia, despite her age, climbed the steps vio- 
 lently, and burst with equal violence into the parlour, where 
 she deposited the basket on the floor near the empty fire- 
 place. She was triumphant and breathless. She looked at 
 Constance, who had been standing near the door in the atti- 
 tude of a shocked listener. 
 
 " There ! " said Sophia. " Did you hear how she talked ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Constance. " What shall you do ? " 
 
 " Well," said Sophia. " I had a very good mind to order 
 her out of the house at once. But then I thought I would 
 take no notice. Her time will be up in three weeks. It's 
 best to be indifferent. If once they see they can upset 
 you . . . However, I wasn't going to leave Fossette down 
 there to her tender mercies a moment longer. She's simply 
 not looked after her at all." 
 
 Sophia went on her knees to the basket, and, pulling aside 
 the dog's hair, round about the head, examined the skin. 
 Fossette was a sick dog and behaved like one. Fossette, too, 
 was nine years older, and her senility was offensive. She 
 was to no sense a pleasant object. 
 
 " See here," said Sophia. 
 
 Constance also knelt to the basket. 
 
 " And here," said Sophia. " And here." 
 
 The dog sighed, the insincere and pity-seeking sigh of a 
 spoilt animal. Fossette foolishly hoped by such appeals to 
 
END OF SOPHIA. 513 
 
 be spared the annoying treatment prescribed for her by the 
 veterinary surgeon. 
 
 While the sisters were coddling her, and protecting her 
 from her own paws, and trying to persuade her that all was for 
 the best, another aged dog wandered vaguely into the room : 
 Spot. Spot had very few teeth, and his legs were stiff. He 
 had only one vice, jealousy. Fearing that Fossette might 
 be receiving the entire attention of lus mistresses, he had 
 come to inquire into the situation. When he found the justi- 
 fication of his gloomiest apprehensions, he nosed obstinately 
 up to Constance, and would not be put off. In vain Constance 
 told him at length that he was interfering with the treatment. 
 In vain Sophia ordered him sharply to go away. He would 
 not listen to reason, being furious with jealousy. He got his 
 foot into the basket. 
 
 " Will you ! " exclaimed Sophia angrily, and gave him a 
 clout on his old head. He barked snappishly, and retired to 
 the kitchen again, disillusioned, tired of the world, and nurs- 
 ing his terrific grievance. " I do declare," said Sophia, " that 
 dog gets worse and worse." 
 
 Constance said nothing. 
 
 When everything was done that could be done for the aged 
 virgin in the basket, the sisters rose from their knees, stiffly ; 
 and they began to whisper to each other about the prospects 
 of obtaining a fresh servant. They also debated whether they 
 could tolerate the criminal eccentricities of the present occu- 
 pant of the cave for yet another three weeks. Evidently they 
 were in the midst of a crisis. To judge from Constance's face 
 every imaginable woe had been piled on them by destiny 
 without the slightest regard for their powers of resistance. 
 Her eyes had the permanent look of worry, and there was in 
 them also something of the self-defensive. Sophia had a 
 bellicose air, as though the creature in the cave -had squarely 
 challenged her, and she was decided to take up the challenge. 
 Sophia's tone seemed to imply an accusation of Constance. 
 The general tension was acute. 
 
 Then suddenly their whispers expired, and the door opened 
 and the servant came in to lay the supper. Her nose was 
 high, her gaze cruel, radiant, and conquering. She was a 
 pretty and an impudent girl of about twenty-three. She knew 
 she was torturing her old and infirm mistresses. She did not 
 care. She did it purposely. Her motto was : War on em- 
 ployers, get all you can out of them, for they will get all they 
 can out of you. On principle — the sole principle she pos- 
 sessed — she would not stay in a place more than six months. 
 She liked change. And employers did not like change. She 
 
 17 
 
5 i 4 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 was shameless with men. She ignored all orders as to what 
 she was to eat and what she was not to eat. She lived up to 
 the full resources of her employers. She could be to the last 
 degree slatternly. Or she could be as neat as a pin, with an 
 apron that symbolized purity and propriety, as to-night. 
 She could be idle during a whole day, accumulating dirty 
 dishes from morn till eve. On the other hand she could, 
 when she chose, work with astonishing celerity and even 
 thoroughness. In short, she was born to infuriate a mistress 
 like Sophia and to wear out a mistress like Constance. Her 
 strongest advantage in the struggle was that she enjoyed 
 altercation ; she revelled in a brawl ; she found peace tedious. 
 She was perfectly calculated to convince the sisters that times 
 had worsened, and that the world would never again be the 
 beautiful, agreeable place it once had been. 
 
 Her gestures as she laid the table were very graceful, in 
 the pert style. She dropped forks into their appointed posi- 
 tions with disdain ; she made slightly too much noise ; when 
 she turned she manoeuvred her swelling hips as though for the 
 benefit of a soldier in a handsome uniform. 
 
 Nothing but the servant had been changed in that house. 
 The harmonium on which Mr. Povey used occasionally to 
 play was still behind the door ; and on the harmonium was 
 the tea-caddy of which Mrs. Baines used to carry the key on 
 her bunch. In the corner to the right of the fireplace still 
 hung the cupboard where Mrs. Baines stored her pharmaco- 
 poeia. The rest of the furniture was arranged as it had been 
 arranged when the death of Mrs. Baines endowed Mr. and 
 Mrs. Povey with all the treasures of the house at Axe. And 
 it was as good as ever ; better than ever. Dr. Stirling often 
 expressed the desire for a corner cupboard like Mrs. Baines's 
 corner cupboard. One item had been added : the " Peel " 
 compote which Matthew Peel-Swynnerton had noticed in the 
 dining-room of the Pension Frensham. -This majestic piece, 
 which had been reserved by Sophia in the sale of the pension, 
 stood alone on a canterbury in the drawing-room. She had 
 stored it, with a few other trifles, in Paris, and when she sent 
 for it and the packing-case arrived, both she and Constance 
 became aware that they were united for the rest of their lives. 
 Of worldly goods, except money, securities, and clothes, that 
 compote was practically all that Sophia owned. Happily it 
 was a first-class item, doing no shame to the antique magnifi- 
 cence of the drawing-room. 
 
 In yielding to Constance's terrible inertia, Sophia had 
 meant nevertheless to work her own will on the interior of the 
 house. She had meant to bully Constance into modernizing 
 
END OF SOPHIA. 515 
 
 the dwelling. She did bully Constance, but the house defied 
 her. Nothing could be done to that house. If only it had 
 had a hall or lobby a complete transformation would have 
 been possible. But there was no access to the upper floor 
 except through the parlour. The parlour could not therefore 
 be turned into a kitchen and the basement suppressed, and the 
 ladies of the house could not live entirely on the upper floor. 
 The disposition of the rooms had to remain exactly as it had 
 always been. There was the same draught under the door, 
 the same darkness on the kitchen stairs, the same difficulties 
 with tradesmen in the distant backyard, the same twist in 
 the bedroom stairs, the same eternal ascending and descend- 
 ing of pails. An efficient cooking-stove, instead of the large 
 and capacious range, alone represented the twentieth century 
 in the fixtures of the house. 
 
 Buried at the root of the relations between the sisters was 
 Sophia's grudge against Constance for refusing to leave the 
 Square. Sophia was loyal. She would not consciously give 
 with one hand while taking away with the other, and in 
 accepting Constance's decision she honestly meant to close 
 her eyes to its stupidity. But she could not entirely succeed. 
 She could not avoid thinking that the angelic Constance had 
 been strangely and monstrously selfish in refusing to quit 
 the Square. She marvelled that a woman of Constance's 
 sweet and calm disposition should be capable of so vast and 
 ruthless an egotism. Constance must have known that 
 Sophia would not leave her, and that the habitation of the 
 Square was a continual irk to Sophia. Constance had never 
 been able to advance a single argument for remaining in the 
 Square. And yet she would not budge. It was so incon- 
 sistent with the rest of Constance's behaviour. See Sophia 
 sitting primly there by the table, a woman approaching 
 sixty, with immense experience written on the fine hardness 
 of her worn and distinguished face ! Though her hair is not 
 yet all grey, nor her figure bowed, you would imagine that 
 she would in her passage through the world, have learnt 
 better than to expect a character to be consistent. But no ! 
 She was ever disappointed and hurt by Constance's incon- 
 sistency ! And see Constance, stout and bowed, looking 
 more than her age, with hair nearly white and slightly trem- 
 bling hands ! See that face whose mark is meekness and 
 the spirit of conciliation, the desire for peace — you would 
 not think that that placid soul could, while submitting to 
 it, inly rage against the imposed weight of Sophia's in- 
 dividuality. " Because I wouldn't turn out of my house 
 to please her." Constance would say to herself, " she fancies 
 
5 i6 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 she is entitled to do just as she likes." Not often did she 
 secretly rebel thus, but it occurred sometimes. They never 
 quarrelled. They would have regarded separation as a 
 disaster. Considering the difference of their lives, they 
 agreed marvellously in their judgment of things. But that 
 buried question of domicile prevented a complete unity be- 
 tween them. And its subtle effect was to influence both of 
 them to make the worst, instead of the best, of the trifling 
 mishaps that disturbed their tranquillity. When annoyed, 
 Sophia would meditate upon the mere fact that they lived 
 in the Square for no reason whatever, until it grew incredibly 
 shocking to her. After all it was scarcely conceivable that 
 they should be living in the very middle of a dirty, ugly, in- 
 dustrial town simply because Constance mulishly declined 
 to move. Another thing that curiously exasperated both 
 of them upon occasion was that, owing to a recurrence of 
 her old complaint of dizziness after meals, Sophia had been 
 strictly forbidden to drink tea, which she loved. Sophia 
 chafed under the deprivation, and Constance's pleasure was 
 impaired because she had to drink it alone. 
 ♦ While the brazen and pretty servant, mysteriously smiling 
 to herself, dropped food and utensils on to the table, Con- 
 stance and Sophia attempted to converse with negligent ease 
 upon indifferent topics, as though nothing had occurred that 
 day to mar the beauty of ideal relations between employers 
 and employed. The pretence was ludicrous. The young 
 wench saw through it instantly, and her mysterious smile 
 developed almost into a laugh. 
 
 " Please shut the door after you, Maud," said Sophia as 
 the girl picked up her empty tray. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," replied Maud, politely. 
 
 She went out and left the door open. 
 
 It was a defiance, offered from sheer, youthful, wanton 
 mischief. 
 
 The sisters looked at each other, their faces gravely 
 troubled, aghast, as though they had glimpsed the end of 
 civilized society, as though they felt that they had lived too 
 long into an age of decadence and open shame. Constance's 
 face showed despair — she might have been about to be pitched 
 into the gutter without a friend and without a shilling — but 
 Sophia's had the reckless courage that disaster breeds. 
 
 Sophia jumped up, and stepped to the door. " Maud," 
 she called out. 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Maud, do you hoar me ? " 
 
 The suspense was fearful. 
 
END OF SOPHIA. 517 
 
 Still no answer. 
 
 Sophia glanced at Constance. " Either she shuts this door, 
 or she leaves this house at once, even if I have to fetch a 
 policeman ! " 
 
 And Sophia disappeared down the kitchen steps. Con- 
 stance trembled with painful excitement. The horror of 
 existence closed in upon her. She could imagine nothing 
 more appalling than the pass to which they had been brought 
 by the modern change in the lower classes. 
 
 In the kitchen, Sophia, conscious that the moment held 
 the future of at least the next three weeks, collected her 
 forces. 
 
 " Maud," she said, " did you not hear me call you ? " 
 
 Maud looked up from a book — doubtless a wicked book. 
 
 " No, ma'am." 
 
 " You liar ! " thought Sophia. And she said : "I asked 
 you to shut the parlour door, and I shall be obliged if you will 
 do so." 
 
 Now Maud would have given a week's wages for the moral 
 force to disobey Sophia. There was nothing to compel her 
 to obey. She could have trampled on the fragile and weak 
 Sophia. But something in Sophia's gaze compelled her to 
 obey. She flounced ; she bridled ; she mumbled ; she un- 
 necessarily disturbed the venerable Spot ; but she obeyed. 
 Sophia had risked all, and she had won something. 
 
 And you should light the gas in the kitchen," said Sophia 
 magnificently, as Maud followed her up the steps. " Your 
 young eyes may be very good now, but you are not going 
 the way to preserve them. My sister and I have often told 
 you that we do not grudge you gas." 
 
 With stateliness she rejoined Constance, and sat down to 
 the cold supper. And as Maud clicked the door to, the sisters 
 breathed rehef . They envisaged new tribulations, but for a 
 brief instant there was surcease. 
 
 Yet they could not eat. Neither of them, when it came to 
 the point, could swallow. The day had been too exciting, 
 too distressing. They were at the end of their resources. 
 And they did not hide from each other that they were at 
 the end of their resources. The illness of Fossette, without 
 anything else, had been more than enough to ruin their 
 tranquillity. But the illness of Fossette was as nothing to 
 the ingenious naughtiness of the servant. Maud had a sense 
 of temporary defeat, and was planning fresh operations ; but 
 really it was Maud who had conquered. Poor old things, 
 they were in such a " state " that they could not eat ! 
 
 " I'm not going to let her think she can spoil my appetite S " 
 
518 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 said Sophia, dauntless. Truly that woman's spirit was un- 
 quenchable. 
 
 She cut a couple of slices off the cold fowl ; she cut a tomato 
 into slices ; she disturbed the butter ; she crumbled bread 
 on the cloth, and rubbed bits of fowl over the plates, and 
 dirtied knives and forks. Then she put the slices of fowl 
 and bread and tomato into a piece of tissue paper, and silently 
 went upstairs with the parcel and came down again a moment 
 afterwards empty-handed. 
 
 After an interval she rang the bell, and lighted the gas. 
 
 " We've finished, Maud. You can clear away." 
 
 Constance thirsted for a cup of tea. She felt that a cup 
 of tea was the one thing that would certainly keep her alive. 
 She longed for it passionately. But she would not demand 
 it from Maud. Nor would she mention it to Sophia, lest 
 Sophia, flushed by the victory of the door, should incur new 
 risks. She simply did without. On empty stomachs they 
 tried pathetically to help each other . in games of Patience. 
 And when the blithe Maud passed through the parlour on 
 the way to bed, she saw two dignified and apparently calm 
 ladies, apparently absorbed in a delightful game of cards, 
 apparently without a worry in the world. They said " Good 
 night, Maud," cheerfully, politely, and coldly. It was a 
 heroic scene. Immediately afterwards Sophia carried Fos- 
 sette up to her own bedroom. 
 
 II. 
 
 The next afternoon the sisters, in the drawing-room, saw 
 Dr. Stirling's motor-car speeding down the Square. The 
 doctor's partner, young Harrop, had died a few years before 
 at the age of over seventy, and the practice was much larger 
 than it had ever been, even in the time of old Harrop. In- 
 stead of two or three horses, Stirling kept a car, which was 
 a constant spectacle in the streets of the district. 
 
 " I do hope he'll call in," said Mrs. Povey, and sighed. 
 
