THE LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 MRS. VIRGINIA B. SPORER 

 
 THE MORALS OF 
 MARCUS ORDEYNE
 
 By tht Same Author 
 THE BELOVED VAGABOND 
 AT THE GATB OP SAMARIA 
 THE DEMAGOGUB AND LADY PHAYRI 
 A STUDY IN SHADOWS 
 DERELICTS 
 IDOLS 
 
 THE WHITE Dovt 
 THE USURPER 
 WHERE LOVE I 
 SEPTIMUS
 
 THE MORALS OF 
 MARCUS ORDEYNE 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 WILLIAM J. LOCKE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, 1906 
 BY JOHN LANE COMPANY 
 
 MANHATTAN PRESS 
 
 474 W. BROADWAY 
 
 MEW YORK 
 
 SET UP, KLECTROTTPKD AND PRINTED BY 
 1KB PUBLISHERS PRINTING CO., NEW YORK
 
 TO MY FATHER 
 IN MEMORIAM TENEBRARUM 
 
 2039493
 
 THE MORALS OF 
 MARCUS ORDEYNE
 
 PART I
 
 THE MORALS OF 
 MARCUS ORDEYNE 
 
 PART I 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FOR reasons which will be given later, I sit down here, 
 in Verona, to write the history of my extravagant adven- 
 ture. I shall formulate and expand the rough notes in my 
 diary which lies open before me, and I shall begin with a 
 happy afternoon in May, six months ago. 
 
 May 2oth. 
 
 London : To-day is the seventh anniversary of my re- 
 lease from captivity. I will note it every year in my 
 diary with a sigh of unutterable thanksgiving. For seven 
 long blessed years have I been free from the degrading in- 
 fluences of Jones Minor and the First Book of Euclid. 
 Some men find the modern English boy stimulating, and 
 the old Egyptian humorous. Such are the born school- 
 masters, and schoolmasters, like poets, nascuntur non fiunt. 
 What I was born passes my ingenuity to fathom. Certainly 
 not a schoolmaster and my many years of apprenticeship 
 did not make me one. They only turned me into an au- 
 tomaton, feared by myself, bantered by my colleagues, and 
 sometimes good-humouredly tolerated by the boys. 
 
 Seven years ago the lawyer's letter came. The post used 
 to arrive just before first school. I opened the letter in the 
 
 3
 
 4 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 class-room and sat down at my desk, sick with horror. The 
 awful wholesale destruction of my relatives paralysed me. 
 My form must have seen by my ghastly face that some- 
 thing had happened, for, contrary to their usual practice, 
 they sat, thirty of them, in stony silence, waiting for me to 
 begin the lesson. As far as I remember anything, they 
 waited the whole hour. The lesson over, I passed along 
 the cloister on my way to my rooms. I overheard one of 
 my urchins, clattering in front of me, shout to another: 
 
 "I'm sure he's got the sack!" 
 
 Turning round he perceived me, and grew as red as a 
 turkey-cock. I laughed aloud. The boy's yell was a 
 clarion announcement from the seventh heaven. / had 
 got the sack! I should never teach him quadratic equa- 
 tions again. I should turn my back forever upon those 
 hateful walk and still more abominated playing-fields. 
 And I was not leaving my prison, as I had done once or 
 twice before, in order to continue my servitude elsewhere. 
 I was free. I could go out into the sunshine and look my 
 fellow-man in the face, free from the haunting, demoralis- 
 ing sense of incapacity. I was free. Until that urchin's 
 shriek I had not realised it. My teeth chattered with the 
 thrill. 
 
 I was fortunately out of school the second hour. I em- 
 ployed most of it in balancing myself. A perfectly rea- 
 sonable creature, I visited the chief. He was a chubby, 
 rotund man, with a circular body and a circular visage, 
 and he wore great circular gold spectacles. He looked like 
 a figure in the Third Book of Euclid. But his eyes sparkled 
 like bits of glass in the sun. 
 
 "Well, Ordeyne?" he inquired, looking up from letters 
 to parents. 
 
 " I have come to ask you to accept my resignation," said 
 I. " I would like you to release me at once."
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 5 
 
 " Come, come, things are not as bad as all that," said he, 
 kindly. 
 
 I looked stupidly at him for a moment. 
 
 " Of course I know you've got one or two troublesome 
 forms," he continued. 
 
 Then I winced. His conjecture hurt me horribly. 
 
 "Oh, it's nothing to do with my incompetence," I in- 
 terrupted. 
 
 "What is it, then?" 
 
 " My grandfather, two uncles, two nephews and a valet 
 were drowned a day or two ago in the Mediterranean," I 
 answered, calmly. 
 
 I have since been struck by the crudity of this announce- 
 ment. It took my chief's breath away. 
 
 "I deeply sympathise with you," he said at last. 
 
 "Thank you," said I. 
 
 "A terrible catastrophe. No wonder it has upset you. 
 Horrible! Six living human beings! Three generations 
 of men!" 
 
 "That's just it," said I. "Three generations of my fam- 
 ily swept away, leaving me now at the head of it." 
 
 At this moment the chief's wife came into the library 
 with the morning paper hi her hand. On seeing me she 
 rushed forward. 
 
 "Have you had bad news?" 
 
 " Yes. Is it in the paper ? " 
 
 "I was coming to show my husband. The name is an 
 uncommon one. I wondered if they might be relatives of 
 yours." 
 
 I bowed acquiescence. The chief looked at the para- 
 graph below his wife's indicating thumb, then he looked 
 at me as if I, too, had suffered a sea-change. 
 
 "I had no idea " he said. "Why, now now you are 
 Sir Marcus Ordeyne!"
 
 6 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 " It sounds idiotic, doesn't it ? " said I, with a smile. " But 
 I suppose I am." 
 
 And so came my release from captivity. I was pro- 
 foundly affected by the awful disaster, but it would be 
 sheer hypocrisy if I said that I felt personal grief. I knew 
 none of the dead, of whom I verily believe the valet was 
 the worthiest man. My grandfather and uncles had ig- 
 nored my existence. Not a helping hand had they stretched 
 out to my widowed mother in her poverty, when one kindly 
 touch would have meant all. 
 
 They do not seem to have been a lovable race, the Or- 
 deynes. What my father, the youngest son, was like, I 
 have no idea, as he died when I was two years old, but my 
 mother, who was somewhat stern and puritanical, spoke 
 of him very much as she would have spoken of the prophet 
 Joel, had he been a personal acquaintance. 
 
 Seven years to-day have I been a free man. 
 
 Feeling at peace with all the world I called this after- 
 noon on my Aunt Jessica, Mrs. Ordeyne, who has borne 
 me no malice for stepping into the place that should have 
 been the inheritance of her husband and of her son. Rather 
 has she devised to adopt me, to guide my ambitions and to 
 point out my duties as the head of the house. If I refuse 
 to be adopted, avoid ambitions and disclaim duties, the 
 fault 'lies not with her good- will. She is a well-preserved 
 worldly woman of fifty-five, and having begun to dye her 
 hair in the peroxide of hydrogen era has not the curiosity 
 to abandon the practice and see what colour will result. I 
 wish I could like her. I can't. She purrs. Some day I 
 feel she will scratch. She received me graciously. 
 
 "My dear Marcus. At last! Didn't you know I have 
 been in town ever since Easter?" 
 
 " No," said I. " I am afraid I didn't." Which was true 
 "Why didn't you tell me?"
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 7 
 
 ''I would have asked you to dinner, but you will never 
 come. As for At Home cards I never dream of sending 
 them to you. It is a waste of precious half-penny stamps." 
 
 "You might have written me a nice little letter about 
 nothing at all," I suggested. 
 
 " For you to say ' What is that woman worrying me with 
 her silly letters for?' I know what you men are." She 
 looked arch. 
 
 This is precisely what I should have said. As I am not 
 an inventive liar, I could only smile feebly. I am never at 
 my ease with Aunt Jessica. I am not the kind of person 
 to afford her entertainment. I do not belong to her world 
 of opulence, and if even I desired it, which the gods forbid, 
 my means would not enable me to make the necessary dis- 
 play. My uncle, thinking to retrieve the fallen fortunes of 
 the title, amassed enormous wealth as a company promoter, 
 while I, on whom the title has descended, am perfectly con- 
 tented with its fallen fortunes. I have scarcely a thought or 
 taste in common with my aunt. In fact, I must bore her 
 exceedingly. Yet she hides her boredom beneath a radiant 
 countenance and leads me to understand that my society 
 gives her inexpressible joy. I wonder why. 
 
 She is always be-guide-philosopher-ana- friending me. I 
 resent it. A man of forty does not need the counsels of an 
 elderly woman destitute of intellect. I believe there are 
 some women who are firmly convinced that their sheer sex 
 has imbued them with all the qualities of genius. To-day 
 my aunt tackled me on the subject of marriage. I ought 
 to marry. I asked why. It appeared it was every man's 
 duty. 
 
 " From what point of view ? " I asked. " The mere prop- 
 agation of the human race, or the providing of a superflu- 
 ous young woman with a means of livelihood ? If it is the 
 former, then, in my opinion, there are too many people in
 
 8 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 the world already; and if the latter, I'm afraid I'm nov 
 sufficiently altruistic." 
 
 "You are so funny!" laughed my aunt. 
 
 I was not aware of being the least bit funny. 
 
 "But, seriously," she continued, "you must marry." 
 She is a woman who has an irritating way of speaking in 
 Italics. "Are you aware that if you have no son the title 
 will become extinct?" 
 
 "And if it does," I cried, "who on this earth will care 
 a half-penny bun?" 
 
 I am growing tired of the title. At first it was rather 
 amusing. Now it appears it is registered in Heaven's 
 chancery and hedged about with divine ordinances. Only 
 the other day an unknown parson requested me to open a 
 church bazaar, and I gathered he had received his instruc- 
 tions direct from the Almighty. 
 
 "Why, every one would care," exclaimed my aunt, gen- 
 uinely shocked. " It would be monstrous. You owe it to 
 your descendants as well as to your ancestors. Besides," 
 she added, with apparent irrelevance, "a man in your 
 position ought to live up to it." 
 
 "I do," said I, "just up to it." 
 
 "Now you aie pretending you don't understand me. 
 You ought to marry money!" 
 
 I smiled and shook my head. I don't think my aunt 
 likes me to smile and shake my head, for I saw a flicker 
 in her eyes. "No, my dear aunt; emphatically no. It 
 would be comfortless. If I kissed it, it would be cold. If 
 I put my arms round it, it would be full of sharp edges 
 which would hurt. If I tried to get any emotion out of it, 
 it would only jingle." 
 
 "What do you want then?" 
 
 "Nothing. But if I must let it be plain flesh and 
 blood."
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 9 
 
 "Cannibal!'' said my aunt. 
 
 We both laughed. 
 
 " But you can have plenty of flesh and blood, with money 
 as well, for the asking," she insisted; and thereupon my 
 two cousins, Dora and Gwendolen, entered the drawing- 
 room and interrupted the conversation. They are both 
 bouncing, fresh-faced girls, in the early twenties. They 
 ride and shoot and bicycle and golf and dance, and the 
 elder writes little stories for the magazines. As I do none 
 of these things, I am convinced they regard me as a poor 
 sort of creature. When they hand me a cup of tea I al- 
 most expect them to pat me on the head and say, " Good 
 dog!" I am long, lean, stooping, hatchet-faced, hawk- 
 nosed, near-sighted. I have not the breezy air of the jolly 
 young stockbrokers they are in the habit of meeting. 
 They rather alarm me. Moreover, they have managed to 
 rear a colossal pile of wholly incorrect information on every 
 subject under the sun, and are addicted to letting chunks 
 of it fall about one's ears. This stuns me, rendering con- 
 versation difficult. 
 
 As I had not seen Dora since her return from Rome, 
 where she had spent the early spring, I asked, in some trep- 
 idation, for her impressions. Before I could collect my- 
 self, I was listening to a lecture on St. Peter's. She told me 
 it was built by Michael Angelo. I suggested that some 
 credit might be given to Bramante, not to speak of Rosel- 
 lino, Baldassare Peruzzi and the two San Gallo's. 
 
 "Oh!" said my young lady, with a superb air of om- 
 niscience. "It was all Michael Angelo's design. The 
 others only tinkered away at it afterwards" 
 
 After receiving this brickbat I took my leave. 
 
 To console myself I looked up, during the evening, 
 Michael Angelo's noble letter about Bramante. 
 
 "One cannot deny," says he, "that Bramante was as
 
 io The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 excellent in architecture as any one has been from the an- 
 cients to now. He placed the first stone of St. Peter's, not 
 full of confusion, but clear, neat, and luminous, and iso- 
 lated all round in such a way that it injured no part of the 
 palace, and was held to be a beautiful thing, as is still ap- 
 parent, in such a way that any one who has departed from 
 the said order of Bramante, as San Gallo has done, has 
 departed from the truth." 
 
 Michael Angelo did not like San Gallo ; neither did he 
 like Bramante who was his senior by thirty years but 
 this makes his appreciation of the elder's work all the more 
 generous. 
 
 Tinkered away at it, indeed! 
 
 May 2ist. 
 
 I spent all the morning at work by the open window. 
 
 I have a small house in Lingfield Terrace, on the north 
 side of the Regent's Park, so that my drawing-room, on 
 the first floor, has a southern aspect. It has been warm 
 and sunny for the past few days, and the elms and 
 plane-trees across the road are beginning to riot in their 
 green bravery, as if intoxicated with the golden wine of 
 spring. My French window is flung wide open, and on 
 the balcony a triangular bit of sunlight creeps round as the 
 morning advances. My work-table is drawn up to the 
 window. I am busy over the first section of my "History 
 of Renaissance Morals," for which I think my notes are 
 completed. I have a delicious sense of isolation from the 
 world. Away over those tree-tops is a faint purpurine pall, 
 and below it lies London, with its strife and its misery, its 
 wickedness and its vanity. Twenty minutes would take 
 me into the heart of it. And if I chose I could be as strug- 
 gling, as wretched, as much imbued with wickedness and 
 vanity as anybody. I could gamble on the stock exchange,
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 1 1 
 
 or play the muddy game of politics, or hawk my precious 
 title for sale among the young women of London society. 
 My Aunt Jessica once told me that London was at my feet. 
 I am quite content that it should stay there. I have much 
 the same nervous dread of it as I have of an angry sea 
 breaking in surf on the shingle. If I ventured out in it I 
 should be tossed hither and thither and broken on the 
 rocks, and I should perish. I prefer to stand aloof and 
 watch. If I had a little more of daring in my nature I 
 might achieve something. I am afraid I am but a waster 
 in the world's factory; but kind Fate, instead of pitching 
 me on the rubbish-heap, has preserved me, perhaps has set 
 me under a glass case, in her own museum, as a curiosity. 
 Well, I am happy in my shelter. 
 
 I was interrupted in my writing by the entrance of my 
 cook and housekeeper, Antoinette. She was sorry to dis- 
 turb me, but did Monsieur like sorrel? She was prepar- 
 ing some veau a Voseille for lunch, and Stenson (my man) 
 had informed her that it was disgusting stuff and that 
 Monsieur would not eat it. 
 
 "Antoinette," said I, "go and inform Stenson that as he 
 looks after my outside so do you look after my inside, and 
 that I have implicit confidence in both of you in your re- 
 spective spheres of action." 
 
 "But does Monsieur like sorrel?" Antoinette inquired, 
 anxiously. 
 
 "I adore it even," said I, and Antoinette made her exit 
 in triumph. 
 
 What a reverential care French women have for the 
 insides of their masters! At times it is pathetic. Be- 
 fore now, I have thrown dainty morsels which I could 
 riot eat into the fire, so as to avoid hurting Antoinette's 
 feelings. 
 
 I came across her three years ago in a tiny hostelry in a
 
 1 2 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 tiny town in the Loire district. She cooked the dinner and 
 conversed about it afterwards so touchingly that we soon 
 became united in bonds of the closest affection. Sud- 
 denly some money was stolen; Antoinette, accused, was 
 dismissed without notice. I had a shrewd suspicion 
 of the thief a suspicion which was afterwards com- 
 pletely justified and indignantly championed Antoinette's 
 cause. 
 
 But Antoinette, coming from a village some eighty miles 
 away, was a stranger and an alien. I was her only friend. 
 It ended in my inviting her to come to England, the land 
 of the free and the refuge of the downtrodden and op- 
 pressed, and become my housekeeper. She accepted, with 
 smiles and tears. And they were great big smiles, that went 
 into creases all over her fat red face, forming runnels for 
 the great big tears which dropped off at unexpected an- 
 gles. She was alone in the world. Her only son had died 
 during his military service in Madagascar. Although her 
 man was dead, the law would not regard her as a widow 
 because she had never been married, and therefore refused 
 to exempt her only son. "On ne peut-etre jeune qu'une 
 }ois, n'est-ce pas, Monsieur?" she said, in extenuation of 
 her early fault. 
 
 "And Jean-Marie," she added, "was as brave a fellow 
 and as devoted a son as if I had been married by the Saint- 
 Fere himself." 
 
 I waved my hand in deprecation and told her it did not 
 matter in the least. The della Scalas, supreme lords of 
 Verona for many generations, were every man jack of them 
 so parented. Even William the Conqueror 
 
 "Tiens!" cried Antoinette, consoled, "and he became 
 Emperor of Germany he and Bismarck!" 
 
 Antoinette's historical sense is rudimentary. I have not 
 tried since to develop it.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 13 
 
 When I brought my victim of foreign tyranny to Ling- 
 field Terrace, Stenson, I believe, nearly fainted. He is the 
 correctest of English valets, and his only vice, I believe, is 
 the accordion, on which he plays jaunty hymn- tunes when 
 I am out of the house. When he had recovered he 
 asked me, respectfully, how they were to understand each 
 other. I explained that he would either have to learn French 
 or teach Antoinette English. What they have done, I gather, 
 is to invent a nightmare of a lingua franca in which they 
 appear to hold amicable converse. Now and again they 
 have differences of opinion, as to-day, over my taste for veau 
 a Voseille; but, on the whole, their relations are harmonious, 
 and she keeps him in a good-humour. Naturally, she feeds 
 the brute. 
 
 The duty-impulse, stimulated by my call yesterday on 
 one aunt by marriage, led my footsteps this afternoon to 
 the house of the other, Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne. She is of a 
 different type from her sister-in-law, being a devout Ro- 
 man Catholic, and since the terrible affliction of two years 
 ago has concerned herself more deeply than ever in the 
 affairs of her religion. She lives in a gloomy little house in 
 a sunless Kensington by-street. Only my Cousin Rosalie 
 was at home. She gave me tea made with tepid water and 
 talked about the Earl's Court Exhibition, which she had not 
 visited, and a new novel, of which she had vaguely heard. 
 I tried in vain to infuse some life into the conversation. I 
 don't believe she is interested in anything. She even spoke 
 lukewarmly of Farm Street. 
 
 I pity her intensely. She is thin, thirty, colourless, bosom- 
 less. I should say she was passionless a predestined 
 spinster. She has never drunk hot tea or lived in the sun 
 or laughed a hearty laugh. I remember once, at my wit's 
 end for talk, telling her the old story of Theodore Hook 
 accosting a pompous stranger on the street with the polite
 
 14 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 request that he might know whether he was anybody in 
 particular. She said, without a smile, "Yes, it was aston- 
 ishing how rude some people could be." 
 
 And her godfathers and godmothers gave her the name 
 of Rosalie. Mine might just as well have called me 
 Hercules or Puck. 
 
 She told me that her mother intended to ask me to dine 
 with them one evening next week. When was I free ? I 
 chose Thursday. Oddly enough I enjoy dining there, al- 
 though we are on the most formal terms, not having got 
 beyond the "Sir Marcus" and "Mrs. Ordeyne." But 
 both mother and daughter are finely bred gentlewomen, 
 and one meets few, oh, very, very few among the ladies of 
 to-day. 
 
 I reached home about six and found a telegram await- 
 ing me. 
 
 "Sorry can't give you dinner. Cook in an impossibh 
 condition. Come later. Judith." 
 
 I must confess to a sigh of relief. I am fond of Judith 
 and sorry for her domestic infelicities, though why she 
 should maintain that alcoholized wretch in her kitchen 
 passes my comprehension. If there is one thing women 
 do not understand it is the selection, the ordering, and the 
 treatment of domestic servants. The mere man manages 
 much better. But, that aside, Antoinette has spoiled me 
 for Judith's cook's cookery. I breathed a little sigh of 
 content and summoned Stenson to inform him that I would 
 dine at home. 
 
 A great package of books from a second-hand bookseller 
 arrived during dinner. Among them were the nine vol- 
 umes of Pietro Gianone's Istoria Civile del Regno di 
 Napoli, a copy of which I ought to have possessed long 
 ago. It is dedicated to the "Most Puissant and Felicitous 
 Prince Charles VI, the Great, by God crowned Emperor
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 15 
 
 of the Romans, King of Germany, Spain, Naples, Hun- 
 gary, Bohemia, Sicily, etcetera" Is there a living soul in 
 God's universe who has a spark of admiration for this 
 most puissant and most felicitous monarch crowned by 
 God Emperor and King of the greater part of Europe (and 
 docked of most of his pretensions by the Treaty of Utrecht) ? 
 We only remember the forcible-feeble person by his Prag- 
 matic Sanction, and otherwise his personality has left in 
 history not the remotest trace. And yet, on the i2th Feb- 
 ruary, 1 723, a profoundly erudite, subtle, and picturesque 
 historian grovels before the man and subscribes himself 
 " Of your Holy Coesarean and Catholic Majesty the most 
 humble and most devoted and most obsequious vassal and 
 slave Pietro Gianone." What ruthless judgments pos- 
 terity passes on once enormous reputations ! In Gianone's 
 admirable introduction we hear of "il celebre Arthur 
 Duck, il quale oltro a? confini delta sua Inghilterra voile in 
 altri e pm lontani Paesi andav rintracciando Vuso e Vau- 
 torita delle romane leggi ne j nuovi domini de' Principi cris- 
 tiani; e di quelle di ciascheduna Nazione voile ancora aver 
 conto: le ricercb netta vicina Scozia, e nelV Ibernia; trapasso 
 nella Francia, e nella Spagna; in Germania, in Italia, e net 
 nostro Regno ancora: si stese in oltre in Polonia, Boemia, 
 in Ungheria, Danimarca, nella Svezia, ed in piu remote 
 parti." A devil of a fellow this celebrated English Ar- 
 thur Duck, who besides writing a learned treatise De 
 Usu el Auth. Jur. Civ. Rom. in Dominiis Principum 
 Chris tianorum, was a knight, a member of Parliament, 
 chancellor of the diocese of London, and a master in chan- 
 cery. Gianone flattens himself out for a couple of pages 
 before this prodigy whom he lovingly calls Arturo, as who 
 should say Raffaelo or Giordano; and now, where in the 
 hearts of men lingers Sir Arthur Duck ? For one thing 
 he had a bad name. Our English sense of humour
 
 1 6 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 revolts from making a popular hero of a man called 
 Duck. Yet we made one of Drake. But there was 
 something masculine about the latter: in fact, every- 
 thing. 
 I am afraid it was rather late when I got to Judith.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 May 22d. 
 
 I wonder whether I should be happier now if I had 
 lived in a garret "in the brave days when I was twenty- 
 one," if I had undergone the lessons of misery with the 
 attendant compensations of "une folle maitresse, de francs 
 amis et V amour des chansons" and had joyous-heartedly 
 mounted my six flights of stairs. I lived modestly, it is 
 true; but never for a moment was I doubtful as to my 
 next meal, and I have always enjoyed the creature com- 
 forts of the respectable classes; never did Lisette pin her 
 shawl curtainwise across my window. Sometimes, now- 
 adays, I almost wish she had. I never dreamed of glory, 
 love, pleasure, madness, or spent my lifetime in a moment, 
 like the singer of the immortal song. Often the weary mo- 
 ments seemed a lifetime. 
 
 And now that I am forty, "it is too late a week." Boon 
 companions, of whom I am thankful to say I have none, 
 would drive me crazy with their intolerable heartiness. I 
 once spent an evening at the Savage Club. As for the follc 
 maitresse as a concomitant of my existence she transcends 
 imagination. 
 
 "What are you thinking of?" asked Judith. 
 
 " I was thinking how the 'Dans un grenier qu'on est bien 
 a vingt ans' principle would have worked in my own case," 
 I answered truthfully, for the above reflections had been 
 passing through my mind. 
 
 Judith laughed. 
 
 " You in a garret ? Why, you haven't got a tempera- 
 ment!" 
 
 2 17
 
 1 8 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 I suppose I haven't. It never occurred to me before. 
 Bdranger omitted that from his list of attendant compen- 
 sations. 
 
 "That's the difference between us," she added, after a 
 pause. "I have a temperament and you haven't." 
 
 "I hope you find it a great comfort." 
 
 " It is ten times more uncomfortable than a conscience. 
 It is the bane of one's existence." 
 
 "Why be so proud of having it?" 
 
 "You wouldn't understand if I told you," said Judith. 
 
 I rose and walked to the window and gazed medita- 
 tively at the rain which swept the uninspiring little street. 
 Judith lives in Tottenham Mansions, in the purlieus of 
 the Tottenham Court Road. The ground floor of the 
 building is a public-house, and on summer evenings one 
 can sit by the open windows, and breathe in the health- 
 giving fumes of beer and whisky, and listen to the sweet, 
 tuneless strains of itinerant musicians. When my new 
 fortunes enabled me to give the dear woman just the little 
 help that allowed her to move into a more commodious 
 flat, she had the many mansions of London to choose 
 from. Why she insisted on this abominable locality I 
 could never understand. It isn't as if the flat were 
 particularly cheap; indeed the fact of its being situated 
 over a public-house seems to enhance the rent. She said 
 she liked the shape of the knocker and the pattern of the 
 bathroom taps. I dimly perceive that it must have had 
 something to do with the temperament. 
 
 "It always seems to rain when we propose an outing to- 
 gether. This is the fourth time since Easter," I remarked. 
 
 We had planned a sedate country jaunt, but as the day 
 was pouring wet we remained at home. 
 
 " Perhaps this is the way the bon Dieu has of expressing 
 his disapproval of us," said Judith.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 19 
 
 "Why should he disapprove?" I asked. 
 
 A shrug of her shoulders ended in a shiver. 
 
 "I am chilled through." 
 
 "My dear girl," I cried, "why on earth haven't you lit 
 the fire?" 
 
 "The last time I lit it you said the room was stuffy." 
 
 " But then it was beautiful blazing sunshine, you illogi- 
 cal woman," I exclaimed, searching my pockets for a 
 match-box. 
 
 I struck a match. To apply it to the fire I had to kneel 
 by her chair. She stretched out her hand she has deli- 
 cate white hands with slender fingers and lightly touched 
 my head. 
 
 "How long have we known each other?" she asked. 
 
 "About eight years." 
 
 "And how long shall we go on?" 
 
 "As long as you like," said I, intent on the fire. 
 
 Judith withdrew her hand. I knelt on the hearthrug 
 until the merry blaze and crackle of the wood assured me 
 of successful effort. 
 
 "These are capital grates," I said, cheerfully, drawing a 
 comfortable arm-chair to the front of- the fire. 
 
 " Excellent," she replied, in a tone devoid of interest. 
 
 There was a long silence. To me this is one of the great 
 charms of human intercourse. Is there not a legend that 
 Tennyson and Carlyle spent the most enjoyable evenings 
 of their lives enveloped in impenetrable silence and to- 
 bacco-smoke, one on each side of the hob? A sort of 
 Whistlerian nocturne of golden fog! 
 
 I offered Judith a cigarette. She declined it with a 
 shake of the head. I lit one myself and leaning back con- 
 tentedly in my chair watched her face in half-profile. 
 Most people would call her plain. I can't make up my 
 mind on the point. She is what is termed a negative blonde
 
 20 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 that is to say, one with very fair hair (in marvellous 
 abundance it is one of her beauties), a sallow complexion 
 and deep violet eyes. Her face is thin, a little worn, that 
 of the woman who. has suffered temperament again! 
 Her mouth, now, as she looks into the new noisy flames, 
 is drawn down at the corners. Her figure is slight but 
 graceful. She has pretty feet. One protruded from her 
 skirt, and a slipper dangled from the tip. At last it fell off. 
 I knew it would. She has a craze for the minimum of ma- 
 terial in slippers about an inch of leather (I suppose it's 
 leather) from the toe. I picked the vain thing up and bal- 
 anced it again on her stocking-foot. 
 
 "Will you do that eight years hence?" said Judith. 
 
 "My dear, as I've done it eight thousand times the last 
 eight years, I suppose I shall," I replied, laughing. "I'm 
 a creature of habit." 
 
 " You may marry, Marcus." 
 
 "God forbid!" I ejaculated. 
 
 " Some pretty fresh girl." 
 
 "I abominate pretty fresh girls. I would just as soon 
 talk to a baby in a perambulator." 
 
 "The women men are crazy to marry are not always 
 those they particularly delight to converse with, my 
 friend/' said Judith. 
 
 I lit another cigarette. "I think the sex feminine has 
 marriage on the brain," I exclaimed, somewhat heatedly. 
 " My Aunt Jessica was worrying me about it the day before 
 yesterday. As if it were any concern of hers!" 
 
 Judith laughed below her breath and called me a sim- 
 pleton. 
 
 "Why?" I asked. 
 
 " Because you haven't got a temperament." 
 
 This was a foolish answer, having no bearing on the 
 question. I told her so. She replied that she was years
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 21 
 
 older than I, and had learned the eternal relevance of all 
 things. I pointed out that she was years younger. 
 
 "How many heart-beats have you had hi your life 
 real, wild, pulsating heart-beats eternity in an hour?" 
 
 "That's Blake," I murmured. 
 
 " I'm aware of it. Answer my question." 
 
 "It's a silly question." 
 
 " It isn't. The next time you see a female baby in a per- 
 ambulator, take off your hat respectfully." 
 
 I am afraid I am clumsy at repartee. 
 
 "And the next time you engage a cook, my dear Ju- 
 dith," said I, " send for a mere man." 
 
 She coloured up. I dissolved myself in apologies. Her 
 wounded susceptibilities required careful healing. The 
 situation was somewhat odd. She had not scrupled to at- 
 tack the innermost weaknesses of my character, and yet 
 when I retaliated by a hit at externals, she was deeply 
 hurt, and made me feel a ruffianly blackguard. I really 
 think if Lisette had pinned up that curtain I should have 
 learned something more about female human nature. But 
 Judith is the only woman I have known intimately all my 
 life long, and sometimes I wonder whether I shall ever 
 know her. I told her so once. She answered: "If you 
 loved me you would know me." Very likely she was right. 
 Honestly speaking, I don't love Judith. I am accustomed 
 to her. She is a lady, born and bred. She is an educated 
 woman and takes quite an intelligent interest in the Re- 
 naissance. Indeed she has a subtler appreciation of the 
 Venetian School of Painting than I have. She first opened 
 my eyes, in Italy, to the beauties, as a gorgeous colourist, of 
 Palma Vecchio in his second or Giorgionesque manner. 
 She is in every way a sympathetic and entertaining com- 
 panion. Going deeper, to the roots of human instinct, I 
 find she represents to me so chance has willed it the
 
 22 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 ewige weibliche which must complement masculinity in 
 order to produce normal existence. But as for the "zieht 
 uns hinan" no. It would not attract me hence out of 
 my sphere. I could commit an immortal folly for no 
 woman who ever made this planet more lustrous to its 
 Bruderspharen. 
 
 I don't understand Judith. It doesn't very greatly 
 matter. Many things I don't understand, the spiritual 
 attitude towards himself, for example, of the intelligent 
 juggler who expends his life's energies in balancing a cue 
 and three billiard-balls on the tip of his nose. But I know 
 that Judith understands me, and therein lies the advan- 
 tage I gain from our intimacy. She gauges, to an absurdly 
 subtle degree, the depth of my affection. She is really an 
 incomparable woman. So many insist upon predilection 
 masquerading as consuming passion. There is nothing 
 theatrical about Judith. 
 
 Yet to-day she appeared a little touchy, moody, unset- 
 tled. She broke another pleasant spell of fireside silence, 
 that followed expiation of my offence, by suddenly calling 
 my name. 
 
 "Yes?" said I, inquiringly. 
 
 " I want to tell you something. Please promise me you 
 won't be vexed." 
 
 "My dear Judith," said I, "my great and imperial 
 namesake, in whose meditations I have always found in- 
 effable comfort, tells me this : ' If anything external vexes 
 you, take notice that it is not the thing wiiich disturbs you, 
 but your notion about it, which notion you may dismiss at 
 once, if you please!' So I promise to dismiss all my notions 
 of your disturbing communication and not to be vexed." 
 
 " If there is one platitudinist I dislike more than another, 
 it is Marcus Aurelius," said Judith. 
 
 I laughed. It was very comfortable to sit before the fire,
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 23 
 
 which protested, in a fire's cheery, human way, against 
 the depression of the murky world outside, and to banter 
 Judith. 
 
 "I can quite understand it," I said. "A man sucks in 
 the consolations of philosophy; a woman solaces herself 
 with religion." 
 
 "I can do neither," she replied, changing her attitude 
 with an exaggerated shaking down of skirts. "If I could, 
 I shouldn't want to go away." 
 
 "Go away?" I echoed. 
 
 "Yes. You mustn't be vexed with me. I haven't got 
 a cook " 
 
 "No one would have thought it, from the luncheon you 
 gave me, my dear." 
 
 The alcoholized domestic, by the way, was sent out, bag 
 and baggage, last evening, when she was sober enough to 
 walk. 
 
 "And so it is a convenient opportunity," Judith con- 
 tinued, ignoring my compliment and rightly so; for as 
 soon as it had been uttered, I was struck by an uneasy 
 conviction that she had herself disturbed the French ca- 
 terers in the Tottenham Court Road from their Sabbath 
 repose in order to provide me with food. 
 
 "I can shut up the flat without any fuss. I am never 
 happy at the beginning of a London season. I know I'm 
 silly," she went on, hurriedly. "If I could stand your 
 dreadful Marcus Aurelius I might be wiser I don't mind 
 the rest of the year; but hi the season everybody is in town 
 people I used to know and mix with I meet them in 
 the streets and they cut me and it hurts and so I want 
 to get away somewhere by myself. When I get sick of 
 solitude I'll come back." 
 
 One of her quick, graceful movements brought her to her 
 knees by my side. She caught my hand.
 
 24 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "For pity's sake, Marcus, say that you understand why 
 it is." 
 
 I said, "I have been a blatant egoist all the afternoon, 
 Judith. I didn't guess. Of course I understand." 
 
 "If you didn't, it would be impossible for us." 
 
 "Have no doubt," said I, softly, and I kissed her hand. 
 
 I came into her life when she counted it as over and done 
 with at eight and twenty and was patiently undergoing 
 premature interment in a small pension in Rome. How 
 long her patience would have lasted I cannot say. If cir- 
 cumstances had been different, what would have happened ? 
 is the most futile of speculations. What did happen was 
 the drifting together of us two bits of flotsam and our keep- 
 ing together for the simple reason that there were no forces 
 urging us apart. She was past all care for social sanctions, 
 her sacred cap of good repute having been flung over the 
 windmills long before; and I, friendless unit in a world of 
 shadows, why should I have rejected the one warm hand 
 that was held out to me? As I said to her this afternoon, 
 Why should the ban Dieu disapprove ? I pay him the com- 
 pliment of presuming that he is a broad-minded deity. 
 
 When my fortune came, she remarked, "I am glad I am 
 not free. If I were, you would want to marry me, and that 
 would be fatal." 
 
 The divine, sound sense of the dear woman! Honour 
 would compel the offer. Its acceptance would bring dis- 
 aster. 
 
 Marriage has two aspects. The one, a social contract, 
 a quid of protc/ ion, maintenance, position and what not, 
 for a quo of the various services that may be conveniently 
 epitomized in the phrase de mensa et thoro. The other, the 
 only possible existence for two beings whose passionate, 
 mutual attraction demands the perfect fusion of their two 
 existences into a common life. Now to this passionate
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 25 
 
 attraction I have never become, and, having no tempera- 
 ment (thank Heaven!), shall never become, a party. Be- 
 fore the turbulence therein involved I stand affrighted as 
 I do before London or the deep sea. I once read 
 an epitaph in a German churchyard: "I will awake, O 
 Christ, when thou callest me; but let me sleep awhile, for I 
 am very weary." Has the human soul ever so poignantly 
 expressed its craving for quietude ? I fancy I should have 
 been a heart's friend of that dead man, who, like my- 
 self, loved the cool and quiet shadow, and was not al- 
 lowed to enjoy it in this world. I may not get the calm 
 I desire, but at any rate my existence shall not be turned 
 upside down by mad passion for a woman. As for 
 the social-contract aspect of marriage, I want no better 
 housekeeper than Antoinette; and my dining- table having 
 no guests does not need a lady to grace its foot; I have no 
 a priori craving to add to the population. "If children 
 were brought into the world by an act of pure reason 
 alone," says Schopenhauer, "would the human race con- 
 tinue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much 
 sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the 
 burden of existence ? or at any rate not take it upon him- 
 self to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?" By 
 bringing children into the world by means of a marriage 
 of convenience I should be imposing the burden of exist- 
 ence upon them in cold blood. 1 agree with Schopen- 
 hauer. 
 
 And the dreadful bond of such a marriage! To have in 
 the closest physical and moral propinquity for one hun- 
 dred and eighty-six hours out of the week, each hour sur- 
 charged with an obligatory exchange of responsibilities, 
 interests, sacrifices of every kind, a being who is not the 
 utter brother of my thoughts and sister of my dreams 
 no. never! Au grand non, au grand jamaisl
 
 26 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 Judith is an incomparable woman, but she is not the 
 utter brother of my thoughts and the sister of my dreams; 
 nor am I of hers. 
 
 But the comradeship she gives me is as food and drink, 
 and my affection fulfils a need in her nature. The delicate 
 adjustment of reciprocals is our sanction. Marriage, 
 were it possible, would indeed be fatal. Our pleasant, 
 free relations, unruffled by storm, are ideal for us 
 both. 
 
 Why, I wonder, did she think her proposal to go away 
 for a change would vex me ? 
 
 The idea implies a right of veto which is repugnant to 
 me. Of all the hateful attitudes towards a woman in 
 which a decent man can view himself that of the Turkish 
 bashaw is the most detestable. Women seldom give men 
 credit for this distaste. 
 
 I kissed the white hand of Judith that touched my wrist, 
 and told her not to doubt my understanding. She cried a 
 little. 
 
 "I don't make your path rougher, Judith?" I whis- 
 pered. 
 
 She checked her tears and her eyes brightened wonder- 
 fully. 
 
 "You? You do nothing but smooth it and level it." 
 
 "Like a steam-roller," said I. 
 
 She laughed, sprang to her feet, and carried me off gaily 
 to the kitchen to help her get the tea ready. My assist- 
 ance consisted in lighting the gas-stove beneath a water- 
 less kettle. After that I sprawled against the dresser and, 
 with my heart in my mouth, watched her cut thin bread- 
 and-butter in a woman's deliciously clumsy way. Once, 
 as the bright blade went perilously near her palm, I drew 
 in my breath.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 27 
 
 "A man would never dream of doing it like that!" I 
 cried, in rebuke. 
 
 She calmly dropped the wafer on to the plate and 
 handed me the knife and loaf. 
 
 " Do it your way," she said, with a smile of mock humility. 
 
 I did it my way, and cut my finger. 
 
 "The devil's in the knife!" I cried. "But that's the 
 right way." 
 
 Judith said nothing, but bound up my wound, and, like 
 the well-conducted person of the ballad, went on cutting 
 bread-and-butter. Her smile, however, was provoking. 
 
 "And all this time," I said, half an hour later, "you 
 haven't told me where you are going." 
 
 " Paris. To stay with Delphine Carrere." 
 
 " I thought you said you wanted solitude." 
 
 I have met Delphine Carrere brave femme if ever there 
 was one, and the loyalest soul in the world, the only one 
 of Judith's early women friends who has totally ignored 
 the fact of the Sacred Cap of Good Repute having been 
 thrown over the windmills (indeed who knows whether 
 dear, golden-hearted Delphine herself could conscientiously 
 write the magic initials S. C. G. R. after her name ?) ; but 
 Delphine has never struck me as a person in whose dwell- 
 ing one could find conventual seclusion. Judith, how- 
 ever, explained. 
 
 " Delphine will be painting all day, and dissipating all 
 night. I can't possibly disturb her in her studio, for she 
 has to work tremendously hard and I'm decidedly not 
 going to dissipate with her. So I shall have my days and 
 nights to my sequestered and meditative self." 
 
 I said nothing: but all the same I am tolerably certain 
 that Judith, being Judith, will enjoy prodigious merry-mak- 
 ing in Paris. She is absolutely sincere in her intentions 
 the earth holds no sincerer woman but she is a self-de-
 
 28 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 ceiver. Her about-to-be-sequestered and meditative self 
 was at that moment sitting on the arm of a chair and 
 smoking a cigarette, with undisguised relish of the good 
 things of this life. The blue smoke wreathing itself amid 
 her fair hair resembled, so I told her in the relaxed intel- 
 lectual frame of mind of the contented man, incense 
 mounting through the nimbus of a saint. She affected 
 solicitude lest the life-blood of my intelligence should be 
 pouring out through my cut finger. No, I am convinced 
 that the recueillement (that beautiful French word for 
 which we have no English equivalent, meaning the gath- 
 ering of the soul together within itself) of the rue Boissy 
 d'Anglais is the very happiest delusion wherewith Judith 
 has hitherto deluded herself. I am glad, exceedingly glad. 
 Her temperament I have got reconciled to her affliction 
 craves the gaiety which London denies her. 
 
 "And when are you going?" I asked. 
 
 "To-morrow." 
 
 "To-morrow?" 
 
 " Why not ? I wired Delphine this morning. I had to go 
 out to get something for lunch " (my conviction, it appears, 
 was right), "and I thought I might as well take an omni- 
 bus to Charing Cross and send a telegram." 
 
 " But when are you going to pack ? " 
 
 "I did that last night. I didn't get to bed till four this 
 morning. I only made up my mind after you had gone," 
 she added, in anticipation of a possible question. 
 
 It is better that we are not married. These sudden res- 
 olutions would throw my existence out of gear. My moral 
 upheaval would be that of a hen in front of a motor-car. 
 When I go abroad, I like at least a fortnight to think of it. 
 One has to attune one's mind to new conditions, to map 
 out the pleasant scheme of days, to savour in anticipation 
 the delights that stand there, awaiting one's tasting, either
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 29 
 
 in he mystery of the unknown or in the welcoming light 
 of .amiliarity. I love the transition that can be so subtly 
 gradated by the spirit between one scene and another. 
 The man who awakens one fine morning in his London 
 residence, scratches his head, and says, "What shall I do 
 to-day? By Jove! I'll start for Timbuctoo!" is to me an 
 incomprehensible, incomplete being. He lacks an aes- 
 thetic sense. 
 
 I did not dare tell Judith she lacked an aesthetic sense. 
 I might just as well have accused her of stealing silver 
 spoons. I said I should miss her (which I certainly shall), 
 and promised to write to her once a week. 
 
 "And you," said I, "will have heaps of time to write me 
 the History of a Sequestered and Meditative Self mean- 
 while, let us go out somewhere and dine." 
 
 When I got home, I found a card on my hall-table. 
 "Mr. Sebastian Pasquale." 
 
 I am sorry I missed Pasquale. I haven't seen him for 
 two or three years. He is a fascinating youth, a study in 
 reversion. I will ask him to dinner here some day soon. 
 It will be quieter than at the club.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 May 24th. 
 
 Something has happened. Something fantastic, incon- 
 ceivable. I am in a condition to be surprised at nothing. 
 If a witch on a broomstick rode in through my or m win- 
 dow and lectured me on quaternions, I should accept her 
 visit as a normal occurrence. 
 
 I have spent hours walking up and down this book- 
 lined room, wondering whether the universe or I were 
 mad. Sometimes I laughed, for the thing is sheerly ridic- 
 ulous. Sometimes I cursed at the impertinence of the 
 thing hi happening at all. Once I stumbled over a volume 
 of Muratori lying on the floor, and I kicked it across the 
 room. Then I took it up, and wept over the loosened 
 binding. 
 
 The question is : What on earth am I to do ? Why has 
 Judith chosen this particular time to shut up her flat and 
 sequester herself hi Paris? Why did my lawyers appoint 
 this particular morning for me to sign their silly docu- 
 ments ? Why did I turn up three hours late ? Why did I 
 walk down the Thames Embankment? And why, oh, 
 why, did I seat myself on a bench in the gardens below the 
 terrace of the National Liberal Club ? 
 
 Yesterday was one of the most peaceful and happy days 
 of my existence. I worked contentedly at my history; I 
 gossiped with Antoinette who came to demand permission 
 to keep a cat. 
 
 "What kind of a cat?" I asked. 
 
 "Perhaps Monsieur does not like cats?" she inquired, 
 anxiously.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 31 
 
 "The cat was worshipped as a god by the ancient Egyp- 
 tians," I remarked. 
 
 "But this one, Monsieur," she said in breathless reas- 
 surance, " has only one eye." 
 
 I would sooner talk to Antoinette than the tutorial staff 
 of Girton. If she woke up one morning and found she had 
 a mind she would think it a disease. 
 
 In the afternoon I strolled into Regent's Park and meet- 
 ing the McMurray's nine-year-old son in charge of the 
 housemaid, around whom seemed to be hovering a sheep- 
 ish individual in a bowler hat, I took him off to the Zoologi- 
 cal Gardens. On the way he told me, with great glee, that 
 his German governess was in bed with an awful sore throat; 
 that he wasn r t doing any lessons ; that the sheepish hoverer 
 was Milly's young man, and that the silly way they went 
 on was enough to make one sick. When he had fed every- 
 thing feedable and ridden everything ridable, I drove him 
 to the Wellington Road and deposited him with his par- 
 ents. I love a couple of hours with a child when it is thor- 
 oughly happy and on its best behaviour. And the enjoy- 
 ment is enhanced by the feeling of utter thankfulness that 
 he is not my child, but somebody else's. 
 
 In the evening I read and meditated on the happiness of 
 my lot. The years of school drudgery have already lost 
 their sharp edge of remembered definition, and sometimes 
 I wonder whether it is I who lived through them. I had 
 not a care in the world, not a want that I could not gratify. 
 I thought of Judith. I thought of Sebastian Pasquale. I 
 amused myself by seeking a Renaissance type of wlu'ch he 
 must be the reincarnation. I fixed upon young Olgiati, 
 one of the assassins, of Gian Galeazzo Sforza. Of the many 
 hundreds of British youths who passed before my eyes 
 during my slavery, he is the only one who has sought me 
 out in his manhood. And strange to say we had only a few
 
 32 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 months together, during my first year's apprenticeship to 
 the dismal craft, he being in the sixth form, and but three 
 or four years younger than I. He was the maddest, oddest, 
 most diabolical and most unpopular boy in the school. 
 The staff, to whom the conventional must of necessity be 
 always the Divine, loathed him. I alone took to the creat- 
 ure. I think now that my quaint passion for the cinque- 
 cento Italian must have had something to do with my 
 attraction. In externals he is as English as I am, hav- 
 ing been brought up in England by an English mother, 
 but there are thousands of Hindoos who are more Brit- 
 ish Lhan he. The McMurrays were telling me dreadful 
 stories about him this afternoon. Sighing after an obdu- 
 rate Viennese dancer, he had lured her coachman into help- 
 less intoxication, had invested himself in the domestic's 
 iivery, and had driven off with the lady in the darkness after 
 the performance to the outskirts of the town. What hap- 
 pened exactly, the McMurrays did not know; but there 
 was the devil to pay in Vienna. And yet this inconsequent 
 libertine did the following before my own eyes. We were 
 walking down Piccadilly together one afternoon in the 
 hard winter of 1894. It was a black frost, agonizingly 
 cold. A shivering wretch held out matches for sale. His 
 hideous red toes protruded through his boots. "My God, 
 my God!" cried Pasquale, "I can't stand this!" He 
 jumped into a crawling hansom, tore off his own boots, 
 flung them to the petrified beggar and drove home in his 
 stocking-feet. I stood on the curb and, with mingled feel- 
 ings, watched the recipient, amid an interested group of 
 bystanders, match the small shapely sole against his huge 
 foot, and with a grin tuck the boots under his arm and 
 march away with them to the nearest pawnbroker. If 
 Pasquale had been an equally compassionate Briton, he 
 would have stopped to think, and have tossed the man
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 33 
 
 a sovereign. But he didn't stop to think. That was my 
 cinquecento Pasquale. And I loved him for it. 
 
 I went to bed last night, as I have indicated, the most 
 contented of created beings. I awoke this morning with 
 no greater ruffle on my consciousness than the appoint- 
 ment with my lawyers. The sun shone. A thrush sang 
 lustily in the big elm opposite my bedroom windows. The 
 tree laughed and shook out its finery at me like a woman, 
 saying: "See how green I am, after Sunday's rain." An- 
 toinette's one eyed black cat (a hideous beast) met me in 
 the hall and arching its back welcomed me affably to its 
 new residence. And on my breakfast-table I found a copy 
 of the first edition of Cristoforo da Costa's "Elogi delle 
 Donne Illustri" a book which, in great diffidence, I had 
 asked Lord Camforth, a perfect stranger, to allow me the 
 privilege of consulting in his library, and which Lord Cam- 
 forth, with a scholar's splendid courtesy, had sent me to 
 use at my convenience. 
 
 Filled with peace and good-will to all men, like a per- 
 sonification of Christmas in May, I started out this morn- 
 ing to see my lawyers. I reached them at three o'clock, 
 having idled at second-hand bookstalls and lunched on 
 the road. I signed their unintelligible document, and 
 wandered through the Temple Gardens and along the 
 Embankment. When I had passed under Hungerford 
 Bridge, it struck me that I was warm, a little leg-weary, 
 and the Victoria Embankment Gardens smiled an invita- 
 tion to repose. I struck the shady path beneath the terrace 
 of the National Liberal Club, and sat myself down on a 
 comfortable bench. The only other occupant was a female 
 in black. As I take no interest in females in black, I dis- 
 regarded her presence, and gave myself up to the contem- 
 plation of the trim lawns and flower-beds, the green trees 
 masking the unsightly Surrey side of the river, and the 
 3
 
 34 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 back of the statue of Sir Bartle Frere. A continued sur- 
 vey of the last not making for edification (a statue that 
 turns its back on you being one of the dullest objects made 
 by man), I took from my pocket a brown leather-covered 
 volume which I had fished out of a penny box: "Suite de 
 VHistoire du Gouvemement de Venise ou UHistoire des 
 Uscoques, par le Sieur Houssaie, Amsterdam, MDCCV." 
 A whole complete scholarly history of a forgotten people 
 for a penny. The Uscoques were originally Dalmatians 
 who settled at Segna on the Adriatic and became the most 
 pestiferous colony of pirates and desperadoes of sixteenth 
 century Europe. I opened the yellow-stained pages and 
 savoured their acrid musty smell. How much learning, 
 thought I, bought with the heart's-blood, how many mill- 
 ion hours of fierce intellectual struggle appeal to man- 
 kind nowadays but as an odour, an odour of decay, in the 
 nostrils of here and there a casual student. I thought this, 
 and my eye caught, repeated many times, the name of the 
 Frangipani, once lords of Segna. As men, their achieve- 
 ments are wiped out of commonly remembered history; 
 but their name is distilled into a sensuous perfume which 
 perchance may be found in the penny scent fountains of 
 to-day. I was smiling over this quaint olfactory coinci- 
 dence, and wondering whether any human being alive at 
 that moment had ever read the Sieur Houssaie's book, when 
 a tug at my arm, such as a neglected terrier gives with his 
 paw, brought me back to the workaday world. I turned 
 sharply and met a pair of melting, brown, piteous, implor- 
 ing dog's eyes, belonging not to a terrier, but to the dis- 
 regarded female in black. 
 
 "Will you please, sir, to tell me what I must do." 
 I stared. She was not in the least like what my half-con- 
 scious glance at the female in black had taken her to be. 
 She was quite young, remarkably gocd looking. Even at
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 35 
 
 the first instant I was struck by her eyes and the mass of 
 bronze hair and the twitching of a childish mouth. But 
 she had an untidy, touzled, raffish appearance, due to I 
 knew not what investiture of disrepute. Her hands for 
 she woie no gloves wanted washing. 
 
 "What a young girl like yourself must not do," said I, 
 "is to enter into conversation with men in public places." 
 
 "Then I shall have to die," she said, forlornly, edging 
 away from my side. 
 
 She had the oddest little foreign accent. I looked at her 
 again more critically, and cLxiovered what it was that 
 made her look so disreputable. She was wearing an old 
 black dress many sizes too big for her. Great pleats of it 
 were secured by pins in unexpected places, so that quaint 
 chaos was made of the scheme of decoration black vel- 
 vet and bugles on the bodice. Instinctively I felt that a 
 middle-aged, fat, second-hand-clothes-dealing Jewess had 
 built it many years ago for synagogue wear. On the girl- 
 ish figure it looked preposterous. Preposterous too was her 
 head-gear, an amorphous bonnet trimmed in black, with a 
 cheap black feather drooping brokenly. 
 
 Her eyes gave me a reproachful glance and turned away 
 again. Then she shrugged her shoulders and sniffed. My 
 mother had a housemaid once who always sniffed like that 
 before beginning to cry. My position was untenable. I 
 could not remain stonily on the seat while this grotesquely 
 attired damsel wept; and for the life of me I could not get 
 up and leave her. She looked at me again. Those swim- 
 ming, pleading eyes were scarcely human. I capitulated. 
 
 " Don't cry. Tell me what I can do for you," I said. 
 
 She moved a few inches nearer. 
 
 "I want to find Harry," she said; "I have lost him." . 
 
 "Who's Harry?" I naturally inquired. 
 
 "He is to be my husband."
 
 36 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "What's his other name?" 
 
 " I have forgotten," she said, spreading out her hands. 
 
 "Don't you know any one else in London?" I asked. 
 
 She shook her head mournfully. "And I am getting so 
 hungry." 
 
 I suggested that there were restaurants in London. 
 
 "But I have no money," she objected. "No money 
 and nothing 'at all but this." She designated her dress. 
 "Isn't it ugly?" 
 
 " It is decidedly not becoming," I admitted. 
 
 "Well, what must I do? You tell me and I do it. If 
 you don't tell me, I must die." 
 
 She leaned back placidly, having thus put upon my 
 shoulders the responsibility of her existence. I did not 
 know which to admire more, her cool assurance or the stoic 
 fortitude with which she faced dissolution. 
 
 "I can give you some money to keep you going for a 
 day or two," said I, "but as for finding Harry, without 
 knowing his name " 
 
 "After all I don't want so very much to find him," said 
 this amazing young person. "He made me stay in my 
 cabin all the tune I was in the steamer. At first I was glad, 
 for it went up and down, side to side, and I thought I 
 would die, for I was so sick; but afterwards I got better " 
 
 "But where did you come from?" I asked. 
 
 "From Alexandretta." 
 
 "What were you doing there?" 
 
 " I used to sit in a tree and look over the wall " 
 
 "What wall?" 
 
 "The wall of my house my father's house. He was 
 not my father, but he married my mother. I am English." 
 She announced the fact with a little air of finality. 
 
 "Indeed? "said I. 
 
 "Yes. Father, mother both English. He was Vice-
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 37 
 
 Consul. He died before I was born. Then his friend 
 Hamdi Effendi took my mother and married her. You 
 see?" 
 
 I confessed I did not. "Where does Harry come in?" 
 I inquired. 
 
 She looked puzzled. "Come hi?" she echoed. 
 
 I perceived her knowledge of the English vernacular was 
 limited. I turned my question differently. 
 
 " Oh," she said with more animation. " He used to pass 
 by the wall, and I talked to him when there was no one 
 looking. He was so pretty prettier than you," she 
 paused. 
 
 "Is it possible?" I said, ironically. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she replied with profound gravity. "He 
 had a moustache, but he was not so long." 
 
 "Well? You talked to Harry. What then?" 
 
 In her artless way she told me. A refreshing story, as 
 old as the crusades, with the accessories of orthodox tra- 
 dition; a European disguise, purchased at a slop dealer's 
 by the precious Harry, a rope, a midnight flitting, a pas- 
 sage taken on board an English ship; the anchor weighed; 
 and the lovers were free on the bounding main. A most 
 refreshing story ! I put on a sudden air of sternness, and 
 shot a question at her like a bullet. 
 
 "Are you making all this up, young woman?" 
 
 She started looked quite scared. 
 
 "You mean I tell lies? But no. It is all true. Why 
 shouldn't it be true ? How else could I have come here ?" 
 
 The question was unanswerable. Her story was as pre- 
 posterous as her garments. But her garments were real 
 enough. I looked long into her great innocent eyes. Yes, 
 she was telling me the truth. She babbled on for a little. 
 I gathered that her step-father, Hamdi Effendi, was a 
 Turkish official. She had spent all her life in the harem
 
 38 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 from which she had eloped with this pretty young English- 
 man. 
 
 "And what must I do?" she reiterated. 
 
 I told her to give me time. One is not in the habit of 
 meeting abducted Lights of the Harem in the Embank- 
 ment Gardens, beneath the National Liberal Club. It 
 was, in fact, a bewildering occurrence. I looked around 
 me. Nothing seemed to have happened during the last 
 ten minutes. A pale young man on the next bench, whom 
 I had noticed when I entered, was reading a dirty pink 
 newspaper. Pigeons and sparrows hopped about uncon- 
 cernedly. On the file of cabs, just perceptible through 
 the foliage, the cabmen lolled in listless attitudes. 
 Sir Bartle Frere stolidly kept his back to me, not the 
 least interested in this Gilbert a Becket story. I al- 
 ways thought something was wrong with that man's 
 character. 
 
 What on earth could I tell her to do ? The best course 
 was to find the infernal Harry. I asked her how she came 
 to lose him. It appears he escorted her ashore at South- 
 ampton, after having scarcely set eyes on her during the 
 voyage, put her into a railway carriage with strict injunc- 
 tions not to stir until he claimed her, and then disappeared 
 into space. 
 
 " Did he give you your ticket ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "What a young blackguard!" I exclaimed. 
 
 "I don't like him at all," she said. 
 
 How she managed to elude the ticket collector at Vaux- 
 hall I could not exactly discover. Apparently she told 
 him, m her confiding manner, that Harry had it, and when 
 he found no Harry in the train and came back to say so, 
 she turned her dewy imploring eyes on him and the senti- 
 mental varlet melted. At Waterloo a man had told her
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 39 
 
 she must get out of the carriage she had travelled alone 
 in it and she had meekly obeyed. She had wandered 
 out of the station and across a bridge and had eventually 
 found herself in the Embankment Gardens. Then she 
 had asked me how to find Harry. Really she was ridicu- 
 lously like Thomas a Becket's Saracen mother crying in 
 London for Gilbert. And the most ludicrous part of the 
 resemblance was that she did not know the creature's sur- 
 name. 
 
 "By the way," said I, "what is your name?" 
 
 "Carlotta." 
 
 "Carlotta what?" I asked. 
 
 " I have no other name." 
 
 "Your father the Vice-Consul had one." 
 
