ovels of 
 
 Richard Pryce 
 
 t Jezebel 
 
 The Burden of a Woman 
 Elementary Jane 
 Time and theWoman 
 
<O \ 
 
 -\ 
 
38? Eic&artt 
 
 CHRISTOPHER. 
 
 JEZEBEL. 
 
 ELEMENTARY JANE. 
 
 THE BURDEN OF A WOMAN. 
 
 TIME AND THE WOMAN. 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 A Story of the Early Nineties 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD PRYCE 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 ttitotfibe press Cambridge 
 
Published May IQI$ 
 
The Jesuit said, "Time and I against any two." 
 
 THOMAS HARDY, A Laodicean. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MRS. SANDON, in an indolent and unaggressive 
 sort of way, disapproved of her Indian cousin. But 
 she was fond of her at the same time. Moreover, 
 she was a mischievous old woman, who liked 
 amusement herself, and as the Ruthvens were stay- 
 ing with her in Earl Street, she gave a series of 
 small dinner-parties, at one of which she gave Mrs. 
 Ruthven her best young man. 
 
 Very possibly it is unfortunate for a girl to have 
 a mother who scarcely looks any older than herself. 
 Mrs. Sandon, sitting in the stalls at the Panton, 
 whither the party had adjourned because the play 
 had the grace to begin at nine instead of eight, and 
 the hostess had too much respect for her cook to 
 hurry the courses, said something of the sort to her 
 neighbor Lady Murgatroyd. 
 
 The curtain had risen, and a rude person in the 
 pit the row in which the old lady was sitting was 
 somewhat far back growled, and said, " Ssh ! 
 
2 TIME AttD THE WOMAN 
 
 Ssh ! " very audibly. One or two other people 
 turned their heads ; Mrs. Sandon felt that she ought 
 not to have been talking, that the rebuke was de- 
 served, and she lapsed into silence ; and wondered 
 whether at her age a risky, frisky farce really 
 amused her. Some one, a frolicsome wife, was hid- 
 ing under a table ; an equally frolicsome husband 
 had drenched a waiter with a garden hose. The 
 house shook with merriment. Mrs. Ruthven laughed 
 with the rest and displayed very pretty teeth. 
 Gerald Ventnor noted their whiteness and their 
 evenness, as she leant across him to speak to her 
 daughter, who sat with a grave face. 
 
 " Are n't you amused ? " 
 
 The girl looked round. Mrs. Ruthven repeated 
 her question. 
 
 "Yes, at least I think so. Perhaps not very 
 much ; I don't know. If one thinks of it, it is dread- 
 ful. It ought to be rather serious, and one is sup- 
 posed to laugh. . . ." 
 
 " Oh, serious I " said Mrs. Ruthven. 
 
 Mrs. Sandon touched Lady Murgatroyd's arm 
 gently with her fan. 
 
 " Look at that," she said. 
 
 "And then I don't think I understand it all," 
 added Miss Ruthven. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 3 
 
 " What a loss it is to have so little imagination," 
 said her mother. 
 
 " But this sort of thing requires a certain slang 
 education," said Gerald, lightly. 
 
 " Coupled with having what you call well-dined," 
 put in another of Mrs. Sandon's party. 
 
 "You speak as a man," said Mrs. Ruthven, 
 smiling. 
 
 "And I have what you call well-dined," said 
 Miss Ruthven. 
 
 At this the others laughed, and she wondered 
 why as she hastened to add : 
 
 " So it must be as mother says, that I have no 
 imagination." 
 
 " Araby is rather impossible," Mrs. Ruthven said 
 to Ventnor, as one who sums up a matter and dis- 
 misses it. 
 
 Miss Ruthven's name for family reasons was 
 Arabella. It was to her mother that she owed its 
 conversion to the softer-sounding Araby. 
 
 When the curtain fell Mrs. Sandon resumed : 
 
 " This won't get better. I am sorry for that girl, 
 and I wonder myself how it will all end. Johnnie 
 ridiculous not to say vulgar name for a married 
 woman, it sounds to me almost improper Johnnie, 
 I say, has had a high old time isn't that what 
 
4 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 they call it? in India. Has kippled at Simla to 
 her heart's content, and at all those other dreadfully 
 attractive places, about the goings-on at which we 
 all know so much now. Well, she means to have 
 as good a time as she can still. As it is, since she 
 has been with me half a dozen of her young men 
 have already been to look her up. Yes, is n't she 
 pretty ? Of course I have known her all her life, 
 and I declare she scarcely looks a day older than 
 when she married Corbet. That must be nineteen 
 years ago, and Johnnie Ruthven is, I suppose, in 
 her thirty-eighth year." 
 
 Lady Murgatroyd said that did not seem possi- 
 ble. She launched into a disquisition as to what 
 makes or does not make a woman age. Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven, she thought, could not have had many dis- 
 appointments. 
 
 "Well, no," said Mrs. Sandon, "I don't know 
 that she has. She takes things very quietly, and 
 I don't think she worries herself over trifles." 
 
 Mrs. Sandon looked at the lines on Lady Mur- 
 gatroyd' s face as she spoke, and did not say, though 
 she thought it, that one or two of these might have 
 been spared her friend if she had gone upon a like 
 principle. 
 
 There was a pause, which was filled by the hum 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 5 
 
 of talk in the theatre. Lady Murgatroyd contem- 
 plated Miss Ruthven closely. 
 
 " She is nearly as beautiful as her mother," she 
 said, presently. 
 
 Mrs. Sandon looked from one to the other. 
 
 Joan Ruthven, or Johnnie, as she was known to 
 her intimate friends and Mrs. Sandon' s more or less 
 pretended disapproval, was in truth wonderfully 
 well-preserved. Indeed, so young did she appear, 
 that to the casual observer her looks did not sug- 
 gest that they owed anything to preservation at 
 all. She had a slim tall figure, supple as a girl's, 
 with the lithe straightness of the good horse- 
 woman. Her face had the most frank and open 
 expression. It was innocent as a child's, and 
 there was much that was childish in the beauti- 
 ful mouth ; but Mrs. Sandon, speaking of her 
 eyes, said that you could see them across the 
 street. 
 
 Araby resembled her mother only in outline. 
 She too was tall and straight, but her slightness 
 was more pronounced and her colouring was alto- 
 gether different. While Mrs. Ruthven had brown 
 hair, and eyes of the darkest blue, Araby was un- 
 usually fair. Her hair was of a shade of red which 
 Mrs. Ruthven chose not to admire. It was soft, 
 
6 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 and dry, and feathery, and it blazed with golden 
 lights. She reminded you at times of a Romney, 
 at times of a Greuze. She had, it is true, the same 
 childish mouth as her mother, but here all likeness 
 ceased. Her nose called for no comment, good or 
 bad, and her eyes, up to the time of which I write, 
 she had only used to see with. Even thus it is prob- 
 able that many things escaped her which to others 
 were sufficiently obvious. She had a rose-leaf com- 
 plexion of which she took no special care, and a 
 colour that was ready in response to excitement, 
 pleasure, interest, and the like. Her beauty was 
 more prospective than actual. 
 
 Seated between the girl and the mother, Gerald 
 Ventnor found himself as a matter of course talk- 
 ing to the mother. Miss Ruthven's unobtrusive- 
 ness was somehow such as to cause her to be 
 dismissed by a certain type of man as ingenue. 
 When occasionally Gerald looked at her it was to 
 wonder whether she knew her own beauty. He did 
 not think that she did, and he thought once that 
 it might be amusing to tell her. Unconsciously he 
 thought of her as a little girl to whom it was good- 
 natured to address an occasional remark, but who 
 would not of course expect it. This, though he 
 did not know it, was somehow contrived by Mrs. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 7 
 
 Ruthven. She had a way of influencing people 
 without their knowledge. 
 
 " Now look at that," began Mrs. Sandon pres- 
 ently, but the rude and socialistic person in the 
 pit said "Ssh" again, and she, turning round in- 
 dignantly this time, waited nevertheless as before 
 till the end of the act. 
 
 The house was full ; not a gap was to be seen in 
 the rows of stalls. The theatre had the brilliant and 
 prosperous appearance that argues that the seats 
 have been paid for, and that " paper " is unknown. 
 The red silk handkerchief of distant Bayswater 
 and the plush cloaks of the suburbs were absent. 
 Smart, well-dined London was in evidence. 
 
 "What I wanted to say," said Mrs. Sandon, 
 when the curtain fell upon the second act, "what 
 I wanted to say was, just note how Mrs. Ruthven 
 takes possession of a man. Gerald Ventnor has 
 spoken about six words to Araby since the begin- 
 ning of the evening. By the bye, how furious his 
 mother will be if she takes him up Mrs. Ruthven 
 I mean." Mrs. Sandon chuckled at the mere thought. 
 Lady Ventnor' s alarms on Gerald's account were a 
 source of constant amusement to her. 
 
 "And the husband? " asked Lady Murgatroyd. 
 
 "Whose? Oh, Mrs. Ruthven's husband?" 
 
8 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Lady Murgatroyd nodded. 
 
 " Well, that 's what I don't understand what 
 I suppose no one ever will understand," said Mrs. 
 Sandon. "He doesn't interfere ; he lets her do ex- 
 actly as she likes. No, we shall never get at the 
 bottom of that story ! Corbet Ruthven was madly 
 in love with her when he married. My dear Lady 
 Murgatroyd, you never saw a man more restlessly 
 miserable after he met her at a Woolwich ball, nor 
 more wildly elated when, after playing him like a 
 fish, she accepted him. He was n't so well off then, 
 you know, as he is now. His uncle was alive in 
 those days. He made a confidante of me Corbet 
 and I were always good friends. I have seen him 
 walk up and down my drawing-room in Earl Street, 
 till I thought he would wear holes in the carpet. 
 He talked to me of her for hours. Well, they were 
 married, and he wrote me rapturous letters about 
 his happiness. That lasted for about a year ; then 
 he began to say less about her ; then she dropped 
 out of his letters; then he stopped writing al- 
 together, and I heard from every one that Corbet 
 Ruthven was dropping his friends. His uncle died 
 and left him the tea business, and Corbet left the 
 service, which I always thought a pity. I found 
 him greatly changed when I saw him last ; that 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 9 
 
 was about six years ago. He came home for a 
 couple of months to see Araby, who was living 
 with two Miss Woottons, aunts of his. He seemed 
 to be absolutely indifferent to all that Johnnie did. 
 They didn't quarrel, you must understand, she 
 is a great deal too clever for that, he just went 
 his way and let her go hers." 
 
 " Did she come home with him ? " 
 
 " No, she was amusing herself in the hills with 
 her pet young men. He laughed about it, and 
 called them Johnnie's Johnnies. Poor Corbet!" 
 
 "Why did she marry him?" 
 
 "He was a good match for her. The Linton 
 girls had n't a penny of their own ; their faces were 
 their fortunes. Rose, the other one, married well 
 too, but she died. Corbet had a little money, and 
 the prospects which were afterwards realized ; so 
 Joan, after keeping him dangling on for two or 
 three months, married him. Whether she ever 
 really cared for him or not I cannot say. I dare 
 say the attention she got turned her head a little. 
 One thing, by the way, which Corbet said to me, 
 struck me as significant. He was regretting the 
 separation from Araby, and there were reasons 
 why he could not leave the tea business. I said 
 that in time Araby would be able to go out to him, 
 
io TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 and he said never. Araby should not set her foot 
 in India with his consent. I inferred not a little 
 from this." 
 
 There was a pause. Mrs. Sandon smiled to her- 
 self. 
 
 " You must understand me," she said then. " I 
 am really very fond of Johnnie, with all her faults ; 
 I always was, and she has been uniformly delight- 
 ful to me. I love her pretty face. Just watch her 
 mouth as she speaks. Have you ever seen anything 
 more beguiling? Do you wonder that men fall in 
 love with her ? I have only to look at her to forgive 
 her everything." 
 
 Lady Murgatroyd, who was always thinking of 
 her own plain face, and she had perhaps an 
 exaggerated idea of its plainness, sighed. 
 
 " What did you say ? " asked Mrs. Sandon. 
 
 "Nothing," said Lady Murgatroyd, "nothing. 
 Look, I think Mr. Ventnor wants to catch your 
 eye." 
 
 Gerald was leaning over the back of his stall. 
 
 " I want you all to come back to supper with me 
 at the club. Mrs. Ruthven is good enough to say 
 that she will come if you will, so you must not 
 refuse me, Mrs. Sandon." 
 
 "My dear Gerald, I couldn't think of it. I 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN n 
 
 should be dead to-morrow. It is very nice of you 
 all the same. But my not going need not prevent 
 any one else. Lady Murgatroyd, you will go?" 
 
 Lady Murgatroyd shook her head. She was a 
 little bit tired, she said. It was most good of Mr. 
 Ventnor, but Lady Murgatroyd thought she would 
 rather go home from the theatre. 
 
 " I will drop you in Earl Street then," said Mrs. 
 Sandon, " and Mrs. Ruthven must chaperon the 
 girls. Johnnie, I give Miss Norfolk into your care. 
 Is Mr. Hartford going with you ? Yes ? And Mr. 
 Vine and Mr. Le Marchant ? " 
 
 The two men she named last regretted that they 
 were going on to a ball. 
 
 Ventnor went out to telegraph his orders to his 
 club, and Mrs. Sandon said to her neighbour : 
 
 "I quite wish I was going with them, but it 
 would n't have been fair to spoil their fun, would 
 it?" 
 
 Lady Murgatroyd smiled. She had an unhappy 
 knack of imagining slights that were not intended. 
 She was morbidly sensitive, and time had no power 
 to blunt the quality. 
 
 When the play came to an end Mrs. Ruthven, 
 fastening her cloak, a wonderful thing of silk and 
 feathers, leant over towards Mrs. Sandon. 
 
12 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 " You will take Araby home," she said, in her 
 sweet voice. 
 
 "But surely Araby is going with you," Mrs. 
 Sandon said, raising her eyebrows and speaking 
 in a tone of mild expostulation. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven shook her head. 
 
 "I am quite ready to go home," said Araby, 
 good-temperedly. 
 
 "The best girl in the world," whispered Mrs. 
 Sandon to Lady Murgatroyd, " but I should rather 
 like to shake Johnnie." 
 
 It was not till the Earl Street party had driven 
 off that Gerald saw what had happened. It chanced 
 that it was Hartford, and not he, who put them 
 into their carriage. 
 
 "I am sorry," he said more than once in the 
 hansom; "I hope Miss Ruthven knew she was 
 asked. I thought it was quite understood that you 
 were all coming." 
 
 " We should have made an odd number," said 
 Mrs. Ruthven. 
 
 " I am sorry, though," said Ventnor. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MRS. RUTH YEN and Ventnor had barely alighted 
 when they were joined by Miss Norfolk and Hart- 
 ford, whose hansom had been following closely in 
 the track of their own. Gerald led the way to the 
 room, where a table awaited the arrival of his 
 supper-party. 
 
 Several others were occupied, and the candles 
 with their red shades dotted the room like flowers 
 with hearts of flame. 
 
 Ventnor exchanged nods with a man or two of 
 his acquaintance. People looked up, and glancing 
 casually first at the group focussed their gaze by 
 degrees on Mrs. Ruthven. Supper passed merrily 
 enough. Some one said something about a sur- 
 vival of the fittest. Gerald made an admirable host. 
 Mrs. Ruthven talked lightly and laughed often. 
 She had an attractive laugh that made you wish 
 to laugh too. Gerald sought a word to express her, 
 and found it he thought in provocante. 
 i- Miss Norfolk, an old friend of Gerald's, was of 
 the type of girl that Mrs. Ruthven approved. She 
 may be here described briefly as the child of her 
 
14 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 decade. She was very much on the spot, and she 
 thoroughly understood that she was to talk to 
 Hartford. She was nothing loath. 
 
 " A girl to make one's useful friend," Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven said to herself ; " I will see something of her 
 later on." 
 
 Afterwards she found an opportunity of admir- 
 ing Miss Norfolk's dress. Mrs. Ruthven was always 
 as ready to annex a girl as to annex a man, though 
 for different reasons. 
 
 Ventnor, whose regrets as to the absence of Miss 
 Ruthven were half sincere and half conventional, 
 had long since allowed them to sink to rest in the 
 charm of the society of her mother. He congratu- 
 lated himself upon the happy thought of supper in 
 the ladies' room at his club. Mrs. Ruthven had 
 accepted with an absence of demur that was flat- 
 tering. 
 
 It was easy to like Gerald Ventnor, and he was a 
 man of many friends. Nature had dealt with him 
 generously. He was not perhaps remarkable for 
 any very special attributes, and his type is one com- 
 mon enough amongst the class to which he be- 
 longed. Eton and Oxford had produced him, or at 
 least had aided in his development, and a sound 
 constitution and a more or less healthy mode of 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 15 
 
 life had contributed to make him what he was. His 
 features were sufficiently good. His skin was clear 
 and ruddy. His blue eyes looked straight at you, 
 and had a certain baffling serenity. Something 
 of the same nature was again suggested by his 
 mouth. Miss Norfolk, who knew him well, said of 
 him that you were never sure what he might or 
 might not be thinking of you. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven at this moment was feeling the 
 perverse attraction of his placidity. She was accus- 
 tomed to admiration and took it as her due. It was 
 of course tiresome upon occasion, and she could 
 have cited half a dozen instances of the truth of 
 this amongst those of the young men whom from 
 time to time she had annexed. There was Robin 
 Wakefield, whom she had undertaken to cure of 
 his attachment to a girl at home who had jilted 
 him. He transferred his affection to her with alarm- 
 ing rapidity, and bored her beyond measure. There 
 was Atty Carnac of the th Lancers, who threat- 
 ened to shoot himself, and ended by marrying the 
 ugliest woman in Calcutta. There was young Kyn- 
 aston, known in his regiment as Kitty, whose de- 
 votion took the form of a melancholy that began 
 by being amusing, and became in time a weariness 
 of the flesh. And there were several others. But 
 
16 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven was wishing that Gerald would ap- 
 pear a little less calm. 
 
 " I 'm wondering/' she said, suddenly and irrele- 
 vantly to anything that had been said before, " I'm 
 wondering whether any one really knows you, Mr. 
 Ventnor." 
 
 Gerald smiled inscrutably, and said quietly that 
 perhaps there was nothing to know. 
 
 On his part, in his somewhat indolent way, 
 Ventnor thought that Mrs. Ruthven was a very 
 charming woman, and pretty enough to turn strong 
 heads ; but he did not wear his heart upon his 
 sleeve. Moreover, there is a point at which interest 
 passes the border-line of pleasant sensation, and 
 further than this he had no intention, just then at 
 any rate, of allowing his feelings to go. 
 
 This he decided quietly, to the accompaniment 
 of the dishes he hoped were well chosen, a cham- 
 pagne which was very well chosen indeed, and the 
 sound of Mrs. Ruthven's voice. Her voice pleased 
 his ear. 
 
 In the light of the candles a diamond necklace 
 which she wore sparkled upon a very white 
 neck. Miss Norfolk, as one of a large family, was 
 thinking that it was easy for Mrs. Ruthven to 
 look well. She admitted, however, frankly, that 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 17 
 
 fine feathers were not by any means necessary 
 to make Mrs. Ruthven a fine bird. She knew, 
 moreover, upon which side of her bread butter 
 was to be expected, and she also was thinking 
 that her new acquaintance might prove a useful 
 friend. 
 
 Miss Norfolk, you see, was eminently a girl of 
 London, and she had no illusions. The gifts of to- 
 day were always acceptable to her, and she was 
 prepared for more to-morrow. She was a good 
 girl enough in the widest sense of the term. She 
 was not malicious. She was full of generous im- 
 pulses, and if she valued people in proportion to 
 the use which they might be to her, she was not 
 alone in so doing. 
 
 Gerald, who knew her well enough to say pretty 
 much what he liked, had said to her at the begin- 
 ning of the evening, 
 
 "You see Hartford?" 
 
 "Which do you call Hartford?" was Miss Nor- 
 f oik's question. 
 
 "That smart-looking little chap talking to Le 
 Marchant. He has three or four thousand a year 
 not so bad, you know, in hard times. He is a 
 friend of mine. Talk to him." 
 
 "Impertinent!" said Miss Norfolk at the time, 
 
18 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 smiling. But she made a mental note of the infor- 
 mation. 
 
 Her thoughts ran somewhat in this wise: 
 
 " Mr. Hartford is not a bad little man. I wish he 
 were a little bit more like like Mr. Ventnor, for 
 example. How unhappy Mr. Ventnor might make 
 a woman who was foolish enough to fall in love 
 with him. I think Mrs. Ruthven is prettier than 
 any one I ever saw. I think I shall like her. I 
 know this sort of woman. She will give small din- 
 ner-parties, and she will be glad of unencumbered 
 girls. Thank goodness, mamma doesn't send us 
 out in pairs. Mrs. Ruthven might be of the great- 
 est use to me ! Her daughter is ten times as good- 
 looking as I am, but I don't fancy, somehow, that 
 she would interfere much with any one." 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven was talking of her plans, and 
 Miss Norfolk ceased speculating in order to listen. 
 She accomplished the double feat of hearing all 
 that the others were saying, and keeping up a con- 
 versation at the same time with Hartford. 
 
 " I am looking for a small furnished house, you 
 know, or a flat, or something. Mrs. Sandon is very 
 kindly putting me up till I get what I want. My 
 husband's plans are so unsettled that for the pre- 
 sent I shall have to make my own arrangements." 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 19 
 
 "A small house?" said Ventnor. 
 
 "A small [house," said Mrs. Ruthven. "It must 
 be small, because, as there are only Araby and 
 myself, I don't want the bother of a lot of serv- 
 ants." 
 
 Gerald thought he knew of such a house, and so 
 the mischief, such as it was, began. Mrs. Sandon 
 was unwittingly to blame for asking Gerald to 
 dinner on this particular evening. Gerald's mother 
 never forgave her, and said all sorts of things 
 about her, some of which were repeated. This of 
 course was later on, when the house was taken, 
 and the annexation of Gerald appeared complete. 
 
 The immediate result of the night's work which 
 began in Mrs. Sandon's dining-room in Earl Street, 
 and was forwarded at the theatre and the club, was 
 an appointment for the next day. 
 
 " Let us say at Castanet's in Bond Street," said 
 Gerald. " My cousin's house is in Primate Street, 
 Berkeley Square, and we can have tea or chocolate 
 or something at Castanet's before we go there." 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven agreed. 
 
 " You save me no end of trouble," she said. " I 
 was dreading house-hunting." 
 
 After a while the ladies rose to go. 
 
 "Four o'clock to-morrow, then," said Gerald, 
 
20 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 forgetting for the moment the time of year as he 
 put them into a hansom. 
 
 "Four o'clock," said Mrs. Ruthven, with the 
 smile that had lingered painfully ere then in more 
 than one chained memory. 
 
 Ventnor and Hartford went back into the club, 
 and made their way to the smoking-room. Gerald 
 called for cigars. 
 
 <( What do you think of that for a pretty wo- 
 man ? " he said. 
 
 Now Mrs. Ruthven had taken small notice of 
 Ventnor' s friend ; but, curiously enough (or per- 
 haps, since human nature is perverse, for this very 
 reason), it was on him that she had made the 
 greater impression. While Miss Norfolk had aired 
 her advanced ideas, his eyes had wandered again 
 and again to Mrs. Ruthven's face. He went home 
 restless and Ventnor complacent. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven, meanwhile, having left Miss Nor- 
 folk safely at home in Sloane Street, drove thence 
 to Mrs. Sandon's. 
 
 The one trick which her thirty-seven years 
 played her was that, allowing her to look twenty- 
 eight till midnight, by lurking in good-natured 
 ambush, after a long evening they occasionally 
 came out thence, and asserted their existence. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 21 
 
 When Mrs. Ruthven looked into her glass that 
 night before undressing, she saw [that which 
 scarcely pleased her. She had sent home direc- 
 tions to her maid not to sit up for her, and she 
 was alone. She stood for a long time looking at 
 herself. Then she left her room, and crossed the 
 landing to another door. She opened it without 
 knocking, and went in. 
 
 It was a bedroom. A fire was burning brightly 
 in the grate, and the light of it flickered on the 
 walls, and glittered on the silver and glass of the 
 equipments of the dressing-table. The glow of the 
 leaping flames lit up Araby's shining hair. Mrs. 
 Ruthven approached the bed, and contemplated 
 her daughter for some moments. The even fringe 
 of the lashes outlined the curve of the closed eye- 
 lids ; a delicate flush was on her face ; the red lips 
 were closed, and the gentle breath was drawn 
 silently through the nostrils. A slender hand lay 
 on the coverlet, which rose and fell with the even 
 movement of the bosom. 
 
 Perhaps a passing admiration, or a sudden in- 
 stinct of affection came to Araby's mother as she 
 stood there. She leant over the sleeping girl as if 
 to kiss her, but at this moment Araby stirred. A 
 flame leapt in the fire. The bright hair blazed with 
 
22 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 colour. How smooth was the delicate skin, how 
 smooth, and clear, and unworn, and young ! 
 
 It was with a hand that expressed impatience 
 that Mrs. Ruthven roused her daughter. 
 
 Araby gave a little cry, and woke. 
 
 " Is anything the matter? " she asked in a startled 
 voice. 
 
 The firelight was very bright, and made her 
 blink. She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles like 
 a child. 
 
 " What should be the matter ? " said her mother 
 shortly. " Sit up, please, while I speak to you, and 
 listen to what I say." 
 
 Araby said, "Yes, mother," and obeyed. She 
 pushed back the hair from her face. 
 
 " How absurdly like your father you are some- 
 times ! " said Mrs. Ruthven, " irritatingly like 
 him ! Your hair is redder than his, though, and I 
 hate red hair. Well, don't look indignant." 
 
 " I did n't look indignant " began Araby. 
 
 " Pardon me," said her mother, " you did. And 
 if you did n't I choose to say you did, so don't 
 again. If you and I are to get on, you must learn 
 not to contradict me." 
 
 Araby was silent, and Mrs. Ruthven smiled 
 quietly to herself. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 23 
 
 "Now you are cross/' she said next. 
 
 " Indeed I am not," protested Araby. 
 
 " I say you are," said Mrs. Ruthven. ('. Really," 
 she added in parenthesis, " the colour of your 
 hair makes my eyes ache.) Well, I choose to 
 say you are ; it pleases me to think you are 
 cross." 
 
 "Very well, I am cross," said Araby, with tears 
 near her eyes. 
 
 " Now you are impudent," said her mother. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven sat down on the edge of the bed. 
 It was a curious thing, perhaps, but a fact never- 
 theless, that she took a keen pleasure in teasing 
 her daughter. Possibly the girl was easy to tease. 
 
 " I didn't mean " Araby began. 
 
 But happily for her at this moment a little trav- 
 elling-clock that stood upon the mantelpiece struck, 
 and reminded Mrs. Ruthven of the lateness of the 
 hour. 
 
 " Never mind what you meant, dear, or did not 
 mean," she said. "What I woke you to tell you 
 was, that I don't want to be called in the morning. 
 You must stop Olympe on her way to my door, so 
 don't oversleep yourself." 
 
 " Very well, mother." 
 
 " And tell them to send up my breakfast when I 
 
24 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 ring. Make any civil apology you like, and don't 
 be clumsy about it. Good-night." 
 
 " Good-night, mother.'* 
 
 Araby was asleep again in a few minutes, but 
 Mrs. Ruthven lay awake for two hours. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ARABY woke early, and was in time to catch 
 Olympe. 
 
 Olympe was not exactly a soubrette. There was 
 a good deal of her, though it was very neat and 
 trim in its way. She was proud of her waist, which 
 was small if only by contrast with the very ample 
 proportions of such parts of her as, in the physical 
 economy of her figure, were above and below it, 
 and she had a trick of resting her hands upon her 
 round hips in a way that showed its curves freely. 
 She had a certain affection for powder, and her 
 complexion did her credit, since she made it for 
 herself. Olympe in the morning and Olympe in 
 the evening were two different people, and Olympe 
 dressed to go out was described by Mrs. Sandon 
 as a duchess. 
 
 She had been in the service of Mrs. Ruthven for 
 a year. The lady who had taken her out to India, 
 and from whom the home-returning Mrs. Ruthven 
 engaged her, said, 
 
 " She has eyes in the back of her head, and at 
 the ends of her eight fingers and her two thumbs, 
 
26 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 and she has ears that defy walls ; but she is invalu- 
 able, and if she would only stay with me I would 
 keep her for ever." 
 
 To Araby's recital of her mother's orders Olympe 
 said, 
 
 " All aright. Oh whatta bore ! I arise too soon. 
 I get up at coq cro'. All in vain. Je ne ferai pas 
 monter le dejeuner de madame avant neuf heures 
 et demie. Voila encore une heure. I might 'ave 
 slept again 'alf an hour. Ah whatta pity ! Madame 
 enjoyed her evening? and mademoiselle aussi? 
 That 's right." 
 
 Olympe knew madame well. Those merry little 
 black eyes of hers were very shrewd. She left the 
 room smiling. 
 
 Mrs. Sandon's establishment was somewhat lim- 
 ited, and it chanced that Olympe, who could turn 
 her hand to anything, had volunteered to assist in 
 waiting at dinner on the preceding evening. She 
 had thus seen something of the annexation of 
 Gerald. 
 
 " Oh, I know something me ! I am not a mush- 
 room born to-day. We go to supper. We sit up 
 late. Alors ce matin we take a little rest. We see 
 monsieur again to-day, I make a bet." 
 
 Araby herself scarcely looked younger than her 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 27 
 
 mother when Mrs. Ruthven came down a little 
 later on. 
 
 Mrs. Sandon was of that attractive type of host- 
 ess that leaves her guests to amuse themselves in- 
 stead of mapping out for them tedious diversions. 
 It would not, here be it said, have been very easy 
 to map out anything for Mrs. Ruthven against her 
 will. She was an adept, she said of herself, at get- 
 ting out of things. Mrs. Sandon asked her her 
 plans. 
 
 " Well, we shan't be in for lunch," said her cousin, 
 buttoning her gloves. " I am going to take Araby 
 out to shop, and she must chaperon me to lunch 
 at the Wellington." 
 
 Mrs. Sandon chuckled, and murmured some- 
 thing about the whole duty of daughters. 
 
 "Then I believe I have found a house. That 
 nice boy who gave us supper last night has an aunt 
 or something who wants to let hers in Primate 
 Street. I am going to see it this afternoon." 
 
 Araby came into the room at this moment. She 
 was dressed for walking. Her mother looked at 
 her critically from her hat to her boots. She was 
 wearing a dress of two shades of brown, against 
 which the red of her hair struck a third brilliant 
 note of colour. The sense of harmony was com- 
 
28 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 plete; Mrs. Ruthven found herself admiring her 
 daughter in spite of her prejudices. 
 
 The day was bright and clear ; sunshine gilded 
 London. There was a very blue sky, and the tops 
 of the houses stood out against it clearly. Mrs. 
 Ruthven, with her throat nestling in soft fur, and 
 a hat that looked very simple but that was in fact 
 an elaborate creation, and threw a bewildering 
 shadow over her eyes, was conscious that she was 
 the prettiest woman in town, and accordingly was 
 very gracious to Araby. 
 
 " I am not sure," she said, " I am not sure that 
 you are not useful as a contrast. You have some 
 good points. Your style is very good, Araby, and 
 if you would only take the trouble to acquire a 
 more what shall I say ? a more twentieth-cent- 
 ury manner you would get on. Why did n't you 
 talk last night ? You allowed Miss Norfolk to mo- 
 nopolize Mr. Hartford ; you must learn to be enter- 
 taining." 
 
 Araby flushed slightly. 
 
 " Would you wish me to be like Miss Norfolk?" 
 she asked, with a little hesitation. 
 
 " Why not ? " said her mother. " A pleasant and 
 sensible girl." 
 
 She stopped the hansom as she spoke, and the 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 29 
 
 two ladies alighted opposite a jeweller's in Picca- 
 dilly. The window held an attractive array of silver 
 cigarette-cases and match-boxes. Mrs. Ruthven 
 wished to buy a present for a friend in India. She 
 professed herself enchanted with the silver cases 
 on which, in bright enamels, were painted Sapphos, 
 ballet girls, and burlesque boys. Araby thought 
 them pretty too, but they did not interest her, and 
 one or two of them seemed to her of questionable 
 decency. She was learning, however, that she must 
 hold her tongue and judge nothing. 
 
 While her mother bought her presents, Araby's 
 thoughts ran to Miss Norfolk, the pleasant and 
 sensible girl who had been held up to her as a 
 pattern. Possibly Araby's training had made her 
 narrow. She was quite ready to admit that this 
 might be so, and perhaps there was less that was 
 wrong than she supposed in some of the remarks 
 which she had overheard Miss Norfolk make to 
 Hartford at the theatre. Araby scarcely yet under- 
 stood a type that is in reality harmless, and that 
 likes, nevertheless, to pretend to a knowledge of 
 the seamy side of life. Miss Norfolk delighted 
 in being a little outrageous, and the fact that she 
 knew Araby was slightly shocked had not tended 
 to make her modify her sentiments. 
 
30 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Araby thought of her country home. Eccram, 
 where her dull and happy childhood had been 
 passed, must be illumined to-day by this golden 
 autumn sun. The trees must be gorgeous, yellow, 
 orange, red. But Eccram was beautiful at all 
 times ; and Araby sighed as she thought of it. Her 
 life there was monotonous, and in a certain sense 
 cramped, but it had its quiet pleasures, and she 
 missed its content. 
 
 She was attracted and repelled by the new life. 
 She was fascinated and frightened. She had been 
 strictly brought up ; now she found herself in a 
 place where nothing was wrong, and where con- 
 science was an inconvenience. As yet she was 
 unable to affix a just value to anything. She was 
 bewildered by a sense of inability to grasp the 
 meaning of much that went on around her. She 
 had had all sorts of ideas, which she was begin- 
 ning to look upon as primitive. Amongst them 
 had been the odd, not to say ridiculous, supposi- 
 tion, that marriage was the concentration of the 
 affections upon one object. She tried vainly 
 to adjust a balance between the standards of 
 right and wrong which prevailed in the world 
 she was entering and her own preconceived 
 notions of good and bad. And yet she had 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 31 
 
 been taught, she supposed, what others too had 
 learnt. 
 
 Of her mother she could only think with an over- 
 powering wonder. She scarcely tried to understand 
 her, so completely did Mrs. Ruthven seem beyond 
 her comprehension in its present state. The early 
 separation, and the subsequent living apart of the 
 mother and daughter, had prevented any close 
 exchange of affection. Yet, under like conditions, 
 Araby felt that she knew her father far more inti- 
 mately than she knew her mother. She had seen 
 him, it was true, once since the first parting at 
 Eccram, when both her parents had left her in the 
 care of the Miss Woottons. The impression which 
 his kindness, during his short visit to England, 
 made upon her was never forgotten, and in this of 
 course Corbet Ruthven had the advantage of his 
 wife. To Araby her father had a personality, her 
 mother was a name. Mrs. Ruthven wrote con- 
 stantly, but Araby always missed something in her 
 letters which instinct told her should be there ; and 
 whatever it might be that her letters lacked those 
 of her father possessed in a degree that insisted 
 upon comparison. Corbet's letters were short, in- 
 formal, and without any pretention to style. They 
 were irregular in their arrival, and sometimes they 
 
32 TIME^AND THE WOMAN 
 
 contained but a few words in answer perhaps to a 
 question of his daughter's ; still they bore unmis- 
 takably the evidence of an affection which distance 
 could not blunt. 
 
 A thing that had often puzzled Araby at the 
 time was the absence in them of allusions to her 
 mother. Mrs. Ruthven wrote at precise intervals 
 and often at some length. She had a plausible pen, 
 and she could write all sorts of things that were 
 beautiful in point of sentiment. Araby thought of 
 the letter announcing the return to England. It 
 contained many touching protestations. She re- 
 membered the time of waiting that succeeded it 
 a time full of anticipations and wonderings, 
 fraught with a certain nervousness, which she 
 tried in vain to allay. She remembered the throb 
 of admiration and pride with which she greeted 
 the beautiful woman in whom she recognized her 
 mother. Something chilled her in her mother's kiss. 
 
 The jewellery, the shopman, and the cigarette- 
 cases vanished ; a dewy brightness was coming 
 into Araby' s eyes, when the sudden rising of Mrs. 
 Ruthven, consequent upon the completion of her 
 purchase, recalled her to the present. The final 
 directions as to the sending of the parcel had been 
 given. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 33 
 
 " Come, Araby, I am waiting." 
 
 " Yes, mother." 
 
 " You were n't much help to me in choosing 
 what I bought." 
 
 Araby scented danger. 
 
 " I did n't think you wanted me to help you, 
 mother." 
 
 " You are always thinking or not thinking, 
 Araby another fault I have to find with you." 
 
 Araby said nothing. People looked at the two 
 beautiful women as they passed, and no one who 
 thought of it guessed the relationship in which 
 they stood to each other. Piccadilly was bright 
 with colour. 
 
 " Don't sulk, dear ; it is not attractive." 
 
 " Mother, I am not sulking." 
 
 " And don't answer me," said Mrs. Ruthven ; 
 " it is like a servant." 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven after this continued to bait her 
 daughter for some twenty minutes, and to the verge 
 of tears. Araby bore with her patiently. She was 
 gentle by nature, and, moreover, one of the things 
 that she had learnt from the old aunts at Eccram 
 was the duty of a child to its parents. So she walked 
 beside her mother, doing her best to keep her 
 temper, and succeeding in a way which, had she 
 
34 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 only known it, was the cause of her protracted tor- 
 ture. She was wondering whether her mother was 
 cruel. She took an opportunity presently of look- 
 ing at her. It was impossible to read cruelty in the 
 unruffled good-humour of the face ; Araby decided 
 that at once. And yet those red lips could say 
 words that stung. How very, very charming her 
 mother looked in her soft furs, and how much 
 Araby could have cared for her if she had been 
 allowed ! 
 
 " Don't stare, Araby ; it is bad manners. Do you 
 know that you have been wretchedly brought up ? 
 I shall be writing to those two dreadful old aunts 
 of your father's, in a day or two, and I shall make a 
 point of telling them what I think." 
 
 "Don't do that," said Araby, quickly. "They 
 have been very good to me always. You know 
 that, mother. They have done their best for me, 
 and if you think I have turned out badly it is n't 
 their fault. Oh, they were so good to me. When I 
 was ill that time two years ago, they took it in 
 turns to sit up with me, and Aunt Laura is not a 
 bit strong herself. You must n't blame them for 
 anything ..." 
 
 Araby broke off. Her heart grew big at the 
 thought of the old life, with its quiet happiness and 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 35 
 
 its atmosphere of love. She could hear nothing 
 that attacked Eccram. 
 
 " They never thought of themselves," she began, 
 but her mother interrupted her. 
 
 " They spoilt you, then," she said. " And now I 
 know what it is you are a spoilt child. And I 
 hate spoilt children. And I shall write all the same. 
 And you must n't argue with me. And I want some 
 gloves. I am going to take you through the Bur- 
 lington Arcade, so don't look about you." 
 
 Then Araby found herself wondering whether 
 her mother was not laughing in her sleeve. She 
 could not tell. Perhaps it may have been the result 
 of a meeting which took place at this moment, 
 but for whatever reason, Mrs. Ruthven presently 
 altered her manner, and was thenceforward en- 
 chanting, as she alone knew how to be, for the 
 rest of the morning. 
 
 It was Hartford who was strolling disconsolately 
 down the middle of the Arcade. His face bright- 
 ened as his eyes caught those of Mrs. Ruthven. 
 He turned about and walked with the two ladies 
 to the glove shop. After his first smile of recogni- 
 tion he looked tragic and spoke bitterly. Possibly 
 Mrs. Ruthven saw and knew the signs of her con- 
 quest. She asked him why he seemed unhappy. 
 
36 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 There was nothing, he answered, to make him 
 seem anything else. In any case, what matter? 
 Life was made up of unhappiness, and the happi- 
 est were those who caused most to others and who 
 suffered least themselves. 
 
 But it did matter, said Mrs. Ruthven, laughing 
 softly. And why did he speak in riddles ? and why 
 was he so bitter ? 
 
 " How old are you, my good boy ? " 
 
 He told her. 
 
 She laughed again. 
 
 " At your age to think life used up ! To have 
 weighed it all and found it wanting at twenty- 
 four! Araby, if you want any gloves buy them 
 now. Not ? Very well. How. much do they come 
 to? You will be sure to send them to-day. No, 
 that J s all, thank you." 
 
 Hartford watched her as she put on once more 
 her own glove. What a white hand it was. Her 
 rings sparkled in the artificial light of the shop. 
 