 Sophia smiled to herself with a little scorn. She knew 
 that Constance's desire for Dr. Stirling was due simply to 
 the need which she felt of telling some one about the great 
 calamity that had happened to them that morning. • Con- 
 stance was utterly absorbed by it, in the most provincial way. 
 Sophia had said to herself at the beginning of her sojourn 
 in Bursley, and long afterwards, that she should never get 
 accustomed to the exasperating provinciality of the town, 
 
END OF SOPHIA. 519 
 
 exemplified by the childish preoccupation of the inhabitants 
 with their own two-penny affairs. No characteristic of life 
 in Bursley annoyed her more than this. None had oftener 
 caused her to yearn in a brief madness for the desert-like 
 freedom of great cities. But she had got accustomed to it. 
 Indeed, she had almost ceased to notice it. Only occasion- 
 ally, when her nerves were more upset than usual, did it 
 strike her. 
 
 She went into Constance's bedroom to see whether the 
 doctor's car halted in King Street. It did. 
 
 " He's here," she called out to Constance. 
 
 " I wish you'd go down, Sophia," said Constance. " I 
 can't trust that minx " 
 
 So Sophia went downstairs to superintend the opening of 
 the door by the minx. 
 
 The doctor was radiant, according to custom. 
 
 " I thought I'd just see how that dizziness was going on/* 
 said he as he came up the steps. 
 
 " I'm glad you've come," said Sophia, confidentially. 
 Since the first days of their acquaintance they had always 
 been confidential. ' ; You'll do my sister good to-day." 
 
 Just as Maud was closing the door a telegraph-boy arrived, 
 with a telegram addressed to Mrs. Scales. Sophia read it 
 and then crumpled it in her hand. 
 
 " What's wrong with Mrs. Povey to-day ? " the doctor 
 asked, when the servant had withdrawn. 
 
 " She only wants a bit of your society," said Sophia. 
 " Will you go up ? You know the way to the drawing-room. 
 I'll follow." 
 
 As soon as he had gone she sat down on the sofa, staring 
 out of the window. Then with a grunt : " Well, that's no 
 use, anyway ! " she went upstairs after the doctor. Already 
 Constance had begun upon her recital. 
 
 " Yes," Constance was saying. " And when I went down 
 this morning to keep an eye on the breakfast, I thought Spot 
 
 was very quiet " She paused. " He was dead in the 
 
 drawer. She pretended she didn't know, but I'm sure she 
 did. Nothing will convince me that she didn't poison that 
 dog with the mice-poison we had last year. She was vexed 
 because Sophia took her up sharply about Fossette last night, 
 and she revenged herself on the other dog. It would just 
 be like her. Don't tell me ! I know. I should have packed 
 her off at once, but Sophia thought better not. We couldn't 
 prove anything, as Sophia says. Now, what do you think 
 of it, doctor ? " 
 
 Constance's eyes suddenly filled with tears. 
 
5 2o THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Ye'd had Spot a long time, hadn't ye ? " he said sym- 
 pathetically. 
 
 She nodded. " When I was married," said she, " the first 
 thing my husband did was to buy a fox-terrier, and ever 
 since we've always had a fox-terrier in the house." This 
 was not true, but Constance was firmly convinced of its 
 truth. 
 
 " It's very trying," said the doctor. " I know when my 
 Airedale died, I said to my wife I'd never have another dog 
 — unless she could find me one that would live for ever. 
 Ye remember my Airedale ? " 
 
 " Oh, quite well ! " 
 
 " Well, my wife said I should be bound to have another 
 one sooner or later, and the sooner the better. She went 
 straight off to Oldcastle and bought me a spaniel pup, and 
 there was such a to-do training it that we hadn't too much 
 time to think about Piper." 
 
 Constance regarded this procedure as somewhat callous, 
 and she said so, tartly. Then she recommenced the tale of 
 Spot's death from the beginning, and took it as far as his 
 burial, that afternoon, by Mr. Critchlow's manager, in the 
 yard. It had been necessary to remove and replace paving- 
 stones. 
 
 " Of course," said Dr. Stirling, " ten years is a long time. 
 He was an old dog. Well, you've still got the celebrated 
 Fossette." He turned to Sophia. 
 
 " Oh yes," said Constance, perfunctorily. " Fossette's 
 ill. The fact is that if Fossette hadn't been ill, Spot would 
 probably have been alive and well now." 
 
 Her tone exhibited a grievance. She could not forget that 
 Sophia had harshly dismissed Spot to the kitchen, thus practi- 
 cally sending him to his death. It seemed very hard to her 
 that Fossette, whose life had once been despaired of, should 
 continue to exist, while Spot, always healthy and unspoilt, 
 should die untended, and by treachery. For the rest, she 
 had never liked Fossette. On Spot's behalf she had always 
 been jealous of Fossette. 
 
 " Probably alive and well now ! " she repeated, with a 
 peculiar accent. 
 
 Observing that Sophia maintained a strange silence, Dr. 
 Stirling suspected a slight tension in the relations of the 
 sisters, and he changed the subject. One of his great qualities 
 was that he refrained from changing a subject introduced 
 by a patient unless there was a professional reason for 
 changing it. 
 
 " I've just met Richard Povey in the town," said lie. 
 
END OF SOPHIA. 521 
 
 f He told me to tell ye that he'll be round in about an hour 
 or so to take you for a spin. He was in a new car, which he 
 did his best to sell to me, but he didn't succeed." 
 
 " It's very kind of Dick," said Constance. " But this 
 afternoon really we're not " 
 
 " I'll thank ye to take it as a prescription, then," replied 
 the doctor. " I told Dick I'd see that ye went. Splendid 
 June weather. No dust after all that rain. It'll do ye all 
 the good in the world. I must exercise my authority. The 
 truth is, I've gradually been losing all control over ye. Ye 
 do just as ye like." 
 
 " Oh, doctor, how you do run on ! " murmured Constance, 
 not quite well pleased to-day by his tone. 
 
 After the scene between Sophia and herself at Buxton, 
 Constance had always, to a certain extent, in the doctor's 
 own phrase, " got her knife into him." Sophia had, then, 
 in a manner betrayed him. Constance and the doctor dis- 
 cussed that matter with frankness, the doctor humorously 
 accusing her of being " hard " on him. Nevertheless the 
 little cloud between them was real, and the result was often 
 a faint captiousness on Constance's part in judging the 
 doctor's behaviour. 
 
 " He's got a surprise for ye, has Dick ! " the doctor added. 
 
 Dick Povey, after his father's death and his own partial 
 recovery, had set up in Hanbridge as a bicycle agent. He 
 was permanently lamed, and he hopped about with a thick 
 stick. He had succeeded with bicycles and had taken to 
 automobiles, and he was succeeding with automobiles. 
 People were at first startled that he should advertise himself 
 in the Five Towns. There was an obscure general feeling 
 that because his mother had been a drunkard and his father 
 a murderer, Dick Povey had no right to exist. However, 
 when it had recovered from the shock of seeing Dick Povey 's 
 announcement of bargains in the Signal, the district most 
 sensibly decided that there was no reason why Dick Povey 
 should not sell bicycles as well as a man with normal parents. 
 He was now supposed to be acquiring wealth rapidly. It 
 was said that he was a marvellous chauffeur, at once daring 
 and prudent. He had one day, several years previously, 
 overtaken the sisters in the rural neighbourhood of Sneyd, 
 where they had been making an afternoon excursion. Con- 
 stance had presented him to Sophia, and he had insisted on 
 driving the ladies home. They had been much impressed by 
 his cautious care of them, and their natural prejudice against 
 anything so new as a motor-car had been conquered instantly. 
 Afterwards he had taken them out for occasional runs. He 
 
 17 a 
 
522 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 had a great admiration for Constance, founded on gratitude 
 to Samuel Povey ; and as for Sophia, he always said to her 
 that she would be an ornament to any car. 
 
 " You haven't heard his latest, I suppose ? " said the 
 doctor, smiling. 
 
 " What is it ? " Sophia asked, perfunctorily. 
 
 " He wants to take to ballooning. It seems he's been up 
 once." 
 
 Constance made a deprecating noise with her lips. 
 
 " However, that's not his surprise," the doctor added, 
 smiling again at the floor. He was sitting on the music- 
 stool, and saying to himself, behind his mask of effulgent 
 good-nature : "It gets more and more uphill work, cheer- 
 ing up these two women. I'll try them on Federation." 
 
 Federation was the name given to the scheme for blending 
 the Five Towns into one town, which would be the twelfth 
 largest town in the kingdom. It aroused fury in Bursley, 
 which saw in the suggestion nothing but the extinction of 
 its ancient glory to the aggrandizement of Hanbridge. Han- 
 bridge had already, with the assistance of electric cars that 
 whizzed to and fro every five minutes, robbed Bursley of 
 two-thirds of its retail trade — as witness the steady deca- 
 dence of the Square ! — and Bursley had no mind to swallow 
 the insult and become a mere ward of Hanbridge. Bursley 
 would die fighting. Both Constance and Sophia were bitter 
 opponents of Federation. They would have been capable 
 of putting Federationists to the torture. Sophia in particu- 
 lar, though so long absent from her native town, had adopted 
 its cause with characteristic vigour. And when Dr. Stirling 
 wished to practise his curative treatment of taking the sisters 
 " out of themselves," he had only to start the hare of Federa- 
 tion and the hunt would be up in a moment. But this 
 afternoon he did not succeed with Sophia, and only partially 
 with Constance. When he stated that there was to be a 
 public meeting that very night, and that Constance as a 
 ratepayer ought to go to it and vote, if her convictions were 
 genuine, she received his chaff with a mere murmur to the 
 effect that she did not think she should go. Had the man 
 forgotten that Spot was dead ? At length he became grave, 
 and examined them both as to their ailments, and nodded 
 his head, and looked into vacancy while meditating upon each 
 case. And then, when he had inquired where they meant 
 to go for their summer holidays, he departed. 
 
 ' Aren't you going to see him out ? " Constance whispered 
 to Sophia, who had shaken hands with him at the drawing- 
 room door. It was Sophia who did the running about, owing 
 
END OF SOPHIA. 523 
 
 to the state of Constance's sciatic nerve. Constance had, 
 indeed, become extraordinarily inert, leaving everything to 
 Sophia. 
 
 Sophia shook her head. She hesitated ; then approached 
 Constance, holding out her hand and disclosing the crumpled 
 telegram. 
 
 " Look at that ! " said she. 
 
 Her face frightened Constance, who was always expectant 
 of new anxieties and troubles. Constance straightened out 
 the paper with difficulty, and read — 
 
 " Mr. Gerald Scales is dangerously ill here. Boldero, 49, 
 Deansgate, Manchester." 
 
 All through the inexpressibly tedious and quite unneces- 
 sary call of Dr. Stirling — (Why had he chosen to call just 
 then ? Neither of them was ill) — Sophia had held that tele- 
 gram concealed in her hand and its information concealed in 
 her heart. She had kept her head up, offering a calm front 
 to the world. She had given no hint of the terrible explosion 
 — for an explosion it was. Constance was astounded at her 
 sister's self-control, which entirely passed her comprehension. 
 Constance felt that worries would never cease, but would 
 rather go on multiplying until death ended all. First, there 
 had been the frightful worry of the servant ; then the ex- 
 tremely distressing death and burial of Spot — and now it was 
 Gerald Scales turning up again ! With what violence was 
 the direction of their thoughts now shifted ! The wicked- 
 ness of maids was a trifle ; the death of pets was a trifle. But 
 the reappearance of Gerald Scales ! . . . That involved 
 the possibility of consequences which could not even be 
 named, so afflictive was the mere prospect to them. Con- 
 stance was speechless, and she saw that Sophia was also 
 speechless. 
 
 Of course the event had been bound to happen. People 
 do not vanish never to be heard of again. The time surely 
 arrives when the secret is revealed. So Sophia said to her- 
 self — now ! 
 
 She had always refused to consider the effect of Gerald's 
 reappearance. She had put the idea of it away from her, 
 determined to convince herself that she had done with him 
 finally and for ever. She had forgotten him. It was years 
 since he had ceased to disturb her thoughts — many years. 
 " He must be dead," she had persuaded herself. " It is in- 
 conceivable that he should have lived on and never come 
 across me. If he had been alive and learnt that I had made 
 
s: 4 THE OLD WIVES* TALE. 
 
 •","--v v.,- uoukl ftssuredh have mom to no. No. ho must 
 be dead)** 
 
 And he was not dead I The brief telegram overwhelmingly 
 shocked her* Her life had been calm, regular, monotonous. 
 And now it was thrown into an indescribable turmoil by five 
 wo-.e.s ot .• ',•.•;.• suddenly, with no waning whatever. 
 Sophia had the right to say to herself : " I have had my share 
 of trouble, and more than my share ! " The end of her life 
 promised to be as awful as the beginning The mere ex- 
 istence of Gerald Scales was a menace to her. But it was 
 the simple impact of the blow that affected her supremely, 
 beyond ulterior tilings. One might have pictured fate as a 
 cowardly brute who had struck this ageing woman full in 
 the face, a felling blow, which however had not felled her. 
 She staggered, but she stuck on her legs. It seemed a shame 
 —one w those crude, sp ec taori a t shram whkh maka the 
 blood boil— that the gallant, defenceless creature should be 
 so maltreated by the bully, destiny. 
 
 w Oh, Sophia ! ** Constance moaned. " What trouble is 
 this?** 
 
 Sophia's tin curled with a disg us ted air. Under that she 
 hid her suffering. 
 
 She had not seen him for thirty-six years. He must be 
 over seventy years of age, and he had turned up again like 
 a bad penny, doubtless a disgrace I What had he been doing 
 in those thirty-six years ? He was an old, enfeebled man 
 now f He must be a pretty sight I And he lay at Man* 
 Chester, not two boms away I 
 
 Whatever feelings were in Sophia's heart, tenderness was 
 not among them. As she collected her wits from the stroke, 
 she was principally aware of the sentiment of fear. She 
 recoiled Iran the foture, 
 
 " What shall you do ? ** Constance asked. Constance was 
 weeping. 
 
 Sophia tapped her foot, glancing out of the window. 
 
 •• Shall you co to see hint : " OOMtance coatiaatd 
 
 - Of course,* said Sophia, " I must!" 
 
 She hated the thought of going to see him. She flinched 
 from it. She felt herself under no moral obligation to go. 
 Why should she go ? Gerald was nothing to her, and had 
 no claim on her of any kind. This she honestly believed. 
 And yet she knew that she must go to him. She knew it to 
 be impossible that she should not go. 
 
 >ov ■■•.-. -.-ohehv. 
 
 " What about the trains ? ... Oh, yon poor dear ! " 
 
T-f 
 
 offtei 
 
 :•--•: ' : 
 
 j=7 * 
 
 -t- ;•;-_ 
 
 ::.— 
 
 It 
 
 
526 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 girl Lily Holl was. Her one fault appeared to be that she was 
 too quiet. Dick Fovey was not the man to pass time in for- 
 malities, and he was soon urging departure. 
 
 " I'm sorry we can't come," said Sophia. " I've got to go 
 to Manchester now. We are in great trouble." 
 
 " Yes, in great trouble," Constance weakly echoed. 
 
 Dick's face clouded sympathetically. And both the 
 affianced began to see that to which the egotism of their 
 happiness had blinded them. They felt that long, long years 
 had elapsed since these ageing ladies had experienced the 
 delights which they were feeling. 
 
 " Trouble ? I'm sorry to hear that ! " said Dick. 
 
 " Can you tell me the trains to Manchester ? " asked Sophia. 
 
 " No," said Dick, quickly. " But I can drive you there 
 quicker than any train, if it's urgent. Where do you want to 
 go to ? " 
 
 " Deansgate," Sophia faltered. 
 
 " Look here," said Dick, " it's half -past three. Put your- 
 self in my hands ; I'll guarantee at Deansgate you shall be 
 before half -past five. I'll look after you." 
 
