RMPMMHMMMMMMMMHM 
 
 A TOUCH OF 
 
 FANTASY 
 
 *S^ A NOVEL <^Vs 
 BY A H.ADAMS

 
 A TOUCH OF FANTASY
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 GALAHAD JONES. A Tragic 
 Farce. With 16 full-page Illus- 
 trations, by Norman Lindsay. 
 
 Crown 8vo. Third Edition.
 
 A TOUCH OF 
 
 FANTASY 
 
 A ROMANCE FOR THOSE WHO ARE 
 LUCKY ENOUGH TO WEAR GLASSES 
 
 ARTHUR H. ADAMS 
 
 LONDON JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD 
 NEW YORK JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXII
 
 THB ANCHOR PRESS, LTD., TIPTREE, ESSEX.
 
 G>Oo\ 
 
 TO THE ONE 
 
 WIFE AND MOTHER, 
 
 WHOM TO LOVE NEEDS NO GLASSES.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAQI 
 
 I. IN WHICH HUGH ROBJOHN LOOKS ON 
 
 LIFE - - I 
 
 II. WHICH CONTAINS A DISSERTATION UPON 
 
 BOARDING HOUSES - 12 
 
 in. IN WHICH HUGH'S LIFE is WRECKED, AND 
 
 MISS CATCH PUTS ON A NEW BLOUSE - 22 
 
 IV. IN WHICH HUGH ENTERS THE PORTALS OF 
 
 FAIRYLAND - 29 
 
 V. IN WHICH THE BOARDING-HOUSE GOES TO 
 
 BED - 41 
 
 vi. IN WHICH HUGH'S CHRISTMAS DINNER 
 
 DISAGREES WITH HIM - 47 
 
 vii. IN WHICH HUGH'S HABITS SHOCKINGLY 
 
 DETERIORATE - 60 
 
 VIII. IN WHICH HUGH SEES THROUGH THE FOG 68 
 XI. IN WHICH, AS FAR AS A WOMAN CAN, SHE 
 
 TELLS HIM ALL 87 
 X. IN WHICH NANCY PINKSTONE ASKS HER 
 
 MIRROR A QUESTION - - 103 
 XI. IN WHICH HUGH GETS APPENDICITIS AND 
 DISCOVERS THAT A BOARDER IS A 
 
 HUMAN BEING - 117 
 
 XII. IN WHICH HUGH IS KISSED - - 130 
 
 XIII. IN WHICH HUGH PROPOSES - - 14! 
 
 XIV. IN WHICH HUGH IS MARRIED - - l6o
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OHAFTBB 
 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XV. 
 
 IN 
 
 WHICH 
 
 NANCY 
 
 SENDS A LETTER 
 
 171 
 
 XVI. 
 
 IN 
 
 WHICH 
 
 NANCY 
 
 KNOWS 
 
 1 86 
 
 XVII. 
 
 IN 
 
 WHICH 
 
 NANCY 
 
 SEES THE LIGHT 
 
 199 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 IN 
 
 WHICH 
 
 THERE 
 
 IS A HINT OF HONEY- 
 
 
 
 
 MOON 
 
 - 
 
 . 
 
 2IO 
 
 XIX. 
 
 IN 
 
 WHICH 
 
 THERE 
 
 IS A TRIVIAL TRAGEDY 
 
 226 
 
 XX. 
 
 IN 
 
 WHICH 
 
 NOTHING HAPPENS - 
 
 2 43 
 
 XXI. 
 
 IN 
 
 WHICH 
 
 THE DOCTOR IS CALLED 
 
 2 5 8 
 
 XXII. 
 
 IN 
 
 WHICH 
 
 HUGH'S 
 
 GLASSES ARE MERCIFUL 
 
 270 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 IN 
 
 WHICH 
 
 HUGH 
 
 SEES CLEAR - 
 
 279 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 IN 
 
 WHICH 
 
 HUGH 
 
 BREAKS HIS GLASSES 
 
 293
 
 A TOUCH OF FANTASY
 
 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 _ X 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 IN WHICH HUGH BOBJOHN LOOKS ON LIFE 
 
 THERE was certainly something extraord- 
 inary about the spectacles. 
 Hugh Bobjohn poised them delicately 
 upon his nose a nose that the fat little insinuat- 
 ing optician assured him was simply created for 
 spectacles and gazed intently at the optician's 
 puffy face. There was certainly something mira- 
 culous, something almost uncanny, about these 
 glasses. 
 
 It was not that he saw more plainly, without the 
 faint blur that used to surround the objects of his 
 visional world ; it was not that the sense of eye- 
 strain had suddenly vanished ; it was that he seemed 
 to see more deeply, almost as if he had penetrated 
 beyond the surfaces of things down to their hidden 
 souls. He had the strange feeling as if the world 
 had been unveiled, as if behind that grey dimness 
 of his sight had been, all the time, a magnificent 
 Venus of marble. And now the cloak that shielded 
 her had dropped to her feet, and she reigned dazzling
 
 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 in the sunlight. But it was no mere surface, no 
 visible rounded contour of grace that he saw, but 
 Beauty herself unveiled. He had the sudden feel- 
 ing of having been for years in a darkened room ; 
 and now he felt the walls widening, dissolving, 
 vanishing, to let in the miracle of a universe of 
 stars. He braced himself, as if on the threshold 
 of some new and unsuspected world. He stood on 
 the verge, tip-toe 
 
 After all, what he saw was only the puffy face 
 of the little optician, the twinkling, sly little eyes, 
 the lean, insinuating mouth, the insignificant nose 
 nipped with glittering pince-nez. He had seen all 
 that before he had tried on the spectacles, blurred a 
 little, and further away ; but now .....! 
 
 A week . before, Hugh Robjohn had, at last, 
 persuaded himself that his eyes needed attention. 
 He had gone on so long misusing them reading at 
 breakfast, reading at lunch, reading in bed, reading 
 any sort of type in any sort of light that it was a 
 shock to him to find them failing him. Blurs came 
 often before them at inconvenient moments ; black 
 specks came sailing into his vision and obstructing 
 his view of the type ; sudden pin-points of brilliance 
 danced away when he looked up; headaches came 
 just when he needed to concentrate his attention on 
 his reading ; more than once he had actually to put 
 down an entrancing volume like " The Meaning of 
 Money," and go out, half-blinded, into the night,
 
 HUGH ROBJOHN LOOKS ON LIFE 3 
 
 wondering, and half-fearing to guess, what it might 
 mean to him and his great ambition. 
 
 It was annoying, this sudden reminder that he 
 was not a machine or, at least, that he was a 
 machine that needed attention and periodical over- 
 hauling. Especially as his great work on " National 
 Economics " the book that was going to revolu- 
 tionise the world's ideas upon tariffs and trade 
 would require all his attention now. He had got to 
 the thirteenth chapter, and his theory, staunchly 
 founded on history and strongly buttressed with 
 proofs, was stretching cheerfully out through the 
 other nineteen chapters to its triumphant close. 
 And now his eyes ! 
 
 He used them all day in the office. He was a 
 clerk in a vague Government department in the big 
 Public Works building in Sydney ; and his routine 
 duties inconceivably remote from his " boss," a 
 Permanent Secretary of Something Important 
 took all his working hours. He had to read 
 innumerable letters and pass them on to vague heads 
 of departments. And weeks later he would recog- 
 nise them returned to him stamped and signed and 
 noted and countersigned in a decoration of many- 
 hued inks. It was not an exciting job. Still, he 
 presumed that he was doing work in some way 
 useful to the State, probably to the Government, 
 possibly to the world. Anyhow, he was paid for it 
 a small but regular salary, which automatically rose
 
 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 a few pounds every five years ; and, if Permanent 
 Secretaries were not so painfully permanent, and he 
 survived long enough, he might at length attain to 
 the permanency of a Permanent Secretary himself. 
 Meantime in his evenings and on his Sundays he 
 was writing a book that would revolutionise the 
 world's commerce. 
 
 Hugh had gone to see the eye specialist a little 
 dreamy man with a great forehead and a far-away 
 look in his eyes. The specialist had listened 
 patiently to Hugh's account of his symptoms : it 
 was part of his duty to listen to the patient's own 
 view of his eyes, but it lost him much of his valu- 
 able time when, with one examination, he could 
 determine all that the patient took so long in 
 needlessly telling him. 
 
 He made his examination quietly, with a "yes, 
 yes," or an " ah! " muttered to himself, and an aloof- 
 ness from his patient that irritated Hugh. To the 
 specialist this was merely an uninteresting case 
 and he had hoped for something pretty, involving a 
 difficult and dainty operation. He was depressed ; 
 but life was full of disappointments. It was a 
 week since he had had a good operation. 
 
 " Is it serious ? " asked Hugh, anxious because of 
 the specialist's silence. 
 
 " No," said the specialist sadly, with an effort 
 recalling himself to the fact that the patient was 
 a human being. He had been so interested, as
 
 HUGH ROBJOHN LOOKS ON LIFE 5 
 
 always, in the beautiful mechanism of the human 
 eye. Then softly, distantly, he answered : 
 
 " Spectacles." 
 
 " I must wear spectacles ? " asked Hugh. 
 
 The specialist did not answer. He was busy 
 adjusting upon Hugh's nose a cumbrous frame that 
 looked like the ancient horn-rimmed spectacles of 
 the Chinese. 
 
 " Only eye-strain, due to a defect in the shape of 
 the eye." 
 
 The oculist dropped the remark absently, pulling 
 out a drawer and selecting two lenses from a glitter- 
 ing array. These, and others in turn, he dropped 
 into the frame, until, with but a polite attention to 
 Hugh's opinions, the specialist seemed wearily satis- 
 fied. He had had three similar cases that morning. 
 
 Sadly he made Hugh look at an electric light 
 through glasses that painted a red bar across his 
 vision. Hugh was interested in the behaviour of 
 that bar. He told the oculist about it. 
 
 That little man suddenly shared Hugh's interest. 
 A soft " Curious ! " dropped dreamily from him. 
 Hugh waited. 
 
 " There's a somewhat rare defect that will need 
 specially ground glasses," he announced eagerly. 
 All his sadness had vanished. Here, after all, was 
 a pretty case. " You will have to get these glasses 
 made to my prescription." He gave the name of 
 an optician and wrote an order. " Bare at least
 
 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 in Australia. I shall be interested if, after you 
 have worn these glasses for a month or so, you let 
 me examine you again. Very interesting ! " 
 
 "And with glasses my eyes will be all right?" 
 asked Hugh. 
 
 " With proper care no reading with artificial light. 
 What is your profession ? In the Government ? " 
 
 Hugh admitted it, wondering if this man knew 
 everything. 
 
 " Then you won't be reading much at night. 
 That's good." 
 
 " But I'm I'm writing a book ! " gasped Hugh. 
 
 " Writing a novel ? " The specialist was surprised. 
 
 "No, no! A book!" 
 
 " Ah ! " The specialist looked down on Hugh in 
 his chair with a little amused tolerance. " You'll 
 have to drop it for a while. Afterwards . . . 
 we'll see." 
 
 " But it is most important." 
 
 " More than your eyes ? " 
 
 " More than everything." 
 
 The specialist smiled. " Your eyes are every- 
 thing. How old are you ? Forty ? " 
 
 " Thirty-six," said Hugh. 
 
 " Your eyes, with care, will last you all your life. 
 Better look after them. By-and-by you may take 
 up your book. But write it by daylight." 
 
 Hugh promised with reservations and got 
 quickly out of that room of bright reflectors and
 
 HUGH ROBJOHN LOOKS ON LIFE 7 
 
 weird instruments of torture that made you blink, 
 out into the blurred sunlight of an Australian 
 summer day, and looked vaguely into the large face 
 of a policeman, and knew that it was good. 
 
 It was on the morning of December 24th when 
 at last he got his spectacles from the optician. He 
 had entered the little shop in Bridge Street, going 
 carefully down the three steps that led from the 
 street for the shop had been there in the early 
 days of Sydney, before the street was graded. And 
 the little optician, a round blur of a figure, had, 
 with a grotesque flourish, handed him the gold, 
 glittering things. 
 
 " You see, sir, they are made in two pieces, the 
 larger lens for outdoor use, and the smaller section 
 for reading." 
 
 He held an absurd chart of letters at arm's- 
 length, and so vivid did the lettering seem to Hugh 
 that he could almost make sense out of that hap- 
 hazard and tottering alphabet. 
 
 " By this arrangement you don't require two 
 pairs of glasses, sir. Look at me." 
 
 Hugh looked, and saw a strange and unsuspected 
 soul. In that round puffy face, now so brilliantly 
 illumined, he read the history of the man's patient 
 life. The features seemed to radiate purpose. 
 Hugh guessed at his youth, divined his wife and 
 children on the floor above, saw in it all a sort of 
 microscopic romance. This insignificant man was
 
 8 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 no mere shopkeeper; he was almost a god a 
 creator of light. And the shop shone vivid and 
 sharp with the glitter of lenses, a little jewelled 
 shop, a miracle of wonder and delight. 
 
 Hugh looked again at the sly, eager little face of 
 the optician. It was the first time in all his thirty- 
 six years of living that he had looked on Life. 
 
 He had, of course, thought and dreamed about it. 
 He had diligently read about it ; but he had always 
 looked at it through the pages of a book and pages 
 of books are, when you come to think of it, singu- 
 larly opaque. It had never really occurred to him 
 before that life was everywhere about him jostling 
 him on the ferries and the trams, infringing on him 
 in his dusty office, hovering over him at his boarding- 
 house, waiting for him at every street corner. He 
 had never guessed that the freight that the ferries 
 carried was not passengers but a bundle of hopes 
 and fears, a load of dreams and cares, a bouquet of 
 romance, that the streets were but streams of con- 
 flicting purposes, or that the darkness of the stalls 
 and galleries contained more thrills than the 
 audience paid to see. He had looked at life through 
 print, as a young girl looks at life through novels; 
 and the strange brilliance of the real thing discon- 
 certed him. All that was going on those thirty-six 
 years, and he had not guessed ! How much of that 
 crowded wonder he had missed ! 
 
 " They suit you admirably, sir," the optician in-
 
 HUGH BOBJOHN LOOKS ON LIFE 9 
 
 sinuated. "You have just the nose for them. I 
 am glad you did not have pince-nez. They ask me 
 to make pince-nez for women. And women have 
 no noses ! " 
 
 " Haven't they ? " asked Hugh, startled. 
 
 He had always taken their noses, as he had 
 always taken their nose's owners, for granted. Now 
 he saw that the optician was right. Women had 
 no noses or only the apologies for noses. Yet, 
 after all, women had no need to apologise. 
 
 " Tell me," Hugh began, " these spectacles are 
 they made from any special sort of glass? " 
 
 " Oh yes, sir, I use only the best glass." 
 
 " But these particular lenses ? Who made 
 them?" 
 
 " I ground them, sir, from Dr. Mahon's prescrip- 
 tion." 
 
 " Yes. But where did the glass itself come from ? " 
 
 " From Jena, in Germany. They make the best 
 spectacle glasses there, sir." 
 
 Germany ! And into Hugh's mind swept memories 
 of Grimm's fairy tales, of legends of kobolds and 
 elves and gnomes, of strange races of swart, stunted 
 beings that lived in the darkness underground 
 tales of magic crystals, of enchanted stones, tales 
 of eerieness and terror . . . What if these 
 spectacles, through which he saw so miraculously, 
 had been made of magic crystal by some old gnome 
 of the under-earth ?
 
 10 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " I came from Germany myself, from the Black 
 Forest, sir," murmured the optician. 
 
 Hugh looked sharply at him through the magic 
 glasses. The Black Forest ! A German? Of 
 course. And, if a German, why not a gnome ? 
 
 Here, indeed, in this strange underground shop 
 in Australia, lived a magician, a gnome that gave a 
 new strange sight to lucky mortals. This fat little 
 thing that had made him these glasses why, he 
 had stepped straight from the pages of Grimm ! It 
 was easy enough to recognise him now, easy enough 
 when he had the glasses to see. 
 
 He paid his prosaic bill, and hurried up the three 
 steps to the sunlight again. He wondered, indeed, 
 if it were a shop he had just quitted. So much 
 that was magical had happened there that he feared 
 that that place of wonder was, after all, only a cave 
 of illusion. It would vanish in the night. To- 
 morrow he would search for it, and find that those 
 three steps had vanished from Bridge Street. And 
 this wonderful new vision of his would blur over, 
 and leave him once more groping blindly through 
 life. He glanced once back, to remember, at least, 
 how it looked. The German name of the optician 
 stared at him in silver letters. Then, not quite 
 satisfied, he turned and hurried down the street. 
 He had so much of the wonderful world to see 
 and he was thirty-six ! 
 
 (But perhaps, after all, no miracle had been
 
 HUGH KOBJOHN LOOKS ON LIFE 11 
 
 worked. Hugh's new clarity of vision may have 
 been due solely to the conscientious workmanship 
 of the prosaic little German who made those 
 glasses ... If you you who are lucky enough 
 to wear glasses read this history through to the 
 end, perhaps you will be able to say. 
 
 And, as for myself, even now I am doubtful 
 whether the German optician was really a gnome.)
 
 12 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 WHICH CONTAINS A DISSEBTATION UPON 
 BOARDING-HOUSES 
 
 IT was a new city into which this spectacled 
 being emerged, his head held high, his glasses 
 flashing their silver and gold upon a world 
 new created. The street was full of people but 
 were they really people ? 
 
 Instead of dull, expressionless, work-wearied faces 
 flowing past him in a slow and turbid stream, he 
 beheld a clear, swift-speeding, brimming river of 
 romance. He saw, beneath their prosaic cloaks, 
 strange histories hurrying past ; he came unsuspected 
 upon masked adventures waiting stealthily at every 
 corner ; taxi-cabs and hooded hansoms bore dramas 
 to their tragic climax ; love and yearning looked at 
 him unknowingly from the eyes of couples that, 
 with tremulous hearts, chattered of prosaic things ; 
 hope and fear and joy and grief flashed up at him 
 from dulled faces. These were not people : they 
 were souls, each with a story behind, each with 
 infinite romance ahead. 
 
 At Circular Quay, on that morning of December
 
 DISSERTATION ON BOARDING-HOUSES 13 
 
 24th, he found Sydney in the whirlpool of its holiday 
 madness. He plunged into a hurrying stream of 
 beings, laden with parcels, hurrying home to house- 
 fuls of children. Mothers trailed crying babies 
 under the snouts of harassed trams ; hansoms and 
 taxi-cabs threaded their miraculous way across the 
 conflicting currents of chattering girls. He was 
 swept along in the stream that surged toward the 
 pontoon for the Mosman boat. 
 
 As the boat swam out, in line with five others 
 that, once out of the neck of Sydney Cove, would 
 fan out to the far corners of the harbour, Hugh 
 forgot to dive into his bag for a heavy book. He 
 looked eagerly about him, finding in the faces of 
 women a sudden extraordinary interest. 
 
 As for the women, they took no notice of the 
 quick, fluttering glitter of those gold-rimmed spec- 
 tacles. At least, they showed no interest. 
 
 At Musgrave Street wharf Hugh got out and 
 climbed the steep street to his boarding-house. 
 All the way home he had been wondering whether 
 his new glasses would enable him to see anything 
 interesting in his boarding-house. That was the 
 supreme test. For all boarding-houses are the same 
 boarding-house and he had tried them all. In 
 fact, he had often ruminated over the one glaring 
 omission of the Creator of a varied and complex 
 universe. Why, when the world was full of dis- 
 tinctive and individual things, when no two faces
 
 14 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 except the faces of policemen were alike, when no 
 two leaves of the same tree were exactly the same 
 shape, when all this versatility of creation had been 
 expended on such insignificant things as flowers 
 and physiognomies, had there been created only one 
 type of boarding-house ? You would think, he had 
 mused, that in all the world there would have been 
 room for two, or possibly three, types of boarding- 
 house. And it was the absurd hope that he might 
 yet discover the somewhat different boarding-house 
 that had beguiled him all over Sydney suburbs in 
 his eternal search. Every new boarding-house 
 and he had tried scores since his arrival in Sydney 
 had seemed to him the golden grail of his quest. 
 So for a week he drank from the golden grail. 
 Then he tasted the bitter dregs of the cup. Little 
 unexpected things, like a fire in your bedroom, be- 
 came "extras"; the man opposite you drank soup 
 with his moustache ; the girl, in her alleged dusting 
 of the room, disturbed your manuscripts ; the women 
 at the table were cats ; the landlady would tell you 
 she had known better times when her husband was 
 alive but what was a lone widow to do ? 
 
 And Hugh would hopefully advertise again, and 
 search once more to find the foot of the rainbow. 
 He still would dream impossible dreams of that 
 perfect boarding-house, comforted in his belief that 
 it existed somewhere on earth for there would be, 
 he felt sure, no boarding-houses in heaven yet each
 
 DISSEETATION ON BOAKDING-HOUSES 15 
 
 time he came to earth with the familiar meeting 
 with the inevitable boarding-house bacon and eggs. 
 
 Yet " Arden," where Hugh had lodged longer 
 than was his wont, kept up a pretence of being 
 somewhat different. To begin with, you dropped 
 down from the street into a garden hewn out of the 
 steep hillside, a garden fair with oleanders, fragrant 
 with wattles, and bright with hibiscus and flame- 
 trees and jacarandas. And the boarding-house 
 itself veiled its reality in the spring with a vesture 
 of wistaria, and in the late autumn rouged its faded 
 cheeks with the red of the Virginia creeper. But 
 beneath veil and rouge you found the eternal 
 boarding-house. 
 
 Now, as Hugh Kobjohn entered the garden, he 
 saw, for the first time in his life, a tree. Indeed, 
 he saw many trees, and the magical wonder of 
 blossom. Hitherto an oleander bush had been but 
 a blur of pink. Now he saw it magically changed 
 into swarms of delicately hovering butterflies. And 
 the bamboos took on a sudden feathery grace, the 
 camphor laurels became magic tents of tender green, 
 and the old grey gums lifted their shining parachutes 
 of dull bronze as if they were eager to be wafted 
 from earth. 
 
 Indeed, they were wonderful spectacles. 
 
 Now he nerved himself for the final test. He 
 entered the boarding-house. He let himself into 
 the straight funnel of a passage that called itself a
 
 16 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 hall, blocked on both sides by inconceivably ugly 
 hall-stands top-heavily corniced with imitation 
 walnut. In the act of hanging his round black hat 
 on a spare peg, he noted that the only other 
 masculine headgear there displayed was his own 
 straw hat. It struck him, for the first time, that 
 he was the sole male in a boarding-house full of 
 women. He recalled that the last of the other 
 masculine boarders had departed three months 
 earlier ; and Hugh was so unobservant a person, so 
 wrapped up in his own little interests, that he had 
 not even noticed the fact of his solitary state. 
 Yes . . . they were all women and what in- 
 teresting beings, now that he could distinguish one 
 from another, women were ! His step was brisk as 
 he went upstairs to wash. 
 
 He came down, slightly perturbed, to lunch. 
 This being a holiday, he was home to lunch. He 
 did not remember having had a boarding-house 
 lunch before. And, as he entered the long dining- 
 room, he saw that he was late. 
 
 Miss Swatts, Miss Flegg, Miss Littledick, and 
 Miss Catch were already busy with their plates, 
 while the landlady, Mrs. Fitzherbart (accent on the 
 last syllable, or you got cold toast for breakfast), was 
 genially presiding. Mrs. Fitzherbart was stout and 
 unctuous, and extremely ladylike. In an earlier 
 age the age with which she was contemporaneous 
 at breakfast, though by dinner time she was quite
 
 DISSERTATION ON BOARDING-HOUSES 17 
 
 modern her manner would have been termed quite 
 genteel. She had " come down in life," but had 
 come down genteely. She was making more money 
 in her adversity than the defunct, or mislaid, Mr. 
 Fitzherbart (also with the accent) had ever provided 
 her with. She was hearty in a ladylike way, insist- 
 ing on two helpings of the Sunday poultry, but 
 bitter and tenacious in little matters concerning 
 extras. But further description is unnecessary; the 
 eternal sameness of boarding-houses presupposes 
 the same boarding-house keepers. 
 
 Mrs. Fitzherbart, Miss Swatts, Miss Flegg, Miss 
 Littledick, and Miss Catch raised simultaneous eyes 
 as Hugh entered. The glitter of his new glasses 
 held them entranced. Amid a telepathic exchange 
 of questions from the corners of their eyes Hugh 
 took his seat. 
 
 And, entrenched behind his spectacles, Hugh was 
 reconnoitring a new universe. As through a tele- 
 scope a new bright world had swum into his view 
 inhabited chiefly by spinsters. 
 
 Hitherto he had taken them in a lump. Now he 
 was able not only to discern a difference between 
 Miss Flegg and Miss Swatts, but to notice that 
 in a weak, watery way Miss Catch was almost 
 pretty. (They were wonderful glasses !) He noticed 
 that Miss Swatts was a youngish old maid. Miss 
 Flegg was an oldish old maid. Miss Flegg, who was 
 understood to have investments, even to own a terrace, 
 
 c
 
 18 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 looked like a little hopping bird, eagerly pecking at her 
 crumbs. Miss Swatts, in the millinery, was in her 
 official black, so laboriously and lavishly elaborate 
 that Hugh had the idea that, as on week-days she 
 could not emerge from her sombre chrysalis, at least 
 she could so decorate her chrysalis that it almost 
 gave her the appearance of possessing a lovely pair 
 of wings. On Sundays she fluttered airily in mauve, 
 and her antennae, disguised as a hat, were of lordly 
 purple. However, she had no airs. Miss Flegg 
 had; but then Miss Flegg had given up hope. Miss 
 Swatts, shyly, had not ; and her antennae quivered 
 every Sunday with a delicious, though vague, sur- 
 mise. You never could tell ; she might meet him 
 in church. 
 
 Miss Littledick was a school-teacher not at all 
 the school-teacher of romance. Teaching to her was 
 a business, and children merely the uninteresting 
 bricks with which, she built up her " screw." Her 
 hard, practical face was lit by eyes, as Hugh saw 
 now for the first time, that held in them a hard, 
 practical humour. Hugh almost felt that Miss 
 Littledick disguised a feminine heart of sympathy 
 behind her grim spectacles. He wondered if she, 
 too, could see a new world through those glasses 
 a world where, instead of teaching a hundred 
 children, she could let one teach her. 
 
 And Miss Catch, who had drifted in nobody knew 
 whence, except that she had come, as Mrs. Fitz-
 
 DISSERTATION ON BOARDING-HOUSES 19 
 
 herbart had proclaimed with pride, with an intro- 
 duction and recommendations, and who did nothing 
 all day but read scraps of novels and turn the pages 
 of futile little magazines, who moved vaguely through 
 life, too languid to be bored, who knew each day but 
 as a tiring passage to be got through, and who spent 
 most of her afternoons mooning about the city 
 streets, blankly held by the lure of wide shop 
 windows even Miss Catch, in her faded, irritable 
 way, was vaguely pretty. 
 
 Hugh felt that if only a man any man came 
 along and married her, she would develop into a 
 good wife and a jealous mother. At present she 
 was at a loose end, brought into the world with but 
 one talent. She was and had been too long in 
 the deadwater that waits for every girl that does 
 not go off in her third season. The only thing that 
 interested her was Man, and Man was not interested 
 in her. She had been born without much sex ; she 
 did not possess that primitive attraction which is, 
 after all, Nature's most reliable expedient for the 
 continuation of the race. And Nature may have 
 had a purpose in withholding her greatest of gifts. 
 Nature may not have regarded Miss Catch as a 
 desirable mother. So Miss Catch was being quietly 
 passed by in the struggle for existence which, in 
 her maiden mind, meant the struggle for a man. 
 There were so many others more worthy. But while 
 Nature is always far-sighted and wise, she has no
 
 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 sympathy to waste upon those she cannot use in her 
 work. She thinks for the race : she does not con- 
 sider the question of individuals. Miss Catch was 
 but a piece of thistledown tumbled on the bitter 
 wind. Her chance of finding a pleasant anchoring- 
 place, where she could grow, was small. So, un- 
 consciously, she drifted on. 
 
 All this Hugh had vaguely seen before. It had 
 appeared to him from his high, detached, masculine 
 standpoint as rather funny the antics of wriggling 
 insects impaled on a pin. Now he saw the boarding- 
 house as a tragedy a pitiable tragedy. Not only 
 Miss Catch, but all the others, had been baulked of 
 their meaning by Nature. Life had brutally or 
 incomprehendingly or carelessly brushed them aside. 
 They were stranded on the muddy banks of the big, 
 tumultuous, triumphant stream. They could lie 
 there, in peace, perhaps, and watch the others 
 swirling past. They had no griefs or sorrows, 
 perhaps, except the long aching grief that they had 
 no sorrows, no remembrances of foolish, passionate, 
 mad, impossible things. In their haven how they 
 envied those others, how they scanned every morning 
 the births and marriage notices in the paper, and 
 how they discussed engagements and possible en- 
 gagements ! They were the spectators ; and though 
 they were safe in their comfortable seats, and could 
 see how, in the arena of Life, love tore and mutilated 
 the combatants, yet how they envied the chance
 
 DISSERTATION ON BOARDING-HOUSES 21 
 
 to enter that arena and face the raging lions! 
 
 Hugh felt a surge of indignation against Life. 
 The whole business was crudely and cruelly 
 arranged. A business man would not have allowed 
 this waste. Nature, blind, insistent, callous, did not 
 care 
 
 And the most pitiable part of the tragedy was that 
 these women did not know of it, did not feel it, dared 
 not allow themselves to look at it 
 
 But perhaps in the night in the long, lonely 
 night they wakened, and saw and yearned . . . 
 until the soft balm of sleep sent them back into 
 slumber to dream of little, helpless babies
 
 22 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 IN WHICH HUGH'S LIFE is WRECKED, AND MISS 
 
 CATCH PUTS ON A NEW BLOUSE 
 
 ALL through that lunch the conversation had 
 been spasmodic. The boarding-house had 
 been stunned. But as Hugh closed the 
 door behind him on his way to his room, Babel 
 broke out. 
 
 " Fancy Mr. Robjohn in spectacles ! " 
 
 " How well he looks in them ! " 
 
 " Distangay ! " 
 
 " Quite the professor, 7 say." 
 
 " And how young he looks! " 
 
 " And his eyes ! Did you see his eyes ? " 
 
 They all confessed they had. 
 
 " Quite bright like a baby's," Miss Flegg 
 stated. 
 
 They discussed babies' eyes for a quarter of an 
 hour. 
 
 " It's those glasses," said Mrs. Fitzherbart, reluc- 
 tantly turning to the subject. 
 
 " I had no idea that he had such a nice nose," 
 purred Miss Swatts.
 
 HUGH'S LIFE IS WEECKED 23 
 
 " What a splendid inspector of schools he would 
 make ! " sighed Miss Littledick. 
 
 "What a pity he doesn't "began Miss Swatts, 
 
 with an audacity that could only be explained by 
 the excitement of the moment, and every woman 
 finished the sentence in her mind. 
 
 They agreed that he was just the right age 
 handsome too, and not at all a nuisance in the 
 house. If only he would begin to sit up and take 
 notice ! 
 
 "It isn't as if there weren't plenty to choose 
 from," said Miss Swatts shyly. 
 
 And every woman looked self-conscious, while 
 Miss Catch, who was pretty in a lukewarm, diluted 
 way, flushed. 
 
 The subject dropped, like a stone in mud. It 
 touched too tremulous chords in these virgin hearts. 
 It was one of the indiscussable things that had filled 
 their lives since Hugh's shy advent. Miss Swatts' 
 rash hint of it left them trembling. Profane foot- 
 steps had broken into the jealously guarded shrines 
 of her listeners' souls. 
 
 Miss Littledick came to the rescue by a nar- 
 rative of the benefit she derived from wearing 
 spectacles. 
 
 Meanwhile Hugh sat in his small bed-sitting-room 
 upstairs. It was like any other bed-sitting-room in 
 a boarding-house, except that it had a small writing- 
 table in it and three bookcases packed with all the
 
 24 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 sprightly things the world had ever written about 
 economics. On the table were many sheets of 
 manuscript, note-books and writing materials. Here 
 it was that the great book on " National Economics " 
 was being incubated. Hugh permitted himself to 
 think that in the future the world would look back 
 with a great reverence on this insignificant room. 
 So far, however, the world had shown no knowledge 
 of its whereabouts. But in two years' time ! He 
 reckoned that the book would be finally revised by 
 then. The pile of manuscript, already so high, 
 represented but the vague adumbration of the great 
 work. From these interminable notes and calcula- 
 tions he would have to produce a compact little 
 volume of 600 pages, including graphs. Hugh was 
 great on graphs which are wobbly lines drawn on 
 paper ruled in squares, from which, despite their 
 repellent appearance, you could prove anything. 
 Hugh found the wobbles of the lines entrancingly 
 fascinating. 
 
 He lit his pipe, and picked up the manuscript of 
 his opening chapter, and ignoring the specialist's 
 orders set to work to read it over. This had always 
 been a labour of love with him. He had thrilled at 
 that opening chapter, with its masterly summary of 
 his magnificent theory, even when he had made out 
 the writing with difficulty. Now, with these new 
 spectacles 
 
 Yes, it was clearer, indubitably clearer. The
 
 HUGH'S LIFE IS WRECKED 25 
 
 sentences shone sharp and brilliant upon the paper. 
 He was surprised to find how easy it was to read it. 
 
 If only the world ! 
 
 And then he paused : a vague feeling of dissatis- 
 faction slowly came over him. It wasn't so clear, 
 after all. The writing was all right, but the meaning 
 of it looked unfamiliar, almost distorted. His argu- 
 ments, through these spectacles, seemed to lose 
 themselves in vagueness. He had not expressed 
 himself so clearly as he had confidently believed or 
 was it only the strangeness of reading his work 
 through glasses ? How often, before, had he read 
 that chapter over, and how often he had felt the 
 quick thrill of satisfaction that was almost exaltation 
 as he finished the masterly outline of his theory ! 
 Now he was perturbed. The logic seemed to be un- 
 reliable, the expression unaccountably vague. The 
 glamour of the whole chapter seemed to have gone. 
 It seemed to have got out of focus. It must be, it 
 could only be, those new spectacles. 
 
 He pushed the manuscript pettishly away and 
 examined the glasses. They were not in the least 
 bit blurred. Hopefully he carefully replaced them 
 on his nose, and picked up the manuscript again. 
 The writing glared at him, as it were, with a 
 devilish intelligence horribly sharp for the ideas it 
 was meant to express. The meaning wasn't there. 
 
 It took him some time, and a little heart-sickness, 
 before he permitted himself to recognise the dreadful
 
 26 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 truth. It was not the glasses, but his Work, that 
 was out of focus. His spectacles, with their brilliant 
 exactness, had shown him the truth about his book 
 the truth that his blurred vision had never before 
 been able to discover. He had all along been on the 
 wrong tack. All his labour had been in vain. His 
 Work, the work of his life, was valueless. 
 
 He pushed the manuscript wearily, yet tenderly, 
 from him, and patiently went over his theory in his 
 mind. It might yet be true, if only he could express 
 it better. And, before, he had taken its truth as 
 axiomatic. Now it would have to be proved, step 
 by step, all over again. And he would have to make 
 the world see it not as he had seen it, but as the 
 glasses had shown it to him. He had, from the 
 first, been labouring in the dark ; and now that the 
 blinding light had come, he saw his treasured Work 
 but a botch, a misshapen and futile thing, its flaws 
 horribly gaping. It was terrible. 
 
 That book had sustained him for so many eager 
 years : it had been the one thing, he had foolishly 
 believed, that differentiated him from his fellows, his 
 sole claim to a separate pride. And now the crutch 
 had slipped from him, and he must painfully limp 
 through the rest of his life with the others. It was 
 a stunning blow. Had he been a woman he would 
 have wept, and, certainly, been comforted. But, 
 being a man, he put his head down on his arm and 
 remained in a long agony of mind.
 
 HUGH'S LIFE IS WRECKED 27 
 
 When he looked up there was in his eyes behind 
 those cruel glasses a new look. His book, his thrice- 
 blessed theory, the sole child of his brain, was 
 worthless ! No matter. All the more reason why 
 he should write that book again with his new 
 vision. Those vague, blurred things he had 
 termed ideas were gone. Now, with the help of 
 his new glasses, he would write a new book. His 
 bandages were off, and though the slipping of 
 them had brought cruel hurt to his eyes, he was 
 glad that the operation had been performed. Now, 
 as never before, he felt sure of himself. The world 
 would see ! 
 
 He spent the rest of the afternoon tearing into 
 minute rectangular fragments the notes and manu- 
 script that were once to have built his big theory 
 of " National Economics." He swept them into 
 the grate ; he had swept his mind clear. Now ! 
 
 But he found that this afternoon he could not 
 begin his new book. He wanted time to recon- 
 struct himself. He was surprised when the dinner- 
 gong went. 
 
 At dinner he noted that Miss Catch the girl who 
 was pretty in a weak, watery way had a new 
 blouse on. It rather became her. And Miss Catch 
 had intercepted his glance at it. It was not only 
 Miss Catch who suddenly blushed. And all through 
 the dinner she was lightly fingering and femininely 
 patting the blouse. Hugh could not help noticing
 
 28 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 her movements, and the other women watched his 
 interest with guarded eyes. Things in the board- 
 ing-house promised quite a lot of excitement. The 
 spectators shyly simmered with interest. 
 
 So much, in this prosaic world of ours, a new 
 blouse may do !
 
 HUGH ENTEES FAIBYLAND 29 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IN WHICH HUGH ENTEES THE PORTALS 
 OP FAIRYLAND 
 
 YES, they were certainly Chinese lanterns 
 a long string of them, swaying among the 
 trees of the garden. 
 
 Hugh blinked his eyes, wondering if it were only 
 a trick of his new spectacles. Now, what were 
 Chinese lanterns doing in the boarding-house garden? 
 
 He had gone up to his room after dinner to smoke, 
 and stood at his window wondering. 
 
 Oh yes, it was Christmas Eve, and he remembered 
 Miss Flegg saying something about the illuminations 
 on the bay. He had not had a Christmas Eve at 
 Mosinan, and had only heard vaguely of its annual 
 Venetian evening. 
 
 Sydney, possessing the most beautiful harbour in 
 the world, had, like a man married to a beautiful 
 woman, staled to its undying charm. On the 
 shores of that curved and indented bay the blind 
 new-comers had pell-mell placed a great city. They 
 were blinded to its beauty by their instant apprecia-
 
 30 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 tion of its commercial possibilities, the depth of its 
 water, its size, its shelter, and its accessibility. So, 
 in a strange land, with pioneer eyes that could not 
 see beauty in this land of grey and bronze-green, 
 the owners of the land had no dreams of the 
 aesthetic value of so wonderful a site, nor the great 
 modern city that should dominate it. 
 
 Its incomparable foreshores were granted out for 
 farms. Its meandering dray-routes became narrow 
 and tortuous streets. Its water-gate became a 
 collection of mean ferry-wharves. The avenue that 
 should have led straight from the wharves of the 
 ocean liners to the heart of the city was blocked 
 with huddled buildings and confused little streets. 
 The harbour was disfigured with advertisement 
 hoardings, and no boulevards encircled it. 
 
 But gradually a civic pride awakened; and the 
 advertisements had to go. Then eyes were miracu- 
 lously opened to see the beauty of night illumination. 
 It was discovered that a ferry-boat was a torch of 
 loveliness. Some bold spirit determined to try the 
 effect of a carnival night. It was in Mosman Bay 
 that the first practical experiment was made. One 
 Christmas Eve the residents of the bay lit their 
 gardens with Chinese lanterns. By next Christ- 
 mas Eve the display attracted thousands of specta- 
 tors from the other suburbs, congested the ferry 
 traffic, and turned the long narrow inlet into a riot 
 of beauty.
 
 HUGH ENTEKS FAIRYLAND 31 
 
 And now the row of Chinese lanterns between the 
 bamboos struck Hugh as extraordinarily beautiful. 
 Eemember, he saw Chinese lanterns for the first 
 time. Across the narrow inlet all the houses and 
 gardens were picked out with globes of light. He 
 stared, fascinated, at this riot of swinging moons. 
 He was loath to go back to the first chapter of the 
 new " National Economics." 
 
 A knock at the door roused him from his muse. 
 Charlie Leggett entered boisterously. He alone 
 among all Hugh's friends refused to take Hugh's 
 great book seriously. But then Charlie never took 
 anything not even girls seriously. 
 
 " Come on, old chap ! Shove that rotten manu- 
 script away. Fancy scribbling on Christmas Eve ! 
 I've got a boat, and the girl I was going to take out 
 has got the influenza or another fellow but I'm 
 not going to miss the fun. So get a move on ! " 
 
 At any other time Hugh would have wearily 
 refused on the plea of work. But he felt it would 
 be impossible to work with those tinted moons 
 laughing and dancing just outside his window. 
 And, as always, he was amused and interested in 
 the breeziness of Charlie Leggett, his junior in the 
 office, whose one ambition was to be the owner of 
 an eighteen-footer. At present he was but a one- 
 fifth owner, and had to do most of the cleaning of 
 the yacht. Hugh reached for his hat. 
 
 "We'll just mouch about in my skiff," Charlie
 
 32 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 explained. " I say, there isn't anything juicy in 
 the way of girls at this boarding-house, is there, 
 that we could fetch along ? " 
 
 Hugh mentally ran over the femininity of the 
 house, and reluctantly admitted that they had not 
 the requisite juiciness. He had forgotten all about 
 Miss Catch's new blouse, the cost and construction 
 of which she was now explaining to the envious 
 drawing-room. 
 
 " The bay is full of girls," Charlie rippled on. 
 " Girls in boats, girls in launches, girls in canoes 
 girls, girls, girls! With a little luck we'll have a 
 full passenger list in half an hour." 
 
 Hugh put on his straw with a laugh it was 
 surprising how easy it was to laugh with those new 
 spectacles and they went into fairyland. The 
 whole side of Cremorne was lit with Chinese 
 lanterns ; and in the bay an old barge, moored in 
 mid-stream, dropped a rain of rippling reflections 
 into the water. This was the focus of interest. 
 On it was a piano and a choir of women ; and from 
 it already came, sweet across the water, the refrain 
 of a Christinas carol. And everywhere the water 
 was paved with the lights of motor-launches, and 
 rowing-boats that, garlanded with bobbing lanterns, 
 pushed and nosed their way from wharf to barge 
 and shore. Cremorne was black with a throng of 
 thousands of spectators. And over all, rising up 
 into the deep lilac and pale green of the Australian
 
 
 HUGH ENTERS FAIRYLAND 33 
 
 evening sky, were laughter and " cooees " and 
 greetings. 
 
 Soon they were in the midst of the crowd of 
 boats, their little string of lanterns lost in the 
 brilliant lights of the bigger launches. From launch 
 to launch they passed, with shouted welcomes to 
 Charlie from every second one. No one seemed to 
 recognise Hugh. Perhaps it was his new spectacles. 
 But through them Hugh could see oh, what 
 couldn't he see ? 
 
 If that morning he was looking for the first 
 time at life, now he had his first glimpse of 
 romance. 
 
 The lanterns, under the gentle teasing breeze, 
 swayed on their loose strings, dancing quaint 
 quadrilles with each other, like a crowd of intoxicated 
 moons, to the tune of a woman's voice on the barge. 
 Picnic suppers were spread out on the launches, 
 and camp-fires flamed on the shores, and banjos 
 twanged, and far-off gramophones across the water 
 sounded even musical. And here and there coloured 
 fires lit up the shores with a sudden, fantastic, 
 deep-etched brilliance. 
 
 But though Charlie invited and cajoled, none of 
 the girls in the launches could be persuaded to 
 trust themselves to his skiff. Somewhat surprised, 
 and certainly sulky, Charlie pulled out of the crush 
 toward the head of the bay where the yachts were 
 moored. 
 
 D
 
 34 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " It's those glaring spectacles of yours, old chap," 
 he sulkily said. " They're like searchlights. Enough 
 to scare off a widow. Whatever do you want to 
 wear those window-panes for ? " 
 
 Hugh explained that with them he saw better. 
 He did not explain how much better. 
 
 Suddenly Charlie swung round in his seat. 
 " Look out ! " he cried. " We'll be run down ! 
 Where 'yer going, there ? " 
 
 It was a lean little motor launch he hailed. 
 Garlanded with lanterns, it was silently sneaking 
 upon them. An accident was imminent. 
 
 A couple of quick strokes, a swerve on the part 
 of the launch, and the danger was over. But the 
 next moment the launch, in avoiding them, had 
 quickly impaled itself upon the bowsprit of a moored, 
 unlighted yacht. 
 
 Hugh heard the crush of splintered glass as the 
 bowsprit stuck itself through the little cabin 
 window; but that noise was for ever obliterated 
 from his mind by the thing that followed. 
 
 It was a woman's scream. 
 
 Already Charlie had brought the boat to the 
 launch's side. On the cabin floor, still clutching 
 the tiny wheel, Hugh saw a girl. And there was 
 blood on her cheek. 
 
 As he leapt on board, Hugh's eyes took in the 
 presence of a man at the bow of the launch, vainly 
 attempting to separate the two vessels. Hugh
 
 HUGH ENTEBS FAIBYLAND 35 
 
 bent over the girl, and lifted her to the seat of the 
 cabin. 
 
 And oh, how soft and wonderful and white she 
 was ! 
 
 (This is the place for you, hardened reader, to 
 snort. Of course she was beautiful. Every heroine 
 in every novel is beautiful. Well, aren't there 
 enough beautiful girls in the world to go round 
 one to each novel? And, really, this girl was 
 beautiful enough for a hundred novels or perhaps 
 it was the effect solely of the spectacles through 
 which he saw her. Certainly she was wondrous 
 beautiful to him. But if he saw her without his 
 spectacles ? Perhaps, later on, he did.) 
 
 What Hugh saw, as she lay almost in his arms, 
 was a slight, soft thing of white. But her hair was 
 a glory of ruddy, fiery bronze. And from her dead- 
 white cheek a trickle of scarlet flowed. It seemed 
 to his excited nerves as beautiful as a flame-tree in 
 the moonlight. He dabbed it with his handkerchief, 
 and a tiny scratch, probably from a splinter of the 
 shattered glass, marred the soft symmetry of that 
 cheek. The dead whiteness of it had a beauty of 
 its own, but Hugh saw through his spectacles that 
 with the return to consciousness for, surely, so 
 beautiful a thing could not die ! her cheek would 
 still retain its delicate clear pallor. And though 
 the obvious, indeed the clamant, thing to do was to 
 get her out of the faint, Hugh did not do it. He
 
 36 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 held her warm and soft and helpless a moment 
 longer in his arms. It was culpable negligence, 
 perhaps but wouldn't you ? 
 
 It was Charlie who spoiled it all. The figure in 
 the bow was too absorbed in his efforts to dis- 
 entangle the two boats even to look round. Charlie 
 climbed aboard. 
 
 " She's fainted," he explained. "Don't hold her 
 up, you fool ! Put her head down. Here 
 
 A handful of water splashed on the girl's face 
 and also over Hugh's spectacles. He saw her 
 through the drops aureoled with strange halos 
 of Chinese lanterns. But he did not put her 
 down. 
 
 The shock aroused her. 
 
 She opened strange eyes, gazed complacently at 
 Hugh's spectacles, and, with a little low chuckle of 
 divine content, snuggled closer to him. 
 
 Hugh sat rigid, afraid to move. 
 
 But heaven cannot be vouchsafed to mortals on 
 earth for more than a moment at a time. The girl 
 opened those strange eyes and shuddered back into 
 her conscious self. 
 
 " Oh ! " she said in consternation, sitting up. 
 
 Her eyes took in the ruddy handkerchief in 
 Hugh's hand. One slim finger went to her cheek 
 and came away red. 
 
 " Will it disfigure me ? " she asked in a shudder- 
 ing awe.
 
 HUGH ENTERS FAIRYLAND 37 
 
 " Only a scratch." Hugh comforted her distress. 
 
 "But a scratch will show ! " she gave her dismal 
 verdict. 
 
 " Not in a week's time." 
 
 " A week ! I'll have to go a week like this ! " 
 There was tragedy in her tone. 
 
 "A bit of sticking-plaster " 
 
 " On my face o-oh ! " She shuddered. " And 
 the scar ! " 
 
 " It's nothing really nothing ! " 
 
 " Get me my hand-bag, quick ! " she commanded, 
 sitting very straight, and looking down sideways at 
 this strange man. 
 
 It wasn't Bert, then! But where was Bert? 
 Drowned? She glanced round, but at that moment 
 Hugh put her hand-bag in her lap. Bert, drowned 
 or not, could wait. 
 
 She clutched the bag and pulled from it a small 
 object. And by the light of the swinging ship's 
 lantern in the cabin she inspected herself critically 
 in her pocket mirror. 
 
 Thank Heaven ! " Only a teeny-weeny scratch ! " 
 
 A little more powder, and nobody would know 
 unless anybody kissed her. Well, she wouldn't be 
 kissed for a week. She could easily manage that 
 for a week. She sighed happily and looked round 
 for the drowned Bert. 
 
 He was standing outside the broken cabin window, 
 leaning down, an interested spectator.
 
 38 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " Oh," said the girl contentedly, " so you're all 
 right, Bert ? I thought you were drowned, leaving 
 me like that ! " 
 
 " It'll cost me a fiver these windows, and I'll 
 have to pay for the damage to the yacht. But 
 they should have had a light. Danger to navigation, 
 eh ? Hullo, dear, you're scratched ? " 
 
 "A bit," said the girl, industriously dabbing. 
 " Oh, and it's your handkerchief ! " She looked 
 from the handkerchief to its owner. 
 
 "It doesn't matter only only an old one," 
 Hugh muttered, embarrassed, overcome by the 
 direct gaze of those strange eyes. He had never 
 seen eyes that colour before. 
 
 " Well, thanks for happening along," said the 
 young man called Bert. " These yachts ought to 
 have riding-lights. Ought to be some regulation 
 about them. But we'd better be getting back, 
 dear. The show's over." 
 
 The hint was obvious. The only person who 
 took no notice of it was the girl. 
 
 "I didn't see the bowsprit," she explained. "I 
 didn't know yachts had them always. And I 
 thought I could steer! " 
 
 "Oh, you can steer all right. It wasn't 
 your fault. I could go for them for not hav- 
 ing lights. . . But you'll come out again, 
 dear ? " 
 
 "You bet," said the girl. Then, turning to
 
 HUGH ENTEES FAIKYLAND 39 
 
 Hugh, she murmured a good-night. " And thank- 
 ing you for looking after me," she softly added, 
 giving him a straight glance from those wonderful 
 eyes. 
 
 Hugh gobbled a good-evening, and they cast off 
 into the night. 
 
 Charlie and Hugh watched the launch slowly 
 gather way and slip off with its lanterns rocking 
 in the breeze. 
 
 The girl was once more standing at the wheel. 
 
 "Wonder who she is?" asked Hugh, feeling a 
 strange fever of blood on his cheeks. 
 
 "Don't know," said Charlie cheerfully. "I've 
 seen her about in Sydney somewhere. Sort of face 
 you can't help noticing. Say, Bobjohn, she can use 
 her eyes." 
 
 " And what eyes ! " said Hugh. 
 
 " Sort of curious colour." Charlie spoke absently, 
 busy at the sculls. 
 
 " The qplour ? the colour ? " cried Hugh. 
 "Her hair was ruddy ruddy gold, and her 
 eyes . . . honey-coloured, perhaps. Eed? No. 
 Gold? Um . . . no, they've got too much fire 
 in them . . . Amber ! Yes, amber, with a 
 hotness in them. I say, Charlie, you don't know 
 her name?" 
 
 " Not much ; but I think I could guess the sort 
 of girl she is. You don't have that sort of eyes if 
 you're a Primitive Methodist."
 
 40 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 "What sort of girl? " asked Hugh impatiently. 
 
 He had never before conceived that girls were of 
 any particular sorts. They were just girls. 
 
 " What sort ? " laughed Charlie scornfully. " Hot 
 stuff!"
 
 THE BOARDING-HOUSE GOES TO BED 41 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 IN WHICH THE BOARDING-HOUSE GOES TO BED 
 
 THE boarding-house, when Hugh returned 
 to it, was already in darkness. The in- 
 habitants had gone to bed. 
 
 This fact, however, must not be cursorily passed 
 over by the mere mention of it. For going to bed 
 with Miss Flegg, Miss Swatts, Miss Littledick, and 
 Miss Catch was no mere incident ; it was a ritual, 
 an event. There was plenty of time in their days 
 there was really too much time ; and going to bed 
 had become for them all the slow climax of the 
 drawn-out day. They went to bed elaborately. 
 
 A man whips off his clothes and tumbles into 
 bed ; but for Miss Flegg, Miss Swatts, Miss Little- 
 dick, and Miss Catch going to bed had become a 
 ceremony. They had so many little personal pos- 
 sessions to put carefully away each in its sacred 
 niche. They had their hair so carefully to brush ; 
 they had their faces so conscientiously to scrutinise 
 in the mirror; they had their dressing-tables so 
 neatly to arrange. And their method of undressing
 
 42 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 was always unvaried, and carried out with a delib- 
 eration that made it a solemn rite. And there were 
 always pauses in between pauses in which they 
 vaguely thought, or mooned, or sighed, or wondered. 
 And, for the invariable finale, there was always the 
 Man to be sought for, with a hasty peering and a 
 shiver of delightful fear, underneath the bed. 
 
 And from the opposite side of the bay a watcher 
 would have seen each night at ten o'clock four 
 contiguous windows suddenly, softly lit. Then three- 
 quarters of an hour later the four windows would 
 almost simultaneously darken, and he would know 
 that Miss Flegg, Miss Swatts, Miss Littledick, and 
 Miss Catch, in elaborate open-work nightgowns 
 which they showed with pride to each other were 
 carefully composing themselves to innocent slumber. 
 
 Having thus with proper ceremony put Miss 
 Flegg, Miss Swatts, Miss Littledick, and Miss 
 Catch to bed, let us turn to Hugh. He w r ent to bed, 
 but not to sleep. 
 