 " Now I am ready," she said, as she folded up 
 the bill and put it into her purse. " It is very nice 
 of you not to be bored with my shopping, Mr. 
 Hartford. Now Araby and I are going to lunch at 
 the Wellington. The streets are so dry I think 
 we '11 walk. I don't believe you. You didn't look 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 37 
 
 a bit when we met you as if you were intending 
 to walk along Piccadilly." 
 
 "I intended nothing," said Hartford. "I had no 
 aims. I have no aims. But if you'll let me I 
 should like to walk with you as far as the Wel- 
 lington." 
 
 He cheered up somewhat in the course of the 
 next few minutes, but he became sombre as the 
 three approached their destination. At the door of 
 the club Mrs. Ruthven held out her hand. 
 
 "You want a good talking to," she said, "and 
 a great deal of good advice. When shall I give 
 you both? I shall be at home to-morrow after- 
 noon, if you like to come and see me." 
 
 He hesitated. His sister was passing through 
 town, and he had promised to meet her and de- 
 vote to her a couple of hours. 
 
 " Just as you like," said Mrs. Ruthven. 
 
 " You know which I should like," he said, hotly. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven shrugged her shoulders. All ges- 
 tures took a charm which was not their own when 
 she employed them. They seemed, too, to acquire 
 a new eloquence. 
 
 "At five, then, to-morrow," he said. 
 
 He raised his hat and went over to the Bachelors' 
 to lunch, and to write to the sister who was to pass 
 
38 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 through London on the morrow, and who was 
 counting upon a glimpse of her brother. 
 
 After all, he wrote, and he was awfully sorry, an 
 unforeseen and pressing matter would prevent his 
 meeting her at Paddington. He would send his 
 servant to see that she got a good hansom to take 
 her over to Charing Cross. He was really very 
 sorry, and he would try to run down home some 
 time soon. 
 
 He drank a pint of champagne, perhaps as the 
 result of his present frame of mind, for at lunch he 
 was not in the habit of such extravagance, perhaps 
 to shut out the persistent vision of his sister's eyes 
 with tears in them. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MRS. RUTHVEN after lunch took Araby back to 
 Earl Street. She sat for some time with her hostess. 
 She had a delightful way of never coming in with- 
 out having a good deal to tell, and she entertained 
 Mrs. Sandon with an account of her morning. 
 
 " But I won't have you making my pet young 
 men unhappy," said Mrs. Sandon, with a chuckle. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven laughed merrily. 
 
 "And now I suppose you mean to try your 
 powers upon Gerald Ventnor?" said Mrs. Sandon. 
 " Johnnie, dear, I disapprove of you dreadfully." 
 
 " But you rather like me," said Mrs. Ruthven. 
 
 " And very much against my better judgment," 
 said Mrs. Sandon. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven kissed her, and rang for a han- 
 som, in which when it arrived she set out for Bond 
 Street. 
 
 " She will burn her fingers yet," said Mrs. San- 
 don to herself, as she heard the wheels roll away. 
 Then she bethought her of Araby, for whom she 
 was really in a manner sorry. 
 
40 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 " I am afraid for them both," she thought, shak- 
 ing her head. 
 
 Her way of being kind to her friends was to in- 
 troduce them to each other. Accordingly, she told 
 Araby that she was going to take her out driving 
 with her, and Araby had a kindly and dull after- 
 noon of stately visits. In the course of these she 
 made the acquaintance of Lady Ventnor, Gerald's 
 mother. Lady Ventnor disapproved of girls, only 
 less keenly than she disapproved of young mar- 
 ried women. She was, Mrs. Sandon averred, in a 
 perpetual state of apprehension lest her son should 
 entangle himself. 
 
 "And it is my one large endeavour to alarm 
 her," the old lady said afterwards. " That 's why 
 I asked him to dinner to meet your mother. She 
 is not exactly a young woman, but she is danger- 
 ous for all that. I wonder what Lady Ventnor 
 would have said if she had known that her boy 
 was now at Castanet's with the prettiest woman in 
 London." 
 
 The shop presented its usual gay appearance. 
 The window held a bright array of cases in costly 
 device for holding every form of delicate bon-bon. 
 Pink was for the day the prevailing colour. Man- 
 dolins tied with pink ribbons were cunning recep- 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 41 
 
 tacles for the most recent form of chocolate nougat 
 or burnt almond. 
 
 Gerald Ventnor was standing a few yards from 
 the door when Mrs. Ruthven's hansom drew up. 
 He was talking to the great dog that sprawled on 
 the threshold of an adjacent milliner's. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven saw him before he saw her, and 
 while she was still unobserved she gave him a 
 quick glance of critical approval ; and, in truth, he 
 looked fresh and neat and smart in a way that was 
 essentially English. 
 
 He raised his head and saw her. 
 
 " I have n't kept you waiting ? " she asked. 
 
 " You are punctual. I was before my time." 
 
 They entered the shop. Some sugar violets 
 caught Mrs. Ruthven's attention, and she asked 
 him whether they did not look as real and Neapol- 
 itan as those that she was wearing. No. Not that 
 table. There that one at the end. 
 
 Ventnor followed her as she threaded her way 
 between the chairs and tables to the place she had 
 chosen. He felt a certain complacent pride in her 
 beauty as he saw how people nudged each other 
 as she passed. 
 
 An attendant poured chocolate into minute 
 cups. Gerald looked with amusement at the brown 
 
42 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 liquid which he hated, but which in the present 
 instance had its use as a pretext for half an hour's 
 amusement. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven had singled out an old woman, 
 glaringly made up and dressed with an outrageous 
 disregard of her age, who was fumbling with 
 trembling fingers for a coin in her purse. As she 
 turned away Mrs. Ruthven met Gerald's look of 
 inquiry. 
 
 " That is what I shall come to some day," she 
 said, with a shudder. She felt as if she had looked 
 on death. 
 
 "Nonsense," said Ventnor, cheerfully. Mrs. 
 Ruthven was to him as old as she looked, and 
 that was considerably under thirty. He did not 
 remember Araby at the moment, but Mrs. Ruthven 
 remembered her. Araby was to her the outward 
 and visible sign of many things that she would 
 have liked to forget. But the mood did not last. 
 Mrs. Ruthven caught sight of her face in a look- 
 ing-glass, and she was reassured. Years are long, 
 and age was still a great way off. The thought 
 too of Hartford's recent restlessness contributed at 
 this moment to remind her that her charm was 
 potent as ever. After all, if Araby had not ex- 
 isted 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 43 
 
 "You met Hartford this morning," Gerald said, 
 interrupting her thoughts. 
 
 " How do you know that ? " 
 
 " I left him half an hour ago at the club. He 's 
 an odd chap moody, uncertain. He has no 
 troubles except those he makes for himself, and he 
 is rather good at making them." 
 
 Gerald was smiling. 
 
 11 What sort of troubles ? " 
 
 " Love," said Ventnor. He put down his empty 
 cup, and wondered why he drank chocolate when 
 he did not care for it. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven looked at him inquiringly. Inci- 
 dentally, she noted a small scar on his face. It was 
 just below his left eye, and it was the result of a 
 fall in the hunting-field. 
 
 " The odd part of it is," he said, presently, still 
 smiling meditatively, "that his experiences teach 
 him no wisdom. He falls in love perhaps three 
 times in a year seriously. All his heart affairs 
 are serious. They take him differently at different 
 times. He will be silent, or he will talk bitterly of 
 everything, till all 's blue. He suffers acutely while 
 the fit is on him. His life is full of one person for 
 the time being full, I tell you. He knows that a 
 month later he may be feeling all the same things 
 
44 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 for and about some one else, but while he is under 
 the spell of any particular woman she could make 
 him do anything." 
 
 " He is as tractable as all that?" 
 
 " He is absolutely tractable. He is like the lover 
 in the fairy story, who is willing to perform any 
 task an exacting mistress may choose to set him. 
 You remember the sort of thing one used to read 
 ' Before I can marry you, said the Princess, you 
 must bring me the wishing flower, which blooms at 
 moon-rise on the glass mountain, which is guarded 
 day and night by the dragon of the sleepless eye/ 
 Hartford would be off like a shot." 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven made a mental note of this trait 
 in Hartford's character. It did not occur to her 
 just then that it was at all probable that it could 
 ever be of use to her, but she remembered it for 
 all that. 
 
 " Let us go and see the house," she said. 
 
 " No ; let us sit on here for a little while." 
 
 "Very well; tell me something more about your 
 friend." 
 
 " You take a great interest in him. I don't know 
 any more." 
 
 People came and went. The attendants moved 
 deftly to and fro. There was a hum of talk, and the 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 45 
 
 occasional sound of the pouring of almonds or 
 caramels into the brass bowl of a scale. The little 
 French maid swung the door open and shut. 
 
 " We can't sit here any longer," said Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven, presently. " Come, let us go and see the house." 
 
 The autumn afternoon had begun to close in. 
 Lights on cabs and carriages flashed past in Bond 
 Street. 
 
 "Why, it is nearly dark," said Mrs. Ruthven. 
 " I forgot that it would be dark. Why did m't you 
 remind me?" 
 
 "I didn't think of it at the time," Gerald con- 
 fessed, " and afterwards " 
 
 "Well afterwards?" 
 
 " It is too late to go now, any way," he said, 
 " is n't it ? You ought to see it in the day-time, 
 oughtn't you? You can't see a house comfortably 
 in the dark. It is a thing to do in the morning. I 
 ought to be kicked, oughtn't I?" 
 
 " I think so," said Mrs. Ruthven. 
 
 He followed her into the street. 
 
 "Then to-morrow morning," he said; "have 
 you anything to do to-morrow morning ? Will you 
 come then ? " 
 
 " It is partly my own fault," said Mrs. Ruthven, 
 " or I think I should be angry with you." 
 
46 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 " And I 'm so contrite," said Gerald. " No, you 
 don't want a hansom yet. Let us go and see some 
 pictures, something" (his tongue in his cheek) 
 " that does n't want light ! What is there ? Let us 
 go into the first gallery we come to." 
 
 They began to walk down the street. She was in 
 truth nothing loath to know that she should see 
 him the next day. 
 
 " You '11 come to-morrow ? " 
 
 " I will go to-morrow." u 
 
 "You 're not angry?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 The visit to the gallery was not quite successful. 
 It chanced that Mrs. Sandon, having come to an 
 end of her cards, had proposed to show Araby 
 some pictures also by artificial light ! Araby had 
 seen nothing, and was delighted. There was a 
 picture of note at the gallery which Gerald and 
 Mrs. Ruthven had happened to enter. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 MRS. RUTHVEN established herself in Primate 
 Street. The house, with the usual drawbacks, was 
 as nearly as possible the sort of house she was seek- 
 ing, and matters were quickly arranged. Gerald 
 Ventnor' s cousin bounced off in high glee to Cannes 
 or Mentone, and Lady Ventnor raised her eye- 
 brows and said to her daughter, 
 
 "Who is this Mrs. Ruthven who has taken 
 Audrey 's house ? " 
 
 Miss Ventnor, it happened, shared Mrs. San- 
 don's delight in causing Lady Ventnor alarm on 
 Gerald's account, so she said, 
 
 "The mother of that very lovely girl with the sun- 
 set hair who came here one day with Mrs. Sandon. 
 But Gerald can tell you more. They are his friends. 
 He speaks of Mrs. Ruthven as one of the most 
 charming women he has ever seen." 
 
 " I never like Mrs. Sandon's friends," said Lady 
 Ventnor. " I don't know what it is about her, but 
 I never quite trust that woman." 
 
 " ' That woman/ " said Miss Ventnor, with 
 Gerald's smile. 
 
48 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 " Well, you know, her husband," began Lady 
 Ventnor, " very nearly " 
 
 " Which is n't true," said Miss Ventnor, avert- 
 ing a little tale of scandal. " The whole story was 
 contradicted, and in any case ;you were glad 
 enough to make friends with them and secure 
 their interest for papa when he first stood for the 
 Lecton division of Midlandshire, and they lived in 
 the county." 
 
 " My dear, that was a political matter." 
 
 " Gerald 's going to take me to see Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven," said Miss Ventnor. " He says she is delight- 
 ful to girls if she likes them. He goes there every 
 day himself, and I really believe that is what is 
 keeping him in town. He says of course that he 
 can't hunt till the alterations in the stables at home 
 are finished, but / think " 
 
 " What do you think ? " 
 
 " Well, he goes to Primate Street every day. 
 I wonder which he goes to see, Mrs. Ruthven or 
 her daughter. They are both apparently the same 
 age." 
 
 Lady Ventnor had a fearful quarter of an hour, 
 and when a visitor during the course of the after- 
 noon happened casually to mention Mrs. Ruthven's 
 name in connection with that of Gerald, Lady 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 49 
 
 Ventnor, to her daughter's keen amusement, said 
 something about not being acquainted with Mrs. 
 er Ruthven, a friend, she understood, of Mrs. 
 Sandon, whom she therewith began to abuse. 
 
 Mrs. Sandon in course of time heard much of 
 what Lady Ventnor said, and it made her chuckle, 
 whenever she thought of it, off and on for a week. 
 
 The few months that had followed directly upon 
 Mrs. Ruthven's return from India had been spent 
 in visits with her daughter to friends and relations 
 in the country and London; consequently it was 
 now that Araby was having her first real experi- 
 ence of her mother's unrelieved society. Less than 
 ever did she understand the brilliant woman to 
 whom she was so nearly related. 
 
 Araby 's chief sensation was one of loneliness. 
 Not that the house in Primate Street was ever 
 empty ; a constant succession of visitors filled the 
 drawing-room. Friends of Mrs. Sandon called, and 
 these were many; friends and relations of Mrs. 
 Ruthven herself ; and others. Mrs. Ruthven dined 
 out constantly, and Araby, who was not to be pre- 
 sented till the spring, was left much to herself. A 
 girl whose instincts were less affectionate would 
 have suffered less. She longed for her father in 
 these days, and she looked on into the future with 
 
50 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 dread. The return of her mother was, she told her- 
 self, the beginning of sorrows. She began to un- 
 derstand something perhaps of the state of affairs 
 that existed between her parents, and this did not 
 tend to make her happier. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven collected young men as a stone 
 gathers moss. They sprung from everywhere. 
 Some of these were attentive to Araby, but she 
 was reserved just then and unresponsive. 
 
 So passed November and December. Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven had reached England in August. 
 
 Mrs. Sandon watched Primate Street with amuse- 
 ment, but with fear also. 
 
 " You can't reason with Johnnie," she said to 
 herself. " I have a sort of idea that Araby ought 
 to be taken away from her, but what can one do ? 
 I have an uncomfortable feeling that where the 
 girl is concerned Johnnie is absolutely unscrupu- 
 lous. I am horribly afraid of Araby being some- 
 how sacrificed. I don't know a bit in what way or 
 why. I am apprehensive just that, apprehen- 
 sive." 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven meanwhile, in her irresponsible 
 way, was uncertain as a barometer. One day she 
 made herself so delightful to her daughter that 
 Araby herself began to hope for the future ; the 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 51 
 
 next nothing satisfied her. And Araby, so far as 
 she knew, was blameless. In a hundred small 
 ways she tried to please her mother, and she 
 failed. 
 
 " You 're so aggressively unlike me," Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven said one day. " There is no chance of my ever 
 getting to care for you, except by fits and starts. 
 Perhaps you may say that I'm not the sort of 
 woman who ever does like girls. You are quite 
 impudent enough to say so." 
 
 She paused for Araby to protest, as at one time, 
 and before she had learnt a certain wisdom, she 
 would have protested, but Araby was silent. 
 
 " But you are wrong," Mrs. Ruthven continued, 
 impatient that her assertion should not have evoked 
 a contradiction. " You are wrong, as you are about 
 most things that concern your mother. I like some 
 girls very much. "And I can tell you that girls 
 adore me. I see you don't believe me, but it is 
 true. They look up to me. The only thing for it 
 will be for me to marry you early if I can. You 
 will have to accept the first man who makes you 
 an offer, Araby. I dbn't care who he is, you will 
 have to marry him." 
 
 Araby 's laugh had a shade of defiance. 
 
 " I see nothing to laugh at," her mother said, 
 
52 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 with a grave mouth but with twinkling eyes that 
 upset Araby' s theories. Mrs. Ruthven was in- 
 scrutable upon occasion as the Sphinx or Gerald 
 himself, and withal she was made up of contradic- 
 tions to a degree that was bewildering. " Nothing 
 on earth to laugh at," she continued ; " you may 
 never get an opportunity at all. What is it about 
 you ? The colour of your hair, do you think ? " 
 
 "Mr. Ventnor," said Araby, quietly, "said my 
 hair reminded him of Romney's Lady Hamilton." 
 
 "That was very amiable of him," said Mrs. 
 Ruthven. 
 
 But Araby could see for herself the value of her 
 own brilliance of colouring, and on this point her 
 mother could not wound her. 
 
 " If you don't marry in a year," said Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven, " I think I shall send you out to India ; I 
 think I shall have done my share by that time, and 
 your father will have to take his turn. He shirks 
 all his responsibilities. What's that you say?" 
 
 " I said, ' Poor father ! ' " said Araby. 
 
 " Go to your own room." Mrs. Ruthven's eyes 
 did not twinkle. " Go to your own room, and don't 
 come down till I give you leave." 
 
 Araby, goaded to anger, had it on the tip of her 
 tongue to remind her that her daughter was no 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 53 
 
 longer a child. But she was ashamed of her thought 
 almost as it came to her, and instead of answering 
 she looked about for a book to take with her. 
 
 " Put that down ! " said her mother. 
 
 Araby hesitated, and obeyed. 
 
 " You 're not to do anything. You 're to sit with 
 your hands in your lap, till you're in a better 
 frame of mind." 
 
 Araby left the room. Her lips trembled with her 
 just rage, but she did not slam the door, as Mrs. 
 Ruthven half-hoped she would do. 
 
 On the landing, a square white place, with 
 miniature pillars and yellow silk hangings Araby 
 met Ventnor. He was, as we know, a constant 
 visitor in Primate Street, and he came up some- 
 times without being announced. There was nothing 
 to mark this chance meeting, yet each afterwards 
 attached to it a curious importance. It was as if 
 the eyes of both were opened. Araby, who had 
 seen him a hundred times, thought that she had 
 never before quite known what he was like ; and 
 he for the first time was struck with her beauty. 
 The recent passage at arms had heightened the 
 pink in her cheeks, and her eyes were sparkling. 
 
 He shook hands with her. She was going to 
 pass on, but he stopped her. 
 
54 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 "Why do you run away?" 
 
 She laughed softly. She had a musical laugh. 
 He detected in it a curious ring. 
 
 "It isn't polite, you know, to run away the 
 minute I arrive. Come back into the drawing- 
 room. Is Mrs. Ruthven there ? " 
 
 " Yes, mother is there. But I won't go back." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 He wished to detain her. He wondered that she 
 had not impressed him before. What bright eyes 
 she had ! How fine and delicate and fresh was her 
 skin! 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because" 
 
 She was half inclined to tell him. After all, it 
 was so very ridiculous. Her mother deserved that 
 he should be told. 
 
 But instead she laughed again, shook her head, 
 and left him. He watched her as she bounded 
 lightly up the narrow white stairs. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven hailed his appearance with mani- 
 fest delight. She was a woman who could not 
 bear to be alone. She was bored, and she was 
 already regretting having sent Araby away, and 
 so deprived herself of the pleasure of teasing her. 
 
 " Oh, it is so dull," she said, " so appallingly 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 55 
 
 dull. I was wondering how I should get through 
 the rest of the day. I was on the point of ringing 
 for Olympe to come and talk to me. She can be 
 entertaining when she chooses. I am so glad you 
 came in. What are you doing to-night? Nothing? 
 Really ! Then do let us devise some amusement. 
 I was going to Mrs. Sandon, but she has a cold, 
 and has put me off. Will you dine here ? I wonder 
 whether I could get any one else at a few hours' 
 notice. Where would a telegram find Mr. Hart- 
 ford?" 
 
 " I left him at the club an hour ago," said 
 Ventnor. 
 
 "The Bachelors? Bring me some of the forms 
 you will see on that writing-table. I'll ask the 
 Norfolk girl on chance. Where shall we go ? The 
 Gaiety ? Yes, the Gaiety if we can get seats. I '11 
 telegraph at once. Ring the bell, please. It had 
 better be a box, as I don't know how many we 
 may be." 
 
 The messages were despatched. Then Gerald 
 and Mrs. Ruthven sat by the fire, and talked for 
 an hour. 
 
 Araby, meanwhile, having recovered her good 
 humor, was sitting comfortably by her own hearth 
 and discussing the world in general with Olympe. 
 
56 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Olympe had opinions, and she aired them. She 
 was cynical. All men and most women she thought 
 were deceivers, and she said so in French and 
 English. She had a way of translating herself from 
 the one to the other. She had had a love-affair in 
 her early youth, and she knew what she was talk- 
 ing about. 
 
 " J'en ai assez. I have enough. I want no more. 
 Never again not me. No fear. Pas si bte. Not 
 so stupid." 
 
 A knock made itself heard. Mrs. Ruthven de- 
 sired Miss Araby's presence in the drawing-room. 
 
 Araby was received as if nothing had happened. 
 This was another of those things which puzzled 
 her. Mrs. Ruthven chose to ignore all that had 
 gone before. 
 
 " Life is too short," she said to Araby one day, 
 "to make it worth while to keep up one's resent- 
 ments. If you annoy me in any way, either apolo- 
 gize at the time or not at all. I never wish to be 
 reminded of anything that is over. If I want to be 
 angry with you I shall soon find a fresh oppor- 
 tunity, so let the old score slide." 
 
 Upon her daughter's appearance Mrs. Ruthven 
 said something playful about Araby's afternoon 
 sleep. Araby looked into the fire and smiled to 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 57 
 
 herself. A dancing flame caught the gold in her 
 hair, and Gerald found himself noting it. 
 
 "Go and sing," said Mrs. Ruthven, suddenly. 
 
 Araby, accustomed to obeying, went to the piano. 
 Gerald opened it for her. 
 
 "What shall I sing ?" 
 
 "Araby sings * Home, sweet Home/ " said Mrs. 
 Ruthven. "Sing that, dear. I think that's suf- 
 ficiently appropriate." 
 
 Ventnor looked round. Mrs. Ruthven was laugh- 
 ing softly at her own thoughts. Araby began to 
 sing. Her voice was sweet, and though it was 
 quite untrained, she used it with a very fair 
 method. Gerald in spite of himself found himself 
 thinking of an abstract home. It held not Lady 
 Ventnor. 
 
 In the firelight of the room ( Araby' s music needed 
 no candles, and the lamps had not yet been brought 
 in) he looked at the straight and slender form at 
 the piano, the gentle hands, the parted lips, and 
 the earnest face it was childish and pathetic 
 and the hair of flame. 
 
 The girl was very beautiful, he thought, and he 
 had only just discovered it. 
 
 " Now sing ' Annie Laurie.' " 
 
 But Araby was thinking of Eccram, of the dull 
 
58 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 happy days, of the two old aunts who loved her. 
 Something new in Gerald's manner unnerved 
 her. 
 
 " Not now," she said, a little huskily, and with 
 glistening eyes. " I will play something instead." 
 
 Soon after this a couple of telegrams arrived 
 simultaneously, and were brought to Mrs. Ruthven. 
 They contained respectively the acceptances of her 
 invitations to Hartford and Miss Norfolk. 
 
 " What shall we do if we can't get places? " said 
 Mrs. Ruthven. " I ought to have had an answer 
 from the theatre by this time." 
 
 Ten minutes later a third yellow envelope was 
 brought to her. 
 
 " There is n't a box," she said, when she had torn 
 it open and read the contents. " I can have four 
 stalls together, and one in another row." 
 
 She thought for a few moments. 
 
 " I am afraid you will have to amuse yourself at 
 home, Araby." 
 
 Gerald's eyeglass sent a gleam of reflected fire- 
 light across the wall as the wearer of it turned in 
 the direction of the speaker. 
 
 "May I go with Olympe to the St. James's 
 Hall?" said Araby, after a pause. 
 
 She mentioned a singer she wished to hear. She 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 59 
 
 was not disappointed in reality, though she was 
 sure that Gerald thought her so, and it was with 
 an effort that she made her voice sound unstrained. 
 Mrs. Ruthven was writing her telegram engaging 
 the four places. 
 
 " But there are five stalls," said Ventnor, " and 
 we are five." 
 
 " And one of you would have to sit out by him- 
 self," said Mrs. Ruthven, shaking her head. " No, 
 that sort of arrangement is most uncomfortable. 
 Araby must be content not to come. It can't be 
 helped." 
 
 She rang as she spoke, and gave the message 
 to the servant as soon as he appeared, directing 
 that it should be despatched forthwith. 
 
 " Still it 's rather rough on on us," said Gerald, 
 in a tone of half-serious and half-playful remon- 
 strance. 
 
 Araby wished that he would understand that she 
 did not mind. 
 
 "Yes, upon my word it's too bad," he said, less 
 playfully, as if he realized more fully the leaving 
 out of Araby from the plan of the evening's amuse- 
 ment. He rose to his feet. " Let me stop him. 
 Look here, let us have that fifth stall. I '11 sit in 
 it." 
 
60 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 "You'll do nothing of the sort, Mr Ventnor. 
 The telegram is gone. Araby does n't care for a 
 burlesque ; she does n't understand it. And any 
 way she is young enough to be able to do without 
 diversion for one night." 
 
 Gerald sat down again unconvinced. Araby 
 looked at her mother and feared a storm. Mrs. 
 Ruthven appeared unruffled, but Araby thought 
 she was angry. 
 
 " And I think I would almost rather go to the 
 concert," Araby said. She glanced at Gerald then, 
 hoping to silence him. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven, though for no particular reason, 
 unless indeed she was annoyed by Ventnor' s atti- 
 tude, was inclined to refuse. She thought better 
 of ker inclination, however, and gave a conditional 
 consent 
 
 "If," she said, " I don't change my mind, and if 
 Olympe can be got to look sufficiently respectable 
 Olympe paints her face, and tires her head, and 
 is altogether rather like Jezebel you can go." 
 
 Then Gerald went home to dress. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 WHATEVER may have been the impression which 
 Araby made upon Gerald Ventnor that afternoon, 
 it was Mrs. Ruthven who absorbed his attention 
 at dinner. Her appeal was always to the senses, 
 and her brilliance eclipsed the less assertive charms 
 of Araby and Miss Norfolk, 
 
 Miss Norfolk, it is true, had no very strong 
 claim to good looks. She had the prettiness of a 
 thousand London girls who keep their eyes open, 
 and are on the alert to note the smallest change 
 of fashion. She had a reputation for dressing 
 rather well, and continued to maintain it. Her 
 friends would have been astonished to know upon 
 how limited an allowance she produced her effects. 
 Indeed it would have opened a good many eyes if 
 the figures that represented the entire income that 
 was made to meet the expenses of the house in 
 Sloane Street had even been disclosed. Mrs. Nor- 
 folk with six marriageable girls of moderate charms 
 but sufficient wits knew the value of a good ad- 
 dress, and gave her daughters this advantage to 
 
62 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 start from. The rest they must do for themselves. 
 In the work-room then, at the top of a house that 
 was to be found in the Red Book and the Blue 
 Book and Boyle's Court Guide, and whatever other 
 directories make it their business to chronicle the 
 address of the elect, Miss Norfolk and her five 
 sisters spent a certain number of hours each week, 
 in company with a maid, a couple of large pairs 
 of scissors, and a sewing-machine. They were 
 clever girls, and they made the most of an abun- 
 dant stock of ideas, and the least possible quantity 
 of such materials as were expensive. The result of 
 their diligence, their observation, and "what the 
 maid called their " inventativeness," was that Mrs. 
 Norfolk's girls were better turned out than two- 
 thirds of those of her friends whose income doubled 
 or trebled her own. 
 
 Miss Norfolk looked at Mrs. Ruthven, and 
 thought of herself that, for to-night at least, she 
 was somewhat unfairly handicapped. 
 
 " I wonder whether I am asked here for foil," 
 she thought, suddenly pausing in eating her soup. 
 " Mrs. Ruthven is too good-looking to give one a 
 chance. She is like electric light ; and I feel like the 
 flame of a candle." 
 
 Miss Norfolk, howeyer, went on to reflect, that 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 63 
 
 but for Mrs. Ruthven she would be at that moment 
 dining at home on roast mutton and rice-pudding, 
 and with a dull evening before her. So she ate her 
 soup like a good girl, and was thankful for that 
 and other mercies. 
 
 Araby did not mind being eclipsed. But there 
 was something that she did mind, and for the 
 first time. Miss Norfolk found Hartford rather 
 silent. She saw that he could not keep his eyes 
 from the end of the table. 
 
 " He shall though," she said to herself, and in 
 twenty minutes, and possibly with the unconscious 
 aid of Mrs. Ruthven's excellent champagne, which 
 he was drinking pretty freely, she had the satisfac- 
 tion of securing his attention. 
 
 " All the same," she told him, " you are awfully 
 dull, are n't you ? dull, but dull ! dull to break 
 everything ! " 
 
 " I know," he said. " Shocking bad company. 
 It is very good of you to put up with me." 
 
 " Well, you see, I have to put up with you," 
 said Miss Norfolk ; " there 's nobody else." 
 
 She caught Araby's eye and admired the flowers 
 on the table. She was sure that Miss Ruthven had 
 arranged them. " I wish I had your happy knack. 
 I do ours at home, but somehow they always look 
 
64 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 lumpy. These are lovely quite lovely too 
 lovely ! " 
 
 Araby saw that Miss Norfolk was not thinking 
 of what she was saying, so she did not respond 
 much; and Miss Norfolk, having murmured 
 " Quite lovely " three or four times to herself, re- 
 turned to the conquest of Hartford. 
 
 Dinner proceeded smoothly, and with that ab- 
 sence of delays that means good service, which in 
 turn implies good wages. Mrs. Ruthven, while she 
 exacted the utmost attention to her orders, always 
 managed to keep on good terms with her servants, 
 and the result was comfort and freedom from small 
 annoyances. The butler and a smart maid moved 
 with noiseless tread and mutual silent understand- 
 ing. The menu itself was short and unelaborate, 
 but each dish was perfect of its kind. 
 
 Araby, sitting between the girl of the end of the 
 century and Gerald Ventnor, had time to think a 
 good deal. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven's laugh sounded often. Her bore- 
 dom of the earlier part of the day was gone, and 
 her spirits had risen in proportion. She seemed not 
 ill-disposed towards her daughter, to whom she 
 addressed an occasional remark. Perhaps she saw 
 that her own possession of Gerald was to-night 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 65 
 
 more complete than it had been heretofore, and 
 she could afford the optimism which extended its 
 goodwill even to Araby. 
 
 Dinner approached its end. Araby looked at 
 the clock ; she made her excuses and rose. Gerald, 
 with a sudden misgiving, realized how he had 
 neglected one of his neighbours for the other. 
 Araby 's smile of thanks was a little pale as he held 
 the door open for her. It lingered in his memory 
 afterwards. 
 
 Miss Norfolk carried on her plan of campaign. 
 She was very wide awake, and shewed herself 
 sympathetic and understanding. Hartford was 
 transparent to her as glass. 
 
 It was with some difficulty that Mrs. Ruthven 
 caught her attention. Miss Norfolk's face bore 
 the nearest approach to a blush of which it was 
 capable, when she found that her hostess was 
 waiting. 
 
 " We must get our cloaks," Mrs. Ruthven said, 
 smiling, "and have our coffee when we come 
 down. Ring for it, Mr. Ventnor." 
 
 Ten minutes later a brougham and a hansom 
 left Primate Street. 
 
 In the clear and frosty night the buildings cut 
 themselves sharply against the sky. There were 
 
66 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 many stars. Gerald, in the hansom with Hartford, 
 and in a curious mood, felt a sudden wish for the 
 country. With it, and with or without reason, 
 came a thought of Araby. How he had neglected 
 her ! He liked to think that she was going to hear 
 beautiful music. 
 
 Then, the glamour of the starlit night over him, 
 he became conscious of seeing London itself newly, 
 just as that day he had seen Araby newly, and 
 he saw that it was an enchanted city. Tiny points 
 of frost were sparkling on the ground under a 
 lamp. Shadows were vague and mysterious. 
 Lights on cabs and carriages looked in the dis- 
 tance like large fireflies. Trafalgar Square was 
 powdered with a fine snow that had fallen at sun- 
 down, and that lay softly on the lions and the steps. 
 He was sure that the trees in the parks must be 
 white with it and rime. An enchanted city ! Were 
 the buildings of silver as they looked on such a 
 night ? He wished that he could be high up some- 
 where, that he might look down upon the whitened 
 roofs and streets, upon the moonlit walls and 
 churches and chimneys, and river and bridges 
 and wharves. The thought of these things brought 
 them before him vividly. Gerald surely in an un- 
 usual mood ! 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 67 
 
 He came to himself in the Strand. This the still 
 beauty of the night could not enchant. But it 
 had a beauty of its own, in which the crowds had 
 part the rush of life and the very noise of it. Here 
 and there the lights of shops or theatres illumined 
 straining horses and hurrying people. 
 
 The cab drew up presently at the theatre, and a 
 few moments later, the brougham with the others. 
 
 The four stalls were in the middle of the house. 
 Gerald, from his, looked about, and wondered 
 which was that seat in another row which he asso- 
 ciated with the absence of Araby. He felt somehow 
 as if she must be sitting there all by herself, and 
 again he thought of how he had neglected her at 
 dinner. His thoughts ran back to another night 
 also when she had been left out of part of the plan 
 of the evening's amusement. He looked at Mrs. 
 Ruthven speculatively. But she met his eyes by 
 chance and smiled, and he ceased to think of 
 Araby. 
 
 Then the curtain rose to a swinging chorus, and, 
 with the rest, he gave himself up to the influences 
 of the moment. Pretty faces, shapely limbs, and 
 gorgeous and beautiful colours claimed the eyes ; 
 light melodies the ears. Here nothing was asked 
 of you. The play, if you could call it a play, was 
 
68 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 like champagne ; sparkling, and each sparkle a tiny 
 bubble dancing to the surface, and the bubble a 
 speck of air. But like champagne, it intoxicated. The 
 players were a pack of children romping through 
 a game, wanton, irresponsible, light-hearted, in- 
 fected with the joy of living. These were the first 
 days of the dancing girls ; the last, though no one 
 knew it yet, of the Sacred Lamp. Here and there 
 amongst the audience a foot tapped, now and then, 
 to the exuberant measures of an air that was not 
 to be resisted. Ribbons and filmy things floated 
 out from the dresses of the dancers, and followed 
 with curved flutterings the movements of their 
 bodies in the tangle of the dance. The house was 
 full even Araby's stall had been taken. 
 
 Gerald, though he did not know which that fifth 
 stall was, saw presently that not one was empty. 
 Once more he thought of Araby, and his conscience 
 pricked him. A girl in the chorus had red hair that 
 reminded him vaguely of hers. Then he thought 
 of her soft eyes, and then he was listening to a 
 voice that never failed to please him, and again he 
 forgot her. The words of the song, which were in 
 some sort a eulogy of fickleness, had a perverse 
 charm of their own ; and the air, written to exploit 
 to their greatest advantage the deep and the high 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 69 
 
 notes of the singer, was full of sudden contrasts. 
 Midway through each verse a change of key sur- 
 prised you. And so from thinking of Araby's soft 
 eyes he fell to noting the dancing eyes of the 
 singer, and the play of expression on the laughing 
 face. The story made a little Way after that. Then 
 the chorus romped in. Some sort of a climax was 
 attained, and the curtain fell on the end of an act. 
 
 Gerald and Mrs. Ruthven began to talk. Miss 
 Norfolk chattered to Hartford, and he listened more 
 or less. People moved about and exchanged greet- 
 ings and remarks with their acquaintance. A man 
 in the stalls talked to a girl in one of the boxes on 
 the lower tier. A woman nodded and smiled to an- 
 other across the house. There was a steady hum of 
 talk. A girl's laugh sounded softly. A word or two 
 of conversation might now and then be heard, de- 
 tached as it were from the general buzz. There was 
 that appearance of the meeting and the mutual 
 recognition of members of a set that denotes the 
 successful theatre. Miss Norfolk, bowing now and 
 then to friends, was happy in the knowledge that 
 she was generally to be seen somewhere. 
 
 Hartford looked across her to Mrs. Ruthven. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven surprised Hartford's eyes on her 
 own. It was then that an idea came to her, and 
 
70 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 she decided that it was time for Ventnor to change 
 places with him. 
 
 " Go and talk to Miss Norfolk," she whispered 
 to Gerald, " I dare say she will teach you a good 
 deal that you don't know." She leant over towards 
 Hartford. " Mr. Hartford, come and sit by me. I 
 have scarcely seen anything of you all this even- 
 ing." 
 
 Hartford rose with an alacrity that was scarcely 
 flattering to the girl of the end of the century. 
 
 " You have n't been particularly kind to me to- 
 night," he said, as he took the place Ventnor had 
 vacated. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven looked puzzled and innocent. 
 
 " I gave you the only girl," she said. " I thought 
 of course you would rather talk to her than to an 
 old married woman like myself." 
 
 "That's nonsense," said Hartford, hotly, "you 
 know that." 
 
 " Are you going to be cross and horrible ? " said 
 Mrs. Ruthven, "because if so I shan't like you." 
 
 " You don't like me." 
 
 " Yes, I do. You interest me very much, when 
 you are n't disagreeable." 
 
 Hartford did not relax. He looked gloomily at 
 the musicians assembling. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 71 
 
 "Mr. Hartford." 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. Ruthven." 
 
 " Look here. No, turn round. Look me in the 
 face. Like that. Now, why are you angry ? " 
 
 " I am not angry." 
 
 "Yes, you are. Well, I am going to be very 
 humble. If I have offended you I I am sorry. I 
 don't like to see you looking unhappy. Yes, it 
 does matter, of course it matters. I am ready to 
 make amends if you will tell me how. There, you 
 look much nicer when you smile." 
 
 The musicians were in their places. There was 
 a confused noise of tuning. A 'cello complained 
 deeply. A violin gave forth a sound that was like 
 the fretful yawning of a dog.* An oboe wailed. 
 The conductor made his appearance and took his 
 seat. 
 
 "London is ruining you," she said, presently. 
 "It is the very worst place for you in the world. 
 Why have n't you a profession ? " 
 
 " Because I have enough to live on without." 
 
 " You 're an only son ? " 
 
 The conductor tapped the music-stand with his 
 baton. There was silence amongst the wantoning 
 instruments, and the overture to the second act 
 began. 
 
72 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 It was then perhaps that Mrs. Ruthven's idea 
 matured. 
 
 "I know you," she said, gravely; "oh, I have 
 seen heaps of men like you in India. You drift. 
 You make a profession of drifting. Do you know 
 that you are very foolish ? " 
 
 " I know that I 'm not very happy." 
 
 The violins in sweeping waves of sound helped 
 perhaps to unsteady a head that was not at the 
 best very strong. 
 
 Gerald meanwhile talked lightly to Miss Nor- 
 folk. Presently the lights were lowered and the 
 curtain rose. 
 
 What matter that the plot had gone to pieces, 
 that the disguises were somewhat bewildering, 
 and without motive? What did the story matter 
 while there was still to be heard the voice that 
 had sung perversely to Fickleness, and to be seen 
 the feet that had translated music to motion? 
 Things happened or did not happen, and Gerald 
 suffered himself to be beguiled. Half an hour 
 passed. Then suddenly, with one of those releas- 
 ings of the chorus, like the letting loose of children 
 from school which in turn is like the rush of 
 waters from the gap in a broken dam the red- 
 haired girl was swept on to the stage again and 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 73 
 
 he felt a pull at his heart. Araby ! He had only a 
 vague consciousness of the darkening stage, of 
 forms grouping themselves upon the rocks, of the 
 strange effect of the opaline lights that presently 
 relieved the gloom. He was tracing Araby in 
 imagination to her concert. It must nearly be over 
 by now. Would Olympe succeed at once in get- 
 ting a cab? 
 
 He looked at his watch. He did not like the 
 thought of Araby waiting, perhaps, in Piccadilly, 
 during the delay that was inevitable. He hesitated, 
 and looked at his watch again undecidedly. 
 Araby in Piccadilly. He could not bear the thought. 
 Then he professed to see a friend amongst the 
 audience, and with the whispered assurance of his 
 speedy return, he quietly left his stall. 
 