 " But " 
 
 '' There isn't any ' but.' I'm quite free for the afternoon 
 and evening." 
 
 At first the suggestion seemed absurd, especially to Con- 
 stance. But really it was too tempting to be declined. While 
 Sophia made ready for the journey, Dick and Lily Holl and 
 Constance conversed in low, solemn tones. The pair were 
 waiting to be enlightened as to the nature of the trouble ; 
 Constance, however, did not enlighten them. How could 
 Constance say to them : " Sophia has a husband that she 
 hasn't seen for thirty-six years, and he's dangerously ill, and 
 they've telegraphed for her to go ? " Constance could not. 
 It did not even occur to Constance to order a cup of tea. 
 
 III. 
 
 Dick Povey kept his word. At a quarter-past five he drew 
 up in front of No. 49, Deansgate, Manchester. " There you 
 are ! " he said, not without pride. " Now, we'll come back 
 in about a couple of hours or so, just to take your orders, what- 
 ever they are." He was very comforting, with his suggestion 
 that in him Sophia had a sure support in the background. 
 
 Without many words Sophia went straight into the shop. 
 It looked like a jeweller's shop, and a shop for bargains 
 
END OF SOPHIA. 527 
 
 generally. Only the conventional sign over a side-entrance 
 showed that at heart it was a pawnbroker's. Mr. Till Boldero 
 did a nice business in the Five Towns, and in other centres 
 near Manchester, by selling silver-ware second-hand, or 
 nominally second-hand, to persons who wished to make pres- 
 ents to other persons or to themselves. He would send 
 anything by post on approval. Occasionally he came to the 
 Five Towns, and he had once, several years before, met Con- 
 stance. They had talked. He was the son of a cousin of the 
 late great and wealthy Boldero, sleeping partner in Birkin- 
 shaws, and Gerald's uncle. It was from Constance that he 
 had learnt of Sophia's return to Bursley. Constance had 
 often remarked to Sophia what a superior man Mr. Till Bol- 
 dero was. 
 
 The shop was narrow and lofty. It seemed like a menag- 
 erie for trapped • silver-ware. In glass cases right up to the 
 dark ceiling silver vessels and instruments of all kinds lay 
 confined. The top of the counter was a glass prison con- 
 taining dozens of gold watches, together with snuff-boxes, 
 enamels, and other antiquities. The front of the counter was 
 also glazed, showing vases and large pieces of porcelain. A 
 few pictures in heavy gold frames were perched about. There 
 was a case of umbrellas with elaborate handles and rich tas- 
 sels. There were a couple of statuettes. The counter, on 
 the customer's side, ended in a glass screen on which were 
 the words " Private Office." On the seller's side the prospect 
 was closed by a vast safe. A tall young man was fumbling in 
 this safe. Two women sat on customers' chairs, leaning 
 against the crystal counter. The young man came towards 
 them from the safe, bearing a tray. 
 
 " How much is that goblet ? " asked one of the women, 
 raising her parasol dangerously among such fragility and 
 pointing to one object among many in a case high up from 
 the ground. 
 
 " That, madam ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Thirty-five pounds." 
 
 The young man disposed his tray on the counter. It was 
 packed with more gold watches, adding to the extraordinary 
 glitter and shimmer of the shop. He chose a small watch from 
 the regiment. 
 
 " Now, this is something I can recommend," he said. 
 " It's made by Cuthbert Butler of Blackburn. I can guaran- 
 tee you that for five years." He spoke as though he were the 
 accredited representative of the Bank of England, with calm 
 and absolute assurance. 
 
528 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 The effect upon Sophia was mysteriously soothing. She 
 felt that she was among honest men. The young man raised 
 his head towards her with a questioning, deferential gesture. 
 
 " Can I see Mr. Boldero ? " she asked. " Mrs. Scales." 
 
 The young man's face changed instantly to a sympathetic 
 comprehension. 
 
 " Yes, madam. I'll fetch him at once," said he, and he 
 disappeared behind the safe. The two customers discussed 
 the watch. Then the door opened in the glass screen, and a 
 portly, middle-aged man showed himself. He was dressed 
 in blue broad-cloth, with a turned-down collar and a small 
 black tie. His waistcoat displayed a plain but heavy gold 
 watch-chain, and his cuff-links were of plain gold. His 
 eye-glasses were gold-rimmed. He had grey hair, beard and 
 moustache, but on the backs of his hands grew a light brown 
 hair. His appearance was strangely mild, dignified, and 
 confidence-inspiring. He was, in fact, one of the most 
 respected tradesmen in Manchester. 
 
 He peered forward, looking over his eye-glasses, which he 
 then took off, holding them up in the air by their short handle. 
 Sophia had approached him. 
 
 Mrs. Scales ? " he said, in a very quiet, very benevolent 
 voice. Sophia nodded. " Please come this way." He took 
 her hand, squeezing it commiseratingly, and drew her into 
 the sanctum. " I didn't expect you so soon," he said. " I 
 looked up the trains, and I didn't see how you could get here 
 before six." 
 
 Sophia explained. 
 
 He led her further, through the private office, into a sort of 
 parlour, and asked her to sit down. And he too sat down. 
 Sophia waited, as it were, like a suitor. 
 
 I'm afraid I've got bad news for you, Mrs. Scales," he 
 said, still in that mild, benevolent voice. 
 
 " He's dead ? " Sophia asked. 
 
 Mr. Till Boldero nodded. " He's dead. I may as well tell 
 you that he had passed away before I telegraphed. It all 
 happened very, very suddenly." He paused. " Very, very 
 suddenly ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Sophia, weakly. She was conscious of a pro- 
 found sadness which was not grief, though it resembled grief. 
 And she had also a feeling that she was responsible to Mr. 
 Till Boldero for anything untoward that might have occurred 
 to him by reason of Gerald. 
 
 t " Yes," said Mr. Till Boldero, deliberately and softly. 
 "He came in last night just as we were closing. We had 
 very heavy rain here. I don't know how it was with you. 
 
END OF SOPHIA. 529 
 
 He was wet, in a dreadful state, simply dreadful. Of course, 
 I didn't recognize him. I'd never seen him before, so far 
 as my recollection goes. He asked me if I was the son of 
 Mr. Till Boldero that had this shop in 1866. I said I was. 
 ' Well,' he says, ' you're the only connection I've got. My 
 name's Gerald Scales. My mother was your father's cousin. 
 Can you do anything for me ? ' he says. I could see he was 
 ill. I had him in here. When I found he couldn't eat nor 
 drink I thought I'd happen better send for th' doctor. The 
 doctor got him to bed. He passed away at one o'clock this 
 afternoon. I was very sorry my wife wasn't here to look 
 after things a bit better. But she's at Southport, not well 
 at all." 
 
 " What was it ? " Sophia asked briefly. 
 
 Mr. Boldero indicated the enigmatic. " Exhaustion, I 
 suppose," he replied. 
 
 He's here ? " demanded Sophia, lifting her eyes to pos- 
 sible bedrooms. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Boldero. " I suppose you would wish to 
 see him ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Sophia. 
 
 " You haven't seen him for a long time, your sister told 
 me ? " Mr. Boldero murmured, sympathetically. 
 
 " Not since 'seventy," said Sophia. 
 
 " Eh, dear ! Eh, dear ! " ejaculated Mr. Boldero. " I fear 
 it's been a sad business for ye, Mrs. Scales. Not since 
 'seventy ! " He sighed. " You must take it as well as you 
 can. I'm not one as talks much, but I sympathize with you. 
 I do that ! I wish my wife had been here to receive you." 
 
 Tears came into Sophia's eyes. 
 
 " Nay, nay ! " he said. " You must bear up now ! " 
 
 " It's you that make me cry," said Sophia, gratefully. 
 " You were very good to take him in. It must have been 
 exceedingly trying for you." 
 
 " Oh," he protested, " you mustn't talk like that. I 
 couldn't leave a Boldero on the pavement, and an old man 
 at that ! . . . Oh, to think that if he'd only managed to 
 please his uncle he might ha' been one of the richest men in 
 Lancashire. But then there'd ha' been no Boldero Institute 
 at Strangeways ! " he added. 
 
 They both sat silent a moment. 
 
 " Will you come now ? Or will you wait a bit ? " asked 
 Mr. Boldero, gently. " Just as you wish. I'm sorry as my 
 wife's away, that I am ! " 
 
 " I'll come now," said Sophia, firmly. But she was 
 stricken. 
 
530 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 He conducted her up a short, dark flight of stairs which 
 gave on a passage, and at the end of the passage was a door 
 ajar. He pushed the door open. 
 
 " I'll leave you for a moment," he said, always in the same 
 very restrained tone. " You'll find me downstairs, there, 
 if you want me." And he moved away with hushed, de- 
 liberate tread. 
 
 Sophia went into the room, of which the white blind was 
 drawn. She appreciated Mr. Boldero's consideration in leav- 
 ing her. She was trembling. But when she saw, in the pale 
 gloom, the face of an aged man peeping out from under a 
 white sheet on a naked mattress, she started back, trembling 
 no more — rather transfixed into an absolute rigidity. That 
 was no conventional, expected shock that she had received. 
 pit was a genuine unforeseen shock, the most violent that 
 ' she had ever had. In her mind she had not pictured Gerald 
 as a very old man. She knew that he was old ; she had said 
 to herself that he must be very old, well over seventy. But 
 she had not pictured him. This face on the bed was pain- 
 fully, pitiably old. A withered face, with the shiny skin all 
 drawn into wrinkles ! The stretched skin under the jaw 
 was like the skin of a plucked fowl. The cheek-bones stood 
 up, and below them were deep hollows, almost like egg-cups. 
 A short, scraggy white beard covered the lower part of the 
 face. The hair was scanty, irregular, and quite white ; a 
 little white hair grew in the ears. The shut mouth obviously 
 hid toothless gums, for the lips were sucked in. The eyelids 
 were as if pasted down over the eyes, fitting them like kid. 
 All the skin was extremely pallid ; it seemed brittle. The 
 body, whose outlines were clear under the sheet, was very 
 small, thin, shrunk, pitiable as the face. And on the face 
 was a general expression of final fatigue, of tragic and acute 
 exhaustion ; such as made Sophia pleased that the fatigue 
 and exhaustion had been assuaged in rest, while all the time 
 she kept thinking to herself horribly : " Oh ! how tired he 
 must have been ! " 
 
 Sophia then experienced a pure and primitive emotion, un- 
 coloured by any moral or religious quality. She was not 
 sorry that Gerald had wasted his life, nor that he was a 
 shame to his years and to her. The manner of his life was 
 of no importance. What affected her was that he had once 
 been young, and that he had grown old, and was now dead. 
 That was all. Youth and vigour had come to that. Youth 
 and vigour always came to that. Everything came to that. 
 He had ill-treated her ; he had abandoned her ; he had been 
 a devious rascal ; but how trivial were such accusations 
 
END OF SOPHIA. 531 
 
 against him ! The whole of her huge and bitter grievance 
 against him fell to pieces and crumbled. She saw him 
 young, and proud, and strong, as for instance when he had 
 kissed her lying on the bed in that London hotel — she forgot 
 the name — in 1866; and now he was old, and worn, and 
 horrible, and dead. It was the riddle of life that was puz- 
 zling and killing her. By the corner of her eye, reflected in 
 the mirror of a wardrobe near the bed, she glimpsed a tall, 
 forlorn woman, who had once been young and now was old ; 
 who had once exulted in abundant strength, and trodden 
 proudly on the neck of circumstance, and now was old. He 
 and she had once loved and burned and quarrelled in the 
 glittering and scornful pride of youth. But time had worn 
 them out. " Yet a little while," she thought, " and I shalh 
 be lying on a bed like that ! And what shall I have lived \ 
 for ? What is the meaning of it ? " The riddle of life itself j 
 was killing her, and she seemed to drown in a sea of 
 inexpressible sorrow. 
 
 Her memory wandered hopelessly among those past years. 
 She saw Chirac with his wistful smile. She saw him whipped 
 over the roof of the Gare du Nord at the tail of a balloon. 
 She saw old Niepce. She felt his lecherous arm round her. 
 She was as old now as Niepce had been then. Could she 
 excite lust now ? Ah ! the irony of such a question ! To 
 be young and seductive, to be able to kindle a man's eye 
 — that seemed to her the sole thing desirable. Once she had 
 been so ! . . . Niepce must certainly have been dead for 
 years. Niepce, the obstinate and hopeful voluptuary, was 
 nothing but a few bones in a coffin now ! 
 
 She was acquainted with affliction in that hour. All that 
 she had previously suffered sank into insignificance by the 
 side of that suffering. 
 
 She turned to the veiled window and idly pulled the blind 
 and looked out. Huge red and yellow cars were swimming 
 in thunder along Deansgate ; lorries jolted and rattled ; the 
 people of Manchester hurried along the pavements, apparently 
 unconscious that all their doings were vain. Yesterday he 
 too had been in Deansgate, hungry for life, hating the idea 
 of death ! What a figure he must have made ! Her heart 
 dissolved in pity for him. She dropped the blind. 
 
 " My life has been too terrible ! " she thought. " I wish 
 I was dead. I have been through too much. It is mon- 
 strous, and I cannot stand it. I do not want to die, but 
 I wish I was dead." 
 
 There was a discreet knock on the door. 
 
 " Come in," she said, in a calm, resigned, cheerful voice. 
 
532 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 The sound had recalled her with the swiftness of a miracle 
 to the unconquerable dignity of human pride. 
 
 Mr. Till Boldero entered. 
 
 " I should like you to come downstairs and drink a cup of 
 tea," he said. He was a marvel of tact and good nature. 
 " My wife is unfortunately not here, and the house is rather 
 at sixes and sevens ; but I have sent out for some tea." 
 
 She followed him downstairs into the parlour. He poured 
 out a cup of tea. 
 
 " I was forgetting," she said. " I am forbidden tea. I 
 mustn't drink it." 
 
 She looked at the cup, tremendously tempted. She longed 
 for tea. An occasional transgression could not harm her. 
 But no ! She would not drink it. 
 
 " Then what can I get you ? " 
 
 " If I could have just milk and water," she said meekly. 
 
 Mr. Boldero emptied the cup into the slop basin, and 
 began to fill it again. 
 
 Did he tell you anything ? " she asked, after a consider- 
 able silence. 
 
 "Nothing," said Mr. Boldero in his low, soothing tones. 
 " Nothing except that he had come from Liverpool. Judg- 
 ing from his shoes I should say he must have walked a good 
 bit of the way." 
 
 " At his age ! " murmured Sophia, touched. 
 
 " Yes," sighed Mr. Boldero. " He must have been in 
 great straits. You know, he could scarcely talk at all. By 
 the way, here are his clothes. I have had them put aside." 
 
 Sophia saw a small pile of clothes on a chair. She ex- 
 amined the suit, which was still damp, and its woeful shabbi- 
 ness pained her. The linen collar was nearly black, its stud 
 of bone. As for the boots, she had noticed such boots on 
 the feet of tramps. She wept now. These were the clothes 
 of him who had once been a dandy living at the rate of fifty 
 pounds a week. 
 
 " No luggage or anything, of course ? " she muttered. 
 
 " No," said Mr. Boldero. " In the pockets there was 
 nothing whatever but this." 
 