 She wrinkled her young forehead in profound mental 
 effort. 
 
 "Ramsbotham," she said at last, triumphantly. 
 
 "Now look here, Miss Ramsbotham no," I broke off. 
 "Such an appellation is anachronistic, incongruous, and 
 infinitely absurd. I can't use it. I must take the liberty 
 of addressing you as Carlotta." 
 
 " But I've told you that Carlotta is my name," she said, 
 in uncomprehending innocence. 
 
 "And mine is Sir Marcus Ordeyne. People call me 
 'Sir Marcus.'" 
 
 " Seer Marcous," said Carlotta. 
 
 She did not seem at all impressed with the fact that she 
 was talking to a member of the baronetage. 
 
 " Quite so," said I. "Now, Carlotta," I resumed, "our 
 first plan is to set out in search of Harry. He may have 
 missed his train, and have followed by a later one, and be 
 even now rampaging about Waterloo station. If we hear 
 nothing of him, I will drive you to the Turkish Consulate, 
 give you in charge there, and they will see you safely home
 
 40 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 to Alexandretta. The good Hamdi Effendi is doubtless 
 distracted, and will welcome you back with open 
 arms." 
 
 I meant to be urbane and friendly. 
 
 She rose to her feet, grew as white as paper, opened her 
 great eyes, opened her baby mouth, and in the middle of the 
 Embankment Gardens plumped on her knees before me 
 and clasped her hands above her head. 
 
 "For God's sake get up!" I shrieked, wrenching her 
 back acrobatically to the bench beside me. " You mustn't 
 do things like that. You'll have the whole of London run- 
 ning to look at us." 
 
 Indeed the sight had so far roused the pale young man 
 from his lethargy that he laid his dirty pink paper on his 
 knees. I kept hold of Carlotta's wrists. She began to 
 moan incoherently. 
 
 "You mustn't send me back Hamdi will kill me oh 
 please don't send me back he will make me marry his 
 friend Mustapha Mustapha has only two teeth and he 
 is seventy years old and he has a wife already I only 
 went with Harry to avoid Mustapha. Hamdi would kill 
 me, he would beat me, he would make me marry Mus- 
 tapha." 
 
 That is what I gathered from her utterances. She was 
 frightened out of her wits, even into anticlimax. 
 
 "But the Turkish Consul is your natural protector," 
 said I. 
 
 "You wouldn't be so cruel," she sobbed. The guttural 
 sonority with which she rolled the "r" in "cruel" made 
 the epithet appear one of revolting barbarity. She fixed 
 those confounded eyes upon me. 
 
 I wonder whether such a fool as I has ever lived. 
 
 I promised, on my honour, not to hand her over to the 
 Turkish consulate.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 41 
 
 I took a four-wheeled cab from the rank on the Embank- 
 ment and drove her to Waterloo. On the way she reminded 
 me that she was hungry. I gave her food at the buffet. It 
 appears she has a passion for hard-boiled eggs and lemon- 
 ade. She did not seem very much concerned about find- 
 ing Harry, but chattered to me about the appointments of 
 the bar. The beer-pulls amused her particularly. She 
 made me order a glass of bitter (a beverage which I loathe) 
 in order to see again how it was done, and broke into glee- 
 ful laughter. The smart but unimaginative barmaid 
 stared at her in bewilderment. The two or three bar- 
 loafers also stared. I was glad to escape to the platform. 
 
 There, however, a group of idlers followed us about and 
 stood in a ring round us when we stopped to interview a 
 railway official. The beautiful, bronze-haired, ox-eyed 
 young woman in her disreputable attire I have never 
 seen a broken black feather waggle more shamelessly 
 was a sight indeed to strike wonderment into the cockney 
 mind. And perhaps her association with myself added to 
 the incongruity. I am long and lean and unlovely, I 
 know; but it is my consolation that I look irreproachably 
 respectable. Of the two I was infinitely the more disturbed 
 by the public attention. " Calm and unembarrassed as a 
 fate" she returned the popular gaze, and appeared some- 
 what bored by my efforts to find Harry. In the midst of 
 an earnest discussion with the station-master she begged 
 me for a penny to put into an automatic sweetmeat ma- 
 chine, which she had seen a small boy work successfully. 
 I refused, curtly, and turned to the station-master. A 
 roar of laughter interrupted me again. Carlotta, with out- 
 stretched hand and pleading eyes, like an organ-grinder's 
 monkey, had induced the boy to part with the sticky bit of 
 toffee, and was in the act of conveying it to her mouth. 
 
 "I'll call to-morrow morning," said I hurriedly to the
 
 42 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 station-master. "If the gentleman should come mean- 
 while, tell him to leave his name and address." 
 
 Then I took Carlotta by the arm and, accompanied by 
 my train of satellites, I thrust her into the first hansom-cab 
 I could see. 
 
 There was no sign or token of Harry. No pretty young 
 man was hanging dejectedly about the station. None had 
 torn his hair before the officials asking for news of a lost 
 female in frowsy black. There was no Harry. There was 
 no further need therefore to afford the British public a 
 gratuitous entertainment. 
 
 "Drive," said I to the cabman. "Drive like the devil." 
 
 "Whereto, sir?" 
 
 I gasped. Where should I drive ? I lost my head. 
 
 " Go on driving round and round till I tell you to stop." 
 
 The philosophic cabman did not regard me as eccentric, 
 for he whipped up his horse cheerfully. When we had 
 slid down the steep incline and got free of the precincts of 
 that hateful station, I breathed more freely and collected 
 my wits. Carlotta sucked her sticky thumbs and wiped 
 them on her dress. 
 
 "Where are we going?" she asked. 
 
 "Across Waterloo Bridge," said I. 
 
 "What to do?" 
 
 "To dispose of you somehow," I replied, grimly. "But 
 how, I haven't a notion. There's a Home for Lost Dogs 
 and a Home for Stray Cats, and a Lost Property Office at 
 Scotland Yard, but as you are neither a dog nor a cat nor 
 an umbrella, these refuges are unavailable." 
 
 The cab reached the Strand. 
 
 "East or west, sir?" inquired the driver. 
 
 "West," said I, at random. 
 
 We drove down the Strand at a leisurely pace. I passed 
 through a phase of agonised thought. By my side was a
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 43 
 
 helpless, homeless, friendless, penniless young woman, as 
 beautiful as a goddess and as empty-minded as a baby. 
 What in the world could I do with her? I looked 
 at her in despair. She met my glance with a contented 
 smile; just as if we were old acquaintances and I were tak- 
 ing her out to dinner. The unfamiliar roar and bustle of 
 London impressed her no more than it would have im- 
 pressed a little dog who had found a kind master. 
 
 "Suppose I gave you some money and put you down 
 here and left you?" I inquired. 
 
 "I should die," she answered, fatalistically. "Or, per- 
 haps, I should find another kind gentleman." 
 
 " I wonder if you have such a thing as a soul," said I. 
 
 She plucked at her gown. "I have only this and it is 
 very ugly," she remarked again. "I should like a pink 
 dress." 
 
 We crossed Trafalgar Square, and I saw by Big Ben 
 that it was a quarter to six. I could not drive through 
 London with her for an indefinite period. Besides, my 
 half past ssven dinner awaited me. 
 
 Why, oh, why has Judith gone to Paris ? Had she been 
 in town I could have shot Carlotta into Tottenham Man- 
 sions, and gone home to my dinner and Cristoforo da 
 Costa with a light heart. Judith would have found Car- 
 lotta vastly entertaining. She would have washed her 
 body and analysed her temperament. But Judith was in 
 retreat with Delphine Carrere, and has left me alone to 
 bear the responsibilities of life and Carlotta. 
 
 The cab slowly mounted Waterloo Place. I had thought 
 of my aunts as possible helpers, and rejected the idea. I 
 had thought of a police station, a hotel, my lawyers (too 
 late), a furnished lodging, a hospital. My mind was an 
 aching blank. 
 
 "Where do you live?" asked Carlotta.
 
 44 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 I looked at her and groaned. It was the only solution. 
 
 "Up Regent's Park way," I replied, aware that she was 
 none the wiser for the information. 
 
 I gave the address to the cabman through the trap-door 
 in the roof. 
 
 "I'm going to take you home with me for to-night," I 
 said, severely. " I have an excellent French housekeeper 
 who will look after your comfort. And to-morrow if that 
 infernal young scoundrel of a lover of yours is not found, 
 it will not be the fault of the police force of Great Britain." 
 
 She laid her grubby little hand on mine. It was very 
 soft and cool. 
 
 " You are cross with me. Why?" 
 
 I removed her hand. 
 
 "You mustn't do that again," said I. "No; I am not 
 in the least cross with you. But I hope you are aware that 
 this event is of an unprecedented character." 
 
 "What is an unprecedented character?" she asked, 
 stumbling over the long words. 
 
 "A thing that has never happened before and I devoutly 
 hope will not happen again." 
 
 Her face was turned to me. The lower lip trembled a 
 little. The dog-look came into those wonderful eyes. 
 
 "You will be kind to me?" she said, in her childish 
 monosyllables, each word carefully articulated with a long 
 pause between. 
 
 I felt I had behaved like a heartless brute, ever since I 
 thrust her into the cab at Waterloo. I relented and laughed. 
 
 "If you are a good girl and do as I tell you," said I. 
 
 "Seer Marcous is my lord and I am his slave," was her 
 astounding reply. 
 
 Then I realised that she had been brought up Toy 
 Hamdi Effendi. There is something salutary, after all, in 
 the training of the harem.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 45 
 
 "I'm very glad to hear it," I said. 
 
 She closed her eyes. I saw now she was very tired. I 
 thought she had gone to sleep and I looked in front of me 
 puzzling out the problem. Presently the cab-doors were 
 thrust violently open, and if I had net held her back, she 
 would have jumped out of the vehicle. 
 
 "Look!" she cried, in great excitement. "There! 
 There's Harry's name!" 
 
 She pointed to a butcher's cart immediately in front of 
 us, bearing, in large letters, the name of "E. Robinson." 
 
 "We must stop," she went on. "He will tell us about 
 Harry." 
 
 It took me from Oxford Circus to Portman Square to 
 convince her that there were many thousands of Robin- 
 sons in London and that the probability of the butcher's 
 cart being a clue to Harry's whereabouts was exceedingly 
 remote. 
 
 At Baker Street station she asked, wearily : " Is it still far 
 to your house?" 
 
 "No," said I, encouragingly. "Not very far." 
 
 "But one can drive for many days through streets in 
 London, and there will be still streets, still houses? So 
 they tell me in Alexandretta. London is as big as the 
 moon, not so?" 
 
 I felt absurdly pleased. She was capable of an idea. I 
 had begun to wonder whether she were not merely half- 
 witted. The fact of her being able to read had already 
 cheered me. 
 
 "Many hours, yes," I corrected, "not many days. 
 London seems big to you?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," she said, passing her hand over her eyes. 
 "It makes all go round in my head. One day you will 
 take me for a drive through these wonderful streets. Now 
 I am too tired. They make my head ache."
 
 46 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 Then she shut her eyes again and did not open them 
 until we stopped at Lingfield Terrace. I modified my first 
 impression of her animal unimpressionability. She is 
 quite sane. If Boadicea were to be brought back to life 
 and be set down suddenly at Charing Cross, her psycho- 
 logical condition would not be far removed from that of an 
 idiot. Yet in her own environment Boadicea was quite a 
 sane and capable lady. 
 
 My admirable man Stenson opened the door and ad- 
 mitted us without moving a muscle. He would betray no 
 incorrect astonishment if I brought home a hippogriff to 
 dinner. I have an admiration for the trained serving- 
 man's imperturbability. It is the guardian angel of his 
 self-respect. I ordered him to send Antoinette to me in 
 the drawing-room. 
 
 "Antoinette," said I, "this young lady has travelled all 
 the way from Asia Minor, where the good St. Paul had so 
 many adventures, without changing her things." 
 
 "C'est y Dieu possible!" said Antoinette. 
 
 " Give her a nice hot bath, and perhaps you will have the 
 kindness to lend her the underlinen that your sex is in the 
 habit of wearing. You will put her into the spare bed- 
 room, as she is going to pass the night here, and you will 
 look generally after her comfort." 
 
 "Bien, M'sieu," said Antoinette, regarding Carlotta in 
 stupefaction. 
 
 "And put that hat and dress into the dust-bin." 
 
 "Bien, M'sieu." 
 
 "And as Mademoiselle is broken with fatigue, having 
 come without stopping from Asia Minor, she will go to 
 bed as soon as possible." 
 
 "The poor angel," said Antoinette. "But will she not 
 join Monsieur at dinner?" 
 
 "I think not," said I, dryly.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 47 
 
 " But the young ducklings that are roasting for the din- 
 ner of Monsieur?" 
 
 "If they were not roasting they might be growing up 
 into ducks," said I. 
 
 11 Oh, la, la!" murmured Antoinette, below her breath. 
 
 "Carlotta," said I, turning to the girl who had seated 
 herself humbly on a straight-backed chair, "you will go 
 with Antoinette and do as she tells you. She doesn't talk 
 English, but she is used to making people understand her." 
 
 "Mais, moi parler Frangais un peu," said Carlotta. 
 
 "Then you will win Antoinette's heart, and she will lend 
 
 you her finest . Good-night," said I, abruptly. "I 
 
 hope you will have a pleasant rest." 
 
 She took my outstretched hand, and, to my great em- 
 barrassment, raised it to her lips. Antoinette looked on, 
 with a sentimental moisture in her eyes. 
 
 "The poor angel," she repeated. 
 
 Later, I gave Stenson a succinct account of what had 
 occurred. I owed it to my reputation. Then I went up- 
 stairs and dressed for dinner. I consider I owe that to 
 Stenson. It was eight o'clock before I sat down, but An- 
 toinette's ducklings were delicious and brought consolation 
 for the upheaval of the day. I was unfolding the latest 
 edition of The Westminster Gazette with which I always 
 soothe the digestive half-hour after dinner, when Antoi- 
 nette entered to report progress. 
 
 She was sound asleep, the poor little one. Oh, but she 
 was tired. She had eaten some consomme, a bit of fish 
 and an omelette. But she was beautiful, gentle as a lamb; 
 and she had a skin on dirait du satin. Had not Monsieur 
 noticed it ? 
 
 I replied, with some over-emphasis, that I had not. 
 
 "Monsieur rather regards the inside of his books," said 
 Antoinette.
 
 4 8 
 
 "They are generally more worth regarding," said I. 
 
 Antoinette said nothing; but there was a feminine quiver 
 at the corners of her fat lips. 
 
 She was comfortably disposed of for the night. I drew a 
 breath of relief. To-morrow Great Scotland Yard should 
 set out on the track of the absconding Harry. Carlotta's 
 happy recollection of his surname facilitated the search. I 
 lit a cigarette and opened The Westminster Gazette. 
 
 A few moments later I was staring at the paper in blank 
 horror and dismay. 
 
 Harry was found. There was no mistake. Harry Rob- 
 inson, junior partner of the firm of Robinson & Co., of 
 Mincing Lane. Vain, indeed, would it be to seek the help 
 of Great Scotland Yard. Harry had blown out his brains 
 in the South Western Hotel at Southampton. 
 
 I have read the newspaper paragraph over and over 
 again to-night. There is no possible room for doubt that 
 it is the same Harry. 
 
 The ways of man are past interpretation. Here is an 
 individual who lures a girl from an oriental harem, at- 
 tires her in disgusting garments, smuggles her on board a 
 steamer, where he claps her, so to speak, under hatches, 
 and has little if anything to do with her, sets her penniless 
 and ticketless in a London train, and then goes off and 
 blows his brains out. Where is the sense of it ? 
 
 I have not a spark of sympathy for Harry a callow, ego- 
 tistical dealer in currants. He ought to have blown out his 
 brains a year ago. He has behaved in a most unconscion- 
 able manner. How does he expect me to break the news 
 to Carlotta? His selfishness is appalling. There he lies, 
 comfortably dead in the South Western Hotel, while Car- 
 lotta has literally not a rag to her back, her horrific belong- 
 ings having been dropped into the dust-bin. Who does he
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 49 
 
 think is going to provide Carlotta with food and shelter and 
 a pink dress ? What does he imagine is to become of the 
 poor waif? In all my life I have never heard of a more 
 cynical suicide. 
 
 I have walked about for hours, laughing and cursing 
 and kicking the binding loose of my precious Muratori. I 
 have wondered whether the universe or I were mad. For 
 there is one thing that is clear to me Carlotta is here, and 
 here Carlotta must remain. 
 
 Devastating though it be to the well-ordered quietude of 
 my life, I must adopt Carlotta. 
 
 There is no way out of it 
 
 4
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 May 2$th. 
 
 Shall I be accused of harbouring a bevy of odalisques 
 at No. 20 Lingfield Terrace ? Calumny and Exaggeration 
 walk abroad, arm in arm, even on the north side of Re- 
 gent's Park. If they had spied Carlotta at my window this 
 morning, they would have looked in for afternoon tea at 
 my Aunt Jessica's and have waylaid Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne 
 outside the Oratory. The question is : Shall Truth antici- 
 pate them ? I think not. Every family has its irrepressi- 
 ble, impossible, unpractical member, its enfant terrible, 
 who is forever doing the wrong thing with the best inten- 
 tions. Truth is the enfant terrible of the Virtues. Some- 
 times it puts them to the blush and throws them into con- 
 fusion; at others it blusters like a blatant liar; at others, 
 again, it stutters and stammers like a detected thief. There 
 is no knowing how Truth may behave, so I shall not let it 
 visit my relations. 
 
 I must confess, however, that I feared the possible pass- 
 ing by of the two decrepit cronies, when Carlotta stood at 
 my open French window this morning. She is really in- 
 decently beautiful. She was wearing a deep red silk pei- 
 gnoir, open at the throat, unashamedly Parisian, which 
 clung to every salient curve of her figure. I wondered 
 where, in the name of morality, she had procured the gar- 
 ment. I learned later that it was the joy and pride of An- 
 toinette's existence; for once, in the days long ago, when 
 she was femme de chambre to a luminary of the cafe's con- 
 certs, it had met around her waist. She had treasured the 
 cast-off finery of this burned-out star she beamed in the 
 seventies for all these years, and now its immortal dev- 
 
 50
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 51 
 
 ilry transfigured Carlotta. She was also washed speck- 
 lessly clean. An aroma that no soap or artificial perfume 
 could give disengaged itself from her as she moved. Her 
 gold-bronze hair was superbly ordered. I noticed her arms 
 which the sleeves of the gay garment left bare to the el- 
 bows; the skin was like satin. "Et sa peau ! On dirait 
 du satin." Confound Antoinette! She had the audacity, 
 too, to come down with bare feet. It was a revelation of 
 pink, undreamed-of loveliness in toes. 
 
 I repeat she is indecently beautiful. A chit of a girl of 
 eighteen (for that I learn is her age) has no right to flaunt 
 the beauty that should be the appanage of the woman of 
 seven and twenty. She should be modestly well-favoured, 
 as becomes her childish stage of development. She looked 
 incongruous among my sober books, and I regarded her 
 with some resentment. I dislike the exotic. I prefer ge- 
 raniums to orchids. I have a row of pots of the former on 
 my balcony, and the united efforts of Stenson, Antoinette, 
 and myself have not yet succeeded in making them bloom ; 
 but I love the unassuming velvety leaves. Carlotta is a 
 flaring orchid and produces on my retina a sensation of 
 disquiet. 
 
 I broke the tidings of the tragedy as gently as I could. 
 I had news of Harry, I said, gravely. She merely looked 
 interested and asked me when he was coming. 
 
 "I'm afraid he will never come," said I. 
 
 "If he does not come, then I can stay here with you?" 
 
 Her eyes betrayed a quiver of anxiety. For the life of 
 me I could not avoid the ironical. 
 
 "If you will condescend to dwell as a member of my 
 family beneath my humble roof." 
 
 The irony was lost on her. She uttered a joyous little 
 cry and held out both her hands to me. Her eyes danced.
 
 52 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 " Oh, I am glad he is not coming. I don't like him any 
 more. I love to stay here with you." 
 
 I took both the hands in mine. Mortal man could not 
 have done otherwise. 
 
 "Have you thought why it is that you will never see 
 Harry again?" 
 
 She shook her beautiful head and held it to one side 
 and puckered up her brows, like a wistful terrier. 
 
 "Is he dead?" 
 
 "Would it grieve you, if he were?" 
 
 "No-o," she replied, thoughtfully. 
 
 "Then," said I, dropping her hands and turning away, 
 "Harry is dead." 
 
 She stood silent for a couple of minutes, regarding the 
 row of pink toes that protruded beneath the peignoir. At 
 last her bosom shook with a sigh. She glanced up at me 
 sweetly. 
 
 " I am so glad," she said. 
 
 That is all she has vouchsafed to say with regard to the 
 unhappy young man. "She was so glad!" She has not 
 even asked how he met his death. She has simply accepted 
 my statement. Harry is dead. He has gone out of her life 
 like yesterday's sunshine or yesterday's frippery. If I had 
 told her that yesterday's cab-horse had broken his neck, 
 she could not be more unconcerned. Nay, she is glad. 
 Harry had not treated her nicely. He had boxed her up 
 in a cabin where she had been sick, and had subjected 
 her to various other discomforts. I, on the contrary, had 
 surrounded her with luxuries and dressed her in red silk. 
 She rather dreaded Harry's coming. When she learned 
 that this was improbable she was relieved. His death had 
 turned the improbable into the impossible. It was the end 
 of the matter. She was so glad!
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeync 53 
 
 Yet there must have been some tender passage in their 
 brief intercourse. He must have kissed her during their 
 flight from home to steamer. Her young pulses must have 
 throbbed a little faster at the sight of his comely face. 
 
 What kind of a mythological being am I housing ? Did 
 she come at all out of Hamdi Effendi's harem ? Is she not 
 rather some strange sea-creature that clambered on board 
 the vessel and bewitched the miserable boy, sucked the 
 soul out of him, and drove him to destruction ? Or is' she 
 a Vampire ? Or a Succubus ? Or a Hamadryad ? Or a 
 Salamander ? 
 
 One thing, I vow she is not human. 
 
 If only Judith were here to advise me! And yet I have 
 an uneasy feeling that Judith will suggest, with a certain 
 violence that is characteristic of her, the one course which 
 I cannot follow : to send Carlotta back to Hamdi Eff endi. 
 But I cannot break my word. I would rather, far rather, 
 break Cailotta's beautiful neck. 
 
 I have not written to Judith. Nor, by the way, have I 
 received a letter from her. Delphine has been whirling 
 her off her legs, and she is ashamed to confess the delusion 
 of the sequestered life. I wish I were enjoying myself half 
 as much as Judith. 
 
 "I have adopted Mademoiselle," said I to Antoinette 
 this morning. " If she returned to Asia Minor they would 
 put a string round her neck, tie her up in a sack, and throw 
 her into the sea." 
 
 "That would be a pity," said Antoinette, warmly. 
 
 "Cela depend," said I. "Anyhow she is here, and here 
 she remains." 
 
 "In that case," said Antoinette, "has Monsieur consid- 
 ered that the poor angel will need clothes and articles of 
 toilette and this and that and the other?"
 
 54 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "And shoes to hide her shameless toes," I said. 
 
 "They are the most beautiful toes I have ever seen!" 
 cried Antoinette in imbecile admiration. She has be- 
 witched that old woman already. 
 
 I put on my hat and went to Wellington Road to consult 
 Mrs. McMurray. Heaven be thanked, thought I, for let- 
 ting me take her little boy the day before yesterday to see 
 the other animals, and thus winning a mother's heart. 
 She will help me out of my dilemma. Unfortunately she 
 was not alone. Her husband, who is on the staff of a morn- 
 ing newspaper, was breakfasting when I arrived. He is a 
 great ruddy bearded giant with a rumbling thunder of a 
 laugh like the bass notes of an organ. His assertion of the 
 masculine principle in brawn and beard and bass some- 
 what overpowers a non-muscular, clean-shaven, and tenor 
 person like myself. Mrs. McMurray, on the contrary, is a 
 small, bright bird of a woman. 
 
 I told my amazing story from beginning to end, inter- 
 rupted by many Hoo-oo-oo-oo's from McMurray. 
 
 "You may laugh," said I, "but to have a mythical be- 
 ing out of Olympiodorus quartered on you for life is no 
 jesting matter." 
 
 "Olymp ?" began McMurray. 
 
 "Yes," I snapped. 
 
 "Bring her this afternoon, Sir Marcus, when this un- 
 sympathetic wretch has gone to his club," said his wife, 
 "and I'll take her out shopping." 
 
 "But, dear lady," I cried in despair, "she has but one 
 garment and that a silk dressing-gown of horrible de- 
 pravity that belonged to a dancer of the second Empire! 
 She is also barefoot." 
 
 " Then I'll come round myself and see what can be done." 
 
 "And by Jove, so will I!" cried McMurray. 
 
 "You'll do no such thing," said his wife.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 55 
 
 "If I gave you a cheque for 100," said I, "do you 
 think you could get her what she wants, to go on with?" 
 
 "A hundred pounds!*' The little lady uttered a de- 
 lighted gasp and I thought she would have kissed me. 
 McMurray brought his sledge-hammer of a hand down 
 on my shoulder. 
 
 " Man!" he roared. " Do you know what you are doing 
 casting a respectable wife and mother of a family loose 
 among London drapery shops with a hundred pounds in 
 her pocket? Do you think she will henceforward give a 
 thought to her home or husband? Do you want to ruin 
 my domestic peace, drive me to drink, and wreck my 
 household?" 
 
 "If you do that again," said I, rubbing my shoulder, 
 "I'll give her two hundred." 
 
 When I returned Carlotta was sitting, Turkish fashion, 
 on a sofa, smoking a cigarette (to which she had helped 
 herself out of my box) and turning over the pages of a book. 
 This sign of literary taste surprised me. But I soon found 
 it was the second volume of my Edition de luxe of Lou- 
 andre's Les Arts Somptuaires, to whose place on the 
 shelves sheer feminine instinct must have guided her. I 
 announced Mrs. McMurray's proposed visit. She jumped 
 to her feet, ravished at the prospect, and sent my beautiful 
 book (it is bound in tree-calf and contains a couple of hun- 
 dred exquisitely coloured plates) flying onto the floor. I 
 picked it up tenderly, and laid it on my writing-table. 
 
 "Carlotta," said I, "the first thing you have to learn 
 here is that books in England are more precious than ba- 
 bies in Alexandretta. If you pitch them about in this fash- 
 ion you will murder them and I shall have you hanged." 
 
 This checked her sumptuary excitement. It gave her 
 food for reflection, and she stood humbly penitent, while I 
 went further into the subject of clothes.
 
 56 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "In fact," I concluded, "you will be dressed like a lady." 
 
 She opened the book at a gaudy picture, "France, 
 XVI ieme Siecle Saltimbanque et Bohemienne" and pointed 
 to the female mountebank. This young person wore a bright 
 green tunic, bordered with gold and finished off at the elbows 
 and waist with red, over an undergown of flaring pink, the 
 sleeves of which reached her wrist ; she was crowned with 
 red and white carnations stuck in ivy. 
 
 "I will get a dress like that," said Carlotta. 
 
 I wondered how far Mrs. McMurray possessed the col- 
 our-sense, and I trembled. I tried to explain gently to Car- 
 lotta the undesirability of such a costume for outdoor wear 
 in London; but with tastes there is no disputing, and I 
 saw that she was but half-convinced. She will require 
 training in aesthetics. 
 
 She is very submissive. I said, " Run away now to An- 
 toinette," and she went with the cheerfulness of a child. I 
 must rig up a sitting-room for her, as I cannot have her in 
 here. Also for the present she must take her meals in her 
 own apartments. I cannot shock the admirable Stenson 
 by sitting down at table with her in that improper peignoir. 
 Besides, as Antoinette informs me, the poor lamb eats 
 meat with her fingers, after the fashion of the East. I 
 know what that is, having once been present at an Egyp- 
 tian dinner-party in Cairo, and pulled reeking lumps of 
 flesh out of the leg of mutton. Ugh! But as she has prob- 
 ably not sat down to a meal with a man hi her life, her 
 banishment from my table will not hurt her feelings. She 
 must, however, be trained in Christian table-manners, as 
 well as in zesthetics; also in a great many other things. 
 
 Mrs. McMurray arrived with a tape-measure, a pencil, 
 and a note-book. 
 
 "First," she announced, "I will measure her all oven
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 57 
 
 Then I will go out and procure her a set of out-door gar- 
 ments, and to-morrow we will spend the whole livelong day 
 in the shops. Do you mind if I use part of the 100 for 
 the hire of a private brougham?" 
 
 "Have a coach and six, my dear Mrs. McMurray," I 
 said. "It will doubtless please Carlotta better." 
 
 I summoned Carlotta and performed the ceremony of 
 introduction. To my surprise she was perfectly at her 
 ease and with the greatest courtesy of manner invited the 
 visitor to accompany her to her own apartments. 
 
 When Mrs. McMurray returned to the drawing-room 
 she wore an expression that can only be described as in- 
 describable. 
 
 "What, my dear Sir Marcus, do you think is to be the 
 ultimate de?tiny of that young person?" 
 
 "She shall learn type- writing," said I, suddenly in- 
 spired, " and make a fair copy of my Renaissance Mor- 
 als." 
 
 "She would make a very fair copy indeed of Renaissance 
 Morals," returned the lady, dryly. 
 
 "Is she so very dreadful?" I asked in alarm. "The 
 peignoir, I know " 
 
 " Perhaps that has something to do with it." 
 
 "Then, for heaven's sake," said I, "dress her in drabs 
 and greys and subfusc browns. Cut off her hair and give 
 her a row of buttons down the back." 
 
 My friend's eyes sparkled. 
 
 "I am going," said she, "to have the day of my life to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Carlotta bad already gone to sleep, so Antoinette in- 
 formed me, when the results of Mrs. McMurray's shop- 
 ping came home. I am glad she has early habits. It ap- 
 pears she has spent a happy and fully occupied afternoon
 
 58 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 over a pile of French illustrated comic papers in the pos- 
 session of my excellent housekeeper. 
 
 I wonder whether it is quite judicious to make French 
 comic papers her initiation into the ideas of Western civil- 
 isation. Into this I must inquire. I must also talk seri- 
 ously to her with a view to her ultimate destiny. But as 
 my view would be distorted by the red dressing-gown, I 
 shall wait until she is decently clad. I think I shall have 
 to set apart certain hours of the day for instructive con- 
 versation with Carlotta. I shall have to develop her mind, 
 of which she distinctly has the rudiments. For the rest 
 of the day she must provide entertainment out of her own 
 resources. This her oriental habits of seclusion will render 
 an easy task, for I will wager that Hamdi Effendi did not 
 concern himself greatly as to the way in which the ladies 
 of his harem filled up their time. And now I come to 
 think of it, he certainly did not allow Carlotta to sprawl 
 about his own private and particular drawing-room. I will 
 not westernise her too rapidly. The Turkish educational 
 system has its merits. 
 
 This, in its way is comforting. If only I could accept 
 her as a human creature. But when I think of her callous 
 reception of the tidings of the unhappy boy's death, my 
 spirit fails me. Such a being would run a carving-knife 
 into you, as you slept, without any compunction, and 
 when you squeaked, she would laugh. Look at her base 
 ingratitude to the good Hamdi Effendi, who took her in 
 before she was born and has treated her as a daughter all 
 her life. No : her spiritual attitude all through has been 
 that of the ladies who used to visit St. Anthony in the 
 leisure moments when they were not actively engaged in 
 temptation. I don't believe her father was an English 
 vice-consul. He was Satan. 
 
 I wonder what she told Mrs. McMurray.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 59 
 
 I have been thinking over the matter to-night. The 
 good lady was wrong. Whatever were the morals of the 
 Renaissance, personalities were essentially positive. They 
 were devilishly wicked or angelically good. There was 
 nothing rosse, non-moral about the Renaissance Ital- 
 ian. The women were strongly tempered. I love to be- 
 lieve the story told by Machiavelli and Muratori of Cath- 
 erine Sforza in the citadel of Forli. " Surrender or we slay 
 your children which we hold as hostages," cried the be- 
 siegers. "Kill them if you like. I can breed more to 
 avenge them." It is the speech of a giant nature. It 
 awakens something enthusiastic within me ; although such 
 a lady would be an undesirable helpmeet for a mild man- 
 nered man like myself. 
 
 And then again there is Bonna, the woman for whose 
 career I desired to consult the prime authority Cristoforo 
 da Costa. I have been sketching her into my chapter to- 
 night. Here is a peasant girl caught up to his saddle-bow 
 by a condottiere, Brunoro, during some village raid. She 
 fights like a soldier by his side. He is imprisoned in Va- 
 lencia by Alfonso of Naples, languishes in a dungeon for 
 ten years. And for ten years Bonna goes from court to 
 court in Europe and from prince to prince, across seas and 
 mountains, unwearying, unyielding, with the passion of 
 heaven in her heart and the courage of hell in her soul, 
 urging and soliciting her man's release. After ten long 
 years she succeeds. And then they are married. What 
 were her tumultuous feelings as she stood by that altar ? 
 The old historian does not say; but the very glory of God 
 must have flooded her being when, in the silence of the bare 
 church, the little bell tinkled to tell her that the Host was 
 raised, and her love was made blessed for all eternity. 
 A.nd then she goes away with him and fights in the old 
 vay by his side for fifteen years. When he is killed, she
 
 60 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 languishes and dies within the year. Porcelli sees them in 
 1455. Brunoro,an old, squinting, paralysed man. Bonna, 
 a little shrivelled, yellow old woman, with a quiver on her 
 shoulder, a bow in her hand; her grey hair is covered by 
 a helmet and she wears great military boots. The pic- 
 ture is magical. There is infinite pathos in the sight of the 
 two withered, crippled, grotesque forms from which all the 
 glamour of manhood and beauty have departed, and in- 
 finite awe in the thought of the holy communion of the un- 
 conquerable and passionate souls. I wonder it has not 
 come down to us as one of the great love-stories of the 
 world. 
 
 Elements such as these sway the Morals of the Renais- 
 sance. 
 
 But I am taking Mrs. McMurray too seriously; and it is 
 really not a bad idea to have Carlotta taught type- writing.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 May 26th. 
 
 This morning a letter from Judith. 
 
 "Do not laugh at me," she writes. "The road to Paris 
 is paved with good intentions. I really could not help it. 
 Delphine put her great arm round my would-be seques- 
 tered and meditative self and carried it off bodily, and here 
 it is in the midst of lunches, picture-shows, dinners, sup- 
 pers, theatres and dances; and if you laugh, you will make 
 me humiliated when I confess that it is thoroughly enjoy- 
 ing itself." 
 
 Laugh at her, dear woman? I am only too glad that 
 she can fling her Winter Garment of Repentance into 
 the Fires of Paris Springtide. She has little enough en- 
 joyment in friendless London. Fill your heart with it, my 
 dear, and lay up a store for use in the dull months to come. 
 For my part, however, I am content to be beyond the 
 reach of Delphine's great arm. I must write to Judith. I 
 shall have to explain Carlotta; but for that I think I shall 
 wait until she becomes a little more explicable. In deal- 
 ing with women it is well to employ discrimination. You 
 are never quite sure whether they are not merely simple 
 geese or the most complex of created beings. Perhaps 
 they are such a curious admixture that you cannot tell at 
 a given moment which side, the simple or the complex, you 
 are touching. May not there be the deepest of all allego- 
 ries in Eve standing midway between the innocent apple 
 and the guileful serpent ? I shall have to see more of Car- 
 lotta before I can safely explain her to Judith. 
 
 At any rate she is no longer attired like an odalisque 
 
 61
 
 62 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 of the Second Empire, and Mrs. McMurray has saved her 
 from the lamentable errcr: ^r taste shown by the female 
 mountebank of sixteenth century France. My excellent 
 friend safely delivered up an exhausted and bewildered 
 charge at half -past seven last evening, assuring me that her 
 task had been easy, and that her anticipations of it being 
 the day of her lif e had been fulfilled. It had been like dress- 
 ing a doll, she explained, beaming. 
 
 An edifying pastime for an adult woman! I did not 
 utter this sentiment, ior she would rightly have styled me 
 the most ungrateful of unhung wretches. 
 
 Carlotta, then, had followed her about like a perambu- 
 latory doll, upon which she had fitted all the finery she 
 could lay her hands on. Apparently the atmosphere of the 
 great shops had acted on Carlotta like an anaesthetic. 
 She had moved in a sensuous dream of drapery, wherein 
 the choice-impulse was paralysed. The only articles upon 
 which, in an unclouded moment, she had set her heart 
 and that with a sudden passion of covetousness were a 
 pair of red, high-heeled shoes and a cheap red parasol. 
 
 "You have no idea what it means," said Mrs. McMur- 
 ray, " to buy everything that a woman needs." 
 
 I replied that I had a respectful distaste for transcen- 
 dental philosophy. 
 
 "From a paper of pins to an opera-cloak," she con- 
 tinued. 
 
 "I'm afraid, dear Mrs. McMurray, an opera-cloak is 
 not the superior limit of a -woman's needs," said I. "I 
 wish it were." 
 
 She called me a cynic and went. 
 
 This morning Carlotta interrupted me in my work. 
 
 "Will Seer Marcous come to my room and see my pretty 
 things?" 
 
 In summer blouse and plain skirt she looked as demure
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 63 
 
 as any damsel in St. John's Wood. She hung her head a 
 little to one side. For the moment I felt paternal, and in- 
 dulgently consented. Words of man cannot describe the 
 mass of millinery and chiffonery in that chamber. The 
 spaces that were not piled high with vesture gave resting 
 spots for cardboard boxes and packing-paper. Antoinette 
 stood in a corner gazing at the spoil with a smile of beatific 
 idiocy. I strode through the cardboard boxes which 
 crackled like bracken, and remained dumb as a fish be- 
 fore these mysteries. Carlotta tried on hats. She shewed 
 me patent leather shoes. She exhibited blouses and petti- 
 coats until my eyes ached. She brandished something in 
 her hand. 
 
 "Tell me if I must wear it" (I believe the sophisticated 
 call it "them"). "Mrs. McMurray says all ladies do. 
 But we never wear it in Alexandretta, and it hurts." 
 
 She clasped herself pathetically and turned her great 
 imploring eyes on me. 
 
 "II faul souffrir pour ttre belle" I said. 
 
 "But with the figure of Mademoiselle, it is stupid!" 
 cried Antoinette. 
 
 "It is outrageous that I should be called upon to ex- 
 press an opinion on such matters," I said, loftily. And so 
 it was. My assertion of dignity impressed them. 
 
 Then, with characteristic frankness, my young lady 
 shakes out before me things all frills, embroidery, ribbons, 
 diaphaneity, which the ordinary man only examines 
 through shop-front windows when a philosophic mood in- 
 duces him to speculate on the unfathomable vanity of 
 woman. 
 
 "Les beaux dessous!" breathed Antoinette. 
 
 "The same ejaculation," I murmured, "was doubtless 
 uttered by an enraptured waiting-maid, when she beheld 
 the stout linen smocks of the ladies of the Heptameron."
 
 64 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 I reflected on the relativity of things mundane. The 
 waiting-maid no doubt wore some horror made of hemp 
 against her skin. If Carlotta's gossamer follies had been 
 thrown into the vagabond court of the Queen of Navarre, 
 I wonder whether those delectable stories would have been 
 written? 
 
 As Antoinette does not understand literary English, and 
 as Carlotta did not know what in the world I was talking 
 about, I was master of the conversational situation. Car- 
 lotta went to the mantel-piece and returned with a glutin- 
 ous mass of sweet stuff between her fingers. 
 
 "Will Seer Marcous have some? It is nougat." 
 
 I declined. 
 
 "Oh!" she said, tragically disappointed. "It is good." 
 
 There is something in that silly creature's eyes that I 
 cannot resist. She put the abominable morsel into my 
 mouth it was far too sticky for me to hold and laugh- 
 ingly licked her own fingers. 
 
 I went down to work again with an uneasy feeling of 
 imperilled dignity. 
 
 May igth. 
 
 I sent her word that I would take her for a drive this 
 afternoon. She was to be ready at three o'clock. It will 
 be wholesome for her to regard her outings with me as 
 rare occurrences to be highly valued. Ordinarily she will 
 go out with Antoinette for the present at least as she 
 did yesterday. 
 
 At three o'clock Stenson informed me that the cab was 
 at the door. 
 
 " Go up and call Mademoiselle," said I. 
 
 In two or three minutes she came down. I have not had 
 such a shock in my life. I uttered exclamations of amaze- 
 ment in several languages. I have never seen on the stage
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 65 
 
 or off such a figure as she presented. Her cheeks were 
 white with powder, her lips dyed a pomegranate scarlet, 
 her eyebrows and lashes blackened. In her ears she wore 
 large silver-gilt earrings. She entered the room with an 
 air of triumph, as who should say: " See how captivatingly 
 beautiful I am!" 
 
 At my stare of horror her face fell. At my command to 
 go upstairs and wash herself clean, she wept. 
 
 "For heaven's sake, don't cry," I exclaimed, "or you 
 will look like a rainbow." 
 
 "I did it to please you," she sobbed. 
 
 "It is only the lowest class of dancing- women who paint 
 their faces in England," said I, splendide mendax. "And 
 you know what they are in Alexandretta." 
 
 "They came to Aziza-Zaza's wedding," said Carlotta, 
 behind her handkerchief. "But all our ladies do this 
 when they want to make themselves look nice. And I 
 have put on this nasty thing that hurts me, just to please 
 Seer Marcous." 
 
 I felt I had been brutal. She must have spent hours over 
 her adornment. Yet I could not have taken her out into 
 the street. She looked like Jezebel, who without her paint 
 must have been, like Carlotta, a remarkably handsome 
 person. 
 
 "It strikes me, Carlotta," said I, "that you will find 
 England is Alexandretta upside down. What is wrong 
 there is right here, and vice versa. Now if you want to 
 please me run away and clean yourself and take off those 
 barbaric and Brummagem earrings." 
 
 She went and was absent a short while. She returned 
 in dismay. Water would not get it off. I rang for Antoi- 
 nette, but Antoinette had gone out. It being too delicate 
 a matter for Stenscn, I fetched a pot of vaseline from my 
 own room, and as Carlotta did not know what to make of 
 5
 
 66 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 it } I with my own hands cleansed Carlotta. She screamed 
 with delight, thinking it vastly amusing. Her emotions are 
 facile. I cannot deny that it amused me too. But I am in 
 a responsible position, and I am wondering what the deuce 
 I shall be doing next. 
 
 I enjoyed the drive to Richmond, where I gave her tea 
 at the Star and Garter and was relieved to see her drink 
 normally from the cup, instead of lapping from the saucer 
 like a kitten. She was much more intelligent than during 
 our first drive on Tuesday. The streets have grown more 
 familiar, and the traffic does not make her head ache. She 
 asks me the ingenuous questions of a child of ten. The tall 
 guardsmen we passed particularly aroused her enthusiasm. 
 She had never seen anything so beautiful. I asked her if 
 she would like me to buy one and give it her to play with. 
 
 "Oh, would you, Seer Marcous?" she exclaimed, seiz- 
 ing my hand rapturously. I verily believe she thought I 
 was in earnest, for when I turned aside my jest, she pouted 
 in disappointment and declared that it was wrong to tell 
 lies. 
 
 "I am glad you have some elementary notions of ethics," 
 said I. 
 
 It was during our drive that it occurred to me to ask her 
 where she had procured the paint and earrings. She ex- 
 plained, cheerfully, that Antoinette had supplied the funds. 
 I must talk seriously to Antoinette. Her attitude towards 
 Carlotta savours too much of idolatry. Demoralisation will 
 soon set in, and the utter ruin of Carlotta and my digestion 
 will be the result. I must also make Carlotta a small al- 
 lowance. 
 
 During tea she said to me, suddenly: 
 
 "Seer Marcous is not married?" 
 
 I said, no. She asked, why not ? The devil seems to be 
 driving all womankind to ask me that question.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 67 
 
 "Because wives ar^ an unmitigated nuisance," said I. 
 
 A curious smile came over Carlotta's face. It was as 
 knowing as Dame Quickly's. 
 
 "Then" 
 
 "Have one of these cakes," said I, hurriedly. "There 
 is chocolate outside and the inside is chock-full of custard." 
 
 She bit, smiled in a different and beatific way, and for- 
 got my matrimonial affairs. I was relieved. With her 
 oriental training there is no telling what Carlotta might 
 have said. 
 
 May 3 is/. 
 
 To-day I have had a curious interview. Who should 
 call on me but the father of the hapless Harry Robinson. 
 My first question was a natural one. How on earth did he 
 connect me with the death of his son ? How did he con- 
 trive to identify me as the befriender of th^ young Turkish 
 girl whose interests, he declared, were the object of his 
 visit? It appeared that the police had given him the 
 necessary information, my adventures at Waterloo having 
 rendered their tracing of Carlotta an easy matter. I had 
 been wondering somewhat at the meagre newspaper re- 
 ports of the inquest. No mention was made, as I had ner- 
 vously anticipated, of the mysterious lady for whom the 
 deceased had bought a ticket at Alexandretta, and with 
 whom he had come ashore. Very little evidence appeared 
 to have been taken, and the jury contented themselves 
 with giving the usual verdict of temporary insanity. I 
 touched on this as delicately as I could. 
 
 "We succeeded in hushing things up," said my visitor, 
 an old man with iron-grey whiskers and a careworn sensi- 
 tive face. "I have some influence myself, and his wife's 
 relations " 
 
 " His wife' " I ejaculated The ways of men are further
 
 68 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 than ever from interpretation. The fellow was actually 
 married ! 
 
 "Yes," he sighed. "That is what would have made 
 such a terrible scandal. Her relatives are powerful people. 
 We averted it, thank Heaven, and his poor wife will never 
 know. My boy is dead. No public investigation into mo- 
 tives would bring him back to life again." 
 
 I murmured words of condolence. 
 
 "He must have been out of his mind, poor lad, when he 
 induced the girl to run away with him. But, as my son 
 has ruined her," he set his teeth as if the boy's sin stabbed 
 him, "I must look after her welfare." 
 
 "You may set your mind at rest on that point," said I. 
 "He smuggled her at once aboard the ship, and seems 
 scarcely to have said how d'ye do to her afterwards. That 
 is the mad part of it." 
 
 "Can I be sure?" 
 
 "I would stake my life on it," said I. 
 
 "How do you know?" 
 
 "Frankness I may say embarrassing frankness is one 
 of the young lady's drawbacks." 
 
 He looked greatly relieved. I acquainted him with Car- 
 lotta's antecedents, and outlined the part I had played in 
 the story. 
 
 "Then," said he, "I will see the child back to her home. 
 I will take her there myself. I cannot allow you any longer 
 to have the burden of befriending her, when it is my duty 
 to repair my boy's wrongdoing." 
 
 I explained to him the terror of Hamdi Effendi's clutches, 
 and told him of my promise. 
 
 "Then what is to be done?" he asked. 
 
 " If any kind people could be found to receive her into 
 their family, and bring her up like a Christian, I should 
 hand her over with the greatest of pleasure. If there is one
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 69 
 
 thing I do not require in this house, it is an idle and irre- 
 sponsible female. But philanthropists are rare. Who will 
 take her?" 
 
 "I'm afraid I'm not prepared to do that." 
 
 "I never dreamed of having the bad taste to propose 
 it," said I. "I merely stated the only alternative to my 
 guardianship." 
 
 "I should be willing only too willing to contribute 
 towards her support," said Mr. Robinson. 
 
 I thanked him. But of course this was impossible. I 
 might as well have allowed the good man to pay my gas 
 bill. 
 
 "I know of a nice convent home kept by the Little Sis- 
 ters of St. Bridget," said he, tentatively. 
 
 "If it were St. Bridget herself," said I, "I would agree 
 with pleasure. She is a saint for whom I have a great fas- 
 cination. She could work miracles. When an Irish chief- 
 tain made her a facetious grant of as much land as she 
 could cover with her mantle, she bade four of her nuns 
 each take a corner and run north, west, south and east, 
 until her cloak covered several roods. She could have 
 done the same with the soul of Carlotta. But the age of 
 miracles is past, and I fear the Little Sisters would only 
 break their gentle hearts over her. She is an extraordinary 
 creature." 
 
 I know I ought to have given some consideration to the 
 proposal; but I think I must suffer from chronic inflamma- 
 tion of the logical faculty. It revolted against the sug- 
 gested congruity of Carlotta and the Little Sisters of St. 
 Bridget. 
 
 "What can she be like?" asked the old man, wonder- 
 ingly. 
 
 "Would it pain you to see her?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes," he said, in a low voice. "It would. But per-
 
 70 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 haps it would bring me nearer to my unhappy boy. He 
 seems so far away." 
 
 I rang the bell and summoned Carlotta. 
 
 "Perhaps you had better not say who you are," I sug- 
 gested. 
 
 When Carlotta entered, he rose and looked at her oh, 
 so wistfully. 
 
 "This, Carlotta," said I, "is a friend of mine, who 
 would like to make your acquaintance." 
 
 She advanced shyly and held out a timid hand. Obvi- 
 ously she was on her best behaviour. I thanked heaven she 
 had tried her unsuccessful experiment of powder and paint 
 on my vile body and not on that of a stranger. 
 
 "Do you do you like England?" asked the old man. 
 
 "Oh, very very much. Every one is so kind to me. 
 It is a nice place." 
 
 "It is the best place in the world to be young in," said 
 he. 
 
 "Is it?" said Carlotta, with the simplicity of a baby. 
 
 "The very best." 
 
 "But is it not good to be old in?" 
 
 "No country is good for that." 
 
 The old man sighed and took his leave. I accompanied 
 him to the front door. 
 
 "I don't know what to say, Sir Marcus. She moves me 
 strangely. I never expected such sweet innocence. For 
 my boy's sake, I would take her in but his mother knows 
 nothing about it save that the boy is dead. It would kill 
 her." 
 
 The tears rolled down the old man's cheeks. I grasped 
 him by the hand. 
 
 "She shall come to no manner of harm beneath my 
 roof," said I.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 71 
 
 Carlotta was waiting for me in the drawing-room. She 
 looked at me in a perplexed, pitiful way. 
 
 "Seer Marcous?" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "Am I to marry him?" 
 
 "Marry whom?" 
 
 " That old gentleman. I must, if you tell me. But I do 
 not want to many him." 
 
 It took me a minute or two to arrive at her oriental 
 point of view. No woman could be shown off to a man 
 except in the light of a possible bride. I think it some- 
 times good to administer a shock to Carlotta, by way of 
 treatment. 
 
 "Do you know who that old gentleman was?" said I. 
 
 "No." 
 
 " It was Harry's father." 
 
 "Oh!" she said, with a grimace. "I am sorry I was so 
 nice to him." 
 
 What the deuce am I to do with her? 
 
 I lectured her for a quarter of an hour on the ethics of 
 the situation. I think I only succeeded in giving her the 
 impression that I was in a bad temper. So much did I 
 sympathise with Harry that I forbore to acquaint her with 
 the fact that he was a married man when he enticed her 
 away from Alexandretta,
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 June ist. 
 
 Sebastian Pasquale dined with me this evening. An- 
 toinette, forgetful of idolatrous practices, devoted the con- 
 centration of her being to the mysteries of her true religion. 
 The excellence of the result affected Pasquale so strongly 
 that with his customary disregard of convention he in- 
 sisted on Antoinette being summoned to receive his con- 
 gratulations. He rose, made her a bow as if she were a 
 Marquise of pre-revolutionary days. 
 
 "It is a meal," said he, bunching up his fingers to his 
 mouth and kissing them open, "that one should have 
 taken not sitting, but kneeling." 
 
 "You stole that from Heine," said I, when the enrap- 
 tured creature had gone, "and you gave it out to Antoi- 
 nette as if it were your own." 
 
 "My good Ordeyne," said he, "did you ever hear of a 
 man giving anything authentic to a woman?" 
 
 "You know much more about the matter than I do," I 
 replied, and Pasquale laughed. 
 
 It has been a pleasure to see him again a creature of 
 abounding vitality whom time cannot alter. He is as lithe- 
 limbed as when he was a boy, and as lithe- witted. I don't 
 know how his consciousness could have arrived at appre- 
 ciation of Antoinette's cooking, for he talked all through 
 dinner, giving me an account of his mirific adventures in 
 foreign cities. Among other things, he had been playing 
 juvenile lead, it appears, in the comic opera of Bulgarian 
 politics. I also heard of the Viennese dancer. My own 
 little chronicle, which he insisted on my unfolding, com- 
 
 72
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 73 
 
 pared with his was that of a caged canary compared with 
 a sparrow-hawk's. Besides, I am not so expansive as Pas- 
 quale, and on certain matters I am silent. He also gestic- 
 ulates freely, a thing which is totally foreign to my nature. 
 As Judith would say, he has a temperament. His mous- 
 taches curl fiercely upward until the points are nearly on a 
 level with his flashing dark eyes. Another point of dis- 
 similarity between us is that he seems to have been poured 
 molten into his clothes, whereas mine hang as from pegs 
 clumsily arranged about my person. By no conceivable 
 freak of outer circumstance could I have the adventures 
 of Pasquale. 
 
 And yet he thinks them tame! Lord! If I found my- 
 self hatching conspiracies in Sofia on a nest made of loaded 
 revolvers, I should feel that the wild whirl of Bedlam had 
 broken loose around me. 
 
 "But man alive!" I cried. "What in the name of tor- 
 nadoes do you want?" 
 
 "I want to fight," said he. "The earth has grown too 
 grey and peaceful. Life is anaemic. We need colour good 
 red splashes of it good wholesome bloodshed." 
 
 Said I, "All you have to do is to go into a Berlin cafe" 
 and pull the noses of all the lieutenants you see there. In 
 that way you'll get as much gore as your heart could de- 
 sire." 
 
 "By Jove!" said he, springing to his feet. "What a 
 cause for a man to devote his life to the extermination of 
 Prussian lieutenants!" 
 
 I leaned back in my arm-chair it was after dinner 
 and smiled at his vehemence. The ordinary man does not 
 leap about like that during digestion. 
 
 "You would have been happy as an Uscoque," said L 
 (I have just finished the prim narrative.) 
 
 " What's that ? " he asked. I told him.
 
 74 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "The interesting thing about the Uscoques," I added, 
 "is that they were a Co-operative Pirate Society of the six- 
 teenth century, in which priests and monks -and green- 
 grocers and women and children the general public, in 
 fact, of Segna took shares and were paid dividends. 
 They were also a religious people, and the setting out of 
 the pirate fleet at the festivals of Easter and Christmas was 
 attended by ecclesiastical ceremony. Then they scoured 
 the high seas, captured argosies, murdered the crews 
 their only weapons were hatchets and daggers and arque- 
 buses landed on undefended shores, ravaged villages and 
 carried off comely maidens to replenish their stock of 
 womenkind at home. They must have been a live lot of 
 people." 
 
 "What a second-hand old brigand you are," cried Pas- 
 quale, who during my speech had been examining the car- 
 pet by the side of his chair. 
 
 I laughed. "Hasn't a phase of the duality of our nature 
 ever struck you? We have a primary or everyday nature 
 a thing of habit, tradition, circumstance; and we also 
 have a secondary nature which clamours for various sensa- 
 tions and is quite contented with vicarious gratification. 
 There are delicately fibred novelists who satisfy a sort of 
 secondary Berserkism by writing books whose pages reek 
 with bloodshed. The most placid, benevolent, gold-spec- 
 tacled paterfamilias I know, a man who thinks it cruel to 
 eat live oysters, has a curious passion for crime and grati- 
 fies it by turning his study into a musee maccabre of mur- 
 derers' relics. From the thumb-joint of a notorious crim- 
 inal he can savour exquisitely morbid emotions, while the 
 blood-stains on an assassin's knife fill him with the de- 
 licious lust of slaughter. In the same way predestined 
 spinsters obtain vicarious enjoyment of the tender passion 
 by reading highly coloured love-stories."
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 75 
 
 "Just as that philosophical old stick, Sir Marcus Or- 
 deyne, does from this sort of thing," said Pasquale. 
 
 And he fished from the side of his chair, and held up by 
 the tip of a monstrous heel, the most audacious, high-in- 
 stepped, red satin slipper I ever saw. 
 
 I eyed the thing with profound disgust. I would have 
 given a hundred pounds for it to have vanished. In its red 
 satin essence it was reprehensible, and in its feminine as- 
 sertion it was compromising. How did it come there? 
 I conjectured that Carlotta must have been trespassing 
 in the drawing-room and dropped it, Cinderella-like, in 
 her flight, when she heard me enter the house before 
 dinner. 
 
 Pasquale held it up and regarded me quizzically. I pre- 
 tend to no austerity of morals; but a burglar unjustly 
 accused of theft suffers acuter qualms of indignation than 
 if he were a virtuous person. I regretted not having asked 
 Pasquale to dinner at the club. I particularly did not in- 
 tend to explain Carlotta to Pasquale. In fact, I see no rea- 
 son at all for me to proclaim her to my acquaintance. She 
 is merely an accident of my establishment. 
 
 I rose and rang the bell. 
 
 "That slipper," said I, "does not belong to me, and it 
 certainly ought not to be here." 
 
 Pasquale surrendered it to my outstretched hand. 
 
 "It must fit a remarkably pretty foot," said he. 
 
 "I assure you, my dear Pasquale," I replied dryly, "I 
 have never looked at the foot that it may fit." Nor had I. 
 A row of pink toes is not a foot. 
 
 "Stenson," said I, when my man appeared, "take this 
 to Miss Carlotta and say with my compliments she should 
 not have left it in the drawing-room." 
 
 Stenson, thinking I had rung for whisky, had brought 
 up decanter and glasses. As he set the tray upon the small
 
 j6 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 table, I noticed Pasquale look with some curiosity at my 
 man's impassive face. But he said nothing more about the 
 slipper. I poured out his whisky and soda. He drank a 
 deep draught, curled up his swaggering moustache and 
 suddenly broke into one of his disconcerting peals of 
 laughter. 
 
 "I haven't told you of the Grafin von Wentzel; I don't 
 know what put her into my head. There has been noth- 
 ing like it since the world began. Mind you a real live 
 aristocratic Grafin with a hundred quarterings ! " 
 
 He proceeded to relate a most scandalous, but highly 
 amusing story. An amazing, incredible tale; but it seemed 
 familiar. 
 
 "That," said I, at last, "is incident for incident a scene 
 out of UHistoire Comique de Francion." 
 
 "Never heard of it," said Pasquale, flashing. 
 
 "It was the first French novel of manners published 
 about 1620, and written by a man called Sorel. I don't 
 dream of accusing you of plagiarism, my dear fellow 
 that's absurd. But the ridiculous coincidence struck me. 
 You and the Grafin and the rest of you were merely re-en- 
 acting a three hundred year old farce." 
 
 "Rubbish!" said Pasquale. 
 
 "I'll show you," said I. 
 
 After wandering for a moment or two round my shelves, 
 I remembered that the book was in the dining-room. I 
 left Pasquale and went downstairs. I knew it was on one of 
 the top shelves near the ceiling. Now, my dining-room is lit 
 by one shaded electrolier over the table, so that the walls 
 of the room are in deep shadow. This has annoyed me 
 many times when I have been book-hunting. I really must 
 have some top lights put in. To stand on a chair and burn 
 wax matches in order to find a particular book is ignomin- 
 ious and uncomfortable. The successive illumination of
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 77 
 
 four wax matches did not shed itself upon L'Histoire Co- 
 mique de Francion. 
 