 He got his coat and hat from the attendant, and 
 hurried out of the theatre. He was lucky enough 
 to get a cab at once, and at the promise of an 
 augmented fare the driver urged his horse to a 
 creditable pace. He paid the man at St. James's 
 Hall, and retained him. As he entered the build- 
 ing people began to leave it. He was in the nick 
 of time. 
 
 He scanned the stream of faces that flowed to- 
 wards him. It swept past and round him, like 
 
74 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 water washing a rock in its course. But the face 
 he sought was not there. When he heard a woman 
 say that the song "where it come in about our aingel 
 Biby Lil " had fair brought the tears to her eyes, 
 he understood that it was not amongst these 
 people that he must look for Araby. He said " Vox 
 populi" under his breath, and smiled to himself. 
 
 But at the moment of making the discovery, a 
 somewhat large form, at which he had been look- 
 ing abstractedly as it advanced towards him, be- 
 came suddenly detached as it were from the others, 
 and familiar to him, and he recognized the shrewd 
 and good-tempered face of Mrs. Ruthven's maid. 
 Araby was walking beside her, and as her eyes 
 fell upon him she hurried forward with a little ges- 
 ture of pleased surprise. 
 
 " Oh," she said, when she reached him, " where 
 do you think we have been ? " 
 
 " I think I can guess." 
 
 "We went there by mistake," she said, laugh- 
 ing ; " we did n't know there were two halls here, 
 and we took our tickets and went in, and there 
 was such a ridiculous plantation-song being sung, 
 and Olympe was so much amused, and she had 
 been dreading the classical music so much, 
 had n't you, Olympe ? that after all we did n't 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 75 
 
 move. It was all very funny, but oh, my beautiful 
 concert! Is that where we ought to have gone, up 
 there? I suppose those are the people beginning 
 to come out from it?" 
 
 He was looking at her, and listening to her with 
 some amusement. She was speaking rapidly, and 
 in a tone that was partly aggrieved and partly 
 playful. 
 
 His coat, which was not fastened, flapped open as 
 some one pushed past him, and Araby noticed, 
 though almost without being conscious of doing 
 so, some violets which he was wearing. 
 
 " But how do you come to be here?" she asked. 
 
 "I came to see that you got a cab without 
 difficulty." 
 
 " Where is my mother ? " 
 
 " At the theatre." 
 
 " Did she send you ? " 
 
 Gerald shook his head. 
 
 " Does she know you have come here?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Oh," said Araby, with dismay. 
 
 " I have a hansom waiting outside," said Gerald, 
 smiling. 
 
 " Won't the play be over? Shall you be back in 
 time? Oh, I wish you had n't come." 
 
76 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Olympe stood back watching and in silence. 
 Ventnor led the way along the crowded pavement 
 to where his cab was standing. He gave Araby his 
 hand and helped her into the hansom. The maid 
 followed. Araby leant forward. 
 
 " Do go back at once," she said, hurriedly, " do 
 go straight back straight, do you hear ? and 
 and, Mr. Ventnor, if you don't mind " she hes- 
 itated. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Don't say where you 've been." 
 
 He raised his hat and was moving away. Some 
 one was calling to him. 
 
 "Sir." 
 
 The driver drew his attention to Araby, who 
 beckoned to him. She put out her hand. 
 
 "It was good of you to come. It was awfully 
 good of you." 
 
 A minute later Ventnor was being whirled back 
 along the Strand. 
 
 He was in his place in time to hear the final 
 chorus and see the curtain fall. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 A DAILY penance to Araby was the morning walk 
 with her mother. One of the rules to strict con- 
 formance to which Mrs. Ruthven owed some- 
 thing of her health and her youth, was that of a 
 regular and methodical regard of exercise. Araby 
 herself cared as much for walking as most girls 
 who have been brought up in the country and the 
 open air. She had been accustomed in the Eccram 
 days to long rambles through the lanes or in the 
 woods alone as often as not, or sometimes with 
 such companions as chance or the neighbourhood 
 afforded her. 
 
 Oh, for such a walk now! to start running 
 down the Eccram drive, and to steady to a more 
 dignified pace as she neared the lodge, to turn out 
 then on to the broad highway, and take an east- 
 ward or a westward direction what matter which 
 when each was beautiful ? to crack with her stick 
 the ice on the little frozen pools at the wayside, and 
 then to stride briskly along the iron roads that were 
 overhung by gaunt and frost-rimed elms, and to 
 breathe in the still sharp air, and to meet no one ! 
 
78 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 But to walk in London, and with her mother, 
 that was different. The parks were after all a poor 
 imitation of the country ; and Mrs. Ruthven made 
 this daily hour and a half of exercise the occasion 
 of lectures that were curiously foreign to the char- 
 acter as Araby read it of the giver of them. And 
 when Mrs. Ruthven was not admonishing, she was 
 teasing her purely and simply and with twinkling 
 eyes. Araby scarcely knew which she dreaded most 
 the lectures, in the sincerity of which, with her 
 mother's example before her, she could not believe, 
 or the baiting which, if it was premeditated and 
 its cruelty realized, must sooner or later end in her 
 hatred of her tormentor. 
 
 It was a relief to her that she was at least al- 
 lowed to begin the day in peace. Mrs. Ruthven, 
 since she had entered on her occupation of the 
 house in Primate Street, breakfasted in her room, 
 and till nearly eleven Araby had her time to her- 
 self. In these frosty winter mornings, with a mag- 
 nificent disregard of her complexion, she drew her 
 chair round to that side of the table that was nearest 
 to the fire, and, with the newspaper propped up 
 against the urn, she read comfortably as she ate 
 abstractedly, and allowed first one half of her face 
 and then the other to be burned by the dancing 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 79 
 
 blaze. The knowledge that her mother would have 
 interfered with this method of enjoying her lonely 
 breakfast detracted nothing from the pleasure of 
 its freedom. She was learning at this period of her 
 life to look only to herself for sympathetic compan- 
 ionship. She was not of a sort to find solace in 
 confiding her thoughts or her impressions to a 
 diary, and since leaving Eccram she had no inti- 
 mate acquaintance at hand to whom she could go 
 for counsel. She was loyal to the mother at whose 
 contrivance she was now so little happy, and in 
 her letters to the old aunts she had never written a 
 word that would serve to enlighten them as to the 
 facts of the case. From Mrs. Ruthven herself they 
 gathered nothing except that which she wished 
 them to know ; and if she spoke of them habitually 
 as " those two old things at Eccram," or " those 
 dreadful old aunts of your father, Araby," she was 
 careful to write to them the very admirable senti- 
 ments which she knew so well how to word. 
 
 "Their goggle eyes used to be big enough 
 when I knew them," she said to herself, "and I 
 am rather good at throwing dust." 
 
 On the morning succeeding Mrs. Ruthven's im- 
 promptu party Araby descended as usual to the snug 
 brown dining-room. There had been more frost in 
 
80 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 the night, and the fire burned brightly, and threw 
 a glow of heat from the red-tiled hearth. Araby 
 stood before it, and held out her hands to the 
 blaze. The butler was moving round the table. 
 The tray for Mrs. Ruthven's breakfast stood on 
 the sideboard, and Olympe came in presently, and 
 after looking about, and asking him for such 
 things as she required for her mistress, she took it 
 in her plump hands and disappeared. 
 
 The man removed a cover and withdrew. Araby 
 did not stir at once. She watched the flames, and 
 the curling smoke, and a tile on to which a burn- 
 ing coal had fallen, and which reflected its heart of 
 fire ; then some flaky white dust which trembled 
 on a bar of the grate ; after that it was the blue of 
 a little flame that caught her attention, and that 
 reminded her of the blue of some one's eyes, and 
 then she smiled, and then she sighed. 
 
 She was still standing before the fire when 
 Olympe returned for the salt, which had been for- 
 gotten. Araby turned absently and looked at her. 
 
 Olympe laid her hand upon her own panting 
 bosom and said, 
 
 "All those stairs. I mount again. So stupid. 
 Whatta bore ! " and whisked herself and a salt- 
 cellar out of the room. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 81 
 
 Araby 's thoughts followed her up the white 
 stairs, and culminated at the side of the dainty 
 bed, in a recollection of the inevitable walk and its 
 attendant evils. Then quite suddenly, and with a 
 surprise that led to self-questioning, Araby real- 
 ized that she had within herself a knowledge that 
 would render, for that day at least, her mother's 
 shafts powerless to wound her. She sat down to 
 her breakfast, but she could not eat. She was 
 thinking of every word that Gerald Ventnor had 
 ever said to her. They did not amount to very 
 many, even when they were all gathered together. 
 They would have covered little paper, and most 
 of them were commonplace enough, but Araby 
 thought of them all. She remembered, too, every 
 time that she had seen him. But it seemed to her 
 that it was yesterday that for the first time she had 
 seen him as he really was. She rose and looked at 
 her reflection in the little square of bevelled glass 
 that was let into the woodwork over the mantel- 
 piece. She stood in front of it for some moments, 
 noting many things, and wondering, and then she 
 returned to the table. Her lips were smiling. Her 
 eyes were grave as they fell upon the flowers that 
 Miss Norfolk had mechanically admired at dinner, 
 for the sight of them brought back a recollection 
 
82 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 of a three-quarter view of Gerald's head, as he had 
 sat with his face turned almost the whole time to 
 Mrs. Ruthven. Then Araby was unhappy for a 
 space, and then she was wildly happy. Oh, the 
 beautiful night ! she thought of the drive home with 
 Olympe along Piccadilly after that exquisite mo- 
 ment when the calling back of Gerald to thank 
 him had seemed to bring him so near to her. She 
 had carried home with her the recollection of his 
 smile. The Green Park was a white park that 
 night, the trees were saved from gauntness by a 
 rich covering of fine snow, and snow lay in a 
 broad expanse on the grass, so that even the 
 further distances were not quite dark. Something 
 gleamed on the path that skirts the park railings. 
 A boy was carrying a pair of skates, and the 
 blades caught the lights of a passing carriage. 
 Then Araby wished to skate. Somewhere, she 
 thought, there must be sheets of ice, where the 
 stars of the winter night were deeply reflected, and 
 where at the edges overhung by trees mysterious 
 shadows would be thrown. Out in the open the 
 moon would see her face, perhaps blurred in the 
 icy mirror. Oh, on such a frozen lake to skate 
 away to the end of time, alone with one's thoughts 
 or with one other ! 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 83 
 
 So Araby made a meagre breakfast. Her happi- 
 ness, which had its base on very slender founda- 
 tions, robbed her of all wish to eat. She rose from 
 the table half a dozen times, to go to the window, 
 to look into the fire, to but her actions did not 
 seem to have any definite motives. When she 
 saw herself in the glass she smiled. 
 
 All this time Araby sought no name for the new 
 element that had come into her life. It was enough 
 for her that for whatever reason she was ex- 
 periencing a joy which had never been hers before. 
 She did not look on into the future with any wonder. 
 She was not of a type that maps out plans or hopes 
 in advance. All that she realized was, that with 
 Gerald for her friend the difficulties of her life 
 would dwindle. 
 
 She had been brought up upon old-fashioned 
 principles, upon principles indeed that now, for- 
 tunately or the reverse, according to your view of 
 the old order in contrast with the new, are almost 
 obsolete. She had read little of love, and she had 
 heard still less. Novels in the Eccram days had 
 been accounted dangerous, until they had been 
 carefully considered by that one of the aunts under 
 whose supervision her reading had been done, and 
 poor Araby was unwittingly the symbol of the ter- 
 
84 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 rible young person before whom the novel-writer is 
 now only by slow degrees ceasing to bow down. The 
 Miss Woottons had allowed her a free access only 
 to that form of literature which proclaims its purity 
 in its very binding. " Embossed Cloth, Gilt," is, I be- 
 lieve, the technical term for the abomination which 
 covers the class of book held harmless. It was thus 
 an invertebrate sort of fiction which had been per- 
 mitted to adorn her bookshelves in those days. 
 The classics, if she had read them at all, came 
 before her in a mutilated form. The result of such 
 censorship was Araby. She had, then, to make 
 all discoveries for herself, and that which to the 
 average modern girl would have been familiar at 
 the second hand of fiction, was to her an untrav- 
 elled country. She was vaguely conscious of the 
 handicap to which her mind had been subjected by 
 the well-meaning rigour of the aunts. 
 
 The morning was passing quickly. Araby, having 
 taken no heed of time, was sitting at the piano in 
 the drawing-room, translating, though she was 
 scarcely aware of it, something of her feelings to 
 the music that she was playing, when her wander- 
 ing eyes chanced to fall upon the clock. Almost 
 simultaneously three things occurred she started 
 to her feet noting the hour, Olympe came to the 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 85 
 
 room bearing a message from Mrs. Ruthven an- 
 nouncing that she was ready for her walk, and the 
 front-door bell was rung. Araby hurried upstairs, 
 and presently returned booted, hatted, coated, and 
 drawing on her gloves. She had heard her mother 
 going down from her room, and now she heard 
 her voice in the drawing-room, and the sound also 
 of another voice. Then Araby waited for a few 
 moments before going in, till the colour in her face 
 should subside somewhat. Her heart was beating 
 loudly. When she could delay no longer she 
 opened the door. 
 
 She saw Gerald then as she had never seen him 
 before. He was standing by the fire in a rough 
 brown suit, and stockings knitted of a coarse wool. 
 He looked altogether a bigger, broader man than 
 she had supposed him. Hitherto she had known him 
 only as a man of London one of that great class 
 that lounges through a town life smartly. Now his 
 masculinity seemed more insistent ; a subtle air of 
 the country hung about him, and to Araby, who 
 had lived her life in the woods and the fields, its sug- 
 gestion appealed strongly. Her shyness vanished 
 in a moment. In truth, she scarcely saw her mother 
 just then. She thought of the sound of a gun, she 
 thought inconsequently of dogs and horses, of rods 
 
86 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 and fishing-tackle, and of whatever else connects 
 itself with an out-of-door life. 
 
 Gerald shook hands with her, and repeated the 
 object of his visit. His sister was making up a party 
 to skate at Wimbledon, and he had come round to 
 see whether Mrs. Ruthven and Araby would not be 
 persuaded to join it. 
 
 Araby's face expressed the delight the proposal 
 afforded her. 
 
 "Can you skate?" asked her mother. "You 
 must n't come if it is to learn. A beginner wants a 
 lot of help, and so on." 
 
 " But I am not a beginner," said Araby firmly, 
 and conscious of her powers. 
 
 Ten minutes later Mrs. Ruthven and her daugh- 
 ter were being fitted with skates, and half an hour 
 saw them on their way to Wimbledon. In the train, 
 Gerald, in his lightest mood, kept Araby included 
 in the conversation. Mrs. Ruthven frowned a little 
 sometimes, but Araby's spirits were at a height at 
 which they could be little affected by these signs 
 of a gathering storm. 
 
 The clear winter night had been followed by as 
 clear a day. The air was sharp and still ; a pale 
 sunlight gilded but scarcely warmed the crisp 
 morning. Gerald noted Araby's glowing cheeks. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 87 
 
 Her eyes were bright in anticipation of the exer- 
 cise before her. 
 
 Miss Ventnor' s party had gone down by an ear- 
 lier train. Miss Ventnor herself waited on the edge 
 of the ice for her brother and his friends. She had 
 met Araby before, we remember, on the occasion 
 of Araby's series of visits with Mrs. Sandon. She 
 greeted Mrs. Ruthven warmly, and Mrs. Ruthven 
 thought she annexed her. What Mrs. Ruthven had 
 said of herself was true ; girls were always attracted 
 to her ; and Miss Ventnor pleased Gerald by saying 
 that she hoped she might be allowed to call in 
 Primate Street. 
 
 Araby 's eyes traversed the great sheet of ice. 
 A girl swung by, tracing broad curves. 
 
 " Oh," said Araby to herself, " he shall see what 
 I can do. Oh, I am glad I can skate." 
 
 A dozen men besieged the new arrivals. " 'Ere 
 you are, lady." " Put your skates on, Miss?" "Take 
 a seat, sir." 
 
 Araby gave herself into the hands of the most per- 
 suasive. He discoursed volubly of frosts he remem- 
 bered, of figure-cutting as it should be done, of the 
 merits comparatively of wooden and acme skates. 
 
 "A very pretty pair yours are, miss, too very 
 fancy they are. Thank you, miss." 
 
88 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Araby was amused, and made appropriate an- 
 swers, but he was not as deft with his fingers as 
 he was quick with his tongue, and she was chafing 
 to be on the ice. She had the trial to her patience 
 of seeing the others there before her. 
 
 " Oh, could you be a little bit quicker ?" she said 
 at last. 
 
 The man seemed hurt. It was this way, he ex- 
 plained ; she might have gone to one of the others 
 who would have fastened her skates more quickly 
 perhaps, and in ten minutes they would have come 
 off, and then well, there you are. He was " thur- 
 rer," he was. If you do a thing at all you had better 
 do it well or else leave it alone. A skate (he held one 
 of Araby 's up for demonstration) was n't like the 
 harness of a fire-engine horse, you could n't drop 
 it on warm. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven meanwhile took a few steps tenta- 
 tively, found that her sojourn in India had not 
 robbed her of her power of skating, and then struck 
 out freely and with the grace that characterized all 
 her movements. Gerald gave her his hand. Araby 
 looked on. Were they going to skate away to- 
 gether? Gerald glanced along the row of chairs 
 and his eyes fell on Araby. Perhaps her face ex- 
 pressed her martyrdom. He said something to 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 89 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven and skated up to the bank. The 
 man was likening or unlikening in his case, for 
 he used a negative form of simile the skate to 
 many other things. Gerald grasped the situation, 
 paid the man, dismissed him as incompetent, and 
 adjusted Araby 's skates himself. The man con- 
 tinued his discourse the while. 
 
 A few minutes more and Araby was on the ice. 
 Gerald watched her as she shot away. She was as 
 some mythical being with winged feet. Her hips 
 showed a rounded line as she swept on in half-circles, 
 while the balance of her body was precise as that 
 of the dancing-girls of the previous night. Mrs. 
 Ruthven looked at her daughter in surprise. 
 
 "Who taught her to skate?" she said to herself. 
 
 The sharp ring of the blades on the ice filled the 
 air, and smote the ears of such as hurried from the 
 . station, while as yet the skaters were not in sight. 
 The sound of the brooms was soft, and had a per- 
 manent place in the noises of the day, and a third 
 sound was the musical whirr of the curling. 
 
 Araby was intoxicated with the delights of the 
 day, and the blood ran fast in her veins, and gave 
 a tingling colour to her face as she moved. She 
 wore a rough black serge that allowed her limbs 
 free play and that swung back with the speed of 
 
90 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 her going. Her slight figure was outlined against 
 the ice or the white of the banks. 
 
 " By Jove, she can skate ! " said Gerald, below 
 his breath. 
 
 Miss Ventnor was talking to Mrs. Ruthven, and, 
 under the impression that she was making herself 
 agreeable, she was loud in her praises of Araby. 
 In answer to them Mrs. Ruthven said sweetly, 
 
 " It is so good of you to say so." 
 
 " You must be awfully proud of her," said Miss 
 Ventnor. 
 
 Gerald had joined Araby, and the two were 
 skating together. 
 
 " And won't you present her and bring her out 
 this season ? " persisted Miss Ventnor. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven changed the subject carefully, 
 however, for she did not wish Miss Ventnor to 
 suppose that she was bored. Her humour was 
 somewhat uncertain at this moment. 
 
 " Oh," said Araby to Gerald, " how good of you 
 to devise this pleasure for us. There is nothing 
 better that you could have thought of. When I 
 skate I want to skate for ever. Do you know Long- 
 fellow's * Skeleton in Armour' ? I read it so often 
 and it enchants me, and half the enchantment of it 
 lies in the lines that " 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 91 
 
 Gerald interrupted her to quote, 
 
 " And, with my skates fast-bound, 
 Skimmed the half- frozen Sound, 
 That the poor whimpering hound 
 Trembled to walk on." 
 
 " I am glad you know," said Araby, radiantly, 
 " I wanted you to know. Can't you see him, the 
 Viking I mean, cutting along through the frozen 
 air ? Oh, he went fast faster than we could go, 
 and he wore great curled skates, I think, with an 
 edge keen to grip the ice. And that ice ! It was n't 
 half-frozen everywhere, you know. That was only 
 in places. There were miles of it, I think, square 
 miles I mean, or perhaps it was measureless, and 
 he could skate on and on, coming no nearer to the 
 end of it. And it was clear and smooth as crystal, 
 so that you could see down deeply into it, and 
 there were fish frozen into it like " 
 
 " Prawns in aspic," suggested Gerald. 
 
 "Yes, like prawns in aspic," said Araby, smil- 
 ing, " though you have brought my Viking 
 over many centuries, and behind him he left the 
 only marks the ice bore, and they were bold free 
 lines or great sweeping curves when he went on 
 the outside edge. Let us go on the outside edge 
 now. Oh, don't you like, take care, there 's a 
 
92 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 big crack, don't you like skating better than 
 anything else in the world ? " 
 
 Gerald laughed. 
 
 "Not better than anything else in the world," he 
 said. 
 
 They swept round together to the right and to 
 the left with the regularity of a pendulum. 
 
 " What better ? " asked Araby. 
 
 " I don't know hunting. Listening to you." 
 
 "That is the sort of thing you say to other 
 people." She hesitated and coloured. She had 
 been going to instance her mother. 
 
 They skated on in silence then for a few min- 
 utes. A shadow was on Araby's face. Presently 
 her brow cleared. Small things amused her on 
 this happy day. A man's fall moved her to laugh- 
 ter, and the shambling of a beginner a lady with 
 weak ankles who shuffled and slid, and walked by 
 turns upon the wooden part of her skates, with 
 an uncertainty of balance that resulted at times in 
 her feet proceeding in advance of her body. The 
 frenzied war-dance which preceded her inevitable 
 tumble seemed irresistibly funny. 
 
 Gerald looked at Araby as she laughed how 
 she laughed, how lightly and musically, and with 
 what infection! and he laughed too. They laughed 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 93 
 
 together, looking each at the other with twinkling 
 eyes. 
 
 Araby knew then that laughter, like tears, binds 
 hearts together. She felt that Gerald and she knew 
 one another better than heretofore. 
 
 They separated presently, Miss Ventnor joining 
 Araby, and Gerald Mrs. Ruthven. Miss Ventnor 
 spoke of Mrs. Sandon, and Araby was warm in her 
 praise. 
 
 " It was in Earl Street that you met my brother, 
 was n't it ? " said Miss Ventnor. 
 
 " We were staying there before mother took a 
 house," said Araby. 
 
 By lunch-time the two girls were fast friends. 
 Miss Ventnor was an enthusiast, and took sudden 
 fancies to people. The latest friend was always the 
 only friend in the world. Miss Norfolk had at one 
 time been one of these only friends. Maud Athol, 
 Gertrude Woodford, and a score of others shared 
 this distinction. 
 
 " And I always like Gerald's friends," said Miss 
 Ventnor, making a sudden turn on her skates which 
 resulted in a fall. " Oh, my poor elbow, it will be 
 blue for the Athols' dance to-morrow." She said 
 this from a sitting posture on the ice, and continued 
 as she regained her feet, " And you are Gerald's 
 
94 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 friend, are n't you ? you or Mrs. Ruthven, which is 
 it ? And so I am certain to like you. I hope, by the 
 way," she added, as she shook the white from her 
 skirts, and as an afterthought, " that you will like 
 me." 
 
 " That will be easy," said Araby, frankly. 
 
 A footman, treading on the ice gingerly, and 
 like Agag in that he went delicately, approached 
 Miss Ventnor to inform her that lunch was ready, 
 and that the rest of her party had assembled. 
 
 Miss Ventnor was greeted with a chorus of 
 bantering reproach. One said one thing and one 
 another, but the more part knew very well why 
 they were come together. The meal passed mer- 
 rily. The champagne sparkled in tumblers and the 
 pale sunlight. Mrs. Ruthven enlarged her acquaint- 
 ance that day by about a dozen people. Lord 
 George Athol devoted himself to her, and whis- 
 pered later to his wife, with the result that Lady 
 George asked to be allowed to call, and begged 
 Mrs. Ruthven to waive ceremony and bring her 
 daughter to a small dance in Barn Street on the 
 following night. 
 
 " But Araby is n't out," said Mrs. Ruthven. 
 
 " Oh, but such a small dance," said Lady George. 
 
 "You must, indeed," said Miss Ventnor; "and 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 95 
 
 won't you dine with us first? I know mamma 
 would be delighted." 
 
 She knew nothing of the sort. Gerald added his 
 entreaties to hers, but Mrs. Ruthven gave no defi- 
 nite answer. 
 
 The ice became more crowded. Every train that 
 came in sent a stream pouring down to the bank. 
 The figure-skaters had some difficulty in keeping 
 their chosen spaces free, and regarded with envy 
 the clear stretch of the best ice which the club re- 
 served for the use of its members. The scene was 
 painted in bright colours against a white back- 
 ground. Here a bit of scarlet on a girl's coat made 
 a spot that glowed like an ember. The frosty winter 
 had brought out warm browns and reds, and they 
 moved hither and thither like autumn leaves blown 
 by the wind. Later, when the sun set gorgeously, 
 the very snow grew pink, and the ice had a sheen 
 as of gold blended with crimson. A red mist hung 
 in the direction of London. 
 
 Araby thought of the moon that had turned 
 London of the night before to a silver city, and 
 that soon would rise. She wished that she could 
 stay on far into the night, till every other skater 
 every other save one should have gone home. 
 Then, she thought, on the lonely stretch of ice 
 
96 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 they two would swing, she and that other, on 
 magic blades that traced fantastic patterns 
 sometimes apart, sometimes joining hands. There 
 should be fairy music to such dancing as thatl 
 What shadows would their swaying bodies cast 
 upon ice! shadows that would be clean-cut in so 
 bright a moonlight. How they would turn, and 
 circle, and blend ! . . . 
 
 Gerald skated up to her. His face had a ruddi- 
 ness that came in part from the exercise, in part 
 from the russet sky. 
 
 " We are going presently," he said. 
 
 " So soon ? " said Araby. 
 
 Gerald smiled. 
 
 " Not tired yet ? " he said. 
 
 " No," said Araby. " I feel as if I should never 
 be tired again." 
 
 She looked across to the blazing west as she 
 spoke. Her eyes and her cheeks were glowing. 
 Her hair caught the light, and flamed like the 
 sunset. She looked an incarnation of fire. The 
 thought struck Gerald, and he looked at her in 
 wonder. 
 
 " I believe," he said, " if you took off your hat 
 and let down your hair, that it would scorch me. 
 It would be like flames curling round your face. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 97 
 
 Your eyes are burning too like coals. Oh, you 're 
 splendid. I wish I could paint. I wish I could 
 write poetry. I would paint you, I would write you, 
 you fire girl ! " 
 
 Araby coloured deeply. Gerald remembered 
 himself. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said, gently. " I 
 scarcely know how I came to speak like that to 
 you. I 've made you angry." 
 
 "I'm not angry," she answered low. "I am 
 only" 
 
 " Only what ? " in a voice as low. 
 
 "Glad," said Araby. She turned her head a 
 little. He saw the oval of her cheek, and the 
 colour that was slowly leaving it. There were 
 tears in her eyes when next he saw them. 
 
 He was tempted to follow up his advantage. 
 Instead, however, he brought matters back to the 
 safety of the commonplace by asking her if she 
 would not like some tea before going. He read 
 her as a book, and her absolute inexperience was 
 revealed to him. 
 
 The cup steamed in the winter twilight. He 
 watched her as she emptied it. Even while she 
 drank she could not resist moving on her skates. 
 
 The scattered party was long in assembling. 
 
98 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Miss Ventnor had her skates taken off, and was 
 sliding tentatively at the edge of the ice. Mrs. 
 Ruthven was talking to Lady George, and she 
 looked in the direction of Gerald and Araby. She 
 saw them skate off once more together. 
 
 " Faster," said Araby, " faster. This is the end 
 of it. Faster ! The outside edge. . . . " 
 
 They swung along. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MRS. RUTH YEN went home that night in "an un- 
 certain mood. The day had been successful, but 
 it had left her discontented. Her state of mind 
 shewed itself in a hundred odd ways. She was 
 silent and she talked by turns. She moved about 
 her rooms restlessly, and she contemplated her 
 daughter as she might have studied a picture or 
 a statue, or anything else that is inanimate. Once 
 she went over to her, and holding her by the 
 shoulders, she looked deeply into her eyes. She 
 kissed her forehead suddenly, and then let her go 
 with a kind of push. 
 
 Araby was startled and shrank back. The inci- 
 dent had the element of the unfamiliar, and from 
 the unfamiliar it was in Araby' s nature to retreat. 
 She regarded her mother with a mingling of dread 
 and fascination. 
 
 " Who taught you to skate ?" Mrs. Ruthven said. 
 " Who taught you to skate so well ? " 
 
 " I have skated all my life," said Araby. " When- 
 ever there was frost at Eccram we used to skate. 
 The park pond is very shallow, and it bears before 
 
ioo TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 anything else I mean a very short frost used to 
 get us a day's skating " 
 
 " Who is ' us'?" 
 
 " The vicarage boy and girl and myself." 
 
 "How old is the boy?" 
 
 " Nineteen or twenty now, I suppose." 
 
 "Describe him." 
 
 " How can I ? Dark, tall, rather lanky what 
 use to tell you that? The words don't express him. 
 He is at Woolwich now the shop, I think they 
 call it. He taught me to skate. I wish I could do 
 all that he can do." 
 
 " What was his name ? " 
 
 "Pine Herbert Pine." 
 
 " Has any one ever told you you are pretty? " 
 
 Araby coloured. She evaded the question. 
 
 " You have assured me that I am not," she said. 
 
 " Do you think you are yourself ? " 
 
 "Oh, mother, how can I tell?" 
 
 "You 're not blind," said Mrs. Ruthven, shortly. 
 She was lying back now in a deep chair ; her hands 
 were clasped behind her head, and she looked at 
 Araby with half-closed eyes. 
 
 Araby moved uneasily. 
 
 "You've assured me that I'm not," she said 
 again. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 101 
 
 " And," said Mrs. Ruthven, " is your confidence 
 in me big enough to make you believe all that I 
 say?" 
 
 The movement that Araby gave then was once 
 more indicative of her uneasiness. She looked at 
 her mother furtively and looked away. There was 
 a long pause. 
 
 " And you judge me you," said Mrs. Ruthven 
 then, " you who understand nothing, and don't 
 even know what is before you and behind me. 
 What can you know of me, Araby? There are 
 excuses that you would not realize even if I ex- 
 plained them to you, which I certainly shall not. 
 I doubt whether God Himself could understand me 
 yet He made me, I suppose. And you, I have n't 
 any doubt, judge me by your own inexperience." 
 
 Araby looked about for some shelter. A book 
 lay beside her, but she lacked the courage to open 
 it and read deliberately. She took up a photograph 
 which was standing unframed upon a table. She 
 handled it nervously and in abstraction. Presently 
 she saw that she held a likeness of Gerald. It was 
 a new one, and it had been promised to Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven even before it was taken. Indeed the promise 
 and the photograph stood to each other in the light 
 of cause and effect. 
 
102 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 " Oh," said Araby, hoping to change the sub- 
 ject, even at the risk of starting another as dan- 
 gerous as that she was choosing, "what a nice 
 photograph!" 
 
 She looked at it attentively. It seemed to her 
 that it gave to her the protection she was seeking. 
 The likeness was admirable, and neither flattered 
 the original nor maligned him. It was Gerald 
 Ventnor as she knew him and as she thought of 
 him. He wore some violets in his coat. Araby was 
 scarcely aware of the danger of the ground on 
 which she was treading. 
 
 "How fond he is of them!" she said, speaking 
 of the flowers. 
 
 "Who is fond of what?" 
 
 " Mr. Ventnor of violets," said Araby. 
 
 There flashed upon her vividly at this moment 
 the recollection of the colour under a lamp of a 
 bunch she had lately seen. We remember that 
 while Gerald had been talking to her the night be- 
 fore in the vestibule of the St. James's Hall she had 
 unconsciously contemplated the closely packed vio- 
 lets he was wearing in his coat. She had some expe- 
 rience in arranging flowers, and all unconsciously, 
 in her unconscious scrutiny of those Gerald wore, 
 she had vaguely thought how elaborately each 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 103 
 
 blossom must be wired. Something in the stiffness 
 of the result had displeased her. She was only now 
 aware of this. 
 
 Partly because anything connected with Gerald 
 was at this time of paramount interest to her, and 
 partly, too, to avert a renewal of the embarrassing 
 experience of the last few moments, Araby com- '' 
 mented upon the wiring of flowers, and the effect 
 manquk, in consequence thereof, of those flowers 
 of which she was thinking. She was very young, 
 you see, and she had an occasional way of dog- 
 matizing. It was amusing, and not without its 
 charm. 
 
 " Of course one knows that wire is necessary/ ' 
 she said, with the air of a judge, " but one ought 
 never to know that it is there." 
 
 Now it chanced that Gerald Ventnor had not 
 been wearing the violets in question at dinner. 
 Mrs. Ruthven, who had stopped her carriage and 
 bought them on the way to the theatre, had given 
 them to him there. 
 
 "When did you see them?" said Mrs. Ruthven, 
 suddenly. 
 
 " Last night," said Araby. 
 
 "But you left half-way through dinner, and I 
 bought them myself as we drove to the theatre." 
 
104 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Araby suddenly grew pale, then crimson. Mrs. 
 Ruthven was not looking at her, and she hoped 
 that her admission might escape notice. 
 
 " You don't know what you are talking about," 
 Mrs. Ruthven said. She had been annoyed by her 
 daughter's criticism of that which she had chosen. 
 " I thought you did n't. You presume to give your 
 opinion upon a thing which it turns out you have 
 never seen." She broke off. " How did you know 
 about them?" she asked. 
 
 Araby had begun to breathe again. Now once 
 more that unconquerable awe of her mother took 
 possession of her, and she was silent. She turned 
 the photograph over and over in her hands. She 
 looked down. 
 
 "Yes; how did you know about them?" said 
 Mrs. Ruthven again. 
 
 The full glare of a tall lamp was on Araby where 
 she sat. She felt as some spy may feel when the 
 search-light is turned upon him, and changes night 
 to open day. 
 
 Araby' s colour and her expression arrested her 
 mother's attention. Momentary relief came in the 
 form of the butler with letters. Araby, under pre- 
 text of seeing whether there were any for herself, 
 changed her place. In so doing she left Gerald's 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 105 
 
 photograph behind her, and she felt that she had 
 parted with a talisman. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven glanced at her letters. She opened 
 them. They were of small importance, and she did 
 not read them. She was wondering whether it could 
 be that Gerald Ventnor had discussed her with 
 Araby. It was the fancy of a jealous woman. Even 
 that, she thought, would not account for that which 
 was puzzling her. 
 
 " Look here, Araby, something is confusing you. 
 I can see that well enough, and I can see too that 
 whatever it is concerns what we were talking of." 
 
 Araby tried to protest, but she was scrupulously 
 conscientious as to truth, and she was not a woman 
 of the world, and could neither parry nor evade 
 straight questions. 
 
 " Will you tell me," said Mrs. Ruthven, impa- 
 tiently, " how you knew that these violets existed 
 at all?" 
 
 Araby was silent. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 Araby heard the moments ticking slowly from 
 the clock on the mantelpiece. The pendulum was 
 a cupid in a swing. Araby thought that he was 
 marking out the span of her torture and protract- 
 ing it. She thought of a certain clock in Eccram 
 
io6 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 which had once ticked out the measure of a youth- 
 ful punishment. Then she thought of the two old 
 aunts. 
 
 "Oh, Aunt Clara," she thought, "if I could go 
 back to you ! " 
 
 This was the aunt who had wept with her when 
 the punishment was over. It had been administered, 
 Araby remembered, for some trifling obstinacy. 
 Araby' s own tears had flowed during the enforced 
 detention in the schoolroom on that summer day, 
 and when all was over and peace restored, Miss 
 Wootton had gently pointed out to her how many 
 tears might have been saved by opening the rebel- 
 lious little heart at once. Relevantly or not, Araby 
 thought of all this in those few minutes. 
 
 " Well ? " said Mrs. Ruthven once more ; " and 
 when I ask questions I like answers. I am waiting, 
 Araby. I want to be told how you knew at all of 
 the violets Mr. Ventnor was wearing ! " 
 
 " Because I saw them." 
 
 " I tell you at dinner they were n't there ! " 
 
 " I saw them later." 
 
 "When? later? Be explicit, Araby. I don't 
 choose to drag it from you word by word, and I 
 mean to know ! " 
 
 Araby looked desperately at the photograph 
 
TIME AND 4 THE WOMAN 107 
 
 which she had left upon the table. She felt that in 
 admitting the meeting at the St. James's Hall, she 
 would implicate Gerald. She had a wish to implore 
 his forgiveness. 
 
 "I mean to know," said Mrs. Ruthven 'again. 
 
 Araby then bowed to the inevitable, and made 
 her innocent confession with a feeling of guilt that 
 would have done credit to a criminal. Yet the in- 
 cident in itself was nothing. The concealment of 
 it magnified it out of all proportion to the actual 
 facts of the case, and she felt as one convicted of a 
 crime. She had incurred her mother's displeasure, 
 and worse than that, she had been in a man- 
 ner disloyal to Gerald. She was oppressed by a 
 sense of the injustice of circumstance, for under 
 the consciousness of her offence in the matter, was 
 the knowledge that her mother could not fairly 
 expect her confidence. But so strictly had she been 
 brought up in the belief that concealment of any 
 sort is wrong, that she was far more distressed 
 than was at all warranted. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven meanwhile rapidly reviewed the 
 situation. She took a definite line presently, over- 
 looking the consequences in her haste. 
 
 " As you said nothing about it, Araby," she said, 
 *l was determined to make you tell me. It was 
 
io8 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 really very good-natured of Mr. Ventnor to go, as 
 I told him at the time. When he pretended that he 
 had done it of his own accord, I'm afraid he rather 
 exceeded his instructions. I shall talk to him about 
 it. I wonder you didn't see that he was amusing 
 himself. He isn't thoughtless, as men go at 
 least I haven't found him thoughtless; but it 
 was n't quite fair to make fun of you, was it ? " 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 MRS. RUTH YEN had no sooner said this than she 
 regretted it. She was seldom short-sighted, and 
 she realized at once that a word to Gerald would 
 naturally elicit the fact, that, in claiming to have 
 sent him on the mission to the St. James's Hall, she 
 had departed from the truth. 
 
 The immediate result of this falsehood was, how- 
 ever, of import to Araby. It brought many small 
 things to an issue. All day there had been grow- 
 ing in Mrs. Ruthven's mind an aversion to the 
 sudden intimacy which was apparently springing 
 up between her daughter and Gerald Ventnor. 
 We are beginning to know Mrs. Ruthven by this 
 time, and her reasons are not very far to seek. 
 Such young men as she chose to annex she was 
 accustomed to consider her own indisputable prop- 
 erty. For this day at least Araby on winged feet 
 had outstripped her. Gerald was obviously attracted 
 to the girl. The fact of his having left the theatre 
 on the previous evening (on some trifling and 
 false pretext), in order to rush off and Gerald 
 was lazy rather than energetic on the chance of 
 
I io TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 being of use to her, seemed to prove that Araby's 
 power over him was greater than her mother cared 
 to think. 
 
 Araby said nothing, and presently went to bed. 
 She did not believe but neither did she entirely 
 disbelieve what her mother had just told her. She 
 was very unhappy, and she could not trace re- 
 sults to their definite causes. She was bewildered 
 too, and she thought with shuddering of the even- 
 ing she had gone through. Her mother was to 
 her as unintelligible as ever, and she was now ten 
 times more alarming. Araby cried herself to sleep. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven stayed in the drawing-room to 
 think. She had made a mistake, she told herself 
 again, in claiming a knowledge of Gerald's meet- 
 ing with Araby at the St. James's Hall. The next 
 time that Araby saw him it was to be expected 
 that she would make some allusion to the unfortu- 
 nate statement, and the next time that Araby saw 
 Gerald would in all probability be on the morrow, 
 if with Mrs. Ruthven she dined at Lady Ventnor's 
 and went on to Lady George Athol's dance. In 
 Barn Street she would dance with Gerald. Perhaps 
 she danced as well as she skated. Araby, who was 
 not out, would enjoy this dance with the attractive 
 and ingenuous enjoyment of a girl at her first ball, 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN in 
 
 and Araby's cheeks would glow and her eyes 
 would glow, and Gerald would see it, and some- 
 thing of her enchantment would be conveyed to 
 him, and Araby's hold on him would be strength- 
 ened. Then there would be moments that seemed 
 made for confidences, and Gerald would hear of 
 Mrs. Ruthven's version of the incident of his rush 
 from the Strand to Piccadilly, and his eyes would 
 be opened, and Araby and he would be drawn 
 nearer to each other in combining against her. 
 Her inaccuracy had been trifling, but it might 
 have dire issue. She smiled to herself, but her teeth 
 were clenched. The grim irony of the case pre- 
 sented itself to her. 
 