 He went to* the mantelpiece and picked up a cheap, cracked 
 letter case, which Sophia opened. In it were a visiting 
 card — " Senorita Clemenzia Borja " — and a bill-head of the 
 Hotel of the Holy Spirit, Concepcion del Uruguay, on the 
 back of which a lot of figures had been scrawled. 
 
 " One would suppose," said Mr. Boldero, " that he had 
 come from South America." 
 
 " Nothing else ? " 
 
END OF SOPHIA. 533 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 Gerald's soul had not been compelled to abandon much 
 in the haste of its flight. 
 
 A servant announced that Mrs. Scales's friends were wait- 
 ing for her outside in the motor-car. Sophia glanced at 
 Mr. Till Boldero with an exacerbated anxiety on her face. 
 
 " Surely they don't expect me to go back with them to- 
 night ! " she said. " And look at all there is to be done ! " 
 
 Mr. Till Boldero's kindness was then redoubled. " You 
 can do nothing for him now," he said. " Tell me your wishes 
 about the funeral. I will arrange everything. Go back to 
 your sister to-night. She will be nervous about you. And 
 return to-morrow or the day after. . . . No ! It's no 
 trouble, I assure you ! " 
 
 She yielded. 
 
 Thus towards eight o'clock, when Sophia had eaten a little 
 under Mr. Boldero's superintendence, and the pawnshop was 
 shut up, the motor-car started again for Bursley, Lily Holl 
 being beside her lover and Sophia alone in the body of the 
 car. Sophia had told them nothing of the nature of her 
 mission. She was incapable of talking to them. They saw 
 that she was in a condition of serious mental disturbance. 
 Under cover of the noise of the car, Lily said to Dick that 
 she was sure Mrs. Scales was ill, and Dick, putting his lips 
 together, replied that he meant to be in King Street at nine- 
 thirty at the latest. From time to time Lily surreptitiously 
 glanced at Sophia — a glance of apprehensive inspection — 
 or smiled at her silently ; and Sophia vaguely responded to 
 the smile. 
 
 In half an hour they had escaped from the ring of Man- 
 chester and were on the county roads of Cheshire, polished, 
 flat, sinuous. It was the season of the year when there is 
 no night — only daylight and twilight ; when the last silver 
 of dusk remains obstinately visible for hours. And in the 
 open country, under the melancholy arch of evening, the 
 sadness of the earth seemed to possess Sophia anew. Only 
 then did she realize the intensity of the ordeal through which 
 she was passing. 
 
 To the south of Congleton one of the tyres softened, 
 immediately after Dick had lighted his lamps. He stopped 
 the car and got down again. They were two miles from 
 Astbury, the nearest village. He had just, with the resigna- 
 tion of experience, reached for the tool-bag, when Lily ex- 
 claimed : " Is she asleep, or what ? " Sophia was not asleep, 
 but she was apparently not conscious. 
 
 It was a difficult and a trying situation for two lovers. 
 
534 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Their voices changed momentarily to the tone of alarm and 
 consternation, and then grew firm again. Sophia showed 
 life but not reason. Lily could feel the poor old lady's 
 heart. 
 
 " Well, there's nothing for it ! " said Dick, briefly, when all 
 their efforts failed to rouse her. 
 
 " What — shall you do ? " 
 
 " Go straight home as quick as I can on three tyres. We 
 must get her over to this side, and you must hold her. Like 
 that we shall keep the weight off the other side." 
 
 He pitched back the tool-bag into its box. Lily admired 
 his decision. 
 
 It was in this order, no longer under the spell of the chan- 
 ging beauty of nocturnal landscapes, that they finished the 
 journey. Constance had opened the door before the car came 
 to a stop in the gloom of King Street. The young people 
 considered that she bore the shock well, though the carrying 
 into the house of Sophia's inert, twitching body, with its hat 
 forlornly awry, was a sight to harrow a soul sturdier than 
 Constance. 
 
 When that was done, Dick said curtly : " I'm off. You 
 stay here, of course." 
 
 Where are you going ? " asked Lily. 
 
 " Doctor ! " snapped Dick, hobbling rapidly down the 
 steps. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The extraordinary violence of the turn in affairs was what 
 chiefly struck Constance, though it did not overwhelm her. 
 Less than twelve hours before — nay, scarcely six hours before 
 — she and Sophia had been living their placid and monoto- 
 nous existence, undisturbed by anything worse than the in- 
 disposition or death of dogs, or the perversity of a servant. 
 And now, the menacing Gerald Scales having reappeared, 
 Sophia's form lay mysterious and affrightening on the sofa ; 
 and she and Lily Holl, a girl whom she had not met till that 
 day, were staring at Sophia side by side, intimately sharing 
 the same alarm. Constance rose to the crisis. She no longer 
 had Sophia's energy and decisive peremptoriness to depend 
 on, and the Baines in her was awakened. All her daily 
 troubles sank away to their proper scale of unimportance. 
 Neither the young woman nor the old one knew what to do. 
 They could loosen clothes, vainly offer restoratives to the 
 smitten mouth : that was all. Sophia was not unconscious, 
 
END OF SOPHIA. 535 
 
 as could be judged from her eyes ; but she could not speak, 
 nor make signs ; her body was frequently convulsed. So 
 the two women waited, and the servant waited in the back- 
 ground. The sight of Sophia had effected an astonishing 
 transformation in Maud. Maud was a changed girl. Con- 
 stance could not recognize, in her eager deferential anxiety to 
 be of use, the pert naughtiness of the minx. She was altered 
 as a wanton of the middle ages would have been altered by L^-7 
 some miraculous visitation. It might have been the turning JT ®* 
 point in Maud's career ! 
 
 Doctor Stirling arrived in less than ten minutes. Dick 
 Povey had had the wit to look for him at the Federation 
 meeting in the Town Hall. And the advent of the doctor 
 and Dick, noisily, at breakneck speed in the car, provided a 
 second sensation. The doctor inquired quickly what had 
 occurred. Nobody could tell him anything. Constance had 
 already confided to Lily Holl the reason of the visit to Man- 
 chester ; but that was the extent of her knowledge. Not a 
 single person in Bursley, except Sophia, knew what had 
 happened in Manchester. But Constance conjectured that 
 Gerald Scales was dead — or Sophia would never have re- 
 turned so soon. Then the doctor suggested that on the 
 contrary Gerald Scales might be out of danger. And all 
 then pictured to themselves this troubling Gerald Scales, 
 this dark and sinister husband that had caused such a violent 
 upheaval. 
 
 Meanwhile the doctor was at work. He sent Dick Povey 
 to knock up Critchlow's, if the shop should be closed, and 
 obtain a drug. Then, after a time, he lifted Sophia, just as 
 she was, like a bundle on his shoulder, and carried her single- 
 handed upstairs to the second floor. He had recently been 
 giving a course of instruction to enthusiasts of the St. John's 
 Ambulance Association in Bursley. The feat had an air of 
 the superhuman. Above all else it remained printed on 
 Constance's mind : the burly doctor treading delicately and 
 carefully on the crooked, creaking stairs, his precautions 
 against damaging Sophia by brusque contacts, his stumble 
 at the two steps in the middle of the corridor ; Sophia's 
 horribly limp head and loosened hair ; and then the tender 
 placing of her on the bed, and the doctor's long breath and 
 flourish of his large handkerchief — all that under the crude 
 lights and shadows of gas-jets ! The doctor was nonplussed. 
 Constance gave him a second-hand account of Sophia's orig- 
 inal attack in Paris, roughly as she had heard it from Sophia. 
 He at once said that it could not have been what the French 
 doctor had said it was. Constance shrugged her shoulders. 
 
536 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 She was not surprised. For her there was necessarily some- 
 thing of the charlatan about a French doctor. She said she 
 only knew what Sophia had told her. After a time Dr. 
 Stirling determined to try electricity, and Dick Povey drove 
 him up to the surgery to fetch his apparatus. The women 
 were left alone again. Constance was very deeply impressed 
 by Lily Holl's sensible, sympathetic attitude. Whatever 
 I should have done without Miss Lily I don't know ! " she 
 used to exclaim afterwards. Even Maud was beyond praise. 
 It seemed to be the middle of the night when Dr. Stirling 
 came back, but it was barely eleven o'clock, and people were 
 only just returning from Hanbridge Theatre and Hanbridge 
 Music Hall. The use of the electrical apparatus was a dead 
 spectacle. Sophia's inertness under it was agonizing. They 
 waited, as it were, breathless for the result. And there was 
 no result. Both injections and electricity had entirely failed 
 to influence the paralysis of Sophia's mouth and throat. 
 Everything had failed. " Nothing to do but wait a bit ! " 
 said the doctor quietly. They waited in the chamber. 
 Sophia seemed to be in a kind of coma. The distortion of 
 her handsome face was more marked as time passed. The 
 doctor spoke now and then in a low voice. He said that 
 the attack had ultimately been determined by cold produced 
 by rapid motion in the automobile. Dick Povey whispered 
 that he must run over to Hanbridge and let Lily's parents 
 know that there was no cause for alarm on her account, and 
 that he would return at once. He was very devoted. On 
 the landing outside the bedroom, the doctor murmured to 
 him : " U.P." And Dick nodded. They were great friends. 
 
 At intervals the doctor, who never knew when he was 
 beaten, essayed new methods of dealing with Sophia's case. 
 New symptoms followed. It was half -past twelve when, 
 after gazing with prolonged intensity at the patient, and 
 after having tested her mouth and heart, he rose slowly and 
 looked at Constance. 
 
 " It's over ? " said Constance. 
 
 And he very slightly moved his head. " Come downstairs, 
 please," he enjoined her, in a pause that ensued. Constance 
 was amazingly courageous. The doctor was very solemn and 
 very kind ; Constance had never before seen him to such 
 heroic advantage. He led her with infinite gentleness out of 
 the room. There was nothing to stay for ; Sophia had gone. 
 Constance wanted to stay by Sophia's body ; but it was the 
 rule that the stricken should be led away, the doctor observed 
 this classic rule, and Constance felt that he was right and that 
 she must obey. Lily Holl followed. The servant, learning 
 
END OF SOPHIA. 537 
 
 the truth by the intuition accorded to primitive natures, 
 burst into loud sobs, yelling that Sophia had been the most 
 excellent mistress that servant ever had. The doctor angrily 
 told her not to stand blubbering there, but to go into her 
 kitchen and shut the door if she couldn't control herself. All 
 his accumulated nervous agitation was discharged on Maud 
 like a thunderclap. Constance continued to behave won- 
 derfully. She was the admiration of the doctor and Lily 
 Holl. Then Dick Povey came back. It was settled that 
 Lily should pass the night with Constance. At last the 
 doctor and Dick departed together, the doctor undertaking 
 the mortuary arrangements. Maud was hunted to bed. 
 
 Early in the morning Constance rose up from her own bed. 
 It was five o'clock, and there had been daylight for two hours 
 already. She moved noiselessly and peeped over the foot 
 of the bed at the sofa. Lily was quietly asleep there, breath- 
 ing with the softness of a child. Lily would have deemed 
 that she was a very mature woman, who had seen life and 
 much of it. Yet to Constance her face and attitude had the 
 exquisite quality of a child's. She was not precisely a pretty 
 girl, but her features, the candid expression of her disposi- 
 tion, produced an impression that was akin to that of beauty. 
 Her abandonment was complete. She had gone through 
 the night unscathed, and was now renewing herself in calm, 
 oblivious sleep. Her ingenuous girlishness was apparent 
 then. It seemed as if all her wise and sweet behaviour of 
 the evening could have been nothing but so many imitative 
 gestures. It seemed impossible that a being so young and 
 fresh could have really experienced the mood of which her 
 gestures had been the expression. Her strong virginal sim- 
 plicity made Constance vaguely sad for her. 
 
 Creeping out of the room, Constance climbed to the second 
 floor in her dressing-gown, and entered the other chamber. 
 She was obliged to look again upon Sophia's body. Incred- 
 ible swiftness of calamity ! Who could have foreseen it ? 
 Constance was less desolated than numbed. She was as yet 
 only touching the fringe of her bereavement. She had not 
 begun to think of herself. She was drenched, as sne gazed 
 at Sophia's body, not by pity for herself, but by compassion 
 for the immense disaster of her sister's life. She perceived 
 fully now for the first time the greatness of that disaster. 
 Sophia's charm and Sophia's beauty — what profit had they 
 been to their owner ? She saw pictures of Sophia's career, 
 distorted and grotesque images formed in her untravelled 
 mind from Sophia's own rare and compressed recitals. What 
 a career ! A brief passion, and then nearly thirty years in a 
 
538 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 boarding-house ! And Sophia had never had a child ; had 
 never known either the joy or the pain of maternity. She 
 had never even had a true home till, in all her sterile splen- 
 dour, she came to Bursley. And she had ended — thus ! 
 This was the piteous, ignominious end of Sophia's wondrous 
 gifts of body and soul. Hers had not been a life at all. And 
 the reason ? It is strange how fate persists in justifying 
 the harsh generalizations of Puritan morals, of the morals 
 in which Constance had been brought up by her stern 
 parents ! Sophia had sinned. It was therefore inevitable 
 that she should suffer. An adventure such as she had in 
 ; wicked and capricious pride undertaken with Gerald Scales, 
 could not conclude otherwise than it had concluded. It 
 could have brought nothing but evil. There was no getting 
 away from these verities, thought Constance. And she was 
 to be excused for thinking that all modern progress and 
 cleverness was as naught, and that the world would be forced 
 to return upon its steps and start again in the path which it 
 had left. 
 
 Up to within a few days of her death people had been 
 wont to remark that Mrs. Scales looked as young as ever, 
 and that she was as bright and as energetic as ever. And 
 truly, regarding Sophia from a little distance — that hand- 
 some oval, that erect carriage of a slim body, that challenging 
 eye ! — no one would have said that she was in her sixtieth 
 year. But look at her now, with her twisted face, her sight- 
 less orbs, her worn skin — she did not seem sixty, but seventy ! 
 She was like something used, exhausted, and thrown aside ! 
 Yes, Constance's heart melted in an anguished pity for that 
 stormy creature. And mingled with the pity was a stern 
 recognition of the handiwork of divine justice. To Con- 
 stance's lips came the same phrase as had come to the 
 lips of Samuel Povey on a different occasion : God is not 
 mocked ! The ideas of her parents and her grandparents 
 had survived intact in Constance. It is true that Constance's 
 father would have shuddered in Heaven could he have 
 seen Constance solitarily playing cards of a night. But 
 in spite of cards, and of a son who never went to chapel, 
 Constance, under the various influences of destiny, had re- 
 mained essentially what her father had been. Not in her 
 was the force of evolution manifest. There are thousands 
 such. 
 
 Lily, awake, and reclothed with that unreal mien of a 
 grown and comprehending woman, stepped quietly into the 
 room, searching for the poor old thing, Constance. The 
 layer-out had come. 
 
END OF SOPHIA. 539 
 
 By the first post was delivered a letter addressed to Sophia 
 by Mr. Till Boldero. From its contents the death of Gerald 
 Scales was clear. There seemed then to be nothing else for 
 Constance to do. What had to be done was done for her. 
 And stronger wills than hers put her to bed. Cyril was tele- 
 graphed for. Mr. Critchlow called, Mrs. Critchlow following 
 — a fussy infliction, but useful in certain matters. Mr. Critch- 
 low was not allowed to see Constance. She could hear his 
 high grating voice in the corridor. She had to He calm, and 
 the sudden tranquillity seemed strange after the feverish 
 violence of the night. Only twenty-four hours since, and 
 she had been worrying about the death of a dog ! With a 
 body crying for sleep, she dozed off, thoughts of the mystery 
 of life merging into the incoherence of dreams. 
 