 For the first time in his life he had looked upon 
 Woman, and he found her good. He was dazzled 
 by the vision vouchsafed to him by his marvellous 
 spectacles. To think that all these years he had 
 lived in blindness ! That girl with the amber eyes 
 must have passed him in the streets of Sydney a 
 dozen times, and he had seen her not. She might 
 have been sitting next him on the ferry-boat 
 yesterday ; and she would have been for him only a
 
 THE BOARDING-HOUSE GOES TO BED 43 
 
 pleasantly contoured blur. In that sudden vision 
 of her beneath the bobbing lanterns all the rest of 
 her sex had been obliterated. He recalled, with a 
 contemptuous smile, that only that day at lunch he 
 had thought Miss Catch, in a lukewarm and diluted 
 way, pretty. Miss Catch ! It was a profanation 
 to think of her beside that radiant other. 
 
 For it was the radiance of her that amazed him. 
 There was a richness in those honey-coloured eyes, 
 a softness and an allure in the curves of her body, 
 that spoke to him of vitality, of lushness, of some 
 magnificent promise. She was Youth. Not plump 
 he decided the question with anxious deliberation. 
 Certainly not skinny just a ripeness of curve, a 
 softness exquisitely and appealingly feminine. 
 
 And just as he had arrived at this momentous 
 decision he recalled that the youth with her, the 
 youth whom she had addressed familiarly as "Bert," 
 had called her " Dear." 
 
 Hugh did not like that. Yes, twice she had 
 called him " Dear." Now, who were the people 
 who called each other " Dear " ? Married people. 
 But she w r as surely not married. He was certain 
 of that. Why, he could not have told. Engaged ? 
 Yes. But, somehow, he could not imagine her as 
 engaged to that scrap of ordinariness called " Bert." 
 It seemed to him a sacrilege that would not have 
 been permitted by the high gods. And if not en- 
 gaged to him, what was the relationship that had
 
 44 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 brought them so intimately together ? Brother and 
 sister ? No, that was a sacrilege too. Well, then ? 
 
 He gave it up, till Charlie's comment came sing- 
 ing back into his ears. " Hot stuff ! " 
 
 That phrase sent a thrill of distaste shuddering 
 through him. It was as if he had sucked up from 
 his pipe a drop of nicotine. In Hugh's virginal 
 mind the phrase connoted " fast " girls, or women 
 even faster. Hugh had his ideal of womenkind as 
 we all have had, as those of us still unmarried still 
 may have. Those of us who are married have 
 something infinitely better they have the woman. 
 Woman to him and, knowing nothing of the 
 being, he was always curiously thinking of her 
 was an ethereal thing remote from a world of men. 
 About her head was always an aureole of mystery ; 
 she floated past his comprehension faintly veiled in 
 rose and pink. She was a divinity to be worshipped 
 with bent head a being of a thousand uncompre- 
 hended refinements, subtleties and nuances robed 
 in the purple and sacred magnificence of her sex. 
 A mere man could only adore. She might bend to 
 him, but it was an act of almost incomprehensible 
 condescension. She was the light around which 
 the blundering and dazzled moths from the dark- 
 ness for ever fluttered, and her frown was a glad 
 death, her smile a glorious resurrection. 
 
 In short, Hugh Kobjohn looked on woman 
 through the illustrations of Charles Dana Gibson.
 
 THE BOARDING-HOUSE GOES TO BED 45 
 
 That Woman was but the other half of his 
 masculine world, a being with a human and 
 spiritual appetite like himself, a thing with 
 emotions and understanding like his, a human 
 soul craving another human soul, a part of this 
 commonplace life of ours, moving, like Man, along 
 the common highway of the world all this would 
 have seemed to this philosopher in spectacles a 
 profanation and a sacrilege. 
 
 Hugh admitted that this, his ideal, did not apply 
 to a section of the other sex. These were the bad 
 women. He brushed them away from his vision ; 
 they marred the pure and refined beauty of his 
 worshipped ideal. He could not understand how 
 these bad women had once been little innocent 
 children. He could not have lumped Woman into 
 one class, as he was able to lump Man, with the 
 same qualities, good and bad, only in a different 
 degree ranging through the sex. No ; in his con- 
 ception of Woman he wiped out the failures, and, 
 from that obliteration, turned with a more devout 
 worship to the Woman of his ideal. You see, his 
 education had begun wrong : he had not started off 
 by kissing a woman. 
 
 So, in his judicial consideration of the girl with 
 the amber eyes he put quite aside the possibility of 
 her being bad. Wild, fast, ' ' hot stuff " ? Surely that 
 meant only that she was young, beautiful, full of life. 
 She must be good, because he was in love with her !
 
 46 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 There, it was out ! He thrilled at the thought. 
 And, desperately, he did not care did not care 
 for anything nor anybody, not even " National 
 Economics " ! He had held her in his arms. She 
 had looked up at him with those strange, slow 
 eyes, and snuggled closer. He would seek her out, 
 capture her and marry her. 
 
 But he had not the remotest idea whom she was 
 or where to find her. He never even considered 
 the possibility that when he found her she might 
 run away. You see how dangerous it is to give a 
 blind man spectacles ! 
 
 And in the midst of his heroics at which, if you 
 are young, you may smile, but at which, if you are 
 middle-aged, you will smile wistfully he remem- 
 bered his handkerchief. 
 
 She had it. She had kept it. And . . . yes, 
 it had his name in the corner, his full name punc- 
 tiliously marked in his neat and scholarly hand- 
 writing. She knew his name. 
 
 He went to sleep happy, infinitely comforted by 
 this insignificant fact. 
 
 But when a man is in love, is not the slightest 
 fact concerning the girl incredibly significant ?
 
 HUGH'S CHRISTMAS DINNER 47 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 IN WHICH HUGH'S CHRISTMAS DINNER DISAGREES 
 WITH HIM 
 
 NEXT day being Christmas Day, Hugh 
 woke to the disturbing fact that he was 
 expected to consume a large dinner in 
 the middle of the day. And he hated anything but 
 a cup of tea and a scone for lunch. 
 
 Great preparations had been made by Mrs. Fitz- 
 herbart ; for, for the first time in the history of 
 " Arden," all the boarders would be "home" for 
 Christmas dinner. Miss Flegg had contemplated 
 dining festively with her four bleak nieces ; but she 
 had caught a cold the night before, looking at the 
 illuminations, and deemed it unwise at her age to 
 venture out. She preferred to sniff at home, where 
 handkerchiefs and eucalyptus were handy. 
 
 Miss Swatts, of the millinery, was debarred from 
 going home to her mother by the fact that that lady 
 lived in outback Queensland, and it would take her 
 twelve days' travelling by train and buggy to and 
 fro, and the shop could not grant her a fortnight's
 
 48 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 holiday. So she merely put on her most festive 
 pink, determined that at least she should do her 
 best to contribute to the gaiety of the occasion. 
 
 Miss Littledick had, frankly, nowhere else to 
 go. She said it with a defensive smile ; but she 
 had the advantage over Miss Catch. The faintly 
 pretty Miss Catch had talked much of a visit to 
 her " boy's " relatives ; but as nobody had ever 
 seen her " boy " or his relatives, this story was 
 received with a visual sniff. (The visual sniff is 
 an acrobatic performance at which all women are 
 born adepts. It is a quick glance of the eyes that 
 conveys the pleasing illusion of a sniff. You can 
 practice it easily before a glass.) And Miss Catch's 
 announcement that morning that it was too hot 
 altogether to go to Hunter's Hill till after dinner 
 was received with the same visual sniff. 
 
 She had really been going to her much-married 
 sister's for dinner, but the fact that Mr. Robjohn 
 was staying for dinner put all other thoughts out 
 of her vague and fluffy mind. At Christmas 
 dinners you pulled crackers and drank toasts. 
 Who knows if Mr. Robjohn mightn't pull a cracker 
 with her ? 
 
 The ladies spent the morning getting elaborately 
 dressed, so they were thoroughly, almost feverishly, 
 happy. But as dinner was late they gathered on 
 the wide verandah, waiting for the gong and dis- 
 cussing Mr. Robjohn's spectacles. Miss Littledick,
 
 HUGH'S CHRISTMAS DINNEE 49 
 
 who bravely and gallantly wore pince-nez, re- 
 marked : 
 
 " They give him such an intellectual look, don't 
 they?" 
 
 "A pity he has to take to spectacles so early," 
 said Miss Flegg. " Thank heaven, my eyes are 
 all right." She beamed on Miss Littledick's pince- 
 nez. 
 
 " There are some faces glasses improve," snapped 
 that lady. " Others nothing could improve ! " 
 
 "I like them very much," purred Miss Catch; 
 " but I do wish he didn't have to wear them. 
 They hide his beautiful eyes." 
 
 The other women cast a quick glance at Miss 
 Catch, and a quicker glance of understanding at 
 each other. That look was the gleam in the eyes 
 of the panther when it comes across a footprint 
 in the jungle. There was game ahead for the 
 tracking ! And Miss Catch's bedroom was next 
 door to Mr. Robjohn's ! 
 
 Then the gladsome dinner-gong went, and they 
 hastened, with ostentatious slowness, into the 
 long dining-room. The table was gaily decorated, 
 and beside each plate was one of those gaudy, 
 crinkly things that when pulled go off with a report 
 and disclose a paper cap. Hugh recalled them 
 from his boyhood. 
 
 It was a gay dinner. Outside, the city lay 
 
 sweltering in the midsummer heat, and inside the 
 
 E
 
 50 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 darkened room for the blinds had been mercifully 
 drawn against the bitter sun flies clustered and 
 crawled, and the boarders steadily ate. Mrs. 
 Fitzherbart played the hostess with a joviality 
 that sat uncomfortably on her shrewd and pulpy 
 features. She encouraged the repassing up of 
 plates for the turkey had been bought, and in this 
 awful weather you couldn't depend on keeping any 
 meat. But beneath the general sparkle of gaiety 
 there ran a hidden stream of remembrance. The 
 minds of each of the women ran back to other 
 Christmas dinners, Christmases when they were 
 young, at home with the family, when there were 
 presents and dreams and ambitions, and the long 
 look forward of youth. This was but a make- 
 believe, a memory, a ghost. 
 
 Miss Swatts leant forward and offered a cracker 
 to Miss Flegg to pull, and the others peered 
 excitedly as Miss Flegg extracted a paper fool's- 
 cap and placed it on the thin covering of her hair- 
 frames. They all agreed that it became her ; and 
 immediately there was a fusillade of crackers, and 
 each woman decorated herself with a grotesque paper 
 head-dress. Then an extraordinary thing happened. 
 
 Miss Catch offered her cracker to Mr. Hugh. 
 Blushing, he pulled it. She was already wearing 
 a Napoleonic field-marshal's hat ; and Hugh noted, 
 with a little surprise, how pretty her dull hair 
 looked beneath it.
 
 HUGH'S CHEISTMAS DINNEB 51 
 
 From the cracker Hugh extracted a tiny packet 
 of paper. Clumsily opening it, he felt Miss Catch's 
 fingers on his. 
 
 " Oh, you'll tear it ! " she cried. " Let me open 
 it." 
 
 It turned out to be a Grecian helmet, and to 
 the shocked consternation of the household Miss 
 Catch deliberately placed it on Hugh's head. 
 
 (In private conversation afterwards, during Miss 
 Catch's absence, the conclusion of the ladies was 
 that Miss Catch was a designing cat. " Such 
 impudence to a gentleman like Mr. Kobjohn ! " 
 was the final verdict, only dissented from by Miss 
 S watts, who put it mercifully down to the claret 
 cup. The committee for the management of Miss 
 Catch's affairs felt that their office was going to 
 be no sinecure.) 
 
 In the midst of this hilarious excitement the 
 knell of doom abruptly sounded. It was the 
 telephone bell. 
 
 The telephone had been placed, with a considera- 
 tion rare in boarding-houses, on the dining-room 
 wall. This arrangement gave a pleasing publicity 
 to the private affairs of the boarders. If you could 
 not hear what the minx on the other end of the 
 wire said, at least you could hear his answers. 
 And from his remarks you could infer oh, all sorts 
 of things. The committee for the management of 
 other boarders' affairs were skilled at inferences.
 
 52 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 Mrs. Fitzherbart went to the 'phone and the 
 dining-room listened. The brandy on the pudding 
 flickered and died. Flies committed a lingering 
 and sticky sort of suicide in the cream. But a 
 hush held all the room, and each woman was ready 
 to rush to the expected summons. 
 
 "It's for you, Mr. Eobjohn," said the landlady, 
 with dramatic intensity. Then, as she relinquished 
 the receiver, she added her astonishing fact, " A 
 woman's voice ! " 
 
 It was a woman's voice a charming voice. " Is 
 that you? " it asked in Hugh's ear. 
 
 "Who's speaking?" asked Hugh, in a tone which 
 he foolishly strove to keep businesslike. The voice 
 recalled memories, recent memories. 
 
 " Oh, you know ! " was the provoking reply. 
 
 " I don't. Keally, I don't ! " said Hugh. It was 
 too much to expect that it might be her. 
 
 " Guess ! " came the triumphant challenge. 
 
 Hugh remained silent. 
 
 " Is that Mr. Kobjohn ? Mr. Hugh Bob- 
 John?" 
 
 " Yes. But who is it ? " 
 
 Again that triumphant " Guess ! " 
 
 Hugh desperately guessed. "It's not the girl 
 in " 
 
 He remembered in time. He had an audience 
 an eager and intent audience. It would not be wise 
 to guess.
 
 HUGH'S CHRISTMAS DINNER 53 
 
 "The girl in what?" laughed the voice en- 
 couragingly. 
 
 " Oh," said Hugh, desperate, " who is it? " 
 
 " Guess ! " 
 
 " I can't." 
 
 " Are there so many girls you have that you can't 
 pick one out of the bunch ? I'm surprised at you, 
 really, Mr. Robjohn ! " The voice was provocative, 
 tantalising. 
 
 " You don't understand," muttered Hugh. 
 
 " I can't." 
 
 There were five cats behind his back. He could 
 almost feel them scratching it. 
 
 "But you do know me. You haven't forgotten 
 me so soon," the woman urged, after a slight 
 consideration. 
 
 "I think I do." 
 
 " Of course you do. I'm the girl in the launch." 
 
 " Really ! I say ! " 
 
 Hugh recollected the five cats in time. Their 
 claws were bared. 
 
 "But you don't say," cooed the voice, a little 
 disappointedly, it seemed, to his excited nerves. 
 
 " Because under the circumstances I can't," he 
 said shortly. 
 
 " Circumspect young man ! " his tormentor went 
 on. " It's quite safe. I'm miles away. You can 
 be as rash as you like. The wire won't give you 
 away or bring me any closer ! "
 
 54 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " But " began Hugh. 
 
 Oh, if only he were in a public telephone box, 
 with the door locked ! What wouldn't he say? 
 He felt five pair of eyes screwing into his back. 
 
 " Oh, well," said the voice, with a touch of 
 temper in it, " if you can't be more conversational, 
 I'll ring off. I just rang up to wish you a merry 
 Christmas and you seem to be having one ! Oh, 
 by the way, I've got your old handkerchief. I'd 
 like to return it to you. Where could I see you to 
 give it to you? " 
 
 Where ? Hugh thought of a multitude of places. 
 He might meet her at the Civil Service Stores and 
 take her to afternoon tea ; he might meet her on a 
 ferry-boat ; he might meet her that evening at 
 Circular Quay and let her return it to him some- 
 where on the sea-shore at Manly, under the moon, 
 He might oh, where mightn't he meet her if it 
 wasn't for those pointed ears that pricked his back? 
 He thought wildly of asking her to call no, not at 
 the boarding-house, but at his office. But that 
 would never do. Girls were not encouraged at 
 Government offices, and it would get all round the 
 office. How to arrange a meeting and yet not drop 
 a hint to that army of ferocious panthers crouching 
 intent behind ? 
 
 " Are you there ? " the woman's voice broke in, 
 in terse, business-like tones. 
 
 " Yes, of course ! " eagerly cried Hugh.
 
 HUGH'S CHKISTMAS DINNER 55 
 
 "Thought you'd rung off to get back to your 
 dinner. I'm simply famishing for an ice ! Well ? " 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Oh, I'll post the old thing to you. Good-bye 
 and merry Christmas ! " 
 
 " Merry Christmas ! " said Hugh dolorously ; and 
 the bell of doom tinkled. 
 
 He got back somehow to his seat, and, putting 
 his hand to his wet brow, discovered that he was 
 still a Grecian warrior. He declined strawberries 
 and cream, and fled the room on the plea of work 
 to do. 
 
 As the door closed behind him there was a 
 unanimous and meaning " Well ! " and then the 
 deluge came. 
 
 " Who would have thought it of Mr. Robjohn? " 
 said Miss Catch with pathos, conscious of the 
 futility of her new blouse. 
 
 " / would have thought it. I did think it ! " said 
 Mrs. Fitzherbart solemnly. " I know men." She 
 had married one. 
 
 Then the discussion overflowed. After all, they 
 had not much to go upon. The facts in their 
 possession were scant. The first one was : A 
 woman oh, surely young, and certainly fast. For 
 who but a fast woman would have dared to ring up 
 Mr. Robjohn in the privacy of his home ? The 
 second item was his interest in her. Else why had 
 he been so confused ? The third fact was that the
 
 56 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 whole shameful affair was a secret, that had been 
 going on right under their noses. 
 
 True, they had only fragments of a conversation 
 to build on ; but that to the feminine mind only 
 lent it the greater charm. They went over the 
 telephone talk in detail. 
 
 " Who's speaking ? " 
 
 " Shows he didn't know her well," said Miss 
 Swatts. 
 
 "No; it shows he knew her very well, but he 
 didn't want us to know," said Miss Flegg, from the 
 heights of her superior experience. 
 
 " I don't really I don't ! " 
 
 " There ! He didn't recognise her at first which 
 only shows how many girls he must know if he 
 couldn't remember her." Miss Catch's voice was 
 pathetic. 
 
 " Yes, but who is it ? " 
 
 " You see," cried Miss Littledick scornfully, " he 
 knew all the time. He wanted to make sure. He 
 wasn't going to give himself away to the wrong 
 woman." 
 
 " That is just what he is doing," sighed Miss 
 Catch, suddenly taking a dislike to her new blouse. 
 She mentally decided to get a handsome lace one 
 next week if she had to go short in underclothes for 
 a month. 
 
 " It's not the girl in .' " 
 
 " In what? " asked the whole committee.
 
 HUGH'S CHRISTMAS DINNER 57 
 
 " In the pantomime," said Miss Swatts. " He 
 was out last Thursday week, late. He must have 
 seen her then." 
 
 " I can't understand what a man can see in those 
 painted creatures," said Miss Catch. 
 
 "It's not what they see in them," said Miss 
 Flegg with asperity ; " it's what they see of 
 them." 
 
 " They see such a lot," sighed Miss Swatts, with 
 a wild revolt in her heart against the swathing 
 tyranny of clothes. 
 
 Her best point, she knew, was her calves ; and 
 for all the use her calves were to her she might as 
 well have had sticks like Miss Flegg. She had 
 a dumb fear that she would go to her grave without 
 any eye, save her own, ever beholding those calves. 
 (As a matter of fact, she did.) 
 
 "In what?" 
 
 " In the tram," hazarded Miss Swatts. 
 
 " I expect she pretended she had lost her purse," 
 snapped Miss Littledick. " How a man could 
 be taken in by such a ! " 
 
 " In the tea-room," Mrs. Fitzherbart interposed. 
 " He had his lunch at the A B C and those girls 
 are always marrying the men they wait on." 
 
 "In what? In trouble," thought Miss Little- 
 dick, but she kept her surmise to herself. 
 
 The committee finally resolved that it was the 
 pantomime girl, and made it an instruction to the
 
 58 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 members to find out which pantomime girl, whether 
 Mr. Kobjohn went out to the theatre again and 
 which theatre, whether she painted off as well as 
 on the stage, whether she lived at home, and 
 whether she was dark or fair. 
 
 " Oh, who is it ? " 
 
 " You see, he must have stacks of girls." 
 
 " I can't: 1 
 
 " Can't what ? Can't love her ? " 
 
 " Can't announce his engagement ? " 
 
 "Can't fix the date?" 
 
 " Can't fight the other man ? " 
 
 " Can't decide whether he loves her? " 
 
 " Can't help her to get a divorce? " 
 
 "Can't afford the ring?" 
 
 " Can't return her letters ? " 
 
 Question left open for further investigation, when 
 she rang up again. Perhaps Mr. Robjohn would be 
 out, and they could get her to leave a message or 
 a telephone number for him. Then ! 
 
 " You don't understand. I can't ! " 
 
 " She was pleading to him, and he refused ! " 
 
 11 1 think I do." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Really, I say " 
 
 " Now she's told him all. Did you notice how 
 his back straightened ? " 
 
 " Because, under the circumstances, I can't." 
 
 " The circumstances ? " said Mrs. Fitzherbart.
 
 HUGH'S CHEISTMAS DINNER 59 
 
 " We were the circumstances. He didn't want 
 us to hear. And after all our kindness to him, 
 quite making him one of the family ! " 
 
 " But you don't understand " 
 
 "He was telling her that he's not to blame," 
 Miss Flegg explained. " Every man says that." 
 
 Long silence. 
 
 "An attack of his conscience." 
 
 " Yes, of course." 
 
 " He said it hurriedly. She asked him if he still 
 loved her." 
 
 " Merry Christmas ! " 
 
 " They must have quarrelled. And yet he didn't 
 say good-bye. He must be meeting her again. It's 
 an old affair." 
 
 " And going on under our very eyes, and we 
 never knew ! " 
 
 They went over it again for hours. 
 
 It was the most exciting Christmas they had 
 ever spent.
 
 60 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 CHAPTEK VII 
 
 IN WHICH HUGH'S HABITS SHOCKINGLY 
 DETERIORATE 
 
 FOB a long month afterwards Hugh peered 
 eagerly through his spectacles, but not 
 one glimpse did they vouchsafe to him of 
 the girl with the amber eyes. But in his search 
 for that girl Hugh Eobjohn, the bookish, retired, 
 moonlight-souled student, shockingly deteriorated. 
 He carelessly set aside his unwritten " National 
 Economics" and took to nocturnal prowlings. 
 Instead of quietly reading or feverishly writing in 
 his tiny bed-sitting-room every evening, he made 
 it the practice to wander the harbour on ferry-boats. 
 The ladies of the boarding-house noticed his lapse. 
 
 " Not that we used to see very much of Mr. 
 Robjohn any night," sighed Miss Flegg to the 
 company. 
 
 She was writing her letters. She had a vast 
 correspondence with nieces and cousins, and 
 answered their letters with punctuality and pre- 
 cision, replying to every question and commenting
 
 HUGH'S HABITS DETEKIOBATE 61 
 
 on every bit of news in them. In return she told 
 them of her daily doings, whom she'd seen and how 
 she looked, and what sort of dress she was wearing, 
 rumours of possible, or impossible, engagements, 
 rapturous chronicles of births or impending births, 
 and full details of her treasure-trove from the sales 
 and how she was going to make the articles up. 
 
 "He wasn't a sociable man at all," said Mrs. 
 Fitzherbart, who was darning Hugh's socks. " Up 
 there with his pipe and his books when he might 
 be down here enjoying himself." 
 
 " Not that I don't admire him for his self- 
 restraint," said Miss Catch, who was pretending to 
 read a novel and wondering if she really would go 
 to that end-of-the-season sale in the morning. " It 
 isn't every young man who can tear himself away 
 from feminine society to work of an evening. I 
 must say," she modestly preened herself, " that 
 none of the young men I've had to do with ever 
 preferred a book and a pipe to me ! But perhaps 
 there's too many of us. Two's company, you 
 know," she added, with what for Miss Catch was 
 archness. 
 
 " There are too many of us," sighed Miss 
 Littledick. " There are always too many of us in 
 the world ! And yet you hear of women who wish 
 to have a baby-girl ! It doesn't seem fair. If I 
 was married I'd want a boy and I wouldn't mind 
 if he was twins ! "
 
 62 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 She took up her work again with a feverish 
 eagerness. She was knitting a small garment she 
 referred to as " pilchers." She had learnt only that 
 day from one of her pupils that there was an 
 addition male in that child's family. And as 
 she eagerly knitted she wove in the stitches all her 
 unwanted love of children, and pictured to herself 
 the creased, fat limbs that the garment would keep 
 warm. 
 
 " As for his pipe," said Miss Swatts, who was 
 playing patience, " I'm sure we would allow him to 
 smoke every evening in here. You must consider 
 men's failings." She deliberated over a poised 
 card, and put it on a little pack. She played an 
 elaborate variety of this doleful game every evening, 
 annoyed and exasperated when she could not get it 
 out, and yet vaguely disappointed, with a sense of 
 too easy achievement, when the cards were finally 
 placed in order on their proper packs. On those 
 rare occasions she felt grieved that there were no 
 more worlds to conquer. " But now that he's out 
 every evening, you never know what he's up to. 
 When he was shut up in his room with his tobacco- 
 smoke, at least we knew where he was we had 
 him with us, under our protection. But now ! " 
 
 " He's with that woman, night after night," said 
 Miss Catch viciously. " He's probably kissing her 
 now ! " 
 
 Five shudders shook the room. Mrs. Fitzherbart
 
 HUGH'S HABITS DETERIORATE 63 
 
 pricked her finger and angrily snapped the wool, 
 leaving the hole but half darned. 
 
 " I can't be expected to darn all the holes," said 
 Mrs. Fitzherbart with a snort. " The way he 
 wears out his socks ! And that was a new pair last 
 Thursday fortnight ! " 
 
 " Let me finish it," said Miss Catch brazenly. 
 
 And she did, undeterred by the knowledge that 
 the others were putting two and two together, and 
 with feminine mathematics arriving at a prodigious 
 result. 
 
 But the evening of the others had been spoilt. 
 And, after this, all their evenings were spoilt. 
 
 They would have been somewhat comforted if 
 they had followed Hugh in his nightly excursions. 
 He saw many pretty girls on the ferry-boats, but 
 they had the normal hue in eyes and in addition 
 they were always accompanied by young men of 
 their own. And though Hugh did not discover the 
 girl, he discovered many other things chiefly in 
 the moonlit portions of the steamers. He arrived 
 at a correct estimate of these ferries during the 
 evenings : except for the theatre boats, they were 
 solely for the use of lovers. 
 
 Then, after his futile search of a month, Hugh in 
 one week saw her on the Watson ferry-boat on 
 three different evenings each time with a different 
 man, and in none of these cases did he recognise 
 the man as Bert.
 
 64 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 The cumulative effect of this shock almost pros- 
 trated Hugh. He shuddered at the direction in 
 which the damning facts pointed. And yet, after 
 all, why shouldn't a pretty girl go down to Watson's 
 Bay with a male friend ? But she seemed to have 
 such a catholicity of choice. The desire of the 
 chase almost died out of him. Could it be true 
 that, after all, she was " hot stuff" in the warmest 
 sense ? 
 
 Any other man would have gone back to his 
 books, but Hugh had seen her through those 
 wonderful glasses. The touch of fantasy was upon 
 him ; and when Fantasy touches us with her gently 
 caressing hand we are moon-maddened, lost. Hugh's 
 ideal had become to him the sole thing worth while 
 in a disappointing world. If he relinquished that 
 ideal there was nothing left for him to live for. 
 Surely, by now, it is apparent that Hugh Bobjohn 
 had become the abject slave of his wonderful 
 spectacles. 
 
 On each of those momentous evenings the girl 
 had shown no sign of recognition to Hugh, though 
 he admitted she had been so engrossed in her com- 
 panions that she might not have seen him. Yet, in 
 the brief glances of her that Hugh had jpeen fortu- 
 nate enough to get, there was in her attitude to her 
 young men a defensive aloofness that told him she 
 was quite able to take care of herself, even with 
 those wonderful eyes.
 
 HUGH'S HABITS DETERIOKATE 65 
 
 His handkerchief had come back to him two 
 days after Christmas, in a little packet addressed to 
 his boarding-house, with a scrap of paper enclosed, 
 on which was written, " From the girl in the 
 launch, with many thanks." 
 
 Nothing much to be got out of that ? You do 
 not know Hugh. He extracted from that plain 
 statement a thousand delicious thoughts, too sacred 
 for mention here. He reverently put the little 
 packet away in a drawer. A handkerchief washed 
 and ironed by her own pretty hands would never be 
 profaned by a masculine nose. 
 
 And now, for a whole fortnight, he missed her on 
 the Watson boat. He tried the other ferries, but 
 without result. Then he met her again. 
 
 Hugh belonged to a little club of writers and 
 artists known as " The Habituals," who met every 
 fortnight, in the only Bohemian cafe in Sydney, to 
 dine and talk. As a rule they did more talking 
 than dining. There were geniuses and others in 
 " The Habituals," but the geniuses predominated. 
 The only rule of the club was that no member was 
 ever to take anything except himself seriously ; 
 but on really important subjects, such as Baude- 
 laire, this rule was waived. However, the club had 
 little time for even Baudelaire, since it had so 
 much to say upon the vaster subject of Woman. 
 " The Habituals " knew all about Woman ; and 
 Hugh had, since his admittance, learnt much. 
 
 F
 
 66 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 However, at this particular meeting of the club 
 Hugh learnt more. As the weather was stifling, 
 the door of the room in which they dined was 
 opened wide, even at the risk of some portion of 
 their knowledge of Woman filtering into the adjoin- 
 ing rooms. In the middle of a fierce discussion 
 upon this important subject, Hugh, who was seated 
 at the end of the table, glanced into the passage. 
 
 He saw the girl with the amber eyes, preceded 
 by an obsequiously shuffling waiter, being escorted 
 by a stout, red-faced man down the passage. They 
 entered a private dining-room, and the waiter, reap- 
 pearing, carefully closed the door. The click of 
 the catch sounded to Hugh like a revolver shot in 
 his heart. 
 
 That dinner was a purgatory to him. Every 
 time the waiter entered the room he discreetly 
 paused, knocked sharply, and even then waited 
 before he gingerly turned the handle. 
 
 When Hugh left, that door was still closed. He 
 walked blindly towards the quay, with a horrible 
 picture ever before his eyes of that discreet waiter 
 pausing before that closely shut door. In there 
 with that red-faced man ! 
 
 Oh, surely any sane man would have given up 
 the quest ! But he had seen her through those 
 magic spectacles ; and once you have looked 
 through the spectacles of fantasy are you ever after 
 responsible ? The only reason why Hugh and his
 
 HUGH'S HABITS DETEKLOBATE 67 
 
 kind are not locked up in asylums is that all of us, 
 at some time of our lives, have been as mad. And 
 wouldn't we like to be as mad just for an hour 
 that hour, do you remember ? again ?
 
 68 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IN WHICH HUGH SEES THROUGH THE FOG 
 
 THEN, a week later, came the night of the 
 big fog. It was a clear, still night when 
 Hugh, still hopeful, got on the ferry-boat 
 for Watson's Bay. He drew a blank. At Watson's 
 he decided to wait for the next boat in case she 
 should be in that. He waited for two more. 
 
 When, disappointed, he boarded the ferry to 
 return, the fog was already rolling in softly from 
 the Pacific. The boat went at half-speed through 
 the thickening air, and it was after eleven o'clock 
 before she felt her way to Circular Quay. Hugh 
 disembarked into a thick fog and groped to the 
 Mosman pontoon. The boat was just leaving; and 
 he learnt, as he got safely on board, that she was 
 the last boat. Other boats that had been sent out 
 earlier had failed to return. 
 
 There was a full passenger list people returning 
 from theatres and picture-shows, fretting about the 
 delay, and anxious over the possibility of accident. 
 The fog was now a thick blanket of opacity. Hugh, 
 with a vague fear of being cooped up below, groped
 
 HUGH SEES THROUGH THE FOG 69 
 
 his way to the upper deck, on which the electrics 
 were thinly burning. He went out to the unlit 
 stern and found a seat in the darkness against a 
 partition. 
 
 He had taken off his spectacles. The wet breath 
 of the fog dimmed the lenses ; and in a fog, where 
 ordinary vision was of no avail, what use to wear 
 glasses even magic glasses ? So he sat in his 
 corner, blindly staring out into the darkness. The 
 fog laid a limp, damp hand over his mouth and 
 eyes. 
 
 Then as the steamer slid slowly into the fog, 
 adding its dolorous whistle to the incessant noise of 
 the other ferries lost on that blank waste of waters, 
 Hugh's acute ears caught a tense whisper behind 
 him. On the other side of the partition, out of 
 his vision, two people were sitting. They were 
 evidently, from their whispers, man and woman. 
 Hugh turned away, but he could not help hearing. 
 
 " No ! " came an angry whisper from the woman; 
 "I've had enough of you. I don't want ever to 
 speak to you, to see you again. You leave me 
 alone ! " 
 
 "I can't," whispered the man. " You're so mad- 
 deningly pretty. I forget everything when I'm with 
 you except you. I'm sorry I've hurt you, Nancy ; 
 but you won't leave me like this, will you ? You'll 
 make it up ? " 
 
 " I won't make it up ! I'll never make it up ! " the
 
 70 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 woman vehemently whispered. "You think because 
 I let you take me out like this you can do as you 
 like with me. I'm not that sort, Bill. You don't 
 treat me like a gentleman should treat a lady and 
 I've always said you were a gentleman. But 
 to-night " 
 
 "I couldn't help it to-night," the other replied 
 contritely. " It's your fault for being so pretty you 
 with your eyes that burn me, and your lips so red ! 
 But give me another chance, Nancy, and I'll behave 
 myself." 
 
 " No," the woman whispered. " I've seen enough 
 of you never to want to see you again. I did think 
 I liked you, because you were different from the 
 others. I like you even now," she weakly 
 confessed. 
 
 Hugh had at first thought of moving away, but 
 they would have discovered that he had overheard 
 them. He thought it better just to sit still. They 
 would make up their stupid quarrel, kiss and go off 
 together happily. It would be kinder to them for 
 in his heart Hugh pitied them adrift on the sea of 
 life in their blank fog. So he sat quiet. 
 
 "Bat it's just because I do like you," the girl 
 whispered, after an interval for her handkerchief, 
 " that that I couldn't see you again. It's not 
 fair not fair on me ! " 
 
 " Ah, you love me ! " growled the man, in an animal 
 triumph.
 
 HUGH SEES THROUGH THE FOG 71 
 
 He must have caught her, perhaps kissed her ; for 
 there was a quick struggle, and she cried out tensely, 
 " You brute ! " 
 
 Hugh sprang to his feet. Here was a girl in 
 danger ; and for the sake of that one woman he 
 impossibly loved, all women were sacred. But the 
 sound of the man's voice, contrite and humble, 
 showed Hugh he had no need to interfere. That 
 girl could take care of herself. 
 
 " I'm sorry, Nancy, really ! Only, I want you 
 that much that I don't know what I'm doing. I'm 
 on fire for you. Your eyes are burning me up." 
 
 " Go ! " she whispered, weakly, as it seemed to 
 Hugh, pushing him from her. 
 
 The man did not divine the fatal weakness in he.r 
 voice. "I'll go," he said dully. "But you'll see 
 me again, won't you ? To-morrow night ? I'll 
 come for you." 
 
 "No; I've had enough of you. Oh, why can't 
 you leave me alone ? " 
 
 There was almost a tired willingness to yield in 
 that slow whisper. Hugh's muscles tightened. 
 
 " I'll never leave you alone, Nancy never ! " was 
 the sullen reply. " I'll get you, yet. There's not 
 one of your other boys that you like so much as me. 
 I'll have you yet. By God, I will ! " 
 
 Hugh sprang up. There was work for him to do. 
 
 The girl heard him. " There's someone here 
 someone listening ! " she whispered.
 
 72 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 Hugh paused. 
 
 " Oh, I'll leave you without making a row," the 
 man whispered. " And I'll wait for you when this 
 boat gets to the wharf." 
 
 Hugh thankfully heard him slink off down the 
 deck. It had come vividly to him that he would 
 have to knock this aggressive Bill down, and from 
 the man's talk Hugh had wondered if he could do 
 it. Yet it was evidently necessary for him to try. 
 He was glad he was not wearing his glasses. 
 
 The girl waited a moment to make sure that the 
 man had gone, rose, and, as though dazed, staggered 
 across the deck to a seat on the other side of the 
 deck-house. 
 
 Hugh sat down again, glad that the deck-house 
 was between them. He was relieved to find that 
 he would not have to intrude in these lovers' vulgar 
 quarrel. The scene disgusted him in its sordidness. 
 He stared away, out into the fog. 
 
 The ferry-boat was slowly feeling its way across 
 that pandemonium of ships' whistles and the con- 
 tinual ringing of anchored vessels' bells. Out there, 
 in the stern, Hugh felt as if he were alone on the 
 bottom of a great black sea, a dead body swayed 
 and swirled by the sluggish currents of the ocean 
 deeps. But not quite alone, for he could not quickly 
 blot out from his mind the presence, unseen behind 
 the deck-house, of the unknown woman. No sound 
 came from her, but her unseen presence opposite,
 
 HUGH SEES THROUGH THE FOG 73 
 
 shut in with himself by that blank wall of mist, 
 seemed to bring her, in her ephemeral sorrow, 
 closer to him, seemed to make her trivial tragedy 
 one with his vague loneliness. It was only a sordid 
 quarrel between a man and a weak girl. True, she 
 had struggled, but the weakness was within her. 
 She seemed adrift, blindly adrift in the fog, clutching 
 vainly at unsubstantiality, a derelict in life, ready 
 to be taken into the first haven that opened to her. 
 The man had evidently some power over her the 
 power of his fierce love for her prettiness and youth ; 
 and she, femininely, had weakened to his mascu- 
 linity, ready, from sheer weariness at his impor- 
 tunity, to give herself with a sigh of relief into his 
 rough arms. She was a maimed and hardly flutter- 
 ing bird in cruel claws. Yet she had bravely 
 fluttered, weakly resisted 
 
 Pshaw ! Hugh found himself growing sentimental 
 over what, after all, was a common enough story. 
 That man would be waiting for her to take her 
 home as soon as she stepped ashore. In this fog, 
 what else could she do, tired as she was with her 
 fight, but allow him to accompany her ? They 
 would make it up. The girl, swayed by a force 
 stronger than her will, would relent; and they would 
 kiss and be foolishly happy and fulfil their little 
 destiny, unconscious servants to that higher deity, 
 the Eace. 
 
 Not worth wasting sympathy over such an issue ?
 
 74 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 Yet Hugh felt sorry for the girl. How that man, 
 with his physical passion, would hurt her shrinking 
 frailty ! Hugh stared out over the blind darkness. 
 And, on the other side of the deck, was she, too, 
 staring out at the blank wall of night she with her 
 trivial little pain, so real to her, and her great, 
 greedy, dangerous yearning after happiness ? 
 
 Hours seemed to drift by as the steamer nosed 
 its way across the little strip of harbour ; but there 
 were so many stoppages, so many false starts and so 
 many turns, that it was by now evident that the 
 boat was lost. Once they grazed the side of another 
 ferry-boat, and once they precipitantly backed from 
 the deep grunt of an ocean liner. 
 
 Suddenly Hugh felt through the boat a soft jar, 
 and the thud of the engines swiftly reversed. A 
 grating noise came underneath. Had they run 
 ashore ? 
 
 He leapt to his feet, and confronted a blurred 
 figure. In her fear the girl had rushed to him. 
 
 " What's happened ? " she cried. " Are we 
 sinking ? " 
 
 Above the sudden shouting and the churning of 
 the screws Hugh heard a noise as of a thousand 
 bells chiming in his brain. That voice ! 
 
 He grabbed his glasses, put them on, and peered 
 into the woman's face. 
 
 Through those blessed spectacles he recognised 
 her the girl in the launch !
 
 HUGH SEES THBOUGH THE FOG 75 
 
 She had been the woman whose little love-tragedy 
 he had unwillingly listened to, whose trouble he 
 had pitied and stood aloof from. He had not heard 
 her voice, only her whisper. If only he had kept 
 his glasses on ! And she had been in trouble, in 
 need of a protector, and he had waited supinely by ! 
 
 " You ? " he said with a strange hoarseness. 
 "You?" 
 
 The girl looked closely at him. " The handker- 
 chief man Mr. Robjohn ! " she gasped. " Then it 
 was you and you heard. Oh ! " 
 
 Hugh was quick. " Heard what ? " he asked. 
 
 "Us . . . me!" 
 
 "No," he greatly lied. "Why, there's nobody 
 with you, is there? " 
 
 " No," she hysterically laughed. " I mean you 
 heard that noise. We're sinking ! " 
 
 Hugh had forgotten everything but her. 
 
 "Sinking?" he said; but there was a great 
 gladness in his voice. Oh, to rescue her, alone, to 
 swim ashore with her through the darkness and 
 defy the danger of the sharks ! Then he re- 
 membered that he could swim only a few strokes. 
 He looked over the side of the steamer. " It's all 
 right," he said. " We must have touched some- 
 where. We had no way on. But, if anything 
 happens, you're safe with me. I'll save you." 
 
 He had decided that, even if he could not swim 
 very well, it would be a glorious death to die with
 
 76 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 her, to go down to the depths or be seized by a 
 shark, deliciously entwined. 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 She gave him her grateful look. This was a new 
 kind of handkerchief man. He was not at all the 
 cold person who so gruffly shut her up over the 
 telephone wire. 
 
 There was a noise of a rattling chain. " What's 
 that ? " she gasped, clutching his arm. 
 
 Hugh felt that with that hand grasping his arm 
 he could swim a mile. " It's nothing," he reassured 
 her. 
 
 " Quick ? Find out ! We're sinking ! " 
 
 "I won't leave you," Hugh absurdly said the 
 fingers on his arm exquisitely tightened "now I've 
 found you." 
 
 She had no time for his emotions. " But we must 
 know. Do go ! " 
 
 " I'll go," sighed Hugh. " Only don't move from 
 here. Promise me you won't move." 
 
 A soft chuckle from the darkness into which she 
 had quietly retreated was his only answer. 
 
 He went swiftly along the deck. At the other 
 end he found a group of passengers gathered near 
 the forward deck-house. 
 
 " We've touched a rock, or something just 
 touched it, and backed away. Not making any 
 water, though ; so it's all right," one of the group 
 explained.
 
 HUGH SEES THEOUGH THE FOG 77 
 
 " But we don't know where we are," said another. 
 " Captain thinks he's in Mosman Bay ; but he's too 
 scared to go on or back. Eocks all round us. So 
 he's dropped his anchor. We're here for the night, 
 or till the fog lifts if this fog ever does lift ! " 
 
 " The captain's getting a boat out," said a third. 
 " He's going to explore a bit." 
 
 " I feel sure that we are in Neutral Bay," asserted 
 a stout elderly man, with the conviction that belongs 
 to all stout elderly men. 
 
 " And I say we're on the other side of the harbour 
 somewhere down Yaucluse way," said his stout 
 elderly wife. 
 
 " Well, we'll know in the morning," cheerfully 
 remarked a youth. 
 
 " You mean we'll have to stay here all night ? " 
 gasped a girl in evening dress. " Oh, and I ought 
 to have been home two hours ago ! " 
 
 "Afraid there's nothing to be done," said the 
 young man who was supporting her and seemed 
 to like it. 
 
 " But what shall we do ? " she cried, almost 
 hysterical. 
 
 " I'm going to sleep," said the stout elderly man. 
 
 The young couple looked slowly and long at each 
 other, then, still supporting and being supported, they 
 moved away together to the dark bow of the boat. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Eobjohn, I'm so glad you're here," a 
 woman spoke gushingly.
 
 78 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 Hugh recognised her. It was Miss Catch of the 
 boarding-house, in her flimsiest evening dress, 
 alone. 
 
 " You'll take care of me, won't you ? " she cooed. 
 
 Hugh shamelessly fled. He had just remembered 
 that the other man, the man called Bill, was on 
 board, and that he had not seen him in the group of 
 passengers. Suppose he had gone back to her? 
 
 He found the two standing by the stern deck- 
 house. The man was speaking roughly, impetuously. 
 He did not even hear Hugh's swift approach. But 
 the girl did. 
 
 " Mr. Kobjohn," she said over the man's shoulder, 
 " I'm so glad you're back. Is it all right? " 
 
 " Everything is all right." 
 
 He emphasised the fact by stepping to her 
 side. 
 
 " Oh," said the man called Bill Hugh made him 
 out as a big lump of a fellow, loudly dressed, the 
 type that can best be summed up as " flash," and 
 incidentally the type that to an ignorant girl would 
 appear the perfect gentleman " so you've got 
 another 'mash,' eh? So that's why you turned 
 nasty all of a sudden ! " 
 
 " This lady," said Hugh, hurt by the sneer, " is a 
 friend of mine." 
 
 Here was his chance to succour her. He had 
 never hoped for such bliss. 
 
 "A friend?" sneered Bill. "Yes, Nancy's got
 
 HUGH SEES THROUGH THE FOG 79 
 
 plenty of friends. And it doesn't take her long to 
 pick 'em up on ferry-boats ! " 
 
 "Will you leave her alone or must I make you?" 
 Hugh was suddenly cool. He saw that if it came 
 to a fight he would not have the slightest possible 
 chance with a fellow of Bill's physique. Oh, if only 
 Hugh had taken lessons in boxing ! Now, when 
 you want to hit a man hard, which fist do you use, 
 and where do you hit him ? All his knowledge of 
 economics gave him no hint. Yet he stepped up to 
 him, quite determined to knock him down, trample 
 on him and throw him overboard. With that girl 
 as audience what could he not do ? 
 
 She moved to him, her eyes brightening. He 
 was going to fight for her he, this fragile-looking 
 pale man, with his " professor " face and his quiet 
 clothes. And against Bill, with his big build and 
 his great arm ! This was a new sort of handker- 
 chief man ! And she had thought him indifferent, 
 too engrossed in his work to notice the colour of a 
 woman's eyes. She contrasted the two men. Bill, 
 beautifully dressed, and Mr. Robjohn, distinctly 
 ordinary in attire. Bill had always been her ideal 
 of a gentleman. His striped waistcoat and bright 
 tie, his coloured handkerchief worn in the sleeve, 
 his purple socks and his bulbous-toed American 
 shoes tied with thick laces had appealed to her 
 ignorance as the perfect man. And here was a 
 pale-faced quiet person whom she had regarded
 
 80 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 with contempt, piqued only that she, being a woman, 
 had not been able to interest him in her beauty 
 here was a slight and stooping man about to engage 
 in battle with the might and muscle and method of 
 Bill ! Oh, if the handkerchief man only knocked 
 Bill out, how it would clear up everything, and what 
 wouldn't she do for him ! And at the prospect of the 
 battle, two men fighting for her, she was thrillingly 
 happy. She strained her slim self to her height, 
 and looked down at the gladiators in the arena. 
 Hugh had not known that she was so tall. 
 
 " Will I leave her alone ? " growled Bill. " With 
 you ? Not much ! WTiy, I bet you don't even 
 know your ' friend's ' name ! " 
 
 Hugh was taken aback. The man saw it. 
 
 " Nice intimate sort of friend, aren't you ? " he 
 sneered. " Sort of intimate friend you pick up on 
 the boat at night. I know your sort. And you ! " 
 he flung round at the girl " I know your game ! 
 Seen it often enough before ! You ! I wouldn't be 
 seen with you. I'm straight, I am. And you can 
 go to hell for all I care ! Done with me, are you ? 
 I'm done with you ! " 
 
 The girl quivered like a rose-petal'under the rain. 
 Yet, as Bill turned with a savage laugh, she leant 
 forward with weak and pleading hands. 
 
 " Bill," she said softly, " don't say that. I'm 
 straight too. You know I'm straight. Oh, you 
 can't go away hating me like that ! "
 
 HUGH SEES THROUGH THE FOG 81 
 
 Hugh had never imagined that a woman would 
 plead to a man so pitiably. She seemed to have 
 flung away all herself, leaving only her sex. 
 
 Bill called her a dreadful name and swaggered 
 off. The girl straightened herself, her proud, tense 
 self again. 
 
 Hugh caught the brute by the arm. " Take that 
 back," he threatened, " or " 
 
 "Fight me?" laughed Bill. "You haven't a 
 chance, you with your glasses and your woman's 
 fist ! . . . Fight for her ? Not me ! " 
 
 Hugh, strong with passion, attempted an ineffective 
 blow, which Bill parried with contemptuous ease. 
 Then he swung off down the deck. 
 
 Dreadfully humiliated, Hugh drooped, not daring 
 to look at the girl. Save her ? He was not capable 
 even of protecting her from insult. He could not 
 even strike one blow for her. 
 
 She took two swift steps to him. "He called 
 me that ! " she dreadfully shuddered. " Bill, to call 
 me that ! " 
 
 " The foul-mouthed brute ! " Hugh said. 
 
 " No, no ! " She was stung by his contempt. 
 " Bill's always been good to me till to-night. But 
 Bill could think of me like that ! " 
 
 In her shame Hugh felt himself thrust far out 
 of her cognisance. She did not know, quivering 
 with her mortal hurt, that he existed. Overcome 
 with pity, he clumsily took her arm. 
 
 G
 
 82 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " Sit down," he urged, and he led her to a seat. 
 " There's nothing really to worry about." 
 
 She flashed a look at him. " You don't believe 
 I'm that ? " she asked. 
 
 " No, no ! " he cried, shocked that she should 
 find it necessary to question him. 
 
 She looked long at his spectacles, and was 
 satisfied. Then a low moan came from her, and 
 she put her hands up to her face and cried. 
 
 Hugh sat desolately beside her. She cried on, 
 softly Hugh had never heard a woman cry before, 
 and his helplessness to salve her hurt gave him an 
 utter contempt of himself. The fog was all about 
 them in their loneliness : the two were shut in, 
 with that visible, tangible grief, from all the world. 
 Timidly he put his arm round her to quell those 
 shuddering sobs. 
 
 He heard a swift catch in her breath. She 
 glanced up, looked curiously at him, and then 
 sank closer into his arm, while her sobs slowly 
 weakened into silence. She bravely gulped the 
 last one, dabbed her nose with an absurd pocket- 
 handkerchief, felt in her glove, produced a pad of 
 chamois, and deliberately dabbed away the marks 
 of her grief. Then with a wintry smile she said, 
 still comfortable in his encircling arm, " You must 
 think me a silly little fool." 
 
 "I think you " began Hugh impetuously, 
 
 and stopped.
 
 HUGH SEES THROUGH THE FOG 83 
 
 What the fool did think of her was that she was 
 the most adorable woman in the world. Why, 
 she had actually let him hold her while she cried ! 
 What woman could do more ? 
 
 "I think you very badly treated," he emended; 
 "and I'm sorry and humiliated that I could not 
 prevent that brute insulting you, or punish him 
 for his coarseness." 
 
 "But you tried," she brightened. "You really 
 did try ! " 
 
 " Lot of use I was against a chap like him," 
 Hugh bitterly admitted. 
 
 " Still, you must have known he could kill you, 
 if he liked. Oh, you wouldn't be the first Bill has 
 knocked out for me ; and yet you hit him." 
 
 She leaned a little closer. 
 
 " But that's all done with now," he said, thrilling 
 with the warmth of that soft, confiding body. 
 
 " Yes," she echoed, like a docile child. " That's 
 all done with now." She was tired out. But she 
 sat up, the better to examine this new species of 
 humanity. " Fancy you being that sort of man, 
 after all!" 
 
 "What sort?" he said uneasily. He preferred 
 her limp and close. 
 
 "Why, I thought you weren't the least bit 
 interested in women." 
 
 " I wasn't till I saw you." 
 
 She almost purred. Then, " Whoever would
 
 84 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 have guessed you could say a thing like that ? " 
 
 " Oh," said Hugh desperately, " I could say 
 worse I mean nicer things than that ! " 
 
 " Don't say them yet ! " She smiled as she put 
 her little soft hand over his mouth. 
 
 For every night for weeks afterwards he miser- 
 ably wondered why he had not kissed it then. 
 
 " Tell me oh, tell me everything ! " she com- 
 manded. 
 
 " Why, what in the world is there to tell 
 except " He saw her warning glance in time. 
 
 " Tell me why you were so nasty to me through 
 the telephone ? " she ordered. 
 
 Hugh eagerly explained. 
 
 " Cats ! " She laughed, happy like a child again. 
 " I thought of everything except women. Still, 
 you needn't have minded them hearing, if " 
 
 "I don't mind them now!" he said. "Why, 
 there's one of them on board now; and I ran away 
 from her to you ! " 
 
 She chuckled. "Then it'll be all over the 
 boarding-house to-morrow." 
 
 " I don't care," Hugh triumphed. 
 
 " Besides, there's nothing for them to get excited 
 about, is there ? " 
 
 It was an ice-cold drop in his hot heart, like the 
 splash that always comes from the shower in the 
 middle of a hot bath. 
 
 "Nothing to get excited about . . . yet!"
 
 HUGH SEES THEOUGH THE FOG 85 
 
 she dreamily added, miles away from the present 
 in some delectable, mist-dimmed, impossible future. 
 
 He was suddenly warmed again. They seemed 
 in that short half-hour to have got on terms of 
 intimacy that should have taken years to cement. 
 But the night, the fog, the isolation, the scenes 
 through which they had just passed, had broken 
 down conventional obstacles, had smashed through, 
 one after another, the immemorial barriers that 
 palisade the sexes. 
 
 "But still," she went on idly, more to hear his 
 protest than to disprove his eagerness, " if you 
 wanted me, you could have looked for me." 
 
 " I did," said Hugh savagely. 
 
 But he broke off in his hot justification. He 
 could not tell her that he had seen her night after 
 night, and always with a different man. No not 
 always, for now he recognised Bill as her com- 
 panion on one of those dreadful evenings. And 
 suddenly the words of that man returned to him, 
 as if shouted in his ear. And another remark 
 damnably knelled in his brain. "Hot stuff!" 
 Charlie had laughingly, easily said. Were those 
 two right, after all '? It shook him horribly. He 
 hated himself even for the thought, yet the doubt 
 remained. Could this lovable, weak, beautiful, 
 provocative, exquisitely feminine being be one of 
 the outcasts of the sex, the slag on the age-old 
 furnace of passion ?
 