 The swinging Cupid was measuring out an un- 
 pleasant quarter of an hour for her too. She sat 
 still for a long time. She held a book, but she 
 made no attempt to read it. She closed her eyes 
 and lay back amongst her cushions. They seemed 
 to afford her small ease, for she moved them im- 
 patiently, and rearranged them more than once. 
 
 She rose presently, and, throwing down her book, 
 she went over to the mantelpiece and looked at 
 the clock. The time was eleven. She heard the 
 servants going up to bed, and noted the heavy 
 footfall of the cook. Olympe was not less stout, 
 
112 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 but she had an elasticity that discounted her 
 weight. Mrs. Ruthven felt that just then she could 
 not sleep, and she called to her from the landing 
 not to sit up for her. 
 
 She went to the window and drew aside the 
 curtains. Primate Street was white with powdered 
 snow. A policeman turned his bull's-eye down 
 white areas and on to white doorsteps. A cab went 
 noiselessly by ; a cat crossed the road furtively, 
 and disappeared through some railings. Here and 
 there lights dotted the houses. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven gave a sigh that was partly res- 
 tive. She pulled back the curtain impatiently, and 
 she began to pace the room. Sounds ceased grad- 
 ually in the house. A blind rattled as it was pulled 
 up in a bedroom. There was silence after that, 
 and then there came a moment when the limits of 
 the space which Mrs. Ruthven was pacing became 
 unendurably confined. It seemed to her as she 
 moved about the room that it was getting smaller. 
 She felt restrained and cramped. The fire had fallen 
 low in the grate, and though the embers glowed 
 with the brightness of frost, the air was very cold. 
 
 " I '11 go out," Mrs. Ruthven said, suddenly 
 almost aloud. " I must go out. If I went to bed 
 I should n't sleep." 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 113 
 
 She stole up to her room, and chose a thick veil 
 and a loose cloak. She closed the door gently be- 
 hind her, and started walking briskly. She had no 
 design. She wanted to move, that was all, and to 
 expend thus the restlessness that possessed her. 
 She passed through Berkeley Square. The gaunt 
 trees were painted in whites and blacks. Presently 
 she was in Bond Street. It seemed to belong to 
 her that empty night. Here was Castanet's, where 
 Gerald and she had talked ; there was the gallery 
 where later she had met Araby. She shuddered, 
 and walked faster. She found herself noting the 
 names on shops. She reached Piccadilly. 
 
 She shrank from contact with the women who 
 passed her. In twos and threes they walked or 
 singly, and she wondered what each thought of 
 the other. A large negress walking modestly hor- 
 rified her. She crossed to the lonelier side of the 
 street. The Green Park spread itself whitely be- 
 hind the railing, and the stars were twinkling 
 above in a frosty sky. Snow gave crisply under 
 her feet. She watched the traffic eastward and 
 westward ; horses strained and slid on the slippery 
 road. 
 
 She reached Hyde Park Corner then, and she 
 walked on. The omnibuses came now at longer 
 
114 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 intervals. She turned down Seville Street, and into 
 Lowndes Square, where she found more white 
 trees, then through Lowndes Street she walked 
 into Cadogan Place and Sloane Street. 
 
 That was the Norfolks' house, that small one 
 between a larger two. It was all dark. The recent 
 painting of the houses on either side did not tend 
 to make it look less dark. Mrs. Ruthven thought 
 of the night when after supper at Gerald's club she 
 had driven the Norfolk girl home, and by the same 
 token she remembered that she had not returned 
 Mrs. Norfolk's call. 
 
 Her restlessness was now somewhat abated. You 
 can walk everything off, she said to herself, from a 
 cold to an affair of the affections; and this was 
 neither the one nor the other. Another mile, she 
 thought, and she might return home with the know- 
 ledge that there sleep would await her. She dreaded 
 sleeplessness as she dreaded little else. She had 
 known stifling nights in India, when physical dis- 
 comfort had made rest impossible, and she had 
 known a wakefulness that was worse than anything 
 that could be caused by the mere state of the ther- 
 mometer. It was horrible to lie awake, to hear the 
 hours strike, and to think, and think, and think, 
 till nothing seemed real. . . . 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 115 
 
 She had done wisely in coming out. The moon 
 was up, and threw black shadows on to the snow. 
 The number of the stars seemed to increase ; Lon- 
 don looked clean and pure. Walking aimlessly 
 still, Mrs. Ruthven passed along Pont Street, and 
 presently she found herself in Lennox Gardens. 
 The name caught her eye, and it was a moment 
 before she remembered that here lived Lady Vent- 
 nor. She sought and found her number. It was a 
 big red house such as new London builds. It had 
 a porch with a massive gate of wrought iron, be- 
 hind which was a white hall door. A balcony ran 
 across the breadth of the house, and broadened 
 over the door to the width of the roof of the porch. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven crossed the road. 
 
 A hansom was coming up the street, its lights, 
 like eyes of fire, glistening on the snow. The occu- 
 pant with his stick was directing the driver. It was 
 Gerald who jumped out, and was delayed for a 
 moment while he paid his fare. Mrs. Ruthven saw 
 his face clearly. He ran up the steps, and, having 
 swung the iron gate after him, he let himself into 
 the house with a latch-key. Mrs. Ruthven heard 
 the locking and the bolting of the door on the in- 
 side, and she made up her mind about Araby. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE morning brought Lady Ventnor's note en- 
 dorsing her daughter's invitation. Lady Ventnor 
 begged Mrs. Ruthven to waive ceremony. She had 
 been wishing to call, and would have done so but 
 for so and so, or so and so, and Miss Ventnor had 
 taken so great a fancy to Araby that Lady Ventnor 
 hoped, and so on. 
 
 This note was the outcome of a severe tussle be- 
 tween Miss Ventnor and her mother. 
 
 " People I know nothing about," Lady Ventnor 
 said. " You had no right to ask them here without 
 consulting me." 
 
 " My good mother," said Miss Ventnor, quietly, 
 " don't make such a fuss about nothing. They are 
 Gerald's friends, and they are entirely charming. 
 Lady George was enchanted with them yesterday, 
 and implored them to come to her dance. I could n't 
 do less than ask them to dine here and go with us ; 
 I did, and there's an end of it. Now it only remains 
 for you to write and add your invitation to mine " 
 
 " I won't be dictated to by my children," said 
 Lady Ventnor, feebly. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 117 
 
 " There is paper," said Miss Ventnor, sweetly. 
 
 "I shall not write," said Lady Ventnor. "You 
 must put them off, and get out of the mess as best 
 you can. You have no one to blame for it but 
 yourself." 
 
 Here Lady Ventnor edged towards the door, but 
 her daughter intercepted her. 
 
 Then Lady Ventnor began to cry, after which 
 she wrote effusively, as we know. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven met Araby in the morning as if 
 nothing had happened. Araby, indeed, expected 
 no unusual mood. Her mother was always unac- 
 countable. 
 
 "You would like to go to Eccram, Araby?" 
 
 "ToEccram?" 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven explained that the old aunts had 
 written a few days since upon the subject. She 
 had said nothing to Araby at the time, but had 
 kept the invitation open. 
 
 " You can go," said Mrs. Ruthven. 
 
 A week sooner Araby would have been over- 
 joyed. Now she received the permission with a 
 sudden misgiving. She controlled her feelings and 
 thanked her mother. 
 
 "And you had better help Olympe to pack," 
 said Mrs. Ruthven. 
 
n8 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 "What, now, mother?" 
 
 Her tone expressed her amazement. 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 Araby's face fell. 
 
 "When am I to go?" she asked. 
 
 In spite of her the question framed itself in this 
 way. 
 
 "To-day." 
 
 "Mother!" 
 
 "Aren't you glad?"^said Mrs. Ruthven, smil- 
 ing. " You have talked to me of the delights of 
 Eccram till all was blue, and now that I give you 
 a chance of tasting them again, you look aggrieved. 
 You are inconsistent." 
 
 Araby said nothing for a few moments. She was 
 seeking a motive for this sudden plan of her mo- 
 ther's. She knew Mrs. Ruthven's words to be laws 
 inexorable and unchangeable as those of the Medes 
 and Persians. For a second or so she thought of 
 rebellion, but Gerald seemed to have deserted her, 
 and she stood alone. Thrown back upon herself, 
 she reviewed the situation much as Mrs. Ruthven 
 herself would have reviewed it. She knew that her 
 mother had received a note from either Lady or 
 Miss Ventnor, because amongst the letters which 
 she sent up to her room there had been one across 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 119 
 
 the envelope of which was stamped in a somewhat 
 assertive die the address of the house in Lennox 
 Gardens. It might be that something had occurred 
 to postpone the dinner and the dance. It would be 
 a relief to know, since she was not to be present, 
 that neither was going to take place. There was a 
 second hypothesis in the forlorn hope that Mrs. 
 Ruthven had forgotten the engagements for the 
 evening. 
 
 " But Lady Ventnor's ? " said Araby tentatively 
 at last, " Lady Ventnor's and the George Athols' ? " 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven looked at her hands, and twisted 
 round a certain ring that never failed her in mo- 
 ments that were difficult and perplexing. Araby 
 had a theory that her mother consulted it. It was 
 set with emeralds that blazed as with sea flames, 
 and it had an Indian history. It had been torn 
 from the hand of a dead ranee, and a dismal tale 
 of ill-luck descended with it to one who gave it to 
 Mrs. Ruthven with its full pedigree, and the wish 
 that it might prove her destruction as she had 
 proved his. Mrs. Ruthven laughed at the time, 
 declaring that she was not superstitious. 
 
 " We shall be very good friends, you and I, little 
 ring," she prophesied, with a success that had fol- 
 lowed her at least up to the time of which I write. 
 
120 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 "Well, that is just it," she said presently in 
 answer to Araby' s ventured question. "I don't 
 want to take you to this dance. You are not out, 
 Araby, and I disapprove of girls going to balls 
 before they are." 
 
 " But a small dance ! Lady George said it was 
 to be a small dance." 
 
 " Dear Araby, don't argue. I am sorry if you 
 are disappointed. You would not really have en- 
 joyed it. Very young girls either bore men a bore- 
 dom I can tell you which reacts upon the girl or 
 else they amuse them, in which case the unhappy 
 girl is made a fool of. I don't want this to happen 
 with you, Araby ; what you told me last night 
 showed me how easily this would happen with you. 
 You must wait. I will present you this year, and 
 after that your fun can begin, and I shall give you 
 plenty of freedom ; but till then and it is only a 
 few months you must be content." 
 
 Araby said nothing. The covert allusion to 
 Gerald had wounded her more deeply perhaps than 
 her mother knew. If he had indeed been sent on 
 that mission, which she had thought self-imposed, 
 then it was true that he had laughed at her. And 
 this was a terrible thought. It may be that Araby 's 
 youth made it even the more terrible. It was with 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 121 
 
 great difficulty that she kept the tears from her 
 eyes. Now she would go. Now she wished to go. 
 Nothing would have induced her to dine at Lady 
 Ventnor's, nor to dance in Barn Street. Yesterday 
 had been too happy a day, and to-day came the 
 penalty. Oh, London ! It stifled her ; it shut her 
 in ; it crushed her. She had a fancy that Eccram 
 would prove balm to her wounded feelings ; and 
 there came to her a longing for it fiercer even than 
 those she used to experience in the early days of 
 her life in town. But it did not last. 
 
 She left the room and ran up to her own. 
 
 " Olympe, I am going to Eccram. I am going 
 to-day." 
 
 "I know. I begin already to pack. Mademoiselle 
 is glad to go ? " 
 
 Araby saw then that her trunk stood open at 
 the foot of her bed. Olympe with careful selection 
 had ranged beside it such things as she thought 
 her young mistress would require. Under a chair 
 lay her skates strapped neatly together. The sight 
 of them brought to her a flood of recollections. 
 Her lips trembled. 
 
 "Yes, I am glad to go. I never was so glad 
 about anything before. I am going home home." 
 
 Something in the tone of the voice that spoke 
 
122 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 made Olympe look up suddenly. She had just 
 knelt down beside the box, and was taking out 
 the tray as a preparation for the beginning of her 
 labours. She put it hurriedly down beside her on 
 the floor, and rose to her feet as rapidly as her 
 build would allow. 
 
 The next moment Araby was crying on her 
 ample bosom. In all her woe Araby remarked that 
 she had never before known how ample it was. It 
 had a roundness and a warmth that somehow sug- 
 gested the maternity that lay in the good woman's 
 nature, and if the soothing words, half of French 
 and half of English, that Olympe spoke tenderly 
 and caressingly into her ears made her tears to 
 flow but the more freely, Araby was greatly com- 
 forted. No explanation was asked and none of- 
 fered between them. Olympe had a tact that 
 would have been invaluable in other walks of life. 
 It had indeed its very appreciable worth in her 
 own. 
 
 She regarded Araby with an affection and a 
 pity that lost nothing from the fact of her admir- 
 ation for Araby' s mother. She alone possibly of 
 all who knew Mrs. Ruthven, approached to an 
 understanding of her. Olympe had lived in strange 
 places, and had what her late mistress once called 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 123 
 
 the devil's own experience. It was experience, how- 
 ever, for the most part at second-hand, and Olympe 
 was content to look on. 
 
 " Je me connais en hommes," she said, much as 
 Napoleon may have said it. Moreover she could 
 add, " En femmes aussi." 
 
 Araby, then, dried her eyes after a time, and even 
 was led to take some small interest in her packing. 
 She thought of Eccram, and the old aunts who would 
 be so glad to see her. They would come running 
 out into the hall, Miss Laura possibly carrying un- 
 consciously at her back the antimacassar off the 
 chair in which she had been sitting. (The antima- 
 cassars at Eccram were aggressive, and of a terrible 
 kind of work, which is, I believe, called crochet, and 
 which composes itself of loops and chains, that 
 catch on to buttons.) Araby smiled in recollection 
 of the day when one of her aunts had taken unwit- 
 tingly an antimacassar to church. Behind all this 
 was the burning thought of Gerald. She was hurt 
 beyond endurance if the words had any mean- 
 ing, for what is there in life that cannot be endured? 
 by the suggestion that he had made her his fair 
 sport. At one moment she believed it, at another she 
 had the conviction that her mother had not been 
 bound strictly by any regard for truth. At dinner 
 
124 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 that night at Lady Ventnor's she would have been 
 able to tell from his manner. 
 
 She could not bear to think of Lennox Gardens 
 or Barn Street. Oh, let her think of Eccram, where 
 nothing that was disturbing could enter. She would 
 throw herself into all the old country pleasures. 
 She would fill her days so full that there would be 
 no time for thoughts of Gerald to come to her. 
 She would visit the old women in the village ; she 
 would walk for miles ; she would ride if the frost 
 broke up. Perhaps Herbert Pine would be at home. 
 Then she would skate with him, and forget Gerald. 
 She shuddered as she thought this. There would 
 be the animals, anyway, the horses, the dogs. 
 Herbert Pine used to be a little bit in love with 
 her. It would be nice to have some one in love 
 with you, so that you could shrug your shoulders 
 at some one else. Yes, she would take her prettiest 
 frocks after all. And she would take her Bond Street 
 hat for Sundays. The vicarage pew commanded 
 that of the Hall. It would be nice too to be fresh 
 from London, and to be looked at with interest. 
 Horrid London ! dreadful London ! where every- 
 thing failed you, and there was n't any truth or any 
 faith! Still to come thence into the heart of a some- 
 what backward part of the country, where at least 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 125 
 
 she would be better-looking and better dressed than 
 any of the local girls, was not without its attendant 
 satisfactions. 
 
 Araby was startled by the opening of the door 
 and the appearance of her mother. 
 
 " I 've just told them to get you some lunch, 
 dear. You have n't very much time, because I find 
 that you must be at Euston by three. You reach 
 Eccram at nine to-night, and I have telegraphed 
 to your aunts to have you met. I am going to 
 lunch with you now, and I '11 go to Euston with 
 you and see you off, and tell the guard to look 
 after you. I wish I could send Olympe with you." 
 
 " I shall be all right alone, mother. I have trav- 
 elled alone before." 
 
 "Exactly. Now come and have something to 
 eat, and Olympe will finish packing for you." 
 
 Araby followed her mother from the room. Mrs. 
 Ruthven's manner was kind, even affectionate. 
 She gave Araby more money than it was possible 
 that she could want. She entrusted her with warm 
 messages to the Miss Woottons. 
 
 "I shall miss you, Araby. You won't believe 
 that perhaps, but I shall. You are a very good 
 girl in some ways, and I dare say I am rather try- 
 ing to you." 
 
126 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Araby murmured something, she was not sure 
 what. She made an effort to eat, but her plate 
 went away much as it had come to her. Some- 
 times she wondered whether she was not dream- 
 ing the whole thing was so sudden. She found 
 it difficult to realize that she was going away. 
 Presently she began to wonder how long her visit 
 was to last. The old aunts were so much attached 
 to her that they, she knew, would be unwilling to 
 fix a limit to its duration. 
 
 "I believe you're a little sorry to go," Mrs. 
 Ruthven said. 
 
 "I am/' said Araby "for many things. But 
 I shall be very glad to see them all again at 
 Eccram." 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 Araby waited a few moments, and then asked, 
 
 " How long shall I be away ? " 
 
 "We needn't settle that just now," said her 
 mother. " Perhaps I may go down myself ; I don't 
 know. I may be dull when you are gone, and I 
 may follow you down." 
 
 Araby looked round the room. It had a few as- 
 sociations for her now. Some of them were agree- 
 able, and some were painful, and some of them 
 were at this moment both. It was here five 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 127 
 
 minutes ago as it seemed ! that she had first 
 thought of Gerald. 
 
 " And you must write to me," said Mrs. Ruthven. 
 " I should n't be at all surprised if we were better 
 friends when next we meet. You wish to like me, 
 don't you ? " 
 
 " If you would let me, mother." 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven rang for coffee, and not many 
 minutes later a cab stood at the door. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 MRS. RUTHVEN never cheapened herself she 
 was too clever a woman for that ; and after all she 
 wrote a note to Lady Ventnor, excusing herself 
 from dining in Lennox Gardens on the ground of 
 the absence of Araby. The immediate result of 
 this was, as Mrs. Ruthven expected, that two days 
 later Lady Ventnor called formally in Primate 
 Street, though she said all sorts of things to her 
 daughter, and again abused Mrs. Sandon to her 
 for the introduction. But to Barn Street Mrs. 
 Ruthven determined to go. 
 
 When she had left her note she directed her 
 coachman to Earl Street. She had seen little of 
 Mrs. Sandon of late, and she was glad to find her 
 at home. Mrs. Sandon received her with open 
 arms. 
 
 "And what have you done with Araby?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " Sent her down to see the Wootton women at 
 Eccram." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " Fun," said Mrs. Ruthven. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 129 
 
 " Whose ? " said Mrs. Sandon. She looked at 
 her cousin for a few moments in silence. "Now 
 I wonder why, really," she said then with amuse- 
 ment. " You told her probably that she wanted 
 country air. So we all do. But I wonder what your 
 real reason was? " 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven laughed merrily. 
 
 " Araby likes Eccram." 
 
 Mrs. Sandon frowned, but her eyes continued 
 to smile. 
 
 " I ought to lecture you," she said at last. " I 
 disapprove of you dreadfully. I content myself 
 with discussing you oh, only with Lady Murga- 
 troyd. I tell her all that I have against you and 
 there is a good deal, Johnnie. The odd thing 
 about it is, that she always takes your part." 
 
 " Is that why I like her?" said Mrs. Ruthven. 
 " The oddest person an example, a symbol al- 
 most, of the unsatisfied. She comes to see me 
 very often." 
 
 A ring heralded a visitor, and it was Lady Mur- 
 gatroyd who was announced. She looked tired 
 and depressed. She brightened up as she saw 
 Mrs. Ruthven. She talked more rapidly than of 
 old, and hurried from subject to subject. Mrs. 
 Ruthven looked at the clock after a time. She had 
 
130 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 to order some flowers to wear at Lady George's 
 dance. 
 
 "Oh, you are going there," said Lady Murga- 
 troyd ; " so am I. Will you dine with me ? and we 
 can go together. It would be charitable. If you 
 have no other engagement, do come." 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven had no other, and she accepted 
 the invitation. 
 
 The house in Primate Street felt empty when 
 she returned to it to spend the two hours that 
 must be got through before it would be time to 
 dress. This was the hour when it had always 
 amused her to tease Araby; but just now Mrs. 
 Ruthven was not sure that she would have felt 
 any inclination to tease her. 
 
 She thought of her walk of the night before 
 with wonder. It was very seldom that her heart 
 got the better of her head. What had come to 
 her? 
 
 Lady Murgatroyd's house was on the opposite 
 side of Earl Street to that of Mrs. Sandon. It was 
 very much smaller, but otherwise of the same 
 build. Lady Murgatroyd met her guest gratefully. 
 
 "It was really kind of you to come. Do my 
 canaries bother you ? " 
 
 The birds, notwithstanding the hour, were verily 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 131 
 
 a screech in the back drawing-room. The noise, 
 which was deafening, ceased abruptly as she threw 
 a cloth over the cage. She had been playing, she 
 said. Mrs. Ruthven noticed the piano, which had 
 a very beautiful case, and in the sudden silence 
 admired it. 
 
 " It was chosen for me by one who was once a 
 great friend," said Lady Murgatroyd, and Mrs. 
 Ruthven gathered that Sloane Wetherby, of whom 
 she had heard from Mrs. Sandon, was not for- 
 gotten. 
 
 Dinner passed uneventfully. Mrs. Ruthven 
 would probably have been bored if she had not 
 known that she was to see Gerald later on. On 
 the preceding night very possibly she might have 
 felt more in sympathy with the curious tempera- 
 ment of her hostess, but to-night it said little to 
 her. She wished to think that plain people, and 
 commonplace people, and people generally un- 
 attractive, were protected from hopes and desires 
 which could never be realized. Thus ought nature 
 to adjust circumstances to cases. But her know- 
 ledge of Lady Murgatroyd told her that this plain 
 woman suffered keenly. 
 
 A certain photograph had lately made its re- 
 appearance in Lady Murgatroyd' s rooms. It stood 
 
132 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 framed on a table ; unframed it lay here and there 
 amongst others. Mrs. Ruthven took up one of 
 these. 
 
 Lady Murgatroyd watched her for a moment or 
 two and began to tremble. Then quite quietly she 
 told Mrs. Ruthven the ugly story of her friend. 
 
 "I would have trusted him with my soul," she 
 said in conclusion. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven who, strangely enough, was con- 
 stantly finding herself the recipient of such confi- 
 dences said little, but she looked at the photograph 
 more closely. Lady Murgatroyd seemed disap- 
 pointed. She sighed impatiently, and changed the 
 conversation. 
 
 When at length the carriage came round, both 
 felt its arrival to be a relief. 
 
 Barn Street was blocked with carriages. They 
 reached up from the big stone house which was 
 the George Athols' to that end of the street where 
 were such smaller houses as Mrs. Man ton's, and 
 the Saltashes', and that little pink house where 
 once had lived Billy Hartley and Mary Anne Smith. 
 
 Lady George was sincere in her regrets for the 
 absence of Araby. Mrs. Ruthven made what ex- 
 cuses seemed to her good, and with her smile 
 passed on to Lord George. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 133 
 
 " And you haven't brought the beautiful daugh- 
 ter," he said. "Ah, well perhaps, as she isn't 
 out. My wife's small dances have a way of grow- 
 ing." 
 
 " And what we are giving a dance for at all," 
 said Lady George, who had an ear for all that her 
 husband said, " with one girl married and one en- 
 gaged, I don't know. I believe we do this sort of 
 thing to amuse our husbands." 
 
 " Yes, to amuse our husbands," said Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven. 
 
 She looked about her seeking Gerald, but the 
 Ventnors had not yet put in an appearance. The 
 Norfolk girl nodded and smiled. Hartford leant 
 against a pillar and looked gloomy. Mrs. Ruthven 
 felt her youngest and wished to dance. The music 
 tempted her. One of the Hungarian bands was 
 playing, and a waltz swung in the air. Lord George 
 himself took her into the ball-room and a moment 
 later was dancing with her. So started the evening. 
 
 It was Miss Ventnor who first made her way to 
 Mrs. Ruthven when she and her brother arrived. 
 She was too full of her disappointment not to give 
 voice to it at once. Mrs. Ruthven after looking 
 astray for a moment hastened to answer her that 
 the disappointment was her own and Araby's. But 
 
134 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 women are quick in their judgments of women, and 
 something in Mrs. Ruthven's tone as she spoke of 
 her daughter struck Miss Ventnor. She mentioned 
 Araby again tentatively, and heard it once more. 
 It was not impatience but it suggested impatience. 
 Miss Ventnor looked at her curiously, but Mrs. 
 Ruthven had caught sight of Gerald who now 
 came over to her, and Miss Ventnor moved away. 
 Gerald, unlike his sister, said nothing of any dis- 
 appointment. But neither did he speak of Araby. 
 When Miss Ventnor looked in her brother's direc- 
 tion again he and Mrs. Ruthven were dancing. 
 This was Mrs. Ruthven's night. Everything 
 pleased her. She felt, as she looked, not a day 
 more than twenty-five. Dancing with her host she 
 might have been his daughter. Dancing with Ger- 
 ald she could not have been supposed the mother 
 of the exiled Araby. Gerald may not have for- 
 gotten but he said nothing. And so for Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven all the conditions seemed right. She looked 
 at the band as she passed it. The volume of the 
 swinging waltz seemed to come from the violin of 
 the conductor whose whole body swayed as he 
 played. It was good to dance to such playing; 
 good to dance with this partner ; good just to 
 be dancing again. Yes, the conditions were right. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 135 
 
 "Will you come down to supper with me?" 
 Gerald said. 
 
 But of course. That was understood, was n't it? 
 Besides, she had things to say to him. 
 
 Gerald left her presently and Hartford took his 
 place only, however, to be kept rigorously to 
 the impersonal. She had no need just then of his 
 devotion to tell her that her charm was potent. 
 She saw it in the eyes of all who looked at her. 
 
 People were asking about her. She recognized 
 in the crowd faces that she knew ; and her hostess 
 a clever woman, who was never jealous, and 
 who cared so truly for her stout and good-tempered 
 husband that she devoted herself to whomsoever 
 he might admire made much of her. 
 
 Thus "managing" him as she called it! 
 Lady George found occasion to say to Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven again that it had been good of her not to 
 stand upon ceremony. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven explained with her delightful 
 smile that she was not of the sort that stands upon 
 anything so uncomfortable. 
 
 " We shall like each other," said Lady George. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven saw a ladder to success in Lon- 
 don. She began to wonder now whether it would 
 not be worth her while to ascend it. Questions of 
 
136 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 course would be asked from time to time about 
 her husband. Well ! no need to proclaim that the 
 indifference which had for so many years reigned 
 between them had now given place to a mutual in- 
 toleration which made a life together impossible. 
 Araby, moreover, would be a help to her ; but then 
 Araby was Araby. This brought her back to Ger- 
 ald, and Gerald at this moment came to claim her 
 for supper. 
 
 They made their way together through the draw- 
 ing-rooms and across the square landing, where 
 Lady George received her guests, and down the 
 wide stairs to the dining-room. Gerald found a 
 table the only one, it so chanced, that was free. 
 Miss Norfolk and Hartford came into the room, and 
 Hartford, threading his way amongst the chairs, 
 could be seen making for the long table that ran 
 across the end of it. Miss Norfolk however de- 
 murred. Hartford took an indolent survey of the 
 smaller tables and appeared to be saying that 
 there was n't a seat. 
 
 But Miss Norfolk, it was plain, was not to be 
 done out of a tte--tte supper, and reconnoitred 
 for herself. She saw a sister in a corner, and, leav- 
 ing Hartford, she went over to her probably to 
 see what stage in the supper she had reached. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 137 
 
 What that stage may have been and what passed 
 between the two, Mrs. Ruthven, who was watching, 
 could only surmise. The immediate result, how- 
 ever, of some whispers was the bustling up of the 
 sister's partner, and the ceding of the table a 
 courtesy more gratefully acknowledged, Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven saw, by the lady than the gentleman. 
 
 " Esprit de corps," she said, smiling, to Gerald. 
 " Rather fine of the sister." 
 
 "The Norfolks? Six of 'em. They've got to." 
 
 But he did not smile. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven, still smiling, watched the sparkling 
 bubbles that rose in her champagne. There was a 
 distant sound of dancing and of music, and of the 
 wheels of the carriages of arriving or departing 
 guests. There were violets on the tables, and the 
 scent of them hung in the air. This arrested her 
 attention presently and took her back to the night 
 before, and thence to the night before that. She 
 was not quite certain yet what she should say to 
 Gerald. While she was hesitating she noticed 
 suddenly that he was not talking. At the same 
 moment he precipitated matters by reminding her 
 that she had said she had something to say to 
 him. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven lowered speculative eyelids. 
 
138 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 " Oh, only to thank you for looking after Araby 
 for me." 
 
 He said that it had been pleasant to look after 
 her, as Mrs. Ruthven called it, that Miss Ruthven 
 skated unusually well. 
 
 " But I 'm not talking of Wimbledon," said Mrs. 
 Ruthven, " nor of yesterday at all, for the matter 
 of that." 
 
 "What then?" said Gerald. He emptied his 
 glass and refilled it. 
 
 " Why did n't you tell me where you were go- 
 ing ? " Mrs. Ruthven said, quietly. 
 
 Gerald flushed a little when he gathered her 
 meaning, but he was not disconcerted. It would not 
 have been easy to rob him of the self-possession 
 that was his birthright. 
 
 " It would have been making a fuss about such 
 a very small thing, would n't it?" he said. "I 
 wasn't very long, and I had the satisfaction of 
 knowing that I had put Miss Ruthven safely into 
 a cab." 
 
 But there was something about him something 
 which she knew now had been " over " him all 
 the evening. She wondered suddenly whether this, 
 after all, was quite her evening. She had intended 
 to give him a version (of sorts) of what she had 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 139 
 
 unguardedly said to Araby trusting to the pleas- 
 ant influences of the moment to aid her in making 
 the reprehensible appear laudable ; but she found 
 now that she could not. Very well, there was always 
 more than one way of dealing with a situation. 
 But why was her evening somehow spoilt, and why 
 at this moment must there recur to her the recol- 
 lection of a sound she had heard the night before 
 on her unaccountable walk? the sound of the 
 locking and the bolting of a door ; a sound which 
 seemed to shut him-who-locked-and-bolted se- 
 curely in, and to thrust her-who-listened like a 
 beggar from the threshold and out into the cheer- 
 less street. 
 
 Not Mrs. Ruthven's evening. Whose then ? Was 
 it Araby's? 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Miss NORFOLK had a theory, whether consciously 
 gleaned from Thackeray or not I cannot say, that 
 any woman with patience and tact, especially tact, 
 can make any man marry her. She aired this idea, 
 with others that were more or less advanced, in 
 the work-room at the top of the house in Sloane 
 Street. 
 
 She had an antagonistic sister somewhere 
 amongst the five girls who stood to her in that 
 relationship, and that sister said, 
 
 "Well, and why don't you do it yourself? " 
 
 This caused three of the other girls, together 
 with the maid with the sewing-machine and the 
 large pair of scissors, to giggle. The maid was so 
 important a person in this house of lady-tailors 
 that she was privileged. 
 
 " I shall in good time," said Miss Norfolk, com- 
 posedly. 
 
 Netty, the pert sister, affected not to hear. 
 
 " Did you say," she asked, threading her needle, 
 " did you say, get out of the light, Anne, I can't 
 see, did you say that it took a good time ? " 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 141 
 
 Old jokes pass muster in large families. 
 
 " I gave you as much help as I could last night," 
 said Ethel. She was working buttonholes and she 
 bit her cotton. 
 
 " You '11 spoil your teeth, miss," said the maid, 
 holding up a finger of solemn warning. " However 
 many times must I tell you that ? I knew a young 
 girl myself as wore hers to stumps through nothing 
 else but biting thread." 
 
 " Oh, I know all about that young person," said 
 Ethel. " She died, did n't she, Robson, from swal- 
 lowing the ends of the thread that she bit off ? " 
 
 " They twisted themselves round her heart, Miss 
 Ethel, I should run a gusset there, Miss Anne, 
 and she suffered tortures through having to lay on 
 a sofa for years owing to an injury done to the 
 spine of her back when a child." 
 
 Robson' s speeches were masterly examples of 
 non sequitur. 
 
 " It ought to be a warning to me," said Ethel. 
 " Netty, give me the needle you have just threaded 
 for yourself. Your eyes are a year younger than 
 mine." 
 
 Netty grumbled good-humouredly. 
 
 " And you know how I hate threading needles," 
 she said. 
 
142 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 " But not for me," said Ethel, sweetly. 
 
 The tongues were silent then for a few minutes. 
 The noise of the sewing-machine throbbed like a 
 fevered pulse. There was the sound of the drawing 
 of a quick needle with its attendant cotton through 
 silk. Miss Norfolk was cutting out on a table by 
 the aid of paper patterns. The scissors made a 
 curious noise against the wood. An iron stood 
 against a small gas-stove. A pile of ladies' fashion 
 papers lay on the floor. 
 
 Anne rose presently and measured some calico 
 with her finger. She cut an opening into it of about 
 an inch and began to tear it. It gave out an ex- 
 cruciating sound which called forth a chorus of in- 
 dignation, and sent the hands of all except the 
 maid to their ears. 
 
 "If you do that again I'll scrag you," cried 
 Netty. "I don't quite know what it means, but 
 I 41 do it." 
 
 Barbara said Anne was a Perfect Pig. Anne re- 
 torted by tearing another length of calico. There 
 was a commotion then, during which Robson im- 
 plored convulsively for peace, declaring that she 
 knew the iron would be knocked down, and that 
 she had known a house burnt to the ground 
 through the upsetting of a paraffin lamp. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 143 
 
 It was some minutes before order was restored. 
 
 "And how did you help Harry last night ?" 
 asked Netty of Ethel, when once more a voice 
 could make itself heard. 
 
 "Well, you see, Harry was on the Hartford 
 chase last night," said Ethel, looking from Netty, 
 who folded her arms and put down her work to 
 listen, to Miss Norfolk, who went on complacently 
 cutting out, " and after some difficulty in keeping 
 him out of the coverts with Mrs. Ruthven, she ran 
 him into the supper-room." 
 
 " Feed men," said Netty, who took her goods 
 where she found them. 
 
 " It 's rather vulgar of you to put it that way," 
 said Ethel. 
 
 " You 're both vulgar," said Miss Norfolk, " dis- 
 gustingly vulgar," but she laughed. 
 
 "It is in the blood, you know," said Netty. 
 " Mamma may say what she likes, but we 're not 
 the Norfolk Norfolks really. I don't believe we 're 
 even distant connections. Papa made his money " 
 
 " Lost his money," corrected Ethel. 
 
 " Yes, lost his money in well, no matter ! And 
 we have never heard of a grandfather. I believe 
 his father died before he was born his mother 
 too, I dare say, if one knew the truth." 
 
144 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 "Oh, Miss Netty," said the maid, "you will 
 have your bit of fun. You do say things a treat." 
 
 "Enfin, continuez, Mademoiselle," said Netty, 
 in the words and the intonation of a quondam 
 governess. 
 
 " Well, there was n't a table to feed him at," said 
 Ethel, "and so I hurried up my partner told him 
 that I was engaged for the next dance and wanted 
 to dance it, and in my unselfishness left half my 
 meringue and you know, Netty, how I adore 
 meringues and I gave her my place, and she fed 
 him for half an hour, and then he did n't speak." 
 
 "But you know any woman can marry any 
 man," said Netty. 
 
 Miss Norfolk, or Harry as she was called at 
 home, smiled complacently to herself and continued 
 to cut out. 
 
 "It would be dull up here, would n't it," she said, 
 abstractedly, "if I did n't give you something to 
 talk about ? I wonder how this arm-hole ought to 
 be cut. Come here, Robson, and tell me. No, Ethel, 
 go on with your buttonholes, I didn't ask you." 
 
 "And it's well I came, miss," said the maid 
 when she had inspected Miss Norfolk's operations. 
 "You 'd have spoilt a piece of good stuff if you *d 
 gone on. The pattern 's wrong itself." 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 145 
 
 In this way, and like many others, passed the 
 morning succeeding the dance in Barn Street. 
 Sometimes one or other of this family of good 
 girls stretched her arms or pricked her finger, and 
 spoke a small swear-word or gave a little cry. 
 There would have been, that is to say, a certain 
 monotony in the hours spent in the work-room 
 but for the exuberance of the spirits of the workers. 
 Mrs. Norfolk gave her daughters all the fun that 
 she could afford, and in return they had to do 
 their own dressmaking and hers. 
 
 Having failed to get, as she would have ex- 
 pressed it, a rise out of her elder sister, Netty of 
 the pert mouth and the mischievous eyes turned 
 upon Anne. 
 
 The Norfolk girls were all big and healthy, and 
 of long and well-covered limbs, with the exception 
 of Anne, the youngest. She had the family neat- 
 ness of build but on a smaller scale, and the family 
 complexion too, so far as the fineness of the tex- 
 ture of her skin went, but while the others had 
 glowing colours she was pale. Where her sisters 
 were assertive she was retiring. She was sensitive 
 and observant. She saw, indeed, far too deeply into 
 the heart and into the meaning of things for her 
 own comfort. Under different conditions had 
 
146 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 she, for example, been an only child it is not 
 improbable that she would have been morbid, and 
 possibly hysterical, but the combined influences of 
 her five robuster sisters kept her from any pro- 
 longed brooding. She was not thought pretty at 
 home, partly of course because the others were so 
 much bolder in outline and colouring ; but in the 
 studios to which her art education took her she 
 received a homage which satisfied her, and which 
 told her that her looks in the house in Sloane 
 Street were not appreciated merely because they 
 were not understood. 
 
 " If they knew," she said sometimes to herself, 
 with an indrawing of her breath. 
 
 She seldom went with her sisters into the society 
 which they loved. She had her own friends in such 
 impossible parts of London as West Kensington and 
 Regent's Park and Maida Vale, and she dressed 
 in a way that seemed odd to all Pilotell-girls. 
 Painting occupied most of her time, but at this 
 period her thoughts were inclined to wander. She 
 worked patiently, and she had already been re- 
 warded by the hanging of two of her pictures at 
 minor exhibitions a reward that was enhanced 
 in each case by the sale of the painting. 
 
 She was the reading one of the family, and the 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 147 
 
 bookshelves of her little bedroom showed a curious 
 variety of literature. Possibly the fact that stout 
 Mrs. Norfolk never troubled her head at all as to 
 what her girls put into theirs did not tend to make 
 this variety less various. Anne's own taste was for 
 the most part her protection. Indeed so little train- 
 ing had fallen to the share of the Miss Norfolks, 
 that it was a matter of wonder to all who knew 
 their mother that they should have turned out so 
 well. For they were good girls, from the advanced 
 Harry, who liked occasionally to affect outrageous- 
 ness, to the quiet Anne. 
 
 "Anne," said Netty, addressing her sisters, "is 
 unusually brilliant this morning." 
 
 " What is it, Anne ? " said Ethel. 
 
 " Cheer up, Anne," said Harry. 
 
 "Tell us all about it, Anne," said Netty. 
 "Really," she added, in parenthesis, "making 
 dresses for mamma becomes more difficult every 
 year. If things go on like this her waist will soon 
 be over the top of her head. It is an awful look- 
 out for us, girls. Mamma was once as slight as 
 Anne. Anne, your artists won't want to paint you 
 if you become bulky." 
 
 Mrs. Norfolk derived in her good-tempered way 
 so much amusement from her own increasing size, 
 
148 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 that to jest upon the subject was legitimate in 
 Sloane Street. 
 
 Anne went on quietly with her work, but her 
 needle trembled. The sunlight falling on her pale 
 hair lit it up and showed its fineness. It was thick 
 and dry, but shining, and she dressed it very sim- 
 ply. Her eyes were grey and large. Behind her 
 was the blue background of the paper of the wall, 
 and on this the sun struck too, throwing her 
 shadow upon it so definitely in profile that her 
 eyelashes were given as in a silhouette. 
 