 The news was abroad in the Square before nine o'clock. 
 There were persons who had witnessed the arrival of the 
 motor-car, and the transfer of Sophia to the house. Un- 
 truthful rumours had spread as to the manner of Gerald 
 Scales's death. Some said that he had dramatically com- 
 mitted suicide. But the town, though titillated, was not 
 moved as it would have been moved by a similar event twenty 
 years, or even ten years earlier. Times had changed in 
 Bursley. Bursley was more sophisticated than in the old 
 days. 
 
 Constance was afraid lest Cyril, despite the seriousness of 
 the occasion, might exhibit his customary tardiness in coming. 
 She had long since learnt not to rely upon him. But he came 
 the same evening. His behaviour was in every way perfect. 
 He showed quiet but genuine grief for the death of his aunt, 
 and he was a model of consideration for his mother. Further, 
 he at once assumed charge of all the arrangements, in regard 
 both to Sophia and to her husband. Constance was sur- 
 prised at the ease which he displayed in the conduct of prac- 
 tical affairs, and the assurance with which he gave orders. 
 She had never seen him direct anything before. He said, 
 indeed, that he had never directed anything before, but that 
 there appeared to him to be no difficulties. Whereas Con- 
 stance had figured a tiresome series of varied complications. 
 As to the burial of Sophia, Cyril was vigorously in favour 
 of an absolutely private funeral ; that is to say, a funeral 
 at which none but himself should be present. He seemed 
 to have a passionate objection to any sort of parade. Con- 
 stance agreed with him. But she said that it would be im- 
 possible not to invite Mr. Critchlow, Sophia's trustee, and 
 that if Mr. Critchlow were invited certain others must be 
 invited. Cyril asked : " Why impossible ? " Constance 
 
540 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 said : " Because it would be impossible. Because Mr. 
 Critchlow would be hurt." Cyril asked : " What does it 
 matter if he is hurt ? " and suggested that Mr. Critchlow 
 would get over his damage. Constance grew more serious. 
 The discussion threatened to be warm. Suddenly Cyril 
 yielded. " All right, Mrs. Plover, all right ! It shall be 
 exactly as you choose," he said, in a gentle, humouring tone. 
 He had not called her " Mrs. Plover " for years. She thought 
 the hour badly chosen for verbal pleasantry, but he was so 
 kind that she made no complaint. Thus there were six 
 people at Sophia's funeral, including Mr. Critchlow. No 
 refreshments were offered. The mourners separated at 
 the church. When both funerals were accomplished Cyril 
 sat down and played the harmonium softly, and said 
 that it had kept well in tune. He was extraordinarily 
 soothing. 
 
 He had now reached the age of thirty-three. His habits 
 were as industrious as ever, his preoccupation with his art as 
 keen. But he had achieved no fame, no success. He earned 
 nothing, living in comfort on an allowance from his mother. 
 He seldom spoke of his plans and never of his hopes. He 
 had in fact settled down into a dilletante, having learnt gently 
 to scorn the triumphs which he lacked the force to win. 
 He imagined that industry and a regular existence were suffi- 
 cient justification in themselves for any man's life. Con- 
 stance had dropped the habit of expecting him to astound 
 the world. He was rather grave and precise in manner, 
 courteous and tepid, with a touch of condescension towards 
 his environment ; as though he were continually permitting 
 the perspicacious to discern that he had nothing to learn 
 — if the truth were known ! His humour had assumed a 
 modified form. He often smiled to himself. He was un- 
 exceptionable. 
 
 On the day after Sophia's funeral he set to work to design 
 a simple stone for his aunt's tomb. He said he could not 
 tolerate the ordinary gravestone, which always looked, to 
 him, as if the wind might blow it over, thus negativing the 
 idea of solidity. His mother did not in the least understand 
 him. She thought the lettering of his tombstone affected 
 and finicking. But she let it pass without comment, being 
 secretly very flattered that he should have deigned to design 
 a stone at all. 
 
 Sophia had left all her money to Cyril, and had made him 
 the sole executor of her will. This arrangement had been 
 agreed with Constance. The sisters thought it was the best 
 plan. Cyril ignored Mr. Critchlow entirely, and went to a 
 
END OF SOPHIA. 541 
 
 young lawyer at Hanbridge, a friend of his and of Matthew 
 Peel-Swynnerton's. Mr. Critchlow, aged and unaccustomed 
 to interference, had to render accounts of his trusteeship to 
 this young man, and was incensed. The estate was proved 
 at over thirty-five thousand pounds. In the main, Sophia 
 had been careful, and had even been parsimonious. She had 
 often told Constance that they ought to spend money much 
 more freely, and she had had a few brief fits of extravagance. 
 But the habit of stern thrift, begun in 1870 and practised 
 without any intermission till she came to England in 1897, 
 had been too strong for her theories. The squandering of 
 money pained her. And she could not, in her age, devise 
 expensive tastes. 
 
 Cyril showed no emotion whatever on learning himself the 
 inheritor of thirty-five thousand pounds. He did not seem 
 to care. He spoke of the sum as a millionaire might have 
 spoken of it. In justice to him it is to be said that he cared 
 nothing for wealth, except in so far as wealth could gratify 
 his eye and ear trained to artistic voluptuousness. But 
 for his mother's sake, and for the sake of Bursley, he might 
 have affected a little satisfaction. His mother was some- 
 what hurt. His behaviour caused her to revert in medita- 
 tion again and again to the futility of Sophia's career, and 
 the waste of her attributes. She had grown old and hard 
 in joyless years in order to amass this money which Cyril 
 would spend coldly and ungratefully, never thinking of the 
 immense effort and endless sacrifice which had gone to its 
 collection. He would spend it as carelessly as though he 
 had picked it up in the street. As the days went by and 
 Constance realized her own grief, she also realized more and 
 more the completeness of the tragedy of Sophia's life. Head- 
 strong Sophia had deceived her mother, and for the decep- 
 tion had paid with thirty years of melancholy and the entire 
 frustration of her proper destiny. 
 
 After haunting Bursley for a fortnight in elegant black, 
 Cyril said, without any warning, one night : " I must go the 
 day after to-morrow, mater." And he told her of a journey 
 to Hungary which he had long since definitely planned with 
 Matthew Peel-Swynnerton, and which could not be post- 
 poned, as it comprised " business." He had hitherto breathed 
 no word of this. He was as secretive as ever. As to her 
 holiday, he suggested that she should arrange to go away 
 with the Holls and Dick Povey. He approved of Lily Holl 
 and of Dick Povey. Of Dick Povey he said : " He's one of 
 the most remarkable chaps in the Five Towns." And he 
 had the air of having made Dick's reputation. Constance, 
 
542 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 knowing there was no appeal, accepted the sentence of 
 loneliness. Her health was singularly good. 
 
 When he was gone she said to herself : " Scarcely a fort- 
 night and Sophia was here at this table ! " She would re- 
 member every now and then, with a faint shock, that poor, 
 proud, masterful Sophia was dead. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 END OF CONSTANCE. 
 I. 
 
 When, on a June afternoon about twelve months later, Lily 
 Holl walked into Mrs. Povey's drawing-room overlooking the 
 Square, she found a calm, somewhat optimistic old lady — 
 older than her years, which were little more than sixty — 
 whose chief enemies were sciatica and rheumatism. The 
 sciatica was a dear enemy of long standing, always affec- 
 tionately referred to by the forgiving Constance as " my 
 sciatica " ; the rheumatism was a new-comer, unprivileged, 
 spoken of by its victim apprehensively and yet disdainfully 
 as " this rheumatism." Constance was now very stout. She 
 sat in a low easy-chair between the oval table and the win- 
 dow, arrayed in black silk. As the girl Lily came in, Con- 
 stance lifted her head with a bland smile, and Lily kissed 
 her, contentedly. Lily knew that she was a welcome visitor. 
 These two had become as intimate as the difference between 
 their ages would permit ; of the two, Constance was the 
 more frank. Lily as well as Constance was in mourning. 
 A few months previously her aged grandfather, " Holl, the 
 grocer," had died. The second of his two sons, Lily's father, 
 had then left the business established by the brothers at Han- 
 bridge in order to manage, for a time, the parent business 
 in St. Luke's Square. Alderman Holl's death had delayed 
 Lily's marriage. Lily took tea with Constance, or at any 
 rate paid a call, four or five times a week. She listened to 
 Constance. 
 
 Everybody considered that Constance had " come splen- 
 didly through " the dreadful affair of Sophia's death. In- 
 deed, it was observed that she was more philosophic, more 
 cheerful, more sweet, than she had been for many years. 
 
544 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 The truth was that, though her bereavement had been the 
 cause of a most genuine and durable sorrow, it had been a 
 relief to her. When Constance was over fifty, the ener- 
 getic and masterful Sophia had burst in upon her lethargic 
 tranquillity and very seriously disturbed the flow of old habits. 
 Certainly Constance had fought Sophia on the main point, 
 and won ; but on a' hundred minor points she had either 
 lost or had not fought. Sophia had been " too much " for 
 Constance, and it had been only by a wearying expenditure 
 of nervous force that Constance had succeeded in holding 
 a small part of her own against the unconscious domination 
 of Sophia. The death of Mrs. Scales had put an end to all 
 strain, and Constance had been once again mistress in Con- 
 stance's house. Constance would never have admitted these 
 facts, even to herself ; and no one would ever have dared to 
 suggest them to her. For with all her temperamental mild- 
 ness she had her formidable side. 
 
 She was slipping a photograph into a plush-covered photo- 
 graph album. 
 
 " More photographs ? " Lily questioned. She had almost 
 exactly the same benignant smile that Constance had. She 
 seemed to be the personification of gentleness — one of those 
 feather-beds that some capricious men occasionally have the 
 luck to marry. She was capable, with a touch of honest, 
 simple stupidity. All her character was displayed in the 
 tone in which she said : " More photographs ? " It showed 
 an eager, responsive sympathy with Constance's cult for 
 photographs, also a slight personal fondness for photographs, 
 also a dim perception that a cult for photographs might be 
 carried to the ridiculous, and a kind desire to hide all trace 
 of this perception. The voice was thin, and matched the pale 
 complexion of her delicate face. 
 
 Constance's eyes had a quizzical gleam behind her spec- 
 tacles as she silently held up the photograph for Lily's in- 
 spection. 
 
 Lily, sitting down, lowered the corners of her soft lips 
 when she beheld the photograph, and nodded her head several 
 times, scarce perceptibly. 
 
 " Her ladyship has just given it to me," whispered Con- 
 stance. 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Lily, with an extraordinary accent. 
 
 " Her ladyship " was the last and best of Constance's serv- 
 ants, a really excellent creature of thirty, who had known 
 misfortune, and who must assuredly have been sent to Con- 
 stance by the old watchful Providence. They " got on to- 
 gether " nearly perfectly. Her name was Mary. After ten 
 
END OF CONSTANCE. 545 
 
 years of turmoil, Constance in the matter of servants was 
 now at rest. 
 
 " Yes," said Constance. " She's named it to me several 
 times — about having her photograph taken, and last week 
 I let her go. I told you, didn't I ? I always consider her in 
 every way, all her little fancies and everything. And the 
 copies came to-day. I wouldn't hurt her feelings for any- 
 thing. You may be sure she'll take a look into the album 
 next time she cleans the room." 
 
 Constance and Lily exchanged a glance agreeing that Con- 
 stance had affably stretched a point in deciding to put the 
 photograph of a servant between the same covers with photo- 
 graphs of her family and friends. It was doubtful whether 
 such a thing had ever been done before. 
 
 One photograph usually leads to another, and one photo- 
 graph album to another photograph album. 
 
 " Pass me that album on the second shelf of the Canter- 
 bury, my dear, " said Constance. 
 
 Lily rose vivaciously, as though to see the album on the 
 second shelf of the Canterbury had been the ambition of 
 her life. 
 
 They sat side by side at the table, Lily turning over the 
 pages. Constance, for all her vast bulk, continually made 
 little nervous movements. Occasionally she would sniff and 
 occasionally a mysterious noise would occur in her chest ; 
 she always pretended that this noise was a cough, and would 
 support the pretence by emitting a real cough immediately 
 after it. 
 
 " Why ! " exclaimed Lily. " Have I seen that before ? " 
 
 " I don't know, my dear," said Constance. " Have 
 you ? " 
 
 It was a photograph of Sophia taken a few years previ- 
 ously by " a very nice gentleman," whose acquaintance the 
 sisters had made during a holiday at Harrogate. It por- 
 trayed Sophia on a knoll, fronting the weather. 
 
 " It's Mrs. Scales to the life — I can see that," said Lily. 
 
 " Yes," said Constance. " Whenever there was a wind 
 she always stood like that, and took long deep breaths of it." 
 
 This recollection of one of Sophia's habits recalled the 
 whole woman to Constance's memory, and drew a picture of 
 her character for the girl who had scarcely known her. 
 
 " It's not like ordinary photographs. There's something 
 special about it," said Lily, enthusiastically. " I don't think 
 I ever saw a photograph like that." 
 
 " I've got another copy of it in my bedroom," said Con- 
 stance. " I'll give you this one." 
 
 18 
 
546 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Povey ! I couldn't think " 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " said Constance, removing the photograph 
 from the page. 
 
 " Oh, thank you ! " said Lily. 
 
 " And that reminds me," said Constance, getting up with 
 great difficulty from her chair. 
 
 " Can I find anything for you ? " Lily asked. 
 
 ? No, no ! " said Constance, leaving the room. 
 
 She returned in a moment with her jewel-box, a receptacle 
 of ebony with ivory ornamentations. 
 
 " I've always meant to give you this," said Constance, 
 taking from the box a fine cameo brooch. " I don't seem to 
 fancy wearing it myself. And I should like to see you wear- 
 ing it. It was mother's. I believe they're coming into 
 fashion again. I don't see why you shouldn't wear it while 
 you're in mourning. They aren't half so strict now about 
 mourning as they used to be." 
 
 " Truly ! " murmured Lily, ecstatically. They kissed. 
 Constance seemed to breathe out benevolence, as with trem- 
 bling hands she pinned the brooch at Lily's neck. She 
 lavished the warm treasure of her heart on Lily, whom she 
 regarded as an almost perfect girl, and who had become the 
 idol of her latter years. 
 
 " What a magnificent old watch ! " said Lily, as they 
 delved together in the lower recesses of the box. " And the 
 chain to it ! " 
 
 " That was father's," said Constance. " He always used 
 to swear by it. When it didn't agree with the Town Hall, 
 he used to say : ' Then th' Town Hall's wrong.' And it's 
 curious, the Town Hall was wrong. You know the Town 
 Hall clock has never been a good timekeeper. I've been 
 thinking of giving that watch and chain to Dick." 
 
 " Have you ? " said Lily. 
 
 " Yes. It's just as good as it was when father wore it. 
 My husband never would wear it. He preferred his own. 
 He had little fancies like that. And Cyril takes after his 
 father." She spoke in her " dry " tone. " I've almost de- 
 cided to give it to Dick — that is, if he behaves himself. Is 
 he still on with this ballooning ? " 
 
 Lily smiled guiltily : " Oh yes ! " 
 
 " Well," said Constance, " I never heard the like ! If he's 
 been up and come down safely, that ought to be enough for 
 him. I wonder you let him do it, my dear." 
 
 " But how can I stop him ? I've no control over him." 
 