 86 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 He had an inspiration. He looked at her through 
 his wonderful glasses. He saw no evil in her. 
 
 Nor, considering the circumstances the appeal 
 of her soft, tear- washed eyes, the melting charm of 
 her pliant, emotion-wearied body, and, shot through 
 it like the strange fire of a black opal, the resurgence 
 of her immortal youth, the undying flame of her 
 loveliness was it likely he would ?
 
 SHE TELLS HIM ALL 87 
 
 CHAPTEE IX 
 
 IN WHICH, AS FAE AS A WOMAN CAN, SHE TELLS 
 HIM ALL 
 
 SO, securely and comfortably held by Hugh's 
 happy arm, she looked up at his spectacles, 
 and asked him of the man behind them. 
 
 He told her disconnectedly, with intervals during 
 which he was distracted by the absorbing conscious- 
 ness of the warmth of the body against his arm. 
 It was a poor little history he had to relate. His 
 parents lived in a Melbourne suburb, respectable 
 suburban people, his father a subordinate official 
 in a bank, with the certain prospect, as is the way 
 in banks, of reaching the retiring age limit before 
 he reached the manager's office. Hugh had had 
 ambitions of going to the University, but his 
 parents could not spare the extra money for his 
 fees. As a boy, Hugh passed all his time among 
 books, and even at that stage had the ambition that 
 some day he would become a great author. 
 
 The girl looked up rapturously at this. 
 
 " You're a writer ? Oh, and I never guessed ! 
 You write stories ? "
 
 88 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " No," he admitted with a drop. "I ... I 
 mean to be a writer, but not of stories." 
 
 She was disappointed. " I love novels," she 
 purred, " especially romantic ones about princesses 
 and American men. But you write poetry ? " 
 She was prepared again to admire. 
 
 " No serious books." 
 
 " Serious books ! " 
 
 It was disappointing to find that, all by herself, 
 she had not discovered a poet. 
 
 " Yes ; for a long time I've been writing a book 
 on ' National Economics.' ' 
 
 " What in the world are they ? " 
 
 He explained. 
 
 " It sounds dreadfully clever," she hopefully con- 
 ceded. After all, mightn't it be more clever to 
 write that sort of stuff than stories ? " How much 
 have you done ? " she politely asked, seeing that he 
 regarded the matter as important. 
 
 " I thought I had done it all. Only now I see 
 that I was doing it all wrong, so I tore it all up, and 
 I'm beginning it all over again." 
 
 This interested her so much that she sat up, and 
 Hugh's arm felt desolate and lonely. 
 
 " When did you find that out ? " she wanted to 
 know. 
 
 " A few weeks ago." 
 
 " Before you met me ? " 
 
 " The same day."
 
 SHE TELLS HIM ALL 89 
 
 " After you saw me ? " 
 
 " No, just before." 
 
 She was so crushed that Hugh found it necessary 
 to support her with his arm. 
 
 " There was a magic in all that day," he madly 
 said. " I did not understand why till that night. 
 You were the magic." 
 
 She nestled deliciously closer, with a murmur of 
 " The same day ! " Being a woman, she could see 
 the significance of apparently incongruous things. 
 
 " And now," he went on hurriedly, fearful of 
 what he might do under the temptation of her 
 closeness, " now I am trying to re-write the whole 
 book ; but I can't get on with it. The first book 
 simply wrote itself. This one is on strike." 
 
 She had her feminine explanation. She found 
 it thrillingly satisfying. She was too selfish to 
 mention it. She hugged it for herself. 
 
 " So you're not writing anything now ? " she 
 probed. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Why don't you try a story a novel?" she 
 insisted. 
 
 " A novel ? " Hugh gasped. How on earth did 
 this girl find that out ? For he was writing a 
 novel. 
 
 He had sat one Saturday afternoon with the new 
 draft of his " National Economics " in front of him, 
 flanked by a pile of blank copy-paper, and stared
 
 90 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 disconsolately out of the window. He could see 
 the trees on which, that momentous night, the 
 Chinese lanterns had provokingly swung and 
 languished. 
 
 It would not do. The thing, even as he had so 
 carefully drafted it, was vague, unconvincing, 
 wrong. He wondered drearily how ever such a 
 subject as National Economics had fascinated him. 
 National Economics, when there was ruddy-brown 
 hair in the world ! And, as his eyes reluctantly 
 caught the rough draft, graphs and lists of imports 
 and interest tables stared meaninglessly up at him. 
 They had the look of people who had suddenly gone 
 blind. Or was it he who was blind, dazed by a 
 burning vision ? He could not recapture that first 
 fine careless rapture for statistics. 
 
 He put down the pen with the new nib in it, 
 pushed the sheets from him, and let his thoughts 
 go back and how they flew ! to the girl in the 
 launch also the girl on various ferry-boats, with 
 assorted men. 
 
 And then, suddenly, his great idea had come to 
 him. He knew he would never meet her again 
 that magic would never light the world again. She 
 had forgotten him. This matter-of-fact world was 
 not lit by Chinese lanterns. And yet how vividly 
 he could recall every moment of that magical night ! 
 Why couldn't he make that memory live again 
 for him, vividly and thrillingly for him on paper ?
 
 SHE TELLS HIM ALL 91 
 
 Why couldn't he write it out, every word of it ? 
 And then came the great idea. Why shouldn't he 
 write a novel ? What an opening that scene in 
 Mosman Bay would make ! What a heroine the 
 girl with the amber eyes ! He could do it ; he 
 knew he could do it ! 
 
 He started to write. But after the first page he 
 paused, perplexed. 
 
 The scene was all right, the girl was all right; 
 but what about the hero ? He to pose as the hero? 
 A sorry hero indeed ! And for such an incompar- 
 able her what living man could serve? Certainly 
 not himself. He saw at once that he would have 
 to create a hero, a noble, splendid being, not the 
 poor makeshift of a man this ignorant recluse in 
 spectacles knew himself to be. A hero in spec- 
 tacles ? Impossible. 
 
 (He forgot that they were magic spectacles. 
 While you wear them you can be anything.) 
 
 He deliberately and conscientiously set himself 
 to construct the ideal hero for this ideal heroine. 
 On his long lonely evenings in the ferry-boats he 
 thought him all out. He would be a big broad- 
 shouldered man, immaculate even in tennis flannels, 
 with a brown moustache, a clear-cut chin, laughing 
 blue eyes (unspectacled), and a firm mouth. Splen- 
 did in impetuosity, careless of consequences, im- 
 periously thrusting aside every barrier (and these 
 would be many and vast) that held him from the
 
 92 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 girl with the amber eyes, he would be a conqueror, 
 her glorious mate. And though to Hugh it sounded 
 like blasphemy that any man should be allowed 
 to hold her in his presumptuous arms, he went to 
 work to build such a paragon. Already he had a 
 clear conception of his superhuman, if chilly, 
 splendour. 
 
 Then, in his imagination, he put that hero in his 
 own place on that magical evening. And from that 
 meeting Hugh deduced the most surprising conse- 
 quences. The author also substituted his hero for 
 himself before that disastrous telephone in the 
 boarding-house. (Only it had to be a big hotel. 
 Heroes don't live in boarding-houses.) And the 
 author rejoiced when his hero flung restraint to the 
 winds and blurted out through the telephone, to the 
 consternation of five matrons who were severally 
 training their daughters to capture him, a reckless 
 proposal of marriage. 
 
 That was as far as Hugh had got. 
 
 And now his heroine or rather his hero's heroine 
 had guessed it ! Well, Hugh could not confess it 
 to her. She mightn't like it. 
 
 It will be evident from this that Hugh was quite 
 right to abdicate his throne for his hero. His hero 
 would have known better. 
 
 " A novel? No ; I only wish I could," he miser- 
 ably said. 
 
 " I would like to be in a novel ! " she sighed.
 
 SHE TELLS HIM ALL 93 
 
 Then, under her insistent prompting, he went on 
 with his recital of his life. He told her how, dis- 
 appointed that he could not go to the University, he 
 had entered the Civil Service. It was during his 
 father's temporary transference to Sydney that 
 Hugh had made his choice. So he had got a place, 
 and was fairly well satisfied with it. 
 
 "There's not much of a salary," he confessed; 
 " but it'll improve. And I really did not care. For 
 all I wanted was to write my big book." 
 
 " And now ? " she half smiled. 
 
 " Now ? It's going to be now always." 
 
 " It looks like it," she admitted, staring over her 
 shoulder into the blank face of the fog, 
 
 "Tell me," he demanded quickly, for her cheek 
 was almost brushing his, and he felt mad prompt- 
 ings that dared him to make an utter fool of himself 
 and end it all. He had not forgotten how this girl 
 had treated Bill for attempting to kiss her. " Tell 
 me tell me all about yourself ! " 
 
 He felt her form stiffen beneath his arm. Then 
 she easily laughed. " Me ? V/hat can you want to 
 know about me ? " 
 
 " Everything ! " 
 
 "But you've got me here! What else do you 
 want, man?" 
 
 She had guessed right. Hugh did not want any- 
 thing else in the universe. But if he kissed her he 
 would follow Bill down the deck, alone. Hugh's
 
 94 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 experience with woman now I'm divulging a secret 
 had been pitiably limited. He still retained, for 
 all his thirty-six years, the respect for the idealised 
 feminine animal that persists in shoving her up on 
 a chilly pedestal and keeping her there. And no 
 modern woman looks well on a pedestal. In this 
 age of the hobbled skirt and the pointed shoe she 
 knows her weak point too well. On a pedestal the 
 world can see her crumbled toes. But in a man's 
 arms, looking up at his chin, she knows that he 
 never thinks of her toes. 
 
 Hugh gently yet firmly replaced her on her lofty 
 pedestal. She would be quite safe up there. 
 
 " Oh, I want to know everything," the rash man 
 demanded. 
 
 " Everything ? About a woman ? " she dreamily 
 murmured. 
 
 He refused to acknowledge his repulse. " Why, 
 I don't even know your name." 
 
 " Nancy." 
 
 " Nancy what ? " 
 
 " You can call me Nancy. It's rather a pretty, 
 old-fashioned name, don't you think ? " 
 
 "I will," said this astonishing Hugh, for a 
 moment rashly getting into his hero's clothes. 
 " And now, Nancy, what is your other name? " 
 
 "Pinkstone," she sadly sighed. "Nancy Pink- 
 stone." 
 
 Hugh did not recall having ever met any Pinkstones.
 
 SHE TELLS HIM ALL 95 
 
 " Any brothers ? " he asked. 
 
 She told him that she was an only child. Then, 
 by repeated questions, he dragged out of her these 
 few facts. Her father, an admirable plumber, was 
 dead. She lived with her mother in a back street 
 on the heights of Mosman a tiny, semi-detached 
 cottage that was really a thin slice of a house, with 
 each room behind the other, held together, as it were, 
 by a narrow " hall." They were, she defiantly con- 
 fessed, hard up. Since her admirable father's death 
 they had always been hard up. 
 
 Hugh looked at the girl's dress. It was, to his 
 eyes, remarkably stylish and pretty ; but Hugh knew 
 even a little less than most men of the relative cost 
 of dress material. 
 
 " Oh, I make my own," she admitted, noting his 
 glance ; " and I'm a great one at bargains." 
 
 He complimented her on her costume. 
 
 She was, of course, ashamed of its palpable cheap- 
 ness ; but it might look all right to a man. And 
 she was thankful that she had her best things on 
 the outside. Of course, he couldn't know that she 
 sacrificed her underclothes for the outer appearance. 
 Women guessed, but women were cats. 
 
 " I'm in a tea-room," she added. " You might 
 as well know. I thought all the men I met knew. 
 And you'd be sure to find out some day." 
 
 She flushed and repented as she said it. But this 
 night, alone on that silent, motionless ferry-boat in
 
 96 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 the fog, she felt strangely relaxed, almost eager for 
 confidences, ready to blurt out the things she knew 
 she must never tell. 
 
 " You never saw me in a tea-room ? " she asked. 
 
 He asked where she had her place. 
 
 She told him. In one of Sydney's leading shops. 
 It had a big refreshment-room on the top floor. 
 They did not serve dinners or suppers, so that she 
 could always get away at six o'clock. That gave 
 her her nights out. 
 
 Hugh remembered those nights out. 
 
 " It's not hard work, but it's tiring, standing so 
 long. And it comes in a rush. Yes, the customers 
 are very nice to me at least, the men. The women 
 well, you know what women are ! " 
 
 As a matter of fact Hugh did not know. But he 
 was learning, thanks to his spectacles. He inquired 
 further of the men. 
 
 " They take me out, of course. The unmarried 
 ones, or the ones that say they are unmarried. But 
 I always find out. You never catch me going out 
 twice with that sort." 
 
 "Bill?" 
 
 " Yes, Bill's been at my table ever since I've been 
 there. He was always very nice to me till to- 
 night. You can never really tell till a man kisses 
 you." 
 
 " You let them kiss you ? " 
 
 Hugh felt sick at the picture of her in any arms
 
 SHE TELLS HIM ALL 97 
 
 but his. It sullied her bloom ; it coarsened her. 
 
 " Of course." She smiled his ignorance down. 
 " That's what they take me out at night 
 for ! " 
 
 Her pedestal crumbled. Hugh shuddered from 
 the ruins. 
 
 " But a kiss?" he stammered. 
 
 To him the thought of kissing this girl, now so 
 close, almost so confidingly close, in his arm, seemed 
 desecration. But evidently there were men or 
 brutes who did not think so. And also one girl. 
 
 " A kiss?" She stared. " There's nothing in a 
 kiss." 
 
 " Oh, isn't there ? " sighed Hugh, almost inaudibly. 
 
 A kiss, compact of happiness, heaven and honey, 
 tinted with delirium and dream, shot through with 
 ecstasy and awe, strange with a sense of sacrilege 
 and shame, tinged with frenzy and a faint half-fear, 
 what was there not in a kiss ? You see, Hugh had 
 never kissed anybody but his mother, and he had 
 forgotten what that was like. Besides, a mother's 
 kiss is a frail foundation to build up the conception 
 of that of a lover. Happily, however, Hugh had an 
 imagination. 
 
 " Men seem to like it," she hazarded indifferently. 
 
 To a girl in whom passion has not yet awakened, 
 a kiss is as tasteless as flat soda-water. 
 
 " But you," he blurted out. " Your lips ! The 
 profanation ! " 
 
 H
 
 98 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " Well, I had to do something to pay them back 
 for taking me out," she genially apologised. 
 
 It had just struck her, from Hugh's horrified ex- 
 pression, that perhaps she had been too free with 
 her favours, or what was really the same thing, too 
 free in admitting the fact. Apparently there were 
 men who looked upon it from a standpoint she had 
 never yet met. Now, a kiss from this handkerchief- 
 man he had nice masculine lips . . . She idly 
 mused a little on what it would feel like. She 
 determined to find out when the occasion offered. 
 She was even prepared to help the occasion to offer. 
 As there were two sorts of men in this marvellous 
 world she would like to sample both. 
 
 But she could not quite get over the shock that 
 her admission had given the handkerchief-man. 
 She determined that she would try not to shock 
 him any more than she could help. She did not 
 want him to lose interest in her. With his quiet 
 ways, his deferential tones, and his excited interest 
 in her, she found him quite delightful a new 
 species to experiment with. Oh, there were more 
 worlds to explore ! And she had thought that 
 she had explored the universe and found nothing 
 but the same rather boring man. 
 
 " But why do you go out with these men ? " 
 Hugh asked. " Why do you make yourself so 
 cheap?" 
 
 This was a new light to Nancy a disagreeable
 
 SHE TELLS HIM ALL 99 
 
 light ! Cheap ? Why, what had she done that all 
 the girls she knew hadn't done or wanted the 
 chance to do ? She knew herself envied by half the 
 girls in the tea-room. She could have as many 
 "boys" as she wanted. Her world was changing 
 colour. 
 
 She flamed at the accusation. " Cheap ? " she 
 cried. " How dare you say that ! I'm straight. 
 And I've kept myself all my life, and my mother. 
 You don't know men can't know all I've had to 
 go through ! " 
 
 Under the spell of her anger at his misconception 
 of her she forgot her prudent resolve of five minutes 
 ago. 
 
 " Why, as soon as I left school I had to go to work 
 work hard, too at a jam factory, pasting labels 
 on tins pasting all day, till my working dress was 
 thick with paste, my hair was paste, my lips tasted 
 paste, and I breathed paste. And then at a printing 
 works, making card-board boxes, all day and every 
 day making the same card-board boxes. And then 
 in a workshop at a machine all day, making boy's 
 trousers, only boy's trousers, the same boy's 
 trousers . . . And there were always men 
 men who made love to you, men who kept on making 
 love to you, till sometimes you almost gave in just 
 from weariness. And then I found out that I was 
 pretty, and that there were easier jobs for pretty 
 girls better wages and less work, as long as you
 
 100 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 were nice-looking. So I tried a sixpenny restaurant, 
 and the manager took me at once, and at the end 
 of the week asked me out to dinner with him. I 
 wouldn't go. I was younger then. So I got the 
 sack. But I'd heard of this place I'm in now, and 
 after waiting a month I was taken on. So I'm all 
 right now. But I've always had to fight for my 
 own hand, and that knocks the foolishness out of 
 a woman. And if I like to go out with men, why 
 shouldn't I ? Haven't I earned my right to do as 
 I like? And if I pay them back by letting them 
 kiss me, what harm is there in that ? I learnt 
 to look after myself, and I'll do as I like so 
 there ! " 
 
 Hugh cowered beneath the storm. He felt a 
 swift dread as the girl tore her wounds open to his 
 view. He felt horribly ashamed at having seen her 
 naked soul. She should not have done that. But 
 behind his dread came the sudden up-welling of a 
 flood of pity for this weak girl at bay in a world of 
 men. And mixed with the pity was a thrill of 
 admiration. This woman, so accessible, so soft, 
 had palisaded and hardened herself against her 
 emotions. She had held her own in a struggle of 
 whose stress he could form only the slightest con- 
 ception. 
 
 He begged her pardon. 
 
 With a glad smile she turned her face up to 
 his.
 
 SHE TELLS HIM ALL 101 
 
 He determinedly blew his nose. 
 
 " I wonder," he said, anxiously, " if ever this fog is 
 going to lift ? " In order to look at his watch he 
 withdrew his arm from her. It was nearly three 
 o'clock. " I suppose," he added, " we'll be here till 
 daybreak." 
 
 Nancy Pinkstone covertly glanced at his anxious 
 face, and her amber eyes drooped. Evidently there 
 were more sorts of men in the world than two. 
 Mr. Robjohn was certainly lacking in initiative. 
 Yet this defeat but piqued her curiosity. She 
 determined to explore further. 
 
 In the meantime she felt very tired and sleepy. 
 She sank back in her seat ; and after a while, 
 very timorously, Hugh's arm found its way round 
 her. Then her head drooped gently on the soft 
 place between his shoulder and his heart, and 
 Hugh knew by her breathing that she was quietly 
 asleep. 
 
 He had never heard anything as beautiful as a 
 woman's soft breathing. And the slow pulse of her 
 breast against his coat, and the rich warmth of her 
 snuggled body against his arm, seemed to him as 
 miracles. So, after a while, lulled by her quietness, 
 Hugh, too, slumbered. 
 
 About them was the blank darkness of the per- 
 vading fog. Two blind souls, alone in the hushed 
 darkness of life, dreaming of the sunlight of the 
 dawn.
 
 102 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 No wonder that in his sleep his two arms held 
 her; no wonder that in her sleep she snuggled 
 closer.
 
 NANCY PINKSTONE ASKS A QUESTION 103 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 IN WHICH NANCY PINKSTONE ASKS HER MIEEOR 
 A QUESTION 
 
 NEXT morning five pairs of eyes watched 
 Hugh's retreating figure pass the bamboo 
 clump, saw him ascend the steps to the 
 gate, and waited till it swung shut behind him. 
 Then four eager voices said "Well?" and Miss 
 Catch proceeded to tell them all. 
 
 She had been telling them all ever since she got 
 home at six o'clock that morning, when she limply 
 staggered in, in her crumpled evening clothes, from 
 her night on the harbour. But right at the most 
 thrilling point Hugh Robjohn came down to break- 
 fast, and the audience turned eagerly, with insidious 
 questions, to the delightful task of "pumping" the 
 chief actor. But he was discreetly monosyllabic, 
 and interested only in bacon and eggs. 
 
 Now, having seen him safely off, Miss Catch 
 could take the limelight. She took it deliberately, 
 for she knew that it was the first time, and possibly 
 the only time, in her life that she occupied the
 
 104 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 centre of the stage. The only thing that had 
 consoled her that long, disagreeable lonely night on 
 the ferry-boat was the anticipation of the sensation 
 she would cause at the boarding-house. In her 
 life, where nothing exciting except sales happened, 
 she got a lot of interest out of being chorus of life. 
 It is the sole sustenance of many a maiden aunt 
 which explains why they are usually so thin. 
 
 " Well, what do you think ? " she took up her 
 wonderful tale. " When I was awakened by the 
 boat's engines starting again, it was broad daylight. 
 I went out to the end of the ferry to find out where 
 we were and we had been anchored just round the 
 corner of Musgrave Point. Why, we could have 
 walked home ! " 
 
 " Yes, but " Mrs. Fitzherbart was not to be led 
 away by unessentials "where was our Mr. Hugh?" 
 
 " As I was saying," Miss Catch was not to lose 
 the full flavour of her revelation, " when I looked 
 round, what do you think I saw ? " 
 
 She gave the pause its dramatic intensity, and 
 deliberately sipped her cold tea. The others were 
 too enthralled even to expostulate. 
 
 " As sure as I'm sitting here, I saw Mr. Hugh 
 with a girl in his arms, and both of them fast 
 asleep ! " 
 
 Each member of her audience moistened her lips, 
 as the lioness does at the sight of her prey. This 
 was indeed a feast !
 
 NANCY PINKSTONE ASKS A QUESTION 105 
 
 " Yes, in each other's arms ! Our Mr. Hugh had 
 both his arms round her ; and she was well, there 
 is only one word to describe it, much as I dislike 
 saying it she was snuggled up against him ! " 
 
 Her audience gasped with a fearful joy. 
 
 " Our Mr. Hugh ! " Mrs. Fitzherbart smiled. 
 " Fancy, our Mr. Hugh ! " 
 
 "Snuggled!" murmured Miss Flegg, pressing her 
 bony arms across her puny chest. 
 
 "But the the girl, the creature?" Miss Swatts 
 demanded. 
 
 " What was she like ? " Miss Littledick asked. 
 " The forward, shameless thing ! " 
 
 Miss Catch drank in a full draught of delight. 
 " Oh well, I don't like to be unkind, but well, you 
 know ! " 
 
 They all did. 
 
 " That sort ! " gasped Miss Littledick. 
 
 " Quite and worse ! " Miss Catch emended. 
 
 " Fair or dark ? " 
 
 " Worse red ! " 
 
 The audience shuddered. 
 
 " Ked ! " sighed Mrs. Fitzherbart reminiscently. 
 "A fair girl is attractive, a dark girl is the devil. 
 But red ! It's a rag to a mad bull. It was only the 
 strong love of Mr. Fitzherbart for me I might, 
 without indelicacy, call it passionate that saved 
 him, not once, nor twice, from a red-headed creature. 
 He told me so himself. And there was a red-haired
 
 106 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 cook we had and I do hate changing cooks." 
 
 " Yes, as soon as I saw the colour of her hair 
 almost indecent, I call it," said Miss Catch, "I knew 
 that nobody, however pretty " (she meant herself) 
 " would have the least chance. And it wasn't 
 just red ; it was auburn you know, the sort of hair 
 any girl who doesn't respect herself can do for 
 herself." 
 
 "Peroxide," said Miss Swatts. " I remember." 
 
 But the audience was not interested in Miss 
 Swatts' memories. 
 
 " But the whole girl was red," added Miss Catch 
 desolately. " When she woke she flamed, eyes and 
 all!" 
 
 " And did you wake them ? " Miss Flegg asked. 
 
 " Asleep in each other's arms ! The poor in- 
 nocent dears ! " tenderly sighed Miss Littledick. 
 
 But her remark passed unnoticed, and immedi- 
 ately she was ashamed of it. 
 
 "No," said Miss Catch. "Wake them in that 
 shameless embrace ? How could I ? It was one of 
 the passengers who saw them as soon as I did. He 
 was a well-dressed man quite a handsome, well- 
 set-up man. And he looked at them and laughed 
 horribly, jealously. The picture of her in his arms 
 would really have made any man jealous. And that 
 girl opened her eyes and saw him, and then looked 
 curiously up at our Mr. Hugh, as if not quite remem- 
 bering. Then it came back to her, and she flung a
 
 NANCY PINKSTONE ASKS A QUESTION 107 
 
 look at the other man that made him wince. He 
 went off, smiling uneasily to himself. Then our 
 Mr. Hugh woke up, and looked round him in that 
 dazed way of his. He had taken off those nice 
 spectacles. Then he put them on, and looked at 
 the girl and the look that came into his eyes then ! 
 I've seen my married sister looking like that when 
 she was feeding her first baby." 
 
 Every woman looked down on the desolate break- 
 fast-table, and there was, as it were, a gentle sigh 
 suspended in the room. 
 
 "I didn't see them again" Miss Catch wiped 
 her eyes "till we got off the boat. He was escort- 
 ing her as if as if they had just been engaged ! And 
 for all I know they are ! Anyhow " ' vindictively ' 
 " they ought to be ! " Her voice had in it almost a 
 wail. " They went off up the road, and I came 
 home." 
 
 "At six o'clock," Mrs. Fitzherbart commented, 
 " and Mr. Hugh did not turn up till half-past 
 seven." 
 
 All of them drew their dreadful conclusions in 
 silence. Mr. Eobjohn, their Mr. Hugh, was lost, 
 eternally lost, lured from his comfortable, happy 
 home by that red rag. The best they hoped for 
 now was his marriage and even that, they were 
 convinced, would be hurried. 
 
 Meantime, at his office, Hugh, tired and sleepy, 
 was going over again the events of that magical
 
 108 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 night. The suprise of his awaking beside her he 
 thought he had dreamed all that ; the delight of 
 seeing her again in the dawn, with the sleep hardly 
 out of her misty eyes ; the first strange look of those 
 two at each other, like children surprised at a dream 
 come true ; the walk to that ever afterwards sacred 
 corner of the street in Mosman, where she had in- 
 sisted on him leaving her ; the long time they had 
 stood there discussing whether he should be allowed 
 to accompany her to her door ; and, finally, the 
 promise, the delicious promise, to meet him the 
 following night at eight o'clock at the quay. He 
 had pleaded hard for the evening of the day so 
 beautifully begun; but Nancy, with her superior 
 feminine practicability, had told him that, after the 
 events of that evening, he would be much better in 
 bed. Anyhow, she knew that she would. 
 
 But what he most delighted in was the recollec- 
 tion of her on that walk home in the misty morning. 
 She took his arm, for the road was steep and she 
 was very tired, and there was a strange dependence 
 in her weakness that thrilled and exalted him. That 
 he should be able to protect such a wonderful being ! 
 They had strolled as through the vague streets of 
 some haunted city of sleep, accepting each other 
 without question, as if they had always belonged to 
 each other, wonderfully believing that the world 
 would never wake up. They had been carried away 
 to a new world, and, dazed in their delight, had
 
 NANCY PINKSTONE ASKS A QUESTION 109 
 
 spoken but in a murmur, soul, as it wonderfully 
 seemed to him, touching soul. 
 
 That, at least, is how this spectacled dreamer 
 remembered it; and thus, he assumed, she too must 
 have felt it. When a man is in love, all the world 
 must melt into his moods. It is sometimes hard on 
 the girl. 
 
 At lunch-time he was assailed by a longing to go 
 to the tea-room where she was employed, but a 
 sudden delicacy overcame him. Though every 
 nerve of him ached to be near her again, how could 
 he sit at a public table and let her wait on him ? 
 The desecration of her dainty hands placing food 
 before him, and she patiently standing, weary, per- 
 haps hungry, while he ate at his ease ! The nobility 
 of this thought was, as a matter of fact, rather marred 
 by his assumption that Nancy Pinkstone had dainty 
 hands. Lover-like, he had begun to decorate her 
 with all the attributes consecrated to woman. As a 
 matter of fact, Nancy had very capable hands, firm 
 and well-moulded ; but whatever daintiness they 
 had once possessed had gradually been lost in the 
 work that her poverty had given them to do. But 
 Hugh had not even noticed her hands he had not 
 even seen whether she had any rings on them. To 
 a woman's eye another woman's rings, or the lack 
 of them, is a lure as potent as a one-and-elevenpenny 
 bargain in a shop window. Those rings blaze under 
 the other woman's gloves. And even when a
 
 110 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 woman flirts her new engagement ring under a 
 man's nose and women have been known to do 
 this he remains blind. It is in the depths of her 
 eyes that a man looks for his information. They 
 tell him more than rings. 
 
 And at the thought of those dainty hands placing 
 food before him Hugh suddenly awoke to the sus- 
 picion that she might already be engaged or even 
 married. But he put aside the plain gold band as 
 impossible. But engaged ? To one of those men 
 who took her out at night ? He said to himself 
 that that was impossible too; but he did not believe 
 what he said to himself. To-morrow night he 
 would look at her hands, and if she had an engage- 
 ment ring on ... Now, now on what finger and what 
 hand did an engaged girl wear her ring ? Hugh 
 confessed glumly that he did not know. And how 
 in the world was he to find out ? He could not 
 ask any of the women at the boarding-house. And 
 how could he ask any male acquaintance ? But 
 he consoled himself with the hope that she would 
 not be wearing any rings at all. 
 
 He had forgotten that she was a woman. For 
 he had put her safely on her pedestal, and he 
 meant to keep her there. But it is a dangerous 
 thing to lift any human being too far from earth. 
 It hurts more to fall from a height. 
 
 The hours dragged on through that day, leaving 
 Hugh still with that uncertainty of the particular
 
 NANCY PINKSTONE ASKS A QUESTION 111 
 
 finger and the particular hand on which an engaged 
 girl wore her ring. At last he had a happy thought. 
 He would ask the charwoman. He had seen that 
 lady occasionally when he had been kept late at his 
 office. She never said anything to him, but there 
 was a kind of patient savageness in her attitude as 
 she hovered outside his door waiting for him to 
 vacate his room. 
 
 That evening he waited anxiously for her. She 
 was old and bent and dirty, except her hands, 
 which were clean from much immersion in hot 
 soapy water. 
 
 He addressed her with a diffident "Good- 
 evening." 
 
 She was gloomily surprised, and somewhat sus- 
 picious, waiting, bucket in hand, till he let her get 
 on with her work. 
 
 "I wanted to ask you a question," he began. 
 
 She was at once alertly on the defensive. " I 
 never touches anythink on the desk," she asserted ; 
 "I'm honest, I am, as the Government knows as 
 give me the job." 
 
 " No, no," said Hugh eagerly, " I'm not making 
 any complaint. I just wanted to ask you a question. 
 What finger does a woman wear an engagement 
 ring on ? " 
 
 She stared in amaze. " Why, this ! " 
 
 She held up her gnarled old hand. Hugh saw on 
 the third finger a plain gold band and a gairish
 
 112 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 other ring. She turned it reflectively in her gaunt, 
 red fingers. 
 
 " I thought everybody knoo that," she said. " It's 
 always put there, because there's a nerve that runs 
 straight from that there finger up to the heart. I 
 never took it off except only onst and that was to 
 put the wedding-ring on. I've never moved it 
 since since he put it there." 
 
 She relapsed into a grim silence, looking at the 
 ring wonderingly. 
 
 "Been there all these blessed years, and him 
 under the ground for the last nineteen." 
 
 Through his magical spectacles Hugh saw the 
 abiding romance of that worn ring on the worn 
 hand. So romance lived for ever even in a char- 
 woman. Through his wonderful spectacles Hugh 
 was always noticing strange things like this. That 
 charwoman was once a pretty girl like Nancy 
 Nay, as he peered closer he found a strange, fancied 
 resemblance in her eyes to Nancy's eyes. Her 
 hair was dirty white, and skimpy; but once it 
 might have flamed ruddily like Nancy's. The re- 
 semblance grew on him as he looked at this wreck 
 of the womanhood he so strangely revered. That 
 anyone resembling Nancy should come to this ! 
 
 " Thanks," he said abruptly, fished in his pocket 
 and gave her half-a-crown. 
 
 She took it eagerly and instantly forgot her 
 ring.
 
 NANCY PINKSTONE ASKS A QUESTION 113 
 
 As he put on his hat she was already on her 
 knees and her old hand was in the bucket. 
 
 The following night Nancy met him at the Quay, 
 and, on her suggestion, they took the boat to 
 Watson's Bay. There they wandered up to the 
 Gap, and stood in silence and watched the ocean 
 and the breakers beneath. Hugh was utterly con- 
 tent to wait beside the girl in this thrilling silence 
 that was voluble with daring thoughts. But Nancy 
 seemed restless. 
 
 " Can't we sit down somewhere? " she asked. 
 
 Hugh looked vaguely around at the expanse of 
 flat rock, and suggested it as a seat. 
 
 " No," she said, " we'll find a better seat." 
 
 She led the way unhesitatingly to a cosy niche 
 that nestled beneath the edge of the cliff, Hugh 
 helplessly happy when she put her hand on his arm 
 to steady herself. The niche was already occupied 
 by a couple, who did not even notice the intruders. 
 Nancy, without pause, clambered on over a track 
 that Hugh would have shrunk from in daylight. 
 At last she stopped. A kind of shallow cave be- 
 neath a ledge of rock invited them. Hugh wondered 
 vaguely at Nancy's knowledge of the cliffs. 
 
 So they sat, necessarily close together, and 
 talked, or were long silent, watching the breakers 
 thundering sheer below them and the lights of the 
 steamers passing through the Heads. 
 
 And when Nancy Pinkstone got home that night
 
 114 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 her mother had long ago gone to bed she entered 
 her tiny bedroom in that narrow slice of a semi- 
 detached cottage, and, with all her finery on, walked 
 straight to her mirror. 
 
 " Why didn't he kiss me? " she asked her mirror 
 with a fierce exasperation. " Aren't I pretty 
 enough ? Wasn't I nice enough ? Doesn't he like 
 me enough? " 
 
 She carefully scrutinised the altogether charming 
 figure the mirror showed her, dispassionately intent 
 on finding out the flaw that somewhere must be 
 lurking in her, the flaw that Hugh the first of all 
 the men who had taken her to Watson's Bay had 
 discovered. She honestly could find none nor, for 
 that matter, could the mirror. She turned away, 
 perplexed and angry, to undress. 
 
 And before she slipped her nightdress on she 
 went once more over to the looking-glass, and 
 steadily regarded her naked figure. She turned 
 away after her critical gaze rather more hopeful. 
 The exasperation was still in her eyes, but she was 
 duly comforted by the picture she had seen. She 
 passionately regretted for a mad moment that 
 civilisation had not banished clothes. There was 
 nothing wrong with her figure nor her skin, nor 
 her face, nor her hair . . . And yet he hadn't 
 kissed her ! 
 
 Somewhat reluctantly she slipped on her nightie, 
 and sat on the edge of her bed, considering. Per-
 
 haps she had not given him sufficiently obvious 
 chances ? But no, on that point her conscience 
 was clear. Dolefully she counted up the oppor- 
 tunities she had deliberately made. She found that 
 there were at least five times when he could, and 
 should, have kissed her not counting that scramble 
 through the wire fence, which was hardly an oppor- 
 tunity, though she had never known it to fail before. 
 What was there in her that he disliked ? 
 
 She gave it up, with a sigh for a wasted evening, 
 and crept into bed. She had fully intended to be 
 kissed ; indeed she had anticipated quite a lot of 
 miscellaneous kissing. That man looked as if he 
 could. 
 
 Nancy had in her young mind but two categories 
 for men those whose eyes told her they meant to, 
 and those who didn't want to. And she had so 
 looked forward to this evening, more than she had 
 looked forward to any evening, for Hugh was 
 different to Bill and the others, all of whom re- 
 sembled Bill. 
 
 And to-morrow there was the long day in the tea- 
 room, and men would ask to take her out, and well 
 if he didn't kiss her, there were plenty of others 
 who would. Well, if he didn't like her she would 
 give one of the others a chance. She would let 
 Bill no, she remembered she had finished with 
 Bill. And, somehow, it was Hugh's lips that, above 
 all others, she wanted to feel on hers. It was ex-
 
 116 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 asperating. But she couldn't afford to waste her 
 life. And her evenings out were her life. 
 
 The last conclusion she came to before she went 
 miserably to sleep was that she had never been so 
 insulted before in her life.
 
 HUGH GETS APPENDICITIS 117 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 IN WHICH HUGH GETS APPENDICITIS AND 
 DISCOVERS THAT A BOARDER IS A HUMAN BEING 
 
 THE next day Hugh got appendicitis. 
 The fact that he got this particular 
 disease is sufficient proof, if proof is 
 needed, that Hugh Robjohn acted wisely in not 
 making himself the hero of his own novel. In 
 romantic literature the hero never gets appendicitis. 
 He gets something much more pleasing, though 
 quite as dangerous : he gets the girl. 
 
 But the fact was dreadful enough. An operation 
 was insisted upon by the hastily summoned doctor. 
 He suggested that his patient should be at once re- 
 moved to an expensive private hospital, but for the 
 first time in his boarding-house practice the medical 
 man met opposition to this humane proposal. Mrs. 
 Fitzherbart, supported by a bodyguard of Miss 
 Swatts, Miss Flegg, Miss Littledick and Miss Catch, 
 refused to allow their Mr. Hugh to be moved. In 
 the first place, as the doctor himself had admitted, 
 delay might be dangerous ; and their spokeswoman
 
 118 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 assured the doctor that their Mr. Hugh would be 
 better cared for in his " home " than in any soulless 
 private hospital. 
 
 This astounding fact cannot be accounted for by 
 any of the statistics that we possess of boarding- 
 house hearts. It is patiently recorded here, in the 
 faint hope that it may prove that, though all 
 boarding-houses are the same boarding-house, there 
 is a small but perceptible variation in boarding- 
 house hearts. It must, however, be stated in ex- 
 tenuation that, in the breathless discussion by the 
 ladies that preceded Mrs. Fitzherbart's amazing 
 announcement, one compelling motive might be 
 vaguely suspected. Each of the ladies felt sure 
 that she would be the one detailed to wait on Mr. 
 Hugh; each pictured herself in the attractive 
 starched whiteness of the modern ministering angel ; 
 and each was sure that Mr. Hugh would prefer the 
 tender care of herself to the harsh, methodical 
 attendance of a hard-lipped hospital nurse. Nurses, 
 too, even the hard-lipped ones, had been known to 
 marry convalescent patients. Mr. Hugh was 
 susceptible enough, goodness knows, to fast young 
 women who performed in the pantomime; and in 
 his weakened state following an operation he could 
 not be regarded as proof against the most hardened 
 hospital nurse. And if he could not be prevented 
 from falling in love with his nurse, why go outside 
 his home to find one ?
 
 HUGH GETS APPENDICITIS 119 
 
 It may, after all, have been mere kindness of 
 heart on the part of the four spinsters and the 
 widow ; and in suggesting a mean motive such as 
 this, the historian only brands himself as of a sex 
 from whose consideration the middle-aged of the 
 other sex have bitterly learnt to expect little. 
 
 The doctor brusquely assented to Mrs. Fitzher- 
 bart's proposal, and, striding to the telephone, rang 
 up for a nurse. The five unqualified nurses looked 
 at each other aghast. Their Mr. Hugh at home, in 
 the charge of an intruder ! And they would mutely 
 have to look on and see her marry him ! 
 
 So that night, when Hugh should have been 
 kissing Nancy Pinkstone adequately and carefully 
 prepared to be kissed at Watson's Bay, Hugh was 
 neatly being disinfected, sliced, and sewn up by 
 two surgeons and a nurse. 
 
 In the days following, the doctor came and went, 
 but the nurse stayed. She made the bed-sitting- 
 room into a passable imitation of a bare hospital 
 ward by the simple process of taking up the strip 
 of carpet and sweeping all Hugh's precious books 
 and manuscripts into the back passage. And while 
 Hugh dozed, a tip-toe procession of boarders viewed 
 his pale features and whispered to themselves, 
 " Poor dear ! " 
 
 Hugh's first thoughts on recovering consciousness 
 were of Nancy. What did she think of him when 
 he did not meet her that night? Would she
 
 120 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 telephone him, or would she, believing him tired 
 of her, maintain silence ? He must tell her of his 
 plight, but how ? He could not possibly send a 
 message to her, for he could not write, and whom 
 could he entrust with a verbal message ? Certainly 
 not any of the boarders, for his secret was too 
 sacred a thing for curious ears. He worried over 
 the problem, and the nurse noticed with consterna- 
 tion that his temperature was not at all satisfactory. 
 But she could not locate the cause. 
 
 It really was the wall-paper. One strip of the 
 elaborate floral design had been unevenly joined, 
 and the resulting irregularity worried him ex- 
 ceedingly. To get his mind off it, he laboriously 
 counted up the number of roses in one line of the 
 decoration, painstakingly added up the number of 
 baskets slanting up diagonally to the cornice, pain- 
 fully estimated the number of ribbons that were on 
 all the four walls, arranged the bright spots made 
 by the roses in cunning geometrical designs, and 
 puzzled over the different colours used in the 
 atrocious scheme. Luckily he was, at this stage, 
 not allowed his spectacles, else he would have made 
 hugh mathematical calculations of the distressing 
 number of dots in the design. 
 
 But what made it worse was that he soon dis- 
 covered the features of a face in a group of flowers 
 that was regularly repeated slanting up to the far 
 corner of the wall. It was a blurred face, but he
 
 HUGH GETS APPENDICITIS 121 
 
 recognised it instantly as the face of Nancy Pink- 
 stone. There were hundreds of faces of Nancy, 
 but the face was never quite the same in each 
 repetition. One was laughing, and the next had a 
 puzzled frown ; the one beyond was staring at him 
 with hard eyes, and the one close up to the cornice 
 was bitterly weeping. So she stared at him on his 
 sick-bed, bent over him, mocked him, terrified him 
 all those restless delirious days. 
 
 But gradually the face changed into another 
 face that came and went, but came and stayed. 
 And by-and-by, as he recovered strength, he knew 
 that it was the thin face of the nurse. And when 
 his restless eyes turned away from the worrying 
 wall-paper, the cool white of her dress steadied 
 him. 
 
 At last the day came when the doctor allowed 
 him his spectacles. The first thing he saw through 
 them was the face of the nurse. He was surprised 
 to find how young she was. He had taken her for 
 granted, labelled as " nurse " ; now he saw her 
 merely as woman. (This is always recognised as 
 a dangerous stage in convalescence, especially in 
 heart disease.) 
 
 He startled her by asking her how old she was. 
 
 "Oh, I'm an old maid," she smiled; "and you 
 mustn't ask questions." 
 
 Later she talked. She loved nursing more than 
 anything else in the world. This was her first
 
 122 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 general case, though of course she had had full 
 hospital experience. Only, on leaving the hospital 
 she had gone in for midwifery cases. She loved 
 midwifery cases. They were more trouble, of 
 course, but there was always the wee baby some- 
 times two. No, she did not care much for children 
 as they grew up. She lost interest in them when 
 they were a month old. It was the helplessness 
 of them that she loved. She had had quite a lot 
 of babies, relinquishing each to its mother with 
 only a little sigh, and gone forth to the mothering 
 of another helpless pink mite. 
 
 "I've always thought," said Hugh, "that babies 
 ought to be born about three years old. They're 
 so funny then. But before " 
 
 " You've never had one," she reprovingly smiled. 
 " Oh, I'd never let them grow more than a month 
 old. I'd keep them at that age always if I had 
 my way." 
 
 These were the contented, convalescent days, 
 when Hugh was interested in every tiny detail 
 of his little four-walled world. And now he woke 
 to the existence of the other boarders. They 
 seemed to have plenty of time to spare for him. 
 The nurse would only allow one in at a time, and 
 jealously kept watch. 
 
 First came Miss Flegg, thin, elaborately dressed, 
 on her parched face the sick-room look that is 
 composed of equal parts of subdued sympathy and
 
 HUGH GETS APPENDICITIS 123 
 
 curbed cheerfulness. She had great news to cheer 
 him. The youngest of her four bleak nieces was 
 engaged ! 
 
 " Of course," she explained, " I knew that young 
 Smith was staying at the same boarding-house with 
 Bertha. But you know what young men in 
 boarding-houses are ! Well, one night last week 
 he told her that he was leaving the boarding- 
 house, and the next morning at breakfast Bertha 
 announced her engagement to him ! Bertha 
 writes " Miss Flegg opened one of the letters she 
 held " that they were sitting on the balcony, 
 everybody else was in the drawing-room listening 
 to the gramophone, and when he said he was going 
 away to another boarding-house she knew at once 
 that he was merely testing her feelings towards 
 him. She could not help showing him and he 
 kissed her. 
 
 " That's her side of the story," Miss Flegg went 
 judicially on. " But then her eldest sister Blanche 
 writes me" she referred to exhibit No. 2 "that 
 Bertha confessed that on hearing Mr. Smith's 
 dreadful news she burst into tears. And Blanche 
 says that she found out from the landlady that 
 Mr. Smith was really going the next morning. 
 He had given the landlady notice a week before, 
 and had not said a word about it to anyone. Also 
 he had told the landlady not to mention it. But 
 you know what landladies are, and Blanche suggested
 
 124 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 that Bertha knew all about it. Blanche's theory 
 is that the poor youth was simply fleeing for his 
 life, and Bertha knew that he could not go far 
 if she was in his arms. And so she burst into 
 tears, and they're going to be married at Christmas. 
 
 " I never gave Bertha credit for so much sense," 
 MissFlegg mused, "but she can cry on the slightest 
 provocation. But in my days girls did not throw 
 themselves into men's arms ; and when a girl 
 does that, there is not much chance for a man, 
 is there ? " 
 
 Hugh's silence fervently agreed. Nancy had 
 even gone to sleep in his arms, and he knew that 
 he could never forget her. Yet she had apparently 
 forgotten him ! She did not care. She had not 
 even rung up to inquire why he had failed to keep 
 his appointment ! His first request on recovering 
 consciousness had been to ask if any telephone 
 message had come, and day after day he had made 
 the same vain inquiry. The nurse had offered 
 to ring up any friend for him, but he did not know 
 any address for Nancy except the tea-room. And 
 to commit a message such an intimate message 
 as he intended to send to another's lips was 
 sacrilege unthinkable. Still Nancy, who had once 
 been so eager to telephone him, might have sent 
 a message. The thought rankled. 
 
 Hugh did not consider Nancy's position. A girl 
 would wait and wait. It was his place to explain.
 
 HUGH GETS APPENDICITIS 125 
 
 But would Nancy wait like any other girl ? He 
 could not think it. 
 
 He was thinking of the old Nancy the Nancy 
 who had once been called " hot stuff." It did not 
 enter his mind that there might possibly be a 
 new Nancy. 
 
 " Still," Miss Flegg resumed, after a prolonged 
 perusal of exhibits C and D, " Bertha's engaged 
 all right ; and there are four of them, and they've 
 all got Eoman noses. So I suppose we must be 
 thankful." 
 
 The next day it was Miss Catch's turn. (The 
 ladies, after acrimonious discussion, had drawn lots 
 for the order of their entrance.) Miss Catch had 
 put on her pinkest, most be-ribboned blouse. " It 
 will brighten up the poor dear's room," she had 
 said. 
 
 She was so overcome with the adventure of 
 entering a man's bedroom when he was in bed 
 that she blushed brighter than her pink ribbons. 
 To cover her confusion she quickly produced one 
 of the novels that she habitually carried. She 
 decided, for her own reputation, to pitch the con- 
 versation on a purely literary level. 
 
 "I've not read it all yet, of course," she ex- 
 plained; "but it's by Blank Scrutton ; and all 
 Blank Scrutton's are good, aren't they ? I've read 
 them all. The last came out about six months 
 ago, and the girl in it was a dear. Her face was
 
 126 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 on the cover, and she was in every one of the 
 pictures. But this one " she picked futilely at 
 the leaves " isn't quite so good. The pictures 
 aren't half so thrilling as the ones in ' The Girl 
 from Gustavia ' ; and there isn't a single picture of 
 a proposal here ... It almost makes you think 
 there isn't a proposal in the book but of course 
 that's absurd." She sighed, doubtless contrasting 
 literature and life. " Here she is." She showed 
 Hugh the illustration. " I don't care for the way 
 she is dressed. And her hat ! She wore such a 
 ducky hat in the last book. And the hero has a 
 moustache now. He doesn't look half so masterly. 
 It is disappointing when you get to like an author, 
 get to depend on him, and he gives you a different 
 sort of hero, isn't it ? I think I shall have to give 
 up Blank Scrutton. But if you haven't read ' The 
 Girl from Gustavia ' you'll like this. There's one 
 most exciting part ; it's when he's being introduced 
 to the princess, and the grand duke is listening 
 behind a tree. Of course he does not know she 
 is a princess, and of course she thinks that he 
 is a prince. Here it is." She flicked the book 
 open again and let Hugh scan the illustration she 
 had so graphically described. " That's her. Now, 
 do you like that hat ? " 
 
 Hugh did not, and Miss Catch was further 
 encouraged to get Hugh's stern disapproval of 
 moustaches as an adornment of heroes.
 
 HUGH GETS APPENDICITIS 127 
 
 " But I'm sure," he hopefully suggested, " that 
 you'll want to read this book yourself." 
 
 " Oh no. I'm reading two other novels, and I'm 
 sure I won't finish them both to-night. Besides, 
 I've looked at the last two pages I always read 
 them over twice the first thing, so as I won't forget 
 so I won't be worrying over how it ends. No ; 
 you keep it, please. It's not the sort of book you 
 usually read, I know ; but when one's ill ! " 
 
 She would have talked literature for hours, but 
 the nurse interposed. It might excite her patient. 
 Pink was a dangerous colour for invalids. So Miss 
 Catch blushed her way out, and instantly retailed 
 the absorbing conversation to the ladies waiting in 
 the passage. 
 
 The next evening Miss Swatts, of the millinery, 
 had her chance. She retailed to him the latest 
 news of the shop, and Hugh was surprised to find 
 how many exciting things did happen in a shop. 
 
 Then she taught him " patience," and for half an 
 hour she initiated him into the vagaries of a variety 
 termed "Miss Milligan." She told him that it 
 could be mastered by continual practice. She had 
 made the mistakes he was guilty of when she first, 
 in early youth, took up this fascinating game. She 
 gently encouraged him, repressing her surprise at 
 his palpable blunders. After all, he was only a 
 beginner and he had all his life before him. She 
 left him her pack of " patience " cards.
 
 128 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 At last Miss Littledick's turn came. Her hard 
 eyes in her rectangular face softened as she looked 
 down on his helplessness. 
 
 " Don't you want to send any messages to your 
 friends ? " she asked at once. 
 
 " Has anybody rung me up ? " was his eager 
 counter. 
 
 Miss Littledick's keen hard eyes saw deeper than 
 he liked. He shrank into his bed-clothes. 
 
 " I rang up the office, and told them all about it," 
 she replied, after her long look. 
 
 "Did you? That was very thoughtful of you ! " 
 
 " But I thought there might be some others 
 that you would like to ring up. I'd be so glad to 
 send any message for you ! " 
 
 Hugh was tempted. But Nancy had forgotten 
 him had, at least, taken no steps to learn if he 
 were alive. Yet when Miss Littledick retired he 
 thought of the kindly intent that lay behind her 
 woman's curiosity. She was sorry for him and 
 wanted to help him. 
 
 And when Mrs. Fitzherbart came in her turn 
 with the surprising announcement that, of course, 
 she could not charge him full board and lodging for 
 the month really, he had eaten so little and was 
 no trouble at all, and then there were all the 
 doctors' and nurses' fees to pay Hugh glimpsed 
 the humanity that lay behind the boarding-house 
 heart. Through his wonderful glasses he saw the
 
 HUGH GETS APPENDICITIS 129 
 
 common bond of friendship that knits this isolated 
 race of ours together. It seemed as if mankind, 
 shut up on its lonely spinning globe, had always 
 deep down, beyond its surface differences, a basic 
 fund of human-kindliness, a broad comradeship for 
 its own kin. Life had taken the masking individu- 
 alities that we wear, and torn them from our faces, 
 letting us see beneath our disguises the grave smile 
 of tenderness on our brothers' lips. People were, 
 at heart, not different they were friends, not 
 enemies. In ordinary life the differences leapt to 
 the surface: a crisis let us see beneath our masks 
 the common humanity that remembers and forgives. 
 
 Take the most degarded being you know say a 
 private detective or a literary critic and you would 
 find some good points in him, some basis on which 
 you two could stand and clasp hands. Even a 
 literary critic has his friends, possibly a wife and 
 seven children who adore him. They do not see 
 his literary criticism they see a man whom a hard 
 fate has compelled to write it. It is the good 
 mother-kindness of the race, always there, hidden 
 yet deep-rooted, radiating brotherliness. 
 
 Appendicitis was necessary before Hugh saw it 
 With most of us marriage is the key. 
 
 And all the time not a sign^from Nancy
 
 130 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 CHAPTEK XII 
 
 IN WHICH HUGH IS KISSED 
 
 NANCY, however, had more important 
 things to think about than the question 
 whether Hugh was alive. She had ap- 
 pendicitis of the heart a much more dreadful com- 
 plaint. She called in a famous surgeon, Common 
 Sense, M.D., who correctly diagnosed her trouble, 
 advised an operation, and deftly removed the 
 appendix of her heart that little useless sac of the 
 heart where love accumulates and inflames the 
 whole organ. 
 
