HP 
 mm 
 
 WOMAN 
 
 AND THE, 
 SHADOW 
 
 KENEALY
 
 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW.
 
 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW 
 
 BY 
 
 ARABELLA KENEALY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "DR. JANET OF HARLEY STREET," "SOME MEN ARE SUCH 
 
 GENTLEMEN," "BELINDA'S BEAUX," "MOLLY AND HER 
 
 MAN-OF-WAR," "THE HON. MRS. SPOOR," 
 
 CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: 
 RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY, 
 
 PUBLISHERS.
 
 TO 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN MACDONALD 
 
 THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED 
 WITH THE AUTHOR'S 
 
 HIGH ADMIRATION AND REGARD. 
 
 Copyright, 1898, by Rand, McNally & Co.
 
 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 "SHE IS COMING TO-DAY!" 
 
 " 'How much for a bachelor? Who wants to buyi 
 
 In a wink every maiden responded, 'I I.' 
 In short, at a largely extravagant price, 
 The bachelors all were sold off in a trice." 
 
 Lady Kershaw opened a letter under cover of the 
 breakfast table, her eyes traveling furtively toward 
 her son at its further end. 
 
 "Ham and eggs, mother?" he queried, unconcern- 
 edly. 
 
 With that letter in her hand she wondered how he 
 could be so cool. She forgot he had not even a sus- 
 picion of the circumstances prompting it. She read 
 it through and laid it beside her, while she poured tea 
 with a hand grown capable by experience, though this 
 morning unsteadied by events. How should she break 
 the news to him? She was not a weak woman, but 
 she entertained a wholesome respect for this her 
 younger son. 
 
 Some ray of mind-telepathy common enough be- 
 tween persons in unison moved him to introduce the 
 subject. 
 
 "We shall have to let the old place," he said, 
 abruptly. "I was talking with Pugh last night about 
 it." 
 
 "Oh, Richard!" 
 
 ' ' I know, ' ' he said. ' ' Don 't let us go over it again, 
 
 2136S53
 
 6 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 mother. If anything else were possible it would be 
 different. But there it is, and I'm afraid we must 
 make the best of it. I 'm to see Pugh again this morn- 
 ing. " 
 
 His tone was matter-of-fact, but his face was rueful. 
 
 "If only you would marry Beatrice," his mother 
 sighed. 
 
 He did not appear in a mood to marry anybody, as 
 he sat finishing his breakfast abstractedly. 
 
 "So it is all arranged, "he said, rising. "Is there 
 anything you would like me to tell Pugh?" 
 
 Lady Kershaw pushed back her chair. ' 'There is 
 something I should like to tell you, Dick. " 
 
 He came nearer. "All right, mother," he said, 
 "don't take it badly. When it comes to the point we 
 can make ourselves happy enough, you will find. " 
 
 He saw her agitation. He touched her shoulder. 
 "Don't take it badly, " he said again. 
 
 Then she gave him the letter. 
 
 "I took it into my own hands, Richard; I feared 
 you would never consent. I could not bear to leave 
 the old place. The girl is coming to-day. ' ' 
 
 Kershaw read the letter through. 
 
 "Good heavens," he protested. "What could have 
 induced you to consent to such a thing? And for what 
 is she coming? What is there for her here?" 
 
 "Her father first wrote a month since. It appears 
 that his father married a Wynne, so that we are re- 
 motely, very remotely, connected. He has made a 
 large fortune in trade, and he wants her to have the 
 advantage of a better set than that he can introduce 
 her to. He writes, as you see, an honest, straightfor- 
 ward letter. He is evidently devoted to the girl. 
 Now, don't be vexed, Dick; other people do it. It is 
 harmless enough. And he offers two thousand pounds 
 for her visit of six months. ' ' 
 
 "Was there no other proposition, no suggestion of a 
 matrimonial quest?" Kershaw inquired, with some 
 irony. 
 
 "No," Lady Kershaw said. "I believe the man 
 honestly intends it as a form of finishing education.
 
 "SHE IS COMING TO-DAY." 7 
 
 He mentioned, I remember, that his health is broken, 
 that there is nobody to look after the girl in the event 
 of his death, and that if while here she should come 
 across some disinterested, true-hearted aristocrat he 
 seems an ingenuous old fellow, Richard; his girl's 
 husband was to be a paragon. But he did not urge 
 her marriage as a condition of her visit. ' ' 
 
 Kershaw paced the room, hands deep in pockets. 
 He was surprised to find himself less hostile to the 
 project than he could have supposed possible. That 
 guerdon of two thousand pounds, so sorely needed by 
 the estate, was, he could not help admitting, a factor 
 to temper opposition. 
 
 "We have no facilities, " he demurred. "We enter- 
 tain little. The stables are empty. There 's only poor 
 old Jane and the brougham. The drawing-room is 
 threadbare. Half the house is closed. She will expect 
 men-servants, horses and carriages, and big functions. 
 A pretentious little plutocrat ! Heavens, mother, how 
 could you prepare such a humiliation for your- 
 self?" 
 
 "The place is good enough for us, Dick." 
 
 "For us, because we're fond of every inch of it. It 
 is our home. It is our own. We are used to it. But 
 how it will strike a pork -butcher's ill-bred daughter " 
 
 "Furniture-polish, Dick " 
 
 "Well, how it will strike a furniture-polisher's ill- 
 bred daughter, who has been used to the luxury and 
 ostentation these people invariably go in for. Why, 
 where will she sleep?" 
 
 ' ' I thought of that. I will change to the blue room, 
 and she shall have mine. " 
 
 "No, "he objected, "we must not begin that style 
 of thing. She must take the house as she finds it. If 
 she is to come, I swear it shall not be to your incon- 
 venience. ' ' 
 
 "Well, well, I will keep my room and let her take 
 the blue room." She felt thankful enough that Rich- 
 ard was offering so little opposition to her plan. He 
 was a person of such very strong and strange opinions 
 that she would not have been astonished had he
 
 8 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 straightway wired the furniture-polisher negativing 
 the whole business. 
 
 "Isn't the blue room rather impossible?" he said. 
 "She may object to rats, and black oak wainscoting, 
 and funereal tapestry. My room is more recent. I 
 can easily turn out. ' ' 
 
 "Richard," his mother cried, admiringly, "you are 
 the one unselfish man I have met in a life-time. Your 
 room is just the thing I should have suggested had I 
 dared. ' ' 
 
 "Why," he said, laughing, "if I am so unselfish?" 
 
 She shook her head sagely. 
 
 "You do not mind giving up things," she explained; 
 "it is views of which you are so tenacious. I have 
 been horribly afraid you would bundle the heiress out 
 neck and crop, badly as we are in need of two thou- 
 sand pounds. For I thought of leaving you in ignor- 
 ance till she arrived. ' ' 
 
 "I detest the whole business, I must confess," he 
 said, hotly. "Had I known earlier " 
 
 "Thank heaven for a wise and prudent mother, my 
 son," the wise and prudent pronounced. "You will 
 be able to give the home farm a chance this year. 
 And no doubt we shall fully earn our 'honorarium,' as 
 the old man delicately terms it." 
 
 "She may be a decent little person," he suggested, 
 though he was far from feeling confident. 
 
 The arrangement jarred him horribly, and it was 
 especially annoying to have it sprung upon him as it 
 had been at the last moment. Had he known earlier, 
 out of the hundred and one things which needed doing 
 a few might have been done. He winced as he thought 
 of the heiress' contemptuous survey of their poverty. 
 
 Was there anything even in the house for dinner 
 anything beyond the routine fish, mutton, and pud- 
 ding? The wine in the cellar was low enough, in all 
 conscience. The whole thing seemed a precious mud- 
 dle. Even at that last moment he would have got out 
 of it, had not getting out of it involved his mother's 
 banishment from all she loved and valued. 
 
 "I am afraid it is rather like obtaining money under
 
 "SHE IS COMING TO-DAY." 9 
 
 false pretenses," he said, scrupulously. "Ours is not 
 at all the kind of establishment the heiress will expect." 
 
 He went out to look after things. 
 
 "I shall tell Ford to meet the three o'clock train 
 with the brougham," he said, as he went. 
 
 "Will you not drive, too, dear? It would only be 
 kind." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "I don't care a fig about being kind to Miss Pluto," 
 he said, adding, on the other side of the door, "con- 
 found her!" 
 
 "I hope she will be nice," his mother meditated. 
 She fell to musing. Presently she smiled: "After all, 
 Richard might take to her. And in these days 'every- 
 body marries trade."
 
 10 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 MISS PLUTO. 
 
 "Pap's got his patent right, and rich as all creation; 
 
 But where's the peace and comfort that we all had before? 
 Le's go a-visitin" back to Griggsby's Station 
 Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore ! 
 
 "Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station 
 
 Back where the latch-string's a-hangin' from the door, 
 And ever' neighbor 'round the place is dear as a relation 
 Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore." 
 
 "Goodness, I'm all trembling," Miss Pluto ejacu- 
 lated, as the train slackened speed. She had traveled 
 alone, her father not having screwed up courage 
 enough to face his daughter's titled hostess, or, it may 
 be, having feared to act prejudicially in that daughter's 
 interests. 
 
 "I suppose there'll be footmen in livery, and no end 
 of style, though pa says he daresay he could buy and 
 sell them," she reflected. 
 
 Mr. Rivers had carefully consulted the Peerage, and 
 finding Lady Kershaw of the Towers, Roldermere 
 at present living with her second son, Major the Hon- 
 orable Richard Kershaw to be the widow of the late 
 Baron Kershaw, had been duly impressed. 
 
 "If you should happen on a manly young chap to 
 your taste, Mill, mind and don't let him be a duke, ' ' 
 Mr. Rivers had stipulated earnestly. "I couldn't 
 stand having to say 'your grace' to my own girl." 
 
 "All right, pa," Mill had reassured him, blushing 
 and laughing. "I'll try and put up with an earl." 
 Then she had turned back, and, taking his dejected 
 face between her palms, had kissed him heartily. 
 "Take care of yourself, dad," she said; "I'd far rather 
 be stopping here with you. ' ' 
 
 As she stepped from the first-class carriage she had
 
 MISS PLUTO. II 
 
 occupied, a man in shabby livery came up and touched 
 his hat. 
 
 "Miss Rivers, miss?" he inquired, respectfully. 
 
 Miss Rivers nodded a trifle superciliously. 
 
 "I'm from the Towers," he said. "Lady Kershaw 
 sent the carriage to meet you." 
 
 Miss Rivers stared. She ran her eye over his well- 
 brushed livery, brushed to threadbareness. She tilted 
 her chin. 
 
 "Oh, well, you will find my luggage, please, and my 
 maid is in the train, and a groom with my horses, ' ' 
 she said. 
 
 In a moment it had occurred to her that, though the 
 position of these people whom to remember as cousins 
 took her breath away had been vouched for by the 
 Peerage, no guarantee had been given as to the way 
 in which she was to be regarded by them. She made 
 up her mind that they were about to treat her shab- 
 bily. Not only had no member of the family, of what- 
 soever this might consist, come to welcome her, but 
 they had sent an under-servant to meet her an under- 
 servant of so little status that he apparently inherited 
 the coachman's cast-off livery. Her quick, practical 
 brain jumped to these conclusions in a moment. 
 
 "I'll be even with them, though," she determined. 
 "I've got father's check here in my breast pocket" 
 (Miss Pluto wore the latest thing in masculine and 
 fashionable coats), "and if there is any nonsense, I'll 
 go back home to-morrow morning. Father's doing 
 the thing handsomely, and we ought to be met fair." 
 
 The shabby man, who, by the way, was a well-man- 
 nered man, broke in on her animadversions respect- 
 fully. 
 
 "The brougham is over by the other gate, miss," he 
 submitted. 
 
 She followed him with her head in the air, offense 
 in her heart. 
 
 "There's Parsons, my maid," she said, pointing out 
 a modish person, who had just alighted from another 
 carriage. "I suppose there is an omnibus for the 
 servants and the luggage."
 
 12 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 The man glanced up at her with as much apprehen- 
 sion in his features as a well-bred servant permits 
 himself. 
 
 "No," he said; "the luggage was to go in by the 
 coach, and her ladyship thoiight perhaps you wouldn't 
 mind the maid coming in the brougham with you." 
 
 But Miss Pluto had no such intention. The shabby 
 brougham, it's horse's head held by a shabbier urchin, 
 roused her ire. She was not accustomed to convey- 
 ance so sorry. Drive with her maid, indeed! She 
 would show them she had been used to do things in 
 style. She had no intention of being either patron- 
 ized or snubbed. Those who are on the lookout for 
 offense are quick to find it. And the heiress found it. 
 
 "It is possible, I suppose, to hire a cab?" she said. 
 
 "Yes, miss." 
 
 "Then, Parsons," she instructed the modish person, 
 who, too, was eyeing the one-horsed brougham with- 
 out respect, "take a cab, and bring on the luggage 
 I shall require for this evening. And find out from 
 Rogers how Queenie and Jock bore the journey." 
 
 "Very well, miss," Parsons said, and rustled off. 
 
 "We were idiots not to come down first and see for 
 ourselves what sort of people these Kershaws are," 
 Miss Pluto reflected. "And father might have had 
 more courage in asking questions, instead of trusting 
 so much to the Peerage. I daresay people in the 
 Peerage can be just as detestable as people out of it." 
 A reflection which showed that her right estimation of 
 fashionable life was coming before her acquaintance 
 with it. 
 
 The January afternoon was dull and damp. As 
 they drove at Jane's elderly, leisurely pace, the lamps 
 showed up the dripping hedges of a dreary drab, and 
 showers of mud sprayed up on either side of them, 
 even bespattering the carriage windows when a pud- 
 dle of more than average depth was invaded. 
 
 "I wish I had never come," she meditated. "It 
 doesn't look at all the kind of place for swells." 
 
 They were jolting down a quaint old high street, 
 with a cher reine cross set up in the market-place. It
 
 MISS PLUTO. 13 
 
 had been killing-day, and carcasses and several limbs 
 made dismal revel in shop windows. In the draper's 
 linsey-wolseys of an antique make, men's balbriggans, 
 and coarse corduroys sounded a note of hopeless 
 unpretension. 
 
 ' ' Nobody would think that there are more titles in 
 this county than in any other, ' ' the heiress, fresh from 
 the study of her Peerage, commented. But the fact 
 sustained her even in the face of appearances. 
 
 The long beech avenue, stretching to the house, and 
 the house, when it came in view, showing dimly and 
 inadequately lit out of the January gloom, inspirited 
 her. 
 
 "There's a something about it we haven't got," she 
 decided, "though we're twice the size. I wish pa had 
 taken a swell's house instead of building. Why, they 
 seem to have forgotten to light up!" 
 
 But, if they had forgotten, her arrival did not serve 
 for a reminder, for the door, opened by a neat maid, 
 admitted her to an immense hall, which a small fire 
 burning on a spacious hearth, and a couple of bracket 
 lamps, did but little to illuminate. She shivered, and, 
 making her way to the fire, held her gloved hands to 
 it. Two deerhounds, lying on a worn rug, sniffed at 
 her, and rumbled disaffectedly. 
 
 "It doesn't look as if they see much company," she 
 decided, following the maid up a low, broad staircase, 
 from the walls whereof row on row of pictured dead 
 looked down upon her disparagingly. Assuredly her 
 coat and toque showed out of place among those vel- 
 vet-doubleted cavaliers and stately dames. At the 
 top of the staircase an elderly woman in shabby silk 
 held a pale hand to her. 
 
 "You must be cold after your journey," she said, 
 kindly. ' ' Come into the drawing-room for tea. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, thank you," Miss Rivers returned a little 
 aggressively. At first she thought this might be a house- 
 keeper. But by the time she had swept a few more 
 surreptitious glances over the slender, shabby figure, 
 she knew it to be that of Lady Kershaw. 
 
 In a long, low-ceilinged room, faded and old-fash-
 
 14 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 ioned, a cosy corner was made by a bright fire, a couple 
 of easy chairs, an orange-shaded lamp, and a well-fur- 
 nished tea-table. A tapestry screen shut out sur- 
 rounding shabbiness and shadows. A superannuated 
 poodle, more like a bundle of pink satin and floss silk 
 than anything animate, arose with dignity and wagged 
 a condescending tail at a distance, after which it 
 yawned, lay down, and went to sleep again. 
 
 "You will like tea before you go to your room?" 
 Lady Kershaw suggested. 
 
 "Oh, thank you," Miss Rivers said again. 
 
 She glanced about her, dissatisfied. She was horri- 
 bly disappointed. What a dreary dungeon of a draw- 
 ing-room! And was this a sample of the family this 
 quiet, depressed woman in shabby silk? She had 
 expected smartness, brightness, possibly a family of 
 young people. Major Kershaw, the Peerage had 
 acquainted her, was bordering upon forty. He might 
 be the father of youths and maidens. She had quite 
 anticipated rubs with haughty daughters of the house, 
 and wars, perhaps, with supercilious sons. She had 
 pictured it all, looking foward with pleasurable excite- 
 ment to vanquishing the girls by virtue of a smart 
 tongue, whereof she was unduly proud, to say nothing 
 of a wealth of Worth dresses wherewith she had sup- 
 plied herself. The sons she expected to bring to her 
 feet in tribute to her father's check-book, for the con- 
 ditions of her visit proclaimed lack of means, and 
 being a somewhat assertive young person, she was 
 quite prepared to punish the superior airs she took for 
 granted by rejecting unconditionally such of them as 
 should propose. Her heart was warm, and melted to 
 a hint of friendliness; but this was a prospect alto- 
 gether too good to be expected, and, failing it, she had 
 braced herself to the tension of hostilities. 
 
 The outlook of the young is always egoistic, and for 
 the most part combative. Picturing life, they come, 
 they see, they conquer. It is only after sundry worst- 
 ings they begin to realize that the world's ogres do not 
 advance upon one in open warfare, brandishing clubs 
 and labelled "Ogre."
 
 MISS PLUTO. 15 
 
 Miss Rivers, having abandoned herself to disappoint- 
 ment, presently took heart again, realizing that though 
 she had been in the house some minutes and had seen 
 no girls, this by no means showed conclusively the 
 absence of girls. Society had been promised, and 
 nobody surely would come to see this sad old lady. 
 
 Then, too, there was a third tea-cup on the tray. 
 One other at least was coming. Unless, she reflected 
 superciliously, that were meant for the maid. 
 
 "Are there no girls?" she questioned, suddenly, after 
 a pause. She might as well find out for certain, 
 instead of bothering her wits and tiring her patience 
 with aimless conjecture. She was a somewhat direct 
 young woman. 
 
 Lady Kershaw started. The question was uncon- 
 ventionally abrupt. She, too, had been considering 
 taking in her visitor with quiet glances. Her expres- 
 sion was not one of satisfaction. She sighed as she 
 drank her tea. The fortunes of the house were not 
 likely to be revived by furniture-polish. The heiress 
 seemed a wholesome, hearty sort of girl, but she 
 thought of Richard. 
 
 "Are there ?" she echoed, inquiringly, to Miss 
 Pluto's challenge. 
 
 "Aren't there any girls? I expected you to have 
 some daughters, you know, ' ' Miss Pluto explained. 
 
 Lady Kershaw looked a little mystified. She, too, 
 had expected to have some daughters ; but that was 
 many years ago. Miss Rivers could not have meant 
 this. Then she understood. Of course ! 
 
 "No," she returned, "I have no daughters." 
 
 "Nor sons either?" Miss Pluto demanded point 
 blank, and with undisguised blankness. 
 
 Lady Kershaw glanced over at her reservedly. It 
 would not be easy to get on with a person so uncom- 
 promising. Six months were a long time. After a 
 pause : 
 
 "I have two sons," she admitted, colorlessly. "Only 
 one lives with me here." 
 
 "I suppose he is away from home?" Miss Pluto per- 
 sisted.
 
 16 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "No, he is at home." 
 
 Miss Pluto put her cup down suddenly. There was 
 an offended set about her lips. She decided in a 
 moment that he was too fine to associate with trade. 
 Then she took up her cup again, defiantly, and finished 
 her tea in mortified silence. She wished with all her 
 heart she had not come. She pictured her life here as 
 one long succession of slights. 
 
 She remembered her experience at school. It had 
 been a very fashionable school, recruited from the 
 daughters of the aristocracy. The principal was a 
 cousin of her mother, or she would never have been 
 privileged to enter so select a circle. The daughters 
 of the aristocracy had evidenced their breeding by 
 making her a butt for their contempt. "Miss Bees- 
 wax" had been their name for her, and such few amen- 
 ities as were vouchsafed her were freely embellished 
 with allusions to polish. The Lady Alicia Dovercourt, 
 during her first term, before (that was) the source of 
 the parental wealth transpired, swore herself Milli- 
 cent's eternal friend, and had even gone so far as to 
 persuade her patrician mother to write to Mr. Rivers 
 inviting his daughter to spend an ensuing vacation 
 with the family in Scotland. But when the thunder- 
 bolt fell, and the particular of furniture-polish leaked 
 out, the Lady Alicia dispatched to her, via the small- 
 est girl in the school, the following note, written on 
 highly-scented, crested paper, and folded into a billet- 
 doux : 
 
 "Lady Alicia Dovercourt presents her compliments 
 to Millicent Rivers, and thinks she is a mean cat to 
 pretend she was a lady when her father makes furni- 
 ture polish. Lady Alicia Dovercourt requests Milli- 
 cent Rivers to scratch Lady Alicia's name out of her 
 birthday book, so that nobody will ever be able to 
 make it out. And she wants all her letters back and 
 her photograph, as she is not in the habit of associat- 
 ing with tradespeople. And Lady Alicia begs to 
 inform Millicent Rivers that, as she has been invited, 
 she may come to Creel Lough if she cares to confine 
 her society to the servants' hall."
 
 MISS PLUTO. 17 
 
 On receipt of this patrician insult at the blue-blooded 
 hands she humbly worshiped, the base-born Beeswax 
 packed her boxes, and betook herself home with red 
 eyes and a bursting heart. So her fashionable educa- 
 tion and association came to an abrupt and unsatisfac- 
 tory end. Millicent tried no more schools ; but such 
 education as she obtained, she obtained from a resi- 
 dent governess and visiting masters. But that one 
 experience had rendered her morbidly sensitive on the 
 score of the paternal calling. She had been the less 
 prepared for it by the circumstance that her mother 
 having died at her birth, she had been her father's 
 spoiled and pampered darling an only child for whom 
 nothing and nobody in all the world were good enough. 
 When presently she "came out" in the plutocratic 
 world of her father's somewhat restricted set, her ruf- 
 fled composure was straightway soothed. In a society 
 made up of persons who had grown rich out of pickles 
 or corn-flour, furniture-polish was genteel at all 
 events it exalted its producer from the sphere of the 
 kitchen to that of the parlor, and Millicent, the million- 
 airess, was a young woman to be cultivated. 
 
 But now translated back to the association of her 
 schooldays, it was borne in upon her that the slights of 
 those schooldays were possibly in store for her. 
 
 "I had better have been contented with father's 
 people," she sighed. 
 
 Then she flushed again, ambitiously reflecting that 
 should she carry off the earl she would be uplifted to 
 a rank wherein slights could not harm her. She set 
 her teeth. She was a young woman of character ; it 
 was worth carrying through even at the risk of rubs. 
 
 ' ' I will go to my room, Lady Kershaw, please, ' ' she 
 said. ' ' I daresay my maid will have come by this time. ' ' 
 
 "Was she coming by a later train?" 
 
 "No." Miss Pluto's resolute chin mounted. "She 
 did not drive with me ; she came on after in a cab. ' ' 
 
 The elder woman understood. She had risen intend- 
 ing, with old-fashioned courtesy, to convoy Miss 
 Pluto to her apartment. She changed her mind. She 
 rang the bell.
 
 1 8 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Will you take Miss Rivers to her room," she 
 instructed the maid. "You are in the front of the 
 house, my dear," she added. "I hope you will be 
 comfortable. ' ' 
 
 Miss Rivers withdrew with a sense of abasement. 
 Lady Kershaw had not been at all impressed in the 
 manner she intended by her refusal to drive with her 
 maid. 
 
 When she had gone her hostess sighed. 
 
 "I fear she is hopelessly underbred, ' ' she commented.
 
 'AT HOME THERE'S ONLY PA AND ME." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 "AT HOME THERE'S ONLY PA AND ME." 
 
 "If I were a girl, a true-hearted girl, 
 Just budding to fair womanhood, 
 There's many a thing I would not do, 
 And numberless more that I would." 
 
 The Kershaws were waiting in the drawing-room. 
 The gong had sounded, and dinner had been announced. 
 Miss Rivers had not yet come down. The major con- 
 sulted his watch with interrogative brows. 
 
 "Do not be hard on her, Richard," his mother 
 smiled. "She has had a long journey." 
 
 The major pocketed his watch. He laughed good- 
 humoredly. 
 
 "Everything she does will be wrong," he admitted, 
 "till one is used to the notion of her." 
 
 "She seems a nice, bright girl." 
 
 "Phew!" he queried, "is she so bad as that?" 
 
 Ten minutes later the rustle of silk proclaimed her 
 coming. They could hear it arrogantly sweep the 
 staircase and the lobby. It paused, as if in doubt, 
 some little distance from the door, then recommenced 
 and waxed obtrusive as the heiress came sailing up 
 the room. She was smiling, well pleased. There was 
 no trace of hufnness about her. Her last glance into 
 her mirror had assured her she was looking well. She 
 had chosen her very smartest frock. It would have 
 been effective in a roomful of smart frocks, but in the 
 Kershaw faded drawing-room, beside Lady Kershaw's 
 simple dinner-gown and the major's dress-jacket, it 
 looked pretentious and out of place. 
 
 But the heiress perceived nothing of this, and showed 
 her white teeth, well -satisfied. 
 
 "My son, Major Kershaw, Miss Rivers." 
 
 The major bowed. Miss Rivers bowed, and held
 
 20 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 out her hand. She swept a shy, pleased glance into 
 his handsome face. 
 
 She was not a beauty; but she boasted a fine com- 
 plexion, and frank, sensitive eyes. Her smile would 
 have been engaging had it been better restrained. At 
 present it was somewhat effusive ; it suggested laugh- 
 ter rather than smiles; and a woman's laughter should 
 be rather in her eyes than on her mouth. 
 
 "How d'you do?" she queried, heartily. "I hope 
 you're quite well?" 
 
 Her brown eyes looked into his with so much frank, 
 kindly suggestion, that Kershaw was almost con- 
 strained into answering the conventionalism literally, 
 she seemed so sincerely interested. 
 
 "I trust you feel rested after your journey," her 
 hostess said. 
 
 "Oh, I feel fine," she responded. "It takes a lot to 
 tire me." 
 
 The major offered his arm. 
 
 "Shall we go in to dinner?" he said. 
 
 She looked about her with inquiring eyes. 
 
 "Are we all here?" 
 
 "We are all here." 
 
 "My, what a small family! I hoped there might be 
 some girls. I'm the only girl at home, and I find it 
 precious dull, I tell you." 
 
 "We will do our best to keep you from being dull 
 with us, ' ' he said. 
 
 The heiress flushed. "Oh, I never meant that," 
 she protested, confused. "And I expect I shan't," 
 she added, candidly, "because I suppose you keep 
 plenty of company. ' ' 
 
 The major seated her at his right hand, and served 
 soup. 
 
 "I haven't been to many parties yet, although I'm 
 turned twenty," she whispered her hostess confiden- 
 tially, with an eye on the butler, in whom she had at 
 once recognized her friend, the coachman. "Pa 
 wanted to make his fortune before he began to spend, 
 and we haven't been long in our new mansion, and 
 none of the people have asked us, or anything. There
 
 "AT HOME THERE'S ONLY PA AND ME." 21 
 
 are heaps of nice girls about, but they're awfully shy. 
 ] know some in the Sanday school I should like to 
 teach Sunday school here, if I may; I'm awfully fond 
 of children, and we haven't any at home but they 
 don't say much but 'good-morning.' Pa says we ought 
 to get introductions, but none of the Highbury people 
 know them. It must be nice knowing all the people 
 round, like you do, Lady Kershaw. " 
 
 Lady Kershaw smiled in spite of herself. The heir- 
 ess' candor and good-humor were engaging. She had 
 dropped the assumption of an hour earlier. Doubt- 
 less, that little set-back had been salutary. Major 
 Kershaw, finishing his soup, smiled under his mus- 
 tache. He had caught a portion of Miss Rivers' whis- 
 per. At the same time he was wondering how his 
 mother would survive six months of the social sole- 
 cisms whereof her guest was showing herself capable. 
 He was thinking that two thousand pounds might take 
 some painful earning. 
 
 "Did you find the journey tiresome?" he submitted. 
 
 "Oh, not at all," she said. "There was such a nice 
 old gentleman in the carriage ; he talked to me a lot. 
 He asked if he might come and see me at home. I 
 think he was a good deal of a swell. He got out at 
 the station before yours, and the footman said 'my 
 lord' to him. Such a queer, stout, old gentleman. Do 
 you know him?" 
 
 The major's fine mustaches lifted cynically. He 
 believed he knew him. 
 
 ' ' Possibly Windermere, ' ' he observed, with a glance 
 toward his mother. 
 
 Lady Kershaw looked grave. 
 
 "My dear," she said, "how did you come to talk to 
 him' 1 " 
 
 The heiress colored. 
 
 "I only put up the window for him when he 
 coughed," she said. "He was quite an old gentle- 
 man, Lady Kershaw. ' ' 
 
 There was a pause in the conversation. The heiress 
 looked distressed.
 
 22 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "I don't talk to people in trains generally," she said, 
 in a low voice. 
 
 "It was very good of you to trouble," her hostess 
 reassured her the girl was so genuinely distressed. 
 
 "I suppose you are a major in the army," she sug- 
 gested, presently. 
 
 Kershaw admitted it. She looked impressed. 
 
 "I know two majors in the Volunteers," she said. 
 "But don't you ?" she broke off suddenly. Her eye 
 traveled perplexedly over her host's dress jacket. 
 
 "The gold lace tarnishes if one wears it every day," 
 he stated, gravely. 
 
 "I suppose uniforms are dear," she assented. She 
 glanced about her. She had long since realized the 
 threadbareness of carpet, and the worn edges of 
 leather. She was sorry the Kershaws were poor. She 
 had begun to like them. "You wear it to balls?" 
 
 "Some balls." 
 
 She looked pleased. She was thinking shyly how 
 nice it would be to go to a ball with the major in his 
 gold lace. She made up her mind that he was the 
 handsomest man she had ever seen. 
 
 "I am afraid you will find our evenings rather dull," 
 her hostess apologized, when they had gone to the 
 drawing-room. She took up her work-basket, and her 
 fingers were soon busy on a silk sock. 
 
 Miss Pluto came out of a reverie. 
 
 "Does he sing?" she queried. 
 
 "Who my son? No." 
 
 "Did he ever?" 
 
 The elder woman looked a little mystified. Then 
 comprehension coming to her, "He is younger than 
 he may look to a stranger," she observed, with dig- 
 nity. 
 
 "Oh, he looks much younger than I expected," Mil- 
 licent said, hurriedly, "and he is very handsome." 
 
 His mother seemed mollified. 
 
 "I see very , little of him after dinner," she said. 
 "He is a great reader, and just now he is exceptionally 
 busy. He is finishing a book of poems." 
 
 After a somewhat lengthy silence : "Well, I can sing
 
 "AT HOME THERE'S ONLY PA AND ME." 23 
 
 to you if you would like it," the heiress volunteered. 
 "At home I sing to pa." 
 
 "Have you no English songs? I am fond of our 
 English ballads," the elder woman suggested, when 
 the younger had bravely and conscientiously accom- 
 plished some painful athletics in vocal Italian. 
 
 "I have a book of old English airs," the singer said, 
 a little ruefully. "I sing them to pa. Miss Makin 
 she was my governess liked Italian songs best. " She 
 laughed. "She didn't understand a word of them, but 
 she thought them high-toned. She wouldn't let me 
 bring the old English airs for fear you might think 
 them common ; but I can write home for them if you 
 would really like them, Lady Kershaw." 
 
 "That is very sweet of you; but I will have my old 
 folio of songs brought down to-morrow. I think you 
 will find them all there." 
 
 Miss Rivers quitted the piano, and sat silent by the 
 fire, watching Lady Kershaw's busy fingers. 
 
 "Are they for him?" she inquired, with her eyes on 
 the scarlet sock. 
 
 "For my son? Yes." 
 
 "I can knit a little," was submittted shyly after an- 
 other pause. 
 
 "Well, you shall knit a pair like this for your 
 brother," Lady Kershaw said, kindly. 
 
 "You see that's just it, I haven't a brother," the 
 heiress said, with a catch in her voice. Her eye sought 
 the door with sudden wistfulness. "At home there's 
 only pa and me. " She smoothed out a cascade of rich 
 lace which had got slightly tumbled. Then, "I sup- 
 pose I couldn't knit well enough to to do the other?" 
 she said. 
 
 "You might knit some for your father," Lady Ker- 
 shaw returned, hastily. She was very particular about 
 the major's socks. Moreover was ever mother free 
 from jealousy? 
 
 "Is it better etiquette to say 'father' than 'pa'?" the 
 girl inquired, shyly. "Pa likes me to say 'father' 
 best. It's Miss Makin who would have me say 'pa.' ' 
 
 "You must do what your father wishes, dear."
 
 24 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Father said perhaps, Lady Kershaw, you wouldn't 
 mind telling me things like that sometimes, if it 
 wouldn't be a trouble." 
 
 Lady Kershaw laid down her knitting. Her eyes 
 met the girl's eyes cordially. 
 
 1 ' I shall be glad to help you in any way, " she said, 
 kindly. She seemed pleased. The heiress was show- 
 ing in a more favorable light.
 
 'THE YOUNG LADY GAVE HER ORDERS." 25 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "THE YOUNG LADY GAVE HER ORDERS." 
 
 "'Tisgold 
 
 Which buys admittance." 
 
 "What the deuce are you about?" demanded Ker- 
 shaw. 
 
 The stables were transformed into a carpenter's 
 shop. Outside, a horse, harnessed to a piled wagon, 
 stood half-asleep, waking from time to time to clang a 
 heavy-hoofed impatience against the cobble-stones. 
 Inside, a carpenter's bench, a rising mound of shav- 
 ings, the crunch of a saw snarling its way gruffly 
 through a stout beam, under stress of a strong hand, 
 made harsh disorder. Further on a man brandishing 
 a mallet was assaulting one of the partitions of the 
 loose-box. 
 
 "What the deuce are you about?" Kershaw de- 
 manded in a higher key, for the men were so intent 
 on their task of demolition that his previous protest 
 passed unheard. The man, with the mallet poised for 
 another onslaught, held it suspended in mid-air. 
 
 "Very true, maister, " he assented, on the top of a 
 tall breath. "We's a-wirin' into it surely." 
 
 He swung the mallet down with a force which 
 brought a stanchion and some feet of planking heavily 
 to the ground. At this rate the stable would shortly 
 be in ruins. The major caught him by the shoulder. 
 
 "What the devil are you doing?" he insisted. 
 
 The man looked up into his face perplexed. 
 
 "We's a-knockin' it all down first," he explained 
 above the snarl of the saw, which the other man 
 stolidly wielded. 
 
 "So I see," Kershaw retorted. "And what the 
 deuce do you mean by it?" 
 
 The hammerer looked nonplussed. He laid his mal-
 
 26 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 let down, and wiped perspiring brows. Then he jerked 
 his thumb in the direction of the sawyer. 
 
 "Ask "im," he said, laconically. "He's the boss." 
 
 Kershaw strode up, hands in pockets, and, confront- 
 ing the irrepressible sawyer, repeated his question. 
 
 "The boss" turned sullen. He hated to be inter- 
 rupted before his beam was through. It meant losing 
 what he termed the "go" in his saw. 
 
 "Repairin' the stable as per contract," he blurted. 
 
 "And who gave you the contract to repair my 
 stable?" 
 
 "The young lady, sir, the young lady gave her 
 orders yes'day. 'Twas to be done immediate, and with- 
 out delay, which we're doin'." 
 
 He grasped his saw again. 
 
 "There is no young lady here," Kershaw began. 
 Then he remembered. An idea struck him. "What 
 young lady?" he inquired. 
 
 "Miss Rivers, sir the young lady as is stoppin' 
 'ere. I seen her jest now. 'Twas to be all fitted up 
 new with polished pine, and chocolate tiles, and brass 
 fittin's." 
 
 Kershaw was silent for one moment. In that 
 moment he had swallowed his wrath for subsequent 
 mastication. 
 
 "It is as I thought," he said, quietly. "It is all a 
 mistake. Put your things together and take them 
 away again. The stable will do as it is. Here, my 
 man," he called to the hammerer, "get some nails, 
 and repair the mischief you've done. Leave the place 
 as you found it. ' ' 
 
 The men looked agape. 
 
 The major laughed. "It has been a mistake, " he 
 repeated. 
 
 He strode out with scintillating eyes. 
 
 The heiress had been a week at the Towers. During 
 that time he had seen but little of her. They had met 
 at lunch and dinner, occasionally at breakfast. She 
 had subsided into shyness and silence, with intervals of 
 effusive cheerfulness. His book at present engrossed 
 his attention. He had but little time or thought for
 
 "THE YOUNG LADY GAVE HER ORDERS." 27 
 
 her. Now, however, he went in search of her. He 
 found her soon; she was apparently on her way to 
 overlook the operations in the stables. At sight of 
 him her normally beaming countenance broke out in 
 smiles. It is improbable that he looked reassuring, 
 yet by the time she had come up with him her face 
 was radiant. 
 
 ' ' Good-morning, ' ' she said, heartily, then, in a fit of 
 shyness, would have passed him. 
 
 But he stopped short. "Good-morning," he re- 
 turned. ' ' I was looking for you. ' ' 
 
 She glanced into his face. Her own fell. 
 
 "Have you given any orders about the stables, Miss 
 Rivers?" 
 
 "Why, you have never seen them," she exclaimed, 
 disappointed. "Now that is a nuisance; I wanted 
 them finished before you knew anything about it. ' ' 
 
 "Possibly," he said, dryly; "but I have sent the 
 men about their business. I prefer the stables as they 
 are. ' ' 
 
 She read the anger in his face. 
 
 ' ' I thought it would be nice to have them made like 
 ours at home," she faltered. 
 
 He bowed. 
 
 "I prefer them as they are." 
 
 "My horses^-" she began. 
 
 "Your horses are very comfortably housed," he 
 insisted firmly; "they have not silver fittings nor their 
 furniture polished " 
 
 The blood rushed over her cheeks. 
 
 "Oh, how can you?" she flashed out; "how can you 
 taunt me with it?" 
 
 Kershaw wondered. 
 
 Then, "Good heavens!" he exclaimed; "did you 
 think I meant that?" 
 
 But the heiress had stalked irefully off, her flushed 
 face in the air. 
 
 "Good heavens," he said again, "how could the lit- 
 tle idiot think I meant that?" 
 
 In the house another surprise awaited him. His 
 mother met him at the door.
 
 28 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Richard," she said, "I must speak with you." She 
 looked distressed. 
 
 "It is that confounded heiress again, I suppose?" 
 
 "One scarcely knows what to do. We cannot allow 
 her to spend her money " 
 
 "You have heard of the stables, then? Why, of 
 course, we cannot ; I sent the men immediately about 
 their business." 
 
 Lady Kershaw's face became a question. 
 
 "The stables? Why, what has happened to the 
 stables?" 
 
 He told her. "And now what has happened to the 
 house?" 
 
 "Men have come down from town with stoves, 
 lamps, and plants to stock the conservatory. I was 
 there with her the morning after she came. She 
 remarked then on the emptiness of the place, and 
 asked me, casually enough, did I not like flowers? 
 Richard, don't go" the major turned at the door "I 
 cannot bear you to send them away, they are so beauti- 
 ful. There are palms, and choice ferns and flowering 
 plants " 
 
 Kershaw experienced a pang of mortification. The 
 furniture-polisher's daughter could give his mother 
 these, the things she coveted, while he 
 
 "We cannot be patronized," he urged. "My dear 
 mother, are we to have our house turned upside down, 
 our stables leveled and built up to this young madam's 
 taste, without her taking the trouble even to consult 
 us?" 
 
 "She has a good heart, Dick; she means it in all 
 kindness, and she has more money than she knows 
 how to spend. ' ' 
 
 "Possibly," he submitted, dryly; "but we cannot 
 put ourselves in the position of receiving kindnesses 
 that run into fifty-pound notes." 
 
 "Well, I should have liked the flowers," his mother 
 sighed. 
 
 He halted at the door. Then, "You shall have the 
 flowers," he said, as he went out. 
 
 Just before dinner the heiress came rustling her
 
 "THE YOUNG LADY GAVE HER ORDERS." 29 
 
 skirts she had descended in the scale of her evening 
 magnificence, but she had not a frock which did not 
 rustle opulently into the conservatory. 
 
 Lady Kershaw and her son were there. The heiress 
 sought his face with glances half defiant, half abashed. 
 If she had offended him, had he not equally offended 
 her? and so were they not quits? They had not met 
 since morning, he having lunched out. She glanced 
 about the well-stocked place. The men had done their 
 work efficiently. Everything was in good taste. The 
 stoves glowed warm amid ferns and blossoms, showing 
 rich and ornamental with their stained flames. Already 
 the air was damply hot. 
 
 ' ' It does look rather nice, ' ' she said, pleased. 
 
 Her eye sought Kershaw' s in reconciliation. 
 
 "It is charming," Lady Kershaw said; "my dear, I 
 am delighted." 
 
 " It is certainly an improvement, " Kershaw admitted. 
 
 The heiress listened for some further word. Her 
 ears disappointed her. I think he might have said 
 one syllable of thanks, she reflected resentfully, as 
 she took his arm to go in to dinner. 
 
 Two mornings later, opening a letter beside her 
 plate, a receipted bill to the amount of forty odd 
 pounds for greenhouse stock and workmen's time 
 appeared. She was abstracted and silent during 
 breakfast. 
 
 "May I say a word to you, Major Kershaw?" she 
 appealed, as he rose from the table. 
 
 He led the way into his study. She ran upstairs, 
 and came down in a minute, purse in hand. She put 
 the receipted bill into his hands. 
 
 "You paid it?" she inquired. 
 
 He acquiesced. 
 
 She unclasped her purse. 
 
 "It is a mistake," she faltered, hurriedly. "They 
 are people we employ at home. I told them to put it 
 on to father's bill." Then, after a pause, "Will you 
 please take the money, Major Kershaw. I do so want 
 you to take the money." She fluttered out some bank 
 notes.
 
 30 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Put them back," he said, quietly. "I cannot allow 
 you to pay expenses my mother and I have incurred. " 
 
 "But it is my debt; I ordered the flowers." 
 
 "Neither can I allow you," he said, gently, "to 
 order things in our house. " 
 
 He bowed and left her. 
 
 The heiress gathered up her bank notes with a crim- 
 son face. She tapped a boot-toe petulantly on the 
 floor. 
 
 "It is abominable of him," she cried, tears of vexa- 
 tion springing to her eyes. "He couldn't be prouder 
 if he were a king, and so poor as they must be. ' ' 
 
 Then she fled in panic to her desk and dispatched a 
 hurried countermand of an order she had issued for 
 the general re-furbishing of the Kershaw drawing- 
 room. 
 
 "I might just as well be a pauper for all the good I 
 shall get out of my money here, "she reflected, wrath - 
 fully ; "I have a good mind to go home again. ' ' 
 
 But she remained.
 
 'A MATRIMONIAL AGENCY." 31 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 "A MATRIMONIAL AGENCY." 
 
 "I wished, and I dreamt that a white mist arose 
 
 Where the hedgerow brambles twist, 
 I wished that my love were a sweet wild rose 
 And I the silvery mist. " 
 
 "We must give a dinner-party, Dick, to introduce 
 the heiress. " 
 
 "I suppose we must. We are under obligation to 
 do something for our wage. " 
 
 "Two thousand pounds are not to be despised," 
 Lady Kershaw pronounced, sturdily. 
 
 ' 'Certainly not. It is the way of earning them. We 
 have launched out upon a species of matrimonial 
 agency, you know. " 
 
 "Honestly, if I had thought that, I would never 
 have consented to her coming. Her father, as I told 
 you, made marriage only a contingency on her visit. 
 For the rest, her manners have improved already, and 
 I find her a very -nice girl. " 
 
 "How shall you present her, mother? As a paying 
 guest?" 
 
 "My son, don't be obtuse. I shall introduce her as 
 a cousin. The cousinship is by marriage, and some 
 ninety-nine degrees remote, but it will serve." 
 
 "I detest the whole business," he said, impatiently. 
 
 "I don't," his mother insisted. "The girl is a 
 pleasant companion, and it will be interesting to see 
 her develop. There is sterling fibre under her rough 
 bark. As for responsibility, I cannot feel that we 
 incur any. A quarter of a million of money is cre- 
 dential enough for any girl." 
 
 He could not deny it. 
 
 "Whom do you propose to ask?" 
 
 "Lord and Lady Windermere, Sir Charles Newby
 
 32 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 and his sister, Mrs. Vereker-Brown and Nelly, Tom 
 Vaux and his father. Lord Waldon. " 
 
 "You are playing fair, I see. Trotting out your 
 eligibles. ' ' 
 
 "I am giving her four. Let the best man win." 
 
 "Four? Newby, Vaux, Waldon, and " 
 
 "And Richard Kershaw, my dear major." 
 
 "That is very amiable of you," he smiled; "but, as 
 I am living in the same house, wouldn't it be taking a 
 mean advantage of the old man? It wasn't for such a 
 son-in-law he made his shekels." 
 
 "I'm afraid you will always be a fool, Richard," his 
 mother said, observing him. "She's a very decent 
 little girl, and, as you say, you have the advantage 
 even if you had no other of living in the same house, 
 and you might as well whistle for the moon as for 
 Alicia. You must know that. ' ' 
 
 He was making for the door. 
 
 "When is the affair to come off?" he queried, turn- 
 ing back. 
 
 "This day fortnight. I am writing the invitations 
 now. ' ' 
 
 "You might as well ask Alicia and her brother 
 while you are about it, ' ' he suggested, as he went. 
 
 Lady Kershaw shook her head above her writing- 
 table. 
 
 "Remember we dine with the Vereker-Browns this 
 evening, ' ' she called after him. 
 
 "What a pity he hasn't more of me in him," she 
 deplored. "His father never had a grain of practi- 
 cality. ' ' 
 
 "Millicent, dear," she said later, "would you mind 
 calling in at the library and telling the major from me 
 not to forget that we dine this evening with the Ver- 
 eker-Browns. " 
 
 Millicent hesitated. Since that affair of the stables, 
 the relations between herself and Kershaw had been 
 somewhat strained. 
 
 It were best not to keep it up, she decided magnan- 
 imously. 
 
 "Very well, Lady Kershaw."
 
 "A MATRIMONIAL AGENCY." 33 
 
 "Oh, Millicent." 
 
 "Yes, Lady Kershaw. " 
 
 The elder woman rose and put her two hands gently 
 on the younger 's silk-clad shoulders. 
 
 "My dear," she said, "you asked me to tell you of 
 any little thing " 
 
 The heiress colored. She bent her brow. 
 
 "Well, it shouldn't be 'Lady Kershaw' quite so 
 often, dear. ' ' 
 
 She patted her cheek, smiling. 
 
 "That is all. It is only a trifle. And now run and 
 dress, for I want you to look your best this evening. ' ' 
 
 The heiress departed with a crimson face. 
 
 "What a lot of things there are to learn about high- 
 toned manners," she sighed ruefully. 
 
 She knocked gently at the major's door. 
 
 "Come in," he called. 
 
 He was sitting dejectedly before the fire. He had 
 been writing, and seemed still absorbed. A reading 
 lamp near cast the pallid glow of its green shade over 
 his face. Perhaps it was this which brought out 
 strong, strained lines on either side his gold mustache. 
 She had seen him look angry. She had not seen him 
 look sad. Her heart softened to him. She hoped it 
 was not the bill for the flowers which was depressing 
 him. Perhaps he had troubles other than money 
 troubles. 
 
 "Oh, Major Kershaw," she began, softly. 
 
 He started up. His features resumed their normal 
 expression. "I am sorry " he apologized, "I did 
 not see you. ' ' 
 
 "Lady Kershaw asked me to remind you that we 
 dine with Mrs. Vereker- Brown this evening." 
 
 "Thank you," he said. "I had not forgotten." 
 
 She had reached the door. She came back. 
 
 "Have you forgiven me about the stables?" she 
 inquired. "You see it isn't as if I were quite a stran- 
 ger. We are sort of cousins, father says. ' ' 
 
 "I am very glad of it," he smiled, "and I have quite 
 forgiven you. ' ' 
 
 She ran upstairs, singing under her breath, and
 
 34 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 wondering all the way how she could ever have pic- 
 tured him with a family of grown-up sons and daugh- 
 ters. 
 
 The heiress did not look her best at the Vereker- 
 Browns. To begin with, she was badly dressed. The 
 plainness of Lady Kershaw's dinner-gowns had 
 spoiled her confidence in style. Perhaps after all, in 
 this fashionable world, with which she was renewing 
 acquaintance, it was not good form she had adopted 
 the shibboleth to dress finely for dinner. At all 
 events she would be on the safe side. So she decided 
 on a black silk frock. It did not suit her. Black 
 jarred with the vivid reds and whites of her complex- 
 ion, giving her a somewhat bizarre look. Moreover, 
 the gown was cut with only a little square at the 
 throat, and the well-modeled, roundly-covered shoul- 
 ders, which were a strong point with her, were so 
 deducted from the sum of her attractions. Then she 
 had caused her hair to be dressed after a fashion which 
 was classic and in vogue, but did not become her. 
 And she was shy arid silent, and her face flushed with 
 excitement. This was her entry to the new world. 
 
 Lady Kershaw scanned her critically as she came 
 slowly down the great staircase, putting on her gloves. 
 Not a shade of the disappointment in her mind was 
 permitted on her face. Good gracious, she was think- 
 ing, why didn't the girl wear her eau-de-nil frock with 
 chiffon trimmings? That became her admirably. And 
 what in the name of vexation had come to her hair? 
 
 The paying guest was not so mortifying a circum- 
 stance if her manners and appearance were but cred- 
 itable. But any obtrusion of her class were calculated 
 to make one ridiculous. 
 
 Even the major was disappointed, and Millicent had 
 no great portion of his thoughts. He did not formu- 
 late, but wondered vaguely how she had managed to 
 dispose of such charm as she possessed. Ordinarily she 
 was buoyant and pretty. To-night she was depressed 
 and plain. 
 
 He almost hoped Vaux would not show up at the 
 Vereker-Browns. He had begun to get it somewhat
 
 "A MATRIMONIAL AGENCY." 35 
 
 on his conscience that the furniture-polisher should 
 not spend his two thousand pounds to 110 purpose. He 
 had a species of irritating sense that so he and his 
 mother would be obtaining money under false pre- 
 tenses. That which Rivers intended was evident 
 enough. And the girl was a nice girl, and should have 
 her chance. He had not the remotest intention of 
 furthering such an affair by word or deed, but Vaux 
 had occurred to him as a possible parti for this opulent 
 little cousin of his. So both might be benefited. Vaux 
 was open-handed and poor. It was true he had no 
 title beyond the somewhat unsubstantial one of "Hon- 
 orable." But and the major smiled poor little 
 Pluto in these days of heiresses, American and other- 
 wise, must needs content herself, for though she were 
 pretty and pleasant, she could not be considered a 
 beauty. And after all a quarter of a million was only 
 so-so, especially when leavened with furniture-polish. 
 
 Vaux was wont to vaunt himself in his candid fash- 
 ion at a valuation of a million. 
 
 ' ' I think he would content himself with a quarter, ' ' 
 the major reflected, "and the little girl would get a 
 very decent chap for husband." Then he was dis- 
 gusted with himself for match-making, and dismissed 
 the subject straightway. 
 
 As they drove, he noticed the splendid sparkle of 
 her diamond necklet the only ornament she permit- 
 ted herself that evening. He sighed. He was think- 
 ing of a dainty, aristocratic throat he wotted of, which 
 nature seemed to have fashioned for such diamonds, 
 but fortune had gainsaid. Poor Lady Alicia had only 
 a string of pearls which had belonged to a great-grand- 
 mother. The larger portion of the family jewels had 
 found their way into the greedy clutches of a notorious 
 burlesque actress. Not in the form, be it said, of the 
 family jewels. That would ill have accorded with his 
 lordship Windermere's notions of honor. Her lady- 
 ship had been constrained to wrathfully convert them 
 into paste and cash, whereof she retained the paste and 
 he the cash till the burlesque actress got scent of it. 
 
 What sort of justice was there in things, Kershaw
 
 36 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 cogitated irritably, which decked little Pluto with 
 superlative diamonds, while Alicia, the high-born, the 
 peerless He put the thought away, Do not let 
 him be mean enough to grudge the girl her jewels 
 even for that other's sake. She was generous enough 
 in all conscience with her possessions. Moreover, 
 Alicia had so much beside. 
 
 He leaned forward, and replaced the rug which had 
 slipped down over her knees. 
 
 "We have a long way to drive," he said; "you 
 must not get cold. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, thank you," she cried, in a flutter, and too 
 gratefully. She had not caught yet the manner of a 
 class which takes as a right and sparing of thanks the 
 ministrations of its masculinity. 
 
 With that new dawning in her mind of the age of 
 forty as compatible with so much more of youth than 
 she had ever conceived, Kershaw had all at once 
 become less distantly exalted. She had been watching 
 his face from her corner of shadow. 
 
 "He is like King Arthur in my birthday Tennyson, " 
 she was thinking. "And that lovely mustache of his 
 isn't gray at all; it is only pale gold. Yes, he would 
 be just like King Arthur if he were in armor. ' ' 
 
 So it is not to be wondered at that she was fluttered, 
 when he extended a royal knightly hand, and wrapped 
 the rug about her. 
 
 After she had thanked him, she remained a long 
 while silent. The light from a passing carriage showed 
 him her face a sober, awed face above the wicked 
 gleam of diamonds. 
 
 " Poor little cousin, " he mused. "She is certainly 
 not looking her best to-night. But perhaps Vaux will 
 not be of the party. ' ' After which he fell to musing 
 of another who, he hoped to heaven, would be. 
 
 She was, and looked inimitable. Her flower-like 
 face, poised on its white stem of supple throat, white 
 as the string of pearls about it, seemed to him like 
 some lovely oasis in human desert. And, like an 
 oasis, it mocked his thirst. It was the covetable, the 
 delectable, the unattainable. He was* by nature a
 
 "A MATRIMONIAL AGENCY." 37 
 
 dreamer and a poet. Active service had taken some- 
 thing of this out of him. But there was enough of 
 original nature left to him to render Alicia an idyll in 
 his throbbing brain. 
 
 As he entered the drawing-room, in the rear of his 
 women-kind, her glance met his across the space. Her 
 lids lowered for a moment on her lovely eyes, her lips 
 unfolded a fraction over her perfect teeth. Had she 
 been less highly bred she would have blushed. He 
 ground his teeth, interpreting. She cared for him! 
 He was confident she cared for him so far as the love 
 of a mere man were possible to her dainty disdainful- 
 ness. But he knew his poverty to be a barrier more 
 inexorable between them than even personal loathing 
 on her part would have been. That was the inevitable 
 of her training. Then his jaws squared. He would 
 win her yet ! She was but a woman with all her white 
 perfections he paused a moment to thank ,some power 
 .responsible for that she was but a woman and a 
 woman was to be won. 
 
 "You look ill, major," Mrs. Vereker-Brown said, as 
 they shook hands. 
 
 "Nevertheless I am flourishing," he laughed. 
 
 "I say, Richard," Vaux adjured him, "present me 
 to the heiress. Can't say she's a very gilded-lookin' 
 nugget, though, from what they say of the old man, 
 she ought to be. No offense, old chap; heard all 
 about her from our lawyer, By Jove! how bloomin' 
 you look. Never saw you look so bloomin' before." 
 
 It was in the interval between greeting his hostess 
 and meeting Vaux that he had decided Alicia was but 
 a woman.
 
 38 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE LADY ALICIA DOVERCOURT. 
 
 "In his heart 
 
 She reigned, with all the beauties that she had, 
 And all the virtues that he took 
 For granted.' 
 
 By some fortuitous concomitance of happy accidents 
 or by hospitable design he took her in to dinner. She 
 proved her human actuality by eating and drinking 
 like other mere mortals. But few other mortals boasted 
 such slender, perfect hands wherewith to grasp the 
 commonplace of knife and fork, nor such a cupid 
 mouth to condescend as gateway for the crudities of 
 turtle and truffle. She even drank champagne, though, 
 to Kershaw's adoring gaze, it took on the character of 
 nectar as it touched her lips. For he was very much 
 in love dangerously in love as only a man with the 
 rare combination of powerful build and poetic temper- 
 ament can be. When his passion was not blinding 
 him his poetic temperament was; and for blinding 
 capability, passion, though it be competent enough in 
 all conscience, is many times inferior to poetic tem- 
 perament. The temperament plays on higher strings, 
 and its vibrations are so much the subtler and the 
 more distracting 
 
 The Lady Alicia did not talk brilliantly on this occa- 
 sion ; but to him she appeared to drop pearls and other 
 wonders from her lovely mouth. 
 
 During this dinner, which was an ecstasy to her 
 companion (had ever woman such a skin, and shoulders 
 so like snowballs?) he compared her loveliness with 
 Rosamund's Rosamund, so fair and tender that you 
 could see her rosy fancies playing through her trans- 
 lucent flesh she said nothing more than mortal might 
 say.
 
 THE LADY ALICIA DOVERCOURT. 39 
 
 Was he going to the hunt ball? She had been to a 
 pantomime with two small nephews. What queer 
 creatures boys were ! The clown was so funny ! She 
 supposed he was too grave to care for clowns. She 
 felt positively young again when the transformation 
 scene came on. It was delicious to feel young again. 
 He had not been hunting lately. She supposed he 
 was burying himself in some book or another. How 
 clever and industrious it was of people to write books ! 
 She was absolutely afraid of him now he was becoming 
 such a noted person. Lord Salisbury had praised his 
 "Idylls of Thought" to her the. other day. She was 
 quite proud of knowing the author. 
 
 To all of which Kershaw listened thirstily with eye 
 and ear. Had ever woman such a charm of speech 
 and voice? He could see the dainty veinings of her 
 milk-white arms, the azure vessels curving in the 
 ivory skin, to branch delicate over the back of her 
 slim wrist, and lose themselves finally in the slender 
 thrilling fingers. 
 
 There was one full tracery darkly blue in a snowball 
 shoulder Alicia wore a frock which did not hide her 
 shoulders a tracery it thrilled him with an exquisite 
 pain to note, the transparent skin seemed to his ten- 
 derness so frail a barrier to guard her perfect life. 
 
 For the major was badly in love. A look from her 
 limpid eyes set him aflame; a touch of her fingers 
 choked him with a swirl of passion. He was a poet, 
 with the intenseness of a poet; a soldier, with a sol- 
 dier's virility. His poetry deified her, his manhood 
 craved her with all the hunger of the gulf his evil for- 
 tune clove between them. 
 
 "Which is the heiress?" she inquired, with a quick 
 sweep of his profile out of her bright eyes. 
 
 Kershaw glanced down the table, Millicent had not 
 once visited his mind since a certain white arm had 
 slipped its soft, maddening pressure through his. 
 
 He met the heiress' eyes. How sober and dissatis- 
 fied she looked. Yet Vaux at her side Mrs. Vereker- 
 Brown had a talent for mating her guests was taking 
 pains to make himself agreeable.
 
 40 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "She is sitting between Vaux and Morton; she 
 wears black silk." 
 
 Alicia's lovely profile canted itself daintily about. 
 His thought clung passionately down the sweet, fine 
 curve of her throat. 
 
 "The pretty girl with the diamonds?" 
 
 "Do you call her pretty?" 
 
 The limpid eyes caressed him. 
 
 "Do you not?" 
 
 "She does not look her best to-night. " 
 
 She laughed. The idolatry of his glance, which 
 showed him incapable of worshiping any god but her, 
 gave her a pleasant thrill. 
 
 "I think I was at school with her," she said, with 
 an engaging condescension. 
 
 "Were you at school?" 
 
 One might have supposed this piece of perfection to 
 have dropped in its perfection from the skies. 
 
 "Why, of course. Am I so shockingly ignorant?" 
 
 What raillery in her glancing eyes ! 
 
 "She has not mentioned it. " 
 
 How obtuse of the girl not to have chronicled so 
 eminent a fact! 
 
 "Perhaps she would not remember me," Beauty 
 submitted demurely. 
 
 He laughed incredulous. Could the grass-blade for- 
 get the sun? He looked to see the grass-blade lift its 
 grateful head to the regard of its luminary. But the 
 heiress' face was turned away. She was listening, and 
 now smiling, to some sally of Vatix. 
 
 "Shall you be at Waldon's on the twentieth?" he 
 questioned. 
 
 "Shall you?" 
 
 "Answer my question first. " 
 
 "I shall." 
 
 "Then, I shall. " 
 
 Her laugh rippled. What Goth was it who slandered 
 woman's voice by likening it to water? cold, common 
 water ! 
 
 "You are becoming a mere butterfly. You used to
 
 THE LADY ALICIA DOVERCOURT. 41 
 
 be a bookworm. One could not tempt you from your 
 study. ' ' 
 
 "One has, " he said gravely. 
 
 "I must look out for her. " 
 
 "Do." 
 
 He turned his lean face to her. It was fierce with 
 hunger. 
 
 "In my eyes, " he said whimsically. 
 
 Again her laughter rippled. She swept him with 
 alluring glances. She was thoroughly enjoying her- 
 self. To whip up with cool, practiced skill the hot 
 torrent of a man's passion she found to be the pret- 
 tiest sport possible. And it were easy enough to trip 
 aside when the angry current waxed importunately 
 wroth. 
 
 "I am so vain," she said, softly, "I might only see 
 myself. " 
 
 He was peeling an orange for her. She saw his 
 fingers tremble. She remembered a story she had 
 heard of a certain young officer who, with a handful of 
 men, had led a forlorn hope and saved a fortress, while 
 all the while an arm hung broken by his side. To 
 that day he carried in his face the story of those hours ; 
 the grim set of his jaws and the stare of his eyes, as 
 he had faced death, came back at times and gripped 
 his features. She remembered with a sudden exulta- 
 tion to have heard from one present, that in those 
 hours his hand and voice had been as calm and 
 unperturbed as though death had been a thousand 
 leagues away. 
 
 And he trembled to peel her orange ! He shaped a 
 golden lily from it, and presented it. 
 
 ' ' I have made a mess of it, ' ' he said ; "I am out of 
 practice. " 
 
 "Perhaps it is over-ripe, " she cooed. 
 
 He thanked heaven for making women innocently 
 blind, and so saving a man's pride. 
 
 "Lord Waldon is arranging some tableaux, you 
 know, ' ' she said, faring upon her lily-orange. 
 
 "So I hear." 
 
 ' ' I am taking part. ' '
 
 42 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 He looked up quickly. He did not understand a 
 certain inflection in her voice. There was nothing to 
 be made of her beautiful, impassive face. 
 
 "What part?" 
 
 Lord Wai don's tableaux had a certain reputation. 
 He was angry that she should have been drawn into 
 them. 
 
 She understood the question. 
 
 "Please, I should like some grapes," she sued. 
 
 He selected some. 
 
 "What part do you take?" he persisted. 
 
 "One of those heathen goddess people, " she said, 
 smoothly. 
 
 "Diana?" 
 
 She shook her head She set a purple grape between 
 her coral lips, and smiled upon him. 
 
 "Juno?" 
 
 "Guess again. " 
 
 "Not Venus?" he said, brusquely 
 
 She eyed him through her half-closed lids, and 
 shook her head a second time. 
 
 He looked relieved. He had heard a rumor. 
 
 "Tell me, "he laughed. 
 
 "Aphro Aphro Was there a person called Aphro- 
 dite?" she questioned, ingenuously. 
 
 "That is Venus, " he said gruffly. 
 
 "Is it? Well, Aphrodite sounds better. Venus was 
 rather improper, wasn't she?" 
 
 He did not answer. He was old-fashioned enough 
 not to care for the subject on his lady's lips. He 
 cursed the poverty which prohibited him from res- 
 cuing her from her surroundings and the Windermere 
 set. His muse gave her to him as a young lily in mire. 
 Her people should have protected her. How could a 
 girl know? 
 
 "Are you shocked?" she queried, softly. 
 
 "Your people should not allow you," he said, 
 gravely. 
 
 She yawned. "Sermons make me sleepy. Thank 
 goodness there is the signal, and just as Parson Ker- 
 shaw has given out the text. "
 
 THE LADY ALICIA DOVERCOURT. 43 
 
 She swept a sparkling mischievous glance up at him, 
 and turned her white shoulder in going. 
 
 The heiress, following, saw it. She remembered at 
 school how a younger edition of that glance had sub- 
 jugated the singing master, and led later, in a manner 
 which was not explained, to his summary dismissal. 
 
 "I would give everything I have for such a face," 
 she reflected, wistfully. Then she paused to wonder 
 at herself. She had never before concerned herself 
 about her looks 
 
 "Is that you, Miss Rivers?" Alicia greeted her later. 
 ' ' I suppose I may not say Millicent after so long ; but 
 we were friends then. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Our friendship came to a pitiful ending, ' ' Millicent 
 said, dryly. 
 
 Alicia's delicate color deepened. It was very mid- 
 dle-class of the heiress to refer to it. 
 
 "Do not let us remember a silly school-girl tiff. We 
 are neighbors ; I should like to be friends. I shall call 
 on you dear. ' ' 
 
 ' ' I did not want to quarrel, ' ' Milly said. She remem- 
 bered her suffering at the time. She had idolized her 
 lovely friend. For many a night after she had sobbed 
 herself to sleep upon the memory of her betrayal. 
 The Lady Alicia, budding into charming womanhood, 
 had been the darling of the school, and the furniture - 
 polisher's daughter had been stricken by a two-fold 
 sense of her plebian worthlessness and overwhelming 
 gratitude when she had found herself singled out for 
 beauty's friendship. She had showered all the prod- 
 uce of her ample pocket-money on her, loading her 
 with presents. Even at that moment Alicia wore a 
 bracelet of her giving. 
 
 "I shall call next week," Alicia smiled, shaking her 
 fan with airy grace as she moved to a corner screened 
 with palms. 
 
 The men were just coming in from the dining-room. 
 It did not take the major long to find her. Millicent 
 watched him across the room. Through the digitated
 
 44 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 spaces of palm-fronds she saw Alicia glance up, smil- 
 ing, as he approached. She drew her silken skirts 
 aside in gracious invitation. 
 
 "What a dull specimen the nugget is," Vaux, pur- 
 suing his heiress-hunt, reflected. "Perhaps she has 
 indigestion; that ice-pudding was deucedly cold. I 
 say, Miss Rivers, they're goin' it, ain't they?" he 
 remarked, nodding in the direction of the palms. 
 
 "Are they are they engaged?" 
 
 "That's a good 'un ; it's a providence you didn't pop 
 that conundrum to the Countess Windermere. Like 
 to have seen her face if you had. ' ' 
 
 "They are not engaged, then?" 
 
 "My dear Miss Rivers, Richard Kershaw hasn't 
 more than fifteen hundred a year, and mortgages, and 
 heaven knows what all to discharge. Alicia's danglin' 
 for a prince I may say has got him on the hook. 
 Nobody knows whether it's her fault or his he hasn't 
 been landed high and dry this three months." 
 
 "But she seems to to like Major Kershaw." 
 
 "Oh, Alicia likes lots of us; it's a way she has. 
 Kershaw' s hard hit, and he don't see it. Thinks her 
 a kind of seraphim with wings, and all that kind of 
 thing Ah, now! there swoops the mater down on 
 'em. Thought she wouldn't stand it long. Look at 
 Kershaw's face ; he'd like to punch the old lady's head. 
 Well done, old lady ! see how she smiles ; bet you ten 
 pound she's sayin' dear Alicia's chest's so delicate, and 
 there's a sort of oriental miasma and that risin' from 
 the palms. She's a smart 'un, is the Windermere. If 
 what they say is true, she'll box Alicia's pretty ears 
 for her when she gets her home, and dear Alicia \vill 
 shy her lovely slipper at her for her pains. Oh, they're 
 a smart lot, the Dovercourts, I tell you, and the old 
 woman's furious Alicia hasn't landed the prince long 
 ago ; he's only a German, but I should like you to tell 
 me any prince who isn't. I never heard a prince's 
 name but I mutter, 'Made in Germany.' Are you 
 goin' to Waldon's tableaux on the twentieth?" 
 
 "I believe so." 
 
 "Ludwig will be there. They say Alicia is safe to
 
 THE LADY ALICIA DOVERCOURT. 45 
 
 land him that night; she is one of the tableaux. 
 Fetchin' get-up she's got, too chiefly tights!" 
 
 He laughed. The heiress' horrified countenance 
 and the ingenuous indignation with which she turned 
 her back on him, diverted him. 
 
 "Afraid you're awfully shocked; but nobody minds 
 the Dovercourts, everybody's used to 'em these twenty 
 years." 
 
 But Millicent refused to talk about it. She set 
 watching Alicia with admiring eyes. What a shame 
 it was to speak of her in such a way ! 
 
 "I say, don't be cross with me about it," Vaux 
 protested. "I did all I could to make her wear a 
 cloak. She said heathen goddesses never wore cloaks. 
 I said, 'Then why be a heathen goddess?' She said, 
 'Don't be absurd!' And when a woman says, 'Don't 
 be absurd, ' a chap has no defense. ' ' 
 
 Millicent refusing to be mollified, Vaux presently 
 left her. 
 
 "I don't know how I should ever put up with her 
 temper, ' ' he reflected, moodily. ' 'She's precious huffy. 
 I could live in town of course. But then, supplies 
 might stop. The polisher 'ud very likely fix things 
 tight. I call it a beastly bore bein' flung on the world 
 with anything under five thou. a year. One had better 
 have remained a monkey. At least there wouldn't be 
 a coat and trouser bill to pay, and I suppose it 
 wouldn't take long gettin' used to a tail!" 
 
 ' 'You were at school with Lady Alicia, she tells me, 
 Miss Rivers," Kershaw observed, as they drove home. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Was she was she pretty then?" 
 
 "She was always beautiful," Millicent said, gen- 
 erously. 
 
 He threw her a grateful glance. 
 
 1 'And was she a shameless flirt then?' ' Lady Kershaw 
 added, dryly. 
 
 "Mother!" he remonstrated. 
 
 "They say she made eyes at the doctor who vaccin-
 
 46 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 ated her, and I honestly believe it, Richard. She is 
 perfectly incorrigible. ' ' 
 
 "Brought up in that house, every allowance should 
 be made for her. ' ' 
 
 "I was speaking of effects, not causes." 
 
 "She said she would call, Lady Kershaw. She and 
 I were friends at school. ' ' 
 
 Kershaw 's face brightened. His mother's darkened. 
 The girl had no right to amuse herself at his expense, 
 as she was doing. 
 
 Millicent sat late that night reading. "I never 
 knew poetry was so interesting, ' ' she confided softly 
 to herself. She turned from the Idylls to the frontis- 
 piece picture of King Arthur. She felt shy to meet its 
 eyes it was so like. And they are just the things he 
 would have done, she reflected. She set down the 
 book with a sigh and began to unfasten her black 
 frock. She caught sight of herself in a mirror. She 
 saw how ill the fashion of her hair became her. She 
 remained staring at her reflection. Then, at the 
 recollection of a dainty white-robed figure and a 
 perfect face, she broke into tears. 
 
 ' 'It isn't fair for a girl to be born plain, " she cried, 
 miserably.
 
 THE MEET. 47 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE MEET. 
 
 I wish that women were all angels but then, what would be- 
 come of the men-folks, poor lonely creatures ! 
 
 "What a lovely morning for the meet, " the heiress 
 exclaimed. 
 
 Kershaw glanced through 'the mullioned windows of 
 the breakfast-room, daintily curtained with frost-lace. 
 
 "If it thaws," he said. 
 
 "The sun is so bright it is certain to thaw. " 
 
 "I hope it may for your sake," he said, smiling at 
 her eagerness. 
 
 She looked up quickly. "Are you not going?" 
 
 He shook his head. "You would not have me ride 
 poor Janey. " 
 
 ' 'But there 's Jock, ' ' she protested. ' 'Major Kershaw, 
 please ride Jock. He needs exercise badly. " 
 
 "It is very kind of you," he said, "but I really 
 ought to be at my proofs. " 
 
 "If you will accept Jock " she began, breathlessly. 
 
 His eyes met hers. She stopped short in crimsoning 
 confusion. She had been on the brink of disturbing 
 a relation of frank friendliness which was springing up 
 between them. 
 
 "If you will always use Jock as if he were yours," 
 she corrected herself, "it will be a kindness to him. 
 And then, " she added lightly, "perhaps you will some- 
 times ride with me. " 
 
 The major looked at the translucent, wind-swept 
 sky. There was scarcely a cloud to be seen, and 
 already the thaw was evidenced by the gather and 
 drip of moisture beading on the trees. He weakened. 
 He yielded. Perhaps he remembered that Alicia 
 would be there. Perhaps Millicent's kindness touched 
 him.
 
 48 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "You are a great deal too good, " he said. "I shall 
 be delighted. " 
 
 "And you too, major, " Mrs. Vereker-Brown greeted 
 him when she called for Millicent. 
 
 "Miss Rivers has kindly lent me a mount, " he said. 
 
 "Why, you can always have a mount. You know 
 that well enough. Charles is only too pleased. Not 
 such a creature as that, perhaps. What a beauty 
 he is!" 
 
 Your cousin looks well in the saddle, " she remarked 
 presently. ' ' I did not know she was so pretty. ' ' 
 
 He directed his looks upon the blue-habited, finely 
 modeled figure in advance. 
 
 "I suppose she is pretty, " he returned, catching the 
 outline of a vivid cheek and the gleam of a full eye. 
 
 Mrs. Vereker-Brown glanced at him severely. She 
 shared his mother's opinion of him as a fool so far as 
 his financial interests were concerned. 
 
 Witness the fact of his devotion to Alicia, with whom 
 he had as little chance of success as he had prospect of 
 marrying a young Princess of Wales. Moreover, 
 Alicia had not a penny wherewith to bless herself, and 
 the Kershaw estate needed at the very least some 
 twenty thousand pounds to free it from debt. This 
 new-found heiress cousin seemed so very obvious a 
 solution of the difficulty. There had been other 
 heiresses to cast encouraging eyes upon the handsome 
 major, but the major was a bookworm, and but little 
 given to society, and these less favored damsels had 
 not the entree of his study as one living in his house 
 might have. 
 
 Mrs. Vereker-Brown had welcomed Millicent as a 
 species of fairy god-mother, and had secretly applauded 
 Lady Kershaw for her discretion, for Mrs. Vereker- 
 Brown was fond of Richard, and wanted to see him 
 comfortably settled. He needed a practical, cheerful 
 little wife, with fortune enough to dispose of his 
 financial difficulties, and brains enough to keep his 
 poetic wits in bounds. 
 
 "Indeed she is pretty," she asserted, energetically,
 
 THE MEET. 49 
 
 4 ' and you will find a good many people think so. Tom 
 Vaux, the other night " 
 
 "Did he admire her?" 
 
 "Indeed he did. " 
 
 Mrs. Vereker-Brown vouched for more than had 
 been. The major was evidently interested. Perhaps 
 he might be piqued. She glanced inquisitively at him 
 while she spoke. She saw his face relax into a smile 
 of sympathy, half-humorous, half-serious, a smile 
 characteristic of him. 
 
 "He's a very good fellow, " he asserted cheerfully; 
 "and she would make him a capital wife. " 
 
 ' ' She would make anybody a capital wife, ' ' Mrs. 
 Vereker-Brown retorted, angrily. 
 
 She pushed forward and joined Millicent. 
 
 "It is strange how even the kindest women object 
 to hear another woman praised," the major mused, 
 trotting behind them. Then he fell to thinking of one 
 woman who was an exception to every rule attaching to 
 the foibles of her sex. 
 
 His views were confirmed when he presently came 
 up with her riding beside her brother. She wore a 
 dark green habit, with beaver hat. A goddess a syl- 
 van goddess he reflected, marking the golden rings 
 into which the breeze had blown the hair about her 
 brows, and noting her exquisite bloom. 
 
 "May I ride with you?" he begged. 
 
 "I am promised," she said, on the top of a little 
 sigh, adding, with an upward sweep of her lids: "I 
 did not know you were coming. ' ' 
 
 But, to Kershaw's exultation, Prince Ludwig, who 
 was to have ridden with her, did not show up. 
 
 ' ' The fates are good to me this morning, ' ' he sub- 
 mitted, as, at her invitation, he took his place beside 
 her. "And I, " she smiled. 
 
 "And you," he assented. 
 
 "Shall I tell you a secret?" 
 
 "Tell me anything. " 
 
 "Well, bend your head a little. I ought properly to 
 whisper it. I am so glad he did not come Richard. " 
 
 It was the first time she had called him by name. 
 4
 
 50 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 The world before him swam in a mist. He answered 
 her with intoxicated eyes. 
 
 But alas! for the major and the major's hopes. 
 They were just starting when a voice behind him 
 faltered : 
 
 "Oh, Major Kershaw!" 
 
 Alicia was at that moment carrying on an animated 
 discussion with her brother a discussion which, to 
 judge by his bent brows, was anything but amicable 
 on his part. 
 
 Kershaw turned a beaming face. 
 
 "Can I do anything for you, Miss Rivers? Where 
 is Vaux?" 
 
 "I left him for a moment. I wanted to ask you 
 something. " 
 
 He noticed that her face was pale. He waited. 
 
 "I only wanted to ask if I must take the fences as I 
 did at the riding-school, ' ' she said, hurriedly, and with 
 abasement. 
 
 He looked serious. 
 
 "Have you not hunted?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 He looked more serious still. 
 
 "Tell Vaux you are nervous. Ask him to take you 
 round. " 
 
 She half nodded. 
 
 "They are just off," she said. Then she repeated 
 breathlessly: "Am I to take them in the same way?" 
 
 "I tell you you must not take them. There are 
 some nasty fences in this morning's run. Vaux will 
 take you round. You shall come out with me and 
 practice before next meet. ' ' 
 
 4 ' Thank you ; but you have not answered my ques- 
 tion," she insisted, obstinately. "Tell Vaux," he 
 maintained. 
 
 She lifted her eyes resolutely. 
 
 "I am ashamed," she said. She added under her 
 breath : "And I am more ashamed of being ashamed. " 
 
 She turned and rode away. 
 
 For half a minute Kershaw sat in silence. Alicia 
 and her brother were still disputing hotly. He wiped
 
 THE MEET. 51 
 
 a moisture from his brow. It was, as it were, the dew 
 of setting hopes. His face was sombre. Then he 
 broke in suddenly on the fraternal altercation. He 
 lifted his cap. "Lady Alicia," he said, "will you 
 excuse me? May I find somebody to escort you? I 
 am horribly sorry I must forego that pleasure myself. 
 I must ride with Miss Rivers. ' ' 
 
 She glanced round with a sudden haughty tension of 
 her lip. 
 
 He repeated his question. 
 
 She saw the bitter disappointment of his face. He 
 had overheard some remark of Tudor 's. 
 
 "No, I will keep you to your word, " she insisted, 
 with a smile and a defiant glance in the direction of 
 her brother. 
 
 Kershaw was sore pressed. 
 
 4 4 My word has gone out of my control, ' ' he said. 
 t4 I ought to have remembered. Miss Rivers is under 
 my care." 
 
 She bent forward and drew a finger through a ripple 
 of her chestnut's mane. Then she said smoothly: 
 
 4 'Oh, go by all means." She broke into a sudden 
 little ring of laughter. 4 4 How very convenient of you, ' ' 
 she cried, "to make room for Prince Ludwig, who just 
 arrives, and who otherwise had lost his chance. By, 
 by, major; take care of Millicent. " 
 
 Ludwig rode up jauntily, and with an easy matter- 
 of-course air, took the place Kershaw vacated. She 
 touched her hat gaily to him with her riding-crop. 
 
 41 A moment earlier, prince, and you would have 
 been too late," she laughed. 
 
 Kershaw bowed, and rode away white-hot. He 
 cursed his luck, he cursed the prince, and, if the truth 
 must be told, I fear he cursed the heiress. 
 
 "My place, Vaux," he said grimly, as he came up 
 with the couple. 
 
 Vaux looked blue; he was finding Millicent to his 
 taste this morning; she had a fine color by daylight, 
 and talked crisply. 
 
 44 Oh, I say, Kershaw," he submitted ruefully, "I 
 spoke first. Miss Rivers has promised me."
 
 52 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Miss Rivers promised me before," Kershaw as- 
 serted. 
 
 "Is it true? Must I turn out?" 
 
 "I am afraid you must," she said gently, glancing 
 with shy pleasure at the major. Then she generously 
 regretted her good fortune at sight of his gloomy face. 
 It did not occur to her that that he had done, he had 
 done for her sake. She imagined he had made way 
 against his will for Ludwig. How could Alicia? Such 
 a sallow, coarse-looking man as Ludwig was ! 
 
 She did her best to cheer him ; she could not help 
 being in high spirits. 
 
 "You may take this wall safely," he said presently, 
 "you cannot go wrong with that." 
 
 Queenie rose to it lightly. Millicent came down on 
 the other side with a catch in her breath and sparkling 
 eyes. 
 
 "Delicious!" she panted. 
 
 He relaxed a little. 
 
 "I believe I need not have come with you after all." 
 
 Slowly a look of horror froze on her face. 
 
 "Do you mean to say it was for me you came?" she 
 demanded, when she had recovered her breath. 
 
 He admitted it with as good grace as possible. 
 
 Ludwig and his dainty comrade were galloping ahead 
 of them ; she poised light as a bird, and turning her 
 gay, fair profile up to him : 
 
 "You left her for me because I oh, Major Kershaw, 
 it was never never that." 
 
 Again he assented with as much show of heartiness 
 as he could muster. 
 
 "I thought it was because of Prince Ludwig. Oh, 
 I would never have consented had I known the truth, ' ' 
 she cried, distressed. 
 
 "We are thoroughly enjoying ourselves," he urged. 
 
 She drew rein, and faced round on him. 
 
 "Will you believe that rather than have done it, I 
 would have " she caught her breath "I would rather 
 have broken my neck, ' ' she concluded, impetuously. 
 
 "Why, never mind," he insisted, "we are having a 
 splendid run. This way this way round, I will get
 
 THE MEET. 53 
 
 down and open the gate, there's a beast of a fence 
 there. Miss Rivers, I say, Miss Rivers good Lord, 
 has the girl gone mad?" 
 
 She had set her spur to Queenie's flank, and was 
 following pell-mell in the wake of Ludwig and Alicia. 
 He was too late to stop her. Queenie had seen the 
 other horses rise, and she, like her mistress, had lost 
 her head. 
 
 "Good God! she'll break her neck while she talks 
 about it," Kershaw cried; "never taken anything but 
 a riding-school fence." 
 
 He galloped headlong after her. There was a ditch 
 on the other side. It was a fence which even practiced 
 riders were not ashamed to shirk a broken wall, with 
 a barbed-wire fencing topping it, and on the other side 
 an ugly ditch and quickly rising bank. The girl would 
 break her neck to a surety ! He bounded after her, his 
 eyes strained tensely. Then, as Queenie flung up her 
 head, rose, and swept lightly over, brushing the top 
 with her fore-hoofs, to vanish straightway on the other 
 side, he swerved about and took it higher up. He 
 felt momentarily sick at the thought of thundering 
 down on that which might have happened. 
 
 But the mare, with Millicent lightly riding her, was 
 cantering safely up the slope. 
 
 She drew rein at the top, and, turning, faced him. 
 
 "Good heavens!" he gasped, "how could you?" 
 
 She broke into a little sobbing laugh. 
 
 ' 'You will never again need to ride with me against 
 your will ! ' ' she panted.
 
 54 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 "MEN ARE FOOLS." 
 
 "You are just a porcelain trifle, 
 
 Belle Marquise; 
 Just a thing of puffs and patches, 
 Made for madrigals and catches, 
 Not for heart-wounds, but for scratches, 
 
 O Marquise." 
 
 "Lady Alicia Dovercourt. " 
 
 She floated into the Kershaw shabby drawing-room 
 with all her undulant soft grace, a vision of bird's 
 wings and fur and purple velvet. The malicious said 
 her dressmaker robed her gratuitously. She so well 
 became her gowns that the makers of anything she 
 wore were abundantly repaid in advertisement. 
 Whether this was so or not I cannot say. I only know 
 that the malicious sometimes speak the truth. 
 
 Millicent was making shirts for the poor. She was 
 making them exceedingly ill. She had as little talent 
 for plain sewing as she had inclination for it. She 
 could embroider flowers and leaves in crewel, she 
 could do macrame work, and was skillful with a variety 
 of chenille lace, which when finished was capable of 
 being put to no use, human or divine. But the prin- 
 cipal of that most fashionable school, wherein she had 
 spent five miserable months, had discarded plain 
 sewing as a merely menial achievement, and one 
 unsuited to the aristocratic fingers of her young ladies. 
 Indeed, she would almost have regarded as ineligible 
 to the select circle revolving round her in a scholastic 
 orbit, any young woman to whom plain sewing might 
 be an infinitesimal and remote necessity. "I do not 
 pretend to train girls to do without maids," she has 
 been heard to say, loftily. 
 
 So Millicent was making the shirts but indifferently 
 well ; however, as they were intended merely for the
 
 "MEN ARE FOOLS." 55 
 
 poor, who are thankful enough to get shirts of any 
 description, this was a detail of no significance. 
 
 She was sufficiently aware of the usages of polite 
 society to have been ashamed of the shirts, had they 
 been destined for the*wearing of some member of her 
 family. In that case she would have been overwhelmed 
 with mortification at being detected in their manu- 
 facture. But the shirts were merely for those other- 
 wise shirtless, whom we have always with us, and 
 whose nakedness under the auspices of a charitable 
 society, Lady Kershaw had undertaken to cover to the 
 extent of four garments yearly. 
 
 Therefore our heroine arose from the midst of her 
 heap of striped cotton with no sense of shame. 
 
 "It is nice of you to come," she smiled. 
 
 Perhaps she would have been a shade less cordial had 
 she not known that the major was not expected home 
 till dinner-time. Some situations are hard in which 
 for the most generous to bear herself generously. 
 And Alicia's dainty fairness was so engagingly irre- 
 sistible in its setting of full-toned purple. 
 