 " But do you mean to say that he'd still do it if you told 
 him seriously you didn't want him to ? " 
 
END OF CONSTANCE. 547 
 
 " Yes," said Lily ; and added : " So I shan't tell him." 
 
 Constance nodded her head, musing over the secret nature 
 of men. She remembered too well the cruel obstinacy of 
 Samuel, who had nevertheless loved her. And Dick Povey 
 was a thousand times more bizarre than Samuel. She saw 
 him vividly, a little boy, whizzing down King Street on a 
 boneshaker, and his cap flying off. Afterwards it had been 
 motor-cars ! Now it was balloons ! She sighed. She was 
 struck by the profound instinctive wisdom just enunciated 
 by the girl. 
 
 " Well," she said, " I shall see. I've not made up my mind 
 yet. What's the young man doing this afternoon, by the 
 way ? " 
 
 " He's gone to Birmingham to try to sell two motor-lorries. 
 He won't be back home till late. He's coming over here 
 to-morrow." 
 
 It was an excellent illustration of Dick Povey's methods 
 that at this very moment Lily heard in the Square the sound 
 of a motor-car, which happened to be Dick's car. She 
 sprang up to look. 
 
 " Why ! " she cried, flushing. " Here he is now ! " 
 
 " Bless us, bless us ! " muttered Constance, closing the 
 box. 
 
 When Dick, having left the car in King Street, limped 
 tempestuously into the drawing-room, galvanizing it by his 
 abundant vitality into a new life, he cried joyously : " Sold 
 my lorries ! Sold my lorries ! " And he explained that by 
 a charming accident he had disposed of them to a chance 
 buyer in Hanbridge, just before starting for Birmingham. 
 So he had telephoned to Birmingham that the matter was 
 " off," and then, being " at a loose end," he had come over to 
 Bursley in search of his betrothed. At Holl's shop they had 
 told him that she was with Mrs. Povey. Constance glanced 
 at him, impressed by his jolly air of success. He seemed 
 exactly like his breezy and self-confident advertisements in 
 the Signal. He was absolutely pleased with himself. He 
 triumphed over his limp — that ever-present reminder of a 
 tragedy. Who would dream, to look at his blond, laughing, 
 scintillating face, astonishingly young for his years, that he 
 had once passed through such a night as that on which his 
 father had killed his mother while he lay immovable and curs- 
 ing, with a broken knee, in bed ? Constance had heard all 
 about that scene from her husband, and she paused in wonder 
 at the contrasting hazards of existence. 
 
 Dick Povey brought his hands together with a resounding 
 smack, and then rubbed them rapidly. 
 
548 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 "And a good price, too ! " he exclaimed blithely. " Mrs. 
 Povey, I don't mind telling you that I've netted seventy 
 pounds odd this afternoon." 
 
 Lily's eyes expressed her proud joy. 
 
 " I hope pride won't have a fall," said Constance, with a 
 calm smile out of which peeped a hint of a rebuke. " That's 
 what I hope. I must just go and see about tea." 
 
 " I can't stay for tea — really," said Dick. 
 
 " Of course you can," said Constance, positively. " Sup- 
 pose you'd been at Birmingham ? It's weeks since you 
 stayed to tea." 
 
 " Oh, well, thanks ! " Dick yielded, rather snubbed. 
 
 " Can't I save you a journey, Mrs. Povey ? " Lily asked, 
 eagerly thoughtful. 
 
 " No, thank you, my dear. There are one or two little 
 things that need my attention." And Constance departed 
 with her jewel-box. 
 
 Dick, having assured himself that the door was closed, 
 assaulted Lily with a kiss. 
 
 " Been here long ? " he inquired. 
 
 " About an hour and a half." 
 
 " Glad to see me ? " 
 
 " Oh, Dick ! " she protested. 
 
 " Old lady's in one of her humours, eh ? " 
 
 " No, no ! Only she was just talking about balloons — you 
 know. She's very much up in arms." 
 
 " You ought to keep her off balloons. Balloons may be 
 the ruin of her wedding-present to us, my child." 
 
 " Dick ! How can you talk like that ? . . . It's all very 
 well saying I ought to keep her off balloons. You try to 
 keep her off balloons when once she begins, and see ! " 
 
 " What started her ? " 
 
 " She said she was thinking of giving you old Mr. Baines's 
 gold watch and chain — if you behaved yourself." 
 
 " Thank you for nothing ! " said Dick. " I don't want 
 it." 
 
 " Have you seen it ? " 
 
 " Have I seen it ? I should say I had seen it. She's men- 
 tioned it once or twice before." 
 
 " Oh ! I didn't know." 
 
 " I don't see myself carting that thing about. I much pre- 
 fer my own. What do you think of it ? " 
 
 " Of course it is rather clumsy," said Lily. " But if she 
 offered it to you, you couldn't refuse it, and you'd simply 
 have to wear it." 
 
 " Well, then," said Dick, " I must try to behave myself 
 
END OF CONSTANCE. 549 
 
 just badly enough to keep off the watch, but not badly enough 
 to upset her notions about wedding-presents." 
 
 " Poor old thing ! " Lily murmured, compassionately. 
 
 Then Lily put her hand silently to her neck. 
 
 " What's that ? " 
 
 ''■ She's just given it to me." 
 
 Dick approached very near to examine the cameo brooch. 
 " Hm ! " he murmured. It was an adverse verdict. And 
 Lily coincided with it by a lift of the eyebrows. 
 
 " And I suppose you'll have to wear that ! " said Dick. 
 
 " She values it as much as anything she's got, poor old 
 thing ! " said Lily. " It belonged to her mother. And she 
 says cameos are coming into fashion again. It really is 
 rather good, you know." 
 
 " I wonder where she learnt that ! " said Dick, drily. " I 
 see you've been suffering from the photographs again." 
 
 " Well," said Lily, I much prefer the photographs to 
 helping her to play Patience. The way she cheats herself 
 — it's too silly ! I " 
 
 She stopped. The door which had after all not been 
 latched, was pushed open, and the antique Fossette intro- 
 duced herself painfully into the room. Fossette had an 
 affection for Dick Povey. 
 
 " Well, Methuselah ! " he greeted the animal loudly. 
 She could scarcely wag her tail, nor shake the hair out of 
 her dim eyes in order to look up at him. He stooped to 
 pat her. 
 
 " That dog does smell," said Lily, bluntly. 
 
 " What do you expect ? What she wants is the least dose 
 of prussic acid. She's a burden to herself." 
 
 " It's funny that if you venture to hint to Mrs. Povey 
 that the dog is offensive she gets quite peppery," said Lily. 
 
 " Well, that's very simple," said Dick. " Don't hint, 
 that's all ! Hold your nose and your tongue too." 
 
 " Dick, I do wish you wouldn't be so absurd." 
 
 Constance returned into the room, cutting short the con- 
 versation. \ 
 
 " Mrs. Povey," said Dick, in a voice full of gratitude, 
 " Lily has just been showing me her brooch " 
 
 He noticed that she paid no heed to him, but passed 
 hurriedly to the window. 
 
 " What's amiss in the- Square ? " Constance exclaimed. 
 a When I was in the parlour just now I saw a man running 
 along Wedgwood Street, and I said to myself, what's amiss ? " 
 
 Dick and Lily joined her at the window. 
 
 Several people were hurrying down the Square, and then 
 
550 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 a man came running with a doctor from the market-place. 
 All these persons disappeared from view under the window 
 of Mrs. Povey's drawing-room, which was over part of Mrs. 
 Critchlow's shop. As the windows of the shop projected 
 beyond the walls of the house it was impossible, from the 
 drawing-room window, to see the pavement in front of the 
 shop. 
 
 " It must be something on the pavement — or in the 
 shop ! " murmured Constance. 
 
 " Oh, ma'am ! " said a startled voice behind the three. 
 It was Mary, original of the photograph, who had run un- 
 perceived into the drawing-room. They say as Mrs. 
 Critchlow has tried to commit suicide ! " 
 
 Constance started back. Lily went towards her, with an 
 instinctive gesture of supporting consolation. 
 
 " Maria Critchlow tried to commit suicide ! " Constance 
 muttered. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am ! But they say she's not done it." 
 
 " By Jove ! I'd better go and see if I can help, hadn't 
 I ? " cried Dick Povey, hobbling off, excited and speedy. 
 " Strange, isn't it ? " he exclaimed afterwards, " how I 
 manage to come in for things ? Sheer chance that I was here 
 to-day ! But it's always like that ! Somehow something 
 extraordinary is always happening where I am." And this 
 too ministered to his satisfaction, and to his zest for life. 
 
 II. 
 
 When, in the evening, after all sorts of comings and go- 
 ings, he finally returned to the old lady and the young one, 
 in order to report the upshot, his demeanour was suitably 
 toned to Constance's mood. The old lady had been very 
 deeply disturbed by the tragedy, which, as she said, had 
 
 Eissed under her very feet while she was calmly talking to 
 ily. 
 
 The whole truth came out in a short space of time. Mrs. 
 Critchlow was suffering from melancholia. It appeared that 
 for long she. had been depressed by the failing trade of the 
 shop, which was none of her fault. The state of the Square 
 had steadily deteriorated. Even the " Vaults " were not 
 what they once were. Four or five shops had been shut 
 up, as it were definitely, the landlords having given up hope 
 of discovering serious tenants. And, of those kept open, 
 the majority were struggling desperately to make ends meet. 
 
END OF CONSTANCE. 551 
 
 Only HolFs and a new upstart draper, who had widely ad- 
 vertised his dressmaking department, were really flourish- 
 ing. The confectionery half of Mr. Brindley's business was 
 disappearing. People would not go to Hanbridge for their 
 bread or for their groceries, but they would go for their 
 cakes. These electric trams had simply carried to Han- 
 bridge the cream, and much of the milk, of Bursley's retail 
 trade. There were unprincipled tradesmen in Hanbridge 
 ready to pay the car-fares of any customer who spent a 
 crown in their establishments. Hanbridge was the geo- 
 graphical centre of the Five Towns, and it was alive to its 
 situation. Useless for Bursley to compete ! If Mrs. Critch- 
 low had been a philosopher, if she had known that geog- 
 raphy had always made history, she would have given up 
 her enterprise a dozen years ago. But Mrs. Critchlow was 
 merely Maria Insull. She had seen Baines's in its mag- 
 nificent prime, when Baines's almost conferred a favour on 
 customers in serving them. At the time when she took over 
 the business under the wing of her husband, it was still a 
 good business. But from that instant the tide had seemed 
 to turn. She had fought, and she kept on fighting, stupidly. 7 
 She was not aware that she was fighting against evolution, *i 
 not aware that evolution had chosen her for one of its vie- I 
 tims ! She could understand that all the other shops in the I 
 Square should fail, but not that Baines's should fail ! SheJ 
 was as industrious as ever, as good a buyer, as good a seller, 
 as keen for novelties, as economical, as methodical ! And 
 yet the returns dropped and dropped. 
 
 She naturally had no sympathy from Charles, who now 
 took small interest even in his own business, or what was 
 left of it, and who was coldly disgusted at the ultimate cost 
 of his marriage. Charles gave her no money that he could 
 avoid giving her. The crisis had been slowly approaching for 
 years. The assistants in the shop had said nothing, or had 
 only whispered among themselves, but now that the crisis 
 had flowered suddenly in an attempted self-murder, they all 
 spoke at once, and the evidences were pieced together into 
 a formidable proof of the strain which Mrs. Critchlbw had 
 suffered. It appeared that for many months she had been 
 depressed and irritable, that sometimes she would sit down 
 in the midst of work and declare, with every sign of ex- 
 haustion, that she could do no more. Then with equal 
 briskness she would arise and force herself to labour. She 
 did not sleep for whole nights. One assistant related how 
 she had complained of having had no sleep whatever for four 
 nights consecutively. She had noises in the ears and a 
 
55 2 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 chronic headache. Never very plump, she had grown 
 thinner and thinner. And she was for ever taking pills : 
 this information came from Charles's manager. She had 
 had several outrageous quarrels with the redoubtable Charles, 
 to the stupefaction of all who heard or saw them. . . . Mrs. 
 Critchlow standing up to her husband ! Another strange 
 thing was that she thought the bills of several of the big 
 Manchester firms were unpaid, when as a fact they had been 
 paid. Even when shown the receipts she would not be con- 
 vinced, though she pretended to be convinced. She would 
 recommence the next day. All this was sufficiently discon- 
 certing for female assistants in the drapery. But what could 
 they do ? 
 
 Then Maria Critchlow had gone a step further. She had 
 summoned the eldest assistant to her corner and had in- 
 formed her, with all the solemnity of a confession made to 
 assuage a conscience which has been tortured too long, that 
 she had on many occasions been guilty of sexual irregularity 
 with her late employer, Samuel Povey. There was no truth 
 whatever in this accusation (which everybody, however, took 
 care not to mention to Constance) ; it merely indicated, per- 
 haps, the secret aspirations of Maria Insull, the virgin. The 
 assistant was properly scandalized, more by the crudity of 
 Mrs. Critchlow's language than by the alleged sin buried 
 in the past. Goodness knows what the assistant would have 
 done ! But two hours later Maria Critchlow tried to commit 
 suicide by stabbing herself with a pair of scissors. There 
 was blood in the shop. 
 
 With as little delay as possible she had been driven away 
 to the asylum. Charles Critchlow, enveloped safely in the 
 armour of his senile egotism, had shown no emotion, and 
 very little activity. The shop was closed. And as a general 
 draper's it never opened again. That was the end of Baines's. 
 Two assistants found themselves without a livelihood. The 
 small tumble with the great. 
 
 Constance's emotion was more than pardonable ; it was 
 justified. She could not eat and Lily could not persuade 
 her to eat. In an unhappy moment Dick Povey mentioned 
 — he never could remember how, afterwards — the word 
 Federation ! And then Constance, from a passive figure of 
 grief became a menace. She overwhelmed Dick Povey with 
 her anathema of Federation, for Dick was a citizen of Han- 
 bridge, where this detestable movement for Federation had 
 had its birth. All the misfortunes of St. Luke's Square 
 were due to that great, busy, grasping, unscrupulous neigh- 
 bour. Had not Hanbridge done enough, without wanting 
 
END OF CONSTANCE. 553 
 
 to merge all the Five Towns into one town, of which of course 
 itself would be the centre ? For Constance, Hanbridge was 
 a borough of unprincipled adventurers, bent on ruining the 
 ancient " Mother of the Five Towns " for its own glory and 
 aggrandizement. Let Constance hear no more of Federation ! 
 Her poor sister Sophia had been dead against Federation, 
 and she had been quite right ! All really respectable people 
 were against it ! The attempted suicide of Mrs. Critchlow 
 sealed the fate of Federation and damned it for ever, in Con- 
 stance's mind. Her hatred of the idea of it was intensified 
 into violent animosity ; insomuch that in the result she died 
 a martyr to the cause of Bursley's municipal independence. 
 
 III. 
 
 It was on a muddy day in October that the first great 
 battle for and against Federation was fought in Bursley. 
 Constance was suffering severely from sciatica. She was 
 also suffering from disgust with the modern world. 
 