 It was a painful operation, so at first she used 
 anaesthetics. She tried flirting, but it merely irri- 
 tated the already inflamed heart. She tried to 
 absorb herself in her work, but it is hard to become 
 enthusiastic over ordering lunches, clearing away 
 plates, and washing up. She made herself take an 
 interest in dress; but, as always she had been as 
 keenly interested in dress as she was in men, she 
 felt no appreciable relief. 
 
 It was a wearisome operation, too, cutting away
 
 HUGH IS KISSED 131 
 
 bit by bit that stupid little organ in which were 
 congested all the foolish thoughts and more foolish 
 dreams she had had about Hugh Kobjohn. For 
 though each night, in those long waking hours, she 
 thought she had extirpated every trace of the offend- 
 ing organ, in her dreams it grew again ; and the 
 next night she had to make a fiercer incision. 
 
 For when she had gone that evening to the Quay, 
 and waited and waited, the doubt that had made 
 her fiercely question her mirror the night before 
 recurred and grew to a dreadful certainty. As she 
 trailed off to her boat to return she knew her ques- 
 tion was answered. Hugh had not kissed her that 
 night at Watson's Bay because he did not love her 
 even enough to want to kiss her. And, in her 
 varied experience, that amount of love was not 
 much. And now he had decided not to see her 
 again he was disappointed, he despised her. 
 
 " Yet he might have sent me word or come and 
 told me he could not take me out to-night," she 
 thought. 
 
 She had not credited Hugh with the meanness 
 of not telling her. None of her other " boys " had 
 ever treated her like that. 
 
 Well, she laughed bravely back at the mirror, 
 better begin the operation at once. Delay would 
 be fatal. She even might be tempted to try to see 
 him again. Or he might write and apologise and 
 ask to meet her another night . . . Cut the
 
 132 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 offending organ away, and live ! So the operation 
 began that night. It lasted all that night and 
 other nights. 
 
 Three weeks later, while the operation was still 
 incomplete, Nancy, idly listening to two clerks 
 talking at the table to which she was attached, 
 heard Hugh's name mentioned. Immediately the 
 old condition of acute inflammation of the appendix 
 of the heart returned. 
 
 Quickly she leaned to them. " Excuse me," she 
 lied, " I heard you mention Mr. Kobjohn's name. 
 He used always to come to my table for lunch, but 
 for the last few weeks I've missed him. Has he 
 gone away ? " 
 
 " He's down with appendicitis," the youth 
 replied. 
 
 " Oh ! " she said, with a swift relief and a sudden 
 comprehension that there need be no more opera- 
 tions. Then calmly : " I'm so sorry to hear that. 
 Only ill ! I hope he's getting on all right ? " 
 
 She was reassured, and breathed deeply. What 
 did it matter, now, that her whole heart was 
 inflamed ? She knew the cure. 
 
 That very evening she visited Hugh's boarding- 
 house. Luckily the nurse had gone for a stroll to 
 get a breath of fresh air ; and, again luckily, it was 
 Miss Littledick who opened the door to her. 
 
 To her eager question as to whether she could 
 see Mr. Bobjohn, Miss Littledick asked another.
 
 HUGH IS KISSED 133 
 
 " Whom shall I say ? Nurse says he can see 
 visitors now, if they don't excite him and don't stay 
 more than a quarter of an hour." 
 
 "Oh . . . just someone . . . he'll know." 
 
 Miss Littledick, confronted for the first time in 
 her life with romance, looked at the wonderful girl. 
 Really she was beautiful, with those eager, strange- 
 hued eyes and her brilliant hair. Miss Littledick 
 admitted with a sigh that Mr. Hugh was not to 
 blame. 
 
 "I won't tell him who it is," she said breath- 
 lessly. " Go straight in. He's . . . he's been 
 expecting you." 
 
 " Did he say ? " Nancy eagerly interrupted. 
 
 " No," smiled Miss Littledick. " That's why I 
 know," she lucidly explained. 
 
 Nancy nodded. 
 
 Miss Littledick put her hand on the door of Hugh's 
 bedroom. f 
 
 " You won't excite him ? Promise me. And 
 only fifteen minutes. He's been restless all day ; 
 he doesn't seem to pick up. He will now." 
 
 Nancy smiled her quick thanks, and passed softly 
 in, leaving Miss Littledick with her hand on her 
 flat chest flat against the wall. She had seen the 
 miraculous passing of romance, and in her foolish, 
 shrivelled, prosaic heart she gave thanks to God, 
 and went straight into the scullery to the filter and 
 drank two cups of water.
 
 134 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 Nancy, passing round the head of the bed, saw 
 Hugh a pale, thin Hugh, incredibly lank and tall 
 beneath the coverlet. But, as she bent over him, 
 he did not recognise her. He had been reading all 
 day, and the nurse, telling him to go to sleep, had 
 sternly confiscated his spectacles and gone out. 
 The doctor had spoken to her about his eyes. 
 
 But as Nancy breathed his name Hugh knew it 
 was not the nurse. He looked eagerly up at her 
 ind a cold shiver of disillusion went through him. 
 This was not the Nancy he remembered, the Nancy 
 he had wondered and fretted and dreamed about. 
 She seemed, in her cheap and gaudy dress, which 
 emphasised the challenging lines of her splendid 
 figure, almost he recoiled from the word almost 
 common. 
 
 True, he did not see her clearly. His glasses 
 were on the mantelpiece. 
 
 " Nancy ! " he said. 
 
 He had called her by her name only once before ; 
 but always in his long thoughts of her she had been 
 Nancy ; and now the name came inevitably to his 
 lips. 
 
 She did not notice it, for in her thoughts of him 
 he had always been Hugh, and she had always 
 pictured him as calling her by her name. Surely 
 those weeks of separation had been long enough for 
 her to get used to his name ? 
 
 " I did not know that you were ill, Hugh," she
 
 HUGH IS KISSED 135 
 
 began. "I thought you had forgotten me. You 
 did not turn up that night " 
 
 " I was taken ill that night, and operated 
 on." 
 
 " But how was I to know ? So when I went 
 home I thought you disliked me ; and no letter or 
 message came, so I was sure. And then I ... 
 put you out of my life." 
 
 (Oh, how swiftly, how recklessly, her secret 
 thoughts had rushed out to him ! Why, she had 
 confessed that she' loved him. She did not care. 
 She felt that they were both keyed up to the pitch 
 of emotion, when speech takes charge, and heart 
 speaks to heart and understands.) 
 
 He was hurt, and showed it. " So easily ? " he 
 cried. " I could not." 
 
 " I tried and tried," she eagerly confessed, " but I 
 just couldn't. And how did I know ? And you've 
 been ill and alone, while I " 
 
 " Not alone," he greyly smiled. " They've all 
 been looking after me." 
 
 " The hens?" She was glad to get back, breath- 
 less, to earth, with a smile. " That flat thing in 
 the passage ? Oh, if I'd only tried to find out ! 
 But I was hurt at your not turning up." 
 
 " I was hurt at your not ringing me up." 
 
 "How could I? " she woefully pleaded. 
 
 He saw her more closely now, sitting on the bed. 
 In fact, he saw her with dreadful clearness. She
 
 136 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 seemed so actual, so physical not at all the ideal 
 memory he had of her. 
 
 He tried to think back to the night they spent on 
 the ferry-boat in the fog. How defenceless and 
 soft and clinging and dependent and sweet she had 
 been that night! Now he saw her above him, 
 filled with exuberant life, distressingly physical. 
 He looked in vain for the strange eyes that burned 
 in his memories. He saw them, lit by no adora- 
 tion, but an eager hunger. She looked at him with 
 no reserve. Her gaze seemed to say, " We two are 
 mates. We two are meant for each other " ; and 
 her eyes seemed to compel him to look at her. 
 In that sick-room her crude vitality was dis- 
 turbing. 
 
 Hugh forgot that his weakness, his helpless 
 posture in bed, made her seem the stronger. He 
 forgot, too, that he had not his magic glasses 
 on. 
 
 " How could you ? " he echoed, with the irrita- 
 bility of the sick man. " I suppose there were 
 plenty of men you could go out with ? " 
 
 It was all wrong. Hugh had been dreaming of 
 this possible meeting, and had rehearsed the words 
 he would say. And now, by some perverse mad- 
 ness in him he found himself hurting her. It was 
 all wrong ; but the right words the right thoughts 
 would not come. 
 
 She was hurt, horribly hurt. For she knew how
 
 HUGH IS KISSED 137 
 
 she had put off several luncheon customers that 
 had insisted on taking her out on evening ferry 
 trips. And she was proudly conscious how hard it 
 had been for her to refuse. 
 
 " I never went with nobody since that night," 
 she said shortly. 
 
 He was grudgingly mollified, but her ungram- 
 matical speech struck him an unexpected blow. 
 To his student-ears a vulgarism in speech was 
 worse than a crime. He had never noticed her 
 speech before : he had been too much in love or 
 perhaps the magic spectacles affected his hearing 
 too. Eemember, he was ill and fretful. He was 
 in that state of exhaustion when the physical tide 
 in him had ebbed to its lowest. Desire had gone 
 from him, and, sad though it is to contemplate, 
 when desire ebbs, love, its moon, has gone too. 
 We are animals all and it is not wise to intrude 
 on a sick animal. Hugh was a child to be petted, 
 not to be argued with. 
 
 Nancy did not know. She had never before had 
 to do with a sick man. The men she went out 
 with were always overflowing with vitality. She 
 thought, from her narrowed experience, that all 
 men were. 
 
 " But you might have telephoned ? " he muttered 
 peevishly. 
 
 (Hugh was, as you will have seen, no hero only 
 a sick man, with a sick man's grievance against
 
 138 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 health, lost in a world of blurs and shadows without 
 his spectacles.) 
 
 " I was too proud," Nancy cried. " Hugh, a girl 
 a girl like I am must have some pride." 
 
 Again Hugh's sensitive ear caught that slightly 
 ungrammatical phrase. She was common, and he 
 had never noticed it ! And suddenly everything 
 about her became cheap and common her dress, 
 the rich curves of her breast as she bent over him, 
 her eyes, bold in their knowledge of men, her lips, 
 too lavish of kisses. 
 
 She saw the dreadful look in his eyes. She did 
 not know how she had offended. But to stay that 
 sickness in her heart, to make sure, at least, of one 
 thing in a toppling world, she bent over him and 
 kissed his lips. 
 
 The man, prone on his bed, was stung by that 
 kiss. It was so greedy, so close. He had never be- 
 fore been kissed by a woman except his mother, and 
 this kiss was not like hers. It was a revelation of 
 passion such as he had not dreamed. His delicate 
 virgin soul shrank from that rude contact with 
 life. 
 
 " Hot stuff ! " The phrase leapt into his memory. 
 She was fast, vulgar, common. What had he seen 
 in her ? Oh, fool that he was, not to have taken 
 warning ! She was of that other class of women 
 the women he could not mention. He saw back, 
 fatally clear all the signs, obvious enough now,
 
 HUGH IS KISSED 139 
 
 but always so foolishly ignored and so strenuously 
 argued down the signs that placed her in that 
 class apart. And he had almost fallen in love with 
 her ! It seemed incredible. 
 
 He had built up a woman in his own image a 
 thing that is fatal even for a god and she had 
 fallen, fallen ! That dream- woman, delicate, re- 
 served, sensitive his dream-mate had leapt boldly 
 from his dream, and clearly, in the light of that 
 room, had shown herself bereft of all the attributes 
 he had draped round her a mere thing of flesh and 
 blood. 
 
 (This is a miracle that occurs to all men at the 
 age of thirty, but usually we admiringly say, " What 
 flesh and blood ! ") 
 
 But Hugh was in a state akin to that of the 
 vegetarian. He abhorred the sight of flesh and 
 blood. That kiss, to his vegetarian soul, was a 
 needless profanation. 
 
 She saw his shudder. She froze. He did not 
 love her. He had never loved her. 
 
 " Good-bye ! " she said, choking, and blindly felt 
 for the door. 
 
 There might or might not have been a flat thing 
 against the wall of the passage. She found herself 
 outside in the night, chilled, inert, slain. A long 
 while afterwards she discovered that she was in 
 her bedroom, dry-eyed, on the bed in the dark- 
 ness.
 
 140 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " What's the use of trying ? " she fiercely asked 
 the blackness. " What's the d d use ? " 
 
 There was infinite comfort to her soul in the 
 swear.
 
 HUGH PROPOSES 141 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IN WHICH HUGH PROPOSES 
 
 AFTER that devastating kiss Hugh's recovery 
 was rapid. In a few weeks he was once 
 more at the office, cured. 
 
 More than his appendix had been removed from 
 him, and there was a bleakness in the new world 
 of health to which he had been restored. His 
 glasses showed him a wonderful world ; but it was 
 a world under moonlight, unhuman, a landscape 
 drained of vivid colours. 
 
 Yet it was a good world a world to work in. 
 He turned eagerly to his novel, but found that he 
 had lost his heroine. His hero was still beautifully 
 heroic, but his heroine stood tarnished. He turned 
 back to the first glowing chapters, and smiled 
 sadly over his impossible idealism of the sex. Yet 
 from this mood, with the artist awaking in him, 
 he recovered. After all, he had been right. Women, 
 in the bulk, were divine. The mistake he had 
 made was in assuming that Nancy Pinkstone was 
 truly representative of the sex. She was one of 
 the other sort not spoken of.
 
 142 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 So in the new chapters of his novel he recanted 
 nothing. Just as in the case of his hero Hugh had 
 had to take himself out of the part, and get it 
 played by his ideal of the heroic, so now he took 
 from Nancy the robes he had so gracefully draped 
 her in, and decorated a more tractable figure his 
 ideal of womankind. If Nancy had failed to live 
 up to the qualities with which he had graciously 
 endowed her, it was the fault of Nancy, not of the 
 sex. He had chosen the wrong actress for the 
 part that was all. The only thing to be done was 
 to go on writing. Nancy's appearance was perfect 
 for the sentiments with which he had endowed her. 
 The sex would have to make-up as nearly like her 
 as possible. Hugh could trust himself to look after 
 the excellencies he had discovered in woman. He 
 consoled himself that he could not have invented 
 so fitting a model as Nancy Pinkstone. 
 
 Yet it hurt him, in his human moods, when the 
 zeal of the artistic creator warned, that with all 
 her splendour, her magnetism, her charm, Nancy 
 should have a mind that was common, a heart that 
 knew not the refinement of restraint, a mouth that 
 greedily profaned the sacredness of love. Well, she 
 was the exception. He went on building up his 
 first ideal of her in his novel, making her ever more 
 and more unsubstantial, thrice crowning her with 
 the vague impossibilities of his ideals. 
 
 At the office he laboured hard to catch up his
 
 HUGH PEOPOSES 143 
 
 accumulated arrears of work. He never went ferry 
 excursions at night. His glasses still showed him 
 a world full of enticing vistas of wonder ; but, 
 curiously, he had no wish for exploration. He was 
 cured. 
 
 He remained cured for over two months. Then, 
 one evening, he found himself pocketing the hand- 
 kerchief that Nancy had sent him back, neatly ironed, 
 the day after his meeting with her. He hastily put 
 it back in the drawer. That night he could not 
 work at his novel, nor, when he went to bed, could 
 he sleep. In the darkness of his room he found 
 himself going over again the strange wonder of that 
 first meeting, and all the weeks of unrest and 
 adventure that had followed. Those memories hurt 
 him, but not so much as he expected. In fact, after 
 a little while he grew to like the sharp sting of the 
 remembrance. 
 
 Then, suddenly, the question started up in his 
 brain. What if he had been mistaken ? What if 
 he, a sick man, had merely imagined the coarseness 
 of her? The question was torturing. Compared 
 to its pain, the sting of those other memories was 
 balm. 
 
 When the dawn came in he found the solution. 
 He, unseen by her, must see her again. The sight 
 of her would settle that foolish dread. He would be 
 cured or know himself for a fool, and worse. He 
 insanely hoped that he would be proved a fool.
 
 144 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 With this satisfying decision taken he went straight 
 to sleep. 
 
 Next day Hugh went to lunch at the tea-room 
 sacred to Nancy. He had been to tea-rooms before, 
 of course ; but in those days when he had not come 
 to spectacles tea-rooms had seemed to him crowded, 
 distasteful places filled with haughty Harrison 
 Fisher waitresses who exchanged icy repartee with 
 weary youths. Now, for the first time, he really 
 saw a tea-room. 
 
 The vast, garishly decorated place was studded 
 with little tables, like mushrooms, and filled with 
 huge gesticulating hats, and the thin, tepidly intoxi- 
 cating odour of hot tea. 
 
 The room was filled with the incessant treble of 
 women's voices, shrilling like locusts on a mid- 
 summer day. Beneath this high stridency of 
 sound mutually adoring couples at corner tables 
 ventured on intimate confidences, as isolated as if 
 on a raft at sea. White-robed priestesses wearily 
 ministered to the devotees of the solemn rite of 
 eating. 
 
 It was this gregarious century of ours women 
 flocking to women, leaving their mediaeval kitchens 
 with their mediaeval handmaids in the moated 
 inaccessibility of the suburbs, and crowding like 
 butterflies into the light, the chatter, the glitter, and 
 the haste of the modern eating-place. 
 
 Yet these modern women were as mediaeval as
 
 HUGH PROPOSES 145 
 
 their kitchens. Each craved to be up to date ; and 
 each was, in this tea-room, as out of date as a knight 
 in his armour. Each came to eat armoured against 
 the act of eating. Each ate only under the most wil- 
 ful disabilities. Each had deliberately made eating 
 a task. Before she could satisfy her craving for tea 
 and cakes, she had to draw up a clumsily fixed port- 
 cullis of a veil. It had to be untwisted and poked 
 away in order to free her mouth. Then she had to 
 unbutton and draw off her gauntlets. This was a 
 laborious process, as the tighter and hotter her 
 gloves were the better she liked them. But when 
 she wore elbow-gloves she usually gave up the task 
 in dismay, and awkwardly prodded cream-cakes or 
 raised her cup with tucked-in balls of swede bulging 
 at her wrists. Then, having chattered and eaten, 
 the whole laborious process had to be gone through 
 again. It seemed to Hugh that to human beings 
 thus palisaded it was scarcely worth while to 
 eat. 
 
 With those curious spectacles of his Hugh saw 
 it all ; but, to his immediate relief, he did not see 
 Nancy. He warily slid to a seat at a side-table that 
 was happily unoccupied by hats. Opposite him a 
 solitary old gentleman was unctuously champing 
 baked beans, and two waitresses chattered softly 
 against the wall. Hugh began on the comprehensive 
 menu. 
 
 A waitress, coming with a loaded tray, steered 
 
 it
 
 146 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 her way through the hats to a table adjacent. Hugh 
 looked up and saw Nancy. 
 
 She did not notice him, but proceeded to unload 
 her tray at a table occupied by four young men. 
 One of them Hugh recognised. It was the indi- 
 vidual whom Hugh had met on the ferry-boat 
 that Bill whom Nancy had informed him she never 
 wanted to see again. 
 
 She was seeing him again, judging from her 
 smile at him and the intimacy in Bill's look. The 
 other men had a quick interchange of smiling 
 repartee with her evidently they were old cus- 
 tomers and knew her well. But in Bill's low 
 words with her, in her heightened colour as he 
 spoke to her, in her nervous eagerness as she bent 
 above him, in all this Hugh saw that she and Bill 
 were emphatically friends again. Friends? Lovers, 
 The thought was torture. 
 
 Suddenly she saw him, and stiffened. Then, 
 without recognition, she bent again over Bill ; and 
 in her demeanour she seemed to Hugh to emphasise 
 her absorption in that sleek, brilliantly dressed 
 young man. Then reluctantly she left him and 
 came to take Hugh's order. 
 
 Hugh was frozen by her stiff aloofness. He tried 
 to say something, but only muttered, " Cold beef, 
 please! " He was conscious that the whole room 
 the whole array of hats was intently listening. 
 
 The waitress went obediently off to get his food.
 
 HUGH PKOPOSES 147 
 
 And Hugh risked indigestion by the hurry in which 
 he ate that beef. He did not look again at that 
 other hateful table, but he heard her laughing and 
 chattering with the men. It was hateful. She to 
 wait on them, to condescend to them, to enjoy their 
 company ! He paid for his meal and got outside 
 where he could breathe. 
 
 She had done with him did not want to speak 
 to him again. And the memory of her wonderful 
 even in her bleak white uniform, with her brilliant 
 eyes hardened for him, and her too pallid face 
 made the thought exceedingly bitter. For this 
 Nancy the waitress was even a more beautiful 
 Nancy than the one of his memories. (Perhaps it 
 was her uniform, which allowed her no chance to 
 indulge in her rather common taste certainly she 
 had a refinement that he had not noticed in all that 
 collection of gairish hats.) 
 
 There was a new look in her face too. It seemed 
 to Hugh that since he had last seen her she had 
 strengthened in character : she seemed a woman, 
 no longer a girl. Amid all that chatter and glamour 
 she had a poise; she was sure of herself. There 
 was a disconcerting charity in her blank gaze at 
 him ; and even her figure, always so full of youth, 
 seemed to radiate vitality. 
 
 And this was the girl that oh, fool, in his blind- 
 ness ! he had judged common ! Why, she was 
 regal ! In all that room there was no woman
 
 148 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 worthy to wait on her, and he degraded her and 
 himself by allowing her to serve him while he 
 sat and ate. 
 
 And then there was Bill. From her tone to him 
 that wonderful night on the ferry-boat, Hugh had 
 thought that she could never bear to speak to Bill 
 again. And here they were friends, lovers again ! 
 It made him bitter. How could she ? Women ! 
 False, unstable, with their weather-cock minds ! 
 How ever so long had mankind put up with them, 
 reverenced them, adored them ! 
 
 Hugh, at least, was done with the sex. And 
 yet 
 
 It had been a mere selfish craving to see her 
 again, to tell her he was sorry, that had brought 
 him to the tea-room. He left with a conviction 
 that his life would mean nothing to him unless 
 he won her for his wife. And she had passed 
 him by suddenly, in some mysterious way no 
 longer needing him. She was done with him as 
 one of the trivial incidents of the past. And she 
 was in love with Bill ! 
 
 Her blank scorn of him was the spur that Hugh 
 needed. He made up his mind. 
 
 That afternoon he left his office late, and, instead 
 of going home for dinner to his boarding-house, 
 he made his way to the tea-shop, and watched the 
 door from the pavement outside. She came out at 
 last, trimly dressed, one of a stream of girls hurrying
 
 HUGH PROPOSES 149 
 
 home. As he stepped eagerly forward she saw him. 
 She glanced back at the girls she had just left, 
 hesitatingly. But he gave her no chance. 
 
 " I'm going to see you to the boat, Nancy," he said. 
 
 " I prefer to go by myself." 
 
 "I won't let you." 
 
 "I'll call a policeman to protect me," she flung at 
 him. 
 
 " Call one." 
 
 " There's none about," she admitted, apparently 
 not seeing one who stood pyramidically at the corner. 
 They walked in silence, level. 
 
 They were in the stream of girls that flows every 
 evening swiftly to the quay, swept along in the 
 torrent that trickles here and there off into trams, 
 but as it nears the quay gathers into a swift river. 
 It was as if a sleeping city had been magically 
 awakened, and out of its ruins radiant youth had 
 tumultuously rushed into the open air. Trams 
 swung past them like planets, each glowing and 
 lit, populated with strange races. A brilliant butcher's 
 shop flung its radiance across them as they walked. 
 It remained ever afterwards to Hugh as a decoration 
 in yellow and red, the ranged carcases making a 
 quaint decorative pattern behind the busy, white- 
 robed butchers. 
 
 " If you don't approve of me," she at last broke 
 the unbearable silence, " why do you want to meet 
 me again? "
 
 150 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " Nancy, forgive me. I was ill. I was horrible 
 to you ; but now " 
 
 "You're better now?" she asked without interest. 
 
 " Yes. I see clear now. And I must see you 
 again." 
 
 " Begin again ? " She froze him with her bitter 
 sneer. "Begin again till you're tired of me again?" 
 
 " I shall never be tired of you," he broke out hotly, 
 careless of the throng about them. " Nancy, I see 
 now. I know I've always known I love you." 
 
 There, on the crowded pavement, his anguish had 
 made him speak. He had conceived some silent 
 place, some dim arbour, some moonlit cove, some 
 quiet balcony, for so momentous a declaration. But 
 life is so seldom like the novels. 
 
 She flung round at him with a flashing bitterness 
 in her eyes. 
 
 " Love ? Oh, I know you. You say it now to 
 get me to meet you again. But you've shown me 
 what you are what you think of me. You're a 
 gentleman ; and I'm common." 
 
 She said it with a pride that thrilled him. 
 
 " Yes, I am. I know I am. I'm not good enough 
 for you except to take out on the harbour at night. 
 But you don't know " 
 
 " I do," he protested. 
 
 " You don't know how I tried. Till I met you I 
 thought I was good enough for any man ; and then, 
 there was something about you, something in you,
 
 HUGH PEOPOSES 151 
 
 that made me see I wasn't. And then I liked you 
 then I tried to make myself different. You didn't 
 like my ways. I tried to alter them just for you 
 and your opinion of me. I tried to be like what you 
 thought I was, and you didn't notice it." 
 
 Hugh felt sick. She, this wonderful girl, to 
 believe herself below him ! How he must have 
 hurt her ! What a priggish fool he had been ! 
 
 He started to explain, and found that they were 
 already at the quay, amid that wild scramble of 
 figures dodging trams, racing for their boats. 
 
 " Come and have dinner with me at a restaurant," 
 he implored. " You must hear me. You must hear 
 what I have to say. We can't talk here." 
 
 " No," she said. " I must go home." 
 
 " Meet me after dinner and we'll go to Watson's 
 Bay." 
 
 "Watson's?" She shuddered. " With you again ? 
 I couldn't." 
 
 " Why ? " he foolishly asked. 
 
 She faced him defiantly on the pontoon. " Because 
 I'm going to Watson's Bay to-night with another 
 man. He's my sort common." 
 
 He let her go into the ladies' cabin, and smoked 
 a quick pipe on the upper deck, and burned his 
 tongue. 
 
 Had Hugh seen Nancy as she hurried home from 
 the boat he would have had more appetite for his 
 dinner. For all her bitterness had evaporated, and
 
 152 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 in her heart she felt the tugging of an old illogical 
 hope. She had put Hugh out of her life and now 
 he came back. He had said that he was in love 
 with her still. She laughed softly. In love with 
 her ! And she no, she could not bear to think of it. 
 She had made that for ever impossible. 
 
 The dreadful mocking thing was that he had 
 chosen to come back just at this moment. Had he 
 only met her a month or so before . . . He was 
 to blame, she said to herself bitterly. He had cast 
 her out, and she had gone back back to her own 
 sort. She laughed as she looked back on the futile 
 efforts she had made to improve herself, to reach 
 that dim ideal that Hugh carried about with him. 
 
 Well, he was too late. That was all. She was 
 going to see Bill that night again, as she had seen 
 Bill for many nights the past month. 
 
 But as, after her meal with her mother a meal 
 marked by her mother's eager questionings and 
 Nancy's taciturnity she was walking to the wharf, 
 the old mood revived. If only it had been Hugh, 
 not Bill. Yet, she said to herself, she would get on 
 all right with Bill. She would make him a good 
 wife. And Bill would marry her ; she was sure of 
 Bill. She had known girls who had given in to a 
 man before marriage, and had made them good 
 wives afterwards. For Bill, in his fierce, reckless, 
 domineering way, loved her ; and on that first night, 
 smarting with Hugh's scorn of her, she had been
 
 HUGH PKOPOSES 153 
 
 reckless too. What did it matter ? If she couldn't 
 have the man she wanted, she would take the man 
 who wanted her. And the physical side of her, 
 undisciplined, tremendous in its power over her, had 
 conquered her. It was not Bill's insistence she 
 was fair enough to admit that though Bill was 
 insistent. She could have resisted him ; she did 
 try to resist him at first, but the other side of her 
 nature had at last gained the mastery, and she had 
 given herself to him. 
 
 Afterwards there had been the moral horror of 
 herself, her fierce quarrel with Bill and then the 
 making-up, the meeting with him night after night. 
 Oh, it was all horrible, and yet it was balm to her injured 
 pride, her wounded self, that there was a man who 
 loved her so much. In some strange, perverted way 
 Bill's love rehabilitated her lost pride. Hugh had cast 
 her off: he must have known that she would go 
 back to Bill. And Bill and she would be married in 
 a month, and all her agonies and exultations would 
 be smoothed away by the triumphant fact of her 
 marriage. 
 
 But if only it had been Hugh ! Now that it was 
 too late she had a stinging regret that he had to be 
 put out of her life. Ah, how she could love Hugh ! 
 And she was going to marry Bill 
 
 It was just here, as she started to walk again, 
 that Hugh Robjohn came from the darkness to her 
 side and spoke to her. She turned to him with a
 
 154 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 gladness that she could not repress. He had come 
 into her life again at the last minute. And he would 
 come again after she married Bill. For she loved 
 him, loved his impossible ideals, his deference to her, 
 his straightness, his gentleness all the qualities 
 that seemed so far off from her. 
 
 She was tired of fighting herself. She would put 
 Bill off for one night. One night would not matter, 
 and she would always have it to look back upon 
 when she was Bill's wife. One evening with Hugh 
 she was sure that he would kiss her and calm her 
 dangerous unrest. 
 
 So when Hugh, desperate, yet thrilled by the 
 meekness of her mood, suggested that he should 
 take her out in a rowing-boat, she acquiesced. It 
 committed her to nothing, and she could easily 
 invent some excuse for Bill on the morrow. 
 
 Of course, nobody but Hugh Eobjohn would have 
 thought of a rowing-boat as a suitable, or even 
 possible, place for a proposal. Skiffs are not built 
 to carry a cargo of emotion. 
 
 Hugh handed the girl carefully into the boat, and 
 slowly made his way down the moonlit bay. His 
 course was less erratic than would have been 
 expected, for Nancy had the steering lines. Little 
 was spoken, for Hugh found conversation in- 
 compatible with sculling, and she was inwardly 
 wondering, already with a quiet smile on her lips, 
 at the perplexity of Bill, waiting at Circular Quay.
 
 HUGH PROPOSES 155 
 
 It was in a little cove surrounded by the bush 
 that Hugh at last stopped rowing. Then, without 
 preface, blunderingly he proposed. 
 
 She stared past him. 
 
 " I I wanted you to say that," she said at last. 
 " It was mean of me; but I wanted to hear you say 
 it. When you said it in the street I was too bitter 
 to pay any attention. It was wrong of me, but I 
 wanted to hear you say it as if you meant it. Not 
 that it matters much now." 
 
 " You won't marry me ? " he piteously asked. 
 
 " To marry me? " she said, startled. 
 
 He let the useless sculls lie, and scrambled to the 
 seat beside her. Only the Providence that waits 
 on lovers preserved the equilibrium of the frail little 
 skiff. Nancy felt herself gathered into strong, reck- 
 less arms and hotly kissed. She also felt the rasp 
 of his spectacles on her nose. 
 
 The glasses fell into her lap. He did not notice 
 their absence. She held the glittering things 
 up. 
 
 " Your spectacles ! " she laughed hysterically. 
 " You've dropped your spectacles. They nearly 
 bruised my nose and there's so little of it to bruise. 
 I'm sure they've scraped the powder off. You ought 
 to be more careful. Are you always so rough? 
 I've a good mind not to give them back to you." 
 
 She was gaining time to recover from the 
 madness of that embrace. She must prevent him
 
 156 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 kissing her again. It was altogether too unsettling 
 for a heart so treacherous as hers. 
 
 " My spectacles ? What do I care for them ? 
 They're only in the way." Then, as she held 
 them tauntingly before him, " Throw them over- 
 board ! " 
 
 For a moment she held them over the side of the 
 boat, with a mock "dare" in her smile. He did 
 not clutch at them. 
 
 Then she handed the precious things carefully 
 back . . . and this history, almost wrecked, 
 can go on. Had she thrown those wonderful 
 glasses into the harbour this history would have 
 stopped here, and the body of Hugh Robjohn would 
 have been recovered some days later from the 
 harbour, drowned in a vain attempt to find again 
 his magic world. 
 
 " Put them on," she gaily commanded. " I like 
 you in them. And you'll have to be more careful 
 when you've got them on." 
 
 Adjusting them deftly on his incomparable nose, 
 he eagerly leant forward. 
 
 " But you you're adorable ! Oh, don't keep me 
 waiting. I want you. You must marry me." 
 
 She pushed him weakly away, but only the 
 sudden slopping over of a saucerful of water into 
 the skiff saved her. 
 
 " You'll drown me," she cried. Then, with a 
 sudden seriousness, " I almost wish you would."
 
 HUGH PROPOSES 157 
 
 " You can't love me, Nancy? " he pleaded. 
 
 " Love ! " She looked at him seriously. " Hugh, 
 I did love you ever since that night on the ferry in 
 the fog. Who wouldn't ? But when I saw that I 
 disappointed you . . . Oh, what's the use? I 
 can't marry you." 
 
 " Can't ! " 
 
 " No," she replied to the anxiety in his gaze. 
 "I'm not married, or in love with anybody else at 
 least, not so much in love as I've been with you ; 
 but marriage ? " 
 
 She looked at him with clear, wise eyes, straightly, 
 without flinching. 
 
 "I'm not the marrying sort, Hugh; but oh " 
 
 And quickly her arms were about him, her flushed 
 face upturned to his, like a thirsty flower, glad of 
 the rain. " Oh, what do I care ? I love you, Hugh. 
 Love me /" 
 
 He did not see her meaning. To Hugh, in his 
 high mood, such a meaning would be inconceivable. 
 He did not even guess what she offered, but the 
 fool caught on the one word " love," and went to 
 his doom clutching his straw. 
 
 " You love me, Nancy ? Then that's all I want. 
 You'll marry me ? " 
 
 She drew back, amazed at his blindness. Even 
 through those spectacles of his he must have read 
 the meaning in her eyes. 
 
 " I told you I could not marry you," she said.
 
 158 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " You don't like me ? There's something about 
 me," he began. " I'm not good enough, I know, 
 but " 
 
 " Not good enough? " She had to laugh, else she 
 would have cried. " Hugh, it's me that ain't good 
 enough for you." 
 
 Gazing at her in his perplexity through those 
 glasses of his, he did not notice her grammar. 
 Love is rarely strictly grammatical. 
 
 " If that's all," he showed his relief, " we are 
 going to be married to-morrow." 
 
 " Hugh, listen to me," she protested. " It's like 
 you to want to marry me after . . . But I can't 
 let you do it. It's not fair." 
 
 Doubtfully he put his hand to his brow, and 
 unconsciously brushed his spectacles sideways. 
 Taking them off to readjust them he looked at 
 her. 
 
 " Not fair ? " he echoed in growing wonder. 
 "You mean ?" 
 
 A slow horror sidled into his brain ; a cold doubt 
 struck its steel wedge into his heart. He shivered. 
 
 She saw the grey look in his eyes. She could not 
 stand it. Impulsively she reached across, took the 
 glasses from his paralysed hand, and, to shield her 
 from his dreadful gaze, placed them in their ac- 
 customed red line on his nose. 
 
 Through them he looked at her again, and as he 
 looked the grey doubt vanished. He wondered
 
 HUGH PROPOSES 159 
 
 how ever it had entered his head. His glasses 
 showed him only her. He leant to her and kissed 
 her. 
 
 She took it for his answer, absolving her, for- 
 giving her, admitting her, repentant and purified, 
 again to the holy place. 
 
 So he knew and yet would take her. 
 
 The sudden surging up in the heart of all that 
 that forgiveness meant overwhelmed her, swept her 
 from her refuge, and cast her into his absolving 
 arms. His sacrifice made him only the more 
 wonderful. It was like Hugh : his great forgive- 
 ness could purify even her. Her love blossomed in 
 her embrace. 
 
 Perhaps her lips thus sanctified were as pure 
 as the cold, moist mouth of a child.
 
 160 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 IN WHICH HUGH IS MAEBIBD 
 
 THE next morning did not promise the sun 
 that should shine on a bride. It was not 
 the usual brilliant Australian winter 
 morning, sparkling like a shower of confetti ; it 
 ominously suggested umbrellas and goloshes. 
 
 Yet what did it matter to the bride? She was 
 going to be married to Hugh. 
 
 At breakfast she briefly mentioned the fact to her 
 mother. 
 
 "I'm that happy! "Mrs. Pinkstone rapturously 
 exclaimed. And with a wheeze, gathering her 
 rotund body from her chair, she waddled round 
 the table and did a remarkable thing. She kissed 
 her child. 
 
 Nancy impatiently put up with the kiss. 
 
 " I knoo you'd fix it up with Bill," Mrs. Pinkstone 
 murmured, panting with her emotion. " He's a 
 good sort, is Bill, from what you've told me." 
 
 "It's not Bill," Nancy precisely enunciated. 
 " It's someone else."
 
 HUGH IS MAEBIED 161 
 
 Mrs. Pinkstone, heaving into her chair, was, as 
 she expressed it, flabbergasted. 
 
 "Not Bill? Then not that swell gent as I 
 ironed the hangkersher for ? " 
 
 (Poor Hugh ! That treasured handkerchief that 
 had given him such tender thoughts because Nancy's 
 hands had lovingly ironed and folded it ! Yet it 
 must be confessed that Mrs. Pinkstone had done it 
 much more deftly than her daughter would have.) 
 
 "Yes, I'm going to marry Mr. Hugh Bobjohn," 
 said Nancy, with the importance of the newly 
 engaged. 
 
 " He's a real gent, from what you told me," said 
 her mother. " Not that me own daughter ever did 
 tell me much about her friends," she added, " or 
 brought 'em to meet her old mother. Not that I'm 
 blaming you, Nance. I knoo that I could always 
 trust me own daughter though I do say you've 
 been carrying on with that there Bill. I thought it 
 was getting that way that he'd have to marry you. 
 But you marrying a real swell ! He's got a position 
 in the Government, hasn't he? That's a steady 
 job not like my poor husband's. What's his 
 wages ? " 
 
 " I never asked him." 
 
 " As if you'd have to arst him ! " Mrs. Pinkstone 
 raised impotent eyes to the gaudy frieze. She was 
 frankly surprised. Her own daughter, too ! Well, 
 well, " I thought any girl with her wits about her
 
 162 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 would have found that out first thing any girl of 
 mine, anyway." 
 
 " I'm in love with him," said Nancy. 
 
 " But you was in love with Bill." 
 
 Nancy had the woman's reason all-sufficient. 
 " That's different ! " 
 
 And indeed it was different. A sleepless night, 
 after a long farewell over the front gate, with 
 reiterated instructions about the time and place of 
 meeting next afternoon, had shown her how different. 
 Would Bill have forgiven her and taken her if she 
 had made a similar confession to him about Hugh ? 
 She knew Bill. Hugh, by that one act, had soared 
 into regions where her woman's heart could only 
 reverently adore. Nancy looked back at Bill with a 
 shudder of relief. And she would have married 
 him but for that chance meeting with Hugh. 
 
 " Married to-day ? " Mrs. Pinkstone mused, for 
 the other extraordinary part of her daughter's 
 announcement had now sunk into her consciousness. 
 " What church ?" 
 
 " At a registry office," said Nancy airily. 
 
 " Oh ! " Mrs. Pinkstone was overwhelmingly 
 disappointed. No " Mother of the Bride " in the 
 Sunday paper, no day of tearful pride that every 
 mother of a girl is surely entitled to demand. " I 
 would have liked a proper wedding. I was married 
 properly meself. You'd look so nice in white, 
 Nance and I've got my jet brooch and my black."
 
 HUGH IS MAKBIED 163 
 
 "Don't talk nonsense, mother. We couldn't 
 afford a wedding." 
 
 " It seems to me that you're not really married 
 at a registry office. Doesn't look respectable like. 
 I'm sure I would never have felt married it it hadn't 
 been in a church, even though your father couldn't 
 afford the ' Wedding March.' Still, we had bags 
 and bags of rice." The thought of that homely 
 cereal seemed to comfort Mrs. Pinkstone, but not 
 for long. " I wouldn't think I was really married 
 at a registry office." 
 
 " I'll be married this afternoon all right." 
 
 Mrs. Pinkstone shot a suspicious look at her 
 daughter. Then she whispered 
 
 "What's the hurry for, Nance? You're all right, 
 I suppose ? " 
 
 Nancy flushed with quick anger. " Of course," 
 she cried. " Mother, to say such a thing ! " 
 
 " Oh, well," Mrs. Pinkstone murmured concilia- 
 torily. " Only you was in such a hurry . . . 
 But not you, Nance ; you can take care of yourself, 
 even though you are out so late and never tell your 
 mother where you've been." 
 
 Mrs. Pinkstone was satisfied. There was no 
 consciousness of shame in her girl's tone. 
 
 Nancy, accepting the preferred apology, graciously 
 explained that Hugh insisted on her marrying him 
 right off.
 
 164 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " He's that jealous of Bill ; and unless he marries 
 me he thinks he'll lose me." 
 
 Mrs. Pinkstone thereupon declared her intention 
 of attending, in the black with the jet brooch, the 
 ceremony at the registry office. Nancy demurred. 
 The bridegroom mightn't like it. And when Nancy 
 demurred her mother always found it expedient 
 not to press the point. 
 
 "Well, you'll have to show me the certificate 
 I suppose they give you a certificate at a registry 
 office?" 
 
 Nancy did not know, but promised to inquire 
 about the document, and, if possible, produce it. 
 
 During the morning it was raining without 
 subterfuge now Nancy went into the city and 
 called at the tea-rooms. Interrupting the mana- 
 geress's reprimand for her unpunctuality, Nancy 
 informed that astonished woman that, as she was 
 getting married that afternoon, she had no further 
 use for her uniform. She also added that she did 
 not want her old " wages." She was not coming to 
 the tea-room any more except to be waited upon, 
 like the lady she now was. 
 
 In the afternoon she went to meet Hugh outside 
 the registry office. The rain showed no sign of 
 abating. It was pouring down with a quiet, hopeless 
 persistence that damped her optimistic mood. Her 
 mother's absurd suspicions returned to her. If she 
 hadn't been " all right " would Hugh have married
 
 HUGH IS MARRIED 165 
 
 her ? High as was the nobility of character with 
 which she had now endowed this rather ordinary 
 man in glasses, Nancy did not think that Hugh 
 could do such a thing. But, with an uneasy laugh, 
 she put the thought out of her mind. Any girl 
 who knew her way about need not worry about 
 consequences. Nancy flattered herself that she was 
 one of that sort. And so, with a resurgence of her 
 optimism and a growing excitement, she hurried 
 along the muddy pavement to be married. 
 
 Hugh was waiting outside in the rain, and as he 
 looked up and saw her coming he hastily stuffed an 
 envelope into his pocket. He hurried to her with 
 his bridegroom look in his eyes. Nancy thought 
 she had never seen him look so much a gentleman. 
 Proudly at his side she entered the building, re- 
 fraining with difficulty from taking his arm. 
 
 Hugh had made the preliminary arrangements, 
 and the casual little ceremony, with a clerk as the 
 sole witness, was soon over. The whole thing was 
 so brief, so matter-of-fact, so easy, so brisk, and so 
 utterly unemotional, that when the two participants 
 learnt that it was finished they looked at each other 
 in amazement, wondering if such a trivial signing 
 of names had transformed their lives. It was hard 
 for Nancy to believe that she was really Mrs. Hugh 
 Robjohn, and would be Mrs. Hugh Robjohn 
 probably for life. 
 
 As reluctantly they left the office, the bride
 
 166 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 instinctively dodged. She was expecting confetti. 
 A strange silence was in her ears. 
 
 " It doesn't seem real, does it," she said to her 
 husband, " without the ' Wedding March ? ' " 
 
 The bridegroom glanced desperately up and down 
 the passage. " There ought to be a place some- 
 where here an ante-room or something where 
 husbands could kiss their wives," he distinctly 
 muttered. 
 
 But the passage was well lit, and people were 
 everywhere. All Nancy could do was to squeeze 
 his arm. 
 
 "Well," she said, with a wistful smile, "what 
 do we do now? " 
 
 Hugh had not thought. "If it wasn't for the 
 rain," he answered vaguely, " I meant to take 
 
 you " 
 
 " To Watson's Bay ? " she laughed. " I'd go there 
 
 anywhere with you now. But this rain " 
 
 Hugh had his inspiration. "Would you like 
 some afternoon tea V " 
 
 She seized the suggestion happily. 
 " Then we'll go to your tea-room," he said, glad 
 to have got the trouble over. It was, in some 
 essentials, a most disappointing wedding. 
 
 "Oh no, Hugh," she smiled; "I couldn't. Not 
 there with all the crowd. Wait a minute. Isn't 
 
 there ? Yes, I know a nicer tea-room more 
 
 quiet."
 
 HUGH IS MAEEIED 167 
 
 It was in a lane in the heart of the business 
 quarter, three stories up. A tiny place, decorated 
 with tall screens, evidently constructed for newly- 
 married couples. Nancy confidently led the way 
 to the tallest screen in the darkest corner, and 
 ordered tea. The waitress came, saw and smiled. 
 She coughed as she brought the tea, which seemed 
 to the married pair to arrive with disconcerting 
 speed. The waitress had seen Nancy there before 
 with various men. 
 
 Nancy deliberately took off the glove of her left 
 hand. The girl gaped and withdrew. 
 
 They let their tea grow cold, and at last had to 
 drink it in a vain attempt to disarm suspicion. 
 They both had the odd feeling that their kisses 
 were unlawful. That tired old registrar with his 
 business routine had not left much impression on 
 their minds. But, as Nancy was conscious, glanc- 
 ing down occasionally to make sure, and feeling it 
 with unconscious fingers meantime, there was the 
 ring horribly new and shining. They were 
 certainly married. 
 
 Nancy leant over the absurdly small table to kiss 
 Hugh again. During the process she heard some- 
 thing crackle in his breast-pocket. She recalled 
 the envelope she had seen him stuff out of sight. 
 The eternal curiosity of the wife was born. 
 
 " What's the letter you were reading, Hugh, 
 when I came up ? " she demanded. " It's a wife's
 
 168 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 privilege, isn't it, to read her husband's letters ? " 
 
 Hugh remembered. He had quite forgotten 
 and surely he is to be forgiven ? that fatal message. 
 His face grew grave. 
 
 " It's a telegram, Nancy," he said, pulling it out 
 from his pocket and opening it. " It came just as 
 I was leaving the office. I read it as I was waiting 
 for you. Bad news. My mother is very ill." 
 
 She read it. It was a telegram from Hugh's 
 father, telling him that his mother was not expected 
 to live forty-eight hours. At the end were the curt 
 words, " Come at once." 
 
 "I quite forgot to show it to you," said Hugh, 
 watching the combined annoyance, solemnity, 
 sympathy, and dismay in Nancy's mobile face. 
 
 " But the sight of you in the street " Nancy's 
 
 eyes shone. "It's dreadful, anyhow," he went on; 
 " but coming like this ....!" 
 
 " You never told me about your mother, Hugh," 
 Nancy said softly. 
 
 " I'd forgotten about her," he answered quickly. 
 " Most sons do. You see, we grow up and go away, 
 and she's at home, and we get to take her for 
 granted." 
 
 Nancy understood with that brutal sanity of 
 youth. She took her mother for granted too. 
 
 " I must catch the night's express for Melbourne," 
 he quietly said. 
 
 " Oh, Hugh ! " The woman in Nancy broke out in
 
 HUGH IS MAERIED 169 
 
 a cry. Then, remembering where she was, she 
 whispered in amaze, " Our wedding night ! " 
 
 Her hands went to his shoulders, and touched 
 granite ; and she looked into his eyes and saw only 
 spectacles hard, inflexible. 
 
 " Dear, it's dreadful, I know," he whispered. 
 " But I can't help it. I must go. I'm her only 
 son. It would be different if I'd remembered her 
 before ; but now I've got to make it up to her if 
 I've time." 
 
 It seemed to Nancy that in his stern decision, in 
 the stiffness of his body bound by those pliant, 
 supplicating arms, he had never seemed to her 
 before so adorable, so man-like. She, who was a 
 coward, faced him bravely. 
 
 " How long? " she faltered. 
 
 " Only a few days, sweetheart. She's been ailing 
 for months, and we knew that at any moment a 
 sudden attack might " 
 
 "It doesn't seem as if we were married at all ! " 
 she broke out petulantly. " This wedding in that 
 
 dusty office, and the rain, and now " She 
 
 caught her fingers twirling the so shiny ring, and 
 her eyes sought it. It reassured her, gave her 
 strength. "I suppose I must let you go. Your 
 mother " 
 
 He comforted her uncomfortably across that 
 table. She was only a child. And so they left the 
 secluded tea-room and went out into the rain.
 
 170 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " I was going to take you to Stanwell Park," he 
 said, " for our honeymoon. That must wait now. 
 I've been trying to get a house, too ; but I couldn't 
 fix it up this morning. You must do that for me 
 when I'm away, and when I come back we'll just 
 go right into our own home." 
 
 He gave her the list of cottages got from the 
 house-agents, and told her how much he could afford 
 for a furnished cottage. It was not much, but to 
 Nancy's ears it sounded like wealth. 
 
 "And while I'm away you'll need some money, 
 dear," he added, and put some bank-notes into her 
 absent hands. " I must go and pack up now," he 
 said. 
 
 They drearily went to her home and paused in 
 the rain outside the house. She dared not ask him 
 in, though all her heart was crying out for the feel 
 of his arms about her, and a long embrace from 
 which she would not let him go. She felt superbly 
 conscious that her woman-guile could break down 
 his masculine resolve, and yet she knew if he 
 yielded he would hate her on the morrow. More, 
 she knew that on the morrow she would hate him. 
 She could not stoop to cajole him, and if he stooped 
 to be cajoled ... ! If her idol should bend, 
 why could it not break ? She shuddered from the 
 temptation of her love. 
 
 So they kissed, like relatives, in the rain, and 
 went their own ways without looking back.
 
 NANCY SENDS A LETTER 171 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 IN WHICH NANCY SENDS A LETTER 
 
 AS Hugh Robjohn, married man, reached 
 the central station that evening he was 
 swooped upon by his wife. 
 
 " I'm coming with you," she breathlessly an- 
 nounced. 
 
 ''Nancy!" 
 
 " Why not ? I'm your wife." 
 
 Hugh looked at her in dismay. She was carrying 
 a hand-bag, and was warmly dressed for travel. 
 Her eyes were bright with the promise of adventure, 
 And she was wholly beautiful. 
 
 Hugh was overwhelmed by this unexpected 
 being he had married. Were all men so impetuous, 
 so impulsive ? he had almost thought, so incon- 
 siderate ; but the idea was sacrilegious. He made 
 the great discovery that all married men, sooner or 
 later, make : they wed a woman and find a whirl- 
 wind. That is the most delightful thing about 
 marriage. 
 
 It had never occurred to Hugh to take Nancy 
 with him. He was going to a death-bed. What 
 in the world would he do with his wife ?
 
 172 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 "It's impossible," he said almost irritably. " I'd 
 have to stay at my father's place and with my 
 mother dying I couldn't possibly bring you. Nancy, 
 you must be serious. Can't you see ? " 
 
 Nancy, like any other woman of average in- 
 telligence, could, but wouldn't. 
 
 " It's our honeymoon," she pleaded. 
 
 " That must wait," he said almost sternly. " The 
 train is starting in two minutes. I'll send you a 
 telegram when I get there, and you must write 
 every day." Then, before the careless, bustling 
 crowd, suddenly taking her into his arms, he 
 whispered brokenly, " My Nancy, it's as hard for 
 you as for me. I'll be back in a few days, and 
 then " 
 
 He kissed her, and she clung to him. It seemed 
 to him that if he let her go it would be for ever. 
 He brushed that weakness aside and escaped. 
 
 Nancy watched his waving hand until it dis- 
 appeared, then turned, and, tearing up the railway 
 ticket she had bought, she went desolately home. 
 That evening was the most miserable she had 
 ever spent. Her mother contributed to the misery 
 by her frequently expressed doubts whether her 
 husband would ever come back. Mrs. Pinkstone 
 had already decided that Mr. Eobjohn's dying 
 mother was only an excuse to allow him to flee to 
 America. 
 
 But if Nancy's evening was miserable, how
 
 NANCY SENDS A LETTEK 173 
 
 adequately express the gloom at Hugh's boarding- 
 house ? 
 
 That afternoon before dinner he had "settled up " 
 with Mrs. Fitzherbart, briefly informing that 
 astonished landlady of the reason why he was going 
 to Melbourne. 
 
 " But you'll come back ? " Mrs. Fitzherbart 
 gasped. 
 
 No, Hugh might not. He did not know how long 
 he would be away, and he thought it better .... 
 
 " Oh, you needn't insist about paying me half- 
 board and lodging," the landlady protested. Then, 
 making the supreme sacrifice of a landlady, she 
 said, "I'll keep your rooms for you, Mr. Kobjohn, 
 without charging you a penny. You can just come 
 back when you like. You'll find everything just as 
 you left it. You know you're always welcome. 
 It'll be just like coming home." 
 
 It took Hugh some time to convince Mrs. 
 Fitzherbart that he did not mean to come back, 
 and the shock so upset her that the landlady came 
 out in her with the anguished cry, 
 
 " Of course, if my place isn't good enough for you, 
 if there's anything you object to, or if it's the extras, 
 or anything, or my guests, I won't say another 
 word." 
 
 " There, there ! " Hugh said with a smile. 
 " There's nothing I object to here. I've been very 
 happy, but circumstances "
 
 174 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " If it's the tariff," she interrupted eagerly, " if 
 you can't afford it, I " she made one of those rapid 
 calculations that landladies are so expert in " I 
 could let you have the room for " 
 
 Hugh stopped her with audacious man ! his 
 hand on her plump shoulder. Mrs. Fitzherbart 
 almost purred. 
 
 "No . . . It's not money matters at all." 
 He plunged her but further into her perplexities. 
 