 If there is one thing that frets me more than another, it 
 is not to be able to lay my hand upon a book. I knew 
 Francion was there on the top shelves, and rather than 
 leave it undiscovered, I would have spent the whole night 
 in search. I suppose every one has a harmless lunacy. 
 This is mine. I must have hunted for that book for tw r enty 
 minutes, pulling out whole blocks of volumes and peering 
 with lighted matches behind, until my hands were covered 
 with dust. At last I found it had fallen to the rear of a 
 ragged regiment of French novels, and in triumph I took 
 it to the area of light on the table and turned up the scene 
 in question. Keeping my thumb in the place I returned 
 to the drawing-room. 
 
 "I'm sorry to have " I began. I stopped short. I 
 could scarcely believe my eyes. There, conversing with 
 Pasquale and lolling on the sofa, as if she had known him 
 for years, was Carlotta. 
 
 She must have seen righteous disapprobation on my 
 face, for she came running up to me. 
 
 " You see, I've made Miss Carlotta's acquaintance," said 
 Pasquale. 
 
 " So I perceive," said I. 
 
 " Stenson told me you wanted me to come to the draw- 
 ing-room in my red slippers," said Carlotta. 
 
 "I am afraid Stenson must have misdelivered my mes- 
 sage," said I. 
 
 " Then you do not want me at all, and I must go away?" 
 
 Oh, those eyes! I am growing so tired of them. I hesi- 
 tated, and was lost. 
 
 " Please let me stay and talk to Pasquale." 
 
 "Mr. Pasquale," I corrected. 
 
 She echoed my words with a cooing laugh, and taking
 
 78 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 my consent for granted, curled herself up in a corner of 
 the sofa. I resumed my seat with a sigh. It would have 
 been boorish to turn her out. 
 
 "This is much nicer than Alexandretta, isn't it?" said 
 Pasquale familiarly. "And Sir Marcus is an improve- 
 ment on Hamdi Effendi." 
 
 " Oh, yes. Seer Marcous lets me do whatever I like," 
 said Carlotta. 
 
 "I'm shot if I do," I exclaimed. "The confinement of 
 your existence in the East makes you exaggerate the com- 
 parative immunity from restriction which you enjoy in 
 England." 
 
 I notice that Carlotta is always impressed when I use 
 high sounding words. 
 
 "Still, if you could make love over garden walls, you 
 must have had a pretty slack tune, even in Alexandretta," 
 said Pasquale. 
 
 Obviously Carlotta had saved me the trouble of ex- 
 plaining her. 
 
 "I once met our friend Hamdi," Pasquale continued. 
 "He was the politest old ruffian that ever had a long nose 
 and was pitted with small-pox." 
 
 "Yes, yes!" cried Carlotta, delighted. "That is 
 Hamdi." 
 
 " Is there any disreputable foreigner that you are not fa- 
 miliar with?" I asked, somewhat sarcastically. 
 
 "I hope not," he laughed. "You must know I had got 
 into a deuce of a row at Aleppo, about eighteen months ago, 
 and had to take to my heels. Alexandretta is the port of 
 Aleppo and Hamdi is a sort of boss policeman there." 
 
 "He is very rich." 
 
 "He ought to be. My interview with him cost me a 
 thousand pounds the bald-headed scoundrel!" 
 
 "He is a shocking bad man," said Carlotta, gravely.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 79 
 
 "I'm afraid it is Mr. Pasquale who is the shocking bad 
 man,' 1 I said, amused. "What had you been doing in 
 Aleppo?" 
 
 "Maocime debetur," said he. 
 
 " English are very wicked when they go to Syria," she 
 remarked. 
 
 "How can you possibly know?" I said. 
 
 " Oh, I know," replied Carlotta, with a toss of her chin. 
 
 "My friend," said Pasquale, lighting a cigarette, "I have 
 travelled much in the East, and have had considerable ad- 
 ventures by the way; and I can assure you that what the 
 oriental lady doesn't know about essential things is not 
 worth knowing. Their life from the cradle to the grave is 
 a concentration of all their faculties, mortal and immortal, 
 upon the two vital questions, digestion and sex." 
 
 "What is sex?" asked Carlotta. 
 
 "It is the Fundamental Blunder of Creation," said I. 
 
 "I do not understand," said Carlotta. 
 
 "Nobody tries to understand Sir Marcus," said Pas- 
 quale, cheerfully. "We just let him drivel on until he is 
 aware no one is listening." 
 
 " Seer Marcous is very wise," said Carlotta, in serious de- 
 fence of her lord and master. "All day he reads in big 
 books and writes on paper." 
 
 I have been wondering since whether that is not as iron- 
 ical a judgment as ever was passed. Am I wise ? Is wis- 
 dom attained by reading in big books and writing on pa- 
 per ? Solomon remarks that wisdom dwells with prudence 
 and finds out knowledge of witty inventions; that the wis- 
 dom of the prudent is to understand his way; that wisdom 
 and understanding keep one from the strange woman and 
 the stranger which flattereth with her words. Now, I have 
 not been saved from the strange young woman who has 
 begun to flatter with her words ; I don't in the least under-
 
 80 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 stand my way, since I have no notion what I shall do with 
 her; and in taking her in and letting her loll upon my sofa 
 of evenings, so as to show off her red slippers to my guests, 
 I have thrown prudence to the winds ; and my only witty 
 invention was the idea of teaching her type- writing, which 
 is futile. If the philosophy of the excellent aphorist is 
 sound, I certainly have not much wisdom to boast of; and 
 none of the big books will tell me what a wise man would 
 have done had he net Carlotta in the Embankment Gar- 
 dens. 
 
 I did not think, however, that my wisdom was a proper 
 subject for discussion. I jerked back the conversation by 
 asking Carlotta why she called Hamdi Effendi a shocking 
 bad man. Her reply was startling. 
 
 " My mother told me. She used to cry all day long. She 
 was sorry she married Hamdi." 
 
 " Poor thing ! " said I. " Did he ill-treat her ? " 
 
 "Oh, ye-es. She had small-pox, too, and she was no 
 longer pretty, so Hamdi took other wives and she did not 
 like them. They were so fat and cruel. She used to tell 
 me I must kill myself before I married a Turk. Hamdi 
 was going to make me marry Mohammed Ali one two 
 years ago; but he died. When I said I was so glad" (that 
 seems to be her usual formula of acknowledgment of news 
 relating to the disasters of her acquaintance), "Hamdi 
 shut me up in a dark room. Then he said I must marry 
 Mustapha. That is why I ran away with Harry. See? 
 Oh, Hamdi is shocking bad." 
 
 From this and from other side-lights Carlotta has thrown 
 on her upbringing, I can realise the poor, pretty weak- 
 willed baby of a thing that was her mother, taking the line 
 of least resistance, the husband dead and the babe in her 
 womb, and entering the shelter offered by the amorous 
 Turk. And I can picture her during the fourteen years of
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 81 
 
 her imprisoned life, the disillusion, the heart-break, the 
 despair. No wonder the invertebrate soul could do no 
 more for her daughter than teach her monosyllabic Eng- 
 lish and the rudiments of reading and writing. Doubtless 
 she babbled of western life with its freedom and joyous- 
 ness for women; but four years have elapsed since her 
 death, and her stories are only elusive memories in Car- 
 lotta's mind. 
 
 It is strange that among the deadening influences of the 
 harem she has kept the hereditary alertness of the English- 
 woman. She has a baby mouth, it is true; she pleads to 
 you with the eyes of a dog; her pretty ways are those of a 
 young child; but she has not the dull, soulless, sensual look 
 of the pure-bred Turkish woman, such as I have seen in 
 Cairo through the transparent veils. In them there is no 
 attraction save of the flesh; and that only for the male 
 who, deformity aside, reckons women as merely so much 
 cubical content of animated matter placed by Allah at his 
 disposal for the satisfaction of his desires and the procrea- 
 tion of children. I cannot for the lif e of me understand an 
 Englishman falling in love with a Turkish woman. But I 
 can quite understand him falling in love with Carlotta. 
 The hereditary qualities are there, though they have been 
 forced into the channel of sex, and become a sort of dia- 
 bolical witchery whereof I am not quite sure whether she 
 is conscious. For all that, I don't think she can have a 
 soul. I have made up my mind that she hasn't, and I don't 
 like having my convictions disturbed. 
 
 Until I saw her perched in the corner of the sofa, with 
 her legs tucked up under her, and the light playing a game 
 of magic amid the reds and golds and browns of her hair, 
 while she cheerily discoursed to us of Hamdi's villainy, I 
 never noticed the dull decorum of this room. I was struck 
 with the decorative value of mere woman. 
 6
 
 82 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 I must break myself of the habit of wandering off on a 
 meditative tangent to the circle of conversation. I was 
 brought back by hearing Pasquale say: 
 
 " So you're going to marry an Englishman. It's all fixed 
 and settled, eh?" 
 
 "Of course," laughed Carlotta. 
 
 "Have you made up your mind what he is to be like?" 
 
 I could s*e the unconscionable Don Juan instinctively 
 preen himself peacock fashion. 
 
 "I am going to marry Seer Marcous," said Carlotta, 
 calmly. 
 
 She made this announcement not as a jest, not as a wish, 
 but as the commonplace statement of a fact. There was a 
 moment of stupefied silence. Pasquale who had just 
 struck a match to light a cigarette stared at me and let the 
 flame burn his fingers. I stared at Carlotta, speechless. 
 The colossal impudence of it! 
 
 "I am sorry to contradict you," said I, at last, with some 
 acidity, "but you are going to do no such thing." 
 
 " I am not going to marry you ?" 
 
 "Certainly not." 
 
 "Oh!" said Carlotta, in a tone of disappointment. 
 
 Pasquale rose, brought his heels together, put his hand 
 on his heart and made her a low bow. 
 
 "Will you have me instead of this stray bit of Stone- 
 henge?" 
 
 "Very well," said Carlotta. 
 
 I seized Pasquale by the arm. "For goodness sake, 
 don't jest with her! She has about as much sense of hu- 
 mour as a prehistoric cave-dweller. She thinks you have 
 made her a serious offer of marriage." 
 
 He made her another bow. 
 
 " You hear what Sir Granite says ? He forbids our union. 
 If I married you without his consent, he would flay me
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 83 
 
 alive, dip me in boiling oil and read me aloud his History 
 of Renaissance Morals. So I'm afraid it is no good." 
 
 "Then I mustn't marry him either?" asked Carlotta, 
 looking at me. 
 
 "No!" I cried, "you are not going to marry anybody. 
 You seem to have hymenomania. People don't marry in 
 this casual way in England. They think over it for a 
 couple of years and then they come together in a sober, 
 God-fearing, respectable manner." 
 
 "They marry at leisure and repent in haste," interposed 
 Pasquale. 
 
 "Precisely," said I. 
 
 "What we call a marriage-bed repentance," said Pas- 
 quale. 
 
 "I told you this poor child had no sense of humour," I 
 objected. 
 
 " You might as well kill yourself as marry without it." 
 
 "You are not going to marry anybody, Carlotta," said 
 I, "until you can see a joke." 
 
 "What is a joke?" inquired Carlotta. 
 
 "Mr. Pasquale asked you to many him. He didn't 
 mean it. That was a joke. It was enormously funny, and 
 you should have laughed." 
 
 "Then I must laugh when any one asks me to many 
 him?" 
 
 "As loud as you can," said I. 
 
 "You are so strange in England," sighed Carlotta. 
 
 I smiled, for I did not want to make her unhappy, and 
 I spoke to her intelligibly. 
 
 "Well, well, when you have quite learned all the Eng- 
 lish ways, I'll try and find you a nice husband. Now you 
 had better go to bed." 
 
 She retired, quite consoled. When the door closed be- 
 hind her, Pasquale shook his head at me.
 
 84 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 " Wasted ! Criminally wasted ! " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "That," he answered, pointing to the door. "That 
 bundle of bewildering fascination." 
 
 "That," said I, "is an horrible infliction which only my 
 cultivated sense of altruism enables me to tolerate." 
 
 "Her name ought to be Margarita." 
 
 "Why?" I ttkad. 
 
 "Ante porcos" said he. 
 
 Certainly Pasquale has a pretty wit and I admire it as I 
 admire most of his brilliant qualities, but I fail to see the 
 aptness of this last gibe. At the club this afternoon I 
 picked up an entertaining French novel called Enfilons 
 des Perks. On the illustrated cover was a row of un- 
 draped damsels sitting in oyster-shells, and the text of the 
 book went to show how it was the hero's ambition to make 
 a rosary of these pearls. Now I am a dull pig. Why? 
 Because I do not add Carlotta to my rosary. I never heard 
 such a monstrous thing in my life. To begin with, I have 
 no rosary. 
 
 I wish I had not read that French novel. I wish I had 
 not gone downstairs to hunt for its seventeenth century an- 
 cestor. I wish I had given Pasquale dinner at the club. 
 
 It is all the fault of Antoinette. Why can't she cook in 
 a middle-class, unedifying way ? All this comes from hav- 
 ing in the house a woman whose soul is in the stew-pot.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 July ist. 
 
 She has been now over five weeks under my roof, and I 
 have put off the evil day of explaining her to Judith; and 
 Judith returns to-morrow. 
 
 I know it is odd for a philosophic bachelor to maintain 
 in his establishment a young and detached female of pre- 
 possessing appearance. For the oddity I care not two pins. 
 Jo son'' io. But the question that exercises me occasionally 
 is: In what category are my relations with Carlotta to 
 be classified? I do not regard her as a daughter; still less 
 as a sister: not even as a deceased wife's sister. For a sec- 
 retary she is too abysmally ignorant, too grotesquely in- 
 capable. What she knows would be made to kick the beam 
 against the erudition of a guinea-pig. Yet she must be classi- 
 fied somehow. I must allude to her as something. At 
 present she fills the place in the house of a pretty (and ex- 
 pensive) Persian cat; and like a cat she has made herself 
 serenely at home. 
 
 A governess, a fat-cheeked girl, who I am afraid takes 
 too humorous a view of the position, comes of mornings 
 to instruct Carlotta in the rudiments of education. When 
 engaging Miss Griggs, I told her she must be patient, firm 
 and, above all, strong-minded. She replied that she made 
 a professional specialty of these qualities, one of her pres- 
 ent pupils being a young lady of the Alhambra ballet who 
 desires the particular shade of cultivation that will match 
 a new brougham. She teaches Carlotta to spell, to hold a 
 knife and fork, and corrects such erroneous opinions as that 
 the sky is an inverted bowl over a nice flat earth, and that 
 
 85
 
 86 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 the sun, moon, and stars are a sort of electric light installa- 
 tion, put into the cosmos to illuminate Alexandretta and 
 the Regent's Park. Her religious instruction I myself 
 shall attend to, when she is sufficiently advanced to un- 
 derstand my teaching. At present she is a Mohammedan, 
 if she is anything, and believes firmly in Allah. I consider 
 that a working Theism is quite enough for a young woman 
 in her position to go on with. In the afternoon she 
 walks out with Antoinette. Once she stole forth by her- 
 self, enjoyed herself hugely for a short time, got lost, and 
 was brought back thoroughly frightened by a policeman. 
 I wonder what the policeman thought of her ? The rest of 
 the day she looks at picture-books and works embroidery. 
 She is making an elaborate bed-spread which will give her 
 harmless occupation for a couple of years. 
 
 For an hour every evening, when I am at home, she 
 comes into the drawing-room and drinks coffee with me 
 and listens to my improving conversation. I take this op- 
 portunity to rebuke her for faults committed during the 
 day, or to commend her for especial good behaviour. I 
 also supplement the instruction in things in general that is 
 given her by the excellent Miss Griggs. Oddly enough I 
 am beginning to look forward to these evening hours. She 
 is so docile, so good-humoured, so spontaneous. If she 
 has a pain in her stomach, she says so with the most en- 
 gaging frankness. Sometimes I think of her only, in Pas- 
 quale's words, as a bundle of fascination, and forget that 
 she has no soul. Nearly always, however, something hap- 
 pens to remind me. She loves me to tell her stories. The 
 other night I solemnly related the history of Cinderella. 
 She was enchanted. It gave me the idea of setting her to 
 read "Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare." I was turning 
 this over in my mind while she chewed the cud of her en- 
 joyment, when she suddenly asked whether I would like
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 87 
 
 to hear a Turkish story. She knew lots of nice, funny sto- 
 ries. I bade her proceed. She curled herself up in her fa- 
 vourite attitude on the sofa and began. 
 
 I did not allow her to finish that tale. Had I done so, I 
 should have been a monster of depravity. Compared with 
 it the worst of Scheherazade's, in Burton's translation, were 
 milk and water for a nunnery. She seemed nonplussed 
 when I told her to stop. 
 
 "Are oriental ladies in the habit of telling such sto- 
 ries?" I asked. 
 
 "Why, yes," she replied with a candid air of astonish- 
 ment. " It is a funny story." 
 
 " There is nothing funny whatever in it," said I. " A girl 
 like you oughtn't to know of the existence of such things." 
 
 "Why not?" asked Carlotta. 
 
 I am always being caught up by her questions. I tried 
 to explain; but it was difficult. If I had told her that a 
 maiden's mind ought to be as pure as the dewy rose she 
 would not have understood me. Probably she would have 
 thought me a fool. And indeed I am inclined to question 
 whether it is an advantage to a maiden's after career to be 
 dewy-rose-like in her unsophistication. In order to play 
 tunes indifferently well on the piano she undergoes the 
 weary training of many years; but she is called upon to 
 display the somewhat more important accomplishment of 
 bringing children into the world without an hour's educa- 
 tional preparation. The difficulty is, where to draw the line 
 between this dewy, but often disastrous, ignorance and Car- 
 lotta' s knowledge. I find it a most delicate and embarrass- 
 ing problem. In fact, the problems connected with this 
 young woman seem endless. Yet they do not disturb me 
 as much as I had anticipated. I really believe I should 
 miss my pretty Persian cat. A man must be devoid of all 
 aesthetic sense to deny that she is delightful to look at.
 
 88 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 And she has a thousand innocent coquetries and cajoling 
 ways. She has a manner of holding chocolate creams to 
 her white teeth and talking to you at the same time which 
 is peculiarly fascinating. And she must have some sense. 
 To-night she asked me what I was writing I replied, "A 
 History of the Morals of the Renaissance." 
 
 "What are morals and what is the Renaissance?" asked 
 Carlotta. 
 
 When you come to think of it, it is a profound question, 
 which philosophers and historians have wasted vain lives 
 in trying to answer. I perceive that I too must try to an- 
 swer it with a certain amount of definition. I have spent 
 the evening remodelling my Introduction, so as to define 
 the two terms axiomatically with my subsequent argument, 
 and I find it greatly improved. Now this is due to Carlotta. 
 
 The quantity of chocolate creams the child eats cannot 
 be good for her digestion. I must see to this. 
 
 July zd. 
 
 A telegram from Judith to say she postpones her return 
 to Monday. I have been longing to see the dear woman 
 again, and I am greatly disappointed. At the same time 
 it is a respite from an explanation that grows more difficult 
 every day. I hate myself for the sense of relief. 
 
 This morning came an evening dress for Carlotta which 
 has taken a month in the making. This, I am given to un- 
 derstand, is delirious speed for a London dress-maker. 
 To celebrate the occasion I engaged a box at the Empire 
 for this evening and invited her to dine with me. I sent a 
 note of invitation round to Mrs. McMurray. 
 
 Carlotta did not come down at half-past seven. We 
 waited. At last Mrs. McMurray went up to the room and 
 presently returned shepherding a shy, blushing, awkward, 
 piteous young person who had evidently been crying. My
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 89 
 
 friend signed to me to take no notice. I attributed the 
 child's lack of gaiety to the ordeal of sitting for the first 
 "Mme in her life at a civilised dinner-table. She scarcely 
 spoke and scarcely ate. I complimented her on her ap- 
 pearance and she looked beseechingly at me, as if I were 
 scolding her. After dinner Mrs. McMurray told me the 
 reason of her distress. She had found Carlotta in tears. 
 Never could she face me in that low cut evening bodice. It 
 outraged her modesty. It could not be the practice of Eu- 
 ropean women to bare themselves so immodestly before 
 men. It was only the evidence of her visitor's own plump 
 neck and shoulders that convinced her, and she suffered 
 herself to be led downstairs in an agony of self-conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 When we entered the box at the Empire, a troupe of fe- 
 male acrobats were doing their turn. Carlotta uttered a 
 gasp of dismay, blushed burning red, and shrank back to 
 the door. There is no pretence about Carlotta. She was 
 shocked to the roots of her being. 
 
 "They are naked!" she said, quiveringly. 
 
 "For heaven's sake, explain," said I to Mrs. McMurray, 
 and I beat a hasty retreat to the promenade. 
 
 When I returned, Carlotta had been soothed down. 
 She was watching some performing dogs with intense won- 
 derment and delight. For the rest of the evening she sat 
 spell-bound. The exiguity of costume in the ballet caused 
 her indeed to glance in a frightened sort of way at Mrs. 
 McMurray, who reassured her with a friendly smile, but 
 the music and the maze of motion and the dazzle of colour 
 soon held her senses captive, and when the curtain came 
 down she sighed like one awaking from a dream. 
 
 As we drove home, she asked me : 
 
 " Is it like that all day long ? Oh, please to let me live 
 there!"
 
 90 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 A nice English girl of eighteen would not flaunt uncon- 
 cerned about my drawing-room in a shameless dressing- 
 gown, and crinkle up her toes in front of me; still less 
 would she tell me outrageous stories; but she will wear 
 low-necked dresses and gaze at ladies in tights without the 
 ghost of an immodest thought. I was right when I told 
 Carlotta England was Alexandretta upside-down. What 
 is immoral here is moral there, and vice-versa. There is 
 no such thing as absolute morality. I am very glad this 
 has happened. It shows me that Carlotta is not devoid of 
 the better kind of feminine instincts.
 
 CHAPTER 
 July 4th. 
 
 Judith has come back. I have seen her and I have ex- 
 plained Carlotta. 
 
 All day long I felt like a respectable person about to be 
 brought before a magistrate for being drunk and disor- 
 derly. Now I have the uneasy satisfaction of having been 
 let off with a caution. I am innocent, but I mustn't do it 
 again. 
 
 As soon as I entered the room Judith embraced me, and 
 said a number of foolish things. I responded to the best 
 of my ability. It is not usual for our quiet lake of affection 
 to be visited by such tornadoes. 
 
 " Oh, I am glad, I am glad to be back with you again. 
 I have longed for you. I couldn't write it. I did not know 
 I could long for any one so much." 
 
 "I have missed you immensely, my dear Judith," said I. 
 
 She looked at me queerly for a moment; then with a 
 radiant smile: 
 
 " I love you for not going into transports like a French- 
 man. Oh, I am tired of Frenchmen. You are my good 
 English Marcus, and worth all masculine Paris put to- 
 gether." 
 
 "I thank you, my dear, for the compliment," said I, 
 "but surely you must exaggerate." 
 
 "To me you are worth the masculine universe," said 
 Judith, and she seated me by her side on the sofa, held my 
 hands, and said more foolish things. 
 
 When the tempest had abated, I laughed. 
 
 "It is you that have acquired the art of transports in 
 Paris," said I. 
 
 91
 
 92 The Morals of Marcus Ordeynt 
 
 " Perhaps I have. Shall I teach you ? " 
 
 "You will have to learn moderation, my dear Judith," 
 I remarked. "You have been living too rapidly of late 
 and are looking tired." 
 
 "It is only the journey," she replied. 
 
 I am sure it is the unaccustomed dissipation. Judith is 
 not a strong woman, and late hours and eternal gadding 
 about do not suit her constitution. She has lost weight 
 and there are faint circles under her eyes. There are lines, 
 too, on her face which only show in hours of physical 
 strain. I was proceeding to expound this to her at some 
 length, for I consider it well for women to have some one 
 to counsel them frankly in such matters, when she inter- 
 rupted me with a gesture of impatience. 
 
 "There, there! Tell me what you have been doing with 
 yourself. Your letters gave me very little information." 
 
 " I am afraid," said I, " I am a poor letter writer." 
 
 "I read each ten times over," she said. 
 
 I kissed her hand in acknowledgment. Then I rose, lit 
 a cigarette and walked about the room. Judith shook out 
 her skirts and settled herself comfortably among the sofa- 
 cushions. 
 
 "Well, what crimes have you been committing the past 
 few weeks?" 
 
 A wandering minstrel was harping "Love's Sweet 
 Dream" outside the public-house below. I shut the 
 window, hastily. 
 
 "Nothing so bad as that," said I. "He ought to be 
 hung and his wild harp hung behind him." 
 
 "You are developing nerves," said Judith. "Is it a 
 guilty conscience?" She laughed. "You are hiding 
 something from me. I've been aware of it all the time." 
 
 "Indeed? How?" 
 
 "By the sixth sense of woman!"
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 93 
 
 Confound the sixth sense of woman! I suppose it has 
 been developed like a cat's whiskers to supply the defi- 
 ciency of a natural scent. Also, like the whiskers, it is ob- 
 trusive, and a matter for much irritatingly complacent pride. 
 Judith regarded me with a mock magisterial air, and I was 
 put into the dock at once. 
 
 "Something has happened," I said, desperately. "A 
 female woman has come and taken up her residence at 26 
 Lingfield Terrace. A few weeks ago she ate with her fin- 
 gers and believed the earth was flat. I found her in the 
 Victoria Embankment Gardens beneath the terrace of the 
 National Liberal Club, and now she lives on chocolate 
 creams and the 'Child's Guide to Knowledge.' She is 
 eighteen and her name is Carlotta. There!" 
 
 As my cigarette had gone out, I threw it with some peev- 
 ishness into the grate. Judith's expression had changed 
 from mock to real gravity. She sat bolt upright and looked 
 at me somewhat stonily. 
 
 "What in the world do you mean, Marcus?" 
 
 "What I say. I'm saddled with the responsibility of a 
 child of nature as unsophisticated and perplexing as Vol- 
 taire's Huron. She's English and she came from a harem 
 in Syria, and she is as beautiful as the houris she believes 
 in and is unfortunately precluded from joining. One of 
 these days I shall be teaching her her catechism. I have 
 already washed her face. Kindly pity me as the innocent 
 victim of fantastic circumstances." 
 
 "I don't see why I should pity you," said Judith. 
 
 I felt I had not explained Carlotta tactfully. If there 
 are ten ways of doing a thing I have noticed that I invari- 
 ably select the one way that is wrong. I perceived that 
 somehow or other the very contingency I had feared had 
 come to pass. I had prejudiced Judith against Carlotta. 
 I had aroused the Ishmaelite her hand against every
 
 94 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 woman and every woman's hand against her that sui* 
 vives in all her sex. 
 
 "My dear Judith," said I, "if a wicked fairy godmother 
 had decreed that a healthy rhinoceros should be my house- 
 mate you would have extended me your sympathy. But 
 because Fate has inflicted on me an equally embarrassing 
 guest in the shape of a young woman " 
 
 "My dear Marcus," interrupted Judith, "the healthy 
 rhinoceros would know twenty times as much about women 
 as you do." This I consider one of the silliest remarks Ju- 
 dith has ever made. " Do," she continued, "tell me some- 
 thing coherent about this young person you call Carlotta." 
 
 I told the story from beginning to end. 
 
 "But why in the world did you keep it from me?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "I mistrusted the sixth sense of woman," said I. 
 
 " The most elementary sense of woman or any one else 
 would have told you that you were doing a very foolish 
 thing." 
 
 "How would you have acted?" . 
 
 "I should have handed her over at once to the Turkish 
 consulate." 
 
 "Not if you had seen her eyes." 
 
 Judith tossed her head. "Men are all alike," she ob- 
 served. 
 
 "On the contrary," said I, "that which characterises 
 men as a sex is their greater variation from type than 
 women. It is a scientific fact. You will find it stated by 
 Darwin and more authoritatively still by later writers. 
 The highest common factor of a hundred women is far 
 greater than that of a hundred men. The abnormal is 
 more frequent in the male sex. There are more male 
 monsters." 
 
 "That I can quite believe," snapped Judith.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 95 
 
 "Then you agree with me that men are not all alike?" 
 
 "I certainly don't. Put any one of you before a pretty 
 face and a pair of silly girl's eyes and he is a perfect idiot." 
 
 "My dear Judith," said I, "I don't care a hang for a 
 pretty face except yours." 
 
 " Do you really care about mine ? " she asked wistfully. 
 
 "My dear," said I, dropping on one knee by the sofa, 
 and taking her hand, "I've been longing for it for six 
 weeks." And I counted the weeks on her fingers. 
 
 This put her in a good humour. Now that I come to 
 think of it, there is something adorably infantile in grown 
 up women. Shall man ever understand them? I have 
 seen babies (not many, I am glad to say) crow with delight 
 at having their toes pulled, with a "this little pig went to 
 market," and so forth; Judith almost crowed at having 
 the weeks told off on her fingers. Queer! 
 
 An hour was taken up with the account of her doings in 
 Paris. She had met all the nicest and naughtiest people. 
 She had been courted and flattered. An artist in a slouch 
 hat, baggy corduroy breeches, floppy tie and general 1830 
 misfit had made love to her on the top of the Eiffel 
 Tower. 
 
 "And he said," laughed Judith, "'Partons ensemble. 
 Comme on dit en Anglais fly with me!' I remarked that 
 our state when we got to the Champs de Mars would be an 
 effective disguise. He didn't understand, and it was de- 
 licious!" 
 
 I laughed. "All the same," I observed, "I can't see the 
 fun of making jokes which the person to whom you make 
 them doesn't see the point of." 
 
 "Why, that's your own peculiar form of humour," she 
 retorted. "I caught the trick from you." 
 
 Perhaps she is right. I have noticed that people are
 
 g6 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 slow in their appreciation of my witticisms. I must really 
 be a very dull dog. If she were not fond of me I don't see 
 how a bright woman like Judith could tolerate my society 
 for half an hour. 
 
 I don't think I contribute to the world's humour; but 
 the world's humour contributes much to my own enter- 
 tainment, and things which appear amusing to me do not 
 appeal, when I point them out, to the risible faculties of 
 another. Every individual, I suppose, like every civilisa- 
 tion, must have hi? own standard of humour. If I were a 
 Roman (instead of an English) Epicurean, I should have 
 died with laughter at the sight of a fat Christian martyr 
 scudding round the arena while chased by a hungry lion. 
 At present I should faint with horror. Indeed, I always 
 feel tainted with savagery and enjoying a vicarious lust, 
 when I smile at the oft-repeated tale of the poor tiger in 
 Dore"'s picture that hadn't got a Christian. On the other 
 hand, it tickles me immensely to behold a plethoric com- 
 monplace Briton roar himself purple with impassioned 
 platitude at a political meeting; but I perceive that all my 
 neighbours take him with the utmost seriousness. Again, 
 your literary journalist professes to wriggle in his chair 
 over the humour of Jane Austen; to me she is the dullest 
 lady that ever faithfully photographed the trivial. Years 
 ago I happened to be crossing Putney Bridge, in a frock- 
 coat and silk hat, when a passing member of the proletariat 
 dug his elbows in his comrade's ribs and, quoting a music- 
 hall tag of the period, shouted "He's got 'em on!" where- 
 upon both burst into peals of robustious but inane laugh- 
 ter. Now, if I had turned to them, and said, "He would 
 be funnier if I hadn't," and paraphrased, however wittily, 
 Carlyle's ironical picture of a nude court of St. James's, 
 they would have punched my head under the confused 
 idea that I was trying to bamboozle them. Which brings
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 97 
 
 e to my point of departure, my remark to Judith as to the 
 futility of jesting to unpercipient ears. 
 
 I did not take up her retort. 
 
 "And what was the end of the romance?" I asked. 
 
 "He borrowed twenty francs of me to pay for the 
 dejeuner, and his VannSe trente delicacy of soul compelled 
 him to blot my existence forever from his mind." 
 
 "He never repaid you?" I asked. 
 
 "For a humouristic philosopher," cried Judith, "you 
 are delicious!" 
 
 Judith is too fond of that word "delicious." She uses 
 it in season and out of season. 
 
 We have the richest language that ever a people has 
 accreted, and we use it as if it were the poorest. We hoard 
 up our infinite wealth of words between the boards of dic- 
 tionaries and in speech dole out the worn bronze coinage 
 of our vocabulary. We are the misers of philological his- 
 tory. And when we can save our pennies and pass the 
 counterfeit coin of slang, we are as happy as if we heard a 
 blind beggar thank us for putting a pewter sixpence into 
 his hat. 
 
 I said something of the sort to Judith, after she had re- 
 sumed her seat and I had opened the window, the minstrel 
 having wandered to the next hostelry, where the process of 
 converting "Love's Sweet Dream" into a nightmare was 
 still faintly audible. Judith looked at me whimsically, as 
 I stood breathing the comparatively fresh air and enjoying 
 the relative silence. 
 
 "You are still the same, I am glad to see. Conversation 
 with the young savage from Syria hasn't altered you in the 
 least." 
 
 "In the first place," said I, "savages do not grow in 
 Syria; and in the second, how could she have altered me?" 
 
 "If the heavens were to open and the New Jerusalem 
 7
 
 98 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 te appear thi* moment before you," retorted Judith, with 
 the relevant irrelevance of her sex, "you would begin 
 an unconcerned disquisition on the iconography of an- 
 gels." 
 
 I sat on the sofa end and touched one of her little pink 
 ears. She has pretty ears. They were the first of things 
 physical about her that attracted me to her years ago in 
 the Roman pension they and the mass of silken flax that 
 is her hair, and her violet eyes. 
 
 " Did you learn that particular way of talking in Paris ?" 
 I asked. 
 
 She had the effrontery to say she was imitating me and 
 that it was a very good imitation indeed. 
 
 We talked about the book. I touched upon the great 
 problem that requires solution the harmonising and jus- 
 tifying of the contradictory opposites in Renaissance char- 
 acter: Fra Lippo Lippi breaking his own vows and breaking 
 a nun's for her; Perugino leading his money-grubbing, mo- 
 rose life and painting ethereal saints and madonnas in his 
 bottega, while the Baglioni rilled the streets outside with 
 slaughter; Lorenzo de' Medici bleeding literally and figura- 
 tively his fellow-citizens, going from that occupation to his 
 Platonic Academy and disputing on the immortality of the 
 soul, winding up with orgies of sensual depravity with his 
 boon companion Pulci, and all the time making himself 
 an historic name for statecraft; Pope Sixtus IV, at the very 
 heart of the Pazzi conspiracy to murder the Medici 
 
 "And Pope Nicholas V when drunk ordering a man to be 
 executed, and being sorry for it when sober," said Judith. 
 
 It is wonderful how Judith, with her quite unspecialised 
 knowledge of history can now and then put her finger 
 upon something vital. I have been racking my brain and 
 searching my library for the past two or three days for an
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordcyne 99 
 
 illustration of just that nature. I had not thought of it. 
 Here is Tomaso da Sarzana, a quiet, retired schoolmaster, 
 like myself, an editor of classical texts, a peaceful libra- 
 rian of Cosmo de' Medici, a scholar and a gentleman to the 
 tips of his fingers; he is made Pope, a King Log to save 
 the cardinalate from a possible King Stork Colonna; the 
 Porcari conspiracy breaks out, is discovered and the con- 
 spirators are hunted over Italy and put to death ; a gentle- 
 man called Anguillara is slightly inculpated; he is invited 
 to Rome by Nicholas, and given a safe-conduct; when he 
 arrives the Pope is drunk (at least Stefano Infessura, the 
 contemporary diarist, says so) ; the next morning his Ho- 
 liness finds to his surprise and annoyance that the gentle- 
 man's head has been cut off by his orders. It is an amaz- 
 ing tale. To realise how amazing it is, one must picture 
 the fantastic possibility of it happening at the Vatican now- 
 adays. And the most astounding thing is this: that if all 
 the dead and gone popes were alive, and the soul of the 
 saintly Pontiff of to-day were to pass from him, the one who 
 could most undetected occupy his simulacrum would be 
 this very Thomas of Sarzana. 
 
 "Pardon me, my dear Judith," said I. "But this is a 
 story lying somewhat up one of the back-waters of history. 
 Where did you come across it?" 
 
 "I saw it the other day in a French comic paper," re- 
 plied Judith. 
 
 I really don't know which to admire the more: the in- 
 consequent way in which the French toss about scholar- 
 ship, or the marvellous power of assimilation possessed by 
 Judith. 
 
 Before we separated she returned to the subject of Car- 
 lotta. 
 "Am I to see this young creature?" she asked.
 
 loo The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "That is just as you choose," said I. 
 
 "Oh! as far as I am concerned, my dear Marcus, I am 
 perfectly indifferent," replied Judith, assuming the super- 
 cilious expression with which women invariably try to 
 mask inordinate curiosity. 
 
 "Then," said I, with a touch of malice, "there is no 
 reason why you should make her acquaintance." 
 
 "I should be able to see through her tricks and put you 
 on your guard." 
 
 "Against what?" 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders as if it were vain to waste 
 breath on so obtuse a person. 
 
 "You had better bring her round some afternoon," she 
 said. 
 
 J3ave I acted wisely in confessing Carlotta to Judith? 
 And why do I use the word "confess" ? Far from having 
 committed an evil action, I consider I have exhibited ex- 
 emplary altruism. Did I want a "young savage from 
 Syria" to come and interfere with my perfectly ordered 
 life ? Judith does not realise this. I had a presentiment 
 of the prejudice she would conceive against the poor girl, 
 and now it has been verified. I wish I had held my tongue. 
 As Judith, for some feminine reason known only to herself, 
 has steadily declined to put her foot inside my house, she 
 might very well have remained unsuspicious of Carlotta's 
 existence. And why not ? The fact of the girl being my 
 pensioner does not in the least affect the personality which 
 I bring to Judith. The idea is absurd. Why wasn't I wise 
 before the event ? I might have spared myself considerable 
 worry. 
 
 A letter from my Aunt Jessica enclosing a card for a 
 fancy dress ball at the Empress Rooms. The preposter- 
 ous lady!
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 101 
 
 " Do come. It is not right for a young man to lead the 
 fife of a recluse of seventy. Here we are in the height of 
 the London season, and I am sure you haven't been into 
 ten houses, when a hundred of the very best are open to 
 you " I loathe the term "best houses." The tinsel in- 
 eptitude of them ! For entertainment I really would sooner 
 attend a mothers' meeting or listen to the serious British 
 Drama Have I read so and so's novel? Am I going to 
 Mrs. Chose's dance ? Do I ride in the Park ? Do I know 
 young Thingummy of the Guards, who is going to marry 
 Lady Betty Something ? What do I think of the Academy ? 
 As if one could have any sentiment with regard to the 
 Academy save regret at such profusion of fresh paint! 
 "You want shaking up," continued my aunt. Silly 
 woman! If there is a thing I should abhor it would be to 
 be shaken up. " Come and dine with us at seven- thirty in 
 costume, and I'll promise you a delightful time. And 
 think how proud the girls would be of showing off their 
 beau cousin." Et patiti et patita. I am again reminded 
 that I owe it to my position, my title. God ha' mercy on 
 us ! To bedeck myself like a decayed mummer in a booth 
 and frisk about in a pestilential atmosphere with a crowd 
 of strange and uninteresting young females is the correct 
 way of fulfilling the obligations that the sovereign laid 
 upon the successors to the title, when he conferred the dig- 
 nity of a baronetcy on my great-grandfather ! Now I come 
 to think of it the Prince Regent was that sovereign, and my 
 ancestor did things for him at Brighton. Perhaps after all 
 there is a savage irony of truth in Aunt Jessica's suggestion! 
 
 And a beau cousin should I be indeed. What does she 
 think I would go as ? A mousquetaire ? or a troubadour 
 in blue satin trunks and cloak, white silk tights and shoes 
 and a Grecian helmet, like Mr. Snodgrass at Mrs. Leo 
 Hunter's fete champetre?
 
 IO2 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 I wish I could fathom Aunt Jessica's reasons for her 
 attempts at involving me in her social mountebankery. If 
 the girls get no better dance-partners than me, heaven 
 help them! 
 
 Only a fortnight ago I drove with them to Hurlmgham. 
 My aunt and Gwendolen disappeared in an unaccountable 
 manner with another man, leaving me under an umbrella 
 tent to take charge of Dora. I had an hour and a half of 
 undiluted Dora. The dose was too strong, and it made my 
 head ache. I think I prefer neat Carlotta.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 July $th. 
 
 I lunched at home, and read drowsily before the open 
 window till four o'clock. Then the splendour of the day 
 invited me forth. Whither should I go ? I thought of Ju- 
 dith and Hampstead Heath; I also thought of Carlotta 
 and Hyde Park. The sound of the lions roaring for their 
 afternoon tea reached me through the still air, and I put 
 from me a strong temptation to wander alone and med- 
 itative in the Zoological Gardens close by. I must not 
 forget, I reflected, that I am responsible for Carlotta's edu- 
 cation, whereas I am in no wise responsible for the ani- 
 mals or for Judith. If Judith and I had claims one on the 
 other, the entire charm of our relationship would be 
 broken. 
 
 I resolved to take Carlotta to the park, in order to im- 
 prove her mind. She would see how well-bred English- 
 women comport themselves externally. It would be a 
 lesson in decorum. 
 
 I do not despise convention. Indeed, I follow it up to 
 the point when it puts on the airs of revealed religion. My 
 neighbours and I decide on a certain code of manners 
 which will enable us to meet without mutual offence. I 
 agree to put my handkerchief up to my nose when I sneeze 
 in his presence, and he contracts not to wipe muddy boots 
 on my sofa. I undertake not to shock his wife by parad- 
 ing my hideous immorality before her eyes, and he binds 
 himself not to aggravate my celibacy by beating her or 
 kissing her when I am paying a call. J agree, by wearing 
 
 103
 
 IO4 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 an arbitrarily fixed costume when I dine with him, to brand 
 myself with the stamp of a certain class of society, so that 
 his guests shall receive me without question, and he in re- 
 turn gives me a well-ordered dinner served with the mini- 
 mum amount of inconvenience to myself that his circum- 
 stances allow. Many folks make what they are pleased to 
 call unconventionally a mere cloak for selfish disregard of 
 the feelings and tastes of others. Bohemianism too often 
 means piggish sloth or slatternly ineptitude. 
 
 Convention is solely a matter of manners. That is why 
 I desire to instil some convention into what, for want of a 
 more accurate term, I may allude to as Carlotta's mind. 
 It will save me much trouble in the future. 
 
 I summoned Carlotta. 
 
 "Carlotta," I said, "I am going to take you to Hyde 
 Park and show you the English aristocracy wearing their 
 best clothes and their best behaviour. You must do the 
 same." 
 
 "My best clothes?" cried Carlotta, her face lighting up. 
 
 " Your very best. Make haste." 
 
 I smiled. She ran from the room and in an incredibly 
 short time reappeared unblushingly bare-necked and bare- 
 armed in the evening dress that had caused her such dis- 
 may on Saturday. 
 
 I jumped to my feet. There is no denying that she 
 looked amazingly beautiful. She looked, in fact, discon- 
 certingly beautiful. I found it hard to tell her to take the 
 dress off again. 
 
 "Is it wrong?" she asked with a pucker of her baby 
 lips. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said I. "People would be shocked." 
 
 "But on Saturday evening " she began. 
 
 "I know, my child," I interrupted. "In society you are 
 scarcely respectable unless you go about half naked at
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 105 
 
 night; but to do so in the daytime would be the grossest 
 indecency. I'll explain some other time." 
 
 "I shall never understand," said Carlotta. 
 
 Two great tears stood, one on each eyelid, and fel? 
 simultaneously down her cheeks. 
 
 "What on earth are you crying for?" I asked aghast. 
 
 "You are not pleased with me," said Carlotta, with a 
 choke in her voice. 
 
 The two tears fell like rain-drops on to her bosom, and 
 she stood before me a picture of exquisite woe. Then I 
 did a very foolish thing. 
 
 Last week a little gold brooch in a jeweller's window 
 caught my fancy. I bought it with the idea of presenting 
 it to Carlotta ; when an occasion offered, as a reward for 
 peculiar merit. Now, however, to show her that I was in 
 no way angry, I abstracted the bauble from the drawer of 
 my writing-table, and put it in her hand. 
 
 "You please me so much, Carlotta," said I, "that I 
 have bought this for you." 
 
 Before I had completed the sentence, and before I knew 
 what she was after, her arms were round my neck and she 
 was hugging me like a child. 
 
 I have never experienced such an odd sensation in my 
 life as the touch of Carlotta's fresh young arms upon my 
 face and the perfume of spring violets that emanated from 
 her person. I released myself swif tly from her indecorous 
 demonstration. 
 
 "You mustn't do things like that," said I, severely. 
 "In England, young women are only allowed to embrace 
 their grandfathers." 
 
 Carlotta looked at m wide-eyed, with the fox-terrier 
 knitting of the forehead. 
 
 "But you are so good to me, Seer Marcous," she said. 
 
 "I hope you'll find many people good to you, Carlotta,"
 
 106 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 I answered. " But if you continue that method of expressing 
 your appreciation, you may possibly be misunderstood." 
 
 I had recovered from the momentary shock to my senses, 
 and I laughed. She fluttered a sidelong glance at me, and 
 a smile as inscrutable as the Monna Lisa's hovered over her 
 lips. 
 
 ''What would they do if they did not understand?" 
 
 "They would take you," I replied, fixing her sternly 
 with my gaze, "they would take you for an unconscion- 
 able baggage." 
 
 "Houl" laughed Carlotta, suddenly. And she ran from 
 the room. 
 
 In a moment she was back again. She came up to me 
 demurely and plucked my sleeve. 
 
 " Come and show me what I must put on so as to please 
 you." 
 
 I rang the bell for Antoinette, to whom I gave the neces- 
 sary instructions. Her next request would be that I should 
 act the part of lady's-maid. I must maintain my dignity 
 with Carlotta. 
 
 The lovely afternoon had attracted many people to the 
 park, and the lawns were thronged. We found a couple 
 of chairs at the edge of one of the cross-paths and watched 
 the elegant assembly. Carlotta, vastly entertained, asked 
 innumerable questions. How could I tell whether a lady 
 was married or unmarried? Did they all wear stays? 
 Why did every one look so happy ? Did I think that old 
 man was the young girl's husband? What were they all 
 talking about ? Wouldn't I take her for a drive in one of 
 those beautiful carriages ? Why hadn't I a carriage ? Then 
 suddenly, as if inspired, after a few minutes' silent reflec- 
 tion: 
 
 "Seer Marcous, is this the marriage market?" 
 
 "The what?" I gasped.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 107 
 
 "The marriage market. I read it in a book, yesterday. 
 Miss Griggs gave it me to read aloud Tack Thack " 
 
 "Thackeray?" 
 
 "Ye-es. They come here to sell the young girls to men 
 who want wives." She edged away from me, with a little 
 movement of alarm. " That is not why you have brought 
 me here to sell me ? " 
 
 "How much do you think you would be worth?" I 
 asked, sarcastically. 
 
 She opened out her hands palms upward, throwing 
 down her parasol, as she did so, upon her neighbour's 
 little Belgian griffon, who yelped. 
 
 "Uh, lots," she said in her frank way. "I am very 
 beautiful." 
 
 I picked up the parasol, bowed apologetically to the 
 owner of the stricken animal, and addressed Carlotta. 
 
 "Listen, my good child. You are passably good-look- 
 ing, but you are by no means very beautiful. If I tried to 
 sell you here, you might possibly fetch half a crown " 
 
 'Two shillings and sixpence?" asked the literal Car- 
 lotta. 
 
 " Yes. Just that. But as a matter of fact, no one would 
 buy you. This is not the marriage market. There is no 
 such thing as a marriage market. English mothers and 
 fathers do not sell their daughters for money. Such a thing 
 is monstrous and impossible." 
 
 "Then it was all lies I read in the book?" 
 
 "All lies," said I. 
 
 I hope the genial shade of the great satirist has forgiven 
 me. 
 
 "Why do they put lies in books?" 
 
 "To accentuate the Truth, so that it shall prevail," I 
 answered. 
 
 This was too hard a nut for Carlotta to crack. She was
 
 io8 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 silent for a moment. She reverted, ruefully, to the intelli- 
 gible. 
 
 "I thought I was beautiful," she said. 
 
 "Who told you so?" 
 
 "Pasquale." 
 
 "Pasquale has no sense," said I. "There are men to 
 whom all women who are not seventy and toothless and 
 rheumy at the eyes are beautiful. Pasquale has said the 
 same to every woman he has met. He is a Lothario and 
 a Don Juan and a Caligula and a Faublas and a Casanova." 
 
 "And he tells lies, too?" 
 
 "Millions of them," said I. "He contracts with their 
 father Beelzebub for a hundred gross a day." 
 
 " Pasquale is very pretty and he makes me laugh and I 
 like him," said Carlotta. 
 
 " I am very sorry to hear it," said I. 
 
 The griffon, who had been sniffing at Carlotta's skirts, 
 suddenly leaped into her lap. With a swift movement of 
 her hand she swept the poor little creature, as if it had 
 been a noxious insect, yards away. 
 
 "Carlotta!" I cried angrily, springing to my feet. 
 
 The ladies who owned the beast rushed to their whin- 
 ing pet and looked astonished daggers at Carlotta. When 
 they picked it up, it sat dangling a piteous paw. Carlotta 
 rose, merely scared at my anger. I raised my hat. 
 
 "I am more than sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I 
 am. I hope the little dog is not hurt. My ward, for whom 
 I offer a thousand apologies, is a Mohammedan, to whom 
 all dogs are unclean. Please attribute the accident to re- 
 ligious instinct." 
 
 The younger of the two, who had been examining the 
 paw, looked up with a smile. 
 
 "Your ward is forgiven. Punch oughtn't to jump on 
 strange ladies' laps, whether they are Mohammedans or
 
 The Morals of" Marcus Ordeyne 1 09 
 
 not. Oh! he is more frightened than hurt. And I," she 
 added, with a twinkling eye, "am more hurt than fright- 
 ened, because Sir Marcus Ordeyne doesn't recognise me." 
 
 So Carlotta had nearly killed the dog of an unrecalled 
 acquaintance. 
 
 "I do indeed recognise you now," said I, mendaciously. 
 I seem to have been lying to-day through thick and thin. 
 "But in the confusion of the disaster " 
 
 " You sat next me at lunch one day last winter, at Mrs. 
 Ordeyne's," interrupted the lady, "and you talked to me 
 of transcendental mathematics." 
 
 I remembered. "The crime," said I, "has lain heavily 
 on my conscience." 
 
 "I don't believe a word of it," she laughed, dismissing 
 me with a bow. I raised my hat and joined Carlotta. 
 
 It was a Miss Gascoigne, a flirtatious intimate of Aunt 
 Jessica's house. To this irresponsible young woman I 
 had openly avowed that I was the guardian of a beautiful 
 Mohammedan whose religious instinct compelled her to 
 destroy little dogs. I shall hear of this from my Aunt 
 Jessica. 
 
 I walked stonily away with Carlotta. 
 
 "You are cross with me," she whimpered. 
 
 "Yes, I am. You might have killed the poor little 
 beast. It was very wicked and cruel of you." 
 
 Carlotta burst out crying in the midst of the promenade. 
 
 The tears did not romantically come into her eyes as 
 they had done an hour before; but she wept copiously, 
 after the unrestrained manner of children, and used her 
 pocket-handkerchief. From their seats women put up 
 their lorgnons to look at her, passers-by turned round and 
 stared. The whole of the gaily dressed throng seemed to 
 be one amused gaze. In a moment or two I became con- 
 scious that reprehensory glances were being directed tow-
 
 no The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 ards myself, calling me, as plain as eyes could call an ill- 
 conditioned brute, for making the poor young creature, 
 who was at my mercy, thus break down in public. It was 
 a charming situation for an even-tempered philosopher. 
 We walked stolidly on, I glaring in front of me and Cariotta 
 weeping. The malice of things arranged that no neigh- 
 bouring chair should be vacant, and that the path should 
 be unusually crowded. I had the satisfaction of o\- "hear- 
 ing a young fellow say to a girl: 
 
 "He? That's Ordeyne came into the baronetcy 
 mad as a dingo dog." 
 
 I was giving myself a fine advertisement. 
 
 "For heaven's sake stop crying," I said. Then a mem- 
 ory of far-off childhood flashed its inspiration upon me. 
 "If you don't," I added, grimly, "I'll take you out and 
 give you to a policeman." 
 
 The effect was magical. She turned on me a scared 
 look, gasped, pulled down her veil, which she had raised 
 so as to dab her eyes with her pocket-handkerchief, and 
 incontinently checked the fountain of her tears. 
 
 "A policeman?" 
 
 "Yes," said I, "a great, big, ugly blue policeman, who 
 shuts up people who misbehave themselves in prison, and 
 takes off their clothes, and shaves their heads, and feeds 
 them on bread and water." 
 
 "I won't cry any more," she said, swallowing a sob. 
 "Is it also wicked to cry?" 
 
 "Any of these ladies here would sooner be burned alive 
 with dyspepsia or cut in two with tight-lacing," I replied 
 severely. "Let us sit down." 
 
 We stepped over the low iron rail, and passing through 
 the first two rows of people, found seats behind where the 
 crowd was thinner. 
 
 "Is Seer Marcous still angry with me?" asked Car<
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 1 1 1 
 
 lotta, and the simple plaintiveness of her voice would have 
 melted the bust of Nero. I lectured her on cruelty to ani- 
 mals. That one had duties of kindness towards the lower 
 creation appealed to her as a totally new idea. Supposing 
 the dog had broken all its legs and ribs, would she not have 
 been sorry ? She answered frankly in the negative. It was 
 a nasty little dog. If she had hurt it badly, so much the 
 better. What did it matter if a dog was hurt? She was 
 sorry now she had hurled it into space, because it belonged 
 to my friends, and that had made me cross with her. 
 
 Of coarse I was shocked at the thoughtless cruelty of 
 the action ; but my anger had also its roots in dismay at the 
 public scandal it might have caused, and in the discovery 
 that I was known to the victim's owner. It is the sad fate 
 of the instructors of youth that they must hypocritically 
 credit themselves with only the sublimest of motives. I 
 spoke to Carlotta like the good father in the " Swiss Fam- 
 ily Robinson." I gave vent to such noble sentiments that 
 in a quarter of an hour I glowed with pride in my bor- 
 rowed plumes of virtue. I would have taken a slug to my 
 bosom and addressed a rattlesnake as Uncle Toby did the 
 fly. I wonder whether it is not through some such process 
 as this that parsons manage to keep themselves good. 
 
 The soothing warmth of conscious merit restored me to 
 good temper; and when Carlotta slid her hand into mine 
 and asked me if I had forgiven her, I magnanimously 
 assured her that all the past was forgotten. 
 
 "Only," said I, "you will have to get out of this habit 
 of tears. A wise man called Burton says in his 'Anatomy 
 of Melancholy,' a beautiful book which I'll give you to 
 read when you are sixty, 'As much count may be taken of 
 a woman weeping as a goose going barefoot.' " 
 
 "He was a nasty old man," said Carlotta. "Women 
 cry because they feel very unhappy. Men are never un-
 
 H2 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 happy, and that is the reason that men don't cry. My 
 mamma used to cry all the time at Alexandretta; but 
 Hamdi! " she broke into an adorable trill of a chuckle, 
 "You would as soon see a goose going with boots and 
 stockings, like the Puss in the shoes the fairy tale as 
 Hamdi crying. Hou!" 
 
 Half an hour later, as we were driving homewards, she 
 broke a rather long silence which she had evidently been 
 employing in meditation. 
 
 " Seer Marcous." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 She has a child's engaging way of rubbing herself up 
 against one when she wants to be particularly ingratiating. 
 
 "It was so nice to dine with you on Saturday." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 " Oh, ye-es. When are you going to let me dine with 
 you again, to show me you have forgiven me?" 
 
 A hansom cab offers peculiar facilities for the aforesaid 
 process of ingratiation. 
 
 "You shall dine with me this evening," said I, and Car- 
 lotta cooed with pleasure. 
 
 I perceive that she is gradually growing westernised. 
 
 July 8th. 
 
 In obedience to a peremptory note from Judith, I took 
 Carlotta this afternoon to Tottenham Mansions. I shook 
 hands with my hostess, turned round and said: 
 
 "This, my dear Judith, is Carlotta." 
 
 "I am very pleased to see you," said Judith. 
 
 " So am I," replied Carlotta, not to be outdone in po- 
 liteness. 
 
 She sat bolt upright, most correctly, on the edge of a 
 chair, and responded moncsyllabically to Judith's ques- 
 tions. Her demeanour could not have been more impec-
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 113 
 
 cable had she been trained in a French convent. Just 
 before we arrived, she had been laughing immoderately 
 because I had ordered her to spit out a mass of horrible 
 sweetmeat which she had found it impossible to masti- 
 cate, and she had challenged me to extract it with my fin- 
 gers. But now, compared with her, Saint Nitouche was a 
 Maenad. I was entertained by Judith's fruitless efforts to 
 get behind this wall of reserve. Carlotta said, " Oh, ye-es" 
 or "No-o" to everything. It was not a momentous con- 
 versation. As it was Carlotta in whom Judith was par- 
 ticularly interested, I effaced myself. At last, after a lull 
 in the spasmodic talk, Carlotta said, very politely: 
 
 "Mrs. Mainwaring has a beautiful house." 
 
 "It's only a tiny flat. Would you like to look over it?" 
 asked Judith, eagerly, flashing me a glance that plainly 
 said, "Now that I shall have her to myself, you may 
 trust me to get to the bottom of her." 
 
 "I would like it very much," said Carlotta, rising. 
 
 I held the door open for them to pass out, and lit a cig- 
 arette. When they returned ten minutes afterwards, Car- 
 lotta was smiling and self-possessed, evidently very well 
 pleased with herself, but Judith had a red spot on each of 
 her cheeks. 
 
 The sight of her smote me with an odd new feeling of 
 pity. I cannot dismiss the vision from my mind. All the 
 evening I have seen the two women standing side by side, 
 a piteous parable. The light from the window shone full 
 upon them, and the dark curtain of the door was an effec- 
 tive background. The one flaunted the sweet insolence of 
 youth, health, colour, beauty; of the bud just burst into 
 full flower. The other wore the stamp of care, of the 
 much knowledge wherein is much sorrow, and in her eyes 
 dwelled the ghosts of dead years. She herself looked like 
 a ghost dressed in white pique*, which of itself drew the 
 8
 
 114 The Morals of" Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 colour from hw white face and pale lips and mass of faim 
 straw-coloured hair, the pallor of all which was accentu- 
 ated by the red spots on her cheeks and her violet eyes. 
 
 I saw that something had occurred to vex her. 
 
 "Before we go," I said, "I should like a word with you. 
 Carlotta will not mind." 
 
 W,e went into the dining-room. I took her hand which 
 was cold, in spite of the July warmth. 
 
 "Well, my dear," said I. "What do you think of my 
 young savage from Asia Minor?" 
 