 "I hope we are going to be friends," Alicia sub- 
 mitted prettily, laying down her muff, which was 
 opulent with lace and scented violets, and warming her 
 hands at the fire. 
 
 ' ' I hope so, I am sure, ' ' Millicent returned sincerely. 
 
 They talked conventionalities for some minutes of 
 the hunt, of coming festivities, of the dinner the other 
 evening. Alicia was gracious, Millicent admiring. 
 
 "I hope we shall be friends," Alicia said again, sip- 
 ping her tea. "Do you know, Milly I may call you 
 Milly as I used to and please call me Alicia Milly, 
 my dear, I have scarcely a woman friend in the world. 
 Can you tell me why?" 
 
 Milly probed her mind for the cause of her charming 
 confidant's offense. 
 
 "You are so pretty," she said candidly, and with a 
 little sigh. "It is difficult for plain women to be really 
 fond of pretty ones. ' ' 
 
 "But, my dear, it isn't fair. One cannot help being 
 decent looking. I did not make myself," Alicia
 
 56 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 objected, with a rueful expression on her lovely face, 
 as though her failing on the side of looks were the 
 occasion of sincerest regret to her. 
 
 "Women don't stop to think about that when you 
 take their sweethearts from them. ' ' 
 
 Alicia swept her eyes up sharply to her friend's 
 dejected countenance. "It doesn't follow that if a 
 man didn't admire me, he would admire them," she 
 said demurely, with some confusion in her tenses and 
 personal pronouns. 
 
 Millicent colored. She met the other's look. But 
 there was no intention to be fathomed in the limpid 
 eyes. 
 
 "No, it does not follow. But they can't help admir- 
 ing you, Alicia. Men are so taken by beauty." 
 
 "Men are fools, Mill. And it's just as much bonnet 
 and clothes, as it is looks, they are in love with. Now, 
 I have an excellent dressmaker by-the-by, if you like 
 I will give you her name she is admirable. And it is 
 chiefly clothes with men. Send two women into a 
 roomful of men, a plain one well-turned out, and a 
 pretty one badly-turned out. There won't be a man 
 there who will have the faintest suspicion that the 
 well-gowned one is not the pretty one. Some more 
 tea, dear, and plenty of cream and sugar." 
 
 ' 'It's easy for you to talk, ' ' the heiress said ; ' 'you 
 are beautiful and well-dressed, too. ' ' 
 
 "And you, my dear, are rich." 
 
 Was there a shade of envy in the lovely eyes? 
 
 ' 'You also must be well off. ' ' 
 
 The beauty shook her head. "I haven't a penny to 
 bless myself with. ' ' 
 
 "Well, it would be pitiful to be loved for one's 
 money. ' ' 
 
 Alicia laughed. "Why, you haven't learned any- 
 thing since you were at school. You might be sixteen 
 again. Now, shall I tell you a secret? Well, if only 
 I had half your money, Mill, I'd no more think of 
 marrying than I'd think of becoming a nun. Men 
 are fools sickening, wearisome fools," she ended 
 roughly. "If you only knew how dead-tired I am of
 
 "MEN ARE FOOLS." 57 
 
 them. But so long as they have everything in their 
 hands one 'has to be civil to them. They think I see 
 nothing because my eyes are blue. They think my 
 white skin holds all sorts of softnesses. They desert 
 the estimable women who worship them for fine 
 fellows, to get a smile from me, who, when I don't 
 find them fools, am generally bored to death by them. 
 I haven't a notion what is meant by love. I like being 
 kissed" she laughed with her eyes on Millicent 
 "it's pleasant enough and it's good for the complexion. 
 But one man is about the same as another, so long as 
 he is well-groomed and doesn't smoke too much. I'm 
 a sort of social cannibal, Mill. I want scalps scalps 
 by the score to feed my vanity. And, ' ' she laughed a 
 short, sharp laugh, "and the fools think I am fond of 
 them." 
 
 "You must pretend or they would not think it," 
 Millicent said, indignantly. She experienced a sense 
 of nausea. She took up a shirt, and sewed upon it. 
 Its coarse harshness felt wholesome to her fingers. 
 "You are only pretending, " she protested savagely, 
 "and it is ridiculous to pretend to be bad. Goodness 
 knows, one has faults enough without pretending. ' ' 
 
 "That is all one gets for virtue. I've been exer- 
 cising the rare quality of candor, and you only round 
 on me for my pains. But it is a relief to get some of 
 it out. I tell you, I'm often tempted when the hus- 
 bands and sweethearts of fond, domestic women, buzz 
 round me with their silly compliments Mill, the 
 temptation is almost irresistible to flick them in the 
 face and say, 'You fool, you fool, do you think I care 
 twopence whether your necktie becomes you, or that 
 your tweeds are new, or any other wretched fact you 
 try to impress on me. Go back to the woman idiot 
 enough to think you fine. While you dangle after me, 
 you're losing the only person in the world ridiculous 
 enough to admire you. ' ' ' 
 
 1 'Nobody, to see your face, would believe you were 
 thinking such abominable things, ' ' Millicent broke out 
 angrily. 
 
 "My dear, if there is one thing I love, it is my face.
 
 58 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 I know better than to spoil it by my feelings. Besides, 
 I don't deny the fascination of being- worshiped. I 
 only reserve my right to despise the worshiper when 
 he expects me to reciprocate the feeling. Men don 't 
 like to be told the truth. I have blurted it out once 
 or twice when my feelings got the better of me. I 
 assure you they were not grateful. Always remember 
 that if you hear things about me, remember there are 
 at least three men in the world to whom I have told 
 the unflattering truth. It will help you to deny things 
 with a clearer conscience. " 
 
 "Alicia!" 
 
 "I must have my snarl out. When I was a child 
 mother always said, 'Alicia, smile, you look so ugly 
 with that nasty droop at the corners of your mouth. ' 
 Perhaps my canary had died. Or, 'Alicia, I will 
 not have you frown ; your eyebrows are like a great 
 blacksmith 's, ' when some cad had been stoning my dog. 
 So I got into the way of bottling my snarl, but some- 
 times it effervesces and froths over. And now you 
 have had the benefit of it. Perhaps 1 have told you 
 more about myself these last few minutes than any- 
 body else knows. Perhaps, by doing so, I have 
 prevented you from being my friend. I hope not, 
 Mill ; I want a friend a woman, of course. No man 
 is ever a friend to a woman. He is always calculating 
 what he is going to get out of it. Men are never 
 disinterested, my dear, in their dealings with women. " 
 
 "I don't believe it, I can't believe it," Millicent 
 protested hotly. "There are good men, good hus- 
 bands, good fathers, and good friends, Alicia, whatevejx 
 you may say. ' ' 
 
 Alicia laughed a scornful laugh. "My dear Mill," 
 she said, cynically, "you won't mind me saying it, I am 
 sure ; I am in a candid mood. You will not often find 
 me err in that direction. But to-day I must speak out. 
 Well, dear, you are pretty; but you are not pretty 
 enough to know men. The good fathers and good 
 husbands can withstand you they can 't withstand me. 
 Ninety-nine out of a hundred of them I can twist 
 about my little finger. Men are mere wax in the
 
 "MEN ARE FOOLS." 59 
 
 hands of an attractive woman. If a man won't fling 
 conscience, honor, and domestic felicity to the winds 
 for a woman, it is only because the woman isn't 
 attractive enough. ' ' 
 
 "You think a good deal of yourself, " Millicent urged 
 dryly. 
 
 Beauty tilted her dainty face self -confidently. 
 
 "Oh, I have seen life," she cried. "I am not 
 twenty-five, but I have seen life. They call us weak, 
 but we have strategy, and level heads, and persistence. 
 Somebody has said, a chain is not stronger than its 
 weakest link. I say a man is not stronger than the 
 little finger a pretty woman chooses to twirl him 
 round." 
 
 "You talk like a very bad girl," the heiress said, 
 stitching manfully at her coarse shirts. "How can 
 you know such things?" 
 
 Beauty looked up wickedly from among the lace 
 and violets of the muff she lifted to a charming cheek. 
 
 "Perhaps it is hereditary," she submitted, demurely. 
 "Father is no saint, as you have very likely heard." 
 
 "Let us talk of something else," Millicent cried, 
 disgusted. "I hear you are to be in the tableaux next 
 week." 
 
 ' ' I am afraid we shall not be getting very far away 
 from an improper subject," the other laughed. "At 
 any rate you are leaving me still on the carpet." 
 After a pause: "Yes, I am to take the part of 
 Aphrodite." 
 
 "It isn't really true that you wear tights, is it?" 
 
 "Why, I could not wear stockings and boots, dear. 
 It would be an ana ana that thing that means the 
 wrong period. You know the word. We learned it 
 at school." 
 
 Few persons could make such charming capital of 
 ignorance. 
 
 "But you are never going to wear short skirts?" 
 
 "Why, of course not. I am a classic person, robed 
 in classic draperies. I wear at least forty yards of 
 accordion-pleated silk." 
 
 "Isn't accordion-pleating an anachonism?" Millicent
 
 60 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 smiled. She was relieved to find that Vaux had only 
 been playing on her credulity. 
 
 "They say clothes at all are," Alicia said. "I sup- 
 pose there is no one but you at home?" she observed 
 presently, looking round with a little yawn. 
 
 "No; Lady Kershaw and the major are in town." 
 
 "How do you like him?" 
 
 "I like him. He is such a gentleman." 
 
 "Oh, well, most men know how to bow and say 
 'how d'ye do,' don't they?" Beauty commented 
 languidly. She began to wonder about the time. 
 
 Millicent looked up at her with a somewhat troubled 
 face. 
 
 "Most men are not like Major Kershaw, I think," 
 she said, slowly. 
 
 "I suppose he is rather nice about a house domes- 
 ticated, and that sort of thing." 
 
 "You speak of him as if he were a cat" (indignantly.) 
 
 "Not at all. I'm rather fond of him myself. He's 
 so innocent and fresh!" 
 
 "He has traveled everywhere, and has fought 
 battles, and writes books. He is not a mere school- 
 boy." 
 
 "No; he believes in women. Schoolboys don't. 
 Father says the classics take it out of them." 
 
 "Well, why shouldn't he believe in women? There 
 are good women." 
 
 Alicia shrugged her purple-velvet shoulders. 
 
 "Those are the women who would like to have me 
 tortured," she said. 
 
 "Perhaps those are the women you have tortured, 
 Alicia." 
 
 Alicia laughed. She rose, and held out her hand. 
 
 "You are getting quite smart. I didn't think you 
 capable of it. Good-by, dear. I am so pleased 
 we have met again. Come and see me soon. I am 
 in most days at five." At the door she turned back. 
 "Don't lose your heart to the major, " she cried lightly. 
 'You can do better than that. You might even try 
 for Tudor. He's horribly hard up."
 
 "MEN ARE FOOLS." 61 
 
 Her laugh rippled out and she was gone. 
 
 "How hateful she has grown," the heiress reflected, 
 bending her crimson cheeks above the shirts. Then 
 she sighed: "I wonder if he would be happy with her?"
 
 62 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 "APHRODITE." 
 
 "Just a pinky porcelain trifle, 
 
 Belle Marquise, 
 Wrought in rarest rose Dubarry. 
 Quick at verbal point and parry. 
 Clever, doubtless but to marry, 
 No, Marquise!" 
 
 The night of the tableaux had arrived. 
 
 Millicent had now been some three months at the 
 Towers. Those three months had served her for a 
 very liberal education as regarded goals and ambitions, 
 to say nothing of bearing and grammar. Her faults 
 had been faults of inexperience and association. The 
 armor of assurance she had buckled on against class 
 antagonism she now slipped off before the high-bred 
 kindliness accorded her, showing sensitive and sterling- 
 hearted. Lady Kershaw by no means despaired of 
 her plot. He will be badly thrown by Alicia, she 
 reflected, and Millicent may catch him in rebound. 
 Millicent had come to be a favorite, and the expediency 
 and simplicity of the arrangement were so conspicu- 
 ously obvious. So Lady Kershaw had set herself to 
 straighten out her proposed daughter-in-law's notions 
 of things, actual and deportmental. Millicent's rough 
 edges were on a fair road toward polishing down, the 
 girl herself keeping eyes and ears open with a dili- 
 gence which had a personal hope and pain in it. She 
 had no thought that he would ever care for her, so 
 immeasurably above her as he seemed, but she yearned 
 to stand well in his sight. And, as there is no such 
 past-master in the art of manners as is love, the 
 heiress had learned much. 
 
 "Wear your heliotrope gown," Lady Kershaw had 
 counseled. 
 
 So she came rustling down in this Worth master- 
 piece of frills and ruches, with rather a forlorn face.
 
 "APHRODITE." 63 
 
 She had fathomed the reason of the major's pre- 
 absorption, and of a certain harassed fold between his 
 brows. She had taken an opportunity to inform him 
 casually of the number of yards in Alicia's Aphrodite 
 gown, lest he, too, should have been disquieted by 
 rumors. She had thought he looked relieved. 
 
 He smiled approval on her as she descended to the 
 hall. Her bronze-brown hair was becomingly dressed, 
 and that little touch of forlornness sat prettily upon 
 her. 
 
 "We are taking a tableau with us," he said. 
 
 She touched the bouquet at her breast. 
 
 "Thank you for the flowers," she smiled; "they are 
 lovely." 
 
 Lord Waldon, as host, had done his part pre-emi- 
 nently well. The fine old house was massed with 
 orchid blooms, and over these electric-lighted butter- 
 flies hovered, illuminant. A special train from town 
 had brought down a number of distinguished guests. 
 The programme opened with a ball. The tableaux 
 were to come later. It was a brilliant scene, and 
 there were many famous beauties there; but for charm 
 and vivacity, to say nothing of audacity, Lady Alicia 
 "won hands down," as it was generally conceded in 
 the smoke-room In the ball-room other women were 
 admitted to have claims. 
 
 The men flocked round her in shoals. Millicent, 
 observing the alluring Dresden -China sweetness of 
 her smiles, remembered cynically her confessions of a 
 few days earlier. 
 
 "I wonder if it was true," she deliberated, "if she is 
 really acting all the while, and if she is thinking all 
 those detestable things about them." 
 
 Of all the men there, Ludwig and Kershaw shared 
 a marked preference, but she was very prodigal of 
 smiles and sweetness. Ludwig and Kershaw rewarded 
 her graciousness to each by glaring all the evening 
 one at the other. But the prince wore an easy smile. 
 He flattered himself he knew well enough to which the 
 battle would be. Alicia was no woman to marry pov- 
 erty.
 
 64 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 The ball over, there was a temporary dimming of 
 the scene of beauty. The superlatives had gathered 
 to their rooms to dress. 
 
 Meanwhile, supper was served. The wines were 
 excellent, the dishes incomparable. No expense or 
 pains had been spared. The crowd thronged pres- 
 ently, a trifle noisily perhaps, from the supper-room 
 to the large theatre Waldon had recently added to the 
 house. It was reached by a covered way of painted 
 glass, arranged as a palmery, richly dusk with the 
 stained light of Oriental jeweled lanterns. They took 
 their places expectantly. The auditorium was dimly 
 lit. The electric footlights threw a glow of deli- 
 cate tint upon a gorgeous satin curtain, resplendent 
 with some mythological fancy from a famous brush. 
 The orchestra behind a screen of shrubs and ferns and 
 tropical plants had just concluded tuning up, and, as 
 the spectators now lounged in, plunged into a swell of 
 harmony. 
 
 The auditorium was arranged music-hall wise, with 
 small tables, and a promenade. The men, and a few 
 of the women, smoked, and fruits and wines and 
 sweetmeats were served round at intervals. 
 
 Programmes of scarlet satin printed in gold made 
 splashes of gay color. 
 
 "How detestable she looks," Millicent observed, 
 with some heat, of a pretty little woman, who lolled 
 back, with her legs crossed, smoking a cigarette. 
 
 The major caught her words. He smiled. 
 
 "It isn't graceful; and she only pretends to like it. 
 Walmer she is Lady Walmer tells me it often makes 
 her ill. But she will do it. She thinks it cine." 
 
 "I think it is disgusting. Why does not somebody 
 tell her how ugly she looks?" 
 
 "A man couldn't, and a woman wouldn't," Vaux, 
 on the other side of her, said cynically. 
 
 "Why wouldn't a woman?" Millicent demanded, 
 turning on him. 
 
 " 'Tisn't good biz. Women don't go out of their 
 way to give one another points in the art of looking 
 their best."
 
 "APHRODITE." 65 
 
 "According to you, women are wretches. They 
 have no sense of fairness or friendliness, or any other 
 nice quality." 
 
 Vaux removed his cigarette in order that he might 
 the better observe the heiress' anger. He was talking 
 to tease her. Since he had come to years of discre- 
 tion, his bete noir had been to marry an ill-tempered 
 woman. It was a pitfall into which his father had 
 strayed, and the paternal error had descended in mul- 
 tiple suffering upon the children. Vaux often ate 
 bread and cheese in the stables with the grooms in 
 preference to dining with his mother in her tempers. 
 He had begun life young, and had lived it hard, with 
 the result that, at the age of thirty, he was somewhat 
 of a dyspeptic and a cynic, with enough consciousness 
 of his liver to make him softly melancholy. His pre- 
 mature hypochondriasis took the form of a sombre con- 
 viction that the heiress it was incumbent upon him 
 to marry might turn out to be also a Tartar. 
 
 "And a chap had far better be tied to a grinnin' 
 mendicant than to a grislin' Midas," he was in the 
 habit of saying. 
 
 The saying was cited by his friends on occasions as 
 evidence that Vaux was by no means the fool he might 
 be taken for. 
 
 "Dashed if a chap who could make up that couldn't 
 write poetry if he was put to it, ' ' one of his friends 
 had gone so far as to say. 
 
 And it came about that Vaux was regarded in some 
 quarters as an undeveloped poet, one who could run 
 even Kershaw close, if he had but taken early enough 
 to the trade. 
 
 But, I suppose, as there are situations wherein the 
 dumb speak, so Vaux's terror of conjugal Tartardom 
 was vital enough to inspire his one epigrammatic 
 achievement. I doubt if he himself were conscious 
 of its alliterative excellence. Certainly he did not 
 often show capable of originating a remark which 
 approached it for terseness and sagacity. 
 
 To Millicent's outburst he set the regard of a calcu-
 
 66 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 lating eye upon her lips. Experience had warned him 
 of women whose lips tighten with anger. 
 
 "Odd that I look upon your sex as quite a decent 
 provision of nature, Miss Rivers. It's a beastly bore 
 pourin' out one's own tea and payin' calls and all the 
 social grind women love. I'm blessed if I know how 
 we should get along without 'em, anyhow till some 
 chap invents a machine to do all the faggin' things 
 they take off our hands. ' ' 
 
 The heiress sent him a withering look, but he was 
 relieved to discover that her lips did not tighten. It 
 did not occur to him that "other women, other symp- 
 toms. ' ' A certain lip contraction always revived in 
 him a sensation of sickness he had experienced in boy- 
 hood, when his terrified glance swept his mother's face 
 for danger-signals. 
 
 "Behold me duly shriveled," he responded to the 
 look, resuming his cigarette. "But 'pon honor Pm 
 the stanchest friend anywhere to women. I'd let 
 'em have rights, and all the rest of it. I'd much rather 
 be doctored by a woman than by a man, so long as her 
 bonnet was smart. And I'm sure I should go regu= 
 larly to church if we only had a pretty parsoness. 
 I'm awfully liberal Kershaw will tell you I am I 
 think it's mere lunacy for chaps to do work when 
 women are only thirstin' to do it for 'em. I assure 
 you it ain't I who keep you out of your rights. All I 
 ask is a cigar (good brand), whisky (good brand), a 
 novel (as bad as you please), and to be left alone to lie 
 under the trees in summer, and on a lounge in winter. 
 I wouldn't even kick about goin' to prison, not if the 
 bobby was charmin', now would I, Kershaw? Stand 
 by me, old man, you know what an up-to-date, liberal- 
 minded chap I am." 
 
 Kershaw laughed. 
 
 ' ' He is not altogether bad, ' ' he defended him. ' ' Not 
 quite so bad as he makes himself out to be, at any 
 rate." 
 
 "I think it is very stupid for people to pretend to be 
 bad at all," Millicent said, crossly, watching the 
 major's harassed profile, which his fixed attention on
 
 "APHRODITE." 67 
 
 the curtain turned to her, and thinking back of Alicia's 
 confession, and wondering how much truth it con- 
 tained. 
 
 Just then the curtain rose on the first tableau, "A 
 Roman Victory." Imperial Caesar clad in flowing 
 garments, with a leopard skin about his shoulders, 
 was shown seated in a triumphal car of ivory. To the 
 car were yoked, in silver harness, some dozen ^Ethio- 
 pian boys, their dark polished bodies lightly poised as 
 in the act of running, contrasting picturesquely with 
 their white short tunics, and the classic draperies of 
 other characters. Beautiful girls leaned toward the 
 conqueror, smiling and stretching flower-laden hands 
 to him, casting wreaths and blossoms in his way. A 
 goup of swarthy warriors in chains, and behind these 
 a band of graceful female captives, showed some of 
 the trophies of war. 
 
 The air rang with applause. Lord Waldon was evi- 
 dent in the emperor, and his guests mingled recogni- 
 tion of his hospitality with their admiration of the 
 group. 
 
 The curtain fell, then rose again, and fell finally 
 amid a burst of enthusiasm. 
 
 "Rattlin' good," Vaux commented, clapping his 
 hands. "Runs the 'Palace' pretty close. Wonder 
 Waldon don't start a West-end music-hall. He'd 
 make money if he were to. What comes next, Miss 
 Rivers?" 
 
 Millicent passed him a programme. He took it 
 languidly. 
 
 "Oh, I say now, you are hard on a chap. I was put- 
 tin' the burden and heat o' the day and that sort of 
 business on you as a first installment of 'rights,' and 
 then you set me to look out my own information. I 
 gave you credit for more independence. 'Pon honor 
 I did." 
 
 "If you talk anymore nonsense," Millicent laughed, 
 "I shall have to tell you, as Lady Alicia did, not to be 
 absurd. That seems to be a kind of knock-down blow 
 with you." 
 
 Kershaw's face was all interest.
 
 68 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "What extreme of nonsense made Alicia snub you 
 so badly?" he questioned. 
 
 In a moment Vaux turned nasty. It may have been 
 a spasm of indigestion. He had not long supped, and 
 with him, as has been stated, dyspepsia was the per- 
 verted tactics his over-taxed economy applied to food. 
 He was good-humored for fifty-nine minutes of each 
 hour, in the sixtieth he was capable of cutting up 
 rough. He darted the major one malicious glance. 
 Then he fired his shot. 
 
 "Oh," he drawled, nonchalantly, "Alicia said it was 
 absurd for me to imagine the heathen person she is 
 playin' wore clothes. I suppose it was. But I was 
 never a chap for mythology. I suggested bringin' the 
 heathen person's condition somewhat up to date, and 
 she said again, 'Don't be absurd.' Naturally I felt 
 snubbed, as I took it to mean that my suggestion was 
 quite out of the runnin'." 
 
 He took out his cigarette case and selected one from 
 its contents with a casual air. 
 
 Millicent, crimson with indignation, assailed him. 
 
 "There are forty yards of silk in her dress. It is a 
 shame to talk of her in such a way, and so you will 
 presently see." 
 
 He lit his cigarette. "You do not appreciate the 
 Lady Alicia's talents," he said, smoothly. "I back her 
 against any woman in England to dispose of forty 
 yards of silk with the least result in clothin'. Alicia 
 is really a genius when you come to know her." 
 
 Millicent turned to the major. She was astonished 
 at his silence. Why did he not say something in 
 Alicia's defense? Was it manly to listen in silence to 
 her defamation? 
 
 That he heard and resented Vaux's flippancies was 
 obvious from his face. The old look of fight had come 
 to it. His jaw was set sternly as it had been that day. 
 His eyes were fixed and gleaming. For one moment 
 he glanced down into Millicent 's upturned wondering 
 eyes. Her own quailed. She wondered no longer. 
 The rage of him was no weapon wherewith to meet
 
 "APHRODITE." 69 
 
 Vaux's impertinences. And, man of the world, he knew 
 it and remained inert glaring before him. 
 
 She pounced on Vaux tempestuously. "I don't 
 think men ought to say horrible things about women, 
 Mr. Vaux." 
 
 Vaux laughed. His minute of malice had passed. 
 He was essentially good-hearted, and moreover was 
 fond of Kershaw. He was sorry now that he had so 
 spoken. 
 
 "Why, what should we have to talk about?" he 
 demurred. "It's the royal road to a reputation for 
 smartness. A chap is never so brilliant as when he's 
 tearin' a woman's name to tatters. " 
 
 "But if it isn't true?" 
 
 "It is all the more amusin', because it will be so 
 much more unexpected. Hallo! Curtain risin'? 
 Why, bless me, there she is!" 
 
 There was disappointment in his voice, and both 
 disappointment and chagrin in his face. He liked his 
 prophecies to verify themselves. 
 
 Alicia was the sole figure on the stage. She knelt 
 in a squalid cell, her hands clasped despairingly, her 
 face upturned, her corn-colored hair streaming in 
 golden abandon to her knees. Her clasped hands 
 were heavily manacled. One slender foot, silver bare, 
 was fastened by an iron chain. A platter, cup and 
 plate stood on the ground beside her. Straw, heaped 
 in a corner, served her for bed. She was draped in 
 white from head to toe, only the bare delicate foot 
 showing where her dress had fallen aside to her devo- 
 tional pose. 
 
 The lovely upturned face, the limpid eyes, the 
 beautiful abandon of streaming hair, the slender plead- 
 ing hands, and more than all, the tender rapture of 
 expression, made her appear some creature of another 
 world by contrast with the dismal squalor of her cell. 
 She seemed to diffuse a holy spiritual light about her. 
 
 The tableau was a gem. 
 
 It sounded as though the clapping of hands must 
 split the roof. Cries of "Bravo!" and "Brava!" were 
 shouted as the curtain fell. In a moment it rose
 
 70 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 again. All was silence. Then the applause broke 
 but afresh more vehemently than before. Three times 
 the curtain rose. Then to a fourth tumultuous 
 demand, Lord Waldon appeared and shook his head 
 deprecatingly. They must not too far tax the beauti- 
 ful poseuse. 
 
 "Absolutely rippin'," Vaux was heard to comment 
 as the plaudits subsided. "Marvelous how anyone 
 could keep so still. Must have been fixed up with one 
 of those photographer's screws." 
 
 Kershaw was radiant. She was a poem incarnate. 
 What mere words could express her? His eyes still 
 glowed with the delights of vision. 
 
 "Looked a deal more like a Christian than a heathen, 
 I must say," Vaux protested. "Thought Aphrodite 
 was somethin' to do with Venus." 
 
 "That wasn't Aphrodite that was Fabiola. 'Aph- 
 rodite Rising from the Sea, ' is the last of the tableaux, " 
 Millicent informed him out of the depths of her pro- 
 gramme. 
 
 "Ah, I thought it was queer. Never heard of 
 Venus prayin', or that kind o' thing. Not in her line. ' ' 
 
 Three more pictures followed, all excellent, but miss- 
 ing the acme of perfection given by Alicia's exquisite 
 charm. 
 
 Then the curtain fell, and after some minutes' buzz 
 of approbation came a hush of expectancy. Millicent 
 noted the ashen tension of Kershaw' s face. The 
 sheen of the painted satin curtain trembled, swayed 
 and fell apart in shining folds. The assembly breathed 
 as from one great lung. 
 
 Perhaps nothing more perfect has been achieved in 
 the way of living pictures. On the foaming crest of 
 a great wave, amid lesser waves, marvelously mod- 
 eled in tinted glass, and so illumined as to reflect and 
 sparkle in the lime-light like sunshine on water, floated 
 an iridescent sea-shell. It was studded with gems and 
 dainty seaweeds, and a fringe of sea-grass hung glis- 
 tening from the lips of its pink, open mouth. Within 
 it lay like a pearl in the pink cup of its mother shell, 
 rising and falling with the rock of moving water, the
 
 "APHRODITE." 71 
 
 lovely Aphrodite. Her beautiful arms were bare and 
 wreathed above her in soft languor ; her slender limbs 
 showing pink and perfect through the rich translucence 
 of her draperies seemed flushed with the joy of awak- 
 ing. Out of the golden opulence of wind-tossed hair, 
 her flower-face smiled alluring, provoking, peerless. 
 In her eyes lay witchery and yielding. The Fabiola 
 of some minutes earlier had vanished. Her mobile 
 lovely features had then lent themselves to the forti- 
 tude and rapt resignation of the saint, as they now lent 
 themselves to the witchery of the wanton. For Alicia 
 rendered her Aphrodite as no guileless immaculacy of 
 nature, but as the temptress, illicit and irresistible. 
 
 Alas for poor Millicent's illusions as to the draping 
 capabilities of forty yards ! The forty yards lay white 
 in silken confusion about her, while only as much as 
 would lightly cover and reveal, beneath the cling of 
 their accordion folds, the rosy undulations of her form, 
 lay over her. 
 
 Millicent, glancing horrified from her friend's shame- 
 lessness with pity into Kershaw's face, saw his set jaw 
 move instinctively as though to moisten dry lips. His 
 breath caught deep in his chest. His hands gripped 
 his knees. 
 
 "Brava!" shouted the prince, with a flush on his 
 heavy face, forgetting the injunction not to applaud 
 until the curtain fell, "bravissima! bravissima!" 
 
 The lips of the Aphrodite unfolded a fraction fur- 
 ther over her white teeth. The voluptuous drooped 
 lids quivered. The Venus Victrix was apparent. 
 "He'll propose to-night," Vaux whispered his neigh- 
 bor on the other side. "You can hear it in his voice." 
 
 Millicent sat looking before her with a sickened 
 face. 
 
 Three times the curtain rose. The fourth time 
 Aphrodite dropped her lovely arms and yawned auda- 
 ciously in the admiring faces of the house. 
 
 The pretty effrontery of the action, the challenge of 
 her lovely eyes intoxicated them. There was a wild 
 shouting of applause, and cheers and laughter from 
 the men. Some of the women sat with stony faces.
 
 72 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 Lady Walmer ventured a little hiss. Millicent turned 
 in her direction. 
 
 "That cigarette is making her ill, " she said. "Can't 
 you get her something? She is perfectly green." 
 
 Vaux laughed. 
 
 "That's envy," he said, "not tobacco. She's regret- 
 tin' that twenty years ago, when she had a figure, 
 society wouldn't have stood an entertainment like 
 to-night's. Hallo! Where is the major off to?" 
 
 With the falling of the curtain Kershaw had abruptly 
 risen. He now showed, looking neither to the right 
 nor to the left, his fine head towering through the 
 auditorium as he made toward the door. 
 
 Lady Kershaw, who had been seated on his other 
 side, followed him across the room with anxious eyes. 
 
 "Good Lord!" ejaculated Vaux, surprised out of 
 himself, '4s hegoin' to carry her a way by main force?"
 
 'ALICIA HAS CHOSEN." 73 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 "ALICIA HAS CHOSEN." 
 
 ' 'Lass, I love you ! Love is strong and some men's 
 hearts are tender." 
 
 He stood at the door by which the theatre communi- 
 cated with the house. All who came down from the 
 dressing-rooms must-pass that way. His face was set, 
 his eyes gleamed, the battle-look gripped his features. 
 He stood in the shade of a curtain and waited. 
 
 Presently those who had taken part in the tableaux 
 came out singly and in groups, laughing and chatting. 
 He did not seem conscious of them. 
 
 When she appeared, fortunately for his purpose, 
 alone he strode up to her and caught her hand. 
 
 ' ' I have something to say to you, ' ' he said, simply. 
 
 She shrank, half laughing, half afraid. Her domin- 
 ion over him was shown, even at that moment of his 
 strength, by the sudden blenching of his face as she 
 turned her laughing, apprehensive eyes to him/ 
 
 "I am tired," she pleaded, shrugging her shoulders 
 and yawning. 
 
 "Come to the palm-house," he said. 
 
 He had her hand in his and she went, dragging on 
 him like a petulant child. It had only taken a moment, 
 and by the time the swing-door opened to let out a 
 chattering couple, the two had gone. 
 
 "Where is Alicia? Alicia said she would wait here 
 for us, and now she has gone." 
 
 "Did you ever know Alicia to keep a promise?" was 
 the cynical comment; "let us go and look for her. 
 The prince is asking for her. " 
 
 In the palm-house, he had her in his arms. He 
 gathered her yielding softness to him with a passion 
 irresistible. He kissed her strenuously. 
 
 "You are mine. You are mine," he whispered,
 
 74 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 hoarsely. "Darling darling! Come to me, come 
 with me. They are spoiling you. Dearest, they are 
 spoiling your beautiful womanhood. ' ' 
 
 For one minute she resisted, pushing against him 
 with petulant hands. All at once she yielded. She 
 set her palms on his shoulders, and drawing her head 
 back, looked him in the face. She caught her breath 
 in an exultation of dominion. Then she laughed and 
 surrendered. She twined her arms about his throat 
 and cooed with her cheek against his shoulder. 
 
 "Are you going to eat me, you fierce ogre?" she 
 protested, playfully. 
 
 "Darling, darling," he cried, passionately. 
 
 She clasped her hands behind his neck, and lifting 
 herself against him, set her lips creeping over his throat. 
 
 He strained her to him. "My dove needs a keeper," 
 he said, in hot broken whispers. "My white dove 
 needs a harsh strong keeper to guard her innocence. ' ' 
 
 She laid a little hand above his heart. 
 
 "How it beats!" she purred. 
 
 He lifted the hand and kissed it impetuously. He 
 crushed her in a strong embrace. 
 
 "I was poor," he said, "now I am rich I am rich." 
 
 There was a long silence. 
 
 Then she began to cry and clung about him. 
 
 "Take me away," she sobbed, weakly. "Take me 
 where they cannot find me. The prince will propose. 
 He is looking for me now. They will make me marry 
 him if you do not take me away." 
 
 "You cannot marry him," he protested, sternly. 
 "He is not fit for you to marry. " 
 
 ' ' I must if you do not take me away, ' ' she wept. 
 
 ' ' I will announce your engagement to me. ' ' 
 
 "I am afraid. Father will kill me. They would 
 break it off. I was to accept him to-night. ' ' 
 
 "Monstrous," he protested again. "They cannot 
 make you marry him against your will. He is not fit. 
 And besides you care for me, my dearest. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, I care for you. So take me away, take me 
 away now, Richard. Now!" 
 
 "Impossible," he said.
 
 "ALICIA HAS CHOSEN." 75 
 
 She threw herself against him fretfully. She caught 
 his elbows in her palms and shook him. 
 
 "Oh, you shall take me away," she sobbed. 
 
 "You are a child," he said. "How can I take you 
 away? Dear, I have no right. What would the world 
 say?" 
 
 "What does it matter?" she cried, waywardly 
 "what does anything matter except that I'm so fond 
 of you?" 
 
 He kissed her while he loosed her clinging arms. 
 He panted as though he had run a race. His face was 
 white and dragged. He put her from him, drawing 
 her to a chair. She dropped into it, perversely, turn- 
 ing her face from him. 
 
 "Dearest," he said, struggling with himself, "you 
 do not know what you say. If you were less innocent, 
 you would never tempt me so cruelly. ' ' 
 
 She leaned her head against the iron chair-rail. Her 
 bared white shoulders heaved. 
 
 ' 'You do not care for me, ' ' she cried, roughly. ' 'If 
 you cared for me you could not say no. ' ' 
 
 He laid a hand on the prone fair head. 
 
 "Heavens!" he said, "do I not!" 
 
 Footsteps sounded down the passage. She lifted her 
 head, listening. In a moment her mood changed. 
 She started up. 
 
 "It is Ludwig," she whispered. There was an eager 
 look in her eyes. She collected herself rapidly. 
 
 "For God's sake keep quiet," she implored him. 
 "Keep quiet. I want time. I have been mad. Give 
 me time to think it over. ' ' 
 
 They could hear a guttural smothered imprecation 
 as he stumbled outside the door. 
 
 "If you keep still," she whispered, in tense, level 
 undertones, "he will never discover us. For pity's 
 sake don't let him find us here." 
 
 "Why," he protested, "what do I care for Ludwig?" 
 
 The place was dimly lit. They were screened by 
 a bank of tropical leaves. She gathered her skirts 
 about her; she looked into his face beseechingly, put-
 
 76 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 ting a small imperative finger to her lips ; there were 
 calculation and set purpose in her face. 
 
 "Alicia?" Ludwig muttered, hoarsely, across the 
 shadows. His breath came to them heavy with wine. 
 "Are you there, Alicia?" 
 
 She scarcely breathed, crouching lower and closer. 
 
 But Kershaw stepped out into the light. 
 
 "Lady Alicia is here, Prince Ludwig," he said 
 quietly, "but she is very tired after her performance." 
 
 The prince glared insolently at him. He pushed 
 past him without speaking. 
 
 She had risen, and stood smoothing out her laces 
 with a show of unconcern. She lifted a gloved hand, 
 and half -yawning, half -laughing behind it : 
 
 ' 'I was resting in the shade after the heat and glare, ' ' 
 she said, listlessly; "I am feeling horribly fagged." 
 
 She scanned his face with limpid glances. She looked 
 toward him, smiling from beneath her lids. 
 
 He glared from one to the other with suspicious 
 surliness. 
 
 Alicia sank down into her chair again. 
 
 ' 'Oh, you would never believe how worn out I am, ' ' 
 she pleaded. 
 
 He swept hot eyes over her cool beauty. 
 
 "It was a brave performance," he said, caustically. 
 
 She shrugged her pretty shoulders. 
 
 "Pray, continue resting," he insisted, "I can talk 
 to you here. " 
 
 He turned to Kershaw. 
 
 ' 'Thanks for your guidance, major, ' ' he said, haugh- 
 tily, "I had been searching the house for the fair Aph- 
 rodite. " He nodded, dismissing him, and, turning 
 his back, moved up to Alicia. 
 
 But Kershaw moved after him. 
 
 "Lady Alicia is tired, " he said, quietly, "we must 
 not further tax her to-night. ' ' He bent a stiff neck to 
 Ludwig, then he presented his arm to her. "Come," 
 he said, gently, "I will take you to Lady Winder- 
 mere. " 
 
 She did not rise. She flashed him a petulant glance. 
 She muttered a fretful negative beneath her breath.
 
 "ALICIA HAS CHOSEN." 77 
 
 Ludwig laughed a laugh which was an imprecation. 
 
 "You are monstrously considerate," he said, "but 
 as Lady Windermere has commissioned me to look 
 after her daughter, your consideration seerns super- 
 fluous. " 
 
 Kershaw ignored him. 
 
 ' ' Come, ' ' he said, still offering his arm. But she 
 turned aside. 
 
 "Let me alone," she objected, captiously, "I want 
 to rest. ' ' 
 
 The major straightened himself. 
 
 "Then we will leave you here in quiet. Come, 
 prince." 
 
 Liidwig flashed him a turbulent look. 
 
 "Come?" he echoed, "come where? and why the 
 devil must I have you for companion?" 
 
 "Only as far as the door," the major said, "we will 
 then part company, unless," he added, pointedly, 
 ."you have a mind to go further." 
 
 Their eyes met. Lud wig's lowered. He had no 
 mind to go further ; he took no indiscriminate risks in 
 life. 
 
 "I'm in no mood to appreciate your company even 
 so far as the door, sir," he blustered, "and, at present, 
 I have Lady Windermere 's commission to look after 
 her daughter. ' ' 
 
 He flung himself into a chair beside her. 
 
 Kershaw moved to her other side, and stood there 
 like a man of stone. 
 
 Alicia sat with her hands in her lap, humming the 
 refrain of a waltz, the while she drummed the floor 
 indifferently with satin heels. 
 
 After some minutes Ludwig broke out into a hoarse 
 laugh. 
 
 "I believe you have a proverb in your language, 
 Major Kershaw, to the effect that two are company." 
 
 "We have," the major admitted, "but it had not 
 occurred to me that you were of it." 
 
 The prince laughed again, but there was no mirth 
 in his humor. He got up sullenly. 
 
 ' ' I am not fond of ridiculous situations, ' ' he said,
 
 78 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 shrugging his heavy shoulders. "Au revoir, Major 
 Kershaw. ' ' 
 
 Alicia stretched a lissome hand to him. She mur- 
 mured an inarticulate appeal. 
 
 He lifted the hand and put his lips to it half ironi- 
 cally. 
 
 "Au revoir, Lady Alicia," he said; "I must tell 
 Lady Windermere I am forestalled. ' ' 
 
 She leaned up, dropping her shoulders. From 
 where he stood above her he saw, amid the chiffons of 
 her bodice, the two white roundnesses to which her 
 neck curved. She drew him with seductive eyes. 
 
 "Don't go," she whispered. 
 
 His looks devoured her. His face flushed dully. 
 
 "You cannot make two men ridiculous," he blurted 
 harshly; "you must choose." 
 
 The major, standing stern and silent on the other 
 side of her, saw the weak yielding in her face, saw 
 the flushed coarseness of her tempter's. How could 
 she know what a brute the man was? How could she 
 know to what she pledged herself? He made up his 
 mind. Poor! He was poor, but poverty was not the 
 worst of ills. Poverty was a bugbear wherewith her 
 worldly family had frightened her. 
 
 He stepped before her, between her and the prince. 
 
 "Alicia has chosen," he said, quietly. "She has 
 done me that highest honor." 
 
 She cried out angrily, hiding her face in her hands. 
 
 Ludwig purpled to the temples. His hands clenched. 
 
 "Damn you!" he cried, furiously, "what right have 
 you?" 
 
 Kershaw eyed him sternly. 
 
 "None," he said, "but that she has given me." 
 
 "She's a cursed flirt!" the prince ejaculated, vio- 
 lently, and flung from the room. 
 
 She broke into hysterical weeping. She drummed 
 her fists fiercely on the chair-rails. He knelt beside 
 her. He put an arm about her. 
 
 "Be brave, my darling," he encouraged her. 
 "Trust me to carry you through it." 
 
 She pushed him away.
 
 "ALICIA HAS CHOSEN." 79 
 
 "I can never be poor," she cried. "You have 
 spoiled my life. I will never be poor. " 
 
 "Dearest," he said, "there are worse things than 
 poverty. And there is no better thing than love. ' ' 
 
 "You have sent him away. I should have been a 
 princess," she insisted, wrathfully. 
 
 "Thank heaven you have escaped it," he returned. 
 "Darling, I will teach you all that love means. They 
 would spoil you with their worldliness. ' ' 
 
 "I will never be poor," she broke out, vengefully. 
 4 ' You have ruined my life ! ' ' 
 
 "You shall know what a man's devoted love can be, 
 dear. Love with us, we can laugh at poverty." 
 
 She tore at her dress in childish rage. The chiffons 
 and lace hung in rags about her lovely bust. He put 
 her cloak tenderly about her. 
 
 Suddenly she caught his hand. She stood clutching 
 it and staring up at him. Then she carried it to her 
 mouth, and bit at it. Her teeth almost met in the flesh. 
 Blood oozed. 
 
 "I hate you," she said, beside herself. "You have 
 ruined my life. ' ' 
 
 He wiped his hand, and wiped his whiter face. 
 
 "Come," he said, "I will take you to your mother."
 
 8o WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 WON! 
 
 " As for the girl, she turned to her new being, 
 Came, as a bird that hears its fellows call ; 
 
 Blessed, as the blind that blesses God for seeing; 
 Grew as a flower on which the sun-rays fall ; 
 
 Loved, if you will ; she never named it so ; 
 Love comes unseen we only see it go." 
 
 It was no face of a triumphant lover which Kershaw 
 wore as they drove home that night. He had won. 
 It was true he had won, but It is rarely that there 
 is no "but" inhuman bliss! His lips thrilled with the 
 memory of her kisses. His hand throbbed where her 
 teeth had pierced. His heart was full of tenderness. 
 His mind there seemed a wound where his mind was 
 a wound he was salving with excuses. 
 
 Millicent watching him from her corner, wondered 
 at the trouble of his face. She guessed a part of that 
 which had happened. The dominant ownership of 
 him as he returned to the ball-room with Alicia, pale 
 and submissive, on his arm, the air of guardianship 
 with which he had entrusted her to Lady Windermere, 
 had been read aright by many. 
 
 The prince had been seen to stride heavily up the 
 room and make his adieux with a lowering face, while 
 Alicia was yet absent. And it had been generally 
 anticipated that to-night she would certainly have 
 brought him to book. 
 
 Lady Windermere had received her at Kershaw's 
 hands with an insolent glare. But Kershaw was in no 
 mood to be intimidated by her glarings. His indigna- 
 tion against her for the wrongs of evil training and 
 example she had done the beautiful creature given her 
 for child for so it presented itself to him armed him 
 against her.
 
 WON. 8 1 
 
 "Will Lord Windermere be at home in the morn- 
 ing?" he had questioned. 
 
 "I believe so," her ladyship had retorted, as though 
 the admission were dragged from her. 
 
 ' ' I shall do myself the pleasure of calling, ' ' he said. 
 
 This as he saw them to their carriage. Alicia had 
 not vouchsafed him a glance. She would not see the 
 hand he held to her. His heart smote him for her 
 white, dejected face. 
 
 ' ' Forget it, ' ' he whispered. ' ' I shall never think of 
 it again. ' ' 
 
 But she kept her face averted. It may be her regret 
 was other than that he supposed. 
 
 Now, as he drove home, ways and means began to 
 assail him. The glow and exaltation of passion passed. 
 He had Lord Windermere to settle with next day. He 
 did not need to remind himself of the absolute inade- 
 quacy of his means. 
 
 "For goodness sake put down the window," his 
 mother broke out, irritably. "It is stiflingly close to- 
 night. ' ' 
 
 He obeyed in silence. 
 
 "What is the matter with your hand?" 
 
 He had tied his handkerchief about it. He with- 
 drew it into the shade. 
 
 "Nothing; a mere scratch. " 
 
 "Some slatternly girl with a pin in her waistband. 
 They ought to be fined or whipped, ' ' she pronounced, 
 wrathfully. 
 
 "Congratulate me," he said, when Millicent had 
 gone to her room. 
 
 Lady Kershaw almost dropped her fan. 
 
 "Not Alicia," she burst out. "They told me Lud- 
 wig had proposed. ' ' 
 
 "No," he said; "I was first" 
 
 She started up and paced the floor. 
 
 "Were you mad? were you mad?" she cried, angrily. 
 "After her most disgraceful performance." 
 
 "The thing is settled," he said, quietly. 
 
 "Oh! I am too angry to speak," she protested. "I 
 would rather have seen you in your grave. ' ' 
 6
 
 82 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 She gathered up her cloak and gloves, and marched 
 upstairs. She knocked at Millicent's door. After a 
 minute it was opened. The room was but dimly 
 lighted. The lamp had been moved to a far corner. 
 Millicent took her hands, and drew her silently in. 
 She set a chair for her before the fire ; then she sat 
 down, with her face in shadow. 
 
 "He is a fool a madman!" Lady Kershaw insisted. 
 "You will never believe it. It is inexplicable. And 
 how could she have consented?" 
 
 ' 'Perhaps she cares for him. ' ' 
 
 The elder woman faced round on her. 
 
 "How did you know? Who told you?" 
 
 ' 'Oh, I I knew, ' ' the girl said, in a low voice. 
 
 The other was silent for some minutes. Then she 
 broke out again, angrily: 
 
 "And after her brazen shamelessiiess to-night 
 everybody was talking of it how could he? Is all his 
 poetry mere sentiment? Is this creature with the mind 
 of a ? Is this the ideal woman of his books? Oh, I 
 have no patience I have not patience to think about 
 it." 
 
 She felt a hand steal into hers a hand which was 
 cold and trembling. 
 
 "He will make her a good woman," the girl whis- 
 pered, hoarsely. "He will teach her better things. " 
 
 She was silent for a longer interval silent and 
 seething. Then she said more quietly: 
 
 "The women of our house have been so different. 
 She will bring disgrace upon us. ' ' 
 
 "No, no!" the other voice thrilled; "he will make 
 her a good woman." 
 
 Lady Kershaw warmed the chilled, shivering hands 
 in hers. Poor little Pluto ! The girl in her trouble 
 made the nickname he had given her pathetically 
 cruel. 
 
 "I had hoped for something different," she said, 
 gently. 
 
 "He would never have cared for anybody else," 
 was urged so hastily that a sob came out with it. She 
 coughed to cover it. The hand in Lady Kershaw' s
 
 WON. 83 
 
 grew suddenly hot. "He could never have cared for 
 anybody less beautiful and clever," she continued, 
 talking very rapidly. "And they look so so fine 
 together," she concluded. 
 
 "He is a fool," his mother pronounced, with an 
 accession of fresh anger. "Her looks will give him 
 trouble enough before he has finished with her. And 
 it is so preposterous, " she went on, "so absolutely im- 
 possible. His whole income would not provide her 
 with pin-money. ' ' 
 
 The girl drew her chair shyly toward the other. 
 There was a sudden awkward hesitation in her voice 
 and manner. Her hand tightened timidly on Lady 
 Kershaw's. 
 
 "That could that could be managed," she said, 
 slowly. 
 
 ' ' Managed ! It is just the thing that cannot be man- 
 aged. Her father would not give her a penny even 
 if he were not, as he is, up to the ears in debt. Of 
 course he will set his face against the whole thing. 
 There'll be a pretty business. I should have some 
 hope, only that Richard is like iron when he makes his 
 mind up." 
 
 Millicent sat fidgeting, drawing a fringe of the man- 
 tel-cover rapidly through her fingers. Then she said: 
 
 "But if somebody liked Alicia, Lady Kershaw, and 
 wanted to see her happy; liked Major Kershaw, too, 
 and wanted to see them both happy, she might she 
 might give them money. She might have more money 
 than she wanted for herself." 
 
 "I suppose you mean Lady Windermere. You don't 
 know her, my dear. She is the last woman in the 
 world to do anything of the kind, even if she had a 
 penny to bless herself with." 
 
 "I did not mean Lady Windermere. I meant any- 
 body somebody who hadn't anything particular to do 
 with her money, and wanted some way of spending it, 
 and would feel proud and happy to be able " 
 
 The sentence remained unfinished. 
 
 Lady Kershaw glanced with sudden keenness at 
 the face turned resolutely from her. In the dim light
 
 84 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 she could see quivering lips and a dragged cheek. 
 She heard her swallow that which choked her voice. 
 She got up hastily. She laid her two hands gently on 
 the girl's shoulders. She laughed lightly. 
 
 "It isn't the age of fairy godmothers, dear," she 
 said. She stooped and kissed her. "And a man could 
 not take money from such a dear, generous friend," 
 she added, with a tremble in her voice. "Good-night. " 
 
 She kissed her again. "My dear girl, sleep well." 
 
 She went softly from the room. Outside she wiped 
 her cheek, but the tears she wiped away were not all 
 hers. 
 
 "Oh, Dick, "she apostrophized him as she passed his 
 door, "that your practical mother should have lived to 
 have a rhymster and a fool for son!"
 
 THE EARL OF WINDERMERE. 85 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 THE EARL OF WINDERMERE. 
 
 " If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be 
 now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all." 
 
 "If you ask me what 1 think of you, I say you are 
 an impudent scoundrel, sir, ' ' Lord Windermere thun- 
 dered. ' ' By your own confession, you have little more 
 than a beggarly thousand a year, your house is a tum- 
 ble-down pig-stye, you have scarcely a rood of land 
 that isn't let to some boor for grazing, and you come to 
 me prating about marrying my daughter. ' ' 
 
 Kershaw bowed. 
 
 "It is a colored version of the facts," he said. "Sub- 
 stantially it is true. ' ' 
 
 "You have the impudence to own it." 
 
 Kershaw's color rose. 
 
 "It is ridiculous to speak of impudence," he said. 
 "My family is as good as yours. I am poor, I admit." 
 
 "And admitting it, answer your damned preposter- 
 ous question. Once for all, sir, you shall not marry 
 my daughter Alicia. Good-morning. ' ' 
 
 "I am sorry to differ with you on a question with 
 which you have a right to consideration, Lord Win- 
 dermere, but I must tell you I have your daughter's 
 consent, and your daughter is of an age to choose for 
 herself. ' ' 
 
 Lord Windermere scoffed. "Her consent! The 
 consent of a silly fool in a weak moment. You forced 
 it from her. She admits you did. You took advan- 
 tage of her in some hysterical frenzy or another. She 
 had every intention of accepting Ludwig. " 
 
 He suddenly lost control. 
 
 "Curse you!" he vociferated. "Do you know what 
 you did? Ludwig, instead of proposing last night to 
 my daughter as he intended, proposed to, and was
 
 86 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 accepted by Miss Vaux Miss Vaux," he raved, "a 
 red-haired chit of a creature he had never looked twice 
 at." He laughed apoplectically. "Miss Vaux to cut 
 out my daughter the handsomest girl in the county. 
 What have you to say to that, sir?" 
 
 "I have to say that poor little Ena Vaux is greatly 
 to be pitied. " 
 
 Windermere was beside himself. "Pitied?" he 
 shrieked, "pitied, to be a princess with over fifty thou- 
 sand pounds a year? Rot, sir; rot, sir. Rot!" 
 
 He flung the words as though they had been missiles. 
 
 "You must know Lud wig's character," Kershaw 
 said, loudly. He was compelled to speak loudly if he 
 intended to be heard. The earl was blustering up and 
 down the great room like a windmill. 
 
 "Character!" he roared. "Are you a driveling 
 idiot? What in hell's name does a man's character 
 matter? He ain't a school-girl. I say rot, sir; rot, 
 sir. Rot!" 
 
 He stamped about his face purple, his eyeballs 
 starting. He had been drinking considerably. Ker- 
 shaw feared lest he might have a fit. 
 
 "Lord Windermere," he said, peaceably, "what is 
 done is done. I do not pretend to be a match for your 
 daughter from a worldly standpoint ' ' 
 
 "Damn me, I should think not!" his lordship 
 ejaculated, "nor from any other standpoint out of a 
 novelette. ' ' 
 
 "But," the major persisted, "it is no longer a ques- 
 tion of whether I am to marry your daughter, but am 
 I to marry her with your consent?" 
 
 "You shan't marry her at all that you may take 
 your oath of!" his lordship cried, in such a voice that 
 the dog on the hearth tumbled up and ran forward 
 snarling. 
 
 Kershaw waited two minutes while the other tramped 
 his rage out. He had himself admirably under control. 
 
 Then he said firmly, "I mean to marry your daugh- 
 ter. She has promised me. I will do my best to make 
 up to her for what she loses. But marry her I will. 
 I would rather marry her with your consent. ' '
 
 THE EARL OF WINDERMERE. 87 
 
 The earl made two violent strides across the room. 
 He caught the major's arm with a fleshy impotent 
 hand. Kershaw did not move a muscle. From his 
 greater height, he stood looking down into the other's 
 swollen face. Windermere's hand dropped. He 
 loosed his grip. 
 
 "I am an old man," he panted, hoarsely, "or I 
 would thrash you within an inch of your life!" 
 
 Kershaw turned away. He could not humiliate her 
 father by observing his abasement. 
 
 ' ' I am very sorry you are taking it so hard, ' ' he said, 
 after a minute. "I can do nothing by staying longer." 
 
 "Are you still determined to ruin my daughter's life?" 
 
 "My mind was made up before I came to you, sir. 
 I shall not ruin her life as Ludwig would have done. ' ' 
 
 "I shall forbid her to speak to you." 
 
 The major bowed. "Good-morning," he said, and 
 walked to the door. 
 
 "I will cane her. I will shut her up on bread and 
 water ' ' 
 
 Kershaw turned on him fiercely. "You cannot 
 you dare not. She is your daughter " 
 
 "That is the reason. I am her father. She shall 
 obey me, or I swear it shall go hard with her." 
 
 As Kershaw strode down the drive, forging methods 
 and devices for her in his hot brain, she ran shivering 
 to his side. She wore no hat. Her hair was dishev- 
 eled. She clung piteously to him. 
 
 "Take me with you," she panted. "I dare never 
 face him. He vows he will kill me. Oh, why did you 
 do it?" She broke into irritable weeping. 
 
 He put an arm about her. He supported her trem- 
 bling frame. 
 
 "You are safe with me," he said. "My darling, 
 come home to my mother. ' ' 
 
 Walking up the long beech avenue, she, silent and 
 resentful, he, tender and comforting, they met the 
 Towers brougham driven rapidly toward them. 
 
 "By Jove!" Kershaw cried, "what can be the mat- 
 ter? And who would have suspected old Janey of such 
 speed!"
 
 88 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 It passed them without slackening. Danvers the 
 coachman touched his hat respectfully, at the same 
 time shaking a foreboding head. 
 
 As it whirled by, a girl's flushed, tear-stained face 
 pushed out, and smiled and nodded with a pitiful 
 attempt at bravery. 
 
 "What can be wrong?" he said again. 
 
 Lady Kershaw met them in the hall. 
 
 "Poor Millicent has had a telegram, 1 " she said, con- 
 cernedly. ' ' Her father died this morning, suddenly. ' '
 
 THE HEIRESS. 89 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 THE HEIRESS. 
 
 " Minds on this round earth of ours, 
 Very like the leaves and flowers, 
 Fashioned after certain laws." 
 
 There was nobody but her new-found cousins to 
 whom Millicent could look for aid. The dead man 
 had no relatives in England, and but few friends. The 
 trusteeship of his property he left in the hands of his 
 lawyer, and the rector of the parish in which he died. 
 
 Poor Millicent, expressing the forlornness of her 
 position in a heart-broken letter to the Towers, begged 
 to be allowed to return thither until such time as she 
 could make other arrangements. 
 
 Kershaw answered her appeal in person. His own 
 affairs required his attention at that moment, and 
 inclination drew him with the powerful magnet of 
 Alicia's attraction to remain at home; but Millicent 
 could not be deserted in such unfriended straits, and, 
 much to Alicia's chagrin, for she was accustomed to 
 find herself heroine of most situations, he did not return 
 to Roldermere until he brought with him the heiress, 
 broken-hearted and black-veiled. And, after all, she 
 proved to be less of an heiress than had been antici- 
 pated. Mr. Rivers had left the great bulk of his for- 
 tune to carefully-selected charities. "To my dear girl, 
 Millicent," his will ran, "I leave only a hundred thou- 
 sand pounds, which, as now invested, will bring her a 
 yearly income of five thousand pounds. I have found 
 money no such blessing that I should burden her with 
 more than she can comfortably spend." 
 
 "What a lucky girl you are," Alicia remarked, envi- 
 ously. "I could cry with rage when I contrast your 
 position with mine." 
 
 "I have not a friend in the world," the heiress said, 
 forlornly.
 
 90 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "I should like to know who has!" retorted Beauty. 
 
 She was chewing the bitter cud of bitterest remorse. 
 She had lost everything to which her life had aimed ; 
 she was irrevocably compromised. Ludwig's engage- 
 ment to Miss Vaux was known throughout the county. 
 She had no alternative than to marry Kershaw, and 
 marrying Kershaw involved that which had been the 
 bugbear of her existence so long as she could remem- 
 ber poverty. But Alicia knew better than to publish 
 her mortification. She preserved a smiling counte- 
 nance, and played her role of heroine to perfection. 
 Only to Millicent did she confess the truth, and poor 
 Millicent, in these days, was no very sympathetic lis- 
 tener. 
 
 From the hour she left her home, her people cast 
 her off. Lord Windermere returned, unopened, sun- 
 dry letters Kershaw addressed to him, as Lady Win 
 dermere returned, unread, Alicia's missives. Trunks 
 containing her clothes, and other personal belongings, 
 arrived some two weeks subsequent to her departure. 
 She sat beside them, dropping tears of rage and depri- 
 vation. 
 
 "They have kept my prettiest frocks!" she cried, 
 "and my furs and sable cape! It is that little thief 
 Marie has done it ; she would have orders to pack 
 them, and has stolen my smartest things. ' ' 
 
 To make sure that her mother was acquainted with 
 the theft, she telegraphed her protest, and demanded 
 the missing treasures. But they were not forthcom- 
 ing, whereupon she wailed again. 
 
 "It is mother herself," she stormed, "she always 
 wanted my sable cape, and all my nicest clothes!" 
 
 "I think you have heaps of things," Millicent 
 returned, contemptuously, glancing over the rich con- 
 tents of the great trunks standing open. "I don't 
 know how you can bother about trifles like that at such 
 a time." 
 
 "I could have gone away in the sable cape, it is 
 nearly new, and suited me better than anything I have ; 
 I'm not likely to get another or anything decent to
 
 THE HEIRESS. 91 
 
 wear when these are ragged out, as they soon will be ; 
 they're none of them new." 
 
 "I will give you a sable cape for a wedding pres- 
 ent," Millicent consoled her, out of patience with her 
 clamorings. 
 
 Alicia dried her eyes. 
 
 "You dear!" she cried, and pressed the heiress' 
 fingers in three of her own. "It is well to be you," 
 she continued, "to have your money in your own right, 
 though I think your father might have done better for 
 you. Still, of course, you think nothing of a hundred 
 pounds. That cloak I had cost eighty it wasn't at 
 all the best quality ; but Waldon was always stingy. ' ' 
 
 "Did Lord Waldon give it to you?" 
 
 Alicia dropped the fringes of her lovely eyes. 
 
 "Do you think father would?" she retorted, con- 
 temptuously; " and why should I play in his stupid old 
 tableaux for nothing? It was a sickening fag, with 
 rehearsals and all kinds of bothers. Besides, I had to 
 buy my dress forty yards of silk!" 
 
 "Four would have done equally well," Millicent 
 commented, dryly. 
 
 Alicia laughed. "Don't be strait-laced," she said, 
 "it's abominably provincial." 
 
 After a pause, she broke out spitefully: 
 
 "I loathe mother having that cape. If ever I meet 
 her in it, I swear I'll tear it off her there and then. 
 Look here, Mill, give me an ermine one, dear, in case 
 I do meet her in the sable ; it would be a pity to have 
 two sables, and ermine doesn't cost so very much 
 more. When shall we go and choose it? Who is that? 
 Come in." 
 
 Millicent' s maid had tapped at the door. 
 
 "Can I help you, miss?" she queried, with an inter- 
 ested eye on the trunks ; she was dying to overhaul 
 their contents. 
 
 "No, thank you," her mistress returned, "we can 
 manage." 
 
 "How detestable of you, Millicent; you might at 
 least be amiable enough to let me have the use of her 
 these few weeks. I shan't be able to afford a maid
 
 92 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 out of Richard's money that's certain enough. See, 
 now, I can never get these sleeves back into the boxes 
 without creasing them, and then they won't be fit to 
 wear. ' ' 
 
 Millicent proceeded to her assistance, to find herself 
 presently alone at the task. 
 
 "You have such clever hands," Beauty said, yawn- 
 ing, and complacently regarding her own. 
 
 Presently, "Kershaw ought to have married you," 
 she went on, "you would have been just the wife for 
 him. And you have money ; he needs money horribly. 
 It's nearly as ridiculous for him to marry me, as it is 
 for me to marry him. ' ' 
 
 "I have no intention of marrying," Millicent pro- 
 tested out of the capacious depths of a big dress- 
 basket. 
 
 "Well, I had none of marrying Kershaw, I assure 
 you. ' ' 
 
 The other turned on her savagely. 
 
 "Then why did you accept him?" she flashed out. 
 "You know it cannot end happily." 
 
 Alicia ground her teeth. 
 
 "Oh, don't talk of it!" she cried, ferociously. "I 
 was a fool for five minutes ; anybody may be a fool 
 for five minutes. He took a mean advantage. He 
 knew I never had the least intention of marrying him. ' ' 
 
 "It is not too late to get out of it." 
 
 "If it were not, you maybe sure I should have done 
 it long ago. But you know perfectly well I have no 
 choice. I am compromised before the world. I 
 haven't a roof over me. I have to be thankful for 
 this, which father elegantly terms a pig-stye. And I 
 might have been a princess, with over fifty thousand 
 a year. ' ' 
 
 "I am sure I wish you had," Millicent insisted, 
 irritably. Her heart was sore enough for her own 
 troubles. She was wearied to death by Alicia's reit- 
 erations. 
 
 "No doubt!" 
 
 The heiress turned a crimson, honest face on her. 
 
 "That isn't the reason," she said. "He would never
 
 THE HEIRESS. 93 
 
 have looked at me. And I am a great deal too miser- 
 able over poor father to be thinking about myself. ' ' 
 
 Alicia simulated surprise. 
 
 "Why, who said anything about anything?" she 
 queried, ingenuously. "I only said 'no doubt.' But 
 I suppose you do like him. You are so very senti- 
 mental. " She yawned. "Well, I must say I should 
 be a happy woman if you were going to tie yourself 
 up to him for the rest of your days instead of me. I 
 know that. In heaven's name, have mercy on that 
 chiffon, Millicent! Chiffon that isn't fresh translates 
 itself into its British 'rag'; and I'm sure I don't know 
 where I'm going to get more from." 
 
 Millicent sat up on the floor where she had been 
 kneeling at the trunks. 
 
 "Alicia," she said, simply, "you can't mean all you 
 say. If you have any heart at all, you cannot help 
 caring for him. When you live in the same house 
 with him, when you see him every day, and come to 
 understand him " 
 
 Alicia broke out laughing in her face. 
 
 "Good Lord!" she cried. "Why, he'll bore me to 
 death. The only way for marriage to be tolerable is 
 to spread it over half-a-dozen houses, so that one can 
 choose one's distance. The only way to make a hus- 
 band tolerable is to keep him one of an agreeable 
 house-party. But a tete-a-tete marriage and I don't 
 see how we're going to afford anything else " She 
 broke into charming laughter. 
 
 Kershaw would have been beside himself to hear the 
 ringing ripple of it. 
 
 Millicent sat staring at her, her swollen eyelids 
 opened to their widest. 
 
 "I wonder how he ever came to care for you, ' she 
 said, slowly. 
 
 Alicia's laughter ceased. 
 
 ^Because you promise me an ermine cape I don't see 
 that it gives you a right to insult me, ' ' she protested, 
 nettled. "And I'm sure I wish to heaven he had set 
 his sentimental fancies upon someone who would have 
 valued them. ' '
 
 94 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 Shortly after Alicia's installment at the Towers, Lord 
 Tudor had an interview with Kershaw. 
 
 "Of course you've got to marry her," he said. 
 "Everybody's talking about it." 
 
 "I want nothing better," Kershaw asserted, dis- 
 tantly. 
 
 "I wish you luck, I'm sure. You'll find herahand- 
 ful." 
 
 Kershaw declined to discuss the question. 
 
 "You've behaved beastly shabbily, you know, " con- 
 tinued Tudor, candidly. "Alicia was to have married 
 Ludwig. ' '. 
 
 "It would have been a scandal. " 
 
 Her brother shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "It would have suited her," he said. "You've got 
 cursed topsy-turvy notions, Kershaw. Alicia will 
 help you to straighten 'em out, I reckon. She ain't 
 altogether what she looks. But I advise you to give 
 her a pretty free rein. Take things easy, and you 
 may rub along. But she's apt to turn skittish ; and if 
 she turns skittish, she'll maybe bolt and land the whole 
 concern in the divorce court. ' ' 
 
 Kershaw stood stiff with rage. 
 
 "Leave me to manage my affairs," he said. 
 
 "Oh, by all means," his brother-in-law elect 
 assented. "Only, as you've chosen to take on one of 
 ours, and that not the easiest, I thought I might give 
 you a bit of advice. Ta-ta, old chap. Wish you joy, 
 I'm sure. Just off to town. Guv. not easy to get on 
 with just at present. Ludwig's sent in his little bill. 
 Ta-ta; love to 'Licia. " 
 
 "Awful rough on the Windermeres, " Vaux confided 
 to Millicent, when he came upon her riding some four 
 or five weeks after the event. It was the first day 
 since her father's death that she had had heart enough 
 for riding. After some conventional words of condo- 
 lence, he had got upon the subject of Alicia and Ker- 
 shaw. ' ' Everybody thinks Kershaw has behaved badly 
 you know. Nobody would have thought it of him. 
 When a chap writes poetry about high things and that,
 
 THE HEIRESS. 95 
 
 you naturally expect him to behave better than other 
 people." 
 
 "I don't know what you mean," objected Millicent, 
 up in arms at once. "He cares for Alicia immensely, 
 and he asked her to marry him. ' ' 
 
 "That's where he did shabbily, because you see he 
 can't begin to keep her. As Lady Windermere says, 
 she'll have to do the cookin' ; and fancy Alicia havin' 
 to do the cookin' . ' ' 
 
 "Lady Kershaw does not do the cookin," his com- 
 panion objected. "And Alicia ought to be very 
 happy. ' ' 
 
 "Alicia will, no doubt. She always manages to fall 
 on those pretty feet of hers. But for all Kershaw will 
 have to do with it, it'll be in broken boots." 
 
 "Is nearly two thousand a year so little to live on?" 
 Millicent questioned. "I'm sure everything at the 
 Towers is very nice. ' ' 
 
 "But when you have been used to hum Alicia's 
 been used to so much, you see. Why, she'd spend all 
 that in frocks, or more. ' ' 
 
 "She won't have the chance. And I don't think she 
 is at all to be pitied." 
 
 Vaux was taken with an ugly minute. The heiress' 
 lips had not tightened, but the heiress' cheek wore 
 a suspicious bloom. 
 
 "Oh, he ain't a bad sort o' chap, Kershaw ain't. 
 He's got notions, and he's too serious for some folk's 
 taste. But I can't say he's shown up well in this affair. 
 He's known Alicia all her life, and might have had a 
 little consideration for her, instead of wreckin' her 
 career, as he is doin'." 
 
 "I daresay she will be very happy." 
 
 "And I daresay she won't. It isn't Alicia's form to 
 settle down and be happy, as you say, with a baby 
 every year ' ' 
 
 ' ' I never mentioned babies, ' ' Millicent contradicted, 
 hotly ; " I never thought of such a thing. ' ' 
 
 Vaux laughed. The clock struck the hour, and his 
 spectre vanished. 
 
 "Why, of course you didn't. You're awfully proper
 
 96 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 for a woman, Miss Millicent. You actually blush on 
 occasions, and that's a tremendous feat in these days. 
 And so you believe Alicia will console herself with 
 Kershaw's good looks for the loss of a prince? Per- 
 haps Kershaw will lose his looks when it conies to 
 livin' on mutton bones and bacon." 
 
 "I don't think it is " She hesitated for a word. 
 "Good form," suggested itself, but it had come to her 
 that good form and good taste were terms, not neces- 
 sarily synonymous. Moreover, who was she that she 
 should instruct a baron's son in the thing called form? 
 She substituted "nice." "I don't think it is nice to 
 talk about people's private affairs, Mr. Vaux. " 
 
 He laughed. The heiress was a good little soul. 
 One might be very happy with her. After all, it was 
 only a hundred thousand she had, but her lips did not 
 tighten. It occurred to him all at once that he was 
 growing fond of her. 
 
 " Careful at that fence," he called; "it's a nasty one." 
 
 She caught her breath as Queenie rose. She sighed 
 as the mare's hoofs came down springily on the other 
 side. She was thinking of that first time she had 
 taken this same nasty fence, with Alicia and the prince 
 ahead, and Kershaw thundering after her. How 
 things had changed since then! She sobered sud- 
 denly, remembering her dead, kind father. How 
 proud he had been to hear of her hunting in company 
 with a prince. 
 
 When Vaux caught up with her, she had reined in 
 the mare, and stood waiting for him. Her face was 
 pale ; her lips trembled a little. 
 
 "Mr. Vaux," she said, seriously, "you know I am 
 not a lady ' ' 
 
 He bent his head in protest. 
 
 "Miss Rivers," he returned, respectfully, "I know 
 nothing of the kind. ' ' 
 
 "I think you must," she went on, simply. "Every- 
 body knows my father made furniture polish. ' ' She 
 lost her voice a moment. Recovering it, she contin- 
 ued, "I used to be ashamed of it. I am not any 
 longer. Do you know why?"
 
 THE HEIRESS. 97 
 
 He was nonplussed. He sought about for reasons. 
 
 "Because he made such a rippin' pot o' money out 
 of it, ' ' he submitted, soberly. 
 
 She shook her head. Her lip still trembled. 
 
 "No, because I thought swells like L'ord Winder- 
 mere and people with titles and old families had finer 
 thoughts and higher purposes than people who had 
 been in trade all their lives. I thought, because you 
 had nothing else to do, you would cultivate honor and 
 truth and fine feeling; because you had not to spend 
 your time in counting-houses, that you would care less 
 for money and sordid things. Now I know differently. 
 I suppose it's because God meant men to work, that \ 
 work makes better men of them. Because it does. 
 Since I've known something of of a different class, 
 I've learned to appreciate my own. " 
 
 She jerked the rein, and urging Queenie forward, 
 cantered off impetuously. 
 
 "Miss Rivers," he called, plunging after her "I 
 say, what a fine honest little ripper she is Miss Riv- 
 ers, I say, you're too hard on us. 'Pon honor, we're 
 not all like the Dovercourts. ' ' 
 
 He followed the outline of her resolute head and 
 crimson cheek. 
 
 "There's Waldon," he protested, pursuing her with 
 argument and steed, "ain't a bit close; spends 
 money like water ; tableaux the other night must have 
 cost him a whole pot. And, honestly, there's other 
 chaps, too, not a bit like you say not rich perhaps, so 
 bound to think o' ways and means, you know; but not 
 bad chaps at heart. I swear they're not." 
 
 She still turned resolutely from him, flying over the 
 turf. His voice came after her to the rhythmic pound 
 of eight horse-hoofs. 
 
 "There's Kershaw, for instance," he protested, at 
 his wits' end for examples. "You can't say he ain't 
 a fine chap, and he's one of us." 
 
 This time she spoke. 
 
 "Major Kershaw works," she called back. 
 
 "Yes, but he don't make boot-black, or mustard, or
 
 98 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 any o' those things you seem to think make chaps bet- 
 ter chaps. Now, does he?" 
 
 He was abreast of her by this time. 
 
 "No, he makes poetry," she said, smiling. But he 
 saw that her cheeks were wet. Somewhere in his 
 nonchalant economy he experienced a strong, inex- 
 plicable sense of fierceness, seeing that her cheeks 
 were wet. 
 
 "Every chap hasn't the brain for it," he protested, 
 hotly. "You can't rhyme if you haven't got a brain 
 for rhymin'. And 'pon honor, Miss Millicent, I 
 wouldn't a bit mind goin' in for trade myself if there 
 was any openin'. I'm sick o' loungin'. A chap gets 
 a sort o' dry rot in him loungin', all the time. If you 
 happened to know any old fellow who makes varnish 
 or any o' those kind o' things, and wants a partner, 
 I'm blest if I wouldn't just jump at it. I've got a bit 
 o' capital." 
 
 She laughed and shook her head. 
 
 "I don't suppose you could add up a row of figures." 
 
 "Well, you're wrong, then. If I haven't got a head 
 for figures, I haven't got a head for anythin'." 
 
 He dropped his voice so far as was consistent with 
 the noise their four-footed deputies were making. "I'd 
 do a good deal to be in your good books," he said, ear- 
 nestly. 
 
 She laughed again, and pushed ahead. 
 
 ' ' Then you will have to be very sensible and matter- 
 of-fact," she said.
 
 GODMOTHER TO THE RESCUE 99 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 GODMOTHER TO THE RESCUE. 
 
 "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon 
 her beloved?" 
 
 4 ' Richard, I want to talk to you. ' ' 
 
 "Alicia, I am all ears." 
 
 "Yes, but it is most important. It isn't anything 
 ordinary. We must not be interrupted. It is an 
 amazing, marvelous piece of news. ' ' 
 
 "It must be to make you use adjectives, dear. Come 
 to the library." 
 
 He led the way. She followed him, with speculative 
 eyes on the back of his head, a little anxious tension 
 about her mouth. 
 
 But when he turned to close the door after her, it 
 was a smiling, cloudless face which confronted him. 
 She stood with her hands behind her, beaming pro- 
 vocatively up at him. 
 
 He stood, glancing tenderly down upon her. 
 
 "Why don't you kiss me?" she pouted. 
 
 "See, now, I do." 
 
 ' ' You need not be quite so energetic. You are spoil- 
 ing my fringe. The curl isn't natural, you know. It 
 means an enormous amount of industry with curling 
 tongs. Millicent sent her maid to do it for me this 
 morning. ' ' 
 
 "You will soon have no maid," he said, dejectedly, 
 scanning the pink, perfect face with its crown of corn- 
 hued curls. "Do you think,"' he smiled, "I could 
 manage it for you when " 
 
 "I am certain you couldn't. You would make a per- 
 fect guy of me. And then we should fight. I'm quite 
 murderous when I'm having my hair dressed. It 
 always seems as though they might have done it bet- 
 ter."
 
 too WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "I don't think they could," he said. "There are 
 limits, you know, to human possibility. ' ' 
 
 She did not hear what he said, but she laughed 
 deliciously toward him. She was wondering how she 
 should begin. She dropped her lids. 
 
 "I shall be able to have a maid," she said, softly. 
 
 "Why, certainly, if you wish, but you know it 
 means going without something else." 
 
 He glanced round the room. He underwent a 
 momentary struggle. He would put away the pipes. 
 Men were mere creatures of habit. If the pipes were 
 locked away in some remote corner or another, and 
 there were no tobacco, it would be easy enough to 
 break the habit. And after all Alicia would be there. 
 He could not restrain a sigh even though Alicia would 
 be there. For, as he had reflected, men are creatures 
 of habit and to smoke tobacco has become their sec- 
 ond nature ! 
 
 "It is about that I wanted to talk to you, Richard." 
 
 He brought his mind back. "About about tobac- 
 co?" 
 
 "Tobacco, you dear old stupid! Who said anything 
 about tobacco? No, about the maid, and about heaps 
 of other things I shall want. ' ' 
 
 He thought of his banking account and did not look 
 particularly cheerful. 
 
 1 ' Oh, it is such delicious news I have to tell you. ' ' 
 
 "Where will you sit?" 
 
 "I won't sit, I will stand." 
 
 "Where shall I sit?" 
 
 "You won't sit either; you will stand." 
 
 "Where, dear?" 
 
 "Here, dear." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 "Where I am." 
 
 She swept his face with guileful laughing eyes. 
 
 "My head is so crammed full with plans, I can 
 scarcely support it." 
 
 "There, now, how does that do?" 
 
 "Tolerably! Now turn your eyes away, because I
 
 GODMOTHER TO THE RESCUE. IOI 
 
 am thinking, and when I think my face gets creased 
 with hideous wrinkles." 
 
 She laid her bent arm against his chest, and set her 
 face into the crook of her sleeved elbow, hiding from 
 him all of her features but the eyes, which rested lim- 
 pidly on his. 
 
 She swept her ringers to and fro his throat with soft 
 mesmeric touch. 
 
 "You must not ask questions, " she said. "I cannot 
 do business if I am interrupted. It bothers my head 
 so. Now are you all silence and attention?" 
 
 He nodded, smiling. 
 
 ' ' I said you were not to look at me. Already I can 
 feel the most hideous wrinkles forming round my eye- 
 brows. That is right. Look out of the window. Don't 
 start! What should you say" the hand played softly 
 over his throat, up and down a virile ridge of muscle 
 "what should you say, dear, if I had grown sud- 
 denly rich?" 
 
 "Has my darling come to know how much I love 
 her?" he suggested, dreamily. 
 
 His eyes were dutifully turned away, so that he did 
 not perceive a momentary gleam of scorn which sup- 
 planted the limpid glance. And her arm bent against 
 him was over the curl of her lip. 
 
 ' ' I was speaking of money, ' ' she said. 
 
 His expression changed. 
 
 "Has your father relented?" 
 
 She lifted a finger and laid it softly over his lips. 
 
 "There were to be no questions," she insisted. 
 
 He kissed the finger. "Very well. But tell me, 
 dear. I must know all about it. Your happiness is 
 concerned." 
 
 "You are not resting my head comfortably. There 
 are some horrid bones that run into my cheek. ' ' She 
 moved her face petulantly. 
 
 "I don't think they are bones," he smiled. "It 
 may be a pocketbook. If it is, I doiibt there being 
 anything substantial enough in it to bother you. ' ' 
 
 "Now I am comfortable. Turn your eyes from my 
 hideous business wrinkles again and listen. Father
 
 102 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 has not relented. Nor is he likely to relent. But my 
 godmother Lady Sarah Biddulph, has written this 
 morning to say she will allow me five thousand a year. ' ' 
 
 "Nonsense!" he said. 
 
 "It isn't nonsense at all," she insisted. "It is as 
 true as truth." 
 
 4 ' You are fooling me, Alicia. How could you think 
 I should believe such nonsense?" he said, impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 ' ' You can believe it or not, ' ' she returned, petulantly. 
 "I tell you it is perfectly true. She has heaps and 
 heaps of money, and she promises to allow me a reg- 
 ular income of five thousand a year." 
 
 "Is she mad?" he demanded, "or are you?" He 
 held her at arm's length examining her face. "Or 
 am 1?" 
 
 She struggled back to him, hiding her face in her 
 arm again. 
 
 "You shall not stare at me when I have a hideous 
 business face on," she complained, peevishly. "And 
 we are none of us mad. Unless she is a little. She 
 was always eccentric. ' ' 
 
 "Alicia, it is incredible impossible. Such things 
 don't happen. People don't give other people for- 
 tunes. She must be making fun of you. You must 
 be making a mistake. Show me the letter, dear. At 
 all events it must be five hundred. ' ' 
 
 "It isn't five hundred. Do you think I can't read 
 figures? There were three noughts." 
 
 "Show me the letter. How can you expect me to 
 believe such a story?" 
 
 "I left it upstairs. What does it matter about the 
 letter? I have told you all there is in it that concerns 
 you. Perhaps you will believe this?" 
 
 She took an envelope from her pocket. From it she 
 unfolded notes to the value of one thousand two hun- 
 dred and fifty pounds. She spread them before him 
 on the table, counting them with sparkling eyes. "It 
 is my first quarter's installment," she said. 
 
 He was staggered. They were evidence in truth 
 of that she said, evidence substantial and welcome.
 
 GODMOTHER TO THE RESCUE. 103 
 
 He counted the notes after her. He examined them 
 as if doubting their genuineness. 
 
 "There is no mistake about it," he said, overcome. 
 ' ' You will be able to have all you want. ' ' 
 
 "Isn't she a dear?" Alicia cried, enthusiastically. 
 "She was always very fond of me, you know." 
 
 "Grand old lady!" he pronounced. "Magnificent 
 old person ! This is a godmother indeed. Alicia, we 
 will go right off and thank her properly. ' ' 
 
 "How stupid you are," she said, impatiently. "She 
 is abroad, Richard. She lives abroad for her health. ' ' 
 
 "We will pay her a honeymoon visit, dearest. It is 
 the least we can do." 
 
 The caressing hand altered its motion. It drummed 
 with undeniable irritability upon his chest. Then she 
 said slowly. "She is just going on to Russia or India 
 or somewhere. And she loathes people. She is as 
 cross as two sticks. A nice honeymoon indeed for me, 
 Richard, to spend it with her. ' ' 
 
 He scarcely listened. It was so incredible. Here 
 was escape indeed from all their difficulties. 
 
 "Five thousand a year! Why, Alicia, it is a perfect 
 godsend. A maid! I should think you can have a 
 maid. A couple of hunters, and a pair for your vic- 
 toria. Why, you won't feel yourself a poor man's 
 wife at all. God bless the old lady, I say. I scarcely 
 knew which way to turn, trying to manage for 
 you. ' ' 
 
 He was almost beside himself. Alicia's face against 
 his breast rose and fell to his agitation. He stooped 
 and kissed her. 
 
 "I should think it is astounding news," he said. 
 
 Alicia was cooler. "I suppose we can manage very 
 well on it," she submitted. 
 
 "I never knew the old lady cared so much about 
 you, dear. I remember you told me she had been 
 rather stingy since the christening cup. And I did 
 not understand she was rich. " 
 
 "She is a miser," Alicia said. "She has been hoard- 
 ing for years." 
 
 "She knows you are to marry me?"
 
 104 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Of course. She knows all about it. She thinks it 
 is romantic. She's romantic herself." 
 
 "Did you write?" 
 
 "Oh, don't ask questions. Don't bother me, Richard. 
 My head aches with excitement. ' ' 
 
 "All right, dear. I'm a thoughtless brute. But 
 luck like this, by Jove, drives everything else out of 
 one's head. You won't have to go without pretty 
 frocks now." 
 
 ' ' Frocks cost a good deal, ' ' she responded, practically. 
 
 ' ' There has some spending in five thousand. ' ' 
 
 "The house has to be kept up. We shall want more 
 servants, and a coachman, and a groom. With your 
 two thousand," she shuddered in his arms. "Good 
 gracious!" she exclaimed, "what in heaven's name 
 could we have done on two thousand? Why, I should 
 have had to ride in omnibuses, and travel second- 
 class. ' ' 
 
 "Would love have flown out at the window?" he 
 smiled. 
 
 "No, it would have starved in the house, because it 
 hadn't a decent frock to go out in." 
 
 He drew her to him. "Ah, dear," he said, "for 
 nature and love that could live in a cottage!" 
 
 "It does in poetry," she retorted, "but it doesn't do 
 anywhere else. One' s gowns must fit. ' ' 
 
 After a pause "I must have the drawing-room 
 done up for you," he said. "What color will you have 
 it?" 
 
 "Oh, it is to be pink. She has arranged all that." 
 
 "Good Lord, Alicia! We must not take too much 
 from the old lady. We must be moderate." 
 
 "It isn't the old lady this time," Alicia said, slowly. 
 Her eyes scanned his face. "Millicent has promised 
 to doit." 
 
 He shook his head decisively. 
 
 "I cannot allow that," he said. "You know I could 
 not have that. ' ' 
 
 "We cannot be proud, when we are so poor, Richard. 
 And if Millicent likes Millicent has such heaps of 
 money, and only herself to spend it on. ' '
 
 GODMOTHER TO THE RESCUE. 105 
 
 "She's a generous little girl, dear, I know. But I 
 cannot have her upholstering my house." 
 
 "It will be my house too, soon." 
 
 "Not sooner than I wish," he said, in a passionate 
 parenthesis. 
 
 "But she wants to do it. She wants to do it as a 
 wedding-present to me." 
 
 "It can't be," he said, conclusively. 
 
 From behind the cover of her puffed sleeve she was 
 watching up at him. There was a shade of anxiety 
 in her face. 
 
 "She has more money than she knows how to spend. " 
 
 He made no reply. 
 