 " Well," she said hopelessly, " if you must go, 
 you must. But it'll be hard for us. You see," her 
 eyes were suspiciously brightening, " it's such a 
 happy family, like ; we've all got so used to you ; 
 and if you go the only man I don't think the 
 others would stay long. It'll mean looking for 
 other lodgers, advertising and all the worry, and I 
 had hoped that all that was done with. All of the 
 others are so contented here. You kind of held the 
 house together. I'll never get another man they 
 wouldn't come where they're the only ones ; and it 
 needs a man in the house. But there," she bravely 
 pulled herself together, " if you must go " 
 
 Hugh hurried to finish his packing. Mrs. 
 Fitzherbart promised to store his books as long as 
 he liked, and then hastened to her room, where the 
 poor lady gave way to tears. 
 
 But she could not afford to cry long, for there 
 was her great news to tell the other boarders and 
 the extra apple-tart to make for Mr. Hugh he
 
 NANCY SENDS A LETTER 175 
 
 always liked apple-tart, and the others could not 
 stand it. She wanted to make his last meal in the 
 house a memorable one. 
 
 It was. There was an air of gloom that made 
 appetite impossible. Miss Catch had put on black. 
 Sympathy for Hugh's mother oozed from every 
 woman. They particularly wanted to know her 
 ailment, and Hugh being unable to specify it, they 
 all had interesting stories to tell of friends who, 
 given up by all the doctors, were now as well as 
 ever. 
 
 The leave-taking was the worst of all. He had 
 to shake hands solemnly with everybody, and there 
 was a violent struggle between Miss Swatts and 
 Miss Catch to be the last to grasp his hand. His 
 last vision of the boarding-house was a row of 
 mournful ladies standing on the verandah fiercely 
 waving handkerchiefs and shrilling good-byes. 
 
 With his departure gloom settled upon the house. 
 The boarders sat silent, consumed by recollections. 
 After a while they began to talk of him ; but Mrs. 
 Fitzherbart and Miss Catch early developed head- 
 aches and went to bed, and the others miserably 
 followed. That night, despite the elaborate ritual 
 of putting themselves to bed, the lights of the 
 boarding-house went out early. The light had 
 indeed gone out. A houseful of women and no 
 man. 
 
 Hugh was met at the Melbourne station by a
 
 176 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 strangely shrunken little old man. Through his 
 spectacles Hugh had some difficulty in recognising 
 his father. His boyhood impressions had been of 
 a commanding presence ; he now saw him an in- 
 significant old man. A strange pity surged through 
 Hugh for the man in his bitter loneliness. Hugh 
 had never imagined that he should come to pity his 
 father. 
 
 In the first few words Hugh knew that his 
 mother was dying not expected to live that night. 
 His father was helpless in this wanton interruption 
 to the fixed habits of his old age. He clung to 
 Hugh's arm as to a support. 
 
 " She's been asking and asking for you, Hugh," 
 he quavered in the cab. " And now that you've 
 come she might get over it." 
 
 The suburban street seemed mean, and the 
 house, as the cab drew up at it, had not the fine 
 appearance that in Hugh's memory had distin- 
 guished it from all the other houses. His spectacles 
 showed it to him as quite ordinary. 
 
 His father led him eagerly to the sick-room door, 
 and Hugh tip-toed in. The nurse lifted a warning 
 finger. His mother, very thin and small, was sunk 
 in a stupor of exhaustion. Hugh looked down on 
 that remembered form. 
 
 And gazing through his spectacles at her, Hugh 
 was suddenly conscious that he had done her a 
 tremendous wrong. He had grown away from her,
 
 NANCY SENDS A LETTER 177 
 
 She had always loved him, and now there had come 
 into his life a greater love than any he had given 
 her since childhood. She had given, given, given 
 all her life. First the pain of bearing him, then 
 the milk of her breasts, then the care and shielding 
 of him, the anxious provision for him, the dreams 
 and hopes for him. Given, given, given ! 
 
 And her son had accepted it all carelessly, 
 accepted it as his due. He had not even thought 
 about it. He had all Life to think about. 
 
 And what had he given in return ? A few per- 
 functory caresses, a few casual confidences. 
 
 For a male child grows up and goes forth. And a 
 mother's love never grows up. It remains for ever 
 the charming, wilful, perverse, gullable, innocent, 
 prideful, foolish thing it was when her child slept 
 at her breast. A mother's love is eternal youth. 
 
 He had outgrown her, outpaced her, passed be- 
 yond her and the need of her into regions where 
 she could not follow. She belonged to an earlier 
 age ; he felt round him the impulses, the clamours 
 of his own generation. He grew up, and she could 
 not grow with him. She was hampered with her 
 mother's heart that persisted in regarding him ever 
 as a child. If only children did not grow up ! If 
 only they never got beyond the need of mothering ! 
 But life is not like that. Life demands new out- 
 lets, new opportunities, new conquests. And a 
 
 man's mother cannot supply them. She can give 
 
 N
 
 178 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 only one thing love. This, by the way, happens 
 to be priceless. 
 
 Hugh recalled his first departure from this house, 
 the promise to write every week, the dreary ache 
 at his distance from her, from the ministering of 
 her hands, the caress of her voice. He missed her 
 dreadfully the first month, eagerly awaited her long 
 letters, devoured every scrap of family news, and 
 wrote ingenuous double-postage accounts of his ex- 
 periences to her. Then, very gradually, as new 
 interests grew up around him, he found himself 
 losing interest in that little corner of a vanished 
 world in Melbourne. Life had taken him, and held 
 him with firmer hands each month. So she had 
 been crowded out of the first place in his thoughts. 
 She was still his loved mother, but there were so 
 many things that a mother could not do for him, 
 that he must work out for himself. So self- 
 reliance came, and his mother faded out into a dear 
 memory. 
 
 When the first flush of enthusiasm was upon him 
 Hugh wrote to his mother about the great book he 
 meant to write. In her reply she expressed her 
 belief in his ability to write any book, but said she 
 was sorry he had not chosen to write a novel. He 
 could get famous more quickly with a novel. 
 
 But when the "National Economics " had been 
 torn up, and Hugh went to work on his novel, he 
 had so far drifted away from making his mother his
 
 NANCY SENDS A LETTEE 179 
 
 confidante that he did not mention the change to 
 her. And his marriage, too, the one thing that she 
 would have been excited about, he had kept secret 
 from her. Had it not been for her sudden illness 
 he would have told her later. It had seemed to 
 him that she should be told. A son drifts far from 
 his mother on the currents of life. 
 
 During the last few months Hugh had hardly 
 thought of her at all, and to those long, inconsequent 
 chronicles of hers who had called, what the 
 weather had been like, and how his father's ailments 
 were progressing (seldom a word of her own) his 
 answers had been hastily scribbled. She wrote 
 regularly, whether there was anything to write 
 about or not. His promised weekly letter came for 
 months with such regularity that the first time he 
 missed sending it his lapse elicited an agonised 
 telegram from her wanting to know whether he 
 was ill. He did not miss another week for a long 
 time afterwards, but when he did she sent no 
 telegram. She was getting accustomed to a grown- 
 up son, disciplining her heart for its presumption in 
 loving him so much. 
 
 On the train journey Hugh remembered that her 
 invariable weekly letter had not come the week 
 before, and he had not noticed the omission. He 
 recalled, with a pang, that during the first year of 
 their separation he had kept all her letters in case 
 she should die. And now her last letter had gone,
 
 180 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 after a cursory reading, into the office waste-paper 
 basket, the last she would ever write. 
 
 For his first two annual holidays Hugh had gone 
 home. But in that little world Hugh had felt 
 strangely awkward. He did not fit in. His parents 
 had gone on in the old way, and the presence of a 
 grown man vaguely disturbed them, though they 
 could not discover the cause. His habits, too, had 
 been formed. It was difficult for him to give up 
 his smoking his father disliked tobacco ; and in 
 that contented household he felt restless, con- 
 strained, bored. Yet his mother was delighted with 
 him, and Hugh wondered, after returning to Sydney, 
 at the tone in which his mother wrote. To her he 
 was the perfect son. He was glad he had pre- 
 vented his mother from seeing that he had grown 
 out of the need of a mother. The little sacrifices 
 he had made to his parents' prejudices seemed then 
 more than worth while. The astonishing thing 
 was that his mother apparently never saw how 
 bored and cramped he had been. 
 
 After those first years he had taken his holiday 
 elsewhere, usually going down to Melbourne for a 
 brief day or so. 
 
 And now, standing over his mother's wasted form, 
 Hugh knew that, despite his passionate desire, it 
 was impossible for him to become again the child she 
 still thought him. Life had taken him out of her 
 arms for ever. He saw all that she had done for him,
 
 NANCY SENDS A LETTER 181 
 
 the eternal sacrifices she had made of her life for 
 him and this was the end. He phrased it brutally 
 in his mind : " There's not much fun in being a 
 mother." 
 
 As he gazed through his glasses, suddenly his 
 mother opened her eyes. Her face gladdened, and 
 murmuring his childhood name, "Hughie," she was 
 content. He bent down and kissed her. 
 
 "Why, you've got spectacles on, child," she 
 smiled. 
 
 Hugh wondered whether he had told his mother 
 that he was wearing spectacles. Fancy him not 
 writing to her about that ! 
 
 " The better to see you with ! " he laughed back. 
 
 "They do suit you," she whispered adoringly. 
 Then with a happy sigh, "I knew my boy would 
 come. I'll be all right now." 
 
 The nurse lifted a warning finger, and Hugh tip- 
 toed out, his mother's eyes following him, without 
 her head moving, to the door. 
 
 That night she slept well, and with the morning 
 the day-nurse was surprised at the improvement in 
 her patient. Mrs. Robjohn had wonderfully rallied. 
 The frowning doctor was non-committal. 
 
 Hugh wired the good news to Nancy, and followed 
 it with a letter, promising to be back in Sydney in a 
 few days. Then he was called back to the sick-room. 
 His mother liked to lie silent and look at him. 
 This was her great reward. The vague thought
 
 182 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 phrased itself in her tired mind that it was worth 
 while being so ill to have her boy back. Hugh, 
 seeing all this through his spectacles, was bitterly 
 reproachful of himself. He might have thought of 
 her more. Mothers should never be taken for 
 granted. 
 
 The next day a letter came from Nancy. He had 
 been wiping his glasses as it came, and in his 
 eagerness he opened it without putting them on. 
 To his blurred vision the first few lines seemed 
 horribly spelt, and there was no sign of grammar. 
 Shocked, he remembered he had not his glasses on. 
 He adjusted them and looked again. 
 
 He did not see a single mistake not that the mis- 
 takes were not there but the glowing love within 
 those ill-written sentences obliterated their spelling. 
 He saw only that Nancy yearned for him. For, 
 separated so suddenly from him, and surer of his 
 love because her mother had doubted it, the girl, 
 ignorant in letter- writing, had poured forth her love 
 in a torrent of frankness, overwhelming him with its 
 fierce fire. It was certainly ill-written and badly 
 spelt, though not to him ; for a girl may easily 
 imitate in her conversation the speech of educated 
 people, and yet find it difficult, for lack of practice in 
 writing, to learn to spell. 
 
 And this was Hugh's first love-letter, her first 
 confession to him. It pulsed with her belief in him, 
 her longing for him.
 
 NANCY SENDS A LETTEE 183 
 
 "You dear!" Hugh breathed, kissing it. He 
 hurried off to his room to reply. 
 
 There were other letters a stream of them, and 
 in each the same question. Was he coming back 
 to-morrow ? Hugh could not say. Some days his 
 mother seemed better, then would come a serious 
 relapse. The doctor told Hugh that he must not 
 think of leaving. His presence was the only thing 
 holding her to life. 
 
 So for three weeks the days dragged on. Then 
 came a new note in Nancy's daily letter. She 
 seemed worried, perplexed, anxious. Some grief 
 was troubling her, carefully concealed, but breaking 
 out in isolated exclamations that frightened Hugh. 
 He put it down to her doubt that he did not mean 
 to return, and reassured her. But to all his pro- 
 mises came the cry, " Come back, Hugh ! Come 
 back at once ! " And then the cry was varied. 
 " Come back," she wrote, " before it's too late." 
 
 Hugh went straight to his father, and told him 
 that he must run up to Sydney for a day and 
 return. 
 
 The little man quavered, " Don't go, Hugh. She's 
 sinking. It'll only be a day or so now. You must 
 stay till till then." 
 
 So Hugh stayed another day. And then came 
 her last letter. 
 
 "Hugh, dearie, I've been waiting and waiting but
 
 184 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 you wont come. So you might as well know we 
 were never really married. I am going away with 
 another man. I'm not good enough for you dear 
 I've found that out and I know its no good us try, 
 ing to live together I'm not good enough that's all. 
 
 " your brokenhearted 
 
 "NANCY." 
 
 Hugh did not even hear the doctor hastily pass 
 the open door on his way to the sick-room. At last 
 his thoughts grew coherent. He got up and ran to 
 the telegraph office. His wire said that he was 
 coming by that evening's express. 
 
 But on his return the reaction came, and the 
 thought of his mother broke across his brain. Yet 
 he must go. Something more than his mother's 
 death was at stake. He must leave this death-bed 
 to save a soul. But if he were too late ? 
 
 He could not find his father in the house, and at 
 last he opened the sick-room door. The doctor, his 
 father, and the two nurses were there, the doctor 
 bending over the bed. From the look on the faces 
 of the others Hugh knew before the doctor spoke. 
 
 Later, his father told him that just before her 
 death his mother had asked for him. As he could 
 not be found, she sighed, and whispered, 
 
 "Poor boy, he's out getting a breath of fresh air. 
 He has been so good, sitting here so long with me. 
 Thank God I had a son,"
 
 NANCY SENDS A LETTER 185 
 
 So, still in her illusions, she went out into the 
 night where there are none. Life may be kinder to 
 mothers than perhaps we think.
 
 186 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 IN WHICH NANCY KNOWS 
 
 NOW for Nancy ! 
 It was about a week after her marriage 
 and her husband's flight to Melbourne 
 that Nancy began to worry. She said nothing to 
 her mother; but as day after day followed, and 
 still no sign of Hugh's return, the suspicion about 
 herself, which she had at first thrust out of her 
 mind as impossible, began to shape itself in her 
 brain a spectre of terror. Nancy felt herself in 
 the grip of forces greater than herself: her days 
 were clouded by her dreads, her nights saw those 
 dreads become sinisterly visible against a lesser 
 blackness. But through it all, and with a growing 
 consciousness of the meaning of it all, she dared not 
 ask advice from her mother. Oh, it was incon- 
 ceivable ! It simply couldn't happen to her ! 
 Why should she be singled out ? 
 
 At last, some three weeks after her marriage, her 
 dread began to obsess her. Her mother could not 
 help noticing her mental distress. Mrs. Pinkstone 
 had all along had her suspicions about the hasty
 
 NANCY KNOWS 187 
 
 marriage. At last Nancy was forced to hint of her 
 trouble, and from Nancy's replies to her mother's 
 skilled cross-questionings there was but one verdict. 
 Nancy was going to have a child. 
 
 But Mrs. Pinkstone smiled sagely to her daughter's 
 horror-stricken gaze. "It's all right, Nance; you're 
 married all right I always said my daughter could 
 look after herself; and if the baby does come a little 
 earlier, well, nobody ever can tell, they're so often 
 born before their time. And it's your husband's 
 fault, so he can't ' roust ' on you." 
 
 " It isn't my husband's," said Nancy blankly. 
 
 " Not Bill's ? " Mrs. Pinkstone sharply pinned 
 her. 
 
 Nancy's dumb mouth gave all the answer her 
 mother required. 
 
 Mrs. Pinkstone shrewdly smiled. "All the better, 
 my dear. You're married, aren't you? You can 
 keep your husband from knowing any woman can." 
 
 " Not Hugh," the white-faced thing cried. 
 
 " Not if he's the sort to marry you like that ? 
 Why," she strove to reassure her, " lots of girls get 
 married like that. Tell him it was his." 
 
 " But it can't be his," Nancy explained, " because 
 because I was always straight with Hugh." 
 
 Mrs. Pinkstone was well, there is only her 
 word, flabbergasted. " Nance," she explained in 
 pain, " you oughter have some sense ! Fancy you 
 not thinking of that ! I shud-der thought any girl
 
 188 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 of mine would have seen to that." And then her 
 moral disapproval gave way to stupefaction. "And 
 yet he married you ! Well, if he doesn't suspect, 
 he can't make any fuss. He's let himself in for it, 
 and he'll have to put up with it. Lots of husbands 
 have ter." 
 
 " I think you horrible," Nancy broke out bitterly. 
 
 " Well, you knew when you married him." 
 
 Nancy went white. " I didn't ! I didn't ! " 
 
 Her mother was astonished. " I thought all 
 along that was why it was so sudden." 
 
 " You thought that of me ? " the girl cried, lift- 
 ing futile hands as if to shield herself from the 
 world. Oh, it was horrible Life. She saw herself 
 suddenly as a bad woman. Before, she had, in her 
 ignorance, simply considered herself as a woman 
 wantonly attacked by Fate. If people thought like 
 that ! If the whole world looked on her like that ! 
 If Hugh ..." You thought that of me ? " she 
 whispered. " You thought I could deceive Hugh 
 my Hugh? Why, I don't think any woman who 
 loved a man could do a thing so dreadful as that ! " 
 
 Mrs. Pinkstone waved her anguish aside. "You 
 must have had a suspicion." 
 
 " No, not even a suspicion. I didn't think about 
 it at all." 
 
 Mrs. Pinkstone decided that Nancy was making 
 a great fuss about nothing. These things happened 
 in life as she knew it. Sometimes a girl was un-
 
 NANCY KNOWS 189 
 
 fortunate and came to grief, but she was sure her 
 Nancy would come out of it all right. Mrs. Pink- 
 stone, in her occasional visits to melodrama, had 
 always laughed at the falsity of the theatre. People 
 did not make all that fuss over a child that came 
 unwanted. They just put up with it, and the 
 grandmother kept it with her daughter, and made 
 a fuss about it, and loved it and the neighbours 
 who knew didn't mention it. For, after all, a child 
 is a lovable thing, however it comes. So, to her, 
 Nancy's distress was very natural, but a minor 
 thing, soon to be accepted as inevitable. These 
 things happened that was all and people got 
 accustomed to them. 
 
 But Nancy seemed to take it so much to heart. 
 Well 
 
 "If you feel that way about it, my dear," she 
 whispered cunningly, " you needn't have the child." 
 
 " Not have my child kill it ? " Nancy gasped, 
 and fled that dreadful room in horror. 
 
 She knew now that she would always hate her 
 mother, hate and distrust her. She would always 
 have to be on guard against her for her child's 
 sake. 
 
 In her little room Nancy flung herself on her bed 
 and fought her fight. Her mother had struck 
 home. Despite Nancy's fierce denial, she knew 
 now that that possibility had crossed her mind 
 before she met Hugh again on her way to see Bill.
 
 190 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 And she had carelessly dismissed it, sure, like the 
 soldier in battle, that the bullet could not possibly 
 find her. 
 
 And Hugh guessed nothing, and might never 
 guess. If she went to him as his wife on his re- 
 turn he would never suspect. Why shouldn't she 
 keep quiet about it ? 
 
 But if Hugh suspected later on and said nothing? 
 That would be terrible. All his belief in her would 
 be shattered by such a blow. No, she could not 
 risk that. The thought of Hugh's belief in her 
 would not be driven out. And her wonderful love 
 for him, her great, dizzying ardour of love, made it 
 impossible for this new Nancy to deceive him to 
 go on deceiving him all their lives. She must save 
 Hugh. She must never ruin his life, his ideals. 
 She owed that as the least of her debts to his great 
 love for her. She could not face his clear, un- 
 questioning gaze. She was frightened by his 
 spectacles, and the truth about her that they would 
 some day discover. If ever his eyes hardened with 
 an incredible suspicion? No, she could not face 
 that. 
 
 Yet what could she do ? She could not stay at 
 home with her mother. In her fear she credited 
 her mother with the intention of doing away with 
 her child, and the new mother-feeling that had 
 taken possession of her gave her a desperate 
 strength. Her mother was her enemy ; Nancy
 
 NANCY KNOWS 191 
 
 would not be safe with her. She must get 
 away. 
 
 In her blind fear she thought of Bill. He was 
 her child's father. And at the soft thought of her 
 child she thrilled, and Bill suddenly took on a new 
 shape in her thoughts. He had done her this 
 wrong and yet, was it such a wrong ? The sweet 
 thing she would hold in her arms ! It would be 
 hers hers alone. She was sure of that. 
 
 And she had loved him then ; she had been weak, 
 overcome by his insistence; yet she could have 
 resisted him. She knew herself to blame. And 
 Bill would look after her, see that her child got its 
 chance. Her child would be safe with its father. 
 
 So her great decision came. She belonged to Bill : 
 the child had joined them for life. She would go to 
 Bill. That would save her child and save Hugh. 
 
 She was really married to Bill. That stupid little 
 ceremony before the registrar meant nothing to her, 
 had changed nothing. She would live with him as 
 his wife. People would assume that she was married 
 to him. If they did not, it would not matter. She 
 would have her child. 
 
 And Hugh ? At first she thought of slipping 
 away without a word for him. She could not bear 
 to see the change which would come into his face. 
 And yet, some day, somehow, he would learn. No, 
 she could not leave him like that. She must tell 
 him. He would see that she was right. He would
 
 192 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 forgive her and let her go. And then, by-and-by, 
 he could get a divorce ; so that, at least, all his life 
 would not be spoilt. 
 
 But she could not tell him to his kind face. She 
 would write. And it must be at once. He might 
 return any day ; he might be on his way now. 
 There was no time to lose. 
 
 She wrote a note to Bill, imploring him to meet 
 her that evening at the quay. Then she wrote to 
 Hugh. She meant to tell him everything. But on 
 the paper she could not express herself as she 
 wanted. She could not write the dreadful words. 
 So, after many trials, she wrote her brief note to 
 Hugh. Better that he should think her a bad 
 woman than that she should put down in black and 
 white the dreadful truth that would freeze his love 
 to ice. She posted both her letters together. 
 
 Now for Bill ! 
 
 He had not been so surprised when Nancy dis- 
 appointed him that evening she met Hugh. She 
 had often " slipped him up " before, she had even 
 broken with him before, but she had come back. 
 Bill felt that she belonged to him. He could 
 master this wonderful, changeable, beautiful, feminine 
 thing. It was the woman in her; and Bill was 
 tolerant, because sure of himself. 
 
 He grew anxious, however, when he found that 
 she was not to be seen at the lunch-room. In his 
 desperation he asked another waitress about her,
 
 NANCY KNOWS 193 
 
 but she could tell him nothing. After his lunch 
 Bill went to the manageress, but all she could say 
 was that Miss Pinkstone had suddenly left. She 
 was too much annoyed at the loss of her prettiest 
 waitress, who brought more regular customers to 
 the rooms than any other three, to add the infor- 
 mation about Miss Pinkstone's marriage, which, 
 frankly, she did not believe. She also expressed 
 herself unable to give the gentleman Miss Pink- 
 stone's private address. Gentlemen had no right to 
 demand girls' private addresses. 
 
 And Bill, with a sullen heart, went off. It may 
 strike us as curious that Bill did not know the 
 private address of the girl he had so often taken out 
 at night. But in Bill's rather narrow experience the 
 girls you met casually did not usually volunteer that 
 information ; and, as for himself, he was always 
 careful not to give his own address till, at least, he 
 knew his acquaintance would not make a bad use of 
 it. He had heard of girls coming to a man's office, 
 for instance, and making a fuss. But as he knew 
 he could trust Nancy, she now had his business 
 address. All he knew of her home was that it was 
 in Mosman; and the directory failed to print any one 
 of the name of Pinkstone probably because Mrs. 
 Pinkstone was always moving to a cheaper cottage. 
 Bill did not even know whether Nancy was living 
 at home or in a boarding-house. In fact, his know- 
 ledge of her was bounded by herself. 
 
 o
 
 194 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 And Bill was perhaps right when he decided that 
 that was an ample store of knowledge. The main 
 thing was that Nancy was able to get out any 
 evening. 
 
 So, now maddened with jealousy for in his 
 crude, physical way this youth was sorely in love 
 with Nancy's startling beauty Bill roved the 
 streets on the mere chance of meeting her. He 
 did not think of looking for her at the office of the 
 registrar for births, deaths, and marriages. 
 
 For a week he hung about the tea-rooms in 
 search of her, then he took to haunting the Mosman 
 boat. He was now hungry with desire for her. 
 Memories of past evenings only made his torture 
 the more bitter. 
 
 But one evening, as he was waiting at the 
 entrance to the Manly wharf at the quay, his 
 quickly roving gaze was drawn to the figures of two 
 girls getting change at the little window. One was 
 certainly pretty. As she passed him on her way to 
 the turnstiles she shot a glance of obvious admira- 
 tion at him. Bill was accustomed to this, but he 
 could never help reacting to that visual caress. He 
 forgot Nancy, hurriedly paid his fourpence, ancf 
 passed in. 
 
 This sudden decision was not lost on the girl. 
 She communicated it to her friend in that wireless 
 telegraphy peculiar to girls, and both giggled. They 
 were smartly dressed in the cheapest of imitations
 
 NANCY KNOWS 195 
 
 of the latest style girls who had been working all 
 day in a milliner's shop, and now surged forth to 
 meet life on a ferry-boat. To them Bill promised 
 excitement, giggles, adventure, life; and his appear- 
 ance seemed to them as that of the perfect gent. 
 And as neither knew for certain, though both were 
 sure, which of them he preferred, there was the 
 added rapture of uncertainty and the supreme joy 
 of combat. They took their seats in the crowded 
 boat, conscious that the gent was just behind them. 
 He carelessly chose a seat that put him in their full 
 view. Both he and they knew all the rules of the 
 game. 
 
 It was apparent to Bill, behind his opened paper, 
 that the girls were vivaciously discussing him, and 
 from the edge of his " Sun " his gaze frequently 
 strayed to the younger girl's face. It was discon- 
 certing to his elaborate unconcern, yet distinctly 
 stimulating to his interest, to find that each time 
 he looked at her she was looking at him. Im- 
 mediately, however, he glanced up, her demure 
 gaze fell to his boots and dwelt there. She seemed 
 to find them worthy of patient study. And Bill's 
 gaze, growing bolder, summed up the superbly 
 unconscious face. The result was satisfactory. 
 Bill decided that she would do. His eightpence and 
 his evening would not be wasted. 
 
 The next act in this drama came, as was correct, 
 from the younger girl. The next time she found Bill's
 
 196 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 eyes on her she deliberately, but apparently quite 
 unconsciously, stared back at Bill. Their eyes were 
 held steadily for what to both of them seemed an 
 age, then the girl sucked in her lower lip, and 
 turned with an eager remark to her companion. 
 She knew that Bill would want to kiss that lip. 
 All the rest of the way down she did not once 
 glance his way; but just before the boat reached 
 the wharf she gave him the invitation of the quick 
 glance for which he was impatiently waiting. 
 
 Bill rose immediately the two girls stood up, and 
 in the crush on the gangway it was inevitable that 
 his arm should brush the younger girl's shoulder. 
 Hardly looking at her, he raised his hat and 
 muttered an apology. The girl merely shot him a 
 look that made his pulses gallop. 
 
 He followed them down the Corso, and on to the 
 ocean beach. There they halted to gaze at the 
 few surf-bathers who were in the water under the 
 electric lights. Bill sauntered slowly past them, 
 in order that they should recognise him as the 
 clumsy but polite man on the gangway. They 
 appeared perfectly unconscious of his presence. 
 This Bill acknowledged was in full accord with the 
 etiquette of the situation. The moment had arrived 
 to stalk his quarry. In his aimless strollings he at 
 last paused at the side of the younger girl. He 
 stood gazing at the bathers, absorbed in reverie and 
 gently smoking his cigarette a picture of the
 
 NANCY KNOWS 197 
 
 perfect gent at his ease. Evidently finding the 
 bathers uninteresting, he glanced round, and found 
 also that the younger girl was in the act of glancing 
 round at him. Their eyes met in his a confident 
 boldness, in hers a shy invitation. 
 
 He murmured, " Nice evening, isn't it ? " and 
 raised his hat. 
 
 Introductions followed, only Christian names 
 being used. The hunt was at an end. All the 
 actors had correctly played their parts in a game 
 they knew by heart. 
 
 Bill put up with the company of the other girl 
 all that evening. With brutal bluntness he made 
 it quite clear on whom his handkerchief had 
 fortunately fallen, and the elder girl, after a few 
 futile efforts to engage his attention, faded out of the 
 conversation, with a bitter memory of other nights 
 when she was the younger girl in her quest of Life. 
 It was all in the game. She had had her chance. 
 So, though to Bill's sledge-hammer hints that 
 perhaps she might leave them to themselves, and 
 her friend's traitorous acquiescence in those hints, 
 she refused to go. She filled in an uncomfortable 
 evening by pretending not to hear the brisk con- 
 versation that rattled between the man and the 
 woman of his choice. It consisted chiefly of slangy 
 " cheek," delivered with smiles that blunted its 
 rudeness, and interspersed with "gags" from the 
 latest musical play.
 
 198 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 All the way on the return trip on the boat Bill 
 sat with his arm round the younger girl's waist, 
 which, of course, was not noticed by either girl. 
 In saying good-night at the quay, Bill pulled the 
 younger girl aside and rapidly fixed up an appoint- 
 ment with her for the following evening un- 
 accompanied. 
 
 " You couldn't get a bloke for Sal ? " she asked. 
 " She's orl right, you know ; and she ain't had 
 much fun." 
 
 " Not much ! " said the bloke heartily. " I don't 
 want her, an' T don't know any other fellow who 
 does." 
 
 Which disposes of the elder girl, who in the 
 future would have to get what interest she could 
 out of her friend's confidences about her new " boy " 
 over the sewing-machine in the shop. 
 
 Another chapter in Bill's life had begun. He 
 had quite forgotten Nancy.
 
 NANCY SEES THE LIGHT 199 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 IN WHICH NANCY SEES THE LIGHT 
 
 BILL'S acquaintance with the girl progressed 
 with that rapidity of haphazard affairs of 
 this sort. She was a quiet little girl, with 
 a limited outlook on life. The only articles in her 
 faith were to have a good time and her artless 
 prettiness ensured that and to take care of herself 
 with men. She had little passion in her eager 
 heart. She liked being kissed, but she had learnt 
 that a girl who gives way to a man is a fool. There 
 was no morality underlying her standpoint ; it was 
 merely her strain of common sense. She had heard 
 of girls who had "gone wrong." The game was 
 too risky for her. She meant to be married, and 
 any surrender of herself would militate against her 
 chances. 
 
 So that Bill found his affair not at all to his 
 liking. The girl was lovable, delightful to kiss, but 
 always on her guard. Bill tired. 
 
 And at this stage he received Nancy's note. It 
 woke a hundred tormenting memories. After all,
 
 200 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 there was no one like Nancy. And she had been 
 fond of him, too. There had been frequent quarrels, 
 but she had always come back to him. 
 
 He went eagerly to meet her, and the glow of her 
 gorgeous hair as she came from the boat strangely 
 discomposed him . . . He felt none of that 
 patronage that he had always shown in his recent 
 affair. 
 
 But as he stepped forward to greet her he was 
 conscious of a change in her. She was much more 
 quietly dressed than in the earlier days, and her 
 face seemed less alluringly provocative. She looked 
 to him, too, as in some way refined. Her eyes 
 were sadder, her lips not so outspokenly desirous of 
 being kissed. It struck him, like a blow, that she 
 looked a lady. He felt a vague inferiority to her 
 that hurt him. 
 
 But her eager greeting restored him to his tiny 
 pedestal. 
 
 "Where y' been all this time, Nancy?" he 
 questioned. 
 
 " I've been ill," she carelessly lied. 
 
 " Oh, that's it ? " he exclaimed. " That's what 
 makes you look so different." 
 
 "I want to talk to you, Bill. It's important. 
 Where can we go ? " 
 
 He suggested Watson's Bay, which held pleasant 
 memories ; but she insisted on Manly, which was 
 more crowded.
 
 NANCY SEES THE LIGHT 201 
 
 The boat was packed, and Nancy guided Bill to 
 a seat in the most thronged portion, where the people 
 about them made private conversation impossible. 
 
 It was Saturday night, and from the closely sand- 
 wiched terraces of the far-stretched inland suburbs 
 the youth of Sydney had come for a whiff of sea-air, 
 the zest of a new horizon. The big boat was 
 packed with lovers and would-be lovers. Two and 
 two they sat communing. 
 
 The girls had, despite the cheapness of their 
 dresses, that Parisian, yet sharply individual, touch 
 that distinguishes the Sydney girl. The warm 
 climate, hot yet not tropical, and with winters like 
 the traditional but seldom seen English spring, 
 makes them blossom soon. The girl of sixteen has 
 the figure of the English woman. The pallid face 
 she wears touches with refinement a beauty that is, 
 above all, healthy. In this new land the restraints 
 of older countries are cast off: the sunlight kills 
 conventional germs. The sun made the Latins, as 
 the lack of it made the Teutons ; and Australia is a 
 vast laboratory wherein is being worked out an ex- 
 periment new to history. A solid Teutonic race is 
 placed under the rays of the sun, and a strange 
 witchery is worked. The result is perplexing : a 
 new race with the sober basis of Puritanical Britain 
 and the gaiety of the Latin races their laughing 
 irresponsibility, their alertness perhaps shallow- 
 ness of mind, their quick grace of body.
 
 202 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 So these girls were fully conscious of themselves, 
 able and willing to look a man in the face, ready 
 to meet him on equal terms, quite able to take care 
 of themselves. 
 
 The floating gossamers from their hats flung 
 themselves in tantalising caresses about the shoul- 
 ders of the men. Laughter and chuckle and 
 whisper made a faint accompaniment to the music 
 at the other end of the boat. The cool sea-breeze 
 stirred wisps of hair and waiting hearts. And on 
 this bouquet of youth and ardour the imp of Love 
 gaily and lightly sipped. It was Life out of her 
 corset, stretching her cramped body. 
 
 And Bill, watching Nancy glorious at his side, 
 felt the contagion of the boat, and craved for her 
 lips. But what he saw was merely her profile. 
 
 At Manly they strolled along towards Fairy 
 Bower, a way they had gone once before. But a 
 vacant seat by the track showed Nancy where she 
 must tell Bill her secret. 
 
 " We'll sit here," she announced. 
 
 Bill demurred. " Why not go out on the cliff 
 where we were before ? " he eagerly suggested. 
 
 "No, I must tell you here." 
 
 They sat and watched the strollers, two and two, 
 pass them, all too engrossed in their talk to notice 
 them. 
 
 " Bill," she began, in a low, hurried voice, " I'm 
 not all right."
 
 NANCY SEES THE LIGHT 203 
 
 He started. " You mean ? " he whispered. 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "When?" 
 
 " Oh, I've been worrying about it for nearly a 
 month that's why I wouldn't see you ; but I'm 
 sure now." 
 
 " But you can't be sure ! " he said, overcome by 
 this catastrophe, and vainly trying to think out its 
 meaning to him. 
 
 " I asked my mother," she said tonelessly. 
 
 " You told your mother ? " The man's voice was 
 pitiable. " You shouldn't 'a' done that, Nancy ! " 
 
 " I had to." 
 
 Bill sat silent. It was the first time he had got 
 a girl into trouble. The possibility of such a thing 
 he had carelessly brushed aside whenever he heard 
 of it happening to another man. 
 
 A chance hope came to him. " And you say I'm 
 to blame? " he said cruelly. 
 
 "Bill!" said Nancy in straining horror. "I've 
 always been straight to you. You know it." 
 
 " How do I know ? " he snarled back. " How do 
 I know it ain't a try-on ? I've heard that sort of 
 yarn before, but it won't work with me. See? " 
 
 She only stared at him, wondering amazedly how 
 she could have ever liked him. 
 
 " Anyhow," he said craftily, " you can't prove it." 
 
 She was stung into speech. " It's true, Bill ; it's 
 true. It's done now, and can't be helped."
 
 204 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " I've heard of girls who " 
 
 Nancy saw in his eyes the same hideous sugges- 
 tion that her mother had made. Was all the world 
 so horrible ? And, against her will, came the 
 memory of one who was not like the world. But 
 she put that memory from her. 
 
 "No," she said, with a long shudder, " I'd never 
 do that. Look here, Bill, you got me into trouble. 
 I don't blame you, because I could have stopped 
 you. But it's up to you to help me." 
 
 Bill sat staring at the ocean, revolving her sug- 
 gestion in his troubled mind. So far he had con- 
 templated marriage as a thing infinitely remote on 
 Life's horizon. He knew he would get married 
 some day, but he was quite satisfied with the 
 present. He liked girls, and he could usually get 
 his way with girls. He had with Nancy. And 
 there were always plenty of girls. On the whole, he 
 didn't see why this sort of life of his might not go 
 on indefinitely. Once, after his first quarrel with 
 Nancy, he had seriously considered the question of 
 marriage with her ; but the fact that she had 
 not a " bean " settled the matter. He could not 
 afford to marry for years yet ; and Nancy was not 
 the sort to wait for him. 
 
 Yet, if Fate thus cruelly forced his hand, and 
 there was no other way to avoid being saddled with 
 an annoying responsibility, he would marry Nancy. 
 He had never liked anybody as well as Nancy.
 
 NANCY SEES THE LIGHT 205 
 
 And now, in her face, he saw a new, unanalysable 
 beauty. It escaped his definition, but it was there. 
 
 " Orl right, Nancy, I'll marry yer ! " he gave his 
 magnanimous verdict. 
 
 In her agitation, she thought she had told Bill 
 about her marriage. It surprised her to see that 
 he was still ignorant. Oh, if only she had not 
 married Hugh ! How easily everything would have 
 sorted itself out ! 
 
 " I'm married already, Bill," she said. " Didn't I 
 tell you?" 
 
 After the first shock of his amazement, Bill 
 huddled back on the seat with a grunt of relief. 
 He had been let off, after all ! But the happiness 
 of his escape was swiftly marred by the thought of 
 Nancy's perfidy. 
 
 "You've been married all the time?" he said, 
 with savage fingers on her arm. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Not ? Then when?" 
 
 " About a month ago." 
 
 " Not to that bloke with the window-panes ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then what the devil do you come to me for, 
 you ! " He flung his insult spitefully at her 
 
 " Don't you see," the girl implored him, " he 
 doesn't know." 
 
 " Course he don't know," the man sneered, 
 " He wouldn't 'a married you, would he ? "
 
 206 A TOUCH OF FANTASY . 
 
 Wearily she let the sneer pass. " It's like this. 
 Bill," she patiently explained. " I didn't know 
 when I married him. I never suspected. And 
 then he had to go away to Melbourne the very day 
 he married me, and he hasn't come back yet. His 
 mother's dying. I'm not his wife really, am I? 
 And now oh, Bill, I can't go back to him like this. 
 I can never go back to him now. Don't you see ? " 
 she cried wildly, as Bill sullenly stared " don't 
 you see that I can never be his wife now ? I'm 
 your wife, Bill. Our child makes me your wife. 
 I'll come and live with you. He'll let me alone. 
 And if he doesn't, I'll have to tell him, and then he'll 
 let me go. He'll never come between you and I, Bill. 
 Take me away, dear, and I'll be a good wife to you." 
 
 Poor Nancy ! She lived in a world of novels. 
 Her literary outlook was through the sensational 
 sixpenny novel. Life, as she knew it, was a much 
 starker and cruder thing than the romance of her 
 reading ; but in her woman's heart she believed in 
 the sure coming of a hero who would snatch her 
 away from life's sordidness into the realms of senti- 
 mental romance. Such a hero she had identified in 
 Hugh. He fulfilled all the conditions. And though 
 she had had to renounce him, she still resided in 
 the realm of the sentimental novel. The thing she 
 proposed to Bill seemed to her, in her huge ignor- 
 ance of life, the only possible thing to do. It was 
 often done in novels.
 
 NANCY SEES THE LIGHT 207 
 
 But Bill was not out of a sixpenny novel. He 
 lived at home, as no villain is ever reported to have 
 done, with his father, his mother, a maiden aunt, 
 and two innocuous and faded sisters ; and again, 
 unlike the villain of fiction, he was careful to pay 
 his mother a few shillings a week for his keep. 
 And now this mad girl confidently expected him 
 to go forth into the world, where he would have to 
 pay for his keep pay for her keep too and take 
 on the responsibility of making a living and keeping 
 up a house. His salary merely sufficed for his 
 amusements. And she was another man's wife ! 
 
 He explained some of these difficulties to Nancy. 
 
 " Take you away ? " he said. "Why, I haven't 
 got the cash ; and if I left my job I'd have to look 
 for another. " 
 
 " Well, couldn't we live here, in Sydney? " 
 
 " No. How could I pay for a house on my 
 screw ? " 
 
 " I'd go back to work again, " she eagerly sug- 
 gested. 
 
 " Fat lot of good that'd do ! Besides, it ain't as 
 if you were my wife. Then I'd have to look after 
 
 you. " 
 
 " I am your wife, your real wife, Bill." 
 
 The suspicious look returned to Bill's narrow 
 
 eyes. " Yes, but you can't prove it. I'm not taking 
 
 another bloke's job not much." 
 " But our child ? "
 
 208 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " Well, it's all right. You're married, aren't you? 
 That blighter will think it's his." 
 
 " You won't take me, Bill ? " the girl cried. " I'd 
 keep straight with you as I've always been." 
 
 Bill's anger broke out. " You go and chuck your- 
 self away on that blighter, and then you come to me 
 to take you back ! D'yer think I'm the sorter mug 
 to take on another bloke's leavings? And oh, 
 Nancy," he cried, as the realisation of all that he 
 had lost came over him, " you madden me yet, 
 you ! If only you'd been all right ! " 
 
 " Bill," she said simply, " I can't face him again. 
 I daren't. It's for the child your child." 
 
 " See here, Nancy, I won't do it. You've got no 
 
 claim on me to keep you. But " His eyes 
 
 glistened as he leaned to her. " What's the use o' 
 talking ? You won't go back to him anyhow? " 
 
 " I couldn't ! 
 
 " Well, it's all the same as before, ain't it ? I'm 
 in love with you, Nancy more'n I ever was before. 
 Forget all about that blighter, and be my friend 
 same as you used ter be." He leaned closer, one 
 arm along the back of the seat. " Let's go for a 
 walk to the cliffs up there, where I took yer that 
 first night. You remember ? " 
 
 Nancy remembered. She looked at him straightly. 
 "I've done with that, Bill," she said. "I'd live 
 with you if you took me in for the child. But not 
 that ! "
 
 NANCY SEES THE LIGHT 209 
 
 She rose, and Bill faced her. He tried to clutch 
 her, but saw some couples passing on the track, and 
 drew back. 
 
 "You can't, Bill," she said hurriedly. "I'm done 
 with all that." 
 
 She moved away. 
 
 " And now," she said, more to herself than to 
 him, " there's nothing left to me but " 
 
 He was following, but she almost ran ; and, with 
 a oath, he let her go. 
 
 The idea of suicide slowly formed itself in her brain. 
 That was the only way out. She would throw her- 
 self overboard on the way back. 
 
 But before she got even to the boat she knew she 
 could never do that. She was no longer a free agent. 
 There was another life to care for a strange, 
 hidden, wonderful life. And suddenly the great 
 exultation of motherhood came to her. Her body 
 was a sacred thing, and she, with all her anguish, 
 but a humble worshipper before a miraculous 
 shrine.
 
 210 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII 
 
 IN WHICH THERE IS A HINT OF HONEYMOON 
 
 WHEN Hugh, hurrying from the Mel- 
 bourne train after a sleepless night of 
 anxiety, came to Nancy's home in 
 Mosman, it was Nancy herself who answered his 
 peremptory knock. He had been prepared for 
 tragedy, for despair; but he had not anticipated in 
 finding these in the white-faced, large-eyed girl who 
 was his wife. 
 
 Yet his relief at her actual presence was so great 
 that he reached forward to take her in his arms to 
 make sure that it was Nancy. She drew him into 
 the dark tunnel of the hall, and there, unresisting, 
 she let him kiss her. 
 
 " I thought you'd gone away ! Nancy, your 
 letter ! " he said, holding her close. 
 
 She lay in his arms, content. This solved all 
 her difficulties in the easiest way. A shamefully 
 easy thing, perhaps ; but Nancy was worn out with 
 worrying and the hunted animal has not much 
 spirit left. At the mere sight of his lank tallness 
 she had felt all her doubts drop from her. He was
 
 A HINT OF HONEYMOON 211 
 
 her destiny, visible, close, protecting. She gave up. 
 
 She lied easily without looking up. " That 
 letter, Hugh ? I sent it just to bring you back. 
 I thought you were never coming. So I had to 
 just to see if you really cared. But you'll forgive 
 me, won't you, Hugh, my husband ? " 
 
 His relief was so great that he forgave her with- 
 out a further thought of the paltriness of the deceit 
 she had practised on him. Women were like that 
 all heart ; and women in love were not responsible 
 except to their own hearts. Manlike he was grate- 
 ful for the greatness of that love which could so 
 insistently prompt so big a deceit. A man would 
 not have done a thing like that; but women that 
 devotion to a bigger thing than mere straightness 
 was, after all, one of the things that men loved in 
 them. Hugh wished he could have done it. 
 
 (Marvellous spectacles ! But Hugh, being so 
 hotly in love, could have seen no clearer without 
 them. All lovers wear blinkers.) 
 
 And Hugh, looking down at that lovely face, saw 
 in it only the strain of that long month of waiting. 
 How he had tried her with his absence ! No 
 wonder she had sent that letter. He wished she 
 had sent it sooner. 
 
 So the two were happy. After Bill's repulse 
 Nancy had burnt her boats. She was no longer a 
 free agent, and all her instinctive horror of deceiv- 
 ing Hugh vanished at the thought of her child.
 
 212 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 That was the force greater than herself that drove 
 her, with lowered eyes, into Hugh's arms. Nancy 
 felt herself unable to resist the mother-jealousy that 
 the meekest of animals will show when her young 
 are threatened. She said to herself that she would 
 pay the penalty herself so long as her child was 
 provided for, so long as it was born without taint. 
 And the penalty was big enough and long enough. 
 It was her lifelong silence in the face of Hugh's 
 clear, unquestioning spectacles. But she would 
 have no further deceits for him. She would serve 
 him and make him so wonderful a wife. But she 
 would have to sacrifice Hugh too. But he would 
 never know. Perhaps, when she was dying, she 
 would tell him, and then he would forgive her. 
 Surely she could build up a life of love for him so 
 great, so broad, so high, that he would never peer 
 beneath it for its foundations of deceit. 
 
 Buffeted by Life, desperate, maddened by the fear 
 in her mother-heart, she clung to Hugh, her hus- 
 band, with a sudden grateful sense of the numbing 
 of all her terrors. 
 
 She drew him to the tiny drawing-room, an 
 apartment used only by her mother for occasions of 
 ceremony, such as the monthly interviews with the 
 rent collector. There she left Hugh, and he sat 
 carefully, very straight and handsome and fine, on 
 an uncomfortable, spindly chair, and listened to the 
 colloquy of low and agitated voices that drifted un-
 
 A HINT OF HONEYMOON 213 
 
 intelligibly in from the recesses of the back of the 
 house. 
 
 Nancy returned, flushed but triumphant. She had 
 won her point. Her mother would be in directly to 
 receive him. She made Hugh sit down again, and 
 leant over him, stroking his arm, as if the touch of 
 him reassured her. 
 
 " Now I've found you again," Hugh smiled 
 triumphantly at her, "I'm not going to let you out of 
 my sight. We're starting for our honeymoon to-day." 
 
 The girl blanched, for no respite was to be given 
 her. She must start her deception now. And what 
 was she to have a honeymoon ? 
 
 " No, Hugh," she whispered ; " I don't want one. 
 Why can't we wait till we get a house, and then 
 just go straight there ? " 
 
 Hugh was relieved. He had made the honey- 
 moon suggestion because it had seemed to him the 
 right, though idiotic, course to follow. But for him 
 the honeymoon had been slain by the comic artists. 
 
 "Ah, the house !" he said eagerly. "Have you 
 found one ? " 
 
 She remembered that, before her world had been 
 darkened, she had spent a few days wandering 
 round Mosman looking for houses to let, and she 
 had picked out a cottage that she had thought ideal. 
 She told Hugh that it had a sign up, but it was 
 apparently occupied. The people might be out of 
 it by now.
 
 214 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " Let's have a look at it ! " he said with boyish 
 eagerness ; but already footsteps were coming along 
 the passage. 
 
 Mrs. Pinkstone, large and steely and slippery in 
 her best black, entered. Nancy curtly introduced 
 her, and Mrs. Pinkstone shook hands with her son- 
 in-law. She was really a common old woman, with 
 as much refinement and individuality as a sack of 
 coals which, indeed, in her dress she somewhat 
 resembled and with a mind that had never soared 
 abore very bad cooking and the price of meat. Yet 
 through his spectacles he saw only Nancy's mother 
 a poor, sad woman ill-used by Life, never given a 
 chance to develop herself, soddened by a forced 
 contemplation of sordid things, a soul that had never 
 escaped the prison-bars of the scullery, a slave in 
 lifelong bondage to grocers' bills, and yet, being 
 Nancy's mother, miraculous. She had given him 
 Nancy. She wore the only halo that man has to 
 spare for woman. 
 
 (No need to note again that they were marvellous 
 spectacles.) 
 
 He was impressed by Mrs. Pinkstone's perfect 
 politeness. In her heart she was reckoning how 
 much a week she could demand from Nancy's hus- 
 band, wondering whether, when they got over the 
 foolishness of the first month, she might invite her- 
 self to live with them. 
 
 Nancy left them to get on her hat.
 
 A HINT OF HONEYMOON 215 
 
 Mrs. Pinkstone suddenly sighed; two tears ap- 
 peared in her red-rimmed, watery eyes. Now that 
 Nancy was not there she could settle things with 
 this son-in-law. 
 
 " It's such a loss to me her going," she 
 whimpered. 
 
 " Yes, you'll miss her. I'm sorry I've got to take 
 her away." 
 
 " Oh, it wasn't her that I'll miss so much she 
 never was much at home, and she never did a 
 hand's turn of work when she was at home. I had 
 to make her bed for her. But she used to help to 
 pay the bills with her wages. And now that she's 
 going, I don't know 'ow I'll get along by myself." 
 
 Hugh saw only a mother mourning for her child, 
 pretending, with a palpable effort, that she was re- 
 gretting a mere sordid matter of rent in order to 
 conceal her deeper feelings. He appreciated her 
 heroic effort to spare him pain, her courage in jest- 
 ing about the purse strings when it was her heart- 
 strings that were being torn. He grasped her by 
 the hand a hard, toil-calloused hand and told 
 her that when they were settled she must often drop 
 in for lunch with his wife. 
 
 (They were wonderful glasses !) 
 
 He was in this generous mood when Nancy, 
 having taken, for a woman, an incredibly short time 
 to pierce a flimsy flat thing and two hair-pads with 
 three long spikes, rushed into the room.
 
 216 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 She had her doubts of Hugh's susceptibilities to 
 her mother's ready tears. And her suspicions were 
 confirmed by the noble attitude she found him in. 
 
 " Come on, Hugh," she cried, and piloted him. 
 safely from the dangerous shoals of her mother's 
 grief. 
 
 As soon as they got outside the gate she turned 
 brightly to Hugh. " Mother been cadging? " 
 
 " Cadging? " he asked, at a loss. 
 
 " For money." 
 
 "No," he answered in all his foolish sincerity. 
 " She made an effort just not to let me see how she 
 felt parting with you to tell me that she would 
 miss your wages more than she would miss you. 
 But I know mothers. I knew mine." 
 
 Nancy looked at his shining spectacles, which 
 the sun had burnished with its glory, and decided 
 not to inform him that she knew her mother. Then, 
 with her quick sympathy, she asked him of his 
 mother. He told her of her death, of her blind love 
 for him ; but he did not tell her, though Nancy 
 would have thrilled to know it, that at her letter he 
 had forgotten his dead mother in his great anxiety 
 for her. 
 
 So, with glittering sunlit spectacles triumphantly 
 on his splendid nose, and Nancy, pale yet glorious, 
 at his side for she had seen once more that Hugh 
 simply could not see the matter-of-fact, sordid things 
 of life, and so would never see the sordidness in her
 
 A HINT -OF HONEYMOON 217 
 
 Hugh strode along the Mosman streets in search 
 of the perfect cottage. 
 
 The perfect cottage, when enthusiastically pointed 
 out by Nancy, he found to be very like its neigh- 
 bours. In fact, the street was a fantastic gallery of 
 modern suburban cottages, facing each other across 
 the road like girls in their best dresses, twisted and 
 contorted, ornamental and over-ornamental, with 
 all the latest architectural frillings and fantasies of 
 modern suburban fashion. 
 
 It was a street of family likenesses, despite the 
 heroic efforts of the speculative architect, on very 
 limited means, to make each cottage an individual 
 creation. Every cottage must have a verandah, 
 a front door, a hall, a kitchen, some windows, a 
 chimney or two, and a roof. And each must occupy 
 only the fifty-feet frontage allowed it, and stand in 
 line with the others behind its little garden plot. 
 
 So the family likenesses persisted, particularly in 
 the red tiles that crowned each member of it. And 
 all the verandahs faced the street a simple arrange- 
 ment that made for uniformity ; but as the sun 
 blazed all the day on one set of verandahs and left 
 the other set alone, the comfort of one side of 
 the street was sacrificed to the aesthetics of street 
 design. 
 
 A closer examination, however, revealed certain 
 unessential unlikenesses. The syndicate that had 
 bought and subdivided the land, after specifying
 
 218 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 that each cottage should contain the same number 
 of rooms, had allowed the architect full scope to 
 vary the designs. He had done this with a sort of 
 dogged consistency, mixing up the same architec- 
 tural features in different dispositions for each 
 cottage. Thus several had a curly front porch, with 
 a semicircular opening in the wall outside the front 
 door; others had battlements of shiny brick or 
 glaring stucco; portions of others were gorgeous 
 with false woodwork painted in bright colours, 
 patches of green shingles on the walls, ornate designs 
 in brickwork, and curly excrescences to the verandah 
 posts. These features were repeated with varia- 
 tions, or fantastically combined, all along the 
 street. 
 