 Judith laughed I am sure not naturally. 
 
 "Is that all you wanted to say to me?" 
 
 She withdrew her hand, and tidied her hair in the mir- 
 ror of the over-mantel. 
 
 "I think she is a most uninteresting young woman. I 
 am disappointed. I had anticipated something original. I 
 had looked forward to some amusement. But, really, my 
 dear Marcus, she is bete a pleurer weepingly stupid." 
 
 " She certainly can weep," said I. 
 
 "Oh, can she?" said Judith, as if the announcement 
 threw some light on Carlotta's character. "And when 
 she cries, I suppose you, like a man, give in and let her 
 have her own way?" And Judith laughed again. 
 
 "My dear Judith," said I, "you have no idea of the 
 wholesome discipline at Lingfield Terrace." 
 
 Suddenly with one of her disconcerting changes of 
 front, she turned and caught me by the coat-lappels. 
 
 " Marcus dear, I have been so lonely this week. When 
 are you coming to see me?" 
 
 "We'll have a whole day out on Sunday," said I. 
 
 As I walked down the stairs with Carlotta, I reflected 
 that Judith had not accounted for the red spots. 
 
 "I like her," said Carlotta. " She is a nice old lady."
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 1 1 5 
 
 "Old lady! What on earth do you mean ?" I was in- 
 deed startled. " She is a young woman." 
 
 " Pouf ! " cried Carlotta. " She is forty." 
 
 "She is no such thing," I cried. "She is years younger 
 than I." 
 
 " She would not tell me." 
 
 "You asked her age?" 
 
 " Oh, ye-es," said Carlotta. " I was very polite. I first 
 asked if she was married. She said yes. Then I asked 
 how her husband was. She said she didn't know. That 
 was funny. Why does she not know, Seer Marcous?" 
 
 "Never mind," said I, "go on telling me how polite you 
 were." 
 
 " I asked how many children she had. She said she had 
 none. I saicTft was a pity. And then I said, ' I am eighteen 
 years old and I want to marry quite soon and have chil- 
 dren. How old are you ? ' And she would not tell me. I 
 said, ' You must be the same age as my mamma, if she 
 were alive.' I said other things, about her husband, which 
 I forget. Oh, I was very polite." 
 
 She smiled up at me in quest of approbation. I checked 
 a horrified rebuke when I reflected that, according to the 
 etiquette of the harem, she had been "very polite." But 
 my poor Judith! Every artless question had been a knife 
 thrust in a sensitive spot. Her husband: the handsome 
 blackguard who had lured her into the divorce court, 
 married her, and after two unhappy years had left her 
 broken; children: they would have kept her life sweet, 
 and did I not know how she had yearned for them ? Her 
 age : it is only the very happily married woman who snaps 
 her fingers at the approach of forty, and even she does so 
 with a disquieting sense of bravado. And the sweet inso- 
 lence of youth says: "I am eighteen: how old are you?" 
 
 My poor Judith! Once more, on our walk home, I dis-
 
 1 1 6 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 coursed to Carlotta on the differences between East and 
 West. 
 
 " Seer Marcous," said Carlotta this evening at dinner 
 I have decided now that she shall dine regularly with me; 
 it is undoubtedly agreeable to see her pretty face on the 
 opposite side of the table and listen to her irresponsible 
 chatter: chatter which I keep within the bounds of deco- 
 rum when Stenson is present, so as to save his susceptibil- 
 ities, by the simple device, agreed upon between us (to her 
 great delight) of scratching the side of my somewhat prom- 
 inent nose " Seer Marcous, why does Mrs. Mainwaring 
 keep your picture in her bedroom ? " 
 
 I am glad Stenson happened to be out of the room. His 
 absence saved the flaying of my nasal organ. I explained 
 that it was the custom in England for ladies to collect the 
 photographs of their men friends, and use them misguid- 
 edly for purposes of decoration. 
 
 "But this," said Carlotta, opening out her arms in an 
 exaggerated way, " is such a big one." 
 
 "Ah, that," I answered, "is because I am very beau- 
 tiful." 
 
 Carlotta shrieked with laughter. The exquisite comi 
 cality of the jest occasioned bubbling comments of mirth 
 during the rest of the meal, and her original indiscreet 
 question was happily forgotten.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 loth July. 
 
 Judith and I have had our day in the country. We 
 know a wayside station, on a certain line of railway, about 
 an hour and a half from town, where we can alight, find 
 eggs and bacon at the village inn and hayricks in a soli- 
 tary meadow, and where we can chew the cud of these de- 
 lights with the cattle in well- wooded pastures. Judith has 
 a passion for eggs and bacon and hayricks. My own 
 rapture in their presence is tempered by the philosophic 
 calm of my disposition. 
 
 She wore a cotton dress of a forget-me-not blue which 
 suits her pale colouring. She looked quite pretty. When 
 I told her so she blushed like a girl. I was glad to see her 
 in gay humour again. Of late months she has been sub- 
 ject to moodiness, emotional variability, which has some- 
 what ruffled the smooth surface of our companionship. 
 But to-day there has been no trace of "temperament." 
 She has shown herself the pleasant, witty Judith she knows 
 I like her to be, with a touch of coquetry thrown in on her 
 own account. She even spoke amiably of Carlotta. I 
 have not had so thoroughly enjoyable a aay with Judith 
 for a long time. 
 
 I don't think she set herself deliberately to please me. 
 That I should resent. I know that women in order to 
 please an unsuspecting male will walk weary miles by his 
 side with blisters on their feet and a beatific smile on 
 their faces. But Judith has far too much common- 
 sense. 
 
 Another pleasing feature of the day's jaunt has been the 
 
 1 17
 
 1 1 8 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 absence of the appeal to sentimentality which Judith of 
 late, especially since her return from Paris, has been over- 
 fond of making. This idle habit of mind, for such it is in 
 reality, has been arrested by an intellectual interest. One 
 of her great friends is Willoughby, the economic statisti- 
 cian, who in his humorous moments, writes articles for 
 popular magazines, illustrated by scale diagrams. He will 
 draw, for instance, a series of men representing the na- 
 tions of the world, and varying in bulk and stature accord- 
 ing to the respective populations; and over against these 
 he will set a series of pigs whose sizes are proportionate to 
 the amount of pork per head eaten by the different nation- 
 alities. To these queer minds that live on facts (I myself 
 could as easily thrive on a diet of egg-shells) this sort of 
 pictorial information is peculiarly fascinating. But Ju- 
 dith, who like most women has a freakish mental as well 
 as physical digestion, delights in knowing how many 
 hogs a cabinet minister will eat during a lifetime, and 
 how much of the earth's surface could be scoured by the 
 world's yearly output of scrubbing-brushes. I don't blame 
 her for it any more than I blame her for a love of rad- 
 ishes, which make me ill; it is not as if she had no whole- 
 some tastes. On the contrary, I commend her. Now, 
 Willoughby, it seems, has found the public appetite so 
 great for these thought-saving boluses of knowledge un- 
 pleasant drags, as it were, put up into gelatine capsules 
 that he needs assistance. He has asked Judith to devil for 
 him, and I have to-day persuaded her to accept his offer. 
 It will be an excellent thing for the dear woman. It will 
 be an absorbing occupation. It will divert the current of 
 her thoughts from the sentimentality that I deprecate, and 
 provided she does not serve up hard-boiled facts to me at 
 dinner, she will be the pleasanter companion. 
 The only return to it was when I kissed her at parting.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 1 1 g 
 
 "That is the first, Marcus, for twelve hours," she said; 
 very sweetly, it is true but still reproachfully. 
 
 But Sacred Name of a Little Good Man! (as the de- 
 praved French people say), what is the use of this contin- 
 uous osculation between rational beings of opposite sexes 
 who set out to enjoy themselves ? If only St. Paul, in the 
 famous passage when he says there is a time for this and a 
 time for that, had mentioned kissing, he would have done 
 a great deal of practical good. 
 
 July iT,th. 
 
 To-night, for the first time since I came into the family 
 estates (such as they are), I feel the paralysis of aspiration 
 occasioned by poverty. If I were very rich, I would buy 
 the two next houses, pull them down and erect on the site 
 a tower forty foot high. At the very top would be one com- 
 fortable room to be reached by a lift, and in this room I 
 could have my being, while it listed me, and be secure from 
 all kinds of incursions and interruptions. Antoinette's 
 one-eyed cat could not scratch for admittance; Antoinette 
 herself could not enter under pretext of domestic econom- 
 ics and lure me into profitless gossip; and I could defy 
 Carlotta, who is growing to be as pervasive as the smell of 
 pickles over Crosse & Blackwell's factory. She comes in 
 without knociang, looks at picture-books, sprawls about 
 doing nothing, smokes my best cigarettes, hums tunes 
 which she has picked up from barrel-organs, bends over 
 me to see what I am writing, munching her eternal sweet- 
 meats in my ear, and laughs at me when I tell her she has 
 irremediably broken the thread of my ideas. Of course I 
 might be brutal and turn her out. But somehow I forget 
 to do so, until I realise too late the havoc she Has made 
 with my work. 
 
 I did, however, think, when Miss Griggs mounted
 
 I2O The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 guard over Carlotta, and Antoinette and her cat were 
 busied with luncheon cook-pans, that my solitude was un- 
 imperilled. I see now there is nothing for it but the tower. 
 And I cannot build the tower; so I am to be hencefor- 
 ward at the mercy of anything feline or feminine that 
 cares to swish its tail or its skirts about my drawing- 
 room. 
 
 I was arranging my notes. I had an illuminating inspi- 
 ration concerning the life of Francois Villon and the con- 
 temporary court of Cosmo de' Medici; I was preparing to 
 fix it in writing when the door opened and Stenson an- 
 nounced : 
 
 "Mrs. Ordeyne and Miss Ordeyne." 
 
 My Aunt Jessica and Dora came in and my inspiration 
 went out. It hasn't come back yet. 
 
 My aunt's apologies and Dora's draperies filled the 
 room. I must forgive the invasion. They knew they were 
 disturbing my work. They hoped I didn't mind. 
 
 "I wanted mamma to write, but she would come," said 
 Dora, in her hearty voice. I murmured polite mendac- 
 ities and offered chairs. Dora preferred to stand and 
 gaze about her with feminine curiosity. Women always 
 seem to sniff for Bluebeardism in a bachelor's apart- 
 ment. 
 
 "Why, what two beautiful rooms you have. And the 
 books! There isn't an inch of wall-space!" 
 
 She went on a voyage of discovery round the shelves 
 while my aunt explained the object of their visit. Some- 
 body, I forget who, had lent them a yacht. They were 
 making up a party for a summer cruise in Norwegian 
 fiords. The Thingummies and the So and So's and Lord 
 This and Miss That had promised to come, but they 
 were sadly in need of a man to play host I was to fancy 
 three lone women at the mercy of the skipper. I did, and
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 121 
 
 I didn't envy the skipper. What more natural, gushed 
 my aunt, than that they should turn to me, the head of the 
 house, in their difficulty ? 
 
 "I am afraid, my dear aunt," said I, "that my acquaint- 
 ance with skipper-terrorising hosts is nil. I can't sug- 
 gest any one." 
 
 "But who asked you to suggest any one?" she laughed. 
 "It is you yourself that we want to persuade to have pity 
 on us." 
 
 "I have much pity," said I, "for if it's rough, you'll all 
 be horribly sea-sick." 
 
 Dora ran across the room from the book-case she was 
 inspecting. 
 
 "I would like to shake him! He is only pretending he 
 doesn't understand. I don't know what we shall do if you 
 won't come with us." 
 
 "You can't refuse, Marcus. It will be an ideal trip 
 and such a comfortable yacht and the deep blue fiords 
 and we've got a French chef. You will be doing us such a 
 favour." 
 
 "Come, say 'Yes,'" said Dora. 
 
 I wish she were not such a bouncing Juno of a girl. 
 Large, athletic women with hearty voices are difficult for 
 one to deal with. I am a match for my aunt, whom I can 
 obfuscate with words. But Dora doesn't understand my 
 satire; she gives a great, healthy laugh, and says, "Oh, 
 rot!" which scatters my intellectual armoury. 
 
 "It is exceedingly kind of you to think of me," I said to 
 my aunt, "and the proposal is tempting the prospect is 
 indeed fascinating but " 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 " I have so many engagements," I answered feebly. 
 
 My Aunt Jessica rose, smiling indulgently upon me, as 
 if I were a spoilt little boy, and took me on to the balcony,
 
 122 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 while Dora demurely retired to the bookshelves in the far- 
 ther room. 
 
 " Can't you manage to throw them aside ? Poor Dora 
 will be inconsolable." 
 
 I stared at her for a moment and then at Dora's broad 
 back and sturdy hips. Inconsolable? I can't make out 
 what the good lady is driving at. If she were a vulgar 
 woman trying to squeeze her way into society and needed 
 the lubricant of the family baronetcy, I could understand 
 her eagerness to parade me as her appanage. But titles in 
 her drawing-room are as common as tea-cups. And the 
 inconsolability of Dora 
 
 "If I did come she would be bored to death," said I. 
 
 " She is willing to risk it." 
 
 "But why should she seek martyrdom?" 
 
 "There is another reason," said my aunt, ignoring my 
 pertinent question, but glancing at me reassuringly: 
 "'there is another reason why it would be well for you to 
 come on this cruise with us." She sank her voice. "You 
 met Miss Gascoigne in the park last week " 
 
 "A very charming and kind young lady," said I. 
 
 " I am afraid you have been a little indiscreet. People 
 liave been talking." 
 
 "Then theirs, not mine, is the indiscretion." 
 
 "But, my dear Marcus, when you spring a good-look- 
 ing young person, whom you introduce as your Moham- 
 medan ward, upon London society, and she makes a scene 
 In public why what else have people got to talk 
 about?" 
 
 "They might fall back upon the doctrine of predestina- 
 tion or the price of fish," I replied urbanely. 
 
 " But I assure you, Marcus, that there is a hint of scan- 
 dal abroad. It is actually said that she is living here." 
 
 "People will say anything, true or untrue," said I.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 123 
 
 My aunt sighfully acquiesced, and for a while we dis- 
 cussed the depravity of human nature. 
 
 "I have been thinking," she said at last, "that if you 
 brought your ward to see us, and she could accompany us 
 on this cruise to Norway, the scandal would be scotched 
 outright." 
 
 She glanced at me very keenly, and beneath her indul- 
 gent smile I saw the hardness of the old campaigner. It 
 was a clever trap she had prepared for me. 
 
 I took her hand and in my noblest manner, like the ex- 
 iled vicomte in costume drama, bent over it and kissed her 
 finger-tips. 
 
 " I thank you, my dear aunt, for your generous faith in 
 my integrity," I said, "and I assure you your confidence 
 is well founded." 
 
 A loud, gay laugh from the other room interrupted me. 
 
 "Are you two rehearsing private theatricals?" cried 
 Dora. As I was attired in a remarkably old college blazer 
 and a pair of yellow Moorish slippers bought a couple of 
 years ago in Tangier, and as my hair was straight on 
 end, owing to a habit of passing my fingers through it 
 while I work, my attitude perhaps did not strike a specta- 
 tor as being so noble as I had imagined. I took advantage 
 of the anti-climax, however, to bring my aunt from the 
 balcony to the centre of the room, where Dora joined us. 
 
 "Well, has mother prevailed?" 
 
 "My dear Dora," said I, politely, "how can you imagine 
 it could possibly be a question of persuasion ?" 
 
 "That might be taken two ways," said Dora. "Like 
 Palmerston's 'Dear Sir, I'll lose no time in reading your 
 book.'" 
 
 Dora is a minx. 
 
 "I fear," said I, "that my pedantic historical sense must 
 venture to correct you. It was Lord Beaconsfield."
 
 1 24 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "Well, he got it from Palmerston," insisted Dora. 
 
 "You children must not quarrel," interposed my aunt, 
 in the fond, maternal tone which I find peculiarly unpleas- 
 ant. "Marcus will see how his engagements stand, and 
 let us know in a day or two." 
 
 "When do you propose to start?" I asked. 
 
 " Quite soon. On the 20th. " 
 
 "I will let you know finally in good time," said I. 
 
 As I accompanied them downstairs, I heard a door 
 at the end of the passage open, and turning I saw Carlotta's 
 pretty head thrust past the jamb, and her eyes fixed on the 
 visitors. I motioned her back, sharply, and my aunt and 
 Dora made an unsuspecting exit. The noise of their de- 
 parting chariot wheels was music to my ears. 
 
 Carlotta came rushing out of her sitting-room followed 
 by Miss Griggs, protesting. 
 
 "Who those fine ladies?" she cried, with her hands on 
 my sleeve. 
 
 "Who are those ladies?" I corrected. 
 
 "Who are those ladies?" Carlotta repeated, like a de- 
 mure parrot. 
 
 "They are friends of mine." 
 
 Then came the eternal question. 
 
 "Is she married, the young one?" 
 
 "Miss Griggs," said I, "kindly instil into Carlotta's 
 mind the fact that no young English woman ever thinks 
 about marriage until she is actually engaged, and then her 
 thoughts do not go beyond the wedding." 
 
 "But is she?" persisted Carlotta. 
 
 "I wish to heaven she was," I laughed, imprudently, 
 "for then she would not come and spoil my morning's 
 work." 
 
 "Oh, she wants to marry you," said Carlotta. 
 
 "Miss Griggs," said I, "Carlotta will resume her stud-
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 125 
 
 ies," and I went upstairs, sighing for the beautiful tc^er 
 with a lift outside. 
 
 July i ^th. 
 
 Pasquale came in about nine o'clock, and found us play- 
 ing cards. 
 
 He is a bird of passage with no fixed abode. Some 
 weeks ago he gave up his chambers in St. James's, and 
 went to live with an actor friend, a grass- widower, who has 
 a house in the St. John's Wood Road close by. Why Pas- 
 quale, who loves the palpitating centres of existence, should 
 choose to rusticate in this semi-arcadian district, I cannot 
 imagine. He says he can think better in St. John's Wood. 
 
 Pasquale think! As well might a salmon declare it 
 could sing better in a pond! The consequence of his pro- 
 pinquity, however, has been that he has dropped in several 
 times lately on his way home, but generally at a later hour. 
 
 " Oh, please don't move and spoil the picture," he cried. 
 "Oh, you idyllic pair! And what are you playing ? Crib- 
 bage! If I had been challenged to guess the game you 
 would have selected for your after-dinner entertainment, I 
 should have sworn to cribbage!" 
 
 "An excellent game," said I. Indeed, it is the only game 
 that I remember. I dislike cards. They bore me to death. 
 So does chess. People love to call them intellectual pas- 
 tunes; but, surely, if a man wants exercise for his intel- 
 lect, there are enough problems in this complicated uni- 
 verse for him to worry his brains over, with more profit to 
 himself and the world. And as for the pastime I con- 
 sider that when two or more intelligent people sit down to 
 play cards they are insulting one another's powers of con- 
 versation. These remarks do not apply to my game with 
 Carlotta, who is a child, and has to be amused. She has 
 picked up cribbage with remarkable quickness, and al-
 
 126 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 though this is only the third evening we have played, she 
 was getting the better of me when Pasquale appeared. 
 
 I repeated my statement. Cribbage certainly was an 
 excellent game. Pasquale laughed. 
 
 "Of course it is. A venerable pastime. Darby and 
 Joan have played it of evenings for the last thousand years. 
 Please go on." 
 
 But Carlotta threw her cards on the table and herself on 
 the sofa and said she would prefer to hear Pasquale talk. 
 
 "He says such funny things." 
 
 Then she jumped from the sofa and handed him the 
 box of chocolates that is never far from her side. How 
 lithe her movements are! 
 
 " Pasquale says you were his schoolmaster, and used to 
 beat him with a big stick," she remarked, turning her head 
 toward me, while Pasquale helped himself to a sweet. 
 
 He was clumsy in his selection, and the box slipped from 
 Carlotta's hand and the contents rolled upon the floor. 
 They both went on hands and knees to pick them up, and 
 there was much laughing and whispering. 
 
 It is curious that I cannot recall Pasquale having al- 
 luded, in Carlotta's presence, to our early days. It was on 
 my tongue to ask when he committed the mendacity for 
 in that school not only did the assistant masters not have 
 the power of the cane, but Pasquale, being in the sixth 
 form at the time I joined, was exempt from corporal pun- 
 ishment when they both rose flushed from their grovel- 
 ling beneath the table, and some merry remark from Pas- 
 quale put the question out of my head. 
 
 All this is unimportant. The main result of Pasquale's 
 visit this evening is a discovery. 
 
 Now, is it, after all, a discovery, or only the non-moral 
 intellect's sinister attribution of motives ?
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 127 
 
 "A baby in long clothes would have seen through it," 
 said Pasquale. " Lord bless you, if I were in your posi- 
 tion I would go on board that yacht, I'd make violent love 
 to every female there, like the gentleman in Mr. Wycher- 
 ley's comedy, I'd fill a salmon fly-book with samples of 
 their hair, I'd make them hate one another like poison, and 
 at the end of the voyage I'd announce my engagement to 
 Carlotta, and when they all came to the wedding I'd make 
 the fly-book the most conspicuous of wedding presents on 
 the table, from the bridegroom to the bride. By George 
 I'd cure them of the taste for man-hunting!" 
 
 I wonder what impelled me to tell Pasquale of the pro- 
 posed yachting cruise ? We sat smoking by the open win- 
 dow, long after Carlotta had been sent to bed, and look- 
 ing at a full moon sailing over the tops of the trees in the 
 park; enveloped in that sensuous atmosphere of a warm 
 summer night which induces a languor in the body and in 
 the will. On such a night as this young Lorenzo, if he 
 happens to have Jessica by his side, makes a confounded 
 idiot of himself, to his life's undoing; and on such a night 
 as this a reserved philosopher commits the folly of discuss- 
 ing his private affairs with a Sebastian Pasquale. 
 
 But if he is correct in his surmise, I am much beholden 
 to the relaxing influences of the night. I have been warned 
 of perils that encompass me: perils that would infest the 
 base and insidiously scale the sides of the most inaccessible 
 tower that man could build on the edge of the Regent's 
 Park. A woman with a Matrimonial Purpose would be 
 quite capable of gaining access by balloon to my turret 
 window. Is it not my Aunt Jessica's design melodramati- 
 cally to abduct me in a yacht ? 
 
 "Once aboard the pirate lugger, and the man is ours!" 
 she cries. 
 
 But the man is not coming aboard the pirate lugger. He
 
 128 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 is going to keep as far as he possibly can from the shore. 
 Neither is he to be lured into bringing his lovely Moham- 
 medan ward with him, as an evidence of good faith and 
 unimpeachable morals. They can regard her as a Mo- 
 tammedan ward or a houri or a Princess of Babylon, just 
 as they choose. 
 
 Pasquale must be right. A hundred remembered inci- 
 dents go to prove it. I recollect now that Judith has ral- 
 lied me on my obtuseness. 
 
 The sole end of all my Aunt Jessica's manoeuvring is to 
 marry me to Dora, and Dora, like Barkis, is willing. 
 Marry Dora! The thought is a febrifuge, a sudorific! 
 She would be thumping discords on my wornout strings 
 all day long. In a month I should be a writhing madman. 
 I would sooner, infinitely sooner, marry Carlotta. Car- 
 lotta is nature; Dora isn't even art. Why, in the name of 
 men and angels, should I marry Dora ? And why (save to 
 call herself Lady Ordeyne) should she want to marry me ? 
 I have not trifled with her virgin affections ; and that she 
 is nourishing a romantic passion for me of spontaneous 
 growth I decline to believe. For aught I care she can be 
 as inconsolable as Calypso. It will do her good. She can 
 write a little story about it in The Sirens' Magazine. 
 
 I am shocked. For all her bouncing ways and animal 
 health and incorrect information, I thought Dora was a 
 nice-minded girl. 
 
 Do nice-minded girls hunt husbands ? 
 
 Good heavens! This looks like the subject of a silly- 
 season correspondence in The Daily Telegraph I
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 July igth. 
 
 Campsie, N. B. Hither have I fled from my buccaneer- 
 ing relations. I am seeking shelter in a manse in the midst 
 of a Scotch moor, and the village, half a mile away, is itself 
 five miles from a railway station. Here I can defy Aunt 
 Jessica. 
 
 After my conversation with Pasquale, I passed a rest- 
 less night. My slumbers were haunted by dreams of pirate 
 yachts flying the Jolly Roger, on which the skull and cross- 
 bones melted grotesquely into a wedding-ring and a true 
 lovers' knot. I awoke to the conviction that so long as the 
 vessel remained on English waters I could find no security 
 in London. I resolved on flight. But whither? 
 
 Verily the high gods must hold me in peculiar favour. 
 The first letter I opened was from old Simon McQuhatty, 
 my present host, a godfather of my mother, who alone of 
 mortals befriended us in the dark days of long ago. He 
 was old and infirm, he wrote, and Gossip Death was wait- 
 ing for him on the moor; but before he went to join him 
 he would like to see Susan's boy again. I could come 
 whenever I liked. A telegram from Euston before I 
 started would be sufficient notice. I sent Stenson out with 
 a telegram to say I was starting that very day by the two 
 o'clock train, and I wrote a polite letter to my Aunt Jessica 
 informing her of my regret at not being able to accept her 
 kind invitation as I was summoned to Scotland for an in- 
 definite period. 
 
 My old friend's ministry in the Free Kirk of Scotland is 
 drawing to a close; he has lived in this manse, a stone's 
 
 9 129
 
 130 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 throw from his grave, for fifty years, and the approaching 
 change of habitat will cost him nothing. He will still lie 
 at the foot of his beloved hills, and the purple moorland 
 will spread around him for all eternity, and the smell of 
 the gorse and heather will fill his nostrils as he sleeps. He 
 is a bit of a pagan, old McQuhatty, in spite of Calvin 
 and the Shorter Catechism. I should not wonder if he 
 were the original of the story of the minister who prayed 
 for the " puir Deil." He planted a rowan tree by his porch 
 when he was first inducted into the manse, and it has 
 grown up with him and he loves it as if it were a human 
 being. He has had many bonny arguments with it, he 
 says, on points of doctrine, and it has brought comfort to 
 him in times of doubt by shivering its delicate leaves and 
 whispering, " Dinna fash yoursel, McQuhatty. The Lord 
 God is a sensible body." He declares that the words are 
 articulate, and I suspect that in the depths of his heart he 
 believes that there are tongues in trees and books in the 
 running brooks, just as he is convinced that there is good 
 in everything. 
 
 He is a ripe and whimsical scholar, and his talk, even in 
 infirm old age, is marked by a Doric virility which has ren- 
 dered his companionship for these five days as stimulat- 
 ing as the moorland air. How few men have this gift of 
 discharging intellectual invigoration. Indeed, I only know 
 old McQuhatty who has it, and a sportive Providence has 
 carefully excluded mankind from its benefits for half a 
 century. Stay: it once fostered a genius who arose in 
 Campsie, and sent him strung with tonic to Edinburgh to 
 become a poet. But the poor lad drank whisky for two 
 years without cessation, so that he died, and McQuhatty's 
 inspiration was wasted. What intellectual stimulus can he 
 afford, for instance, to Sandy McGrath, an elder of the 
 kirk whom I saw coming up the brae on Sunday? An old
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 131 
 
 ram stood in the path and, as obstinate as he, refused to 
 budge. And as they looked dourly at each other, I won- 
 dered if the ram were dressed in black broadcloth and 
 McGrath in wool, whether either of their mothers would 
 notice the metamorphosis. Yet my host declares that I see 
 with the eyes of a Southron; that the Scotch peasant when 
 he is not drunk is intellectual, and that there is no oc- 
 casion on which he is not ready for theological dispu- 
 tation. 
 
 "But I dinna mind telling you," he added, "that I'd as 
 lief talk with my rowan tree. It does nae blaze into a con- 
 flagration at a comfortable wee bit of false doctrine." 
 
 I should love to stay all the summer with my old friend, 
 It seems that only from such a remote solitude can one 
 view things mundane in the right perspective, and in their 
 true proportion. One would see how important or unim- 
 portant in the cosmos was the agricultural ant's dream of 
 three millimetres and an aphis compared with the aspira- 
 tions of the English labourer. One would justly focus the 
 South African millionaire, Sandy McGrath and the ram, 
 and bring them to their real lowest common denominator. 
 One would even be able to gauge the value of a History of 
 Renaissance Morals. The benefits I should derive from a. 
 long sojourn are incalculable, but my new responsibilities 
 call me back to London and its refracting and distorting 
 atmosphere. If I had dwelt here for fifty years I should 
 have perceived that Carlotta was but a speck in the whirl- 
 wind of human dust whose ultimate destiny was imma- 
 terial. As my five days' visit, however, has not advanced 
 me to that pitch of wisdom, I am foolishly concerned in 
 my mind as to her welfare, and anxious to dissolve the 
 triumvirate, Miss Griggs, Stenson, and Antoinette, whom 
 I have entrusted with the reins of government. 
 
 A month ago, in similar circumstances, I should have
 
 132 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 railed at Fate and anathematised Carlotta from the tip of 
 her pink toes to the gold and bronze glory of her hair. But 
 I am growing more kindly disposed towards Carlotta, and 
 taking a keen interest in her spiritual development. 
 
 An inner voice, an ironical, sardonic inner voice with 
 which there is no arguing, tells me that I am a hypocrite; 
 that an interest in Carlotta's spiritual development is a 
 nice, comforting, high-sounding phrase which has deluded 
 philosophic guardians of female youth for many genera- 
 tions. 
 
 " What does it matter to you whether she has a soul or 
 not," says the voice, "provided she can babble pleasantly 
 at dinner and play cribbage with you afterwards?" 
 
 Well, what on earth does it matter ? 
 
 July 2 is/. 
 
 She was at Euston to meet me. As soon as she saw my 
 face at the carriage window she left Stenson and flew up the 
 platform like a pretty tame animal, and when I alighted 
 hung on my arms and frisked and gamboled around me 
 in excess of joy. 
 
 "So you are glad to have me back, Carlotta?" I asked, 
 as we were driving home. 
 
 She sidled up against me in her terrier fashion. 
 
 "Oh, ye-es," she cooed. "The day was night without 
 you." 
 
 "That is the oriental language of exaggeration," I said. 
 But all the same it was pleasant to hear, and the soft notes 
 of her voice coiled themselves, as music sometimes does, 
 around my heart. 
 
 "I love dear Seer Marcous," she said. 
 
 I put my arm round her waist for a moment, as one 
 would do to a child. 
 
 "You are a good little girl, Carlotta. That is to say,"
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 133 
 
 I added, remembering my responsibilities, "if you have 
 been good. Have you?" 
 
 " Oh, so good. Antoinette has been teaching me how to 
 cook, and I can make a rice pudding. It is so nice to cook 
 things. I like the smell. But I burned myself. See." 
 
 She pulled off her glove and showed me a red mark on 
 her hand. I kissed it to make it well, and she laughed and 
 was very happy. And I, too, was happy. Something new 
 and fresh and bright has come into my life. Stenson is an 
 admirable servant; but his impassive face and correct 
 salute which have hitherto greeted me at London railway 
 termini, although suggestive of material comfort, cannot 
 be said to invest my arrival with a special atmosphere of 
 charm. Carlotta's welcome has been a new sensation. I 
 look upon the house with different eyes. It was a pleas- 
 ure, as I dressed for dinner, to reflect that I should not go 
 down to a solemn, solitary meal, but would have my beau- 
 tiful little witch to keep me company. 
 
 July 22d. 
 
 It appears that her conduct has not been by any means 
 irreproachable. Miss Griggs reported that she took ad- 
 vantage of my absence to saturate herself with scent, one 
 of the most heinous crimes in our domestic calendar. M u- 
 lier bene olet dum nihil olet is the maxim written above this 
 article of our code. Once when she disobeyed my orders 
 and came into the drawing-room reeking of ylang-ylang, 
 I sent her upstairs to change all her things and have a 
 bath, and not come near me till Antoinette vouched for 
 her scentlessness. And "Ah, monsieur," I remember An- 
 toinette replied, "that would be impossible, for the sweet 
 lamb smells of spring flowers, de son naturel" Which is 
 true. Her use of violent perfumes is thus a double offence. 
 
 "There is something more serious," said Miss Griggs.
 
 134 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "I can hardly believe there can be anything more seri- 
 ous than making one's self detestable to one's fellow-crea- 
 tures," said I. 
 
 "Unless it is making one's self too agreeable," said Miss 
 Griggs, pointedly. 
 
 I asked her what she meant. 
 
 "I have discovered," she replied, "that Carlotta has 
 been carrying on a clandestine flirtation with the young 
 man who calls for orders from the grocer's." 
 
 "I am glad it wasn't the butcher's boy," I murmured. 
 
 Miss Griggs giggled in a silly way, as if I were jesting. 
 At my stern request she recovered and unfolded the hor- 
 rible tale. She had caught Carlotta kissing her hand to 
 him. She had also seen him smuggle a three-cornered 
 note between Carlotta's fingers, and Carlotta had defi- 
 nitely refused to surrender the billet-doux. 
 
 "What is the modern course of treatment," I asked, 
 "prescribed for young ladies who flirt with grocers' assist- 
 ants ? In Renaissance times she could be whipped. The 
 wise Margaret of Navarre used to beat her daughter, 
 Jeanne d'Albrecht, soundly for far less culpable lapses 
 from duty. Or she could be sent to a convent and put 
 into a cell with rats, or she could be bidden to attend at a 
 merry-making where the chief attraction was roast gro- 
 cer's assistant. But nowadays what do you suggest?" 
 
 The unimaginative creature could suggest nothing. She 
 thought that I would know how to deal with the offence. 
 Perhaps preventive measures would be more efficacious 
 than punishment. But what do I know of the repressory 
 methods employed in seminaries for young ladies? Bur- 
 ton in his "Anatomy" speaks cheerfully of blood-letting 
 behind the ears. He also quotes, I remember, Hippocra- 
 tes or somebody, who narrates that a noble maiden was 
 cured of a flirtatious temperament by wearing down her
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 135 
 
 back for three weeks a leaden plate pierced with holes. 
 This I told Miss Griggs, who spoke contemptuously of 
 the Father of Medicine. 
 
 "He also recommends whether for this complaint, or 
 for something similar I forget for the moment " said I, 
 " anointing the soles of the feet with the fat of a dormouse, 
 the teeth with the ear-wax of a dog; and speaks highly of 
 a ram's lungs applied hot to the fore part of the head. I 
 am sorry these admirable remedies are 1 out of date. There 
 is a rich Rabelaisianism about them. Instead of the satis- 
 fying jorums of our forefathers we take tasteless pellets, 
 which procure us no sensation at the time, and even the 
 good old hot mustard poultice is a thing of the past." 
 
 "But what about Carlotta?" inquired Miss Griggs, 
 anxiously. 
 
 That is just like a woman, to interrupt a man when he 
 is beginning to talk comfortably on a subject that inter- 
 ests him. I sighed. 
 
 " Send Carlotta up to me," I said, resignedly. 
 
 Another morning's work spoiled. I turned to my writ- 
 ing-table. I had just transcribed on my MS. the anec- 
 dote told with such glee by Machiavelli about Zanobi del 
 Pino, a sort of Admiral Byng of the early fifteenth century, 
 who was locked up and given nothing to eat but paper 
 painted with snakes, so that he died, fasting, in a few days. 
 I had an apt epigram on the subject of Renaissance hu- 
 mour trembling on my pen-point, when Miss Griggs came 
 in with her foolish gossip. I am sure the platitude I wrote 
 afterwards is not that original flash of wit. 
 
 Carlotta entered and crossed the room to the side of my 
 writing-chair, her great dark eyes fixed on me, and her 
 hands dutifully behind her back. She looked a Greuze 
 picture of innocence. I believed less than ever hi the enor- 
 mity of the offence.
 
 136 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "Do you know what you're here for?" I asked, magis- 
 terially. 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "Then you have been making love to the young man 
 from the grocer's?" 
 
 She nodded again. I began to conceive a violent dislike 
 to the grocer's young man. It was one of the most humil- 
 iating sensations I have experienced. I think I have seen 
 the individual a thick-set, red-headed, freckled nonde- 
 script. 
 
 "What did you do it for?" I asked. 
 
 "He wanted to make love to me," replied Carlotta. 
 
 "He is a young scamp," said I. 
 
 "What is a scamp?" she asked sweetly. 
 
 " I am not giving you a lesson in philology," I remarked. 
 "Do you know that you have been behaving in a shock- 
 ing manner?" 
 
 "Now you are cross with me." 
 
 "Yes," I said, "infernally angry." 
 
 And I was. I expected to see her burst into tears. She 
 did nothing of the kind; only looked at me with irritating 
 demureness. She wore a red blouse and a grey skirt, and 
 the audacious high-heeled red slippers. I began to feel the 
 return of my early prejudice against her. Nobody so allur- 
 ing could possess a spark of virtue. 
 
 "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said I. "I 
 make many allowances for your lack of knowledge of our 
 Western customs, but for a young lady to flirt with an ugly 
 red-headed varlet of the lower orders is reprehensible all 
 the world over." 
 
 " He gave me dates and dried fruits with sugar all over 
 them," said Carlotta. 
 
 "Stolen from his employer," I said. "I will have that 
 young man locked up in prison, and if you go on receiving
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 1 37 
 
 his feloniously obtained presents they will put you in prison 
 too, and I shall be delighted." 
 
 Carlotta maintained her demure expression and ex- 
 tracted from her skirt pocket a very dirty piece of paper. 
 
 "He writes poetry about me," she remarked, handing 
 me what I recognised as the three-cornered note. 
 
 I took the thing between ringer and thumb, and glanced 
 over the poem. I have read much indifferent modern 
 verse in my time I sometimes take a slush-bath after tea 
 at the club but I could not have imagined the English 
 language capable of such emulsion. It was execrable- 
 The first couplet alone contained an idea. 
 
 " Thou art a lovely girl and so very nice 
 I dream till death upon your face." 
 
 To the wretch's ear it was a rhyme! I destroyed the 
 noisome thing and cast it into the waste-paper basket. 
 
 " Prison," said I, " would be a luxurious reward for him. 
 In a properly civilised country he would be bastinadoed 
 and hanged." 
 
 "Yes, he is dam bad," said Carlotta, serenely. 
 
 "Good heavens!" I cried, "the ruffian has even taught 
 you to swear. If you dare to say that wicked word again, 
 I'll punish you severely. What is his horrid name?" 
 
 "Pasquale," said Carlotta. 
 
 "Pasquale?" 
 
 "Yes, he likes to hear me say 'dam.' Oh, the other? 
 Oh, no, he is too stupid. He does not say anything. His 
 name is Timkins. I only play with him. He is so funny. 
 He can go and kill himself; I won't care." 
 
 "Never mind about Timkins," said I, "I want to hear 
 about Pasquale. When did he teach you that wicked^ 
 wicked word?"
 
 138 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 I think Carlotta flushed as she regarded the point of her 
 red slipper. 
 
 "I went for a walk and he met me at the corner and 
 walked here by my side. Was that wicked?" 
 
 "What would the excellent Hamdi Effendi have said to 
 it?" 
 
 Woman-like she evaded my question. 
 
 "I hope Hamdi is dead. Do you think so?" 
 
 " I hope not. For if you behave in this naughty manner, 
 I shall have to send you back to him." 
 
 She had imperceptibly moved nearer my chair until she 
 stood quite close to my side, so that as I spoke the last 
 words I looked up into her face. She put her arm about 
 my shoulders. It is one of her pretty, caressing ways. 
 
 "I will be good very good," she said. 
 
 "You will have to," said I, leaning back my head. 
 
 She must have caught a relenting note in my voice ; for 
 what happened I feel even now a curious shame in noting 
 down. Her other arm flew under my chin to join its fel- 
 low, and holding me a prisoner in my chair, she bent down 
 and kissed me. She also laid her cheek against mine. 
 
 I am still aware of the indescribable, soft, warm pres- 
 sure, although she has gone to bed hours ago. 
 
 I vow that a man must be less a man than a petrified egg 
 to have repulsed her. The touch of her lips was like the 
 falling of dewy rose-petals. Her breath was as fragrant as 
 new-mown hay. Her hair brushing my forehead had the 
 odour of violets. 
 
 I sent her back to Miss Griggs. She ran out of the room 
 laughing merrily. She has received plenary absolution for 
 her shameless coquetry and her profane language. Worse 
 than that she has discovered how to obtain it in future. 
 The witch has found her witchcraft, and having once tri-
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 139 
 
 umphantly exerted her powers, will take the earliest op- 
 portunity of doing so again. I am fallen, both in my own 
 eyes and hers, from my high estate. Henceforward she 
 will regard me only with good-humoured tolerance; I shall 
 be to her but a non-felonious Timkins. 
 I was an idiot to have kissed her in return. 
 
 I have not seen her since. I lunched at the club, and 
 paid a formal call on Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne and my cousin 
 Rosalie, in their sunless house in Kensington. 
 
 I met a singular lack of welcome. Rosalie gave me a 
 limper hand than usual, and took an early opportunity of 
 leaving me tte-a-tete with her mother, who conversed 
 frigidly about the warm weather. The very tea, if possible, 
 was colder. 
 
 I met Judith by appointment in Kensington Gardens, 
 and walked with her homewards. I mentioned my chilly 
 reception. 
 
 " My dear man," she observed I dislike this apostrophe, 
 which Judith always uses by way of introduction to an un- 
 pleasant remark "My dear man, I have no doubt that 
 you have as unsavoury a reputation as any one in London. 
 You are credited with an establishment like Solomon's 
 minus the respectable counter-balance of the wives, and 
 your devout relatives are very properly shocked." 
 
 I said that it was monstrous. Judith retorted that I had 
 brought the calumny upon myself. 
 
 "But what can I do?" I asked. 
 
 " Board her out with a suburban family, as you should 
 have done from the first. Even I, who am not strait-laced, 
 consider it highly improper for you to have her alone with 
 you in the house." 
 
 "My dear," said I, "there is Antoinette." 
 
 "Tush" or something like it said Judith.
 
 140 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "And Stenson. No one seeing Stenson could doubt the 
 irreproachable propriety of his master." 
 
 "I really have no patience with you," said Judith. 
 
 It is hopeless to discuss Carlotta with her. I shall do it 
 no more. 
 
 We sat for a while under the trees, and conversed on 
 rational topics. She likes her employment with Willoughby . 
 The morning she spends among blue books and other 
 waste matter at the British Museum, and she devotes the 
 evening to sorting her information. Willoughby com- 
 mends her highly. 
 
 "And there is something I know you'll be very pleased 
 to hear," she continued. "Who do you think called on 
 me yesterday? Mrs. Willoughby. Her husband wants 
 me to spend August and September at a place they have 
 taken in North Wales, and help him with his new book as 
 a private secretary, you know. I said that I never went into 
 society. I must tell you this was the first time I had seen 
 her. She put her hand on my arm in the sweetest way in 
 the world and said : ' I know all about it, my dear, and that 
 is why I thought I'd come myself as Harold's ambassador.' 
 Wasn't it beautiful of her?" 
 
 She looked at me and her eyes were filled with tears. 
 
 "Marcus dear, I am not a bad woman, am I?" 
 
 "My dearest," I answered, very deeply touched, "you 
 are the best woman in the world. So far from conferring a 
 favour on you, Mrs. Willoughby has gained for herself the 
 inestimable privilege of your friendship." 
 
 "Ah!" said Judith, "a man cannot tell what it means." 
 
 Really men are not such dullard dunderheads as women 
 are pleased to imagine. I have the most crystalline per- 
 ception of what Mrs. Willoughby's invitation means to Ju- 
 dith. Women appear to find a morbid satisfaction in the 
 fiction that their sex is actuated by a mysterious nexus of
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 141 
 
 emotions and motives which the grosser sense of man is 
 powerless to appreciate. In her heart of hearts it is a pro- 
 digious comfort to a woman to feel herself misunderstood. 
 Even she who is most perfectly mated, and is intellectually 
 convinced that the difference of sex is no barrier to his 
 complete knowledge of her, loves to cherish some little secret 
 bit of her nature, to which he, on account of his masculin- 
 ity, will be eternally blind. Of course there are dull men 
 who could not understand a tabby-cat or a professional 
 cricketer, let alone an expert autothaumaturgist a self- 
 mystery-maker like a woman. But an intelligent and 
 painstaking man should find no difficulty in appreciating 
 what, after all, is merely a point of view; for what women see 
 from that point of view they are as indiscreet in revealing 
 as a two-year-old babe. I have confessed before that I do 
 not understand Judith that is to say the whole welter of 
 contradictions in which her ego consists but that is solely 
 because I have not taken the trouble to subject her to 
 special microscopic study. Such a scientific analysis 
 would, I think, be an immodest discourtesy towards any 
 lady of my acquaintance, especially towards one for whom 
 I bear considerable affection. It would be as unwarrant- 
 able for a decent-minded man to speculate upon her exact 
 spiritual dimensions as upon those portions of her physical 
 frame that are hidden beneath her attire. The charm of 
 human intercourse rests, to a great extent, on the vague, 
 the deliberately unperceived, the stimulating sense that an 
 individual possesses more attributes than flash upon the 
 bodily or mental eye. But this, I say, is deliberate. One 
 knows perfectly well that beneath her skirts any young 
 woman you please does not melt away into the scaly tail of 
 a mermaid, but has a pair of ordinary commonplace legs. 
 One knows that when she has passed through certain well 
 defined experiences in life, a certain definite range of send-
 
 142 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 ments must exist behind whatever mask of facial expression 
 she may choose to adopt. It is sheer nonsense, therefore, 
 for Judith to say that I cannot enter into her feelings with 
 regard to Mrs. Willoughby's invitation. 
 
 I developed this theme very fully to Judith as we sat in 
 Kensington Gardens and during our subsequent stroll 
 diagonally through Hyde Park to the Marble Arch. She 
 listened with great attention, and when I had finished re- 
 garded me in a pitying manner, a smile flickering over her 
 lips. 
 
 "My dear Marcus," she said, "there is no man, how- 
 ever humble-minded, who has not one colossal vanity, his 
 knowledge of women. He, at any rate, has established the 
 veritable Theory of Women. And we laugh at you, my 
 good friend, for the more you expound, the more do you 
 reveal your beautiful and artistic ignorance. Oh, Marcus, 
 the idea of you setting up as a feminine psychologist." 
 
 "And pray, why not?" I asked, somewhat nettled. 
 
 "Because you are that dear, impossible, lovable thing 
 known as Marcus Ordeyne." 
 
 This was exceedingly pretty of Judith. But really 
 woman is the Eternal Philistine, as Matthew Arnold has 
 denned the term. Her supreme characteristic is incon- 
 vincibility. I had simply wasted my breath.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 August 3<f. 
 
 Etretat, Seine- Inferieure : A young fellow on the Ca- 
 sino terrace this evening caught my eye, looked at me 
 queeriy, and passed on. His face, though unfamiliar, 
 stirred some dormant association. What was it? The 
 profitless question pestered me for hours. At last, during 
 the performance at the theatre, I slapped my knee and said 
 aloud : 
 
 "I've got it!" 
 
 "What?" asked Carlotta in alarm. 
 
 "A fly," I answered. Whereat Carlotta laughed, and 
 bent forward to get a view of the victim. I austerely di- 
 rected her attention to the stage. It was a metaphorical 
 fly whose buzzing I had stopped. 
 
 The young fellow was he who had pointed me out in 
 Hyde Park to his companion, and lightly assured her that I 
 was as mad as a dingo dog. From the moment after the 
 phrase's utterance to that of the slapping of my knee, it 
 had been altogether absent from my mind. Now it haunts 
 me. It reiterates itself after the manner of a glib phrase. 
 I am glad I am not in a railway carriage; the cranks 
 would amuse the wheels with it all night long. As it is, the 
 surf tries to thunder it out on the shingle just a few yards 
 away from my window. I keep asking myself: why a 
 dingo dog? If I am mad it is in a gentle, Jaquesian, 
 melancholy manner. I do not dash at life, rabid and foam- 
 ing at the mouth. 
 
 I think the idiot simile must have been merely the mis 
 
 143
 
 144 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 use of language so common among the half-educated 
 youth of Great Britain. 
 
 Yet when I come to consider my present condition, I 
 have doubts as to my complete sanity. Here am I, in a 
 little, semi-fashionable French sea-side place, away from 
 my books and my comforts and my habits, as much inter- 
 ested in its vapid distractions as if the universe held no other 
 pursuits worth the attention of a rational man. And I 
 have been here a calendar month. 
 
 To please Carlotta I wear white duck trousers, a pink 
 shirt, and a yachting-cap. I wired for them to my London 
 tailor and they arrived within a week. The first time I 
 appeared in the maniacal costume I slunk from the stony 
 stare of a gendarme, as I was about to ascend the Casino 
 steps, and hid myself among the fishing-boats lower down 
 on the beach. Carlotta, however, was delighted and said 
 that I looked pretty. Now I have grown callous, seeing 
 other fools similarly apparelled. But a year ago, should I 
 have dreamed it possible for me to strut about a fashion- 
 able plage in white ducks, a pink shirt, and a yachting-cap ? 
 I trow not. They are signs of some sort of madness 
 whether that of a Jaques or a dingo dog matters very little. 
 
 Pasquale was the main cause of my taking Carlotta 
 away from London. He came far too frequently to the 
 house, established far too great a familiarity with my little 
 girl. She quoted him far too readily. She is at the im- 
 pressionable age when young women fall easy victims to 
 the allurements of a fascinating creature like Pasquale. If 
 he showed himself in the light of a possible husband for 
 Carlotta, I should have nothing to say. I should give the 
 pair my paternal benediction. But I know my Renais- 
 sance and I know my Pasquale. Carlotta is merely a new 
 sensation that's all he seems to live for, the delectable 
 scoundrel. But I am not going to have her heart broken
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 145 
 
 by any cinquecento wolf in Poole's clothing. I assume that 
 Carlotta has a heart, even if she is not possessed of a soul. 
 As to the latter I am still in doubt. At all events I resolved 
 to withdraw Carlotta from his influence, put her in fresh 
 surroundings, and allow her to mix more freely among 
 men and women, so as to divert and possibly improve her 
 mind. 
 
 I perceive that Carlotta is becoming an occupation. Well, 
 she is quite as profitable as collecting postage-stamps, or 
 golf, or amateur photography. 
 
 I have spent a pleasant month in this little place. It is 
 the mouth of a gorge in the midst of a cliff-bound coast. 
 The bay, but a quarter of a mile in sweep, is shut in at 
 each end by a projecting wall of cliff cut by a natural 
 arch. Half the shingle beach is given up to fisherfolk and 
 their boats and tarred Noah's arks where they keep their 
 nets. The other half suddenly rises into a digue or terrace 
 on which is built a primitive casino, and below the terrace 
 are the bathing-cabins. We are staying at the most spot- 
 lessly clean of all clean French hotels. There are no car- 
 pets on the stairs; but if one mounts them in muddy boots, 
 an untiring chambermaid emerges from a lair below, with 
 hot water and scrubbing-brush and smilingly removes the 
 traces of one's passage. Carlotta and Antoinette have 
 adjoining rooms in the main building. I inhabit the an- 
 nexe, sleeping in a quaint, clean, bare little chamber with 
 a balconied window that looks over the Noah's Arks and 
 the fishing- smacks and fisherfolk, away out to sea. This 
 morning as I lay in bed I saw our Channel fleet lie along 
 the arc of the horizon. 
 
 Antoinette dwells in continuous rapture at being in 
 France again. Carlotta assures me that the smile does not 
 leave her great red face even as she sleeps of nights. It is 
 
 10
 
 146 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 a little jest between us. She peeped in once to see. The 
 good soul has filled herself up with French conversation as 
 a starving hen gorges herself with corn. She has scraped 
 acquaintance with every washer-woman, fish-wife, mar- 
 chande, bathing woman and domestic servant on the beach. 
 She is on intimate terms with the whole male native popu- 
 lation. When the three of us happen to walk together it is 
 a triumphal progress of bows and grins and nods. At first 
 I thought it was I for whom this homage was intended. I 
 was soon undeceived. It was Antoinette. She loves to 
 parade Carlotta before her friends. I came upon her once 
 entertaining an admiring audience in Carlotta's presence 
 with a detailed description of that young woman's physi- 
 cal perfections a description which was marked by a 
 singular lack of reticence. The time of her glory is the 
 bathing hour, when she accompanies Carlotta from her cab- 
 in to the water's edge, divests her of peignoir and espa- 
 drilles, but before revealing her to fashionable Etretat, casts 
 a preliminary glance around, as who should say: "Pre- 
 pare all men and women for the dazzling goddess I am 
 about to unveil." Carlotta is undoubtedly bewitching in 
 her bathing costume, and enjoys a little triumph of 
 beauty. People fall into a natural group in order to look 
 at her, while I, sitting on a camp-stool in my white ducks 
 and pink shirt and smoking a cigarette, cannot repress a 
 complacent pride of ownership. I do not object to her 
 nicking her wet fingers at me when she comes dripping out 
 of the sea; and I do not even reproach her when she puts 
 her foot upon my sartorially immaculate knee, to show me 
 a pebble-cut on her glistening pink sole. 
 
 Her conduct has been exemplary. I have allowed her 
 to make the acquaintance of two or three young fellows, 
 her partners at the Casino dances, and she walks up and 
 down the terrace with them before meals. I have forbid-
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 147 
 
 den her, under penalty of immediate return to London and 
 of my eternal displeasure, to mention the harem at Alex- 
 andretta. Young fellows are gifted with a genius for mis- 
 apprehension. She is an ordinary young English lady, an 
 orphan (which is true), and I am her guardian. Of course 
 she looks at them with imploring eyes, and pulls them by 
 the sleeve, and handles the lappels of their coats, and ad- 
 mits them to terms of the frankest intimacy; but I can no 
 more change these characteristics than I can alter the shape 
 of her body. She is the born coquette. Her delighted 
 conception of herself is that she is the object of every man's 
 admiration. I noticed her this morning playing a tune with 
 her fingers on the old bathing-man's arm, as he was prepar- 
 ing to take her into the water, and I saw his mahogany face 
 soften. In her indescribable childish way she would co- 
 quet with a tax-collector or a rag-and-bone man or the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, But she has committed no 
 grave indiscretion, and I am sufficiently her lord and mas- 
 ter to exact obedience. 
 
 I pretend, however, to be at her beck and call, and it is 
 a delight to minister to her radiant happiness to feel her 
 lean on my arm and hear her cooing voice say: 
 " You are so good. I should like to kiss you." 
 But I do not allow her to kiss me. Never again. 
 
 "Seer Marcous, let us go to the little horses." 
 
 She has a consuming passion for petits chevaux. I speak 
 
 sagely of the evils of gambling. She laughs. I weakly 
 
 take lower ground. 
 
 "What is the good? You have no money." 
 
 " Oh-h! But only two francs," she says, holding out her 
 
 hand. 
 
 "Not one. Yesterday you lost." 
 
 "But to-day I shall win. I want to give you something
 
 148 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 I saw in a shop. Oh, a beautiful thing." Then I feel a 
 hand steal into the pocket of my dinner jacket where I carry 
 loose silver for this very purpose, just as a lover of horses 
 carries lumps of sugar for the nose of a favourite pony, and 
 immediately it is withdrawn with a cry of joy and triumph, 
 and she skips back out of my reach. Then she takes my 
 arm and leads me from the sweet night-air into the hot lit- 
 tle room with its crowd around the nine gyrating animals. 
 
 "I shall put it on 5. I always put on 5. He is a nice, 
 clean, white, pretty horse." 
 
 She stakes two francs, watches the turn in a tense agony 
 of excitement; she wins, comes running to me with six- 
 teen francs clutched tight in her hand. 
 
 " See. I said I should win." 
 
 " Come away then and be happy." 
 
 But she makes a protesting grimace, and before I can 
 stop her, runs back to stake again on 5. In twenty min- 
 utes she is ruined and returns to me wearing an expression 
 of abject misery. She is too desolate even to try the for- 
 tune of the dinner-jacket pocket. I take her outside and 
 restore her to beatitude with grenadine syrup and soda- 
 water. She rejects the straws. With her elbows on the 
 marble table, the glass held in both hands, she drinks sen- 
 suously, in little sips. 
 
 And I, Marcus Ordeyne, sit by watching her, a most 
 contented philosopher of forty. A dingo dog could not be 
 so contented. That young fellow, I unhesitatingly assert, 
 must be the most brainless of his type. I suffer fools glad- 
 ly, as a general rule, but if I see much of this one I shall do 
 him some injury. 
 
 After dej'euner we strolled to the top of the west cliff and 
 lay on the thick dry grass. The earth has never known a 
 more perfect afternoon. A day of turquoise and diamond.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 149 
 
 The air itself was diaphanous blue. Below us the tiny 
 place slumbered in the sunshine; scarcely a sign of life 
 save specks of washer-women on the beach bending over 
 white patches which we knew were linen spread out to dry. 
 The ebb-tide lapped lazily on the shingle, where the sea 
 changed suddenly from ultramarine to a fringe of feath- 
 ery white. A white sail or two flecked the blue of the bay. 
 A few white wisps of cirrus gleamed above our heads. 
 Around us, on the cliff-tops, the green pastures and mead- 
 ows and, farther inland, the cornfields stacked in harvest, 
 and great masses of trees. Lying on our backs, between sea 
 and sky, we seemed utterly alone. Carlotta and I were 
 the sole inhabitants of the earth. I dreamily disintegrated 
 caramels from their sticky tissue-paper wrappings for Car- 
 lotta's consumption. 
 
 After a while unconquerable drowsiness crept over me; 
 and a little later I had an odd sense of perfect quietude. I 
 was lying amid moss and violets. In a languorous way I 
 wondered how my surroundings had changed, and at last 
 I awoke to find my head propped on Carlotta's lap and 
 shaded by her red parasol, while she sat happy in full sun- 
 shine. I was springing from this posture of impropriety 
 when she laughed and laid restraining hands on my shoul- 
 ders. 
 
 "No. You must not move. You look so pretty. And 
 it is so nice. I put your head there so that it should be 
 soft. You have been sound asleep." 
 
 "I have also been abominably impolite," said I. "I 
 humbly beg your pardon, Carlotta." 
 
 "Oh, I am not cross," she laughed. Then still keeping 
 her hands on me, she settled her limbs into a more com- 
 fortable position. 
 
 "There! Now I can play at being a good little Turkish 
 wife." She fashioned into a fan the Matin newspaper,
 
 150 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 which I had bought for the luxurious purpose of not read- 
 ing, and fanned me. "That is what Ayesha used to do to 
 Hamdi. And Ayesha used to tell him stories. But my 
 lord does not like his slave's stories." 
 
 "Decidedly not," said I. 
 
 I have heard much of Ayesha, a pretty animal organism 
 who appears to have turned her elderly husband into a dot- 
 ing fool. I am beginning to have a contempt for Hamdi 
 Effendi. 
 
 "They are what you call improper, eh?" she laughed, 
 referring to the tales. "I will sing you a Turkish song 
 which you will not understand." 
 
 "Is it a suitable song?" 
 
 "Kim bilir who knows?" said Carlotta. 
 
 She began a melancholy, crooning, guttural ditty; but 
 broke off suddenly. 
 