 There was silence. Then she said, suddenly and 
 peevishly : 
 
 "I'm horribly tired, Richard. Why do you make 
 trouble by objecting to things? And my head aches 
 wretchedly. ' ' 
 
 ' ' I am sorry. ' ' % 
 
 She knew he did not mean to yield. 
 
 "It is all ordered," she persisted. "It is to be pink 
 and white and gold. We have chosen the curtains." 
 
 She began to sob shallowly. 
 
 "There were to have been mirrors painted with 
 apple-blossoms and butterflies ' ' 
 
 "Heavens! Why did you let Millicent choose? If 
 there is one thing more hideous than another it is 
 painted mirrors. ' ' 
 
 "It wasn't Millicent's choice, it was mine. You 
 can call it hideous if you like. I am sure I have 
 enough to worry me " 
 
 "There, dear, don't cry. You shall have your 
 painted mirrors, and anything else you want; though* 
 they won't suit the old house, goodness knows. But 
 what you have I shall pay for." 
 
 "Will you have enough? I couldn't spare much for 
 the house out of this first installment, could I? We 
 must have horses and carriages." 
 
 "No," he said, rather stiffly. "Keep your money. 
 You will find plenty of ways of spending it. " 
 
 "Oh, if you are going to be stiff and proud " she
 
 106 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 said, composedly, putting her notes back into their 
 envelope. 
 
 "I cannot afford to be stiff and proud, " he returned. 
 "I shall have to let my wife provide a number of 
 things I ought to provide for her. ' ' 
 
 "I suppose two thousand a year will do very little," 
 she sighed. 
 
 "I shall get some hundreds for my new book." 
 
 She gave a little exclamation of surprise. ' 'Do you 
 make money out of your poetry, Richard?" 
 
 "A little." 
 
 Her eyes brightened. 
 
 "Oh, you clever man!" she said. "Then it is some 
 use after all. ' ' 
 
 He looked down at the ethereal face, resting like a 
 lovely blossom on his shoulder. He stooped and kissed 
 her passionately. 
 
 "What a charming tease it is," he laughed.
 
 "RUBBISH." 107 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 "RUBBISH!" 
 
 Leave it with God. But this I have known 
 
 That sorrow is over soon ; 
 Some in dark nights, sore weeping alone, 
 
 Forget by full of the moon. 
 
 "So I shall be leaving you,' Millicent said. 
 
 "I suppose you will," Lady Kershaw acquiesced, 
 regretfully. Her glance traveled past the girl to light 
 with marked resentment on her son. 
 
 He was busily engaged at the further end of the 
 room on some mysterious and masculine business 
 relating to pipes. Pipes to the number of fifteen, 
 various in shape and size, were laid before him on a 
 table. Cases, satin-lined, and wooden boxes, stood 
 beside them. Every now and again he laid a pipe 
 reverently in a box or satin-lined case and closed it 
 with a snap. 
 
 The man about to range himself first ranges his 
 pipes. Where before a multiplicity were needful, 
 now only a couple or so just for sake of change will 
 be required. Smoking will shortly be but an incon- 
 siderable trifle in the sum of happiness. A pipe or 
 two he will need, of course, and some cogitation ensues 
 as to which, out of many, shall be retained. He 
 selects, it may be, three, and, not without sighs, 
 perhaps, gives the remainder decent burial, banishing 
 them in their satin coffins, to some remote corner of 
 the house. Not rarely he resurrects them within six 
 weeks of their interment ! 
 
 So Kershaw was occupied. Millicent stood at the 
 table in her sombre mourning. From an armful of 
 blossoms she had brought in from the greenhouse she 
 was filling vases 
 
 "I shall be sorry enough to lose you," the elder
 
 io8 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 woman added, with another resentful look toward her 
 son. But he, unconscious, sat humming pleasantly 
 above his pipes. He had lost all his gloom. There 
 was a sunny gleam about his gold mustache. 
 
 "Millicent will stay, I hope," he put in, "till Alicia 
 and I get home again. Do," he added, turning to her ; 
 "the mother will be miserable those three weeks with- 
 out you. ' ' 
 
 The heiress bent absorbed above a Dresden bowl. 
 The flowers refused to lean their blooms the way she 
 wished. She shook her head firmly. 
 
 "I should have liked it; but it is not possible." 
 
 Above the flowers she sent him one long glance. 
 He went on humming cheerfully. 
 
 ' ' I must have work to do, ' ' she said in a low voice. 
 "I am tired of being idle." 
 
 "Slumming, I suppose?" the elder woman retorted, 
 not without contempt. It occurred to her cynically 
 that the poor would be badly off were the course of 
 true love always to run smooth. 
 
 Millicent shook her head. 
 
 "I have no talent for slumming," she said, "and 
 I want definite, regular work. ' ' 
 
 "Such as?" 
 
 The heiress put away the bowl of lilies, and, drawing 
 another to her, began to fill it. 
 
 "Teaching," she said. 
 
 Lady Kershaw stared, incredulous. 
 
 "Teaching!" she echoed. 
 
 Millicent waited while she snipped some stems with 
 care. 
 
 "Or hospital nursing," she added. 
 
 4 ' Rubbish ! ' ' Lady Kershaw broke out sharply. She 
 was not gifted with patience, and late events had 
 tried her lack of it. 
 
 Kershaw at the other end of the room, laughed. 
 
 "More emphatic than civil, mother," he observed. 
 ' ' I did not hear what went before, but I will answer 
 for it Millicent said nothing deserving such an unquali- 
 fied snub." 
 
 "Oh, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all,"
 
 "RUBBISH." 109 
 
 the heiress protested, hastily. "Only Lady Kershaw 
 and I were talking." 
 
 "One of us was talking rubbish," the elder woman 
 snapped. "It would be ridiculous for a girl of Mil- 
 licent's character and opportunities to go the way of 
 disappointed women, and fling her life away. " 
 
 "It is easy to guess which one according to you," 
 Kershaw laughed. 
 
 "Why don't you marry Vaux?" 
 
 Millicent almost dropped the bowl of flowers. 
 
 "Good gracious! why should I?" she exclaimed, 
 with a rising color. 
 
 "He wants you." 
 
 "I can answer for that," the major cried. "And, if 
 I may venture, I say Vaux is a downright decent chap. 
 He would make a splendid husband." 
 
 "Every woman does not want a husband," Milli- 
 cent said, quietly. 
 
 Kershaw stood up. 
 
 ' ' I am sorry, ' ' he apologized. ' ' I did not mean to 
 be impertinent." 
 
 There was an awkward pause. Millicent remained 
 with a perturbed face. 
 
 "I will go and meet Alicia," the major said. "She 
 expected to be back early." 
 
 "She cannot possibly be back yet," his mother 
 objected. 
 
 "Well, I have lots of things to see to." With 
 another apologetic glance toward Millicent, he went 
 out. 
 
 "Don't be cross, dear Millicent," his mother said, 
 when they were alone. ' 'I am vexed at things lately, 
 as you know, and short in the temper. For goodness 
 sake, don't you do anything foolish. Vaux is a very 
 good fellow. He has been rather wild, but has settled 
 down these two years, and " 
 
 "If he were the last man in the world I should not 
 want to marry him," the girl protested. "And why 
 must I marry at all?" 
 
 Lady Kershaw shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "Everybody marries," she said. "Of course you
 
 no WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 will marry. You have money What did you say?" 
 
 "I hadn't said anything. But surely having- money 
 makes one independent of marriage, ' ' Millicent said, 
 on the top of an odd laugh. 
 
 "The girl who marries, without having money of 
 her own, takes a great risk," the elder woman pro- 
 nounced sententiously. 
 
 There was a pause. Then Millicent said : 
 
 "It is unlikely that I shall marry. If I do it will 
 not be for very, very long. And I want something to 
 do in the meantime. ' ' 
 
 "Well, for my part, I disapprove of women with 
 means doing any sort of work. It makes people 
 expect to get women's work for nothing." 
 
 "I should take a salary," the heiress insisted, diffi- 
 dently. "I want work where I shall get paid. All 
 other work is desultory. ' ' 
 
 "And take the bread out of the mouth of some 
 woman without a penny in the world. I am ashamed 
 of you. ' ' 
 
 Millicent had finished her flowers. She sat down at 
 the table, her head in her hands. 
 
 "Don't scold me," she sued, dejectedly. "I do 
 what seems best to me." 
 
 "You cannot possibly have such distorted notions. 
 You are just hysterical ; you want a change. We will 
 look you out a nice house ; you can afford to live hand- 
 somely, and you are a very lucky, happily situated girl, 
 so let us hear no more about your turning nurse maid 
 or any such folly. Use what the gods have given, and 
 be properly grateful." 
 
 "It is all arranged," the heiress said, diffidently. 
 She laid a letter on the table. ' ' I answered an adver- 
 tisement. I am to teach the children ; I am fond of 
 children," she added, rather forlornly. 
 
 Lady Kershaw read it through. 
 
 "The whole world seems to have gone mad," she 
 protested. 
 
 She read it again. 
 
 "Millicent Rivers, with an income of five thousand 
 a year, is to take a situation as governess to two
 
 "RUBBISH." in 
 
 underbred brats at a salary of thirty-five pounds. My 
 dear, had you not better have taken cook's place? She 
 has oh, good gracious, girl, I am out of all patience 
 with you ; I feel as though it would do me as much 
 good as I am sure it would do you if I were to give 
 you a whipping. I don' t know what has come to girls 
 of late. In my day they took what came, and did 
 what their mothers told them ; now they must be doc- 
 tors and lawyers and policemen. I suppose you will 
 be wanting a latch-key?" 
 
 "Do people allow their governesses latch-keys?" 
 Millicent queried, with a curling lip. 
 
 ' ' Do fiddlesticks allow their fiddlesticks fiddlesticks !" 
 the elder woman snapped, beside herself with anger. 
 "The notion of you as a governess! Why, what are 
 you going to do with your Worth frocks? What are 
 you going to do with your horses? What are you 
 going to do with your income? Millicent, I warn you, 
 I will have you locked up ! I am a desperate person 
 when I am roused. I will have you locked up as a 
 lunatic incapable of looking after her affairs." 
 
 Her knitting needles clicked some hundreds to the 
 minute. Millicent smiled whimsically across at her. 
 
 "You are turning that heel wrong," she said; "the 
 major will never be able to get into it." 
 
 "Chut, chut! don't talk to me. Am I your grand- 
 mother that you should teach me how to turn heels? 
 If you had half an eye you would see it is nothing for 
 the major I am knitting. Let Alicia knit his stockings 
 for him now, say I. If you had half a heart you 
 would see I am knitting stockings for the wrongest - 
 headed, stiffest-necked, most obstinate young person 
 in the world, who does her best to vex me when I am 
 already vexed to desperation. Gracious! how you 
 startle one!" 
 
 Millicent was on her knees, with her face buried in 
 the elder woman's lap, sobbing her heart out. 
 
 "Are they for me?" she cried, "oh, are they for me? 
 You are so good, so kind. Dear Lady Kershaw, don't 
 scold me. Oh, I cannot bear being scolded just now. ' ' 
 
 "Just now" came out in a strangled whisper, as
 
 112 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 though it had wrung itself up out of the hollows of 
 her heart. 
 
 Lady Kershaw heard in it a two-fold cause of deso- 
 lation. She put down her knitting, and laid a kind 
 hand on the girl's tumbled hair. 
 
 ''Don't cry, dear," she said, softly, "I will not say 
 another word. You shall go as kitchen-maid, if you 
 like; and perhaps you are right," she added, after a 
 pause, watching the passionate heaving shoulders with 
 a wise eye. "It will divert your mind. Poor Mr. 
 Rivers' death was very sudden." 
 
 Millicent lifted herself with a little cry, and, clasping 
 convulsive arms about her friend, drew her head down 
 and pressed it against her shoulder. 
 
 ' ' I want to forget, ' ' she said ; " I shall go mad if I 
 do not take to something. I want to go into the 
 world, and take some part in life." 
 
 "Go into the world! Just hear her! And instead 
 of booking her passage to-morrow in a P. and O. 
 steamer, and seeing it to some purpose, she proposes 
 to shut herself up in the little schoolroom of some 
 little grocer, and whip the tremendous circumstance 
 that twice two are four into the thick heads of his 
 urchins. Oh, Millicent, Millicent, there is not a doctor 
 in the town who would not sign a certificate of lunacy 
 against you. Go away, Richard, haven't you the dis- 
 cretion to know when you are not wanted? Poor Mil- 
 licent is crying her eyes out because because her 
 new hat has a black plume instead of a white flower in 
 it ; it is true she looks a fright in it. " 
 
 Was he deceived? At the sound of his foot, the 
 tumbled head had lifted and faced round. For one 
 moment the girl's eyes met his, then she had forced a 
 smile upon her quivering lips, and turned her face 
 again. 
 
 With a hasty apology, choking the rallying laugh 
 his mother's words evoked, he strode away. 
 
 He was not able to persuade himself that any 
 woman's eyes had ever looked like that for no more 
 valid reason than a feather. The buoyant, strong- 
 hearted girl, with her generosities and friendly
 
 "RUBBISH." 113 
 
 impulses, whose affairs his own affairs had left him so 
 little leisure to consider, had all of a sudden shown 
 him her heart in ruins. He set aside the dawning 
 truth; he was no coxcomb to extract one gleam of 
 exultation from it. He went out with a stern counte- 
 nance, striving to convince himself that all her grief 
 was for her dead father.
 
 H4 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 EVE. 
 
 " If them fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion 
 and covetotisness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine 
 and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the 
 lonely waste of the pine-woods." 
 
 "Heavens! how glum you look," Alicia chid him, 
 as she descended lightly to the platform. "Consider 
 you are to be married to me within a fortnight, I can- 
 not say your face is flattering." 
 
 He smiled as he loosed her hand. Three men who 
 had traveled in the carriage with her looked out upon 
 him grudgingly. She was radiantly lovely in a 
 coquettish toque of fur and scarlet velvet. The elo- 
 quent admiration of her fellow-travelers had set her 
 cheeks aglow, and transformed her eyes to brilliants. 
 They were strangers to her, but the key of sex unlocks 
 many doors, and by the time Alicia reached her desti- 
 nation, though she had spoken no word to any one of 
 them beyond conventional thanks for closing windows, 
 adjusting foot-warmers, and lending illustrated papers, 
 she was on good terms and on different terms with 
 each and all. Alicia had the faculty common to some 
 women of transforming man into a mere male animal. 
 By the mesmeric magic of her personality she hyp- 
 notized will, taste, and all the later developments of 
 evolved humanity. In the charmed atmosphere of her 
 sorcery he reverted to the conditions of Genesis. He 
 was Adam, she Eve, and they stood together in an 
 Eden no longer Eden, for both had eaten of the apple. 
 
 She called it making fools of them. Certainly it was a 
 situation with which mind had but little to do. So the 
 male animals peering that morning from the carriage 
 windows, and seeing another male animal assume 
 proprietorship of this bewildering vision of velvet and 
 pinkness, corn-gold hair, silk petticoats, and scented
 
 EVE. 115 
 
 fur, felt their hearts stir murderously toward him, as 
 they had stirred in less degree the one against the 
 other, detecting in her delectable gaze some quality or 
 measure of favor to one who had moved the hot-water 
 tin above that accorded to another who had closed the 
 window, or a third who lent her papers. 
 
 But the train moved on, and the vision remained 
 behind in the possession of the tall military-looking 
 person on the platform. One of the passengers with 
 an aggressive eye on him in the opposite corner let 
 down a window with a rush. The wholesome morning 
 air blew freshly in. The sensuous perfume of her fur 
 and silks gave way before it. The men came slowly 
 back along avenues of evolution and became men 
 again. One even presently lifted the window in the 
 interest of his rival opposite. Five minutes earlier he 
 had remarked his cough and pallor with a sense of 
 rage against him for a certain interesting air it lent 
 him, yet he now raised the window, observing him 
 cough and put up his coat collar with a thin hand. 
 
 In the meantime Eve tripped off airily under 
 escort of the other Adam, an Adam who, to his mis- 
 fortune, had not yet tasted of the apple and still 
 perceived her God-made. 
 
 "I have bought such lots and lots of things," she 
 was saying. "You will never have a notion how much 
 you care about me till you see me in my ermine cape. 
 It is just exquisite and "fits me across the shoulders to 
 perfection. I'm rather fair, you know, Richard 
 she waited, a confident pleased look on the dainty 
 profile new-painted by the wind. He missed it. 
 
 "Am I not fair?" she pouted. "Richard, how cross 
 you are to-day. Am I a blackamoor? Why do you 
 look so grim?" 
 
 "Of course you are fair," he said, a trifle impatiently. 
 "Surely you know you are fair." He smiled now. 
 "You are like Rosamund, as I have told you. I was 
 thinking of something else. ' ' 
 
 "Didn't you hear about the ermine cape?" 
 
 ' ' I caught the word. What a child you are, Alicia. 
 Men are not so desperately keen on frocks, you know. ' '
 
 Ii6 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "I know nothing of the kind," she said, with a curl 
 of her lip. "Even you always like me fifty times as 
 well when I'm decently turned out." 
 
 They walked a little way in silence. 
 
 Then she said, "What makes you so dull? You 
 don't seem a bit interested in me this morning." She 
 donned an injured air. For had she not right to feel 
 injured? Mere strangers she had never before seen 
 had shown more keenness about her than she could 
 elicit from the major this morning the major who 
 would be her bridegroom in a fortnight. 
 
 He roused himself. 
 
 4 ' Ermine sounds royal, ' ' he said. 
 
 "It cost a royal sum," she retorted. "A hundred 
 guineas." 
 
 "A hundred guineas! Alicia, are you serious? Does 
 a cloak cost so much?" 
 
 ^Some cloaks cost five hundred or treble five hun- 
 dred," she said. 
 
 "That's a hole in your first installment." 
 
 She glanced at him askance. Then she said coolly, 
 "It did not come out of my first installment. Millicent 
 is giving it to me for a wedding present. ' ' 
 
 An exclamation of distress broke from him. He 
 unconsciously quickened his pace. 
 
 "Alicia," he remonstrated, "how can you? You must 
 not accept her bounty. ' ' 
 
 "She has ever so much more money than she wants," 
 Beauty retorted. Then she added calmly : ' ' You may 
 as well hear all, now that we are upon the subject. 
 She is giving me a new grand piano that in the 
 drawing-room rattles like a skeleton a silver dessert 
 service, a set of silver-gilt tea-trays, two new Sevres 
 dinner-sevices and other things. We must have things, 
 you know, Richard. ' ' 
 
 He possessed himself in silent fury. His pride and 
 heart were wrung, knowing the secret of this gener- 
 osity. He knew well enough Millicent had no great 
 fondness for Alicia. What generosity of generosity it 
 was ! Against that anguished look upon which he had
 
 EVE. 117 
 
 stumbled, he set this fact of her rare bounty to his 
 bride. 
 
 "It is impossible," he broke out. "We cannot take 
 these things. Alicia I will not have you take these 
 things. We cannot trade on her generosity. It would 
 be monstrous to accept so much." 
 
 "The things are bought," she answered. "Oh, I 
 do hope you won't make a fuss about trifles, Richard. 
 I can't stand people making a fuss about trifles. And 
 we can't possibly insult her by flinging her presents in 
 her face. She has a right to spend her money as she 
 pleases." 
 
 "We have no claim on her, that she should spend it 
 on us. ' ' 
 
 She glanced at his set mouth. Then "You must 
 have a reason for minding so much, ' ' she submitted, 
 pointedly. "Tell me your reason, Richard." 
 
 "I have no reason," he asserted, precipitately. 
 
 "Then the matter is settled," she said. "I think 
 you will like the dinner-service. I chose it to-day. 
 And there are two gold candlesticks to stand on either 
 side the center-piece. She's fond of me, Millicent is, 
 and she had a heap of money saved up. ' '
 
 Ii8 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 "TO WORK AS MY FATHER DID." 
 
 Some narrow hearts there are 
 That suffer blight when that they fed upon 
 As something to complete their being fails, 
 
 But some there are 
 
 That in a sacred want and hunger rise, 
 And draw the misery home and live with it, 
 And excellent in honor wait and will 
 That somewhat good should yet be found in it, 
 Else wherefore were they born? 
 
 "It would be better for you to take Jock off my 
 hands," she said, her fingers busy with the kinks of 
 Queenie's mane. "So if you will accept him " 
 
 He shook his head deprecatingly. 
 
 "You must have two hunters," she urged. "The 
 runs here are so long, and you are rather a hard 
 rider." 
 
 "Did you think of offering me Queenie also?" he 
 inquired, with a dejected irony. 
 
 "Oh, I could not spare Queenie, I must have Queenie 
 for my own. ' ' 
 
 "Well, then, to save Jock from being ridden to 
 death " he said. 
 
 "Oh, but you are to have Black Warrior. Did not 
 Alicia tell you? Mr. Vaux is selling Black Warrior, 
 and you are to have him for her wedding-present to 
 you." 
 
 "It appears that I am to be a much more fortunate 
 person than I deserve," he demurred, at his wit's end 
 to escape the poor heiress' ill-judged prodigality. 
 
 They were in the stable, he having come upon her 
 there, spending a parting hour with Queenie. It was 
 still the same tumble-down place it had been when she, 
 in the first flush of her munificence and ignorance, 
 had issued orders for its renovation. It was orderly
 
 "TO WORK AS MY FATHER DID." 119 
 
 and comfortable, but it was very far from being a 
 show-stable. 
 
 He came round to Queenie's stall, and stood fronting 
 her above the mare's sleek shoulders. 
 
 "Millicent," he said, quietly, "is Black Warrior 
 already bought?" 
 
 She fixed him with a pair of recusant eyes. She set 
 her lips. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Paid for?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 He met her resolute eyes as resolutely. 
 
 "By whom?" 
 
 "Alicia had a check from her grandmother " 
 
 "Her godmother, I know. But Alicia had a number 
 of things to buy with it. ' ' 
 
 "That was one of them." 
 
 The situation was as awkward as it was mortifying. 
 He could not charge her with any hand in this present 
 to him. And yet, and yet it was so unlike Alicia. 
 
 She read his thoughts. 
 
 ' ' Alicia will be different now, ' ' she said. 
 
 "If Alicia had you with her always if she had you 
 for sister" he said, impulsively. 
 
 She broke into a laugh, a mirthless, hard laugh, 
 unlike her. 
 
 "Good heavens!" she cried, "what have I, a trades- 
 man's daughter, to teach her beautiful, aristocratic, 
 with the world at her feet. Never tell her you must 
 never tell her what you said. I could not bear her to 
 to laugh. ' ' 
 
 "She could not laugh how could she laugh?" he 
 protested. "She has told me of your kindness, of 
 your generous presents. It is too much. You put us 
 under too great obligation. ' ' 
 
 'May I not spend rny money as I choose?" 
 'You should spend your money on yourself." 
 'I should be a nice creature!" 
 'There are charities, hospitals and " 
 'I know. But I am a vulgar sort of person, I sup- 
 pose. I like to see results. I like people I like to have
 
 120 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 things they like. It is only another form of liking to 
 have what I like myself," she asserted, repudiating 
 any merit. 
 
 "It is rather a different form," he said. 
 
 After a pause. "May I talk sense to you?" 
 
 "Not if it is the kind of sense you have just been 
 talking," she retorted. 
 
 "No," he said, "Alicia and I can only be married 
 once, so that you can have no further excuse for such 
 generosity. It is about this new project of yours 
 this project of working. You have nobody to advise 
 you. ' ' 
 
 "I need nobody." 
 
 "You are young," he deprecated. 
 
 "I am twenty-three. You are not so very much 
 more than ten years older." 
 
 "Ten years means a good deal in worldly wisdom." 
 
 A shadow swept her face. It lost some of its defiant 
 confidence. 
 
 "Don't," she pleaded, "it is past talking about. It 
 is all arranged. I go to-morrow. ' ' 
 
 "Nothing is irrevocable," he said, firmly, "if you 
 will let me rearrange it for you. You have no notion 
 of what you may be letting yourself in for. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, let me alone!" she cried, "let me alone! It 
 has not been so easy to make up my mind. ' ' 
 
 She came out of the stall, and paced twice up and 
 down the stable. Then, controlling herself, she 
 stopped and stood before him. She looked up at him 
 with trouble in her face. 
 
 "You must not think it strange it isn't the least bit 
 strange that I should wish to work. I come of a race 
 of workers. We have never been gentle-folk, and I 
 have grown tired of idleness. I want to be of some 
 use in the world. I am strong and well, and I want to 
 work, as my father and grandfather before me did. If 
 it should ever happen that if you should ever think 
 that there is any other reason for my going back to 
 my class and working than that I wished it, never 
 believe it. Remember what I am telling you now." 
 
 Something in her manner wakened his suspicion.
 
 "TO WORK AS MY FATHER DID." 121 
 
 "Are you sure you are telling me the whole truth?" 
 he questioned. "Or have you lost money? If it is 
 that, my mother and I ' ' 
 
 She turned her face, but she could not hide her voice. 
 
 "I know you would," she faltered, "oh, I know you 
 would ! But I have not lost a penny. ' ' 
 
 "Then," he said heartily, "I am satisfied that you 
 will come back to us before three months are up. We 
 are not worthless, nor idle, nor flimsy, we so-called 
 leisure people. Many of us do a great deal more work 
 than those dubbed 'horny-handed, ' only it is a different 
 form of work." 
 
 Later Millicent and Alicia had a very hot half hour. 
 Alicia had spent another morning with her dressmaker 
 in town, reaching the Towers in time for tea. She 
 came in beaming, with a dainty kidded hand linked 
 intimately in Kershaw's, he having met her at the 
 station. 
 
 "Oh, Milly, " she said, "you are just a wretch to be 
 going by the mid-day train to-morrow : If you would 
 only wait till the afternoon, my traveling frock would 
 have come. It's perfect, perfect, perfect, brown and 
 heliotrope striped silk, with a violet velvet zouave and 
 passementerie, and the loveliest wide-brimmed hat, 
 with knots of velvet violets and bows, and a diamond 
 buckle only Parisian, dear, I couldn't afford real 
 diamonds, of course ; but the whole thing is superb, 
 and you won't see it after all." 
 
 "I dare say Millicent will survive," Lady Kershaw 
 interjected, dryly. 
 
 "Richard, don't let me be snubbed. I wish I had 
 gone to tea at the club. Vaux invited me. You all 
 look so disagreeable. Even Mill looks glum. You 
 would depress anybody's spirits, and I came in so 
 happy." 
 
 She drank her tea with an air of injury a brilliant, 
 variable center in the shabby room. She had the 
 faculty belonging to some persons of centering always 
 the attention of a company upon herself. She was 
 rarely depressed, often in the highest spirits, but she 
 had no gift of imparting her gaiety; rather, she
 
 122 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 absorbed the vitality of others, and, manufacturing 
 brilliancy from it, made them seem dull by comparison 
 and by actual loss of nerve force. It is an art which 
 wins admiration, but not love. We are moved to love 
 those who show us ourselves, rather than themselves, 
 to the best advantage, and even Kershaw, Millicent 
 confessed, was never at his best with Alicia. 
 
 She was that afternoon in far too buoyant spirits 
 to maintain her pique. She wanted to talk. 
 
 Having finished her tea, she removed her veil and 
 sat folding it, smoothing and patting it with guileful 
 fingers ; then she turned back her frilled sleeves over 
 her shapely arms, and proceeded to slowly unbutton 
 her long gloves, with a signal play of eyelashes and 
 tilted cheek. Having unbuttoned, she unpeeled them 
 from the slender wrists and hands, with a coaxing, 
 sinuous seductiveness. She knew that the eyes of the 
 room were upon her, Kershaw 's hot and passionate, 
 Lady Kershaw's disapproving, Millicent's wondering 
 and a little abashed. She dropped the shapely 
 extremities, rosy over the tips and knuckles, blanched 
 elsewhere from the constriction of their suede encas- 
 ings, into her lap, arid unveiled the smile in her eyes 
 with an up sweep of her drooping lids. The smile 
 stole straight for Kershaw. He got up restlessly, and, 
 striding to the window, stood there looking out. 
 
 "She is mistaking her vocation," Lady Kershaw 
 reflected disgustedly, while Millicent felt suddenly 
 ashamed, and surprised at an impulse she experienced 
 to fling some modest covering over the slender arms, 
 whose unglovedness their mistress had perverted to 
 nudity. 
 
 Beauty was, however, too skilled an artist to spoil 
 the effect of her moment by prolonging it. With a 
 sudden ingenuousness, which, according to the ob- 
 server's bias or powers of penetration, disengaged 
 or did not disengage his mind of any intention on her 
 part, she broke into a gay laugh. 
 
 "You would never believe," she cried, "that the first 
 person I set eyes on at Riveaux's was mother. She 
 was buying a bonnet. She made a bee-line for me, as
 
 "TO WORK AS MY FATHER DID." 123 
 
 the Americans say. 'Your father doesn't mean to 
 pay a cent,' she whispered, when Madame Riveaux's 
 back was turned." 
 
 "What did you say?" inquired Millicent. 
 
 "Say! I looked her straight in the face. I said, 'I 
 mean to have my beaver cape, madam, even if I have 
 to take it from you forcibly in public, so you know 
 what to expect. ' ' ' 
 
 "Oh, Alicia!" 
 
 Alicia laughed. 
 
 "She went off as though she had been shot. I'll 
 engage to say she won't wear it anywhere where there 
 is a chance of meeting me." 
 
 "Heavens!" Kershaw remonstrated, "couldn't you 
 have treated her decently under the circumstances." 
 
 Alicia fixed him with her gleaming eyes. 
 
 "Not under the circumstances which leave her in 
 possession of my beaver cape," she said, incisively. 
 
 She added, "For goodness sake don't preach, 
 Richard. You never seem to understand that in 
 choosing me you chose the world and the devil. If 
 you wanted a saint for your wife you should have 
 selected " she paused maliciously; she turned her 
 eyes tantalizingly on Millicent, and watched her rising 
 color. She yawned, and concluded "some praying- 
 deaconess, or a Sunday-school superintendentess. " 
 
 Millicent followed her presently upstairs. 
 
 "Did you get it? Did you arrange with Vaux?" 
 
 Alicia was stricken silent for a moment. She 
 quickened her pace. 
 
 "Oh, it is all right," she said, evasively. 
 
 "What did you arrange?" 
 
 "Oh, don't bother me now, Mill. I have such a 
 splitting headache. I am going to lie down." 
 
 But Millicent persisted. Reaching Alicia's door, 
 she would not be dismissed. She pushed in resolutely. 
 
 "I want to hear all about it," she said. 
 
 Beauty sat down on her bed and drummed the 
 carpet with her polished boot-toes. 
 
 Then she said with an awkward laugh : 
 
 "I forgot all about it till I hadn't any money left."
 
 124 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 Millicent stood over her with flashing eyes, and a 
 hot spot on either cheek. Then she said in a 
 smoldering voice, "What a liar you are what a mean 
 liar, Alicia. After your promise and when I trusted 
 you." 
 
 "Well, my dear, it is no good talking. You are a 
 fool to trust me. It is more than Riveaux did. I had 
 to pay every cent before she'd send the things. You 
 know what I am when my mind is on clothes, and if 
 you'd seen the things Riveaux has " 
 
 "If I had seen the things, I wouldn't have been a 
 liar and and a thief. The money was not yours." 
 
 "Don't revert, Millicent. Don't be a furniture- 
 polisher. Decent people don't call names." 
 
 "You knew I wanted him to have Black Warrior. 
 Yoii know how fond he is of hunting. ' ' 
 
 "I know and I knew. Good Lord, as if I haven't 
 anything to do all day but remember my lord and 
 master's fancies. And after all, my dear, you knew, 
 and you know exactly what I am. ' ' 
 
 "I hoped you might change now." 
 
 Alicia scoffed. "Change!" she mocked, flinging the 
 pins of her hat contemptuously on the dressing-table. 
 "Change on rive thousand a year, when I might have 
 had fifty thousand. If I had married Ludwig I should 
 have stood some chance. I shouldn't have needed to 
 trick and rib for what I want. How can a woman like 
 me live decently on five thousand a year?" 
 
 Millicent took her by the shoulders and shook her 
 impetuously. 
 
 "Why have I been such a fool?" she cried under her 
 breath; "why have I given all I have in the world 
 and, goodness knows, I am no fonder of hardships or 
 stint than you are to a woman like you?" 
 
 "Don't be melodramatic. Let go my arms and I'll 
 tell you. You have given me nothing. I owe you 
 nothing. You would probably not have spared a half- 
 penny to save me from starvation. Everything you 
 give, you give to him. That's one truth. Now, 
 shall I tell you another? Shall I tell you why you 
 have done it?"
 
 "TO WORK AS MY FATHER DID." 125 
 
 Miliicent loosed the shapely shoulders. Her hands 
 dropped to her sides. She shot one troubled look into 
 Alicia's eyes. 
 
 Then she said, "No." 
 
 "I won't if you don't wish it," Beauty said, arrang- 
 ing- her depressed sleeve-puffs, "though of course 
 anybody who knew the facts of the case I say, Mill," 
 she continued, scanning her friend's face closely, "we 
 shall have to keep the facts of the case dark in all 
 conscience if we don't want the county speculating on 
 the why's and wherefore's." 
 
 Miliicent shivered, though her cheeks burned hot. 
 
 "He is my cousin," she said. "People would know 
 it was natural enough for me to do something for my 
 cousin. ' ' 
 
 "My dear," Alicia said, "whatever people are, they 
 are not fools, and very few of them are afflicted with 
 any high-flown notions about my duty to my cousin, 
 even though he be nearer than ninety-ninth. I am 
 afraid they would call you a ridiculously sentimental 
 person, not because you are head over ears in love 
 with my handsome major gracious, Miliicent, don't 
 snap one's head off it's no good pretending between 
 ourselves not because you hum hum, because, of 
 course, any woman may be fond of any man, but 
 because you let your fondness run away with your 
 hard cash. Of course people would not believe the 
 facts to be as they are. I'm not wicked enough to 
 guess what construction exactly they would put upon 
 them, but depend on it, dear, it wouldn't be a very 
 creditable one. So we must take care things don't 
 come out. Besides, Richard would certainly cut all 
 our throats." 
 
 "I hate lies," Milly said; "they are forever wanting 
 patching up with fresh ones. I wish I had told him in 
 the beginning." 
 
 "Oh, good heavens, Milly, what a fool you are, with 
 all your sense. Do you think he would have listened 
 for a moment to such a proposition?" 
 
 "He might have taken half, if he would not take 
 all. ' '
 
 iz6 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Half!" Alicia echoed, peevishly, "what in the 
 name of reason could we have done with half? As it 
 is, we shall have all our work cut out for us in screw- 
 ing and pinching; it wouldn't be decent for Richard 
 not to entertain when he is married. A hermit with a 
 wife would be a mere burlesque. People would say 
 we were fond of one another; we should make our- 
 selves mere laughing-stocks. As, it is, we shan't be 
 able to afford any babies Why, what an abrupt 
 person you are!" 
 
 She got up and crossed the room. She stood staring 
 down at Millicent. 
 
 "Have you got a cramp or something, you look so 
 white? Are you going to faint?" 
 
 "Oh, don't touch me, don't touch me!" the other 
 cried, warding her off with her hands. "Is there 
 nothing sacred to you, nothing between you and your 
 own heart? not even the baby of the man you love?" 
 
 Alicia remained staring blankly at her. She shook 
 her head. 
 
 "I never think you can be altogether sane," she 
 said, slowly. "Do you mean it is improper to mention 
 babies, and that I ought to pretend to think they come 
 in the doctor's pocket, as we did when we were seven? 
 Sometimes you are so atrociously middle-class and 
 curious, Millicent, one can't possibly make out what 
 you do mean. How a baby, a mere bundle of sourness 
 and teething, can be sacred you said sacred, I think 
 even before it has come, to say nothing of it's not 
 being christened! I am afraid you are cut out for an 
 old maid, Mill; I don't see how else you could get 
 such notions." 
 
 "Oh, it is no good talking about it," Millicent cried, 
 "you would never understand; only, I say," she ended 
 passionately, "God help the man who has so sane a 
 woman as you for wife ! ; ' 
 
 "Well, he took precious good care not to have you," 
 Alicia retorted. Then she recovered her good humor ; 
 good-humor comes easily to those with no strong 
 undersprings of feeling to disturb them. 
 
 "Look here, Mill," she said, "let me give you a
 
 "TO WORK AS MY FATHER DID." 127 
 
 page or two out of my book of sanity. You are mak- 
 ing an enormous mistake; men don't want high- 
 falutin' sentiment; men don't want emotions too big 
 to be conveniently handled. What they all want, and 
 all that most of them want, is to be amused. Very 
 few of them have any imagination, and they get 
 bored, and getting bored is at the bottom of all the 
 mischief in the world. Adam and Eve got bored in 
 Eden, that was where the serpent came in. For my 
 part, I'm thankful enough he did; I can't imagine a 
 duller place than Eden to be born and bored in, espe- 
 cially as they would probably have kept up that fash- 
 ion of going without clothes. I don't see how Eve 
 could have been expected not to run her idle fingers 
 into mischief, if only as an excuse for wearing fig- 
 leaves. However, this is a theological digression, let's 
 get back to the men, as we women are sure to do so 
 sooner or later; and, you know, Mill, with your old- 
 fashioned notions, you'd just bore a man to death; 
 you're not a scrap smart." 
 
 "Thank goodness for it," Millicent said; "there's 
 nothing one so soon gets sick of. It seems to me now- 
 adays everybody is straining to say smart things, while 
 nobody cares two pins to hear smart things said. How- 
 ever, you needn't trouble, I'm not thinking of boring 
 any man to death with lack of smartness or big emo- 
 tions. You know well enough I'm not sentimental, only 
 I should like to be decently fond of a man I married. " 
 
 "That's just where you'd make a huge mistake. A 
 woman can't manage a man she's fond of. One kisses 
 and the other turns the cheek! and it's the cheek- 
 turner who gets the best of things." 
 
 "It was some horrid French person who said that," 
 protested Millicent, "and I should like to know how 
 much French people know about love; why, even 
 Victor Hugo makes one of his heroes doubtful for 
 weeks whether he loves a girl, till one day the wind 
 blows her skirts aside and shows him her ankles. 
 Then he is sure, because they just happen to be slim. 
 Now, isn't that perfectly disgusting?" she demanded, 
 with an old-fashioned blush.
 
 128 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Oh, well, of course a girl ought to have good 
 ankles," Alicia maintained, complacently regarding 
 her own silk-stockinged members. 
 
 "It is more important that she should have a good 
 heart or a good mind. ' ' 
 
 "But not so attractive, dear. Still, I don't see why 
 you bother you have very pretty feet yourself." 
 
 "It is the principle." 
 
 "Oh, the principle," the other laughed, "a fig for 
 principles where ankles are concerned. And the 
 strange thing is that good women are almost always 
 flat-footed. I suppose the devil arranged it so. Now 
 don't go into a fit, Millicent! it isn't my fault if moral 
 women haven't any figures, and mix green and ma- 
 genta in their bonnets, and never have a hang about 
 their skirts ; I daresay goodness is a part of that degen- 
 eration the German man wrote a book about ; anyhow, 
 it generally goes with hideousness. Good women get 
 their views of things from the church service ; they 
 call their bodies vile, and so they don't groom prop- 
 erly. Instead of taking care of their hair, they're 
 thinking about their halos. Nobody ever saw a good 
 woman with a decent set of teeth, just as nobody ever 
 knew a good woman who didn't suffer from neuralgia. 
 They haven't any shoulders, their collar-bones stand 
 out like reproaches, you can put your fists in the hol- 
 lows where oh, well I won't particularize and 
 they're shocked when other people show their pretty 
 necks. They mortify the flesh, and the flesh turns 
 round on them presently and mortifies them. You 
 can't keep your looks unless you enjoy your dinner, 
 and these G. W.'s (capital letters, dear!) think it a sin 
 to enjoy anything." 
 
 "There are numbers of G. W.'s, as you call them, 
 who are pretty and bright and happy, and neither 
 sanctimonious nor badly dressed." 
 
 "No, there are only a few," Alicia said, "and if it 
 were not for those few, who show that to be good is 
 not to be entirely vicious, the men and the B. W.'s 
 would take the G. W.'s to the nearest pond and drown 
 them. It would be the simplest thing possible. You'd
 
 "TO WORK AS MY FATHER DID." 129 
 
 just start out one wet Good Friday or Ash Wednesday, 
 and catch them crawling on their great flat feet to 
 church, with dingy bonnets and black bombazine 
 gowns and beaded dolmans, turning everything sour 
 as they went. You'd want a pretty big pond to hold 
 them, for the name of the G. W. 's is legion. After it 
 was all over the sun would come out, and the world 
 would look quite a decent kind of place." 
 
 Millicent laughed in spite of herself. 
 
 "You talk like a most abominable person," she 
 said. ' ' One would think you were a very wicked girl 
 yourself, when really you are only vain and frivolous. ' ' 
 
 Alicia smiled demurely. 
 
 "Why, of course I am only vain and frivolous," she 
 said. "What else should I be?" 
 
 Millicent reverted sturdily to her original standpoint. 
 
 "What are we going to do about Black Warrior?" 
 she insisted. "I gave you everything but a ten-pound 
 note; and, even if I could spare it, it wouldn't buy 
 Black Warrior. " 
 
 "Bother!" Alicia exclaimed, knitting her pretty 
 brows. "What a worrying, narrow mind you have! 
 I thought the matter was settled. And it may just as 
 well be for all there is to be done about it. He shall 
 have it when next quarter's installment comes in, Mil- 
 licent, I promise faithfully. " 
 
 "So you did yesterday. No; he shall have it now". 
 
 "I wonder you are not ashamed to make such a fuss 
 about another woman's husband." 
 
 "Never mind that," the heiress retorted, stoutly. 
 "When I take a thing into my head I stick to it." 
 
 "Heavens! how you give yourself away! I can 
 hear your worthy father, furniture brush in one hand, 
 polish-bottle in the other, and duster over his arm." 
 
 "You let my father alone," Millicent said, with a 
 sob in her throat. "I was proud of him; I am proud 
 of his memory, his honesty and energy, and his sim- 
 plicity. It only hurts me to think how it would cut 
 him to the heart if he could see me going out into the 
 world to-morrow without a penny, while you 
 
 "Well, of course, the dear old soul never dreamed
 
 130 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 of me having- it. Still, the godmother may die any 
 moment, Mill, and, of course, I shall pay you every 
 penny back." 
 
 "Well, I am not wishing her to die; only people 
 must die, of course ; and it was nice to be an heiress. 
 I am sure I don't know how I shall ever like govern - 
 essing. ' ' 
 
 "If you don't," Alicia consoled her, "you can always 
 come back here and live with us." 
 
 "Oh, you know I could never do that." 
 
 Alicia looked relieved. 
 
 "It doesn't always work, of course, to have a third 
 person in the house a fourth person, indeed, if the 
 mother-in-law remains. ' ' 
 
 "Why, of course she will remain. Where should 
 she go?" 
 
 "That would be her affair," Alicia responded, 
 smoothly. 
 
 Milicent was silent. Her face was troubled. Then 
 she said earnestly: 
 
 "For heaven's sake, Alicia, do your best to make 
 them happy ! You are really good-natured at heart, 
 and you can do so much. They the major is so fond 
 of you." 
 
 "Oh, they'll be serene enough. I shan't interfere 
 with the mother-in-law so long as she doesn't inter- 
 fere with me. And Richard well, there will always 
 be enough other men admiring me to keep Richard a 
 devoted husband. ' ' 
 
 ' ' I wonder if you begin to have the remotest notion 
 of Richard's character." 
 
 Alicia laughed. 
 
 "Hear the innocent!" she cried. "If there is one 
 thing in the world I understand, it is men. You see I 
 don't put them up on pedestals, so I can get near 
 enough to see where they are chipped." 
 
 "They are not all chipped," the heiress dissented, 
 hotly.
 
 A POOR PLAIN FOOL. 131 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 A POOR PLAIN FOOL 
 
 Now I begin life again ; but a clearer and a stronger beginning ; 
 Not as a child, but a woman a teacher of children not mine. 
 
 It was a dull, damp morning when Millicent stole 
 guiltily, and on surreptitious tiptoes, down the shabby 
 staircase of the Towers, seeming the shabbier for 
 night's drab wrappings which still clung there, and to 
 which the dawning day gave the appearance of dust 
 cloths, spread for economic purposes. 
 
 She was dressed for traveling. She carried her veil 
 and her gloves in her hand. Her eyes trailed wistful 
 good-bys as she went. It seemed to her that all she 
 remembered of life worth remembering had happened 
 since she had known the Kershaws. And now she 
 was leaving everything behind for ever, for she did 
 not suspect herself of sufficient heroism to revisit the 
 Grange when Alicia should be its mistress. 
 
 She paused before a door. Three pairs of the 
 smallest, most fashionable boots stood there in all the 
 brilliancy of recent polish, and with an air of despis- 
 ing the shabby mat which harbored them. 
 
 "To those who have it shall be given," she quoted, 
 in bitterness of spirit; "while I I am only a poor, 
 plain fool!" 
 
 Her thought passed the door, and entered Beauty's 
 bedroom. She pictured her sleeping oh, she would 
 be sleeping soundly enough ! No envious shadow of 
 a poor, plain fool, standing bitter and bereft outside, 
 would darken her picturesque slumber. Her head, 
 with its shining cloud of fair hair, the wild-rose face, 
 the flushed cheeks, swept by the gold-tipped semi- 
 circles of her fringed lids, would be nestling daintily 
 against the pillows, as Millicent had seen and wor- 
 shiped her at school. Her arms and waxen hands,
 
 132 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 curled up like rose-leaves, her rival reflected ruefully, 
 would be lifted above her head, framing her perfect 
 face, or rest beneath her dainty cheek. 
 
 She had a moment's exultation remembering that 
 the picture would be marred by the circumstance that 
 Beauty's hair did not curl naturally, so necessitating 
 the use of curling pins. Moreover, Beauty invariably 
 slept in gloves to keep her hands white. Then she 
 was plunged into black self-scorn for her unworthi- 
 ness. 
 
 "It is time I should go," she murmured. "I am 
 becoming a very base person, while I have been flat- 
 tering myself that I am doing rather an heroic thing!" 
 
 She kissed her hand to Lady Kershaw's door, swal- 
 lowing a fullness in her throat. She hurried past 
 another, abashed, and with a downcast head. 
 
 She had poured her tea and chipped an egg, and sat 
 staring abstractedly down the long room, when she 
 heard a step in the hall. 
 
 The blood rushed over her face. She swept up her 
 handkerchief and mopped her eyes. She swallowed 
 half her tea. 
 
 "Now, give me courage to behave decently," she 
 insisted of herself. 
 
 "Oh, good-morning," she said, lightly, "you are 
 very early." 
 
 "I meant to be earlier," he smiled. "I intended to 
 be down as soon as you." 
 
 "How did you know?" 
 
 ' ' I heard it in the stables last night, and I thought 
 we would breakfast together." 
 
 "Two big lumps and a little one?" she submitted, 
 with no very great achievement in cheerfulness. 
 
 "Thank you. How do you remember?" 
 
 "Oh, I remember," she said; "you see, my head is 
 not full of poetry. " 
 
 He helped himself to some of the cold baked meats 
 of an impromptu breakfast, and seated himself near her. 
 
 "The mother will be disappointed." 
 
 "I hate good-bys. They are so so mawkish, don't 
 3 r ou think?"
 
 A POOR PLAIN FOOL. 133 
 
 "They're not cheerful." 
 
 "Oh, I am always cheerful," she insisted, winking 
 her red eyelids. "It isn't that. You know I am not 
 at all a sentimental person. But I cannot carry off 
 difficult situations gracefully. So I wrote my good- 
 bys in letters. ' ' 
 
 She produced from her pocket two addressed envel- 
 opes. "I am afraid I have crumpled them," she said, 
 speaking rapidly; "I hope Lady Kershaw will not 
 mind. There might be time to write hers again." 
 
 He took the letters. One he put into his pocket 
 gravely. The other he smoothed out with a quiet hand, 
 and placed upright on the mantel-board. And all the 
 while he kept his looks sedulously averted from the 
 heiress' red eyes, to the poor heiress' combined relief 
 and chagrin. He cannot think of anybody but Alicia, 
 she reflected, dolefully. 
 
 "I don't think you need keep the other letter," she 
 submitted. "I can say good-by to you easily enough, 
 you know." 
 
 "I will keep it if I may," he said. "Perhaps it gives 
 me your address . Alicia and I will certainly go to see 
 you, if you will let us." 
 
 There was a very long silence a silence long enough 
 to allow a very salt, a very slow, and very solitary tear 
 roll down the heiress' cheek and fall into the mar- 
 malade she had heaped, with much pretense of interest 
 in marmalade, upon her plate. Then she said casually : 
 
 "Oh, please don't think of troubling to come so far 
 it is nearly a hundred miles from here. And I shall 
 be frightfully busy. I don't think a governess gets 
 much time off. And they may be very disagreeable 
 people, you know. " 
 
 "That is what I mean to know," he said, firmly. 
 "You see, my mother and I, although you are so ter- 
 ribly independent, feel in a way responsible for you. 
 You must not forget we are your cousins. " 
 
 "No, I remember it." 
 
 "So we shall go and see for ourselves that you are 
 happy. I have found these people's references all 
 right."
 
 134 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "You? Why, when have you had time?" 
 
 "Oh, I had time," he said. "By-the-by, you didn't 
 give me a letter for Alicia. " 
 
 "We said good-by last night." 
 
 It had been a distinctly stormy "good-by," for Mil- 
 licent had insisted upon it that Beauty should wire 
 countermanding orders for a set of furs, a diamond 
 clasp, a length of Oriental silk, and sundry other pur- 
 chases. 
 
 "You have quite enough things," the heiress had 
 asserted, firmly, "and, as I told you before, I mean 
 you to give that wedding present. So write to Mr. 
 Vaux to-night. " 
 
 Alicia raved, Alicia wept, Alicia even swore. But 
 she sent the wires and wrote the letter. Millicent was 
 not a person to defy. And once out of the house 
 well, there was some very pleasant spending in an 
 income of five thousand, when one had for husband a 
 person who required little else beside pens and paper? 
 
 "Alicia knew, then, that you were leaving early. 
 I cannot understand her not being down to see you 
 off." 
 
 The heiress' brown eyes, at the same time soft and 
 shrewd, swept up to his face. She was thinking how 
 very little indeed he did understand where Alicia was 
 concerned. 
 
 "Now, I am going to really live," she said, drawing 
 a deep breath as they went skimming into the green- 
 gray mists of the long drive. 
 
 The major wielding the reins glanced down at the 
 resolute profile. The young pinkness and roundness 
 of it moved him. There were lights like fireflies in 
 her gold-brown hair. Perhaps for the first time in 
 their acquaintance he fully realized her comeliness. 
 And she was so fresh and clear-headed, so self -helpful 
 and generous-hearted. He they would all be sorry 
 to lose her. They would miss her ringing voice and 
 laugh, and the light step bent always on some cheery 
 errand for another. He found himself thinking that
 
 A POOR PLAIN FOOL. 135 
 
 Alicia needed but a touch of his impulsive warm- 
 hearted cousin to make her perfect. 
 
 ''Twenty years ago I drove down this drive with the 
 same thought." ^ 
 
 "Well, you have lived," she said. "You have seen 
 life, and have done brave things. " 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "But you have," she insisted. "Work makes men 
 of men, and I don't see why it should not make women 
 of women. One grows so tired of eternal dressings- 
 up and visitings." 
 
 There was silence. Then Kershaw said: 
 
 "We shall miss you we shall all miss you very 
 much, Millicent." 
 
 The heiress put out her hand in appeal. 
 
 "Don't," she entreated, "please don't. I want all 
 my courage." 
 
 Kershaw drove back dejected. 
 
 "She's a splendid little thing," he said. "We shall 
 miss her horribly. She's like some sweet, old-fash- 
 ioned flower. However, she'll soon get tired of this 
 'seeing life' business, and come back to us." 
 
 He fell to blaming himself that he had not given 
 more thought to her. 
 
 "A man in love is a senseless sort of brute," he 
 reflected. 
 
 "Why, you selfish creature," Alicia scolded, pouting 
 a kiss up to him as she met him on the steps. "I've 
 been bored to death without anyone to talk to. " 
 
 "I drove Millicent to the station," he said, shortly. 
 
 Alicia shot one suspicious glance at him. 
 
 "She told me you didn't know." 
 
 "I didn't, till I heard it last night in the stables." 
 
 "Well, do come in to breakfast. I'm just starving, 
 and the tea will be cold. I suppose Mill was jubilant 
 going out to fight windmills?" 
 
 "Not altogether," he said.
 
 I3 6 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 WINKWORTH. 
 
 A man's money should not follow the direction of his neighbor's 
 money, but should represent to him the things he would 
 willingliest do with it. 
 
 The railway journey from Roldermere to Wink worth 
 was a tedious one. There were two changes, with 
 long waits, between Roldermere and London, and one 
 change between London and Winkworth. Winkworth 
 was only some twenty miles down the line, but the 
 neighborhood along this line was a new and growing 
 one, and, to foster its growth, and provide for future 
 contingencies, the company had supplied it with an 
 inordinate number of stations. Greatly to the disgust 
 of Winkworth season ticket-holders, who spent the 
 tedious times of stopping in wondering why the deuce 
 the train did not run through to their particular junc- 
 tion, without wasting time calling at all the little rub- 
 bishy stations the company had had the impudence to 
 run up ! 
 
 Millicent' s fine ardor at the prospect of "living" was 
 somewhat damped by the time she reached her desti- 
 nation. Like most young people, she was unaware 
 that ardor and every other sentiment has its source in 
 food, and that buns and tea are insufficient main- 
 spring; more especially as, in addition to the wear 
 and tear of traveling in a crowded third-class carriage, 
 with the burden of luggage on her mind, and the neces- 
 sity for changing at the proper junctions on her con- 
 science, she had been battling all daylong with strong 
 emotions. She had not guessed how closely she had 
 knit herself to her new life and friends till now, when 
 sundered from them, she had the horrible raw sense 
 of a thing torn up by the roots. 
 
 As on that first occasion of her leaving home, so now
 
 WINKWORTH. 137 
 
 there was nobody at the station to meet her. She was 
 surprised to find that she had expected such an atten- 
 tion. But the luxurious traveling, which was all she 
 had previously known of traveling, with a maid and 
 footman to anticipate her needs, resulted in her feeling 
 herself to be a very helpless person, as she alighted 
 from the carriage with her ticket in a glove, an 
 umbrella in one hand, and a wrap over an arm. 
 
 "It was time," she said, self -scorn fully, "it was 
 time I was taken out of splints, before I entirely lost 
 my backbone. ' ' 
 
 She felt a rise of spirits, recognizing her misfortunes 
 to be salutary. She collected her bag and baggage 
 with a masterliness which would have done credit to 
 her practical father, and, putting them in charge of a 
 porter, found herself seated in a cab, with her luggage 
 on the roof, in the course of a very few minutes. She 
 gave the porter her address and a sixpence, which 
 delighted him, then leaned back in a glow of achieve- 
 ment, examining the features of Winkworth with 
 breathless interest. 
 
 Winkworth was a town of red-brick villas, detached 
 and standing with an air of suburban selectness in 
 their own more or less handsome gardens; semi- 
 detached, and sharing with their neighbors the parti- 
 wall which divided more than it united them, and the 
 oaken garden fence, which served as a south and sunny 
 support for the rose-trees of the tenant on the north, 
 while throwing a dank and blighting shadow all down 
 the length of garden of the tenant on the south. The 
 result of this was for the gardens were bounded 
 exteriorly by privet-hedges that all summer long 
 the northern tenant went to business every morning 
 with a buttonhole of roses in his coat, seeing which the 
 southern tenant passed by on the other side and cut 
 him. 
 
 During winter, when external cold impressed the 
 need for thawing somewhere, more or less pleasant if 
 but slight amenities transpired between houses north 
 and south. Possibly Mrs. North's pipes were frozen, 
 and Mrs. South, on an exchange of compliments, gra-
 
 138 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 cicmsly assented to their respective maids passing 
 buckets of water above the obnoxious fence. Or Mrs. 
 South 's boiler would split, for some inexplicable rea- 
 son, and Mrs. South 's kitchen would be for a time a 
 scene of wild and wet confusion, her fire hissing venge- 
 fully out amid spouting clouds of steam, whereupon 
 Mrs. South would maybe dispatch an appeal to the 
 effect that her nursery rice-pudding might be permit- 
 ted to find haven and cooking in Mrs. North's oven. 
 
 Amenities have, indeed, been known to attain such 
 warmth in wintry seasons that Mr. North has even so 
 far thawed as to lend Mr. South his wooden snow- 
 shovel for the better clearing of his portion of the roof, 
 a concession which only those who have in their day 
 been possessors of snpw-shovels will properly appreci- 
 ate ! With spring, when budding leaves would stir up 
 rankling memories again in the southerly bosom, and 
 the line of shadow cast by the fence would be accent- 
 uated by a border of hoar-frost and tardy sprouting of 
 the hardy shrubs ; which alone would grow there then, 
 unless it should happen to be an influenza year, when 
 mere humanity forbade a feud with a man whose house- 
 hold, from garret to best bedroom, was prone with 
 "weeping sickness," then would South repent him of 
 the snow-shovel and the friendly water-buckets. And 
 when Mr. North has paraded himself, sprinkling, fer- 
 tilizing, and remarking with a triumphant eye the 
 sunned and sheltered treasures of his side of the fence, 
 Mr. South has been heard to swear behind the curtain 
 of his drawing-room window a tremendous oath that 
 come next winter the North brats shall eat their rice 
 puddings raw and cold, before he will grant them sanc- 
 tuary and savor again in any hospitable oven of his. 
 But I fancy Mrs. South would see to that ! 
 
 In the meantime, Millicent, unwitting of these ter- 
 rible feuds, which friendly vicinity and the warm red 
 faces of "semi-detacheds" belied, was scanning these 
 and those of the more imposing "detacheds" with ap- 
 prehensive looks. 
 
 The cab stopped presently before a fair-sized villa, 
 semi-detached and standing in a pretty garden, with
 
 WINKWORTH. 139 
 
 five young poplars growing straight and slender close 
 behind a wooden fence. There was a gravel drive, 
 common to the two houses, curving to the door, and a 
 gate at either end, but, as neither was open, the cab- 
 man pulled up outside. 
 
 Millicent got down, and inquired of him, as he sat 
 somnolently placid on his box : 
 
 "How are you going to carry in the luggage?" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "I can't leave my 'orse, " he retorted, though to look 
 at it you would not suppose any greater danger to 
 threaten the community from the circumstance of 
 leaving it than that it might fall asleep. 
 
 Millicent was a person of resources. She unlatched 
 the gate and propped it open with a stone. Then she 
 stepped back into the cab. 
 
 "Drive up to the house," she insisted. 
 
 The man muttered something unintelligible, but 
 obeyed. 
 
 On a mat, at the top of six very white steps, a bull- 
 dog had lain sleeping; by the time the cab stopped 
 the bulldog was awake and "wareing" the neighbor- 
 hood of the fact. His stout forelegs were planted in 
 advance of him and well-astride, supporting a very 
 broad and portly shirt-front. Above this there was 
 little to be seen beyond an enormous underhung jaw, 
 a blood-red cavern of a mouth, richly endowed with all 
 he would be likely to need in the matter of teeth, a 
 ring of glistening lips, which appeared to have been 
 recently black-leaded, and out of these ominous por- 
 tals there issued an intermittent roar which seemed to 
 shake the very earth. The cabman tucked up his legs 
 on the seat, the horse rolled his eyes apprehensively, 
 while Millicent hesitated. 
 
 "Thus far," yelled the bulldog, "and no farther!" 
 till a small boy, dressed in a sailor suit, appeared dart- 
 ing up the steps, and proceeded to cuff him over his 
 bloodthirsty jowl with a fat fist. 
 
 Whereupon he lay down at the half -unfastened boots 
 of this fierce person like an innocent spring lamb, and 
 fell to sobbing like a grampus.
 
 140 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "You just dare make that row, and I'll I'll throttle 
 you, ' ' the small boy shrilled. ' ' You know well enough 
 mother's got a headache, you brute." 
 
 It was plain, from an abject guilt apparent in the 
 bulldog's eye, that the bulldog knew it, as it was also 
 plain that he was in mortal dread of being throttled. 
 He groveled and whined and sobbed for clemency, 
 licking the hand that cuffed him with a slobbery 
 tongue. 
 
 The boy came down the steps, and stood with his 
 hands in his pockets and his legs apart, gazing into 
 the cab. 
 
 "It's all right," he said, "he won't hurt you." 
 
 Millicent smiled and nodded. She put her foot on 
 the step. 
 
 "Oh, I say!" the boy inquired, abruptly, " 'r'you 
 the new guv'ness?" 
 
 Millicent nodded again. 
 
 "Oh, I say!" the boy exclaimed again, with a blank 
 face; "well, I'm off, you know." 
 
 He suited the action to the word, and vanished up 
 the steps. 
 
 Whereupon the bulldog resumed his former valiant 
 front and roar. It was evident he liked governesses 
 no better than his master. 
 
 Now, however, a smart-capped maid appeared, and 
 bustled him into the house, leaving Millicent free to 
 enter. 
 
 She was shown into a drawing-room which might 
 have been pretty but for a bewilderment of things in 
 it, which gave it the aspect of a warehouse. 
 
 An anxious-faced, faded little woman advanced ner- 
 vously to meet her. 
 
 "I am so sorry," she apologized; "what you must 
 have thought of us! That awful bulldog! We really 
 must get rid of him. ' ' 
 
 Millicent shook hands. 
 
 "He is a fine fellow," she said, cheerfully; "and he 
 seemed mild enough with the little boy. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, he's quite mild," his mistress affirmed, "only 
 he looks so terribly alarming. ' '
 
 WINKWORTH. 141 
 
 The two women measured swords with smiling looks, 
 after the fashion of polite society. Then Mrs. Kew- 
 Barling said hesitantly, as though this tall, confident- 
 seeming employee of hers got suddenly upon her 
 conscience: 
 
 "I hope you have been used to children, Miss Riv- 
 ers. Mine need a great deal of managing. ' ' 
 
 ' ' I am not at all used to children, ' ' Millicent re- 
 sponded, buoyantly; "but I am fond of them, and that 
 goes far, I think. ' ' 
 
 "You have not been out before?" 
 
 Millicent said "No," a little loftily perhaps. 
 
 "You were not children's governess at Lady Ker- 
 shaw's, then?" 
 
 "No," Millicent said again. 
 
 Mrs. Kew- Bar ling looked puzzled. She sighed. 
 This was scarcely the sociable, homely girl she had 
 somehow expected from Lady Kershaw's letter, this 
 straight- spined, charming young woman in stylish 
 mourning. 
 
 Then, as the smart-capped maid bustled in, with a 
 tea-cloth folded wrong side out, and a shabby cosey 
 under her arm, Millicent' s quick eye detected a slight 
 admonishing frown on her hostess' anxious brow, and 
 saw her frame her lips to something which she sus- 
 pected to be, and which afterward turned out to have 
 been, "Best cloth !" for the maid stopped short, turned 
 an interrogative and somewhat supercilious glance 
 upon the newcomer, as though protesting, "What! for 
 the governess?" and rustled pertly from the room. 
 
 When she returned it was with a tea-cloth of unf aded 
 crimson satin, and a handsome velvet cosey of the 
 same tint. 
 
 "Winkworth seems a large place," Millicent ob- 
 served, drawing off her gloves. 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling's eyes rested with mild question 
 on their fresh newness and fine texture. Nice gloves 
 were a luxury the ex-heiress had not summoned reso- 
 lution to forego. Perhaps Mrs. Kew-Barling was 
 reflecting that a salary of thirty-five pounds yearly 
 would scarcely run to such extravagances. Whatsoever
 
 142 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 she was thinking, she was only giving a portion of her 
 attention thereto, for, with a sudden nervous frown 
 upon a quarter of a seed-cake in the smartly-capped 
 one's hand, her anxious mouth was framing the 
 unvoiced command, "Best cake!" 
 
 A second time the eyes beneath the cap protested 
 pertly, "What! for the governess?" then the room 
 was re-entered with a superior compound. 
 
 "A large place, Miss Rivers," Mrs. Kew-Barling 
 echoed. "Oh, yes," she concluded, with pride, 
 "Winkworth has a population of quite seventeen 
 thousand persons. ' ' 
 
 "It must make it pleasant for you," Millicent said, 
 feeling the muffled confabulation with the smartly- 
 capped one to be a trifle embarrassing. 
 
 "Do you take sugar and cream?" Mrs. Kew-Barl- 
 ing inquired, with a glance of abasement into the 
 electroplated jug, and a guilty slurring of the term 
 describing its contents. 
 
 Millicent assenting, the cause of guilt became appar- 
 ent. Their eyes met, averting themselves in some 
 confusion from the stream of blue-white fluid issuing 
 from the jug. 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling coughed nervously. 
 
 "I believe it is only milk," she said; "I have a very 
 forgetful cook." 
 
 "I prefer milk," Millicent affirmed. 
 
 "Why, so do I," Mrs. Kew-Barling said, with a 
 smile of relief. 
 
 There was a pause, then the hostess observed : 
 
 "You were saying?" 
 
 Millicent dived into her memory. 
 
 "Oh, yes! With seventeen thousand people, Wink- 
 worth must be quite a lively place." 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling seemed somewhat out of coun- 
 tenance. Her face flushed a little. There was a 
 tremble in her voice. 
 
 "It is very select," she said, impressively. "Wink- 
 worth people are exceedingly select. One might even 
 call them to put the case strongly, Miss Rivers 
 cliquey. ' '
 
 WINKWORTH. 143 
 
 "Oh!" Millicent returned, not quite certain as to 
 how this intelligence was expected to impress her, but 
 aware that it was expected to impress her somewhat 
 signally. 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling shook her head gravely. 
 
 "There are some extremely aristrocratic people in 
 Winkworth, " she said, "not only rich people, but peo- 
 ple of family, so they have a right to be select. ' ' 
 
 "Of course," Millicent acquiesced. 
 
 "Yes," Mrs. Kew-Barling continued, earnestly, 
 "there are London professional men, barristers, you 
 know, and solicitors" (Mrs. Kew-Barling pronounced 
 the word with an impressive linger on the first sylla- 
 ble), "and merchants in a very large way of business, 
 not to speak of the county families ; but they live for 
 the most part on the outskirts." 
 
 "Well," Millicent said, brightly, "it must makeup 
 a very pleasant circle." 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling glanced at her, almost admonish- 
 ingly, as at one who was treating a serious subject 
 altogether too lightly. 
 
 "The Winkworth people are very reserved," she 
 said. "It is not easy to enter the most select circles. ' ' 
 
 "But pleasant when entered," Millicent smiled. 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling' s thin face clouded. It would have 
 been a pretty face but for a look of strain and tire 
 about it. She sighed wistfully. 
 
 "Oh, charmingly pleasant, I should think," she 
 said, with a thrill in her voice. "But we are only 
 quite newcomers, and not yet privileged. We have 
 only been three years in Winkworth." 
 
 "Oh!'' Millicent said, then stopped short in time, 
 but Mrs. Kew-Barling' s anxious ear detected more 
 than "Oh!" 
 
 "Three years is not at all long for Winkworth peo- 
 ple," she asserted, with a little air of dignity. "I have 
 heard of a family quite an aristocratic family who 
 took a very handsome house, with extensive grounds 
 and stabling and a lodge at the entrance, and Wink- 
 worth did not call upon them for four years. Think 
 of that, Miss Rivers four years. ' '
 
 144 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 Millicent murmuring "Surprising!" Mrs. Kew-Barl- 
 ing took heart and courage. 
 
 "There, I thought you would scarcely believe it! 
 Nobody would. And of course they were quite irre- 
 proachable. Indeed, the wife was the daughter of a 
 well-known baronet, and the man himself the eldest 
 son of a good old county family. And, as I tell Mr. 
 Kew-Barling, though my own papa was a professional 
 man a doctor in large practice his, of course, can 
 scarcely be called a profession at least, not a learned 
 profession. ' ' 
 
 "No?" Millicent submitted. 
 
 "No, Mr. Kew-Barling is a stockbroker," Mrs. 
 Kew-Barling said, diffidently. "His father was a 
 banker, and very highly connected. But, unfortu- 
 nately perhaps, he took to stockbroking. So that 
 although, of course, there are stockbrokers in Wink- 
 worth society, we need not be surprised if Wiiikworth 
 people have not exactly hastened to call. Indeed, we 
 might not have expected them to call, at any rate for 
 some time, only that friends of ours are related to the 
 lady who is quite the leader of society here. But it 
 takes time for people to learn about one's family and 
 credentials, and I respect them all the more for being 
 select." 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling' s expression was by this time 
 cheerful. Millicent' s confidence and encouraging 
 sympathy, and, perhaps, also her stylish appearance, 
 seemed to put her quite in spirits. 
 
 "I fancy we shall not have long to wait now," she 
 said, the shadows of her face replaced by hopeful 
 lights; "and then, perhaps, you too will have an 
 opportunity of seeing Winkworth society, Miss Rivers 
 if you like us, and I hope you will like us. ' ' 
 
 Millicent was sure she would. She stretched a 
 friendly hand for little Mrs. Kew-Barling' s small one 
 and gave it a hearty squeeze. 
 
 "I am sure I shall be very happy here," she said. 
 
 "Well," her hostess observed, diffidently, "I am 
 afraid you will find it different from Lady Kershaw' s. ' '
 
 WINKWORTH. 145 
 
 Accompanying- her presently to her room, Mrs. 
 Kew-Barling stopped behind to speak to the smartly- 
 capped one. 
 
 "Oh, Parkins," she said, brightly, "leave the tea- 
 things. It is rather late, but somebody might call. ' ' 
 
 10
 
 146 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 POPLAR VILLA. 
 
 My expenditure is Me. That our expenditure and our charac- 
 ter are twain is the vice of society. 
 
 Mr. Kew-Barling was a strong-featured man, of a 
 dark complexion and iron-gray hair. He was well- 
 informed, well-mannered, and, perhaps more impor- 
 tant than either, he was excellently well-groomed. 
 
 A matter surely unworthy of remark, one might 
 consider and consider wrongly in these days of 
 culture and sanitation. For even in these days of sani- 
 tation, one of the main differences between the upper- 
 middle and the uppermost classes is this matter of 
 grooming. The aristocrat from his boyhood upward is 
 so scrupulously tubbed, and brushed, and clipped, as 
 to gain an immense personal advantage over his mid- 
 dle-class neighbor, who possibly neglects the matu- 
 tinal tub, and even sometimes shirks his shave. The 
 aristocrat probably omits to say his prayers, while his 
 middle-class neighbor may not ; but there is about the 
 well-grcomed one a fine aroma of physical godliness 
 which is not to be attained, alas ! by the most punctil- 
 ious devotions. 
 
 Millicent was sitting with her hostess when there 
 came a sudden, short, sharp rat-tat at the door. It 
 was followed by another, and a sharper one, almost 
 immediately. 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling started forward .with a solicitous 
 look. 
 
 "That is Mr. Kew-Barling," she said, nervously. 
 "I will open the door myself. I can hear he has been 
 worried in the city." 
 
 Millicent, remaining in the dusk of the over-fur- 
 nished drawing-room, heard the latch slip back, then
 
 POPLAR VILLA. 147 
 
 to again, heard a murmured growl and the swish of a 
 bag flung forcibly on the hall-chair. 
 
 "Anybody been?" was uttered gruffly. 
 
 "Nobody, dear. It has been such a very dull day." 
 
 "Umph!" said the gruff one. 
 
 Then Mrs. Kew-Barling's voice was heard again, 
 soothing and propitiatory. 
 
 "What is she like?" demanded Barling. 
 
 Evidently she was satisfactory. 
 
 "Umph!" said he again. "Take fifty per cent off, 
 I suppose, and I shall be somewhere near the 
 mark. ' ' 
 
 Then he came in with a "fifty per cent" deprecia- 
 tion in his eye. 
 
 Millicent rose and bowed. Mr. Kew-Barling shook 
 hands. 
 
 "I am afraid you have had along journey," he said, 
 civilly. He looked worn and harassed. 
 
 "I am not tired," Millicent responded. "A journey 
 is always interesting." 
 
 "Not the journey between London and here,' : he 
 objected. "There is never time to get up a decent 
 pace before they have to stop." He turned to his 
 wife. "Dinner ready?" 
 
 "It will be by the time you have brushed your hair, 
 dear," she suggested, mildly. 
 
 While Mr. Kew-Barling brushed his hair, Mrs. Kew- 
 Barling made his apologies. 
 
 "He has been worried in the city," she said, all the 
 anxious lines back again in her face. "A man has 
 terrible responsibilities, Miss Rivers, with a wife and 
 children depending on him, and the struggle for life 
 so cruel. Naturally he has the best temper possible, 
 but they seem to take a positive delight in ruffling 
 him in that horrid city." 
 
 "Tomato soup again," the ruffled one observed, when 
 Parkins removed the cover. He served Miss Rivers 
 and his wife. 
 
 "Take this away," he instructed Parkins, indicating 
 his plate. 
 
 "Oh, I'm so sorry, dear," Mrs. Kew-Barling pleaded,
 
 148 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 with a tremulous lip. "You found it so refreshing the 
 other evening, you know." 
 
 "Yes, as a change from lentil," Mr. Kew-Barling 
 said. 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling took a few hurried spoonfuls, 
 then set her spoon down, and strove not to look hastily 
 at Millicent. 
 
 "Ah, soles," Mr. Kew-Barling said more placably. 
 ' ' Now we are doing better. ' ' 
 
 He entered upon a smoother mood, and presently 
 told them pieces of news he had picked up in town. 
 
 "There is talk of war," he said, sombrely. "It has 
 been bothering me a bit. If it comes, all those Sirva 
 bonds will be down at zero. You didn't write about 
 the house at Brighton?" 
 
 "No, dear," Mrs. Kew-Barling returned, with a 
 sidelong glance toward Millicent. 
 
 "Oh, well, don't for a week or so. We will see how 
 things go." 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling looked uneasy. Then she bright- 
 ened with an effort. 
 
 "Baby gets stronger every day," she said, cheer- 
 fully. "He had quite a nice color in his cheeks this 
 afternoon ; and Rob and Ruby are so sturdy they can 
 manage perfectly without sea-air. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Kew-Barling glanced up surreptitiously from 
 his plate to his wife's thin face. His own was dark. 
 
 "A breath of sea-air wouldn't do you any harm," 
 he said, with a savage rasp of feeling in his voice. 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling laid her thin fingers softly over 
 his big hand. Her mouth quivered, but her eyes 
 were bright. 
 
 "I!" she said. "Oh, I don't need sea-air, Kew. I 
 am perfectly strong." 
 
 Mr. Kew-Barling, with a shame-faced movement 
 toward Millicent, gently disengaged his hand. 
 
 "Roast chicken," he exclaimed, "and done to per- 
 fection. Cook has surpassed herself to-night, dear." 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling exulted. 
 
 "I thought we would not have a repetition of last 
 evening," she said, "and I saw to it myself."
 
 POPLAR VILLA. 149 
 
 "There are not many men with such a wife as I 
 have, Miss Rivers," Kew-Barling said. His strong 
 face softened. "There are not many things Mrs. 
 Barling cannot do, from operatic music to cooking. 
 And I am afraid there is a great deal of truth in the 
 adage 'Feed the brute.' ' 
 
 "I am sure you are not in the least like that," pro- 
 tested Mrs. Kew. "And a man has a right to expect 
 things nice when he has been slaving all day in that 
 detestable city. Such stuffy dens of offices as they 
 have, Miss Rivers! It is a cruel life." 
 
 "I assure you, my dear," Kew-Barling said, with a 
 laugh, "we haven't much time to think about the 
 atmosphere." 
 
 "Kew," his wife entreated, "now, did you make 
 time for a good lunch?" 
 
 Kew turned crusty. 
 
 "Molly," he insisted, "you just mind your own 
 affairs. If I can't be trusted at my time of life " 
 
 "Oh, you know you can't. You never think about 
 yourself. ' ' 
 
 Barling laughed harshly. 
 
 "They'd tell you a different story in the city." 
 
 "Well, a man has to hold his own in the world, 
 hasn't he, Miss Rivers?" the man's wife appealed hotly. 
 
 Millicent assented with an air of experience. She 
 had been wondering that little Mrs. Kew-Barling 
 should be called "Molly." "Molly" stood in her mind 
 for laughter, and smiles, and piquant irresponsibility, 
 and Mrs. Kew-Barling well, Mrs. Kew's eyes were 
 gray and soft, and the pupils had a pretty trick of 
 dilating, and when she smiled, two engaging dimples 
 stole into her cheeks, despite their thinness. Her 
 hair, before it faded, must have been very charming, 
 even now there were golden lights in it even now, 
 good gracious, she was under thirty! No woman 
 under thirty, Millicent decided a little irritably, had a 
 right to wear such anxious lines and to be so pathet- 
 ically wan. 
 
 "If you didn't hold your own in the city, Kew," 
 Mrs. Kew continued, in a tense voice, "you know
 
 ISO WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 they'd just trample you under trample you under 
 like like rubbish!" 
 
 "Oh, well, I don't suppose anybody would stop to 
 pick me up," Mr. Barling said, philosophically. "A 
 man has got to keep his legs. ' ' 
 
 "Yet they have wives and children of their own," 
 she persisted. 
 
 "That's maybe the reason of it," Mr. Barling 
 returned, reflectively. 
 
 Millicent began to feel quite hysterical. It had 
 never before occurred to her that there might be trag- 
 edy beneath the commonplace of business life, that 
 commerce was a man-made, man-manipulated mill, 
 within which a false step or careless movement might 
 fling the man among its cogs and cranks and break his 
 life and limbs. At home she had never had a hint of 
 this. But her father had been signally successful. It 
 struck her that possibly the Kew-Barlings were not 
 altogether successful. Yet their house was well fur- 
 nished and things were nicely done. 
 
 Then, with a sudden young impatience, she shelved 
 the whole question. Broad-shouldered Mr. Barling 
 was surely capable of managing his own affairs. 
 
 She finished the last of her apple charlotte, then 
 created a diversion by a lively account of her terror 
 lest the small boy who had come to her rescue on the 
 steps should have found his way down the bulldog's 
 cavernous mouth. 
 
 Kew- Barling laughed. 
 
 "Oh, Punch stands anything from Rob," he said. 
 "There was a strong smell of scorching one day last 
 summer, and I went into the nursery, and found the 
 dog lying on his back, patiently blinking the tears out 
 of his eyes, while Rob ironed his shirt-front for him 
 with an iron hot enough to singe the hair right down 
 to the skin." 
 
 When they were leaving the dining-room Mrs. Kew 
 lingered. 
 
 "What is wrong, little woman?" Millicent heard her 
 host inquire. "Don't you think you will get on with 
 her?"
 
 POPLAR VILLA. 151 
 
 "Oh, Kew, it isn't that," a pathetic voice replied, 
 "only I had such a disappointment. A carriage 
 stopped before the door, I thought even it might be 
 Mrs. Askew-Hickox, because there were two roan 
 horses, and Parkins came in and told me I was put- 
 ting on my pretty tea-gown and it was all a mistake. 
 They had come to the wrong house." 
 
 "Well, damn them!" Mr. Kew-Barling cried, 
 fiercely. "Who wants them to call if they don't want 
 to?" 
 
 "Oh, Kew, dear," his wife faltered, "it would be so 
 nice to have some nice friends." 
 
 "It would be livelier," Mr. Barling growled. 
 
 "Of course they must soon begin to call," Mrs. 
 Kew-Barling told Millicent later in the evening. Mr. 
 Kew-Barling had gone to his study to pore there over 
 the contents of the before-mentioned black bag. 
 "Only it has seemed such a tedious time. I assure 
 you I have grown quite thin with disappointment. I 
 don't mind telling you, because I feel so much at 
 home with you, as though I had known you all my 
 life. But you know where we lived before we had only 
 quite a small house you see, Mr. Kew-Barling had 
 his way to make, and it has been rather uphill work, 
 and of course then we hardly expected people at all 
 smart to call upon us. But when we could take such 
 a nice house as this, in a very select neighborhood 
 indeed, perhaps, we ought not to be paying quite so 
 high a rent as we do but we have been so anxious 
 for a pleasant circle of friends. Mr. Kew-Barling is 
 naturally sociable. He won't admit it, because he's 
 proud, poor fellow ; but nothing would make him so 
 happy as to have a man drop in now and again for a 
 friendly smoke, or to dinner, or to be asked out for an 
 informal game of billiards, or a hand at whist. And 
 we seem to have waited so long. It really has begun 
 to tell on him. He gets quite moped." 
 
 "Oh," Millicent consoled her, "somebody will call, 
 and you will soon make a circle. ' '
 
 152 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "The clergyman called, of course, because we attend 
 church most regularly. And the doctor's wife called; 
 but, unfortunately, it was the wrong doctor. He isn't 
 the fashionable doctor, but we did not know that, and 
 I sent for him one night in a hurry when baby had 
 convulsions, because his wife was such a nice woman. 
 And Mr. Kew-Barling said, as he was so attentive, and 
 seemed clever, he was not going to change him for all 
 the Winkworths in the wo'rld. He is very determined, 
 Mr. Kew-Barling is, and I didn't think myself it would 
 have been treating Dr. Barnby nicely. But perhaps it 
 put us wrong with people. You see, Dr. Fancourt, the 
 doctor who attends the smartest folk, charges seven- 
 and-sixpenny fees, and Dr. Barnby only charges five, 
 and sends out his own medicine. But, then, you can't 
 know these things when you come fresh to a place. " 
 
 "Well, I am sure I should never trouble about peo- 
 ple who would be prevented from calling for such 
 contemptible reasons," Millicent said, sturdily. 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling shook her head gravely above the 
 small frock she was embroidering. 
 
 "Ah, my dear," she said, sententiously, "when you 
 have seen as much of the world as I have, you won't 
 expect your neighbors to be perfect. But that won't 
 keep you from feeling lonely when they live next door 
 to you for years, or in the next street, and pass you 
 day after day without looking once in your direction. 
 And even when baby came, and they thought I should 
 have died, nobody so much as called to ask if I were 
 better, or sent me a flower. " 
 
 "Well, I think they are heartless, unfeeling brutes," 
 cried Millicent. 
 
 "Oh, no," Mrs. Barling said, mildly, "it is only that 
 they are so very select. And it is not as if we even 
 kept a carriage, or could afford to entertain. And 
 then, of course, it was most unfortunate that I sent 
 for the wrong doctor. A very little thing puts you 
 wrong with people who are, and have a right to be, 
 select." 
 
 Honest Millicent blurted, "Say snobbish," whereat 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling was seriously offended.
 
 POPLAR VILLA. 153 
 
 "I must have given you a very wrong impression of 
 Wink worth society," she said, with dignity, "that you 
 should apply such a word to it." 
 
 She became all at once reserved, as though she felt 
 her confidence betrayed. Millicent withdrew her 
 remark with tact and feeling. But Mrs. Kew-Barling 
 had been touched on a sensitive spot, her pride in the 
 selectness of Winkworth society rising genuinely 
 above her soreness that that selectness excluded her. 
 
 "Good gracious!" Millicent fretted in the solitude 
 of her bedroom, "I feel as Alice in Wonderland did 
 when the house so shrank that she had to put one foot 
 up the chimney, and an arm out of the window. Will 
 Winkworth ever be big enough to hold a person who 
 has known dear Lady Kershaw and and the major?" 
 
 Then she cried herself to sleep, and dreamed that 
 Mr. Kew-Barling was being trampled by a jeering 
 crowd of ruffians in the city, while Mrs. Kew-Barling 
 pushed and struck at them with impotent hands, and 
 Punch roared murder and defiance out of his blood- 
 red jaws.
 
 154 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 ROBBY AND RUBY. 
 
 "There's no dew left on the daisies and clover, 
 
 There's no rain left in heaven ; 
 I've said my 'seven times' over and over, 
 Seven times one are seven. 
 
 "I am old, so old I can write a letter; 
 
 My birthday lessons are done ; 
 The lambs play always, they know no better, 
 They are only one times one." 
 
 Millicent awoke with the sense of an eye upon her. 
 She glanced round her neat room, still half asleep, till 
 her looks lighted on a little vase of flowers placed 
 beside her bed. She caught her breath. She was 
 wide awake at once. The Towers, with its cultivation 
 and repose, the shabbiness which had become so dear 
 to her, were things turned down on the leaf of yester- 
 day never to recur. 
 
 She still had that sense of an eye upon her. She 
 turned instinctively in the direction whence she felt 
 the rays of observation strike. The eye was black 
 and rolling. The eye was mischievous and truculent. 
 Below it, flippantly askew in a great underhung jaw, 
 she recognized a slipper, one of a pair she had placed 
 the previous evening at her bedside in preparation 
 for an early rising. 
 
 Seeing himself observed, the marauder assumed an 
 ingenuous air. "Stretch down your hand and take it, 
 my dear, ' ' he appeared to invite her blandly. ' ' I am 
 your very humble servant. ' ' 
 
 But a slight movement on her part set him vaulting 
 backward, while the mischief in his eye took flame. 
 "Now, then," he avowed himself, "come on, and let's 
 see who's master!" 
 
 "Punch!" she sued, seductively. 
 
 "Governess!" he retorted, with a flinty eye.
 
 ROBBY AND RUBY. 155 
 
 "Good dog!" she appealed. 
 
 "Bah!" he snorted. 
 
 A burst of whispering and muffled laughter at the 
 door apprised her that Punch had reinforcements. A 
 portion of white night-shirt and pink leg betrayed the 
 sailor hero of the previous day. 
 
 Punch departed, trophy in mouth, to return straight- 
 way without it. He stood a moment dubious, then, 
 with a sudden flank movement, darted in, secured the 
 other slipper, vanished, and came back with empty 
 jaws. 
 
 Without more ado, he seized a garment hanging 
 over a chair and dragged it, with a brutal disregard of 
 frills and spotlessness, along the floor and out at the 
 door. 
 
 He returned for a stocking, having disposed of which 
 he came back for its fellow. 
 
 "At this rate," Millicent ejaculated in dismay, see- 
 ing the black empty foot trail helplessly over the 
 threshold, "I shall have to go down undressed!" 
 