 However, Nancy picked out the perfect cottage 
 with ease. It looked very new and very shiny, and 
 the garden was only a tiny plot of clay and rock. 
 
 " We could make a lovely little lawn and garden 
 here," she whispered eagerly, as they unlatched the 
 grotesque little gate with its name " The Willows," 
 bravely flaunting its untruth at them. 
 
 The cottage was occupied, but on her first visit 
 Nancy had learnt that the tenants had contemplated 
 moving out. 
 
 To Hugh's manipulation of a fantastic bronzed 
 knocker on the brilliant apple-green front door a 
 thin drab of a woman, carrying a smudgy-looking 
 baby, appeared. She said they could, of course,
 
 A HINT OF HONEYMOON 219 
 
 look over the house. They were leaving at the end 
 of the week, because on the arrival of Amaryllis 
 the label they had attached to the smudgy baby 
 her fourth, they had found that the house was too 
 small. 
 
 Apparently the architect of this street had not 
 guessed at the possibility of a fourth. Statistics 
 were on his side, of course, and he had done his best 
 to buttress them; but the human factor cannot 
 always be eliminated. 
 
 They entered, the woman incessantly apologising 
 for the state of the house. With three children 
 and a young baby ! But before the inspection began 
 Nancy had to enquire all about Amaryllis. To 
 Hugh's mild astonishment she seemed wildly ex- 
 cited over the smudge. To him it looked merely a 
 dirty baby, solemn-eyed and inert. To Nancy it 
 was a miracle of loveliness and weight. She in- 
 sisted on taking it and took it as if all her life 
 she had done nothing else. She talked to it, too, 
 in the universal language of motherhood. Though 
 Amaryllis merely blinked, she seemed to understand 
 the language. Her mother gave, proudly, a com- 
 plete list of the ailments of Amaryllis, who, Hugh 
 learned with surprise, was subject to convulsions. 
 He felt curious to see what that Egyptian sphinx 
 would look like in convulsions. The mother, 
 flattered by his interest, volubly explained. Nancy 
 insisted on carrying Amaryllis as they made their
 
 220 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 inspection. She was even more enthusiastic about 
 Amaryllis than about the house. 
 
 Yet her enthusiasm was infectious; and though 
 to Hugh the cottage seemed to make up in deco- 
 ration what it lacked in size, he agreed with Nancy 
 that it would suit them admirably. 
 
 " You see," said Nancy with pride, " every room 
 is done up in a different colour, with a frieze to 
 match. I love friezes." 
 
 They were certainly notable, those friezes. The 
 paper-hanger had entered into his work with the 
 fine frenzy of an artist. From the pink walls of the 
 dining-room the purple frieze shouted, while in the 
 violet drawing-room rich blooms of purple glowed 
 imperially. In the green kitchen, red-coated hunts- 
 men raced over green fields, round and round, just 
 below the ceiling. Hugh's spectacles dizzily tried 
 to catch them up. 
 
 The house was to let furnished, and the furniture 
 was of the auction-room variety, with plenty of 
 polish and style and a modest dubiety about com- 
 fort. In the drawing-room (violet) it was principally 
 plush, with shaky bamboo chairs that Hugh felt 
 could only be used by a desperate man. The 
 imitation marble mantelpiece, cunningly simulated 
 by reckless green straggling markings on a mottled 
 background of painted wood, was set off by an over- 
 mantel composed of glass, cut into sections by 
 bamboo framing and bamboo brackets, designed
 
 A HINT OF HONEYMOON 221 
 
 as was apparent from their present appearance 
 to hold china cats and Japanese fans. 
 
 The hall was a straight, narrow passage, into 
 which the hall-stand of highly polished imitation 
 walnut uncomfortably jutted. It was covered with 
 a gaudy, and from the smell, recently polished 
 linoleum. This was evidently the loving labour 
 from which their knock had taken the woman. 
 The rest of the house-tidying, and that of the baby, 
 had been left for this important task. Off this 
 tunnel the various rooms, including the miniature 
 bathroom, opened ; and at the end of it was the 
 tiny (green) kitchen, pantry, laundry, gas-stove, and 
 scullery a marvel of compression. 
 
 " This is the bedroom," the woman announced, 
 with an apology for the bed not being made. 
 
 The bedroom was a heavenly blue, and, at the 
 sight of it, Nancy lost interest in Amaryllis. Des- 
 pite her excitement, she could not look at Hugh. It 
 seemed wrong. 
 
 " Yes," she said hurriedly, and came out to Hugh, 
 who was standing uneasily on the threshold. 
 
 She was glad he had not come in. The big, 
 black-enamelled bedstead, with its bright brass 
 knuckles, was not for masculine eyes. But in her 
 swift glance round she had seen everything, and 
 instantly decided to put blue satin ribbons at the 
 top of the mosquito curtains. 
 
 With an affectionate farewell of the mite of
 
 222 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 solemnity named Amaryllis, Nancy led Hugh out- 
 side. As the gate clicked she turned to him. 
 
 " Isn't it a duck of a house ? " she exclaimed. 
 
 It was not at all like Hugh's dreams of a home, 
 yet he reflected that he could not afford to build 
 dreams, and architects evidently did not build them 
 on speculation. And Nancy's delight infected him 
 in his lover's enthusiasm. If she thought it perfect 
 she would be happy. He decided that it was a 
 woman's business. He could easily find room for 
 most of his books in the drawing-room. And after- 
 wards, when he got his salary raised, or his novel 
 was a success, he could build the perfect house of 
 his dreams. He did not pause to reflect that the 
 perfect dream might not be Nancy's dream. 
 
 " It'll suit us splendidly," he said, and off they set, 
 hot-foot, to the office of the local estate agent. 
 
 There Hugh fixed the matter. They were to take 
 possession on the following Monday. 
 
 " And now," Hugh said, smiling down on Nancy, 
 " we'll go to your place and get your luggage." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " We're going on our honeymoon." 
 
 " Oh, Hugh, I couldn't waste the time. With all 
 the house to do up, and new curtains to make, and 
 getting it scrubbed, and made comfortable. I've no 
 time for honeymoons." 
 
 Hugh saw his wife swallowed up in the house- 
 keeper.
 
 A HINT OF HONEYMOON 223 
 
 There is a Maori legend that God told the first 
 woman that her business was to bear children. 
 She, comparing her lot with that of man, naturally 
 objected, and the whole elaborate scheme of things 
 was at a standstill. Then, in the interests of the 
 race, God compromised. He remixed the clay from 
 which she had been carelessly made, and remodelled 
 her, making her one-third mother, one-third clothes- 
 hook and one-third housekeeper. The arrangement 
 worked perfectly. As woman was a housekeeper she 
 would naturally want a house to keep. This pre- 
 disposed her to look with favour upon the man who 
 could give her the house. But it was not necessary 
 to stalk him. For, being a clothes-hook, the woman 
 naturally wanted to hang clothes on herself, and 
 did it enthusiastically. And when next man came 
 upon her he noticed a vague difference in shape and 
 hue, and felt called upon to investigate. So, instead 
 of her stalking him, he pursued and captured her, 
 gave her the cave to keep clean, and thus the race 
 began. And so admirable was the three-fold com- 
 position of woman that the race has been going ever 
 since. 
 
 " But the house is furnished," he said im- 
 patiently, with the unfathomable ignorance of the 
 male. 
 
 " Furnished ? There's only the furniture. Why, 
 we've got to get the linen, and the towels, and the 
 pots, and the bedding, and the "
 
 224 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 Hugh stopped the flood, for he had his superb 
 inspiration. 
 
 " We'll go to an hotel a Sydney hotel ! " 
 
 "A honeymoon in Sydney in an hotel!" cried 
 Nancy, staggered at his originality. 
 
 But Hugh pointed out that she could buy the 
 things for the house and have her honeymoon at 
 the same time, and, stipulating that it should be a 
 very private hotel, she assented. 
 
 That evening they set forth in a taxi-cab for their 
 honeymoon hotel, Hugh with his baggage and 
 Nancy with a dress-basket. 
 
 They assured themselves, as they drove up to the 
 very private hotel, that no couple could look less 
 like a honeymoon pair ; but as they entered the 
 entrance hall and signed their names, the whole 
 staff of servants let them know that they knew. 
 The sole thing that puzzled them was what had 
 become of the rice and the confetti. Nancy signed 
 the register, " Mrs. Hugh Robjohn," with the ease 
 that came from assiduous practice on her return 
 that evening Hugh had gone to Melbourne; but 
 she caught a knowing look in the clerk's eye, and 
 felt her back being pierced by the wise glare of the 
 hall-porter's terrible eye. 
 
 The public dinner was a torture to them, and on 
 the stairs and in the passages giggling chamber- 
 maids, and covertly smiling guests, made them wilt 
 with consciousness.
 
 A HINT OF HONEYMOON 225 
 
 That evening Hugh, furiously smoking a cigar, 
 faced the street impatiently, watching the light in 
 the window of their front room. It seemed centuries 
 before it was discreetly lowered.
 
 226 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 IN WHICH THERE IS A TEIVIAL TRAGEDY 
 
 A FORTNIGHT or so later Hugh woke up 
 from the delirium of the honeymoon and 
 recognised, with the shiver of a surprise, 
 the quaint fact that he was a married man. 
 
 The discovery was made, as all such discoveries 
 are made, at breakfast. They were by now settled 
 in the perfect cottage. He was gulping his last cup 
 of tea preparatory to his rush for the ferry-boat, 
 when he looked across the table and saw his wife. 
 Not the mysterious thing called woman, but the 
 companionable thing called a wife. 
 
 Hitherto women had seemed to him beings of a 
 different race, as aloof from him and his masculinity 
 as the stars are from a frog. Strange, wonderful, 
 divine, misty and immeasurable, they existed if, 
 indeed, he had not dreamed them in faint, far-off 
 realms towards which his thoughts had yearned and 
 strained yet never reached. And here one of those 
 starry beings was, on the earth beside him, munch- 
 ing toast. Doing it charmingly, too, but still 
 munching. It was marvellous that she should have
 
 A TKIVIAL TRAGEDY 227 
 
 fallen so far and yet showed no bruise, no flaw. 
 For the delightful thing was that, though she was 
 here at his hand he could, and did, lean over and 
 kiss her across the remains of the bacon and eggs 
 yet her charm remained. True, a different charm, 
 but to his misty dreams this reality was as sunshine 
 to the starlight. He saw her now as a beautiful, 
 companionable, charming part of humanity not as 
 a different race. Marriage had bridged the chasm 
 that yawned between the sexes. Nay, looking back 
 with clearer gaze, he saw that there was no chasm, 
 there had never been a chasm. All his youth, fed 
 by fiction and the drama, he had pondered on the 
 possibility of bridging that gulf. And really the 
 black chasm was merely the stupefying shadow cast 
 by the novelists and the playwrights. With 
 marriage he had simply stepped over the shadow, 
 and, looking back, found it lying on level land. 
 
 And there, across the breakfast-table, with only 
 the wreck of the eggs and bacon between, she, the 
 woman-companion, was more lovable, more desirable 
 than the angel beyond the chasm. She had met 
 him frankly from the other side of sex and sex 
 had changed a dividing gulf into a highway where 
 they could walk hand in hand. 
 
 He found to his astonishment that she, though 
 distinctly and oh, delightfully, a woman, looked at 
 life as he looked at it. The same problems confronted 
 both, and they used the same sort of common sense
 
 228 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 in solving them. He saw humanity as one and 
 undivided. More, he felt himself for the first time 
 in his life as one of humanity, part of its steady 
 stream. Hitherto he had rather comforted himself 
 on standing outside that stream, watching it swirl- 
 ing past with amazement and wonder and a little 
 quiet pride. And now he suddenly found himself 
 caught in its current, drifting happily along, hardly 
 caring what its destination was, content as long as 
 it carried her as well as him. And sympathy with 
 the other drifting atoms made him no longer aloofly 
 proud. Their destiny was his ; he was part of the 
 big scheme. He had stepped into line, and was 
 happy. He had become part of the great democracy 
 of race. 
 
 Yet she was, for all her likeness, delightfully 
 different. Her brain was quicker than his in little 
 things, more reckless, more instinctive it leapt ; 
 and her temperament swung unaccountably from 
 one mood to the next, with breaks in the chain of 
 continuity that momentarily dazzled him. He 
 seemed to be always trying breathlessly to keep up 
 with her lightning pounce. 
 
 The big things, the big clumsy things, she left 
 condescendingly to him. While he was still wonder- 
 ing about her, studying her, unconsciously testing 
 her, she had accepted him as her man, stupid, 
 perhaps, and slow in his big, lovable way, but in the 
 large things dependable and safe. She frankly let
 
 A TRIVIAL TRAGEDY 229 
 
 him see that she considered him so boyish and 
 simple, sometimes almost, yet charmingly, childish. 
 And she had quickly stripped from him his dear 
 masculine illusion of his own complexity. He had 
 thought himself so different from all other men, as 
 one subtle and fiercely individual. And she had 
 reduced him, in her quick woman's way, to a simple, 
 lovable child. She needed in her conception of him 
 the protecting arms of motherhood to shield him 
 from the world that did not understand, to shield him 
 even from himself that did not understand 
 
 And in this new frankness of speech, this 
 candour of a common view-point, both were 
 happy. 
 
 For Nancy had put aside her worries, except in 
 the nights when she woke, first making sure by a 
 gentle touch that he was there in the bed beside 
 her, solid and big and reliable. Then the terror of 
 the future became visible, crushing her. In the 
 daytime, however, busy about the house, bestowing 
 upon it the loving touches that were needed to 
 make it worthy of the baby, she desperately refused 
 to think of any possible catastrophe. The present 
 was crammed full of pleasures and pleasant tasks. 
 The house needed so much attention : there were 
 things to make, meals to cook for him he had 
 really an absurdly small appetite for so tall a man, 
 and needed to be insidiously fattened. 
 
 Hugh had not guessed. His trust in her, his
 
 230 A TOUCH OP FANTASY 
 
 abysmal ignorance about things that she thought 
 everybody knew, surprised and delighted her. There 
 had been no difficulty in keeping her secret. Fate 
 had let her off with a caution, and she was grateful. 
 Many an unexpected caress that Hugh took as love 
 was merely her gratitude for his blindness. 
 
 It was, despite its decorations and its furniture, 
 a comfortable little cottage. The drawing-room, at 
 Nancy's suggestion, was degraded into a study for 
 Hugh. She asserted that she had no need for a 
 drawing-room, while Hugh must have a place for 
 his books. Hugh never guessed that this was the 
 first great renunciation of Nancy. In her heart no 
 place was complete without a drawing-room, care- 
 fully dusted every morning, with each cushion and 
 drapery in its invariable place, its mantelpiece 
 arranged with vases in exact symmetrical positions 
 a place reserved for wet Sunday afternoons. 
 When they could afford a piano it would lord it over 
 its proper domain. She meant to have a piano, 
 though neither of them could play, and Nancy's 
 contralto voice was quite untrained. But she con- 
 sidered a piano solely as an item of furniture, the 
 necessary guarantee of suburban respectability. 
 
 Hugh, without a thought of Nancy's sacrifice, 
 grabbed the suggestion. To a bookish man heaven 
 without a library would be the other place. He had 
 gleaned all his knowledge of the world from books, 
 and though his magic spectacles showed him a new
 
 A TKIVIAL TBAGEDY 231 
 
 and more marvellous world, he still felt the need of 
 reading. 
 
 " Now," said Nancy, " as soon as your library 
 arrives you can go into there and read and write 
 any time you like. You can lock the door, too." 
 
 " And what would you be doing ? " 
 
 " Oh, me ? I'd be darning your socks, you silly. 
 And I'll lock you in myself." 
 
 " But why ? " 
 
 " You must finish that novel, mustn't you ? And 
 when it's done you'll read it to me, and I'll criticise 
 it." 
 
 Hugh had quite forgotten the novel. That even- 
 ing he got it out and glanced through it. His 
 spectacles showed him that it was " rot." Nancy, 
 married to the author, was not at all like the Nancy 
 he had made his heroine. He saw now that she 
 was a much more interesting person, and altogether 
 charmingly much more human. He had been 
 describing a Harrison -Fisher -Chandler- Christie - 
 Dana-Gibson sort of girl and he found now that 
 she was too much alive to be pressed flat into a 
 book. 
 
 And what was the use of writing about Life when 
 he was actually living it? He saw now why novelists 
 never take their wives for heroines, nor painters 
 their wives for models. This Nancy, his wife, was 
 too wonderful a person, too complex and unpre- 
 cedented, too astonishing and unexpected, to dissect
 
 232 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 for the delight of readers. It seemed an impertinence, 
 and a useless one, to put this charming, pulsing, 
 delightful young woman back into literature. He 
 would have to get another heroine with a differently 
 coloured hair. The hero, he decided, would do. 
 He was just the sort of person to be a hero he 
 was so unlike the author. 
 
 He chucked the manuscript back into a box, and 
 though Nancy clamoured and prettily pleaded for 
 just one look, he locked the precious " rot " away. 
 Being a husband was quite as big a job as he could 
 tackle. 
 
 But his mind went back the next evening to his 
 beloved books, his little library reposing in the 
 boarding-house. He knew they would be well cared 
 for by Mrs. Fitzherbart. But he did not guess how 
 tenderly they were dusted, how reverently arranged, 
 how often inspected by the boarders. Occasionally 
 Miss Catch would pick up a volume, nutter its 
 pages, and put it back with a sigh. She could get 
 no glimpse of the mysteriously vanished Mr. Hugh 
 from it. She went back to the magazines, and 
 pondered the pictures of popular actresses. 
 
 Life had indeed been desolate since Hugh's 
 departure. Mrs. Fitzherbart's advertisement for 
 a boarder had attracted one or two males not very 
 exciting to look at, but certainly in trousers. But 
 each had asked the fatal question, " Any other 
 boarders ? " And when they heard the terrible
 
 A TBIVIAL TRAGEDY 233 
 
 truth they had hastily departed, promising to let 
 her know. They never did. Women came, too, 
 and asked the same question not directly, of course, 
 but with the skilled methods of cross-examination 
 gained by a long sojourn in boarding-houses ; and 
 they, too, had promised to let her know. So 
 the room lay vacant, peopled, however, by 
 Hugh's library and the tender thoughts of the 
 boarders. 
 
 But one night, when the topic of Hugh's departure 
 had become worn threadbare, a knock sounded at 
 the door. Mrs. Fitzherbart arose in agitation. 
 
 " That's his knock ! " she whispered. " Fumb- 
 ling first, and then determined." 
 
 Miss Catch clutched the place where she supposed 
 her heart to be. Really she grabbed too far to the 
 left of her silk blouse; but she knew nothing of 
 anatomy, and on the stage that was where the 
 heroine had always located her heart. 
 
 Miss Swatts, Miss Flegg, and Miss Littledick 
 held their breath. They were all playing "patience" 
 on the big dining-room table ; for the infection had 
 spread from Miss Swatts, and they had got into the 
 habit even of hurrying through dinner in order to 
 get a clear table for their packs of cards. 
 
 Mrs. Fitzherbart was right. It was Mr. Hugh's 
 knock and his wife. He introduced her proudly. 
 Mrs. Fitzherbart wanted to faint, but controlled the 
 impulse, for the news she had to convey to the
 
 234 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 dining-room allowed her no time for emotion. She 
 wanted to see the dining-room faint. 
 
 " Oh, do come in," she managed to gasp, as she 
 took Nancy's hand. 
 
 "We've just come about my books," Hugh hurried 
 to explain, baulking the inspection of the dining- 
 room. " I've got a cottage now, and if you'd kindly 
 send them along, I could do the packing-up myself." 
 
 "Come in," Mrs. Fitzherbart insisted, and almost 
 rushed " Mr. Hugh and that woman " into the 
 dining-room. Miss Swatts, Miss Flegg, Miss Little- 
 dick, and Miss Catch steadied themselves, and 
 though they flushed, they rose and somehow got 
 through the introductions. 
 
 "It is nice to see you again," Miss Swatts 
 murmured. "We thought we thought you'd gone 
 away altogether." 
 
 "We're living quite close," said Hugh; and was 
 at once implored for the address. 
 
 " And so," said Miss Catch chokingly, " you're 
 married ! " 
 
 " Oh yes," smiled Hugh, and touched Nancy's 
 hand. 
 
 "You must be congratulated, Mrs. Eobjohn," 
 murmured Miss Flegg. 
 
 " And you," Miss Littledick heroically murmured, 
 with a tired smile at Mr. Hugh. 
 
 " Married ! " Mrs. Fitzherbart said. " But we 
 haven't seen it in the papers."
 
 A TEIVIAL TEAGEDY 235 
 
 " Oh, you wouldn't," said Hugh airily ; " we 
 managed it all right with a registrar." 
 
 " A registrar ! The registry office ! " 
 
 Consternation fell upon the boarders. But they 
 said nothing further. This must be discussed at 
 length when Mr. Hugh and his registry-office wife 
 had gone. 
 
 But Miss Catch had one comment. " You must 
 have missed the orange-wreath," she sighed. 
 
 " I did ! " said Nancy frankly. It was the first 
 Hugh had ever heard about such an adornment. 
 " And," she graciously added, stricken with a sudden 
 sense of these women being so out of it, " you must 
 all come and see me, when we've settled down." 
 
 The hens' trough of happiness was full. They 
 could call on her, and discuss her afterwards ! Mrs. 
 Fitzherbart privately determined to find out whether 
 that woman kept Mr. Hugh's socks darned as well 
 as she had done. She pressed the visitors to stay 
 to supper. But Hugh knew those suppers. They 
 left. 
 
 The unfinished games of " patience " several of 
 which were in the most exciting stage, the results 
 hanging in the balance whether the player won or 
 lost her vague bet against herself were left un- 
 regarded. The boarders had things even more im- 
 portant to discuss. 
 
 " She's pretty horribly pretty ! " said Miss Catch, 
 with desolate candour.
 
 236 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " But her dress !" said Miss Flegg, in her much- 
 trimmed black silk. " I call it indecent showing 
 her figure like that ! " 
 
 " She's got a figure to show, anyhow," Miss 
 Swatts said, with a quick glance at Miss Flegg's 
 flatness ; " but the cheapness of her gown ! Why, 
 we don't keep that stuff in the shop. She must 
 have got it in a sale in the suburbs." 
 
 " But she's fascinating, with that red hair," Mrs. 
 Fitzherbart considered. " Though I don't like that 
 untidy way of doing it. My husband always said 
 that if a woman had fascination she could look all 
 right in a dressing-jacket. I never wore them, of 
 course," she added in case of misapprehension. 
 " He always said that I was too fascinating to be 
 a married woman. But sometimes I've thought 
 that that's when a woman wants all her fascina- 
 tion." 
 
 Miss Littledick swept her useless litter of cards, 
 that had meant such exciting things half an hour 
 ago, into a neat pack, and stood up. 
 
 "I think we're a lot of cats," she announced. 
 " Oh, I know I am ! The girl's beautiful and 
 attractive and nice, and . . . " there was a 
 catch in her over-worked school-teacher's voice 
 " and we're not ! " 
 
 The others listened appalled, and the door slammed 
 on Miss Littledick's straight little arid figure. 
 
 In the pause that followed that quite unnecessary
 
 A TRIVIAL TRAGEDY 237 
 
 slam, Miss Catch looked up. " I think I'll go to 
 bed too." Her eyes were weakly wet. " I've got 
 a headache." 
 
 It was really a heart-ache. 
 
 The others looked desolately at each other, search- 
 ing for sympathy, yet afraid, for fear of breaking 
 down, to show it. Then Miss Swatts mechanically 
 tidied up the other unfinished games of " patience," 
 and put the cards carefully away in the drawer in 
 the sideboard. 
 
 " I'm going too," she snappily announced. " Good- 
 night ! " 
 
 " Good-night ! " Miss Flegg murmured. " I think 
 a good night's rest will do me good. I can't stand 
 so much excitement." 
 
 Mrs. Fitzherbart, left alone, glancing at the clock, 
 was dismayed to find that it was just half-past 
 eight. Well, there was nothing left for her, too, 
 but to go to bed. She reached up to turn out the 
 gas. 
 
 " Poor things ! " she murmured. " I don't wonder. 
 Of course it's different with me. I've been married. 
 A widow has always got that consolation. Not by 
 a registry office either ! But Mr. Hugh ! I did 
 think that perhaps Miss Catch might have suited 
 him. We could have had the wedding here. It 
 would have looked so well, and it would have 
 brightened the others up a little. But really there's 
 nothing in Miss Catch. There never is in young
 
 238 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 girls like that. Now a widow, a woman of ex- 
 perience, not so old, either . . ." Mrs. Fitz- 
 herbart did not continue her thoughts aloud. But 
 her eyes brightened as she stood for a moment 
 silent. She came out of her dream suddenly practical 
 again. " That sort of woman ! I'm sure I don't 
 know why the Lord makes that sort at all. It's 
 easy to see how she got Mr. Hugh. Men aren't safe 
 with that sort of hair and that sort of figure men, 
 single or married. Hubert never was " 
 
 She turned out the gas, locked the front door and 
 crept upstairs. 
 
 Going to bed had never been so much a ceremonial 
 at the boarding-house as it was that night. Miss 
 Littledick .had made her hurried exit from the 
 conviction that, however hard she wished them 
 back, the tears would have come in another moment. 
 
 And though they came in the passage, she dried 
 her eyes and repeated to herself, "I've got my 
 children heaps more than she'll ever have." 
 
 The only solace for Miss Swatts' wounded soul 
 was the beneficent thought of the awful shoddy, no 
 matter how cunningly disguised, clothes that the 
 woman wore. But men were blind. Mr. Hugh 
 had never noticed what good stuff Miss Flegg put 
 into her decorous blacks. 
 
 Miss Flegg lay limply in her bed for long hours, 
 thinking of her youth, of the days when she was 
 as young as that woman, and when all the world,
 
 A TEIVIAL TKAGEDY 239 
 
 to her rapturously dawning interest, seemed an 
 apple-tree to which she had only to reach out her 
 hand to pluck from it the ripest fruit. But, looking 
 back, she recognised that she had never reached 
 out. She had waited, modestly, for the fruit to 
 fall into her lap. Eve was wiser. She plucked the 
 apple. And while Miss Flegg had demurely waited, 
 in a mid-Victorian attitude with downcast eyes, she 
 had not noticed that bolder Eves had rifled the 
 beautiful tree. That girl, too, Miss Flegg was sure, 
 had not waited for the fruit to fall. Mr. Hugh 
 would never have known when to fall. A deliberate, 
 clutching hand, attracted by his ripeness, had 
 stretched forth and grabbed him. It did not seem 
 to Miss Flegg, even now, quite maidenly. 
 
 But this is a world, she had found out, which 
 did not help those who did not help themselves. 
 It had taken long, dreary, unfilled years to enlighten 
 her too late. 
 
 In Miss Catch's little room she lay on her bed 
 asking God questions. Why did He make two kinds 
 of women the one that men wanted, and the other 
 kind, the boarding-house kind ? And why did He 
 make Miss Catch the other kind ? And what she 
 turned her reckless little bird's brain on the 
 tremendous problem what was it that made men 
 like one kind and not the other kind ? It wasn't 
 dress, for that was the one question in which she 
 took a supreme interest. It wasn't brightness nor
 
 240 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 ability to talk. Miss Catch could talk to a man 
 all day . Was it prettiness ? Miss Catch, with 
 recollections of her mirror, dismissed that question 
 with derision. It did not occur to her that there 
 might be magic mirrors as well as magic spectacles. 
 Was it figure ? Miss Catch had never seen herself 
 naked she was always too modest for that, even 
 in the privacy behind a locked bedroom door ; but 
 she considered herself as having quite as good a 
 figure as that woman's. Miss Catch was slighter, 
 certainly ; the word " thin " was never allowed to 
 enter her thoughts. And she had honestly con- 
 gratulated herself that her figure was not aggressive. 
 That woman's was. And " curvey." Perhaps that 
 was it. Men demanded curves. Those advertise- 
 ments in the papers that developed busts in a night, 
 there might be something in them, after all. Her 
 last waking thought was that she would certainly 
 look up those advertisements in the morning. It 
 coldly comforted her. 
 
 To you who wear the magic spectacles of 
 matrimony this tragedy of the boarding-house 
 and of many boarding-houses may seem trivial. 
 But the realest tragedies are made up of trivialities. 
 It is true that women are made of two kinds, the 
 ones that are wanted and the others that are left 
 stranded in boarding-houses or as the hard-working, 
 self-sacrificing maiden aunts of many a big family, 
 getting all their fun from the reflection of other's
 
 A TRIVIAL TEAGEDY 241 
 
 fun, feverishly interested in the trivial affairs of 
 the family, fiercely championing the family against 
 the world, and mothering all the babies of the family. 
 
 Men, too, are made of two kinds; but, failing 
 matrimony, a man has his work. And men do not 
 stay where they are put ; they reach out for the 
 things they want; and if they reach out long 
 enough they get the thing or something like it. 
 That satisfies man. And no matter of what sort a 
 man is, he has usually something beside himself to 
 offer. Position, money at the least a possible 
 home. And some women will take him for that, 
 and put up with himself. Of course he will never 
 know. 
 
 Consider this world-wide trivial tragedy. You 
 see a group of girl children, or school-girls, or 
 university girls, or factory girls, or ballroom girls, 
 and as they stand chatting, laughing, happy in the 
 street of life, you can pick out, as plainly as if they 
 were branded, the ones whom men will want to 
 marry, and the ones whom no man will want to 
 marry. There they are, already sorted. 
 
 What is it that sorts them out, brands them? 
 A pretty face, a way of carrying herself, of wearing 
 her clothes, demure eyes, coquetting eyes, quaint 
 eyes, sulky, sleeping lips, laughing lips, pouting lips, 
 a quaint difference in the set of an eyebrow, or the 
 sweep of a chin, the shape of a nose, or the curve 
 
 of a neck ? 
 
 B
 
 242 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 Any of these, and still more subtle differences, 
 such as a brain, a manner, a charm, a tact, a pride, 
 a meekness, a strength, a helplessness. Yet, 
 whatever the brand, it is there to a man. 
 
 Looking ahead you can say that this or that girl 
 will be married, or, it may be, seduced ; and that 
 this other or that, however much she may desire to 
 be married, or seduced, will never achieve her 
 desire. She may be contented, she may live a full 
 and useful life, she may do good or great work for 
 her generation, but she is debarred from doing the 
 one service she was presumably designed for for 
 the next generation. 
 
 It is merely Nature's callous weeding-out process. 
 To get the good mothers is her old, old desire ; 
 and, in her crude, blind profusion, she has to make 
 many a woman in order that the best mothers may 
 be chosen. The others serve a useful purpose in 
 Nature's cruel scheme. They stand as a bleak 
 background against which the fortunate, desired, 
 fully-sexed woman stands out for men to mark. 
 
 The tragedy is not trivial to the trivial woman.
 
 NOTHING HAPPENS 243 
 
 IN WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS 
 
 AND now began the suburbanisation of Hugh. 
 To be married is to become suburban. 
 Hugh's interests, that through his books 
 had been world-wide, suddenly coalesced about a 
 little cottage in a Mosman street. Here, indeed, 
 was his world, and a much more interesting and 
 absorbing world than that on which he had locked 
 the little garden gate. His thoughts centred on 
 this strange new planet that had swum into his 
 ken, and he took up his residence upon it. 
 
 He left it regretfully in the mornings, with a 
 backward glance at Nancy holding the gate and 
 forbearing to close it for she had a sense of 
 shutting him out till, with a final quite undignified 
 wave of the hand, he turned the corner. Then she 
 went in to the loneliness of washing-up the breakfast 
 dishes, and making the beds, and sweeping out 
 rooms that simply wouldn't get dirty, and darning 
 Hugh's dear old socks she gave each hole in them 
 a kiss, and that was why Hugh so often found so
 
 244 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 many of them undarned. But he must have 
 divined the reason, for he never complained. 
 
 Yes, he found out that marriage cages a man, 
 but behind bars of gold. And the cage-bird is 
 happiest in his cage. 
 
 And Hugh, with a parting wild hope that some 
 day there would be a smaller Hugh to wave his 
 baby hand, too, went to his office, and wondered how 
 she was getting along without him, and daily hoped 
 that she would at last take his advice and cook 
 herself a decent lunch instead of the tea and bread 
 and jam taken sitting uncomfortably on the bare 
 kitchen table. 
 
 Woman, left to herself, invariably relapses. The 
 whole elaborate scheme of civilisation, with its 
 fetish of punctuality and its ritual of meals, goes 
 overboard the minute she is left alone in charge. 
 Civilisation is essentially a man-made thing. Woman 
 is much happier, much more comfortable, without 
 it. It may be said, in extenuation, that, discarding 
 the male conception of living, woman has con- 
 structed a little feminine world for herself. It is 
 comprised of dress and at-home days, and is pre- 
 sided over by two implacable gods termed Fashion 
 and Society. But the decalogue of Fashion is 
 presented to her by males certain men-milliners 
 who, for the enrichment of themselves and with the 
 beautiful arrogance of the male, have decided that 
 every month all the civilised women in the world
 
 NOTHING HAPPENS 245 
 
 must discard their outer coverings and buy new 
 ones, slightly different in shape and colour and 
 composition. The more often the dictates of Fashion 
 are promulgated the more profit for the shops. It is 
 an obvious trick, yet, so far, no women in the world 
 except the Hottentots and the Esquimaux have 
 seen through it. So, at the instigation of the 
 cunning Parisian priests of the great god Fashion, 
 all the women of the world are doing an endless 
 quick-change performance. They have got so 
 accustomed to it that they really like it. 
 
 And as for that other god, Society, that, too, is 
 man-made. A woman's place in the hierarchy of 
 Society depends on the means or the position her 
 father or her husband gives her. 
 
 Yet, take away the male, and woman makes her- 
 self supremely happy sitting on the bare kitchen 
 table with a loaf of bread, a pot of tea, and jam. 
 
 It was on the prosaic matter of cooking that Hugh's 
 magic glasses were nearly broken. Nothing but 
 Nancy's cooking could have brought home to Hugh 
 the fact that he was married. Nancy, of course, 
 could not cook. Few modern girls of her class can. 
 In their visions of the future, dresses and a house of 
 their own and, by-and-by, the baby, bulk so largely 
 that there is no room for cutlets. 
 
 Mrs. Pinkstone had picked up an art that she 
 called cooking. It was an art no more advanced 
 since the first cave-woman singed the still warm
 
 246 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 beast at the cave fire. And Nancy had had to work 
 too hard in factories and shops to acquire anything 
 but the rudiments of that palaeolithic art of making 
 things sodden and warm. 
 
 Hugh, with the male's conviction that cooking 
 comes by nature to the female, had engaged a wife 
 under the impression that every wife became by 
 marriage a born cook. But he is not to blame. I 
 doubt if any lover ever asked his girl if she could 
 grill steak, though doubtless many a girl has volun- 
 teered the ancient falsehood. 
 
 Of, course, Nancy diligently tried. She bought a 
 recipe book, and came to Hugh, when dinner was 
 later than usual, with anxious enquiries as to what 
 to do next. Hugh put down his book and studied 
 the text-book of cookery through his glasses. But 
 even these did not help him. He discovered that 
 the art of writing recipes was as palaeolithic as the 
 art of cooking. He spent many an anxious half- 
 hour, waiting dinner, reducing the proportion of one- 
 tablespoon to ounces avoirdupois ; he bought Nancy 
 a pair of scales and a measuring glass, and carefully 
 took the temperature of the gas oven. Nancy 
 heroically tried each new scientific formula, and gave 
 it up. So, sometimes, did Hugh. 
 
 The irony of the situation lay in the fact that on 
 first meeting Hugh she had decided that he did not 
 eat enough. He was too splendidly lean, too beau- 
 tifully spare. And long before she knew she was to
 
 NOTHING HAPPENS 247 
 
 marry him, in her day dreams she had decided that 
 if she ever did marry him she would feed him up. 
 And now his appetite was less than ever. 
 
 Then, a month later, Hugh came home to a good 
 dinner, and Nancy confessed. She had spent her 
 afternoons in secret visits to the cooking classes at 
 the Technical College. And thereupon the spectre 
 of divorce, hovering diligently in the scullery, took 
 itself off to the house next door, where another newly 
 married couple had just settled. The wife had been 
 a typiste. 
 
 It was the garden that finally fixed the brand 
 of suburbanite upon Nancy and Hugh. Hugh's 
 father had been an aggressive gardener, and in the 
 Melbourne home the boy had been early initiated, 
 under paternal compulsion, into the art of weeding 
 paths. He recalled a secret meeting on a Saturday 
 afternoon with a chosen set of conspirators whose 
 fathers were all gardeners, where they all swore a 
 fearful school-boy oath, with excruciating penalties 
 attached, that if ever they had gardens of their own 
 the only living thing that they would grow would 
 be asphalt. 
 
 And now Hugh, the hater of weeding, began to 
 feel the first flush of enthusiasm for tomatoes. Not 
 tomatoes on the table, but tomatoes on the tree. 
 He caught the germ on the Mosman boat. The sole 
 topics of the little groups of men who sat in the stern 
 of the boat smoking their morning pipe were bowls
 
 248 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 and tomatoes. In his bachelor days Hugh had sat 
 with his book before him, shutting out as much as 
 possible of the interminable argument about the 
 standard bowl and the perfect tomato. Now he felt 
 his interest in his book flagging. He listened. He 
 began to see that there were subtleties in bowls and 
 allurements in tomatoes. 
 
 The result was the purchase of half a dozen plants ; 
 and all that Saturday afternoon and Sunday he and 
 Nancy laboured to make a garden. The tomatoes 
 died long before the place was ready for them ; but 
 in time the bare little plot was transformed into the 
 promise of a lawn and the anticipation of a garden 
 border. Across the lawn he laid out a very wriggly 
 path. He never used that path on week days ; he 
 made a bee-line for the gate. But on Sunday 
 mornings he used to like to loiter along its futile 
 meanderings with Nancy on his arm and the proper 
 air of suburban proprietorship. 
 
 When the borders were filled with seedlings and 
 the buffalo grass turf gave signs of untidy growth, 
 Hugh's suburbanisation was complete. On Sunday 
 mornings that secluded street clattered with the 
 noise of innumerable lawn-mowers, and below the 
 hot, tense, metallic shrilling of the cicadas could be 
 heard the cool sibilation of an army of garden hoses. 
 
 And Hugh took his place without a thought of 
 shame in that regiment of shirt-sleeved lawn-cutters, 
 while Nancy joined dutifully in the line of the
 
 NOTHING HAPPENS 249 
 
 wobblers of the garden hose. Their happiness and 
 their tameness were complete. 
 
 But underneath all this surface happiness ran the 
 current of Nancy's secret. The sinister and muddy 
 stream darkened her nai've joy. Her lapses into a 
 vacant-eyed melancholy puzzled and depressed her 
 husband. Man-like he sought for the reason, and, 
 man-like, found it. 
 
 One night, in the little sitting-room, in answer to 
 his shy questionings, she told him. She was going 
 to have a baby. 
 
 That was all. She had meant to tell him the 
 truth, but at the mere mention of the coming child 
 his face had so lit up that, hating herself for her 
 cowardice, she dared not kill his joy. After he had 
 got over the first elation she could tell him. She 
 could not go on deceiving him much longer. 
 
 And, indeed, Hugh was in no state to learn his 
 disillusion. He felt as if he were the creator of a 
 new universe. (Perhaps he was.) He got up from 
 the edge of her chair, on which he had been sitting, 
 seized her and kissed her with a rapture that was 
 really pride. She made him desist with a hurried, 
 "Be careful, dear ! " And in answer to his clumsy 
 surprise, she added, " You must be very gentle with 
 me now." 
 
 He was instantly abashed ; but in words he made 
 up for his forced abstention from caresses. 
 
 It was bound to be a boy, he was sure. And
 
 250 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 what a wonderful boy it would be ! How he had 
 longed for a son, and what a good time he would 
 give his child ! 
 
 Nancy had to listen with a set eagerness on her 
 weary face. She would let him get it over and then 
 tell him. 
 
 He made elaborate calculations of dates, and at 
 once her fear put her on her guard. 
 
 "You never can tell when," she deliberately 
 smiled. " Often they come sooner than they're 
 expected." 
 
 "Not sooner than they're wanted ! " he crowed. 
 
 She could not tell him that night. 
 
 Next morning he set forth to the office with a 
 prancing stride, his polished spectacles perched 
 bravely on his lifted nose. He was a king and 
 could tell nobody of his sovereignty. All that day 
 he was tremendous in his secret arrogance. He 
 felt a fine contempt for the unmarried clerks and 
 the office boy. They were but commoners ; he 
 mentally strutted invested with an invisible purple. 
 
 His pride, utterly unbased as it was, was no more 
 absurd than that of every other father-to-be. They, 
 too, it might be said, wore magic spectacles. The 
 begetting of a child is one of the commonest 
 incidents in this old wearied world as many a 
 much-married woman has cause to regret. Yet 
 perhaps the father-to-be, who has no right to his 
 absurd personal arrogance, is suffused with a pride
 
 NOTHING HAPPENS 251 
 
 not his own. When he is in that exalted state he 
 is not his mere mean, unimportant self, but the 
 race. A bigger thing than he has taken possession 
 of his insignificance; in him the newly-winged spirit 
 of the race exults. His soul vibrates to the hymn 
 of the choir of Life. In him the spirit of the race 
 has won a battle, pregnant with tremendous mean- 
 ings, the augury for an unending triumphal future. 
 The mere man is being used by Life, as the mere 
 soldier is being used by his commander, to carry the 
 standard on. 
 
 The immediate result was that Hugh began to 
 take an interest in babies. He discovered that 
 there was a world of interest in babies. He found 
 out that there was a remarable difference between 
 even small babies, and he felt sure that his baby 
 would be still more different. He understood now 
 a little of the interest Nancy had felt in the baby 
 she had seen when they came to take the cottage. 
 He regretted that he had no very vivid memory of 
 that particular baby. In his masculine ignorance 
 he had put it down as just a baby. 
 
 On the tram and boat he covertly scrutinised 
 babies; and if sometimes they smiled at him it 
 was really at his shining glasses he smiled back 
 with a delight that communicated itself rapturously 
 to the mother. He was surprised to find, too, how 
 many babies there were in the world. His spectacles 
 disclosed to him a world overflowing with babies.
 
 252 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 Certainly, he concluded, the alleged falling-off in 
 the birth-rate was a statistician's fallacy. There 
 was nothing else in the world but babies. 
 
 The talks that he and Nancy had about babies 
 but the unmarried reader may possibly be getting 
 weary. 
 
 Now, vaguely, Hugh began to see through his 
 spectacles a change in Nancy's ways. She had lost 
 the lush splendour of her exuberant health ; she was 
 often strangely silent, sometimes even irritable, 
 once or twice afraid. He found that he had to 
 comfort her, to soothe her, to strengthen her, to 
 devote himself to her in a way unimagined by him 
 before. She clung to him as if to a staff in the 
 dangerous path she had to travel. She would wake 
 in the night with her dream-fears, and sob her 
 fright into his anxious ears, and at last drop off to 
 sleep with the close, safe feel of his arms about her. 
 And sometimes she would wake in the morning and 
 look at him with her confession in her frank eyes, 
 and refrain. He looked so happy. 
 
 Hugh found that he loved her with a strange, 
 new, protecting, infinitely pitying love. He found 
 that love is like a river, for ever changing, for ever 
 broadening. He looked back on it all. First, a 
 sudden welling-up of an unsuspected and hidden 
 spring ; then a narrow, impetuous torrent down 
 precipitous valleys, often tossed and swirled aside 
 by barriers of boulders, tarrying a reflective moment
 
 NOTHING HAPPENS 253 
 
 in a pensive backwater, then, with gathered impetus, 
 hurrying triumphantly on ; then as a growing river 
 through shadows and laced sunlight, swollen here 
 and there with new rivulets from distant valleys 
 that added new colours to his love. And at last a 
 noble, broad-bosomed river, brimming through fat 
 river meadows, leisurely taking its winding course, 
 opening up new vistas of loveliness at every turn, 
 broadening and broadening, darkened by passing 
 shadows and disturbed by transient bubbles, carrying 
 along on its broad stream all the debris and the 
 beauty of the world, seizing all the tributaries that 
 flowed to it no matter how turbulent, no matter 
 how muddy and making them part of its great pur- 
 pose, and taking its contemplative way, its memories 
 of rashness and tumult still surviving in unexpected 
 eddies, reflecting on its turbid surface the clean 
 spaces of heaven, to give itself up without a sigh to 
 the placid immensity of the ocean. 
 
 So on the current of this quiet, wide, passive, 
 confident love that had come to Hugh their life 
 went on and still Nancy had not told. 
 
 But he began to see more of her soul during these 
 uneventful waiting days. Once, on his return 
 earlier than usual, he found a book, with one leaf 
 turned down, lying on the bed. The turning down 
 of a leaf was to Hugh's scholastic soul the un- 
 pardonable sin ; but he lifted glad eyes to the 
 sinner.
 
 254 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " What ? My girl reading this ? " he smiled. 
 
 She shamefacedly admitted it. 
 
 "But this?" It was the very latest and most 
 inscrutable Henry James. " Do you like it ? " 
 
 " Tell me, Hugh, do you understand what it's all 
 about ? " 
 
 She hung on his answer as if destinies were 
 nvolved. 
 
 " Well," he parried, " not all." 
 
 " I'm so glad," she breathed. " I thought I must 
 be dreadfully ignorant. Is it a great book ? " 
 
 " Yes ; it's that. Henry James always is. But 
 you're not the only reader who can't probe all his 
 italicised subtlety and his sublime use of slang. 
 And you've got half-way through it ? " 
 
 " I thought I had better hang on." 
 
 " But what made you read it ? " 
 
 " Because . . . because, Hugh dear, I'm so 
 ignorant, so beneath you." 
 
 " Beneath me?" Hugh gasped. 
 
 " Yes, I am." She hurried it over. " I'm not 
 the wife for you. And and with the baby, I do so 
 want him to be like you, to like good books ; and 
 I'm frightened he won't. So I'm reading them 
 for him." 
 
 " Pretty hard luck to start the kiddie on Henry 
 James." Hugh laughed, with a new tenderness in 
 his eyes. 
 
 " It all began that night you brought that man home
 
 NOTHING HAPPENS 255 
 
 to dinner," she went on, radiant beneath his love- 
 look. " After dinner you talked with him for hours 
 and hours about books. Nothing but books. And 
 I had to sit and sew and pretend I was happy. But 
 I wasn't. I was sulky. I hated you, because when 
 you talked of books you forgot me. I was jealous of 
 that man, horribly jealous. I saw that there was 
 one side of you that I had never even touched. I 
 felt that I had been shut out or, rather, that I had 
 never even knocked at that closed door. I could 
 have torn up every book in that bookcase ; and, in 
 the morning, when you had gone, I went and looked 
 at them, and hated them. I nearly made a wreck 
 of the shelves; but then I thought of the baby, and I 
 took hold of myself for him. And then I took up 
 one of the books, just to see what my rival was 
 really like, and dipped into it." 
 
 "What was it?" 
 
 " ' Diana of the Crossways,' and the first chapter ! 
 I struggled through it, but I didn't understand it a 
 bit." 
 
 " Poor child," he smiled. " So you didn't read 
 on?" 
 
 " Not till I'd read that first chapter through 
 three times and even then I wasn't sure that the 
 man who wrote it knew what he was writing about. 
 But the story was fine. I loved the quiet man. I 
 thought he was so like you." 
 
 "I thought you liked something more romantic."
 
 256 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " So I do, dear. But I went on. I started at the 
 beginning of the top shelf, and I've read two and a 
 half shelves." 
 
 He had to reward her for that. 
 
 Then he smiled. " Lucky that you didn't start 
 on the economics shelf." 
 
 " Oh, I'll get there in time. So now that you 
 know, dearest, you must talk to me of books and 
 books and books. The boy is going to be so fond of 
 books." 
 
 So began a new mutual interest; and Hugh found 
 in her a new aptness of inquiry, a quick appreciation 
 that perhaps surprised him. She was so quick at 
 anticipating him. She had studied him so intently 
 that gradually she had got to feel in some matters 
 more intensely than he. 
 
 One day she surprised him by suggesting that 
 the lurid friezes that clamoured from their walls 
 were not absolutely necessary to home comfort. 
 She persuaded him to get the emphatic wall-paper 
 covered with an unpatterned paper of quieter hue, 
 and went with him to choose it. At the paper- 
 hangers she invariably made her choice a second 
 before Hugh did and in every case her choice lit 
 on the very paper that he wanted. He did not 
 notice that in every case her eyes were watching 
 his face, not the paper. The interest in his eyes 
 told her which to choose. He was surprised and 
 delighted, and charmingly fooled. But perhaps his
 
 NOTHING HAPPENS 257 
 
 taste was slowly undermining hers. By choosing 
 what he liked she gradually got to like it. He 
 noted, for instance, that her preference for the 
 gaudy, so strikingly displayed in her dress, had 
 grown much subdued. She said to him in excuse 
 that now that she was married, and going out so 
 seldom, she must dress more quietly. And there 
 was another reason that she did not need to tell 
 him. 
 
 The home, too, was gradually taking on a quieter 
 tone. The fiery brass bedstead gave way to a 
 straight, unpainted wooden one ; the spindly chairs 
 disappeared and were replaced by something more 
 simple and solid. Even the imitation marble 
 mantelpieces nice wood smeared with ragged 
 threads of gaudy colours by a painstaking artist 
 who, it seems inconceivable, made a living out of 
 this debauchery even these were calmed down 
 beneath a coat of dull green paint. 
 
 And when Hugh vaguely noted this new restful- 
 ness of his rooms Nancy always said, " It's for the 
 little chap. I do so want him to like the things 
 you like."
 
 258 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 CHAPTEK XXI 
 
 IN WHICH THE DOCTOR IS CALLED 
 
 IN those months Hugh felt drawn ever and ever 
 closer to Nancy. They took to counting the 
 months, and Nancy let him go on counting 
 wrongly. Sometimes, almost sure of his love for 
 her, almost sure that it would survive the shock of 
 her disclosure, she made up her mind to tell him. 
 But then always came the thought of her child. He 
 might forgive her, she might make him forgive her, 
 but could he forgive the child ? In her mother-love 
 she even feared he might kill the baby. And then, 
 when she had conquered this obsession, Hugh 
 would say something to show that she could not 
 tell yet. 
 
 " Our child ! " he would say over and over. "How 
 it will bind us together ! Fancy me with a child ! " 
 
 " And me ! " she would bravely laugh. 
 
 " Oh, you! " he would say in his husband manner. 
 " It's mine ! " 
 
 Then she made one of those intimate little 
 married jokes that can never be repeated outside 
 the bedroom.
 
 THE DOCTOB IS CALLED 259 
 
 "I'll be dreadfully disappointed if he hasn't brown 
 eyes like mine," he would say. 
 
 " Why not like mine, yellow ? " 
 
 "Amber! Amber and honey and gold! No, 
 they're too wonderful to waste on a boy ; but if it's 
 a girl oh, she must have your eyes. But it couldn't 
 be a girl, could it ? " 
 
 She agreed with him that it could not. She 
 prayed in her heart bitterly that it would not be. 
 A girl like her! Deceptive and weak and false! 
 To grow up and marry a good man, and have him 
 idolise her, and put her on a distant pedestal, and 
 make no allowances ! 
 
 "But perhaps he won't be a bit like you at all," 
 she urged. "I've heard of cases where they were 
 not a bit like either father or mother. Why, I 
 read in that big blue book about guinea-pigs " 
 
 "Mendelisrn?" he smiled. "So the little woman 
 has been studying Mendel and heredity ! He is to 
 be such a learned little chap. We'll make him a 
 Khodes scholar." 
 
 She saw it was hopeless. But some day soon 
 she must tell. 
 
 The news had flown through the street. Wire- 
 less messages were passed from front garden to 
 front garden that Mrs. Robjohn " expected " in 
 December. And the neighbours came to call and 
 to inspect the silly little garments she was so 
 happily busy making.
 
 260 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 With that disregard for distance or ostensible 
 means of communication characteristic in these 
 feminine disturbances the message reached Hugh's 
 old boarding-house. Mrs. Fitzherbart came to 
 call. 
 
 When that huge lady got back to her flock of 
 ewe-lambs she found them assembled, waiting with 
 breathless interest for the report. 
 
 "She 'expects' in two months," she announced. 
 
 Every woman did a feat of marvellous mental 
 arithmetic. They reached the answer simultaneously. 
 
 " Just nine months ! " 
 
 Then followed a musing pause, with many 
 thoughts unspoken. 
 
 A thunderbolt fell. It was Mrs. Fitzherbart's 
 portentous, "But . . ." She gave them the 
 dramatic suspense of her grim pause. " But, from 
 her condition, I should say in fact, from my ex- 
 perience as a married woman, I'm sure of it the 
 baby will be here much sooner ! " 
 
 " You mean ! " Miss Swatts gasped, horror- 
 stricken. 
 
 Mrs. Fitzherbart nodded grimly. The verdict had 
 been given. 
 
 " I should say that it's more like two weeks than 
 two months," she added. 
 
 " The cat! " Miss Flegg almost screamed. 
 
 " She made him marry her," Miss Catch piteously 
 whispered. " Oh, if I'd only known !" Her
 
 THE DOCTOE IS CALLED 261 
 
 inert soul flamed up into revolt. " So that's how 
 she got him ! If I'd only " 
 
 But she did not finish it was too terrible a 
 thought. But into her maiden mind the rude, 
 tempestuous thought had come. She shuddered at 
 this revelation of the depravity of woman and 
 herself. 
 
 " Our poor Mr. Hugh," sighed Miss Littledick. 
 And then, with a larger thought, "Poor things, 
 both of them." 
 