 " Oh! but it is stupid. Like the Turkish dancing. Oh, 
 everything in Alexandretta was stupid! Sometimes I 
 think I have never seen Alexandretta or Ayesha or 
 Hamdi. I think I always am with you." 
 
 This must be so, as of late she has spoken little of her 
 harem life; she talks chiefly of the small daily happenings, 
 and already we have a store of common interests. The 
 present is her whole existence; the past but a confused 
 dream. The odd part of the matter is that she regards her 
 position with me as a perfectly natural one. No stray 
 kitten adopted by a kind family could have less sense of 
 obligation, or a greater faith in the serene ordering of the 
 cosmos for its own private and peculiar comfort. When I 
 asked her a while ago what she would have done had I 
 left her on the bench in the Embankment Gardens, she 
 shrugged her shoulders and answered, as she had done 
 before, that either she would have died or some other nice 
 gentleman would have taken care of her.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 151 
 
 "Do you think nice gentlemen go about London look- 
 ing for homeless little girls?" I asked on that occasion. 
 
 "All gentlemen like beautiful girls," she replied, which 
 brought us to an old argument. 
 
 This afternoon, however, we did not argue. The day 
 forbade it. I lay with my head on Carlotta's lap, looking 
 up into the deep blue, and feeling a most curious sensation 
 of positive happiness. My attitude towards life has hith- 
 erto been negative. I have avoided more than I have 
 sought. I have not drunk deep of life because I have been 
 unathirst. To me 
 
 " To stand aloof and view the fight 
 Is all the pleasure of the game." 
 
 My interest even in Judith has been of a detached na- 
 ture. I have been like Faust. I might have said: 
 
 " Werd" 1 ich zum Augenblicke sagen : 
 Werweile dock / Du bist so schon f 
 
 Then may the devil take me and do what he likes with 
 me!" 
 
 I have never had the least inclination to apostrophise 
 the moment in this fashion and request it to tarry on ac- 
 count of its exceeding charm. Never until this afternoon, 
 when the deep summer enchantment of the turquoise day 
 was itself ensorcelised by the witchery of a girl's spring- 
 tide. 
 
 "You have three, four, five oh, such a lot of grey 
 hairs," said Carlotta, looking down on my reclining head. 
 
 " Many people have grey hair at twenty," .said I. 
 
 "But I have none." 
 
 "You are not yet twenty, Carlotta." 
 
 " Do you think I will have them then ? Oh, it would be 
 dreadful. No one would care to have me."
 
 152 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "And I? Am I thus the object of every one's disre- 
 gard?" 
 
 " Oh, you you are a man. It is right for a man. It 
 makes him look wise. His wife says, 'Behold, my hus- 
 band has grey hair. He has wisdom. If I am not good he 
 will beat me. So I must obey him.' " 
 
 "She wouldn't run off with a good-for-nothing scamp 
 of two-and-twenty?" 
 
 "Oh, no-o," said Carlotta. "She would not be so 
 wicked." 
 
 " I am glad," said I, " that you think a sense of con- 
 jugal duty is an ineradicable element of female nature. 
 But suppose she fell in love with the young scamp?" 
 
 "Men fall in love," she replied sagely. "Women only 
 fall in love in stories Turkish stories. They love their 
 husbands." 
 
 "You amaze me," said I. 
 
 "Ye-es," said Carlotta. 
 
 "But in England, a man wants a woman to love him 
 before he marries her." 
 
 "How can she?" asked Carlotta. 
 
 This was a staggering question. 
 
 "I don't know," said I, "but she does." 
 
 "Then before I marry a man in England I must love 
 him ? But I shall die without a husband!" 
 
 "I don't think so," said I. 
 
 "I must begin soon," said Carlotta, with a laugh. 
 
 A sinuous motion of her serpentine young body en- 
 abled her to bend her face down to mine. 
 
 "Shall I love Seer Marcous? But how shall I know 
 when I am in love?" 
 
 "When you appreciate the exceeding impropriety of 
 discussing the matter with your humble servant," Ire- 
 plied.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 153 
 
 "When a girl is in love she does not speak about it?" 
 
 " No, my dear. She lets concealment like a worm i' the 
 bud feed on her damask cheek." 
 
 "Then she gets ugly?" 
 
 "That's it," I answered. "You keep on looking in the 
 glass, and when you perceive you are hideous then you'll 
 know you are in love." 
 
 " But when I am so ugly you will not want me," she ob- 
 jected. " So it is no use falling in love with you." 
 
 "You have a more logical mind than I imagined," 
 said I. 
 
 "What is a logical mind?" asked Carlotta. 
 
 "It is the antiseptic which destroys the bacilli of unrea- 
 son whereby true happiness is vivified." 
 
 "I do not understand," she said. 
 
 "I should be vastly surprised if you did," I laughed. 
 
 "Would you like me to marry and go away and leave 
 you?" asked Carlotta, after a long pause. 
 
 "I suppose," I said with a sigh, "that some tin-pot 
 knight will drive up one of these days to the castle in a 
 hansom-cab and carry off my princess." 
 
 "Then you'll be sorry?" 
 
 "My dear," I answered, "do not let us discuss such 
 gruesome things on an afternoon like this." 
 
 "You would like better for me to go on playing at being 
 your Turkish wife?" 
 
 "Infinitely," said I. 
 
 Alas! The day is sped. I have asked the fleeting mo- 
 ment to tarry, and it laughed, and shook its gossamer 
 wings at me, and flew by on its mad race into eternity. 
 
 As we lay, a cicada set up its shrilling quite close to us. 
 I slipped my head from Carlotta's lap and idly parted the
 
 154 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 rank grass in search of the noisy intruder, and by good 
 luck I found him. I beckoned Carlotta, who glided down, 
 and there, with our heads together and holding our breath, 
 we watched the queerest little love drama imaginable. 
 Our cicada stood alert and spruce, waving his antennae 
 with a sort of cavalier swagger, and every now and then 
 making his corslet vibrate passionately. On the top of a 
 blade of grass sat a brown little Juliet a most reserved, 
 discreet little Juliet, but evidently much interested in 
 Romeo's serenade. When he sang she put her head to one 
 side and moved as if uncertain whether to descend from 
 her balcony. When he stopped, which he did at frequent 
 intervals, being as it were timorous and tongue-tied, she 
 took her foot from the ladder and waited, at first patiently 
 and then with an obvious air of boredom. Messer Romeo 
 made a hop forward and vibrated ; Juliet grew tremulous. 
 Alarmed at his boldness he halted and made a hop back; 
 Juliet looked disappointed. At last another cicada set up a 
 louder note some yards away and, without a nod or a sign, 
 Juliet skipped off into space, leaving the most disconso- 
 late little Romeo of a grasshopper you ever beheld. He 
 gave vent to a dismal failure of a vibration and hopped to 
 the foot of the faithless lady's bower. 
 
 Carlotta broke into a merry laugh and clapped her hands. 
 
 "I am so glad." 
 
 " She is the most graceless hussy imaginable," I cried. 
 "There was he grinding his heart out for her, and just be- 
 cause a more brazen-throated scoundrel came upon the 
 scene she must needs leave our poor friend in the lurch. 
 She has no more heart than my boot, and she will come to 
 a bad end." 
 
 "But he was such a fool," retorted my sage damsel, 
 with a flash of laughter in her dark eyes. " If he wanted 
 her, why didn't he go up and take her?"
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 155 
 
 "Because he is a gentleman, a cicada of fine and deli- 
 cate feeling." 
 
 "Houl" laughed Carlotta. "He was a fool. It served 
 him right. She grew tired of waiting." 
 
 "You believe, then," said I, "in marriage by capture?" 
 
 I explained and discoursed to her of the matrimonial 
 habits of the Tartar tribes. 
 
 "Yes," said Carlotta. "That is sense. And it must be 
 such fun for the girl. All that, what you call it ? wooing ? 
 is waste of time. I like things to happen, quick, quick,, 
 one after the other or else " 
 
 "Or else what?" 
 
 "To do nothing, nothing but lie in the sun, like this 
 afternoon." 
 
 "Yes," said I dreamily, after I had again thrown my- 
 self by her side. "Like this afternoon." 
 
 I sit at my window and look out upon the strip of beach, 
 the hauled-up fishing boats and the nets hung out to dry 
 looming vague in the starlight, and I hear the surf's rhyth- 
 mical moan a few yards beyond ; and it beats into my ears 
 the idiot phrase that has recurred all the evening. 
 
 But why should I be mad? For filling my soul with 
 God's utmost glory of earth and sea and sky ? For filling 
 my heart with purest pleasure in the intimate companion- 
 ship of fresh and fragrant maidenhood ? For giving my- 
 self up for once to a dream of sense clouded by never a 
 thought that was not serenely fair? 
 
 For feeling young again ? 
 
 I shall read myself to sleep with La Dame de Monso- 
 reau, which I have procured from the circulating library 
 in the Rue Alphonse Karr (the literary horticulturist is 
 the genius loci and the godfather of my landlady) and I
 
 156 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 will empty flagons with Pere Gorenflot and ride on errands 
 of life and death with Chicot, prince of jesters, and walk 
 lovingly between the valiant Bussy and Henri Quatre. 
 By this, if by nothing else, I recognise the beneficence of 
 the high gods they have given us tired men Dumas.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 September y>th. 
 
 Something is wrong with Antoinette. The dinner she 
 served up this evening was all but uneatable. Something 
 is wrong with Stenson, who has taken to playing his lugu- 
 brious hymn-tunes on the concertina while I am in the 
 house; I won't have it. Something is wrong with the cat. 
 He wanders round the house like a lost soul, sniffing at 
 everything. This evening he actually jumped onto the 
 dinner-table, looked at me out of his one eye, in which all 
 the desolation of two was concentrated, and miaowed 
 heart-rendingly in my face. Something is wrong with the 
 house, with my pens which will not write, with my books 
 which have the air of dry bones in a charnel-house, with 
 the MS. of my History of Renaissance Morals, which 
 stands on the writing-table like a dusty monument to the 
 futility of human endeavour. Something is wrong with 
 me. 
 
 Something, too, is wrong with Judith, who has just re- 
 turned from her stay with the Willoughbys. I have been 
 to see her this evening and found her of uncertain temper, 
 and inclined to be contradictious. She accused me of be- 
 ing dull. I answered that the autumn world outside was 
 drenched with miserable rain. How could man be sprightly 
 under such conditions ? 
 
 "In this room," said Judith, "with its bright fire and 
 drawn curtains there is no miserable rain, and no autumn 
 save in our hearts." 
 
 "Why in our hearts?" I asked. 
 
 157
 
 158 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "How you peg one down to precision," said Judith, 
 testily. "I wish I were a Roman Catholic." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "I could go into a convent." 
 
 "You had much better go to Delphine Carrere," 
 said I. 
 
 "I have only been back a day, and you want to get rid 
 of me already?" she cried, using her woman's swift logic 
 of unreason. 
 
 "I want you to be happy and contented, my dear Ju- 
 dith." 
 
 "H'm," she said. 
 
 Her slipper dangling as usual from the tip of her foot 
 fell to the ground. I declare I was only half conscious of 
 the accident as my mind was deep in other things. 
 
 "You don't even pick up my slipper," she said. 
 
 "Ten thousand pardons," I exclaimed, springing for- 
 ward. But she had anticipated my intention. We re- 
 mained staring into the fire and saying nothing. As she 
 professed to be tired I went away early. 
 
 At the front door of the mansions, finding I had left my 
 umbrella behind, I remounted the stairs, and rang Ju- 
 dith's bell. After a while I saw her figure through the 
 ground-glass panel approach the door, but before she 
 opened it, she turned out the light in the passage. 
 
 "Marcus!" she cried, rather excitedly; and in the dim- 
 ness of the threshold her eyes looked strangely accusative 
 of tears. " You have come back ! " 
 
 "Yes," said I, "for my umbrella." 
 
 She looked at me for a moment, laughed, clapped her 
 hands to her throat, turned away sharply, caught up my 
 umbrella, and putting it into my hands and thrusting me 
 back shut the door in my face. In great astonishment I 
 went downstairs again. What is wrong with Judith ? She
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 159 
 
 said this evening that all men are cruel. Now, I am a 
 man. Therefore I am cruel. A perfect syllogism. But 
 how have I been cruel? 
 
 I walked home. There is nothing so consoling to the 
 depressed man as the unmitigated misery of a walk through 
 the London rain. One is not mocked by any factitious 
 gaiety. The mind is in harmony with the sodden universe. 
 It is well to have everything in the world wrong at one and 
 the same time. 
 
 I have changed my drenched garments for dressing- 
 gown and slippers. I find on my writing-table a letter 
 addressed in a round childish hand. It is from Carlotta, 
 who for the last fortnight has been staying in Cornwall 
 with the McMurrays. I have known few fortnights so 
 long. In a ridiculous schoolboy way I have been count- 
 ing the days to her return the day after to-morrow. 
 
 The letter begins: " Seer Marcous dear." The spelling 
 is a little jest between us. The inversion is a quaint in- 
 vention of her own. "Mrs. McMurray says, can you 
 spare me for one more week ? She wants to teach me man- 
 ners. She says I have shocked the top priest here oh, 
 you call him a vikker now I do remember because I 
 went out for a walk with a little young pretty priest with- 
 out a hat, and because it rained I put on his hat and the 
 vikker met us. But I did not flirt with the little priest. 
 Oh, no! I told him he must not make love to me like the 
 young man from the grocer's. And I told him that if he 
 wrote poetry you would beat him. So I have been very 
 good. And darling Seer Marcous, I want to come back 
 very much, but Mrs. McMurray says I must stay, and she 
 is going to have a baby and I am very happy and good, 
 and Mr. McMurray says funny things and makes me 
 laugh. But I love my darling Seer Marcous best. Give
 
 160 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 Antoinette and Polifemus [the one-eyed cat] two very nice 
 kisses for me. And here is one for Seer Marcous from his 
 
 " CARLOTTA." 
 
 How can I refuse? But I wish she were here. 
 
 3 is/ October. 
 
 I did not sleep last night. I have done no work to-day. 
 The Renaissance has receded into a Glacial Epoch where- 
 in, as far as its humanity is concerned, I have not a tittle 
 of interest. I sought refuge in the club. Why should an 
 old sober University club be such a haven of unrest? 
 Ponting, an opinionated don of Corpus, seated himself at 
 my luncheon table, and discoursed on political economy 
 and golf. I manifested a polite ignorance of these high 
 matters. He assured me that if I studied the one and 
 played at the other, I should be physically and mentally 
 more robust; whereupon he thumped his narrow chest, 
 and put on a scowl of intellectuality. I fear that Ponting, 
 like most of the men here, studies golf and plays at political 
 economy. In serener moments I suffer Ponting gladly. 
 But to-day his boast that he had done the course at West- 
 ward Ho! in seven, or seventeen, or seventy how on earth 
 should I remember? left me cold, and his crude econom- 
 ics interfered with my digestion. 
 
 Strolling forlornly down Piccadilly I came face to face 
 with my sad-coloured Cousin Rosalie in a sad-coloured 
 gown. She gave me a hasty nod and would have passed 
 on, but I arrested her. Her white face was turned pite- 
 ously upward and from her expressionless eyes flashed a 
 glance of fear. I felt myself in a brutal mood. 
 
 "Why," I asked, "are you avoiding me as if I were a 
 pestilence?" 
 
 She murmured that she was not avoiding me, but was 
 in a hurry.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 161 
 
 "I don't believe it," said I. "People have been telling 
 you that I am a vile, wicked man who does unspeakable 
 things, and like a good little girl you are afraid to talk to 
 me. Tell people, the next time you see them, with my 
 compliments, that they are malevolent geese." 
 
 I lifted my hat and relieving Rosalie of my terrifying 
 presence, walked away in dudgeon. I felt abominably and 
 unreasonably angry. I bethought me of my Aunt Jessica, 
 whom I held responsible for her niece's behaviour. A 
 militant mood prompted a call. After twenty minutes in 
 a hansom I found myself in her drawing-room. She was 
 alone, the girls being away on country-house visits. Her 
 reception was glaciaL I expressed the hope that the 
 yachting cruise had been a pleasant one. 
 
 " Exceedingly pleasant," snapped my aunt. 
 
 "I trust Dora is well," said I, keeping from my lips a 
 smile that might have hinted at the broken heart. 
 
 "Very well, thank you." 
 
 As I do not enjoy a staccato conversation, I remained 
 politely silent, inviting her by my attitude to speak* 
 
 "I rather wonder, Marcus," she said at last, "at your 
 referring to Dora." 
 
 " Indeed ? May I ask why ? " 
 
 "May I speak plainly?" 
 
 " I beseech you." 
 
 " I have heard of you at Etretat with your ward" 
 
 "Well?" I asked. 
 
 " Verbum sap," said my aunt. 
 
 "And you have let Mrs. Ralph and Rosalie know of 
 my summer holiday and given them to understand that 
 I am a monster of depravity. I am exceedingly obliged 
 to you. I have just met Rosalie in the street, and she 
 shrank from me as if I were the reincarnation of original 
 sin." 
 
 i <
 
 1 62 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "I have no doubt that in her innocent mind you are," 
 replied my Aunt Jessica. 
 
 The indulgent smile wherewith she used to humour my 
 eccentricities had gone, and her face was hard and unpity- 
 ing. 
 
 "I am glad I have such charitable-minded relations," 
 said I. 
 
 " I am a woman of the world," my aunt retorted, " but 
 I think that when such things are flaunted in the face of 
 society they become immoral." 
 
 I rose. " Do evil by stealth as much as you like," said 
 I, "but blush to find it fame." 
 
 With a gesture my aunt assented to the proposition. 
 
 "On the other hand," said I, heatedly, "I have been 
 doing a certain amount of good both by stealth arid openly, 
 and I naturally blush with indignation to find it accounted 
 infamous." 
 
 I looked narrowly into my aunt's eyes and I read in 
 them entire disbelief in my protest. I swear, if I had 
 proved my innocence beyond the shadow of doubt, that 
 woman would have been grievously disappointed. 
 
 "Good-bye," said I. 
 
 She shook hands frigidly and turned to ring the bell. A 
 moment later I really believe she was moved by a kindly 
 impulse she intercepted me at the door. 
 
 "I know you are odd and quixotic, Marcus," she said 
 in a softer tone. "I hope you will do nothing rash." 
 
 "What do you mean?" I asked in a white heat of un- 
 reasonable rage. 
 
 " I hope you won't try to repair things by marrying this 
 young person." 
 
 "To make an honest woman of her, do you mean?" 
 I asked grimly. 
 
 "Yes," said my aunt.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 163 
 
 Then suddenly the Devil leaped into me and stirred all 
 the elements of unrest, anger, and longing together in a 
 cauldron which I suppose was my heart. The result was 
 explosion. I made a step forward with raised hands and 
 my aunt recoiled in alarm. 
 
 "By heaven!" I cried, "I would give the soul out of my 
 body to marry her!" 
 
 And I stumbled out of the house like a blind man. 
 
 From that moment of dazzling revelation till now I have 
 nursed this infinite desire. To say that I love Carlotta is 
 to express Niagara in terms of a fountain. I crave her 
 with everything vital in heart and brain. She is an obses- 
 sion. The scent of her hair is in my nostrils, the cooing 
 dove-notes of her voice murmur in my ears, I shut my eyes 
 and feel the rose-petals of her lips on my cheek, the witch- 
 ery of her movements dances before my eyes. 
 
 I cannot live without her. Until to-day the house was 
 desolate enough a ghostly shell of a habitation. Hence- 
 forward, without her my very life will be void. My heart 
 has been crying for her these two weeks and I knew it not. 
 Now I know. I could stand on my balcony and lift up my 
 hands toward the south where she abides, and lift up my 
 voice, and cry for her passionately aloud. There is no in- 
 fernal foolishness in the world that I could not commit to- 
 night. The maddest dingo dog, if he could appreciate my 
 state of being, would learn points in insanity. 
 
 It is two o'clock. I must go to sleep. I take from my 
 shelves Epictetus, who might be expected to throw cold 
 water on the most burning fever of the mind. I have not 
 read far before I come across this consolatory apophthegm: 
 "The contest is unequal between a charming girl and a
 
 164 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 beginner in philosophy." He is mocking me, the cold- 
 blooded pedagogue! I throw his book across the room. 
 But he is right. I am but a beginner in philosophy. No 
 armour wherein my reason can invest me is of avail 
 against Carlotta. I have no strength to smite. I am 
 helpless. 
 
 But by heaven! am I mad ? Is not this on the contrary 
 the sanest hour of my existence ? I have lived like an au- 
 tomaton for forty years, and I suddenly awake to find my- 
 self a man. I don't care whether I sleep or not. I feel 
 gloriously, exultingly young. I am but twenty. As I have 
 never lived, I have never grown old. Life translates itself 
 into music a wild "Invitation to the Waltz" by some 
 Archangel Weber. I laugh out loud. Polyphemus, who 
 has been regarding me with his one bantering eye from 
 Carlotta's corner on the sofa, leaps to the ground and gro- 
 tesquely curvets round the room in a series of impish hops. 
 Heigh, old boy? Do the pulsations of the music throb hi 
 your veins, too ? Come along and let us make a night of 
 it. To the Devil with sleep. We'll go together down to 
 the cellar and find a bottle of Pommery, and we will drink 
 to Life and Youth and Love and the Splendour and the 
 Joy thereof. 
 
 He utters a little cry of delight and frisks around me. In 
 the blackness of the cellar his one eye gleams like a star and 
 he purrs unutterable rapture. My hand passed over his 
 back produces a shower of sparks. We return up the si- 
 lent stairs, I carry a bottle of Pommery and a milk-jug 
 for you shall revel, too, Polyphemus; and as I have for- 
 gotten to bring a saucer, you shall drink, as no cat has 
 drunk before, from an old precious platter bearing the 
 arms of the Estes of Ferrara over which Lucrezia Borgia 
 laughed when the world was young. It is a pity cats don't 
 drink champagne. I would have made you to-night as
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeynt 165 
 
 drunk as Bacchus. We drink, and in the stillness the glou- 
 glou of his tongue forms a bass to the elfin notes of the 
 Pommery in the soda-water tumbler. 
 
 Ha! Twin purveyors of the milk of paradise, I wonder 
 like Omar what you buy one-half so precious as the stuff 
 you sell. Motor-cars for Mrs. Pommery and cakes for the 
 little Grenos ? I do not like to regard you as common hu- 
 mans addicted to silk hats and umbrellas and the other 
 vices of respectability. Ye are rather beneficent demi- 
 gods, Castor and Pollux of the vine, dream entities who 
 pour from the sunset lands of Nowhere the liquid gold of 
 life's joyousness. 
 
 A few words scribbled on this telegraph form would 
 bring her here to-morrow night. But no. What is a week ? 
 Leaden-footed, it is an eternity; but winged with the dove's 
 iris it is a mere moment. Besides, I must accustom my- 
 self to my youth. I must investigate its follies, I must 
 learn the grammar of its wisdom. We'll take counsel to- 
 gether, Polyphemus, how to turn these chambers, fusty 
 with decayed thought, into a bridal bower radiant and 
 fragrant with innumerable loves. Let us drink again to 
 her witchery. It is her breath itself distilled by the Heav- 
 enly Twins that foams against my lips. I would give the 
 soul out of my body to marry her, did I say ? It were like 
 buying her for a farthing. I would pledge the soul of the 
 universe for a kiss. 
 
 I catch up Polyphemus under the arm-pits, and his hind 
 legs dangle. He continues to lick his chops and looks at 
 me sardonically. He is stolid over his cups which is 
 somewhat disappointing. No matter; he can be shaken 
 into enthusiasm. 
 
 "I care not," I cry, "for man or devil, Polyphemus. 
 
 ' Q ue J e suis grand ici ! man amour defeu 
 Va de pair cette nuit avec celui de Dieuf*
 
 1 66 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 You may say that it's wrong, that the first line is a syllable 
 short, and that Triboulet said 'colere' instead of amour. 
 You always were a dry-as-dust, pedantic prig. But I say 
 amour love, do you hear? I'll translate, if you like: 
 
 *Now am I mighty, and my love of fire 
 To-night goes even with a god's desire.' 
 
 Yes; I'll be a poet even though you do scratch my wrist 
 with your hind claws, Polyphemus." 
 
 There 1 Empty your milk-jug and I will empty my bot- 
 tle. The wine smells of hyacinth. It is a revelation. 
 Her hair smells of violets, but it is the delicate odour of 
 hyacinth that came from her bare young arms when she 
 clasped them round my neck; et sa peau, on dirait du 
 satin. Carlotta is in the wine, Carlotta with her sorcery 
 and her laughter and her youth, and I drink Carlotta. 
 
 " Quo me rapis Bacche plenum tuif 
 
 To such a land of dreams, my one-eyed friend, as never 
 before have I visited. You yawn? You are bored? I 
 shoot the dregs of my glass into his distended jaws. He 
 springs away spitting and coughing, and I lie back in my 
 chair convulsed with inextinguishable laughter. 
 
 October 2d. 
 
 I have suffered all day from a racking headache, hav- 
 ing awakened at six o'clock and crept shivering to bed. I 
 realise that Pommery and Greno are not demi-gods at all, 
 but mere commercial purveyors of a form of alcohol, a 
 quart of which it is injudicious to imbibe, with a one- 
 eyed tom-cat as boon companion, at two o'clock in the 
 morning. 
 
 But I am unrepentant. If I committed follies last night,
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 167 
 
 so much the better. I struggle no longer against the inevi- 
 table, when the inevitable is the crown and joy of earthly 
 things. For in sober truth I love her infinitely. 
 
 October 6th. 
 
 She comes back to-morrow. Antoinette and I have been 
 devising a welcome. The good soul has filled the house 
 with flowers, and, usurping Stenson's functions, has pol- 
 ished furniture and book backs and silver and has hung 
 fresh blinds and scrubbed and scoured until I am afraid 
 to walk about or sit down lest I should tarnish the spotless 
 brightness of my surroundings. 
 
 "You have forgotten one thing, Antoinette," I re- 
 marked, satirically. "You have omitted to strew the 
 front steps with rose-leaves." 
 
 "I would cover them with my body for the dear angel 
 to walk upon as she entered," said Antoinette. 
 
 "That would scarcely be rose-leaves," I murmured. 
 
 Antoinette laughed. "And Monsieur then! He is just 
 as bad. Has he not put new curtains in the room of Ma- 
 demoiselle, and a new toilette table, and a set of silver 
 brushes and combs and I know not what, as for the toi- 
 lette of a princess ? And the eiderdown in pink satin ? 
 Regardez-moi fa! Monsieur can no longer say that it is I 
 alone who spoil the dear angel." 
 
 "Monsieur," said I, at a loss for a better retort, "will 
 say whatever Monsieur pleases." 
 
 "It is indeed the right of Monsieur," said Antoinette, 
 respectfully, but with a twinkle in her eye not devoid of 
 significance. 
 
 Does the crafty old woman suspect ? Perhaps my prep- 
 arations for Carlotta's return have been inordinate, for they 
 have extended to the transformation of the sitting-room 
 downstairs into a lady's boudoir. I have been busy this
 
 1 68 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 happy week. But what care I ? It will not be long before 
 I have to say to her, "Antoinette, there is going to be a 
 wedding." 
 
 I must be on my guard lest, in the transports of her joy, 
 she clasp me to her capacious bosom!
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 October 'jlh. 
 
 At Paddington I came upon Sebastian Pasquale loung- 
 ing about the arrival platform. As I had not seen or heard 
 of him since the end of July I had concluded that he was 
 wandering as usual over the globe. He greeted me effu- 
 sively, holding out both hands in his foreign fashion. 
 
 "My dear old Ordeyne! who would have thought of 
 meeting you here? What wind blows you to Padding- 
 ton?" 
 
 "I expect Carlotta by the Plymouth Express." 
 
 "The fair Carlotta? And how is she? And what is 
 she doing at Plymouth?" 
 
 In the middle of my explanation he pulled out his 
 watch. 
 
 "By Jove! I must get to the next platform and catch 
 my train to Ealing. I was just killing time about the station. 
 I like seeing a train come in the gleam and smoke and 
 rush and whirr of the evil-looking thing and the sudden 
 metamorphosis of its sleek sides into mouths belching 
 forth humanity. I think of Hades. This, by the way, isn't 
 a bad representation of it the up-to-date Hades. They've 
 got a railway bridge now across the Styx, and Charon has 
 a gold band around his cap, and this might be the arrival 
 platform of the damned souls." 
 
 "You forget," said I, "that it is the arrival platform of 
 Carlotta." 
 
 He threw back his head and laughed boyishly. 
 
 "Well, consider it the Golden Gate terminus of the
 
 I jo The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 'Earth, Hades and Olympus Railway' if you like. I'm 
 off on a branch line to meet a beauteous duchessa at Ealing 
 oh, an authentic one, I assure you." 
 
 "Why should I doubt it?" said I. 
 
 Stenson, whom I had brought to look after Carlotta's 
 luggage, came up and touched his hat. 
 
 "Train just signalled, sir." 
 
 Pasquale put out his hand after another glance at his 
 watch. 
 
 "I am sorry I cannot wait to greet the fair one. I'll 
 drop in soon and pay my respects. I am only just back in 
 London, you know. A rivederci." 
 
 He waved me farewell and hurried off. The arrival of 
 the train, the exuberance of Carlotta, the joy of having her 
 sidle up against me once more in the cab while she poured 
 out her story, and the subsequent gaiety of the evening 
 banished Pasquale from my mind. But it is odd that I 
 should have met him at Paddington. 
 
 We parted on the landing to dress for dinner. A mo- 
 ment afterwards there was a beating at my door. I opened 
 it to behold Carlotta, in a glow of wondering delight, 
 brandishing a silver-backed brush in one hand and the 
 hand-mirror in the other. 
 
 " Oh, my darling Seer Marcous! For me ? All that for 
 me?" 
 
 " No. It is for Antoinette," said I. 
 
 "Oh-h!" 
 
 She laughed and pulled me by the arm into her room 
 and shut the door. 
 
 " Oh, everything is beautiful, beautiful, and I shall die 
 if I do not kiss you." 
 
 "You must be kept alive at all hazards," I laughed; 
 and this time I did not reject her. But it was a child around
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 171 
 
 whom my arms closed. An inner flash, accompanied by a 
 spasm of pain, revealed it, and changed a passionate de- 
 sire to gentleness. 
 
 "There," said I, after she had released herself and flown 
 to open the drawers of the new toilette table, where lay 
 some odds and ends of jewelry I had purchased for her. 
 " You have been saved from extinction. The next deadly 
 peril is hunger. I give you a quarter of an hour." 
 
 She came down to dinner in a low-necked frock, wear- 
 ing the necklace and bangle; and, child that she is, in her 
 hand she carried the silver-backed mirror. I believe she 
 has taken it to bed with her, as a seven-year-old does its 
 toy. She certainly kept it by her all the evening and ad- 
 mired herself therein unashamedly like the traditional 
 Lady from the Sea. Once, desiring to show me the 
 ravishing beauty of a turquoise pendant, she bent her neck 
 forward, as I sat, so as to come within reach of my near- 
 sighted eyes (it is a superstition of hers that I am nearly 
 blind without my glasses), and quite naturally slid onto 
 my knee. She has the warm russet complexion that suits 
 her heavy bronze hair, and there is a glow beneath the 
 satin of her neck and arms. And she is fragrant I rec- 
 ognise it now of hyacinths. The world can hold noth- 
 ing more alluring to the senses of man. My fingers that 
 held the turquoise trembled as they chanced to touch her 
 but she was all unconcerned. Nay, further she gazed 
 into the mirror 
 
 "It makes me look so white oh, there was a girl at 
 Bude who had a gold locket and it lay upon her bones 
 you could count them. I am glad I have no bones. I am 
 quite soft feel." 
 
 She clasped my fingers and pressed their tips into the 
 firm young flesh below her throat. 
 
 "Yes," said I, with some huskiness in my voice, "your
 
 172 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 turquoise can sleep there very pleasantly. See, I will kiss 
 it to bring you good luck." 
 
 She cooed with pleasure. "I don't think any one kissed 
 the locket of the girl at Bude. She was too thin. And too 
 old; she must have been thirty! Now," she added, lifting 
 up the locket, "you will kiss the place, too, where it is to 
 lie." 
 
 I looked for a moment into her eyes. Seeing me hesitate, 
 they grew pathetic. 
 
 " Oh-h," she said, reproachfully. 
 
 I know I am a fool. I know that Pasquale would have 
 hurled his sarcasms at me. I know that the whole of her 
 deliciousness was mine for the taking mine for ever and 
 ever. If I had loved her less passionately I would have 
 kissed her young throat lightly with a jest. But to have 
 kissed her thus with such longing as mine behind my lips 
 would have been an outrage. 
 
 I lifted her to her feet, and rose and turned away, laugh- 
 ing unsteadily. 
 
 "No, my dear," said I, "that would be unsuitable." 
 
 The bathos of the word made me laugh louder. Car- 
 lotta, aware that a joke was hi the air, joined in my mirth, 
 and her laughter rang fresh. 
 
 "What is the suitable way of kissing?" 
 
 I took her hand and saluted it in an eighteenth century 
 manner. 
 
 "This," said I. 
 
 "Oh-h," said Carlotta. "That is so dull." She caught 
 up Polyphemus and buried her face in his fur. "That's 
 the way I should like to be kissed." 
 
 "The man you love, my dear," said I, "will doubtless 
 do it." 
 
 She made a little grimace. 
 
 "Oh, then, I shall have to wait such a long time."
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 173 
 
 "You needn't," said I, taking her hands again and 
 speaking very seriously. " Can't you learn to love a man, 
 give him your whole heart and all your best and sweetest 
 thoughts?" 
 
 "I would marry any nice man if you gave me to him," 
 she answered. 
 
 " It would not matter who he was ? Any one would do ? " 
 
 "Why, of course," said Carlotta. 
 
 "And any one wanting to marry you could kiss you as 
 you kissed Polyphemus." 
 
 " Oh-h, he would have to be nice not like Mustapha." 
 
 I turned away with a sigh and lit a cigarette, while Car- 
 lotta curled herself up on the sofa and inspected her face 
 and necklace in the silver mirror. In a moment she was 
 talking to the cat, who had jumped on her lap and with 
 arched back was rubbing himself against her. 
 
 Soon the touch of sadness was lost in the happy sight of 
 her and the happy thought that my house was no longer 
 left to me desolate. We laughed away the evening. 
 
 But now, sitting alone, I feel empty of soul; like a man 
 stricken with fierce hunger who, expecting food in a cer- 
 tain place, finds nothing but a few delicate cakes that mock 
 his craving. 
 
 October iqth. 
 
 A week has passed. I have spent it chiefly in trying to 
 win her love. 
 
 Is she, after all, only a child, and is this love of mine but 
 a monstrous passion? 
 
 WTiat is to be done? Life is beginning to be a torture. 
 If I send her away, I shall eat my heart out. If she stays, 
 fuel is but added to the fire. Her caressing ways will drive 
 me mad. To repulse her were brutal she loves to be 
 fondled; she can scarcely speak to me without touching
 
 174 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 me, leaning over me, thus filling me with the sense of her. 
 She treats me with an affectionate child's innocence, as if 
 I were sexless. My happiest time with her iL spent in pub- 
 lic places, restaurants, and theatres where her unclouded 
 pleasure is reflected in my heart. 
 
 I am letting her take music lessons with Herr Stuer, who 
 lives close by in the Avenue Road. Perhaps music may 
 help in her development. 
 
 October 2ist. 
 
 To please her I am accustoming myself to this out-of- 
 door life, which once I despised so cordially. Pasquale 
 has joined us two or three times. Last night he gave a din- 
 ner in Carlotta's honour at the Continental. The ladies 
 of the party have asked her to go to see them. She must 
 have some society, I suppose, and I must go with her. 
 They belong to the half smart set, eager to conceal be- 
 neath a show of ramshness their plentiful lack of intellect 
 and their fundamental bourgeois respectability. In spite 
 of Pasquale's brilliance and Carlotta's rapturous enjoy- 
 ment I sat mumchance and depressed, out of my element. 
 
 My work is at a standstill, and Carlotta is my life. I 
 fear I am deteriorating. 
 
 On Judith, whom I have seen once or twice since Car- 
 lotta's return, I called this afternoon. She is unhappy. 
 Although I have not confessed to my thraldom, her 
 woman's wit, I feel sure, has penetrated to the heart of 
 my mystery. There has been no deep emotion in our in- 
 tercourse. Its foundation has been real friendship sweet- 
 ened with pleasant sentimentality. And yet jealousy of 
 Carlotta consumes her. Her amour propre is deeply 
 wounded. She makes me feel as if I had played the part 
 of a brute. But O Judith, my dear, I have only been a 
 man. " The same thing," I fancy I hear her answer. But
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 175 
 
 no. I have never loved a woman, my dear, in all my life 
 before, and as I made no secret of it, I am guiltless of any- 
 thing like betrayal. In due season I will tell you frankly 
 of the new love; but how can I tell you now ? How could 
 I tell any human being? 
 
 I imagine myself as Panurge, taking counsel with a Pan- 
 tagruelian friend. " I am in love with Carlotta and desire 
 to marry her." "Then marry her," says Pantagruel. 
 "But she does not love me." "Then don't marry," says 
 Pantagruel. " But nay," urges poor Panurge, " she would 
 marry me according to any rite, civil or ecclesiastical, 
 to-morrow." " M ariez-vous doncques de par dieu" re- 
 plies Pantagruel. " But I should be a villain to take ad- 
 vantage of her innocence and submission." "Then don't 
 marry." "But I can't live without her," says Panurge, 
 desperately. " I am as a man bewitched. If I don't marry 
 her I shall waste away with longing." "Then marry her 
 in God's name!" says Pantagruel. And I am no wiser by 
 his counsel, and I have paraded the complication of my 
 folly before mocking eyes. 
 
 October 2$d. 
 
 I perceive that the young man of the idiot metaphor 
 was gifted with piercing acumen. Beneath the Jaques- 
 ian melancholy of my temperament he diagnosed the 
 potentiality of canine rabidness. No rational being is af- 
 flicted with this grotesque concentration of idea, this fierce 
 hot fury waxing in intensity day by day. 
 
 I must consult a brain specialist 
 
 October 2$th. 
 
 I went to Judith this afternoon, more to prove the loy- 
 alty of my friendship than to seek comfort from her so- 
 ciety. Over tea we discussed the weather and books and
 
 176 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 her statistical work. It was dull, but unembarrassing. 
 The grey twilight crept into the room and there was a 
 pause in our talk. She broke it by asking, without look- 
 ing at me : 
 
 "When are we to have an evening together again?" 
 
 "Whenever you like, my dear Judith." 
 
 "To-morrow?" 
 
 " I am afraid not to-morrow," said I. 
 
 "Are you doing anything so very particular?" 
 
 "I have arranged to take Carlotta to the Empire." 
 
 " Oh," said Judith shortly, and I was left uncomfortable 
 for another spell of silence. 
 
 " It would be very kind, Marcus, to ask me to accom- 
 pany you," she said at last. 
 
 "Carlotta and myself?" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "My question arose from the stupidity of surprise," 
 said I. "I thought you disliked Carlotta." 
 
 " By no means. I should be glad to make her further 
 acquaintance. Any one that interests you must also be 
 interesting to me." 
 
 "In that case," said I, "your coming will give us both 
 the greatest possible pleasure." 
 
 "I haven't had a merry evening for ever so long." 
 
 "We will dine somewhere first and have supper after- 
 wards. The whole gamut of merriment. Toute la lyre. 
 And you shall have," I added, "some of your favourite 
 Veuve Cliquot." 
 
 "It will be charming," said Judith, politely. 
 
 In fact, politeness has been the dominant note of her 
 attitude to-day, a sober restraint of manner such as she 
 would adopt when rather tired towards an ordinary ac- 
 quaintance. Has she reconciled herself to the inevitable 
 and taken this Empire frolic as a graceful method of show-
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 177 
 
 ing it ? I should like to believe so, but the course is scarcely 
 consistent with that motor of illogic which she is pleased 
 to call her temperament. I am puzzled. 
 
 Her smile as we parted sent a chill through me, being the 
 smile of a mask instead of a woman's face; and it was not 
 the face of Judith. I don't anticipate much merriment to- 
 morrow evening. 
 
 At Carlotta's suggestion, I have sent a line to Pasquale 
 to ask him to join us. His gay wit will lend to the enter- 
 tainment a specious air of revelry which Carlotta will take 
 as genuine. 
 
 I have often thought lately of the hopeless passion of 
 Alfonso the Magnanimous of Naples, as set forth by Pope 
 Pius II in his Commentaries; for I am beginning to take a 
 morbid interest in the unhappy love affairs of other men 
 and to institute comparisons. If they have lived through 
 the torment, why should not I? But Alfonso sighed for 
 Lucrezia d'Alagna, a beautiful chaste statue of ice who 
 loved him; whereas I crave the warm-blooded thing that 
 is mine for the taking, but no more loves me than she loves 
 the policeman who salutes her on his beat. I cannot take 
 her. Something stronger than my passion opposes an 
 adamantine barrier. I love her with my soul as well as with 
 my body, and my soul cries out for the soul that the Al- 
 mighty forgot when endowing her with entity. 
 
 This evening a letter from the Editor of The Quarterly 
 Review. It would give him great pleasure if I would con- 
 tribute a Renaissance article, taking as my text a German, 
 a Russian, and an English attempt to whitewash the Borgia 
 family. Six months ago the compliment would have filled 
 me with gratification. To-day what to me are the white- 
 washed Borgias or the solemn denizens of the Athenaeum 
 
 12
 
 178 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 reading-room who will slumber over my account of the 
 blameless poisonings of this amiable family? They are 
 vanity and vexation of a spirit already sore at ease. 
 
 As I write the door creaks. I look up. Behold Carlotta 
 in hastily slipped on dressing-gown, open in front, her hair 
 streaming loose to her waist, her bare feet flashing pink 
 beneath her night-dress. 
 
 "Oh, Seer Marcous, darling, I am so frightened!" 
 
 She ran forward and caught the lappels of my coat as I 
 rose from my chair. 
 
 "What is the matter?" 
 
 "There is a mouse in my bed." 
 
 Polyphemus saved the situation by jumping from the 
 sofa and rubbing his back against her feet. 
 
 "Take the cat and tell him to kill it," said I, "and go 
 back to bed at once." 
 
 I must have spoken roughly, for she regarded me with 
 her great eyes full of innocent reproach. 
 
 "There, take up the cat and go," I repeated. "You 
 mustn't come down here looking like that." 
 
 "I thought I looked very pretty," said Carlotta, mov- 
 ing a step nearer. 
 
 I sat down at my writing-table and fixed my eyes on my 
 paper. 
 
 "You are like a Houri that has been sent away from 
 Paradise for misbehaviour," I said. 
 
 She laughed her curious cooing laugh. 
 
 "Haul Seer Marcous is shocked!" And she ran 
 away, rubbing Polyphemus's nose against her face. 
 
 I wonder if the Devil, having grown infirm, is mixing up 
 his centuries and mistaking me for a mediaeval saint? 
 Paphnutius for instance, who was visited by such a seduc-
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 179 
 
 tress. What is the legend ? To get rid of her he burns off 
 his hand, whereupon she falls dead. He prays and she re- 
 turns to life and becomes a nun. No, Messer Diavolo, I 
 am not Paphnutius. I will not maim myself, nor do I want 
 Carlotta to fall dead; and I cannot pray and effect a piet- 
 istic resurrection. I am simply a fool of a modern man 
 tempted out of his wits, who scarce knows what it is that 
 he speaks or writes. 
 
 I am not superstitious, but I feel myself to-night on the 
 brink of some disaster. I walk restlessly about the room. 
 On the mantel-piece are three photographs in silver 
 frames: Judith, Carlotta, Pasquale. That which is of 
 mockery in the spirit of each seems to-night to be hover- 
 ing round the portraits and to be making sport of me. An 
 autumn gale is howling among the trees outside, like a le- 
 gion of lost souls. Listen. Messer Diavolo himself might 
 be riding by with a whoop of derision.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 October 26th. 
 
 I knew something would happen. Messer Diavolo does 
 not ride whooping to no purpose by the windows of peo- 
 ple whom, he desires to torment; nor does he inspire pho- 
 tographs for nothing with an active spirit of mockery. 
 
 We dined at the Trocadero. Carlotta loves the band 
 and the buzz of Babel and the heavy scents and the clatter 
 and the tumult and the glare of light; otherwise I should 
 have chosen a discreeter hostelry where the footfalls of the 
 waiting-men were noiseless and the walls in quiet shadow, 
 where there was nothing but the mellow talk of friends to 
 distract the mind from the consideration of exquisite fla- 
 vours. But in these palaces of clashing splendour, the 
 stunned brain fails to receive impressions from the glosso- 
 pharyngeal nerve, and one eats unthinkingly like a dog. 
 But this matters little to Carlotta. Perhaps when I was 
 nineteen it mattered little to me. And to-night, also, it 
 mattered little, for my mind was preoccupied and a dinner 
 with Lucullus would have been savourless. 
 
 If the Psalmist cried, " What is man that Thou art mind- 
 ful of him?" what cry had he at the back of his head to 
 utter concerning woman ? Did he leave her to be implicit- 
 ly dealt with by Charles Darwin in his "Theory of Sexual 
 Selection"? Or did he in the good old oriental way re- 
 gard her as unimportant in the eyes of the Deity ? If the 
 latter, he was a purblind prophet and missed the very fount 
 of human tears. 
 
 When I looked at Judith, T was smitten with a great 
 
 I&O
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 181 
 
 pain. She had not looked so young, so fresh, so fragilely 
 fair for many months. She wore a dress of corn-flower blue 
 that deepened the violet of her eyes. In the mass of flax- 
 hued thistle-down that is her hair a blue argus butterfly 
 completed the chord of colour. There was the faintest 
 tinge of pink in her cheek applied with delicate art. Her 
 dress seemed made of unsubstantial dream stuff I be- 
 lieve they call it chiffon and it covered her bosom and 
 arms like the spray of a fairy sea. She had the air of an 
 impalpable Undine, a creation of sea-foam and sea-flower; 
 an exquisite suggestion of the ethereal which floated beauty, 
 as it were, into her face. I know little of women, save 
 what these past few grievous months have taught me; but 
 I know that hours of anxious thought and desperate hope 
 lay behind this effect of fragile loveliness. The wit of 
 woman could not have rendered a woman's body a greater 
 contrast to that of her rival; and with infinite subtlety she 
 had imbued the contrast with the deeper significance of 
 rare and spiritual things. I know this was so. I know it 
 was a challenge, a defiance, an ordeal by combat; and the 
 knowledge hurt me, so that I felt like a Dathan or Abiram 
 who had laid hand on the Ark of the Covenant (for the 
 soul of a woman, by heaven! is a holy thing), and I wished 
 that the earth could open and swallow me up. 
 
 We sat down to table in the middle of the great room 
 a quiet corner on the balcony away from the band is not 
 to Carlotta's taste like any conventional party of four, 
 and at first talked of indifferent matters. Conciergerie 
 dinner-parties in the Terror always began with a discus- 
 sion of the latest cure for megrims, or the most fashion- 
 able cut of a panier. Presently Pasquale who had been 
 talking travel with Judith appealed to me. 
 
 "What year was it, Ordeyne, that I came home from 
 Abyssinia?"
 
 1 82 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 " I forget," said I. " I only remember you presenting me 
 with that hideous thing hanging in my passage, which you 
 called a dulcimer." 
 
 "Gage d? amour?" smiled Judith. 
 
 Pasquale laughed and twirled his swaggering moustache. 
 
 "I did get it from a damsel, and that is why I called it 
 a dulcimer, but she didn't sing of Mount Abora. I 
 wish I could remember the year." 
 
 "I think it was in 1894," said Judith quietly. 
 
 Pasquale, who had been completely unaware of Ju- 
 dith's existence until half an hour before, could not re- 
 press a stare of polite surprise. 
 
 "I believe you are right. In fact, you are. But how 
 can you tell?" 
 
 "Through the kindness of Sir Marcus," replied Judith 
 graciously, "you are a very old acquaintance. I could 
 write you off-hand a nice little obituary notice with all the. 
 adventures well, I will not say complete but with all 
 the dates accurate, I assure you. I have a head for that 
 sort of thing." 
 
 "Yes," I cried, desiring to turn the conversation. 
 "Don't tell Mrs. Mainwaring anything you wish forgot- 
 ten. Facts are her passion. She writes wonderful articles 
 full of figures that make your head spin, and publishes them 
 in the popular magazines over the signature of Willoughby 
 the statistician. Allow me to present to you a statistical 
 ghost." 
 
 But Pasquale's subtle Italian brain was paying but half 
 attention to me. I could read his inferences from Judith's 
 observations, and I could tell what she wanted him to in- 
 fer. I seem to have worn my sensory system outside in- 
 stead of inside my skin this evening. 
 
 "Ordeyne," said he, "you are a pig, and the great- 
 grandfather of pigs "
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 183 
 
 "Houl" cried Carlotta, seizing on an intelligible point 
 of the conversation. 
 
 "Why didn't you present me to Mrs. Mainwaring in 
 1894? I declare I have thought myself allied to that man 
 for twenty years in bonds of the most intimate friendship, 
 and he has never so much as mentioned you to me." 
 
 "Seer Marcous says that Pasquale is a bad lot," re- 
 marked Carlotta, with an air of sapience, after a sip of 
 orangeade, a revolting beverage which she loves to drink 
 at her meals. 
 
 Pasquale threw back his handsome head and laughed 
 again like the chartered libertine he is, and Judith smiled. 
 
 " ' Out of the mouths of babes, etc.,' " said I, apologet- 
 ically. 
 
 "In all seriousness," said Pasquale to Judith, "I had 
 no idea that any one was such a close friend of Ordeyne's." 
 
 Judith turned to me, with a graceful gesture of her 
 shoulders. 
 
 "I think we have been close friends, Marcus?" 
 
 "Oh, ye-es," broke in Carlotta. "Mrs. Mainwaring 
 has the picture of Seer Marcous in her bedroom, and there 
 is the picture of Mrs. Mainwaring in our drawing-room. 
 You have not seen it ? But yes. You have not recognised 
 it, Pasquale? Mrs. Mainwaring is so pretty to-night. 
 Much prettier than the photograph. Yes, you are so 
 pretty. I would like to put you on the mantel-piece as an 
 ornament instead of the picture." 
 
 "May I be allowed to endorse Carlotta's sentiment of 
 appreciation?" I said, with a view to covering her indis- 
 cretion, for I saw a flash of conjecture in Pasquale's eyes 
 and a sudden spot of real red in Judith's cheeks. She had 
 evidently desired to suggest an old claim on my regard, 
 but to have it based on such intimate details as the enshrin- 
 ing of my photograph was not to her fancy.
 
 184 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "I am vastly beholden to you both," said Judith, who 
 has a graceful way of receiving compliments. "But," 
 turning to Pasquale, "we have travelled far from Abys- 
 sinia." 
 
 "To Sir Marcus's mantel-piece. Suppose we stay 
 there." 
 
 "There is you and me and Mrs. Mainwaring," said the 
 literal Carlotta, "and I am the big one in the middle. It 
 was made big big," she added, extending her arms in 
 her exaggerating way. " I was wearing this dress." 
 
 " Mr. Pasquale and I will have to enlarge our frames, 
 Marcus," said Judith, "or we shall be jealous. We shall 
 have to make common cause together." 
 
 "We will declare an inoffensive alliance," laughed Pas- 
 quale. 
 
 " Offensive if you like," said Judith. 
 
 It may have been some effect of the glitter of lights, 
 but I vow I saw a swift interchange of glances. Pasquale 
 immediately turned to Carlotta with a jesting -emark, and 
 Judith engaged me in conversation on our old days in 
 Rome. Suddenly she swerved from the topic, and lean- 
 ing forward, indicated our companions with an impercepti- 
 ble motion of her head. 
 
 "Don't you think," she said in a low voice, "they are 
 a well-matched pair? Both young and picturesque; it 
 would solve many things." 
 
 I glanced round. Carlotta, elbow on the table and chin 
 in hand, was looking deep into Pasquale's eyes, just as she 
 has looked into mine. Her lips had the half-sensuous, 
 half-childish pout provocative of kisses. 
 
 " Do, and I will love you," I heard her say. 
 
 Oh, those dove-notes, those melting eyes, those lips! 
 Oh, the horrible fool passion that burns out my soul and 
 brain and reduces me to rave like a lovelorn early Victo-
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 185 
 
 rian tailor! Which was worse I know not the spasm of 
 jealousy or the spasm of self-contempt that followed it- 
 At that moment the music ceased suddenly on a loud 
 crashing chord. 
 
 The moment seemed to be magnetic to all but Carlotta, 
 who was enjoying herself prodigiously. Our three per- 
 sonalities appeared to vibrate rudely one against the other. 
 I was conscious that Judith read me, that Pasquale read 
 Judith, that again something telegraphic passed between 
 them. The waiter offered me partridge. Pasquale quickly 
 turned from Carlotta to his left-hand neighbour. 
 
 "I think we ought to drink Faust's health, don't 
 you?" 
 
 I started. Had I not myself traced the analogy? 
 
 "Faust?" queried Judith at a loss. 
 
 " Our friend Faust opposite me," said Pasquale, raising 
 his champagne glass. "Hasn't he been transformed from 
 the lean and elderly bookworm into the gay, young gallant 
 about the town ? Once one could scarcely drag him from 
 his cell to the quietest of dinners, and now has he told you 
 of his dissipations this past month, Mrs. Mainwaring?" 
 
 Judith smiled. " Have you been Mephistopheles ? " 
 
 "What is Mephistopheles?" asked Carlotta. 
 
 "The devil," said Pasquale, "who made Sir Marcus 
 young again." 
 
 "Oh, that's me," cried Carlotta, clapping her hands. 
 "He does not read in big books any longer. Oh, I was so 
 frightened when I first came." (I must say she hid her 
 terrors pretty effectually.) "He was so wise, and always 
 reading and writing, and I thought he was fifty. And now 
 he is not wise at ail, and he said two, three days ago I had 
 made him twenty-five." 
 
 "If you go on at the rate you have begun, my dear," 
 Judith remarked in her most charming manner, "in an-
 
 1 86 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 other year you will have brought him down to long clothes 
 and a feeding-bottle." 
 
 Carlotta thought this very funny and laughed joyously. 
 I laughed too, out of courtesy, at Judith's bitter sarcasm, 
 and turned the conversation, but Pasquale was not to be 
 baulked of his toast. 
 
 " Here's to our dear friend Faust; may he grow younger 
 and younger every day." 
 
 We clinked glasses. Judith sighed when the perform- 
 ance was concluded. 
 
 "That is one of the many advantages of being a man. 
 If you do sell your soul to the devil you can see that you 
 get proper payment. A woman is paid in promissory notes, 
 which are dishonoured when they fall due." 
 
 I contested the proposition. The irony of this peculiarly 
 painful revel lay in the air of gaiety it seemed necessary to 
 maintain. A miserable business is civilisation! 
 
 " Did you ever hear of a woman getting youth out of 
 such a bargain?" she retorted with some vehemence. 
 
 "As women systematically underpay cabmen," said I, 
 "so do they try to underpay the devil; and he is one too 
 many for them." 
 
 "I am afraid," said Pasquale, "that the old days of 
 shrewd bargains are over. There is a glut in the soul- 
 market and they only fetch the price of old bones." 
 
 "He is talking foolish things that I do not understand," 
 said Carlotta, putting her hand on my arm. 
 
 "It is called sham cynicism, my dear," said I, "and we 
 all ought to be ashamed of ourselves." 
 
 "What do you like best to talk about?" Judith asked 
 sweetly. 
 
 "Myself. And so does everybody," replied Carlotta. 
 
 We laughed, and for a time talk ceased to be allusive. 
 But later, over our coffee, while the band was playing
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordey^e 187 
 
 loudly some new American march, and Carlotta and Pas- 
 quale were laughing together, Judith drew near me. 
 
 "You did not answer my question about those two, 
 Marcus." 
 
 My fingers trembled as I lit a fresh cigarette. 
 
 "He is not a man to whom any woman's destiny should 
 be entrusted." 
 
 "And is she a woman on whom a man should stake his 
 life's happiness?" 
 
 " God knows," said I, setting my teeth. 
 
 It was not an enjoyable dinner-party. I longed for the 
 evening to be over, to have Carlotta safe back with me at 
 home. I felt a curious dread of the Empire. 
 
 We arrived there towards the end of the first ballet. 
 Carlotta, as soon as she had taken her seat, leaned both 
 elbows on the front of the box and surrendered her senses 
 to the stage. Pasquale talked to Judith. Wishing for a 
 few moments alone I left the box and sauntered mood- 
 ily along the promenade behind the First Circle. The 
 occupants were either leaning over the partitions and 
 watching the spectacle or sitting with drink before them 
 at the little marble tables at the back. The gaud}', 
 gilded, tobacco-smoke and humanity-filled theatre seemed 
 to be unreal, the stage but a phantom cloud effect. I 
 wondered why I, a creature from the concrete world, was 
 there. I had an insane impulse to fly from it all, to go out 
 into the streets, and wander, wander for ever, away from 
 the world. I was walking along the promenade, lost in 
 this lunacy, when I stumbled against a fellow-promena- 
 der and the shock brought me to my senses. It was an 
 elderly, obese Oriental wearing a red fez. He had a long 
 nose and small, crafty eyes, and was deeply pitted with 
 small-pox. I made profuse apologies and he accepted 
 them with suavity. It then occurring to me that I was be-
 
 1 88 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 having in a discourteous and abjectly absurd manner, I 
 made my way back to the box. I drew a chair to Judith's 
 side. 
 
 "You are giving me a captivating evening," she said, 
 with a smile. 
 
 "Whom are you captivating?" I asked, idly jesting. 
 ' Pasquale?" 
 
 "You are cruel," whispered Judith, with a flicker of her 
 eyelids. 
 
 I flushed, ashamed, not having weighed the significance 
 of my words. All I could say was: " I beg your pardon," 
 whereat Judith laughed mirthlessly. I relapsed into si- 
 lence. Turn followed turn on the stage. While the curtain 
 was lowered Carlotta sank back with a little sigh of enjoy- 
 ment, and nodded brightly at me. 
 
 " Do you remember," she said, turning to me, at a fresh 
 fall of the curtain, "when you brought me first? I said I 
 should like to live here. Wasn't I silly?" 
 
 She turned again, then suddenly rose to her feet and 
 staggered back to the back of the box, pointing outward, 
 with an expression of wild terror on her face. 
 
 "Hamdi he's down there he saw me." 
 
 I sprang to her assistance and put my arm around her. 
 
 "Nonsense, dear," said I. 
 
 But Pasquale, looking around the house, cried: 
 
 " By Jove! she's right. I would recognise the old vil- 
 lain a thousand years hence in Tartarus. There he is." 
 
 I left Carlotta, and the first person my eyes rested upon 
 in the stalls was my obese but suave Oriental, regarding 
 the box with an impassive countenance. 
 
 "That's Hamdi Effendi, all right," said Pasquale. 
 
 Carlotta clutched my arms as I joined her at the back 
 of the box. 
 
 "Oh, take me away, Seer Marcous, take me away,"
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 189 
 
 she moaned piteously. My poor child was white and 
 shaken with fear. I again put my arm round her. 
 