 Strangled shrieks of laughter greeted each exploit ; 
 bare feet pattered up and down in ecstasies; there 
 were sounds as of small, soft persons executing war 
 dances, turning somersaults, and writhing on the 
 passage mats in vain convulsive efforts to relieve a 
 sense of humor which had attained agonizing propor- 
 tions. For Punch in his zeal, possibly exceeding his 
 instructions, had snatched a chair by an inoffensive 
 leg, and, with fierce mutterings and imprecations, had 
 dragged it to the threshold, where, getting entangled 
 with the door, it remained fast jammed. The more 
 he growled and tugged, the more firmly it resisted and 
 the less successfully restrained the outside whisper- 
 ings and laughter grew. Then a terrible thing hap- 
 pened! the leg came off. The chair was mainly 
 ornamental ; certainly it had never been intended for 
 the brutal usage to which it was now being subjected, 
 and, with a mournful snap, it parted with a limb. 
 
 To judge by the dog's immediate and tragic change 
 of front, it appeared that this was not his first offense
 
 156 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 in furniture-dismembering, nor possibly his first expe- 
 rience of painful consequences, for no sooner had he 
 recovered breath from the impetus imparted to him by 
 the sudden yielding of the joint, than he stood in a 
 pose of abject grief, the trophy of his prowess, and, 
 alas! the evidence of his guilt, athwart his jaws. He 
 set it down gingerly and eyed it. Then, the question 
 of penalties obtruding, he gave vent to a mournful 
 howl. He glanced about for counsel, but his counsel- 
 ors, seeing the fell results of their temerity, had fled 
 precipitately back to bed. 
 
 He lay down with a malevolent eye on the proofs of 
 his ill-deeds and fell a-sobbing. Suddenly he whined 
 with pleasure, a fine intelligence flashed into his face. 
 Then, with a furtive glance toward Millicent, watch- 
 ing him from her pillows, he took the chair leg in his 
 mouth, stole with it to her bed, deposited it carefully 
 beneath, and departed with an abashed and shameful 
 tail between his legs. 
 
 He had killed two birds he had saved his own skin, 
 and the governess would be beaten for his sins! 
 
 He returned to his basket in the hall, and doubtless 
 simulated guileless sleep. 
 
 Millicent made the acquaintance of her pupils at 
 breakfast; they were rosy and smiling beautiful chil- 
 dren. 
 
 They bore no traces of their early morning fray, 
 though they listened with some apprehensiveness on 
 each occasion when she volunteered speech. The lie 
 direct to any charge she should lay at their door was 
 on their lips, and Punch kept a furtive watch upon 
 her from the hearth-rug. But she preferred no charge. 
 
 "I don't kiss governesses," Rob explained, suc- 
 cinctly, when she bent her head to him. 
 
 Ruby, a cherubic person of four, did not kiss gov- 
 ernesses either, but she presented a rosy cheek, and 
 very punctiliously scrubbed off the kiss deposited 
 there.
 
 ROBBY AND RUBY. 157 
 
 "I am afraid you will find them very naughty chil- 
 dren," Mrs. Kew-Barling acquainted her, helplessly. 
 (Mr. Kew-Barling had departed to the city by an early 
 train.) "Their last governess could do nothing with 
 them." 
 
 ' ' Miss Scamp, ' ' the cherub cried, shaking a halo of 
 golden curls, and fixing an insolent gleam on Millicent 
 out of limpid eyes. 
 
 Rob choked with his mouth full of bread and mar- 
 malade. 
 
 "Every governess' name isn't 'Scamp,' you silly," 
 he spluttered. 
 
 ' ' You naughty, rude children, ' ' their mother expos- 
 tulated. "Their last governess' name was Camp, 
 Miss Rivers, and do what she would they always 
 insisted on calling her 'Scamp.' It was most embar- 
 rassing. I don't think she quite understood children ; 
 they led her a terrible life." 
 
 "Scamp, Scamp, 
 Lighted the lamp 
 And flew upstairs on her ugly old gamp ! " 
 
 Rob blurted, with the abashed air of a person moved 
 to recite his own compositions. 
 
 "Ugly ole gamp," the cherub echoed, glaring at 
 Millicent as though she were calling names. 
 
 Punch came out of his corner with a glistening eye. 
 The war-whoop tingled in every fibre of his squat 
 frame ; it was the signal of attack upon governesses, 
 and he answered to it like a veteran. 
 
 "Punch, you wicked dog, lie down," his mistress 
 insisted. 
 
 He obeyed, with a glint upon Rob which said 
 plainly, "The old lady will soon be gone. Operations 
 deferred!" 
 
 "Now, see what you can make of my name," Milli- 
 cent said, cheerfully, addressing the poet. "My name 
 is Rivers." 
 
 "We can call you Mountain," he returned, some- 
 what nonplussed.
 
 158 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Oh, but that would be silly, and it wouldn't rhyme. 
 Now see what I can do: 
 
 " Millicent Rivers 
 Took darts from her quivers, 
 And shot Robert to to " 
 
 "I know," Robert blurted, " shot Robert to smith - 
 ers. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Bobbles to snivers, ' ' Ruby gurgled. 
 
 Then Robert turned crusty. He eyed Millicent vin- 
 dictively. This was taking the wind out of a fellow's 
 sails indeed! He would like to know how they were 
 going to successfully harass a person callous enough to 
 invent rhymes against herself. 
 
 "You can't shoot," he said, aggressively. 
 
 "Scamp tant soot," echoed Ruby, hurling a bread- 
 crumb violently in the foe's direction. 
 
 "Oh, can't I?" Millicent retorted, stoutly. "You 
 try me after breakfast. We will stand Bobbles on a 
 chair in the middle of the room, and give me his bow 
 and arrows, and let me have three good shots at him. " 
 
 Ruby glanced from the one to the other dubiously. 
 Then her sporting instincts got the better of her sis- 
 terly ones. 
 
 "Free s'ots at Bobbles," she cried, clapping her 
 hands. "Bobbles to smivers. " 
 
 "No, I'm not, you little liar!" "Bobbles" mumbled 
 with a red face. "I should set Punch on her." 
 
 Punch, lying before the fire, glanced back over his 
 prick-ears at the sound of his name. "Rely on me," 
 his glance said. "I'm game for anything." 
 
 "Oh, you naughty, wicked boy ! ' ' Rob' s mother cried, 
 querulously. "What can I do with you? You will 
 have to be sent to school. ' ' She turned to Millicent. 
 "He has some tiresome cousins," she apologized, 
 "rough, spoilt boys, who teach him the naughtiest 
 tricks. ' ' 
 
 "If I went to school, would Punch go?" Rob 
 demanded. 
 
 Punch tumbled up from the hearthrug, and, trotting 
 over to his mistress, stood looking into her face.
 
 ROBBY AND RUBY. 159 
 
 "Come, now," he insisted, with a peremptory wag- 
 gle of his tail, "answer me that. Should I go?" 
 
 "You certainly would not, you tiresome creature," 
 Mrs. Barling said, interpreting his eloquent interro- 
 gation. 
 
 "You go and lie down. Who asked you to inter- 
 fere?" Robert snubbed him, darting a fist in the air 
 in his direction. 
 
 Whereat Punch, effectually crushed, returned to his 
 place on the hearth, and lay down with a great jaw 
 resting on his forepaws, sniffing and sobbing. 
 
 "Oh, I do hope he won't take to snapping at you, 
 Miss Rivers," Mrs. Barling sighed. "He led Miss 
 Sc Miss Camp a terrible life, snapping at her ankles. 
 He used to lie in wait for her in unexpected places 
 and dark corners, and then dart out and snap round 
 her ankles like well, really like a crocodile." 
 
 "When she s'rieked it was like slate penc'les going 
 wrong on a slate," Bobbles said, grinning from ear 
 to ear. 
 
 "Pensoos on a syate!" gurgled Ruby, dimpling like 
 a holy cherub. 
 
 Punch broke off short in a sob because he was not 
 going to school to lick his black-leaded lips with a gory 
 tongue at the savor of a recollection. 
 
 "I don't believe he would have hurt her for^the 
 world, ' ' his mistress resumed, shaking a mild finger at 
 him; "but she was frightened to death of him." 
 
 "She went like this," Rob volunteered, springing 
 to his feet, and standing in the middle of the room. 
 He screwed his voice to a shrill falsetto, and stood on 
 tiptoes, making savage little ineffectual darts with one 
 hand, while with the other he clutched imaginary 
 skirts about him. "Go 'way, you vicious brute! Go 
 'way, you black-faced monster! Go 'way! go 'way! 
 go 'way! Ain't you ashamed of such manners? Send 
 for a policeman ! Burglars ! Thieves !" 
 
 "Fieves an' p'licemen!" shouted Ruby, capering 
 gleefully in imitation, and catching her petticoats 
 about her after a fashion which was, let us hope in
 
 160 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 the interests of modesty, an exaggeration of Miss 
 Camp's original performance. 
 
 Punch was not behindhand in his part of the imper- 
 sonation, but darted in and out, snapping his formid- 
 able jaws, within an ace of their small legs, with an 
 alarming- sounding iteration, which, if it were at all a 
 faithful reproduction of the circumstances, perfectly 
 explained the apprehensions of Miss Camp. 
 
 Even Mrs. Barling could not keep from laughter, 
 while this chorus of falsetto appeals for police protec- 
 tion, mingling with histrionic growlings and choppings 
 of jaws, made the breakfast-room a scene of noisy pan- 
 tomime. 
 
 "I can't think how he keeps from biting them," she 
 said. "You might think he would snap their legs off. 
 Yet I've only once known him give Robby a scratch 
 just the least accidental scratch on the knee ; and 
 he whined and whimpered over it for quite a time. 
 To be sure, Robby broke Ruby's big doll's head over 
 him for it, ' ' she added, smiling. 
 
 "If you please, 'm, the greengrocer, 'm," the cook 
 said, appearing in the doorway. "And turnips is rose 
 to a penny each ; and he says when is Mr. Kubarlin' 
 agoin' to settle his little account." 
 
 "The check was sent by post this morning," Mrs. 
 Kew-Barling asserted, with dignity; "and I am just 
 now coming to the kitchen. You will find everything 
 ready for school in the dining-room, Miss Rivers. 
 The children don't do much, of course. Even for 
 their ages I am afraid they are sadly backward. Now, 
 Robby, I depend on you to behave nicely, and keep 
 Punch in order, or he will have to be chained in the 
 yard. Miss Rivers has kindly come a hundred miles 
 to teach you, so mind you are good to her." 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling closed the door behind her. 
 
 "I say, you get paid for teaching us, don't you?" 
 Robert questioned, bluntly. 
 
 Millicent nodded. 
 
 "I say, you'd better not charge too much, you 
 know," he insisted, "else we shan't be able to go to 
 the seaside."
 
 ROBBY AND RUBY 161 
 
 This was a new aspect of things, and one not alto- 
 gether tending to the governess' peace of mind. 
 
 "I won't charge too much," she said, quietly. 
 
 "Dad's got heaps and heaps of money, of course, 
 enough to have a golden house if he wanted," Robert 
 vaunted; "but we've got to take care of our best 
 clothes, mother says, 'cause father works for 'em." 
 
 " 'Eaps of money dad's got as much as vis," 
 repeated Ruby, joyously, stretching her chubby arms 
 to their widest extent, and shaking her golden curls 
 impressively. 
 
 "Punch and I'll go one day in the city, an' fight 
 those chaps who're always takin' father's money, and 
 stopping us goin' to the sea. ' ' 
 
 "An' Yuby too," echoed that person valiantly, 
 clenching her fat fists; "ven jump in a tyain an' dig 
 wiv spades. ' ' 
 
 It needed a good deal of persuasion to reduce these 
 champions to the commonplace of spelling-books, and 
 when Millicent would have added the mild coercion 
 of carrying "Yuby" nolens volens to her place at the 
 table, a menacing snarl from Punch, and a look on 
 his ugly face which showed that his ugliness was 
 based on character moved her to restore the rosy one 
 to liberty again. 
 
 Finally, however, they were persuaded to their tasks 
 by an adroit and convincing representation that unless 
 Rob could do sums he would never be able to help his 
 father to count the heaps and heaps of money in the 
 city, and so prevent the chaps from stealing it. 
 
 Even with this inducement, however, education was 
 somewhat at a standstill, for Rob insisted on it that 
 he had never learned his letters, and proposed learn- 
 ing five of them for his morning's work. 
 
 Eventually Millicent gave up any attempt at tute- 
 lage, and proceeded to win her pupils' confidence by 
 telling them stories. There were giants in the stories, 
 and hideous monsters with double rows of well-filed 
 teeth, who spent their time devouring children inca- 
 pable of reading words of two syllables. 
 
 " 'Now,' said King Ogre, rolling his horrible eyes
 
 162 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 and sharpening his knife, 'a boy who is well educated 
 always disagrees with me. If you can write your 
 name and say the six times multiplication table I shall 
 take very good care not to chew you up. ' ' 
 
 "An 'could he?" queried Robert, breathlessly. 
 
 Millicent shook her head portentously. "He had 
 had several governesses," she said, "but he would 
 never do his lessons. " 
 
 "Did a giant eat 'im?" demanded Ruby, with big 
 eyes. 
 
 Millicent nodded, shuddering dramatically. 
 
 "An* did he make him sick?" insisted Robby, lit- 
 erally. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 Robert looked grave. 
 
 "Even if he'd been swallowed, if the giant was sick, " 
 he said, reflectively, "he might have come up alive like 
 Jonah. I think I should like to make a giant sick, ' ' 
 he added. 
 
 "Yuby make a giant sick, too," echo urged. 
 
 "The giant cut him into little bits with his big sharp 
 knife," his monitress insisted. 
 
 "Oh, well," said Robert, though his expression was 
 not altogether easy, "there aren't any giants now, 
 you know. ' ' 
 
 Nevertheless, he put searching questions as to the 
 length of time it would take to learn the multiplication 
 table, and whether one couldn't learn the six times 
 table without learning those preceding it, likewise if 
 a chap couldn't be taught to write his name without 
 knowing how to write anything else. 
 
 Then, Mrs. Kew-Barling assenting, they started for 
 a walk, the children having first been subjected to a 
 most scrupulous survey as regarded their clothes. 
 Even then it was discovered at the last moment that 
 Ruby, instead of putting on her one-digited gloves, 
 had slipped them slyly into a tiny pocket. 
 
 "Good gracious," cried her mother, rescuing them 
 therefrom, ' 'I should like to know what Mrs. Askew^ 
 Hickox would think of you if she met you without 
 gloves!"
 
 ROBBY AND RUBY. 163 
 
 Punch stood ruefully upon the doorstep watching 
 them depart. He sniffed and snuffed dismally. His 
 broad white shirt-front heaved, while the tears in his 
 eyes threatened to destroy the starchy integrity of that 
 conventional attire. 
 
 "Miss Camp would never take him," Mrs. Kew- 
 Barling said, with a sympathetic eye on his distress. 
 ' 'She did not consider him genteel. " 
 
 "May he come?" Millicent pleaded. "I shall be 
 delighted to take him if I can manage him." 
 
 "Oh, he behaves perfectly," Mrs. Barling answered, 
 pleased, "and he needs exercise." 
 
 If you had seen the frenzied joy in Punch's eye at 
 the intimation that he too might go, and divined there- 
 from the daily cross he daily laid at the door of Miss 
 Camp's gentility, I think you would have forgiven 
 him certain ankle-snappings. 
 
 No dog of spirit assents unoffended to the imputa- 
 tion that he is not sufficiently genteel to follow hum- 
 bly at a fellow-creature's heels.
 
 164 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 THE RELIGION OF APPEARANCES. 
 
 The world, the world, 
 All ear and eye, with such a stupid heart ! 
 
 By the time Millicent had been domiciled a week in 
 the Kew-Barling household, she had learned the rea- 
 son for its mistress' forfeiture of her right to be 
 described as "Molly." 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling was one of that immense army of 
 women who offer their human lives in daily sacrifice 
 upon the altar of appearances. 
 
 In limited circumstances, she spent her heart's 
 blood the term is not exaggerated in a life-long 
 endeavor to appear to her neighbors to be better off 
 than she was. 
 
 By profession a church-woman, in her soul of souls 
 she acknowledged no other creed than the creed of 
 Respectability 1 And for the maintenance of this, she 
 endured a martyrdom, the sum of whose daily incre- 
 ment was a torture a hundredfold more rigorous than 
 a mere period of suffering on red-hot plowshares could 
 have been. For this religion of Respectability the 
 actual religion of the British Isles in its pitiless 
 exactions, its inexorable demands, its insatiable insist- 
 ences, is a rule as much more harsh and self-submerg- 
 ent than the creed of Christ as it is antagonistic to it. 
 
 "Sell all that thou hast," enjoined the Gentle One, 
 "and give to the poor." 
 
 "Grip all that thou canst," runs the creed of the 
 Respectable One, "and seem to have more!" 
 
 The first injunction is so simple. Turn out of your 
 houses all these superfluities which make your lives 
 unlivable; in the elaborate fabrication whereof the 
 faces of the poor are ground ; into whose polish and
 
 THE RELIGION OF APPEARANCES. 165 
 
 preservation your womenkind rub the brightness and 
 possibilities of human lives; and for whose protection 
 are necessary huge standing armies and striding 
 police, prisons, barracks, reformatories, plank-beds, 
 truncheons, and all the gruesome paraphernalia for 
 preventing the one who hath not from doing more 
 than hungrily cover the possessions of the one who 
 hath ! Turn out these things of moth and rust and 
 corruption, for whose laying up you are mere slaves 
 submerged in the city of toil, spending your possibil- 
 ities of peaceful, dignified existence in the joyless, 
 unnatural grind of the money-mill turn out these 
 things, which feed on the oxygen and sunshine of your 
 houses as their getting has fed on the oxygen and 
 sunshine of your lives, turn them out and breathe 
 freely, men without incubus of possessions, men of 
 simple life and enough leisure to enjoy it ! 
 
 Some household gods we must have for tradition's, 
 affection's, and association's sake. Some objects, tool 
 whereon to expend our industry and care, bu.t why, in 
 the name of all that is rational, grind life away amass- 
 ing furniture and other commodities which, when 
 amassed, are mere bothersome encumbrance, obliging 
 us to fill the warehouses we call our homes with ill- 
 bred uncongenial persons for the purpose of scrubbing 
 and polishing these wares for which we have exchanged 
 our human talents and bartered our joys! And why? 
 Why, because it is the first commandment of the 
 religion of Respectability that our possessions shail 
 not be apportioned to our needs, but to its assessment 
 of that which is proper to such as seek the pale of its 
 enameled countenance. Oh, fashion of Snobbishness! 
 Oh, cruelty of Sham! Oh, religion of Respectabil- 
 ity! Let us be Moslem, Turk, or Infidel, anything 
 rather than to bow before this Mammon Calf of Sense- 
 less Imitation, sacrificing to it all the greatness of our 
 Human Individuality. 
 
 Mrs. Kew- Barling's drawing-room was a large room, 
 when you consider that its veneer and finish repre- 
 sented inch by inch the shine and savor of Mrs. Kew- 
 Barling's life.
 
 1 66 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 The blinds were kept scrupulously drawn until the 
 sun had set, and the windows were but rarely opened, 
 so that the place was of a dim, religious gloom, and 
 odorous of the mustiness and stagnation typical of the 
 creed whereto it was consecrate. There were many 
 gods in it, the religion of Respectability being prim- 
 itive and polytheistic, and it was overcrowded with 
 duly antimacassared seats, arranged in more or less 
 symmetrical order, for the accommodation of fellow- 
 religionists, whensoever it should move them to enter 
 it by right of the baptism of introduction in order to 
 celebrate with more or less form some function of its 
 ordinance. Chief and most hideous of its deities was 
 a breakfast service of old Worcester, incomplete and 
 defective, which was ranged upon a walnut over-man- 
 tel as upon an altar. It had belonged to a great-aunt 
 of Mrs. Kew- Barling, and though it might serve for 
 evidence of the family's gentility and means for a 
 period of some generations, it would certainly suggest 
 to a disciple of the doctrine of heredity, that from one 
 side, at all events, of her descent, no trace whatsoever 
 of artistic differentiation was to be expected. 
 
 Another god was a full length portrait in oils of 
 Mr. Kew-Barling's great-grandmother, which, if it 
 were at all a faithful representation of that good lady's 
 normal aspect and attire, would leave our disciple of 
 hereditary doctrine deploring that his host should have 
 come of a line to which looks were as lacking as 
 decency. For though the artist had been singularly 
 lavish in his apportionment of draperies, he or the 
 lady had been signally obtuse as to its uses from the 
 standpoint of clothing. 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling had always some misgiving as to 
 the propriety of presenting this exceedingly decollett 
 person as a senior representative of the Kew-Barling 
 family. 
 
 But the picture enjoyed the reputation of being a 
 Lely, and the discredit of possessing a progenitor 
 who habitually went about without clothes was a very 
 small matter indeed in the balance of credit attaching
 
 THE RELIGION OF APPEARANCES. 167 
 
 to the possession of a progenitor of any description 
 who could have afforded to be painted by Lely. 
 
 However, Mrs. Kew-Barling always punctiliously 
 explained that the lady was not in her everyday attire, 
 but that she was posing as a Grace or a Muse, or some 
 other classical person with a distaste for bodices. 
 
 Fortunately, a dim recess at a distance from a win- 
 dow occurred in Mrs. Kew-Barling' s drawing-room, 
 and indeed the very dimness of this recess was to her 
 the last straw in the bundle of inducements deciding 
 her to take the house. 
 
 "The great-grandmother would go so very nicely 
 there," she had said. And thither the great-grand- 
 mother betook herself with her smiles and simpers. 
 And there, in the dusk of her seclusion and the shame 
 of her unashamedness, she did duty for a Lely and a 
 Grace. 
 
 Near her stood a walnut sideboard, with grooves, 
 pilasters, and arboreal carvings, the intricate inter- 
 stices of which seemed specially designed for dust 
 traps. Mrs. Kew-Barling has, on more than one occa- 
 sion, been betrayed into tears over frenzied and frus- 
 trated efforts to persuade the screwed-up corner of a 
 duster to penetrate narrows too narrow to be reached. 
 You could see a pink distortion of your face in the 
 polish of the panels and in some decorative peaches. 
 There was a dragon, too, of simple anatomy, with 
 ribbed and outstretched wings, which seemed fash- 
 ioned solely for the accommodation of dusting cloths 
 and the credit of her who wielded them; but there 
 were likewise niggly moldings and spiral barbarities, 
 which none but a spiteful mind could have perpe- 
 trated. For no fine frenzy of art if it hope to be 
 described as human art should so lose sight of the 
 amenities of life as to lose sight of the fact that crea- 
 tions in wood entail a retinue of dusters. 
 
 The room was divided into two by means of a terra 
 cotta portiere in Utrecht velvet an upper and smaller 
 holy of holies, a lower and larger if one may so 
 describe it nave. The upper and holier held the 
 objects of higher bigotry, as, for example, the venera-
 
 J 68 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 ble breakfast-service and the immodest Grace. Like- 
 wise, here stood, supported on a velvet footstool, a 
 dilapidated harp a harp of tarnished lustre, broken 
 pedals, and frayed strings, a voiceless relic, but one 
 eloquent of the Barling gentility, for had it not 
 belonged to a step-niece of Mr. Barling's great-aunt, 
 an heiress who married on her sixteenth birthday an 
 alderman of the city of London, and died on her sev- 
 enteenth birthday, poor child, in an ambitious effort to 
 become a mother, while she ought still to have been 
 using her backboard for purposes of development? So 
 the aldermanic monster prowled in other nurseries 
 in search of other spouses, and the poor little harpist 
 was laid in her coffin, with her puny dead ambition at 
 her childish breast ; and the aldermanic monster, hav- 
 ing no use for harps, returned it to her parents, 
 whence it descended to Mr. Kew. 
 
 I need not particularize at length all the shrines and 
 worshipful objects of Mrs. Kew-Barling's drawing- 
 room. There were dejeHner services in china of a 
 delicacy which courted chipping, set tastefully on what- 
 nots and spindle-legged tables. Before these mats of 
 woolly character were spread as for some ritual observ- 
 ance. 
 
 There was a milking-stool with yellow, legs, but no 
 other symptom of vaccine occupation. There was an 
 easel draped with plush, but no other sign of artistic 
 tenure. There were fans on the walls, and an Aus- 
 tralian boomerang suspended from the ceiling. There 
 were utensils from India, and trays from Japan. A 
 suite of gilt chairs spread themselves round with an 
 air of superior and British sufferance of the foreign 
 invaders a suite of chairs one sat but gingerly upon, 
 and did not sit upon at all if there were any option in 
 the matter, for the satin resplendency of their cush- 
 ioned seats afforded but slippery security. 
 
 There were lesser deities in glass cases, as, for 
 example, a Chinese lady's slipper, with a tinkling bell 
 hidden somewhere in the sole, a mimosa fern, which 
 had grown pallid and malevolent, remembering the
 
 THE RELIGION OF APPEARANCES. 169 
 
 air and sunlight of an earlier existence, and a stocking 
 attributed to the wardrobe of Queen Bess. 
 
 There were modern things, too, in this temple of 
 the convenances plush monkeys clambering about the 
 breakfast service ; a drain-pipe filled with bulrushes ; 
 a firescreen composed of palm leaves, dried ferns, 
 tinsel braid, and artificial frogs ; mats, antimacassars, 
 ribbon bows, and miniature brackets, whereon stood 
 statuettes and sea-shells trophies of summer expedi- 
 tions. 
 
 The pen tires in the effort of enumeration as the 
 mind sickens at the consideration of the labors entailed 
 upon the female slave who had heaped the obligations 
 of these legion superfluities upon her weighted shoul- 
 ders. For Mrs. Kew-Barling never permitted any 
 other than herself to minister to her idols further than 
 to scrub and sweep the floor, and furbish the fireplace. 
 
 The dusting, washing, polishing, renewing and 
 arranging inseparable from so many deities, she made 
 her sole and special care. Had she a moment to 
 spare, her fingers would be busy on some fresh mac- 
 rame work for bordering a bracket, some latest stitch 
 for multiplying mats, some draping or mending of the 
 temple curtains, or some lamp-shade to re-cover so 
 skillfully that no feminine caller, be she never so 
 penetrative of eye or perception, should be clever 
 enough to brand it with the stigma of "home-made." 
 For the Nirvana of attainment in the religion of 
 Appearances is the ability to sit with folded hands, 
 and have one's requirements sent in ready-made from 
 the shop! 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling had a charming taste and skill in 
 bonnets, but she would not for worlds have confessed 
 unless to deny necessitated a lie more direct than 
 mere evasion not for worlds would she have con- 
 fessed that she herself had trimmed the bonnet she 
 held always in reserve, and in an hermetically dust- 
 proof bandbox, for the returning of Mrs. Askew- Hick- 
 ox's call, when that millenial occasion should arrive. 
 
 "Nobody would ever suspect it was trimmed out of 
 Paris," she maintained, triumphantly. And even
 
 1 70 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 Mr. Barling, who was a plain, straightforward man, 
 and only a very reluctant convert to the creed of 
 Appearances, could not help feeling a sense of exulta- 
 tion that Askew- Hickox, who drove down to the station 
 in the smartest of dog-carts, and smoked half-crown 
 cigars, should suppose him Mr. Barling capable of 
 getting his wife's bonnets straight from the metropolis 
 of fashion. 
 
 So important, indeed, did it seem to Mrs. Kew-Barl- 
 ing to conceal the evidences of her industry and talent 
 that I have even known her to abstract the gold- 
 stamped lining of a bonnet, bought actually by Mr. 
 Barling in a fit of generosity and funds from a West 
 End shop, and to sew the lining emblazoned "Louise, 
 New Bond Street," or "Madame Smithson, Regent 
 Street, ' ' into a bonnet of her own trimming. 
 
 She compromised it with her conscience by reflecting 
 that the bonnet was certainly equal to anything Smith- 
 son had ever produced. 
 
 Mrs. Kew- Barling rarely, or never, went walking 
 for mere delight or healthfulness. By the time she 
 had dusted and carefully replaced the Worcester 
 breakfast pieces, and had thought out some fresh way 
 of grouping them; had wrestled with the niggly 
 moldings and exasperating dust traps of the side- 
 board ; had watered the mimosa and replaced its cover ; 
 had washed the dejeuner services, and polished their 
 supporting tables ; had shaken out the portieres and 
 refolded them; had feather-brushed the grand- 
 maternal shamelessness and gilded frame ; had fluffed 
 up the mats; cleansed the statuettes and shells; retied 
 the ribbon of the bulrushes ; softly swept the strings 
 and tarnish of the melancholy harp; vainly attempted 
 to modify, by way of antimacassars, the gilt preten- 
 tiousness and arrogance of the satin suite; rubbed 
 new surfaces upon the Indian utensils; shaken the 
 Japanese fans; burnished the boomerang; refilled the 
 lamps, and trimmed their wicks ; set out the shilling' s 
 worth of flowers, which were her sole daily extrava- 
 gance, to such purpose that they would show like half- 
 a-crown's worth; by the time these things had been
 
 THE RELIGION OF APPEARANCES. 171 
 
 done, and done as Mrs. Kew-Barling's religious 
 instincts moved her to do them, she had little time or 
 energy for walking. Moreover, there were other 
 chambers in her temple needing care and garniture 
 other chambers crammed with senseless superfluities ; 
 small persons' stockings to be mended, and buttons to 
 be re-supplied; household linens to be darned and 
 patched ; curtains to be made for windows ; cold mut- 
 tons to be returned ; hot meats to be provided, to say 
 nothing of nursery puddings, infant foods, and infant 
 bottles ; powders to be administered ; kitchen tempers 
 to be pacified; schoolroom mutinies to be quelled; 
 boots to be dispatched for patchings; letters to be 
 written ; bills to be revised ; blankets to be superannu- 
 ated and disposed of charitably, or at home ; feminine 
 small knickers to be frilled ; masculine small knickers 
 to be re-kneed ; frocks, petticoats, and pinafores to be 
 fabricated ; feeders to be embroidered ; preserves and 
 pickles to be potted, sealed, and labeled ; ink bottles, 
 gum bottles, wine bottles, and decanters to be filled ; 
 store-cupboards inspected, and their deficiencies sup- 
 plied ; scullery commissions and omissions to be routed 
 out 
 
 "Gracious!" cried Millicent, for the first time 
 brought face to face with the toils and details of middle - 
 class economies, goaded and harassed as such econo- 
 mies for the most part are by lack of means, and the 
 exactions of the creed of Appearances. "Gracious!" 
 cried she, "is this the way women spend their lives?" 
 
 At home there had been no kind of stint, and an army 
 of servants, with a housekeeper at their head, had 
 kept the machinery of domesticity well out of sight. 
 At The Towers, under Lady Kershaw's dignified rule, 
 poverty had translated itself into simplicity, thread- 
 bareness into tradition. . But poor Mrs. Kew-Barling's 
 unceasing efforts to appear well-off in the sight of her 
 neighbors gave rise to such an atmosphere of conflict, 
 stirred such a dust of endeavor, that Millicent lived 
 bewildered. Life was forever screwed and tortured up 
 to concert pitch, in dread lest some chance caller should 
 find the tone of Poplar Villa a fraction below the
 
 172 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 standard affected by the particular set whereto it 
 aspired. 
 
 Did the house-boy neglect to whiten the steps and 
 the house-boy neglected to whiten the steps on every 
 occasion whereupon an excuse would serve him the 
 matter assumed proportions momentous in the mind of 
 Mrs. Barling. For were the steps not immaculate by 
 ten, who could say but that Mrs. Askew-Hickox had 
 not passed by on the other side and run her exclusive 
 eye over the evidence of human or bull-dog footsteps 
 it behoves Respectability to obliterate from its door- 
 steps, as though they were the hooves of crime? 
 Possibly nobody had seen Mrs. Askew-Hickox pass, 
 but that were evidence altogether too slight for reliev- 
 ing the mind of a torture of doubt. For the otherwise 
 consoling suggestion that she so rarely passed was no 
 guarantee at all in a world of contrarieties that she 
 might not have passed on this particular morning, and, 
 moreover, had the bitter after-flavor in it that, passing 
 rarely, she would so have no means of knowing that 
 the footmarked condition of this morning was not the 
 normal state of Mrs. Barling's steps! 
 
 One of the drawbacks to semi-detachedness is that 
 the closeness of comparison with one's next door 
 neighbor may be rendered unexceptionably odious. 
 And Mrs. Kew-Barling's neighbor was such a one as 
 to do this, for she was a widow, with means, and no 
 children. She was, therefore enabled to keep the 
 complement of three serving maids and a boy, the 
 number prescribed by the sphere to which Mrs. Kew- 
 Barling aspired. 
 
 Moreover, her childlessness freed her from the 
 humiliating possibilities whereto Mrs. Kew-Barling, 
 with three, was hourly exposed. There was no stout 
 sailor-suited Robby to hang out, in defiance of the 
 string of Sunday church-goers, a broomhandle whereto 
 was attached a garment of Ruby's described generally 
 as a "pair," and which, on this occasion, floated 
 proudly on a high March wind as a pair of very swelled 
 and inartistic limbs ending abruptly in frills. Mrs. 
 Kew-Barling was rarely severe, but, on this occasion,
 
 THE RELIGION OF APPEARANCES. 173 
 
 Robert ate his Sunday dinner without pudding and 
 the pudding was of plums ! 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling's life was rendered doubly difficult 
 by the fact that her neighbor, Mrs. Malcolm, possessed 
 an income more than sufficient for her needs. It 
 required such constant care and anxious thought to 
 pursuade last year's curtains to look as well as next 
 door new ones; linen roller blinds as imposing as 
 peach-tinted Venetians. Moreover, in summer Mrs. 
 Malcolm sported immaculate sun-blinds and window- 
 boxes, which latter a man from the shop kept in flour- 
 ishing and irreproachable bloom. The sun-blinds 
 were out of the question, but Mrs. Kew- Barling made 
 a valiant attempt at the window-boxes, being shocked 
 at the bare and meagre aspect from the street of her 
 flowerless windows after Mrs. Malcolm's had broken 
 out in blossom. 
 
 Kew himself made the boxes on Sunday afternoons 
 and fronted them with virgin cork. Robby supplied 
 them with mold from the garden, wheeled in his 
 barrow, till he learned that the boxes were for use, 
 and their filling not a game devised for his diversion. 
 Learning this, he struck work, and Mrs. Kew-Barling 
 herself completed it under cover of night; but even 
 then her homely ferns and peas had not the shoppy 
 style of Mrs. Malcolm's marguerites and pink ger- 
 aniums. 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm kept her garden like a picture. 
 Indeed, it was so trim, you might easily have doubted 
 that the flowers and plants in it were really growing, 
 they grew so politely and so precisely as they were 
 intended to grow. The reds never trespassed on the 
 whites, the pinks never brushed cheeks with the blues, 
 nor did the shrubs intrude their shoots or branches on 
 the space belonging to their neighbors. They were 
 opulent and well-behaved ; perhaps a trifle showy, but 
 they made up for this by a signal decorousness of mein. 
 
 Something of the credit of their manners must be 
 given, where it was due, to the man from the shop, a 
 person of so correct a mind that he might have been
 
 174 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 intrusted with the management of a young ladies' 
 school. 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling abandoned the attempt to vie with 
 him quite early in the day. Robby and the black- 
 birds, reinforced by Ruby and the slugs, would have 
 made havoc in Eden, so the Kew-Barling garden aimed 
 at little more than decent neatness : A plot of trampled 
 grass with a box-bordered bed of pansies and a standard 
 rose tree in the middle ; half-a-dozen unfruitful fruit 
 trees amid a waste of marigolds and cornflowers at 
 the end ; a plain of grim and unproductive shadow on 
 the north side of the parti-fence to Mrs. Malcolm fell 
 the fortune and sunshine of the south and opposite 
 this a bed where flowers might have flourished had it 
 not been that Mrs. Malcolm's slugs and snails, banished 
 peremptorily by the afore-mentioned man from the 
 shop, took refuge there, and basked and sunned 
 themselves to such advantage that nothing Mrs. Kew- 
 Barling could plant came amiss to their abnormally 
 healthy appetites. 
 
 So Mrs. Kew-Barling early abandoned the attempt 
 to do more with her garden than conceal by means 
 of an ivy-covered latticework, the fact that her tea- 
 towels, dusters, and sundry of her children's garments 
 were washed at home for economical purposes. 
 
 All things considered, especially that main one 
 whereof Millicent conceived an exaggerated notion, 
 that while Mrs. Kew-Barling grappled daily with the 
 hydra-headed Monster of Appearances, Mr. Kew- 
 Barling girded up his loins and betook himself each 
 morning to the city, every force nerved against the 
 horrible contingency of being trampled under by a 
 horde of ruffians, Millicent did not wonder long at 
 Molly Barling's anxious lines and joyless voice. She 
 rather wondered that Molly Barling had retained her 
 sanity and powers of grappling so long. 
 
 Possibly Mrs. Kew-Barling had long since strung 
 her powers to the tension of that spectre of a mangled 
 Barling brought home on a shutter, and a day when 
 the hydra-headed should prove one too many for her, 
 and discover her to Mrs. Askew-Hickox washing her
 
 * 
 THE RELIGION OF APPEARANCES. 1 75 
 
 baby's shirts, and with her own tired hands spreading 
 them to dry on the lawn behind the latticework. 
 
 But such tension had ironed down the curves and 
 roundings of a face which still smiled out of a faded 
 photograph in the Kew-Barling drawing-room, the 
 happy, pleased face of a younger Molly ; it had robbed 
 her hair of all its lights and kinks; it had set sad 
 lines about her lips, and scratched the ground plan of 
 weary furrows round her eyes. It made her home a 
 dreary treadmill, turned by the tramp of ceaseless 
 effort, a drab routine of dull detail, whereby the God 
 of Appearances should be appeased. While outside 
 her windows, blind-guarded in the interests of the 
 carpet, the God of Life was spreading cool, wide 
 carpets of refreshing green, daisy-studded, wind- 
 swept, sun -warmed, fraught with the thrill of the 
 world's magnetic wheeling; mountains, valleys, 
 forests, rivers, snows, and all the innumerable host of 
 marvels we leave ourselves no time to marvel at in 
 our hurrying haste to chase about our homes the dust 
 and rust forever rising from the disintegration of the 
 superfluities wherewith they are choked. And, after 
 all, were not Molly Barling' s health and happiness and 
 pretty looks something better worth preserving than 
 the polish of chairs and fenders, and the vapid bloom 
 of antimacassar roses? 
 
 Depend upon it, the main reason for the lasting and 
 delightful charm of Japanese women is to be found in 
 the fact that their homes contain no furniture. Their 
 houses are simple to bareness, they have no burden 
 of appearances upon their shapely shoulders. The 
 result is simplicity, repose, and an ability to grow old 
 gracefully, an absolute impossibility to her who spends 
 her day in fierce and hourly conflict with decay and 
 dust the inevitable penalty of possessing "things"! 
 The housewife of the British middle -classes is a person 
 for the most part warlike of mein and aspect. Duty 
 grimly rides her brow, domestic strategy pervades her 
 eye, decision and precision steel her lips. She has a 
 gimlet glance for holes, threadbareness, and spiders. 
 The lines of calculation on her forehead mark her fre-
 
 176 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 quent countings of the treasures of her linen-cupboard, 
 her storeroom, and her plate ; her impaired quality of 
 voice is due to constant scolding, for by what other 
 means shall she keep the giddy parlor-maid and slattern 
 kitchen-wench forever in the van of battle? For, 
 herself a martyr to the duties of her own and her 
 grandame's heaping, to duty she martyrs her fellows. 
 But martyrs, though eminently meritorious, are far 
 from being pleasant breakfast companions. Who, 
 then, shall wonder if Mr. Briton, weary of the frown 
 on duty's brow, and the endless anxieties inseparable 
 from domestic mole-hills, occasionally scandalizes his 
 neighbors by eloping with an opera-dancer. The 
 dancer, being somewhat of the nature of a grass- 
 hopper, is rarely hampered by possessions. She 
 sings, chirps, chats, and frolics (for it is during her 
 summertime that Mr. B. elopes with her). She is not 
 troubled about many things; possibly she is not 
 troubled about any things. So long as she can eat 
 partridge, drink champagne, and wear smart frocks, 
 she does not suffer nightmares on account of house- 
 hold linens, nor lie awake into the small hours, devis- 
 ing shifts for making both ends meet in such a manner 
 that her neighbor shall detect no rift. Pooh, for 
 household linen ! Who would bother darning it? Pooh, 
 for her neighbor ! Who cares a row of pins what Mrs. 
 Grundy thinks? 
 
 Oh, no doubt Mademoiselle Cigale, during her sum- 
 mer days, is livelier company than Madame Duty. 
 And Madame Duty is misguided duty. While she is 
 puckering her brow and lips above her household 
 linen, Cigale is practicing smiles before her looking- 
 glass; and Briton prefers smiles to puckers any day, 
 as he prefers the devil's good tune's to the parson's 
 bad ones. And after all, Madame Duty, you owe it to 
 your womanhood, to say nothing of poor overtaxed 
 Briton, to show how your sex may be at the same time 
 good and charming, while poor Miss Grasshopper has 
 forfeited her right to be considered more than one of 
 these !
 
 A HUNDRED MILES AWAY. 177 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 A HUNDRED MILES AWAY! 
 
 ' ' I wish I were dead now, 
 
 Or up in my bed now, 
 To cover my head now, 
 
 And have a good cry." 
 
 Prior to making the acquaintance of her pupils, 
 Millicent had set about refurbishing her education. 
 It had never been a thing of great dimensions, so that 
 to refurbish it was no grave matter. 
 
 She was, however, a good reader, by no means con- 
 fining her reading to works of fiction. Moreover, she 
 remembered that she read ; observed, and listened, and 
 remembered that she had observed and heard. 
 
 "The children are young," Mrs. Kew-Barling had 
 written. But in these days of higher education, who 
 could say how advanced they might not be? 
 
 "Suppose, for example," Millicent reflected, "they 
 should question me about a venial equinox or the 
 equator." 
 
 But Rob and Ruby showed no mental strivings after 
 knowledge so abstruse. Indeed, they were far too 
 intelligent to care for "the second-hand knowledge of 
 books." They vastly preferred the results of their 
 own and first-hand observation. It was as much waste 
 of time to attempt to prove to Robert that the earth 
 was moving as it was fruitless expenditure of energy 
 to attempt to impress upon Ruby that fat was a pleas- 
 ant form of food. 
 
 "Yuby don't yike it," was the point she returned to 
 with a shake of her curls, and a disgusted distortion of 
 her charming face. 
 
 So Robert, hands in pockets, and his legs stretched 
 wide in order to study the starry heavens and at the 
 same time to retain his foothold of the earth, would 
 insist : 
 
 12
 
 178 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "I can feel the earth standing still, and I can see 
 the moon and the clouds racing by." 
 
 Sometimes they would accept the axioms of their 
 rudimentary education without question ; but this was 
 generally upon points they had no opportunity of 
 testing. 
 
 "You say London's bigger than Winkworth, ' ' Robby 
 would urge, "and father says it is as well; I shall see 
 when I go there. ' ' 
 
 So when Ruby, demanding to know the source of 
 the well-beloved orange, was informed that it had 
 grown upon a tree, she remarked skeptically : 
 
 "Yuby never seen it!" 
 
 Millicent found this century-end attitude of mind 
 distinctly obstructive of learning, quite unaffected by 
 banishment to corners, and most successfully treated 
 by dignified silence. She was given a perfectly free 
 hand in the matter of the children's education. 
 
 "Do just as you think best," Mrs. Kew-Barling 
 observed, with an abstracted air, hurrying to the 
 drawing-room, "if you can only succeed in keeping 
 them out of mischief. But, I am anxious for Robby 
 to enter Mrs. Minns' school by the time he is eight. 
 Little Clifford Hickox entered before he was seven." 
 
 Qualification for entrance to Mrs. Minns' Prepara- 
 tory School for Young Gentlemen was not so much 
 determined by the mental acquirements of the pupil 
 as by the circumstances of his age and stature enabling 
 him to wear the uniform prescribed by Mrs. Minns. 
 
 I require all my young gentlemen to wear Eton suits 
 and silk hats," she would remark, with the gravity of 
 a field-marshal, "and I scarcely think you could pur- 
 chase a silk hat so small that it would not slip down 
 over Master Newton's ears." 
 
 "But if I can, Mrs. Minns?" Master Newton's 
 aspiring mother would solicitously urge. "He ought 
 to be able to wear one; he is nearly seven." 
 
 "If you are able, Mrs. Newton, then I shall be 
 pleased to enter Master Newton's name upon my 
 books," Mrs. Minns would graciously assent, for she 
 was far from being the last person conscious of the
 
 A HUNDRED MILES AWAY. 179 
 
 prestige attaching in Winkworth to the fact of having a 
 son at her preparatory school. 
 
 It said little for the enterprise established in the hat 
 trade if Mrs. Newton failed to find a stove-pipe which, 
 by a little judicious padding here, and shaping there, 
 could not be induced to retain something approaching 
 its proper angle on Master Newton's head. Indeed, it 
 was somewhat in the nature of a revelation in the arts 
 of tailoring and hatting to watch Mrs. Minns' young 
 gentlemen wending their way to morning church. The 
 envious and less select whispered that the shell jackets 
 and silk hats of these young sparks were made beneath 
 a microscope. Certainly one felt a sense as of looking 
 through the wrong end of a telescope, as the black 
 tapering tail of boys wriggled decorously up the aisle. 
 Each carried in his little black-gloved hand his little 
 hat, into the little silk-lined well of which he dipped 
 his little face, then, carefully disposing of it under the 
 seat, sat back, with the well-brushed scalp of his little 
 head decorously fringing the top of the high-backed 
 pew, while the brain beneath stirred with such 
 momentous problems as the likelihood of Jackson 
 Minor swopping two alley-tors for a piece of stale 
 seed-cake, or Sweetman Major being thrashed into 
 parting with his lame dormouse. 
 
 A poke from Mrs. Minns would remind an -indi- 
 vidual from time to time of his obligation to proclaim 
 in his shrill small treble that the "Glorious company 
 of the Apostles prai ai ai se Thee," or to confess 
 himself "a miserable sinner. " For religious instruc- 
 tion was one of the strong points of Mrs. Minns prepa- 
 ration. 
 
 On such occasions Mrs. Kew-Barling, seeing noth- 
 ing of the incongruity of these small chubby creatures 
 with their funereal stove pipes, their hands punctili- 
 ously incased in ebon kid for the greater glory of their 
 Maker, the points of their escalloped jackets standing 
 perkily, and after the manner of rudimentary tails, 
 above the empty pleats of their genteel trousers ; see- 
 ing in them nothing beyond a youthful apotheosis of 
 that selectness she aspired to, thought with a fluttering-
 
 i8o WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 heart of a day when her Robby, exalted to the dignity 
 of broad-cloth shell and silken "topper," should walk 
 in the rear of a train whereof Clifford Hickox was 
 steadily advancing to the van. 
 
 After morning church the select train broke up into 
 its select constituents, the boys whose parents lived in 
 Winkworth joining their respective families ; but Mrs. 
 Minns always impressed upon parents in treaty with 
 her that the boys should be allowed to reassemble at 
 her gate on Sunday mornings and repair thence in a 
 body to church. She considered that to do so gave 
 them a befitting sense of the "conformity of their 
 position," a vague but impressive saying which never 
 failed of its effect for Mrs. Minns was the daughter 
 of a bishop and the widow 'of a dean, and Winkworth 
 was not the place to cavil at her phrases. 
 
 The envious said but it must be remembered that 
 the envious were among those whose social status 
 precluded their sons from the privileges of Mrs. Minns 
 preparation and the envious said she did it for adver- 
 tisement. But I honestly believe the envious were 
 wrong and that Mrs. Minns in all sincerity of heart 
 considered it advisable that her young gentlemen 
 should early accustom themselves to the "conformity 
 of their position" whatsoever she might mean by 
 that- 
 
 Mrs. Barling was not, of course, considering the 
 non-committal attitude of Winkworth society toward 
 her and her position, entirely confident that Mrs. 
 Minns would admit her Robby to the fold. She woke 
 up in the night to think about it, and turned her fading 
 face in weary feverishness upon the pillow, faint with 
 a dread lest Robby should be denied the privileges of 
 the select. 
 
 Robby himself was entirely unambitious. He stig- 
 matized these black-coated youths as "a lot of jolly 
 foote, " declining stoutly the prospect of one day enter- 
 ing their ranks. By some mysterious telepathic power 
 he succeeded in imparting his contempt for them to 
 Punch, with the result that Punch conceived a rooted 
 aversion to the band of stove-pipes, and on every
 
 A HUNDRED MILES AWAY. 181 
 
 occasion harassed their gray-trousered ankles. His 
 was not a mind of fine distinctions, though his heart 
 was one of sturdy prejudices, and he has been known 
 to snap aggressively about the heels of a very short 
 man on his way to a garden-party, mistaking him in his 
 hat and new gray trousers for one of Mrs. Minns' 
 larger-sized boys. 
 
 The manner wherein that lady's boys parried the 
 snortings and crocodile snappings of Punch did not 
 increase either Robby's or Punch's respect for them. 
 Though, if they had shown on these occasions a little 
 less sense of the "conformity of their position," and a 
 little more sign of independent action, Robby and 
 Punch would have lost some zest in living. For I will 
 not deny that one of Mr. Punch's incentives to exercise 
 was a possibility of encountering ' ' a Minns' ' as Robby 
 called them or of evading with a wary eye, and a 
 good deal of adroitness, the volley of stones which was 
 his invariable greeting from the other side of the fence 
 protecting the main body of "Minns." 
 
 But Punch was a dog of discernment. On all occa- 
 sions whereon Mrs. Minns herself was visible, fhar- 
 shaling a boy or boys, his demeanor was irreproach- 
 able. 
 
 Once, indeed, Mrs. Minns extended a neatly-gloved 
 finger and pointed him out to a rebellious pupil as a 
 creature of exceptionable behavior, comparing the 
 rebellious one's conduct disparagingly with that of 
 this faithful dumb animal a monster of hideousness, 
 without reason to guide him or a Christian soul to be 
 saved. 
 
 Whether Punch had a soul to be saved or endan- 
 gered by his guide I cannot say, but if it were not 
 reason which moved him to conceal his sentiments 
 from the mistress of the ' ' Minns, ' ' in the interests of 
 Robby's future and Mrs. Barling's hopes, I should 
 much like to know what it was. 
 
 If it were only that he recognized in her the Epis-. 
 copal descent or the temporal and temporary detach- 
 ment from the dean, then was his discernment possibly
 
 182 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 less rational, but in its class differentiation assuredly 
 more nearly human. 
 
 V 41 ' $ 9 4> 4 - 4 
 
 "Are you crying because the Druids cooked those 
 chaps in baskets?" Robby queried, above his lesson 
 books. 
 
 "Silly Yivers, ky cos Dooids cook tsaps in baticks?" 
 echo echoed, tossing her curls. 
 
 "Was I crying?" Millicent questioned, jerking her- 
 self forcibly back some distance of a hundred miles 
 and facing two pairs of bright inquiring eyes. 
 
 "You weren't howling," Robert explained, "but 
 there's quite a little pool on my copy-book, and I'm 
 afraid it'll blot." 
 
 Millicent took out her handkerchief and mopped the 
 book and her cheeks. 
 
 "Why, how silly I am," she said, smiling. 
 
 "Well, it's a jolly long time ago, I should think," 
 Robert said, "so there's nothing much to mind about. 
 D'you think they'd wriggle much?" 
 
 "Fink ve Dooids yiggle?" echo repeated, with an 
 eager eye. 
 
 "Oh, the tears were not for the Druids," Millicent 
 smiled. "I am afraid I had forgotten them." 
 
 Robert bent to his task again. Then he looked up 
 seriously. "I say, you're honor-bright sure you get 
 paid here?" 
 
 Millicent nodded. 
 
 He looked relieved. "Because it 'ud be rather 
 beastly teaching us for nothing. ' ' 
 
 "Beas'ly teaching Yobby an' me," the echo chir- 
 ruped. 
 
 Robert turned on her fiercely. "You shut up," he 
 insisted, "you're always getting things wrong. Why 
 don't you say things of your own?" 
 
 "I shan't," said echo, aiming a book at him. 
 
 Robert smiled superiorly. "You did," he said, 
 appeased. Then he turned back to Millicent. "Go 
 on crying if you want to," he permitted; "I shall be 
 a long time before I am ready with these dates." 
 
 Thus invited, Millicent succumbed. She stretched
 
 A HUNDRED MILES AWAY. 183 
 
 her arms out on the table, and, laying her head upon 
 them, let out the fullness of her heart. A hundred 
 miles away it was a wedding-morning! A hundred 
 miles away a shallow-hearted, fair-faced woman was 
 getting all she, Millicent, held dear, was getting all 
 and thinking it too little, while she she contrasted 
 the life she had left, the life of pleasant, high-bred 
 culture with that for which she had exchanged it, the 
 limitations of the Barling household, with its fettered 
 aspirations, its false ideals, and stifling conventions. 
 It choked her breathing it, and remembering the fine 
 reposeful tranquil of The Towers, where there had 
 been no feverish solicitude of appearances, no shame 
 of poverty, nor small pretensions. Not to have had 
 been there translated into a dignified stoicism of doing 
 without ; there had been no vexatious aggravation of 
 the hardship of not having by the strain of appearing 
 to have. 
 
 So, in her father's home, abundance had provided 
 against the necessity of parading sufficiency, and the 
 confident claim of the man of industry and successful 
 enterprise to his right to the position he had won had 
 given a tone of sturdy independence and contempt of 
 sham, which made her present circumstances chafe 
 with an unsuspected gall. To have voluntarily sur- 
 rendered her fortune, and to have passed of her free- 
 will into the ways of poverty and effort, had put her 
 into a glow ; but to find the way of poverty no broad, 
 fine, independent road, but a tortuous path beset by 
 little shifts and make-believes, and shames and shams, 
 seemed more to her that morning than she could 
 support. 
 
 "Is all my life henceforth to be a struggle to appease 
 an Askew-Hickox?" she bewailed, with her head on 
 the table. "Have I forever forfeited the right my 
 father' s industry and money bought me to be counted 
 one of the select? If Mrs. Askew looks down on Mrs. 
 Barling, what will she think of me, who am her chil- 
 dren's governess?" 
 
 Her soul was flooded with a sense of the squalid 
 misery of things, with the possible futility of her
 
 1 84 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 sacrifice, as the vision of a fair face, dimpling beneath 
 the wedding tulle and searching past a strong ador- 
 ing one into wider fields of admiration, came before 
 her ; and with the pinching pitifulness her own portion 
 of the sacrifice had proved, when she felt a tugging at 
 her gown. A heavy body sprang against her, her 
 cheek was licked with a strong prodigal tongue, while 
 commiserating sniffs and whinings sounded in her ear. 
 Looking down she found that Punch, descrying her 
 distress, had stolen from his hearthrug, and was 
 proffering rough but earnest-hearted sympathies. 
 Robert was conning his dates, with a long face and a 
 commiserating eye upon her, while Ruby had laid her 
 slate of pot-hooks on the table, and was trotting round 
 to comfort that side of her left uncomforted by Punch. 
 
 "Don'tky, Yivers," she exhorted, tearfully; "beas'ly 
 ol' Dooids cook tsaps in basticks. Yuby kill 'em dead 
 on Sunday!" 
 
 Millicent laid her wet miserable cheek against the 
 child's. They sobbed together for some minutes. 
 
 "Yuby yove Yivers as much as vis," said Yuby, 
 stretching out her chubby arms convulsively; "an' 
 Yobby, too," she added. 
 
 "Oh, well, I only said I liked her," Robert insisted, 
 with a red face; "and it's jolly of her to take old Punch 
 out." 
 
 "Kiss Yuby," Yuby pleaded, screwing up her rosy 
 lips; "an* Yobby," she added, smacking them after 
 the operation. 
 
 But "Yobby" put up an arm in defense. 
 
 "D'you think I'm going to be kissed, you little 
 silly," he protested. "And d'you think it's Druids 
 she's crying about? I'll bet you it's sweethearts. 
 Cook cried like that when her sweetheart went out 
 with Mrs. Malcolm's parlor-maid." 
 
 Millicent judged it high time to return to lessons. 
 So Robert's reflections were cut short by a call for his 
 dates, while Ruby concluded her slate of pot-hooks 
 seated on Millicent' s knee, with her rosy cheek against 
 the governess'. Meanwhile, Punch rolled a disquiet 
 eye. From what I know of the canine language, I
 
 A HUNDRED MILES AWAY. 185 
 
 cannot help thinking his sense of justice pricked him 
 with the disturbing reflection that the governess had 
 perhaps been beaten for a certain dismembered chair- 
 leg. 
 
 Everything has compensations, and even that morn- 
 ing of mornings Millicent took comfort at Ruby's sym- 
 pathetic lips and Punch's rough affection. The shadow 
 cast by Mrs. Askew- Hickox was temporarily laid. 
 
 "If you would like baby to go with us, Mrs. Barling, " 
 she said, later, "I should like to take him." 
 
 "But, my dear," Mrs. Barling demurred. 
 
 "Oh, it is all right," Millicent insisted. "The air 
 will do him good. And it does not matter in the least 
 what Mrs. Askew- Hickox thinks of me, you know." 
 
 Eventually Mrs. Barling was pursuaded; but she 
 had misgivings. She loved the baby to go out, yet 
 was it fair to allow a girl so nicely brought up as Miss 
 Rivers evidently was to lose caste in Winkworth esti- 
 mation by being seen to wheel a mail-cart like a 
 nursemaid? 
 
 "If you go down West Street you can get to the 
 common without meeting a soul, ' ' she said, earnestly. 
 "And remember, I did not ask it of you." 
 
 "I do not mind in the least," the governess main- 
 tained; "and, besides, nobody here knows me." 
 
 "That is true, of course," Mrs. Barling assented. 
 Then her heart lightened. It would do the baby so 
 much good to get a morning ride. It was but rarely 
 Parkins had finished her work in time to take him. 
 
 "And, good gracious! who am I?" Millicent 
 demanded trenchantly of herself, as she pushed the 
 mail-cart through the gate of Poplar Villa. "Who 
 am I that I should be too great to wheel a baby's cart?" 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling, looking after her and waving her 
 hand to the departing baby, well within shelter of the 
 hall, for she was wearing only a shabby wrapper, and 
 Mrs. Malcolm sat at her window, caught her breath in 
 a spasm of apprehension. It occurred to her all at 
 once that Millicent would be mistaken in the eyes of 
 Winkworth for a mere nursery governess and even 
 the smaller tradespeople kept nursery governesses.
 
 1 86 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 Tears of vexation sprang to her lids. She had had a 
 more than usually exhausting wrestle with the side- 
 board, and it was the morning for washing the Wor- 
 cester; moreover, the baby was teething, and had 
 kept her awake in the night. Altogether, life seemed 
 more than she could bear. 
 
 "There is always something," she said, wearily, 
 taking refuge in the dining-room. "If one does any- 
 thing on an impulse, and without properly considering 
 it, it is sure to be a false step. And now everybody 
 will think she is only a nursery governess on sixteen 
 pounds a year. ' ' 
 
 She sank into a chair and cried a little. In the glow 
 of her scrubbing and her rubbing, and reviewing the 
 treasures of her temple, she had struck out of her 
 waiting soul a spark of premonition that somebody 
 would surely call that afternoon. So vivid had it been 
 that she had replaced the ribbon of the bulrushes by 
 a new fresh length, heretofore laid in reserve for the 
 evening reception it was her breathless ambition to 
 give whensoever her circle in Winkworth should have 
 reached the dimensions of such a possibility. The 
 length had been bought at a sale, because it would have 
 been a cruel extravagance to allow so manifest a 
 bargain to escape, even though its use were a circum- 
 stance remote and hypothetical ; and this morning she 
 had tied it in a nice full bow about the bulrushes, had 
 put all the best shades on her lamps and had laid a 
 piece of classical music on the rack of the opened 
 piano, where it stood with a careless air of belonging 
 to a person who could waste a morning on sonatas, 
 having no need to spend an anxious hour of consulta- 
 tion with the cook, nor two hours in the fashioning of 
 little garments. 
 
 But now the spark of premonition had burned out. 
 Nearly three whole years had passed, she ruminated 
 bitterly, and nobody had called. Why should anybody 
 call to-day? Of what use were her ministrations and 
 her temple? Of what use was her ribbon bow? Who 
 would care that she had an ear for Wagner, or that
 
 A HUNDRED MILES AWAY. 187 
 
 she was a pretty performer on the new piano Kew had 
 bought for her? 
 
 Then she reflected that dust was invading this same 
 new piano, and all to no purpose. She dragged herself 
 up, and, crossing the hall, unlocked the door, and 
 looked into the drawing-room. 
 
 She stood in breathless admiration. How sweet, 
 how incomparably sweet it was ! The Lely, shrouded 
 in the dim, religious light, recalled a corner of Hamp- 
 ton Court Palace ; the melancholy harp, with its air of 
 sad refinement, the freshly-washed Worcester and 
 dejedner services, the smart new ribbon bow, the shil- 
 ling's worth of flowers arranged this morning to excep- 
 tional advantage! 
 
 She left the piano as it was it was so charmingly 
 simulative of a leisure person, of a do Ice far niente 
 luxurious woman of ease. Her worn face relighted. 
 vShe tripped upstairs, humming softly in her throat 
 the three bars in the piece on the piano which were 
 all of harmony and rhythm Wagner had been able to 
 put into some pages of music. She tripped to her 
 room, and proceeded to plump up the sleeves of her 
 pretty tea-gown. It was growing old-fashioned, she 
 remarked a little ruefully, though it had only been 
 twice worn. She would need to remodel it. Remodeled 
 it would look like new. Then she dressed her hair 
 with exceptional pains. First callers call early. And 
 after lunch she had letters to write, and the baby to 
 mind, while Parkins washed up hurriedly in time to 
 dress by three, and so be ready to open the door. The 
 spark of premonition had fanned itself into a glow 
 again. Somebody would surely call !
 
 188 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 MRS. ASKEW-HICKOX. 
 
 If I had a noble house, 
 
 Like to my neighbor's there, 
 Velvet over the floor, 
 
 Oaken and marble stair. 
 
 When Millicent, spurred by that goad of the squalor 
 of things, and warmed by the heartening touch of 
 "Yuby's" lips, had made an indignant curvet into 
 their humanness, and resolved to wheel out the baby 
 and forever efface herself from the countenance of 
 Mrs. Askew-Hickox, she had not altogether calculated 
 the cost. As heiress of a hundred thousand pounds, 
 she might have done it, for then it would have shown 
 as some mere eccentricity of wealth, or as a symptom 
 of original character, rather than as evidence of lack 
 of means. As Lady Kershaw, she might have done it, 
 because her position would have been so unassailable 
 that anything she might choose to do would sanction 
 the doing of that thing. But as Millicent Rivers, the 
 penniless daughter of a manufacturer of furniture- 
 polish, and governess in the family of a not very suc- 
 cessful stockbroker, such a step would but damn her 
 forever in Winkworth socially ; and* I am not at all sure 
 that Winkworth would be clear in its mind that such 
 action, in determining her class, would not in some 
 way affect the grade of salvation to be allotted her 
 hereafter. 
 
 Vaguely conscious of these things, Millicent, with a 
 defiant air and flushing cheek, pushed the mail-cart 
 valiantly before her down the High Street. Rob 
 walked on one side of her, resting a hand upon the 
 cart-rail, while with the other he brandished the whip 
 which was Punch's guide in life. Ruby trotted on her 
 left, clutching the governess' hand in her soft, gloved 
 fingers. Punch brought up the rear, sober, observant, 
 and snorting.
 
 MRS. ASKEW-HICKOX. 189 
 
 "I say, you're a lady, aren't you?" Robby queried, 
 suddenly. 
 
 "Yes," said Millicent, sharply. 
 
 The corner chemist, coming- to his door to cast a 
 casual, genteel eye over the arrangement of his shop 
 window, had, by way of a diversion, extended the range 
 of that eye, with a lingering flattery, upon the vision 
 of the handsome girl obviously escorting an employ- 
 er's children. 
 
 So Millicent responded "Yes," with some asperity. 
 
 "Mother doesn't take baby out," Rob stated, "and 
 Miss Scamp wouldn't ever." 
 
 "Scamp wouldn't ever," Ruby gurgled, suddenly 
 cutting three successive capers in the air, out of the 
 joy of her infantile life. 
 
 "How can wheeling baby out, when the air does 
 him good, make me not a lady?" Millicent demanded, 
 severely. 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Askew-Hickox doesn't," Robert stated 
 stoutly. 
 
 "Ascox doesn't," Ruby insisted, with another 
 curvet. 
 
 "You shut up, you silly," Robert snapped; "you 
 don't even know who she is." 
 
 ' ' Yuby do, ' ' insisted Yuby. 
 
 "Who is she, then?" 
 
 "She's she's a Queen of a Fairies." 
 
 The mendacity of the hazard was manifest. 
 
 "Pooh!" said Robert, cracking his whip, "that's 
 rot, because she isn't. She's only a lady, and lives in 
 a big, anormous house, with a wide road up to it and 
 a little house at the gate. ' ' 
 
 Punch, with an apprehensive eye on the whip, trot- 
 ted to the other side of Millicent. 
 
 "Is Ascox a big, anormous giant in a beanstalk?" 
 Ruby demanded, opening her lids with a solemn 
 affectation of terror. 
 
 "Is she, Robby?" Millicent laughed. 
 
 ' ' Pooh ! ' ' said Robby, waxing in exasperation, 
 "you're always being such a silly idiot; she isn't any 
 bigger than other people. ' '
 
 190 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Isn't bigger van me," submitted Ruby compla- 
 cently. 
 
 "Then, why did you say she was a giant?" her oppo- 
 nent demanded, maddened. 
 
 Ruby caracoled three times round a postal pillar- 
 box, with the air of a person resolved to do or die, 
 then she returned to her place beside the mail-cart. 
 
 " 'Cos she's got a tail," she cried, with a breathless 
 burst of gleeful irresponsibility. 
 
 "Shouldn't you like to hit her, Miss Rivers?" Robby 
 said, choking with rage. "When she doesn't say just 
 what I say, she says just the silliest rot. There she is 
 now going to cadge flowers out of that old beggar 
 woman. She's always doing it." 
 
 The "beggar woman" smoked a pipe. She sat on 
 an upturned tub, with a basket of chrysanthemums and 
 violets before her. Her coarse-aproned, ample lap 
 was filled with blossoms, in process of tying into pen- 
 nyworths. 
 
 To her Ruby trotting forward at a breakneck pace, 
 suddenly halted, and began to edge backward, sidling 
 with a modest diffidence, a shy chin cuddled into the 
 strings of her Dutch bonnet, a wheedling eye upon 
 the woman's face. 
 
 "Ach, shure," cried the latter, with a lightening 
 countenance, and removing her pipe, "ach, shure, if it 
 isn't me howly innacint, wid 'er face like a rose- 
 dhrame, and 'er diamant e'e. Good luck t'ye swate- 
 heart, an" will ye take a blessed blossom from ould 
 Bet this blessed mornin'?" 
 
 Ruby signified her willingness by smiling coyly, at 
 the same time stretching out a chubby hand. 
 
 The old woman wiped her mouth punctiliously on a 
 corner of her apron, then bent her mumbling lips 
 against the little hand. 
 
 "The Lord luv' and bless ye fur yer swate beauty, 
 that's like a glame o' Paradise," she muttered. 
 
 She picked out her finest bunch of violets, and put 
 it into the child's hand. Ruby came dancing away, 
 her gold curls leaping under her velvet bonnet, her 
 trophy poised high.
 
 MRS. ASKEW-HICKOX. 191 
 
 ' 'Mother gave me a penny for her, ' ' Robert whis- 
 pered. 
 
 As he passed he dropped the coin among the flowers. 
 The woman started up. She flung the penny violently 
 after him. 
 
 "An' kape yer dhirty money, little sorr, " she cried, 
 with a full nostril and flaming eye. "Is it me that 
 mustn't give a blossom to the blessed baby fur the 
 love av givin', but ye must be flinging yer dhirty 
 penny afther me that didn't want yer dhirty pennies!" 
 
 "I say, what does she mean?" Robert queried. 
 "She's always giving Ruby flowers, and mother told 
 me to pay her a penny when she does. ' ' 
 
 ' 'Perhaps she will pick it up presently, ' ' Millicent 
 said. 
 
 Yet when they passed on their return, the woman 
 and her flowers were gone, but the penny still lay 
 where she had tossed it. 
 
 The Baby Barling was a melancholy baby. Some 
 of the curse of the creed of Appearances had descended 
 upon him. That spectre of a father, trampled in the 
 city for his exertions to buy boots and bread and but- 
 ter for his children, which was the somewhat exag- 
 gerated view the lowered tone of Mrs. Barling's mind 
 moved her to take of the banalities of commerce, had 
 presided at his birth. Moreover, the wear and tear 
 of an eternal polishing and furbishing had flecked his 
 structure with more dust and debris than nature 
 designed in the constitution of babies. Much of his 
 birthright of fitness and brightness had been rubbed 
 into drawing-room knicknacks, and ere ever he was 
 born his soul was sick from frequent combatings with 
 balking fretworks and with niggly carved pilasters. 
 
 He was therefore a very melancholy baby, and just 
 now his melancholy was exaggerated by the exigen- 
 cies of dentition. Being a baby, he should have been 
 a pagan, and a hedonist, drunk with the wine of new 
 life ; bubbling, sparkling, frothing with Bacchanalian 
 joy in the bottle, that modern spurious makeshift for 
 the soft warm life-source denied to the cold uncom- 
 forted cheek of nineteenth century babydom. For our
 
 192 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 modern cricketing, bicycling Amazon has sacrificed 
 her mother privilege to feats of strength. Hers are 
 not limbs and tender body, touched to finer issues and 
 sweet purposes. Under a regime of athleticism she 
 has stripped from her frame the curves and mysteries 
 of womanhood, to stand confessed a thing of bone and 
 sinew, a system of joints and levers, a mere locomotor 
 apparatus, bereft of those fine subtleties which are the 
 very essence of womanhood, the balm and comfort of 
 a toilsome world. Unused powers dwindle so much 
 against the fireside, unemancipated woman. But 
 overused powers absorb into their current foices which 
 should go to make other and yet higher powers so 
 much against the extreme of athleticism, restlessness, 
 and wearisome assertiveness afflicting modern woman 
 like a madness. 
 
 We women are, for the most part, ill-balanced crea- 
 tures, darting off at a tangent according to the fashion 
 of the hour ; but the worst of bad fashions, so far as the 
 future of the race and human happiness are concerned, 
 is that which has inspired us with a feverish ambition 
 to ape the least qualities of men. 
 
 To return, however, to the Barling baby. Mrs. 
 Barling had not spent her maternal reserves in bicy- 
 cling or football. She had the failings of an elder 
 period, when the bias, which seems to be inseparable 
 from the feminine mind, was domesticity. She had 
 no interest beyond the threshold of her home (other 
 than that of desiring her neighbors' friendly counte- 
 nance), and having so narrow an horizon, the things 
 within it assumed undue importance. The Amazon 
 who has succeeded the Housewife has not at all eman- 
 cipated herself from this habit of bias ; she has merely 
 shifted its platform. She possibly ignores the polish 
 of her chairs, the immaculacy of her doorsteps, and, 
 it may be, the asepticism of her baby's bottles. Her 
 tangent is her golf-stroke, her bicycle "scorch," her 
 fencing record, or probably her classical or mathemat- 
 ical tripos, or, again, her season of "scalps"; but it is 
 none the less a tangent from the path of human living. 
 So long as she recognizes it as a tangent, an effort
 
 MRS. ASKEW-HICKOX. 193 
 
 toward a larger horizon, all is well ; she will retain 
 her equilibrium, and realize its due proportion to the 
 intrinsic factors of existence ; but this, alas ! she does 
 but rarely. She mistakes it for a fine, cross-country 
 cut to freedom and development, whereas there are in 
 human progress no short cuts. She of one generation 
 may repudiate her womanhood and deify her muscles ; 
 but another coming after her will be under obligation 
 to discharge the twofold debt of her own and a pre- 
 vious generation's womanly due to evolution. 
 
 For nature has need of woman's special powers, or 
 woman would not be. And athleticism is beyond 
 everything the grave of woman-power. 
 
 In the meantime, the melancholy Barling baby 
 melancholy for the blight of Winkworth's social ostra- 
 cism, which had specked his mother's soul with mildew, 
 thereby afflicting him with parental hypochondriasis 
 and a weak digestion was scarcely able to realize his 
 good fortune that fine morning of the governess' 
 heroism. If there was one thing before another which 
 diverted his attention from the problems forever 
 haunting it viz., whether the delight of a bottle of 
 sweet milk compensated for the subsequent weight 
 and discomfort of it in his small stomach ; whether the 
 visionary hypothesis of one day being a man made up 
 for the miseries of croup and teething, and many kin- 
 dred scepticisms bred of indigestion that one thing 
 was a morning ride in his mail-cart. And owing to 
 the rigorous exactions of his arch-enemy, Mrs. Askew- 
 Hickox, he but rarely enjoyed a morning ride. For 
 Parkins had so many and such multifarious duties to 
 perform in the sweeping and garnishing of Poplar Villa 
 in preparation for that lady's coveted call, that Par- 
 kins had no time for wheeling him before the after- 
 noon. And mother well, mother's heart ached sorely 
 enough for his small leaden face and weakly stomach, 
 but Mrs. Askew-Hickox had set an interdict on the 
 maternal pushing of mail-carts. Had he but known 
 her for all the griefs and disabilities she put upon him, 
 he, and it may be a hundred other genteel Winkworth 
 infants, would have lifted their poor pallid little fists 
 
 13
 
 194 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 in anger to heaven against her that she so curtailed 
 their innocent joys. 
 
 For I tell you, a fellow of eighteen months old, not 
 very strong on his legs, found it an immeasurable 
 relief to get away from that problem of whether life 
 were in any way worth living and to ride a triumphal 
 progress through the streets of a metropolis like 
 Winkworth ! There was a fine warm sun, far warmer 
 than a nursery fire, and a soft refreshing breeze to 
 cool a teething chap's hot cheeks; there were horses 
 galloping and trotting nearly as fine as the tin one 
 clutched in his fist; there were tram-cars laden with 
 people, enough to take your breath away; there were 
 dogs running in and out ; yet there you were, safe and 
 sound, tucked up in your triumphal car, and Robby 
 standing guard with whip in hand. There was friendly 
 old Punch following soberly beside you, snorting and 
 snuffing as though he were at home. There was Ruby 
 in her red coat, skipping joyfully before you, stopping 
 now and again to clap her gloved hands in your face. 
 There were fine shop-windows with red things, and 
 blue things, and shining things, a feast for a chap's 
 eyes, laid out for you to wonder at. There were 
 organs and sometimes a monkey. And once there 
 had been a bear ! There were other chaps too in mail- 
 carts or perambulators, luckier chaps, with nurses to 
 take them riding every morning, and chaps even still 
 more fortunate, whose mothers were so far beneath 
 the countenance of Mrs. Askew- Hickox as to wheel 
 their little ones about themselves. Then there were 
 queer-looking jolly little creatures, with dirty faces, 
 who munched hunks of bread and treacle, and rode 
 happy as kings in rough wooden boxes with odd 
 wheels knocked on to them, brothers and sisters in 
 harness, mother's old shawl pinned about them chaps 
 with pustules on their faces and a chronic need of 
 handkerchiefs, but jolly enough looking. There were 
 flowers, and trees, and green grass, and ponds with 
 ducks on them and boys sailing boats, and dogs bark- 
 ing for sticks and swimming. There were carriages 
 and vans and watering carts and noise ; why, bless
 
 MRS. ASKEW-HICKOX. 195 
 
 you! there was nearly as much noise as the liveliest 
 fellow could want ! 
 
 The Barling baby forgot his aching gums under 
 stress of his excitement. A cart had gone by with 
 jingling bells about its harness and a man cracking a 
 whip. The baby lifted his pallid hand with the tin 
 horse clutched in it, and pointed. 
 
 "Moogey," he said, and smiled, defying hypochon- 
 driasis and problems. Then, emboldened by his 
 confidence, and by the stranger governess' friendly 
 nod, he adventured another comment on the marvels 
 besetting his brain. 
 
 An' doggie," he said, indicating a passing sheep. 
 "An' daddy," he persisted, encouraged by success to 
 claim kinship with a magnificent-looking masculine, 
 who had stepped into the gutter to evade the mail- 
 cart. 
 
 Exultant with his victories in nomenclature, he even 
 faintly clapped his hands. 
 
 "Why, you poor little creature," Millicent said 
 beneath her breath, "who would have thought that 
 you could smile? I will wheel you out every morning, 
 Hickox or no Hickox. ' ' 
 
 "Keekox, " said the baby, with a gurgle to have 
 melted the heart of even that Moloch. Whereupon 
 Millicent's soul so warmed to him that she mentally 
 flung a gauntlet in the teeth of Wink worth's female 
 autocrat. 
 
 "If you would only come out and show yourself, you 
 would see how little I care for your opinion, you 
 oppressor of dyspeptic babies and blighter of women's 
 lives," she reflected truculently, forgetting that she 
 carried no standard, wielded no pike, and wore no 
 badge whereby her subversive sentiments could be 
 recognized. 
 
 As chance would have it, and to so have it chance 
 did not turn very much out of its way, for Winkworth 
 had but one High Street, and this was the resort of 
 Winkworth fashion, Millicent enjoyed the opportunity 
 she believed herself to covet. For they had not passed 
 St. Mark's the Church of the Select more than two
 
 196 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 minutes, when, just in advance of them, a victoria 
 pulled up before a shop in the Arcade. Millicent felt 
 a tug at her gown. 
 
 "That's Mrs. Askew- Hickox," Robbie said, in an 
 awed whisper; "and that's Clifford sitting by her." 
 
 The oppressor of babes, the blighter of lives, the 
 crowned and cruel autocrat of Millicent 's imagination 
 vanished. A tall, thin, neat-featured woman, hand- 
 somely dressed in black, descended crisply from the 
 carriage, and, turning her head neither to the right 
 nor to the left of her, passed across the pavement into 
 the shop. She carried neither tomahawk nor scalp, 
 nor any weapon of offense beyond the chill severity of 
 her composed features and the cutting penetration of 
 her glance. She wore no vestment typical of puissance 
 other than a velvet-beaded mantle, which fell over her 
 spare shoulders with a style universally supposed to be 
 unattainable this side the channel. 
 
 She was not a beautiful woman, nor, judging from 
 the shallowness and narrowness of her pale forehead, 
 would you have supposed her to be a clever woman. 
 Certainly she did not look a kind one. Yet all eyes 
 turned reverently after her, and, as she entered the 
 shop, a hush rustled down the High Street. 
 
 Millicent experienced a balked, nipped feeling which 
 checked the glow of her defiance, for, in rising to leave 
 her carriage, the glance of Mrs. Askew-Hickox had 
 rested for an instant on the mail-cart and the govern- 
 ess. In that moment Millicent 's imaginative trans- 
 port vanished. The world was no place for heroics or 
 humanities! The world was no place of fields, and 
 sky, and flowers, and baby-gurglings. The world was 
 one great High Street of shops and Paris mantles and 
 conventions. And girls who wheeled mail-carts did, 
 doubtless, their duty in that station to which it had 
 pleased God to call them ; but it had pleased Him with 
 Divine perspicacity to call Mrs. Askew-Hickox to some 
 other; therefore, her glance meeting Millicent 's, 
 betrayed nothing of contempt in it, merely a flicker of 
 haste as its focus readjusted itself to some object more 
 befitting its attention.
 
 MRS. ASKEW-HICKOX. 197 
 
 Millicent felt her cheeks tingle. Her impulse had 
 precipitated itself into the region of fact, and there 
 was that in Mrs. Askew-Hickox's glance which told 
 her that fact was irrevocable. 
 
 Henceforward her position in Winkworth was a 
 position of exclusion. Then, "Good gracious!" she 
 expostulated with herself, ' 'what do I care about Wink- 
 worth?" 
 
 That was all very well, for at present she was living 
 in the glow of new departure. But when the glow of 
 new departure has given place to the gray of perma- 
 nence, one has to live in the world, and the world one 
 has to live in may be Winkworth. 
 
 And how was Winkworth to know as she would not 
 be likely to inform it that she was not compelled by 
 circumstance to propel babies in mail-carts nor to teach 
 children spelling, but that she might, if she so wished 
 it, maintain an establishment nearly as pretentious as 
 that affected by the Askew-Hickox? 
 
 At this juncture, however, Millicent' s reflections 
 were cut short, for Punch, scenting "a Minns," was 
 sniffing up and down the pavement, and round about 
 the smart victoria wheels, above which lolled Clifford 
 Hickox, his shell jacket and gray trousers effectually 
 concealed beneath a crest-emblazoned rug. Robby, 
 awed by the magnificence of the tall footman who in 
 his turn was solicitous about his well-proportioned 
 calves, considering that bulldogs were about, cracked 
 his whip, shouting and exhorting, but to little purpose, 
 for Punch's conviction of the neighborhood of "a 
 Minns" was obstinate, and though, by keeping his 
 nose and eyes depressed, he missed the well-known 
 hated stove-pipe, beneath which Clifford watched him 
 with the apprehension of experience, yet he refused to 
 leave the spot. 
 
 Eventually he was dragged away by sheer force, a 
 maneuver requiring the combined muscularity of Milli- 
 cent and Rob, while Ruby cracked the whip above the 
 heads of all, with danger to each. 
 
 "Didn't you know it was Clifford Hickox, you silly 
 fool?" Rob demanded of him irefully. But this was
 
 198 "WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 expecting too much from even a dog of Punch's sagac- 
 ity. "A Minns" was a Minns, and so to be treated 
 with the sole and saving clause of Mrs. Minns' pres- 
 ence. 
 
 "Mammy's lamb! And did he have cheeks like 
 rosy apples!" Mrs. Kew-Barling cooed rapturously, 
 as she lifted her darling from the mail-cart. What 
 did it matter, indeed, if Miss Rivers were mistaken for 
 a scullery-maid, so long as baby had plucked such 
 apple-blushes from the morning wind ! 
 
 "Moogey," he murmured, condensing his experi- 
 ences for the maternal ear, "an'doggies an' Keekox!" 
 
 "Oh, yes, mother," Robby broke in breathlessly, 
 "we saw Mrs. Askew-Hickox in her carriage, and 
 Punch was after Clifford. And there was a footman 
 ever so high standing up by the carriage." 
 
 "Oh," Mrs. Kew-Barling said, releasing a compunc- 
 tious eye from the flushed softness of the baby's cheeks 
 to scan the governess' face. "Why didn't you go 
 round by the common? She never drives that way." 
 
 "Oh, I didn't mind," the governess protested. 
 
 "How brave of you," her employer murmured. 
 Then she questioned eagerly: "How did she look?" 
 
 ' ' She looked very well, ' ' Millicent returned. ' ' She 
 doesn't look very pleasant." 
 
 "Oh, I never heard that she is pleasant," Mrs. Kew- 
 Barling said, shaking her head. "And what did she 
 wear?" 
 
 "Black. A black bonnet with steel trimmings, and 
 a velvet mantle." 
 
 "The one with bugles?" Mrs. Barling queried, with 
 bright eyes. "Why, she has worn that a long time. 
 She had that when I had my cape with the sealskin 
 collar. Did she notice the children?" 
 
 "I don't see how anybody could help it," Millicent 
 returned, adroitly; "everybody looks at them espe- 
 cially at Ruby." 
 
 "Spesh'ly at me," that person said, ruffling her curls. 
 
 "Had you got your gloves on, dear, when Mrs. 
 Askew-Hickox passed?" her mother demanded, anx- 
 iously.
 
 MRS. ASKEW-HICKOX. 199 
 
 "Askox is a big, anormous giant, 's big as a house," 
 asserted Ruby. 
 
 "You great silly, that was the footman," Robert 
 said, contemptuously. "Do you think Mrs. Askew- 
 Hickox wears breeches?' ' 
 
 "Askox wears breeches," echo said. 
 
 Whereupon Robby, whose patience with her had 
 been tried to straining point, in addition to which his 
 growing tissues were suffering from a famine, fell 
 upon her tooth and nail, thumping at her scarlet- 
 coated back. 
 
 Ruby was no person to suffer injury without repri- 
 sal, and, dallying a moment to relieve herself of gloves, 
 she turned upon him, and proceeded to avenge her 
 wrongs by grasping portions of his face and clothing 
 in her fat fists. It was not a very effectual method of 
 warfare, her grip being hampered by plumpness and 
 her nails infantinely soft, but she accompanied it by 
 a peculiar fierce and fixed expression of eye, and by 
 savage bursts of "booing," meant to strike terror into 
 the enemy's heart. 
 
 The baby, alarmed by this unexpected outburst, 
 and languid from the reactionary effects of morning 
 air and metropolitan excitement, began to whimper. 
 Punch, as on all occasions whereupon his young mas- 
 ter and mistress settled their differences by personal 
 conflict, retreated to a corner and sat there sniffing 
 distressfully, now and again making sudden short 
 incursions upon the heels and calves of one or the 
 other, according as he considered help was needed in 
 the interests of fair-play. 
 
 So the morning ended somewhat sadly. 
 
 Even Millicent, after separating the assailants and 
 disrobing Ruby, on reaching her room succumbed to 
 the luxury of a free five minutes' cry. 
 
 "How can I ever ever bear it?" she sobbed, mis- 
 erably. "In two hours they will be coming out of 
 church ! ' '
 
 200 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV." 
 "DAMN WINKWORTH!" 
 
 " Oh, let me be myself! But where, O where 
 
 Under this heap of precedent, this mound 
 Of customs modes, and maxims, cumbrance rare, 
 Shall the Myself be found?" 
 
 Mr. Kew-Barling occasionally returned home from 
 the city in good spirits. On these occasions he would 
 bring with him a hare, or a few pounds of salmon, or 
 a turbot skewered in a matting basket. Sometimes he 
 brought a pound of special and expensive tea, which 
 he presented to Mrs. Kew-Baiiing with a perfunctory 
 kiss and an air of casualness, which were a British 
 protest against anybody suspecting him of conjugal 
 sentiment or any particular sympathy with Mrs. Barl- 
 ing's tastes. 
 
 "Warren was getting a packet for his wife, so I 
 thought I would bring you a packet, ' ' he would excul- 
 pate himself; "not that I approve of you drinking s6 
 much tea; I am sure it is that which makes you nerv- 
 ous. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling would flush with a faint, pathetic 
 color in her faded cheeks. 
 