 " Why, why didn't we look after him better ? " 
 Miss Swatts wailed. " If we'd only been kinder 
 to him, kept him at home in the evenings, he'd 
 never have gone after other women." 
 
 " If you're meaning, Miss Swatts" Mrs. Fitzher- 
 bart haughtily swelled her already ample chest 
 " that I've not made my house a home for a single 
 man, then you're saying what isn't true, Miss Swatts. 
 I'm sure I've done my best. I've been a mother 
 to him, that I have, Miss Swatts, and you know it." 
 
 It took Miss Swatts and the combined efforts of 
 the others quite a time to reduce that offended 
 chest to its proper proportions. 
 
 " It's a dreadful thing to happen to a man," Miss 
 Swatts resumed. " The things a woman no, we 
 can't call her a woman the things a creature will 
 do nowadays to get a man. I'm glad that in my 
 days " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," Miss Catch said hopelessly.
 
 262 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " I think now that if there was a man I wanted I'd 
 do the same." 
 
 The others stared incredulously at the snake in 
 their garden. The snake looked at that moment 
 like a worm, with the conviction that it was quite 
 time to turn, if she only knew the right way to do 
 it. The others decided that the poor thing did not 
 know what she was saying. A pitying look passed 
 between the others, a look which said, " There ! I 
 knew she loved him all the time ! " 
 
 " Only," Miss Catch lamely concluded, " I know 
 I'd never. I haven't the pluck." 
 
 " Well" Miss Flegg absolved her and returned 
 to the main question " the thing's done now. 
 She's got him. That's all." 
 
 " No " Miss Littledick raised her thin, metallic 
 voice " it's not all. The great thing is that they 
 are safely married. We ought to be glad, for Mr. 
 Hugh's sake for both of their sakes that nobody'll 
 know." 
 
 "Oh, won't they?" said Mrs. Fitzherbart. 
 " People will talk." By " people " she meant 
 herself. 
 
 " I've known cases when the baby came as early 
 as that." 
 
 "Yes," Mrs. Fit/herbart countered; "and I've 
 known cases when what they called a seven-months' 
 baby looked like a nine-months' child." 
 
 " Of course we can't help people talking," Miss
 
 THE DOCTOR IS CALLED 263 
 
 Littledick returned to the charge. She spoke 
 pointedly, for she distrusted the landlady. " But 
 this wasn't a church marriage. It wasn't in the 
 marriage notices. We're the only people who really 
 know. Nobody else would be able to find it out 
 even if they suspect, which they've no reason to, 
 And," she appealed to the others with a confidence 
 she did not feel, " we won't let on." 
 
 " No no," Miss Swatts said doubtfully. 
 
 " It wouldn't be fair, it wouldn't be nice, to our 
 Mr. Hugh," the little school-teacher earnestly 
 urged. 
 
 " But why should he protect her ? " said Miss 
 Flegg vindictively. 
 
 " Because she's his wife." 
 
 "But that's just what we can't ever forgive," 
 Miss Catch wailed, coming out of her awed con- 
 templation of her bird-soul in revolt. 
 
 " We've got to now that she's Mrs. Robjohn," 
 Miss Littledick said pertinaciously. " It's for him, 
 Mr. Hugh, I'm pleading.", 
 
 "Pity you didn't marry him yourself," Mrs. 
 Fitzherbart, seeing her occupation gone, savagely 
 snapped. 
 
 " I never tried to," Miss Littledick said simply. 
 " He never looked at me." Then fiercely, " And 
 I never tried to make him, which is more than I can 
 say for some people with their new blouses." 
 
 " Meaning me ? " snarled Miss Catch.
 
 264 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 Miss Littledick pulled up. "No, dear," she said, 
 leaning across the table and kissing the fuming 
 little wisp of resentment that looked like an angry 
 rabbit, " if I had a figure I'd only be too glad to 
 think of dressing it smartly ; but I'm like a clothes- 
 prop." 
 
 Miss Catch was mollified. She really found it 
 difficult to get angry with anyone ; and Miss Little- 
 dick was so useful in buttoning up the backs of those 
 wonderful blouses. 
 
 Miss Littledick looked round the big table. " So 
 we've all decided, for the sake of Mr. Hugh, that we 
 won't say a word ? " she made her final appeal. 
 
 " Of course, of course," the others capitulated. 
 
 Miss Littledick drew a long breath. " Then," 
 she summed it up, " I'll have to get those pilchers 
 finished at once." 
 
 " Yes ; and I haven't got that baby's bonnet half- 
 embroidered," said Miss Catch. 
 
 Miss Swatts chimed in. " There's that petticoat 
 only just started. I'll get on with it this evening. 
 I do hope it's a boy." 
 
 " Like Mr. Hugh," Miss Catch manfully smiled. 
 " It's a boy's bonnet I'm making, anyway." 
 
 Apparently the difference of sex is to be seen in a 
 new-born baby's bonnet. 
 
 " That settles it," Mrs. Fitzherbart smiled. " And 
 the poor thing will need a lot of advice. I'll run 
 over in the morning."
 
 THE DOCTOR IS CALLED 
 
 Henceforth the boarding-house had a tangible 
 peg upon which to hang their interminable pre- 
 occupations about babies. They were really going 
 to have one themselves ! 
 
 There was probably more joy in the boarding- 
 house than in the cottage. Hugh, finding Nancy 
 sometimes in tears, and often catching an appealing 
 look in her eyes such as that of a child when it 
 does not know why it is punished, began to be 
 affected with Nancy's fears. He could not bear to 
 leave her long ; and his attendance at the office was 
 shortened in a way that more than once brought 
 down upon him the disapproval of his superiors. 
 
 One day, despite the warning he had received the 
 previous day, he decided to go home by the four 
 o'clock boat. That morning, as he kissed Nancy 
 good-bye, he had seen the tears welling in her eyes. 
 But he had had to run for the boat. 
 
 It happened that that afternoon chance brought 
 Bill back into Nancy's life. But the Bill of this 
 period was a much deteriorated Bill. After the 
 rejection of Nancy's offer he had made the mistake 
 of getting sorry for himself, with alcoholic assist- 
 ance. He was arrested in a maudlin state ; but 
 when he faced the magistrate in the morning he 
 learned that, in his sorrow for himself, he had 
 blacked a policeman's eye, and what in the eyes 
 of the magistrate was a much more terrible offence 
 had torn the sacred uniform of the law, damaging
 
 266 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 it to the extent of 3s. 4d. The ultimate consequence 
 of this undesirable fame was that Bill lost his job. 
 Then, finding that jobs for a youth trained only to 
 add up accounts and take charge of the petty cash 
 are not easy to get, he decided that it was nobler 
 to stay at home and live on his mother. In short, 
 Bill, not having the fibre of a man in him, and 
 thrown out of his stride, had gradually drifted to the 
 level of the intermittent loafer. 
 
 Under his mother's nagging, emphasised at last 
 by her refusal to let him have money for his daily 
 alcohol, he tried his hand at odd jobs. He found 
 that posing as a gardener not only brought in the 
 small amount of money necessary to slake his 
 thirst, but occasionally provided him with a good 
 dinner. He was, of course, without any knowledge 
 of gardening ; but he found that any suburban wife 
 would usually take an incompetent man for a day's 
 work as long as he was cheap. 
 
 Bill was returning from a half-day's work (with 
 dinner) when he decided to prospect the street in 
 which Hugh lived. Its newness promised the sort 
 of employer he desired the young wife who could 
 be prompted by the prospect of a renovated front 
 garden for the new husband on his return home- 
 Bill had found that older wives had not that ambi- 
 tion. Luckily he was never present when the new 
 husband returned. 
 
 Bill explored the front gardens carefully as he
 
 THE DOCTOB IS CALLED 267 
 
 passed, with a cautious scrutiny of any woman he 
 saw on the verandahs. So much depended on the 
 type of employer. 
 
 It was thus that he scrutinised Nancy. Her hair 
 first attracted his attention, and then he recognised 
 her. She was sitting on the little verandah, gazing 
 vacantly out on the street. 
 
 Fortified by the drinks he had had on his way, 
 he opened the gate and approached her. A great 
 scheme had sprung complete in his excited brain. 
 
 " So it's you, Nancy ! " he said with a cunning 
 smile. " So snug in this little cottage ! " 
 
 " You, Bill ! " she cried, with an effort putting 
 sight into her blank eyes. 
 
 ' r Yes, me. So you're married all right, eh?" 
 His coarse eyes swept her figure, and she flushed. 
 " And going to have a baby ! " 
 
 " Yes," she said hurriedly, disgusted. 
 
 He flamed at her contemptuous look. 
 
 " Whose baby?" He leaned to her. 
 
 " Mine ! " she cried, rising in her defence. 
 
 " And mine ! " He came nearer. " And I sup- 
 pose your toff husband don't know?" 
 
 She lost her control. " Bill," she appealed, " you 
 wouldn't ?" 
 
 " Oh, wouldn't I ? " he sneered, satisfied at the 
 easy way it had turned out. Then his self-pity 
 swept him. He contrasted himself, an honest, 
 decent chap thrown out of work, with her, a bad
 
 268 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 woman, living in luxury. " Here am I, chucked out 
 of my job through no fault of mine, and starving ! " 
 
 " Oh, Bill," she said, a flood of old memories 
 sweeping her," I'm sorry. " I could get you a meal 
 and some money." 
 
 " That's it," he said, his face clearing. " You're 
 quick enough, Nancy always were. You've got to 
 keep me now. How much money have you got ? " 
 
 " Me ? Only a few shillings." 
 
 " I'll take it to go on with. But," he thrust 
 his face in hers, " it'll have to be more than that if 
 I'm going to keep my mouth shut, see? " 
 
 "But it's all I've got." 
 
 " You'll have to get it from the toff you fooled. I 
 want let me see I want a pound a week 
 regular." 
 
 " Bill ! " Her horror-stricken eyes stared at him, 
 and suddenly her hand went convulsively to her 
 heart, and her face twitched. " You " she gasped 
 for breath " you couldn't do that ! " 
 
 " Couldn't I ? If you don't promise to have it for 
 me by Monday, I'll wait here till your bloke comes, 
 and tell him." 
 
 " And if I promise you the money ? " 
 
 " I'll not say a word. He can think the kid's his 
 and he's welcome to it." 
 
 Her hand went again to her heart, and with the 
 other she steadied herself against the wall. 
 
 "No," she cried, "I'll not do it! Tell him I
 
 THE DOCTOR IS CALLED 269 
 
 want you to tell him. I'm sick of it all; and he's 
 
 so good. I'm sick . . . sick " 
 
 She sank against the door-post. " I'm ill ! " 
 
 " Not much ! " said Bill brutally. " You don't 
 get out of it like that. I'll have all the cash you've 
 got in the house first, anyway." 
 
 He pushed her aside, but she struggled with him, 
 preventing him entering the open door. But she 
 knew that it was useless. Yet she fought, with 
 some vague intention of preserving her little home 
 from the contamination of Bill's presence. 
 
 The little gate clicked, and Hugh came striding 
 across the grass plot. He picked up the intruder 
 and hurled him off the verandah. 
 
 Then he held Nancy close in his arms, and 
 watched the man pick himself up and limp to the 
 street. He felt Nancy tremble all through her 
 body. 
 
 " What is it, Nance ? " he cried in agony. 
 "What's that drunk doing here '^ It's that chap 
 Bill, isn't it ? Has he hurt you ? " 
 
 She looked up to her husband, a strange frightened 
 look in her wide eyes. 
 
 " Hugh ! " she whispered tersely. " Ring up for 
 the doctor and the nurse at once ! "
 
 270 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 CHAPTEB XXII 
 IN WHICH HUGH'S GLASSES ARE MERCIFUL 
 
 THE bustling little nurse took charge the 
 moment she arrived. 
 "Didn't expect it so soon," she said 
 cheerfully, as she came from the bedroom. " But 
 she's going on nicely." 
 
 " She's had a shock a drunken man tried to get 
 into the house, I think," Hugh explained. 
 
 The nurse looked at him quietly, and Hugh was 
 vaguely annoyed at what looked like disbelief in her 
 honest eyes. She seemed about to say something, 
 but all she said was, 
 
 " Ring up the doctor, and tell him there's no 
 immediate hurry. Tell him to be here in a couple 
 of hours' time." 
 
 " Hadn't he better come at once ? " he asked 
 anxiously. "I'd feel safer." 
 
 " Every husband says that." The youthful nurse 
 smiled from the depths of her vast experience. 
 " But the doctor will be mad if you get him too 
 soon." 
 
 On his return from the house with the telephone
 
 HUGH'S GLASSES AKE MERCIFUL 271 
 
 next door Hugh was prevented by the nurse from 
 entering the bedroom. He fiercely resented being 
 sent away. The nurse's infantile smile was 
 adamantine. 
 
 Hugh paced the next room, trying to shut his 
 ears to the horror that he felt sure was being 
 enacted in the bedroom. His last sight of Nancy 
 had shaken him. In her agony she had pushed 
 him away from her. He had said, " Don't you 
 want me to hold you, dearest ? " and she had shut 
 her lips and flung him off. 
 
 And now her groans shook him terribly. He felt 
 helpless, useless, and callously to blame. It was a 
 terrible business, this bringing a child into the 
 world. If he had only known ! He could not 
 stand her cries. He left the house and paced up 
 and down the street, passing and repassing the lit 
 cottage, afraid to go in, and yet terrified to go out 
 of sight of the gate. 
 
 The doctor came at last, and after what seemed 
 to Hugh an hour of suspense, the doctor came from 
 the bedroom. 
 
 " Everything's going fine," the doctor said cheer- 
 fully, yet with a weary look in his eyes. " This 
 makes the third case of this kind I've had to-night. 
 It won't be for some hours yet." 
 
 And even as he was seating himself heavily in 
 the sitting-room the nurse cried " Doctor ! " down 
 the passage. The doctor lumbered hastily out of
 
 272 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 the room. Hugh had noted his white face as he fled. 
 And there was a note of fear in the nurse's call. 
 
 It seemed an eternity before the doctor returned. 
 His words were curt. 
 
 " There's a complication a serious one. You 
 must telephone another doctor at once." 
 
 He gave Hugh three telephone numbers, and 
 rushed back to the bedroom. 
 
 Hugh, with a cold fear in his heart, remembered 
 saying to himself, " You must pull yourself to- 
 gether!" as he ran to the telephone. He got the 
 first doctor on the list and rushed back. 
 
 " He'll be here in ten minutes." 
 
 "H'm. That'll do. It's serious. . . ." And 
 he was gone to the kitchen for his instruments, 
 already being sterilised in boiling water. 
 
 Hugh hovered, a prey to terror. And then again 
 he told himself to take hold of himself. He mustn't 
 break down. He deliberately sat down and strove 
 to think. The only thing he could do was to go 
 outside and wait for the other doctor. He might 
 not know the house. 
 
 Out in the cool air thought came back to him. 
 
 " If Nancy dies ! " he muttered, and stared aghast. 
 It was the end of the world for him. He looked 
 down the deserted street, with its one futile lamp 
 challenging the darkness. And then he saw the 
 steady, aloof, hostile stars. " You devils ! " he cried. 
 " What do you care ? "
 
 HUGH'S GLASSES AEE MEECIFUL 273 
 
 The thought of prayer came into his tormented 
 mind. But he did not know what or whom to pray 
 to. And then the serene, mindless reproof of those 
 distant onlookers steadied him. It did not matter 
 to them. They went on with their work, careless 
 of results, content with their work. Well, he too 
 must go on. -Life was like that. He must not 
 give way. That was foolish and human. He must 
 stiffen himself against every blow. Yet his weak, 
 tormented heart cried out for something upon 
 which he could cast his wearied burden. And then 
 the thought of his dead mother rose up. He became 
 a child again. Now he felt, as never before, the 
 clamant need of her close comfort. But she was 
 dead and Nancy would die too. 
 
 The soul of the man, inconquerable, rose in him. 
 He would not give in. He might be called on 
 any moment to do some task. He must pull him- 
 self together. In his mind he saw the black box 
 coming clumsily out of the gate. It would never 
 get through . . . the gate was too narrow. 
 
 The doctor's motor snorted up to him, and Hugh, 
 glad to feel that he was of the slightest use, led the 
 way inside. 
 
 He waited in the passage, striving not to hear the 
 murmur of quick question and answer inside. 
 
 The other doctor came out. " We must start at 
 once. It's the only chance," he said on his way to 
 the kitchen. 
 
 T
 
 274 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 " Will she ... get over it, doctor ? " Hugh 
 flung at his back. 
 
 " There's a good chance, but I can't say about 
 the child. If it's a case of her or the child, of 
 course ? " 
 
 " Save Nancy only save Nancy ! Don't worry 
 about the child ! " 
 
 The doctor nodded, and swiftly re-entered the 
 bedroom. 
 
 Hugh had so wanted a child, and now he was 
 surprised to find how little the child, the sole topic 
 of their lives for months past, mattered. The child 
 or Nancy ? He laughed hysterically at the doctor 
 even suggesting any other alternative. As if there 
 could be a choice ! 
 
 It was soon afterwards that Hugh looked up and 
 found the second doctor bending over him in the 
 sitting-room. 
 
 " She's getting on very nicely," he announced. 
 
 Hugh leapt to his feet. " You're sure, doctor 
 you're sure ? " 
 
 " Yes ; she's unconscious yet ; but everything is 
 all right as far as we can see at present." 
 
 In his relief Hugh sank back trembling. He 
 found that physically he was unable to stand. He 
 wondered why the doctor did not go. And then a 
 thought came. He had not heard the child cry. 
 
 The doctor saw the thought in Hugh's eyes. 
 
 " The child . . ." ho began.
 
 HUGH'S GLASSES ABB MEECIFUL 275 
 
 Hugh knew. " That doesn't matter," he said. 
 
 " It was one or the other," the doctor said, and 
 hurried back to the sick-room. 
 
 After the doctors had gone, towards morning, the 
 nurse told Hugh that he could see his wife. The 
 room was strangely white and dreadfully tidy, 
 like the altar of a cathedral, and she that white, 
 unconscious figure in the white bed that was 
 Nancy, his wife. He leant over her reverently and 
 whispered her name. And she, in her drowse, 
 turned her face towards his, with pursed lips, for 
 his kiss. Her mouth was sickly odorous with 
 chloroform, and her frail hand feebly groped at the 
 sheets. She was feeling for the warmth of her 
 babe. 
 
 The nurse went silently to a sheeted corner of 
 the room and brought a tiny burden. She gently 
 uncovered a corner of it, and Hugh saw through his 
 glasses the face of his child. They were merciful 
 glasses that night. 
 
 " It's a boy," the nurse whispered, with a break 
 in her voice. " A beautiful boy. The pity of it, 
 the darling ! " She kissed the tiny, cold face. 
 
 A boy ! Hugh had never thought to ask. And 
 his ! His glasses traced a resemblance to an early 
 photograph of himself. 
 
 The nurse took her little dead burden away, and 
 gently ordered Hugh out of the room. 
 
 In the dawui he was allowed in again. In the
 
 276 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 grey light he saw Nancy sleeping quietly, and 
 another head a tiny head, beside her. Nancy's 
 unconscious hand was touching it gently, caressing 
 it with little yearning kisses of her fingers. Hugh 
 almost thought he saw it stir. It did stir ! He 
 turned quickly to the nurse, but she, with a sharp 
 look, shook her head. Hugh looked long at the 
 babe, and acquiesced. 
 
 " She was so restless that I had to bring it to 
 her," the nurse whispered. " It seemed to quieten 
 her at once." 
 
 "I would like her to see it before " 
 
 " No," said the nurse. " Better tell her it's all 
 right, but that the doctor won't let her see it till 
 she's stronger." 
 
 "It will kill her Nance! " said Hugh, the tears 
 in his eyes. 
 
 And then Nancy waked, and looked up at Hugh, 
 smiling vacantly. He bent and kissed her. 
 
 She remembered. " The baby ? " she asked. 
 
 The nurse had swiftly covered up the little head. 
 
 " It's a boy," said Hugh. 
 
 " I'm so glad," Nancy said, and instantly was 
 asleep again. 
 
 The nurse quickly took the child away. 
 
 An hour later Nancy waked again. " I want to 
 see my boy," she asked. 
 
 " You can't just yet," Hugh said. " You're too 
 weak."
 
 HUGH'S GLASSES AEE MEECIFUL 277 
 
 A sudden suspicion froze her eyes. " I can't 
 hear it crying," she whispered. " Is it . . . ? 
 It's dead ! I know it's dead. I felt it cold beside 
 me. It's dead ! " 
 
 Hugh could not deceive her. " Yes," he said, 
 and shrank from the horror he seemed to see in her 
 eyes. 
 
 But, instead, an incredible relief flowed into them. 
 She sought his eyes, and " Oh, Hugh, how hard it 
 must be for you ! " she whispered. 
 
 He saw in her gaze only her pitying comfort for 
 him, and was humbled at so great a love that, 
 putting aside her mother-yearnings, had thought 
 only for his hurt. 
 
 " Could I ? " she said at last ; and the nurse 
 brought the little child. 
 
 Nancy looked at its wee face long, searching, 
 searching. 
 
 " Isn't it like me ? " said Hugh pitifully. 
 
 Nancy said slowly, " I knew it would be ; " and 
 then the nurse saw the look in Nancy's eyes for 
 which she had waited, it seemed to her, so long. 
 The nurse gave the child to its mother, and led 
 Hugh away. 
 
 That mother-love, so late awakened, so swiftly 
 killed, so passionate, so useless, was not for other 
 eyes to see. 
 
 At breakfast time the doctor came again, made 
 his examination, and told Hugh that, though not
 
 278 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 out of danger, his wife had every chance of 
 recovery. 
 
 " If only she gets over it," said Hugh, " she must 
 never go through anything like this again." 
 
 The doctor smiled. " Oh, you needn't fear. 
 This sort of thing never recurs. It's only at the 
 first." 
 
 " No, no ; we must never have a child now." 
 
 " By-and-by," the doctor smiled reassuringly 
 from the depths of his larger knowledge of life.
 
 HUGH SEES CLEAE 279 
 
 CHAPTEK XXIII 
 
 IN WHICH HUGH SEES CLEAE 
 
 DUEING the long days of Nancy's slow 
 convalescence Hugh was much with his 
 wife. For she did not get well quickly. 
 The wise young nurse explained it in many ways, 
 all except the true one that her body needed the 
 dead child. But husband and wife found that their 
 loss drew them together in a way that, it seemed to 
 them in their ignorance, no living baby would have 
 done. Each felt that in the other was all that was 
 left of a wrecked world. And the perilous nearness 
 of the destruction of their world left them infinitely 
 grateful. 
 
 The boarding-house people came to call the first 
 day Nancy was allowed to receive visitors. And 
 the new Nancy smiled to herself at the way she 
 had misinterpreted Miss Swatts, Miss Flegg, Miss 
 Littledick, Miss Catch, and Mrs. Fitzherbart. 
 These dear women cats ? Why, they were all 
 sympathy, all kindliness. For they saw in Nancy 
 not the woman who, by the grossest treachery to
 
 280 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 their sex, had stolen Mr. Hugh from them, but 
 only a woman like themselves, defrauded like them- 
 selves of their priceless heritage, cruelly bereft of 
 their child. The loss of her baby put them all on 
 the same plane. They were all women. God was 
 unfair, but His unfairness was not kept for one sort 
 of woman only. They had all the sympathy of a 
 common loss: in the shock of the great calamity 
 they were sisters. 
 
 And when Nancy told Miss Littledick that the 
 doctor had said that by-and-by she need not have 
 any fear about having another child, that thin little 
 acrid woman leant over the bed and kissed Nancy. 
 It was the first time in her life, since her childhood, 
 that she had kissed anybody except children. 
 
 And off she trotted to tell her great news to the 
 jubilant and excited boarding-house. And they all 
 went up to their rooms and took out the little un- 
 finished garments, and rejoiced that some day they 
 would be of use. 
 
 And slowly Nancy grew well, and they could 
 venture to talk of the child. But one Sunday 
 morning Hugh found Nancy fingering the little 
 white clothes she had lingered so long over making. 
 
 "I was just looking them over before I burnt 
 them," she said bravely. 
 
 Hugh smiled triumphantly in her face. " You 
 silly ! Burn them after all the lovely hours you've 
 spent over them ? Put them away carefully. You
 
 HUGH SEES CLEAE 281 
 
 never know. Somebody else might have a baby, 
 and they'd come in useful. Or " 
 
 His look told her. 
 
 It was about this time that Hugh began to be 
 dissatisfied with his spectacles. They seemed to 
 tire his eyes, or perhaps it was that he had over- 
 strained his vision in reading to Nancy at night. 
 Whatever the cause, there was no doubt that some- 
 times a slight blur, strangely reminiscent of the old 
 days, came over his field of vision. Slight head- 
 aches made their presence known. Puzzled and 
 depressed, he decided to see the specialist again. 
 
 "Yes," said the specialist, "your eyes are all 
 right, but you're badly run down in health. The 
 whole system is out of gear. Been overworking, 
 or had a shock?" 
 
 Hugh told him of Nancy's illness. The specialist 
 nodded. 
 
 " The glasses are all right, but you're run down ; 
 and the eyes are naturally the first to show symp- 
 toms. The eyes want a rest. You must go away 
 for a month to the country, and leave your books 
 behind." 
 
 Hugh refused. 
 
 " Then I'll have to give you a change of spectacles 
 for a few months and a tonic. That'll put you 
 right ; and then, say, in three months' time, you 
 could take to your old spectacles again. Let me 
 look at them again."
 
 282 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 He examined the magic glasses. 
 
 " Curious ! They seem different. They glitter 
 so." 
 
 He tried them on his little nose. 
 
 " Curious ! " he muttered again. " I seem to see 
 better with these than with my own. Yet my 
 astigmatism is quite different to yours. There's a 
 clarity, a brightness about things I might almost 
 say a rosiness that I've certainly not noticed be- 
 fore. I feel brighter, happier, more in touch with 
 the world. And they suit my vision just as well 
 no, better than my own spectacles." 
 
 He paused, puzzled; then his professional 
 equipment came to his rescue. He sought and 
 found the reason for this strange rosiness of out- 
 look. 
 
 " Ah, I tried a fruit breakfast this morning. No 
 meat ! That explains it. Wonderful ! I'll write 
 a thesis on fruit breakfasts in their relation to 
 astigmatism for the medical society." 
 
 He handed the magic glasses back, satisfied ; but, 
 as he replaced his own glasses on his neat nose, a 
 sense of disquiet came into his eyes. 
 
 " I'm not so sure that fruit breakfasts are quite 
 satisfying enough. I don't feel so so rosy. Yet 
 certainly there must be something in giving up 
 meat." 
 
 And when the specialist went home that evening, 
 there must have been some of that rosiness yet
 
 HUGH SEES CLEAK 283 
 
 about him. He looked at his wife he had been 
 married fourteen years and saw her beautiful. 
 
 Hugh went to the magic optician's shop and 
 was delighted to find that it was still there. 
 
 He descended the three obscure steps and found 
 the little optician the wonderful optician who 
 made a living by manufacturing a rosy aspect of 
 things. 
 
 It did not take the magician long to provide the 
 new glasses. He had them in stock. Hugh, ex- 
 pecting new revelations, eagerly put them on. 
 
 Yes, he could see more clearly. The fine little 
 lines at the edge of the optician's eyes seemed as if 
 etched on his round face ; and his bent, bald head, 
 lit by an overhead electric light, shone like a planet 
 seen through a telescope. Everything started out 
 sharply from its background. The shop looked like 
 a scene-painting on the stage or, rather, like an 
 excellent stereoscopic view. 
 
 He could see quite clearly. In fact, as the hard 
 reality of Hugh's new vision was bitten into him, 
 the chill thought dismayed him that he could see 
 too clearly. He had so long been accustomed to his 
 magic glasses that this brilliant crudeness of un- 
 blinking reality hurt him. Even the magician of 
 the spectacles turned out to be an insignificant, 
 commonplace shopkeeper. There was not a 
 suggestion of a gnome about him. What had 
 happened ?
 
 284 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 He paid the optician, and saw a greedy look in 
 the shopman's eye as he picked up the gold, dubi- 
 ously clinked it on the counter, and swept it into the 
 till. 
 
 Up the three dizzy steps into the prosaic street 
 Hugh went sadly. Faces went past him hard, 
 cruel, business faces. He looked in vain for the 
 hidden romance that lurked behind their eyes. The 
 street was hard, matter-of-fact. It was merely a 
 line of shops and offices where spiders lurked for 
 wary, disillusioned flies. The telegraph wires were 
 the spiders' webs. He met a policeman. That 
 policeman was but a policeman. It was a staggering 
 blow. 
 
 He made his way to the quay. It was filled with 
 rudely hurrying men and women, rushing for boats, 
 the men feverishly buying papers, the women 
 burdened with parcels. He saw not one girl that 
 he could call pretty. The bloom of womanhood 
 was lost in the undignified haste, the preoccupation 
 with squalid affairs. 
 
 The ferry-boat was no bouquet of perfumed 
 romance. He had to reach it through a crush of 
 human-kind, buffeted and bustled as he struggled 
 across the narrow plank. The packed boat cut the 
 steel-grey waters with a matter-of-fact swiftness. 
 The whistle brayed in his sensitive ears. The 
 people about him, sitting too close to him for comfort, 
 were obviously suburban, engrossed in their papers
 
 HUGH SEES CLEAR 285 
 
 or talking inanities about cricket matches or 
 tomatoes. 
 
 A child that ran up to him from the opposite seat 
 and loudly and confidently called him "Daddy" 
 made him flush with annoyance. He inwardly 
 raged that dirty brats should be allowed loose on 
 ferry-boats. They should be gagged and hobbled. 
 This one was dirty-faced too, and its sticky fingers 
 soiled his trouser-leg. He pushed it off, and its 
 mother, putting him down as a bachelor, indignantly 
 reclaimed it. He never did like children. 
 
 On his way home he passed his old boarding 
 house. It deliberately looked like a boarding- 
 house. 
 
 And Nancy, as he entered what his new glasses 
 showed him to be a commonplace cottage in a street 
 of commonplace cottages, looked to him like. . . 
 
 He could not phrase it, but the shock of this 
 strange Nancy staggered him. He saw her for 
 the first time in his life with a damnable clearness, 
 He saw her as she was. 
 
 She saw the new look in his eyes the look she 
 had so long feared to see ; and instantly the con- 
 viction came to her that someone Bill, most prob- 
 ably had told him the truth. He knew ! 
 
 But Hugh, seeing no longer the dream-Nancy 
 of his imagination, seeing her real and earthly and 
 human, seeing her merely as one of his own race, 
 had a sudden illumination which certainly did not
 
 236 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 come from his new spectacles. They were to blame. 
 They distorted things like those deceptive curved 
 looking-glasses he had once seen at a show. 
 
 He hurriedly pulled the detestable things off, fixed 
 his magic spectacles on his nose, and, trembling 
 with anxiety, looked at her again. Thank God it 
 was his Nancy ! 
 
 " You looked so so different through those new 
 glasses of mine I can't be used to them yet that 
 I ... I hardly knew you," he said, and 
 hurriedly kissed her. 
 
 Her sudden relief was too great for her. She 
 lost control of her tongue. 
 
 " Oh, Hugh, when you looked at me like that I 
 thought you knew." 
 
 " Knew what? " His blank gaze sobered her. She 
 hid her tell-tale face on his arm. 
 
 But she had seen that look. It had come at last. 
 The fear had taken form. It would come again and 
 again. Someone would tell him, and then . . . ! 
 No, she could not go on living with that possibility 
 ever before her. She wavered. The baby was dead, 
 her sin had been expiated. He would forgive her 
 . . . perhaps. Yet she wavered. 
 
 " The baby," she said weakly, with averted head. 
 "It died." 
 
 "Dearest," he comforted her, "that couldn't be 
 helped. You mustn't blame yourself for that. The 
 doctor told me before. It was a question of your
 
 HUGH SEES CLEAR 287 
 
 life or his ; and I chose. I am to blame alone. And 
 I am so glad it was given me to make the decision. 
 For it's only you, my wife, I want." 
 
 He felt her arms tighten on him, but she said 
 nothing. 
 
 " But if we had been allowed to keep the little 
 chap how happy we would have been ! How I 
 wanted him ! How we used to talk about him, and 
 build up hopes for him ; how we meant to watch 
 him grow into a great, brave man our child ! And 
 now . . ." 
 
 She wavered no longer. She saw that, at any 
 cost, she would have to tell him the truth. She 
 realised now, as she had vaguely divined every time 
 she spoke of the dead child, how much of Hugh had 
 been buried with the baby. She saw the vague pain 
 in his lean face, the rare, difficult smile, the long 
 struggle to buoy her up and never let her know his 
 loss. She must tell him that his grief was wasted, 
 that his silent sorrow should be thankfulness. She 
 was tired of it all. She could not go on living like 
 this, with his immense trust in her and her 
 tremendous deceit. That sin had ever separated 
 them an unsheathed sword in the bed between 
 them. The look of his had shown her the truth. 
 They could never be all in all to each other until the 
 falseness on which his love had been built was cast 
 out of their vain Eden. God had forgiven her, had 
 wiped out her sin, had slain the baby that separated
 
 288 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 them. Surely he, her husband, would forgive? And 
 then they could begin a new life, serene in their 
 knowledge of each other, sure of the broad-based 
 future. 
 
 The yearning heart broke down the barriers she 
 had built round her life. She looked bravely up. 
 
 " The babe," she said. " I wanted it to die." 
 
 His blank spectacles gave him no clue, no warning. 
 
 " Yes, Hugh," she hurried on. " God knew. He 
 took pity on me. He let me off." 
 
 He listened, not understanding. She saw how 
 hard it would be to make him understand. She 
 knew she was undermining his whole conception of 
 her. 
 
 " The babe wasn't yours, Hugh . . . Yes, 
 I've been bad. But when I married you I did not 
 know." 
 
 She felt him stiffen as against a blow. His mouth 
 gaped. His spectacles stared blindly. 
 
 " And then you went away to Melbourne, and then 
 only then, dear I found out. And I tried to give 
 you up, to go away with . . . with its father. 
 That was all true I wrote. I never thought I would 
 see you again when I posted that letter. But he 
 wouldn't have roe. And you came back, and I hadn't 
 had the courage to drown myself because I would 
 be killing my child. And so I was weak, and I let 
 you take me. And I thought I could tell you long 
 ago and perhaps you would forgive nie."
 
 HUGH SEES CLEAE 289 
 
 Her voice trailed away as she raised her eyes and 
 saw his glasses staring horror at her. He pushed 
 her from him. 
 
 " I ... I can't see you, Nancy ! " he cried. 
 " There's a blur before my eyes. I can't see you. 
 I can only see " 
 
 His groping hand plucked at the air before her 
 face, as if to tear away a veil. 
 
 " These glasses ! " he muttered, and picked them 
 off. 
 
 Then mechanically he pulled the new glasses from 
 their case, and put them on, and looked at his wife. 
 He saw clear. 
 
 " It was Bill ? " he said curtly. 
 
 She nodded wearily. " Dearest," she said, and 
 would have clung to him ; but he was a pillar of 
 stone, rigid and cold, as if in death. So, with lowered 
 eyes, she went on. 
 
 " It was when I thought you had done with me. 
 I thought it was all over between us all over when 
 you did not even know that it had begun. You did 
 not want me. And oh, how I wanted you ! You 
 looked at me that day you were ill the same dread- 
 ful look that is in your eyes now. It stripped me 
 naked. My Hugh, my Hughie, you always idealised 
 ine, and I could not stand you stripping your ideals 
 from me. I was just a woman, arid weak, and lov- 
 ing you. And then, like the straight man you are, 
 you married me without a question. I knew I had 
 
 U
 
 290 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 been bad then, but you would not let me tell you. 
 I would have told you then. But you never had 
 even a suspicion that I was a woman and not a 
 goddess. But I took you then, because, though my 
 body was bad, my heart was clean. And since that 
 day I married you I have always kept it clean. But 
 God does not forget ; and the child came. But He 
 forgave. Dearest, you never saw me clear. You 
 always put a halo on me, and set me up in a shrine 
 and went down on your knees to me. A man on his 
 knees to a woman to any woman ! " she almost 
 laughed. " You would not see me in my weakness, 
 you would not admit that I might be human. If 
 only you'd pulled me from my shrine, pulled me 
 down to earth with a kiss of pity and understanding ! 
 But you would not see any faults in me ; and I I've 
 tried to live up to your ideal. But with that sin in 
 my soul, deep down, it was useless. But I tried to 
 be more like you. I studied your tastes in every- 
 thing. I've grown to like the things you like. I've 
 learnt your point of view and it's a hard point of 
 view, Hugh, a man's point of view. And then I 
 failed. I've failed now. I'm just common, and 
 weak, and not fit for you." 
 
 She looked without permitting herself to hope 
 for a denial in his eyes. She saw only the blank 
 glitter of his glasses. 
 
 " I'll go away," she said with a deep finality ; "I 
 can easily keep myself. And I'm glad " she said
 
 HUGH SEES CLEAR 291 
 
 it with a desperate challenge " I'm glad, glad there's 
 no babe." 
 
 He winced from her bitter cry. But his clear 
 accusing gaze was upon her the gaze of the just 
 judge who would show mercy if the law allowed. 
 
 " So you're that sort of woman." He gave his 
 reluctant, dry verdict, with a great pain in his, 
 heart. 
 
 "That sort of woman ! " she acquiesced. " There's 
 only one sort of woman. You men will make us 
 divine." 
 
 " I idealised you, Nancy," he said. "Yes, I was 
 to blame. But now oh, it's horrible ! I see you 
 so clearly, so damnably clearly! " 
 
 She bowed her head, secretly glad that the long 
 torture was over. 
 
 " I can't stop here, Nancy," he muttered. " I 
 must get outside . . . the stars " 
 
 He left her, bowed and broken, and went out into 
 the night. 
 
 And as the woman heard the door close on her 
 life she looked round at the little room, taking leave 
 of it. She looked at the clock. It was very late. 
 Hugh would not come back that night. But she 
 wouldn't take the risk ; she would go at once. 
 
 But as she stood up she trembled, and was glad 
 to find the chair again. She had not guessed how 
 weak she was. She could not go that night. 
 Hugh would not come back. To-morrow morning
 
 292 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 she would get a cab, take her few personal things 
 and the babe's clothes, and go. 
 
 And thus, having with a curious numbness made 
 her decision, she let her heart make its sole protest. 
 
 " If only he had taken me in his arms once ! " 
 she cried.
 
 HUGH BREAKS HIS GLASSES 293 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIV 
 
 IN WHICH HUGH BREAKS HIS GLASSES 
 
 OUT in the night it was a night of wild 
 wind and dancing stars Hugh strode 
 blindly along the streets of Mosman. 
 He did not know whither his steps were taking 
 him, except that it was to hell. His feet followed 
 the street they had found. The great north- 
 easterly smote him in the face, and he breasted it 
 with a thrill of gladness. Here was something that 
 struck back not a thing that spoke tonelessly and 
 dared not look you in the face, that waited meekly 
 for a blow on soft flesh. 
 
 He saw it all now. This woman he had married 
 was but a woman. (Hugh was making his dis- 
 covery in the belief that he was the first married 
 man to find this out.) She was merely everyman's 
 wife. He had looked on other men's wives with a 
 naive wonder at their husbands' absurd worship of 
 them. He had, from his secure height, marvelled 
 at the universal blindness of other husbands. 
 They did not see how commonplace and ordinary 
 their wives were. Everybody was the same and
 
 294 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 now he had to take his place in that pitiable 
 procession of deluded husbands. 
 
 His wife that dainty, beautiful, subtle, im- 
 pulsive, passionate thing was but one of her 
 poor sex. She had deceived him, innocently at 
 first he forced his mind to be judicial but she 
 had gone on deceiving him. So great a crime too ! 
 The worst. He could never live with her again. 
 
 All the ideals he had built round her, all the 
 strange beauty he had seen in her, all the soul he 
 had worshipped in her had come to this, a soiled 
 thing. 
 
 And though she had married him in innocence, 
 he could not but admit that she had sinned before. 
 He could have married her, even then, if she had 
 confessed it. He would have married her then. 
 
 But to bear another man's child, and let him 
 think it was his ! He owed God thanks that the 
 child was not here. 
 
 And in the midst of his swirl of bitter thoughts 
 came surging up wild memories of her arms about 
 him, of the wonder of her beauty, the strange 
 intoxicating charm of her passion. 
 
 He pushed these vivid pictures away, and looked 
 up. 
 
 He found the wind was at his back. The road 
 had led him in a half circle. He was on a great 
 bull-head eminence, looking down at the twink- 
 ling stars of the city across the harbour. He
 
 HUGH BREAKS HIS GLASSES 295 
 
 was standing on the top of the old quarry at 
 Bradley's Head. Sydney lay spread beneath his 
 feet like a jewel-sewn garment of black velvet. 
 Round him was the dark border of the bush. He 
 was alone on his eminence, with the night and the 
 stars and the lights and the great wind and the 
 wreck of his life. 
 
 His angry mood calmed. It had not been fair 
 on her this idealism of his enamoured eyes. She 
 might not be fit for a shrine, but was it wise to 
 keep her enshrined ? Now his new glasses had 
 shown her to him with a disconcerting, nay, a 
 shattering vividness. And yet, what did he see ? 
 
 A woman. 
 
 He waited long on that thought, and the great 
 wind and the shaken stars below worked on his 
 mood. 
 
 A woman his wife. 
 
 The word " wife," which his lips had involun- 
 tarily uttered, struck him with the sense and the 
 memory of its intimacy. His wife, who yet so 
 surely ! loved him, and whom he loved. Yes, 
 loved. But in a different way now. And yet she 
 had stepped down from her pedestal, and he had 
 clapped her into the prisoner's dock. A great pity 
 for her clinging weakness swept through him. 
 Had he been pitying ? No. 
 
 Suddenly a great ribbon of white swept over to 
 him from the darkness. It swung over him and
 
 296 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 struck the sky, and hung there a moment. Then 
 it wavered, and with a sweep of inconceivable 
 swiftness pointed at him like an accusing finger, 
 blinding him till all he saw was a blazing sun. 
 
 It was a searchlight from the forts at the Heads, 
 practising. 
 
 Against the sudden silver he stood black. Every 
 stone, every bush was silver and black, startlingly 
 distinct. He had not known they were there, 
 swathed in the velvet darkness. The sun went 
 out, the pointing lightning searched the other head- 
 lands, like the finger of God. He stood in the dark. 
 
 But he had been illuminated. He had seen 
 every hidden corner of his mind, starting out sharp 
 and vivid, and etched in silver and black. 
 
 He saw all the foolishness, the cruelty, of his 
 dream of a woman divine. Why, he had never 
 treated her as a woman ; he had never let her be 
 herself. And, at last, she had shown him herself, 
 confessing herself simply, needing his sympathy if 
 forgiveness was impossible, yearning in her great 
 agony for the human touch. And he had stood 
 apart, judging her. 
 
 She had fallen from her pedestal, and he had 
 only been concerned for the desolated shrine. And 
 in falling she had been bruised. And he had left 
 her lying, hurt. 
 
 His mind went back over his married life. He 
 saw that where she had failed him had been where
 
 HUGH BEEAKS HIS GLASSES 297 
 
 he had set her impossible tasks. In the lowly 
 human companionship, in the holiness of domestic 
 love, she had been without fault. And this was all 
 that she had wanted, all that she had aspired to. 
 
 Fool that he was to set her apart, to pose his idol 
 so precariously, and when it fell to stamp on it. 
 Why, his statue had come to life ! And without a cry ! 
 
 He swung round and faced the wind. 
 
 It was very late when he reached the silent street. 
 He recalled that agony when Nancy lay at the 
 doors of death, and he had tried to pray. And now 
 she was in greater danger, and he had left her. 
 
 The lights in all the cottages were extinguished, 
 and as he opened the little gate to his home the 
 windows of the house stared blankly at him from 
 sightless eyes. He opened the door quietly, and, 
 striking a match, went into the sitting-room and lit 
 the gas. 
 
 Suddenly the quietness of the house smote him. 
 She had gone. And at the sight of that room, in 
 all its intimate disorder Nancy was never tidy he 
 felt as if the blood had been drained from his heart. 
 He stood rigid at the realisation of what her loss 
 would be to him. Life had clutched them both in 
 her wide embrace : they were part of each other, 
 made one flesh and one soul by all the monotonous, 
 yet remembered, incidents of their common life. 
 
 He went swiftly to the bedroom door. It was 
 ajar. He pushed it open and made out her figure
 
 298 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 in the bed. He listened, and his heart began again 
 to beat as the soft rhythm of her deep breathing 
 came to his ears. He stood a moment looking down 
 on her. Poor tired child ! He would let her sleep. 
 He tip-toed out. He would make his couch on the 
 sitting-room sofa. 
 
 As he flung himself down on a chair his new 
 spectacles showed him the sitting-room in a new 
 light. He was surprised to find how changed it 
 was since they first furnished it. He noted the 
 plain, comfortable beauty of it ; he saw how, little 
 by little, she had adapted it to his taste. And he 
 had hardly noticed it. 
 
 He picked up a book the latest Wells. She 
 was reading it because he had enthused over it, and 
 she wanted to share his enthusiasms. There were 
 some socks of his, half-darned, that she had put 
 aside. She hated darning. That was another of 
 her weaknesses. Why, it was only her weaknesses 
 that made him love her. And he had never glimpsed 
 this, the most important truth of married life. 
 
 Yes, his new glasses were certainly showing him 
 things as they were ; and things as they are are 
 more satisfactory than things as they aren't. He 
 was surprised that, even through the new spectacles 
 of fact, the room seemed more restful, more home- 
 like, more redolent of her. It called up a thousand 
 trivial memories not of the woman divine, but of 
 his wife. Now that he could see clear, he found
 
 HUGH BREAKS HIS GLASSES 299 
 
 that life had woven them together with the warp 
 and woof of mutual concessions, mutual forgive- 
 nesses, mutual understandings. How lovable she 
 was in her weakness. Why, he could laugh at her 
 for her divine foolishnesses. 
 
 Only when a husband can laugh at his wife, and 
 she at him, is their love complete. 
 
 He was tired out. He thought he would try to 
 sleep. Yet, before lying down, he felt as if he must 
 look at her once more through his new matter-of- 
 fact glasses. He wanted to get the mists of illusion 
 out of his eyes ; he wanted to see her in all her 
 charming human reality. 
 
 He tip-toed in, lit the gas and shaded it from her 
 face. She lay in a huddled heap, with that absurd 
 child's attitude in sleep at which he had so often 
 rallied her one arm flung straight out across the 
 pillow, her profile wan against the white. How 
 tired she was, how deeply asleep ! 
 
 He deliberately gazed at her through the spectacles 
 of fact, and saw only a woman, ill-used, misunder- 
 stood, callously set apart from him. Weak because 
 human, and yet, because of that weakness, lovable. 
 And yet ! 
 
 The horror of her disclosure rankled. How 
 could he and she, with the best wish in the world, 
 go on together again ? How wipe that memory 
 from their minds ? How ever again be natural to 
 each other ?
 
 300 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 He turned his eyes away. His glasses showed 
 him the disordered bedroom. She had undressed 
 blindly and wearily. Her clothes were flung on to 
 chairs or lay on the floor just as, he remembered 
 with a half-smile, she had always done. Sometimes 
 that childish untidiness had worried his neat soul. 
 It did not worry him now. Her dainty garments 
 thus wantonly exposed to those spectacles of fact 
 but brought home to him the enduring intimacy of 
 their married life. Life had bound them together 
 so closely that to tear themselves apart would leave 
 bleeding wounds. He saw himself separated from 
 her, and shuddered at the black loneliness that swam 
 up to him and engulfed him. He recognised at last 
 his inherent weakness. He had thought himself 
 the stronger, yet Nancy had had the strength to 
 tell him. He could not let her go. 
 
 On the floor, close to the bed, he found, too, a 
 little baby's dress, crumpled as if fiercely thrown 
 down. How they had schemed about the little one's 
 upbringing ! How, sometimes, they had almost 
 fought about it ! And now it had been taken from 
 them. He felt, for the first time, that, even if the 
 child had lived, he could have gone on. After all, 
 it was hers ; he would have loved the boy for that. 
 And the other part well, he could have fought that 
 in the child, and moulded him into the likeness of 
 his own son. 
 
 He picked up the dress, folded it with careful,
 
 clumsy fingers, and put it away in the drawer long 
 ago consecrated to the baby. . . . Some day 
 she might take it out again, with the many other 
 foolish, filmy things, for their child 
 
 That was the chance that would lead them to 
 forget. He leant over her once more, and saw the 
 marks of tears on her tired face. He saw little 
 lines there too lines of worry in her constant 
 efforts to be the saint he had conceived her to be. 
 He, with his brutal idealisation of her, had graved 
 those lines. He had taken on himself the role of 
 the Creator; and yet how warmly beautiful in body, 
 how lovable in soul, she had been created ! If only 
 he had been content to take her as she was halo- 
 less. But the halo was there now, the halo of her 
 love for him. 
 
 He recalled the legend of the Madonna who had 
 stepped down from her pedestal to take the robes 
 of an erring sister who had fled. His Madonna 
 had stepped down from the lifeless stiffness of the 
 marble to glow with the warmth and wonder of a 
 woman. 
 
 And how near, unconsciously, she had grown to 
 him. This untidy bedroom explained that. Their 
 union was a thing of the flesh and the soul, common, 
 lowly, yet in a strange new way, he comprehended 
 now, divine. What a fine life they might ac- 
 complish now, on that broad human basis. 
 
 And, as he stooped to wake her, he paused.
 
 302 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 Suddenly he was afraid that she would never forgive 
 him . . . 
 
 He drew back. Then, seeing her as she was, a 
 swift illumination, blinding as the searchlight that 
 had shown him his soul, shed its glare on all his 
 life. It was all the fault of those wonderful spec- 
 tacles. It was through them he had first seen her. 
 He thought back, and realised that his few fugitive 
 doubts of her had come when he was without his 
 glasses, and, most convincing of all, that this 
 night he had for the first time in his life seen 
 her through spectacles that told him the bare 
 truth. 
 
 And at the memory of his first wonderful vision 
 of her through what he now realised were magic 
 spectacles, a sudden temptation assailed him. If 
 he only went back to those old glasses, what matter 
 the vague blur when, by it, she would be again 
 divine to him ? Why not keep the spectacles of 
 fantasy, and keep her, for him at least, his stainless, 
 saint-like ideal ? 
 
 He took them from his pocket, removed his other 
 glasses, and fixed on the magic ones. How per- 
 fectly they fitted ! How insinuatingly, how caress- 
 ingly they cuddled down on his nose ! He looked 
 at Nancy again and in a moment all his doubts of 
 her blurred and faded away. She was to him, in 
 the aloofness of her sleep, the wondrous, splendid 
 being that had so long bewitched him a fantasy of
 
 HUGH BEEAKS HIS GLASSES 303 
 
 tawny hair and pearl and amber a thing too holy 
 except to be worshipped. 
 
 He stood and gazed hungrily, deliciously, giving 
 himself up to his self-deception. All the past was 
 wiped out. He would keep his ideal for ever. 
 
 No ! That was cowardice the greater cowardice 
 because it was so easy. Was he afraid to look at 
 Life ? That was but the dehumanised, distorted 
 mirage of Life. He had done with disillusion for 
 ever. He must face the hard future with steady, 
 prosaic vision a man in a very muddled world, 
 muddling stolidly through. He must go on with it 
 now no longer in cloudland, but trudging on very 
 solid earth. His vision was shorn of its splendour 
 due merely to a defect in his sight. He would see 
 Life as it was, without a blur, even though the blur 
 was beautiful. 
 
 He removed his magic spectacles, and saw her 
 again through his prosaic new glasses, a woman he 
 had infinitely wronged. He was content. There 
 was a way out a long and difficult way ; but 
 together they would find the road. Or if, side by 
 side, they never reached their goal, the struggle 
 would bring them closer not to it, but to each 
 other. That was worth it that, perhaps, was the 
 sole reason for this struggle called Life. They 
 would both have to forgive. But how easy, now 
 that they both stood on common ground, it was to 
 forgive ! For he recognised at last that Love is
 
 304 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 nothing but the infinite capacity of giving and for- 
 giving. 
 
 He would do it. He was done with fantasy. 
 
 He dropped the magic spectacles to the floor, and 
 screwed a vicious heel on them. 
 
 The shiver of the glass it sounded to Hugh like 
 the tiny shriek of a smothered elf woke her. 
 
 She found her foolish dreams come true in his 
 long kiss. 
 
 And yet, a couple of years later, when the boy 
 was born, and the book was still being rewritten, 
 Hugh Robjohn often wondered if the first glasses 
 he had worn had anything of magic in them. Per- 
 haps every man in love wears magic glasses. 
 
 It would be a poor world, this of ours, if there 
 was not for each of us, for a moment or for a year, 
 the chance of wearing the spectacles of illusion. 
 
 THE END
 
 AN AUSTRALIAN NOVELIST 
 
 GALAHAD JONES 
 
 A TRAGIC FARCE 
 
 By ARTHUR H. ADAMS 
 
 With 16 Full-page Illustrations by the Australian Artist, 
 NORMAN LINDSAY, a contributor to Punch. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 PSESS OPINIONS 
 
 Liverpool Daily Post. " Mr. Adams has a remarkable power of 
 characterisation, and blends humour and pathos in a manner 
 which is intensely moving. ' Galahad Jones ' is not merely a book 
 to be laughed over; it is a fine piece of literature, and will be 
 thoroughly enjoyed. We can commend it unreservedly." 
 
 Daily Chronicle. "It reminds us of Mr. H. G. Wells when Mr. 
 H. G. Wells is writing at his best, when, that is, he is presenting 
 characters like those of Galahad Jones and ' Em,' his wife. But 
 there is naught of imitation in Mr. Adams's work, it is entirely and 
 eminently original." 
 