 "No harm can happen to you, dear," I said, soothingly. 
 
 " Oh, darling Seer Marcous, take me home," cried Car- 
 lotta. 
 
 " Very well," said I. I helped her on with her wrap, and 
 apologising to the two others, begged them to remain. 
 
 "We'll all go together," said Judith quietly. 
 
 "And form a body-guard," laughed Pasquale. 
 
 Carlotta clinging to my arm we left the box and slipped 
 through the promenade and down the stairs. 
 
 Hamdi Effendi, having anticipated our intention, cut off 
 our retreat in the vestibule. Carlotta shrank nearer to me. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Monsieur, but may I have the pleas- 
 ure of a few words with you about this young lady?" said 
 he in the urbanest manner and the most execrable French. 
 
 " I hardly see the necessity," said I. 
 
 "Pardon me, but this young lady is a Turkish sub- 
 ject and my daughter. My name is Hamdi Effendi, Pre- 
 fect of Police at Aleppo, and my address in London is the 
 Hotel Metropole." 
 
 "I am charmed to make your acquaintance," said I. 
 " I have often heard of you from Mademoiselle but I be- 
 lieve both her father and mother were English, so she is 
 neither your daughter nor a Turkish subject." 
 
 "Ah, that we will see," rejoined the polite Oriental. 
 He addressed some words rapidly in Turkish to Carlotta, 
 who shudderingly replied in the same language. 
 
 "Mademoiselle unfortunately does not consent to ac- 
 company me," he interpreted with a smile. "So I am 
 afraid I will have to take her back without her consent." 
 
 "If you do, Hamdi Effendi," said Pasquale in a light 
 tone of conversation, but with the ugliest snarl of the lips 
 that I have ever beheld, "I shall most certainly kill you."
 
 190 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 Hamdi turned to him with a polite bow. 
 
 "Ah, it is Monsieur Pasquale. I thought I recognised 
 you." 
 
 "You have every reason to do so," said Pasquale. 
 
 "I saved you from prison." 
 
 "You accepted a bribe." 
 
 "For heaven's sake," cried Judith, "go on speaking in 
 low voices, or we shall have a scene here." 
 
 One or two idlers hung near with an air of curiosity and 
 the huge be-uniformed commissionaire watched us with 
 an uncertain eye. I kept a tight hold of Carlotta and drew 
 her more behind the screen of a palm near which we hap- 
 pened to stand. 
 
 "Madame is right," said Hamdi. "We can discuss this 
 little affair like gentlemen." 
 
 "Then, in the most gentlemanly way in the world," said 
 Pasquale, "I swear to you that if you touch this young 
 lady, I will kill you." 
 
 "It appears to be Monsieur," said the obese Turk with 
 a graceful wave of the hand in my direction, "and not 
 you, who has robbed my home of its treasure, unless," 
 he added, and I shall always remember the hideous leer 
 of that pulpy-nosed and small-pox pitted face, "unless 
 Monsieur has relieved you of your responsibilities." 
 
 For a moment I was speechless. Pasquale put himself 
 in front of me. 
 
 "Steady on, Ordeyne." 
 
 "Sir," said I, "I found this young lady destitute in the 
 streets of London. She is my wife and therefore a British 
 subject; so you can take yourself and your infamous in- 
 sinuations to the devil, and the quicker the better." 
 
 " Or there'll be two of us engaged hi the killing," said 
 Pasquale. 
 
 Hamdi again exchanged a few sentences in Turkish with
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 191 
 
 Carlotta, and then smiled upon us with the same unruf- 
 fled suavity. 
 
 " Au revoir, Mesdames et Messieurs." With a courteous 
 salute he shuffled back towards the stall-entrance. 
 
 The tension over, Carlotta broke from me and clutched 
 Pasquale by the arm. 
 
 "Oh, kill him, kill him, kill him!" she cried in a pas- 
 sionate whisper. 
 
 He freed himself gently and took out a cigarette case. 
 
 " Scarcely necessary. He'll soon die." And turning to 
 me he added: "Not a sound organ in his body. Besides, 
 it seems to me that if there is any murdering to be done, it's 
 the business of Sir Marcus." 
 
 "There is going to be no murdering," said I, profoundly 
 disgusted, "and don't talk in that revolting way about the 
 wretched man dying." 
 
 I regained possession of Carlotta who, seeing that I was 
 angry, cast a scared glance at me, and became docile as 
 suddenly as she had grown passionate. I turned to Judith. 
 
 "Will you ever forgive me " I began. 
 
 But the sight of her face froze me. It was white and 
 hard and haggard, and the lips were drawn into a thin line, 
 and the delicate colour she had put. upon her cheeks stood 
 out in ghastly contrast. Her dress, like the foam of a sum- 
 mer sea, mocked the winter in her face. 
 
 "There is nothing to forgive," she said, smiling icily. 
 "I came for a variety entertainment and I have not been 
 disappointed. Good-bye. Perhaps Mr. Pasquale will be 
 so kind as to put me into a cab." 
 
 "I will drive you home, if you will allow me," said Pas- 
 quale. 
 
 We separated, shaking hands as if nothing had hap- 
 pened, as perfunctorily as if we had been the most distant 
 of acquaintances.
 
 292 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 On our way back we spoke very little. Carlotta nestled 
 close against me, seeking the shelter of my arm. She cried, 
 I don't know why, but it seemed to afford comfort. I 
 kissed her lips and her hair. 
 
 At home, I drew the sofa near the fire it has been a 
 raw night and she feels the cold like a tropical plant and 
 sat down by her side. 
 
 " Did you hear what I said to Hamdi Effendi that you 
 were my wife?" 
 
 "But that was only a lie," she answered in her plain 
 idiom. 
 
 My petting and soothing together with the sense of 
 home security and a cup of French chocolate prepared by 
 Antoinette, who, astonished at our early return and seeing 
 her darling in distress, had hastened to provide culinary 
 consolation, had restored her wonted serenity of demean- 
 our. Polyphemus also purred reassuringly upon her lap. 
 
 "It was a lie this evening," said I, "but in a few days I 
 hope it will be true." 
 
 "You are going to marry me?" she asked, suddenly sit- 
 ting erect and looking at me rather bewildered. 
 
 "If you will have me, Carlotta." 
 
 "I will do what Seer Marcous tells me," she answered. 
 " Will you marry me to-morrow?" 
 
 " I think it hardly possible, my dear," I answered. " But 
 I shall lose no time, I assure you. Once you are my wife 
 neither Hamdi Effendi nor the Sultan of Turkey can claim 
 you. No one can take an Englishman's wife away from 
 him." 
 
 " Hamdi is a devil," said Carlotta. 
 
 " We can laugh at him," said I. 
 
 " Did you ever see such an ugly mug?" 
 
 Where she gets her occasional bits of slang from I do 
 not know; but her little foreign staccato pronunciation
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 193 
 
 gives them unusual quaintness. I laughed, and Carlotta, 
 throwing Polyphemus off her lap, laughed too, and sidled 
 up against me. The cat regarded us for a moment with a 
 disgusted eye, then stretched himself as if he had quitted 
 Carlotta of his own accord, and walked away in a state of 
 dignified boredom. 
 
 "Hamdi is like a pig and an elephant and a great fat 
 turkey," said Carlotta. 
 
 "If all the world were beautiful," I exclaimed, "such a 
 thing as our appreciation of beauty would not exist. I 
 should not even be aware that my Carlotta was beautiful." 
 
 She put her hands on my knees in her impulsive way, 
 and bending forward looked at me delightedly. 
 
 "Oh, you do think so?" 
 
 "You are the loveliest and most intoxicating creature 
 on the earth, Carlotta." 
 
 "Now I am sure, sure, sure," she cried, enraptured. 
 "You have never said it before, Seer Marcous darling, 
 and I must kiss you." 
 
 I checked her with my hands on her soft shoulders. 
 
 " Only if you promise to marry me." 
 
 " Of course," said Carlotta. 
 
 She said it as thoughtlessly and light-heartedly as if I 
 had asked her to come out for a walk. Again I felt the odd 
 spasm of pain. In my late madness I had often pictured 
 the scene: how I should hold her throbbing beauty in my 
 arms, my senses clouded with the fragrance of her, and 
 how, in burning words, I should pour out the litany of my 
 passion. But to the gods it seemed otherwise. No Qua- 
 ker maiden's betrothal kiss was chaster. Cold grew the 
 fever in my veins and the litany died on my lips. 
 
 Who and what is she whom I love? There have been 
 days when her eyes have carried in their depths the allure- 
 13
 
 194 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 jnents of a sorceress, when her limbs have woven Venus- 
 berg enchantments which it has taken all my strength to 
 withstand. But to-night, when I take the greatest step and 
 claim her as mine till our lives' end, she yields with the 
 complaisance of an ignorant child and raises up between 
 us the barrier of her innocence. When shall I learn the 
 soul of her? 
 
 Well, jacta est alea. The events of to-night have pre- 
 cipitated our destiny. In all probability Hamdi is power- 
 less to take her from my protection, and this marriage is 
 unnecessary as a safeguard. I have no notion of the 
 international law on such points but at any rate it will 
 make the assurance of her safety absolute. No power on 
 earth can take her from me. Great Heaven! The thought 
 of her gone forever out of my life brings the cold sweat 
 to my forehead. Without her, child, enchantress, change- 
 ling that she is, how could I face existence ? 
 
 I shall have my heart's desire. Why, I should be athril] 
 with the joy and the flame of youth! I should laugh and 
 sing! I should perform the happy antics of love's exuber- 
 ance! I should be transported to the realms where the 
 fairy tales endT 
 
 Instead, I sit before a dying fire, as I sat last night, and 
 am oppressed with the sense of tragedy. It was not alto- 
 gether Carlotta's innocence that formed the barrier be- 
 tween us. That which rendered it impassable was Ju- 
 dith's white face. 
 
 Judith's white face will haunt my dreams to-night
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 October 27^. 
 
 I do not like living. It is thoroughly disagreeable. To- 
 day Judith taunted me with never having lived, and I 
 admitted the justice of the taunt and regretted in poi- 
 gnant misery the change from my old conditions. If to 
 live is to have one's reason cast down and trampled 
 under foot, one's heart aflame with a besotted passion and 
 one's soul racked with remorse, then am I living in good 
 sooth and I would far rather be dead and suffering the 
 milder pains of Purgatory. Men differently constituted 
 get used to it, as the eels to skinning. They say "mea 
 culpa" "damn," or "Kismet," according to their various 
 traditions, and go forth comforted to their workaday 
 pursuits. I envy them. I enter this exquisite Torture 
 Chamber, and I shriek at the first twinge of the thumb- 
 screw and faint at the preliminary embraces of the scav- 
 enger's daughter. 
 
 I envy a fellow like Caesar Borgia. He could murder 
 a friend, seduce his widow, and rob the orphans all on a 
 summer's day, and go home contentedly to supper; and 
 after a little music he could sleep like a man who has 
 thoroughly earned his repose. What manner of crea- 
 tures are other men? They are a blank mystery to me; 
 and I am writing or have been writing a sociological 
 study of the most subtle generation of them that has ever 
 existed! I am an empty fool. I know absolutely nothing. 
 I can no more account for the peaceful slumbers of that 
 marvellous young man of five-and-twenty than I can 
 predicate the priority of the first hen or the first egg. I, 
 
 195
 
 196 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 with never a murder or a seduction or a robbery on my 
 conscience, could not sleep last night. I doubt whether I 
 shall sleep to-night. I feel as if I shall remain awake 
 through the centuries with a rat gnawing my vitals. 
 
 So unhappy looking a woman as Judith, when I called on 
 her early this forenoon, I have never beheld. Gone was 
 the elaborate coquetry of yesterday; gone the quiet ro- 
 guishness of yesteryear; gone was all the Judith that I 
 knew, and in her place stood a hollow-eyed woman shak- 
 ing at gates eternally barred. 
 
 "I thought you would come this morning. I had that 
 lingering faith in you." 
 
 "Your face haunted me all night," I said. "I was 
 bound to come." 
 
 " So, this is the end of it all," she remarked, stonily. 
 
 "No," said I. "It only marks the transition from a 
 very ill-defined relationship to as loyal a friendship as ever 
 man could offer woman." 
 
 She gave a quivering little shrug of disgust and turned 
 away. 
 
 "Oh, don't talk like that 'I can't offer you bread, but 
 I'll give you a nice round polished stone.' Friendship! 
 What has a woman like me got to do with friendship ? " 
 
 "Have I ever given you much more?" 
 
 " God knows what you have given me," she cried, bit- 
 terly. She stared out of the window at the sodden street 
 and murky air. I went to her side and touched her wrist. 
 
 " For heaven's sake, Judith, tell me what I can do." 
 
 "What's done is done," she said, between her teeth. 
 "When did you marry her?" 
 
 I explained briefly the condition of affairs. She looked 
 at me hard and long; then stared out of the window again, 
 and scarce heeded what I said.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 197 
 
 "It was to set myself right with you on this point," I 
 added, " that I have visited you at such an hour." 
 
 She remained silent. I took a few turns about the fa- 
 miliar room that was filled with the associations of many 
 years. The piano we chose together. The copy of the 
 Botticelli Tondo the crowned Madonna of the Uffizi 
 I gave her in Florence. We had ransacked London to- 
 gether to find the Chippendale bookcase; and on its 
 shelves stood books that had formed a bond between us, 
 and copies of old reviews containing my fugitive contribu- 
 tions. A spurious Japanese dragon in faience, an inar- 
 tistic monstrosity dear to her heart, at which I had often 
 railed, grinned forgivingly at me from the mantel-piece. 
 I have never realised how closely bound up with my hab- 
 its was this drawing-room of Judith's. I stopped once 
 more by her side. 
 
 "I can't leave you altogether, dear," I said, gently. "A 
 bit of myself is in this room." 
 
 Her bosom shook with unhappy laughter. 
 
 "A bit?" Then she turned suddenly on me. "Are 
 you simply dull or sheerly cruel?" 
 
 "I am dull," said I. "Why do you refuse my friend- 
 ship? Our relation has been scarcely more. It has not 
 touched the deep things in us. We agreed at the start that 
 it should not. The words 'I love you' have never passed 
 between us. We have been loyal to our compact. Now 
 that love has come into my life and Heaven knows I 
 have striven against it what would you have me do?" 
 
 "And what would you have me do?" said Judith, tone- 
 lessly. 
 
 "Forgive me for breaking off the old, and trust me to 
 make the new pleasant to you." 
 
 She made no answer, but stood still staring out of the 
 window like a woman of stone. Presently she shivered
 
 198 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 and crossed to the fire, before which she crouched on a 
 low chair. I remained by the window, anxious, puzzled, 
 oppressed. 
 
 "Marcus," she said at last, in a low vt^ce. I obeyed her 
 summons. She motioned me to a chair, and without look- 
 ing at me began to speak. 
 
 " You said there was a bit of you in this room. There is 
 everything of you. Your whole being is for me in this room. 
 You are with me wherever I go. You are the beginning 
 and end of life to me. I love you with a passion that is 
 killing me. I am an emotional woman. I made ship- 
 wreck of myself because I thought I loved a man. But, 
 as God hears me, you are the only man I have loved. You 
 came to me like a breath of Heaven while I was in Purga- 
 tory and you have been Heaven to me ever since. It has 
 been play to you but to me " 
 
 I fell on my knees beside her. Each of the low half- 
 whispered words was a red hot iron. I had received last 
 night the message of her white face with incredulity. I 
 had reviewed our past life together and had found little 
 warrant in it for that message. It could not come from 
 the depths. It was staggeringly impossible. And now the 
 impossible was the flaming fact. 
 
 I fell on my knees beside her. 
 
 "Not play, Judith " 
 
 She put out her hand to check me, and the words died 
 on my lips. What could I say ? 
 
 "For you it was a detached pleasant sentiment, if you 
 like; for me the deadliest earnest. I was a fool too. You 
 never said you loved me, but I thought you did. You were 
 not as other men, you knew nothing of the ways of the world 
 or of women or of passion you were reserved, intellect- 
 ual you viewed things in a queer light of your own. I 
 felt that the touch of a chain would fret you. I gave you
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 199 
 
 absolute freedom often when I craved for you. I made 
 no demands. I assented to your philosophic analysis of 
 the situation it is your way to moralise whimsically on 
 everything, as if you were a disconnected intelligence out- 
 side the universe and I paid no attention to it. I used to 
 laugh at you oh, not unkindly, but lovingly, happily, vic- 
 toriously. Oh, yes, I was a fool what woman in love 
 isn't? I thought I gave you all you needed. I was con- 
 tent, secure. I magnified every little demonstration. 
 When you touched my ear it was more to me than the em- 
 brace of another man might have been. I have lived on 
 one kiss of yours for a week. To you the kiss was of no 
 more value than a cigarette. I wish," she added in a 
 whisper, "I wish I were dead!" 
 
 She had spoken in a low, monotonous voice, staring hag- 
 gardly at the fire, while I knelt by her side. I murmured 
 some banal apologia, miserably aware that one set of 
 words is as futile as another when one has broken a wo- 
 man's heart. 
 
 "You never knew I loved you?" she went on in the 
 same bitter undertone. "What kind of woman did you 
 take me for ? I have accepted help from you to enable me 
 to live in this flat do you imagine I could have done such 
 a thing without loving you ? I should have thought it was 
 obvious in a thousand ways." 
 
 The fire getting low, she took up the scoop for coals. 
 Mechanically I relieved her of the thing and fulfilled the 
 familiar task. Neither spoke for a long time. She re- 
 mained there and I went to the window. It had begun to 
 rain. A barrel-organ below was playing some horrible 
 music-hall air, and every vibrant note was like a hammer 
 on one's nerves. The grinder's bedraggled Italian wife 
 perceiving me at the window grinned up at me with the 
 national curve of the palm. She had a black eye which
 
 2oo The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 the cacophonous fiend had probably given her, and she 
 grinned like a happy child of nature. Men in my position 
 do not blacken women's eyes ; but it is only a question of 
 manners. Was I, for that, less of a brute male than the 
 scowling beast at the organ? 
 
 The sudden sound of a sob made me turn to Judith, 
 who had broken down and was crying bitterly, her face 
 hidden in her hands. I bent and touched her shoulder. 
 
 "Judith" 
 
 She flung her arms around my neck. 
 
 "I can't give you up, I can't, I can't, I can't," she cried, 
 wildly. 
 
 For the first tune in my life I heard a woman give aban- 
 doned, incoherent utterance to an agony of passion; and 
 it sounded horrible, like the cry of an animal wounded to 
 death. 
 
 A guilt-stricken creature, scarce daring to meet her eyes, 
 I bade her farewell. She had recovered her composure. 
 
 "Make me one little promise, Marcus, do me one little 
 favour," she said, with quivering lip, and letting her cold 
 hand remain in mine. "Stay away from her to-day. I 
 couldn't bear to think of you and her together, happy, 
 love-making, after what I've said this morning. I should 
 writhe with the shame and the torture of it. Give me your 
 thoughts to-day. Wear a little mourning for the dead. It 
 is all I ask of you." 
 
 "I should have done what you ask without the asking," 
 I replied. 
 
 I kissed her hand, and went out into the street. 
 
 I had walked but a few blind steps when I became 
 aware of the presence and voice of Pasquale. 
 
 "Coming from Mrs. Mainwaring's ? I am just on my 
 way there to restore her opera-glasses which I ran away
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 201 
 
 with last night. What's her number ? I forget. I dropped 
 in at Lingfield Terrace to inquire, but found you had 
 already started." 
 
 "Seventeen," I answered, mechanically. 
 
 "You are not looking well, my good friend," said he. 
 " I hope last night has not upset you. It's all bluff, you 
 know, on the part of the precious Hamdi." 
 
 "I dare say it was," I assented. 
 
 " And bluff on your part, too. I have never given your 
 imaginative faculties sufficient credit. It bowled Hamdi 
 out clean." 
 
 " Yes," said I. " It bowled him out clean." 
 
 " Serve him right," said Pasquale. "He's the wickedest 
 old thief unhung." 
 
 "Quite so," said I, "the wickedest old thief unhung." 
 
 Pasquale shook me by the arm. 
 
 "Are you a man or a phonograph? What on earth has 
 happened to you?" 
 
 I think I envied the laughter in his handsome, dark face, 
 and the careless grace of the fellow as he stood beneath 
 his dripping umbrella debonair as a young prince, in 
 perfectly fitting blue serge he wore no overcoat; mine 
 was buttoned up to the chin and immaculate suede 
 gloves. 
 
 "What is it?" he repeated, gaily. 
 
 "I didn't sleep last night," said I, "my breakfast disa- 
 greed with me, and it's raining in the most unpleasant 
 manner." 
 
 Even while I was speaking he left my side and darted 
 across the road. In some astonishment I watched him 
 for a moment from the kerb, and then made my way slowly 
 to the other side. I found him in conversation with an 
 emaciated, bedraggled woman standing by an enormous 
 bundle, about three times her own cubic bulk, which she
 
 2O2 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 had rested on the slimy pavement. One hand pressed a 
 panting bosom. 
 
 "You are going to carry that in your arms all the 
 way to South Kensington?" I heard him cry as I ap- 
 proached. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the woman. 
 
 "Then you shan't. I'm not going to allow it. Catch 
 hold of this." 
 
 The umbrella which he thrust out at her she clutched 
 automatically, to prevent it falling about her ears. The 
 veto she received with a wonderment which deepened into 
 stupefaction when she saw him lift the huge bundle in his 
 arms and stalk away with it down the street. She turned 
 a scared face at me. 
 
 "It's washing," she said. 
 
 Pasquale paused, looked round and motioned her on- 
 ward. She followed without a word, holding the trim sil- 
 ver mounted umbrella, and I mechanically brought up 
 the rear. It had all happened so quickly that I too was 
 confused. The scanty populace in the rain-filled street 
 stared and gaped. A shambling fellow in corduroys 
 bawled an obscene jest. Pasquale put down his bun- 
 dle. 
 
 " Do you want to be sent to hell by lightning ? " he asked, 
 with the evil snarl of the lips. 
 
 "No," said the man, sheering off. 
 
 " I'm glad," remarked Pasquale, picking up the bundle. 
 And we resumed our progress. 
 
 Luckily a four-wheeled cab overtook us. Pasquale 
 stopped it, squeezed the bundle inside, and held the door 
 open for the faltering and bewildered woman, as if she had 
 been the authentic duchessa at Ealing. 
 
 "You were saying, Ordeyne," he observed, as the cab- 
 man drove off with three shillings and his incoherent fare,
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 203 
 
 "you were saying that your breakfast disagreed with 
 you." 
 
 In spite of my heaviness of heart, I laughed and loved 
 the man. There was something fantastically chivalrous 
 in the action; something superb in the contempt of con- 
 vention; something whimsical, adventurous, unexpected; 
 and something divine in the wrathful pity: and some- 
 thing irresistible in his impudent apostrophe to myself. It 
 has been the one flash of comfort during this long and 
 desolate day. 
 
 I have kept my promise to Judith. I have lunched and 
 dined at the club, and in the library of the club I have 
 tried to while away the hours. I intended this morning to 
 make the necessary arrangements for the marriage. After 
 my interview with Judith I had not the heart. I put it off 
 till to-morrow. I have observed the day as a day of 
 mourning. I have worn sackcloth and ashes. I have done 
 such penance as I could for the grievous fault I have com- 
 mitted. Carlotta is in bed and asleep. She went early, 
 says Antoinette, having a bad headache. No wonder, poor 
 child. 
 
 A few moments ago I was tempted to peep into her 
 room and satisfy myself that she was not ailing. A head- 
 ache is the common precursor to many maladies. But I 
 remembered my promise and refrained. The cooing notes 
 of the voice would have called me to her side, and her 
 arms would have been around my neck and I should have 
 forgotten Judith,
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 October 2&h. 
 
 I rose late this morning. When I went down to break- 
 fast I found that Carlotta had already gone for her music 
 lesson. 
 
 I drove at once to the Temple to see my lawyers and to 
 make arrangements for a marriage by special license. 
 
 I returned at one o'clock. Stenson met me in the 
 hall. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Sir Marcus, but Mademoiselle 
 hasn't come back yet." 
 
 I waited an uneasy hour. Such a lengthy absence from 
 home was unprecedented. At two o'clock I went round 
 to Herr Stuer in the Avenue Road a five minutes' walk. 
 
 He entered the sitting-room into which I had been ush- 
 ered, wiping his lips. 
 
 "I am sorry to disturb you, Herr Stuer," said I, "but 
 will you kindly tell me when Miss Carlotta left you, this 
 morning?" 
 
 " Miss Carlotta came not at all this morning," he replied. 
 
 "But it was her regular day?" 
 
 "At ten o'clock. She did not come. At eleven I have 
 another pupil. She has not before missed one lesson." 
 
 I flew back home, in an agony of hope that her laughing 
 face would meet me there and dispel a dread that chilled 
 me like an icy wind. 
 
 There was no Carlotta. 
 
 There has been no Carlotta all this awful day. 
 
 There will never be a Carlotta again. 
 
 204
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 205 
 
 I drove to the police station. 
 
 "What do you think has happened?" asked the In- 
 spector. 
 
 It was only too horribly obvious. Any man but my- 
 self would have kept her under lock and key and estab- 
 lished a guard round the house. Any man but myself 
 would have never let her out of his sight until he had 
 married her, until he had tracked Hamdi and his myr- 
 midons back to Alexandretta. 
 
 "Abduction has happened," I cried wildly. "Between 
 Lingfield Terrace and Avenue Road she has been caught, 
 thrust into a closed carriage, gagged and carried God 
 knows where by Ihe wiliest old thief in Asia. He is the 
 Prefect of Police in Aleppo. His name is Hamdi Effendi 
 and he is staying at the H6tel Metropole." 
 
 The Inspector questioned me. Heaven knows how I 
 answered. I saw the scene. The waiting carriage. The 
 unfrequented bit of road. My heart's darling, her face a 
 radiant flower in the grey morning, tripping lightheart- 
 edly along. The sudden dash, the struggle, the swiftly 
 closed door. It was a matter of a few seconds. My brain 
 grew dizzy with the vision. 
 
 "You say that he threatened to abduct her?" asked the 
 Inspector. 
 
 "Yes," said I, "and a friend of mine promised to kill 
 him. Heaven grant he keep his promise ! " 
 
 "Be careful, Sir Marcus," smiled the Inspector. "Or 
 if there is a murder committed you will be an accessory 
 before the fact." 
 
 I intimated my disregard of the contingency. What did 
 it matter ? Nothing in the world mattered save the recov- 
 ery of the light and meaning o' my existence. My friend's 
 name ? Sebastian Pasquale. He lived near by in the St. 
 John's Wood Road.
 
 206 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "The best thing you can do, Sir Marcus," said the In- 
 spector, "is to get hold of Mr. Pasquale and take him 
 with you to Scotland Yard. Perhaps two heads will be 
 better than one. In the meanwhile we shall communicate 
 with headquarters and make the necessary inquiries in 
 the neighbourhood." 
 
 I drove to St. John's Wood Road, and learned to my 
 dismay that Pasquale had given up his rooms there a week 
 ago. All his letters were addressed to his club in Picca- 
 dilly. I drove thither. How has mankind contented itself 
 for these thousands of years with a horse as its chief 
 means of locomotion? Oh, the exasperation I suffered 
 behind that magnified snail! I dashed Into the club. Mr. 
 Pasquale had not been there all day. No, he was not stay- 
 ing there. It was against the rules to give members' pri- 
 vate addresses. 
 
 "But it's a matter of life and death!" I cried. 
 
 "To tell you the truth, sir," said the hall porter, "Mr. 
 Pasquale's only permanent address is his banker's, and 
 we really don't know where he is staying at present." 
 
 I wrote a hurried line : 
 
 "Hamdi has abducted Carlotta. I am half crazed. As 
 you love me give me your help. Oh, God! man, why 
 aren't you here?" 
 
 I left it with the porter, and crawled to Scotland Yard. 
 The cabman at my invectives against his sauntering beast 
 waxed indignant; it was a three-quarter blood mare and 
 one of the fastest trotters in London. 
 
 "She passes everything," said he. 
 
 " It is because everything is standing still or going back- 
 ward or turned upside down," said I. 
 
 No doubt he thought me mad. Mad as a dingo dog. The 
 thought of the words, the summer and the sun sent a spasm 
 of hunger through my heart. Then I murmured to my-
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 207 
 
 self: '"Save my soul from hell and my darling from the 
 power of the dog.' Which dog? Not the dingo dog." 
 
 I verily believe my brain worked wrong to-day. 
 
 Great Scotland Yard at last. I went through passages. 
 I found myself in a nondescript room where a courteous 
 official seated at a desk held me on the rack for half an 
 hour. I had to describe Carlotta: not in the imagery 
 wherein only one could create an impression of her sweet- 
 ness, but in the objective terms of the police report. What 
 was she wearing? A hat, and jacket, a skirt, shoes; of 
 course she wore gloves; possibly she carried a muff. 
 Impatient of such commonplace details, I described her 
 fully. But the glory of her bronze hair, her great dark 
 brown eyes, the quivering sensitiveness of her lips; her 
 intoxicating compound of Botticelli and the Venusberg; 
 the dove- notes of her voice; all was a matter of bore- 
 dom to Scotland Yard. They clamoured for the colour 
 of her feathers and the material of which her dress was 
 made; her height in vulgar figures and the sizes of her 
 gloves and shoes. 
 
 "How on earth can I tell you?" I cried in desperation. 
 
 "Perhaps one of your servants can give the necessary 
 information," replied the urbane official. If I had lost an 
 umbrella he could not have viewed my plight with more 
 inhuman blandness! 
 
 A miracle happened. As I was writing a summons to 
 Stenson to obtain these details from Antoinette and attend 
 at once, a policeman entered and I learned that my confi- 
 dential man was at the door. My heart leapt within me. 
 He had tracked me hither and had come to tell me that 
 Carlotta was safe. But the first glance at his face killed the 
 wild hope. He had tracked me hither, it is true; but only 
 apologetically to offer what information might be useful. 
 
 " It is a very great liberty, Sir Marcus, and I will retire
 
 208 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 at once if I have overstepped my duties, but there are im- 
 portant details, sir, in catastrophes of this nature with 
 which my experience has taught me only servants can be 
 acquainted." 
 
 There must be a book of ten thousand pages entitled 
 "The Perfect Valet," dealing with every contingency of 
 domestic life which this admirable fellow has by heart. 
 He uttered his Ciceronian sentence with the gravity of a 
 pasteboard figure in the toy theatre of one's childhood. 
 
 "Can you describe the young lady's dress?" asked the 
 official. 
 
 "I have made it my business," said Stenson, "to obtain 
 accurate information as to every detail of Mademoiselle 
 Carlotta's attire when she left the house this morning." 
 
 I faded into insignificance. Stenson was a man after the 
 Inspector's heart. A few eager questions brought the de- 
 sired result. A dark red toque with a grey bird's wing; a 
 wine-coloured zouave jacket and skirt, black braided; a 
 dark blue bodice; a plain gold brooch (the first trinket I 
 had given her the occasion of her first clasp of arms 
 around my neck) fastening her collar; a silver fox necklet 
 and muff; patent leather shoes and brown suede gloves. 
 
 "Any special mark or characteristics?" 
 
 "A white scar above the left temple," said Stenson. 
 
 Lord have mercy! The man has lived day by day for 
 five months with Carlotta's magical beauty, and all he has 
 noticed as characteristic is the little white scar she fell on 
 marble steps as a child the only flaw, if flaw can be in a 
 thing so imperceptible, in her perfect loveliness. 
 
 "Mademoiselle has also a tiny mole behind her right 
 ear," said Stenson. 
 
 The Inspector's conception of Stenson expanded into 
 an apotheosis. He paid him deference. His pen wrote 
 greedily every syllable the inspired creature uttered. When
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 209 
 
 the fount of inspiration ran dry, Stenson turned to me with 
 his imperturbable, profoundly respectful air. 
 
 " Shall I return home, Sir Marcus, or have you any fur- 
 ther need of my service?" 
 
 I bade him go home. He withdrew. The Inspector 
 smiled cheerfully. "Now we can get along," said he. 
 "It's a pity Mr. Mr. Pasquale" (he consulted his notes) 
 "is out of touch with us for the moment. He might have 
 given us great assistance." 
 
 He rose from his chair. "I think we shall very soon 
 trace the young lady. An accurate personal description 
 like this, you see, is invaluable." 
 
 He handed me the printed form which he had filled in. 
 In spite of my misery I almost laughed at the fatuity of 
 the man in thinking that those mere unimaginative statis- 
 tics applicable to five hundred thousand young females in 
 London, could in any way express Carlotta. 
 
 "This is all very well," said I; "but the first thing to do 
 is to lay that Turkish devil by the heels." 
 
 "You can count on our making the most prompt and 
 thorough investigation," said he. 
 
 "And in the mean time what can I do?" 
 
 "Your best course, Sir Marcus," he answered, "is to go 
 home and leave things in our hands. As soon as ever we 
 have the slightest clue, we shall communicate with you." 
 
 He bowed me out politely. In a few moments I found 
 myself in the greyness of the autumn afternoon wander- 
 ing on the Thames Embankment like a lost soul on the 
 banks of Phlegethon. It seemed as if I had never seen the 
 sun, should never see the sun again. I was drifting sans 
 purpose into eternity. 
 
 I passed by some railings. A colossal figure looming 
 through the misty air struck me with a sense of familiarity. 
 It was the statue of Sir Bartle Frere, and these were the
 
 21 o The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 gardens beneath the terrace of the National Liberal 
 Club. It was here that I had first met her. The dripping 
 trees seemed to hold the echo of the words spoken when 
 their leaves were green: "Will you please to tell me what 
 I shall do ?" I strained rny eyes to see the bench on which 
 I had sat, and my eyes tricked me into translating a blurr 
 at the end of the seat into the ghostly form of Carlotta. 
 My misery overwhelmed me; and through my misery shot 
 a swift pang of remorse at having treated her harshly on 
 that sweet and memorable afternoon in May. 
 
 I turned the corner at Whitehall Place and looked down 
 the desolate gardens. The benches were empty, the trees 
 were bare, "and no birds sang." I crossed the road. 
 
 The Hotel Metropole. The great doors stood invitingly 
 open, and from the pavement one could see the warmth 
 and colour of the vestibule. Here was staying the Arch- 
 Devil who had robbed me of my life. I stood for a mo- 
 ment under the portico shaking with rage. I must have 
 lost consciousness for a few seconds for I do not remember 
 entering or mounting the stairs. I found myself at the 
 bureau asking for Hamcli Effendi. No, he had not left. 
 They thought he was in the hotel. A page despatched in 
 search of him departed with my card, bawling a number. 
 I hate these big caravanserais where one is a mere num- 
 ber, as in a gaol. "Would to heaven it were a gaol," I 
 muttered to myself, " and this were the number of Hamdi 
 Effendi!" 
 
 A lean man rose from a chair and, holding out his hand, 
 effusively saluted me by name. I stared at him. He re- 
 called our acquaintance at Etretat. I fished him up 
 from the deeps of a previous incarnation and vaguely re- 
 membered him as a young American floral decorator who 
 used to preach to me the eternal doctrine of hustle. I 
 shook hands with him and hoped that he was well.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 211 
 
 " Going very strong. Never stronger. Never so well as 
 when I'm full up with work. But you don't hurry around 
 enough in this dear, sleepy old country. Men lunch. In 
 New York all the lunch one has time for is to swallow a 
 plasmon lozenge in a street-car." 
 
 His high pitched voice shrieked bombastic platitude 
 into my ears for an illimitable time. I answered occasion- 
 ally with the fringe of my mind. Could my agonised state 
 of being have remained unperceived by any human crea- 
 ture save this young, hustling, dollar-centred New York 
 floral decorator? 
 
 " Since we met, guess how many times I've crossed the 
 Atlantic. Four times!" 
 
 Long-suffering Atlantic! 
 
 "And about yourself. Still going piano, piano with 
 books and things?" 
 
 "Yes, books and things," I echoed. 
 
 The page came up and announced Hamdi's intention 
 of immediate appearance. 
 
 "And how is that charming young lady, your ward, 
 Miss Carlotta?" continued my tormentor. 
 
 "Yes," I answered hurriedly. "A charming young 
 lady. You used to give her sweets. Have you no- 
 ticed that a fondness for sugar plums induces an equa- 
 nimity of character? It also spoils the teeth. That is 
 why the front teeth of all American women are so 
 bad." 
 
 I must be endowed with the low cunning of the fox, 
 who, I am told, by a swift turn puts his pursuers off the 
 scent. The learned term the rhetorical device an ignoratio 
 denchi. My young friend's patriotism rose in furious de- 
 fence of his countrywomen's beauty. I looked round the 
 luxuriously furnished vestibule, wondering from which 
 of the many doors the object of my hatred would emerge,
 
 212 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 and my young friend's talk continued to ruffle the fringe of 
 my mind. 
 
 "I'm afraid you're expecting some one rather badly," 
 he remarked with piercing perceptiveness. 
 
 "A dull acquaintance," said I. " I shall be sorry 
 when his arrival puts an end to our engaging conversa- 
 tion." 
 
 Then the lift door opened and Hamdi stepped out like 
 the Devil in an Alhambra ballet. 
 
 He looked at my card and looked at me. He bowed 
 politely. 
 
 "I did not know whom I should have the pleasure of 
 seeing," said he in his execrable French. "In what way 
 can I be of service to Sir Marcus Ordeyne?" 
 
 "What have you done with Carlotta?" I asked, glaring 
 at him. 
 
 His ignoble small-pox pitted face assumed an expression 
 of bland inquiry. 
 
 "Carlotta?" 
 
 "Yes," said I. "Where have you taken her to?" 
 
 " Explain yourself, Monsieur," said Hamdi. " Do I 
 understand that Lady Ordeyne has disappeared?" 
 
 "Tell me what you have done with her." 
 
 His crafty features grew satanic; his long fleshy nose 
 squirmed like the proboscis of one of Orcagna's fiends. 
 
 "Really, Monsieur," said he, with a hideous leer oh, 
 words are impotent to express the ugliness of that face! 
 " Really, Monsieur, supposing I had stolen Miladi, you 
 would be the last person I should inform of her where- 
 abouts. You are simple, Monsieur. I had always heard 
 that England was a country of arcadian innocence, so 
 unlike my own black, wicked country, and now " 
 he shrugged his shoulders blandly, "fen suis con- 
 vaincu"
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 213 
 
 "You may jeer, Hamdi Effendi," said I in a white pas- 
 sion of anger. "But the English police you will not find 
 so arcadian." 
 
 "Ah, so you have been to the police?" said the suave 
 villain. "You have gone to Scotland Scotland Place 
 Scotland n'importe. They are investigating the affair? 
 I thank you for the friendly warning." 
 
 "Warning!" I cried, choked with indignation. He held 
 up a soft, fat palm. 
 
 " Ah it is not a warning ? Then, Monsieur, I am afraid 
 you have committed an indiscretion which your friends in 
 Scotland Place will not pardon you. You would not 
 make a good police agent. I am of the profession, so I 
 know." 
 
 I advanced a step. He recoiled, casting a quick look 
 backward at the lift just then standing idle with open 
 doors. 
 
 "Hamdi Effendi," I cried, "by the living God, if you 
 do not restore me my wife " 
 
 But then I stopped short. Hamdi had stepped quickly 
 backward into the lift, and given a sign to the attendant. 
 The door slammed and all I could do was to shake my fist 
 at Hamdi's boots as they disappeared upwards. 
 
 I remember once in Italy seeing a cat playing with a 
 partially stunned bat which, flying low, she had brought to 
 the ground. She crouched, patted it, made it move a 
 little, patted it again and retired on her haunches prepar- 
 ing for a spring. Suddenly the bat shot vertically into the 
 air. 
 
 I stared at the ascending lift with the cat's expression of 
 impotent dismay and stupefaction. It was inconceivably 
 grotesque. It brought into my tragedy an element of in- 
 fernal farce. I became conscious of peals of laughter, and 
 looking round beheld the American doubled up in a saddle-
 
 214 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 bag chair. I fled from the vestibule of the hotel clothed 
 from head to foot in derision. 
 
 I am at home, sitting at my work-table, walking restlessly 
 about the room, stepping out into the raw air on the bal- 
 cony and looking for a sign down the dark and silent road. 
 I curse myself for my folly in entering the Hotel Metro- 
 pole. The damned Turk held me in the palm of his hand. 
 He made mock of me to his heart's content. . . . And 
 Carlotta is in his power. I grow white with terror when 
 I think of her terror. She is somewhere, locked up in 
 a room, in this great city. My God! Where can she 
 be? 
 
 The police must find her. London is not mediaeval 
 Italy for women to be gagged and carried off to inacces- 
 sible strongholds in defiance of laws and government. I 
 repeat to myself that she must come back, that the sober 
 working of English institutions will restore her to my arms, 
 that my agony is a matter of a day or two at most, that the 
 special license obtained this morning and now lying before 
 me is not the document of irony it seems, and that in a 
 week's time we shall look back on this nightmare of a day 
 with a smile, and look forward to the future with laughter 
 in our hearts. 
 
 But to-night I am very lonely. " Loneliness," says Epic- 
 terus, "is a certain condition of the helpless man." And 
 I am helpless. All my aid lies in the learning in those 
 books; and all the learning in all those books on all sides 
 from floor to ceiling cannot render me one infinitesimal 
 grain of practical assistance. If only Pasquale, man of 
 action, swift intelligence, were here! I can only trust to 
 the trained methocls of the unimaginative machine who 
 has set out to trace Carlotta by means of the scar on her 
 forehead and the mole behind her ear. And meanwhile
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 215 
 
 I am very lonely. My sole friend, to whom I could have 
 turned, Mrs. McMurray, is still at Bude. She is to have 
 a child, I understand, in the near future, and will stay in 
 Cornwall till the confinement is over. Her husband, even 
 were he not amid the midnight stress of his newspaper 
 office, I should shrink from seeking. He is a Niagara of 
 a man. Judith I can go to her no more. And though 
 Antoinette has wept her heart out all day long, poor soui, 
 and Stenson has conveyed by his manner his respectful 
 sympathy, I cannot take counsel of my own servants. I 
 have gathered into my arms the one-eyed cat, and buried 
 my face in his fur where Carlotta's face has been buried. 
 "That's the way I should like to be kissed!" Oh, my 
 dear, my dear, were you here now, that is the way I should 
 kiss you! 
 
 I have gone upstairs and wandered about her room. 
 Antoinette has prepared it for her reception to-night, as 
 usual. The corner of the bedclothes is turned down, and 
 her night-dress, a gossamer thing with cherry ribbons, laid 
 out across the bed. At the foot lie the familiar red slippers 
 with the audacious heels; her dressing-gown is thrown in 
 readiness over the back of a chair; even the brass hot water 
 can stands in the basin and it is still hot. And I know 
 that the foolish woman is wide-awake overhead waiting 
 for her darling. I kissed the pillow still fragrant of her 
 where her head rested last night, and I went downstairs 
 with a lump in my throat. 
 
 Again I sit at my work-table and, to save myself from 
 going mad with suspense, jot down in my diary* the, 
 things that have happened. Put in bald words they 
 scarcely seem credible. 
 
 * It will be borne in mind that I am writing these actual pages, 
 afterwards, at Verona, amplifying the rough notes in my diary .^ 
 M. O.
 
 21 6 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 A sudden clattering, nerve-shaking, strident peal at the 
 front-door bell. 
 
 I flew down the stairs. It was news of Carlotta. It was 
 Carlotta herself brought back to me. My heart swelled 
 with joy as if it would burst. I knew that as I opened the 
 door Carlotta would fall laughing, weeping, sobbing into 
 my arms. 
 
 I opened the door. It was only a police officer in plain 
 clothes. 
 
 "Sir Marcus Ordeyne?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "We have traced the young lady all right. She left 
 London by the two-twenty Continental express from Vic- 
 toria with Mr. Sebastian Pasquale."
 
 CHAPTER XVIH 
 November ist. 
 
 Five days ago the blow fell, and I am only now recov- 
 ering; only now awakening to the horrible pain of it. 
 
 I have gone about like a man in a dream. Blurred vis- 
 ages of men with far-away voices have saluted me at the 
 club. Innumerable lines of print which my eyes have 
 scanned have been destitute of meaning. I have forced 
 myself to the mechanical task of copying piles of rough 
 notes for my History; I have been able to bring thereto 
 not an atom of intelligence ; popes, princes, painters are a 
 category of disassociated names, less evocative of ideas 
 than the columns in the Post Office London Directory. I 
 have stared stupidly into the fire or at the dripping branches 
 of the trees opposite my windows. I have walked the 
 streets in dull misery. I have sought solace in the Zoolog- 
 ical Gardens. 
 
 There is a kindly brown bear who pleads humanly for 
 buns, and her I have fed into a sort of friendship. I stand 
 vacantly in front of the cage finding in the beast an odd 
 companionable sympathy. She turns her head on one 
 side, regards me with melting brown eyes, and squatting 
 on her haunches thrusts her paws beseechingly through 
 the bars. Just so did Carlotta beseech and plead. I have 
 bemused myself with gnostic and metempsychosic specu- 
 lations. Carlotta as an ordinary human being with an im- 
 mortal soul did not exist, and what I had known and loved 
 was but a simulacrum of female form containing an ele- 
 mental spirit doomed to be ever seeking a fresh habitat. 
 It was but the lingering ghost of the humanised shell of air 
 
 217
 
 21 8 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 that was seen at Victoria station. The fateful spirit, un- 
 trammelled by the conventions of men and actuated by 
 destinies unintelligible to mortal mind, had informed the 
 carcass of this little brown bear, which looks at me so 
 strangely, so coaxingly, with Carlotta's eyes and Carlotta's 
 gestures. I asked her yesterday to come back to me. I 
 said that the house was empty; that the rooms ached for 
 the want of her. I pleaded so passionately and the eyes 
 before me so melted that I thought her heart was touched. 
 But in the midst of it all another visitor came up and 
 the creature uttered a whining plaint and put out her 
 paw for buns by which token I felt indeed that it was 
 Carlotta. 
 
 I have accepted the blow silently. As yet I have told no 
 one. I have made no inquiries. When a man is betrayed 
 by his best friend and deserted by the woman he loves, time 
 and solitude are the only comforters. Besides, to whom 
 should I go for comfort ? I have lived too remote from my 
 kind, and my kind heeds me not. 
 
 Not a line has reached me from Carlotta. She has gone 
 out of my life as lightly and as remorselessly as she went 
 out of Hamdi Effendi's; as she went, for aught she knew, 
 out of that of the unhappy boy who lured her from Alex- 
 andretta. If she heard I was dead, I wonder whether she 
 would say: "I am so glad!" 
 
 Whether the flight was planned between them, or 
 whether Pasquale waylaid her on her way to the Avenue 
 Road and then and there proposed that she should ac- 
 company him, I do not know. It matters very little. She 
 is gone. That is the one awful fact that signifies. No ex- 
 planations, pleas for forgiveness could make me suffer 
 less. Were she different I might find it in my heart to hate 
 her. This I cannot do. How can one hate a thing devoid
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 219 
 
 of heart and soul ? But one can love it God knows how 
 blindly. So I have locked the door of Carlotta's room 
 and the key is in my possession. It shall not be touched. 
 It shall remain just as she left it and I shall mourn for 
 her as for one dead. 
 
 For Pasquale if I were of his own reversionary type, I 
 should follow him half across Europe till we met, and then 
 one of us would kill the other. In one respect he resem- 
 bles Carlotta. He is destitute of the moral sense. How 
 else to solve the enigma ? How else to reconcile his flam- 
 boyant chivalry towards the consumptive washer- woman 
 with the black treachery towards me, in which even at that 
 very moment his mind must have been steeped ? I knew 
 that he had betrayed many, that where women were con- 
 cerned no considerations of honour or friendship had 
 stood between him and his desires; but I believed for 
 what reason save my own egregious vanity, I know not 
 that for me he had a peculiar regard. I believed that it 
 was an idiosyncrasy of this wolf to look upon my sheep- 
 fold as sacred from his depredations. I was ashamed of 
 any doubts that crossed my mind as to his loyalty, and did 
 not hesitate to thrust my lamb between his jaws. And 
 while he was giving the lie direct to my faith, I, poor fool, 
 in my despair was seeking madly for his aid in the deliv- 
 erance of my darling from the power of the dog. 
 
 I have felt I owe Hamdi EfTendi an apology; for it is 
 well that, in the midst of this buffoon tragedy I find myself 
 playing, I should observe occasionally the decencies of 
 conduct. But, on the other hand, was he not amply repaid 
 for moral injury by the pure joy he must have felt while 
 torturing me with his banter ? For all the deeper suffering, 
 I am conscious of writhing under lacerated vanity when I 
 think of that grotesque and humiliating blunder in the 
 Hotel Metropole.
 
 22O The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 November zd. 
 
 I have received news of the death of old Simon Mc- 
 Quhatty. In my few lucid moments of late I had been 
 thinking of seeking his kindly presence. Now Gossip 
 Death has taken him out across the moor. Now, dear 
 old pagan, he is 
 
 " Rolled round in earth's diurnal course 
 With rocks and stones and trees." 
 
 November 3d. 
 
 Antoinette came up this morning with a large card- 
 board box addressed to Carlotta. The messenge r who 
 brought it was waiting downstairs. 
 
 "I came to Monsieur to know whether I should send 
 it back," said Antoinette, on the verge of tears. 
 
 "No," said I, "leave it here." 
 
 From the furrier's label, I saw that the box contained 
 some furs I had ordered for Carlotta a fortnight ago she 
 shivered so, poor child, in this wintry climate. 
 
 "But, Monsieur," began Antoinette, "the poor angel " 
 
 "May want it in heaven," said I. 
 
 The good woman stared. 
 
 "We'll be like the ancient Egyptians, Antoinette," I 
 explained, "who placed food and wine and raiment and 
 costly offerings in the tombs of the departed, so that their 
 shades could come and enjoy them for all eternity. We'll 
 have to make believe, Antoinette, that this is a tomb, for 
 one can't rear a pyramid hi London, though it is a desert 
 sufficiently vast; and the little second floor room is the 
 inner sanctuary where the body lies in silence embalmed 
 with sweet spices and swathed in endless bands of linen." 
 
 "But Mademoiselle is not dead?" cried Antoinette, 
 with a shiver. "How can Monsieur talk of such things? 
 Jt makes me fear, the way Monsieur speaks."
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeync 221 
 
 "It makes me fear, too, Antoinette," said I, gravely. 
 
 When she had gone I took the box of furs upstairs and 
 laid it unopened on Carlotta's bed and came away, relock- 
 ing the door behind me. 
 
 November gth. 
 
 I have formed a great resolution. I have devoted the 
 week to the envisagement of things, and while I lay awake 
 last night the solution came to me as something final and 
 irrevocable. Mistrusting the counsels of the night, when 
 the brain is unduly excited by nervous insomnia, I have 
 applied the test of a day's cold reason. 
 
 I have broken a woman's heart. I have spurned the 
 passionate love of a woman who has been near and dear 
 to me; a woman of great nature; a woman of subtle brain 
 who has been my chosen companion, my equal partner in 
 any intellectual path I chose to tread; a sensitive lady, with 
 all the graciousness of soul that term conveys. Heaven 
 knows what a woman can see in me to love. I look in the 
 glass at my bony, hawk-like face, on which the stamp of 
 futility seems eternally set, and I am seized with a pro- 
 digious wonder; but the fact remains that to me unlovely 
 and unworthy has been given that thing without price, a 
 woman's love. I remember Pasquale laughing merrily at 
 this valuation. He said the love of women was as cheap 
 as dirt, and the only use for it was to make mud pies. The 
 damned cynical villain! "Always reflect," said he, on an- 
 other occasion, "that although a man may be as ugly as 
 sin, the probability is that he is just as pleasant. Beauties 
 will find hitherto unsuspected amenities in Beasts till the 
 end of time." But I am such a poor and sorry Beast, 
 without the chance of a transformation; a commonplace 
 Beast, dull and didactic; a besotted, purblind, despicable 
 Beast! Yet Judith loved me. Instead of thanking on my
 
 222 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 knees the high gods for the boon conferred, I rejected it, 
 and went mad for craving of the infinitely lesser glory of 
 Carlotta's baby lips and gold-bronze hair. I have broken 
 Judith's heart. I will expiate the crime I have committed. 
 
 Expiate the crime! The realisation of the meaning of 
 the words covers me with shame. As if what I propose 
 will be a sorry penance! That is the danger of a man 
 thinking, as I have always done, in metaphors. It has 
 given me my loose, indirect views of life, of myself, of those 
 around me. If I had advice to offer to a young man, I 
 should say: "Learn to think straight." Expiate, indeed! I 
 will go to her and make confession. I will tell her that 
 awful loneliness is crushing my soul. I will kneel before 
 her and beseech her of her great woman's goodness to give 
 me her love again, and to be my helpmeet and my compan- 
 ion who will be cherished with all that there is of loyalty 
 in me to her life's end. She will pity me a little, for I have 
 suffered, and I will pity her tenderly, in deep sincerity, 
 and our life together will be based on that all-understand- 
 ing which signifies all-forgiveness. And it shall be a real 
 life together. I used to smile, in a superior way, at her 
 dread of solitude. Heaven forgive me. I did not then 
 know its terrors. It comforted for the first few benumbed 
 days, but now it is gathering around me like a mysterious 
 and appalling force. I crave the human presence in my 
 home. I need the woman's presence in my heart. 
 
 We shall live together then as man and wife, in defiance 
 of the world. Let the moralists blame us. We shall not 
 care. It will make little social difference to Judith, and as 
 for myself, have I not already inflicted public outrage on 
 society? Does not my Aunt Jessica regard me as a 
 wringer of the public conscience, and does not my Cousin 
 Rosalie mention me with a shudder of horror in her tepid 
 prayers ? If I really give them cause for reprobation they
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 223 
 
 will be neither wiser, nor better, nor sorrier. And if the 
 baronetcy flickers out in unseemly odour, I for one shall 
 know that the odour is sweeter than that wherein it was 
 lighted, when my great-grandfather earned the radiance 
 by services rendered at Brighton to His Royal Highness 
 the Prince Regent. This is the only way in which I can 
 make Judith reparation, the only way in which I can find 
 comfort. We shall travel. Italy, beloved of Judith, is call- 
 ing me. Probably Florence will be our settled home. I 
 shall give up this house of madness. The clean sweet love 
 of Judith will purify my heart of this poisonous passion, 
 and in the end there will be peace. 
 
 I have taken Carlotta's photograph from its frame and 
 cast it into the fire, thus burning her for her witchcraft. I 
 watched the flames leap and curl. The last look she gave 
 me before they licked away her face had its infinite allure- 
 ment, its devilish sorcery so intensified in the fierce yel- 
 low light, that the yearning for her clutched me by the 
 throat and shook me through all my being. 
 
 But it is over now. I have done with Carlotta. If she 
 thinks I am going to sit and let the wind which comes over 
 Primrose Hill drive me mad like Gastibelza, Vhomme d la 
 carabine, in Victor Hugo's poem, she is vastly mistaken. 
 From this hour henceforth I swear she is nothing to me; 
 I will eat and sleep and laugh as if she had never existed. 
 Polyphemus, curled up in Carlotta's old place on the sofa, 
 regards me with his sardonic eye. He is an evil, incredu- 
 lous, mocking beast, who a few centuries ago would have 
 been burned with his late mistress? 
 
 I am sane and happier now that I have come to my ir- 
 revocable determination. 
 
 To-morrow I go to Judith.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 November loth. 
 
 I had to ring twice before Judith's servant opened the 
 flat door. 
 
 "Mrs. Mainwaring is engaged just at present, Sir Mar- 
 cus." 
 
 "Ask her if I can come in and wait, as I have something 
 of importance to say to her." 
 
 She left me standing in the passage, a thing that had 
 never before occurred to me in Judith's establishment, 
 and presently returned with her answer. Would I mind 
 waiting in the dining-room? I entered. The table was 
 littered with sheets of her statistical work and odd bits of 
 silk and lining. A type- writer stood at one end and a sew- 
 ing-machine at the other. On the writing-desk by the 
 window, in the midst of a mass of letters and account- 
 books, rested a large bowl filled with magnificent blooms 
 of white and yellow chrysanthemums. A volume of Dante 
 lay open face downwards on the corner. It did my heart 
 good to see this untidiness, so characteristic of Judith, so 
 familiar, so intimate. She had taken her trouble bravely, 
 I reflected. The ordinary daily task had not been left un- 
 done. Through all she had preserved her valiant sanity. 
 I felt rebuked for my own loss of self-control. 
 
 I was about to turn away from the litter of the desk, 
 when my eye caught sight of an envelope bearing a French 
 stamp and addressed in Pasquale's unmistakable hand- 
 writing. As there seemed to be a letter inside, I did not 
 take it up to examine it more closely. The glance was 
 
 224
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 225 
 
 enough to assure me that it came from Pasquale. Why 
 should he be corresponding with Judith ? I walked away 
 puzzled. Was it a justification, a confession, a plea to her 
 as my friend to obtain my forgiveness? If there is one 
 thing more irritating than another it is to light accident- 
 ally upon a mystery affecting oneself in a friend's corre- 
 spondence. One can no more probe deeply into it than one 
 can steal the friend's spoons. It seems an indiscretion tD 
 have noticed it, an unpardonable impertinence to subject 
 it to conjecture. In spite of my abhorring the impulse of 
 curiosity, the sweeping, flaunting, swaggering handwriting 
 of Pasquale worried me. 
 
 Judith came in, looking much as she had done on the 
 occasion of my last visit, worn and anxious, with a strange 
 expression in her eyes. 
 
 "I am sorry to have kept you waiting," she said, ex- 
 tending a lifeless hand. 
 
 I raised it to my lips. 
 
 "I would have gladly waited all day to see you, Ju- 
 dith," I said. 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 She laughed in an odd way. 
 
 "And idle speech from me to you at the present time 
 would be an outrage," I answered. " I have passed through 
 much since I saw you last." 
 
 "So have I," said Judith. "More than you imagine. 
 Well," she continued as I bowed my head accepting the 
 rebuke, "what have you got so important to tell me?" 
 
 " Much," said I. "In the first place you must be aware 
 of what has happened, for I can't help seeing there a letter 
 from Pasquale." 
 
 She glanced swiftly at the desk and back again at 
 me. 
 
 "Yes," she replied, "he is in Paris." 
 15
 
 226 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 I was amazed at her nonchalance. 
 
 "Has he told you nothing?" 
 
 "Perhaps Sir Marcus Ordeyne would like to see his 
 letter," she said, ironically. 
 
 "You know perfectly well that I would not read it," 
 said I. 
 
 Judith laughed again, and rolled her handkerchief into 
 a little ball between her nervous fingers. 
 
 "Forgive me," she said. "I like to see the grand sei- 
 gneur in you now and then. It puts me in mind of happier 
 days. But about I'asquale the only thing he tells me is 
 that he is not able to execute a commission for me. He 
 told me on the night he drove me home that he was going 
 to Paris, and I asked him to get me some cosmetic. Car- 
 mine Badouin, if you want to know. I have got to rouge 
 now before I am fit to be seen in the street. I am quite 
 frank about it." 
 