 "You extravagant man," she would cry, shaking a 
 thin, playful finger at him, with an air which recalled 
 the Molly Barling of the photograph upstairs. "Now, 
 I do believe you paid as much as five or six shillings a 
 pound for it ; the scent is delicious. ' ' 
 
 And the tea was kept for Saturday afternoons or 
 Sundays, or for other occasions when Mr. Barling 
 would be at home to profit by its rare aroma. A little, 
 however, was always held in reserve for that notable 
 occasion whereon Mrs. Askew- Hickox should honor 
 the drawing-room of Poplar Villa. 
 
 Mr. Kew-Barling sometimes brought a pair of new 
 kid gloves with beaver cuffs or special colored stitch-
 
 "DAMN WINKWORTH." 201 
 
 ings, or a gay silk handkerchief, and once a pair of 
 pink resetted garters, which had caught his eye in the 
 shop where he bought his shirts. 
 
 Mrs. Barling blushed and laughed, unfolding them. 
 
 ''They're perfectly sweet," she said, "and such 
 darling rosettes ! but, Kew, they are far too pretty to 
 wear underneath." 
 
 Even Mr. Barling reddened a little, Millicent being 
 present. They had seemed all right in the shop, but 
 here in the dining-room, with the chairs standing stiffly 
 about the mahogany table, they did, perhaps, look a 
 little French and improper. 
 
 "Oh, well, my dear," he said, hurriedly, "you know 
 I don't understand this kind of thing, but I thought, 
 perhaps, they might come in ; and the man bothered 
 me to buy them." 
 
 "He never guessed what a domesticated, dowdy wife 
 you have at home, dear, " Mrs. Kew-Barling submitted, 
 wistfully. "I'm years and years older than you, 
 though I was seven years younger when we were mar- 
 ried. ' ' 
 
 "It's all this confounded rubbing and scrubbing, 
 and making and mending," Mr. Barling broke out, 
 fiercely. "I'm sure I wish to heaven I had left you 
 seven years younger, and hadn't spoiled your life by 
 interfering with it." 
 
 ' ' Oh, Kew, ' ' Mrs. Kew remonstrated, aghast at this 
 outbreak, "and then there would never have been 
 Robby, and Ruby, and the baby. ' ' 
 
 "Well, I can't see what comfort they are to you," 
 he said; "it seems to me you're forever drudging for 
 them, making petticoats and mending stockings. We 
 were far better off when we lived in a cottage, end 
 could afford to take life pleasantly." 
 
 "Oh, but, Kew we should never have got into soci- 
 ety ; nobody would ever have called. ' ' 
 
 "Well, if they only call because we pay a hundred a 
 year for our house, and our children wear embroidered 
 petticoats, I wouldn't give that" (Mr. Kew-Barling 
 snapped his big thumbs), "for their friendship." 
 
 "One must make a circle. The children will be
 
 202 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 growing up, and they must have society ; and it is very 
 lonely for us, not having a soul to speak to and with 
 the house so beautiful, and everything so nice 
 
 "Well, I don't want them," Mr. Barling grumbled; 
 "but I suppose it is dull for you." 
 
 "It gets a little on one's nerves," she sighed, "to 
 see people always passing, and to know there's the 
 tray of pretty cups and the silver teapot and best cloth 
 all waiting ready, if they would only call and be neigh- 
 borly. Sometimes," she added, impressively, "I go 
 upstairs and examine myself in the glass to see if I 
 haven't spots all over my face, or some other horrible 
 thing wrong with me that we are so avoided. Oh, I 
 know it is terribly silly, but things get on one' s nerves 
 so," she ended, with a sobbing laugh. 
 
 "Do you think she looks strong?" Mr. Barling 
 inquired abruptly of Millicent, when his wife had hur- 
 ried off at 'the baby's cry. 
 
 "She is rather nervous," Millicent admitted. 
 
 "Nervous! She is a bundle of nerves; she just 
 wears herself to death. She has aged ten years since 
 we came here ; and she was the happiest, merriest girl 
 when I married her. Sometimes I feel as though I 
 could take a horsewhip and horsewhip those women 
 into the house. There isn't another woman in the 
 place as kind-hearted and clever, nor one with such 
 pretty, refined ways; and she's just fretting herself 
 into an invalid." 
 
 "Oh, somebody is sure to call," Millicent asserted, 
 buoyantly. 
 
 "So we have said for three years," he answered 
 grimly. 
 
 When Mr. Kew-Barling returned from the city 
 with the exception of those rare occasions whereon 
 luck had given him an unexpected lift he was gen- 
 erally monosyllabic until dinner was half over. A 
 man who has been wrestling from nine till six with 
 professional manglers takes time to recover his breath, 
 and "Mr. Barling had rarely recovered his before the 
 joint appeared. 
 
 Poplar Villa, for all the little Winkworth thought of
 
 "DAMN WINKWORTH." 203 
 
 it, was a financial undertaking for a man who had 
 started out with very little capital, exceptional hon- 
 esty, and no commercial influence. Moreover, in 
 addition to the strain of keeping up the appearances 
 incumbent on a villa fifty per cent beyond his means, 
 he had heavy insurance dues to pay, for one could not 
 leave the wife and Ruby to the mercies of the mang- 
 lers. Above all, he had set a determined will upon 
 forcing, by financial success, that recognition for his 
 wife in Winkworth which her endeavors and the gen- 
 tilities of Poplar Villa had so far failed to win. Wink- 
 worth called on some people who had little money, 
 but Winkworth never failed to call on any who had 
 much. He would make enough to compel Winkworth 
 to call on Mrs. Barling. The worst of it was, he 
 reflected, glancing surreptitiously toward her haggard 
 face, he stood in danger of being unable to do this 
 while she had health enough or hope enough to profit 
 by it. 
 
 His mind, harassed for her, anxious and strained, he 
 lost thought of, or was too spent at the end of his 
 day's work for any of the little tendernesses and atten- 
 tions which are the food of an emotional woman's life. 
 Had he cared less for her, he might have shown her 
 more affection, for then would his mind-tension on 
 her behalf have been less. 
 
 Many a time when his short answers filled her eyes 
 with tears, he was mentally and manfully establishing 
 her in a house as fine as that of Askew-Hickox, or 
 picturing her wrapped in the set of furs she had so 
 admired in St. Paul's churchyard, driving through 
 Winkworth in a smart victoria of her own. 
 
 Nevertheless, he was a far-seeing man, and he 
 reverted always to his original standpoint. 
 
 "We were a hundred times happier when we lived 
 in a small house and took things easily and pleasantly. 
 You didn't so often get a new frock, and your bonnets 
 were not so Parisian, but you had such a healthy color 
 and such spirits, you always looked the prettiest, best 
 dressed woman anv where. ' '
 
 204 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Oh, but Kew, " she would demur, "we were not at 
 all in a smart set, you remember. ' ' 
 
 "I don't know about 'smart,' " he would reply, 
 "they were vastly pleasant. I know I wish often 
 enough that Jackson or Mortimer lived near enough 
 to come in and smoke a friendly pipe on Sunday after- 
 noons, or in the evenings. ' ' 
 
 "But, dear," she would demur again, "you forget 
 that Mr. Jackson actually kept a shop. We did not 
 know it, Miss Rivers, when we called upon them; 
 nobody knew it. They thought he was wholesale and 
 only had an office, till one day Mrs. Mortimer saw his 
 name over the door, and his dog-cart standing before 
 it." 
 
 "I don't care," Mr. Barling asserted, doughtily. 
 "He was a downright nice chap, and had had a uni- 
 versity education. ' ' 
 
 "Only a German university," Mrs. Kew interposed. 
 
 "Well, Germany turns out a few cultivated men," 
 her husband insisted, with a whimsical smile. "He 
 was a splendid chemist posted in the latest theories 
 and inventions and I have never met a man of better 
 principle or manners. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, I didn't say he wasn't nice," Mrs. Barling 
 admitted; "but he had no right to expect to be in the 
 society of professional people. Of course, he ought 
 never to have gone to college. It gave him notions 
 above his class because his father and his grand- 
 father had been shopkeepers before him. ' ' 
 
 "Well, I tell you," Kew asserted huffily, "there isn't 
 a man in Winkworth fit to hold a candle to him in 
 point of brains. I don't say there's nothing in class 
 there is, of course, when class means coming of 
 good stock but, at the same time, I reserve the right 
 to take a man on his merits. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Barling drummed a hand with some impatience 
 on the table. 
 
 "If you live in a world, " she said, decisively, "you 
 must do as the world does. And I shouldn't be at all 
 surprised if the reason Mrs. Askew- Hickox hasn't 
 called on us is because she has somehow heard that
 
 "DAMN WINKWORTH." 205 
 
 we knew the Jacksons when we lived at Clapham. " 
 
 ' ' That may be as it may be, ' ' Mr. Barling answered, 
 irritably, "though I can't say it sounds probable. 
 Still, for all their style, Hickox hasn't half the culture 
 or manners of Jackson. And as to principles well, 
 I told you about that burlesque actress " 
 
 "Kew," his wife admonished him, blushing toward 
 Millicent. 
 
 "Oh, well, my dear," Mr. Barling insisted, "we 
 live in the world, as you say. ' ' 
 
 Still, he was somewhat abashed. The "young per- 
 son" remains yet a factor in the minds of middle-class 
 people even of the stratum which is upper, but not 
 quite smart enough to fringe the mantle of an upper- 
 most ten thousand. 
 
 Neither he nor Mrs. Barling wotted of a certain 
 Lady Alicia of Millicent's acquaintance, who could 
 possibly have given either of them points on this same 
 prohibited topic of burlesque actresses! 
 
 But turn this subject of the comparative virtues of 
 appearances and no appearances as it would, Mrs. 
 Kew-Barling always harked back with an impressive 
 little sigh to the same refrain : ' ' If we had remained 
 at Clapham we should never have got into society." 
 
 "We had friends," Kew-Barling would grunt, men- 
 tally shouldering again that burden of renewed and 
 still more fierce hostilities against the manglers. 
 
 "Yes, Kew," Mrs. Barling would assent, looking up 
 from her embroideries or bonnets; "but they were 
 really not the least bit smart, you know." 
 
 Then Barling would possibly stalk off, frowning, to 
 the library, pausing in the hall to pick up his bag, and 
 retiring with it for the evening to devise new ways of 
 getting even with the manglers, and so relieving his 
 anxious little task-mistress of the ban of non-smart- 
 ness. 
 
 Barling was a man of sterling honesty and fibre. 
 When Mrs. Kew confided to him Millicent's resolve to 
 wheel out the baby, he set his strong hand down on 
 the table and the subject. 
 
 "I will not allow it," he insisted; "and you should
 
 206 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 not have allowed it, Molty. The girl has her living 
 to get, and we must not impose on her good nature." 
 
 "But baby got such a lovely color in his cheeks, 
 dear; and after it he slept soundly for two whole 
 hours. ' ' 
 
 "I don't doubt that it would do him good, " her hus- 
 band responded a little ruefully, for he somehow 
 always felt the baby's melancholy weigh upon his 
 conscience. "Of course it would do him good. But 
 Miss Rivers was not engaged as a nursemaid, and it 
 would tell against her getting another position. ' ' 
 
 Finally, after many pleas and representations on 
 Mrs. Barling's part, for she had set her heart on baby 
 riding every morning, Mr. Barling conceded so 
 much: 
 
 "Suppose we were to give her an extra five or ten 
 pounds yearly, ' ' he suggested. 
 
 "I don't think that would meet the case," Mrs. 
 Barling murmured, with a puzzled air. "Actually, I 
 think it would be more conventionally proper to give 
 her five or ten pounds less. I would wheel him my- 
 self only too joyfully," she added. "I should love to 
 see the darling enjoy himself. Only, of course, it 
 would just ruin us in Winkworth. It would be 
 improving his health, but destroying his caste." 
 
 "Oh, you mustn't do it," Mr. Barling said, shortly. 
 
 Sundry amenities, such as the offer of a "Times" or 
 "Telegraph," the proffer of a match, or a monosylla- 
 bic exchange of confidences upon the subject of the 
 weather had of late transpired between himself and 
 one or two of the men who had traveled to town in the 
 same carriage with him during the last three years. 
 Who knew but that these might not be thin ends of 
 wedges? No, indeed! it would never do for Mrs. 
 Kew-Barling to be seen pushing the mail-cart. None 
 of the wives of these men wheeled out their babies. 
 
 He had it out later with Millicent. But Millicent 
 stood to her guns. 
 
 "Nobody here in Winkworth knows me," she said, 
 quietly; "and I don't think a governess has any social 
 position worth considering."
 
 " DAMN WINKWORTH." 207 
 
 "Well, I was not regarding it from that point," he 
 said, bluntly. "I am a practical man, and used to 
 looking at things from a business standpoint ; and I 
 honestly believe it would tell against you in getting 
 another situation. ' ' 
 
 "I hope you don't wish me to do that," Millicent 
 smiled. 
 
 "Heavens, no!" he said, emphatically. "Mrs. Barl- 
 ing and the children are devoted to you " 
 
 "Then, please let me have my way. I don't see that 
 it is of the slightest consequence if I am taken in 
 Winkworth for a nursery governess, or even for a 
 nursemaid. In any case, Winkworth would not be 
 likely to call upon me." 
 
 I believe Mr. Barling murmured, "Damn Wink- 
 worth!" beneath his iron-gray mustache. 
 
 As he stood facing his young dependent's clear eyes 
 and fine looks, it occurred to him that if Winkworth 
 masculinity possessed a spark of sense or manly feel- 
 ing, it would not find a girl so clever, handsome, and 
 amiable at all beneath its notice governess or no gov- 
 erness! 
 
 It was Mr. Barling's creed that every woman should 
 marry and have a husband to look after her, and a 
 home and children. It was also his creed that this 
 was every woman's creed, and it did not occur to him 
 to blame her. It was nature, he said, and every man 
 deserving the name ought only to be proud to under- 
 take his share of the bargain. He did not understand 
 sex problems. Here was a healthy, handsome, amia- 
 ble young woman ; there was her masculine counter- 
 part. What was the obvious thing to do? Why, to 
 join them in marriage, of course, and to let the young 
 woman make a home and bear children, and let the 
 young man work cheerfully and do his best to keep 
 that home and wife and children. That the young 
 man was not to the young woman's taste, or vice versd, 
 was a fine distinction in affinities undreamed of in Mr. 
 Barling's philosophy. 
 
 "It is her duty to be fond of her husband, and, if he 
 is a kind, good fellow, and does his best for her and
 
 2o8 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 th.e babies, why, of course she will be fond of him," 
 he said, putting the matter into a nutshell. But the 
 matter of marriage is one of those things which will 
 not remain in a nutshell. It is like the Genii-in-the- 
 bottle of the "Arabian Nights." It has been let out, 
 and, once released, has assumed such dimensions and 
 unexpected developments that it will not readily adjust 
 itself to the bottle again. 
 
 But Mr. Barling had his kernels of life still snugly 
 stowed in shells. 
 
 And, at that moment, seeing in Millicent's healthy, 
 handsome womanhood an affirmation of his creed that 
 every woman needed for the completion of her life and 
 happiness a home and husband not a particular man 
 for husband, but any affectionate, capable fellow in a 
 position to support a wife he reflected, with a rush of 
 chagrin, that his isolated position in Winkworth would 
 not give the girl a chance. 
 
 "Damn Winkworth!" he muttered again, under 
 cover of his mustache, as he considered her with a 
 manly, sympathetic eye. 
 
 And I think Millicent carried her point, as regarded 
 the baby, more by stress of his commiseration for her 
 in her slender matrimonial prospects, than by any 
 effect of eloquence. 
 
 "My father was not a professional man," she found 
 courage to say. After a fortnight of Winkworth 
 indeed, and of poor Mrs. Barling's strivings to propi- 
 tiate it, her stiirdy spirit had regained its native inde- 
 pendence. Gentility tasted like ashes on her tongue. 
 It appeared to her rather a fine thing to be the daugh- 
 ter of a furniture-polish maker, who had declined any 
 claim or pretension to social polish, but had stood 
 before his fellows on his merits. "I am not a person 
 of family, ' ' she told Mr. Barling. ' ' My father was a 
 manufacturer of furniture-polish. ' ' 
 
 "By Jove, you are never a daughter of John Rivers' 
 'Unparalleled Polish'?" he protested. 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "I knew him. One of the finest old fellows I ever 
 met. Sturdy, straightforward honest as daylight.
 
 " DAMN WINKWORTH." 209 
 
 But I thought he made a mint of money? I thought 
 he left four hundred thousand pounds?" 
 
 "He left three hundred thousand of it in charity," 
 Millicent explained, beneath her breath. 
 
 "And the other hundred? I know he had only one 
 child." 
 
 "He did all that was right," Millicent maintained. 
 
 "Well, I suppose he had some views about work," 
 her employer said, seeing that she did not wish the 
 subject pursued. "He had views about most things. 
 But I can't say I think he did right. If you'd been a 
 son now young men with money would generally be 
 better without it. But girls girls are a different 
 matter. Still, of course, they they get settled."
 
 210 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 "F'OWERS FUR MAMMY." 
 
 "When I remember something which I had, 
 
 But which is gone, and I must do without, 
 I sometimes wonder how I can be glad, 
 
 Even in cowslip time when hedges sprout. 
 It makes me sad to think of it but yet 
 My days will not be better days, should I forget." 
 
 "Everything passed off well, dear Millicent, " Lady 
 Kershaw wrote, "as things radically wrong often do 
 pass off well on the surface. The church was charm- 
 ingly decorated, for though the wedding was quiet, the 
 Leicester and Marnham girls, being old friends of 
 Alicia's, spent the previous afternoon in massing it 
 with flowers. 
 
 "Alicia, of course, looked beautiful her best, 
 indeed a rare enough achievement for a bride. But 
 Alicia had slept well, and Alicia had not shed a tear. 
 So Alicia's eyelids showed no suspicion of redness, and 
 she was exemplarily calm. She was a model bride. 
 Her voice was clear; her responses inimitably modu- 
 lated. Under her veil she was demure and perfect. 
 She removed her glove at the proper moment, and 
 managed her train and bouquet to perfection. You 
 might have supposed she had been through the cere- 
 mony many times before. I am not fond of Alicia, as 
 you know. Perhaps I should have liked her better had 
 she comported herself less like a paragon. Richard 
 behaved very decently. He neither forgot to bring 
 nor dropped the ring. And they met no funerals on 
 their way to church, nor did ravens croak, or any other 
 evil omen happen! Which shows that evil omens 
 were signally remiss about their duties. For if ever 
 however, let me not f orbode ! 
 
 "It is strange how I say this to you who am not 
 given to confidences or to candor. I miss you fifty 
 times a day. I suppose I am growing old and fidgety,
 
 "F'OWERS FUR MAMMY." 211 
 
 and not so fond of my own society as I was. Alicia is 
 no company for anybody of her own sex, certainly not 
 for a humdrum old woman like me. I cannot say she 
 tries to be. If she were capable of emotion, I might 
 imagine myself odious to her. I am going away. The 
 Towers are no longer the Towers and my home, since 
 Alicia set about improving us. No doubt we needed 
 improvement badly ; but, as Alicia has improved us, 
 I feel only like a stranger. She has had only the 
 reception rooms, the lower staircase, and her own 
 apartments redecorated. The rest of the house she 
 has left shabby, because it so suited her dear shabby 
 old bookworm, Richard ! She wore a pink bow about 
 her neck and a new hat when she said it, and her 
 shabby old bookworm knew better than to suspect so 
 charming a looking creature of motives less charming 
 than her looks. 
 
 ' ' My dear, when you are older, you will maybe know 
 more about men than you do. Nature has cruelly 
 handicapped some of them, and these sometimes the 
 best of them. Richard is suffering from delusions 
 which should enable me to have him temporarily 
 locked up and saved from their consequences. All he 
 will get from Alicia he could get from the flimsiest, 
 trickiest, most shallow of painted creatures, and he is 
 tying himself to her for life under the delusion that 
 she is the woman and companion to complete his 
 existence. Take her away from her corrupt surround- 
 ings, says he, and she will bloom into an ^ngel. God 
 help him! say I, for he will not have been married to 
 her a week before he will have discovered his fallacy. 
 She hasn't it in her to hold a man like him much 
 longer than a week. 
 
 "Her brother gave her away. But neither the earl 
 nor her mother condescended to put in an appearance, 
 or sent her so much as a pair of gloves. She impresses 
 on us with a curious obstinacy the importance of not 
 betraying a word about her godmother's generosity 
 for fear of bringing that good person into trouble. 
 The old lady, it seems, has retreated into a convent to 
 repent her of her sins hence Alicia's fortune.
 
 212 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "The Dtmstan's lent them their place in the High- 
 lands for the honeymoon. Alicia wished to go to 
 Paris, but Ludwig was there, so she changed her 
 mind. The name of Ludwig is like a red rag to her. 
 It reminds her of what she has lost. 
 
 "And now, dear, write me about yourself. How 
 long will you sustain your little comedy? Are you not 
 tired of middle-class life, and whipping knowledge into 
 underbred darlings? Are you not hankering after 
 freedom and the flesh-pots? Somers and Co. in Pic- 
 cadilly are reliable house-agents when you need their 
 services. If you wish it I will send them a line. I 
 know just the kind of establishment you need, and 
 invite myself to spend a fortnight with you in the 
 autumn. You will require a chaperone. I have her 
 in my eye a round, soft, comfortable body, sound of 
 mind and sense and without an angle. 
 
 "Vaux has been pestering me about you. Three 
 times during the last fortnight he has called once to 
 inquire after my Angora, which somebody had informed 
 him was suffering from influenza ; once to learn how I 
 keep my rose trees free from fly ; and the third time 
 I believe he was reduced to consulting me as to the 
 best way of pickling walnuts. He is not a person of 
 profound resources, but he has sufficient foresight to 
 know where a nice little wife is to be found. His 
 actual knowledge is, however, somewhat vague, as 
 all the information vouchsafed him by me was that 
 that nice little person is at present staying with people 
 in Kent. He knows some Kent people he informed 
 me with joy in his eye, and, strangely enough, had 
 been considering paying that county a visit very 
 shortly, so if you do not wish to be seen pushing a 
 baby's perambulator (I am only jesting, dear, I am 
 aware that your duties do not include this), avoid the 
 Kentish high road!" 
 
 Millicent wept bitterly above the first part of this 
 letter. Had she been questioned, she would have 
 stated her unwavering conviction that the marriage 
 would, of course, take place ; but she now discovered 
 one little ray of hope that the heavens would fall, or
 
 "F'OWERS FUR MAMMY." 213 
 
 some other tremendous revolution of affairs occur to 
 prevent it which had been lurking in her heart. 
 
 However, nothing in the nature of a cataclysm had 
 occurred, and the honeymoon was three days old. She 
 wept so sorely that Robby's stockings, which she had 
 been mending with more scrupulousness than skill, 
 were quite damp. 
 
 She laughed with some lightening of heart at the 
 conclusion of the note. Every girl likes to possess an 
 admirer, even though the admiration be wholly on one 
 side! 
 
 "Now, what would he think if he really were to 
 meet me?" she wondered, with a rising color. She 
 consoled herself with the consideration that Kent is a 
 county of some size, and Winkworth not even its cap- 
 ital town. Then she reread the first portion of the 
 letter, and effectually quenched her spirits. 
 
 Fortunately for her, Robby and Ruby were a hand- 
 ful that morning. 
 
 Robby insisted upon learning his lessons on his 
 head, in order to test for himself the disadvantages of 
 the position, having overheard the carrier inform the 
 cook when she had inscribed her name to the receipt 
 of a parcel that he ' ' could have done it as well on his 
 head!" 
 
 It occurred to Robby's inquiring mind as a novel 
 notion and one worth putting to the test. So though 
 Millicent dissuaded him from writing his copy so 
 inverted, she found it waste of time and force to 
 restrain him from learning his grammar in that pose. 
 
 Ruby, of course, followed suit, and mourned aloud 
 on discovering the feminine disabilities she suffered 
 from petticoats, for these descended like a closing 
 umbrella over her face and eyes, whensoever she 
 reversed her normal ends. The ensuing darkness and 
 sense of suffocation filled her with dismay. It were 
 as though the end of the world and an everlasting 
 night had befallen her, and she was extricated, shaken 
 with sobs, her mental balance ruined for the morning. 
 
 Till presently the clock struck twelve, on the magic 
 stroke of which Robby reinverted himself and hurled
 
 214 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 his books across the room, Ruby broke off short in the 
 middle of a pot-hook to wipe her eyes, and Punch 
 arose from his mat, stretching himself with an air of 
 business. Then the door of the schoolroom was pushed 
 open, and the baby, hatted and coated, toddled in with 
 the gait and uncertain eye of an inebriate. Arrived 
 at Millicent, he rested his two gloved fmgerless hands 
 on her knees, and, gazing up solemnly into her face, 
 ejaculated: 
 
 "Lambulator." 
 
 On being assured that this was his immediate fate, 
 he clapped his hands soberly together, and smiled his 
 melancholy smile. Then he stretched a fist oracularly, 
 and like some explorer indicating a vast and glorious 
 horizon delivered himself of the following prophecy : 
 
 4 ' Gee-gees doggy porter. " 
 
 Though his gait and leaden complexion might have 
 laid him open to a suspicion of being better acquainted 
 with the latter beverage than his years justified, I 
 must explain on his behalf that "porter" was his ren- 
 dering of "water" ; and water in this connection stood 
 for a pond on Winkworth Common, a pond whereon 
 the youths of Winkworth sailed their ships and swam 
 their dogs. This, which was a mighty ocean to his 
 inexperience and limitation, was a never-failing source 
 of marvel to him. In view of it he lost himself in 
 speechless admiration, for it was an ocean certainly 
 sixty yards in circumference and fourteen yards wide 
 in its broadest part. On its shores and vast bosom it 
 may well be imagined there was scope for wonder- 
 rousing feats of navigation. 
 
 "Now, if I," said Millicent, regarding him earnestly, 
 "if I were such a pitiful, mean snob as to rob you of 
 your 'porter' for fear of Mrs. Askew-Hickox, I should 
 deserve ' ' 
 
 Speech or her mental punitive resources failed her. 
 She took the baby's hand and conducted him, toddling 
 with a headlong precipitancy, toward the outhouse 
 where his fiery steed, the "lambulator, " stabled itself. 
 
 "Porter!" murmured he, ecstatically, and "Kee- 
 kox!" not, I believe, from any special interest in, or
 
 "F'OWERS FUR MAMMY." 215 
 
 knowledge of, that lady, but rather -because her name, 
 so rendered reverberated pleasantly betwixt his teeth- 
 ing gums. 
 
 "Why do you not come with us? It would do you 
 good, ' ' Millicent urged upon Mrs. Barling, who issued 
 for one breathless moment from the drawing-room, 
 duster in hand, to see them off. 
 
 "Good gracious!" Mrs. Kew returned, aghast, "I 
 have all that new linen to mark, and the pillow-cases 
 for the spare room to embroider, and a lamp-shade to 
 cover for the dining-table. ' ' 
 
 She kissed the baby hurriedly, retying his bonnet 
 strings; she pulled down Ruby's shortening coat, and 
 straightened Robby's cap. 
 
 "You all need new outfits," she observed, practi- 
 cally; "you begin to look shockingly shabby. Why, 
 Ruby, you are never going to drag that great big 
 basket with you a great common garden basket. ' ' 
 
 She sent one quick, reproachful glance toward Milli- 
 cent. 
 
 Ruby flourished her prize ecstatically. 
 
 "F'owers fur mammy. Yuby pick 'em daisies an' 
 yoses. Kite full. ' ' 
 
 "You ridiculous child! Why, it is a bushel basket 
 a disreputable, common thing that has lain in the 
 shed for months. You look like a little tramp, dar- 
 ling. Give it to mammy. ' ' 
 
 Then there was trouble. Ruby had set her heart 
 on the bushel basket. Nothing less disgracefully dirty 
 or of smaller capacity would satisfy her. She clutched 
 it devotedly with one fat hand, while she fought for it 
 bravely with the other. She stamped her feet in pan- 
 tomimic rage. She pleaded and expostulated : 
 
 "F'owers fur mammy. Daisies an' yoses Yuby 
 pick 'em. As full as vis," indicating the great handle. 
 
 Finally she came to terms, and accepted a smaller 
 and more genteel receptacle and a threepenny bit. 
 But her heart was sore, her joy in life dimmed. She 
 sobbed spasmodically, lifting the substituted basket 
 from time to time ruefully, as though contemning its 
 mean size. Nothing short of a bushel basket would
 
 2i6 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 begin to hold the boundless visions her generous soul 
 had conjured up of "f'owers fur mammy. " 
 
 ' ' I like the children to look nice when they go out, 
 Miss Rivers," Mrs. Kew admonished, reproachfully. 
 
 Millicent's lips set. It was her first rebuke in the 
 capacity of an employed. It galled her like a whip. 
 
 Mrs. Barling, seeing its effect, spread balm. 
 
 "I know they are very tiresome," she added, plac- 
 ably. "Children, of course, don't understand. I met 
 Ruby half way up the road once, with an antimacassar 
 pinned about her shoulders and a tall hat of her father's 
 stuck on the back of her head. Fortunately, nobody 
 saw her. ' ' 
 
 "She was Queen Victoria that day," Robby 
 explained, with some contempt. 
 
 "Well, she is only a baby," Millicent said, smiling 
 in spite of herself. 
 
 But Mrs. Kew-Barling was tragically grave. 
 
 "People might have thought she wasn't at all nicely 
 brought up," she stated, seriously, "for, to make 
 things worse, it was Sunday afternoon. ' ' 
 
 Ruby, smacking her lips in recollection, turned a 
 roguish look on Millicent. She pointed to a lamp-post 
 down the road. 
 
 " 'S far as vat," she cried, and vaulted three times 
 in the air. For one space, at least, of a Sunday five 
 minutes, and for the distance of some twenty yards, 
 she had flaunted it as a royal personage, with a silk 
 hat down about her curls, and a lace thing round her 
 shoulders. It was something to remember in a hum- 
 drum world. Her face was wreathed with rosy smiles. 
 
 She forgot the limitations of her basket. 
 
 "Yed and boo," she murmured, recalling the deco- 
 rative values of the antimacassar and drawing a hand 
 from shoulder to knee, "an' daddy's 'at." 
 
 Then they went forth in a body to the common, 
 while Mrs. Barling, with a sigh, withdrew once more 
 to the cavernous dim spaces of the drawing-room. 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm of The Limes, that sun-blinded and 
 window-boxed cynosure of Mrs. Barling's envy, was a 
 childless widow.
 
 "F'OWERS FUR MAMMY." 217 
 
 She was a "buxom, cherry-cheeked person, of the 
 easy temper and unruffled geniality of one who has 
 never been called upon to make a sacrifice for any- 
 body, or an effort for herself. Married early to a doc- 
 tor in fashionable London practice, her chief concern 
 had been to so oil the wheels of domestic life that the 
 roll of its machinery should not disturb his overtaxed 
 nervous system, and to so order the cuisine that its 
 achievements should not harass his irritable digestion. 
 Eventually, crippled by his labors in the cause of 
 soundness, he died in that which should have been his 
 prime, a dyspeptic wreck, leaving his widow bereft 
 even of that one solicitude as to the conjugal digestion 
 which had been a stimulus to faculty. Whereupon 
 her faculties -rolled themselves into a ball and went to 
 sleep. 
 
 The before-mentioned gardener of the correct mind 
 looked after her garden, the cook provided her table, 
 the boy in buttons cleaned her knives and steps, the 
 parlor and housemaids ministered to her general needs. 
 Occasionally she opened a shrewd eye and mouth for 
 the observation and correction of domestic sins and 
 negligences, or summarily supplanted such of her 
 dependents as were deceived into believing her nap- 
 ping for no better reason than that her lids were 
 dropped. She was captious to infmitesimality con- 
 cerning the fit of her rich gowns, and would return 
 her bodices to the dressmaker who clothed her again 
 and again for the subjugation of some crease which 
 broke the swelling smoothness of her ample bulk. 
 
 She entertained little, but entertained well. And 
 though she had never been known to put herself about 
 for anybody, the genial magnetism of a well-nurtured 
 body earned her the reputation of a good-natured one. 
 
 She subscribed very liberally to charities, for, as she 
 did not trouble to spend one half her ample income, 
 there was margin enough and to spare to allow of her 
 being handsomely charitable without stinting herself 
 of anything she wanted. 
 
 She had not a care, and her smooth rotundity of 
 mind and body made pleasant contact for a world
 
 2i8 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 made up of cares and angles. She had never concerned 
 herself at all about the Barlings. She regarded it as 
 tending toward discomfort to have any acquaintance 
 whatsoever with one's neighbors, whether these hap- 
 pened to be wholly or merely semi-detached. Next- 
 door acquaintance had a way of sending in messages 
 and borrowing things, to say nothing of chatting above 
 the fence at odd and inconvenient moments. Had it 
 not involved trouble, she would not have grudged 
 making them presents, for she was by no means 
 ungenerous ; but she was fastidious about her posses- 
 sions, and objected to copartnership in them. 
 
 She knew a good deal more about the Barlings as 
 she did about most people and affairs than anybody 
 suspected, for the eyes beneath her heavy lids, when 
 she troubled to use them, were shrewd and searching. 
 In her placid way she rather liked the look of Mrs. 
 Barling, and respected her for her unintelligible qual- 
 ities of industry and zeal. For the indolent lids had 
 opened upon these, and had even detected her neigh- 
 bor's diligent hands spreading tiny shirts and feeders 
 on the lawn behind the lattice-work. Had Mrs. Kew- 
 Barling been childless like herself, I believe Mrs. 
 Malcolm, despite her conviction of the inconveniences 
 attaching to neighborly acquaintance, would probably 
 have called on Poplar Villa. But Mrs. Malcolm cher- 
 ished a rooted aversion to children as being subversive 
 of that serenity she prized beyond everything. 
 
 Despite the lack of an introduction, some amenities 
 had passed between herself and the children Barling. 
 Before the correct-minded one suggested a barbed 
 wiring, the top of the fence between Poplar Villa and 
 The Limes had served Robby for purposes of eques- 
 trian exercise, with the not rare result, when his steed 
 was "fresh," that he would be thrown violently into 
 the midst of Mrs. Malcolm's well-kept flower-beds. 
 This, of course, was not to be tolerated by the correct- 
 minded one ; and Mrs. Malcolm consented to the barbs 
 with some reluctance, for anything of a barbed descrip- 
 tion was foreign to her code. But she consented. The 
 correct-minded one was raspy of temper when his
 
 "F'OWERS FUR MAMMY." 219 
 
 views were crossed. And he was a bi-weekly visitor. 
 
 So Robby took to riding the apple-tree at the end 
 of the garden, with the result that the apple-tree left 
 off bearing even the very greenest fruit. 
 
 Robby, it is needless to state, was not slow in aveng- 
 ing himself for that affront of barbed wiring; but, 
 with the injustice of youth, his vengeance was s'laked 
 vicariously, and the serenity of mind and security of 
 skin of Mrs. Malcolm's Persian cat and Mrs. Mal- 
 colm's pug were liable to intermittent violent disturb- 
 ance. Once, also, the center bed in the lawn was 
 found to have brought up a crop of snails, where a 
 more desirable crop had been anticipated, a phenom- 
 enon which explained itself by the track of stockinged 
 footsteps and the line of a wheelbarrow abruptly ceas- 
 ing at the fence. Robby had also, in a fit of engineer- 
 ing zeal, constructed that which he termed "foun- 
 tains," in reality a series of miniature pits, scooped in 
 the unprolific flower-bed behind the fence. These, 
 bricked by odds and ends of slate and platter, commu- 
 nicated one with another by lengths of India-rubber 
 tubing cut from the garden hose, so that water poured 
 into a disused kitchen funnel, adroitly hidden beneath 
 a laurestinus, eventually found its way into one well 
 after another, finally bubbling again upon the surface 
 through a teapot spout. The whole was covered in 
 with lids of wooden boxes, carefully strewn with earth, 
 so that nobody inspecting the unproductive flower-bed 
 would have remotely suspected the subterranean inge- 
 nuities tunneling it. In constructing it, Robby had 
 firmly believed that water poured in at the funnel end 
 would issue proudly from the spout end in a tall 
 stream, possibly reaching as high as the fence, so that 
 the garden of Poplar Villa would, at his command, 
 become the scene of a foaming fountain such as he 
 had remarked in pictures. When he found, however, 
 the disabilities of water on its level the fountain 
 proving but a muddy leakage in a revulsion of feel- 
 ing he diverted its course, and, with malice prepense, 
 conducted it beneath the fence, fitting the steam tube 
 of an old bronchitis kettle to such purpose that his
 
 220 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "fountain" discharged itself amid the roots of two of 
 Mrs. Malcolm' s finest rose-trees. The ensuing sloppi- 
 ness disagreed sadly with the rose-trees for whenso- 
 ever Robert found life oppressive, or was thwarted in 
 one or other of the hundred and fifty plots incubating 
 beneath his scalp, he relieved his feelings by discharg- 
 ing a can of water down the funnel causing Mrs. 
 Malcolm' s gardener to suffer in temper and spirits. 
 
 " It' s all along o' your cussedness," he would address 
 the silently suffering rosacea; "you gets manoor anuff 
 fur 'alf a dozen, and sun ter bake yer 'eds off, and yet 
 you goes on grislin' ; and grislin' , as if you was planted 
 in a water butt!" 
 
 Whereupon the sufferers would hang their heads 
 abashed, oppressed through all their fibre by a sense 
 of sloppiness about the roots. 
 
 Otherwise, Robby did not trouble himself greatly 
 about Mrs. Malcolm, though with a card of carpen- 
 ter's tools, presented to him on his birthday, he man- 
 aged to convert a portion of the fence into a hinged 
 flap, admitting him at will to her garden, and so sav- 
 ing him the labor of clambering the fence. It gave 
 him a sense of power to lift this flap, cross the garden, 
 knock three times on an iron table, and retreat safely 
 within the paternal precincts while Mrs. Malcolm 
 walked the length of her grass plot. 
 
 That Mrs. Malcolm never caught sight of a vanish- 
 ing sailor suit I do not pretend. But Mrs. Malcolm 
 had the gift of discretion, and it did not suit her 
 notions of that which befitted her dignity to enter into 
 altercation with an impudent boy, nor to involve her- 
 self in a vexing correspondence with his parents. 
 
 She had never been able to understand his sudden 
 disappearance. He seemed to slip into the fence like 
 air. I cannot say she took any pains to solve the mys- 
 tery. Hers was not an inquiring mind. One day, 
 however, the phenomenon explained itself. She was 
 stooping above a bed of pansies violet velvety grim- 
 aces when the fence before her swayed. She stepped 
 to one side. A portion of the fence lifted, disclosing 
 itself as detached, then fell back immediately. She
 
 " F'OWERS FUR MAMMY." 221 
 
 could hear a puffing and blowing, and the grind of 
 something pushed against the flap. After several 
 attempts, a small hand, grasping a bushel-basket, 
 thrust itself through at one corner, and succeeded in 
 depositing the basket on a pansy-bed. Then the flap 
 closed down again. More puffings and pantings, and 
 the flap admitted at its lower border a crawling, strug- 
 gling body in a pink frock, wearing a sun-bonnet about 
 that end which seemed to be the head of it, and brand- 
 ishing a knife. While this apparition wrestled its way 
 through, Mrs. Malcolm withdrew some paces silently. 
 The pink pinafored figure, having struggled to its 
 feet, turned its bonnet to the right and to the left of 
 it, sweeping the foreground for hostilities. Mrs. Mal- 
 colm, standing in its rear, was screened from view by 
 the bonnet blinkers. The pink person, evidently sat- 
 isfied that there was a clear coast, recovered the basket 
 again with a fat clutch, gave one joyful curvet in the 
 air, then brandishing her knife, trotted with an air of 
 business to the center bed of Mrs. Malcolm's lawn. 
 Arrived there, she stood on the grass edge, in the 
 meditative attitude of one about to plunge. Then she 
 set down the basket on one side of her and the knife on 
 the other, and proceeded to solemnly divest herself of 
 her pinafore. This done, she folded it more or less 
 neatly, and laid it carefully upon the shore. After 
 which she took up her knife and basket, and plunged 
 into a sea of hyacinths. Mrs. Malcolm, transfixed with 
 amazement, found herself confronted by a spectacle 
 of everted petticoats, calico frills, chubby legs, and 
 white socks, these making a firm and progressive sup- 
 port for the operations of a pair of active hands and 
 elbows. The hands wielded their weapon with little 
 enough skill, but the tide of hyacinths gave away, their 
 soft stems parting with a juicy "swish," before the 
 hacking knife. 
 
 Now and again the pink-frocked person paused, 
 straightened the ache of effort from her back, drew an 
 arm across her face to remove the dew of action, then 
 fell to again.
 
 222 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Good heavens!" ejaculated Mrs. Malcolm, "what a 
 little monster!" 
 
 Recovering herself, she moved precipitately across 
 the lawn as precipitately, that is, as her weight and 
 indignation allowed. The pink-frocked figure raised 
 itself, throwing a final trophy into the basket a great 
 dark perfect blossom, over which the correct-minded 
 one had delivered an oration that same morning. The 
 scent of hyacinthine suffering filled the air. The fruit 
 of hyacinthine growth half -filled the basket. Ruby, 
 reviewing it, leaped four times aloft, after her fashion 
 of joy incontinent. Then she ran two triumphal cir- 
 cuits round the basket. After which she laid down 
 her knife, clapped her hands, and proceeded to get 
 into her pinafore. 
 
 Looking about for assistance, she espied Mrs. Mal- 
 colm standing like a statue of reproach. Without a 
 moment* s hesitation she caught up her knife and stood 
 on guard. Finding her large aggressor impassive, she 
 assumed the frown which was her fighting face, and, 
 "booing" in her most terrific manner, made three cuts 
 in the air with the knife. Having thus given warning 
 of her intention in the event of warfare, she placed 
 herself before the basket. Her pinafore slipping down 
 over her elbows, however, she proclaimed a truce. 
 She laid down her knife, relaxed her frown, and, trot- 
 ting over to the enemy, commanded : 
 
 "Tie Yuby's pinner. Yuby's 'ands tant yeach. " 
 
 So instructed, though still stiff with indignation, 
 Mrs. Malcolm obeyed. Then Ruby caught her by the 
 hand. 
 
 "Turn an' see," she gurgled, tugging at her. 
 "F'owers fur mammy. Yoses an' daisies. Yuby 
 pick 'em. 'Eaps an' 'caps!" 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm suffered herself to be towed. She 
 stood above the basket of blossoms, eyeing the breach 
 in the ranks of their fellows with a swelling bosom. 
 
 Such a spasm of anger suddenly overswept her 
 serenity that she was only just saved from administer- 
 ing the slap her sense of justice told her was more 
 than merited, by Ruby lifting a face framed in bonnet
 
 "F'OWERS FUR MAMMY." 223 
 
 frills, and pointing insinuatingly to the outraged bed. 
 
 "Yuby yeave you some," she explained, amicably. 
 " 'Eaps an* 'caps. Yed an' boo. Yoses an' daisies. 
 Yuby oney take one two free f'owers" she speci- 
 fied them on her fingers "fur Yuby's mammy." 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm gazed severely. Her center bed! 
 What would the correct one say? How should she meet 
 his wrath? 
 
 Ruby assumed a solemn visage. Then she pleaded 
 guilefully : 
 
 "Poo-er mammy. Yuby's mammy's 'ed aches all 
 day to-mollow." 
 
 Without further ado, she encircled the basket handle 
 with her plump hands, but she failed to lift it. She 
 planted her feet firmly in the grass, set her mouth, 
 blew out her cheeks, and essayed to drag it. It yielded 
 a little. Puffing and panting, and with a crimsoning 
 face, she tugged it a few yards. Then, an easier 
 method suggesting itself, she trotted back to her vic- 
 tim. 
 
 "Yoo tally it fo' me," she said, smiling seductively 
 up at her; "too 'eavy fo' Yuby. Yoo tally it." 
 
 Why she obeyed for under the outrageous circum- 
 stances it was monstrous to obey Mrs. Malcolm never 
 could explain, but with Ruby's hand in one of hers, 
 with the other she carried the basket of her cherished 
 blossoms to the flap in the fence, and even lifted this 
 and passed the basket safely to the other side. 
 
 "F'owers fur mammy," Ruby chuckled, choking 
 with rapture. " 'Eaps an' 'caps. Yoses an' daisies. 
 Yuby pick 'em." 
 
 She lifted the flap, and, putting a flushed face 
 through, kissed her hand. 
 
 "Yuby turn adain some day soon," she gurgled 
 reassuringly. 
 
 Then she dropped the flap, and Mrs. Malcolm heard 
 her puffing and panting as she dragged her trophy, 
 inch by inch, across the graveled walk of Poplar 
 Villa. 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm stood some minutes seething. 
 
 Then she muttered, with an air of conviction, "That
 
 224 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 child has no more conscience than " she was not 
 prone to speech, and simile failed her till an object 
 which would serve presented itself "than a bumble- 
 bee," she concluded, emphatically. 
 
 She eyed the pilfered bed. It was a scene of shame- 
 ful carnage. Decapitated, bleeding stumps cried out 
 to heaven for vengeance. The neat earth was tram- 
 pled. A few heavy-belled blooms hung snapped on 
 their stalks. 
 
 "And the De Lisles are coming to lunch," Mrs. Mal- 
 colm muttered in her full throat. She spread her 
 plump hands with an accession of dignity. The De 
 Lisles were the De Lisles; but Mrs. Malcolm was 
 Mrs. Malcolm. Then she stalked toward the house. 
 As she went she looked back. The flap in the fence 
 hung straight ; the trail of a little footstep grayed the 
 grass ; the cling of a small, hot hand pressed hers ; a 
 child's exultant gurgle echoed. But the garden 
 seemed emptier than she had ever known it. Her 
 plump, complacent face lost some of its color; the 
 blood in her heart stirred. As she stood, the sun 
 pricked the points of the barbed wire-fencing. 
 
 "F'owers fur mammy," a small voice said. 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm was a person of an admirably balanced 
 mind, however. She walked into the dining-room 
 and rang the bell. 
 
 "When Snagg comes in the morning, ' ' she instructed 
 the parlor-maid, "I shall be out. Tell him to look at 
 the center hyacinth bed, to strip off all the barbed wire 
 he put up, and to screw a bolt on to a flap he will find 
 in the fence. ' ' 
 
 An hour later she opened a letter of meek apology, 
 which arrived from Mrs. Barling with a basket of hya- 
 cinths. 
 
 She returned the hyacinths with compliments, and a 
 stiff request that the child should not be punished. 
 
 Two mornings later she passed the now replenished 
 hyacinth bed with a sniff of indignation. She bent 
 before the fence, and finding the bolt unfastened, 
 slipped it with a determined hand. 
 
 In the afternoon she unbolted it casually, and stalked
 
 "F'OWERS FUR MAMMY." 225 
 
 to a bench at the further end of the garden, where she 
 sat reading. Two hours later she seemed indignantly 
 surprised to find the flap unfastened. She bolted it 
 resolutely. 
 
 The following morning she unbolted it and sat sew- 
 ing. She bolted it before going in to lunch, and 
 unbolted it on coming out. 
 
 Once she heard voices behind the fence, and, with 
 precipitate haste, secured the flap. When the voices 
 had gone she unbolted it in the hope that they would 
 return. 
 
 Another time she dropped a knot of roses in the 
 garden of the Poplars. Again, when she should have 
 been at her dressmaker's for a third fitting of a din- 
 ner-gown, she was snipping dead leaves in the garden, 
 with the bolt undrawn, and a box of chocolates upon 
 the iron table. 
 
 Her flowers blossomed, withered, and died. 
 
 " F'owers fur mammy," a small voice gurgled; 
 "yed an' boo. 'Eaps an' 'eaps!" 
 
 But they blossomed and died, and, for lack of any- 
 thing better to do, she ate the chocolates herself. 
 
 She bought another and a larger box, her haste to 
 do so and reach home again early resulting in her 
 shirking a disgraceful crease in the bodice of a four- 
 times fitted gown. It would do, she said for the first 
 time within the memory of Madame Aiguille. 
 
 She bought a doll one day, a picture-book another, 
 and, placing a chair close up to the flap, sat down with 
 these on her lap. She started for her walk at the same 
 moment that the Barling children issued from their 
 gate. But Ruby did not recognize her in her 
 bonnet. 
 
 At the end of a fortnight she sat down and penned 
 a letter to her neighbor. She begged to be excused 
 for not calling, finding her health unequal to the strain 
 of society. She hoped Mrs. Kew-Barling would not 
 suppose she had been in the least annoyed at the little 
 girl's trespass on her garden. If Mrs. Kew-Barling 
 would permit it, she should be glad to have the little 
 boy and girl to tea with her next Wednesday at four. 
 
 15
 
 226 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 Her large hands trembled as she opened Mrs. Barl- 
 ing's answer. 
 
 A frown of displeasure crossed her face. 
 
 "Shy, indeed!" she snorted. "That is the very 
 last virtue the Barling children suffer from. It is 
 certainly not shyness. But she need not think I shall 
 call." 
 
 She took up her knitting, and knitted, with less 
 placidity than usual, at a comforter. She also was 
 pledged to a Sunshine League to the extent of four 
 garments yearly. 
 
 She laid it down with a sudden fit of panting. The 
 woollen softness had slipped over the back of her hand 
 with something of the feel of a child's gold hair. 
 Under her fingers a warm little back jerked restive as 
 it had done while she tied the pinafore. About them 
 a warm clutch clung confidingly. 
 
 Her smooth, complacent face broke into creases. 
 She stretched her plump, complacent hands out : 
 
 "My God!" she cried, astonishing herself by the 
 energy of the invocation. "My God! what I have 
 missed!" 
 
 As the face of a pool closes over a pebble tossed into 
 it, so a human face resumes its surface over an emo- 
 tion ; but the pebble and the emotion will ever after- 
 ward have been. 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm took up her knitting again, resuming 
 her "Sunshine" pledge and her normal countenance. 
 
 "No," she muttered, though a little brokenly, "she 
 need not suppose I have the remotest intention of 
 calling. ' '
 
 THE CULT OF SMARTNESS, 227 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 THE CULT OF SMARTNESS. 
 
 The houses of the rich are confectioner's shops, where we get 
 sweetmeats and wine. The houses of the poor are imitations of 
 these to the extent of their ability. 
 
 By what chain of circumstances Mrs. Askew-Hickox 
 had been constituted, or had constituted herself leader 
 of Winkworth society, neither I nor Winkworth am in 
 a position to state. 
 
 As I have said, she was not handsome, she was not 
 clever, and certainly she was not amiable. Neither 
 was she the wealthiest woman in the neighborhood; 
 yet she ruled Winkworth as with a rod of nickel-plated 
 iron. Thinking- it over, I have been moved to con- 
 clude that her sway was by reason of her limitations. 
 She never overflowed, and therefore expended her 
 forces neither needlessly nor injudiciously. She never 
 said too much, smiled too much, read too much, thought 
 too much, allowed too much, denied too much did 
 anything too much. This gave her an appearance 
 of discretion and restrained power altogether admira- 
 ble in a state of society which has sublimed itself into 
 an attenuation of refinement out of the gross elements 
 of mere prodigal Nature. 
 
 When she recognized you in the street, her bow 
 asserted beyond question her indisputable right of 
 sway; the limitations of her smile translated them- 
 selves in the mind of the smiled-upon as the measure 
 of his personal shortcomings. The very scant number 
 of teeth she revealed to you gave you the impression, 
 in conjunction with her bearing and prestige, that you 
 were, after all, but a sorry fellow a reflection which 
 took you with a bound to the conclusion that she was 
 proportionally greater. Whereas, if the truth had 
 been known, Mrs. Askew-Hickox smiled only small 
 smiles, for no better reason than that this was one
 
 228 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 among her limitations. But human nature has always 
 shown a tendency to afflict itself with tyrants and 
 scourges, so Winkworth, like all other Winkworths, 
 smarted beneath a yoke. 
 
 The rasp of a hair-shirt never stung the aspiring 
 saint with keener joy than did the gall of the corset 
 whereby the Winkworth matron approximated her 
 girth to the attenuation of Mrs. Askew-Hickox. Nor 
 did the subtle pleasure of his morning flagellation lift 
 him into higher heights of ecstasy than stirred the 
 Winkworth maiden on seeing her pretty face spoiled 
 by a hat the counterpart of that worn the previous 
 Sunday by Miss Askew-Hickox. As the comfort of 
 the flagellator lay in the reflection that that his body 
 lost in comfort his soul acquired of immortal salvation, 
 so the balm of Miss Hickox's disciple lay in the belief 
 that that she lost in comeliness she gained in "style," 
 even though it were not her own, but the style of Miss 
 Gwendolen Askew-Hickox. 
 
 Possibly nobody was more astonished than was Mrs. 
 Askew herself when, by common feminine consensus, 
 she found herself chosen the leader of Winkworth 's 
 social evolution. One of her limitations, however, 
 being her absolute unconsciousness of them, she 
 straightway accepted the situation, and, without any 
 of the diffidence which might have robbed a stronger 
 nature of the guise of strength, stepped up to her 
 throne and took into her narrow hands the sceptre 
 offered. The determining cause of her selection had 
 been the fact that, shortly after Mr. Askew-Hickox 
 had achieved a boom in South African stock, the name 
 of Mrs. Askew-Hickox appeared in the list of ladies 
 presented at the drawing-room a drawing-room dis- 
 tinguished by the presence of Her Gracious Majest)' 
 herself. The ladies of Winkworth proper did not them- 
 selves aspire to such distinction, and the shrewd 
 among them characterized Mrs. Hickox's departure as 
 a ridiculous proceeding, seeing that she had no rela- 
 tion with the court, nor pretension to be of its ten 
 thousand. But though one or two condemned, the 
 prestige attaching to the proceeding was recognized
 
 THE CULT OF SMARTNESS. 229 
 
 by one and all, more especially after a well-known 
 society journal had published a portrait of the dtbu- 
 tante in court attire, with at least three inches of a 
 column of type devoted to her gown. 
 
 It was common enough to read the names of county 
 women in the list of presentations, but these ladies did 
 not associate with the ladies of Winkworth proper, 
 having "places" prosperous or tumble-down, accord- 
 ing as they derived or derived not their income from 
 landed estate on the outskirts. 
 
 Prior to the advent of Mrs. Askew-Hickox, Wink- 
 worth had never aspired to being smart. Indeed, it 
 had tended somewhat toward that which she stigma- 
 tized as "Philistinism," having retained the simple 
 manners of a country town years subsequent to its 
 having evolved itself into a suburban. 
 
 Thenceforward, however, there was no more loung- 
 ing for men, tired out by a day's stiff skirmishing with 
 manglers. If they did not as Askew-Hickox did (under 
 order of the leader of society) get into their dress suits 
 for dinner, the consciousness that he did so, and that 
 Mrs. Askew-Hickox would, in her exalted conscious- 
 ness, take it for granted that they also did, gave them 
 just the salutary prick of conscience, which marred 
 the savor of their dinner, but was the spur of social 
 regeneration. Thenceforward, mothers ceased from 
 walking hand in hand beside their little ones through 
 country lanes and daisy-studded meadows, returning 
 with nosegays of poppies and woodbine and wild rose 
 in their ungloved hands, songs and laughter on their 
 lips, and flower-chains about the children's necks. 
 There were no more picnics in the woods, the little 
 ones carrying their milk and cake in wicker baskets, 
 after that day when Mrs. Askew-Hickox demonstrated 
 that a picnic requires drags and footmen, pdtd de fois 
 gras and champagne, to rescue it from the sphere of 
 the homely and natural and vulgar. 
 
 There were no more children's parties, muslin- 
 frocked and cotton-gloved, where the wine was home- 
 made gooseberry; the viands chicken, cold plum- 
 puddings, and mince-pies; the fruit piled dishes of
 
 230 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 orange-halves. Mrs. Askew-Hickox banished these. 
 Winkworth had no mind to let the little Hickox go 
 home and turn up small contemptuous noses in derision 
 of home-baked mince-pies, small gooseberry, and 
 romping games. If the Askew-Hickox supplied cham- 
 pagne at children's parties; provided an improved 
 and superior Punch and Judy show, or a three or four 
 guinea conjuror to amuse them; danced cotillions, 
 wore kid gloves and accordion-pleated silken frocks 
 with flouncings of real lace, then Winkworth must look 
 to its laurels. For Winkworth children, having been 
 initiated into the delights of sweet champagne, 
 despised the friendly gooseberry under any other 
 name, as having been introduced to the modishness of 
 kid gloves, they snickered in corners when the little 
 Mylnes, who had not before been bidden to the 
 Hickox 's, came joyous in their muslin frocks and cotton 
 mittens, and wept all the way home because nobody 
 would dance with them. 
 
 Winkworth had money before the arrival of Mrs. 
 Askew-Hickox, but before that epoch Winkworth 
 spent its money as it chose. Now it spent it as Mrs. 
 Askew-Hickox chose. In return for which she taught 
 it to be smart. 
 
 One must suffer to be smart, and Winkworth suffered, 
 especially that section of Winkworth which had not 
 means enough to be smart at any cost of suffering. 
 
 The younger Askew-Hickox were an interesting 
 study in psychology. Given a woman of the type of 
 Mrs. Askew a purely artificial graft upon the human 
 stem; a being of conventions, imitations, limitations, 
 and second-hand opinions; a thing of corsets, mantles, 
 modes and paddings, stock phrases and clipped speech, 
 one stands half-fearful of her before the natural facts 
 of marriage and motherhood! How much of char- 
 latanism and departure from her ways will Nature 
 tolerate before she sets the seal of childlessness upon 
 a race which has nothing left she cares to reproduce? 
 When the modes and corsets of this artificiality are 
 doffed, will her bridegroom find her a woman, flesh of 
 the flesh of that first woman, who yielded herself in
 
 THE CULT OF SMARTNESS. 231 
 
 sylvan forests, soft-eyed, trembling, and afraid in the 
 presence of a mystery greater than they two ; pure in 
 the stress and simplicity of a passion to which Nature 
 has set the strain of sacrifice; tender and proud that 
 her mate's is the mastery? 
 
 Heavens! what emotions will her cramped, wasp- 
 waisted soul bring to the fulfillment of a great eternal 
 mystery? Nothing! one fears, beyond distorted sensi- 
 bilities, immature intelligences, sensations perverted 
 for the lack of health. The sweetest flowers decayed 
 are rankest, the highest potentialities are pervertable 
 to the basest uses; so the loveliest feelings may 
 degenerate to the most ignoble. 
 
 Mrs. Askew-Hickox braed her abortive breasts to 
 the gaslight of evening festivities, but she withheld 
 them from the morning light and seeking lips of her 
 poor babes. Yet Nature had her hour of triumph. 
 Turn out of your narrow, conventional soul, quoth she, 
 the pruderies, the wretched missishness and false con- 
 ceptions which are the weeds which choke my ways ; 
 turn them out once and for all, and in the abysm of a 
 woman's travail, learn that my rootings stand not in 
 such rubble but in naked human flesh, and in the pulse 
 of human blood, pumped with the heavy faithfulness 
 of human hearts. Right to the innermost core of you 
 my roots strike deep that my sap may rise strong to 
 my topmost branches. They are fed by human lives, 
 they are watered by human tears, my flowers are the 
 blush of human joys, and you who, under the social 
 convention of marriage, invoke me unwitting, shall 
 feel for a space the rend of my strong hand. 
 
 But when large-eyed pain (attended by the chloro- 
 formist) had released her, the soul of Mrs. Askew- 
 Hickox shrank once more to the measure of its limita- 
 tions, and she remembered despitefully the shame and 
 anguish put upon her, and set her neat lips prudishly 
 against the indelicacies lying at the heart of life. 
 
 "At all events, I am not going to be a cow," she 
 said, "and spoil my figure nursing babies." So she 
 sent for feeding-bottles and tinned milk. 
 
 To the short-sighted eyes of a merely human
 
 232 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 on-looker, it would appear to have been a grievous error 
 on the part of Nature not to have subtracted mother- 
 hood from the sum of Mrs. Askew- Hickox's limita- 
 tions. For most assuredly the world gained nothing 
 by her maternal contributions to it, and, so far as the 
 merely human one could observe, she herself was none 
 the better, nor wiser, nor kindlier, nor any of the 
 other gentle adjectives hovering like angel cherubs 
 round the bed of motherhood. 
 
 Of her four children, the sons were delicate and 
 womanish, the daughters mannish true types of 
 up-to-date degeneracy. The elder son was a profligate, 
 his incapability of a whole robust emotion revenging 
 itself upon him by an insatiable appetite for small 
 ones. The younger son was a miser and a woman- 
 hater a miser because he lacked impulses for spend- 
 ing money, and a woman-hater because his' shrewd eyes 
 deduced from other men's experiences that woman 
 was capable of proving such an impulse. Both 
 daughters were of the gender neuter, that is to say, 
 their feminine frames were manned by masculine 
 abilities. One, the nerve forces necessary to her com- 
 pletion as a woman failing suddenly, stopped short in 
 her processes of development at seventeen, with the 
 result that she withdrew into a corner of her brain, 
 and, taking to spectacles, devoted herself to logarithms. 
 The other, a big handsome girl of the type I have 
 heard somewhat aptly described as a "steel gazelle," 
 vindicated her mother's suffering and mortifications 
 in her production by personifying that excellence of 
 smartness which was her mother's acme of human 
 attainment. She rode, she danced, she cycled, she 
 sang, she spoke languages, she played tennis and 
 hockey. She knew no virtues such as diffidence or 
 self-cession. She was all assertiveness and sound. 
 She glittered with accomplishments for the reason 
 that she possessed no faculty which did not show upon 
 the surface. She was like a girl in armor. I have 
 sometimes wondered, watching her, where, on all that 
 restless, bristling surface, a little child might lay its
 
 THE CULT OF SMARTNESS. 233 
 
 head, or a man, wearied and dusty with the trudge 
 of life, find rest. 
 
 "She will make a good match," Mrs. Askew-Hickox, 
 observing her, murmured, and, so observing, set about 
 devising schemes for penetrating the selecter circles of 
 the county. For it must not be supposed that Mrs. 
 Askew-Hickox had any intention of marrying Gwen- 
 dolen to some young Winkworth aspirant. By no 
 means. She had climbed the social ladder of the town, 
 now but a leap stood between her and the county. 
 That leap it devolved upon Gwendolen to make. 
 
 But all things have a level, and Mrs. Askew-Hickox, 
 though her aspirations rose with her altitude, had 
 found hers. She found it vastly more difficult and 
 thickset with mortifications and chagrins to enter the 
 circle of county selectness than Winkworth proper 
 found it difficult to enter hers. 
 
 But one of her limitations was an inability to take a 
 snub. It is a limitation, perhaps the most valuable of 
 all limitations toward social success, and she wielded 
 it gracefully, aided by Parisian bonnets and her small 
 smile. Gwendolen at Easter had assisted Lady Ashley 
 to decorate the font of St. Mark's, and Lady Ashley 
 had inquired if she were fond of skating, as though 
 she had it in her mind to invite her to join the skating 
 parties for which the Park was famous. 
 
 Lady Ashley, an indolent, shabby woman, with no 
 pretentious to smartness, though a gentlewoman to 
 the core, had even admired Miss Gwendolen's neat 
 coat and skirt, and begged for the name of her tailor. 
 And Lady Ashley was a widow, whose son had already 
 succeeded to the title. 
 
 But the son was in the toils of a woman who had 
 served Mrs. Hickox for model in the art of smartness, 
 a woman somewhat the vogue just then among the 
 county folk a lady who added to her limitations one 
 which Mrs. Askew- Hickox 's set, being still only half- 
 hearted in its smartness and strict as regarded the 
 conduct of its matrons, would never have tolerated. 
 
 So, till that time when the prodigal should range 
 himself, Mrs. Askew did not suffer the grass to grow
 
 234 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 beneath the neat-shod feet of Gwendolen standing in 
 the market-place. 
 
 "Now, what the deuce is he driving at?" Harold 
 H-ickox yawned, throwing a letter on the handsomely- 
 appointed breakfast-table, whither he gathered as 
 usual late. 
 
 "Who is he?" inquired Gwendolen, with an ear for 
 this particular pronoun. 
 
 "Vaux man I met up in Leicestershire." 
 
 "Lord Crossley's son?" Mrs. Askew-Hickox ques- 
 tioned from her chair at the writing-desk. 
 
 "That you, mater? Morning ! Didn't see you before. 
 Awf'ly late. Kept at the office last night. Beastly 
 bore business," Harold muttered, guiltily. 
 
 Mater ignored the apology. She was not a difficult 
 person to live with. She entertained no impossible 
 standards of masculine conduct. So long as her men- 
 kind were smart in their speech and ways, she did not 
 quarrel with their morals. Fastness was no breach of 
 manners. She was rather proud of Harold's looks, 
 though she suspected him of being too handsome to 
 be quite the best form. He was good-looking enough 
 to have been mistaken for an actor. 
 
 "Is it Lord Crossley's son?" she inquired again. 
 
 Harold nodded. "Fellow I met at the Warburton's. " 
 
 "What does he say?" 
 
 "Give her the letter, Gwen, while I behead this 
 
 egg-" 
 
 "Ask him for next week. He seems to wish to come 
 
 soon," Mrs. Hickox said pleasantly, laying down the 
 letter. 
 
 "Oh, but we're going to Surrey next week, mother, 
 if you remember," Gwen submitted. 
 
 "I have changed my mind," Mrs. Hickox said 
 composedly, "we will go later. Give Harold the 
 writing-case, dear." 
 
 "Oh, I say! Write to-night. Horribly hipped 
 home so late," Harold demurred. 
 
 "Don't give him that vulgar monogram paper.
 
 THE CULT OF SMARTNESS. 235 
 
 There is some emblazoned crested paper in the drawer 
 and the new Court envelopes, Gwendolen. ' ' 
 
 ' 'Well, if I must, I suppose I must, even if I go with- 
 out my breakfast," Harold grumbled. "Now then 
 what shall I say? I haven't any brain on to-day. 
 Beastly champagne there is going. ' ' 
 
 "What, at the office?" Gwendolen inquired, sarcas- 
 tically. 
 
 The letter having been dictated, sealed, and stamped, 
 Gwen rang the bell. 
 
 "Put the letter in the rack," her mother instructed, 
 "it can be posted to-morrow. There is no need to 
 answer by return of post. ' ' 
 
 "He may accept another invitation, mother," 
 Daughter urged, breathlessly. 
 
 But Mrs. Askew- Hickox's rule of conduct was never 
 swayed by impulse, nor by merely suppositious 
 situations. 
 
 "It is unlikely," she said calmly, "and it is a good 
 rule never to appear eager. Is your green frock still 
 decent?" 
 
 "It would have done for the Hoskins'," Gwen 
 affirmed, expressively. 
 
 "As bad as that," her mother commented, with no 
 intention of humor. "Write a line to Marchand, and 
 tell her to let you have the rose-pink I ordered for the 
 first without fail by Saturday. Or, stay you had 
 better send a telegram." 
 
 "It's a beastly bore having him next week," Harold 
 grumbled. "He's no end of a fellow to entertain. 
 Seen everything, stops at the best houses, gets liverish 
 in the mornings, thinks himself no end of a swell. 
 And I was going up the river all arranged." 
 
 "Gwen will take him off your hands," Mrs. Askew- 
 Hickox stated comfortingly, though she knew her 
 flesh and blood too well to suspect it of requiring com- 
 fort in a matter which concerned the son of a peer. 
 
 "If that chap goes on apin' me," Vaux observed, 
 disgustedly, as he climbed the handsome staircase of
 
 236 WOMAN AND TH E SHADOW. 
 
 the Grange a week later, "I shall knock him over the 
 head. When a chap's family has been as long on its 
 legs as ours he's got a right to be bored and that ; but 
 it's sickenin' for a chap like Hickox, whose grand- 
 father was skippin' round a shop or turnin' a hand- 
 organ. And why don't he brush his eyebrows back- 
 ward, or bandoline his curls down? He looks like a 
 chap in a picture." 
 
 He reclimbed the stairs later more wearily still. 
 
 "I say," he said, addressing himself in the glass, "if 
 you ain't goin' through fire and water, for the sake of 
 love and that, I'll eat my hat. Pink girl's pretty, and 
 missis ain't bad; but, by Jove, where have they been 
 growin'? Didn't know the Windermeres were Dover- 
 courts, or that the Duke of Windsor had eloped with 
 that Frenchwoman all London's talkin' of. It's the 
 rummest thing how these people find anythin' to talk 
 about when they don't seem to know anythin' that's 
 goin' on. Grand scheme o' mine to get on terriers, 
 that chap Hickox goes in for bein' sporty, and fancies 
 he knows a terrier from a Dachs. I shall turn that tap 
 on again. When you're talkin' to chaps who don't 
 know anythin' about anythin', it's a grand scheme to 
 put 'em on to somethin' they think they know some- 
 thin' about. And they don't even know Milly Rivers' 
 address, or who she's stoppin' with. And I shall have 
 to take the old lady in to dinner every evenin' for a 
 week, and tell her old Lady Buxton wears a wig, and 
 the Duke of Hertfordshire stutters, and Rugby's wife 
 was somebody else's things everybody knew before 
 he was born and all without gettin' any reward for 
 my pains. I say, even little Milly would have to admit 
 there's some chivalry and that left in the world. Ker- 
 shaw ought to put me up in rhyme." 
 
 When the seventh day came, Mrs. Askew-Hickox 
 gently insisted on it that her guest should accompany 
 her to church. Harold had reported Vaux as doffing 
 hat and showing on terms with sundry of the county 
 folks, and the opportunity of displaying him in the 
 Hickox pew was not to be missed. 
 
 Mrs. Hickox was in good spirits. The men of her
 
 THE CULT OF SMARTNESS. 237 
 
 guest's class are more empress? in their manner to 
 women than were they of Winkworth, and Gwendolen 
 was looking her best. So Mrs. Askew-Hickox took 
 courage to insist gently. 
 
 ''There, now, I am sure you enjoyed it, Mr. Vaux," 
 she remarked, shaking a well-gloved finger at him as 
 they issued from the porch. 
 
 He had certainly a pleased air, his eyes sparkled, 
 his langour had vanished, and he glanced about him 
 with unwonted interest. 
 
 "Rippin' good sermon," he said, his eyes still 
 searching; "awfully charmin' of you to take me. 
 Rattlin' good time. Forgot church could be so 
 Hello! she's vanished. " 
 
 "Oh, no, she is on in front, talkin' to the lady in the 
 green dress Lady Ashley, you know. ' ' 
 
 "Haven't met her since I was a small chap. Gave 
 me too many mince-pies, I remember. No, I won't 
 speak to her just now, thanks." 
 
 "Do you know the girl who sat in the pew by the 
 pulpit facin' us?" he questioned Harold later in the 
 smoke-room, "the girl with a nice lookin' woman in 
 gray and two rippin' -lookin' little kids?" 
 
 Harold turned his arched brows and handsome eyes 
 upon him with a sly air. 
 
 "Rippin', isn't she?" he said, with so mimetic an 
 excellence that Vaux might have fancied he himself 
 had said it. 
 
 He looked annoyed, whether at this annexation of 
 his pet expression, or whether at its application, I 
 cannot say. 
 
 "She is a lady I have met," he said, dryly. 
 
 Harold shook his head. 
 
 "You're mistaking her for someone else," he said. 
 "You might easily she's got an air. But she's only 
 a governess. I'm on her track myself, so I know." 
 
 "We're talkin' of different girls," Vaux maintained ; 
 "I mean the girl in mournin', with big feathers in her 
 hat and a red hymn-book sittin' between two pretty 
 kids just under the pulpit." 
 
 "Kids in white I know what I'm talking about.
 
 238 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 Fine figure, loose curls on her forehead. Looks you 
 straight in the face splendid color and teeth." 
 
 "Well, she hadn't any particular color this morning, ' ' 
 Vaux returned; "but you needn't think she's a govern- 
 ess. You've got the wrong end of the story, old man. 
 She lived near us some time. I've hunted with her 
 heaps o' times. And she has a cool hundred thou." 
 
 Harold glanced at him intelligently. The mystery 
 was solved. Vaux's eagerness to renew his acquaint- 
 ance had explained itself Well, he had never sup- 
 posed it to have its origin in personal affection. 
 
 "I say," he said, getting up and facing Vaux, "you'll 
 be able to introduce me, you know." 
 
 Vaux, lounging on a magnificent divan in the 
 Turkish smoking-room, let his eyes travel slowly over 
 the man before him, climbing his five feet six till his 
 gaze reached the level of his handsome orbs. 
 
 "I shall be able to ?" he said. "Why, of course, if 
 you- want me to. ' ' 
 
 Stalking the High Street next morning in company 
 with Hickox, Vaux came face to face with Millicent 
 pushing the mail-cart, a golden-haired cherub cur- 
 veting beside her, a boy in a sailor-suit clinging to her 
 arm, and preceding them a big, black, mongrel bull- 
 dog. 
 
 Shame, surprise, and mortification flushed her face. 
 In her embarrassment she hesitated, as though uncer- 
 tain what to do. But Vaux decided for her. In the 
 moment his eyes rested on her he averted them. 
 There were in his look, recognition, deference to her 
 wish for concealment, deprecation of any curiosity on 
 his part to discover that she wished to conceal, and he 
 passed her without a sign. 
 
 Hickox, reading recognition in her face as from an 
 open book, already had his fingers at his hat-brim for 
 raising simultaneously with that of his companion. 
 
 "What the deuce ?" he blurted, letting his hand 
 drop. 
 
 "Oh ah," Vaux drawled, nonchalantly; "you were 
 right and I was wrong. It isn't the same girl. Deucedly 
 like her, though, till you get close up. ' '
 
 THE CULT OF SMARTNESS. 239 
 
 It was well done, and even Harold would have been 
 deceived had not the girl's face betrayed her. He 
 thrust forward, so that his companion could not fail to 
 notice it, a profile whereon an eloquent smile of 
 incredulity played. Vaux should see he wasn't any 
 sort of a country bumpkin. 
 
 "Beastly cad of a chap," reflected Vaux; "hasn't 
 the manners even to pretend to believe a chap when a 
 chap expects him to." 
 
 Two hours later he had taken leave of the Askew- 
 Hickox. 
 
 "You've given me no end of a time, Mrs. Askew- 
 Hickox," he said; "fairly rippin'. Seems as if I only 
 got here yesterday. You're awfully good no, thank 
 you; I should be charmed, but I've got to get on to 
 Lady Ashley's. Some other time, if you'll have me. 
 Hickox is comin' to us, you know, for some shootin' 
 and we'll talk it over then. Good-by, Miss Gwen- 
 dolen. Monstrous cruel of you to give me such a 
 dustin' down last night at billiards. Send you those 
 gloves next week. Six-and-a-half, eight buttons, 
 preferabty light colors ; I remember, you see ; written 
 on my heart. Good-by; thanks awfully. Send you 
 those flowers for the dance. Ta-ta, Hickox. Respects 
 to the guv'nor. See you the thirteenth." 
 
 He drove to Lady Ashley's. 
 
 "I say," he addressed that astonished lady, "I 
 thought I'd look you up, you know. I've just got over 
 that attack of mince-pies. If you could put me up for 
 the night, I'd be glad to see old Bert again." 
 
 "Why, bless me, if it isn't little Tom Vaux. Put 
 you up ! Why, you're a perfect godsend in this wilder- 
 ness. Bertie was only talking of you yesterday. Your 
 good mother never forgave me those mince-pies, you 
 know," she added, laughing; "though I didn't force 
 you to eat them. ' ' 
 
 "Beastly young pig I must have been. Wonder you 
 have the charity and that to let me inside the house. 
 Thanks awfully; I'd like to stop a day or two. How 
 bloomin' you look; thought you were your daughter, 
 'pon my honor."
 
 240 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "You know perfectly well I have no daughter. 
 Robbing, have Mr. Vaux's things carried to the blue- 
 room, and bring tea. ' ' 
 
 "Know it! I should think I did know it, otherwise 
 I shouldn't be the bachelor I am." 
 
 "Do you think I would let a daughter of mine marry 
 you, you bad man?" Lady Ashley cried, laughing; "I 
 have heard about you!"
 
 THE EX-HEIRESS. 241 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE EX-HEIRESS. 
 
 
 
 " Ah ! how good it feels 
 The hand of an old friend! " 
 
 Millicent was sitting in the schoolroom when he 
 called. The sight of him had brought back all her 
 troubles. Time and the routine of duty and her fond- 
 ness for the children had laid the groundwork of fresh 
 rootings ; but that sudden meeting had swept her back 
 among old memories. Step by step she had lived her 
 new life, stopping the mouths of pain and loss with 
 industries and duties. The path had been hard enough 
 indeed the path of domestic trial and infantile way- 
 wardness but she had trodden it bravely, and had 
 kept her impatiences and tempers well in curb. For I 
 cannot pretend that she was superior to either. 
 
 The restraints of Poplar Villa and of the nursery, 
 with its obligations to talk down to Robby's aspira- 
 tions. Ruby's prattle, and to satisfy the baby's 
 insatiable demands for superlatives descriptive of 
 "porter," fretted her. And the sight of Vaux had 
 brought back all she had lost. 
 
 If she could but have a day to herself, a whole day 
 wherein to unprison her pent feelings, and lay them 
 straight again on her mind's shelves; and she had 
 begun to hope them dead. Poor girl, strong emotions 
 die hard! 
 
 "I am afraid the children are too much for you," 
 Mrs. Barling said at lunch. "You have not been look- 
 ing at all well lately. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Oh, I am well, ' ' she maintained as cheerfully as 
 could be, "and the children are very good." 
 
 "Young Mr. Harold Hickox stared at her this morn- 
 ing, as if ' ' Robby paused, with his looks on Millicent' s 
 face, ' 'as if his eyes would drop out, mother. ' ' 
 16
 
 242 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 ' ' Ascox eyes dyop out, muvver, ' ' gurgled Ruby, out 
 of a mouthful of pudding. 
 
 "He is so handsome," Mrs. Kew-Barling said, 
 admiringly, ' 'and looks such a perfect gentleman. ' ' 
 
 Millicent mentally contrasted him as she had seen 
 him walking with Vaux, who had not one pretension to 
 looks, but every claim to breeding. She made no 
 remark, however. 
 
 "I will take out the elder children this afternoon, 
 and you shall have a few hours' quiet," Mrs. Barling 
 said, considerately. 
 
 So Millicent was sitting in the schoolroom, with a 
 bundle of letters, and an album of photographs before 
 her, when Parkins, with a flourish of her cap-strings, 
 proclaimed : 
 
 "Mr. Vox." 
 
 A minute later, both her hands were in his, she was 
 laughing and crying in the same breath, and had lifted 
 her face with a sudden impulse. She blushed, horri- 
 fied, when he stooped and kissed her. 
 
 "I was so glad," she excused herself in confusion, 
 but still laughing. ' ' I was so glad to see an old friend 
 again. ' ' 
 
 "You do me honor 'pon honor you do, "he said, 
 earnestly. 
 
 He loosed her hands, and placed a chair for her. 
 
 "Don't think another minute about it," he urged, 
 seeing her still blushing. "Why, what a beastly sort 
 o" world it would be if a woman didn't sometimes like 
 a chap well enough to show him she liked him a bit 
 better than she liked any Dick or Harry." 
 
 She laughed again. 
 
 "It is so good of you to come. It is so nice to see 
 you," she insisted. 
 
 "Oh, I wanted to come safe enough," he said; "you 
 gave us a cruel go-by, Miss Rivers. Scarcely said 
 you were goin' even, and left no address. I had no 
 end of a time discoverin' you." 
 
 "Did you see me yesterday with the children and 
 the mail-cart?" 
 
 "I thought it was you. Saw you in church on Sun-
 
 THE EX-HEIRESS. 243 
 
 day. I say, jolly pretty little kids you had with you. " 
 
 There was a pause. Millicent gathered the litter of 
 letters on the table into an orderly heap. 
 
 "Rippin' sort o' notion this, teachin' kids," Vaux 
 commented. "What made you think of it?" 
 
 Millicent blushed again. 
 
 "Oh, it is ridiculous to do the same thing year after 
 year. It's horribly unenterprising not to strike into 
 fresh fields. And people ought to work women ought 
 to work. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, I suppose we all ought to if it comes to that," 
 he assented; "but why don't a woman who wants to 
 teach kids teach kids of her own, you know?" 
 
 "That's a capital idea," Millicent laughed; "but 
 suppose she has none?" 
 
 Vaux caught the answer which had been on the tip 
 of his tongue in time. 
 
 "I won't say what I was goin' to," he said; "you 
 were always makin' a chap remember his P's and Q's. " 
 
 "I am seeing life," she acquainted him. "People 
 ought to have experiences, and see life, instead of 
 living forever in one restricted circle." 
 
 "I've seen life myself a bit," he said, slowly "not 
 this way exactly, though. I should have thought a 
 week would turn this sort of life inside out, as far as 
 experiences go if you ask me. ' ' 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "I don't, " she said. "I like to test things for myself. 
 And I have learned heaps I never knew before. ' ' 
 
 "Dates and geography and spellin' and that. I 
 knew them once when I was up at Eton; but knockin' 
 about soon takes school-books out of you. I say, you 
 could try a bit o' teachin' on me with advantage. I'm 
 what you may call fallow ground where education's 
 concerned. I'm not clever like you. " 
 
 "But it is not school knowledge I mean," she 
 insisted. "I mean facts of life, how people live and 
 feel. There are such numbers of things you never 
 find out when you only know, people with their best 
 clothes on."
 
 244 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Ah," he commented, astutely, "but they show 
 better in "em." 
 
 ' ' On the contrary. They are not half so nice. They ' re 
 often snobbish, and selfish, and vulgar." 
 
 Her visitor glanced round the room. 
 
 "I suppose here you only wear your best clothes on 
 Sundays?" he said. 
 
 "We're not rich, but we have refinement and nice 
 feeling nicer feeling and more refinement than 
 some people I could name, who would not be seen 
 bowing to us," she protested. "And," she added 
 whimsically, we put on our best frocks for Mrs. Askew- 
 Hickox. ' ' 
 
 "Good Lord!" he said, sympathetically, "you haven't 
 come so low as that?" 
 
 "We have indeed. We look up to Mrs. Askew- 
 Hickox as to a person of superior mold. We model 
 our bonnets on hers; we tremble lest she should 
 detect a hole in our gloves, or dropped stitches in our 
 manners. But we might as well attempt to propitiate 
 the moon for any effect we have on her." 
 
 "Why don't the missis I s'pose you call her the 
 missis that nice little woman you were at church 
 with and the rippin' little kids don't she know the 
 Hickoxs? Good Lord! why should anybody want to 
 know 'em? They're " He remembered recent 
 hospitalities, and, having old-fashioned views of 
 things, stopped short. "They're very decent sort o' 
 people," he concluded, somewhat lamely. 
 
 Millicent told him a few things. 
 
 "Good Lord!" he said again, "I thought these sort 
 o' people were all friendly and jolly together. Upper 
 middle-classes all on terms, lower middle-classes all 
 on terms, lower middle-classes hankerin' after upper 
 middle-classes, of course, upper middle-classes hank- 
 erin' after us, perhaps, a bit, but still all jolly 
 together." 
 
 Millicent told him more. 
 
 "I say," he said, "I like that little woman, you know. 
 Must have been charmin' lookin' before she took to 
 cryin.' She does cry a good deal, don't she? Looks
 
 THE EX-HEIRESS. 245 
 
 like it, anyhow. An' rippin' little kids! I'll bring 
 Lady Ashley to call to-morrow blest if I won't! She 
 hasn't a scrap o' nonsense about her, Lady Ashley 
 hasn't. And it'll be a reason for seein' you again. 
 Jolly bright scheme I call it." 
 
 Millicent cordially assenting, the subject changed. 
 
 "Now, tell me things about Roldermere, and Lady 
 Kershaw, and the major, and Alicia, and everybody. 
 It seems as though they were centuries ago." 
 
 "Why, you hear, don't you?" he queried, running 
 a quick eye over her face. 
 
 "Oh, I get letters," she said, wistfully. 
 
 "Well, Lady Kershaw has gone away went away 
 just after the weddin', gone to live with Lord Ker- 
 shaw, though she doesn't get on particularly with him. 
 Major's back again, of course, peggin' away in his 
 study. Alicia jolly as ever, peggin' away in her 
 dra win' -room. Keeps open house, chaps runnin' in 
 and out all da> no end of a time often there myself. 
 Wonder how Kershaw manages to find rhymes with 
 such a hubbub goin' on. Can't hear yourself speak 
 sometimes. I tell you, Alicia's goin' it! Kershaw's 
 givin' her too much rein. Don't do with Alicia's kind. 
 Lucky he made that pile over his last book. Nearly 
 twenty thou., Alicia told me herself. Hadn't a notion 
 poetry was such a payin' concern. Can't see much in 
 it myself, and so I told him." 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 "Oh, he didn't say anythin' remarkable," he 
 returned, eyeing the wistful pallor of her cheek with 
 some grudgingness. "I've never found Kershaw so 
 magnificent as some people seem to." 
 
 "I am glad he made money by his book," she said. 
 "I suppose he rides and takes life more easily now he 
 is better off?" 
 
 "Oh, I didn't say he was better off. Alicia is. He 
 don't seem to have much of the spendin' o' the money. 
 And he don't look as if he'd found Alicia all his fancy 
 painted her. She wasn't, of course, but it was a toss- 
 up whether he'd ever discover it." 
 
 "Doesn't he care for her?" Millicent began, eagerly.
 
 246 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 She caught herself up quickly. "Of course he cares 
 for her. You wouldn't have him spoon in public?" 
 
 "Oh, he's a superlative being, I know," he retorted, 
 savagely. ' ' E verythin ' he does is right, and no other 
 chap is fit to make shoe-leather for him." He got up 
 hurriedly. "I say," he said, "it must be gettin' late. 
 I must be goin', I'm afraid." 
 
 Millicent laid a hand on his arm. 
 
 "Don't be cross," she said. "You are so kind, 
 everybody is fond of you. But it is natural I should 
 like my cousin and admire him. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, it's natural enough," he said, gloomily. "He's 
 a fine chap, and handsome. I like him myself. And 
 I'm precious sorry for him. " 
 
 "Sorry! Why?" 
 
 "Oh, Alicia's rather kittle-cattle. And presently 
 he'll have to take the reins himself." 
 
 "And then things will be all right." 
 
 Vaux eyed her reflectively. 
 
 "She's rather kittle-cattle," he repeated. 
 