 Athenceum. "Mr. Adams has contrived to write a really charm- 
 ing and tender romance, and is to be congratulated upon the 
 combined pathos and humour of his ' tragic farce,' and Mr. Norman 
 Lindsay on his clever illustrations which help to emphasise its 
 ' moral.' " 
 
 Daily Graphic. " ' Galahad Jones ' is a real work of art." 
 
 Aberdeen Free Press.-" Very cleverly written, full of humour, 
 and with much that is pathetic too, this is a novel not to be missed." 
 
 The Standard. " A comedy quaintly humorous, sufficiently 
 sentimental, and adorned with just the right amount of genuine 
 
 Eathos. Mr. Adams writes delightfully, stylishly, with wit and with 
 seling, and he is never heavy. His book is rendered more attrac- 
 tive by Mr. Norman Lindsay's clever illustrations." 
 
 The Scotsman." As a character study it is a remarkable achieve- 
 ment. Seldom does an author work in material so very common- 
 place, and yet succeed in making it attractive, simply by the 
 attraction of honest human nature." 
 
 Yorkshire Daily Observer. "Mr. Adams is to be congratulated upon 
 what is evidently his first book, and one who can write as brilliantly 
 as this should go far." 
 
 Manchester Courier. "Dainty and fresh, the Antipodean touch 
 marks ' Galahad Jones,' a novel that cannot fail to enhance the 
 reputation of Mr. John Lane as a publisher, both in Mr. A. H. Adams' 
 writing and Mr. Norman Lindsay's drawing."
 
 AN AUSTRALIAN NOVELIST 
 
 THE 
 
 BISHOP'S SCAPEGOAT 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 By T. B. CLEGG 
 
 A0THOR OF "THE LOVE CHILD," "THE WILDERNESS" 
 
 Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 PBESS OPINIONS 
 
 Manchester Guardian. " Mr. Clegg's new novel is melodrama 
 wild and uncontrolled, romantically silly, but written with the right 
 grip." 
 
 Athenteum. " Inspired with a deep sense of the beautiful in Nature 
 and the instinctive goodness of the human heart, and the divine 
 meaning of life. The chief characters appear in telling situations, 
 and we find for the most part a fine balance and sense of pro- 
 portion." 
 
 Daily Mail. - " A really good novel of life in England, in the con- 
 vict settlement of Noumea, and in Australia thirty years ago. We 
 are inclined to describe this novel as the very best kind of melo- 
 drama. It is so good that we hope that Mr. Clegg will give us some 
 more from the same store." 
 
 JOAN OF THE HILLS 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 By T. B. CLEGG 
 
 Author of " The Love Child," " The Bishop's Scapegoat" 
 
 Punch, July 28th, 1909 
 Among the treats I've held in store 
 
 Till Time should bring me leisured ease 
 Was an intention to explore 
 
 The merits of the Antipodes ; 
 Where conversation's interspersed 
 
 With long-drawn spirit-stirring " coo-ees," 
 Where Test-Match cricketers are nursed, 
 
 And where the bounding kangaroo is. 
 
 But now, though not a bit less keen, 
 
 My trip is off ; I shall not go, 
 Because I feel that I have seen 
 
 All that the under-world can show. 
 I got it from a book, and beg 
 
 That you will study, if you doubt it, 
 Joan of the Hills, by T. B. CLEGG 
 
 (From LANE). That tells you all about it. 
 
 The tale is one of love and hate 
 
 (Things much the same out there as here), 
 But those I deem subordinate 
 
 In value to the atmosphere 
 That has the stamp of one who's tried 
 
 Its taste by actual inhalation, 
 And knows how much should be supplied 
 
 For other people's delectation.
 
 RECENT FICTION 
 
 VALLEY OF REGRET 
 
 By ADELAIDE HOLT 
 
 Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Times. " All have strong individualities, freshly conceived and 
 firmly drawn. The book is one which augurs well for the writer ; 
 for she certainly has the gift of reaching the reader's heart." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. " Uncommonly interesting, and we follow 
 the fortunes of her delightful heroine with an attention which is 
 as much due to her charm as to the tragic interest of her many 
 afflictions, which, although sensational in their nature, are yet 
 quite within the bounds of possibility. The author has a decided 
 gift for writing ; she can seize upon the salient points of a character 
 or sketch in a poignant situation with a vigorous yet restrained 
 touch which makes them live." 
 
 Athenceum. " The author has a delicate way of narrating the 
 most lurid incidents that makes them appear not only probable, 
 but even vivid and actual." 
 
 Standard." Here is abundant proof that Miss Holt can write, 
 that also she has a true and vivid sense of the dramatic. 1 ' 
 
 THE 
 
 SIMPLE LIFE, LIMITED 
 
 By DANIEL CHAUCER 
 
 Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Morning Post. " Whoever Daniel Chaucer may be, he has 
 written in ' The Simple Life, Limited,' one of the most delightful 
 novels we have read for a long time ... in all respects a re- 
 freshing and original piece of work." 
 
 Daily Telegraph." The book displays undoubted ability." 
 
 Outlook." Mr. Daniel Chaucer is to be congratulated upon the 
 amount of wit and wisdom which he has incorporated in his story 
 of a Simple Life settlement. The book is one to read and read 
 again." 
 
 World. " An entertaining volume." 
 
 Westminster Gazette. " The newest and most original author 
 the Bodley Head has produced for some time. Daniel Chaucer is, 
 we suspect, not so much a name as a nom de guerre veiling the 
 personality of an accomplished satirist who is probably by no 
 means unknown to literary fame."
 
 RECENT FICTION 
 
 THE 
 
 SHADOW OF LOVE 
 
 By MARCELLE TINAYRE 
 
 Translated from the French by A. B. ALLIXSOX, M.A. 
 Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Telegraph. "A powerful and moving romance. Madame 
 Marcelle Tinayre has made a great reputation as a writer of 
 thoughtful and deep-feeling romance. She is one of the most 
 conspicuous French novelists." 
 
 Daily Chronicle." The characters of the doctor and his daughter 
 are most finely drawn." 
 
 Standard. " Marcelle Tinayre established herself in England 
 with ' La Maison du P6che,' a novel that deserved its welcome for 
 the science with which it was elaborated and the unhappy atmo- 
 sphere that it so successfully conveyed. Marcelle Tinayre's story 
 'The Shadow of Love ' shows the qualities of the earlier book, and 
 marks, by the persistence of those qualities, a period. Never 
 before has the author shown so plainly the power that is in her, 
 the knowledge of her art that she possesses, and her authority of 
 words." 
 
 SAM'S KID 
 
 By F. E. MILLS YOUNG 
 
 Author of "Chip," " Atonement," etc. 
 Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Telegraph. "With the true hand of an artist Miss Mills 
 Young has written a fresh and very moving love story, so well 
 constructed that till the end we do not know how it will fall out ; 
 so akin to nature that we are all the while deeply interested in the 
 people whom she sets before us. Miss Mills Young is certainly a 
 novelist of exceptional gifts . . . tender and strong characteris- 
 ation." 
 
 Times." . . . shows throughout the hand of a novelist who 
 knows her business." 
 
 Outlook "The story is powerful. The characters are well 
 drawn. 
 
 Truth. " Miss Mills Young shows considerable knowledge of her 
 subject." 

 
 RECENT FICTION 
 
 THE 
 
 BERMONDSEY TWIN 
 
 By F. J. RANDALL 
 
 Author of " Love and the Ironmonger." 
 Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Times. "A very enjoyable series of farcical com- 
 plications." 
 
 Daily Telegraph. " Mr. Randall's diverting comedy of 
 ' Love and the Ironmonger ' should ensure a welcome for 
 its delightful successor. A wonderfully clever and 
 thoroughly humorous novel." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. " The fun grows fast and furious, the 
 incidents are most deftly handled and the idiosyncrasies of 
 the self-seeker most amusingly indicated." 
 
 Truth. " Mr. Randall has disclosed his gift of real 
 humour and ' The Bermondsey Twin ' shows this humour 
 at its best." 
 
 World. " Mr. Randall is to be congratulated on an amus- 
 ing piece of work. ' ' 
 
 Morning Post. "Mr. Randall's story is an entertaining 
 one and is told with engaging humour." 
 
 THE LASS WITH THE 
 DELICATE AIR 
 
 By A. R. GORING-THOMAS 
 
 Author of " Mrs. Gramercy-Park." 
 
 Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Westminster Gazette. " This novel is an original and inter- 
 esting piece of work." 
 
 Athenceum. "A cleverly conceived study . . . Mr. Goring- 
 Thomas has the rare Dickensian gift of imparting life and 
 personality to his characters." 
 
 Academy. "Mr. Goring-Thomas deserves great credit ; he 
 is a capable workman." 
 
 Daily Chronicle. " Mr. Goring-Thomas says many shrewd 
 and clever things, and has written an enjoyable book." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. "Mr. Hicks is presented to us with 
 much cleverness." 
 
 World. " . . . delineated with a fineness of touch for 
 which we have nothing but admiration. A work of such 
 excellent quality and qualities."
 
 RECENT FICTION 
 
 A FAIR HOUSE 
 
 By HUGH DE SELINCOURT 
 
 Author of "The Boy's Marriage," etc. 
 Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Afhenceum. "The book is tender and pathetic and exhibits 
 considerable literary skill. 
 
 Times. " Mr. de Selincourt can write a novel which is unmistak- 
 ably his, and that could not be said of many a more literary artist." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. " Here is a novel the spirit and intention of 
 which are admirable." 
 
 Punch. " Mr. de Selincourt has made his ' Pair House ' into a 
 quite desirable property, which should find no difficulty in secur- 
 ing appreciative tenants." 
 
 A GENTLEMANoF THE ROAD 
 
 By HORACE BLEACKLEY 
 
 Author of "Ladies Fair and Frail." 
 Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 AtJienceum. " The book has plenty of spirit and incident in its 
 pages." 
 
 Evening Standard." The story is pleasantly told." 
 
 Outlook. " The story is told with spirit." 
 
 Westminster Gazette. " A well-knit story with a strong action. 
 Mr. Bleackley knows his period well, and we are grateful to him 
 for investing a well-known theme with interest and refreshment." 
 
 ZOE r THE DANCER 
 
 By IDA WILD 
 
 Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Times. "A pleasing originality. . . . The literary style is a 
 feature one of those styles which seem at first a little too labori- 
 ous and affected ; but discloses a good deal of merit as you read on." 
 
 Daily Telegraph. "Miss Wild has a lively style. She writes 
 with knowledge of her local colour." 
 
 Daily Chronicle. " This book is, without question, the product 
 of a practised pen. It has vivacity, colour, and what may be called 
 ' the knack. ' " 
 
 Evening Standard." The book has excellent points. ' Zoe ' has 
 immense charm, cleverly conveyed.' 
 
 JOHN LANE. THE BODLEY HEAD, VIGO STREET, W.
 
 THE WORKS OF 
 ANATOLE FRANCE 
 
 T has long been a reproach to 
 England that only one volume 
 by ANATOLE FRANCE 
 has been adequately rendered 
 into English ; yet outside this 
 country he shares with 
 TOLSTOI the distinction 
 of being the greatest and most daring 
 student of humanity living. 
 
 f There have been many difficulties to 
 encounter in completing arrangements for a 
 uniform edition, though perhaps the chief bar- 
 rier to publication here has been the fact that 
 his writings are not for babes but for men 
 and the mothers of men. Indeed, some of his 
 Eastern romances are written with biblical can- 
 dour. " I have sought truth strenuously," he 
 tells us, " I have met her boldly. I have never 
 turned from her even when she wore an
 
 THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE 
 
 unexpected aspect." Still, it is believed that the day has 
 come for giving English versions of all his imaginative 
 works, as well as of his monumental study JOAN OF 
 ARC, which is undoubtedly the most discussed book in the 
 world of letters to-day. 
 
 H MR. JOHN LANE has pleasure in announcing that 
 the following volumes are either already published or are 
 passing through the press. 
 
 THE RED LILY 
 
 MOTHER OF PEARL 
 
 THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS 
 
 THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD 
 
 BALTHASAR 
 
 THE WELL OF ST. CLARE 
 
 THAIS 
 
 THE WHITE STONE 
 
 PENGUIN ISLAND 
 
 THE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNE 
 
 BROCHE 
 
 JOCASTA AND THE FAMISHED CAT 
 THE ELM TREE ON THE MALL 
 THE WICKER-WORK WOMAN 
 AT THE SIGN OF THE REINE PEDAUQUE 
 THE OPINIONS OF JEROME COIGNARD 
 MY FRIEND'S BOOK 
 THE ASPIRATIONS OF JEAN SERVIEN 
 LIFE AND LETTERS (4 vols.) 
 JOAN OF ARC (2 vok) 
 
 If All the books will be published at 6/- each with the 
 exception of JOAN OF ARC, which will be 25/- net 
 the two volumes, with eight Illustrations. 
 
 U The format of the volumes leaves little to be desired. 
 The size is Demy 8vo (9 X 5|), and they are printed from 
 Caslon type upon a paper light in weight and strong of 
 texture, with a cover design in crimson and gold, a gilt top, 
 end-papers from designs by Aubrey Beardsley and initials by 
 Henry Ospovat. In short, these are volumes for the biblio- 
 phile as well as the lover of fiction, and form perhaps the 
 cheapest library edition of copyright novels ever published, 
 for the price is only that of an ordinary novel. 
 
 f The translation of these books has been entrusted to 
 such competent French scholars as MR. ALFRED ALLINSON,
 
 THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE 
 
 MR. FREDERIC CHAPMAN, MR. ROBERT B. DOUGLAS, 
 MR. A. W. EVANS, MRS. FARLEY, MR. LAFCADIO HEARN, 
 MRS. W. S. JACKSON, MRS. JOHN LANE, MRS. NEWMARCH, 
 MR. C. E. ROCHE, MISS WINIFRED STEPHENS, and MISS 
 M. P. WILLCOCKS. 
 
 11 As Anatole Thibault, dit Anatole France, is to most 
 English readers merely a name, it will be well to state that 
 he was born in 1844 in the picturesque and inspiring 
 surroundings of an old bookshop on the Quai Voltaire, 
 Paris, kept by his father, Monsieur Thibault, an authority on 
 eighteenth-century history, from whom the boy caught the 
 passion for the principles of the Revolution, while from his 
 mother he was learning to love the ascetic ideals chronicled 
 in the Lives of the Saints. He was schooled with the lovers 
 of old books, missals and manuscript ; he matriculated on the 
 Quais with the old Jewish dealers of curios and objets cTart; 
 he graduated in the great university of life and experience. 
 It will be recognised that all his work is permeated by his 
 youthful impressions ; he is, in fact, a virtuoso at large. 
 
 f He has written about thirty volumes of fiction. His 
 first novel was JOCASTA & THE FAMISHED CAT 
 (1879). THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD 
 appeared in 1881, and had the distinction of being crowned 
 by the French Academy, into which he was received in 1896. 
 
 11 His work is illuminated with style, scholarship, and 
 psychology ; but its outstanding features are the lambent wit, 
 the gay mockery, the genial irony with which he touches every 
 subject he treats. But the wit is never malicious, the mockery 
 never derisive, the irony never barbed. To quote from his own 
 GARDEN OF EPICURUS : " Irony and Pity are both of 
 good counsel ; the first with her smiles makes life agreeable, 
 the other sanctifies it to us with her tears. The Irony I 
 invoke is no cruel deity. She mocks neither love nor 
 beauty. She is gentle and kindly disposed. Her mirth 
 disarms anger and it is she teaches us to laugh at rogues and 
 fools whom but for her we might be so weak as to hate." 
 
 11 Often he shows how divine humanity triumphs over 
 mere asceticism, and with entire reverence ; indeed, he 
 might be described as an ascetic overflowing with humanity, 
 just as he has been termed a " pagan, but a pagan 
 constantly haunted by the pre-occupation of Christ." 
 He is in turn like his own Choulette in THE RED 
 LILY saintly and Rabelaisian, yet without incongruity.
 
 THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE 
 
 At all times he is the unrelenting foe of superstition and 
 hypocrisy. Of himself he once modestly said : " You will 
 find in my writings perfect sincerity (lying demands a talent 
 I do not possess), much indulgence, and some natural 
 affection for the beautiful and good." 
 
 ^ The mere extent of an author's popularity is perhaps a 
 poor argument, yet it is significant that two books by this 
 author are in their HUNDRED AND TENTH THOU- 
 SAND, and numbers of them well into their SEVENTIETH 
 THOUSAND, whilst the one which a Frenchman recently 
 described as " Monsieur France's most arid book " is in its 
 FIFTY-EIGHT-THOUSAND. 
 
 fl Inasmuch as M. FRANCE'S ONLY contribution to 
 an English periodical appeared in THE YELLOW BOOK, 
 vol. v., April 1895, together with the first important English 
 appreciation of his work from the pen of the Hon. Maurice 
 Baring, it is peculiarly appropriate that the English edition 
 of his works should be issued from the Bodley Head. 
 
 ORDER FORM. 
 
 _ _ 1 9 
 
 To Air _._ 
 
 Kookseller. 
 
 Please send me the following works of Anatole France: 
 
 THA'IS PENGUIN ISLAND 
 
 BALTHASAR THE WHITE STONE 
 
 THE RED LILY MOTHER OF PEARL 
 
 THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS 
 
 THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD 
 
 THE WELL OF ST. CLARE 
 
 THE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNE- 
 
 BROCHE 
 
 THE ELM TREE ON THE MALL 
 THE WICKER WORK WOMAN 
 JOCASTA AND THE FAMISHED CAT 
 JOAN OF ARC (a VOLS.) 
 LIFE AND LETTERS (4 VOLS.) 
 
 for which I enclose 
 
 Name _ 
 
 Adtlrfss _ 
 
 JOHN LANE, Pu HLISHRR THE BODLBV HEAD, VicoSr., LONDON.W.
 
 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 BY ARTHUR H. ADAMS. 
 
 GALAHAD JONES. A Tragic Farce. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 With 1 6 full-page Illustrations by Norman Lindsay. 
 
 Westminster Gazette. " There is something extraordinarily fresh about 
 Galahad Jones." 
 
 Times. "With skilful touch." 
 
 Athenaeum. " Mr. Adams has written a really charming and tender 
 romance." 
 
 A TOUCH OF FANTASY. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 BY FRANCIS ADAMS. 
 
 A CHILD OF THE AGE. Crown 8vo. i/- net 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette " It comes recognisably near to great excellence. There is 
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 expressed with point. 
 
 BY JEAN AICARD. 
 
 THE DIVERTING ADVENTURES OF MAURIN. Cr. 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Translated from the French by Alfred Allinson, M.A. 
 
 IVcstminstei Gazette Maurin, hunter, poacher, boaster, and lover ot women, 
 is a magnificently drawn type of the Meridional, who is in some ways the Irishman 
 of France. ... a fine, sane, work. . . . The translation is excellent." 
 
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 MAURIN THE ILLUSTRIOUS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Translated from the French by Alfred Allinson, M.A. 
 Evening Standard "If he had never done anything else M. Aicard would 
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 BY GRANT ALLEN. 
 
 THE BRITISH BARBARIANS. Crown 8vo. 3/6 net 
 
 Also Canvas Back Library 1/6 net. 
 
 Saturday Review " Mr. Allen takes occasion to say a good many things that 
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 BY MAUD ANNESLEY. 
 
 THE WINE OF LIFE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette " The story is full of life and interest and the startling 
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 THE DOOR OF DARKNESS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette" An enthralling story, powerfully imagined and distin- 
 guished lor artistry of no mean order.
 
 
 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY W. M. ARDAGH. 
 
 THE MAGADA. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
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 BY A. ARNOTT. 
 
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 BY GERTRUDE ATHERTON. 
 
 SENATOR NORTH. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
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 The Times "Clever and entertaining. . . . This gay volume is written by 
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 A WHIRL ASUNDER. Paper Cover. i/- net 
 
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 LIFE IN A GARRISON TOWN. Crown 8vo. i/- net 
 
 The suppressed German Novel. With a preface written by the 
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 Truth" The disgraceful exposures of the. book were expressly admitted to 
 be true by the Minister of War in the Reichstag. What the book will probably 
 suggest to you is. that German militarism is cutting its own throat, and will one 
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 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY HORACE BLEACKLEY. 
 
 A GENTLEMAN OF THE ROAD. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Athenceum. " It has plenty of spirit and incident." 
 
 Westminster Gasette."M\: Bleackley knoxys his period well, and we aie 
 grateful to him for investing a well-worn theme with interest and refreshment." 
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 BY SHELLAND BRADLEY. 
 
 ADVENTURES OF AN A.D.C. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Weshninstcr Gazette" . . . makes better and more entertaining reading 
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 Times " Full of delightful humour." 
 
 BY JOHN BUCHAN. 
 
 JOHN BURNET OF BARNS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Truth " In short, this is a novel to lay aside and read a second time, nor 
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 A LOST LADY OF OLD YEARS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Atkenceunt " Written in strong and scholarly fashion." 
 
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 Evening Standard" Stirring and well told." 
 
 BY DANIEL CHAUCER. 
 
 SIMPLE LIFE LIMITED. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Morntng Post. " One of the most delightful novels we have read lor a 
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 BY GILBERT K. CHESTERTON. 
 
 THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 With 6 Illustrations by W. Graham Robertson. 
 
 Daily Mail" Mr. Chesterton, as our laughing philosopher, is at his best in 
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 the right word with bright and epigrammatic observations, and it is writteu 
 throughout with undoubted literary skill." 
 
 BY T. B. CLEGG. 
 
 THE LOVE CHILD. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Trulh" A singularly powerful book. . . . The painful story grips you from 
 first to last." 
 
 Daily Telegraph "A strong and interesting story, the fruit of careful 
 thought and conscientious workmanship. . . . Mr. Clegg has presented intensely 
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 THE WILDERNESS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Dativ lelcgraph"&. really admirable story." 
 
 Athenaeum " Mr. Clegg claims the gilt of powerful and truthful writing."
 
 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY T. B. CLEGG continued. 
 THE BISHOP'S SCAPEGOAT. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Athenceum " Inspired with a deep sense of the beautiful in Nature and the 
 instinctive goodness of the human heart, and the divine meaning of life." 
 
 Daily Mail " A really good novel. It is so good that we hope Mr. Clegg 
 will give us some more from the same store." 
 
 JOAN OF THE HILLS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Titnes" Another of Mr. Clegg's admirable novels of Australian life." 
 Globe " A good story, interesting all through." 
 
 BY W. BOURNE COOKE. 
 
 BELLCROFT PRIORY. A Romance. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 World. "Exceedingly well-written and admirably constructed." 
 Evening Standard. " Good reading , . . It has originality." 
 
 BY E. H. COOPER. 
 
 MY BROTHER THE KING. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. "The story is admirably told. The book should be in 
 everyone's hands." 
 
 Daily Telegraph. "The story is admirable, full of life and touched with 
 real feeling." 
 
 BY FREDERICK BARON CORYO- 
 
 IN HIS OWN IMAGE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Westminsler Gazette "The book is cleverly written and the author has 
 obviously a very pretty literary talent." 
 
 Pali Mall Gazette"' Always delightful and well worth reading." 
 
 BY VICTORIA CROSS. 
 
 THE WOMAN WHO DIDN'T. Crown 8vo. i/- net 
 
 Speaker" The feminine gift of intuition seems to be developed with uncanny 
 strength, and what she sees she has the power of flashing upon her readers with 
 wonderful vividness and felicity of phrase. ... A strong and subtle study of 
 feminine nature, biting irony, restrained passion, and a style that is both forcible 
 end polished." 
 
 3Y A. J. DAWSON. 
 
 MIDDLE GREYNESS^ (Canvas-back Library). 1/6 net 
 
 Daily Telegraph "The novel has distinct ability. The descriptions of up- 
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 MERE SENTIMENT Crown 8vo. 3/6 net 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette" There is some clever -writing in Mr. Dawson's short 
 stories collected to form a new ' Keynotes ' volume under the title of Mere Senti- 
 ment.' . . . A very clever piece ot work. . . . Mr. Dawson has a pretty style 
 shows dramatic instinct."
 
 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 BY GEORGE EGERTON. 
 
 KEYNOTES. Crown 8vo. Ninth Edition. 3/6 net 
 
 St. James's Gazette -" This is a collection of eight of the prettiest short 
 stories that have appeared for many a day. They turn for the most part on 
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 and the scenes and landscapes are described with so much and so rare vividness, 
 that we cannot help being almost spell-bound by their perusal." 
 
 DISCORDS. Crown 8vo. Sixth Edition. 3/6 net 
 
 Daily Telegraph "These masterly word-sketches." 
 
 Speaker" The book is true to human nature, for the author has genius, and 
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 SYMPHONIES. Crown 8vo. Second Edition. 6/- 
 
 St. James's Gazette "There is plenty of pathos and no little power in the 
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 FANTASIAS. Crown 8vo. Also Canvas Back Library 1/6 net. 3/6 
 
 Daily Chronicle "These ' Fantasias ' are pleasant reading typical scenes or 
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 BY MARION FOX. 
 
 HAND OF THE NORTH. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Academy. "This stirring tale . . . is very interesting." 
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 BY A. C. FOX-DAYIES. 
 
 THE MAULEVERER MURDERS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Also i/- net. 
 
 Evening Standard " An entertaining blend of the Society novel and the 
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 THE FINANCES OF SIR JOHN KYNNERSLEY. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 6/ 
 
 Punch " I read every word of the book, and enjoyed nearly all of them.' 
 Morning Post" Mr. Fox-Davies* extremely clever and entertaining book. 
 
 BY HAROLD FREDERIC. 
 
 MARCH HARES. Crown 8vo. Third Edition. 3/6 net 
 
 Daily Chronicle " Buoyant, fanciful, stimulating, a pure creation of fancy 
 and high spirits. ' March Hares ' has a joyous impetus which carries everything 
 before it ; and it enriches a class of fiction which unfortunately is not copious."
 
 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY HAROLD FREDERIC continued. 
 MRS. ALBERT GRUNDY. Observations in Philistia. 
 
 F'Cap. 8vo. Second Edition. 3/6. net 
 
 _ Pall Mall Gazette " Mr. Frederic is at his very best in this light and delicate 
 satire, which is spread with laughter and good humour." 
 
 BY RICHARD GARNETT. 
 
 THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS AND OTHER STORIES 
 Crown 8vo. Second Edition. 6/~ 
 
 Daily Chronicle " A subtle compound of philosophy and irony. Let the 
 reader take these stories as pure fun lively incident and droll character and he 
 will be agreeably surprised to find how stimulating they are." 
 
 Times " Here is learning in plenty, drawn from all ages and most languages, 
 but of dryness or dulness not a sentence. The book bubbles with laughter. . . . 
 His sense of humour has a wide range." 
 
 BY ELIZABETH GODFREY. 
 
 THE WINDING ROAD. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Literary World" A carefully written story. . . . Miss Godfrey has the mind 
 of a poet; her pages breathe of the beautiful in nature without giving long 
 description, while the single-hearted love between Jasper and Phenice is des- 
 cribed with power and charm." 
 
 THE BRIDAL OF ANSTACE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Westminster Gazette "An individual charm and a sympathetic application 
 have gone to the conception of Miss Godfrey's book, a remarkable power of 
 characterisation to its making, and a refined literary taste to its composition." 
 
 THE CRADLE OF A POET. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Spectalor. -'The whole story is pleasing and Miss Godfreys ' Seascapes' are 
 executed with great realism." 
 
 Pali Mall Gazette. " . . . the charm of beautiful writing, which cannot 
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 BY A. R. GORING THOMAS. 
 
 MRS. GRAMERCY PARK. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 IVorld " In the language of the heroine herself, this, her story, is delight- 
 fully 'bright and cute.' " 
 
 Observer" Fresh and amusing. " 
 
 THE LASS WITH THE DELICATE AIR. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Atlienoeum. " . . . drawn with a humour that is distinctly original. Mr. 
 Gpring-Thomas has the rare Dickensian gift of imparting life and personality to 
 his characters." 
 
 Daily Chronicle. "Mr. Goring-Thomas says many shrewd and clever tilings, 
 and, blending comedy with pathos has written an enjoyable book." 
 
 BY HANDASYDE. 
 
 FOR THE WEEK-END. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Standard" Only a woman, surely, would write such deep and intimate 
 truth about the heart of another woman and the things that give her joy when a 
 man loves her." 
 
 A GIRL'S LIFE INT A HUNTING COUNTRY. Crown 8vo. 3/6 
 Daily News " A sweet and true representation of a girl's romance."
 
 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 BY HENRY HARLAND. 
 
 THE CARDINAL'S SNUFF BOX. Crown 8vo. 5/- 
 
 Illustrated by G. C. Wilmhurst. iG^th. Thousand. 
 
 Academy "The drawings are all excellent in style and really illustrative ol 
 the tale." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette"' Dainty and delicious." 
 Times " A book among a thousand." 
 
 MY FRIEND PROSPERO. Crown 8vo. Third Edition. 6/- 
 fimes" There is no denying the charm of the work, the delicacy and 
 
 fragrancy of the style, the sunny play of the dialogue, the vivacity of the wit, and 
 
 the graceful flight of the fancy. 
 
 \Vorld "The reading of it is a pleasure rare and unalloyed." 
 
 THE LADY PARAMOUNT. Crown 8vo. 55th Thousand. 6/- 
 
 Times "A fantastic, delightful love-idyll." 
 
 Spectator " A roseate romance without a crumpled rose leaf." 
 
 Daily Mail "Charming, dainty, delightful." 
 
 COMEDIES AND ERRORS. Crown 8vo. Third Edition. 6/- 
 
 Mr. HENRY JAMES, in Fortnightly Review "Mr. Harland has clearly thought 
 out a form. . . . He has mastered a method and learned how to paint. . .. His 
 art is all alive with felicities and delicacies." 
 
 GREY ROSES. Crown 8vo. Fourth Edition, 3/6 net 
 
 Daily Telegraph" ' Grey Roses ' " are entitled to rank among the choicest 
 flowers of the realms of romance." 
 
 Spectator" Really delightful. ' Castles near Spain ' is as near perfection as 
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 Daily Chronicle " Charming stories, simple, full of freshness." 
 
 MADEMOISELLE MISS. Crown 8vo. Third Edition. 3/6 
 
 Speaker "All through the book we are pleased and entertained." 
 Bookman "An interesting collection of early work. In it may be noted the 
 undoubted delicacy and strength of Mr. Harland's manner.'' 
 
 BY E. CROSBY HEATH. 
 
 HENRIETTA. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 BY ALICE HERBERT. 
 
 THE MEASURE OF OUR YOUTH. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Evening Standard "A very human, intelligible book. . . . exceedingly 
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 Morning Post" Reveals an unusual clearness of vision and distinction of 
 style and thought." 
 
 BY MURIEL HINE. 
 
 HALF IN EARNEST. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Telegraph. "This is written with great spirit and a considerable 
 power of story-telling. It has sufficient attractive qualities to make it a readable 
 piece of work." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette." The character-drawing throughout, indeed, is of unusual 
 merit." 
 
 Morning Post. " Miss Muriel Hine is to be congratulated."
 
 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 BY ARNOLD HOLCOMBE. 
 
 THE ODD MAN. Crown 8vo. 61- 
 
 Morning Post " One of the most refreshing and amusing books that we have 
 read for some months. ... ' The Odd Man ' is a book to put on one's shelves 
 and Mr. Holcombe's is a name to remember.'' 
 
 BY ADELAIDE HOLT. 
 
 THE VALLEY OF REGRET. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Titnes. " Strong individualities, freshly conceived and firmly drawn. . 
 The book is one which augurs well for the writer; for she certainly has the gift 
 of reaching the reader's heart." 
 
 BY WILFRID SCARBOROUGH JACKSON. 
 
 NINE POINTS OF THE LAW. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Manchester Guardian "The kindly humorous philosophy of this most divert- 
 ing story is as remarkable as its attractive style. There is hardly a page without 
 something quotable, some neat bit of phrasing or apt wording of a truth." 
 
 HELEN OF TROY. N.Y. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Chronicle "The story is at once original, impossible, artificial, and 
 very amusing. Go, get the work and read." 
 
 TRIAL BY MARRIAGE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 World-" One can confidently promise the reader of this skilfully treated and 
 unconventional novel that he will not find a page of it dull. It is one that will be 
 not only read but remembered." 
 
 BY MRS. JOHN LANE. 
 
 KITWYK. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 A Story with numerous illustrations by HOWARD PYLE, 
 ALBERT STERNER and GEORGE WHARTON EDWARDS. 
 
 Times " Mrs. Lane has succeeded to admiration, and chiefly by reason of 
 being so much interested in her theme that she makes no conscious etfort to 
 please. . . . Everyone who seeks to be diverted will read ' Kitwyk ' for its 
 obvious qualities of entertainment." 
 
 THE CHAMPAGNE STANDARD. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Morning Post" The author's champagne overflows with witty sayings too 
 numerous to cite." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette " Mrs. Lane's papers on our social manners and foibles are 
 the most entertaining, the kindest and the truest that have been oflered us for a 
 long time. . . . The book shows an airy philosophy that will render it oi service 
 to the social student." 
 
 BALTHASAR AND OTHER STORIES. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Translated by Mrs. JOHN LANE from the French of Anatole France 
 
 Daily Graphic "The original charm and distinction of the author's style has 
 survived the difficult ordeal ot appearing in another language. . . . 'The Cure's 
 Mignonette" is as perfect in itself as some little delicate flower."
 
 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY MRS. JOHN LANE continued. 
 
 ACCORDING TO MARIA. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Telegraph " A more entertaining, companionable, good-natured, and 
 yet critical piece of portraiture we have not had the good luck to encounter these 
 many seasons. . . . 'According to Maria' is as fresh, amusing, and human a 
 book as any man, woman, or girl could desire to bewitch a jaded moment, or drive 
 away a fit of the dumps."' 
 
 Daily Chronicle "This delightful novel, sparkling with humour. . . . Maria's 
 world is real. . . . Thackeray might have made such sheaves if he had been 
 a woman." 
 
 TALK O' THE TOWN. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE. 
 
 THE BOOK BILLS OF NARCISSUS. Crown 8vo. 3/6 net 
 
 Second Edition. 
 
 C.di B. (Mr. Bernard Shaw) in the Star " Ifanunusuallyfineliteraryinstinct 
 could make it a solid book, Mr. le Gallienne would be at no loss for an enduring 
 reputation . . . Nothing could be prettier than his pleas and persuasions on 
 behalf of Narcissus and George Muncaster." 
 
 THE WORSHIPPER OF THE IMAGE. Crown 8vo. 3/6 
 
 Daily Chronicle " Contains passages of a poignancy which Mr. Le Gallienne 
 has never before compassed." 
 
 THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN GIRL. Cr. 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Fifteenth Edition. 
 Daily News " A piece of literary art which compels our admiration." 
 
 Mr. Max Beerbohm in Daily Mail " Mr. Le Gallienne's gentle, high spirits, 
 and his sympathy with existence is exhibited here. . . . His poetry, like his 
 humour, suffuses the whole book and gives a charm to the most prosaic objects 
 and incidents of life. . . . The whole book is delightful, for this reason, that no 
 one else could have written a book of the same kind." 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF ZION CHAPEL. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Second Edition. 
 St. James's Gazelle "Mr. Le Gallienne's masterpiece." 
 
 Times " Extremely clever and pathetic. As for sentiment Dickens might 
 have been justly proud of poor Jenny's lingering death, and readers whose heai ts 
 have the mastery over their heads will certainly weep over it." 
 
 PAINTED SHADOWS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Scotsman " Material and workmanship are of the finest." 
 
 Queen " Really delightful stories, Mr. Le Gallienne writes prose like a poet."
 
 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY RICHARD LE GALLIEJXHE continued. 
 LITTLE DINNERS WITH THE SPHINX. Cr. 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Telegraph " Here is the same delicate phrasing, the same tender revela- 
 tion of emotions, always presented with a daintiness of colouring that reveals the 
 true literary artist." 
 
 Star " Mr. Le Gallienne touches with exquisite tenderness on the tragedy of 
 things that change and pass and fade." 
 
 BY A. E. J. LEGGE. 
 
 MUTINEERS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Speaker "An interesting story related with admirable lucidity and remark- 
 able grasp of character. Mr. Legge writes with polish and grace." 
 
 BOTH GREAT AND SMALL. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Saturday Review " We read on and on with increasing pleasure." 
 Times " The style of this book is terse and witty." 
 
 THE FORD. Crown 8vo. Second Edition. 6/- 
 
 Standard " An impressive work . . . clever and thoughtful. ' The Ford,' 
 deserves to be largely read." 
 
 BY W. J. LOCKE. 
 
 DERELICTS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Chronicle " Mr. Locke tells his story in a very true, very moving, and 
 very noble book. If anyone can read the last chapter with dry eyes we shall be 
 surprised. ' Derelicts' is an impressive and important book." 
 
 Morning Post Mr. Locke's clever novel. One of the most eflective stories 
 that have appeared for some time past." 
 
 IDOLS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Punch " The Baron strongly recommends Mr. W. J. Locke's 'Idols' to all 
 novel readers. It is well written. No time is wasted in superfluous descriptions ; 
 there is no fine writing for fine writing's sake, but the story will absorb the 
 reader. ... It is a novel that, once taken up, cannot willingly be put down 
 until finished." 
 
 A STUDY IN SHADOWS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Chronicle " Mr. Locke has achieved a distinct success in this novel. 
 He has struck many emotional chords and struck them all with a firm sure hand." 
 
 Athenaeum "The character-drawing is distinctly good. All the personages 
 stand out well defined with strongly marked individualities." 
 
 THE WHITE DOVE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Times " An interesting story,, full of dramatic scenes." 
 
 Morning Post "An interesting story. The characters are strongly con- 
 ceived and vividly presented, and the dramatic moments are powerfully realized." 
 
 THE USURPER. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 World "This quite uncommon novel." 
 
 Spectator" Character and plot are most ingeniously wrought, and the con- 
 clusion, when it comes, is fully satisfying." 
 Times " An impressive romance."
 
 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY W. J. LOCKE continued. 
 
 THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE. Cr. 8vo. 3/6 
 AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Chronicle "The heroine of this clever story attracts our interest. . . 
 She is a clever and subtle study. . . . We congratulate Mr. Locke." 
 
 Morning Post" A cleverly \yritten tale . . . the author's pictures of 
 Bohemian life are bright and graphic." 
 
 WHERE LOVE IS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Standard "A brilliant piece ol work." 
 
 Times" The author has the true gift ; his people are alive." 
 
 THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE. Cr. 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Mr. C. K. SHORTER, in Sphere" A book which has just delighted my heart. 
 
 Truth." Mr. Locke's new novel is one of the most artistic pieces of work I 
 have met with for many a day.' 
 
 Daily Chronicle." Mr. Locke succeeds, indeed, in every crisis of this most 
 original story." 
 
 THE BELOVED VAGABOND. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Truth. "Certainly it is the most brilliant piece of work Mr. Locke has done." 
 Evening Standard." Mr. Locke can hardly fail to write beautifully. He has 
 not failed now." 
 
 SIMON THE JESTER. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Telegraph. " . . . something of the precision of the pendant, com- 
 bined with an easy garrulity which is absolutely charming, and a literary style 
 which carries us from the beginning to the end with unfailing verve and ease 
 . . . Certainly you will not put down the book until you have read the last 
 page . . . The style, the quality of the writing, the atmosphere of the novel, 
 the easy, pervasive charm . . . make us feel once more the stirring pulses 
 and eager blood of deathless romance." 
 
 THE GLORY OF CLEMENTINA WING. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 BY INGRAHAM LOYELL. 
 
 MARGARITAS SOUL. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Punch. "There have been a great many ingenues (mock or real) in modern 
 fiction, and doubtless one or two in actual lile ; but there never was one inside a 
 book or out of it who came within a four mile cab radius of Margarita. The book 
 is well worth reading." 
 
 Westminster Gazelle. " A book which does not let the reader's interest flag 
 for a moment. It is full of laughter and smiles, of seriousness, comfortable philo- 
 sophy and a few tears." 
 
 BY CHARLES LOWE. 
 
 THE PRINCE'S PRANKS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Evening Standard " The 'pranks' are good reading. All his adventures 
 go with a swing, and the escapes are as exciting as anything we have reud for a 
 long time." 
 
 Daily Chionicle"' The book is always bright and often brilliant." 
 
 Globe "A very readable and pleasant book."
 
 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 BY LAURA BOGUE LUFFMAN. 
 
 A QUESTION OF LATITUDE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 BY A. NEIL LYONS. 
 
 ARTHUR'S. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Titnes. " Not only a very entertaining and amusing work, but a very kindly 
 and tolerant work also. Incidentally the work is a mirror of a phase of the low 
 London life of to-day as true as certain of Hogarth's transcripts in the eighteenth 
 century, and far more tender." 
 
 Punch. "Mr. Neil Lyons seems to get right at the heart of things, and 1 con- 
 fess to a real admiration for this philosopher of the coffee-stall." 
 
 SIXPENNY PIECES. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Pall Mall Gazelle. " It is pure, fast, sheer life, salted with a sense of humour." 
 
 Evening Standard. '" Sixpenny Pieces ' is as good as 'Arthur's', and that 
 
 is saying a great deal. A boos full of laughter and tears and hits innumerable 
 
 that one feels impelled to read aloud. ' Sixpenny Pieces ' would be very hard 
 
 indeed to beat." 
 
 COTTAGE PIE. A Country Spread. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Graphic. "Mr. Lyons writes well and has literary talent." 
 Daily Express. "Every story is masterly, clear, clean, complete. Mr. Lyons 
 is a rare literary craftsman and something; more." 
 AthcM&um. " 'Cottage Pie' is an achievement." 
 
 BY FIONA MACLEOD (William Sharp). 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Literary \Vorld. " We eagerly devour page after page ; we are taken captive 
 by the speed and poetry of the book." 
 
 Graphic. " It is as sad, as sweet, as the Hebridean skies themselves, but 
 with that soothing sadness ol Nature which is so blessed a relief after a prolonged 
 dose of the misery of ' mean streets.' " 
 
 BY FREDERICK NIYEN. 
 
 THE LOST CABIN MINE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Athenaeum. " The book should be read by lovers of good fiction." 
 Westminster Gazette. "The whole story is told with an amount of spirit and 
 realism that grips the reader throughout." 
 
 THE ISLAND PROVIDEN 7 CE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Graphic. " Its descriptive power is remarkable. The author 'springs 
 imagination,' to use George Meredith's words, and springs it with no more than 
 the few words prescribed oy that master." 
 
 Academy. " Vigorous writing." 
 
 BY FRANK NORRIS. 
 
 THE THIRD CIRCLE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Morning Post. "As a sketch by a great artist often reveals to the amateur 
 more of his power and skill than a large finished work in which the effect is con- 
 cealed, so in these virile little studies we are made to realise quite clearly what 
 powers of observation and what a keen eye for effective incident Mr. Norris had." 
 
 Spectator. "A series of remarkable sketches and short stories by the late 
 Mr. Frank Norris . . . well worth reading."
 
 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 BY JOHN PARKINSON. 
 
 A REFORMER BY PROXY. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Chronicle. " For a first it is quite an excellent effort. 
 
 Morning Leader. "A very promising book." 
 
 Literary World. "A thoroughly sound, matured piece of work. 
 
 OTHER LAWS. Crown Svo. 6/- 
 
 *** This book is distinctly the outcome of the latest "intellectual" move- 
 ment in novel-writing. The hero, Hawkins, is an African explorer. During a 
 holiday in England he falls in love with and captivates Caroline Blackwood, a 
 woman of strong personality. Circumstances prevent him from entering upon a 
 formal engagement ; and he departs again tor Africa, without proposing marriage. 
 Caroline and Hawkins correspond fitfully for some time; but then a startling 
 combination of events causes Hawkins to penetrate further and further into the 
 interior ; a native village is burned, and a report, based apparently upon fact is 
 circulated of his death. Not until seven months have elapsed is he able to return 
 to E gland. He finds Caroline married to a man who has found her money 
 useful. Here the story, strong and moving throughout, moves steadily to the 
 close, describing delicately and analytically the soul conflict of a man and a 
 woman, sundered and separate, with a yearning for each other's love. 
 
 BY F. J. RANDALL. 
 
 LOVE AND THE IRONMONGER. Crown Svo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Telegraph." Since the gay days when Mr. F. Anstey was writing his 
 inimitable series of humourous novels, we can recall no book of purely farcical 
 imagination, so full of excellent entertainment as this first effort of Mr. F. J. 
 Randall. ' Love and the Ironmonger' is certain to be a success." 
 
 Times " As diverting a comedy of errors as the reader is likely to meet with 
 for a considerable time." 
 
 Mr. Clement Shorter in The Sphere " I thank the author for a delightful 
 hour's amusement." 
 
 THP] BERMONDSEY TWIN. Crown Svo. 6/- 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette." Merry and bright farce. The incidents are most deftly 
 handled." 
 
 Westminster Gazette. "There is a good deal of humour in some of the 
 situations." 
 
 Daily Telegraph. "Mr. Randall has written a wonderfully clever and 
 thoroughly amusing humorous novel. The Bermondsey Twin is a notable 
 addition to the all-too-sparse ranks of novels that are frankly designed to 
 amuse." 
 
 BY HUGH DE SELINCOURT. 
 
 A BOY'S MARRIAGE. Crown Svo. 6/- 
 
 Evening Standard" Exceedingly realistic . . . but does not give the impres- 
 sion that anything is expatiated upon for the sake of effect. A daring but sincere 
 and simple book. . . . likely to attract a good deal of attention." 
 
 Athenaeum "The best points in Mr. de Selincourt's novel are his delicacy of 
 treatment and sense of character. . . . He has the making of a fine novelist." 
 
 THE STRONGEST PLUME. Crown Svo. 6/- 
 
 Academy " An uncomfortable story for the conventionally minded. It deals 
 a deadly blow to the ordinary accepted notions of the respectaole." 
 
 Daily Telegraph" The story is a very commendable as well as a very inter- 
 esting piece of work." 
 
 Daily Mail" A neat, artistic story." 
 
 13
 
 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY HUGH DE SELINCOURT continued. 
 THE HIGH ADVENTURE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Evening Standard. "A novel for all lovers of the poetry of life ' uttered or 
 unexpressed." 
 
 Morning Post. " Mr. de Selincourt certainly has a talent for describing rather 
 nice young men." 
 
 Observer. "A clever and refreshing story.' 
 
 THE WAY THINGS HAPPEN. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Morning Post. "Mhe book has moments of grace and charm that few contem- 
 porary writers give us." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. " 'The Way Things Happen' confirms a long-settled con- 
 viction that among the young generation of writers there are few who can compete 
 with Mr. de Selincourt for pride of place." 
 
 Times. " Reading this book is a surprising and a rare experience." 
 
 A FAIR HOUSE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Athenceuni." 1 he book is tender and pathetic, and occasionally exhibits 
 
 considerable literary skill.' 
 
 Evening Standard. "A skilful study of life. Mr. de Selincourt has a graceful 
 
 style and moreover, he possesses the power to make his reader share in his ' 
 
 emotions. The book is clever, and something more and better " 
 
 Morning Post. " 'A Fair House' undoubtedly is a pretty book." 
 
 BY G. S. STREET. 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY. F'cap. 8vo. 3/6 net 
 
 Fifth Edition. 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. "A creation in which there appears to be no flaw." 
 Speaker. " The conception is excellent and the style perfect. One simmers 
 with laughter from first to last." 
 
 THE TRIALS OF THE BANTOCKS. Crown 8vo. 3/6 
 
 Westminster Gazette. "Since Mr. Matthew Arnold left us we remember 
 
 nothing so incisive about the great British Middle, and we know of nothing ol 
 
 Mr. Street's that we like so well." 
 
 Saturday Review. " Mr. Street has a very delicate gift of satire." 
 Times. "A piece of irony that is full of distinction and wit." 
 
 BY HERMANN SUDERMANN. 
 
 REGINA : or THE SINS OF THE FATHERS. 6/- 
 
 Crown 8vo. Also Canvas Back Library t/6 net. Third Edition. 
 
 A Translation of " Der Katzensteg," by BEATRICE MARSHALL. 
 
 St. James's Gazette. " A striking piece of work, full of excitement and strongly 
 drawn character." 
 
 Globe. "The novel is a striking one, and deserves a careful and critical 
 
 BY MARCELLE TINAYRE. 
 
 THE SHADOW OF LOVE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Translated from the French by A. R. ALLINSON, M.A. 
 *.* Of the newer French novelists Marcelle Tinavre is perhaps the best 
 known. Her work has been crowned by the French Academy and she possesses 
 a very large public in Europe and in America. The story deals with a girl's love 
 and a heroic sacrifice dictated by love. "The Shadow of Love" is a book of 
 extraordinary power, uncompromising in its delineation of certain hard, some 
 might say repulsive facts of life, yet instinct all through with an exquisitely 
 tender and beautiful passion of human interest and human sympathy. 
 
 14
 
 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 BY CLARA YIEBIG. 
 
 ABSOLUTION. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Times." There is considerable strength in 'Absolution' ... As a realistic 
 study the story has mnch merit." 
 
 Daily Telegraph. The tale is powerfully told . . . the tale will prove absorb- 
 ing with its minute characterisation and real passion." 
 OUR DAILY BREAD. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Athenceuin." The story is not only of great human interest, but also extremely 
 valuable as a study of the conditions in which a large section of the poorer classes 
 and small tradespeople of German cities spend their lives. Clara Viebig manipu- 
 lates her material with extraordinary vigour. . . . Her characters are alive." 
 
 Daily Telegraph." Quite excellent. 
 
 BY H. G. WELLS. 
 
 A NEW MACHIAVELLI. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Mr. Robert Ross in Bystander. " It may safely be prophesied that 1911 is not 
 likely to produce another literary sensation of so permanent a kind. It is 
 impossible to lay down ' The New Machiavelli' for longer than a few moments. 
 . . . The most various novel that has appeared since ' Vanity Fair.' ... A 
 great piece of literature." 
 
 The Times. " The book is without doubt the most important piece of work 
 that Mr. Wells has yet given us. . . . The most finished example of the form 
 which the novel has gradually arrived at in his hands. . . . Margaret, the 
 betrayed and deserted wife, is possibly, the most finely touched portrait that 
 Mr. Wells has drawn." 
 
 BY MARGARET WESTRUP, 
 
 ELIZABETH'S CHILDREN. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Telegraph. \ The book is charming . . . the author . . . has a delicate 
 fanciful touch, a charming imagination . . . skilfully suggests character and 
 moods ... is bright and witty, and writes about children with exquisite know- 
 ledge and sympathy." 
 
 HELEN ALLISTON. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. "The book has vivacity, fluency, colour, more than a 
 touch of poetry and passion. . . . \Veshalllookforwardwithinteresttofuture 
 work by the author of ' Helen Alliston.' " 
 
 THE YOUNG O'BRIENS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Saturday Review. "Delightful . . . the author treats them (the Young 
 O'Briens) very skilfully." 
 
 PHYLLIS IN MIDDLEWYCH. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Telegraph. " The author of 'Elizabeth's Children' has really excelled 
 herself in this volume of stories in which Phyllis Cartwright figures. Phyllis 
 who is called a little angel by her mother and a little devil by her lather, has cer 
 tainly a double share of the power of moving people to wrath or mirth." 
 
 BY EDITH WHARTON. 
 
 THE GREATER INCLINATION. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Dailv Telegraph. "Teems with literary ability and dramatic force." 
 Outlook. 'Miss Wharton writes with a sympathy, insightand understanding 
 that we have seldom seen equalled." 
 
 IS
 
 JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY IDA WILD. 
 
 ZOE THE DANCER. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Times. "The literary style is a feature. There is a pleasing originality 
 about the account of the career of Zoe." We should certainly like to hear again 
 from the author-" 
 
 Morning Leader. " Miss Wild can write, not only English, but good English. 
 Her style is often clever and brilliant. It shews a real sense and mastery of 
 words and idiom." 
 
 BY M. P. WILLCOCKS. 
 
 WIDDICOMBE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Evening Standard. " Wonderfully alive and pulsating with a curious fervour 
 which brings round the reader the very atmosphere which the author describes. 
 . . . A fine, rather unusual novel. . . . There are some striking studies of women." 
 
 Queen. " An unusually clever book." 
 
 THE WINGLESS VICTORY. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Times. " Such books are worth keeping on the shelves even by the classics, 
 lor they are painted in colours that do not fade." 
 
 Daily Telegraph. " A novel of such power as should win tor its author a 
 position in the front rank of contemporary writers of fiction." 
 
 A MAN OF GENIUS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Telegraph. "' Widdicombe' was good, and 'The Wingless Victory" 
 was perhaps better, but in 'A Man of Genius' the author has given us something 
 that should ; ssure her olace in the front rank of our living novelists. 
 
 Punch. " There is no excuse for not reading ' A Man of Genius ' and making 
 a short stay in the 'seventh Devon of delight." 
 
 THE WAY UP. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Morning Post. "Admirable . . . 'The Way Up' grips one's attention 
 more completely than any of Miss Willcocks' three previous novels." 
 
 World. "The author has given us her best. This is a real literary achieve- 
 ment, a novel in a thousand and a work of art." 
 
 Literary World. "This is a novel that on every page bears the hall-mark 
 of a genius." 
 
 BY P. E. MILLS YOUNG. 
 
 A MISTAKEN MARRIAGE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Pall Mall Gazelle. " It is a very sincere and moving story. The heroine 
 claims our sympathies from the first, and we follow her fortunes with absorbed 
 interest." 
 
 CHIP. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Morning Post. " Original, vivid and realistic." 
 Athenceum. "A tale . . . of unusual romantic interest." 
 
 ATONEMENT. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Morning Leader. " The book is certainly very powerful, and the end is 
 extraordinarily moving. The characters are human beings, and the whole thing 
 has the stamp of strong rugged life. . . . an exceptional and strong book." 
 
 Daily Chronicle, " A vigorous and striking story . . . unusally well told. 
 The author's power to describe places is as clear and incisive as it is in defining 
 his characters." 
 
 SAM'S KID. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 16
 
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