 "Then you knov* nothing of Carlotta?" I cried. 
 
 "Carlotta?" 
 
 "She eloped with that double-dyed, damned, infernal 
 villain, the day after I saw you." 
 
 Judith looked at me for a moment, then closed her eyes 
 and turned her head away, resting her hand on the table. 
 My indignation waxed hot against the scoundrel. How 
 dare he write casual letters to Judith about Carmine Ba- 
 douin with his treachery on his conscience? I know the 
 terms of flippant grace in which the knave couched this 
 precious epistle. And I could see Carlotta reading over 
 his shoulder and clapping her hands and cooing: "Oh, 
 that is so funny!" 
 
 When I had told Judith the outlines of the story, pacing 
 up and down the little room while she remained motionless 
 by the table, she put out her hand to me, and in a low 
 voice, and with still averted eyes said that she was sorry,
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 227 
 
 deeply sorry. Her tone rang so true and loyal that my 
 heart throbbed with quick appreciation of her high nature, 
 and I wrung her outstretched hand. 
 
 " God bless you, Judith," I cried, fervently. " Bless you 
 for your sweet sympathy. Be sorry for me only as for a man 
 who has passed through the horrors of delirium. But for 
 me as I stand before you now, I ask you not to be sorry. 
 I have come to bring you, if I can, dear Judith, a measure 
 of gladness, perhaps of happiness." 
 
 She wrenched herself free from me, and a terrified cry 
 of "Marcus!" checked my dithyrambic appeal. She 
 shrank away so that a great corner of the dining-table 
 separated us, and she stared at me as though my words 
 had been the affrighting utterance of a madman. 
 
 "Marcus! What do you mean?" she cried, with an un- 
 natural shrillness in her voice. 
 
 "I mean," said I, "I mean I mean that 'crushed by 
 three days' pressure, my three days' love lies slain.' Time 
 has withered him at the root. I have buried him deep in 
 unconsecrated ground, like a vampire, with a stake through 
 his heart. And I have come back to you, Judith, humbly 
 to crave your forgiveness and your love to tell you I have 
 changed, dear -to offer you all I have in the world if 
 you will but take it to give you my life, my daily, hourly 
 devotion. My God!" I cried, "don't you believe me?" 
 
 She still stared at me in a frightened way, leaning 
 heavier on the table. Her lips twitched before they could 
 frame the words: 
 
 "Yes, I believe you. You have never lied to me." 
 
 "Then in the name of love and heaven," I cried, "why 
 do you look at me like that?" 
 
 She trembled, evidently suppressing something with in- 
 tense effort, whether bitter laughter, indignation or a pas- 
 sionate outburst I could not tell.
 
 228 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "You ask why?" she said, unsteadily. "Because you 
 seem like the angel of the flaming vengeance." 
 
 At these astounding words it was my turn to look amazed. 
 
 "Vengeance?" I echoed. "What wrong have you done 
 me or any living creature ? Come, my dear," and I moved 
 nearer by seating myself on the corner of the table, close 
 to the type- writer, and leaning towards her, "let us look at 
 this thing soberly. If ever a man had need of woman I 
 have need of you. I can live alone no longer. We must 
 share one home henceforth together. We can snap our 
 fingers at the world, you and I. If you have anything to 
 say against the proposal, let us discuss it calmly." 
 
 Judith's slender figure vibrated like a cord strung to 
 breaking-point. Her voice vibrated. 
 
 "Yes, let us discuss it calmly. But not here. The 
 sight of you sitting in the middle of my life, between the 
 sewing-machine and the type-writer, is getting on my 
 nerves. Let us go into the drawing-room. There is an 
 atmosphere of calm there " her voice quavered in a queer 
 little choke "of sabbatical calm." 
 
 I slid quickly from the table and put my arm round her 
 waist. 
 
 "Tell me, Judith, what is amiss with you." 
 
 She broke away from me roughly, thrusting me back. 
 
 " Nothing. A woman's nothing, if you understand what 
 that means. Come into the drawing-room." 
 
 I opened the door; she passed out and I followed her 
 along the passage. She preceded me into the drawing- 
 room, and I stayed for a moment to close the door, fum- 
 bling with the handle which has been loose for some 
 months. When I turned and had made a couple of steps 
 forward, I halted involuntarily under the shock of a con- 
 siderable surprise. 
 
 We were not alone. Standing on the hearth-rug, his
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 229 
 
 hands behind his back, his brows bent on me benevolently 
 was a man in clerical attire. He looked ostentatiously, 
 exaggeratedly clerical. His clerical frock-coat was of in- 
 ordinate length; his boots were aggravatingly clump- 
 soled; by a very large white tie, masking the edges of a 
 turned-down collar, he proclaimed himself Evangelical. 
 An otherwise clean-shaven florid face was adorned with 
 brown side-whiskers growing rather long. A bald, shiny 
 head topped a fringe of brown hair. 
 
 I stared at this unexpected gentleman for a second or 
 two, and then, recovering my self-possession, looked en- 
 quiringly at Judith. 
 
 "Sir Marcus," she said, "let me introduce my husband, 
 Mr. Rupert Mainwaring." 
 
 Her husband! This benevolent Evangelical parson her 
 husband! But the brilliant gallant who had dazzled her 
 eyes ? The dissolute scoundrel that had wrecked her life ? 
 Where was he? Dumfounded, I managed to bow po- 
 litely enough, but my stupefaction was covered by Judith 
 rushing across the room and uttering a strange sound 
 which resolved itself into a shrill, hysterical laugh as she 
 reached the door which she opened and slammed behind 
 her. I heard her scream hysterically in the passage; then 
 the slam of another door ; and the silence told me that she 
 had shut herself in her bedroom. Disregarding the new 
 husband's presence, I rang the bell, and the servant who 
 had left her kitchen on hearing the scream entered imme- 
 diately. 
 
 " Go to your mistress. She is ill," said I. 
 
 The maid hurriedly departed. The parson and I looked 
 at one another. 
 
 "I am afraid," said I, "that my presence is unhappily 
 an intrusion. I hope to make your better acquaintance on 
 another occasion."
 
 230 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "Oh, please don't go," said he, "my wife is only a little 
 upset and will soon recover. I beg that you will excuse 
 her. Besides, I should like to have a talk with you." 
 
 He offered me a chair, my own chair, the comfortable, 
 broad-seated Empire chair I had given Judith as a birth- 
 day present years ago, the chair in which I had invaria- 
 bly sat. He did it with the manner of the master of the 
 house, a most courteous gentleman. The situation was 
 fantastic. Some ingenious devil must have conceived it 
 by way of pandering to the after-dinner humour of the 
 high gods. As I sat down I rubbed my eyes. Was this 
 brown- whiskered, bald-headed clerical gentleman real? 
 The rubbing of my eyes dispelled no hallucination. He 
 was flesh and blood and still regarded me urbanely. It 
 was horrible. The desertion of the scoundrelly husband, 
 who I thought was lost somewhere in the cesspool of Eu- 
 rope, was the basis, the sanction of the relations between 
 Judith and myself; and here was this reverend, respectable 
 man apologising for his wife and begging me to be seated 
 in my own chair. The remark of Judith's that I should 
 find sabbatical calm in the drawing-room occurred to me, 
 and I had to grip the arms of the chair to prevent myself 
 from joining Judith in her hysterics. 
 
 The appearance of the husband in his legendary colours 
 of rascality would have been a shock. The sudden scat- 
 tering of my plans for Judith's happiness I should have 
 viewed with consternation. But it would have been nor- 
 mal. For him, however, to appear in the guise of an Evan- 
 gelical clergyman, the very last kind of individual to be 
 associated with Judith, was, I repeat, horribly fantastic. 
 
 "I believe, Sir Marcus," said he, deliberately parting 
 the tails of his exaggerated frock-coat and sitting down 
 near me, "that you are a very great friend of my 
 wife."
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 231 
 
 I murmured that I had known Mrs. Mainwarmg for 
 some years. 
 
 "You are doubtless acquainted with her unhappy his- 
 tory." 
 
 "I have heard her speak of it," said I. 
 
 "You must then share her surprise in seeing me here 
 to-day. I should like to assure you, as representing her 
 friends and society and that sort of thing, as I have assured 
 her, that I have not taken this step without earnest prayer 
 and seeking the counsel of Almighty God." 
 
 I am by no means a bigoted pietist, but to hear a person 
 talk lightly about seeking the counsel of Almighty God 
 jars upon my sense of taste. I stiffened at the sanctimo- 
 nious tone in which the words were uttered. 
 
 " You have without doubt very good reasons for coming 
 back into the circle of her life," said I. 
 
 "The best of all reasons," he replied, caressing a brown 
 whisker, "namely, that I am a Christian." 
 
 I liked him less and less. 
 
 "Is that the reason, may I ask, why you remained away 
 from her all these years ? " 
 
 "I deserve the scoff," said he. "Those were days of 
 sin. I deserve every humiliation that can be put upon me. 
 But I have since found the grace of God. I found it at 
 three o'clock in the afternoon on the eighth of January, 
 eighteen hundred and " 
 
 "Never mind the year," I interrupted. 
 
 My gorge rose. The man was a sanctimonious Chad- 
 band. He had come with nefarious designs on Judith's 
 slender capital. I saw knavery in the whites of his up- 
 turned eyes. 
 
 "I should be glad," I continued quickly, "if you would 
 come to the point of the conversation you desire to have 
 with me. I presume it concerns Mrs. Mainwaring. She
 
 232 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 has reconciled herself to circumstances and has found 
 means to regulate her life with a certain measure of con- 
 tentment and comfort until now, when you suddenly in- 
 troduce a disturbing factor. You appear to wish to tell me 
 your reasons for doing so and I can't see what the grace 
 of God has to do with it." 
 
 He sprang to his feet and shot out both hands in the 
 awkward gesture of an inspired English prophet. 
 
 " But it has everything to do with it! It is the beginning 
 and end, core and kernel, root and branch of the matter. 
 It is the grace of God that checked me in the full career of 
 my wickedness. It is the grace of God that has lighted my 
 path ever -since to holier things. It is the grace of God 
 that has changed me from what I was to what I am. It is 
 the grace of God that has brought me here to ask pardon 
 on my knees of the woman I have wronged. The grace of 
 God and of his son our Lord Jesus Christ, which came 
 upon me in a great light on that January afternoon even as 
 it did upon Saul of Tarsus. The grace of God has every- 
 thing to do with it." 
 
 "Mr. Mainwaring," said I, "such talk is either blas- 
 phemous or " 
 
 He did not allow me to state the alternative, but caught 
 up the word in a great cry. 
 
 "Blasphemous! Why, man alive! for what are you 
 taking me ? Do you think this is some unholy jest ? Can't 
 you see that I am in deadly earnest? Come and see me 
 where I live " he caught me by the arm, as if he would 
 drag me away then and there, "among the poor in Hox- 
 ton. You scarcely know where Hoxton is I didn't when 
 I was a man of ease like yourself that wilderness of grey 
 despair where the sun of the world scarcely shines, let 
 alone the Light of God. Come and see for yourself, man, 
 whether I am lying!"
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 233 
 
 Then it dawned upon me that the man had been talking 
 from innermost depths, that he was almost terrifyingly 
 sincere. 
 
 "I must ask you to pardon me," said I, "for appearing 
 to doubt your good faith. You must attribute it to my 
 entire unfamiliarity with the terms of Evangelical piety." 
 
 He looked at me queerly for a moment, and then, in the 
 quiet tones of a man of the world, said, smiling pleasantly : 
 
 "Very many years ago I had the pleasure of knowing 
 your grandfather, the late baronet. May I say that you 
 remind me of him?" 
 
 I have never heard an apology more gracefully and tact- 
 fully accepted. For an unregenerate second he had be- 
 come the gallant Rupert Mainwaring again, and showed 
 me wherein might lie his attraction. 
 
 " Pray be seated," said he, more gravely, " and allow me 
 to explain." 
 
 He unfolded his story. It was well, said he, that an out- 
 sider (I an outsider in that familiar room!) should hear it. 
 I was at liberty to make it public. Indeed, publicity was 
 what he earnestly craved. As far as my memory serves 
 me, for my wits were whirling as I listened, the following 
 is an epitome of his narrative : 
 
 He had been a man of sin not only in the vague eccle- 
 siastical sense, but in downright, practical earnest. He 
 had committed every imaginable crime, save the odd few 
 that lead to penal servitude and the gallows. He drank, 
 he betrayed women, he cheated at cards, he had an evil 
 reputation on the turf. His companions were chosen from 
 the harlotry and knavery of the civilised world. He had 
 lured Judith from her first husband, thus breaking his 
 heart, poor man, so that he died soon after. He had mar- 
 ried Judith, and had deserted her for a barmaid whom in- 
 her turn he had abandoned. He wallowed, to use his own
 
 234 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 expression, in the trough of iniquity. He was, as I had al- 
 ways understood, about as choice a blackguard as it would 
 be possible to meet outside a gaol. One day a pretty girl, 
 whom he had been following in the street, unwittingly en- 
 ticed him into a revivalist meeting. He described that 
 meeting so vividly that had my stupefied mind been capa- 
 ble of fresh emotions, I too might have been converted at 
 second hand by the revivalist preacher. He repeated parts 
 of the sermon, rose to his feet, waved his arms, thundered 
 out the commonplaces of Salvation Army Christianity, as 
 if he had made an amazing theological discovery. It was 
 pathetic. It was ludicrous. It was also inconceivably 
 painful. At last he mopped his forehead and shiny head 
 
 " Before that meeting was over I was on my knees pray- 
 ing beside the girl whom I had designed to ruin. I went 
 into the streets a converted man, filled with the grace of 
 God. I resolved to devote my life to saving souls for 
 Christ. My old habits of sin fell away from me like a gar- 
 ment. I studied for the ministry. I am now in deacon's 
 orders, and I am the incumbent of a little tin mission 
 church in Hoxton. God moves in a mysterious way, Sir 
 Marcus." 
 
 "He is generally credited with doing so," said I, stu- 
 pidly. 
 
 "You are doubtless wondering, Sir Marcus," he went 
 on, " why I placed such a long interval between my awak- 
 ening and my communicating with my wife. I set myself 
 a period of probation. I desired to be assured of God's 
 will. It was essential that I should test my strength of 
 purpose, and my power of making a life's atonement, as 
 far as the things of this world are concerned, for the wrongs 
 I have inflicted on her. I have come now to offer her a 
 Christian home." 
 
 I looked at him open-mouthed.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 235 
 
 " Do you expect Judith to go and live with you as your 
 ivife, in Hoxton?" I asked, bluntly. 
 
 " Why not ? She is my wife." 
 
 I rose and walked about the room hi agitation. Some- 
 how such a contingency had not entered my bewildered 
 head. 
 
 "Why not, Sir Marcus?" he repeated. 
 
 "Because Judith isn't that kind of woman at all," I 
 said, desperately. "She doesn't like Hoxton, and would 
 be as much out of place in a tin-mission church as I should 
 be in a cavalry charge." 
 
 "God will see to her fitness," said he, gravely. "To 
 him all things are easy." 
 
 "But she has considerable philosophic doubt as to his 
 personal existence," I cried. 
 
 He smiled prophetically and waved away her doubt 
 with a gesture. 
 
 "I have no fears on that score," he observed. 
 
 "But it is preposterous," I objected once more, chang- 
 ing my ground; "Judith craves the arrears of gaiety and 
 laughter which your conduct caused life to leave owing to 
 her. She loves bright dresses, cigarettes, and wine and the 
 things that are anathema in an Evangelical household." 
 
 " My wife will find the gaiety and laughter of holiness," 
 replied the fanatic. " She will not be stinted of money to 
 dress herself with becoming modesty; and as for alcohol 
 and tobacco, no one knows better than myself how easy it 
 is to give them up." 
 
 "You seem as merciless in your virtues as you were in 
 your vices," said I. 
 
 "I have to bring souls to Christ," he answered. 
 
 "That doesn't appear to be the way," I retorted, "to 
 bring them." 
 
 "Pray remember, Sir Marcus," said he, bending his
 
 236 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 brows upon me, " that I did not ask you for suggestions as 
 to the conduct of my ministry." 
 
 "The general methods you adopt in the case of your 
 congregation," said I, "are matters of perfect indifference 
 to me. But I cannot see Judith imprisoned for life in a 
 tin church without a protest. Your proposal reminds me 
 of the Siennese who owed a victorious general more than 
 they could possibly repay. The legend goes that they 
 hanged him, in order to make him a saint after his death 
 by way of reward. I object to this sort of canonisation 
 of Judith. And she will object, too. You seem to leave 
 her out of account altogether. She is mistress of her own 
 actions. She has a will of her own. She is not going to 
 give up her comfortable flat off the Tottenham Court Road 
 in order to dwell in Hoxton. She won't go back to you 
 under your conditions." 
 
 He smiled indulgently and held out his hand to signify 
 that the interview was over. 
 
 " She will, Sir Marcus." 
 
 Was there ever such a Torquemada of a creature ? I re- 
 spect religion. I respect this man's intense conviction of the 
 reality of his conversion. I can respect even the long frock 
 coat and the long brown whiskers, which in the case of so 
 dashing a worldling as Rupert Mainwaring were a delib- 
 erate and daily mortification of the flesh. But I hold in 
 shuddering detestation "the thumb-screw and the rack 
 for the glory of the Lord," which he cheerfully contem- 
 plated applying to Judith. 
 
 "Why on earth can't you let the poor woman alone?" 
 I asked, ignoring his hand. 
 
 "I am doing my duty to God and to her," said he. 
 
 "With the result that you have driven her into hys- 
 terics." 
 
 " She'll get over them," said he.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 237 
 
 "I wish you good-day," said I. "We might talk to- 
 gether for a thousand years without understanding each 
 other." 
 
 "Pardon me," he retorted, with the utmost urbanity. 
 "I understand you perfectly." 
 
 He accompanied me to the dining-room where I had 
 left my hat and umbrella, and to the flat door which he po- 
 litely opened. When it shut behind me I felt inclined to 
 batter it open again and to take Judith by main force from 
 under his nose. But I suppose I am pusillanimous. I 
 found myself in the street brandishing my umbrella like a 
 flaming sword and vowing to perform all sorts of Paladin 
 exploits, which I knew in my heart were futile. 
 
 I hailed an omnibus in the Tottenham Court Road, and 
 clambered to the top, though a slight drizzle was falling. 
 Why I did it I have not the remotest idea, for I abhor 
 those locomotive engines of exquisite discomfort. I had no 
 preconceived notion of destination. It was a moving thing 
 that would carry me away from the Tottenham Court 
 Road, away from the Rev. Rupert Mainwaring, away from 
 myself. I w T as the solitary occupant of the omnibus roof. 
 The rain fell, softly, persistently, soakingly. I laughed 
 aloud. 
 
 I recognised the predestined irony of things that at every 
 corner checks the course of the ineffectual man.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 November nth. 
 
 I wrote Judith a long letter last night, urging her to dis- 
 regard the forfeited claims of her husband and to join her 
 life definitely with mine. I was cynical enough to feel 
 that if such a proceeding annoyed the Rev. Rupert Main- 
 waring it would serve him right. The fact of a man's find- 
 ing religion and abjuring sack does not in itself exculpate 
 him from wrongs which he has inflicted on his fellow- 
 creatures in unregenerate days. Mainwaring deserved 
 some punishment of which he seemed to have had remark- 
 ably little; for, mind you, his sack-cloth and ashes at Hox~ 
 ton, although sincerely worn, are not much of a punish- 
 ment to a man in his exalted mood. Now, on the contrary, 
 Judith deserved compensation, such as I alone was pre- 
 pared to offer her in spite of conventional morality and the 
 feelings of the Rev. Rupert Mainwaring. Indeed, it 
 seemed to be the only way of saving Judith from being 
 worried out of her life by frantic appeals to embrace 
 both himself and Primitive Christianity. Her position 
 was that of Andromeda. Mine that of an unheroic Per- 
 seus, destined to deliver her from the monster the mon- 
 ster whose lair is a little tin mission church in Hoxton. 
 
 I wrote the letter in one of those periods of semi-vitality 
 when the pulses of emotion throb weakly, and sensitive- 
 ness is dulled. To-day I have felt differently. My nerves 
 have been restrung. Something ironically vulgar, sordidly 
 tragic has seemed to creep into my relations with Judith. 
 
 To my great surprise Judith brought her answer in per- 
 son this evening. It is the first time she has entered my 
 
 238
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 239 
 
 house; and her first words, as she looked all around her 
 with a wistful smile referred to the fact. 
 
 "It is almost just as I have pictured it and I have 
 pictured it do you know how often?" 
 
 She was calmer, if not happier. The haggard expres- 
 sion had given place to one of resignation. I wheeled an 
 arm-chair close to the fire, for she was cold, and she sank 
 into it with a sigh of weariness. I knelt beside her. She 
 drew off her gloves and put one hand on my head in the old 
 way. The touch brought me great comfort. I thought 
 that we had reached the quiet haven at last. 
 
 " So you have come to me, Judith," I whispered. 
 
 "I have come, dear," she said, "to tell you that I can't 
 come." 
 
 My heart sank. 
 
 "Why?" I asked. 
 
 We fenced a little. She gave half reasons, womanlike, 
 of which I proved the inadequacy. I recapitulated the ar- 
 guments I had used in my letter. She met them with hints 
 and vague allusions. At last she cut the knot. 
 
 "I am going back to my husband." 
 
 I rose to my feet and echoed the words. She repeated 
 them in a tone so mournfully distinct, that they had the 
 finality of a death-knell. I had nothing to say. 
 
 " Before we part I must make my peace with you, Mar- 
 cus," she said. "I have suddenly developed a conscience. 
 I always had the germs of it." 
 
 "You were always the best and dearest woman in the 
 world," I cried. 
 
 "And I betrayed you, dear. That letter from Pasquale 
 told me about his flight with Carlotta. I lied to you but 
 I was in a state bordering on madness." 
 
 I rested my elbow on the mantel-piece and looked 
 down on her. She appeared so sweet and fragile, like a
 
 240 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 piece of Dresden china, incapable of base actions. As I did 
 not speak she went on: 
 
 "I did not mean to play into Pasquale's hands, Mar- 
 cus. Heaven knows I didn't but I did play into them. 
 Do you remember that awful night and our talk the next 
 morning? I asked you not to see her all day to mourn 
 our dead love. I knew you would keep your promise. 
 You are a man of sensitive honour. If all men were like 
 you, the world would be a beautiful place." 
 
 "It would go to smash in a few weeks through univer- 
 sal incompetence," I murmured, with some bitterness. 
 
 "There would be no meanness and treachery and des- 
 picable underhand doings. Marcus, you must forgive me 
 I was a desperate woman fighting for my life's happi- 
 ness. I thought I would try one forlorn hope. I kept you 
 out of the way and came up here to see Carlotta. Don't 
 interrupt me, Marcus; let me finish. I happened to meet 
 her a hundred yards down the road, and we went into the 
 Regent's Park. We sat down and I told her about our- 
 selves, and my love for you, and asked her to give you up. 
 I don't believe she understood, Marcus. She laughed and 
 threw stones at a little dog. I recovered my senses and left 
 her there and went home sick with shame and humiliation. 
 I knew Pasquale was in love with her, for he had told me 
 so the night before, and asked me how the marriage could 
 be stopped. He didn't believe in your announcement to 
 Hamdi Effendi. But I never mentioned Pasquale to Car- 
 lotta, or hinted there might be another than you. I was 
 loyal so far, Marcus. And two or three days afterwards 
 came Pasquale's letter. And I waited for you, in a fearful 
 joy. I knew you would come to me and I was mad 
 enough to think that time would heal that you would for- 
 get that we could have the dear past again and I would 
 teach you to love me. But then, suddenly, without a word
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 241 
 
 of warning it has always been his way appeared my 
 husband. After that, you came with your offer of shelter 
 and comfort and you seemed like the angel of the flaming 
 vengeance. For I had wronged you, dear robbed you of 
 your happiness. If I hadn't prepared her mind for leav- 
 ing you, she would never have run away. If I had not 
 done this, or if on the other hand you loved me, Marcus, I 
 should perhaps have looked at things differently. I am 
 beginning to believe in God and to see his hand in it all. 
 I couldn't come and live with you as your wife, Marcus. 
 Things stronger even than my love for you forbid it. Our 
 life together would not be the sweet and gracious thing it 
 has always been to me. We have come to the parting of 
 the ways. I must follow my husband." 
 
 I knew she spoke rightly. When she is not swept away 
 to hysterical action by her temperament, she has a percep- 
 tion exquisitely keen into the heart of truth. 
 
 "The parting of the ways?" said I. "Yes; but can't 
 you rest at the cross-roads ? Can't you lead your present 
 life your husband and myself, both, just your friends?" 
 
 "Rupert has need of me," she replied very quickly. 
 " He is a man in torment of soul. He has gone to this ex- 
 treme of religious fanaticism because he is still uncertiw. 
 of himself. We had another long talk to-day. I may help 
 him." 
 
 " Does he deserve the sacrifice of your life ?" 
 
 She did not take up my question directly; but sat for a 
 few minutes with her chin on her hand looking into the fire. 
 
 "He is a man of evil passions," she resumed, at last. 
 "Drink and women mainly dragged him down. I knew 
 the hell of it during the short time of our married life. If 
 he falls away now, he believes he is damned to all eternity. 
 He believes in the material torture flames and devils and 
 pitchforks of damned souls. He says in me alone lies 
 16
 
 242 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 his salvation. I must go. If the tin church gets too 
 awful, I shall run over to Delphine Carrere for a week to 
 steady my nerves." 
 
 What could I say? The abomination of desolation lay 
 around about me. I might have prated to her of my 
 needs, wrung her heart with the piteousness of my appeal. 
 Cui bono? I can't whine to women or to men either, for 
 the matter of that. When I am by myself I can curse and 
 swear, play Termagant and rehearse an extravaganza 
 out-Heroding all the Herods that ever Heroded. But be- 
 fore others no. I believe my great-grandfather, before 
 he qualified for his baronetcy, was a gentleman. 
 
 "But on these occasions," said I, "you will avoid a se- 
 questered and meditative self." 
 
 Her laugh got choked by a sob. 
 
 "Do you remember that? It is not so long ago and 
 yet it seems many, many years." 
 
 We moralised generally, after the way of humans, who 
 desire to postpone a moment of anguished speech. She 
 made the tour of my book-shelves. Many of the books 
 she had borrowed, and she recognised them as old friends. 
 
 "Is that where Benvenuto Cellini has always lived?" 
 
 Yes," said I, running my hand along the row. "He is 
 in his century, among his companions. He would be un- 
 happy anywhere else." 
 
 "And the History how far has it gone ? " 
 
 I showed her the pile of finished manuscript, of which 
 she glanced at a few pages. She put it down hurriedly and 
 turned away. 
 
 "I can't see to read, just now, Marcus." 
 
 Then she paused in front of her own photograph, the 
 only one now on the mantel-piece. 
 
 "Will you give me that back?" 
 
 "Why should I?" I asked.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 243 
 
 "I would rather I should not like you to burn it." 
 
 " Burn it ? All I have left of you ? " 
 
 She turned swimming eyes on me. 
 
 "You are good, Marcus after what I have told you 
 you do not feel bitterly against me?" 
 
 "For what? For being quixotic? For going to mar- 
 tyrdom for an ideal?" 
 
 "You did not listen when I spoke about Carlotta?" 
 
 "Oh, my dear! "said I. 
 
 And now she has gone. We kissed at parting a kiss of 
 remembrance and renunciation. Shall we ever meet again ? 
 
 Darkness gathers round me, and I am tired, tired, and 
 I would that I could sleep like Rip Van Winkle, and awake 
 an old man, with an old man's passionless resignation; or 
 better, awake not at all. Such poor fools as I are better 
 dead. 
 
 I look back and see all my philosophy refuted, all my 
 prim little opinions lying prone like dolls with the saw- 
 dust knocked out of them. All these years I have been 
 judging Judith with an ignorance as cruel as it has been 
 complacent. Verily I have been the fag end of wisdom. 
 So I forbear to judge her now. 
 
 If I had loved Judith with the great passion of a man's 
 love for woman, not all the converted rascals in Christen- 
 dom could have come between us. 
 
 And her seeing Carlotta poor woman what does it 
 matter ? What did she say about Carlotta ? " She laughed 
 and threw stones at a little dog." 
 
 Oh, my God! 
 
 November i2th. 
 
 This way madness lies. I will leave the house in charge 
 of Stenson and Antoinette and go abroad. Something has
 
 244 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 put Verona into my head. One place is as good as an- 
 other, so long as it is not this house this house of death 
 and madness and crime and Verona is in Italy, where I 
 have always found peace. 
 
 I will confess my madness. This book is a record of 
 my morals the finished version of the farce the high gods 
 have called on me to play. I thought last night the cur- 
 tain was rung down. I was wrong. Listen, and laugh as I 
 do if you can. 
 
 I fixed myself to work to-day. After all, I am not an 
 idler. I earn my right to live. When I publish my His- 
 tory the world will be the richer by something, poor though 
 it may be. I vow I have been more greatly, more nobly 
 employed of late years, than I was when I earned my liv- 
 ing at school-slavery teaching to children the most useless, 
 the most disastrous, the most soul-cramping branch of 
 knowledge wherewith pedagogues in their insensate folly 
 have crippled the minds and blasted the lives of thousands 
 of their fellow-creatures elementary mathematics. There 
 is no more reason for any human being on God's earth to 
 be acquainted with the Binomial Theorem or the Solu- 
 tion of Triangles unless he is a professional scientist, 
 when he can begin to specialise in mathematics at the same 
 age as the lawyer begins to specialise in law or the surgeon 
 in anatomy than for him to be an expert in Choctaw, 
 the Cabala or the Book of Mormon. I look back with 
 feelings of shame and degradation to the days when, for 
 the sake of a crust of bread, I prostituted my intelligence 
 to wasting the precious hours of impressionable childhood, 
 which could have been filled with so many beautiful and 
 meaningful things, over this utterly futile and inhuman 
 subject. It trains the mind it teaches boys to think, they 
 say. It doesn't. In reality it is a cut and dried subject 
 easy to fit into a school curriculum. Its sacrosanctity
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 245 
 
 saves educationalists an enormous amount of trouble, and 
 its chief use is to enable mindless young men from the uni- 
 versities to make a dishonest living by teaching it to others, 
 who in their turn may teach it to a future generation. 
 
 I am mad to-night why have I indulged in this dia- 
 tribe against mathematics ? I must find some vent, I sup- 
 pose. I see now. I was saying that I earned my right to 
 live, that I am not an idler. I cling strenuously to the 
 claim. A man cannot command respect, even his own, by 
 the mere reason of his vie sentimentale. And, after what I 
 have done to-day, I must force my claim to the respect 
 which on other grounds I have forfeited. 
 
 I spent, then, my day in unremitting toil. But this even- 
 ing the horrible craving for her came over me. Such a 
 little thing brought it about. Antoinette, who disap- 
 proves of the amorphous British lumps of sugar, has found 
 some emporium where she can buy the regular parallele- 
 piped of the Continent, and these she provides for my 
 after-dinner coffee. Absent-mindedly I dipped the edge of 
 the piece of sugar into the liquid, before dropping it, and 
 watched the brown moisture rise through the white crystals. 
 Then I remembered. It was an invariable practice of 
 Carlotta's. She would keep the lump in the coffee to sat- 
 uration-point between her fingers, and then hastily put it 
 into her mouth, so that it should not crumble to pieces on 
 the way. If it did, there would be much laughter and wip- 
 ing of skirts; and there would be a search through my 
 dinner-jacket pockets for a handkerchief to dry the pink 
 tips of her fingers. She called the dripping lump a canard, 
 like the French children. It was such a trivial thing; but 
 it brought back with a rush all the thousand dainty, fool- 
 ish, captivating intimacies that made up the maddening 
 charm of Carlotta. 
 
 Yes, I am aware that there is no language spoken under
 
 246 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 heaven that can fitly express the doting folly of a man who 
 can be driven mad by a piece of sugar soaked in coffee. 
 There is a ghastly French phrase not to be found in 
 Lamartine, Chateaubriand, or any of the polite sentiment- 
 alists avoir les sangs tourn/s de quelqu'un. It is so with 
 me. J'ai les sangs tourn^s tfelle. Somebody has said 
 something somewhere about the passion of a man of forty. 
 It must have to do with the French phrase. 
 
 I pushed my coffee aside untasted, and buried my head 
 in my hands, longing, longing; eating my heart out for 
 her. The hours passed. When the servants were abed, 
 I stole upstairs to her room, left as it was on the night 
 when Antoinette, hoping against hope, had prepared it for 
 her reception. I broke down. Heaven knows what I did. 
 
 I returned to the drawing-room filled with the blind rage 
 that makes a man curse God and wish that he could die. 
 The fire was black, and I mechanically took up the poker 
 to stir it. A tempest of impotent anger shook my soul. I 
 saw things red before my eyes. I had an execrable lust to 
 kill. I was alone amid a multitude of gibbering fiends. 
 As I stooped before the grate I felt something scrabble my 
 shoulders. I leapt back with a shriek, and saw standing 
 on the mantel-shelf a black, one-eyed thing regarding me 
 with an expression of infinite malice. Before I knew what 
 I had done, I had brought the iron down, with all my 
 force, upon its skull, and it had fallen dead at my feet. 
 
 Finis coronat opus. 
 
 November 22d. 
 
 Verona : I have abandoned the "History of Renaissance 
 Morals." The dog's-eared MS. and the dusty pile of notes I 
 have shot into a lumber heap in a corner of this room, where 
 I sit and shiver by a little stove. It is immense, marble, 
 cold, comfortless, suggestive of "the vasty halls of death."
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 247 
 
 I have been here a week to-day. I thought I should find rest. 
 I should breathe the atmosphere of Italy again. I should 
 ease my heart among the master-works of Girolamo dai 
 Libri and Cavazzola, and, in the presence of the blue cas- 
 tellated mountains they loved to paint, my spirit would 
 even be as theirs. In this old-world city, I fondly imag- 
 ined, I should forget the Regent's Park, and attune my 
 mind to the life that once filled its narrow streets. 
 
 But nothing have I found save solitude. I stood to-day 
 before the mutilated fresco of Morone, my rapture of six 
 years ago, and hated it with unreasoning hatred. The 
 Madonna belied the wreath-supported inscription above 
 her head, " Miser atrix virginum Regina nostri miserere" 
 and greeted me with a pitiless simper. The unidentified 
 martyr on the left stared straight in front of him with cal- 
 lous indifference, and St. Roch looked aggravatingly plump 
 for all his ostentatious plague-spot. The picture was worse 
 than meaningless. It was insulting. It drove me out of the 
 Public Gallery. Outside a grey mist veiled the hills and a 
 fine penetrating rain was falling. I crept home, and for 
 the fiftieth time since I have been here, opened my " His- 
 tory of Renaissance Morals." I threw it, with a final 
 curse, into the corner. 
 
 I loathe it. I care not a fig for the Renaissance or its 
 morals. I count its people but a pestilent herd of daubers, 
 rhymers, cutthroats, and courtesans. Their y/?/o? has 
 lost its glamour of beauty and has coarsened into vulgar 
 insolence. They offend me by their riotous swagger, 
 their insistence on the animal joy of living; chiefly by 
 their perpetual reminiscence of Pasquale. 
 
 Yet once they interested me greatly, filling with music 
 and with colour the grey void of my life. Whence has 
 come the change? 
 
 In myself. To myself I have become a subject of ex-
 
 248 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 cruciating interest. To myself I am a vastly more pictur- 
 esque personage than any debonair hooligan of quattro- 
 cento Verona. He has faded into the dullest (and most 
 offensive) dog of a ghost. I only exist. This sounds b'ke 
 the colossal vanity of Bedlam. Heaven knows it is not. 
 If you are racked with toothache from ear to ear, from 
 crown to chin, and from eyeball to cerebellum, is not the 
 whole universe concentrated in that head of yours ? Are 
 you not to yourself in that hour of torture the most vitally 
 important of created beings ? And no one blames you for 
 it. Let me therefore be without blame in my hour of 
 moral toothache. 
 
 In the days gone by I was the victim of a singular hallu- 
 cination. I flattered myself on being the one individual in 
 the world not summoned to plaj his part in the comedy of 
 Life. I sat alone in the great auditorium like the mad 
 king of Bavaria, watching with little zest what seemed but 
 a sorry spectacle. I thought myself secure in my solitary 
 stall. But I had not counted on the high gods who crowd 
 shadowy into the silent seats and are jealous of a mortal 
 in their midst. Without warning was I wrested from my 
 place, hurled onto the stage, and before my dazzled eyes 
 could accustom themselves to the footlights, I found my- 
 self enmeshed in intolerable drama. I was unprepared. I 
 knew my part imperfectly. I missed my cues. I had the 
 blighting self-consciousness of the amateur. And yet the 
 idiot mummery was intensely real. Amid the laughter of 
 the silent shadowy gods I thought to flee from the stage. I 
 came to Verona and find I am still acting my part. I have 
 always been acting. I have been acting since I was born. 
 The reason of our being is to amuse the high gods with our 
 Itlstrionics. The earth itself is the stage, and the starry 
 ether the infinite auditorium. 
 
 The high gods have granted to their troupe of mimes
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 249 
 
 one boon. Each has it in his power to make the final exit 
 at any moment. For myself I feel that moment is at hand. 
 One last soliloquy, and then like the pagliacco I can say 
 with a sigh, "La commedia finita the play is played 
 out," and the rest will be silence. At all events I will tell 
 my own story. My "History of Renaissance Morals" can 
 lie in its corner and rot, whilst I shall concern myself with 
 a far more vital theme The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne. 
 The rough entries in my diary have been a habit of many 
 futile years; but they have never sufficed for self-expres- 
 sion. I have not needed it till now. But now, with Judith 
 and Carlotta gone from me, my one friend, Pasquale, cut 
 for ever from my life, even the sympathetic Polyphemus 
 driven into eternity by my murderous hand, I feel the irre- 
 sistible craving to express myself fully and finally for the 
 first and last time of my life. It will be my swan song. 
 What becomes of it afterwards I care not. 
 
 And when the last word is written, I shall go to the Pina- 
 coteca and stand again before the Morone fresco, and if 
 the Miseratrix Virginum Regina still simpers at me, I shall 
 take it as a sign and a token. I shall return to this marble 
 cavern and make my final exit. It will be theatrically ar- 
 tistic that I vow and declare which no doubt will afford 
 immense pleasure to the high gods in their gallery.
 
 PART II
 
 PART II 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 It is some two years since I stood for the second time in 
 the Pinacoteca of Verona and sought to read my fate in 
 the simpering countenance of Morone's Miseratrix Vir- 
 ginum Regina. I met what might have been expected by 
 a person of any sense the self-same expression on the 
 painted face as I had angrily found there two months be- 
 fore when I began to write the foregoing pages. But as I 
 had no sense at all in those days I accepted the poor bat- 
 tered Madonna's lack of sympathy for a sign and a token, 
 went home, and prepared for dissolution. 
 
 Two years ago ! It is only for the last few months that 
 I have been able to look back on that nightmare of a time 
 in Verona with philosophic equanimity. And this morn- 
 ing is the first occasion on which I have felt that dispas- 
 sionate attitude towards a past self which enables a man to 
 set down without the heartache the memories of days that 
 are gone. I sit upon the flat roof of this house in Mogador 
 on the Morocco coast, shaded by an awning from the 
 bright African sun which glints in myriad sparkles on the 
 sea visible beyond the house-tops. The atmosphere last 
 night was somewhat heavy with the languorous, indescrib- 
 able, and unforgettable smell of the East; but the morning 
 is deliciously wind-swept by the Atlantic breeze, and the 
 air tastes sweet. And it is clear, dazzlingly clear. The 
 white square houses and the cupolas of the mosques stand 
 out sharp against a sky of intense, ungradated blue. I am 
 
 253
 
 254 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 away from the centre of the busy sea-port and the noise of 
 its streets thronged with grain-laden camels and shouting 
 drivers and picturesque, quarrelling, squabbling, hag- 
 gling Moors and Jews and desert Arabs, and I am envel- 
 oped in the peace of the infinite azure. Besides, yesterday 
 afternoon, as I rode back to Mogador, across the tongue of 
 desert which separates it from the Palm Tree House, and 
 the town rose on the horizon, a dream city of pure snow set 
 in the clear sunset amethyst against the still, pale lapis 
 lazuli of the bay something happened. And yesterday 
 evening more happened stilL 
 
 Two years ago, then, I faced in Verona the dissolution 
 of my ineffectual existence. I could see no reason for liv- 
 ing. My theory of myself in my relation to the cosmos had 
 been upset by practical phenomena. No other theory 
 based on surer grounds presented itself. But what about 
 life, said I, without a theory? Already it was life without 
 a purpose, without work, without friends, without Judith 
 and without Carlotta. I could not endure it without even 
 a theory to console me. Beings do exist devoid of loves or 
 theories. But of such, I thought, are the beasts that per- 
 ish. I reflected further. Supposing, on extended investi- 
 gation, I found a new theory. How far would it profit me ? 
 How far could I trust it not to lead me through another 
 series of fantastic emotions and futile endeavours to the 
 sublime climax of murdering a one-eyed cat ? Self-abomi- 
 nation and contempt smote me as I thought of poor Poly- 
 phemus stretched dead on the hearthrug, and myself stand- 
 ing over him, sane, stupid, and remorseful, with the poker 
 in my hand. 
 
 I walked up and down the vast cold room of the marble 
 palazzo, arraying before me in overwhelming numbers the 
 argumentsfor self-destruction. On a table in the middle
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 255 
 
 of the room stood a phial of prussic acid which I had pro- 
 cured long before in London, it being a conviction of mine 
 that every man ought to have ready to hand a sure means 
 of exit from the world. I paused many times in front of 
 the little blue phial. One lift of the hand, one toss of the 
 head, and all would be over. At last I extracted the cork, 
 and the faint smell of almonds reached my nostrils. I re- 
 corked the phial and lit a cigarette. This I threw away 
 half smoked and again approached the table of death. I 
 began to feel a strong natural disinclination to swallow the 
 stuff. "This," said I, "is sheer animal cowardice." I 
 again uncorked the phial. A new phase of the matter ap- 
 peared to me. "It is the act of a craven to shirk the re- 
 sponsibilities of life. Can you be such a mean-spirited 
 creature as not even to have the courage to live?" "No," 
 said I, "I have a valiant spirit," and I set down the bottle. 
 " Bah," whispered the familiar imp of suicide at my elbow. 
 "You are just afraid to die." I took up the bottle again. 
 But the other taunter had an argument equally strong, and 
 once more I put the phial uncorked on the table. 
 
 Thus between two cowardices, one of which I must 
 choose, stood I, like the ass of Buridan. I lit another cig- 
 arette and excogitated the problem. I smoked two ciga- 
 rettes, walking up and down that vast, chill apartment, 
 while the air grew sickly sweet with the smell of almonds, 
 which intensified the physical repugnance the first faint 
 odour had occasioned. I began to shiver with cold. The 
 stove had burned out before I entered, and I had not con- 
 sidered it worth while to have it rilled for the few minutes 
 that would remain to me to live. I had not reckoned on 
 the ass's bundles of cowardice. 
 
 "I may as well be warm," thought I, "while I prove to 
 my complete satisfaction that it is more cowardly to live 
 than to die. There is no very great hurry."
 
 256 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 I caught up a travelling-rug with which I had tried to 
 soften the asperities of an imitation Louis XV couch, 
 and throwing it over my shoulders, resumed my pilgrim- 
 age. I soon lost myself in the problem and did not notice 
 a corner of the rug gradually slipping down towards the 
 floor. 
 
 " I'll do it ! " I cried at last, making a sudden dive towards 
 the table. But the ironical corner of the rug had reached 
 the ground. I stepped on it, tripped, and instinctively 
 caught the table to steady myself. The table, a rickety 
 gue"ridon, overbalanced, and away rolled my uncorked 
 phial of prussic acid and fell into a hundred pieces on the 
 tessellated floor. 
 
 "Solvitur," said I, grimly, "ambtdando" 
 
 Looking back now, I am inclined to treat myself ten- 
 derly. Whether I should have drunk the poison, if the 
 accident had not occurred, I cannot say. At the moment 
 of my rush I intended to do so. After the catastrophe, 
 which I attributed to the curse of ineffectuality that pur- 
 sued me, I must confess that I was glad. Not that life 
 looked more attractive than before, but that the decision 
 had been taken out of my hands. I could not go about the 
 shops of Verona buying prussic acid or revolvers or me- 
 tres of stout rope. And my razors (without Stenson's 
 care) were benignantly blunt, and I would not condescend 
 to braces. I groaned and pished and pshawed, but as it 
 was written that I was to live, I resigned myself to a bar- 
 ren and theoryless existence. 
 
 After a day or two the vital instinct asserted itself more 
 strongly. I became inspired by an illuminating revelation. 
 I had a preliminary aim in life. I would go out into the 
 world in search of a theory. When found I would apply it 
 to the regulation of the score and a half years during which 
 I might possibly expect to remain on this planet. I must
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 257 
 
 take my chances of it leading me to the corpse of another 
 Polyphemus. 
 
 As it struck me I should not find my theory in Italy, I 
 packed up my belongings and hastened from Verona. At 
 Naples I picked up a Messageries Maritimes steamer and 
 began a circular tour in the Levant. At Alexandretta I 
 went ashore, and inquired my way to the dwelling of the 
 Prefect of Police. I did not call on Hamdi Effendi. But 
 I wandered round the walls and wondered in a moody, 
 heart-achey way where it was that Carlotta sat when Harry 
 came along and whistled her like a tame falcon to his arm. 
 It was a white palace of a house with a closed balcony sup- 
 ported on rude corbels and tightly shuttered. At the back 
 spread a large garden surrounded by the famous wall. 
 There was no doubt that Hamdi was a wealthy personage, 
 and that Carlotta's nurture had been as gentle as that of 
 any lady in Syria. But the place wherein Carlotta's child- 
 hood had been sheltered had an air of impenetrable mys- 
 tery. I stood baffled before it, as I had stood so often be- 
 fore Carlotta's soul. The result of this portion of my 
 search was the discovery, not of a new theory, but of an old 
 pain. I went back to the ship in a despondent mood, and 
 caused deep distress to one of the gentlest creatures I have 
 ever met. He was a lean, elderly German, who no matter 
 what the occasion or what the temperature wore a long, 
 tight-buttoned frock-coat, a narrow black tie, and a little 
 bluish-grey felt hat adorned with a partridge's feather which 
 gave him an air of forlorn rakishness. His name was Doc- 
 tor Anastasius Dose, and he spent a blameless life in trav- 
 elling up and down the world, on behalf of a Leipsic firm 
 of which he was a member, in search of rare and curious 
 books. For there are copies of books which have a well- 
 known pedigree like famous jewels, and whose acquisition, 
 a matter of infinite tact, gives ris, I was told by Herr Dose,
 
 258 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 to the most exquisite thrill known to man. He brought 
 me on that morose afternoon a copy of the " Synonima," in 
 Italian and French, of St. Fliscus, printed by Simon Mag- 
 magus of Milan in 1480, and opened the vellum covers 
 with careful fingers. 
 
 " In all the assemblage of human atoms that inhabit this 
 vessel," said he, "there is but one who is imbued with rev- 
 erence for the past and a sense of the preciousness of the 
 unique. I need not tell you, Herr Baronet, who are a 
 scholar, that of this book only two copies exist in this ink- 
 sodden universe. One is in the University Library of Bo- 
 logna ; the other is before your eyes. It is also the only book 
 known to have been printed by Magniagus. See the 
 beautiful, small Roman type a masterpiece. Ach, Herr 
 Baronet! to have accomplished one such work in a life- 
 time, and then to sit among the blessed saints and look 
 down on earth and know that the two sole copies in exist- 
 ence are cherished by the elect, what a reward, what eternal 
 happiness!" 
 
 I turned over the pages. The faint perfume of mouldy 
 lore ascended and I remembered the smell of the " Histoire 
 des Uscoques" in the Embankment Gardens. 
 
 "The odor di jemina in the nostrils of the scholar," 
 said I. 
 " Femina ? Woman ?" he cried, scandalised. 
 
 "Yes, my friend," said I. "All things sublunar can be 
 translated into terms of woman. St. Fliscus wrote because 
 he hadn't a wife; Simon Magniagus stopped printing be- 
 cause he got married and devoted his existence to repro- 
 ducing himself instead of St. Fliscus." 
 
 " Ach, that is very interesting," said he. " Could you tell 
 me the date of Magniagus's marriage?" 
 
 " I never heard of him till this moment, my dear Herr 
 Doctor. But depend upon it, he was either married or
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 259 
 
 was going to be married, and she ran away from him and 
 left him without the heart to print for posterity, and when 
 he took his seat among the saints she said she was so glad; 
 he was a stupid old ink-sodden fellow!" 
 
 He departed sorrowingly from the deck, clasping the 
 precious volume to his heart. Allusive or discursive speech 
 scared him like indecency; and I had used his gem but as 
 a peg whereon flauntingly to hang it. It took me three 
 days to tame him and to induce him to show me another of 
 his treasures, recently acquired in Athens. loannes Geor- 
 gius Godelmann's Tractate de Lamiis, printed by Nicho- 
 las Bassaeus of Frankfurt. I read him Keats's poem about 
 the young lady of Corinth, of which he had never heard. 
 His mental attitude towards it was the indulgent one of an 
 old diplomatist towards a child's woolly lamb. For him 
 literature had never existed and printing ended in the year 
 1600. But I was sorry when he left me at Constantinople, 
 where he counted on striking the track of a Bohemian 
 herbal, printed at Prague, and never more to be read by 
 any of the sons of man. In the summer he was going 
 book-hunting in Iceland. By chance I have learned 
 since that he died there. Peace to his ashes! For aught 
 I could see he dwelt in a mild stupor of happiness, 
 absorbed in the intoxication of a tremulous pursuit. I 
 wondered whether his soul contained that antidote the 
 odor di jemina. Perhaps he met it at Reykjavic and he 
 died of dismay. 
 
 I thought that my landing at Alexandretta was alone 
 responsible for the continuance of my dotage, and hoped 
 that fresh scenes would banish Carlotta's distracting 
 image. But no, it was one of the many vain reflections on 
 which I based a false philosophy. Whether in Beyrout, 
 or the land of the "sweet singer of Persephone," or Alex- 
 andria, or on the Cannebiere of Marseilles, or in the queer
 
 half- Orient of Algiers whither a restless pursuit of the 
 Identical led me, or in Lisbon, or in the mountainous re- 
 public of Andorre, where I hoped to find primitive wisdom 
 and to shape a theory from first principles, and whence I 
 was ironically driven by fleas whether on land or sea, in 
 cities or in solitudes, the vanished hand harped on my 
 heartstrings and the voice that was still (as far as I was con- 
 cerned) cooed its dove-notes into my ears. 
 
 I remember overhearing myself described on a steam- 
 boat by a pretty American girl of sixteen, as "a quaint 
 gentle old guy who talks awful rot which no one can under- 
 stand, and is all the time thinking about something else." 
 My sudden emergence from the companion-way, where I 
 was lighting a cigarette, brought red confusion into the 
 young person's cheeks. 
 
 "How old do you think I am?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, about sixty," quoth the damsel. 
 
 "I'm glad I'm quaint and gentle, even though I do talk 
 rot," said I. 
 
 With the resourcefulness of her nation she linked her 
 arm in mine and started a confidential walk up and down 
 the deck. 
 
 "You are just a dear," she remarked. 
 
 She could not have said more to Anastasius Dose had 
 he been there; as far as I can recollect he must just then 
 have been dying of the Inevitable in Iceland. Perhaps the 
 few months had brought me to resemble him. Instinctively 
 I put my hand to my head to reassure myself that I was 
 not wearing a rakish little soft felt hat with a partridge- 
 feather, and I reflected with some complacency that my 
 rimless pince-nez did not give me the owlish appearance 
 produced by Anastasius Dose's great round, iron-rimmed 
 goggles. From such crumbs of vanity are we sometimes 
 reduced to take comfort.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 261 
 
 "I just want to know what you are," said my young 
 American friend. 
 
 Shall I confess my attraction ? She brought a dim sug- 
 gestion of Carlotta. She had Carlotta's colouring and 
 Carlotta's candour. But there the resemblance stopped. 
 The grey matter of her brain had been distilled from the 
 air of Wall Street, and there were precious few things be- 
 tween earth and sky of which she hadn't prescience. 
 
 "I'm a broken-down philosopher," said I. 
 
 "Oh, that's nothing. So is everybody as soon as they 
 get sense. What did you make your money in?" 
 
 "I've not made any money," I answered, meekly. 
 
 " I thought all people who were knighted in your coun- 
 try had made piles of money." 
 
 "Knighted!" I exclaimed. "What on earth do you 
 think a quaint old guy like myself could possibly have 
 done to get knighted?" 
 
 "Then you're a baronet," she said, severely. 
 
 " I assure you it is not my fault." 
 
 " I thought all baronets were wicked. They are in the 
 novels. Somehow you don't look like a baronet. You 
 ought to have a black moustache and an eyeglass and 
 smoke a cigar and sneer. But, say, how do you fill up the 
 time if you do nothing to make money?" 
 
 "I am going through the world," said I, "on an adven- 
 turous quest, like a knight or a baronet, if you will of 
 the Round Table. I am in quest of a Theory of Life." 
 
 "I guess I was born with it," cried young New York. 
 
 "I guess I'll die without finding it," said I. 
 
 London again. My quiet house. Antoinette and Sten- 
 son. The well-ordered routine of comfort. My books. 
 The dog's-eared manuscript of the "History of Renaissance 
 Morals," unpacked by Stenson and kid in ;cs usual place
 
 262 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 on the writing-table. Nothing changed, yet everything 
 utterly different. 
 
 A growing distaste for the forced acquaintanceships of 
 travel and a craving for home brought me back. Save 
 perhaps in health I had profited little by my journeyings. 
 My bodily shell formed part of strange landscapes and 
 occurred in fortuitous gatherings of men, but my heart 
 was all the time in my Mausoleum by the Regent's Park. 
 I was drawn thither by a force almost magnetic, irresistible. 
 My two domestics welcomed me home, but no one else. 
 Only my lawyers knew of my arrival. With them alone 
 had I corresponded during the many months of my ab- 
 sence. Stay; I did write one letter to Mrs. McMurray 
 while I was at Verona, in reply to an enquiry as to what had 
 become of Carlotta and myself. I answered courteously 
 but briefly that Carlotta had run away with Pasquale and 
 that I should be abroad for an indefinite period. But not 
 even a letter from my lawyers awaited me. I thought 
 somewhat wistfully that I would willingly have paid six 
 and eight pence for it. But the feeling was momentary. 
 
 Then began a queer, untroubled life. Without definite 
 resolve I became a recluse, living forlornly from day to 
 day. Like a bat I avoided the outer sunshine and took 
 my melancholy walks at night. I had a pride in cherish- 
 ing the habit of solitude. Were it not that I entertained a 
 real dislike of roots and water and the damp and manifold 
 discomforts of a cave, with which form of habitat the min- 
 istrations of Stenson and Antoinette would have been in- 
 consistent, I should have gone forth into the nearest ap- 
 proach to a Thebaid I could discover. I was, in fact, 
 touched by the mild mania of the hermit. My club I never 
 entered. A line drawn from east to west, a tangent at the 
 lowest point *>{ the Zoological Gardens formed the south- 
 ern boundary of my wanderings. Once I spied in the dis-
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 263 
 
 tance that very kind soul, Mrs. McMurray, and rushed 
 into a providential omnibus, so as to avoid recognition. 
 My History remained untouched. The glamour of the 
 Renaissance had vanished. For occupation I read the Neo- 
 Platonists, Thaumaturgy, Demonology and the like, which 
 I had always found a fascinating although futile study. I 
 regretted my bowing acquaintance with modern science, 
 which forbade my setting up a laboratory with alembics 
 and magic crystals wherewith to conduct experiments for 
 the finding of the Elixir Vitas and the Philosopher's Stone. 
 
 I seldom read the newspapers. I had an idea, like an 
 eminent personage of the period, that a sort of war was 
 going on, but it failed to interest me greatly. I shrank from 
 the noise of it. 
 
 "Monsieur," said Antoinette, "will get ill if he does not 
 go out into the sunshine." 
 
 "Monsieur," said I, "regards the sunshine as an im- 
 pertinent intrusion into a soul that loves the twilight." 
 
 If I had made the same remark to an Englishwoman, 
 she would have pitied me for a poor, half-witted gentle- 
 man. But Antoinette has her nation's instinctive appre- 
 ciation of soul-states, and her sympathy was none the less 
 comprehending when she shook her head mournfully and 
 said that it was bad for the stomach. 
 
 "My good Antoinette," I remarked, harking back in my 
 mind to a speculation of other days, " if you go on worry- 
 ing me in this manner about my stomach, I will build a 
 tower forty feet high in the back garden, and live on top, 
 and have my meals sent up by a lift, and never come down 
 again." 
 
 "Monsieur might as well be in Paradise," said Antoi- 
 nette. 
 
 "Ah," said I. And I thought of the bottle of prussic 
 acid with mingled sentiments.
 
 264 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 All through these many months I had Judith dwelling, 
 a pale ghost, in the back of my mind. We had parted so 
 finally that correspondence between us had seemed im- 
 pertinent. But although I had not written to her, no small 
 part of the infinite sadness that had fallen upon my life was 
 the shadow of her destiny. Sweet, wine-loving Judith! 
 How many times did I picture her sitting pinched and wist- 
 ful in the little tin mission church at Hoxton! Had I, 
 Marcus Ordeyne, condemned her to that penitentiary? 
 Who can hold the balance of morals so truly as to decide ? 
 
 At last I received a letter from her on the anniversary of 
 our parting. She had found salvation in a strange thing 
 which she called duty. "I am fulfilling an appointed 
 task," she wrote, "and the measure of my success is the 
 measure of my happiness. I am bringing consolation to a 
 wayward and tormented spirit. A year has swept aside 
 the petty feminine vanities, the opera-glasses, so to speak, 
 through which a woman complacently views her influence 
 over a man, and it has cleared my vision. A year has proved 
 beyond mortal question that without me this wayward 
 and tormented spirit would fail. I hold in my hands the 
 very soul of a man. What more dare a woman ask of the 
 high gods ? You see I use your metaphors stiU. Dear- 
 est of all dear friends, do not pity me. Beyond all tne fires 
 of love through which one passes there is the star of Duty, 
 and happy the individual who can live in its serenity." 
 
 This was astonishingly like the Theory of Life which I 
 set out from Verona to seek, and which had hitherto 
 eluded me. It was not very new, or subtle, or inspiring. 
 But that is the way of things. No matter through what 
 realms of the fantastic you may travel, you arrive inevi- 
 tably at the commonplace.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 I answered Judith's letter. After the long silence it 
 seemed, at first, strange to write to her; but soon I found 
 myself opening my heart as I had never done before to 
 man or woman. The fact that, accident aside, we were 
 never to meet again, drew the spiritual elements in us 
 nearer together, and the tone of her letter loosened tb? 
 bonds of my natural reserve. I told her of my past year of 
 life, of the locked memorial chamber upstairs, of the mad- 
 ness through which I had passed, of my weary pursuit of 
 the Theory, and of my attitude towards her solution of the 
 problem. Having written the letter I felt comforted, know- 
 ing that Judith would understand. 
 