 "I say, " he said later, when he was going. "Couldn't 
 we be old friends again for a minute and say good-by 
 properly. It don't seem the right sort o' thing for me 
 to come in with a kiss, and go out with only a hand- 
 shake. Seems as if I'd lost ground, you know." 
 
 "Oh, you haven't," she laughed. "It was sheer joy 
 at seeing you and absence of mind. I am quite 
 ashamed of myself. I don't know what you must 
 think of me. v 
 
 "Yes, you know what I think of you," he said, 
 seriously. "But I shall come again to-morrow and 
 bring Lady Ashley. And tell the little woman she 
 needn't trouble to put on her best frock. She won't 
 be as shabby as Lady Ashley, I'll be bound, whatever 
 she wears. ' ' 
 
 Millicent smiled. "I will tell her." 
 
 He held her hand a moment. "When I come to 
 morrow," he said, looking into her eyes, "I shall want 
 to see you five minutes alone. I have somethin' to 
 say. You will have to-night to think it over. ' ' 
 
 He was gone. But he came back.
 
 THE EX-HEIRESS. 247 
 
 "Oh, I say," he said, diffidently, "you don't mind 
 me askin', but it struck me you're perhaps not mas- 
 quer adin', but maybe have lost money or somethin' 
 and had to take to governessin', not from choice, you 
 know?" 
 
 "No," she assured him. "I have not lost money." 
 
 He seemed relieved. "That's all right," he said. 
 "Then what I've got to say will keep till to-morrow." 
 
 As he mounted his horse, Mrs. Askew-Hickox 
 flashed past in all the smartness of a fresh fine toilette. 
 She bowed and smiled with rare effusiveness. But 
 her cordiality was lost. He was in a brown study. 
 
 "Of all the devoted fools," he was muttering, "and 
 you have only a beggarly six hundred a year, and are 
 up to your eyes in debt a month before each quarter- 
 day. And she might have lost every penny of her 
 money and you might have played Don Quixote. The 
 gods are better to some fools than some fools deserve. " 
 
 "He's keeping her for himself," Mrs. Askew- 
 Hickox, noting his face, reflected. She doffed the 
 smile he had not profited by. 
 
 "Over a hundred thousand and a governess! and 
 she must be all right, or he wouldn't think of her. 
 There's something queer though. Harold must go 
 slowly. There are other girls with money for a man 
 of his looks. ' ' 
 
 She paused in her calculations to bestow her very 
 smallest smile upon the doctor's wife the wrong 
 doctor's wife who just then passed in her husband's 
 phaeton. That worthy woman took the grudging 
 good the goddess gave her thankfully. She was a 
 bundle of sweet-smelling, homely virtues, spending her 
 life in simple services and cheery kindlinesses; but 
 she harbored that weakness for the meretricious which 
 is the undoing of her sex and she worshiped smart- 
 ness from afar off. She was proud to be smiled at, 
 never so meagrely, by a person turned out as costum- 
 ers, milliners, coachbuilders, and horse-breeders 
 turned out Mrs. Askew-Hickox. She laid in tribute at 
 the feet beneath the handsome crested rug, a defer- 
 ential smile of gratitude, and went her shabby human
 
 248 WOMAN AND TH E SHADOW. 
 
 way rejoicing, for no better reason than that a Parisian 
 bonnet had bent the fraction of an inch in her direc- 
 tion. Poor, good, stupid heart! as though one whole- 
 some, human impulse were not worth a thousand social 
 artifices ! 
 
 When Lady Ashley's carriage rolled next afternoon 
 into the quiet road where Poplar Villa stood, Mrs. 
 Malcolm had opened her windows, and, one compre- 
 hensive sweep of her shrewd eyes up and down the 
 street showing her the coast clear, had thrust out a 
 watering-can, and was about to sprinkle the parched 
 flowers of her window-boxes. 
 
 For the first time on record the correct-minded one 
 had failed in his appointed duty ; and, after some hours' 
 conflict with the conventions and the humanities, for 
 the day was hot and dusty, and the marguerites and 
 pink geraniums paled and flagged, the humanities had 
 got the better of the conventions. 
 
 She was a woman of considerable independence, but 
 she was not prepared to be seen watering the plants of 
 window-boxes in the eye of the public street. And 
 she knew too much of the idiosyncrasies of plants and 
 ways of parlor-maids to intrust the welfare of the one 
 to the ministrations of the other. 
 
 So, choosing an hour when the road was quiet, she 
 cautiously lifted a window, and, armed with her 
 watering-can, proceeded to slake the floral thirst. 
 
 Then carriage-wheels sounded at the top of the road 
 and warned her of an approach. She had only time 
 enough to withdraw her arm when the well-known 
 cockaded, shabby hat of Lady Ashley's coachman rolled 
 into view. 
 
 He was preparing to pull up. 
 
 "I shall say 'not at home,'" she decided, firmly. 
 "She was here on Tuesday. I cannot have her calling 
 twice in one week, upsetting all my plans. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm, having nothing in the world to do, 
 invariably made elaborate plans for doing this. And 
 that afternoon she was having a swing erected in the 
 garden, greatly to the exasperation of the correct- 
 minded one.
 
 THE EX-HEIRESS. 249 
 
 "Ef you're a-goin' to swing yerself over that there 
 lawn I've put so much into," he said, with the familiar 
 aggressiveness of invaluable gardeners, "I'll lay you 
 there'll be a patch o' bareness six feet long in that 
 there turf afore a fortnit's out. There ain't nothink 
 cuts a lawn up so as swings nasty, sickly sort o' 
 things I call 'em turnin' a person's vittles upsydown." 
 
 "I shall not swing," Mrs. Malcolm insisted with 
 dignity, and stalked into the house. 
 
 "I don't wonder you're ashamed o' it at your time o' 
 life," Snagg apostrophized her, with the peculiar 
 malignity inseparable from superior gardening; "buu 
 you needn't tell me you're puttin' up a expensive 
 noosance of a swing only for the express puppus o' not 
 swingin' on it, becos you're not that sort. 
 
 ' ' Oh, no, ' ' he persisted, shaking his head sardonically 
 above a shovelful of stuff he had just flung upon a 
 barrow, and speaking with withering significance. "I 
 tell you straight she ain't, and never 'as bin, not as 
 long as I've know'd her and that's a while not 
 anyways that sort. " 
 
 He filled the barrow with mold from one spot in 
 order to empty it upon some other, after the devious 
 and inexplicible ways of gardeners. Having emptied 
 and spread it to his satisfaction, and wheeled the bar- 
 row to a third spot in order to abstract mold therefrom 
 for the replenishing of the first spot, he began again 
 as though the thought reverberated. 
 
 "You ain't that sort," he muttered, raising his 
 gnarled stature out of the opulence of beauty he spent 
 his life in nurturing. "You ain't that sort, and," as 
 though dismissing the human race in a final maledic- 
 tion, "I ain't never seen nobody yet that was!" 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. Malcolm fluttered into the house. 
 
 "To be suspected of such a thing, " she cried indig- 
 nantly. "Me swing! Why, I shall be suspected of 
 bicycling next ! I have a good mind to countermand 
 the thing, because, no doubt, as he says, it will pull up 
 the lawn, though goodness knows what is to be done 
 with those children if they make up their minds some 
 fine day to climb over the fence. One must protect
 
 250 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 the flowers! They might be tempted by the swing. 
 Otherwise, they might not even leave a marigold. 
 One is absolutely at their mercy. " 
 
 She stood looking from the window at the gardener 
 wheeling mold. 
 
 "Now I wonder what Snagg is muttering about and 
 going on so for? I suppose it is rather hard on him 
 to cut his lawn up. ' ' (Nobody ever regards his horti- 
 cultural possessions as belonging to any but his 
 gardener.) "Hodgson shall give him some cold meat 
 and ale. He is very hard-working, poor man. " 
 
 She rang the bell and issued orders. She felt 
 relieved to see him lift his head, surlily, listen to the 
 parlor-maid's message stonily, and finally, after some 
 persuasion, fling down his shovel savagely, like a man 
 compelled against his will, and follow her into the 
 house, wiping his lips as he went. 
 
 "He does seem put about," she reflected; "but he 
 would have been still more put about to come some 
 day and find not a blossom standing in the garden. 
 That little girl has impudence enough for anything, 
 and conscience if she has any conscience worth 
 speaking of, I'm a Dutchwoman." 
 
 She did not look at all unlike one, standing, placid 
 and round and comfortable, in the sunlight of the 
 window. She cast a wistful eye along the fence. 
 
 "Of course I shouldn't think of calling," she said, 
 firmly. 
 
 The afternoon whereon the swing was to be inaugu- 
 rated had arrived, and here was Lady Ashley also 
 arriving a second time within the week. 
 
 She crossed the room to acquaint the maid that she 
 was out. 
 
 "I cannot have my arrangements so upset," she 
 insisted, trying to conceal from herself that her only 
 arrangement was the propitiation of the next-door 
 children by this lure of gaily-painted poles with scarlet 
 ropes and tassels, swinging a gilded-cushioned boat 
 with seats for two. Who, with the breath of childhood 
 in his nostrils, or any scent for sport, could fail to 
 answer to it?
 
 THE EX-HEIRESS 251 
 
 "Why, good gracious, if she hasn't stopped next 
 door," she exclaimed. "Simcox must be drunk. No, 
 Lady Ashley nods up .to my flower-boxes, and sends 
 the footman up the steps of Poplar Villa. Well, if 
 this is not astonishing. ' ' 
 
 The footman returned with a note. He delivered it 
 to a thin, distinguished-looking man by Lady Ashley's 
 side. He, opening it, showed signs of disappoint- 
 ment, and, after a minute 's conversation, Lady Ashley 
 nodded instructions to the man, and they drove off. 
 
 As they disappeared through the far gate of the 
 drive, another carriage entered by the near. 
 
 "The doctor again," Mrs. Malcolm commented. 
 
 "That's the second time to-day. Somebody must 
 be ill. " Her heart went down into her boots. She 
 dropped suddenly into a chair. 
 
 A man was coming up the drive, trundling a hand- 
 cart. On it were piled a couple of iron poles, gaily 
 painted, with gilded knobs and tripod stanchions. 
 Before these lay a cushioned car, with scarlet rails and 
 seats for two. 
 
 ' ' I should be sorry if anything happened to that little 
 girl, ' ' Mrs. Malcolm murmured faintly. 
 
 She decided that it was probably only measles. 
 
 She could not keep her mind from furnishing unwel- 
 come examples of cases of measles which had ended 
 fatally. She forgot that her tea had been standing 
 more than three minutes. 
 
 "Why, what nonsense," she expostulated with her- 
 self, pacing up and down the room; "it may be merely 
 a cold or a bilious attack. ' ' 
 
 "One might send a message," she said presently; 
 "it would be only civil. " 
 
 But she was of a lymphatic temperament and obsti- 
 nate. She sent no message. 
 
 She drank her tea, and did not even remark the 
 tannin roughness she considered ruinous to digestion. 
 
 "If I had called," she said, "I might have sent in 
 some of that champagne-cream cook does so well. 
 Children like sweets, and it is very sustaining. ' '
 
 252 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 She began to cry. Her placid face broke out of its 
 composure, all its smooth surface suddenly wet. 
 
 "Mrs. Barling might have let her come to tea," she 
 fretted. "I should have liked to kiss her little face. " 
 
 For composure she went into the garden. The man 
 with the swing and the gardener were at high words. 
 The man with the swing, recognizing himself as no 
 match for the gardener, was emphasizing words 
 comparison told him were odiously weak by hammering 
 at intervals with his mallet on the iron stanchions. 
 
 As she proceeded to make peace, a white, perturbed 
 face was thrust above the fence. 
 
 "For God's sake, madam," Mr. Barling said, with 
 the fierceness of grief, "keep those men of yours quiet. 
 My wife is dangerously ill. "
 
 SICKNESS AT POPLAR VILLA. 253 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 SICKNESS AT POPLAR VILLA. 
 
 "Oho! my washing's begun, 
 
 I wish, and I wish, and I wish it were done." 
 
 For some weeks past Mrs. Barling had not been feel- 
 ing well. Indeed, she could scarcely remember back 
 so long as to recall the time when to live had held any 
 element of pleasure. There were so many things that 
 needed to be done, so many duties, anxieties, and 
 necessities to face when night turned on its inexorable 
 hinge and opened up another day, that the gray light 
 stealing through the drawn blinds smote her faint and 
 sick, lest that day had come when she would go down 
 in the battle of Appearances. She would cower, 
 shivering before the light as before some oncoming 
 foe, holding her breath the while it marshaled against 
 her its legion obligations, inexorable, multifold. This 
 and this and this, till she was sick and dizzy with 
 the tale of them, and with the fret of them, and with 
 the dust of them, and with -the tire of devising ways 
 of meeting or even of evading them; for she had 
 reached that stage of brain and tissue languor when 
 the will surrenders to the laxity of spent nerves, sanc- 
 tioning and condoning scamped or neglected work. 
 And then her conscience, rooted in emotions which, as 
 mind and will nagged, grew ever more turbulent, sat 
 in nightmare judgment on her. Yesterday, for the 
 first Wednesday in the history of Poplar Villa, she had 
 omitted to wash the Worcester, had paid the butcher's 
 bill without adding up each page of figures, had 
 pulled the corner of a rug over a rent she should have 
 mended in the dining-room carpet. Last night she 
 had answered Kew ill temperedly, and he, poor fellow, 
 had so much to bear all day in that odious city, that he 
 might well expect gentleness and patience at home.
 
 254 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 Or she remembered with guilty tremors that she had 
 given away a frock of Ruby's for no better reason 
 than that its presence in a drawer upstairs pricked her 
 with perpetual reminders that a little cutting down 
 would fashion it into a nice winter suit for baby. At 
 the time, she had told herself it was a charity to give 
 it to the charwoman for her little grandchild ; but in 
 the watches of the night, face to face with her accusing 
 conscience, her true motive asserted itself in such dis- 
 torted guise and damning color that she moaned for 
 the mercy of forgetfulness. 
 
 She had got into a way of waking early, and in the 
 gray of dawn the anxious mind sees spectres. 
 
 Four more months had passed, and nobody had 
 called. Nobody would call now. All her cares had 
 been for nothing. The handsome tea-cloth and 
 cosey, into which she had worked so many hopes and 
 dear ambitions, showed signs of moth when last she 
 had unfolded them. Seeing these, she had sat down 
 drearily with her cheek against the iron of the bed-rail ; 
 for had not the moth got also into her life? She shook 
 her treasures out with rueful hands, and passed them 
 on to Parkins for every-day use. Somebody beside 
 the moths might as well get the benefit of them! 
 She decided wearily that she must work another set. 
 But a week had passed and she had not even bought 
 materials. She was appalled by that in herself which 
 had suffered her to let a week elapse without having 
 bought materials. Did it mean that she had wholly 
 abandoned hope? Did it mean that she had resigned 
 herself to the inevitable and that inevitable, Wink- 
 worth's excommunication the world's proscription? 
 No, no, it could never be that life could never be so 
 cruel ! Somebody would surely call. And then in the 
 dawn a chasm yawned before her the chasm of a 
 domestic dishonor of possessing no better cosey and 
 cloth to set before a visitor than one moth-nibbled 
 along a border, and stained with a mark where Ruby 
 had turned her mug of milk over it. 
 
 She wondered why Mrs. Malcolm invited the chil- 
 dren to tea. Was it really a friendly advance? or did
 
 SICKNESS AT POPLAR VILLA. 255 
 
 it mean that, though she had no intention of knowing 
 the parents, she was willing to patronize the children? 
 She was glad she had written as she did. Yet it 
 would have been pleasant for Robby and Ruby to go 
 sometimes to a little party like other children. And 
 Mrs. Malcolm looked kind, though one could see by 
 the air with which she walked about her garden that 
 she thought a good deal of herself. It had been nice 
 of her to return the hyacinths, and to ask that Ruby 
 should not be punished. Ruby was already the occu- 
 pant of a corner fenced in by a chair when the message 
 arrived, and Mrs. Barling had immediately and con- 
 scientiously released her, telling her it was Mrs. Mal- 
 colm's wish. 
 
 "Yuby stick her wiv a knife one two free, "was 
 all the thanks that lady got and this with a most vin- 
 dictive action of the hands and Robby 's pencil-case. 
 
 Mrs. Barling smiled faintly, recalling the rosy, 
 invincible face. 
 
 "I had some spirit once, " she said, turning a wan 
 cheek restlessly upon the pillow. 
 
 Then she reverted to her spectre-grappling. 
 
 She would like to get away for a change, never so 
 slight a change from the carking routine of Poplar 
 Villa, with its stocking-mending, towel-marking, china- 
 washing, butchers' bills, and cold muttons; its ever 
 recurring breakfasts, dinners, and teas, and the end- 
 less considerations and vigilances subtending these. 
 She could cope with them when she had been stronger. 
 But now! Oh, she would like to get away! Yet there 
 was little enough chance of that. Kew had been doing 
 fairly of late, but he had launched upon some specu- 
 lations, and there would be no returns till autumn, so 
 that the children and she would have to do without a 
 change this year. She sat up quietly in bed and faced 
 it a careworn little woman, hollow-eyed for want of 
 sleep, thin and harassed, with the faded cloud of that 
 which had been golden hair around her, a pretty 
 embroidered frill about her wasted throat. She 
 searched into the shadows of the drab dawn for an 
 answer to her question. Then she shuddered softly
 
 256 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 down again upon her pillow, shaken with sobs. No ; 
 she could never keep up till next year. She knew it 
 all at once. She knew it to a certainty. Oh ! but she 
 could never leave them she could never leave them 
 Kew and Robby and Ruby and the Baby ; her Kew, 
 her Robby, her Ruby, her Baby! Dear God! dear, 
 merciful God! don't take her away from them, don't 
 take her away! Who would mend for them, and make 
 for them, and think for them as she had done ? Who 
 could care for them as she had done? And yet it had 
 all been to no purpose ; she had not advanced them 
 one whit. For all Kew 's industry, and sterling worth, 
 and handsomeness ; for all her children 's beauty and 
 intelligence; for all the refinements and daintinesses 
 she had gathered into her home, her dear ones were 
 but outsiders, unrecognized, ostracized, as isolated as 
 though they had been criminals or lepers. What a 
 mistake it had been, this immigration to Winkworth, 
 entered on with such high hopes, sustained by dint of 
 so much toil and health-wreckage. She could see now 
 what a mistake it had been. And yet she could have 
 borne the toil had there not been the added miseries 
 of disappointment, the daily thwarted hope that some- 
 body would call to see her pretty home and children, 
 and leave her menkind's cards for Kew. It seemed as 
 though she had been silently burying black days ever 
 since they came to Winkworth, and each day the coffin 
 of a hope. 
 
 The melancholy baby, dreaming of oceanic wonders, 
 gurgled ecstatically in his sleep, and pushed his soft 
 limbs against her. On the further side of him, locked 
 in the stupor of dog-tiredness, Kew lay for after that 
 fashion which has been termed the "hugger-mugger" 
 of middle-class marriage, Mrs. Kew-Barling did not 
 enjoy the luxury of a bedroom to herself a luxury 
 which is the first of all essentials to those who would 
 preserve the reticences and restraints, the delicacies 
 and mysteries, lying at the root of love. She drew a 
 hand, tender and light as a snowflake, though neither 
 white nor delicate, adown the velvet softness of the 
 baby-limbs. How she loved it! how she loved it!
 
 SICKNESS AT POPLAR VILLA. 257 
 
 Its poor sickliness and melancholy only knit her closer 
 to it. It needed her so pitifully. For hours it would 
 set crooning in her lap, apathetic, but content as long- 
 as she were with it. 
 
 Robby and Ruby, thank God! were sturdier and 
 stronger; they would do well enough. But baby, with 
 his weak digestion and limp limbs, who would see 
 scrupulously to his food, who would bathe and rub 
 his curving bones when when what? 
 
 She was growing hysterical! When she had been 
 eighteen and sentimental she had given way to silly 
 fancyings of an early death, of lying in her coffin 
 maybe in her bridal robes, with her hair let down 
 about her shoulders, a smile on her waxen face, and 
 flowers at her breast. Heavens! how different life 
 was from a girl 's imaginings. There was little enough 
 room in real life for such flimsy sentimentalities. If 
 she were lying in her coffin, baby would probably be 
 drawing sour milk into his poor irritable stomach. 
 That was a consideration to drive whimsies and self- 
 pity from a woman 's heart. If she were in her coffin 
 who would see that Kew put on his winter vests before 
 November, or that he had shoes at the office to change 
 on wet days? No, truly ! At eighteen she might have 
 died with a clear conscience, and as many hysterical 
 imaginings as pleased her. Now she had no right. 
 Tired? She was tired; but a person must not sleep 
 for no better reason than tire while her day's work 
 was still undone. 
 
 She would set about that winter frock for the little 
 fellow this very morning. There was a remnant of 
 stuff she had bought for a bodice which would make 
 him a pretty, warm suit. 
 
 She would not tell Kew how the milkman had been 
 setting down a pint more milk daily than they had 
 had. It would only vex him, and he had more than 
 enough to vex him. She would go herself to the dairy 
 and get it put right. Kew's boots needed soling and 
 heeling. There was a grease spot on the shoulder of 
 his new light overcoat. The last bottle of benzine 
 had been thrown away by mistake, though it had been
 
 258 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 half full. How careless servants were ! Well, on her 
 way back from the dairy she would call in at the chem- 
 ist 's for another bottle. She must look to the lamps. 
 Another chimney broke last evening in the midst of 
 dinner, and Kew had been cross. He had said the 
 burner must be dirty, and why couldn't those idle 
 maids 'or somebody see to things properly. She 
 would look to the burner herself. 
 
 Two of Kew 's handkerchiefs were missing when the 
 laundry things came home. She must remember to 
 speak of it. She wondered if last spring's bonnet 
 would supply materials enough to make one for the 
 coming spring. She could iron out that gauze and 
 quill it up like that in the bonnet Mrs. Askew-Hickox 
 wore oil Sunday. Now, how in the world was it done? 
 She had meant to remember. She had remembered 
 yesterday. It was simple enough and so very stylish 
 if only she could remember how to do it. It went 
 in and out here and back again there. No, that was 
 wrong. It was pleated to one side, and gathered into 
 a knot high up. Heavens ! how her head ached. If 
 only she could sleep. It was these early morning 
 wakings that were wrecking her. Oh, yes, it was 
 simple enough, the second pleat folded over the first 
 and the third. Now, how was the third done? The 
 third went this way across the second, and was caught 
 up like oh, spare her! spare her! Heavens! what 
 did it matter what did it matter? She would do 
 without bonnet for the remainder of her life if only 
 she could sleep a little. 
 
 Thank God, weariness, somnolence, slee But the 
 baby woke. He stroked a languid hand caressingly 
 across her fevered cheek. "Mummy, " he murmured. 
 
 She woke with a start, and having hushed him to 
 silence, began again upon the folding of that gauze. 
 
 There were great wide ways of thought in the 
 world, great books, great music, mountains, meadows, 
 and green forests, whence a tired mind might draw 
 refreshment ; but in the meantime dust would settle 
 on the sideboard, moths start nibbling the curtains, 
 and Mrs. Askew-Hickox cry fie! upon a bonnet six
 
 SICKNESS AT POPLAR VILLA. 259 
 
 months out of fashion. So Mrs. Barling, having kept 
 the baby quiet for an hour, in order that Kew might 
 sleep his sleep out, got up presently with the lead lids 
 and hot, dry cheeks of wakefulness to iron out and 
 quill that gauze and wash the Worcester. 
 
 Till one morning when Kew woke, she said, faintly : 
 
 "I think I shall breakfast in bed, dear. My throat 
 is a little sore and my limbs ache. ' ' 
 
 "It's that confounded gardening," he broke out, 
 fiercely, with a sudden cramp at his heart for some- 
 thing he saw in her face. "I told you you would take 
 cold last night. " 
 
 "Don't scold me," she said, piteously. "I shall 
 soon be better. But I couldn't leave that sweet-pea 
 bed choked with weeds right in front of the drawing- 
 room window. " * 
 
 "Somebody might call," he said, sardonically. He 
 was not in good temper, having heard rumors the 
 previous evening of the most hopeful of his specula- 
 tions, and having spent part of the night deliberating 
 whether it would not be wiser to sell out. 
 
 "I scarcely think so now, dear," Mrs. Kew-Barling 
 said, pathetically, hiding the wetness of her eyes in 
 the sleeve of her bedgown. 
 
 Kew brought up her breakfast himself. "There's a 
 letter for you," he said, cheerily. "And NovaScotias 
 have risen. We may get to the sea after all. Why, 
 Molly, Molly, little woman, you've never turned 
 against your tea. I poured it out myself," he added, 
 somewhat shamefacedly; for, after all, it might be 
 nothing more than a cold, and sentiment and fussing 
 were not his forte. 
 
 "Oh, I will drink it presently," she faltered. "My 
 throat hurts less already. I will drink it presently. 
 How nice of you to pour it out." 
 
 "If I have time," he said, later, coming in with his 
 bag in his hand and his hat on, "I will try and get you 
 some grapes. Or is there anything else you would 
 like?" 
 
 "Don't bother if you are busy," she said, hoarsely, 
 "I am better already."
 
 260 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Well, good-by, " he said, eyeing her guiltily. 
 "Mind you take care. Oh, and I think I'll call in on 
 Barnby and ask him to see you." Then he was 
 gone. 
 
 "Oh, I should have liked to kiss him," she cried, 
 out of the raw misery of her galled emotions, "only I 
 don't want him to get a bad throat. " 
 
 It was twelve before Barnby called. 
 
 "Why, what have you been doing with yourself?" 
 he remonstrated. "You've lost pounds since I last 
 saw you. ' ' 
 
 After he had examined her throat his manner 
 became markedly cheerful. He smiled and rubbed his 
 hands encouragingly, and beamed. 
 
 "Get up?" he echoed. "Oh, you had better stop in 
 bed a day or two and get your strength up. But keep 
 the youngsters away, throats have a way of being 
 catching, and you don't want them laid by." 
 
 There was nothing cheerful in his manner by the 
 time he reached the hall. 
 
 "Are you in charge?" he questioned Millicent. "I 
 think you should send for her mother, or some relative 
 older than you. And for goodness' sake keep the chil- 
 dren from her. It's a bad diphtheria. I shall wire for 
 a couple of nurses," he said; "she must not be left 
 day or night." 
 
 "I should like to do the day-nursing, " Millicent said. 
 
 "Well, I think you might," he said, observing her, 
 "if you take care to do as I say. She's a timid little 
 woman, and it might frighten her to have only stran- 
 gers about her. But you must send the children away ; 
 you must not go to the children from her room. " 
 
 "There is nowhere to send them," she demurred. 
 
 "Why, isn't there a friend or a neighbor with no 
 children who would take them?" 
 
 "No," the governess retorted, savagely. 
 
 "Who lives next door? It is only common human- 
 ity. Are there children there? Oh, Mrs. Malcolm. 
 I've met her. No, I scarcely think she would do. 
 Well, we must see what Barling says when he comes 
 home. I shall call in the evening. ' '
 
 SICKNESS AT POPLAR VILLA. 261 
 
 Millicent sat down in the drawing-room for a min- 
 ute's deliberation. She had never faced illness wherein 
 she had any responsibility. Now it seemed as though 
 the responsibility of the household were to be all at 
 once shifted to her inexperienced shoulders. 
 
 She wrote a hurried note for Vaux when he should 
 call. It would be better not to see him. She remem- 
 bered the tone in which he had spoken of something 
 he had to say to her. It had made her uneasy. It 
 would though she was fond of him be rather a relief 
 to escape the tte-a-tete he sought. Perhaps he had 
 mistaken her stupid absent-mindedness, she reflected, 
 with some abasement. 
 
 "Why, Punch, old man, what is it?" 
 
 Punch was sitting a yard away from her, whining 
 uneasily, his eyes fixed on her face like two black 
 glittering questions. There was searching interroga- 
 tion in every furrow of his ugly visage. She sat star- 
 ing at him. The intelligent solicitude of him seemed 
 uncanny. 
 
 "How did you know?" she questioned, as one human 
 of another. 
 
 He lifted his great, uncouth muzzle and gave a dis- 
 mal howl. The shrill of desolation in it set her nerves 
 on edge. 
 
 "No, no," she cried, recalling the tradition of a 
 dog's howl, and appealing to that in him which seemed 
 a higher sense, "it is never that. It can never end 
 like that." 
 
 The dog is more fortunate than man in that he has 
 no possibility of unbelief and irreligion. His God is 
 before him in the flesh. He is privileged by his 
 caresses. He may lick the hand and lie at the feet of 
 this omnipotent Arbiter of his destiny, in whose power 
 not only well-being, health, and happiness, but even 
 existence, lie. His God, it may be, rules him with a 
 whip, or with kicks and curses, but he is none the less 
 his God, the Great Omnipotence, at whose heels he 
 humbly follows, whose nod is law, whose company is 
 food and fire and home, for whose behest he forsakes 
 kith and kin to follow through a life's vicissitudes;
 
 262 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 who may tie a brick about his neck and put out all he 
 knows of life. The dog is happier than the man, for 
 he loves much, and judges not at all ! 
 
 Punch had never been lavish of attention to the 
 mistress of the house Robby had been his lord ; but 
 during her illness he scarcely quitted her door, only 
 occasionally leaving it to sniff round her accustomed 
 chair in the dining-room, and trot restlessly about the 
 house. 
 
 "You mustn't come in," Millicent admonished him, 
 when he had followed her upstairs. He looked wist- 
 fully beyond her through the half -opened door; but 
 he wagged an obedient, dejected tail, and stretched 
 himself outside. * 
 
 Kew came home early, with the grapes and sundry 
 pots of beef essence and a packet of super-excellent 
 tea in his bag. His strong face blenched when the 
 door was opened to him by a uniformed nurse. At 
 the same moment another nurse crossed the hall, and 
 passed upstairs. 
 
 "Is it as bad as that?" he faltered. 
 
 "It is diphtheria. Dr. Barnby wired for us, "the 
 nurse responded, with the serious cheerfulness of her 
 profession. 
 
 He set down his bag in the hall, and hung up his 
 hat. He went upstairs, with an unwonted trembling 
 at the knees. The house smelt strongly of disinfect- 
 ants. Outside her door a wet sheet hung, a corner of 
 it in a basin of fluid. 
 
 "Good God!" he said, and wiped a sudden moisture 
 from his face. 
 
 Punch rose heavily and without a tail-wag to stare 
 up blankly at him. "This is a bad business, master," 
 he appeared to say. 
 
 Mr. Barling having replaced his handkerchief and 
 moistened his mouth, lifted the sheet and went in. 
 She was lying half asleep, breathing rapidly. Round 
 her eyes were leaden shadows ; beneath them two hot 
 fever flushes. The dry lids lifted in a gleam of recog- 
 nition. She advanced a thin faint hand along the 
 counterpane in his direction. Then she lifted it in
 
 SICKNESS AT POPLAR VILLA. 263 
 
 sudden apprehension, warning him off. She turned 
 her face away. 
 
 "Go, dear," she cried, hoarsely. "Don't come near 
 me, Kew. It is diphtheria. " 
 
 He strode across to her, and laid a strong, compas- 
 sionate hand on hers. 
 
 "Do you think ?" he said, gravely, and stopped 
 short. 
 
 Their eyes met in one supreme moment. Domestic 
 differences and all the petty, cares and trivialities 
 dividing them as by a prickly-hedge were thrust aside. 
 
 He stooped and kissed her. 
 
 "Oh, Kew, " was all she said, but she could scarcely 
 have said more. 
 
 Were it not that death and tragedy arise at inter- 
 vals to rip us out of the little conventional satchels 
 into which custom is forever stitching us, our souls 
 and all the best in us would stifle. 
 
 "Heavens!" he said, later, thinking it over com- 
 punctiously, "I hadn't kissed her for a week. I am 
 forgetting how to be a man, and getting to be a mere 
 confounded stockbroker ! " 
 
 He mounted the nursery stairs. Before a door was 
 stretched another sheet. 
 
 "Why, there's nothing wrong here, is there?" he 
 demanded. 
 
 Millicent sat there reading to the children. She 
 shook her head. 
 
 "I thought if the carbolic sheet would keep germs 
 from getting out of the sick-room, " she said, practi- 
 cally, "it might keep them from getting in here. And 
 it was something to do. " 
 
 Ruby trotted to him. 
 
 "Yuby's mammy's ill," she said, shaking her curls. 
 "Poo-er Yuby. Gif her a penny. " 
 
 "I say, father!" Robby insisted, "isn't Punch to 
 come away from mother's door? He won't even go 
 for a walk. ' ' 
 
 "How will you make him?" Mr. Barling queried. 
 
 "Beat him," Robby retorted, viciously; "it's sick- 
 ening up here without anything to do. "
 
 264 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "I can scarcely keep them out of Mrs. Barling's 
 room," Millicent said. "Dr. Barnby thought they 
 ought to go away. " 
 
 Mr. Barling shook his head. ' ' It is out of the ques- 
 tion."
 
 'MAKKLE LUM." 265 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 "MAKKLE LUM." 
 
 "Lord when sought we out the children that did languish? 
 
 When put forth the hand to make their burdens light? 
 Lord,' we wist not when they lay on beds of anguish, 
 
 And we slept throughout the watches of the night" 
 
 Barnby looked grave next morning. "She doesn't 
 seem to have an ounce of stamina, " he told the nurse. 
 He came three times that day. 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm, standing by the window, saw him 
 leave the second time. 
 
 "It is really serious, " she reflected, noting his face. 
 She watched the carriage roll out of the drive. "I 
 liked that man for his rudeness yesterday," she said, 
 and rang the bell. 
 
 ' ' Mrs. Malcolm 's compliments, ' ' she instructed the 
 parlor-maid, "and she would like to know how Mrs. 
 Kew- Barling is this morning. " 
 
 The answer was grave. Mrs. Kew-Barling was very 
 ill. There were two nurses. Mr. Kew-Barling had 
 not been to business that day. The doctor was to call 
 again. 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm slipped a key from the chatelaine at 
 her waist. 
 
 "Put out a bottle of the best champagne," she 
 said; "and tell cook to make a mold of champagne- 
 cream as soon as possible, and send it in to Poplar 
 Villa the moment it is ready. " 
 
 "That little girl would not be a good subject for 
 diphtheria, ' ' she said, with three uncomfortable 
 creases in her forehead. "It is monstrous not to send 
 her away." 
 
 Not long after, the governess and children with the 
 mail-cart started for their customary walk. They wore 
 a very dejected aspect. Ruby was without her gloves.
 
 266 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Perhaps after all they are going away, " Mrs. Mal- 
 colm said. She felt a sudden sense of shame. "Well, 
 it's too late now," she consoled herself, "but it would 
 have been easy enough for me to take them. If I 
 didn't want to be bothered, there is the whole upper 
 floor they could have had. " 
 
 But the doleful little train returned within an hour. 
 Ruby clutched a bunch of faded dandelions in her 
 hand, her rosy face set soberly. 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm's heart gave a little leap, seeing them 
 return. "They must have relatives or somebody to 
 send them to if it were necessary. I suppose it isn 't. 
 Why, bless the child! does she suppose a sick woman 
 could stand the smell of dandelions; for I'll be bound 
 that's what she intends?" 
 
 In her concern she tapped the window pane, and 
 signaled. Ruby, looking up, assumed her fiercest 
 frown, and made three violent dabs in her direction 
 with her gloveless fist. 
 
 "The impudent minx!" Mrs. Malcolm muttered, 
 breathlessly. ' ' Not one scrap of decent feeling in her 
 whole body! Did anyone ever know such a thing? 
 And with her mother lying seriously ill. She wants 
 slapping, that 's what she wants badly. ' ' 
 
 When the champagne-cream had been dispatched 
 with Mrs. Malcolm's card and compliments, news 
 came back that Mrs. Barling was no better, that there 
 was a skin like wash-leather in her throat, and that 
 when it reached a certain depth, she would die of 
 suffocation. 
 
 "Gracious!" Mrs. Malcolm snorted to this informa- 
 tion of Hodgson, "do you suppose I don't know what 
 diphtheria is?" 
 
 "They say Mr. Kubarlin's like a madman, though 
 he's rather a silent sort of gentleman you mightn't 
 think was given to feeling. And she such a sweet 
 temper." 
 
 In the small hours of the morning Mrs. Malcolm, 
 lying awake amid the cozy snugness of her luxurious 
 bedroom, watching the glowing asbestos of her gas 
 fire for a slight asthmatic tendency moved her to take
 
 "MAKKLE LUM." 267 
 
 care of herself and consulting from time to time the 
 watch beneath her pillow to learn if the hour for her 
 early tea were still far off, heard a quick step on the 
 gravel walk outside, and a low knocking at the door of 
 Poplar Villa. She threw off her down quilt with a 
 sudden sense of dread. 
 
 That poor little woman was worse ! She knew some- 
 thing of illness, having heard much from her husband, 
 who knew nothing else, and having dipped in a desul- 
 tory but interested fashion into the volumes of his 
 library. The diphtheritic membrane was spreading. 
 The doctor had been summoned. She sat up in bed, 
 a plump round person in a night-cap, with an embroid- 
 ered flannel jacket round her shoulders. On the 
 dressing-table lay a portion of her hair, the chestnut 
 front and curls with old-fashioned sidecombs keeping 
 them in place. Before the fire were ranged her bath 
 blanket and towels, warming for her toilette. Beside 
 her, a night-light burned in a basin of water, and on 
 the same table were a couple of clean handkerchiefs 
 with eau-de-cologne for scenting them, a decanter of 
 cordial in case of faintness, and a bottle of sal-volatile 
 with spoon and glass, for administering on the first 
 asthmatic threatening. A yellow-backed novel, an 
 extinguished lamp, a book-rest, and a box of choco- 
 lates on a table at the other side of her, betrayed the 
 nature of the cozy hour preceding sleep. 
 
 But at present she was far from feeling cozy. The 
 pleasant face beneath her nightcap crumpled peev- 
 ishly. She felt a little grudge against her neighbor 
 for the disquiet she was occasioning. She was one 
 of those persons who can dismiss distress with a 
 seemly sympathetic phrase, a donation and an easy 
 conscience, so long as distress is in the next street. 
 Now, only the brick wall of a speculative builder sep- 
 arated her from the tragedies of a fellow-creature's 
 pain it might be death-agony, a husband's bereave- 
 ment, children's motherlessness, the snapped cord of 
 a young life, fraught with possibilities, intertwisted 
 and knit up with other little destinies and welfares. 
 She was not unimaginative, and there returned to her
 
 268 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 recollections of a patient, harassed face, a thin, shabby 
 figure, driven here and driven there, forever occupied, 
 and anxious-browed and worn. She remembered the 
 thin, busy fingers shaking out and spreading tiny 
 shirts behind the lattice-work. "How could she expect 
 not to be ill? She never went out from one week's 
 end to another, and if she did, she only went out 
 shopping or to church," she protested, irritably. It 
 occurred to her then that her neighbor had possibly 
 no time amid her obligations, nor strength left over 
 from them, for walking. "She might have driven," 
 she maintained. "They seem well enough off, I am 
 sure, and she always wore such fashionable bonnets. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm herself drove every afternoon from 
 three till five in a victoria with two horses hired from 
 a livery-stable. She might have kept horses and men 
 servants had she wished it, but she found it more com- 
 fortable to hire. 
 
 "Then other people have the responsibility," she 
 observed, shrewdly. 
 
 I cannot say, certainly, that the vacant seat beside 
 her in the carriage assailed her conscience. She had 
 lived so long in the world of conventions that the logic 
 of human interdependence had ceased to assert itself. 
 
 She got up and crept to the window. 
 
 "I shall see Barnby's look as he comes out, " she 
 said. 
 
 It was a long time before he came, but he came at 
 last. He turned his kind face, weather-beaten by 
 twenty years ' hard daily rounds, to somebody standing 
 at the door, nodding good-by gravely. Then he 
 walked hurriedly down the drive. 
 
 "There is to be a consultation, " Mrs. Malcolm inter- 
 preted, cleverly. "Why, good gracious, I shall be ill! 
 I am fairly shivering. ' ' 
 
 She was up earlier than usual. She had her bonnet 
 on, and stood watching for the doctor, when that 
 worthy man arrived. 
 
 "How is your patient?" she submitted, nodding 
 toward Poplar Villa. 
 
 "Bad," said Barnby.
 
 "MAKKLE LUM." 269 
 
 "Will she get over it?" 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. It is a question loathed 
 of the profession; he thought Mrs. Malcolm should 
 have known better than to put it. 
 
 "Why haven't you sent away the children?" 
 
 "Why haven't you taken them?" he retorted. 
 
 Had he been Mrs. Malcolm's own doctor, it is pos- 
 sible he could not have afforded to put so blunt a ques- 
 tion to so important a person. But as matters stood 
 Mrs. Malcolm proving a small yearly income to the 
 fashionable Fancourt, he put it. 
 
 "Me!" she protested, "why, I don't know them 
 from Adam. Haven't they any friends?" 
 
 "Very few infectious people have," he said, sardon- 
 ically, raising his hat. 
 
 "Good gracious, what a fool!" Mrs. Malcolm 
 exclaimed, after his retreating homely figure. "Does 
 he think I'm afraid of getting it?" 
 
 An hour later she had interviewed Mr. Barling, and 
 was trudging down the steps of Poplar Villa with 
 Robby's hand in one of hers, and Ruby's in the other. 
 
 1 ' I don 't want to come with you, ' ' Robby said, can- 
 didly, "but father says I must." He disengaged his 
 hand. "I can walk without leading, thank you," he 
 added, politely. 
 
 "An" I can," Ruby insisted, vengefully, dragging 
 her plump fist away. 
 
 Mr. Barling had required all the persuasion and 
 severity at his command to induce her to go with 
 Mrs. Malcolm at all. 
 
 "Now, what in the wide world am I to do with these 
 two?" their captor pondered, when she had convoyed 
 them as far as the dining-room. "It is twenty years 
 since I had anything to do with children ; I would as 
 soon have a couple of tigers to amuse." 
 
 "May we go in the garden?" Robby questioned, 
 when he had grown tired of sitting on the edge of a 
 chair, with his sailor hat in his hand, while Mrs. Mal- 
 colm stared helplessly before her. 
 
 "You won't escape?" she urged, suspiciously. "You 
 won't climb through the fence'"
 
 270 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 Robby shook his head in some disgust. 
 
 "I promised father," he said, doggedly. 
 
 She let them out, Robby leading Ruby by the hand. 
 
 They walked sedately down the path. He quick- 
 ened his steps as he approached the end of the garden. 
 
 "He is going, after all," the watcher said, seeing 
 him make for the flap in the fence. But he only 
 stooped and examined the bolt, after which he raised 
 his head with the air of a person who has settled a 
 problem long puzzling him. Then, still leading Ruby, 
 he walked to a bench. He lifted her up, and they 
 remained there, motionless, looking before them. 
 
 "I wonder why they don't play?" Mrs. Malcolm 
 cogitated, watching them perplexedly. 
 
 After about ten minutes, Robby got down, and, 
 bidding Ruby stay, came back into the house. He 
 stood at the dining-room door, hat in hand. 
 
 "Do you think mother's better now?" he queried, 
 gravely. 
 
 "It isn't very long," she answered. 
 
 "Isn't it?" he said. "I thought it was." 
 
 He returned dejectedly to his bench. After an inter- 
 val of some minutes more he came to the dining-room 
 door with the same question. 
 
 "You must make up your mind to stop with me a 
 little while," she said, kindly. "Mother won't get up 
 her strength all in a day. Can't you play at horses, 
 or something?" 
 
 "No, thank you," he said, and, disappearing, 
 rejoined Ruby on the bench. 
 
 "Good gracious! this will never do," Mrs. Malcolm 
 reflected, watching their small, doleful, well-behaved 
 backs. Every now and again they turned their faces 
 up to Poplar Villa solemnly. "It would be a relief to 
 see them trample down the beds," she broke out. 
 Presently she walked to a cupboard, and cut two large 
 slices of cake. 
 
 As she went out Robby met her. He slipped a 
 handkerchief furtively into his pocket. 
 
 "Ruby's crying," he explained. 
 
 She trotted helplessly into the garden. Ruby sat
 
 "MAKKLE LUM." 271 
 
 there, crying pitifully, big tears welling from her 
 eyes, round which the dripping lashes stood like points 
 of misery. Every now and again a gigantic sob lifted 
 the yoke of her frilled pinafore, as though it purposed 
 to unroof her chest. 
 
 One small fist, dabbing into either eye alternately, 
 attempted to cope with the lachrymal torrent. Before 
 the bewildered Mrs. Malcolm for how, in all con- 
 science, was one to deal with this dejected little per- 
 son? had time to collect her resources, the sufferer 
 exclaimed, brokenly: 
 
 "Yuby want a a hamperchink ! " 
 
 "Now, what in the world is that?" her hearer mut- 
 tered. 
 
 "She means a handkerchief," Robby translated, 
 with some contempt for mature ignorance. 
 
 "Oh!" Mrs. Malcolm said, and produced one. She 
 handed it to Ruby. 
 
 Ruby lifted it and sniffed it. 
 
 "Scent!" she remarked laconically, the word being 
 cut into halves by a terrific sob. She trailed it round 
 and round her face with the awkward inaptitude of a 
 person who has never dried her own tears. "You do 
 it," she said, returning the "hamperchink." "Soap 
 in Yuby's eyes." 
 
 "Soap?" Mrs. Malcolm echoed, mopping with a good 
 deal of tenderness the chubby undulations Ruby's 
 unskillfullness had left undried. 
 
 "I suppose it smarts," Robby explained. "When 
 you cry it's salt, and salt hurts." 
 
 The difficulty was that Ruby, having started crying, 
 could not stop. No sooner were the eyes mopped dry 
 with the scented handkerchief whereat the victim 
 took parenthetic sniffs between the grief paroxysms 
 than another violent sob would pump down a further 
 deluge, and threaten to precipitate her from the bench. 
 
 "Yuby's goin' to to burst," she threatened, sol- 
 emnly, feeling another convulsion imminent. 
 
 "Do you think she might?" Robby demanded 
 seriously. "She's awful sorry." 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm sat down hurriedly, and took the suf-
 
 272 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 ferer on her knee After a moment's smart resistance, 
 the child nestled her miserable head against the wom- 
 an's cushioned bust. 
 
 "Yuby's mammy's ill," she sobbed, confidingly, with 
 another burst of lamentation. "Poo-er Yuby!" 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm's heart flowed over, feeling the warm 
 cheek nestle to her. The plastron of her tightly-fitting 
 corsage was swept by a shower of curls. A small chest 
 heaved against her. She rocked herself this way and 
 that, jolting her back with a jerky rhythm against the 
 wooden bench. She broke into a curious, old-fash- 
 ioned crooning. Where or how she had learned it, 
 she could not for the life of her have said. The child 
 stared up into her face with a perplexed wonder ; but 
 she seemed content, and presently ceased sobbing. 
 
 "I say, is that singing?" Robby demanded, in an 
 awed undertone. 
 
 It was somewhat disquieting to see Mrs. Malcolm, 
 whom he had always regarded as a more or less terri- 
 ble person, sit there jolting to and fro with Ruby in 
 her arms, making a funny little gurgling in her throat 
 to soothe her. Children are critical, and he did not 
 consider the gurgling melodious ; but it made him feel 
 strange and shy, because he felt it was kind, and it 
 sounded a little like crying. And Ruby fell presently 
 asleep. 
 
 "I hope I am not going to faint," Mrs. Malcolm 
 murmured apprehensively an hour later. "I have 
 not taken my wine, and I feel perfectly cramped sit- 
 ting so long in one position. " 
 
 Ruby was still sleeping peacefully. Robby was 
 wandering round and round the garden, with some 
 show of feeling at home. 
 
 But she did not faint, and Ruby presently waking 
 and demanding ' ' Mammy, ' ' left her no time to further 
 contemplate it. 
 
 A bright idea seizing her, she sent for a basket and 
 a knife, and setting the child on her feet before a bed 
 of stocks, "f'owers for mammy," she said, expressively. 
 
 Ruby did not need a second invitation. 
 
 After luncheon, which both Robby and Ruby took
 
 "MAKKLE LUM." 273 
 
 with more awe than appetite, being oppressed by 
 company manners, the carriage was announced. 
 
 The intelligence that they were to drive was re- 
 ceived with speechless transport. While Mrs. Malcolm 
 donned her bonnet they occupied their time flattening 
 their faces against the window-panes, watching the 
 carriage with ecstatic anticipation. 
 
 "I say I'd better run home and get my best hat," 
 Robby submitted, seeing Mrs. Malcolm enter equipped. 
 
 She shook her head, smiling. 
 
 "I shouldn't go upstairs or bother mother. I should 
 only ask Parkins if she's better." 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm had news already. It had no element 
 of cheerfulness to speed its travel. "That hat is very 
 nice," she assured him. 
 
 "We might meet Mrs. Askew-Hickox, you know," 
 he persisted, conscientiously. 
 
 "Why, what does it matter?" she demanded, peer- 
 ing down at him. 
 
 "Oh, well, you mightn't like Mrs. Askew-Hickox 
 to see me in your carriage with my old hat on. Mother 
 wouldn't." . 
 
 She remained staring down at him inquiringly. 
 Then a dawn of apprehension broke over her shrewd 
 face. 
 
 "Mrs. Askew-Hickox fiddlesticks!" she exclaimed, 
 witheringly. 
 
 "Ascox fiddlesticks!" Ruby chuckled, delighted. 
 "Yuby yide in a tallidge wiv Makkle-lum!" 
 
 18
 
 274 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 MR. SNAGG. 
 
 Were there nothing else 
 
 For which to praise the heavens, but only love, 
 Then only love were cause enough for praise. 
 
 It had never occurred to Mr. Kew-Barling that he 
 was in love with his wife. He was fond of her, of 
 course. Hers and the children's interests were his 
 sole concern. That was merely normal natural. For 
 a man not to be fond of his wife, and not to make her 
 and the children his sole concern, was a state of things 
 he was unable to enter into. He had chosen a pretty, 
 interesting girl, and having a little means and a good 
 deal of confidence in his ability to make more, had 
 wooed, won, and married her, without doubt or mis- 
 giving. And she had come to be all that he needed 
 in woman. It was perfectly plain sailing. The case 
 was simple enough, a mere matter of course to a 
 wholesome-minded, decent Englishman. Before mar- 
 riage a man permitted himself some latitude perhaps, 
 but afterward well, an Englishman was not a French- 
 man ! And if a man with a nice wife was not satisfied 
 with her, he ought to be ashamed of himself. 
 
 Now Mr. Kew-Barling belonged to that order of men 
 who take things too much for granted, and so he took 
 it for granted that he was not better suited in the 
 matter of a wife than were all the other men he knew. 
 Yet by one of those curious chances, which occur 
 rarely enough indeed in the matrimonial lottery, Mr. 
 Barling had been lucky enough to draw the right 
 woman for wife. And while he was sitting in judg- 
 ment on men whose ill fate had joined them to such 
 of the nine hundred and ninety-nine women out of a 
 thousand who did not in any way suit them, he took 
 it for granted that he no more than his fellows was
 
 MR. SNAGG. 275 
 
 singular in having secured the thousandth, who was 
 pre-eminently his affinity. And the humdrum and dust 
 arising from the machinery of the Cult of Appearances 
 had further obscured from him the agreeable truth. 
 
 Had he looked with seeing eyes, the rare beauty, fine 
 health and intelligence of his elder children might 
 have enlightened him on the subject, for only the 
 blend of natures sympathetic produces noble offspring. 
 But he was not speculative, and he took the uncouth- 
 ness and disease of mind and body of a number of his 
 neighbors' children as a matter of course, something 
 possibly to do with original sin, and not, as these were 
 absolutely the natural consequences of loveless, ill- 
 assorted unions. The harmony of perfectness pro- 
 ceedeth not from warring nor from elements incom- 
 patible. Nature has this revenge upon us, that if we 
 profane her and marry without love, she can afflict us 
 with inferior and evil-tempered offspring. That is the 
 fons et origo of all degeneration. 
 
 However, Mr. Barling took things, as I have said, 
 too much for granted, and was, for the first time, con- 
 scious of the closeness wherewith his and Molly's souls 
 were knit when he felt the tug and tear at his soul at 
 sight of that white sheet before her door. 
 
 "Good Lord," he said, through dry lips, reviewing 
 things in the solitary desolation of the dining-room, 
 "and I made her miserable last night because there 
 was no anchovy sauce with the soles. Life is a pretty 
 mean sort of misunderstanding. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Kew-Barling was essentially manly, and looking 
 back into his memory he did not like to find himself 
 figuring there as a domestic bugbear. He remem- 
 bered the quick flash of appeal wherewith her eyes 
 had greeted his daily incoming. His humor, ill or 
 good, had been the barometer of her content. Well, 
 he had grown into a surly-tempered brute of late a 
 day in the city wasn't elevating work but she ought 
 to have known he had no other thought beyond her 
 and the children. 
 
 "It's all this cursed villa and straining after show," 
 he muttered. "It's an everlasting incubus on a man's
 
 276 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 mind and spirits. When we lived at Clapham I had a 
 decent temper, and we* couldn't have been happier." 
 
 "I don't think I care about a handsome funeral, 
 dear," Mrs. Barling faltered once, out of along silence 
 he had been hoping was sleep. "Just quiet and nice, 
 but not expensive ; and perhaps somebody will send a 
 wreath. Mrs. Malcolm might, for one, as she has 
 been so kind. ' ' 
 
 "Are you going to leave us, Molly?" he demanded, 
 quietly "me and the children. How do you suppose 
 we can get along without you?" 
 
 "I don't think I could face it again, dear," she said. 
 
 "It has been uphill work, and very very disap- 
 pointing. " 
 
 "If when you get well," he insisted, firmly, "we 
 will go back to Clapham. This house has been too 
 much for you. We were happy before we came here, 
 and we will be happy again. " 
 
 She seemed to lose her breath a moment. Then she 
 lifted a feverish bright face from the pillow. 
 
 "Kew," she whispered, hoarsely, "the dear little 
 home with the rockery and the ferns we planted with 
 our own hands, and the walls we papered and painted, 
 and the room where Robby was born. ' ' 
 
 "Would you like it, darling?" He clasped her hot 
 wasted fingers in his large palms. "You could face 
 that with me and the children?" 
 
 "We were so happy there," she said, brokenly. 
 
 After a little thought she added, with a half sob : 
 
 "And Mrs. Askew- Hickox isn't likely to call now, 
 Kew." 
 
 "No; curse her!" he cried, violently. 
 
 Mrs. Barling smiled. 
 
 ' ' I think I can sleep, ' ' she said. 
 
 After all there was no funeral, handsome or mod- 
 est, from the gate of Poplar Villa. Mrs. Kew- Barling, 
 having hovered three whole days and nights about the
 
 MR. SNAGG. 277 
 
 doors of death, now sighing wearily and insensibly 
 drifting within them as they slipped ajar for her; now 
 being snatched forth, reluctant, and wailing to' be left 
 at peace, by firm skillful hands arid kind ones. 
 
 "Oh, let me alone," she cried, petulantly, once or 
 twice. "Leave me to sleep. 
 
 But a determined person in a frilled cap stood above 
 her, administering beef-juices, brandies, and medi- 
 cines, while the microbes in her blood fed, multiplied, 
 and fought out the question of fitness or unfitness for 
 survival, and eventually the "ayes" had it. Out of 
 the wreck remaining from her crusade with Appear- 
 ances there was fibre enough of the original healthy 
 Molly to fight down the "noes," and Mrs. Kew-Barl- 
 ing crept slowly and laboriously from the shadow of 
 the portals, shuddering now to think upon the loneli- 
 ness that must have been hers on the other side. 
 
 "And so Mrs. Malcolm took the children?" she mur- 
 mured, overcome. 
 
 She was apprised that at that self-same moment 
 Robby and Ruby were to be seen from the window, 
 sitting like potentates before two prancing horses, a 
 warm rug covering their restless legs, while they 
 impatiently awaited Mrs. Malcolm's descent. 
 
 "Is Robby wearing his best hat?" she questioned, 
 anxiously, the master-passion stirring. 
 
 ' ' He looks very nice and smart, ' ' Millicent responded, 
 her eyes above the blind. ' ' I believe they have been 
 curling his hair. ' ' 
 
 "Never," Mrs. Barling laughed faintly. "Do you 
 really think they have? Do you really believe Mrs. 
 Malcolm would notice that pretty kink in it." 
 
 She laughed again like a child. Her eyes filled with 
 tears of proud delight. If only she could take one 
 peep! 
 
 "And Ruby how does Ruby look?" 
 
 "As rosy as can be. She wears her green Dutch 
 bonnet, and her curls come out under it like gold. Oh, 
 you should see them. You would think they had 
 driven in carriages all their lives. ' '
 
 278 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "I do hope they are behaving nicely," Mrs. Barling 
 said. 
 
 "Now, then, they are off. Mrs. Malcolm comes 
 down beaming. Robby lifts the rug for her, the foot- 
 man springs up on the box away they go. ' ' 
 
 "I hear them," their mother cried, excitedly. "I 
 can hear the wheels roll over the gravel. ' ' She fell 
 back on her pillows. 
 
 "And now they're gone," she said, the smile dying 
 out of her face. 
 
 "Not before they kissed their hands up to your win- 
 dow," Millicent insisted. "They turned at the gate 
 and kissed their hands. ' ' 
 
 "By themselves?" she questioned, tensely. 
 
 "Oh, yes. Mrs. Malcolm did not tell them; I am 
 sure it was their own idea. ' ' 
 
 ' ' The dears ! the dears !' ' 
 
 For some days Robby had been worried in his mind. 
 He had made the acquaintance of Mr. Snagg, and 
 remarks let fall by that gnarled, sour-tempered person 
 had caused him much uneasiness. Mr. Snagg, on 
 finding evidence of children's footmarks in the garden, 
 and Ruby's handiwork about the beds, had sought the 
 mistress of the house. 
 
 "There's children 'ere!" he said, as a man might 
 say, "It is no good you pretending you haven't got 
 murderers concealed about the premises, because I 
 happen to know better. ' ' 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Malcolm, with a bolder front than 
 the quaking in the region of her corsets warranted, "I 
 don't see that it is any business of yours, Snagg." 
 
 "Oh, don't you?" said Snagg, as snaggily as a man 
 might speak. , "Well, per'aps it ain't. When I comes 
 to think on it, I'm sure it ain't. It don't make no 
 odds to me where I goes, nor it ain't my business 
 whether I goes there or whether I don't. It's their 
 business the people as has been used to 'ave their 
 place done up prop'ly, and finds the difference when 
 it ain't."
 
 MR. SNAGG. 279 
 
 Snagg had so often previously hurled this threat in 
 more or less circumlocutory fashion, that Mrs. Mal- 
 colm was less moved by it than if it had been a novelty. 
 
 "Well," she responded, with dignity, "you know 
 your own business best, I suppose." 
 
 Snagg seemed crestfallen. She had never before 
 replied to him in this most casual of fashions. He 
 took out a handkerchief, which he was wont to use 
 indiscriminately for mopping his face or for cleaning 
 the knives of the lawn-mower. Now he wiped his face 
 with it, and I should be sorry to have to state, with 
 any degree of exactness, which of the two came out 
 worse from the encounter. 
 
 He turned to leave the dining-room. He never felt 
 altogether at ease in the dining-room. There was a 
 mirror there which showed him a full-length portrait 
 of himself, surrounded by a gilt frame. It gave him 
 the sense of a dog that is laughed at. 
 
 He turned to leave discomfited. He would have it 
 out later in the garden. 
 
 "You look tired," Mrs. Malcolm sid, kindly. "If 
 you like to go to the kitchen, cook will give you some 
 meat and ale." 
 
 He turned again. 
 
 "All I ask is this," he said, more placably, "is the 
 children a permanentcy or on'y temp'ry?" 
 
 "Temporary," Mrs. Malcolm said. 
 
 "Then I'll try and manage to put up with it," he 
 decided, magnanimously, "and see if I can't eat a bit 
 o' that there meat." 
 
 But to Robby, who with interested eyes and ears 
 followed him about the garden, asking questions, 
 noting, observing, criticising, he did nothing but rail. 
 
 ''Look 'ere," he said once, throwing down his spade 
 to the point of exasperation, "are you my master or 
 am I yours?" 
 
 "You're not mine," Robby said, after a moment's 
 reflection, "because you wear corduroys and have 
 dirty hands. ' ' 
 
 "Did you ever see a man as gardened in white kid 
 gloves?" demanded Snagg.
 
 280 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "No," said Robby. "He wouldn't be such a fool." 
 
 "No more I shouldn't, as to shovel garden mold 
 and stuff in clean hands, ' ' Snagg retorted. 
 
 "I suppose you wash them when you goto bed," 
 Robby inquired, with a respectful thirst for informa- 
 tion. 
 
 "Never you mind my bed," Snagg said, surlily, 
 "becos it ain't none o' your business. And per'aps I 
 ain't got ne'er a bed." 
 
 "Oh, but," Robby said, contemptuously, despising 
 so pitiful an evasion, "of course you have; everybody 
 has a bed to sleep in." 
 
 "No, they don't," said Snagg. "Tramps don't, 
 and persons in jails don't." 
 
 "Where do they sleep, then?" 
 
 "Why, on planks." 
 
 "I should think it would hurt a good deal," Robby 
 deliberated thoughtfully, passing a meditative hand 
 over the bony ridges of his slim back. 
 
 " 'Urt," Snagg echoed, witheringly; "wot else d' 
 you think they fellys in Parlyment wants?" 
 
 "I suppose you've tried it?" Robby submitted. 
 
 Snagg regarded him for the space of some moments 
 with an evil eye. Such a remark meriting no answer, 
 he vouchsafed none. He resumed his shoveling with 
 a sardonic muttering. 
 
 "Why do you put the spade in like that?" Robby 
 demanded, presently. 
 
 "Why, becos it's the on'y way to put the spade in." 
 
 "You could do it like this" he suited the action to 
 the word by way of a rake he picked up "or like 
 this, or like this." 
 
 "Oh, I dessay I could," Snagg said, derisively; 
 "but are you doin' this 'ere job, or am I?" 
 
 "Why, you are, of course." 
 
 "Oh, I am, am I? Then per'aps you'll let me do it 
 my own way. ' ' 
 
 "Why, of course," Robby conceded. "I only 
 thought perhaps I could show you an easier one. ' ' 
 
 "If thirty odd year ain't showed me nothink differ- 
 ent, I lay you won't, " Snagg rasped.
 
 MR. SNAGG. 281 
 
 " Have you got any little boys and girls, Mr. Snagg?" 
 Robby ventured after a pause. 
 
 "No," said Snagg, "and ef I had I shouldn't have. 
 I'd 'a wrung their necks for 'em the very minit they 
 was born. ' ' 
 
 Robby looked shocked. 
 
 "Well, you'd have been hanged, " he said. "Or is 
 a man allowed to murder his own children?" 
 
 "He ain't," said Snagg, "worse luck, tho' they 
 felly s in Parlyment is always preachin' about it's bein' 
 a free country. " 
 
 "But how does Mrs. Snagg like not having any chil- 
 dren?" 
 
 'Mrs. Snagg?" 
 
 'Yes; your wife, you know." 
 'Who said I'd got any wife?" 
 'Why, you have, haven't you?" 
 'No, I'm blest ef I 'ave," Snagg blurted, savagely. 
 'I suppose it's that makes you so cross all the time, " 
 mused Robert, philosophically. "But if you had and 
 had children you wouldn't like to be a murderer?" 
 
 "Oh, wouldn't I," Snagg said, licking his lips blood- 
 thirstily. "You set a child o' mine a askin' me this 
 and a askin' me that till my ears was wore out wi' 
 'earin' wy is roses red and vi'lets blue, and the sky 
 up 'igh and the earth down low, and things like that 
 there isn't any answer to, and I'd chop his head off 
 cheerful." 
 
 Robby looked thoughtful. 
 
 "I suppose I have been asking you a good many 
 questions," he said, apprehending. Then, "I think 
 I'll go and see how Mrs. Malcolm's getting on," he 
 added, and went up to the house abashed. 
 
 "There now, ef ever I see such a amount o' 'uffi- 
 ness in as small a chap," Snagg grumbled after him. 
 "I couldn't 'a put it distanter or rounder about, and 
 then he up and he takes 'isself off as tho' I'd shook 
 'im. There's no gettin' on wi' some folk." 
 
 Another day Snagg stood railing about sloppiness. 
 
 "It's just contrariness," he said. "It's as good 
 ground as any in the garden, but you've no sooner got
 
 282 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 the plants to blow than they rots off at their roots. 
 It'll be dry for a week, like the other beds, and then 
 all at once you gets up in the mornin' and finds it that 
 sloppy you could punch somebody's 'ead. " 
 
 "Where is it sloppy?" queried Robby, constrain- 
 edly. 
 
 "Why, 'ere right up agin the fence. Pounds an' 
 pounds we've spent puttin' stuff in, and all to no use. " 
 
 "Is it dry now?" Robby said. 
 
 "Yes, it's been dry all the week, becos I said I 
 wouldn't waste nothink more on it, and then if I was 
 to trust to it, it 'ud jest go and get as sloppy agin as 
 you like. ' ' 
 
 "Is it dry now?" Robby inquired, next morning. 
 He was out of breath as from some exceptional exer- 
 tion. His hands and shirt-cuffs were unaccountably 
 moist. 
 
 "Dry?" said Snagg. "I should think it ain't. The 
 Slough o' Dee's Pond ain't in it. " 
 
 "Well, I shouldn't put any flowers in for a day or 
 two if I were you," Robby submitted, casually. 
 
 "Oh, shouldn't you?" repeated Snagg, sardonically. 
 
 "Well, I should, and that's all the difference between 
 us. At twelve o'clock this blessed mornin' there's a 
 barrar o' things a-comin' becos Mrs. Malcolm, she's 
 that obstinit, she says try this and try that, as if she 
 expected there was some kind o' plants as liked to live 
 in slop like grewel and them things 'as got to go in, 
 sloppy or no sloppy. ' ' 
 
 Robert sought Mrs. Malcolm. She was setting out 
 chocolates and crystalized fruits in tiny glasses for the 
 children's dinner. Ruby sat up at the table on her 
 high chair, which had been passed above the fence, her 
 elbows on the table, her chin on her hands, her eyes 
 on the preparations. 
 
 "I won't give you one now, dear, because it would 
 spoil your appetite for lunch, ' ' Mrs. Malcolm said, 
 explanatorily. 
 
 Had Ruby understood the saying, she might have 
 urged that her appetite for lunch was no such flimsy 
 affair as to be spoiled by a trifle ; but she only under-
 
 MR. SNAGG. 283 
 
 stood that she was not about to get a dainty then,' and, 
 having been taught manners, tried to look content. 
 
 "And after lunch we'll drive round by the river and 
 see the boats on the water. How will that do, Robby?" 
 
 Robby stood dumb. At that moment the devil came 
 to him. You can tell it in the afternoon when you 
 have seen the river and the boats, the devil said. And 
 Robby listened. 
 
 But his conscience was not proof against Mrs. Mal- 
 colm's friendly face, smiling above the little glasses of 
 delight she was preparing. 
 
 ' ' I came in to tell you something, ' ' he said, man- 
 fully, "and perhaps when I've told you, you'll never 
 take me for a drive again. ' ' 
 
 "Why, what have you been doing? You have never 
 been home, have you?" 
 
 "I only slipped through the fence, and got some 
 cans of water from the outside tap. I didn't go into 
 the house." 
 
 "Oh, well, then it does not matter. But it is safer 
 for you not to go even into the garden." 
 
 "That isn't it," Robby urged, stoutly. "Look here, 
 Mrs. Malcolm, you know that sloppy bit down your 
 garden, where the flowers rot in their roots, and 
 you've spent pounds and pounds putting in new 
 ones?" 
 
 "Well?" said Mrs. Malcolm. 
 
 "Well, " said Robby, "that was all my doing. " He 
 explained the ingenuities which had aimed at being a 
 fountain, and had ended in being nothing more than 
 a mud-pit. "I didn't mean right from the beginning 
 to lead it into your garden really I didn't, Mrs. Mal- 
 colm only, when you put spikes on the fence so I 
 couldn't ride I thought of it," he concluded, in abase- 
 ment. 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm took the intelligence lightly enough. 
 She never concerned herself about things that had 
 happened yesterday. Life is made up of two kinds of 
 circumstances, she was in the habit of philosophizing, 
 things you can help and things you can't; prevent the 
 things you can help, dismiss the things you can't.
 
 284 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 She was not learned, and her brain had never been 
 properly turned over; but she had arrived at deduc- 
 tions so profound as these, and, what is more, she 
 practiced that she preached. 
 
 "Well," she remarked, when Robby had finished, 
 "it's a comfort to think you have corked up that spout 
 so that the new plants will have a chance of growing. 
 I always thought that sloppiness very suspicious." 
 
 "It wasn't a nice thing of me to do, Mrs. Malcolm," 
 Robby said, inviting censure. It hurt his sense of 
 justice that he was not whipped or scolded, as he knew 
 he merited. 
 
 "Well, I can't say it was a nice thing to do," Mrs. 
 Malcolm allowed, "considering all those poor plants; 
 but it sounds very clever." 
 
 Robby, in relating, had taken fire again at the 
 source of old ambitions, and had explained very cir- 
 cumstantially his well-pondered plan of operations. 
 
 "One led into the other by the neck of a beer bot- 
 tle," he said; "and the other led into the other by 
 a piece of the garden hose. And so it mightn't get 
 blocked up with stones or things I put the thing with 
 holes in it out of my soap-dish right in front of it. 
 Those things are no good in soap-dishes, because, 
 even if you remember to take the soap out of the 
 water, you're sure not to think of putting it back in 
 the dish. I puttied it in tightly there was a man 
 mending windows at the time, and I should think I 
 used a pound of putty and I lined all the pits with 
 pieces of slate, and broken saucers, and a few old 
 plates, and snails jammed close together when I 
 hadn't any more platters. And you should have seen 
 the water bubble out of the teapot spout when the 
 hole at the other end was full; it wasn't as high as it 
 ought to have been, but it bubbled finely." 
 
 "Oh, I can imagine it," Mrs. Malcolm said, remem- 
 bering past sloppiness. 
 
 "I can't think why it didn't foam up high," he 
 observed, reflectively. 
 
 "Why, there's something about water reaching its 
 own level, ' ' she returned.
 
 MR. SNAGG. 285 
 
 "Well, I held the can very high in the air," he said. 
 
 "I don't think I should mention it to Snagg," she 
 urged, when the story was finished. "He has had a 
 great deal of bother with that bed. " 
 
 "I don't think I will," Robby said. "He talks about 
 murdering people like like anything. ' ' 
 
 "Oh," Mrs. Malcolm said, lightly, "I don't know 
 about murdering. ' ' 
 
 Ruby had one or two encounters with Snagg. Once, 
 when she was dressed for driving, she was moved to 
 descend the rustic stairway leading to the lawn, and 
 impart the proud intelligence to him : 
 
 "Yuby doin' out in a tallidge wif Makkle-lum, " she 
 said, shyly, and from some distance off. 
 
 Snagg was not of an aspect to invite approach. 
 
 "Oh, I dessay!" he retorted, in the withering tone 
 of a person prepared for any depth of depravity. 
 
 She stood there some minutes, discomfited by his 
 lack of cordiality, but trying the effect of an artillery 
 of glances from beneath the ruche of her Dutch bon- 
 net looks which experience had shown her to be irre- 
 sistible. But Snagg was gnarled and glance-proof. 
 She withdrew perplexed. 
 
 "Dirty man!" she commented to Makkle-lum, who 
 came to find her. She screwed her pink nose into 
 criss-cross lines of eloquent disgust. "Beas'ly man!" 
 she persisted, stamping a small foot on the gravel. 
 
 The "beas 'ly man ' ' detected her one morning tramp- 
 ing the center flower-bed, with a basket on one arm 
 and a knife in her hand. Snagg 's temper was as short 
 as it was surly. Almost before he knew what he was 
 about, he had seized her by the shoulder, dragged her 
 from among the blossoms, and slapped her smartly 
 on the arm. 
 
 She remained a moment speechless. Then she 
 threw down her knife and basket, assumed her most 
 belligerent front, and, puffing her cheeks out, darted 
 upon him. She kicked his shins, grabbed portions of
 
 286 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 his clothing in her chubby palms, and pounded him 
 with her fists. 
 
 Snagg- was quite alarmed. He feared lest she should 
 have a fit of apoplexy. Her round flushed cheeks were 
 swollen out, her eyes seemed starting from their sock- 
 ets, her face was violently contorted, every muscle 
 was in motion. 
 
 "I say," he expostulated, "you just drop this, will 
 you?" 
 
 But Ruby had not had her fill. She drew off at inter- 
 vals for purposes of breathing, but even then stood 
 working her hands like claws before her contorted 
 purple countenance after a fashion most alarming to 
 such as did not know this for her normal fighting man- 
 ner. 
 
 "Come, now," said Snagg, "you'll make yerself ill, 
 you know, ef you goes on like this. Calm yourself a 
 bit, or you '11 be bustin ' a blood-vessle. ' ' 
 
 But Ruby made another onslaught. 
 
 "I say, little missie, " he remonstrated, "it'll do 
 you no good to bust a blood-vessle, you know, and it 
 'ud on'y make yer mar wuss ef she was to 'ear uv it. 
 You'd best keep quiet. " 
 
 But Ruby capitulated no iota till her fury was spent. 
 Then she retreated to a distance and stood eyeing him, 
 panting. 
 
 "There then!" she said, as one who said, "Now, 
 you have had a taste of my prowess. " 
 
 "I should think it is 'there then,' " Snagg remarked, 
 relieved to find her still entire. "Why, you look like 
 a prize Halderman." 
 
 But Ruby held no further parley ; she stalked into 
 the house, gasping. 
 
 "No more beers and beefs for you, Snagg," that 
 worthy soliloquized, direfully. "You're not a-goin' 
 to be allowed to do yer dooty and perteckt yer 
 employer's property never any more. You're a-goin' 
 to git the sack, you are, jest for slappin' a little impi- 
 dent female in a bonnet. No chance she won't tell. 
 Wot else did nater make 'er into a female an' give 'er 
 a tongue for?"
 
 MR. SNAGG. 287 
 
 But Ruby never told. Perhaps she was not partic- 
 ularly proud of the indignity of being slapped by 
 Snagg. Perhaps she thought the indignity had been 
 wiped out by her summary vengeance. Snagg thought 
 otherwise. He was afflicted by mean estimates of 
 things and persons. 
 
 ' ' She 's cunninger than anyone might give her credit 
 for, ' ' he said, slyly. ' ' She knowed, if she told the 
 missis, the missis 'ud say nateral, 'An' what did Snagg 
 slap you for, eh?' " 
 
 But this suspected policy on her part inspired him 
 with respect for her. Ever afterward he addressed 
 her deferentially, and styled her "little missie. "
 
 288 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 UNDERSTANDING ONE ANOTHER. 
 
 "For your Cupid, you have clipped him, 
 Rouged and patched him, nipped and snipped him, 
 And with chape au bras equipped him, 
 Belle Marquise! 
 
 Just to arm you through your wife-time, 
 And the languors of your life-time, 
 
 Belle Marquise!" 
 
 When Vaux returned to Roldermere with Millicent's 
 note in his pocket he was sorely vexed. 
 
 "I might have gone back an engaged man," he 
 reflected; "she was just in the mood to accept a chap, 
 and she doesn't pretend not to like me, and I'd have 
 made her a decent sort of husband. Now, who knows 
 what may not happen? Hickox even may be chippin' 
 in or anything." 
 
 He ordered the dog-cart, and drove over to The 
 Towers. Lady Alicia was at home, the butler said. 
 
 As he was ushered through a gay ante-room, bril- 
 liant with mirrors and painted butterflies, he heard a 
 man's voice and light laughter. 
 
 "Hallo, Vaux!" Alicia greeted him, fluttering up 
 from among the draperies of a pink cushioned lounge, 
 "you're just in time to settle something. Waldon and 
 I were talking over old times. You were at those 
 tableaux, weren't you?" 
 
 "Which?" said Vaux, shaking hands with Waldon. 
 Waldon looked sulky. A man who was talking with 
 Alicia had a way of looking sulky when another man 
 came in. I suppose Alicia showed to best advantage 
 ttte-h-tete. 
 
 "Why, the last ones, of course, when I was Fabiola 
 and everybody thought I had mistaken my vocation in 
 not getting me to a nunnery. ' '
 
 UNDERSTANDING ONE ANOTHER. 289 
 
 "How long did they think it?" Vaux said, lightly; 
 "till you rose out of the sea, as what-d' you-call-it?" 
 
 Waldon laughed. 
 
 Alicia pretended to blush. There were very few of 
 Alicia's con-sceurs who blushed, or affected to. Alicia 
 had the advantage of them that way. Moreover, she 
 had charming eyelashes. 
 
 "You bad man!" she cried, canting her cheek. "I 
 had to be properly dressed." 
 
 ' 'Why, of course you had, ' ' assented Waldon, laugh- 
 ing again. His sense of humor lay in one direction. 
 The present conversation trended thitherward. 
 
 "I'm fearfully bored," Alicia resumed. "Let us 
 get up more tableaux. I have a grand idea for a 
 dress." Waldo laughed a third time. 
 
 "What would the Lord Chamberlain think about 
 it?" he submitted, archly. He was enjoying himself 
 this afternoon. Alicia was the sort of woman for a 
 man to feel at ease with, one who possessed, pre-emi- 
 nently, the feminine complement of that in him which 
 he mistook for humor. 
 
 "Lady Alicia might " Vaux began, in an effective 
 drawl characteristic of him, and one which, siibtle 
 and playful, condoned a good deal of latitude of speech. 
 
 But he stopped short. A recollection of Millicent 
 came to him, honest, clear-eyed, wholesome, as she 
 had lifted her cheek to his kiss. 
 
 He lounged over to the window. Why the deuce 
 did Alicia scent her rooms like an opera dancer's? 
 
 Waldon and Lady Alicia were waiting. When Vaux 
 assumed that tone, they knew by experience some- 
 thing worth hearing in one way was to be expected. 
 
 ' 'Lady Alicia might ' ' that lady said, alluringly. 
 
 ' 'It just occurred to me, " Vaux said, falling into his 
 normal tone, "that you'd be interested to hear I came 
 across Millicent Rivers while I was in Kent. " 
 
 "Oh, I am interested," Alicia vouchsafed ; "but it 
 would have waited. ' ' 
 
 ' 'The raciest news would wait,* while one discussed 
 what our charming hostess might do in the matter of 
 tableaux, ' ' insinuated Waldon. 
 
 19
 
 290 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "And how does Millicent like governessing?" 
 
 "She says she likes it. " 
 
 Alicia laughed. "But looks as if she doesn't." 
 
 "She doesn't look well. She's got quite thin, and I 
 should think it must be a rippin' dull sort o' life, 
 though they're uncommon pretty children." 
 
 "Oh, I daresay she likes it," Alicia said. "She has 
 rather peculiar views, and I suppose it's in the blood." 
 
 "Is that Miss Rivers, who was stopping with the 
 Kershaws with Lady Kershaw? Why, I thought she 
 had a pile of money, ' ' Waldon interposed. 
 
 "Oh, it wasn't at all a pile," Alicia insisted. "It 
 was only a few thousands a year. ' ' 
 
 "And she's lost it, and had to turn out and get her 
 living? Hard lines." 
 
 "I believe she is just as happy," his hostess main- 
 tained, sharply. 
 
 "Oh, but she hasn't lost it," Vaux corrected. "She 
 is only governessin' for fun. She calls it seein' life." 
 
 Waldo laughed. "She may be seeing life," he said; 
 "but how do you know she's governessing?" 
 
 "Did she tell you she hasn't lost her money?" Alicia 
 inquired, shaking up a cushion. 
 
 Vaux nodded. 
 
 "It's just a fad, " he said. 
 
 Alicia's charming eyebrows approximated by the 
 fraction of an inch. She leveled her eyes on Vaux. 
 In those eyes perturbation struggled with indecision. 
 Indecision lost the day. 
 
 "Millicent is generally truthful," she said, delib- 
 erately; "I don't see why she should be ashamed of 
 having lost her money." 
 
 "She has lost it, then?' 1 demanded Waldon. 
 
 "Every penny of it," Alicia answered. She looked 
 keenly at Vaux while she said it. It is possible she 
 had detected his interest in Millicent; and, in the 
 event of that interest maturing to a right, awkward 
 questions if nothing worse might arise. But Vaux 
 had his features in control. Beneath his nonchalance 
 you would scarcely have suspected he was suffering 
 one of the worst moments he had known. Dyspepsia
 
 UNDERSTANDING ONE ANOTHER. 291 
 
 undermines the substance of a man's faith, and Vaux's 
 faith in the integrity of his fellows was pitted with 
 doubt. And even Millicent, he was thinking ruefully. 
 Well, he had had a lucky escape. It amazed him to 
 find that he was more hurt by her deception than 
 happy to have escaped. 
 
 "I must have mistaken Miss Rivers' meaning," he 
 said, casually. "The kids were shriekin', so that we 
 could scarcely hear ourselves speak," he added, with 
 the histrionic touch to conceal mendacity. 
 
 They lounged into other topics, and Vaux, with the 
 memory of honest, clear-eyed, wholesome Millicent 
 bedraggled in his mind, relapsed into his drawl, gave 
 Alicia opportunity for play of eyelashes, and rekindled 
 Waldon's sense of humor, which had waned sorely 
 during the preceding conversation. 
 
 Badinage and laughter flowed, till suddenly the door 
 opened. 
 
 "Have you a cup of tea for me, Alicia?" Kershaw 
 questioned, entering. He shook hands with his guests. 
 
 "Why, Vaux, I thought you were away?" 
 
 ' ' I was, ' ' Vaux answered ; ' ' only got back yesterday. 
 Come to pay my respects. ' ' 
 
 He glanced somewhat shamefacedly toward his host. 
 
 Curse it! why couldn't women be different? He 
 always liked Kershaw, and he wouldn't care for chaps 
 to talk to his wife in the free-and-easy vein they had 
 been using. Millicent, for instance where Millicent 
 was there was always plenty of fun going, but it was 
 honest, wholesome fun that lifted a man's spirits, 
 not the stale fun of double entendre and playing at ball 
 with people's reputations. Curse it! why couldn't 
 women be different? If only they would be, things 
 would be very much easier for men ! 
 
 "I can't congratulate you on your looks," Kershaw 
 observed, receiving his tea at his wife's hands. "You 
 don't often look so glum. " 
 
 "That is what we have been telling him ever since 
 he came in," asserted Waldon, with an arch glance 
 upon the others. "We haven't been able to get any- 
 thing but solemn looks and sermons out of him."
 
 292 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 Kershaw sat down to drink his tea. He listened 
 with some constraint to Waldon's explanation. Pos- 
 sibly he did not like his air and his easy application of 
 the pronoun "we." 
 
 Kershaw looked no rapturous Benedict. Indeed, he 
 had lost that look before his bridal was a fortnight old. 
 Had he been less blindly in love, it would not have 
 taken him even a fortnight to sound Alicia's shallows. 
 At the end of that time, however, .he remarked at 
 breakfast : 
 
 1 ' If you are tired of ruralizing, dear, we will run up 
 to town for a few days before going home." 
 
 "So you find it dull," she said; "you sad fellow to 
 confess it in my society. Now, I never pretended to 
 an agricultural taint. ' ' 
 
 So they ran up to town, and Alicia renewed her life 
 in shops and theatres and toilettes. 
 
 And Kershaw awoke to the fact that he and she had 
 not a taste in common. Even his passion failed to fuse 
 them. Alicia knew nothing more of sex than sense, 
 which means that even the most rudimentary elements 
 of love were missing in her. When he kissed her pink, 
 perfect chefek, he kissed pink, perfect flesh, but not 
 the woman he had dreamed of. She satisfied neither 
 his mind nor his manhood. He had thought as many 
 another has thought marriage will give her that she 
 lacks ; but marriage only plumbed her shallows. She 
 gave him no more, as his mother had predicted, than 
 any little painted creature could have given him, and 
 not so much as many a little painted creature might. 
 Hers was no nature whereat a man might slake a 
 great passion. Nineteenth-century man, when he is 
 man, is a many-sided creature, and every plane of his 
 development seeks satisfaction. So Kershaw came back 
 from his honeymooon, grim-faoed and hungry, with a 
 man's hunger for a complete woman a woman who 
 shall sheathe not one but all the restless forces of his 
 nature with her balm of womanhood. 
 
 He returned to his study to make pen-and-paper 
 women wherewith to blunt the edge of higher hunger. 
 That is the satisfaction Heaven has given the artist
 
 UNDERSTANDING ONE ANOTHER. 293 
 
 that he whose need is greater than his fellow's shall 
 fill the voids and deprivations of his life with creatures 
 of his mind. Hunger, whether material or mental, is 
 the spur of work. Art is but love the creative impulse 
 on the mental plane. "Let me, " the artist cries, 
 out of the desolation of unmatedness, "satisfy my 
 loneliness of soul with Ideals; let me deliver me of 
 this sweet child of mine wherewith I am in travail ; let 
 me commit to paper or to canvas this dear man or 
 woman that my soul has conceived." And from the 
 pain and yearning of his hunger the artist has raised 
 men and women, at whose image the whole world may 
 slake its need for higher things when they, too, catch 
 this stress of hunger for that their lives lack. 
 
 Out of the needs and unsatisfactions of his honey- 
 moon, Kershaw created such a dream of a fair woman 
 that he sat in his study adorning her, and dwelling on 
 her lovely excellences till she blossomed into an epic 
 poem, upon which he labored night and day for weeks 
 at the end whereof she proved ready for publication. 
 
 "The finest thing he has done," was agreed on all 
 hands. Friends, critics, even foes, were warmed to 
 admiration. 
 
 "How he worships his wife!" they said. 
 
 "He needed to be in love to perfect his muse." 
 
 "Strange, " others commented, "he gives his heroine 
 all the virtues conspicuously lacking in Alicia. " 
 
 "He does not even make her fair," some other said. 
 
 "I suppose he did not like to paint a portrait and 
 show himself posing at her feet!" 
 
 "Well, he is ridiculously blind if he thinks that is a 
 portrait of Alicia. Still, it is a very pretty story, 
 though I must say I prefer poetry that rhymes. ' ' 
 
 "You can tell it is meant for his wife, because the 
 girl marries a poor man. " 
 
 "Well, Alicia seems comfortably off." 
 
 "Oh, he makes something by his books. She tells 
 me he made twenty thousand pounds by this one. " 
 
 "Twenty thousand! Good gracious! what a sum 
 for a book. But that explains things. I never under- 
 stood before why she wasted two thoughts on him."
 