 Unimaginable things had happened in the Square. For 
 Constance, the reputation of the Square was eternally ruined. 
 Charles Critchlow, by that strange good fortune which always 
 put him in the right when fairly he ought to have been in 
 the wrong, had let the Baines shop and his own shop and 
 house to the Midland Clothiers Company, which was estab- 
 lishing branches throughout Staffordshire, Warwickshire, 
 Leicestershire, and adjacent counties. He had sold his own 
 chemist's stock and gone to live in a little house at the 
 bottom of King Street. It is doubtful whether he would 
 have consented to retire had not Alderman Holl died earlier 
 in the year, thus ending a long rivalry between the old men 
 for the patriarchate of the Square. Charles Critchlow was 
 as free from sentiment as any man, but no man is quite free 
 from it, and the ancient was in a position to indulge senti- 
 ment had he chosen. His business was not a source, of loss, 
 and he could still trust his skinny hands and peering eyes 
 to make up a prescription. However, the offer of the Mid- 
 land Clothiers Company tempted him, and as the undisputed 
 " father " of the Square he left the Square in triumph. 
 
 The Midland Clothiers Company had no sense of the pro- 
 prieties of trade. Their sole idea was to sell goods. Having 
 possessed themselves of one of the finest sites in a town which, 
 after all was said and done, comprised nearly forty thousand 
 inhabitants, they set about to make the best of that site. 
 
 180 
 
554 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 They threw the two shops into one, and they caused to be 
 constructed a sign compared to which the spacious old 
 " Baines " sign was a postcard. They covered the entire 
 frontage with posters of a theatrical description — coloured 
 posters ! They occupied the front page of the Signal, and 
 from that pulpit they announced that winter was approach- 
 ing, and that they meant to sell ten thousand overcoats 
 at their new shop m Bursley at the price of twelve and six- 
 pence each. The tailoring of the world was loudly and 
 coarsely defied to equal the value of those overcoats. On 
 the day of opening they arranged an orchestra or artillery 
 of phonographs upon the leads over the window of that part 
 of the shop which had been Mr. Critchlow's. They also car- 
 peted the Square with handbills, and flew flags from their 
 upper storeys. The immense shop proved to be full of 
 overcoats ; overcoats were shown in all the three great 
 windows ; in one window an overcoat was disposed as a 
 receptacle for water, to prove that the Midland twelve-and- 
 sixpenny overcoats were impermeable by rain. Overcoats 
 flapped in the two doorways. These devices woke and drew 
 the town, and the town found itself received by bustling male 
 assistants very energetic and rapid, instead of by demure 
 anaemic virgins. At moments towards evening the shop 
 was populous with custom ; the number of overcoats sold 
 was prodigious. On another day the Midland sold trousers 
 in a like manner, but without the phonographs. Unmis- 
 takably the Midland had shaken the Square and demon- 
 strated that commerce was still possible to fearless enter- 
 prise. 
 
 Nevertheless the Square was not pleased. The Square was 
 conscious of shame, of dignity departed. Constance was 
 divided between pain and scornful wrath. For her, what 
 the Midland had done was to desecrate a shrine. She hated 
 those flags, and those flaring, staring posters on the honest 
 old brick walls, and the enormous gilded sign, and the win- 
 dows all filled with a monotonous repetition of the same 
 article, and the bustling assistants. As for the phonographs, 
 she regarded them as a grave insult ; they had been within 
 twenty feet of her drawing-room window ! Twelve-and- 
 sixpenny overcoats ! It was monstrous, and equally mon- 
 strous was the gullibility of the people. How could an over- 
 coat at twelve and sixpence be " good." She remembered 
 the overcoats ma.de and sold in the shop in the time of her 
 father and her husband, overcoats of which the inconvenience 
 was that they would not wear out ! The Midland, for Con- 
 stance, was not a trading concern, but something between a 
 
END OF CONSTANCE. 555 
 
 cheap-jack and a circus. She could scarcely bear to walk 
 down the Square, to such a degree did the ignoble frontage 
 of the Midland offend her eye and outrage her ancestral 
 pride. She even said that she would give up her house. 
 
 But when, on the twenty-ninth of September, she received 
 six months' notice, signed in Critchlow's shaky hand, to quit 
 the house — it was wanted for the Midland's manager, the 
 Midland having taken the premises on condition that they 
 might eject Constance if they chose — the blow was an ex- 
 ceedingly severe one. She had sworn to go — but to be turned 
 out, to be turned out of the house of her birth and out of her 
 father's home, that was different ! Her pride, injured as 
 it was, had a great deal to support. It became necessary 
 for her to recollect that she was a Baines. She affected 
 magnificently not to care. But she could not refrain from 
 telling all her acquaintances that she was being turned out 
 of her house, and asking them what they thought of that; 
 and when she met Charles Critchlow in the street she seared 
 him with the heat of her resentment. The enterprise of find- 
 ing a new house and moving into it loomed before her gigantic, 
 terrible, the idea of it was alone sufficient to make her ill. 
 
 Meanwhile, in the matter of Federation, preparations for 
 the pitched battle had been going forward, especially in the 
 columns of the Signal, where the scribes of each one of the 
 Five Towns had proved that all the other towns were in the 
 clutch of unscrupulous gangs of self-seekers. After months 
 of argument and recrimination, all the towns except Bursley 
 were either favourable or indifferent to the prospect of be- 
 coming a part of the twelfth largest town in the United King- 
 dom. But in Bursley the opposition was strong, and the 
 twelfth largest town in the United Kingdom could not 
 spring into existence without the consent of Bursley. The 
 United Kingdom itself was languidly interested in the pos- 
 sibility of suddenly being endowed with a new town of a 
 quarter of a million inhabitants. The Five Towns were 
 frequently mentioned in the London dailies, and London 
 journalists would write such sentences as : " The Five 
 Towns, which are of course, as everybody knows, Hahbridge, 
 Bursley, Knype, Longshaw, and Turnhill. ..." This was 
 renown at last, for the most maligned district in the country ! 
 And then a Cabinet Minister had visited the Five Towns, 
 and assisted at an official inquiry, and stated in his hammer- 
 ing style that he meant personally to do everything possible 
 to accomplish the Federation of the Five Towns : an in- 
 cautious remark, which infuriated, while it flattered, the 
 opponents of Federation in Bursley. Constance, with many 
 
556 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 other sensitive persons, asked angrily what right a Cabinet 
 Minister had to take sides in a purely local affair. But the 
 partiality of the official world grew flagrant. The Mayor of 
 Bursley openly proclaimed himself a Federationist, though 
 there was a majority on the Council against him. Even 
 ministers of religion permitted themselves to think and to 
 express opinions. Well might the indignant Old Guard 
 imagine that the end of public decency had come ! The 
 Federationists were very ingenious individuals. They con- 
 trived to enrol in their ranks a vast number of leading men. 
 Then they hired the Covered Market, and put a platform in 
 it, and put all these leading men on the platform, and made 
 them all speak eloquently on the advantages of moving with 
 the times. The meeting was crowded and enthusiastic, and 
 readers of the Signal next day could not but see that the 
 battle was won in advance, and that Anti-Federation was 
 dead. In the following week, however, the Anti-Federa- 
 tionists held in the Covered Market an exactly similar meet- 
 ing (except that the display of leading men was less brilliant), 
 and demanded of a floor of serried heads whether the old 
 Mother of the Five Towns was prepared to put herself into 
 the hands of a crew of highly-paid bureaucrats at Hanbridge, 
 and was answered by a wild defiant " No," that could be 
 heard on Duck Bank. Readers of the Signal next day were 
 fain to see that the battle had not been won in advance. 
 Bursley was lukewarm on the topics of education, slums, 
 water, gas, electricity. But it meant to fight for that mys- 
 terious thing, its identity. Was the name of Bursley to 
 be lost to the world ? To ask the question was to give the 
 answer. 
 
 Then dawned the day of battle, the day of the Poll, when 
 the burgesses were to indicate plainly by means of a cross 
 on a voting paper whether or not they wanted Federation. 
 And on this day Constance was almost incapacitated by 
 sciatica. It was a heroic day. The walls of the town were 
 covered with literature, and the streets dotted with motor- 
 cars and other vehicles at the service of the voters. The 
 greater number of these vehicles bore large cards with the 
 words, " Federation this time." And hundreds of men 
 walked briskly about with circular cards tied to their lapels, 
 as though Bursley had been a race-course, and these cards 
 too had the words, " Federation this time." (The reference 
 was to a light poll which had been taken several years before, 
 when no interest had been aroused and the immature pro- 
 ject yet defeated by a six to one majority.) All partisans of 
 Federation sported a red ribbon ; all Anti-Federationists 
 
END OF CONSTANCE. 557 
 
 sported a blue ribbon. The schools were closed and the 
 Federationists displayed their characteristic lack of scruple 
 in appropriating the children. The Federationists, with 
 devilish skill, had hired the Bursley Town Silver Prize Band, 
 an organization of terrific respectability, and had set it to 
 march playing through the town followed by wagonettes 
 crammed with children, who sang : 
 
 Vote, vote, vote for Federation, 
 Don't be stupid, old and slow, 
 We are sure that it will be 
 Good for the communitie, 
 So vote, vote, vote, and make it go. 
 
 How this performance could affect the decision of grave 
 burgesses at the polls was not apparent ; but the Anti- 
 Federationists feared that it might, and before noon was 
 come they had engaged two bands, and had composed in 
 committee the following lyric in reply to the first one : 
 
 Down, down, down with Federation, 
 
 As we are we'd rather stay ; 
 
 When the vote on Saturday's read 
 
 Federation will be dead, 
 
 Good old Bursley's sure to win the day. 
 
 They had also composed another song, entitled " Dear old 
 Bursley," which, however, they made the fatal error of 
 setting to the music of " Auld Lang Syne." The effect was 
 that of a dirge, and it perhaps influenced many voters in 
 favour of the more cheerful party. The Anti-Federationists, 
 indeed, never regained the mean advantage filched by un- 
 scrupulous Federationists with the help of the Silver Prize 
 Band and a few hundred infants. The odds were against 
 the Anti-Federationists. The mayor had actually issued a 
 letter to the inhabitants accusing the Anti-Federationists 
 of unfair methods ! This was really too much ! The impu- 
 dence of it knocked the breath out of its victims, and breath 
 is very necessary in a polling contest. The Federationists, 
 as one of their prominent opponents admitted, " had it all 
 their own way," dominating both the streets and the walls. 
 And when, early in the afternoon, Mr. Dick Povey sailed 
 over the town in a balloon that was plainly decorated with 
 the crimson of Federation, it was felt that the cause of 
 Bursley's separate identity was for ever lost. Still, Bursley, 
 with the willing aid of the public-houses, maintained its 
 gaiety. 
 
558 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Towards dusk a stout old lady, with grey hair, and a 
 dowdy bonnet, and an expensive mantle, passed limping, 
 very slowly, along Wedgwood Street and up the Cock Yard 
 towards the Town Hall. Her wrinkled face had an anxious 
 look, but it was also very determined. The busy, joyous 
 Federationists and Anti-Federationists who knew her not 
 saw merely a stout old lady fussing forth, and those who 
 knew her saw merely Mrs. Povey and greeted her perfunc- 
 torily, a woman of her age and gait being rather out of place 
 in that feverish altercation of opposed principles. But it 
 was more than a stout old lady, it was more than Mrs. Povey, 
 that waddled with such painful deliberation through the 
 streets — it was a miracle. 
 
 In the morning Constance had been partially incapacitated 
 by her sciatica ; so much so, at any rate, that she had per- 
 ceived the advisability of remaining on the bedroom floor 
 instead of descending to the parlour. Therefore Mary had 
 lighted the drawing-room fire, and Constance had ensconced 
 herself by it, with Fossette in a basket. Lily Holl had 
 called early, and had been very sympathetic, but rather 
 vague. The truth was that she was concealing the im- 
 minent balloon ascent which Dick Povey, with his instinct 
 for the picturesque, had somehow arranged, in conjunction 
 with a well-known Manchester aeronaut, for the very day of 
 the poll. That was one of various matters that had to be 
 " kept from " the old lady. Lily herself was much per- 
 turbed about the balloon ascent. She had to run off and 
 see Dick before he started, at the Football Ground at Bleak- 
 ridge, and then she had to live through the hours till she 
 should receive a telegram to the effect that Dick had come 
 down safely or that Dick had broken his leg in coming down, 
 or that Dick was dead. It was a trying time for Lily. She 
 had left Constance after a brief visit, with a preoccupied 
 unusual air, saying that as the day was a special day, she 
 should come in again " if she could." And she did not forget 
 to assure Constance that Federation would beyond any ques- 
 tion whatever be handsomely beaten at the poll ; for this 
 was another matter as to which it was deemed advisable to 
 keep the old lady " in the dark," lest the foolish old lady 
 should worry and commit indiscretions. 
 
 After that Constance had been forgotten by the world of 
 Bursley, which could pay small heed to sciatical old ladies 
 confined to sofas and firesides. She was in acute pain, as 
 
END OF CONSTANCE. 559 
 
 Mary could see when at intervals she hovered round her. 
 Assuredly it was one of Constance's bad days, one of those 
 days on which she felt that the tide of life had left her stranded 
 in utter neglect. The sound of the Bursley Town Silver 
 Prize Band aroused her from her mournful trance of suffer- 
 ing. Then the high treble of children's voices startled her. 
 She defied her sciatica, and, grimacing, went to the window. 
 And at the first glimpse she could see that the Federation 
 Poll was going to be a much more exciting affair than she had 
 imagined. The great cards swinging from the wagonettes 
 showed her that Federation was at all events still sufficiently 
 alive to make a formidable impression on the eye and the 
 ear. The Square was transformed by this clamour in favour 
 of Federation ; people cheered, and sang also, as the pro- 
 cession wound down the Square. And she could distinctly 
 catch the tramping, martial syllables, " Vote, vote, vote." She 
 was indignant. The pother, once begun, continued. Vehicles 
 flashed frequently across the Square, most of them in the 
 crimson livery. Little knots and processions of excited way- 
 farers were a recurring feature of the unaccustomed traffic, 
 and the large majority of them flaunted the colours of Federa- 
 tion. Mary, after some errands of shopping, came upstairs 
 and reported that " it was simply ' Federation ' everywhere," 
 and that Mr. Brindley, a strong Federationist, was " above 
 a bit above himself " ; further, that the interest in the poll 
 was tremendous and universal. She said there were " crowds 
 and crowds " round the Town Hall. Even Mary, generally 
 a little placid and dull, had caught something of the con- 
 tagious vivacity. 
 
 Constance remained at the window till dinner, and after 
 dinner she went to it again. It was fortunate that she did 
 not think of looking up into the sky when Dick's balloon 
 sailed westwards ; she would have guessed instantly that 
 Dick was in that balloon, and her grievances would have 
 been multiplied. The vast grievance of the Federation 
 scheme weighed on her to the extremity of her power to bear. 
 She was not a politician ; she had no general ideas ; she did 
 not see the cosmic movement in large curves. She x was in- 
 capable of perceiving the absurdity involved in perpetuating 
 municipal divisions which the growth of the district had ren- 
 dered artificial, vexatious, and harmful. She saw nothing but 
 Bursley, and in Bursley nothing but the Square. She knew 
 nothing except that the people of Bursley, who once shopped 
 in Bursley, now shopped in Hanbridge, and that the Square 
 was a desert infested by cheap-jacks. And there were 
 actually people who wished to bow the neck to Hanbridge, 
 
560 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 who were ready to sacrifice the very name of Bursley to the 
 greedy humour of that pushing Chicago ! She could not 
 understand such people. Did they know that poor Maria 
 Critchlow was in a lunatic asylum because Hanbridge was 
 so grasping ? Ah, poor Maria was already forgotten ! Did 
 they know that, as a further indirect consequence, she, the 
 daughter of Bursley's chief tradesman, was to be thrown out 
 of the house in which she was born ? She wished, bitterly, 
 as she stood there at the window, watching the triumph of 
 Federation, that she had bought the house and shop at the 
 Mericarp sale years ago. She would have shown them, as 
 owner, what was what ! She forgot that the property which 
 she already owned in Bursley was a continual annoyance 
 to her, and that she was always resolving to sell it at no 
 matter what loss. 
 