 Miss Norfolk, looking at her young sister sitting 
 thus, and bending over her work in the winter 
 sunlight, came at that moment near to understand- 
 ing why it was Anne and not herself, nor Ethel, 
 nor Netty, nor Barbara and Helen, the twins who 
 on three occasions had been begged by painters of 
 note to sit to them. 
 
 Mrs. Norfolk, though she was really fond of her 
 youngest daughter, always said apologetically 
 and ungrammatically that it was because Anne 
 knew " those sort " of people. 
 
 But Miss Norfolk, I say, realized at this mo- 
 ment that that was not perhaps altogether the 
 reason. 
 
 " We," she said to herself, as the result of her 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 149 
 
 observation, "we and particularly myself are 
 creatures of the moment. If we did n't change, and 
 keep ourselves what they call at the Gaiety up to 
 date, we should be out of fashion next year, But 
 Anne is somehow permanent as a as a Rom- 
 ney is permanent." 
 
 Miss Norfolk paused before the painter's name, 
 to find in her very superficial knowledge of art or 
 artists one that should fit the case. She was more 
 happy in the example that came to her than per- 
 haps she altogether knew. 
 
 A sudden recollection of Araby Ruthven told 
 her that much the same thing applied to her also, 
 and, while she wondered whether there was any- 
 thing in common between the two girls, she con- 
 tinued almost unconsciously to gaze at Anne. 
 
 Netty, idle now, and in a mood for mischief, 
 with a recurrent use of the Christian name which 
 experience had taught her was a source of almost 
 certain irritation to its owner any Christian name 
 and any owner continued to exhort Anne to be 
 of good cheer. 
 
 "Bear up, Anne," she said, "bear up. Remem- 
 ber the comfortable words of your elder sister 
 Harry, that any woman with patience and tact, 
 especially tact, can marry any man. She hasn't 
 
150 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 quite succeeded herself, you know, Anne. But 
 she will in good time, Anne; and so will you, 
 Anne, if you try, Anne. Any woman, any man, 
 Anne." 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 "Anne!" 
 
 "Yes, Netty." 
 
 "Are you cross?" 
 
 " Not yet, Netty." 
 
 "Then I'll make you," said Netty. "What do 
 you think I 've found out, girls ? " 
 
 Anne gave her sister an agonized look. But 
 Netty in her present mood was adamant. 
 
 "Anne's in love," said Netty "in love with 
 Dennis Leigh." 
 
 It was Miss Norfolk who caught her breath. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 AND the cause of this sudden and small sign of 
 possible feeling upon the part of Miss Norfolk was 
 the mention of the name of a young barrister with 
 little money and no briefs. 
 
 He shared chambers with an equally impecuni- 
 ous friend, in Testament Buildings in the Temple, 
 and here the two young men feasted and fasted as 
 circumstances permitted or ordained. 
 
 Dennis had an allowance of a hundred a year 
 from an uncle, who stated definitely that this was 
 all that he could do for him, and the friend had 
 scarcely as much. A joint income of barely two 
 hundred a year was, then, all that was assured to 
 a pair of boisterous fellows full of life and the love 
 of it. 
 
 Dennis hated London and damned it roundly. 
 He wanted to hunt, and to shoot, and to fish, and 
 to live in the open air. 
 
 Abbot, the friend, said, "Oh, damn y'r hunting, 
 and y'r shooting, and y'r fishing, and y'r open air ; 
 London 's not a bad sort of place all round, if 
 you 've enough to eat and especially drink, and 
 
152 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 can afford a good tailor, and can take your amuse- 
 ments as amusements, without having to sit up 
 half the night to write about them afterwards." 
 
 For these unhappy young men trod the stony 
 byways of journalism, and earned there, by dint 
 of a work that was only made tolerable by the 
 fact that it brought in its train such advantages as 
 a free entry into theatres and the like, a sum suffi- 
 cient to keep them. Dennis was clean-shaven, as 
 became his would-be calling, and he had a profile 
 that delighted you, but a full-face that was disap- 
 pointing. He was an Oxford man, by the kindness 
 of the uncle, and he looked back to his three years 
 there as the happiest in his life. 
 
 He was clever enough ; took to writing ; and 
 wrote well in a manner that he despised. He took 
 to it not because he liked it, but as a means of add- 
 ing to his very slender income. He knew that he 
 was made for things better than two weekly Lon- 
 don letters, which brought him in a pound apiece, 
 a certain amount of hurried literary criticism, and 
 such dramatic press work as Abbot, whose particular 
 line was the theatre and all that appertained to 
 it, handed over to him. He cursed London as the 
 home of his fettered life. 
 
 Then there came a day when London under- 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 153 
 
 went a change for him. It would be difficult to say 
 exactly why he succumbed to the charms of Ab- 
 bot's cousin, Miss Norfolk. It was a year now since 
 that winter day when there was a laughing and 
 a talking on the staircase of Testament Buildings, 
 followed by a knocking at the joint door of Abbot 
 and Leigh. 
 
 It was Leigh who opened it. Netty nudged Ethel 
 (Dennis saw her), and Miss Norfolk, in a voice that 
 somehow conveyed to the young barrister that at 
 the end of an argument she had been deputed 
 spokeswoman, asked whether Mr. Abbot was at 
 home. 
 
 Mr. Abbot was at home. The girls walked in 
 with demureness. Leigh saw Netty nudge Ethel 
 again. Miss Norfolk was preternaturally solemn, 
 but Dennis had a conviction that she wanted to 
 laugh. She did when presently Abbot had received 
 his cousins and introduced his friend to them. 
 
 " We 've often threatened you with a visit," said 
 Miss Norfolk, " and to-day mamma took the twins 
 to an ' at home ' somewhere, and Anne was paint- 
 ing, and Ethel and Netty and I were so dull oh, 
 do let me have the cup without a handle that 
 when Ethel proposed " 
 
 "I didn't," said Ethel. 
 
154 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 "Well then, Netty " 
 
 " Nor I," said Netty. 
 
 " Well, when / proposed yes, and sugar, 
 please, thank you, Mr. Leigh proposed beard- 
 ing you in your den, Jimmy, they all jumped at it, 
 and here we are. And is that where you keep 
 your briefs in that cupboard ? Is it big enough ? 
 And what a lovely loaf ! Oh, and jam ! And do 
 you receive your clients here? do you call them 
 clients ? And shall we be taken for clients ? They '11 
 think we are breach of promise girls." 
 
 "So this is really the Temple," said Ethel. "I 
 thought it would have been dustier." 
 
 " But you have laundresses, who keep it clean 
 for you, haven't you?" said Netty, "and you 
 marry their daughter in the third act." 
 
 " Look at all their papers," said Miss Norfolk, 
 taking up a copy of the "Bachelor," to which 
 Dennis was an occasional contributor. " The 
 'Bachelor,' the 'Emu/ the 'Lamp,' the 'Gun.'" 
 She ran through a few of the names of journals that 
 lay upon the table. 
 
 " I had no idea you had time for anything so 
 interesting. I thought there would only be dread- 
 ful law papers like " 
 
 " ' The Police News/ " said Netty. She had once 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 155 
 
 seen the sheet in a small news-agent's in a back 
 street. 
 
 Abbot asked Leigh to say something that should 
 uphold the dignity of the law. 
 
 This tea-party was the first of many. Abbot, 
 who often dined in Sloane Street, was asked to 
 bring Dennis. He went. Netty and Ethel amused 
 him; to the twins he was indifferent; Anne, look- 
 ing at him shyly, interested him; but of Miss 
 Norfolk he carried back to the Temple an impres- 
 sion that made him happy and miserable. 
 
 Abbot said, 
 
 " Harry Norfolk 'is a good-looking girl, old boy, 
 but don't you singe your precious wings there. If 
 she wasn't so young, Dennis, I should call her a 
 bit of an old soldier." 
 
 " Get out," said Leigh, morosely. 
 
 " And my good aunt is a schemer if ever there 
 was one," added Abbot, sententiously. 
 
 Dennis found London growing dear to him. 
 It held Sloane Street, and Sloane Street held his 
 divinity. He placed Miss Norfolk possibly upon a 
 pedestal that was unreasonably high. He looked 
 forward to her visits to the Temple and to his 
 own to Sloane Street. In the intervals he worked 
 hard. Sometimes when he saw her, he found Miss 
 
156 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Norfolk's eyes upon him, and afterwards he liked 
 to think of that. Sometimes it helped him, some- 
 times it hindered. 
 
 In the year that succeeded the making of her 
 acquaintance, his pen brought him in two hundred 
 pounds. Putting aside the fixed remuneration for 
 his two London letters, the rest had come in small 
 sums ranging from half a guinea to five pounds. 
 His heart sank within him when he realized what 
 labour this had cost him, and that this year had been, 
 as years go, a very good year. Abbot had not 
 done so well, but Abbot did not mind drifting, and 
 Dennis did ; Abbot lived in the present, Dennis 
 had begun to face the future. He was elated and 
 despondent by turns. Life seemed to him a good 
 thing, and life seemed to him a curse. And Harry 
 Norfolk looked at him curiously when she thought 
 that he did not see her, and distantly at other 
 times. She asked Abbot many questions about 
 him. 
 
 " The best chap that ever lived/' said Abbot. 
 
 He was devoted to his friend in a brusque and 
 undemonstrative sort of way, and behind his back 
 he liked to sing his praises. 
 
 "And he is an orphan, didn't you say?" asked 
 Miss Norfolk. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 157 
 
 She knew that he had not said so, but she 
 wished for information. 
 
 "An only son and an orphan," replied her cousin. 
 
 Miss Norfolk, thinking of the Norfolk dowry 
 that had to be split up into six, said that it was 
 something to be an only anything son or 
 daughter. 
 
 " Has n't made much difference in his case," 
 said Abbot. " That's the devil of it. There was 
 nothing to leave. He has a rich uncle, who put 
 him generously to Oxford, and makes him now a 
 small allowance." 
 
 "The same thing," said Miss Norfolk. 
 
 "It might be," agreed Abbot, " but that the 
 uncle, an old Johnny of sixty, has married a young 
 wife, and has now a son of his own." 
 
 "How annoying!" said Harry. 
 
 She could not have said less if she had dropped 
 her prayer-book on the wood pavement of Sloane 
 Street, or pricked her finger, or knocked her white 
 elbow ; but she set her teeth after she had said it 
 and she sighed. Abbot remarked nothing. He felt 
 vaguely that that which he had told his cousin of 
 his friend was mischief to the friend. 
 
 "And there," he said to himself in an habitual 
 expression, " is the devil of it." 
 
158 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Miss Norfolk often set her teeth after that, and 
 looked at herself in the glass to note the tragedy 
 of her expression. She was very much interested 
 in finding that she had such feelings as she had 
 read of in books. Sometimes, when she was not 
 acting to an audience of a looking-glass with her- 
 self in it, her face wore a look that was very hope- 
 less, and that was somehow sincere enough to 
 show that there was in truth a certain depth in the 
 emotions the outward expression of which she 
 liked to counterfeit. 
 
 She met Hartford. She was more shrewd and 
 worldly-wise than ever, robbed herself designedly 
 of much of the freshness of her youth by acquiring, 
 or pretending to, a knowledge of life that may 
 have been harmless in its results, but that amazed 
 such less modern girls as Araby; and she went 
 more seldom to the Temple, and looked more dis- 
 tantly at Dennis. 
 
 He did not fail to observe the change. It made 
 him acutely miserable. Abbot was very sorry for 
 him, but to tell him that Miss Norfolk (in her 
 cousin's opinion) was not worth his thought of her 
 would not have seemed to Dennis kind or friendly 
 comfort. He was more silent, and he worked des- 
 perately by fits and starts, with intervals during 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 159 
 
 which he cursed his fate and flung his pen to an 
 end of the room whither he would presently 
 follow it to pick it up apologetically. Then the 
 whole thing struck him as rather ludicrous, and 
 he laughed at himself. 
 
 Miss Norfolk and Ethel had gone, as we know, 
 to Lady George AthoFs dance, and it was to keep 
 themselves fresh for this that they threw up an 
 engagement to have tea with the two young bar- 
 risters in Testament Buildings. 
 
 " Anne, you must go instead of me," said Miss 
 Norfolk. " They asked three of us, and Netty and 
 Barbara are going." 
 
 Anne drew back. 
 
 " You ought to go yourself, Harry," she said, 
 timidly. "You know you promised, and they 
 will be awfully disappointed." 
 
 " Oh," said Miss Norfolk, hardly, " all engage- 
 ments are subject to the turning up of something 
 better afterwards." 
 
 "You're unjust to yourself," said Anne. 
 
 Miss Norfolk made as if she would have retorted 
 impatiently, but she did not. 
 
 "You won't expect justice even from yourself 
 when you reach my age, Anne," she said, with a 
 sigh. 
 
160 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Anne still demurred about going. 
 
 "Why don't you want to go?" asked Netty, 
 who had not then definitely made her discovery. 
 " Don't you like Jimmy and Mr. Leigh ? " 
 
 Anne coloured and made an excuse. She wanted 
 to work at a picture. 
 
 " Rot," said Netty, robustly. 
 
 In the end Anne gave way. She had often been 
 before to the chambers in the Temple, but of late, 
 with the wandering of her thoughts, reasons had 
 been made plain to her why she should go there 
 as little as possible. Anne, you see, was observant. 
 
 She had still a heightened colour when she fol- 
 lowed her sisters, Netty and Barbara, into the om- 
 nibus, which, living in a thoroughfare as they did, 
 they were able to stop at their own door. 
 
 " Where 's Harry ? " asked Abbot, when the girls 
 presented themselves at his chambers. 
 
 Netty made a long and glib statement of plaus- 
 ible excuse. Anne saw the face of Dennis fall, and 
 she turned away her head. 
 
 " Too bad of Harry," said Abbot. " Tell her, with 
 my love, Netty, that her regrets are very pretty, 
 but that I am quite sure she could have come if she 
 had liked." 
 
 The party settled themselves round the fire. A 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 161 
 
 kettle was singing merrily, and presently an issue 
 of steam came from its spout. Anne helped Dennis 
 to make the tea holding the brown earthenware 
 teapot in one hand, and the lid of it in the other, 
 while he poured in the boiling water, which made 
 a delicious but indescribable sound. 
 
 He put down the kettle and took the teapot from 
 her, barely thanking her. His eyes were holden at 
 this time. 
 
 She began methodically to cut bread for toast- 
 ing. Netty talked so much that she could do no- 
 thing else, and to have expected Barbara to help 
 would have been to expect the unlikely. The twins 
 had eyes with heavy lids and did nothing for 
 themselves. Their indolence, which was partly 
 natural and partly affected, had a real and physical 
 expression in their cast of face. They spoke slowly 
 with deep voices. They were like each other in 
 appearance, and Barbara was representative. Their 
 sloth was in Sloane Street pronounced to suit their 
 type of beauty, and they were exempted from many 
 of those small duties which devolved upon the 
 others. 
 
 Anne and Jimmy knelt in front of the fire and 
 made toast ; Netty offered to help but did not 
 move. Barbara looked on lazily and did nothing. 
 
162 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Dennis was silent. After he had placed the teapot 
 on the hob he sat down. Anne saw the grimness 
 of his expression. It relaxed presently, and his nor- 
 mal geniality asserted itself. To mope for long was 
 foreign to his nature. 
 
 Abbot and Anne moved after a time from their 
 kneeling positions. Their faces glowed from the 
 heat of the fire, and Anne's eyes sparkled. 
 
 "We've done our share, Anne," said Jimmy. 
 " Some of the others must take a turn next." 
 
 " I 'm sure you have made plenty of toast," said 
 the lazy Barbara. She sniffed the air luxuriously. 
 " How good it smells ! " 
 
 She watched Dennis, who proceeded to butter 
 it. Anne took off her hat and stood at the table. 
 The firelight burnished her shining hair. 
 
 " Why, you have got a piano," she said sud- 
 denly. 
 
 " I have been wondering what made the room 
 look different from usual," said Netty. " When did 
 you get it, Jimmy?" 
 
 " Leigh's piano, not mine," said Abbot. " Den- 
 nis, hurry up, we all want our tea." 
 
 Anne went over to the piano. 
 
 " Yes, try it, Miss Norfolk," said Dennis, but 
 Barbara protested. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 163 
 
 " After we 've had some tea," she said, in the 
 slow and deep voice that gave to so many trite 
 or commonplace things a tone of tragedy. The 
 twins' voices were somewhat wasted upon them. 
 
 Barbara made a hearty meal, slowly. Netty 
 talked, and for some reason or other observed 
 Anne, who was silent. Anne ate little. 
 
 "Now," said Leigh, when at last Barbara had 
 refused anything more, and the toast had disap- 
 peared from the plate, "now will you try the 
 piano ? " 
 
 Anne rose at once. She did not speak, and she 
 began Chopin's Nocturne in E flat. Dennis had 
 followed her to the piano. He stood beside it as 
 she played. She grew very pale. After a time the 
 strain of the knowledge that his eyes were upon 
 her became too severe, and she looked up. He was 
 looking at her steadily, but she scarcely thought 
 that he saw hen She played the piece to the 
 end. 
 
 Netty, the mischievous, continued to watch her, 
 drawing the while her own conclusions. 
 
 Dennis, thinking of Harry Norfolk, at whose 
 suggestion he had acquired the piano, was deeply 
 moved by the music. He said little. Abbot knew 
 the effect which music had upon him, and hastened 
 
164 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 in a boisterous way to demand something less 
 classic. 
 
 " Something down to our level, Anne. The Pas 
 de what-you-call-it. Here, Netty, you and I will 
 hop round." 
 
 Anne complied at once. She was a little bit 
 alarmed by the passion which her playing had 
 called up into Leigh's face, and it was a relief to 
 rattle from the notes the swinging tune that took 
 London. 
 
 Abbot pushed the table out of the way, and 
 caught Netty by the hand. The two skipped round, 
 Netty's neat feet taking steps scarcely less precise 
 than those of the dancing-girls across the street. 
 The air and the motion were intoxicating. The 
 indolent Barbara jumped up and called upon 
 Dennis to dance. Then these four, full of their 
 youth, and with spirits that rose in answer to the 
 exuberance of the tune, hopped round till they 
 were out of breath. 
 
 When they were at last sitting in different parts 
 of the room, and fanning themselves with their 
 pocket-handkerchiefs, or with newspapers, Anne 
 left the piano. 
 
 Barbara said it was time to go, and did not 
 move. Netty said that she supposed so too, but 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 165 
 
 kept her place. Abbot and Leigh protested that 
 there was no hurry. 
 
 " You must tell Harry," said Abbot, " that we 
 have had our ball this afternoon." 
 
 Anne looked at Dennis apprehensively, and 
 then she took up the current copy of the " Bach- 
 elor," which chanced to be lying on the table. She 
 looked for such articles as bore the initials D. L. 
 Her eyes fell upon some verses. They were un- 
 signed. Dennis happened to be near her as she 
 read them. They were a love song. She looked 
 from them to Dennis, and knew that he had writ- 
 ten them. Netty read them over her shoulder and 
 guessed the same thing, and when that night she 
 found Anne with a copy of the paper which she 
 had bought, crying over them in her own room, 
 she made the discovery which she boldly pro- 
 claimed the following day. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ARABY had an uneventful and cold journey, during 
 which she read when she was tired of looking out 
 at the white country, and looked out again at the 
 snow when she was tired of reading. She cried too 
 a little when she had the carriage to herself, and 
 thoughts of Gerald assailed her. 
 
 The guard came at intervals and saw that she 
 was comfortable. He brought sandwiches to her, 
 and he had the foot-warmer changed for her. She 
 slept sometimes and she dreamed disturbingly. 
 There was little indeed to distract her. She had 
 fellow-travellers intermittently, but none of them 
 aroused in her the smallest interest. A large woman 
 with an infinitesimal dog with an aggressively 
 shrill bark bored her. She speculated a little, but 
 with no keenness, as to a young couple with new 
 luggage. Three old men with black bands on their 
 hats and black gloves appeared to have made 
 up a party to go to a funeral. They called it the 
 "interment," and they talked about it a good 
 deal, and Araby was relieved when they left the 
 carriage. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 167 
 
 The evening closed in. Lights occasionally Sotted 
 the white country. Fields and hedges and trees 
 looked desolate. The cold increased, and after a 
 time the damp upon the windows froze itself into 
 patterns of ferns and leaves which effectually ob- 
 scured the passing landscape. 
 
 Araby was asleep at the moment of the train's 
 arrival at the station for Eccram, and she started 
 to her feet as the lights flashed past the carriage 
 windows. She was stiff and cold, and for once the 
 sight of the familiar platform awoke in her no feel- 
 ings of welcome recognition. The Eccram carriage 
 was waiting for her. The coachman grinned all 
 over his face as he touched his hat and respectfully 
 greeted her. 
 
 During the drive to the house Araby tried hard 
 to experience some of the joy with which in thought 
 she had associated a return to the home of her 
 childhood. She knew every yard of the road, and 
 in the whiteness of the winter night she distin- 
 guished all the old landmarks. It was useless. Her 
 heart was in London, and she wondered how she 
 should get through her days. 
 
 " It will be all right when I see Aunt Laura and 
 Aunt Clara," she told herself. 
 
 They met her as she expected in the hall. The 
 
168 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 welcome was so genuine and so warm that some- 
 thing of comfort was conveyed to her. They were 
 gaunt women with good hearts and high cheek- 
 bones. Neither of them looked as if she had ever 
 been young. Araby, indeed, who had lived with 
 them from her earliest days, had never known 
 them to change. They were examples of permanent 
 middle age. They dressed in a way that denoted a 
 certain type of feminine mind, following the fash- 
 ions with timidity and at a respectful distance. 
 
 Like a soldier under arrest Araby was escorted 
 between them into the dining-room, where the huge 
 fire that threw shafts of flickering light upon the 
 walls made her suddenly conscious of how cold 
 she was physically. She ran to the hearth and knelt 
 down upon the fur rug and stretched out her hands 
 to the blaze. The warmth and the brightness 
 cheered her. She felt a wish to purr like the cat 
 that lay curled up on the bearskin beside her. In- 
 cidentally she realized the want of that form of 
 exquisite expression. 
 
 The aunts were talking to her the while singly 
 and in chorus. Would she like to go to her room 
 and take off her coat and her hat before her supper 
 or afterwards? 
 
 She roused herself with an effort The glow of 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 169 
 
 the hearth, which made her fingers to tingle deli- 
 ciously, was lulling her to a delightful state of 
 languor. London with all that it held was forgotten 
 in the enchantment of pleasant bodily sensation. 
 The world was herself, the fire, and the purring 
 cat. She laid her face luxuriously for a moment 
 against the animal's coat. It was soft, thick, silky, 
 and hot. Then she rose to her feet. 
 
 "The old room?" she said. "My little blue 
 room ? " 
 
 " Yes, dear. Your own room. We thought you 
 would like that. It is just as you left it." 
 
 Simultaneously the eyes of the aunts filled with 
 tears. No one but they themselves knew what it 
 had been to them to lose Araby. 
 
 " I hope you are a little bit glad to come back," 
 one of them said. 
 
 Araby 's heart smote her. She threw her arms 
 round the speaker's neck. 
 
 " Glad ! " she said, " glad I Oh, my dear Aunt 
 Laura, don't you know that I am glad ?" 
 
 When she had gone up to her room the two 
 ladies were silent for a few moments. Each waited 
 for the other to speak. Laura, the younger, at last 
 said, 
 
 "Well?" 
 
170 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 That loosed her sister's tongue. 
 
 " Did you think her pale? paler than she used 
 to be?" 
 
 " Her journey . . . the cold " 
 
 " Would account for that partly. Perhaps. Yes." 
 
 There was silence again. Miss Wootton changed 
 her position somewhat, and opened her mouth to 
 speak. Her sister looked at her, and she closed her 
 lips. 
 
 The butler came in to know whether he should 
 bring in Araby's supper. 
 
 "We will ring," said Miss Wootton. "Miss 
 Araby has gone to her room." 
 
 The servant withdrew, and there was again 
 silence. 
 
 "She is as pretty as ever," said Miss Laura 
 then. " Prettier. She has filled out. She is no longer 
 a child. Perhaps that is it." 
 
 " Is what, Laura ? Do you see any alteration in 
 her?" 
 
 " Yes, I do." 
 
 The two sisters exchanged glances, and there 
 was again silence. Miss Wootton broke it. 
 
 "Did you did you miss something from her 
 manner, Laura?" 
 
 "I shouldn't like to say that. But there is some 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 171 
 
 change. You see it yourself, Clara. Do you think 
 that she is n't happy ? " 
 
 "What are you thinking, Laura? Do speak 
 straight out. You are beating about the bush." 
 
 " We are thinking the same thing," said Miss 
 Laura then, " you and I ; we are both thinking 
 the same thing. We are wondering whether Cor- 
 bet's wife is a good mother." 
 
 " Hush," said Miss Wootton, "hush!" 
 
 Miss Laura gave her head a little toss, and in 
 the silence that ensued, during which the sisters 
 sat staring into the fire, Araby came into the room. 
 She went over and knelt on the rug between 
 them, and each took possession of one of her 
 hands. 
 
 She began to know now that she was hungry, 
 and when she was comfortably seated at the table, 
 she found herself able to do full justice to the hot 
 and tempting dishes that had been prepared for 
 her. The food of which she had been really in 
 need after her cold journey, and perhaps the port 
 which her aunts insisted that she should drink, did 
 much to raise her spirits. After Araby was re- 
 freshed the Miss Woottons led her to the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 This was a room which belonged to the worsted- 
 
172 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 work period. Here they talked till the striking of 
 a clock warned them of the lateness of the hour ; 
 and when the three parted for the night, the aunts 
 wondered whether after all they might not have 
 been mistaken in ascribing any change to the girl 
 who had left them, and had now for a time returned 
 to them. 
 
 But long after their eyes had closed in sleep 
 Araby sat before the fire in her room and thought. 
 Sometimes as she looked round the familiar blue 
 walls, and the hundred well-known objects about 
 her, she felt as if she had never been away from 
 Eccram in her life, and that London and her mother 
 and and other people, must belong to a dream 
 from which she had just awoke. Then, as she looked, 
 she found the pictures which she had once admired 
 crude and philistine, and she contrasted the com- 
 fortable but ugly worsted-work drawing-room with 
 the rooms in Primate Street, and with such other 
 modern rooms as she had seen in London, and she 
 felt that, like Eve, she had eaten of the tree of 
 knowledge of good and evil, and that for her the 
 old conditions were impossible. She shuddered as 
 she looked at the books on her shelves, at an illu- 
 mination in an Oxford frame that hung over her 
 bed. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 173 
 
 She went to the window and drew aside the cur- 
 tains. The trees were etched against the white of 
 the snow in firm black lines. Araby could see 
 single twigs. She could see the tower of Eccram 
 Church, and near it the gables of the Vicarage. She 
 thought of Herbert Pine, and wondered whether 
 he was at home ; and then she drifted back upon 
 attendant memories connected with skating, to 
 London and to Gerald, and to her mother and to 
 her own unhappiness. They were dancing now in 
 Barn Street. Who was dancing with Gerald ? she 
 wondered. What were the waltzes that would be 
 played ? She threw herself with intenseness of pur- 
 pose into an attempt to realize the night as it was 
 passing at the George Athols'. She lived through 
 a part of this ball in imagination. She tried to smell 
 the flowers that would decorate the stairs and the 
 rooms, and to see the men and women passing to 
 and fro. Gerald was dancing or was not dancing. 
 He was talking to a dark girl or to a fair girl. He 
 was at supper perhaps now. She looked at her 
 watch. It was half-past twelve. 
 
 The fire was falling low in the grate. The house 
 was silent. The hush of the country after the rumble 
 of London smote her with a fresh regret. She 
 sighed, and began to undress. When at length she 
 
174 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 was ready to get into bed a curious impulse made 
 her draw her nightdress down, and gaze in the 
 glass at her white neck and arms. She was splen- 
 didly white, and so prettily rounded that she 
 smiled with pleasure at her beauty. 
 
 She sighed again, and got into bed. The fire- 
 light had ceased to flicker on the blue walls, and 
 the dead embers were ceasing even to crack softly 
 in the grate, when at length Araby fell asleep, and 
 tears were lying like dewdrops upon her eye- 
 lashes. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 ECCRAM was a moderately large house standing 
 in a few acres of park, which with the gardens at 
 the back comprised the estate. There were no farms 
 or lands, pasture or otherwise, and it was for the 
 compactness of the place that thirty years earlier 
 the Miss Woottons, entering on their permanent 
 middle age at a time when other women are still 
 girls, had bought it, to live in it their kindly and 
 monotonous lives. 
 
 They had furnished it massively in the taste of 
 the time. The dining-room, comfortable, substan- 
 tial, and handsome, had suffered least in a decade 
 remarkable for its lack of artistic appreciation. It 
 was hung with engraved portraits of our Royal 
 Family. The drawing-room, a room the shape of 
 which was full of possibilities, laboured as we know 
 at disadvantage under a weight of worsted-work 
 and antimacassars. It had a round table in the 
 middle, with a cloth of crimson velvet pile, on 
 which were ranged books, a paper-knife, a stereo- 
 scope with views of Switzerland and Northern 
 Italy (the memento of a foreign tour), and two 
 
176 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 albums containing photographs of people of those 
 varying forms of ugliness that are in part at least 
 due to the fashions of a time when women called 
 Clara and Laura were girls, and men were spoken 
 of as the gentlemen. On a marble-topped book- 
 case a stuffed kingfisher dived into a little pool of 
 looking-glass ; and there were other abominations 
 of the kind. There were some comfortable chairs ; 
 there were too prim sofas, and there were hard 
 cushions worked with beads or wool and orna- 
 mented with tassels and fringes. There were stools 
 too, little round things, six inches high, upon which 
 human foot had never been known to rest. There 
 was a carpet with a huge pattern of vases overflow- 
 ing with roses. There was a glass chandelier for 
 candles. There were also candlesticks with crystal 
 drops. There was a grand piano which was locked, 
 and a music-stool shaped like a square hour-glass, 
 and worked in worsted. There was an ottoman 
 which opened up and disclosed a chest. There was 
 a marble mantelpiece, and a worked screen upon 
 a folding gilt rod screwed on to one side of it. 
 There were many other ornaments dating alike 
 from the Stone Age of decoration. 
 
 The house itself, built of red brick, low-roofed, 
 and with a square porch, was old and delightful. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 177 
 
 It had crooked oak stairs, with elaborately carved 
 balustrades. You went up a couple of steps into 
 some of the rooms; you went down into others. 
 You were surprised at every corner. But the eternal 
 feminine shewed itself in all the appointments, and 
 Araby, who up to a few months back had lived 
 there for nearly fourteen years, now, after a brief 
 interval, became conscious of it. She wondered 
 that she had never contrasted the prim ladylike 
 equipments of the rooms with those of such other 
 country houses as she had seen. 
 
 Her aunts' shady hats hanging on pegs of the 
 hat-rack in the hall, the croquet set under the table, 
 the large looking-glasses in gold frames, all struck 
 her with a sense of pity for the cramped lives of 
 their owners. The very servants seemed to date as 
 servants from times remote. There was a house- 
 maid with stiff joints and a face like the face of a 
 rabbit. The butler was self-willed and rheumatic. 
 The cook had confessed to sixty in the recent cen- 
 sus. Everywhere indoors was an atmosphere of 
 sedate middle age, and to her own alarm, in the 
 present state of transition of her mind, Araby real- 
 ized it, and wondered how she had breathed it for 
 so long. 
 
 She awoke on the morning after her arrival with 
 
178 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 the sense of something having happened, and look- 
 ing drowsily at the blue walls of her room, she won- 
 dered at the colour. Her room in Primate Street 
 was pink. Then of a sudden the dead silence of 
 the country struck her, and she started up and 
 remembered that she was no longer in London. 
 After that she lay down and allowed her thoughts 
 to wander. The sight of the frozen window, on which 
 the palest rays of a winter sun were glistening till 
 the marvellous patterns seemed wrought in pow- 
 dered diamonds, made the warmth of the fine white 
 sheets the more grateful, and a delightful sense of 
 ease and rest stole over her. She thought of the 
 false Gerald without pain. Nothing mattered. The 
 stiff housemaid with the rabbit smile came in to 
 light her fire, and Araby woke fully, and knew that 
 she had been banished to Eccram, and that she 
 was miserable. Then the word banished in connec- 
 tion with the kind aunts and her home smote her 
 with remorse, and she was contrite. 
 
 When at length she went down to the dining- 
 room she found the aunts at breakfast. They were 
 full of gentle goodness in a minor key. They would 
 not have her called earlier, they said, but they were 
 sure that she would excuse them for having begun 
 without her. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 179 
 
 "But of course, dear Aunt Laura," she said, 
 smiling. She was a little bit shocked once more 
 when their politeness struck her as elaborate and 
 unnecessary. 
 
 "They are so good," she said to herself, "and 
 oh, I am horrid ! " 
 
 In spite of herself she criticized them. Their 
 figures were so flat, and they wore elastic-sided 
 boots with shining toe-caps. 
 
 " I am horrid," she said to herself again. 
 
 They noted the smallness of her appetite. They 
 thought her graver than of old, and more reserved. 
 They exchanged glances. She found herself silent 
 and out of touch with such subjects as interested 
 them. She scarcely knew it, but she was shy. They 
 lived in a different world from that in which her 
 lines were now cast, and she had forgotten the 
 simplicity that had been hers when her own life had 
 been bound up with theirs. She was stricken with 
 pity and with a sense of shame that it should be 
 so for these two women who had grown old dully, 
 and whose lives ran in so narrow and straight a 
 groove. She felt herself a hypocrite when even by 
 the assent of silence she appeared to agree with 
 one or other of them upon such points of doc- 
 trine or demeanour as came up in the ordinary 
 
1 8o TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 course of conversation. The old order changes, and 
 she had changed with it, and once more she felt 
 that the former conditions were impossible. It was 
 curious how in so short a time, and insensibly, her 
 ideas and views had widened. 
 
 After breakfast a dull morning threatened. Araby 
 loitered undecidedly in the hall. She went to the 
 window and looked out across the white park. A 
 few rooks were walking about on the drive. The 
 black of them struck an insistent note against the 
 snow. They came up close to the house, and looked 
 to Araby of abnormal size. She fetched some scraps 
 and tried to interest herself in feeding them. Miss 
 Wootton came out of the library. 
 
 "What would you like to do, my dear? Would 
 n't you like to go out ? I wish we had anything to 
 amuse you. I think they are skating on the park 
 pond, if you would like to go down and see." 
 
 Laura Wootton had followed her sister into the 
 hall. She came and stood on Araby 's other side. 
 She wore mittens, and her fingers were pink with 
 the cold of the day. Araby was disinclined for any- 
 thing, but felt that in action only would she find 
 rest from her thoughts. She hailed the suggestion 
 of her aunt with alacrity. 
 
 "You will find friends down there, dear," said 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 181 
 
 Miss Wootton. " I saw Herbert and Cora Pine 
 skating yesterday." 
 
 Araby went to her room, and whether the mention 
 of the young soldier's name was accountable for it 
 or not, she descended presently thence wearing 
 one of her prettiest hats. She fastened her coat as 
 she came. Her skates swung by the straps over her 
 arm, and made a pleasant clicking sound as the 
 blades struck gently together. 
 
 So keen and frosty an air met her as she left the 
 house that her cheeks glowed in answer to it. The 
 frozen snow gave crisply under her feet and made 
 a sound that pleased her. Her spirits rose. She 
 began to run, and then fell back into a walk. 
 
 Eccram stood on high ground, with a dip at the 
 end of the park whence the country stretched itself 
 for square miles with the flatness of a map. In the 
 clearness of the day Araby could see the hedges 
 that made a hundred fields into a huge chessboard. 
 She saw farm-houses and the spire here and there 
 of a church. Behind all and over all, and at the 
 edge it seemed of the world, was a sky of turquoise 
 blue, banked towards the north with fleecy white 
 clouds ranged in rounded shelves one above 
 another. These meant snow. They were dazzling 
 in the pure sunlight. 
 
182 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Presently she was reminded of Wimbledon, her 
 mother, Gerald, and her unhappiness by the sound 
 of blades ringing on the ice. She gave a gesture 
 of impatience and quickened her pace. 
 
 Herbert Pine was disporting himself fantastically 
 upon his skates. Five minutes later Araby had 
 flung care to the winds and was swinging through 
 the air beside him. She talked and she laughed. 
 He listened to her in surprise and tried to under- 
 stand her, with the result that he became more 
 than ever in love with her. Araby saw what she 
 was doing and was reckless. 
 
 "Nothing matters," she said to him with young 
 cynicism, in answer to some remark of his, " nothing 
 matters nothing, nothing, nothing." 
 
 He looked at her curiously. Woolwich was 
 knocking his lankiness into shape, and barmaids 
 had told him that he had wicked eyes. His man- 
 ner at home was less deprecating than of old, and 
 he had told his sister that there was hardly a girl 
 worth speaking to in the country. Cora Pine had 
 tossed her head at the time, but she had not failed 
 to proclaim proudly amongst her bosom friends 
 the sweeping assertion of her tall brother. She 
 might have chuckled if she could have heard his 
 deference to Araby. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 183 
 
 " One learns that in London," he said, with an 
 attempt at his grander manner. 
 
 He was feeling somehow that Araby, though 
 she talked to him incessantly and skated with no 
 one else, took him pretty much as she had left 
 him, and scarcely realized his importance. This 
 served but the more to increase his infatuation. 
 He stored up much restlessness for himself that 
 day upon the ice of the park pond. 
 
 The Pines had brought down luncheon with 
 them and begged Araby to share it. She accepted 
 their invitation, and despatched a lad up to the 
 house with a message. A thousand things re- 
 minded her of the other skating party and of 
 Gerald, and for solace she devoted herself to the 
 conquest of a boy in whom she could now barely 
 interest herself. He walked home with her through 
 the crisp snow in the red sunset. He became sen- 
 timental and talked bitterly. At the door he stood 
 still. 
 
 "Will you come in ? " 
 
 He had been wondering all the way from the 
 ice whether or not she would ask this, and whether 
 or not he should consent. But he was in a mood 
 when parting had an attraction for him. 
 
 " No, I won't come in," he said without a smile, 
 
184 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 and then he padded " Thank you," as an after- 
 thought. 
 
 He was silent for a few moments and Araby put 
 out her hand. There seemed nothing to wait for, 
 but she knew that he wished to detain her. 
 
 " Oh, don't go," he said, hurriedly. 
 
 "Why not?" said Araby, with a smile. He 
 saw the red sunlight striking her flaming hair, as 
 Gerald had seen it, and much the same thoughts 
 occurred to him, but he could not express them. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Araby, still smiling. 
 
 "And to-morrow," said Pine, " to-morrow?" 
 
 " Oh, to-morrow," said Araby, lightly, " to-mor- 
 row, who can tell ? It may thaw. This frost can't 
 last for ever. I 'm not sure that I even want it to 
 last" 
 
 Herbert Pine tapped the snow with his boot. 
 
 " It won't thaw to-night," he said. 
 
 Araby shivered and drew her coat more closely 
 across her chest. What a smart coat ! he thought. 
 It was plain as a man's. How slight and supple 
 was the figure that was clothed so neatly ! 
 
 "Now I must go," she said. She put out her 
 hand once more. 
 
 "If it doesn't thaw," he said, humbly, "and it 
 won't " 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 185 
 
 " But to-morrow I may n't want to skate," she 
 said. " I can't tell. It may not be necessary." 
 "Necessary?" 
 But she did not explain. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ARABY. Araby. Araby. 
 
 Impressions, recollections, speculations all in 
 retrospect ; for Araby was not there. Gerald, puz- 
 zled and troubled as he had never been before, 
 thought of her continually. Had his eyes indeed 
 been holden that he should not see ? From the be- 
 ginning, then; for her very beauty had been a 
 revelation to him. He had always admired her, 
 but what he thought of now as the wonder of her 
 had been withheld from him till that moment 
 when, as he saw her standing in the sunset light, 
 he had given voice to the thoughts that possessed 
 him. 
 
 He saw her many times thus in the days that 
 followed. Another impression of her that was often 
 present to him was of her face as he had seen it 
 on the day when he had met her on the white 
 landing outside the drawing-room door in Primate 
 Street; and another, of her supple and slender 
 form sitting at the piano, as she sang. He remem- 
 bered the line of her throat and head, as the face 
 was raised in singing. . . . 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 187 
 
 He heard of the going of Araby with emotions 
 he could not have thought possible, and Mrs. 
 Ruthven did more wisely even than she herself 
 guessed in keeping her own counsel just then. 
 
 He was rather more silent than usual in the car- 
 riage going home, but otherwise not unlike him- 
 self. Miss Ventnor talked all the way. 
 