 294 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "He's a splendid-looking man though there seems to 
 be more in him than one quite fathoms ; and he looks 
 too manly for a poet. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, I don't deny that he is attractive. But attract- 
 iveness doesn't buy diamonds, and there are attractive 
 men who can ! ' ' 
 
 Kershaw's book was a distinct success, but scarcely 
 so successful as Alicia was represented to have said. 
 Possibly he made two instead of twenty thousand 
 pounds by it. 
 
 "You're neglecting me shockingly," Alicia had 
 pouted, with a charming moue. "You spend all your 
 time with that creature Beryl. And why don't you 
 make her with hair my color?" 
 
 It was a very charming color, and just then, crowned 
 with a hat which was but a knot of poppies, would 
 have been eloquent of cornfields and rusticity, had it 
 been less elaborately coiffed. 
 
 "Perhaps it wouldn't suit her character," he said. 
 
 "Are you not putting one of my qualities into her?" 
 
 She glanced over his shoulder at her reflection in 
 the glass. 
 
 "You are very charming," he returned, smiling; 
 "but I am afraid you would feel terribly bored in an 
 epic poem." 
 
 "You goose," she said, "I should not really be in 
 it. How silly you are. And why write epic poems?" 
 
 "For bread and butter, dear," he said. 
 
 "Well, that is a reason," she assented, seriously. 
 
 So he finished his poem. But Beryl had not one of 
 Alicia's qualities. And the world said he must be a 
 blind fool. 
 
 It was a great relief to Alicia when he transferred 
 his attentions to Beryl. Alicia was wont to say that 
 she could not imagine a more terrible fate than to 
 have one's husband in love with one. "You might as 
 well be tied up to a wall, or wear an iron collar," she 
 said, graphically. 
 
 Fortunately, Nature had endowed her with a tem- 
 perament to effectually preclude a fate so untoward. 
 
 "And fortunately, because Richard is so very eccen-
 
 UNDERSTANDING ONE ANOTHER. 295 
 
 trie in some of his views," she confided to a friend, 
 "fortunately Richard is of a kind to romance about 
 poem-women, because I really believe, dear, he might 
 even have some ridiculous old-fashioned notion about 
 being- faithful to me. It would be a ghastly bore. ' ' 
 
 Perhaps she gave him credit for more virtue than 
 he possessed. I doubt if any man of Kershaw's judg- 
 ment for in all but one act of his life he had judg- 
 ment would resist temptation for no more cogent 
 reason than that of remaining faithful to Alicia! 
 
 "I don't like Waldon," Kershaw said that afternoon 
 when their visitors had left. 
 
 "Don't you?" Alicia returned, airily. "I can't see 
 anything to object to in him." 
 
 "His free-and-easy way is objectionable." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 ' ' He shares it with nine men out of ten, ' ' she said. 
 
 "No; Waldon is different. His is the free-and- 
 easiness of a stage-manager." 
 
 "That is what he would have loved to be," she 
 laughed. "Oh, by the by, he is getting up some more 
 tableaux. ' ' 
 
 "Did he ask you to take part?" 
 
 "Clever boy! How did you guess?" 
 
 "You refused?" 
 
 "No, I accepted." 
 
 "I should like you to cancel that promise, Alicia." 
 
 "Yes, dear," Alicia said. "I imagined you would 
 when I made it." 
 
 "Shall I write, or will you?" he submitted, quietly. 
 
 "Neither of us," she returned as quietly. 
 
 "Are you serious?" 
 
 "Absolutely." 
 
 "What does it mean?" 
 
 "It means that we have reached that stage in our 
 matrimonial development when we are going to under- 
 stand one another, my Richard. ' ' 
 
 "Well, let us be careful that we do not misunder- 
 stand," he said, after a pause. "But I don't think we 
 need have any difficulty. Waldon wishes you to pose 
 in his tableaux, I especially wish you not to. ' '
 
 296 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "And I especially wish to," she retorted. "That is 
 two against one! The ayes have it." There was 
 silence; then she began again. "Look here, Richard; 
 do not let us quarrel. I loathe quarreling. But you 
 must remember I made a great sacrifice in marrying 
 you. ' ' 
 
 She paused interrogatively. 
 
 "I don't deny it," he said. 
 
 "Well, the least you can do is not to interfere with 
 me. I always warned you that I am no saint. You 
 must let me take my amusements as I can. Our 
 income restricts them, goodness knows. But I must 
 go my own way. I could not tolerate being coerced. " 
 
 "I think we are unnecessarily enlarging on the 
 situation, dear," he urged. "It is a simple enough 
 matter. Two persons with decent consideration for 
 one another I don't speak of stronger feeling can 
 easily adjust their views. It only means a little giving 
 in one to the other. ' ' 
 
 Alicia shook her head emphatically. 
 
 "Giving in isn't so easy," she said, "when you 
 really care about things. I'm not a good person, and 
 so I care about things. That's the chief difference 
 between saints and sinners, saints are persons without 
 any strong inclinations. ' ' 
 
 Kersh aw laughed. "The definition is smart," he 
 said, "so let it pass." 
 
 "Now, I, being a sinner, have a very strong inclina- 
 tion to appear in the tableaux you, being a saint, 
 have a weak inclination that I shall not. ' ' 
 
 "No," he said. "You must count me a sinner if 
 you gauge my sinfulness by the strength of that deter- 
 mination. " 
 
 Alicia yawned. 
 
 "I'm tired," she said. "I have been chattering all 
 the afternoon. And I mean to appear in the tableaux, 
 Richard." 
 
 "Is my wish nothing?" 
 
 "Nothing but nonsense, you goose," she protested. 
 "I can't think how you can have been a soldier and 
 still remain so prudish. If I appear as a Turkish sul-
 
 UNDERSTANDING ONE ANOTHER. 297 
 
 tana and cover my face with a veil, I suppose your 
 sense of propriety would be satisfied?" 
 
 "I don't like Waldon and his set. You would be 
 obliged to be everlastingly there for rehearsals." 
 
 "Why, of course I should. That is half the fun. 
 What a spoil-sport you are. Do you think I can't take 
 care of myself?" 
 
 "I don't want you to find it necessary. You are 
 very young, dear, ' ' he said, tenderly. 
 
 "Perhaps that's why I am up-to-date," she retali- 
 ated. "Really, Richard, you are too old-fashioned. I 
 believe you think women need protecting as they did 
 when there were ogres and giants about. You have 
 such queer notions. Why, it is the very riskiness of 
 things that make them racy. ' 
 
 Kershaw stared at her. Then he persisted firmly : 
 
 "Well, I don't mean you to take part." 
 
 Alicia bit her lips. Her eyes sparkled angrily. She 
 fidgeted with the chiffons of her tea-jacket. 
 
 "I said we were going to understand one another," 
 she broke out, "and you may as well know once for 
 all that I don't intend to be coerced. The only way 
 you can make my life tolerable is not to interfere with 
 me." 
 
 "Isn't this a little vulgar?" he said. "Isn't your 
 life tolerable? I thought you were having a pleasant 
 enough time. ' ' 
 
 "Well, I must," she said. "I am not complaining. 
 Only I must have pleasure and excitement. I can't 
 be domestic and humdrum. It isn't in me, and you 
 can't alter my character." 
 
 "I know that," he returned, gravely. "I want you 
 to be happy in your own way. I only ask you to con- 
 sider me in a few things." 
 
 "Well, it must be things I don't care much about," 
 she said, more placably. "It only makes misery when 
 people want everybody else to be like themselves. 
 You're fond of libraries and books. I'm fond of life 
 and pleasure. You think me a criminal I think 
 you ' ' 
 
 "What?" he smiled.
 
 298 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Well, I don't mean quite a fool, Dick," she said, 
 seriously; "but we can't have been meant to shut our- 
 selves away in studies droning over books, when there 
 are life, and excitement, and balls, and pleasures 
 going." 
 
 "Well," he said, "I confess they do not tempt me 
 very much. I am a good deal older than you, and I 
 don't expect you to like the things I care for. Neither do 
 I ask you to drone over books or to give up parties. 
 We have been married four months and this is the 
 first time I have crossed you. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, you have looked as if you didn't like things 
 several times," she pouted. "Yesterday, for instance, 
 Fitzimmons wasn't really going to kiss rne. And even 
 if he had, I've known him for years. You are so 
 prudish." 
 
 "Maybe," he said, flushing savagely; "but I would 
 have put him in the horse-pond. The boys of to-day 
 are a deuced deal too rapid." 
 
 Alicia laughed maliciously. 
 
 "Oh, Richard, I should have loved to see it. He 
 is such a dandy ; and then I should have known if that 
 curled fringe he wears is really his. Molly Cholmon- 
 dely says it isn't. Oh, I must kiss him next time. 
 He is to be in the tableaux, you know." 
 
 ' ' But you are not. ' ' 
 
 "Pardon me, Bluebeard." 
 
 "It is no use, Alicia. I have made up my mind. " 
 
 "Why, so have I," she said, meeting his looks reso- 
 lutely. 
 
 "Don't be foolish, dear," he protested. "We must 
 not come to open rupture." 
 
 "Then, you must give in. I shall not. I am deter- 
 mined on it." 
 
 There was no mistaking her meaning. All the 
 charming mobility was gone out of her face. The 
 straight, fine lines of it were very straight. He went 
 over to her. He put an arm about her. 
 
 "Don't, dear," he said. "Do not let us quarrel. 
 Don't let it come to a trial of strength." 
 
 She jerked herself peevishly away.
 
 UNDERSTANDING ONE ANOTHER. 299 
 
 "What nonsense it is," she cried. "You know you 
 can't chain me to a wall. You can't put me in the 
 stocks, or take my clothes away. How can you pre- 
 vent me from going if I choose to go? You can't 
 restrain me by brute force." 
 
 He stood looking at her. 
 
 "No," he said, "I can't." 
 
 "Well, I shall go. I meant right from the begin- 
 ning to go. If you went down on your knees to me, 
 it wouldn't make any difference. I intend always to 
 have my own way. So we have merely been wasting 
 breath, discussing all this time a point I never had the 
 slightest intention of yielding. It is so senseless, 
 Richard. Wives are not going to be bullied. What 
 can men do? They can only fume and sulk." 
 
 "Well, we won't waste further breath," he said, 
 coldly. "I had not supposed things stood like this 
 between us, or I should not have entered upon the 
 matter. ' ' 
 
 He turned, and quitted the room. He stood at the 
 window of his study, smiling sternly. 
 
 "Heavens!" he said, bitterly. "What a pitiful fool 
 I've been. I was no boy to make a grand passion of 
 an instinct that didn't last a week."
 
 300 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 A REHEARSAL. 
 
 Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations. The 
 only sin is limitation. As soon as you once come up with a man's 
 limitations, it is all over with him. 
 
 "I will drive with you," he said, when the day for 
 the-first rehearsal arrived. 
 
 "In the capacity of friend or dragon?" she inquired, 
 acidly. 
 
 "Definitions are odious," was all he vouchsafed. 
 
 Since their quarrel, which was their first, but suffi- 
 ciently decisive in that it left no room for doubt as to 
 Alicia's future policy, there had be'en no apparent 
 restraint in their communications. Alicia had met 
 him smiling and complacent, as one who had asserted 
 her position, and having done so, anticipates no fur- 
 ther difficulty. That the position she had asserted 
 was an ungracious one, and one subversive absolutely 
 of emotional relations, did not seem to affect her. She 
 prided herself on her common sense, and one of the 
 first duties of common sense, as she regarded it, was 
 to dispose effectually and finally of false conceptions. 
 Richard had better realize, as soon as possible, that he 
 must leave her free to go her way. She had sacrificed 
 everything in marrying him. She was independent 
 of him so far as money was concerned she had the 
 grace to flush red-hot to her finger-tips at all this 
 consideration involved it was far better for him 
 to understand exactly how they stood and how she 
 meant to continue. She rather admired herself 
 for that she considered candid dealing. They had 
 been married four months, and he must expect 
 a bit of occasional plain-speaking. One could not 
 go on forever loving and doving. Not that there 
 had been a great deal of this. With all he had pro-
 
 A REHEARSAL. 301 
 
 fessed, he appeared to her distinctly cold. After all, 
 he had taken it well. He looked a shade graver, per- 
 haps, than usual, and was more silent; but he would 
 soon get over that, and it would put a stop to further 
 possibilities of dissension that she had stated her case 
 clearly. 
 
 Alicia must not be judged too harshly. She 
 belonged to an order of woman who has sensibilities 
 but no sympathies. Sympathy argues imagination to 
 project the mind into another's mind, and detect the 
 hurt there. And Alicia had no imagination. Like 
 many another of her sex she was mainly instinctive, 
 and the instinct mainly self-preservative. Her brain 
 needed stretching educational stretching to enable 
 it to compass something outside the horizon of self. 
 
 "Even Richard can be managed," she reflected, 
 triumphantly, for it was a point whereon she had not 
 been confident. She watched him from behind the 
 cover of her pink lace veil as they drove. He had so 
 strong and fine and clever a face that she exulted, 
 reflecting that she had proved herself master. 
 
 But if by management and mastery she meant bend- 
 ing his convictions one iota, she was flattering herself 
 unduly. 
 
 And Richard what was Richard thinking, sitting 
 beside the pink-and-lilac toilette, which for this after- 
 noon was his wife? For the toilette of the afternoon 
 was the focus of Alicia's consciousness, and in a fashion 
 her determining rule of conduct. 
 
 Sometimes even she was maidenly when her modiste 
 had clothed her in dove color, and had set a rustic- 
 seeming hat in reality an apotheosis of modishness 
 upon her corn-colored hair. For the talent Alicia had 
 lay in the direction of art, and the theme her artistic 
 faculty set was self. It would have jarred her sense of 
 the harmony of things to be bizarre and rapid when 
 she wore gray. Gray was a cool, soft, modest color, 
 requiring quiet movement, subdued speech, and 
 restrained expression for its perfect rendering. She 
 was chameleon-like, only that the shame she assumed 
 in her dress and virtues was not spontaneous, but that
 
 302 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 which Paris was wearing or would wear for Alicia 
 was previous in her modes. So dress served her where 
 conscience might have failed her, for there were things 
 it would be in the worst taste to do or to say in gowns 
 of a particular tint. It was in gray and white that 
 Kershaw had lost his heart and head to her. This was 
 his pure dove-hued woman, with white linings to her 
 soul and maiden womanhood. This was the true 
 Alicia, not she of the scarlet and black and steel of yes- 
 terday, the witch who demoralized weak, weak man, and 
 hypnotized his higher senses by a repertory of smart 
 talk, small laughter and slim ankles. 
 
 Very early in life, Kershaw had disentangled his 
 manhood from the snare of sense ; and the black and 
 scarlet Alicia, though she bewildered, did not take 
 him captive. Variety and complexity the zest of life 
 are played on higher chords. Black and scarlet 
 women are so very much alike, they are so black and 
 scarlet, they drop their lashes, flash their eyes, and 
 play their time-worn, repainted, pathetically flimsy 
 little tricks again and again, with a monotony of imita- 
 tion and limitation which insures their palling. In a 
 world of sky-blues and sea-blues and forest-blues; of 
 sky-greens and sea-greens and forest-greens; of cloud- 
 golds and sun-golds and star-golds; of moon-silvers 
 river- silvers, snow-silvers; of the white that lies in the 
 hawthorne, the cup of the lily, and the high sky; of 
 the blue-green that nestles in the proud little hedge- 
 sparrow's egg and breaks in the sunset; of the blue 
 that lies in sincere eyes, and the cool, pure blue of 
 blue-bell carpets ; of the pink that blushes in the wood 
 anemone, and in the ocean shell, and in the tips of 
 baby-fingers, and the glad cheeks of nursing mothers ; 
 of the browns of autumn leaf, of human hair, and the 
 ripe fruits of nut-trees in a universe of infinite 
 variety, where tone differs so from tone that it shall 
 take a man his lifetime to fill his hands with shells on 
 the shore of that variety; where form is so multiple 
 that nothing is like another ; where texture rings the 
 countless changes between the carbon which is well- 
 nigh incombustible and the down of a bird's wing; in
 
 A REHEARSAL. 303 
 
 this universe of infinite variety, unfolding ever and 
 still more to the unfolding senses of progressive 
 growth ; the black and scarlet woman has only her 
 primitive black and scarlet to engage our illimitable 
 color-range. 
 
 On a mighty whirling planet, only a few feet sepa- 
 rated from whose seething heart ferns and flowers and 
 damp cool forests nestle homes wherein for doves to 
 coo their love-stories, and large-eyed, untamed crea- 
 tures to lurk securely the black and scarlet woman 
 makes her flimsy parody, and dances her little scarlet- 
 stockinged steps upon the threshold of a great mys- 
 terious sanctuary wherein lie the sacred secrets of 
 human love and birth. 
 
 "Everything is pure," says mighty Nature, walking 
 in the Garden of the World. "Everything is Pure 
 that I have made. ' ' 
 
 "Everything is Impure," jests the scarlet- woman. 
 ' ' Everything is Impure that I have touched. ' ' 
 
 But Nature made them, and they shall return once 
 more within her Healing Shadow. Even the black 
 and scarlet woman shall be washed white in the dews 
 of her Great Woods. 
 
 However, these are very large considerations these 
 Shall-Be's of Evolution to consider beside the Lady 
 Alicia's pink-and-lilac toilette, as she drove radiant in 
 her consciousness armed to the teeth with it, indeed 
 the consciousness of looking her' best. She was so 
 blonde, so pink, so blue-eyed, that Kershaw, observing 
 her bitterly, could not be surprised that he had been 
 deceived by her lovely translucency and had not sus- 
 pected callosities beneath, callosities of selfishness and 
 egoism, till hers was not the I of a well-poised person- 
 ality, but I's that sprouted, knotty and gnarled like 
 cancer-specks, through all her perfect flesh. 
 
 Observing her with the larger vision of the poet, he 
 was ashamed of himself for detecting her shortcomings. 
 It seemed so pitiful, so immature, so childish, this 
 small-souled life of hers, this life of gowns and shal- 
 low gaities. 
 
 "For heaven's sake, let me not be her censor," he
 
 304 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 protested. "I can be guardian and friend to her, at 
 all events. I can protect her in some measure, if I 
 can do nothing else." 
 
 Likewise he was not lacking in hot pride that his 
 wife's name should be above reproach. 
 
 He, like many another, found the ambition of a 
 number of the women of his class to reproduce the 
 ways and manners, if not the morals, of the demi- 
 monde inexplicable. 
 
 A demi-mondaine would give that world whereof 
 she holds the nether half to be mistaken for a duchess, 
 and the duchess would often give her upper world to 
 be mistaken for a demi-mondaine. Are women never 
 content to be true to themselves? he wondered. 
 
 "This is an unexpected distinction," Waldon ob- 
 served with the elaborate affability of a stage manager 
 emulating his leading gentleman. Nobody could 
 understand why Waldon, with three hundred years of 
 family behind him, wore the manner of his class as a 
 costermonger wears his Sunday suit. They forgot that 
 three hundred years of family stand occasionally for 
 degenerating family, under which circumstances the 
 line might with benefit have been broken. 
 
 "I believe he is only craving to be invited to take 
 part," Alicia cried, maliciously. "Couldn't we get up 
 a tableau with St. Sebastian or some other perfect 
 person in it?" 
 
 "I am afraid our programme is full," Waldon 
 returned, shortly. He eyed Kershaw with no very 
 great favor. Was the man going to mount dragon 
 over his wife? Sometimes he was not at all certain 
 that he ought not to have married her himself. Other 
 men admired her so much. He was not altogether 
 confident that she would have accepted him. He 
 knew she had entertained higher ambitions; she had 
 married Kershaw only by a fluke, but he suspected 
 dimly that Kershaw's handsome personality had been 
 the occasion of the fluke. No, hang it! he wasn't 
 going to get up a tableau to immortalize Kershaw. 
 
 The grouping of the pictures was an interesting 
 spectacle. A noted actor-manager had undertaken to
 
 A REHEARSAL. 35 
 
 assist, and the contrast between his and the amateur 
 manager's bearing afforded an object lesson in dis- 
 crepancies. Waldon fell easily into the position of 
 subordinate. 
 
 It was not a dress rehearsal, this being the first meet- 
 ing, but a detailed plan of operations had been pre- 
 pared. 
 
 ' ' It will be a difficult company, ' ' the actor -manager 
 said, "training and discipline go far to help." 
 
 But he was wrong. The social training, though 
 its ends be not exalted, is in default of a better and 
 excellent means. These well-bred persons bore them- 
 selves easily, and had their features well in hand. 
 The lack of self -consciousness which comes of the 
 noblesse which obliges graceful comportment, stood 
 them in good stead. 
 
 They fell easily and unaffectedly into the poses 
 assigned them. 
 
 The incongruity between modern dress and the 
 expression of emotion was ridiculously apparent. 
 Grief stretched supplicating hands to heaven, her 
 uplifted arms distorted by gigantic sleeves, the pose 
 of her head restricted by the hitching of an elaborate 
 coiffure upon the stiff edge of her high collar, while 
 the stylish pleats of her silk skirt falling from a wasp 
 waist revealed the taper heels and narrow soles of 
 fashionable boots. 
 
 "Elbows a little higher," enjoined the actor- 
 manager. 
 
 "Impossible in these sleeves," Grief responded, 
 irritably. 
 
 "Head more raised." 
 
 "How can I in this ridiculous collar?" 
 
 "The drapery must flow in curves of abandonment 
 and loosely from the waist." 
 
 "It's horse-hair," Grief's spouse confided in a melo- 
 dramatic "aside." 
 
 Whereupon Grief's distresses and shortcomings were 
 momentarily lost in laughter. 
 
 There were three graces intertwining arms. Ingen- 
 ious aid was given by means of a lantern, which, 
 20
 
 306 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 throwing the pictures chosen for representation upon 
 a large screen, assisted the posers to fall readily into 
 attitude. 
 
 It required all the breeding present to restrain 
 mirth at the contrast afforded by a screen-picture of 
 the Graces in Greek dress, undulant of curve, flowing 
 of robe, their unbound hair rippling loose from their 
 broad brows, beside three fashionable Graces of the 
 nineteenth century, breastless, hipless, hour-glass 
 waisted, balancing themselves with a stylish assertive- 
 ness on narrow, high-heeled shoes, their foreheads 
 bedecked with the hundred stiff, meaningless curls of 
 a hairdresser's fringe. Each of these Graces had been 
 an acknowledged belle of the previous season. Progress 
 had given them something lacking in the Grecian 
 women ; but it had assuredly taken more away. 
 
 "Scarcely a success!" the actor-manager submitted, 
 gravely. "These ladies would show to more advantage 
 in a less less classical and more up-to-date group." 
 
 The Graces smiled, well-pleased. If there was one 
 thing more than another whereon they prided them- 
 selves it was in being up-to-date. 
 
 "Perfect frights, weren't they?" Alicia whispered 
 Vaux. "I hope I sha'n't look such a guy." 
 
 "What are you?" 
 
 "A Watteau shepherdess first." 
 
 "Oh, you'll be all right. There are a good many 
 centuries of civilization between Praxiteles, or who- 
 ever the chap was who did the Graces, and Watteau." 
 
 The Watteau shepherdess was received with accla- 
 mation. Alicia contrived to put so much metropolitan 
 devilry into the rural art of sheep-tending, so realistic 
 a swish to the tail of her pink-and-lilac skirt, that it 
 was difficult to believe that skirt had not revealed a 
 glimpse of buckled shoes and silken limbs. The actor- 
 manager was moved to regard her with a contem- 
 plative eye. 
 
 "If she ever comes to grief," he reflected, prac- 
 tically, "she has a living in her hands. I couldn't take 
 her on myself we don't go in for that particular line ; 
 but she'd make a hit in the halls."
 
 A REHEARSAL. 37 
 
 "And she's my wife!" Kershaw muttered, with all 
 his blood in his face. 
 
 "Why the devil didn't I make a harder fight for 
 her, ' ' growled Waldon, enviously. 
 
 "She is nearly as great as Polly Pacer," Vaux con- 
 fided to his cigarette, "only Polly has more heart." 
 
 Then Alicia was Briseis, captive and fair-cheeked, 
 as she was led from the tent of Achilles by command 
 of Agamemnon, reluctant, weeping, stretching tender 
 arms to her invulnerable lover, who stood scowling on 
 her captors. 
 
 Vaux was Achilles. 
 
 "With a helmet and a false mustache," he said, 
 diffidently, "I shall pass. My calves are not quite 
 what I expect that Greek chap's would have been, but 
 the fellow who does the make-up, says he can easily 
 put that right with a bit o' paddin'." 
 
 It was late before the rehearsal was over. The 
 pictures refreshed themselves with champagne, 
 liquors, and pigeon sandwiches, and Achilles, be- 
 wailing his Briseis, took more fiery spirit than was good 
 for him. 
 
 "I'd never have been talked into bein' this Greek 
 beggar if I hadn't thought Milly would have been 
 here," he grumbled, driving home, and reflecting 
 that to-morrow would certainly bring him an attack of 
 liver; "and Milly writes that she can't leave. I sup- 
 pose she's got the washin' or mendin' or somethin' to 
 do. Well, it would be livelier than this, anyway. 
 And I wonder what Alicia told that lie about her 
 losin' her money for, I'm sure it was a lie." 
 
 Vaux had thought it over after leaving The Towers 
 that afternoon, and summed up the merits of the case 
 on the probabilities. Alicia had told a lie or Milly had. 
 Having so reduced the matter to its two component 
 factors, he had no difficulty in choosing between them. 
 Alicia had, of course. It was worse than idiocy on his 
 part to have pitted her veracity against Millicent's for 
 an instant. But why should Alicia have lied? That 
 was a problem, and that he determined to solve. 
 
 Alicia, driving home through a cool evening of corn
 
 308 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 fields and lovely secluded lanes and perfumed places, 
 was in abominable temper. 
 
 "Why," Kershaw said, "I found it rather amusing." 
 
 "I was vilely bored," she cried, angrily; "and then 
 that filthy, half-worm champagne, and those nasty, 
 rotten little scraps of pigeon Waldon's a disgusting 
 beast to give us such stinking food. ' ' 
 
 "Gbod Lord! Alicia," her husband said, "what 
 language you use." 
 
 "Language!" she said, and laughed an evil laugh. 
 ''If you want language you shall have it." 
 
 He did not want it, but he had it language that 
 would have been a credit to Billingsgate, did credit 
 that way lie. Turns of speech and modes of thought 
 it had never occurred to him any decent woman 
 admitted to her mind or tongue. 
 
 There was a livid bloom all over her pink face ; once 
 or twice she kicked at him savagely ; the back of her 
 glove split open to the swell of her clenched fist. He 
 remembered how she had bitten him. He felt sick 
 through all his frame to hear the license and virulence 
 of her words and voice, and to see the distortion of 
 her face. She seemed to have lost all control. The 
 coachman and footman, sitting before them in decent 
 counterfeit of menial abstraction, could not fail to 
 hear her. 
 
 "For heaven's sake, control yourself!" he adjured 
 her in low tones. "Are you mad? What has offended 
 you?" 
 
 She paid him not the slightest heed. She continued 
 her volley of abuse, railing, raving, almost shouting 
 in her abandon of rage, as they rolled through the 
 summer-clad lanes, where tall, cool grasses, and white 
 flowers like stars and moons and innocent eyes, lifted 
 their manifold beauty. 
 
 I am sorry to betray Alicia in this mood. She was 
 generally even-humored, laughing, and amused. But 
 when her even surface was ruffled, dregs rose. And 
 I have known many dainty-looking women of Alicia's 
 type, when their even-surface has been ruffled, to use 
 very grimy language. Shallow natures, like shallow
 
 A REHEARSAL. 309 
 
 waters, are apt to be muddy, or to be easily made so. 
 Depth and quiet are needed wherein for the un worthier 
 elements of consciousness to settle. Alicia's nature 
 had no depth ; her life was a mere round and whirl of 
 petty aims and restless activities. An hour of solitude 
 was torment to her. She had no mind wherein to 
 retire. She must be forever performing her little 
 social tricks, or existence were a blank. 
 
 It may be urged that, for the honor of my sex, I 
 should have concealed the fact that behind the curtain 
 my fair heroine was capable of relapsing into bargee 
 language. But being a faithful historian, I am bound 
 to depict her in all her bravery of character. I have 
 risen into rhapsody on the subjects of her form, her 
 complexion, her gold hair, and charming wiles, so 
 must I complete the picture by confessing her at the 
 depth of her dazzling skin a mere aboriginal female. 
 Nature has strange ways of illustrating herself. Occa- 
 sionally, with a hand which seems ironic, but may in 
 truth be kind, she breaks into perfect workmanship, 
 and makes one bad woman look what all good women 
 are. The perfect face is a beautiful mask, in the 
 elaboration whereof the potentialities of brain and 
 heart have been expended. So Nature gives a man a 
 frame, or a mind, or a voice, which, were all his 
 qualities up to an equal standard of excellence, would 
 make him a god, whereas he is but the instrument of 
 a human power, a lure whereby Nature leads progres- 
 sion. In a million years, it may be, the quality which 
 makes him pre-eminent in this day of beginnings will 
 be the average ; but to-day we worship it under the 
 title of genius. 
 
 Therefore we must not altogether blame Alicia for 
 her shortcomings. Her face, which serves her for a 
 mask, and for the painting whereof the hues which 
 might have made her a soul had been lavishly spent, 
 served the world also. 
 
 Many a plain, better woman, seeing that face, went 
 home hugging the beauty of it wistfully to her heart, 
 that she might get something of it into the face and 
 fibre of her developing child. And that is what Nature
 
 310 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 intended. Nature loves no individual man or woman. 
 Nature only loves the race. 
 
 However, Kershaw was at present too closely teth- 
 ered to Alicia to be able to take a philosophic bird's 
 eye view of her uses. The torrent of invective stream- 
 ing from the sieve of her coarse-celled brain stung 
 him to madness. He felt moved to take her by the 
 collar of her pink-and-lilac gown and drop her in the 
 road. 
 
 It appeared she had been disappointed about a tab- 
 leau. Waldon had promised her that she should 
 appear with somebody she did not name, and that 
 somebody had not turned up, so Waldon and the 
 derelict were described in terms which might have 
 astonished them. 
 
 Despite an overmastering desire to do so, Kershaw 
 refrained from dropping her in the road. He called 
 to the coachman, and, the carriage stopping, he him- 
 self got down. 
 
 ' ' Home, ' ' he instructed. ' ' I shall walk. ' ' 
 
 And the pink-and-lilac toilette, corn-colored hair, 
 and vituperative tongue were presently beyond sight 
 and hearing. 
 
 Three miles of quiet lane and hedgerow, overhang- 
 ing trees, in whose shade and keeping birds carolled 
 out of their fluty throats the joys of domesticity, and 
 flowers gave him of their loveliness and odors as he 
 passed! So Nature proffered him her balm. 
 
 But I fear me for all his poet's mind he thank- 
 lessly rejected it. His imagination at that moment 
 served only to project him forward to an horizon 
 where life stretched long and turbulent, with Alicia 
 for mate. 
 
 There must be some way of managing her, he 
 reflected, trudging along. He started seeking it. 
 
 He might have spared himself the trouble. In the 
 domestic contest between a large and a small nature, 
 the small invariably wins. Such a battle entails so 
 many mean persistences and wretched shifts that the 
 greater yields. Take your victory, it cries, only give 
 me one hour's peace.
 
 A REHEARSAL. 311 
 
 That is the reason why small-mindedness sits often 
 in the highest places of our year of grace. Small- 
 mindedness holds no space in it for peace all its bits 
 of furniture and mean acquirements jostle one another. 
 Having no space to sit at home in the quiet of being, 
 it is forever on the highway doing; and he who is 
 forever on the highway gains the turnpike first. 
 
 But it is such a dusty, soul-destroying, sordid way 
 the highway. Beside it there are fields and flowers and 
 perfumed pastures ; along it there are only vans of 
 goods and chatties, baker's carts and butcher's, gangs 
 of driven men and women, wrecks and human out- 
 casts, tramps and jail-birds. And whither does all the 
 haste and turmoil tend, when they who are first may 
 after all be last? 
 
 When he met Alicia at dinner she had regained her 
 normal humor. 
 
 She wore a gown of silver tissue, and an opal necklet 
 he had given her. 
 
 She looked like a fashionable angel, and she smiled 
 at him divinely. 
 
 "So sorry I was cross, Dicksy, " she whispered, when 
 the butler had momentarily withdrawn. 
 
 "It's all right, dear," he said, dejectedly. He had 
 not come to any definite conclusions as to that plan of 
 management. Where self-respect and affection were 
 lacking, he considered ruefully, what lever of influence 
 remained? Had he been a smaller man he might have 
 tried compulsion; but your six-foot man is always 
 diffident of putting out his strength against a woman. 
 Moreover, as Alicia had said, he could not set her 
 under lock and key or beat her. Lord Windermere 
 was the only person in the world she had feared, and 
 this was because she knew him capable, as he fre- 
 quently threatened, of horse-whipping her. But fear 
 of hurting or of angering another would never have 
 weighed with Alicia where her inclinations were at 
 stake. I must have my own way was the standpoint 
 to which she forever reverted with a persistent shallow 
 obstinacy. 
 
 When the servants had quitted the room, she deserted
 
 312 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 her chair, and perched herself in all her bravery of 
 silver tissue on his knee. She put a slender arm about 
 his throat, and drew his head against her breast. 
 
 "How you snubbed me," she chided him, "leaving 
 me to drive home alone." 
 
 He kissed her with a swell of hunger at his heart. 
 He was not a six months' bridegroom, and he had 
 dreamed fond dreams. He put a passionate hold 
 about her about this fair wife of his who was but 
 perfect flesh. Even so Pygmalion might have yearned, 
 embracing perfect stone. 
 
 "You goose," she whispered, "other men think me 
 piquante when I scold. ' ' 
 
 "Has any man but me heard you scold as you did 
 this afternoon?" he questioned, with a shiver. Did 
 any but he know ulcer-spots in his wife's dainty body? 
 She was watching up at him with the eyes that were 
 laid over his breast. When she answered there was a 
 note of weariness in her voice. 
 
 "Oh, I have been cross sometimes," she said, indefi- 
 nitely. "And heaps of women use language to their 
 relatives and husbands. Richard, what a lot you 
 have to learn. Have you been always a monk?" 
 
 "No, "he said. 
 
 "Tell me?" she whispered. But he told her nothing. 
 
 "That's a silly notion, " she began again, rubbing 
 her corn-colored head with petulance against his coat ; 
 "that notion that women are saints. We never have 
 been and we never shall be. Even when we are 
 kicked and flayed for it, or kept in zenanas, we manage 
 to get into mischief. " 
 
 "I don't think anybody wants you to be saints," he 
 said. "God knows, a man badly enough wants a 
 woman to be human. ' ' 
 
 "You call it human Mrs. Grundy calls it bad." 
 
 "We are not talking of the same thing," he said. 
 "It isn't being human brings women into the divorce 
 court, for example. There isn't one woman in five 
 hundred who gets there because she cares about a 
 man. It's one part vanity, one part selfishness, and 
 two parts devilry or diamonds. Sometimes a woman
 
 A REHEARSAL. 313 
 
 gets there by mistake because she really cares, 
 because she is human and then God help her for the 
 company she finds herself in ! " 
 
 "Well, after all, you know, Richard, I suppose meii 
 and women caring for one another is chiefly selfishness 
 and devilry, if you are only honest enough to analyze 
 the feeling. " 
 
 "Good Lord," he said, "Whose feeling?" 
 
 "Why, everybody's. Yours and mine. I don't 
 pretend to be one of these saints. ' ' 
 
 "Yet the finest acts in history, the finest lives lived, 
 have been done and lived for the love of a man or 
 a woman." 
 
 ' ' Oh, those are superlative people those people who 
 get into history. I am talking of average persons. 
 Now, confess the truth, sir. Was not the reason you 
 married me because you think me pretty? You want 
 me because I am pretty, and you don't want anybody 
 else to have me." 
 
 He held her at arm's length, and looked into her 
 face. 
 
 "Do you seriously believe that that is all I felt?" 
 
 "Felt? Why don't you say feel?" she cried, peev- 
 ishly. 
 
 Why did he stare at her as though he were ques- 
 tioning the quality of her hair and skin? 
 
 "Did I say 'felt'? Well, let it pass. Answer me if 
 that is all you think love is worth?" 
 
 "Why, of course it is," she said, sidling back against 
 him. ' ' You know that is all love really is. A man 
 likes to kiss a pretty woman, and to own her." 
 
 ' ' Men marry plain women and crippled women. Men 
 have given their lives for woman under circumstances 
 where there could be no reward of kissing or owning. 
 Women have kept faith, and have suffered their whole 
 lifetime for dead men " 
 
 "Well, I daresay they were frumps," she said, 
 irritably, "and thankful to have anybody to care for 
 her. And, after all, if you love me in such a superior 
 way, it is very curious you made such a fuss about me 
 playing in the tableaux when you knew how much I
 
 314 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 wanted to, and snubbed me just for being cross this 
 afternoon. ' ' 
 
 He did not attempt to explain. Like most writers, 
 he was not a person of many words. Moreover, he 
 knew that all the words in all the tongues will not 
 explain the quality of color to the blind. 
 
 "Love me," she whispered against his throat. "I 
 believe you have grown tired of me, and I want to be 
 loved." 
 
 He took her in his arms and kissed her with 
 an empty heart. 
 
 "Oh," he cried passionately, "you beautiful thing! 
 "Why can't you be what you look?"
 
 GLADYS OSBORNE. 315 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 GLADYS OSBORNE. 
 
 "I grant to the wise his meed, 
 
 But his yoke I will not brook, 
 For God taught me to read, 
 He lent me the world for a book." 
 
 "That is not from Prince Ludwig?" he said, handing 
 her a letter. 
 
 "Possibly," she answered, with a curious transitory 
 gleaming in her eye. "Tea or coffee, Richard?" 
 
 "He should not write to you," he said. "That is 
 the third letter this week. What does he say?" 
 
 "Tea or coffee? The letter! oh, I can't trouble to 
 open it yet. Will you take tea or coffee, Bluebeard?" 
 
 She sat at the tray in a charming morning-gown of 
 buff. It framed her corn coloring like a filmy sheath. 
 Half way through breakfast he inquired again about 
 the letter. 
 
 "Oh, bother, "she answered. "I have not opened 
 it yet." 
 
 At the end of breakfast he picked it up and put it 
 into her hand. 
 
 "Open it, dear," he said, "and let me answer it for 
 you. It is the worst taste for him to write to you at 
 all." 
 
 "I shall open it when I please," she said, and slip- 
 ped it into her pocket. 
 
 But Kershaw had no intention of yielding this time. 
 There were limits to his patience. 
 
 ' ' Open it now, ' ' he insisted quietly. 4 ' It may require 
 an answer from me." 
 
 She sat staring defiance at him out of brilliant 
 eyes. Then suddenly she weakened, dropping her 
 lids. 
 
 She took the letter from her pocket, and tore it open 
 angrily.
 
 316 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 When she had read it he removed it from her re- 
 luctant fingers. 
 
 "You have no right," she muttered. "I will not be 
 coerced. ' ' 
 
 "So you have written to him," he said, when he had 
 glanced through it. "And you faithfully promised me 
 that you would not. What is this he says about 
 playing Achilles in the tableaux?" 
 
 "I didn't arrange it," she protested. "Only I would 
 never have been Briseis if I had known Vaux was to 
 be Achilles. He hasn't the figure for it. He is too 
 scraggy. He spoils the picture. " 
 
 "And you asked Ludwig to take the part?" 
 
 "It was originally cast for him. " 
 
 "You didn't know it, Alicia?" he said, less fiercely. 
 "You couldn't have agreed after all that has hap- 
 pened?" 
 
 She was silent. Then she said evasively: 
 
 "No, I didn't know it." 
 
 "But how could you ask such a thing of him? It 
 seems incredible under the circumstances." 
 
 "It is nonsense," she cried, hotly. "I cannot keep 
 out of society for fear of meeting Ludwig. We have 
 to meet, so the best thing is to behave as though noth- 
 ing had happened." 
 
 "Of course but not to seek him." 
 
 "Oh, I don't see that it matters," she protested. 
 
 "Well, as he very properly says, he can't ask Vaux 
 to turn out for no better reason than that he has 
 changed his plans, seeing that Vaux has had the bother 
 of rehearsing." 
 
 "You ask Vaux to give it up, Richard. He'll do 
 anything for you, and I do so want it to go off nicely. 
 Ludwig has such a soldierly figure, and somebody said 
 Vaux's legs were not equally padded. It will cover 
 me with ridicule." 
 
 "I'll tell him about the legs," Kershaw said. He 
 had ceased to be astonished at Alicia, or he might 
 have stopped to wonder at her flimsy reasons. 
 
 But Alicia herself wrote. She was sure, she said, 
 her sweet Tom would retire in favor of Prince Ludwig.
 
 GLADYS OSBORNE. 317 
 
 She had looked forward to it as an easy means of 
 slurring over past disagreeables with the prince. It 
 would be nicer for Richard, too, to be on pleasant 
 terms with Ludwig, as he had taken a house in the 
 neighborhood, and would soon settle there for good. 
 And Alicia was so fond of Ena, and wished to be 
 friends. 
 
 She smiled while she wrote it, and smiled till the 
 answer came. Sweet Tom begged a thousand pardons. 
 He had no wish to be selfish nor to unduly press his 
 case. But he could not tamely yield so rare an 
 opportunity. He had spent sleepless nights enough 
 congratulating himself upon his luck. If the skies 
 should fall, he must once in his life have been Achilles 
 to Alicia's Briseis! 
 
 He sealed and dispatched it by a groom. 
 
 "Hang it," he said, "if Alicia wants to go to the 
 devil, I won't give her a hand up." 
 
 He strolled over to Summerlake. "I'll find out 
 from Waldon if it is true if I am really only Ludwig 's 
 substitute," he said, perhaps a trifle ruffled as to his 
 vanity. 
 
 His lordship, he was told, was in the billiard-room. 
 
 "All right, Bishop," he said, "don't bother, I'll find 
 him there. ' ' 
 
 There was someone in the billiard-room, but not his 
 lordship. 
 
 The someone was a very handsome person, with a 
 girl's features and expression, and a woman's eyes. 
 She was sitting at a table, strewn with books and 
 papers, when he entered. 
 
 She rose and bowed, with an ironic question in the 
 eyes, dark, fine, and lustrous under their long lashes. 
 
 "Pardon," he said; "they told me Lord Waldon was 
 here." 
 
 "Pray do not explain," she responded, distantly. 
 "I did not suspect you of being my visitor." 
 
 He had turned to leave. He turned back. 
 
 "Why," he said, smiling, "I might have been, you 
 know, if I had known you were here. Is it Miss 
 Osborne?" 
 
 She nodded.
 
 3i 8 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "One never meets you," he said. "One hears of 
 you occasionally headin ' a tripos, and gettin ' B. A. 's 
 and things, but you never condescend to mere society. " 
 
 "Life is so short," she said, gravely, "and there is 
 so much to get in. ' ' 
 
 "Ah, " he said; "now that is a point on which you 
 and I differ. Life seems to me a precious lengthy 
 business. " 
 
 She was elbow-deep in papers. A barricade of books 
 protected her. 
 
 "You speak as though you were bored," she said, 
 with the air of a discoverer. 
 
 "Bored," he repeated. "Why, of course I am bored. 
 It's the norm of the nineteenth century." 
 
 Her brow cleared. Her dark eyes smiled. 
 
 "I see you think," she said. 
 
 "No," he replied, "I don't. Sometimes I borrow 
 other people's notions. I got that notion out of some- 
 thin' I read the other day." 
 
 "Well, you apply what you read." 
 
 He regarded her curiously. 
 
 "Occasionally I do," he said, "in particularly bril- 
 liant moments." 
 
 A flush struggled with her pallor. She laughed, 
 embarrassed. 
 
 "I did not mean to be rude," she said; "only one 
 grows to think of you gay society folk as being too 
 too light-hearted for problems. ' ' 
 
 "I don't think I should bother about problems, if I 
 were you," he returned. "They can't be settled in 
 studies, you know. They'll work out sometime, but 
 not by thinkin' over. A problem that's stiff enough 
 to be worth grindin' over has got to be lived. That's 
 the only way you can settle it. ' ' 
 
 S^e looked at him with interest. 
 
 He returned her interest apparently. At all events 
 he made no show of going. 
 
 "Are you good at arithmetic?" she questioned. "I 
 am fairly up in higher mathematics, but I am never 
 sure of myself in arithmetic. I have been bothering 
 some minutes over this thing. "
 
 GLADYS OSBORNE. 3 J 9 
 
 It was a simple sum. He did it by the rule of three. 
 
 1 'I was doing it a different way, " she said. "Thank 
 you. There is something admirable about the prac- 
 ticality of a man's brain. " 
 
 "You hold us the inferior sex, of course?" 
 
 '''Oh, no, "she said magnanimously, "different one 
 cannot compare dissimilars. Perhaps I admire the 
 quality of a woman's brain most. " 
 
 "I do, "he stated. 
 
 She leaned forward. 
 
 "Don't," she said, earnestly. "It demoralizes us. 
 So long as men think like that about us, and are 
 chivalrous and generous, we shall never do our best. 
 You must throw over all sex considerations, and meet 
 us fairly as man to man. You must give us no 
 advantages; you must run us hard, throw us if you 
 can, and leave us to pick ourselves up. " 
 
 "I don't quite see our obligation to be howlin' 
 beasts," he said. 
 
 "It would be kinder to us in the long run, than to 
 be tenderly patronizing, as you have been in the 
 past." 
 
 "Ah," he said; "is that how it strikes you? Have 
 we chaps played our part so cheaply? By-the-by, do 
 you mind if I smoke a cigarette, or am Ikeepin' you 
 from problems?" 
 
 She took a cigarette case from the breast-pocket of 
 her coat. She passed it across the table to him. 
 
 "I think you will find them decent smoking, "she 
 said. "There are matches on the mantle-piece. Thank 
 you, I think I will. " 
 
 She kindled her cigarette at the lighted match he 
 passed her. She leaned back in her chair, crossed her 
 legs demurely, and breathed out a thin stream of 
 smoke with an assumption of enjoyment. 
 
 "You don't really like it, I suppose?" he submitted, 
 eyeing her. 
 
 "Not much," she allowed; "but one does it." 
 
 "It is strange I've never fallen in with you 
 before," he observed presently. "I suppose you camp 
 out mostly in the library?"
 
 320 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "When I am 'down,' " she said. "I haven't kept all 
 my terms yet. When I am fledged I shall shall ' ' 
 
 "Fly high," he suggested. 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 "I want to do some good work," she said. 
 
 "Slummin'?" 
 
 "Oh, no, I have no tastes that way. I should not 
 for the life of me know what to say to the people. I 
 mean serious work book compiling, or annotating, if 
 I don't get an original idea for writing a book of my 
 own. I want to do something really serious." 
 
 "Well, I don't know that I should, if I were you," 
 he urged. "There's a great deal too much of that 
 kind o' thing about already. Couldn't you write 
 verses for kids, or make picture-books to make 'em 
 laugh?" 
 
 "Do you mean toy-books for children?" she inquired, 
 with an outraged air. 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 "Jolly little things kids are," he said. "It's worth 
 doin', I tell you, makin' 'em happy and laugh." 
 
 "I'm afraid I am not very humorous," she said, 
 stiffly. 
 
 "Oh, they're not exactin'. Almost anythin' pleases 
 'em. Oh, I say, I'm sorry; I thought that was what 
 you meant. 'Pon honor, I was serious." 
 
 She looked hurt. Her face was sensitive and fine. 
 
 "I am very serious about my work," she said, 
 proudly. 
 
 He went over and stood beside her table. 
 
 "I'm horribly sorry," he apologized; "I didn't 
 mean to to depreciate it, or anythin' of that kind when 
 I said write books for children. There's Kate Green- 
 away, you know. She's done more for people than 
 Dr. Johnson, for instance, or Byron, and lots o' chaps, 
 showin' 'em how pretty kids are, and that. You meet 
 kids every day, you don't meet Corsairs." 
 
 She was silent and still sore. 
 
 "The world will be a beastly sort o' place presently, 
 Miss Osborne," he persisted, ruefully. "We men 
 will have to take to drink and bad ways when all you
 
 GLADYS OSBORNE. 321 
 
 women are cooped up in studies and cricketin' and 
 bicyclin' all over the place, and doctorin', and all 
 ridin' hobby-horses. The men and children will have 
 a pretty wretched kind o' time." 
 
 She melted. 
 
 "There will always be plenty of women to look after 
 the men and babies," she returned, with smiling 
 scorn. "There is a very large surplus of our sex, you 
 know, and only a very small proportion of us go in 
 for anything serious." 
 
 He shook his head gloomily. 
 
 "Perhaps not," he said; "but most of 'em nowa- 
 days 'go in' for somethin', and from what I've seen of 
 'em it isn't safe for women to go in for any thin'. 
 They always over-do it, whether it's golfin', cyclin', 
 learnin', writin' or dancin'. And it isn't as if it made 
 'em happy. It doesn't. They're all restless and dis- 
 contented. Whatever they go in for they can't get 
 enough of. ' ' 
 
 "This is a very brilliant moment," she smiled. 
 
 He was somewhat abashed. 
 
 "I don't generally talk," he said, apologetically. 
 "You set me off, you know. But honestly, I tell you 
 the world is gettin' to be a very beastly lonely sort o' 
 place. A chap can't tell things not real things, you 
 know to, another chap, and his mother's probably 
 bicyclin' or playin' in golf competitions, and one of 
 his sisters is up to her eyes in mathematics, and 
 another's heels over head doin* flimsy water- colors, and 
 the girl a girl he's fond of, perhaps has got some or 
 other fad into her head that drives everythin' else 
 out. We men are havin' a rippin' bad time just now, 
 that's all I have to say." 
 
 "You seem to think a woman should be a mere 
 adjunct to a man a mere creature to listen to his 
 grievances, to amuse, and be subordinate to him. To 
 have no life of her own, or work of her own to be a 
 sort of squaw, in fact, " she protested, indignantly. 
 
 "No," he answered, "I don't think that at all. I 
 must have expressed myself very badly. Every chap 
 admires a girl for grit and bein' clever. I'd let 'em
 
 322 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 do everythin' they want to, and have rights, only it's 
 a pity they can't take things at their proper value, and 
 remain jolly all-round human women instead of turnin" 
 into kind o' peg-tops always spinnin' on their pegs 
 till a chap is tired. ' ' 
 
 "Is that what we do?" she inquired, somewhat 
 soberly. 
 
 "Well, I think you do a bit, you know," he said. 
 "There's my mother, for instance I'm not tellin" 
 tales out o' school, because all the county knows it 
 but she goes in for business runnin' the estate and 
 that. She's got a head for figures, and she's a capital 
 farmer, but she over-does it. She wears big boots, 
 and tramps round all day with a spud or somethin' in 
 her hand. She's got an eye like a knittin' needle, and 
 a voice like a man, and a tongue well, everybody 
 knows Lady Crossley's talent for scoldin'. She talks 
 farm, and beasts, and figures, at breakfast, lunch, and 
 dinner. If you meet her out at parties she talks tur- 
 nips to you. She won't put up with a ha'penny wrong 
 in her accounts. She doesn't allow a quarter inch 
 margin to people's shortcomings. She's always 
 detectin' some chap robbin' eggs, or some chap stealin' 
 corn, or a dairymaid givin' a drink o' cream to her 
 sweetheart, or the bailiff takin' a tip. The house is 
 always in an uproar. She rides the thing to death. If 
 we were to lose a hundred or two a year, well, we 
 shouldn't be in the bankruptcy court, and we might 
 enjoy an hour's peace. It was all right when the 
 guv'nor did it. He was tolerant and took an easier 
 view, and, as he used to say, a gentleman couldn't be 
 a d d cheeseparin' shopkeeper, and if he lost a few 
 pounds a year, someone who wanted it more, perhaps, 
 got the benefit of it. He did it all without overdoin' 
 it, and nobody would have known he was doin' it. He 
 didn't bring it in to meals, and he let the people have 
 as good a time as he knew how. " 
 
 "Oh, there is something in what you say," his 
 listener admitted. "I think we get angles." 
 
 "Well," he said diffidently. "It's a pity you do, 
 you know. It sets people against women doin' any- 
 thin'."
 
 GLADYS OSBORNE. 3 2 3 
 
 "Your society-woman, who has never had a more 
 serious aim than to marry well, is just as extreme in 
 her way. ' ' 
 
 "Yes," he said calmly; "you are all alike." 
 
 ' ' You are unflatteringly candid. ' ' 
 
 "Well, you said talk to you as man to man, you 
 know." 
 
 "Do," she said; "after all, it is more flattering than 
 compliments and humoring. ' ' 
 
 "Well, while we're talkin' plainly, just tell me why 
 they don't teach Girton and Newnham and other 
 learned women manners. Men would get kicked if 
 they put on the side some of the girls up at Girton and 
 Newnham do, glarin' and elbowin' and snubbin'. I 
 went once to the Union library with a chap, and I tell 
 you I was glad to get out. A chap can't meet that 
 sort o' thing in women, because, of course, he can't 
 hit her over the head. ' ' 
 
 "There are under-bred women all over the world," 
 Miss Osborne protested; "and you must not forget 
 that a large proportion of women who study or work 
 are ungracious and ungraceful not because study or 
 work has made them so, but because being so they are 
 not so eligible, as are nicer women for marriage, and 
 therefore adopt an alternative life." 
 
 "Well, it's a pity any of the nice women go in for 
 anythin' but beiii' nice," he said, lugubriously. 
 ' ' There are precious few nice women about. ' ' 
 
 She leaned back in her chair and laughed, her dark 
 eyes glancing over his face. 
 
 "What a doleful voice," she said, "when you have 
 the whole wide fashionable world of charming women 
 to range in." 
 
 "Ah," he said, "but the worst of it is, they've gone 
 to an extreme like all the rest. They're too violently 
 set on bein' charmin' to be really charmin'. You 
 can't be violently charmin', you know." 
 
 She laughed again under her breath. He took it so 
 very dismally. 
 
 "There is uncle crossing the lawn," she said, "and 
 here are you wasting my valuable time in running
 
 324 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 down my sex. You can go out by the window if you 
 like. You will just catch him. ' ' 
 
 He looked reluctantly whither she pointed. 
 
 "Am I turned out?" 
 
 "For this morning," she smiled, holding out her 
 hand. 
 
 "I should like to thrash this subject properly out," 
 he submitted. "I shall be here a good deal helpin' 
 Waldon with the tableaux. I'm a chap without any 
 occupation and prone to the blues. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, well," she assented brightly, "come in some- 
 times and do my sums for me. ' ' 
 
 "Don't you ride?" he inquired another morning when 
 he had escaped from the hubbub of rehearsal. He 
 often now escaped from the hubbub of rehearsal and 
 from other states of boredom to spend a few minutes 
 in the library. On this occasion he felt rather abashed. 
 Some instinct, he was not quite clear as to what it 
 might be, had moved him to seek her in the guise of 
 Achilles. He removed his helmet as he entered. He 
 pushed forward a steel-clad hand, with rather a self- 
 conscious smile. 
 
 "I like it," she said, looking him up and down. 
 "How tall you look." 
 
 "Oh, I'm not," he objected, diffidently. "It's the 
 armor, I think. I'm under six feet." 
 
 "Why don't men always dress like this? It would 
 make life much more interesting. ' ' 
 
 "Not your life?" 
 
 "Oh, not my life, of course." She was silent for a 
 moment. Then she added, with a whimsical smile: 
 "All the men in my present life walk in coats of mail 
 and helmet and plume. I am reading Homer." 
 
 "They're not real fellows," he protested, grudgingly. 
 "Homer was only a romancer. I don't suppose there 
 was ever such a person as Achilles. " 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 "Do you think you could do a sum for me in shining 
 armor?"
 
 GLADYS OSBORNE. 325 
 
 While he did it she watched him, interested. 
 
 "Did you ask me do I ride?" she questioned when 
 he looked up. "Yes, I ride sometimes." 
 
 "I have never seen you in the huntin'-neld. " 
 
 "No," she acquiesced, "I am not unsexed enough 
 for that." 
 
 "Why, you don't think it cruel?" 
 
 "If it were not I don't see what there would be in 
 it. No, I take a solitary canter before breakfast. " 
 
 "Why, so do I sometimes," he said, "or anyway I 
 could. And I am one of those chaps who feel terribly 
 blue in their own company." 
 
 "Some day we will ride together," she said; "but at 
 present I am hard upon Greek verse, and I work it 
 out while I ride. Now, tell me, is Lady Alicia, of 
 whom I hear so much, a very irresistible person?" 
 
 "Haven't you met her? Why, you are an absolute 
 hermit?" 
 
 "One must be one thing or another. Society allows 
 no other god. Is she very beautiful?" 
 
 "Very," he said. 
 
 "And you are all in love with her?" 
 
 "Oh, love!" he said, raising his brows. "But you 
 will see her in the tableaux. She, you know, is my 
 Briseis." 
 
 "And this Miss Rivers of whom you have told me. 
 Is she, too, to be there?" 
 
 "No, her father died not very long since, so she 
 cannot take part. And now she isn't even coming," 
 he added, gloomily. 
 
 "That is a pity." 
 
 "Why? You don't know her. " 
 
 She smiled up into his eyes. "I was thinking of 
 you," she said. 
 
 He was silent. Then he laughed curtly. 
 
 "Oh, I don't deny it." 
 
 "Is she beautiful too?" 
 
 "No, she isn't much more than pretty, though 
 there's something about her face. But she is frank 
 and warm-hearted and charming." 
 
 "And clever?"
 
 326 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Yes, she is clever in a way, but not at all learned." 
 "Not at all learned," Miss Osborne repeated lightly. 
 A moment later she exclaimed somewhat petulantly: 
 "For goodness sake, Mr. Vaux, go back to your 
 play-acting and let me finish my Greek chapter. What 
 
 a shocking f ritterer of time you are. ' ' 
 
 ******* 
 
 "And so Millicent Rivers is the ideal woman," she 
 said, her dark lashes dropped over the eyes intent 
 upon a parallelogram. 
 
 "She's real enough," he answered, moodily. 
 
 ' ' Your ideal being the real. ' ' 
 
 "I don't see how you can get anything better than 
 the real," he urged. "When a woman has a kind 
 heart and beautiful eyes, and a mind as true as steel, 
 and pretty ways, and a tall, well set up figure, and 
 somethin' about her that makes a chap feel a bit like 
 bein' in church, and is good-humored and hot-tem- 
 pered, and bright and clever, and has plenty of soul, 
 and scolds you soundly when you deserve it, and is 
 sorry for you when you are out of spirits ' ' 
 
 "She sounds rather a contradictory sort of person," 
 his hearer commented, glancing up from her parallelo- 
 gram with the corners of her mouth ironically curved. 
 
 "She isn't at all," he protested. "It all blends like 
 like" 
 
 "A chameleon?" the ironic lips interrogated. 
 
 "Oh, come now," he said gravely. "Don't let us 
 talk about her. If I couldn't properly describe her, 
 it's because I'm not much good at descriptions. Now 
 Kershaw ' ' 
 
 He stopped suddenly short. 
 
 "I am sure you described her very nicely," Miss 
 Osborne said. "Any woman might be proud to be so 
 described. I was only jesting." 
 
 "I wish you knew her," he broke in. 
 
 "I wish I did. Perhaps I may. And what," after 
 a pause, during which her eyes were intent again upon 
 the parallelogram "and what does Millicent Rivers 
 think of it all?" 
 
 He got up slowly and walked to the window.
 
 GLADYS OSBORNE. 327 
 
 "I haven't much chance," he said, looking deject- 
 edly across the lawn. 
 
 "Why not?" she questioned, sharply. 
 
 "Why not?" he echoed. 
 
 He turned round, and stood facing her diffidently, 
 as she faced up at him with keen, penetrative looks. 
 She ran a white, compact hand over the edges of a pile 
 of books beside her, leveling them in line. 
 
 "Why not?" she said again. 
 
 "Well," he began in some abasement, "I'm not 
 good-lookin'." 
 
 "No," she assented, "you are not." 
 
 "I've seen chaps worse lookin'," he protested, brid- 
 ling. 
 
 "Why, so'have I," she said; "much worse." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 "Oh, well, I don't pretend to beauty. And then 
 I'm not a Croesus; and I've never done anythin'. I 
 haven't written books, or fought battles. I'm beastly 
 bad-tempered. ' ' 
 
 "You conceal that." 
 
 "Oh, I haven't ever slanged Millicent. I generally 
 go and kick about the stables." 
 
 "Well?" she said, as though making an inventory. 
 
 "Oh, well," he continued, "I'm not at all brilliant, 
 you know. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Only in moments, ' ' she demurred, her dark regard 
 upon him. 
 
 "It's strange," he said, candidly, "I have more 
 lucid intervals with you than with most people. I 
 suppose it's because you're so clever yourself. You 
 spur a chap to exceed his normal." 
 
 "But you prefer to be normal!" 
 
 "Oh, no, I don't. Everyman likes to be at his best." 
 
 She lettered the lines and angles of her parallelo- 
 gram. He watched the dark, shapely head and the 
 sensitive face, with its fine power of concentration 
 and delicate lines. There is something missing in her 
 face, he thought, or she would be very handsome. She 
 looked up suddenly. Meeting his interested gaze for 
 a moment, there was nothing missing in her face.
 
 328 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 Color, softness, humor, touched it. The next moment 
 she was herself again, serious, intent, and keen. 
 
 "I don't think we have altogether exonerated Miss 
 Rivers in this matter," she said, whimsically. "We 
 have not proved you without a shred of claim to con- 
 sideration." 
 
 "These things are not based on reason," he submit- 
 ted, "even if she had any reason to think differently." 
 
 "And you have no rival?" 
 
 Her face kindled again, and softened at the empha- 
 sis of his denial. It was so plain to her woman's 
 quick-wittedness that he was defending another wom- 
 an' s secret. There was silence between them. Then 
 she changed the subject. 
 
 "So the tableaux come off on the twenty-seventh. 
 Prince Ludwig stays the week with us, and I shall be 
 banished to the clock-tower. ' ' 
 
 '"Is it voluntary?" he inquired, half seriously. 
 ' 'Are you really a hermit, or shall I break a lance with 
 Wai don and rescue you from durance vile?" 
 
 She shook her head, smiling. 
 
 "It is mere perversity on my part," she insisted. 
 ' 'Uncle is indulgence itself. He loathes my hermit 
 ways. I believe he would love to take a theatre and 
 employ me in it as his leading lady. Oh, no, spare 
 your lances ! Uncle and I are the best friends possi- 
 ble." 
 
 "Shall you not even see the tableaux?" 
 
 "How can I? I know none of the people. Know- 
 ing people would involve me in a maelstrom of calls, 
 and returning calls, visiting and being visited. As it 
 is, people who know of my existence believe I am a 
 lunatic or an eccentric of some kind. I suppose I am, ' ' 
 she added, with a half sigh.
 
 A VISITOR TO POPLAR VILLA. 3 2 9 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 A VISITOR TO POPLAR VILLA. 
 
 Can anything be so elegant as to have few wishes, and serve 
 them one's self ? 
 
 "Alicia, I am going to give you another chance to 
 visit Millicent," Kershaw stated. "This is the sixth 
 time I have tried to arrange a visit. She says it is 
 impossible for her to come to us. Now, will you go 
 with me on Monday?" 
 
 "No," Alicia returned; "I cannot possibly manage. 
 With the tableaux, and the de Winters coming to stop, 
 I can't possibly get away. Millicent should not live 
 such a long distance off. It takes nearly a day to get 
 there." 
 
 "I shall take rooms for the night, and we can be 
 back to lunch next day. ' ' 
 
 "Well, it cannot possibly be next week. Put it off 
 till there is more time. There is no such great hurry. ' ' 
 
 "No," he insisted; "it has been put off too long 
 already. I must go alone if you will not come with 
 me." 
 
 "What nonsense!" she cried, wrathfully. "Milli- 
 cent can exist without us going to see her, I suppose. 
 She writes rarely enough, goodness knows." 
 
 Seeing him determined, she used "language." 
 
 "You are a vile, selfish brute," she apprised him 
 among other things. "You know I want to look my 
 best at the tableaux, and I shall look no better than 
 a tallow rag after such a journey." 
 
 "There are things more important that looks," he 
 said, disgusted. Few days passed whereon he did not 
 curse the folly which had bound him to so mean a soul. 
 Notwithstanding all her arguments, however, she 
 accompanied him. She could not contemplate with 
 any ease of mind the notion of a tte-a-tte between
 
 330 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 her husband and the heiress. Millicent might turn 
 spiteful any moment, she reflected with the short- 
 sightedness styled worldly wisdom, which sees its own 
 range into every action. She shivered, reflecting it. 
 Kershaw would take it horribly, he had such distorted 
 notions about things. He might, of course, be sensi- 
 ble he showed signs of more sense than she had 
 believed him to possess but suppose he should upset 
 the whole arrangement. It turned one sick to think 
 about it. Then she shrugged her shoulders, shifting 
 the consequences. She caught her breath with an 
 emotion, one half terror, one half triumph. Well, it 
 would be his own fault ! No one could blame her. 
 She could not be expected to live in beggary. As it 
 was, there were bills she could not meet, and had 
 begun to look about in search of means thereto. 
 Things had not seemed to cost so much in the old 
 days when father and Waldon and others paid the bills. 
 And if Richard were likely to do anything foolish, 
 and cut off Millicent's supplies well, well, what was 
 the use of bothering? The secret was still a secret. 
 She caught her bieath again. What a fool she had 
 been to get Vaux to cash that check for her. A wed- 
 ding present from Millicent she had told him. But 
 did people always credit what they were told? And 
 Vaux was as cute as a weasel. If she had not been 
 in pressing and immediate want of it, she would rather 
 have cut off her hand than have put him on the scent. 
 But it was the last day, and the money had to be paid 
 into court. 
 
 "Safe as the Bank of England," people said Vaux 
 was where secrets were concerned. Well, he had 
 kept one or two of hers. But the only really safe way 
 in this world was to trust nobody. She sat perturbed, 
 recalling the glance Vaux had cast upon the check, as 
 he took it without a word. Then she suddenly ground 
 her teeth. Good heavens, what a fool what a fool 
 she had been ! Why, not a month earlier she had told 
 him Millicent had lost her money. She had never 
 before known herself guilty of such a discrepancy. She 
 had always prided herself on her consistency of
 
 A VISITOR TO POPLAR VILLA. 331 
 
 explanation under the most difficult circumstances. 
 Yet for the moment it had slipped her memory. 
 
 She caught sight of herself in the glass. Well, well, 
 nothing was worth creasing one's forehead over. 
 After all, Vaux had always shown himself discreet, 
 and, in the event of questions, Millicent's equivocal 
 position in the affair was a shield that promised 
 shelter. 
 
 She called her maid, and changed her gown. She 
 was not going to let Kershaw pay that visit to Wink- 
 worth by himself. 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling was convalescent ; but her prog- 
 ress toward recovery was slow. There is nothing like 
 a good sharp illness for restoring one to health. In 
 a rut of routine we get into the way of slipping 
 threads of constitution, and these illnesses send us back 
 to pick up and rehabilitate. So Mrs. Barling's con- 
 valescence was slow ; there were so many threads she 
 needed to go back and pick up. 
 
 Kew had carried her to the drawing-room before 
 he started for the city, and she lay beside the window 
 enjoying the languor of recovery. 
 
 "How beautiful it all is," she murmured, yearning 
 upon her idols with wistful, hollow eyes; "and they 
 have kept up the polish so nicely." 
 
 In a corner of the recess consecrated to the great- 
 grandmother there was a cobweb which annoyed her, 
 and the arrangement of the Worcester service left 
 more cracks and discolorations visible than when they 
 had been put in order by her own hands. The focus 
 of her mind, however, had been loosed by illness till 
 she found herself wondering and wondering again at 
 herself for venturing to wonder whether these circum- 
 stances were really of so much account. And, after 
 all, the cracks in the Worcester were not discreditable, 
 they carried the family even further back. 
 
 Millicent had lifted the blind that she might get 
 full benefit of the sunlight, and a ray deflected by the
 
 332 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 polish of the sideboard shot up and played amid the 
 filmy traceries of the cobweb. 
 
 For the first time in her decade of domesticity it 
 occurred to Mrs. Barling, lying idle, with her wasted, 
 transparent hands folded in her lap, that a cobweb 
 was a very wonderful and charming piece of workman- 
 ship. The iridescence of its silken ladders, the rhythm 
 of its filmy wheels, regular to satisfy the mind with 
 the sense of completeness, yet with the infinitesimal 
 touch of difference which is all the difference between 
 art and imitation the way in which, attached at inter- 
 vals to the immaculacy of her wall and ceiling, it 
 swayed and floated to imperceptible air-currents a 
 captive aerial wonder. She sighed while she longed 
 for a broom. For after all, was it not the daintiest 
 bit of workmanship in lace about the room? 
 
 Her eyes dwelt fondly on her Temple, lingering 
 proudly on this and on that relic, on the melancholy 
 harp and milking stool, the boomerang and Oriental 
 kitchen-things, the bulrushes and whatnots. 
 
 Punch lay at her feet, with an awed sense of pro- 
 faning a sanctuary, for the drawing-room of Poplar 
 Villa had always before been a locked sesame to his 
 inquiring mind and nostrils. He had now stolen in 
 on tiptoe, tempering even the vigorous apology of a 
 tail, confessing trespass, to the silence and solemnity 
 of the place. So he had stood, with a sober muzzle 
 and entreating eyes, beseeching leave to stay. 
 
 "Well, you must be very, very quiet then," Mrs. 
 Barling had admonished him, gravely. 
 
 He had snorted assent, and stretching himself gin- 
 gerly upon the fern leaves of the cherished carpet, 
 had snapped his eyelids on the instincts of a born 
 explorer. 
 
 The baby, too, had spent some minutes with her, 
 but he had discharged such a volley of "porters," 
 "an" lambulators, " "an* doggies," "an' gee-gees," 
 and other more or less intelligible and emphatic com- 
 ments on the marvels he had encountered, the perils 
 he had escaped, and the general phenomena of his 
 career since last he met her, that Millicent had speed-
 
 A VISITOR TO POPLAR VILLA. 333 
 
 ily whipped him again from the invalid's lap and 
 deposited him with Parkins. 
 
 "He has made your head ache already, " she pro- 
 tested. "He is perfectly stentorian." 
 
 "Oh, how good you are, dear," Mrs. Barling fal- 
 tered, mopping her eyes; "he looks just the picture of 
 health, and his legs are as firm as iron. ' ' 
 
 Robby and Ruby were still with Mrs. Malcolm 
 that good woman having insisted that they were 
 better where they were until their mother should be 
 perfectly strong again. 
 
 "I do hope they are not bothering her," the mother 
 said, perturbed; "and who would ever have thought 
 a person of Mrs. Malcolm's standing and position 
 would take so much trouble over them? It only shows 
 how you may live next door to people all your life and 
 never know how kind they are." 
 
 She had seen the children from the window, they 
 having been lifted up to throw kisses to her above 
 the fence. And every morning three nosegays were 
 brought round with Mrs. Malcolm's compliments and 
 how was Mrs. Kew-Barling, and the children were 
 behaving very nicely indeed. One of the bunches 
 was an elaborate masterpiece by Mr. Snagg, and 
 bore Mrs. Malcolm's card appended; another was a 
 collection of the gaudiest, most ill-assorted colors, and 
 most pungent odors, tightly and clumsily tied with 
 string, and bearing a tag with "Robbie's love to Mrs. 
 Kew-Barling, hoping mother is well," inscribed in a 
 hand which said little for Millicent's talent for impart- 
 ing penmanship. Once on the back was written in 
 pencil, "Dear father, Mrs. Malkum is a jollie brick. 
 Don't let Punch run her cats about. Your affec. son, 
 Robert Barling. ' ' 
 
 The third nosegay was a singular assortment, and 
 betrayed, generally, no little expenditure of time and 
 energy. One day it would be a mass of mignonette, 
 with a fringe of dandelions ; another day it would be 
 a bunch of drooping daisies ; another time it was pars- 
 ley and spring-onion tops ; again, enormous peonies, 
 and once potato foliage and groundsel. To these
 
 334 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 would be attached a slip of paper with "Ruby picked 
 them for mother" in Mrs. Malcolm's hand. 
 
 There was now a gay-hued, gilded erection in the 
 garden of the Limes, and at times a flushed excited 
 face, and frills and legs and clapping hands vaulted 
 rhythmically into sight above the fence, then disap- 
 peared to rise again amid fresh laughter and cries. 
 
 Mrs. Malcolm herself is swinging them, my dear," 
 Mr. Barling once reported from his post at the win- 
 dow. 
 
 "Oh, couldn't you bring her some nice little present 
 from the city, Kew?" Mrs. Barling pleaded, overcome, 
 "a salmon, or some specially choice poultry or fruit." 
 
 "Why, certainly," said Mr. Barling, heartily. 
 
 "Don't you hope she will call when I am about 
 again?" Mrs. Barling said, wistfully. "She might 
 cool off, you know, dear." 
 
 "Why, I thought we were going back to Clapham, 
 Molly, ' ' Mr. Barling urged, surprised. 
 
 In his practical way he had regarded the matter as 
 settled. He had even spoken to an agent about let- 
 ting Poplar Villa, and, more significant still, he had 
 knocked off work a bit now that the demands upon 
 him were to be relaxed, spending his evenings with 
 the convalescent. 
 
 "Oh, yes, dear," Mrs. Barling agreed, with a catch 
 in her breath. 
 
 "If you please, 'm," Parkins announced, breaking 
 in breathless upon Mrs. Barling's reverie, "shall I 
 fetch you anything? There's Mrs. Askew-Hickox's 
 carriage and pair a-stopping at the door." 
 
 "Oh," cried Mrs. Barling, in a flutter, "I can never 
 see her. I am not fit to see anybody in this shabby 
 gown, and I feel so weak." 
 
 Her heart was in her mouth. Her hands trembled 
 so that she dropped her handkerchief. 
 
 "Oh, yes, you are," Millicent insisted, coming to 
 the rescue. "You must see her now that she has 
 called. You would be terribly sorry afterward if you
 
 A VISITOR TO POPLAR VILLA, 335 
 
 were to send her away. See ! I have brought you a 
 loose gown of mine. There is plenty of time to change 
 it. Parkins shall first ask her into the dining-room 
 while you drink a glass of wine." 
 
 "Oh, I am trembling all over," Mrs. Barling fal- 
 tered, glancing at her reflection in the glass. But she 
 folded the lace and ribbons of Millicent's robe about 
 her fastidiously and with sparkling eyes. "I don't 
 really feel strong enough, you know. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, but you must," the governess maintained. 
 "And you look so nice. Just see how it suits you." 
 
 "It is quite Parisian," Mrs. Barling cried, bright- 
 ening and blushing. "Oh, how nice of her to call. 
 And all these years I have been thinking her so 
 unkind," she whispered, as the resounding knock of 
 Mrs. Askew- Hickox's footman thundered on the door. 
 
 Millicent administered the wine. Mrs. Barling 
 turned and kissed her affectionately. 
 
 "Oh, I am so glad I didn't die. How proud I shall 
 be to tell Kew when he comes home. After all, we 
 shall get into Winkworth society. ' ' 
 
 She insisted that Millicent should accompany her to 
 the drawing-room. 
 
 "I declare I will not go unless you promise," she 
 said. "I feel quite timid by myself. You can run 
 up quickly and change your frock. ' ' 
 
 ' 'I will go if you wish it, ' ' Millicent assented, smil- 
 ing. "But there is no need to change my gown." 
 
 "Well, of course, she is used to very swell people," 
 Mrs. Barling said, glancing at Millicent's sober coat 
 and skirt. 
 
 They went in together. 
 
 Mrs. Askew-Hickox was examining the Lely. She 
 bowed and smiled with the formality of a first call 
 which was somewhat of a condescension. She was. 
 handsomely dressed. She held a" jeweled card-case in 
 one hand. 
 
 "Miss Millicent Rivers my friend," Mrs. Barling 
 said, prettily, presenting the governess. 
 
 Mrs. Askew-Hickox was very gracious. She even 
 extended her smile to Mrs. Barling's friend.
 
 336 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "I have heard of you," she said, sitting down beside 
 her. "Mr. Vaux was recently visiting us." 
 
 "Yes," Millicent acquiesced. She saw one bearing 
 of the situation in a moment. Had Mrs. Askew- 
 Hickox possessed more taste, she would have withheld 
 or would at all events have delayed, this information. 
 
 Millicent observed, to her relief, that Mrs. Barling, 
 smiling, elated, and chatty, had failed to gather any- 
 thing beyond the momentous circumstance that Poplar 
 Villa had at last secured its goal. 
 
 Smiling, she moved to the window to lower or 
 heighten a blind, leaving Mrs. Hickox no alternative 
 but to devote herself to her hostess. 
 
 Parkins, in her neatest cap with streaming frilled 
 ends, brought in tea with the air of a person used to 
 wait on duchesses and not at all abashed by a Mrs. 
 Askew- Hickox. Mrs. Barling was good to her serv- 
 ants, and they in return made her interests theirs. 
 
 The silver teapot and the spoons had been rubbed 
 up hastily. Cook's sweetheart, who happened to be 
 calling, had been dispatched for a superfine cake and 
 a jug of cream. Everything went off admirably. Mrs. 
 Barling could have cried with joy when she saw the 
 cake, iced and strewn with nonpareils, come in in her 
 pretty electroplated basket, and found the milk- jug 
 prove its contents of the unctuous consistency of 
 cream. 
 
 Millicent had, during the hours of leisure conse- 
 quent on Robby's and Ruby's absence, worked a hand- 
 some cloth and cosey. Mrs. Malcolm's bouquet with 
 its frill of stamped paper, which gave it the appear- 
 ance of having been ordered at the florist's by some 
 person above the necessity of tying home-made bou- 
 quets, gave a refined and superior cachet to the room. 
 Kew had brought home from the city the previous 
 evening a satin-quilted box of chocolates, which, Iy4ng 
 open on a corner of the piano, lent a touch of sdvoir 
 vivre and French ness to the room. 
 
 Mrs. Barling's fluttering heart, still weak from the 
 effects of illness, fairly overflowed with gratitude to 
 heaven that everything should be passing off so well.
 
 A VISITOR TO POPLAR VILLA. 337 
 
 Conscious of looking her best, and feeling that the 
 languor of convalescence was giving her an air of dil- 
 letanteism and distinction, she officiated at her pretty- 
 tea-tray, by no means insensible to the fact that Milli- 
 cent's stylish robe proclaimed silk linings to her every 
 movement. 
 
 That Mrs. Askew- Hickox was as impressed as she 
 might have been by all the excellences of form and 
 fashion which combined on that particular afternoon 
 to set Mrs. Barling's cup of happiness brimming over 
 I cannot pretend. Mrs. Askew-Hickox, being in a set 
 both smart and wealthy, was accustomed to florists' 
 bouquets, Parisian chocolate boxes, tea-coseys, and 
 most other things de luxe, and even listened with an 
 ear grown haughty and unimpressible by custom to 
 the swish of silk foundations. Mrs. Askew-Hickox 
 came of commercial stock, and though she entertained 
 a most becoming and superior contempt for all things 
 appertaining to trade, her hereditary instinct traveled 
 over the possessions of her hostess in a cool, apprais- 
 ing eye. She could have told you the value of most 
 things ; she could have separated the home-made from 
 the shop-made as chaff from wheat. Her imaginative 
 sense perceived no mournful story of the dead girl- 
 mother clinging to the melancholy harp; she set it 
 down with the boomerang and Oriental kitchen-things 
 as second-hand. Something about Poplar Villa 
 acquainted her keen sense that the Kew-Barlings were 
 not traveled persons, and she knew, with the instinct 
 which had made her father a successful speculator, 
 that Mrs. Kew- Bar ling's brussels carpet was only 
 "two-ply;" that the velvet of her curtains was cotton- 
 backed; and that the resplendent gilt and satin suite 
 had been bought at an auction. 
 
 Mrs. Askew-Hickox must, I suspect, have had a 
 certain amount of cleverness to discover all the things 
 she did discover in the course of a twenty-five min- 
 utes' call; but there were so many other facts about 
 the Barling drawing-room facts of devotion and 
 industry and heartache which escaped her, that I 
 
 22
 
 338 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 am inclined to think she was after all not so clever as 
 she might have been. 
 
 To persons far less penetrating I have known the 
 poor Temple to fairly sigh with aspiration ! 
 
 "I don't think it could have happened that year, " 
 Mrs. Askew-Hickox was saying, with reference to 
 some notable Wink worth event, "because that season 
 I was at the drawing-room, and, with one function 
 and another, was so very gay that I could not possibly 
 have found time to give it all the attention I remem- 
 ber I did give it. Now, do not credit me with more 
 virtue than I possess, ' ' she protested condescendingly. 
 "I confess it was not all voluntary. The truth is, I 
 was literally dragged into it, Mrs. Kew-Barling. I told 
 them it was absolutely absurd to suppose the thing 
 could not have been managed perfectly without me." 
 
 "Oh, I daresay they knew what a help your influ- 
 ence would be, ' ' Mrs. Barling said, admiringly. The 
 allusion to the drawing-room, made by one who had 
 actually been there, seemed like a wreath laid on one 
 of her drawing-room altars. 
 
 "You know the Butchers?" she submitted, presently, 
 with diffidence. The Butchers were the distant rela- 
 tives of the Askew-Hickox, who had notified to Mrs. 
 Askew that their friends, the Kew- Barlings, were 
 migrating to Winkworth. 
 
 The visitor's smile contracted. 
 
 "I have met them," she admitted. 
 
 "Oh, I thought " Mrs. Barling begun, then tact- 
 fully sheered off into another subject. It was plain 
 Mrs. Askew-Hickox was not ecstatically keen on claim- 
 ing kinship with the Butchers. 
 
 "Do you take cream and sugar?" Mrs. Barling inter- 
 rogated, hospitably. 
 
 "No sugar," (why do persons aiming toward smart- 
 ness invariably say no to sugar?) "and very little 
 cream, please. I suppose you know Mr. Vaux's peo- 
 ple well, Miss Rivers?" 
 
 "I lived near them for some months," Millicent 
 returned. ' ' Lady Crossley is a very energetic person 
 She finds time to know everybody. ' '
 
 A VISITOR TO POPLAR VILLA. 339 
 
 "Indeed," Mrs. Askew said. She would have given 
 much to ask in what capacity Millicent had known 
 her. There was a quiet air of ease about the govern- 
 ess, which confirmed what Vaux had said. But how, 
 why, wherefore had an heiress and a person in Lady 
 Crossley's set come to dwell in Poplar Villa? Mrs. 
 Askew fairly tingled with inquisitiveness. However, 
 smartness, as noblesse, has its obligations. There are 
 things one may not ask in so many words. 
 
 ' ' I hope we shall see something of you, ' ' she smiled. 
 "My daughter Gwendolen is an indefatigable tennis- 
 player. Perhaps you will come up some afternoon 
 and join her in a set. Mrs. Kew-Barling will spare 
 you, I am sure. ' ' 
 
 ' ' You are very good, ' ' Millicent said. 
 
 "Your home is in Roldermere, I suppose?" contin- 
 ued Mrs. Hickox. 
 
 "My home was," Millicent returned; "at present it 
 is here. ' ' She turned to Mrs. Barling, who was feel- 
 ing somewhat in the cold. 
 
 "Ah, I was thinking of your own people," Mrs. 
 Askew- Hickox persisted, heedless of Mrs. Barling's 
 temperature. 
 
 "I am an orphan," Millicent said. "My only rela- 
 tives are very distant cousins." 
 
 Mrs. Askew-Hickox realized that her quest had 
 failed for this occasion ; Millicent's manner was emi- 
 nently pleasant, but distinctly uncommunicative. 
 
 "Well," she said, effusively, "you must come up to 
 tennis. Gwendolen will be delighted to know you. 
 You will be at the Densmore's garden fete on the 
 seventh, I suppose, Mrs. Kew-Barling?" 
 
 "I think not," Mrs. Kew-Barling responded, slowly. 
 She glanced at Millicent. She was rather ashamed of 
 not confessing that the Densmores were unknown to 
 her. Yet Mrs. Hickox so obviously took her acquaint- 
 ance with them as a matter of course. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Mrs. Hickox knew perfectly 
 well that Mrs. Barling was not included in the Dens- 
 more's invitation list. 
 
 She smiled, however, confidentially.
 
 340 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "To tell the truth," she said, "I think you are right. 
 The Densmore's parties are a little " she paused. 
 The pause and blank implied that the Densmore's 
 parties were not altogether ' up to Mrs. Askew-Hick- 
 ox's form; but she did not commit herself to words. 
 "It is a pity," she added. "They are quite well-bred 
 people, though they do live so far away from one. I 
 wonder they do not move to this end of the town. " 
 
 "Rents up here are rather heavy," Mrs. Kew-Barl- 
 ing said, with a grave line in her face. 
 
 "I suppose they are," Mrs. Askew-Hickox admit- 
 ted, with the air of a person who has never needed to 
 resolve the supposition into a fact. "What a charm- 
 ing picture. After Gainsborough or Sir Joshua, I 
 suppose?" 
 
 "No," Mrs. Kew-Barling said, proudly, "it is a 
 Lely. She is one of Mr. Kew-Barling's ancestresses." 
 
 "Indeed," Mrs. Askew-Hickox said, a little nettled. 
 The Askew-Hickox had a portrait gallery, but so far 
 no ancestors to put in it. "The dress is curious. She 
 was not an actress?" 
 
 "Oh, no," Mrs. Barling protested, hastily. "They 
 were extremely nice people. It is merely fancy dress 
 a Grace, or a Muse, or something. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Askew-Hickox deserted the ancestress. 
 
 ' ' So delightful to have a change in the ministry, ' ' 
 she said. "Mr. Askew-Hickox was dining the other 
 day with dear Lord Salisbury, and he tells me he 
 looked absolutely beaming. ' ' 
 
 "We saw his name," Mrs. Kew-Barling said. "It 
 must have been a magnificent banquet." 
 
 Mrs. Askew-Hickox stiffened the fractional part of 
 a social inch. She cast one glance into her hostess' 
 face. But Mrs. Kew-Barling was absolutely guileless 
 of any intention to belittle Mr. Askew-Hickox in his 
 dining relations with Lord Salisbury. She did not 
 distinguish very clearly between dining with the 
 Premier at a city banquet and dining with the Premier 
 in Downing Street. 
 