 I finished it about six o'clock one afternoon, and shrink- 
 ing from giving it to Stenson to post, as it was the first pri> 
 vate letter I had written since my arrival in London, 1 
 took it myself to the pillar-box. The fresh air reproached 
 me for the unreasonable indoor life I had been leading, 
 and invited me to remain outside. It was already dark. 
 An early touch of frost in the November air rendered it 
 exhilarating. I walked along the decorous, residential 
 roads of St. John's Wood feeling less remote from my 
 kind, more in sympathy with the humdrum dramas in 
 progress behind the rows of lighted windows. Now and 
 then a garden gate opened and a man in evening dress, and 
 a woman, a vague, dainty mass of satin and frills and fur, 
 emerged, stood for a moment in the shaft of light cast by 
 the open hall-door beyond, which framed the white-capped 
 and aproned parlour-maid, and entering a waiting han- 
 
 265
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 som, drove off into the darkness whither my speculative; 
 fancy followed them. Now and then silhouettes appeared 
 upon the window-blinds, especially on the upper floors, 
 for it was the dressing hour and the cares of the day weru 
 being thrown aside with the workaday garments. In oru: 
 house, standing far back from the road, the drawing-roon\i 
 curtains had not been drawn. As I passed, I saw a mar ; t 
 tossing up a delighted child in his arms, and the mother 
 standing by. Ay de mi! A commonplace of ten thou- 
 sand homes, when the man returns from his toil. Yet it 
 moved me. To earn one's bread; to perpetuate one's 
 species; to create duties and responsibilities; to meet 1 
 them like a brave man; to put the new generation upon 
 the right path; to look back upon it all and say, "I have 
 fulfilled my functions," and pass forth quietly into the 
 eternal laboratory is not that Life in its truth and iia 
 essence? And the reward? The commonplace. The 
 welcome of wife and children and the tossing of a crow- 
 ing babe in one's arms. And I had missed it all, lived out- 
 side it all. I had spoken blasphemously in my besotted 
 ignorance of these sacred common things, and verily I had 
 my recompense in a desolate home and a life of about as 
 much use to humanity as that of St. Simeon Stylites on top 
 of his pillar. 
 
 So I walked along the streets on the track of the wisdom 
 which Judith had revealed to me, and I seemed to be on 
 the point of reaching it when I arrived at my own door. 
 
 "But what the deuce shall I do with it when I get it?' 1 
 I said, as I let myself in with my latch-key. 
 
 I had just put my stick in the stand and was taking off 
 my overcoat, when the door of the room next the dining- 
 room opened, and Antoinette rushed out upon me. 
 
 "Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur!" she cried, wringing her 
 hands. " Oh, Monsieur! How shall I tell you?"
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 267 
 
 The good soul broke into sobbing and weeping. 
 
 "What is the matter, Antoinette?" I asked. 
 
 "Monsieur must not be angry. Monsieur is good like 
 the Bon Dieu. But it will give pain to Monsieur." 
 
 " But what is it ? " I cried, mystified. " Have you spoiled 
 the dinner?" 
 
 I was a million miles from any anticipation of her answer. 
 
 " Monsieur she has come back I" 
 
 I grew faint for a moment as from a blow over the heart. 
 Antoinette raised her great tear-stained face. 
 
 "Monsieur must not drive her away." 
 
 I pushed her gently aside and entered the little room 
 which I had furnished once as her boudoir. 
 
 On the couch sat Carlotta, white and pinched and poorly 
 clad. At first I was only conscious of her great brown eyes 
 fixed upon me, the dog-like appeal of our first meeting in- 
 tensified to heart-breaking piteousness. On seeing me 
 she did not rise, but cowered as if I would strike her. I 
 looked at her, unable to speak. Antoinette stood sob- 
 bing in the doorway. 
 
 "Well?" said I, at last. 
 
 " I have come home," said Carlotta. 
 
 "You have been away a long time," said I. 
 
 "Ye-es," said Carlotta. 
 
 "Why have you come?" I asked. 
 
 "I had no money," said Carlotta, with her expressive 
 gesture of upturned palms. "I had nothing but that." 
 She pointed to a tiny travelling bag. "Everything else 
 was at the Mont de Pi6te the pawn-shop and they would 
 not keep me any longer at the pension. I owed them for 
 three weeks, and then they lent me money to buy my 
 ticket to London. I said Seer Marcous would pay them 
 back. So I came home." 
 
 "But where where is Pasquale?" I asked.
 
 268 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "He went five, six months ago. He gave me some 
 money and said he would send some more. But he did 
 not send any. He went to South Africa. He said there 
 was a war and he wanted to fight, and he said he was sick 
 of me. Oh, he was very unkind," she cried with the 
 quiver of her baby lips. " I wish I had never seen him." 
 
 "Are you married?" 
 
 "No,"saidCarlotta. 
 
 "Damn him!" said I, between my teeth. 
 
 " He was going to marry me, but then he said it did not 
 matter in Paris. At first he was so nice, but after a little 
 oh, Seer Marcous dear, he was so cruel." 
 
 There was a short silence. Antoinette wept by the door, 
 uttering little half-audible exclamations "la pauvre pe- 
 tite, le cher ange!" 
 
 Carlotta regarded me wistfully. I saw a new look of 
 suffering in her eyes. For myself I felt numb with pain. 
 
 "What kind of a pension were you living in?" I asked, 
 unutterable horrors coming into my head. 
 
 "It was a French family, an old lady and two old daugh- 
 ters, and one fat German professor. Pasquale put me 
 there. It was very respectable," she added, with a wan 
 smile, "and so dull. Madame Champet would scarcely 
 let me go into the street by myself." 
 
 "Thank heaven you did not fall into worse hands," 
 said I. 
 
 Carlotta unpinned her old straw h"t, quite a different 
 garment from the dainty head- wear she delighted in a year 
 before, and threw it on the couch beside her. A tress of 
 her glorious bronze hair fe' 1 loose across her forehead, 
 adding to the woebegone expression of her face. She 
 rose, and as she did so I seemed to notice a curious change 
 in her. She came to me with extended hands. 
 
 "Seer Marcous " she whispered.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 269 
 
 I took her hands in mine. 
 
 "Oh, my dear," said I, "why did you leave me?" 
 
 "I was wicked. And I was a little fool," said Carlotta. 
 
 I sighed, released her, walked a bit apart. There was a 
 blubber from the egregious old woman in the threshold. 
 
 " Oh, Monsieur is not going to drive her away." 
 
 I turned upon her. 
 
 " Instead of standing there weeping like a fountain and 
 doing nothing, why aren't you getting Mademoiselle's 
 room ready for her?" 
 
 " Because Monsieur has the key," wailed Antoinette. 
 
 "That's true," said I. 
 
 Then I reflected on the futility of converting bed-cham- 
 bers into mausoleums for the living. The room shut up 
 for a year would not be habitable. It would be damp and 
 inch-deep in dust. 
 
 "Mademoiselle shall sleep in my room to-night," I said, 
 " and Stenson can make me up a bed and put what I want 
 here. Go and arrange it with him." 
 
 Antoinette departed. I turned to Carlotta. 
 
 "Are you very tired, my child?" 
 
 "Oh, yes so tired." 
 
 "Why didn't you write, so that things could have been 
 got ready for you ? " 
 
 "I don't know. I was too unhappy. Seer Marcous " 
 she said after a little pause and then stopped. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " I am going to have a baby." 
 
 She said it in the old, childlike way, oblivious of differ- 
 ence of sex; with her little foreign insistence on the final 
 consonants. I glanced hurriedly at her. The fact was 
 obvious. She stood with her hands helplessly outspread. 
 The pathos of her would have wrung the heart of a devil. 
 
 "Thank God, you've come home," said I, huskily.
 
 270 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 She began to cry softly. I put my arm round her shoul- 
 ders, and comforted her. She sobbed out incoherent things. 
 She wished she had never seen Pasquale. I was good. 
 She would stay with me always. She would never run 
 away again. 
 
 I took her upstairs, and opened the door of her room 
 with the key that I had carried for a year on my bunch, 
 and turned on the electric light. 
 
 "See what are still usable of your old things," said I, 
 " and I will send Antoinette up to you." 
 
 She looked around her, somewhat puzzled. 
 
 "Why should I sleep in your room when this one is 
 ready for me my night dress even the hot water?" 
 
 "My dear," said I, "that hot water was put for you a 
 year ago. It must be cold now." 
 
 "And my red slippers and my dressing-gown!" she 
 cried, quaveringly. 
 
 Then sinking in a heap on the floor beside the dusty bed, 
 she burst into a passion of tears. 
 
 I stole away and sent Antoinette to minister to her. 
 
 A year before I had raved and ranted, deeming life in- 
 tolerable and cursing the high gods; I suffered then, it is 
 true; but I hope I may never again go through the suffer- 
 ing of that first night of Carlotta's return. Even now I 
 can close my eyes and feel the icy grip on my heart. 
 
 She came down to dinner about an hour later, dressed 
 in a pink wrapper, one of the last things she had bought, 
 which Antoinette (as she explained to excuse her delay) 
 had been airing before the fire. She sat opposite me, in 
 her old place, penitent, subdued, yet not shy or ill at ease, 
 Stenson waited on us, grave and imperturbable as if we 
 had put back the clock of time a twelvemonth. The only 
 covert reference he made to the event was to murmur dis- 
 creetly in my ear:
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 271 
 
 " I have brought up a bottle of the Pommery, Sir Mar- 
 cus, in the hope you would drink some." 
 
 I was touched, for the good fellow had no other way of 
 showing his solicitude. 
 
 Carlotta allowed him to fill her glass. She sipped the 
 wine, and declared that it did her good. She was 110 
 longer a teetotaller, she explained. Once she drank too 
 much, and the next day had a headache. 
 
 "Why should one have a headache?" 
 
 "Nemesis," said I. 
 
 "What is Nemesis?" 
 
 I found myself answering her question in the old half- 
 jesting way. And in her old way she replied : 
 
 "I do not understand." 
 
 How vividly familiar it was, and yet how agonisingly 
 strange! 
 
 "Where is Polyphemus?" she asked. 
 
 "Dead," said I. 
 
 " Oh-h ! How did poor Polyphemus die ? " 
 
 "He was smitten by Destiny at the end of the last act of 
 i farcical tragedy." 
 
 The ghost of a "hou!" came from Carlotta. She com- 
 posed herself immediately. 
 
 " I often used to think of Polyphemus and Seer Marcous 
 and Antoinette," she said, musingly. "And then I wished 
 I was back. I have been very wicked." 
 
 She put her elbows on the table, and framing her 
 face with her hands looked at me, and shook her 
 head. 
 
 " Oh, you are good! Oh, you are good!" 
 
 " Go on with your dinner, my child," said I, "and won- 
 der at the genius of Antoinette who has managed to cook 
 it and look after you at the same time." 
 
 She obeyed meekly. I watched her eat. She was fam-
 
 ished. I learned that she had had nothing since the early 
 morning coffee and roll. In spite of pain, I was curiously 
 flattered by her return. I represented something to her, 
 after all even though the instinct of the prodigal cat had 
 driven her hither. I am sure it had never crossed her mind 
 that my doors might be shut against her. Her first words 
 were, "I have come home." The first thing she did when 
 we went into the drawing-room after dinner was to fondle 
 my hand and lay it against her cheek and say, with a deep 
 sigh: 
 
 "I am so happy." 
 
 However shallow her butterfly nature was, these tilings 
 came from its depths. No man can help feeling pleased at 
 a child's or an animal's implicit trust in him. And the 
 pleasure is of the purest. He feels that unreasoning intui- 
 tion has penetrated to some latent germ of good in his na- 
 ture, and for the moment he is disarmed of evil. Car- 
 lotta, then, came blindly to what was best in me. In her 
 thoughts she sandwiched me between the cat and the cook: 
 well, in most sandwiches the mid-ingredient is the most 
 essential. 
 
 She curled herself up in the familiar sofa-corner, and as 
 it was a chilly night I sent for a wrap which I threw over her 
 limbs. 
 
 " See, I have the dear red slippers," she remarked, arch- 
 ing her instep. 
 
 "And I have my dear Carlotta," said I. 
 
 I drew my chair near her, and gradually I learned all 
 the unhappy story. 
 
 Pasquale had made love to her from the very first minute 
 of their acquaintance even while I was hunting for 
 the UHistoire Comique de Francion. He had met her 
 many times unknown to me. They had corresponded, 
 her letters being addressed to a little stationer's shop
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 273 
 
 close by. She did not love him. Of that I have an abso- 
 lute conviction. But he was young, he was handsome, he 
 had the libertine's air and manner. She was docile. 
 And she was ever positively truthful. If I had ques- 
 tioned her she would have confessed frankly. But I 
 never questioned, as I never suspected. I wondered some- 
 times at her readiness in quoting him. I noticed odd 
 coincidences; but I. was too ineffectual to draw inferences 
 from phenomena. His appearance on the Paddington 
 platform was prearranged; his duchessa at Ealing a 
 myth. 
 
 Apparently he had dallied with his fancy. The fruit 
 was his any day for the plucking. Perhaps a rudimentary 
 sentiment of loyalty towards me restrained him. Who can 
 tell? The night of our meeting with Hamdi brought the 
 crisis. The Turk's threats had alarmed both Carlotta and 
 myself. It was necessary for him to strike at once. He 
 saw her the next day would to heaven I had remained at 
 home! told her I was marrying her to save her from 
 Hamdi. I loved the other woman. He would save her 
 equally well from Hamdi. The other woman met her soon 
 after parting from Pasquale and besought her to give me 
 up. She did not know what to do. Poor child, how 
 should she have known ? On the previous evening I had 
 told her she was to marry me. She was ready to obey. She 
 went to bed thinking that she was to marry me. In the 
 morning she went for her music lesson. Pasquale was 
 waiting for her. They walked for some distance down the 
 road. He hailed a cab and drove away with her. 
 
 "He said he loved me," said Carlotta, "and he kissed 
 me, and he told me I must go away with him to Paris and 
 marry him. And I felt all weak, like that " she dropped 
 her arms helplessly in an expressive gesture, " and so what 
 could I do?" 
 18
 
 274 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "Didn't you think, Carlotta, that I might be sorry 
 perhaps unhappy?" I asked as gently as I could. 
 
 "He said you would be quite happy with the other 
 woman." 
 
 " Did you believe him ? " 
 
 "That's why I said I have been very wicked," Carlotta 
 answered, simply. 
 
 She went on with her story an old, miserable, detest- 
 able, execrable story. At first all went merrily. Then she 
 fell ill in Paris. It was her first acquaintance with the 
 northern winter. Her throat proved to be delicate and 
 she was laid up with bronchitis. To men of Pasquale's 
 type, a woman ill is of no more use than a spavined horse or 
 a broken-down motor-car. More than that, she becomes 
 an infernal nuisance. It was in his temperament to per- 
 form sporadic acts of fantastic chivalry. It appealed to 
 something romantic, theatrical, in his facile nature. But 
 to devote himself to a woman in sickness that was differ- 
 ent. The fifteenth century Italian hated like the devil 
 continued association with pain. He would have thrown 
 his boots to a beggar, but he would have danced in his pal- 
 ace over the dungeons where his brother rotted in obscurity. 
 
 So poor Carlotta was neglected, and began to eat the 
 bread of disillusion. When she got well, there was a faint 
 recrudescence of affection. Has not this story been writ- 
 ten a million miserable times? Why should I rend my 
 heart again by retelling it ? Wild rages, jealousies, quar- 
 rels, tears 
 
 " And then one day he said, * You damned little fool, I am 
 sick to death of you,' and he went away, and I never saw 
 him again. He wrote and he sent his valet to put me in 
 the pension." 
 
 "And yet, Carlotta," said I bitterly, "you would go 
 back to him if he sent for you ? "
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 275 
 
 She sprang forward and gripped me by the arm I was 
 sitting quite close to her and her face wore the terror- 
 stricken expression of a child frightened with bogies. 
 
 "Go back? After what he has done to me? You 
 would not send me back ? Seer Marcous, darling, you will 
 keep me with you ? I will be good, good, good. But go 
 back to Pasquale ? Oh, no-o-o!" 
 
 She fell back in her sofa-corner, and fixed her great, deep 
 imploring eyes on me. 
 
 "My dear," said I, "you know this is your home as 
 long as ever you choose to stay in it but " and I stroked 
 her hair gently "if he comes back when your child is 
 bom his child " 
 
 She drew herself up superbly. 
 
 "It is my child my very, very own," cried Carlotta. 
 "It is mine, mine and I shall not allow any one to touch 
 it " and then her face softened "except Seer Marcous."
 
 CHAPTER XXHI 
 
 Behold Carlotta again installed in my house which she 
 regarded as her home. Heaven forbid that I should sow 
 any doubt thereof in her mind. 
 
 I had learned perhaps one lesson: the meaning of love. 
 The love that is desire alone, though sung in all romance of 
 all the ages, is of the brute nature and is doomed to perish. 
 The love that pardons, endures through wrong, contents 
 itself in abnegation, is of the imperishable things that draw 
 weak man a little nearer to the angels. When Carlotta 
 wept upon my shoulder during those few first moments 
 of her return I knew that all resentment was gone from my 
 heart, that it would have been a poor, ignoble thing. Had 
 she come back to me leprous of body and abominable of 
 spirit, it would not have mattered. I would have for- 
 given her, loved her, cherished her just the same. It was 
 a question, not of reason, not of human pity, not of quixo- 
 tism; not of any argument or sentiment for which I could 
 be responsible. I was helpless, obeying a reflex action of 
 the soul. 
 
 The days passed tranquilly. In spite of pain I felt an 
 odd happiness. I had nothing selfishly to hope for. Per- 
 haps I had aged five years in one, and I viewed life differ- 
 ently. It was enough for me that she had come home, to 
 the haven where no harm could befall her. She was my 
 appointed task, even as her husband was Judith's. I rec- 
 ognised in myself the man with the one talent. The deep 
 wisdom of the parable can be taken to inmost heart for 
 comfort only by men of little destinies. With infinite love 
 
 276 _
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 277 
 
 and patience to mould Carlotta into a sweet, good woman, 
 a wise mother of the child that was to be that was the in- 
 glorious task which Providence had set me to accomplish. 
 In its proportion to the aggregate of human effort it was 
 infinitesimal. But who shall say that it was not worth the 
 doing ? Save writing a useless book, in what other sphere 
 of sublunar energy could I have been effectual ? I did not 
 thus analyse my attitude at the time; the man who does 
 so is a poser, a mime to his own audience; but looking 
 back, I think I was guided by some such unformulated 
 considerations. 
 
 Although my hermit mania was in itself radically cured, 
 yet I altered nothing in my relations with the outside 
 world. I wrote to Judith a brief account of what had 
 occurred and received from her a sympathetic answer. 
 My reading among the Mystics and Thaumaturgists put 
 me on the track of Arabic. I found that Carlotta knew 
 enough of the language to give me elementary instruction, 
 and thus the whirligig of time brought in its revenge by 
 constituting me her pupil, to our joint edification. 
 
 After a while the unhappiness of the past seemed to have 
 faded from her mind. She spoke little of Paris, less of the 
 dull pension, and never of Pasquale. She bore towards him 
 an animal's silent animosity against a human being who 
 has done it an unforgettable injury. On the other hand, 
 as I have since discovered, she was slowly developing, and 
 had begun to realise that in giving herself light-heartedly 
 to a man whom she did not love, she had committed a crime 
 against her sex, for which she had paid a heavy penalty: 
 a sentiment, however, which did not mitigate her resent- 
 ment against him. Often I saw her sitting with knitted 
 brows, her needlework idle on her lap, evidently unrav- 
 elling some complicated problem; presently she would 
 either shake her head saoUy as if the intellectual process
 
 278 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 were too hard for her and resume her needle, or if she hap- 
 pened to catch my glance, she would start, smile reassur- 
 ingly at me, and apply herself with exaggerated zeal to her 
 work. These fits of abstraction were not those of a woman 
 speculating on mysteries of the near future. Such Car- 
 lotta also indulged in, and they were easy to recognise, by 
 the dreaminess of her eyes and the faint smile flickering 
 about her lips. The moods of knitted brows were periods 
 of soul-travail, and I wondered what they would bring 
 forth. 
 
 One afternoon I came home and found her weeping 
 over a book. When I bent down to see what she was read- 
 ing she had acquired a taste for novels during the dull 
 pension time in Paris she caught my head with both 
 hands. 
 
 "Oh, Seer Marcous, do you think they ought to make 
 me wear a great ' A' ?" 
 
 "What do you mean?" I asked. 
 
 "Like Hester Prynne see." 
 
 She showed me Nathaniel Hawthorne's " Scarlet Letter. " 
 
 " What made you take this out of the shelves ?" 
 
 "The title," she replied, simply. "I am so fond of red 
 things; but I should not like that great red 'A.'" 
 
 "Those were days," said I, "when people thought they 
 could only be good by being very cruel." 
 
 "They would have been more cruel if Hester had not 
 loved the minister," said Carlotta, looking at me wistfully. 
 
 "My dear little girl," said I, seeing whither her thoughts 
 were tending, "do not bother your brain with psychologi- 
 cal problems." 
 
 "What are?" began Carlotta. 
 
 I pinched the question, as it were, out of her cheek and 
 smiled and took away the book. 
 
 "They are a dreadful disease my little girl has been
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 279 
 
 afflicted with for some time. When you sit and wrinkle 
 your forehead like this," and I scowled forbiddingly, 
 whereat Carlotta laughed, "you are suffering from acute 
 psychological problem." 
 
 "Then I am thinking," said Carlotta, reflectively. 
 
 "Don't think too much, dear, just now," said I. "It is 
 best for you to be happy and calm and contented. Other- 
 wise I'll have to tell the doctor, and he'll give you the 
 blackest and nastiest physic you have ever tasted." 
 
 "To cure me of a what-you-call-it problem?" 
 
 "Yes," said I, emphatically. 
 
 "Houl" laughed Carlotta in a superior way, "physic 
 can't cure that." 
 
 "You are relying on an exploded fallacy immortalised 
 in a hackneyed Shakespearian quotation," I remarked. 
 
 " Go on," said Carlotta, encouragingly. 
 
 "What do you mean?" I asked, taken aback. 
 
 "Oh, you darling Seer Marcous," cried Carlotta. "It 
 is so lovely to hear you talk!" 
 
 So I went on talking, and the distress occasioned by the 
 "Scarlet Letter" was forgotten. 
 
 I have mentioned Carlotta's needlework. This was 
 undertaken at the sapient instigation of Antoinette, who in 
 her turn, I am sure, neglected the ladle for the scissors, and 
 cast many of her duties upon the silent but sympathetic 
 Stenson. Carlotta herself delighted in these preparations. 
 She was never happier than when curled up on the sofa, a 
 box of chocolates by her side, her work-basket frothing 
 over, like a great dish of ceufs h la neige, with lawn or mull 
 or what-not, and (I verily believe to complete her content) 
 my ungainly figure and hatchet-face within her purview. 
 She would eat and sew industriously. Sometimes she 
 would press too hard on a sweetmeat and with a little cry 
 would hold up a sticky finger and thumb.
 
 28 o The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "Look," she would say, puckering up her face. 
 
 And to save from soilure the dainty fabric she was work- 
 ing at, I would rise and wipe her fingers with my handker- 
 chief; whereupon she would coo out the sweetest "thank 
 you," in the world, and perhaps hold up a diminutive 
 garment. 
 
 "Isn't it pretty?" 
 
 "Yes, my dear," I would say, and I would turn aside 
 wondering at the exquisite refinements of pain that men 
 were sometimes called upon to bear. 
 
 At last the time came. I sat up all night in a torture of 
 suspense, having got it into my foolish head that Carlotta 
 might die. The doctor came upon me at six in the morn- 
 ing sitting half frozen at the bottom of the stairs. When 
 he gave me his cheery news he seemed to develop from a 
 middle-aged, commonplace man into a radiant archangel. 
 
 I met Antoinette soon afterwards, busy, important, ex- 
 ultant. She nevertheless graciously accorded me a brief 
 interview. 
 
 "And to think, Monsieur," she exclaimed, as if the 
 crowning triumph of a million aeons of evolution had at 
 last been attained, "to think that it is a boy!" 
 
 " You would have been just as pleased if it had been a 
 girl," said I. 
 
 She shook her wise, fat head. "Women ga ne vaut 
 pas grand' chose." 
 
 Let it be remembered that "women are of no great ac- 
 count" is a sentiment expressed, not by me, but by An- 
 toinette. But all the same I soon found myself a cipher in 
 the house, where the triumvirate of the negligeable sex, 
 Antoinette, the nurse and Carlotta, reigned despotically. 
 
 To write much of Carlotta's happiness would be to
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 281 
 
 treat of sacred things at which I can only guess. She 
 dwelt in rapture. The joy and meaning of the universe 
 were concentrated in the tiny bundle of pink flesh that lay 
 on her bosom. I used to sit by her side while she talked 
 unwearyingly of him. He was a thing of infinite perfec- 
 tions. He had such a lot of hair. 
 
 "She won't believe, sir," said the nurse, "that it will all 
 drop off and a new crop come." 
 
 " Oh-h ! " said Carlotta. " It can't be so cruel. For it is 
 my hair see, Seer Marcous, darling, isn't it just my hair ? '* 
 
 It was her great solicitude that the boy should resemble 
 her. 
 
 "I don't know about his nose," she remarked critically. 
 " There is so little of it yet and it is so soft feel how soft 
 it is. But his eyes are brown like mine, and his mouth 
 now look, aren't they just the same?" 
 
 She put her cheek next to the child's and invited me to 
 compare the two adjacent baby mouths. They were, of a 
 truth, very much alike. 
 
 She was jealous of the baby, desirous of having it always 
 with her to tend and fondle, impatient of the nurse and 
 Antoinette. It was a thing so intensely hers that she re- 
 sented other hands touching it. Oddly enough, of me she 
 made an exception. Nothing delighted her more than to 
 put the little creature into my awkward and nervous arms, 
 and watch me carry it about the room. I think she wanted 
 to give me something, and this share in the babe was the 
 most precious gift she could devise. 
 
 Of Pasquale she continued to say nothing. In her in- 
 tense joy of motherhood he seemed to have become the 
 dim creature of a dream. I had registered the birth with- 
 out consulting her in the legal names of the parents. 
 
 "What are you going to call him, Carlotta ?" I asked one 
 day.
 
 282 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "Mon petit chou. That's what Antoinette says. It's a 
 beautiful name." 
 
 " There are many points in calling an infant one's little 
 cabbage," I admitted, "but soon he'll grow up to be as old 
 as I am, and " I sighed "who would call me their 
 $etit chou?" 
 
 Carlotta laughed. 
 
 "That is true. We shall have to find a name." She 
 reflected for a few moments; then put her arms round my 
 neck and continued her reflections. 
 
 " He shall be Marcus another Marcus Ordeyne. Then 
 perhaps some day he will be 'Seer Marcous' like you." 
 
 "Do you mean when I die?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, not for years and years and years!" she cried, 
 tightening her clasp in alarm. " But the child lives longer 
 than the father. It is fate. He will live longer than I." 
 
 "Let us hope so, dear," I answered. "But it is just 
 because I am not his father that he can't be Sir Marcus 
 when I die. He can have my name; but my title " 
 
 "Who will have it?" 
 
 "No one." 
 
 ' It will die too?" 
 
 *' It will be quite dead." 
 
 "You are his father, you know, really," she whispered. 
 
 " The law of England takes no count, unfortunately, of 
 things of the spirit," said I. 
 
 "What are things of the spirit?" 
 
 "The things, my dear," said I, "that you are beginning 
 to understand." I bent down and kissed the child as it lay 
 on her lap. "Poor little Marcus Ordeyne," I said. "My 
 poor quaintly fathered little son, I'm afraid there is much 
 trouble ahead of you, but I'll do my best to help you 
 through it." 
 
 " Bless you, dear," said Carlotta, softly.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 283 
 
 I looked at her in wonder. She had spoken for the first 
 time like a grown woman like a woman with a soul. 
 
 A few weeks later. 
 
 We were sitting at breakfast. The morning newspaper 
 contained the account of a battle and the lists of British 
 officers killed. I scanned as usual the melancholy col- 
 umns, when a name among the dead caught my eye and 
 I stared at it stupidly. Pasquale was dead, killed outright 
 by a Boer bullet. The wild, bright life was ended. It 
 seemed a horrible thing, and, much as he had wronged 
 me, my first sentiment was one of dismay. He was too. 
 gallant and beautiful a creature for death. 
 
 Carlotta poured out my tea and came round with the 
 cup which she deposited by my side. To prevent her peep- 
 ing over my shoulder at the paper, as she usually did, I 
 laid it on the table; but her quick eye had already read 
 the great headlines. 
 
 " Great Battle. British officers killed. Oh, let me see, 
 Seer Marcous." 
 
 "No, dear," said I. "Go and eat your breakfast." 
 
 She looked at me strangely. I tried to smile; but as I 
 am an incompetent actor my grimace was a proclamation. 
 of disingenuousness. 
 
 "Why shouldn't I read it?" she asked, quickly. 
 
 "Because I say you mustn't, Carlotta." 
 
 She continued to look at me. She had suddenly grown 
 pole. I stirred my tea and made a pretence of sipping it. 
 
 " Go on with your breakfast, my child," I repeated. 
 
 "There is something something about him in the pa- 
 per," said Carlotta. "He L a British officer." 
 
 In the face of her intuition further concealment appeared 
 useless. Besides, sooner or later she would have to know. 
 
 "He is a British officer no longer, dear," said I.
 
 284 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "Is he dead?" 
 
 My mind flew back to an evening long ago long, long 
 ago it seemed when another newspaper had told of an- 
 other death, and my ears caught the echo of the identical 
 question that had then fallen from her lips. I dreaded 
 lest she should say again, "I am so glad." 
 
 I beckoned her to my side, and pointing with my finger 
 to the name watched her face anxiously. She read, stared 
 for a bit in front of her and turned to me with a piteous 
 look. I drew her to me, and she laid her face against my 
 shoulder. 
 
 " I don't know why I'm crying, Seer Marcous, dear," she 
 said, after a while. 
 
 I made her drink some of my tea, but she would eat 
 nothing, and presently she went upstairs. She had not 
 said that she was glad. She had wept and not known the 
 reason for her tears. I railed at myself for my doubts of 
 her. 
 
 She was subdued and thoughtful all the day. In the 
 evening, instead of curling herself up in the sofa-corner 
 among the cushions, she sat on a stool by my feet as I 
 read, one hand supporting her chin, the other resting on 
 my knee. 
 
 "I am glad he was a brave man," she said at last, allud- 
 ing to Pasquale for the first time since the morning. "I 
 like brave men." 
 
 "Duke et decorum est. He died for his country," said I. 
 
 "It does not hurt me now so much to think of him," 
 said Carlotta. 
 
 I could not help feeling a miserable pang of jealousy at 
 Pasquale's posthumous rehabilitation as a hero in Car- 
 lotta's heart. Yet, was it not natural? Was it not the 
 way of women? I saw myself far remote from her, and 
 though she never spoke of him again I divined that her
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 285 
 
 thoughts dwelt not untenderly on his memory. I was 
 absurd, I know. But I had begun almost to believe in my 
 make-believe paternity, and I was jealous of the rightful 
 claims of the dead man. 
 
 And yet had he lived he might have come back one day 
 with his conquering air and his irresistible laugh, and 
 carried them both away from me. In sparing me this 
 crowning humiliation I thanked the high gods. 
 
 But never to this day has she mentioned his name again.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 How shall I set down that which happened not long 
 afterwards ? 
 
 The death of a baby is so commonplace, so unimpor- 
 tant. Few reasoning people, viewing the matter in the 
 abstract, can do otherwise than rejoice that a human being 
 is saved from the weariness of the tired years that make up 
 life. For who shall disprove the pessimist's assertion that 
 it is better not to have been born than to come into the 
 world, and that it is better to die than to live? But those 
 from whom the single hope of their existence is ravished 
 find little consolation in reason. Grief is the most in- 
 tensely egotistical of emotions. I have lost all that makes 
 life beautiful to me. Is not that enough for the stricken 
 soul? 
 
 To Carlotta it meant a passage through the valley of the 
 shadow. To me, at first, it meant the life of Carlotta, and 
 then a blank in my newly ordered scheme of things. The 
 curse of ineffectually still pursued me. I had allotted to 
 myself my humble task the development of the new gen- 
 eration in the form of Carlotta's boy, and even that small 
 usefulness was I denied by Fate. 
 
 A chill, a touch of croup, an agonised watching, and the 
 tiny thing lay dead. Antoinette and I had to drag it stone 
 cold from Carlotta's bosom. I alone carried it to burial. 
 The little white coffin rested on the opposite seat of the 
 hired brougham, and on it was a bunch of white flowers 
 given by Antoinette. In the cemetery chapel another frag- 
 ment of humanity awaited sepulture, and the funeral ser- 
 vice was read over both bodies. I stood alone by the little 
 
 386
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 287 
 
 white coffin. A crowd of mourners were grouped beside 
 the black one. I glanced at the inscription as I passed: 
 "Jane Elliot, in the eighty-sixth year of her age." The 
 officiant referred in the service to "our dear brother and 
 sister, here departed. " It was either an awful jest or an 
 awful verity. 
 
 My "quaintly fathered little son" had small need of my 
 help through the troubles of his life. His mother needed 
 all that I could give. Without me she would have died. 
 That I verily believe. I was her solitary plank in the 
 welter wherein she would have been submerged. She 
 clung to me literally clung to me. I sat for hours with 
 her grasp upon me. To feel assured of my physical pres- 
 ence alone seemed to bring her calm. 
 
 Recent as are those sleepless days and nights, their mem- 
 ory is all confused. The light burning dimly in the familiar 
 chamber which I had once sealed up as a tomb ; the shad- 
 ows on the wall; the fevered face and great hollow eyes of 
 Carlotta against the pillows; her little hand clutching 
 mine in desperation; the soft tread of the nurse, that is all 
 I remember. And when she recovered her wits and grew 
 sane, although for a long time she spoke little, and scarcely 
 noticed me otherwise, she claimed me by her side. She 
 was still dazed by the misery of her darkness. It was only 
 then that I realised the part the child had played in her 
 development. Her nature had been stirred to the quick; 
 the capacity for emotion had been awakened. She had 
 left me without a qualm. She had given herself to Pas- 
 quale without a glimmer of passion. She had returned to 
 me like a wounded animal seeking its home. For the child 
 alone the passionate human love had sprung flaming from 
 the seed hidden in her soul. And now the child was dead, 
 and the sun had gone from her sky, and she was benumbed 
 with the icy blackness of the world.
 
 288 
 
 Then came a time when her speech was loosened and 
 she talked to me incessantly of the child, until one day she 
 spoke of it as living and clamoured for it, and relapsed 
 into her fever. 
 
 At last one morning she awakened from a sound sleep 
 and found me watching; for I had relieved the nurse at 
 six o'clock. She smiled at me for the first time since the 
 child fell sick, and took my hand and kissed it. 
 
 "It is like waking into heaven to see your face, Seer 
 Marcous, darling," she whispered. 
 
 " I hope heaven is peopled by a better-looking set of fel- 
 lows," I said. 
 
 "Houl" laughed Carlotta. "Don't you know you are 
 beautiful?" 
 
 "You mustn't throw an old jest in my teeth, Carlotta," 
 said I, and I reminded her how she had once screamed 
 with laughter when I had told her I was very beautiful. 
 
 Carlotta listened patiently until I had ended, and then 
 she said, with a little sigh: 
 
 "You cannot understand, Seer Marcous, darling. I 
 have been thinking of my little baby and the angels and 
 all the angels are like you." 
 
 To cover the embarrassment my modesty underwent, I 
 laughed and drew the picture of myself with long flaxen 
 hair and white wings. 
 
 "My angels hadn't got wings," said Carlotta, seriously. 
 "They all wore dressing-gowns. They were real angels. 
 And the one that was most like you brought my baby in 
 his arms for me to kiss; and when he put it on a white 
 cloud to sleep, and took me up in his arms instead and 
 carried me away, away, away through the air, I didn't cry 
 at leaving baby. Wasn't that funny ? I snuggled up close 
 to him like that" she illustrated the action of "snug- 
 gling" beneath the bed-clothes "and it was so comfy."
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 289 
 
 The pale sunshine of a fine February morning filtered 
 into the room from behind the curtains. I turned off the 
 dimmed electric lamp and let full daylight into the room. 
 
 "Oh!" cried Carlotta, turning to the window, "how 
 lovely the good sun is! It is more like heaven than ever. 
 Do you know," she added, mysteriously, "just before I 
 woke it was all dark, and I had lost my angels and I was 
 looking for them." 
 
 I counselled her sagely to look for no more members of 
 the Hierarchy en deshabillS, but to content herself with the 
 humbler denizens of this planet. She pressed my hand. 
 
 "I'll try to be contented, Seer Marcous, darling." 
 
 She did her best, poor child, when I was by; but I 
 heard that often she would sit by a little pile of garments 
 and take them up one by one and cry her heart out so 
 that though she quickly recovered, her cheeks remained 
 wan and drawn, and pain lingered in her eyes. The 
 weather changed to fog and damp and she spent the days 
 crouching by the fire, sometimes not stirring a muscle for 
 an hour together. Her favourite seat was the fender- 
 stool in the drawing-room. Her own boudoir downstairs, 
 where she used to receive instruction from the excellent 
 Miss Griggs, she scarcely entered. 
 
 She broke one of these fits suddenly and called me by 
 her own pet version of my name. I looked up from tha 
 writing-table where I was studying the Arabic grammar. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "I have been thinking oh, thinking, thinking so long. 
 I've been thinking that you must love me very much." 
 
 " Yes, Carlotta," said I, with a half smile. " I suppose I 
 do." 
 
 "As much as I loved my baby," she said, seriously. 
 
 "I used to love you in a different way, perhaps." 
 
 "And now?" 
 19
 
 290 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "Perhaps in the same sort of way, Carlotta." 
 
 "I loved my baby because it was mine," she remarked, 
 looking at the flames through one hand's delicate fingers. 
 " I wanted to do everything for him and didn't want him 
 to do anything for me. I would have died for him. It is 
 so strange. Yes, I think you must love me like that, Seer 
 Marcous. Why ? ' ' 
 
 "Because when I found you in the Embankment Gar- 
 dens nearly two years ago you were about as helpless as 
 your little baby," I replied, somewhat disingenuously. 
 
 Carlotta gave me a quick glance. 
 
 "You thought me then what you call an infernal nui- 
 sance. Oh, I know now. I have grown wise. But you 
 were always good. You looked good when you sat on the 
 seat. You were reading a dirty little book." 
 
 "UHistoire des Uscoques" I murmured. How far 
 away it seemed. 
 
 There was a pause. I regarded her for a moment or 
 two. She was sunk again in serious reflection. I sighed 
 at the general dismalness of life, I suppose and re- 
 sumed my Arabic. 
 
 " Seer Marcous." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "Why didn't you drive me away when I came back?" 
 
 I shut up the Arabic grammar and went and sat beside 
 her on the fender-stool. 
 
 "My dear little girl what a question! How could I 
 drive you away from your own home?" 
 
 She flashed a queer, scared look at me, then at the fire, 
 then at me again and then burst out crying, her head and 
 arms on her knees. 
 
 I muttered a man's words of awkward comfort, saying 
 something about the baby. 
 
 " It isn't baby I'm crying about, " sobbed Carlotta. " If 8
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 291 
 
 me! And it's you! And it's all the things I'm beginning 
 to understand." 
 
 I patted her head and lit a cigarette and wandered about 
 the room, rather puzzled by Carlotta's psychological de- 
 velopment, and yet stirred by a faint thrill at her recogni- 
 tion of my affection. At the same time the sad "too late, 
 too late," was knelled in my ears, and I thought of the 
 might-have-been, and rode the merry-go-round of re- 
 gret's banalities. I had grown old. Passion had died. 
 Hope the hope of hearing the patter of a child's feet about 
 my house, the hope of pride in a quasi-paternity, of hand- 
 ing on, vicariously though it were, the torch of life hope 
 was dead and it was buried in a little white coffin. Only a 
 great, quiet love remained. I was a tired old man, and Car- 
 lotta was to me an infinitely loved sister or daughter or 
 granddaughter even so old did I feel. And when I raised 
 her from the fender-stool, and kissed the tears from her 
 eyes, it was as grandfatherly a kiss as had ever been given 
 in this world. 
 
 The same old problem again. What the deuce to do 
 with Carlotta? Yet not quite the same: rather, what the 
 deuce to do with Carlotta and myself? In our strange re- 
 lationship we were inextricably bound together. 
 
 First, she needed sunshine instead of the forlorn bleak- 
 ness of an English spring and a change from this house 
 of pain and death. And then I, too, felt the need of 
 wider horizons. London had grown to be a nightmare 
 city which I never entered. Its restless ambitions were 
 not mine. Its pleasures pleased me not. With not five of 
 its five million inhabitants dared I speak heart to heart. 
 Judith had gone out of my life. My aunts and cousins re- 
 garded me as beyond the moral pale. Mrs. McMurray was 
 still unaware of my return to England. I confess to shabby
 
 292 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 treatment of my kind friend. I know she would have flown 
 to aid Carlotta in her troubles; but would she have under- 
 stood Carlotta ? Reasoning now I am convinced that she 
 would: in those days I did not reason. I shrank like a 
 snail into its shell. The simile is commonplace; but so 
 was I the most commonplace human snail that ever oc- 
 cupied a commonplace ten-roomed shell. And now the 
 house and its useless books and its million-fold more use- 
 less manuscript "History of Renaissance Morals," all its 
 sombre memories and its haunting ghosts of ineffectualities, 
 became an unwholesome prison in which I was wasting 
 away a feeble existence. I resolved to quit it, to leave my 
 books, to abjure Renaissance morals, and to go forth with 
 Carlotta into the wilderness and the sunshine, there to fulfil 
 whatever destiny the high gods should decree.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 Again I sit on the housetop in Mogador on the Morocco 
 coast, where a month ago I began to write these latter 
 pages. Time has passed quickly since that day. 
 
 I said then that on the previous afternoon something had 
 happened. It was something which I might have foreseen, 
 which, in fact, with my habit of putting the telescope to 
 my blind eye, I obstinately had refused to foresee. Dur- 
 ing our wanderings I had watched the flowering of her 
 splendid beauty as she drank in health from the glow of 
 her own Orient. I had noted the widening of her intellect, 
 the quickening of her sympathies. I had been conscious 
 of the expansion of her soul in the great silences when the 
 stars flamed over the infinite sea of sand. But a growing 
 wistfulness that was no longer the old doglike pleading 
 of her glorious eyes, a gathering sadness that was not an 
 aftermath of grief for the child that had gone into this, 
 if I did remark it, I did not choose to inquire. Instead, 
 I continued my study of Arabic and cultivated the acquaint- 
 ance of a learned Moor whose conversation afforded 
 and still affords me peculiar pleasure. One of these days 
 I shall make a book of his Table-talk. But now I have to 
 tell of Carlotta. 
 
 She accepted with alacrity my proposal that morning to 
 ride over to the Palm Tree House for luncheon, as we had 
 done several times before. To please me, I think, she had 
 resolutely overcome her natural indolence. So much so 
 that she had come to love the nomad life of steamers and 
 caravans, and had grown restless, eager for fresh scenes, 
 craving new impressions. It was I who had cried a halt 
 
 293
 
 294 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 at Mogador where this furnished house to let, belonging to 
 a German merchant absent in Europe, tempted me to rest 
 awhile. I am not so young as Carlotta, and I awakened 
 to the fact of a circumambient universe so many years ago 
 that I have grown slumberous. Carlotta, if left to herself, 
 would have gone on riding camels through Africa to the 
 end of time. She had changed in many essentials. In- 
 stead of regarding me as an amiable purveyor of sweet- 
 meats and other necessaries of life to which by the grace of 
 her being Carlotta she was entitled, she treated me with 
 human affection and sympathy, keeping her own wants in 
 the background, anxious only to anticipate mine. But 
 she still loved sweetmeats and would eat horrible Moorish 
 messes with an avidity only equalled by my repugnance. 
 She was still the same Carlotta. On the other hand again, 
 she had of late abandoned her caressing habits. If she 
 laid her hand on my arm, she did it timorously whereat 
 I would laugh and she would grow confused. Once she 
 had driven me to frenzy with her fondling. Those days 
 had passed. I told myself that I was as old as the sphinx 
 we had moralised over in Egypt. 
 
 We lunched, then, at the Palm Tree House and rode 
 back in the cool of the afternoon to Mogador. We were 
 alone, as we knew the path across the tongue of desert, 
 and had no need of a guide and the rabble of sore-eyed 
 urchins who, like their attendant flies, infest the tourist on 
 his journeyings. On our right the desert rose to meet a 
 near horizon; on our left sandhills and boulders cut off 
 the view; ahead the shimmering line beyond which the 
 sea and city lay. We were enveloped by solitude and still- 
 ness. In the clear African air objects detached themselves 
 against the sky with staniing definition. 
 
 I had unconsciously ridden a bit ahead of Carlotta, 
 thinking my own thoughts, and sighing as a man often
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 295 
 
 does sigh, for the vague unattainable which is happiness. 
 Suddenly I missed her by my side, and turning round saw 
 a sight that made my heart beat with its sheer beauty. It 
 was only Carlotta on her barbaricaUy betrapped and be- 
 saddled mule. But it was Carlotta glorified in colour. She 
 held above her head a cotton parasol, which she had bought 
 to her delight and my disgust in Mogador; an impossible 
 thing, all deep cherry reds and yellows; a hateful thing 
 made for a pantomime or for this African afternoon. 
 Outspread and luminous in the white sunlight its cherry 
 reds and yellows floated like translucences of wine above 
 Carlotta's bronze hair crowned by a white sun hat, her 
 warm flesh-tints, and the dazzling white of her surah silk 
 blouse; the whole picture cut out vivid against the indigo 
 of the sky. It was a radiant vision. I stared open- 
 mouthed, smitten with the pang that sudden and transient 
 loveliness can sometimes deal, as Carlotta approached, 
 her figure swaying with the jog of her barbaric beast. Her 
 eyes were fixed on mine. She halted, and for a moment we 
 looked at one another; and in those wonderful eyes I saw 
 for the first time a beautiful sadness, a spiritual appeal. 
 The moment passed. We started again, side by side, 
 neither speaking. I did not look at her, conscious of a 
 vague trouble. Things that I had thought dead stirred in 
 my heart. 
 
 Presently like a dawn of infinite delicacy rose the city 
 before us. Its fairy minarets and towers gleamed first 
 white in an atmosphere of pale amethyst toning through 
 shades of green to the blue of the zenith. And the lazy sea 
 lay at the city's foot a pavement of lapis lazuli. But all 
 was faint, unreal. Far, far away a group of palms caught 
 opalescent reflections. A slight breeze had sprung up, 
 raising minute particles of sand which caused the elfland 
 on the horizon to quiver like a mirage.
 
 296 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 "It is a dream-city," said I, in admiration. 
 
 Carlotta did not reply. I thought she had not heard. 
 We jogged on a little in silence. At last she drew very 
 close to me. 
 
 "Shall we ever get there?" she asked, pointing ahead 
 with the hand that held the reins. 
 
 "To Mogador? Yes, I hope so," I answered with a 
 laugh. I thought she was tired. 
 
 "No, not Mogador. The dream-city where every one 
 wants to get." 
 
 "You have travelled far, my dear," said I, "to hanker 
 now after dream-cities and the unattainable. I knew a 
 little girl once who would have asked: 'What is a dream- 
 city?'" 
 
 "She doesn't ask now because she knows," replied Car- 
 lotta. "No. We shall never get there. It looks as if we 
 were riding straight into it but when we get close, it will 
 just be Mogador." 
 
 "Aren't you happy, Carlotta?" I asked. 
 
 "Are you, Seer Marcous?" 
 
 " I ? I am a pinlosopher/my child, and a happy philos- 
 opher would be a lusus natura, a freak, a subject for a 
 Barnum & Bailey Show. If they caught him they would 
 put him between the hairy man and the living skeleton." 
 
 "I suppose I'm getting to be a philosopher, too," said 
 Carlotta, " and I hate it ! Sometimes I think I hate every- 
 thing and everybody save you, Seer Marcous, darling. 
 It's wicked of me. I must have been born wicked. But I 
 used to be happy. I never wanted to go to dream-cities. 
 I was just like a cat. Like Polyphemus. Do you remem- 
 ber Polyphemus ? " 
 
 "Yes," said I. And then set off my balance by this 
 strange conversation with Carlotta, I added: "I killed 
 him."
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 297 
 
 She turned a startled face to me. 
 
 "You killed him? Why?" 
 
 "He laughed at me because I was unhappy," said I. 
 
 "Through me?" 
 
 "Yes; through you. But that's neither here nor there. 
 We were not discussing the death of Polyphemus. We 
 were talking about being philosophers, and you said that 
 as a philosopher you hated everything and everybody 
 except me. Why do you exclude me, Carlotta?" 
 
 We were riding so near together that my leg rubbed her 
 saddle-girth. I looked hard at her. She turned away her 
 head and put the pantomime parasol between us. I heard 
 a little choking sob. 
 
 "Let us get off and sit down a little I want to 
 cry." 
 
 "The end of all feminine philosophy," I said, somewhat 
 brutally. "No. It's getting late. That's only Mogador 
 in front of us. Let us go to it." 
 
 Carlotta shifted her parasol quickly. 
 
 " What has happened to you, Seer Marcous ? You have 
 never spoken to me like that before." 
 
 "The very deuce seems to have happened," said I, an- 
 grily though why I should have felt angry, heaven only 
 knows. "First you turn yourself into a Royal Academy 
 picture with that unspeakable umbrella of yours and the 
 trumpery blue sky and sunshine, and make my sentimental 
 soul ache; and then you " 
 
 "It's a very pretty umbrella," said Carlotta, looking up- 
 wards at it demurely. 
 
 "Give it to me," I said. 
 
 She yielded it with her usual docility. I cast it upon the 
 desert. Being open it gave one or two silly rebounds, then 
 lay still. Carlotta reined up her mule. 
 
 "Oh-h!" she said, in her old way.
 
 298 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 I dismounted hurriedly, and helped her down and passed 
 my arm through the two bridles. 
 
 "My dear child," said I, "what is the meaning of ali 
 this ? Here we have been living for months the most tran- 
 quil and unruffled existence, and now suddenly you begin 
 to talk about dream-cities and the impossibility of getting 
 there, and I turn angry and heave parasols about Africa, 
 What is the meaning of it?" 
 
 The most extraordinary part of it was that I should be 
 treating Carlotta as a grown-up woman, after the fashion 
 of the hero of a modern French novel. Perhaps I was 
 younger than I thought. 
 
 She kept her eyes fixed downward. 
 
 "Why are you angry with me?" she asked in a low 
 voice. 
 , "I haven't the remotest idea," said I. 
 
 She lifted her eyelids slowly oh, very, very slowly, 
 glanced quiveringly at me, while the shadow of a smile 
 fluttered round her lips. I verily believe the baggage ex- 
 ulted in her feminine heart. I turned away, leading the 
 two animals, and picked up the parasol which I closed 
 and restored to her. 
 
 "I thought you wanted to cry," I remarked. 
 
 "I can't," said Carlotta, plaintively. 
 
 "And you won't tell me why you exclude me from your 
 universal hatred ? " 
 
 Carlotta dug up the sand with the point of her foot. 
 The sight of it recalled the row of pink toes thrust un- 
 ashamedly before my eyes on the second day of her arrival 
 in London. An old hope, an old fear, an old struggle re- 
 newed themselves. She was more adorably beautiful even 
 than the Carlotta of the pink toes, and spiritually she was 
 reborn. I heard her whisper: 
 
 "I can't."
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 299 
 
 Now I had sworn to myself all the oaths that a man can 
 swear that I should be Carlotta's grandfather to the end of 
 time. Hitherto I had felt the part. Now suddenly grey 
 beard and slippered pantaloons are cast aside and I am 
 young again with a glow in my heart which beats fast at 
 her beauty. I shut my teeth. 
 
 "No," said I to myself. "The curtain shall not rise on 
 that farcical tragedy again." 
 
 I threw the reins on the neck of Carlotta's mule, which 
 with its companion had been regarding us with bland 
 stupidity. 
 
 "I think we had better ride on, Carlotta," I said. 
 "Mount" 
 
 She meekly gave me her little foot and I hoisted her 
 into the saddle. 
 
 We did not exchange a word till we reached Mogador. 
 But each of us felt that something had happened. 
 
 At dinner we met as usual. Carlotta spoke somewhat 
 feverishly of our travels, and asked me numberless ques- 
 tions, betraying an unprecedented thirst for informa- 
 tion. I never gave her historical instruction with less 
 zest. 
 
 After the meal we went onto the flat roof. Carlotta 
 poured out my coffee at the small table beside the long 
 Madeira cane chair which was my accustomed seat. The 
 starlit night was blue and languorous. From some cafe 
 came the monotonous strains of Moorish music, the harsh 
 strings and harsh men's voices softened by the distance. 
 Carlotta took my coffee-cup when I had finished and set 
 it down in her granddaughterly way. Then she stood in 
 front of me. 
 
 "Won't you make a little room for me on your chair, 
 Seer Marcous, darling?" 
 
 I shifted my feet from the foot-rest and she sat down. I
 
 300 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 may observe that I was not, in oriental bashawdom, oc- 
 cupying the one and only chair on the housetop. 
 
 "Tell me about the stars," she said. 
 
 I knew what she meant. She loved the old Greek 
 myths; their poetry, obscured though it was through my 
 matter-of-fact prose, appealed to her young imagination. 
 She was passing through an exquisite phase of develop- 
 ment. 
 
 I scanned the heavens for a text and found one in the 
 Pleiades. And I told her how these were seven daughters 
 of Atlas and Pleione who herself was the daughter of the 
 Sea, and how they were all pure maidens, save one, and 
 were the companions of Artemis; how Orion the hunter, 
 who was afterwards slain by Artemis and whose three- 
 starred girdle gleamed up there in the sky, pursued them 
 with evil intent, and how they prayed the gods for deliv- 
 erance and were changed into the everlasting stars; and, 
 lastly, how the one who was not a maiden, for she loved a 
 mortal, shrank away from her sisters through shame and 
 was invisible to the eye of man. 
 
 "She was ashamed," said Carlotta in a low voice, "be- 
 cause she loved some one afterwards, one of the gods, who 
 would not look at her because she had given herself to a 
 mortal. A woman then has a fire here" she clasped her 
 hands to her bosom "and wishes she could burn away 
 to nothing, nothing, just to air, and become invisible." 
 
 She was rising hurriedly on the last word, but I brought 
 my hands down on her shoulders. 
 
 "Carlotta, my child," said I, "what do you mean?" 
 
 She seized my wrists and struggling to rise, panted out 
 in desperation: 
 
 "You are one of the gods, and I wish I were changed 
 into an invisible star." 
 
 "I don't," said I, huskily.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 301 
 
 By main force I drew her to me and our lips met. She 
 yielded, and this time the whole soul of Carlotta came to 
 me in the kiss. 
 
 "It's beautiful to snuggle up against you again," said 
 my ever direct Carlotta, after a while. "I haven't done it 
 oh, for such a long time." She sighed contentedly. 
 "Seer Marcous " 
 
 "You must call me Marcus now," said I, somewhat fat- 
 uously. 
 
 She shook her head as it lay on my shoulder. "No. 
 You are Marcus or Sir Marcus to everybody. To me 
 you are always Seer Marcous. Seer Marcous, darling," she 
 half whispered after a pause. " Once I did not know the 
 difference between a god and a mortal. It was only that 
 morning when I woke up " 
 
 "You took me for a saint in a dressing-gown," said I. 
 
 "It's the same thing," she retorted. And then taking 
 up her parable, she told me in her artless way the inner 
 history of her heart since that morning; but what she said 
 is sacred. Also, a man feels himself to be a pitiful dog of 
 a god when a woman relates how she came to establish him 
 on her High Altar. 
 
 Later we struck a lighter vein and spoke of the present, 
 the enchantment of the hour, the scented air, the African 
 stars. 
 
 "It seems, my dear," said I, "that we have got to 
 Nephelococcygia after all." 
 
 "What is Nephelococcygia?" asked Carlotta. 
 
 I relented. "It's a base Aristophanic libel on our 
 dream-city," said I. 
 
 Thus out of evil has come good; out of pain has grown 
 happiness; out of horror has sprung an everlasting love. 
 Many a man will say that in all my relations with Carlotta
 
 302 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 
 
 I have comported myself as a fool, and that my marriage 
 is the crowning folly. Well, I pretend not unto wisdom. 
 Wisdom would have married me to five thousand a year., 
 a position in fashionable society, my Cousin Dora and 
 premature old age antecedent to eternal destruction. I 
 hold that my salvation has lain the way of folly. Again, il: 
 may be urged against me that I have squandered my life, 
 that with all my learning, such as it is, I have achieved 
 nothing. I once thought so. I boasted of it in my diary 
 when I complacently styled myself a waster in Earth's 
 factory. Oh, that diary! Let me here solemnly retract 
 and abjure every crude and idiot opinion and reflection of 
 life set forth in that frenetic record ! I regard myself not 
 as a waster I remember a passage in Epictetus treating 
 of the ways of Providence: 
 
 "For what else can I do, a lame old man, than sing 
 hymns to God ? If then I were a nightingale I would do 
 the part of a nightingale: if I were a swan, I would do like 
 a swan. But now I am a rational creature and I ought to 
 praise God; this is my work, I do it, nor will I desert this 
 post so long as I am allowed to keep it; and I exhort you 
 to join in this same song." 
 
 No, I am neither nightingale nor swan, and cannot add, 
 as they do, to the beauty of the earth. The lame old man 
 has his limitations; but within them, he can, by cleaving 
 to his post and praising God, fulfil his destiny. 
 
 Carlotta coming onto the housetop to summon me to 
 lunch looks over my shoulder as I write these words. 
 
 "But you are not a lame old man!" she cries in indig- 
 nation. "You are the youngest and strongest and clever- 
 est man in the world!" 
 
 "What am I to do with these miraculous gifts?" I ask, 
 laughing. 
 
 "You are to become famous," she says, with conviction.
 
 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne 303 
 
 "Very well, my dear. We will have to go to some new 
 land where attaining fame is easier for a beginner than in 
 London; and we'll send for Antoinette and Stenson to help 
 us." 
 
 "That will be very nice," she observes. 
 
 So I am to become famous. Ce que femme veiri, Dieu le 
 veut. And Carlotta has got a soul of her own now and 
 means to make the most of it. It will lead me upward 
 somewhere. But whether I am to be king of New Babylon 
 or Prime Minister of New Zealand or lawgiver to a Poly- 
 nesian tribe is a secret as yet hidden in the lap of the gods, 
 whence Carlotta doubtless will snatch it hi her own good 
 time. 
 
 "You are writing a lot of rubbish," says Carlotta. 
 
 "And a little truth. The mixture is Life," I answer. 
 
 THE END
 
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