 " The Norfolk girl will secure the Hartford boy 
 with patience," she said, amongst other things. 
 
 Gerald's mouth relaxed to a smile. 
 
 He said laconically that whenever that happened 
 Miss Norfolk might take the rest which she had so 
 conscientiously earned. Then he lapsed once more 
 into silence, and Lennox Gardens was reached. 
 
 A fire was burning brightly in the smoking- 
 room. Gerald threw himself into an easy-chair 
 beside it and lit a cigar. He stretched out his arm 
 for the square bottle that stood on a table at hand. 
 Then he proceeded absently to open a bottle of 
 soda-water. Miss Ventnor, with apprehensive eye- 
 brows, stood by the hearth till he had successfully 
 accomplished this, and then she pulled a stool on 
 to the rug and sat at his feet with her head against 
 his knee. 
 
 " Gerald." 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
188 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 " Why did n't Mrs. Ruthven bring her daughter 
 to-night?" 
 
 " Probably because mother has n't been too 
 civil." 
 
 " Mother shall call to-morrow or the day after," 
 said Miss Ventnor. " But I did n't mean to dinner." 
 
 There was silence, and she held her glass up, 
 and looked at the fire through the pale amber 
 liquid. His stood beside him untouched. 
 
 " I meant to the dance that was different. And 
 she went herself. Was it really because Miss Ruth- 
 ven is barely out ? " 
 
 " I don't know, Gwen." 
 
 There was another silence. He watched the 
 blue smoke that rose from his cigar. Miss Ventnor 
 looked into the fire. 
 
 You could n't tell with Gerald. Had she not that 
 very night heard one of his partners mixing her 
 pronouns in a spluttering effort to express him? 
 " He sits on the stairs with one you can hardly 
 ever get him to dance and one talks to him and 
 I don't believe he hears a word you say." And 
 was not Miss Norfolk, who was yet a staunch 
 friend of his, reported to have said that the smile 
 in which she felt that he had summed her up was 
 somehow an epigram ? There were girls who had 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 189 
 
 to persuade themselves that they did n't like him. 
 No, you could not tell with Gerald. And the worst 
 of it was that this, most perversely, was part of 
 his charm for you ! 
 
 She emptied her glass and made a little grimace. 
 
 " I think whisky J s horrid. Good-night." 
 
 She put her face down to his to be kissed. 
 
 " Gerald ! " 
 
 She turned back from the door and advanced 
 into the middle of the room. She had to say it. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Do you think Mrs. Ruthven is is fond of her 
 daughter ? " 
 
 But Gerald provokingly would not answer, and 
 after lingering undecidedly for a moment and tell- 
 ing him that he was horrid too, she said " Good- 
 night " once more and left him. 
 
 " Good-night," said Gerald. He smiled absently 
 when the door had closed behind her. 
 
 He sat on for a long time thinking. 
 
 Presently he found that his cigar had gone out, 
 and he lighted another. There was deliberation in 
 his vigil, for he threw a log upon the fire and drew 
 his chair nearer to the fender. What a cold night 
 it was ! There were poor devils wandering about 
 London now without a roof to cover them. He 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 shuddered, and determined to double his subscrip- 
 tions to such philanthropic societies as cared for 
 the physical wants of the destitute. It was a night 
 for charitable inclinations and intentions. 
 
 Then came fugitive thoughts of the George 
 Athols ; of Mrs. Ruthven's emerald ring, which had 
 attracted his attention when she drew off her glove 
 at supper ; of the Norfolk girl on what her sister 
 called the Hartford chase ; of Gwen ; and then his 
 thoughts steadied themselves as before to a defi- 
 nite line and marked Araby. He felt somehow 
 that he had been cheated out of the pleasure he 
 had been anticipating in the evening that was 
 over. And he fancied that Araby had been cheated 
 too. He had been present at the invitation. He 
 remembered how Araby 's eyes had glowed with 
 prospective enjoyment, and he wondered what had 
 happened between then and later to have caused 
 what was obviously sudden, and a change of plans. 
 Mrs. Ruthven's manner at supper had somehow 
 puzzled him. He wondered how his hurried visit 
 to St. James's Hall had come to her knowledge. 
 He remembered then something that Araby had 
 said to him as he put her into the cab. She had 
 asked him whether her mother knew of his com- 
 ing, and when he had said that it was not so, she 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 191 
 
 had begged him to return to the theatre with all 
 possible speed. She had even, he thought, shown 
 some apprehension as to the consequences of his 
 act. This at least was his impression. 
 
 He thought over these things, till the conviction 
 was strong within him that in some way Araby's 
 going was connected with the trifling incident of 
 that evening. 
 
 The immediate result of thinking over the situa- 
 tion was, that Gerald in the course of the next day 
 or two found himself so restless and perplexed 
 that he determined to leave town. There were 
 plenty of country houses open to him. He had 
 been refusing invitations lately, because just then 
 London seemed as good a place to be in as any 
 other. His sister thought him uncommunicative. 
 Lady Ventnor, with the air of a martyr, had duly 
 called upon Mrs. Ruthven, but when Gwen told 
 him of the visit, he seemed to her indifferent. 
 
 " You would have laughed if you could have 
 seen mamma," she said, chuckling a little over her 
 recollections. " She grumbled all the way, and 
 abused everybody Mrs. Sandon and you and 
 me, and Audrey for letting her house and then 
 when she met Mrs. Ruthven she gushed posi- 
 tively gushed. You know mamma's empress^ man- 
 
192 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 ner. And I am sure Mrs. Ruthven must have 
 thought her charming." 
 
 Gerald said that he was glad that his mother 
 had been civil. 
 
 " But it was n't from motives of civility," said 
 Miss Ventnor, still chuckling. "It was pure insin- 
 cerity. Mamma is inherently insincere." 
 
 Gerald smiled absently, and his sister, who did 
 not altogether dislike the sound of Miss Ventnor' s 
 voice, began to speculate idly as to when this in- 
 herited trait would break out in herself. She arrived 
 at no very definite conclusions. Gerald did not 
 appear to regard the subject as one of any impor- 
 tance, to judge by his preoccupied look, and Miss 
 Ventnor subsided into silence. 
 
 He went round to Primate Street on the day be- 
 fore his departure. 
 
 "And for how long?" said Mrs. Ruthven, when 
 he had told her that he was leaving London. She 
 looked at him intently for a few moments, and 
 noted many trivial things. 
 
 He enumerated a few of the houses he was going 
 to visit. 
 
 "Then you will be away a month." 
 
 " Quite that perhaps two." 
 
 " This is a change of plan, isn't it?" 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 193 
 
 " I generally make up my mind suddenly. I like 
 to be free." 
 
 She looked at him again. 
 
 " What is it about you ? You 're not like your- 
 self to-day. You 're different " 
 
 It struck her that ' indifferent ' would have ex- 
 pressed her meaning just as well. 
 
 Gerald did not refute the charge with any alac- 
 rity. He was not of the kind that hastens to fill a 
 silence. Pauses did not embarrass him. 
 
 "How is Miss Ruthven?" he asked, presently. 
 There was nothing in the tone in which he spoke 
 to have told that the subject was one of any par- 
 ticular interest to him. 
 
 " Araby ? oh, Araby J s very well." 
 
 So the talk languished. Mrs. Ruthven realized 
 that something of her hold over Gerald was gone. 
 Gerald was not less conscious of this, and the sit- 
 uation was strained. 
 
 He rose at length to go. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Mrs. Ruthven. " Good-bye. I 
 hope you will have a good time. When you have 
 nothing better to do, you might write me a line to 
 say how the world goes with you." 
 
 When the drawing-room door closed behind 
 him, she went and stood by the fire. The flames 
 
194 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 leapt cheerily, and were reflected in the hot tiles. 
 But to the woman who leant against the mantel- 
 piece, and whose face wore a smile, the hearth and 
 her own heart and life seemed full of ashes. 
 
 Gerald met Olympe on the stairs. She held some 
 pieces of glass and a broken frame. Gerald nodded 
 to her. 
 
 "An accident, Mile. Olympe ?" 
 
 " An accident, for example, monsieur. Je crois 
 bien. I take up Miss Araby to clean the frame, and 
 my 'ans are so cold, I let fall." 
 
 Gerald saw that the broken frame held a photo- 
 graph of Araby. 
 
 " The glass that is nothing. I get another for 
 a few sous. But the silver is bent and a what 
 you call, a screw a rivet is missing. Well, no 
 matter. It can't be 'elped. I take it to the shop." 
 
 " Let me see/' said Gerald, but he looked at the 
 picture, not the frame. 
 
 It seemed to him that he had found Araby once 
 more. It was his fancy that the eyes were re- 
 proachful. 
 
 " Shall I get it mended for you, Mile. Olympe ?" 
 
 " Oh, monsieur ! " 
 
 " I know a man in Sloane Street who would do 
 it," said Gerald. " It is a small thing. He will make 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 195 
 
 it as good as new. The silver can easily be straight- 
 ened." 
 
 " You are too good, monsieur. It is too much to 
 trouble you " 
 
 " It is no trouble," said Gerald. " I pass the shop 
 on my way home." 
 
 " Thank you, monsieur, a thousand times. Let 
 me " 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " 
 
 " I remove the photograph. I make you less to 
 carry." 
 
 " Oh, I would n't do that," said Gerald. 
 
 "Bien, monsieur." 
 
 Her twinkling eyes met his, and became sud- 
 denly grave. 
 
 " Miss Araby was sorry to go," she said, ab- 
 ruptly. The butler came up to whistle for a han- 
 som, and Olympe with large hips and light tread 
 tripped upstairs. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 GERALD VENTNOR spent a fortnight in Leicester- 
 shire, a week in Hampshire, a few days in Essex, 
 and heard nothing of the Ruthvens. He kept 
 Araby's photograph till the frame was mended, 
 and by that time he knew that he was in love with 
 her, and that he meant it. 
 
 It was grudgingly even then that he parted with 
 the picture. It seemed to him that in studying it he 
 was getting to know the girl herself better. He dis- 
 covered fresh beauties in it every day. He looked 
 at it till he almost fancied he had called up an an- 
 swer into the eyes, as devout Catholics have adored 
 images of the Virgin till in an ecstasy of devotion 
 they have imagined miraculous signs from the in- 
 animate wood or stone. Gerald in love was a new 
 Gerald, but with something of the same Gerald 
 still. It was enough for him that he knew that he 
 loved Araby. He was able to feed upon his own 
 love for her, and he was beset by no fever of impa- 
 tience to declare himself. He preferred indeed to 
 have a time in which to think of her and of the 
 future. For this he had no fears. What was there 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 197 
 
 indeed to fear ? Lady Ventnor, of course, since she 
 distrusted all girls, and suffered acutely by reason 
 of her fear that her son would be entrapped by the 
 designing, would raise her voice in woe ; but it 
 was a voice to which little heed was paid, either in 
 Lennox Gardens or at Combe Lecton ; and Sir 
 John, master of his own house, was in favour of 
 early marriages. There was no reason to dread 
 obstacles. 
 
 Gerald did not care to think of Mrs. Ruthven 
 just then. But he had to think of her whether he 
 would or no. It seemed to him that with his sud- 
 den attraction to Araby with, as he expressed it 
 to himself, the opening of his eyes, which up to then 
 had been blind there had come almost a revul- 
 sion of feeling against her mother. When he looked 
 back over the last few months, it appeared to him 
 that there had always been grave limitations to 
 such admiration, call it what you like, as he had 
 had for her. Possibly the knowledge that he was 
 one of many was not outbalanced by the later 
 knowledge that he was or he might be the one of 
 all. Perhaps this later knowledge did not since 
 the affections know no coercion draw him nearer 
 to her. Be this as it may, the more he thought of 
 Araby the further he receded from Mrs. Ruthven. 
 
198 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Much that had impressed him little at the time of 
 its occurrence took now a sinister meaning. He 
 could not bear to think that Araby had been sub- 
 jected to unkindness or neglect. He did not in 
 point of fact believe that either had been palpable. 
 He accused Mrs. Ruthven of nothing that was ac- 
 tive. He had never been present at the baiting of 
 Araby. His charge against her mother was rather 
 that of a deliberate withholding of her sympathy, 
 and of making Araby of no account. He had read 
 the girl's character sufficiently well to know that 
 she was sensitive. He felt that she was being re- 
 pressed, and driven back upon herself. 
 
 Gerald began to build castles in the air. He had 
 gathered generally from remarks that Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven had made concerning the Miss Woottons, that 
 Araby's upbringing had been narrow in its ten- 
 dency. Araby was still so young that Gerald told 
 himself that the delight of directing her into broader 
 paths would be his. Under his tender care of her, 
 he would see her develop and expand, as some 
 beautiful flower expands when the plant that bears 
 it is taken from an ungenerous spot, where it has 
 been denied air and light, and removed to a richer 
 soil and a freer and clearer atmosphere. 
 
 He would take Araby abroad. They should 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 199 
 
 travel together, seeing all that was beautiful in art 
 and nature. Araby, since her childhood, had never 
 been out of England, and he imagined something 
 of the freshness of the happiness that would be 
 hers, and vicariously his, as she received new im- 
 pressions. There would be an unconscious educa- 
 tion for them both. She would learn the world, and 
 get wisdom by experience ; he would teach her. 
 The pleasure of such a schooling as this was a 
 thing on which to dream. . . . 
 
 Time passed meanwhile. If Araby had been in 
 Primate Street, Gerald would have gone back to 
 London ; but he knew her to be still staying with 
 the Miss Woottons, and he prolonged his visits. 
 He had expected a line from Olympe to acknow- 
 ledge the mended frame, and he awaited it with 
 some small impatience. He accounted for her si- 
 lence when he heard from his sister casually, and 
 amongst the other items of news with which she 
 filled her letters, that Mrs. Ruthven had left town. 
 
 He had, however, almost ceased to expect it, 
 when there reached him one day a note written in 
 the flowing and flourishing hand of the French- 
 woman. It bore the Eccram post-mark, and had 
 been forwarded to him from Lennox Gardens. 
 Olympe expressed unlimited gratitude for the ser- 
 
200 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 vice which Monsieur had done for her, and much 
 regret that, owing to a delay in sending the frame 
 after her from Primate Street, she had not known 
 sooner of its arrival, and so been able to thank 
 Monsieur at once. The goodness of Monsieur the 
 writer would never forget, and if at any time she 
 could be of use to Monsieur in any way, Monsieur 
 had but to command her. 
 
 Gerald read nothing between the lines. But a 
 sentence in a postscript surprised him, and dis- 
 turbed him somewhat as well : 
 
 "I am sure that Miss Araby would wish to 
 express obligation to Monsieur for his kindness. 
 I must make thanks for Mademoiselle by proxy. 
 Miss Araby is out for a walk with Mr. Hartford at 
 the moment." 
 
 Gerald looked up from the letter. 
 
 "What does the woman mean?" he said to 
 himself, when he had read the words twice. " What 
 does Olympe mean? She had some reason for 
 adding that. And Hartford what the devil is he 
 doing at Eccram ? " 
 
 He could find no satisfactory answers to the 
 questions he asked. In his perplexity he bethought 
 him of Mrs. Sandon, who might, he thought, be 
 able to help him ; so, diplomatically, hoping that 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 201 
 
 she would be diffuse in reply, he asked if she could 
 furnish him with his friend's address. 
 
 He smiled to himself as he directed and stamped 
 the envelope. 
 
 Mrs. Sandon answered his letter by return of 
 post. She was as diffuse as any one could have 
 wished, but in another direction. Her neighbour, 
 Lady Murgatroyd, had succumbed after only a 
 few days' illness to an attack of bronchitis, and 
 had left all she possessed to the scamp Sloane 
 Wetherby. 
 
 Mrs. Sandon was bubbling over with so much 
 excitement, and with such indignation (tempered 
 at intervals by remorse and charity), that she wrote 
 four pages, almost innocent of punctuation, and 
 only at the end remembered to answer Gerald's 
 question. 
 
 " My intimate friend and neighbour," she wrote, 
 " and after only being ill the inside of a week I heard 
 she had this horrid bronchitis on Monday. She has 
 always been subject to it in the winter and she 
 will not take care of herself I sent over at once to 
 enquire and by Sunday night she was dead. Is n't 
 it dreadful I could scarcely believe it when it 
 was told to me I have seen her almost every day 
 
202 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 for the last ten years and I can hardly realize yet 
 that I shall never see her again. And to think that 
 she should have left everything to that rogue who 
 treated her so badly It makes me wild I never 
 could understand what she saw in him but he could 
 always twist her round his little finger. She was a 
 good woman and one doesn't like to say any- 
 thing now that she is dead I was very fond of her 
 though one might have wished that she had had a 
 little more I was going to say sense but I don't like 
 to use the word in this connection. Still one can't 
 help regretting the failings of one's friends I shall 
 miss her dreadfully she used to come in at odd 
 times and I was always glad to see her Nothing 
 saddens one so much as one gets older as the 
 dropping off one by one of one's old friends Poor 
 dear Lady Murgatroyd she hated the word so much 
 that I don't think she would have liked to be called 
 ' old ' even as a friend I hear she looked a thousand 
 in her coffin.' 1 
 
 Gerald involuntarily smiled, and thought that 
 Lady Murgatroyd would have risen from her grave 
 could she have read this. 
 
 " I feel very sad and lonely," the letter ran as it 
 approached an end. " I suppose it will be my turn 
 next Care of Miss Wootton Eccram Northshire 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 203 
 
 will find Mr. Hartford Mrs. Ruthven went down 
 there herself a few days ago and took him with 
 her She is always unaccountable Come and see 
 me when you come back to town and cheer me up 
 for I feel very low. 
 
 " Yours affly, 
 
 "EMMA SANDON. 
 
 " P.S. I should scarcely think that scamp would 
 dare to show his face in London just yet, but it 
 would be just like him if he brazened it out Sloane 
 Wetherby I mean." 
 
 Gerald folded up the letter. 
 
 " One less unhappy woman in the world," he 
 said to himself with a sigh. " Poor Lady Murga- 
 troyd ! And after all why should n't she do as she 
 liked with her own ? " 
 
 But he went back at once to his thought of 
 Araby, and in this his attitude may be taken as 
 symbolical of that of others of the acquaintances 
 of the restless woman who had laid down her arms 
 in the fight. A few words expressive of shock at 
 the suddenness of her defeat, a few words of re- 
 gret, a whisper of scandal, an eyebrow raised, a 
 head shaken, and those amongst whom Lady Mur- 
 
204 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 gatroyd had passed her unsatisfied life talked of 
 other things. So Lady Murgatroyd died and was 
 forgotten. 
 
 Gerald could scarcely have said why the pres- 
 ence of Hartford at Eccram disquieted him. Mrs. 
 Ruthven's departure too from town was sudden as 
 that of Araby, and a presentiment that all was not 
 well and the normal Gerald, the Gerald out of 
 love, did not believe in presentiments nor attach 
 any importance to them, now took possession 
 of him. 
 
 In this mood he wrote to Mrs. Ruthven. He had 
 expected from what he knew of women that she 
 would have written to him first ; and the fact that 
 he had not heard from her added itself to the sum 
 of the other things which were vaguely disturbing 
 him. 
 
 Happily at length the frost broke up, and a few 
 days with the hounds seemed to bring him back 
 somewhat to himself. When a week had passed, 
 and there seemed no likelihood of a return of the 
 severe weather, he began to think of going home 
 to Combe Lecton for the end of the hunting. The 
 stables which had been undergoing alteration were 
 finished, and he heard from his father of a run 
 that made him wish to be in his own county. He 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 205 
 
 determined as soon as he had got through his 
 engagements to lose as little of the season as 
 remained. 
 
 In the meantime he heard from Mrs. Ruthven. 
 She wrote him a long letter, and told him nothing 
 that he wished to know, which is tantamount to 
 saying that Araby was scarcely mentioned, and 
 Hartford most casually. 
 
 Gerald felt that he could do nothing, and he 
 resigned himself to the inevitable and waited. He 
 would have written to Araby herself if he had not 
 realized how very slight their acquaintance was, 
 intimate as it seemed to him. He must not forget, 
 he told himself, that he had fallen in love with her 
 two days at the most before she was parted from 
 him. When he sought the exact moment, he placed 
 it at that which had brought him face to face with 
 her on the white landing outside the drawing-room 
 door in Primate Street. The impression she made 
 upon him then had been deepened when she sung 
 in the firelight of the later afternoon. Then at din- 
 ner he had ignored her. That was horrible, and a 
 thing to forget. He had made up for that perhaps 
 by the hurried meeting with her at the St. James's 
 Hall. After that came the day on the ice, and 
 the sudden and fuller realizing of her beauty ; and 
 
206 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 after that nothing actually virtually everything. 
 Gerald had, as it were, fallen in love on last sight, 
 and worked backwards. He got to know her in 
 retrospect. 
 
 Obviously he could not write. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 FEBRUARY was half gone, and six weeks had 
 passed since Gerald left town when he started for 
 the visit which he determined should be his last 
 before going home to Combe Lecton. He knew 
 that he should meet a big party, for his hostess 
 was filling her house for a couple of balls in the 
 neighbourhood, but he did not expect to see any 
 one that would interest him, much less did he 
 expect to hear news of the Ruthvens. 
 
 He arrived late in the afternoon, and hurried to 
 his room to dress. On the stairs, as he came down, 
 he met Miss Norfolk. 
 
 He was frankly glad to see her, and he said so 
 when they had exchanged greetings. He had 
 met her so often in Primate Street that she had in 
 his eyes some faint reflection from the glory of 
 Araby. 
 
 " I rather think," she said, as they crossed the 
 big hall, " I rather think you have got to take me 
 in to dinner." 
 
 "Well," said Gerald with amusement, "I don't 
 mind." 
 
208 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 "That's right," said Miss Norfolk, "for I have 
 a lot to talk to you about." 
 
 They reached the drawing-room. 
 
 Gerald's hostess came forward and welcomed 
 him. She said all the usual things. She has little 
 bearing upon the story, and she may be briefly 
 dismissed as a rich woman who had married three 
 men and buried them, and who now " ran " their 
 daughters. 
 
 Gerald found several acquaintances in the room, 
 and by the time he had shaken hands with them 
 dinner was announced. 
 
 Miss Norfolk walked beside him to the dining- 
 room in silence. There was something in her man- 
 ner that led him to expect the unexpected. She did 
 not chatter, and he thought that there was more in 
 her face than he had supposed. But he never took 
 Miss Norfolk seriously. 
 
 "What had you to tell me?" he said. 
 
 He was reminded as he spoke the words that 
 he had used them to Mrs. Ruthven a few weeks 
 back, and he thought of Araby and sighed. A 
 babel of tongues filled the room. Arrivals of the 
 day were taking their bearings. 
 
 "You do as you like," Gerald heard a girl tell- 
 ing a man who had come by the same train as 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 209 
 
 himself ; " you will see all sorts of notices in your 
 room about the hours of meals, and not keeping 
 the carriages waiting, but you don't take any 
 notice of them. It is n't a bad house to stay in, but 
 the girls watch you. There are five of them, mostly 
 step-sisters. You will be expected to dance with 
 all of them." 
 
 "Are there five?" said Gerald to Miss Norfolk. 
 
 Miss Norfolk nodded. 
 
 " Every second or third girl round the table is a 
 daughter of the house," she said. " There were six. 
 One married. Look at your hostess, Mr. Ventnor ; 
 wouldn't you like her for your wife's mother?" 
 
 Gerald looked up the table at the high-nosed 
 lady at the head of it, and said, 
 
 "God forbid!" 
 
 Then he wondered how he should like Mrs. 
 Ruthven in the same capacity. All thought at this 
 period of his life seemed to lead back to Araby. 
 
 There was a pause. He had diverted Miss Nor- 
 folk for the moment from her purpose. Again he 
 caught from the general chorus of voices detached 
 snatches of conversation. The man who had tra- 
 velled with him had settled down into a steady 
 flirtation with the girl he had taken in to dinner. 
 They were discussing the colour of her eyes, 
 
210 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 " They are not hazel," said Miss Norfolk in an 
 aside to Gerald ; " they are drab." 
 
 " What had you to say to me ? " said Gerald 
 again. 
 
 Niss Norfolk looked at him for a moment or two 
 before she answered him. Then she began to laugh. 
 
 "I must tell some one," she said, "and I'm 
 moved to tell you. I've done a generous action 
 and I 've lost the reward." 
 
 Gerald, raising his eyebrows, said that Miss 
 Norfolk could not mean that. 
 
 " Which ? " asked she, " the action or the re- 
 ward manquk ? I mean both, unhappily. You see I 
 thought I was certain of the reward when I per- 
 formed the action, but I was what you call a little 
 bit previous." 
 
 " Annoying ! " said Gerald. 
 
 "Pray," said Miss Norfolk, " treat the matter 
 with becoming seriousness. I 'm in desperate earn- 
 est. What I'm going to tell you is the disappoint- 
 ment and temporary failure of a life I use the 
 word temporary advisedly, for I don't intend to 
 fail in the end." 
 
 " And your aims and object ? " said Gerald. 
 
 " A girl with five sisters my mother's quiver, 
 you see, is as full as the quiver here, but I do claim 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 211 
 
 for us that we 're better-looking ! a girl, I say, in 
 such a case owes a duty to her family. I see my duty 
 clearly. It's my aim and my object to perform it; 
 but I 'm not going to propose to you, Mr. Ventnor." 
 
 " And the generous action?" asked Gerald. 
 
 Miss Norfolk thought for a few moments. Ger- 
 ald looked round the table. In the pause the lady 
 upon his left made some remark to him. Miss 
 Norfolk waited for his attention. 
 
 "The generous action?" he said, turning to her 
 as soon as he could politely disengage himself. 
 
 " Here," said Miss Norfolk, " comes the serious 
 part of my story the part, don't you know, which 
 should be spoken to slow music. You wouldn't 
 think I had much sentiment, would you ? I don't 
 know that I thought so myself till I met Some- 
 one. Oh, my Someone ! He you mayn't believe 
 it had the odd taste to fall in love with me. He 
 fell in love with me badly, and . . . well, I sup- 
 pose I have some feeling after all." 
 
 There was a tone in Miss Norfolk's voice that 
 was unusual. Gerald's eyes met hers, which did 
 not falter, and she proceeded after a little pause : 
 
 " As much, then, as it is in me to care for any 
 one, I care for this man who cares for me. Is n't it 
 hideous in this world that one must consider ways 
 
212 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 and means ? He is a barrister. He had n't a pros- 
 pect in the world a month ago. To-day, by a series 
 of accidents, he has heaps prospects to satisfy 
 anyone. He had a very rich uncle who was kind 
 to him, but the uncle had married a young wife, 
 and had an heir. No expectations, you see. Noth- 
 ing. Just a small allowance. Three weeks ago the 
 young wife ran away with a lover. (Shocking!) 
 But that is n't all. The child was told some story 
 by its nurse, which led it to suppose that it would 
 find its mother at some place where it the child, 
 you know had often stayed with her, and it went 
 off there by itself, and was run over and killed. So 
 at a bound my barrister becomes ... do you see ? 
 All of which sounds like a fairy story, but is true." 
 
 " I 'm still in the dark," said Gerald. " I see that 
 the prospectively rich barrister may be the re- 
 ward " 
 
 " He is n't the reward," said Miss Norfolk ; " not 
 the reward I had expected, any way, though he 
 would have done ten thousand times as well. Be- 
 sides, you have n't heard the generous action yet. 
 I had given him away." 
 
 " Given him away?" 
 
 " Before I knew his worth, it is true. Still it did 
 involve a sacrifice. I have a sister, one Anne, an 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 213 
 
 unworldly girl, whom I am very fond of. She is 
 very different from all of us. I found out that she 
 was well, one word does as well as another 
 head over ears in love with my barrister. She 
 does n't care for any of the things which which 
 I can't get on without money, fun oh, you 
 know and I gave her my barrister." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Well, he asked me to marry him. He asked 
 me whether I cared for him. I said no. I said I 
 did n't. I told him a lie. I did care for him. I do 
 care for him, but I thought I saw my reward safe 
 if I gave him to Anne. I talk glibly of giving him, 
 don't I ? But I have some grounds for it. Anne 
 would never have got him without me. He always 
 liked her, but . . . Well, you know a man will 
 often go, at a rebound, from the woman who has 
 refused him to the nearest woman he likes. I gave 
 him to Anne in that way." Miss Norfolk paused. 
 Gerald waited. "So I'm paying visits to keep out 
 of their way for a bit." Gerald nodded. Miss Nor- 
 folk crumbled her bread. " I think he 's happy with 
 Anne," she said then, " but I could get him back 
 by beckoning with my little finger. Do you see ? 
 My little finger. He '11 forgive me in time, and love 
 Anne as she deserves." 
 
214 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 " Poor Harry " was what Gerald wanted to say. 
 "I still/' he said, " want to know of the reward you 
 expected." 
 
 Miss Norfolk was silent again. Gerald was won- 
 dering how far the girl who was talking to him was 
 doing herself justice. He felt attracted to her, and 
 he fancied somehow that deeper feelings than she 
 acknowledged underlay what she had told him. 
 
 " I have a reason for telling you/' she said pres- 
 ently, "beyond the wish to tell somebody. After 
 certain words that passed between Mr. Hartford 
 and myself at the George Athols', I thought I 
 had only to wait a day or two to announce myself 
 engaged to him. Yes, it is funny, isn't it? I 
 should n't be in love with him, but he would give 
 me all that I want, and we could both be very happy, 
 He very nearly how shall I put it ? accepted 
 me at supper that night. I gave my barrister to 
 Anne to leave myself free to marry Mr. Hartford 
 and his very good fortunes. By doing this I un- 
 consciously gave up what would have been a very 
 good investment. Mrs. Ruthven, directly you left 
 town, whisked off Mr. Hartford to what 's the name 
 of the place ? Eccram, and " 
 
 Something in Gerald's expression arrested her 
 attention. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 215 
 
 " But you must know this ! " 
 "And what? Go on." 
 
 "Well, I don't know how she has managed it, 
 but Mr. Hartford is engaged to Araby Ruthven." 
 " Good God ! " said Gerald, in spite of himself. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 MISS NORFOLK looked at him quickly. But she 
 had no suspicion that his feelings towards Araby 
 were other than those of the good-natured indiffer- 
 ence with which she had always associated his 
 attitude to girls. 
 
 She had told him the story because, as she had 
 said, she wished to tell some one. She was suffer- 
 ing at this time far more keenly than her bare 
 words admitted. She could talk to Gerald as she 
 could talk to no one else. It was he in the first in- 
 stance who had suggested to her the capture of 
 Hartford. He had once even jokingly said to her 
 that Hartford and she, since they would demand 
 little of each other but affectionate toleration, were 
 eminently qualified for the relative positions of 
 husband and wife. Something in the irony of her 
 apparent loss of him seemed too humorous a thing 
 to keep to herself. The acknowledgment that she 
 had a heart came, however, necessarily into the 
 story she was telling, and was an explanation per- 
 haps of much that was obscure in a character that 
 appeared to be frankly ingenuous. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 217 
 
 There was another pause. The servants placed 
 the wine upon the table and withdrew. 
 
 Miss Norfolk, in many words, had made her con- 
 fession. Gerald, with a sudden misgiving, thought 
 that he had made his in two. But he was wrong, 
 for as yet he had disclosed nothing. The fact that 
 he thought he had betrayed himself kept him for 
 a few moments from giving voice to the questions 
 that burned to be asked. By the time that he had 
 realized that it was unlikely that Miss Norfolk could 
 have guessed a secret that was known only to him- 
 self, the hostess, who ran five girls, and had man- 
 aged to scrape up a Personage for her party caught 
 its important eye, and the ladies left the room. 
 
 Gerald found himself talking, and of what or to 
 whom he could not offhand have answered. But 
 he always remembered afterwards the pattern of 
 the table-cloth. 
 
 The short service system was the ruin of the 
 army (there were roses and thistles and shamrocks 
 in shining damask), and regiments that had been 
 the pride of England and the envy of her enemies 
 were now made up of a lot of boys (roses and thistles 
 and shamrocks with curling ribands). . . . Here 
 came a long gap. Gerald looked at the man who 
 was speaking, but he grasped nothing of his 
 
218 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 meaning. " By Jove," they said, " these are n't the 
 fellows that conquered India." There was another 
 gap. Gerald had returned to his contemplation of 
 the cloth. A bit of ash dropped on it from his 
 cigarette. He brushed the grey dust with his finger 
 into a minute heap, and then fitted it to the shape 
 of one of the woven shamrock leaves. He heard 
 something about a war, about Russia, Napoleon, 
 the German Emperor. He even expressed opinions, 
 but all the time he could not have said what he was 
 discussing. He only knew that Araby was lost to 
 him, and that there were roses and thistles and 
 shamrocks in the design of the cloth. 
 
 He went with the rest to the ball, for which he 
 was ostensibly a guest in the house, but he danced 
 little, and was so generally unresponsive that he 
 incurred the displeasure of the woman who had 
 buried three men. Possibly it was the fact that 
 each of the three had left her with a contribution 
 of daughters on her hands that made her so 
 severe. 
 
 "He has n't asked one of my girls to dance," 
 she said to her Personage. " He did, I believe, put 
 down Evelyn's name on his shirt-cuff, but then he 
 never turned up. What does he think I asked him 
 here for?" 
 
TIME, AND THE WOMAN 219 
 
 " You must allow he is very ornamental," said 
 her Personage. 
 
 " Oh, ornamental !" said the mother of girls. " If 
 I could only say what I think of them to some of 
 these modern young men, I 'd make them dance." 
 
 Her Personage thought of the three men whom 
 the good woman herself had danced into marriage 
 and the tomb, and said Je crois bien in English. 
 
 Gerald meanwhile was awaiting with what 
 patience he could command, an opportunity of 
 continuing his interrupted conversation with Miss 
 Norfolk. Despite his manoeuvring to get into the 
 same omnibus with her for the eight-mile drive, 
 he had been frustrated by his hostess, who shut 
 him and two other men into a conveyance with no 
 less than three of her own daughters. 
 
 At length the opportunity he was waiting for 
 occurred. Miss Norfolk had arranged her dances 
 up to a certain point, and then had left a gap for 
 Gerald. 
 
 "When did you hear it?" he asked, without 
 preamble. He was absorbed by one subject at that 
 moment, and it did not occur to him to lead up to it 
 nor indeed if it had occurred to him would it have 
 seemed necessary. After the confessions of Miss 
 Norfolk at dinner, he did not greatly care whether 
 
220 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 he allowed his interest in Araby to be guessed or 
 not. Miss Norfolk, if this was her object, had so 
 far succeeded in attaining it that, by her burst of 
 confidence, she had established between them a 
 far closer friendship than had ever before existed. 
 
 " I heard it last week. I knew that Mr. Hartford 
 had gone up to Eccram with Mrs. Ruthven, be- 
 cause mamma heard it from Mrs. Sandon. Well, 
 I was at school with a girl called Cora Pine, whose 
 father is Vicar of Eccram. I naturally wanted to 
 know what Mr. Hartford had been asked up there 
 for, so I revived a correspondence which had flour- 
 ished once between Miss Pine and myself, and 
 which with years had languished and died. There 
 once existed between us that sort of feminine friend- 
 ship, don't you know, that expresses itself in notes 
 beginning * Dearest.' I believe we even promised 
 to tell each other everything. I can safely say that 
 Cora Pine knows about as little of me as any girl 
 I know. But this is all beside the point. I wrote to 
 Cora Pine and reminded her of old times, and then 
 I touched quite casually upon the fact that friends 
 of mine were, I believed, neighbours of hers." 
 
 " And then ?" 
 
 " Well, then what a lovely waltz ! does n't 
 the band play well ? You must give me a dance 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 221 
 
 presently Well, then, I got a letter from her. Six 
 pages. Three on end about our old friendship, and 
 another about her brother Herbert, who has grown 
 up, and whom she is evidently very proud of. I 
 remember him as an insufferably shy and lanky 
 boy. The other two pages were devoted to the 
 party at the Hall, and they followed, I found, very 
 naturally upon the one which she devoted to her 
 brother. (Her pages, you must understand, are 
 good honest conscientious pages thirty or forty 
 lines to the painstaking page ! ) It seems that the 
 lanky brother who has grown so handsome a 
 thing I do not and will not believe ! has conceived 
 a romantic attachment for Miss Ruthven. Are you 
 listening?" 
 
 Gerald changed his position. The light from a 
 lamp fell thus on the back of his head, and his 
 face was in shadow. The dance had come to an 
 end, and people began to pass along the corridor 
 at one end of which Miss Norfolk and he were sit- 
 ting. A girl stopped near, hanging back from her 
 partner to tear a strip of stuff from the bottom of 
 her dress. Miss Norfolk was somehow reminded 
 of the work-room in Sloane Street, of Anne, of 
 Dennis Leigh, and she caught her lower lip tightly 
 between her teeth. 
 
222 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 " Yes, I 'm listening/' said Gerald, presently, see- 
 ing that she was silent. " Please go on." 
 
 But Miss Norfolk had lost herself in reverie. 
 
 " Where had I got to ? I beg your pardon." 
 
 "You said that Mr. Pine was it? had con- 
 ceived an attachment for Miss Ruthven." 
 
 " They were great friends always, Cora tells me, 
 and when he saw her this time Cora 's romantic 
 oh, bursting with romance ! she knew that he 
 had met his fate. She said that to herself when she 
 saw them skating together " 
 
 "They skated together ..." said Gerald. 
 
 " Yes. Then down pounced Mrs. Ruthven with 
 Mr. Hartford, and in a fortnight he and Miss Ruth- 
 ven were engaged, and Cora says Oh, they have 
 begun to play again, and you must dance this with 
 me." 
 
 " In a minute then," said Gerald. " What does 
 Miss Pine say ? " 
 
 " I don't want to miss any of it," said Miss Nor- 
 folk, rising to her feet. " Come along, I '11 tell you 
 as we dance." 
 
 He allowed himself to be persuaded, and joined 
 the stream that flowed into the ball-room. There 
 Miss Norfolk made him dance. She was light her- 
 self and supple, and presently Gerald was dancing 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 223 
 
 for his own pleasure. His hostess saw him, and 
 also that two of her own girls were standing by 
 the door, and she made her comments freely. 
 
 "She sat out the last dance with him," said 
 Evelyn, whose name was on his shirt-cuff against 
 a number which he had never claimed. 
 
 " And she asked him to dance this," said her 
 step-sister. " I heard her." 
 
 "When he asks me for another," said Evelyn 
 significantly, " I shall refuse it." 
 
 " But he won't ask you," said the step-sister. 
 
 "And Miss Pine says ?" said Gerald when 
 the dance was over, continuing the conversation 
 where it had left off, and as if there had been no 
 interval to break it. 
 
 "Says," says Miss Norfolk, "that she be- 
 lieves that Mrs. Ruthven may I use Cora's own 
 words ? " 
 
 Gerald nodded. 
 
 " Well, has bullied her daughter into it." 
 
 There was silence. Gerald said something under 
 his breath. 
 
 "Anything more?" said Gerald at last. 
 
 "Yes, a little. But why does all this interest 
 you?" 
 
 " The Ruthvens are friends of mine." 
 
224 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 " Perhaps I ought n't to have told you ! " 
 
 Gerald shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Why does Miss Pine think that force was 
 brought to bear upon Miss Ruthven ? " 
 
 " Because Miss Ruthven does n't seem happy." 
 
 Gerald made some sound. It was scarcely an 
 exclamation. Miss Norfolk looked at him again. 
 An expression of question and wonder was upon 
 her own face. It was slowly forming itself to one 
 of surprised conviction. 
 
 " Cora Pine thinks Miss Ruthven is fretting 
 for some one else. Girls do fret sometimes. She 
 thought at first that she had had some disappoint- 
 ment. She says that she thought that when Miss 
 Ruthven arrived, but now she thinks that it is her 
 brother that she cares for. But I think " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Oh, Cora Pine has let her own bias blunt her 
 judgment. She is inordinately fond of this brother." 
 
 " You don't think it likely ? " 
 
 "Think what likely?" 
 
 " That Miss Ruthven cares for him ? " 
 
 " I certainly should n't take it on the authority of 
 Cora Pine. You see she gives herself away when 
 she says that she thinks Miss Ruthven arrived at 
 Eccram unhappy." 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 225 
 
 Gerald leant his head on his hand, and Miss 
 Norfolk looked at him steadily, now that he did 
 not see her, but she had only a partial view of his 
 face. His attitude, however, seemed to her elo- 
 quent. She remembered afterwards that the pink 
 of his hunt-coat was reflected in a rosy glow 
 upon his cheek, and that his feet his legs were 
 crossed, and the elbow of the arm that supported 
 his head rested upon his knee were long and 
 slender. 
 