 Her ingenuous face exonerated her, though Mrs. 
 Askew-Hickox would have thought more of her from
 
 A VISITOR TO POPLAR VILLA. 341 
 
 the standpoint of smartness had her remark been 
 made with malice aforethought, rather than, as it was, 
 in the odor of social simplicity. 
 
 "Such gowns they are wearing in Paris!" Mrs. 
 Askew-Hickox observed. "Mr. Askew-Hickox and I 
 and my daughter ran over for a week to escape a big, 
 tiresome function. They are positively trying to intro- 
 duce magenta again. ' ' 
 
 "Hideous!" Mrs. Kew-Barling exclaimed. 
 
 "I think so. But my daughter Gwendolen insisted 
 on buying a hat of that color at Worth's for Henley. 
 She spends Henley week with Sir Anthony and Lady 
 Hoskins. She is such a girl for modes. For myself, 
 I do not see that one need mind being a week or two 
 behind Paris." 
 
 Mrs. Barling shook her head sagaciously. 
 
 "Girls like to be up to date," she said, as one who 
 had reaped in her time a sheaf of London seasons, with 
 all their corollaries of drawing-rooms, state concerts, 
 and other fashionable functions, and for which Mr. 
 Worth or his British counterpart had duly equipped 
 her. "Miss Askew-Hickox is very handsome," she 
 added, with genuine admiration. 
 
 "She is much admired," her mother acquiesced, 
 without elation, as one who regarded it as only due to 
 her that her daughter should be handsome and ad- 
 mired. 
 
 "Would it bother you to see my baby?" Mrs. Barl- 
 ing submitted, shyly. "He is growing such a fine lit- 
 tle fellow. He shall come in for only a minute or 
 two. " 
 
 "I shall be charmed," Mrs. Askew-Hickox said. "I 
 am quite fond of infants. But I was not aware you 
 had a nursery." 
 
 "Oh, yes," Mrs. Barling said, disappointed. It hurt 
 her to think that the beauty of Robby and Ruby had 
 been lost on Mrs. Askew-Hickox. "You must have 
 seen them about," she urged. "My little Ruby has 
 golden curls and wears a velvet Dutch bonnet; and 
 Robby has large dark eyes, and is dressed in sailor 
 suits."
 
 342 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 . "Ah!" Mrs. Askew-Hickox said, with a fixed smile 
 and absent gaze. 
 
 Parkins, instructed, brought in the melancholy baby. 
 His face was ashine and flushed with recent soap, his 
 hair curled in damp rings to the impress of a hasty 
 brush round cook's substantial finger. He wore his 
 best frock and latest set of ribbons. 
 
 Mrs. Barling shot one grateful glance at Parkins. 
 
 "Bring him to mother," she said, holding out her 
 arms. "Now, say how d'you do prettily to lady, dar- 
 ling." 
 
 But the baby shrank into her arms, fixing a look 
 of inquiry and hostility upon the visitor. 
 
 Mrs. Askew-Hickox extended a hand encased in 
 black suede kid. But the baby was not accustomed to 
 society, and he did not understand black hands. He 
 shrank still further back, and pushed the hand away. 
 
 " 'T's my mummy," he said, jealously, " 'tisn't oor 
 mummy. ' ' 
 
 "Dear me," said Mrs. Askew-Hickox, "how plainty 
 it speaks. Is it a boy or a girl?" 
 
 "A boy. I have two boys, " Mrs. Barling informed 
 her proudly. "Say 'how do you do, Mrs. Askew- 
 Hickox,' darling." 
 
 The baby nestled his head against his mother's 
 shoulder, he bored one temple into the breast of her 
 gown, fixed the visitor with a glance from beneath his 
 lids, and, stuffing a hand into his mouth, ventured 
 bashfully : 
 
 "Do, Keekox?" 
 
 Then, in a burst of confidence, he thrust his feet 
 from beneath his frock. 
 
 "Noo soos," he announced. 
 
 "How remarkably plainly he speaks," murmured 
 "Keekox." "What does he say?" 
 
 "Oh, I am afraid he is very vain," Mrs. Barling 
 said. ' ' He wants you to notice his new shoes. ' ' 
 
 "Beautiful new shoes," Mrs. Askew-Hickox 
 observed, in the conventional falsetto adapted by the 
 very large class of persons who regard infants as 
 fools.
 
 A VISITOR TO POPLAR VILLA. 343 
 
 Leaning forward, she tapped his shiny cheek with 
 a kid forefinger. 
 
 The baby detected the lack of sincerity about her 
 adjective and tone. He retreated sullenly before the 
 forefinger. He drew his unappreciated shoes beneath 
 his frock again. 
 
 "Don't, Keekox, " he said, snappishly. He slid 
 down from his mother's lap, and, ambling headlong 
 back to Parkins waiting in the doorway, tugged her 
 by the skirts. 
 
 "Home!" he commanded. By "home" he intended 
 rooms and persons he knew better than the drawing- 
 room and Mrs. Askew- Hickox. 
 
 "So interesting children are, " observed Mrs. Askew 
 Hickox, rising. "I am at home on Saturdays, Miss 
 Rivers; we generally have a few young people to 
 tennis. If you could come next Saturday or the Sat- 
 urday after ? You will find me in most days, Mrs. 
 Ke\v-Barling, after five, or say, half-past five, in case 
 I should have calls to make. You will be at Homburg 
 with the rest of us later, I suppose? Good " 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling had risen with a disappointed 
 air. It seemed to her as though her visitor had only 
 just arrived. And she had no sense of having reached 
 the cordial relations with Mrs. Askew- Hickox her 
 long-cherished admiration for that lady had moved her 
 to count on. 
 
 But at that moment the door was flung wide, and 
 Parkins announced, in a voice fairly bursting with 
 vain-gloriousness : 
 
 "Major and Lady Alicia Ker shore."
 
 344 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 MORE VISITORS. 
 
 Sometimes along the gloom 
 
 We meet a traveler, striking hands with whom 
 
 Maketh a little sweet and tender light 
 
 To bless our sight, 
 
 And change the clouds around us and above 
 
 Into celestial shapes and this is love. 
 
 Millicent stood up with a face gone suddenly white 
 like paper. For one moment her eyes sprang to his 
 and clove there. Ah, was ever any man like unto 
 him? Then her soul fell upon his neck and wept for 
 the grave misery and disillusion written there. 
 
 She could have spurned the pink and smiling cheek 
 uplifted to her. Was all her sacrifice for nothing? 
 Was nothing to come out of anything they might do 
 but smiling self-satisfaction and serenity to this fair 
 selfishness? The strain of her soul drew his eyes to 
 her. He saw her no longer a mere, fresh-faced girl. 
 Love and suffering had made a woman of her. 
 
 He exchanged a few words with Mrs. Barling, bowed 
 to Mrs. Askew-Hickox, and, returning, sat down 
 beside Millicent with the content of long friendship. 
 
 "It is so nice of you," she said, with lips that would 
 not be controlled. Then they spoke of Lady Kershaw, 
 and things friendly and familiar at Roldermere. 
 
 Alicia had, with well-bred grace, attached herself 
 to Mrs. Barling. One might have thought she had 
 known her a life-time. Mrs. Barling found herself 
 all in a moment at her ease. The stiffness and con- 
 straint she had experienced with Mrs. Hickox van- 
 ished. She found herself translated to an atmosphere 
 of gracious and agreeable appreciation. The earl's 
 daughter had a score of natural easy ways of banishing 
 to the background the circumstance that she was the 
 daughter of an earl. Mrs. Barling lost absolute con- 
 sciousness of her silk linings and the florist's paper
 
 MORE VISITORS. 345 
 
 frill. In the atmosphere of Alicia's friendly natural- 
 ness, she would not even have been ashamed had the 
 cream-jug contained merely milk. 
 
 "Such a charming Lely," Alicia said, indicating the 
 great-grandmother. She did not profess to a knowl- 
 edge of art ; but they had Lelys in the portrait gallery 
 at home, and she recognized the artist. 
 
 "It is an ancestress of Mr. Kew-Barling," Mrs. 
 Kew-Barling said, diffidently. The necessity for 
 asserting the Kew-Barling dignity had slipped into 
 the background with Alicia's rank. 
 
 In the meantime Mrs. Askew-Hickox had sat down 
 again. When Parkins, now with flushed cheek and a 
 subdued but triumphant air, brought fresh tea, she 
 pushed her cup forward. 
 
 ' ' I am tempted to ask for some more of your deli- 
 cious tea, Mrs. Kew-Barling," she said, graciously. 
 
 "Mrs. Askew-Hickox Lady Alicia Kershaw, " Mrs. 
 Barling said, doing the honors as prettily as might be. 
 
 "I have heard my friend, Mr. Vaux, speak often of 
 you, Lady Alicia," Mrs. Askew-Hickox observed, with 
 a smile unknown to Winkworth. 
 
 Lady Alicia nodded. 
 
 "Vaux of Hinton, you mean. Capital man. Such 
 gay spirits. We see a good deal of him. ' ' 
 
 "I suppose you were at the Duchess of Devonshire's 
 ball the other night," Mrs. Askew proceeded impress- 
 ively, stirring her tea. "A friend of mine who was 
 there tells me the floral decorations were charming." 
 
 "No," Alicia returned, sending a keen, leisurely 
 glance over her interlocutor. "We were not there. 
 We are very rustic people, my husband and I. When 
 we are not in our study we are growing cabbages." 
 
 "Dear me," Mrs. Askew-Hickox exclaimed. "Is it 
 not rather a may I say an eccentric taste?" 
 
 "I suppose it is," Alicia assented, laughing; "but 
 it pays. One needs to be thrifty in these hard times. ' ' 
 
 "Depression in land," Mrs. Askew-Hickox submit- 
 ted, sympathetically. 
 
 "Lack of it!" Alicia retorted, smiling, as she turned 
 back to her hostess.
 
 346 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW 
 
 Lady Alicia, in her smart and faultless gown, cried 
 poverty with such an air that Mrs. Askew-Hickox, 
 who had always regarded anything approaching insuf- 
 ficiency as being the worst form possible, made a 
 mental note of it that restricted means, elegantly 
 gowned and charmingly confessed, might lend a very 
 dainty and aristocratic tone to things. 
 
 She drank her tea slowly, joining the conversation 
 with her most cordial manner, listening all the while 
 eagerly for some explanation of this most unforeseen 
 of acquaintanceships. She guessed shrewdly that the 
 Kershaws were primarily Millicent' s friends ; but, this 
 being so, she could not understand why Lady Alicia 
 should take so many pains to be pleasant to a person 
 so altogether average as was Mrs. Kew-Barling. It 
 seemed to her so obviously the thing, and she had her- 
 self proved it so simple, to set the little woman in her 
 place. But the Lady Alicia was as friendly and sim- 
 ple with the mistress of Poplar Villa as she might 
 have been with any duchess. There are wheels within 
 wheels here, Mrs. Hickox decided, scenting a mystery. 
 That the Lady Alicia was merely fulfilling the tradi- 
 tions of her class in being civil to her hostess did not 
 occur to her. In the code of amenities Mrs. Askew- 
 Hickox professed there were degrees of civility, and 
 Poplar Villa had not seemed to her to call for any- 
 thing like blood-heat on the thermometer of manners. 
 Plainly there was a mystery. 
 
 Mrs. Kew-Barling reached a seventh heaven of civ- 
 ilized delight on this occasion. The major was so 
 handsome and fine-mannered, he took his tea at her 
 hands and passed the cake-basket with an air so pre- 
 eminently distinguished, and sat down in her little 
 drawing-room with a mien of such deferential formal- 
 ity so different from the easy affability of Kew's 
 friends, who had a jest for her or some facetious ban- 
 ter at their tongue-ends two moments after introduc- 
 tion. They were good fellows, she knew, and mistook 
 chaff for the bread of conversation ; but Mrs. Barling 
 had a pretty and refined taste. The major sat bolt 
 upright and a little stiffly on one of the blue satin
 
 MORE VISITORS. 347 
 
 chairs. He bowed squarely, and did not loll or lounge, 
 nor address her in the free-and-easy, let's-dispense- 
 with-ceremony fashion of many of her husband's 
 friends. And the Lady Alicia was so gracious and 
 charming (she took sugar to the number of two lumps 
 and pleaded prettily for more cream), and Mrs. Barl- 
 ing found so many things to say. She was proud that 
 Mrs. Askew-Hickox should see her comporting herself 
 so easily with the daughter of an earl, proud that Mrs. 
 Hickox should meet this daughter of an earl on the 
 occasion of her first visit. She would naturally con- 
 clude that these were the normal guests of Poplar Villa. 
 She became quite condescending in her manner to her 
 first guest gracefully so, however, and with a little 
 air of asserting the dignity which had suffered before 
 her second installment of visitors came in. 
 
 And with it all her pulses were throbbing proudly 
 in her throat, wondering what Kew would say when 
 she should tell him. The heavens might have fallen 
 so far as any further zenith in life concerned her, if 
 only Kew had come in before they left. He was so 
 good-looking, and when he liked had such manly, nat- 
 ural manners that she was thoroughly proud of him. 
 
 And then Mrs. Askew-Hickox, having already tres- 
 passed too long on the conventions shackling time, 
 was compelled to rise and leave. 
 
 ' ' If you would care to come on Saturday with Miss 
 Rivers," she said, shaking hands with her hostess 
 with marked cordiality, ' ' I shall be charmed. Indeed, 
 I hope you will come then, as nearly any other day I 
 am liable to be out. And I am dying to see your baby 
 again. He is sweet. Good-by. Good-by, Lady 
 Alicia. Good-by, Miss Rivers, and we shall expect 
 you, without fail, on Saturday!" 
 
 She bowed to the major as he held the door for her, 
 and the faithful Parkins, waiting in the hall to show 
 her out, showed her out with a style of which she had 
 never believed herself capable before she had shown 
 in a lady of title, Parkins' mind, at that moment, was 
 informed by a serial story she was reading, entitled, 
 "The Viscount's Surrender; or, The Proud Parlor-
 
 348 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 maid," and she knew that the Lady Alicia, like the 
 Lady Sarah, who was the unsuccessful rival of the 
 parlormaid, called her father "earl." 
 
 "You must give this up, Millicent," Kershaw said, 
 gravely. "You have 'lived,' as you call it and it 
 plainly does not suit you. I should scarcely have 
 known you, you are so changed. ' ' 
 
 "I am well," Millicent maintained, "and happy 
 enough. Mrs. Barling has been very ill, and we were 
 anxious. Generally, I have an easy time." 
 
 "You must give it up," he insisted. "It must be 
 an intolerable life!" 
 
 "I am at least useful," she said. "I live for some- 
 thing more than my own amusement. There is inter- 
 est in it; I take the baby for a ride, I teach the 
 children spelling, and I am learning quite an amount 
 of geography." 
 
 "These things don't seem to make you happy," he 
 said, noting her face. 
 
 "Happy," she retorted. She caught her breath. 
 She scanned his face. "Is anybody happy? You, for 
 instance? I may equally accuse you of being serious. " 
 
 "When was I anything else? I am a writer of other 
 people's stories." 
 
 "When I last saw you," she affirmed, "you had a 
 story of your own. ' ' 
 
 He got up and set down his cup. 
 
 "Why, of course," he said, reseating himself, "and 
 so I have now. ' ' 
 
 His eyes sought Alicia, chatting animatedly with 
 Mrs. Barling. She was like a sublimated fashion- 
 plate. She wore dove-color but there were no white 
 linings to it ; and had there been, he knew better now 
 than to read them into her soul. 
 
 His looks returned to Millicent. There was nothing 
 superlative about her. In her fatigue and pallor she 
 was scarcely pretty. But he realized, for the first time 
 in their acquaintance, that she was eminently lovable. 
 She was quiet and strong. There were depth and 
 frankness in her eyes; her mouth was at the same 
 time firm and tender; there was scorn of the ignoble
 
 MORE VISITORS. 349 
 
 in her straight brows. And he was so sick of noise, 
 and tricks, and insincerity; so weary of chatter, and 
 gowns, and social patter. How a man might make a 
 friend of this woman, he thought, and was astounded 
 to detect himself so thinking. Why, they had never 
 been particularly attached to one another he and 
 she. Indeed, they had had more than one breeze dur- 
 ing her stay at the Towers. He had never spared 
 her much attention till that morning when he had 
 driven her to the station. The house seemed different 
 after she had gone. But then everything had been 
 different. 
 
 For the time, he was sated with sex. Alicia knew 
 nothing else. Her talk was forever of intrigue ; of 
 shifts whereby her power of beauty might make bar- 
 gains with a weaker gender; of toilettes, and arts, and 
 wiles all sex in its flimsiest and most unworthy 
 aspects. He was weary of her self-indulgent kisses, 
 which held nothing of tenderness nor even of affec- 
 tion in them. 
 
 Sex in Alicia, he thought, as writers are apt to think 
 in metaphor was a mere weed running riot till it 
 choked her. And the weed, superficially charming, 
 was rank at the roots. 
 
 What a friend this true-eyed girl of the clear look, 
 firm, wholesome mouth, and well-balanced nature, 
 might make. 
 
 For the first time in his life the full beauty and 
 essentialness of friendship between men and women 
 was borne in upon him. In one moment he per- 
 ceived that without this, love were unworthy of the 
 name. Alicia had taught him so much ! 
 
 "You have grown most terrible serious," Millicent 
 said, wistfully. "You have sat frowning for nearly 
 five minutes without saying a word. " 
 
 "I was thinking," he returned, forcing a smile. 
 "But now you must tell me what you are going to do. 
 You cannot continue like this. Will you come home 
 with us?" 
 
 "Home?" she repeated, breathlessly.
 
 350 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "To the Towers. Come, for a change, at least. 
 Do you know you are looking terribly ill?" 
 
 "I am well," she answered, steadfastly. "I am 
 only a little tired." 
 
 "Will you come for a while until you can make 
 other arrangements?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "I have chosen my life. I must have something to 
 do. I am not unhappy. " 
 
 "You ought to be happy. " 
 
 "Why, so we all ought," she said, ruefully. 
 
 "I shall set the mother to talk to you," was all he 
 could say. 
 
 Mrs. Barling presently withdrawing, in order that 
 Millicent might be alone with her friends, "I want to 
 say two words to Alicia," Millicent said. 
 
 "For goodness sake, don't leave me, Richard," 
 that delectable creature cried. "She is going to scold. 
 Stay and protect your helpless helpmeet. She looks 
 appallingly bellicose." 
 
 Millicent showed him the rustic stairway leading to 
 the garden. 
 
 "I will not wholly demolish her," she promised, 
 laughing. "The door will be unlocked, so that if you 
 hear cries you can come to the rescue. " 
 
 When he had gone she no longer laughed. She 
 crossed the room swiftly, and putting two firm hands 
 on Alicia's silk-puffed shoulders, held her resolutely. 
 
 "Why haven't you made him happy?" she demanded. 
 
 Alicia quailed a little, but evading her assailant's 
 angry looks she shook herself peevishly beneath her 
 hands. 
 
 "Don't be ridiculous," she retorted. "I married 
 him." 
 
 "He thought all the world of you. He expected 
 everything in marrying you. With a little unselfish- 
 ness and care you might have made him happy. ' ' 
 
 "What nonsense!" his wife protested. "Do you 
 suppose I was going to spend my life sitting on a ped- 
 estal? If he wanted to go on believing me a saint, he 
 should have left me to marry somebody else. I
 
 MORE VISITORS. 35 1 
 
 warned him I should be a shock to him. He'll get 
 over it presently. We are beginning to rub along 
 well enough." 
 
 "He looks ten years older. He looks neglected and 
 miserable. " 
 
 Alicia laughed a scoffing laugh. 
 
 "Neglected! Hear her! Do you suppose I can 
 comb his hair, and patch his clothes? Has he got 
 holes in his boots? Really, Millicent, it is indecent 
 for you to confess your fondness for another woman's 
 husband in the way you do to say nothing of the 
 absurdity of bewailing the distresses of a man of 
 Richard's size and age. You make him ridiculous 
 only fit to wrap in cotton wool and rock in a cradle." 
 
 "He is my cousin, " Millicent insisted; "and I do not 
 profess not to care for him. I don't care for him" 
 she blushed and hurried the words over "in any way 
 to be ashamed of. ' ' 
 
 Alicia scoffed again. She shook out her sleeves, 
 recovering her composure. 
 
 "Oh, I know," she cried, derisively, "you are not 
 like any other flesh-and-blood woman. ' ' 
 
 "I have never pretended to be anything better," 
 the girl demurred, hotly. "But there is no shame in 
 being a flesh-and-blood woman." 
 
 "Well, you can't persuade me," Alicia said, with 
 a curled lip, "that love is any very high falutin' thing, 
 any more than you can persuade me that your love for 
 Richard is something entirely in the clouds, and that 
 you wouldn't like to kiss him, for example." 
 
 "I have never said anything about clouds," Milli- 
 cent asserted, sullenly. 
 
 "Oh! then it isn't so celestial, this devotion of 
 yours," Alicia urged; "and you would like to kiss 
 him." 
 
 The girl turned her crimson, miserable face away. 
 
 "Would you like to kiss Richard?" her tormentor 
 persisted. 
 
 This weapon of Millicent's love was a weapon for 
 good service. If Millicent had a secret to be kept, 
 why had not Alicia likewise?
 
 352 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Would you?" she demanded again. 
 
 The heiress wrenched her face round with a frank 
 defiance. She looked the other straight between the 
 brows. 
 
 "Yes," she said, honestly, "I would." 
 
 "No doubt," Alicia sneered. "And do you find it 
 a very exalted desire?" 
 
 Millicent gazed at her with eyes mistily introspect- 
 ive. Her mind, in the energy of confession, had bro- 
 ken loose from convention and was free among her 
 emotions. 
 
 "It is a power greater than I am," she said. "It is 
 too large and strong and and tender to have any 
 shame in it. Unworthy things always seem smaller 
 than oneself. ' ' 
 
 Alicia sat staring at her. She shifted uneasily in 
 her chair. 
 
 "I think you must be ill," she said, perplexed. 
 You do look thin. You don't seem at all as you used 
 to be." 
 
 She remained staring at her during a constrained 
 silence. If Millicent should die she looked so white 
 and drawn, and talked so strangely if she should 
 die, what would become of supplies? That was a 
 thought to perturb one. Moreover, so far as her shal- 
 low soul could hold pity for another, she was sorry 
 for Millicent. The girl had behaved generously, and 
 seemed really fond of Richard. 
 
 "Look here, Mill," she said, with a sudden altru- 
 istic impulse, "if you feel like that about it, you can 
 kiss him if you like. I'm not a scrap jealous." 
 
 Millicent came back to the realities like one struck. 
 The blood rushed over her face. 
 
 "Oh, for shame, for shame," she cried, distressed. 
 "Do you not understand anything about a woman's 
 feelings?" 
 
 Alicia shrugged her shoulders, as one abandoning a 
 problem. 
 
 "I ought to," she retorted, "considering that I am 
 a woman. Millicent, you ought to see a doctor. You 
 are horribly hysterical. You will and you won't, there
 
 MORE VISITORS. 353 
 
 is no explaining you. Now, I suppose, for a change 
 you are going to start scolding again." 
 
 But Millicent had no heart to scold. That secret of 
 hers was one wherewith Alicia had power to scourge 
 her. 
 
 "You haven't been flirting or anything of that kind 
 to vex him?" she suggested, wearily. 
 
 ' ' I have been most exemplary ; I have only insisted 
 on having my way. When we have quarreled, I have 
 kissed and made it up again. We are incompatibles, 
 and presently we shall settle out of the matrimonial 
 mixture into our component parts, like oil and vinegar. 
 And people will say how well we agree, because we 
 shall have ceased to imagine we can't differ." 
 
 "I hear no cries of distress," Kershaw called from 
 the foot of the stairway; "I have given you nearly 
 twenty minutes. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, you may come in," Alicia cried, relieved, for 
 Millicent had not taken her very seriously to task. 
 Money matters and that was the main point had 
 not been touched upon. "The girl is scolding me 
 because I neglect you," she added, with a malicious 
 gleam at her rival. "I am talking sense to her. I 
 tell her marriage is no superlative ecstatic state, it is 
 only the mean of two average persons I call that 
 epigrammatic and smart. You may annex it for your 
 coming book, Richard." 
 
 "One can imagine it the sum or even the multiple 
 of two persons," he said, gravely. 
 
 Alicia's eyes swept his with a sudden, inquisitive 
 glance. Her brows approximated puzzled. She fol- 
 lowed his eyes drawn toward Millicent. 
 
 Millicent stood composed and quiet, defending her 
 secret with the mask of a pale face. She lifted her 
 lids, rettirning Alicia's gaze. 
 
 Beauty's own lids dropped, Beauty's features crum- 
 pled over with an angry spasm. She could have 
 struck the white mask for the mysterious power and 
 beauty of it at that moment, the power and mystery 
 which were drawing her husband's eyes. For she 
 knew that with all her charm she had never in all her 
 
 23
 
 354 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 life been so compellingly beautiful as Millicent was 
 then Pain had graven rings of dark intensity about 
 her eyes, the pupils were big with a mysterious light. 
 Her features were transfigured. She was in the grip 
 of that power which, greater than man or woman, is 
 at one with the Creative power of the universe, and 
 sweeps men and women one to another with a stress 
 of need wherein they are mere instinctive instruments 
 of Nature's plan or godlike, subdue Nature's means 
 to noble ends. 
 
 Alicia had been so long accustomed to regard Milli- 
 cent as a mere school-girl, a person of little account 
 and no experiences, who knew nothing of men and 
 the things she considered to constitute life, that see- 
 ing her now sweep with one bound, as it were, beyond 
 her to a height of knowledge to put into hei face the 
 intensity of womanhood depicted there, she was riven 
 with envy. The chit, who, so far as she knew and 
 she had thought contemptuously of Millicent' s trans- 
 parency, thinking she knew all had probably never 
 even been kissed by a man. Yet she was all at once 
 more woman than was she who had long since ceased 
 to count her kisses. She shivered with chagrin. 
 Rising abruptly, she crossed the room and seated her- 
 self in such a position that Millicent' s face was screened 
 from Richard. Envy was a pang to which her rare 
 beauty placed her generally superior. Jealousy she 
 scarcely knew, not knowing love. Now she experi- 
 enced both, but the region wherein they pricked was 
 the region of vanity. She was rapacious insatiable 
 of admiration and devotion. One man is all-sufficient 
 for the woman who loves. The woman incapable of 
 love often suffers from a species of emotional dyspep- 
 sia which no number of lovers will appease. That 
 Richard should bestow a thought on Millicent was 
 gall of bitterness to her. She had been prepared, had 
 even expressed a hope that he might relieve her of 
 some of the responsibility of his affection, but the 
 person of his selection was to be a person of her selec- 
 tion one of her own kind, who would involve neither 
 him nor her in danger.
 
 MORE VISITORS. 355 
 
 Millicent was quite another matter. Millicent was 
 no safe person for an affair with one's husband. Mil- 
 licent was altogether too old-fashioned and intense. 
 Moreover and moreover Millicent loved him. 
 
 Chatting trivialities, she watched her curiously. Her 
 manner and control were admirable. It needed a 
 woman and a woman of Alicia's penetration to guess 
 at the sick misery of the girl' s heart, the procession of 
 pale lonely future years his presence, after long 
 absence, had conjured up; the unnerving sense a 
 sense to slow her breath, and set her hands a-tremble 
 that any moment he might rise and take a conven- 
 tional leave of her, a leave which left a black abyss of 
 desolation. 
 
 For Millicent was very much in love. The last 
 touch had been set to her emotions by this new factor 
 of his unhappiness. Had he been satisfied ; had he 
 been able to deceive her into believing that this mar- 
 riage, to which he had strained every effort, had 
 brought even a measure of the joy whereof she had 
 seen him so secure, pride and a sense of the fitness of 
 things would have braced her to accept the irrevoca- 
 ble. 
 
 But the disillusion of his face, the manifest lack of 
 sympathy between him and Alicia, assailed her with 
 a new, vague whisper of responsibility. In the soul 
 of such as love unselfishly there is a fierce cry for the 
 well-being of the beloved, an imperious rebellion 
 against the suffering of the beloved, a dangerous 
 insistence upon the happiness of the beloved. Such 
 a strand of emotions makes a dangerous noose in the 
 destiny of a woman old enough to have tested the 
 value of conventions, wise enough (in her own estima- 
 tion) to have found them wanting, strong enough to 
 shake herself free of them. 
 
 But Millicent was young and bewildered by a grow- 
 ing sense of the complexity of things, oppressed by a 
 conviction of irrevocableness and her own miserable 
 helplessness against the tide of circumstance. 
 
 To proffer anything more than friendliness to the 
 husband of another would have shocked her acquies-
 
 356 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 cence in the fitness of accepted things, as it would 
 have wounded her unswerving honesty. She loved 
 Kershaw because he seemed to her the embodiment 
 of all that was great in man. He was possibly less 
 heroic than her mind imagined him but God help any 
 of us whom everybody sees with unbiased vision ! 
 
 This day was a day whereon romance first shaped 
 itself to the prose of everyday life. She formulated 
 the fate of the beloved with a dull ache at her heart. 
 
 The man was unhappy. The man sat at breakfast 
 lonely and disregarded. The man went solitary and 
 unheeded to his study. The man wandered apart, 
 bored with gay, unsympathetic chatter. The man 
 came and went, and there was nobody to care. The 
 man was a mere background for a selfish life. And 
 such a man! Millicent's heart swelled to breaking 
 thinking what a man he was. A soldier, strong and 
 valorous ; a poet, wise and gentle ; a man of large 
 deeds and wide grasp, yet with little sweetnesses and 
 courtesies to make all women love him, moods and 
 impatiences to make them mind him, inflexibilities 
 and angles to be honored and humored, or tempered 
 and resisted. She remembered all so well. How she 
 had loved to brush playfully against the angles, to run 
 hairbreadth tilts against the inflexibilities, to appease 
 the impatiences, and to smile in her sleeve at victories 
 he considered his. 
 
 And now now all these genialities were wasting, 
 all that made him so lovable were unloved. With pain 
 in her heart she pictured him living forever in com- 
 pany with Alicia's shallow insensibility. Already 
 and he was but six months wedded already he was 
 a man in armor, a man secluded by the habit of 
 reserve wherein the strong and sensitive steel them- 
 selves against unsympathy. 
 
 "Well, good-by, "dear," Alicia said, rising and smil- 
 ing. "It has been so delicious to see you again. I 
 wish we could stop longer. You positively most come 
 and pay us a visit. We will not be denied now, will 
 we, Richard? Insist on her coming under penalty of 
 your eternal wrath. You have only to send a line,
 
 MORE VISITORS. 357 
 
 and if we are full up, and as you know we .have not 
 over-much room, even the most illustrious of person- 
 ages shall be evicted to make space for you." 
 
 She bade good-by to Mrs. Barling. 
 
 "When next I come," she smiled, playfully, "I 
 must see that baby of yours. I dote on babies, as 
 Millicent will tell you." 
 
 She set her smiling, perfumed lips to the heiress' 
 white cheek. She swept one vigilant glance over the 
 cousins' leave-taking, but even her mistrustful soul 
 found nothing there beyond affectionate sincerity. 
 
 "The girl is a fool and doesn't know her power," 
 she thought, contemptuously; "and she probably 
 thinks they'll meet in heaven!"
 
 358 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 ASPASIA. 
 
 " Every worm beneath the moon, 
 Draws different threads, and late and soon, 
 Spins, toiling out his own cocoon." 
 
 Gladys Osborne sat in the clock tower poring over 
 parallelograms. Every room in the house was en- 
 rolled in the service of the tableaux. Where people 
 were not supping, they were dressing ; and where they 
 were not dancing, a man with a business air was lay- 
 ing out the garments of a Grecian maiden or a Roman 
 martyr. 
 
 Another man stood amid a multiplicity of wigs and 
 beards and rouge -pots, with the puzzled frown of some 
 prime minister concocting an address to confound a 
 country's politics and frustrate the knavish tricks of a 
 vigilant opposition. 
 
 ' ' They may be as good lords and ladies as you please, ' ' 
 he was muttering, contemptuously, "but they're no 
 hartists." (The misplaced aspirate found itself in 
 foreign relations as much from the exigencies of em- 
 phasis as from those of ignorance. It is not easy to 
 render the term artist with emphasis, and without an 
 "h.") "The blonde gentlemen and especially the 
 ladies must have black or chestnut beards and coif- 
 fers; and the black and chestnuts must have gold or 
 flaxen coiffers. What do they care if their eyes and 
 eyebrows don't 'armonize. Not an 'air. They're not 
 like the profession, not three per cent of them has 
 half an hartist's eye." 
 
 The costumer had wrongs as well. 
 
 "Zey do want an zey' must 'ave it ze bow of rib- 
 bon here or ze bouquet on ze shoulder, or ze rose in 
 ze coiffure, regardless if zey be gladiators or marteres. 
 'Monsieur, but it look so ni-ice,' zey sey. Zat is ze 
 altitude of ze ambition of ze English ladys to look
 
 ASPASIA. 359 
 
 ni-ice. Mon dieu, 'ow small, 'ow diminute a concep- 
 tion! Vy, a Frenchwoman, she infinite prefere to 
 look all nasty down to ze groun', eef it be wot you call 
 in keepin'. But zen but zen ze Frenchwoman, oh, 
 she is artist to her finger nails ; she is soul up to ze 
 aigrette in 'er 'air!" 
 
 While the malcontents so raged against the Philis- 
 tine, a military band discoursed music in the garden, 
 where a contingent of Lord Waldon's guests strolled, 
 laughing and chatting. 
 
 Gladys, from her comfortable quarters in the room 
 beneath the clock, looked down on them at intervals. 
 
 "Then since the parallelograms AB and BC are 
 equal, they have the same ratio to the parallelogram 
 FE (v. Prop. 7) ; but the parallelograms AB and FE, 
 having the same altitude, are proportional Oh, 
 bother!" she interjected, irritably. "What in the 
 name of goodness does it matter! After all, one can't 
 spend life in a parallelogram. And certainly it would 
 be pleasanter in the rosary this close evening." 
 
 But the rosary was occupied. Glancing down she 
 could see two figures there a black one and a white 
 one sitting together on the bench below the sun-dial. 
 The rosary was secluded closely by a tall yew-hedge 
 and the hand of the white person was in that of the 
 black, and against a black shoulder was a blur of pink. 
 And the scent of the roses and the sweetness of the 
 music were about them. 
 
 "I don't know who they are, so I am not prying," 
 she murmured, watching them with eyes half-con- 
 temptuous, yet undeniably attracted. "They seem to 
 like it," she added, under her breath, "though to an 
 onlooker it has the appearance of being dull." 
 
 She found herself suddenly blushing. The head of 
 the person in black had bent to kiss the pink cheek 
 against his shoulder. He had put an arm about her 
 whiteness. 
 
 Gladys rose hastily, and set her chair the other way. 
 "Good gracious!" she ejaculated, "somebody will see 
 you if you don't take care. You really should be care- 
 ful, you know."
 
 360 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 An impulse moved her to turn again one moment 
 in the direction of the sentimental couple. 
 
 ''It might be Lady Alicia, " she mused. "It looks 
 like her corn-colored hair. Perhaps she and Major 
 Kershaw have had an explanation, and are making it 
 up. They say he is devoted to her." 
 
 Footsteps were heard at this juncture climbing the 
 stair. 
 
 A servant, she reflected, and returned to the alti- 
 tude of FE. She came down from it to rise in a hurry, 
 and to draw a curtain across that aspect of the window 
 commanding the rosary. 
 
 "From all one hears it might not be the major, " 
 she remarked, contemptuously. Then she laughed, 
 and extended a hand as the footsteps halted at the 
 door. 
 
 "Welcome, oh Invulnerable," she cried. 
 
 "It is only in artnor and with padded calves I can 
 claim that distinction," he retorted, ruefully; "at this 
 moment I am the most vulnerable and dejected of 
 chaps." 
 
 "You do not look cheerful, certainly," she said. "I 
 suppose you have been fetching and carrying for 
 everybody with your normal good-nature." 
 
 He sat down facing her. She wore a cream lace 
 dinner-gown, simple as became her student occupa- 
 tion ; and her dark hair was plainly dressed. Behind 
 the clear lines of her face, illuminating its pallor and 
 glowing in her eyes, a fine intelligence flashed. The 
 power of mental concentration, born of mental disci- 
 pline and training, limned her outlines with a rare 
 intensity, at the same time arresting and repellant. 
 Intellect per se, whether in man or in woman, is not 
 lovable. It is too self-poised, too assumptive, too 
 independent. As a force seen through a temperament, 
 it may be resistless, but the temperament must veil it 
 well. When the temperament wears thin it possesses 
 no more charm than does a blazing sun in a hazeless sky. 
 
 Vaux had been baffled of late by this keen, self- 
 poised intensity of his new friend. She was reading 
 for an examination, and her brain had, as was her
 
 ASPASIA. 361 
 
 wont, almost untempered sway. She was brilliant 
 and combative. She eluded him at every turn. She 
 mocked him ; she tore his everyday logic of life to 
 shreds; she fatigued him with restlessness. 
 
 He thought regretfully of Millicent, her cheerful- 
 ness and strong, sweet humor, the atmosphere of 
 reliability and rest she breathed. 
 
 Yet Gladys fascinated him. She was excellent com- 
 pany. Her mind was stored with knowledge. She 
 expressed herself wittily and well. She was so posi- 
 tive, so alive, so rapid-witted. She kept him spell- 
 bound. He found himself angry that in half her 
 moods he did not find her lovable. That was when 
 over-work had worn her temperament thin, and she 
 was mere emotionless scholar rather than woman. 
 
 But this evening her face was soft, and the fire of 
 her eyes was tempered. He remembered with a good 
 deal of irritation that he had not long to stay. For of 
 late such moods had been rare with her. 
 
 "I brought you a domino," he said, producing it. 
 ' ' I have fitted up a little place from which you can see 
 the tableaux without being seen." 
 
 Her face softened, then hardened. "I do not care 
 a fig to see the tableaux, " she said, curtly. "Now, 
 that was rude of me. Forgive me. But, indeed, I 
 have much more important matter on hand." 
 
 "I have arranged it very comfortably, " he urged, 
 chagrined; "but if you do not care " 
 
 She shook her head. "Euclid is far more interest- 
 ing," she said, though she said it with a sigh. 
 
 He rose mortified. "You are very hard to under- 
 stand." 
 
 "I am," she retorted. "It would need one of Mr. 
 Vaux's most brilliant moments." 
 
 "Shall I leave the domino in case you change your 
 mind?" 
 
 "I shall not change my mind," she said, more ami- 
 ably. She sat staring at the door when he had closed 
 it behind him. A smile softened the crisp set of her 
 features. "He is very sweet-tempered," she said, and 
 returned to her work.
 
 362 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 The light faded out of the sky. A warm gloom 
 gathered in the garden below her. Little by little the 
 gay draperies of her uncle's guests were swallowed 
 up. Above her the wheels and levers of the great 
 clock whirred and clanged at their appointed duty. 
 Below her the grave, old-fashioned pendulum creaked 
 and swung with methodical beat. Occasionally an 
 owl clove the dusk with its hoot of doom. 
 
 She laid down her pen. 
 
 "I must light my lamp," she said. 
 
 The music floated softly and in gentle snatches as 
 though the mantle of night were muffling it. She 
 remained listening till her ear caught something else. 
 She smiled. 
 
 ' ' He is bringing that domino again ; what a persist- 
 ent man he is!" 
 
 He entered in haste. He bore the domino. But 
 there was grave disquiet in his face. He breathed 
 hard, like one who had been running. 
 
 "I want you to come at once," he said, breath- 
 lessly. 
 
 "Indeed," she answered, dryly. "Where?" 
 
 ' ' I have no right to ask you. It is not your affair 
 for the matter of that, it is not mine. But one occa- 
 sionally does something for another." 
 
 "What do you want me to do?" 
 
 "To take part in one of the tableaux. A character 
 is missing. The house and grounds have been searched, 
 but she cannot be found. It will prevent fuss per- 
 haps something worse if you will take the part. She 
 is about your height and figure. Nobody need know 
 you are not she. ' ' 
 
 "Have you looked in the rosary?" 
 
 "Everywhere." 
 
 "What is the part? Who is the culprit? What has 
 become of her?" 
 
 "The part of Aspasia. It is a tableau, substituted 
 for that of Briseis. The culprit is Lady Alicia. The 
 deuce knows what mischief she is up to." 
 
 "Why should I protect her?" she demanded. 
 
 "Heaven knows!" he said. "It is not for her sake.
 
 ASPASIA. 363 
 
 Kershaw's a splendid chap. It may be all right, and 
 it will save a scandal. ' ' 
 
 "Why should I go out of my way to shield her from 
 the consequences of her follies?" she demanded again. 
 
 "I don't know why you should. People do things 
 like that occasionally. 
 
 She stood deliberating. 
 
 "How long have we to discuss the subject because 
 I do not care to do things in a hurry. ' ' 
 
 "No time at all. You ought to be preparing now." 
 
 "Is it a decent dress?" she questioned, scornfully. 
 
 "I think I can answer for that. Kershaw saw to it 
 himself. ' ' 
 
 She surrendered. 
 
 "I will do it," she said, "but not for her sake." 
 
 "For Kershaw's?" 
 
 "No," she cried, hotly, "for the sake of a weak, pit- 
 iful sex which has scarcely emerged from squawdom. ' ' 
 
 "I say, you know," he said, as they descended the 
 stairs, "it is awfully good of you." 
 
 "It is better of you," she returned. 
 
 "You see, I've known Kershaw fof years," he sub- 
 mitted, apologetically. Nobody was to know of the 
 substitution. Waldon and Vaux alone were aware of 
 Alicia's defection. 
 
 "There's a corn-colored wig for you, "Vaux said, 
 "and they will color you up to it awf'ly smart chap 
 doin' the make up. You can go down in the domino 
 and keep it close about you. You and I are the only 
 people on. You needn't throw off the domino till just 
 before the curtain rises. By alterin' the pose a bit 
 your face need scarcely be seen." 
 
 "Having engaged to pay the part of a fool," she 
 said, wrathf ully, ' ' I shall certainly do my best to con- 
 ceal the fact." 
 
 The tableau was three minutes late. In those three 
 minutes Aspasia had stood before her glass with blaz- 
 ing eyes, her henna-tinted ringer-tips clenching her 
 palms the while she forged a chain of ayes and noes. 
 
 Twice the call-boy tapped upon her door. 
 
 "Well," she said, at last, "why should I mind?
 
 364 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 After all, I am only woman Nature's woman. It is 
 only convention that makes us ashamed. ' ' She put 
 on her domino and went down. 
 
 "Thank goodness," Vaux greeted her. "I was 
 afraid your courage had failed you at the last. Why, 
 you are trembling all over. ' ' 
 
 "I am cold," she said, sardonically. 
 
 "Stand here," he instructed, "with your arms 
 stretched so, and your face half turned over a shoul- 
 der. The audience will be mad; they'll want to see 
 your face. That yellow hair is perfect. Now give me 
 the domino." 
 
 For a quarter of a minute she clung to it. Then 
 she removed it suddenly and passed it over to him. 
 
 "Good Lord!" he broke out, "I thought Kershaw 
 Why did you ?" 
 
 "I did," she returned, wrathfully; "and I will never 
 forgive you as long as I live. ' ' 
 
 She took up her pose. Her beautiful figure and 
 limbs, as shapely and as delicate as Alicia's, and more 
 beautiful because modest, were but scantily draped 
 amid a foam of diaphanous tissues. 
 
 Vaux as Praxiteles stood facing the audience in the 
 act of modeling her. There were chagrin and abase- 
 ment in the gaze he turned on her. Had the audience 
 had eyes for any but the lovely Greek, they might well 
 have wondered why the sculptor had not conjured a 
 more amiable look for beauty's presence. But the 
 audience paid no heed to Praxiteles. 
 
 The house gazed in breathless silence. The half- 
 averted face was perhaps more beautiful, in the sug- 
 gestion and provocation lent it by the lovely throat 
 and tender bust and shoulder, than a face seen might 
 have been. 
 
 From the distance at which the audience sat, it was 
 impossible to say that the form, with its half -hidden 
 face and crown of yellow hair, was not Alicia's. 
 
 But the spectators, anticipating something different, 
 were not altogether sure that it was Alicia in her best 
 form. Aspasia was not piquante she did not look
 
 ASPASIA. 365 
 
 her part. She was lovely, surpassingly lovely, but 
 she was neither Aspasia nor Alicia. 
 
 They waited. Knowing Alicia, they imagined she 
 might have a surprise in store some audacious sud- 
 den turn of the head, a smile, some quick, half-flashed, 
 half-veiled regard. 
 
 But Aspasia showed no sign. She stood as marble. 
 
 A hand-clap from Lord Waldon started the applause. 
 
 The handsome theatre shook with acclamation. The 
 curtain fell fell perhaps a little flatly. For the audi- 
 ence was puzzled. 
 
 "Alicia didn't seem herself to-night," one said to 
 another. 
 
 "I never saw her look better," another asserted. 
 
 In the meantime Gladys, duly re-dominoed, was 
 hurrying to the dressing-room. She had not vouch- 
 safed one word to Vaux as he folded her apologetically 
 in her cloak. 
 
 At the door of her room she was aware, in the dim 
 light, of somebody having followed her. 
 
 As she hurried in without turning her head, a man's 
 voice said behind her a voice tense and thrilling with 
 anger : 
 
 "Will you never tell the truth? Have you one fibre 
 of decency in you? Why did you lie to me, and show 
 me a different dress as the one you would wear?' ' 
 
 She closed the door precipitately, locking it in his 
 face. 
 
 Several tableaux followed, and were vociferously 
 approved, the grouping, setting, and dressing being 
 in every instance admirable. Beneath the stage, 
 amid a confusion of cranks and pulleys, ladders, and 
 every variety of mechanical appliance, a party of per- 
 spiring scene-shifters, electric-light operatives, and 
 stage engineers, stood to their posts, marshaling thun- 
 der, moonlight, sunlight, Arcadian forest, Olympian 
 cloud, sky, river, and ocean, to charm in due turn the 
 fashionable assemblage a perspiring crowd, for the 
 most part in shirt-sleeves, resting at intervals from 
 their labors to take long drinks of frothing beverages,
 
 366 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 and to grumble at the sultry heat down there in the 
 cavernous depths. 
 
 Above, in the rooms assigned to them, the men of 
 wigs and curling-irons, the wielders of rouge-pot and 
 kohl, reinforced by wardrobe assistants and others, 
 performed marvels; anticipating and annihilating 
 time ; transforming as by miracle the stream of up-to- 
 date aristocrats and triflers into early Christian mar- 
 tyrs, Spartan warriors, Olympian deities, and maids of 
 ancient Greece ; anxious and harassed as to the fit of 
 robes and armor, the adjustment of sword and antique 
 buckler, the lacing of sandal and greave, the set of 
 curl and ringlet, the arching a fraction nearer beauty's 
 edict her Grace's eyebrow, darkening her ladyship's 
 lashes, adjusting his lordship's mustaches, lending 
 curve- and color to lips, roses and lilies to cheeks, 
 breasts and hips to spareness. 
 
 And the audience, seeing nothing but these graceful 
 facts accomplished, and the train of smiling superla- 
 tive personages presented to them group on group, in 
 perfect settings, exclaimed at the simplicity and ease 
 of the achievement. 
 
 It were but to cry, "Hey, Presto!" and Sir Lightly 
 Jones was Olympian Jupiter, majestic of mien, flash- 
 ing of eye, grasping electric lightnings, while behind 
 him rosy-fingered morning moved in fleecy, gold- 
 flecked cloud, and below him deafening thunder 
 bellowed down the vaults of space. 
 
 But alas for poor Lightly and the plans of men ! 
 For some inflammable device subtending the rose- 
 flecked fleece of morning went agley, and Jupiter 
 Tonans found himself all at once the alarmed victim 
 of elements it was his duty to compel. 
 
 It had been a dangerous venture, and experienced 
 stage servants had not scrupled so to characterize it. 
 But Waldon was as obstinate a man as he was ambi- 
 tious a stage-manager, and having devoted some enthu- 
 siastic weeks to working out an effect of rosy-fingered 
 morning, as achieved by revolving iron plates, pre- 
 pared with sheets of strontium -saturated cotton- wool
 
 ASPASIA. 367 
 
 the representations of prudence had not had the 
 least effect. 
 
 No substance so dangerous as cotton-wool should be 
 permitted within a mile of a theatre, he was warned 
 and warned again. 
 
 ''Oh, damn croaking!" he insisted. "I mean to 
 have it. I tried it the other night, and it went splen- 
 didly. Just flared up lightly and went out. Magnifi- 
 cent scheme. Controlled as easily as a lucifer match." 
 
 But even lucifer matches have been known to work 
 mischief. And so on this occasion did Waldon's cot- 
 ton-wool. For as ill-luck would have it there was a 
 door open somewhere notwithstanding that strict 
 orders had been issued for avoiding risks by draught 
 during this particular tableau by keeping all ground- 
 floor doors and windows closely shut. 
 
 But the night was hot, and the perspiring under- 
 ground operatives could scarcely breath for lack of 
 air. 
 
 "Oh, damn croaking," they insisted, unconsciously 
 echoing their employer, and sundry windows were 
 flung wide. 
 
 And all the doors in the theatre stood open. The 
 audience, unaware of any obligation beyond its own 
 immediate comfort, saw to that. 
 
 The result was the establishment of a strong cur- 
 rent of air. So that Waldon's rosy-flame-clouds, 
 instead of shooting lightly upward and burning inno- 
 cently out, as was intended of them, were caught in a 
 draught at one corner of the heavens and drawn for- 
 ward in a fierce flare, with the result that a canopy of 
 filmy tissue above the fulminating head and front of 
 the unfortunate deity took fire. 
 
 He, sublimely ignorant in all the temporary glory 
 of omnipotence, which required his close attention to 
 the handful of lightning he wielded and the poise of 
 the well-padded arm wherewith he wielded it ; more- 
 over, deafened by the thunder forging at his 'finger 
 ends, maintained his pose amid that he believed to be 
 a background of innocuous red-light, till the audience 
 rose in a body, directing his attention to some spot
 
 368 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 above him. At the same moment a large fold of tissue, 
 smoldering and ablaze, fell at his feet, brushing his 
 wig of hyacinthine locks. In an instant this, too, 
 caught fire, and flared about him with that speed which 
 is one of the most appalling phenomena of flame. 
 
 He had, fortunately, the presence of mind to throw 
 down his lightnings, tear off the wig now a tall cap 
 of flame and fling it to a distance, before he was 
 more than slightly burned about the hands and brow. 
 Unfortunately, however, he was merely mortal, and 
 had not prescience to beware that in ridding himself 
 of his fiery headgear, he should cast it whither it might 
 do no further injury. 
 
 So he' cast it amid a bed of taU white lilies, veiled 
 with gauze and tinsel mist, and these, being things of 
 silk and cotton, at once ignited. 
 
 Jupiter fled; the audience shrieked, left their seats 
 in a panic, and made for the doors. 
 
 The sudden descent of an iron curtain, shutting off 
 the auditorium, restored confidence and control. A 
 few men took command, issued orders, and presentty 
 the assemblage was passing leisurely and orderly out 
 by the ample exit-ways. 
 
 Now and again some terrified individual would make 
 a dash, but was straightway and at once suppressed 
 and in less than ten minutes the place was empty. 
 Not, however, before a red glow in the partition sepa- 
 rating the first tier of boxes from the stage had shown 
 that behind the iron curtain the fire was still spread- 
 ing. 
 
 Outside from the lawn the great, ugly mass of build- 
 ing showed in dull shadow, betraying no evidence of 
 its horrible tenant further than that afforded by a 
 round upper window, which occasionally flashed a red, 
 ominous eye. 
 
 Above it a plume of smoke reared, thin, and ascend- 
 ing grayly in the moonlight. 
 
 The spectators drifted into groups, congratulating 
 one another, speculating upon results and might-have- 
 beens, commenting on Waldon's rashness, Jupiter's 
 escape, ^and so satisfied itself with reiteration that the
 
 ASPASIA. 369 
 
 flames would be speedily got tinder that it even began 
 to think and speak of supper. 
 
 There was a continued stream of persons issuing 
 from the building persons in shirt-sleeves, and with 
 oily hands and faces; footmen, maids, dressers, and 
 stage helpers and from these it was presently learned 
 that there was but little chance of subduing the fire. 
 The place was well-supplied with hose and every 
 appliance; but, by some stupidity, the engine and 
 hose had been packed away in a room beneath the 
 stage a room which the flames had cut off. In the 
 yard, on the opposite side of the house, there was soon 
 a line of men, guests who had thrown off their coats, 
 stablemen, grooms and stage carpenters, with buckets 
 passing from .hand to hand continuously and rapidly 
 as they were filled. But the latest comers from the 
 scene of fire shook their heads portentously. 
 
 "It flares like tinder," they said. "It is just cram- 
 med with inflammable stuff. The object now is to 
 prevent it spreading to the house. A man has just 
 galloped off for the town engine." 
 
 Guests staying in the house began to think about 
 their possessions. Matters looked grave. Little 
 licking flames showed, lapping their ravenous way 
 through window spaces; a great smoke gathered, 
 lowering, above the roof; there were ominous sounds 
 of evil crackling, as of a monster getting grip of the 
 bones and frame-work of a prey. 
 
 To the reiterated anxious demands, "Is everybody 
 out? is everybody safe?" a comforting affirmative came. 
 Sundry dressers had been slightly burned, and a car- 
 penter had broken a leg scrambling his way out from 
 the machinery. One of the guests was an eminent 
 surgeon, and the injured were receiving immediate 
 care. Mean while, ',Waldon, at all times an excitable 
 man and a weak one, conscience-stricken at the recol- 
 lection of timely warnings, had so lost his head as to 
 be in a condition bordering on delirium. Under the 
 surgeon's directions, he was conveyed to the house 
 and restrained there. A few persons ordered their 
 carriages and drove home, but the greater number 
 
 24
 
 370 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 were by far too keenly interested in the issue to 
 depart. They remained watching up at the doomed 
 building. 
 
 All at once cries arose. 
 
 "Lady Alicia!" "Aspasia!" "Where is Lady 
 Alicia?" 
 
 The cries were taken up in tense voices. There was a 
 horrible momentary hush then agitated talk. Nobody 
 had seen her since the tableaux. She had last been 
 observed ascending the staircase to her dressing- 
 room. Her name was called clamorously and in all 
 directions. She was begged, for heaven's sake to 
 show herself. Little rushes were made from place to 
 place. Men ran to and fro between the house and 
 grounds, searching and shouting her name. But 
 there was neither sign nor news of her. Information 
 narrowed always to the fact that she had last been seen 
 in a domino ascending to her dressing-room. 
 
 "Where is Vaux, " somebody cried. "Vaux was in 
 the tableau with her. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, find out from Vaux. Vaux must know." 
 
 "For heaven's sake, Vaux, where is Aspasia? Lady 
 Alicia cannot be found. " 
 
 Vaux had been first and foremost at the pumps. 
 Having been assured that everybody was safe, 
 that all were out of the burning building, he had 
 started the line of buckets, installing himself at the 
 fire end. He was a smoky object, in grimy shirt- 
 sleeves, as he now joined the group before the house. 
 He was seen panting and mopping a wet face. At 
 the cry he stood like a man stricken. Then he seemed 
 to recover himself. He spoke in a low voice to a 
 servant near. The man rushed headlong to the 
 house. He returned in a few minutes with a fright- 
 ened face. 
 
 "Miss Osborne has never come in again, sir," he 
 gasped. 
 
 "Aspasia! Lady Alicia. For God's sake, can't 
 something be done?" came in breathless outbursts 
 from the crowd.
 
 ASPASIA. 371 
 
 Three men started running for the only doorway 
 left distinguishable as such. 
 
 But Vaux was first. 
 
 ' ' Stand away, ' ' he said, quietly. ' ' I know the house. 
 I'll go."
 
 372 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 RICHARD TO THE RESCUE. 
 
 ' 'Suppose it were not so. 
 Suppose' there were true men, you know." 
 
 Kershaw had retreated to the garden at the close of 
 the tableau. He strolled into the rosary, which just 
 'then, bathed in a flood of moonlight, showed like a 
 thicket of rose ghosts. The flowers seemed awake 
 with a weird, strange consciousness, the cold light 
 supplanting their warm pinks and yellows and blood- 
 reds, with a mysterious silver pallor, the pallor, as 
 it seemed, of awed emotion, as though you had waked 
 them from a Great Dream. The pink blood having 
 fled their cheeks, you could scarcely tell flower from 
 leaf. The day had been hot, and the bushes glistened 
 with a film of dew, which here and there amid the petals 
 gathered to a drop, and this the moonlight transmuted 
 to a diamond. The air was charged with perfumed 
 breath; the place was hushed with the silence of 
 beautiful growth. 
 
 The man flung himself wearily upon the marble 
 bench encircling the sun-dial. Above and behind 
 him the moonbeams, borrowing the sun's light, made 
 with it a playful mockery of the dial finger, laying its 
 shadow long after the hour. 
 
 Kershaw stared grimly before him, his jaw set with 
 the iron of despair, his eyes gleaming. 
 
 "How can one deal with her," he muttered; 
 "shameless, and a liar? There is no way of restrain- 
 ing her, as there is no trusting to her promises. The 
 dress she showed me Pah! to have one's wife pose 
 for one's acquaintance like some creature from the 
 streets. ' ' 
 
 He sat revolving the events of the evening with his 
 brain aflame. He came always to the same conclusion : 
 
 "What a cursed fool I've been! I was no raw boy!"
 
 RICHARD TO THE RESCUE. 373 
 
 He recalled her manner with Ludwig. At the con- 
 clusion of the first tableau she had, in the face of the 
 audience and in answer to his loud "Brava, " flashed 
 him a glance, remembering which, her husband found 
 it difficult to remain seated. He got up and paced 
 the rose-hedged path. The gravel crunched harshly 
 under his grinding heels. 
 
 "If it had been anything but this," he said. "Had 
 she been blind, invalided, mad, I would not have 
 failed her! But this " 
 
 A dream of Millicent came to him, true-eyed, 
 womanly; a fair, tender friend; a white, sweet, life 
 companion. He put the thought from him with a 
 bursting brain. God help him ! he must take his life 
 as he had made it ! There must be no weak lockings 
 back. There must be no more mistakes. Yet again 
 God help him ! for he knew that Millicent loved him. 
 He paced the rose-garden rapidly and heavily, till 
 exhaustion followed on excitement. 
 
 He sat down again, worn out. 
 
 "No," he said, finally, "there must be no more 
 mistakes ! ' ' 
 
 All at once the confused murmur and beat of his 
 pulses separated from an increasing murmur and 
 movement at a distance. 
 
 A curious roar and one or two hoarse shoutings 
 reached him. The rosary was so shut in that nothing 
 could be seen beyond it. He stood up, listening and 
 looking about him. Then the color leaped suddenly 
 back to the roses, the blooms stood out vivid and red 
 from the monotone of leaf and stem. The place was 
 filled with light. Immediately, two tall flames shot up 
 like spires above the line of yew hedge ; a handful of 
 sparks sprayed as though shot from a gun into a rose- 
 bed near him, and smoldered out with sharp hissings 
 of discontent amid the dew. 
 
 A great black canopy of smoke, flame-illumined 
 from beneath till it looked like some huge scarlet- 
 bellied monster, showed aflame; then dulled and 
 writhed, swallowed in another smoke cloud. 
 
 "Good heavens, the theatre!" he ejaculated, noting
 
 374 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 the direction as he started rapidly and in a direct line 
 for the portal, scattering showers of dew and petals as 
 he thrust his way. 
 
 The burst of flame through the roof of the building 
 was greeted by a sudden, apprehensive cry. Ker- 
 shaw, hearing it, felt his heart knot in his breast. It 
 was a sort of instinctive appeal to the foe for respite. 
 It was the cry for a fellow-creature's safety. He 
 flung forward with still greater speed. He was soon 
 on the lawn, where the theatre, with its accessories of 
 dressing-rooms, green-rooms, large supper-room, and 
 smoking-room, had been built as an annex to the 
 house. 
 
 Nearly two hundred persons were assembled 
 guests, servants, stage employees and the number 
 was increased from time to time by country folk, who, 
 on hearing the alarm, had tumbled from their beds, 
 flung on portions of their dress, and hurried to the 
 spot. 
 
 Many of the guests were still in character. Some of 
 the women had thrown wraps over their thin gowns, 
 while many stood with bared shoulders and arms, 
 staring up distracted at the burning building, the 
 rich stuffs and laces of their trains being torn and 
 trampled round them as they stood. Men pushed 
 their way hither and thither, carrying cloaks and 
 succor to their own especial or to any of the women- 
 kind, at the same time striving to persuade them into 
 the house. One lady was borne away fainting, 
 another paced hysterically to and fro, wringing her 
 hands in panic ; but for the most part they were quiet 
 and collected, and watched the progress of the flames 
 with excited interest. 
 
 "All saved?" Kershaw demanded, in a gasp, of the 
 bystanders. "Alicia safe, Tudor?" he questioned, 
 recognizing a man beside him. 
 
 "By God, she isn't!" the man returned, hoarsely. 
 
 "She's never come out of her dressing-room. Stop, 
 man, stop! Vaux has gone in for her! For God's sake 
 stop him, you chaps! He can't do any good!" 
 
 As he made his way along, parting the crowd with
 
 RICHARD TO THE RESCUE. 375 
 
 a strong hand, brooking no bar, wasting no moment 
 nor effort, but proceeding with a clear brain and 
 irresistible determination, there suddenly arose a burst 
 of cheers and shouting. Hats, hands, and handker- 
 chiefs, were waved. Some cried ' ' Bravo ! " " Hurrah ! ' ' 
 all eyes being turned upon a man who issued at that 
 moment out of that which seemed to be a mouth of 
 flame, carrying a woman in his arms. 
 
 "Bravo, Vaux!" "Hurrah, Vaux!" "Aspasia!" 
 "Lady Alicia!" "Three cheers for Praxiteles!" went 
 up, and in the reaction following breathless suspense 
 some women broke into tears, some laughed out of 
 sheer hysterical agitation, while the great throng 
 swayed and pressed this way and that, and turning 
 shook hands one with another, murmuring applause 
 and congratulation. 
 
 Kershaw was in time to catch his burden from him, 
 as Vaux lurched dizzily forward, murmuring inco- 
 herently: 
 
 "Afraid I rushed you a bit. Deuced deal o' smoke 
 about. Feel rather queer myself," and fell headlong 
 on the grass, a grimy, scorched mass, with his hair and 
 clothes aflame. 
 
 The burden made a spirited resistance to Kershaw's 
 embrace, as he put an arm about her, crying : 
 
 "Thank God, dear thank God!" 
 
 She struggled against him. She wrested herself 
 away, and, pushing forward, threw herself beside 
 Vaux. With her hands and a fold of her cloak she 
 assisted to smother out the flames. But Kershaw 
 had seen her face. 
 
 He swept one hurried glance over the flaring front, 
 searching the windows. 
 
 "Where is Alicia? Where is my wife?" he questioned 
 of the bystanders. 
 
 "She was the only one missing," somebody said. 
 "There is nobody missing now." 
 
 "The fire-engine the fire-engine," the crowd cried, 
 impetuoiisly, as the gallop of hoofs, and the roll of 
 wheels sounded amid shouts and exhortations from a 
 distance.
 
 376 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW 
 
 "Her poor ladyship is still missing, sir," a man said 
 compassionately beside him. He recognized his 
 groom. Tears rolled down the man's cheeks. 
 
 "Poor perfect flesh!" her husband groaned, in a 
 burst of pity. Catching a rug from somebody's hand, 
 he wrapped it about his head and face, and plunged in 
 through the blazing doorway. 
 
 "If Vaux could come down I can go up," he mut- 
 tered. 
 
 He could see nothing before him. Flames darted 
 down upon him, crackling vengefully; smoke which 
 could find no exit enveloped him like lowering 
 frowns, shielding him in some part from the tongues, 
 but suffocating, blinding, choking him. 
 
 Under him the floor of the passage gave in parts 
 like tinder, so that thrice he stumbled and fell head- 
 long. He had a vague notion of the plan of the build- 
 ing. At any rate, he must push on till he made the 
 staircase. But the main stairway showed a gap of 
 smoke and flame which made ascent impracticable. 
 Further on he came upon another, a narrow iron 
 spiral which, heated though it was, gave him footing 
 and a sense of security the charred and fiery floorway 
 of the passage had not given. 
 
 "Alicia!" he shouted through the smoke and flame. 
 "Don't be afraid, dear. I am coming. Hold on a bit 
 longer." He thought pitifully of her small-souled 
 selfishness, crouching lonely somewhere above, fight- 
 ing, wrestling with pain and death. "Call out, dear, 
 to guide me. Alicia, do you hear me? Alicia, I am 
 coming to save you. Don't lose heart, my poor 
 darling. She is too frightened, poor thing," he re- 
 flected, ' 'or perhaps " 
 
 He pushed on with redoubled vigor, calm and strong 
 and prudent. Reaching an upper passage, he stood 
 to draw breath. His lungs seemed flayed with the 
 scorch of burning air and fumes. He coughed and 
 choked. He pulled the rug closer about his mouth 
 and nostrils, and went on. As he went he stooped and 
 tore off bits of burning trouser. The place was dense 
 and black with smoke. Fierce draughts caught and
 
 RICHARD TO THE RESCUE. 377 
 
 swirled it, eddying round him. There were some 
 sparks, and a continuous deafening roar. But only 
 the further end of the passage was as yet aflame. 
 
 He still kept calling to her. She was no person to 
 meet death. He was afraid lest in her fear she should 
 do some foolish thing panic-stricken plunge into 
 worse danger. He was confident of finding her. He 
 could not believe her dead. He thought ruthfully of 
 her in her nakedness and flimsy tinsel, as last he had 
 seen her, her bare tender limbs prey to this horrible 
 monster. 
 
 "Alicia," he called again. "Alicia, speak, if you 
 hear me. " He held his breath to listen. But there 
 was nothing to be heard beyond the fierce crackling 
 exultation of a consuming monster. He opened every 
 door along the passage. The rooms were a confusion 
 of draperies and armor, as the wearers had left them. 
 Here and there tinsel fripperies caught the flame, and 
 seemed to sparkle spitefully. One room was a mere 
 furnace, with its door half eaten through. As he 
 passed, a portion of the floor fell in, and a great puff 
 of flame and smoke belched out upon him, setting light 
 to his hair. He smothered it out with the rug, then 
 stopped short suddenly. He was coming to the 
 end of his strength. A man couldn't stand more than 
 an amount of this kind of thing. A man couldn't go 
 on breathing smoke and flame. He was choking 
 suffocating. He was falling. He nerved himself. I 
 must save her at any cost," he muttered. He called 
 again deliriously, "Alicia, Alicia, where are you?" 
 
 Having arrived at the end of the passage he retraced 
 his steps laboriously; now he could only proceed on 
 hands and knees, for fire begun to dart fiercely upon 
 him through doors he had not waited to close. He 
 clambered dizzily and slowly down the long passage, 
 falling prone and prostrate at intervals when faintness 
 overcame him. But he roused himself always with 
 hope that the next room must surely contain her. He 
 dared not hope to save her now. There was a wide 
 chasm in the floor behind him, and a tall guard of 
 menacing flames between him and the stairway. He
 
 378 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 could not save her were she still alive but he could 
 die with her, poor thing! 
 
 He sickened as he fell against the last door. If she 
 were not here it meant 
 
 The room was empty. The fire had not yet reached 
 it ; the window stood open. Thank heaven for air 
 for air! He struggled to the window, drawing deep 
 breaths into his raw, scorched chest. Then he cried 
 out and fell headlong against the sill. 
 
 He came to himself to the sound of vehement shout- 
 ing. "Leap, Kershaw. For God's sake, leap! It is 
 your only chance. ' ' He was lying with his arms and 
 shoulders out of window. Below him men stood like 
 men in an inferno, their frames and faces lighted with 
 a lurid glare. At a distance a mass of stricken faces 
 were upturned to him with the aspect of persons 
 straining for breath. 
 
 The room behind him was now filled with smoke 
 and flame. Half the floor had fallen in. A sudden 
 burst of fire had discovered him to somebody in the 
 crowd as he had fallen, leaning head and shoulders out 
 of window. 
 
 The fire escape was being brought round, but it 
 was doubtful whether it could be in time. 
 
 He collected himself. 
 
 "Where is Alicia?" he demanded, dizzily. 
 
 "For God's sake, Kershaw, pull yourself together 
 and jump. There isn't a moment to lose." 
 
 More by instinct than by design he cast a bewildered 
 look into the flame-red scene below him. A number 
 of black figures held a carpet wide beneath the win- 
 dow. He nerved himself and tumbled rather than 
 leaped headlong over the sill. 
 
 The next thing he knew was that he was lying in 
 bed, swathed from head to foot in splints and band- 
 ages. He seemed to be a mass of flaming pain and 
 rawness. But a voice he knew a voice he had 
 learned to love was speaking gently near him, and a 
 light touch a touch that seemed to be a healing
 
 RICHARD TO THE RESCUE. 379 
 
 touch, so tender and soft was it had gently lifted 
 something from before his eyes. 
 
 "I have come to nurse you, Richard. Dear Richard, 
 it is I!" she said. 
 
 Recovery was slow. They feared he would be 
 blind ; and there was serious trouble with the flayed, 
 scorched lungs. But he was gifted with a sturdy con- 
 stitution, and he came through suffering and danger 
 with no more permanent harm than the loss of a finger. 
 And Millicent tended him.
 
 380 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 TALKIN' SENSE. 
 
 "Who knows the ways of the world, how God will bring them 
 about?" 
 
 Alicia wrote : 
 
 "My Dear Richard, Right from the beginning our 
 marriage was ridiculous. If you had had a grain of 
 consideration for me, being a man and better able to 
 judge such things, you would never have persuaded 
 me to it. You took advantage of me in a weak 
 moment, as you know, and you must not blame me 
 now. 
 
 '/I was never intended for a poor man's wife. I am 
 as little use to the poor man as he is to me. I should 
 be a fool to miss the opportunity Ludwig offers me a 
 second time. A woman is only fair to herself and 
 others when she makes the best of her opportunities. 
 It is impossible to live decently and straightforwardly 
 on a narrow income. Ludwig' s income will put me 
 beyond temptation. You will not miss me. You fell 
 very soon out of love with me, so that nobody will be 
 hurt. Ludwig understands me a thousand times better, 
 than you did. He does not expect the impossible 
 from any woman. You can institute proceedings at 
 once they will not be contested. In the meantime, I 
 shall go and live with old Lady Betty abroad. Men 
 are kittle-kattle, and I am not going to give Ludwig 
 the chance of tiring of me. I have no intention of 
 mismanaging my life a second time. ' ' 
 
 This is the letter they read to him while he was still 
 flayed and blind from the perils he had risked for her. 
 
 "Oh, don't, Richard, don't!" Millicent shuddered 
 when he laughed. 
 
 He went back to his study and his books a graver 
 man. But the pursuit and duel his friends expected
 
 TALKIN' SENSE. 381 
 
 of him showed no sign of coming off. He and Vaux 
 had talked the matter over. 
 
 "Is that what they think?" he commented. He 
 laughed, mirthlessly. "Good Lord! what an anachron- 
 ism of which to be guilty ! Alicia and chivalry, Alicia 
 and heroics. No, Ludwig is not unlike one of his own 
 forest boars, but he is too honest a brute to be sacri- 
 ficed in such a cause, supposing it were he and not I. 
 No, I've come on in my social evolution, Tom, and 
 for the first time in my life see the beautiful fitness of 
 the law-courts for settling such affairs of honor." 
 
 "You are hard hit, old chap, or you wouldn't talk 
 like this," Vaux said, laying a sympathetic hand on 
 him. 
 
 Kershaw leaned a lined face in his scarred palms. 
 
 "I don't deny it," he said. "I once thought the 
 earth not good enough for her to walk. ' ' 
 
 "You will put it in your lawyer's hands?" 
 
 "No," he said, definitely. 
 
 "Good Lord, Kershaw, don't be a fool. You must 
 free yourself, you cannot remain tied to her for the 
 rest of your life. There are others to be considered. 
 Besides, you must give Ludwig an opportunity of 
 marrying her." 
 
 "Give her an opportunity of fooling another man!" 
 
 "Oh, well, that's his affair, and he may be able to 
 keep her in order. If what they say of him is true, 
 he'll probably horsewhip her occasionally. With all 
 due respect to your ex-wife, Dick, primitive woman 
 seems the better for it. Anyhow, you can't let her 
 take her chance. You must think a bit of her future, 
 you know. ' ' 
 
 ' ' I feel much more like shooting him and myself and 
 settling the matter once for all." 
 
 "You'd be a fool. There was reason in it when 
 wives were goods and chattels one had no more right 
 to steal than any other cattle. But once admit that 
 woman is a rational being, and you admit her right to 
 choose the man she will live with." 
 
 "Yes, I know all that," Kershaw said, impatiently. 
 ' ' Do you think I didn' t thresh it out within an hour?' '
 
 382 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 "Oh, well," Vaux urged good-naturedly. "You 
 haven't heard the truth too often till you've decided 
 to act on it. ' ' 
 
 Finally he lost patience. 
 
 "Look here, Kershaw," he said, "it isn't for me or 
 any man to talk of. But if you had half a heart you'd 
 thank heaven for the chance you've got. Let Alicia 
 go to the devil if she likes. But Millicent Rivers 
 deserves something of you. You're a decent sort of 
 chap enough, but it takes a woman to believe you or 
 any other chap deserves what she gives you you know 
 that deuced well enough. ' ' 
 
 "I know nothing of the kind," Kershaw denied 
 sternly. 
 
 "Oh, good Lord, what a liar you are! You needn't 
 be afraid I shall talk. I don't want to go prying 
 into women's hearts, and their poor white little secrets. 
 Why the devil she should eat her soul out for a great 
 verse-making fool " 
 
 He told him then how Millicent had forgone her 
 fortune. 
 
 "Find out if it isn't true," he said, "and then post 
 up by the next express, and tell your lawyers to hurry 
 things for all they're worth, and if you weren't such 
 an ink-and-paper cynic you'd know they'd be worth a 
 damned deal more than you or I or any other average 
 smokin', drinkin', swearin', buffer of a chap deserves. 
 How do you do, Lady Kershaw? I'm talkin' sense 
 and virtue to the major here. Thank heaven you've 
 come to relieve me. It's rippin' fatiguin' work usin" 
 thews and sinews one isn't used to."
 
 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 383 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 "And straightway seeing her exceedynge comeliness, little 
 winged creatures, named Wyshes, did fly to her and there abyde. " 
 
 On that day whereon the decree nisi was made abso- 
 lute Kershaw sought Millicent. 
 
 "I am two years too late," he said. "I have been 
 a wretched fool." 
 
 She had come in from the garden. Her arms were 
 heaped with flowers. She was singing under her 
 breath. When she saw his face, she set the flowers 
 down suddenly. She stood trembling all over. 
 
 When she heard his words she broke out crying: 
 
 "Yes," she cried, "it is too late. I could not come 
 to love through through that." 
 
 "Oh, don't say it don't say it," he groaned. "I 
 well deserve it ; but give me something more than I 
 deserve." 
 
 She shook her head pitifully, tears streaming over 
 her face. 
 
 "Do you love me?" he cried, passionately. 
 
 She put her arms about his neck. She laid her 
 cheek above his heart. 
 
 "Ah, my dearest, do I not do I not," she faltered. 
 
 "Have I not loved you all along. Richard, just for 
 this once kiss me as though there were nothing between 
 us, and then then I will go away ; but, dear Richard, 
 kiss me first " 
 
 "There is nothing between us," he cried, straining 
 her to him. "Things are only human, dearest. 
 Nothing comes perfect to anybody in this world 
 nothing" he added passionately, "unless it is you to 
 me. I am a thousand times unworthy, I can only 
 offer you a smirched name. I have no right, I 
 know ' ' 
 
 "Oh, I should have been so glad," she sobbed, "so 
 proud. That first day I saw you I thought you like
 
 384 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 King Arthur, and so you have always seemed. But, 
 Richard, it would never seem like a true marriage so 
 long as Alicia is living. ' ' 
 
 "You may depend upon it, Alicia won't die," he said, 
 ruefully. 
 
 But he failed to persuade her. 
 
 A week later he steamed for India. A certain type 
 of Englishman experiences an insuperable craving to 
 start traveling and killing, not only when it is a fine 
 day, but also when his love affairs go wrong. 
 
 When he had gone Millicent sat down and cried 
 her eyes out. Then, with a woman's perversity, she 
 ran to the window, and waited for him to come back. 
 Long before he came back she had learned, by way of 
 a hungry, miserable heart, the truth of that he had 
 said, that we poor humans must be content to take 
 our happiness with alloy thankfully, for even so it 
 may be very sweet, and after all what gods are we that 
 we should reject because the cup life offers has a sting 
 of bitter in it ! 
 
 While Millicent waited, a number of things hap- 
 pened. And first and foremost Alicia became the 
 Princess Ludwig, and, as might have been predicted, 
 presently set about stalking game still higher. But 
 Ludwig was a person of hot blood and primitive 
 instincts, and the issue of it was that before two years 
 had passed, Alicia was found one evening with a 
 bullet wound in one of her fair temples, and, indeed, 
 the temple was so fair and finely modeled that had it 
 shrined a wit less paltry, that red, small mouth where 
 the bullet entered, and the bloodstained horror of the 
 corn-colored hair where the bullet, laden with her 
 life, went out, would have seemed terribly pitiful. 
 They who did not know Alicia, but allowed themselves 
 to be guided by the coroner's verdict, wondered why 
 so lovely and fortunate a woman should have shot 
 herself. They who knew her did not express the least 
 surprise that Ludwig should have taken the law into 
 his own hands. 
 
 At the time of the trial Mrs. Askew- Hickox was a 
 great person, for had she not been intimately
 
 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 385 
 
 acquainted with the late beautiful princess whose 
 untimely suicide was creating so romantic a sensation? 
 
 "It was before Sir Askew got his baronetcy that I 
 last met her, ' ' she said, both in and out of Winkworth, 
 for since Sir Askew got his baronetcy Winkworth has 
 not been of sufficient size to hold her ladyship. 
 
 "Of late she lived so much abroad," she continued, 
 ' ' that we have seen but little of one another. It has 
 been a very sad loss to me indeed." 
 
 Sir Askew is a risen man, but he does not look a 
 happy one. And I think it may be said that in nine- 
 teen cases out of twenty the man who began life as an 
 office-boy and ends it as a baronet has, long ere he 
 reaches the baronet stage, parted with everything to 
 make life worth living. 
 
 "The deuce only knows how we're going to get rid 
 of the pile I'm making out of that South African deal, 
 Ally," he said, gloomily. "I wish to heaven I'd never 
 gone into it." 
 
 "We could manage with a couple more carriages," 
 her ladyship returned lightly. 
 
 "Why, you've got half-a-dozen already. And you 
 can't possibly use more than three." 
 
 "Nothing looks better than to have a superfluity of 
 things," she insisted, with the grand air which had 
 been poor Askew' s undoing, for he had always been 
 striving to live up to it. 
 
 "If I were to take a header overboard from Clutter- 
 buck's yacht next week," he reflected, sardonically, 
 "I wonder if she'd give me anything more than a 
 magnificent funeral!" 
 
 Millicent left Mrs. Kew-Barling in a seventh heaven 
 of social achievement. Not only was Mrs. Malcolm a 
 daily visitor at Poplar Villa, but that good lady who 
 was on friendly terms with all the county folk, had 
 got into a habit of calling for Mrs. Kew-Barling or 
 the children to accompany her in her daily drive, for 
 all Winkworth to see and wonder at. For little Mrs. 
 Kew at this period of her existence surpassed herself 
 2 5
 
 386 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 in bonnet-making, and to watch her sitting beside her 
 new friend in all the pride of the position and a bonnet 
 which out-Parisianed Paris, her gray eyes alight again 
 and young with pleasure, a flush on her cheeks, and 
 the pretty ghost of resurrected dimples in her smile, 
 was as pleasant a sight as Winkworth needed to see. 
 "And where do you buy your bonnets, my dear?" 
 Mrs. Malcolm inquired, with her eyes on Mrs. Kew- 
 Barling's latest creation. 
 
 Mrs. Barling experienced a weak moment. But 
 sincerity triumphed. 
 
 "I make them myself," she said, meeting the elder 
 woman's look. 
 
 It was not news to Mrs. Malcolm, Mrs. Malcolm had 
 eyes so exceptionally shrewd. But she was pleased 
 with her little friend's candor. She leaned forward 
 and patted her hand gently. 
 
 "Now, who would have thought it?" she said, 
 smoothly. 
 
 I need scarcely tell you that Winkworth was soon 
 asking itself who were these Kew-Barlings whom 
 Mrs. Malcolm had taken up. And Mrs. Malcolm 
 being a social power, Winkworth set about placating 
 her by leaving its cards on the Kew-Barlings. And 
 one day Mrs. Kew-Barling realized her Life's Dream. 
 She gave an evening reception, whereat hired per- 
 formers entertained her guests, and Sir Askew and 
 Lady Hickox were among the number. 
 
 "Well, Molly," Kew-Barling addressed her, yawn- 
 ing, when it was over, "we've been very smart this 
 evening. Now, I hope you are happy." 
 
 But Mrs. Kew-Barling leaned a tired head against 
 him, heedless of frills and chiffons of the latest mode. 
 
 "I didn't enjoy it a bit, dear," she sighed. "It was 
 very smart, but nobody cared two pins about us." 
 
 As for Ruby she acquired so fine an art of riding in 
 a carriage that, with her mother-made Dutch bonnets 
 and her grand airs, one might readily have mistaken 
 her for mistress both of Mrs. Malcolm and of Mrs. 
 Malcolm's carriage! 
 
 "The little minx," cried the latter lady helplessly;
 
 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 387 
 
 "I declare I am almost afraid to give an order to 
 my own coachman, she sets there with so much self- 
 possession. ' ' 
 
 For the question of mastery between these two has 
 not yet been determined, and, indeed, if it were to be, 
 Mrs. Malcolm would lose a very sweet and only lately 
 discovered zest in life. 
 
 "One never knows whether to kiss her or to slap 
 her," she protests, in a tangle of perplexity and 
 admiration. "She stands up to one like a little pink- 
 faced, red-legged lion. I'm sure one day she'll be the 
 death of me with her curls and tantrums." 
 
 But when Mr. Kew-Barling one evening let fall a 
 hint of retiring from Winkworth and returning to 
 Clapham, Mrs. Malcolm, between her heart and her 
 pride, suffered a very bad week. 
 
 She appeared at the end of it in the library of 
 Poplar Villa. Her plump face was not noticeable tor 
 its plumpness, and the hand she extended to Mr. Kew- 
 Barling was strangely unsteady. 
 
 "I am a plain woman, sir," she said, in matter-of- 
 fact tones, "and an old-fashioned one. I do not easily 
 make friends. I am fond of your wife and of" her 
 voice for a moment was curiously agitated, but she 
 cleared her throat fiercely "of the little girl. I 
 should be sorry to lose you as neighbors. If now, 
 your leaving is a question of means " Mrs. Malcolm 
 spread a legal document on Mr. Barling's table. 
 
 "In any case," she continued, "I have set aside this 
 money for the child. You and she and I, sir might 
 just as well have the benefit of it now Why, bless my 
 soul, if there isn't the little minx herself. And what a 
 naughty, naughty girl to ink her pretty frock." 
 
 "Daddy," whispered Ruby, clinging frightened to 
 her father. "Why is Maklum crying?" 
 
 I cannot relate certainly in what manner sturdy 
 Kew-Barling disposed of Mrs. Malcolm's proposition, 
 but I can state that the Kew-Barlings did not return 
 to Clapham, for the last time I was at Winkworth sta- 
 tion I encountered Mrs. Malcolm leaving the booking- 
 office with a sheaf of tickets in one hand, two large
 
 388 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 spades and a bucket in the other, Robby and Ruby 
 with exultant countenances and new seaside costumes 
 on either side of her, while in her rear came a nurse 
 with the melancholy baby now distinctly less melan- 
 choly in her arms. Punch in a state of fierce excite- 
 ment tugged at a chain in the hand of a porter. The 
 battle-gleam was in his eye. The scent of "Minns" 
 was in his nostrils. 
 
 "We have had measles, and are off for a spell at the 
 sea," Mrs. Malcolm explained, breathlessly. I pre- 
 sume that "we" and "measles" applied to' the Barling 
 children only, for Mrs. Malcolm must long ere this 
 have put away childish things ! 
 
 \ 
 ******* 
 
 When Millicent had eaten her heart out over a 
 period of months, Kershaw came back. 
 
 Lady Kershaw 's health having failed, Millicent had 
 made her home at The Towers. 
 
 He sent one long searching look at her as she went 
 to meet him, for the Princess Ludwig was still flutter- 
 ing brilliantly through life. 
 
 He took her hands tenderly in his. 
 
 "Well," he submitted, "and how is it to be?" 
 
 "Your way," she answered. "There is no Marriage 
 but Love." 
 
 A month later Roldermere was the scene of a double 
 wedding. For in that which must surely have been an 
 exceptionally brilliant moment, Vaux had persuaded 
 Gladys Osborne that all of life worth having is not con- 
 tained by the angles of Euclid. And as Gladys was 
 possessor of a little fortune of her own, the thing was 
 not impracticable. 
 
 "But it is a very risky experiment on my part," he 
 said, smiling down upon her vivid face. It was a soft 
 face at that moment, and not particularly alarming. 
 
 She smiled up in response. 
 
 "Do you remember that evening when I was 
 Aspasia?" 
 
 "By Jove and all that is incomparable, I should think
 
 WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. 389 
 
 I do," he said, energetically, and with a whimsical 
 twinkle of eye. 
 
 "I believe you are thinking of that abominable 
 dress?" she challenged him. 
 
 "Not altogether," he said. 
 
 "Well," she urged, "if I had the consistency to 
 carry such a detestable situation through for your 
 sake" she slurred this over with the shamefacedness 
 of a person given neither to concession nor confession 
 "shall I not have the consistency to be a decent sort 
 of wife?" 
 
 "For whose sake?" he demanded. 
 
 "Why, for my own, sir!" said she. 
 
 "And the angle HIM shall be equal to the angle 
 HER. Quod est demonstrandum," he submitted, in a 
 final brilliant moment. 
 
 THE END.
 
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