 She said to herself that she had a vote, and that if she 
 had been " at all fit to stir out " she would certainly have 
 voted. She said to herself that it had been her duty to vote. 
 And then by an illusion of her wrought nerves, . tightened 
 minute by minute throughout the day, she began to fancy 
 that her sciatica was easier. She said : "If only I could go 
 out ! " She might have a cab, or any of the parading 
 vehicles would be glad to take her to the Town Hall, and, 
 perhaps, as a favour, to bring her back again. But no. 
 She dared not go out. She was afraid, really afraid that even 
 the mild Mary might stop her. Otherwise, she could have 
 sent Mary for a cab. And supposing that Lily returned, 
 and caught her going out or coming in ! She ought not to 
 go out. Yet her sciatica was strangely better. It was folly 
 to think of going out. Yet . . . ! And Lily did not come. 
 She was rather hurt that Lily had not paid her a second 
 visit. Lily was neglecting her. . . . She would go out. It 
 was not four minutes' walk for her to the Town Hall, and 
 she was better. And there had been no shower for a long 
 time, and the wind was drying the mud in the roadways. Yes, 
 she would go. 
 
 Like a thief she passed into her bedroom and put on her 
 things ; and like a thief she crept downstairs, and so, without 
 a word to Mary, into the street. It was a desperate adven- 
 ture. As soon as she was in the street she felt all her weak- 
 ness, all the fatigue which the effort had already cost her. 
 The pain returned. The streets were still wet and foul, the 
 wind cold, and the sky menacing. She ought to go back. 
 She ought to admit that she had been a fool to dream of the 
 enterprise. The Town Hall seemed to be miles off, at the 
 top of a mountain. She went forward, however, steeled to 
 
END OF CONSTANCE. 5 6i 
 
 do her share in the killing of Federation. Every step caused 
 her a gnashing of her old teeth. She chose the Cock Yard 
 route, because if she had gone up the Square she would have 
 had to pass Holl's shop, and Lily might have spied her. 
 
 This was the miracle that breezy politicians witnessed with- 
 out being aware that it was a miracle. To have impressed 
 them, Constance ought to have fainted before recording her 
 vote, and made herself the centre of a crowd of gapers. But 
 she managed, somehow, to reach home again on her own tor- 
 tured feet, and an astounded and protesting Mary opened 
 the door to her. Rain was descending. She was frightened, 
 then, by the hardihood of her adventure, and by its atrocious 
 results on her body. An appalling exhaustion rendered her 
 helpless. But the deed was done. 
 
 V. 
 
 The next morning, after a night which she could not have 
 described, Constance found herself lying flat in bed, with all 
 her limbs stretched out straight. She was conscious that her 
 face was covered with perspiration. The bell-rope hung 
 within a foot of her head, but she had decided that, rather 
 than move in order to pull it, she would prefer to wait for 
 assistance until Mary came of her own accord. Her ex- 
 periences of the night had given her a dread of the slightest 
 movement ; anything was better than movement. She felt 
 vaguely ill, with a kind of subdued pain, and she was very 
 thirsty and somewhat cold. She knew that her left arm 
 and leg were extraordinarily tender to the touch. When 
 Mary at length entered, clean and fresh and pale in all her 
 mildness, she found the mistress the colour of a duck's egg, 
 with puffed features, and a strangely anxious expression. 
 
 " Mary," said Constance, " I feel so queer. Perhaps you'd 
 better run up and tell Miss Holl, and ask her to telephone 
 for Dr. Stirling." 
 
 This was the beginning of Constance's last illness. Mary 
 most impressively informed Miss Holl that her mistress had 
 been out on the previous afternoon in spite of her sciatica, 
 and Lily telephoned the fact to the doctor. Lily then came 
 down to take charge of Constance. But she dared not up- 
 braid the invalid. 
 
 " Is the result out ? " Constance murmured. 
 
 " Oh yes," said Lily, lightly. " There's a majority of over 
 twelve hundred against Federation. Great excitement last 
 
562 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 night ! I told you yesterday morning that Federation was 
 bound to be beaten." 
 
 Lily spoke as though the result throughout had been a 
 certainty ; her tone to Constance indicated : " Surely you 
 don't imagine that I should have told you untruths yester- 
 day morning merely to cheer you up ! " The truth was, 
 however, that towards the end of the day nearly every one 
 had believed Federation to be carried. The result had caused 
 great surprise. Only the profoundest philosophers had not 
 been surprised to see that the mere blind, deaf, inert forces 
 of reaction, with faulty organization, and quite deprived of 
 the aid of logic, had proved far stronger than all the alert 
 enthusiasm arrayed against them. It was a notable lesson 
 to reformers. 
 
 " Oh ! " murmured Constance, startled. She was relieved ; 
 but she would have liked the majority to be smaller. More- 
 over, her interest in the question had lessened. It was her 
 limbs that preoccupied her now. 
 
 " You look tired," she said feebly to Lily. 
 
 " Do I ? " said Lily, shortly, hiding the fact that she had 
 spent half the night in tending Dick Povey, who, in a sensa- 
 tional descent near Macclesfield, had been dragged through 
 the tops of a row of elm trees to the detriment of an elbow- 
 joint • the professional aeronaut had broken a leg. 
 
 Then Dr. Stirling came. 
 
 " I'm afraid my sciatica's worse, Doctor," said Constance, 
 apologetically. 
 
 " Did you expect it to be better ? " said he, gazing at her 
 sternly. She knew then that some one had saved her the 
 trouble of confessing her escapade. 
 
 However, her sciatica was not worse. Her sciatica had not 
 behaved basely. What she was suffering from was the pre- 
 liminary advances of an attack of acute rheumatism. She 
 had indeed selected the right month and weather for her esca- 
 pade ! Fatigued by pain, by nervous agitation, and by the 
 immense moral and physical effort needed to carry her to the 
 Town Hall and back, she had caught a chill, and had got her 
 feet damp. In such a subject as herself it was enough. The 
 doctor used only the phrase " acute rheumatism." Con- 
 stance did not know that acute rheumatism was precisely 
 the same thing as that dread disease, rheumatic fever, and 
 she was not informed. She did not surmise for a consider- 
 able period that her case was desperately serious. The doctor 
 explained the summoning of two nurses, and the frequency 
 of his own visits, by saying that his chief anxiety was to 
 minimise the fearful pain as much as possible, and that this 
 
END OF CONSTANCE. 563 
 
 end could only be secured by incessant watchfulness. The 
 pain was certainly formidable. But then Constance was well 
 habituated to formidable pain. Sciatica, at its most active, 
 cannot be surpassed even by rheumatic fever. Constance 
 had been in nearly continuous pain for years. Her friends, 
 however sympathetic, could not appreciate the intensity of 
 her torture. They were just as used to it as she was. And 
 the monotony and particularity of her complaints (slight 
 though the complaints were in comparison with their cause) 
 necessarily blunted the edge of compassion. " Mrs. Povey 
 and her sciatica again ! Poor thing, she really is a little 
 tedious I " They were apt not to realise that sciatica is 
 even more tedious than complaints about sciatica. 
 
 She asked one day that Dick should come to see her. He 
 came with his arm in a sling, and told her charily that he 
 had hurt his elbow through dropping his stick and slipping 
 downstairs. 
 
 " Lily never told me," said Constance, suspiciously. 
 
 " Oh, it's simply nothing ! " said Dick. Not even the sick- 
 room could chasten him of his joy in the magnificent balloon 
 adventure. 
 
 " I do hope you won't go running any risks ! " said Con- 
 stance. 
 
 " Never you fear ! " said he. "I shall die in my bed." 
 
 And he was absolutely convinced that he would, and not 
 as the result of any accident, either ! The nurse would not 
 allow him to remain in the room. 
 
 Lily suggested that Constance might like her to write to 
 Cyril. It was only in order to make sure of Cyril's correct 
 address. He had gone on a tour through Italy with some 
 friends of whom Constance knew nothing. The address 
 appeared to be very uncertain ; there were several addresses, 
 poste restante in various towns. Cyril had sent postcards to 
 his mother. Dick and Lily went to the post-office and tele- 
 graphed to foreign parts. 
 
 Though Constance was too ill to know how ill she was, 
 though she had no conception of the domestic x confusion 
 caused by her illness, her brain was often remarkably clear, 
 and she could reflect in long sane meditations above the 
 uneasy sea of her pain. In the earlier hours of the night, 
 after the nurses had been changed, and Mary had gone to 
 bed exhausted with stair-climbing, and Lily Holl was recount- 
 ing the day to Dick up at the grocer's, and the day-nurse 
 was already asleep, and the night-nurse had arranged the 
 night, then, in the faintly-lit silence of the chamber, Con- 
 stance would argue with herself for an hour at a time. She 
 
564 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 frequently thought of Sophia. In spite of the fact that 
 Sophia was dead she still pitied Sophia as a woman whose 
 life had been wasted. This idea of Sophia's wasted and 
 sterile life, and of the far-reaching importance of adhering 
 to principles, recurred to her again and again. " Why did 
 she run away with him ? If only she had not run away ! " 
 she would repeat. And yet there had been something so 
 fine about Sophia ! Which made Sophia's case all the more 
 pitiable ! Constance never pitied herself. She did not con- 
 sider that Fate had treated her very badly. She was not 
 very discontented with herself. The invincible common- 
 sense of a sound nature prevented her, in her best moments, 
 from feebly dissolving in self-pity. She had lived in honesty 
 and kindliness for a fair number of years, and she had tasted 
 triumphant hours. She was justly respected, she had a 
 position, she had dignity, she was well-off. She possessed, 
 after all, a certain amount of quiet self-conceit. There 
 existed nobody to whom she would " knuckle down " or 
 could be asked to " knuckle down." True, she was old ! 
 So were thousands of other people in Bursley. She was 
 in pain. So there were thousands of other people. With 
 whom would she be* willing to exchange lots ? She had many 
 dissatisfactions. But she rose superior to them. When 
 she surveyed her life, and life in general, she would think, 
 with a sort of tart but not sour cheerfulness : " Well, that 
 is what life is ! " Despite her habit of complaining about 
 domestic trifles, she was, in the essence of her character, " a 
 great body for making the best of things." Thus she did 
 not unduly bewail her excursion to the Town Hall to vote, 
 which the sequel had proved to be ludicrously supererogatory. 
 " How was I to know ? " she said. 
 
 The one matter in which she had gravely to reproach her- 
 self was her indulgent spoiling of Cyril after the death of 
 Samuel Povey. But the end of her reproaches always was : 
 " I expect I should do the same again ! And probably it 
 wouldn't have made any difference if I hadn't spoiled him ! " 
 And she had paid tenfold for the weakness. She loved Cyril, 
 but she had no illusions about him ; she saw both sides of 
 him. She remembered all the sadness and all the humilia- 
 tions which he had caused her. Still, her affection was un- 
 impaired. A son might be worse than Cyril was ; he had 
 admirable qualities. She did not resent his being away from 
 England while she lay ill. "If it was serious," she said, 
 " he would not lose a moment." And Lily and Dick were a 
 treasure to her. In those two she really had been lucky. 
 She took great pleasure in contemplating the splendour of 
 
END OF CONSTANCE. 565 
 
 the gift with which she would mark her appreciation of them 
 at their approaching wedding. The secret attitude of both 
 of them towards her was one of good-natured condescension, 
 expressed in the tone in which they would say to each other, 
 " the old lady." Perhaps they would have been startled to 
 know that Constance lovingly looked down on both of them. 
 She had unbounded admiration for their hearts ; but she 
 thought that Dick was a little too brusque, a little too clown- 
 ish, to be quite a gentleman. And though Lily was per- 
 fectly ladylike, in Constance's opinion she lacked backbone, 
 or grit, or independence of spirit. Further, Constance con- 
 sidered that the disparity of age between them was excessive. 
 It is to be doubted whether, when all was said, Constance had 
 such a very great deal to learn from the self-confident wisdom 
 of these young things. 
 
 After a period of self-communion, she would sometimes 
 fall into a shallow delirium. In all her delirium she was 
 invariably wandering to and fro, lost, in the long under- 
 ground passage leading from the scullery past the coal-cellar 
 and the cinder-cellar to the backyard. And she was afraid 
 of the vast-obscure of those regions, as she had been in her 
 infancy. 
 
 It was not acute rheumatism but a supervening peri- 
 carditis that in a few days killed her. She died in the night, 
 alone with the night-nurse. By a curious chance the Wes- 
 leyan minister, hearing that she was seriously ill, had called 
 on the previous day. She had not asked for him ; and this 
 pastoral visit, from a man who had always said that the 
 heavy duties of the circuit rendered pastoral visits almost 
 impossible, made her think. In the evening she had requested 
 that Fossette should be brought upstairs. 
 
 Thus she was turned out of her house, but not by the Mid- 
 land Clothiers Company. Old people said to one another : 
 " Have you heard that Mrs. Povey is dead ? Eh, dear me ! 
 There'll be no one left soon." These old people were bad 
 prophets. Her friends genuinely regretted her, and forgot 
 the tediousness of her sciatica. They tried, in their sympa- 
 thetic grief, to picture to themselves all that she had been 
 through in her life. Possibly they imagined that they suc- 
 ceeded in this imaginative attempt. But they did not 
 succeed. No one but Constance could realize all that Con- 
 stance had been through, and all that life had meant to her. 
 
 Cyril was not at the funeral. He arrived three days later. 
 (As he had no interest in the love affairs of Dick and Lily, 
 the couple were robbed of their wedding-present. The will, 
 fifteen years old, was in Cyril's favour.) But the immortal 
 
566 THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 
 
 Charles Critchlow came to the funeral, full of calm, sardonic 
 glee, and without being asked. Though fabulously senile, 
 he had preserved and even improved his faculty for enjoy- 
 ing a catastrophe. He now went to funerals with gusto, 
 contentedly absorbed in the task of burying his friends one 
 by one. It was he who said, in his high, trembling, rasp- 
 ing, deliberate voice : " It's a pity her didn't live long enough 
 to hear as Federation is going on after all ! That would ha* 
 worritted her." (For the unscrupulous advocates of Federa- 
 tion had discovered a method of setting at naught the deci- 
 sive result of the referendum, and that day's Signal was 
 fuller than ever of Federation.) 
 
 When the short funeral procession started, Mary and the 
 infirm Fossette (sole relic of the connection between the 
 Baines family and Paris) were left alone in the house. The 
 tearful servant prepared the dog's dinner and laid it before 
 her in the customary soup-plate in the customary corner. 
 Fossette sniffed at it, and then walked away and lay down 
 with a dog's sigh in front of the kitchen fire. She had been 
 deranged in her habits that day ; she was conscious of neglect, 
 due to events which passed her comprehension. And she did 
 not like it. She was hurt, and her appetite was hurt. How- 
 ever, after a few minutes, she began to reconsider the matter. 
 She glanced at the soup-plate, and, on the chance that it 
 might after all contain something worth inspection, she 
 awkwardly balanced herself on her old legs and went to it 
 again. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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