 "If one could only know the truth,'* he said. 
 He was talking as much to himself as to her. 
 
 " I could easily find it out," said Miss Norfolk. 
 
 He raised his head. 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " By going to Eccram." 
 
 "Eccram?" 
 
 " To the Vicarage, I mean, not the Hall. Cora 
 Pine asks me." 
 
 "Shall you go?" 
 
 " I don't know. I 'm asked to fix my own time." 
 
 "Miss Norfolk." 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Ventnor." 
 
 "I 'm going to ask you to do something for me, 
 and I 'm going to tell you what I have n't told to 
 a living soul." 
 
226 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Miss Norfolk trembled a little, and was silent 
 and waited. 
 
 " Will you go to Eccram ? Will you find out 
 what is going on there ? You ' ve been frank enough 
 with me to-night, and I '11 be equally frank. I 
 laugh at me if you like yes, Araby Ruthven. . . . 
 Oh, I am hard hit, I tell you, when I can talk of it 
 like this. But I can't lose her. I can't, and you can 
 help me. Can't you ? Won't you ? If she is engaged 
 to Hartford of her own free will, well and good. 
 I am human, and I shan't die, and in time I dare 
 say I shall get over it ; but if she is n't she just 
 shan't be made to marry him. Not that he is n't a 
 good chap enough, but she shan't be forced into 
 anything." 
 
 " When did it happen ? " said Miss Norfolk, as 
 soon as she could get in a word. " It never oc- 
 curred to me that you went to Primate Street 
 forgive me to see Miss Ruthven." 
 
 Gerald smiled. 
 
 "I didn't," he said. "You're perfectly right. 
 How can I say when it happened? The minute 
 she was gone, I think. No just before that. You 
 remember the night we went to the play. Do you 
 remember anything that happened that night?" 
 
 Miss Norfolk shook her head. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 227 
 
 " Only that you disappeared for most of an act, 
 and that Mrs. Ruthven did n't like it." 
 
 "Do you know where I went? To put Araby 
 into a cab after her concert." 
 
 Miss Norfolk gave a little exclamation. 
 
 " I believe it was then," he said. " I could n't 
 bear to think of her in Piccadilly, and I was just in 
 time. I believe I had scarcely thought of her till 
 that moment, and since well, I ' ve never stopped 
 thinking of her. It was sudden, if you like, but 
 it was gradual too, for all the time the beauty of 
 her nature must have been making its impression 
 on me. I can't explain." 
 
 But Miss Norfolk now was not listening. She 
 interrupted him just to satisfy herself that Araby 's 
 mother had not been told, and learned incidentally 
 from his reluctance to speak of it that Araby had 
 urged silence. She knew enough then to make 
 everything plain to her. Was it not the next day 
 no, the next day but one that Araby, like a 
 stone from a catapult, had been shot off to Eccram ? 
 It was not many minutes before Miss Norfolk 
 knew the exact nature of the complexion which 
 Mrs. Ruthven had put upon Gerald's action. Mrs. 
 Ruthven had said that she had sent him herself ! 
 
 " I '11 go to Eccram from here. I '11 write to 
 
228 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Cora Pine to-night. There'll be time for an an- 
 swer." 
 
 Gerald's hand held hers for a moment. 
 
 " It 's good of you." 
 
 But she only said in her every-day tone that, as 
 he must see, there were Others. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 Miss NORFOLK had in no way misrepresented the 
 facts of the case to Gerald in telling him that she 
 had given Dennis Leigh to Anne. It was indeed a 
 case of rebound, but only the decisiveness of Miss 
 Norfolk's answer had given the impetus which 
 sent him, as she expressed it, from the woman who 
 had refused him to the nearest woman he liked. 
 Miss Norfolk, despite her calculating way of talk- 
 ing and her almost brutal frankness in dissecting 
 her own motives ; despite her cold-blooded discus- 
 sion of marriage as a means ; despite, in fact, the 
 Miss Norfolk which she chose to show to the 
 world, was full of generous impulses, and her feel- 
 ings were far deeper than she had admitted even 
 to Gerald. She had spoken of Dennis Leigh lightly 
 enough, for although she had declared herself fond 
 of him, she had done it in such a way as to convey 
 a very inadequate impression of the value of her 
 affections. 
 
 She was guided, however, more by her head 
 than her heart, and she preferred rather to suffer 
 for the wisdom that told her that she could not 
 
230 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 endure poverty even with love, than to accept tran- 
 sient happiness at the cost of lasting discomfort. 
 She knew herself well enough to be fully conscious 
 that she was not made for economy. There were 
 of course many little economies which had to be 
 practised in Sloane Street ; and these she practised 
 with cheerfulness, always hating them, but regard- 
 ing them as a passing evil from which the good 
 marriage which she was determined to make would 
 open a way of escape. So it was with deliberation 
 that she was enduring at this time the very real 
 unhappiness of having dismissed her lover. 
 
 It was for the sake of Anne that the dismissal 
 was given with the altruistic lie that gave it its air 
 of finality. But for the sister whose tender secret 
 had been disclosed to her, first by the irrepressible 
 Netty, and then by a hundred little observations of 
 her own, Miss Norfolk might well have kept Leigh 
 dangling on. If she had done this she would, as it 
 turned out, have been able to follow the dictates of 
 heart and head which would for once have joined 
 in a common cause. That she did not know this at 
 the time may have discounted any merit that her 
 action might be said to have possessed, since she 
 only gave away what she felt that she could not 
 keep ; but it must be remembered that she could, 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 231 
 
 if she had wished it, have refused her lover in 
 such a way as to have kept him her lover still, 
 or indeed, having refused him, have recalled him 
 when his good fortune came to him. She claimed 
 then no more than she deserved. But in saying 
 that she thought he was happy, she spoke rather 
 from her wish and her hope than her definite 
 knowledge. 
 
 Dennis coming straight from Harry, and smart- 
 ing actively under the pain of his rejection, had 
 met Anne in Sloane Street. She was carrying a 
 small canvas and some brushes. He was going to 
 pass her by, but something in his face arrested her 
 attention, and she put out her hand. 
 
 " Oh, what is the matter?" she said, apprehen- 
 sively. 
 
 He was suffering acutely, and almost before he 
 was aware of his intention, he had given voice 
 to his woe. 
 
 Anne listened to him with tears in her eyes. 
 
 " I don't believe it," she said at last, and trem- 
 bling. " I don't believe she does n't care for you. 
 She is deceiving herself." 
 
 Dennis shook his head. 
 
 Anne had turned about, and she walked down 
 with him as far as Sloane Square. 
 
232 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 " I am sorry," she said. " Oh, I am sorry." 
 He held her hand gratefully when she said good- 
 bye, and looked long into her eyes. He saw for the 
 first time a likeness in her to her sister. It was the 
 merest family likeness. Netty and Ethel had it far 
 more strongly, and one could trace it even in the 
 twins. But he saw it in Anne then, and, taken in 
 conjunction with her sympathy, it brought about 
 certain results. 
 
 Abbot was away at this time. He had scraped 
 together sufficient money to enable him to pay a 
 long-deferred visit to some relations in the North, 
 and Dennis was alone. He had just then a dire 
 need of some one to whom he could talk of him- 
 self and his unhappiness. This was in itself a sign 
 that he was not in his normal condition. He tried 
 to write, and he could not. His London letters 
 cost him horrible trouble. He put them off till the 
 last moment, and wrote them under the stress of 
 dire urgency. He could not afford to risk the con- 
 sequences of having them late. He forced them 
 from a barren pen. He posted them with the pleas- 
 ing knowledge that they] were sufficiently dull 
 and unreadable to jeopardize his commission, even 
 though they were punctual. After all, what mat- 
 ter ? He had nothing to work for. Of what conse- 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 233 
 
 quence was it whether he struggled to live or not ? 
 Then he thought of Anne. 
 
 Some men came in to smoke. He sat silent 
 amongst them, and they had to remind him of hos- 
 pitable duties in connection with the whisky-bottle 
 and soda-water. One of his guests made up the 
 fire for him. It was falling low, and he had not 
 remarked it. When twelve struck he said some- 
 thing which had been on his tongue for an hour. 
 
 " I 'm very sorry. I don't know what you '11 all 
 think of me. I must get you fellows to go. I 'm 
 out of sorts to-night." 
 
 There was a chorus of sympathy. 
 
 " Poor old chap. Dear old Leigh, why did n't 
 you tell us?" 
 
 There was a getting up, and a looking for 
 hats. 
 
 " Oh, it is nothing," said Dennis. " Come another 
 night, like good men. I 'm not myself to-night." 
 
 " Anything one could do for you ? " 
 
 "Nothing, thanks. Only forgive me for being 
 such bad company. Good-night. Have some more 
 whisky before you go. Won't you ? I feel an 
 awful boor for sending you away." 
 
 The men there were four of them shook 
 his hand warmly, protesting that it was not a mat- 
 
234 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 ter for apology, and they quite understood. When 
 they had taken their departure he wondered what 
 they said outside, and regretted that he had not 
 borne with them for another hour. They had not 
 been gone five minutes when there was a knock 
 at his door. He opened it and saw one of them 
 had returned. 
 
 "Saltash?" 
 
 " Yes. I won't keep you a minute. No, I won't 
 come in. Dennis, tell me something." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Is it money? Forgive me. If fifty pounds 
 would be any good " 
 
 " No, it is n't money. My dear George 1 " 
 
 Leigh took his hand and wrung it. 
 
 "You are sure?" 
 
 " Quite sure. But how am I to thank you? " 
 
 " Well, that 's all. No, I won't come in. Good- 
 bye, Dennis. I wish you well through it, whatever 
 it is. If I don't come to look you up, it will be 
 because I am out of town. Good-night, old boy." 
 
 He ran downstairs, and Leigh shut the door. 
 He went to the fireplace, and stood there thinking 
 how full of kindness the world was still. Thence 
 he thought of Anne. Then he wished to talk to 
 Anne he wished somehow to tell her of the good- 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 235 
 
 ness of his friend Saltash. Above all, he wished to 
 see her because she reminded him of Harry. 
 
 So it came that Dennis Leigh met Anne Nor- 
 folk at the door of the studio on the following day, 
 and walked back with her to Sloane Street. Anne 
 timidly approached Harriet that night. 
 
 " Harry." 
 
 "Well, sister Anne?" 
 
 " I want to say something to you." 
 
 " Say on, sister Anne." 
 
 Then Anne, emboldened, and fighting 1 for one 
 who was dearer to her than all else the world 
 contained, pleaded the cause of Dennis. 
 
 " It 's no good," said Miss Norfolk, when she 
 had heard her sister to an end. " I 've given him 
 an answer. I have n't much in the way of a mind, 
 sister Anne, as minds go, but when I make it up 
 I abide by it." 
 
 " Oh, Harry, he is so unhappy. I would n't 
 say anything, but I don't think you are happy 
 either " 
 
 "Anne!" 
 
 " Oh, I must say it, Harry. I can't help think- 
 ing that you do care for him. Don't you ? Don't 
 you, Harry? Why won't you be fair to your- 
 self?" 
 
236 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 "I don't care for anybody," said Miss Norfolk. 
 But she said it in a voice that somehow left her 
 sister unconvinced. 
 
 " Are you sure you don't care for him ? Could n't 
 you get to care for him ? " 
 
 " I don't think I could ever get to care for 
 him " 
 
 Anne could not know that inwardly the sentence 
 was not left unfinished. Nor could she know that 
 when she left the room her sister buried her face 
 in the pillows on her bed. 
 
 So Leigh continued to meet Anne at the studio 
 door, and not many days passed before he offered 
 to her the pieces of his shattered heart. 
 
 "Of course you must say yes/' said Miss 
 Norfolk, decidedly. 
 
 Anne was deceived, and she dwelt in the Seventh 
 Heaven. 
 
 When there came the change in the prospects of 
 Dennis, Harry went away to stay in country 
 houses. Netty wrote her accounts of the happiness 
 of Anne. 
 
 "We are so much in love," ran one of these 
 letters, "that Art, even Art, plays second fiddle. 
 We meant to have painted a big picture for the 
 Academy, but I don't think that we shall now. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 237 
 
 We hear from Dennis most days, though we see 
 him every day, and we write to him constantly. 
 We wear odder hats than ever, but we have grown 
 very pretty. We are very happy, and the house 
 for such as are not in love is rather dull." 
 
 All of which but little expresses the joy of Anne. 
 She was another girl. Every day as it broke was a 
 new ecstasy. She marvelled that it should be to 
 her that this great good had come. Sometimes she 
 had a misgiving that the Fates must have erred in 
 showering it upon her, and that sooner or later 
 they would find out that after all she was only 
 Anne, and they would take it away from her. But 
 generally her heart was too light for misgivings 
 or presentiments. 
 
 But the change in the fortunes of Dennis Leigh, 
 which for Anne added nothing to his attraction, 
 and only seemed good in so far as it benefitted 
 him and made the possibility of marriage less re- 
 mote, unsettled him in spite of himself. It made 
 him think of Harry once more, and it made him 
 speculate as to what her answer might have been 
 if his uncle's young wife had eloped just a few 
 weeks sooner. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 MRS. RUTH YEN had never accomplished anything 
 with less difficulty than the engagement of Hart- 
 ford " to Araby. There was a certain analogy be- 
 tween the case of these two and that of Dennis 
 Leigh and Anne Norfolk. Dennis was in love with 
 Harry, who refused him, and so passed on to Anne. 
 Hartford was under the spell of Mrs. Ruthven. 
 Araby was at hand. 
 
 Araby made little resistance. Nothing, it must 
 be remembered, had passed between her and 
 Gerald. Araby, struggling at this time to appraise 
 things justly, realized this to her own young de- 
 spair. She had been foolish enough to give her 
 whole heart to one who had not asked for it. That, 
 speaking roughly, was her own doing. Almost un- 
 consciously the apparently trifling falsehood which 
 her mother had told her, even though Araby, sus- 
 pecting it to be a falsehood, imagined that she was 
 placing no reliance upon it, served to strengthen 
 her conviction that Gerald meant nothing by even 
 such scant attention as he had shown her. Why 
 should he mean anything? She was very unhappy. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 239 
 
 She knew that life with her mother was impossible. 
 She was lonely. She looked on into the future with 
 growing dread. It seemed to her that Gerald had 
 only come into her life to disquiet it further. She 
 tried to put him from her. He had only caused her 
 pain. Let her forget him ; but she could not harden 
 her heart against him. 
 
 It was when the knowledge that she could not 
 continue to bear the relations that existed between 
 her and her mother was most clear to her, that 
 Hartford's offer pointed to a way of escape. She 
 saw with alarm that it was in the light of a way of 
 escape that she regarded it. 
 
 The blue weather that succeeded the snow she 
 associated afterwards with a period of perplexity 
 such as had never before fallen to her. She gave 
 no decided answer at once. She asked for two 
 days' grace, and she employed them in trying to 
 think out her position. She had no one to consult 
 She shrank with a chivalrous loyalty to her mother 
 from confiding in the Miss Woottons. She had 
 never told them of her unhappiness. To ask their 
 advice in this crisis would have been to confess to 
 what she had borne in the last six months, and she 
 had the strongest aversion to admitting the facts 
 which she had hitherto concealed. She took long 
 
240 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 walks, and did battle with herself. Gaunt elms bore 
 witness to her suffering and once a human being. 
 This was Cora Pine. Miss Pine had taken a rooted 
 dislike to Mrs. Ruthven. It had chanced on the 
 next day after Mrs. Ruthven's arrival at Eccram 
 that, in Eccram church, Miss Pine gathered some- 
 thing of the nature, and its significance, of Mrs. 
 Ruthven's manner to her daughter. Miss Pine was 
 in the organ-loft, and Mrs. Ruthven, down below 
 and unconscious of her presence, snubbed Araby, 
 who was showing her the windows. What was said 
 does not concern us. It was only a few stinging 
 words such as Araby had often heard before, but 
 Cora Pine flushed crimson in the darkness of the 
 loft, and there was after that one person in Eccram 
 who did not like Mrs. Ruthven. 
 
 It was ten days later, and on the second of the 
 two days which Araby had asked for the consider- 
 ation of the proposal of Hartford, that Miss Pine 
 had a further glimpse of her unhappiness. Araby 
 was walking back from Long Eccram woods, whither 
 ;' her unrest had taken her. The day was fine. A 
 warm sunlight that was the first promise of spring 
 lit up the morning. The brown hedgerows were 
 alive with birds that twittered. A chaffinch for some 
 two hundred yards preceded Araby as she walked, 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 241 
 
 darting from its twig as she approached it to an- 
 other at a short distance farther on. There had 
 been rain. The grass in the fields was in patches 
 green, to the limit of bright green, and against it 
 the red of grazing cattle stood out with insistence. 
 A horse looked over a gate. Araby paused abruptly 
 to pat his head. Some black pigs in another field 
 gazed inquisitively at the lonely girl as she passed 
 them. They grunted and scampered away. The 
 sky was flecked with white clouds which were daz- 
 zling in the sunlight. It was a day for rejoicing. 
 Nature seemed to have thrown off the shackles of 
 winter, and to be revelling in the delight of a fore- 
 taste of the days that were to come. 
 
 Araby left the road to cross the fields. Suddenly 
 the very beauty and exuberance of the day over- 
 came her. She felt herself to be outside all these 
 glad things that were singing, and she sat down 
 upon a felled tree and cried. She did not see nor 
 care that the green of the bark stained her serge 
 dress. Nothing mattered. Gerald was not for her, 
 and it was of very little importance for whom she 
 herself was destined. A couple of colts, all legs and 
 slenderness, ventured near to her, and then took 
 alarm at their own temerity, and cantered away 
 immaturely. She did not heed them. This was the 
 
242 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 final struggle ; when it was over she would dry her 
 eyes. 
 
 She rose after a time. She saw then the damp 
 green powder that clung to the rough nap on her 
 skirt, and she brushed away as much of it as she 
 could so dislodge, and went on her way. Her lips 
 no longer trembled, but no one who saw her face, 
 white and pink, could have doubted that she had 
 been crying. 
 
 It was thus that she met Cora Pine. Miss Pine 
 was nothing if not parochial, and she was on her 
 rounds with the parish magazine. Many a penny 
 which might have procured such delights as the 
 "Family Herald" or the "London Journal" was 
 produced reluctantly from a mug on a cottage 
 shelf to buy this periodical, the cover of which was 
 under the editorship of the Vicar's daughter. 
 
 " Such a busy morning," she said, energetically. 
 "I've been all round the Green every house ex- 
 cept the Hares', where the children have got 
 measles and down the London road as far as the 
 forge, and then across to the Jenkins', and up to 
 the Hill Farm, where I went for nothing, because 
 Mrs. Attley would n't take a copy says she can't 
 spare the penny from the housekeeping; fancy, 
 when they were having pork for dinner I saw it 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 243 
 
 on the kitchen table with apple-sauce too ! And 
 now I have to go to four houses in Long Eccram. 
 You don't do any parish work now? " 
 
 "You see I am a visitor," said Araby. 
 
 " You 've been crying," said Miss Pine, with sud- 
 denness and no tact. 
 
 Araby coloured deeply. Miss Pine tried to re- 
 trieve her unfortunate speech and blundered fur- 
 ther. She said something about her brother Her- 
 bert, who had gone away. 
 
 "You see he has only his profession," she said. 
 
 It was then two crimson girls who stood in the 
 field. They felt that the subject must be changed 
 before they went on their several ways. Araby had 
 a nervous fear that Cora would kiss her. 
 
 "Isn't it ... doesn't the sun . . ." began 
 Araby, desperately. She paused and recovered her- 
 self. " I mean, one appreciates a day like this after 
 the long winter, does n't one? " 
 
 " It cheers one up," said Miss Pine, without any 
 marked self-possession. "The trees will soon be 
 budding, won't they ? There was a crocus out in 
 our garden this morning at least something was 
 out, I forget what, but perhaps it was n't a crocus. 
 I must be getting on. If Long Eccram was n't so 
 far, I 'd ask you to turn about and walk with me. 
 
244 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 I 'm going to the Greens' and the Hebbleth waites' 
 and old Appleby's " 
 
 " I 'm going home to lunch," said Araby. 
 
 " I am so annoyed at Mrs. Attley's giving up the 
 Magazine and with pork for dinner," said Miss 
 Pine. " Don't you find that little things quite put 
 you out sometimes ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Araby, " little things put me out." 
 
 " And they might easily have done without 
 apple-sauce, and spared the penny for the Mag- 
 azine. I don't know that it was the pork that 
 seemed to me so extravagant as the apple-sauce. 
 Polly Attley, the little lame one, you know, was 
 peeling them the apples, I mean. And I have a 
 Magazine left on my hands ; it is too bad 1 " 
 
 " Let me take it from you." 
 
 " But the Miss Woottons have had theirs. I al- 
 ways send them to the big houses first. I am afraid 
 the ones for the parish are very late this month. 
 Still, if you will have one it will put my accounts 
 right. You see I enter them in the book before 
 taking them round." 
 
 The girls parted. 
 
 Miss Pine had drawn many conclusions. 
 
 Araby walked fast, and with flushed cheeks. 
 
 " She thinks I'm in love with her brother," she 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 245 
 
 said to herself. " I ! with Herbert Pine ! She apol- 
 ogized as it were for his going away ! Oh ! Oh ! 
 Oh ! I 'm so angry with her. I shall never be able 
 to like her again. It was dreadful. It was dreadful. 
 Oh . . Gerald ! " 
 
 She burst into tears again. Her pride, which had 
 called these forth, presently dried them. A brook 
 with soft gurglings ran through the meadow. It 
 was shallow and clear and clean. Araby knelt down 
 beside it on a flat dry stone, and dipped her hand- 
 kerchief into the water. Then she washed her face 
 and dried it as best she could upon the damp 
 cambric, which, naturally, no amount of wringing 
 would make quite dry. After that she felt better. 
 
 She took Cora Pine's Magazine and stuck it in 
 a hedge. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 WHETHER the indignation that resulted from her 
 meeting with Cora Pine hastened her decision or 
 not, Araby accepted Hartford that afternoon. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven professed herself overjoyed, and 
 kissed her daughter, and every one else. 
 
 The Miss Woottons, who had in the beginning 
 regarded the arrival of the young man with as 
 much trepidation as if some unfamiliar animal, of 
 whose probable habits they were absolutely ignor- 
 ant, proposed to make its abode with them, had, as 
 their gaunt timidity wore off, taken a great fancy to 
 Hartford. He annoyed them in nothing. He for- 
 bore to smoke in the dining-room after dinner, and 
 made himself quite happy in a little room off the 
 library, which was turned into a smoking-room on 
 his account, as soon as it was understood by the 
 Miss Woottons that to smoke was one of the habits 
 of his kind. Hither Mrs. Ruthven, sometimes bring- 
 ing Araby, sometimes alone, accompanied him at 
 night. Whisky and soda-water (from the grocer's 
 in Eccram village) made their appearance there, 
 when the Miss Woottons had further gathered that 
 
\TIME AND THE WOMAN 247 
 
 these came under the head of the natural food, or 
 rather, the natural drink of the male. 
 
 Before his arrival there had been many do- 
 mestic discussions as to his treatment. The vener- 
 able Abigail, with the rabbit's face, had wondered 
 whether she ought to go into his room in the morn- 
 ing to place his bath. Miss Wootton had thought 
 that the water should be left at the door a can 
 of cold water for the bath, and a jug of hot water 
 for shaving. The butler said, 
 
 " Leave it to me, 'm. The young gentleman is my 
 affair. The manservant waits on the gentlemen, 
 and the maidservants on the ladies. Leave it to 
 me, 'm. It '11 be all right." 
 
 "And his clothes," said Miss Wootton; "ought 
 n't they to be brushed and folded? " 
 
 " And laid out on a chair," said the butler, brid- 
 ling with pride at a knowledge of his duties : "coat 
 and vest first, then trousers, if you'll excuse me 
 naming them, shirt over the back, socks inside out 
 ready for wear, and collar and tie on the top. 
 Boots, shoes, gaiters, and cetera under." 
 
 Things settled themselves when Hartford and 
 Mrs. Ruthven arrived. The Miss Woottons found 
 him less formidable than they had expected. In a 
 week his manners (his best) charmed them. He 
 
248 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 held their wool for them. He volunteered to go 
 their small errands. He talked to them, and ap- 
 peared interested in their narrow lives. Moreover, 
 he had brought a top hat in which to go to church 
 on Sundays. This pleased them, for Herbert Pine 
 since his emancipation had evoked unfavourable 
 comment at the Hall by appearing in church in 
 what Miss Wootton called his every-day clothes. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven had possibly instructed Hartford 
 upon such points as promised scope for pleasing the 
 old ladies. But Hartford was naturally domestic. 
 He liked the good Miss Woottons for themselves, 
 though much connected with their old-maiden lives 
 amused him, and he could laugh with Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven when she said of the worsted-work drawing- 
 room that the word " Chenille," though she could 
 neither explain nor justify it, somehow expressed 
 the period of the decorations. The Chenille Age 
 became a catch-word between them. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven rode, and she drove, and she 
 walked at this time to fill the hours and employ her 
 thoughts. She was not in a happy frame of mind, 
 but she had control of herself. She had the satis- 
 faction of knowing that by devoting herself to 
 Corbet's aunts she had overcome any prejudice 
 that might have existed at one time in their minds 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 249 
 
 against her, and that they believed in her, and even 
 liked her. She knew Araby well enough to count 
 upon her loyalty. She received Araby 's decision 
 with sincere thankfulness. 
 
 Hartford was an orphan. He came of a good 
 family. He had money. And his only near rela- 
 tions were his two sisters who lived with a paid 
 chaperon in the small place that belonged to him 
 in Yorkshire. There was no one to interfere with 
 anything that he (or Mrs. Ruthven) might choose 
 to arrange. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven protested to herself that she was 
 not doing so badly for Araby. The marriage was, if 
 not brilliant, eminently desirable. Araby ought to 
 be grateful to her. 
 
 The lady did protest too much, indeed. Still it 
 was something that where Araby was concerned 
 she should have tried to justify herself at all, or 
 even for a while, and she spent considerable time 
 in trying to convince herself that the contemplated 
 marriage had nothing to do with Gerald, nor with 
 anything that she might have said of him. Why 
 should she wish Araby married ? 
 
 Araby for her part felt easier in her mind when 
 she had given her answer. She looked upon it 
 as binding, final, irrevocable. She set herself to 
 
250 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 consider the man with whom she had undertaken 
 to pass her life. If it be possible to like a person as 
 to whose next speech or action you feel no partic- 
 ular curiosity, Araby thought she could like Hart- 
 ford. There was at least, she thought, nothing in 
 him to disapprove. He was unaffected and a gentle- 
 man. She gathered generally from what she had 
 seen of him that he was easily led, and that his 
 opinions took their colour to a certain extent from 
 those of his neighbours of the moment ; also that 
 he was good-natured and frank. She did not know 
 his susceptibility, nor the love-affairs with which 
 he troubled an otherwise even life. If she had 
 known this side of his character he might perhaps 
 have interested her more. There was a lifetime 
 before her in which to learn. 
 
 Four letters were written to Corbet Ruthven 
 that night. His wife wrote, announcing with dis- 
 creet and measured elation the conquest which 
 Araby had made. She described Lewis Hartford 
 and his position. Hartford wrote, asking definitely 
 for the hand of Araby, and stating such settlements 
 as he was prepared to make. Araby wrote at her 
 mother's suggestion, endorsing the request for his 
 consent. She thought herself that this was the first 
 constrained letter which she had ever written to 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 251 
 
 her father, but subsequent events showed that its 
 constraint had not struck him. Miss Wootton wrote 
 to say how warmly both she and her sister ap- 
 proved their niece's choice. 
 
 Then Mrs. Ruthven surprised every one by 
 anticipating her husband's consent, and making 
 certain arrangements for her daughter's trous- 
 seau. 
 
 Olympe startled Araby by the way in which she 
 took the announcement of the engagement. 
 
 " To Monsieur ' Arfor' ! " she said. " To Monsieur 
 'Arfor' ! Pas possible." 
 
 "Why not, Olympe?" 
 
 " So sudden, mademoiselle ! So sudden ! So 
 young, you, to marry ! And to Monsieur 'Arfor' ! 
 I lose my breath." 
 
 Olympe thought a good deal in the days that 
 followed. She of all concerned was perhaps the 
 one person who guessed something approaching 
 to the truth of the case. She was in a state of no 
 little perplexity. She loved Araby, and in her way 
 she was devoted to her mistress also. She saw that 
 their interests were in conflict. Like Mrs. Sandon, 
 she was alarmed for both. She wondered whether 
 she ought to keep to herself the incident of the 
 broken frame, and that which she thought she had 
 
252 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 discovered from Gerald's manner. She asked her- 
 self whether it was sentiment merely that led her 
 to suppose that Araby had given her heart to him, 
 and he his to her. If indeed it was not her own 
 love of romance and the conviction was strong 
 upon her that she was right what ought she to 
 do ? In the absence of Gerald, that was being ar- 
 ranged which must for ever part him from Araby. 
 In her uncertainty she said nothing to Araby, and 
 she gave to Gerald the hint of which we know. 
 
 Araby herself puzzled Olympe. She appeared to 
 settle down almost complacently into her engage- 
 ment to Hartford. She scarcely even looked un- 
 happy. 
 
 Hartford, finding at length an object upon which 
 to expend his affections legitimately, transferred a 
 certain amount of his devotion from Mrs. Ruthven 
 to Araby. He left Eccram for a few days and paid 
 a visit to his sisters at home. Then he spent a 
 couple of days in London, saw his solicitors, and 
 bought Araby some presents and a ring. Thus 
 laden he returned to Eccram. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven asked him whom he had seen in 
 London. 
 
 " Not a soul." 
 
 "Not at your club?" 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 253 
 
 "Some men I know, of course. No one par- 
 ticular." 
 
 "Not Mr. Ventnor?" 
 
 " I asked about him. He is still away." 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven looked relieved. She had certain 
 plans. 
 
 Hartford asked for Araby, who had not known 
 the exact time he had settled for his return. 
 
 "You will find her at the church," said Miss 
 Wootton. " She has gone there to practise the 
 organ." 
 
 Hartford found her in the loft. She was playing 
 Chopin's " Funeral March " with feeling and some 
 inaccuracy. He stole up the creaking stairs on tip- 
 toe. She did not divine his presence till he had 
 crept up behind her and put his hands over her 
 eyes. She gave a little cry, and the pedals struck 
 a false chord. The discord swelled through the 
 empty church. He sat down beside her on the 
 seat. 
 
 " You frightened me," she said, " you startled 
 me. Why didn't you speak? you might have 
 warned me ! " 
 
 He tried to take her hand. Perhaps the music 
 had unnerved her. She had been playing perhaps 
 to the burial of her thoughts of Gerald. For what- 
 
254^ TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 "V. 
 
 ever reason, she drew away her hands and burst 
 into tears. 
 
 The old man who blew the organ peered round 
 the corner. What he saw gave him the impres- 
 sion that the lady had received her lover coldly. 
 Araby remembered his presence after a moment 
 or two and told him that he need not wait. He 
 shuffled away. Miss Pine met him as he crossed 
 the churchyard. It was perhaps from what he 
 told her garrulously that she formed her conclu- 
 sion^ that Araby had been " bullied ' into her 
 engagement. 
 
 Araby recovered herself after a minute or two 
 and was deeply contrite. 
 
 " I was startled, Lewis. You must forgive me. 
 I thought I was alone." 
 
 He accepted her explanation without question. 
 
 "Tell me about yourself," she said, gently. 
 " What have you done since you went away ? " 
 
 " Have you missed me a little ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Araby. 
 
 " I have a letter for you from my sisters," said 
 Hartford. " They 're very glad. Millicent made me 
 describe you a dozen times " 
 
 "A red-haired girl," said Araby, smiling. "I 
 don't sound well in description." 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 255 
 
 "Yes, a red-haired girl," said Hartford. "Yet 
 I think Millicent knows that you are beautiful. 
 I said you were like that picture in the National 
 Gallery by what Vhis-name." 
 
 " Oh, don't say that," said Araby, with a sudden 
 gesture. It had been said once before by someone 
 else. 
 
 "And this is your sisters' letter to me?" 
 
 He put an envelope into her hand. 
 
 " Shall I read it now ? " 
 
 He nodded, and watched her as she read. The 
 sun was setting, and the light was further stained 
 as it passed through the coloured windows. The 
 brown oak of the seats in the nave caught tinges 
 of crimson and green and blue. A brass plate in 
 the wall shone. The empty pulpit looked gloomy 
 in a darker spot. Here and there the whiteness of 
 a marble tablet made itself conspicuous. A branch 
 tapped a window with insistence. Hartford looked 
 from Araby to a figure, in the glass, of the mother 
 of Christ and of sorrows. Here, too, he saw a 
 likeness. It vanished when Araby looked up and 
 smiled. 
 
 " What a kind letter ! How good of your sisters ! 
 How nice of them to write to me! I shall like 
 them. They write to me as if they knew me. I 
 
256 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 wish I could deserve all they say. Oh, I wish I 
 could. But I '11 try. I '11 spend my life trying." 
 
 Hartford, susceptible to every influence of the 
 moment, drew Araby closer to him. At this mo- 
 ment, at least, it was Araby who was dear to him. 
 
 She disengaged herself from the arm he had 
 thrown round her and faced him. 
 
 " I want to ask you something." 
 
 Like Herod he wished to grant any request she 
 might make, before even knowing its import. 
 
 " But it is n't anything I want you to give me or 
 to allow me. I want to know, Lewis, solemnly, 
 whether you want to marry me? Oh, don't pro- 
 test. Wait one moment and let me speak. I want 
 to know whether you wish it of your own free will, 
 for it came suddenly. We 'd seen so little of each 
 other, though we had met often enough before 
 you came here ; and, I told you myself that I 
 how shall I put it ? had n't had time to know 
 whether I could learn to to love you." 
 
 For answer he slipped the ring he had bought 
 on to her finger. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 IT surprised Araby that her mother should stay 
 on at Eccram. To one of Mrs. Ruthven's tempera- 
 ment the monotony of the life must have been 
 somewhat trying. Mrs. Ruthven, however, when 
 she had set herself a task had always sufficient 
 strength of mind to carry it through. She could 
 put up with present boredom for the sake of what 
 was to come. Hartford had suggested his own 
 departure once or twice, but for some reason or 
 other she would not hear of it. 
 
 " Why should you go, my dear boy ? You have 
 nothing to do. The Miss Woottons are delighted 
 to have you." 
 
 "But they can't want me indefinitely," said 
 Hartford. 
 
 "We're all very happy," said Mrs. Ruthven. 
 " Why break up a happy family ? Araby likes to 
 have you here. I like to have you here." 
 
 He submitted. 
 
 Olympe had a theory that Mrs. Ruthven did not 
 wish to let him out of her sight. She had a further 
 theory that Mrs. Ruthven had her motives for stay- 
 
258 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 ing on herself at Eccram, and that these motives 
 were in some way connected with Mr. Ventnor. 
 This made the Frenchwoman vaguely uneasy, as 
 indeed, at this time, did any thought of Gerald. 
 She saw that by not returning to London her mis- 
 tress was putting herself to considerable expense. 
 The milliner, who was making the trousseau, came 
 backwards and forwards between Bond Street and 
 Eccram. Travelling and time : significant items, as 
 Madame would find ! You would have said the bill 
 would be heavy enough without those. Madame 
 without doubt had her reasons ! And this haste 
 this curious appearance of haste. Olympe was ill- 
 at-ease, but what could she do ? 
 
 So the days passed. 
 
 " I am very happy about Araby's marriage," 
 Mrs. Ruthven said a dozen times to the elderly 
 mistresses of Eccram. "People might think, of 
 course, that she was rather young, but, for myself, 
 I think there 's something beautiful in a girl marry- 
 ing before she 's disillusioned." 
 
 " My only fear," said Miss Wootton, " is that 
 Araby is perhaps a little inexperienced." 
 
 "Oh, but experience comes so quickly," said 
 Mrs. Ruthven. " I did n't know mutton from beef 
 when I married." 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 259 
 
 " I am going to see if I can get * The Complete 
 Housekeeper and Young Wife's Companion ' for 
 her," said Miss Laura. " Araby will find it a great 
 help." 
 
 " I long to hear from Corbet," said Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven ; " I asked him to cable." 
 
 Araby walked and talked with Hartford, but 
 when she was silent she thought of him no things 
 that were unutterable. On the whole she was not 
 discontented. There were moments, however, when 
 the recollection of Gerald filled her with a regret 
 such as used to be described as poignant. She was 
 destined, she supposed, for a life of indifferent hap- 
 piness but oh, the happiness which had been 
 shown to her for a moment and denied her ! She 
 passed a night in tears. Olympe nearly spoke but 
 was silent. What had she, in point of fact, to tell ? 
 And Araby, ignorant that happiness had been nearer 
 to her than she thought, suffered the days to pass. 
 
 Nothing but the refusal of her father's consent 
 could now break off the engagement into which 
 she had voluntarily entered, and she did not think . 
 it likely that he would refuse it. She scarcely even 
 wished it. In a manner she had grown fond of 
 Hartford. It was as well, she told herself, that she 
 should marry him as anyone else. He would be 
 
26o TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 kind to her and considerate. He had an even 
 temper, and his affection for animals argued much 
 that was good. 
 
 After the explanation, such as it was, in the 
 organ-loft in Eccram church, of the conditions upon 
 which the engagement must clearly be understood 
 to rest, Araby made no further allusion to the lim- 
 itations of the feelings which she entertained for 
 him. He appeared to be satisfied with as much of 
 her heart as she was prepared to give him. 
 
 She dreaded just then the mention of Gerald's 
 name and yet she wished for it. It came one day 
 as she was riding with Hartford. They cantered 
 down one of the straight sandy roads leading 
 through Long Eccram woods. The smell of pines 
 hung in the air. There were narrow avenues be- 
 tween the trees, regular as the lines of a Kentish 
 hop-garden. Araby 's colour mounted with the ex- 
 ercise. A soft wind whistled in her ears, and a lock 
 of hair was loosened. She slackened her pace to a 
 trot and then to a walk. Hartford watched her as, 
 with a deft movement of her hands at the back of 
 her head, she twisted in the escaped tress. 
 
 "We'll go up Bracken Hill," she said, " I want 
 to show you the view. On a clear day you can see 
 three counties." 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 261 
 
 They emerged from the road presently on to a 
 rough incline up which they walked their horses. 
 The road was loose and uneven. It wound with 
 dips and risings upwards round the hill. When the 
 summit was reached, Hartford gave an exclamation 
 of pleasure. Araby seemed pleased at his pleasure. 
 
 " How wonderfully one sees/' he said, standing 
 up for a moment in his stirrups. He picked out 
 rather obvious landmarks that he recognized. That 
 was Eccram church, was n't it, down there to the 
 right? 
 
 He looked in the direction whence he had just 
 come with Araby. " How splendid the pine woods 
 look from up here. I believe I can smell them still." 
 
 " I can," said Araby, warming. "I should like to 
 live in a pine forest. I should like to be a charcoal- 
 burner in a German story would that entail 
 living in a pine forest ? Would it be pine ? I don't 
 know, but I like to think so. There would be cones 
 all strewn about. You would kick them as you 
 walked, and you would breathe in the scent of 
 resin. I could believe in elves and pixies in a forest. 
 Do you know the elastic slipperiness of the ground 
 under firs?" 
 
 Hartford with amusement, and watching Araby's 
 sparkling eyes, said that he thought he knew. 
 
262 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 "Well, they would dance, and slide, and jump 
 on it, and then they would sit down to rest on a 
 big crimson fungus. In the autumn in those woods, 
 down there, there are wonderful red and orange 
 mushrooms." 
 
 "I 'm going to marry a child," said Hartford to 
 himself only half understanding. He had not 
 before seen Araby so light-hearted. She left her 
 fairies presently, and went back with a little glad 
 laugh to her charcoal-burning. 
 
 " And there would be nice charred rings when 
 the fires were out," she said, looking at Hartford 
 abstractedly. "And you could roast potatoes in 
 the hot ashes ; you would rake the flaky wood 
 cinders over them. Don't you like roast potatoes ? 
 Don't you always want to stop and buy them in 
 London when you pass a baked-potato can ? " 
 
 "I can't say that I do," said Hartford, smiling; 
 " I remember though once another chap and my- 
 self buying a man's whole stock. It was last year, 
 in the winter one of those biting cold nights 
 and we were taking a short cut back from some 
 theatre, I forget which, and we saw three kids 
 shivering on a door-step. One of 'em begged from 
 us, and we went on, and presently we passed a 
 potato-can, and I 'm blessed if the man I was with 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 263 
 
 did n't go back and fetch those three dirty little 
 kids, and we filled them with baked potatoes. A 
 lot more little hungry devils turned up too, and we 
 pretty well cleared the man out." 
 
 " How nice of your friend to go back ! I like him 
 for it," said Araby. 
 
 She turned her horse's head homewards as she 
 spoke. Hartford followed suit. 
 
 "One of the best," said Hartford, who used that 
 sort of phrase. " But you know him. I was forget- 
 ting. It was Ventnor Gerald Ventnor." 
 
 Araby said nothing. Perhaps her hand tightened 
 on the bridle, for her horse curveted and tossed his 
 head restlessly. Araby laughed no more, nor did 
 she talk again of fairies or charcoal-burners, though 
 the woods, as she rode back through them with 
 Hartford in a light that the afternoon mellowed at 
 every moment, looked more beautiful than ever. 
 The long straight avenues gained in mystery. The 
 breeze stirred the tree-tops and made the noise of 
 a distant sea. Below there was a marked stillness. 
 There were no birds. Shadows were more pro- 
 nounced. A pool which Araby knew to be shallow 
 looked deep and secret. 
 
 "What an evening!" said Hartford, trying, 
 though not very successfully, to conjure back 
 
264 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 Araby's happier mood. " Look at the light on that 
 moss. It makes it look like crumpled gold-leaf." 
 
 Araby assented. He brought his horse nearer to 
 hers. 
 
 " What has come over you, Araby ? " 
 
 She shook her head without speaking. 
 
 "There's something sad in your pine woods 
 after all," he said then, more sincerely. It was as if 
 her depression was communicated to him. " We are 
 the only souls in them. Listen." 
 
 They drew rein. 
 
 " What silence 1 There is nothing stirring but 
 the breeze." She looked at him wonderingly. He 
 leant towards her from his saddle. "Kiss me, 
 Araby." 
 
 But Araby's horse started, 
 
 "Well, no matter," he said, and they rode 
 home. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 HAVING thought of Gerald, Hartford spoke of him 
 once or twice that evening. A gloom fell over 
 Araby as before. One would have said that the 
 subject had little interest for Mrs. Ruthven. She 
 changed it. But it made her restless. The dullness 
 of the evenings at Eccram was becoming almost 
 more than she could bear. 
 
 Every night the two Miss Woottons played a 
 game of chess. It was their invariable wont when 
 they were alone, and though out of civility to their 
 visitors they had abstained from it for a few days, 
 they had resumed their custom with alacrity when 
 Mrs. Ruthven had assured them that it would not 
 in any way seem unmannerly to their guests. 
 
 " We shall be interested in watching the progress 
 of the game," she said. " I am sure, Laura, that you 
 and Clara play scientifically, and that Mr. Hartford 
 and I shall gain much by studying your play." 
 
 The Miss Woottons protested. 
 
 "I am afraid we play far from scientifically," 
 said the elder, " though we play very carefully. We 
 are evenly matched on the whole. You see, play- 
 
266 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 ing so constantly we didn't miss one night last 
 winter " 
 
 " Excepting Sundays," Miss Laura put in hur- 
 riedly. 
 
 " Excepting Sundays, of course," said Miss 
 Wootton. " Playing so constantly, I was going to 
 say, we get to know each other's methods." 
 
 " Pray go on then, Clara, with your games just 
 as you would if we were not here. Mr. Hartford 
 would not for worlds that you should alter your 
 usual way of spending your evenings for him." 
 
 " No please " said Hartford. 
 
 And so the chess-board made its reappearance, 
 and every evening the Miss Woottons sat gauntly 
 opposite each other on high chairs, with their 
 battle-ground between them. 
 
 " It 's better than having to talk to them," said 
 Mrs. Ruthven to herself, " and they get so absorbed 
 in their game that they don't hear a word one says. 
 We score two." 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven and Hartford played something 
 which they called bezique on one evening and 
 beggar-my-neighbour on another. They used coun- 
 ters, and settled up their debts afterwards in the 
 smoking-room. Araby read, or worked, or sang. 
 It was all very innocent and rather dull. Mrs. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 267 
 
 Ruthven contrived, however, that Hartford should 
 not find out that it was dull. 
 
 On the evening which succeeded the ride through 
 Long Eccram woods Araby was not in a mood for 
 singing, and her mother could not settle down 
 to her gamble. Mrs. Ruthven's plain black dress 
 made a rustling as it trailed across the carpet. The 
 sound was the outward expression of the restless- 
 ness that possessed her. The Miss Woottons felt 
 some disturbing influence, and looked up two or 
 three times from the chess-board, at which it was 
 their habit to gaze in contemplative silence. Mrs. 
 Ruthven caught Miss Laura's eye once. Mrs. 
 Ruthven's expression said as clearly and as impa- 
 tiently as possible, " Well?" 
 
 Miss Laura returned hurriedly, and almost as if 
 she had been snubbed, to her study of the chess- 
 men. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven went to a window and drew aside 
 the curtain. She looked out. The grounds were all 
 black at first. By degrees, as her eyes became ac- 
 customed to the darkness, things took shape. An 
 evergreen oak looked full and prosperous in con- 
 trast to the leafless elms. The shrubs outlined the 
 left border of the lawn. A path showed itself pres- 
 ently. Things as she gazed came out in the dark- 
 
268 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 ness as stars come out to an intent student of the 
 skies, where all before has seemed unlightened 
 space. There were no noises in the night. The 
 peacefulness served only as an irritant to Mrs. 
 Ruthven. She wished for India or London. 
 
 " I can't stand it much longer," she said to her- 
 self. " There are limits to what I can endure, and 
 I have nearly reached them. I could break the 
 window at this moment, or startle those old women 
 by upsetting their chess-board, or do anything that 
 would disturb this appalling monotony I I want 
 excitement. This isn't life. I should grow old 
 here in a year. It is stagnation that ages one. Oh, 
 those old women ! They get on my nerves with 
 their mittens, and their wool-work, and their chess, 
 and their doctrines. Araby irritates me because I 
 am injuring her. Lewis irritates me because he can 
 go to her from me. What greater curse can be laid 
 on a woman than to be denied the domestic mind ? " 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven felt that she had struck the key- 
 note of her life. 
 
 "The domestic mind," she said; "yes, that is 
 what I have n't got." 
 
 As a pendant to the thought came another : if 
 she had been born in a lower rank of life with- 
 out money, comforts, the small luxuries . . . ? 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 269 
 
 The conclusion of the game of chess and the 
 simultaneous rising of the Miss Woottons surprised 
 her in a fit of shuddering. 
 
 " My revenge to-morrow night," Miss Laura was 
 saying. 
 
 " You did n't play as well as usual," said Miss 
 Wootton. " You did n't seem able to fix your at- 
 tention. You ought not to have let me take your 
 queen so easily." 
 
 Miss Laura looked in the direction of Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven. Hartford helped Miss Wootton to put away 
 the men, and then, excusing himself on the ground 
 that he had letters to write, he said good-night all 
 round and withdrew to the smoking-room. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven followed him some ten minutes 
 later. She found him with a pipe in his mouth and 
 a pen in his hand. He was an indifferent scribe, 
 and he hailed her entrance with relief as an inter- 
 ruption. 
 
 "Tell me something to put in my letter," he 
 said, like a schoolboy. 
 
 He had directed an envelope during one of the 
 pauses inevitable to the attempt to express, himself 
 upon paper. 
 
 " I never could write a letter," he said. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven saw the address upon the envelope. 
 
270 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 " Mr. Ventnor's not in London," she said ; " Len- 
 nox Gardens won't find him." 
 
 " But his letters will be forwarded." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so." 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven stirred the fire absently. 
 
 "Are you telling him of your engagement?" 
 
 "That's what I 'm writing for. I ought to have 
 let him know sooner." 
 
 "Would you mind waiting till we hear from 
 Araby's father ? " said Mrs. Ruthven after an inter- 
 val, during which she looked at the flames that 
 leapt in the grate, and he nibbled the top of his 
 quill. " If my husband cables as I asked him to, 
 we ought to get his telegram this week. I would 
 rather not have the engagement made public till 
 it has his sanction." 
 
 "You don't expect him to refuse it? " 
 
 " On the contrary, I think he'll be glad to have 
 you for a son-in-law, but I would rather you would 
 wait before announcing the engagement." 
 
 "All right," said Hartford. "Though telling 
 Gerald is n't exactly announcing it." 
 
 " No, it is n't ; still, wait a day or two." 
 
 " Very well," said Hartford. 
 
 He put away his writing materials with some 
 alacrity, and stretched himself luxuriously in an 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 271 
 
 easy-chair by the fire. Mrs. Ruthven left him 
 presently. 
 
 She lay awake half the night, telling herself that 
 her patience was nearly exhausted. The dullness 
 of Eccram had got a grip of her. It was appall- 
 ing. She was wasting the precious hours of her 
 life. Each day that she spent here was a day lost, 
 and days make years. She fretted and chafed. 
 
 She tried to solace herself with the reflection 
 that it was only for a few more weeks. She could 
 not afford to lose them. She was in the case, she 
 told herself, of one who knows the number of his 
 days, and who sees them slipping from him with- 
 out profit. 
 
 She lived for the minute and she was unsatisfied. 
 She had made her choice chosen the world and 
 the things of it, and she was being cheated. She 
 was being cheated. To-day was her day what 
 did she know or care about to-morrow ? It was n't 
 fair. She had staked everything, if there be any- 
 thing to stake, upon the present, and the present 
 was giving her no return. 
 
 The wind rustled in the ivy outside her window. 
 It cried in depressing cadences in the old chim- 
 neys of Eccram. It whispered through the leaves 
 of the evergreen oak. 
 
272 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 "Oh, oh, oh," said Mrs. Ruthven to herself, and 
 changed her position. 
 
 A clock ticked with loud monotony. The steady , 
 sound caught her ear and arrested her attention. 
 As she listened it seemed to her to be increasing 
 in volume. This was the throbbing of the heart 
 of time. Tick, tick, tick, tick . . . louder . . . 
 louder . . . tick, tick ... It was deafening ! She 
 drew the bed-clothes over her ears. She closed her 
 eyes and tried to sleep. She opened them and 
 looked on at the blackness of the room. The dark- 
 ness appeared to move in revolving circles. It was 
 a thing that you could watch. It seemed tangible. 
 There were white spots in it. When she tried to 
 count them they receded or they advanced, and 
 one was absorbed into another. 
 
 So the night wore itself away. Since Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven woke in the morning, it is to be supposed that 
 at some hour she must have fallen asleep, but she 
 had no recollection of the ending of her vigil. It 
 may have ended at the moment of arriving at the 
 decision that, come what would, she would now 
 hurry on Araby's marriage. It would be necessary 
 of course to wait for Corbet's consent, but, as she 
 had said to Hartford, she did not expect him to 
 withhold it. It might come now in the form of a 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 273 
 
 telegram at any moment. All that remained then 
 for her to do was to find or to invent some plausible 
 excuse for wishing the wedding to take place with- 
 out delay upon the receipt of her husband's mes- 
 sage. To one of her infinite resource it would not 
 be difficult to light upon cogent reasons for any 
 consummation which she might desire. She had 
 never yet failed to attain an end for lack of con- 
 vincing argument in its favour. Possibly the fact 
 that in her hand the truth was always pliant served 
 to help her through the world. 
 
 An excuse, however, came to her of its own ac- 
 cord, and without the necessity of warping pliant 
 truth to meet her desire. It came through Mrs. 
 Sandon in one of her rambling and unpunctuated 
 letters. 
 
 " Never was so surprised about anything," it 
 ran, " and of course I shall say nothing about it 
 till you give me leave What an odd woman you 
 are, Johnnie, I do hope you are consulting Araby' s 
 happiness in the matter Lewis Hartford is a very 
 good boy and from a worldly point of view I think 
 Araby is doing very well for herself but do tell me 
 whether it calls itself a love-match. Lewis was in- 
 fatuated with you from the first but it never struck 
 me that he and Araby ever took much notice of 
 
274 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 each other. I would give something to know the 
 truth you naughty woman but I suppose I shall 
 never know anything more than you choose to tell 
 me I can't help laughing over the whole thing. It 
 is too bad of you to charge me not to tell when I 
 am dying to discuss you and your doings with 
 someone I miss poor dear Lady Murgatroyd dread- 
 fully. She used to be my safety-valve and when- 
 ever I was bubbling over with the excitement of 
 some nice little bit of news or gossip I just asked 
 her in to tea Poor dear thing ! Johnnie you bad 
 clever woman do tell me all about it. Was it in 
 your wicked heart when you whisked the young 
 man off to Eccram with you Is he in love with 
 Araby Is Araby in love with him How do the Miss 
 Woottons regard the match What do they think of 
 you yes what do they think of you but then 
 you would hoodwink the Old Person himself I 
 dare say you talk copy-book and that Corbet's 
 aunts think you a model young matron. . . ." 
 
 All this made Mrs. Ruthven chuckle as she read 
 it, and put her into high good-humour. She felt 
 like a mischievous child who has heard its naughti- 
 ness called clever. 
 
 Then in Mr. Sandon's letter came that which 
 would furnish an excuse if need be for the hasten- 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 275 
 
 ing of Araby's marriage. Mrs. Sandon was going 
 abroad. 
 
 " I cannot face March in London and to justify 
 my extravagance to myself I have got my doctor 
 to prescribe the South of France I shall go to 
 Cannes or Mentone. If it were not that I suppose 
 you are tied just now I should ask you to come 
 with me I suppose it would not be any use but 
 I dare say we should manage between us to have 
 a pleasant time." 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven took Hartford out for a walk that 
 morning. 
 
 " We settled long ago," she said, as they strode 
 sturdily along the London road, " we settled long 
 ago that Araby should not have a big wedding, 
 with bridesmaids and all the abominations." 
 
 "That is so," said Hartford. "It's a stipula- 
 tion," he added, " that I always make." 
 
 "Then, supposing I wished the marriage to 
 take place soon " 
 
 " How soon ? " 
 
 " Very soon. I don't know. I only said suppos- 
 ing." 
 
 He waited for her to proceed. 
 
 "The fact is, I want to go abroad," she said. 
 "Mrs. Sandon I heard from her this morning 
 
276 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 is going to Cannes, and she would like me to go 
 with her. I don't want to give her an answer this 
 minute, you understand; but I wouldn't go of 
 course till after Araby's marriage. So supposing 
 that I wished that to take place soon almost at 
 once?" 
 
 " There is the answer from India," said Hart- 
 ford. 
 
 "That of course," said Mrs. Ruthven. "We 
 wait for that. I mean after." 
 
 " What does Araby say?" 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven swung her stick and cut off the 
 head of a weed that was growing at the road-side. 
 
 " I have n't spoken to Araby yet on the subject 
 All this is conditional, don't you see conditional 
 on possibilities, and on my wishing to go with Mrs. 
 Sandon. I shall naturally be rather lonely when I 
 lose Araby, though, as you know, there is n't any 
 very close sympathy between us. We are too differ- 
 ently constituted for that. You can see it for your- 
 self, so I don't mind admitting it to you. Still, when 
 Araby goes I shall miss her whenever it may 
 be. Supposing, then, I say, I should wish to go 
 abroad with Mrs. Sandon it 's a chance of com- 
 panionship for me would you object to marry- 
 ing Araby soon enough to make it possible?" 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 277 
 
 "No," said Hartford; "I shouldn't mind, if 
 Araby did n't." 
 
 "You can talk it over with her," said Mrs. 
 Ruthven. " There does n't really seem to be any- 
 thing to wait for. If we'd settled to have an 
 elaborate wedding it would be different, but hap- 
 pily you hate all that as much as I do." 
 
 Thus Mrs. Ruthven dealt with Hartford. At 
 luncheon she mentioned Mrs. Sandon's letter casu- 
 ally to the Miss Woottons and Araby. In the 
 course of the afternoon she recurred to the matter, 
 and said that she wished that she could accept the 
 invitation. 
 
 " Of course I could n't go till after Araby' s 
 wedding." 
 
 "And I suppose it would delay that too long to 
 put it off till your return ? " said Miss Wootton. 
 " Otherwise Laura and I would be only too glad 
 to have Araby with us till then." 
 
 " Oh, yes ; that would be impossible," said Mrs. 
 Ruthven. 
 
 " When does Mrs. Sandon start ? " asked Miss 
 Wootton. 
 
 "She doesn't say definitely," answered Mrs. 
 Ruthven. " Soon, I think. I suppose one day next 
 week. Perhaps if I get Corbet's cable within the 
 
278 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 next twenty-four hours it might be possible to 
 No, that would be too ridiculous." Mrs. Ruthven 
 laughed. " I could scarcely get Araby married in 
 a week, could I?" 
 
 By the evening, however, everyone in the house 
 was accustomed to the idea that the wedding 
 might take place very much sooner than had been 
 expected. 
 
 Olympe knit her brows. 
 
 " I can do nothing," she said to herself, looking 
 at the photograph of Araby in the frame which 
 Gerald had had mended. "I see her go to the 
 altar yes, the altar of sacrifice! and I can do 
 nothing. Miserable that I am ! Oui, madame, je 
 descends." 
 
 Her mistress was calling her, and she left the 
 frame upon a table instead of putting it back 
 into the trunk. 
 
 Araby went up to dress for dinner. She had 
 spent the afternoon with Hartford in the library. 
 She had found him very amiable, and she had 
 wished for something more assertive in the man- 
 liness of the man with whom she was to pass her 
 life. 
 
 "We shan't even quarrel," she said to herself 
 with a smile. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 279 
 
 She had been reading somewhere that the hap- 
 piest marriages in the long run were those into 
 which passion, on the part of one of the contractors 
 at least, did not enter. Where illusion does not 
 exist, disillusionment cannot follow. 
 
 " Then I should be happy," she said to herself. 
 Her eye fell upon her own photograph. She took 
 it up and looked at it, and she wondered whether 
 in truth she was as pretty as the printed face. She 
 was comelier now, did she know it, than when the 
 photograph had been taken. Her face had gained 
 in expression, her eyes were deeper. She sighed 
 and began to dress. Presently she wondered how 
 the photograph came to be at Eccram. She re- 
 membered leaving it in Primate Street. It stood 
 upon a writing-table in that part of her bedroom 
 which, with the help of a screen, she had made 
 into a sort of minute sitting-room. She would ask 
 Olympe about it. 
 
 The Frenchwoman, having attended to her mis- 
 tress, came in after a time to help Araby with her 
 toilet. Araby, however, who was independent, had 
 dressed herself. 
 
 "I had something to ask you, Olympe. What 
 was it? Oh, yes, I remember. How did that photo- 
 graph get here ? " 
 
280 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 She pointed to it as she spoke. 
 
 Olympe, who connected the frame with many 
 things, was taken aback. She hesitated, and Araby 
 looked at her in question. 
 
 " I ought to have told you, mademoiselle. I have 
 a misfortune. I drop it. I break the frame." 
 
 " It is n't broken," said Araby. 
 
 "I it was mended for me," said Olympe. 
 
 " Oh, Olympe ! and you paid for it. I won't let 
 you. You must tell me what it cost you. I see a 
 little fresh bar of silver has been put on here at 
 the back of it. You must tell me what I owe 
 you." 
 
 Araby was generous always, and she had per- 
 haps an exaggerated idea of the limitations of the 
 income of a well-paid servant. 
 
 " But I broke it," said Olympe. 
 
 Araby persisted. She sought her purse. 
 
 " Stop, mademoiselle ! I paid nothing. I will tell 
 you. Monsieur Ventnor has it done for me." 
 
 "Mr. Ventnor?" 
 
 Olympe's hand shook. She scarcely knew at 
 this moment whether or not she was going to tell 
 that which she fancied she had discovered. It was 
 not too late, she told herself. Chance had brought 
 up the subject; chance should determine the issue. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 281 
 
 There was a pause which seemed to Araby unend- 
 ing. In spite of herself she grew pale. 
 
 " He met me on the stairs," said Olympe ; " he 
 saw what I had done. He take the frame. It was 
 after you come here. He look long long at 
 your face. Mademoiselle, mademoiselle ." 
 
 She caught the girl in her arms. 
 
 "He insist that he take the frame to mend. But 
 it was not for me not for me. It was because " 
 
 Olympe, who was speaking quickly and with ex- 
 citement, paused suddenly. The bewildered Araby 
 followed the direction of her eyes to the door. 
 Mrs. Ruthven came in radiantly with something 
 in her hand. 
 
 " Your father's telegram, Araby," she said, and 
 she kissed her daughter. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 GERALD and Miss Norfolk drove to the station 
 together, and paced the platform while they waited 
 for the train, which presently arrived and conveyed 
 them to the junction at which they parted, since 
 their roads thence diverged. 
 
 " You are to cheer up," said Miss Norfolk, lean- 
 ing forward from the corner of the carriage in 
 which he had established her with her moderate 
 equipments of comfortable travel, and speaking to 
 him through the window. " You are to cheer up 
 and to hope for the best, and to expect it above 
 everything to expect it. It will all come right. 
 You'll see. You mustn't brood. I didn't know 
 you ever brooded " 
 
 Ventnor smiled and looked down the length of 
 the train. 
 
 They had each learned something of the other 
 in the last few days, he said. 
 
 Miss Norfolk watched his face. Presently he 
 looked back to her. 
 
 "Yes, we know each other better," she said. 
 
 He asked her if she had a book or a paper. He 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 283 
 
 whistled up a newsboy and he bought a bundle of 
 periodicals. They were oddly chosen, Miss Norfolk 
 found, when she came to see what he had given 
 her. One was the "Field," another the "Bachelor," 
 another the " Queen," another the " Practical En- 
 gineer," a fifth a technical journal, the " Linen- 
 Draper's Gazette and Haberdasher's Chronicle." 
 
 " Ce que Jest que d^tre amoureux" she said 
 to herself in the words of a play. " He does n't 
 know a bit what he's doing . . . poor boy! poor 
 Gerald!" 
 
 Aloud she exhorted him once more to be 
 hopeful. 
 
 "It'll all come right," she said again. "You 
 must get that well into your head. I will write to 
 you as soon as ever I can. But you can't hear to- 
 morrow, remember that. If possible you shall hear 
 from me the day after. You 're to take a lot of ex- 
 ercise and think of other things. If there's a meet 
 anywhere to-morrow you must hunt. That will be 
 good for you. Are we off now ? Don't lean against 
 the door. Don't hold on. You'll be run over. 
 Good-bye, Mr. Ventnor. Good-bye. Good-bye." 
 
 "Good-bye," said Gerald. "Good-bye. God 
 bless you." 
 
 Miss Norfolk threw herself back in her corner, 
 
284 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 and cried a little when the station was out of 
 sight. 
 
 Gerald had a wait of an hour. He smoked in 
 moody silence, and read the advertisements upon 
 the walls till he knew them by heart. An express 
 dashed through the station, and occasional trains 
 discharged or took up passengers. He wondered 
 vaguely about the lives of the people he saw. Here 
 were a husband and a wife in impatient argument. 
 He caught a few of the words of the man. 
 
 "There's no reasoning with you. You bother 
 one's life out. Then take your damned way and 
 have done with it.*' 
 
 The speaker was obviously neither ill-bred nor 
 despite the forcible expression of his irritation, ill- 
 conditioned. The woman was draggled and dowdy, 
 but with care she would have been pretty. Gerald 
 could fancy how easy it would be to lose patience 
 with her. She had a look of querulous injury. Pos- 
 sibly each had at some time felt for the other that 
 which he now felt for one in the world. What an 
 ugly thought ! Did nothing last ? he asked himself. 
 If so what matter whether one got one's wish or 
 no ? Then a thought of Araby's face told him that 
 cynical views of marriage were not for him. By 
 no effort of his imagination could he conceive a 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 285 
 
 state in which Araby and he might suffer from 
 mutual irritation. He built then a castle in the air, 
 which only crumbled and fell when he remembered 
 Hartford. 
 
 The train came in which was to bear him to 
 Combe Lecton. He had rested little on the previ- 
 ous night, and he slept off and on till he reached 
 home. His sister met him at the station. 
 
 " My dear Gwen ! I did n't know you were here." 
 
 "We arrived last night, Gerald. I persuaded 
 mother to come down for a bit. Oh, I am glad to 
 see you again. I miss you so dreadfully when you 
 are away, and mother and I had been shut up alone 
 together in Lennox Gardens quite long enough ; 
 so when I heard that you meant to come here for 
 the last of the hunting, I determined to come too. 
 No, the cart will bring your things. I am driving 
 the trap." 
 
 Miss Ventnor had so much to say that she did 
 not at once remark her brother's silence. 
 
 " There was an article in the ' Times ' on father's 
 speech at Hulworth. Did you see it? He is as 
 pleased as Punch. And oh, Gerald, the stables are 
 splendid ! Do tell me all about yourself. The George 
 Athols have sent out the invitations for Maud's 
 wedding. I saw Maud last week. She asked me 
 
286 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 to be one of her bridesmaids. We 're going to 
 wear ..." 
 
 And so on. All of which filled time, and saved 
 Gerald the necessity of at once collecting his 
 thoughts. At dinner, however, Miss Ventnor saw 
 how they wandered, and with what an effort Gerald 
 joined in the conversation. The only subject which 
 appeared to interest him, or at least upon which he 
 seemed able to fix his attention, was that of the 
 completed stables. The necessity for certain struc- 
 tural alterations, which had long been felt and dis- 
 cussed, had been met in the end by an almost 
 entire remodelling of the buildings. Gerald had 
 sold his hunters at the close of the previous sea- 
 son, and he delayed buying or even looking out 
 for others till Combe Lecton should be ready to 
 receive them. Sir John, who had gone up to town 
 on the reassembling of Parliament, had left his 
 own horses at his son's disposal. 
 
 Gwendolen Ventnor, once having divined that 
 her brother was harassed, managed to ask no 
 questions, and continued to express her sympathy 
 by her manner. She knew that his confidence 
 would be given voluntarily or not at all. The even- 
 ing passed uneventfully. Lady Ventnor worked, 
 and talked disparagingly of her friends. She had 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 287 
 
 lately told her daughter that Gerald was quite 
 changed since making the acquaintance of Mrs. 
 Ruthven (whom she spoke of as "that woman 
 from India"), and any remarks that she now made 
 about Mrs. Sandon were coloured, Gwendolen 
 knew to her amusement, by the fact that she traced 
 the mischief to Mrs. Sandon's door in Earl Street. 
 
 "She is going abroad," Lady Ventnor said, 
 holding up her work to look at it obliquely. " I 
 am very glad. I can always breathe more freely 
 when I know that she is n't in London." 
 
 Miss Ventnor said that she should have thought 
 London was large enough to hold them both, and 
 Gerald, meeting his sister's eye, and catching 
 thence a smile, said, 
 
 " Besides, you 're not in London." 
 
 Lady Ventnor, in her defence, always snatched 
 at side issues. 
 
 " And you mean by that, I suppose, that I am 
 neglecting your father," she said. "I think you 
 need n't say things of that sort on the very first 
 evening you come home. You know that during 
 the session he would much rather have the house 
 to himself. I consulted him Gwen will tell you 
 before coming down here." 
 
 "My dear mother, I meant nothing of the sort/' 
 
288 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 said Gerald. There was a shade of impatience in 
 his voice, but in his present mood he would not 
 risk an argument. Lady Ventnor when she chose to 
 be misunderstood was impracticable. He changed 
 the subject, and when his mother went back to her 
 depreciation of Mrs. Sandon he forbore to protest. 
 
 His sister followed him to the smoking-room 
 later on. This was the moment to which she always 
 looked forward when her brother was at home and 
 there were no men in the house to bear him com- 
 pany. Sometimes he talked to her ; often he said 
 very little. But whether he talked or was silent 
 Gwendolen knew that he liked to have her with 
 him. 
 
 He made a few comments upon all the all-im- 
 portant stables, and then he lapsed into a reverie. 
 The falling of a log from the fire started him to 
 his feet After that he paced the room a restless 
 uncomfortable pacing. 
 
 Gwendolen rose silently after a time, kissed him, 
 and went up to bed. She listened for his step on the 
 stairs. It was more than an hour before she heard 
 it. It came slowly and paused at her door which 
 was near his. She thought that perhaps he was 
 coming in to tell her what ailed him. But he 
 passed on to his room. In the morning she heard 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 289 
 
 him astir almost before the servants, and in and 
 out of the passages. She heard his bell early, and 
 presently one servant telling another that his let- 
 ters were to be brought to him the moment the 
 post came. It was a letter then ? But she knew, 
 when she saw him at breakfast, that if so it had 
 not arrived. After that he seemed to be waiting 
 for a telegram. He had settled to hunt that day 
 but he hung about till the last moment. 
 
 " Don't tell me he is n't changed," his mother 
 said when at last he had started. " I know what 
 I think. He's in love with that horrid married 
 woman." 
 
 Gwendolen shook her head but rather me- 
 chanically. 
 
 " He is," said Lady Ventnor. " I 've seen it for 
 ages. I 'm very sorry I ever called upon her. I 
 ought n't to have allowed myself to be persuaded 
 against my better judgment. Why could n't she 
 stop in India with her husband ? a woman with 
 a grown-up daughter too. It is disgraceful. And 
 you may say what you like, people did talk about 
 Gerald going there before he left London." 
 
 Gwendolen contrived to say " Nonsense " good- 
 humouredly. 
 
 "It is not nonsense," said Lady Ventnor. "I 
 
2QO TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 only wish it was. And she left London herself 
 directly after he did, so I dare say she 's seen him 
 while he has been away. She probably managed 
 to get herself asked to some of the houses where 
 he stayed. That sort of woman always does 
 somehow always can ! I am surprised at the George 
 Athols taking her up surprised beyond measure." 
 
 But for once Gwendolen was silent. 
 
 She found herself watching the posts for her 
 brother and watching for telegrams. Neither letter 
 nor telegram came, and the day passed lengthily. 
 
 At five o'clock she heard the sound of his horse's 
 hoofs on the gravel of the drive. There were vis- 
 itors in the drawing-room and she could not make 
 her escape. When at length their carriage rolled 
 away, Gerald was splashing in his bath. Half an 
 hour later she heard him go down to the smoking- 
 room, and there she joined him. He looked fresh 
 and ruddy after his hot tub, as he lay in his flannels 
 on the sofa he had drawn up to the fire, but Gwen- 
 dolen could see that the tension was not relaxed. 
 
 "You're back early, are n't you? Did you 
 kill?" 
 
 Gerald shook his head. If he had been himself 
 he would have given her some account of his day. 
 He dismissed it in a few words. 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 291 
 
 " Shall I stop with you, or would you care to get 
 a sleep before dinner?" 
 
 "Stop with me. Don't go because I don't talk. 
 I don't think I shall go to sleep. You find me pretty 
 bad company just now, I am afraid, Gwen?" 
 
 " No, Gerald, I don't. I should like to stay with 
 you if I don't disturb you. I '11 fetch a book." 
 
 She went to a shelf and ran her eye along the 
 volumes. They were a motley smoking-room set ; 
 some novels, French and English, a few sporting 
 books, a Shakespeare, some bound numbers of 
 "Punch," an odd volume of Gibbon's "Decline 
 and Fall of the Roman Empire," taken by some 
 careless visitor from the library to whose shelves it 
 belonged and not returned to its place, a copy of the 
 "Arabian Nights," a few poets. Gwendolen took 
 down a copy of Longfellow. 
 
 " What's your book?" said Gerald. 
 
 She told him. 
 
 " Read me something." 
 
 "Yes, Gerald. What shall I read?" 
 
 She sat down on a low chair at the foot of the 
 couch. Gerald shook his head, and she opened the 
 book at random. She chanced upon the " Skeleton 
 in Armour." 
 
 Thus for Gerald did all things at this time seem 
 
292 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 to lead back to Araby. His thoughts wandered at 
 his sister read. Her voice sounded steadily through 
 them as a note in a song is sustained against the 
 air in the accompaniment. Words, a line, here and 
 there, arrested his attention. Fancy wove Araby *s 
 name into the ballad. She was the Norse maiden 
 with the " soft eyes . . . burning yet tender." He 
 could see her standing in old Hildebrand's hall, 
 where the shields gleamed and the minstrels sang, 
 while her father's laugh blew the foam from the 
 drinking-horn. 
 
 " Should not the dove so white 
 Follow the sea-mew's flight, 
 Why did they leave that night 
 Her nest unguarded ? " 
 
 For Araby he thought he could have faced Hil- 
 debrand and twice twenty Norsemen. He closed 
 his eyes, but it was then that the strangest excite- 
 ment began suddenly to possess him an ex- 
 citement that was like an exaltation of the spirit 
 ? What was happening at Eccram ? 
 
 Gwendolen read on. 
 
 11 As with his wings aslant, 
 Sails the fierce cormorant, 
 Seeking some rocky haunt, 
 With his prey laden, 
 
.TIME AND THE WOMAN 293 
 
 So toward the open main, 
 Beating to sea again, 
 Through the wild hurricane, 
 Bore I the maiden." 
 
 What was happening at Eccram? Something. 
 Something, he was sure of it. Something at that 
 moment. He was on his feet again and pacing the 
 room. The reading was interrupted, and the ballad 
 ended thus on the note, not of separation and de- 
 spair, but of complete, of triumphant possession. 
 "To-morrow," he said to the bewildered Gwen- 
 dolen. " I '11 tell you to-morrow." 
 
 Meanwhile he had to face dinner and to get 
 somehow through the night. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 HE got through the night walking just walking 
 thinking when he must, but walking all the time. 
 Four walls could not have held him. 
 
 He took to the high-road, and followed it on and 
 on in the darkness. There was no moon. The sky 
 was heavy ; the stars hidden. The hedges and trees 
 were black or indistinguishable. There were no 
 sounds in the night. The silence was sullen. 
 
 Some drops of rain fell, but Gerald, disregarding 
 them, strode on. He passed through a village where 
 a few men and a woman or two hung about the 
 doors of a public-house. He was recognized and 
 hats were touched. He made for the open coun- 
 try. Just so, though he did not know it, had Mrs. 
 Ruthven once walked in the town. 
 
 In the morning Miss Norfolk's letter ! He knew 
 she would not fail him. She would understand at 
 a glance the situation which Eccram would present 
 to her. He could trust her to deal with it wisely. 
 
 On and on in the darkness. He thought of Araby 
 and wondered, and then he thought of Hartford. 
 He bore Hartford no ill-will as yet Hartford who 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 295 
 
 would be under the control of any puller of wires. 
 You might like Hartford very much, but just as you 
 would never dream of going to him for advice or 
 counsel, so would you never hold him answerable 
 for anything in which others also were concerned. 
 Gerald remembered how, in the Eton days, younger 
 boys had been called to account for misdemeanours 
 in which Hartford had equally been involved, and 
 for which, if seniority had meant anything, it was 
 he rather than they who should have been held re- 
 sponsible. Hartford ? No, Hartford was negligible. 
 But Mrs. Ruthven ? Araby's mother ! He quickened 
 his pace. 
 
 Thus through the darkness pursuing thoughts 
 or pursued of them in turn, and often, as far as might 
 be, not thinking at all. Thus through the hours and 
 the silence. 
 
 Then came a change. A soft hissing sound 
 made itself heard. This was the sound of the rain 
 which now began to fall ; gently at first, then 
 steadily in a down pour, till the night, silent no 
 longer, was filled with the noise of it. Gerald pulled 
 his cap down over his eyes, turned up his collar, 
 and strode on. In less than five minutes he was 
 wet to the skin. Still he did not turn, but just 
 walked through the straight and steady lines of 
 
296 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 the water, the swishing, rushing blackness of the 
 hours. 
 
 It was towards dawn that Gwendolen, lying 
 awake and listening to the rain on her windows, 
 heard him go to his room. . . . 
 
 He slept as if he had been drugged was 
 sleeping so heavily in the morning that even the 
 entrance of the servant did not wake him. It must 
 have been an hour later that he started out of 
 sleep rubbing his eyes like a child to find the 
 sunlight pouring in through his windows, and 
 Miss Norfolk's letter on the tray beside his bed. 
 He opened it with trembling fingers. It was short, 
 he saw but short only as the first despatch from 
 a battle-field. It was in pencil ; hardly legible 
 had been written indeed as blindly as it was read. 
 But what it said clearly was, Come. Miss Norfolk 
 had been in time by less, it seemed, than a 
 round of the clock but in time. Gwendolen, 
 perhaps, if she could have seen her brother then, 
 would not again have said of him that with Gerald 
 you never could tell what he was thinking or 
 feeling. 
 
 So nearly ! Araby held her breath. Gerald (hold- 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 297 
 
 ing her before the day was over) held his. The 
 eleventh hour truly. 
 
 Miss Norfolk and Olympe were the heroines of it 
 the odd eleventh hour. Miss Norfolk knew what 
 she knew ; Olympe what she had guessed. They, it 
 was, who, braving Mrs. Ruthven in what Miss Nor- 
 folk ever afterwards called the Awful Day, had 
 fought Araby's battle which also was Gerald's. 
 The aunts, while it raged, were pushed on one 
 side well out of the zone of the firing ; so, almost, 
 was Araby, who rushed in and out of it all the 
 same, now taking her mother's part, now her own, 
 and receiving plentiful wounds in the process 
 (wounds, which yet would heal quickly) ; so, to all 
 intents and purposes, was Hartford who, after 
 Miss Norfolk had talked to him, really behaved 
 as she said like an Angel. Araby, torn in every 
 direction, was useless. Hartford was amenable. It 
 was Miss Norfolk and Olympe against Mrs. Ruth- 
 ven: Mrs. Ruthven the stake, Hartford and 
 Araby, as pliable as she could possibly wish ! 
 against Miss Norfolk and Olympe. Against any 
 two, had Mrs. Ruthven thought, with the Jesuit ? 
 She had not bargained perhaps that the two should 
 be women. 
 
 The battle Araby so dreadfully ready to abide 
 
298 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 by her word ! was waged sore till the evening. 
 The conclusion seemed foregone : Mrs. Ruthven 
 must carry the day. It was then, however, consid- 
 erably after the going down of the sun and just in 
 time for Miss Norfolk to catch the post with her let- 
 ter it was then that Miss Norfolk drew her bow at 
 a venture. Gerald in the smoking-room at Combe 
 Lecton knew the exact moment better than she. 
 Miss Norfolk drew her bow at so sporting a ven- 
 ture that she trembled as she followed the flight of 
 the shaft. It struck Mrs. Ruthven struck her like 
 the shaft from another bow drawn too at a venture, 
 between the joints of the armour. 
 
 How had she dared to tell Araby that she knew 
 of the meeting in Piccadilly of the putting of 
 Araby into the cab ? 
 
 Such a little thing. 
 
 Mrs. Ruthven and Araby together flushed and 
 together grew pale. 
 
 There was a long pause. 
 
 " You told me you sent him," came from Araby' s 
 lips then. " Mother you told me you sent him." 
 Mrs. Ruthven recovered herself, but the battle was 
 over. Miss Norfolk knew it. Olympe knew it. 
 Araby knew it. Even Mrs. Ruthven herself. The 
 marriage which had been engineered so skillfully 
 
TIME AND THE WOMAN 299 
 
 was not going to take place either on the morrow 
 or on any other morrow. The day was won. 
 
 It was Miss Norfolk who broke down. 
 
 " Oh, you foolish, unhappy woman," she said to 
 Araby's mother ; and to Araby, " Oh, you foolish, 
 lucky, lucky girl," and subsided choking, like 
 Araby before her, on to the capacious bosom of 
 the Frenchwoman. 
 
 The rest, if not silence exactly, was comparative 
 silence. Mrs. Ruthven, bearing nobody any ill-will, 
 would join Mrs. Sandon. The others must just 
 settle things up amongst them leaving her out. 
 Their hands, she was afraid, would be full. Lewis 
 would see her, perhaps, to Earl Street in the morn- 
 ing the good Olympe staying behind her to 
 pack. 
 
 So the thing was done ; the way clear for Gerald 
 to Araby. But Miss Norfolk's heart ached. 
 
 She felt inexpressibly lonely when the day was 
 over and she stumbled up at last to her bedroom 
 at Cora Pine's. It was then that she had time to 
 attend to her own affairs. All day some letters had 
 been waiting for her. She opened them listlessly. 
 But the reshuffling of partners even then incom- 
 plete ! her letters were to tell her of the breaking 
 
300 TIME AND THE WOMAN 
 
 off of another engagement, and one of them, writ- 
 ten it is true from where love lay bleeding, was 
 from poor, brave, determined, unselfish, generous 
 Anne. 
 
 THE END 
 
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